[0:00] Well, as you heard from Lynn, this is the last weekend of the summer. Boo-hoo-hoo. Vacation for you parents who've had your kids in your house the whole year, right?
[0:15] So what's coming up? So good morning, church. Welcome to SBC. And as I said, September, if you're new, are visiting this day. My name is BK, and I have the pleasure of serving as one of the pastors here.
[0:31] This morning, in case you didn't know it, you're actually joining us in a short mini-series on how to read, understand, and apply your Bibles.
[0:43] We've been kind of doing a basic Christianity 101. And here, if you've been attending here on a regular basis, you know that we believe that the Word is the Word of God. Amen?
[0:55] So you're going to need a Bible today. So if you do not have a Bible, please put your hand up. One of our wonderful ushers will grant you, because we're actually going to do a quick survey.
[1:08] We're going to be getting, I think, as far as Ruth today. But my goal for this sermon series is to explain to you where the books of the Bible fit into God's plan, God's story of redemption.
[1:25] And I hope that it will be able to help you when you come time to study it. So last week, I had five books, handbooks, Bible study handbooks.
[1:38] I'm happy to say they all sold out. So I would recommend you grabbing one of those, because I've ordered another set so that you can have your own copy, because I think this is going to help you when you go through.
[1:51] Because I think the issue is, hey, we're Christians. We love God's Word. Amen? We love to hear what God has to say. But that doesn't mean the Bible is easy to understand.
[2:04] Right? Someone tells you, you know, hey, start in the Old Testament. You know, you kind of start off strong. You get to Genesis. You really like this story.
[2:16] And it tables off into Joseph. And, you know, all of a sudden we're getting into Moses. And it gets kind of exciting. Then all of a sudden you get to Leviticus. Right? And you really run out of gas.
[2:28] Right? You read a verse. A man who has lost his hair and is bald is still clean. Do you know that? Dave Nannery is still clean. Bald head, you know.
[2:41] You also find out in Leviticus 19, 1919, you're not actually supposed to be wearing that cotton polyester blend. That's a sin.
[2:52] You shameful people for wearing those things. Right? So you start to think. Or you have what I call the Soren Wilson problem. And if, guys, you don't know, Soren over there, the younger brother of his brother Kai.
[3:07] Now, if Kai were to marry and pass away before Soren gets married, Soren's got to marry Kai's wife.
[3:17] So Kai, or Soren, as the younger brother, has got to make sure his older brother marries well. Right? Right? So there's a lot of pressure. No, you're not marrying her. If you do, I kill her.
[3:29] Kill you before, you know. So, like, you get all these kind of problems come up when we read these Old Testament stories. And you're like, where does this fit into the cross?
[3:41] What does this have to do with Christianity? Well, if you weren't here last week, we actually had a five-minute game show of the Family Feud.
[3:52] And the top five reasons for people not reading their Bible. Remember, the first one was lack of time. The second one was a lack of discipline.
[4:03] And remember, I called those, those are you problems. Right? If you don't have lack of time or discipline, you need to make time and discipline to understand God's Word.
[4:15] But the other three that I went over is, one, sometimes we feel overwhelmed with the size and the content of the Bible. There's over 600,000 words in this book.
[4:28] Right? And of those, they're written over 1,600 years, and there's 40 different authors. So it's not as if we can just kind of jump in at any part of the book, and all of a sudden we're going to have understanding of what's going on.
[4:45] It can be kind of confusing. The other reason was there's a lack of understanding of the historic and cultural context of the Bible.
[4:56] So that whole thing that I just talked about, about Soren having to marry Kai's wife, if Kai should pass away before Soren gets married. Like, what kind of culture does that?
[5:07] Right? Like, that's totally not for us to understand. What does that mean? Can we take multiple wives? They did that in the Old Testament. What's going on here? And then, obviously, that leads to five.
[5:20] We're feeling disconnected from the relevance of the Bible in our daily lives. Like, why does the Bible care whether or not I wear a cotton or polyester blend?
[5:32] Right? So you start thinking, why bother? I love God. I'll just show up on Sunday, and that'll be it.
