Latest / North Bible Recap / Episode 45: Revelation and 2 Chronicles

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Episode 45: Revelation and 2 Chronicles · North Bible Recap

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone, welcome to the North Bible Recap.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Christian Velés and I'm here with Pastor Samson.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Samson, how are you doing today?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing so good, Christian.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to see you.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: So good to have you here.
• 0:22
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• 0:25
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• 0:28
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• 0:30
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• 0:31
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• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is gonna help people find it quicker, and it's gonna help the this message to continue to go out.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: So if you can do that before we go on, that would be amazing.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Pastor Samson, we are covering some scriptures that could be difficult to interpret today.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, 100%.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's a reason why I'm on this side of the podcast, and you're in the other side.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_03: We're in the middle of the book of Revelation.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_03: Christian, I got a bone to pick with you.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_03: I think I had Leviticus.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_03: Now I got the middle of Revelation.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_03: I'm getting all these hard ones over here.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, I've been there many times.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Many times.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, Book of Revelation, I think this is a book that many people have different interpretations in and it can be difficult.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: I remember when Natalie and I started dating.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: She came from a church.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: They talk about the book of Revelation.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, in Spanish, the book of Revelation is translated to Apocalypsis.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it's translated to.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember her, she's like, okay, can we talk about this book?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was by I was just graduated from Bible school and she she just thought I knew all of the things.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, we never talk about that book in Bible school.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: And she was like, so but she grew up in a church that they put a lot of emphasis into the end times and all of these things.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_03: But Revelation can be difficult to understand.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_03: And there's a little key tip there.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_03: Young men who are listening, if you really want to impress a girl, about the book of Revelation.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_03: Don't do what I did.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Can we talk about something else?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, so elephant in the room.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, uh, the book of Revelation is a complicated book, and there's a lot there.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, I had a friend text me uh this morning, and he texted me what his scripture reading was, and he wrote down for his part.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_03: He said, Revelation is always confusing to me, uh, and also about the end times, right?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_03: And so it is a confusing, confusing book.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_03: And here's my theory on this.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_03: If you read the book of Revelation, you feel like everything is clear to you, you might be reading it wrong.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so I actually think part of this is meant to be uh a little bit confusing, but I think it's important for us to like look at what are the ways that historically Christians have interpreted the book of Revelation.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not saying any one of these is right or wrong necessarily.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you may find us leaning in one way or the other, but there's four ways that uh people interpret typically uh the book of Revelation.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_03: The first one is idealism.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, idealism uh says that uh the revelation, the book of Revelation uh is not predicting specific events, instead is showing on the ongoing battle between good and evil, the church and the world, between the promise of Christ uh that will ultimately win out, right?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's kind of this idealistic future view of the church, and it's just saying this is all just kind of meant to be symbols, okay?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: Uh the second one is called preterism.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um, preterism is is also a very popular view.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_03: It just believes that all the events that are happening in the book are predicted already happened within the first century or that same timeline.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_03: So everything in the book, it just happened in this first hundred years.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_03: And so there's people that believe that too.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_03: Uh there's also historicism, uh, which basically says that the book of Revelation is kind of like the symbolic outline of the church as it's been growing uh in the over the last 2,000 years.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and so all the symbols are meant to kind of talk about what we're experiencing as a church, what the church has experienced over the last 2,000 years.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and then the last one is called futurism.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and this this interprets uh the Bible or the revelation um as all future events, things that have yet to happen.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_03: So everything is predicting the future.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_03: So if you've seen the people with like those big charts and they're talking about this will happen here in the seven years of tribulation, all that kind of stuff, they're typically going to be coming from the Bible at a futuristic perspective.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: They're looking towards the future.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I'm not saying there's one right or wrong way to look at this.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um, there's parts of this where I think it's important for us to understand uh what the context of what is the style that the book of Revelation.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_03: You said in Spanish the name is Apocalypsis.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_03: Apocalypsis, yeah, which is actually more closely related to what actually the word is.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_03: Because when we think revelation, uh we think of end times or we think of, you know, uh, you know, uh the the Armageddon, right?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_03: And all this kind of stuff.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_03: But the word apocalypse means a revelation, means actually to something is real, something was hidden, now it's being revealed.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yep, and so that's what's happening.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_03: And so this is called the specific style of writing that John writes in is called apocalyptic writing.