I Chronicles 1:1-10:14

[00:00:00] This evening we're going to confine ourselves to the first 10 chapters of the Book of Chronicles. [00:00:12] You just remember last week that we said that we would more slowly cover these two books, because with Chronicles you have really reached one of the most vital point in the Old Testament. [00:00:32] You know as well as I do I pointed out to you some very instructive facts last week about the Book of Chronicles. [00:00:41] Know that this book, as it were, starts all over again. It's as if in the unfolding revelation of God, God has called a halt and has said quite simply, now we can't go on any further. [00:01:00] Before I can reveal anything more to you, we've got to go right back to Adam and we've got to trace at the beginning more swiftly. [00:01:11] And then more slowly, we've got to trace history all over again. [00:01:17] If it's as if the Lord was saying, if I were to go on from here without calling a halt and doing this, you would miss the whole point of my dealings with men and women. [00:01:33] And that is the vital and strategic value of Chronicles, particularly Ezra and Nehemiah, as I pointed out to you last week, we believe were written or compiled by the same hand, so that the two books of Chronicles, which were originally one book, and Ezra and Nehemiah, which are one book as well, well, originally, probably from all the evidence, it would seem, were one work. [00:02:05] You remember how remarkable it was that in the Jewish Scriptures, Chronicles was split in two. Ezra and Nehemiah split away from Chronicles, and Chronicles was placed at the very end of the Jewish Scriptures. So in the days of the Lord, it was the final word of God. It was as if this culminated the whole of Scripture going right back to Adam and tracing everything right through. It was as if it was one great interpretation of all God's dealings with humanity and particularly with his chosen people. [00:02:46] So therein lies the real and tremendous value of Chronicles. We said that the key to this book is very, very simple. It almost shouts at you from every chapter. It is the temple, the house of God. There are two other emphases in Chronicles. One you remember is the Messianic line, the line of the Messiah. And the other is Levitical ministry or the worship of God. [00:03:15] But the wonderful thing about Chronicles is this, and it is a most remarkable fact that the Messianic line, or the line of the Messiah, the most important thread in Scripture, is seen all the time in the light of the house of God. [00:03:36] It is almost subjected, subjugated to the house of God and the worship of God. Levitical ministry and service is also obviously seen in the light of the house of God. So you get this threefold strand. [00:03:53] The house of God is the key. The temple is the key to these books. [00:03:59] And then you get the Messianic lines and the Levitical ministry, or more simply, the worship of God. [00:04:09] Now, this evening we take up what really, in many ways, in some ways one dreads these first ten chapters of the first book of Chronicles. [00:04:22] All lists of unfamiliar names, for the most part, almost entirely unknown, I suppose, to everyone. [00:04:30] Perhaps now and again you, if you did wade through it, you found a name that you knew. But then I no doubt you were rather foxed, to put it crudely, to find that in some lines names reoccurred again and again, so you were still in the dark as to whether it was someone you knew in the Old Testament, all these names. Why does the Holy Spirit, in so strategic and so important a volume as this, give 10 whole chapters to lists of unfamiliar and in many cases, almost unpronounceable names? [00:05:11] There is something very important in it. [00:05:14] Now we really, this evening simply are taking the first section of these books. You see, I have put up here on the board the outline of the first and the second book of Chronicles, and in brackets I put Ezra, Nehemiah, because they do really belong. [00:05:34] You see, that these four books are all to do with one thing, really. [00:05:45] The first ten chapters of Chronicles have put down as the vehicle for the realization of God's purpose and the bringing in of God's Christ. [00:05:56] That is, these first 10 chapters span the whole of history, from Adam right down to Zerubbabel and beyond Zerubbabel, they go on to Christ. In other words, when you come to Matthew chapter one, you can immediately find the Lord Jesus. In this line. [00:06:14] Then from 1 Chronicles chapter 11 to 2 Chronicles, chapter 9, you have the realization of God's purpose, that is, in two parts. First of all, it is the history of David, the preparation, the preparations for the temple, that is, from chapter 11 of Chronicles to chapter 29, rest of the first book of Chronicles, in other words. And then the second part of the realization of God's purpose is the actual building of the temple, which is the first nine chapters of Chronicles. [00:06:52] Then in two Chronicles, from chapter 10 to chapter 36, you have the whole story of a continual conflict. The house of God has now been built, it's established. [00:07:05] Now we find that the whole onslaught upon God's people is with one end in view to destroy God's dwelling place, to render it unfit, to compromise it, to defile it, or to destroy it. And so the conflict rages backwards and forwards all the time through the history of Judah. Israel, as you know, is not mentioned. It's only Judah that is in view. [00:07:29] And then finally, at the very end, we find the house of God is ruined. [00:07:36] Now, all this has tremendous amounts to say to us in this dispensation. [00:07:42] These things were written for our ex, for our example, for our instruction, exam that. Examples to examples to us. [00:07:52] And as we are nearing the end of a dispensation, we should find even more help for the end of the old dispensation. We should expect that. It's obvious and it's interesting that God, in his wonderful foreknowledge, has given us this history of the shadow and the figure and the symbol for our instruction. Now, in other words, we've seen the conflict over the church. And the church, everyone agrees is inward. [00:08:26] All agree, all evangelicals agree on that point. The church is in ruins. [00:08:32] The great concept of God as we find in the New Testament has gone. [00:08:37] It's been lost. And now we're in a million fragments all over the world. The only thing we can do is just sort of hold together to a kind of invisible unity and fellowship. But thank God we've got the book of Ezra and Nehemiah, which, if you take as part of the first and second book of Chronicles, you find the recovery of the house of God and the bringing in of God's cross. In other words, with the end of Nehemiah, the whole stage is set for the appearance of the Messiah. Malachi, the last prophetic voice. And the old covenant says one wonderful thing. Suddenly the Lord shall appear in his house. The house is there, the service is there. The worship of God is there. The people have been separated from foreign marriage and links and relationships. All is now set ready. There's a period of two or three hundred years of just quiet waiting, but the stage is set. And when Nehemiah closes, it really is bringing in Christ. Well, that's just simply the whole outline of, of these books. [00:09:48] Now, let's turn together to these first 10 chapters. [00:09:54] The first thing I should like to do this evening is just to very briefly move through the content of these 10 chapters. [00:10:05] We will just traverse them as quickly as we can. I think you might find it a bit dry. So seek to be as helpful and cooperative as