 Okay. Good morning to all of you who are here in the class and good morning to those of you who are online. Let's get started. So yes, we looked at second Kings and today we will get into chronicles. What is the difference between Kings and chronicles? The main thing is that you have a doubt. There are things mentioned in chronicles, details given in chronicles which are not mentioned in Kings. And also, second Samuel, first Kings and second Kings talk more about the political history. Whereas chronicles tends to focus more on the religious aspects, especially of the Davidic dynasty. So that's the main difference between these two. So first and second chronicles focuses more on the religious aspects and it focuses on the Davidic dynasty, not on the northern kingdom. So those are the main things that we need to remember regarding chronicles. The events which are covered in first chronicles will be during the time period 1000 to 960 BC, which is basically the time period which is covered also in second Samuel. So the events in second Samuel and the events which are mentioned over here in first chronicles will be similar. But like I said, there are details which are given here in chronicles which are not mentioned in Samuel and in the other places. We also see that the last two verses of second chronicles are identical. The wording is the same as the first three verses of Ezra. So the last two verses of chronicles and the first three verses of Ezra have the same wording, which is why people generally say that Ezra must have edited and compiled first and second chronicles. And so he ends it with those words and uses the same wording again to begin Ezra. So he is most probably the editor, the compiler of all the records, of all the historical records. And he places emphasis of course on the religious aspects because of his priestly background. Also we see that the genre of this chronicles, it's mainly of course history. I mean you have narrative history and you also have genealogies. There are many genealogies mentioned in the book of chronicles. The chapters one to nine of first chronicles is entirely genealogies. So if you just very quickly turn in your Bibles to first chronicles, chapters one to nine, each tribe's genealogy is given in detail. And we need to remember that for the Israelites, this was the last book of their Bible, the Hebrew Bible. The very last book in the Hebrew Bible would be second chronicles, first and second chronicles. And so their Old Testament or rather their Bible ends with the detailed list of all the tribes genealogies. And then when we come to the New Testament, you have the genealogy of Jesus Christ being mentioned. So it's like as if when the final last book of the Old Testament was written, it's like as if the priests and the prophets were preparing themselves for the arrival of the Messiah. And so they put out a detailed list of all the genealogies so that when the Messiah comes, it will be very, very clear through which genealogy, through which lineage He is coming. So all the preparations are being done and finalized over here in the account of chronicles. And of course they had not divided it into first and second chronicles. It was just one single book of chronicles. And now key personalities in first chronicles would mainly be David and you have a mention of Solomon being made. So chapters one to nine we saw talks about the genealogies. The speciality is that it doesn't just start with Abraham. Here the genealogies are right from Adam himself. So we see that unique feature over here. Also of course chapters 10 to 29 focus more on the building of the new temple, the temple which is going to be constructed. And there's a brief mention of Solomon because the book ends with his kingship. Now something that we should remember regarding chronicles. Why was it written? It was written to encourage the people. Why did the people need encouragement? What happens is that when the people are taken into captivity to Babylon, the people of Judah when they are taken into captivity, they stay over there for a long time. They're given a lot of freedom over there in Babylon to conduct trade, to build their houses, to have their farms. So they become very prosperous over there in the land of Babylon. And so when finally Cyrus gives his orders and says those of you who want to return back to your homelands, free to go back, many of the people are not willing to go back. They're so nicely established. They have their big bungalows. They have their large orchards and gardens and fields and all of that. And they have their nice merchant trading companies all set up. So many of them are not even ready to go back. It's only a small number, a small percentage which has this love for Yahweh. And they want to go back to the land of Yahweh. They want to go back and rebuild the temple. They want to be there in his presence. So it's only a small percentage of people who actually volunteer to come back to Jerusalem after Cyrus gives permission. So it's not that the people are excited to come back. A lot of them do not even want to come back. And so we see that these people who had first been taken away to Babylon, they spread out from there to other places. Now when we look at the book of Jeremiah, we'll also see that's one small section. They go to Egypt and settle down over there. So you have Israelites living in Babylon. You have Israelites living in Egypt. And then of course, you know, there were these 10 tribes which had gone to Assyria. And so the people of Israel kind of spread out over other areas as well. You find them in Elam, in Persia, in parts of Asia Minor, you know, where they're almost entering into Europe. So you have them spread out in overall of these places. And many of them continued to, of course, not the 10 northern tribes. And 10 northern tribes completely got mixed up with the heathen nations. And we don't even know what happened to them. But the Judahites and the Benjamites who went and settled in many of these other countries, they maintain their Jewish identity. They continue to say that they are followers