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For tonight, we're going to be Second Chronicles. So if you want to take your Bibles, we are continuing through the book of Second Chronicles. We are in chapter 12. We left off at the end of chapter 11, Second Chronicles, chapter 12. And I'll pray while you search for Second Chronicles, chapter 12. Lord, thank you for this time we can be together in your house. We just commit the service to you, Lord. We just want you to be glorified as always. And we thank you that you still instruct us through the pages of your word today because it is timeless truth, even for this generation. So, Lord, we just humble ourselves before you now and pray that you would speak to us and minister to our hearts. I thank you for all those who are here, those who are watching online. We just come before you, Lord, with hungry hearts that need to be filled tonight. So do your good work in us. We love you and we pray praise you and we give you thanks and glory and honor in Jesus name. Everyone said Amen. Well, just to orient ourselves. And I do this mainly for myself because I need to. I'm kind of visual, I need to see, like where. Where are things? What are we talking about as we make our way through this passage? So I'm going to use the back wall and try to orient ourselves a little bit. Because the kingdom of Israel now is divided into two kingdoms. And. And if you've been with us through the study of first and second Kings, this is nothing familiar. This is nothing new to you. This is familiar to you. But for those who are joining us now for two Chronicles, first and Second Chronicles, there's been a division in the nation of Israel. Now after Solomon's death, now the kingdom is divided. You have Israel to the north. Ten tribes have joined together in the north. They have kind of seceded from the southern kingdom, which is known as Judah. And it is mainly over heavy taxation, oppressive leadership. So you have 10 Jewish tribes in the north in Israel, and two Jewish tribes, Judah and Benjamin in the south. And it'll be known by the greater tribal name of Judah. By the way, that will become the lasting name for the Hebrew people, Jews derived from the tribe of Judah. And among the two now divided kingdoms, Israel to the north, the capital city is Samaria. Judah to the south, the capital city is Jerusalem. Rehoboam is king of the southern kingdom. He is the son of Solomon. He has now become the successor to the throne. And his kingdom is the southern kingdom of Judah. And his throne is in Jerusalem to the north. The king there is Jeroboam. And he will be seated in Samaria, the capital city of of the north. Now, Jeroboam resorted to an evil thing. He did not want people in the north to go down to the south to Jerusalem to worship there. So what does Jeroboam do? He sets up two cities, one to the far north, called Dan, one to the far south of the northern kingdom, called Bethel. And there, in Dan and Bethel, he will set up his own shrines of worship. He will recruit his own priests, who are not really legitimate priests from the tribe of Levi. And he will have these two places to be centers of worship. But it will be idolatrous worship, because Jeroboam kind of harkens back to the days when the Jews were slaves in Egypt. And he fashions golden calves, and he puts one in the north in Dan and one in the south in Bethel. And he calls people go there to worship. You don't need to go back to Jerusalem. He's afraid that people are going to defect back to the south. So it's his way of controlling the northern kingdom. But he does it in a very evil and idolatrous way. But you have two kings now, Jeroboam and Rehoboam, and neither one is a good king. Rehoboam is oppressive. Rehoboam has taken the advice of his friends instead of the advice of senior counselors, and he resorts to evil. Jeroboam results to evil. So it's not a good time at all in Israel's history. It's a divided nation. They are engaging in civil war. Two kings, one of the north, one of the south. And so that's where we are now when we come into chapter 12. Chapter 12, verse 1, says, now it came to pass when Rehoboam had established the kingdom, the kingdom to the south, and had strengthened and had strengthened himself, he forsook the law of the Lord and all Israel along with him. See what I mean when I say he's not a good king because he's forsaking the law of the Lord. And so what happens is everybody in the southern kingdom of Judah follows him. And it happened in the fifth year of King Rehoboam that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem because they had transgressed against the Lord with 1200 chariots, 60,000 horsemen, and people without number who came with him out of Egypt, the Lubim and the Sukim and the Ethiopians, and he took the fortified cities of Judah and came to Jerusalem. So when we go through these chapters, we talk about here's some modern day principles we can glean and here's the principle from this mess right here. Number one, Disobedience to the LORD is an open door to the enemy. Notice it was because they had transgressed against the Lord, the people of Israel, and specifically the southern kingdom of Judah, that God allowed the enemy, in this case, it's Shishak, king of Egypt, to come up and besiege the cities of Judah. And so they had opened the door to the