As I've mentioned already to a few of you who are here, this is part two of the Book of Kings. And as such, we gave out a handout last week. And it's the same handout we're using this week. So if you weren't here last week or left yours at home, you're welcome to come grab one of the few that are left. Otherwise, you can just pull your handout from last week. Welcome, glad that we're returning to our study of the Book of Kings. Jake, I thought, did a marvelous job last week working through the first section of the book and I think highlighted a few really important themes. We'll review some of those things as we look at just the way that further developments happened through the life of King David and then Solomon, and then really what follows after that is what is recounted in the Book of Kings. We saw up to this point that the nation of Israel was really at a high point. Jake talked about that. We saw that so many of the covenantal promises that we have studied throughout this survey really seem to be coming to, into further fulfillment under King Solomon. So a real high point in Israel's history, maybe even the most high point that we saw, that we've seen up to this point. The textbook we're using has this quote, and this is all by way of a summary from last week. It says this, for example, 1 and 2 Kings opens by showing how Israel had become a massive nation. So when we talk about a massive nation, what should you be thinking about? What promise was given that Israel would be a great nation? Abraham, yeah, Genesis 22. Okay, progeny would be as many as the sand that is on the sea, right? That they'd be living in the land. Okay, does that also strike a chord? Okay, Genesis 15, it should, right? That they'd be ruled by kings. Okay, even if you go look at Genesis chapter 17, you would see a reference to that, and that they would be a blessing to their neighbors. Genesis 12.3. So the reason I bring that up is just to show that there's a tremendous amount of development that happens, which was built upon the word that God gave to Abraham, developed further through Moses, and then as we saw in Samuel, David with the Davidic covenant. So, interesting how these things hearken back and relate back to that which was promised and that which was said before. I'm going to draw the image that Jake drew last week and talk about how, you know, how the people related to God, okay, before the Kings were there. So if you remember what Jake drew for us. You have the people. You have God. And really before this, you really had the people pretty much relating directly to God. And then whenever kings roll around, there's the addition of a king who would essentially become kind of a covenant mediator between God and the people. So covenant mediator between God and the people. And we saw that, and we're gonna see in the book of Kings, that where the kings themselves followed God's law, obeyed him, walked according to even the example that was given in David, the people were largely what? Blessed, they were blessed, they were glorifying God. But whenever the kings would turn aside and follow false idols or do all the things that we know that many of the kings are gonna do, what would be the result upon the people? cursings, right? So the king had a high expectation to obey the law, to read the law, to teach the law, and to enforce the law. And when the king wouldn't do that, okay, we saw this divergence. So we see some of that in this arrangement, the people, they are blessed, glorifying God, But we also see that there's still sin. There's still sin within themselves, of course, but also sin within their leaders. We talked about, Jake talked about that, that there's still sin within these covenant mediators. And not only that, but they also would die and have to be replaced. Okay, so you see this problem where, yes, the people within this arrangement, there was a measure of blessedness that came with that, but also there was this huge problem of them needing mercy. Okay? Needing mercy because they still had sin, okay? And the kings themselves still had sin, and the people and their kings would essentially continually break the covenant. That's the same as last week, just so you all know, if you have your other one. So all this is by way of review, this is about where Jake left us off, just kind of setting up this framework for how the Kings related to God and also related to the people. And now let's go ahead and turn back, and this is on the front page of your handout, the theme of the Book of Kings. So go ahead and turn to the very front. This is a long, it's a paragraph, so follow along as we work through this. And this is what it says, it says, the king, being the covenant representative, sometimes obey the word of Yahweh and the people are blessed. Okay, basically what we've been illustrating so far with this diagram. But sometimes they rebel against the word of Yahweh and they bring calamity upon the people. Finally, Yahweh's presence runs out and his people suffer the covenant consequences for their sins. Yet through it all, Yahweh is faithful to the promises that He made with David." Okay, so we're going to continue to see a complete degradation of the people of Israel in relation to their God, and yet we're also going to see the Lord continuing to be faithful to a previous word that He made, a previous promise that He made to David. So if we were to maybe summarize that a little more, just really thinking about the Book of Kings, and it's two books in our Bible, but really it should be thought of as one book that was really later divided because it was such a long book. But if you were to summarize what the