of Yahweh, but they did not want to come back to Jerusalem because life would be difficult in Jerusalem because Jerusalem was now in a very bad state, in a very undeveloped condition. And so many of them were not keen on returning back home, but they maintained contact with the people who returned back. Okay, so in Upper Egypt, there's this place called Elephant Time. And so there are ancient letters which have been found from the 5th century BC. And in these letters, we see that there was communication going on between the Jews who had returned back to Jerusalem and the Jews who were still enjoying their comfort and life in Egypt and Babylon and all of that. So we see that they continue to maintain contact with their Jewish identity and with their people, but they did not really come back. So the few people who came back were very discouraged when they returned home. There was no red carpet welcome. Things were in a very bad state. The walls of Jerusalem were all broken down. The temple had been completely destroyed. All of these things, because of that, the people were in a discouraged condition. And 1st and 2nd Chronicles was written specifically to remind them of their past history, of the great history which they had had, where God had placed a king on the throne, where God had made promises about an eternal dynasty which will last forever and ever. So 1st and 2nd Chronicles was written to encourage these people and remind them of their heritage. So that's the reason these two books were written. So you already had a history in 1st Kings and 2nd Kings, but this 2nd history in Chronicles was written as an encouragement to the people who were returning back. So 1st Chronicles focuses more on David and 2nd Chronicles focuses more on all the other kings of Judah, the descendants of David. And in 2nd Chronicles chapter 36 verses 22 to 23 is where it talks about, it's like a reminder to them of what God had done through Cyrus. If you could have one person please read out 2nd Chronicles chapter 36 verses 22 and 23. And those of us who are online, if we can just follow in our Bibles, 2nd Chronicles 36, 22 and 23. So that's the story of Cyrus King of Persia. So that's the meaning of the relationship for all these kings and also for the divided city. Let's say Cyrus King of Persia. Yeah, we can leave out all the details. The point that I'm making over here is that it says so clearly, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus King of Persia. So in the book of Chronicles the writer is telling the people, see you have come back over here. Your land is not in a very good condition. You're feeling discouraged and low. But remember what God has done. He has done something impossible. Up to that time, down the ages, the foreign policy, the international policy of all these, you know, emperors and kings who are conquering, their policy was always that they would have an iron fist and their rule would be very, very anarchic and there would be a lot of violence involved and they would see to it that these nations that they are conquering would be subjugated and placed in a bad state, all of that. But now God does something with this conqueror, Cyrus. He moves his heart so that the man comes up with a new international policy which has never existed up to that point of time. So it is something that God did. Now people in a secular world may say, oh yeah, that was a new international policy that he came up with, brilliant idea, clever man. But if you look at the Bible it says that God moved him to come up with this policy. It's not something that he came up with on his own and so he decides, I will no longer treat the conquered people in a very violent manner or treat them as slaves. I will have friendly relations with the people that I conquer so that there are political benefits involved because when you are trying to control all the kingdoms that you have conquered, it's difficult. It's long distance control which you're trying to do and those people of those lands may not continue remaining submissive to you. So Cyrus' idea is that if he's friendly towards these nations and he treats them with a gentle hand, they will be willing to continue staying part of his Persian empire and he can continue being the emperor of a vast empire. So yes, he had his own ulterior motives. He had his own selfish motives but God uses those motives to liberate his people. So it's a very lovely lesson for the kind of times that we are living in today because all over the world our Christians are now living under hostile conditions. We have kings and rulers. I mean we don't usually have kings anymore but I mean the people in authority, the ones who are in control, they do have their selfish motives. They do have their ulterior genders but God moves them and controls them to come up with policies which will ultimately benefit his kingdom. God's kingdom, not what they want. Yes, they will serve their selfish purposes and they will do what they want but ultimately the one who is above all who has an eye upon them and upon his church is orchestrating events in such a way that finally in the end it's not their purposes which will be accomplished but kingdom purposes which will be accomplished. So I'm not saying that Cyrus was a great and noble man who had love for the people and so he said, you know, you can go back to your homeland. He said that not just to the, you know, Israelite people he said that to the other nations also that he had conquered so he was not doing it out of any good intentions but God used him. God manipulated him, you could say. God moved his heart and made him work in a particular way to accomplish his kingdom purposes because he's going to be sending out the Messiah one day and everything should be ready and in place for the Messiah to come and so for that it was very important that the exiles should come back home. They should rebuild the temple and all the temple processes and rituals which point towards Jesus Christ should once again start functioning and operating. So God had higher purposes. So you and I, even as we are living in