Immanuel Sermon Audio
1 Chronicles (13:66)
All right. First Chronicles in your Bible. Last week we looked at 2 Kings and we did a lot of reading in 2 Kings. We're not going to do as much reading in 1 Chronicles tonight, but we are going to do a little bit digging around at the end. First Chronicles, there are outlines at the front of the back if you need one of those. I want you to think with me about selfishness and pride, selfishness and pride. One of my favorite Christian authors is a guy named Jerry Bridges and Jerry Bridges wrote a book called Respectable Sins and one of the chapters in that book that I really appreciated was on pride and he talks in that book about how pride is in our culture a respectable sin. In other words, it's not one of those really, really bad sins that you look at other people and you think, oh what a rotten person. Can you believe they did this or they did that or they're hanging around people who do this or that? It's something that can live in your heart. It's something that lives in all of our hearts to one degree or another and it's something that is very, very dangerous because we don't think of it as particularly heinously disgustingly sinful like some of those other things that take place in the world. So he calls it a respectable sin. So you add to that our predisposition to think of it as not quite as bad as some other things in our lives. You add to that our culture, you go to Barnes and Noble or Borders or your favorite bookstore and you have a giant section about self. Self-help, self-improvement, self-recovery, self-discovery, self-actualization, self-esteem and just on and on and on and on. All of these books completely and totally focused on you. You add to that in our society the fact that we are constantly marketed and we're constantly being sold something. And if you just sit down and watch commercials on TV or you scroll through ads on your smartphone or you get on the internet, the vast majority of those ads in marketing strategy today just try to make you feel like you're the center of everything. You need this because you are so important and you are so valuable and everyone needs to think highly of you and this will make you feel better about you, you, you, you, you, you. We're just constantly being sold to and people telling us it's all about us. This is nothing new. Let me put a couple of pictures up on the screen. First lady. Does anybody know who that is? That is a Jewish lady named Ayn Rand, A-Y-N-R-A-N-D, Ayn Rand. And she wrote several fiction books and one of those fiction books is called Atlas Shrugged. And I kept hearing about this book from people with political thoughts similar to mine. I kept hearing about this book Atlas Shrugged, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand. So finally I said I got to read this book. All these people talking about this book. I got to read it. So I buy this book and it's long and it took me forever to get all the way through it. And without being political tonight I'll just say that about halfway through it she's writing this story and I'm thinking this is the best attack against the politics that I don't like I've ever read. She's painting this story and she's just it's reality. This is how it really works. If the people who disagree with me politically would just read this book man they would come around. And so I'm loving this book I'm loving it. And about halfway through I'm starting to get uneasy and by the end I think this is terrible because in the place of all of the political things that I think she demolishes instead of putting something God-centered she puts the self. It's all about you. Completely all about you. Do whatever you want. Do whatever it takes to get ahead. It is completely and you are the center of the universe. So I read this book halfway through and I think yes, yes, yes, yes. And then I get to the end and I think hey that's not where I would end up with it. But her point is it's all about you. She says the most healthy thing for a country or a government is to encourage selfishness. That's her conclusion. Next picture. Anybody know who this guy is? Adam Smith wrote a book called The Wealth of the Nations. And some people say again this is kind of politics night. Some people say this guy is the father of capitalism. So he wrote this book a long long time ago and he's basically saying governments need to sort of stay out of the way and let free markets have their own thing and operate on their own and you don't need to control them and tell them what to do. And so he's known as the father of capitalism. Had a huge influence on our country. And it's a good book. It's an interesting book. But at the heart of the book he says this. What must drive an economy is rational self-interest. That's his catchphrase. Rational self-interest. Translation. Self-ishness. Self-ishness is the engine that has to drive any successful economy. And you can look at the United States and say he's a pretty smart guy. We have a massive economy and it's driven by selfishness in large part. So there you go. Adam Smith. It is not just philosophers, authors like Ayn Rand and economists like Adam Smith. Anybody know who this is? My favorite guy. It's all about you. I would like to have his hair. His hair is nicer than my hair. I will give you that. You take my hair over his hair? That's right. I spend a lot less time on mind than he does. Look, Joel has made a name for himself and has a huge church and at the center of his message is you. And you can disagree with that. But look at his book titles. Your best life now. Seven steps to living at your full potential. Second book. Becoming a better you. And the subtitle there is kind of hard to read. It says seven keys in improving