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: And this is the first time this happens in the Bible, right?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_03: It happens in the Old Testament.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Ezekiel is a great example of this.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, there's parts of the prophecies and the prophetic books that have apocalyptic writing.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's kind of a style of writing that's like highly symbolic, right?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_03: There's a lot of visions, there's a lot of dramatic images, and they're not meant to be like a one-for-one.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_03: I see this, like if you remember Ezekiel, he talks about seeing you know the creatures, and then there's like a wheel within a wheel, and it's like this machine that's moving from Jerusalem to Babylonia.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: Like, that's not meant for us to take that literally.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe it is, I don't know.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_03: But I think it's meant to be images that depict the character of God and something that got a truth that God is trying to convey.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_03: And this is what apocalyptic literature is, right?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: When it says the sun was darkened and the moon becomes red as blood, is it quite literally that the sun completely blacks out and the moon starts turning red?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe, but that is actually judgment uh text.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_03: Like those are words that are commonly associated, right?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, with uh something symbolic.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's kind of like this is not a perfect one-for-one.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but uh, whenever I'm driving with the kids and we're trying to go somewhere and they're like, oh, this is taking forever, right?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's not literally taking forever, okay?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_03: But they feel like it's taking so long, they're using big words, right?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_03: Highly symbolic words to depict what they're feeling.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's what apocalyptic literature is.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so part of what John is saying is not meant for us to fully understand as literal, uh, it's meant for us to understand these symbols mean something, write something.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_03: The second principle I think is important to consider is what's called dual fulfillment prophecy.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_03: So in the Bible, a lot of times there are prophecies that are actually have dual fulfillments, right?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_03: So they are um prophesied and there's a fulfillment immediately after the fact, but then there's also, you know, many hundreds of years later, it's fulfilled again, and there's a further fulfilling that has that remains.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_03: So a good example is in Isaiah.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is gonna happen, this is a picture of what's gonna happen kind of like in the future.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna see it now, but it will be also fulfilled later on.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly, exactly.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_03: So, like in uh, I want to say Isaiah chapter nine, I could be wrong.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_03: Isaiah chapter nine, where probably not, but go ahead.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe 11.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_03: Uh but Isaiah prophesies to the king Ahaz, and he says, uh, a virgin will conceive and give birth, and you shall call him Emmanuel, right?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so that prophecy was for the king of Ahaz, or for king, for the king at that time, so that he would see that God was still with his people and to trust in God.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: And that prophecy would have been fulfilled within that time frame, right?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_03: But we also know it as the fulfillment and finally in Jesus in the virgin birth, and so it has dual fulfillment, and so that's an example of an old testament example of dual fulfillment.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_03: So I think there's parts of the the book of Revelation, there's prophecies I think that will be that is fulfilled within the first century, but actually has a dual fulfillment.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_03: We actually look at an example of that later on.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_03: The last thing I just want people to keep in their mind is what's called the meta-narrative of scripture.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_03: Pastor Christian, what is the meta-narrative of scripture?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: The meta-narrative of scripture.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: I just when I think meta, I just think of Facebook right now.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, wait, am I living in the in this narrative right now?
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's the overarching story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's the big God story, God's redemptive plan.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think when you're getting into the weeds of the book of Revelation, like, what does this mean?
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_03: What is this?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_03: Like you can't get too lost in the trees, you miss the forest.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so I know you're a big fan of like volume reading, like reading a whole bunch of the Bible.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_03: Because you were you doing like the you're doing like the the Bible like in a month or two months or something.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: I've done the like the New Testament in like 30 days, the whole thing.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yes.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_03: And so when you do that, you you capture some I things, and you don't see some things uh that you wouldn't when you're reading real slow one verse at a time.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: This happened often because I think when people read the Bible, uh at least it happens so many times to me, and I'm like, I've read Matthew all these times, and this is the first time I actually see this.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, like wait, Jesus actually asked that question, and I think wait, if you're going through it too fast, you don't really realize and pay attention to those things.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_03: So I think that's where like seeing the Bible as a whole, you capture the major themes of scripture, and that's what we have to carry into these past that we find confusing.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_03: It's always scripture interpreting scripture, and we want to hold the the meta-narrative scripture in light of this because it's it's kind of obscure and hard to understand.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_03: So let's just jump in to chapter 11.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_03: Chapter 11, the two witnesses and the seven trumpets.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_03: And so uh John gives us an example of two witnesses, we don't know who they are, uh, but they serve a purpose.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they are prophesying to a rebellious generation, um, and God gives them the power to do several things that's very like symbolic to people that have already existed in the Old Testament, right?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: So, one, they're able to shut up the heaven uh and cause no rain.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_03: Uh two, they're able to turn water into blood and cause plagues.