September 1, 2025 • 23 mins
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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.
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Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:01):
you
Speaker 00 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to the Westside Church's
special Monday Morning Coffeepodcast.
On this podcast, our preacher,Mark Roberts, will help you get
your week started right with alook back at yesterday's sermon
so that we can think through itfurther and better work the
applications into our dailylives.
(00:26):
Mark will then look forwardinto this week's Bible reading
so that we can know what toexpect and watch for.
And he may have some Extrabonus thoughts from time to
time.
So grab a cup of coffee as westart the week together on
Monday Morning Coffee with Mark.
Speaker 01 (00:52):
Good morning, good morning.
Welcome to the Monday MorningCoffee podcast for Monday,
September the 1st.
I'm Mark.
I'm holding a great cup ofcoffee, and I am ready to talk
to you about yesterday's sermonand to talk about our daily
Bible reading.
Let me see if I can brush thecrumbs off of my notes.
because I'm eating while I'mtalking to you.
What am I eating, you arewondering?
(01:14):
I'm eating a delightful coffeeloaf.
Usually, I'm not a big fan ofcoffee-infused flavors in ice
cream or candy or just aboutanything.
I like coffee, but I don't likecoffee in all kinds of other
stuff.
Coffee needs to come in a mug.
But a wonderful friend of thepodcast made me a coffee-infused
(01:35):
loaf of bread, and it's justpretty amazing.
I froze some of it so it wouldstill be here when i got home
from alaska and i gotta admitit's just pretty amazing coffee
and coffee bread what more couldyou ask for well whatever it is
that you need this morning toget going whether that is some
coffee whether that is dr pepperor mountain dew oh my dina
(01:59):
careful with that mountain dewwhatever it is pour that cup of
coffee pour that cup of diet drpepper pour that coke zero let's
get ready let's get set Let'sgo.
Yesterday was a fifth Sunday,which means I did Q&A in the
1040 instead of in the 9 a.m.
as I normally do.
(02:20):
That gives me an opportunity togive everybody a look at Q&A.
Maybe it encourages some peopleto come to the 9 a.m.
on the last Sunday of the monthso they can get more of that
Q&A business.
Good questions make for goodQ&A.
And yesterday I dealt with aquestion about Jesus's race.
And I am disturbed, I must tellyou, at the number of people
(02:40):
who are trying somehow to injectracism into the gospel and
somehow make Jesus into a racistor decide that Jesus, as I
dealt with this questionyesterday, that Jesus somehow
was African-American, was hedark-skinned.
And I said yesterday that Iwould point you to some
additional resources.
I would remind you in June of2024, I preached a lesson about
(03:03):
that whole issue and all that'sagain, I am just distressed at
people who are trying to addracism into the story of Jesus.
There's just nothing there.
There's just nothing there.
(03:24):
In this business of, oh,somehow you're a Christian and
that means that you've given into the white man, that is so far
outside of anything the Bibleteaches.
Jesus always cared for theoppressed and the downtrodden.
If there is anybody who isdrawn to Jesus, and I think
Historically, lots of minoritygroups and groups that have been
(03:47):
oppressed have been very drawnto Jesus.
Jesus is for everyone, and anyattempt to somehow co-opt him to
a racist agenda is just sorepugnant to anybody who has
read anything in the Gospels atall.
So if you're struggling withsome of that, or you know
somebody who is, point them tothat lesson, and maybe that will
(04:08):
be of some value to them.
Remember, like I said, goodquestions make for good Q&A.
Keep asking those goodquestions.
And then, hey, don't forget towrite that question down or
message me, email me, somethinglike that so I have it in
tangible form.
But once you've got yourquestion down, turn your Bible
to 2 Kings because we are in 2Kings chapter 15.
(04:29):
Our reading for Monday is 2Kings 15, verses 17-18.
(04:50):
We will catch up here some ofthe reign of some of the kings
in Israel and even get anadditional note about a king
down in the south in Judea.
So we begin with Minaham inverses 16 to 22.
He is a vassal toTiglath-Pileser III.
The Assyrians are on the rise.
(05:11):
It's been about 50 years wherethey have been a little
disorganized and had a lot ofinternal turmoil.
But Tiglath-Pileser IIIreorganizes the army.
He ends independent kingdoms.
replacing them with the Syrianprovinces.
And he is the king that usesmass deportation to demoralize
conquered people.
When he conquers you, he picksup everybody, or most everybody,
(05:33):
and moves them to somewhereelse.
This would be the equivalent ifTexas was conquered, which of
course is unthinkable.
But what if Texas was conqueredand the invading army moved all
of us to Saskatchewan inCanada?
We would be completelydisplaced.
We would have no familiaritywith the culture, the geography,
(05:55):
the weather.
We would be thousands andthousands of miles from home,
which if you're walking, prettymuch precludes any kind of
escape.
You're just done.
And Tiglath-Pileser used thatto break people's spirit.