your life every day. So again, this is all about you. Next books. It's your time. Activate your faith. Activate your dreams and increase in God's favor. It's your time. Fourth book. I declare 31 promises to speak over your life. Again, you are the center of all of these. And I came across a fifth book today called Joel Osteen. Your pathetic loser. Seven reasons why I'm better than you. The author of seven books that say the exact same thing. That's not a real book, but you get the idea. All of his books are about you. You, you, you, you. You listen to a sermon. You, you, you. There's a video that went nuts on the internet of Joel and his wife standing on the platform at church and she said worship is not about God. It's about you. When you worship, it's not about God. That's just like a fringe benefit. Really worship is about you and what you get out of it. You, you, you, you, you. So we hear this all the time. Again, this is nothing new. One last picture. This is a Greek philosopher, ancient Greek philosopher named Protagoras. And here is his most enduring quote. "Man is the measure of all things." We're it. We're the best thing going. Everything centers around us. It all revolves around man. So this is nothing new. Joel Osteen, Adam Smith, Eyn Rand, Protagoras. These are very different people you understand. These are people coming from different centuries, living on different continents, believing different worldviews. But all of them have this one thing in common that they say you, you, you, you. It's all about you. Okay. Now this is on your outline. First Chronicles is a direct challenge to the selfish, prideful notion that life revolves around us. First Chronicles is just a smack in the face to the idea that it's all about you. You read this book and if you get it when you leave, first Chronicles, you're saying it is not all about me. I am not the measure of all things. I am not here just to achieve my own potential and, and increase in all of these things for my own benefit. First Chronicles is going to challenge that. When you look, just a few interesting things about First Chronicles, you realize that our Old Testament and the Hebrew canon of Scripture are identical, right? They have the exact same things. Jewish scriptures, our Old Testament, same books, but you understand they're in different order and they're sort of grouped differently. It's not laid out exactly the same. In the very last book, not in our Old Testament, but the very last book in the Jewish scriptures is First and Second Chronicles and in the Jewish scriptures, that's one book. The very last book, we think Malachi at the very end, then you go to Matthew, they say no, the whole thing ends with Second Chronicles and there's a reason they put it last. Look at the history of Israel. We've talked about this for the last several weeks, the conquest, the judges, the monarchy, division of the kingdom, rebellion. They both go into exile and eventually they both come back. First and Second Chronicles, notice I didn't have you fill in any of those stages because it doesn't fit in any one of those stages, but I put it at the end in an italics to say that's when it was written. They wrote the book after the conquest, the judges, the monarchy, the division, the rebellion, sent into exile and then the remnant comes back and when the remnant is coming back, that's when they write First and Second Chronicles. And the remnant is coming back right towards the end of the Old Testament. And so this is the last book written in what we know of as the Old Testament. Nobody knows who wrote it. A lot of Bible scholars think Ezra wrote it. So you can think about the waves. There was three waves of exiles that came back. Zerubbabel brought a group back so that they could rebuild the temple. And then Nehemiah brought a group back so they could rebuild the walls. And then Ezra brought the third group back and his job was to teach the law. And a lot of people say Ezra is the guy who wrote First Second Chronicles, but we don't really know that for certain. Now look at the outline. This is really simple. First Chronicles 1 to 10, Israel's history. The rest of the book, Israel's hero. Part 1, history. Part 2, the great hero of Israel which we will see is David. Israel's history and then the hero. Now, I'm glad Tony prayed the way he prayed earlier. You may have thought did he just describe First Chronicles as blah, blah, blah. He did in his prayer. And that is a good way to describe the book. Because if you've ever just sat out to read through First Chronicles, there's a couple of things that really bother you. If you're honest and you're not trying to be super spiritual and say every book of the Bible is just so great and I just love them all the same and they're all God's words and you shouldn't say that. There's some real questions you come across when you're reading through them. The first question is this. Why are there so many names? We're in the middle of the Bible and we've read a lot of names. We started reading them in Genesis 5 and we read some more around the Genesis 10 and 11 and then we read a bunch more in Numbers. And why are we reading all these names? Why do we have to have all these names? Look at First Chronicles 1. Honestly this is not flowing narrative easy to read stuff. Adam, Seth, Enoch, Keenan, Mahaloel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Ham, Japheth, Gomer, Magog, Medai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, Tirus, Gomer, Ashkenaz, Rifath, Torgamma, Javan, Elisha, Tarshish, Kidam, Rodanam, John and on through chapter 1 and chapter 2 and chapter 3. All the way to, it's just name, after name, after name. We had friends in Kentucky, members of our church. And they bought, while we were