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_03: Now, who are the two people in the Old Testament?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_03: Moses and Elijah.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_03: Moses and Elijah, right?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_03: Elijah is a man known for praying, and God shuts up the heavens and there's no rain, and he prays again, it rains again, right?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_03: And Moses the one who turns the Nile into blood, and then you know, has the ten plagues, all of that.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_03: So these images are showing you, these prophets are prophesying to people who have hard hearts that are refusing to repent.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, you'll see that over and over again in the book of Revelation that no matter how many times, no matter how many plagues, the people do not turn.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think that even when you say this, I just am thinking to the original audience that would immediately connect those two stories with Egypt and with the people who did not listen to the prophets.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: So for us, it's like we need a little bit more information to understand what that meant.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: But for the original audience, you talk about rain, they know it's Elijah.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: You talk about a red river, that was Moses.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, absolutely.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_03: You're so that's it, it's so beautiful because the the New Testament, their scripture is the old testament, right?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_03: So they're going, they're calling back to all of the scripture what they are familiar with, and so we have to carry that into interpretation.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_03: That brings us to chapter 12.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_03: Chapter 12 is a very confusing passage.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, it's uh the woman and the dragon.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_03: So basically, there's this woman.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, she has uh, if you read the text, it says that she has um uh she's on the moon, she's the moon is under her foot, uh, she's got 12 stars.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so um it's kind of sounds like fiction.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, it kind of, yeah, it sounds like a Led Zeppelin cover, honestly, something crazy.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so uh so what what's happening here, right, is this woman is a represent representing, is symbolic of the people of Israel, right?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_03: They're Jewish people.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so and she's being pursued by a dragon, which is identified as Satan, right?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_03: And so Satan is chasing this woman.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_03: And actually, this this passage is really key because it kind of shows you the meta-narrative of scripture playing out in this one chapter.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so in this chapter, this woman is being chased uh and trying, and the dragon is trying to destroy her, and before she can give birth, she's pregnant, before she can give birth to this child, and the child she gives birth to the child, and the child is caught up to heaven and now is at the throne of God.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, and then the woman, the dragon is angry because he was trying to prevent this child, and then now he's angry at the woman, he's chasing the woman down, um, and the earth protects the woman because the dragon caused a big flood.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_03: It's a whole scene, okay.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and then there's a big battle in heaven uh to protect this woman.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_03: Now here's what I think is happening.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, once again, I have to say I think because I don't know.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_03: We're trying to understand, right?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_03: Is uh we're seeing the meta-narrative of scripture kind of play out.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_03: There is a Jewish people, right, that God had separated to bring about salvation for the world.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_03: Remember, this is from Genesis to Revelation in Genesis in the garden, God said it would be the seed of the woman, right, that would crush the head of the serpent.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_03: And so here it is the serpent, the dragon, has been trying to destroy this coming savior all throughout history to prevent the crushing of his head, the defeat of his kingdom.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so he's been pursuing these people, and so all throughout uh the Jewish narrative, the Old Testament, the Satan connives his way into the Jewish community and tries to turn them away, right, into destruction.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_03: So they uh face destruction and they are destroyed multiple times.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_03: They're destroyed, and yet still uh they are about, they bring about a savior, Jesus.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_03: He comes from the house of Israel, from the house of Judah, and he ultimately is he's he dies or resurrects, uh taken to heaven, sits on the throne, the devil is angry, and he's still pursuing this woman who which still represents the Jewish people, and so it shows that God still has a plan for the Jewish people to some extent.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_03: And so that this is where you kind of see that preterism.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_03: This some of this stuff has happened in the past, right?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_03: But also futurism.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_03: There's some of the stuff that's yet to happen, yeah.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_03: And so there is still something left to happen with the Jewish people, but I think what you can take away into the meta-narrative is that there is still a preservation that God is trying to do with the Jewish people in the text.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: So good, you know.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think that that that you just doing a great job just helping us understand, like, hey, this thing's passages can be confusing.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: There is there is uh meaning to all of this, but I just love your humility.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is what it means, and I think we just need to be careful often of like trying to say like this is what this actually means, because that's where we get people saying, Oh, the world's gonna end in 2020, or at different times, right?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, is it but when you're reading this, it's gonna be confusing, but don't just skip it because it's confusing.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but just continue to read.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: I when you were talking about the serpent and the dragon, kind of remind me a little bit of our friend uh's book, Many Rango, with Crushing Chaos.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Come on.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because he talks here, we we we hear we have the word dragon.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: He makes a case that actually in the in the in the garden, uh it was a dragon, actually.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: The original audience would have understood that word being translated to a dragon.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: So when you say in this, and that I was like, whoa, hold on, this is kind of what's been happening since the beginning, yeah, where the dragon or the serpent just wants to really destroy what God has created.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Come on, that's the meta-narrative, right?
