Hello, and welcome to the Westside Church's special Monday Morning Coffee podcast. On this podcast, our preacher, Mark Roberts, will help you get your week started right with a 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, May the 19th. I'm Mark, and I have got sermon notes from yesterday. We talked a lot about the thief on the cross, and I am holding notes to help us in our Bible reading for this week. And yes, I have a cup of coffee. Usually I say I have a great cup of coffee. Let's tell the truth. Nobody has a great cup of coffee 100% of the time, and I am not the exception to that rule. This is kind of a mediocre cup of coffee, but it'll have to do. You pour that cup of coffee. I hope that it's a great one for you. You pour it because let's get ready. Let's get set. Let's go. Yesterday was not the most warm and fuzzy day at Westside, was it? In the 9 o'clock hour, I talked about persecution and what we're going to do if we're persecuted. And then talked about this difficult text in Luke chapter 23 with the thief on the cross. And I think what I want you to hold on to is that last stuff that I said right at the end, at the conclusion and the invitation about how this just says so much of grace and mercy and how much Jesus wants you to be saved. It is very disappointing to me that the thief on the cross has become a theological battleground instead of a place where a tax that brings forward hope and mercy and grace and says our God is amazing and wonderful and will save anybody who will turn to Him. And our turning, as I pointed out extensively yesterday, is a little bit different than the turning the thief on the cross did, people under the old covenant did. But our turning says, I trust you. I can't do this, and I know you can. I... I am trusting you. I'm giving you my loyalty and my allegiance. I'm not going to go it on my own. I trust in you. And what the thief on the cross says is that when we do that, we can be saved. No matter how sinful, we can be saved. And I hope that sermon filled you with that kind of hope. I certainly want that sermon to direct you to what turning means in the New Covenant. And that includes repentance, and that includes baptism, and that includes continuing to give our loyalty and allegiance to Jesus and walking with Him. But the keynote in all of this, here's where the emphasis needs to be. The boldface, the big letters say, Jesus wants to save you. And I hope you got that out of yesterday's sermon. Let's think about Bible reading now. Get your Bible over to Chronicles. Chronicles. We're going to talk about 1 Chronicles 22. Our reading for Monday is 1 Chronicles chapter 22. This gives me a good opportunity, particularly because I think Chronicles is pretty close to some of the material in 1 Kings 1 and 2. This gives me a good opportunity to say a little bit here about the book of Chronicles. You may have wondered at some point, why do we have Kings and Chronicles? They are so much the same. Let's just get one or get the other, and let's just move on. But they are written at very different times into very different audiences. Kings was written about 550 to 560 BC during the time of the Babylonian exile, and it is all about showing why we are in exile, how we Israel failed. Chronicles was written after the exile was over, 450 to 440 BC, somewhere around in there. And it is written to inspire hope and faith in God who lets his people come home. And so there's a very different... on the same history coming out of Kings and coming out of Chronicles. And I'll just say this about Chronicles. Chronicles has a couple of distinctive emphasis. One is lots on David and Solomon, 29 chapters in all. And while certainly not whitewashing that history, it deals much more favorably with those kings. For example, there is no account of the adultery of David in Chronicles. And wicked King Manasseh, who is described as a terribly evil king in 2 Kings 21, in Chronicles, his repentance and return to God is recorded there. Mostly, second distinctive here, there's a focus on Judea. The distinctive of the Chronicles is that mostly it wants to talk about the southern kingdom. And then there is this huge third distinctive here, emphasis on restoration. Samuel and Kings acknowledge that God had to deal with the wickedness of God's kings and of Israel's kings, I should say, and the people and had to punish them. Chronicles focuses on the way home, how to be restored, how to go back and serve God again. It is about lifting the people of God's hopes as they return home from Babylonian captivity. There's lots in Chronicles, I should say as well, about proper worship and treating God correctly because Because... Because as 1 Kings documents, we didn't do that, and that's how come we ended up in Babylon. So this is what it ought to look like. And so having said that, you understand the emphasis in 1 Chronicles chapter 22 very easily. David wants to talk to Solomon about this temple and that it has to be done right. And really, 1 Chronicles 22.1 goes with the reading in 1 Chronicles chapter 21, which is the whole business of David's census bringing pestilence on the land and all things that go with that. So really, our reading is 1 Chronicles 22.2. through verse 19, and I think the key verse is verse 5. The house that is to be built for the Lord must be exceedingly magnificent of fame and glory throughout all the lands. God is special. God's house must be treated as special. And so this whole topic, this whole chapter is about the topic of preparation and provision. The term make preparation or provide occurs five times, and there is lots of discussion about what David has set aside. I've been preaching in Kings about the temple, so some of this will be very familiar to you if you're there in the 9 a.m. or if you've gone back and listened to the 9 a.m. One of the reasons Solomon's able to construct this house so