Class 1
Original URL Wednesday, March 17, 2021
Transcript
um i don't know about you buti sent a letter out to my clients um at the end of december
and i said you know let us wish good riddance to 2020
and uh look forward to the new year
and yet here we are in march and i'm like looking around thinking you know a whole lot hasn't changed
it's kind of the same as it was like three four five months ago in many in many respects
and um
i guess what i was thinking was that this year
for a lot of us
is probably
a lot like what it must have felt for the jews
who were brought into captivity in babylon
now that's sort of a uh i think maybe i'm making a big stretch in making that comparison but but i hope you can get the point you know the point is that for a lot of us
what we've experienced over the past year
is a sort of exile
exile i think can be defined as sort of being expelled from your home
um
exile can be thought of as as be being in a new circumstance where everything is uncertain
and so if you were to
you know take a look at your bible
and uh open it up it's really quite remarkable when you think about the number of of pages in the bible
that relate to the experience of the israelites
and focused on the israelites exile
so for example i might have you uh turn with me and if you'd like to feel free to do that uh you will come to the end of second chronicles
and it's here at this end of second chronicles where in chapter 36
that we read about the fall of jerusalem
it's uh verse 15.
it says yahweh the god of their fathers sent to them through his messengers again and again
because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place and so what we're reading here in in second chronicles is sort of the precursor to the time when the babylonians came in and and destroyed jerusalem and captured its people and this section of uh passages begins with a description of god having sent his prophets to warn the people because he had love for them he had his messengers come again and again because he had pity on his people and so so much of the bible you know you think about the the messages of the prophets so much of the message from the prophets was to warn forewarn the people that they needed to change their ways or else they would be brought into exile
and this idea of exile is one that really pervades
all of the scriptures both the old testament the jewish scriptures as we said and we find it also in the new testament
so as i mentioned the the idea of exile is when uh when someone is sort of forcibly removed from their home or barred from their home
and it sort of expresses the reality of having no sense of belonging
no sense of security and when we think about what a lot of us have experienced this past year i think that we can see some similarities there yeah we may be living in our in our homes
but everything is different
um
you know particularly for those of us who have not been able to get out of our homes and to go for example to our ecclesias on sunday or to go to our place of work each day these things create a sense of uncertainty when will it be back to normal
and so when we think of this idea of exile my thought
is that most of us will bring our minds and our attention first to the jewish exile in babylon that's what we started to read about in second chronicles just then where god sent his prophets his messengers to warn the people again and again and then what we read is that the people rejected the prophets message and that the babylonians came in and that they destroyed the temple they tore down the walls of the city they captured the people and brought them to babylon where they walked through a desert
for days on end until they got to a place that was not their home
and we come to psalm 137 for example is it 137 or 139
where we read about the jews crying by the rivers in babylon
really just despondent over the fact that they thought that they may never see jerusalem again
so these were real issues
but the theme of the exile
is not just centered
on those sections from second chronicles through their captivity and their eventual release when we come to ezra and nehemiah the theme of the exile runs all the way through
now on sunday after meeting uh i don't know rich you and i were chatting uh outside about the sort of the construction
of the uh
of the bible
when was the bible you know recorded when was it written
and uh it's kind of a fascinating thing to consider because you know when we read genesis for example
um
you know what we're not seeing is a play-by-play
action written by adam saying this is what happened on the first day i was born
what we're reading is an account and you know an inspired account where god has caused an inspired human writer to share what is important for us to know but what we read was written long after the events first took place
i'm curious if you've got any thoughts or comments about that have you thought much about that
steve you talking to me or anybody yeah i mean if you want to share a few thoughts rich yeah i just you know we were having our conversation um yeah i just think it's fascinating particularly about the exile you know we think about the exile of of the israelites the jews going into um babylon for 70 years but it was during that time that the faithful took this opportunity to come together as a community number one but also number two more importantly in my mind the righteous you know that seven that the seven thousand that did not bow down to bail now kiss his image they took all of the you know like the the scrolls of deuteronomy and all of their history and all of the prophets and they coalesced them into what we know as the old testament that doesn't mean it was written in babylon it means that they had all of these you know i think in a rush to get out of jerusalem or whatever it was you know they grabbed everything that they had but they wanted to keep their uniqueness of culture and also to remember god to you know to pass on that information to the next generation so even though they're in a foreign land their minds were still towards god and also to the land and so i think that is it's a wonderful example of faith of individuals put in a very difficult situation but still remaining faithful to their call
anybody else
so you think about it and and for example we could come to uh exodus and we can it's an exodus that we read about the the first recorded words
uh you know of the bible being written um
trying to remember exactly where we might find that but um
you know if if for example we were to um
come to mount sinai
uh god instructed the israelites to write these things down right
and so there was this collection of of
teachings some of the teachings were oral teachings teach these things to your children we're told uh
talk about them in the daytime and in the night time when you lay down talk about these things so some of the things were sort of oral teachings all along some of the things were written down and rich to i think your point when they were all now in captivity in babylon they took this opportunity to gather all of this material together as you say to coalesce it to compile it and that i think is how our scriptures were you know how we know our scriptures to be this is the sort of the form that the scripture this is when the form of the scriptures was developed
and when you think about the timing of that you can understand
why
certain things were written so for example what we'll be speaking about tonight is this theme of exile
and if you imagine the hebrews living in babylon compiling the scriptures
they are while compiling these scriptures while you know given the inspiration by god to do so
they're recognizing that the readers of these words
need encouragement while they are without a home
while they are wondering what in the world happened
here we are the children of god god's special people and now we're living in a home that's not part of the promised land now we're living in this environment that's so foreign
we have no idea about what's going on and so the bible is written and much of what we're going to see
are words of encouragement
that are meant for the the individual israelites who are asking the question what happened why am i in exile and so the theme of the exile now begins to pervade all of the jewish scriptures
and the first time we see this theme
is not as it relates to the israelites being captured in jerusalem and being deported to babylon the first time we see this idea of the exile is found in the first pages of the bible and so i'd like you to turn to the familiar passages found in genesis chapter 3.
this of course is man's rebellion this is where mankind
says to god i will define what's good and what's evil for myself
in other words i am not going to allow you
i'm not going to trust you to tell me what's good and evil i'm going to make these decisions on my own based on my own experience
and this is where mankind rebels
did god really say
thou shalt not eat of the fruit of the tree and their mind starts working and because they rebel because they no longer trust god but are trusting in themselves
they are as you know
expelled from the garden
they are exiled and this is what we read at the end of genesis chapter three so let's just turn there to to bring us bring all of us onto the same page
so um i'll have you we'll pick it up in the 23rd verse
and so it says so the lord god so yahweh
banished him mankind
from the garden of eden to work the ground from which he had been taken
he was banished
after he drove the man
out he placed on the east side of the garden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life
and so brothers and sisters friends i think this is really where we see the first exiles
the very first exiles were none other than adam and eve banished from the garden of paradise driven out of the land and they begin their journey eastward
so where do they go
and what happens during this period of time
well before we see where they go and what happens i think one thing is important that during this turmoil
imagine
the emotion that adam and eve must have felt
there was a time when they walked at peace in the garden with their god
and now they're cast out from the garden
this must have been a scary thing for them
this must have been traumatic for them
and before they're cast out of the garden
our god
the creator
our loving heavenly father
demonstrates his love to adam and eve
by promising them
that despite the fact that they were cast from the garden there was still hope
and he promised them a seed
the seed of the woman
who would crush this this head of the seed of the serpent
and this is that first glimmer of hope and i hope to
to bring this up brothers and sisters so that we'll recognize
that when we are feeling
confused about our life's circumstances
when we are feeling discouraged about what's happening in our lives
we will remember through the examples that are provided for us in the scriptures
that we do have a heavenly father who is there for us
during periods of exile during periods of trouble to provide us with hope and encouragement
now a question for you the the chapter ends genesis chapter 3 ends with this description
of the cherubim who are standing on the edge of the garden
guarding the way
to the tree of life
and my question to you and i'd be interested in your response now is what does that mean to guard the tree of life
is it to prevent people from coming back to the tree
or could it be to make sure that the way back to the tree is not lost forever
you see the difference between those two scenarios
one is to prevent people from ever coming back
the other is to make sure the way back to the tree is not lost forever what are your thoughts about that anybody have any uh ideas
yes steve i would say that yeah the tree has been blocked
from man yeah but in so doing another path was established
and that is of course the christ jesus through baptism into his name
so yes
yes so man is blocked from the tree of life
man is presently blocked from the tree of white life adam and eve were blocked man is blocked but another path opened and that path is to christ
and and i find it interesting bob that in the end of chapter 3
um
my version anyway reads this way it says uh
the flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard
the way
to the tree of life
and now we fast forward over many generations of people and we come to the lord jesus who in john chapter 14
tells us that he is the way
and so i think that fits in really nicely bob with your comment about a new way having been opened yeah i think another thing to bear in mind up until that point there was no sin in the earth
so you know it was another established path
yeah as long as man kept eating from that tree of life theoretically he never would have died
but of course now we know that we're going to die no matter what
the only thing is now we have a different path because now we're in a mankind is in a totally different situation than he was when he was in the garden of eden got it
anybody else
brother richard
you'll need to take yourself off mute i'm off now
so that i think uh i think uh brother bob uh hit on it already but just in case up uh misunderstood uh that genesis 3 15
was their hope uh
uh and that would uh um the flaming sword of well i believe is the angels uh to keep the way of the tree of life open uh that genesis 3 and 15 would fit to keep the way of to keep the way of the tree of life and you alluded to john where uh jesus said that uh he was the way yeah does that all fit in with the genesis 3 15
that's the hope of the pharmacy yeah genesis 3 15 is the one about the seed crushing the seed of the woman crushing the seed of the serpent yes and by jesus doing that he opens a way
for us to to walk with god again as adam them did in the beginning they walk with god that's right
that's right and and and when you when you come to uh
the revelation
and um i'll have you turn to well i'll read it to you don't necessarily need to turn there but it's uh right at the end of revelation i think it's uh chapter 21
where it speaks of uh the new jerusalem
and it says i saw the holy city the new jerusalem coming down out of heaven from god prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband and i heard a loud voice from the throne saying and here's the point richard now
the dwelling of god is with men yeah right and so in genesis chapter 1 we see god and man dwelling together and now in revelation because jesus has opened up the way um god and man will dwell together that's the emanuel isn't it i'm sorry that's the emmanuel isn't it god with us yeah
yeah
okay so let's just uh let's just think about where we are we're talking about the theme of the exile and we're saying that much of the jewish scriptures are all about the jews being exiled into babylon
and while they're there in babylon that the human authors inspired by god are compiling all of these recorded events all of these things that have been you know preserved through oral tradition that have been preserved by writing and they're compiling these together in the form of the scriptures that we know and some of the things that they're writing are seen to me to have been written to encourage jews who are in exile who are floundering in their faith wondering why and how did this ever happen to us we thought we were the chosen of god we thought we were special and now we're cast out where does this fit
and so when we come to genesis chapter 3
we see the first example of people who are exiled adam and eve are exiled from the garden and yet in the midst of this trauma
god is promising them that there is hope that hope comes through the seed of the woman we turn the page and we come to genesis chapter four
and it's here in genesis chapter four that we read about that exa that that account of cain and abel where cain
murders his brother
again you know think about trauma in your life think about trauma in the lives of others i mean this has got to be one of the most traumatic things that an individual that a family can endure
the idea that someone has been murdered is a hugely traumatic event
and in the midst of this trauma
god levies a punishment on cain
and
he has this really strange
response
to this punishment and i'm going to uh i'll have you
look at verse 11.
