Old Testament Survey

Here is the write out of the sermon I preached last Sunday.  Enjoy!!

I want to start off by asking a question.  Can I do that?  What was your favorite subject in school?  What was that one subject that you just understood without any trouble?  Now, what was the subject that you dreaded because you just couldn't get it?  Have you ever been completely confused by or about something?  No matter how many times some one explains it to you, you just don't get it.  I have this problem with several areas but most notably with mechanics.  I have no idea how a car works, or what is wrong when it stops working.  When I pop the hood of a vehicle the only thing I am capable of doing is saying,"Yep, looks like an engine".  In reality there could be huge pieces missing and I would have no idea. 

            I think sometimes it is like this when it comes to the Old Testament for us believers.  We see this giant book with stories that we don't really understand and prophecies and song that aren't relevant to us here in 2012.  The Old Testament talks about a people and a time that was so long ago, we just don't understand. 

            In 2 Timothy Paul says that all scripture is god breathed and useful for teaching and rebuking, the scripture he was talking about was the Old Testament.  What we know as the New Testament was not put together until about 300 A.D.  So Paul is saying that the Old Testament is good for us, we should read it but we get the impression its not for us, so it doesn't interest us.  Because I have no clue when it comes to mechanics, cars don't really interest me.  I mean besides how they look and how fast they drive, I have no interest in cars. 

            I feel that, that is our approach to the Old Testament but the truth is, the Old Testament is wonderful and we as followers of Jesus we can learn a great deal from the it and it can be very meaningful to us. 

            So what I want to do is go through a survey of the Old Testament so that we all have at least a brief knowing of this first half of our Bible.  I have included a chart to help as a visual aide.  Then once we go through the survey, I want to hit the 2 biggest mistakes the nation of Israel made during the Old Testament time and how we can benefit and learn from their mistakes. 

            To start out, our Old Testament is divided up into 5 parts.  Some of the parts overlap, some of them are straight forward but the entire Old Testament can be followed like a time line. 

            The five sections of the Old Testament are the Torah, the History books, Poetry which is called the Writings and the Major and Minor Prophets.  The Torah would be the first 5 books of the Bible; Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.  This section gives the beginning of time and space and humanity.  Then it goes into God establishing the Nation of Israel as his people and their journey to the land that He had promised them.  During this time the Law was given and scholars believe that the story of Job took place during this early time. 

            Then we move into the History book and from here is where it really overlaps.  The Israelites go and conquer the promise land in the book of Joshua and then establish themselves in the book of Judges.  During the Judges is when the account of Ruth took place.  After that we move into what is known as the United Kingdom Era.  1 and 2 Samuel talk about the establishment of the Kingdom of Israel, they begin to have kings, Saul, David and Solomon come onto the scene.  During this time is when the Writing and Poetry books were written and collected together.  The Psalms and Proverbs were written along with Ecclesiastes and the Song of Song.          

            After that we come to the Divided Kingdom Era.  When Solomon died his son took over and made a decision that split the Kingdom in two, so then we had the Nation of Israel in the North and Judah in the South.  This is where things really start heating up in the Old Testament, it's kinda like the beginning of the End.  Now we are into the books of 1and 2 Kings and a lot of the prophets.  Both kingdoms kept falling farther and farther from God.  They were doing their own thing, worshiping other gods.  Still doing what they had to do as far as sacrifices to God but they added all the other gods of the surrounding nations.  So the prophets would come and tell the people to repent and turn back to the true God.  Two prophets were in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, Amos and Hosea and six in the Southern Kingdom of Judah; Joel, Micah, Isaiah, Zephaniah, Habakkuk and Jeremiah. 

            Eventually though, both kingdoms went too far and were taken in to exile to Babylon and that is when Jeremiah wrote the book of Lamentations, lamenting over the fallen Jerusalem. 

            During the exile the books of 1 and 2 Chronicles were written to account the kings of Judah and all the good they did.  We also have Daniel and Ezekiel written during the exile.  Then after about 70 years the political powers shifted and the new world power went from Babylon to Persia.  The Persian king thought it would be a good idea to send all the people that got displaced during the Babylonian empire's rule, back to their home countries.  This takes us to the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.  They tell the story of a remnant of Jews coming back to Jerusalem and trying to rebuild the city and begin agin their sacrificial system of worship.  During these books you have the prophets Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi and the story of Ester is during that time period as well. 