[5:44] Well, I'm here to tell you that we can understand the Bible. And we can understand the Bible in a way where it relates to our daily lives.
[5:56] But it's not easy. Some work needs to happen. Some learning has to happen. So last week, if you missed a sermon, I went over ten common mistakes that we make when in reading our Bibles or interpreting our Bibles.
[6:13] I'm happy to say that I got a few texts and emails that some of you said you were ten for ten on how to read the ten common mistakes to read your Bible.
[6:24] And then I gave you ten rules to follow when interpreting Scripture. So there's things to know.
[6:36] So this morning, I want to share with you what I call the story of the Bible. How the Bible all fits together.
[6:46] If you're new to Christianity, and perhaps you've been a Christian for a while, and you haven't really thought about it. Like, what is the Bible?
[6:58] The first thing you need to understand that the Bible is not a collection of do and don't books. It's not like you turn to page one.
[7:09] Hey, welcome. You decided to be a Christian, right? Someone invited you to church. Now that you're one, these are the rules and regulations you need to follow to be a Christian.
[7:21] It doesn't work that way. Nor is it a collection of these random stories. This is what a Christian looked like in 1000 B.C.
[7:34] And this is what a Christian looks like in 40 A.D. That's not how the stories actually work. Look, the Bible is one story.
[7:46] And the story is of God's relentless pursuit of redeeming his people. The Bible is the story of God's relentless pursuit of redeeming his people.
[8:01] It is a narrative of rescue, of restoration and reconciliation from multiple points of view over thousands of years.
[8:15] Even though this book has been written over 1600 years. It actually gives us the story of the beginning. And it tells us how it will end.
[8:28] And in the middle there's God. And you'll see that God is an incredible, consistent, and constant character.
[8:38] And today, how we rebel. How the Jews in first century Judaism rebelled.
[8:49] Going all the way to how Noah's cousins are not. Yeah. How Noah's family rebelled. But also Abraham's family rebelled.
[9:01] That there is this consistency, this pattern, which teaches us about God. The thing is, if you do not understand this overarching story, you'll miss the significance of almost every part of the Bible.
[9:21] It's like picking up a novel and just deciding, I'm going to read the novel in random order and hope to come to an understanding of it. You can't.
[9:32] You need to learn how to fit it all together. Because if you get this, you're going to see in your book, this Bible, that every story in the Bible, every prophecy told in the Bible, every teaching in the Bible, all points to one person.
[9:52] Who's that person? Jesus Christ, right? Sunday school answer. Jesus Christ. And his ultimate work of redemption. And the reason the Bible is so full of stories of these narratives of different people, it's because it addresses the human condition.
[10:12] Like the Bible is not exclusive of us. We're in there. We're people. And as you guys knew from a couple years ago when I did our life of Christ, the reason these stories exist is because these people in the Bible were real people.
[10:28] And by real people, they had real hopes, real dreams, real desires. They had real struggles, real relationships.
[10:38] They fought with their parents. They fought with their kids. They fought with their brothers and sisters. All these different dynamics which connect us to them even though thousands of years have passed.
[10:53] And what ties it all together and what gives it this purpose and meaning is that ultimately it's about how God connects to us in these stories.
[11:08] So, I think you all know what the first book of the Bible is. Please turn to Genesis chapter 1. Genesis chapter 1.
[11:18] Genesis is part of what is commonly referred to as the Pentateuch. These are the first five books of the Bible all written by Moses.
[11:30] Someone might call a few from a Jewish background. You'll say it's the Torah, the books of the law. But there's some very interesting things. And it's our beginning.
[11:42] Genesis means the beginning. Let's look at verse 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth. Now notice something here.
[11:53] It's quite clear. The Bible begins with God. It does not begin with us. But it begins with God.
[12:04] And this is foundational to our understanding. If you miss that it doesn't begin with God. And you somehow think it's about you. You're going to miss everything in this story.
[12:17] You're going to miss everything that this book is about. It begins with God as the creator who knows all. He makes everything good.
[12:29] Everything was perfect. There was no sin. There was no death. There was no suffering. Adam and Eve were in perfect fellowship with God in the Garden of Eden.
