How to Read the Bible: The Old Testament | Brad Straarup

Man, I have a question for you guys.

I don't know if y'all ever relate to this, but has anyone ever woken up in the morning before to read your Bible?

And you know, you actually wake up, like the alarm goes off, and you're like, okay, this is gonna be great, this is gonna be awesome.

You grab your coffee mug, you know, the Hebrews coffee mug that we talked about last week, the one you need to have.

You grab that coffee mug and you start reading your Bible, and you're so proud of yourself, and you finish your Bible reading, and then you have this moment where you look up and you're like, I have no idea what I just read.

Anyone ever had that before?

When you're like reading the Bible and you're like, wait, I don't think I understood a word of what I just said.

I would almost guarantee if you've ever had that moment, it happened because you were reading the Old Testament.

Like you just went in and you were like, What is going on?

All these weird sacrifices, you're like, man, none of this makes sense.

And what we want to do today is I want to help you with that.

Last week we started a brand new series entitled How to Read the Bible.

And the reason we did the series is coming into Easter, we actually surveyed and said, What are some of the things that y'all want to know about?

What are some of the things that you're struggling with?

And almost the number one thing that was requested time and time again is, man, can you just help me read the Bible?

I think that we know the Bible is true.

Amen.

I think we know that the Bible has the words of eternal life.

I think that we know that there's so much good that comes in it, but what we can't understand is if it's so good, then why is it so hard to understand?

So, what we want to do is we want to help with that.

And last week we talked about an approach to how to study the word.

And one of the things that we said is there's a couple things that you need to know whenever you need to read the Bible.

Number one is you have to choose a translation you understand.

Can I get a good amen?

The King James is great, but I have no idea what it's saying.

It sounds like Shakespeare.

Like thou, that, this hither, thou, therefore.

And I'm like, I have no idea what you just said.

Okay, you want to pick a translation that you understand.

The second thing is you want to choose a time, a place, and a plan that you'll keep.

And the third thing is you want to choose the right approach.

There is an approach that comes when you're reading the Bible.

And the approach we talked about is what we called the safe approach, and this is what that approach looks like.

Whenever you're reading the Bible, you have to observe the text.

You have to be like, Man, what do I see?

So you're spending time, you're reading slowly, and you're like, Who was this written to?

What are they saying?

Why are they saying it?

You're just making observations as you read the Bible.

The second thing you have to do is you have to understand the text, and you do that by asking, what does it mean?

Like, not what does it mean to us, what does it mean to them?

Because that's an ancient context.

We're a modern context.

No, no, no.

What did it mean to them?

Only once you understood what it meant to them can you then actually bridge the text and bring it back into our modern world.

We say, okay, I understand what it means to them.

Now I know what it can actually mean to me.

And then the final thing is you have to apply the text.

The problem comes in when we skip the middle steps.

This is how cults are formed.

When you observe the text and then you just start applying.

Okay, let me prove it to you.

Couple of scriptures.

Imagine if you just went straight and you applied these.

Romans 16, 16.

Greet one another with a holy kiss.

You're like, it's in the Bible.

Like, imagine you just come to spirit church, everyone's just doing that.

That is a great way to shut down a church.

You can't exactly just go and apply that.

Here's another one.

First Timothy 5, verse 23.

1 Timothy 5:23

Stop drinking only water and drink a little wine.

Some of y'all have never taken notes before, and you're like, that's good.

I'm writing that one down.

You're like, that's good.

Apostle said it, you know, preacher said it.

You're like, babe, no water, only wine from me from here on out.

It is in the Bible.

I'll give you, I'll give you one more that you can't just apply.

First Timothy 2 verse 8.

1 Timothy 2:8

I desire then in every place, say every place.

Say every place.

I desire then in every place that the men should pray, lifting up holy hands.

Not only in worship, but at Starbucks.

Come on, at the gym.

Like, imagine you're just like, I need to bench prayers, or Jesus help me.

And you're just like, okay, it says I need to lift up holy hands.

That's weird.

That's weird.

Okay.

This is saying something to an ancient context, and what you have to do is you have to understand it that you can apply it rightly.

The Bible talks about that.

James 1, verse 22, it says this do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves.

James 1:22

Do what it says.

So what I want to do today is I want to help you approach the Old Testament in like 30 minutes.

Y'all pray for me.

Okay?

I need to try to give you all the Old Testament in 30 minutes.

And it's important.

Because writing about the Old Testament, this is what Paul says.

All scripture, say all scripture.

All scripture is God breathed.

There is power in these pages, and it says it is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.

And we need this more than ever.

Because we're in a culture that says, no, I don't want to change my life.

