Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / September 22, 2021 | Chronological Bible Study with Patty Diliberto - Session 25: Old Testament Review

Transcript

September 22, 2021 | Chronological Bible Study with Patty Diliberto - Session 25: Old Testament Review · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Crono this week.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad that you are here, and I'm excited for what we're going to see.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: We've covered so much territory in this study already, haven't we?
0:13
SPEAKER_00: And there's so much that we left out.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: Man, every single solitary week we could have done an entire lesson like we've done, and then some.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: And you can never exhaust the word of God.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: After spending this whole year of going through the Old Testament, you should have, and I hope and pray that you do, have a better understanding of the big picture of the Bible.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: And hopefully you know more than you ever have before.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to review the Old Testament.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: Now, you won't finish reading the Old Testament until October 15th.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: But if we're going to teach the New Testament and the life of Christ, which we are, then I have to move ahead of you.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: And so from here on out, I will be ahead of you of where you're reading.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm excited for us to see all that God has for us to see today.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: So pray with me.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: Father God, thank you.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lord, for all that you have shown us in the Old Testament, how you have revealed yourself to us so that we can have deeper fellowship with you so that we will love you more.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: That is the goal of studying your word, is loving you more.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: And so, God, I pray that that is the outcome that all who are listening to this experience is a greater, deeper, more profound love for you.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: So thank you for this lesson and for this time, and we pray in Jesus' name.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: Saint Augustine said, In the old, the new is concealed.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: In the new, the old is revealed.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: Love that quote.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, the New Testament is concealed, but in the New Testament, the Old Testament is revealed.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: That's what we see.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: One of the truths that we've seen over and over and over in the new in the Old Testament is that God communicates with his people for the purpose of fellowship.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: And another truth that we have seen is that everything God did and does was and is intentional.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: Our God is intentional with everything he does.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: We started seeing that in Genesis in the creation era.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: There are things that God reveals about himself in those six days of creation that show us that God is systematic and orderly.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: Systematic and orderly.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: We also see that God is relational and communicative, and that he existed in community before he created man.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: Before there was creation, he was complete in himself.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: He said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and that is community.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: We understood that you come to God God's way, and God's way is through the shedding of the blood of the innocent on behalf of the guilty.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: We saw that the redemptive promises of God started right there in the garden, and we have seen the continuation of his redemptive promises all the way through the Old Testament, haven't we?
3:39
SPEAKER_00: We saw that there are two ways of living outside of the garden.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: Either we will we will hear God's voice through his word and believe it, obey it, and walk in that truth, or we will ignore his word and remain ignorant of it, which will lead us to walking according to the other voices of the world, which are the world, the flesh, and the devil.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: We have a choice in the matter.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: God wants us to choose wisely.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: As the population on earth grew, so did the wickedness of man.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: God saw that everything, oh, I'm sorry, I should have should have done that.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: That God saw that every inclination of the heart of their hearts was evil, and that brought us to the flood.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: There were 1,656 years from Adam to the flood, such a short amount of time.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: And in that time, the people had become more and more wicked.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: God warns the people through the preaching of Noah that judgment was coming.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: The people didn't respond at all to the call of God and to turn to God.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: So God, even though God provided a very unique way for the people to be saved, if they would come into the ark, we saw that God is patient.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: He gave the people ample time to respond to the preaching of Noah.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: He is long-suffering.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: He wanted the pre people to be saved.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: He wanted them to come into the ark, but they would not.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: Judgment is as sure today as it was then, and we learned that it is always too soon to judge God.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: After the flood, many things changed.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: The climate was different, humans could eat the animals, and man had authority.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: The climate changed, humans could eat animals, and God gave man authority, and capital punishment was established.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: After the flood, Noah and his sons walked in faithfulness, and soon Abraham came on the scene.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: The patriarchal era begins with God's choice of one man, Abraham, to carry on his promises.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: Abraham and each one of his descendants had to individually learn to walk by faith.