You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Welcome to the broadcast ministry of Finding Purpose with Russ Andrews, where we seek to glorify God by making Him known and guiding others towards their true purpose in life.
No one is here by chance. God put us here for a reason. And the most important thing we can do is discover His plan for us and commit ourselves to it.
Keep listening as we learn from the Bible how to live wisely in God's Word, which is the first step towards finding your purpose. Tonight's message is entitled, The Story of Israel. I think that Israel's history is the most interesting and greatest history of any nation that's ever existed. And it's amazing that tiny little strip of land that God gave to them 3000 years ago, and they're still there.
So anyway, the time is about 6 30 a.m. October 7, 2023. You may remember that day. The place is the border between Israel and Gaza. So what exactly happened? Well, somewhere between 3000 and 6000 Islamic inspired terrorists invaded Israel by land, sea and air. Hamas announced that it was the Operation Al-Asq Flood.
The Al-Asq Flood. Al-Asq is the name of the Muslim mosque that sits on top of the Dome of the Rock. When you look at Jerusalem and you see that bright, shiny gold dome, that is the Al-Asq mosque and that's the Dome of the Rock.
The Dome of the Rock, actually the mosque is right beside that, but the Dome of the Rock is where you see that gold, you know, top. So the Dome of the Rock is where the first temple was built by King Solomon around 957 B.C. and later it was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.
and we're going to talk about that later this year. It's also the place where the second temple was built around 516 B.C. and it was later expanded by King Herod during the early part of the first century. And that temple was destroyed when? 70 A.D. See, the Jews who live in Israel today, October 7th, 2023, will be a day which will live in infamy, just like someone said when we got struck at Pearl Harbor. It's a day, for them it was a day of disgrace and dishonor. It was truly a flood of terror, murder, rape, beheadings. Families were literally, guys, tied together in a tree. I saw a family of five and they were burned alive, burned to death. They also kidnapped 240 men, women and children, including innocent babies. It was the worst evil perpetrated against the Jews since the Holocaust. So here's my question.
If the Jews were God's chosen people, why has God allowed them to be persecuted so severely time and time again, going back 3,000 years to the beginning when they were enslaved in the country of Egypt under an evil dictator called Pharaoh? Why? Don't you wonder why? We're going to learn about that. This brings us to the story of Israel, which it begins, guys, this story begins with the calling of a man by the name of Abram. And one thing that I want you to notice all through tonight's lecture is God is in the business of calling a man.
Are you that man? And if you heed the call, he will use you to do great things. The time is approximately 2000 B.C. The place is Ur of the Chaldeans, located near the Euphrates River, which is in southern, modern southern Iraq. And so to see what happened, you can turn to Genesis 12. So the Lord, he came to Abram. His name will be changed to Abraham. And he said, I want you to leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. And what did Abraham do? He obeyed. Hebrews 11 says, by faith, Abraham would call to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
Would you be willing to do that? So why did God call Abram to pick up and leave everything, his home, his family, his land and set up for some distant country? I'll tell you why. God's purpose was to bring forth from his lineage the savior of the world. So this is all part of God's plan. And listen, it was in God's mind even before he created the world. But you see, first, God had to form a nation. Genesis 12, 2 says, And I will make you, talking to Abraham, I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you. And so to do this, God had to give Abraham some sons, which God promised to do in Genesis 15, verse one. Remember, he was married to Sarah. She was barren.
She had a concubine named Hagar. And I'm not getting all that because it takes too much time, but you can read that in Genesis. But look at what God said in Genesis 15, 1. Again, he's going to give them the land. He said, he's going to give them the descendants. The Lord took Abraham outside and said, Look up at the heavens and count the stars, if indeed you can count them.
Then he said to him, again, at this point, he had no children. He said, So shall your offspring be? So God blessed Abraham with a son and named him Isaac. And later God gave Isaac a son named Jacob. And in Genesis 32, 28, the Lord changes Jacob's name to what? Israel, which means it means one who struggles with God. Has Israel struggled with God? Haven't we all?
Yes. And this is what Jacob and this is what Israel did. And we're going to learn about this in Hosea. They struggle with God rather than simply obeying him.