enemy because of their disobedience. That is important for us to note, everybody when we disobey the Lord, that's an open door for the enemy to come in. We've given him access into our lives when we walk in disobedience to the Lord. And so note that well, verse five says, and then Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and the leaders of Judah who were gathered together in Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said to them, thus says the Lord, you have forsaken me, and therefore I also have left you in the hand of Shishak. And so the leaders of Israel and the king humbled themselves and they said, the LORD is righteous. Now note this, they get confronted by this prophet Shemaiah. And when they are confronted, it does say here that they humbled themselves. All the leaders and the and the king, they humbled themselves. They said, you know what, the Lord is righteous. And verse 7 says, now when the LORD saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the Lord came to Shemaiah saying, they have humbled themselves. Therefore I will not destroy them, but I will grant them some deliverance. My wrath shall not be poured out on Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak. So here's another good principle to follow up. The first one, disobedience to the Lord is an open door to the enemy. But number two, humility before the Lord is an open door to God's forgiveness. And so God is merciful to them. They reply, they respond to the word of the prophet and they humble themselves. They become contrite, you know, what does David say? A contrite, a broken spirit and a contrite heart. O God, you will not despise. And so God cherishes brokenness. You know, in our culture today, we discard things that are broken. But in God's economy of things, he values when we are broken, he sees us in a more valuable light when we are broken before him. And so the king, Rehoboam and the people of Judah, they humble themselves. They're broken before the Lord. And so God says, you know what? I'm not going to destroy Jerusalem. Now, Shishak has been subduing other, smaller towns and villages in Judah, but when it comes to Jerusalem, God has mercy. But. But look at verse 8. Nevertheless, this is part of the word of the Lord through Shemaiah the prophet. Nevertheless, they will be his servants that they may distinguish my service from the service of the kingdoms of the nations. And so there's this little footnote here to the second point. Yes, humility before the Lord is an open door to God's forgiveness. But there still may be consequences for our choices. They are not as severe as what they could have been, but there are still consequences. Sometimes people think that God is obligated to not only forgive them, but to remove all the consequences of our sinful choices. And there's a ramification. There's the law of reciprocity. You sow to the wind, you reap the whirlwind. You can be forgiven. God is a gracious, forgiving God. But there still may be some consequences we have to suffer because of our disobedience. So God is merciful here. He doesn't afflict them with what he could, but nevertheless, they are still going to suffer in smaller ways. Verse 9 says, and so Shishak, King of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem and took away the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king's house. He took everything. He also carried away the gold shields which Solomon had made. And then King Rehoboam made bronze shields in their place, notice this, very inferior. And committed them to the hands of the captains of the guard who guarded the doorway of the king's house. And whenever the king entered the house of the Lord, the guard would go and bring them out, bring out the bronze shields, and then they would take them back into the guard room. And when he humbled himself, the wrath of the Lord turned from him so as not to destroy him completely. And things also went well in Judah. So note here with me that, you know, Rehoboam's trying to keep up appearances. Like the gold shields of his father get confiscated here by Shishak. So what does Rehoboam do? He's like, well, we don't have gold anymore. We're just going to make some inferior shields out of bronze. We're going to make them look like gold. And every time I come back and forth, I want the guards to go stand out with the shields. Like, it's all about appearances. He's all into appearances here. This guy's been defeated. Not completely. It says that things went well, but still, he's going to suffer some embarrassment, some humiliation, some consequences because of their disobedience against the Lord. Verse 33 says, and thus King Rehoboam strengthened himself in Jerusalem and reigned. Now, Rehoboam was 41 years old when he became king, and he reigned 17 years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel to put his name there. His mother's name was Naamah, which I always find is funny, because this is the only. You know, Solomon has 700 wives, 300 concubines. There's no names to any of those thousand women, except this lady of. Okay, and her name is Naamah. So I just. I don't know. I find it funny. Naamah, the only woman who gets Naamah, his mother's name was Naamah. And Ammonitis. And look at Rehoboam. And he did evil because he did not prepare his heart to seek the Lord. So this guy waffles, he