June 30, 2025 • 27 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 forward intothis week's Bible reading so
that we can know what to expectand watch for.
And he may have some extra bonusthoughts 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...
June the 30th.
June the 30th.
How about that?
July 4th is on the horizon.
Lots of us will have someholiday time, maybe some time
with family.
I know you're looking forward tothat.
I know that you're stillthinking about yesterday's
sermon.
I promised a bonus note today,and I know that you're eager to
be about this business in theWord of God in 1 Kings as we
(01:16):
continue daily Bible reading.
All of that and much more.
Let's get ready.
Let's get set.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Yesterday in the 1040, becauseit's the fifth Sunday of the
month, I did Q&A, and I answeredan important question about the
state of Israel, the modernnation of Israel, and are
Christians obligated to supportthat nation politically?
(01:38):
Is that something the Biblemandates for us to do?
And of course, I think if youpolled most people on the
streets, they would sayabsolutely.
Senator Ted Cruz, I've I quotedhim yesterday.
He just reflects the popularbelief that that nation is still
somehow the people of God, andGod owes them something.
It is going to do something forthem.
(01:58):
All of that is very, veryprevalent, especially here in
the South.
I don't know the reaction you'dget if you were talking to
people in Canada or maybe inMinnesota or Maine, but in
Texas...
I see lots of bumper stickers,support Israel.
I see the bumper sticker withthe word Jerusalem and the USA
(02:18):
in the middle of the wordJerusalem is in red, white, and
blue.
Lots of support politically forthe state of Israel.
Now, where does all that comefrom?
How does that just seep intopublic consciousness where
everybody just buys it withouteven thinking about it?
And the answer to that is itcomes from the Schofield Study
Bible.
Cyrus Schofield was a Civil Warveteran.
(02:40):
He became a believer as anadult.
He pastored churches in Dallasand Massachusetts.
He was closely affiliated withD.L.
Moody.
And Schofield began to work onthis reference Bible with his
notes in the margins, the studyBible system.
And part of that was he wantedto popularize a new way of
interpreting the end times.
(03:02):
This had been put together by anAnglo-Irish man named John
Nelson Darby, and it was calleddispensationalism.
And when that Bible waspublished with all of those
dispensational notes in 1909,there was a time of great
expectation about the end of theworld.
Lots of people were thinkingeverything was about to wrap up.
And so this idea of reading theBible through that lens was,
(03:26):
that quickly made this one ofthe best-selling Bibles in
history.
And it is the SchofieldReference Bible that created Hal
Lindsey and the late greatplanet Earth and Christian
Zionism and the idea of therapture and Jesus will return
and they'll rebuild the templeand Jews will convert in mass to
Jesus.
That whole left-behind bookseries and movies, it's all from
(03:49):
the Schofield Bible.
That Bible has dominatedhistory.
what believers in the Biblethink about the end times for
the last hundred years.
And it is a terrible Bible.
Schofield changed the text ofthe King James Version in
several places.
He allegorized a lot of stuff.
(04:09):
His notes in the margins arejust dreadful.
And of course, his premillennialdispensational theology The
rapture, Jesus will return toset up his kingdom.
The kingdom is not in existencenow.
He has to come back and tryagain.
The thousand-year reign ofChrist, all of that comes from
the Schofield Study Bible, andit It explicitly supports the
(04:34):
modern-day nation of Israel.
In fact, the New Schofield StudyBible, which came out in 1984,
intensifies some of this.
Even it adds, for a nation tocommit the sin of anti-Semitism
brings inevitable judgment.
That's it.
That's it.
This is the idea that has a hugeinfluence on American foreign
(04:55):
policy and on the way Americansperceive and think of the modern
nation of Israel.
Hand in hand with that, we nowhave the Ryrie Study Bible.
Ryrie was a professor at DallasTheological Seminary, which is
just the seat of premillennialthinking in this country.
He is more contemporary thanSchofield.
Ryrie passed away in 2016, andhe put out the Ryrie Study
(05:17):
Bible.
It has thousands of his notes.
It sold more than two millioncopies, and he is a huge
proponent of classicdispensational premillennialism.
So, for example, from the RyrieStudy Bible, the crucial issue
in relation to premillennialismare twofold.
Does the Abrahamic covenantpromise Israel a permanent
(05:39):
existence as a nation?
If it does, then the church isnot fulfilling Israel's
promises.
And secondly, does the Abrahamiccovenant promise Israel
permanent possession of thepromised land?
If it does, then Israel must yetcome into possession of the
promised land, for she has neverfully possessed it in her
(06:01):
history.
These two Bibles, the SchofieldStudy Bible, the Ryrie Study
Bible, have influenced so manypeople's thinking.
And all of that, I think, servesto warn us it's a cautionary
tale about the value of studyBibles.
Because when the note is justright there in the margin of
your Bible, it is hard for us tothink past that, to see the text
(06:25):
clearly.
on our own.
It colors our view, and if thewriter of those study notes
holds a false view of thekingdom of God, then that can
distort how we read the Bible,and we may not even realize it.
We think we're reading theBible.
What we're really doing is we'rereading those notes in the
margin into the Bible.
So sometimes people ask me, whatstudy Bible do you recommend?
(06:47):
And the answer to that is, Idon't.
Get yourself a Bible with aclean text.
Get yourself a Bible thatdoesn't have some man's opinions
written in the margins rightthere close to the text so that
it just starts sliding into yourthinking.
Get yourself a Bible.
Do your own study.
Draw your own conclusions.
Don't let someone tell you whatto believe or think.
(07:08):
Make sure you're studying yourBible for yourself.
Make sure you're studying yourBible for yourself.
There's the bonus note to get usstarted this week.
Now, let's get those Biblesopen, hopefully not Schofield or
Ryrie study Bibles.
