Day #84
Scripture Reading: I Chronicles 1 - 4 ...
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
Judah, ... David ... Jesus ... believers!!
As Jacob, the son of Isaac, blessed his sons, he said to Judah, "Your
brothers will praise you; your hand will be on the neck of your enemies; your
father's sons will bow down to you. ... The scepter will not depart from
Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until HE comes to whom it
belongs, and the obedience of the nations is HIS!" (Genesis
49:8-10). That promise of God explains the genealogy in our reading for
today.
I and II Chronicles follow I and II Kings.
While the books of the Kings focus more on the political climate at the
time, the books of Chronicles focus on the "structure" of the nations
of Israel and then of Judah, and the religious climate, specifically what was
going on in the temple. All of this leads up to the fall of Jerusalem.
It is impossible when talking about the people of God to separate what
was going on politically with what was going on with the temple. The
people of Israel and of Judah were (ARE!) a special people to the Lord.
God showed that He was with the people through the temple and the priests
and the sacrifices and the feasts.
As God sent the prophets to speak to the people, He
warned them of judgment and called them to return to Him, but they rejected God
over and over again. The amazing thing throughout this period of history,
as the nations of the world were in constant turmoil around God's people, is
that God maintained His promise to Judah and the genealogy in Chapters 2-3
point to God's faithfulness. You find a list of the kings of Judah in
Chapter 3 ... ALL from the tribe of Judah. While the kings in Israel
changed family lines repeatedly, that was not the case in Judah. It
couldn't be, because the Messiah, the ONE who would rule over not only Israel,
but the nations, would come from the line of Judah.
When you get to the New Testament the tracing of
the lineage of Jesus was not by accident. If Jesus was not from the tribe
of Judah by His physical descent, He could not be the Messiah. Paul
writes to the Romans that he was "a servant of Christ Jesus, called to
be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God - the gospel He promised
beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding His Son, who
as to His human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of
holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from
the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 1:1-3).
And Paul ends his letter to the Romans by saying that
God revealed the mystery of the gospel "through the prophetic writings
by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey
HIM (Jesus) ..." (16:26). Undoubtedly, Paul was thinking of
Genesis 49:10 and God's promise to bring the Messiah, the Christ, the
"Anointed One," the KING, through the line of the tribe of Judah!!
Such a plan could never have been conceived by the mind of sinful men,
let alone carried out over a period of hundreds of years ... two thousands
years from the time of Abraham. God's hand is in all of this, even as His
hand is in the activities of the nations all over the world today, and
especially, the nation of Israel, the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob.
Even the fact that we read of the other clans of
Judah in these chapters, which are then followed by the other sons of Jacob and
their genealogies, reminds us that it is God's sovereign choice that determined
that the Savior would come from Judah. That the nation of Israel exists
today and the Jews exist as a people, points to a sovereign God who desires to
make Himself known. To know the God of the Bible is to know the only true
God, our Creator, and to know the God of Israel and Judah. The Church
today exists, not on its own or as a replacement for these people, but as the
fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:3: "I will
bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples
(nations) on earth will be blessed through you."
Far too many people, even those who claim to
believe in Christ and who are part of the visible church, know nothing of God's
promises and seem to think that Christianity is no more than a personal
preference as one of many possible choices of religions. I have even been
told by more than one person that they know someone who WAS a Christian, but
who changed to a different religion. I am quick to tell them that is
impossible, because anyone who is born again by the very Spirit of the one true
God cannot and will not deny Christ or turn away. John writes in I John
2:18-19: "Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have
heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come.
This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out FROM US, but
they did not REALLY belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they
would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged
to us."
No true believer has EVER left the true Church, the
body of Christ. No true believer has or ever will turn away from Jesus
Christ and deny Him. Some may wander or drift or doubt for a time, but if
they belong to Him, He will bring them back, for Jesus promised that not ONE of
His sheep whom the Father had given Him (chosen) would be lost, and He will
raise them up at the last day! That's God's promise, based on His promise
to Judah in Genesis 49:10: "The scepter will not depart from
Judah until HE comes ..." Jesus is on the throne and very
soon the obedience of the nations will be His, when every knee bows and every
tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord!
Until then, give thanks for the evidence throughout
Scripture that God is faithful to His promises and that He is at work today, as
He was in the days of the kings, fulfilling His promises to those who trust in
Him.
"Almighty and everlasting God, my Father in
heaven, my Savior, I thank You for Your faithfulness and rejoice in the truth
of Your Word. I know I can count on You and trust You to keep Your
promises. In those moments when I don't understand what is going on in
the world or in my own life, help me to see the big picture and to find my hope
in You every day, for then I will find the peace I long for. In Jesus' name,
Amen"
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