Thank you for listening to this sermon from Seven Springs Presbyterian Church. If you want to learn more about us, please find us on Facebook or visit us at SevenSpringsPresbyterian.com. Like I said, we'll be in 1 Kings chapter 16. We're looking at the northern kingdom of Israel up to this point, and we will be until the end of 1 Kings. But where we're up is we've looked at Jeroboam, Nadab, one household underneath Jeroboam. Jeroboam sins, begins, creates those false places of worship and the false breaking the second commandment. Nadab his son rules for a short amount of time and then he is dethroned with a change with Bashar coming in. Bashar reigns a long amount of time. He gets warned of the coming judgment that is going to come upon him because he walked in the way of Jeroboam. Then Elah then follows suit and Elah reigns for a short time. Then we have Zimri And Zimri reigns for the shortest amount of time of seven days as we looked at last time. And now we, as we saw Zimri overthrown last week, now Omri reigns and rules. And Omri is an interesting reign and a period of time because there's many shifts and changes. If you've noticed, there's been a pattern. that someone comes to the throne, their son, they die, their son comes to be king, they get overthrown by another, and so this pattern has continued, and then finally with Zimri lasting seven days, but Omri really sets up a new trajectory that we'll see in this time, although it's still somewhat of a short reign of 12 years, but he is one of the most unique kings And we'll look at that in four parts this evening. The first interesting part is that he reigns during a divided kingdom. And we see this in verses 21 to 22. And we see that in 1 Kings chapter 16. Then the people of Israel were divided into parts. Half the people followed Tibni, the son of Gennath, to make him king. And half followed Omri. But the people who followed Omri overcame the people who followed Timni, the son of Ganath. So Timni died and Omri became king. So what we see, maybe we remember this from last time, but last week during the reign of Zimri, that seven day reign, the enemy known as the one who killed his master, struck down Eli who was still drunk. And so, Zimri came to the throne. He sat himself upon the throne. And then what happened is that news travels, and that news travels to Omri. And these troops come and tell Omri that Zimri has conspired and killed the king. Therefore, all Israel made Omri the commander of the army, king over Israel, that day in the camp. So, they hear the news, immediately he comes and and he's now the king. And so Omri went up from Githeon and all Israel with him and they besieged Tizar. Now Omri is besieged, Zimri is besieged, he burns the city down, he commits suicide, he ends his seven-day reign. But what we noticed is there seems a quick transition throughout all of this that here it seems that this group of soldiers made Omri king. says, all of Israel made Omri king. Maybe that is all the tribes of Israel there at that point and thus it is Omri who has made king. But what we see in verse 21 is now the kingdom is divided. There are two kings that sit on the throne. Now the author wants to make it very clear that it is not as if we don't know who is going to be the true and right king. During this point it is almost that author is making it very clear that Omri is the next king in line and Timni is really just someone who reigns a period of time. He is not technically the king of Israel during this time. He doesn't get the same that he reigned this amount of years. He did what is evil or good in the sight of the Lord. He died and then his son reigned in his place. He doesn't get those classifications or those terminologies that we see with all the other kings. We only get what Omri does. So there's somewhat of an Omri favoritism here that I think is prevailing in the text. I think that shows the Israel making Omri king as the troops. Now this again is not a new thing to have a divided kingdom. It happened under David with Ish-bosheth. Even then with David and Absalom it happened under Rehoboam, Jeroboam. So it happens all during these times that we would call the United Kingdom you might say. But there is always a sense there of what we see as tribalism that is still a part of Israel that is divided by tribes. And there is this divide that happens really underneath Jeroboam and Rehoboam where There was a favoritism that Rehoboam was favoring the southern tribes, particularly of Judah, and therefore there was a weight put upon the northern tribes. So there's still, although they're united, even in the northern kingdom of the ten tribes, there's still this sense of tribalism. Now, we're not told how the nation was divided, which half followed who, north half, south half, east half, west half, northeast, west, east. It doesn't tell us which and how it was divided, but we can maybe understand why there's a prevailing favoritism towards Omri. Omri was the choice of the army, the troops, has a standing as the commander of the army, so he's high ranking. There's this explanation, here's the troops that have been encamped and he's the commander of the army. So I think there's this somewhat of a favoritism there that you can see why people would follow him. much about Timney. The Septuagint adds that Timney was bravely seconded by his brother Joram. Joram in the Bible, there are two other Jorams, there is the son of Ahab, this wouldn't be the same Joram there. And then there is Joram the son of Jehoshaphat in 2 Kings chapter 8. So, these two Jorams aren't the Joram that is referenced, but again they are added to the Bible of the Septuagint. and not in the original language. So we're still at an impasse. Who is this guy? We don't know much, but again, the focus is not on him. The focus is on Omri. But what we do have