Quick Summary
There is so much history and details in the Old Testament that it can be
hard to get a grasp on all of it. So we have taken a "bird's-eye view"
of Old Testament history, which "leaves out" a lot of interesting and
important details to focus on the overall picture. We explored the Old
Testament from God's perspective of interacting with and ruling His
creation. We broke the history down into five broad categories to give us
a framework to "hold" the details. Those categories were:
- The Beginnings - This covered the creation and God's interactions with
man from the time where they were sinless and innocent, through the
fall (Adam and Eve sinned), and then details the spiritual decline of
mankind until they became so wicked and ungodly that God destroyed most
of them through the flood and started over with Noah and his family.
- New Beginnings - this covered the second go-around between man and His
creation. It starts with the flood and how God used Noah and his three
sons to re-populate the earth. As the earth became populated, God began
to yearn for a special people that would look to Him as their God and
they would be His people, set apart for Him. He developed that people
through Abraham, then Isaac and Jacob. Jacob had 12 sons who became the
12 tribes of Israel. God even made provision for them, to keep them
alive and safe during a severe world-wide famine by sending Joseph ahead
of them to become established in Egypt and to store up grain and supplies
during the seven years of prosperity that proceeded the flood.
- First Government - A large family went to Egypt to escape the famine.
Over 400 years, they grew into a massive people group and God had to
introduce a more formal government system. God set up a theocracy,
where the leaders wore two hats: spiritual leaders and political and
military leaders. The first leader was Moses, followed by Joshua and
various judges, then by prophets and priests. Samuel was the last of
these prophet/priests to govern Israel. As he got older, his sons
began to assume some governmental responsibilities, and they were not
very good at it -- they were self-serving and ungodly. So the people
cried out to Samuel and God to give them a king. God honored their
request and split the leadership role into two separate jobs. The
spiritual side fell to the prophets and priests. The political/military
side fell to the king. The first two kings were appointed directly by
God: Saul and David. Saul turned out to be self-serving and disobedient
to God. So God replaced him with a man after His own heart -- David.
- Man's Declining Government -- While the first two kings were appointed
by God, the remaining kings were appointed by natural succession -- e.g.,
they were related to the previous king, usually his oldest son. The
first of these kings was Solomon, who started well but eventually fell
into spiritual decay and idolatry. After he died, the kingdom split
into two nations. Judah was ruled by Solomon's descendents and that
was where the temple was. They remained godly for a long time before
falling into spiritual decay and idolatry. Israel, on the other hand,
fell into spiritual decay immediately, and for political reasons. Since
the temple of God was in Judah (their political enemy) they encouraged
the people to worship other gods and set up temples to these other gods
in Israel. After some time, God brought judgment on Israel and they
were taken into captivity by the Assyrians. Judah was not defeated by
the Assyrians because God was still with them. However, they later
fell into spiritual decay and were defeated by the Babylonians and
taken into captivity. After 70 years of captivity, God began to
restore Jerusalem through people like Nehemiah and Ezra, and eventually
many of the Jews returned from captivity to re-establish the nation of
Israel.
- Prophets as God's spokesmen -- The job of leadership had been split
into two separate jobs. Category four (Man's Declining Government)
describes the history of the kings. Category five (the prophets)
examines and describes the role of the spiritual leaders, the prophets.
We have Samuel, who remained as the spiritual leader during the reign
of the first king (Saul). There was Elijah, who worked with some of
the kings of Israel (after the kingdom split). There was Isaiah, who
worked with some of Judah's kings, including king Hezekiah. There was
Jeremiah, who was at the end of Judah's life-cycle, warning the king
and people alike of God's coming judgment. Then there was Ezekiel,
who served as a prophet while Israel was in captivity.
God Likes To Remind Us Of What He Has Done
We have just spent the last 17 lessons looking at Old testament history.
During this process, you may have been asking yourself, "Why is this
history important to me as a prophetic person?"
The answer is simple: history is very important to God, so it must also be
important to anyone who desires to speak for Him. God tends to remind
people of what He has done for them. Over and over again, God identifies
Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, e.g., the God of His
chosen people.
When God commissioned Moses at the burning bush, God identified Himself
by His relationship with His people. His first words to Moses, after
"take off your sandals" were, "I am the God of your fathers, the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob" (Ex 3:6). Moses asked
God for His name, so that he could tell the Jews who sent him. To this
God replied, "I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the
Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.' Say to the Israelites, 'The Lord,
the God of your fathers -- the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the
God of Jacob -- has sent me to you.' This is My name forever, the name
by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation..." (Ex
3:14-15).
