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We begin a new series of sermons
this evening in 1 Chronicles chapter one. And tonight's scripture reading
is awkward in more than one way. I'm going to be reading from
verse one in chapter one to the end of verse two in chapter two. which kind of ends right in the
middle of a paragraph in chapter two. I trust you'll understand
why I've chosen that demarcation as we get into the sermon itself. So I'm not a Hebraist. So I ask your indulgence as I
read these names. I will probably get maybe 20%
of them correct, so bear with me. I'll do my best, however. Let's give our attention now
to the reading of God's inerrant, infallible, and most holy word. Adam, Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalal,
Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The sons of Japheth, Gomer, Magog,
Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshach, and Tyrus. The sons of Gomer,
Ashkenaz, Rifath, and Togar-Ma, the sons of Javen, Elisha, Tarshish,
Kittim, and Rodanim. The sons of Ham, Cush, Egypt,
Put, and Canaan. The sons of Cush, Seba, Havalah,
Sabta, Rahama, and Sabtika. The sons of Rahama, Sheba, and
Dedan. Cush fathered Nimrod. He was
the first on earth to be a mighty man. Egypt fathered Ludim, Anamim,
Leihabim, Naftuhim, Pathrusim, Kasluhim, from whom the Philistines
came, and Kathurim. Canaan fathered Sidon, his firstborn,
and Heth. And the Jebusites, the Amorites,
the Girgashites, the Hivites, the Archites, the Sinites, the
Arvidites, the Zemurites, and the Hamathites, the sons of Shem,
Elam, Asher, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram, and the sons of Aram,
Uz, Hul, Gether, and Meshach, Arpachshad, Arpakhshad fathered
Shayla, and Shayla fathered Eber. To Eber were born two sons. The
name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided.
And his brother's name was Joktan. Joktan fathered Almadad, Selph-Seleph,
Hazra-Maveth, Jera, Hadaram, Azel, Dikla, Obel, Abimael, Sheba,
Ofer, Havalah, and Jobab. All these were the sons of Joktan. Shem, Arpachshed, Shelah, Iber,
Peleg, Ru, Serug, Nehor, Terah, Abram, that is Abraham. The sons
of Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael. These are their genealogies,
the firstborn of Ishmael, Nabeoth and Keter, Adbeel, Mibsem, Mishma,
Duma, Masa, Hadad, Tima, Jetur, Nafish, and Kedema. These are the sons of Ishmael.
The sons of Keturah, Abraham's concubine. Shebor, Zimram, Jokshon,
Midan, Midian, Ishbek, and Shua. the sons of Jekshon, Sheba, and
Dedan, the sons of Midian, Ephah, Epher, Hanak, Abadah, and Eldahah. All these were the descendants
of Keturah. Abraham fathered Isaac, the sons
of Isaac, Esau, and Israel, the sons of Esau, Eliphaz, Rehu,
Jeush, Jalam, and Korah, The sons of Eliphaz, Timon, Omar,
Zepho, Gatham, Canaz, and Timnah. Amalek, the sons of Reu, Nahaf,
Zerah, Shammah, and Mizah. The sons of Seir, Lotan, Shabal,
Zibion, Anah, Dishan, Azer, and Dishan. The sons of Lotan, Hori
and Himam, and Lotan's sister was Timna. The sons of Shebel,
Elvin, Manahath, Ebel, Shefo, and Onam. The sons of Zibion,
Ai, and Anah. The sons of Anah, Dishan, the
sons of Dishan, Hemdan, Eshban, Ithran and Cheron, the sons of
Ezer, Bilhah, Zavan, and Akan, the sons of Dishan, Uz, and Aran. These are the kings who reigned
in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the people
of Israel. Bela, the son of Beor, the name of his city being Dinhabah. Bela died, and Jobab, the son
of Zarah, of Basrah, reigned in his place. Jobab died, and
Hosham of the land of the Temanites reigned in his place. Hasham
died, and Hadad, the son of Badad, who defeated Midian in the country
of Moab, reigned in his place, the name of his city being Avith. Heydad died, and Samlah of Mashraqah
reigned in his place. Samlah died, and Sheol of Rehoboth
on the Euphrates reigned in his place. Sheol died, and Belhanan,
the son of Akbor, reigned in his place. Belhanan died, and
Heydad reigned in his place, the name of his city being Pi. And his wife's name was Mahah. Tabel, the daughter of Matrid,
the daughter of Mezahab, and Hadad died. The chiefs of Edom
were Chiefs Tinna, Alva, Jethath, Ohelabama, Ela, Penan, Canaz,
Taman, Mibzar, Magdiel, and Dairam. These are the chiefs of Edom.