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: God called Abraham out of the country of Ur and He gave him the sevenfold blessing.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: He says, I will make you a great nation.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: I will bless you.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: I will make your name great.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: You will be a blessing.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: I will bless those who bless you.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: I will curse those who curse you.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: In you all the families on earth will be blessed.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: We have seen that covenant and those blessings continue right to this very day.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: God is never going to forsake his people because of this covenant promise.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: God cut a covenant with Abraham that was unconditional, never to be forgotten, and it was binding for all time.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: We saw the good, the bad, and the ugly in Abraham and Sarah.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: And finally, we saw God bless them with a baby in their old age.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: Isaac is the son of promise.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: And we saw that the blessing Isaac took up residence in the heart of Abraham.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: So God had to test Abraham to see if he would surrender his only son whom he loved.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: And in obedience, Abraham passed the test.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: And God provided a ram in the thicket, which was the substitute.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: We saw that as the foreshadowing of the Messiah.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: And both boys were schemers.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: Isaac and Rebekah only had two sons.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, let me go back.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: Isaac and Rebekah only had two children.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: The father favored one and the mother favored the other, and they pit them against each other.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: Rebekah and Jacob trick Isaac into giving the patriarchal blessing to Jacob instead of Esau, which set a series of consequences into motion.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: Jacob runs away and he ends up working for Rebekah's brother Laban, who is as big a trickster as Jacob was.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: Laban tricks Jacob into marrying his, into marrying Leah, and after that wedding week, he gives Rachel to be his wife as well.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, God directs Jacob and his entire family to return to Israel to face his brother.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: God spoke the words, be fruitful and increase in number, which is a mandate, which was a mandate to Adam and Eve.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: He spoke it to Noah, he spoke it to Abraham, and now he speaks it to Jacob.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: What does that tell us about God?
9:37
SPEAKER_00: God is still at work bringing about his redemptive promises hundreds of years later.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: Jacob has 12 sons, and from his two wives and his two concubines.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: He favors Joseph, the son born to him by Rachel.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: Because of Jacob's favoritism, his brothers despised Joseph.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: Hatred, jealousy, envy, deception, deceit all took its toll on the entire clan of Israel.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: But we saw that God wastes nothing.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: The brothers seize Joseph one day and sell him to traitors who take him to Egypt.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: God is with him, and Joseph remains faithful to Yahweh.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: Joseph is sold into slavery and serves in Potiphar's home, where his wife tries to seduce him day after day.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: She fails, but Joseph maintains his integrity, and even though he maintains his integrity, he is still thrown into prison as a result of her false accusation.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: God is with Joseph in prison and uses him to interpret the dreams of the cupbearer and the baker.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: We saw how Joseph's knowledge of God and his and God's ways sustained him during that time in those difficult circumstances.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: And we saw that he most likely learned everything he knew about Yahweh from his father when he was a young boy.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: God drops two disturbing dreams into Pharaoh's, the middle of Pharaoh's sleep.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: God sovereignly and strategically places the restored cupbearer into position and he suddenly remembers Joseph at just the right moment when God is ready.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: When everything has been set and God is ready.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly Joseph is raised to the most powerful position in Egypt.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: God brings famine on the whole land.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: God brings famine on the whole land for the purpose of bringing Joseph's brothers to buy grain in Egypt.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: He reveals himself to the brose and brings Jacob and the entire clan of Israel to Egypt.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: At the beginning of Genesis, we saw Adam and Eve who wanted to come to God their way.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: But at the end of Genesis, we see Joseph, a wonderful picture of a man who chose to come to God, God's way.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: God planted the children in Israel and they were in a fertile place, Goshen, and they were fertile.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: The fact that there were over two million of them would be important when they eventually came out of Egypt to settle the land.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: Moses grew up in Pharaoh's home.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: He grew up thinking he was a somebody.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: As a young man, he defended a Hebrew slave by killing an Egyptian guard.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: He fled for his life to the desert of Midian, where he marries a shepherdess, Zipporah.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: He has two sons and he is there for 40 years.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: It is in the desert where God reduces Moses to a nobody.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: And he gives him an assignment.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: And this is what we hear from Moses after 40 years in the desert.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: Who am I that you would want to use me?
