Please turn in your Bibles to 1 Chronicles 23. We're going to be tackling four chapters today, but I'm just going to read the first six verses of this chapter because I think a number of these principles we're gonna look at are here. So when David was old and full of days, he made his son Solomon king over Israel. and he gathered together all the leaders of Israel with the priests and the Levites. Now the Levites were numbered from the age of 30 years and above, and the number of individual males was 38,000. Of these, 24,000 were to look after the work of the house of the Lord, 6,000 were officers and judges, 4,000 were gatekeepers, and 4,000 praised the Lord with musical instruments, which I made, said David, for giving praise. Also David separated them into divisions. among the sons of Levi, Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. Father, we thank you for your word, and I pray that as we delve into it, that you would sanctify us by your word, and that we would glorify you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. I think at least a couple of you have read Marcus Baucom's book, First Break All the Rules, What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently. It's an interesting read. Anyway, in that book, he said, over the last 20 years, authors have offered up over 9,000 different systems, languages, principles, and paradigms to help explain the mysteries of management and leaders. And of course, he adds his own theories and I'm not going to add my own to the mix this morning. I think it would be foolish to do so. I'm not enough of an expert on administration or management or personnel development or any of those things to even be teaching on the subject. But I will say this. I don't think you can read through 1 Chronicles 22-29 without being absolutely convinced that God is interested in the subject. God is interested in numbers and accounting. God is interested in personnel development and organization and delegation and other issues that are involved in the day-to-day running of a large organization. And actually these chapters do apply to the church and to administration within the family as well. Now this past Thursday, as I was starting to prepare for this and thinking, okay, what am I going to be preaching on in these four chapters, I finally decided that I think what I'm going to do is give a potpourri sampling of the issues that are in these chapters. And then after you've heard kind of this skimming over the surface, the Lord may lead some of you who are more competent than me in these areas to dig a little bit more deeply into the text. But I'm going to give you at least an introduction to what these chapters say. The first principle that I see here is that leaders should be interested in accounting and administration. Even if it's not our gifting, we should be interested in it. Chapter 23 begins by saying, So when David was old and full of days, he made his son Solomon king over Israel. And he gathered together all the leaders of Israel with the priests and the Levites. And as you go through the chapter, you realize David wasn't just hiring new administrators and managers. He did do that. But he himself understood the sound principles of management and administration. He did not abandon implementation completely to others. And I've read some authors on leadership who take exactly the opposite approach. One author said, accountants are in the past, managers are in the present, and leaders are in the future. And it might be true in terms of a stereotype or the emphasis that people might give, but I think you will recognize as we've gone through how many years now of looking at David's life, that he was a leader par excellence And yet he was also very involved in administration and accounting. And his son Solomon was an even greater administrator. And yet almost everybody acknowledges Solomon was an incredible leader, even though many other leaders down through history were especially strong in the area of being visionary and their other leadership issues. They did not ignore the day-to-day operations of the business, and if they did not have giftings in the area of administration, at least they hired people who were strong in those areas. So they did not minimize the importance of administration. Now as a side note, and this is point number two actually, I want to briefly mention the timing of these events. I want you to notice in verse one that These chapters take place after Solomon is made king. That's really important to understand, verse one. This means that these chapters happened after 1 Kings 1 that we've looked at in the last couple of weeks. Now that might be confusing initially because you start reading in chapter 29 and you see that David is putting Solomon on the throne in that chapter. But let me just read one verse in chapter 29 that clears everything up. Verse 22 of chapter 29 says, they made Solomon the son of David king the second time. Okay, this is the second time that Solomon was being made king. The first time was such a rushed job, they had to do it before Adonijah got into the city. They were just, time was of the essence, and so the second time around, they went through the pomp and the ceremony and the big celebration that really Solomon needed to have, was something that God wanted him to have. So it's very clear that all of these chapters occur after 1 Kings 1. Well, what is remarkable about that, if you remember, is that 1 Kings 1 shows David shivering in bed. He couldn't even get out of bed to go to Solomon's coronation service. 