August 25, 2025 • 20 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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Speaker 00 (00:01):
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 alook back at yesterday's sermon
so that we can think through itfurther and better work the
(00:24):
applications into our dailylives.
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,
August the 25th.
It's a special day todaybecause today Dena and I are
headed home.
As you're listening to this,we're in the airport in
Fairbanks, Alaska, getting readyto board an airplane to go to
Seattle, and there'll be alayover there, and then that
final leg of the journey home,Seattle to Dallas.
(01:14):
Really been a great trip.
Every bit of it has beenamazing and wonderful, but we're
excited, of course, to be home.
I think you know you've been onvacation long enough when
you're ready to be home.
And I am, I know you'rewondering, yep, I'm holding a
great cup of coffee.
This is some AeroPress that I'mworking with right here.
So you need to get yourself acup of coffee or tea or Dr.
(01:35):
Pepper or whatever it is thatstarts your Mondays.
Let's get ready.
Let's get set.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Our reading for Monday is 2Kings chapter 12.
The reading this week will bevery simple.
Just read a chapter a day.
2 Kings 12 on Monday, 13 onTuesday, 14 on Wednesday.
(01:55):
2 Kings 12, 13, 14.
You know where we're headed.
You know what we're doing.
Today it is 2 Kings chapter 12.
And today we are focused onKing Joash.
You may have there Jehoahash.
There's different ways ofwriting his name, spelling his
name.
Don't get lost in all of that.
He really has two periods oftime in his life.
First of all, he He is veryfaithful to the Lord.
(02:16):
while Jehoiada is alive.
But once Jehoiada passes away,and 2 Chronicles 24 covers this
in more detail, once Jehoiadapasses away, he just acts
terribly.
He just falls apartspiritually.
It's really a terrible,terribly sad story.
But here in 2 Kings 12, herepairs the temple.
(02:38):
Notice he's doing what's right,verse 2.
However, he does not have thestrength to enforce a national
return to the Lord.
You see that in verse 3.
But he is interested inrepairing the temple.
The temple's about 140 yearsold now.
It's been vandalized by idolworshipers, Athaliah and others.
Not a good situation.
Needs to be cleaned up, tidiedup, rebuilt, repaired.
(03:01):
And so some money is collected.
And it seems like, verses 7 and8, maybe there's...
Is there some dishonesty here?
Are they just not gettingaround to getting it done?
Have the priests not receivedtheir regular income so they're
using what's given for therestoration of the temple to
live on?
Joash gets all of that cleanedup and fixed up and we're making
(03:22):
the temple new again.
Now, all of that is spent, allthat money that's collected then
is spent on external repairs.
There's not making of basins ofsilver, verse 13, snuffers,
bowls, and trumpets.
but they are repairing theactual physical building of the
Lord.
However, he then begins to moveaway from God.
(03:43):
And verse 18 tells us, kind ofgives us some foreshadowing of
that in Joash's life.
He should have depended uponGod here, but instead he strips
the temple of its treasures.
So you get a good look there ofsomebody who's fading at the
finish line.
I've said a lot about that aswe've talked about youth
lectures.
In the at the end of their lifewho lose their way and don't
(04:09):
keep serving the Lord as theyshould.
Again, if you have time today,go read 2 Chronicles 24, and
you'll see that Jehoiada was awonderful, wonderful man, but
once his influence upon Joash isgone because he passes away,
then all of a sudden, Joash justgoes crazy and all kinds of
(04:29):
weakness follows.
Our reading for Monday, 2 Kings12.
It is Tuesday.
Welcome to Tuesday, and todaywe read 2 Kings chapter 13.
2 Kings chapter 13 is ourreading for Tuesday.
This is the reign of Jehoahaz.
We spent a little bit of timein Judea seeing what's going on
there with temple repairs.
What's happening in the north?
(04:50):
Well, in the north, in the 23rdyear of Joash, the son of
Ahaziah, king of Judah, the guywho's repairing the temple, the
things that go with that,there's a Jehoahaz, the son of
Jehu.
Remember, Jehu's been promiseda dynasty, and he began to reign
over Israel in Samaria.
However, He does evil, and thenext thing you know, here come
the Syrians, and they'reattacking and oppressing, and
(05:10):
all kinds of things are going onthere.
So in a very surprising move,verse 4, Cries to God.
And maybe just as surprising,God listens to a wicked king.
And so verse 5, a savior issent.