goes back and forth, he neglects the law of the Lord, he's disobedient, he humbles himself, God forgives him. And then after he's walking in some, you know, relative peace, then he does evil again. And verse 15 say, the acts of Rehoboam first and last, are they not written in the book of Shemaiah the prophet and of Iddo the Seer, which we have neither of those books concerning genealogies. There were wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days. And so Rehoboam rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of David. And then Abijah, his son, reigned in his place. So back to the map. We're going to replace Rehoboam's name in the south now with Abijah. He becomes king of the south, the son of Rehoboam. And in order to give us kind of the chronology of events, it will sometimes compare the reign of the northern king to the reign of the southern king and vice versa. So what we find here is it's in the 18th year of King Jeroboam in the north that Abijah becomes king over Judah in the south. Now, he's only going to reign three years. Verse two tells us scholars believe the date is roughly 913-911 B.C. 913 to 911 B.C. that's the reign of Abijah, just three years, by the way, in first kings there's a variation of his name, and. And it's spelled Abijam with an M instead of an H. It's the same guy. Just a variation of the spelling of his name. He reigns three years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Micaiah, the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam. All right, so now you literally have civil war. You know, the north and the south. Here you got Jeroboam in the north, Abijah in the south, and there's war. Verse 3 says, Abijah set the battle in order with an army of valiant warriors, 400,000 choice men. Jeroboam also drew up in battle formation against him with 800,000 choice men, mighty men of valor. There's no wonder that Jeroboam can provide an army twice the size, because you got 10 tribes to the north, two tribes to the south. So the north outnumbers the south. And so Jeroboam's got 800,000. Now, imagine this. You have 1.2 million men engaged in battle here. 800,000 in the north, 400,000 to the south. And verse four says, and then Abijah stood on Mount Zamarim, which is in the mountains of Ephraim, and said, hear me, Jeroboam and all Israel. Should you not know that the Lord God of Israel gave the dominion over Israel to David forever, to him and his sons, by a covenant of salt? Okay, let me just pause here for a second. Explain what's going on. You got Abijah. Now, he is the grandson of Solomon. He's the great grandson of David. And so he's kind of pulling the lineage trump card. And so he's saying, to the forces of the north, particularly to King Jeroboam. He's like, you know, don't you know? God's hand is with the descendants of David? I'm a descendant of David. You guys don't stand a chance. And he's all full of himself. And so he kind of. He's taunting Jeroboam. And he says that there was a covenant God made with David, made with our forefathers, and it was a covenant of salt. Now, it's an interesting terminology if you. You don't need to turn there. But in Leviticus 2, verse 13, part of the offerings that were made to the Lord involved salt. Now, why would God include salt in the offerings of the Lord? If you look at various commentaries, I love what David Guzik says about the covenant of Salt. He talked about how salt does a few things. We know the properties of salt. So the covenant of salt means it was a covenant that was pure because salt is an antiseptic. It was a covenant that endured because salt, we know, is a preservative. And, and it was a covenant that was valuable. Salt in the day was a valuable and precious commodity. We take it for granted now it's on our tables at home. We have access to salt all the time. It was a valuable and precious commodity. In fact, during the first century during the Roman Empire, Roman soldiers would sometimes be paid. Aside from the fact they could plunder villages and towns that they conquered, they would also be paid with salt. The Latin word for salt is sol, and the word salarium in Latin means with salt. And we get our English word salary from solarium. They would actually get paid with salt. So it was a valuable commodity. Not so much considered valuable today, but it was in that day. So the idea behind a covenant of salt means he's reinforcing the fact that this was a covenant that was pure, this was a covenant that was enduring. This is a covenant that was valuable. And he continues in his speech, verse 6. Yet Jeroboam the son of Naboth, the servant of Solomon, the son of David, rose up and rebelled against his Lord. Now I want you to pay attention with him because some of the things that Abijah says here are true. Some of the things are exaggerated and false. Should it surprise us, right? You don't even know what to trust today. Some of the stuff is true, some of the stuff is false. Some stuff. Some of the stuff you don't know what to believe. Now, Jeroboam did rise up, but he rose up because Rehoboam, Abijah's dad, was imposing harsh treatment upon the people. And so they rebelled because Rehoboam was a ruthless king. But Abijah makes it sound like, oh, you guys were just rebels in your heart, and so you just rebelled against. And then verse seven, he says, and then worthless