Contents

Introduction
The final three Old Testament Historical Books
Fasting and Prayer

In this final post, we begin with the Jewish nation divided, defeated and discouraged. The Jewish nation is in exile.

Psalm 137 was written by an unnamed Jewish exile in Babylon. It begins, “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept as we thought of Jerusalem. We put away our harps, hanging them on the branches of poplar trees. For our captors demanded a song from us. Our tormentors insisted on a joyful hymn: ‘Sing us one of those songs of Jerusalem!” But how can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a pagan land?”

Jeremiah the Prophet, who remained in Jerusalem following the fall of Jerusalem, wrote a letter to the Jewish exiles in Babylon. Its contents are recorded in Jeremiah 29.

“This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” Yes, this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,” declares the LORD.
This is what the LORD says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” Jeremiah 29:4-14

The fulfillment of that promise came in the form of the Persians. 69 years after Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, first invaded Judah, Persia conquered Babylon. And the king of Persia, Cyrus, issued a declaration in his first year in office that the Jews could return home. Thus, the 70 years of exile was over and the declaration is recorded in the book of Ezra…

“This is what King Cyrus of Persia says: The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has appointed me to build him a Temple at Jerusalem in the land of Judah. All of you who are his people may return to Jerusalem in Judah to rebuild this Temple of the LORD, the God of Israel, who lives in Jerusalem. And may your God be with you! Those who live in any place where Jewish survivors are found should contribute toward their expenses by supplying them with silver and gold, supplies for the journey, and livestock, as well as a freewill offering for the Temple of God in Jerusalem.” Ezra 1:2-4

The Jews did not all return at once and not all the Jews returned. Some Jews remained in Babylon.

The final 3 books in the historical section of the OT are: Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther. The book of Ezra tells the story of the rebuilding of the Temple. It was nothing like the original Temple built by Solomon and destroyed by the Babylonian army. And because of delays, opposition, threats, fear and intimidation; it took about 20 years to complete. Ezra was not the person who led the building project; that was a man by the name of Zerubbabel. Ezra was a priest and scribe who traveled back to Jerusalem to teach and lead the people in the ways of God.

The next book, Nehemiah, tells the story of the rebuilding of the walls around Jerusalem. Interestingly, the Temple was rebuilt first and then the walls around the city, which was very odd, given the importance of walls for protection. But the fact is that the walls around the city of Jerusalem were not rebuilt for almost 100 years following the Return! Nehemiah had been the cupbearer to the king of Persia. He got a burden to help build the wall around Jerusalem, the king let him go and he led the people in a very needed building project.

The book of Esther tells the story of a foiled plot in Persia to exterminate the Jews. A young Jewish woman, by the name of Esther became queen of Persia and from her position was able to save her people from a plot to completely wipe the Jewish race from planet! Hitler wasn’t the first to try.

Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther all played critical roles in the life of the Jewish nation during the Exile and the Return. They had very different roles (two served in the government and one was in the ministry). They were different genders (two were men and one was a woman). They were different ages (Esther was young and Ezra was much older). They had different skills and abilities. But all three utilized the power of ‘fasting & prayer’ during critical points in their lives! Fasting is the act of doing without something, usually food, in order to free up more time to pray – communicating to God, pleading with God, waiting on God.

Ezra fasted and prayed to ask for protection prior to leaving on a dangerous trip from Persia to Israel. Ezra was a Bible Teacher who was getting ready to lead a group of about 4,000 unarmed men, women and children 900 miles across dangerous territory without any military protection. The journey would take them about four months. Before they left, they stopped at a Canal and prayed. According to 8:15, they fasted and prayed for 3 days.

“There, by the Ahava Canal, I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions (And what we learn in verses 26-27 is that they would be carrying about 30 tons of silver and 4 tons of gold!). I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us from enemies on the road, because we had told the king, “The gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to him, but his great anger is against all who forsake him.” So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer.” Ezra 8:21-23

Either they were really stupid or they really believed that God would take care of them! Later in the chapter we find out that it was the latter.

“On the twelfth day of the first month we set out from the Ahava Canal to go to Jerusalem. The hand of our God was on us, and he protected us from enemies and bandits along the way. So we arrived in Jerusalem, where we rested three days.” Ezra 8:31-32

In Nehemiah’s case, he fasted and prayed prior to asking the king of Persia if he could return to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls around the city.

“The words of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah: In the month of Kislev in the twentieth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa, Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem.
They said to me, “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.”
When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. Then I said:”O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s house, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.
“Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.’
“They are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man.” I was cupbearer to the king.” Nehemiah 1:1-11

Nehemiah worked for the king of Persia as his personal ‘cupbearer’ – he tasted the food and wine before the king did to make sure no one had poisoned it. His burden was to be able to go back and help build the walls around Jerusalem, but he didn’t know how he was going to get out of his position and get permission to go…so he “fasted and prayed for many days’! He did get permission and he went back and he had the walls up in 52 days!

Esther fasted and prayed prior to going before the king to ask for protection for her people, the Jews. No big deal, except to do so unannounced generally meant certain death! Her uncle, Mordecai, was the one coaching her to go to the king. Here is their exchange…

“Hathach went back and reported to Esther what Mordecai had said. Then she instructed him to say to Mordecai, “All the king’s officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the king has but one law: that he be put to death. The only exception to this is for the king to extend the gold scepter to him and spare his life. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king.”
When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai, he sent back this answer: “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”
Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.” Esther 4:9-16

Esther went before the king, she was not killed and she saved her people, the Jews, from annihilation!

Now I can’t tell you that it always will work out that way: fast & pray for three days asking God for something and God will come through with what you asked him to do. I can tell you that there is a consistent message in Scripture that when God’s people carve out large chunks of time for prayer and they forgo some of their normal activities, like eating, God responds!

So do with it what you want, but if you are presently in a tough spot, you have a big decision to make, you really would like to see the power of God…then get alone with God for an extended period of time by forgoing some of your normal activities of life like eating, sleeping, watching TV or surfing the internet and spend that time with God! It may not be for three days, but it may be three hours? Three hours some evening or on a Saturday or a Sunday morning to read the Bible, read some devotional materials, listen to some praise music, and sprinkle times of prayer throughout for what is on your heart, to confess sin and to offer thanks to God for who he is and what he has done.