there, I challenged the church to read the Bible in a year. They bought a Bible that breaks it up for you. So it's not Genesis to Revelation. It breaks it up in sections. You read a little bit each day and you go through it. And they said, "We're going to do this together and we're going to do it out loud." And it was Betty and Jerry. And Betty said, "2010 is my year. I'm going to read this out loud to you every day. 2011 is your year. You're going to read it out loud to me every day." And they switch off years. And they said, being honest, "This is really hard. Wake up early in the morning. You're kind of sleepy. You crack open the Bible. Read the stories of Jesus. Great. Read about the Exodus. Awesome. Samson keeps your attention. First Chronicles. That's tough. And blah, blah, blah. And here's what they said. You think it's hard to read it. Try listening to it. That's even harder. And so it just goes on and on and on and on. Some people think the Bible is just philosophy. That it's just a bunch of ideas kind of floating around and they don't necessarily connect with reality. A lot of Bible teachers, this is strange to me, but a lot of Bible teachers anymore say, "Look, you read the story about Jonah. It really doesn't matter if it happened or not. The story is what matters, not whether it's true or not." You read the story about Adam and Eve. It really doesn't matter if it happened or not. What matters is the story. You see how these people are saying, "Look, it's just philosophy. It's ideas. It's up in the clouds type stuff." Here's one reason you have all these names in here. The Bible is a record of salvation history. It's not just ideas floating out there. It's not like Asop's fables where you read Asop's fables and you say, "Did that really happen?" Of course it didn't happen. That's not the point. The point is the story. It teaches you something. That's not what the Bible is. The Bible is a record of salvation history. These are real people, generation after generation after generation after generation. The things in this book when you read through the Old Testament, you never get the impression that it doesn't matter if it happened or not. In the chronicler, possibly Ezra, is saying to these people, "Listen, I'm not talking up in the clouds type stuff. I'm not talking just philosophy. I'm talking real life people, real life things that God really, really did." Why are there so many names? This is salvation history. Here's a better question. Why is there so much repetition? Mark and I visited about this and chatted about this earlier. You just came through first and second Samuel and first and second Kings. Then you come to first and second Chronicles and you think, "Am I having deja vu?" Didn't I just read this? In fact, some of it is a verbatim quote out of those other books. You think, "What is going on here?" First and second Samuel gets summarized basically in first Chronicles. First and second Kings get summarized in second Chronicles. It's in there twice. You read it and you think, "I don't understand it. I don't get it. They're very, very similar. Here's one clue. Can you go back to the history of Israel's slide?" Remember when the people get sent into exile? They get kicked out of the land. Most of those people who got kicked out of the land quit speaking Hebrew and eventually ended up speaking Greek. The vast majority of those Jews, many of them completely forgot Hebrew and they started speaking Greek. About the time of the exile and when they come back, all these people don't know how to read the Old Testament in Hebrew, so they translate it into Greek. They call it the Septuagint. You realize in the original text, there are no names for books in the Bible. Those are all added. None of these guys named their book. Those are added. Here's what they named. Now go back forward again. Here's what they named the book of chronicles. Parlepomunon. Parlepomunon. You learned a new word tonight, a Greek word. It means things left out. That's the title of the book. When they translated the Old Testament into Greek, they come to chronicles and they say, "What are we going to call it?" Let's call it things left out. Now here's a kicker. It's not a book saying okay, you got Samuel and Kings, but they left out part of the story and we're going to come back and fill it. That's not what they're saying. Here's what they're saying. We're going to retell the same story, but we're going to leave some stuff out. That's kind of weird, but they named it that because when you read it, the chronicleer leaves stuff out. Mark, what is one of the things he leaves out? Northern Kingdom. Not talked about, right? So you go back to the history and you see the division in the kingdom, Israel and Judah. Forget about Israel. They're not in chronicles. We're only talking about Judah. You know what else they left out? David and Bathsheba. The worst thing David ever did, right? Parle Pomanon. Things left out. You know what else they left out? Absalom, David's son, rebelling against David and David acting like a wimp and not doing anything about it. We're going to leave that out. We're not going to talk about some of these, can I just be honest, some of these embarrassing things? And we're going to focus on more positive things. Israel apostate, forget them. David and Bathsheba, we're leaving it out. David and Absalom, we're not talking about it, we're leaving it out. So why the repetition? Okay. Samuel and Kings over here, chronicles here. They're written at different times for different reasons. Okay. Samuel and Kings written when the people go into exile. Okay. When they go. In written to say to the people, this is why you're going. Read about what David did. Read about what Saul did. Read about what