And you can certainly see herethat Menahem is not interested
in that happening, so he buyshim off.
And a talent, verse 19, weighedas much as 75 pounds, and so
(06:16):
this is a huge sum of money.
He is replaced then withPekahiah in verses 23 to 26.
He reigns over Israel andSamaria.
He's evil, not a good man.
There are, by the way, allkinds of chronological issues
here.
If you're adding up math anddoing all kinds of the reign of
this guy was so long and the Ican't do math, so I don't have
(06:40):
any issues with that.
But Pekahiah is assassinated inverse 25 by Pekah.
There are questions about whatit means.
Argob in the citadel of theking's house, verse 25, with
Argob and Aria.
There's different translationsof that.
It seems like this is an insidejob.
And in verse 30, as we continueto track the Assyrians and the
(07:01):
Assyrian rise, there is, thereare, are, are, wow, that's hard
to say on a Monday.
There are archaeologicalrecords of Tiglath-Pileser and
the things that he's doing here.
His own account states, theyoverthrew Pekah their king, and
I placed Hoshea as king overthem.
So Hoshea here is basically apuppet king, and you are seeing
(07:24):
more and more of the power ofthe Assyrians.
Finally, the chapter concludeswith the reign of Jotham.
So we move south back to Judea.
Jotham is a good king.
He orders his ways before theLord.
Second Chronicle 2 Chronicles27 gives us more information
about that and helps us withthat.
But in summary, he did what wasright.
He continues Uzziah's buildingprograms.
(07:47):
He defeats Ammon and tooktribute from them.
And he is mighty because heordered his ways before Jehovah.
Like I said, 2 Chronicles 27and verse 6.
If you have time today, it'sLabor Day.
A lot of us are off work and soforth.
If you're not out in the fieldhunting doves like some of us
are, take some time and go read2 Chronicles 27 and catch up on
Jotham's reign as the TheChronicler gives us more
(08:10):
information about that.
But our reading for Monday is 2Kings 15, verses 17 to 38.
Welcome to Tuesday.
Welcome to Tuesday.
Our reading today is 2 Kingschapter 16, the entire chapter,
and we're talking about KingAhaz.
This is a tough chapter.
I don't like King Ahaz at all.
(08:32):
This guy drives me crazy.
It'll be something to talkabout him in Zoom tonight.
But he does so many things thatare wrong.
Verse 3, he walks in the waysof the kings of Israel.
Once again, King David ismentioned.
Verse 2, and our point thisyear in our Bible reading is to
connect to David to be a personwho seeks after God's heart,
he's not a true son of David.
He doesn't care about God.
(08:52):
He doesn't care about what'sright.
He follows in the ways ofJeroboam.
He follows in the ways of theIsraelite kings.
And he's doing the things thatGod evicts Israel, the northern
tribes, out of the land for.
So there's a dark cloud inverse 3.
If God brings judgment onIsrael for those things, what
will happen to Judea when theydo the very same kind of things?
(09:14):
And so that results in allkinds of attacks, resurrection
King of Syria.
Verse 5 and verse 6 comes andattacks Judea.
And so he forms an alliancewith Assyria.
What are you thinking, Ahaz?
This is the dumbest movepossible.
This would be something similarto a nation that felt
(09:36):
threatened, say, by communistChina.
I'm kind of harking back to the50s and the 60s, asking the
Soviet Union when it wascommunist, hey, can you help us
out?
Where is that going to end?
You'll just end up being undertheir boot instead of under this
other country's boot.
What are you doing forming analliance with Assyria?
And in fact, Isaiah chapter 7covers this time, and the
(09:57):
prophet of God tells Ahaz, don'tdo this.
Don't do this.
But he does not listen.
He does not turn to God.
He makes an alliance.
And yes, it is a temporary fixto the problem, but it is no
long-term solution.
And in fact, it leads to moreapostasy because verse 10, he
sees this altar and has to oh,I've got to have one of these.
(10:20):
And so this may be done toimpress Tiglath-Pileser.
Interestingly, most scholarswill say that Assyria did not
seem to force religion on itsvassal provinces.
So he does not have to do this,and please don't cut him a pass
by saying he's forced to do it.
He wants to do it, and he doesit because he does not care
(10:42):
about God.
And it's just appalling to seethis being imported into Judea,
and he's just another brick inthe wall, if you will, another
step down the road of apostasy,another reason God will have to
bring judgment upon this wickedking and the terrible things
(11:02):
that he's introduced into Judea.
We'll talk more about this.
It's Tuesday, so we get Zoomtonight, Westsiders.
We'll talk more about this, andthere is clear parallels to
what we see so often today inwhich it seems like many times
brethren want to Welcome toWednesday.
(11:26):
Welcome to Wednesday.
Today we read 2 Kings 17, verse1.
(11:47):
1 to 23.
This is a very significant partof our reading because it is in
line with the purpose of Kings.
The purpose of Kings is to tellthe people why they went to
captivity.