If you honestly can’t do three hours this week, would you stretch yourself beyond what is normal for you? I just wonder what God might do in response to those who give that kind of time this week to prayer?

With the Jews back in the Promised Land, the temple rebuilt and the walls of Jerusalem up, the story of the Old Testament ends. For the next 400 years there were no prophets in Israel and no more books added to their Scriptures. During those four centuries, Persia was conquered by Greece and Greece by Rome. And then one night in the little town of Bethlehem, just outside of Jerusalem, God broke his silence. Only this time he didn’t send a prophet, he sent his Son! God came to earth to live among us! His name was Jesus and he came to die for the sins of the world!

Now that you have been through the story of the Old Testament, test yourself and see if you can tell the story!

Contents

Introduction
Judah
The Prophet Jeremiah

Following the nation splitting into two separate nations, Israel and Judah, for the most part spiraled downward both spiritually and morally.Israel was a sovereign nation for 200 years. The nation 19 kings but none of them led the nation to follow God; all 19 were evil.

The most famous “king & queen combo” was Ahab and his Jezebel. Their level of depravity was unmatched. 1 Kings 21:25 says, “There was never a man like Ahab, who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, urged on by Jezebel his wife.” Jezebel is considered to be the most wicked woman in the Bible. She developed a massive religious system to promote her gods, Baal and Asherah. She had almost 1,000 prophets in Israel to her gods while he systematically killed the prophets of God. The show-down came on Mt. Carmel between the Prophet Elijah and Jezabel’s prophets. Elijah won and her prophets were put to death. (see 1 Kings 18-19).

The nation of Israel was on a confirmed trajectory down and finally in 722 B.C. God judged Israel using the world power of that day, Assyria. 2 Kings 17:5-24 tells the story of why God did this, “The king of Assyria invaded the entire land, marched against Samaria (the capital of Israel) and laid siege to it for three years. The king of Assyria (Shalmaneser) captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped other gods and followed the practices of the nations the LORD had driven out before them, as well as the practices that the kings of Israel had introduced. The Israelites secretly did things against the LORD their God that were not right. From watchtower to fortified city they built themselves high places in all their towns. They set up sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree. At every high place they burned incense, as the nations whom the LORD had driven out before them had done. They did wicked things that provoked the LORD to anger. They worshiped idols, though the LORD had said, “You shall not do this.” The LORD warned Israel and Judah through all his prophets and seers: “Turn from your evil ways. Observe my commands and decrees, in accordance with the entire Law that I commanded your fathers to obey and that I delivered to you through my servants the prophets.” But they would not listen and were as stiff-necked as their fathers, who did not trust in the LORD their God. They rejected his decrees and the covenant he had made with their fathers and the warnings he had given them. They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless. They imitated the nations around them although the LORD had ordered them, “Do not do as they do,” and they did the things the LORD had forbidden them to do. They forsook all the commands of the LORD their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves, and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the starry hosts, and they worshiped Baal. They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practiced divination and sorcery and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the LORD, provoking him to anger. So the LORD was very angry with Israel and removed them from his presence. Only the tribe of Judah was left, and even Judah did not keep the commands of the LORD their God. They followed the practices Israel had introduced. Therefore the LORD rejected all the people of Israel; he afflicted them and gave them into the hands of plunderers, until he thrust them from his presence. When he tore Israel away from the house of David, they made Jeroboam son of Nebat their king. Jeroboam enticed Israel away from following the LORD and caused them to commit a great sin. The Israelites persisted in all the sins of Jeroboam and did not turn away from them until the LORD removed them from his presence, as he had warned through all his servants the prophets. So the people of Israel were taken from their homeland into exile in Assyria, and they are still there. The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They took over Samaria and lived in its towns.”

So the northern 10 tribes of Israel, known as Israel for 200 years, was absorbed into the Assyrian Empire.

Assyria’s philosophy of how to deal with conquered nations was to mix the cultures, so they ‘deported’ some Jews out of Israel and settled them in other conquered lands and they ‘imported’ other conquered people into Israel, thus diffusing the cultures in hopes that they would be less likely to rise up and rebel.

The race that came from Assyria bringing in other conquered people to Israel became known as the Samaritans. They were ‘part-Jewish’ and came to be despised by the ‘pure Jew’. This hatred is the backdrop to stories in the Gospels such as the one in John 4 where Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well.

With the nation of Israel now a part of the Assyrian Empire, the focus shifts to the southern nation of Judah. Judah continued as a sovereign nation for 130 years longer. The reason is because they had some good kings with some revivals. Judah was led by 18 kings and eight of them were good leaders who, for the most part, followed God. But eventually the evil and depravity in Judah became so entrenched, that God was forced to do what he had done to Israel 130 years earlier – deal with it.

In Judah’s case, he used Babylon. The reason he used Babylon and not Assyria is because in the years after the Assyrian invasion of Israel, Babylon conquered Assyria and was now the world power. Babylon’s philosophy of conquest was different than Assyria’s. They didn’t mix the cultures, they moved anything of value (people and resources) to Babylon and left the conquered regions pretty much destroyed. They crushed a culture and built their own with the ‘cream of the crop’ of the conquered lands.

In Judah’s case, it happened in three stages and the account of what happened is in 2 Chronicles 36:5-21.

36:5-7, “Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. He did evil in the eyes of the LORD his God. Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon attacked him and bound him with bronze shackles to take him to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar also took to Babylon articles from the temple of the LORD and put them in his temple there.”

That was the first phase and took place in 605 B.C.: Daniel and his 3 friends, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah were taken to Babylon in this first wave. (We know them by their Babylonian names: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego).

36:8-10,”The other events of Jehoiakim’s reign, the detestable things he did and all that was found against him, are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah. And Jehoiachin his son succeeded him as king.” Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months and ten days. He did evil in the eyes of the LORD. In the spring, King Nebuchadnezzar sent for him and brought him to Babylon, together with articles of value from the temple of the LORD, and he made Jehoiachin’s uncle, Zedekiah, king over Judah and Jerusalem.”