quickly, relatively speaking, takes seven years, is because David has made so much provision for it, and that is all documented here in this particular chapter. Notice as well, please, verses 7, 8, 9, and 10, once again, touching the promises of the covenant that God made to David in 2 Samuel 7. That's just a keystone of the Old Testament and of the house of David. And I've said several times, but I want to make sure that everybody has this. I don't think verse 8, you have shed much blood, somehow is a knock on David. David fought those wars at God's command. I think it just says it wasn't the time to build the temple. In fact, verse 18, when David commands the leaders of Israel to help Solomon, he even says, has not God given you peace on every side? How did God do that? He did that through David. David's place was to secure the empire, and then Solomon could build the temple in an atmosphere of peace and safety, which is exactly what it says in verse 9. The chapter ends then, as I mentioned a moment ago, with David charging the leaders to help Solomon, verses 17, 18, and 19, especially because—and this is a little bit of an unusual note—verse 5 says, David says, you know what? Solomon's a little wet behind the ears. He didn't know what to do, so you all will need to help him. A reading for Monday then, 1 Chronicles 22. Welcome to Tuesday. Today we begin reading in 1 Kings. 1 Kings 1 verses 1 to 27 is our reading for Tuesday. A couple of things here as we get into Kings, and I talked a little bit about this yesterday as we talked about Chronicles and Kings and the differences. I really think Kings has a couple of big ideas. One about worship, usually how God's people failed to worship correctly. And then secondly, it's about the Word. There will be the rise of the prophetic voice in the book of Kings. We've had some prophets before, Nathan the prophet, Gad the prophet, but they have been on the king's side. Now we will have prophets who are the adversary of the king because the king isn't doing right and he's there to instruct the king or he's there to admonish the king, call the people to repentance, really see a lot of the prophets in 1 Kings. And then I think this is a lot about weakness here. The story of Kings is about leaders who ignore those prophets, and the result is the kingdom just crashes and burns spectacularly and truly terribly. More and more, I think the book of Kings sets us up to see what it is to live for the Lord and to honor God, particularly in worship. And that means this is not a history book. It's not recording everything that ever happened in Israel or Judah. It is recording the history of these people from God's vantage point to help God's people know what God God thought of this. So always, always, always, always, always be asking, what is God doing? That's our first question in our reading schedule. What does God think of this? What's God's verdict? What is God's verdict on these actions? We need to see this through the eyes of the Lord. And so we begin in 1 Kings in the first four verses. David is sick and he is old. Some of this we get a little wiggly with because here they're putting a woman in bed with him and that's hard for us to get a hold of. But that would be a common kind of thing. Abishag will come up later. She will become important later. I think that's why she's being named here. But mostly, I think the first four verses here are just trying to say to us, David is very weak, which is why Adonijah can make a run at the throne. And that's what he tries to do in verses 5 to 10. He seems to be about 35 years old. He is now, as best we can tell, the eldest surviving son of David, which means... Yes, he should be the heir apparent. He does act remarkably like Absalom in this text. And verse 6 stands out to us,"...his father had never at any time displeased him by asking, Why have you done thus and so?" We talked some as we were reading through 2 Samuel that David is a terrible father. In 1 Kings 1 verse 6 does nothing to change that impression. Somebody needs to take Adonijah down a peg or two, and that seems to never have happened, and so he decides he will make a run at the throne. What should be very clear here is that he knows better than this. Adonijah must know that it is not God's will for him to be the king. 1 Chronicles 22, 9 and 10 talks about, we read that yesterday, didn't we? David saying Solomon is the one, and 1 Chronicles 28, which we read last week, Solomon is the one. He should know that this is not the will of God. However, he decides, I don't care. I'm going to do what I want to do. I want to be king. And the fact that he does not invite Solomon or Bathsheba or David to any of this crowning ceremony business shows he knows better than to do what he is doing here. Interestingly, verse 7, Joab, who never guesses wrong politically... Guess is wrong today. What an absolute disaster. And please pay attention in verses 11 and 12 because Nathan here talks to Bathsheba and he is urgent because what will happen to Bathsheba and Solomon if Adonijah is installed on the throne successfully? That's right. He will massacre the rest of the family. That will be the only way he can hold the throne. People will be saying, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's supposed to be Solomon. He will have to kill Solomon and Nathan knows it and Bathsheba knows it. Now Solomon is young here. Verse 17, he's probably somewhere around 20. But Bathsheba knows this is big trouble, and she'd better do something about it. So she goes to see King David. And while she's talking, boom, here comes the prophet. Verse 22, they've timed this out just right, and they drop this in the king's lap. And maybe I'm thinking David's too old and enfeebled, kind of on his way to senility. He's not going to get it. This little plot by Bathsheba and Nathan won't work. David isn't going to get it. He