OT Wrap Up

Intro and recap

I am incredibly excited about tonight and what tonight represents

Tonight marks the end of the first phase of our journey

Back in August we started our journey through the old testament

because we believe that God has revealed Himself through His story of stories

The Bible is not a collection of unrelated stories, it is one narrative that spans many genres, people, centuries, and perspectives

When we get God’s word in us, it changes us

So we have been going through this big picture story of the Bible

we have skipped over a lot, but we have made a lot of progress

Through this Journey you have learned a lot, and we are going to wrap it up and put a bow on it tonight

Tonight we are going to sum up the story of the old testament

next week we are going to see how the old testament points to what was coming next, Jesus

For tonight, open your bibles to Nehemiah chapter 9

This passage is going to give us a recap of the story that we have been telling

look at verses 6—31 and we will walk through this

Nehemiah 9:6 ““You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.”

here we have creation. This tells who this story is about. It is God’s story, the focus is on Him and what He is doing

Nehemiah 9:7–8 “You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. You found his heart faithful before you, and made with him the covenant to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite. And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous.”

God zoomed His story in on one man. He called Abram to trust Him, and promised that He would make Abram into a great nation. He didn’t explain the details, just the potential.

Abraham and his sons became the patriarchs. They carried the promise from generation to generation. Sometimes they got it all right, sometimes not so much. But through it all God was faithful to the family of His promise.

Joseph got sold to slavery in Egypt, and there God blessed them and turned them into a nation

not in the land yet, but now they are a nation

Then the people were enslaved in Egypt. They were a threat to the pharaoh and he kept them down by mistreating them

that changes with Moses

The story of God and His people took a major change with the events of the Exodus

Nehemiah 9:9–11 ““And you saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard their cry at the Red Sea, and performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land, for you knew that they acted arrogantly against our fathers. And you made a name for yourself, as it is to this day. And you divided the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land, and you cast their pursuers into the depths, as a stone into mighty waters.”

God freed His people from slavery through several miracles

God proved Himself to the people

up to this point God has said a lot of “I will do this”

After the Exodus, God says “Remember when I did that”

Then Israel spent 40 years in the wilderness between Egypt and the promised land

Nehemiah 9:12–15 “By a pillar of cloud you led them in the day, and by a pillar of fire in the night to light for them the way in which they should go. You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven and gave them right rules and true laws, good statutes and commandments, and you made known to them your holy Sabbath and commanded them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses your servant. You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and brought water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and you told them to go in to possess the land that you had sworn to give them.”

they had gotten out of Egypt, but God had to get the egypt out of them

It is in the wilderness that God proves himself as their provider. he takes care of them, and he makes a covenant with them: I will take care of you as my people, and you will follow me as your God.

The people struggle to follow through with this (verses 16-21), and will for the rest of the story. But through it all, God is faithful to His people

Moses leads the people through the wilderness, teaching them how to be God’s people

then they get to the promised land. Moses dies, and Joshua is the new leader of Israel. God tells him to be strong and courageous, and believe that God is behind him.

Joshua leads the people into the land that had been promised to Abraham, they march around the walls of Jericho, and they take the land

Nehemiah 9:22–25 ““And you gave them kingdoms and peoples and allotted to them every corner. So they took possession of the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and the land of Og king of Bashan. You multiplied their children as the stars of heaven, and you brought them into the land that you had told their fathers to enter and possess. So the descendants went in and possessed the land, and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hand, with their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they would. And they captured fortified cities and a rich land, and took possession of houses full of all good things, cisterns already hewn, vineyards, olive orchards and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate and were filled and became fat and delighted themselves in your great goodness.”

this should be the epilogue. This should be they lived happily ever after

but what do we see?

verse 26

Nehemiah 9:26 ““Nevertheless, they were disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their back and killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you, and they committed great blasphemies.”

Verses 26-31 outline the struggle that Israel has throughout Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles.

This part of the story gives us the cycle of sin and redemption in Judges

God’s people loving Him, then forgetting about Him. God gives them over to their enemies, they cry out to Him, he hears them and rescues them, then they love him again. Over and over again.

We see that the judges weren’t working.

the people look at the world around them and say that they want a king like everybody else has. God gives them that king: Saul

Saul has the perfect moment to be the king that Israel wants when he faces Goliath. But he is afraid and does not trust God.

So somebody new to the story of Israel shows up. David.

David the shepherd boy slays the giant goliath

David leads the people of Israel well, but still has his own problems and shortcomings

Solomon built the temple, and the people worship the Lord in and through it

but the cycle continues. The people get comfortable, they start trusting themselves. They start trying to make their own name great instead of God’s.

So God sends prophets to the people and to the kings.

prophets that warn of the judgment that will come if they do not turn back to God

and we see kings that do. But within a generation or two the people are back to living in sin

So God gives them over to exile. They are taken away from the land that had been promised to Abraham because they did not follow the God of Abraham.

they did not follow Him, so He let them see once again what life is like without Him

the people suffer in Babylon and Assyria

But just like through the rest of the story, God is faithful to His people

God heard the cries of His people, and he brought them back to the land through Ezra and Nehemiah

This retelling of the story that we have been reading is what the people prayed when they were preparing their hearts to once again be God’s people in God’s land

The people rebuild the temple, they rebuild the city, but there is something different this time.

the past 2 times that the temple was built, the spirit of God would fill it like a cloud. God was in it.

this time, there is no mention of the cloud filling the temple

the prophets that are speaking during the time of Nehemiah are the last prophets for 400 years

this is because this cycle, this part of the story, was coming to a close. God was getting ready to do something totally new. We will talk about that soon.

Tonight I wanted to go through this and help us remember where we have been so that we can understand where we are going

I have 3 takeaways from the Old testament that I want you to write down

God was faithful through it all

In the calling of Abraham, in the exodus, in the wilderness, in the judges, in the kings, in all of it, God was faithful to His people

Even when they were not faithful to Him, He was faithful to them

God wants His people’s hands AND hearts. Their love and their lives

In the story of Jacob, God chose Jacob because he cared. He had the Hudspa, he wanted to be what God wanted His people to be.

In all of it, God wanted their obedience. God has a specific life for His people, and they must live in it.

God’s people must both love Him and follow Him. You can’t have one without the other. Love without action is a lie. Action without love is empty.

God’s people exist to tell God’s story to the world.

Way back in the call of Abraham where we picked this story up, God said “and all the peoples on the earth will be blessed through you”

Joseph was successful and the people of Egypt praised God for it

the events of the exodus were told in all of the nations around Israel.

Foreign kings and queens would come to witness Solomon’s wisdom and worship.

in the prophet Elisha’s story, a Syrian is healed of Leprosy and says “there is no God in all the earth except the God of Israel”

even in the captivity of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar praises God because of how God protected Daniel in the lions den

God is writing a great story, and it is one that we are a part of. Whatever God is leading you to in your life, go to it. Give God your hands and your heart. Trust Him in all things. And let God show His story through your life.

I am grateful to have gotten to walk through this story with you guys. I hope and pray that you have been challenged and encouraged through it. Remember that God is still writing His story and your story. Follow Him, and be the person that He made you to be.