That is different than thepurpose of Chronicles.
That's why the accounts thereare of different kings and
different activities.
(12:08):
They are not contradictory, ofcourse.
Don't get it twisted, butChronicles emphasizes different
points and different ideas.
Kings is all about why did Andthat really starts in verses 7
down through the rest of ourreading today, verse 23.
Just over and over again, Godremoved them out of his sight
until he cast them out of hissight.
(12:29):
He removed Israel out of hissight.
They despised his statutes.
They followed the nations.
Just work down through thatcarefully, and you will see that
obedience to God genuinelymatters.
All of this starts with Hosea.
Remember, he assassinatedPekah, chapter 15, verse 30, and
so he is not a good person, andhe He is a vassal of
Tiglath-Pileser.
(12:49):
But when Tiglath-Pileser died,verse 3, it seems that Hosea
decides they want to become afree state, and so he decides to
break away from Assyria, maybeget some help from Egypt.
That does not work.
And the end is they aredeported, verse 4, hundreds of
miles to the northeast.
Now, actually, Shalmaneser isthe king that follows
(13:12):
Tiglath-Pileser, but he diedduring this time.
It's his general, Sargon, whowas probably present at the
actual destruction of Samariaand all that happens with that.
And I want to give you a notehere about deportation.
This is something that I can doon a podcast.
I can't really get thisinformation to you any other
way.
People commonly imagine thatdeportation means that they
(13:33):
scraped every living person andtheir dog off the land and
shipped them all out of there.
I mean, if you had walkedthrough Israel after this, it
had just been a ghost town.
There'd just been nobody.
And that kind of thinking hasfed the misconception that there
is a lost 10 tribes out theresomewhere, which has led to
(13:54):
every kind of crazy theologythat you can imagine.
Oftentimes, there's some kindof thinking that Anglo-Saxon
people are, in fact, the lost 10tribes of Israel, and it's just
bizarre, and it's weird, and itdoes not work.
They do not deport everybody.
The logistics of that, ofcourse, are extremely difficult,
and if you deport everyone,then the land is empty, and it's
(14:17):
not making the the king anymoney.
So what deportation means isyou take the ruling aristocracy,
you take military leaders, youtake religious leaders, you take
the people who could rebel, andyou ship them out of there
because that breaks theirspirit.
And there is plenty of languagein other places in scripture
that indicates that there weresome Israelites left.
(14:39):
And that deportation does notmean everybody is gone.
So for example, in 2 Chronicles30 and verse 1, there are
Israelites said to have attendedvarious functions in Judah, and
there are many other placeslike that.
So they're shipping the mainbody of the population.
They are shipping educatedpeople.
They are shipping thearistocracy.
Those people are deported, butdon't imagine that the land is
(15:03):
just completely denuded of allpeople.
That is not exactly correct atall.
And I'll give you just one morenote.
I love the ESV very much, asyou know, but verse 14 says they
would not listen.
They were stubborn, and theterm there is stiff-necked, and
I think that's probably thebetter translation because that
references an animal like an oxor a donkey that will not turn
(15:26):
to the master's will, and thatis exactly what has happened
here.
Verses 7 to 23 detail that inexhaustive detail because it
matters.
Don't skip it.
Don't go through it too fast.
Sit down in it and learn whatwhat God is doing here when His
people will not obey Him.
Our reading for Wednesday, 2Kings 1, 2 Kings 17, verses 1 to
(15:49):
23.
Welcome to Thursday.
Welcome to Thursday.
And the reading today is 2Kings 17, verses 24 to 41.
This completes the story of theten tribes being taken into
captivity, being deported, bytelling about the people that
the Assyrians resettled in theland that is now known, or will
be known in New Testament timesespecially, And these foreigners
(16:12):
are struggling to adapt.
They don't understand how tolive in this land.
They don't know what to do inthis land.
And the land is not friendly.
Verse 25, There's lots ofconversation about how that
could have worked and why thiswould be there.
A lot of dead bodies after thewars and so forth.
How about we just believe theLord sent them because this is
(16:33):
God's land and it is a reminderof the broken covenant with God
and maybe even an attempt tohelp these people think about
the Lord But they aren'tthinking about the Lord in a
real way.
Mostly what they want is somesort of superstitious faith to
ward off the lions.
And I think a lot of peoplewant to use religion in that
sort of fashion.
I just want enough religion tokeep bad things from happening
(16:54):
to me.
And of course, a priest, verse28, is sent, but how could he
possibly help?
The priests that lived in thenorth as part of the ten tribes
there, they were all part ofJeroboam's religion, false
religion, corrupted religion.
What that means is that theworship here is just wrong from
the very beginning.
And I'm saying all of thisabout the Samaritans and Samaria
(17:15):
because in New Testament times,there's such hostility between
Jews and Samaritans.
And we see that reflected inthe ministry of Jesus several
times.
And it starts right here.
It starts right here.
These people are not pureIsraelites.