13:23
SPEAKER_00: Moses is finally ready.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: God tells Moses what his agenda is for Moses in Egypt, and he gives him that assignment.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: Moses gives God excuses of why he can't do it.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: We learned that God is patient with man and that he will fulfill his agenda because God is on a mission to redeem his people.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: Moses reluctantly obeys God and is used to bring one wave of disaster after another on Egypt.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: The last plague, the death of the firstborn, of every firstborn in Egypt, comes.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: God instructs the Hebrews to put blood on the lintels and the door frames with the blood of a lamb, establishing the Passover, which is a picture of the ultimate redemptive promise of God.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: That through the sacrifice of the innocent one on behalf of the guilty, salvation would come.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: Pharaoh allows the people to leave, but changes his mind and he pursues the Israelites, which gives God an incredible opportunity to show them his great and awesome power.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: God's glory leads the children of Israel in the desert where they wander in his care for 40 years.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: During that time, God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and the law, and he confirmed the Abrahamic covenant and made the Mosaic covenant with Moses and with the people.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: So far, we have seen God make a Noahic covenant, Abrahamic covenant, and Mosaic covenant.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: Our God is a covenant-making, covenant-keeping God.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: God gave Moses specific instructions on how to build the tabernacle, and became and it became the place where God would manifest his presence to Moses, to the priests, and to the people.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: She will be engrafted into Israel and used in the very lineage of Messiah Yeshua.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: We learn that God has the plan and he has the power to fulfill his agenda and that he loves to use women with a past.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: As we see the Israelites destroying the nations around them who inhabited the land, we also saw again that it was always too soon to judge God.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: After Joshua died, the people still needed instruction and direction.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: So God raised up judges who would tell the people what God wanted them to know and what he wanted them to do.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: That is when we saw that disastrous cycle.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: God said, drive out the Canaanites, but the people disobeyed and they didn't do it.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: Instead, they started worshiping the Ashturaf and the other gods of the Canaanites, which just happened to be the other the gods of Egypt, the same gods, and this led them into bondage.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: They would become miserable and they would they would and they would cry out to God and God would send a judge to deliver them and to give them rest.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: And then eventually, after they rested for a while, they would compromise again and become disobedient and they would start the cycle over again.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: And this kept the people trapped for 400 years.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: We saw too how easily we can get into those same cycles.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: And how knowing God's word and doing his will can keep us out of those cycles.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: We looked at the judges, Deborah, Gideon, and Samson.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: The judges portray a God who cannot help but be generous in spite of his people's waywardness.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: What a great view of God from that.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: Some things we learned about God from the book of Ruth were that God cares for the needy people in this world, like Naomi and Ruth.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: He is their ally in this chaotic world, and we need to know that right now.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: That our God cares for those who are in chaos.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't leave us in the hard times.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: During really difficult times, our Heavenly Father comes close and stays near.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: God is at work in the lives of his people, even in the darkest of times.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: Probably even more so at that point.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: When it's the darkest, we see the light of who God is the most, the clearest.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: And genuine love and kindness will be rewarded.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes those rewards exceed our wildest imagination and transcend even our lifetime.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: We saw how God often providentially works behind the scenes to bring his will to pass.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: Samuel was the last of the judges, and he was the first, and he also served as a prophet.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: Samuel was a very capable leader.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: He was a judge, a teacher, and prophet, and he was capable of rebuking Israel when they needed it.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: And boy, they needed it often.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: He also rebuked David when he needed it.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: Samuel was decisive in word and action, and he was fully in touch with God.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: He was the kind of leader that Israel wanted and needed, and yet they rejected him.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: Why?