UNKNOWN (07:23):
Oh, my.
SPEAKER_01 (07:24):
Hopefully, just a good standard word-for-word
literal translation, an EnglishStandard Bible, New American
Standard Bible.
Get your Bible open.
Let's get over to 1 Kings 12,and let's talk about daily Bible
reading.
(07:54):
It is Monday, and today'sreading is 1 Kings chapter 12,
verses 16 to 33.
The kingdom formally divideshere in our reading today.
Israel will never be a unitedkingdom again.
Let me give you a time framehere, see if I can help out a
little bit with where we are.
The exodus from Egypt would bedated, should be dated, about
(08:16):
1440 AD.
1,440 years before the birth ofChrist.
Now, there's some give or takein there.
The calendar gets a little wonkywith Roman Caesars moving things
around, but I'm going 1,440 is agood date, which means Saul
becomes king in 1050.
David becomes king in 1010.
Solomon becomes king in 970.
And today, we're reading in 930.
(08:39):
Notice each of those guys reign40 years.
Saul, 1050, reign 40 years.
That puts David on the throne in1010.
David reigned 40 years.
Solomon becomes king afterDavid's 40-year reign, so that
puts him on the throne in 970.
Solomon reigned 40 years, 930.
We're 930 years away from thebirth of Jesus, like I said,
(08:59):
give or take.
And I should just say this.
The northern kingdom, thenorthern ten tribes, will come
to an end and be carried awayinto Assyrian captivity in 722.
So there are some dates.
You might write that in themargin of your Bible.
Good thing to hold on to rightthere.
So, what happens today in 1Kings chapter 12?
Well, the northern ten tribessecede from the rest of Israel,
(09:22):
and from now on, we'll haveIsrael, which is the northern
ten tribes, that's how they'llbe referred to, and Judah in the
south.
Northern ten tribes, southerntribe is Judah, and you get that
clear, clear business of Wedon't need you, Judah.
To your tents, verse 16, OIsrael.
And that echoes the words, bythe way, of Sheba during that
(09:43):
second rebellion after Absalom'srebellion in 2 Samuel chapter
20.
We're not part of them.
They're not part of us.
They don't like us.
And you know what?
We don't care much for themeither.
We're out of here.
We're going to do our own thing.
And it is important, I think,here to notice that David's name
occurs four times in verses 16to 20.
David is the ideal king.
David is the one that everyoneis measured by.
(10:04):
It's still all about David.
And there is that emphasis thenin verse 20 about the word of
the Lord coming to pass exactlyas God had said it would.
Verse 20, Israel heard thatJeroboam had returned.
They sent and called him to theassembly, and they made him king
over all Israel.
This is exactly what the prophethad told Jeremiah would happen.
(10:25):
Here it is actually happening.
We almost have a civil war here.
But then God calls that off, andamazingly, Rehoboam listens to
the Lord.
Maybe he still has somesensitivity to God, and he is
badly outnumbered here.
Ten tribes versus one tribe,he's got no shot here.
So, Lord says, we're not doingthis.
(10:47):
And we decide not to do that,although later on we'll see that
there's still some issues aboutthat and how all of that is
playing out and working with allof that.
In fact, chapter 14 and verse30, you might as well make a
note in your margin here, therewere some skirmishes, some
border war still going on.
Then verses 25 to 33 detail thesins of Jeroboam.
(11:09):
And I want to say a couplethings here.
I've said a lot today for aMonday podcast.
I gave you a bonus note aboutthe Scofield Bible and the
rivalry about it.
So much stuff.
So much stuff.
More coffee is the answer.
By now, you've got to be on yoursecond cup.
Notice verse 26, Jeroboam saidin his heart, now the kingdom
will turn back to the house ofDavid.
(11:29):
Jeroboam doesn't trust God.
The prophet said, God's givingyou these 10 tribes.
You get them.
They will not go back to thehouse of David.
You will be the king of northernIsrael, you get those tribes.
He doesn't believe the Lord, sohe puts in his own plan, which
(11:49):
is to set up worship centers inthe north so that people don't
go back to Jerusalem to worship.
And the emphasis in that is thatit's man-made.
Verse 31, he made temples.
And the word appointed, verse31, is the word made.
Verse 32, Jeroboam appointed afeast.
That's the word made.
Sacrificing to the calves hemade.
(12:09):
He placed in Bethel the priestof the high places that he made.
Verse 33, he made in Bethel.
He instituted, verse 33, that'sthe word made.
Went up to the altar to makeofferings.
All of that is made.
All of that is man-madereligion.
And I will share this with you.
When Dean and I were so blessedto get to go to Israel in 2023,
(12:33):
you can go to Dan, and they haveexcavated that site, and there
is a platform there where thataltar was built.
You can go and stand there.
I'll try to post some picturesof that on Facebook, so watch
for some of that.
But it's just dreadful.
It's just dreadful.
The steps and the platform allpoint north.
(12:56):
So that when you went up to thealtar, you were literally
turning your back on God, God'shouse in Jerusalem, and all
things that were right.
They were literally turningtheir back on the Lord.
And the horrible thing about itis that the Northern Ten Tribes
never recover from this.
No northern king straightensthem out, gets them back on the
(13:19):
straight and narrow, and theyserve God.
Okay, we're serving God up here,and we're not part of the
southern kingdom, but we'restill worshiping.
No, no.
Idolatry is planted in theirhearts here, and maybe Solomon
gets a little blame for thattoo, but Jeroboam begins
something here that will neverbe eradicated.
The northern tribes worship God,worship false gods, I should
(13:43):
say, their entire time.
They turn their back on theLord.
And I remember being there.
It was very striking.
It was very, very sad.
This is the place where thoseten tribes jumped the tracks,
and they never got back on trackwith God.