They don't understand aboutJehovah God, and they've never
worshiped him correctly.
And of course, it's a couple ofhundred years.
This is 722 BC when thenorthern tribes are deported.
(17:39):
So it's quite a while to untilJesus gets there, and there will
be a lot of different religiousmovements and things that go
along during that time,particularly in between Malachi
and Matthew, but it gets off toa bad start.
It seems, verse 29, that mostlywhat they want to do is worship
the local God, and we'll justadd that to our God so that
we're getting all of our basescovered.
(17:59):
And I kind of think verse 33may have some sarcasm there.
So they, quote, feared theLord, but they also served their
own gods.
I wonder if you couldn't putfeared the Lord there in air
quotes.
Yeah, they feared the Lord, andof course I'm doing that with
my fingers, which you can't seeon a podcast, but this is not
genuine service before the Lord.
(18:19):
These people don't know theLord.
God's making an effort to pushthem towards Him, but it doesn't
seem like that's really goinganywhere.
It's a sad end to this wholestory of the land and the people
that have come there.
They don't know God.
Maybe the passage that standsout the most is verse 24.
(18:39):
At the end of that verse, itsays they took possession of
Samaria and lived in its cities.
The expression took possessionis used in Deuteronomy of
Israel.
This is the land they shouldtake possession of.
They had it and they lost itbecause they would not really
fear the Lord.
Our reading for Thursday, 2Kings 17, 24-41.
(19:00):
It's Friday.
It's Friday and today, ofcourse, we are in the Psalms.
We're reading Psalm 38 todayand this is a key psalm if we
will be a person of David, aperson after God's own heart.
Psalm 38 is about suffering,and yes, in the Bible there is
innocent suffering.
I think about Job.
He suffers.
He is innocent.
(19:21):
But this is the suffering thatcomes because of sin.
And the question here is, canwe still pray to God when we've
cut off, we've cut ourselves offfrom the Lord by our own
iniquity and wrongdoing?
Is there any hope for us whenwe are in sin?
And so Psalm 38 directs us torepent and pray before the Lord.
This is called a Psalm ofPenitence.
(19:41):
There are not a lot of those inthe book of Psalms.
I guess Psalm 51 is probablythe most famous penitential
psalm, but there are others.
Psalm 6, 32, 38, 102, 130, and143.
These Psalms of Penitence pourout before God sorrow for sin
and a desire for the forgivenessand cleansing that can only
(20:01):
come from the Lord.
And while we are not entirelysure of the author of the psalm,
it certainly feels like one ofDavid's psalms, and it is found
in the very first book of thePsalms the first section of the
Psalms, and those are nearly allwritten by David.
I'm pretty comfortable sayingthis is David.
And as the Psalm begins, thereare very strong terms for God's
anger in verse 1, and it doesseem like David feels like God
(20:24):
has drawn a bullseye, a targeton him.
And then he repeatedly talksabout because.
Verse 3, because, because ofyour indignation.
Verse 5, because of myfoolishness.
And I don't think we candiagnose specifically what David
is sick with.
Maybe there is some largelanguage here, some poetry here,
some metaphors to just sayDavid feels absolutely sick with
(20:48):
sin and sick with guilt.
And so in verses 9 to 14, hebegins to talk about how he is
distant from God, and I can'tstand being distant from God,
and now he's talking about beingalienated from others.
And his silence, verse 13 and14, comes partly because he has
faith in God, as we will see,but partly because because he
(21:09):
knows he is guilty.
Job protests his innocence.
Hey, stop with I'm a badperson.
I'm not a bad person.
I did not do bad things.
David says, I know this is onme.
This is on me.
I have done what is wrong.
So his single hope then inverses 15 to 22 is to wait upon
the Lord, to trust in God.
And verse 20 provides us thebasic statement of David's
(21:31):
entire life.
Those who render me evil forgood accuse me because I follow
after good.
I'm standing with the Lord.
I want to stand with the Lord.
I confess that openly.
Verse 8 I rely upon thepromises of God to forgive me,
and I'm going to go back and dowhat's right.
So God, verse 21, please do notforsake me.
Be not far from me.
I love that what David is abouthere is his relationship with
(21:53):
the Lord.
Not I got caught.
Not I'm experiencing a bunch ofbad consequences.
I want God.
I want to be in relationshipwith God.
Psalm 38.
That's our reading for Friday.
Thank you for listening then.
That's the podcast for theweek.
I hope it's helping you and Ihope that you're telling others
about it.
So until Monday when we'll openour Bibles together again.
(22:16):
I'm Mark Roberts and I want togo to heaven and I want you to
come too.
I'll see you on Monday with acup of coffee.
Speaker 00 (22:31):
Thanks for listening to the Westside Church of
Christ podcast, Monday MorningCoffee with Mark.
For more information aboutWestside, 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
(22:55):
can get free music.
