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Hey, hey, hey, don't skip. We're a couple days away from the end of our reading plan, which means you're about to be a part of the 6% of Christians that have actually read the entire Bible cover to cover. So stay tuned until the very end of this episode to hear about something special that we have planned just for you Bible nerds. Let's dive in to today's episode. Family, welcome to day 359. I'm super, super excited. We got two Chronicles chapters 13, 14, 15, and 16. And I'm super excited to get into the content today. If you haven't done the reading, what's wrong? What's going on? Hey, stop the video, pause the audio, go get the reading done and then come back. You'll have so much more content or so much more context for the content. You'll have so much more context for what we're talking about, what we're discussing, the big ideas for all of us that have done the reading. Pretty solid reading today. A lot of battles, narrative based, a lot of. We're getting introduced to a lot of characters and getting a lot of attention on certain characters. Honestly, it was cool to see aces development, like character arc, character. So for all of us that have done the reading, let's dive in to our context clues, our nerdy nuggets, and our timeless truth. So the context for the reading for today is two kings. Both of the kings are going to be from the tribe of Judah. One of the things that you're going to begin to realize now that the Northern kingdom has split from the Southern kingdom is that unlike kings, that's going to toggle back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. You're not going to have the context from what's happening in the North. Everything that we hear about from the north is only going to be in relationship to the South. Okay. So back in Kings, it would tell you when you're talking about a Southern king, which year of the reign of the Northern king we're on. And then when you're talking about Northern king, which year of the reign of the Southern king we're on. And back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And we literally just have no context anymore for, like, what's happening up in the North. It's not relevant to the story. And so we only engage with the Northern kingdom as a character in their Southern kingdom's, like, plot. And so the Southern kingdom really is the main character. Big main character energy. Like, no exaggeration. Okay, so we're Gonna get two kings, both start with the letter A. Okay? So yesterday our big picture 30,000 foot idea was Sheba and Shishak. Today it's Abijah and Asa. And so what we are gonna see in Chronicles is a. This loop of decline and reform. Decline and reform. Decline and reform. We've kind of talked about this like couple days ago, maybe even. Maybe our first day on second Chronicles. And so we've seen decline, okay? Rehoboam has been a king. That signifies decline, especially as it relates to how incredible David and Solomon were as kings. Okay? So Rehoboam does not hit the gold standard, no pun intended. He hits the bronze standard. When it comes to the precedent set by his grandfather and his father. However, Abijah and Asa were back on reform. Okay? So as soon as Chapter 13 begins in the 18th year of the reign of Jeroboam, that's the king reigning in the north, Abijah became king of Judah, and he reigned in Jerusalem three years. His mother's name was Makkah Maacah, a daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. It was a war between Abijah and Jeroboam. Abijah went into battle with an army of 400,000 able fighting men. And Jeroboam drew up a battle line against him with 800,000 able troops. So right there alone, it's like double 400 versus 800,000. And Abijah, what is he going to do? He's literally going to make it very, very clear that the northern kingdom is a foreign army. These are not like your fellow countrymen. Abijah stood on Mount Zemariim in the hill country of Ephraim. Okay? So they're in the north. The Ephraim is the biggest tribe up in the north, actually. And said Jeroboam and all Israel listen to me, okay? All Israel listen to me. So he's following the same. Like this Ezra is following the same idea. All Israel does not mean the. The Israelites that have broken off, okay? It means those that are faithful. Do you know that the Lord, the God of Israel, has given the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants forever by a covenant of salt. Yet Jeroboam son of Nebat, an official of Solomon, son of David, rebelled against his mast, okay? Some worthless scoundrels gathered around him and opposed Rehoboam son of Solomon, when he was young and indecisive and not strong enough to resist them. So you see exactly where the blame is going, okay? To the north. And now you plan to resist the kingdom of the Lord, which is in the hands of David's descendants. You are indeed a vast army and have with you the golden calves that Jeroboam made to be your gods. Okay, These are idols also. Kings is going to give us way more context for these golden calves than we get in Chronicles. But again, at Chronicles, we're only getting one side of the telephone call. We're only getting the southern kingdoms conversation. We're not getting what is happening with the northern kingdom. Okay, but Kings is going to give tons of context. And when we were in Kings, I gave tons of context for these golden calves because they're really