Now we are on a journey together and I've been taking it slow! And I'm really actually kind of glad I'm taking it slow. It, you know, I think that sometimes I come through like a tornado. I think, “Well, surely everybody knows what I'm talking about.” The fact of the matter is that's just not so. And some of you need to be reminded of these incredible, and I say they really are incredible people and promises that we have from this book. So we've been going through and looking at the tribes of Israel. These are the sons of Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. And I'm going to skip over, I'm going a little bit out of order today, because there are two or three tribes that I will have to deal with in great length and in great detail which will be probably one of those two- or three-parters, so I'm jumping over some out of order and what I want you to think about today as we approach the subject, remember, we're trying to lay some foundation and figure out that these people are not perfect. Our tendency is to read the Bible and make the Bible so far removed from our lives, from our daily lives, that it's very, very hard when you don't put flesh and blood on these people to get any gain, because you're simply reading. Or if you're reading like I know some do and they, they still haven't dug in that this actually, these are events recorded for us that are not mythological, they're not fantasy, they're not ancient poems that were left behind by some bafflist scribe. But when you start to piece it all together, you realize that this is God's telling; now it's, as I said, incredible, God's telling of antiquity, the story of His people that He chose to tell, and I say this very openly; there are other peoples of whom He did not chronicle, as He did these people, but He wanted to leave the record. And the record has been, I would say, in spite of translation, in spite of transmission, has been adequately preserved for us to know that we're dealing with not fantasy or mythological or whatever you want to call it, but actually the truth. And I prefer, as, to the best of my ability, to look at these things in a historical way as well. So one of the tribes, one of the sons of Jacob, who became Israel, and I'm going to refer now to “the children of Israel” so we're clear we're talking about the man Jacob who became Israel and his sons. And as we have journeyed through, we've looked at Reuben who should have been, as the firstborn, he should have been the one that received the blessing of primogenitor, the birthright of the firstborn. And we know that the record says he defiled his father's bed, and therefore he forfeited that. “Dirty scoundrel,” some say, you know, “Look what he did.” But the point is God has never tried to whitewash any of the deeds of these people, and yet preserved them for us and the record to show us we are no different. Don't let anybody come in your presence and tell you, “You ought to be like this, and you ought to do that,” because you can never be that as long as you are in these mortal bodies that as Paul called it, “the trench warfare between the Spirit and the flesh,” constant warfare until this crock of clay is laid down. But after Reuben, the next Simeon and Levi, which are grouped together, which could have received the birthright next in line, but it's passed over because they take revenge on the violation of their sister Dinah. And that record that we studied, it's not so much that they wanted to take revenge, it's what they did in killing all the people, taking the women, the children and all the goods from the place where they slew all the men, and not consulting their father, so they are passed over. And we, we were kind of going through the line and looking at each one of these and not necessarily going as far as we can go, but we know that the tribe of Reuben, for example, will not produce too much notoriety. But the tribe of Reuben will have, for example, later on in the later history of the book, in the book of Judges, it will have a judge. And we know that Simeon, for example, won't be a person of notoriety, but he too, from that tribe, later on in the book of Judges, there will be a judge. There's breadcrumbs laid down of each of these people as you travel through time. Levi we know, as I said, brings us from the tribe of Levi, a man named Moses, his brother Aaron and his sister Miriam. Moses leads the people out of the land of Egypt and that tribe and the descendants of the sons of Aaron become, essentially, we'll call them the real center and core tenders of the tabernacle with express detail on what they must do, given expressly to them and they will not have any benefit of inheriting land, such as the other tribes, but they will have duties and they will have cities that they may abide in, 48 of them, plus the cities of refuge. And if we keep traveling through, we find that, I think last week, we looked at Judah. And Judah has an interesting situation happen. When the blessings are given out in the later chapters of Genesis to all the children, the birthright package, which was one package, is now split. It's bifurcated. So to Judah and Judah's descendants will come the right to rule and lawmaking, and to the sons of Joseph, those half-Egyptian children, Ephraim and Manasseh, will go other blessings. The birthright package is now split. We looked at Judah and his interesting story and there's no other way to put it. It's somewhat of a whorish tale; pun intended. But it gives you an idea as we begin to trace the right to rule, that line that produced the two children, Pharez; Pharez and