That was the second phase and took place in 597 B.C.: Ezekiel was taken to Babylon in this group and he was a prophet to the exiled Jews living in Babylon.

36: 11-21,”Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. He did evil in the eyes of the LORD his God and did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke the word of the LORD. He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him take an oath in God’s name. He became stiff-necked and hardened his heart and would not turn to the LORD, the God of Israel. Furthermore, all the leaders of the priests and the people became more and more unfaithful, following all the detestable practices of the nations and defiling the temple of the LORD, which he had consecrated in Jerusalem. The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place. But they mocked God’s messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the LORD was aroused against his people and there was no remedy. He brought up against them the king of the Babylonians, who killed their young men with the sword in the sanctuary, and spared neither young man nor young woman, old man or aged. God handed all of them over to Nebuchadnezzar. He carried to Babylon all the articles from the temple of God, both large and small, and the treasures of the LORD’s temple and the treasures of the king and his officials. They set fire to God’s temple and broke down the wall of Jerusalem; they burned all the palaces and destroyed everything of value there. He carried into exile to Babylon the remnant, who escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power. The land enjoyed its Sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah.”

That was the third phase and it happened in 586 B.C.: The city of Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed. That event is what is known as “The Exile”. The nation of Israel was now scattered and out of the Promised Land. From the invasion of the Promised Land under Joshua to the Exile was about 800 years.

I want to focus on one of the great prophets of Judah, who prophesied in the 40 years leading up to the fall of Jerusalem and the Exile. His name is Jeremiah and he wrote the book of Jeremiah as well as the book that follows it, Lamentations. Jeremiah was born with a call on his life…in chapter 1 of Jeremiah, God says in 1:5, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

But when Jeremiah heard about his ‘call’, he like Moses at the burning bush, wasn’t real excited about the prospect, “LORD,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am only a child.” But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you”.” (1:6)

So Jeremiah went to the nation of Judah and over the span of 4 decades and 5 different kings he called the nation and its leaders to return to God. For the most part, they didn’t listen and Jeremiah suffered greatly for his calling. He was arrested several times and put in prison. He was whipped more than once. Once after being whipped he was put in the stocks. Once he was lowered into a mucky cistern and would have starved to death had he not been rescued. He was forced to go to Egypt against his will He was rejected by kings, priests, family and friends. And in the end, he watched his beloved city of Jerusalem get torched and destroyed. It was a tough calling.

Candidly, he struggled with God, over it, In 15:15-18 Jeremiah says, “Lord, you know it is for your sake that I am suffering. They are persecuting me because I have proclaimed your word to them. Yet you have failed me in my time of need! Your help is as uncertain as a seasonal mountain brook—sometimes a flood, sometimes as dry as a bone.” Jeremiah was saying, “I am fulfilling my part of the bargain, even though I didn’t want to…you can count on me, I just can’t count on you!”

Following his beating and night in the stocks he said in 20:7, “O Lord, you deceived me when you promised me your help.” This is a definite reminder of what God said at the time he called Jeremiah, “Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you.” (1:6)

In 20:14-18, Jeremiah utters some very raw words, “Cursed be the day that I was born! Cursed be the man who brought my father the news that a son was born…Oh, that I had died within my mother’s womb, that it had been my grave! Why was I ever born? For my life has been but trouble and sorrow and shame.”

Jeremiah bent but he did not break; he stayed faithful and he fulfilled his calling. In the book of Lamentations, the follow up to the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah walks the streets of Jerusalem in the aftermath of the Babylonian invasion. It is a desperate situation, and he weeps. Lamentations is ‘lament’; a funeral song for the city of Jerusalem and the nation of Judah.

Lamentations 1:1-3, “How deserted lies the city, once so full of people! How like a widow is she, who once was great among the nations! She who was queen among the

provinces has now become a slave. Bitterly she weeps at night, tears are upon her cheeks. Among all her lovers there is none to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies. After affliction and harsh labor, Judah has gone into exile.”

It was an unspeakably tragic time for those who remained in the city, In 4:9-10 he writes, “Those killed by the sword are better off than those who die of famine; racked with hunger, they waste away for lack of food from the field. With their own hands compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food.” And in 5:15 he writes, “Joy is gone from our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning.”

But in the middle of this book are some of the most faith-filled words in all of Scripture, “I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.” (Lamentations 3:19-26)

And I just wonder if some of us need to make that same sort of affirmation right now; not when we see the end of our pain, fear, trouble, or problem; not when we can look back after it is past and affirm the faithfulness of God to get us out, but to affirm the faithfulness of God when we are in it!

Do you have a ‘calling’ on your life that you just as soon wish you didn’t have (a hard job, a difficult child or marriage)? Are conditions in your life or your family getting pretty desperate (Is food scarce? Is the mortgage payment too much? Is the income is just not keeping up with the budget demands; the retirement account is looking pretty lean for the needs of your future)? For whatever reason, do you find yourself so discouraged and the problems so daunting that you could say with Jeremiah, “I wish I had never even been born!”? Do you feel like ‘telling God a thing or two’ because of the circumstances of your life or those around you? Do you want to ‘tell God off’?

Would you consider joining the weeping prophet and in the middle of the wreckage declare your belief in the faithfulness of God? “Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

Contents

Introduction
Saul
David
Solomon
Rehoboam
Divided Kingdom
Slow Fade

Following the 300 year period of the Judges, for the next 500 years of Israel’s history (1050 B.C. - 586 B.C.) the kings ruled.

The last Judge of Israel was Samuel. He was a good judge and at the end of his life he appointed his two sons to be Israel’s next Judges, but the elders of Israel didn’t want his sons to lead.

1 Samuel 8:1-5, “When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges for Israel. The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba. But his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice. So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.”

And so, Israel got a king. His name was Saul. He began ruling when he was 30 years old and he ruled for 40 years. Saul was the first of 40 kings who would lead this nation.