during this passage that can help us understand a little bit about Omri and how he can conquer even Tibni here, is that we notice here that it went on for about 14 years. Verse 15 explains that during the reign, Asa's 27th year. And then verse 23 explains that during the 31st year. So it happens for about a period of four years, four years, five years, depending on how you count those. But the second thing that we see is that it ends eventually. There is this tension that is divided but eventually Omri and the people that follow him overcame the people that followed Timnit. There is this battle, there is this fight you might say. Timnit dies but the connection that we see in verse 22 specifically that so Timnit died and Omri became king. There is this connection that seems because of this civil war between the two people, Timni and Omri, then because of that the conclusion, the connection to that is Omri won and Timni died somewhat in battle, not because of age. So we see the first portion of Omri's reign of about four years of this kingdom divided. He rules and reigns, he conquers Timni. The second portion that we see is Tazar in verse 23. And what we see there is, in the 31st year of Asa the king of Judah, Omri began to reign over Israel. And he reigned for 12 years, 6 years he reigned in Tizar. Now this portion we've discussed before in that lecture we looked at with dating, but what's known as dual dating. That here we see this what seems confusing at this point that here Omri began to reign over Israel. He reigned 12 years. So what does that mean? Did he reign these four years before this and then he began his new reign of 12 years afterwards? And this has been a question that has been asked, actually in many Greek translations of the Bible, they saw this as an error and they sought to be able to try and correct it and to be able to try and make it work out in the math so they can actually see that connection. So they tried to clean it up. So what is it? Is it did he reign for 12 years or did he reign for four years plus 12 years? So we have here in this, we find out he reigns for six in Cesar and then he reigns six in Samaria. So plus the four of the 12 years total, that would be about four to, depending on four to five years, depending on how you count it, 15 to 16 years. But how do we come up with a solution to this? Well we don't go to try and work out the math. What we do is we let Scripture interpret Scripture. The principle of the Reformation is that Scripture is our authority in these times. So we let Scripture interpret Scripture. But notice how it is used in other portions of Kings. You see in verse 29, in the 38th year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab the son of Omri began to reign over Israel. and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel and Samaria 22 years. So what we see here is that the period of time between Omri coming to the throne and Ahab his son coming to the throne is the 27th year to the 38th year. So there's different datings here that we've talked about there of ascension, non-ascension years, how you count those years and what they look like. But here you see that number of 27 to 38 is closer to 12 than it is to 15 or 16. The second thing that we also see is then that transition of Asa reigning 41 years. And you see that in 1 Kings chapter 22, verse 41, when Jehoshaphat, the son of Asa began to reign over Judah in the fourth year of Ahab the king of Israel. So Asa's reign is 41 years and 41 years minus four equals about 38. Now again, when I say about, I'm saying about not because I don't know how to do math. I'm saying about because when we use these calculations and understand these methods of counting, that they're using different systems and years and calendars, ascension and non-ascension. Some have overlap, as we've mentioned before. So although we might seem to have some confusion with verse 23, it's helpful to see how we can use scripture to help us understand what that actually looks like. So in this case, we can turn to other portions of scripture and see that all of Omri's reign is just a total of 12 years. It's not that he began a new 12-year cycle after the half year when the kingdom was divided. Now, again, that helps to show that here the author believes that Omri is the legitimate king during this time. Legitimate as in that the Tibne wasn't technically the king of Israel, that Omri was. So. We can notice why then he would not have lived in Tisar for those first six years, or how he could have. Remember that Zimri burnt it to the ground, the king's palace to the ground, and the citadel to the ground. So how could he live there? Well, if he's fighting Tidney, he probably is a good king out on the battlefield, especially if he's trying to win people over. He's out on the battlefield fighting battles, and therefore Tidney Tizar could be rebuilt during this time for him to be able to dwell there. Then we come to the third portion of his reign in Samaria verses 6 to 12 years. You see this in verse 24. And he bought the hill of Samaria from Shemir for two talents of silver. And he fortified the hill and called the name of the city that he built Samaria, after the name Shemir, the owner of the hill. Now again, this is quite a critical shift here in this narrative of what we've seen up to this point. Here he comes and he finds this hill and he purchases this hill. And this hill would become Samaria. And this is really where the capital of Israel is set up. And the word Shemer, which is the name of the hill, but also the name of the owner, it means to watch or to guard. It's actually quite a high hill, a great place for a capital. If you were to try and find a capital within this region, this is the hill you would, If you're a military trying to find a spot, this would be one of the places. Remember that