[12:41] This is how our story starts out. A perfect relationship. That it talks about that our ancestors walked with God in the cool of the day.
[12:54] Able to converse. That's how it was meant to be. This is how it will once again become.
[13:05] It's a perfect relationship between the creator and the universe and us. Then we...
[13:17] It doesn't take long, does it? In Genesis 3. The fall, Adam and Eve, in their free will, choose to rebel against God's commands. And in that moment, sin enters the world.
[13:29] That perfect picture that God has, that we've seen here in Genesis, is now destroyed. You guys, I've got a Jeep.
[13:41] And if you guys know, Jeep is by far the least wind-resistant vehicle in the world. It's like driving a brick. And as soon as a rock comes and hits that chip, doesn't take too long for that.
[13:57] I've already had to replace that windshield three times already. Because once that rock hits, the whole thing, it just scatters. I think, you know, maybe they'll just be there. Then all of a sudden, you know, the next day, it's maybe two inches.
[14:09] I can live with that. In case you don't know Chris Mitchell, he can live with the crack right across his whole windshield. But once it starts branching up, all right, time to pay insurance and get rid of it.
[14:22] That's kind of what sin did, right? It came in and started to infect every aspect of mankind, all the relationships. Even our relationships with animals changed.
[14:35] With this world, everything changed. It was corrupted. And from that point on, humanity was in desperate need of redemption.
[14:47] Paul tells us in Romans 5, 12, That sin doomed us all.
[15:07] We can't win it back by being perfect. We're tainted. It's impossible for us to be good. So right here in Genesis chapter 3, the story turns.
[15:20] The fall of humanity introduces a great need. A need for restoration. A need for a savior. The ultimate need is you and I need to be rescued.
[15:32] We cannot get away from our sin. And if you are sitting here telling me there is no sin, you are telling me you have a perfect relationship with every single person you know, that everything you do is to the glory of God and not yourself.
[15:48] That's all a part of the infection of sin. Even your foolishness is counted as sin. But what's interesting, even to Adam and Eve, God doesn't leave them hanging without hope.
[16:06] A prophecy happens in Genesis 3, 15. He turns to the serpent and says, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.
[16:20] And he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. What we see there in those cryptic words are the first glimpse of the gospel.
[16:31] The promise of a redeemer. The promise of a rescuer. So we see from the very beginning in the first three chapters of Genesis, we see that God made everything good.
[16:45] It turned bad. And then God made a plan to redeem what was broken. And the rest of the Bible is the unfolding of that plan.
[16:58] It is the story how God would bring that redeemer, Jesus Christ, into this world to crush the head of the servant and to restore us to fellowship with him.
[17:10] Amen? This is where it all starts. So after Genesis 3, we see this. We're going to go a little bit quicker. Between Genesis 3 and 4, we're seeing this development of civilization.
[17:24] We meet Cain and Abel, the first murder. But then Adam and Eve have a son named Seth. And it's from Seth upon the line of Noah proceeds from.
[17:37] And all of a sudden we get to Genesis 6. God hasn't really been interacting with all of humanity. And we hear these words of the Lord. And they're not kind words. It says, The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
[17:59] And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens.
[18:18] For I am sorry that I have made them. Meditate on those words. When we pursue wickedness over righteousness.
[18:35] When we pursue the things of man rather than the things of God. And here we read God's first act of deliverance.
[18:46] We know the story. Noah in the ark. There was one righteous man and God saved him. Verse 8. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
[18:59] They enter the ark and the rest of mankind is destroyed. Noah then sets foot on an empty planet.
[19:10] And God makes a covenant with him. A promise to him. This is found in Genesis 9. And this is very important. This is called the Noahic covenant.
[19:21] It says, I will establish my covenant with you. That never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood. And never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.
[19:35] And God said, This is the sign of the covenant I make between you and every living creature that is with you. For all future generations I have set my bow in the cloud.
[19:46] And it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. So from there on in God is making a promise to us. Noah as the representative of mankind.
[19:58] So then we have this quick rolling between 9 and 10 and 11. It explains how civilizations grow and how languages come about. But there's three specific sons that Noah has.
