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-- © GodSpeak International 2003 --
-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@godspeak.net> --

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND CONTRIBUTING RESOURCES
Author: Teresa Seputis ts@godspeak.net http://www.godspeak.net
Editor: Elvi Glass

A Prophet's Eye-View Of Bible History"

Lesson 3
Other Important Stuff From Old Testament History

By Teresa Seputis

The bird's-eye approach to the Old Testament is "high level" and leaves out a lot of really good details. We will spend our remaining lessons on the bird's-eye view of Old Testament History. But let's spend one lesson just taking a peak at some of a few of those details that we will miss from the bird's-eye view.

The Bible is full of stories of "everyday" men and women who God met in incredible ways because of their faith. Let's look briefly at a few of these. (I hope these wet your appetite and motivate you go back on your own to get more familiar with these accounts.)

There is Ruth. She was a heathen who converted to Judaism and married into a Jewish family. Unfortunately, her husband died young and she suffered great personal loss and difficulties as a young widow. But Ruth did not give up. She held on to her new-found faith in God and remained loyal to her mother-in-law, Naomi. Her future looked bleak and there was some question as to whether or not she would be able to survive because her situation was so desperate. God worked in her life to rescue her out of this abject poverty. He rewarded her faithfulness by giving her the husband and life-style of her dreams. Her life became like the plot for a heroine in a romance novel. She lived the "happy ending" for a long time. Ruth's story shows us that God provides for those who look to Him and put their trust in Him. It teaches us that God is faithful to those who are faithful to Him.

There is Job. His life started out as proof that God prospers His faithful servants. Then the Bible "lifts the covers" and gives us a peak into the realm of spiritual warfare. We see that bad things can (and do) happen to godly people who have not done anything wrong. It dispels the myth that "God must be punishing you" when bad things happen to you. It demonstrates the reality of enemy attack and unmerited enemy oppression. But it also shows how God is able to work His glory in the circumstances. God restored everything that Job had lost and it says that "The Lord blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first" (Job 42:12). This shows us that we don't need to be afraid of spiritual warfare; that God's power is so much greater than the enemy's power, and in the end -- God wins.

There is Esther. She had a very difficult childhood. She was orphaned and lived in captivity, facing racial prejudice on a daily basis. Esther was sexually exploited, and even forced to have intercourse with a high ranking government official. Yet, in the midst of all of those difficult circumstances, God met her and brought His glory into Esther's situation. He placed her strategically so she could prevent a genocide against the Jewish people. God turned all the bad things that happened to her around for her good. She saved her own life and the lives of her people. Esther ended up living in luxury with a husband who loved and adored her. She came out of an abusive childhood to have a glorious life. Her story demonstrates that God is able to come into any situation and turn it around for His glory.

There is the story of four Jewish boys who were separated from their families and carried away as exiles to Babylon. They were castrated (made eunuchs) then forced to learn the Babylonian language so they could study sciences and arts so that they can serve a regime that they despised. In the midst of all this trauma and uncertainty, they choose to take a stand for godliness. Three of these boys were put into a situation where they were told to worship the false Babylonian gods or be executed. They choose to lay down their lives and refused to worship any God besides Jehovah. In fact, they were executed for their stand of faith -- but the execution did not work because God supernaturally spared their lives. The fourth boy was commanded not to pray to God, and they tried to execute him when he continued to pray to and worship his God. (That execution did not work either, but the folks who tried to have him killed were executed in his place.) All four of these boys ended up in top political positions and their power endured through several different regimes of government. Of course, I am referring to Daniel and his three friends: Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. The friends are better known by their Babylonian names of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Their story teaches us how God is able to glorify His name through us when we don't allow difficult and threatening circumstances to coerce us into compromise. It demonstrates how God is able to come through in power when we take a difficult stand for Him.

There is Amos. He was a working man, a shepherd, with a heart to pray and intercede. On a few occasions, the Lord showed Amos that He was about to destroy Israel, and how He planned to do it. Each time, Amos stood in the gap and pleaded for God to turn away the judgment. And each time that Amos did this, the judgment was averted! That is pretty powerful intercession -- he saved his whole nation from destruction on multiple occasions. This intercessor sort of "graduated" into the prophetic and Amos became one of the minor prophets in the Old Testament. Amos described his commissioning in Amos 7:14: "I was neither a prophet nor a prophet's son, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, 'Go, prophesy to My people Israel.'" Amos's story is good news for many believers today, who work secular professions but who feel God is calling them to prophesy. We learn from Amos that God can call and activate every-day Christians into the prophetic. We learn that we can hold secular jobs and still be given real prophetic ministry to do. We learn that God uses lay people when their hearts are set after Him.

We won't see many of these remarkable details and stories when we look at Old Testament history from the bird's-eye view. The Old Testament is incredibly rich in historical stories that you might need to know. This teaching series will not touch on a lot of details and stories that are incredibly powerful in their own right. So, please make it a point to read the history portions of the Old Testament at least once every few years. This includes the books Moses wrote, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. It also includes the books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther and Job. (If you want to, you can skip the non-history portions, such as the details of the law in some chapters in Leviticus and the genealogies and census data.)

The Old Testament is rich in stories of how God met and interacted with His people, of how He was faithful and of how He came through for His own. Some of these stories pertain explicitly to the prophetic and might surprise you.

For instance, there is a rather alarming story in 1 Kings 13 about a prophet who God sent to prophesy against an altar that Jeroboam (an ungodly king) had built. The Lord backed up the prophet's message with a demonstration of His power. The Lord had given him a very significant and important assignment. The Lord had also given him explicit instructions that he was to fast (both food and water) until he returned home from this mission. However, a retired prophet came and intentionally lied to him by giving him a false prophecy to break his fast and come and eat and be refreshed at the retired prophet's house. The true prophet believed the retired prophet's word and went there for lunch. God never punished the retired prophet for giving a false prophecy. However, he did punish the true prophet for receiving it. God had given the prophet clear instructions when He sent him on this mission, and He expected him to stick to them. The true prophet was disqualified for believing this lie. That was the end of his prophetic career (and also the end of his life).

There is the story of a prophet named Jonah. He was a very bitter and prejudiced man. God gave him an assignment to proclaim judgment on a people he hated, with the intent that the people would repent and be spared. Jonah did not want these people spared, so he tried very hard to get out of delivering the prophetic warning. However, God applied sufficient pressure to him to get him to deliver the message. As Jonah anticipated, the city responded to it and repented and was spared judgment. Jonah was so embittered that he was mad at God for not destroying these people. Jonah's story teaches us that at times the mission God gives us will be so important to His plans that He will pressure or coerce us to do what He asks -- even when we have a terrible attitude and do not want to obey Him. God would prefer we obey Him with a good heart, but at times He will use a prophet who has bad or wrong attitudes and motives.

There is the story of Balaam son of Beor, who was a new-age or occult counterfeit of a prophet. The Bible indicates that Balaam was a false prophet in 2 Peter 2:15 and Rev 2:14. He was a spiritualist used divination and other occult-like practices. But God spoke to this spiritualist to bless His people. And God released true spiritual power when these words of blessing were spoken by the false prophet. This shows us that God can (and occasionally will) speak a true word through a false prophet. You can read the story for yourself in the book of Numbers, chapters 22-24.

There are a lot of amazing and powerful stories in the Old Testament. I encourage you to read them and become familiar with them. Knowing these bible stories may very well equip you to prophesy better.


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-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@godspeak.net> --

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