(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

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Send mercy shall follow me All the days, all the days of my life On the last When I walk through the dark lonesome valley My savior will walk with me there And safely his great hand will lead me To the mansions he's gone to prepare Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days, all the days of my life Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days, all the days of my life And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever And I shall feast at the table spread for me Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days, all the days of my life All the days, all the days of my life All the days, all the days of my life All the days, all the days of my life All the days, all the days of my life All the days, all the days of my life All the days, all the days of my life All the days, all the days of my life Chapter 2. Or if you've ever gone to a Southern Baptist or an old IFB church, it's 1st Chronicles. 1st Chronicles, Chapter 2. All right, 55 verses to get through here, so we better start. 1st Chronicles, Chapter 2, starting in verse 1. These are the sons of Israel, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Issachar and Zebulun, Dan, Joseph, and Benjamin, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. The sons of Judah, Ur and Onan, and Shelah, which three were born unto him of the daughter of Shewa, the Canaanitess, and Ur the firstborn of Judah, was evil in the sight of the Lord, and he slew him. And Tamar his daughter-in-law bare him, Phares, and Zerah. All the sons of Judah were five. The sons of Phares, Hezron, and Hamul, and the sons of Zerah, Zimri, and Ethan, and Haman, and Calcol, and Dara, five of them in all. And the sons of Carmi, Achar, the troubler of Israel, who transgressed in the thing accursed. And the sons of Ethan, Azariah, the sons also of Hezron that were born unto him, Jerah, Me'el, and Ram, and Chelubai, and Ram begat Amenadab, and Amenadab begat Nashon, prince of the children of Judah. And Nashon begat Salma, and Salma begat Boaz, and Boaz begat Obed, and Obed begat Jesse. And Jesse begat his firstborn, Eliab, and Abinadab the second, and Shema the third, and Nathanael, and Caleb the son of Hezron begat children of Azubah his wife, and of Jerioth, her sons are these, Jesher, and Shobab, and Ardon. And when Azubah was dead, Caleb took unto him Ephrath, which bare him her, and her begat Uri, and Uri begat Bezalael. And afterward Hezron went in to the daughter of Machir, the father of Gilead, whom he married when he was three score years old, and she bare him Segub. And Segub begat Jair, who had three and twenty cities in the land of Gilead. And he took Gesur and Aram, with the towns of Jair from them, with Kineph, and all the towns thereof, even three score cities, all these belong to the sons of Machir, the father of Gilead. And after that Hezron was dead in Caleb Ephrathah, then Abaiah, Hezron's wife, bare him Asher, the father of Tekoa. And the sons of Jerameel, the firstborn of Hezron, were Ram, the firstborn, and Bunah, and Orin, and Ozem, and Ahijah. Jerameel had also another wife, whose name was Atara. She was the mother of Onam. And the sons of Ram, the firstborn of Jerameel, were Maaz, and Jamin, and Eker. And the sons of Onam were Shammai and Jada. And the sons of Shammai, Nadab and Abishur. And the name of the wife of Abishur was Abahail, and she bare him Aban and Molid. And the sons of Nadab, Seled and Epaim, but Seled died without children. And the sons of Epaim, Ishii. And the sons of Ishii, Sheshan. And the children of Sheshan, Ahlai. And the sons of Jada, the brother of Shammai, Jethar and Jonathan. And Jethar died without children. And the sons of Jonathan, Peleth and Zaza. These were the sons of Jerameel. Now Sheshan had no sons, but daughters. And Sheshan had a servant, an Egyptian, whose name was Jarha. And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha, his servant to wife. And she bare him Atai. And Atai begat Nathan, and Nathan begat Zabad. And Zabad begat Eflal, and Eflal begat Obed. And Obed begat Jehu, and Jehu begat Azariah. And Azariah begat Heles, and Heles begat Eliesa. And Eliesa begat Sisamai, and Sisamai begat Shalom. And Shalom begat Jecamiah, and Jecamiah begat Elishama. Now the sons of Caleb, the brother of Jeramael, were Misha, his firstborn, which was the father of Ziph. And the sons of Marisha, the father of Hebron. And the sons of Hebron, Korah, and Tapuah, and Rekhem, and Shema. And Shema begat Raham, the father of Jorkoham. And Rekhem begat Shammai. And the son of Shammai was Mahon. And Mahon was the father of Beth Shzur. And Ephah, Caleb's concubine, bare Haran, and Moza, and Gazez. And Haran begat Gazez. And the sons of Jadai, Rekhem, and Jotham, and Geshan, and Pelet, and Ephah, and Shaaf. Ma'akah, Caleb's concubine, bare Sheber, and Tirhana. She bare also Shaaf, the father of Madmanah. Shefa, the father of Makbenah, and the father of Gibeah, and the daughter of Caleb was Aksa. These were the sons of Caleb, the son of Her, the firstborn of Ephrata. Shobal, the father of Kirjath-jearim. Salma, the father of Bethlehem. Haraf, the father of Bethgeder. And Shobal, the father of Kirjath-jearim, had two sons, Haraway, and half of the Manahethites. And the families of Kirjath-jearim, the Ithrites, and the Puites, of the Shumithites, and the Mishraites, of them came the Zariothites, and the Eshtaulites, the son of Salma, Bethlehem, and the Netophothites, Ataroth, the house of Joab, and half of the Manahithites, the Zorites. And the families of the scribes which dwelt at Jebes, the Tirithites, the Shimeothites, and Succothites. These are the key nights that came out of Hamath, the father of the house of Rechab. Brother Alex, would you pray for us? Father, thank you for your word. I pray that you fill, Pastor, with the Holy Spirit, and He can preach wonders out of it, and fill us with the Spirit also, that we can understand, and write that word in our hearts, and put it to use. Amen. All right, we're back in 1 Chronicles, and we ended up having to skip a week last week because of the Red Hot Preaching Conference, but we're back here. And so a quick little recap, last chapter we literally started the genealogy from Adam to Isaac. So we got all the way to Isaac, and of course I put a lot of tidbits in there, but basically got to Isaac, and what the book of Chronicles follows again is the path to the kings of Judah, who are the descendants of King David, and ultimately to the line of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has an everlasting kingdom, which is awesome. And then, by the way, we get to partake in that with him because he's our big brother, and also our Lord and Savior, and we get to rule and reign with him for all eternity, which is a pretty cool bonus. We get to reign with him as kings and priests. So right now we may be the tale, and people might not like us because of what we believe, and we're hated of all nations for our beliefs, and basically for our belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, we're hated of all men for his name's sake. And in the current season of life, we're not necessarily the head, we're kind of the tail, aren't we? But that's all going to permanently change. At some point we're going to have permanent upgrades, permanent upgrades in where we live, permanent upgrades in our bodies, permanent upgrades all around. So that's what we got to look forward to for all eternity. So anyway, the first half of this chapter gives us the names from Israel, which is Jacob, of course, and all his sons, and then begins to focus on the fourth son, which is Judah, then it kind of skips to some of the other sons, and then it brings us back to Judah, and all the ites and everything that Brother Eli was just reading about in the lab that you guys all tuned out for for the last several minutes of him reading. Yeah, there's a lot of names in there, but we're not going to have time, obviously, to get into every single name in this chapter, nor would I even attempt to do that. That would just take way too long. So I'm going to hit the highlights and ones that are pretty distinguished, but if you were reading along, you heard probably names like Ephrata and Bethlehem. Those were actual people's sons' names, and then of course you know those as places in the Bible, so those places were named after those people, so a lot of the places in the Bible are