History I: Old Testament History

The three things that we're looking at when we go to study are language, history, and culture. And we spent the last three weeks looking at language. And we're going to spend the next two weeks looking at history, and then the following two weeks looking at culture. Kind of dividing it up into New and Old Testament history and culture. But this morning, Old Testament history. Before we go, does anybody have any prayer requests? Anything, praises or anything? No? Alright. Government. Government, yeah.

Well that's probably not a praise though. Prayer. That's a prayer, yes. After we said we were going to have to pray for that, we know that God didn't know what he was doing. He allowed this. Right. Absolutely. So this is kind of a present we need. Alright, well I'll pray real quick and then we'll look at some Old Testament history.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that we can come together and just enjoy fellowship and enjoy learning about you, understanding what you've done throughout time, throughout history, and what you have in store for us. We thank you for our country, for one. I mean, we do have the ability to meet freely and worship you and learn about you, which is a good thing.

But at the same time, I think we're all a little bit timid about what's going on right now. But as Bud said here, you let it happen. So you know what's going to happen and you know you're in control and we just need to rest in that. But at the same time we just pray that we could still live in a godly country and things that please you would be done. But know that you're in control. Anyway, we just thank you for our time together and Amen. Can we talk about that for a minute, the election? Sure, what do you want to talk about? Talk about what's happening to the country. Okay.

They're taking Christ out. uh... chaplains of the military today cannot pray in Jesus' name. Really? Anytime they pray in Jesus' name. Well, as a matter of fact, one of them was 16 years top chaplain in the Navy and he refused to stop using in Jesus' name when he prayed. They kicked him out of the Navy after 16 years. He lost his retirement. Wow.

Today at West Point, not West Point, but the Naval Academy, They used to open every meal with prayer, but they no longer can do that. Can't bow your head, nothing like that. You don't see any kids taking Bible to school. They don't teach anything about anything like that there in school. However, they do have special accommodations for Muslims. Special places where they can go and do their bit, and all that. But Christians, no, no, get out.

And that's what I think is happening to our country. Well, I see this in the reflection of the Book of Judges. That's right. We want all this stuff that they've got going on, and we're not opposing it as Christians. We're in the minority, and that's the law of the land. And this is what God is allowing to happen to us. for that purpose. For happy or unhappy about it, that depends on where our standing is. God sees what we're doing, what the leaders of our country are doing.

And says, okay, we'll take our hands off. Because the powers that be are ordained to God. So, yeah, we ask for it. All right, what do you think? That's what's happening. Well, interesting enough, we'll look at judges a little bit this morning. So it's not that bad of a fit. When you share those things with you, that's what's happening in the country today.

Taking Christ out. It's just terrible. I could just sit here and cry. I mean, what can we do about it? You do what you're doing here this morning. You still continue to meet, you still continue to serve and find the opportunities outside of the church to teach others as well if it's there. That's exactly right. The day is late. But see, they also know that if you take God out of the schools, which they did, and then you take him out of the military as you're talking about, that's less and less people that will have faith and will have mature faith.

And so this is a progressive thing. And the opposite of that is called revival. Without some kind of revival in this country in the near future, I think it's just going to continue, and it's probably going to continue at an exponential rate. Well, I think it's leading up to the last days. Yeah. We'll have underground Bible study. You know, maybe we won't even be able to have study anymore. That's a good possibility.

I mean, if they take that out of everything else, why wouldn't they end up having to take him out of the church as well? That would be the last step. Their foundation on taking it out of the public entities, though, is that it's unconstitutional to support one religion over another. So I don't know if they could go that far on the same basis that they're using. But you never know.

They could, but it's not easy to do. But then what you do is you take the tax deductible money and you make that illegal, and so then how many churches can survive if the people aren't donating money to the church? There's other ways to get at the church other than to remove God directly, so. I think yesterday they took a constitution separation of church and state.

Right. Well, they misconstrued it completely. What it means is you won't have one particular church. Right. Like the Church of England. That's what they were protected against. but they can chew that different. Yeah. Twisted. It's true. Sorry. No, no. It's all yours. That's OK. That's OK. Don't worry about it. It's an interesting topic and maybe we can weave it into a little bit of what we're looking at this morning. Sorry, I came to this last morning. No, no, no. You invited me. So it's Bud's fault. It's your fault.

Well, let's hop into this Old Testament history, the top of page 23. Like I opened up with, we spent three weeks on language, we're going to spend two weeks on history, and two weeks on culture. So how to study the Bible, language, history, culture, and these next two weeks are going to be history. So let's see here. The top of the page there.

