First Chronicles. Chapter eight is where we are tonight, which is the study of the tribe of Benjamin. Some of the twelve tribes you've noticed have had simple lessons. Judah gives us a king and Levi teaches us redemption, of course, but the tribe of Benjamin is a more complicated endeavor. First of all, it is a shocking story. You'll have become accustomed so far to names and lists of tens of thousands of soldiers, tribes that you probably couldn't find on a map that were able to field an army of tens of thousands of people to defend a king. What a contrast with Benjamin six hundred. That's the name that should echo in your head six hundred people. Benjamin, through their own apathy toward spiritual things and been whittled down by the Israelites. Some tribes were taken into captivity, were kidnapped and led into exile, not the Benjamites, the Benjamins. The Benjamites fell down to just a few hundred people because of their own spiritual apathy. They weren't attacked by the Assyrians. They weren't attacked by the Egyptians whom they feared. They were attacked by the Israelites themselves as one might have a cancerous organ removed. The Israelites attacked Benjamin to purify the body. They viewed their spiritual apathy as cancerous and a threat to the existence of the tribes themselves. And so the. In fact, the last time the Bible says the twelve tribes did anything as one man, you know what the agreement was, and judges. As one man, they decided to go to war against Benjamin. And so it's interesting that you jump forward to the end of the exile, when all the tribes have been taken into captivity, and they're brought back together under Nehemiah and Ezra, that Benjamin's still here. Not all twelve tribes made it back, remember? We don't see Zebulon around. We don't see Dan. Dan had been taken in and intentionally omitted from the. The genealogy to show the judgment for their idolatry. Zebulon had. Was so small and had been so intermarried and taken over by the Assyrians. There wasn't even a genealogy to record. They're gone, but not Benjamin. There are way fewer benjamites than Zebulon Knights. And yet Benjamin makes it back. Let me return to the slide that I put up last week of the. The tribes that I've added, the two that were missing last week, Ephraim and Asher. Some of you asked why Manasseh was on there twice last week. Remember when we covered Manasseh? It had been split in half on both sides of the river. And yet my epiphany this week was, if I just make him into one, it fits. Back in the twelve tribe scheme. You'll notice the numbers skip over seven because Dan is gone. Manasseh again to repeat, was repeated twice. But this is just a brief lesson. I'm not going to repeat it all, but this is if you were to reduce each tribe down to one lesson for the Christian life. This is what you have. I said I wouldn't preach preach at all, but here we go anyway. Judah teaches you that God gives a king and that salvation comes to that king. Simeon teaches you that you have refuge inside of the shelter of that king. Ruben shows you that natural privilege. Remember, the firstborn could be forfeited. God put themselves at the entrance there by Jericho to defend Israel, their strength and dependence on Yahweh. Levi was supposed to be scattered. They didn't get any lands. And yet God turned that judgment into rescue and deliverance. Redemption. Issachar, they were the ones who were discerning. They showed you that men of the times discerned the Word of God and could be protected and kept. Dan, of course, is missing Naphtali. Judgment starts on the edges of God's people. But God even turned that to a light to the Gentiles. Manasseh shows you that partial obedience is long term weakness. Ephraim. Privilege without faithfulness as pride. We looked at that last week. And finally, Asher. They had the best of the land. They were comfortable. The finest foods, the best vineyards. And their comfort dulled their obedience. Now, with all these tribes, the couple things that I hope you've learned to repeat what I said last week, all twelve of these tribes, you have this one sentence lesson. All twelve of these these lessons here were given in the prayer of Judah as he dedicated his twelve children, or as he prayed for them, as Jacob prayed for them and dedicated the twelve tribes by name. You see this in his own prayer for his people what they would be like. It's. Each of these lessons is seen in the land. They have the physical allocation of land for each of these twelve tribes goes on to be a almost a physical picture of the lesson that God is teaching you through them. And then many of these twelve tribes have a New Testament person who personifies the strengths and weaknesses of the tribe, who personifies the lesson or the promise lived out in the pages of Scripture. And of course, Benjamin is no different. The tribe of Benjamin. If you were to summarize it well, I'll take you to school tonight. School in the tribe of Benjamin here. Lessons from the School of Benjamin. But if you were to summarize all these lessons into one word that God perseveres even through what should have been extinction, Benjamin should be gone. The school of Benjamin is a school of survival. And the military. You might go to Sears School or whatever. Survival and evasion training. That's that's this is what Benjamin is. It's a story of survival in the wilderness. Survival when they should have been gone. This is, as I said earlier, a tribe that almost destroyed itself, that produced a failed king, that David, by all rights, should have killed him and his whole family. They lived in the shadow of Judah. There, up on the foothills there, Jerusalem was inside of Benjamin's