A Prophet's Eye-View Of Bible History"

God had created humanity to worship him, but they rebelled against Him and became evil and wicked. Things got so bad that there was only one godly family left on the whole earth who still honored Him. So God sent a flood to destroy all of mankind except for Noah and his family. Once they had been spared from the flood, they began to fulfill the original commission to populate the earth. As time passed, mankind started to decline again. God still yearned for people to worship and honor and serve him. So He called Abraham apart from the others to be His servant. Even though Abraham was childless at the time, God promised to make a mighty nation out of him. Abraham had a son, Isaac, who in turn had a son Jacob. Jacob had twelve sons, who became the twelve tribes of Israel. Near the end of his life, there was a terrible famine and the entire family relocated to Egypt to survive.

Four hundred years passed, and they continued to be fruitful and multiply and became a very massive people group. Everyone in Egyptian government who had been favorably predisposed towards the Israelites died off. And the leadership of their time was afraid the would become a political threat. So they were put into bondage, as slaves, and were horribly oppressed. And they began to cry out to God to deliver them.

God heard and answered their cry for His help. In addition to delivering them from Egyptian oppression and captivity, He also set up a form of government with them, where He was their ruler. God passed down His edicts and decrees through special prophets who could hear Him clearly and tell the people what He said. The first of His chosen leaders was Moses, who taught them how to live in relationship with God and gave them the Law (guidelines of how to live and worship). His second leader was Joshua, who brought Israel into their promised land. After Joshua, God ruled through a series of judges and then through His priests. Some of them were very godly and faithfully represented God. But others were self-serving and oppressive.

The last of them was Samuel, also a prophet, who had been dedicated to the Lord at his birth and grew up in the temple, mentored by Eli, the high priest. Things were OK until Samuel grew up and had sons and gave them a bit of governmental authority. His sons were unruly and unjust, and the people began to cry out for God to give them a different form of government. They wanted to be ruled by a king instead of by the priests and prophets -- e.g., ruled by man instead of by God. So God honored their request. First He gave them a king that met their criteria (Saul). That did not work out well. Then He gave them one that met His criteria (David).

We will look at the period of history where God directly governed His people. This lesson will start with Moses, God's first representative.

Moses

The bible devotes four books of the Old Testament to Moses' life. There is so much more than we could possibly cover in a lesson, so we will just look at the highlights and skim over a lot of events in his life.

Moses was born in a time when Pharaoh had ordered for all Jewish baby boys to be killed at birth. His mother recognized that he was an exceptional child and hid him for several months. But it became impossible to keep hiding him, so she half-obeyed the decree to throw the baby boys in the river -- she build a little boat and put him in it and laid the boat in the reeds. His older sister kept watch over the boat and Pharaoh's daughter came there to bath and found baby Moses and adopted him. Miriam, Moses' sister, offered to get a Hebrew woman to nurse the child until he was weaned, so Moses' mother ended up being paid to nurse her own son! (Isn't God amazing!)

Moses grew up as a prince of Egypt. But he also had a sense of identity as a Jew and perhaps a sense that he would be their deliverer. He went out incognito among the Jews and found an Egyptian abusing a Jew. So he murdered the Egyptian and buried him in the sand. Shortly after that, he found two Jews fighting. When he tried to intervene, the one in the wrong asked Moses if he planned to murder him like he murdered the Egyptian. Moses realized that the murder was not a secret, so he fled for his life across the desert. When Pharaoh heard about it, he wanted Moses dead, so it was a wise thing that he'd left the country.

Moses connected up with Jethro, who was a priest to God and a shepherd. Moses married one of Jethro's daughters and became a shepherd taking care of Jethro's flocks. We can assume that Jethro and his daughters taught Moses about God. A substantial amount of time passed. Then one day Moses was out on the mountain with the herd, and he saw an interesting sight, a bush that was burning but was not consumed. He approached it for a closer look, and an angel called out to him from the fire. First the angel told him to take off his shoes because he was standing on holy ground. Then the angel commissioned him the one to deliver Israel from bondage. And Moses did not want the job! He kept trying to explain to God why he was not qualified for it and to offer excuses of why he could not do it. He was so reluctant that God got frustrated with him, but He did not release him from the commission.

So Moses finally accepted God's commission, got a release from his father-in-law, and set off for Egypt. An angel appeared to him en route and "tried" to kill him (I am convinced the angel would have succeeded if it was really trying) because his son was uncircumcised. So his wife, Zipporah, took a flint knife and circumcised her son. She was pretty angry about the whole thing and told Moses off. The family continued to Egypt. Aaron, Moses' older brother, went out to the desert to meet him and Moses filled him in on God's plan to deliver his people. Moses was a stutterer and so Aaron became his spokesperson to Pharaoh. (This was not the same Pharaoh who sentenced Moses to death for killing the Egyptian.)

Moses delivered God's message to let his people go into the wilderness to worship him, and Pharaoh refused. Moses did a few signs and wonders to show God had really sent him but Pharaoh's magicians imitated the signs: such as his staff turning into a snake when he dropped it on the ground. So God began a power encounter with Pharaoh and the Egyptian "gods" through a series of 10 plagues. Each plague was designed to show God's power over one of the Egyptian gods. The tenth and final plague was the Passover, where God sent an angel to slay the first-born child in every household in Egypt. However, the angel was instructed to pass over (or not kill the firstborn sons in) the homes with lamb's blood on the doorposts.