Solomon did. Read about what Ahab did. Read about what all these wicked kings did. That's why you're going out. Samuel and Kings, chronicles written when the people come back from exile to say to them, you need to understand who you are. Remember who you are. Okay. Totally different times, totally different purposes. Samuel and Kings right after the exile to say this is why this is happening to you. Chronicles at the end of the exile, while they're coming back to remind them who they are, they've forgotten. They needed to be reminded. Here's the kicker in chronicles and we're about to jump in and look at some verses. According to the chronicler, you can only understand who you are if you know who God is. If you don't know who God is, you will never be able to understand who you are. That's central to the book of chronicles. Ultimately, this book is to reintroduce the people to God, these people who are coming back. In this really simple book, two lessons in chronicles. Obviously, there's a lot of stuff I'm leaving out and I'm summarizing it with two lessons for this reason. When you compare it to what we've already read in Samuel and Kings and you look at the parlay pomenon, the things left out, that's where he's trying to make his emphasis in what he leaves out and what he focuses on. No Israel. None of the worst moments in David's life. So what does he want us to focus on? These two lessons. Number one, God is sovereign. God is sovereign. Here's a simple definition of that. God does whatever he wants to do, whenever he wants to do it, and he doesn't ask you for permission or advice. He knows the beginning from the end. He knows the start from the finish. He's not worried about the outcome. There's nothing outside of his power or his authority. Literally, the word sovereign means a king. So you think about the sovereign head of state, the king of a nation. God is the king of the universe. He's the sovereign one. He rules over every inch and every molecule in every particle, all of it, in all of creation. He controls all of it. He's big enough to handle all of it. And the chronicler wants the people to know this. So look with me. We're not going to read these names, but look, verse Chronicles 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Look how it ends in chapter 10. We started in chapter 1 verse 1 with who? Adam. And look where we end in verse 13 of chapter 10. Saul died for his breach of faith. He broke faith with the Lord. He did not keep the command of the Lord. He consulted a medium seeking guidance. He did not seek guidance from the Lord. Therefore, the Lord put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David, the son of Jesse. Okay? That's the history of Israel. Adam to David. And the chronicler covers all of it, begins with Adam, ends with David. Now let me ask you a few questions about people who are in this list of names. Why did God pick Abram and not some other pagan? Because that's what Abram was. He was an idol worshiper. Was it because Abram was a super great guy who loved the Lord? Abram's heart was he worshiped a statue. God just showed up and said, I pick you. I'm going to talk to you. And here's what I'm going to do. I'm not asking for your permission, not asking for advice. I'm going to do this for you, Abram. God said it. Fast forward a little bit. Why did God when Abram had kids pick Isaac over Ishmael? Ishmael was born first. That's not my plan. Ishmael's not in the cards. My plan is Isaac. Go forward a generation. Isaac has kids. His wife gets pregnant with how many? Twins. Which one was born first? Which one did God pick? Why? Yeah, it wasn't because Jacob was a good guy because he was even cheating in the womb, the Bible says. You read the only explanation I know in the book of Romans and it says God just picked it because he can do that. Because he's God. And that was his plan. He's in control of it. He's not asking Isaac for advice. He's just telling him this is how we're going to do it. Fast forward a little bit. Jacob has how many sons? Who was the first born? No. Reuben. Is that who God picked? Then comes Simeon. Is that who God picked? Then comes Levi. Is that who God picked? Then comes Judah. Why Judah? Because he was better than the first three. He's just a, Judah's the guy who slept with a prostitute and tried to cheat her out of payment and then got her pregnant and denied that he did it. He's no saint. God just said this is my guy. This is the one I'll use. Why David over Saul. We just read about Saul right there in 1 Chronicles 10. Basically said he's a rotten guy. But if you think about the parley pomenon that things left out, we've already seen that David was equally rotten. God said this is my guy. Solomon you're my guy. All the way through this. God's in control. Look at chapter five. Chapter five verse twenty five. This is talking about Israel. It says they broke faith with the God of their fathers and horde after the gods of the people of the land whom God had destroyed before them. So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Paul king of Assyria. The spirit of Tygleth pilsir king of Assyria. And he took them into exile. Namely the Rubenites, Gadites, half tribe of them, NASA. It brought them to halah, habore, harah. And the river goes unto this day. Who sent them into exile? Assyria? God did it. Look forward at chapter six verse fifteen. It says Jehoshadak went into exile when the Lord sent Judah in Jerusalem into exile by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. Who was the one who sent them? God did it. Nebuchadnezzar was the guy who came and attacked and tore down the gates and destroyed the temple and hauled them off. Who was the one who actually did it? God did it. God's in complete control of