King is about, it's really about the King as the covenant representative of the people, okay? That's what the book's about. Maybe a good way to remember what the Book of Kings is getting at. So David is still doing a little bit of review here. David will show up again and again and again in the book of Kings. The author of the book always compares the current king with the faithfulness of King David. So pretty much every king is almost referred back. And if you read through the book of Kings, you'll see this again and again. This king followed in the example of David, this king did not follow in the example of David. So David would become essentially, for all the kings that follow him, a kind of a plumb line, right? For how a king should relate to the Lord. Either the king followed in the path of David, or he would depart from the path of David. As we move forward in Kings, we're going to see that part of God's judgment, this is getting close to where Jake left us last week, part of God's judgment is that the nation of Israel is going to split. Okay, it's going to split. And this fall is going to continue throughout the remainder of the book. Here's a paragraph by the guy who wrote our textbook, put it like this. What massive reversal occurred from the beginning of Solomon's reign to the destruction of the twin kingdoms. By the end of the book, most kings have been rebellious and the people's numbers have been greatly reduced. Most of those living had been exiled from their land and the blessings had been removed. There is a covenant crisis at stake with respect to the earlier promises, those promises we just talked about a few minutes ago when there seemed to be such success and such fulfillment. Now we're seeing a kind of a crisis with respect to these promises. However, there's no question as to which of the parties was guilty of covenant violation. It was the North and the South's sustained failure to follow Yahweh, initiated mostly by their leaders. That brought about their expulsion from the land. So I thought that was a good summary of where we're going to go with this study of the Book of Kings, that you see this great reversal, or what appears to be a great reversal, in Israel's history. And it's not Yahweh's fault, right? It's the fault of the people and their leaders constantly rebelling and not keeping the terms of the covenant that God had laid out to them, right? That's exactly what happens. So now we'll pick up where Jake left off. If you turn page two, where it has new vocabulary, this is going to be the new vocabulary section where we get started. Okay, so the Southern Kingdom, okay. What is the Southern Kingdom? Who knows? Judah, that's exactly right. So the Southern Kingdom, over which David's sons will still rule, this is called Judah. Okay, sometimes if you're reading through the, particularly like the major prophets, it'll refer to this group as Jerusalem. Okay, so these are helpful because when you read the prophets, it'll make this reference to Jerusalem. Well, what exactly is the prophet referring to? Okay, generally, instead of referring to Jerusalem, he's talking about Judah. The northern kingdoms, which will be ruled by non-Davidic kings, okay, is called Israel. And that's interesting, non-Davidic kings. It's called Israel. Sometimes it's referred to as Ephraim or Samaria, if you're reading through other portions of scripture. So write those down and associate those things together. That might help you as you're working through some of the prophets. So in Kings, we see that the fame and success of Israel is very short-lived. Even under King Solomon, the kingdom would split in two. And this split will again demonstrate the Lord's faithfulness. Why? And Jake mentioned this last week. First Kings 11, 13, you might turn there to follow along if you want to. But the Lord's faithfulness and bringing judgment against Israel but maintaining faithfulness to David. 1 Kings 11, 13 says this, I will not tear away all of the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of David, my servant, and for the sake of Jerusalem that I have chosen. Okay, what tribe is the author of Kings referring to there? the tribe of Judah. So essentially, in splitting the kingdom in this way and bringing judgment against the people, splitting it in two, allowed the Lord, right, to continue to be faithful to the promises he gave to David, while also bringing some of the harshest judgment against the majority of the people. That's what this division laid out for us, okay? So now our narrative is going to move along two tracks in the Book of Kings. If you read it, you kind of know it bounces back and forth. The history of the northern kingdom, Israel, and the history of the southern kingdom, Judah. So let's start with the flawed northern kings of Israel. Just a side note, this is really helpful when you're reading through the prophets because like Isaiah is writing to Judah, but he's constantly making reference to Israel as kind of an example. Right? And sometimes when you're reading the prophets, you know, it's just helpful to understand the history. That way when you're reading the prophets, you kind of can sort out, you know, who's being talked to and what references is being made. So hopefully that's helpful. But I'm just thinking about reading through Isaiah, and it says, you oh Israel, right? And a lot of times he's referring to the other kingdom, which had at that point fallen, and using it as an example, and pleading with Judah to not follow in its way, essentially. So God's people with the flawed northern kings, the kings of Israel. So this is gonna be 1 Kings chapter 12 through 2 Kings 21. Gonna