THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION

The Books Of The Chronicles: God's Preservation Of His Davidic And Levitical Covenants

I. Introduction: Trusting God To Encourage Us By His Great Faithfulness

(Introduction To Chronicles With Jeremiah 33:17-26)

Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

We need God's encouragement in view of the institutional decay we witness in today's world. We illustrate:

(1) Chris Powell's column, "State seeks to enforce ignorance" (Republican-American, August 30, 2019, p. 6A), claimed, "(S)ince Connecticut lacks an incorrigibility law, the state is full of chronic offenders who have a dozen or more arrests and convictions but remain free, having discovered the law is a joke." However, he noted, "(H)olding people responsible for themselves is crucial to sustaining any society" and for "businesses and individuals to protect themselves," but that "liberal" entities supporting this situation think "personal responsibility is irrelevant," Ibid.

(2) Rich Lowry's column, "The Amazon rain-forest scam" (Ibid., August 31, 2019, p. 6A) told how "the French president declared on Twitter, 'The Amazon rain forest -- the lungs which produce 20% of our planet's oxygen -- is on fire,'" and he called the "fires an 'international crisis.'" Yet, Javonte Anderson's story, "Scientist denies Amazon makes 20% Earth's oxygen" (Ibid., p. 7A) told how Northwestern University's "Neal Blair, professor of environmental engineering and earth and planetary sciences," counters, "'You can burn down the whole Amazon forest, and you would see a tiny, tiny, tiny drop in our oxygen levels, but we wouldn't notice it.'" The public thus faces ongoing conflicts among government leaders and academics over the issue of the earth's climate.

(3) Such conflict occurs in the realm of human health: Chris Powell's column, "Lamont's right-to-know itch" (Ibid., September 3, 2019, p. 6A) asserted, "The religious claim against vaccinations is bogus," that it "is being used as a pretext by parents who fear vaccines or a chemical formerly used in them may cause autism."

However, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia reports, "Varicella (chickenpox), rubella (the "R" in the MMR vaccine), hepatitis A, one version of the shingles vaccine, and one preparation of rabies vaccine are all made by growing the viruses in fetal embryo fibroblast cells . . . obtained from elective termination of two pregnancies in the early 1960s," and that "(t)hese same . . . cells . . . are used to make vaccines today." (https://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-ingredients-fetal-tissues; December 7, 2017) Some thus religiously oppose vaccines due to the use of aborted fetal tissue in making them. [Also, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention web site (https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/additives.htm) claims vaccines contain aluminum, sugars, gelatins, egg protein and formaldehyde, and some have mercury, and some locals tell me of bad reactions to shots.]

However, pro-choice advocates keep turning more dogmatic in support of abortion: (a) Christine Quinn, former speaker of the New York City Council on CNN said, "'When a woman gets pregnant, that is not a human being inside her" (Answers, Sept.-Oct., 2019, p. 43) and (b) Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has openly stated in a recent court ruling "that a pregnant woman 'is not a mother.'" (Ibid., "State of Abortion," p. 44)

Need: So, we ask, "What encouragement does God offer as we see institutional moral decline in today's world?!"

I. The books of Chronicles were written to encourage the Hebrew people that God would rebuild Israel:

A. The author of the books of the Chronicles, what was initially one book, was likely Ezra who led Hebrew exiles in 458 B. C. back to the land of Israel after their Babylonian Captivity, Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, p. 606.

B. Significantly, Chronicles highlights the Davidic dynasty and the Levitical line (Bible Know. Com., O. T., p. 592) in an effort to encourage returning Hebrew exiles that God would rebuild their nation:

1. When Jerusalem had been under siege by the Babylonian army back in 587 B. C., God had given His prophet Jeremiah a message that countered a discouraging, faithless claim that had been circulating among the people in the besieged city, Ibid., p. 1174, 1172:

a. That errant view was that God had cast off the two "clans" (the Hebrew term mishpahot, Kittel, Bib. Heb., p. 769; B. D. B., A Heb. and Eng. Lex. of the O. T., p. 1046; Jer. 33:24b), namely, the "clan" of the house of David and the "clan" of the tribal line of Levi that formed the nation's governmental monarchy and religious priesthood respectively, Jeremiah 33:22-23. The people thus claimed that God had forsaken them as a nation by abandoning the Davidic and Levitical "clans" upon which the nation had been formed, that Judah would thus cease to exist as a nation at the city's fall to Babylon, Jeremiah 33:24c!

b. To counter this view, God through Jeremiah claimed He had NOT cast off these clans, that His eternal covenants with the house of David in 2 Samuel 7:8-16 and with the tribe of Levi in Numbers 25:12-13 were as sure as His Genesis 8:21-22 Noahic Covenant that night and day would continue, Jer. 33:20-26!