so we're in genesis chapter 4 now
verse 11
cain has murdered his brother
and god levies a punishment on him
and he says now you are under a curse
and driven from the ground which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand
when you work the ground it will no longer yield its crops to you you will be a restless wanderer
he's being driven from the ground it's the same idea as we saw in genesis 3
where adam and eve were driven out of the garden they are exiled similarly cain is being exiled
and cain responds
and i don't know if seth is on but seth and i have chatted about this a number of times you've got a king james bible
there's a footnote in the center column of your king james bible related to the 13th verse
many passages many versions read this way they say cain said to the lord
my punishment
is more than i can bear
and i remember talking to seth about this and he says really the punishment is that it's going to be hard to you know harder to pull weeds out of the garden and he's going to have to wander around that's it
and what seth says is you know take a look at the center reference and the reference there is saying it's not so much my punishment is more than i can bear but my sin is more than i can bear i can't bear the fact
that i have sinned in such a great way
and look how god responds
and the point here is that in the midst of exile in the midst of a time when life seems all but un all but you know it's just completely uncertain
god is there
cain said to the lord in verse 13 my punishment is more than i can bear today you are driving me from the land
and i will be hidden from your presence
be a restless wanderer on the earth and whoever finds me will kill me
and the point here that i'm trying to drive drive brothers and sisters and friends is this idea that god despite cain's fears
god is still there god is still present
but yahweh said to him not so
if anyone kills cain he'll suffer vengeance seven times over
then the lord
put a mark on cain so that no one who found him would kill him
he provided this protection
he was nearby enough that he could be protected so adam and eve are cast out god's there to provide them hope cain is driven from the ground god's there to lovingly provide protection
and we see that theme continue
and so each time these individuals are driven out of the land they're going eastward
eastward eastward in this section of the story brothers and sisters
ends
in genesis chapter 11.
what we're seeing is multiple generations of individuals hundreds of years of time being compacted into the first 11
chapters of the bible and this exile is going to end in a certain place
and the question is where
so turn to genesis chapter 11 now
and the answer is at the tower of babel
the people were to have left eden and they were to have gone they were to have been god's representatives they were to spread out across the earth across the globe bringing god's goodness to the nations
and instead of going forth and multiplying
instead of going forth they did just the opposite they congregated
in one place
and the place they congregated we know
as the tower of babel
so we're in genesis chapter 11 now
and it says
now the whole earth had one language and the common speech
as men moved eastward
and parenthetically i'll say as a result of their exile as men moved eastward they found a plane in shinar and settled there
were they supposed to settle no
they were supposed to go forth and multiply but they settled there and they said to each other come let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly and they use the bricks instead of stone and tar for mortar and then they said i'm in verse 4
come let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens
so that we may make a name
for yahweh
no
so that we may make a name for ourselves
and not be scattered over the whole earth
they were in a period of uncertainty
trying to create their own solutions
to the the dilemma that they were in
and their solution was to congregate in in this area and to build the tower of babel
now i am not a hebrew scholar
but what i understand is the word that's translated here as babel
every place else in the old testament
is translated instead
as babylon
and i think this is very telling brothers and sisters
what we find is the people have been exiled
in the first 11 chapters
from the garden of paradise
and they find themselves ending up in babylon
and now the jewish writers hundreds of years later are compiling the record of their history the record of creation
they are taking these oral and written things and they're putting together under inspiration the bible as we know it and they are
in
in a way providing encouragement to
this second group of exiles who find themselves in babylon
and where is the encouragement there
and here's what i'd say to you
genesis chapters 1 through 11 describe the exile from the garden
to the conclusion where they find themselves in babylon
and then we turn the page
and it's in chapter 12
that we are introduced
to the father
of the nation
abram
and the lord had said to abram
leave your country
your people
and your father's household
and go to the land
that i will show you
and we can ask the question where was abraham from
well he was from ur of the chaldees
in other words
abram was from babylon
and he is now
returning if you will
from babylon
to the land of promise
god sends him to the town of shechem which is right dead center in the middle of israel
and so for the people who are reading the scriptures
and are wondering why is it that we've been captured why is it that we're in captivity there's hope here there's this message to them that there is the ability god has a plan and has seen that plan in the past bring a person from babylon back to the land of israel
and the lesson to them i think was that they too could experience that same hope that babylon while many hundreds of miles away was not too far that god could not bring them back
questions or comments
am i on mute
i know steve i would say it's a really very interesting concept to think of um the egg the um
being cast out of the garden as an exile and show that this idea of being in exile is really an ongoing theme um
you know when you think about richard's education we talked a little bit about it afterwards this idea of feeling lost
you know the key to getting past the idea of feeling lost is recognizing that uh god is always there even in the midst of uh the exile so i think you brought that point out uh very very nicely
thanks jim
so exile is this experience of not having a home
not having a sense of belonging or you know having this unknown future
and you know if you are
experiencing exile it has to be a traumatic event and i think that you know when i started the class and i'm sort of talking about covet i sort of minimize the real life experiences of refugees
you know imagine truly the trauma of someone who lived in jerusalem
and saw the soldiers come in and kill and maim and rape your family and your friends
and then burn down your home
and tear down the city and then drag you across a desert to a land where you didn't even speak the language
that's trauma
imagine yourself a young man or even a father
living in the in in syria and being torn from your home in recent years
and having to flee for your lives
putting your family on boats for an uncertain passage
you know we can't minimize the experience of those that have gone through exiles i think in some ways this year that we've gone through might give us a minor taste of what exile is like but exile is this period of just trauma it's a period of uncertainty it's a period where you are just terrified not only about what's just happened but about the future and what it might lead to for you and so the bible now
provides us with many examples of people going through the experience
of being exiled and i think the reason the bible does that is so that we
can learn how to respond when we are feeling as though we are getting a taste of what exile must have been like and it's going to lead us the examples in the scripture should lead us should teach us
how to respond
in experiences such as that so that we can see god
in these times of difficulty so that we can see
what god is like
during times like this
so the next example that i would bring it to i mean we could go to any number of places i mean you know if we wanted to stay in genesis for example we could go to genesis chapter 16 or genesis chapter 21 where we read the story of hagar
you know my son
and his wife taylor have just given birth to a baby
and every day you know taylor is sending sandy these video clips of of baby owen you know lifting his head and you know doing all the things and it just warms our heart
and then we come to genesis 16 and we read about hagar giving birth
and then sarah and hagar begin this fight and there's so much tension in this family between sarah and hagar that sarah
drives hagar out of the camp into the wilderness
hagar becomes
an exile
she goes into the desert with an uncertain future so much so that she places her child
under a bush
and goes far away so that she can't hear
this baby this young boy whimper and cry
as his life comes to an end
sarah and abram did this to this woman
and it's horrifying to think about so why is that in the scripture
and i would say to your brothers and sisters friends the reason that's there
is to demonstrate to us that even in the midst of such horror
god is there
even in the midst of exile god is near
look at genesis chapter 21.
