God's Plan
The Law
Background Leading to the Law
With the first patriarch, Abraham, at the time of The Promise, God informed him in Genesis 15:13 (KJV), “And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;” Abraham at this point was childless and God had just promised him a son. In fact, in Genesis 15:6 (KJV), it says, “And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.” Abraham was considered righteous in God’s eyes.
Why would his son and his offspring be seemingly punished for such a long time? What did they who are not even born yet do to deserve such treatment? The fact is in God’s eyes, this isn’t seen as a punishment, but a character-building challenge for the people. In Genesis 15:14 (KJV), it says, “And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.” God lets him know they will come out strong. We know that Jacob (Israel) took his family into Egypt under Joseph and a total of 70 fighting age men went in and we know from Numbers 1:46 that 660,550 fighting age men came out. That is quite an increase, especially considering they were slaves. God was very good to them in terms of numbers.
Remember, the reason they went into Egypt was due to a sever famine in all the lands. Joseph had stored up food during the 7 plentiful years to be able to care for the people during the 7 years of famine. When he revealed himself to his family he told them their earlier actions of selling him into slavery was actually God’s doing to prepare the way for his family to survive. The key in this message is that in order to survive, they had to make themselves subject to a higher power. They had to submit and accept they needed the help of the higher power. Joseph was literally in that role as a type of Christ.
From a different perspective, Egypt represents the world, or the flesh. The Israelites had to learn to trust in God in order to overcome the flesh. This will be explored more as we go through the Law.
Moses is a Type of Christ
The story of Moses has many similarities to that of Christ, with the exception being that he was far from perfect. His story starts in Exodus 2 in which the leader of the land kills all the little baby boys, trying to get rid of the promised savior of the people that is predicted to come. Moses survives miraculously, and ends up in the household of the Pharoah, the man who tried to have him killed. This mirrors the birth of Jesus in how Herod killed all the baby boys in Bethlehem trying to get rid of Jesus. Jesus then grew up in Satan’s world. Moses grew up in the house of the leader of the world.
Moses ascended to great power and was number 2 under the Pharoah. Jesus is only under the Father. Moses had to leave that house so that he could be prepared to fulfill his mission. He spent 40 years away preparing. Jesus separated himself from the world at the start of His ministry and spent 40 days in the wilderness to prepare Himself for His mission. Moses performed many miracles to free his people from their slavery and found the Pharoah (the world) unbelieving. Jesus also performed many miracles to an unbelieving world. Moses leads his people out of bondage through the parting of the Red Sea, which gave his people the opportunity to enter the promised land if the only believe. Jesus gave His people that same opportunity through His death on the cross. The promise land is ours if we choose to believe.
The Law
Moses is called to Mt Sinai and given by God the Law, which included the 10 Commandments and the specifications for the tabernacle. Why do we have the Law? The law was to demonstrate just how far humanity is from the righteousness of God and what we have to do to atone for our sins.
Romans 3:19-20 (KJV) sums it up well. “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”
God gave the Law to reveal His standard of absolute righteousness to convict us all of our true guilt before Him, so that we would see our need for the gospel. We all need to understand and apply this text personally, so that we abandon any attempt to justify ourselves. We need to trust in Christ alone. Also, we need to understand these verses so that we can use them to dislodge the propensity of others toward self-righteousness, so that they will see why they need to believe in the gospel. This is by far the most common problem that you will encounter when you talk to others about their need for the Savior. They are blind towards their own sin. They incorrectly think, “God will let me into heaven because I’m a good person.” They can’t imagine how a loving God could damn them eternally for a “few” faults. These verses show God’s standard of absolute righteousness and how that standard will convict everyone who trusts in his own righteousness. To be acquitted, we need the perfect righteousness of the Savior credited to our account (Romans 3:21-28).
But James 2:10 (KJV) points out, “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” It’s easier to relate to if you consider an example. Someone steals your car and gets caught. When his trial comes he tells the judge he has not committed murder, he did not sleep with your wife, he hasn’t molested any children and he hasn’t done anything else that is considered a crime. That doesn’t change the fact that he did steal your car. He is still guilty of a crime and must be punished for it. He is a law-breaker. We are all law-breakers and must have a way to be redeemed in order to avoid eternal punishment. The Law is designed to get us to see we are all guilty and cannot do it ourselves. We must have a way to be forgiven for our sins. We are all sinners in the eyes of God, as the Law points out.
