Day 119: 1 Chronicles 7–10

Welcome to five -minute Bible your daily guide for your daily reading today's April the 29th

And we'll be looking at 1st Chronicles 7 through 10 Now yesterday we heard the full range of worship from suffering to praise and all of it anchored in the truth that the

Lord our God reigns now today We're gonna watch that play out in real history because 1st

Chronicles 7 through 10 moves from the identity into the outcome the Genealogies continue, but they're no longer just establishing who the people are.

They're preparing us to see what happens when faithfulness or unfaithfulness Meet the rule of God and this is where the names turn into Consequences and that way chapter 7 and 8 continue tracing the tribes and showing their strength and structure and place

Within the people of Israel. They're not scattered people. They're ordered They're established and they're growing and the focus on Benjamin quietly prepares us for what is coming because Saul will emerge from this tribe as king

Chapter 9 then shifts to those who return from exile and resettle Jerusalem Worship is reestablished priests and Levites and gatekeepers are all put in place and the structure that we saw earlier is now

Active again shaping the life of the restored people then chapter 10 brings everything to a head

Saul goes to battle against the Philistines and is defeated. His sons are killed

He is wounded and rather than fall into the enemy's hands He takes his own life. His body is dishonored and Israel is left leaderless

But Chronicles doesn't leave it there. It gives the reason Saul died because he was unfaithful to God He didn't keep the word of the

Lord and he sought guidance from the medium at Endor instead of seeking God So the

Lord put him to death and turned the kingdom over David which was spoken about by the Prophet Samuel 40 years before Now this isn't just history.

This is judgment explained and as you read today's passage I want you to ask the following question

What actually determines the outcome of a life before God because these chapters make it clear that identity position and opportunity

Are not enough the tension running through these chapters is the gap between identity and faithfulness the genealogies established

Privilege they are the people of God who are given a place and a structure and a role in his covenant purposes

But Saul himself stands at the height of that privilege He's the chosen anointed one given authority, but in chapter 10, he is exposed as a fraud

Privilege without faithfulness collapses into faithlessness and Saul doesn't just fall because of weakness or Peculiarities or idiosyncrasies he falls because he turns away from God He abandons the

Word of God and he is seeks guidance elsewhere And when he does his position cannot save him and yet at the same time

God's purposes do not fail Saul fails, but the kingdom doesn't the throne is

Abandoned but not totally it's transferred God removes one king and then he establishes another and this is the pattern because God's reign is steady

Even when human leadership is not and that presses us directly into our life today as well

Because it's possible to be near the things of God to have every external

Advantage and still drift into waywardness and unfaithfulness But God isn't dependent on any one person he purposes to move forward with or without us and all of this points directly to Jesus because Saul's death is not just the end of a man it's the exposure of a kind of kingship that will never last a

King who doesn't remain faithful to God and cannot sustain the kingdom of God because he acts like the nations of men

David in the other hand is gonna arise next and he'll be a better king But he's not even the final answer because Jesus is where Saul turns away

Christ remains perfectly obedient where Saul seeks other voices and mediums

Christ listens only to the father Where Saul's reign ends in judgment Christ reigns ends in established

Righteousness and eternal life and unlike every king before him Christ does not fail

He does not collapse. He does not lose his kingdom He secures it through him the rain we heard about in the

Psalms becomes visible in human history And as his kingdom advances his enemies are subdued and his people are gathered under a rule that cannot be shaken

So as you read the chapters today, I want you to watch how unfaithfulness leads to collapse and how

God moves his kingdom forward anyway, and tomorrow we're gonna see David take

Center stage again, and we're gonna see the rise of his kingdom in his kingship as the

Lord's anointed and with that Read your Bible carefully Devotionally and joyfully and may the

Lord use his word to sanctify you completely and we will continue our journey tomorrow