territory, and yet it's still around. It's still here in the Book of Chronicles, because that is probably the most theologically complicated of the twelve tribes. Remember, other tribes had good and bad features, but this is just a complicated mess of God's persevering grace. If you boil it down to one lesson, I'll lead with it. The most important lesson that God keeps what should have been lost. The tribe of Benjamin shows you that God knows how to keep what should have been lost. This is the tribe that bounces back. Don't call it a comeback. They've been here for years. The prayer over Benjamin personifies this. As Jacob prayed for his sons, he prayed. Benjamin is a ravenous wolf in the morning, devouring the prey and at evening dividing the spoil. That's the prayer for Benjamin. So that's that's a weird prayer. Like, I'll give you that as you get to the end of the twelve tribes. I don't know if he was getting tired. He was old, but the prayers started getting shorter and weirder. And Benjamin is a ravenous wolf. Okay. He's a ravenous wolf. He's there in the morning. You wake up, there's a wolf outside. What do you do? You chase him away, you hunt him. The wolf has no business building up a fort in your yard. You drive him away. But Benjamin somehow was still there. When the sun goes down, he's still hanging out in your yard, still eating your food. He's somehow still around. At first glance, he personifies aggression, violence, and predatory power. Someone who should have been hunted by the rest and driven to extinction. Remember? They almost were. And yet, somehow, at the close of not just the Old Testament, but at the close of the new, Benjamin is still around receiving God's blessing. And this starts in the genealogy back in first Chronicles chapter eight, verse one. Benjamin. I mean, the first name jumps out at you. Of course, he's the father of this tribe. He was probably Jacob's most loved son because remember, his brother was Joseph. They were the two from Rachel. The, the, the wife that he wanted to begin with only produced him two sons at the very end of his life. And then she died. Jacob, um, Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers when Benjamin was was too young to do anything about it when the other brothers sold him to slavery. Don't picture Benjamin as conspiring with this. But he goes away, doesn't see his brother grow up. And this explains the the interchange at the end of their life. When he's in Egypt, Joseph is in Egypt. He'd risen to the level of Prime minister. The other tribes that are on the the verge of starvation. And of course, they go to Joseph not knowing who he is to appeal for food. Joseph recognizes them, but notices that Benjamin's not there. Remember, he says, I'll give you food, but you have to bring back the other brother. They weep and they don't know what to do. Remember, they come back and tell Jacob and say, he's only going to help us if we bring Benjamin back. Who knows how the other children felt? But Jacob hears this and tells them, and you have robbed me of my whole family. You've taken everybody I love for me. Speaking of Joseph, imagine the brothers all gathered around and the dad says, man, the only two people in the world. I love ones in Egypt and you want to take the other one there, and the other nine or ten are like, what? What about us? They don't count. Reuben, remember, offers up his two sons and says, dad, kill my two sons. If Benjamin dies, put it in my hands. I'll bring him back to you. And of course, remember, they bring Benjamin there and Joseph takes him. It's a sad story of grief and tears. That's the story of Benjamin. But of course, they're still here. God kept them. Benjamin lived. He went on to father a whole nation. The genealogy in chapter eight, verse one, goes from listing all of his sons. He didn't just live. He started to to multiply. They started to fill the. The land. I won't read you all of these names, but know that the tribe starts to grow and grow and grow all the way through. First verse six, you'll recognize the name that you know, the sons of Ehud. That's the judge in the book of judges, the left handed judge whose blade was buried in the. The fat man, the fat king. So God uses a benjamite even to deliver the Israelites. But then by the end of the book of judges, they've multiplied and even their left handed ways, which gave them a military advantage. Remember, it's not because of lefty luck or anything like that, but shields and weapons shields were designed to protect against a right handed swordsman or a right handed slingshot or whatever. And the benjamites were left handed. So they had an advantage in war. And that comes into play as they go to war against the other eleven tribes. Remember the lady, the concubine who was torn for the twelve tribes everybody came out to punish. The attack on her except for Benjamin. They didn't send soldiers and the other tribes. It wasn't just that one incident, of course. The other tribes looked at Benjamin, saw them in the middle of the country and saw their apathy as cancerous, and said, we need to remove them. And they went to war against them and it didn't work out well. Benjamites were outnumbered and they won their first two battles. They lost the third battle. They went from several thousand, tens of thousands of people down to six hundred men. They killed forty thousand Israelites themselves. They took a lot of their brothers with them. But six hundred, that's not a mere setback. That's not a mirror. Like, let's redistribute a couple representatives from them over to GATT or something and it all balance out. This is not a dip in the census. This is an extinction level event. The Israelites