1 Kings 1.47 says that David was in bed when Solomon was being crowned, and when he heard the news that it was successful, he bowed on his bed in praise to God. Okay, he was an invalid. He couldn't even keep himself warm. And all of a sudden, in a burst of energy, David engages in a flurry of activities, including making all kinds of musical instruments, receiving divine plans for the precise measurements of the temple, setting up the administration of the future temple, and perfecting the administration of his army, now that Joab had been replaced. Somehow he got better, somehow God enabled him to have renewed strength, at least for a few months. And there are several things I think that we can learn just from those facts that I've outlined here. The first is, we should not assume that just because the elderly are frail, that they are somehow incompetent, okay? Their bodies may be weak, and yet their minds can still be as sharp as ever, which means, secondly, that we can value not just the persons of the elderly, that always happens, incompetent or not, but we can also value their contributions. Thirdly, even though we may retire from office, like David retired from his office as a king, I sure hope none of us retires from life. You know till the day I die. I want to be serving the Lord I want to go out with a bang now providentially God may not enable that there are times where people are invalids in the last few months of their lives And they don't get that last burst of energy that God gave to David and that's okay. You can trust the Lord for that In those situations we recognize okay. We can't no longer see their new contributions as Being valuable, but we can value their persons. And Jim Blackburn, I think, is a case in point. He needs to be visited and blessed and prayed for and valued as a person, even though he doesn't recognize who you are when you come in to see him. We can value him as a person. But at the same time, there are elderly people who still want to serve the kingdom and make contributions to it, just like David did in his last months. The third principle that I see here is that there is such a thing as a biblical theology of administration. I've actually got a pretty big book on a biblical theology of administration. It doesn't dig nearly as deeply as it could have. But it's very easy to read these words and see words like, he made his son Solomon king over Israel and forget that all David was doing was implementing what God had commanded. God had said Solomon was supposed to be the next king. Very easy to read through these chapters and see all of the work that David is doing and forget the fact that everything he did, he did by the inspiration of God. And there's a number of verses that I could read. I won't go through all of them. But I'll give you just enough to show these are not just David's opinions on administration. These are God's opinions, okay? This is a biblical theology that is being given to us in these last chapters of biblical theology of management. But anyway, take a look at chapter 28, just a couple chapters forward, and let me read verses 11 through 13. When David gave his son Solomon the plans for the vestibule, its houses, its treasuries, its upper chambers, its inner chambers, and the place of the mercy seat, and the plans for all that he had by the Spirit. of the courts of the house of the Lord, of all the chambers all around, of the treasuries of the house of God, and of the treasuries for the dedicated thing. Also up for the division of the priests and the Levites for all the work of the service of the house of the Lord, for all the articles of service in the house of the Lord. In other words, absolutely everything that David is giving in these chapters came by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. There are some non-instrumentalists who insist that David was sinning when he invented new musical instruments in chapter 15 and in chapter 25. But I want you to turn with me to 2 Chronicles 29. And verse 25, this is a description of how Hezekiah was restoring the worship, bringing reformation. It was an incredible reformation God had brought about, but he does it by realigning things to the way that God had given to David. 2 Chronicles 29, verse 25. And he stationed the Levites in the house of the Lord with cymbals, with stringed instruments, and with harps, according to the commandment of David, of Gad the king's seer, and of Nathan the prophet. For thus was the commandment of the Lord by his prophets." In other words, what David did in the last chapters of 1 Chronicles, including the musical instruments, was by divine command. David was a prophet, and what he gave was confirmed by a couple of other prophets as well. Now that means that these principles that we're going to be looking at are not just David's principles of administration, they're God's principles of administration and it's worthwhile really to dig into them. The fourth thing that I want to point out is hinted at in verse 3 of chapter 23. It says, Now the Levites were numbered from the age of 30 years and above. And as you go through the chapters, you see