There's a lot of discussion asto exactly who this savior, who
this deliverer is.
But what this reminds me of,does this remind this?
Yeah, this is the judges.
(05:32):
It's the cycle of the judgesall over again.
I can't even believe this ishappening.
I'm not sure I would have seenthat as clearly if we hadn't
been in the judges all thissummer.
But it's like you're readingthe judges one more time.
But there's no real change.
Verse 6, in the heart of thepeople.
and the result of that isthere'll just be continued
oppression and continueddifficulty.
The chapter then ends bydiscussing the death of Elisha,
(05:54):
and there's kind of a puzzlingscenario going on here with the
king not...
not really showing faith.
And I'm not entirely certainwhat goes on here, what the
arrows represent.
They seem to represent thevictories of the Lord.
But verse 17, he has no realfaith.
He seems to be lackluster.
(06:15):
He seems to be, yeah, whatever,I'm doing this because this old
prophet's telling me to dothis.
And then the striking of theground, he seems to have done
that very timidly.
Yeah, okay, strike the ground.
Yeah, whatever.
And Elisha's angry and says,hey...
You should have vigorously donethis.
I'm telling you, this issymbolic of what God is going to
(06:36):
do for you.
And you want God to vigorouslydefeat your enemies.
You should be excited, justpounding the ground.
You would have had a greatvictory.
And I think this just showsvery clearly where things are in
Israel.
People are very, very far awayfrom God.
And even when they, for amoment, turn back to God because
the circumstances are bad, itreally does not last.
(06:58):
And then, of course, we getthis wonderful scene where they
bury Elisha, and next thing youknow, a guy jumps in the grave
because here comes some raiders,and when he touches the bones
of Elisha, they just throw thisdead body in the grave, and when
he touches the bones of Elisha,he revives.
What's the point of that story?
Why is this in the text?
That's a great question to ask,and I think the answer to that
(07:19):
is it shows the Word of God doesnot die with Elisha.
The Word of God has power.
This was a powerful man of God,and even his dead bones have
power.
Maybe something to be saidabout what we'll read in Ezekiel
later on about a valley of drybones, but the Word of God has
power even when Elisha, the manof God, is no longer alive.
(07:41):
Let's see here.
What do I need to tellWestsiders?
Well, I need to tell Westsidersthat we will have Zoom tonight.
No ifs, ands, or buts aboutthat.
Zoom call tonight.
We haven't had one in a while.
We will be in Zoom.
Everyone else will see you onthe podcast tomorrow.
Reading for Tuesday.
Our reading for Tuesday.
2 Kings chapter 13.
Welcome to Wednesday.
(08:02):
Welcome to Wednesday.
Tim Jennings will be with ustonight at Westside in the last
of our summer series on thejudges.
Tim will be talking aboutSamuel and that's...
That's just going to be soimportant for us as we continue
to think about the king.
Samuel is the kingmaker, and hestarted all of that with King
Saul.
So I'm excited to hear what Timhas to say about Samuel.
(08:22):
Our reading today is 2 Kingschapter 14, and it's all about
the reign of Amaziah.
Amaziah seems like many of theother kings.
He does right for a while, butafter God blesses him, he
becomes full of pride, and thenhe leaves the Lord.
And you may be a littlesurprised about some of this
here because he seems like he'sdoing fairly Well, verse 7, he
(08:43):
struck down 10,000 Edomites.
And there's a fuller account ofthat over in 2 Chronicles.
Now here in a minute, thewriter of Kings tells us about
this battle with Jehoahash, kingof Israel, and Amaziah gets
beaten.
And we may be thinking, whatjust happened here?
I thought this guy's a prettygood king.
But if you go read the parallelaccount in 2 Chronicles chapter
25, he hired troops to take onthe Edomites and was told by God
(09:09):
not to do that.
He was told, 2 Chronicles 25,7, by a prophet not to use the
mercenary troops.
In fact, a central theme inChronicles is to not form
foreign alliances.
And then he ends up worshipingthe gods of the Edomites.
So Amaziah is not doing a greatjob as king.
And then he decides to take onIsrael.
(09:29):
And Israel, then they kind oftalk some smack back and forth.
And the next thing you know,Amaziah is utterly defeated.
He is completely demolished onthe field of battle.
Verse 14, Josephus says thatAmaziah was released after the
battle, and in things, I guess,he went back to trying to be the
king and the things thathappened there, but the bottom
(09:50):
line to all of that is he's nota great king, and he ends up
with a conspiracy.