These are the sons of Israel, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah,
Issachar, Zebulon, Dan, Joseph, Benjamin, Naphtali, Gad, and
Asher. This is the reading of God's
word. When you think of meticulous
kind of reading, what do you think of? Perhaps you think of
the first nine chapters of the book of First Chronicles. It
is difficult, meticulous reading to give your attention to. Our
culture, in which we find ourselves, despises repetition. We don't
like the things that are sort of static and boring. We like
dynamism and change. We like a good storyline, something
that is exciting and dramatic. We get virtually none of that
in the first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles. And so we may be
somewhat tempted to sort of gloss over this book, or at least this
section of this book, and get to the so-called good stuff,
where the drama and story is. After all, who wants to read
a bunch of names, most of whom we do not know, if we know how
to even pronounce them. We wanna get onto the action.
The problem with these genealogies is that there's no action, there's
no drama, there's no story here. But actually, in fact, that is
wrong. Remember, what we have here,
first of all, is scripture. It is God-breathed, Spirit-inspired,
holy, inerrant, and infallible scripture. God put it there to
give to us his people for a purpose, and it is not, he does not give
it to us to bore us, but he put it there to reveal something
to you and to me this evening that is very, very important. All these names are given for
a purpose. It is indeed a collection of
spiritual data that is put here for spiritual reasons. And while
we may not be excited about these names, we need to approach these
genealogies with the right mindset. That's what I hope to do in the
sermon this evening. We're not going to get to anything
particularly profound. I'm simply hoping to lay the
groundwork for the rest of this series to set our minds aright
on how to interpret and understand and to be built up in our faith
by these lists of names. You see, while we today in America
in the 21st century, as a culture might find stuff like this, writing
like this boring, think with me about the Israelites of old. Those who lived in the second
half of the first millennium of the before Christ period. They, the Israelites who lived
in that time would not have been bored by this list of names. Quite on the contrary, they would
have been quite excited, encouraged, and built up in their faith by
these names. And my job this evening is to
show you why. But we must put on a different
mindset. if we are to approach this book. We must, as it were, step out
from our cultural restrictions, step out of time, if you will,
in our surroundings, and step into the time in which the Israelites
lived when they first read this book. Because if we do so, we
will find hidden therein great spiritual treasures. As we approach
the text, it may be helpful to say a word about the author who
wrote this. And in short, we do know that
what we have here in both 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles is one book. 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles
are not actually two different books. They are one book. In
fact, most likely written by one author. We don't know who
that author is. So I will simply refer to the
writer of the Book of First Chronicles as the chronicler. But one thing
that we do know about the chronicler is that he had a purpose. Under
the inspiration of God, he had an agenda for writing these lists
of names. So throughout the book, we must
ask ourselves, why are these names here? Why is this information
given? Why is other information not
given? What is the author's purpose? What is his reason for writing
what we have before us this evening? Now, again, by way of contrast,
we modern day Americans tend to be somewhat ahistorical. That is to say, history. and
tends to play a very minor role in our thinking. We are really
good at looking where we are now and considering where we
might be in the future, but we don't often think about where
we have come from, what our background is, what our history is, our
context that has come before us. That is to say, our identity
seems more defined in terms of who we are and who we are becoming,
not who we were. That is who we were in our society. Who were the people that we came
from? What is the background of our
lives as we find them today? We seem to care more about today
than we do the past. The past seems irrelevant to
us. But back in Israel's past, the people were more identified
by where they came from rather than where they were going. Their
identity was fed by their history and what their forefathers did
before them. Now consider where Israel as
a people, as God's people were in the 6th and 5th century BC. They are at the time in which
they are returning from exile. You may remember the exile. You
remember Daniel, right? Daniel was in exile. You remember
what happened to the people of Israel because of their disobedience. They were taken out of their
land and brought into a foreign land. But now, at the time in
which this book is given to the people of Israel, they are returning
to the land to rebuild everything that was destroyed. To rebuild
their temple, to rebuild their land, their society, their culture,
their everything. Dragged away as they were by
the Babylonians and the Assyrians. They were dispersed among the
nations. And their identity had become
obscured. It had become confused. Who are
we, after all? They were living as slaves. in
a land not their own. Everything looks so very different
to them in the foreign land. They spoke a different language
among the people that they lived among. They lived among the people
who had a very different worldview, a very different way of doing
things, a very different way of seeing things. Israel in exile
was kind of like who we are as Christians in the church. as we find ourselves in the midst
of a very dark world, a wicked and perverse generation. We find
ourselves as strangers here on earth, don't we? As we converse
and we interact with the people around us, they think very differently
than we do. They live very differently than
we do. That was Israel living in and
among the pagans in the midst of exile. Can you imagine? their confusion, their confused
mind of state or state of mind as they return back now to the
promised land. They've been around these pagans
for so long. And don't think for a moment
that the pagan society in which they lived wasn't infringing
itself upon their thinking and changing their thinking. But
now they're coming back to the promised land. They're being
taken out of the wicked and perverse generation. But the question
is now, who are we supposed to be? We know what the Babylonians
are like. We got to know them pretty well.