Zarah, which then will bifurcate, and there's a record of that and eventually will join again as one. And then we trace a lineage of someone who's sitting on the throne, because the promise to David was that there will never be a time when his seed or a descendant of his is not sitting on the throne, and as I said last week and I'll repeat it again, it's made many people fall away from the faith because they failed to look in the right place to find out who the descendants and to trace the lineage properly. It brings you to a harsh and brutal reality that there is indeed a descendant of that line even today sitting on a throne somewhere alive and well, at least in the last hour of so since I left my office. And it's not me; just in case you get confused with my connections of saying “since I left my office”" but there is, somewhere on this planet, a descendant of that line sitting on the throne. That brings us to the subject of the lost tribes, and people who are willing to take the time and the effort to examine the information begin to realize that the title “lost tribes” is kind of not really true. The lost tribes are not lost at all. The prevailing theory held by most people who do not wish to examine both the evidence biblically and the extra-biblical and historical, archeological evidence is that these people are gone; they have disappeared. Finely, a finely woven history, if one chooses to look, gives clear understanding, gives us a better understanding of the rest of the Bible because I've said to you if you cannot distinguish between the house of Israel and the house of Judah and you try to make them one lump sum, you're going to have trouble interpreting what the prophets were talking about and to whom these prophets were talking. Some prophets spoke to the north and some spoke to the south as the kingdoms divided after the death of Solomon. So it's important to understand that. The other thing is if we go outside of this book, there are many abundant proofs. And I never do this, this way, I don't say go to the outside sources first to get your information and then come back to the Bible. The Bible's enough for me, but I do recognize there are people who will say, “Well, you know, how can you verify this?” And you begin to trace the names of, for example, Assyrian, the Assyrian names that we have anglicized for our reading, Tiglath Pileser, Shalmaneser and others that, or the name Pul, which is equated with. And we can take the names that they, their titular names or the their what we would call anglicized names, but we can trace back into the records and find that these people who were brutal, barbaric and cruel, made sure to document their conquests and to document the power over the people that they either subjugated, captured or moved around. So there's abundant record outside of this book to show us that when the time comes and I'm headed there, and we're not there yet today, but I'm headed there, we'll talk about some of those discoveries briefly, specifically the cuneiform cache that was uncovered in the late 1800s and certainly the later findings by about the 1930s by a professor of the University of Michigan, and many of the major libraries and museums. As pieces started to be pulled together both by Layard and other archeologists , a clarity and a pattern became abundantly clear that if an individual was willing to investigate those pieces of information and understand the following, that some of the people referred to, biblically speaking, their names indeed will appear in those sources. For example, there is an obelisk stone with the person's name of Jehu, who is a biblical person. The biblical account which we'll chronicle in detail some of the events that lead to, we'll call it the demise of kingdoms. Other people will be known by other names. They will not be known by their name, but as they were carried away they'll be known by other names which we can indeed trace back to these people who have been labeled “lost.” So as we trace this, and I'm, I've tried to try and keep each message somewhat individual and separate so that somebody who's trying to put together the pieces, you're not having to go “Okay, I've got to go back five messages to find out what she said.” I'm trying, not always possible, but that's the idea, the goal. It starts, of course with God calling a man out of Ur of Chaldees or Kasdim, Abram who becomes Abraham. God gives him a nice promise, actually it's multiple promises, but the specific things I'm looking at: land and seed, and “seed” as in a son. And that seed that was the promised seed, as, although Abraham; Abram “high father” became Abraham “father of many”" indeed it is his son Isaac, son of promise who then, of course, produces Jacob. And Jacob, his sons, and these sons are the sons of Jacob, slash, who becomes Israel are who we're talking about when we discuss the lost tribes or the children of Israel. That's all background. Now in Genesis 30 we go. That's where I take you first, all that was the introduction to bring folks along. You know, it's very difficult, I understand, when you come in, sometimes I'm right in the middle of something, especially if you're coming in for the first time and you're “Huh? What on earth is she talking about?” Okay, so we've been through some of the children already clear to Judah. And we know that Jacob has two wives and two concubines, so essentially four women and one man will, will produce the tribes; busy people here. So I'm skipping over today Dan and Naphtali, I'm skipping over Gad and Asher, and I want to talk today about Issachar. And so you've