named after the men that founded the cities, or so on and so forth. So you have the 12, you also have where you can see the grace of God through this chapter, and through the genealogies themselves, but this is showing the line of Christ. I mean, 1 Chronicles begins with Adam, and kind of gives you, it's given us the path to the Savior here, where his descendants are, especially in this chapter, and it kind of goes on into the end, and then it branches off after David. You're going to see a lot of different names, but it's just kind of giving you highlights of people that were maybe more famous men of the tribe of Judah that weren't necessarily in the line of Christ, but you see the grace of God working through the tribes with some of those guys' names, and some of, God did great things through Caleb, God did great things through her, and you heard Attai, and some of these people, and you're going to, I'm going to try to say some stuff about some of these guys, but of course her helped Moses, he was the son of Caleb, and there's just a lot of people in the Bible that, you can go back to the book of Chronicles if you're like having trouble with like, who are these ites again, who are these Rechabites, who's this guy? And then you can go back, if you just do a word search in your Bible software, which used to have to go to a Strong's Concordance, and just painstakingly go through every, which you know, I mean, it helps you to learn stuff, obviously, but we have technology in our hands that you can just, you can search that name, and every instance of that person's name is going to pop up in your e-sword or whatever you're using. So it's very useful for doing these types of studies. So anyway, and then, so yeah, the second half of the chapter basically shows God's grace through the lesser known names of Judah, some of them are well known, but some of those people are people that are never necessarily mentioned again, and you got that Egyptian in the middle of it, it's like, who's this Egyptian guy, what does he have to do with anything, and that's literally not mentioned in the rest of the Bible, but God puts it in there for a reason, everything is in there for our admonition. And then towards the very end, you're going to see that, so he splices this Egyptian in, you see where some concubines are given, and then like, the family line lives on, there was no natural children with certain guys, and then, you know, so that's why the Egyptian gets into the family, but we'll get into that here at the end, but number one tonight, I want to look at, of course, verse number one, but God's chosen line included the patriarch Jacob and his 12 sons, but specifically, obviously it goes to Judah as the chosen where the line of Christ goes through, but all 12 sons are mentioned here, but Jacob, you know, he was a sinner for most of his life, if you think about the life of Jacob, he wasn't exactly a top-tier character as far as like, what he did before he left his father and mother's home and got married, and Jacob kind of, he became a man of faith more so in the middle of his life than he was before he left. He really began to count upon God, but, you know, he did a lot of pretty bad things, actually, if you think about it, I mean, he basically waited until his brother was so weak that he was about to die, and then was like, okay, well, I'll give you something to eat, but you've got to give me your birthright, you know, and then later on, he put fur all over his arms and pretended like he was his brother and lied to his dad, I mean, he lied to his dad and tricked him into blessing him instead of the firstborn, which was Esau, and, you know, he had four wives, and he treated one wife better than the other ones, I mean, he did some stuff that wasn't exactly super great in his, you know, in his birth, he's even latching on to Esau's heel as he, you know, he doesn't want to be the second born, it seems like, he wants to be the first born from day one, his name literally means supplanter, so he wants to, or replace, I mean, you could say replace her, that's another good name for him, right, he wants to replace Esau, and he does, doesn't he? But God, I think, appreciated that about him, that he, you know, he wrestles with the angel and won't let him go, you know, he ends up crippled for life because he refuses to let the angel go until he blesses him, and he walks with a limp for the rest of his life to get that blessing, I mean, that's, and he was a strong guy, I mean, he's wrestling with the Lord himself, and, you know, the Lord finally has to put the submission hold on him, pop his hip out of socket or whatever he does, and, you know, that's the first MMA fight, jiu-jitsu fight in the Bible, right? So, but he did some things that weren't really great characteristically, and really, his family was pretty dysfunctional, if you think about it, and we see through the latter parts of Genesis, it really starts to begin to focus in on Jacob, doesn't it? And it began, then it starts focusing in on how bad his sons are, but there was one son that was good, what was his name? Joseph, right? Joseph was the goody two-shoes, you know, they didn't like him, they hated his guts, he was the dreamer, they wanted to kill him, Judah actually says, let's sell him, you know, he's just like Judas, picturing Judas there, let's just sell him, you know, just like years later, a man named Judah, Judas was sold his hide, right? So, but all these guys have a lot of problems, don't they? And Jacob's family was super dysfunctional, but it does show us a picture that God is still, will still work through mankind, he still loves us, even though we are messed up, even though, I mean, because there's some pretty messed up stuff that they do, if you think about it, slaughtering whole villages of people, taking their women and children captive, taking all their, you know, because one of them slept with their sister or whatever, I mean, Jacob wasn't okay with that, and obviously God wasn't okay with it, but God still blessed the children of Israel, despite, because salvation is not by the works that we do, salvation is by grace through faith, and so a lot of people say, well, how can that person be really saved if they're still smoking cigarettes after they got saved? It's just like, what are you talking about? You're a sinner too, maybe you just don't smoke cigarettes, but you have sin in your life just like everybody else does, and this idea that people have that people that are saved never commit sin is just idiotic, and there's still dysfunctional Christian families all over, I mean, Jacob was saved, Jacob was a prince, that's why he renamed him Israel, because he was a prince, among the people, and that he blessed his line and caused his line to go and have the Messiah come through it, so take a look at some of his sons here, though, now it's going to begin here in verse one with Reuben, so Reuben is the firstborn of Jacob, but rejected as the heir because he lied with his father's concubine, which essentially is his wife, that's pretty weird, isn't it? I mean, it's his stepmom, but it's still gross, it's still bizarre, it's still weird, so there's a big dysfunction right there, and in Genesis 35, 22, you don't have to turn there, but it says, and it came to pass when Israel dwelt in the land that Reuben went and lied with Bilhah, his father's concubine, and Israel heard it. Now the sons of Jacob are twelve, the sons of Leah, Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, and Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Zebulun, so Leah was actually the first wife of Jacob, and had a lot of kids with him, and some of the good ones were from him, right? At least Judah, I mean, obviously they all had bad things in their life, okay, they're all dysfunctional, but the sons of Rachel, Joseph, and Benjamin, the sons of Bilhah, Rachel's handmaid Dan, and Naphtali, and the sons of Zilpah, Leah's handmaid Gad and Asher, these are the sons of Jacob, which were born to him in Padan Aram. Now go ahead and turn to Genesis 49, but go ahead and keep your finger in 1 Chronicles chapter 2, because I will be flipping back and forth between these two, mostly. So, it's going to take me a while to get into the main verses, but don't be afraid, okay? Like last time, I'm going to try to, you know, buzz through some of this stuff, but I really want to take some time to focus on the patriarchs and the 12 sons of Jacob here. So, also, okay, so it says, Ruben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power. Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel, because thou wentest up to thy father's bed, then defilest thou it, he went up to my couch. So Ruben is basically taken away from being, he's the firstborn, he's the firstborn, the beginning of his strength, but see, Jacob discarded him as the heir because he did this thing, he did this wicked sin against his own dad and ally with his concubine, which essentially is also his wife. And so Ruben is rejected as being the heir and his firstborn. And then you have Simeon and Levi, go ahead and stay there in Genesis 49 verse 5, it says, and basically what this is, this is Jacob at the end of his life, he's blessing his sons, and he's giving these prophecies about them. And some of them are very cryptic, some of them are very, I don't even know that I completely understand all of them, but some of them are pretty easy, I mean that one's pretty easy, like he basically just flat out says, you know, you went up and did this, and it's like, all this is happening while he's basically on his deathbed, and then he's just pronouncing these prophecies, it's like he's kind of blessing his sons, but in a way he's not. It's almost like he's just preaching prophetic sermons about them. Very, very short ones, but he's still preaching against them. So Simeon and Levi are brethren. It says in verse 5, instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce, and their wrath, for it was cruel. I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. So you have this of this curse pronounced against the anger of Simeon and Levi, and what did Simeon and Levi do? They tricked all the men because that prince lied with their sister, Dinah, and then they tricked them into getting circumcised, said they were going to marry, intermarry with all their families, and then as soon as there was three days in after being circumcised and they came through and just killed all the men, took all their stuff, and so this is what Jacob is talking about, and at one point he said, you make my name to stink in the land. So they're kind of, you know, rejected here to a certain extent, but of course Simeon isn't really necessarily a big player when it comes to the tribes of Israel later on, but Levi is. Levi is the tribe of the priest, but later on he's the main tribe that's against the Lord Jesus Christ in the end, but Moses obviously was great in Aaron and all the, you know, there's a lot of great Levites that were born of that tribe, but in the end they basically, most of them, just rejected Christ flat out, and they are scattered in Israel. They don't know their genealogies anymore. The Simeonites, do you know who they are? Because I don't know who they are. Nobody knows who they are, and most of these guys, I mean, I don't think they can trace any of them. Nobody knows their genealogy anymore because they've basically just ran out of chances and God's just like, all right, I'm done with all of you. So, but he's the priestly tribe, and I don't have time to really get into him. There's a whole big chapter where it has all his genealogy in there, so we'll do that later, but number two, and secondly, we see the line of Christ traced through Judah here in verse number one also, but I'll just have you stay in Genesis 49, eight, but just a few things about Judah. Judah had a rough start. You know, he played his part as Judas to Joseph, like I said earlier, and then his sons were so wicked that God killed them both. Two of his sons just killed them. It doesn't say what they did, it just said they're wicked, and he killed them. Well, one of them, it does say what he did. One of them, he was supposed to raise up seed to his brother. He doesn't do it. God kills him for it, and he lied with his own daughter-in-law because he was supposed to give that woman to his next son when he grew up, and he didn't do it like he said he was going to, so she pretends to be a harlot. See, this is how messed up their family is. She pretends to be a harlot on the side of the road, and to get him to lie with her so she can have, you know, a child, you know, and so he offers her all. He doesn't have any money on him, so he offers all these things, his signet and his staff and things that are clearly his, and then he gets her pregnant, and then she comes back around, and people are like, hey, your daughter-in-law is pregnant, and he's like, let's bring her forth and let her be burned. You know, he's just like ready to just torture, just like that, and then she's like, hey, do you know who these are by any chance? You know, just totally just, you know, drops his signet and everything because he tried to go back and have his friend pay for the services, but they said there's no harlot in this town, so she wasn't the harlot that he thought she was or whatever, so at any rate, he comes back, and she comes back with all the stuff, the signet, and then he realizes he owns his mistake, and so then she's with child by her father-in-law, which is Judah, and that was his daughter-in-law, and so she has twins in her belly, but you also see, you know, you see all these bad things that Judah does, and tries to sell his brother, but in the end, I'm not saying he's given the line of Christ by any merit that he does, but he does picture Christ in the way where he's willing to just give up everything, and he doesn't want to see his dad go to the grave having lost his other son, Benjamin. He does feel remorse for what's happened with Joseph, that Joseph was lost, and he thought that Joseph was dead, and he tried to sell Joseph. I mean, he does feel bad about it, and he's like, I will bring Benjamin back, and if I don't, let the blame be up on me forever, so, which is what Christ did for us. He left the blame of our sins to be upon him forever, and so we got that great picture of him, and so, but what's really so special about him? Well, I mean, there isn't really anything, what's more special about Judah than all of his other brothers? I mean, there's just a chapter dedicated to the fact that he goes and, you know, he's kind of a scumbag in a way. I mean, the first two sons he raises are so bad that God kills them, and then he says he's gonna do stuff and doesn't do it. He thinks he's going to lie with the harlot, but he's really not. It's actually his daughter-in-law. I mean, it's pretty bad. It reads like a Jerry Springer show episode or something, right? If you know what that is, and I'm like, if that was happening in, like, a modern church or something like that, people would wig out. They'd be like, that guy's a reprobate, or, you know, I mean, but was he a reprobate? I don't think he was a reprobate. I think he was saved. He just was messed up, you know. He had a lot of problems. His whole family did, so he does have this change of heart, and says he'd bear the blame forever, and he's going to bring Benjamin back one way or the other, which I think is really interesting, because the last thing that Christ does is ordains another apostle out of due time, just like Benjamin's born out of due time on the side of the road by Rachel, and she dies during childbirth, and then the last thing that the Lord Jesus does is ordains Paul the Apostle to Benjaminite to be the apostle that basically is the greatest of all the apostles in reality, which is just a side note there, but, you know, the Bible says the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. If God calls us, God, you know, we didn't do anything to deserve to be saved. It wasn't because we repented really hard of our sins that God saved us. That had nothing to do with it, and so like the story that's just the complete, just dysfunctional family of Jacob, why would God choose this family? Why does God choose any family? Why does God choose anybody to be saved? Well, he says, you know what, I'm just going to do it for everybody, and anybody who wants to be saved can be saved, and so through this man Judah, God does great things. Look at verse 8 in Genesis 49, if you're still there. It says, Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise. Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies. Thy father's children shall bow down before thee. So what is this talking about? Well, it's talking about the fact that one day one of his brethren, you know, it says thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise. Thy hand shall be upon the neck of thine enemies. Of course, Jesus Christ strangled to death the snake in the very end. He won the victory on the cross and crushed the devil's head when he won the victory, and he's the one that's going to defeat all of our enemies when we come back. We're just going to follow him on white horses. He's going to just be smoking people, and he's the one that's getting the victory. He's going to be the one with his hands on their necks, not us, but it says thy father's children shall bow down before thee. So showing that Jesus Christ is God, they're going to literally bow down because Christ is God, right? So it's just talking about Christ, and so this prophecy is about Christ, and it says Judah is a lion's whelp. So he's the lion's whelp. What is a lion's whelp? Well, it's a baby lion, isn't it? It's like Simba or something from the Lion King, but it says, from the prey, my son, thou art gone up. He stooped down, he crouched as a lion and as an old lion. So now it's introducing this concept of this old lion. Well, who's the old lion representing? Well, Jesus Christ is from old, from everlasting, and so in reality, Judah is not, you know, Christ has been around since way before Judah has ever been around. That's kind of what I think it's trying to say here, but then you skip down to verse 10, it says, and you know, this is some cryptic stuff though, right? So, but it says the scepter shall not depart from Judah. A scepter is something that a king uses to rule with, right? And it says, not a lawgiver, or excuse me, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh come. Now Shiloh is the place where the tabernacle of the Lord rested for a long time, but I believe that this is talking about the Messiah coming. That's what I think it's talking about, but it says, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. Well, who's the gathering of the people to? The Lord Jesus Christ. And ultimately, we're gonna all be gathered together unto him when we resurrect from the dead or when we're alive and remain or caught up with the Lord. And then it gives some other stuff. So some of this stuff has happened, some of it hasn't happened, but he gets a real big shout out. He gets some several verses here. It says, binding his full unto the vine and his ass's colt unto the choice vine, he washed his garments and wine and his clothes in the blood of grapes. So, of course, this is alluding to the triumphal entry, you know, where you have the full, his ass's colt. That's exactly what it says that Jesus rides into Jerusalem with, right? And then he washed his garments in wine. Now, I think this, you know, this probably has some dual fulfillment going on here because, of course, when Christ was beaten, he was bloody and he was, he was gruesome to look at. His clothes and the blood of grapes, you know, that he was beaten and, of course, the blood of grapes is red like that. It's referring to him bleeding, right? But it also could be referring to the clothes that he comes back in because when he comes back, he's going to be in a vesture dipped in blood, the Bible says. And so, and then it says, his eyes shall be red with wine, his teeth white with milk. So his eyes are a flame of fire, it talks about in the book of Revelation. And, you know, obviously the teeth white with milk, I'm not really, never been really sure what that exactly means. He's got white teeth or something. No. Maybe the blessings of what comes afterward, I don't know. Because it's going to be a blessing when Jesus Christ comes back and smashes his enemies, which are our enemies too. And, you know, he's going to reign with us for a thousand years. Well, this is a great prophecy of what's going to happen with Judah. It's obvious that the line goes through Judah right here. It's really given us that language. So now we're going to move off of Judah and we'll come back to him. But Issachar, Issachar is a strong ass couching down between two burdens, which, you know, an ass is a donkey and they're known for being able to have heavy loads upon them or whatever. But it says couching down between two burdens, so it's carrying two weights upon it. So, and it says, and he saw the rest was good and the land that it was pleasant and bowed his shoulder to bear and became a servant unto tribute. So I'm guessing that's like he settled in this part of the land, you know, talking about the future where they take their land in the time of the judges, where, you know, wherever they settle. But ultimately all of them were taken away by the Assyrians. So at least, you know, the northern tribes were. So, and so, you know, not necessarily a major tribe, but go and turn to Judges chapter 10. Keep your finger in Genesis 49 also. So, ribbon, second Chronicles 2, ribbon, Genesis 49, then turn to Judges 10. It says, and after Abimelek there arose a defender Israel to defend Israel, Tolah, the son of Puah, the son of Dodo. These are some cool names, aren't they? A man of Issachar and he dwelt in Shamir in Mount Ephraim and he judged Israel 20 and three years and died and was buried in Shamar. So, I mean, he doesn't have a lot written about him, like not a lot of cool things are written about Issachar necessarily, but that's kind of a cool thing. You know, if you'll notice in the book of Judges, a lot of the tribes have their turns judging and it moves to the different tribes. Different guys rule for a certain amount of time. So, 20 and three years is how long he reigned as the judge, Tolah. Now, Zebulun, back to Genesis 49, Genesis 49, Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea and shall be for an an haven of ships and his border shall be unto Zidong. So, when they cast lots for all the different places where they were going to live, that's where Zebulun's lot was on the western side of the Sea of Galilee. So, you had the east side west, the east side of Jordan, which split off to the that Sea of Galilee, which is actually a lake, and then the other western side. So, that's where Zebulun dwelt, and that's where the Lord Jesus Christ comes from, and really the most famous part, the most famous thing about Zebulun is the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ lives there in that area. So, and there's a prophecy that he would come out of Zebulun or whatever. So, let's see, he also was a judge. You don't have to turn there, but Judges 12 and 11 says, and after him, Elon, a Zebulunite, judged Israel, and he judged Israel 10 years, and Elon, a Zebulunite, died and was buried at Agilon in the country of Zebulon. So, then Dan shall judge his people. Dan literally means, when you think about Samson, his name means judge. So, I mean, excuse me, Dan means judge. I think it's Dan that means judge. Yeah, not Samson. Excuse me. So, but it says Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel, and then, of course, we know that Samson is the man that judged Israel, very famous of the judges because of his strength. But then it says, Dan shall be a serpent in the way, an adder in the path that bideth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward. So, when the judges were, when the people were first settling into the land, Samson came in and was whipping some Philistine behinds, right? And it was God's plan for Samson to do that. That was the whole plan from the beginning. It's just that Samson didn't really do the plan the way that God intended him to do it, and so he got himself into a lot of trouble, and he ends up blind, grinding in the house of the Philistines while they're making sport of him. But Samson wasn't all bad. He did some good things, and he definitely killed a lot of Philistines, which were evil people that God wanted killed anyway. But then after that, you see where they, that Micah in the silversmith story, there's some really weird stories in the Book of Judges, but where these guys from Dan, they ride into town, steal all of his idols, the things that they were worshiping that were not right, and then the Levite that Micah had hired to be his little Catholic priest at his little weird home church that he had going on, and then the tribe of Dan just stole him and said, and then Micah tried to fight him about it, and they said, hey, we'll come kill you if you say anything about it, and he's like, oh, whatever, and then they just rode off, and then they became like idolaters ever since then. So, you know, really Samson was a judge of his, you know, Samson was the judge that's talking about, that it says Dan shall judge his people, but really they didn't do a lot of great things after that. There was one guy that helped Moses build, you