Monday Morning Coffee with Mark

Daily Bible Reading, Week 33

• Mark Roberts • Season 5 • Episode 33

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Welcome to the Westside church’s special Monday Morning Coffee podcast with Mark Roberts. Mark is a disciple, a husband, father and grand dad, as well as a certified coffee geek, fan of CS Lewis’ writings and he loves his big red Jeep. He’s also the preacher for Westside church.

SPEAKER_01:

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.

SPEAKER_00:

Good morning, good morning. Welcome to the Monday Morning Coffee podcast for Monday, August the 18th. If I seem a little excited, it's because I don't have any sermon notes for you for yesterday's sermon. Why don't you have sermon notes, Mark? It's because I did not preach at Westside yesterday. I am in Alaska. Yes, the 49th state, that wonderful, wonderful place where God just made so many incredible animals and so many incredible scenes and All these mountains and lakes. Oh, it's just an amazing place. Dean and I are on vacay in Alaska. In fact, today we are in Sitka. We'll be heading out here in a little bit, and we will go see some whales and bears. At least we certainly hope so. We're actually doing some scouting. Dean and I have done some group travel for Christians. We've arranged a bunch of cruises, six or seven of those now, where a whole bunch of Christians have got together and gone on a cruise. We've had a lot of fun in Norway, in the UK, and Maine, and Canada, and Alaska. We've actually done that Alaska thing, and we're going to do it again in 2027. And if that interests you at all, just reach out to me. Message me, and I'll get you some information about that. We haven't selected all the dates and itinerary and all those kind of things, but we'll put you on the list so when we do, because Alaska is just wonderful. You just want to go and just see it. We are loving it, loving it, loving it. So enough about where we are. That's probably not making everybody where you are feeling all that great. Yeah, I do have coffee. I always travel with coffee. Must have coffee. And so I'm holding some coffee and I'm reading in 2 Kings chapter 9. 2 Kings chapter 9. And we are just going to take a look here and see how long is God going to put up with this vacillating back and forth nonsense that's going on. In Israel, nope, God's not putting up with it anymore. God is ready to clean house. Sometimes the kings appear to listen to the prophets. Ahab actually repented. But there's more wickedness than there's not, and it's time to start over. Our reading for Monday is 2 Kings 9, 14-37. Get ready, Jehu is coming. For Monday, our reading is 2 Kings 9, 14 to 37. And yes, Dean and I do our Bible reading even when we're on vacation. And this just begins a section of non-stop action. God moves forward in his program here to fix the people's idolatrous ways. It is going on and it is going down. We started this on Thursday. Pick it up now in verse 14. Jehu decides to ride to the capital and start cleaning house. Incredibly, I'm not sure what joy Amorim is thinking in verse 21. I'm not sure what Isaiah, the king of Judah in verse 21, are thinking. Hey, let's go see this guy. He's just a general, but none of this smells good, especially then that note in verse 21, they're meeting on the property of Naboth. Dun, dun, dun. Yeah, that's something right there, isn't it? And Jehu says, I'm not interested in peace. And the next thing you know, verse 25, Jehu is slaying everybody. And Jehu says, verse 25, Remember when you and I rode side by side beside Ahab his father, how the Lord made this pronouncement against him. And so with the word of the Lord, end of verse 26, how many times have we seen the dominant expression be the word of the Lord? So Ahaziah tries to get out of Dodge. No dice there. He gets killed as well. This is 841 BC. And then, of course, Jehu shows up, and Jezebel tries to decide. Tries to throw in her lot with him in some kind of way. Is this why she paints her eyes? Is she trying to woo him? Wow, that won't go anywhere. And so verse 36, this is the word of the Lord. Throw her down. And they throw her down and the dogs eat her. Remember what I always say about dogs in the Bible, wild pack animals, not friendly, not your pets, not nice. So the whole idea that just permeates this chapter is harlotry that presupposes, one scholar says, the husband-wife relationship. relationship between God and Israel, which provides a perfect opportunity to preach against the Baalism of the North, and it uncovers the true reasons for Jehu's revolt. He is going to purge Israelite religion. The difficulty here is Jehu will not remain very steadfast to that. And in some ways, I wonder if he's not a classic example of a politician who uses religion to further his own agenda. Oh, God wants something done about this? Well, I'll do that because I want to be the king anyway. I don't know. You'll have to make your own decisions about that. But in chapter 9, the house of Ahab is cleaned out. That's the end of that. No more of that. Our reading for Monday, 2 Kings 9, 14-37. It's Tuesday. It is Tuesday, and today we will read 2 Kings chapter 10 verses 1 to 17. I'm not sure what to tell you about 2 Kings chapter 10 verses 1 to 17. Don't bring a first aid kit. It's not going to help. Maybe bring body bags. Jehu just kills everybody. If you cross paths with Jehu, you're out. He just kills everybody and everything that moves, almost. And I should maybe add this archaeological note. Jehu is mentioned on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, and archaeology does verify that he was the king gives us the date 841 BC. So sometimes Bible critics act like the Bible's just made up out of whole cloth and there's just nothing true to it at all. That's absolutely not the case at all. The obelisk indicates that Jehu is paying tribute to the rising