Sermon 74
Sermon by Colin Sowter at Wonersh 11th March 2007.
The Old Testament Joshua to Esther
I
start with a poem
Joshua
the son of Nun
and
Caleb the son of Jephunneh
were
the only two that got right through
to
the land of milk and honey!
or as it
said in our first reading
The
Lord said to Joshua Be strong and courageous,
because you will lead these people
to
inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them
God
had created the world, appointed Abraham to be the father of a new
nation, given the law under Moses and said that they would go to a new
land, the promised land.
But
they'd rebelled against God, and he said that that whole generation
would not see the promised land - apart from Joshua
and Caleb
So
Joshua is the link between the 5 books of Moses which Ian spoke
about 2 weeks ago, and the 12 books we're looking at tonight.They're the
story of God's people,
going to
the promised Land and living there, for a little over 1000 years.
So
remember
Joshua
the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh were
the only two that got right through to the land of milk and honey!
James
introduced the series on the OT 4 weeks ago (and remember
these sermons are all on the web site if you want to study them more fully).
I
think part of the purpose of this sermon series is to take away some of the mystery
of the OT
If
I said - turn in your pew bibles to the book of Ezra, would you be able
to find it quickly?
Let
me give you a clue.
How
many letters in the word OLD? (3)
How
many letters in word TESTAMENT? (can use fingers!) (9)
3,
9
What
number do you get if you put 3 followed by 9? (39)
That's
how many books there are in OT - 39
(NT
you multiply the 3 by the 9, and get 27.
As
a teenager, this diagram helped me a lot, and it's the basis for this series.
5 12
5 5 12
History Writings
Prophecy
Middle
section - Writings, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs
Everything
else is either before or after that-
(repeat)
before -
history;
after -
prophecy
History
- 5 books of Moses, Ian spoke on other 12 books looking at today -
Joshua,
Judges, Ruth, 1&2 Samuel, 1&2 Kings, 1&2 Chronicles, Ezra,
Nehemiah, Esther.
In
our bible class, we used to play a game of bible golf:
how many
shots does it take you to find a certain book of bible
and you
count 1 for each time you turn to a different page:
let's try
it on Ezra (one of later books of history)…..
I
would encourage you to look at that diagram at home, To
help you to remember, find it on notice sheet [
] - suggest cut it out and put it in your bible as bookmark,
to remind
you Play Bible Golf until feel more
familiar with OT.
Do
you find history boring? I find
it very interesting now, but I hated it at school, perhaps because we
were taught it so badly and if I say that today's sermon is about history, you
might be tempted to look at your watch.
But there's another way of looking at history - someone has said it's his
story, God's story,
the story
of God dealing with his people.
There
are 2 ways of looking at it:
a secular
historian could say that a group of people under various leaders invaded
the land, killed a lot of people, set themselves up, built an amazing temple in
Or you could say
Almighty
God, the creator of the universe, had a plan for the children of
to
set up and develop in a land which he had promised to them. Sometimes the people followed God's ways, and
they prospered; at other times, they rebelled against God, and he allowed them to be defeated by other
nations.
that
would be a perfectly valid history
written by a Jew or a Christian.
A
secular view of history, a religious view of history - which is right?
Well,
of course, they're both right,
they're complementary to each other, like 2 sides of a coin.
2
stories in parallel.
As
Ian has said about creation - the scientist says 'how' the bible says 'why'.
And
of course we can apply the same 2
parallel descriptions to our own lives -
we can say this person was born on such and such a date,
went
to school, studied, got married, had
some children, did various jobs, one of his interests was going to church, perhaps because he liked old buildings and
music, and he liked meeting people - it's not quite clear why he decided to
become a priest later in life and so on
-
a
perfectly legitimate secular history
Or you can say that while this child was at school, the Holy
Spirit created in him a thirst for God,
he turned and committed his life to God, God gave him a wonderful wife
and family, he saw his job in industry as God's particular calling for him,
later he believed he had a vocation to
the ordained ministry in the church,
and
God gave him immense fulfilment in doing so
a
perfectly legitimate Christian history.