(14:04):
Our reading today, our readingfor Monday, is 1 Kings 12,
verses 16-33.
Welcome to Tuesday.
Welcome to Tuesday and the monthof July.
Our reading today is 1 Kings 13,verses 1 to 10.
And if our reading yesterdayfocused on the word man-made or
(14:27):
manufactured, then our readingtoday focuses on the word of the
Lord.
Underline in your Bible, word ofthe Lord in chapter 13.
It occurs nine times.
And I think the tragedy here isthat God can't find a faithful
prophet in the north, and that'sprobably because all the
faithful people migrate to thesouth when Jeroboam erects his
(14:48):
own altars, his own Andamazingly, in verse 2, he calls
out the name of the king...
who will fulfill this prophecyhundreds of years in advance.
(15:12):
This will be fulfilled in 2Kings 23, verses 15 to 20.
I would also point you to verse5.
The ashes being poured out ofthe altar like this, there was a
way to dispose of ashes, andthis is not the way to do that.
So this pouring out desecratesthe altar and clearly shows that
God's disapproval.
God did not accept this worship.
(15:34):
God will not accept this kind ofworship.
Finally then, the prophetreveals that he cannot stop and
he can't eat bread.
Verse 8, notice how important itis to eat with somebody.
And I wonder here if Jeroboamwas trying to say face with the
crowd or maybe get the prophetto moderate his message by
saying, giving him a big meal,some sort of banquet, treating
(15:56):
him like he's a VIP.
The prophet says, that's notgoing to happen.
I can't eat with somebody likeyou.
I'm going home, and I'm not evento go home the way that I came.
That way, nobody can lay in waitfor me to try to bring me back
or ambush me.
None of those things can happen.
So our reading for Tuesday, 1Kings chapter 13, verses 1 to
10, and I hope you notice aftera really long episode yesterday,
(16:19):
giving you a little bit moretime to do your reading, maybe
in two translations today.
Westsiders, please be mindful,there is no Zoom call tonight.
The elders meet on the firstTuesday of the month.
No Zoom call tonight.
Lots of people out with theholiday about to start anyway.
We'll see you next week on theZoom, and I'll see everybody on
the podcast tomorrow.
(16:40):
Welcome to Wednesday.
Welcome to Wednesday.
Ricky Jenkins will be with ustonight.
He will be speaking on theprophetess Deborah and her time
and place in the book of Judges.
Before he does that, we need togive attention to our daily
Bible reading.
Our reading for Wednesday is 1Kings 13, verses 11 to 34.
And there, of course, is a lotof questions about what's going
(17:03):
on here.
First and foremost, verse 11,there's this old prophet still
living in Bethel.
What is he doing there?
2 Chronicles 11, beginning inverse 13, tells us that the real
worshipers of God, the faithfulpeople, they all evacuated and
moved south.
They can't be part of thisidolatrous regime in the north,
super suspicious of this guy,particularly because, as I said
(17:26):
yesterday, in verse 1, God hadto get someone from the south to
be a faithful prophet.
I don't like this guy.
I don't like anything about thisguy.
And in fact, his sons are at thefalse worship that Jeroboam
offers.
Well, they tell the story ofwhat happened, and they track
down the young prophet.
I'm wondering here if maybe theyoung prophet was going home the
(17:50):
way that he came, which made iteasier.
Has he already made thatmistake?
And he is sitting down, verse14.
Need to be careful here.
It's a long walk.
Don't know exactly where thisman was from in Judah and how
long he'd been on the road.
I'm trying not to say thatsitting down is a mistake,
especially since I am, yes, I'msitting down as I record the
(18:13):
podcast, drinking coffee withyou.
So, sitting down, not bad, butif sitting down is delaying when
we need to be doing what Godsays and going home, just don't
know.
Just don't know.
It just doesn't taste right,does it?
And the prophet lies to him andbrings him home, and in fact, it
(18:34):
is a lie, and the next thing youknow, He is told that this was a
lie.
Now, of course, why did thisprophet lie to him like this?
This is terrible.
I wonder if he was stricken witha bad conscience at his own
failures.
Is he trying to get closer tothis young prophet who has done
a notable sign and everybody'ssaying, you're the man, you
(18:55):
really are with God, and I'm allbuddy-buddy with him, so that's
going to make people think moreof me.
But in verses 21 to 22, the oldprophet speaks the truth.
God uses this wicked man tospeak the truth.
And of course, the question thencomes, wow, what a harsh
sentence on the young man thathe's put to death.
(19:15):
He dies in a terrible way.
This lion kills him.
What's up with that?
And there are a lot of possibleexplanations for that, but it
seems to me that the death ofthe young prophet confirms the
word of the Lord and shows thathe was a true prophet.
He said, I can't go back homethe way that I came.
(19:36):
He said, I can't eat or drink.
So if he defies his own word,then that naturally diminishes
all the other word that hespoke.
Oh, it must be okay not tolisten to this guy.
He didn't really mean it.
No, it's not okay to not listento this prophet.
He speaks the word of the Lordfor you, Jeroboam, the nation.
(19:59):
And his word applies to himselfas well.
What a powerful warning forthose of us who are preaching
and teaching the word of God.
We are not exempt from thewarnings of the word of God.
You need to apply that toyourself, young prophet.
Don't listen to this man who'slying.
And he is a prophet.
When the old man says, hey, thusand so and thus and so, just
(20:20):
check with God.
God would have said, you'rebeing lied to.
He could have looked at the oldprophet and said, you're a liar.
I'm not going to go back withyou.
He fails to do that.
He's deceived by the oldprophet, and he pays with his
life.
Verse 32, for the saying that hecalled out by the word of the
Lord against the altar in Betheland against all the houses of
(20:41):
the high places of Samaria shallsurely come to pass.
His death confirms this is theword of the Lord.