here, Tisar was quite an easy city to besiege, so here he goes and finds Samaria, builds a city there of Samaria. So, you think about one of the major ways that cities are attacked, this actually will be the downfall, that they'll be besieged and not be able to withstand. But if we merely just look at this passage in a military terms and through his political sphere, then we've really missed a lot of the point here. We need to notice a couple of theological things that are happening in this passage that are quite important. The first is that pattern of naming a place after a person. Naming a place after a person. This is a pattern that we see throughout scripture and right from the very beginning after the fall is the practice is that Cain builds a city and he names that city after his son Enoch. And so this is somewhat of a pattern that you see there in Scripture, even why did they build the Tower of Babel that we might be able to make a name for ourselves. So again it is trying to exalt the man and the person. And you see it throughout there, you see it in Psalm 49 where Psalm 49 verses 10-12, where he sees that even the wise dies, the fool and the stupid alike must perish and leave their wealth to others. Their graves are their homes forever, their dwelling places to all generations. Though they call their lands by their own names, man in his pomp will not remain. He is like the beasts that perish. And so here, kind of the foolishness of man is that we build all this wealth, build all this place, build all these places, and call them after our name, and then what happens to us? We die. We don't remain. We're just like the cows that perish, all the animals that perish. You see, even that pattern is known as kind of the City of David, but it's transitioned to be able to call Jerusalem the City of Peace. A lot of the places where they are called are named after God or what God has done. And here the hill is named after the owner, Shamir. Now Samarian, Shamir sound different to us but in Hebrew the vowels are not important. The same in English as well. It is hard to be able to explain to kids how vowels work in English. Well it is past tense so it changes completely, the vowels change. What you're looking for is the letters in the words to be able to see the similarities. And so too, you can see, even if you look at the word S-M-R, and then Samaria, S-M-R, you see that connection of how they're relative and the same. But the second thing that we need to notice is not just the name of the place, but also need to see the similarity of this connection between this hill in which Omri buys for silver that eventually becomes the capital. Now we saw this in 2 Samuel chapter 24. Here David does that foolish census in 2 Samuel chapter 24. The angel of the Lord comes and And God through the prophet Gad speaks and gives him three options and he says, let me fall into the hands of the Lord for he is merciful and the angel of the Lord puts his sword back in his sheath and eventually he makes his sacrifice. And in the end of chapter 24, And the king said to Arunah, the person who owns the hill, no, as Arunah tried to give it to him, he said, no, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing. So David bought the threshing floor in Oxen for 50 shekels of silver. Now this amount is a lot less than what Omri pays for Samaria, but what we need to know is here Omri purchases land just as David purchases land, and this is very important, especially when we get to next week, Lord willing, and we see Ahab. Ahab the son then builds a house on that hill where then becomes the place where the people worship the false gods. So you could call it a hill, I think it's also used as the word mountain. Mountains are very common places where people went up to be able to worship. They're false gods. And so, again, you see that here in 1 Kings 11, that Solomon builds all these high places for Kamos, the abomination of Moab, and Melech, the abominations, the Ammonites, on the mountains east of Jerusalem. So here, mountains often are places, the high places are where people build these temples and these altars to be able to worship God. And as we remember this, we continue to read through the next pages of scripture that then we have Ahab and we have Ahab versus Elijah and Elisha, that mountains then come up a very common place. You have mountain in Samaria, you have Mount Carmel, et cetera. You see all these mountains that play a pivotal point and part. And so what we start to begin to see here is this shift that has been prevalent between the North and the South is this contrast. that is happening between the kings of the north and the kings of the south. Now the kings of the south in Judah will have wicked kings, but they also will have good kings. They will have a temple, which is the temple of the Lord built in Jerusalem, the place in which God has set apart for them to be able to worship. And now you see the north beginning in all their worship practices, they're establishing their whole new capital, they're building their whole new house to Baal, They'll set up all these different types of things on mountains. So there's this contrast between the North and the South, particularly about where they set them up. So when we think of Samaria, we don't merely just think of a location, a fortified city of political stature. We need to think of it as a place of worship, as we will see. Now just before we mention we need to also look back at 1 Kings chapter 13 verse 32 where specifically here Samaria has been told beforehand. Here the prophet He lived in Bethel, invited the nameless prophet to be able to eat of his house. He was eaten by a lion. And he mentions here in verse 34, verse saying, that he called out by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel, against all the houses of the high