know, build the tabernacle and stuff like that, but that's about as much as he did. So Joseph, of course, he was blessed by God as a fruitful bow. It says in verse 22, Joseph was a fruitful bow, even a fruitful bow by a well whose branches run over the wall. So it's talking about how fruitful Joseph was. So he's split into two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh, and then both of those tribes are very, they have big bigger areas, and then they have a lot more people in them. So it says the archers have sorely grieved him and shot at him and hated him, but his bow abode in strength and his arms and the hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob. From thence is the shepherd the stone of Israel even by the God of thy father who shall help thee and by the almighty who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above blessings of the deep that lieth under blessings of the breast and of the womb. So it's talking about the blessings of how fruitful their tribes were, his tribe was going to be. But then it says the blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills. They shall be on the head of Joseph and on the crown of the head of him who was separate from his brethren. So he gets a real special blessing because of how faithful he was, but also the fact, I mean he really is the best out of all the 12 sons, isn't he? He's the most, you know, definitely the most righteous out of all of them. And even treated his brothers after they, you know, he really pictures Christ in so many ways. It's like, it's funny because Judah's the one that's picked, but Joseph is really, you know, if we were picking, who would you pick? You know, we're not God obviously, but if you're going to pick like out of all the 12, you know, the 12 brothers, like which one would you pick to be the, which one would we pick? We would probably pick Joseph. If we just looked at all the works that they did, we didn't know any, we just said, hey you pick one, you pick the best one here. We're going to pick Joseph every time. And obviously Joseph was blessed because of who he was and his line was blessed, but ultimately you see the hearts of Ephraim. They won't even come to fight when they're asked to fight and, you know, they're basically drunkards. God says leave them alone. They fall into idolatry just like all the other guns, but the fact that Joseph was separate from his brethren set him apart with God and God was really pleased with Joseph. And he was a great man, but, you know, that's why we as humans, we don't understand the wisdom of God and why he chooses who he chooses. We just don't understand why, but he understands who's going to do what and what's going to work out in the end for his purposes. So, you know, we obviously, we're not going to second guess God, but I mean, if we're picking, if Christians are picking who the best one out of the 12 sons are, we're going to pick Joseph. But Joseph had his problems too. I mean, he basically sold Egypt into slavery and then 30 years later they're all slaves. So, he basically sold all of Egypt and then he kind of reaped what he sowed and the children of Israel were slaves in the land for 400 years or whatever. So, and then of course Benjamin, it says about Benjamin, Benjamin shall raven as a wolf in the morning. He shall devour the prey and at night he shall divide the spoil. That's just kind of a real cryptic one. I mean, I've just thought, like, how is that really a blessing? Like, I don't know that it is, but I kind of wonder if it's talking about a precursor to the whole Sodomite incident, because at night is when they come into the city and the Sodomites surround them and then, they're doing all the crazy stuff they're doing. And basically they just almost decimated their whole tribe because they wanted to protect these, you know, perverts that murdered this woman and did awful things to her. So, and Moses though, he gives them a blessing. If you want to turn to Deuteronomy 33, you can if you don't want to, that's fine. You can just stay where you're at. Deuteronomy 33 12 says, and of Benjamin, he said, the beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by him and the Lord shall cover him all the day long and he shall dwell between his shoulders. Not really sure what that means, but it sounds like good peaceful stuff. And you know that Benjamin was pretty close to Judah. Even throughout all the times when all the other tribes were going bad, Benjamin never seemed to go as bad as the other ones. And so you had the the division when Rehoboam, you know, he did the foolish thing that he did. It was because of what Solomon actually did. And then you had the split of the tribes because of all that. But Benjamin's always kind of been, you know, he was because, you know, David loved Saul. David treated Saul with respect, even though Saul was not good to him, but Jonathan was. But it seems like Judah and Benjamin kind of were were still friends throughout everything, even though there was a lot of bad blood that happened between them. Naphtali is a hind let loose. He giveth goodly words. So I was just like, what did he say about that? But I mean, I was thinking about it and what a hind is like a female deer. And so it said Naphtali is a hind let loose. And like when I think of like some of the most memorable things about the tribe of Naphtali is Deborah and Barak. You know, we got a bad president named after, right? But Barak was just not a very strong leader, and Deborah was. Deborah led as and she judged Israel, but she was also she was a female. And then Jael, who put the tent spike through the head of whatever his name is. What was his name? Anybody remember? Cicero. Is it Cicero? Cicero, not Cicero. Cicero is a place in Illinois, or Chicago. But anyway, so yeah, but so I don't know, I guess, I don't know if that really computes like the fact that these women do these great things, but then it says he giveth goodly words. And I think about after they got this great victory, then they write this song together. You know, Barak and Deborah write this song together. So I don't know if that's just kind of referring to that time in the time of judges, but I couldn't think of anything else that it really reminded me of. Now Gad, he has some cool stuff about him, and he's in Genesis chapter 30. Go and turn to Genesis chapter 30 verse 10. It says, I'll just let you turn there real quick. Genesis chapter 30 verse 10 says, And Zilpah Leah's maid bared Jacob a son, and Leah said, A troop cometh, and she called his name Gad. I've been trying to get people to name their their sons Gad for a long time, because I really just always thought that was a pretty cool name. I mean, it doesn't really sound that cool, I guess. But what it means is cool, though. Like it means a troop cometh. Like you got a lot of kids coming. You know, it's kind of like she was being really blessed. But, you know, it was through her handmaid here. So she's just like, I got more kids than Rachel does now. We'll call him Gad. A troop cometh. So it says in Genesis 49 verse 19, Gad, a troop shall overcome him, but he shall overcome at the last. And so you have the prophecy of Jacob, where he's like saying, hey, you know, he's kind of using a play on his words here, that his name means a troop, but a troop is going to overcome him. And then he's going to overcome at the last. I've preached about this before, so I'm not going to go too deep into it. But Gad is a tribe of warriors. They're some of the first ones that go and help David after Saul has died. They kind of rush to his side. And they got some pretty bad to the bone warriors that can fight with buckler and shield. And they have the faces of lions and all this stuff. But they're swift. And, you know, so they're pretty, pretty bad to the bone type dudes. But when it comes to their warrior tribes, but they do fall into idolatry. And in the end, they get taken captive and taken out of the land before even the other tribes do. So they get taken out of the land. So this prophecy of overcoming in the end, like, it's like, when did that happen? And, you know, you might say, well, when the 12 tribes, you know, when you have the 144,000 in the end, one of the tribes that come is the tribe of Gad. They're sealed in their foreheads, the tribe of Gad 12,000 virgins or whatever. But also they inherit the land. You know, when Daniel inherits his lot in the end, so will Gad and all these other tribes that were saved in the Old Testament. But