David to Jesus, not I have bad family. Let's talk about it on this edition of Keylight. Matthew, Steve Brown, and this is Keylight, a no-nonsense approach to God's word. If you have a Bible, get it, and let's see how it applies to real life. Steve? Thanks, Mike. I hope you had a great weekend, and I hope your pastor sermon was beneficial to you as mine was to me. If you have your Bible open it to the older Testament, we're going through each of the books of the older Testament, and we're up to first and second chronicles, and we're not doing it verse by verse, preceptive on precept. We would be doing that a lot longer than I have years left, and so what we're doing is looking at each of the books of the older Testament, and I'm giving you some handles, so that you can go back to those books and understand them, and then I'm becoming a tour director, and we're looking at some of my favorite passages in each of those books. And we're going to do this as long as it takes. We might take a break here, and I think in a couple of weeks, we're going to break for Easter, and I'm going to do a week on Easter, and then come back to this older, this survey of the Old Testament, because it really is important stuff. It's our practice on Mondays before we study the book, to go before the throne, so let's do that. Father we're here, and we're not here because we're good, we're here because we're yours. Sometimes we have misinterpreted that, and sometimes our friends have to. Father remind us that we're beggars, not former beggars, but beggars telling other beggars where we found bread. Father you know us, you know our heart, you know the secrets we dare not share with anyone, you know the times of depression. Father you know the loneliness, you know the sin that scares us to death, and so we come to you because you're our resource, and you're totally adequate. Meet us at the point of the needs that we have as you define those needs. Father heal and cleanse and change and forgive and empower, draw us to yourself, Father, and then use us to bring honor to your name. And Father your name deserves honor. We praise you, not just because of the good things that you've done, and you've done so much by your grace, but we praise you because you're God and because you're worthy of our praise and our worship and our adoration. Father as we study your word this week on key life, we pray for the one that teaches, that you would forgive him his sins, they calling reverend and he's not. Father we would see Jesus and Him only, and we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Now if you were with us last week, you're aware in our plowing through the Old Testament, we're up to first and second chronicles. And if you were here last week, I gave you some handles, some exogetical notes on these two books. We've seen that originally these two books, like the books of Samuel and Kings, were one book in the original text, and you say there must be a deep spiritual reason for that, no, it really isn't. It's just that Greek takes a lot longer, a lot more pages to write than Hebrew does, so they had to split it up. When we went through the hurricane, I did a lot of interviews because we were the only media ministry in South Florida, and we had gone through Hurricane Andrew, and our house was blown away, and everybody had lost everything. So I did a lot of interviews, and people would always ask me, Steve, God must have taught you some extremely profound lessons as you've gone through this tragedy. And I said, yeah, and the first lesson is tie the presses down. And so there's not even big or spiritual about dividing these books. It's just simply Greek takes a lot more paper than Hebrew does, and then I gave you an outline, brief outline of first and second chronicles. And then if you were listening last week, when we ended last week, I said that the difference between Kings and Chronicles is the difference between writing a high horse and finding yourself in the dirt. Kings looked at history from the perspective of a proud people, Chronicles looked at that same history from the perspective of a conquered people. Jerusalem was destroyed in 587 BC, and Chronicles were written after that. It's amazing how pastoral you become when an arrogant are no longer arrogant, and they become humble and are in the dust. And we spent considerable time talking about that. Now let me say something else before I go put on my tour director clothing and take you through these two books of the Bible. Please note that first and second Chronicles are concerned with two main themes. Now the first theme is the Davidic line and the second theme is the theocracy. So let me kind of flesh that out a little bit for you. It is from the book of Chronicles that we get the great emphasis on the line of David, the king, that his throne would be established forever, and in that sense it's a prophetic book. It has a direct connection to Jesus of Nazareth. Remember the wise men, what they told Herod? This is Matthew 2.5. Messiah will be born and Bethlehem of Judea. Why? Bethlehem was David's birthplace. Matthew 1.20, the angel addresses Joseph as a son of David. Luke 2.5, Caesar's enrolment. Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem. Why? Because they were of the house and lineage of David. Now there are two reasons for the use of the Davidic line and its emphasis in first and second Chronicles. And this isn't very profound. And if you're going through a divorce or you're just lost your business or you're on the verge of bankruptcy, I don't know if this is going to be practical to you. But there are two reasons for this, the use of the Davidic line and first and second Chronicles. And the first is, when you're trying to pull people together and God's people were scattered, when you're trying to pull people together and God's people were down in the dirt, that's the place where you need heroes, and that's the place where God decided to lift up the name of David. David is seen in first and second Chronicles, and when we get to the end of these two books, I'm going to show you how God erased his sin and lifted him up as a great man of God, a man after on God's own heart. I'll take some times in our country, at least in the United States and this is true in Canada. When things just don't look that good for Christians, people are doing stuff they ought not do and God's name is blasphemed among the pagans. I have never seen a more lusty materialistic paganism in my life, and they're really mad at us. I'll tell you, when I was a pagan I wasn't mad at Christians, I just ignored them. But they're not ignoring us, they're upset and they're angry and sometimes during this time it's good for us to remember when giants walked in the land. So look back because it brings us together and say, God, do it again, do it again, and that's what the writer Ezra probably in first and second Chronicles is doing. He's lifting up David, and he's saying to God's people, that's a throne that's going to last forever, and then he's saying, God, do it again, do it again. But there's a second reason that Ezra didn't know about. Well, maybe he did, but he only knew it in an ethereal, a very vague way. The fact was that it was from the house and lineage of David, from which a Messiah would come in the fullness of time, God would send his own son. And so as you look at this first major theme and first and second Chronicles, you see something very important as you look at the Davidic line. You see that God even then was preparing his people, and he was preparing the world for the time when God himself would come and would become a baby of the house and the lineage of David. Now, the second major theme, and I'm just lifting this up for you because I think it's important that you see it, is the idea of a theocracy. And you say, Steve, what's a theocracy? A theocracy is a nation that is ruled directly by God himself. Now, one of the most dangerous things we do, and I'm going to talk about this a little bit later on, you know how we're always quoting if my people are called by my name, humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and heal their land. If you're a navigator, you know that's first Chronicles 7, 14, and we're going to talk about a little bit more. Because that does point to a pattern of God in dealing with the nations and God's people within the nations, but you got to be careful about that verse, because that verse is applied to a nation which was a theocracy. And in America and Canada, we are not theocracies, but at any rate it's as we go through first and second Chronicles. We're going to see that these books are centered around the temple and the ritual that took place in the temple. And we see how the people are always called back to God himself. You know there's something in the human heart that is that way. When things are falling apart and they're not doing really good, there's something about us that draws us to God and to his ways. I remember when John Kennedy was assassinated, I was the pastor of a very small church down on Cape God. And we struggled to get 30 people in that sanctuary of that white keyboard church on Sunday morning. But when John Kennedy died, the pagans and the Christians and the semi-religious came out of the woodwork. And we had a memorial service and we couldn't get all the people in the church. They spilled out into the art of the church because there's something when things go bad that draw you to God. It's important to have an understanding of religion within the context of the people because it brings unity. And so as we read through this story of the theocracy, a nation ruled by God himself, we're going to see that while we are not theocracies, it is important that there be a religious base to how we define ourselves. Because if there's no God, there's no value, if there's no value, then there's no meaning, and your return up. So deal with it. You think about that. I mean. Hey, listen, you have our catalog. If you don't, I'd love to send it to you. Send it to you absolutely free. And when you get it, you'll know why because it's ugly. It is just a listing of the stuff we have in the warehouse, tapes, books by people other than myself. My books are in it because that album's on every conceivable subject. And when you want just the right thing for just the right occasion, you pick up the phone and give us a call. I'll send you this catalog free. By the way, when you call it right, you might want to ask to be a part of our key life tape family. You will be made a part of that free also. So you can call 1-800-keylife-24-hours-a-day. You can write key life post office box 5,000, Madeleine Florida, 3-27-94. Key life can it up, post office box 3-21-Fible. Cambridge, Ontario, in 3-H5-M3. You can email us at stevidkeylife.org, but be sure and give it your regular mailing address. And when I say these things you're free, I really mean that. But if you can help us, I really mean that too. We don't waste a single dime in this ministry. Every dime is squeezed for God's glory. And if you help us, you help your brothers and sisters in Christ. You can charge your contribution to your mastercard visa, discover card included in your envelope. And for any contribution of any size, I'll send you the cassette teaching. What good is guilt is my thing. Gotta go, when you write a call, give us the call letters of this station and key life is a production of key life networks.