Please share our podcast withothers, and we look forward to
seeing you again, with a cup ofcoffee, of course, on next
Monday.
you
Speaker 00 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to the Westside Church's
special Monday Morning Coffeepodcast.
On this podcast, our preacher,Mark Roberts, will help you get
your week started right with alook back at yesterday's sermon
so that we can think through itfurther and better work the
applications into our dailylives.
(00:26):
Mark will then look forwardinto this week's Bible reading
so that we can know what toexpect and watch for.
And he may have some Extrabonus thoughts from time to
time.
So grab a cup of coffee as westart the week together on
Monday Morning Coffee with Mark.
Speaker 01 (00:52):
Good morning, good morning.
Welcome to the Monday MorningCoffee podcast for Monday,
September the 1st.
I'm Mark.
I'm holding a great cup ofcoffee, and I am ready to talk
to you about yesterday's sermonand to talk about our daily
Bible reading.
Let me see if I can brush thecrumbs off of my notes.
because I'm eating while I'mtalking to you.
What am I eating, you arewondering?
(01:14):
I'm eating a delightful coffeeloaf.
Usually, I'm not a big fan ofcoffee-infused flavors in ice
cream or candy or just aboutanything.
I like coffee, but I don't likecoffee in all kinds of other
stuff.
Coffee needs to come in a mug.
But a wonderful friend of thepodcast made me a coffee-infused
(01:35):
loaf of bread, and it's justpretty amazing.
I froze some of it so it wouldstill be here when i got home
from alaska and i gotta admitit's just pretty amazing coffee
and coffee bread what more couldyou ask for well whatever it is
that you need this morning toget going whether that is some
coffee whether that is dr pepperor mountain dew oh my dina
(01:59):
careful with that mountain dewwhatever it is pour that cup of
coffee pour that cup of diet drpepper pour that coke zero let's
get ready let's get set Let'sgo.
Yesterday was a fifth Sunday,which means I did Q&A in the
1040 instead of in the 9 a.m.
as I normally do.
(02:20):
That gives me an opportunity togive everybody a look at Q&A.
Maybe it encourages some peopleto come to the 9 a.m.
on the last Sunday of the monthso they can get more of that
Q&A business.
Good questions make for goodQ&A.
And yesterday I dealt with aquestion about Jesus's race.
And I am disturbed, I must tellyou, at the number of people
(02:40):
who are trying somehow to injectracism into the gospel and
somehow make Jesus into a racistor decide that Jesus, as I
dealt with this questionyesterday, that Jesus somehow
was African-American, was hedark-skinned.
And I said yesterday that Iwould point you to some
additional resources.
I would remind you in June of2024, I preached a lesson about
(03:03):
that whole issue and all that'sagain, I am just distressed at
people who are trying to addracism into the story of Jesus.
There's just nothing there.
There's just nothing there.
(03:24):
In this business of, oh,somehow you're a Christian and
that means that you've given into the white man, that is so far
outside of anything the Bibleteaches.
Jesus always cared for theoppressed and the downtrodden.
If there is anybody who isdrawn to Jesus, and I think
Historically, lots of minoritygroups and groups that have been
(03:47):
oppressed have been very drawnto Jesus.
Jesus is for everyone, and anyattempt to somehow co-opt him to
a racist agenda is just sorepugnant to anybody who has
read anything in the Gospels atall.
So if you're struggling withsome of that, or you know
somebody who is, point them tothat lesson, and maybe that will
(04:08):
be of some value to them.
Remember, like I said, goodquestions make for good Q&A.
Keep asking those goodquestions.
And then, hey, don't forget towrite that question down or
message me, email me, somethinglike that so I have it in
tangible form.
But once you've got yourquestion down, turn your Bible
to 2 Kings because we are in 2Kings chapter 15.
(04:29):
Our reading for Monday is 2Kings 15, verses 17-18.
(04:50):
We will catch up here some ofthe reign of some of the kings
in Israel and even get anadditional note about a king
down in the south in Judea.
So we begin with Minaham inverses 16 to 22.
He is a vassal toTiglath-Pileser III.
The Assyrians are on the rise.
(05:11):
It's been about 50 years wherethey have been a little
disorganized and had a lot ofinternal turmoil.
But Tiglath-Pileser IIIreorganizes the army.
He ends independent kingdoms.
replacing them with the Syrianprovinces.
And he is the king that usesmass deportation to demoralize
conquered people.
When he conquers you, he picksup everybody, or most everybody,
(05:33):
and moves them to somewhereelse.
This would be the equivalent ifTexas was conquered, which of
course is unthinkable.
But what if Texas was conqueredand the invading army moved all
of us to Saskatchewan inCanada?
We would be completelydisplaced.
We would have no familiaritywith the culture, the geography,
(05:55):
the weather.
We would be thousands andthousands of miles from home,
which if you're walking, prettymuch precludes any kind of
escape.
You're just done.
And Tiglath-Pileser used thatto break people's spirit.
And you can certainly see herethat Menahem is not interested
in that happening, so he buyshim off.