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: That that is the biggest story.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: I passed this course.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_03: Come on, come on, you can get some with your wife.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there we go.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and so then that brings us chapter 13, right?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_03: And this is the two beasts from the there's a beast from the sea, there's a beast from the earth.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, what does that all that represent?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_03: And then you have the big 666 number at the end of this chapter.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, now I will say this is kind of going back to the preterism versus futurism, right?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_03: There's a lot of people that talk about the mark of the beast, and people have to take it, and that may be the case uh at some point.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I I don't know about you.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: I grew up, you know, uh in this community of faith with you know highly dispensational Pentecostal views, uh, and which I I I don't discredit, but you know, I remember seeing like you know, people barcodes on their like the little, I don't know if you know what's talking about like the tracks, like the picture of people barcoded on their forehead, barcodes on their thing, and the ship barcodes were like gonna be the end of everything or QR codes.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know what it is, right?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: My mom used to have this.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was a kid, she used to have a Toyota Corolla, and the tag was 666.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: She always said that that car was the mark of the beast.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's when we had ranks and everything was a spiritual battle because we had the car with the 666.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Come on.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: I know, it was awful.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_03: Well, there you go.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_03: And so there's been plenty of movies made about 666 and plenty of stuff.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and so there's a part of this where you know, people who are preterist, uh, people who believe that that everything in Revelation is only meant to be understood within the first century, uh, they they believe that the number 666, because of the way Jewish letters work, that every letter has a corresponding number.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_03: If you do the math, uh if you follow it, that actually is the word Nero Caesar, is what 666 represents.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_03: That it's talking about the emperor.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_03: And you would assume in that time period, John isn't free to write uh against the emperor, yeah, right, or talk about the emperor as being the beast, but perhaps he's using coded language to talk about this evil emperor that is persecuting Christians at the highest level at that point, and so it could be talking about Nero, and that's definitely the case, but it could also be dual fulfillment, where it is talking maybe about Nero immediately, but there is another Antichrist, another beast yet to come in the future, in the last days, uh, that is also going to take the shape and form of what we saw in Nero and evil people like that.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: I heard once, and I don't know if this is true or not, and maybe you don't know, but just want to share that.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um I heard that in some of these views, I heard that every generation also will face a beast.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like it just like in the first century, they face uh Nero.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: We probably in the generations to pass me, maybe Hitler was a like a type of beast.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and the the whole view was every generation will face a beast, but what remains is the crisis victorious in every generation, yes.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought I thought it was very interesting.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know which of those four views, maybe there's a futuristic maybe, yeah, but um I I thought it was really good because the point of this book is to bring hope, it's to remind everyone that Jesus is victorious.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I'm like, okay, I I that helps me understand this.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely, and and I think that's important for us to understand as Christians that when the word antichrist is used, it's not just speaking to a singular figure that would come, it's not one time in the future there's going to be an antichrist, but there are anti-Christ, there are systems in this world that is antithetical to Jesus.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yep, yep, and that's the point.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_03: And so we as Christians should be the counterculture, we should be the thing that is different in this world that represents Christ, because the world itself, the system of the world itself, is antichrist, right?
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think that's important for us to understand.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_03: That brings us to chapter 14.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, chapter 14, uh, there is the 144, which you talked about on Sunday, uh, the 144, uh, so 12,000 from each tribe.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and then you see three angels and a harvest.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: And this is speaking to uh that the the seventh trumpet is blown, uh, and there is now a harvest that is gonna happen.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, there is uh God's wrath is being brought upon the earth, okay?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_03: And that brings us to chapter 15 and 16.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_03: And then you see the seven bulls and the Armageddon.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_03: Now, what are these seven bowls?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_03: These seven bowls represent God's wrath that's gonna be poured out on the earth.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_03: So I want you to take notice of two things, okay?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_03: There are in this book of Revelation, in in John's prophecy, there are seven seals, there's seven trumpets, and there's seven bowls.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_03: All of those depict wrath from God, kind of like plagues during the time of Moses that is being poured out on the earth.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_03: What is the purpose of that?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_03: Is it because God is mad at everyone?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_03: See, when God brought the plagues to Pharaoh in Egypt, why would what was he trying to accomplish?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_03: He was trying to free his people.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_03: He was trying to free his people, but he was also trying to change Pharaoh's heart, right?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_03: He was trying to actually give the Pharaoh an opportunity.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_03: So every plague was an opportunity.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_03: He gave him ten opportunities to change his heart and to repent.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_03: And so every single one of these seven is the number of completion.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_03: And so that means God's God's opportunity that he gives to humanity to change their heart is complete, right?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_03: Is perfect.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_03: He gave everyone, he's giving everyone the perfect amount of time to come to repentance, so that no person has missed an opportunity to turn their hearts and follow after God.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_03: That is what John is trying to say.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_03: And so is a he has given everyone, he is giving the world every ample opportunity to change their hearts, but they are not.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_03: They are choosing to live in their rebellion.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's so good because I think often people have the opportunity to repent, to accept the Lord, and they think, well, I'll do it later.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thinking that I I have time and I have another chance and another chance.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, I hear you saying this is like there's gonna come a time that won't be.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I might as well just take the advantage and right now and repent, turn away from my waves and turn to do the will of the Lord in my life because I'm not promised tomorrow.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I have tomorrow.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_03: And you we have to understand that when people's hearts are hard, um, when our hearts are hard, uh, we we kind of want things our way, and there's no convincing, right?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_03: And so Jesus says, What shall I describe this generation?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, they're like children in the marketplace.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_03: They say, I you know, played the flute for you, you didn't dance, I played a dirge, and you didn't cry.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_03: What's he saying?