got to start at Genesis 30 and verse 14 to get the picture of Issachar. Reuben is the firstborn. “Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, brought them unto his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Give me, I pray thee of thy son's mandrakes. She said unto her, is it a small matter that thou hast taken my husband? and wouldest thou take away my son's mandrakes also? And Rachel said, Therefore he shall lie with thee to night for thy son's mandrakes.” So there's a little bit of selling of, buying and selling of Jacob. You can't always get what you want, but you get what you need? “And Jacob came out of the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and said, Thou must come in unto me,” no, no women's lib here, “for surely I have hired thee with my son's mandrakes.” Now remember, Leah's the ugly one, you need a little, you need a little motivation there. “And he lay with her that night. God harkened unto Leah, and she conceived, and bare Jacob a fifth son. And Leah said, God hath given me my hire, because I have given my maiden to my husband: she called his name Issachar.” And Issachar if you have a Bible like mine, the margin may read “a hire” but Issachar also means “wages.” So it's kind of interesting that in exchange for the mandrakes, the wages, she, they produced Wages: Issachar. Now before I get into talking about Issachar, let me just say Issachar does not have too, there's not too much said about Issachar as opposed to the others, for example Judah or Simeon and Levi, or even Reuben have much more. But what I want you to, there's always some application to make when I say I'm going to tell we're laying out a foundation, but I also want to look at some application. And the application here, I just want you to think about this, Issachar kind of seems to get lost in the mix here. You know, imagine being just kind of wedged in between everybody else and there's really nothing special to say. Now step back for a second and I want, I'm going to paint the bird's eye view of Issachar, which is no matter what the blessing is, which we're going to look at in a minute, no matter what the blessing is to Issachar, I want you to think of Issachar very much like we might think of people who have been passed over, who may or may not have made great contributions. We don't know, although we have a little bit of the character of Issachar's descendants and the tribes, the people out of Issachar. But I think a lot of times, and I, I'm pretty sure this is applicable to everyone in the sound of my voice, we can get into the mindset of saying, “If I'm not going to be remembered like some other people will be remembered for the things they did,” you know, some people are extremely rich and they give lots of money and they're remembered because they were extremely rich and very generous, or extremely rich and wanted their names on things and therefore looked generous. Or maybe some people are remembered in a larger way, and yet the men of Issachar, at first blush, may seem, Issachar himself and later on some of the men, quite insignificant. But actually there are great details left for us about these people and what I want you to remember as each and every one of these, in the tribes here that we're looking at, have something that we can glean. Just because your name is not in neon lights or your face is not on a billboard or people are not talking about you, maybe you're not the instagram, snapchat favorite of your circle of people, but in God's eyes I don't think He overlooks any of the details. The people that have, and I have in my lifetime, said, “What's the point?” You know I'm doing━forgive me, it sounds a little, a little bit like Nehemiah's lament and sometimes sounds a little bit like “Wow, wake up!” God needs to slap me on the back of the head or something. “God, am I wasting my time? Is this, you know, what's the point? Such a laborious task and I'm not even sure”━you've all, come one, you've all had those moments where you say, “I, I'm just laboring here.” I'm not speaking just to being in the pulpit; I'm talking about your life as a believer, as a Christian. Have you ever had times like that in your life where you just say this, “Why am I laboring this hard? What is the point?” Okay, so I'm not insane. I'd be the only one up here; I'm the only person up here confessing to that, right? You're all looking at me, going, “See, ha, ha, ha!” because we go through those phases, just, I would say the same way when we're much younger, we go through the points of━they're the low points: big dreams with very little ability to reach those big dreams almost gives in to defeatism of “What's the point? Why bother?” So Issachar kind of reminds me of that because there's not a lot of fanfare about Issachar. And yes, there's going to be some bad stuff about Issachar. None of these people have a perfect record. I've told you, that's probably the biggest goal in the personal application of these people, scattered, by the way, scattered for the most part on the face of the planet, not the majority. Not Jews, as some have preached and proclaimed, but comprising of Gentiles and Gentile nations and Gentile people. When I say that, I'm talking about not, not then-known as the people that they used to be and over time intermingling, conquering and moving across the face of the planet. So Issachar does not have some great stories like, as I said, Simeon, Levi and Judah, but what we can glean in his, in the blessing that Jacob will give just before he dies is a little bit strange. So if you'll turn there, Genesis 49, and we've got