What I want to do is I want to morph the word of God so that it can approve of the lifestyle I've already chosen.

I don't want to change myself for it.

No, we need the word of God because the Bible shows us where we're deficient.

It shows us when we don't have what we need to have, but it says this, it also shows us who we can become.

Come on, in Jesus, we can become something greater.

We don't change the Bible to fit us, we change us to fit the word of God.

Can I get a good amen?

Training in righteousness, so the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped in every good work, in every good work that is in your marriage, that is in your life, that is in your job.

This word has everything that we need.

When those words were written, it wasn't written about the New Testament, it was Paul writing about the Old Testament.

It has everything that we need.

Let us not not study that book.

That was Jesus' Bible.

Let us not not study that book.

So I want to help you understand the Old Testament.

First, let me do this.

Let me explain what a testament is.

Say testament.

What a testament is, is a covenant.

And you're like, that helped me nothing.

Okay, what is a covenant?

Okay.

It is literally the word for covenant.

What a covenant is, it's like a contract, but a contract, the way that a contract works is there's two parties that are agreeing to something.

And if any party breaks the agreement, the contract is void.

That is different.

What a covenant is, is a covenant says we're making an agreement, and even if you fail, I will withhold my side of the bargain.

That's what a covenant is.

A contract says, if you do your part, I'll do mine.

What a covenant says, I'm committed even when you fail.

So God initiates it, God sets the terms, and God keeps his promise.

That's why when we enter into marriage, we don't enter into a contract, we enter into a covenant.

We say for better or for worse.

In sickness and in health.

What we're doing is we're making a covenant in that moment.

And in the Old Testament, there's a bunch of them.

Okay?

God makes a covenant with Abraham based on faith.

I will bless you.

God makes a covenant with Moses and his people, saying, if you follow these laws, I'm gonna make you my people.

God makes a covenant with David, He says, From your line a king will be born.

And then of course we have the new covenant.

Let me show you the differences between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.

This will help you understand it.

The Old Testament tells a story about a people, but the new covenant tells the story about a person.

The Old Testament centers around Abraham and Moses, kind of the faith and the law covenant, but the new testament centers around Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

We place our faith now in Jesus.

The Old Testament centers around Sinai and Israel, but the New Testament centers around the cross.

The Old Testament shows the wrath of God against sin with like a little bit of mercy.

But the new covenant shows the grace of God against sinners with like a little wrath.

Aren't y'all grateful for the grace of God?

Come on, we get to serve in the grace of God more than anything.

The Old Testament writes the laws on tablets, but I love this.

But the New Testament writes the laws on our hearts.

And it matters.

Jesus Himself said, Matthew 5.17, do not think that I have come to abolish the law.

I have not come to abolish the laws and the prophets.

I have come to fulfill them.

So what we're doing in this series is I'm a little more teacher than I am preacher.

But I'm trying to help you understand this entire component.

But here's a question.

Have y'all ever had a moment where maybe your spouse or your friend or your significant other or whoever is watching a show and they're like in season two, and you try to jump into that show and you're like, what is going on?

And they're like, there's this man by the name of Jimmy.

My wife says this all the time.

She's like, there's Jimmy, and Jimmy really loves Sally, but Sally is sick.

And then there's this dude by the name of James.

Oh, you need to watch out for James.

And I'm like, I can't figure out what's going on.

I'm jumping into the middle of the story.

I'm like, this makes no sense.

That's often what we do with the Old Testament.

We jump in in the middle, and then we're like, why are you boiling goats in their mother's milk?

I don't understand that.

Like, what is actually happening?

What you have to do more often than not is you have to go to the beginning.

So that's what I want to do.

I want to go to the beginning and kind of help you understand the entire framework that is the Old Testament.

There's four main movements in the Old Testament.

There is creation, there is covenant, there is kingdom, and there's collapse.

There is creation, there is covenant, there is kingdom, and there is collapse.

Creation, God creates the heavens and the earth.

Then there is covenant.

He makes a covenant with his people after they have sinned, saying, I'm gonna be your God.

He establishes a kingdom by the name of Israel, and then that kingdom collapses.

You wanna know what the Old Testament is about?

That they tried everything to get to God, but it didn't work.

Now, if you have your Bibles, I want you all to go ahead, open your Bibles, go to the table of contents.

Okay?

There is 39 books in the Old Testament, and I kind of want you to understand it because your Bible is not laid out chronologically.

Y'all know that?

If you think it's laid out chronologically, the New Testament's gonna mess you up.

Because you're gonna be like, it's crazy.

In Matthew, Jesus was born, he lived the life, he died, and then all of a sudden he's a baby again.