places that are in the cities of Samaria shall surely come to pass. So here we see Samaria is already a place where worship is happening in all these high places. Samaria is a place where people are going to be able to worship their false gods. And here Omri sets up his capital in that place where they're worshiping these false gods. Now why is this important? Again, it's important for us to be able to understand this from a political standpoint. When we turn to books like the New Testament, and we see Jesus going to places like Tyre and Sidon, and other places around Samaria, and he'd go and evangelize. And people are converted, and people hear the word. Specifically, in John chapter four, Jesus goes to Samaria, and he meets a Samaritan woman at the well. And this is what the woman says to him. that sir, I perceive you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, this mountain where Omri purchases to be able to set up a capital, this mountain. But you say in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship. So here we see that contrast played out through history and now this woman of the well understands here is Jerusalem where the Jews worship and here is Samaria where the Samaritans worship. There is this contrast here that is played on. And Jesus said to her, believe me the hour is coming and neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming. and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. So again, Jesus points out, she wants to be able to sidetrack. He says, well, go tell your husband, well, I don't have one, I don't have a husband, I'm not married. Well, you're right, not married. You've been married several times and now the man you're living with is not your husband. And that's why she says, I perceive you're a prophet. And she tries to change the topic. You wanna change the topic with a Jew? Well, bring up Samaria, where you worship, this mountain, that mountain, you bring that up. But here, what we see is this place of worship that becomes central in this story of the north. And again, we'll see this more clearly next week when we look at Ahab. But here, Amrit's the father who purchases the land. And then the son, Ahab, will build a place of worship. Now we see that David's the father who purchases the land and Solomon the son will build a place of worship. So again, we need to understand that Samaria is not then merely a capital of a nation. It's a place of worship in which is a nation that shows that they've completely deserted their God and their practices. We saw this earlier as well with with Jeroboam, there's this shift, this drastic shift gets worse and worse as we also see. But it's also, it's important for us then to understand that. And this cultural background is very, very vivid in the New Testament. The Woman of the Well or the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Again, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, as people come, and here's these false worshipers who set up all these false places of worship. And you have two people that go through, a priest and a Levite, to be able to go through, and they pass them by, and yet it's the Samaritan, the false worshiper, who worships God in a false way, in false gods, worshiping Baal, he's the one that stops. He's the one that shows and lives out the commandment to be able to love your neighbor as yourself. So we need to understand, this is where it starts, with Omri. It's very important. All right, the last part is the summary that we see in verses 25 to 29. Omri did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did more evil than all who were before him. For he walked in all the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and in the sins that he made Israel to sin, provoking the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger by their idols. Now the rest of the acts of Omri that he did, and the might that he showed, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel? And Omri slept with his fathers, and was buried in Samaria. And Ahab his son reigned in his place. So we see three things in this summary, that he was more evil than the other kings, he provoked the Lord to anger by their idols, and the might that he showed. Firstly, he did more evil. Again, we need to understand that what is happening during this period of time is not merely a repetition of kings doing what is evil and wicked. There is a heightening that comes in every single king. Every king does even more evil than the king before. We'll see the climax there of Ahab is the wicked king. And if you were to compare Jeroboam to Ahab, they wouldn't be the same. not even close. That here in verse 25 we see that Omri was not just a wicked king, he was worse than all the other kings before. There's this heightening that goes through of getting worse. And often what we think about is sin has been an on-off switch. You're either sinning or you're not sinning. But often what you see is the pattern of sin that leads to the spiral of sin. Do you see this spiral as sin, as you surround yourself with sin, sin gets worse and worse. Or you might say your conscience gets weaker and weaker. You have no ability to be able to discern what is right and evil and good and bad. See this in Psalm 1, that blessed is man who not walks in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. That here you see, first he's just walking past that which is wicked, listening to those wicked people, and then he stands with them. Now he sits with them. And there's this progression of getting worse and worse and getting more involved. Worse in the book of Judges, as we've pointed out. It's not merely that there's this cycle that happens in the book of Judges. As the book of Judges goes on, it gets worse and worse and worse. And finally, you have Samson, who's one of the great judges at