Walk Through the Bible

Text for Sermon:  Nehemiah 1:3-4, 11; 2:17-20; 6:15-16; 8:1-3

Introduction to Nehemiah.

Let’s recap where we are in God’s story.  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  And then God created the human family.  God being a covenant making and covenant keeping God entered into a covenant with His people whom He loves.

In the fullness of God’s time He chose and called Abraham out of the Ur of the Chaldees and He made a covenant with Abraham and God said:

Genesis 12:2-3 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

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Text for Sermon:  Ezra 1:1-4; 7:1a, 6, 9-10; 9:1a, 4-5; 10-12

Introduction to Ezra.

My second son, Kent, works for a tech company that specializes in enabling online retail companies to process returns.  It is a massive part of online sales.  Amazon processes 3,500 returns every day.  Some online clothing retailers can have as much as a 40% return of products sold.  The logistics behind that are staggering.

Ezra and Nehemiah are about the logistics of a great return, the return of the exiled nation of Judah, some tens of thousands of Jews, from Babylon back to Israel.  Actually Babylon was under new management, having been taken over by Persia, and Persia had a very liberal return policy.  In fact they encouraged it.

Persia by the way is modern day Iran and the surrounding area of the world.  Modern Iranians are descended from the Persians.

There are two returns in Ezra, Zerubbabel in Ezra 1-2; Ezra in 7 and a third wave of returns in Nehemiah lead by Zerubbabel in 7-13.

In the Hebrew Bible, the two books were considered one work.  The two books weren’t divided until the third century after Christ by the early church father Origen.

Ezra and Nehemiah offer the final piece of Old Testament history, one last glimpse of God’s people living out His redemptive plan before the coming of the Messiah.

Ezra and Nehemiah don’t get a lot of attention from pastors except when a church is in a building project, then these books come in handy.

Passage: II Chronicles 1:1; 3:1; 7:14, 19-20; 36:14-17, 19-23

When we talk about the Bible we use an incarnational analogy.  Just as Jesus is fully divine and fully human, so the Bible is fully divine and fully human.  It is divine in that it is the Word of God.  Like God it doesn’t lie, it is without error, it is eternal, trustworthy and true.

It is human as God didn’t set aside human personality in giving us His revelation.  It was not dictated from heaven.  It is the product of particular persons at particular moments in history, people influenced by their life and times, by their cultures and backgrounds and upbringing.

But the chronicler is not just a journalist, a recorder of facts.  This is more like a painting than a photograph.  There are no uninterpreted facts, he is a teacher and theologian, writing to influence, to minister to the needs of his people.

The message of II Chronicles is an unvarnished, brutally honest account of what happened and why, and yet in the midst of the honesty there is still hope.

Even when all hope seems completely lost, God’s covenant-keeping mercy triumphs over His covenant-demanding judgment (Stan Guthrie).

This is why Chronicles focuses on the southern kingdom of Judah.  For the northern kingdom all hope is gone, their wicked apostacy has been judged permanently, there is no more grace for them.

Just to quickly recap where we are, like Samuel and Kings, Chronicles was one book.

I Chronicles mirrors the history of II Samuel which is about David.

II Chronicles mirrors the history of I and II Kings which is about Solomon and the kings.  It covers 400 years of Israel’s history.

II Chronicles 1-9, Solomon

II Chronicles 10-36, all the rest of the kings.

400 years, from the building the temple to the destruction of the temple.

Both Chronicles were written for Jews who were returning to the Promised Land from their 70-year exile in Babylon.  These post-exilic Jews needed a reminder of who their God was, what He was like and how He worked.  In the mind of the Chronicler the history of Judah from David to the last king provided the best lessons to show the people God and His dealings with His people.

We see good kings who make catastrophic decisions, mediocre kings who are redeemed with a wise response, terrible kings who repent and find forgiveness. These are real people, who have moments of greatness and weakness, and who need to learn the importance of humility, wisdom, obedience, and prayer.

There are four lessons the Chronicler wants to drive home as the people of God begin their drive back home to Judah and the Promised Land.

Gods glory and greatness.

Peoples sin

God’s judgement

The resolution

Passage:  I Chronicles 1:1-4; 2:1-2; 3:1; 4:1; 8:1, 33; 9:1-2, 10; 29:10-19

Introduction to I Chronicles.