Jacob gathering his children together to bless them. And by the way, not all of them are getting a blessing. But Issachar, Genesis 49, beginning at verse 14, oh boy. “Okay kids, come on, gather around.” I would think Reuben would be the first; he's firstborn, he'd be the closest by, ear cupped, you know, Dad can just barely talk. And when he gets to Issachar he says, “Issachar is a strong ass couching down between two burdens.” Tell me what type of a blessing that is when your father calls you a “strong ass”" Now what should, it should really read, and I'm reading the King James and having a little fun, but the translation in the Hebrew is extremely challenging. And I would challenge some of my Hebrew students, if you want to knock yourself out and have a wild time trying to figure this one out. Some of the translations that I came up with from the Brown, Driver, Brigg and other helps, Issachar is either a “strong” or a “bony ass,” focus; keep your mind on the Lord right now, “couching down,” but actually “prostrating” or “laying himself out between two burdens.” And this is what's the difficulty, the “two burdens” are either “two sheepfolds” or “two ash heaps,” depending on which word you're going to use from the Hebrew. It's quite difficult. I've told you as I get a little bit older my sympathy for those people who were translating grows by leaps and bounds, because it is just that ambiguous of a language. “And he saw that rest was good,” he, literally, “he saw that the resting place was good, and the land that it was pleasant; and he bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute.” He became a slave at forced labor, basically, laying himself out between two burdens. And when I said I gave you “sheepfolds” or “ash heaps,” could be the tribes that he was around or the peoples he would ultimately end up being surrounded by, not being able to stand alone or choose for himself one or the other, and then ultimately becoming a slave of forced labor because of his inability to choose one and be by himself as the other tribes will be independent. So that, that's a very strange blessing/prophecy for Issachar, and we're not told, you know, we're not told. Issachar did not produce any notables like David. David came out of the line of Judah. Issachar did not produce any Solomons. Solomon came out of the line of Judah. Issachar didn't produce any real names that you can say, “Wow! I know that name and I'm familiar,” but you've got to travel into the book of Judges to see that while Deborah, who judged, who was part of the tribe, her group and her responsibilities out of the tribe of Naphtali, but while she is waging a war, it says the princes of Issachar were with her, which is somewhat interesting. It means we're traveling now from the time of Genesis and some four hundred or three hundred years will elapse from the time that Jacob brings his children into the land of Egypt for the famine, and then that they become enslaved. There'll be, there'll be a time of over four hundred years and then to the time of the Judges, so we're speeding and racing ahead and we still have the names of the tribes popping up. They're not disbursed yet, they're not quote/unquote “los”" yet. And I just referred to the book of Judges, where we read in, in the fifth chapter about Issachar being with Deborah. But what I want you to turn to is the book of Judges and I want you to read with me. It's only two verses in the book of Judges to establish something. That's Judges 10 and the only notable that we can know of some couple of hundred years down the road, Judges 10, is a man named Tola out of the tribe of Issachar. And all we know about this man is that he judged for 23 years. “And after Abimelech there arose to defend Israel Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar; and he dwelt in Shamir in mount Ephraim. And he judged Israel twenty and three years, and died, and was buried in Shamir.” It's almost as though there is nothing, there's no record. When we studied the judges, it was “And this one did evil. And this one failed God. And this one didn't do.” It's almost as though there are no real details thus far given to us about the descendants of this line. And the frustration is if we're trying to paint a picture, we don't get too much. But we can know this. We can know that from the time we just looked at, the blessing that was given by Jacob to Issachar, which I don't know how you could interpret that as a blessing: “You're going to be a strong or bony ass between two burdens, and then you're going to become a slave of forced labor.” “Wow, thanks for that blessing, Dad!” to a couple of hundred years later, reading about a man named Tola, who's an unknown, two verses that say he judged for 23 years. There's no record of wars or conquerings or anything, just these two verse that that's all we know about this man from Issachar. So let's keep going. I'm trying to build something here on very little information, so let's go to 1 Kings 4. We're still trying to put some pattern together of who or what these men might look like. And some of this, by the way, it's going to be I'm giving you a lot of Scripture and then the message is going to be very short. I've got a very quick message to summarize all of this. By Solomon's time, and there's a message in a message right here, by Solomon's time, Solomon is preparing, by the way, to build the temple. And it's kind of interesting because we know that Solomon is known for his wisdom, we'll leave that one alone, but he also had great wealth. And in 1 Kings 4, you've got twelve men, twelve officers, who will