possible. Possible. But we will go right over the 10 chapters, the contents of them, and then we will go back and we will draw out as many lessons as we can find by the Holy Spirit. [00:10:25] Now, I have done a somewhat unusual thing. It took me a bit of time, I must say, but I thought it was the only way to make sense of all these names. [00:10:36] I've drawn out a family tree which is really all this. [00:10:44] These chapters are. They're just simply a family tree. Now I would like to have said to you, but I felt it was helping you all to be lazy, that if you took a piece of pencil and a bit of paper and started to do this, you would have soon been quite absorbed. [00:10:58] You would have really been quite absorbed going through all those names and just trying to trace the line. There's a line through them all. All those chapters are not there for fun. There's a big line. The line is the red line, the green names and the red line, that's the line that goes right the way through. Now, of course, obviously I couldn't get on a board like that. All the names that there are in these 10 chapters I just literally tried to trace through a funeral. [00:11:33] I think you will also note that here I thought it might have caused a bit of amusement, but I put it in. These arrows mean that there were many more suns. [00:11:42] I just couldn't get them on the board. And anyway, there's a sense in which they're not traced here. [00:11:47] So when you get that little arrow, it means there's a good deal more coming. [00:11:53] I just simply for your help, try to trace through these 10 chapters and give you a little bit of an idea as to what really the Holy Spirit is trying to say. [00:12:08] Now, believe it or believe it not, this actually is the first three chapters. [00:12:16] The other chapters from chapter four to chapter eight deal much more fully with. With a whole lot of other lines. But I've got that up there. And when we come to them, I'll point out to you and say, well, now this line goes on from here. You see, if I were to put it on, it would just confuse you because it would be an absolute mess of names and little white lines going everywhere until finally many of them met a veto and went right out. But the whole point is the red line is the un vetoed line. [00:12:45] The red line is the line of God's acceptance. [00:12:49] And all those. Now this is the point. All those that got into relationship and kept that relationship with that red line got through. [00:13:00] And all those who took issue with that red line or all those who in any way got compromised fell out. Now that's a tremendous fact, but it is literally the summary of these 10 chapters. [00:13:15] So let's look at them when we take the first three chapters. What do we find in the first three chapters of Chronicles? [00:13:23] Well, this is what we find. [00:13:25] We find the line or the seed directly and intimately related to God's purpose and the bringing in of God's Christ. [00:13:41] Now, I want you to underline that the first three chapters deal with the line or the seed, which is directly and intimately related to God's purpose. [00:13:59] Directly and intimately. [00:14:01] And directly and intimately to the bringing in of God's Christ. [00:14:08] From chapter four to chapter eight, we are going to find there's slight difference. They're still related to the purpose of God, but there's a distinct difference. [00:14:16] Well, now let's have a look at this line. What do we find? [00:14:20] Well, first of all, we find this. [00:14:25] In chapter one, the first four verses, we find we had the preservation of the seed to the flood, that is from Adam to Noah. Now, it's instructive that neither Abel nor Cain are mentioned. Seth is only mentioned. Immediately. Seth is taken up. Adam, Seth, and then you find a few more names. I haven't put them all in there. So we come to Enoch, to Noah, God preserving a seed in the. What we could call the first phase of human history up to the flood. You know what happened at the flood? The whole earth was destroyed. [00:15:07] The human race was wiped out, but a seed had been preserved. That seed was summed up in Noah and his sons. [00:15:20] Then in the next phase, from verse 5 to verse 27, which you will find a lot of no, and a lot of nations, you will find the seed preserved amongst the nations. Now you get all the ancient nations here. You've got a table of nations, as you do In Genesis 10, a table of nations. But in the midst of all these nations, you find a seed is being preserved. You find first, God has preserved Seth in the place of Abel. [00:15:52] He's gone on to Enoch. [00:15:54] He's gone on to Noah. [00:15:56] Now he selects Shem from Noah's three sons. [00:16:02] These three sons, Ham. Shem. Ham and Japheth, are destined to become the fathers of the races of this world. [00:16:13] God selects Shem. [00:16:16] And he was the father of the Semitic races. [00:16:21] Now, the interesting thing here again is that in this selection, in this preservation of a sea moves to Shem, God starts to preserve a single line in the midst of a growing and quite vast, in some ways quite vast civilization. [00:16:42] Nimrod, we are told in the scripture, but began to be a mighty one in the earth. In other words, it was the beginning of human dictatorship. Nimrod became the first of the known dictatorships of humanity. He ground Other people down under him. And as it were, became mighty through them again. We're told this was the beginning of the great rupture between the different families of humanity. A great rupture which was in the end to crystallize into races absolutely distinct and antagonistic, one to the other. In the midst of this Babel of voices, God takes hold of one family, of one line. [00:17:30] And starts to preserve that line. Step by step, from father to son. He preserved in the midst of a crooked and a perverse generation. Those who walk with him. [00:17:44] When it comes to Terah, you notice, of course, that Shem had rather a number of sons. [00:17:52] We've only mentioned a few of them. [00:17:55] Abbot is the one that is taken hold of by God. And jumping over quite a few names, we come to Tirah. We find Terah in Ur of the Chaldees. [00:18:08] So we find God has preserved them amongst the nations. From Shem to Tirah, there's been a preservation of a seed amongst the nations. [00:18:18] Now, from verse 28 of chapter one to chapter two and verse two, we find the producing of a people for God. [00:18:30] Now when we come to Abraham, all will, I think, recognize we have started on a new course. This is one of the most remarkable features of God. [00:18:41] Do you know that God takes one man and changes the course of human history? He's always done that. [00:18:48] Luther was such a man. [00:18:49] And you can go back in our own day to people that God has taken home. Changed the course of human history almost worldwide. You go back to this man, Abraham. When God took hold of Abraham, he required a break. [00:19:04] He required a break with his father, which Abraham, as you know, was loath to do. And spent quite a number of years in Haran until his father died. God kept him waiting until his father had died. Then he took him into the land. [00:19:19] So we find God is out to produce a people. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. [00:19:27] God is producing a people. [00:19:30] Into these three men, these three generations, God condenses a tremendous amount of history. [00:19:39] What, in a sense he has very slowly unfolded from Adam to Terah. Is now suddenly condensed in Abraham in a new way. [00:19:51] And for the first time, God does not now deal as with individuals. He starts to deal with men as with a people. [00:20:00] He has now the fathers of a nation. [00:20:05] The God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. It is a remarkable fact that God is not known as the God of Enoch or he's not known as the God of Noah. He's not known as the God of any of those other men, Methuselah or Terah or Shem or any of those. [00:20:24] The first time God allows himself to be called by any human name, he's called the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. This is a new departure. It is the producing of a people. Up to then, God was God generally he was God in a general way. He was the God of all flesh. [00:20:41] He was the God who required men to walk before him. He had preserved a seed. But with Abraham, God took a new step. God became a God of a people amongst the peoples of the earth. He became the God of Abraham, of Isaac and Egypt. [00:20:58] Then if you look from chapter 2, verse 3 to verse 12, we find now a remarkable thing. God has got his people, but now he preserves a seed amongst his people. [00:21:13] Now he takes the 12 sons of Jacob or Israel, as the chronicler always refers to Jacob as Israel, never as Jacob. Is that not a remarkable point? Everywhere else in scripture he's referred to as Jacob. But you see, the church of God does not come out of Jacob, it comes out of Israel. That's a big point. We must remember that he's always referred to as Israel by the chronicler. [00:21:37] So when we come to Israel, he has 12 sons. Now the firstborn is Reuben. But Reuben, you know, loses the birthright. It passes to Joseph, but God selects Judah. [00:21:50] This is a remarkable thing. It is Judah that is selected, not Joseph nor Reuben. [00:21:57] When we come to Judah, we find God starts to preserve a few family amongst the families of Judah. [00:22:04] And so if you trace down through that chapter, you begin to find God is selecting and selecting, preserving and preserving. Until at last we come to a man called Jesse. If you look here, you will find we've come through from Abraham to Isaac. [00:22:22] From Isaac we have come to Israel. [00:22:25] I wasn't able to get all the twelve sons Israel in, but he selects Judah and Judah from Judah. There are more sons actually than this. [00:22:37] But he selects Perez. And Perez he selects his wrong and his wrong Ram from his three sons. And then Boaz, the husband of Ruth, and then Obed, the daughter of Ruth. And then Jesse, the grand son of a. [00:22:56] So we have now traversed history all the way through. We have found that God is selecting. He's all the time selecting. From three he takes one, then from three he takes one. Then from many sons he takes one. Then he moves down to Abraham. And you may be rather surprised to know that Abraham had rather a lot of sons. Most people think Abraham only had Ishmael and Isaac, but he had so many I couldn't get get them on the board. [00:23:23] Yet Isaac was the only one that that God selected. He was the only son of faith. [00:23:31] He was resurrection. The rest for the flesh, which is a very illustrative and enlightening aside upon the capacity of the flesh to produce many signs. [00:23:44] And the fact that they can only in many ways, the promise of faith can only come by being shut up to complete inability. [00:23:56] All Abraham's sons, as far as we can make out from Chronicles, came when he was a young man. God waited till he was a hundred years before Isaac came, which is a remarkable thing. [00:24:06] Then, of course, again we have the two sons. Now, Esau is traced in Scripture. If you look in Chronicles, you find that his history is traced right some way down. [00:24:18] Ham is traced, Japheth is traced. Some of these others are traced just a little way. And then they go out of the record. [00:24:26] Esau is traced quite away, but he goes out of the record. Ishmael is as well. And so are one or two of these traced a certain way. But they all go out of the record. [00:24:36] The only permanent preservation is this red line. [00:24:41] So we come to Jesse. Now, Jesse had seven sons. In actual fact, he had eight sons. The chronic clone tells us of seven. [00:24:49] We presume, therefore, that one of them died very young before ever he could marry. [00:24:55] But I haven't again been able to put all the seven sons, living sons of Jesse upon this form. But I have got David. [00:25:04] And with David we have come to the instrument of God for the realization in time of his purpose. Now, you know that board, that blackboard covers a millennium or two of human history. [00:25:21] God has been all the way working in the most human of situations, the most humdrum of situations, and sometimes the most routine of lives. [00:25:31] And he's been breaking into them, interfering with them, intervening, apprehending, preserving, instructing, shutting up, all the way through with one great purpose in view. [00:25:44] Now, at last, when the human race has become so vast that it is beyond numbering, God takes one man. [00:25:53] That is the product of his working through millenniums. [00:25:58] That is a most remarkable fact. [00:26:02] He takes David, the result of a preservation going back thousands of years. [00:26:10] This man, David, is destined to become the one who brings in the house of God. [00:26:19] Then the line goes on, and we come to the sons of David. I don't know whether you realize it, but there are 19 sons of David mentioned by the chronicler. [00:26:29] But only one is selected, and that is Solomon. [00:26:32] And Solomon has many sons. I wasn't able to mention all those. Rehoboam is selected. And then to all the kings that we've been doing recently, the list goes on right the way down through Hezekiah, through to Josiah, through to Josiah's sons, his four sons. Zedekiah goes out. You remember Jeconiah or Jehoiakim is taken. And his son Jeconiah goes, as you remember, into captivity, or Jehoiakim as we know it in Kings, Jeconiah, in Chronicles, he goes into captivity. The line is preserved in captivity. [00:27:12] And so if you want to trace it right the way through, you'll find at long last it comes to Zerubbabel. [00:27:18] After all these thousands of years, this seed has been preserved. God's purpose has been realized. The temple has been built, the ark is at rest. The staves have been drawn out. God has come into his rest. [00:27:38] Then begins the great conflict over the house, over the temple. [00:27:44] And of course, from Rahaboam, right the way down, Zedekiah or Jehoiakim, you had this tremendous conflict raging over God's resting place, over the resting place of God or the dwelling place of God. [00:28:01] In the end, it would seem Satan has run the day he whips God's concept. The thing is utterly, seemingly beyond hope of recovery. The people are corrupt. They've become so compromised. The kings have become faithless. [00:28:20] Everything goes into captivity and the house is razed to the ground. You would have thought that was the end. You would have thought that might have become just one of those old foundational ruins that they are all the time uncovering under the sands of the Middle East. But no. God has a purpose. [00:28:43] God has something that he's going to do not only to achieve his purpose in Christ and the bringing of Christ, but for our instruction. [00:28:53] God is going to take the people back. And that's why the line is traced right the way through to the rubber ball. The rubber ball goes back. And where does the rubber ball go back? A group. And that takes us right in to the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. [00:29:09] Slowly but surely, the house is rebuilt, the services are reinstituted, the city is rebuilt, and finally the walls are