20:08
SPEAKER_00: Because they wanted a king like all the other nations around them to rule over them.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: The people were tired of a theocracy under God.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: They wanted something more tangible.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: They wanted a monarchy.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: They cried out for a king and they longed for a strong nation with a warrior king.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: And the more Samuel tried to wed them closer to God, the more they cried out for what they wanted.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: They wanted what the other nations had: an earthly king.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: And that puts us into the era of the kings.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: Saul is the first king.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: Saul began by putting God first in his life, but then he became impatient.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: Saul was driven by fear and worry, and he took matters into his own hands, but he didn't take God seriously.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: Saul continued that downward cycle by sparing Agag, the king of the Amalekites, along with the best of the plunder, and then he went to the witch of Endor.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: Saul's life and his reign ended, but he was, he's, but we saw the faithfulness of God in raising up a good king, David.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: We learned many different things about relationships by looking at some of the significant relationships in David's life, and there were many to look at.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: David had a heart for God and character to back it up, to back up what he believed.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: He proved his character by not killing Saul when he had the opportunity to do so.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: But he waited for God to work, to fulfill his anointing to anoint.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Anoint him as king of Israel in his life.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: David was a good king, and Israel prospered under his care.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: But prosperity and monotony brought him to a place that he should not have been, and he sinned against the Lord with Bathsheba.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: The consequences of sleeping with her were pregnancy, and then he tried to cover up the pregnancy by having her husband murdered, and then he covered that up.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: David had to live with those consequences, and we saw that they resulted in poor relationships with his children from there on out.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: We learned that David, while David was God's choice and had a great heart for God, he was not perfect.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: It was an encouragement for us to see the good, the bad, and the ugly in David because we often see it in ourselves.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: David wrote the majority of the Psalms, and through them we see the heartache, the joy, the devotion, and the love that the man after God's own heart had.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: In the Psalms, we learned that the Psalms were provided not so much to teach us about God, but to train us in our in responding to Him.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: In the process, we learn who God is.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: The Psalms take us places our souls and our res our souls and responses to the Lord would never get to on our own.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: He started out his reign very well when he requested wisdom and knowledge from God rather than asking for any of the plethora of other things he could have asked for.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: God answered his request and he gave him this unbelievable capacity for wisdom and knowledge.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: He was used by God to build the magnificent temple in Jerusalem.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: His palace and everything he owned or touched was breathtakingly beautiful and extravagant.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: But marrying foreign women and sacrificing to their gods is what brought Solomon to judgment.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: God tore the kingdom out of his hand.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: For the sake of David, his servant, though, he promised that Messiah would come in that remnant from David.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: All the great wisdom that God had given Solomon did not keep him from making terrible choices, which brought him to ruin.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: The year is 931 BC, and the United Kingdom of Israel is split, and we enter into the divided kingdom.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: The northern kingdom consisted of ten tribes and was known as the Kingdom of Israel.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: Their first king was Jeroboam, and their capital was Samaria.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: Israel had a total of 19 kings rule over them.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: All of them were wicked and spiritually depraved.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: All of them.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: There was not one strong spiritual leader among all 19 kings.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: Because of this weak spiritual condition, idolatry was rampant.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: The southern kingdom consisted of two kingdoms, Judah and Benjamin, and it was known as the kingdom of Judah.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: The first king was Rehoboam, and the capital, of course, was Jerusalem.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Judah had 19 kings and one queen who reigned over her.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: And unlike the northern kingdom of Israel, Judah did have some good kings, but many were idolatrous and evil.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: The spiritual conditions in both kingdoms deteriorate and they continued to deteriorate.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: And God next chooses to communicate to his people through his prophets.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: What did God speak to the prophets?