And a talent, verse 19, weighedas much as 75 pounds, and so
(06:16):
this is a huge sum of money.
He is replaced then withPekahiah in verses 23 to 26.
He reigns over Israel andSamaria.
He's evil, not a good man.
There are, by the way, allkinds of chronological issues
here.
If you're adding up math anddoing all kinds of the reign of
this guy was so long and the Ican't do math, so I don't have
(06:40):
any issues with that.
But Pekahiah is assassinated inverse 25 by Pekah.
There are questions about whatit means.
Argob in the citadel of theking's house, verse 25, with
Argob and Aria.
There's different translationsof that.
It seems like this is an insidejob.
And in verse 30, as we continueto track the Assyrians and the
(07:01):
Assyrian rise, there is, thereare, are, are, wow, that's hard
to say on a Monday.
There are archaeologicalrecords of Tiglath-Pileser and
the things that he's doing here.
His own account states, theyoverthrew Pekah their king, and
I placed Hoshea as king overthem.
So Hoshea here is basically apuppet king, and you are seeing
(07:24):
more and more of the power ofthe Assyrians.
Finally, the chapter concludeswith the reign of Jotham.
So we move south back to Judea.
Jotham is a good king.
He orders his ways before theLord.
Second Chronicle 2 Chronicles27 gives us more information
about that and helps us withthat.
But in summary, he did what wasright.
He continues Uzziah's buildingprograms.
(07:47):
He defeats Ammon and tooktribute from them.
And he is mighty because heordered his ways before Jehovah.
Like I said, 2 Chronicles 27and verse 6.
If you have time today, it'sLabor Day.
A lot of us are off work and soforth.
If you're not out in the fieldhunting doves like some of us
are, take some time and go read2 Chronicles 27 and catch up on
Jotham's reign as the TheChronicler gives us more
(08:10):
information about that.
But our reading for Monday is 2Kings 15, verses 17 to 38.
Welcome to Tuesday.
Welcome to Tuesday.
Our reading today is 2 Kingschapter 16, the entire chapter,
and we're talking about KingAhaz.
This is a tough chapter.
I don't like King Ahaz at all.
(08:32):
This guy drives me crazy.
It'll be something to talkabout him in Zoom tonight.
But he does so many things thatare wrong.
Verse 3, he walks in the waysof the kings of Israel.
Once again, King David ismentioned.
Verse 2, and our point thisyear in our Bible reading is to
connect to David to be a personwho seeks after God's heart,
he's not a true son of David.
He doesn't care about God.
(08:52):
He doesn't care about what'sright.
He follows in the ways ofJeroboam.
He follows in the ways of theIsraelite kings.
And he's doing the things thatGod evicts Israel, the northern
tribes, out of the land for.
So there's a dark cloud inverse 3.
If God brings judgment onIsrael for those things, what
will happen to Judea when theydo the very same kind of things?
(09:14):
And so that results in allkinds of attacks, resurrection
King of Syria.
Verse 5 and verse 6 comes andattacks Judea.
And so he forms an alliancewith Assyria.
What are you thinking, Ahaz?
This is the dumbest movepossible.
This would be something similarto a nation that felt
(09:36):
threatened, say, by communistChina.
I'm kind of harking back to the50s and the 60s, asking the
Soviet Union when it wascommunist, hey, can you help us
out?
Where is that going to end?
You'll just end up being undertheir boot instead of under this
other country's boot.
What are you doing forming analliance with Assyria?
And in fact, Isaiah chapter 7covers this time, and the
(09:57):
prophet of God tells Ahaz, don'tdo this.
Don't do this.
But he does not listen.
He does not turn to God.
He makes an alliance.
And yes, it is a temporary fixto the problem, but it is no
long-term solution.
And in fact, it leads to moreapostasy because verse 10, he
sees this altar and has to oh,I've got to have one of these.
(10:20):
And so this may be done toimpress Tiglath-Pileser.
Interestingly, most scholarswill say that Assyria did not
seem to force religion on itsvassal provinces.
So he does not have to do this,and please don't cut him a pass
by saying he's forced to do it.
He wants to do it, and he doesit because he does not care
(10:42):
about God.
And it's just appalling to seethis being imported into Judea,
and he's just another brick inthe wall, if you will, another
step down the road of apostasy,another reason God will have to
bring judgment upon this wickedking and the terrible things
(11:02):
that he's introduced into Judea.
We'll talk more about this.
It's Tuesday, so we get Zoomtonight, Westsiders.
We'll talk more about this, andthere is clear parallels to
what we see so often today inwhich it seems like many times
brethren want to Welcome toWednesday.
(11:26):
Welcome to Wednesday.
Today we read 2 Kings 17, verse1.
(11:47):
1 to 23.
This is a very significant partof our reading because it is in
line with the purpose of Kings.
The purpose of Kings is to tellthe people why they went to
captivity.
That is different than thepurpose of Chronicles.