verse
17.
god
heard the boy crying
and the angel of god called to hagar from heaven and said to her what's the matter hagar
do not be afraid
god has heard the boy crying as he lies there
lift the boy up and take him by the hand for i will make him a great nation
and once again brothers and sisters we see the nearness of god in the midst of exile
where he provides comfort to this woman and a promise to this boy
verse 19 then god opened her eyes and she saw a well of water so she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink
again another example and and here what we're reading about is we're reading about a slave girl
and her child
being exiled
but it's not just those on the lowest rung of the economic ladder that can suffer these problems
you know if you let's i mean let's just go to the other end of the spectrum
we could bring our attention to david
the future king of israel
and we turn to first samuel
and it's in first samuel chapter 21
where we read about david being exiled he has to run for his life
so we're in first kings i'm sorry first samuel chapter 21.
and we'll look at uh well we could look for example at verse 10.
that day david fled
from saul
and went to achish
king of gath
he fled from saul david now the future king of israel is exiled and he leaves to go to the land of the philistines that's how bad it was
and when we know what is going on in david's life you know i guess there's a way that you know there's a wouldn't it be nice if we could know what was going on in david's mind
during this period of his life what is it like for one who you know has has such promise
to all of a sudden feel as though he has to run for his life wait a minute i thought that i was going to be the king
and the reality is the scriptures
do
open up to us what was going on in david's mind we don't have to wonder
because written in the pages of this book are his very thoughts
and i'll have you turn now to psalm 34.
a psalm that was written during this period of exile
and it points to us the mind of david
and it points to us it delivers to us an example
of how we might train our minds to respond
when we're going through periods of loss and uncertainty
psalm 34
i will extol the lord at all times his praise will always be on my lips
i think sometimes brothers and sisters we have to train our minds
to think this way
if you're like me these thoughts these expressions don't come naturally in times of difficulty
but what david is saying here
is that he will extol yahweh at all times
verse 2 my soul will boast in the lord let the afflicted hear and rejoice
glorify the lord with me let us exalt his name together and here's where here's where i want to try and draw your attention it's it's in these next few passages
i sought the lord
and he answered me
he delivered me from all my fears
you know sometimes our fears can be pretty great
uncertainty allows our imagination to run wild
to think how you know what's going to happen next
i don't know if you play those games in your mind i can tell you there are times in my life where i've stayed awake at night you know staring at the ceiling sort of imagining and then this could happen and then that could happen and then that could happen and it just seems to get worse and worse in my imagination
yeah jim
no i was just agreeing with your whole hug yeah
yeah we all go through that joe i i think we do
and i think that what david is doing here in this psalm is he's showing us another way
this is something we can aspire to to learn
so that when we're going through periods of exile we can look for god's presence we can recognize that god is near that god will deliver us from our fears
steve
yeah richard um
uh
this is um these things
uh uh we know our written for our learning and examples uh i for myself when certain things come up that are unsavory uh uh
being flesh we think about what has happened and then i try to train myself to say well okay i better pray about this and find out what god and there's is there any examples in scriptures where i can relate to what i'm going through and like you have uh in exodus chapter three i think it is um
shepherd and poor uh the the pharaoh told him to kill all the male children but it says they feared god
and because they did god build them how gave them houses
and then you got joseph we may think uh uh of that incident that uh look what joseph went through well we know that god allowed that to happen and look how it turned out
so
and you know when you think about it richard it's another example of exile exactly right yeah and look how it turned out and and to david's point you know in psalm 34
he goes on to say in the seventh verse
and here's where we're tr we're trying to train our minds brothers and sisters the angel of yahweh encamps around those who fear him and
he delivers them
taste and see that the lord is good blessed is the man who takes refuge in him and so brothers and sisters you know i think what david is showing us and what david is showing those uh refugees in babylon so many years later is that in the in the midst of your despair
god is near
god encamps around those
you continue the thought in verse 17
the righteous cry out and the lord hears them he delivers them from all their troubles yahweh is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit
so this is uh psalm 34
that we're that we're going through
now
when it says here when david writes
that the lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit
it does not mean
necessarily that our troubles in this life will be resolved
there are times when we get sick
and we do not survive our illness
there are times when we might lose our jobs and suffer financially and see that our home is foreclosed on
there are problems in this world and being a follower of jesus
being a believer in a loving heavenly father
does not shelter us
from the problems of the world
it can it may there's no promise that that will happen but brothers and sisters the promise
is in a future day in that day that we read about in revelation 21 where a new jerusalem is seen
where man and god dwell together again that's the promise for us
and while we wait for that blessed hope
i think the lesson is that we have to recognize that each and every one of us
is in exile
we are in exile
awaiting our return
to the garden of eden like experience
and we have to be careful brothers and sisters that we don't make the mistake of those who were in babylon
because you know what happened
seventy years after the babylonian captivity the people were permitted to go back to the promised land
ezra and nehemiah talk about this
and in ezra chapter 22 there's a list of all of those that returned in that first wave of returning exiles
42 000
only 42 000 of the hundreds of thousands probably that were carried into exile
chose to return
they became so comfortable in their new life that they forgot about the blessings of being in the promised land
and so the lesson for us i think is that we have to remember that we are exiles in this land and that we ought not to try to derive our comfort and our pleasure solely from this life but are instead to look ahead to that blessed hope that we should follow the way of jesus
because after jesus was raised from the dead
after jesus ascended to heaven with a promise to return
communities popped up all over the world communities of followers of jesus jesus disciples
taught and preached the gospel
and ecclesias were born
and one of the things that i find fascinating in all of this is found in first peter we're going to conclude here because i think we can relate to this
it's uh first peter chapter 1.
21.
peter the letter begins an apostle of jesus christ
to god's elect
strangers
in the world
scattered throughout pontius galatia cappadocia asia and bithnia
who've been chosen according to the foreknowledge of god the father through the sanctifying work of the spirit for obedience to jesus christ and sprinkling by his blood now why do i go here
i wanted to come here brothers and sisters because this letter was written primarily to gentiles
and yet these gentiles who grew up in places like pontus and galatia and cappadocia these gentiles whose families were there these gentiles whose children were there these gentiles who had only known these areas
are being introduced
in this letter as strangers in the world
as exiles
and i think that's the lesson for us that we
despite living in a comfortable country whether it's the us or canada
we are strangers here
peter says later in the next chapter we're a chosen people a royal priesthood a holy nation of people belonging to god and so we'll conclude with that thought that while we're in exile
there is a day coming when we will follow jesus back to the father
that jesus is the way
and um
i see that we've got a few chat messages here let me pull those up are there any questions
uh susie wrote we must train our minds i sought the lord and he heard me he delivered me from all my fears thanks for that susie
um and she asked the question do you think that if the angel did not bar the way to the tree of life adam could have had access and if he had partaken he would have entered into a state of eternal
death
well i don't know about that suzy i had always thought that if he had eaten from the tree of life he would have continued to live
um i'd be curious if anybody else has any thoughts on that
um yeah brother richard uh i would think that he would still be flesh
yeah and uh so i don't think how uh he could probably be um yeah i guess if he had access to the tree of life he might have eaten from the tree and continued to live um
yeah so susie brings out the same point you do yeah good
okay what other questions do you have or other thoughts anybody are you guys feeling this year more than others that you've that you're living in exile
no i don't you don't okay
i feel that i've been uh
just to add to what you you read about strangers
and then uh i find it very uh that one one of the meanings of that word is belonging to another yeah yeah good
well richard i would say that i feel in in some ways like i am in exile and and you know i'll just give you an example
you know i i think that i've been very fortunate in that i've been able to attend meeting most sundays in in in person
and while i'm there in person
i'm missing certain people
you know i think of uh our sister gail rundle who i haven't seen in over a year
you know she attends online
but she's not been able to be with us in person and my heart hurts because i miss her christian well you know
and uh you know i just feel
you know i i feel that i'm i'm longing for that day when we can all come back together again you know i feel the same way you feel too uh
miss my brothers and sisters but my mind also reverts back to uh god is uh uh
uh i loves my train of thought we still have the hope of the comfort of still
of the hope yeah
thanks judy um steve to go back to susie's question about um
whether adam could have gone back and had life um god's comment uh genesis 3 verse 22
and god said behold the man has become as one of us to know good and evil and now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever right therefore god sent him out of the land so it sounds like eating of the tree of life and death would make him
live forever as an immortal
yeah but doesn't that true your life refer to the lord jesus christ
it points forward to him but it was also a tree you needed yeah it was a real tree but they couldn't have life of lasting without uh i think that's a type isn't it well you couldn't have immortality by eating from the tree that's that's the difference i mean you could keep on living
you could work 10 000 years and be immortal
you know if men live that long
though wouldn't you if you if you stopped eating from the tree read genesis who knows
i think these are all good questions but you know i don't know that we can get an answer to it
i know man was always mortal man was never has never been immortal he will be someday not now adam was never immortal
but there is of course and the scripture uses the phrase a natural body and a spiritual body which i think is also uh very telling me we have a natural body now but we look forward to the day when we have a spiritual body right
i think that's why he was banned from getting to the tree
thanks for that good
steve yeah
uh i basically wanted to thank you the class was was a beautiful eye-opening thought path that i hadn't really considered okay and yeah certainly feel that exile component and it was part of a prayer just a dinner this evening you know we think about the cobot we think about the storms the tornadoes the political chaos the insanity the one thing that really helped me tonight was i thought i had underlined and focused on every place in scripture where he
had been pointed out and and i thought i grabbed them all but i missed that one in the closing verse of genesis 3.
