In this weeks session of Multiply by Francis Chan, we get a great summary of what we have been reading in the Old Testament. This week, we work on wrapping up the Old Testament, and sometimes when we get a lot of information over a length of time, we forget how it all ties together, and that can definitely be the case when we read so many accounts in the Old Testament and we just need a synopsis to put a bow on it.
What have been some of the highlights or sessions that have stood out to you in the past few months? Or what are some of your favorite sections of the Old Testament?
How does that Old Testament information reveal God to you?
The most difficult challenge of being a parent is setting boundaries and upholding consequences. We want our child to have a great life, not go through heartache, be wise without having to go through all the pain we went through but it just is not that easy. We have learned session after session that God is in that same situation.
God’s faithfulness
Through the Old Testament, we have learned of God’s promises and we have seen how that have been fulfilled.
- Multiplied Abraham’s descendants into great nation
- Planted the Israelites in the land of Canaan
- Established David’s kingly line
We all like promises and integrity when it comes to blessings and prosperity, but we tend to be less excited about discipline and correction. We have tried to discipline and correct people in our lives and it did not go well, so when discipline from the Lord happens we tend to expect a little leniency. But God is faithful in ALL his promises. He is worthy of His words and actions.
God promised Israel that if they disobeyed, they would be conquered by a foreign nation, pulled from their homeland, and led to exile. God had promised judgement if Israel disobeyed Him, and after generations of patiently waiting for His people to repent, God remained faithful to His promise.
It seems like week after week as we have made our way through the Old Testament we have situation after situation where the Israelites disobeyed (can anyone relate to such a situation? Maybe both sides of the table on this one?). As Moses led them out of Egyptian slavery, they were complaining, when he was receiving the Law from God at Mount Sinai, they were building a golden calf and worshipping it. After God still loved them through it and placed them in the promised land of Canaan, they kept turning away from Him to worship idols. Idolatry shows up through Israel’s history. Even though they would reform from time to time, it just seemed like they were bent on rejecting God. God tolerated their idolatry for a while, but His justice would not be detained forever.
How can you relate to the situation that has unfolded before us?
Curses for Disobedience
Being a disciplinarian is definitely one of the most difficult situations to be in, whether it is a family member, friend or co-worker, it is not easy and we all seem to tend to shy away from it.
When God made His covenant with Moses and Israel, He gave them the Law to show them exactly what was expected of them as the people of God. He promised them that if they obeyed His Law, they would be blessed and would live in the land of Canaan in peace and security. But if they disobeyed, God promised them that they would experience His judgment rather than His blessing. Among other things, this meant that they would be pulled away into exile.
Deuteronomy 28:1-14
How did these blessings become a reality in the life of Israel?
A promise is a promise, the some promise of blessings is united as equal to the promises of discipline. We must always remember that a promise is a promise.
Deuteronomy 28:15-68
Summarize the judgements that God said would come upon Israel if they disobeyed
Promise of Exile
The judgments of chapter 28 should be terrifying. But like us in so many ways, we happily receive blessings but discipline is so devastating that we sometimes question it. We challenge it and negotiate it. But remember, a promise is a promise.
Promises of challenges in life were bad enough, but God was actually stating they would lose the promise land and be exiled from the very promise He had given them. Not only lose the blessing of the promised land, but also the relationship with God. With the loss of of their land and their God, Israel would lose their identity. Imagine hearing these words from God…
The Lord will exile you and your king to a nation unknown to you and your ancestors. There in exile you will worship gods of wood and stone! If you do not serve the Lord your God with joy and enthusiasm for the abundant benefits you have received, 48 you will serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you. You will be left hungry, thirsty, naked, and lacking in everything. The Lord will put an iron yoke on your neck, oppressing you harshly until he has destroyed you. – Deuteronomy 28:36, 47-48 NLT
It is clear, if Israel was not going to serve their God, they would end up serving their enemies. It is very important that we understand that these promises of Deuteronomy were way before the blessings. This was a message that Moses captured way before they got to the promised land. These were the promises that were laid out right along side the promises of blessings. It is so crazy how our human minds can pick out blessings and avoid the consequences.
Divided and Defeated Kingdom
Recently we have learned that the book of Joshua shows Israel’s time of taking over the land of Canaan. That the book of Judges records the chaos, apathy and idolatry. We also learned how kings were introduced into the Israelite nation and how the line of David was established.
After Solomon’s death, the Israelites became so stubborn and power hungry that they ended up dividing into two camps. There was the northern kingdom of Israel and southern kingdom of Judah. The Israelite people never fully recovered from the split. The northern kingdom (Israel) was almost completely godless, following ungodly kings into every form of sin.
The southern kingdom (Judah) had a few good kings and experienced some good years, but overall they followed the same pattern of ungodliness an idolatry.These historic times are not just Bible stories. This is history we are learning about, recorded in many forms outside of the Bible.
722 B.C. – Assyria conquered the northern kingdom of Israel and carried them away into captivity.
The southern kingdom should have paid attention to these actions. We are not sure, but who knows how the souithern people might have felt and thought about the events. They might even had thought that the kingdom of Israel got what they deserved, but were not wise enough to look at their own camp. God was faithful and their own ways had its discipline as well.