The period of the Kings is covered in the books of 1&2 Samuel, 1&2 Kings, 1&2 Chronicles.

Israel’s first king, Saul, was not a good king. He had some deep and glaring character flaws that were hidden behind is impressive physical appearance. He looked great on the outside, but had a flawed heart. The one that got him into the most trouble was jealousy. It showed up initially just after a young man by the name of David killed a giant by the name of Goliath and became a national hero.

That story of David killing Goliath is in 1 Samuel 17. The jealousy shows up in chapter 18.

1 Samuel 18:6-9, “When the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women came out from all the towns of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful songs and with tambourines and lutes. As they danced, they sang:”Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.” Saul was very angry; this refrain galled him. “They have credited David with tens of thousands,” he thought, “but me with only thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom?” And from that time on Saul kept a jealous eye on David.”

1,000 was good. Had the singers stopped with that or given David a little smaller number, like maybe 100, all would have been well and Saul’s character weakness would have continued unnoticed. But they attributed David with 10,000 and Saul with only 1,000 the comparison ate him up!

The last half of Saul’s reign, that jealousy drove Saul to focus on killing David. Killing David became the king’s top priority, over the economy, over military conquest, over his people’s needs. At all costs, Saul wanted to kill David. He never did kill David, but he did end up killing himself. Saul’s life ends on the battle field where after being severely wounded he killed himself by falling on his own sword.

Comparison is so hard to control; trust me, I know. Whether it is comparing homes, vehicles, church size, number of kids, accomplishments of our kids, salaries, spouses, career advancements, toys, popularity, body parts, comparison almost always leads to either pride or envy. And the only antidote that I know to envy is to bless those, pray for those, encourage those, be nice to those you tend to envy! It’s hard, but it works!

David is the next king and he was the best king Israel had. Like Saul, he was 30 when he became king and like Saul, he led the nation for 40 years. Under David, the nation reached its zenith as a military power and in their spiritual life. He truly had a heart for God. But when David was in his mid-40’s, disaster struck and he, his family and his nation paid dearly for David’s sin.

It is recorded in 2 Samuel 11-12.

2 Samuel 11:1-5, “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. (He was now at a point in his career when he could coast. Life was good, it was easy and he was floating along.) One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”

The rest of the story is of David’s attempt to cover up his sin. It included the murder of Bathsheba’s husband. There was eventual forgiveness, but some very sobering consequences: death of the baby and turmoil in his family for the rest of his life. David never fully recovered from this incident. As a display of God’s grace, a son born to David and Bathsheba became the 3rd king of Israel. His name was Solomon.

David was the author of most of the book of Psalms.

Solomon was not a warrior like his father or Saul the king before him. He didn’t need to be. The kingdom was secure. He was a builder and an architect. Solomon ruled for 40 years, like Saul and David before him.

1 Kings 10:23, “King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth.”

Solomon was exceedingly wealthy but he was also exceedingly stupid!

1 Kings 11:1-6, “King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter-Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been. He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the LORD; he did not follow the LORD completely, as David his father had done.”

Sadly, Israel never recovered from the decisions of Solomon.

Solomon was the author of most of the book of Proverbs, and the books of Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes.

The fourth king of Israel was Rehoboam, Solomon’s son.

1 Kings 11:41-12:11, “As for the other events of Solomon’s reign-all he did and the wisdom he displayed-are they not written in the book of the annals of Solomon? Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years. Then he rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of David his father. And Rehoboam his son succeeded him as king. Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all the Israelites had gone there to make him king. When Jeroboam son of Nebat heard this (he was still in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon), he returned from Egypt. So they sent for Jeroboam, and he and the whole assembly of Israel went to Rehoboam and said to him: “Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you.” Rehoboam answered, “Go away for three days and then come back to me.” So the people went away. Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. “How would you advise me to answer these people?” he asked. They replied, “If today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants.” But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him. He asked them, “What is your advice? How should we answer these people who say to me, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?” The young men who had grown up with him replied, “Tell these people who have said to you, ‘Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter’-tell them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist. My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.’”

The net result of that decision was that the nation of Israel split into 2 nations.

The ten Northern Tribes under Jeroboam broke away and formed their own nation called, “Israel”. The two Southern Tribes (Benjamin and Judah) stayed with Rehoboam and took the name, “Judah”. Israel, to the north, was a separate nation for 200 years, had 19 kings and all of them were evil. Judah, to the south, was a separate nation for 330 years, had 18 kings; eight were good and ten were evil. Both were eventually conquered by foreign powers and in both cases, it was God’s judgment on them for willful and sustained sins.

One of the sad realities of the first four kings of Israel, Saul, David, Solomon and Rehoboam, is that none of them finished well. Some began better than others; but none finished as strongly as they could have. To one degree or another they all faded into the finish!

Saul ended up killing himself on the battlefield totally estranged from God. David ended up with such strife in his family that one of his sons tried to kill him and Israel suffered from some very poor choices David made! Solomon ended up writing a book about how not to end up miserable like he did. Rehoboam didn’t start well and didn’t end well either. 2 Chronicles 12:1 says, “After Rehoboam’s position as king was established and he had become strong, he and all Israel with him abandoned the law of the Lord.”

I am sobered by this. I am sobered that so many men in the Bible end up badly -Morally, spiritually, relationally! I am sobered that in the past few months Gloria and I have been shocked to learn of a marriage that appeared to be so strong and stable on the outside but rotting away on the inside. The revelation of it has taken our breath away!

Ask yourself this question: “If I keep doing what I am doing, will I like how I will end up?”
Take stock of your inner life and your walk with the Lord.
Take stock of your private life and what you do when no one else is around.
Take stock of your marriage. Do you like the direction it is headed?
Take stock of your character traits; are there flaws that need to be repaired?
Take stock of how you are taking care of your body! How you are taking care of it now, will show later.
If you keep going in the direction you are going, will you like where you end up?

If you don’t like the direction, then get some time alone with God and figure out what needs to happen.
Do you need some accountability from another Christian to help you stay on course?
Do you need to be more intentional with your time alone with God in his word and prayer?
Do you need to work at rekindling your marriage?
Do you need to stop flirting with the secretary, or worse?
Do you need to start exercising?