this all the way. Look at chapter ten. This one will almost just blow your mind if you're honest and you think about it. We read it just a minute ago and maybe you just read over it and you didn't notice it. It says Saul died for his breach of faith. Time out. How did that happen? Go back to Samuel Kings. He's killed in battle, injured in battle and what was the real end? You remember? He said to the guy, his armor bearer, kill me and the guy said what? No. So Saul fell on his own sword after he was injured. Suicide, okay? He killed himself. Look what it says. Saul died for his breach of faith. He broke faith with the Lord in that he did not keep the command of the Lord and also consulted a medium-seeking guidance. He did not seek guidance for the Lord. Therefore the Lord put him to death. God's in control of that. Saul is not some rogue person outside of the sovereignty of God. God is in control of even that. Chapter 11, verse 9, David became greater and greater. Why? Because the Lord of hosts was with him. Chapter 14, verse 17, the fame of David went out into all the lands and the Lord brought the fear of him on all the nations. God did that. Chapter 17, verse 8, I have been with you wherever you have gone and cut off your enemies before you and I will make you a name like the name of the great ones on the earth. That's God talking to David. And David might have been tempted to say, "Wait a minute. I've done the fighting. I've been out there swinging the sword and cutting the throats and getting dirty and risking my life." And God says, "I'm the one who did that, David." I cut those people down before you. You didn't do it. I did it. Look at chapter 18, verse 6. David put garrisons in Syria of Damascus and the Syrians became servants to David and brought tribute and the Lord gave victory to David wherever he went. David says, "Hey, it was my plan to put the garrisons there. I put the fortifications there." God says, "I did that. I'm in control of that." Look at verse 13, chapter 18. He put garrisons in Edom and all the Edomites became David servants and the Lord gave David victory wherever he went. On and on and on and on and on it goes. Talking about God being in control of all of these things. Now just think with me, okay? What you thinking caps on? You go back to the history of Israel and you say, okay, they wrote this book when these people were already in exile and coming back. The worst thing that had ever happened to them individually or as a nation just happened, and Ezra or whoever wrote this is trying to hammer home a point saying what? God has been in control of all of this. The worst thing that ever happened to you has been part of God's plan for you and that includes bringing you back and he's hammering this home. You need to know that God is sovereign. God is in control. Number two, very, very simple idea. God is central. He is central. He's not an add-on. He's not on the periphery. He is central. He's got to be central. And this I'm not going to show you so many verses but I just want you to think. The focus of this book is Jerusalem and so as Mark said earlier and I asked him, Israel, the northern kingdom in Samaria, they just get wiped off. Forget about them. They're gone. We're talking about Judah, southern kingdom, and the capital of Judah is Jerusalem. What is the most important, most holy place for these people in Jerusalem? It's the temple. This is the place where God lived with us. No more tabernacle. We built this building. God is with us here. And what is the most important part of that temple? The holy of holies, the inner sanctum, right? We're only the high priest went once a year. And what made that place particularly so sacred and so special? What was in it? The Ark of the Covenant, right, was there. And God was there. So one verse, look at chapter 13, verse six. It says, "David and all Israel went up to Bala," that is, "to carry off Jerem that belongs to Judah to bring up from there the Ark of God," which is called by the name of the Lord who sits enthroned above the cherubim. Two angels on the top of the Ark, and this verse says, "That is the throne of God." That is where God sat, so to speak. His presence was manifested there in a special way in the middle part of this temple, in the middle of Jerusalem. It was the sinner. The presence of God is the sinner of this book. Forget about Samaria and the idols and the calves that they put up in Dan. We're talking about Jerusalem and the temple and the Ark and the presence of God. And that's why if you look at the last part of chronicles, look at chronicles, chapter 21, beginning in about verse 19, talks about David building an altar to the Lord. And then in chapter 2, it talks about David preparing for the temple. And then it talks about Solomon being charged for the temple. Chapter 23, organizing the Levites. Chapter 24, David organized the priest. Chapter 25, David organized the musicians. 