then, of course, you have the occurrence in Mark chapter five, when you have the maniac of Gadara coming out, you know, and he's yelling and freaking out. And when they come across the water, like in all the accounts that are coming across the Sea of Galilee, which was called Chenareth in the Old Testament. So it was called Chenareth. And so Gad just had this like little tiny spot where they had a corner of the lake there. And then the rest of their land was to the east in Jordan. Remember, they wanted the land where their cattle could graze and stuff like that. And then, you know, show your brethren go to war, and you lie here or whatever. So, but when the Lord Jesus Christ came across to that place called the Gadarenes, you've probably seen that in your Bible lots of times, then you have this maniac. They call him the maniac of Gadara, but he's just a man possessed with devils. And he says, Jesus says, what is your name? And he says, legion for we are many. And a legion is like a big troop of soldiers, right? So if you look up what troop, if you just look at synonyms for the word troop, you know, if you just look it up, synonyms, or if you look up legion and you look up what the synonyms for legion are, then you're going to find the word troop. So troop and legion are synonyms of each other. They mean the same thing. So in the New Testament, like I think that if you want to look at the spiritual fulfilling of the prophecy of Gad, is that Jesus Christ runs into this guy who's in the same place that Gad used to be at. I'm sure there were still people that lived there that were part of the tribe or, you know, maybe half part of the tribe. But didn't Jesus say to go, that I'm only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel? Who's in the house of Israel? It's the children of Israel, right? All the 12 tribes. So when he releases him from the legion, all of them go into 2,000 pigs. So we know it's probably, you know, at least 2,000 of these devils were living inside this guy. And so he wasn't able to be bound. Remember in the story, the maniac of Gadara, they tried to bind him with fetters, they tried to put chains on him, and he just snapped them. This guy is like supercharged with devils. And so he couldn't be bound by man, but he was bound by devils, wasn't he? So he had been overcome by a legion or a troop of devils, and then Jesus frees him. And the Bible, when it says that when you overcome in the Bible, it's not talking about like, we shall overcome. You know, it's not like the civil rights movement necessarily, what he's talking about, the we shall overcome song, which it can mean that. It can mean that we're overcoming troubles or whatever. But in the Bible, when it says, who is he that overcometh the world? He that believe that Jesus is the Son of God, right? So, and to he that overcomes, all these blessings are going to happen. But when the Bible is using the word overcome, and the New Testament is talking about people that are getting saved. And I believe that this guy gets saved, and so he overcomes, in the end, this guy from Gedera, and then he tries to go with Jesus and be part of his posse, part of his traveling team of preaching, and Jesus tells him no. And he says, go home and tell, you know, tell people what great things God has done for you. And so then he goes and he tells the whole, it says he tells the whole city that. And so if you think, like, if there's people from from Gad that are still in there, intermixed with all these people, like, that's probably the New Testament fulfillment of what this prophecy is. Because otherwise, what's the, what's the fulfillment of it? Where do they overcome? Unless you're just talking about the resurrection, which could be, but I just thought that was really interesting. Part of the story, I really like that story about Gad and the prophecy there. So then you got Asher. Out of Asher, his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties. So I guess he's the chef of the of the tribe there. But the only thing that I could really think about with Asher as, like, a blessing, that he answers the call of Hezekiah, like some of the people, you know, because the the northern tribe is pretty much done with at this point. But Hezekiah sends out letter, and he says, like, anybody wants to come be a part of the Passover, come on down. And he said that some, most, some people laughed into scorn, the ones that were already just kind of, like, not not wanting anything to do with God anymore. But Asher did come, the tribe of Asher, some of those guys came and ate that bread, and with that royal guy, Hezekiah. So now we're going to shift back to Judah here in 1 Chronicles 2, verse 3. Judah, of course, this is done to show us how God chooses Judah. But look at 1 Chronicles 2, 3, it says, The sons of Judah, Ur and Onan and Shelah, which three were born unto him of the daughter of Shewa the Canaanitess. And Ur, the firstborn of Judah, was evil on the side of the Lord. He slew him, and Tamar his daughter-in-law, bare him. Phares and Zerah and the sons of Judah were five. Now, remember, Phares broke forth. He's one of the, he's the twin, right? They're twin brothers. Zerah's hand comes out, they tie the scarlet thread around his hand, and then he sucks it back in, right? But then Phares breaks forth, and that's what it means, a breach. He broke forth. Somehow, one kid's hand comes out, and then all of a sudden, Phares comes out, and he's born. Obviously, it's a miracle, and he becomes the firstborn. But they put the string around the wrong, I mean, his hand broke forth, but he didn't come all the way out. So, he wasn't the real heir, you know, he wasn't the real firstborn in reality. So, then you have verse five, the sons of Phares, you know, and then this genealogy is giving us who is the next-in-law, who it is, because otherwise it would say Zerah, right? But it's funny, in the genealogy in Matthew chapter one, it mentions both brothers, but then it says Phares begets so-and-so. So, they're twins, and then you have that, like, little controversy of the scarlet thread, and so the mention in Matthew chapter one, just interesting next time you read through it, notice that it has Zerah's name, but it says the sons of Phares, Hezron, and Hamul, and the sons of Zerah, Zimrai, Ethan, and Heman, master of the universe, and Calcol, and Dera, five of them in all. So, thirdly tonight, God's chosen line goes through Phares, but we're going to see Achor, or Achan, is a picture that God can punish sin, but you're not going to lose your salvation. So, the tribe of Judah is not, like, discounted because of what Achan did. Now, what Achan did was a bad sin. He was called the troubleer of Israel, right? It even says it in this genealogy, Achan, the troubleer of Israel. Look at verse seven, it says, and the sons of Carmi, Achor, which is Achan, the troubleer of Israel, who transgressed in the thing accursed. And it says, and the sons of Ethan, Azariah, also of Hezron, and were born of him, Jerameel, and Ram, and Chelubuah. How do you say that? Chelubuah. I don't know. Anyway, and I'm not going to say that again. And Ram. I like Ram better. That's an easier name to pronounce, isn't it? Cool name. What's your name? Ram. Ram. What do you do? Just lift weights all day. My name's Ram. Just hit stuff with my head. But then, you know, he's got a cool name, but then he names his son Amenadab. It's like, that's messed up. Like, you got a cool name, dad, then you're going to name your son Amenadab. Amenadab be-et Naishon, prince of the children of Judah. What does that mean? Well, if you think about it, Moses, when he divided all the armies of Israel, remember they had to all have their own certain places where they encamped? Well, the prince of the, or the general, basically, of the children of Judah was Naishon, and he was chosen by Moses. So now the fourth. So you have, so Carmine and Achor. So Achor gets killed, and he's one of the sons of Zerah. He's not one of the sons of Pharaohs. But, you know, that just shows, this is why he's not the chosen. This is why God, you know, his hand comes out, but it gets sucked back in, then out comes Pharaohs. Why? Because Carmine, that's why. Because Carmine would have been the one, right? Had Zerah been the actual heir, then Carmine would have been that son, and then Achor would have been that son, and then he would have been the troubleer of Israel, or whatever. So, I mean, God knows what he's doing. That's the one, you know, he didn't want it to