I and II Chronicles are two of the most neglected books in the Bible.  All of those dear saints who set out in January to read straight through the Bible in a year, if they make it past Leviticus they usually die in the Sahara Desert of I Chronicles.  If the genealogies don’t get them then the redundancy after reading I and II Samuel and I and II Kings will.

Many find themselves asking, “I just read this, why do I need to read it again?”  It is unfortunate that our English Bibles don’t follow the outline of the Hebrew Bible.  In the Hebrew Bible, Kings and Chronicles do not stand side by side.  In the Hebrew Bible Chronicles is at the very end.  Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles.

The Chronicles cover the same history as the books of II Samuel and 1-II Kings.

I Chronicles mirrors the history of II Samuel which is about David.

II Chronicles mirrors the history of I and II Kings which is about Solomon and the kings.

But they are not the same.  Over fifty percent of the material in Chronicles is unique, not found in II Samuel or 1 and II Kings.

Just as the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each offer a different perspective on the life of Jesus, so the books of Chronicles recount Israel’s history with a different perspective and purpose in mind.

I and II Kings gives more attention to Israel, to the northern kings and their apostacy.

I and II Chronicles gives more attention to Judah, to the southern kings and their apostacy.

The books of Kings emphasize the interaction of kings and prophets.

The Chronicles emphasize the interaction of kings and priests.

The two audiences are different.  Samuel and Kings were written around 550 BC, in the wake of Jerusalem being sacked by the Babylonians.  Chronicles was composed over a hundred years later as many Judeans had returned to Jerusalem from captivity in Babylon to rebuild the temple and the city walls.

The Chronicler is retelling the story of Israel to an exiled generation of Israelites.  He is showing them that as a small remnant, they are still God’s people, and they still have a place in God’s redemptive history.

This is why he starts with genealogies and why his genealogy begins with Adam.

Passage: II Kings 2:9-12a; 17:6-13, 16-20

II Kings is different from the previous three.  Each of them had a central character, Saul, David, Solomon.  II Kings is more like a montage than a portrait, with many characters as it summarizes the careers of nearly 30 kings.  Only Elisha stands out for a bit.

From Joshua and to I Kings the historical books traced the rise of the Jewish empire of Israel.  At the end of I Kings we see the nation divided but still standing.  In II Kings the movement shifts to a grim spiral downward and over a spiritual cliff into destruction and exile.

The northern kingdom falls first to the Assyrians.  Then Assyria fell to the Babylonians and 136 years after the north fell, Judah suffers a similar fate.  But Israel will remain scattered, Judah will return after 70 years of exile.

The great nation that Joshua led into the Promised Land to be set apart and to be a witness and testimony to the one true God, instead of being holy, became an imitation of the pagan nations.

We need to know 1 and II Kings because without them we won’t understand the context for more than half of the Old Testament, 20 of the 39 books of the OT were written during the time of the kings.

Text for Sermon:  I Kings 2:1-3; 8:56; 12:20-34

I and II Kings.

In the original Hebrew Bible I and II Kings were one book.  The Hebrews didn’t write down their vowels, so when the Hebrew Old Testament was translated into Greek, the scrolls were packed with vowels and were a lot bigger and had to be divided.  In the Greek Septuagint they are called Third and Fourth Book of Kingdoms.

Ancient Jews believed Jeremiah was the author.  More recently it is believed to be written by a contemporary of Jeremiah.

Remember the reign of King Saul was covered in I Samuel and the reign of King David was covered in II Samuel.  The books of I and II Kings cover all the remaining kings of Israel and Judah beginning with Solomon.

If we don’t know I and II Kings we don’t know the historical context for over half the OT.  Three poetical books (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon) and almost all the prophetical books (except Obadiah, Jonah, and Nahum) are written during the time of the kings

Almost all the prophets are speaking directly to Israel and Judah in this time period.  20 of 39 OT books find their genesis in either 1 or 2 Kings.

I and II Kings will take us all the way from the death of King David to the fall of both Israel and Judah into Babylonian captivity, from Israel’s golden age to her Gentile destruction.  Israel is conquered by Assyria and Judah is conquered by Babylon.

If we take the landing of the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock in 1620, that is the amount of time our history covers as a nation; and how far are we from our destruction?  Think for a moment how volumes it would take to capture our history as a nation from 1620 to 2020.

Since the two Kings cover the 400 years, about 50,000 words, the writer must be very selective in what he includes, so we can conclude that what is included is very important.  We need to pay attention and ask why did God put this in here.