that the Levites served in many different leadership capacities. There were some who worked as priests, some worked with the priests, some worked as teachers, some as deacons, some as administrators, some as musical leaders, but they didn't lead at the age of 18, okay? Verse three speaks of them being numbered for leadership from age 30 and above. Those were of the priests. But then if you take a look at verse 24, It mentions internship beginning at the age of 20. And there are other ages that are given that I think are significant. Now, a few months ago, last year, I gave a big 11 by 17 colorful handout that gave the significant dates in a person's life from conception to birth and baptism and first communion and where they're expected to really begin serving at a very young age. And then on to things like First Communion and adulthood and marriage and the age of 20 being the beginning many times of an internship for Diaconate, but the office of Diaconate only entering into at age 25 minimum. and internship for eldership beginning at age 25 but age 30 being the minimum. And then we saw at age 50 they retired from heavy lifting and then there's a significance to the age of 60 and then the golden years of ministry. Those are all milestones within a person's covenantal life. But I just want to briefly comment on that requirement that they had to be age 30 before they could engage in what is the equivalent of eldership. That follows the requirement, by the way, in Numbers chapter 4. Now I've had people think that we as a congregation are being legalistic when we have a minimum age of 30 for the office of elder. And almost always, the person that they bring up is Charles Spurgeon, who, granted, was an incredibly remarkable man. At the age of 15, he was preaching out in the streets, leading thousands of people to Christ. An incredible powerful preacher at age of 15. He was pastoring a church at the age of 17. And almost everybody acknowledges this guy was mature beyond his years. Had won more people to Christ in his youth than most people do in their entire lifetime. Here was Here was a man that obviously ought to be an exception, is the implication of their argument. And what I do is I just say, well, what about Jesus? God didn't even make an exception for Jesus. Jesus was characterized at the age of 12 as being more brilliant than the top teachers of the entire nation debating with him, confounding these teachers, right? He had no sin, he had no immaturity to fight against, he perfectly knew the Father's will and yet God the Father had Jesus remain as a carpenter in his family business until the age of 30. And I dare say, if God didn't want Jesus to be an exception, I don't think Charles Spurgeon should be an exception either, okay? That's basically my approach. There is a reason why God generally wants people working for some time with the deacons before they become a deacon. And the reason is that becoming an officer is not gonna suddenly change their motivation to serve. If they're not serving before they are a deacon, don't expect them to start magically serving after they become a deacon. So if you aspire to the office of deacon, hey, volunteer, go to the deacons and say, I'm at your service. Help. You know, I want to help any way that I can. Maybe down the road, I want to be a deacon's assistant if you find that I'm valuable enough to be a deacon's assistant. I want to serve. Okay, that's the point there. Furthermore, it's good for you older guys to invest in the lives of less experienced people and to mentor them and to caution them and to help them to think through things they've maybe not thought through before. Many churches have been absolutely ruined by young pastors, 22 years old, fresh out of seminary, still wet behind the ears, but thinking they know everything about how this church ought to be run, and they've absolutely destroyed the church. There is something about life experience that is valuable before people take office. Now, the fifth principle I want to highlight is that there is a great value in specialization, division of labor, organization, networking, and administration in God's kingdom. And you can see this all the way through chapters 23 through 29, actually. But it's summarized, I think, rather nicely in chapter 23 in verses 4 and following. Of these, 24,000 were to look after the work of the house of the Lord, 6,000 were officers and judges, 4,000 were gatekeepers, and 4,000 praised the Lord with musical instruments, which I made, said David, for giving praise. Also David separated them into divisions among the sons of Levi, Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, et cetera. And I won't keep reading. But if you keep reading on your own, you will find that no one person was expected to be an expert in everything. Those who try to be an expert in everything usually end up not being very good at any one thing. Now, there are exceptions. There are some brilliant people out there. It seems like they're able to pick up just about anything that they put their hands to do, not just academically, but even in terms of practice. Reader's Digest, a number of years ago, Reader's Digest story about a guy, and I don't remember his name anymore, but he was up, I think, in northern British Columbia. Here was a guy who was away from civilization most of his life, raised