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_03: He's saying you're like children who you said, Oh, uh, you know, I want you to do this, and then you do that, and then that's not happy enough.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_03: I don't do this, you're not doing this.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_03: You're never happy, you're never satisfied.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I was thinking of, I was watching this debate on YouTube between this Christian uh scholar, apologist, uh, and an atheist.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_03: And uh he asked the atheist, who's a famous scholar, he asked him, Hey, like, so you're saying if Jesus were to appear to you right now, right, like exactly the way you want him to appear, and he said, Repent and believe that you would change your heart, you would believe in God, and you would become a Christian at that point.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_03: He's like, Are you willing to concede that?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_03: And the guy says, Well, yes.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_03: And he's like, Well, why'd you say well?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_03: And he's like, Well, like, I would have to make sure that wasn't a hallucination.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_03: I have to make sure that I was, you know, like in my right mind, I wasn't on drugs.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_03: And so he's like, That's the point, right?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_03: There is even if Jesus appeared to you in the flesh, your first thought would be, Well, maybe it's just in a hallucination because you don't want to believe.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, right.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_03: So there's an aspect of people who are so lost, so fallen, right?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_03: And and every opportunity is evidence that they are hardening their heart, the Pharaoh hardened his heart, and that is what's happening.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_03: And so God is giving the world an opportunity to repent.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_03: God is giving everyone because he loves everyone an opportunity to repent, and yet they don't want to.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so good.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: So good.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna finish it.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna finish Revelation next week.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're gonna jump in into 2 Chronicles.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: We cannot cover everything, so we're gonna just cover a few things in the book of Chronicles.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And as you have heard us talk about, and you are listening to this because you're screw following our scripture reading plan, a lot of the stories you can also find them in the book of Samuel, the book of Kings, all of this stories uh that we are covering in 2 Chronicles as well.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: You can find more in specific specifically in the book of Kings as well.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna touch on a few, uh, Pastor Samson, yeah, and then we're gonna finish with some Psalms.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_03: There we go.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_03: So 2 Chronicles, we pick up at chapter 15, and just kind of rehash, uh, 2 Chronicles is written after the exile.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_03: And so if you remember Jewish history, okay, we talk about this in on this podcast several times.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so Jewish history kind of goes like this you know, children of Israel come into the the promised land, the establishment of the monarchy happens, uh, first with Saul and then with King David, and then from David, the line is carried.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and but then at after Solomon, David's son, the kingdom is divided, and now there's two kingdoms.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_03: Uh in 722, the northern kingdom is captured by Assyria, and they're removed from the land in 586, 587, the southern kingdom is captured, they're removed from the land, and then they're in exile for 70 years.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_03: And then after 70 years of exile in a foreign land, in the land of Babylonia, they're brought back.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and when they come back, this so that's what's sometimes referred to as post-exilic period.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_03: After the exile, the post-exilic period, they come back and they rebuild Israel, they build rebuild Jerusalem and they rebuild the temple.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and it's actually during this time the Chronicles is written.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_03: So 1 Samuel and I'm sorry, Samuel and Kings is written during uh the period before the exile uh and during the time of the kings, during the time of the monarchy.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_03: However, 1 Samuel, I'm sorry, uh Chronicles is written during the time of uh the exile after the exile.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_03: Good.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's important to know because they're coming with a certain perspective.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes people look at the books, Chronicles, and they're like, well, you know, why are they like whitewashing everything?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I'll give you an example.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like I was reading uh the part the passage where it says, you know, the story of David and Bathsheba, right?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_03: So in 2 Samuel it goes, you know, during a time when kings go into war, uh, David did not.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, uh, he stayed at home and then he's on top of the roof and he sees Bathsheba and then he sleeps with her, all that.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_03: Second Chronicles or 1 Chronicles goes like this: David during the time of kings doesn't go into war, he's at home, the end.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: Next story.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_03: That's how it goes.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_03: It completely skips over the Bathsheba part, and you're like, why are they doing that?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think it's really important to know why Chronicles is written.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_03: So the point of Chronicles is not to show the sin of David, okay?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it's actually show David is a very important figure, and there's two things the Chronicles, the Chronicler, the person who wrote this, is really thematically focusing on.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_03: One is the covenant between David and God, known as the Davidic covenant.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_03: And so this is really important.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_03: It's first Chronicles chapter 27 or chapter 17 and 2 Samuel chapter 7 is where you see this.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but it it is a this covenant that all of Chronicles hinges is the promise that God makes to David that what God would give him a kingdom, and that lineage that he has with David will never end.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_03: It will be a forever kingdom, and there will always be a son of David upon the throne of Israel.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_03: Now, what happens if you believe all of this, and then suddenly your king is removed, you're all made slaves, and then you're sent to a foreign land in exile, and you don't even have the land, you don't have a kingdom, you don't have a king.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: What do you do?