26:28
SPEAKER_00: God's message of repentance and warnings and coming judgment most often fell on unhearing and unrepentant hearts.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: For four hundred years God spoke, but the people refused to listen.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: God warned them against disobedience and idolatry and promised, promised them that he would use other nations to remove them from the land if they continued in their unfaithfulness to him.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: He said they would be scattered across the whole earth as strangers in unfamiliar lands, and that they would find no rest from their wanderings.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: However, God, in his faithfulness, did promise to bring them back into their land.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: And that's when we saw the exile.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: Because they refused to repent, God sent nations to come and attack both Israel and Judah.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: The northern kingdom falls to Assyria and the southern kingdom to Babylon.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: And the majority of the people are carried away into exile where most of them remained.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: God continues to work through this difficult time by sending prophets along with the people into captivity.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: And even though he is disciplining them, we see his love and care for his people.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: He made sure that his promise of a return back to Israel would be accomplished.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: And he tells them that the exile would end within 70 years.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: God always keeps his promises.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: God works through Cyrus, king of Persia, an unbeliever, to accomplish his purposes and to bring the remnant back to Israel.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: In the first return, just under 50,000 people return with Zerubbabel.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: In the second return, about 80 years after that, 5,000 exiles return with Ezra.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: And in the third group, 12 years after that, Nehemiah brings 42,000 exiles back.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: Each group had a specific assignment.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: The first group would rebuild the temple, the second group would reestablish the worship in the temple, and the third would rebuild the wall around the city.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: The work of rebuilding met with, of course, resistance because that's how the enemy works.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: If he can't totally defeat us, he will work really hard to discourage us.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: As a result of their difficulties, we saw the people pray and take action.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: Pray and take action.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: The temple is rebuilt, revival has broken out, the walls have been repaired, and the result is fellowship and worship of God.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: God had kept his promises just as he said he would.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, unfortunately, after the dedication of the temple, after the preaching of Ezra and Nehemiah, the people are sliding back into their dysfunctional mode of choosing to willfully disobey God.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: They're sliding right back into it.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: Still, after everything God has done for the people, their hearts are hardened.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: They don't see the problem.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: Even with the prophets giving them strong messages of repentance, strong messages of warning.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: They still don't get it.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: F.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: Lagard Smith, the commentator of the who contributes to the chronological Bible that you're reading, says at this point in the story, the people of Israel continue, even now in their willful violation of God's laws.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: The nation is still at the mercy of the Persian Empire.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: And as far as the Jews can tell, there is no sign that any super king is about to establish the ideal kingdom which they have come to expect.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: Never mind that every other promise that God has made over 40 centuries has been faithfully fulfilled.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: Where is this great Messiah of which the prophets have spoken?
31:53
SPEAKER_00: Is this a promise that is too difficult for even the God of heaven to fulfill?
32:00
SPEAKER_00: That's what the people would have been thinking.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: But we also see that God is getting ready for 400 years of silence to begin after the prophet Malachi gives his message.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: God tells them what he is going to do in Malachi 3.1.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: See?
32:23
SPEAKER_00: I will send my messenger who will prepare the way before me.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: Then suddenly, suddenly, the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: The messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come, says the Lord Almighty.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: And with that, the Old Testament comes to a close.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: God has done what he set out to do.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: He has revealed himself to mankind in persistent, personal, and powerful ways that had a profound impact on the entire world.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: And now we shift to see the silent years.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: The last era before the coming of Messiah claims the title, the silent years or the intertestamental years.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: It is called this because the Hebrew canon closed after the writing and the preaching of Malachi, the prophet Malachi.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: God is silent, but he is not inactive.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: Could his silence perhaps build the anticipation just a bit more for what he is about to do?
33:46
SPEAKER_00: I believe so.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: The things that take place and happen during the silent years is what we need to see and understand now.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: So take a big breath and get ready.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: For 400 years, God did not speak to his people through the prophets, yet his silence did not equal inactivity.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: God was waiting, God was working mightily during this time, preparing the way for Messiah through the various empires that ruled.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: During this intertestamental period, four major empires rose and fell as Daniel predicted in Daniel chapter 2 and 7.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: It's very important for us to see how those empires, those four empires, impacted the world.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: First, the Babylonian Empire with Nebuchadnezzar took place during Daniel's day and it lasted about a century.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: Babylon fell to the Medes and the Persians.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: The Persian Empire spread from Egypt to India and northward towards Greece.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: This empire survived for about two centuries.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: At this time, the king of Macedon was Philip II, and he marched his army south by and by 338 BC, he captured the whole Greek peninsula.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: Although not a Greek himself, Philip had his son tutored in Greek philosophy by none other than Aristotle.