26, David organized the gatekeepers, the treasurers. Chapter 27 talks about the military a little bit. And then David's charged to Israel in 28, but then look at 29. Right back, we're talking about the temple again. Offerings that David collected for the temple and he prays for the people and then Solomon becomes the king. The whole last seven chapters of the book are about the temple. Now, put your brain on one more time. These are people in exile. Zerubbabel has come back and he's built the temple. And the Bible says basically it looked horrible. Compared to the first one, the people who remembered the first one and saw the one that Zerubbabel built just stood there when it was done and cried. They said, this is, I don't think you did it right, Zerubbabel. This is not what it looked like when we left here. This is not what Nebuchadnezzar tore down. They're just devastated. And Ezra, or whoever wrote this book says, okay, you're coming back. These people are coming back. I need to teach them about the law. What's the most important thing about the law? I've got to focus on who God is. So I've got to focus on his presence with the people. So we've got to focus on the ark and we've got to focus on the temple and we've got to focus on Jerusalem. We've got to focus on Judah. Forget all of this other stuff and laser beam focus in on who God is and he's trying to say to the people, God is central. So God is sovereign and he's central. And the last thing on your outline is three scripture references. One in chapter 16, one in chapter 17, and one in chapter 29. These three references are prayers that David prayed, okay? Now David was a knucklehead. He was no better than Saul. He was no better than any of the others. He made horrible mistakes. But he did love God. He did love God and his prayers at times are remarkable. And I want you to look, we're just going to read one of them. First Chronicles 16. And this is just going to be how we close. Instead of me praying, we're just going to read David's prayer. And they brought the ark and they put it in the tent. David is getting ready to collect all these things for the temple. And all of these prayers talk about how God is sovereign and how God is central. He's sovereign and he's central. And so we're going to read it. And here's my challenge to you before we read it. Go and look at these prayers this week. These three references. And read how David prayed. And then ask yourself, do my prayers sound anything like that? This is how David prayed. A sinner but a man after God's own heart. This is how I pray. Is there overlap? Are there similarities? Or are they completely and totally different? I'll just be honest with you. My guess is if you read his three prayers that you look at your own prayer life and say, I have never prayed a prayer like that. Ever. That sounds nothing like anything that has ever come out of our lips around the dinner table. Or out of my lips at the end of my quiet time. Or run through my head at the end of the day when I lay my head down on the pillow. So we're just going to read it. And when we're done, this will be our closing prayer. So just start in chapter 16 verse 1. They brought the ark of God. They set it inside the tent. The David had pitched for it. They offered burn offerings and peace offerings before God. And when David had finished offering the burn offerings and the peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord. And he distributed to all Israel, both men and women, each alofa bread, a portion of meat and cake of raisins. He appointed some of the Levites as ministers before the ark of the Lord to invoke, thank, and praise the Lord, the God of Israel. Asaph was the chief. Went to him where Zechariah, G.L., Shimmeriah, Jihyle, Matathiah, Eliah, Beniah, Obedietam, and G.L., who were to play harps and liars. Asaph was to sound the symbols. Beniah and Jehaziel, the priest were to blow the trumpets regularly before the ark of the covenant of God. Then on that day, David first appointed that thanksgiving be sung to the Lord by Asaph and his brothers. And this is David's song or prayer of thanks. Give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, magnone his deeds among the peoples, sing to him, sing praises to him, tell of all his wondrous works, glory in his holy name, let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice, seek the Lord in his strength continually, seek his presence continually. Remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles in the judgments he uttered, a offspring of Israel his servant, sons of Jacob his chosen ones. He is the Lord our God, his judgments are in all the earth. Remember his covenant forever, the word that he commanded for a thousand generations, the covenant that he made with Abraham, his sworn promise to Isaac, which he confirmed as a statue to Jacob as an everlasting covenant to Israel saying to you I will give the land of Cain and as your portion for an inheritance. When you were only few in number and of little account in sojourners in it, wandering from nation to nation from one kingdom to another people, he allowed no one to oppress them. He rebuked kings on their account saying, touch not my anointed ones, do my prophets no harm. Sing to the Lord all the earth, tell of his salvation from day to day, declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples. For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised and he is to be held in awe above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him, strength, enjoy or in his place, ascribe to the Lord O clans of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength, ascribe to the Lord the glory do his name, bring an offering and come before him, worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness, tremble before him all the earth, yes the world is established it shall never be moved. Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice, let them say among the nations the Lord reigns. Let the sea roar and all that fills it, let the field exalt in everything in it, then shall the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord for he comes to judge the earth. O give thanks to the Lord for he is good for his steadfast love endures forever, say also save us O God of our salvation and gather and deliver us from among the nations that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise, blessed be the Lord the God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting. Then all the people said amen and they praised the Lord. So there you go. First Chronicles. Next week.