The next event in the history of the world according to the Bible is God setting aside a people for Himself. This nation would become Israel. They were to carry the name of God as his people and be a separate nation from all the other nations of the earth. The other nations had been given land and were allotted to the lesser Elohim referred to as the sons of God. But Israel would be God’s own possession and He would give them a piece of property called the promised land. By the end of Genesis chapter 11 we are given another genealogy that ends with a guy named Abram. He will be the one who God chooses to begin His nation of Israel and continue the family line of the messiah...the seed of the woman Eve...who will defeat satan. God chose this man Abram to be the father of Israel. God later changed his name to Abraham. But why was this man chosen? God knows the heart of a man and chose Abraham because of his potential for great faith. Let’s go to the book of Hebrews and look at the famous “Hall of Faith”. See if you recognize any of the names listed there based on what we’ve talked about over the last couple of weeks. I believe you’ll see what all these guys have in common and why they were the ones God choose to be the main characters in the history of the world. Hebrews 11:1-10 “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 For by it the people of old received their commendation. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
4 By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. 5 By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. 7 By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. 8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” Abraham was faithful. That means he was full of faith. He believed what God told him regardless of how crazy it may have sounded at the time. Let’s look at the first thing God tells Abraham to do. Genesis 12:1-4 “Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” 4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. “
This gives us some insight to who Abraham was. A man of faith. Abraham obeyed God through faith even though he had no idea where God was leading him. But what he did have was a promise from God...and he believed it, trusted it and acted on it. Abraham is not some super hero with great powers of faith. He was human, just like you. Just like you he had a choice when God asked something of him. He chose to say yes. What about you? What will you do when God asks you to work for Him doing a kingdom expansion job? Maybe you’ve already been in that situation? Laura and I have. Or maybe you’re in that situation right now. What is your answer? What are you waiting for? Are you waiting until you have a back up plan worked out? Or maybe you are waiting until you have enough money saved to cover expenses...Just incase God lets you down. Is that what faith and trust look like? Here’s the thing. If you know God and understand His ways, you can rest assured that wherever He’s taking you to or whatever He’s asking of you, it will be good for both you and His plan to spread His kingdom glory over the earth. Now I didn’t say it would be easy, fun or be free from having any trouble along the way. But taking the action that God is asking you to do is proof that you have put your faith in Him. Do you think it was easy for Abraham to leave everything he knew behind and start traveling, even though he had no idea where he was suppose to go. Do you think it was easy for Abraham to bargain with God over how many righteous people might be in Sodom before God destroyed it? That’s a story for a different day.
Do you think it was easy for Abraham to believe God’s promise that he would be the father of a great nation when he was already 75 years old and had no children? Do you think it was easy for Abraham to walk up a mountain and prepare to sacrifice his son Isaac when God asked him to do that? What has God asked you to sacrifice that you have been unwilling to give up? Abraham showed time after time that He trusted and had his faith in God. So therefore, God chooses him to be the father of the nation He chose for Himself. Abraham’s descendants were Isaac, then Jacob, who’s name was changed to Israel. That is where we get the “Children of Israel.” Israel had 12 sons and those became the 12 tribes of Israel. One of his sons was named Joseph. Joseph was the one who ended up being put in authority over all the resources of Egypt during a great famine. And that’s how God preserved the family of Abraham through the famine. But after Joseph dies, the rulers of Egypt become concerned about how his family has greatly multiplied across Egypt. So they put them into slavery because they are worried that if an enemy attacks, they would join forces with the enemy and be able to defat Egypt. The children of Israel were slaves of Egypt for about 400 years. This number takes it all the way back to Abraham and the problem that his son Ishmael causes Isaac. If we go back to Hebrews 11, we will find our next character in the history of the world according to the bible. Here’s a little secret, the history of the world according to the Bible...is the story of the faithful men of Hebrews 11. The next guy” name is Moses. You probably remember him from Sunday school. He the guy who led the children of Israel out of Egypt and towards the promised land.
Hebrews 11:24-25 “24 By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, 25 choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. So God chooses Moses to becomes the leader of His people and to bring them out of the slavery of Egypt. But God does it an interesting way, using plagues. The story behind the story of the plagues of Egypt is amazing. Honestly, I always thought all the different plagues God sent were strange. They didn’t seem to make sense, until I realized there must be a piece of information I was missing. That piece of information is what I want to share with you next. The Egyptians worshiped lots of gods. Remember how last week we talked about how God divided the nations according to the sons of God, and that God judged them because they had accepted worship that belonged to Him? Well here is where that continues to play out. The 10 plagues of Egypt are God asserting His dominance over the gods they worshipped. Phararoh kicked things off with his answer to Moses, when Moses and his brother Aaron ask him to allow God’s people to go worship Him. Exodus 5:1-2 “Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’” 2 But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.”
