The Bible in a Nutshell: Part One

The following text is from a sermon by Ron Teed, delivered at Village Church of Wheaton (Illinois, USA) on March 7, 2004. 2004, Ron Teed. The Bible in a Nutshell: Part One As an expression of His love, God has placed signposts almost everywhere we look that point the way back home when we find ourselves on the wrong road, which frequently is taken to reach the city of Gold and Glitter. Nature is one of the signposts which speaks of God s glory according to Romans 1:20: From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God. However, by itself nature can t communicate the grace of God or His commitment to provide for His people. In order to make those realities clear, God had His prophets write down everything that He wanted us to know about Him in the Bible so that people would be able to turn to it whenever they had any questions about God. He made it clear from the very beginning that He made the world for the people that He placed in it. In the very first chapter of the Bible we find this record: 27 God created people in his own image and God patterned them after himself; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and told them, Multiply and fill the earth and rule over it. 29 I have given you the seed-bearing plants throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food (Genesis 1:27-29). God tells Adam and Eve that he has provided everything they will ever need for survival and in effect everything that anyone will ever need for survival. Then in Genesis 2:15-17, God says: 15 The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and care for it. 16 But the Lord God gave him this warning: You may freely eat any fruit in the garden 17 except fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat of its fruit, you will surely die. These two passages combine to form the first covenant that God made with humans. A covenant for those who might not be familiar with the term is a promise and/or agreement that is made between God and people. Basically God tells them, Do what I ask and I ll richly bless you. Disobey and you ll be punished. We read in Psalm 19: 7,8: 7 The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The decrees of the Lord are trustworthy, 1

making wise the simple. 8 The commandments of the Lord are right, bringing joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are clear, giving insight to life. So for the benefit of all people who have or ever will live, God first proves through creation that He exists and then through His written word He provides directions on the signposts telling all people who will look at them how to reach the city of Promise. The bottom line here is that God is telling everyone to look around and realize that no one could have created this world other than God. No one else, including all of humankind had the ability, and all of humankind with all of its advanced technology doesn t have the ability to keep the world functioning as it functions today. What advanced scientific development could keep the earth revolving around the sun or keep it suspended in mid air as it hangs in the universe? Who or what committee could ensure the sun would rise and set consistently to the second every day? And it s beyond the realm of possibility or statistical probability for that to happen by mere chance. It s actually harder not to believe in God than it is to believe in Him. In Psalm 1:1-3, we find these words: 1 The joy of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked; 2 who delight in doing everything the Lord wants. 3 They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season without fail. Their leaves never wither, and in all they do, they prosper. And in Psalm 119:33-40, we read: 33 Teach me, Lord, how to follow every one of your principles. 34 Give me understanding and I will obey; I will put it into practice with all my heart. 35 Make me walk the path of your commands, for that is where my happiness is found. 36 Do not inflict me with love for money! 37 Turn my eyes from worthless things, and give me life through your word. 38 Reassure me of your promise for those who honor you. 39 Help me abandon my shameful ways; 40 I long to obey your commandments! Renew my life with your goodness. The history from the time of Adam until Christ was filled with human disobedience and evil. It began with what is referred to as the Fall of man. Both Adam and Eve decided God s provision wasn t adequate for them and when Satan told them they could be just like God if they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, guess what they did? They broke the covenant God had made with them. As a result of their disobedience, sin entered the world and would be part of every human being ever born from that time on. But all during this time from Adam and Eve to the present day, it was God s plan for the people in every generation to understand the depth of His love for them, the trustworthiness of His commitments, the need to obey His commands, the consequences of making other things in the world more important than Him, His plan to free them from failure and death, and the hope of eternal life that awaited them 2

