Hello, and welcome to the Westside churches special Monday Morning Coffee podcast on this podcast, our preacher Mark Roberts will help you get your week started right. With look back at yesterday's sermon so that we can think through it further and better work the applications into our daily lives . Mark will then look forward into this week's Bible reading so that we can know what to expect and watch for. And, he may have some extra bonus thoughts from time to time. So grab a cup of coffee as we start the week together on Monday Morning Coffee with Mark.

Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to the Monday Morning Coffee podcast for Monday, June the 26th. I'm Mark. I'm holding a great cup of coffee and I've got a lot of energy because this is vacation Bible School Week at West Side and the place is jumping. Yesterday we kicked off vacation Bible school, all kinds of stuff about David, David Moore, David and King David kids in VBS classes. I taught the adult V b s class yesterday, and then in the 10 40 hour continued the preaching theme for the year, having a heart for God by, well, what else? Talking about David, a man after God's own heart. So much. David, yesterday, so much I opportunity for us to draw closer to the Lord. I want to talk a little bit about that sermon. I had three passages. Wish I could have had four, what would be that fourth passage? I'm about to talk about the fourth psalm that gives us such insight into the life of David. Then we're gonna talk about daily Bible reading. Grab you some coffee. Let's get started. So yesterday in the 10 40 hour , as I said, I talked about David, a man after God's own heart that just fit perfectly with the preaching theme and with our vacation Bible school. It all comes together in such a good way, and I really didn't want to step all over the material that we'll be teaching all this week out of Samuel about the life of David. So I went over to the Psalms and used three psalms that really shed some light on who David is and why David is that man after God's own heart. And those psalms are Psalm one, Psalm eight, and Psalm 51. They really say a lot about who David is. It was difficult to make decisions about which Psalm to include and which Psalms not to include. But I'd like you to look in your Bible at Psalm 34. Psalm 34, 8 is my favorite passage in the entire Bible because it says O taste and see that the Lord is good, blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. I think that verse right there really says a lot about who David is, because David operates from the conviction God is good. I developed a little bit of that outta Psalm one yesterday talking about how David chooses to serve God because he believes he trusts that God's way is best . And that's a huge breakthrough. So many people are reluctantly doing what God tells them to do because they think God doesn't really know what he's talking about. Oh , oh , if God just only knew what I knew, the Bible would read all different and everybody would be doing whatever they wanted to do and we could sin and all this other business. And and David in Psalm one says, no, no, no, no, no. The way of God is best not only to honor God, but it's the best way to live. Why does David feel that way? Because of Psalm 34, 8 o . Taste and see that the Lord is good. David believes God is good, that God is not out to ruin his life. God is not the cosmic fun ruiner. God is not just looking to catch David at something so he can smite him. God is good if you're gonna have a heart for God. You need to come to the place where you believe what David believes about the Lord, that he's on our side, that he cares about us, that he loves us, that he wants us to get to heaven , that he is helping us doing everything imaginable. Plus 10 more things to get us to heaven, like sending his son and giving us his word. And I , God is good. So many people think God's against him and is trying to get him trying to find some little thing that they've transgressed and God's gonna call 'em out by one inch. Oh, you almost slid in safely to home. But I'm glad I found something to keep you from getting to heaven. No, no, no. David says, taste and see , the Lord is good. Operate from that conviction. You'll find that you can have a heart for God like David did. Having said that, we're ready to get into daily Bible reading. Mm . That's a huge part of having a heart for God, isn't it? Let's go get a little bit more of the history of the period. Let's talk about Josiah. He has a heart for God, remarkable and wonderful king. And then we're gonna get to a prophet this week that not a lot of people have spent a lot of time with. Let's get into daily Bible reading. Let's go to Second King, chapter 23. It is Monday and Monday's reading Second Kings 23 versus one to nine. Now, there are some difficulties with the timeframe here. Not gonna try to dig all of that out, but sometimes the Bible does not work in chronological order. It'll work in topical order. We're very sequentially minded, but that is not always the case. There's a lot of Josiah's material that's lumped together in pieces, the Passover observance