wept, and perhaps they remembered as their own weeping over Benjamin. This is what happened at the end of Genesis. They're reenacting at a tribal level what happened at the end of Genesis? They turned on their brother. They turned on Rachel's son, and they wept over the violence. They wept over almost missing a tribe. And so they took all of the kidnapped, the wives from other tribes. They kidnapped women from other tribes and made them marry into Benjamin to restore the tribe. That's crazy. It's not in there as a good example, right? If you have one son that you can't get married off, you don't get to go kidnap some lady down the street and say, we're doing what would happen in the book of judges. It's biblical. No, it's described in Judges as a judgment. Those were the days where the Israelites didn't have a king. They weren't honoring the Lord. They did whatever they wanted to. It's meant to be sad, but God used their sad, sinful ways to keep what should have been lost. God's grace preserved them even when they deserved his judgment. And by the way, this is a pretty basic lesson for your own Christian life. I'm sure there's people here tonight who feel like they have sinned in such a serious way that deserves judgment. It has ruined their usefulness in life. They feel like it can't possibly be redeemed. The tribe of Benjamin should be a lesson for you. Your failures can be severe, but they are definitely not final. God can redeem people that have made shipwreck of their life, that have made completely stupid and sinful decisions, have crashed their life into the ditch, so to speak. You know what? God can redeem even that kind of story. Even that kind of life. You're never beyond his saving grace. That's the most obvious lesson from the tribe of Benjamin. You've never able to outrun God's saving grace. You just. You just can't. God catches up all the time. Second, God keeps his people after failed leaders. He keeps them even though they deserve judgment. Even though they should have been lost, he still keeps them. He keeps them even after failed leaders. This is kind of a subset of the first point. I'm cheating, but I'm making it work. You get this with the judge. They had capitulated in the days of judges. They didn't take the land like they should have, yet God still kept them. The list goes on. We'll skip many of the names, but go down to verse twenty nine. JL the father of Gideon lived in Gibeon, and the name of his wife was Micah. Now you get their sons. This is leading you into Saul's genealogy, the whole thing. You know, you skip a lot of generations here until you get to verse twenty nine. Then it slows down and brings you all the way down to Saul. They've moved into Jerusalem. In verse thirty two, this part of Benjamin finally gets into Jerusalem. The Jebusites lived in Jerusalem even in David's lifetime. And yet these people move also into Jerusalem. Verse thirty three, narrow is the father of Kish. Kish of Saul. So now you see King Saul, probably the most famous person from the tribe of Benjamin in the Old Testament. He is the quintessential failed leader. We often misunderstand Saul because we think he angled himself forward to be king. But if you read the story carefully, he didn't want to be king. He didn't sign up to be king. He was tall, dark, handsome, good looking, so to speak. He looked like the stereotypical Israelite king. And so God made him king as a form of judgment on the Israelites. The Israelites wanted a king to lead them into battle like the other nations had. So God said, fine, you're not after a godly king. You're not after a king with convictions. You're not after a king that knows the Torah. You're not after a king from. You don't even care what tribe he's from. You just want somebody who's good looking to put on a good show in front of the other nations. So fine. I'll give you the perfect guy, Saul. And so he yanks Saul. Remember the whole thing? Looking for the donkey and puts him in charge of the the nation and Saul right away. Remember what he does. He goes and hides in the baggage. He piles suitcases on top of him. So remember that back journey a long ways that all these bags on camels and donkeys and Saul's taken off all the bags and hiding himself underneath him, which is a very funny scene. You have to admit, it's funny, like your brand new king is hiding. He's so awkward at his coronation. He hides behind the, you know, the fruit punch or whatever. He can't see me here. He dresses up like one of the servants. It's a really, really funny scene. That's their king that's going to lead them in the battle. The dude that's hiding, hiding in baggage claim. Of course, Saul grows into his role. He becomes the antithesis of David, the godly king. David was a king after God's own heart, not the one the Israelites wanted, but the one God wanted. And so Saul and David become a foil. If you're familiar with the story, which I'm sure many of you are. They become a foil for each other. Saul is the one who God chose to be king to punish Israel. David is the one God chose to be king to redeem Israel and produce the Messiah. Saul holds on to his kingdom at all costs. He gets over his baggage phase and grows into the. I have to defend myself and my family and my own line at all costs. He holds on to it. David, of course, didn't sign up for this. David received it. Saul grasped his kingdom and David receives it. Saul fought to protect his kingdom. David surrendered himself to God. Saul destroyed all of his rivals. He tried to put them to death. And he was so angry at his soldiers and his men if they wouldn't kill one of his political rivals. What a contrast with David, who barely defended himself. He