Wilderness Wanderings
God lead the people through the Red Sea and was with them in the wilderness. In Exodus13::20-21 (KJV) it says, “And they took their journey from Succoth, and encamped in Etham, in the edge of the wilderness. And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night:” God has Moses and Aaron build the Tabernacle for God to physically dwell in. He was with them all the way. The people had just seen the miracle of the Red Sea and could see the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. God was making His presence well known.
The people were not satisfied with the conditions. They complained a lot. God helped the people with many miracles, including providing manna (Exodus 16:1-7), meat (Exodus 16:8-21) and water from the rock (Exodus 17:1-7). God always provided what they needed, but not necessarily what they wanted.
After only 2 years in the desert, Moses sent 12 spies to scope the land of Canaan, which was to be the Promised Land. Ten of the spies returned and had horrific tales of giants in the land and caused a tremendous fear. Two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, had a more favorable report in that the land could indeed be conquered because they had God on their side!
They could have entered the Promised Land after only 2 years had they had faith! The negative reports of the 10 spies caused enough concern that the people wanted to go back to Egypt instead of trusting God. Here we see that when faced with challenges, many people desire to return to their old ways of the world instead of trusting in God. As such, God said none of the men 20 years and older would ever get to go into the Promised Land except for Joshua and Caleb, the ones who had faith! They were then to spend another 38 years wandering in the wilderness.
The Conquest
After Moses, Aaron and all the other men of fighting age who were banished from entering the Promised Land had died, Joshua, who was an exception, got to lead the people in. The Book of Joshua has many similarities to the Book of Revelation. Both are stories of conquering the land and purging the evil that resided in it. When Joshua took over for Moses, he was charged with leading the war to claim the land. He was given specific direction by God on exactly what to do.
The battle of Jericho was a remarkable story of faith. It starts with Joshua sending 2 spies (he learned his lessons for when Moses sent 12 spies). These two spies don’t really do much for the war effort but they do save Rehab, who becomes part of the lineage of Jesus Christ! God then gives Joshua the strangest orders you can imagine. They are to march around Jericho once a day silently for 6 days. On the 7th day, they are to march around 7 times and on the last time around they are to blow their trumpets and shout and the walls will fall down! What a battle strategy. Imagine what the Israelites thought, or better yet, what the warriors of Jericho standing on top of the wall thought! These guys are crazy.
God was doing this to both test the faith of the people and to demonstrate His glory. Afterwards in Joshua chapter 7, that some of the men took idols from Jericho, which were not allowed by God. They were then defeated at Ai and God explained to Joshua that it was due to the secret taking of this idol. Once that situation was remedied, and God was clearly in focus, they then conquered Ai and went on to conquer the rest of the land of Canaan. In Joshua chapter 13, the conquered land was divided among the 12 tribes and the Promised Land of Israel was established.
As part of this land division, six cities were established as a “land of refuge”, as described in Joshua 20:1-9. These cities were a place a person who accidently, or without pre-meditation killed someone, could escape to in order to avoid the avenger of blood. The practice in the day was that the next of kin had the right to avenge the death by taking your life, unless the person responsible went to a city of refuge. It is a place you could stay at and be safe in. You just couldn’t leave, or you would be at the mercy of the avenger of blood. The rule was once the high priest of the city died; you were then free to return to your home with no fear of ever being hurt by the avenger of blood. This is symbolic of the sanctuary we have from being judged for our sins if we ask Jesus, the highest priest into our hearts. Once Jesus died, we are forever forgiven for our past sins!
This time was the pinnacle of Israel. After this, there were certain points of prosperity when the leaders of Israel were closely following God, but for the most part, it went downhill from here.
Judges
After the land was divided and the people settled, there was a brief time of peace. No longer was the entire nation grouped together in mobile camps. Now the people are spread out across the nation. Up until that time God had been communicating with the people through Moses and then Joshua. When Joshua passed away, the people asked who would go up and fight against the Canaanites that remained in the land.
God raised up Othniel as the first Judge of the land. A judge is not a ruler, God was the ruler. A judge was the person who would act as intermediary between God and the people. When there were issues, this person would, with the help of God, settle the disputes. The Book of Judges chronicles these leaders of the Israel and include stories of servitude every time the Israelites would turn away from God and worship idols. Then a new judge would be raised up and free them from their servitude and the people would repent for a short time and then start worshiping idols again and repeat the pattern, over and over again.