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_03: You come back and you're rebuilding, but what are you rebuilding?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: And what about all of God's promises?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_03: And so the chronicle wants chronicler wants the people to know God is faithful to his promise.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he's faithful to his covenants, and so the covenant with David is an important one, and so so David is the standard, right?
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_03: And the covenant with David is the standard.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_03: And the question is do any of the kings that come after David live up to the standard?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_03: Solomon is the closest one, but we already know he messes things up, right?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: And the kingdom is divided as a result.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_03: But every other king in the line of David is seen as just a failure, right?
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_03: They they never get it right.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_03: But one thing it shows is that anytime, anytime a king would repent, would turn to God, God was always faithful to listen, he's always faithful to save any of the kings, any of the kingdoms that would turn to him, because that's what was promised through the temple and through Solomon, right?
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_03: And so then the second major theme uh is the law, right?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, or the law and the temple, kind of all kind of in one, right?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_03: And so the word of God and the presence of God kind of blended in together, is the whole point of Chronicles.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_03: And so, as every story you're reading in Chronicles, I just want you to look for where's the promise to David, where is the Davidic covenant, and where is the presence of God, right?
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_03: Where is the temple here in this story, and where's the law in this story?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_03: Look at those two things, and that is like the key to unlocking every single story in Chronicles.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_03: Good.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_03: So let's look at an example at the very beginning, chapter 15 and 16, uh, really starts at 14, is the story of Asa.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so I actually preached about this last weekend.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and the story of Asa is a really interesting one because I said he reigned for 41 years.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_03: The first 37 years, great, did great stuff, followed the covenant.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_03: He reiterated the covenant relationship that God's people had with Yahweh.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_03: Then the last five years, he messes it up.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yep, big time.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_03: He messes it up big time, and it's a reminder.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_03: And the key verse there is uh 2 Chronicles 16, 9.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if you see it there, Pastor Christian.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: It says the eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_03: And so that is it.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_03: If if you honor the covenant, you will experience the good things that God will honor his half of the covenant.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_03: And so that is kind of the whole point.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and unfortunately, uh, people like Asa, who did good for a long time, but still fall short, is a reminder that there is in the line of David, right, in the king, the forever kingdom, uh, there is yet to be a king up to this point that has lived up to that promise.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_03: Solomon came the closest, he was the wisest king on the earth, but he sure messed up.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yep, he made a lot of dumb decisions.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and none of the kings after uh make it, right?
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_03: And so then you see several kings.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_03: So you have Jehoshaphat, then you have Jehoram, uh Ahaziah, Athaliah, who's actually a queen, okay?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Joash.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Joash is an interesting one.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know the story of Joash, Pastor Christian?
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember which one of this this is.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: So this is actually the one that is a baby uh kid and had like the the counselors.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, isn't he like one of the best kings that Israel ever had?
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_03: He was until the end.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_03: This is the theme, okay?
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_03: So check this out.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_03: This is one.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_03: So when we talk about in Revelation the dragon pursuing the woman, okay, watch this.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so Atheliah is the the queen, the first time and the only time there's a queen uh ruling the kingdom of uh of Judah.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so what happens is her son dies in battle, she kind of usurps the power and she kills everybody in the line of David.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_03: She kills every because the enemy knows, the dragon knows, right?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_03: It's the line of David, it's the covenant with David, the Savior is gonna come from this line of David.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_03: So, what's he wanting to do?
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_03: He wants to eat the child, he wants to destroy the child, right?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_03: So, using Athaliah, the the enemy kills every single person in the line of David, but miraculously, Jehodiah, the priest, saves one of the babies and he keeps him in the temple of the Lord.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_03: And for eight years, this baby is secretly raised in the temple of the Lord by Jehodiah, the high priest.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_03: And one day they lead a coup and they oust Atheliah and they make Joash the king.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_03: At eight years old, he becomes the king, and all throughout Jehodiah, who's an old man at this point, right?
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_03: All throughout his life, as long as Jehodiah was there, Joash was a good king.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_03: But the moment Jehodiah dies, Joash becomes evil, right?
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_03: He actually ends up killing uh Zechariah, who is uh Jehodiah's son.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and Zechariah actually pronounces the last prophecy over how his kingdom is gonna end.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_03: Have you ever heard the story of Mike Tyson?
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_03: And well, Cos uh what's his name?
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_03: D'Amato?
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_03: Da Amato, the his trainer.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_03: So this is a crazy story.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_03: I remember hearing this like years ago and like a men's thing.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_03: So when Mike Tyson first started boxing, he didn't know anything about boxing, okay?
