Tag: kings

Reflections: Jerusalem – a city of Kings

[ Lament over Jerusalem ]

“O Jerusalem,Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! – words of Christ Jesus – Mathew 23:37

1 Chronicles 2:

A Genealogy of David

These are the sons of Israel: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, ²Dan, Joseph, Benjamin, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.

³The sons of Judah: Er, Onan and Shelah; these three Bath-shua the Canaanite bore to him.

Now Er, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in the sight of the Lord, and he put him to death.

⁴His daughter-in-law Tamar also bore him Perez and Zerah. Judah had five sons in all.

1 Chronicles 3

Descendants of David

These are the sons of David who were born to him in Hebron: the firstborn, Amnon, by Ahinoam the Jezreelite; the second, Daniel, by Abigail the Carmelite, ²the third, Absalom, whose mother was Maacah, the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur; the fourth, Adonijah, whose mother was Haggith; ³the fifth, Shephatiah, by Abital; the sixth, Ithream, by his wife Eglah; ⁴six were born to him in Hebron, where he reigned for seven years and six months.

And he reigned thirty-three years in Jerusalem.

⁵These were born to him in Jerusalem: Shimea, Shobab, Nathan and Solomon, four by Bath-shua, the daughter of Ammiel;

⁶then Ibhar, Elishama, Eliphelet, ⁷Nogah, Nepheg, Japhia,⁸Elishama, Eliada, and Eliphelet, nine. ⁹All these were David’s sons, besides the sons of the concubines, and Tamar was their sister.

Jews and Christians take joy in speaking of Abraham, faithful sojourner and father of nations. Jews and Christians speak well of Jacob, who God renamed Israel, and his favored wife Rachel. Jews and Christians proclaim the might and right of the heart of young David as he slew Goliath the Philistine [*Palestinian] by faith, while Saul was indecisive after he disobeyed the LORD.

Jews and Christians and the nations proclaim the wisdom and wealth of young Solomon, who asked the LORD for wisdom and received abundant blessing throughout His reign over a United Kingdom of Israel, feared and respected by the enemies of the LORD.

Yet Jews and Christians fail to warn the generations of the failures of compromise, failures of a price paid by David for alliances with kings and wives of other faiths.

Even more so, Solomon failed in wisdom as his years progressed: wives and concubines believing in everything but God! Sons and daughters believing in anything but God!

Generations of Kings and compromise for plans not from God and a future of generations who knew nothing of the God of Israel or the Law of the Promise.

WE THE PEOPLE depose the LORD our God.

Will we not reap the harvest of lawyers, Judges, Priests and Kings of unrighteousness?

Roger Harned – talkofJesus.com

How history fails to recall the failures of sin so evident from century to century; civilization to loss of civility; a time of promise to a time of judgment.

Jerusalem is a city captured, conquered, destroyed, deserted, re-inhabited, rebuilt, destroyed again, conquered again, rebuilt once more time and time again throughout the ages.

Jerusalem is the city of the Temple: built (by Solomon), destroyed, rebuilt (by Ezra and Nehemiah), destroyed again, rebuilt by its captors (Rome) on the ruins by the King who did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. (Herod, if you fail to understand the politics of Jesus’ Jerusalem of the first century.)

* The kingdom was divided during Ishbosheth’s reign;
David was king over the tribe of Judah.
Kings of the United Kingdom (c 1025-925 BC)
King	Relationship to Previous King	God’s Judgment
Saul	none	did evil
Ishbosheth*	son	(unknown)
David	none	did right
Solomon (AKA Jedidiah)	son	did right in youth, evil in old age

Israel first became divided.

Two countries: only Judah with Jerusalem as the place for its King.

As Prophets warned: Israel fell first. (The area north of Judah was later was known as Samaria.)

Yet true Prophets of the LORD also warned Judah of her faithlessness and whoredom. Judah and Jerusalem fell under the rule of Kings who did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD.