rebuilt, which is a very, very instructive thing, this question of ground. [00:29:26] The walls are at last rebuilt. The house is there now, clearly defined as the ground upon which you can find the house of God. Once again, the land is repeopled, and all is waiting for the coming in of God's promise. [00:29:43] Well, I say that's terrific, isn't it, really, when you look at it, what a lot is really there. [00:29:49] All in those three chapters, all in those great long lists of names is simply the contents of the first three chapters. [00:29:57] Now, what about the other Chapters from chapter four to chapter eight. What can we find in these chapters? [00:30:04] Well, now we've said that the first three chapters are the seed or the line, which is directly and intimately related to God's purpose and the bringing in of God's Christ. [00:30:16] Now from chapter four to chapter eight, we have those others related to God's purpose, but not so intimately. [00:30:27] Now, this is very instructive. Later on, we're going to draw out a big lesson from this. [00:30:34] Here. Now, suddenly everything is expanded. We're going to find that suddenly Simeon, the rest of Judah is going to be taken up. All these other sons are going to be taken up and traced. [00:30:48] Then we're going to take Simeon, then Reuben, and they're not on the board. Manasseh and Gad. Halftime. Manasseh and Gad are going to be taken up. Then Levi's going to be taken up, then Issachar's going to be taken up. And so we're going to go on. All these different lines are going to be traced. [00:31:08] We're going to trace them through. [00:31:10] Now, why are they why do they not figure in the first three chapters? [00:31:15] Because they are not so directly and intimately involved in the purpose of God. They are not so directly instrumental. [00:31:26] They are necessary. [00:31:28] They are in the purpose of God. They are related to the purpose of God. I want you to understand, lest anyone get some intellectual problems on this, that these genealogies don't cover every single family in the people people of God. [00:31:43] There are thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of pedigrees that are not here because they're not in the purpose of God. That's why the people of God, children of God, but they're not in the purpose of God. [00:31:55] All these lines that are here before us are the lines or the pedigrees of people somehow or other, either directly or indirectly related to the purpose of God. And even many of these go out. [00:32:12] So here we have something of tremendous instruction for us all. [00:32:18] Well, from taking chapter four, verse one to 23, we find Judah. Now, it's very, very interesting, all these names. And then suddenly, if you look into it in chapter 4 and verse 10, verse 9, we suddenly find a man called Jabez. Suddenly the record stops. I don't know if any of you noticed it. And a man called Jabez is taken up. And we read that his mother gave him a name called Jabez because she bear him in sorrow. [00:32:47] It means one who causes grief. [00:32:49] A rather unhappy type of name she gave, called him Jabez. Well, evidently Jabez was so distressed by his name when he grew to understanding as to what it meant, that he cried to the Lord about it and asked the Lord to enlarge their borders. And it is recorded here, in the midst of all these genealogies, that the Lord heard the cry of Jabez and enlarged his borders. Now isn't that interesting? [00:33:11] Now we might ask ourselves a question. Who on earth is Jabez? [00:33:17] Exactly what does Jabez to tell us? What has he got to say to us? [00:33:23] He's one of those who's not so directly related to the purpose of God. But you see how God is ready to seize the slightest opportunity that his children give him for instructing them, for enlarging them, for bringing them more closer to Himself. [00:33:39] These exclusive, narrow minded Christians who feel that no one can ever have an experience of God if they don't come to the circumference of their own company or their own vision. [00:33:52] There's nothing so far you can't take God. [00:33:55] You don't even necessarily have to be right to have an experience of God. [00:34:00] You will find some deep experiences of God in some of the darkest parts of the earth. That is a strange thing. [00:34:06] Some people seem to think that Roman Catholics are beyond the pale. But there are some Roman Catholics who've got some deep experiences of God and something that they could teach us if they came here and would just speak. They found God. We can't understand it, but God is so great, he's so sovereign that he will meet any child, any person who will only call to him in distress. Here was someone who evidently was born in an awful situation, a situation of decrease of sorrow. [00:34:34] But he cried to the Lord and the Lord met him. And so we find that there's a little word of help there. A bit farther on was I not here and Caleb are mentioned, those two great men. They're found in the history of Judah. Then if we go on from verse 24 to verse 43, we find Simeon. Now, what have we told about Simeon? Well, we have all the lists of names again. But in the midst of these lists of names we're told two things. First of all, they went down to Mount Seir and possessed the land. And another thing they did was to destroy the Amalekites. These two things are noted of Syria, which is rather interesting. Evidently they have an experience in their own way, victory. And they have an experience in some ways of extension and increase. [00:35:20] Farther on we come to Reuben, Gad and Manasseh. This is chapter five. The whole of chapter Five. Reuben, Gad and Manasseh. [00:35:28] What do we find here? Now here is something that has caused a lot of Bible scholars a lot of trouble. [00:35:35] If I mentioned here one of the biggest battles in scripture, if you look at it, you will find that thousands and thousands died. Hundreds of thousands of camels were taken. Good. Who says what else happened? It was the Hagarites, who we understand were descended from Hagar. [00:35:50] They traced their ancestry back to Hagar, mother of Ishmael, and they had become a wealthy people. And Reuben, Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh, who you remember were the Transjordanic tribes, they lived on the other side, you remember, they did a very unwise thing. [00:36:08] They chose their own place of settling. It's very, very interesting that the two people in Scripture who chose where they would like to settle and live, although worshipping God, both ended up in very unfortunate ways, that is Lot and the two and a half tribes. [00:36:25] It is always best to say thy way, O God, not mine. [00:36:31] That's a little aside. They destroyed the handkraytes, this tribe of people. They extended their land, but in a most emphatic way. The chronicler says they went right out of the purpose of God like a light. [00:36:51] He says that later on they so intermixed and compromised themselves that in the end came they went right out. And he said to this very day they dwell in exile. Later on we're going to find that some are tribe of Manasseh or the other half tribe, but it's the half tribe that dwelt on the other side of Jordan come back. But these two and a half tribes vanished. Now here's something to take note of. These people were indirectly involved in the will of God, in the purpose of God, in the realizing of it. But they went so far, went out. [00:37:24] Then we come on to Levi. Now this is all chapter six. Now this. [00:37:29] It's very interesting to note that there's much detail given for Levi. Now, why is there so much trouble taken over the tribe of Levi? Because alongside