states where we may not have the support of those in authority. Remember God's eyes are constantly on his church. He knows what he's doing. Okay, even as we have all kinds of bills and laws being passed which are hostile to the Christian community we need not worry because the Lord is moving hearts and is manipulating hearts and he knows what to do which is why it says in Psalm 2 when the kings and authorities conspire against God he laughs, he finds it very amusing. He thinks, okay, these little people are thinking that they are doing something very great and they are destroying my kingdom and he laughs because he's so amused because he knows that their hearts are in his hands and he can manipulate any way that he wishes to. So all of those things are being brought out to these people who have come back to the land. So in 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles it talks about the majesty of their God of how he took kings and placed them on the throne. Some of them were faithful, some of them were faithless but through all of those events you can see God's hand, God in control God leading events in such a way that what he wants will be accomplished in the end. So this was a history that was prepared for the returned exiles to encourage them. Okay, coming to the first nine chapters which are full of genealogies in great detail they served mainly three purposes. Why were these genealogies included? First of course because when they returned back to Jerusalem and reoccupied the entire area of Judah and Benjamin they would have to prove that earlier when my ancestors were here this was the peace of land which belonged to them. So each of them should be very, very clear who their forefathers were. So each of them would have to be able to establish clearly they say see I have descended from this particular lineage so these records helped them to settle down in the correct places so that they can reclaim the land which was originally given to them. If you see in Leviticus 25, 23 it says over there God says this land belongs to me I am the owner of this land and I am giving it out to all of you as tenants. The land is mine but you are going to be living in it as my tenants we would see that in Leviticus 25, 23. So now they have come back over here and they have come back as tenants to reoccupy the places which God has assigned to them. So the genealogies would have been very, very helpful in helping each of them to find out where exactly they fit where their clan is supposed to settle down in the land. Another important role which these genealogies would have played is that many of them were keen on joining the priestly community and working on the temple and then later on performing temple duties and so it was very, very important that they should be able to clearly show that they belong to one of the priestly lineages. So each of those families which came forward and said earlier our ancestors used to be priests they had to prove to which lineage do I belong who are my forefathers and what exactly were their priestly duties before they were all taken into captivity. So for all of these things, for all these simple practical logistic reasons it was very, very important to have these genealogies and of course the bigger purpose of the genealogies is that it would also show that they are not just a small little kingdom of exiles who have now come back home but God had a plan for them right from the time of creation and so that is why the genealogy begins right from Adam. It doesn't just begin with Abraham. The genealogy begins with Adam to remind them that they are not just some little insignificant nation but God had a plan for them right from the time of Adam itself so they had to understand their greatness and the value that they had in God's eyes. So all of these purposes were served by the genealogies. Coming to some of the one or two main events first chronicles there's a lot of emphasis placed on the sin of David when he takes the population count and that is mentioned in first chronicles chapter 21 and if we could have maybe someone read out that one simple sentence 21 verse 1, verse chronicles 21 verse 1. So in your version it says that he stood up to move David is it? The word you used is move. Okay. Yeah. Now isn't it interesting? We looked at God moving the heart of Cyrus and here we have Satan moving the heart of David. So finally it's up to us to decide whether we are going to be moved by the Lord or whether we are going to be moved by Satan. So if Satan wants to work against the church if Satan wants to work against some wonderful ministry that is going on, he tries to move one or two people. Now you should be careful that you are not one of those that you will not allow yourself to be moved. Why did David get moved by Satan? Because he wanted to know God has given me so much success. I have finally after all that I went through all the times that I ran in that desert like when a vagabond, homeless person nobody to even speak up for me, defend me. I was in that pathetic condition. And now finally I am the king and I know so he wanted to find out exactly how big this is army now. How many soldiers are there? You know because 20 years and above other people who are going to fight in the army whenever there is a war. So he wants to know now how big this is army. He wants to kind of take pride in it and maybe it will also make him feel more secure. So with these intentions he decides that he's going to count the number of people and Joab is commander in chief, not a very noble man. In fact, even he has the brains to say is this a good idea what you are doing? The Lord may not approve of what you are doing. So even Joab gives a warning and says maybe you shouldn't take up this but David has allowed himself to be moved in his heart by Satan. And so look at what Satan uses. He uses things like pride. He uses things like insecurity. He uses things like greed. These are all things which he uses to move, to try and move our hearts and we need to be careful. We need to be alert. So here we have David taking this wrong step and