And you're like, nope, that's called the four gospels, they tell the same story.

It is it is not chronological.

So often we can think it's the case.

You might think your Old Testament is chronological, but most of it is not.

It's broken up into four sections.

You have the law or the Torah or the Pentitude, you have history, you have poetry, and then you have the prophets.

The law of the first five books of the Bible.

This is the books that Moses would have written.

It's Genesis through to Deuteronomy.

It is creation, it's the enslavement in Egypt, it's their freedom, and it takes them to the edge of the promised land.

Okay?

Those are the first five books.

Then you get the history section.

That is Joshua through to Esther.

They enter into the promised land, God gives them this land, but dum, dum, dum, they're disobedient.

And what happens is they get exiled.

Where they were once enslaved and free, they are now again going from freedom back to slavery.

And they're held in what would now be modern-day Iraq for 70 years.

Their kingdom gets completely destroyed.

Jerusalem is completely destroyed.

And where it ends is they come back to rebuild.

It's kind of broken up into three sections.

You get the pre-monarchy before the kings actually come into the picture, and that is Joshua and Judges.

And what happens is you have Joshua and Judges, that is all chronological, but then you have Ruth, which spotlights into that moment.

Does that make sense?

It's kind of like a recap.

So you have Joshua and Judges, and then Ruth comes in.

Then you get the actual monarchy, 1st and 2 Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings, 1st and 2nd Chronicles.

1 Samuel through to 2 Kings is chronological, and then what happens is 1 and 2 Chronicles recaps this.

That's the monarchy.

Then you get the post-monarchy, where Ezra and Nehemiah they come and they rebuild the walls.

And then Esther comes, and what Esther does is it recaps something that's happening in that moment.

Does that make sense?

So that is the history.

Then you get into poetry and wisdom, Job through the Song of Solomon, and then you get the prophets.

There's 17 prophets.

Five of them are called the major prophets.

Say major.

They're not called major because they're important.

They're called major because they are long.

They are long.

And then you get the minor prophets, okay?

And what those minor prophets are, they're called minor because they are short.

Okay, do you all get the 50,000-foot thing?

Is it okay if I just teach today?

Is that okay?

Okay, so that's the entire picture of the Old Testament.

Now what I'm gonna do, pray for me.

Holy Spirit help.

In 25 minutes, I'm gonna zoom in to all of those books, and I want to help you understand it.

Okay, I'm gonna spend most of the time in the first five books of the Bible.

So if you're like, man, he spent seven minutes on Genesis, so we're gonna no, you're gonna be good, okay?

Trust me.

First book of the Bible is what?

Genesis.

Genesis.

Okay, we can start there.

Genesis is incredible.

I'll give you the main ideas, some key themes, and some scripture.

Genesis, if you're looking for what is Genesis all about, Genesis is about this: God creates, but man corrupts.

God creates, but man corrupts.

In the beginning, God creates the earth and he creates humankind to be in relationship with him.

But the problem is that sin enters.

Sin enters in Genesis 3.

Satan and sin comes and it fractures.

And what happens is all of a sudden they are separated from God, and there is death that comes to the earth.

If you're wondering why there is sin, why there is evil, Genesis explains.

It's because we sin against the mighty God, we are separated from him, and death comes.

Some of you are in this place and you feel chaos in your life, you feel death in your life, and you feel like you've been separated from God.

Let me just tell you that's sin.

But the beautiful thing about Jesus is when we just come and say, Jesus, may you be my Lord, He brings us back into relationship with Him.

That's what happens in Genesis 3.

They are taken out of the garden because God doesn't want them to eat of the tree of life and lock in a state where they are forever separated from Him.

So they start multiplying, they start having dominion over the earth, and everybody goes bad.

So God is like, we're gonna just press reset here.

We're just gonna restart this whole thing.

Noah, you're my guy, I'm about to wipe out everyone.

So the flood comes, absolutely wipes out everyone, and then God is like, okay, we're gonna restart this with Noah.

And then what happens?

Noah, everyone starts producing again, it starts building again, and they get evil too.

That's the story.

All of a sudden, there's kind of this one world government, they're coming together, they're gonna build the tower of Babel or Babel.

I don't know how you say it here in America.

I say Babel.

How do y'all say it?

Babel.

Okay, we'll go we'll go with Babel.

Okay, what's South African is showing.

They build the tower of Babel, and God is like, no, no, no, no, no, we're not gonna do this.

He comes down, he confuses their languages, and then all of a sudden the nations are born.

That is Genesis 1 through to Genesis 11.

That's the story.

Okay, that's what happens.

