I shared these thoughts at The Ripple Centre in Calgary, Alberta on Saturday, February 12, 2011.
FATHER’S REDEMPTIVE LOVE STORY
The first 39 books of the Bible lay the foundation for the teachings and events found in the final 27 books.
If you are reading any book with 66 chapters and decide to skip over or eliminate the first 39 chapters of that book and just read the last 27 chapters, you will have a hard time understanding the storyline, the characters and the ending. It will be disjointed.
We hear people say things like, “We don’t need the Old Testament anymore because we are New Testament believers.”
Some even go as far as saying all we need are the Epistles to the Churches today because everything else was under the OT and primarily about Israel. Hold that thought.
The Bible is an unfolding revelation of the character and plans of God as a Father in all 66 books from Genesis to Revelation.
There are 433 direct quotations from the Old Testament in the New. It is written appears 73 times.
If you eliminate 75% of the bible, your theology will only be 25% correct. That is not acceptable.
Is the character of God as Father consistent throughout the Bible?
Some contrast what they read in the OT with what they read in the NT and think there are two different versions of God.
Old Testament God? New Testament God? Are they the same?
They don’t know how to reconcile what they read in both testaments. Understand this truth...
“The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed;
the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.”
The Bible is a revelation of Father’s redemptive love for all of humanity.
He carefully crafted, over 1600 years, one book with 66 essential books, and 40 different authors, that invite us into His story.
Yet modern culture pushes back on the Bible with...
The Bible is just a book.
Its hard to understand.
Not for today.
FOUNDATIONAL TRUTH
Let’s begin by viewing scripture as we would a growing child , in a family, through the various stages of life:
Genesis: Conception
Genesis shows God at the center of life. He is humanity’s foundation for living. Without getting this right, we will never get life right.
Jesus said your life is either built on sand or rock. Temporary or eternal.
If sand, then you want life to conform to you.
If rock, then you want life to conform to Christ.
The OT is filled with stories not abstract truths. Characters, names, imperfect people who loved, quarreled, believed and doubted. Marriages and lives that failed often but lives that experienced both sin and Father’s amazing grace and forgiveness.
Adam & Eve - Mankind’s first parents. God could have destroyed because of sin but His grace was freely given as He engaged His plan that enabled them to be restored with dignity.
Father’s restore with dignity.
Human beings are not spectators to life. Whether we acknowledge Him or not, He is still at work in our life.
God is willing to work with whatever we can or want to give Him.
He is merciful and His mercies are new every morning to those who turn from their sin. This pattern is throughout the bible.
God made a covenant promise to one man, Abraham, that in and through him all the families/nations of the earth would be blessed. God loves the world. He fulfilled this promise in Jesus Christ.
As the child grows in the ‘womb of promise’ it takes on people details in the likes of Sarah, Isaac & Rebekah; Jacob & Esau; Rachel; Joseph and his brothers who will become the 10 tribes of Israel.
The bible is not a history story, but the unfolding of Father’s plan to redeem whosoever so they can become part of His forever family.
Genesis is about conception.
Exodus: birth and infancy
The story in Exodus is one that is repeated until the end of scripture is ‘salvation’.
God doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
The scripture makes it clear that God will draw His people out of the mess they are in. He simply asks us to believe Him - that is called faith.
How? That is His to unfold. Our call is to believe.
Isa. 19:1-4.
Modern day Egypt. The linch pin among Muslims nations in the Middle East.
What religious fanatics cannot do through terror, young and old Egyptians have done through peaceful protest.
In times past Israel was living in slavery but God’s plan was to bring them into freedom.
After a long gestation, birth pangs begin.
400 years of painful slavery in Egypt acts like contractions.
The ten plagues bring the travail to completion.
The water breaks at the Red Sea and the ‘People of God’ tumble out on dry ground and begin to learn a new way of life in the wilderness of Sinai.
God feeds them. He loves them and reveals Himself to them as any good parent would to their child.
They learn the new language of freedom - 10 words to begin. The commandments.