with the coming of Christ. After the Fall, God made His second covenant with mankind before sending Adam and Eve out from the Garden of Eden. God made the covenant while warning Satan of his ultimate destruction, and we find this covenant in Genesis 3:15: 15 From now on, you and the woman will be enemies, and your offspring and her offspring will be enemies. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel. We don t have the time here to get into the theology involved in this statement by God, but almost all Bible scholars will agree that this statement predicts the coming of and the victory of Christ over Satan when Christ arrived on the scene in the first century. Now as we move along on our journey through the Bible, we ll go back to the very beginning and talk about some of the events between Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and the call to Abraham, but for the purposes of highlighting the major themes in the Bible, we ll begin our study with the call of Abraham and the beginning of the Jewish nation around the year 2,000 B.C. You might be thinking, Oh no, are we going to have to sit through a bunch of boring ancient history that doesn t have an ounce of application to our lives today? The answer is, no. Because what God began with Abraham has not changed in concept one bit over the last 4,000 years, and it applies to you and me as much today as it did to Abraham in his day. As a matter of fact, what God began with Adam and Eve hasn t changed in the last 10,000 years. First let us give you an historic jet tour from Adam and Eve to the call of Abraham where we ll begin our story. After Adam and Eve were no longer allowed to remain in The Garden of Eden because of their disobedience in eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they had to work the land to provide for themselves. They had children, and their children had children, and their children s children had children, and so on through many generations up to the time of Noah. From the time of Adam and Eve, humankind got worse, not better, and it got so bad that God finally decided to do something. Genesis 6: 5 Now the Lord observed the extent of the people s wickedness, and he saw that all their thoughts were consistently and totally evil. 6 So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them. It broke his heart. 7 And the Lord said, I will completely wipe out this human race that I have created. Yes, and I will destroy all the animals and birds, too. I am sorry I ever made them. 8 But Noah found favor with the Lord, 22 and Noah did everything exactly as God had commanded him. You pretty much know the rest of the story. God sent flood waters upon the earth destroying all of life except Noah, his wife, their three sons, and their wives. After it was all over and the flood waters receded, Noah, his family, and all the animals left the ark and started populating the earth again. At this time God made His third covenant since the creation, and this time with Noah, Genesis 9: 3

1 God blessed Noah and his sons and told them, Multiply and fill the earth. 2 I have placed all the wild animals, the birds and fish under your power. 3 I have given them to you for food, just as I have given you grain and vegetables. Now you must have many children and repopulate the earth. Yes, multiply and fill the earth! 8 Then God told Noah and his sons, 9 I am making a covenant with you and your descendants, 10 and with the animals you brought with you. 11 I solemnly promise never to send another flood to kill all living creatures and destroy the earth. 12 And God said, I am giving you a sign as evidence of my eternal covenant with you and all living creatures. 13 I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is the sign of my permanent promise to you and to all the earth. Soon the world was repopulated and after many generations we come to the time of Abraham. The importance of Abraham is that through Abraham God reveals His purpose and His goal for the universe. In promises to Abram, God revealed that He had a plan. Abram and Abraham were the same person. God later changed Abram s name to Abraham. To Abraham were given wonderful covenant promises that show us history s direction, and reassure us that God has a plan and purpose for each of our lives. Abraham began a journey when God first spoke to him and instructed him. God told Abraham to leave Mesopotamia and to go to a land God would show him (Acts 7:2). Abraham obeyed. While pausing in Haran along the way, God spoke again, repeating His command (Gen. 12:1), and adding words of promise. In a series of great I wills, God stated an unshakable purpose which has remained constant for thousands of years and which is the foundation on which our understanding of the entire Bible, Old and New Testament rests today. All the Old Testament and the New Testament can be understood as a progressive unfolding of the purpose God first announced to Abraham some 4,000 years ago. Genesis 12:1-4: 1 Then the Lord told Abram, Leave your country, your relatives, and your father s house, and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will cause you to become the father of a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and I will make you a blessing to others. 3 I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you. 4 So Abram departed as the Lord had instructed him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. Verses 2 and 3 describe God s fourth covenant which is made with Abram/Abraham. Glancing at the words in Genesis 12, we re apt to miss the significance. It is only as we note the restatement of the promises, which come periodically throughout the Old Testament, that we begin to see their implications. As we hear the words of promise developed by the prophets, we see how 4