provide victuals for the king and his household. They will provide provisions: “each man his month in a year made provision.” Now this is just some something very weird, but of these twelve officers we'll read twelve are given and of these twelve officers, each one will have their month to provide for Solomon provisions for the king and for his household. Let me read this first, and then I'll make a comment because it, it just, when I was reading this it dawned on me that there is just, there're way too many people that talk about why, “Why should I give? Why should I give anywhere?” And yet, we're talking about the king who had abundant wealth and prosperity, and here are twelve men who provided for the king and his household. Verse 7, “Solomon had twelve officers over all Israel, which provided victuals for the king and his household: each man his month in a year made provision. These are their names: The son of Hur, in mount Ephraim: the son of Dekar, in Makaz, and in Shaalbim, and Beth-shemesh, and Elon-beth-hanan: the son of Hesed, in Aruboth; to him pertained Sochoh, and the land of Hepher: the son of Abinadab, and all the region of Dor; which had Taphath the daughter of Solomon to wife: Baana the son of Ahilud; to him pertained Taanach and Megiddo, and all Beth-shean&,” and you keep reading, “son of Geber&, the son of Manasseh&, the son of Iddo&”" keep going, “Baanah the son of Hushai was in Asher and in Aloth: Jehoshaphat the son of Paruah, in Issachar.” So we haven't lost sight of the fact that there are still descendants of the tribe of Issachar. Here is “Jehoshaphat the son of Paruah, in Issachar.” And these are the twelve, each one essentially responsible for one month to bring provisions, which means these people had to be men of means. So what have we established so far? That Issachar didn't really get too good of a blessing, that out of that line produced a judge that judged 23 years with very little that we can go on and here still to the time of Solomon, and Solomon has not yet built the temple, but we know he's got great wisdom and wealth and we've got twelve men and one of these men is out of Issachar, who will provide for the king and all of his household for one month. And that means minimally, the king and one thousand women, aside from the men and others that served. That's a whole lot of mouths to feed, which means these were men of substance. They had the wherewith to provide to the king and his household. And that's one of the pictures I want to paint: men of means. So we have some insight. The tribe didn't just disappear into oblivion with rags on their back. We've got a man, obviously out of the tribe who is a man of substance. If you go just few pages further in your Bible to 1 Chronicles 7. “Now the sons of Issachar were, Tola, Puah, Jashub, and Shimron, four. And the sons of Tola; Uzzi, Rephaiah, Jeriel, Jahmai, Jibsam, Shemuel, heads of their fathers house, to wit, of Tola: they were valiant men of might.” So what I want you to see, we don't have too much information so what we're building is a skeleton here. We've got a judge, we've got men who were men of means, and here we have valiant men of might to help us understand a little bit about this tribe. So “they were valiant men of might,” if you're interested, the Hebrew, the Hebrew is gibori khahyil, “in their generations; whose number was in the days of David two and twenty thousand and six hundred,” so 22,600. “And sons of Uzzi&and all of the chief men. And with them, their generation, after the house of their fathers, were bands of soldiers for war,” so we have valiant men of might and soldiers for war, 36,000, “for they had many wives and sons. And their brethren among them of all the families of Issachar were valiant men of might,” it's repeated again, “reckoned in all by their genealogies fourscore and seven thousand.” So we have 87,000. That gives you a snapshot. Again, not too much detail, except I'm going to repeat back in Judges we get a picture of those men that were with Deborah, Tola who judged, these who are considered “valiant men of might,” soldiers for war and if you'll go a few pages ahead now to 1 Chronicles 12, and chapter, verse 32. It says, “And the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times,” and we studied that word when we went through the whole book of Nehemiah, that Hebrew word, been; just like it sounds like been, for discerning, “understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do; the heads of them were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their commandment.” Now it's kind of interesting because these were men who had discerning just beyond, it's much beyond simple knowledge, they had discerning “of the times to know what Israel ought to do.” So we have a pretty good picture of what is going on here. Now I go back now, I flip-flopped a little bit, so you've got a picture of these men. It's scant, but we can know at least through David's time what type of men these were, men of understanding, men of discernment, men who people could probably consult and if they were to be asked, “What? What should we do?” they had the answers. Men of provision in Solomon's time, men of might; so we do have some picture we're able to paint of these people. It's not just some ambiguous shade. These are not, as I said, people who went away in their tattered rags to trot off in the desert and disappear. And at the death of Solomon, when the kingdom split, you have to the north Jeroboam will reign and to the south Rehoboam, so two kings will reign between the split, if you will. And from this there's an