God is not subject to time nor his knowledge and ability to act limited by time. But history matters in the Bible. So why do we care about history when we dig into studying the Bible? It helps us to understand it if we know the condition that's going on at that particular moment in time.

Okay. Okay, that's it. Absolutely. Absolutely. There's an old saying that if you don't understand history, you're bound to repeat it. Yep. So there's that. There's the history repeating itself, which maybe we're talking about a little bit right now with, you know, what you guys are saying with the nation. Even if we know history, it repeats itself because we're just not learning. I mean, we keep making the same thing over and over again. Sure. Well, that was the reason for the judges having to have a better system. Yeah, you want to talk about history repeating itself, but look at the judges and you'll just go, man, they screwed it up like 20 times in a row.

But history is going somewhere. History has a starting point and it's going somewhere. God isn't surprised. Where is it going? To hell. Well, it's going there or somewhere else, right. Where your standpoint in history goes is contingent upon your belief. Acceptance. Right. But it's easy to be swayed. So, you know, a lot of people will be swayed by some fellow that thinks he's God or he's just about. So people are very easily fooled. So that's the problem.

But next point there is sequence matters. One event follows another. Things that you see throughout scripture like genealogies, which are included in both the Old and New Testament, are about which person came from before another. So sequence matters. If David came before Moses, the Bible would be confusing. If Christ came before David, it would be even more confusing because it wouldn't make sense. So sequence matters. The order in which things happen is important.

That's why I've heard said that the Bible is a history book. You have history of the past, present, and future. It is a history book, yeah. And some of the things that, a couple words that you probably are already familiar with them. but that I really wanted to go over this morning with looking at the history and what's going on in the Bible.

The first word is continuity. And you won't find it in the notes here, but continuity is the unbroken and consistent existence or operation of something over a period of time. So the unbroken and consistent existence or operation of something over a period of time. And when we look at the Bible, You see an unbroken, consistent operation and existence.

Existence of God and operation of Him revealing Himself to us and loving us. Revealing His character to us. I mean, that's really what the Bible is about and all this history that we look at. When the Bible builds upon itself, it's all about God loving us and wanting to have fellowship with us.

I think also in the topic of sequence, God is a God of order and not a God of chaos. And so sequence indicates to me analytical or even mathematical order in how the world is progressing. He created the world obviously in seven days, but he did it in a specific order. I mean, it happened in a way that it, you know, physically, physics and mathematically had to happen for it to exist.

So it's not changing. The same order is here. Satan is a spirit of chaos and disorder. And that's what I think Revelation shows to us is that even though there's order in those terrible years, Satan and Anarchist are are tending to make order into disorder during that period of time. And so there's a lot of suffering. Now there's a lot of peace in order.

Right. Absolutely. But isn't the omniscience of God, the fact that he knew it was going to happen, and he knows it's happening, and it's happening, is he allows it to happen? Well, even farther than he allowed it, but how he has it planned. Yeah, that's why it's a planned, forethought plan, back before creation. Right. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit set up the whole thing. Right. So continuity.

The unbroken and consistent existence or operation of something over a period of time. The other word that I think is really important when we look at this book is historicity. Historicity is historical authenticity. That's two words to define it. Right. Continuity is the other word. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I apologize. Continuity. I apologize. Historical. What did you say? Historicity. Historical authenticity. Historicity. H-I-S-T-O-R-I-C-I-T. Historicity.

But two very important words when you look at the Bible. And when it comes to historicity, the point down there actually, historical reality matters. The Bible is not truth that is independent of historical reality. So it's not a bunch of good stories. It's not a bunch of nice things to learn maybe some principles from. It's historical fact and there's lots of archeology and things that have gone along to support that. So historical reality matters.

And then the other thing there is, it kind of goes back to the history's going, or the, We're going somewhere. We started somewhere and we're going somewhere. When we celebrate the Lord's table, we look back to what God accomplished in the past and we do it in remembrance of Him. And we're looking forward to what He's going to do until He comes again. You know, history started somewhere and it's going somewhere.

So what we're going to do over the next two weeks in order to set a framework for biblical history, we're going to survey the Old Testament this week and we'll look at the New Testament next week. And if you guys want to look at the, it's the page directly in front of you. If you turn, if you flip back, you should have a page that folds out.