connected with Exodus and the golden calves that Aaron makes in the book of Exodus. Okay, to be your gods. But didn't you drive out the priests of the Lord and the sons of Aaron and Levites? Like, you don't even have Levites with you guys, okay? And make priests of your own as the people of other lands do. So, like, you guys are pagans. You're no different than pagans. Whoever comes to consecrate himself with a young bull and seven rams may become a priest of what are not gods. So it's like you're selling the priesthood and priest of what not. Not the one true God. These are not even gods. As for us, the Lord is our God and we have not forsaken him. So again, this is like, you gotta get this to choose. Yahweh means choosing Jerusalem, which means choosing the Davidic line, which means choosing the temple, which means choosing the Levites. These are a package deal. There is no salad bar Judaism. There is no, like, oh, I'll take some lettuce, but I don't want cucumbers. Or, you know, I want tomatoes, but, ah, I'll leave the banana peppers. Nope, there's no substitutions. You can't have the temple without the Levites or the Davidic line without Jerusalem or Jerusalem without. No, no, no, no, no. It's, it's. It comes as is. I don't know if you ever been in a restaurant like that that's like. No, no, no, no, no. You're going to eat this meal the way we cook it. There's no substitutions. They present burnt offerings, framer incense to the Lord. They set out the bread on the ceremony clean table and light the lamps on the gold stand lampstand every evening. On the gold lampstand every evening. We are observing the requirements of the Lord our God. But you have forsaken him not. You have forsaken the Requirements. You have forsaken him. You have forsaken him. God is with us. He is our leader. His priests with their trumpets will sound the battle cry against you. So, like, you guys have 800,000 people, we have 400,000. But we got the Levites and we have real leaders, and we have the Lord and we have priests. So they're going to. They're going to blow trumpets at you. Watch. They're going to blow trumpets. And guess what? It actually does work. It says this in verse 14. Judah turned and saw that they were being attacked at both front and rear. Then they cried out to the Lord. The priests blew their trumpets, and the men of Judah raised the battle cry. At the sound of their battle cry, God routed Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah. The Israelites fled before Judah, and God delivered them into their hands. Abijah and his troops inflicted heavy losses on them so that there were 500,000 casualties among Israel's able men. The Israelites were subdued on that occasion, and the people of Judah were victorious because they relied on the Lord, the God of their ancestors. Now, back when we were looking at kings, we kind of talked about being a suzerain versus a vassal. This language came up in the book of Deuteronomy as well. And what all the stories in today's reading are actually going to portray or demonstrate is that God is a good suzerain and Judah is his vassal, not Israel. And because Judah is a vassal, even when they are outnumbered, the Lord Yahweh, because he's a good suzerain, is going to fight for his vassals on his vassal's behalf. That's what a vassal gets as a benefit of being underneath a suzerain. Okay? They get military protection, military help. So the same thing is going to happen with Asa. Asa, another good king, okay? As soon as Asa takes the throne, we're gonna see this. In chapter, chapter 14, verses 2 to 5, it says this. ASA did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God. He removed the foreign altars in the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the astral poles. He commanded Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their ancestors and to obey his laws and commands. He removed the high places and the incense altars from every town. Judah. And the kingdom was at peace under him. He built up the fortified cities. Building up fortified cities is a sign of wealth and safety. Okay, let us build up these towns. Okay? So that's all the context we need, really, that Abaj and Asa are both going to score well. And these are kings of reform. There's already been a king of decline, so now we're in the upward swing of reform. Let's give some context clues. Okay. Don't skip. Don't skip. Hey, if you are in the home stretch of reading your Bible, first of all, I'm so proud of you. Second, you probably know this, but you're my kind of people. I thoroughly enjoy hanging out with Bible nerds. So I've got exciting news for you, and it's called the six percent club. For anyone that has finished their entire Bible in a calendar year, we have exclusive content, newsletters, giveaways, live events. Oh, yeah, live events, baby. And more all throughout the year. You can find out about all of that if you go to thebibledepartment.com club to officially join the 6% club. Why do we call it the 6% club? Because only 6% of Christians have actually read their entire Bible cover to cover. And every year, Bible nerds like you finish our Bible reading plan and we get asked, what's next? Well, we've got an answer, and you don't want to miss out. So head over to the bibledepartment.com forward/club or click the link in the description to get access. We'll see you in the club. Let's go. First context is the northern kingdom is treated completely like a