Gooding, David: 1 - Overview and Introduction

And so we come to the first of ten studies on the books of uh First and Second Kings that we hope to conduct here tonight and in the ensuing weeks, God willing. The books of First and Second Kings are not necessarily every Christian's favorite books, do you see? Granted, they have some exciting chapters, uh, in them. They tell us about the colorful prophets, Elijah and then Elisha. Eh, and a lot of people feel the book would be far better improved if all the stories were like that instead of what they are, do you see? We shall not be studying the whole of the detail in each of those two books. We only have ten talks, and there are nearly fifty chapters in these two books combined. So I shall be using my special privilege in selecting one of the major themes of First and Second Kings. What that major theme is, is fairly well indicated in verse one of chapter one. You may care to look at it. I shall not be reading it at the moment. It's a very dramatic opening, for it opens with the description of David, King David, on his deathbed, shivering cold. They, of course, his servants loyal to him, did their best, hoping he would recover. You see, some of them couldn't imagine life without King David. They remembered the old boys and the g- uh, the venerable women, uh, do you see, uh, how they saw this teenager go out to meet Goliath, if you please, when the whole army of Israel were thunderstruck by the giant's appearance. And they told and told and retold the story, how he brought the giant down and cut off his head. And of course rose to fame, particularly in the army of King Saul. And then Saul became jealous, and David had to flee and became a kind of a Robin Hood character, do you see? All the more charming for that, of course. As people, you know, talk to each other over their coffee, have you heard where David is? Now and again he appears here, and then he appears there, and then when they go to look for him, he isn't there. Do you see, do you know where he is? Then, of course, King Saul and David's great personal friend Jonathan the Prince were defeated in battle by the Philistines, and Israel was left without a king. They tried to put in place one of Saul's sons, but he was a weak-kneed individual and scarcely, uh, was able for the job. David eventually came back as far as Hebron, his, uh, own city, and there they made him king. But David didn't push to have the ten tribes come under his command. He was king over the two tribes to start with, Judah and Benjamin, but the others, he let them be under their own king. They loved him for it, of course. People don't like being coerced. And eventually they voluntarily came, did the ten tribe and their leaders, and made David king. Then he extended the nation. Unheard of dimensions of Israel and got himself very famous because of it. There were years of disappointment. There was the whole business of his committing adultery with the wife of one of his officers, and then murdering the office- officer to try and cover up his sin. But he sought forgiveness from God, and eventually the nation forgave him. There then came a civil war, when one of the king's sons, uh, conspired against the king, and David, rather than mix up Jerusalem, the capital city, in warfare, turned around and left with a few faithful servants and went into exile. Eventually, however, the rebel Absalom was defeated, and David came back. It wasn't just that. It was as he got older, he, he, he, he, he went into retirement, you know. That is to say, he handed over the actual practical government of the nation to his son Solomon. Whereas David gave himself to what he had longed to do. I don't know whether you have any plans for your retirement. Mm-hmm. Some of you look as if you're going to be a long while before you retire. What would you do if you had nothing else to do and didn't have to earn your living? I can tell you what David did. He organized the choirs of the Levites, you see, so that when eventually a temple should be built, the Levites could sing reasonably well. And then, of course, he wrote the, he, he wrote the songs. And if Elvis Presley got himself to fame around the world by writing songs, you can imagine the fame that David got by writing those psalms. Some of us sing them still. Still. Then David got old, and he went to bed, and it was very cold, and as the English version puts it, curiously enough, and he got no heat. So they covered him with with blankets, you see, poor old boy. That didn't work. So they got a rare kind of a super duper hot water bottle and uh uh and uh tried to warm him up that way. That didn't work either, really. And eventually David died. Some people couldn't imagine life without David. The interesting thing is... the provision that God made for the maintenance of his people Israel, and if need be for their recovery when they got into trouble. And it wasn't to raise up a s- a a a succession of able kings like David. You would have thought, perhaps, if you gave yourself to thinking much, um, that if God could raise up one David, surely he could raise up a half a dozen Davids. Why didn't he? Well, some of the men that followed David on the throne had their gifts, of course. Solomon was very wise and knew all about, uh, uh, uh, uh, science of his day. But when he was old, perhaps long before that too, he