God is the Parent and He trains them in family life, worship, prayer, priesthood and construction of the tabernacle.
He is moulding them as His sons and daughters with lessons on the need for trust and obedience. Today we call that faith.
Remember I said, “Hold that thought.”
Don’t lose how Father originally trained His children.
Exodus is about birth and infancy.
Leviticus: schooling
Leviticus reminds us that we are always trying to domesticate God. It is why various regions of the world love ‘their brand’ of religion.
God cannot be fit into our plans, we must fit into His.
He reveals Himself as holy which disqualifies every other god.
This is a period in Israel’s history, a timeout, where they went to Bible School and were trained on how to be in relationship with God and each other.
Canaan, the promised land is coming and with it all types of religions and teachings. They need to know the way, the truth and the life they share together as God’s people.
Every little detail shows how Father is present in virtually every part of their lives.
The sacrifices show us the way out of sin and the way in to His holy presence. The apostle Paul calls this type of life ‘being a living sacrifice’.
Their curriculum is about growing in their relationship with God.
When their relationship is broken, God calls it sin. We try to call it something else but He calls it sin.
They are taught about the consequences of sin and the need for a substitutionary sacrifice that He has outlined for them.
Numbers: adolescence
THINKING. A precious gift God gives each of us that we alone control. We are where we are today because of the information we have processed from our parents, our peers and the professionals in our life. “As a man thinks, so is he.”
Numbers is going from individualism to community life.
This part is really messy as people are added to our lives. Spouse, children, neighbours, friends, co-workers, strangers etc. Community requires real work.
In Numbers we learn that you can’t be a Christian alone.
That is being spirituality divorced from reality. God brings others into our lives to show us ourselves and to grow us up.
Ever blame others when things didn’t go your way?
We need lots of help learning to live by faith and sacrificial love.
Father provides organizational help as Israel grew numerically. He gave them leaders, assignments, accountability.
He showed them their need to learn to pray first, seek His will then act justly with one another.
We need relational help. Why? Because we quarrel, grumble, rebel, fornicate, steal, gossip. You name it, we do it.
Becoming the People of God is not easy.
At this stage the People of God make lots of mistakes and start learning some serious lessons.
They push back against the only Father they know - God.
Maturity for them is not about amputation of their past but integration of all that has been invested in them since birth.
It takes them 40 years in the wilderness to wrestle with growing up and even in this they fail miserably.
There are always consequences, but Father loves them and He keeps working in the midst of the mess called life.
Numbers is adolescence.
Deuteronomy: adults
Maturity is complex. It takes time to know and grow in God.
At this stage, they will, as free men and women, finally enter the Promised Land.
They are now ready to grow up, to mature. They are identified as God’s holy people. His remnant.
This period is about a loving Father, leading His people, into His eternal purposes which will eventually include our generation and those of our children and grandchildren.
He watches over them and protects them as every good parent does their children.
He has their best interests at heart.
All this is foundational to knowing the Father heart of God we serve.
In the next 61 books, we anticipate, with excitement, the outworking of Father’s plan that all the families of the earth will be blessed through the covenant promise He gave to one man, Abraham and was fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
He promised a Messiah and seals it with over 300 prophecies in those 39 chapters.
What to look for? Where He will be born? What He will do and say? How He will die and why? That He will be raised to life and ascend into heaven ahead of us.
If we are ignorant of the OT, then we will not understand all God has done to train us to be His People.
The OT enables us to understand the coming Messiah and how important Jesus is in Father’s plan.
If we are ignorant of the OT, we say so what? Jesus, a good teacher maybe. What does that have to do with my life today?
Yet the Bible says this to us...
“Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another - showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way.”
2 Timothy 3:16
So far so good...God has spoken creation into being; laid the foundations for a life of faith; saved a people from extinction and slavery; started shaping and moulding them into His people.