rogues gathered to him, gathered to Jeroboam and strengthened themselves against Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, when Rehoboam was young and inexperienced and could not withstand them all. Right, now here's where he gets into some twisted words here. First of all, he talks about how Jeroboam is gathered around him, worthless men. Some translations say scoundrels, good for nothing men. Look, this was a ragtag group. When Jeroboam decided, you know what, we're out of here, we're not gonna follow Rehoboam. He's a harsh king. He's imposing heavy taxes. He's ruthless. We're all gonna secede. And just 10 tribes to the north. Yeah, he had to form an army out of a ragtag bunch of guys. But Abijah is just basically making fun of Jeroboam and his army says, you know, all you guys are just a bunch of worthless rogues, a bunch of scoundrels. But he says, you guys came against Rehoboam. My dad, who was young and inexperienced. Look, he wasn't young and inexperienced, okay? He specifically took the advice of his buddies, who told him, you need to be even stronger than your father Solomon, so impose this harsh rule over the people. He took the advice of his homeboys. He didn't listen to the advice of the older counselors, the older men, who told him differently. So Abijah's kind of getting this history wrong about his own father. And verse eight says, he goes on, he says, and now you think to withstand the kingdom of the Lord, which is in the hand of the sons of David, and you are a great multitude, and with you are the gold calves which Jeroboam made for you as gods. Now that is true. Have you not cast out the priests of the Lord, the sons of Aaron and the Levites, and made for yourselves priests like the peoples of other lands? That is true too. So that whoever comes to consecrate himself with a young bull and seven rams may be a priest of things that are not God's. That's related back to what I said earlier about Bethel and Dan. That is true. He says in verse 10. But as for us, the Lord is our God and we have not forsaken him. No, that's not completely true. And the priests who minister to the Lord are the sons of Aaron. That's true. And the Levites attended to their duties. That's true. And they burn to the Lord every morning and every evening, burnt sacrifices and sweet incense. They also set the showbread in order on the pure gold table and the lampstand of gold with its lamps to burn every evening. For we keep the command of the Lord our God. But you have forsaken him. Now look, God himself is with us as our head, and his priests with surrounding trumpets to sound the alarm against you. O children of Israel, do not fight against the Lord God of your fathers, for you shall not prosper. So, you know, he's. He's playing every trump card he can. He's like, you know what we have the real priesthood, we have the real temple. We have the real sacrifices. You guys. You guys are heathens. You know, you got these two different places of worship. You're worshiping golden calves. God's not with you. God's with us. God made a covenant of salt with David. And so it extends to me. You guys are on the losing side. Now, as he's going through this big speech, I want you to notice what happens. Verse 13. But Jeroboam caused an ambush to go around behind them. So they were in front of Judah and the ambush was behind them. Okay, now remember, Jeroboam's got twice the number of soldiers. He takes 800,000 guys and he splits them up, and he sends 400,000 to flank on the rear side of where Abijah is, and he has the other 400,000 on the front side. And all this while, Abijah's given this great speech. Like, we have the priests on our side and we have the temple on our side. We have God on our side. The whole time, 400,000 soldiers are going behind him, and he doesn't even realize it. And so verse 14. And when Judah looked around, to their surprise, the battle line was at both front and rear. And what happens when you're in that kind of a bind? And they cried out to the Lord and the priests sounded the trumpets. Yeah, that's what happens when you're in a bind. You know, big talkers. But now you really need God's help. And so this is a good reminder to us, everybody here from chapter 13. The Lord is always gracious to hear our cries for help. They're in a mess. They were all puffed up. They thought they had this battle at a bag. And they end up realizing they're outnumbered, they're outmaneuvered, and the odds are against them. So they cry out to the Lord. Psalm 18:6 says, in my distress, I called upon the Lord and cried out to my God. He heard my voice from his temple, and my cry came before him, even to his ears. And I like that. It's just this reminder that the Lord hears the cries of his people, that when we come before him and we need his help, he hears our prayers. And that's what Abijah does. He turns to the Lord, he cries out to the Lord. The priests sound the trumpet. And in verse 15 it says, and then the men of Judah gave a shout. And as the men of Judah shouted, it happened that God struck Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah. Notice that Jeroboam has twice the number of soldiers. But when God's on your side, you outnumber anything. And so God struck Jeroboam. God struck the army of Jeroboam, verse 16. And the children of Israel fled before Judah. The north flees, and God delivered them into their hand. And then Abijah and his people struck them with a great slaughter. Notice this. So 500,000 choice men of Israel fell slain. Out of the 800,000 soldiers, 500,000 die in this battle. Now, that is an extraordinary number of casualties. 