or the restoration of the temple. But it all comes together in a really, really good way. I I , I'm not concerned about whether there's a chronological order here that meshes perfectly with Jeremiah, except when I'm trying to build a reading plan for everybody so we can read prophets and kings and chronicles in order. And then of course, it just makes you wanna pull your hair out. We've been reading though with Jeremiah and Jeremiah has helped us see the depth of the depravity and the idolatry that had taken hold as a result of manassa and Amman's reign. How much work Josiah has to do. We now return to Josiah's reign. We'd read a little bit of that back in May, and they found the book of the law and Josiah responds to that in the best kind of way. He's repentant and now we begin his reforms. So in je , uh, in Jeremiah, how about in Second Kings? In Second Kings chapter 23? Notice in verse three that in a very real way, Josiah looks like Moses and Joshua, he understands , uh, the function of the covenant and he's leading the people to renew the covenant. Verse three looks a lot like those covenant renewal ceremonies that Moses and Joshua would oversee as they try to get the people back to the Lord or encourage the people to be faithful to the Lord. And then there's lots here about the king commanded notice verse one, the king sent verse four, the king commanded, if you'll underline that in your Bible throughout the rest of Josiah's reign. And on down through the chapter, you'll see that the king is the mover and shaker here. And that that may give us some insight into some of the problems with this restoration among the people. It's not Josiah's fault , not blaming Josiah at all , but I am gonna say some things. Actually, the Bible is gonna say some things about how the people just went along because the king made them, let me grab you a swig of coffee here. And that what they were doing was not from the heart. We're gonna develop that. We're gonna get the chance to see that developed more by Jeremiah's. We go back to Jeremiah, we're gonna see that developed more even in Kings and Chronicles. But Josiah is absolutely full on in his devotion to God, extremely impressive in what he's doing and commanding verse four, everyone else to do. Finally our reading ends today in verse nine, and that verse is obscure, but it probably means that after being brought to Jerusalem, they ate with the other priests there, their brethren, but they did not take part in the temple sacrificing. And is that because they weren't pure yet? They hadn't gone through the cleansing that's necessary. We're not entirely sure what's going on in verse nine, but we're gonna move on tomorrow into verse 10, and we'll talk more about these idols. And there's gonna be some incredible stuff going on as we continue to watch Josiah not only lead the people, maybe make the people do what's right, leading the people to do what's right and fulfill prophecy. See you on Tuesday. It is Tuesday. And today for Tuesday, we're gonna read two Kings, 23 versus 10 to 20. These are amazing and wonderful, wonderful verses because they speak of Josiah bringing a complete cleansing of all of the debris and the horrible relics of paganism, all the bad things that had been introduced by Manas and Amon . Josiah says, we're done with that, and we're getting all of that out. In fact, as we begin to talk about that in the Valley of Henna in verse 10, henna is where we get the word gehenna from. So this valley becomes a metaphor for the place of final punishment. Gehenna sometimes is a term that's translated hell. He burns everything there, and this just becomes a , a defiled and unclean place. Ultimately, it becomes a garbage dump for Jerusalem. And then in verses 13 to 18, these are pagan altars that were near Jerusalem. Some of these seem to have been the ones that Solomon made all the way back to the time of the United Kingdom. So Solomon reigned at nine 70 AD we're about six 30 ad . So a bunch of this has been going on for a really long time. People have put up with that tolerated that Josiah says, we're not doing that anymore. Notice in verse 15, there he burned the Asura . Remember, Asura is bail's girlfriend. So much of this idolatry involves sexual perversion and sexual immorality. And then the wonderful, wonderful prophetic fulfillment of one Kings 13 in verses 16, 17 and 18, go back and read one Kings 13. There's a great story there. As all of these alt alters are being built and all these terrible things are happening, the curse of God comes, and the prophet names Josiah as being the one who someday will have to clean all of this up and defile all of this so that it cannot be used anymore by evil and by idolatrous priest. And there in one Kings 13, that prophecy is made. Like I said, this is hundreds of years before this. This is nine 30 , uh, when that prophecy in One Kings 13 is made, and now we're somewhere in the six 30 to six 20 range, God's word comes to pass. God's word comes to pass. Let's hold onto that. That is powerful. Sometimes we talk about the promises of God and we think about Genesis 12, two Samuel seven, and we need to