From the first two books of the Bible (Genesis and Exodus), we see God forming a people for Himself, a people that would live and act differently from all of the other pagan peoples of the earth. By following God’s instructions, this group: 1. could live in safety from man’s unseen enemy, the devil, and 2. advance the plan of God in the earth. For Israel, the only way to avoid the devil’s rulership was by submitting to God and following His instructions given through the Law. They had no direct authority over the “god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4:4) at that time. That authority would not be restored to mankind until the Messiah Jesus came.

Backstory: See previous parts here, here, and here

The first five books of the Bible give the backstory of this beginning. God gives them His law and His expectations. The law was given to guard them and protect them from the devil who would always seek to destroy them and what God was building in the earth. This conflict was set up in the garden of Eden after Adam and Eve sinned. When God cursed the devil, he said he would be sending Someone to crush his head. As with most people, the people of God had ebbs and flow of obedience disobedience. They did not understand His plans.

After the nation was prepared through God’s law, we see in the book of Joshua that the children of the generation that came out of Egypt, crossed the Jordan River and began to posses the Promised Land even though it was currently occupied by giants. They did this because they believed God’s word that He was giving it to them. God had wanted to give the land to their parents, but the parents did not believe what God said. And so they remained in the wilderness and eventually all of them died out, except for Joshua and Caleb. (This same thing can happen to us if we do not believe the promises of God. We will dwell in a “wilderness” of sorts and wander through life, never finding out what our purpose is.)

This younger group acted on the promise from the God who cannot lie. This was His plan. This land was to belong to them and their descendants, and they were to cleanse the land of its ungodly inhabitants. They were tasked with annihilating them. There was a reason for that. The inhabitants were a polluted bloodline…polluted by giants.

The second generation begins to possess the land God had for them

The first battle was at Jericho. It was a supernatural demonstration that God was with them. They marched silently around the city for six days and then blew a shofar exactly as God had instructed them. On the seventh day, they marched around the city seven times and began blowing shofars. The walls of the city collapsed and they went into the city and took over. Think of what that may have looked like!

Because of one person’s disobedience, the next battle at the city of Ai did not go well, but once the sin was dealt with, God’s people were able to dominate the city. The battles continued, one by one, as the Hebrews began to occupy the land. They compromised at some point and did not drive out all the inhabitants. Confrontation and warring is hard work. But not driving out the evil Canaanites came with a price, just as it does today. If we don’t deal with our own heart of the evil that causes us to disobey God at times, we will pay a price too.

Israel, human like us, experienced successes and failures

The history of the Jews is one of victories and failures. Victory when they were obedient to their God, and failure when they were not. Their lives mirror ours today. The stories of the mighty leaders who led the nation back to trusting God and to victory time and time again are stories of miracles. These were leaders who were sold out to God. We still have them today, although sometimes they can be hard to find. After their great leader Joshua (which in Hebrew is Yeshua, savior) died, the nation was led by judges. We find this history in the book of Judges. There was Barak, Gideon, Deborah, Samson, all who had human failures, but because of their faith, were able to win great battles for God and the people of God. Daniel 11:32, speaking of end times, says”the people who know their God shall be strong and carry out great exploits.” But I don’t believe great exploits are confined to end times as we see great things being done throughout the bible.

After some time, the called out ones demanded a king, in spite of being warned of the downside. We see a succession of kings after that (recorded in 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles). Again we see bad kings, then good kings. The nation goes awry, and then comes back to God after great suffering was inflicted on them by their enemies. Is this not like the life of Christians today, wandering away from the ways of God, and then returning after suffering consequences? Prophets were sent continuously to warn the people and to help them correct course. Many were not listened to. such as Jeremiah.

Prophets sent to bring the people back to God

Because of God’s love for them, He kept sending prophets to them. Because of their continual disobedience, they eventually were conquered and taken to Babylon, so that the land could have rest for 70 years. It is noted in 2 Chronicles 36:21 that “the land enjoyed its sabbaths” while the people were in Babylon. They had disobeyed the Sabbath instructions for the land for all that time, and so they were taken away from it. God told the people to build homes and plan to stay for a while and to pray for Babylon’s leaders so tthat their own prosperity was ensured. It is my hope that our nation may not fall into this same judgment. It is a great privilege and trust to be allowed self-governance such as our Republic allows.

The prophet Daniel, a captive in Babylon, discovered in the Hebrew writings the plan of God regarding the end of the 70 years, and began to intercede for it to come to pass. God was ready to end their captivity. God raised up king Cyrus (Isaiah 45) to assist the Jews. Plans were made for them to return to the land and rebuild the ruins of their capital city and temple. Not all of them left Babylon, perhaps because they had become comfortable and had built businesses there. But they should have.

No recorded prophet speaks for 400 years

At the end of the Old Testament we find the last known prophet speaking in the book of Malachi. Following that came a period of 400 years when there was no prophet recorded as speaking to the people of God. It was as if God had gone silent. 

The next great event in the life of Israel was the arrival of Jesus Christ, the Messiah to the earth, a man born of a virgin.