A Prophet's Eye-View Of Bible History"

Much of the Old testament fits into five basic categories, with each category having five points. Breaking Old Testament history down like that makes it a bit easier to remember. When we look at the big picture, e.g., an overview of the five categories, it gives us a context for understanding and remembering a lot of the specific details.

We looked at the first three categories in our last lesson. They were

1. The Beginnings - this is the time period from the creation to the flood.

2. The Restart or New Beginnings - this is the time from Noah to the captivity and deliverance from Egypt.

3. God's Government - this is the time where God explicitly ruled His people, starting with Moses and going through the last ruling prophet, Samuel. It also includes the first two kings that God set up to rule Israel - Saul and David.

Now let's examine the other two categories.

Category 4 - Man's Declining Government

This period of history starts with Solomon and runs pretty much through the end of the Old Testament. God's people took governmental leadership out of God's hand and choose to rule themselves.

The first of these leaders was Solomon, David's son and successor. He started out as a good and godly king, but he eventually backslid. He had a huge harem and many of his wives and concubines worshipped idols. After a while he started worshipping idols with his wives, losing the favor of the Lord. The kingdom should have gone to his son, but his son was politically unsavvy and unreasonable. So Israel split into two nations. The tribe of Judah (residing in Jerusalem) stayed with Solomon's oppressive son.

The rest of the tribes split off under Jeroboam and was known as the nation of Israel. In general, Israel had a series of ungodly kings. They tried to introduce various idols so that the people would not want to worship at Solomon's temple (which was in Judah). One of the most noteworthy wicked kings was Ahab, who married Jezebel and set her up as a priestess over Israel. Ahab and Elijah had a lot of interactions and conflicts. When Ahab died, his successors were still ungodly. Israel finally fell into captivity to Assyria because God's hand of protection had lifted off of them for their sins.

Judah had a few ungodly kings, but most of them were godly and encouraged the people to worship God. One of the most noteworthy kings was Hezekiah. When the Assyrians attacked Judah (having already defeated Israel), he cried out to God for help and God delivered them. Eventually Judah had a series of ungodly kings that permitted and encouraged idolatry and worshipping other gods. Then Josiah became king and they had a national revival. But when he died, his son was a wicked and ungodly king. God finally allowed the Babylonians to defeat Judah and many of the people were carried away into exile.

The book of Daniel takes place shortly after the fall of Judah to Babylon. Even during Daniel's life in Babylon, the Medes overthrew the Assyrians and took over Babylon. (I think this was through political intrigue rather than through a battle.) That is followed (Chronologically) by the book of Ezra. About 70 years after the Babylonian captivity, the exiles were permitted to return to Jerusalem. Ezra was one of the leaders of those who returned, and he was instrumental in rebuilding the temple and altar of the Lord. Shortly after that is Nehemiah's story. Scholars think that Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem about 13 years after Ezra arrived. Nehemiah was a Jewish man in captivity who became the king's cupbearer. God put Jerusalem on his heart and he was allowed to take some time off of work to go rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. This was completed approximately 400 years before the birth of Christ.

Category 5 - Prophets As God's Spokesmen

When man took governmental rule away from God, God introduced prophets to come alongside of the kings to make His will known. Some of these kings honored God and listened to His prophets. Others of them were in rebellion with God and viewed His prophets as their enemies. Here is an overview of a few of the more major prophets:

Samuel

He worked with the first king Saul and anointed David as king. He tried to teach him how to rule in a godly fashion, but Saul's heart was rebellious and God rejected Saul as king. Samuel had some interactions with David as a young man, but he died before David was formally made king.

Elijah and Elisha

this was a power ministry that demonstrated God's supremacy over the false God's of Israel. Elijah lived and ministered in Israel during the time of Ahab and Jezebel. Elisha was personally mentored and trained by Elijah and continued the power ministry after Elijah was taken to Heaven without dieing. Elisha performed many miracles during his 60 year ministry, during the reigns of the following kings of Israel: Jehoram, Jehu, Jehoahaz, and Joash.

Isaiah

Isaiah was a prophet to more than one king of Judah, but his greatest influence was with King Hezekiah. Isaiah was involved in some fairly powerful stuff, such as God saving Judah from the attacking Syrian army and the did at least one physical healing, saving the king's life from a fatal boil. He also did at least one miracle because he caused the sun to backtrack in the sky as a sign to Hezekiah. Isaiah wrote about God's judgments and about his coming redeemer. There are many graphic passages in Isaiah that describe details of Christ's life and death.

Jeremiah

Jeremiah's ministry also spanned multiple kings, and occurred before Judah was taken into captivity by the Babylonians. His message was primarily one warning people of God's coming judgment and of their upcoming captivity to Babylon. Jeremiah was an intercessor as well as a prophet. King Zedekiah had him imprisoned for prophesying that Israel would fall to Babylon. Jeremiah was alive when the Babylonians captured Judah and the Babylonians set him free because he had prophesied in their favor. While the Babylonians took the Jews into captivity, they allowed Jeremiah to go free.

Ezekiel

While most of the major prophets worked with national leaders, Ezekiel worked a bit more closely with the people. He lived during the Babylonian exile and seemed to hold a prominent place among the Jews, where he ministered for about 23 years. The elders would often consult with him. Ezekiel's writings deal with God's coming rule and contain a lot of end-time prophecy.

The remaining lessons will examine each of these five categories in much greater detail.