and what a beautiful pathway that points us to is back to the tree of life thank you for helping me with that sure thing
and i think another important thing to consider steve you know we kind of feel maybe a sense of exile today but it's more confinement really if anything i mean exile
we have the benefits of technology of telephone of yeah internet all these things i mean when the children of israel were in babylon i mean what is it like almost 2 000 miles from jerusalem the baby 1500
miles
you know it's a long haul i don't know what it takes to walk across the desert to babylon i mean you figure you know it's like 300
miles from egypt to jerusalem and this is all you know a whole lot further i mean you might as well be on mars in those days how could you get back it was a miracle really for the fact that the israelites are even in jerusalem today you know just shows us you know god's hand at work it's astounding
i remember one of the uh presenters on one of our wednesday night classes i can't remember who it was um had some images
of uh of what babylon must have been like or might have looked like you know one of the wonders of the ancient world
um do you remember who presented that class
well probably uh it sounds like a rich deneen but i'm not sure i think it was brian lloyd i think it was you brian
brian's saying no i thought it was too sandy um
they were they were images that were captured from uh like a movie or something and it showed sort of the you know the the huge city of babylon and you can imagine the jews i mean i know what it's like
i i know what it's like when we leave here and go to canada and all the homes are brick it's like we don't have brick homes in new england and it's like so weird to see right
and um
imagine what it was like for you know
an israelite showing up so far away i mean different architecture different language different food customs it must have been so confusing sounds like canada yeah steve it wasn't steve it uh it wasn't me but if nobody else takes credit i'll be happy yeah it was jim yeah it was jim it was a terrific class jim well done thanks thanks so much
i just saw a documentary on on babylon the ancient ruins and so forth and with the computer technology neighborhood thing they took the pictures and rebuilt it and constructed how they thought they might have looked back during that time yeah yeah
so i always think of the uh the idea of genesis 1 to 11 being an example of exile from the garden to babylon kind of interesting don't you think
maybe i just thought it was interesting
yeah no i mean it's all in many respects it's all the same isn't it the themes repeat themselves over and over again in one capacity or another i mean it's pre it's pre-babylon so it's not necessarily automatically connected to it but when we have the hindsight to go back and look i mean these themes are repetitious throughout scripture and you it's the same word
yeah i mean it's pre-babylon but it's the same word for babylon yeah yeah yeah
yeah and i think of those things that continues all the way through to the very end too you know one of the things i remember uh bob's dad doug always talking about was the uh the kingdom of god and the kingdom of men
you know it's one or the other and it seems to me that babylon is a representation of the kingdom of men
um
yeah throughout scripture and throughout history yeah sure there's a there's a chat question um steve from ben that i think is really an interesting question uh you take from ben yeah it's something i've never thought of before and it questions whether or not the garden of eden wasn't wiped out by the flood and that's certainly something i've never thought about everything was wiped out was the garden of eden
i know it's sort of a side topic but it's really an interesting i don't have an answer i don't know how to answer that question
well i mean everything was wiped out so i guess the easy answer is yes yeah yeah
steve yeah hi david uh i what i found very comforting in in your lesson was that and all the the cases that you said in exile there's there's trauma and turmoil and everything that goes with it but always god offers another pathway of hope yeah yeah and i thought that was really comforting good thanks
yeah and i think that's what this the scripture lessons are there over and over again
yeah can i tell can i tell a quick story of trauma just to show you how traumatizing it is um i had a situation several years ago where i got an offender bender and our brother from the congo jean claude was in the car and a policeman showed up and started asking questions and jean-claude could not speak and he could not answer the questions because in the world that he came from talk about exile from the congo if a cop came up to your car and you didn't have money to give him he would kill you and so he saw this cop come up to the window and he and it was just a little offended it was nothing but he was so traumatized that he literally the moment the cop walked away he started sobbing he was so upset so i think you're right steve i think it's extremely traumatizing more than we can really realize certainly more than covet 19 which is traumatizing but nowhere near compared to what it means to be you know dragged away from your home or live in a situation where at any moment for reasons you can't control your life could be taken from you
and it's it's marvelous to turn to the word of god and we and we should turn to work to the word of god because it gives you the power to overcome i think uh that's something that jean-claude understood
yeah
steve yeah hi david jim's trying to block me out here with by putting his hand over my face it looks like [Laughter]
if i can talk to his hand um
uh
i think there are two ways in which god delivers us from exile you said that
uh towards the end
um the assurances of psalm 34 really in an ultimate sense only apply to the resurrection
in the ultimate sense yes in the ultimate sense uh in in the proximate sense
our task here one of our tasks here
as paul said is to learn to whatever whatever state we're in to be content
matters of exile matters of wealth matter of sickness is
if we really had the right mind
those are all external things the only thing that counts is what's in our heart what's in our mind
external circumstances uh i'm not saying this is
an easy thing to do
but this is pretty much the goal of
of our spiritual life now is to uh
really say if i have the peace of god in my head now
it's not a matter of taking the suffering away it's a matter of understanding that whatever is happening is part of god's plan
that's that's that's the deliverance to me in psalm 34
as i understand what god's up to it's not whether or not i like it
right we know his plan and that his plan is uh beyond our you know maybe beyond our our temporal life if you have uh say if you're comfortable with that in your heart and mind then that's all the deliverance we need at this point it's understanding that there is a god is controlled not that i like the way he controls things from a uh
a sense of my your physical well-being sometimes it's not so so good but that that is the way it is uh you know the stoic philosophers that i that i quote so frequently uh being exiled if you're a stoic philosopher being ex-albums like part of your job description it was just
routine uh for any of them they uh and there's a one of the things the great stories i'm going to paraphrase it slightly but one of them was uh on his way out of rome having been exiled he says well oh okay i guess we'll stop for lunch when we leave rome you know it's
it was like i can i can be happy in rome i can be happy on this island where they're sending me it doesn't make any difference you know of course the stokes did all this without any real sense of what you would call god or deliverance but their their whole idea was
you can it's like you can send me out of rome but you can't you can't ever uh
hurt my heart
uh martin don't we see that in a lot of paul's writings david yeah it's like solving whatever state i am you know whatever happens to me is one thing
but the right attitude is all that really counts the right right sense and i guess that's sort of the training of the mind right and doing to the end for the joy that was set before him yeah yeah stuff like that [Music]
all right guys it's quarter to nine i'm pooped yeah
all right steve
Class 2
Original URL Sunday, December 4, 2022
Transcript
I want to ask you to turn your Bibles opento uh first Peter
and we're going to look at um
I think we're going to at two passages in the New Testament right quick
the first is uh First Peter chapter 2 the second is uh Hebrews chapter 11. these are passages that are well known to us
and I think sometimes because they're so well known
um
maybe they lose the import of what's being said
um you know it almost becomes a cliche you know like a cliche is something that you you say all the time and then like when you stop and think about it like there's a real meaning behind it you know so second Peter chapter 2 verse 11. uh I'm sorry First Peter chapter 2 verse 11. says uh so Peter's writing to this Ecclesia to his friends and he says dear friends I urge you as aliens and strangers
in the world
and these people are getting this letter from him and they're thinking wait a minute what do you mean an alien and a stranger I mean I live in you know I'm a resident of this town I've lived here all my life I'm not an alien I'm not a stranger another one is uh Hebrews chapter 11. and this is the the chapter where we read about all the faithful and in the third verse it says by faith we understand
the world was formed at God's command and that what is seen is not made out of what uh I got the wrong one oh where is it Hebrews 11. where it talks about uh they they viewed themselves as strangers and pilgrims
[Music] um
yeah verse 13 not three all these people were still living by faith when they died they did not receive the things promised they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance and they admitted that they were aliens and strangers
on the world on the Earth right so I got thinking about this after the last couple of weeks um
we saw this
class that Jim presented last Sunday of the Congolese brothers and sisters
who were forced into exile
and you know it just hit me I mean these are I mean we know Justine we know a Sunday we know Chantal I mean these people went through terrible terrible circumstances
to the point where they lost their homes and they were forced to flee for their lives
during that presentation Jim I think um
was it a Sunday who talked about the number of people that had been killed in the Congo
do you remember what that number was
and even he says that it was it was uh estimated but it was something like 2 million I think if I remember correctly he said 12 million was it 12 million wow that's more than the Holocaust that's double the Holocaust yeah
I mean let that sink in brothers and sisters right
12 million people were murdered in the Congo and so this is the circumstance that caused
a Sunday to flea that caused Jean-Claude
to flee
last last week I I told you Sandy and I were sick one night we watched a movie we watched a movie called the swimmers has anybody seen it
and it's a story of two young girls from Syria
Russia goes and bombs Syria
and um these girls have to flee for their lives their home their I mean everything they knew was disrupted that one of them was a Olympic swimmer
hence the name the swimmers and um you know it's like it's like us you know you're living in your home everybody's happy and healthy and next thing you know the world is upside down because you know some body decides that they're gonna fight against you and you lose your home what is it that causes people to do those things and in in both of these circumstances you know the the Congolese and the syrians these people had to flee and they became refugees
strangers
