Latest / Scripture Central / Our Eyes are on You | 1 & 2 Chronicles | Come Follow Me 2026 | John Hilton III | July 20-26

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Our Eyes are on You | 1 & 2 Chronicles | Come Follow Me 2026 | John Hilton III | July 20-26 · Scripture Central

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Today we're in a world where there's 400 or more false
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prophets all around us, whispering the different words,
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the things that we want to hear. Just because you graduated from
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seminary, went on a mission, got sealed in the temple, doesn't
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mean you can coast. We can resist true prophets try
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to disguise our disobedience, or we can listen to the prophets
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and follow their teachings. The crowd might never applaud
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our choice to follow God, but it doesn't really matter what they
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think. The only approval that counts is
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the Lord's. A few years ago in France, an
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elderly woman was moving into a retirement home, and so she
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called an auctioneer to see if she had anything of value that
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she could sell as part of her moving process.
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Well, hanging above her stove was a small painting that she'd
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always thought of as just an old decoration.
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But experts discovered that this little panel was actually a
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medieval masterpiece. It was purchased by the Louvre
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for more than $26 million. What looked like something
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ordinary turned out to be a forgotten treasure.
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And I wonder if we could see that in Chronicles, because most
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of us flip past Chronicles thinking, oh, it's just a repeat
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of Samuel and kings. In fact, the Greek word for
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chronicles means things omitted or things left out.
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So a bully on the Bible playground might call the
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Chronicles the leftovers, but what can seem like a forgotten
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book is one of the Bible's greatest masterpieces.
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Just like First and Second Samuel and 1st and 2nd Kings
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were both one book, First and Second Chronicles was originally
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one book as well. Each of these books were
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separated just for more convenience with the scroll
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length. Now we don't know who wrote
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Chronicles, he or they. We sometimes refer to them as
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the Chronicler, but Chronicles tells the very long story from
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Adam all the way down to Cyrus and that the Jews being set free
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from Babylonian captivity. And when you look at it as a
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cohesive work, it's really beautiful.
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Let's step back and look at the big picture.
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So the first nine chapters of First Chronicles are a series of
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long genealogies showing how God's people are connected all
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the way back to Adam. And honestly, this is where a
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lot of us just decide, you know what, I'm going to skip
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Chronicles. But if we keep reading, we find
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that the next 20 chapters are the story of David.
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Now the Chronicler has a very different perspective than the
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author of Kings. The Chronicler wants to only
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highlight the best parts of David's life.
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So a lot of the tough things in David's life are emitted when we
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get to Second Chronicles. The 1st 10 or so chapters are
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about David's son Solomon building the temple and praying
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for wisdom. And then the final 25 chapters
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or so are about the history of the kings of Judah, from
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Solomon's son Rehoboam all the way to the fall of Jerusalem and
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the people's return from the exile.
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Now, unlike Kings, which bounces back and forth between the
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Northern Kingdom of the 10 Tribes and the Southern Kingdom
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of Judah, Chronicles just focuses on the people of Judah.
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If you remember the overview that we've been using throughout
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this course, the bulk of Chronicles takes place roughly
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from the time period of around 1000 BC through 540 BC.
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But for our purposes today, we'll focus on five stories from
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the book of Chronicles that take place from roughly 900 to 700
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BC. And four of these five stories
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aren't in the King's narrative, they're only found in
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Chronicles. We'll see the stories of Asa's
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weakness, Jehoshaphat's power prayer, Mikaya and the false
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prophets, Hezekiah's great Passover, and Hezekiah's tunnel.
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These are lesser known stories that can change your life.
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So let's start with Asa's weakness.
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ASA is the great grandson of Solomon.
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He's living about the year 900 BC and while he was king, an
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army of 1,000,000 Ethiopians attacked the Kingdom of Judah.
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Judah is completely outnumbered. There's no hope.
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ASA turns to God in prayer, says help us O Lord our God, for we
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rely on you. The Lord heard Asus plea and ASA
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and his people are miraculously victorious.
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For the next 20 years, the people of Judah are living in
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peace, but this period comes to an end because of Asus changing
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attitude towards the Lord. Later, when an opposing army
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threatens to invade, Asus sends a letter to the King of Syria
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along with a bunch of treasure that he's taken from the temple.