            So that is the Old Testament in a nut shell.  I know we covered a lot of ground there in a short time period and there is a lot of information to take in and understand.  But out of all those books and prophecies are two key ideas that we today really need to take to heart.  If we learn these lessons as individuals and as a church we can avoid a lot of the mistakes that the people of the Old Testament made. 

            The first is putting too much of an emphasis on externals.  In the early books of the Old Testament, God gave his people the system they were to use to worship him and to make sacrifices to atone for their sins.  He also gave them the ways that they were to live.  All of these were external things that were meant to shine light upon an inner problem.  God never meant for his people to only serve him on the outside, but more importantly on the inside, with their hearts.  Deuteronomy 6 says that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and might.  All are inward things, wouldn't you say.  The problem is the people took these external things and put way too much emphasis on them.  They thought that all they had to do was say the right words, make the right sacrifices, do the right things and then they could live their lives however they wanted. 

            That's not what God wanted.  He wanted a people who would serve him out of a love for him so great, that they wouldn't even think about doing anything else.  He wanted a people who were with him heart and soul, not just on the outside.  Hosea 6, God says I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.  He is saying, I want your heart, not just making a good show of loving and serving me, I want you to be genuine with me. 

            We, as followers of Christ are not exempt from this, we fall prey to the trap of externals as well.  We come to church and put on a show, we put on a mask that everything in life is grand when in reality we are falling apart.  Church should be the one place where we can be real with each other.  Church should be the one place where we don't have to hide, we can be honest.  But we, just like the nation of Israel, focus on the outside rather than a genuine heart.  In Isaiah God said to his people, what is the multitude of your sacrifices?  I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs, or of goats.  When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts?  Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me.  New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations-I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.  your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates, they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.  What if we were to put this in today's language.  What if God said to us, I hate your church services, the Christmas Eve service, the Easter Celebration, the 40-day campaign, they all have become a burden to me.  I have had enough of your offerings because it's all fake.  You worship me on the outside but inside there is not difference, you don't live like I'm apart of your life. 

            Being a follower of Jesus is more than showing up on Sunday, it is all about a real, heart-felt relationship with the God of the universe.  It's about living a completely different life from the rest of the world.  God does not require external perfection, He wants your heart, he wants to have a friendship with the real you.  

            The second mistake is that God's people never handed down their faith to the next generation.  The book of Judges 2:11 says, and the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals.  There are verses like this all over the Old Testament.  The people get established, everything is going great but they don't hand down the faith to the next generation and by the time they grow up, the whole nation is in the tanker again.  They were great at coming back to God and living right for a while but when it came to teaching the next generation to do the same, they failed every time. 

            The account of the kings is like this as well.  After every good king Israel had there was inevitably 2 or 3 bad kings that followed.  King David for all the great things he did for God, being called a man after God's own heart, all the worship songs he wrote, he was horrible when it came to his fatherly duties of passing down his faith.  His family had all kinds of horror stories, all because he failed to teach his children the importance of following after God. 

            What do we teach our children today?  Do we teach them the importance of following after God, I don't think so!  We teach them that sports and school activities are more important than a relationship with Jesus.  We teach that church is fine if it doesn't conflict with something else on the schedule.  Whether we mean to or not, our children are learning from us that it is more important to be in sports, school plays or clubs than to attend a small group, or Youth group, or choir.  We are not passing on the importance of faith but passing on the importance of stuff that is not going to matter in 20 years let alone eternity.  Francis Chan, a pastor out in California, was quoted in a sermon saying this, "Our greatest fear should not be failure, but succeeding at things in life that don't really matter".  We are repeating this Old Testament mistake of not passing on the faith to our children but teaching them that God, Jesus, church doesn't really matter in this life, what matters sports and activities. 

            Friends with this kind of thinking we are killing ourselves, as the church.  The church is always one generation away from being non-exsistent and we are helping that along with what we are and are not teaching our children.  We need to teach that church and a relationship with Jesus is more important than anything else.  That might mean missing games or practices or whatever.  That might mean not getting the lead role or playing as much in the game and not's not cool but look at what they will be learning in return.  Jesus is the most important thing in life, which is how it should be anyway. 

            Deuteronomy 6:6-7 says, and these words that I command you today shall be be on your heart.  You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.  We need to teach our children the importance of a relationship with Jesus and pass on our faith. 

            Well I hope this has given you a better understanding of the Old Testament.  There is a lot of great material here that can help us in life.  It is my prayer that we will learn from the mistakes of the people of the Old Testament and have a genuine faith and pass that faith onto our children.