[20:12] Shem, Ham, and Jephthah. And they go and they settle in the land. And one of them, Shem, within nine generations, he fathers a man named Abraham.
[20:25] And this gets us to the next important covenant in the Old Testament. It's called the Abrahamic covenant. And what God is doing is he's already created man.
[20:37] He's already instituted marriage. He's already instituted family. And now he's about to institute a nation. So he calls this man Abraham, who we know is a righteous man, to come over.
[20:48] And he says, I'm going to be your God and your people will be my people. And he makes this promise to them. And this promise is found in Genesis chapter 12.
[20:59] It says, and I will make you a great nation. And I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you.
[21:12] I will curse. And in the name and in you, all the families, all the earth shall be blessed. So God is telling this man Abraham, come follow me.
[21:25] And through you, not only you specifically as a nation will be blessed, but we know that through him will be the line of Jesus Christ and we will be blessed as well.
[21:36] Now, the important thing I want you to understand with these two covenants, these promises, is that God makes them and they're unconditional. These are our hopes.
[21:48] This is what God has designed for us. So here we see God chooses a people. Abraham has three sons. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And finally, Jacob, he calls him Israel.
[22:02] And he has 12 sons. And their names will be used for the 12 tribes of Judah. Now, what do you think it would have been like living during that time?
[22:13] We've heard the stories, right? Genesis, from Genesis 12 to Genesis 50, it's all the story of the pain of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and with their kids, finding wives, dealing with, there's a situation of Sodom and Gomorrah and cousins not listening, trying to save them.
[22:34] It's like this iteration. And these people know that God had made a promise to Abraham. So, of course, they must have all grown up to be the most wonderful family in the world, right?
[22:51] All in the family or the Brady Bunch or whatever kind of family shows on, right? Of course it's not. In fact, it's so horrible that Genesis ends with these 10 brothers hating their brother Joseph and selling him off to slavery.
[23:13] Wicked. Wicked. And then we read the story of Joseph, who becomes a slave in Egypt and rises up, and God shows favor on him.
[23:27] And as God would have it, a great plague comes on the earth. There's no food. What happens is, as the prime minister in Egypt, he has stores and stores of food, which causes Abraham's descendants through his father Jacob and all his brothers to move to Egypt.
[23:48] And that's how the book of Genesis ends. God's promised people now living in Egypt. When you turn your page of Genesis, you get to a book of Exodus.
[24:05] If you're thinking chronological, Job probably happens somewhere before Exodus. If you know the story of Job, we're not going to spend much time, but we believe he's a contemporary someone in there.
[24:20] He's a man who loved God. And in that story, which is somehow difficult and hard to read, we read these incredible hardships upon a man who in the very end holds to God, even when life doesn't make sense.
[24:38] So the next books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, these events occur about 400 years after Genesis.
[24:50] What's important to understand is, Israel is not just 12 small little families. They're now a nation.
[25:02] Experts estimate that there was probably two to three million Jews living in Egypt at that time. So numerous were they, that the Egyptian authorities did not want any more males born, for they were fearful that the Jews were going to overthrow the Egyptian kingdom.
[25:26] And this is where we meet this man named Moses. Now, Moses is kind of an incredible character. His mother hides him, as we read, because she didn't want her son to be put to death.
[25:38] So she puts him in a basket and sends it along. And it just so happens, a daughter of the king finds the basket and adopts Moses. And Moses, for 40 years, lives as an Egyptian in the royal house.
[25:53] So he's got the best of education, the best of training, all of these things, his best foods. But he's starting to realize he's not one of them, that the slaves are truly one of him.
[26:08] And then God starts to hear the cries of his people, the suffering that they were enduring under the Egyptian rule. Now, what's interesting is, we think that Moses must have been a really good Christian guy, or a good Jew.
[26:25] He would know very little. It's not like they had the writing at that time. They would have passed stories down orally. So he knew some of who God was. He would have known a little bit.
[26:37] And that's why we get to, when God takes Moses out of Egypt, remember, he murders the Egyptian. And then he goes out in the wilderness, and he's actually out there for 40 years.
[26:49] He gets married, family, and God's talking to him. And this is where God is kind of reintroducing himself into the life of his people. They forgot.