completely central this revelation of purpose is. As we take these promises to be an expression of God s purpose, the relationship between the Old and New Testaments becomes clear. And the history of our own day, as we await the return of Christ, is filled with fresh meaning. The earliest of God s promises are the same to you and me today as they were to Abraham. They are at the root of the Jewish identity since 2,000 B.C.. They are the key to understanding the Old Testament. They are a window on current events. Let s listen to the promises that were to apply from the time God gave them to Abraham right up until our present day. You see, the greatest majority of people simply don t realize that there isn t any difference between the promises made to the Jews and those God applies to the Christian Church. The Church (Christians) was simply a continuation, or an outgrowth, of the small number of Jews that believed in Jesus Christ as their Messiah and the Savior of the world. You see, Christ was a Jew and so were all twelve of His apostles. All the early converts in Christianity were Jews who accepted Christ for who He was, before the opportunity for salvation was formally extended to the Gentiles by the apostle Paul who was called directly by Jesus to be the apostle to the Gentiles. Gentiles referred to anyone who wasn t a Jew. You see it was God s intent from the very beginning to fulfill all of His promises in the person of Jesus, first to the Jews, whom God had first called to faith in Him. Then the Jews were to be God s representatives in taking His message to the rest of the world. This is what God promised Abraham: I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. I will make you a blessing. From Abraham came the people of Israel. From Israel came both our Scriptures (the Bible) and our Savior. What blessings indeed! I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you. In striking ways, the rise and fall of empires from the time of this promise bears out the stated intention of God to deal with men and nations as they deal with His chosen people. In you will all the families of the earth he blessed. God s choice of Abraham and his children was not designed to exclude others. From the very beginning God s choice of Israel was intended for the benefit of mankind. There is a final promise, one added after Abraham had responded in faith and left Haran, finally entering the land of Canaan. The Lord appeared and said: To your descendants I will give THIS land. The purposes of God, and the future of Israel, are focused on a particular place: a land, Palestine, where in our own day we ve seen the planting once again of a Jewish state. 5

So let s begin. The foundation of God s plan, believe it or not, from the Garden of Eden up to the garden in your back yard, has been the Sabbath, or what we currently refer to as Sunday, the day of rest. You re undoubtedly wondering, What in the world is he talking about? Well, if you ll go along with me here for a while, I believe you ll start to see the connection. The purpose of the Sabbath was to jog peoples memories week after week that God has provided everything they need for survival in the creation. Thus from the beginning of creation itself, the Sabbath decree was like a piece of string around a person s finger reminding them constantly that God was the only one who could meet their needs. Again one of the earliest passages in the Bible, Genesis 2:1-3 reads: 1 So the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed. 2 On the seventh day, having finished his task, God rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from his work of creation. The importance of the Sabbath (Sunday) between God and His people is emphasized by its inclusion in the Ten Commandments. Here as well the keeping of the Sabbath (Sunday) is linked directly to the creation story as the basis for issuing the command itself. God spoke these words to Moses in Exodus 20:8-11: 8 Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days a week are set apart for your daily duties and regular work, 10 but the seventh day is a day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any kind of work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; then He rested on the seventh day. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy. Why do you suppose God rested on the seventh day? Do you think He was tired? Not possible. God rested for the very simple reason that all His work was finished; there was absolutely nothing left to do. We read in Genesis 2:1,2: 1 So the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed. 2 On the seventh day, having finished his task, God rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from his work of creation. God had declared in Genesis 1:31 that His work was very good. God s Sabbath day of rest could be compared to a carpenter, who after completing a beautiful new room addition, steps back to admire what He has done. 6