I'd also like to see it say in that one, the remembrance of me. That's really an interesting topic, particularly in the Old Testament, because you can continually see that God knew that without remembrance, something happened he asked them to set up an altar. wear the phylactery on their heads. This was all in an effort so that the following generation would have a belief system as their forefathers did. And in essence, that's what scripture is for everybody. This is in remembrance.

And so we can see what's happened in the past as well as in the future. That's why it's so necessary to have it accurate. And they have found that biblical history is as accurate as any textbook. It would be necessary from that standpoint for that to happen. Well, you can even look at our own history, how easy it is to forget the facts. Right. Rewrite them. Yeah, rewrite facts. Rewriting history. Exactly. What happened in World War II and there are people still alive who were there. And they're still rewriting it. The same thing is happening, you know, even for things that happened in the 60s.

I just think it's interesting how God throughout the Old Testament tells people to do this so that you can remember. They crossed the Jordan and he said put some rocks here because this is supposed to be a remembrance of what happened. Tell your children that's what these rocks stand for. Isn't that cool? And a lot of times the setting up of an altar or things of that order also carried a lot of symbolism for the people as well. So they would be a symbolism and then would be a good tool to help them remember.

But this chart that we have here in front of us, the usefulness of it is that it's going to provide some key dates for people and events in the Old Testament. So some of the key dates, and it's kind of neat because it shows you when the books are written too, because they're not necessarily put in the Bible in the order that they're written. Some of them are, but like Job is way in the back of the Old Testament, but it was one of the first books written. So it gives you some insight as to when the books were written as well. Some of those books, I mean, you look at like Psalms, they were written over, I mean, that's a massive period of time, you know, 800 years, 900 years, which is interesting. But some of the key points and some of the things to kind of remember, and actually on the top there you do have a little bit of a timeline.

So Abraham lived about 2,000 BC, which is how long ago? 2,000 BC, about 4,000. About 4,000 years ago. And then, so Moses lived to just before 1400 BC. And then he spent 40 years, and this is, we talked about some of, Stan, you mentioned God being the God of order. 40 years growing up in adulthood in Egypt, 40 years tending sheep in Midian, and 40 years leading Israel from Egypt to the Promised Land. 40, 40, 40. That's just a coincidence though. Right, no. Total coincidence. And then the same thing with David, who lived about 1000 BC. Saul, David, Solomon all reigned about 40 years. So Moses, 40 years in three different areas. And then we have three different rulers. Saul, David, Solomon, 40 years. God uses a lot of the same numbers over and over again, 7, 40. three numbers like that he uses repeatedly.

In fact he's so consistent when it comes to times and dates that they devised a whole theory called numerology. That's like so good at observing the universe that you come up with a science called physics. Charts are kind of handy to just give historical perspective of when things happened.

Key dates to remember, Abraham about 2000 BC, Moses 1400, David 1000, and the Old Testament was completed by about 400 BC, so about 1000 years after Moses died. So it's kind of a handy chart. If you're going through the Old Testament, you can say, when is this book happening? What's going on here? Kind of a handy chart. You just grab and say, oh, OK. This is the time period we're looking at.

Did you say the Old Testament was completed 4,000 years ago? No. The Old Testament was completed about 400 BC. If I said 4,000, I apologize. I could never have heard that wrong. It should have been 430 BC, right? Because that would have been the Holocaust. 400. The last book of the Old Testament was 400. You come in 400 years.

Right. Between the Old and New Testaments, 400 years. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Which it's interesting, it's like 2,000 years before the flood, 2,000 years after the flood, and now it's been 2,000 years after the Old Testament. So that's about 6,000 years. The world was created in seven days. We've accomplished 6,000 years.

So what Doug's saying about, you know, we're approaching the end times. I mean, if you look at numbers, which we just said, there's a science of numerology. Sure. You know, even though only God knows when, scripture clearly defines that. And I think that has some responsibility as far as man. You know, Will man be able to sustain his belief system and belief in Christ and all the rest of this? And at some point in time God's going to declare that's it. Sure.

And you can't go back. Right. And we don't know when it is. No. Like a thief in the night. Even Jesus didn't know. Right. But he knows. Right. He knows. Sure. We don't. There's not a human that knows. God knows. Right. It's all on his timetable. Right. Somebody said it was kind of a controversy between God the How come he didn't know when he'd be coming back? He was a man. Things were revealed. He was 100% man and he had revelations to him.