certainly didn't defend the throne or his claim on the throne. Even after Saul died and David became king. He didn't. David didn't wipe out Saul's family, which he could have, should have. Even again, Benjamites should have been wiped out by any other person. If they became King would have wiped out the family of his rival. The Benjamites should have been gone again. And yet David didn't do that. Saul was loose with obedience. David was strict with repentance. Both were sinful. It wasn't like David was sinless. They were both sinful. But only David was broken by his sin. Saul wanted public honor. He was so afraid of what the people would think. Remember when Samuel rebukes him and says, you sinned and the kingdom is going to take it from you? Saul was like, okay, that's fine, but at least pray with me in front of everybody or they'll think something bad is happening. That's crazy. Whereas David was frog marched out of Jerusalem, right down, right down King David Avenue. It probably wasn't called King David Avenue back then, but he let himself be marched out of the kingdom in front of everybody. People were yelling at him. Remember, Barzillai was spitting at him and hurling insults at him. And David told told his men, don't even. Don't even shut him up. Let him mock me. I'll bear the reproach. Saul personifies people who think about themselves, David. People who think about Yahweh. I have many more in my notes, but I'll. I'll skip them. You get the idea. They boil down to this insecurity versus covenant love. Saul personifies what it means to be insecure in God's. In a relationship with God. David was so secure in his relationship with God. Trusted the Lord at all times. That's a picture of Benjamin, not the positive picture. The Benjamites were Saul in the illustration, and yet God kept them. He didn't let them fade off the pages of Scripture, they remain. Third, God keeps his people through nearness to the Savior. God keeps his people through nearness to the Savior. If you jump back into our genealogy here, you see Saul in verse thirty three, and Saul has Jonathan. Jonathan was Saul's son. Saul wanted Jonathan to be king. If you remember the story with the narrative between David and Jonathan, David and Jonathan became friends. They became friends, by the way, because of their shared love for Yahweh. They were both. They had common interests, I guess, killing Philistines. They both liked that as a hobby. They were both brave warriors. They would both go to war. Despite what Saul said when Saul forbid them to go to war. They're like, I'm busy fighting Philistines can't talk to you right now. And they come across each other and become lifelong friends. You know, they shouldn't have necessarily been friends beyond killing Philistines, they didn't have a lot in common. Jonathan was probably, what, thirty years older than David? At least David became king was when he was thirty. He'd been on the run for a long period of time. Jonathan was old enough to be David's dad, and yet they became best friends. They never described as kind of a father son relationship. They were described as a friendly relationship, covenant friendship with each other. Because they both trusted the Lord. The Benjamites were the tribe of civil war, failed monarchy, and near extinction. And yet Jonathan's covenant faithfulness is what God used to protect them. Do you remember why David didn't wipe out Saul's family? Because he made a covenant with Jonathan. I'll remember you, Jonathan. Jonathan knew he was going to die. Jonathan died fighting next to his dad in battle on a war. They went off to war without even knowing which side of the war David was going to be on. David was just as likely to be fighting against them as for them in that war. And yet God used even that to protect them. Jonathan dies in battle. But David had made a covenant with Jonathan. I will protect your line. And so the Benjamites continue. They should have been wiped out by God. They should have been wiped out by the Israelites. They should have been wiped out by David. And yet they continue for no reason other than the fact that Jonathan and David had a shared covenant love. Jonathan represents loyalty, humility, friendship, faith. And so the benjamites continue despite them deserving judgment, despite their failed leaders. They continued. And you can look at the genealogy here. It goes on in verse thirty four. Mirabel. Mirabel was the father of Macau. Macau has his own sons. The list goes on. They begin to go back to populating the one who is saved, by the way. Mephibosheth. Remember, he was the guy lame in the legs. And yet David had him coming at the king's table, and Mephibosheth was not exactly above reproach either. Remember, there's a whole crazy story with Mephibosheth that's trying to make himself king again, and nobody knows what to believe. And David ultimately doesn't wade through the whole debate. This is described in in the book of Samuel. David doesn't wade through it and figure out, did Mephibosheth put himself forward? Was he betraying me? Was he taking advantage of me? David just decides not to settle. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because of his promise to Jonathan, Mephibosheth stays. Mephibosheth and Jonathan show you that failure and faithfulness grow in the same tribe. They're protected because their relationship with David, which is another way of saying they're protected by their relationship to the promise to the line of Judah, which comes through David. And when I say all the promises are are lived out in the land allotments, this is what I mean with Benjamin Benjamin's land is, is Jerusalem like? That's a very border of Jerusalem. The tribe of Judah takes over right outside of Jerusalem. That's why Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Bethlehem is the closest little village in Judah's allotment. Benjamin has Jerusalem, though their proximity to the land and the temple is why God keeps them. Just like God kept Jonathan because of his proximity to David. Fourth, God keeps for future usefulness. God did not keep Benjamin just to be a nice trophy on the shelf. He keeps Benjamin for a reason. Verse thirty five down to the end. Again, I'm not going to read all these names, but you get rapid multiplication again. They start growing up. It becomes a list of all these sons. All these grandsons are noted in here. Archers. You get a list of people that are archers. That's fun and it ends just with strength. Look at the end of verse forty. The sons of Elam were men who were mighty warriors, bowmen, archers, having many sons and grandsons, one hundred and fifty and all of them were benjamites. It ends with multiplication. They're still smaller than the other tribes. Let me just jog your eyes over to the last line of Asher. Hardly. At the end of chapter seven, the last line of chapter seven, hardly a dominant tribe. They had twenty six thousand there. That's how their warriors end out. Whereas Benjamin, rapid multiplication. Lots of sons, lots of archers, lots of grandsons. Be impressed. One hundred and fifty kind of minuscule next to the tribe of Asher. But the point is, they're still there. They're still counted. They're still numbered. Why? Because God's not done with him. He's going to use them. And here's where the New Testament benjamite becomes the perfect example of the whole tribe of Benjamin, doesn't it? You probably know who I'm talking about. Saul later renamed Paul. Saul is from the tribe of Benjamin. He lets you know that in the Philippians, and he rattles off of it to the Philippians, and he rattles off his credentials. He was the the perfect Jew from the tribe of Benjamin, which he's boasting in. Of course, leave it to somebody from Benjamin to boast in being a benjamite. But that's Saul. What was Saul known for? Well, for persecuting David. He was named, in a sense, prophetically, providentially, prophetically. It was certainly just keeping the name from their first king. You know, a common name, like somebody might name their son George today. You're not saying, oh, he's going to grow up to be president or king or something, but it's just keeping it going. Saul was named Saul, but he went on to oppose David. David's heir, anyway. Jesus. He stood and held the coats when Stephen was stoned to death. And then God saves him, and God renames him. He takes on the name of Paul and he becomes the apostle to the Gentiles. He writes most of the New Testament in terms of the number of books. He writes more books in the Bible than anybody else. Leads a massive impact on the Christian faith. That's why God kept the tribe of Benjamin around. Nobody from the tribe of Judah could have done that. Somebody from the tribe of Judah, that's the tribe of the king. The king, the Saviour has to be from the tribe of Judah, not the person who writes the New Testament. No, it falls to Saul, and he personifies this so perfectly, doesn't he? Opposition to God's king, a ravenous wolf destroying and fleecing the sheep after blood lust. Just like. Just like Jacob promised. And yet God takes that and redeems it. God kept this tribe long enough to raise up Saul, to write the New Testament and to preach Christ to the nations. When God refuses to let something die, it may be because he intends to use it for his own glory and his own purposes in ways beyond anything we can imagine. You wouldn't have pictured that somebody from the tribe of Saul would be writing so much of the New Testament, just based on what you have in the Old Testament, the other tribe that should have been wiped out. And yet God uses them. Ultimately, the story of the tribe of Benjamin is not Saul's failure, but Jonathan's faith, Mephibosheth mercy, and God's persevering grace. And this becomes the question back to us. God keeps people for for future usefulness. If God keeps people for future usefulness. How is God going to use you? I'm certain that you can look in your own life and find excuses. You can look in your own life and find your own failures, bad influences, people who led you astray. Whatever. A thousand excuses not to be used by the Lord. The tribe of Benjamin is there as a testimony to you that none of that matters. God keeps people for future usefulness. Lord, we're thankful for your word and the image of Saul converted to Paul, which should have been lost. The ravenous wolf that should have been hunted, not just redeemed, but redeemed and used. What a picture of blessing. List the names we went through tonight. It's more than just echoes of history. But it's present tense marks of your faithfulness. I pray that the hearts of those who are here tonight would be encouraged by that. we'd find in ourselves a desire for usefulness. We ask that you would bring this about in Jesus name. Amen. And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson. If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, ibc dot church. If you want more information about the Master's Seminary or our location here in Washington, DC, please go to TMZ dot edu. Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C. area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel. I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service. But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church. Now, may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly. Serve the Lord faithfully and share the gospel boldly.