and pilgrims and this is a theme that we see throughout the Bible and I think sometimes it's when we meet somebody like Jean-Claude
that it really sinks in as to what that really means
um Jim boyko is teaching downstairs but
you know a lot of us know the story of Jean-Claude and Justine we got a letter that had been forwarded to us from Alan Thomas who was able to read and understand French
Jean-Claude when he landed in the U.S was unable to speak English but he was a bilingual you know he he understood French and he wrote a letter to the Christadelphian office in Birmingham England saying that he had he and his family had fled from the Congo they landed in Boston Massachusetts they understood that there was a Christadelphian Community there and they were trying to find us he was a Christian
and after weeks this letter was finally forwarded to us
and Jim boyko and I along with um
Michelle brault
went out to Revere and we met the family for the first time they were living in a two Decker three Decker in Revere right under the flight path of Logan and it was awful and they were shell-shocked but they were so happy to see us and to see a connection
and that's what you know that's what it means I think when we read these Expressions about strangers
and pilgrims
the Bible is full when we look at it the Bible is full of stories of refugees
the Bible is full of stories of people who were pushed into exile
and that's what I'd like to do in our classes in the coming weeks is I'd like to explore this theme of Exile
in what it means not only to the Israelite who is forced into Exile you know the great story of the Exile is when they were carried off into captivity where they they were taken from their land
from Jerusalem was destroyed they were carried these thou they walked these thousands of miles to Babylon and they're in Babylon for all these years that is a you know I mean that's a that was something that created a great
mindset within the Jewish community and so much of the Bible I think is written to help the Jews understand their circumstances see when the Bible was compiled you know so much of it was compiled through inspiration of course during the time of the Exile when Jews who had this writ this oral history of of the creation and of all of the events this was an oral history now it's being compiled by Ezra and he's you know writing down for the benefit of Jews who are in captivity who are trying to understand what just happened you know we thought we were the chosen people we thought we were the people that you know were were blessed by Yahweh our God
and now we're like lost now we're living in a culture that was so completely foreign and different to us
is this God real
is are are we really the chosen people and then when the Bible was compiled a lot of the stories in the Bible I think were designed to give these Jews in captivity in understanding of what Exile was
and what they were to learn from it
so let's begin then in this study of the Exile by going straight to the Garden of Eden in the beginning because it's here where Adam and Eve as a result of their Rebellion against God are punished by being exiled from their home
in the paradise of Eden
outward
Eastward
and this is really the first exile they were exiled from the Garden of Eden Eastward of Eden
and as we go through this story I think I want you to think about it in terms of not only ourselves
but in terms of the the Israelite who's wondering is God real are we the chosen people what's the lesson that we are to learn from this
because
we live very comfortable lives right I mean we live very comfortable lives you know I remember at the start of the pandemic we um
we talked about how challenging it was but then we tried to see it in perspective by thinking about like a young man or a young woman who was born in 1900. do you remember that and we talked about all the things that these people endured
you know so you've got somebody that's born in 1900 and in 1918 there's the great Spanish flu and hundreds of thousands of people millions of people die
and then there's the first world war and then there's the Great Depression and then there's the Second World War
you know all of these things that were in this lifetime we haven't experienced any of that stuff
but for people of the Bible this was you know this was their common life and they were trying to understand what's Happening Here so let's start by looking at Genesis chapter one any any comments or any questions
because sometimes you know even in our lives when we're comfortable there's a part of us that realizes that like I just don't belong here you know as as good as it is there's something that makes us uncomfortable you know life isn't always Grace and we look forward to something better
so if you jump in if you've got any questions so let's start by looking at Genesis chapter one and we're going to look at the Rebellion
and we'll pick that up in the sixth verse of chapter three
so we we know the story uh God has said look I want you to trust me and what I'm doing here is I'm giving you this Garden of perfection if you trust me you can live here
and I want you to realize that there are these two trees right so we know the story and in verse 6 of chapter 3 it says when the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom she took some and ate it and she gave it to her husband who was with her and he ate it in the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized they were naked
so they sowed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves
the first thing that I want to bring out here is this like uncomfortable feeling that we sometimes have in our own lives you know we're happy we're healthy in this life living here in the United States we don't experience the trauma of a Congolese uh you know citizen or of a Syrian refugee you know we haven't experienced those things but still there are periods when we think why am I feeling this way like what's bothering me you know something's bugging me and I don't know what it is like what is it and I think that first that the first time that was experienced was here in Eden Adam and Eve were living they were walking in unity with God everything was perfect
and now they disobey God they rebel against God they say we're not going to trust you we're not going to trust you we're going to decide for ourselves what's good we want to eat from this food from this tree we're going to do it and then they've got this like uneasy feeling what's the uneasy feeling it says they realized they were naked
interesting thing about that word naked there
it's the same from what I understand I'm no scholar right but from from what I understand it's the same Hebrew word
that is used to describe the serpent as being crafty
they realized that they were crafty
isn't that fascinating I mean it it can be it can be translated two ways
it has this double meaning
so they realized they were crafty they weren't they were to trust God but they decided they wanted to do what was right in their own eyes and that craftiness made them feel uneasy
they were at home before that everything was perfect they were walking in unity with God I mean they walked with God and God in the garden it says right and now because they feel this unease because they were crafty what do they do they sew fig leaves and I think that for a lot of us
I've often viewed that as you know they were trying to cover their nakedness they were trying to cover their their bodies
but consider that now because they've rebelled against God and they're realizing that they've been crafty they're actually I think camouflaging themselves they're trying to hide from God in the garden they're sowing these fig leaves so that they can hide in the brush
without being seen by God that's their mindset I think
so they sow these fig leaves
and what does God do
man verse 8 the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day and they hid from the Lord God Among the trees
of the garden that's why they were covered in fig leaves it was a it was a mechanism to hide from God
and God answered I heard you in the garden uh but the verse 9 but the Lord called to the man where are you and he answered I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked or I was crafty so I hid
and he told him who told and he said who told you you were naked have you eaten from the tree I commanded you to eat from and at this point Adam confesses his sin Eve confesses her sin and as a result they are not met with immediate death
but instead their punishment is that they became dying creatures
and
they were exiled
their punishment was that they were cast out of this perfect home
and they became refugees
verse 21. the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife
enclothed them the first thing that I want to point out here is
these garments of skin I think
were designed in part to give Adam and Eve the confidence to leave their hiding place and come back into the presence of God it was as though God was saying I want you
to come back to me this was the love that God had for his children
he wanted them to come back into his presence not to be fearful not to be afraid and so he made these coverings
and the Lord God said the man has now become like one of us I'm in verse 22. he must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the Tree of Life and eat and live forever right man has disobeyed God if they eat from the Tree of Life they could potentially live forever so God says no we need to Exile man
so the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken in this banishment this Exile from their home their Garden of perfection was the punishment
and this is the first time we see
this theme of Exile being described in the Bible
now I want you to notice the next verse
says after he drove the man out
God placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the Tree of Life
think about that man has now been exiled they've been cast out East of Eden and God puts this Angel there with a flaming sword and for years my mind was this angel with the Flaming sword was designed as almost like a bouncer right
he is not going to let Adam and Eve back into the garden right this is this he's the guard
but when you read it carefully it it seems to be telling a different story
it says that
he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim in a flaming sword flashing back and forth
to guard the way to the Tree of Life
and I think that What's Happening Here is it's almost as though
God wants to make sure that the way to the Tree of Life is not lost
like
there is a way back
it's not going to be lost forever
and I think this is the great hope of the exile
you know I was talking to Justine last Sunday you know she was you know Justine is going back
to Africa on December 22nd
and she was saying that she had intended it first
to go back to her hometown
this was her desire right she wanted to go back to her hometown
but she has a brother there that said it's not safe
he can't go back
and so as a result she's going to Tanzania or Tanzania as we say it right
how many of you have gone to your childhood home anybody ever visit their childhood home
you never left
okay you've never been exiled
yeah
uh Jim Sullivan you raised your hand was it a good experience or a bad experience going back to your childhood home
part of it was good
yeah
yeah
you know I Jim and Katie boyko live down the street from an A-frame house and this this A-Frame house is uh was in the news two weeks ago in the Sun Chronicle it was the home of some like one hit wonder rock and roll star
I can't remember I can't I wish Jim was here he would know the story so this guy wrote this wrote this uh this song and it became like one of the top 50 songs in the country and it was sort of like his his big thing and
he made a lot of money and he sold this house and it's just it's I think it's two doors down from Jim and Katie
and the house is set for demolition and this guy came back to see his childhood home