foreign power. Thus, the southern kingdom is. Is Israel. Even though Israel is the name of the northern kingdom, as far as, like, who is God's covenant people, it is definitely all Israel, AKA Judah. One of the things that we are going to begin to see is that there are multiple tribes that are going to actually leave the northern kingdoms. Okay? The Levites are not going to be the only ones. Now, the other thing that we're going to see is that in chapter 14, under Asa's command, okay, the. The people of Judah are going to get attacked by a kushite. Now, there's tons of debate on who, like, what is a kushite? But the biggest, like, what I would say is maybe the most convincing argument is that kushites would actually be Africans, like, from Sudan. All right? And so let's kind of talk about the possibility or even just the options, because There are really two options here. Okay? In chapter 14, we are going to get Zerah the kushite. Now, Cush is identified with two people groups, the most common one being in association with Egypt. Okay. Kush, or sometimes Nubia was what is now the Sudan and was Greatly influenced by Egyptian culture. Get this, there are more pyramids in the Sudan than in Egypt. Okay, so this is not just like some conspiracy theory. Like this is 100% real. I think we've talked about this on the podcast before that at various times the region of Sudan or Nubia was a vassal state of Egypt and even once ruled over Egypt, the so called black pharaohs, one of which was called Tirk. Tirk Tirhaka mentioned in Isaiah chapter 30 to 31. What is going on here is that given the Egyptian unification and expansion under Shishak, who is likely Kushite, Nubian, Sudanese or maybe even Ethiopian himself, was once again a vassal of Egypt, Zerah then would have been a Kushite general serving Pharaoh who. This is not unusual by the way. Shishak himself was a Libyan general working for Egypt before he became pharaoh. The pharaoh at the time would have been or Sorkon the first. So this is another Egyptian campaign in the ancient Near Eastern region, like in the Judean Israelite region, similar to Shishak raiding Rehoboam. Okay. The lesser held view is the association with Cush and the Midianites. Okay, this is definitely. You could see this and if you remember the book of Numbers, Moses marrying a Kushite. Since the Midianites were a nomadic people in what is now Saudi Arabia, Jordan, this could alternatively be an Arab tribal coalition led by Zerah that is raiding into Judah. Most scholars line up on the fact that Kushite means Nubian. Also, if you remember the story of Moses's Kushite wife Miriam, Moses sister has some pretty racist things to say about this sister. And so God turns Miriam's hand leprous white as kind of a contrapasso, kind of a fitting consequence for the crime. Okay, so that's a nerdy nugget straight out of chapter 14. Okay, so Asa is going to score well, Abijah is going to score well. And this is going to get us into our nerdy nuggets for the day. Chapter 15. I'm actually going to read verse nine. It says this. Then he assembled all Judah and Benjamin and people from Ephraim, Manasseh and Simeon, who had settled among them for large numbers had come over to him from Israel when they saw that the Lord his God was with him. I was actually mentioning that earlier that it wasn't just Levites that escape Israel, the northern kingdom of Israel and come south to Judah, it's other groups of as well. Manasseh, Simeon and Ephraim. Also for context, Ephraim is The largest, strongest tribe in the north. So the fact that Ephraimites are like, we got to get out of here. Like, this is nuts. We want to be loyal to David. We want to be loyal to the Temple. We want to be loyal to Jerusalem, AKA loyal to Yahweh, okay? Like, we've got to get out of here. Like, we've got to get to the south, all right? And I feel him, you know, I'm from Boston, Massachusetts, and I saw the light too. I got down to the south, okay? Like, yeah, that's a joke. Anyway, anyway. All right, what we're going to see, which leads us right into our Thomas truth, is that Asa is going to lead religious reforms, okay? Asa is a great king. Asa is also going to get delivered from in battle, okay? The same way that his father Abijah gets delivered from the Northern Kingdom, Asa is going to be in the middle of a massive battle against Zerah. The cushite God is going to come through. Why? Because Yahweh is a suzerain and Judah is his vassal. And if you're a suzerain, you are covenantally obligated to rescue your vassal if they get into military trouble. And so the same, like, miraculous level turnaround. Okay? It says this in verse 12 of chapter 14, the Lord struck down the kushites before Asa and Judah. The kushites fled, and Asa and his army pursued them as far as Gerar. Okay, this is just. It's not literally at. No, these two stories, they mirror each other. At no point is it like we had the strength or the numbers or the chariots or the horses or anything. It's just God, Literally just the Lord. The Lord does it. In the first story, Judah blew some trumpets, and then God was like. Like, he just does it. And then here, the Lord. The Lord just defeats them. Okay, now Moving into chapter 15, Asa goes on a Reformation rampage. Okay? It's amazing. And you can kind of hear Ezra's tone or the lessons that Ezra's teaching his audience by what he's saying. Things like, they assembled at Jerusalem. That's verse 10. Okay, remember