of Judah, Levi was the other tribe that was the most desperate, essentially and intimately linked with the realization of God's purpose. [00:37:52] It is interesting that in this record of the tribes, those that are given the most space are Judah, Simeon, Levi and Benjamin. Now it's an instructive fact that it was those four tribes that mostly comprised the returning people. [00:38:15] The others belong to Israel, the kingdom of Israel. And for the most part they never came back. An instructive point. [00:38:23] I want also to note another very sobering fact that in this chapter six, the house of Eli is not even mentioned. [00:38:36] Now, in here, if you look in the first few verses in chapter six, you get all the high priests from El traced right the way down beyond Solomon, right the way into the captivity, you get the high priest trace. Eli is not even mentioned. He's discreetly and yet quite firmly left out. Now, that's a deliberate omission. Everyone, all scholars agree on that one point, that the house of Eli being omitted is a deliberate omission. No one could possibly carelessly omit the house of Eli. A very big house. Now, why was Eli cut out? [00:39:17] Why has he never brought in? [00:39:20] What is it, what is it that has so annoyed the chronicler that the Holy Spirit has, through his indignation, completely cut out the very memory of Eli? [00:39:35] What? Not only that, the Lord, you remember, cursed Eli's house and said that it would move out of remembrance. [00:39:43] But I believe there is something else which we have got to take very, very, very careful note. [00:39:49] The tabernacle was the charge of the house of Eli in the days of Judges. [00:39:58] His house not actually in the hands of Eli, but in his life. [00:40:03] That tabernacle was at Shiloh. [00:40:08] And as far as God was concerned, that was not the place that the Lord chosen to put his name. [00:40:19] It was the house of God. Again, on wrong ground. [00:40:25] Because of that simple fact, Eli is completely cut out of his genealogies. [00:40:34] That seems very severe and very harsh, particularly as it is obvious to us all that they served God. They served God in their own generation. [00:40:47] But for our instruction, God has cut out the record of their names from these genealogies. [00:40:56] Now, why should all those high priests be there and Eli cut out? [00:41:02] You see, this book of Chronicles is dealing with the house of God. [00:41:07] Not the temporary thing, not the transient thing, not the counterfeit thing, not the substitute. [00:41:15] It's dealing with the thing itself. [00:41:19] And there's a sense in which the Holy Spirit here is such a. [00:41:22] In the book of Samuel and Kings, he's not severe. Indeed, we have noted how the Holy Spirit puts Israel before Judah, how all the time it's as if God is going out to those who are in error on any wrong ground, speaking to them, giving them experiences of himself. But here in Chronicles, God is revealed as one who is very firm and very, very severe. On this point, Eli is not even mentioned in the house of Levi. Eli was a Levite. [00:41:55] He was a priest. [00:41:58] He took upon the office of the high priest in his day, was a judge and high priest. He was judge priest, much as Samuel was cut Out. [00:42:14] Now that, I say, is something tremendously important. [00:42:17] Last week I said to you that one of the most terrible points here was the fact that Israel, the whole kingdom of Israel, is entirely ignored by the quantity, entirely broad. [00:42:32] A devastating fact, I might say, to those of us who would like to be broad in the wrong way, devastating, entirely ignored and excluded. [00:42:49] Because you can have your house on the wrong ground. [00:42:56] You can have it and call it Bethel, which they did, which means the house of God. [00:43:03] You could have the service, you can have the ministry. [00:43:07] You can have the people of God. They're all born again believers, the people of God. [00:43:12] You can have prophetical ministry as men as great as Elijah and Elisha. [00:43:19] But God says, I have chosen one place in the whole of that land to put my name there. Thou shalt not offer anything where thou fruit you. [00:43:34] That is a deep and a revolutionary matter if we allow it to really touch us. It means simply this, if I may be as blunt as this, that there are hundreds and thousands of death in your hundreds of thousands, very few places where you've got the people of God on the court. [00:43:56] Where God has chosen to put his name there, well, God takes them up. Thank God for that. He even sent a prophet to Bethel who stood by the altar and prophesied. Thank God for that. He will sometimes revive his people there. Thank God for that. He will do miracles there. Thank God for that. He will be known as the God of Israel there. And thank God for that. But when it comes to the purpose of God and the register of those that have in any way been directly related to it, they're all out. [00:44:30] You won't find a single name and you won't even find it mentioned. Bethel's not mentioned. [00:44:38] It's forgotten. [00:44:41] Well, there we are. Something which needs to. [00:44:44] Needs us to take the count of. Then you will note that in Levi, a most strange amount of space is given to three men. [00:44:52] Now this is rather interesting. They're called He, Man, Asaph and Ethan. Now, can anyone tell me who these three are? He, Man, ATH and Ethan. They were. You know, you often see them in your little titles of the hymns. Asam, a Psalm of Atom, a Psalm of Ethan, a Psalm of Henan. [00:45:15] Well, these three are found here in chapter six. And a lot of time is given to tracing their descent. And we find that it all goes right back into history. And yet these three men, one of the Kohathites, one of the Gershonites, and one of the Meraites, is in charge of the Ark. Now, what does this mean? [00:45:37] David put these three men in charge of the ark when he brought it up to you. Remember where the ark was? It was where it shouldn't be. [00:45:48] So what did David do? We shall soon be coming to that in another evening. David, the first thing he did once he was established, once he'd taken Jerusalem and got the ground clear, he brought the ark, which is the symbol of God's presence, up into Jerusalem and put it there. God came back to the right ground. [00:46:06] And the thing is that there were three men he appointed to. [00:46:10] It's all their job, nothing else. They had to sing, and they had to sing day by day and night. They took it in turn. I don't mean just the three of them. There were others with them, but they were in charge of the singers. He, Man, Asa, and Ehan, day and night. God would not allow there to be anything that didn't sing at all. There had to be continual, unceasing singing before his presence there. And quite a lot of this chapter, you know, if you will only just sit down and think quietly, you will be a little bit amazed to think that a chapter, a whole chapter given to one tribe and its descent, a large number of verses are taken up with three men. [00:46:51] Now, this is a key to something all the time. Why does the Holy Spirit give so much time to just three men and so little time to many hundreds? [00:47:00] Because it's all to do with this ark being brought up out of the wrong place to the right place. [00:47:08] And all that means we shall see. As we go on. [00:47:12] David appoints these three over the ark. I want you particularly to note verse 48. This is a lovely little word here. Their brethren, the Levites, were appointed for all the service of the tabernacle of the house of God. Do you know what that word appointed is? If you