got silly. I have to be careful what I say, but, uh, he married a lot of women that weren't advisable. Pagan women. And went astray in the head, so much so that he built them their special pagan temples, did Solomon, and came unstuck, of course. Some people that followed him were reasonable fellows. Some had a spark of genius. Some were pretty poor. Some were downright bad. Why did God arrange it that way? I repeat, if God could have raised up one David, why didn't he raise up a whole succession of Davids? Of course, you could ask the same thing of the Christian church, couldn't you? It started off magnificently well with great men like Paul the Apostle and Peter the Apostle, tremendous evangelists and pastors and teachers inspired of God to write us the New Testament. The men that came afterwards. I have to be careful what I say. I shall have to meet a lot of them in heaven one day. Better be careful what I say. But they weren't all Apostle Paul's, were they? Not the men that came afterwards, they weren't. Old Origen got himself melded up with Greek philosophy in a disastrous fashion. Why didn't God raise up, if he could raise up one Apostle Paul and one Apostle Peter, why didn't he raise up a succession of them? Do you get the point? What was God's, uh, provision for maintaining Israel, and if need be, for recovering them when they went astray. It is in answer to that question that a good deal of the early chapters of First Kings is written. The answer was not to raise up a succession of King Davids. The answer was the building of the house of God at Jerusalem. And to convince you of that and what it means, let me do some reading. This is one Kings chapter eight. And this is Solomon presiding at the celebrations. When the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, was complete, and the ark was brought up into the temple, and here is Solomon standing before a gigantic crowd of Israelites, and he says as follows, this is one Kings eight, uh, verse twenty seven. But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee. How much less this house that I have builded. Yet have thou respect unto the prayer of thy servant and to his supplication, O Lord my God, to hearken unto the cry and to the prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee this day, that thine eyes may be opened toward this house night and day, even toward the place whereof thou hast said, my name shall be there, to hearken unto the prayer which thy servants, uh, shall pray towards this place. So first of all, Solomon shows himself aware of the stupendous glory and the significance of this house. He was no savage, was Solomon. He came to, had come to realize, of course, that the heaven of heavens cannot contain God. How do you get the infinite God into a restricted space? And yet, and yet, when Solomon brought in the ark, the cloud of the glory of the presence of God filled the temple. You will notice the phrase that, uh, Saul, uh, that Solomon uses. The place where you have put your name. I must divert myself a little bit, unless I, uh, uh, for fear of provoking jealousy in you. You say that's all right for Solomon, but what about us? Oh, oh, I'm glad you raised it. Um, because in actual fact, there is a house of God today, isn't there? Let me read you from First Timothy, chapter three. And now we've jumped the centuries, and we're reading from a letter that Paul wrote to Timothy, who was in charge of the great church at Ephesus. This is First Timothy, chapter three and verse fourteen. These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly. But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how people ought to behave themselves in the house of God. What is that when you meet it? What is the house of God? Uh, he goes on to explain it a bit more. It is in fact the church of the living God. In addition, it is the pillar and ground of the truth. Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. Now I have the permission of the elders of this church to set you assignments, if you are intending to, uh, uh, come along each week, and I'm setting you now an assignment. I would eventually like to hear how you understand the words that we have just read. That thou mayest know how people ought to behave in the house of God. What do you understand by the house of God? Is it a building made of wood or plaster or stone, or what is it? It is, uh, as so Paul says, the church of the living God, and its pillar and ground of the truth, whatever that means. That is my assignment. Who knows that you might be called upon to stand upon your feet and say what these verses mean. But when we read of the temple that Solomon built, we cannot, and the problem that he had, how do you get God inside a limited building? And of course, our Christian mind turns towards our blessed Lord, surely. When, according to John chapter two, he cleansed the literal temple at Jerusalem and said, take these things hence and don't make my father's house a house of merchandise. And they asked him what sign he showed that he had authority to cleanse a temple like it. He said, destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days. They thought he was talking about a literal temple. It wasn't. He was talking about his body. I'm not asking you to solve that problem, but I ask you to ponder it. You believe? That Almighty God, at one