It's so much easier if you obey him. So God blessed Jacob with 12 sons who would form the 12 tribes of Israel. And you can see the list right here. In order of birth, the sons were Reuben, Simeon, Levi, that's all the priests came from the line of Levi, Judah, Zebulun, Issachar, Dan, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Joseph, and finally, Benjamin. Do you know where Benjamin was born? Where am I from? He was born between Bethel and Bethlehem. That's why God's got me here because I was born in Bethel.
I'm kidding. But I want you to know that two of these two Jacob sons, in addition to Levi, were very special. Who would they be?
Judah and Joseph. And I want to just take a brief look at them and understand how they intertwine into God's divine plan. See, when you look at the world, you can see that God has a plan. If you read the Bible and look at the news, God is sovereign and he's making sure that his providential plan unfolds according to his timetable. That's why I don't worry about word events. I'm not worried about, I mean, I had a preference for if I want to be president, but I wasn't gonna lose a lot of sleep over it.
Maybe I would have, but I'm not now. It's very important. In the Bible, when men would come to the end of their lives, they would call their sons before them one by one and they would utter a prophetic blessing or curse over them. And so at the end of Jacob's life, he calls all 12 of those sons to march before him one by one and he utters a prophetic blessing over them or curse. Now, I want you to see in Genesis 49 verse 10. This is one of the most amazing prophecies in the entire Old Testament and it's because Judah stands before him.
And I'm just gonna read, you should read verses 9 through 11, but listen to verse 10. The scepter, what's a scepter? Who holds a scepter?
The king. The scepter will not depart from Judah nor the rule of staff from between his feet until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his. Do you think Judah had any idea what's been said over him?
It was close. I'm not sure Jacob did. But anyway, in Jacob's blessing of Judah, the Lord, what he's foretelling the coming of the Messiah, the Savior of the world, the anointed one who would come forth from the line of Judah. He'd also come from the line of Abraham and Isaac. You can see all this in Matthew 1 or Luke 3. And this king that would come from Judah's line would rule the nations. Are we there yet?
Nope. But that's coming. That's in Revelation. Now, let's look at Joseph. His life is fascinating.
I wish we had time to go into detail, but we don't. But throughout Genesis, we learned that Joseph, his brothers were jealous of him because his father showed favoritism and gave him a coat of many colors. And so they were ready to get rid of him. So they took advantage of it one day and they killed an animal, a lion.
They took the blood, put it on his colored coat. They sold him to a group of Ishmaelites who were traveling through Canaan headed towards Egypt. And so Joseph, and they go back and tell Jacob, who's Israel, Joseph was killed by a lion. And of course he was heartbroken because that was his favorite son. But anyway, Joseph ends up being sold to Potiphar, who is one of Pharaoh's officials in Egypt.
And through a series of incredible ups and downs, you can see the hand of God work. Joseph ends up in prison and later by his God-given ability to discern and explain dreams. Pharaoh has some very troubling dreams and he learns about Joseph and he calls him to come out of the prison.
They clean him up. He comes and stands before Pharaoh and he tells him what the dreams were. And then Joseph prays and explains what the dreams meant. And his was Joseph's interpretation. He told Pharaoh that God was getting ready to send seven good years upon the land of Egypt followed by seven years of terrible famine. And this famine would affect the entire region, including the land of Canaan where Jacob and his eleven sons were living. And so Joseph also told him what to do.
He gave him a plan. And when Pharaoh saw how smart he was, what do you do with him? He raised him up to number two in all of Egypt, subject only to him. Now when this famine hits, Jacob, you know, again, is back in Canaan, Israel with eleven sons and their family has grown to about seventy. And through, again, a series of ups and downs and miracles, they find out that Joseph and Egypt, and of course, Jacob wants to see his long lost son. So Joseph brings them down, gives them the land of Goshen where they can have their flocks and take care of them and he protects them. And then over the course of time, Jacob dies.
His bones are taken back to Canaan where he's buried, which I think is symbolic of the fact that he was claiming that land because he knew that God had promised it to Abraham and Isaac and to him. And then over the course of a generation, Joseph and his brothers died and that entire generation died. And then the remaining Israelites, if you read the text, they were like rabbits. They multiplied and they became so numerous that the, and there was a new sheriff in town, a new Pharaoh. He didn't know anything about Joseph.