God's whole sense of identity is wrapped up in His relationship with His
people, and in what He has done for them. Because of this, He frequently
reminds His people of history and how He has shown His power and His
faithfulness to His people over and over again.
After Israel had settled in the promised land, God began to identify
Himself as the "Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt." God also
identified Himself to His people as the God who split the Red Sea, and
delivered them from the Egyptian army that was chasing them. Even the
Psalms, or worship songs, are full of the History of what God did for
His people. Here are a few examples:
- Psalm 106:9
- He rebuked the Red Sea, and it dried up; he led them through the
depths as through a desert.
- Psalm 106:22
- ... miracles in the land of Ham and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.
- Psalm 136:13
- to Him who divided the Red Sea asunder, His love endures forever.
- Psalm 136:15
- but swept Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea; His love endures
forever.
When Jesus walked the earth, history was important to Him. For instance,
one time He was asked a "trick question" about the resurrection from
Sadducees who hoped to discredit Him in the eyes of the people. First
Jesus answered the question, then He said, "You are in error because you
do not know the Scriptures or the power of God... have you not read what
God said to you, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead but of the living" (Matt 20:29-32).
And Jesus often quoted historical information when He prophesied. For
instance, when He prophesied about his death and resurrection, He threw in
some history. He said, in Matthew 12:40, "For as Jonah was three days and
three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three
days and three nights in the heart of the earth."
Prophecy Today
The bible tells us that God does not change, He is the same yesterday and
today and forever (Heb 13:1). God liked to remind His people of history
when He spoke to them in the Old Testament. Jesus liked to remind us of
history when He lived on the earth as a man. Since God doesn't change, and
since He liked to remind people of history when He spoke to them, it follows
that He will like to remind us of history when He prophesies to people.
Let me share a few examples of where God has used history in recent words:
- Speaking to a person who's husband recently died of cancer and who was
in great debt from his medical bills: "I will be your kinsman redeemer"
this was a reference to the life of Ruth, who was widowed and impoverished
and then married Boaz (a rich relative) and the two of them were
madly in love with each other. This reference was a promise that God
both restore her financially and also meet the pain in her heart from
her recent loss of her husband.
- Speaking to someone who tended to give up at the first signs of any
sort of resistance or setback: "Just as the children of Israel had to
fight to possess their promised land, so you must fight to possess
the promise I have given you. Do not fear -- for I will be with you
and empower you and cause you to be victorious, just as I was with
them and caused them to be victorious as they possessed their promised
land."
- Speaking to people who made mistakes and felt they had been
disqualified because of their mistakes, "Do not mistake My refinement
for disqualification. I refined Joseph -- first in slavery and then
in prison -- but I never disqualified him. Rather, worked through
the circumstances in His life to change his character and motivations
to better line up with mine. I was with Him even in the midst of
adversity and false accusations and of being misunderstood. I caused
My giftings and anointings upon him to be fine-tuned in that secret
place. And then I thrust him forth into his place of destiny."
- "Do not fear, I am able to provide for you. Have you not read where I
multiplied the widow's flour and oil so that it did not run out while
there was famine in the land? Have you not read where I multiplied a
child's lunch to feed thousands? Do you think that I have lost My power
and am not able to provide for your needs?"
Even today, God loves to remind us of His faithfulness and of His power and
ability to care for us. He likes to use history in some of His prophetic
words to accomplish this.
As I said in our first lesson, God will often give us a message to deliver
without giving us a word-for-word dictation. When He does that, He likes to
be able to instruct us "Tell them the story of how I empowered David against
Goliath" or "Tell them the story of how I was faithful to follow through on
My promise to Abraham even though I made him wait a long time before I
fulfilled it" or "Tell them the story of ..." It is much easier to tell
them these stories when we are familiar with them. The better we know our
Old Testament history, the greater vocabulary we give God to speak through
us with.
In addition to all of that, God loves to speak to us personally and
encourage us by bringing scripture to our memory. There are many times
where I have sought the Lord for insight or direction on something, and
He responded by bringing an old testament story to my memory. Then I would
go look that story up in the bible and read it. And often, as I read it,
God would speak to me from it and give me the answers I had been seeking
Him for.
God has given us a very rich history and spiritual inheritance. It is
very helpful for each of us to become familiar with it, where or not we
move in the prophetic.