The second part of Genesis are the patriarchs.

What is that?

That is Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph.

Because of the corruption, God comes and he makes a covenant with Abraham saying, Through you, I'm gonna create nations.

A key verse of Genesis is this Genesis 12, verse 3.

Genesis 12:3

It says, I will bless those who bless you.

And whoever curses you, I will curse.

All the people of the earth will be blessed through you.

I want you to understand this.

God didn't come just to save a people, God came to save through a people.

He comes to Abraham and he says, I'm gonna choose you.

The problem with all of this is he says, I'm gonna build a nation from you.

Abraham and Sarah, his wife, they're infertile.

So God is calling something out of him that he can't even see in himself.

And I think someone needs to hear that today because sometimes what is gonna happen is God is gonna come and he's gonna start calling potential outside of you that you don't even see in yourself.

I need you to understand this.

If God says something in your life, even if you can't see it, if he's calling something out, if he said it, he can do it.

If he said it, he can do it.

That's the story of Abraham is you can't see it right now, but I do.

And if I do, and I say it can be true, it will be and can be true.

But Abraham doubts.

And he's like, I'm gonna take medicine to my own hand because God is taking his time.

So he takes Hagar, which would have been his wife's handmaid, and he says, Okay, I'm gonna lay with her, and we're gonna start the nations through her.

And Ishmael is born, not part of God's plan at all.

And that forms the 12 tribes, even now, the 12 tribes of Arab, you can trace them back to Ishmael.

And then what happens is finally God comes through, and Isaac is born.

Isaac, who later his name is changed.

Isaac comes through that.

Isaac has 12 sons, which form the 12 the 12 tribes of Israel.

Eventually, his name changes to Israel.

He has these 12 sons, and then there's the 11th son by the name of Joseph.

Say Joseph.

Here's the problem: Joseph was his favorite.

Parents in the room don't have favorites.

It messes a whole bunch of things up.

And that's exactly what happens.

The brothers get jealous, and they're like, no, no, no, no, no, this can't be.

So they kick Joseph out, they sell him into slavery.

The next thing you know, Joseph is in Egypt, but God is with him, which means even if people stand against you, if God has a plan for your life, he's gonna make it come through no matter what.

He steps into Egypt, all of a sudden he has this favor, a famine comes, but because he is next to Pharaoh, God gives them this insight that this is about to happen.

They prepare, and then all of a sudden there comes a point where all the nations are coming to Pharaoh.

Even Joseph's brothers.

They come begging for food, and Joseph recognizes them.

And watch this.

This moment happens in Genesis 50, 20.

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

Come on, that preaches to me because there's these moments with what the enemy meant to destroy you, God can use to propel you.

In that moment, they try to destroy him, and he says, No, no, no, what you meant for evil, God meant for good.

Does that sound like anything?

Jesus.

Jesus is in the cross, on the cross.

The enemy means it for evil, and God is like, You have no idea what I'm doing, because what you're meaning for evil right now, I'm about to turn for my good.

Jesus is our greater Joseph.

And all throughout the Bible you see these pictures of Jesus.

Something I need you to understand about Genesis is that Genesis literally gives us all of our theology.

There's a thing in the Bible called the law of first mention, which is anytime you see something for the first time, it sets the trajectory for everything else.

It is literally in the first three chapters of Genesis that we get our major theology.

What do we get?

We get the doctrine of God.

God is uncreated, He is sovereign, He is all powerful, He is all good, He is all-knowing, He is triune.

He says, Let us create man in our image.

You see that right there.

We get the doctrine of man.

That what happens is God says, Let us create man in our image, and from the dust he forms man, the very fingerprint of God.

Which let me just say this.

When you realize that, you realize the value of people.

Let me say this: it doesn't matter what race you are, it doesn't matter what socioeconomic status you come from, it doesn't matter what gender you are, you are valuable in the sight of God.

That's why racism is evil, that's why sexism is evil, because every single one of us are image bearers, fingerprints made in the image of our God.

We get the doctrine of man right there in Genesis.

We get the doctrine of sin and shame.

They fall into sin, they're separated from God.

You get the doctrine of substitutionary atonement.

What is that?

Something has to die to cover us.

They sin, so they grab these leaves and they cover themselves.

And God kills an animal and makes them clothing.

Something died for the first time to cover us.

And later, something else, someone else is gonna have to die to cover us.

Right in Genesis 1 to 3.

The beautiful thing is you also get the doctrine of grace because Adam falls into Satan's temptation.

But what happens is God prophesies about Jesus.

Check this, Genesis 3:15.

Genesis 3:15

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers.