But Jeroboam...
does not turn back and do what'sright.
Our reading for Wednesday, 1Kings 13, verses 11 to 34.
(21:03):
Welcome to Thursday.
It's 1 Kings 14, 1 to 20 that isour reading for today.
The reading for Thursday, 1Kings 14, 1 to 20.
And once again, a prophetdominates the scene.
This is the prophet Ahijah.
We saw him back in 1 Kingschapter 11.
Jeroboam has not paid muchattention to what Ahijah told
him and is not doing what'sright, but his son gets sick,
(21:24):
verse 1, and now we need to geta word from the prophet.
One writer said, here is theking then with his magical view
of the words of Jehovah.
If only Only he can weasel apositive pronouncement out of
the prophet, his son will surelyrecover.
And that seems to be whatJeroboam's thinking.
Notice he sends his wife.
Maybe he feels convicted becausehe hasn't done what Ahijah told
(21:47):
him to do.
Maybe he's trying to trick.
It seems like he's trying totrick the prophet in some way.
Or maybe even verse 3, buy himoff with a gift.
But of course, verse 6, I lovethis.
When Ahijah heard the sound ofher feet, he said, Come in, wife
of Jeroboam.
Why do you pretend to beanother?
Now there's what a real prophetcan do.
You can't fool God, and youcan't fool God's true servant.
(22:08):
prophets.
And so, verse 9, as the prophetbegins to delineate why judgment
would come and all the thingsthat Jeroboam has done that's
wrong, it's summed up well.
Verse 9, you have cast me behindyour back.
Complete contempt.
That's the very opposite ofkeeping God before your eyes,
(22:30):
filling your heart with God'sWord, being a person seeking
after God's heart.
Verse 9 should stand out for usas we think about being the kind
of person David was, seeking theheart of God.
And of course, I should say inverse 11, oh, this pains me.
I hate saying this.
Dogs aren't pets in the Bible.
(22:50):
They're wild pack animals.
They're terrible scavengers.
And here they are the instrumentof vigorous and vicious
judgment.
So the prophet just continuesworking down through this note
of judgment.
Verse 15 sounds an awful lotlike what Moses had prophesied
in Deuteronomy 29 and 27.
(23:10):
And if you're wondering aboutthe Asherah or the Asherim, she
is the female consort of Baal.
She is represented usually by awooden pole.
She's a fertility goddess.
She is borrowed from Assyria,and the Philistines have
integrated her into the worshipof Baal, as have the Phoenicians
and others.
(23:30):
So Ahijah says, God exalted you,verses 7 and 8.
You failed him, verse 9.
Your house will be cut off,verses 10 and 11.
The child is certain to die,verses 12 and 13.
And Israel will be scattered,verses 15 to 16.
What is truly frightening aboutthis is in verse 17, the woman
(23:52):
goes home.
If you tell me you're a prophetof God, and you tell me when you
enter the city, your child willdie, I would never go to that
city again.
Not ever.
Never, never, never.
Don't want my child to die.
But the child's death happens,and that is a sign that shows
the rest of that prophecy willcome to pass as well.
(24:12):
Notice now we've had death twiceto validate the word of the
Lord.
And I know some people arewondering about entering the
city, and when she entered thethreshold of the house, the
child died.
One writer noted, this statementseems at first to contradict
that of verse 12, which says thechild should die as she entered
the city.
The palace, however, may havebeen on the edge of the city, or
(24:35):
in fact, the city may have beena little more than the palace.
Our reading then for Thursday is1 Kings 14 verses 1 to 20.
Happy 4th of July.
It's Friday, everyone.
Happy birthday, America.
Don't want to overdo ouremphasis on our country.
Our citizenship is in heaven.
(24:56):
That's important.
But we are grateful.
We are grateful for all the goodthings that we enjoy, the
blessings of peace andprosperity in this country.
Happy birthday, America.
And our reading today is Psalm27.
I'll just give you a couple ofnotes here.
I think verse 4 is one of themost Just one of the most
beautiful passages in all of theBible.
(25:17):
One thing I have asked of theLord and that I will seek after,
that I may dwell in the house ofthe Lord all the days of my
life.
This is a lament.
This is a cry to God for help.
And I think it's important tonote here that too often people
want the goodies that Godoffers, but they don't want to
walk in God's ways.
They don't want to let God leadthem.
They don't have any consistencyin their relationship with God.
(25:40):
They don't have any certainty oftheir relationship with God.
They don't have any confidencein their relationship with God.
Because they're not reallywalking with God.
They don't really care aboutGod.
And if you watch this psalmcarefully, you will see that
David delights in the Lord in aconsistent and continual kind of
way.
This verse just breathes, thispassage, I should say, just
(26:01):
breathes dependence upon theLord all the way through.
And I do love verse 14.
"'Wait for the Lord.
Be strong and let your hearttake courage.
Wait for the Lord.'" I hope thispsalm will be a blessing to you
today.
It's always good to read David'spsalms as he just speaks of his
certainty of God's goodness andhis confidence in what God will
(26:24):
do.
Again, I hope you're having agreat Fourth of July today, and
I hope that you're safe and thatwherever you are with family and
friends, you're doing all kindsof wonderful Fourth of July
things like eating hamburgersand eating watermelon and
shooting off fireworks in a safeand legal fashion.
How about that?
(26:45):
Well, there you go.
That's the podcast for the week.
I certainly do appreciate youlistening to the podcast.
I'm glad it's a help to you.
I know just putting it togetheris a help for me.
So until next week, when we'llopen our Bibles together again,
I'm Mark Roberts, and I want togo to heaven, and I want you to
come too.
I'll see you on Monday then witha cup of coffee.
SPEAKER_00 (27:13):
Thanks for listening to the Westside Church of Christ
podcast, Monday Morning Coffeewith 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
(27:38):
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.