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_03: But like someone discovered like this kid can box, and he grew up in a very like troubled situation, had nobody for him.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_03: He was, you know, really in a bad situation.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_03: And this guy named Cuss, Cus De Amato, I'm gonna try not to mention his name.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, his Constantine is his real name, but they they call him Cus.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_03: And so Cuss is this old, you know, like think of like the guy in Rocky, okay?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_03: This old trainer finds Mike Tyson and takes him under and actually and has it brings him in to live with him and he trains him, and he actually trains Mike Tyson.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_03: Mike Tyson becomes like the greatest boxer in the world during that time, and he wins all the championships, all this kind of stuff.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_03: Then Cus D'Amato dies.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_03: And when he dies, that's when you see, you know, Mike Tyson's story.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_03: He kind of goes off the road.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_03: Mike Tyson even talks about this in like podcasts and stuff because he had lost a father figure, he had lost that kind of guiding presence in his life.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and he really had no one to turn to, and so he's just on his own.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_03: And so, in a lot of ways, this is kind of like Joash's story.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_03: Joash is this incredibly gifted, powerful young man who is trained up by this really, really caring individual, this high priest who cared about the law of God, right?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_03: And preserved him where in the temple of the Lord, and who is he fulfilling?
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_03: The cup, he's part of the covenant between David, right?
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_03: You're seeing all the clues, right?
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_03: And what happens when Jehodiah dies?
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_03: It all falls apart.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and so isn't that like similar to David when Samuel dies?
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's when that's when David started making a lot of terrible decisions, you know.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: You don't really see him messing up until Samuel dies.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely, that's a really good insight, absolutely.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_03: And so you're seeing these kings, they they need the word of God, right?
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_03: And so we're gonna fast forward all the way.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_03: So you can have a line of kings, Ahaz, terrible king, Hezekiah, which is a better king, but once again, kind of ends kind of in a battle.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, there we go again.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_03: I already know the story, but I still I can't have hope.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_03: Then you have Manasseh, who is the worst king.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, he eventually repents and God helps him.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and then you have Amon and then Josiah, and Josiah is another example.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_03: So, because of all the sins of Manasseh, God finally says, you know what?
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_03: This is it, the southern kingdom is gonna end, you're gonna get wiped out, and so prophet after prophet is sent, saying, It's over, right?
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_03: Then Josiah becomes king, and Josiah becomes king at a very young age, too, okay?
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_03: And he comes to power, and while they are cleaning the temple, what do they discover?
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_03: The law, the scrolls, the scrolls.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_03: They find they find the book of the law, the writings of Moses.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_03: That means for years, for a whole generation, they had no Bible, they had no Bible.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_03: How do I do the right thing if I don't really know it?
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: Come on.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: I can't know if I don't have anything to confront me.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_03: And so they didn't know about any of the Passover, they didn't know about any of the festivals to keep, they had no idea.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think that people have a hard time understanding that because they think, like, how could you have forgot all the all of those things?
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, think about a family recipe after a generation or two.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: You don't even remember, well, what I don't even know how to make this, right?
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is what happens often when when you read stories like this, like, wait, what do they what do you mean that they didn't have the law?
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we have a queen that killed everyone.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: They they were intentional about like taking all of the scriptures away from them.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely, and so you see that with Josiah, is the he there's no scripture to guide him, right?
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_03: He has no no way, and but he is the the the kind of the final king here, the final good king.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_03: And so Josiah, when he the the book of the law is read to him, he tears his clothes.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_03: That's a that's a sign of repentance and heartache and contriteness.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_03: He tears his clothes and he's like, We have to repent, we have to change.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_03: And so God actually kind of slows down the plan of destruction because of Josiah, and he holds back the punishment that is to come.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_03: And during the days of Josiah, there's actually relative peace.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_03: However, Josiah dies in battle, that season is over.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and then you see the last set of kings, and there's four kings, and none of these are really strong kings, they're actually kind of like almost like fake kings by the end of it.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_03: Jehoaz, Jehoiakim, Jeho Chin, and then Zedekiah.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, I know the last guy didn't get the name memo, okay?
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_03: But that's where Second Chronicles ends, and that's the last thing to happen before um essentially they're taken into exile.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_03: And so, but the ending of Chronicles is where I want us to go, right?
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_03: The last few verses.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Would you read that?