These books are historical narratives.  But it is important to remember this is not just history, but prophetic history, it focuses on the words and actions of the prophets of God.  At least ten prophets or prophetesses are active in the progress of this history.

The writer was most interested in theology, pastoral theology.  Kings are not political history, it is pastoral history, spiritual history, the events chosen to be included are selected because of their spiritual significance.  This is history with a message.

Theology is no help if is it isn’t pastoral.  My best seminary professors were always those who were also pastors, with a pastor’s heart for teaching people the difference between right and wrong, sin and righteousness and holiness.

They say people who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.  But people who just read history for history’s sake are doomed to miss the spiritual lessons God is teaching through the events.

This is not an exhaustive history, but a God-edited, God-authorized version of how He wants us to view His redemptive purposes and work in history.

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Text for Sermon:  II Samuel 7:16-17; 22:2-4

This is our tenth book of the OT.  We will pause until Sept. 15.

As I mentioned last week we have come to the three double books of the OT that cover the entire history of the rise and fall of the Israelite monarchy, I and II Samuel, I and II Kings, I and II Chronicles.  These six books cover about 500 years of the kings of Israel (1095 -586 BC) and almost all the rest of the history of the OT, all the prophets, all the writings, all the poetry, except the three minor post-exilic prophets (Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi).

I Samuel introduced the beginning of the monarchy in Israel.  II Samuel introduces the establishment of the Davidic dynasty and the reign of David over all twelve tribes of Israel, a period of about 40 years from 1011 to 971BC.

But having said II Samuel chronicles the reign of King David, II Samuel is not just about David.  We have to fight against a People magazine reading of II Samuel, and indeed of all these historical books.  We must keep telling ourselves this is not about David, or the covenant kings, this is all about a covenant God who makes covenant promises to a covenant king through whom God will preserve His covenant people and accomplish His covenant purposes.

A danger in reading the books of the history of Israel is that you will read them as histories, or just as histories.  They are histories that are to be read spiritually and theologically.  This is God’s history, and God’s history is always redemptive.  Keep reminding yourself of that.

These are written for our spiritual benefit, speaking to our hearts and souls as well as to our minds.

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Text for Sermon:  I Samuel 1:1-2; 8:4-9, 19-22; 15:22-23

We come to the three double books of the OT that cover the entire history of the rise and fall of the Israelite monarchy, I and II Samuel, I and II Kings, I and II Chronicles.  These six books cover about 500 years of the kings of Israel (1095 -586 BC).  In these books we learn about Israel’s transition to a monarchy and how that monarchy succeeded and failed.

In the original Hebrew Bible they were three books, one scroll each.  They weren’t separated until the OT was later translated into Greek, called the Septuagint, these books were divided into two parts around the second century BC.

Samuel is the likely author of I Samuel, and I Chronicles 29:29 indicates that II Samuel may have been written by Nathan or Gad and members of the school of the prophets.

Of course the real author is the Holy Spirit through the instrument of men.

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Text for Sermon:  Ruth 1:1-6; 1:22-2:3

The book of Ruth is a very old book, over three thousand years old.  The oldest book on my shelves is from 1814.  Can a book as old as Ruth still be relevant, can it still speak to us?  That it can is a remarkable testimony to the power of the Word of God.  These are God’s Words, they never become old or outdated.  It is unchangeable and unwaveringly true, eternally true.  Remember that, take that to heart, return to it when everything else in our world is changing.

The book is named after the principal character, Ruth, a pagan Moabite widow who married the Bethlehemite Boaz and became an ancestor (great grandmother) of King David (Ruth 4:17, 22) and thus an ancestor of the Messiah (Matt. 1:1, 5–6).

We are told the story took place during the time of the judges.  We are not told who the author is, but Jewish tradition says it was Samuel.  It may have been written around the time of David’s ascension to the throne, around 1000BC.

In terms of great literature, the book of Ruth is a masterpiece in storytelling.  There is not a wasted word in this densely packed compelling drama and classic love story.  It may be the most beautiful short story ever written.

It follows that classic path of great stories, stating the challenges and trials, descending into obstacles and potential danger and tragedy, before rising to a gloriously happy ending.

It is one of the view stories in the Bible written from a woman’s point of view and revealing some of the particular challenges women faced in that day.  It is the custom of the Jews to read this story at the time of Pentecost, which is the time of harvest.