when Ezra's gonna read the law to everybody? During the Feast of Tabernacles in the book of Nehemiah, everyone's assembled. Key word next. They entered into a covenant to seek the lord. That's verse 12. Then verse 14 of chapter 15, they took an oath. Okay? Oaths, covenants, assemblies. Like, this is very, very, very priestly language because they have sworn it wholeheartedly. That's verse 15. Okay? And then we get to verse six, not verse 16, chapter 16, and we're gonna see Asa's downfall, which was a curveball. Like, what the heck, dude? Asa had been successful, like, defeating his enemies the good old fashioned way. Call on God. God does it. But then it says this in chapter 16, in the 36th year of Asa's reign, Basha, king of Israel. Now kings is going to tell us all about Bashar, how in the world he took control. You see what is happening here? There's a new king in the north and we don't even know about it. Like, at no point is the text going to give us context for who Basha is, what's going on. It's literally an afterthought. It does not matter. These. These kings are not part of the story. They have nothing to do with the temple. Therefore, they have written themselves right out of the story. Asa then took the silver and gold out of the treasuries of the Lord's temple and of his own palace and sent it to Ben Haddad, King of Aram. So, so now instead of trusting in Yahweh like he did before, he goes and forms an alliance and he takes money out of the temple. Ah, bad sign, dude. At that time. This is verse seven of chapter 16. At that time, Hanani the Seer came to Asa, king of Judah, and said to him, because you relied on the king of Aram and not on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Aram has escaped from your hand. Were not the Kushites and Libyans a mighty army with great numbers of chariots and horsemen? Yet when you relied on the Lord, he delivered them from your hand. Verse 9. For your eyes. For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. You have done a foolish thing and from now on will be at war. Okay? Now this is the moment for Asa to repent. He's a king that's brought all this reform. He's a good king. You think he's got to repent? No. Asa was angry with the Seer because of this. He was so enraged that he put him in prison. At that time, Asa brutally oppressed some of the people. This is sad, man. So he goes 10 toes down, he doubled. He doubles down on. On just being wicked. And now, I mean, that's just. It's just unfortunate. He was a good, good guy. Which leads us right into our timeless truth. Okay. Which I've recently started running. So I ran a 10k on Thanksgiving. And then this past Week I was running and man, I've learned fast. Like that first mile. Don't feel like that last mile and I'd hit a wall, kind of started walking. One of the guys on our launch team, he said something, his name is Jeremy Fleming. So shout out to Jeremy Fleming, he said, we are at the last mile of the day. He said, this is where it starts PM this where it starts. I just started hearing that anyone can start. Not everybody can finish. Finishing well takes grace. And Asa unfortunately started great, but finished poorly. And I don't want to be someone who starts my walk with God well. Starts my walk with God with zeal. Starts the year off with zeal, but don't finish it well. Starts a reading plan off with zeal, but doesn't finish it well. Asa started strong but didn't finish well. Didn't see it to the end. And we were out there, you know, on the race and, well, just on the run. Sorry. And it's funny how once I could see the finish line, I, I, I had, I could muster up the energy to like will myself to the finish line. And it's, it's because it was in sight. And I think part of the reason that part of the way rather we can finish well is by having a vision of the end. How do you want to finish? What do you want people to say about you when you're 80, 90, 100, 110, 120? What does finishing well look like? What does finishing a season well look like? What does finishing an assignment well look like? What does finishing well look like? Asa started strong but didn't finish well. And that's not just a timeless truth or that's not just a time bound truth for Asa or for the next king who we're going to study tomorrow named Jehoshaphat or Abijah. That's true for you and it's true for me. I think it's a timeless truth. It's easy to start strong. It's not easy to finish strong. But I pray that you would be someone who's a finisher, that you would finish strong, that you would finish stronger than you started. That's the prayer that I have for myself that I would finish stronger than I started. Tomorrow we're in day 360. We're gonna be looking at two chronicles, chapters 17, 18, 19 and 20. I'm really, really excited. I'll be right here. Same time, same place. Can't wait to hang out with you tomorrow. I'm proud of you. I love you. Till next time. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. Hey, we're almost there. I bet you can see see the light at the end of the tunnel. We're towards the end of the year and I'm so proud of you. If this episode and this year of reading through the Bible was helpful, how about you invite a friend to join you on the journey next year? To learn more about the show, head to thebibledepartment.com and to learn more about the 6% Club, make sure you go to thebibledepartment dot com Club. We'll see you right back here tomorrow.