[27:02] And rightfully so. I don't think we can sit here and judge them. Right? Look at our nation. We've been around for 175 years, and we've been doing our best to jettison all knowledge of God.
[27:16] Right? When we had full knowledge of God, when our constitution, our country was set up. So 400 years, God hears, and he takes this man, Moses, and prepares him.
[27:30] And then he begins to free his people. And in Exodus, a covenant is made.
[27:43] So God, you know the story of the 10 plagues. He confronts Pharaoh, the escape, the Red Sea. And then God makes another covenant with Israel.
[27:57] But this covenant is very different than the Noahic. and the Abrahamic covenant. This covenant is actually conditional. And the covenant is, if you heed the ways of the Lord, the Lord will bless you.
[28:13] If you listen to me, if you heed my law, I will bless you. So now, we have Genesis.
[28:24] Exodus is that story. God, God, re-adjuicing himself, into the lives of the people. Then we get to Leviticus. Then we have Leviticus, numbers. And all of a sudden, there's these laws.
[28:35] And I'm going to explain, what these laws mean, right now, to help you. There's actually, three types of laws, that God gave his people. The first one, was the moral law.
[28:47] You've all heard of the 10 commandments, right? Like everybody has. Those were part of the moral law. This is the universal law that reflects God's character and moral standards, which are applicable to all people at all times.
[29:04] If you're familiar with the 10 commandments in Exodus 20, that's the most well-known example. But then, we also have these other laws that are called the ceremonial laws.
[29:16] These are the laws that govern the religious practices and rituals of Israel, including sacrifices, festivals, dietary restrictions, and rules for cleanliness.
[29:30] And it said they were specifically given to Israel to guide their worship and to maintain their covenant relationship with God. Now, examples include the laws of sacrifice and regulations on who could be a priest.
[29:46] And this is when we talk about some of the funnier type of laws, like shaving your head. That meant, because you had no hair, you could still be clean to sacrifice, to offer your sacrifices.
[29:59] That's why that was an important law to have. The other laws, which seem kind of funny to us, it's because they were rejection of what the other nations and cults did.
[30:12] So there's a reason for those laws. Now, I just want to tell you a few points here. One, when we look at those laws, we look to Christ and we say, praise God.
[30:26] We don't have to do all those things. We don't have to keep sacrificing animals, going to the temple, over and over and over and offering these type of sacrifices. The fact of the matter is, Jesus Christ did it all for our behalf.
[30:41] Amen? So it was a looking forward to there'll become a time when we won't have to do that. The ultimate sacrifice, because this sacrifice is conditional.
[30:54] God's sacrifice is unconditional. That's why once we are saved, we are saved forever. Then there's a third law, which is called the civil or judicial law.
[31:06] Remember, God is creating a nation and they need to know how to react with one another. So there's a law, what happens if your bull gets out and goes over and gorges your neighbor?
[31:21] Your neighbor's son. The neighbor's now lost a son. That's murder, because A, you should have known better to take care of that bull to create the harmony in the community.
[31:34] Do you guys get that? So that's why, even when you had adultery, they would stone the adulterers because you just could not have disharmony in the camp.
[31:44] Praise the Lord, God's mercy and all those things that are used to regulate behaviors for community and ensuring justice.
[31:56] God has shown mercy in this day that we don't get the death penalty, but that doesn't mean those offenses are any less serious. Now, here's the thing.
[32:08] When you start reading those laws when you're going through your Bible, part of it is you do want to get an encyclopedia or a Bible study and you want to meditate upon why was God doing these things?
[32:21] What is this significant? One, you're going to find out a lot of the ceremonial laws actually kept the Jews healthier and stronger than the rest of the nations. That's why, you know, today, you know, back then, hey, we can enjoy bacon today, but back then, a lot of problems with it, fish, just some of those type of things that were going on, and we need to understand how those laws work.
[32:47] If you remember last week, I used this word called dispensation, and that's how God relates to a certain people at a certain time.
[32:58] There's some people who believe that now we have Jesus Christ, we ignore all the laws. No, no, no, we don't ignore those laws. We still keep the moral code, amen? Those laws are meant for all people of all nations.