and the Sun Chronicle had this article about how disappointing it was for him because he had all these he'd conjured up in his mind all these great memories of this house and he went back to see it and it was such a disappointment and I think that's one of the things that is sometimes seen in the Bible when we talk about exiles
so
think about the story of the Jews leaving
Jerusalem
going into Exile in Babylon living in Babylon for all these years and then they're able to finally return
to their Homeland Exiles coming back and they come back and it's just a complete and utter disappointment Jerusalem isn't anything like what they thought it would be the restored Temple isn't nearly comparable to the one that was destroyed by the Babylonians it was a disappointment and so there's always this hope that we can come back from exile
but it's never the same
I think that's what Justine's going to experience you know that's what her brother said you can't come back to your hometown it's not safe it's what many of us experience when we come back to our childhood homes it's not you know we've got these memories and and when we see the house I remember a Sunday school party
I went we used to go to the the Wallace's house remember Greg and we had like a a softball game and I hit my first ever home run on this softball uh playing softball right and in my mind you know it was like out over the center field bleachers right and I remember years later going to the Wallace's house and seeing how small that field was it was so disappointing to me you know I had this vision of you know this Majestic home run and it was like you know it wouldn't have made it past the second baseman in reality right and I think that's sometimes what happens
when we think about Exiles returning though the great hope is that we will return and we will be welcomed by the cherubim with the Flaming sword who brings us back into this Garden of perfection and that's the great hope
of our faith our faith is not that we will be transported from this world to some other place where there will be Perfection our hope is that Christ will return to the Earth and establish re-establish
The Garden of perfection where all the Earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord just as it was in the garden and the fact that Genesis chapter 3 ends with this idea of the cherubim guarding the entrance isn't necessarily to prevent Adam and Eve from you know rushing the door and getting back in but it's to make sure that the way
to the Tree of Life is preserved so that eventually we can all re-enter as returning Exiles to the great Promised Land
comments questions
Kathy
and and Gordon says Christ is the way back to the tree of life that's right that's exactly right and and we'll talk in in some of our future classes about how Jesus lived the life of an exile
and how through his example we can find our way back to the Tree of Life
Georgie Porgy and the crybabies is the how did you know that I look
I looked it up you looked it up Georgie Porgie and the crybabies no now Phil can you play that song for us
yeah I really like the uh point there about how they were trying to camouflage themselves you know when their eyes were open to good and evil or craftiness yeah and what do we try to do in our own lives when we get involved in something we shouldn't or if we're living a lifestyle we shouldn't we try to camouflage it to other people we put on our best front and so nothing really has changed since the Garden of Eden right but like Gordon said through baptism into Christ forgiveness of sins we can get back to that tree of life really every day we have access to it
and and in in case that you're describing then
that tree of life is sort of Representative of forgiveness is that what you mean yeah yeah so every day we we can be forgiven through Christ
yeah
so Genesis chapter 3 is is the rebellion and we see this idea where Adam and Eve are exiled out of the garden and they go Eastward and then when we turn the page we come to Genesis chapter 4 and we read the story of Cain and Abel
and this is the first uh death in the Bible this is where Cain murders his brother
um hold on I'm getting uh
all right getting some notes Here uh sorry about that uh Brian and Christina are texting uh First Chronicles 28 and 12 and verse 19 was David given a vision of how to build oh no that's not from today
Ezra 3 and 12. I I think that was the example of the uh Ezra 3 and 12 uh you want to just flip over to that
um
I think this is the store this is the example of the returning Exiles uh finding such disappointment in the uh
in the the land after they returned verse 12 . um many of the older priests and Levites and family heads who had seen the former Temple wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid Yeah that's right uh so that's a good that's a good quote
um again this was the idea that you know when you return it's not the same right and this is something that they experience but eventually our return will be all that we dream about it will be returning to Unity with God Walking with God that's how Revelation ends so anyway uh Genesis chapter four we're reading about the story of Cain and Abel this is the first recorded death in the Bible the first murder you know uh the day you eat it you will surely die they became dying creatures and now we see this death and after this death occurs
um let's look at verse 13. Kane is is is punished
let's
pick it up in verse 10. the Lord said what have you done listen your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground now you're under a curse and driven from the ground which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand when you work the ground it will no longer yield its crops to you you will be a Restless Wanderer on the Earth no longer in a home but a Wanderer in Exile a refugee if you will
Cain said to the Lord My Punishment is more than I can bear
we've talked about this before I think the King James has a really interesting uh side note in the margin where this word punishment
can also just like the word naked and craftiness or can be sort of interchangeable
this word punishment
is also the same word as iniquity
so Cain is saying it could potentially be saying and I think he is he's not saying my punishment is more than I can bear I mean he's just murdered his brother he's seen his brother breathe his last of breath he's seen his brother's blood drip out he's seen his brother's lifeless body and it's Dawning on him what he's just done right
and God says okay your punishment is
you're going to have to sweat when you farm the land and you're going to be a Wanderer
and Cain says my punishment is more than I can bear no that's probably not the case
Cain is saying my sin is more than I can bear
I can't believe I've done what I've done
and I think there's a great excitational Point here brothers and sisters because there are times in our lives when we
commit sins that we think are just terrible and probably are
but no matter what we do in life we shouldn't feel that our sins cannot be forgiven by God
Cain felt that way
my sin is more than I can bear
and just as God reached out to Adam and Eve and said look I know you're trying to hide from me with these figs let me give you a better garment to cover yourselves so that you can come back into my presence
here God is saying to Cain I know you think you can't be forgiven I know you think that your punishment that your iniquity is more than can be forgiven more than you can bear
here's what I'm going to do for you Kane
and he says um not so
verse 15. if anyone kills Cain he'll suffer Vengeance seven
times over then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him God in his love for him protected Cain he put a mark on him not as this Scarlet Letter but as a mark of protection so that he wouldn't suffer the same fate as his brother but the punishment goes on and what's the punishment it's the same punishment that Adam and Eve experienced
let's look at it in verse 16. so Cain went out from the Lord's presence and lived in the Land of Nod East of Eden
Cain became a refugee he was now a Wanderer and where did he go the same direction as Adam and Eve went East of Eden Cain now is cast out where does he go he goes Eastward
and in the generations that follow brothers and sisters mankind continued to make this downward spiral where the sins got greater and greater to the point where all the Earth the the imagination of man's thoughts were evil continually
and just as their thoughts got worse and worse and worse the direction of their travel
continued to go Eastward
and there's a connection there and I want you to turn to Genesis chapter 10 now because
here in Genesis chapter 10 we read you know Generations have gone by
and these people who were chosen by God to be his representatives and to disperse across the Earth
are choosing not to go forth and multiply
that's what God asked them to do but instead they're saying let's make a name for ourselves
you're not representing God they're not bringing God's name out they're saying let's make a name for ourselves and they begin to congregate
in cities
let's look at verse 10 of chapter 10. the first verse 9 let's verse 8. cush was the father of nimrod who grew to be a mighty warrior on the earth he was a mighty Hunter before the Lord that's why it said like Nimrod a mighty Hunter before the Lord verse 10. the first centers of
his kingdom
were Babylon
Eric ad kalna in shinar
a couple of points here it's no longer God's Kingdom
it's man's Kingdom this is the beginning Brothers and Sisters of the kingdom of men
Cush
began to congregate and have people congregate in cities and what's the first city that's represented here in this list
it's Babylon
and Babylon is going to be a code
in the New Testament and really throughout the Bible as a representation of the kingdom of men
as opposed to the kingdom of God
we see here
Babylon
as being East of Eden
as Adam and Eve were cast out they went Eastward
as Cain was cast out he went Eastward and what's east of the promised land it's Babylon
that's where they were and when we come to chapter 11 we read about the Tower of Babel
and and in the English the English translators I've mentioned this before the English translators here
have translated the word Babble because of its alliteration to you know Babble sounds right you know just the the mixed up language
but every other place the Bible translates this word that the the English translators translate as Babel every other place this word is translated guess what it's translated as
Babylon
this is the Tower of Babel is the Tower of Babylon
this is Babylon this is the kingdom of men verse 4 of chapter 11. then they said come let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens so that we may make a name for Yahweh no
it says so that we may make a name for ourselves
and not be scattered over the face of the whole Earth
what did God design man to do go forth and multiply they were to go forth and the kingdom of man is saying no in our judgment it's better for us to congregate in a city make a name for ourselves not you God no offense but we're going to make a name for ourselves and we're not going to go forth and multiply we're going to stay here
and this is Babylon now think Brothers and Sisters of the Jews who are living Generations later
in Babylon as exiles having been you know captured by the Babylonian Empire having had their homes burned with fire the temple burned with fire you know Rings put in their noses LED across a desert to this land where they speak a different language where the culture is completely different and they're wondering
what's going on
and when under the inspiration of the Bible
we come to the next section of the scriptures who do we read about
history now Generations thousands of years have gone by from Adam to this period in Babylon thousands of years you know we got you know Methuselah and all of these people who lived all these years now all of this history in the first 11 chapters