power of Assyria and that Jehu's kingdom was not very strong. You can see the black obelisk of Shalmaneser in the British Museum. It's very, very cool. It's about seven, eight feet tall and big black thing. And sure enough, there he is carved on the side along with a whole lot of other kings who were paying true to the kings of Assyria. So probably the important thing to notice here is what you do when you are not of the royal house, not of the ruling house, and what you do is you make sure that nobody is left from the proper ruling house. So Jehu says, select the best and ablest sons and we'll just fight it out. And these 70 sons, of course, would be grandsons of Ahab. And they're not interested in doing that at all. They are not interested in doing that at all. So Jehu demands a token of their support. And so in verse 9, they have killed all of these sons. And he says, you're innocent. You're the ones. You're innocent. I'm the one that did this. So basically he's saying, well, notice everybody. They're in this with me too. So he is strengthening his hand. I didn't have to kill these guys. These people over here, they're the ones that killed these guys. Everybody is on my side. And Then in verse 13, the relatives of Ahaziah show up, and of course, they get killed as well. And since the two ruling houses were related to Jehu, he's just taking no chances. No possible claimant to the throne will be allowed to live. Jehonadab, mentioned in verse 15, seems to be a strong military man. And Jehu says, get in the chariot and ride with me and see my zeal for the Lord. And once again, verse 17, it's according to... Yep, it's according to the Word of the Lord. Tuesday's reading, 2 Kings 10, verses 1-17. Hard to quit right there, isn't it? Hard to quit right there. I wonder what Jehu's going to do about the worship of Baal in Israel. Stay tuned. Tomorrow, we'll see more about Jehu cleaning a house in Israel. Reading for Tuesday, 2 Kings 10, verses 1-17. Welcome to Wednesday, and today we finish 2 Kings chapter 10, our reading for Wednesday, 2 Kings 10, 18-36. And you knew Jehu was not about to let the prophets of Baal and the worship of Baal continue in Israel. He has zeal for the Lord, verse 16. So there's a giant fake... worship service for Baal, which they don't know it's fake. It's a sham. It's a put-up job. It's a trap. Baal worshipers get in there and they are exterminated. These did deserve death for worshiping idols. That's part of the law of God. However, it's important to note here, Jehu is never said to have consulted with God about this. This seems like Jehu just kind of running amok and maybe going too far because of his own motivation to grab power. It doesn't seem like this is nearly so much about the vindicating God. The worst part about this, well, maybe if you're a priest of Baal, the worst part of it is 18 to 27, and maybe the really worst part is verse 27 where it says they made the temple a public latrine. What contempt! What disgrace! But then the evaluation of Jehu in verses 28 to 36 shows us that once again he makes the same mistake others have made. Remove the worship of the foreign god Baal, but stay with corrupted Jehovah worship. He's got the right God, Jehovah, the God of the Israelites. But we're worshiping him the way Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, did. So much this year has been about our emphasis on David, a man after God's own heart. We want to be after David. I think it's very important for us to note the emphasis in the Bible about how many kings, how many people were after Jeroboam's heart. And this was easier worship. It was more convenient worship. It placated the people. And these were people who were willing to stop short of full restoration. Think about that. Stop short of full restoration. restoration. And if you're wondering, does God have anything to say about the blood guilt of Jehu? Well, just join the reading in Hosea 1 verse 4. Then the Lord said to him, Call his name Jezreel, for in a little while I will avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel on the house of Jehu and bring an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. So this just shows us that what Jehu was doing was for the wrong motive. He used God's goals and purposes for his own ends. And in those days, verse 32, the Lord began to cut off parts of Israel. So the disciplinary process for Israel is underway because they just refused to turn all the way to God. The reading for Wednesday, 2 Kings 2 Kings 10, 18-36. Westsiders, you'll enjoy Drew Nelson tonight as we continue in the Judges. He'll be speaking on the book of Ruth. It's Thursday. It is Thursday, and our reading today is 2 Kings chapter 11. This is a suspense-filled chapter. Remember... The Bible is all about the promises to Abraham and to David. Genesis chapter 12, in your seed all nations shall be blessed. Second Samuel 7, you'll have a king forever on your throne, David. But if the royal family is wiped out, how... How can those promises come to pass? And what happens in the very first verse of our reading today? Athaliah tries to wipe out the royal family. The royal family is down to one child. Joash, the son of Ahaziah, verse 2, is stolen away and hidden. By the way, this absolutely makes Athaliah the wickedest grandmother ever. She murders her grandchildren. Oh, that's so bad. That is so bad. But just remember, she's the daughter of Ahaziah. Ahab, she became the wife of Jehoram. Jehoram was the king of Judah's Let's start again. Jehoram is the son of Jehoshaphat when he was the king of Judah. So she was the mother of Jehoram's son Ahaziah who got slaughtered by Jehu. So Jehoshaphat of Judah had a marriage alliance with Ahab of Israel. He gave his son Jehoram to Ahab's daughter Athaliah. That's who she is. And as long as Jehoshaphat was alive, things do seem to have been kind of godly. But once he died, everything just