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 forward intothis week's Bible reading so
that we can know what to expectand watch for.
And he may have some extra bonusthoughts 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...
June the 30th.
June the 30th.
How about that?
July 4th is on the horizon.
Lots of us will have someholiday time, maybe some time
with family.
I know you're looking forward tothat.
I know that you're stillthinking about yesterday's
sermon.
I promised a bonus note today,and I know that you're eager to
be about this business in theWord of God in 1 Kings as we
(01:16):
continue daily Bible reading.
All of that and much more.
Let's get ready.
Let's get set.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Yesterday in the 1040, becauseit's the fifth Sunday of the
month, I did Q&A, and I answeredan important question about the
state of Israel, the modernnation of Israel, and are
Christians obligated to supportthat nation politically?
(01:38):
Is that something the Biblemandates for us to do?
And of course, I think if youpolled most people on the
streets, they would sayabsolutely.
Senator Ted Cruz, I've I quotedhim yesterday.
He just reflects the popularbelief that that nation is still
somehow the people of God, andGod owes them something.
It is going to do something forthem.
(01:58):
All of that is very, veryprevalent, especially here in
the South.
I don't know the reaction you'dget if you were talking to
people in Canada or maybe inMinnesota or Maine, but in
Texas...
I see lots of bumper stickers,support Israel.
I see the bumper sticker withthe word Jerusalem and the USA
(02:18):
in the middle of the wordJerusalem is in red, white, and
blue.
Lots of support politically forthe state of Israel.
Now, where does all that comefrom?
How does that just seep intopublic consciousness where
everybody just buys it withouteven thinking about it?
And the answer to that is itcomes from the Schofield Study
Bible.
Cyrus Schofield was a Civil Warveteran.
(02:40):
He became a believer as anadult.
He pastored churches in Dallasand Massachusetts.
He was closely affiliated withD.L.
Moody.
And Schofield began to work onthis reference Bible with his
notes in the margins, the studyBible system.
And part of that was he wantedto popularize a new way of
interpreting the end times.
(03:02):
This had been put together by anAnglo-Irish man named John
Nelson Darby, and it was calleddispensationalism.
And when that Bible waspublished with all of those
dispensational notes in 1909,there was a time of great
expectation about the end of theworld.
Lots of people were thinkingeverything was about to wrap up.
And so this idea of reading theBible through that lens was,
(03:26):
that quickly made this one ofthe best-selling Bibles in
history.
And it is the SchofieldReference Bible that created Hal
Lindsey and the late greatplanet Earth and Christian
Zionism and the idea of therapture and Jesus will return
and they'll rebuild the templeand Jews will convert in mass to
Jesus.
That whole left-behind bookseries and movies, it's all from
(03:49):
the Schofield Bible.
That Bible has dominatedhistory.
what believers in the Biblethink about the end times for
the last hundred years.
And it is a terrible Bible.
Schofield changed the text ofthe King James Version in
several places.
He allegorized a lot of stuff.
(04:09):
His notes in the margins arejust dreadful.
And of course, his premillennialdispensational theology The
rapture, Jesus will return toset up his kingdom.
The kingdom is not in existencenow.
He has to come back and tryagain.
The thousand-year reign ofChrist, all of that comes from
the Schofield Study Bible, andit It explicitly supports the
(04:34):
modern-day nation of Israel.
In fact, the New Schofield StudyBible, which came out in 1984,
intensifies some of this.
Even it adds, for a nation tocommit the sin of anti-Semitism
brings inevitable judgment.
That's it.
That's it.
This is the idea that has a hugeinfluence on American foreign
(04:55):
policy and on the way Americansperceive and think of the modern
nation of Israel.
Hand in hand with that, we nowhave the Ryrie Study Bible.
Ryrie was a professor at DallasTheological Seminary, which is
just the seat of premillennialthinking in this country.
He is more contemporary thanSchofield.
Ryrie passed away in 2016, andhe put out the Ryrie Study
(05:17):
Bible.
It has thousands of his notes.
It sold more than two millioncopies, and he is a huge
proponent of classicdispensational premillennialism.
So, for example, from the RyrieStudy Bible, the crucial issue
in relation to premillennialismare twofold.
Does the Abrahamic covenantpromise Israel a permanent
(05:39):
existence as a nation?
If it does, then the church isnot fulfilling Israel's
promises.
And secondly, does the Abrahamiccovenant promise Israel
permanent possession of thepromised land?
If it does, then Israel must yetcome into possession of the
promised land, for she has neverfully possessed it in her
(06:01):
history.
These two Bibles, the SchofieldStudy Bible, the Ryrie Study
Bible, have influenced so manypeople's thinking.
And all of that, I think, servesto warn us it's a cautionary
tale about the value of studyBibles.
Because when the note is justright there in the margin of
your Bible, it is hard for us tothink past that, to see the text
(06:25):
clearly.
on our own.
It colors our view, and if thewriter of those study notes
holds a false view of thekingdom of God, then that can
distort how we read the Bible,and we may not even realize it.
We think we're reading theBible.
What we're really doing is we'rereading those notes in the
margin into the Bible.
So sometimes people ask me, whatstudy Bible do you recommend?
(06:47):
And the answer to that is, Idon't.
Get yourself a Bible with aclean text.
Get yourself a Bible thatdoesn't have some man's opinions
written in the margins rightthere close to the text so that
it just starts sliding into yourthinking.
Get yourself a Bible.
Do your own study.
Draw your own conclusions.
Don't let someone tell you whatto believe or think.
(07:08):
Make sure you're studying yourBible for yourself.
Make sure you're studying yourBible for yourself.
There's the bonus note to get usstarted this week.
Now, let's get those Biblesopen, hopefully not Schofield or
Ryrie study Bibles.