look in the margin, you will see given. [00:47:29] Now here you've got a key to the body of Christ. [00:47:34] All these brethren were given for the service of the house of God. Given. Do you know that God's gifts are always given? I think sometimes we think that gifts are in us. Here we are. And the gifts inside. See, I'm ministering, but I've got a gift inside. [00:47:52] But you know the first thing the Scripture says? I am the gift. [00:47:56] I am a gift. You are a gift. That's why later on in Ephesians it says, and he gave gifts to men. Now, what are these gifts? Well, he gave some apostles, some prophets, some teachers and pastors, some evangelists. These are gifts. These men are gifts. The gift and the men are so identified that they are gifts. Now, furthermore, if you look in 1 Corinthians 12, you'll find the same thing again, only it'll be much more comforting to you all. It says God has set some in the church. It's the same word. Has set some. He's appointed some. He's given some in the church. And what are they? Well, they go from apostles to prophets to pastors. Then they go right down to healings and gifts, tongues and administrations and helps and all the other things, right down to those little tiny things. Well, like showing. Is it mercy with cheerfulness, that little thing? Well, we say now it's a little gift inside of me. But you might be the gift. You might have been given to the Lord's people. Show mercy with cheerfulness. [00:49:01] Well, just think of that. Verse 48 in chapter six. Then in chapter seven, you have all the other tribes compressed. Rather remarkable that all the other tribes should be just given, except Benjamin given. All covered in seven chapters in that one chapter, seventh chapter. But I might say that there's not very much to be said for them. Their names are given. Nothing else. Nothing's recorded, Just the names. Well, thank the Lord the names are there, but there's nothing else. [00:49:30] And then I want you also to note that the next thing we get in chapter eight is Benjamin. Now, here's an interesting thing, something which may help you all. Perhaps some of you feel very rotten. I don't know. Perhaps some of you feel very rotten. You feel you're worthless. You feel, well, I don't know why I'm here. [00:49:49] I'm so different to everyone else. They're all so good in many ways. [00:49:53] I'm just no good at all. [00:49:56] I don't see anything. I feel evil all the time, and I'm so wayward and hopeless. [00:50:02] Well, this is a wonderful thing. Chapter eight has. [00:50:06] Now, Benjamin was always the tribe that got out of step. [00:50:09] I can't go into it, it would be too embarrassing. But in Judges 20, there was an awful incident, so awful that it infuriated all the other tribes of Israel, and they combined together and they nearly wiped out Benjamin. They nearly destroyed it. [00:50:26] They were so infuriated at the sin of Benjamin. [00:50:32] Do you know, Benjamin not only recovered, do you know that her great son Saul was going to be chosen by Israel to be king? And you would have thought that when he fell and David came in the place, they would have been such bitterness in the tribe of Benjamin that they would have most certainly joined the other 10 tribes. But somehow or other, somewhere in Benjamin, there was a heart for God. [00:50:59] And in spite of their history, in spite of their wicked history and their natural and soulish and fleshy history, because it's like that. Benjamin always seems to be associated with evil things. [00:51:11] Somehow or other, Benjamin gets through. [00:51:15] Do you know why he gets through? [00:51:18] Because he cleansed the house of God and at Jerusalem. [00:51:24] Now that's why here in this chapter eight, you get this little word again and again. And they dwelt at Jerusalem, Father's house. They dwelt at Jerusalem. [00:51:33] And they dwelt at Jerusalem. [00:51:35] Benjamin was incorporated in the end because of her loyalty to the Lord. [00:51:43] It's very interesting later on, Paul, Paul the great apostle Paul was to be the product of that. Isn't that wonderful? So many centuries and centuries before Benjamin, dating food was to produce the greatest apostle of all. [00:51:59] So we find all these wonderful things. Then if we go on, we come to chapter nine. And what do we find in chapter nine? Well, chapter nine is a very compressed account which is expanded in Ezra and Nehemiah about those who are directly related to God's purpose in returning. Chapter nine is the chapter all about returning from captivity. We read it, haven't we? Part of it. But the interesting thing is that in this very compressed account, everything is related to the house of God. Doesn't matter what it is, it's all related to the house. But we're not even told. If you wed the sea, you wouldn't think anyone left anywhere else but in Jerusalem or all those that return seem to live in Jerusalem. [00:52:42] They all seem to live on the right ground. [00:52:45] And then everything else is about the house of God with the porters, or whether it's the singers or whether it's the Levites or whatever it is. It's all to do with the house of God. These are the people directly related to the purpose of God in his recovery. [00:53:00] Now, this is very important because these people were the people who take us to Christ. [00:53:05] These people going back to the land, rebuilding the house, rebuilding Jerusalem, repeopling the land, were going to give God the glorious possibility of fulfilling utterly his sovereign will. [00:53:19] There would have been no Bethlehem, there would have been no Nazareth if it hadn't been for these people. [00:53:25] We have to remember that these people went back. A remnant, very small, but they went back. They're mentioned because of that. And then I would like also, when we just cover these contents in chapter 10, just to point out to you that Saul is a tragic woman. Why is Saul given in this chapter 10, the last part of chapter 9 and chapter 10. Why has he given us such length? Because he sums up everything. Here is a man who's very fine. Here is a man who's got a petty grade. [00:53:56] But here is a man who goes right out of the record. [00:54:02] He goes right out. [00:54:05] Why? I don't believe that it was ever in Saul's heart from the beginning to build a house with the Lord ever, ever he went out. [00:54:19] His is a sad story of disintegration into Christ. Well, there we are now, just a few lessons and we'll close. There are all the contents of these 10 chapters. A rather long. [00:54:33] Well now what? [00:54:36] Think about what can we learn from these. [00:54:39] The first thing I'd like you to point out to you all this evening is God has a tremendous purpose. [00:54:49] And everything in that is bent toward realizing that purpose. [00:54:56] Everything. [00:54:58] God is so great and so sovereign that he will be found of all his people, wherever they are. If there's a born again child of God, the Lord will be found. [00:55:08] But that does not mean to say that they are directly involved in the purpose of God or instrumental in it. There are thousands and thousands of born again believers who are not in the purpose of God. [00:55:19] Born yet, but not in the purpose of God. [00:55:24] Called according to purpose, but not walking according to purpose. [00:55:30] Now that's a tremendous thing. [00:55:33] We have got to find in these closing few moments of this evening what we can learn from these, these 10 chapters. [00:55:40] God has a tremendous purpose. I believe that every single ounce of God's energy is bent towards the obtaining of that purpose. [00:55:50] It is twofold. [00:55:54] First, it is to recover the house of