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And he says, please, King of Syria, come help us.
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He used to rely on the Lord. Now he's relying on the king of
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Syria. A prophet came to ASA and said,
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we're not The Ethiopians, a huge army with very many Chariots and
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horsemen. Yet because you relied on the
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Lord, he gave them into your hand.
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Now, by turning to the Syrians, you have done foolishly.
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From now on, you will have wars. Do you see why Asa's being
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criticized? He's shifting where he places
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his trust. Later, ASA faced a personal
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crisis. ASA was diseased in his feet,
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and his disease became severe. Now, if you have severe health
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challenges, there are two things you should do, right?
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You're going to get medical help.
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You're also going to seek a blessing.
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But in his disease, ASA did not seek the Lord.
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But it's not help from the physicians.
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It's not like it was bad to seek help from the physicians.
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It was that he didn't turn to the Lord.
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So I want us to visualize in our own lives where we put our
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trust, and I want to use this diagram here that I called the
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trust matrix. As you can see, on the Y axis at
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the bottom we have do nothing, and at the top is cheerfully do
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all things that lie in our power.
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On the far left side of the X axis is trust in self, and on
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the far right is trust in God. So there's four different
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quadrants. Now let's explore each of these
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quadrants briefly. Is it possible?
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If you trust in God and do nothing, is it possible to have
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success? It's possible, right?
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Sometimes God is merciful. Can you trust in yourself, do
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nothing and have success? Not very likely, but it's
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possible, right? Maybe you just get super lucky.
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How about the upper left hand corner?
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Do people find success as they trust in themselves and work
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hard? This is a common area of
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success. It is, however, a very stressful
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place to live. I think you'll agree with me
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that the sweet spot is the upper right hand corner.
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This is where we're working as if everything depended on us,
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praying as if everything depended on God.
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It's the sweet spot. Now ASA, earlier in his life he
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was in this upper right hand corner, but later he began to
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rely on himself and others. It's like we've already seen
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throughout our time together in the Old Testament.
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It's a strong start, but a weak finish.
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Just because you graduated from seminary, went on a mission, got
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sealed in the temple, doesn't mean you can coast.
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ASA tells us that our trust in the Lord can shift over time,
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both in positive and negative directions.
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So consider your own life. Where do you see yourself on the
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trust matrix? And maybe think about different
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areas in your life. Maybe in your work life you're
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in a different place than you are in your relationship life.
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We can be in different spots on the matrix depending on what
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part of our lives we're thinking about.
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Now, we're going to continue our discussion of the trust matrix.
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But first, let's look at an experience from the life of
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Asa's son, Jehoshaphat. And yes, Jehoshaphat is a real
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name. So he's king for about 25 years,
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from roughly 875 to 850 BC. And while Jehoshaphat is king,
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three separate nations unite together to attack Jerusalem.
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By the time Jehoshaphat has heard about it, these three
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nations have united in ingetty which is just about 25 miles
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from Jerusalem. There's no hope for the people
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of Judah. So Jehoshaphat starts a fast and
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sincerely proclaims to God, we have no might against this great
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company that cometh against us. Neither know we what to do, but
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our eyes are upon you. I hope as you're reading the Old
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Testament in your own studies that you are looking for and
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marking 1 liners. This is such a powerful phrase
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when your back is to the wall, when you don't know what to do,
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to turn to God and say our eyes are on you.
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And after Jehoshaphat prayed, there was a divine response.
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Be not afraid. That's another great one liner.
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For the battle is not yours, but God's.
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Tomorrow you shall not need to fight in this battle.
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Stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you.
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So on the day of the battle, the three nations started fighting
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amongst themselves, and they wound up killing each other off.
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And the people of Judah actually got all of the spoils from the
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war. Jehoshaphat learned what it
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means to stand still, and that reminds me of a passage in the
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Doctrine Covenants in section 123.
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We read, Let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our
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power, and then may we stand still with the utmost assurance
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to see the salvation of God and for his arm to be revealed.
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And I think this story in this passage give us a clue as to how
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to get to where we need to be on the trust matrix.