now focuses in on one man and the rest of Genesis describes this one man in his family and who's that man it's Abram
and what is the story of Abram the story of Abram is this man who lived in Babylon
and went back
he reversed the trend of people going Eastward he now leaves Hebron you know leaves Babylon and goes to Hebron and then to the promised land and this is the great hope of the exile the hope of the Exile is this return
the return to the land
and we'll try and develop this thought as we go forward in the coming weeks so I thought that might be a good overview for our first class
um
and why don't we end there we're right at 10 15. any questions anybody want to add anything Kathy
uh
I I just wanted to say that um
when Adam and Eve had the the Fig leaves and then God closed them with the animal skins that required the shedding of blood that's correct and and our Lloyd shed his blood for us yes that's very true Kathy and then Abel
was the um you know had the animals and Cain did not and the animals probably provided a blood sacrifice down the road you know
yes thank you yep yep good good comments
anything else
so in summary then brothers and sisters you know I I my thoughts about this class were really based on the experiences of our brothers and sisters from the Congo
um you know people who fled for their lives
and it caused me to think about
all of the people in the Bible who experienced similar faiths particularly the Jews
you know sometimes we read you know we think about the Jews going into Babylon I mean it's like oh and they were carried off into Babylon but imagine what it was as a family you know imagine what it was like for Justine mother of four children to carry these infants Through the Jungle fleeing for her life not knowing where the next meal would be this was the experience of the Jews and the hope of all these people you know when I say all these people the hope of the Bible you know the story of the Bible hope of all of us is that we can eventually return that's the hope of the exile
that's the hope of the refugee and that's our hope we look forward to that day when we'll walk with God in the Kingdom
Class 3
Original URL Sunday, December 18, 2022
Transcript
so brothers and sisters umwe're going to pick up on our Sunday school studies of the exile
and
what I want to just sort of remind us all about is this this concept of the Exile being one that's not limited
to the Exile of the the Jewish Nation
from Jerusalem to Babylon
instead the story of the Exile seems to permeate throughout all the pages of the Bible the story of the Exile is one where it's not just the Israelite nation that is exiled from Jerusalem it's that all of humanity is in Exile
we are we have been exiled from our home
and the home that mankind once inhabited was perfect it was the Garden of delight the Garden of Eden it is that place where God and man dwelled together
where Heaven and Earth were in one place you know there was this meeting of Heaven and Earth
and Mankind enjoyed
this home
until
he rebelled we rebelled from God and that was the story of Adam and Eve and their rejection of God they rejected God's command to listen to him and to obey him and when they rejected God's command and when they ate from that tree
they were
destined to suffer the consequences of their of their behavior of their rejection of of their Rebellion
and that that consequence was one where they were exiled they were cast out they went East of Eden and in our first class two weeks ago that's what we talked about we talked about how
on the day you eat it you will die this was this was the consequence that that was presented to them and they did in fact eat of the tree but they didn't die right then they they didn't you know have a heart attack and dropped to the ground dead but they became dying creatures
and following their Exile out of the garden we saw Cain
really repeat the exact same thing but in a you know you know that he rebelled
he now in his own mind says it says that you know it's going to be good for me to kill my brother that will solve my problems
and for the first time humanity experiences death
Cain kills his brother and the punishment that can't remember what the punishment was first of all Cain is punished and he says my punishment is greater than I can bear
and we talked about how that word punishment
is
in some places translated iniquity it was as though he was saying my iniquity is more than bike and bear I can't believe I've done this
he's seeing his brother's blood seeping into the ground and he's horrified by this
and and I think that I like that interpretation that it's it hits him
you know mourning over over his his behavior mourning over what he's done in his life and there are probably times when when we feel similarly I mean I don't think anybody here has killed anybody right but we've we've all sinned and and we have regret
and Cain has this regret
and I like that interpretation that that it's his iniquity that's more than he can bear because the punishment in and of itself to me anyway doesn't seem all that significant God is saying he's going to place a mark on Cain so that he'll be protected so that others won't meet out their own form of Justice on him so that he won't suffer the same fate as his brother this is God's love this is God protecting Cain yeah it's going to be harder for Cain because he's going to have to now till the soil he's going to have to prepare you know his own farming
big deal right I mean this is this what he's mourning about no
but what the punishment really was
it was that he was to be a Wanderer he was to be exiled and when we look at that story in Genesis chapter 4 it tells us that he went out East of Eden
it's that it's that it's that distancing from the Homeland the Perfection of the Garden of Eden they're getting further and further away and the question that I have for you and I just is by way of reminder is what is East of Eden if you were you know if you think about where Humanity migrated
as as history marched on
we came two weeks ago to Genesis chapter 10. and it was in Genesis chapter 10 that we read about this man nimrod
and Nimrod was the first one to create a kingdom for himself
and this Kingdom that he established had its base of operations
in a place called Babel
where
we know that that say and and we know that that same word Babel is translated every other place in the Bible as Babylon
Babylon is what's East of Eden where were the Jews taken in their great Exile when they were captured by a foreign people and moved from Jerusalem they ended up of course in Babylon and Babylon is to be in our minds now brothers and sisters as we read the story of the Bible we are to view Babylon I think as this representation of the kingdom of men
which stands in opposition to the kingdom of God
and right now we are living in Exile in a foreign Kingdom we're living in the Kingdom of men as Exiles as strangers as pilgrims and we are waiting for the re-establishment of our homeland we are waiting for that time when the kingdom of God will be fully on the earth when we will see Heaven and Earth brought together again when man and God will dwell together just like they did in the Garden of Eden
that's our hope
that's our dream
that's our faith brothers and sisters this is what the Bible teaches us and in the meantime while we wait for that great day we live as Exiles we suffer the consequences of an exile we wonder why is it that I have these feelings why is it that I'm not you know why why do I feel this way at times and it's because
we're we're not in that Garden of perfection anymore so I think that that's a that's sort of a summary of where I wanted to end our first class
the story of the Bible is really a story about exile
Exile from God
we are now living in the Kingdom of men and we are waiting for the kingdom of God to be re-established here on the Earth
for the Jewish Nation
they were perplexed
when the Bible was put to pen
when the Bible that we know the Jewish scriptures were compiled under inspiration of God it was probably happening about the time
that the Jews were in Babylon living in Exile the story of the Bible had been preserved through God's grace but it was an oral thing there were there were fragments of writing there were things that were taught from father to son and mother to daughter and these things now as the Jews are living in Babylon begin to be compiled together I heard one author talk about how the this the pieces of the quilt now are being stitched together and Ezra and Nehemiah were responsible for much of what was written and so when these documents are are being compiled in the Jewish scripture I think one of the messages was to answer one of the reasons was to answer the question that hung in the mind of these exiled people and that question they needed to answer was are we really God's chosen people
we've been told all our lives that God chose us from all the nations not because we were more powerful or not because we were stronger or greater in any sense but because God loved us
and at this stage in their history they're wondering
does God love us How could a loving God allow us to have our homes destroyed our Temple destroyed our way of life taken from us How could a loving God allow us to have you know hooks put in our noses while we are dragged across a desert thousands of miles away to a foreign land
How could a loving God allow us to be in this land where they speak a different language where the culture is so foreign to us
is there truly a god
and are we the chosen people and the answer to that of course is yes we have a loving God a Creator God who is far superior to the gods of the Babylonians or the Egyptians his ways are greater and better than the ways of the Babylonians or the Egyptians these were the things that the Jews had to learn and this is what we read about in the story of the Bible
and so today we're going to be focusing on Abraham
because the story of Abraham likely gave great comfort to the Jews who were in captivity
because where did Abraham originally come from
he came from Babylon
and where did he go he was the first one that went not from the West to the east cast out East of Eden Abraham now reverses the trend and now Abraham is going from Babylon back to the promised land how cool is that
and so these Jewish
brothers and sisters now are learning the story of Abraham and how God called him
and brought him back
from the East to the land that was promised and that's what I want to read about and talk about this morning
um
turn with me open up your Bibles
and the first place we're going to go is to Genesis chapter 17. it's it's here in Genesis chapter 17 that we read about the Covenant of circumcision this is what distinguished the men of the Hebrew Nation
from all of the Nations around them
Abraham is an old man chapter 17 verse 1. when Abraham when Abram was 99 years old the Lord appeared to him and said I am God almighty
walk before me and be blameless
I will confirm my Covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers
so think again Brothers and Sisters of the perspective of that Jew who's living in captivity hearing these stories told
verse 3 Abram fell face down and God said to him as for me this is my Covenant with you
you will be the father of many nations
no longer will you be called Abram your name will be Abraham
for I have made you a father of many nations I will make you very fruitful I will make nations of you and Kings will come from you
I will establish my Covenant as an Everlasting Covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come to be your God and the god of your descendants after you the whole land of Canaan where you are now now catch this phrase the whole land of Canaan where you are now and
alien
I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you and I will be their God