go through him. And I think all, didn't all of Achan's sons get killed with him? Like, I don't know why they did that, but they did. They, and so he, his line basically got kind of snuffed out there. So, and then it says, and the sons of Ethan, Azariah, the sons of Hezron, they were born into him, Jeruamil, and so on and so forth. So, and then now we see the fourth line goes through the line of Boaz, and he redeems Ruth, the Moabitess, picturing that God can redeem you and make you part of his chosen line. So the Moabites weren't supposed to come into the, you know, to the temple, or they weren't supposed to come into the house of God for, like, what is it, four generations? Or, I can't remember how many generations it was, but they weren't allowed to just go right in. But they, but God still allowed Ruth, the picture of Ruth is that he's going to bring the Gentiles in, you know, and Boaz is the picture of Christ redeeming, redeeming the Gentiles, right? And that she's the bride, you know, so she, he marries her, and she's, so it's like the picture of the bride of Christ or whatever. So, I Chronicles 2, verse 11 says, And Nahshon begat Salma, and Salma begat Boaz. So turn to Ruth chapter 4, verse 17. Ruth 4, 17, and this, at the end of Ruth, it gives us this little quick genealogy to help us understand the line of Christ here in the end of the book of Ruth. Because the line of Christ goes through who? Who's the main name that we're going to get to here? It's David, right? David, the mercy, the sure mercies of David, right? So Ruth 4, 17 says, And the women, her neighbors gave it a name, saying, There is a son born to Naomi, and they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David. Now these are the generations of Feres. Feres begat Hezron. So who's the line through? Feres, Hezron, and Hezron begat Ram, Ram begat Amenadab, Amenadab begat Nahshon, Nahshon begat Salmon, Salmon begat Boaz, Boaz begat Obed, Obed begat Jesse, Jesse begat David. So there's the line from, you know, the children of Judah going through Feres unto David. So number five, the fifth thing tonight, is that God picks David, the youngest, showing that God's grace extends to the humble regardless of their social status. God, you know, sometimes God just is going to pick, He's going to pick who He wants. He's going to pick the one that's the most humble. None of those ones that stood before Samuel were picked. He's like, nope, I refused him. Nope, I refused him. He's like, surely this is the Lord's anointing. He's like, nope, it's not Him either. And it's like one by one, these men of Jesse are brought before Samuel because Saul's been rejected. And who does he pick? The little shepherd boy, David. Look at verse number 12 back in our text. It says, And Boaz begat Obed, Obed begat Jesse, Jesse begat his firstborn, Eliab, and Abinadab the second, and Shema the third, Netheniel the fourth, Radai the fifth, Ozem the sixth, David the seventh. So he picks the youngest out of all of them, and he anoints him to be the king, and that is who God chooses. That's why He chooses whom He will. That's who He chose. But it wasn't the biggest and the strongest. That's what Saul was. Saul was head and shoulders above the rest. He was probably a good-looking guy. Everybody thought he looked tough. He probably wore his armor well. But in reality, he was afraid to fight Goliath. He was afraid to serve the Lord the way he was supposed to. He wouldn't keep God's commandments, and God refused him for that. God chose somebody that was better than him. It was David. So now we have the line established to David here. So now let's look at some of David's family members. I don't know if you've already kind of studied some of his family members, but some of these things might surprise you. It says, Whose sisters were Zeruiah? So whenever David says, Ye sons of Zeruiah are too hard for me, who's he talking about? His sister's kids. Right? He's always complaining about his sister's kids. And who are they? Abishai and Joab and Asahel, three. And of course, Asahel is the one that gets killed by Abner, I believe. But Joab is, of course, becomes the general of David's army. And he is not one of the mighty men. He's not on the list. But yet he does take the castle of Zion. He said, Whoever takes the castle of Zion is going to be my general. And Joab went and took it. There's no doubt Joab was a bad dude in his own right. But he was also bad in other ways, too. I personally think that Joab was saved. I know he did a lot of evil things. But again, what are we talking about? Like God's grace does cover a multitude of things. And in the end, he didn't really get away with it. But he ended up murdering a couple of people because of his lust for power. But you see him do other things, where David's being tempted to number the people. And then Joab's like, What are you doing? You're sinning against God. And so he despised the word of David because David was doing wrong, things like that. And then he shows mercy. He's like, Throw that dude's head over the wall, and I'll spare you. And the old lady is parlaying with him in the battle. And then they chuck his head over the wall, and it's like, All right, have a good day. I just thought it just kind of bounces. Anyway. So you have Zeruiah and Abigail. So he has two sisters, Zeruiah and Abigail. This stupid thing. All right. So that would make Abishai, Joab, and Asahel his what? His nephews, right? His blood nephews. Now, this is the thing that really surprised me. And maybe I just skipped over it in my Bible reading or just didn't think about it when I was reading the Bible. But it says, And Abigail bare Emesa, and the father of Emesa was Jethro the Ishmaelite. So Emesa is the one that Joab kills. So Joab is kind of rejected as being the general. David picks Emesa to be his new general, but Emesa is also his nephew. This is what I didn't realize. I didn't realize that Emesa was David's nephew also. Who didn't know that before just now? Okay, so I'm not the only one. Somehow I skipped that, but in my mind. But that's the beautiful thing about reading the Bible over and over again, is that you're going to learn new things every time you read it. And so this is kind of important, because now it kind of puts a little bit more light on the story. And what's the end of Emesa? You know, David makes him the general, and then Joab walks up and kills him. He said, Are you in health? Grabs him by the beard and guts him right there on the highway in front of everybody and kills his own cousin. Because this is his cousin. This is his first cousin. They family. They know each other really well, I'm sure. So what he did was, I never understood why David was so upset about Emesa. Because he's really upset about what Joab does to him. And I just thought, well, he just made him the captain, or he just made him the general of the army. He wasn't there for that long. Why is he so upset? I mean, I know that he did it in peacetime and all that, I get it. But David's really upset about it. But I would be too if someone killed my nephew, and it was my other nephew that did it. So David and Joab had a really interesting relationship. We don't really have time to delve super deep into all that, but it's just a good lesson to learn there that every time you read your Bible, you're going to learn something different, right? So number six, we see the others in Judah that are not in David's line. So God's grace is not just limited to the chosen seed. Of course, he does great things through other people in the other tribes, and then it's showing here the great people in the other tribes. So you have Caleb. I'm not going to go through all these verses, but you have Caleb, Ephra, Ephrath, and her, the helper of Moses. Uri, the starter of the Russian. No, I'm just kidding. But that'd be Boris. No, but you have Uri. Let's see, there's a lot of, Hezron is a popular name here, but let's see, I wanted to get to, well, Tekoa. You've probably heard that name before. Gilead. But some of these guys are overlapping into different tribes, okay? But I just want to skip this because I've got to be done. But the seventh point, though, is that God's grace through the daughters and outside the tribe of Judah. So look at verse 34. It says, Now Shishan had no sons but daughters, and Shishan had a servant, an Egyptian, whose name was Jarha. So Egyptians weren't allowed to go into the house of the Lord, I believe, until three generations. But this guy, he's the servant. In the modern