the end, but he's not a good judge. He's a wicked man. You don't tell your kids, hey kids, be like Samson. He's not moral that you want to be able to follow him. Or even Eli's sons. Eli's sons, they're so wicked in what they do, they're unpure priests, that what it leads to is Ichabod, the glory of God departing. That's the low part of the book of Judges is what follows in the book of 1 Samuel, the glory of God having departed. And so too, Omri is worse than the kings before. Now again, this is important because there's a movement, there's a progression that leads to Ahab and that's why when we get to Ahab, there's just pages and pages and chapters and chapters about who Ahab is and what he does. And Ahab's dynasty reigns for such a long time And so Omri is here, he's the worst, but then Ahab comes along and he goes, well, let's see who's worstest, or the worser, you know, in terrible bad English. Let's go down that way. The second thing we see in verse 26 is then this pattern of sin. That we see, he walked in the way of Jeroboam, the son of Debat, in the sins that he made Israel to sin, provoking the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger by their idols. Now we've mentioned this almost every week because it comes up every single week. That when we think about a king being wicked, often what we think about is the king being wicked at the second portion of the table of law. How he treats other people. Does he establish rules and regulations that help people love their neighbor? Does he use the sword to be able to curb the wicked people? Now that has an aspect in what the Bible speaks of as wickedness, but here what we see is the wickedness in 1 Kings is specifically how they worship God. That he does what is evil in the sight of the Lord and then the example that is brought forward is not that he doesn't wait to be able to, he drives up the lane before merging into the lane right at the very end causing everyone to be able to stumble. It's not that he, you know, squeezes in front of people or steals from people. What is heightened in what he does, what is evil in the sight of the Lord is how he worships God or specifically how he does not worship God. Again, the woman of the well comes and speaks of Samaria as a place of worship. And here that what is established in the Northern Kingdom particularly is this false sense of worshiping all these false gods through these false ways, through these false idols. That this is the major sin that is highlighted and heightened during this time. Again, the second commandment. What does the second commandment forbid? The second commandment forbiddeth the worshipping of God by images or any other way not appointed in His Word. And this is what ends up provoking the Lord to anger. Remember Deuteronomy 12, a huge passage that is vital as we understand the book of 1 Kings. As they go in Deuteronomy and they're warned to be able to drive out all the false practices, all the false worship. And what they say, what Moses writes in verse 4 is that you shall not worship the Lord, your God, in that way. That he's going to establish a place for them to be able to worship and the northern kingdom is exactly doing the opposite. They're going back to be able to worship these false gods. That this jealousy and this provoking God to anger, again in Deuteronomy chapter 32 verse 21, they have made me jealous with what is no God. They have provoked me to anger with their idols so that I make them jealous with those who are no people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. Again, what Jesus responds to the woman of the well is, you worship what you do not know. And here in Deuteronomy, you worship what is no God. Can you even call that worship? But even in this passage, we should note Even after all this, all these wicked kings, six wicked kings after wicked king, dethroned, new king comes, dethroned, murders, drunkards, all these things. But yet, what we see here in verse 26 is provoking the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger by their idols. But here, even God is still willing to be identified with His people. here you think about all the wicked things they do and yet he doesn't say I used to be their God and then left me then they abandoned me he still is called the God of Israel showing his faithfulness his steadfastness still uses the name covenant name of Yahweh he's still the God of Israel I mean, this is phenomenal to be able to think about just over these years that we've looked at so far in the Northern Kingdom, how they've turned their backs, rejected God, not worship God, not serve God, and yet he still is able and willing and is called the God of Israel. You see God's longstanding, steadfast love, patient. He by no means is gonna clear the guilty. But yet, he still shows his steadfast faithfulness to this remnant in the northern tribes. And that leads us to our third and final thing. And it's not so much what we see in the Bible, but really how the truth of the Bible is found even in history. That Omri's reign is quite unique in that It's just quite special from other kings. Now, I mentioned this before, but I think it's very important for us to understand is many liberal scholars come to the Bible, and they read through the book of 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, and they just say, this can't be true. Out of all the historical artifacts and things like this, really, these stories just didn't happen, particularly of this time during the kings. We hear reference of them fighting other nations, taking over other nations, and sometimes they even win. And yet it doesn't seem that as we look at all these artifacts, that it seems that there's much of Israel at all. It doesn't seem like there's many kings. We can't find historical artifacts or records of these kings. I mean, even if