think about those big, big covenants, those overarching covenants that set the tone of the Bible from tho from that point on. But don't miss the promises along the way when God says through a prophet, Hey, these bones are gonna be burned on these altars. And now several hundred years later, guess what happens? Josiah does exactly what was predicted would be done. So impressive. So faith building, I know you're glad to be reading Second Kings chapter 23, and tomorrow we'll be reading the rest of this chapter. See you on Wednesday. Welcome to Wednesday again . Today we read Second Kings chapter 23 verses 21 to 27. And you may be thinking, I'm about to take a break and give our Wednesday night speaker a word here. But of course there's not a summer series speaker tonight because we're in vacation Bible school. So get ready for some vacation Bible school stuff tonight gonna be a great night at West Side . Before we get there, we wanna do our Bible reading. Here's what you need to know about Second Kings Chapter 20 , uh, I can't even say it. Second Kings 23 versus 21 to 27. And this is Josiah's Passover. Notice verse 21. It was commanded at figures big in all that Josiah is doing in verse 22. Then there is this tremendous statement that this Passover is about the bestest, bestest is in a word , but it should be, it's about the best this Passover they've ever had. And and I think we need to be careful here and not over literalize any of these. These are big statements that are meant to compliment Josiah and his fervent devotion to the Lord. And, and the point is that Josiah's Passover was unique in scope and the way that it was observed, it was not a family festival done at home. It was done in a national kind of way there in Jerusalem. Hezekiah had certainly done a national Passover, but that had been kind of irregular because it was done in the second month. I , I wouldn't take this to say that nobody had ever had a Passover, any of those kinds of things. It was just a dramatic turning point in the people's history where somebody was restoring righteousness and doing what was right and encouraging or even commanding them to do what was right as well. So we get some summaries then in verse 24 and verse 25. Before him, there was no king like him again. I'm not sure I would want to take that. Literally, you're talking about some great kings there. Like David, I I think this is just the writer of kings giving Josiah a high compliment. I I think sometimes about , uh, in sports, somebody will say, you know, they're the greatest team of all time. Well , did you sit down and analyze every record? And , and how could you decide that? And that that isn't where we're going with that. And I don't think we're we're meant to elevate Josiah above David or above Hezekiah . It's just meant to say he's an incredible and wonderful king because, and and probably all the discussion about verse 25 is obscuring where the text is going. The people are so steeped in idolatry and wickedness. Verse 26 and 27, that judgment is still going to fall. And I have been trying to really stress that Josiah is making the people do what's right cuz I'm afraid we're gonna get to this place and people will look at the Lord and say, come on, everybody's doing a Passover and we burned all these idols and they did all these great things and now you're still mad about it. What's up with that? And I think what you're gonna see, particularly as soon as Josiah dies, is that Josiah was very, very devoted to the Lord. He had a heart for God. But the people, nope, not very much. And we're gonna see that in the preaching of Jeremiah, and we're gonna see that in the preaching of Zephaniah . And that's where we're going tomorrow we'll start the book of Zephaniah . And yeah, you may have to blow some dust off of that book because that's not a place in the Bible, a lot of people spending a whole lot of time. But one of the great things about this reading plan is we read places in the Bible that we may not be all that familiar with or even all that comfortable with, but you know what? It's in the Bible and we ought to read it and we're gonna read it. We're going to Zephaniah, see you tomorrow. Welcome to Thursday. And today we are reading in the book of Zephaniah . We are going to read in Zephaniah today, Zephaniah chapter one verses one to nine. And if you're like me, you may have had to sing that little song in your head to get to Zephaniah . This is not a part of the Bible. Like I mentioned yesterday that we usually read. I've never met anybody who said my favorite book of the Bible is Zephaniah. I just can't get enough of it. But it really helps us here because I think Zephaniah is a major mover in Shaker, in Josiah's reformation. Josiah is the king during the time of Zephaniah Zephaniah one , one, the word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah, son of Kushy, son of Gad , son of Amiah , son of Hezekiah in the days of Josiah, the son of am . Amen , king of Judah. That Hezekiah is, yes, that's Hezekiah. Hezekiah, that's the king. So Zephaniah is a descendant of the king, and he's preaching during the time of Josiah. Now that gives