interesting reference about a descendant of the tribe of Issachar who will come up to the throne for a little while, who's quite wicked. So up until this point, other than the pretty bad blessing that Issachar gets from his dad, thus far we've got a pretty good picture of this, of the descendants of this tribe, as I said, able to judge, men of means, men of might, men who were men of understanding, obviously well respected and sought out for the information they were able to give. Now, 1 Kings 15 will give us the record. Head to that vicinity and I'll tell you when to stop. The pages just keep going. This becomes probably the most important part of the equation. As you head to 1 Kings 15, now we're well into the divided kingdom. As I said, Jeroboam will reign, Nadab, then a man named Baasha, then his son Elah, then Zimri, Omri, Ahab; it's just this is going to degrade into a series of rulers who are evil. But here's what I want you to focus on because we'll do this in detail. I'm now giving a greater overview of something. Just to be sure that up until this point there are members of the tribe of Issachar still in existence, to this point. And if we begin reading about where Nadab, who is the son of Jeroboam; so Jeroboam is the first after the death of Solomon, and then Jeroboam reigns for a time, and then Nadab. Beginning at verse 25, so 1 Kings 15, beginning at verse 25, “And Nadab the son of Jeroboam began to reign over Israel in the second year of Asa king of Judah, and reigned over Israel two years.” And the important thing is when you're reading this, they're going to give you parallels because this is why I said if you can't separate Israel and Judah, both in the prophecies and those who rule, you're going to have a hard time understanding. And when people begin to say “Israel” and equate all Israel with Jews, there's your first mistake going out the gate. So we've, we've got to separation here, we've got a divided kingdom, north and south. “Nadab the son of Jeroboam began to reign over Israel in the second year of Asa king of Judah, and reigned over Israel two years. He did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of his father, in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin. And Baasha the son of Ahijah of the house of Issachar,” so we have, we've got these breadcrumbs: Issachar has not disappeared, the descendants have not disappeared; “conspired against him; and Baasha smote him at Gibbethon, which belonged to the philistines; for Nadab and all Israel laid siege to Gibbethon. Even in the third year of Asa king of Judah did Baasha slay him, and reigned in his stead. It came to pass, when he reigned, that he smote all the house of Jeroboam,” so nice guy. It's the first real tarnish and cruelty we see. We don't have any other pieces of information, we just don't, “he left not to Jeroboam any that breathed, until he had destroyed him, according to the saying of the LORD, which he spake by his servant Ahijah, the Shilonite: because of the sins of Jeroboam which he sinned, and which he made Israel to sin, by his provocation wherewith he provoked the LORD God of Israel to anger. Now the rest of the acts of Nadab, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? And there was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days.” Again we're now definitely seeing two separate kingdoms, two separate rulers. Verse 33, “In the third year of Asa king of Judah began Baasha the son of Ahijah to reign over all of Israel in Tirzah, twenty and four years. And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin.” So you can see nothing is looking too promising here. “The word of the LORD came to Jehu the son of Hanani against Baasha, saying, Forasmuch as I exalted thee out of the dust,” just think about this for a second, because I've just said obscure, very scant information. Now I want us to get the history and lock on to something, but I also don't want you to forget that in each and every generation, in each and every family, in each and every tribe there are people who will be the most, we'll call them the most precious saints. They're the workers of the church, they're the committed ones, and they're never getting the notoriety. It's always this. It's the people just like this, the ones that are the stink bombs, the stankers in the church, they always get recognition, they're the ones that get, they get a bad rap because they, they do bad things. But the people who are out there, all of the former people behind all of this in Issachar's line, where we don't really read any information about any real tarnishes, although I'm sure that there were, get no recognition for anything. So my comment about saying, you know, sometimes you say, “What's the point?” the point is that God sees. He's aware. He sees the people that are committed, the people who are committed to giving; to giving of their money, giving of their time, they're committed to read, they're committed to pray: He sees all that. And I think a lot of times the idea is if it's not being spoken of and being heralded, “If I'm not being recognized, if people aren't heralding up my name.” But isn't that exactly the exact opposite of what Christ spoke about in Matthew 6? Just don't make a spectacle of it. When you do whatever you do, do it with the knowledge that the Lord knows, just like these previous to, Issachars previous to Baasha, if you will, probably did a lot of good things. We don't know what they did. They're not even mentioned. It's just the bad, rotten eggs that are going to come up and be spoken of, so that's, that's to say this verse 2 speaks