God rested because the world He created was now perfectly suited to meet the needs of people. The Sabbath rest was to be a reminder forever that the world God created was just the way He wanted it to be. God s rest, therefore, was the rest of satisfaction, not weariness, and a stamp of approval on His work. God said to Adam and Eve in Genesis 1:29,30: 29 Look! I have given you the seed-bearing plants throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. 30 And I have given all the grasses and other green plants to the animals and birds for their food. And so it was. God is telling them that He has given them a perfect world that will provide everything they need. So too God instructed His people to keep the Sabbath as their expression of gratitude for His provisions and their trust in Him for the future. So returning to Abraham and the inception of the Jewish nation of Israel, each seventh day of the week was to be a reenactment of the week of creation. God s people were to work for six days as He had in providing for them, by running the world and enjoying its provisions. By doing so they supervised the activities of the world as God had instructed them to do in Genesis 1:26-28: 26 God said, Let us make people in our image, to be like ourselves. They will be masters over all life the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the livestock, wild animals, and small animals. 27 So God created people in his own image; God patterned them after himself; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and told them, Multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. Be masters over the fish and birds and all the animals. Then after six days of enjoying God s provision, a day of rest was to be enjoyed in recognition that God s creation was indeed good and His provisions perfect. Therefore, by keeping the Sabbath, the people that God created were simply to recognize about creation what God had already told them about it, that His provision is all they need to fulfill the purpose for which He created them. They were to rest on the seventh day of the week, not because they were exhausted or needed to take a break, or needed to obey a rule, but because they were content in God and His will for their lives. They did not need to look anywhere else but to God to provide the good life. In this way, they also expressed what it means to be created in the image of God as described in the passage we just read in Genesis 1:27. To break the third commandment, the seventh day is a day of rest, that we read earlier in Exodus 20:8-11, can be described in no other way as dissatisfaction with what God has provided and to distrust Him for our future care and wellbeing. This casts a shadow over the glory of God s loving kindness. Why else would Israel, or we for that matter, work seven days a week, if for no other reason than we think what God had given us during the week was not enough. When I was a kid growing up, none of the retail stores 7

were open on Sunday, and were only open in the evening on Monday and Thursday. I can tell you from experience that we had much better values then than our culture demonstrates today, and I ll wager we had a lot more genuine pleasure as well. If you re not old enough to remember anything about the 1950 s, you missed something pretty special. Throughout Israel s history this kind of complaining and lack of faith took many other forms as well, the most common being idolatry which also broke the first commandment as well. In Exodus 20:2-7, God tells the people: 2 I am the Lord your God, who rescued you from slavery in Egypt. 3 Do not worship any other gods besides me. 4 Do not make idols of any kind, whether in the shape of birds or animals or fish. 5 You must never worship or bow down to them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not share your affection with any other god! I do not leave unpunished the sins of those who hate me. 6 I lavish my love on those who love me and obey my commands, even for a thousand generations. 7 Do not misuse the name of the Lord your God. The Lord will not let you go unpunished if you misuse his name. The reference in verse 6 to idols, does not only refer to things in the shape of birds or animals or fish, but to anything you might worship, as mentioned in verse 7, other than God. In our world today such things often include money, power, self-indulgence over one s appearance, houses, cars, vacations, sex, drunkenness, drug addiction, and I think you get the idea. Israel s lack of faith also took the form of covetousness, which broke the tenth commandment as described for us in Exodus 20:17: 17 Do not covet your neighbor s house. Do not covet your neighbor s wife, male or female servant, ox or donkey, or anything else your neighbor owns. Covetousness is defined most properly by Webster as, an inordinate desire for wealth or possessions or for another s possessions. Some things don t change much in 2,000 years do they? Israel was breaking God s commandments all over the place. Whatever commandments they broke, whatever the form of disobedience, it all boiled down to a public display of discontent, disbelief, and distrust directed toward God. Working on the Sabbath even though God rested on it is, like all other acts of disobedience, to disdain God s gifts. For instance, the guy who works two jobs, not because his family needs the money, but because he wants to impress friends by the house he lives in and the car he drives, or the woman who buys far more things than she needs because it alleviates her perpetual state of boredom and feelings of inadequacy. To crave more than God has given, so that we do things He prohibits in order to get them, is an idolatrous rejection of His love for us. For Israel to work on the Sabbath was to tell God He was inadequate for them. We do the same thing, only in different ways. 8