him a lot of time. That would be six 40 to about 6 22 bc . So when exactly during that span of time is he preaching? Some have tried to place him much later in Josiah's reign, which would mean Josiah's reformations were very, very superficial. You know how I feel about that? I see some things in what the Bible says about Josiah and him commanding and forcing the people to do what's right. That do, it certainly does indicate that that was not a reformation on the part of all the people with all their heart. However, I think as you look through some of this and as our reading, as we read today, particularly look at verses five and six, those who bow down on the roofs to the host of heavens, bow down and swear to the Lord and yet swear by milcom . You're looking at star worship there. That's an Assyrian thing. Canaanite worship Milcom is part of that. I , I think you're seeing there the sorts of things that Josiah had to clean up, clean up on Aisle three. Manasses and Amon have been over there and they just made a big old mess. Somebody get a mop. And Zephaniah is the guy standing in aisle three saying, can we get some cleanup over here? I need somebody to fix this. I need somebody to change this. I need somebody to get this idolatry and all these idolatrous practices out of the nation of Israel. And Josiah answers that call. And I emphasize that because I think sometimes we just imagine that these great kings who lead these reformations like Hezekiah, like Josiah, they just appear and they're just amazing and wonderful all on their little old lonesome. And the , that , that's just not true at all. Zephaniah, Jeremiah, even other prophets that we do not know of, they contribute to this. The preaching of the word of God moves people with good hearts to obey the word of God. And so when we think of Josiah, we ought to think of Zephaniah, that that ought to be engraved in our minds, and we ought to think about what a great preacher Zephaniah was because he preaches this message that ultimately is going to lead Josiah to do some tremendous things. And, and, and , and I know you're thinking, well, you know, the people, they didn't really go along with that wholeheartedly. Yep . But it sure was better than them burning babies to false God. So good on Zephaniah, good on Josiah. And you gotta know some of those people. Some of those people got with the program and figured this out and started serving God with a whole heart. Well , eh , we're , we're working with this as we come through Jeremiah particularly. But I'm proud of Zephaniah's work. I'm proud of Jeremiah's work. I'm proud of Josiah's work. You should be too. God approved of what they did. God gave his seal of approval to Josiah particularly. So there's just lots of good things about this. Sometimes I'll say things like, N nobody ever listened to any of these prophets. Well, yeah , that's just not true. That's not true. That's wrong. Mark, don't be saying that because in Nineveh , they listened to Jonah, didn't they? In Zephaniah seems to have had a great effect on the people. So we're gonna read Zephaniah one, one to nine. Notice how verses two and three really sound like the flood of Noah. So does that tell you how about how wicked things have gotten? We're, we're going back to Noah's time here. It's, it's everybody. The thoughts in of man's heart is just seems to be evil continually. And then the , the business there about star worship and notice the divided hearts, they bow down verse five and swear to the Lord and yet swear by milam . So kind of serving God, kind of serving idols, trying to do both of those kinds of things. And then the major emphasis in Zephaniah verses 7 89, the day of the Lord, the day of the Lord, the day of the Lord. That is his emphasis. The day of judgment is going to come. The day of judgment is going to come. God won't put up with this kind of ridiculous wickedness. And God is gonna judge this nation. If something doesn't change. That's the preaching of Z and I . You read F and i one one to nine, you've got a pretty good feel for what this whole book is going to be about. Talk a little bit more about this tomorrow, on Friday, see you then. It is Friday. You made it through another week. Got coffee. I've got my coffee working on that. Feeling good about that as I'm reading in the book of z and I , I , I'm must tell you, I'm excited about this. This is one of the advantages and benefits of having an organized reading plan. It just makes us go places in the Bible that we wouldn't probably go otherwise. And the book of Zephaniah , as I've said, is probably not something that everybody's just reading all the time, but it's in the word of God. We want to hear the word of God. And especially as we set this in the context of Josiah's reign, it's really helpful to hear the word of God and to see who was helping Josiah get that reformation and restoration underway. So today we're reading Zephaniah chapter one verses 10 to 18. Couple of things to notice there we're continuing on that day. Verse 10, this is about the day of judgment, this day of the Lord. And at that time, look at those verse 12 who say, God will never