He will crush your head, but you will strike his heel.

What does that mean?

It says that at some point you're gonna attack, you're gonna make harm, you're gonna wound Jesus.

But here's the thing you're gonna hit his heel and you're gonna wound him, but he is gonna crush your head.

One is not fatal, one is.

Oh yeah, you're gonna put him on the cross, there's gonna be harm, but what's gonna happen is ultimately in the end, you're gonna be defeated.

Literally, God prophesies about Jesus in Genesis 1 to 3.

Insane.

Insane.

Here's what you need to know about Genesis.

It's a story of this.

If God starts it, he will finish it.

If God starts it, he will finish it.

Can I get a good amen?

That's Genesis.

Okay?

Now I'm definitely not gonna spend as much time on everyone else, but you just need to know that.

Genesis is so important.

The second part is Exodus, which means this God frees.

What happens is remember Joseph?

Joseph is all successful, all the people, all his brothers come visit him.

Pharaoh gives them land, and what happens is over 400 years they multiply, they have all of this land.

All of the Egyptians, what they start doing is they give the land back to Pharaoh in exchange for food.

They're like, Oh no, no, we're hungry because this famine is happening.

400 years later, okay, all the people are there with Pharaoh, and this new Pharaoh, who doesn't know Joseph, looks back and says, Why are the people of God so blessed?

So he says, What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna enslave them.

And that's exactly what happens.

And the people started crying out to God, and God raises up someone by the name of Moses.

The key verse of Exodus is this Exodus six or seven.

It says this, I will take.

You as my own people, and I will be your God, and then you will know that I am the Lord your God who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

He's like, I'm bringing them out.

How does he do it?

Plagues.

These ten plagues.

And people often get uncomfortable when they're reading about these plagues.

You need to know this that God would use the people of God to bring judgment and blessing in the Old Testament.

It's different than the New Testament.

God will use the people of God to bring judgment and blessing.

Why?

Remember what he said to Abraham.

He says, Whoever blesses you, I will.

Whoever curses you, I will.

So if you're seeing judgment being poured out through the people of God in the Old Testament, that is why it's happening.

So these ten plagues start happening.

What most people don't know is they actually track back to gods that they would worship.

Exodus 12, 12, I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt.

So they had this God by the name of Ra.

Say Ra.

Kind of like you're like Ra.

They had this God by the name of Ra.

It was the sun god.

So God is like, Great, I'm gonna block out the sun.

Then they're worshiping the Nile, the bringer of life.

And what he's gonna say is, nope, I'm gonna make it turn to blood, and it's gonna kill every living thing in there.

Oh, you'd like to worship frogs because of fertility?

Great, I'm gonna bring so much frogs that you're gonna want to kill them.

What is he saying?

I'm greater.

And then the final plague happens where he says, I'm gonna kill the firstborn, but I won't kill the firstborn if everyone slap kills a lamb, takes the blood, and puts it over their doorpost.

The angel of death comes, and the people of God who do that, they are safe.

That's called the Passover, another picture of Jesus.

So Pharaoh says, get out of here.

And what they do is they cross through the Red Sea.

I want you to watch this.

Moses lifts up a stick, and what happens is the Red Sea parts and they go through it and they go from a place of slavery to a place of freedom.

Does that look familiar?

He lifts up a stick and they pass through.

Jesus is lifted up on the cross and we go through the waters of baptism.

And what happens is we go from slavery, we cross through the water, and we are free.

It's a picture of baptism throughout the Old Testament.

That's what you're gonna see.

Jesus is everywhere.

Jesus is everywhere.

So they cross into the wilderness, and God is then with them.

And that's where the book of Exodus ends, and then we get to our favorite book that I know all of you love, Leviticus.

How many of you love Leviticus?

Oh, that book of Leviticus.

You're like, man, I I I don't like it.

You're like, none of this makes sense.

I actually think Leviticus is one of the greatest books.

God brings this covenant through Mount Sinai, it's the Mosaic covenant, and what it shows, Leviticus is a book of how a holy God can be with wretched people like me.

Y'all, they're coming out of Egypt, they're ratchet.

Okay, let me just say, they're ratchet, ratchet.

And God is like, no, I can't be with you.

I have so much wrath that my wrath will smite you.

I can't be in relationship.

And what Leviticus is, it's a picture of a God who loves them so much, and he says, I am so righteous, and I can't be in relationship with you.

But if you just do these things, you will be less ratchet.

And I can come and I can finally be with you.

And what happens in Leviticus is he puts these laws in place.

He he builds his tabernacle, and his presence comes because he so desires to be with you.

