Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hi to folks. It is Sunday morning, and we had a question written in, because you know what? There's two more minor prophets, but I'm not actually preaching those two minor prophets and we're moving on. It's, we're doing a message this morning at First Corinthians chapter 13, and then we're jumping into first Peter next week. So somebody said, Hey, why? Finish out the minor prophets, I'd love to give you here's my doctrinal theological reason why not. And really it boils down to this I didn't necessarily intend to preach all of them. I was thinking about, Hey, let's get a summer series that's gonna be more serial, that people can be there for one and not have to be there for all of them. I was always planning when we hit August to turn the page into the fall and get back into kind of a more sustained series. That's the way things measured out and what the way they fit. It's not any commentary on whether or not I like Zef and I or Zechariah. I think there's great truths in both those books and encourage you to read them and you will as part of the daily Bible reading, in fact. Zaya is coming up. I think just in a few days here and you'll mind great things outta there, but yeah, hopefully you're not too broken up over it. I don't think it's anything that is monumentally significant, but that's the reason why. So we're gonna be jumping into first Peter, starting next week. But this morning we're in one Corinthians chapter 13 talking about what it looks like to be a church that God loves. So I'm excited to to do that with us. And then we will jump into our next prolonged study, which is gonna be the book of one Peter, and that's gonna be starting next Sunday. So it should be great. Excited. New start, new new Year in a lot of ways. We've got the new year in January, but for at least those of us that have kids still at home, it feels like it's a new year. As we start the new school year, everything around us seems to be resetting as well, and so we're resetting also. And on top of that, we are. On the doorstep of year two as a church August 6th, which is right around the corner, only three days away we'll be celebrating our second birthday as a church. So that's exciting. And yeah, just a lot of fun things. In fact, today I believe at church we've got a back to school celebration for our kids. So I think after, or no, that's next week, I believe the 10th. The 10th. Yeah, August 10th is the back to school. So mark your calendar for next Sunday. 'cause after church next Sunday is gonna be the Kona Ice truck and we're gonna have some celebration just of our kiddos hitting back into a new school year. So make sure that you are there for that. So that should be a fun time of celebration as well. So August 10th, celebrating back to school for our kids men and we'll have the Kona Ice Trek back out there again. The year is speeding right along. It really is. It really is. In fact, I don't follow it and I probably should, but there's a Twitter account that will, all it does is every day it gives you a different. Graphic of the progression of the year. So it's like the loading bar like you used to get in websites and stuff that you would be able to watch through the website. Slowly load. It's like that, but it's for the year. That's cool. And so you get to see how far along the year is, as the year goes by. If you see it every single day, it doesn't look like it's progressing very much, but if you see it, one month and then you look at it the next month, it's oh man, time has passed. So there's an app that I used to use a while back called the Death Clock. Yeah. Or the, I forget something like that. Yeah. Where the apps only function was that every day it would send you a notification. Remember, you're gonna die. Yeah. That's all I did. Yeah. And it was awesome. I had it on my phone for a long while and then I'm like it's not hitting the same way that it used to. Yeah. I'm still pretty good about thinking about the fact that I'm gonna die, but probably don't need the app to remind me every day. Yeah. I follow a Twitter account that does the same thing. You might die today that, that's its tweet one a day. Yeah. I like the certainty of You will die. Yeah, it could be today, but you will die. Yeah. Memento Mori, is that's what it is. I believe. The Latin. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, let's jump into our reading for today. We've got some familiar territory, by the way. We've got a couple more questions coming in. We're just saving those, sprinkling them out. So if we didn't get to your question right now, this morning, look for it either tomorrow or the next day on Tuesday as we're recording these in advance. But, yeah. Second Chronicles chapter 32 and 33. So we're flashing back to Hezekiah and Sinna rib. Sinna. Rib is as the chapter opens, laying siege to Judah and Jerusalem and we talk about that word, I don't know if we've ever really defined it, but to lay siege to a city was to basically wait them out. There were a couple ways that armies would do it, and it looks like snack ribs method was, he was gonna starve them out. He was basically gonna surround the city, cut off any avenue of supply or anything else and they were just gonna wait it out until Jerusalem and the inhabitants would surrender. And oftentimes that, that didn't go well, especially for a notoriously wicked and evil people like the Assyrians, they would. Decimate entire populations. So even as the rap shaka, as we've read in the past, has said, Hey, why don't you surrender to us things, you're gonna go fine. That was just them trying to speed along their ultimate victory. And so that seems what, what's going on here? Other times they would lay what's called siege ramps, and that would be the piling up of dirt and stones to be able to eventually mount the walls of the city and invade the city instead of waiting them out to begin with. But it looks like this time. The armies are encamped around Jerusalem and they are basically saying, Hey, we're gonna starve you out. We can wait you out. And that's why in chapter 