500,000. You know, during America's Civil War. The bloodiest battle of the Civil War was. Anybody know Gettysburg. Gettysburg. How many died at Gettysburg combined between north and South? 7,000, 7,000. And that was horrific. But 500,000, verse 18. And thus the children of Israel were subdued at that time. And the children of Judah prevailed because they relied on the Lord God of their fathers. That's when we prevail. We cry out to the Lord for help, and we rely on him. And Abijah pursued Jeroboam and took cities from him. Bethel with its villages, Jeshanah with its villages, and Ephraim with its villages. And so Jeroboam did not recover strength again in the days of Abijah. And the Lord struck him and he died. Now, you read different Bible commentaries. It doesn't necessarily mean that he had some disease, that he was afflicted by the Lord. It just means that it was the end of his reign and God was done with him and he died. But Abijah grew mighty, married 14 wives, shouldn't have done that. And begot 22 sons and 16 daughters. Now, the rest of the acts of Abijah, his ways and his sayings are written in the annals of the prophet Iddo. Again, we do not have that writing. But now into chapter 14. So Abijah rested with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David. And then Asa, his son, reigned in his place. In his days, the land was quiet for 10 years. So back to the map. We're going to change out Abijah's name from the south. And now it is Asa who is king. Now, Jeroboam of the north has just died also, but he hasn't been replaced by name. So I haven't changed the map yet. But this is Asa now in the south. Now, good news. Asa's a relatively good king, and he is going to bring reform, and he's going to clean house. And this is really remarkable because when you think of the Fact that he has not had good examples. His father was not a good example. His grandfather was not a good example, even his great grandfather, really. I mean, you know, Solomon introduces a lot of idolatry in the land also because of the influence of his idolatrous wives. So Asa has not had a good heritage. But you know something? You and I have no control over what family we are born into, but we do have control over what family we want to belong to, and that is the family of God. And Asa has decided he's going to belong to God. He had no choice of what family he was born into, but he has a choice about whether or not he's going to live for the Lord. And that's why he's going to have quiet in the land for 10 years. Now. Asa is going to reign for 41 years. The years are roughly 911 B.C. to 870 B.C. again, he was a pretty good and righteous king. And notice what he does here as soon as he becomes king. Verse 2. Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God, for he removed the altars of the foreign gods and the high places and broke down the sacred pillars and cut down the wooden images. All right, so he's now going to purge the land of idolatrous influence when it talks here about high places. There were places where, where the Jewish people had set up these idolatrous altars in the worship of false gods. And some of the icons of their worship were sacred pillars and wooden images. Now, when you read different commentaries and you study through this, it appears that these sacred, quote, pillars and wooden images were part of the worship of a female and a male goddess and God who were goddess and gods of the Canaanite people. The goddess's name was Asherah, and the God's name was baal. And in the worship of Asherah and baal, it involved sexual fertility rites. And so it is believed that these sacred, quote, sacred pillars and these wooden images were sexual icons, that they were fertility symbols in the worship of Asherah and, and baal. And Asa decides, I got to get rid of these things. And he breaks them down and he smashes every idolatrous altar and he takes down every pillar, every wooden image. And verse 4 says, and he commanded Judah, the southern kingdom, to seek the Lord God of their fathers and to observe the law and the commandment. And he also removed the high places and. And the incense altars from all the cities of Judah. And the kingdom was quiet under him. See, that's why they had peace and quiet because they got right with God. That's what happens. When we get right with God. We have a more peaceful and quiet life. It isn't to say we don't have still trouble because we live in a fallen world, but when you are right with God, you have a much quieter and more peaceful life than when you walk in disobedience to the Lord. And this is a good reminder to us, because out of this chapter here, this is an important point. There is always room for us to purge high places from our lives. You know, we should always be taking regular inventory and surveying our own hearts and lives and realizing what are some things we've allowed in that have no place in our lives because they are really a matter of disobedience to God. What are some of the things that God might convict us of that are not right that we need to get rid of? We