The book of Leviticus is about this: God will do anything in his power to be in relationship with you.

It's actually a book about love.

And you're like, but Brad, I don't get it.

What's up with the shellfish thing?

Like, I like shellfish.

Why can't they eat shellfish?

Why can't they do it?

You need to know this.

They didn't have the same cleanliness norms that we do.

Okay?

So there were things that were unclean.

Here's a big scripture.

Leviticus 19, verse 2, it says this speak to the entire assembly and say to them, Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.

Leviticus 19:2

What's happening in that moment is God is saying, I'm setting you apart because I'm set apart.

And what you would do is if you eat shellfish, you're gonna get sick because you can't clean it right, and you're gonna get disease.

Why are all the purification laws in there?

It's because if you didn't follow them, the entire nation will become contaminated.

What he was doing is he was putting stuff in place that the people of God will be the most healthy people on earth.

And the nations would look at him and say, Wow, your God is so wise.

That's the reason.

That's the reason why all of these weird, there's moral laws which are great, and you see a lot of them continue in the New Testament.

The reason the other stuff falls away is it was for a time and a place.

Favorite part of Leviticus, Leviticus 16, the Day of Atonement.

What happens is they would take this goat, they would take these two goats, and then one of them they would kill.

And one of them, they would take it, they would speak over them, and they would send him into the wilderness.

All the sins would go into the wilderness.

And what happens is it was called the Day of Atonement, because everyone's sins will be forgiven.

Does that look familiar?

That's a picture of who?

Jesus.

He is the goat.

What happens is he gets on a cross, and in that moment, just like they killed that goat, the Lamb of God is slain.

Not only that, he's also separated the same way that they send him into the wilderness.

Jesus is separated because he says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

The day of atonement was a day where everyone's sins would be forgiven, and Jesus gets on the cross, and all of our sins are forgiven.

He is our great atonement.

Y'all, did you know there's so much in Leviticus?

Leviticus is awesome.

It's amazing.

And then we get to the book of Numbers, because we all like counting.

What Numbers is, is it's basically a story about a journey that should have taken 11 days, but it takes 40.

Because of their disobedience.

What season in our lives are we about to delay because, like them, we are being disobedient to what God called us to do?

The first part, there's a census, and they're an unbelieving generation.

They're like, give us water.

So God's like, here's some water.

They're like, No, I want period.

I want Fuji water.

Like, that's what I want.

It's like God, give me, give me meat, and he gives them coil, and they're like, No, I want rabbi.

Like they complain and they complain.

And what happens is God gets to a place where he says, No one in this nation will enter into the promised land.

Instead, I'm gonna raise up a new nation, a Joshua generation that's actually gonna step into that place.

What seasons in our lives are we trying to delay?

So it takes what should take 11 days, takes 40 years.

The entire generation wipes out, and there's a new generation.

And God says to Moses, You're not gonna enter the promised land either.

So Moses writes this book called Deuteronomy.

It's his final sermon, it's his last words, and he recaps everything.

And what he is saying is, please, please, please love God.

He's like, This is who you are, this is the story of you, this is what it means to be an Israelite.

He says, I am begging you, please, please, please, when you enter into this new land, love God.

A key scripture, Deuteronomy 6, verse 5.

Deuteronomy 6:5

Love the Lord God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your strength.

Deuteronomy is a book about love.

So let me recap everything that happens from here on out.

That's the big thrust of the Old Testament that you have to understand.

In Judges, what happens?

In Joshua, what happens is they enter into the land, but they don't fully possess it.

God says, go take everyone out.

Again, God is bringing judgment to a people, far from him.

They don't do it.

I need you to understand this partial obedience is disobedience.

Some of you, there's some things that God has called you to do, and you're not actually doing something.

The book of Joshua shows us that we have to obey fully.

Joshua 21, 45, it says, Not one of the Lord's promises to Israel failed.

Every one of them was fulfilled.

God held his side, they didn't hold theirs.

So they take the land, but they don't take it fully.

They all get their own little things.

The 12 tribes split into 12 regions, and then you get the book of Judges.

And the book of Judges is terrible because you have these judges that rule, that are trying to help, and some of them are good, and then what happens is they start sinning, and then God rebukes them, and then they confess, and then another judge restores, and it's literally just this entire downward spiral.

As people go into sin.

That's the book of Judges.

And then you have the story of Ruth, which which snapshots into the story of Judges and shows an example of a girl who's a Moab woman, who what happens to her is she's widowed, and God uses Boaz to restore her.

It's a picture of Jesus.

Right after the judges, everything is descending, everything's awful.

What happens is they're like, We want a king! And God is like, You do not want a king, a king will tax you.