32, hezeki does what he does. And Hezeki does a lot of really smart things. He redirects the water flow so that his people are gonna get water and even cuts off the water supply from the outside. Ass Syrian armies, at least conveniently, they're not gonna be able to get water very easily. And Hezekiah ramps up the production of weapons and shields and everything else. But then the best thing that Hezekiah does is in verses seven through eight, he gives them, and it's a Braveheart moment, he gives them this great rallying speech and calls them to trust on the Lord. And he says in verse seven, be strong and courageous and do not be afraid or dismayed before the king of Asir and the whole hoard that's with him. For, there are more with us than with him as an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God, to help us and to fight our battles. And so is that, that rallying cry that Hezekiah gives there to remind his people, Hey trust in God and he's gonna need that. Because in the rest of chapter 32, the next I don't know, 10 verses or so Sinna. Just comes out in Blasphemes. And that's why that's the title there in the ESV brings God down to blasphemes Something, is to take that which is exalted and to bring it down to, to commonplace and even to despise it. And that's what Sin Arab does with Yahweh, he says, is as the other nation's god's worst. So will the God of Israel be I can beat anyone that is going to come up against me. And we know the rest of the story by now. We've read it a couple times in different accounts. Hezekiah seeks the Lord. The Lord delivers him and spares him. The Lord gets the glory for this. And then we also find, unfortunately Hezekiah's pridefulness or his proud demeanor towards the end of his life here as well. So chapter 32, a lot of common ground there. Yeah. One of the things that's interesting here is that what Hezekiah says is almost. Perfectly identical to what Elijah says back in two Kings, chapter six, with us as an arm of, with him rather, is an arm of flesh, but with us as the Lord our God, to help us and divide our battles. Actually verse, I get it here, verse seven, for there are more with us than with him. And that's important because God plus nothing is a majority, no matter what. The odds are actually against you. Now in this scene with. Elijah the scene as the angelic hosts that are with them, the angelic armies that are supporting and supplying their needs, and ultimately they're the media. God is the one who's sending the help. So the point here, I think one of the points among the many is that God is always an every time the majority, no matter what your circumstances are, no matter what the enemies are opposing you whether they're using the fear and intimidation tactics that Sinek group uses, or whether it feels like something else, God is always the majority. Which is intensely comforting because that means anything you go through, God is aware number one, and God number two cares. He cares about you and he's not gonna let you go through things that are going to ultimately destroy you because God knows he cares and he's doing what's good for you, and also what's good for his glory. Now, one of the things that's interesting about Hezeki, he starts really well, he doesn't end well. It's sad. It's a sad ending actually. And I think that should tell us at least one thing and that thing is simply this. Starting strong does not necessarily guarantee ending strong, even if you have a robust testimony, which I think has, AKI does, has a long lineage of faithfulness. And I think what that should do for us who are older and more mature in our years as we've been walking with the Lord is never to take these victories for granted. You're never at a place where you're so spiritually mature that you are above the ability to do something stupid or to delude yourself into thinking that you're better than you are. We should always remember that we are dust and that our ability to make foolish decisions and to set ourselves up against the Lord in his wisdom is always possible. Now, ultimately we are grafted into the vine by God himself. We can never lose what he himself has gained. So I'm not talking about our salvation, but I am talking about our sanctification. It is possible, even in mature faith, faithful believers to do something radically stupid such that you tarnish your entire life in its ministry. No. Hezekiah still gets a positive report, but this sad ending is a good warning for us to watch yourself and your doctrine closely. Yeah, and that applies corporately too. Not just to us as individuals, but as a church. We can have a strong start as a church and we can be about the right things as a church, and yet if we aren't faithful to. Continue to be about the right things. There are plenty of churches that started out faithfully that are now shells of themselves and celebrating the things that God hates and have lost all of their impact as well. Corporately we've gotta be about the right things, and that's part of what we're talking about this morning in, in the message here out of one Corinthians chapter 13 as well. The next step is Manas, and we co I covered Manas yesterday or the day before, and Manas is a bad guy. He has a resume that's almost as long as the resume of Josiah has a kind of, the good things that they've done it. The bad things are Manassas even to the point of sacrificing his children, so forth and so on. This guy is an idolater. He's wicked, he's evil. He defies God, he blasphemes the Lord. And yet what's interesting in this account that we didn't get in the. The accountant, second kings is what we find starting in verse 10. And that is man's repentance. And so the Lord brings Assyria again against his people. They're still there. They're not gone yet. They actually capture manassa. Manassa is taken captive by them and that is what leads him to this point of humility. He humbles himself greatly before the Lord. This is verse 12, and praise to God. And God is moved by his ENT treaty, and here it's his plea and brings him again to Jerusalem, into his kingdom. And then you'll see that