[33:12] Do we do the temple ceremonial laws? No, there is no temple ceremonial. So that's why those laws don't mean anything. And then the civil law, do we follow them? I wish we would.
[33:24] There's actually a lot of wisdom in those laws, but we're not a theocracy. And what a theocracy means is that God is our king, right? We are a nation of many religions, so there's not one religious rule over all.
[33:40] So when you think about these things, and why does this matter? So you're going to find, and I'm not telling you guys anything new, there's going to be a whole group of people that are going to point out things in the Bible.
[33:52] And they're going to say, you Christian, you hypocrite. You hypocrite. How dare you say that? How dare you say something wrong about adultery or homosexuality or you're trying to tell me that's what the Bible doesn't talk about.
[34:05] The fact is, you're a hypocrite. You eat bacon, right? You don't shave the edges of your beard, right? They can go through those laws, you know. I see you ate a medium raw steak.
[34:18] There's blood in that steak. You broke a law. And people, there's Christians get confounded by that. Well, what do I do? Don't get a tattoo. All right. That law's gone away, but tattoos are bad anyway.
[34:30] No, just kidding. But that's what they point at, right? They try to point, oh, you've got a tattoo, but you don't do that. It's because they do not understand how the laws meant that there was a ceremonial law, a civil law, and a moral law.
[34:45] And the moral law is the one that pertains to us in this day. Amen? Do you guys get that? That's going to solve a lot of problems when it comes to people asking you questions and having funny answers.
[34:58] You don't have to struggle. You don't have to sweat. Oh my goodness, maybe I shouldn't be eating bacon. Maybe I need to call my mom to repent for cooking that ham on Sunday. You know, it's okay. All right.
[35:13] But the most important law, and Jesus was asked what the greatest law, and that is found in Matthew 22, 34 to 40 is, the greatest law, and the only law that ever mattered, is that you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
[35:31] In the Old Testament, they called that the Shema. And you were to love others as yourself. That is why, actually, when you read some of the civil laws, they had these laws about, you know, you'd be on the roof of your house, and you'd have to build what's called a parapet on the top of your roof.
[35:51] And you'd wonder, why would they make that a law? Well, guess what happens when you're hosting someone up on your deck? You know, fall off.
[36:03] Oh, now I know. They're just simple. It's like making a law for you to shovel the walkway at wintertime in front of your house. There's just a lot of those laws that are just practical that demonstrate you love your neighbor.
[36:18] Amen? Rather than getting the snowblower and just blowing it all on your neighbor's driveway. Right? That doesn't work so well. So, I know that's not a big thing here in BC, but there was snow wars back in Ontario.
[36:30] So anyway. So we have numbers in Deuteronomy, and something happens. At the same time, God is going through these wilderness with the people, but they begin to gripe, and they begin to complain.
[36:43] So Leviticus, we get many of the ceremonial laws. Deuteronomy, we get some of the civil laws. God starts to organize them as a nation. But in their complaining, God says, that's enough.
[36:57] You're not going to the promised land. Your children are, the next generation. So Deuteronomy is kind of a recap of everything before because he's getting the new generation ready as they go into the promised land.
[37:15] So does that cover the Pentateuch okay for you guys? So when you go in, that's how to observe it. Now there's three other books that I want to talk about today, and I'm going to go over them quickly, and then we'll set you free on this horrible, sunny September 1st day.
[37:30] When you guys look at your Bible, notice that the books are not in order. Okay? They're not chronologically ordered. It doesn't make a sense for what I'm talking about today, but next Sunday when I go through some of the minor prophets, it looks like they all happen at the end.
[37:47] some of those prophecies happen in the middle. So I like to divide the next three books, and your Bibles will say they're historical books, Joshua, Judges, and Ruth.
[37:59] It's true. But what's specifically different about them is that God was still their king. Are you with me on this? They were still under a theocracy.
[38:12] So what happened, Moses wanted, helped set up that God was going to be their king. And they were going to be greater than any nation on the world because they had the wisest God overseeing them.
[38:27] But we know what happens, right? And we're going to learn a little bit more about this next week, but they start to complain. We wish we had a king we could see. We wish we had a king like the Hittites, the Amorites, and all these foreign nations.