versions, will say, He made his slave the heir. Well, it says he's his servant. It doesn't say he's his slave, okay? So they're trying to make it all weird. But if he was his slave, like some indentured servant, I doubt very seriously he's going to give his daughter to wife. And it's like, this isn't something that's unknown to us because Abraham had his, what was his servant's name that went and got? Good night, what's his name? Aliazar, wasn't it? And he went, and he was the actual, he was actually the heir to his stuff before any of his sons were born. He said, I have this Aliazar, my servant, as my heir right now. So it wasn't abnormal for this to happen. But why is this in the genealogy? Well, I'm not really sure why, but maybe it's just to show us that God's not racist. That it doesn't matter what color your skin is. It doesn't matter if you're black or not. You can still be one of God's people, and it's not wrong to marry somebody else that's of a different skin tone than somebody else. How about that? Maybe that's the lesson. And that God can take anybody and bring them into his fold, and maybe this guy was a good guy, and God wanted him to be a part of the family of Judah because he ultimately, he didn't have any sons, so this guy becomes his heir with his daughter, and he's an Egyptian. And it's like, well that's just wrong. No, it's not. I mean, think about what Moses' brother and sister were calling him out for because he married an Ethiopian wife. Why does the Bible point these little things out here and there for us? It's so a bunch of idiots won't be all racist in the latter times, probably. It's probably one of the good reasons why. They wouldn't be some stupid racist that thinks that some race of people is all bad. I mean, it's just ridiculous. I can't believe that Christians even believe crap like that. It really blew me away when I realized that some Southern Baptist churches, because I grew up in the Northwest. I never lived in the South. I've never experienced what racism people would experience in the South, but I know it's true. I know that there was some bad stuff that went down there, and there's a lot of racist people still today, but it's stupid. The Bible doesn't teach to be racist, so I just don't understand this whole Christian racism thing. I'm not saying there's a lot of people, a lot of Christians that are, but if you are, you're an idiot. If you're a racist and you're Christian, then you're a moron. You need to get your heart right. I'm not saying you're not saved, but what I am saying is that the Bible teaches that we come from one blood, and you're like, well Ham was black. Well, you don't know what color they were, but I'm sure that they probably had brown skin. They were probably in-betweeners. I don't know. I don't know what they look like, but you know what? If you live a few generations in Africa, your skin's going to adapt to that harsh environment, just like if you live in a desert, or maybe if you come from the North where the sun never shines, maybe you're going to kind of look like me, like my Nordic ancestors or whatever. What does that have to do with what kind of person you are? Hey, it's either saved or not saved. That's the only division, folks. That's it, and there shouldn't be any racism going on, and you looking down on somebody because they're black or Mexican or white. I mean, there's a lot of white racism going on today, and people seem to think that's okay. It's like, well, that's because of all the racism. I didn't grow up in that. It's like these people act like, you know, there's all this systemic racism happening right now. It's like there is, but now it's just swung, the pendulum swung way to the other side. So it was full retard here, and now it's super retard over here. Same thing. Why can't we just be normal? You know, it shouldn't have to swing this far in this way and that way, but if you're a Christian, and you're saying, I'm a Nazi, or I'm a white supremacist, but I'm a Christian, you're just an idiot. That's what you actually are. You're a moron, and if you have that mindset, you're stupid, ignorant. It's not even ignorant. You should just know better, because God is the one that put all people on the face of the earth, and he didn't say like, well, these people are part monkey. That's not true. That's not true. That is a racist trope, to say someone, oh, they're black, so they're a monkey. We don't believe in evolution in this church. The Bible doesn't teach that. We have different skin pigmentation because of the places that we're from. That's why. It has nothing to do with anything else, and do some people have genetic things in there because we've been in different regions, and genetics are different? Yeah, we have different genetics, but that doesn't mean that anybody's better than anybody else. So the only Christian, the only privilege we should be talking about is our Christian privilege, not white privilege or black privilege or all this other stuff. It's garbage, folks, and look, we should just not be into that, and I'm sorry that I kind of delved into that, but it just makes me sick. I really did not know that that existed. There's independent Baptist churches that will teach that black men should not date white women, and I'm just like, what? Why? But it's okay for Mexican guys to date white women there, but not black guys. That's racist. It's stupid. It's racist. Now, if you want to talk about culture, okay, I understand cultural differences, and cultural differences can be hard to overcome. I understand that. If your culture is so much different than the other family, but look, your culture, if you're saved, should be Christ, and so both cultures should just go jump in the lake and you should just be a Christian together, and if they can't get, if your family members can't get along because they like this and they like that, who cares? You just serve Christ, and you just show your family how to serve Christ, and don't teach them to be racist, and yeah, so it's just, it's annoying. So this Ethiopian, he got in on the family probably because he was a good guy, and obviously he didn't have any sons, and so he wanted to make sure that the line moved on, and here it was. So, and I don't have time to go through the rest of this, but, you know, these names, there's some of the names in there, Bethlehem and stuff like that. So anyway, that's all I got. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for this great chapter in the Bible. Lord, it's sometimes for the, some people, it's hard to go through these genealogies, and it is for me sometimes too, Lord, but I know that we can get some great stuff out of it and learn some new things, like learning about a mesa, and just a lot of great things in here. Lord, we pray you would just help us to not skip over things that we find necessarily boring. In your word, Lord, I pray that we'd love it all, every single word, every single thing in the Bible, that we'd love it, and Lord, that we'd have a right perspective of how we view things, and we pray that you would just bless us all as we go our separate ways tonight. Bring us back on Sunday. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Let's end with our last song. Page 296 in your green hymn books. Follow on. Page 296. Follow on. On the first. Down in the valley with my Savior I would go Where the flowers are blooming and the sweet waters flow Everywhere he leads me I would follow, follow on Walking in his footsteps till the crown be won Follow, follow I would follow Jesus Anywhere, everywhere I would follow on Follow, follow I would follow Jesus Everywhere he leads me I would follow on Down in the valley with my Savior I would go Where the storms are sweeping and the dark waters flow With his hand to lead me I will never, never fear Danger cannot fright me if my Lord is near Follow, follow I would follow Jesus Anywhere, everywhere I would follow on Follow, follow I would follow Jesus Everywhere he leads me I would follow on Down in the valley or upon the mountain steep Close beside my Savior would my soul ever keep He will lead me safely in the path that he has trod Up to where they gather on the hills of God Follow, follow I would follow Jesus Anywhere, everywhere I would follow on Follow, follow I would follow Jesus Everywhere he leads me I would follow on Amen thank you for singing with us tonight and coming out to our service love to see you back here sunday morning and brother bill you want to end us with the word of prayer