this is genuine repentance. I think because if we look down in verse 15. Says he took away the foreign gods, the idol from the house of the Lord, all the altars that he had built on the mountain of the house of the Lord, and in Jerusalem, and he threw them outside the city. He also restored the altar of the Lord and offered on its sacrifices and peace offerings. So it appears that this is a genuine repentance from him. And yet the people are are still going to ultimately suffer the outcome of God's wrath because repentance does not remove consequences. Repentance is called for. It's good, it's right, but just because we repent does not mean that God is going to relent completely of the consequences or the judgment. That he's gonna bring against a certain people. And Israel's judgment was sure at this point with the eventual captivity under Babylon and and Nebuchadnezzar coming through. But this is at least a glimpse of Manasses that we don't get in Second Kings. If all you read is Second Kings, you walk away going, man, Manasses is a loser. And he is probably burning in under God's wrath at this point. And yet. Second Chronicles holds out at least some hope that maybe Manasa got a right towards the end of his life. It's almost the opposite of Hezekiah here, right? I think that's an insightful read and that's one that I would agree with. I think what's interesting to me is about Manasses turn. One of the things that I saw in the script here, scripture is verse 13 he prayed to him, God was moved by his ENT treaty, heard his plea, brought him again to Jerusalem, into his kingdom. So God delivers him. And notice here, this is the turn for him. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God. It was not God's judgment that awakened Manasseh to his relationship to God. It was God's kindness, or we might put it today with our New Testament vernacular and say it was God's grace that led him to repent. This sounds similar to Romans two. It was God's kindness that is meant to lead us to repentance. I think this is important for us for a few reasons, but let me just summarize it. God's kindness is part of our message of reconciliation. Yes, but can I qualify it a little bit? Please do. Probably today most people expect that most people expect a god of kindness. A god of love. That's probably the most prominent feature of our Christianity that people would know, oh yeah, your god's a God of love. God is love. They might say in John three 16, God so loved the world and those are true. I think the problem though is that even though it is God's love and his grace, his kindness, that is what attracts people to himself. We can't neglect the fact that people have to know that there is judgment behind that. There is a. Dark providence to God's relationship with humanity. And that dark providence is his judgment. He is not a God of only kindness and only mercy and only grace. He is a God who cares deeply about his honor, cares deeply about human sin, and consequently, he's angry about that. So I think it's important that Manasseh knew that the Lord was God because of his grace and kindness. But I think it's also important that there's a background of God is angry at sin and you deserve God's just judgment. So this is phenomenal. I love this. But in our context, I think. I think both are still necessary. Yes, God's love is important and prominent, but it's also important and prominent that God is a God who hates sin, which they compliment each other because it's as we know more of his hatred for sin and his wrath and his justice and his holiness. That we appreciate His grace and his kindness and his mercy and his love towards us. Absolutely. Otherwise, if you're presenting the gospel to somebody and all you're telling them is just how much God loved them, and God loves them so much and he gave Jesus and he loves them, and he love love, they're gonna sit there and say, yeah but why do I need that? Yeah why say, I love me too, right? Yeah. Fantastic. That's great. I'm glad he loves me. Now. He can love me while I go do my own thing over here instead of saying, Hey, no you're. Jonathan Edwards illustration, you're the spider dangling from the thread. You need his salvation. And that's gonna create that desire to go, I need his kindness. I need his love, and I understand it now. Let's pray and then we'll be done with this episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. By the way, there's one more. King Amon gets a very brief treatment here. He does what is evil according to the ways that Manas had previously before his turn there. Amon does not last long. He only. Last for two years there in Jerusalem. His next step is Jo Josiah. But you're gonna have to wait a couple days for that 'cause we've got Nahum coming up tomorrow. God, we thank you for your word and thank you for this time in it. We want to be those that finish. God, I'm not gonna say we wanna be like manas 'cause we don't wanna start poorly either, but we do want to be word faithful all the way through. We want to be those that appreciate, like Pastor Rod was just saying both your kindness and your holiness the gravity of sin. That we would never forget that, that we'd never treat you in a sense of being overly cavalier with our assumption that of course God loves us because look at who we are. I know your love is unmerited. Your grace is just that unmerited favor that's been shown to us, and we wanna always be mindful of that and appreciative of that and to live in response to that. And so thank you for these examples, and help us to learn from them. In Jesus name, amen. Amen. Keep in your bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See ya. Bye.

thanks for listening to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. This is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in north Texas. You can find out more information about our Church at compassntx.org. We would love for you to leave a review, to rate, or to share this podcast on whatever platform you happen to be listening on, and we will catch you again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. YEEHAW!