stage in human history... was present... in the person of Jesus Christ. Destroy this temple, he said, referring to his body. Now he is risen from the dead and is seated at the right hand of God, so we are told. But we're said told more. God has given him not a name which is above every name. There is only one name like that in the whole universe. And the personal name is, of course, Jehovah, Yahweh. God has given him the name... which is above every name. That in the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Jehovah. When the Jews came to, Jews came to translate Yahweh, Jehovah, if you like, into Greek, they used the Greek word for Lord, Kurios. So that there are times when Kurios in the New Testament stands for Jehovah. This is one of them. What did God say about Solomon? What Solomon said about God? God put his name on that building. Let me remind you of a greater wonder still. God has taken his own name and put it on Jesus Christ, our Lord, given him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Jehovah. His body, so he said, was a temple. God dwelt in him. Yeah, you still have to do a certain assignment. And, uh, expound to us when we come up against it, what those verses in one Timothy chapter three mean, that people might know how to behave in the house of God, church of the living God, pillar and ground of the truth. But let me now, um, point out from this same chapter eight of First Kings, how Solomon saw this house that he had been allowed to build, saw it as a cure all ills. For instance, he says, you see, verse thirty one, if a man sin against his neighbor, and an oath be laid upon him to cause him to swear, and he come and swear before thine altar in this house, then hear thou in heaven and do and judge thy servants, condemning the wicked to bring his way upon his own head, justifying the righteous to give him according to his righteousness. This is Solomon talking before he went a little so stray in the head, you know, got foolish. It's not simply coming to a building. This building is a place where God has put his very name and his glory. If Israel believed it, then when strife arose, such s- so serious that someone would be required to swear an oath and so forth, then Solomon appeals to God. Deal with it. Or Or in verse thirty three, when thy people be smitten down before the enemy because they have sinned against thee, if they, uh, uh, turn again to thee and confess thy name and pray and make supplication unto thee in this house. Why? Because God's presence was there. That's what you meant by a house of God. Not just a building that you ca- ca- had chosen to call sacred, but a place where God had put his name, where his presence was a reality. And so Paul, uh, Saul goes, uh, Solomon goes down the list. Do you see? Then hear thou in heaven and forgive the sin of thy people Israel, and bring them again into the land which thou gavest unto their fathers. When heaven is shut up, for instance, and there's no rain because they have sinned against thee. If they pray toward this place and confess thy name and turn from their sin when thou dost afflict them, then hear thou in heaven and forgive the sin of thy servants and of thy people Israel, when thou teachest them the good way wherein they should walk and send rain upon thy land, which thou hast given to thy people for an inheritance. And so he mentions seven conditions. Uh, he talks about famine or plague, and then he talks about the stranger. For he says, you see, people of other nations will hear about this house because God's presence is a reality here. They will hear about it and come to seek it. Grant, Lord, says he, that Israel may so behave that people of other nations shall be attracted to this house and come and meet thee there. So similarly, if they go out to battle or if they sin against thee. These things are to be, uh, uh, read quietly in the presence of God, surely. This is what Solomon asked God to do in that house, where God has been pleased to put his name and to manifest himself. You can see why I've set you the assignment, can't you, of one Timothy three. My excuse is that it uses the same words. That people ought to know how to behave in the house of God? What does that mean? Is it that you have to behave when you go to a meeting, you do what you like at home, or what? Well, let's leave that for the moment and ask ourselves now, um, what did the thing look like when Solomon had built it? The plans for this house are given in chapter six. And I shall not tire you this evening by going through all the details, that for another occasion. But let's get the general shape of the house as best we can reconstruct it. No, no, no, no, the house. Ah, there we are. I hope you can, uh, see this thing. Here is the house itself. You see. The architect who recon- uh, suggested this reconstruction had steps going up to it. This is the main door in, and we are told in the text it was a folding door. Do you see? Uh, these two pillars were not supporting anything except the capitals that were upon them. They didn't support the building. We shall come back to them in a moment. Here then was the main house. But it had this peculiarity that built round the sides, there were side chambers. So that, um, you went in a door here, and this, uh, little side chamber, each had one window. Its roof rested on a rebatement in the