There are a total of 13 judges over a 470-year period, including 7 periods in which Israel was subjected to servitude to other nations. Some of the names are well known and include Deborah, Gideon, Samson, Eli and Samuel. Many of the judges had to fight to free the people from servitude, Samson being the most famous of these stories. The point for this discussion is that when the people would turn away from God, He would punish them with servitude. He would then raise up a judge to free them and be the spokesman for God. The people struggled to relate to God’s physical presence, as in the days of the cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. Even then, the people looked to Moses and then Joshua as being the leader, not God.
The Judges were used by God to let the people know, even though they are now in the Promised Land, they would be punished if they turned away from God. God used individuals the people could relate to in order to communicate with them. The people still struggled and by the time of the last Judge, Samuel, they asked for a king, like all of the other countries around them (1 Samuel 8:1-9).
United Kingdom
When the people demand a king, Samuel is dismayed. God explains to Samuel that they are not reject Samuel, they are rejecting God, as described in 1 Samuel 8: 7, “And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.” This is a major step in the wrong direction.
God goes on to give them a stern warning of what it means to have a man as their king. In 1 Samuel 8:10-18, God tells them the kind of trouble this will bring. It is valuable to understand what human government will result in, as this is very applicable to our day and age, as it was then.
Here is the list of what a human king will mean to the people.
- He will take your sons for his army (you have no control over your future).
- These people will be made to take from the harvest and make instruments of war (your portion will be less).
- He will take your daughters to be his servants (All people will have to do his bidding, again, you have no control).
- He will take a tenth of your vineyard, flocks, crops and your servants (you will be heavily taxed).
- He will not listen to you when you complain (your voice will not be heard).
Saul
The people wanted a king anyway. God appointed Saul to be the first King of Israel and had Samuel anoint him as such. Saul started off well (1 Samuel 9:15 – 12:25) and he had a few victories in battle before things started to go downhill. Saul’s first big mistake was to take on the role of the priest and make a burnt offering to God because Samuel had not arrived in time to do so before a battle with the Philistines.
The point here is that God wanted the priestly duties separate from the kingly or political duties so that the king would not think he alone could save the people. Saul took on both roles, which did not meet with God’s approval. He was getting a little too big for his britches, so to speak. At that point, Samuel prophesied an end to his kingdom. Saul went on to lose in battle to the Philistines and fell on his own sword.
David
David is the next king to rise. He was the 7th and last of Jesse’s sons and that last one anyone thought would be King. He was a shepherd and musician, not known at the time for being a fighting man. Yet David proved more than worthy in battle. We all know the story of David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17). Goliath, by the way, was an offspring of a Nephilim. See the lesson on the Nephilim for more information. At this point Saul was still king and saw how popular David was and tried to do away with him to stop his rise. When Saul died in battle, David took over and became a very successful warrior king. David did have his issues. The story of Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11) shows how lust and greed got the better of him. David took a married woman into his chamber and then plotted to have her husband killed and made it happen. God was not pleased with David for his behavior and David did the right thing, he repented. God considered David “a man after My own heart” (Acts 13:22).
Yet David was denied the joy of building God a permanent dwelling place, The Temple, in the Holy City Jerusalem (1 Chronicles 17). God said his son, not David would build the temple for God to dwell in. This is similar to the way Moses was kept from entering the Promised Land.
Solomon
David’s son Solomon took over as David was dying. Solomon was not the firstborn son and had to fight with his brother, Adonijah, to keep his crown (1 Kings 2). Solomon was then able to build a glorious temple for God and become known for his great wisdom. He had a thing for the ladies and ended up marrying over 700 of them. Solomon fell into idolatry (1 Kings 11), as he allowed many of his pagan wives to turn him away from the one true God. As a result, God raised up adversaries.
Divided Kingdom
Solomon’s son, Rehoboam was not able to take over a peaceful kingdom. The northern kingdom split off and followed one of those adversaries, Jeroboam. The division was along tribal boundary lines with 10 of the 12 tribes going to the North under Jeroboam and two (Judah and Benjamin) remaining under Rehoboam.
The Northern Kingdom
Jeroboam was an idol worshiping king that started off the Northern Kingdom on the wrong road and it never got better. In all they had 19 kings, all of which did not walk in the ways of the Lord. These are chronicled starting in 1 Kings 11 and ending at the end of 2 Kings.