He didn't know the history of Joseph and all that. And they've been there at this point 400 years and they were probably around a million. And so he was afraid that they would take over. So he enslaved them and he put taskmasters over them.
And so they lived in bondage again for 400 years. At the end of that 40 years, it was time for God to raise another man. Who was that man? Moses. Moses. Heard of Moses before?
Yeah. The time is approximately 1450 BC. The place is the region of Midian, which is located somewhere in today, what is Western Saudi Arabia. That's where Midian they think is located. And that's where Moses was living because he had run away from Pharaoh.
You have to read about all that. And he met his first wife there and he was working for his father-in-law. And so he's living out in the desert.
And so what happened? Well, the angel of the Lord, I think this might be in Exodus 3, spoke to Moses from a burning bush. That's right. Now who was the, Jeff, who was the angel of the Lord? The pre-incarnate Christ. Did y'all know that? So this is called a theophany or a Christophany.
Did y'all know this? Whenever, so you got the Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, God the Father Spirit, Holy Spirit of Spirit, whenever the Godhead God, the one God we worship, appears in the flesh, he always appears in the second person of the Trinity, who is the Son. So when God walked with Adam in the garden, who do you think it was? It was the pre-incarnate Christ. It was Christ before he came to earth and became Jesus. And when you read through the Old Testament and you see it says the angel of the Lord appeared, it's usually, it could be an angel, but more likely than not, it's the pre-incarnate Christ. And that's who's appeared to Moses here in the bush.
And listen to what he says. This is again, the pre-incarnate Christ speaking. I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.
Look at the heart of God here. I've indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I've heard them crying out because of their slave drivers and I'm concerned about their suffering. So I've come down to rescue them from the land of the Egyptians and to bring them out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the home of the Canaanites. So now I'm sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.
Question. Do you know why he gave them the land of the Canaanites? Do you know what the Canaanites were doing?
They were also known as Amorites. God, they were doing, they were sacrificing their children to these false gods. They were burning their children alive. They were worshipping false gods. And they did it for 400 years. And God said, enough. So he took their land. Who owns that land?
God. And he gave it to the children of Abraham. And that's why they got the land in Canaan. So now I'm sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt. When God, when Moses, I love this right here, when God, when Moses asked God, who shall I say is sending me? God replied, I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites.
I am has sent me to you. Do you remember when Jesus was talking to the Pharisees and they were questioning, he said before Abraham was, I am, he's calling himself God. He called himself, I was the guy in the bush. So just like Abraham, Moses obeyed God and he would go into lead Israelites through the desert for 40 years.
There's another story that causes this. Until it's time to pass the baton to another man who's called General Joshua. So Moses, God did not allow him to enter the promised land. So he takes them to the edge.
They had wandered for 40 years. And then he gives the command to Joshua. And then Joshua, over the course of time, they begin with Jericho and then they begin to attack and destroy. They were supposed to destroy everybody, but they didn't. They didn't obey God completely. They destroyed most of the people who lived in Canaan. And then Joshua divided the land among the 12 tribes of Israel.
Now they supported to note right here that these tribes changed slightly. The Levites, of course, you may know this, they did not get a portion of land because their portion was who? God. And they were to serve God in the temple. They didn't have land. They served God. He was their possession. And then at Jacob's death, he actually gave Joseph a double portion. Remember, he loved Joseph. By adopting his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. So Joseph and Lotman went to his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. So when you see a map today and you see Manasseh and Ephraim and not Joseph, that's why.
You understand? And this brings us to the next period of God's sovereign plan. He raised up what? Judges. So we have the time of the judges and the time period is from about 1390.
These numbers could be off about 40 years, but it's close. 1390 to 1095 BC and the Israelites were ruled by judges such as, can y'all name a couple of them? You got them in there. Ahniel, Deborah, everybody's familiar with Gideon and Samson until it's time for another man. Again, I want you to notice again that God is in the habit of calling a man to do something great. And this time he calls, Samuel was the last of the judges and he was considered the greatest judge. He was also a prophet and a priest. So he's really prefiguring Christ, who was prophet, king and priest, even though he was not a king. So that's not totally right.