And they're like, No, we want a king.

Like, we want a good-looking king to show what our nation looks like.

So God gives them Saul.

And you all know the story of Saul.

Everything goes wrong.

So what happens is they're like, no, we want another king.

God raises up David and He says, This man looks at the things on the outside, but I look at the thing on the heart.

First and second Samuel is the story of David coming into kingship.

And then what happens is David has a son by the name of Solomon.

Solomon turns away from God and everything starts to collapse.

First and second kings are all the kings.

What happens is a civil war.

Israel splits into two, the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom.

Everyone's fighting, there's all of this idolatry happening.

All these kings raise up and all these kings fall, and the nation goes into turmoil.

That's the story, and it ends in exile.

You all need to know this.

People come, the Babylon kingdom comes, and they take them out of their promised land.

They take them out of Israel.

And what you need to understand is when that was happening, they weren't just losing their home.

The temple was where God's presence was.

They felt like they were losing God.

They're like, we are separated from God.

And what happens is God raises up the land of Persia, which destroys Babylon.

And they start having a desire.

They start loving the Israelites, and they say, We're gonna send you back to your homeland.

And that's when 1st and 2 Chronicles is written.

First and 2 Chronicles actually recaps the story from a positive perspective.

Like y'all know the story about David and Bathsheba.

That's not in 1st and 2nd Chronicles.

Because what's happening is people that are feeling so much guilt are coming back to their promised land that has been completely destroyed.

And what they're doing is they're trying to have hope again, they're trying to have faith again, they're trying to understand that God can restore again.

So 1st and 2 Chronicles retells the story of the Israelites in a way that would build their faith.

They come back into Israel, the walls are down, the temple is down.

Ezra is written, which is the rebuilding of the temple.

Nehemiah is written, which is the rebuilding of the wall.

Esther is written, showing that even the people that didn't come back, God was still providing for them.

And that's the end of the history section.

All of the prophets, all of that that is written, the major and the minor prophets, are people during that history that were saying, repent, repent, repent, and they never did.

The wisdom literature was written.

Job was written during Genesis.

Everything else was written by David and Solomon.

Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived.

If you want to know about suffering, read Job.

If you want to know about wisdom, read Proverbs.

If you want to know about worship, read Psalms.

If you want to know about the meaning of life, read Ecclesiastes.

And that's the entire Old Testament.

You have the five books of the Bible, you have the history, you have the wisdom that was written during this time, and you have the prophets, where all of them were sinning, were basically saying, return back to God.

They come back into their land, they rebuild everything, and then there's 400 years of silence.

No prophetic revelation.

But I want to show you something.

As we close.

Hebrews 8, verse 7 to 8 talks about this new covenant that they were expecting, and it says this.

Hebrews 8:7–8

If the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need for a second covenant to replace it.

But when God found fault with the people, he said, A day is coming, says the Lord, where I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah.

He's quoting Jeremiah in that moment.

Jeremiah 31, 31.

The day is coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant.

There it is.

With the people of Israel and Judah.

And this covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors.

When I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt.

They broke the covenant, though I loved them.

I want you to watch this language.

As a husband.

God loved them so deeply.

And yet they turned from him.

Verse 33.

But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days, says the Lord.

I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write it on their heart.

It's no longer going to be written on tablets.

When we come and we start experiencing all that God has for us, when we start following Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes in us, and what he does is he writes it on our heart.

No longer do we need these external laws telling us what to do because there is something better that's been written within us.

I will be their God and they will be my people.

And they will not need to teach their neighbors nor their relatives, for everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already, and I will forgive their wickedness.

And I love this.

I will never again remember their sins.

The Old Testament, that wasn't the case.

Their sins were deferred.

In the New Testament, he no longer even remembers your sin.

You're walking in here feeling shame from the things that you've done.

There is no shame.

The Bible says that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

You don't need to feel shame.

God says, I'm not gonna remember it anymore.

We're in the new covenant, we're not in the old.

We're in something brand new.

Hebrews 10, 1 to 5 says the old system under the law of Moses was a shadow, it was a dim preview of the good things to come, not the good things in themselves.

The sacrifices under that system were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who come.

If they could have provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifice would have stopped.

For the worshipers would have been purified once and for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared.

They still felt guilt even though they were doing those things.

That guilt, that shame wasn't removed.

Verse 3, but instead, those sacrifices actually reminded them of their sins year after year.

For it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Amen.

It's not possible.

If I commit a crime and I need to go to jail, I can't say, Can you take my dog?

It doesn't work like that.

You can't take an animal to die for something that I'm supposed to die for.