From Joshua to Malachi they will see the graciousness of their heavenly Father to them while undeserving. They will do their thing and He will not forsake them; He will show them that Gentiles like Rahab and Ruth have a part in His plan; the books of wisdom remind us how dumb we really are and how His ways are always higher than ours; the prophets will bring us face to face with the living God, judgment and hope.
God’s character is ALWAYS BEING questioned.
WHAT ABOUT the drowning of ‘innocent’ people in the Flood?
Noah took almost 100 years to build the ark and during all that time God saw him as a preacher of righteousness.
The people listened, laughed and rejected the message he shared. What was Father’s reaction after 100 years?
“Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Genesis 6:5
Was God’s mercy not present for everyone 100 years before judgment?
Did He spare Noah’s family because they chose to obey and follow His commands? Yes!
Would He have spared any family that chose to obey Him? Yes!
God’s character is questioned and He is accused of destroying Sodom and Gomorrah.
Genesis 13 shows the wickedness of these cities long before judgment comes and says it this way...
“Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.”
In the midst of all this there are righteousness men and women who choose to serve the Lord.
God is seen blessing the land as Abraham and Lot dwell in the region. Common grace for all.
War breaks out and Lot is taken in battle.
Abraham takes up arms and brings him back.
We are introduced to Melchizedek, a priest of God Most High in the region of Sodom. He is seen bringing out bread and wine from Sodom along with the King.
Melchizedek blesses Abraham.
Abraham gives him a tithe, 10% of his belongings as a gesture of worship to God.
Do you think the people of Sodom were exposed to God’s truth through these men?
Genesis shows total depravity has taken hold as the men of the city want to have sex with the two visitors at Lot’s house as night falls. Scripture says they are angels in human form.
“But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may ‘know’ them.” Genesis 19:4-5
These few stories are authenticated in the New Testament book of 2 Peter this way...
“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;
if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;
if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;
and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard);
then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment,
and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.” 2 Peter 2:6
God’s character is questioned BUT HE IS ALWAYS CONSISTENT
He is EVEN accused of evicting the Canaanites as Israel enters the Promised Land.
“Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the LORD your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” Deuteronomy 9:5
God is providing protection.
Dt 18 A chapter on forbidden spiritualism that the pagans were indulging in. “But as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do this.”
Israel chose to disobey God.
They did not destroy the peoples, as the LORD commanded them, but they mixed with the nations and learned to do as they did. They served their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons; they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood. Thus they became unclean by their acts, and played the whore in their deeds. Psalm 106:34-39
God is merciful, all the time.
All the time, God is merciful.
The only ones saved in Jericho were the prostitute Rahab and her household.
This is an interesting point in that Rahab knew of Israel’s victories and the blessings of God upon the nation.
If she knew of Israel’s fame, then it is reasonable to assume the rest of the city knew it as well.
God is working to fulfill His promise to Abraham so He must serve and protect him and his seed after him which has now become the People of God - Israel.
On the surface it looks horrible but Father knows best.
“Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’” " 1 Sam. 15:3
Only a complete removal would do, with even the animals needing to be killed, due to the practice of bestiality which Israel was forbidden to do.
Although God commanded Saul to completely destroy the Amalekites, he disobeyed and did not completely do as he was told.
Some were allowed to live, an outcome that ultimately resulted in another attempt of genocide upon Israel while in Babylon under captivity. Modern day Iran but then Persia.
Human beings, in our pride, think we know better than God who alone sees the end from the beginning.
The book of Esther records that a man named Haman – who was of Amalek descent – tried to have all the Jews killed in the land of Persia, but he was ultimately stopped by Queen Esther.
What if every Jew had been killed? Then the promise made to Abraham and his seed would have perished.
Father always has sons and daughters willing to obey Him and walk in His ways.
In all these instances, every person capable of making a moral decision was accountable for their own decision.
The children who perished, unable to make moral decisions, will find themselves in Father’s Presence.
If allowed to grow up they would have been corrupted by their immoral parents and culture and thus be judged as sinners worthy of separation from God.
Fathers, mothers, your responsibility before God is to raise your sons and daughters to put Him first in everything and to model that in all you do.
