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... August the 11th, coming off a great back-to-school Sunday yesterday. All kinds of great things happening at Westside as the school year gets underway. I have another great coffee mug. Coffee is incredible, but of course what mug you're drinking it out of really helps, and there's good memories, or somebody gave it to you, or in this case, this is a mug Dean and I bought in Branson two weeks ago. We were there on a little R&R, and we did not even know it, but there was a stage production of The Lion, the Witch, and the Absolutely incredible. Highly recommend. Highly recommend. Very true to the books, unlike the Disney movies, I might add, and we just had a great time getting to see that, and I bought in the souvenir shop a mug with Reepicheep the mouse. He is my favorite Narnian character, and I just love Reepicheep. We finished up Narnia Club last Monday, Voyage of the Dawn Treader this year. So much fun, and if you haven't read the Chronicles of Narnia, you absolutely should. All children should read them, but Lewis did not write them for children. They are written for adults, and in fact, in the fall word to one of them, he said to the young lady that he was dedicating the Chronicles of Narnia to. I believe that's in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Someday you'll be old enough to read fairy tales again. They are a wonderful, wonderful read, and as I'm drinking coffee out of my Reepicheep mug, it just makes me feel extra courageous. And I think we're going to need some of that as we journey forward in 2 Kings. We're going to need some courage, but first, a note or two about yesterday's Back to School Sunday. Pour that cup of coffee. Let's get ready. Let's get set. Let's go. Yesterday was Back to School Sunday. This is a wonderful tradition at Westside that I just adore. It is such an important part of our kids' lives to be in school, private, public, homeschool, and I just love the way we spend extra time to say, you need the blessings of God as you begin a new school year. And it really says something about Westside being a praying church that we do that. It's just great. So I did not preach in the 1040 because we prayed. I preached in the 9, though, a lesson for parents, before the bell rings, God's word for parents, some things for the parents to be thinking about as they send their kids back to school. And I'll just give you an extra thought here this morning. Here's a reminder. I had five reminders for you yesterday. Here's reminder number six from Ephesians 5.16. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Ephesians 5.16, make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Here's the reminder. You have a limited amount of time. Your kids will be with you for 18 to 20 years, but our time when we really impact them is even shorter than that, isn't it? You don't have... tons and tons of impact on your kids. Once they start middle school and high school, your impact begins to diminish. And I don't think that really hit me until that happened with Rebecca and Sarah. They got in middle school and they were at school a lot longer and they were at practice and they were at friends' houses and they just weren't around the house as much. And then they got into high school and that just hit warp factor 10. Suddenly there were a lot of quiet evenings where there used to be little ones running around the house And someone asking, hey, can we watch a TV show together? Or could we go on a family walk? And nope, they were gone. Or maybe Dean and I were rushing to get out the door to attend a recital or a concert or to go to a ball game and see the marching band. All the things that go with that. So all of that is to say, make the most of your time, mom and dad. The days are long. Yes, I get that. But remember, the years are short. We know what we want. So go raise your children to be his children. For Monday's Bible reading, we will read all of 2 Kings chapter 7. And I know that you're just like me, anxious to get back to this chapter. Last week on Thursday, we were reading 2 Kings 6, and Ben-Hadad is sieging Samaria, and the king has all been out of shape with Elisha instead of trying to repent. And Elisha says, 2 Kings, boy, more coffee. Come here, Reepicheep. 2 Kings 7.1 Hear the word of the Lord, thus says the Lord. Tomorrow about this time a sea of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, two seas of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria. So they've been in such famine. that people are eating their own children, and what Elisha says is tomorrow there will be such abundance that normal food prices will return. And you just see the action of God all along the way here. Verse 6, the Lord made the army of the Syrians hear the sound of chariots and horses, so they think the Egyptians are coming. Another miraculous intervention for undeserving people, and the Syrians go blowing out the back door as four harmless lepers arrive in the front door. And I think there's a little suspense in verse 8. We're wondering if the four men will take the good news back to the city and do the right thing. And maybe there's concern here that it's going to be a trap, but it's not a trap. And verse 16 uses that expression, word of the Lord, according to the word of the Lord. One of the things that we can do here is let the Bible build our faith in God. When God says something will happen, it will happen. And you don't want to be like this captain who said God's word can't come to pass. He ends up, verse 20, being trampled. Our reading for Monday, 2 Kings 7. Welcome to Tuesday. Today we read 2 Kings 8, 1-15. Once again, the Shunammite woman appears, and the question here will be about Gehazi. What's he doing in the story? And the possibilities are that the story is in chronological order, that he repented and he was healed, or the other possibility, of course, is that the story is out of order and he has not been struck with leprosy yet in 2 Kings 5. So, not sure exactly where to put all of that, but I do think the story is in very stark contrast to Ahab's land-grabbing ways, and this kind of climaxes all of these chapters, which really do tell all of the great things that Elisha has done. Then we get this crazy prediction. of succession in Aram, beginning in 2 Kings 8, verse 7, all the way through verse 15. And I think this involves some sarcasm here and some double answering. Verse 10, go say to him, you shall certainly recover, but the Lord has shown me that he will certainly die. Yes, if left to normal circumstances, he would recover. No, he's going to be assassinated. You're going to assassinate him and he will die. So it's not really a contradiction. Both of these prophecies come true. The king would not die of the illness. He would die at the hands of an assassin. And so that's where our reading ends off in verse 15. What a terrible end this is. And I want to emphasize, we'll talk about this in Zoom. West Siders, we get a Zoom call tonight. One of the things that we want to talk about is the run into chaos and anarchy in the northern kingdom. The reigns of various kings get shorter and shorter, and there's more assassinations and more craziness as more and more people do bad things. things. 2 Kings 8, 1-15 is our reading for Tuesday. It is Wednesday and our reading today is 1 Kings 8, 16-29. But before we do that, let's hear from Hunter Allen who will be with us tonight in our Judges series talking about Eli. Sometimes we forget about Eli being a judge because we've ended the book of Judges. Hunter will tell us about Eli and here he is to describe and discuss his lesson this evening.