Maybe we even became comfortable being among them. But what do
we do now? What is the significance of this
land? Why are we returning here? We set up shop in Babylon and
Assyria. Who are we? Where did we come
from? So we can summarize the purpose
of the book of 1st and 2nd Chronicles in this way. The purpose for
which 1st and 2nd Chronicles is given to the people of God
is to direct them. in the work of restoration, in
restoring the kingdom in the period of time after their exile. Now, the first step to doing
that would be to help the people of Israel, give them some context. Where have they come from? What's
their past? They have to rebuild the kingdom
of Israel, but why? What is this kingdom? What is
the temple? Why does it need to be rebuilt?
And so the chronicler begins and gives the people of Israel
a history lesson, a history lesson and identity formation through
genealogies, in part through genealogies. If the people of
Israel want to know where they came from, The chronicler is
gonna tell them exactly where they came from, and he's gonna
go all the way back to the beginning. Let's begin with the very first
man that God made covenant with. If you look, Adam, Seth, Enosh,
Kenan, so forth and so on. And just these first couple of
verses, all the way down to verse four, you realize that the chronicler
has just covered the first nine chapters of the book of Genesis.
It's like the book of Genesis, but condensed, entering in through
the window of people's names. Notice the way that the book
begins, with a name, a single name, Adam, or man. There's no introduction to the
book of 1 Chronicles. There's no warm-up, if you will.
There's no prologue. There's no preface. Get this,
in these opening verses, there aren't even any verbs. There's
no adjectives. There's not even an article,
definite or indefinite. The book begins with a list of
proper nouns. And in 13 words, verses one through
four, the chronicler covers the history of humankind from creation
all the way up to the flood. This is one efficient storyteller. Although to be sure, we are getting
purposely, I might add, a very abridged edition of that history. You see, giving these names and
giving them briefly like this is more than enough for making
the essential leap which the author here is intending to make. For notice the way he leaps,
he skips, he jumps through the history of redemption that is
given in the law, in the Torah in this first chapter. He gives
us all very bare bones information. He's clearly getting his information
from the Torah, from the book of Genesis. But he leaves out
all of the narrative. He leaves out all the dialogue.
He leaves out all the amount of years that each of these people
lived and any other information that might get in the way of
attaining his goal in the first section of the book. But what's
his goal? Now I want you to look at the
end of the section that I read, verses one through two of chapter
two. These are the sons of Israel. And then he names all 12. His
goal is to clearly connect, in a very brief form, the people
of Israel to the first man, Adam. And he hops, he skips, he jumps
through the history of redemption. And as that story is contained
in the book of Genesis, he finally brings them now up to this point.
He leads them to the people of Israel, the chosen people, the
people that God has chosen, not because there was anything choose
worthy about them, but simply out of his sovereign grace. The author in verses 35 to 54
gives an account of Edom's history of well, that is, the people
of Esau, who's Jacob's brother. Now Jacob, of course, was later
renamed as Israel. So it's purposeful here, it's
very important here for the chronicler to lay out here this relationship
between Esau and Jacob. And these two peoples, the peoples
of Israel and the people of Esau, Because the tensions between
these two neighboring nations was very high as it was in the
day when Jacob and Esau themselves lived. But the connection is
clear. And the message to post-exilic
Israel is clear. Why does he give all these names?