[38:44] And that's when God says, okay, you want a king? I will step away. And that's the dividing line in that history. So what's amazing about Joshua is Joshua is a book where this new generation of people get to continually see how great God is because they conquer the land.
[39:08] And while they're conquering the land, God is continuing to do great miracles. Do you remember the miracles that happened with Moses? They hadn't seen these. These are the children.
[39:19] But now they're seeing new laws. You know what? I just want you to, that great walled Syria, Jericho, I just want you to march around that wall every single day, seven days in a row, blowing your trumpets.
[39:30] Man, this is a crazy God we have. And then they would do it and the walls would come tumbling down. Right? So that's one of the distinctions that I want you to see. In Joshua, things are going good.
[39:42] And then we get to Judges. And Judges is actually separated by seven periods of time where Israel starts off good, disobedience, rejection of God.
[39:56] God raises up a judge to get them out of trouble. All right, everything's good again. Uh-oh, we're going to sin, we're going to do this stuff, uh-oh, need another judge. So it's basically a story of cyclical sin.
[40:10] God saves them, they fall back in the pit. You guys have seen that viral story about the sheep being, have you guys seen that sheep? It's, I guess, in Scotland and wherever they keep sheep and it's caught in a trap and all the farmers, they get the sheep out and it's bounding, bounding and it falls into the crack about 20 meters in front again.
[40:32] Right? And that's Israel, seven times over, just bound, bound, and you're like, how could you be so stupid? Oh, we'll get out, don't worry. No, the Philistines will be your friends, everything will be great.
[40:44] Bound, bound, bound, back in a sin. So that's the story of, um, judges. It's described as one of the most wicked times post-Arc.
[40:59] It says that every man did what was right in his own eyes. And what happens is these judges illustrate for us the Christ as being the final Savior and King of his people.
[41:14] And then we get to this incredible book called Ruth. Ruth is incredible for a few different reasons. One, it takes place during the time of judges.
[41:29] And it's the story of a young, a woman who, things aren't going well in Israel. So Naomi and her husband leave Israel in hopes to make their fortune and the father dies and all their sons die.
[41:46] And there's a daughter-in-law and her name is Ruth. And Ruth is a Moabite. She is a foreigner. She is not Jewish. but in this story she pledges her life to Naomi and says wherever you go I will go.
[42:04] So Naomi has no place left to go but she returns back to her hometown which is Bethlehem. And it's kind of an interesting story from many different characteristics.
[42:15] It's got to do with pride. You know do I go back? Because if I go back to Bethlehem everybody knows me. Everybody knows the horrible decision that our family made going to a foreign nation when God told us to stay here.
[42:32] But I left and did my own thing. And that God had saved this man named Boaz. And Boaz was the one who owned the field upon which Ruth worked in.
[42:47] And he's kind of Boaz is a picture of Jesus Christ rescuing his people. The helpless, the downtrodden that don't have anything.
[43:00] He's called the kinsman redeemer. Because it turned out, this is going back to the Soren Wilson law, he had the rights to marry Ruth but someone ahead of him did.
[43:14] So he went and made sure that that one wasn't interested and he took the rights married Ruth. And what's amazing about that story is it shows that someone who wasn't Jew can know God but number two, she becomes the great great grandmother of King David and falls in line of Jesus Christ.
[43:38] Now that's the story and I want to just end with this. In each story of Joshua judges and Ruth there's a person who exemplifies belief when all else don't.
[44:02] Rahab. So it's the book of Joshua. She was a Canaanite woman living in Jericho. She was a prostitute and she's most famous for hiding Caleb and Joshua as they were spying out Jericho.
[44:19] And one of the things she recognized was the power of God that Israel had and she placed her faith in God. So great was her faith.
[44:30] Dave read it out in Hebrews 11 which is considered the great hall of fame of faith. Just this story, another story in the book of Judges.
[44:44] It's kind of a crazy story but it's a story about Jael and she was the wife of Heber the Canaanite. You know him right? Heber the Canaanite. Well anyhow he was a non-Israel guy.