Hey, my name is Hunter Allen, and I'm really looking forward to being with you to talk about Eli. Eli's story ends with a great disaster. 30,000 soldiers in Israel are dead. His sons, two priests, are dead. Eli himself, the judge and high priest of Israel, is dead too. The only successor to the priesthood is an orphaned newborn named No Glory. And the Ark of God is in Philistine hands. In our time, whenever a disaster strikes, we launch an investigation to figure out what went wrong so that we can prevent it from happening again. That's exactly what we need to do with Eli. We need to see where he went wrong so that we don't end up in the same place. His story will leave us with some powerful and challenging lessons. And so I hope to see you there with an open Bible and a soft heart that together we might learn from the word of the Lord.

Thank you, Hunter. I know that we're all looking forward to hearing what you have to say about Eli tonight. Our reading again for Wednesday is 1 Kings 8. No, it's not 1 Kings. It's 2 Kings 8, 16 to 29. And this is kind of a meanwhile back at the ranch text. We have not heard about Jehoshaphat since 1 Kings chapter 22. So now, for a brief moment, the author returns to tell us what's going on in Judah. And we get this wonderful business where we have a Joram in the north and a Jehoram in the south. And, of course, Joram in the north could also be Jehoram. Those are just different spellings or different ways of saying the name. We use Bob instead of Robert, for example. And so you've got Jehoram in the north and Jehoram in the south. He's just not good for much at all. He walks in the ways of the kings of Israel. He was extremely wicked. In fact, the account in 2 Chronicles chapter 21 tells us he killed all of his brothers. His primary accomplishment is that he marries the daughter of Ahab. And so now Athaliah has all kinds of influence in his life, and she will cause Judah to be more like Israel all the time. She is a true Israelite, and by that I mean a Baal worshiper and everything that goes with Of course, verse 19 is going to be the keynote here. The grace and goodness of God. The chapter ends then with a note about Ahaziah, verses 25 to 29. This is about 841 B.C., and you should know, if you'll look to the north, you can see Assyria. Assyria is on the rise now. For a long time, there really hasn't been a major big dog player, and Syria, with Ben-Hadad, has been trying to be that a little bit, and maybe Israel's going to be some of that, trying to be some of that. No, no, no. Israel's going to be some of that. It's going to be Assyria. Get ready. We're going to hear more and more about Assyria. Our reading for Wednesday, 2 Kings 8, 16 to 29. Welcome to Thursday. Welcome to Thursday. And today we read 2 Kings 9, 1 to 13. And as I said earlier this week, the pace of anarchy and chaos is just, it's just accelerating. And Jehu will be the one to drive that. Ha ha, see what I did there? We'll drive that even further. The only part of God's instructions to Elijah from 1 Kings 19, still to be done, is now being taken care of by Elisha, his successor. Please be aware, verse 3, thus says the Lord, that's the operative expression, verse 12, thus says says the Lord. And it is clear from verse 11 that there's not a lot of respect going on for prophets. Oh, this guy's just a madman, all the things that go with that. Nobody's really paying attention to God. Nobody's paying attention to God's messengers. And I should note, verse 13, that the fact that they jump on board, J. Hugh's men, the officers around him say, hey, you be the king. It says a lot about how nobody is that excited about the house of Omri. They have not ruled And Jehu is about to bring that to a very bloody conclusion. But we won't read about that tomorrow, because tomorrow we'll be in the Psalms. Reading for Thursday, 2 Kings 9, 1-13. It is Friday. It is Friday, so we are in the Psalms. We're reading Psalm 35 today. Let me have a little coffee here. And then we're reading this help me Lord Psalm. This is very much a lament. This is David crying out before God. And I often say that the Psalms do not outline well. Well, this one certainly does because it divides easily into three stanzas, verses 1 to 10, verses 11 to 18, verses 19 to 28. And some have said this is a triple lament. You'll notice once more that David is concerned about people who say things behind his back. For without cause, verse 7, they hid their net from me and dug a pit for my life. So there's, I'm worried about being assassinated, but there's even more here. They repay me, verse 12, evil for good when I was sick. When they were sick, I wore sackcloth, verse 13, but they don't treat me that way. That's not how they act about me. They hate me, verse 19, without cause. They do not speak peace, verse 20. They open wide their mouths against me, verse 21, false witnesses. So there's scheming, and there's gloating, and there's people who want to attack David, and he's just And all of that He can stand. And so, maybe as difficult as this psalm is, because we just sympathize with David for everything he's going through, you'll love the end of this psalm. Let those who delight in my righteousness, verse 27, shout for joy and be glad and say evermore, Great is the Lord who delights in the welfare of His servant. Don't you love that? God delights in the welfare of His servants. What a great way to end the week in Bible reading. That's the podcast then. Thank you so much for listening. Get so many kind comments. I've been in some gospel meetings this year. A couple of weeks ago, I was in Conway and two folks came up to talk to me about the podcast and how valuable it was to them and how much it helped them in their lives. It just means so very much. So, so very much. Podcast is really for Westside folks, but we're always glad people outside of Westside are enjoying it and being helped by it as well. So until next week, when we'll open our Bibles together again. I'm Mark Robertson. I want to go to heaven, and I want you to come too. I will see you on Monday with a cup of coffee.

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