wall of the, uh, House of God itself. For the House of God, the wall of it came down like this, you'll see. There were ledges all the way down, so that the roof of this little chamber, uh, rested on this wall, but also on a rebatement in the wall of the house, and formed, of course, not only the ceiling of this house, but the floor of the one above it. Don't worry about that, we shall come down to details later. There was a third story of side chambers. They were for the priests and the people, the temple officials, with all the jobs that they had to do, the treasury, the making of the incense, and so forth, the storage of the robes, and all those sacred tasks that had to be done, and those side chambers were presumably for that purpose, do you see? Um, so that was the building. This is the house of the Lord. These are the side chambers, and they were, went round the back and came round this side as well. Let's have another. So this is a another interpretation of the thing, uh, more colorful, uh, do you see? And, uh, uh, we might as well, uh, uh, agree that, um, we cannot be certain about, uh, the exact proportions and so forth and so on. We're given dimensions, but exactly how things were finally done, we, uh, cannot be absolutely certain, but we can get a good idea. You will see, therefore, that, uh, the house itself, here it is, had a porch on it, which the tabernacle didn't have, of course. Uh, this is the porch, this thing here, you see, that you went up into that, and first through the porch, and then into the house itself. And, as I say, here go the two pillars. They're not supporting anything, they're freestanding pillars. The point of the pillars is to hold up these beautiful capitals. They are described in some detail in the text, and they were meant to be very beautiful and very attractive. You'll see there were pomegranates and lilies and goodness knows what else, and chains and net net network and so forth on top of those pillars, and the pillars were there, uh, to hold up that to the view of the people that e- that approached, you see. And, uh, the pillars were so important that they were given names. One was Yakin, and the other is Boaz, you see. Given names. Righty ho. Let's look. Now here is a ground plan. Here's the porch that we were looking at. Here are the pillars standing separate. They're not part of the porch, freestanding pillars, do you see? Here are, uh, is the holy place. Like the, uh, tabernacle, there was the holy place, the Herakle, and then there's the Debir, the Holy of Holies, behind the veil here. So that is the same as tabernacle that you may be already familiar with. Here are the side chambers going around, do you see? Eh, um... The difference is the ulam, the porch, the side chambers, the two pillars. Mm-hmm. Here is a, an impression, an artist's impression aimed at getting across to you that inside, had you gone inside that temple, you would have been amazed at the amount of gold. The, uh, uh, walls had cherubim on them, carved in the wood, uh, uh, rosettes, you know, formal representation of rose, uh, blossoms, and uh, if you please, cherubim carved on the walls, all overlaid with gold. The doors were overlaid with gold. What is more, the floor, both in the most holy place and in the holy place, was overlaid with gold. Now, when some scholars read that, they thought this was, uh, fairy story stuff. How could you possibly have even the floor, uh, uh, uh, covered in gold? But, uh, uh, a learned professor in, uh, Millard, Alan Millard, late of the University of Liverpool, has called our attention to the fact that, uh, far from being fairy story, it was the habit of people at that time to use gold very liberally. The pillars you see overlaid with gold, um, many pillars, so uh Alan Millard points out, if you go to them nowadays, what's left of them, uh, only the stone is there, there's no gold around them now, but you will find little holes going around a ring and up here again a few little holes. That is where the goldsmiths nailed the gold, the sheet gold, onto the pillars. Do you see? This is not fairy story stuff. This was exceedingly wealthy. Do you see? As befitted, uh, the uh, ho- ho- house of the Lord. Yeah. Let's go on. Here are another version of the pillars, as you see, and some, uh, i- i- indication of the work that was on them. In the court, outside the house, you had the pillars, of course. They were part of the furniture of the court outside. That's where they belonged. They're described as belonging to the court. And then there was a, a, a, a object full of water, a laver, but it was so big that it was called the sea, S-E-A, sea, and it rested on the backs of a dozen oxen. Doze. Then in, uh, there was in ad- addition to the major laver, there were subsidiary lavers, and these were smaller basins filled with water, and these things were on wheels so that you could wheel them round the court wherever, uh, uh, you needed to wheel them, you see. And if you were sacrificing endless animals, eh, eh, on the altar, you would need a great deal of water, of course. And the ancient literature that Jews, Jewish writers have recorded for us stress this matter of how important water was in the temple, yeah. There's a subsidiary laver. It's got the, uh, water here, do you see? And, uh, it's on wheels, and this is a panel and has various things marked on it