be, let's see here. Yeah, it's just a collection of scriptures on the next page of your handout. So the very first king of Israel is Jeroboam. Immediately he leads the people of Israel into idolatry. Notice in verse 28 of chapter 11, Jeroboam leads the people to make golden calves, right? Have we seen this before? Where have we seen this before? Sinai, Exodus, right? In fact, Jeroboam's wickedness is so great that all the subsequent kings of Israel will be compared to him to evaluate just how wicked they are. So in the same way that David is kind of a plumb line for Judah's faithfulness, Jeroboam will become kind of a plumb line for rampant debauchery for the remainder of the kings. So that's interesting, and it constantly refers back to Jeroboam. This king followed in the path of Jeroboam as a negative example. So this bad start will lead to the nation's doom. Flip to chapter 14, this is still in 1 Kings 15 and 16, it says this. And the Lord will strike Israel as a reed is shaken in the water. Okay, so here's this promise of judgment. and root up Israel out of the good land that he gave to their fathers and scattered them beyond the Euphrates, because they have made their ashram, provoking the Lord to anger. And he will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he sinned and made Israel to sin." Okay, so there you see that covenant mediator, that representative thing going on there with Jeroboam leading the people into sin as they exercise idolatry. So these are surely some of the saddest words that we've really probably read up to this point in all of scripture. The northern tribes are lost. This prophecy that they'll be rooted up, taken out. Really, really sad words to this point. The northern tribes are lost, but the fulfillment of this does not come right away. Still about 200 years off. But in those 200 years, Not a single king of Israel will not be counted as evil. So we see a really bleak picture. And even you see kind of in a funny way the Lord's patience with Israel, even though he knows that their doom is at hand, and yet for 200 years he continues to bear with them in this way. And every single king that rises up is a king that the scripture says is a wicked king. Now it's in this context that we should talk more about the prophets and really about two prominent prophets that we see in the Book of Kings. You all know their names? Elijah and Elisha, that's exactly right. I wish we'd spend a lot of time on them because they're so fascinating, but really 1 Kings 17 through 2 Kings 13 is where we hear of their prophetic escapades. And they're primarily prophesying to Israel, the northern kingdom. which is interesting too, that the Lord, even as Israel is under severe judgment, He brings these prophets to come and to declare the word of the Lord to them. And it's not a pretty word. So we're going to add, because this adds something to our diagram over here. Oh no. Embarrassing. E.T.? ? So we have God now speaking through a prophet and really speaking to the kings. It's almost like the kings had lost their access to God in a sense because of their sin. And then he would send prophets to speak to them. And really through most of the book of Kings what we see is Elijah and Elisha who are fulfilling this role. But even this extends past Elijah and Elisha when you get into the major and the minor prophets, and they're primarily, just because Judah's history is so much longer, they're primarily prophesying in the context of Judah. But it's still the same idea of the prophets speaking to the people, but really doing it typically directed towards the leaders of the people. So the prophets would have two jobs. The first one, they would remind the kings that they cannot do whatever they want. That's one thing that their job was. It's not an easy job. Imagine telling a world leader that they just can't do whatever they want. It usually doesn't always go well, right? They are there to remind the leaders that they're men under authority. And the authority of the Word of God and the authority of the covenant that God made with them. And the prophets are essentially like covenant watchdogs, guardians of the covenant, calling kings and the people back to faithfulness. It's one of the main jobs that they had. The prophet's second task was to proclaim the punishment that the kings and the people would endure if they did not repent. Okay, so because of these things, the prophets were typically not the most popular people, right? They always delivered a hard message. Now sadly, the kings don't listen, and they lead the people into further and further decay. And so, 2 Kings 17 recounts the destruction of Israel by the nation of Assyria. The king of Assyria brings pagan nations to settle in the land of Israel, and what we essentially see is a complete reversal of what we saw in Joshua. Pretty much a complete reversal of them taking, occupying God's people, God's place, under God's rule. You all remember us thinking about that. We see what effectively is a reversal of that. God takes covenant faithfulness very seriously. Now as we seek to apply this part of God's salvation history, the section with the Northern Kingdom provides us with really a stark reminder that sin will eventually catch up with us. We can run from sin for years, but we ultimately cannot run from God's judgment. It will often cause failure in this life as it did for Solomon, or if not in this life, then absolutely in the next. So that should be a heavy word for us to consider as we think about the trajectory and the history of the Northern Kingdom as they rebel against God. So let's think a little bit about the Southern Kingdom. Do y'all have any questions about that or observations? Okay, so bleak picture, hopefully you're all adequately depressed and discouraged. That was the point of that section. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Just watch, yep, just watch, just wait, right? Yep, we know it's not all bad news, so we're sitting here hearing this depressing story, but we kind of know there's the Lord's at work, right? And we'll see that in just a few minutes. Let's go to the southern kingdom and talk about Judah. Now the story of Judah is similar to that of her northern sister, but there's really one key difference. And that difference is Yahweh's promises to David. That's the main difference, Yahweh's promises to David. Let's look at this difference. Turn back to 1 Kings chapter 15, verses three through four. Let's see, I'm gonna have, Miss Denise, would you be willing to read that for us? 1 Kings 15, three through four. He walked in all the sins of his father, which he had committed before him, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, like the heart of his father David's. But for David's sake, the Lord his God gave him a name from Jerusalem, raising his son after him. Okay, so that picks up a few things that we've talked about. Okay, it's a summary of the reign of Abijam. And as we read, you see that he's compared to David. Okay, does not follow fully in the way of David like David did. And yet it has this other interesting phrase. He always deals differently here than he did with Jeroboam. Why? For David's sake, the Lord had given him a lamp in Jerusalem, setting up his son after him and establishing Jerusalem. So you see that promise to David that the Lord is essentially hearkening back to, even as you have this Judean king who is not following as he should in the example of David. The Lord is still extending a measure of grace to him on the basis of his promise to David. So the two things to notice here by way of summary, God showed mercy to Abijam, allowing his son to succeed him, and that it was for David's sake. Because Yahweh had made a promise to David, and it will be fulfilled. You see here in the north, this is interesting, in the north there are 10 changes in the ruling family. So 10 changes in a dynasty shift within those kings. So Israel, Ten changes, okay? In the south, there were none. The line of David would continue throughout the southern kingdom for as long until it also falls into exile. There's one kingdom, right, in the south, whereas the north is made up of ten different dynasties, ten different families who claim power. So you see the fractured nature of that. And this is also part of God's judgment, I would say, and blessing to Judah. The second thing to note is that Abijam was compared to David, as I said that already, too, as were all the kings of Judah, just as Jeroboam was the benchmark of wickedness in Israel. So as we walk through 1 and into 2 Kings, we see that some Judean kings were good, like Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18 through 20, and they did what was right. Though even these good kings fall short of the mark that was set by David." Sorry. But about half of them, as we see, are bad. They're bad kings. In fact, when we get to Manasseh, Hezekiah's son, okay, he has the reputation of being the worst king yet, right? Okay, go ahead and turn to chapter 2 Kings 21, verses 11 through 12. Guy, would you mind reading 2 Kings 21, 11 through 12? Sure. Because Manasseh, king of Judah, has done these abominations, he has done evil more than all the Amorites did who were before him, and has also made Judah sin with his idols. Therefore, thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, behold, I am bringing such calamity on Jerusalem and Judah that whoever hears of it Okay, so we see the outcome of this wicked king who did more evil than all of the Amorites did. It's hard to imagine that, right? Just how wicked Manasseh was. And then God says, Behold, I will bring upon Jerusalem and Judah such a disaster that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. The strong word of judgment from the Lord. So just as Jeroboam sealed Israel's fate, Manasseh, his sin, sealed Judah's. And Judah would soon be taken captive just as Israel was. But just when it looks like it's all over and that every king is flawed compared to David, and all hope is lost, Kings finally reaches a climax with a king who amazingly even exceeds David in godliness and in goodness. Do y'all know what this king's name is? I heard it. Josiah, that's right. Okay, I'm glad that you know that for obvious to some reasons, right? Okay, we have a king who reaches, you know, even beyond and exceeds David in godliness and goodness. And that king is King Josiah. So go ahead and let's look back into 1 Kings. We're doing a lot of flipping around because I just want you to see how some of these things are actually prophesied earlier in the book of Kings and then are fulfilled later. 