2. Thus, Ezra who had read Jeremiah's written prophecy (as had Daniel before him in Daniel 9:1-2) trusted the proven prophet Jeremiah's word in Jeremiah 33 wrote a history of Judah in the Chronicles, revealing God's faithfulness in creating and sustaining Judah's people with the hope they would still have a nation!

3. Ezra then emphasized the Davidic and Levitical lines in Chronicles to provide that hope for his readers!

II. Also, Ezra like Jeremiah anticipated the coming of Messiah to establish His Kingdom, for Jeremiah 33:15-16 predicted Messiah's arrival as the figurative "Branch" that would spring up from the severed Davidic tree in the same context as God's promise to preserve His covenants with David's and Levi's lines! Knowing Messiah would soon come, Ezra encouraged the exiles to prepare for the Messiah!

Lesson: Regardless of the past destruction of their nation due to sinful failure and judgment, God had sought to encourage His people that He would preserve His covenants with the lines of David and of Levi and REBUILD the nation after captivity in anticipation of Messiah's arrival and establishment of His Kingdom.

Application: (1) May we trust in Christ for salvation from sin, John 3:16. (2) May we trust God to keep His promises to us like He was to be trusted to keep His promises to the Hebrew people. (3) In our case, God promises us in our era the Revelation 3:21 enthronement [that we will review with applications in the "Conclusion" below].

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message . . . )

(1) As we before noted, Christ Who now rules "in" His Father's heavenly throne will one day shepherd future Great Tribulation era saints with edifying teaching, Rev. 3:21 with 7:17. Then, in accord with that future ministry, God promises figuratively to "enthrone" today's Bible expositors who overcome worldliness "in" His earthly "throne" in our current mini "tribulation" era before the rapture (Rev. 3:21; 4:1), giving such expositors great influence!

(2) For our spiritual nurture, then, we address the issues of concern in our introduction via Bible exposition:

(a) On the failure of officials to hold criminals accountable for their crimes, Ezekiel 18:25-32 tells how God holds each person morally responsible for his deeds. We must thus counter government irresponsibility on this issue by holding ourselves and others responsible for their actions in our relationships, furthering a just and safe society.

(b) On the issue of the earth's climate, as we have often before asserted, Genesis 8:21-22 as reiterated by Jeremiah 33:20-26 reveals God strongly promises to preserve the earth's climate as long as the earth continues to exist in order that man might have a habitable planet with adequate crops and water for his survival!

(c) On the issue of vaccines, (i) Exodus 21:22-23 reveals that abortion takes a human life, so making vaccines by using electively aborted fetuses is immoral! However, (ii) one might say that the use of such vaccines applies the Matthew 22:15-22 case where Jesus did not hold people guilty of sin for using a coin to pay taxes that had Caesar's idolatrous image and inscription on it (B. K. C., N. T., p. 72). The argument goes that one can use a vaccine that was initially immorally made by others, much as Caesar's coin, to inoculate his child for his health and for the health of society at large. On the other hand, (iii) one might argue that if the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia claims a company(s) with government approval as early as the 1960s immorally used electively aborted fetuses to make vaccines that are used today (Ibid., chop.edu), to let oneself be inoculated now only encourages the company(s) and government involved to influence the rise of more immoral evil to make more allegedly "required" vaccines so as to boost profits and tax revenues! [Also, if the Centers on Disease Control and Prevention reports vaccines contain some toxic materials (Ibid., cdc.gov) and locals complain of bad reactions to shots, it is little wonder then that Christianity Today magazine reports, "American confidence in the medical community has fallen from 60 percent to 37 percent since the '70s." (Rebecca Randall, "Not Worth a Shot: Why Some Christians Refuse Vaccinations on Moral Grounds," 4/26/2019; christianitytoday.com)]

Believers are thus morally caught between a rock and a very hard place on the issue of vaccines, so it becomes a matter of personal conscience, 1 Timothy 1:19. Applied to children, as in the case of what schooling format to use for a child, since the parent is responsible to God for all decisions on the care of his child (2 Corinthians 12:14b), we support the decisions of the parent on both the schooling format used and on the vaccination of his own child.

(d) On whether a woman who is pregnant is carrying a human being inside her, Luke 1:36, 41, 44 shows that when Mary's relative Elizabeth was in her sixth month of pregnancy, the entity in her womb leaped for joy at Mary's voice, being filled with the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:15), what entity can only be an infant who is a human being!

(e) On whether a pregnant woman is a mother, Luke 1:35-43 reveals that when Mary was early in her first trimester with Jesus, Elizabeth referred to her as "the mother of my Lord" (v. 43). Early in the first trimester, then, Mary was the earthly Mother of the humanity of Jesus Christ, so a pregnant woman is a mother at conception!

May we trust in Christ for salvation. May we trust God to fulfill His promise to edify us in our era!