The Southern Kingdom
There were a total of 20 kings of the Southern Kingdom. They faired a little better than the northern kingdom, but not much. They had 5 kings that walked in the ways of the Lord and god was pleased with. They had 3 that did so some of the time, but not all of the time. They had 12 that were just as bad or worse than any of those in the Northern Kingdom.
Judgement On Both Kingdoms
God passed judgement on the Northern Kingdom (Hosea 13 and Micha 1) and had the Assyrians destroy it in 722 BC (2 Kings 18:9-11). God gave the Southern Kingdom more time, due to the fact they had a few good kings, but they too continued to turn away from God. It was prophesied by Jeremiah (chapter 51) that God would raised up King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon to use him to defeat and put into exile the Southern Kingdom. This came to pass in 606 BC (2 Kings 24)
God punished both kingdoms for turning away and worshiping idols. This led to the next phase under the Law.
Exile
There is much confusion about who entered into the exile and who came out. There are stories of the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel that are simply not true. All 12 tribes entered into the exile and came out of it. There are no 10 lost tribes. Please see the lesson on the Truth About the 10 Lost Tribes for more information.
Babylon first conquered Jerusalem in 606 BC and installed a vassal king and enslaved many people, taking them back to Babylon. When that king rebelled, He defeated them again and replaced him with another vassal king. When it happened again, King Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the city and leveled the Temple, putting an end to the fighting. Each time, he took captives back to Babylon.
Jeremiah predicted a 70-year captivity of the Israelites (Jer. 25:11), which came to pass. This was done as punishment not only for turning away to pagan idols, but also because the Israelites had not followed God’s commandment regarding the rest of the land every 7 years (Leviticus 25:4). They were supposed to let the land rest 1 year every 7 years and they had failed to do so over the preceding 490 years. God made them and the land rest for those 70 sabbath years they had skipped (2 Chron 36:21).
The exile came to a dramatic end 70 years to the day when King Cyrus of the Medo-Persians, who had recently conquered Babylon and taken over the Israelite slaves learned that the Prophet Isaiah had predicted Cyrus’ role by name over 150 years earlier (Isa 44). Cyrus releases the slaves and sends them home with money to help rebuild the temple (Ezra 1). They had served their time and were free to go.
Subjects
Only a little over 50 Israelites returned to their home in Jerusalem. It was a remnant, but it was enough to rebuild. They were initially given permission to return home, then to rebuild the temple (see the book of Ezra) and eventually to rebuild the city and the walls (see the book of Nehemiah). Once that was done, they had a time of peace under the Medo-Persian rule. Although they were freed from captivity, they were still under the rule of the Persians. This is per Nebuchadnezzar’s vision of the statue with the chest and arms of silver (Daniel 2).
Greece
Next up is the third part of Nebuchadnezzar’s vision, the belly and thighs of bronze, or the reign of the Greeks (Daniel 2). Alexander the Great swept through rapidly and defeated all the nations of the known world, including the Persians and their subjects, the Israelites. Daniel had his own vision of the 4 empires, in which the 3rd was that of a leopard, moving swiftly (Daniel 8). This was Alexander and the Greeks. They reigned from about 323 BC until the next empire, the Romans.
Rome
Rome was the next power to rise, and was the 4th part of Nebuchadnezzar’s vision, the legs of iron and the feet of iron mixed with clay (Daniel 2). In Daniel chapter 8, Daniel saw this empire a beast that was not like anything he had seen before. The idiom of the feet of iron mixed with clay represents a weakening, as those two things do not mix well. The clay is easy ot crumble and cause the whole statue to fall down. In that vision, it is the great stone that comes from heaven (Jesus is the rock that covers the earth) that breaks up the feet and causes the whole thing to come crashing down.
Rome takes over from the Greeks in stages and assumes full power in the first century BC. Rome is in power and has control over Jerusalem at the time of Christ and is responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion (Matthew 27).
Summary
Throughout all of these years under the rule of other nations, the Jews continued to cling to their religious system and eventually rebuilt their temple and held services and performed sacrifices. Yet they never really understood what God was wanting of them. In Hosea 6:6 (KJV), God let’s them know, ”For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”
God desires for us to learn about God and realize that we cannot have grace and forgiveness based on our own works. We need God to truly be happy. The Law shows us just how far we are from the perfection that God requires. God’s chosen people, the Israelites continuously show their human nature and their sinfulness, idolatry, pride and selfishness. They fail and stumble over and over again, as the cycle repeats. The good news is our God is patient, loving, gracious and forgiving, and He is about to show us a better way!