It extols the virtues of the simple, pleasant aspects of rural and domestic life.  It makes us long for a simpler, less complicated life.  Yet it is real, not a fairy tale.  Times were hard, there was famine, migration, relocation, early death and widowhood.

Boaz is one of the few characters in the Bible who displays no character flaws or moral failures.  He is the embodiment of God’s faithfulness and kindness to Naomi and Ruth.

As I ask each week, who is this book about?  It is not really a book about Ruth or Naomi, but about God and His dealings with His world and His people.  The hand of the living God is everywhere evident in life as illustrated by the presence of His hand everywhere in this story.

This story really starts with God.  Actually don’t all our stories start with God.  Your story and my story and every story are all His Story, they all start with God, with the sovereign purposes of God moving mysteriously in time and space His will to perform, His grace to glorify.

As all of history reflects the redemptive purposes of God, so in this story we see a great redeemer bringing a disobedient daughter home with empty hands so that in her weakness and emptiness God can magnify His glory and grace by astonishing her with an abundance of provision and goodness.

From the mountains of Moab and the barley fields of Boaz in Bethlehem God speaks to us lessons from the life of Ruth.  Note them well and they will serve you well.

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Text for Sermon:  Judges 2:10-19; 17:6

Last week we ended the book of Joshua with the death of Joshua and the people of God settled into life in the Promised Land.  What would be our normal expectation after God led His people out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land and gave them victory over the peoples of the land?

God’s people should have settled down to an existence of peaceful contentment in total dependence of their good and gracious God who provided everything they needed.  After 400 years of bondage in Egypt and 40 years of wilderness wandering and living in tents, what would their new found freedom and new prosperity be like?

The book of Joshua should end with, “And they lived happily ever after.”  But if you are looking for a warm, cozy fairy tale ending.  This isn’t it.  Judges is about as bleak a story as you will find in the Bible.  If Judges were made into a movie, it would get an R rating.

Judges is a 21-chapter downward spiral into deception, oppression, idolatry, murder, human sacrifice and betrayal, gang rape, scandal and apostasy, just to name a few sins.

It is an embarrassment to our modern sensitivities, so primitive, so violent.  It starts badly and then goes from bad to worse to terrible.  Even the best known heroes of the book like Gideon and Samson turn out to be flawed heroes at best.

No wonder the book is skipped in sermons and Sunday School lessons.

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Text for Sermon:  Joshua 1:5-9; 11:23

The five books of Moses, the Torah, all anticipate the fulfillment of God’s promise made to Abraham 500 years before in Genesis 15.

Joshua is the story of God’s faithfulness to His covenant promise as He leads His people into the Promised Land.  We can take God at His Word and trust His unchanging character.

Joshua is about that nation receiving the Promised Land, about taking possession of the promise, about victory and glory.

After the first five books of Moses, called the Pentateuch, we transition to the historical books of the OT and the book of Joshua.  Joshua is a continuation and culmination of the story of Genesis and the covenant promises of God.

As Acts is the bridge linking the Gospels and the Epistles, so Joshua is the bridge linking the Pentateuch with the rest of the histories, a link between promise and fulfillment.  This is a hinge book, a pivotal book between the first 5 and the next 33.  It closes one chapter and opens another chapter.

The book begins by mentioning the death of Moses and Joshua stepping in to fill the shoes of Moses.

We mainly remember the book of Joshua for the Rahab story and the great story of the fall of the wall of Jericho.  And there is the great quotable quote used in graduation speeches, “be strong and courageous,” or the quote on the walls of many Christian homes, “as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.”

But between those two verses are 24 chapters that are a challenge to the modern Christian.

The author of the book is Joshua, whose name means Yahweh saves.  Its Greek equivalent is Jesus, which means He will save his people from their sins.

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Passage: Deuternonomy 6:4-9; 10:12-20

As we move through the Bible one book at a time, one tree at a time in this forest of 66 trees, it is good to remind ourselves what we are reading.  Scripture is one narrative, inspired by God and told in many parts.  Old and New Testaments must, therefore, be studied together.

The Bible is one unified story, one unified revelation with one central message, about what our triune Creator-covenant God planned in eternity, executed in time, to glorify Himself by bringing about the redemption of His people, the judgment of sin, and making all things new in Christ Jesus.

It’s good to remind ourselves this is the God-breathed Word of God given to us by God for our eternal benefit.  It is all important.  It is important to remind ourselves of this because when we get to books like Deuteronomy we are tempted to start to wonder.