The lessons of scripture - it’s not over till it’s over.
Your children will eventually do what you do, not what you say.
HOLD THAT THOUGHT - Our Jewish Roots are long forgotten.
Because we fail to read the whole Bible as Father’s Story, we have lost some key building blocks to becoming His forever family.
The Jews, known as the People of the Book possessed reverence and love for the Torah as their way of living life together.
The Jews, as parents, began teaching their children to read at home by using the Torah. They committed it to memory. By 13 they would be proficient in the Torah to guide their life in community.
No wonder on the Day of Pentecost there were leaders prepared and ready to serve the ingathering of souls.
The Jewish men were responsible before God to teach and explain the Word to their children in the context of community life.
We’ve lost the emphasis of home life being the place where we practice and pass on the faith once delivered to the saints.
We are called to teach our children diligently by including them in the weekly sabbath - father leading the family in worship, thanksgiving, blessing, praying over his wife and children, mother lighting the candles and thanking God for His gift of rest and provision.
They would attend and celebrate the feasts, those things that strengthened the home and family and developed potential leaders in the community.
Why was this important? Father is building a forever family.
These are some of the things we have lost which make modern church life so challenging because we all have a big, fat, Greek mindset. Individualism. Intellect over faith. Compartmentalize life.
Where you and I as parents put our priorities, is what we are really teaching our children.
Israel is in the formation stage OF BECOMING HIS FAMILY IN THE EARTH
They are slowly becoming His people in the Promise Land.
God made a promise to Abraham that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed.
Israel, as a people, was protected because God was entrusting her to bring forth His Word and ultimately His Messiah.
For the entire world to be saved, Israel’s survival was essential.
This is where we see His sovereignty in full force.
He gave Israel a special measure of protection in the establishing of the land of Canaan.
This is consistent with His character.
Israel was developing but still very immature, they had a new God given religious system, they needed to be sheltered from the idolatry of the Canaanite nations around them who would have corrupted the true worship of God and garbled its message to the rest of the world.
When Israel rebelled, God applied justice through Assyria and Babylon to bring her back to Himself.
Israel became the prodigal son.
God’s justice and punishment on sin, whether inside Israel or amongst the pagan nations is necessary to show His love for all.
Punishment is not out of character with His mercy and love.
If God let evil do as evil does, then we would consider Him to be unrighteous and uncaring.
He is a righteous judge. He will punish the unrepentant and the wicked. This is consistent throughout the scriptures.
The very last book in the Bible called Revelation shows God’s judgment on the sheep and goat nations in how they treated Israel as well as upon those who have rejected Him.
It leaves Him no choice but to reject them.
God, throughout scripture, reached out to sinful nations, gave them grace or time to repent. He is a consistent Father.
The prophet Jonah and the city of Nineveh are fine examples of the chance to repent even though their deeds were wicked.
The gospel is not fair, it is free!!
Repentance protects you from wrath.
He is consistent.
He will forgive you if you repent.
It is true that the Bible talks about stories that contains graphic examples of sin, evil, and death.
But it also includes the overarching grand story of love, redemption, and grace. The gospel is the greatest story every told and all God desires is for you to Enter His Story.
So many in our churches are ignorant about the consistency of God revealed from Genesis to Malachi and from Matthew to Revelation.
Isaiah sums it up this way...
My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. Isaiah 26:9
Is the character of God consistent throughout the Bible?
Answer: YES!
Isaiah 19:17 - 24 Let us stand in awe of God our Father. He is at work and He is calling us to work with Him.
Where are you living outside His will?
Remember, what was an accepted and tolerated and sometime even celebrated lifestyle amongst the pagan nations was unacceptable to God and forbidden in His people.
I want to be like Noah today, as a preacher of righteousness, and plead with you to repent.
I want to be like Abraham today, and intercede on your behalf.
I want to be like Jesus and remind you that the character of God is as one who is a Father to the fatherless and consistent from Genesis to Revelation.