went underwater. Jehoshaphat was a good man. He was a very weak leader. He's always making alliances with those people in the north. Terrible, terrible idea. When Jehoshaphat died, Jehoram murders his brothers, and 2 Chronicles 21 tells us the Philistines invaded, the Arabs invaded, all kinds of problems happened, and so forth. So then, in his one-year reign, Ahaziah is caught up north visiting Jehoram of Israel when Jehu shows up. That's not a great time to be visiting up there, and so he and along with 42 members of Judah's family are all part of Jehu's purge. Well, it looks like Athaliah is going to run the show now. Athaliah seizes the throne. She actually reigns for seven years. She's the queen, and she ends up trying to take Judah deeper into wickedness and sin of every kind. But Jehoiada carefully plans. Look at the planning that he's involved in here. He makes a deal with the military first. He sets two divisions of people here, here, and here. He times everything out just exactly right, and it all goes perfectly. Verse 9,"...the captains did according to all that Jehoiada the priest had said." Verse 12,"...they bring the king's son out, they put the crown on him." probably important that they wait until he's seven years old. It's very hard to convince people that an infant is actually ruling. There are, of course, occasions of that. Mary Queen of Scots is She is crowned the Queen of Scotland, even though she's like seven days old. But most of the time, people are not in for that. So then Athaliah says, what's going on here? There's treachery. There's treason, verse 14. I'll show you some treason, lady. You are the treasonous person. You're a murderous queen. This is just horrible, and that's the end for her. This execution is certainly, verse 16, in line with what the law calls for in Deuteronomy chapter 13. And I think there is a contrast here. May the king live. And then verse 16, and she was put to death. And so then there is a renewal of the covenant. There's a renewed reliance between the king and Jehovah. There's a reestablishment of the relationship between Judah and Jehovah. And they accept Joash as their king. So, by the way, notice verse 18. There's a temple of Baal in Judah. Good grief. Wow. But these people are willing to go all the way in their restoration, and they are trying to go all the way back to God. What an amazing chapter. You have to love Jehoiada. He is the man. Orchestrates all of this, saves Joash, saves the Messianic promises. Reading for Thursday, 2 Kings chapter 11. Welcome to Friday. Welcome to Friday. Our reading for Friday is the 36th Psalm. 36th Psalm. Psalm 36. Let me grab some coffee here as we are working in the Psalms on Friday. So, this psalm is not easy to classify, but it is a psalm of contrast. It will ask us plainly, wickedness or goodness? This psalm is made up of oil and water, darkness and light, wet and dry. You can't mix the front part of this psalm with the back part of this psalm. They hate each other. They're in opposition to each other. And of course, the contrast here is designed to force us to make a decision. Where am I? What describes me? Am I living in the first four verses with the evil and sinful people, or am I living in light of God's As I said, it's difficult to classify this psalm. I think maybe in many ways this is a wisdom psalm designed to teach. There is some praise notes here and maybe even a prayer in verses 11 to 13. If you notice at the beginning where we're talking about the wicked person and what kind of person that is, you'll see that they have no moral standing. There's no fear of God before his eyes. He plots trouble while on his bed. He sees himself in a way that is not good. What you're seeing there is that this person This person is his own moral standard. He does what he wants to do, when he wants to do it, how he wants to do it. And what a psalm for us to be reading after reading about Athaliah. Maybe we should just read this with a she instead of a he today. But God's loving kindness, verses 5 to 9, is in stark contrast to that. How precious, verse 7, is your steadfast love. Just lovely description here of God and how good he is. Verse 8, you give them drink from the rivers of your delights. The word delight there is the same word or from the same word family as the word Eden. And Esther 8 uses some of verse 9, for with you is the fountain. of life. In your light do we see light. So the brightness of God's awesome character just shines and encourages us in every way. And then there is this prayer for kindness, verse 10, and for protection from wickedness in verses 11 and 12. And I think in many ways that's a wonderful prayer for us today. We want to be protected by God. God has not guaranteed His people, of course, absolute blanket protection from every bad thing that could ever happen. No. Sometimes crime and violence affect the people of God, but we can pray for that, and we can trust in God's steadfast love. We know that He cares for His people, and He loves us, and He is working against evil like Athaliah, and we saw that in our reading yesterday. Our reading for Friday, Psalm 36. Thanks so much for listening. If the podcast is helping you, please do tell someone else about it. and leave us a rating or review so that more people will find the podcast and be benefited by it. So until Monday, when we'll open our Bibles together again, I'm Mark Roberts, and I want to go to heaven. I want you to come too. I'll see you on Monday with a cup of coffee.

SPEAKER_01:

Thanks for listening to the West Side Church of Christ podcast, Monday Morning Coffee with Mark. For more information about Westside, you can connect with us through our website, justchristians.com, and our Facebook page. Our music is from upbeat.io. That's upbeat with two Ps, U-P-P-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 cup of coffee, of course, on next Monday.