UNKNOWN (07:23):
Oh, my.
SPEAKER_01 (07:24):
Hopefully, just a good standard word-for-word
literal translation, an EnglishStandard Bible, New American
Standard Bible.
Get your Bible open.
Let's get over to 1 Kings 12,and let's talk about daily Bible
reading.
(07:54):
It is Monday, and today'sreading is 1 Kings chapter 12,
verses 16 to 33.
The kingdom formally divideshere in our reading today.
Israel will never be a unitedkingdom again.
Let me give you a time framehere, see if I can help out a
little bit with where we are.
The exodus from Egypt would bedated, should be dated, about
(08:16):
1440 AD.
1,440 years before the birth ofChrist.
Now, there's some give or takein there.
The calendar gets a little wonkywith Roman Caesars moving things
around, but I'm going 1,440 is agood date, which means Saul
becomes king in 1050.
David becomes king in 1010.
Solomon becomes king in 970.
And today, we're reading in 930.
(08:39):
Notice each of those guys reign40 years.
Saul, 1050, reign 40 years.
That puts David on the throne in1010.
David reigned 40 years.
Solomon becomes king afterDavid's 40-year reign, so that
puts him on the throne in 970.
Solomon reigned 40 years, 930.
We're 930 years away from thebirth of Jesus, like I said,
(08:59):
give or take.
And I should just say this.
The northern kingdom, thenorthern ten tribes, will come
to an end and be carried awayinto Assyrian captivity in 722.
So there are some dates.
You might write that in themargin of your Bible.
Good thing to hold on to rightthere.
So, what happens today in 1Kings chapter 12?
Well, the northern ten tribessecede from the rest of Israel,
(09:22):
and from now on, we'll haveIsrael, which is the northern
ten tribes, that's how they'llbe referred to, and Judah in the
south.
Northern ten tribes, southerntribe is Judah, and you get that
clear, clear business of Wedon't need you, Judah.
To your tents, verse 16, OIsrael.
And that echoes the words, bythe way, of Sheba during that
(09:43):
second rebellion after Absalom'srebellion in 2 Samuel chapter
20.
We're not part of them.
They're not part of us.
They don't like us.
And you know what?
We don't care much for themeither.
We're out of here.
We're going to do our own thing.
And it is important, I think,here to notice that David's name
occurs four times in verses 16to 20.
David is the ideal king.
David is the one that everyoneis measured by.
(10:04):
It's still all about David.
And there is that emphasis thenin verse 20 about the word of
the Lord coming to pass exactlyas God had said it would.
Verse 20, Israel heard thatJeroboam had returned.
They sent and called him to theassembly, and they made him king
over all Israel.
This is exactly what the prophethad told Jeremiah would happen.
(10:25):
Here it is actually happening.
We almost have a civil war here.
But then God calls that off, andamazingly, Rehoboam listens to
the Lord.
Maybe he still has somesensitivity to God, and he is
badly outnumbered here.
Ten tribes versus one tribe,he's got no shot here.
So, Lord says, we're not doingthis.
(10:47):
And we decide not to do that,although later on we'll see that
there's still some issues aboutthat and how all of that is
playing out and working with allof that.
In fact, chapter 14 and verse30, you might as well make a
note in your margin here, therewere some skirmishes, some
border war still going on.
Then verses 25 to 33 detail thesins of Jeroboam.
(11:09):
And I want to say a couplethings here.
I've said a lot today for aMonday podcast.
I gave you a bonus note aboutthe Scofield Bible and the
rivalry about it.
So much stuff.
So much stuff.
More coffee is the answer.
By now, you've got to be on yoursecond cup.
Notice verse 26, Jeroboam saidin his heart, now the kingdom
will turn back to the house ofDavid.
(11:29):
Jeroboam doesn't trust God.
The prophet said, God's givingyou these 10 tribes.
You get them.
They will not go back to thehouse of David.
You will be the king of northernIsrael, you get those tribes.
He doesn't believe the Lord, sohe puts in his own plan, which
(11:49):
is to set up worship centers inthe north so that people don't
go back to Jerusalem to worship.
And the emphasis in that is thatit's man-made.
Verse 31, he made temples.
And the word appointed, verse31, is the word made.
Verse 32, Jeroboam appointed afeast.
That's the word made.
Sacrificing to the calves hemade.
(12:09):
He placed in Bethel the priestof the high places that he made.
Verse 33, he made in Bethel.
He instituted, verse 33, that'sthe word made.
Went up to the altar to makeofferings.
All of that is made.
All of that is man-madereligion.
And I will share this with you.
When Dean and I were so blessedto get to go to Israel in 2023,
(12:33):
you can go to Dan, and they haveexcavated that site, and there
is a platform there where thataltar was built.
You can go and stand there.
I'll try to post some picturesof that on Facebook, so watch
for some of that.
But it's just dreadful.
It's just dreadful.
The steps and the platform allpoint north.
(12:56):
So that when you went up to thealtar, you were literally
turning your back on God, God'shouse in Jerusalem, and all
things that were right.
They were literally turningtheir back on the Lord.
And the horrible thing about itis that the Northern Ten Tribes
never recover from this.
No northern king straightensthem out, gets them back on the
(13:19):
straight and narrow, and theyserve God.
Okay, we're serving God up here,and we're not part of the
southern kingdom, but we'restill worshiping.
No, no.
Idolatry is planted in theirhearts here, and maybe Solomon
gets a little blame for thattoo, but Jeroboam begins
something here that will neverbe eradicated.
The northern tribes worship God,worship false gods, I should
(13:43):
say, their entire time.
They turn their back on theLord.
And I remember being there.
It was very striking.
It was very, very sad.
This is the place where thoseten tribes jumped the tracks,
and they never got back on trackwith God.
(14:04):
Our reading today, our readingfor Monday, is 1 Kings 12,
verses 16-33.