Kings of Judah (c 925-586 BC)			Kings of Israel (c 925-721 BC)
King	Relationship to Previous King	God’s Judgment	King	Relationship to Previous King	God’s Judgment
Rehoboam	son	did evil	Jeroboam	servant	did evil
Abijam (AKA Abijah)	son	did evil
Asa	son	did right

			Nadab	son	did evil
			Baasha	none	did evil
			Elah	son	did evil
			Zimri	captain	did evil
			Omri	captain	did evil
			Ahab	son	did evil

Jehoshaphat	son	did right

			Ahaziah	son	did evil
			Jehoram (AKA Joram)	son of Ahab	did evil

Jehoram (AKA Joram)	son	did evil
Ahaziah (AKA Azariah or Jehoahaz)	son	did evil
Athaliah	mother	did evil	Jehu	captain	mixed
Joash (AKA Jehoash)	son of Ahaziah	did right in youth, evil in old age

			Jehoahaz	son	did evil
			Joash (AKA Jehoash)	son	did evil

Amaziah	son	did right in youth, evil in old age

			Jeroboam II	son	did evil

Uzziah (AKA Azariah)	son	did right

			Zachariah	son	did evil
			Shallum	none	did evil (surmised)
			Menahem	none	did evil
			Pekahiah	son	did evil
			Pekah	captain	did evil

Jotham	son	did right
Ahaz	son	did evil

			Hoshea	none	did evil

Hezekiah	son	did right

			Assyrian captivity

Manasseh	son	did evil
Amon	son	did evil
Josiah	son	did right
Jehoahaz (AKA Shallum)	son	did evil
Jehoiakim (AKA Eliakim)	son of Josiah	did evil
Jehoiachin (AKA Coniah or Jeconiah)	son	did evil
Zedekiah (AKA Mattaniah)	son of Josiah	did evil
Babylonian captivity

Source: http://www.vtaide.com/gleanings/Kings-of-Israel/kings.html

To be continued…

March 27, 2015

Running from God – 5 – God pursues

Are you running from God?

Here we have Elijah sulking in victory and awaiting defeat under the shade of a broom tree.

We have heard the same Peter who would glorify Jesus and Moses and Elijah with a shrine, deny knowing Jesus when he risked imprisonment or execution for his confession of Christ.

We have even seen Moses, God’s hand-picked leader of Israel to lead them to the Promised Land, weary of the weight of leadership.

Yet God pursues victory beyond the focus of our vision and glory higher than the imagination of our defeat.

1 Kings 19

The Lord Speaks to Elijah

⁹There he came to a cave and lodged in it. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him,

“What are you doing here, Elijah?”

¹⁰He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”

¹¹And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.”

And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord,

but the Lord was not in the wind.

And after the wind an earthquake,

but the Lord was not in the earthquake.

¹²And after the earthquake a fire,

but the Lord was not in the fire.

And after the fire the sound of a low whisper.

¹³And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said,

“What are you doing here, Elijah?”

¹⁴He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”

¹⁵And the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria.

WAIT a minute! Elijah, Prophet of Israel who God has used to prove His Almighty Power over the false prophets and worshipers of Tyre and Sidon and places beyond Syria; Elijah, Prophet of Israel, who had thought his battle against Ahab and Jezebel was over (and that they would kill him); GOD commands Elijah to anoint a man Hazael as King of Syria!

Syria! NOT Israel, NOT Judah. Almighty GOD is anointing a King of Syria; as before Moses, God had anointed a Prince of Egypt named Joseph.

GOD is strategic beyond the best planning and foresight of man. As with Moses being succeeded by Joshua, God also appoints a powerful successor to the Prophet Elijah. And God also commands the defeated Elijah under the broom tree waiting to die to anoint the next King of Israel to replace his pursuer Ahab. (The fate of Jezebel she has prophesied on herself.)

[Previously, in 1 Kings 19:2 – “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” ] Of course Jezebel’s gods are nothing more than stone and wood.

GOD continues Elijah’s orders:

¹⁶And Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint to be prophet in your place. ¹⁷And the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha put to death. ¹⁸Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”

Elisha later witnesses the Prophet Elijah taken up into heaven! Seven centuries later Peter, James and John would witness Elijah standing with Moses and Jesus talking about that which is to come.

And when Peter later denied knowing Jesus, God pursued him. Peter was witness to Jesus after the resurrection.