So we'll finish up that page. Let's turn to page 24 and we'll kind of look at the judges here. So the following slide shows some helpful information about the kind that can be drawn from the pages of Old Testament scripture and from other historical resources. So when we look at this table from the judges, just about everything on this chart is drawn right out of scripture. So this isn't found from you know, archaeology, it isn't found other places. Well, it is, but what's drawn on these tables is drawn right out of scripture. So the historical value of when things happened, how things happened, scripture has an immense value when it comes to that.

So when you look at this chart of the judges, what do you notice? What are some of the things that you guys see here? Well, what does the top mean? First of all, you got their enemy. The predominant enemy during this particular judge's time and then how long I guess they were under oppression by that enemy?

Right. And then what's the judgeship mean in peace? Well they had peace for four years. They had peace for four years and sometimes the judgeship is defined in the judgeship of you say his name. So our first one there, the first judge there is Othniel. Sometimes their judgeship, the number of years that they were in judgeship is defined in the Bible, and other times it is not. So if it's blank, it's not because it didn't exist, it's just because the exact numbers weren't given.

And so what you see, the repeated pattern that you see in Judges is the nation of Israel straying away from God. A enemy coming in and pretty much just ruling and oppressing the people of Israel. And then you see a judge come in and bring the people back towards God. And then they have a time of peace. And so that is the pattern that you see throughout judges.

And I mean, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 times it happens. A number of tribes as well. None of them were voted in. Right. Or appointed. Well, they were appointed. But by God, not by a president. So these numbers on here are taken right out of scripture.

So the historical value of scripture gives us great insight into what happened with the nation of Israel. And isn't it interesting when you see, wonder what the message was here where he says peace, and you've got 40 years, 80 years, multiple of 40, and then 40 years, and then another 40 years, and the 40 years you said about Moses, 40, 40, 40. Yeah. And then Jesus going to the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights, and how many other 40s are in scripture that shows that.

Right, a lot. I mean, look at it. Periods of peace. None of them extended past 40. Wow. There's 80 on that one. A double of 40. I'm sorry. Two times. I haven't studied that enough to know if those numbers are exceedingly significant, but you definitely do see a bit of a pattern there. Why wouldn't it be 39 and, you know, 42 and a half? Sure. It's his lucky number. God's. He has a life to live. Well, 7 is the main number that comes up when it comes to numbering. What this tells me is when I reach 40, it should be a good time. I'm 80. I'm already living there.

So then after the judges, you have Saul, David, and Solomon. Each were made king over the United Kingdom of Israel. Each reigned for about 40 years. And then the kingdom divided with Judah and Benjamin comprising the southern kingdom called Judah for the prominent tribe. And the northern kingdom was Israel. And it had within it the 10 other tribes. So when the kingdom gets divided there, the northern, or excuse me, The kingdom with the southern kingdom, excuse me, Judah and Benjamin.

That is called Judah is basically where the righteous Jews were. And those northern 10 kingdoms were really, they had a bunch of bad leaders, a bunch of really crummy leaders that all of them died. I think it was like eight or nine of them. were murdered. Violent deaths were murdered. And somebody else took the throne. The north was just a mess.

And that southern kingdom was basically where the righteous Jews were. And what you see there is over time, representatives from each of the northern tribes took refuge in Judah. So they said, this Israel is so messed up, we're going to get out of here and go down to Judah. So that by the time Babylon conquered Judah, Judah had people within its population from all of Israel's tribes. Wasn't Judah a son of Leah?

And it's also the tribe of Christ. Right. Which is the southern kingdom. And also Jerusalem. Whereas the northern kingdom would be Joseph and Rebekah descendants. A lot of them went astray. There were a lot of more worshipping idols too, right? Right. Except Benjamin was also one of Rebekah's descendants. And he was in the south. And that's also Paul's line, right? Paul was, right, Benjamin, yes.

It's interesting. Jacob was changed name to Israel. My God. And yet that is the one that were not the righteous. During that time period, yeah. When the kingdom was split in two. Right. And we still go back today, we don't call the country Judah, it's Israel. Right, and actually the etymology of those words is fairly interesting. Do you know where Jew comes from? Like when we say Jew or Jewish?

Judah. Judah. It's a nickname from Judah. Yeah. So when most of the time we'll say Jew or Jewish, that's what it's coming from is it's a nickname from Judah. And we do call them the nation of Israel because that's, you know, the two names stuck. It's really, it's, it's interesting. And the etymology of those words is. We renamed it Israel.