Verse 19, this is the same kindof thing that happens so often.
A conspiracy is against him,and he tries to get out of
Dodge, but that doesn't doesn'twork, and he ends up being put
to death.
The chapter then ends in verses23 to 29 with one of the single
(10:12):
most important kings innorthern Israel in Israelite
history, and this is JeroboamII.
Make sure you have a note thatit's Jeroboam II, not Jeroboam
I.
You'll end up being confused.
Jeroboam I, Jeroboam, andRehoboam are the two kings when
the kingdom split after Solomon.
This is not Jeroboam I.
This is Jeroboam II.
And this is a time when there'sa little power vacuum going on.
(10:34):
The seer are declining and theAssyrians are coming on, but
they're not fully there yet.
And Jeroboam II expands Israelduring that time.
He is very important in theoverall political history of
this region, and there'stremendous economic prosperity
going on.
All kinds of great things arehappening, and none of that
(10:57):
really matters because he's anidolater.
And that's what 2 Kings givesattention to, noting, for
example, this is the Jonah,verse 25, yeah, that's that
Jonah.
This is the time of theprophets trying to turn Jeroboam
II's heart back to God.
Our reading for Wednesday, 2Kings, chapter 14.
(11:19):
It's Thursday.
It is Thursday, and our readingtoday is 2 Kings chapter 15, 1
to 16.
This is an interesting reading,and in some ways it's an
appalling reading.
It'll be a reading you have ahard time stopping at, verse 16,
but we're going to supplementthis with some material in
Chronicles as well.
So buckle up.
Here we go.
In 2 Kings 15, we start withUzziah.
(11:40):
Some translations will haveAzariah.
This is that whole business ofdifferent ways of spelling the
name, or it may be that his namewas changed.
Azariah means Jehovah hashelped, but the Then when he
becomes the king of Judah at age16, he may have changed his
name to a throne name, Uzziah,which means Jehovah is his
strength.
And even today, the king ofEngland, Whatever his name is,
(12:03):
now he's king something else,and I can't remember, and I
don't know.
And the reality is, in 1776, wefought a big war so that I
don't have to know those things.
That was for free.
Get some coffee, and let'sthink about Uzziah here.
He's a great king, and hereigns a long time.
And you see the stability thathe brings to Judea.
Then there is that enigmaticreference there, the Lord
(12:25):
touched him, verse 5, and he wasa leper.
If you want to know what that'sabout, you have to go to 2
Chronicles 26.
In 2 Chronicles Chronicles 26,he gets too big for his
britches.
That's a wonderful East Texasexpression.
And the Lord takes him down apeg.
And that is a powerful storythat always reminds me of why we
read our Bible.
(12:45):
because I was fairly confidentearly in my preaching life that
I knew the Bible, at least thefacts of the Bible and the
stories of the Bible, prettymuch backwards and forwards.
And I'm reading along, doingdaily Bible reading, trying to
read the Bible through in a yearkind of thing.
And I pop over to 2 Chronicles26, and here's this king who
struck with leprosy.
And I just sat there absolutelystunned.
(13:05):
I had no idea that was in theBible.
I did not know that was in theBible.
I had never read that.
I had never heard anythingabout any of that.
I was examining my Bible to seeif somebody had added to the
Word of God?
Nope.
It's part of the Bible, just in2 Chronicles chapter 26.
The main emphasis in 2 Kings,of course, is always what's
going on in Israel.
And so beginning in verse 8, weget this slide into disaster.
(13:29):
We're probably about looking atabout 20 years of history here,
753 to 732.
We have five kings and fourconspiracies.
And remember, When you haveassassinations like this, it
just indicates the corruptionand decay that's setting into
the land.
People don't respect authority.
They don't respect the king.
(13:49):
They don't want to do what'sright.
They just do whatever they wantto do.
So we're going to start up herewith Zechariah, the son of
Jeroboam, reigning over Israel.
He reigned six months.
He's not a good king.
Surprise, surprise, surprise.
There are no good kings inIsrael.
And so verse 10, Shalomconspires and kills him.
And then...
we get a little note there inverse 12.
(14:11):
This was the promise of theLord that he gave to Jehu.
Your son shall sit on thethrone of Israel to the fourth
generation.
I think that's probably themost important verse in our
reading today.
I don't have to know all thesekings' names and what about this
guy and what about that guy.
What I need to know is thateven though people were doing
wicked things, God kept hisword.