[44:55] He's causing problems and in Judges 12 she plays a crucial role in Israel's victory over the Canaanite army because the Canaanite army commander fled the battle and she leads him into her tent and while he was sleeping she puts a tent peg through his head.
[45:17] So she was willing to do what Israel was failing to do and although she wasn't an Israelite her actions contributed to the deliverance of Israel and she's actually praised in Deborah's song of Judges 5.
[45:34] And then of course the third one I just told you about earlier was Ruth. So even in these books and as you guys start reading the Old Testament you're going to meet guys like Naaman and you're going to read these stories where non-Jews start to exemplify a greater belief and a greater hope than even the Jews who had grown up in that heritage.
[45:59] You know why that's encouraging to me? It's encouraging me because I can come, I came from an unbroken home. Christianity wasn't a part of my life. My father, my grandparents, they didn't want anything to do with that.
[46:14] My cousins, my uncles, my aunts. And it wasn't only for my mom's obedience and taking us to a church. And some of you guys share those stories, right? Like we're having this family conference in a couple of weeks.
[46:28] And sometimes I really believe and we're charged and there's two sides to this. We're charged to raise our children and our grandchildren under the admonition of the Lord.
[46:40] And what that means is we're to display the love of God and what he has taught us to our children. Amen? And some parents will fail.
[46:52] They will ignore. They won't do. But God continues to put a calling on those that come from broken families, who families were outside the faith, and what happens in this time is that this church becomes a family.
[47:10] Do you get that? And I think that's all of our stories, that we have a responsibility with our family, but when our families disown us because they want to choose the world, there's another family that is here waiting for them.
[47:22] Amen? I know many of you here believe when your parents did not believe. And many of you are here when your kids insist on not believing, but you continue to come and honor the Lord with the responsibility that he has given you.
[47:40] So this is, I hope I'm explaining it okay, but there's this great message in these Old Testament stories to think about, and I find if you understand that these are people's struggles when God isn't there.
[47:55] And those are the same struggles we have when we're not reading God's word. word. We don't need to have God as a theocracy. But if you want to know how Proverbs work in your life, make an appointment with Dave, just do some counseling.
[48:08] Counseling doesn't make you sit on the couch and Dave won't start with, tell me about all your feelings and what's your relationship with your mom and dad. He's going to open up God's word and we're going to look at how wisdom applies and what does God's word have for you.
[48:23] And then counseling actually turns into a Bible study. Before you know it, you're ready to lead someone else in that type of study again. So next week we're going to concentrate.
[48:34] I hope I'm going to be able to knock off the rest of the Bible because now we're going to see the rise of the kings and prophets and how that all has to do with Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ to Revelation.
[48:49] All right. I know it sounds more like a seminary class but I wanted to make an effort for you to understand your Bible better and be more engaged with reading the text because that is the God that you have before you.
[49:00] Amen. This is how he has chosen to communicate to you. Use it. Study it. Learn it. Grow, I guarantee you. Let me pray. Dear Holy Heavenly Father, we give you thanks for who you are.
[49:14] We thank you that you loved us enough to give us this Bible to teach us what to know. Because, and I've talked about this before, even we have writings from those who served Babylonian gods.
[49:27] They lived in complete guilt because they knew there was a God but they did not know how to serve him. They did not know how he talked to him and then they would just invent all these man-made idols and ideas in order to appease their souls and their consciences.
[49:47] Jesus. But you did so much more in demonstrating us that your grandeur in creation, you declare your personhood in your word of God and obviously in your son Jesus Christ who exemplifies who you are.
[50:07] He is you. He's part of the trinity. He's the perfect copy. That there's nothing missing in Jesus that is not of you and there's nothing of him that's not you.
[50:19] Now today we have the power of the Holy Spirit, part of the trinity that helps us know the mind of God as we understand and learn our Bibles. That it just simply takes us Lord help me understand my Bible today.
[50:37] Help me as I spend these 20 minutes I'm going to read this passage. Help me understand it in its context. Let me meditate on how I may use that as a lesson in learning to worship you more or to know you more.
[50:54] God you're great, you're gracious and we thank you. And all God's people said, amen. Thank you.