decoratively, and one of the kings is is said to have, uh, broken them off and sold them or given them away to his friends or something. Yeah? That is, uh, somewhat what the, um, the, uh, place might have looked like. And we are, of course, going to, uh, consider, uh, uh, the, um, uh, house in more detail, you'll see. Eh... We've got what it looked like in our minds. So now, let's pause. This was God's provision for the maintenance of his people, for their good behavior, for their loyalty to God, so that men might come and men might go, but the presence of God in that house, being observed by his faithful people, might preserve them, and if need be, restore them when they went astray. You say, well then, that was marvelous. They probably prospered all their days and lived happily ever after. No, they didn't. Not with guys like Jeroboam about the place, and Ahaz, and other such, uh, uh, spiritual rogues. No, no. Let's just, um, survey what happened. There are five sets of plans, as I shall try to demonstrate to you, in chapter six. The first set of plans deals with the structure of the house, and therefore the side chambers. There was only one house, of course, but many side chambers. Structure then first. Then there's an interesting verse or two here, which, uh, so far from being an architect's bit of a plan, seems to be a special plea for obedience. In a subsequent study, we shall see why that's there, why it comes after this. Then we go inside, and of course, as well as the wealth of detail, what the walls, the decorative motif on the walls, and how it was on the veil, and what the doors were made of, and how it was all overlaid with gold, and inside the holiest of all, the Ark of the Covenant, and it had two special cherubim, in addition to the, uh, two cherubim on the mercy seat, overshadowing the mercy seat. It had two mighty big cherubim, likewise overlaid with gold, and they stood with their wings outstretched, one wing touching the wall, one wing coming to the middle of the house, touched by the wing of the other cherub, and his further wing extended to the wall itself. Two mighty great cherubim in the most holy place, therefore, overlaid with gold, as well as the throne of God, the Ark of the Covenant. Then there is a set of plans for the king's house, and this is a special feature to be got hold of in one's head. There was the te- the house of God, but it was built by the king, and the king had his, his house or his rooms of various sorts. He had a room for his wife, apartments for his wife. He had a place for receiving envoys from abroad. He had the house of the, the porch of the pil- uh, the forest of Lebanon, had so many pillars in it, you called it a forest. He had his own private, uh, uh, rooms and apartments in the house, and so forth and so on. But it was set down a bit lower than, but beside the house itself, because it was meant to be a twin unit of government. The house of God, with God's presence there, and the king appointed by God, anointed by God, to see to it that his, his execution of justice, uh, expressed the actual character of God, and that his people were brought to obey God and be loyal to God. The twin unit of government, therefore. So the, uh, the king's house here, and the fifth s- uh, set, uh, were two, the sea and the lavers. It should be the different order. There were the pillars, and then the, uh, sea and the lavers. They were the furnishings of the court, those two big pillars, and then the big sea and the lavers. Now look at the history. And get ready to weep. God, by definition, had just one house. Jeroboam. Set up other houses, if you please. It's a thing to be noticed when you do your assignment. That whereas in the New Testament you will read of the church and the churches, plural, you will read of the house of God, never anywhere of the houses of God. Just like you will read of the church and the churches, but then you'll read of the body of Christ. Nowhere ever will you read the bodies of Christ. It would be a strange er- er- error to talk about the bodies of Christ. So there was only to be one house. Jeroboam built others. God had him executed for it. He was succeeded by Nadab and then by a king called Baasha, who revolted against Jeroboam's family. And, uh, you might have thought that Baasha, who revolted against Jeroboam, would have been careful not to fall into Jeroboam's mistake. He did worse. Had to be removed. Or if you come inside the building, to the most holy place, there was the Ark of the Covenant, with its number one requirement, thou shall have none other god but me. Look at Ahab of Israel. He shut down the temple of the Lord. Built a house for Baal, if you please. Well, his wife, you know, Jesse likes it. Jesse was Jezebel, Queen Jezebel. Ahab's wife. The thing was preposterous. God dealt with him, of course. Then there was the fourth set of plans, which had to do with the king's house, the royal apartments, for the king himself, for the queen, for the princes and the princesses, and so forth. Look at the history. Jehu of Israel destroys the royal house of Ahab completely. Athaliah, who as an Israelite actually, but married Jehoshaphat when Jehoshaphat didn't have a lot of sense. Uh, she destroys the royal house of Judah. Except for one little boy, and his nurse managed to secrete him out of the palace and took him to the high