1 Kings chapter 13, verse 2, God's people with their finest king, 1 Kings 13, verse 2. This prophecy is almost 300 years before the evil king of Manasseh. says this, O altar, altar, thus says the Lord, behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name, and he shall sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who make offerings on you, and human bones shall be burned on you. Okay, so maybe a little bit of a cryptic way to talk about what's being prophesied here, but essentially this future King Josiah, he will restore true worship in Israel. Eventually, I should say probably Judah, just for clarity, eventually he arrives here in the closing chapters of 2 Kings. Now there's no time to see all the amazing things that he does, but if you want to scan through chapters 23 through 23, you can see the types of things that he accomplished while he reigned. Okay, he finds the book of the law, he renews the covenant, he purges the land of idolatry. Look at chapter 23, verse 25, and this is that stark statement that's just remarkable. Before him there was no king like him. Okay, before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all of his heart, and with all of his soul, and with all of his might, according to the law of Moses. Nor did any like him arise after. It's hard to believe when you think about, you know, the way that Scripture paints David as king, and then even Solomon to a lesser degree. Lesser in some sense, but greater in others, maybe. And then you have this verse about Josiah, that there was before him, there was no king like him. Just elevating how great this king was. Tragically, Josiah meets a tragic end, right? You remember, that's one of the major problems with this scheme, is that the kings, either they would sin and lead people into sin, or they would die, okay? So it just creates this constant longing for this forever solution that the people, you know, are hoping and waiting for. He will not live forever. This godly king, this finest king, he's not going to live forever. He actually will die in battle. And again, God's promises, God's plan of redemption through David's line are kind of left once again hanging from a thread. It seems all through the book like he was the solution for this godly king that they were hoping for. Maybe he's finally here. Maybe this is the long-awaited promised one. But here he is, right? There he goes, and the people are still left waiting. If even Josiah isn't God's forever king, then who's going to be, right? Well, as is hopefully obvious to you, Josiah points to something our forever king will need to do. He's also going to need to defeat death, something that Josiah was unable to do. Any questions up to this point? observations. So if Josiah was the greatest king of Judah, who were the people's final king? Do you all know his name? I'll be much more impressed. And I don't know why we don't have a lot of kids running around here with the name Jehoiachin, but we need to make that happen. So who's going to be the first one? Jehoiachin. It'd be great. So 2 Kings 24 through 25. Let's turn to the final few chapters in Kings and get to the very last one. So soon after Josiah, there are three waves of attacks by the Babylonians. And with each attack, they take a few captives away until, as promised, they finally level Jerusalem and the temple. We even read in the story of Zedekiah rebelling against the Babylonians of the line of David being completely wiped out. So it's a bleak picture indeed. So as Kings concludes, is the promise So as Kings concludes, is the promise over, where is the promise over, sorry, that sentence doesn't make any sense. Oh, is the promise over for God's people? Is he done? Is it game over, right? Is God just gonna have to start over again in the New Testament? Maybe, you know, done with that, we just have to start from scratch, right? Is that the right answer? Well, no. His plan of redemption, certainly looks in complete shambles by the end of the book. So 10 out of the 12 tribes are scattered and are lost among the nations, and the remaining tribes are captive far away from the land. And what about the king in the line of David, right? We made a big deal about in the southern kingdom there was this line of kings that never broke succession. What about the line of David? Has God reneged on these promises? Was God too weak to stop so great a force as the terrible Babylonian army? We know that all of this happened because of the sin of the kings. But it sure looks doubtful that anything can be salvaged from this very bleak situation. Here's the big question that should be on all our minds. And it's a question that should come up again and again as we think about redemptive history. Has the seed of the serpent finally finished his job and killed off the seed of the woman. Okay, if you think about the nations who are coming against Israel, they may have had this moment, probably not too different than the moment whenever the Pharisees and Sadducees and, you know, the Roman officers seeing Jesus draw his last breath on the cross, that they may have had a similar feeling. We finally We finally put this to an end, right? This kind of feeling. You know, maybe the Assyrians and the Babylonians kind of felt similarly. Has the seed of the serpent finally finished his job and killed off the seed of the woman? Well, Kings doesn't quite leave us there. There's actually just a little ray of hope left. There's one final descendant of David still alive. the king captured right before Zedekiah took the throne, and it's Jehoiakim, Josiah's great-grandson. Now he is exiled in Babylon, which is not good, but just as the book ends, Jehoiakim is released from captivity and invited to dine for the rest of his days at the king's table. So in this we see that God's promises never fail, and that the very presence of Jehoiakim means that hope remained for a day when the greater son of David would rise to power. So it's not much, right? It's not much, but it is a ray of hope. After all of this, one descendant of David is still alive. Let's conclude our time, we might finish a few minutes early, which will give you some time to go write a really nice note to Stephen and tell him how much you miss him teaching Sunday school too. It's clear that we're left really almost with a cliffhanger as to what we started with. Who knows what