Truth Encounter: HisStory Old Testament

Do you ever feel that it simply doesn't pay to believe in the God of the Bible? He simply can't deliver on what He promises. Nehemiah and Ezra were both slaves in Persia, but God kept His promises to them. He brought Nehemiah home to rebuild Jerusalem and Ezra home to rebuild obedience to the Law. Both men set the stage for the gift of God's Messiah four hundred years later.

Hate for the Jew--from Pharoah in Egypt, to Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, to Xerxes in Persia-- right down to the present desire to blow them out of their land--Anti-Semitism remains a deadly poison in our 21st century. This explains why it is imperative of us to go back to the message of the 5th century BC story or Esther. God may seem absent and silent in history, but beware! He is not! When God seems hidden in history, will He still act to preserve His people and His plan? Esther, the Old Testament beauty queen, provides the answer.

The wheels of Nebuchadnezzar’s chariots rolled over Daniel and Ezekiel’s beloved city, but both of these young Jewish prophets in Exile in Babylon saw the Lord prove that He controlled the wheel of history and that in the end a "stone cut out without hands" would destroy not only Babylon but all mankind’s rebel kingdoms against God.

They are called the Twelve Minor Prophets but their message is major. From Amos to Malachi Israel’s prophets thunder divine judgment against God’s people because they have broken the promise they made to God at Sinai. How then do each of these hell-fire and damnation prophets find a tender, sweet song of salvation? Hosea gives the most provocative answer—the Lord still loves his divorced, immoral, and hardened woman. His gracious faithful love melts her heart in the end and a soiled bride becomes a virgin again for her bridegroom. What does this bitter –sweet love story have to do with our hardness and Jesus’ amazing grace?

Dr. Bruce Waltke was my major teacher at Dallas Seminary in Old Testament. He studied in Israel for a couple of years and once a week went and read the Hebrew Bible with a learned rabbi. One afternoon they read Isaiah 53 together with the wager, the Rav would fit the details of the passage identifying the suffering servant as Israel and Dr. Waltke would interpret the servant as Christ. In the midst of the discussion the rabbi became very agitated and his aid asked Dr. Waltke to leave. Let’s look at this high point of Old Testament revelation and discover the reason for the rabbi’s concern.

When you face the failure and inconsistency of God’s family, do you ever wonder whether God does have the power to accomplish His purposes on the earth? From Solomon to Jehoichin, the Kingdom of Judah was supposed to be the history of God’s Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Instead it became a history of idolatry, disobedience, and exile. As we face in Scripture the failure of God’s Old Testament people, can we still discover the hand of God’s grace?

Your business goes bankrupt, your children and grand children are destroyed in a horrendous hurricane, and then your health completely fails. Your wife visits you in the hospital and says, “Honey, why don’t you just curse God and die!” Close friends show up to give you more support. Just their silent presence comforts and then they open their mouths, “Just face it. You must have sinned badly to deserve all this. Just confess it and things will get better!” Where is God when your wife curses you and your best friends condemn you? The answer is found in the Old Testament Book of Job.

Check out the Internet. You can find all kinds of techniques that claim to give you the magic formula that will produce “super sex.” The Creator of sex chose instead to write a series of passionate love poems that teach a lot more than physical techniques. In Proverbs we have Solomon on the skillful, wise life, in Ecclesiastes we get to hear what the king has to say about the great riddles of life, and in his Song of Songs we get to celebrate the wonders of marital love.

What would God tell his children about the sting of a con artist or the seductive words of a whore? If you think that God wants us to raise His children naïve about the world, you need to take another look at the wisdom literature in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Discover how God preserves His good seed in the hearts of His sons and daughters.

On Cold Case or CSI on a weekly basis corpses are exhumed and valuable clues are discovered to capture a killer, but the clues have to be found in the midst of the dust of deteriorating flesh. Is there a man who beat the curse of death? Turn to Psalm 16 and let’s join King David as he predicted that there would be a man whose body would not deteriorate in the grave.

Henry the 8th rebelled against the Pope, formed a new church, divorced and beheaded his wives--all to insure that he would have a male heir to sustain his throne. He failed. His daughter Elizabeth reigned and in the end the Tudor dynasty failed. But there is a dynasty that will never end. Who started this dynasty and who guarantees that it will last forever? Let’s find out why King David’s Son is the ultimate ruler of planet earth.

A widow abandoned her family, her country, and her gods. What drove her to abandon everything and hike with her aging mother-in-law to a small town called Bethlehem. Its one of the most beautiful love stories ever told. This love story is about far more than woman meets man and they live happily ever after. The book of Ruth is about the length of a riveting short story, but it gives us another important clue in HisStory.

The city is cursed. Its inhabitants mock God until their stone walls collapse at the sound of Israel’s praise. Why would God choose one woman, and a prostitute at that, to be the one survivor—a survivor that became part of King David’s line?

The news presents video of Muslims killing because of their devotion to Mohammed. For them he is the greatest prophet. Jews argue that Moses is the greater—he spoke face to face with God. But Jesus claimed to be the greatest. Who do you believe is the greatest prophet and why? God’s Message of glory and grace in Deuteronomy gives the answer to how you can personally decide who the real Prophet is.

He was an immoral materialist. A prophet with a hunger to make a buck yet somehow when he opened his mouth God spoke. Buried in Israel's wilderness wanderings in the Old Testament Book of Numbers chapter 24 is a powerful Messianic prophecy delivered 1400 years before Jesus. It's the prophecy of the Star from Jacob.

The Passover-it's a high holy day for Jews and has been so for 3400 years. From the first Passover in Egypt until 70 AD lambs were sacrificed and Jews remembered God's protection of their firstborn by the blood of a lamb and then their deliverance from Egypt. From the destruction of their Temple in 70 AD until the present no lambs or any other sacrifices have been offered. Why did the omnipotent God of Israel allow sacrifices, and specifically the Passover sacrifice to end?

Can a person really change? Can a man be jealous, greedy, and power hungry at 20, and then at 40 be caring and willing to sacrifice himself for another? In Sunday school you learned the story about Joseph and his many-colored coat but did you know that the real story during the second half of Genesis was not about Joseph. It’s about Judah—the brother who made a buck selling him into slavery.

A sudden illness, the loss of a job, a child that leaves the faith--right when life seems to even out and run smooth often times of testing invade. Imagine waiting years to have a child, finally your barren wife laughs with the birth of her firstborn, and then before the boy reaches adulthood God demands that you kill your pride and joy.

"Brother Claims No Responsibility in Brothers Disappearance!" "Husband Jokes with Wife about the Murder of a Teen!" "Murder Becoming More Normal than Birth!" Faced with headlines like this, what would a righteous divine judge do? Our present no-fault, no-punishment culture needs to hear the message of Genesis 4-11 because these are the headlines God faced in the pre-flood world and Genesis 6-9 tells us what He actually did do about it!

"Once upon a time"--from earliest childhood those words rivet our attention. From Homer to Shakespeare to Spielburg why does a good story capture our attention and what is the most powerful story of all Dave Wyrtzen begins a new series titled His Story-- Discovering God's Glory and Grace. Turn to Genesis chapter one. This ultimate true story begins with not with "once upon a time" but with "In the beginning God..."