That's why the accounts thereare of different kings and
different activities.
(12:08):
They are not contradictory, ofcourse.
Don't get it twisted, butChronicles emphasizes different
points and different ideas.
Kings is all about why did Andthat really starts in verses 7
down through the rest of ourreading today, verse 23.
Just over and over again, Godremoved them out of his sight
until he cast them out of hissight.
(12:29):
He removed Israel out of hissight.
They despised his statutes.
They followed the nations.
Just work down through thatcarefully, and you will see that
obedience to God genuinelymatters.
All of this starts with Hosea.
Remember, he assassinatedPekah, chapter 15, verse 30, and
so he is not a good person, andhe He is a vassal of
Tiglath-Pileser.
(12:49):
But when Tiglath-Pileser died,verse 3, it seems that Hosea
decides they want to become afree state, and so he decides to
break away from Assyria, maybeget some help from Egypt.
That does not work.
And the end is they aredeported, verse 4, hundreds of
miles to the northeast.
Now, actually, Shalmaneser isthe king that follows
(13:12):
Tiglath-Pileser, but he diedduring this time.
It's his general, Sargon, whowas probably present at the
actual destruction of Samariaand all that happens with that.
And I want to give you a notehere about deportation.
This is something that I can doon a podcast.
I can't really get thisinformation to you any other
way.
People commonly imagine thatdeportation means that they
(13:33):
scraped every living person andtheir dog off the land and
shipped them all out of there.
I mean, if you had walkedthrough Israel after this, it
had just been a ghost town.
There'd just been nobody.
And that kind of thinking hasfed the misconception that there
is a lost 10 tribes out theresomewhere, which has led to
(13:54):
every kind of crazy theologythat you can imagine.
Oftentimes, there's some kindof thinking that Anglo-Saxon
people are, in fact, the lost 10tribes of Israel, and it's just
bizarre, and it's weird, and itdoes not work.
They do not deport everybody.
The logistics of that, ofcourse, are extremely difficult,
and if you deport everyone,then the land is empty, and it's
(14:17):
not making the the king anymoney.
So what deportation means isyou take the ruling aristocracy,
you take military leaders, youtake religious leaders, you take
the people who could rebel, andyou ship them out of there
because that breaks theirspirit.
And there is plenty of languagein other places in scripture
that indicates that there weresome Israelites left.
(14:39):
And that deportation does notmean everybody is gone.
So for example, in 2 Chronicles30 and verse 1, there are
Israelites said to have attendedvarious functions in Judah, and
there are many other placeslike that.
So they're shipping the mainbody of the population.
They are shipping educatedpeople.
They are shipping thearistocracy.
Those people are deported, butdon't imagine that the land is
(15:03):
just completely denuded of allpeople.
That is not exactly correct atall.
And I'll give you just one morenote.
I love the ESV very much, asyou know, but verse 14 says they
would not listen.
They were stubborn, and theterm there is stiff-necked, and
I think that's probably thebetter translation because that
references an animal like an oxor a donkey that will not turn
(15:26):
to the master's will, and thatis exactly what has happened
here.
Verses 7 to 23 detail that inexhaustive detail because it
matters.
Don't skip it.
Don't go through it too fast.
Sit down in it and learn whatwhat God is doing here when His
people will not obey Him.
Our reading for Wednesday, 2Kings 1, 2 Kings 17, verses 1 to
(15:49):
23.
Welcome to Thursday.
Welcome to Thursday.
And the reading today is 2Kings 17, verses 24 to 41.
This completes the story of theten tribes being taken into
captivity, being deported, bytelling about the people that
the Assyrians resettled in theland that is now known, or will
be known in New Testament timesespecially, And these foreigners
(16:12):
are struggling to adapt.
They don't understand how tolive in this land.
They don't know what to do inthis land.
And the land is not friendly.
Verse 25, There's lots ofconversation about how that
could have worked and why thiswould be there.
A lot of dead bodies after thewars and so forth.
How about we just believe theLord sent them because this is
(16:33):
God's land and it is a reminderof the broken covenant with God
and maybe even an attempt tohelp these people think about
the Lord But they aren'tthinking about the Lord in a
real way.
Mostly what they want is somesort of superstitious faith to
ward off the lions.
And I think a lot of peoplewant to use religion in that
sort of fashion.
I just want enough religion tokeep bad things from happening
(16:54):
to me.
And of course, a priest, verse28, is sent, but how could he
possibly help?
The priests that lived in thenorth as part of the ten tribes
there, they were all part ofJeroboam's religion, false
religion, corrupted religion.
What that means is that theworship here is just wrong from
the very beginning.
And I'm saying all of thisabout the Samaritans and Samaria
(17:15):
because in New Testament times,there's such hostility between
Jews and Samaritans.
And we see that reflected inthe ministry of Jesus several
times.
And it starts right here.
It starts right here.
These people are not pureIsraelites.