So
these 12 books of the OT teach us to see that
God is actively at work behind the scenes (repeat)
Joshua took them into the promised land and, no doubt, you
remember the battle of
Judges were appointed to rule over them (people like Gideon
- the one who defeated the Midianite army - 'the
sword of the Lord and of Gideon'
and
Samson - who pulled the pillars of a house down, and killed all the Philistines
who were upstairs, and a brilliant story when he tied burning brands to the
tails of foxes and sent them into the corn fields of the Philistines -
ripping
good yarns, but also part of the story
of God overcoming the heathen religions.
Then
the people clamoured for a King, because they wanted to be like other
nations. God didn't want it, and warned them against it through Samuel,
but
they insisted and Saul was appointed,
1
Sam 8 says
the
people refused to listen to Samuel,
'No'
they said ' we want a king,
then
we shall be like all the other nations
and
the people seemed to become less dependent on God.
Then
came David - a wonderfully godly man, even though he failed on occasions,
notably with Bathsheba and then Solomon who was pretty mixed-up person.
He
asked God for wisdom, he built the
Solomon
had 700 wives and 300 concubines, and his heart was not fully devoted to the
Lord his God!
So
that period starts about 1460 BC and goes on to 432 BC, just over 1000
years (which, interestingly, is about the length of time there has been worship
here on this site) The kingdoms divided into North and South, Israel and Judah
and then followed one of the major events in the life of God's people - the exile,
being
taken into captivity by surrounding nations - a secular story, but also a
fulfilment of God's promise that this would happen if they departed from
worshipping
and following him. Different tribes were taken into exile into Assyria,
Then
at the end of today's period, they returned from exile, the temple and
walls of
And
of course the Prophets were active during this time.
One
of problems with OT is that it's not in chronological order - you have
to fold back the prophets to overlap with the books of history so, for
example,
Isaiah
and Jeremiah were prophesying in the time of 1 Kings, Amos was earlier, Haggai
much later.
The
prophecies make much more sense if we link them to the history of God's
people (but that's for later sermons).
So
tonight we're thinking about
Joshua
>>>>>>>>>Esther
All
we can do today is to dip into these 12 books to see examples of how God
was dealing with his people.
Looking
at the 12 books as a whole, we can see some eternal themes which come up time and time again.
Eternal
themes:
Firstly, we can see the effect of sin, rebellion against God
The
Lord is a holy God.
If
you forsake the Lord and serve foreign Gods,
he
will turn and bring disaster on you.
But
the people said We will serve the Lord
That's
what they said, but they didn't, so they were punished and that's
exactly what happened in the exile and that's exactly what God says to us as
Christians -
If
we say we have no sin,
we
deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us;
but
if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just
to
forgive us our sins,
and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness
We
wander away from God and we suffer, he calls us back to him, and we're
restored.
The
second eternal theme is God's holiness
Who
can stand in the presence of the Lord, this holy God?
We
had the same with Moses in the burning bush, Isaiah in the temple, and the whole basis of the complicated system
of OT sacrifices is that God is a holy God who can't just ignore sin.
There's
a very challenging incident in 2 Samuel 6.
There
was a thing called the Ark of the Covenant -
nothing to do with Noah's
A
man named Uzzah put out his hand to steady it. We
read
The
Lord's anger burned against Uzzah
because
of his irreverent act.
Therefore
God struck him down and he died.
I
doubt if there's one person in church who thinks that was fair, but it's there
in scripture - what are we to make of it?
I can only assume that God was wanting to teach the Israelites the
infinite holiness of God, represented by the ark which was a symbol of
God's presence.
If
anyone has a better explanation, let me know afterwards!