NO broom tree to sit under or cave in which to hide – Jesus walked along the road to Emmaus: God pursued Peter.

And providentially enough, not so much later, Jesus appeared alive once more to another Jew, an Apostle to the Gentiles. And where was it where GOD, in the risen Christ Jesus, pursued Saul, persecutor of Christians?

GOD met Saul on the road to Damascus, Syria!

Paul is witness to the risen Christ Jesus! A man from Tarsus (in Turkey) testifies JESUS IS LORD!

GOD is not ONLY the God of the Jews; GOD is the ONE GOD, over all who believe in Christ Jesus our Lord; any who will listen to the still small voice of the Holy Spirit and return to the way of God’s will.

Not my will, but thy will be done. – Luke 22:42

Let us prepare for the return of Christ Jesus our Lord upon the clouds in victory.

Amen.

March 11, 2015
Running from God – 4 – Elijah’s defeat

‘Wait,’ you’re thinking, Elijah won the contest.

1 Kings 18:

37 Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.”

38 Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. 39 And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.”

40 And Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape.” And they seized them. And Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon and slaughtered them there.

Look now at the picture of the dejected Prophet sitting under the broom tree. Does this look like a man victorious?

Look at Moses in the wilderness. Was Moses rejoicing with the people who had walked through the Sea of Reeds while God Almighty lifted a wall of the sea? Was Moses rejoicing to receive manna from Heaven and a diet of food without flavor for forty years? And did Moses seem victorious standing on a mountain top looking at the Promised Land into which God forbid he should enter?

The victories of Moses, Elijah and Jesus were God’s, not their own.

Peter wanted to lift up Moses and Elijah (as the Jews still do, along with David).

Peter was all too happy to be a leader in of the Twelve in the victory parade leading the thousands of captives to the gates of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

Yet when the crowds disappear and there is no one else left to lead – when there is no hero left to follow: where do you go?

1 Kings 18: ⁴⁵And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel. ⁴⁶And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he gathered up his garment and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.

We have a brief moment of joy and celebration in the Lord’s victory through us. But then what?

Reality sets in of the difficulty of our earthly circumstances separate of God.

Elijah fled God to the broom tree after God’s tremendous humiliation of the leader of his country and the 850 leaders of their favorite churches (so to speak).

1 Kings 19:

³Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. ⁴But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree.

And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”⁵And he lay down and slept under a broom tree.

17 June – 17 July, in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 2015

Leaders of false prophets hear now the Voice and Power of the Living God!

You may kill more than 850 enemies, but two more evil ones will pursue your life.

Take refuge in the One God and Christ Jesus, God’s sacrifice of love for our sins.

1 Kings 19: [King] Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. ²Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying,“So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.”

The true Prophet of God, Elijah, knew he had earthly enemies. The true Christ, the Messiah of God, God With Us, I AM in the Person of Jesus Christ, bowed down only to God the Father.

And the false leaders of God’s chosen people hung Jesus on a Cross in shame and suffering, until God raised Christ from death and lifted Him up in the flesh from His Blood of sacrifice!

And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said,

“The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.”

Now Elijah thinks that God has used him and is done with him; but like our loving Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in heaven, God has more difficult work for which to prepare him.

1 Kings 19: ⁷And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.” ⁸And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.

The Lord Speaks to Elijah

⁹There he came to a cave and lodged in it.

And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Indeed, what am I doing in this cave of darkness?

Led by God; awaiting His word.

Here the prayer of a sinner, saved in Christ.

Speak, O Lord, and I will listen.

Deuteronomy 5:

And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them. ²The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb…

⁴The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, ⁵while I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord. For you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up into the mountain.

BOW DOWN! if you fear the Lord.

Yet raise your witness of Christ’s love, if you would live in the love of His Sacrifice.

He IS: Father, Son and Holy Spirit!

“The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.”

He said:

⁶“‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

⁷“‘You shall have no other gods before ^{[ besides]} me.

The LORD, He IS God! And Christ Jesus IS One in the Father and the Father in Him. Jesus IS!

Christ Jesus IS Lord!

Muhammad, Smith and many more are as the prophets of Asherah and Baal.

To be continued…

March 9, 2015