Forget that. By the time is approximately 1095 BC. And the place is the territory of Benjamin, which is just north of Jerusalem. And so, Samuel's main purpose, all you need to remember, is he was going to establish the monarchy, the kingship for Israel. All the enemies surrounding Israel had kings.
Who was Israel's king? And what was their problem with God? They rejected him. They rejected God and they wanted their own king. God even tells Samuel, he says, Samuel, it's not you they're rejecting, it's me. So Samuel appoints Saul, who stood, he was tall, he was good looking.
He stood head above the crowd. And that's what people look for. They look at the outside appearance. What's God look for?
The inward heart. And so Saul becomes the first king of the United Kingdom of Israel. And this is where this chart right here, you should always have this handy this year, when you've got Hosea open and you're looking at first and second Kings. I've been looking at this chart for 40 years.
I got it in BSF when I was 30 years old. And so I've had memorized it, but I've got it in my mind pretty clearly. And when you read through first and second Kings, it's very confusing.
If you don't have this chart, you'll be lost. So Saul disobeyed God. So God rejected Saul. So now he sends Samuel to the town of what Bethlehem to go visit Jesse, because Jesse had, I think it was eight sons. Is that right, Jeff?
Eight, seven or eight. And he's going there to anoint, not the oldest seven, but the youngest who was just a shepherd boy. His name was what? David. David would become as you probably know, the greatest King in the history of Israel and establish Israel as a powerful nation. And was David a perfect man?
No. But David loved the Lord. And he was an obedient servant 90% of the time. Listen to what God says about David in Acts 13, 22. After removing Saul, the Lord made David their King. He testified concerning him. I have found David, son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, for he will do everything I want him to do. Would you like for God to say that about you? So David accomplished many great things. As you know, he defeated Goliath when he was a teenager. He wanted to become a great warrior, but like so many great men in the Bible, he had a mighty fall because he had a problem with what? The skin, the heart.
Specifically. The eyes. The eyes, lust.
I know none of y'all struggle with that. So he saw Beth. She, one night she was looking good. He was not where he should have been. He should have been off at war. So in his, her husband Uriah was off.
He was supposed to be fighting. So he called Bathsheba over. If you're a woman or anybody, you obey the King. So she did. And she got pregnant. David had Uriah murdered.
But you know, it's amazing God's mercy. Bathsheba later became his wife and born with son by the name of Solomon. King Solomon times approximately 1015 BC. The place is Israel. Listen, here's where the, this guy's Solomon really, it starts with David, but it multiplies.
It's like throwing fuel in the fire. The problem with why, the reason why Israel collapsed is because of Solomon. Did y'all know that? Yeah. King David had at least eight wives and 10 concubines. Is that probably too many?
Yeah. Well, Solomon took David's sin to another level. He had 700 wives and most of them were from the enemy countries around them. And he had 300 concubines.
That's a thousand women. Do you think he was tired? You may recall that in Mount Sinai, I'm taking you back, when Moses brought them out of Egypt and they went to Mount Sinai, God gave them the law, the 10 commandments. I want you to listen to what he told Moses to tell the people. He gave the law, which was to give the Israelites a chance to obey God. If they had obeyed God, what would God have done for the Israelites? He would have blessed them and they would have had life. Remember he said, choose life or choose death. That's the option we have.
Choose life or choose death. In Deuteronomy chapter seven, Moses lays out the will of God for his people as they prepare to enter the promised land, because he wanted to go in there and give them the land and bless them and they would prosper. Look at verse seven. When the Lord your God brings you into the land, again, Moses is speaking to the Israelites. You are entering to possess and drive out before you many nations, the Hittites, the Gergeshites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you. Is Israel always fighting nations, bigger and stronger?
Yes. And when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you've defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy. Who's given these instructions to them?
God. Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods. And the Lord's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. This is what you are to do to them.
Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their ash repose and burn their idols in the fire. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you, listen to this, has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. Did you know that when you're born again and God's spirit endures your spirit, you become God's treasured possession? Did you know that? And you can call him Abba, Father, and you become his son?
You become Jesus' brother? But the Israelites, as you read through the Bible, they were a stubborn and obstinate people. Now look at 1 Kings 11.
So this is where we really see the problem. King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter. Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians. By the way, that's where Jezebel came from, Sidonia, Sidon, and Hittites.