bring judgment upon us. All these horrible things are happening. And somebody says, wow , I wonder if God's upset about this. Somebody will saying , no. No. God's not ever gonna do anything about that. God. God , God's not involved in us. God doesn't care about us God . God will neither do good nor ill kind of a deistic philosophy. God wound the world up and pitch it out there. Good luck to you. I'm not doing anything about it now. And Zephaniah confronts that and says, that's not the case. There's gonna be a day of the Lord. Your goods will be plundered. Verse 13, you'll build houses and you won't get them. You'll plant vineyards. You'll never enjoy the fruit of them. Because verse 14, look at 14, 15, 16, tremendous description of the day of the Lord. The great day of the Lord is near the day of the Lord. It's better . It's a day of wrath, a day of distress, a day of ruin , a day of darkness, a day of clouds, a day of trumpet against the fortified cities. This is judgment on Judah. And that day is going to come. And we've seen that in the reading in kings about Josiah. Even his reformation is not gonna turn away that day of the Lord because the people are just so committed to wickedness and to idolatry. That day of judgment is going to come. Please pick up in our reading verse 17. You see verse 17, I will bring distress on mankind sometimes day of the Lord, prophecy sometimes day of the Lord. Prophetic utterances talk about the day of the Lord in this sense of almost like a worldwide cataclysm. Like everybody, everybody's gonna get involved in this terrible worldwide judgment. But it's not a worldwide judgment. It's a localized judgment. It's gonna come on Judah. It's gonna come from the Babylonians. The babylon's not gonna be distressed. No, the judeans are going to be distressed. They're silver in their gold. You can't buy your way out of this verse 18, not gonna deliver them on the day of wrath. I want you to notice this big exaggerated attention getting language that the prophet is using here. It's the sun will be darkened, the moon will turn to blood. We read that in Joel . It's like a worldwide end of dis end of everything. Destruction for everybody sort of thing. But it's not. It's about Judea. And if we can hold onto how the prophets talk about these days of the Lord, this judgment in big language, big language. You know, have you ever heard somebody say, this is the worst thing ever. Is it really the worst ? Oh, they made my coffee wrong at Starbucks. It's the worst thing ever. I'm not sure that the fact that the barista didn't make your coffee correctly today, you know, fits up there with world hunger or terminal disease . Yeah. And and and we know that. And if somebody says, is it really the worst thing ever, we roll our eyes? Well , you know what I mean? In the same way the prophets are speaking large to get attention. But if you don't get that and then you make this hyper literal , there's just all kinds of troubles that result. And where I'm going with this is when people read the book of Revelation, or especially when people read Jesus making a similar prophetic announcement in Matthew 24 and Luke 21 over the city of Jerusalem. People try to read into that the second coming of Jesus, because it sounds like the end of the world. It is the end of the world for the Jews. It'll be the end of their world. And what Zeph and I are talking about here is the end of their world. That's not the end of all things. The day of the Lord here is a mini day of the Lord. It's a little day of the Lord localized in one place that is in fact a wonderful demonstration and precursor to what God will do someday . There will be a day of the Lord, the last and final great day. And if you have questions about whether that's really gonna happen, don't be like those people in verse 12, oh, the Lord will not do good, not do Ill. Hey, don't be that person. The Lord can do good and the Lord will bring judgment. Ask the Jews who heard Zephaniah preach. There you go. I hope that'll help you today about Zephaniah. We're gonna continue in Zephaniah on Monday as we'll be reading in Zephaniah the second chapter. Sure do appreciate you reading the Bible with me this week. So thanks for listening to the podcast. If you like what you hear, I hope that you have followed or subscribed to the podcast and that you're rating and giving it a review on iTunes or whatever app you listen to. Best of all , best of all, you need to tell somebody else about the podcast that will help them read the Bible, help more folks find the show. So until next week, I hope your Friday is wonderful and the Lord will be with you today all day. I'll see you on Monday with a cup of coffee.

Thanks for listening to the Westside church of Christ podcast. Monday morning coffee with mark . For more information about west side , you can connect with us through our website, just christians.com and our Facebook page. Our music is from upbeat.is that's upbeat with two P'S UPP , B E A T , where creators can get free music. Please share our podcast with others. And we look forward to seeing you again with a company coffee, of course, on next Monday.