Joab in fact is so upset that the king has ordered something like this. He says in verse six, he deliberately refuses to do the numbering of the tribe of Benjamin. So how many of our soldiers there are in the tribe of Benjamin he doesn't even bother counting them and including them in the final count. And the Lord of course is very angry because of the attitude of David's heart and the Lord says look at this God's graciousness. He says, I will allow you to choose the punishment. Many of us when we mess up we don't really get a choice on what kind of punishment we are going to get. But here is a man who has walked with the Lord in such close relationship that God says I will give you a choice. You choose which kind of punishment you want. So the first one is of course three months or three years of famine. Then you have three months of warfare or three days of plague which God himself will send through his angel of death. So David says chances are that the Lord will show mercy. Army will not show mercy and even if there is a famine there is nothing that can be expected from a famine. But if the famine in the Lord's hands there is a chance that the Lord will show mercy. And so he chooses the third option and so the plague begins and it says in verse 14 70,000 men of Israel died during that plague and finally when the plague has reached this particular point the threshing floor of Arana the Jebusite that is when the Lord says enough you know no more. So that is mentioned in verse 17. The Lord says enough withdraw your hand and the angel of the Lord stops and the Lord sends instructions through the prophet Gad to David saying come over here and build an altar and make your offerings repent of what you have done so immediately David comes over there to that place and when he comes over there you have Arana who is threshing wheat and it's very interesting I really like verses 20, 21 if someone could read out we are looking at verse chronicles 21 so verses 20 and 21 yeah I'll just get to that question which is there in the chat but let me just finish this yeah so God had said that the plague would last three days so I'm assuming that this is probably the second day or the third day and people have been dying left and right and now Arana is busy threshing wheat and he looks up and he sees the angel standing over there and he knows why the angel has come to kill he must have got the fright of his life I mean see for the past one day for the past two days people have been dying all over the city and now the angel is literally over there and it says the four sons went and hid themselves they were so scared and then David comes and says you know I want to purchase this place so that I can build an altar and make sacrifices the Lord will stop and Arana says just take it take it all for free I mean you know what does money matter when it's a matter of life and death then David says how can I just take something for free and build an altar over there I want to purchase it pay the full price and then I will make my offering over there and so he places the offering upon the altar he builds the altar places the offering upon the altar and then it says in verse 26 no human being comes and lights the fire it says the Lord himself brings down fire from heaven and the burnt offering is burnt by the Lord indicating that he has accepted the offering that he is now ready to forgive and stop the plague and as soon as the Lord accepts the offering in verse 27 it says the angel of the Lord put his sword back into its sheath and the plague stops okay so and then you have something interesting mentioned in verse 29 it talks about where the tabernacle of the Lord has been all these days it's been in the place called Gibyan but it says David did not have the guts to go to Gibyan because he's so scared that this angel of the Lord may still take action against him and so he just offers his offerings of thanksgiving to God right there at that threshing floor of Arona he does not go to Gibyan so I'm not sure how many months it took him to work up the guts to go back to Gibyan but he understands that he cannot play with God so the question which was asked over here in the chat was why was God upset when he took a survey the thing was it was not just a survey and Joab clearly understood that that is why Joab gives him a warning it was not just a survey to find out how his land is placed and how things are how much the population is in different areas no he very clearly wants to know how many fighting men he has how many soldiers he has how big his army is so it's either out of to show off to himself and say these are the number of people I have or it is to make himself feel safe and think ok I have this many people so now I think I am safe so whether it is insecurity which makes him do it or whether it is pride which makes him do it his reliance is upon the people not on the Lord and someone who had gone through the experiences that he had gone through should have had more brains ok so which is why the Lord is when people who are not very close with God commit sin the Lord is more lenient with them because their knowledge is less little about the Lord but when the Lord sees someone who is very close to man who really understands his heart and they rebel against him and disobey him the consequences are always higher like we see in the case of Moses the Lord is very strict with Moses punishing him because Moses was somebody that God spoke to like as if he was his friend and it is the same over here with David David was someone who knew the Lord intimately and so someone like him should not have done that population count because it was actually him counting the number of soldiers and he had put his reliance on his army rather than on the Lord and the Lord was displeased with that so another thing that we can maybe look at while we are still in 1st Chronicles maybe regarding the background of Jerusalem now just as a kind of quiz question when is Jerusalem mentioned for the very first time in the Old Testament in case you have come across that in any of your Sunday school