None of these king’s lives crumbled in a day. It took years and in some cases decades. Often, it’s a ’slow fade’.

Contents

Introduction
The Judges
The First Seed of Destruction
The Second Seed of Destruction
Resources

After the forty years of wandering in the wilderness while everyone twenty years of age and older died for their faithlessness, it was time for the younger generation to enter the Promised Land. But before they did, two significant things happened.

First, Moses preached a sermon series to the new generation reminding them of their past and of the laws and regulations that were given at Mt. Sinai and challenging them to follow God’s ways in their new homeland. Those messages are the book of Deuteronomy. And second, Moses died. He was 120 years old, but he didn’t die of old age, he died because God took him home as a consequence of an act of disobedience during the years of wandering in the wilderness when he struck the rock instead of speaking to it as God had instructed. (Numbers 20)

Joshua, one of the original twelve spies, was picked by God to succeed Moses as the leader and the book of Joshua begins the second assault on the Promised Land.

“After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them-to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates - all the Hittite country - to the Great Sea on the west. No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. “Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”
Joshua 1:1-9

And so, the younger generation entered The Promised Land.

Joshua 1-4 is the story of the nation entering the land by crossing the Jordan River. God did for them what he did for their parents forty-two years earlier when they left Egypt. He stopped the water of the Jordan River and they crossed on dry ground! In chapter 6 they conquered the city of Jericho by marching around the city for 6 days and on the 7th day they marched around it 7 times. The walls fell down. The rest of the book of Joshua (chapters 7-24) tells the story of the military campaign to conquer the land. They drove west and split the land in half and then conquered south and then the north. It took seven years to gain control of the land.

For the next 325 years, the nation of Israel was led by leaders called, Judges.

There were 14 Judges. Most, but not all, were military leaders. A couple of the more familiar Judges were Gideon, who routed a massive army that threatened Israel using 300 soldiers with trumpets, pitchers and lanterns and Samson, the judge with the long hair who was a ‘womanizer’.

The events recorded in the book of Ruth take place during the period of the Judges. It is a wonderful story of heartache, romance and God’s providence.

Candidly, the period of the Judges was a long period of spiritual and moral decay; punctuated by ‘spikes’ of spiritual renewal. During the years under the Judges, the nation went through periods of “cycles” when they would sin, God would punish them by allowing an enemy to conquer them, they would cry out to God for deliverance and he would deliver them through the leadership of a “judge” and they would enjoy peace once again. This cycle was repeated six times in the book of Judges.

Unfortunately, the seeds of the “3-century-long moral and spiritual roller coaster” – which had more downs than ups - were planted by the 1st generation that invaded the Promised Land.One of the ‘seeds’ they planted was the way they compromised with the depraved culture of Canaan.

Here are the words given to the Israelites prior to invading the land.

“When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations — the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you — and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire. For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.” Deuteronomy 7:1-6

They got a great start, but didn’t complete the job. Under the leadership of Joshua they conquered the land, but following the initial military campaign, each tribe was responsible to go into their territory and do the final clean-up.

Judges 1 records the disastrous pattern. It begins in 1:1, “After the death of Joshua, the Israelites asked the Lord, ‘Who will be the first to go up and fight for us against the Canaanites?’ The Lord answered, ‘Judah is to go…”

And the ‘mop-up operation’ began. However, a problem developed that becomes apparent from certain statements in the rest of the chapter.

v. 19 The LORD was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had iron chariots.

v. 20 As Moses had promised, Hebron was given to Caleb (the other spy who said they could take the land in the first place), who drove from it the three sons of Anak.

v. 21 The Benjamites, however, failed to dislodge the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem; to this day the Jebusites live there with the Benjamites.

v. 27 But Manasseh did not drive out the people of Beth Shan or their surrounding settlements, for the Canaanites were determined to live in that land.

v. 28 When Israel became strong, they pressed the Canaanites into forced labor but never drove them out completely.

v. 29 Nor did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites living in Gezer, but the Canaanites continued to live there among them.

v. 30 Neither did Zebulun drive out the Canaanites living in Kitron who remained among them.

v. 31 Nor did Asher drive out those living in Sidon or Ahlab or or Helbah or Aphek or Rehob, and because of this the people of Asher lived among the Canaanite inhabitants of the land.

v. 33 Neither did Naphtali drive out those living in Beth Shemesh or Beth Anath; but the Naphtalites too lived among the Canaanite inhabitants of the land.

They left some of the people and some of the religion and some of the culture intact and in place! And the cultural influences of the Canaanites on the Hebrews was devastating.

One of the notes in the Life Application Bible from Judges 1:1 says, “Canaan’s greatest threat to Israel was not its army, but its religion. Canaanite religion idealized evil traits: sexual immorality, selfish greed, and materialism. It was a ‘me-first-anything-goes’ society.

Our methods are very different today in the church. Today we do not drive people out of our neighborhoods and communities who differ with our values and beliefs. We are to show love to them. But the question for us is the same: How much have we been influenced by the culture to the detriment to our calling to live a holy life? Collectively, the answer is, “a lot”.

As Michael Horton has written, “Evangelical Christians are as likely to embrace lifestyles every bit as hedonistic, materialistic, self-centered and sexually immoral as the world in general.”

But Paul wrote in Romans 12:2, “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.”

Let me just ask some personal questions:

• Where do you draw the moral/ethical line? Where do you say, ‘no’? I won’t go there, do that, watch that, or take that?
• Is your entertainment ‘boundaries’ honoring to Jesus? Is it any different than the average person who does not follow Jesus?
• What does it take for you to change the channel, leave the theater, the party?
• Does your spending and giving habits communicate that you follow Jesus?

Our call is to be holy…the question is, are we? This generation let this one slip, and the consequences were disastrous.

The 2nd ‘seed’ was that they failed to successfully pass on their spiritual heritage to the next generation.