God. [00:55:59] And secondly, it is to bring back his Christian. [00:56:05] Just as in this story that we're reading this part of his history. What was his purpose? He must have that temple built and then when it was ruined, he must have it recovered in order to bring in His Christ for the first time the appearing of Christ in due time. [00:56:27] I believe that that is just a small shadow of the end of this age. [00:56:36] God is bent on one thing. To complete the house, to recover the house, to complete it and then to bring back the Christ to have everything, even if only in a small remnant who go back in such a position that he can come. [00:56:53] Well, that's a tremendous thing to say, but it is true. Then I want you to note this, that there is throughout these 10 chapters a principle. It is the principle of selection or election or choice, however you like to call it. It is a principle of selection. [00:57:09] God takes Seth, he drops Cain, he takes then Shem, he drops the other two from Shem he moves on to Abraham. He takes hold of Abraham's sovereign, He takes hold of Isaac. Then he selects Jacob and drops Esau. Then from then he takes Judah. [00:57:32] And so step by step, all the way through, God is taking one man and changing the course of the street all the way through. It's as if each new phase begins with God's new selection. [00:57:45] A tremendous point, but it's true. [00:57:49] So all the way through here we come right down to Jesse. And then from seven sons, God takes one. [00:57:55] And this is the man, the man that Samuel didn't send. [00:58:01] This was the man. [00:58:03] This is God from the beginning. The second thing I want you to notice the persistence and the perseverance of God over millennium in realizing his purpose. Now this is a tremendous comfort. [00:58:14] I think I know what if God could have taken two or three millenniums to get to David and then after David to get through to Zerubbabel and then from Zerubbabel to Christ? I think, well, praise the Lord. He can do the same. In our day, if he takes him millenniums, he'll get it. [00:58:29] If it means all this history behind it of faithful men and women woven into with purples, well, in the end God will get it. God's persistence is untimed. [00:58:41] He will not give up. He will not be thwarted. He will not be hurried, he will not be hastened. He will not be slowed down. He will just go on. [00:58:52] But in the end he'll get it. Now I say this. If the Lord Jesus said I will build my church, then he shall build his church. [00:58:59] If Satan smashed his church, then I say, if the Lord Jesus, that I will build my church here. He's not going to give the opportunity to Satan say at the end, well, I smashed it. [00:59:10] At the end he will have something that exceeds in glory what was at the beginning. [00:59:17] For his vindication. [00:59:20] For his vindication he must have it. [00:59:23] And so I say the most comforting thing to me is the persistence of God. If God is going to do it, well, praise the Lord. Let's get him in line with him. Just let's keep in line with him, cooperate with him and the thing will be done. [00:59:37] It's not by might or by power, but by my spirit, said the Lord of hosts. Then I want you also to note that there are only certain genealogies here. It's not exhaustive. [00:59:48] Many of those that are here are here because they are vitally related to and instrumental in getting the things. [00:59:57] Now that's just where you and I are. Just where do we stand? Are we vitally related to the purpose of God. Are we? Are we instrumental in the purpose of God? Will one day the Lord be able to say you were instrumental in your way in your day and in your locality in bringing back the King? [01:00:19] Well, I don't care what the rest of the world says, what the rest of the Christian world says. I'd rather be just where the Lord wants is and absolutely instrumental in bringing back the King. [01:00:31] Let's search for scripture and find whether these things are really so. [01:00:35] Then again, I want you also to mention a very sober, in fact a rather sad fact that many who are mentioned here as being vitally within the purpose of God later on will write out of it. [01:00:47] Now here is a sobering because you are at one time vitally related to the purpose of God does not mean at the end you will be. [01:00:57] That's so very. [01:01:00] You can go out. [01:01:04] I had no doubt at all not one of these men who went out thought they were going out. [01:01:10] I expect if you knew that the truth, they all said the others were all wrong. [01:01:15] They must have had many good spiritual reasons for getting out. [01:01:20] But when they went, they went out. [01:01:23] They came under a beat house. [01:01:26] I think we need to note that. Now let's put that into New Testament language. What does that mean? What does the house mean? And what does the land mean symbolically? [01:01:41] The house speaks of the church. The land speaks of the fullness of Christ, isn't it? We all know that Kenan is a picture of the fullness of Christ to be possessed by faith. The house is the church at the heart. [01:01:55] The way to the fullness of Christ is by the church, not as you would logically think, vice versa. [01:02:04] You don't get through the fullness of Christ the church. You go to the fullness of Christ through. You don't get to the church through the fullness of Christ. You get to the fullness of Christ through the church, his body, which is the fullness of him that filleth all in all. To be rightly related is to be a joint of supply. To be rightly related is to be in the fullness of Christ. To be rightly related means you are making others full and others are making you full. [01:02:29] That's what it means. [01:02:30] No person can be like a little thing. Thimble. [01:02:33] What does that mean? To be like a little thimble carrying away a little bit of the Lord. [01:02:38] That's not what the Lord wants. He wants us to be so together that we become a vessel, a vehicle, an instrument, a body. [01:02:44] We're related like so many limbs together which each part plays and interplays with each other. [01:02:52] The fullness of the life is expressed. Now look. Just look at it like this. Take my little finger, put it over on the piano there. It's got some little nerves in it and it'll start to jump and play around, say, well, what's the good of it? It's got fullness only for a while. That fullness will go. That fullness will go. Put it over there and that fullness will vanish. Just a little while and it will die. It will go sour, go cold, it will go blue, corrupt. [01:03:21] Put it in the body, keep it in the body. What happens? [01:03:25] It's got a fullness it never had before. It is a fullness because it's related to all the other members. Sometimes it's quiet, sometimes it's hidden, sometimes you don't see it, sometimes it's doing things. But all the time, whatever it's doing is related to every other part. It's got the fullness of life because it's related to all the other parts of the body. [01:03:47] Now that's what it means. [01:03:49] The fullness of Christ is reached by the house. [01:03:53] That is why the house is the key and not the land. [01:03:57] You see, the children of Israel could all divide from Jerusalem and have their portion of the land. [01:04:04] It ended in captivity and they never came back. [01:04:08] That's what happens. Compromise came in error, came in poverty came in emptiness came in famine came in. [01:04:15] It's not enough. [01:04:17] It's your attitude to the house which will determine your experience of the fullness. If some of you are feeling empty, impoverished, don't blame it on