Welcome to Tuesday.
Welcome to Tuesday and the monthof July.
Our reading today is 1 Kings 13,verses 1 to 10.
And if our reading yesterdayfocused on the word man-made or
(14:27):
manufactured, then our readingtoday focuses on the word of the
Lord.
Underline in your Bible, word ofthe Lord in chapter 13.
It occurs nine times.
And I think the tragedy here isthat God can't find a faithful
prophet in the north, and that'sprobably because all the
faithful people migrate to thesouth when Jeroboam erects his
(14:48):
own altars, his own Andamazingly, in verse 2, he calls
out the name of the king...
who will fulfill this prophecyhundreds of years in advance.
(15:12):
This will be fulfilled in 2Kings 23, verses 15 to 20.
I would also point you to verse5.
The ashes being poured out ofthe altar like this, there was a
way to dispose of ashes, andthis is not the way to do that.
So this pouring out desecratesthe altar and clearly shows that
God's disapproval.
God did not accept this worship.
(15:34):
God will not accept this kind ofworship.
Finally then, the prophetreveals that he cannot stop and
he can't eat bread.
Verse 8, notice how important itis to eat with somebody.
And I wonder here if Jeroboamwas trying to say face with the
crowd or maybe get the prophetto moderate his message by
saying, giving him a big meal,some sort of banquet, treating
(15:56):
him like he's a VIP.
The prophet says, that's notgoing to happen.
I can't eat with somebody likeyou.
I'm going home, and I'm not evento go home the way that I came.
That way, nobody can lay in waitfor me to try to bring me back
or ambush me.
None of those things can happen.
So our reading for Tuesday, 1Kings chapter 13, verses 1 to
10, and I hope you notice aftera really long episode yesterday,
(16:19):
giving you a little bit moretime to do your reading, maybe
in two translations today.
Westsiders, please be mindful,there is no Zoom call tonight.
The elders meet on the firstTuesday of the month.
No Zoom call tonight.
Lots of people out with theholiday about to start anyway.
We'll see you next week on theZoom, and I'll see everybody on
the podcast tomorrow.
(16:40):
Welcome to Wednesday.
Welcome to Wednesday.
Ricky Jenkins will be with ustonight.
He will be speaking on theprophetess Deborah and her time
and place in the book of Judges.
Before he does that, we need togive attention to our daily
Bible reading.
Our reading for Wednesday is 1Kings 13, verses 11 to 34.
And there, of course, is a lotof questions about what's going
(17:03):
on here.
First and foremost, verse 11,there's this old prophet still
living in Bethel.
What is he doing there?
2 Chronicles 11, beginning inverse 13, tells us that the real
worshipers of God, the faithfulpeople, they all evacuated and
moved south.
They can't be part of thisidolatrous regime in the north,
super suspicious of this guy,particularly because, as I said
(17:26):
yesterday, in verse 1, God hadto get someone from the south to
be a faithful prophet.
I don't like this guy.
I don't like anything about thisguy.
And in fact, his sons are at thefalse worship that Jeroboam
offers.
Well, they tell the story ofwhat happened, and they track
down the young prophet.
I'm wondering here if maybe theyoung prophet was going home the
(17:50):
way that he came, which made iteasier.
Has he already made thatmistake?
And he is sitting down, verse14.
Need to be careful here.
It's a long walk.
Don't know exactly where thisman was from in Judah and how
long he'd been on the road.
I'm trying not to say thatsitting down is a mistake,
especially since I am, yes, I'msitting down as I record the
(18:13):
podcast, drinking coffee withyou.
So, sitting down, not bad, butif sitting down is delaying when
we need to be doing what Godsays and going home, just don't
know.
Just don't know.
It just doesn't taste right,does it?
And the prophet lies to him andbrings him home, and in fact, it
(18:34):
is a lie, and the next thing youknow, He is told that this was a
lie.
Now, of course, why did thisprophet lie to him like this?
This is terrible.
I wonder if he was stricken witha bad conscience at his own
failures.
Is he trying to get closer tothis young prophet who has done
a notable sign and everybody'ssaying, you're the man, you
(18:55):
really are with God, and I'm allbuddy-buddy with him, so that's
going to make people think moreof me.
But in verses 21 to 22, the oldprophet speaks the truth.
God uses this wicked man tospeak the truth.
And of course, the question thencomes, wow, what a harsh
sentence on the young man thathe's put to death.
(19:15):
He dies in a terrible way.
This lion kills him.
What's up with that?
And there are a lot of possibleexplanations for that, but it
seems to me that the death ofthe young prophet confirms the
word of the Lord and shows thathe was a true prophet.
He said, I can't go back homethe way that I came.
(19:36):
He said, I can't eat or drink.
So if he defies his own word,then that naturally diminishes
all the other word that hespoke.
Oh, it must be okay not tolisten to this guy.
He didn't really mean it.
No, it's not okay to not listento this prophet.
He speaks the word of the Lordfor you, Jeroboam, the nation.
(19:59):
And his word applies to himselfas well.
What a powerful warning forthose of us who are preaching
and teaching the word of God.
We are not exempt from thewarnings of the word of God.
You need to apply that toyourself, young prophet.
Don't listen to this man who'slying.
And he is a prophet.
When the old man says, hey, thusand so and thus and so, just
(20:20):
check with God.
God would have said, you'rebeing lied to.
He could have looked at the oldprophet and said, you're a liar.
I'm not going to go back withyou.
He fails to do that.
He's deceived by the oldprophet, and he pays with his
life.
Verse 32, for the saying that hecalled out by the word of the
Lord against the altar in Betheland against all the houses of
(20:41):
the high places of Samaria shallsurely come to pass.
His death confirms this is theword of the Lord.
But Jeroboam...
does not turn back and do what'sright.