Right. Because if you really had to go back and say who was the first Jew, it would probably be Abraham. Because God contacted, well no, you could Moses maybe. Yeah. Abraham I think. Yeah. I think Abraham. Because he was the one that carried out many of the covenants. Yeah. He's the one that God gave the promise to. Right. Of the land, exactly. Of the land and the whole bit, yeah. I think.

Abraham is the father of many nations. He's the father of the Muslims as well. But the term Muslim didn't roll around until about 600 AD. Where did that come from? I don't know that. I think that comes out of Ishmael. Well, but the term Muslim I don't know.

So if you wanted to track where a Jewish name came from, Judah, in some of these reference books, what books would you recommend? Well actually, and we aren't there yet, but you're welcome to look at it on page 25 on the bottom there. Vern actually has a couple of places to go for some different Old Testament knowledge. So you've got Nelson, Rose, and Holman. And a lot of those are dealing with maps and timelines and things like that. Some of the better...

When it comes to word studies, I'm not sure exactly which books I'd point you towards. I think that's dealing with words that are in the Bible and where they are in the Bible and their definition and things like that. I don't know if you would get a lot of etymology on the term Jewish and Jew. He's pretty good at defining, I mean you might be able to go to Zodiaty's on the internet and I think you might be able to find the source of those words.

Yeah, but I don't know for sure. Alright, so On the next page there, page 25, you'll notice that the dates on the chart above vary somewhat from the dates on the larger chart of the Old Testament. So a lot of times you'll look at one chart and it'll say, you know, the captivity started in, you know, it'll give, I can't remember the dates off the top of my head, but you know, the captivity of the Jews started in Let's see. We're on page 25 right now, the top of page 25. So a lot of church, some church will see that the Babylonian captivity started in 586 and others you'll see a different number. And the reasoning behind that, so the second bullet point there, the Babylonians attacked Judah a few times taking progressively more captives. Some charts will begin the captivity with the first eight taking captives, 605 B.C. and some with the last taking of captives, 586.

But this variation does not reflect uncertainty over when these attacks occurred. But rather than the B.C. and A.D., many secular and academic references have been listing these B.C. and B.C.E. I don't know if that really matters for what we're talking about right now. What is the B.C.E.? ? The BC is like before Christ and AD is actually a Latin term that I can't remember off the top of my head. The BCE is before Common Era and CE is Common Era.

So they've taken Christ out of that as well. Ad Dominus. Yeah, I don't remember it. And when you're in Europe, it's everywhere like this. And it's interesting because, you know, we were just in Rome where everything is you know, B.C. and A.D. on all of the carvings and, I mean, the statues and all that kind of stuff. But everything you read now, brochure, you get everything. It's BCE and CE.

Right, they did that in the university system as well. This has been what, the last 25 years or so? Yeah. They've been trying to get rid of... And it's really, it's how all the scholars do things. Before Common Era. And I don't know how they came up with that. I kind of, in my head, so I can remember what, you know, I can't ever remember before Common Era. So I just say, before Christ existed. And then Christ existed after that.

It's broken up the exact same way. B.C. and B.C.E. are the exact same thing. And A.D. and C.E. are the exact same thing. So they still break it up based upon when Christ came around because it's all based on the Gregorian calendar. The whole world uses the same calendar.

Right. But what they've done is they've taken the Christ aspect out of it even though it still focuses on when he came. Yeah, exactly. But isn't it amazing that I would never think that in Italy, but I mean, there they had the hammer and sickle flag and they have the Communist Party. So they're obviously trying to ease God out. Oh, yeah. And there's multiple. It's not just communists that don't like God, but... The US is so spiritually dead. It's just a joke. I mean, it really is spiritually dead. The whole continent is spiritually dead.

So it's funny how it's crawling. to different nations, because it's happening here, before you know it. And it's primarily through the university system here. If you have kids and you want them to learn about worldly things, send them to a state-run university. Because they'll learn all about it there. Well, it starts in kindergarten.

Right. But the universities are unbelievable. It goes right on down. It's a cool system. Well it's interesting, we're doing Daniel in our small group on Sunday night and if you think about what you just said, what was the first thing that Nebuchadnezzar did when he got the Jewish kids into Babylon? He sent them to school. Right. He changed their name and sent them to school. Right. So he changed their identification by giving them Babylonian god names and then he taught them about the culture of Babylon.