They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, you must not intermarry with them because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods. Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had 700 wives of royal birth and 300 concubines and his wives led him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God. It is the heart of David his father had been.
He followed Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech, the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord. He did not follow the Lord completely as David his father had done. Do you think that God loved David?
Yes. On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Kimmash. We're going to learn about all these different false gods. The detestable god of Moab and for Molech, the detestable god of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods.
So what happened? God was angry. He was angry because of Solomon's egregious sins against God who defiled the land. So he defiled the land with the altars built to these false gods. God had no choice but to judge the nation and he divided it in two.
He just split the nation apart. However, he promised, listen to this, he promised not to do it in Solomon's lifetime in honor of David. That shows how much God loved David. Thus at the time of Solomon's death, a rebellion ensued led by Jeroboam. If you look at the top of this right here, you'll see Jeroboam and you see Rehoboam. Rehoboam was Solomon's son. Jeroboam was one of Solomon's officials. And Rehoboam quickly was established as the king of the entire nation of Israel, but Jeroboam rebelled against them. And so they went to war almost. When Rehoboam heard that Jeroboam had rebelled against, against really God, and he was rebelling against Rehoboam and the southern kingdom. Rehoboam mustered up 180,000 fighting men to make war against their northern brothers. But God appeared to him, not appeared, but the warlord came to him through this godly man named Shemaiah who warned Rehoboam, king of Judah, not to fight against his brothers, the Israelites.
So they went back home in obedience to the word of God. And this is when the divided kingdom against men, you've got, this is 975 BC. You see the top of that chart, the places Israel is in the northern kingdom and they had 10 tribes. And then you've got the southern kingdom, which is basically around Jerusalem and below, and that's called Judah.
It includes the tribe of Benjamin, just two tribes. In other words, God ripped 10 tribes away from the whole kingdom and he gave them to Jeroboam. Was Jeroboam good? He was evil.
He was so evil. He built golden calves. Remember Aaron made a golden calf when they were in the desert? Well, that's exactly what Jeroboam was doing. He built a golden calf and placed them in, I hate to admit this, Bethel and Dan, one in the north, one in the south. Do you know why he did that? So the Israelites will not go down to Jerusalem and worship God there. And here's the other thing he did.
He built shrines on high places and he appointed priests from all sorts of people, not the sons of the descendants of Aaron, but just anybody. In 2 Kings, you will see on this chart right here, there are 19 kings. And if you look on the left, I think remember what's 39 minus 18? 21. Okay.
There should be 21 over here and 19 over here. There are 18 kings that followed Jeroboam. Every single one was evil and they get so evil.
Why don't you get to Ahab? So they became so evil. I'm talking about in the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom, they began sacrificing their sons to the god Moloch in Baal. They would burn them to death alive. Do we do anything like that in America?
Yes, it's called abortion. Enough said. By the way, you're going to say that I correlate, well not me, Hosea, if he were alive today, I believe he could write the same 14 chapters to our country.
And I hate to have to say that, but that's the way I see it. So now we come, it's 175 years past, and there's a new king by the name of Jeroboam II. And he's just like Jeroboam, who he's named after. And this is when God calls another man by the name of Hosea. And God gives Hosea a very difficult, and I'm almost done here, a very difficult assignment both personally and prophetically. You'll see this this week when you read Hosea chapter 1. But let me just read the first two verses here. See it in your outline, Hosea 1, 2, and 3. When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing for the Lord.
So he married Gomer, who was an adulterous woman, and he began to have children with her, three children. And we're going to see that their names have a prophetic meaning. And we'll pick up with that next week. But the time here is like 780 BC. It's during the reign of Jeroboam II.
The place is the northern kingdom of Israel. And that's what we're going to pick up next week. But right now, the time is, what's in your outline? 810.
I'm fine. It's header time. 815 p.m. January 14th, 2024. And where are we? 25.
Yeah, I got that wrong. 1312 Annapolis Drive, right here. Why are we here? Because God put us here.
He did. Do you think you're here just by accident? No. You've been listening to Finding Purpose with Russ Andrews. This broadcast is made possible because of the prayers and financial gifts of listeners like you. If you want to learn more about our ministry or support us as we reach others with God-centered Bible teaching, please visit us at findingpurpose.net. This is the Truth Network.