597 B.C. – Babylon conquered Judah and carried them off into captivity.
2 Kings 17:1-23
Why was Israel send into captivity?
The situation came to be by what Israel had done and it was never God’s intention. Just like the consequences that we put in place with others, that is the “or else” and not where we want to go, but we also have to be willing to go there based on other’s behavior. God never wanted to send His people to exile. God hated the exile, but kept His promise. God kept sending prophets to warn His people, but they refused to listen. Israel chose exile for themselves, and God remained faithful to His promise to punish Israel for their rebellion.
Despite Israel’s persistent rebellion, whey do you think it still grieved God to send them into exile?
Israel in Exile
Even if the relationship with God as tainted by their sin, Israel still was God’s passion. Their future seemed uncertain, but God did not abandon them. He still spoke to them through prophets while in exile. He still called them to repent and promised them a future. These are very difficult times. How could God still love and pursue His people, that did not love Him and continued to rebel against Him. They followed foreign kings and worshipped false gods. Deuteronomy had come to reality.
The Old Testament is filled with stories of God destroying nation after nation for their godlessness. But Israel was special, these were His people. He had created them, claimed them, and was working out His plan to restore the world through this unique group of people. REMEMBER: One of Goo’s promises does not override His other promises. Many thought that when Israel was defeated it was because their God was weak, but God made it clear that Israel deserved their punishment. But He also gave the ultimate answer as to why He was not going to give up on HIs people: His name. He was going to preserve them.
Ezekiel 36:16-38
Why was God promising to restore Israel? Why is this significant?
What is the significance of verses 25-27 about God’s promise to cleanse His people and give them a new heart, and empower them by His Spirit?
New Covenant
God’s promises that we read in Ezekiel 36 are promises that God was not done. Restoration was on His heart. God was actually reaffirming the promises He gave to Abraham, Moses and David. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah record God’s amazing restoration process, but is seemed broken. Not all the Israelites returned, the rebuilt wall and temple were never like the original, and God’s people longed for so much more.
God made great restoration promises in Ezekiel, and the most significant had to do with the heart. Their idolatrous heart needed attention. Israel had proven that they were incapable of obeying God’s commands, but God promised to place His Spirit within them and enable them to follow His commands. They did not have to do it on their own. God made it clear it was not just about material things and a land that was called home, but a change to them from the inside out.
If God is good and God is faithful, why was a new covenant necessary. Well, it was not because of God’s actions, but the Israelites. It was because of sin. Their sinful hearts were constantly breaking God’s covenants with them. Throughout most of its history Israel was idolatrous and immoral. The sad reality is that they were incapable of anything different on their own, and we are in the same situation. The new covenant was described in Jeremiah
31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” – Jeremiah 31:31-34 ESV
The old covenant was written on stone, the new covenant would be written on human hearts. Israel would not be caught up in external religion, but experience spiritual change, they would become spiritually alive.
Obedience would no longer be a condition for entering the covenant; obedience would be a promise that God’s people would experience through the new covenant.
It is easy to read the Old Testament and get fed up with Israel. We get tired of their rebellion and want to scream, “Why don’t you understand this? Stop worshipping idols! Turn to God!” And to a certain extent, the Old Testament is meant to show us how unwise and destructive our sin can be. But we need to be careful not to be too harsh with the Israelites. In reality, their problem is our problem. We need to be careful not to get so caught up in their stubborn rebellion that we overlook our own.
We all face the same problem. Sin is not some external factor that we encounter from time to time. It pervades every human heart. Israel’s sin is our sin—we were all covenant breakers by nature and incapable of obedience. And because we faced the same problem that Israel did, the new covenant is good news for us as well. We can now enjoy the benefits of being recreated by God, changed from the inside out.
New Covenant in Jesus’ Blood
As the Old Testament draws to a close, we see Israel’s future was still uncertain. But we are left with two very important promises: (1) God was going to send His Messiah, a King from the line of David, and (2) God was going to make a new covenant with His people that would recreate them and enable them to follow His rule. From the moment of His birth, Jesus demonstrated that He was God’s Messiah. His ministry demonstrated that He was Israel’s true King. And before Jesus was crucified, He gathered His disciples together and celebrated the Passover. Remember that the Passover celebrated God’s act of redemption in setting His people free from slavery and that immediately after this exodus, God had established His covenant with Moses and Israel.
When Jesus celebrated the Passover with His disciples, He broke the bread and passed around the wine and told His disciples that these elements would now represent His crucified body and His shed blood. With great significance, Jesus took the wine and said, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). With Jesus, the new covenant had arrived. And we will continue to discuss the beauty of this as we study the New Testament.
This week, think about what you have picked up through the Old Testament. Reflect on your own life and how this first part of the Bible is significant and relative to our very lives today.
The scripture reading for this coming week as we begin the New Testament:
John 1 & 2
John 3 & 4
John 5 & 6
John 7 & 8
John 9 & 10
John 11 & 12
The Multiply video to lead us into the start of the New Testament:
Chan, Francis. Multiply: Disciples Making Disciples. David C Cook. Kindle Edition.
Holy Bible: New Living Translation. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.