After that plague, Pharaoh let the Jews go, and Moses led them out of Egypt. But Pharaoh had a change of heart, and sent an army after them to kill them and/or bring them back into captivity as slaves. The children of Israel were terrified and began complaining that God had led them out of Egypt to kill them off. Thery were not so happy with Moses either. However, God used Moses to divide the Red Sea, and the Israelites escaped through it, walking through the water on dry land with the water towering above them on both sides but never closing in on them. The Egyptian soldiers followed the Israelites into the Red Sea. Once the last Israelite had crossed over safely, God closed the waters over the soldiers, drowning all of them and delivering His people from their enemies.

In addition to the miraculous deliverance and to Moses's leadership, God Himself led His people as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. He miraculously provided food and water for them, as well as keeping their shoes and clothes from wearing out. Despite all of these incredible and supernatural manifestations, the people were constant complainers and mutterers. Every time something did not go smoothly, they mummured against Moses and accused God of trying to kill them.

At one point, God invited them into a covenant with Him to become His people and He would be their God. The people discussed it and decided to take God up on His offer. God asked them to spend three days sanctifying themselves, and then He appeared to them to ratify this covenant. It was a very dramatic and scary appearance when His presence and glory settled over Mount Sinai, complete with thunder and lightening and thick smoke, and God spoke to them in an audible voice, so loud that every man and woman and child in Israel could hear what He said. The people became terrified and asked Moses to tell God not to appear like that anymore. They did not want God speaking directly to them because they were afraid that they would die. So they asked Moses to hear from God on their behalf and then tell them what He said and they would obey Him. That is how we ended up with the concept of prophets--people who speak for God. If the people of Israel had not made this request, God would probably still speak directly and audibly to each one of His people and there would have never been any need for prophets.

I suspect it saddened God's heart, but He honored their request. He had Moses come up on the mountain (while His manifest presence and glory was still inhabiting it) to give him the ten commandments and the law. He came back down and told the people what God said and they all agreed to keep the covenant with God and be His people and obey Him.

A week later, God called Moses up to the mountain a second time, so that He could write the law and commandments on tablets of stone. This time Moses was gone for 40 days, while God expanded the law for him in greater detail, including detailed instructions on how to build a tabernacle for God.

Do you remember that the people who had just entered into a covenant with God to worship only Him and be His people? They got restless because Moses was on the mountain so long. Their thinking was that God must have killed Moses since he'd not come down in over a month. So they asked Aaron to make a new god for them, to lead them safely back to Egypt. I find it hard to understand their thinking. They had just entered into a covenant with God about six or seven weeks before, complete with all sorts of supernatural manifestations and terrifying demonstrations of God's presence. And Mount Sinai was still covered with the fire and thick smoke that indicated God's presence.

I can't imagine what possessed them to decide to change gods while God's manifest presence was still in their midst. None the less, Aaron made the idol (a golden calf) for them. They began to worship it and had a wild party in honor of their new God. God told Moses what was going on and sent him down the mountain back to the camp.

Moses knew that God was furious and wanted to destroy the entire nation. So he tried to appease God by having the Levites (who apparently had not worshipped the idol) go through the camp killing people by sword. They killed over 3,000 people in a single night. That was not enough to appease God. He sent a plague among the people and many more died.

The children of Israel continued to be very difficult. They were quick to whine and complain and they were not very good at obeying God. God brought them to the border of the promised land and then sent spies into the land. They decided the people who lived there were too mighty for them to battle, so they refused to go possess their promised land. This angered God one time too many, and He decreed that they would wander around the dessert until they died of old age, and then God would take their children in to possess the promised land. Moses, as their leader, was obligated to wander in the wilderness with them--even though he personnally had been faithful and obedient to God.

Moses developed a very deep and intimate friendship with God. He pitched a tend of meeting some distance from camp and would go there to inquire of God -- e.g., to ask Him how He wanted things managed. God's tangible presence would come on the tent when Moses went in it, and when he came out of it, his face would literally glow with God's glory. Moses had many other incredible encounters with God, meeting with Him face to face. When people rose up to challenge Moses' authority, Moses never defended himself. Instead, God defended him.

All the same, God held Moses to very high standards of obedience. When the people who left Egypt died off, it became time to enter the promised land. God would not allow Moses to enter the promised land with them because of one time when he lost his temper with the children of Israel while representing God to them. (That was when he struck the rock three times for water instead of doing it the way God had commanded him to do it.)

God had Moses review the law with the second generation who He was about to bring into the promised land. Then he passed leadership to Joshua. Moses was instructed to go up to the top of Mount Nebo to meet with God and die. He was obedient and when he got to the top of the mountain, God showed him all of the land that He was going to give to the children of Israel. Then God killed Moses and buried him.

The bible does not tell us how Moses died, but I like to think that he died by being allowed to see God's face. God had told him in Ex 33:20 "You cannot see My face, for no one may see Me and live." So I like to think that the way Moses died was by finally being allowed to see God's face and then going to heaven to be with Him forever.