And it's actually really interesting because the Babylonians came in and did that. The Babylonians' idea was grab everybody and mix them up and confuse them. So they take the Jews and we'll bring the Jews and we'll put them over here and then we'll actually take some of them and we'll send them over there but it won't be to their home, we'll send them somewhere else. And then we'll grab these other people that we conquered and we'll bring some of them to Babylon and then we'll send some of them to Judea. Their idea was mix it up. Mix them up and confuse them so they can't have any cohesiveness. And it's funny because the Persians then come in and conquer the Babylonians. And the Persians, it was actually against their religion to take a captive away from their home. So they come in and they see what the Babylonians have done and they're just like appalled. It was actually one of the major reasons why they fought the Babylonians.

And they took all the Jewish people and they said, get out of here and go home. They took all the people that were conquered from somewhere else and said, get out of here and go home. So it's actually pretty interesting to see how God used that. He took one nation in the Babylonians and did something very different to the Jewish people, primarily because they were really strained. He used the Babylonians to really punish his people. And some people would say to grow them because that time period that they had in Babylon, up in the amount of the number of Jewish people. But then he brings somebody in like the Persians and sends them all home.

And once they get sent home, once they get sent home, it's build that temple. And basically, when you look at this chart, most of these minor prophets that come in are saying, hurry up and get the temple done. Because they start it. And I mean, I forget how long it took them to build the temple, but it was a long time. And they'd start to build it, and they'd get focused on something else. And then one of these prophets would come in and say, hurry up.

So it's actually really interesting to see some of that history. how God used different nations. But see, what you're saying just confirms that God is a God of order. No, absolutely. And whenever God's around, you have a period of order. Right. When God's not around, you have a period of disorder. Right. And nowhere that I can think of is it listed in the Old Testament that God said, and I will use Nebuchadnezzar my servant. Right. I mean, it's nowhere. I mean, he was a man of disorder just like Hitler was during World War II.

But God did say Cyrus was going to be used as his tool. Right. And Cyrus was a man of order. So it's just amazing to me that, you know, disorder and order, two distinctive predominant characteristics in scripture, peace and war, order and disorder, you know.

And it's all for his good. I mean, it's weird. All that strife that's in the Bible. I mean, there's a lot of murder and all kinds of crap. And it's all for the good. And you kind of wonder sometimes why people have to go through such terrible times, even though at the end, it's all for his good.

And then go back to what Doug said earlier, if we want to make it contemporary. I think the thing we need to watch for under the current leadership is, is this going to be a leadership of order or disorder? I mean, that's going to tell us a lot. I think a part of that, what you mentioned, is culture. Sure. Because his culture is not the same as our culture. And I think you're going to find that he is not a man of order. I do not see that the current Congress is people of order. They're people of disorder and dissension.

Well, did you see it that way in the last administration? I mean not to side one way or another, because I definitely side more with conservative values, but I saw more order. The beginning of the last administration, not so bad, it just deteriorated. It did.

Well we had the wars, I mean war deteriorates a country. But also, you know, the president has very little to say, to be honest. He can veto things, and he can make policy, he can suggest policy. But Congress really, you know, and when we had these last two years where the Democrats were in control of Congress, that's why nothing was getting done. Because it was just a stalemate.

And, you know, it'll be interesting to see now that I disagree to a certain extent on that because I think the president has tremendous influence from the standpoint of image. And the way that man goes and the way that man appears is the way the nation goes. I mean I'm almost 40 and I remember a few times going back to what I said earlier. But I've been here for quite a while, as we all have, and you look back through different administrations, and the man who's in that chair, the country has a tendency to go in that direction. They're right. And if he's dishonest, and if he's, you know, despicable, I think you can look right here, I mean, if you go back to Israel, and you look at some of these kings, the one down here on the bottom said that character of kings, none godly, from Israel.

Right. If this was the quarterback or the game analysis of the Broncos on Monday morning, you'd look at this and you'd pick out three, I think you'd pick out three distinct things. Number one, that there were none godly in Israel. And then you look to the right and you see that there was one city, Jerusalem, and one dynasty, David. Wow. You know, looks to me like the quarterback under Judah had something going for him there, you know. And the one under Israel didn't.

Again, order and disorder. Right. Yeah. I don't know what Obama's going to do and frankly I think we could all say that we don't necessarily agree with what most of what any of the presidents for the last, at least I feel that way, what any of the presidents for the last, as long as I've been alive, I can't say that I really like that guy. Yeah, I agree.