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If you're a part of this class today, you're probably not part
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of the group that's down here doing nothing.
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But maybe some of us are in the do nothing area, the lower half
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of the trust matrix. Maybe I need to spend less time
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scrolling and more time studying.
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But for many of us, the problem is not that we're down here, but
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we're up here. We're off the charts and notice
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that in this visualization, there's a finite point on the Y
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axis. There's a certain maximum of all
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things that you can do, and some of us are trying to do more than
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that because we're worrying and stressing about things that are
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out of our control. This is where I often am in my
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life and what I'm learning is there's so much more peace that
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can come where if instead of trying to get from 99% to 100%
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of all I can do, I spend less time on that and more time in
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prayer. We can especially trust in God
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when we are filled with fear. I love what the psalmist said.
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When I am afraid, I put my trust in You.
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Sometimes we do need to work harder, but sometimes we
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actually need to stand still and let God do His work.
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We build that trust in Him by spending more time on our knees.
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So again, think about where you are on the trust matrix in
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various areas of your life. Maybe you're already in the
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upper right hand corner. You're doing great, awesome,
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just stay there. But if you're not, what would it
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take in your life for you to move into that upper right hand
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corner? I think that sometimes I feel
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like God is giving me the responsibility to do certain
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things by myself, and I don't think there's anything wrong
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with just letting Him know what's going on and asking, but
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then continuing to try to do everything that I can do.
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So it seems like maybe in some areas of your life, it's it's
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more like you feel like I've got to do everything in my power and
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then maybe I can trust a little more.
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Yeah. Thank you.
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Back when my youngest son was playing football, he must have
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been in 6th grade, he wore his jersey to the Friday Night
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Football game that he had to play in in the next day and he
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took it off, lost it that Friday and he had no jersey to wear for
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the game on Saturday morning. And so lots of phone calls
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trying to figure out how does he still get to play.
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Long story short, he needed to just have the same number on his
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jersey. And so having other children
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that play football, I said about trying to sew the right number
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on an old jersey and cut and paste and everything.
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Meanwhile, my son prayed for help to find his jersey or a
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jersey or something. And my other son was like, hey,
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you know what? I think I have a practice jersey
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with that number in my closet. And so it was interesting to see
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how they were more in the right hand, upper right hand quadrant
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when I was like, oh, we got to fix this ourself.
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It's nice to see that when you put your trust in God, He can
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make the miracle happen in whatever circumstance there is.
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Thank you. So I hope that this will be a
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helpful framework to think about in our lives of how can we
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deepen our trust, How can we get to that point where I'm willing
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to surrender control to him. Now, our next story is about
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Micaiah and the false prophets. Micaiah lived during the same
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time period as Jehoshaphat. In fact, this story takes place
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just before the one we were discussing.
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So Jehoshaphat is the king of Judah, and the king of Israel,
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whose name is Ahab, wants Jehoshaphat to come help him in
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a war with Syria. So they're talking about it.
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And Jehoshaphat, he wants to have a little bit of divine
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approval for this battle. So he says to Ahab, inquire
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first for the word of the Lord. So Ahab gathers together 400
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prophets, and the 400 prophets all say, go up, for God will
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give the land into the hand of the king.
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But Joseph had senses something's a little off.
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And he says, is there not here another prophet of the Lord of
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whom we may inquire? It's kind of funny because
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there's already 400. But he's like, is there anyone
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else? Ahab admitted.
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There is yet one man by whom we may inquire.
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The Lord Micaiah, the son of Imla.
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But I hate him, for he never prophesized good concerning me,
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but always evil. That's the Old Testament version
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of a one star review on Google. Ahab knew who Micaiah was, but
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he despised him for speaking the truth.
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So instead of listening to God's word, Ahab would surround
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himself with prophets who would just tell him what he wanted to
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hear. But Jehoshaphat insists.
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So they send from Micaiah and as Micaiah's being brought into the
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room, the messenger says, look, 400 of the prophets have already
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told the king to go to battle, so you better agree with them.
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Micaiah says as the Lord lives, what my God says without will I
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speak? So Ahab explains the situation
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says Micaiah, what should we do? Micaiah says go up and triumph.