can't do anything about it. Well, guess what? Adonijah underestimated daddy. More of that tomorrow. Today, we have 1 Kings 1-27 as the reading for Tuesday. And yes, Westsiders, see you tonight in the Zoom prayer and Bible study call. See you on Zoom. See the rest of you tomorrow on the podcast. The reading for Tuesday, 1 Kings 1-27. It is Wednesday. It is Wednesday, and today we're finishing 1 Kings 1, and we are finishing the mini-rebellion of Adonijah. I said yesterday that Adonijah has badly underestimated daddy, and that is entirely the case. King David, verse 28, answered,"'Call Bathsheba to me,' and then the king begins to make plans decisively.'" I've read David's life many, many times, as I'm sure that you have. I'm not sure I've ever noticed before how quick David is to make decisions in a critical moment. Instead of hemming and hawing and chewing on his fingernails and calling for more counsel and thinking, in a moment of crisis, David can decide what to do in a flash. He immediately begins to take action. action that will short out Adonijah's rebellion and install Solomon as king. And so we read down through this. Notice the emphasis on the Lord, the God of Israel. Verse 30 is, I swore to you by the Lord God of Israel. Over and over again, this is lots and lots about God, what God is doing. We get Zadok the priest involved here. We get Nathan the prophet involved here. They go down to Gihon, verse 33. That is actually outside the city of David. The Jerusalem has grown Great big, but right now it's just this small area, but that's where a well is. People would naturally gather there. It's in the Kidron Valley, so it would echo and the shouting and all the trumpets and all that business would really sound and people yelling, verse 39, long live King Solomon, would resonate. And so, of course, the next thing you know, Adonijah and the people with him, including Joab, verse 41, they hear the sounds of the coronation of Solomon. Again, This is about David taking action decisively. There is a time to think carefully. There is a time to pray. There's a time to call more advisors in and get more advice about what to do. But in some circumstances, you've got to act. And David is just a master of that. He knows. can do something in the middle of an emergency rather than let the emergency overtake him. So Jonathan comes, verse 43. Obviously, this is not King Saul's son, Jonathan. And he relays all of the bad news. They have put Solomon on the throne. Adonijah, while you were down here thinking about being on the throne and trying to make a run at the throne, somebody is sitting in that chair already. And verse 49 is one of my favorite verses in 1 Kings because it's so funny. All the guests of Adonijah trembled and rose and each went his own way. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nobody wants to be standing at the party for the usurper when the actual king has been installed on the throne. I think about that whenever there's a national election. And of course, both parties will have a big victory celebration going on. And as the returns come in throughout the night, it becomes clear one candidate is going to be the winner and the other is not. And so that victory party, which becomes kind of like a morgue, kind of like a funeral, gradually people drift out of there and nobody wants to stay because we lost. And that's what's happening in verse 49. And maybe the best part of all of this is that all's well here because Solomon is a man of peace and he does not take his brother's life. So verses 51 to 53 show us that Solomon can be magnanimous, really like that, feel good about that. Solomon seems like he's the right person to sit on the throne. 1 Kings 1, 28 to 53, that's our reading for Wednesday. It is Thursday, it is Thursday, and our reading today is 1 Kings 2, verses 1 to 12. This is David's charge to Solomon, and the key idea here is the establishment of Solomon's kingdom. Just make sure that you're underlining in your Bible the word established. So for example, verse 4, that the Lord may establish his word. Establish is important here. So Solomon, verse 12, sat on the throne of David his father. His kingdom was firmly established. That will be the idea in 1 Kings chapter 2, which of course makes sense considering we just had an elder brother make a run for the throne and Solomon did not put him to death. So there's some pieces that are still moving here and some things that need to get settled down. So David charges Solomon here. here. And we read some of this as we read in 1 Chronicles chapter 28 last week. But again, we get an emphasis on spiritual success and on what it takes to be a success before the Lord. Verse 3 is just such a powerful, powerful passage. The key to success is God's law. God's king must walk after God, and God's word is not mysterious and unknowable. All of these terms suggest the totality of God's word, that Solomon is to keep all of God's word, obey His commandments, Verse 3 is something that all of us should just write deeply on our hearts and know that true success before God is predicated upon us doing the things that David is talking about here in verse 3. We need to keep his statutes, commandments, rules, testimonies. We need to walk in his ways. That's what we must do if we are to be the people of God today. And then there is this business about some things that need to be tidied up. Some things that need to be tidied up in verses 5 to 9. Joab has so much blood on his hands. That has to be handled. Barzillai, who helped David so much during the rebellion of Absalom, he must be well treated. And then Shemai, Shemai beginning verse 8, he has to be taken care of. And the emphasis there is on that curse. Shemai curses David with grievous curses. That's a violation of the law of God, Exodus 22-28. And we need to be mindful that in this day, in David and Solomon's day, curses