Who is the Lord, that I should obey Him? That is not an odd question when you realize how many gods Egypt worshiped. Who is the Lord? Well, you’re about to find out. He is the God over all the little gods you’ve been serving. Here is where we get some spiritual insight as to why God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. This is the story behind the story of the ten plagues of Egypt.
Exodus 12:12 “12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord.
God wanted to put on display His dominance over the gods of Egypt, so He hardened Pharaoh’s heart until He embarrassed each one of them. Every plague God sent on Egypt was pointed at a god they worshipped.
Here are the 10 plagues God sent. And the name of each god that was being judged.
The Nile turned to Blood: Hapi: the God of annual flooding; Osirus: The Nile was supposedly his bloodstream.
Frogs: Hapi and Hegt who had the head of a frog and were related to fertility: Hegt was a goddess.
Lice: Seb: the earth god. The Egyptian priests had to shave their entire body every other day to prevent lice. That would make them unclean to enter their god’s temple and offer sacrifices. The plague of lice was a problem for all of their gods.
Flies: Hathor: the goddess of protection; Vatchi: fly God.
Livestock death: Apis: the bull god.
Boils: Sekhmet: goddess of epidemics.
Hail and Fire: Nut; the sky goddess; Seth: God of storms; Shu: God of the atmosphere.
Locusts: Siris: God of crops; Serapia: protector of crops.
Darkness: Ra: the sun god, the most worshipped god in Egypt.
10. Death of the First Born: Heget: goddess of birth; Min; the god of reproduction. When the plagues are over God has certainly shown Pharaoh who He is. Pharaoh then releases the children of Israel. God draws a distinction between the Israel, which belongs to Him and the other nations that He gave to the sons of God. Deuteronomy 4:20 “But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own inheritance, as you are this day.” God has determined that Israel is to be His own inheritance of people. But as we will see in this next passage, Israel didn’t keep their end of the deal to be God’s chosen people. They began to worship other gods. Here’s the problem. It took plagues to get Israel out of Egypt, but it will take more than that to get Egypt out of Israel. They continued to want to go back to their old ways. The ways they lived when slaves in Egypt. Does that sound familiar? Are you doing that right now? Does your life reflect a new address?
Deuteronomy 32:15-18 “15 “But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked; you grew fat, stout, and sleek; then he forsook God who made him and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation. 16 They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods; with abominations they provoked him to anger. 17 They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded. 18 You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth. Jeshurun is a symbolic name for the nation of Israel. In these verses they are accused of turning away from the One True God Yahweh and worshiping other “gods.” They worshiped strange gods and abominations. They sacrificed to demons that were not gods, to gods they had never known and to new gods. This is why we see God deliver the Ten Commandments, very soon after the Children of Israel left Egypt. This should give us insight into the first 4 commandments. They establish the relationship that the new nation of Israel was supposed to have with God. They are given to God’s people, not the other nations who were given to the other lesser gods. Exodus 20:1-17 “And God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. First, He reminds them who He is and what He has done for them. Does God have to constantly remind you who He is? His first commandment is pointed back to their Egyptian lifestyle. 3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. 7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.” 8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God...” 12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” 13 “You shall not murder.” 14 “You shall not commit adultery.” 15 “You shall not steal.” 16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” 17 “You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.”
You should be able to see from what we’ve talked over the last several week, that serving other gods was a big problem. The first four commandments are all about correcting that behavior. All of these commandments addressed the very things that the nation of Israel was doing. Just like us today. Israel was supposed to be different from the other nations who served other gods. God’s law was what made them different. And it’s what is supposed to make us different from the world today. Over the last several weeks, we’ve looked into the history of the world according to the bible. We’ve seen three major rebellions that took place as mankind continually rejected God. But here’s the thing about God. He always has and answer to fix the mess we make. From the very beginning, God was working out His plan for a Messiah who could destroy the works of the enemy. The first rebellion was the original sin of Adam which brought death into the world. The second rebellion was the depravity and wickedness of mankind before God sent the great the flood. The third rebellion was at the tower of Babel, which brought about the estrangement of the nations caused by idolatry. But here is the good news. Jesus, God’s unique Son, and our Messiah, is able to correct all three rebellion problems that we have seen separate us from God the Father. His work when He came to the earth as God in the flesh was to undo the enemy’s attempt to keep mankind separated from God.
Jesus fixes the death problem of the first rebellion, caused by the sin of Adam and Eve from Genesis 3. The resurrection of Jesus has defeated death for everyone. His sacrifice, removes our sin, which removes the problem of death. Jesus fixes the wickedness and depravity problem of the second rebellion, which brought about the flood. He does this by sending the Holy Spirit, who works in our life to defeat the works of the flesh. The Holy Spirit reminds us of everything Jesus taught us. And finally, Jesus fixes the estrangement problem of the third rebellion, caused by the idolatry at Babel, when the nations were separated. He calls to the gentiles as well as the Jewish nation to be welcomed into His salvation. He is in the process of reconciling all people back to God the father.
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