They don't understand aboutJehovah God, and they've never
worshiped him correctly.
And of course, it's a couple ofhundred years.
This is 722 BC when thenorthern tribes are deported.
(17:39):
So it's quite a while to untilJesus gets there, and there will
be a lot of different religiousmovements and things that go
along during that time,particularly in between Malachi
and Matthew, but it gets off toa bad start.
It seems, verse 29, that mostlywhat they want to do is worship
the local God, and we'll justadd that to our God so that
we're getting all of our basescovered.
(17:59):
And I kind of think verse 33may have some sarcasm there.
So they, quote, feared theLord, but they also served their
own gods.
I wonder if you couldn't putfeared the Lord there in air
quotes.
Yeah, they feared the Lord, andof course I'm doing that with
my fingers, which you can't seeon a podcast, but this is not
genuine service before the Lord.
(18:19):
These people don't know theLord.
God's making an effort to pushthem towards Him, but it doesn't
seem like that's really goinganywhere.
It's a sad end to this wholestory of the land and the people
that have come there.
They don't know God.
Maybe the passage that standsout the most is verse 24.
(18:39):
At the end of that verse, itsays they took possession of
Samaria and lived in its cities.
The expression took possessionis used in Deuteronomy of
Israel.
This is the land they shouldtake possession of.
They had it and they lost itbecause they would not really
fear the Lord.
Our reading for Thursday, 2Kings 17, 24-41.
(19:00):
It's Friday.
It's Friday and today, ofcourse, we are in the Psalms.
We're reading Psalm 38 todayand this is a key psalm if we
will be a person of David, aperson after God's own heart.
Psalm 38 is about suffering,and yes, in the Bible there is
innocent suffering.
I think about Job.
He suffers.
He is innocent.
(19:21):
But this is the suffering thatcomes because of sin.
And the question here is, canwe still pray to God when we've
cut off, we've cut ourselves offfrom the Lord by our own
iniquity and wrongdoing?
Is there any hope for us whenwe are in sin?
And so Psalm 38 directs us torepent and pray before the Lord.
This is called a Psalm ofPenitence.
(19:41):
There are not a lot of those inthe book of Psalms.
I guess Psalm 51 is probablythe most famous penitential
psalm, but there are others.
Psalm 6, 32, 38, 102, 130, and143.
These Psalms of Penitence pourout before God sorrow for sin
and a desire for the forgivenessand cleansing that can only
(20:01):
come from the Lord.
And while we are not entirelysure of the author of the psalm,
it certainly feels like one ofDavid's psalms, and it is found
in the very first book of thePsalms the first section of the
Psalms, and those are nearly allwritten by David.
I'm pretty comfortable sayingthis is David.
And as the Psalm begins, thereare very strong terms for God's
anger in verse 1, and it doesseem like David feels like God
(20:24):
has drawn a bullseye, a targeton him.
And then he repeatedly talksabout because.
Verse 3, because, because ofyour indignation.
Verse 5, because of myfoolishness.
And I don't think we candiagnose specifically what David
is sick with.
Maybe there is some largelanguage here, some poetry here,
some metaphors to just sayDavid feels absolutely sick with
(20:48):
sin and sick with guilt.
And so in verses 9 to 14, hebegins to talk about how he is
distant from God, and I can'tstand being distant from God,
and now he's talking about beingalienated from others.
And his silence, verse 13 and14, comes partly because he has
faith in God, as we will see,but partly because because he
(21:09):
knows he is guilty.
Job protests his innocence.
Hey, stop with I'm a badperson.
I'm not a bad person.
I did not do bad things.
David says, I know this is onme.
This is on me.
I have done what is wrong.
So his single hope then inverses 15 to 22 is to wait upon
the Lord, to trust in God.
And verse 20 provides us thebasic statement of David's
(21:31):
entire life.
Those who render me evil forgood accuse me because I follow
after good.
I'm standing with the Lord.
I want to stand with the Lord.
I confess that openly.
Verse 8 I rely upon thepromises of God to forgive me,
and I'm going to go back and dowhat's right.
So God, verse 21, please do notforsake me.
Be not far from me.
I love that what David is abouthere is his relationship with
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the Lord.
Not I got caught.
Not I'm experiencing a bunch ofbad consequences.
I want God.
I want to be in relationshipwith God.
Psalm 38.
That's our reading for Friday.
Thank you for listening then.
That's the podcast for theweek.
I hope it's helping you and Ihope that you're telling others
about it.
So until Monday when we'll openour Bibles together again.
(22:16):
I'm Mark Roberts and I want togo to heaven and I want you to
come too.
I'll see you on Monday with acup of coffee.
Speaker 00 (22:31):
Thanks for listening to the Westside Church of
Christ podcast, Monday MorningCoffee with Mark.
For more information aboutWestside, 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
(22:55):
can get free music.
Please share our podcast withothers, and we look forward to
seeing you again, with a cup ofcoffee, of course, on next
Monday.
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