You cannot stop God.
(14:32):
And so he'd made a promise toJehu and God keeps his promise.
That's what happening here.
So then Shalom jumps on thethrone, verse 13, and Minaham
says, I don't want you to be theking, and so we've got death
and every kind, and then verse16, Minaham sacks the city
because they don't open thegates to him, which means
they're rejecting him, andpeople die just in horrible
(14:55):
fashions.
Maybe this is something toremember about the peace and
stability, the relative peaceand stability that we've known
here in our country.
We don't have violent overthrowof the government, and if you
don't open the city gates, Seeyou on Friday.
It's Friday.
(15:31):
It is Friday.
You made it through anotherweek.
Let's do the Psalm.
Psalm 37 is the Psalm fortoday.
This is a longer Psalm, 40verses.
Psalm 37 has 40 verses to it,and it is not a Psalm that is
easy to outline.
The reason it's difficult tooutline in the main is because
it is an acrostic.
That means that every stanzabegins with a letter, the
(15:53):
corresponding letter of theHebrew alphabet.
The stanzas here are usuallyfour lines, and this is an
artistic device that makes thePsalm very, very beautiful and
and shows that a lot of thoughtwent into it.
It's also a way of saying I'mcovering this subject from A to
Z, so to speak, but probablymore than anything, it was a way
of helping students to rememberthe truths here.
The author, probably David,remember the headings are
(16:15):
uninspired, he seems to be anold man here reflecting upon
God's dealings with therighteous and with the wicked,
and that makes it very much awisdom or instructional psalm.
As you read this, you'll thinkyou're reading Proverbs because
it's just Proverbs right oneafter another on the same
subject.
And really, this psalm is notnearly so God speaking to man.
(16:35):
This is man speaking to God andtalking to God about final
justice and the blessing of therighteous.
Those concepts just permeatethis whole psalm.
So it begins with the quietspirit, verses 1 to 11.
And I love verse 1, fret notyourself because of evildoers.
That's a great verse to thinkabout in a time when we're just
constantly looking at the news,looking at our news feed,
(16:57):
tapping on that, clicking onthat.
The 24-hour news cycle just...
just feeds on fretting.
Psalm 37.1 says we're not goingto fret about that.
And if you're having troubledoing Psalm 37.1, then cut all
that other nonsense off.
That's undermining our patiencewith God.
Look at verse 7, be stillbefore the Lord and wait
patiently for him.
Then the psalmist talks aboutour hidden help in verses 12 to
(17:20):
26.
And I do like the idea here ofhow sin can boomerang on evil
people.
Verses 14 and 15, the wickeddraw the sword and bend their
bows to So often, the Bible usesthe boomerang principle.
(17:40):
You understand, you throw thatboomerang in here in a minute,
it's going to come back.
You better duck or put yourhand up to catch it.
And the psalmist says beingwicked doesn't work.
It's going to come back aroundon you.
The way of the transgressor ishard.
I just hurt myself when Ibecome involved in sin.
And that's a great reminderwhen we get frustrated with all
the evildoers.
(18:00):
Hey, hey, maybe I'll just takethis into my own hands.
Vigilante justice.
I'm going to get armed.
I'm going to bomb the abortionclinic.
No, no.
God's people don't do that.
We take the long view, verses27 to 40.
We allow the Lord to establishour steps, verse 23.
We trust in God.
This whole psalm helps us in aworld that's just topsy-turvy
(18:22):
with evil and violence to say, Itrust in the Lord.
I delight in God, verse 4.
I wait on the Lord, verse 7.
He He is the one that I know isactive and will deliver, verse
40.
That's our psalm for thisFriday.
Psalm 37 is our reading forFriday.
(18:42):
That's the podcast then for theweek.
Certainly do appreciate youlistening to the podcast.
I hope it's helping you withyour daily Bible reading.
And as we keep track of thesermon on Sunday, and I share
some notes from that sermon withyou each Monday morning.
Hope your coffee's been goodthis week.
Dean and I certainly are gladto be home from a great trip.
Looking forward to an excellentfall here at Westside as we
(19:05):
grow together in the Word ofGod.
Tell others about the podcastand leave a rating or review.
Well, that's it.
I look forward to seeing younext Monday.
I'm Mark Roberts.
And I want to go to heaven, andI want you to come too.
See you Monday with a cup ofcoffee.