Our reading for Wednesday, 1Kings 13, verses 11 to 34.
(21:03):
Welcome to Thursday.
It's 1 Kings 14, 1 to 20 that isour reading for today.
The reading for Thursday, 1Kings 14, 1 to 20.
And once again, a prophetdominates the scene.
This is the prophet Ahijah.
We saw him back in 1 Kingschapter 11.
Jeroboam has not paid muchattention to what Ahijah told
him and is not doing what'sright, but his son gets sick,
(21:24):
verse 1, and now we need to geta word from the prophet.
One writer said, here is theking then with his magical view
of the words of Jehovah.
If only Only he can weasel apositive pronouncement out of
the prophet, his son will surelyrecover.
And that seems to be whatJeroboam's thinking.
Notice he sends his wife.
Maybe he feels convicted becausehe hasn't done what Ahijah told
(21:47):
him to do.
Maybe he's trying to trick.
It seems like he's trying totrick the prophet in some way.
Or maybe even verse 3, buy himoff with a gift.
But of course, verse 6, I lovethis.
When Ahijah heard the sound ofher feet, he said, Come in, wife
of Jeroboam.
Why do you pretend to beanother?
Now there's what a real prophetcan do.
You can't fool God, and youcan't fool God's true servant.
(22:08):
prophets.
And so, verse 9, as the prophetbegins to delineate why judgment
would come and all the thingsthat Jeroboam has done that's
wrong, it's summed up well.
Verse 9, you have cast me behindyour back.
Complete contempt.
That's the very opposite ofkeeping God before your eyes,
(22:30):
filling your heart with God'sWord, being a person seeking
after God's heart.
Verse 9 should stand out for usas we think about being the kind
of person David was, seeking theheart of God.
And of course, I should say inverse 11, oh, this pains me.
I hate saying this.
Dogs aren't pets in the Bible.
(22:50):
They're wild pack animals.
They're terrible scavengers.
And here they are the instrumentof vigorous and vicious
judgment.
So the prophet just continuesworking down through this note
of judgment.
Verse 15 sounds an awful lotlike what Moses had prophesied
in Deuteronomy 29 and 27.
(23:10):
And if you're wondering aboutthe Asherah or the Asherim, she
is the female consort of Baal.
She is represented usually by awooden pole.
She's a fertility goddess.
She is borrowed from Assyria,and the Philistines have
integrated her into the worshipof Baal, as have the Phoenicians
and others.
(23:30):
So Ahijah says, God exalted you,verses 7 and 8.
You failed him, verse 9.
Your house will be cut off,verses 10 and 11.
The child is certain to die,verses 12 and 13.
And Israel will be scattered,verses 15 to 16.
What is truly frightening aboutthis is in verse 17, the woman
(23:52):
goes home.
If you tell me you're a prophetof God, and you tell me when you
enter the city, your child willdie, I would never go to that
city again.
Not ever.
Never, never, never.
Don't want my child to die.
But the child's death happens,and that is a sign that shows
the rest of that prophecy willcome to pass as well.
(24:12):
Notice now we've had death twiceto validate the word of the
Lord.
And I know some people arewondering about entering the
city, and when she entered thethreshold of the house, the
child died.
One writer noted, this statementseems at first to contradict
that of verse 12, which says thechild should die as she entered
the city.
The palace, however, may havebeen on the edge of the city, or
(24:35):
in fact, the city may have beena little more than the palace.
Our reading then for Thursday is1 Kings 14 verses 1 to 20.
Happy 4th of July.
It's Friday, everyone.
Happy birthday, America.
Don't want to overdo ouremphasis on our country.
Our citizenship is in heaven.
(24:56):
That's important.
But we are grateful.
We are grateful for all the goodthings that we enjoy, the
blessings of peace andprosperity in this country.
Happy birthday, America.
And our reading today is Psalm27.
I'll just give you a couple ofnotes here.
I think verse 4 is one of themost Just one of the most
beautiful passages in all of theBible.
(25:17):
One thing I have asked of theLord and that I will seek after,
that I may dwell in the house ofthe Lord all the days of my
life.
This is a lament.
This is a cry to God for help.
And I think it's important tonote here that too often people
want the goodies that Godoffers, but they don't want to
walk in God's ways.
They don't want to let God leadthem.
They don't have any consistencyin their relationship with God.
(25:40):
They don't have any certainty oftheir relationship with God.
They don't have any confidencein their relationship with God.
Because they're not reallywalking with God.
They don't really care aboutGod.
And if you watch this psalmcarefully, you will see that
David delights in the Lord in aconsistent and continual kind of
way.
This verse just breathes, thispassage, I should say, just
(26:01):
breathes dependence upon theLord all the way through.
And I do love verse 14.
"'Wait for the Lord.
Be strong and let your hearttake courage.
Wait for the Lord.'" I hope thispsalm will be a blessing to you
today.
It's always good to read David'spsalms as he just speaks of his
certainty of God's goodness andhis confidence in what God will
(26:24):
do.
Again, I hope you're having agreat Fourth of July today, and
I hope that you're safe and thatwherever you are with family and
friends, you're doing all kindsof wonderful Fourth of July
things like eating hamburgersand eating watermelon and
shooting off fireworks in a safeand legal fashion.
How about that?
(26:45):
Well, there you go.
That's the podcast for the week.
I certainly do appreciate youlistening to the podcast.
I'm glad it's a help to you.
I know just putting it togetheris a help for me.
So until next week, when we'llopen our Bibles together again,
I'm Mark Roberts, and I want togo to heaven, and I want you to
come too.
I'll see you on Monday then witha cup of coffee.
SPEAKER_00 (27:13):
Thanks for listening to the Westside Church of Christ
podcast, Monday Morning Coffeewith 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
(27:38):
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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