35:17
SPEAKER_00: When Philip was murdered, his 22-year-old son Alexander took over.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: Alexander the Great became the commander of the Greek army and overthrew the Persian Empire.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: He quickly began an ambitious policy of Hellenization.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: Hellenization was an effort to spread the Greek philosophy, language, and culture through, and through this, Alexander hoped to unite the whole world, the whole known world, through one language, Koine Greek.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: The Grecian period ended with Alexander's death at age 30.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: And because he had no heirs to the throne, his empire was divided among four generals.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: And during this time, the Hellenization in the East continued to progress.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: Two of the most famous generals founded dynasties and profoundly affected the lives of the Jewish people.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: The Ptolemaies take control of Egypt and the Seleucids take control of Syria.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: The land of Canaan was positioned between these two and was a constant bone of contention as both the Ptolemaies and the Seleucids struggled for control of the area, the entire area.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: The Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt lasted over 300 years.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: There would be 12 kings named Ptolemy and one named Cleopatra.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: This would be a time of religious freedom for the Jews, but interesting, but increasing influence from the Hellenistic culture.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: Koine Greek became the common language of many Jews during this time, especially those living in Egypt.
37:09
SPEAKER_00: And during this time, the Old Testament, the Hebrew Old Testament, was translated into Koine Greek, known as the Septuagint.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: This translation would replace the Hebrew Old Testament as the most commonly used version and was used during the life of Christ.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, no doubt, heard and read the Septuagint as a boy in the temple.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: Judah started out as part of the Ptolemaic Empire and was pretty much left alone by them, but it was soon taken over by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus Epiphanes, who desecrated the temple by offering a pig to the god Zeus in the Holy of Holies.
38:01
SPEAKER_00: The cruelty of Antiochus Epiphanes, together with this final sacrilege, outraged the Jews and brought about a patriarch revolt in 166 BC led by Judas Maccabees.
38:16
SPEAKER_00: After a long struggle, Judas Maccabees and his followers eventually rid the temple of everyone and everything that had defiled it, and they set up a new ritually clean altar.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: The revolt brought about the freedom for the Jews, which lasted until Rome, the fourth empire in Daniel's vision.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: The Roman Empire conquered the crumbling remains of the Seleucid Empire in Syria, and in 63 BC, the Roman general Pompeii finally took possession of the land of Israel and captured Jerusalem.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: During the capture, the Romans besieged the temple area in Jerusalem for three months.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: They massacred the Jewish priests and defiled the temple by entering into the Holy of Holies.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: This marked the beginning of a time of deep, profound hatred by many Jews against the Romans who governed them for the next few centuries.
39:24
SPEAKER_00: Okay, why is all of this important?
39:30
SPEAKER_00: These events are very important for numerous reasons.
39:36
SPEAKER_00: First, they were part of the fulfillment of Daniel's visions in chapter 7 and 8.
39:41
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, they are important because of what they brought to the area, the development of the Greek language and culture, and this mixture of Greek and Near Eastern culture became known as Hellenism.
39:57
SPEAKER_00: Hellenization brought a common language to the known world and to the Jews of the Diaspora, the exile, those who were scattered about in the world.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: These changes relaxed the Jewish attitude toward the Old Testament scriptures, and they embraced the Greek translated Septuagint.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: The Septuagint became the scripture of the early church.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: And the New Testament writers frequently quote the Septuagint.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: Synagogues became the mainstays of spiritual life in the villages where the Jews are dispersed.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: We've seen this several times.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: Courts called the Sanhedrin, consisting of 23 wise men judged in the smaller towns, and the great Sanhedrin, a council of 70 plus the high priests, ruled over the nation of Israel in Jerusalem.