Speaker 00 (19:29):
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
(19:53):
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Please share our podcast withothers, and we look forward to
seeing you again, with a cup ofcoffee, of course, on next
Monday.
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 alook back at yesterday's sermon
so that we can think through itfurther and better work the
(00:24):
applications into our dailylives.
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,
August the 25th.
It's a special day todaybecause today Dena and I are
headed home.
As you're listening to this,we're in the airport in
Fairbanks, Alaska, getting readyto board an airplane to go to
Seattle, and there'll be alayover there, and then that
final leg of the journey home,Seattle to Dallas.
(01:14):
Really been a great trip.
Every bit of it has beenamazing and wonderful, but we're
excited, of course, to be home.
I think you know you've been onvacation long enough when
you're ready to be home.
And I am, I know you'rewondering, yep, I'm holding a
great cup of coffee.
This is some AeroPress that I'mworking with right here.
So you need to get yourself acup of coffee or tea or Dr.
(01:35):
Pepper or whatever it is thatstarts your Mondays.
Let's get ready.
Let's get set.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Our reading for Monday is 2Kings chapter 12.
The reading this week will bevery simple.
Just read a chapter a day.
2 Kings 12 on Monday, 13 onTuesday, 14 on Wednesday.
(01:55):
2 Kings 12, 13, 14.
You know where we're headed.
You know what we're doing.
Today it is 2 Kings chapter 12.
And today we are focused onKing Joash.
You may have there Jehoahash.
There's different ways ofwriting his name, spelling his
name.
Don't get lost in all of that.
He really has two periods oftime in his life.
First of all, he He is veryfaithful to the Lord.
(02:16):
while Jehoiada is alive.
But once Jehoiada passes away,and 2 Chronicles 24 covers this
in more detail, once Jehoiadapasses away, he just acts
terribly.
He just falls apartspiritually.
It's really a terrible,terribly sad story.
But here in 2 Kings 12, herepairs the temple.
(02:38):
Notice he's doing what's right,verse 2.
However, he does not have thestrength to enforce a national
return to the Lord.
You see that in verse 3.
But he is interested inrepairing the temple.
The temple's about 140 yearsold now.
It's been vandalized by idolworshipers, Athaliah and others.
Not a good situation.
Needs to be cleaned up, tidiedup, rebuilt, repaired.
(03:01):
And so some money is collected.
And it seems like, verses 7 and8, maybe there's...
Is there some dishonesty here?
Are they just not gettingaround to getting it done?
Have the priests not receivedtheir regular income so they're
using what's given for therestoration of the temple to
live on?
Joash gets all of that cleanedup and fixed up and we're making
(03:22):
the temple new again.
Now, all of that is spent, allthat money that's collected then
is spent on external repairs.
There's not making of basins ofsilver, verse 13, snuffers,
bowls, and trumpets.
but they are repairing theactual physical building of the
Lord.
However, he then begins to moveaway from God.
(03:43):
And verse 18 tells us, kind ofgives us some foreshadowing of
that in Joash's life.
He should have depended uponGod here, but instead he strips
the temple of its treasures.
So you get a good look there ofsomebody who's fading at the
finish line.
I've said a lot about that aswe've talked about youth
lectures.
In the at the end of their lifewho lose their way and don't
(04:09):
keep serving the Lord as theyshould.
Again, if you have time today,go read 2 Chronicles 24, and
you'll see that Jehoiada was awonderful, wonderful man, but
once his influence upon Joash isgone because he passes away,
then all of a sudden, Joash justgoes crazy and all kinds of
(04:29):
weakness follows.
Our reading for Monday, 2 Kings12.
It is Tuesday.
Welcome to Tuesday, and todaywe read 2 Kings chapter 13.
2 Kings chapter 13 is ourreading for Tuesday.
This is the reign of Jehoahaz.
We spent a little bit of timein Judea seeing what's going on
there with temple repairs.
What's happening in the north?
(04:50):
Well, in the north, in the 23rdyear of Joash, the son of
Ahaziah, king of Judah, the guywho's repairing the temple, the
things that go with that,there's a Jehoahaz, the son of
Jehu.
Remember, Jehu's been promiseda dynasty, and he began to reign
over Israel in Samaria.
However, He does evil, and thenext thing you know, here come
the Syrians, and they'reattacking and oppressing, and
(05:10):
all kinds of things are going onthere.
So in a very surprising move,verse 4, Cries to God.
And maybe just as surprising,God listens to a wicked king.
And so verse 5, a savior issent.