a family, and did incredible things, the machinery and all of the different things that he was able to do without buying anything from civilization. But I think most people would recognize that's unusual. The usual pattern that the Lord has set for us is that there is wisdom for specialization, division of labor, organization, networking, and administration in God's kingdom. And there is a temptation for some people to even think of those things as unspiritual. You know, that's not really, that's beneath what a spiritual person's involved in. And I cannot emphasize too strongly that the Holy Spirit is very organized. In fact, Paul makes a big deal about that. He says in 1 Corinthians that our God is a God of order, not of disorder. And so if your life is disordered and falling apart, Maybe you need to look to the Holy Spirit to be working in your life. The Holy Spirit is very interested in an organized life. The sixth thing that I wanted to highlight has actually no relationship to administration. But it is an interesting point of information about a debate that's out there as to whether we can use musical instruments or not. Now, if you've never even heard of this debate, consider yourself blessed. But there are a number of Christians out there who think that musical instruments in the Old Testament were exclusively tied to the time when the sacrifice was being offered up, and because the sacrificial system has been done away with, that all of the ceremonial law, including, they say, the musical instruments, has been done away with as well. So based on the regulative principle of worship, which we would agree with, that only what the Bible has authorized can be included in worship, They say, we're not authorized for ceremonial law. We're not authorized for musical instruments. Therefore, our church is in sin when we use musical instruments. Okay. Now I'm not going to try to settle that debate this morning, even though I'm three quarters of the way through writing a book on musical instruments that deals with every objection plus more. even objections they haven't thought of. I said, okay, here's another possible objection. So we're dealing with that and then showing how God has an incredibly high opinion of musical instruments and the standard that he sets for music in the church is really hard to attain to. But I just want to point out that verse five, we're still in chapter 23, verse five contradicts one of the arguments of the anti-instrumentalists. They claim that the purpose of musical instruments was to accompany the sacrifices. Okay. And therefore the instruments were ceremonial in purpose, but I want you to look at what verse five says. 4,000 were gatekeepers and 4,000 praise the Lord with musical instruments, which I made said David for giving praise. Okay? This shows that the purpose of those instruments was for giving praise. In other words, it was supposed to accompany the singing, not just the sacrifices. It was to accompany the singing. Chapter 25 also says it was designed to accompany the giving of God's prophetic revelation. And in other words, to accompany his inspired songs, which we call Psalms today. Psalm 88 was written by Heman, the musician listed in chapter 25, verse four. Wait a minute. Oh yeah, I'm in the wrong book, 2 Chronicles. 25 and verse four, Heman and his sons. And chapter 25 indicates that that psalm was intended to be accompanied by musical instruments. Now there are other arguments that the anti-instrumentalists will use. Some will insist that only Levites in office could play instruments and worship. But chapter 25 also contradicts that notion. Chapter 25 insists, yes, males were supposed to be the leaders in music. You have women worship leaders in some churches, that's not allowed in the scriptures. So males were supposed to be the leaders, that much is true. And these leader Levites took turns in the leading, but there were many other non-leaders who accompanied them. For example, look at chapter 25 in verses five through six. talks about Heman's three daughters who helped to accompany music. All these were the sons of Heman, the king's seer, in the words of God, to exalt his horn. For God gave Heman 14 sons and three daughters. All these, so that would include the daughters, All these were under the direction of their father for the music in the house of the Lord with symbols, stringed instruments, and harps for the service of the house of God. Asaph, Shaduthin, and Heman were under the authority of the king. And I would point out, it's not just Levitical daughters. who were involved. David was a Levite, and yet he sometimes played instruments. He was not a Levite, but he played instruments in worship. He was from a tribe of Judah, right? Not from the tribe of Levi. But listen to what Psalm 68 says about young unmarried women who helped with the music, and I'll start reading at verse 24. Psalm 68 verse 24, They have seen your procession, O God, the procession of my God, my King, into the sanctuary. The singers went before, the players on instruments followed after. Among them were the maidens playing timbrels. Bless God and the congregations, the Lord from the fountain of Israel. And when it uses congregations plural, it's referring to the synagogues that met in different parts of the temple, as well as, I believe, the synagogues spread throughout