40:52
SPEAKER_00: What did Rome contribute during this intertestamental period?
40:58
SPEAKER_00: Rome paved the way by building an intricate road system.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: The quality and the extent of roads in the Roman Empire is legendary.
41:08
SPEAKER_00: Thousands and thousands of miles of roads connected major cities as well as the outlying areas of the Roman Empire, facilitating and encouraging the travel throughout the Mediterranean world and beyond.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: The Pax Romana, or the Roman peace, was another contribution.
41:31
SPEAKER_00: For two centuries, the economic and cultural growth and stability of Rome that Rome brought was marked by a near absence of military conflict within the empire.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: This era of peace allowed for freedom of movement and relative safety throughout the Roman world.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: And where people travel, ideas follow.
41:56
SPEAKER_00: Why is all of that important?
41:58
SPEAKER_00: I feel like we should have a drum roll here.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: Because after Christ's ascension, the early church is given the charge to preach the gospel to the whole world.
42:13
SPEAKER_00: The conditions of the Pax Romana facilitated the rapid spread of the gospel of Christ in the Roman Empire.
42:27
SPEAKER_00: The Christian faith spread rapidly in the Roman Empire, and part of the reason for its rapid proliferation was the historical context into which the church is born, including the political influence of the Romans, the intellectual and cultural influence of the Greeks, and the religious influence of the Jews.
42:55
SPEAKER_00: All of that combined to help the apostles and the missionaries so that they could travel unimpeded throughout the empire on the roads that the Romans built.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: They could preach the good news of the gospel in a language Koine Greek that the common people could understand.
43:40
SPEAKER_00: When the time had been perfectly set up, when everything was ready, then he came.
44:02
SPEAKER_00: During the intertestamental years, God was silent, but he was not inactive.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: This was no accident.
44:11
SPEAKER_00: Everything God did and does was and is intentional.
44:16
SPEAKER_00: Everything.
44:18
SPEAKER_00: Once again, we see the providential hand of God to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah.
44:27
SPEAKER_00: He is working out all of his plans perfectly, powerfully, and providentially.
44:35
SPEAKER_00: In our own lives, God is working in the silence.
44:40
SPEAKER_00: He is.
44:51
SPEAKER_00: Never doubt it.
44:54
SPEAKER_00: Never doubt it.
44:56
SPEAKER_00: That is one of the reasons you study the Old Testament to build your faith in our faithful God.
45:05
SPEAKER_00: It takes spiritual eyes to see what he is doing.
45:09
SPEAKER_00: And it takes faith to believe that he is working.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: And when we see the evidence in his word and in history, it builds our faith.
45:24
SPEAKER_00: And we can have confidence in the future that God will do what he says that he will do.
45:37
SPEAKER_00: And he is the God who is to come.
45:42
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lord.
45:46
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for the truth of who you are, that you are the God who was, and you revealed yourself all through the Old Testament, all through the intertestamental period.
45:58
SPEAKER_00: You are the God who is, you are the Holy Spirit God who is working in your church to this day, and you are the God who will come, the Lord Jesus Christ.
46:10
SPEAKER_00: How we praise you and how our souls cry out for you to come, Lord Jesus.
46:19
SPEAKER_00: Come.
46:19
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that when you are silent, when you are in the waiting period, you are not inactive, you are working, you are moving, you are setting everything up in exactly the way you need it to be.
46:32
SPEAKER_00: Looking at this intertestamental period and all you accomplished gives us great courage and comfort and hope for the future.
46:43
SPEAKER_00: Because you have not relinquished your throne.
46:47
SPEAKER_00: You are the sovereign of the universe.
46:49
SPEAKER_00: You are the one who has all authority and all power.
46:53
SPEAKER_00: And we praise you and we worship you for those truths today.
46:58
SPEAKER_00: In the mighty name of Jesus, I pray.
47:01
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
47:04
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being here, and I will see you next time when we launch into the New Testament.