you were to go and read like the history of America, you would be able to find out and pinpoint other countries that existed during the time when America existed. You'd be able to read about allies and enemies. You'd be able to find out about places, Cuba, Vietnam, Japan, Germany, and others, England, of where people came from, Spain, Mexico, allies in wars. And that's because they interact with other nations, that even in their histories, you would find interactions with other histories. But many liberal scholars came up and said, well, the Bible must be exaggerating all of these stories, must be heightening them. We can't find any of these great cities that they built. We can't find any of these artifacts of people's kings that reign. But yet Omri is one of the kings that actually debunked all of these myths and arguments. Actually Omri's reign, although very short in our Bible, is actually quite important as we understand Israel's standing within the other nations. And particularly in this passage in verse 27, that is quite unique that here Omri comes up and it says, and the might that he showed. the might of Omri in this time. That it seems a unique thing to say, but yet this is actually showed throughout history. The Samaria actually has helped find a lot of things. They've found places like Tisar. Particularly, even in Samaria, they found a place which is known as Omri and Ahab's Palace, discovered around 1910. They were able to find all of this out, and guess where they found it? At a high place of a hill near where Samaria is. Not only did they find this place in the existence of this city. They also find places and things like the Moabite stone or the Mesha Stele. Now, there's another part of Ahab's palace or Omri's palace. But here, the text might be a little bit hard to see, but you see that detailed picture there. If you can't see that, then maybe you could read this. Quite clearly, I think, as you can tell, It says Omri king of Israel. Actually in this place it says Omri was king of Israel. He oppressed Moab for many days. For Kamos was angry with his land. The sun succeeded him. And he said, he too, I will oppress Moab. In my days he did so. And I looked down on him and on his house, and Israel was gone to ruin." Yes, it was gone to ruin forever. Omri had taken possession of the whole land of Mebdula, and he lived there in his days and half his days for his son, 40 years. But Kamos restored it to my days. So here we find another nation referring to Omri. Another record here, a black obelisk of Shalmaneser III. And here this inscription shows details about Jehu, the king of Israel, brought tribute to this Assyrian king. And so it shows this inscription. Again, here's another picture. You see here Jehu is bringing these tributes to the Assyrian king and the inscription as you can see in this picture again quite clearly, Jehu is called the son of Omri. Again, sun here is not necessarily a biological sun, but what it is, it means it's successor down the line. And so we see this, what's called an Omride dynasty of here, Omri breaks the cycle of father-son death. He breaks that cycle, but we see this carried on. Again, you see that picture here. But the panel above here, the black obelisk of Shalmaneser III, inscription says, the tribute of Jehu, the son of Omri, I received for him silver. And even in other Assyrian documents, what you see is that hundreds of years later, when Assyria comes in and takes them out, you actually see Omri's dynasty come to an end. But here, when they take them out in their records of what it is. They don't call them Israel. They actually call it Omri land. And so we see all this pattern there. And so they take people from Israel, read about this letter later. But what we see here is this vital truth of what we're reading is actual history. It actually happened. And here God is working in and through to be able to bring about His purposes and to be able to show His covenant faithfulness, but also His covenant curses of those who walk against His law and His way. But even Omri in this short little thing has actually proven a lot of what again these debunks of what these liberal scholars say, well the Bible just can't be true. And it's a great encouragement for us as we read these pages of scripture, as we see all of these things actually did happen. One study Bible puts it this way. Omri was an enormously famous and successful king, yet the Bible pays virtually no attention. Political success in the eyes of biblical writers counted for very little if individual had turned away from God. Again, we see the depravity of the heart. And what we see here is that the Bible is not interested in the dynasty they built, the God they worshiped. They're not interested in who paid tribute to which king. They're interested in if the king pays tribute to the Lord and how they worship. So it's important for us to be able to understand that this is history, this is true fact, but when it all comes down to it, the true thing that is measured of their kingship is if they did what was right or wrong or evil in the sight of the Lord, particularly when we think about worship. Did they worship the Lord? Makes a very important thing. How do we act? How do we react? What is important to us is worship, the number one thing, as the Westminster Shorter Catechism begins. What is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Thank you for listening to this sermon from Seven Springs Presbyterian Church. If you want to learn more about us, please find us on Facebook or visit us at sevenspringspresbyterian.com. Seven Springs Presbyterian Church began in 1874 and is a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America located in Glade Spring, Virginia. Please join us for worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. for His glory and His gospel.