There's a lot of discussion asto exactly who this savior, who
this deliverer is.
But what this reminds me of,does this remind this?
Yeah, this is the judges.
(05:32):
It's the cycle of the judgesall over again.
I can't even believe this ishappening.
I'm not sure I would have seenthat as clearly if we hadn't
been in the judges all thissummer.
But it's like you're readingthe judges one more time.
But there's no real change.
Verse 6, in the heart of thepeople.
and the result of that isthere'll just be continued
oppression and continueddifficulty.
The chapter then ends bydiscussing the death of Elisha,
(05:54):
and there's kind of a puzzlingscenario going on here with the
king not...
not really showing faith.
And I'm not entirely certainwhat goes on here, what the
arrows represent.
They seem to represent thevictories of the Lord.
But verse 17, he has no realfaith.
He seems to be lackluster.
(06:15):
He seems to be, yeah, whatever,I'm doing this because this old
prophet's telling me to dothis.
And then the striking of theground, he seems to have done
that very timidly.
Yeah, okay, strike the ground.
Yeah, whatever.
And Elisha's angry and says,hey...
You should have vigorously donethis.
I'm telling you, this issymbolic of what God is going to
(06:36):
do for you.
And you want God to vigorouslydefeat your enemies.
You should be excited, justpounding the ground.
You would have had a greatvictory.
And I think this just showsvery clearly where things are in
Israel.
People are very, very far awayfrom God.
And even when they, for amoment, turn back to God because
the circumstances are bad, itreally does not last.
(06:58):
And then, of course, we getthis wonderful scene where they
bury Elisha, and next thing youknow, a guy jumps in the grave
because here comes some raiders,and when he touches the bones
of Elisha, they just throw thisdead body in the grave, and when
he touches the bones of Elisha,he revives.
What's the point of that story?
Why is this in the text?
That's a great question to ask,and I think the answer to that
(07:19):
is it shows the Word of God doesnot die with Elisha.
The Word of God has power.
This was a powerful man of God,and even his dead bones have
power.
Maybe something to be saidabout what we'll read in Ezekiel
later on about a valley of drybones, but the Word of God has
power even when Elisha, the manof God, is no longer alive.
(07:41):
Let's see here.
What do I need to tellWestsiders?
Well, I need to tell Westsidersthat we will have Zoom tonight.
No ifs, ands, or buts aboutthat.
Zoom call tonight.
We haven't had one in a while.
We will be in Zoom.
Everyone else will see you onthe podcast tomorrow.
Reading for Tuesday.
Our reading for Tuesday.
2 Kings chapter 13.
Welcome to Wednesday.
(08:02):
Welcome to Wednesday.
Tim Jennings will be with ustonight at Westside in the last
of our summer series on thejudges.
Tim will be talking aboutSamuel and that's...
That's just going to be soimportant for us as we continue
to think about the king.
Samuel is the kingmaker, and hestarted all of that with King
Saul.
So I'm excited to hear what Timhas to say about Samuel.
(08:22):
Our reading today is 2 Kingschapter 14, and it's all about
the reign of Amaziah.
Amaziah seems like many of theother kings.
He does right for a while, butafter God blesses him, he
becomes full of pride, and thenhe leaves the Lord.
And you may be a littlesurprised about some of this
here because he seems like he'sdoing fairly Well, verse 7, he
(08:43):
struck down 10,000 Edomites.
And there's a fuller account ofthat over in 2 Chronicles.
Now here in a minute, thewriter of Kings tells us about
this battle with Jehoahash, kingof Israel, and Amaziah gets
beaten.
And we may be thinking, whatjust happened here?
I thought this guy's a prettygood king.
But if you go read the parallelaccount in 2 Chronicles chapter
25, he hired troops to take onthe Edomites and was told by God
(09:09):
not to do that.
He was told, 2 Chronicles 25,7, by a prophet not to use the
mercenary troops.
In fact, a central theme inChronicles is to not form
foreign alliances.
And then he ends up worshipingthe gods of the Edomites.
So Amaziah is not doing a greatjob as king.
And then he decides to take onIsrael.
(09:29):
And Israel, then they kind oftalk some smack back and forth.
And the next thing you know,Amaziah is utterly defeated.
He is completely demolished onthe field of battle.
Verse 14, Josephus says thatAmaziah was released after the
battle, and in things, I guess,he went back to trying to be the
king and the things thathappened there, but the bottom
(09:50):
line to all of that is he's nota great king, and he ends up
with a conspiracy.