quizzes and all of that the very first time the Jerusalem mentioned in the Bible and it is not even mentioned with the name of Jerusalem so that would be Genesis chapter 14 verse 18 so if we could have someone read out Genesis 14 18 yeah, yeah, yeah so the place which is mentioned over there Salem or Salem or however we pronounce it that is actually Jerusalem so the first time Jerusalem is mentioned in the Old Testament is over here in this particular verse Melchizedek was actually the king of Jerusalem a godly man a godly king but then later you have other pagan kings coming and taking over that area because the next time you have Jerusalem mentioned that would be in Joshua chapter 10 verses 1 to 5 and over there you have someone named Adonizedek he is the king of Jerusalem at that time and he is very very worried because he gets to know that the Gibeonites have made a peace treaty with Joshua you remember right they trick Joshua into thinking that they are from a far away land and he enters into a peace treaty with them and so now Adonizedek of Jerusalem and he finds out that the Gibeonites have made a peace treaty with Joshua he is worried because the Gibeonites were very powerful warriors they were a royal city of warriors and so he thinks now onwards Joshua is going to use them in his army and we are all finished if the Israelite army and the Gibeonite army gather together and they start fighting the rest of us we are all finished and so he forms a partnership with four other kings and all these five kings they decide to come and attack Joshua and his people and that is the occasion where Joshua says to the Lord Lord please make the sun slow down so that the moon will continue to be seen in the sky so that both the sun and the moon are visible in the sky for a long for many many hours and then these five kings will know that it is God who is in charge and it is a bad omen for them you know we talked about the cultural significance of that in those and all of that so of course we know that you know that all the five kings are completely defeated but after the five kings were defeated it looks like they did not gain control of Jerusalem Jerusalem continued to be under the control of Adonis edek because after the death of Joshua in Judges chapter 1 verses 4 to 8 we see at that time they once again go up against the city of Jerusalem and this time they try to burn it down okay so that is when Jerusalem temporarily comes under their control so we see that in Judges 1 4 to 5 and at that time the king is somebody named Adonis edek now I don't know if it's the same man or whether it's his son or it's a different person but they capture him and it says in Judges chapter 1 verse 6 that they cut off his thumbs and big toes that was like a sign of disgrace it's like saying that from now on you are no longer an independent king but now you are I know under the control of your conquerors and so this is what Adonis edek says in verse 7 he says 70 kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off have picked up scraps under my table now God has paid me back for what I did to them okay so we have all of those details given so that is basically when Jerusalem comes under the control of the Israelites and it becomes one of the cities of Benjamin the Benjamin tribe gets that particular city under them but you still have Jebusite people continuing to live in the city and the city is not completely under Israelite control because we see finally when we come to 1 Chronicles chapter 11 verses 4 to 9 that is when David decides I am going to make this place my capital and so he decides to go and defeat all the Jebusites who are still left in that place and what do those people say to him 1 Chronicles chapter 11 verses 4 and 5 and maybe even 6 if someone could read out 1 Chronicles chapter 11 verses 4 5 6 okay so the walls of Jerusalem were very very strong at that time and one very attractive thing regarding Jerusalem was that you had underwater underground underground water sources okay so in case the city gets completely surrounded by the enemy and they are kept captive inside they cannot go in and out they are stuck inside for many many months or even more than a year they will still be able to survive because you have underground water sources so that is the main attraction of Jerusalem it is a very good place to have as a capital and so probably God gives David the wisdom to make that his capital city and so we have David going and conquering it and from that time onwards Jerusalem finally comes under the full control of the Israelites okay so that is just regarding the background of the city of Jerusalem alright anyone has any questions otherwise we can actually conclude no I do not know about you online students but my students here don't seem to be very happy with those chronicles it is not really something which met their approval alright no questions we can actually close with the word of prayer let's close with the word of prayer Lord we just thank you so much for the lessons that you teach us through your word we thank you a lot for the lessons that we can learn even from the negative story of David and the mistake which he made we pray O Lord that when Satan tries to tempt us and move us we pray O Lord that we would remain strong in you because Lord the wrong decisions that we take and affect all the people around us as well and so we pray Lord that you would help us to be on guard also Lord we thank you for that even as you brought the exiles back from captivity you encouraged them O Lord and you showed them the great promises that they have in you even though their current condition was not very good so we pray O Lord in the same way we would always remember that if currently things are not going well for us we can always look back to the past and remember the great things which you have done for your people and for the church and that Lord would give us the encouragement and strength to hold on to you O Lord thank you Lord in Jesus name amen thank you so much online students and thank you for all of you who have been listening patiently