others, blame it on yourself. You are not rightly related. [01:04:32] There may be just one person you've got to apologize to. It may be there's just one person you've got to put something right with it. Maybe there's just one person you've just got to move in harmony with. And you'll find the life will flow the moment you do it. As long as you don't, you're held up. [01:04:47] There's no good talking. There's no good quarreling. There's no good agitating. There's no good blaming everyone else. There's no good making excuses. No one has any excuse for not knowing and experiencing the fullness of Christ. The Scripture says, be filled with the Spirit. God never has given a command that he cannot provide for. [01:05:05] He doesn't mock us so we ought all to be in the experience of the fullness of Christ. The way to experience the Fullness of Christ is by the house. Now, there's one other point here in these genealogies. [01:05:18] The only way you can come to the house is getting to Jerusalem. [01:05:25] Now, if I was an Israelite in these days, God would say to me, if he were to speak to me very simply and in a childlike way, he would say to me, now look here, I'll the only way that you can enter into the good of your birthright, the only way in which you can possess your inheritance in the land, the only way you can live and enjoy the good land which the Lord gives you is by your attitude to the house. [01:05:57] But the house is not found where you would like to find it. It's not found in Bethel, is not found in Dan, is not found in Bethlehem, it's not found anywhere else. It's not found in Jericho, it's not found in any of those places. It's found in a place which God has chosen. He's clearly defined the ground. It's called Jerusalem. [01:06:15] There in the Old Covenant you will find the house of God, and nowhere else you can offer your offerings, but they won't be accepted. You can pour your money in to the treasury down in Jericho, but he will not be exempt. [01:06:28] Jerusalem is the ground. [01:06:31] What does that mean in the New Testament? It means simply this. If you and I are to know the fullness of Christ, it's going to be determined by our attitude to the house of God. We shall find the house of God on clearly defined ground. [01:06:47] That clearly defined ground, it may seem very unspiritual to many of you, is geographical. [01:06:56] In other words, the candlestick is found here in Ephesus, there in Smyrna, there in Pergamos, there in Tharatara, there in Philadelphia, there in Laodicea. That's where you will find. You won't find it in going up to big conventions and conferences and all the rest of it. [01:07:16] The only way you will find the fullness of Christ is by being built, built into the house of God in that. And on that ground, God has clearly defined it. I want you to go away and search the New Testament. And if anyone can find the church, any church, in the New Testament, on any other ground, I will publicly stand up and apologize. You won't find it. [01:07:40] God has clearly defined the ground in the New Testament. You don't find it anywhere. It's not the most spiritual place. Often it's the place where you find saints of God gathered freely. [01:07:52] One ground in the Old Covenant I had defined the house of God in Jerusalem, what do I do when I come to Richmond? I say, here I am in Richmond, right? I'm not going to look for any denominational ground. I'm not going to look for any interdenominational ground. I'm going to look for the saints of God gathered on the ground of rich and Christ. [01:08:12] When I found the house of God, I found the right and left Jerusalem. [01:08:18] The new Jerusalem at the end of the Book of Revelation is vitally connected with the churches in their localities at the beginning of the Book of Revelation. If I'm found in the sphere of those churches expressed locally, in the end, if I walk faithfully, I shall be found in the heavenly and eternal New Jerusalem. [01:08:38] Jerusalem today is related to the church found in your locality. [01:08:44] Not under any particular name, not under a title, not under a teaching, but simply and very inclusively and comprehensively. Christ on the ground of that locality. [01:09:00] So you want your birthright. What are these genealogies? Well, birthright here, there's an inheritance here. Do you know that? Every child of God born has a birthright. What is that birthright? To have part in God's land, to be part of God's house. That's their birthright. What is their inheritance? Their inheritance is the fullness of Christ, but it will be found through the house of God. [01:09:29] Well, that's why it's so important to be built in. That's why those little squabbles you might have with your brother and sister are so important. [01:09:40] You can go to a dozen Kazakh conventions, go to the other end of the world and have another few conventions, and I'm not running them down and thank God for them. But if you've got a squabble on with a brother or a sister, you can go to all the conventions you want in the world of the Holy Spirit, stop and go on. It's an end finish. [01:10:00] We don't grow another inch. But go on. Take your notebooks, your pencils and everything else. Go all around the world. Go on your global tours. [01:10:09] Well, get in there till you've got through with Mrs. A or Mr. B in Richmond. [01:10:18] When you've done that, it all ends. [01:10:21] You don't need to go to all the conventions over the world. The Lord's meeting you and instructing you and teaching you. So there's a history. These genealogists teach us. There's a history. [01:10:32] There's a history of experience and contribution. [01:10:35] I say that as an aside. Some of you have ears to hear. You know the present situation in Europe and in the world. [01:10:44] There's A vast history goes behind now of God. [01:10:47] Don't judge any one person or any one company on what they've got. [01:10:56] A vast, long, worn out history goes behind the building of the house of God. [01:11:03] And God does not judge every generation on whether they've got the perfect thing, but whether they have walked according to the light that has been given that determines whether they're in it or not. I don't think that Noah understood what Abraham understood. I don't think really Abraham fully understood what Moses saw when he was given the pattern of the heavenly thing in the Mount. I don't think probably Moses understood what David understood by the temple when he was given a pattern which he passed on to someone. And so we. You see what I mean? Don't judge. Don't judge. That's part. Thank God for it. But you and I, we've got to go on into all that is for us here in the future and into the realization of God's purpose. These genealogies, then, they teach us Christ's coming is related to a people on this earth. [01:12:01] A people on this earth. [01:12:04] They're there. There's a register. I sometimes think that Campbell Morgan was right when he said that he thought the Book of Life, the Lamb's Book of life, was not a register of conducts. [01:12:16] It was a register of people who were in this stream of the purpose of God. I sometimes wonder whether that may be so. But there's a register. I'm sure there's a big register somewhere. [01:12:28] But there's certainly also another one of those that fear the Lord and spake oft one to another. [01:12:33] These have been noted. They're like these genealogies written in heaven. God has taken note. Your experiences, your routine life is all pooling in a history and a contribution which, if on the right ground, will one day end in a completed glorious house, a temple into which Christ can come and pray and bring back the King in glory.