He did a lot of good stuff. We haven't had a good one in a while. But you know this morning I was listening while Bruce was telling me and he's, this new guy, he is going to, he's having top lawyers looking at how he can change the legislature, if there are any flaws that he can change. He's going to change everything. We're going to be in a disastrous area. He's going to try to change a lot of things.

And the bottom line is we don't know. The bottom line is we don't know. The bottom line is it doesn't matter you It doesn't matter in the long run, because we get to go be with Christ. I got interested in being doing this. We don't have to live here.

That's what I keep saying. But the Lord still says to pray for our leaders, no matter who they are. Yeah, and how can you pray for this guy? Well, you know, you pray that the Lord's going to intervene, and certainly we know he can. But you know the other thing, like you just said, everything is for a purpose. I mean, it's all to bring himself glory and to bring more people to him. So that's what we pray for, is that more people come to him during this time, because people are going to be, you know, who knows?

I hear, like I hear at work, Bush is a Christian. Well, and I've got to agree. He was a bad rep. In my opinion, Bush was not a good representative of what a Christian is. I know. Because you get caught in lies and you get caught in... I mean, that's not good. But he did claim to be born again and I know he had Bible study in the White House. Sure. Apparently he prayed every morning and all these things. And then what I hear people say is, you know, this is what that represents.

And I feel bad. I mean, I don't know how to... counteract that, you know, I just go, well. I know most of you folks, probably most of you, besides me, him and I had our world tour back in World War II. We moored around the globe and seen things. You guys have been out recently. But I didn't, Lauren and I went to the village inn the other night and we went up the counter there to make sure we could get a seat, you know, and I saw this thing here laying on the counter.

And on it, you know, I thought, wait, that's an odd thing. And I called the police. What is it? Somebody leave this behind or what is it? I don't know what it is. Well, I got to looking at it and I cleaned it up and I brought it home. What it is, is a euro. What it is, is a five cent euro. And you ought to see what's on pictures on that coin. Maybe some of you are familiar with it. You've traveled. We've got on the head of this thing. Here we got a great big guy. It looks a little bit like Obama. Not really. I'm not saying. Don't, don't, don't, don't. Okay, go ahead.

But anyhow, we see that and it reflects. He has a grin and a look and he looks a lot like him. But anyhow, he's got a, horrible steely look. He's got two horn-like looking things coming out of the top of his head and he just sits there and what's around that thing are stars all around that. Satanic stars and there's twelve of them.

Well, I thought there was ten nations in the end years that were going to go under the The EU, remember there's 12 isn't there? Yeah. So that's some of them. We can hear about two of them are going to disappear from the scene. Well doesn't it say in Revelations that the Antichrist will rise up and take two of the nations down and so then it becomes one, right? They're already listed here. But then you go around on this coin here and you look on the back side of it and you You look on the top of it up there and there, there's tells it's five cents and then says euro, euro, five euro cents.

Okay. There's those stars are all closer. That's 12 stars around there for the UN or for that. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. I am rambling. But I thought that was interesting because... Well, you know, not to discount what you're saying, but people have been speculating that it's the end times since Christ ascended. No, he said he's going to return. Right. Well, and exactly. Ever since he... Right.

But we had a guy come into the bank the other day and he's, I don't know where he goes to church, but he came in and he says, to one of my co-workers, he's not a Christian. He says, you know what? You need to read Revelation chapter 13. You're going to read it and you're going to be amazed because you're going to go, the Antichrist is Obama. There's no doubt. I read it and you read it and you'll do the same thing. They got a video on YouTube, go watch it. You're going to fall on your knees and worship Jesus. And I'm looking at him and I'm going, you know you're a nutball.

You're crazy. You don't know. And you never will. And the focus shouldn't be... He was trying to evangelize this guy with scare tactics. It's absolutely ridiculous. The focus is not on when this is going to happen or how it's going to happen. The focus is on Christ.

And the fact that all this history and everything that we're dealing with, we know, Romans 8.28, and we know that in all things God works for good for those who love him and who have been called according to his purpose. You can speculate, you can go nuts over these things, but God doesn't want you to focus on these things.

We study history to understand. We look at this stuff to understand where God came from, where he has us, and where he's taken us. But to go nuts over it is not the idea. We want to look at this history stuff so that we can understand God. We can understand his character. We can understand. He's revealed a load to us. And he's done it for a purpose. And it's his purpose.

You can have a leader though, and you can get steered away from God because of the nonsense he talks. And people believe him because they think he's a bad guy. You can go nuts over this stuff, but the society we live in Think about where Paul was in that Roman society with all the pagan gods and everything else and they despised the Jewish people and Christianity just as much. Maybe more. And they were allowed to do things that were far beyond what happens here. Now there's parts of the world where that's the case. You go to China and be a Christian and it might be really scary.