He gives all these names to explain to these returning exiles, you
are God's people. From the beginning, God had you
in mind. Do you see the way in which God's
providence has unfolded through the history of redemption to
bring you from Adam to now this point in this place? From Adam
to Jacob, God unfolded a history. He unfolded it providentially
in order to bring you about. You are not like the other nations.
You are the special people of God. That's the agenda. And you can imagine how important
that is to a nation which has somewhat become perhaps assimilated
into the pagan cultures of the exile. And now there's a reorientation
that's going on. You're not the pagan nations.
You are the people of God. He unfolded this history from
Adam to Noah, to Abraham, to Isaac, eventually to the people
of Jacob. Now surely the stories of some
of these great men of faith such as Noah and Abraham would have
been recalled in the minds of Israel. Surely they did not forget
in exile completely who these people were. And what the chronicler
here is doing is reminding them who they are simply by mentioning
their names. And when they mention these names,
he reminds them, as he connects them all together to the people
of Israel, that you are the children of Noah. You are the offspring
of Abraham. You are Israel, God's chosen
people. You can imagine how this may
be an encouragement to the restoring generation that returned to the
land. There are rebuilding people, a people who were once dispersed,
but now have returned to their homelands and are seeking to
restore for themselves something of the previous glory. Our author
is telling them, in effect, be of good courage, be of good cheer.
You are God's special people. You are a peculiar nation. You
are a holy priesthood. He, God, built you once before
and he will build you again. What an encouragement to the
people of God that the Lord has not forsaken them. Now, What's that got to do with
us who are here this evening? They had a very clear historical
and genealogical connection to Israel and to Abraham and to
Isaac and all the rest, but how does that help us, any? How can that be a help to you? How can that be a help to me,
we, the church? After all, we don't share this
genealogy. We're not Jews, generally speaking,
we're Gentiles. We're more likely blood descendants
of Noah's wicked son, Ham, than we are descendants of Noah. You see, and this is what the
New Testament teaches us, that believers in the Lord Jesus Christ
by nature are not a people. According to the flesh, we have
no inheritance. We have no promises from God.
In the flesh, we are far off from God. We are children of
darkness. We have no real meaningful identity
with the God of the covenant. But you see, things have drastically
changed. For the ultimate and the perfect
Israelite has come. The great and awesome restoration
of the kingdom has already occurred. For the king of that kingdom
has arrived. He has restored his people. You
see, in Jesus Christ, all the nations have come into his body,
into his identity as the true Israel. Those who were once not
a people, by the Spirit of the living God working faith in the
hearts of sinners, have become the people of God. Those who
were once sinners of the Gentiles have now been justified by faith
in Jesus Christ. For once you were far off, but
now, although you were once sons of Ham, you have now been made
to draw near by the blood of Jesus. You see, in Christ, you
have been transferred from the line of Ham to the line of Shem,
Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. By faith in the true Israelite,
you have become an Israelite. You have been made the people
of God. And what is really cool is that this genealogy is now
your genealogy. This history is now your history. The identity of these people
is now your identity. You share it with them in and
through Jesus Christ. And now you can say with all
the saints that have gone before you, Abraham is my father, not
by blood. but by blood bought sovereign
grace. You can now say, Isaac is my
father. You can say, Joseph is my father. And thus 5th century BC, Israel's
encouragement becomes your encouragement. God has laid out a whole history
for you. He has built his kingdom one
generation at a time. He has not forsaken his kingdom. He is ever faithful and he will
never forsake his kingdom. He will always be faithful to
you, his church. He will never turn from his promises. He will never leave you orphans,
but he will work through you and he will work in you. He will
work grace upon grace for you are his peculiar people. You
are unto him a holy nation. You are unto him a royal priesthood. And that is why we can stand
assured on the promises of God that he will build his church.
And he will build his church and use human means to do so. Even humans like us. we are called then in response
to be faithful. We need to pray for his grace
that he would make us faithful, that we would glorify him in
us and through us as we stand assured that we are the people
of God. Amen.
A History of God's People
Series 1 Chronicles
| Sermon ID | 4422025126086 |
| Duration | 31:47 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | 1 Chronicles 1:1 |
| Language | English |
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