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They will be given into your hand.
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Now the scriptures don't include a tone of voice, but I think
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that he was speaking sarcastically.
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Ahab himself could tell that something was off.
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He's like, come on, really? What's your real prophecy?
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And Micaiah says, OK, the real prophecy is Israel will be
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scattered on the mountains as the sheep that have no shepherd.
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Ahab turned to Jehoshaphat and said, did I not tell you he
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would not prophecy good concerning me, but evil?
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And Micaiah went on to describe how a bunch of lying spirits had
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gone into those 400 false prophets.
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So Zedekiah, who is one of the false prophets, he slapped
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Micaiah on the face and said, which way did the spirit of the
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Lord go for me to speak to you? Ahab orders Micaiah to be thrown
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into prison. Now think about Micaiah.
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All he's done is the right thing.
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He's been slapped on the face, thrown into prison.
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I think I would be discouraged, but Micaiah is still bold.
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Ahab says all, I'll see you when I get back from battle.
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Micaiah says. If you return in peace, the Lord
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has not spoken by me. So Ahab goes to battle.
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He disguises himself, hoping that the enemy won't be able to
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find him. But just like Adam and Eve's fig
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leaves weren't a good covering, Ahab's disguise didn't work.
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Ahab was killed in battle. His body was brought back to
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Samaria, and dogs licked up his blood.
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The end. Now that's the end of the story,
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as far as we know it. And at least as far as Ahab
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goes, we know what happened. But what happened to Micaiah?
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Was he ever let out of prison? Did Ahab's grandchildren ever
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come and say, hey, so sorry, like grandpa should have
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listened to you? Did Zedekiah apologize?
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We don't know. And that silence is really
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powerful. It reminds us that sometimes in
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our lives, we might be courageous, we might speak God's
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word with terrible results. There's no apology, so far as we
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know. No happy ending for Micaiah.
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Now think about how hard his life was.
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It had to be difficult to get a one star review from the king
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when all you're doing is speaking God's word.
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How did Micaiah do it? I think that somewhere deep in
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his heart, he wasn't concerned about the King's review.
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He was concerned about the King's review.
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Today we're in a world where there's 400 or more false
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prophets all around us, whispering the different words,
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the things that we want to hear, and our choice is the same as
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Ahab's. We can resist true prophets, try
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to disguise our disobedience, or we can listen to the prophets
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and follow their teachings. The crowd might never applaud
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our choice to follow God, but it doesn't really matter what they
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think. The only approval that counts is
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the Lord's. Now, I know that we know that in
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our heads, but how do we get it into our hearts?
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And I have two questions that I want you to think about.
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First, how can we remind ourselves that God's approval
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matters more than human recognition, Especially if we're
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in a situation like Micaiah's where earthly validation doesn't
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come? Question #2 What does it look
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like in your life to respond like Micaiah when facing peer
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pressure? So Max Lucado has written this
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book. You Were Special.
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Essentially, the idea is you have all these puppets that live
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in this town, and whenever they do something right, the people
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around them put a little star sticker on them.
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Whenever they do something wrong, they put a little black
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dot sticker on them. And so everyone has a variety of
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these stars and dots. And but there's one character
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who's all covered with dots, and then he sees this other puppet
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who doesn't have anything on her.
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And when she does something right, someone goes to put a
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star on her and it just falls right off.
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And when she does something wrong, someone goes to put a dot
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on her and it falls right off, too.
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And he wants to know, how'd you do that?
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And so she says, well, I'll take you to the person who taught me.
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And it's the person who made all these puppets.
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And it's obviously a metaphor for our relationship with God.
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It's just an important reminder of what other people think of
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you isn't nearly as important as what God thinks about you.
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Yeah, I love that Max Lucado book and trying to think about
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how do I get to the point in my life where the stickers just
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fall off, where it doesn't matter what other people think
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because it's so deep in my heart I understand what God really
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thinks of me. Thank you.
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Now, the next story is one of my favorites, and it's a completely
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lesser known story. We're going to go forward in
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time about 150 years to the story of Hezekiah's great
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Passover. So Hezekiah is a descendant of
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Jehoshaphat, and roughly 700 years before the birth of
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Christ, Hezekiah is the king of Judah, and he wanted to
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celebrate the Passover with all the tribes of Israel.