But don't focus on that stuff. Well, the Thessalonians there were worried about they missed the rapture. They were worried about that stuff back then. They didn't have anything to go by. They were told it would be the rapture. But our focus here this morning We got slightly off topic, but it's okay to deal with what you're feeling. And I think we all are having some uncertainty right now with what's going on with our country.

But really, if you get worked up over this stuff, just go to Romans 8.28 and read it over and over again. Remember what our position is, and this is just our business address. This is not our home. We're not of this world. And I think if you remember that, that really helps. to realize that yeah, all this stuff is going on and yeah, Doug, we have to live here, but you know what? We don't have to enter in emotionally to this stuff. Remember who you are. You're right. You're right.

Matter of fact, in the book of John, the statement that 1 John says, because I've been looking at that book recently, it says, do not become part of the world. That's one of three imperative commands in that whole entire book. Very, very important when he said that. He was trying to impress that on the people reading that book.

Do not become part of the world. But we have to live, still have to live. And we pay taxes. Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, right? But at the same time, when Christ is before Pilate, he says, this is not my kingdom. This is not my kingdom. His is somewhere else. If this was my kingdom, I could...

Right. So, yeah. Our citizenship, we may be American citizens, but we're really citizens of heaven. And that's where you are. If you look at Romans 8, 28, you mentioned, that's for God's purpose. Right. His purpose. His purpose. And His people. That's right. But sometimes we say it was all mine. It's just for me. No, it's for His purpose. And His people.

Well, and what you have to understand is His purpose may entail some suffering for you. Yeah, absolutely. You look at the literal, the original translation of that, that's what it is. Right. And I would even take out the word may and his purpose well involves some suffering for you. Right. Will. Very possible. In 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 I think, there's a, I think we actually looked at it last week, But there's, I don't know, I brought it up, we'll go there.

Well, you're looking at the new gold coin, $5 gold coin, no longer has, in God we trust, in the bottom. And then with the dollar coin, they printed, and they put it on the edge, around the edge. First place to wear off. So the $5 one doesn't have it on at all.

I understand where you guys are going with the country. But we have this treasure, and this is the NIV, so if this is the one you're used to hearing, I'm sorry. But we have this treasure in jars of clay so that the all surpassing power of God is not from us. We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not abandoned. Struck down, but not destroyed.

We always carry about in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in the body. For we who are alive are always being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake. It's interesting, in verse 10, we always carry around in the body the death of Jesus.

The verbs in that imply that it is a choice. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus. You have to make a choice to carry around in yourself the concept of burial, death, resurrection, asceding, ascension. It's a choice. However, if you are a believer, verse 11, for we who are alive are always being given over to death. There's no choice. It just happens. And the verbs, the way the tenses are in the verbs. Verse 10 is a choice. Verse 11, if you're a believer, it's not a choice. It's going to happen. It's a fact. It's a fact. What chapter is that? What is it? 2 Corinthians 4, 7 through 11. And I'd be happy to take those apart for you a little bit more at another time. But the verb tenses, chapter 4, verses 7 through 11. And in particular, 10 and 11. But you know, also remember guys, the Lord doesn't say things are going to get better. Well, he does, but not here. I mean, here on this earth, the only thing that can happen is the spiraling down of everything.

I mean, very clear. It's very clear. But the thing about that is he's given us every spiritual blessing and we have them right now. Sure. Absolutely. We're all ready. We have every blessing. Right. But I mean, to think that we're going to make the world better over, I mean, it's just, you know, not that I'm pessimistic, but I'm just realistic. And so you don't hold on to what's happening here, you hold on to what your position is. I know, but it's such a terrible thing what's happening to our country. Well it is.

Here we are, a country that has helped the entire damn world with every little problem they had. And they're trying to get us down, we have this idiot leader now. But where is our hope? Is our hope in Obama like his slogan says? Absolutely. It's not hope in change, it's nope in strange.

Anyway, let's finish it up and Doug, would you mind praying for us this morning? Our gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you again that we can come before your throne with our petitions, our thanksgivings. Most of all, we thank you for salvation through your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that you've given us the living word in your Son. You've also given us the written word, that we might learn more about you and your Son. We pray now as we attend the next session, the main service, open our hearts and our minds to what you have for us today. We thank you and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.