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: It says, In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, the Lord fulfilled the prom the prophecy he had given through Jeremiah.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: He stirred the hearts of Cyrus to put his this proclamation in writing and to send it to throughout his kingdom.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is what King Cyrus of Persia says.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: Any of you who who are his people may go there for this task, and may the Lord your God be with you.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_03: Sounds like a prophet.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_03: I know.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_03: So this is actually pretty wild, okay, because Cyrus is a very interesting character.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_03: He is the king of Persia.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and not a Jewish king, if you're not a Jewish king.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, so not a Jewish king.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_03: He's he's a the king of Persia, and he after Babylon kind of falls apart, Persia takes over, they become the superpower, and somehow, okay, somehow, Cyrus decides to, and he has a different way of ruling.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_03: Babylon was like, hey, we're gonna go into an area, we're gonna destroy, you know, everything that's religious for those group people groups.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_03: We're gonna exile all the people, and we're gonna bring in our own people.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_03: So all the we're gonna basically reindoctrinate everyone, and you're gonna have to worship our gods.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_03: Persia had a different philosophy.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_03: Persian philosophy was, hey, we're gonna kind of just let everyone kind of do their own thing, right?
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_03: We're gonna honor everybody else's, they're gonna have their own religions, we have ours.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and so they give a lot of freedom.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_03: And so when Cyrus becomes king, his philosophy has changed and he allows Jewish people to go back to their homeland.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's actually the the the decree of Cyrus, it's actually a historical fact.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_03: What's crazy, okay, is the prophet Isaiah, hundreds of years before Cyrus ever existed, prophesies.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_03: Does he call him by name too?
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_03: He calls him by name.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_03: He says he prophesies and he says, Cyrus will come, he will be the king that frees the children of Israel.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_03: And so he actually fulfills his prophecy.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_03: And there's like um there's people that believe that maybe that Daniel, who was in power, um, or who was in the kingdom, may have even like played a role, and somehow it somehow it was relayed to Cyrus, and he saw this prophecy, and maybe that's the thing that caused his heart to be like, this is a real God, right?
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and to do I don't know, that's that's all conjecture.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know, right?
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_03: But it's this miracle that happens and he freezes, and so that's the way second chronicles ends.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's this were this miraculous event of God saying, I am bringing the people back.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_03: If you remember, the way 2 Kings ends is how it's the final king in the line of David, he's brought before the table of uh the neb, you know, one of the kings of Babylon, and he is somehow preserved, right?
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_03: So the Davidic line is preserved, but that's where the story ends uh in 2 Kings.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_03: Second Chronicles, because it's the benefit of being post-exile, is coming at it from a different angle.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_03: It is showing the fact that God still preserves, He is still true to his promise and what he has prophesied, incredible, incredible miracles.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_03: That's awesome.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: Come on, that is so so good.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the second chronicles.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_03: The meta, the meta-narrative all the way around.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's amazing.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: So we got uh Psalms 93 and 94, uh, two Psalms they kind of go together.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what can we learn from these two Psalms?
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so Psalm 93 is a short one.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it's a confident declaration uh that the Lord reigns over the chaos of creation.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_03: I want to lean in on that one, but Psalm 94 is a longer one, it's a raw cry.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_03: It kind of asks a question of like how long, God, would you let the wicked prosper?
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um and it's kind of wonder that sometimes.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and it it deals with the real hurts that we still experience in this world.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_03: And so I want to read one verse in Psalm 93.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_03: It says, But mightier than the violent raging seas, mightier than the breakers on the shore, the Lord is above, is mightier than these.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_03: And so, Pastor Christian, uh, have you ever been on a cruise?
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, and so have you ever stood at the back of the boat, like back of the big ship, yes, in the middle of the night, and you stare out into the ocean.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's the scariest thing.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, it's like space.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's when the people say, like, the ocean is big and massive.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: When you're there, you're like, uh, I don't see land anywhere.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_03: Anywhere, it's just it literally feels like you're in space.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_03: There is just blackness everywhere.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_03: You see stars in the sky, and that's about it.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_03: There's no light anywhere else, and you're like, you feel incredibly small looking at this really big thing.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, when you look at a cruise, you think, man, this thing is massive.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: When you're over there, we're like, we are little, we're tiny in here.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_03: And so there is this idea in scripture over and over again: floods, waters represent chaos, right?
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_03: It represents all the things that we can't control, and that is part of life.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_03: There's so many things we can't control, and it kind of goes in Psalm 94.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_03: We can't control who prospers, who wins, who loses.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_03: But there is this reality.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_03: Psalm 93 is what's called an enthronement psalm.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_03: It's talking about God as king, basically.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_03: And it's saying above this chaos, above all of the mess of the world, above all the things we can't control, there is one person who is in charge.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_03: And he is God.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_03: He is Yahweh, he is Jesus.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_03: And ultimately, that's what we learn, even when we look at the meta-narrative, look at Revelation, right?
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_03: Above all of this, there is one King, and his name is Jesus.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_03: And that should be a tremendous joy, a thing that brings peace in your life.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, so good.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, Pastor Samson, for bringing so much goodness.
• 44:00
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• 44:06
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• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: We want to know, we want to know what else you want to know about these things.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna help us tremendously to help you understand scripture.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: Also, remember that this podcast is not meant to be the main course, the main course is the word of God.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure that you are doing your scripture uh reading plan, and we're gonna see you in the next North Five reading.