volumes, “Forasmuch as I exalted thee out of the dust, and made thee a prince over my people Israel; and thou hast walked in the way of Jeroboam, and hast made my people Israel to sin, to provoke me to anger with their sins; behold, I will take away the posterity, the posterity of Baasha, and the posterity of his house; and I will make thy house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat,” which we just read was wiped out; “Him that dieth of Baasha in the city shall the dogs eat,” you know, wow, “and him that dieth of his in the fields shall the fowls of the air eat. Now the rest of the acts of Baasha, and what he did, and his might, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? So Baasha slept with his fathers, and was buried in Tirzah: and Elah his son reigned in his stead.” So now there's another descendant of that same tribe and the apple does not fall far from the tree. Read down in verse 8, “In the twenty and sixth year of Asa king of Judah began Elah the son of Baasha to reign over Israel in Tirzah, two years. And his servant Zimri, captain of half his chariots, conspired against him, as he was in Tirzah, drinking himself drunk in the house of Arza steward of his house in Tirzah. Zimri went in, smote him, killed him, in the twenty and seventh year of Asa king of Judah, and reigned in his stead.” So now we have the descendant of Baasha, Elah from the tribe, we'll call him an “Issacharite,” reigning and killed. “It came to pass, when he began to reign, as soon as he sat on his throne, that he slew all the house of Baasha: left him not one that pisseth against the wall, neither of his kinsfolks, nor of his friends.” And if you, if you don't think that's in the Bible, that's definitely in the Bible. We don't whitewash here. We read it as it is. Somebody said, “You read those embarrassing parts, those embarrassing chapters.” Well, God wasn't embarrassed; He included it. Probably the only awkward thing is the English word, because it has a TH at the end, which means it's a verb. Back then, it was anyway. Who said grammar was boring, right? “Thus did Zimri destroy all the house of Baasha, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake against Baasha by Jehu the prophet. For all the sins of Baasha, and the sins of Elah his son, by which they sinned, and by which they made Israel to sin, in provoking the Lord God of Israel to anger with their vanities. Now the rest of the acts of Elah, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?” Now that ends the Issacharite rule in Israel. What is interesting is it says that he slew all of the house of Baasha, but it doesn't say all of the tribe of Issachar, so we know that there was a whole household destroyed, but don't confuse that with the tribe because as you keep reading, Zimri will rule for a time and essentially the gist of it is he will commit suicide. Omri will be raised up and reign in his stead. At the same time that Omri is reigning, a man name Tim━, Tibni will be reigning for a time, and then ultimately Tibni is out of the picture, Omri will reign, and moves the city and all the activity to Samaria. And that's super-important for one reason, when everything by Omri is moved to Samaria, the capital, everything that is the epicenter of the religious life of culture is moved to Samaria that is the intersection of where the Bible, we can stop for a minute here and secular history will pick up firmly and neatly. The Assyrians, not just one, I've said you must separate the Babylonian and Assyrian captivities separately. Not just one, but successive rulers in the Assyrian realm will try to come against Samaria and take over. And it is in these successive rulers that we find through about the time of Omri, and we'll trace these in detail. I'm just giving you the introduction to this. We will trace the peoples who were carried away at that time. There are at least two or three different Scriptures that talk about this event, both at the hands of Tiglath Pileser and of Pul, (P, U, L, Pul), carrying away, and it says the territories and tribes, biblically recording the people's tribes who are carried away are moved away, and you must go to the record, the secular record of Tiglath, Tiglath Pileser and his records to read of others that were carried away in that band at that time. And you will find that Issachar is just one of the tribes named, that's not named in the Bible but named in the records by Tiglath Pileser, the records recorded for him by his history, a people bearing that name are carried away at that time. And this becomes extremely important. I've just woven together in a very choppy way to show you that we've got a little scant history here, recorded here, but then this other history over here records these people being moved away. And they are not moved away and unlike much later, the Babylonian captivity, where the people are moved away and they are positioned in a place and if they move at all, but they barely move; these people are being moved around and cities are being established that are bearing names that bear strange and striking similarities to the names of the tribes that have been carried away. Now if you follow this history that essentially looks like a terminus in the Bible, but it's not, not all the people, this is what we've got to kind of grab our mind with, not all the people disappeared. Some of the people had to remain because if you go through this book, if you remember when I taught out of Nehemiah and Ezra, after they come back from the Babylonian captivity, which is a much later carrying away of the people, and their return, they