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Now, remember, at this point you've got the 10 tribes in the
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north and only two tribes in the South.
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But Hezekiah invites everyone. He writes a letter saying come
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for a special Passover. Some people refuse, but others
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accept. We read some men of Asher, of
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Manasseh and of Zebulon humbled themselves and came to
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Jerusalem. Now, just a quick side note.
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I don't know if you've ever been reading the Book of Mormon and
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you've learned that Lehigh's from the tribe of Manasseh and
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you're like, wait a second, that's kind of weird because
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he's living in Jerusalem. Shouldn't he be from the tribe
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of Judah? Well, there's a few times in the
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Old Testament, this is one of them, where people from the
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other tribes tend to migrate towards Jerusalem.
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So it's possible that Lehigh's great grandpa or somebody was
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here at Hezekiah's Passover. It was a really special
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occasion, but we read many of Ephraim and Manasseh and Isochar
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and Zebulon had not cleansed themselves.
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They did eat the Passover. Otherwise, then it was written.
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In other words, some people made procedural errors during the
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Passover. This is the Old Testament.
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What do you think is going to happen to people who mess up the
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Passover? Thinking, but Hezekiah has a
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different heart. He prayed for the people saying
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the good Lord pardon everyone that prepareth his heart to seek
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God, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of
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the sanctuary. Some people made mistakes, but
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Hezekiah realized they're trying to do the best they can.
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Let's overlook this and God hears Hezekiah's prayer.
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I love the phrase the good Lord pardon everyone that prepareth
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his heart to seek God. Adopting this attitude really
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can bring us peace. I want to tell you a story of a
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person I'll call Karen. She joined the church in her
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early 20s and she'd only been a member for a few months.
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She's now married, living in a ward, and she's called to be the
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primary teacher. So she wants to be the greatest
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primary teacher ever. She invites all of the children
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over to play games. Now, when Karen was growing up,
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the game that she played with her family was poker, and she
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was astonished that none of her kids knew how to play.
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So she taught them. It was a great time.
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Can you imagine what the mothers of those primary children
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thought when they came home from the activity?
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What'd you do? A primary?
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We played poker. Now, this is the classic
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situation where there could have been judgement or criticism, but
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I love that the people of Karen's ward have the spirit of
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the good Lord. Pardon everyone.
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They saw her heart. That didn't mean that they
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started giving out poker chips at the primary program, but
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there was room for love and there's always room for love.
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Now, I got to be honest, sometimes I'm a little nervous
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to teach the phrase the good Lord pardon everyone.
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Once I taught my teenage children the story and a few
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days later we were talking at the dinner table and some of my
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children's friends were doing some pretty naughty things.
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And one of my kids said, well, the good Lord pardoned everyone.
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And I was like, well, we got to remember that the phrase the
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good Lord pardon everyone doesn't mean anything goes.
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Hezekiah said the good Lord pardon everyone that prepareth
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his heart to seek God. Now you and I, we can't look on
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the heart, God looks on the heart.
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So our role is to have that attitude, the good Lord pardon
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everyone towards others and to prepare our own hearts to
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cultivate a heart that seeks God.
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Now think about your own life. Do you have a story where you've
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seen the good Lord, pardon everyone principle being used,
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or maybe should have been used? I was trying to do a good thing,
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trying to help out someone, and I thought what I was doing would
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solve the problem. But it didn't solve the problem.
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It made things worse. It hurt this person's feelings
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really bad. I was feeling horrible but I
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knew I just needed to say because I just can't live like
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that. She needed to know that it was
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me. And when she found out it was
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me, she just, she said it's OK, I know your heart was right and
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it's OK, don't worry about it. And the fact that she could just
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be so quick was so huge to me that she could pardon me.
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Thank you. This principle is very much
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instilled in us as temple workers to try to help every
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patron have a positive experience and not to feel so
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nervous that I'm not doing everything exactly as it needs
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to be done. And so if there's someone out
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there that's had an experience at the temple where they feel
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like I didn't do everything exactly right, I can't go back,
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go back. There is nothing.