And what happens is we're on trial standing before a holy God, sentenced to death, and Jesus comes and says, Can I take that punishment for them?

Substitutionary atonement.

Don't send them away.

Send me away.

Verse 5.

That is why when Christ came into the world, he said to God, You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings, but you gave my body to offer.

Then he said, verse 9, look, and I will come and do your will.

He cancels the first covenant in order to put the second into effect.

For God's will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all time.

Day after day, every priest stands and performs his religious duties again and again.

He offers the same sacrifices who can never take away sins.

But when this priest, Jesus, had offered for all time one sacrifice for all sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool.

For by one sacrifice he has made perfect those who are being made holy.

What is the story of the Old Testament?

The story of the Old Testament is showing us that time and time again we try to make our way back to God, and it is impossible without Jesus.

The story of God, all it did was showed us our need for a savior.

People often say, Why did that need to happen?

Why couldn't we start in paradise?

Here's what you need to understand: God's plan is better.

Every single one of us has free will.

We start in the beginning, we have free will and we turn away from God, but we end in paradise with free will and with God.

I want to show you something called the mirror image.

Take a look at this.

This is the story of the Bible.

It starts in Genesis.

God and righteous people in paradise, but Satan and sin enters.

The world is judged and destroyed.

They have this one government system in the Tower of Babel.

There's two tribes, there's 12 tribes of Israel, God's holy people, but then the entire Bible centers around the middle, which is what?

Jesus Christ.

And what happens is instead of 12 tribes, there's now 12 disciples, and the church is formed, which is God's holy people.

Instead of one world, what's happening is now we are still moving to a one world.

I don't know if you know, but it's happening right now.

If you want to know where we are in the prophetic timeline, we're here.

Everything's moving back to a one world government.

The Bible says it's gonna happen, and what's gonna happen at the end is the world is gonna be judged and destroyed.

But here's the beautiful thing: because of what Jesus did, where sin and sin once entered, sin and sin will exit.

Satan and sin will exit, and God and the redeemed people are back in paradise with him.

It ends where it began.

The same Disney beginning, conflict, end, happily ever after.

No, this is beginning, conflict, Jesus, new beginning.

And the Bible says, all you have to do to step into that new covenant with him is just say, Jesus be the Lord of my life.

The Old Testament shows us it was not enough for us to do it by ourselves.

We need Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen and amen.

Can I pray for you?

And if everyone can close their eyes, God, I want to thank you for every single person that's here.

God, I want to thank you that you did the Old Testament.

God, that we get to see the story of how we got here.

But God, I want to thank you that you didn't leave us in that place, that you sent us your son, Jesus.

Holy Spirit, full us.

Jesus, may you do what only you can do.

I know that there may be some people here today, and you've actually never taken the step to trust Jesus.

If that's you, we want to give you that opportunity.

If you're saying, I'm wanting to come back to Jesus, I'm wanting to start a relationship with Him, I want you to pray this prayer off to me.

Just say, Dear Jesus, I believe that you're the Son of God and the Savior of the world.

I believe you came to this earth, you died on a cross, and you were raised for my sins.

Jesus, right now I'm making my Lord, I make you my savior.

In Jesus' name.

In Jesus' name.

Let me just say this with every head still bottom, eyes closed.

If you're here today and you said that for the very first time, God has brought you close to Him and you are back in relationship with the Almighty God.

And if that's you, we want to celebrate that with you.

So I'm gonna do this.

I'm gonna count to three.

I just want you to lift up your hand.

No one's looking around.

It's just you and me.

Just said I can celebrate that with you.

Here we go.

One, two, three.

If you just made that decision, that's awesome.

That's awesome.

I love that.

I love that.

Hey Joe, can you do me a favor?

Can you put your hands together?

Come on for everyone who just said that.

For the very first time.

We love you so much.

And if you were watching and you just said yes to Jesus, congratulations.

This is the best decision you could ever make.

But you do have a next step.

We want you to text the word Jesus to the number 480-485-3405 so that you can let us know.

Because our team has a 21-day devotional that we would love to send you.

It's called You Said Yes, so that we can walk with you in this journey.

Make sure you know you are not alone on this journey with Jesus.

And also, if this ministry has impacted you, I would love for you to pray about two things.

First, pray about sharing this message with someone.

You never know how much a simple share could impact someone's life.

And secondly, we would love for you to pray about partnering with us financially.

Your giving enables us to share messages just like this all around the world.

And so thank you for giving.

You can go to spiritchurch.co forward slash give if you want to participate in that today.

So we love you, church, and we will see you right back here next week.

And remember that with God, there is more.