God's people in Babylon thought? But for us, we have the privilege of living after Christ. We can see that the true pinnacle of history, of the story, it's not Solomon, it's not Josiah, it's not David, it's not Jehoiachin, but it's Jesus Christ, the forever King, right? And you see, as we know, the ultimate fulfillment King is Jesus, who really completes our diagram. He's the one in David's line who never breaks any of God's law. He displays God's glory perfectly and allows us to display God's glory even now. He brings God's full judgment of our sin through his death, and he brings every blessing to us. He now intercedes for us, pleading that God might show his certain mercy if we turn and trust in him. He is the one who will take us to heaven, the promised land forever. So reading King should leave us with the great excitement of knowing that God does keep his promises. And he's shown his trustworthiness through his provision of King Jesus. You might think about representation. Some people might object to the fact that Adam and Adam all sinned. He's our representative head, and we want to say, come on, I didn't do that sin. That was his sin. Why do I have to be accounted for for that? And if you reject the idea of representation, guess what also you're missing? The representation of Jesus Christ on your behalf and the righteousness that he imputes to you, that his act of obedience and his passive obedience imputed to you. So don't be too quick to feel like we got the short end of the stick, because we have to follow in the path that the representative of the Lord placed over us, because that's exactly how we have Christ and the work that he does for us. So he completes the picture. No sin, a king with no sin, and a king who finally defeats death. So clearly Yahweh is not through with his chosen people at the end of 1 Kings, or at the end of 1 and 2 Kings. And really the rest of the Bible is going to detail for us the continued covenantal story. I wanted to close with two quotes. These are old, you know, our forefathers in the faith wrote these down. And if you think about the way that some people like to think about the person of Christ and the offices that he held, you know, some people say that Christ had a three-fold office. Do you all know what that three-fold office is? Have you all heard this before? Okay, prophet, priest, and king, that's exactly right. Okay, well on this we have, obviously, prophet and king, and priest, we saw, you know, as we looked through the book of Samuel and the book of Deuteronomy, we saw that come to the fore. But if we think specifically about king, I want us to think about this. This is from the Second London Baptist Confession. The office of mediator between God and man is proper only to Christ. So the office of mediator between God and man is only proper to Christ, who is prophet, priest, and king of the church of God, and may not, either in whole or in any part thereof, be transferred from him onto any other. So he is the final, full, irreplaceable king over his people. And then the Westminster Larger Catechism answers this question this way, which I thought was pretty helpful. How does Christ execute the office of a king? So this answers a lot of what we're anticipating as we look at the book of Kings. Christ executes the office of a king in calling out of the world a people to himself and giving them officers, laws, and censures by which he visibly governs them in bestowing saving grace upon his elect, rewarding their obedience, and correcting them for their sins. preserving and supporting them under all their temptations and sufferings, restraining and overcoming all of their enemies, and powerfully ordering all things for his own glory and their good, and also in taking vengeance on the rest who know not God and obey not the gospel. So we serve a good king, a king who serves and ministers to us even now through his intercessory work, who has given us his word to guide how we are to live, how we are to be on mission as we fulfill, you know, his final words to us before he ascended to go and make disciples of all nations. He told us how to organize that work as seen in the church. And so he is a king indeed and one that will not be replaced, will not die, and is without sin. So that's a very good thing. So it's good to live on this side of all that we've talked about and see the way that God fulfilled it. And as we continue through the Old Testament and as we turn to the prophets next week, we're going to start seeing, you know, this continued story, and maybe in some sense a little more difficult to follow, but hopefully it's an encouragement to you. Any questions or comments? And we can end by thanking God that Jesus is King. All righty, let me pray for us and then we can be done. Father, we are so thankful for your son, Jesus Christ, who is king over all. We thank you, Father, that he is head of the church, even this church. And Father, we pray that we would be, our hearts would be inclined to him, our hearts would be attuned to your word as spoken by him and through him. And Father, that this body of believers would be a glory to you, that we would glorify you, that we would praise your name, that we would bless your name for all that you have done, even on our behalf, through Jesus Christ. We are thankful for others, Father, who are not even with us, other churches in the area and beyond, where Jesus Christ, Lord, is looked to as their King. And Father, we pray that you would just continue to advance the worldwide mission of spreading the gospel and bringing all things under subjection under your feet. Thank you for this time, in Christ's name, amen.