the nation of Israel. Because these Levites, who were musicians, they took turns. They didn't play in the temple the whole time. So they'd play in the temple for a short period of time. Then they went back to their homes, whatever tribe their homes were in, and they ministered with their musical talents within the synagogues that were in every hamlet and town of Israel. Now I won't deal with every argument that the non-instrumentalists used to say that it was wrong, but some of them have recognized that our exegesis is true. They can't get around that. And so instead of saying that that wasn't happening here, they said, well, David was not authorized to do that. David was in sin when he introduced these non-Levitical people and women, and when he introduced all of these instruments. For example, Adam Clarke, I honor the man, he's a great man, dead wrong on this question though. Adam Clarke says, I believe that David was not authorized by the Lord to introduce that multitude of musical instruments into the divine worship. I want you to turn with me again to 2 Chronicles 29 verse 25, and I know we've read this already, You probably ought to even mark it with a pencil or something. Speaking of King Hezekiah, it says, And he stationed the Levites in the house of the Lord with cymbals, with stringed instruments, and with harps, according to the commandment of David, of Gad the king seer, and of Nathan the prophet. For thus was the commandment of the Lord by his prophets. So musical instruments were clearly authorized by God. Now I've already read 1 Chronicles 25 verses 5 through 6 which says almost exactly the same thing using different words but almost the same meaning when it says that these instruments that were being played was by the words of God under the supervision of these prophets. And I've already read 1 Chronicles 28 verse 12 that says everything in these chapters which would include the musical instruments was given to David by the Holy Spirit. And if we had time, I could show you from Ephesians and other passages where the New Testament commands the churches to use musical instruments. Now, that's not the point of the sermon this morning. The point of the sermon this morning is that we shouldn't skip over boring chapters like these because we will miss out on important information for various areas of life. Far from minimizing music, Scripture says that God is enthroned. on our praises. And there's another scripture that says he inhabits the praises of his saints. In other words, he loves these praises. Satan hates it when we worship God in spirit and in truth and when we're using music skillfully before the Lord. But God is enthroned on our praises. He inhabits the praises of his people. And we're becoming more like each person of the Godhead because each person of the Godhead loves praise, right? They praise each other. They point to each other. They adore each other. Now, I've had to be selective in which topics I would pull out of these chapters. For example, I'm gonna skip over the next point entirely. On Thursday, I spent about 10 minutes looking for axioms of arithmetic in these chapters, and they're all over the place. They are all over the place. But rather than teaching on them, I have a fun puzzle for those of you who like puzzles. Okay, I've listed some of the axioms in your outline. By the way, not all of these axioms, at least as far as I know, not all of these axioms are in these chapters. Every one of these axioms are in the Bible. But they're not all here. But I thought, okay, I found a number of these axioms just with a cursory reading through these chapters. I took 10 minutes. And so for some of the geniuses that are in this congregation, here's my little challenge to you. Don't take any more than 10 minutes. Sometime this week, take 10 minutes and see if your cumulative 10 minutes between all of you can come up with more axioms of arithmetic than I was able to come up with. It might be a stretch, but especially if you've had mathematics as a background, you know these axioms, you ought to be able to recognize them in the scripture. Anyway, that's all I'm going to say about math. Now let's whip through a few other things that I've seen in these chapters. One thing that I've noticed in a number of verses is that none of these men simply stepped into leadership. They were mentored by people with greater skills and it all took time and patience. If you take a look at the first verse of chapter 25, I think it makes clear that the list of names is only of the most skillful musicians who would become leaders. Especially look at the last sentence of verse one. And the number of the skilled men performing their service was, and then comes the listing of the names. And then again down in verse seven, it repeats the idea that the list is not complete. The list only includes the most skillful. It says, so the number of them with their brethren who were instructed in the songs of the Lord, all who were skillful was 288. Well, it implies that there were others who were not so skillful and yet they were used as well. Now, I bring this up because a surface reading of this chapter might give you the impression that God's worship is only accompanied by professional musicians. There are a lot of large churches out there. They want their worship to be really good and to excel, and that's