matter. Curses matter. I think today, if somebody... You have some kind of altercation in the grocery store parking lot. You see a parking space, and you pull in, and you're climbing out of your car, and you think everything's good, and somebody starts screaming at you, Hey, that was my space. I was going to get that space. And you're completely innocent. Wait, I didn't even see you. And they say, I curse you. We wouldn't give a lot of thought to that. But in the Old Testament, cursing somebody is serious business. It is to call down condemnation from God. It is to invoke God's displeasure upon someone. And David doesn't appreciate that Shammai did that, and he needs to be dealt with. He must be dealt with. Bring his gray head down with blood to Sheol. Sheol is just the grave. That just means that's David's way of saying he needs to die. So then David dies, verses 10, 11, and 12, and Solomon is on the throne, and his kingdom is firmly established. And we'll get some more details about how that happens in our reading in 1 Kings 2 next week, but tomorrow we turn to the Psalms. Our reading for Thursday, 1 Kings chapter 2, verses 1 to 12. It is Friday. It is Friday. You made it through the week, and we're going to start the day with Psalm 72. Psalm 72 is the reading for Friday. This is a royal psalm. We always talk about what kind of psalm a psalm is so that we can understand its setting and context. This is a royal psalm. It is about the king, and it is identified in the There are only two Psalms that are explicitly given to Solomon, this one and Psalm 127. However, it is possible for that heading to be for Solomon and not by Solomon. And that, in many ways, seems probably to be the case because this is about the king. It has a different style than David, by the way, so probably not a Davidic song and David. Probably not a messianic song. There is no place in the New Testament that directly quotes Psalm 72 and applies it to Jesus. Anytime we're dealing with a messianic, I'm sorry, with a royal psalm, we're going to go looking for some kind of connection to Jesus. And verses 17 and 18 have large language for any human to fulfill. So maybe there's a shadow there or a hint of things to come with the Messiah. But again, no place in the New Testament explicitly ties this to Jesus the Christ. It's all about the king. It's all about Solomon. Verses 1 to 5, may God give justice through the king. Look at the concern for the poor here. Look at the concern for social justice here. I think that's something that sometimes we've pushed back against. We've seen people abuse the social justice system in our country today. It's very easy to say everybody just ought to get a job and take care of themselves. We need to think very carefully about how concerned God is for people who are being run over, people who are being oppressed, people who are being treated unfairly. We need rulers who are like this, who defend the cause of the poor, who deliver the children of the needy, who crush the oppressor. That is what God is looking for in a leader who is seeking after his heart. Then the prayer in verses 5 to 8 is that may God give life through the king. And I think verse 5 is really just a way of saying,"'O king, live forever, or long live the king.'" And verse 6 is the baseball field verse, this idea of mown grass. When Sarah and I visit baseball parks, the first thing that we want to do is we just want to see the field. We'll just go up any tunnel, whether it's our tunnel or not, to get a look at the field. And lots of times it's early, and they've just mowed the grass for the game, and they're watering it, and the baseball field smells amazing. And I'm sure that's what the writer of this psalm is thinking about. And probably more to the point, I have to think about what would have Israel's history been like if the kings had been like is being described here in Psalm 72. Then in verses 8 to 11, there's the discussion of foreigners yielding to the king. Verse 10, Tarshish is in southern Spain. And then verses 12 to 15, the basis for the dominion of the king. And that is, again, social justice. He delivers the needy. He has pity on the weak. He redeems people who are being oppressed. Precious is their blood in his sight. This is a good blueprint for the kind of leaders that we should look for and pray for in our country. And while this is certainly not a political podcast, we're not taking sides in all that nonsense and so forth, It just helps us see what God thinks is important in a leader. Then there is the closing prayer for the prosperity of the king. Verse 16 will differ in different translations. The Hebrew there is very difficult. to nail down, one of the terms there only appears, abundance only appears in this verse. So it is a very difficult verse to work with. Finally, verses 18, 19, and 20 are the benediction enclosed to book two. Verses 18, 19, and 20 don't go with the 72nd Psalm. The Psalms themselves, the book of Psalms is composed of five distinct books or collections of Psalms, and the seams of those collections are very visible. This is the end of the second collection the second book within the book of Psalms. That's our reading for Friday, Psalm 72. That's the podcast then for the week. I certainly do appreciate you listening. We appreciate the good feedback that we get. And when I say we, I mean the tech folks who do all the work to make this happen and myself, of course, included. It means a lot that people are listening and that it's helping them grow in God's Word and understand and work through the sermon from the Sunday before even better. I appreciate every listener to the podcast. So until next week, when we'll open our Bibles together again, I'm Mark Roberts, and I want to go to heaven and And I want you to come too. I'll see you on Monday with a cup of coffee.

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