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There's little that invalidates temple ordinances.
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So go back. You don't have to be perfect.
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You don't have to do everything exactly right.
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Just go back and enjoy the Spirit of the Lord.
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Thank you. I want to just piggyback off
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that. I have an experience that one of
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my neighbors shared. I'll call her Anne.
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That's not her real name, but she was recently coming back
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into activity and she received her endowment and she enjoyed
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it, had a wonderful experience at the temple.
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She brought a friend who was coming back to activity to the
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temple. And while she was in the temple,
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bless this person's heart, there was a temple worker there who
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I'm sure had good intentions, but came up to her and
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criticized something that she had been doing in the temple.
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Normally, my friend Ann would have snapped back and been like,
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you know, what are you talking about?
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Why are you criticizing me? But she was so filled with the
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love of Jesus. She just listened and was kind.
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And as she walked out of the temple with her friend, her
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friend said to her, and what's happened to you?
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Like you, you should have snapped back.
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Like, you're a different person. And I was like, yeah, it's
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Jesus. It's Jesus.
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In my heart. I am a different person.
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The temple worker could have had the attitude of the good Lord,
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pardon everyone. But I love that even when Anne
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had been mistreated, she still had it in her heart.
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The good Lord, pardon everyone. Thank you for sharing that.
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Let's turn now to Hezekiah's tunnel.
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This is a modern miracle, but it starts out with an ancient
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problem. During the reign of Hezekiah,
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the same one that had the Passover, Judah faced one of its
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greatest threats. The Assyrian army had already
25:05
scattered the 10 tribes and was marching to attack Judah, the
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Chronicler records. When Hezekiah saw that
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Sennacherib, king of Assyria, had come and intended to fight
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against Jerusalem, he planned with his officers and his mighty
25:18
men to stop the water of the springs that were outside the
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city. So obviously the city's survival
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depends on water, and if the Assyrians were able to access
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the water, that would help them and hurt Judah.
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So Hezekiah makes one of the boldest engineering decisions in
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the ancient world. He decides to build a tunnel
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from the spring so that all of the water will stay inside of
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the city walls and fall into the pool of Siloam, which was again
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enclosed inside the city walls. The chronicler says this same
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Hezekiah closed the upper outlet of the waters of Gehone and
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directed them down to the West side of the city of David.
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And you can still go and visit it today.
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Archaeologically, all of these details are confirmed.
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You can walk down a series of steps, you can go through a 1/3
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of a mile tunnel, sometimes your ankle deep, sometimes your waist
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deep, and water is still there today.
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It's a miracle of engineering, especially when you consider the
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worker started from two different sides and met in the
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middle. You can see today the actual
26:19
inscription, well a replica of the inscription that's more than
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2700 years old of where the people met.
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I can't even hang a picture in my house, let alone engineer
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things so that we meet in the middle of a 1/3 of a mile long
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tunnel. They also made it so the drop in
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elevation was only 12 inches. Now you might be thinking to
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yourself, brotherhood, this sounds amazing.
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I'm not going to go to Jerusalem this year, but I really wish I
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could take a tour of Hezekiah's tunnel.
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Wish granted. There are some great tours on
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YouTube and I've linked to them in the course website along with
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some other information about Hezekiah's tunnel.
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As cool as the engineering behind the tunnel is, I love the
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scriptural reason that's given for creating the tunnel.
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We read a great many people were gathered and they stopped all
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the springs and the brook that flowed through the land, saying
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why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water?
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Hezekiah saying we can't control if the Assyrians come towards us
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or not, but we can control whether they have access to the
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life giving water to what sustains life in our own day.
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We can think of the Assyrians as representing enemies we face,
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maybe the enemies of our own laziness, or the enemies of
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addiction or temptation, discouragement.
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The water could represent our time and our hearts.
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So just like Hezekiah asks, why should the Assyrians come here
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and find water? We could ask why should
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temptation steal my time at night time God could be using to
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refresh me in prayer? Why should resentment about past
27:51
mistakes take up my thoughts when Christ is telling me to
27:55
look to Him? So think about your own life.
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When you think about your time, attention or energy.