“After Joshua had dismissed the Israelites, they went to take possession of the land, each to his own inheritance. The people served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the Lord had done for Israel. Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of a hundred and ten. After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. They forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the Lord to anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths…” Judges 2:6-13

Not only did the younger generation get a ‘full-dose’ of Canaanite culture, they got nothing by way of spiritual input from their parents! Evidently, their parents were too busy fighting, building homes, cultivating fields and raising sheep to pass along the stories and lessons of their faith!

And this generation of parents was the one who first heard Moses say these words…
Deuteronomy 6:4-9, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.”

These words were spoken to the Jewish parents just before they entered the Land!

Moms and dads with children still in your home, it’s your job to develop the moral and spiritual framework in your kid’s lives. Use the Church and Christian schools, but don’t rely on them exclusively for your plan to develop spiritually capable offspring.

You do it by, first, pursuing God yourself. If you are not growing spiritually; spending time with God in his Word and in prayer, don’t expect your kids to. They might, but it will be in spite of you, not because of you and that is not the plan.

Second, you do it by teaching your children God’s spiritual and moral truths.

I understand that life is busy. I understand the pressures of both parents working, school activities, homework, music lessons and sports. But if there is no time for you, as a parent, to pass some spiritual guidance and truth on to your children on a regular basis, you are either too busy or it is too low of a priority and for the sake of your children, you need to change it, because the culture is most assuredly going to teach them their values!

Here are some suggestions:

• Once a week, read the Bible together at a meal or at bedtime.
• Read Christian adventure books together.
• Once a week, read a devotional with your children from
• Listen to Adventures in Odyssey from Focus on the Family
• Memorize a Bible verse together as a family.
• Talk about what your children learned in their S.S. class on Sunday.

Here are some resources for you to use to help you develop a plan to teach your children about God and his ways.

Each week material is posted on the River Oak’s Website for parents of children in our KidsWorld ministry to use at home to help reinforce the teaching from the previous week’s class.

Visit cbd.com (Christian Book Distributors) for a great selection of bibles for your pre-schooler, gradeschooler or teenager.

For some great ideas for interactive family devotions, check out these books at amazon.com:
For elementary:
Mashed Potatoes, Paint Balls: And Other Indoor/Outdoor Devotionals You Can Do with Your Kids

For preK:
Bible Stories for Preschoolers: Family Nights Tool Chest: New Testament
Wiggles, Giggles, & Popcorn

For parents who want to be motivated and equipped to pass along the Christian faith to their children, here are three books to help you do that:
Revolutionary Parenting by George Barna
Age of Opportunity by Paul Tripp
Faith Begins at Home by Mark Holmen

My challenge for all of us is to embrace the final words of Joshua as a motto for our homes and our lives, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15

Contents

Introduction
Mt. Sinai
Kadesh
The Wilderness

With this post, I begin the second of six legs of a journey through the storyline of the Old Testament. It is important that you understand the story up to this point, so if you have not read the first post, “From Eden to Egypt” please do so first. I pick the story up in the first chapter of the book of Exodus.

Exodus 1:1-14 “These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family: Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt. Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them. Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.” So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly.”

In Exodus 2 a baby is born in Egypt to a Hebrew slave couple. They named him Moses. The king of Egypt was attempting to control the explosive growth of the Hebrews because he feared they might join their enemies and revolt. So he ordered all male Hebrew babies be killed by throwing the baby boys into the Nile. The Egyptian mid-wives who delivered Moses were ‘God-fearers’ and did not kill the baby, but because of the danger to him, three months after he was born, they placed him in a basket and hid him in the reeds of the Nile River and waited to see what would happen to him. Instead of a crocodile eating him, the daughter of Pharaoh found him and decided to make him her son. Moses lived in the palace of Egypt for 40 years. One day saw one of his fellow Israelites being beaten and he killed the Egyptian. Pharaoh found out about it and tried to kill Moses. Moses ran for his life and lived the next 40 years in the dessert tending sheep.

In Exodus 3-4, God came to Moses through a burning bush and told him to head back to Egypt to face the King of Egypt and demand that he let the Hebrews leave Egypt and go to the land of Canaan.

Exodus 5-13 is about the confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh through a series of 10 devastating plagues on the nation of Egypt culminating in the 10th plague of the death angel killing the firstborn of all the Egyptians. With Egypt in ruin, the king finally lets the Hebrews leave.

In Exodus 14, Pharaoh changed his mind and went after the Hebrews. God parted the water of the Red Sea to allow the Hebrews safe passage and when the Egyptian army followed he closed the water on them and killed them. Finally free, Moses spent the next 40 years of his life leading the nation of Israel.

Their first stop was Mt. Sinai. This is where God formed them in a nation, giving them their civil, moral and religious laws, including the 10 Commandments; their religious celebrations & sacrificial system, the plans for the Tabernacle and the establishment of the priesthood. If you want to read all or part of the laws and regulations, they are recorded in Exodus 19 through the entire book of Leviticus.

The Israelites stayed at Mt. Sinai for two years. Then it was time for them to leave there and take the Promised Land – a place no descendant of Abraham had stepped foot on for four centuries! The immediate problem was that some pretty nasty people had taken over the land and they would have to be dealt with. There was going to be a fight. So to prepare for it, Moses moved the nation closer to the land in order to spy it out. They traveled to Kadesh, an oasis on the southern edge of the Promised Land and send in some spies to take a ‘look see’.

The story line picks back up again in the book of Numbers.

Numbers 13, “The LORD said to Moses, “Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe send one of its leaders.”
“When Moses sent them to explore Canaan, he said, “Go up through the Negev and on into the hill country. See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. What kind of land do they live in? Is it good or bad? What kind of towns do they live in? Are they un-walled or fortified? How is the soil? Is it fertile or poor? Are there trees on it or not? Do your best to bring back some of the fruit of the land.”
So they went up and explored the land…When they reached the Valley of Eshcol, they cut off a branch bearing a single cluster of grapes. Two of them carried it on a pole between them, along with some pomegranates and figs. At the end of forty days they returned from exploring the land.
They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there.”
Then Caleb (one of the spies) silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”

But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

Twelve men had been sent in to do ‘reconnaissance’. It was not a ‘strategic’ mission to find out if they could take it; it was ‘tactical’ mission, to find out how to take it. God had already told them that it was their land and he would give it to them. Ten men came back and said it could not be done. and the net result was a push to return to Egypt! Two said it could be done, Caleb and Joshua. The nation sided with the ten and decided they were going to go back to Egypt; back to slavery!