were trying to reconstruct the temple services and the practices. And we know that, at least in part, the courses of the priests were reestablished, because when we get to the time of Christ, to the birth of John the Baptist with Elisabeth and Zachariah, we know that the courses of the priests were being performed and these courses had a correlation, not only with the calendar, but with those who would have borne the responsibility to serve in their proper course in the temple. So not every single person disappeared, but a large majority were carried away. Did some remain? Did━perhaps some hid, some were spared. So it's in this, at this particular intersection right here that we've just looked where the people in Omri's time, who are carried away, will begin to be referred to as “the house of Omri.” As they reappear elsewhere, they're going to be referred to a people that belong to the house of Omri, which are not of his descendants, but of the people that were under his reign, abiding in the place where he was at, at that time: Samaria. Now for the rest of the matter, I've just woven a couple hundred years of history and it's very, it's kind of complicated to try and just simplify it and say, “You now have this,” because I want to be able to show you in great detail once we've laid out enough information about these different tribes that when people come up at a later time and say, “Oh, they've just discovered this tribe over here, this lost tribe that's been lost,” the problem with that is if we understand that to the north, and everything that was carried away, the majority that was carried away to the north is exactly what Hosea was talking about when he spoke about the people being scattered. And it says about “not my people” first, who then will be “my people” again. Those scattered people become scattered people upon the face of the planet who are not Jews. And the people who will be referred to as Jews of the southern kingdom, those that remained that were carried away, as I said, in the Babylonian captivity and the few that returned, the fifty or sixty thousand that returned to rebuild, and the rest of those people who remained in Babylon, half a million, maybe up to a million people by some accounts, maybe it's even more than that; remained in that territory, and if they migrated at all they migrated in close proximity to the captivity, which lasted seventy years. Why? Because they bore children and they raised up families. This is the complexity if you are going to try and study the ancient near east and the cultures that then spin off to try and sort out the peoples of that geographic place today, which many are not practicing Judaism. After seventy years, they even forgot their language, their tongue; they adopted the tongue and the practices of the people of that land who essentially morphed into and became the people of that territory and the few that returned that were identifiably those of Judah, whom we call Jews. So when we talk about this, it's extremely important to begin laying these foundational points down and probably to step away in the bigger picture of all this is to say Issachar is a great lesson for any person who has, again, the last things I've read here are not very flattering, Baasha and his, and his child are not the best goods in the house here. They did evil, they led the people astray, but the record before that, not too much fanfare, not too much information, kind of looked over, not even a great blessing, but I guarantee you a people that preserved, that persevered, that survived. And it says these were men of might, men of war, men of provision or means, and at least one judge that was raised up, which tells me that God doesn't have any random accidents. There are no insignificants in God's program, even if you feel like you're insignificant. And I'm, I say that in the kindest way. When you go out in nature and you stand before a great mountain and you look up and your jaw opens and you just kind of feel dwarfed by it all, insignificant in that way, or insignificant in looking around and seeing all the workers who are maybe more eloquent or seem to be more knowledgeable about that the things of God than you. There is no person in God's program who is lesser and therefore cannot be seen. Understand God sees the heart, I don't. He sees the mind, I don't. He sees your acts, the good, the bad and the ugly, and I'm sure that there are many Issachars in the midst who feel rather insignificant. Just remember the lesson here, although the bigger picture is lost tribes, not lost. The lesson of Issachar is there are no insignificants in God's book and there are no insignificants here in this church and in the sound of my voice. You're here for a purpose. God has called you for a reason. It may not be to be the flashing neon light that's saying, “Look at the deeds and look at the works! Look at this!” But how about like the ones that Jesus came across and He says, “I've not found such great faith.” Maybe that's your thing. No one can see that. That's between you and God, just don't think that because you're not being highlighted somewhere that you're not the highlight in God's book. That is the message of Issachar and this, again, is to be continued. That's my message. You have been watching me, Pastor Melissa Scott, live from Glendale, California at Faith Center. If you would like to attend the service with us, Sunday morning at 11am, simply call 1-800-338-3030 to receive your pass. If you'd like more teaching and you would like to go straight to our website, the address is www.PastorMelissaScott.com