Verse 19, this is the same kindof thing that happens so often.
A conspiracy is against him,and he tries to get out of
Dodge, but that doesn't doesn'twork, and he ends up being put
to death.
The chapter then ends in verses23 to 29 with one of the single
(10:12):
most important kings innorthern Israel in Israelite
history, and this is JeroboamII.
Make sure you have a note thatit's Jeroboam II, not Jeroboam
I.
You'll end up being confused.
Jeroboam I, Jeroboam, andRehoboam are the two kings when
the kingdom split after Solomon.
This is not Jeroboam I.
This is Jeroboam II.
And this is a time when there'sa little power vacuum going on.
(10:34):
The seer are declining and theAssyrians are coming on, but
they're not fully there yet.
And Jeroboam II expands Israelduring that time.
He is very important in theoverall political history of
this region, and there'stremendous economic prosperity
going on.
All kinds of great things arehappening, and none of that
(10:57):
really matters because he's anidolater.
And that's what 2 Kings givesattention to, noting, for
example, this is the Jonah,verse 25, yeah, that's that
Jonah.
This is the time of theprophets trying to turn Jeroboam
II's heart back to God.
Our reading for Wednesday, 2Kings, chapter 14.
(11:19):
It's Thursday.
It is Thursday, and our readingtoday is 2 Kings chapter 15, 1
to 16.
This is an interesting reading,and in some ways it's an
appalling reading.
It'll be a reading you have ahard time stopping at, verse 16,
but we're going to supplementthis with some material in
Chronicles as well.
So buckle up.
Here we go.
In 2 Kings 15, we start withUzziah.
(11:40):
Some translations will haveAzariah.
This is that whole business ofdifferent ways of spelling the
name, or it may be that his namewas changed.
Azariah means Jehovah hashelped, but the Then when he
becomes the king of Judah at age16, he may have changed his
name to a throne name, Uzziah,which means Jehovah is his
strength.
And even today, the king ofEngland, Whatever his name is,
(12:03):
now he's king something else,and I can't remember, and I
don't know.
And the reality is, in 1776, wefought a big war so that I
don't have to know those things.
That was for free.
Get some coffee, and let'sthink about Uzziah here.
He's a great king, and hereigns a long time.
And you see the stability thathe brings to Judea.
Then there is that enigmaticreference there, the Lord
(12:25):
touched him, verse 5, and he wasa leper.
If you want to know what that'sabout, you have to go to 2
Chronicles 26.
In 2 Chronicles Chronicles 26,he gets too big for his
britches.
That's a wonderful East Texasexpression.
And the Lord takes him down apeg.
And that is a powerful storythat always reminds me of why we
read our Bible.
(12:45):
because I was fairly confidentearly in my preaching life that
I knew the Bible, at least thefacts of the Bible and the
stories of the Bible, prettymuch backwards and forwards.
And I'm reading along, doingdaily Bible reading, trying to
read the Bible through in a yearkind of thing.
And I pop over to 2 Chronicles26, and here's this king who
struck with leprosy.
And I just sat there absolutelystunned.
(13:05):
I had no idea that was in theBible.
I did not know that was in theBible.
I had never read that.
I had never heard anythingabout any of that.
I was examining my Bible to seeif somebody had added to the
Word of God?
Nope.
It's part of the Bible, just in2 Chronicles chapter 26.
The main emphasis in 2 Kings,of course, is always what's
going on in Israel.
And so beginning in verse 8, weget this slide into disaster.
(13:29):
We're probably about looking atabout 20 years of history here,
753 to 732.
We have five kings and fourconspiracies.
And remember, When you haveassassinations like this, it
just indicates the corruptionand decay that's setting into
the land.
People don't respect authority.
They don't respect the king.
(13:49):
They don't want to do what'sright.
They just do whatever they wantto do.
So we're going to start up herewith Zechariah, the son of
Jeroboam, reigning over Israel.
He reigned six months.
He's not a good king.
Surprise, surprise, surprise.
There are no good kings inIsrael.
And so verse 10, Shalomconspires and kills him.
And then...
we get a little note there inverse 12.
(14:11):
This was the promise of theLord that he gave to Jehu.
Your son shall sit on thethrone of Israel to the fourth
generation.
I think that's probably themost important verse in our
reading today.
I don't have to know all thesekings' names and what about this
guy and what about that guy.