need to purge, as he does this great purging of the whole nation. I think it's important that we look at whatever needs to be purged from our own hearts and our own lives, because when we do, it invites in this quiet, this rest. Verse 6 says, and he built fortified cities in Judah, for the land had rest. He had no war in those years because the Lord had given him rest. And therefore he said to Judah, let us build these cities and make walls around them, and towers, gates, and bars, while the land is yet before us. Because we have sought the Lord our God, we have sought him, and and he has given us rest on every side. And so they built and prospered. And Asa had an army of 300,000 from Judah who carried shields and spears. And from Benjamin, 280,000 men who carried shields and drew bows. All these were mighty men of valor. So notice he only has these two tribes, Judah and Benjamin. With Judah, he's got 300,000 soldiers. With Benjamin, he's got 280,000. So he's got 580,000 soldiers in his army, which is pretty remarkable considering they're just two tribes, they're small in the southern kingdom of Judah. But you know, they're following the Lord, and so look how God's going to give him favor here. Continuing, verse nine, it says, then Zerah the Ethiopian came out against them with an army of a million men and 300 chariots, and he came to Maresha. Now, there is no understanding why this guy was motivated to come up against the southern kingdom of Judah. There's no indication why he would do this. But he's got a million men with him. Okay. By the way, Zerah is his name. It says he's Ethiopian. Scholars debate what his ethnicity really was. Some say that because today, you know, the borders of Ethiopia are not necessarily the same as the borders, you know, in 900 B.C. so some scholars think that his ethnicity was more Arabian or that he was part of the Midianites. We don't really know. I think it's fair to say that he may very well have been Ethiopian. But he's kind of making this whole battle through the Arabian Peninsula and then swings back up through the southern kingdom of Judah here. But he's got a million men with him. And verse 10 says, and so Asa went out against him. And they set the troops in battle array in the valley of Zephathah and Mareshah. But here, verse 11. And Asa cried out to the Lord his God. Now this is his constant posture. He's close to the Lord. He's like, obeying the commandments. He's purging the land of idolatry. And now he's. Now he sees himself again. This is a very outnumbered battle. You have 580,000 soldiers against a million. You need God. And so he cries out to the Lord God. And he said, lord, it is nothing for you to help, whether with many or with those who have no power. Help us, O Lord our God, for we rest on you, and in your name we go against this multitude. O Lord, you are our God. Do not let man prevail against you. Like the way he personalizes that right. He's like, this is your battle, God. This is your battle. Don't let man prevail against you. And verse 12 says, and so the Lord struck the Ethiopians before Asa and Judah. And the Ethiopians fled, and Asa and the people who were with him pursued them to Gerar. Gerar is in the south, as between Beersheba and Gaza. And so the Ethiopians were overthrown, and they could not recover, for they were broken before the Lord and his army, and they carried away very much spoil. And then they defeated all the cities around Gerar, for the fear of the Lord came upon them. And they plundered all the cities, for there was exceedingly much spoil in them. And they also attacked the livestock enclosures and carried off sheep and camels in abundance and returned to Jerusalem. So God gave the southern kingdom of Judah great victory here. And why? Because Asa was following the Lord, obeying the commandments, praying to God, purging the land of idolatry. And when you walk with the Lord, he will take care of you. And so we'll park it there for tonight rather than heading into chapter 15. But let's just take some time to pray and then we'll. We'll dismiss those who need to leave and then carry on in our time of prayer. So let's just first pray together. Our Father in Heaven, we just thank you for the way this chapter ends. A reminder to us of just a faithful man with Asa as king. And how he decided he was going to live for you. Even though his father didn't, his grandfather didn't, his great grandfather didn't. You, Lord, were merciful to him. You gave him rest and quiet in the land, and you gave him victory over the enemy. Because he was a man who wanted to seek you and walk with you. And so we thank you for the reminder of his life. And we pray, God, that we would also remember that when we follow after you, you'll take care of us. It may not always turn out the way we want. We live in a fallen world. There are trials and hardships and difficulties we all go through. But you are a faithful God. You are a faithful God. And we thank you that you are merciful and forgiving. And that you will also give us rest and quiet our own hearts when we feel overwhelmed. Because we seek you and we walk with you. And so, Lord, thank you for your word tonight. We just pray that it would continue to speak to us even as we go on our way tonight. Lord, use your word to speak to our hearts. And we thank you. In Jesus name, Amen and amen.