To put it mildly, God was not happy! Two years earlier he had shown them his power by taking them out of Egypt. He had promised to give them this land. They needed to go to war, but he guaranteed victory.They got scared and demonstrated a complete lack of faith and the consequences were stunning…

Numbers 14:26-35 “The LORD said to Moses and Aaron: “How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites. So tell them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you the very things I heard you say: In this desert your bodies will fall — every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me. Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb and Joshua son of Nun. As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected. But you — your bodies will fall in this desert. Your children will be shepherds here for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the desert. For forty years — one year for each of the forty days you explored the land — you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you.’ They will meet their end in this desert; here they will die.”

For the next 40 years, the nation of Israel wandered around in the wilderness, as the entire adult population died because of their lack of faith. For four decades this nation knew little else but funerals as the younger generation buried their parents, aunts and uncles and grandparents for one reason: FAITHLESSNESS IN THE FACE OF PROBLEMS THAT GOD HAD PROMISED TO SOLVE FOR THEM. Their problem was not the perceived size of the giants; it was the perceived size of their God! God was insulted at what they thought of him compared to the problems facing them in the Promised Land. He was anxious to show off his power and provision for them, but they wouldn’t give him a chance!

Mark Batterson, writes in his book, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day.

“According to A.W. Tozer, the most important thing about you is what comes to mind when you think about God. He writes, ‘…the most portentous fact about any person is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. Were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, ‘What comes to your mind when you think about God?’ we might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that person.’ Most of our problems are not circumstantial. Most of our problems are perceptual. Our biggest problems can be traced back to an inadequate understanding of who God is. Our problems seem really big because our God seems really small. In fact, we reduce God to the size of our biggest problem. Tozer said, ‘a low view of God is the cause of a hundred lesser evils.’ A low view of God and a high view of God are the difference between scaredy-cats and lion chasers. Scaredy-cats are filled with fear because their God is so small. Lion chasers know that their best thought about God on their best day falls infinitely short of how great God really is.”

Every one of us is facing some sort of “giant or insurmountable wall”. How are you looking at it? With a big faith that God is larger, stronger and more than capable of handling it or with a small faith that God is weak and unable or unwilling to come to your aid? Big faith doesn’t mean there won’t be struggles, fights and even some casualties. It may not always turn out as we had hoped, but I can tell you this, God wants his people to give him a chance to ‘show off’ his power and his abilities and it pleases him to no end when we affirm him as the God he is!

Hebrews 11:6, “And without faith it is impossible to please God.”

Maybe the biggest demonstration of faith is to tell God that you trust him no matter what; that you will follow him, no matter what; that you will honor him no matter what; that you believe he is ‘good’ no matter what; or that you will stop asking him to get you out of your circumstances and help you get something out of your circumstances.

I know this, in the wilderness over those 40 years; God did provide for the basic needs of his people. He provided them with manna to eat and their clothes didn’t wear out. Those are pretty neat providential miracles from God. I also know this; he saved the big providential miracles for the young people who chose to invade and fight! They saw God work on their behalf and they ended up with the land that flowed with milk and honey! Don’t settle for a ‘faithless’ life – go attack some giants!

Sometime soon, read the story of the spies from Numbers 13-14 and ask God to give you faith like Joshua or a Caleb!

Contents

Introduction
The Start
Abraham and Sarah
The Joseph Story

For many people, the Old Testament is very confusing. They know some of the stories and they know there is some poetry and prophecy, but how it all fits together is a huge mystery. I want to help take some of the confusion and mystery away.

To begin, I am going to cover some very basic information about the Old Testament. First, I want to explain how the Old Testament is organized. The 39 books in the Old Testament are organized topically, not chronologically. They are grouped in three different categories.

The first 17 books are historical and contain the entire storyline of the Old Testament. The next 5 books are the poetical and the final 17 books are prophetical, written by the prophets of Israel.

The first 17 books will be the focus of this post and I will fit the poetry and the prophetical writings into the historical time line as I get to them.

Second, I want to show you where the story of the Old Testament happened geographically. If you look at the map you will see where in the world the Old Testament story took place. It took place in the modern day countries of Iraq, Turkey Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and Egypt. I will be referring to this map as we move along in the story.

The ‘first leg’ of the journey is through the book of Genesis. Chapters 1-2 contain the story of creation.

Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

The first comment in the Bible states that this place we call the universe was initiated by God. Some of us think he did it in 6 literal days and some of us think he took a little longer, but the common ground every Christ-follower has is that God was the “Intelligence” behind the design.

Life got off to a great start; in fact it was a perfect start, but it didn’t last long. Genesis 3 is the story of “The fall”. It happened in the Garden of Eden when Satan tempted Adam and Eve to commit sin. We actually know the general location of the Garden of Eden. According to Genesis 2 there were four rivers in the Garden and two of them are the Tigris and the other the Euphrates, two rivers that are located in modern-day Iraq. Genesis 3:6-7 says, “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.” This is the event that plunged the human race into all of the pain and misery we experience today and separation from God.

In the following centuries, evil ran wild, so God decided to ‘start over’ and he did so through Noah and his family…Chapter 6-9 is the story of Noah and the flood.

Genesis 6:5-8, “The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth — men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air — for I am grieved that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.”

Following the flood, the earth was repopulated. Many hundreds of years passed and God began to work in one couple to form a nation that he would work specifically with and through. The couple was Abraham and Sarah and the nation was Israel. They lived in the land of Ur – in modern-day Iraq. And it is with this couple that I want to begin the journey of the storyline of the Old Testament.

Their story begins in Genesis 11:27, “This is the account of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram (Abraham), Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth. Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram’s wife was Sara…Now Sara was barren; she had no children. Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there.

Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran. The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. He took his wife Sara, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.”

Canaan is also called “The Promised Land” in the Bible as well as Israel.

The reason they didn’t travel ‘as the crow flies’ is because that was about 600 miles of desert! They followed what is known as “The Fertile Crescent”, where there was food and water and the only way a person could make it and survive the trip.

2 observations about Abraham and Sarah:

First: They were childless.

Second: They were old! Abraham was 75 and we know from other parts of the story that Sarah was 65. Their child-bearing years were over.

But God had said he would make them into a ‘great nation’ and in chapter 15 God said that their offspring would be like the stars in the sky! And 25 years after they arrived in the Promised Land, when Abraham was 100 and Sara was 90 they had their first baby! They named him Isaac. I guess the moral of the story is, never quit trying!

Abraham and Sarah’s ‘Family Tree’ is pretty complicated and messy.

Isaac grew up and married a woman by the name of Rebecca. They had twins; Jacob and Esau. Esau was the first-born, but God chose to work through Jacob and in his adult life; God changed his name to Israel. The story of this man is a “soap opera”! Jacob stole his brother’s birthright for a bowl of soup. And later he tricked his father into giving him the family blessing As a result, his twin-brother planned to kill him, so he fled to Haran to live with his uncle Laban. Jacob fell in love with one of his daughters, Rachel. He worked 7 years for no pay in order to be able to marry Rachel but Laban tricked him and gave him his oldest and less attractive daughter, Leah. He worked another 7 years for Rachael. Over the years, there was a “baby competition” between these 2 sisters, so much so that they each gave their husband their personal servants to make babies with; Zilpah and Bilhah. So from this one man through his 2 wives and their 2 servants, he produced 12 boys and 1 girl. The 12 sons are known as the “12 sons of Israel” and became the names of the 12 Tribes of Israel.

The final story in the book of Genesis focuses on one of those sons…Israel’s favorite: Joseph. Joseph was the son of his favorite wife, Rachel and it showed in a 1,000 ways, including making a special coat for him and his brothers hated him for it.

Genesis 37:1-4, “Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. This is the account of Jacob. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made a richly ornamented robe for him. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.”

One day, they got their chance to get back at Joseph. The brothers were tending sheep about 50 miles north and Jacob sent Joseph to check on his brothers…

Genesis 37:17-20, “So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan. But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him. “Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.”

They did not follow through with the plan to kill him, but they did sell Joseph to some businessmen who were going past them on their way to Egypt. So the favorite son of Jacob was sold into slavery in Egypt.


In my view, this is one of the most amazing stories in the Old Testament. It covers the final 14 chapters of the book of Genesis.

• He was 17 when he was betrayed by his brothers and sold as a slave in Egypt.
• As a slave to Potiphar, an Egyptian official, he was thrown into prison because Potiphar’s wife wanted to have sex with him and he ran from her. she lied about the incident, saying Joseph tried to rape her and as a result he ended up in prison!
• For 13 years, Joseph was either a slave or a prisoner. He lost his entire 20-Something season of life.
• While in prison, he interpreted some dreams for Pharaoh and as a result was elevated to second in command in Egypt!
• Because of a famine, Joseph’s brothers went to Egypt to buy food.
• Joseph recognized them and eventually revealed himself to them.
• He had the family, along with his father, move to Egypt in order to survive the famine.

There are so many lessons from the story of Joseph, but let me give just three:

#1 Forgiveness is a choice and it is always possible to forgive.

After their father Jacob died, the brothers were left alone without any ‘parental buffer’ between them and Joseph and that terrified the brothers. What would he do to them now?

Genesis 50:15-21, “When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?” So they sent word to Joseph, saying, “Your father left these instructions before he died: ‘This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.’ Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father.” When their message came to him, Joseph wept. His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. “We are your slaves,” they said. But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.”

He obviously had already forgiven his brothers. He had also obviously forgiven Potiphar’s wife for lying about him and even Potiphar for throwing him in prison. He forgave everyone who had treated him so badly.

The New Testament verse that comes to mind is Colossians 3:13, “Forgive as Christ forgave you.”

If you are having difficulty forgiving someone, you should read the story of Joseph!

#2 God is at work in the darkest and most confusing times of our lives.

Joseph told his brothers, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.” (Genesis 50:20)

Joseph clearly viewed his years as a slave and then in the dungeon as part of God’s purposes for good.

He now understood that God had positioned him in Egypt in order to save his family from starvation. I also believe it was a time when God worked on Joseph’s pride.

The story of Joseph is an Old Testament example of Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good for those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

So many times things happen that don’t make a lot of sense to us and we don’t especially like them either.

• The economy takes a nosedive.
• The wrong guy gets elected president.
• You lose your job or get cut back in hours.
• Your retirement fund is cut in half.
• You face a health problem.
• A problem develops in your marriage or with one of your children.

Even then, God is at work and he does have a plan. None of it is random or without purpose!

Every year at Christmas time I buy a jigsaw puzzle for me and my family to put together. When we first start the table is filled with pieces. It is a huge mess and it sure doesn’t make any sense. But slowly over the days and weeks we put the pieces together and it actually does begin to make sense!

That is how we need to view this life and God’s plans. In this life we will see some of the pieces put together; in heaven we will see the entire picture.

#3 God is with us in the darkest and most confusing times of our lives.

We are almost always tempted to think that in the lowest points of our lives is when God has abandoned us.

Joseph’s life tells us just the opposite. If you were to graph Joseph’s life, charting the high points and the low points, the 3 deepest points would be when he was a slave in Egypt, when he was a prisoner in Egypt and when his father died.

There are 3 times in the story of Joseph where the phrase, “the Lord was with him” is included; when he was a slave in Egypt (39:2-3); when he was a prisoner in Egypt (39:20-2); and just before his father died (48:21).

Does that mean that the Lord was NOT with him the rest of the time? No, it just means that it’s in the low points, the scary times, and the dangerous times he need to be reminded of it!

As I end, let challenge you that if you haven’t read the story of Joseph for a while or if you have never read it, spend some time in Genesis 37-50 reading about this amazing man’s story.