a good motivation. But they only have professionals. And sometimes these professionals don't even have the kind of character that needs to be present in a leader. But they only have professionals. They will not allow any of the lay people to be involved in the musical accompaniment. But this chapter, I think, approaches music a little bit differently. Yes, there are skilled people who lead, but there are others who were involved in this music as well. Take a look at verse eight. It says, and they cast lots for their duty, the small as well as the great, the teacher with the student. Now that verse makes clear that there were great musicians who served and there were not so great musicians who served. And the great musicians became teachers of those who were not so great, but both categories had duties in music during the worship service. It mentions the teachers, it mentions the students. In fact, under a previous point, we already saw that God involved more than simply the male Levites. There were Levites and lay people. There were old and young, men and women, who played music. And the impression I get is people did not go to the worship service as they would go to a concert to sit back and be passive and be entertained. No, we're talking body life. Those who had abilities were involved in one part or another, but all of us were involved in the worship. It's not a concert that people go to. It's body life. Now, while this passage corrects the extreme that is found in some churches that want to be so perfect that they put on a concert every time and the rest of us sit back and are awed by that amazing music, That's one extreme. Only the professionals can play. This passage also corrects the opposite extreme that lets untalented people jam just because they want to be involved and it's at the expense of the worship service. Three times, 1 Chronicles mentions the importance of having at least some musicians who are skillful in the music And it indicates we should all strive to excel in the music, even we singers. It's good to practice at home. It's good to anticipate songs that you know that we're going to be singing and try to excel. And this chapter hints at one way that this can happen. The less skillful musicians should have the humility to look to the more skillful musicians to get tips, to get training, to improve their skills. And all of us, great or not so great, should try to improve their serve. Now there's other things I could say about music in these chapters, but those were the main thoughts that I wanted to share. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the next point, but you may be familiar with the debate that was sparked when Doug Wilson talked about arms in the church. He suggested that concealed carry in the church is not consistent with the church's purpose. And some months ago I handed out this big paper, very well researched, that shows not only is it theologically okay, it is historically okay. And it's actually not the government's jurisdiction to be saying what can and cannot happen within within the church. It's an excellent paper. But even these chapters here give some hints on this answer. If you take a look at chapter 26, the chapter deals with gatekeepers, at least the first half of it. Now, some American preachers have tried to say, well, that's just talking about ushers. No, this went way beyond ushers. They were security guards. Take a look, for example, at chapter 26, verse 16. to Shupim and Hosah, the lot came out for the west gate with the Shelecheth gate on the ascending highway, watchmen opposite watchmen. Now the word for watchman means armed guard and the word for gatekeeper has a similar meaning. So when you look at the later passages and the earlier passages that deal with these gatekeepers, you realize these were tough guys who knew how to handle themselves when there was an emergency. They were guarding the people of God when they came to worship. And the point is that there is no theological reason why people could not have concealed carry within the church. Now, Nebraska, it's illegal for you to do it without the permission of the church. Okay, so you do need to consider what the statutes of the state say and try to work with that. But I'm just addressing the theology of arms in the church. It's really not a problem. Now I'm not going to take much time to develop the other point, the next point either, but 24 courses of priests in chapter 24 are important for another reason besides helping with a mathematical axiom, I shouldn't probably give that away. They can also be used to help you to date the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the reason we know that is these guys just rotated who is up for the next two week session of working within the temple. and we're told exactly which course Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist, was in in Luke chapter one. And we also know that as soon as he went home, his wife became pregnant. So we can date based on the connection between him and six months later, we can date within about two, one, two weeks, the birth date of Christ. So that's one of many arguments that I give in my little booklet, December 25, Jewish style, to talk about the dating of Scripture. In other words, there's many, many different reasons why God has given various points that may seem irrelevant