The importance of God s command for people to keep the Sabbath can be further seen in Exodus 31: 12 The Lord then gave these further instructions to Moses: 13 Tell the people of Israel to keep my Sabbath day, for the Sabbath is a sign of the covenant between me and you forever. It helps you to remember that I am the Lord, who makes you holy. 16 The people of Israel must keep the Sabbath day forever. 17 It is a permanent sign of my covenant with them. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, but he rested on the seventh day and was refreshed. Unfortunately the descendants of Abraham weren t much smarter than the descendants of Adam before the Flood. They too were disobedient and evil, ignored the Sabbath, and consequently God allowed the Egyptians to enslave them for 130 years, 1575-1445 B.C. This command to keep the Sabbath is the glue that is to hold together God s relationship with Israel as it was stated when He freed them from Egypt in what has become to be known as the Exodus. The command would also apply to each succeeding generation right up to ours. After 130 years of slavery in Egypt, God sent Moses to free the Jews and lead them back to the Promised Land. After freeing them from captivity in Egypt, God made another covenant (His fifth), and this time with Moses and the Israelites, Exodus 19:1-8: 1 The Israelites arrived in the wilderness of Sinai exactly two months after they left Egypt. 2 After breaking camp at Rephidim, they came to the base of Mount Sinai and set up camp there. 3 Then Moses climbed the mountain to appear before God. The Lord called out to him from the mountain and said, Give these instructions to the descendants of Jacob, the people of Israel: 4 You have seen what I did to the Egyptians. You know how I brought you to myself and carried you on eagle s wings. 5 Now if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the nations of the earth; for all the earth belongs to me. 6 And you will be to me a kingdom of priests, my holy nation. Give this message to the Israelites. No greater blessing or honor could ever be offered to anyone. 7 Moses returned from the mountain and called together the leaders of the people and told them what the Lord had said. 8 They all responded together, We will certainly do everything the Lord asks of us. So Moses brought the people s answer back to the Lord. So let s see if we can now simplify this time period of approximately 6,000 years that we ve already covered in a compact little package: 9

1) In the very beginning, before there was anything, God created the universe out of nothing. He had no raw materials, He simply spoke and the entire universe was created (see Genesis 1). 2) As part of this creation, He made a man and a woman (Adam and Eve). God gave them a perfect environment to live in and made a promise to them, which had only one condition, Genesis 2:15-17: 15 The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and care for it. 16 But the Lord God gave him this warning: You may freely eat any fruit in the garden 17 except fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat of its fruit, you will surely die. 3) Adam and Eve disobeyed and ate from that tree causing sin to enter the human stream. That sin would be passed from generation to generation to all people ever born with the exception of one. 4) Sin became so rampant among the people that God used a flood to destroy everything on the earth with the exception of Noah and his family. 5) After many generations God implemented His plan for restoring the human race to Him by calling Abraham as the father of the Jewish nation. 6) Abraham obeyed God and went to Canaan, which we know today as Palestine and Israel. 7) Because of disobedience the Jews did not receive the blessings promised by God. Instead they received the punishment He promised if they disobeyed Him and they went into slavery in the land of Egypt. 8) After 130 years of slavery, God called Moses to lead His people out of slavery and back to the promised Land of Canaan. 9) God then made another covenant with Moses and the people of Israel, which they promptly broke, but after punishing them with forty years of wandering in the desert, He finally brought them into the Promised Land. 10) Throughout history God remained the same. From Adam to Moses, He told His people that if they were obedient to His commands, He would bless them, and if they were not, He would punish them. Consistently generation after generation, right up to this generation, people have for the most part been disobedient and suffered the consequences. 11) The sign to the people of the perfection of God s provision and plan was the Sabbath day of rest, the seventh day of the week that we know as Sunday. By remembering this day every week, the people were to have a constant reminder that if they were obedient to God, life would be sweet, and if they were disobedient life would be bitter. After thousands of years of this same message being repeated to the people of the world, you d think they d get it. But no, they continue to reject God and suffer the consequences. I hope that some of us have been able to see the message more clearly today. If it s still something you can t readily embrace, I would simply suggest that you pray for God to show you the truth, and He will. Next week we ll tackle a couple thousand more years. 10

Time Line for the First Five Covenants 8000B.C. 6500 B.C. 2166-1991 B.C. 1575-1446 B.C. 1445 B.C. Creation Fall Noah Abraham Captivity Moses/Exodus A & E A&E sin Covenant Covenant in Covenant Covenant Genesis 9:16 Sabbath Egypt Sabbath Sabbath Genesis 12:2 Exodus 19:5 Gen.2:16 Gen.3:15 Abram s/abraham s Route: 1) Ur of the Chaldeans to Haran (Genesis 11:31,32)..2116 B.C. 2) Haran to Shechem (Genesis 12:1-7) 3) Shechem to Bethel (Genesis 12:7,8) 2091 B.C. 4) Bethel to Egypt (Genesis 12:10-16) 5) Egypt to Bethel (Genesis 13:1-4) 11