priest, who made a special room for him, hidden away in the temple, until he grew up. Otherwise, the whole line of Judah would have been broken. You would never have come to our Lord. This was very serious stuff, this. Then there was the sea and the lavers and the pillars. Ahaz of Judah cut off the side panels of the subsidiary lavers, took down the sea off the auction, and put it on the pavement. Well, that made a change, didn't it? You can't have the same thing all the years, can you? Unless it happens to be God's house, of course, and you better consult him before you make any changes. Ahaz of Judah put the sea off the oxen, down on the ground, if you please. Cut off the side panels of the subsidiary Subsidiary labels, labels. gave Gave them them away. away. And eventually Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came up. He smashed the bronze laver to pieces and the pillars and took the metal to Babylon. Do you say... what do you say? Because, you see, we are interested parties. If that's how they treated the, the house of God in their day, we're members of a house, aren't we? Have we right, the right to change it as we please? That's a question we shall have to face later on. This is dismal. It's true to history, of course. True to human nature. But let's cheer ourselves up before we go. First and Second Kings are not just stories of human revolt against God and ruination of God's plans and purposes. It is the history of major revivals. There's the revival led by Elijah on Mount Carmel. And the issue at stake will be, who is the true God, Baal or Jehovah? In the face of Ahab, who'd built a house to Baal. Elijah led his revival on Mount Carmel to establish who is the true God, Baal or Jehovah. For the priests of Baal were there, and you'll remember the story, won't you? Elijah suggested to the priests of Baal that they built an altar, and then they flooded it with, with, uh, water, you see, and uh, uh, well, they built an altar and they put their animal on top, and they called upon Baal to send the fire to light the offering. The God that answered by fire, you see, he said, will be the God. So they called on Baal, and they got very excited and cut themselves and all this kind of thing. And Elijah mocked them. Cry a bit louder, he said, to see, because, well, perhaps he's gone on a journey. And then, descending to small things, perhaps he's gone to the toilet, says he, your God. But there was no voice or anywhere that answered. Elijah built an altar, flooded it with water, put the sacrifice on, called upon the living God, and God answered by fire. We shall think, God willing, of the significance of it. Anyway, under the revival led by Jehoiada the high priest, the issue at stake is who is the true king? For at this time, Athaliah, who had murdered all the prince royals, now has had herself on the throne as a pseudo queen in Judah, if you please. The issue at stake was, therefore, who is the true king, Athaliah or Joash? Then there's the revival led by King Hezekiah at the time of the siege of Jerusalem by the forces of the king of Assyria. And the issue at stake, is the Lord God just one more God among many gods of the Gentile nations? Or is he the unique, transcendent Lord God? The issue at stake in the revival led by Hezekiah. And then there's finally the revival led by King Josiah. He wanted to clean up the house of the Lord. And when the priests went in to clean it up, they found a book. So they took it out and brought it to the king, you see. So he said, oh, book? Did you get that? Well, in the temple. What book is it? We don't know, they said. Oh, well, you better ask the prophetess. She's good at reading these ancient things. So they asked her. Turned out to be a book of the Bible. They didn't even know it was of the Bible. If you want an example of that in modern times, listen to BBC and, uh, some of the quizzes. When they're asked about Bible. Anyway, the, the, the, uh, revival led by King Josiah, unpounding the book of the Lord. Uh, the question was, will the nation repent? And they did repent, and that led to a massive cleanup of the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. So that is the framework that we shall be following, eh, eh, eh, in these weeks, God willing, starting with the house of the Lord and the plans for the house of the Lord and what the house of the Lord means, and how if we give heed to it, it can preserve us, and what we must avoid, and what we must come back to if we have strayed from it. For all of us want to see in our day revival, do we not? This is the book of revivals. Let's just commend ourselves to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, we thank thee for these two books in thy word. That thou hast given us the experience of other men and women in centuries past. That we may profit and be encouraged by their spiritual successes. That we may be warmed by their spiritual failures. We thank thee, Father, for inspiring these works of history. So that all things written aforetime are written for our learning. Strengthen our minds. Grant that our hearts might be be loyal to thee, and give us good understanding of what we should learn from these two books. So now we commit ourselves to thee and pray thy blessing on our fellowship now together as we eat and drink together. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.