and may seem boring, and then later you realize, oh yeah, I guess it's a good thing that that's included in the Scripture. When you begin to realize that we are to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God and that the word of God applies to absolutely every area of life, no exceptions, all of a sudden you're going to begin to have eyes to look and you're going to see things you didn't see before in the Bible. Now, there's also a hint at the need for God's people to be involved in daily worship. In chapter 23, and let's read verses 30 through 31. to stand every morning to thank and praise the Lord and likewise at evening and at every presentation of a burnt offering of the Lord on the Sabbaths and on the new moons and on the set feasts by number according to the ordinance governing them regularly before the Lord. Now the interesting thing about that is that there wasn't a morning and evening church every day of the week. They weren't gathering for this worship, so why were they doing sacrifices connected with worship? Well, you see, the sacrifices symbolically represent the atonement of Christ, which alone can make any worship, private or public, even possible. We cannot approach the throne of God individually, as a family, as a church, apart from the atonement of Christ. And so those sacrifices would be given morning and evening at the normal times for family worship. You see Daniel making a habit of this, and you see others who worship at these times of morning and evening, and they face Jerusalem to symbolize the fact that they are worshiping God only through the merits of Christ that the temple is prefiguring. In any case, it's just a hint that God delights in our own private and family devotions morning and evening, and both The terms morning and evening and the phrase regularly before the Lord show that worship really needs to be at the epicenter of our lives. And if you struggle with how to have meaningful family worship, just talk to the elders. We can give you all kinds of resources that can help make your worship better. But daily worship is a must. And I don't have time to point out everything significant, but chapter 26 talks about storerooms. The temple didn't live hand-to-mouth and distribute out everything that it took in. They had savings. In fact, some of the savings went back to the time of Samuel. They'd been saving this for a long time. Take a look at 1 Chronicles 26, verse 28. And all that Samuel the seer, Saul the son of Kish, Abner the son of Ner, and Joab the son of Zeruiah had dedicated, every dedicated thing was under the hand of Shelomith and his brethren. So the temple stored food and finances and other items of use in daily life. And I believe that it is wise for churches to do so. Storage for the future is a biblical mandate, not just for the family. I think it's a biblical mandate for the church. Churches should not go into debt. That's the exact opposite of this principle. They should be storing up. Now, there are a tiny handful of other things, administrative in other words, that I have noted, and I'll just give you one more. These chapters show not only organization, but also prioritization. Peter Drucker once said, there is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all. Okay, good point. And I believe David would say yes. He was very, very busy in the last months of his life, but he was busy on priority items. We tend to prioritize When we're near the end of our lives and we got cancer or we know we're gonna die, we tend to say, okay, what's the most important things that we should get involved in? But we really ought to be thinking that way throughout our lives. We should not be busy and organized purely for the sake of being busy and organized. We should be busy in the things God wants us to do and organized in precisely those things. But I'm going to stop there. I think I've given enough to give you confidence that these chapters do indeed contain a lot of meat. And my final admonition to you is to not skip over the boring chapters of Scripture. Scan through them a few times. Say, okay, Lord, open my eyes to see what's going on in these chapters. I know you've put them here for a purpose. Read them with expectation that God has stored treasures in those chapters too. And may God help us all to grow in our appreciation for the body as a whole, not just this local congregation, but the body as a whole, the division of labor, the specialization that it represents. And may the Church of Jesus Christ become a more and more smoothly functioning body as the greater David, the Lord Jesus Christ, orders and arranges every member just as he pleases. Amen. Father, we thank you for this, your word. It is our delight to study it. We want to treasure every word that you have given to us as being a great treasure to dig for the meaning as for hidden gold. And we pray that you would give us the ability to be more and more successful in doing that. In the meantime, we pray that you would enable us to live out the principles that are here in our families and our businesses and our churches more and more effectively to honor you through our administration, through the way that we manage people and how we minister in and through people. May you be honored and glorified through this congregation. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.