What I need to know is thateven though people were doing
wicked things, God kept hisword.
You cannot stop God.
(14:32):
And so he'd made a promise toJehu and God keeps his promise.
That's what happening here.
So then Shalom jumps on thethrone, verse 13, and Minaham
says, I don't want you to be theking, and so we've got death
and every kind, and then verse16, Minaham sacks the city
because they don't open thegates to him, which means
they're rejecting him, andpeople die just in horrible
(14:55):
fashions.
Maybe this is something toremember about the peace and
stability, the relative peaceand stability that we've known
here in our country.
We don't have violent overthrowof the government, and if you
don't open the city gates, Seeyou on Friday.
It's Friday.
(15:31):
It is Friday.
You made it through anotherweek.
Let's do the Psalm.
Psalm 37 is the Psalm fortoday.
This is a longer Psalm, 40verses.
Psalm 37 has 40 verses to it,and it is not a Psalm that is
easy to outline.
The reason it's difficult tooutline in the main is because
it is an acrostic.
That means that every stanzabegins with a letter, the
(15:53):
corresponding letter of theHebrew alphabet.
The stanzas here are usuallyfour lines, and this is an
artistic device that makes thePsalm very, very beautiful and
and shows that a lot of thoughtwent into it.
It's also a way of saying I'mcovering this subject from A to
Z, so to speak, but probablymore than anything, it was a way
of helping students to rememberthe truths here.
The author, probably David,remember the headings are
(16:15):
uninspired, he seems to be anold man here reflecting upon
God's dealings with therighteous and with the wicked,
and that makes it very much awisdom or instructional psalm.
As you read this, you'll thinkyou're reading Proverbs because
it's just Proverbs right oneafter another on the same
subject.
And really, this psalm is notnearly so God speaking to man.
(16:35):
This is man speaking to God andtalking to God about final
justice and the blessing of therighteous.
Those concepts just permeatethis whole psalm.
So it begins with the quietspirit, verses 1 to 11.
And I love verse 1, fret notyourself because of evildoers.
That's a great verse to thinkabout in a time when we're just
constantly looking at the news,looking at our news feed,
(16:57):
tapping on that, clicking onthat.
The 24-hour news cycle just...
just feeds on fretting.
Psalm 37.1 says we're not goingto fret about that.
And if you're having troubledoing Psalm 37.1, then cut all
that other nonsense off.
That's undermining our patiencewith God.
Look at verse 7, be stillbefore the Lord and wait
patiently for him.
Then the psalmist talks aboutour hidden help in verses 12 to
(17:20):
26.
And I do like the idea here ofhow sin can boomerang on evil
people.
Verses 14 and 15, the wickeddraw the sword and bend their
bows to So often, the Bible usesthe boomerang principle.
(17:40):
You understand, you throw thatboomerang in here in a minute,
it's going to come back.
You better duck or put yourhand up to catch it.
And the psalmist says beingwicked doesn't work.
It's going to come back aroundon you.
The way of the transgressor ishard.
I just hurt myself when Ibecome involved in sin.
And that's a great reminderwhen we get frustrated with all
the evildoers.
(18:00):
Hey, hey, maybe I'll just takethis into my own hands.
Vigilante justice.
I'm going to get armed.
I'm going to bomb the abortionclinic.
No, no.
God's people don't do that.
We take the long view, verses27 to 40.
We allow the Lord to establishour steps, verse 23.
We trust in God.
This whole psalm helps us in aworld that's just topsy-turvy
(18:22):
with evil and violence to say, Itrust in the Lord.
I delight in God, verse 4.
I wait on the Lord, verse 7.
He He is the one that I know isactive and will deliver, verse
40.
That's our psalm for thisFriday.
Psalm 37 is our reading forFriday.
(18:42):
That's the podcast then for theweek.
Certainly do appreciate youlistening to the podcast.
I hope it's helping you withyour daily Bible reading.
And as we keep track of thesermon on Sunday, and I share
some notes from that sermon withyou each Monday morning.
Hope your coffee's been goodthis week.
Dean and I certainly are gladto be home from a great trip.
Looking forward to an excellentfall here at Westside as we
(19:05):
grow together in the Word ofGod.
Tell others about the podcastand leave a rating or review.
Well, that's it.
I look forward to seeing younext Monday.
I'm Mark Roberts.
And I want to go to heaven, andI want you to come too.
See you Monday with a cup ofcoffee.
Speaker 00 (19:29):
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
(19:53):
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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