God's
holiness
Thirdly
we see the supremacy of God;
The
prophets of Baal fell on their faces and said
'The
Lord, He is God, He is God'.
This
comes from the wonderful story of the conflict between Elijah and the priests
of Baal on
to
prove whose god was the best. The
challenge was for God to light a fire under a sacrificial bull.
1
Kings 18 says: The God who answers by fire, he is God
The
prophets of Baal went first.
They
called on the name of Baal from morning until noon.
But
there was no response.
Elijah
began to taunt them: 'Shout louder' he said.
'Perhaps
he's thinking or busy or travelling or asleep'.
So
they shouted louder
and
slashed themselves with swords and spears.
But
there was no response.
Then
Elijah built an altar, put wood on it,
and
put the bull on the wood.
He
said 'fill 4 large jars with water,
and
pour it on the offering and the wood'.
'Do
it again' he said.
'Do
it a third time'.
Then
he prayed
'O
Lord, let it be known today that you are God'
Then
the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, and the wood and the
stones
Then
the
prophets of Baal fell on their faces and said
'the
Lord, he is God, he is God.
The
10 commandments begin by saying
I
am the Lord your God;
you
shall have no other Gods but me
Monotheism,
God is the only God
Baal,
the Gods of the Philistines, and all these other heathen Gods were not to be
followed; God's people were not to be
led astray by them or their practices, as we are not to be led astray by
the things which the world around us worships - materialism, money,
possessions, outward show - life lived
as though God didn't exist.
The
supremacy of God
Then
we can see the preparation for the coming of Christ
The
priests brought the
to
the inner sanctuary of the temple, the most holy place.
the
Most holy place, the Holy of Holies,
containing the same Ark of the Covenant we thought of just now, hidden
behind a curtain.
A
covenant is like a legal agreement, the agreement between God and man.
The
OT was based on the Covenant of Law -
follow these laws and all will be well,
and if you fail, you must make sacrifices of bulls and sheep and
goats and so on.
The
NT is based on the covenant of grace -
accept my love and forgiveness, and if you fail, accept the sacrifice which
Jesus has made once for all,
and
all will be well.
Christ
entered the most holy place once for all
by
his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption
so
we see the beginnings of God's
plan for forgiveness, reconciliation and redemption (repeat) the most holy place in the OT, first in the movable tabernacle, then in the
temple, then Jesus fulfilling all of that in the NT by himself being Priest and
Sacrifice, breaking down the curtain,
removing the need for any more sacrifice -
he
entered the most holy place once for all
by
his own blood
as
it says in the crucifixion story
Jesus
cried out again with a loud voice, and gave up his spirit.
Then
the curtain of the temple was torn in two
from
the top to the bottom
as
if the hand of God had reached down and torn apart the barrier between God and
man
We
shall see this particularly in the later talks, when we come to the prophets
looking forward to the Messiah, but it
starts early in the OT story.
4
eternal themes, like threads running through the whole of the OT, and we shall
understand the OT much better if we look for these and other eternal themes.
Of
course there are problems in
understanding every part of OT, but,
taken as a whole it has a consistency within itself and, importantly, it has a
consistency with the NT. If we
understand how the Old Testament prepares for and leads into the New
That's
the point of the OT
As
we sit, let's finish with a prayer from
Nehemiah, only very slightly adapted:
O
Lord God of heaven,
the
great and awesome God,
who
keeps his covenant of love with those who love him
and
obey his commands,
let
your ears be attentive and your eyes open
to
hear the prayers your servants are praying before you.
We
confess the sins we have committed against you;
we
have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws
you
gave us.
Remember
the instruction you gave your servant Moses saying
'if
you are unfaithful, I will punish you,
but
if you return to me and obey my commands,
I
will bring you to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my name.
We
are your servants and your people,
whom
you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand.
O
Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of these your servants who
delight in revering your name.
Give
your servants success this coming week
in
what we are planning to do.
Amen.