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Where are the Assyrians drinking from your well?
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And how could you redirect that water back inside the city
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walls? It worked for Hezekiah, in part
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because of the tunnel and in part because of other miracles
28:16
the Lord did. The Assyrians were not able to
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defeat Jerusalem. How do we get it so where the
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Assyrians we face don't have access to our lives, to our time
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Now today we've seen five stories and each of them is a
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shadow pointing to Christ. ASA trusted then turned away,
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but Jesus trusted to the end. Jehoshaphat said our eyes are on
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you. Jesus is the God Jehoshaphat's
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eyes were on. Micaiah was struck for speaking
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truth. Christ was struck for being the
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truth. Hezekiah said the good Lord
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pardon everyone. Jesus is the good Lord who
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pardons those who seek him. Hezekiah hid water from his his
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enemy. Jesus gives us the water that no
29:00
enemy can steal. All of Chronicles whispers his
29:04
name, and in the final words of Chronicles we see another echo
29:08
of the Savior. Both kings and Chronicles
29:10
describe the destruction of Jerusalem, but their endings,
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the last words, are different. The final lines of Second Kings
29:18
25 talk about the king of Judah, King Jehoiah King.
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He's in exile in Babylon, so Jerusalem is destroyed.
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The king is in exile, and the final words say, the king of
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Babylon graciously freed Jehoiah king, king of Judah, from
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prison. And he spoke kindly to him and
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gave him a seat above the seats of the kings who are with him in
29:38
Babylon. And every day of his life, he
29:40
dined regularly at the King's table, and a regular allowance
29:44
was given him by the king according to his daily needs as
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long as he lived. It's kind of a cliffhanger.
29:50
The credits are rolling. And we don't know, like, what
29:52
what's going to happen? Is there a restoration?
29:55
We don't know. But the final lines of
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Chronicles are different. After recounting the fall of
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Jerusalem, the Chronicles closes with a word from King Cyrus of
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Persia. We read.
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Thus, says King Cyrus of Persia, the Lord, the God of heaven, has
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given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He has charged me to
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build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
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Let any of those among you who are of his people, may the Lord
30:20
their God be with them, Go up. Do you see the difference?
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King's ends in exile. Chronicles ends with the
30:28
invitation to return. King's ends with us sitting at
30:31
the table of a foreign king, wondering what's going to happen
30:34
next. Will God's promises really be
30:37
fulfilled? Chronicles ends with the call to
30:41
rebuild. It's a new chapter.
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It's a divine to be continued. God hasn't finished his story.
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He's going to begin again, and he can begin again in our lives
30:55
as well. That's why I love the final 2
30:57
words of Chronicles go up. Remember, in the original Hebrew
31:02
Bible, the Bible as it is in Hebrew Chronicles is the last
31:06
book. So we have a different order in
31:08
the Christian Bible. But if we were just reading the
31:10
Hebrew Bible, the final words we would read don't end in despair,
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but in hope. Go up.
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Now there's something, though it's a little detail, it's kind
31:19
of strange about the ending of Chronicles.
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The ending is smoothed out frequently in English
31:24
translations, but if we look at the original Hebrew text, it
31:27
starts with the word. And so the final sentence would
31:30
be something like, may the Lord their God be with them and go
31:34
up. And it's sort of like an
31:36
incomplete sentence. It should be.
31:37
And go up to what? Go up to Jerusalem, go up to
31:39
rebuild the temple. And scholars suggest that it
31:42
actually ends with this disruptive way on purpose.
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It's like the chronicler is saying to the reader, now it's
31:48
your turn and you go up. Now it's time for your
31:53
restoration. Because in a sense, each of us
31:57
could be seen as being in exile or captivity.
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Maybe it's a captivity of sadness or discouragement.
32:04
Maybe we're feeling captive to some hard things that have
32:07
happened to us or to people we love, or things that we wish
32:10
we're different. But we don't have to turn to
32:12
Cyrus for deliverance because a true or better Cyrus has already
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made the way home for us a reality.
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Jesus Christ has said, come unto me and I will give you rest.
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Christ can rebuild what's been broken.
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He's just calling you and me to leave Babylon and come home.
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It's time for us to go up.