see they were aliens they were strangers they were pilgrims they were vagabonds they were traveling about without a place to lay their head
and now the promise to Abram was that you come back from Babylon to the promised land
and I will be with you and your descendants forever
you'll no longer be aliens you'll no longer be strangers but I will make you the father of Nations and from you will come Kings
this was thrilling
for the Jew that was living in captivity and it should be thrilling to us because brothers and sisters we too are the Seed of Abraham
through our baptism into Jesus we have become members of Abraham's family
and these promises are available to you and me
it's just
yeah it's just thrilling
so that's what we write about in Genesis chapter 17. now
we turn the we turn a few pages
when when we turn to Abram to Genesis 17 we discovered that Abram was how old 99 right right Sharon 99. and now we turn to chapter 23. time has marched on
and we're going to be reading now about the death of Abraham's wife Sarah
Sarah lived to be a hundred and twenty seven years old
she died at kyrieth arba that is Hebron in the land of Canaan and Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep over her
then Abraham Rose from beside his dead wife
and spoke to the Hittites
now we're likely familiar with this story right this is the story where Abraham who has been promised The Land by God
who has lived in the land all these years until the death of his wife now
needs to find a place to bury her
let the word seep in as you read these things you know he is beside his wife
he went to mourn for Sarah and to weep over her then Abram Rose from beside his wife he was laying there next to her dead body
as a loving father as a loving husband
thinking about all the years they had spent together
and he stands
and he now needs to find a place to bury her
and yet despite the land having been promised to him
he doesn't own a single parcel of land that he can call his own
what's going on right
now for us we've got great insight into this because through the inspiration of scriptures we can turn to the New Testament and we can read what the writers have said about this event and we'll do that in a moment but right now Abram has to make arrangements
to buy a piece of land
verse 5 the Hittites reply first verse 4 he says I'm an alien and a stranger among you
this is just I mean this is the story of an exile
I'm an alien and a stranger among you sell me some property for a burial site here so I can bury my dead
this concept of being an alien and a stranger is something that we see throughout the Bible
we began our first class on this subject a couple of weeks ago with a quote from first Peter and I'm going to go back there just because it really is telling to me First Peter chapter 2 he's writing now to men and women who are residents
who are citizens of Roman provinces
and in chapter 2 verse 11 Peter writes to them and says dear friends I urge you as
aliens and strangers in the world to abstain from sinful desires
were they were they aliens and strangers in the world no they were citizens of bithnia they were citizens of Cappadocia they were citizens of galatia this is where they were born this is where they grew up they are no different than you and me brothers and sisters who are citizens of the United States
and while we are citizens of the United States just as they were citizens of Cappadocia
we know that our true home that our true citizenship is in heaven and we are waiting for that time when the kingdom of God will be re-established here on Earth
and while we wait just as those brothers and sisters in First Peter waited we live as aliens and strangers awaiting that restoration
and so Abram now views himself the father of the faithful the one who has received these promises the one who has been told this will be your land for you and your descendants forever he views himself even to the very end of his life as an alien and a stranger and this theme
carries through the whole of the Jewish scriptures
turn with me to examples as an example to Exodus chapter 2. we're going to read in Exodus chapter 2 about that great
hero of the Jewish faith Moses
Moses
flees
he runs for his life from Egypt why
listen to what he says this is how this is what he he names his son now so he has a he has a child and so you know the naming of a child is an important thing for a parent
and Moses now names his son and listen to listen to How Moses describes this so we're going to look at Exodus chapter 2. and we'll pick it up in the 22nd verse
zipporah gave birth to a son
and Moses named him gershom
gershom
and then the Bible goes on to explain what gersha means
gershoms meaning I have become an alien in a foreign land
think how helpful this would be to the Jew that was living as an alien in Babylon Abram
their great father of Faith viewed himself as an alien Moses that greater that great prophet viewed himself and his descendants as aliens
it was something that was just part of who they were they recognized that their life experience was to live as an exile
let's just continue this theme and and dive into it a little bit further let's turn to Leviticus so we're sort of just turning turning books of the Bible we were in Genesis we were in Exodus let's go to Leviticus now Leviticus chapter 25. here in Leviticus we're reading about all of these different laws and all of these different celebrations they are to have and in Leviticus chapter 25 we're going to be reading about the Year of Jubilee this was that year that would occur once every 50 years and the reason this took place was to even out the financial well-being of this community
they're living in the promised land now and they want to make sure that unlike the nations from which they came whether it be Egypt or whether it be Babylon that there weren't these landowners
that just became that just gobbled up all the land resulting in some in the community who lived high off the hog and some who struggled to make ends meet the Year of Jubilee was that year when everything got reshuffled and when things became Equitable again and this is what God said about the land now so we're in chapter 25 of Leviticus we're going to look at the 23rd verse
it says the land must not be sold permanently
because the land is mine
and you are but what
aliens
and strangers you are my tenants is what God is saying once again this is to be a lesson not only to the the Hebrew nation that was in Babylon in captivity during the time these things were put to record there to be a lesson to us that we are to consider ourselves tenants
we're waiting for the time when the Lord God will re-establish the Garden of Eden when we'll walk with him again
turn to uh Psalms
this will be uh we'll go to two more passages uh about on this theme of strangers and pilgrims and this time we'll look at Psalm 39. it's a beautiful psalm
so this is David
Another Hero of the Jewish faith we've talked about Abram we've talked about Moses and now David the king of the land
and this is what he writes
Psalm 39 verse 12. hear my prayer o Yahweh hear my prayer O Lord listen to My Cry for Help be not deaf to my weeping for I dwell with you as an alien a stranger as all my fathers were
this is the story of the Bible we are in that same category
and we know we're in that category and we know that every other hero of the Jewish faith viewed themselves as being in that category of lesser thans
because when we come to Hebrews the writer to the Hebrews tells us that uh turn to Hebrews chapter 11 and we're going to at two passages the first one is verse 9. by faith verse 8 Abram Abraham was called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance
what a keep Passage
God tells him during the Covenant of circumcision that he would receive this land
he and his descendants forever and Hebrews now the writer of the Hebrews is expanding this he's explaining this he's saying this is not a contradiction let's understand it by faith Abraham when called to go to a place he would later receive as an inheritance obeyed and went even though he did not know where he was going and by faith he made his home in the promised land Like a Stranger in a foreign country
he lived in tents as did Isaac and Jacob who were heirs with him of the same promise
why
why did he live as an alien God had promised him this land why verse 10. because he was looking forward to the city whose foundations whose architect and Builder is God
and I think that's such an important thing right now we are living in a kingdom that was built by nimrod
the kingdom of men it was based according to the things that he thought was good
he was defining what was good as opposed to listening to the true architect of creation God
presented us all
with his ethics
God is the one who will establish this Kingdom
and no longer will this Kingdom suffer under misrule
but will instead
be a kingdom that will be ruled by a righteous King and that's the difference that's why Abraham was willing to live as an alien and a stranger because he knew that even if he had the land it would still be under the rule of man's Kingdom
it would not be the kingdom of God and so he was waiting for that so let's pause there and I open it up for any comments or questions we're going to transition in a moment so Jim
early on you commented that Abraham left Babylon maybe I missed it but I thought he left ER and I think what you're trying to say is er is like uh is a represent or Babylon is a representative of ER or well if you look yeah I mean ER is like a suburb of Babylon oh it is yeah yeah yeah if you look on a map that's where it is oh thank you yeah
yeah
good question Jim yeah
anybody else
okay
so
we are now living under mismanagement
right I mean despite our best efforts
despite the best efforts of those who are empowered to rule
you know we do what's right and what is best for our constituency even if it's at the expense of someone else's constituency that's how the kingdom of men works
for writer for wrong that's how it works people I mean I think we have to have the attitude that those who are in positions of power elected officials are doing what they believe is best for the country I think that's fair I think I think that's of of we need to give people the benefit of the doubt and the intention of public officials is to serve their constituencies
the challenge of course is when people differ on values when people differ on priorities and when that happens we will lean one way or the other
but a time is coming when we will have a righteous King when the decisions that are made will be perfect
and that's the thing that I think differentiates the kingdom of God from the kingdom of men
we started to see this
in Exodus
when God called his people Abraham's family now has grown
and they've become a tribe
and this tribe is living under the thumb of the Egyptians and they are being forced into hard labor as slaves
and they're crying out to God and God hears their prayer and he delivers them
and he's going to bring these people into a nation that will truly be the kingdom of God on Earth
and the first thing that happens as they come Acro come out of Egypt and come through that sea is they go to Mount Sinai
and here on Mount Sinai God is going to deliver to Moses and to the people
his ethics
his rules
and as we read the the law that's presented here
I think what's most important in what I have found most helpful is to read these laws in the context
in the juxtaposition of the laws that were held in Egypt and in Babylon you see the laws that are presented at Mount Sinai are very different from those ancient ways
that the Jews would have experienced as Citizens or as strangers better word living in Egypt and Living Years Later in Babylon God is now demonstrating to them his character he's demonstrating to them things like his compassion
and I'll bring you to uh if we could let's go now to Exodus chapter 19. they're at Mount Sinai
in the third month after the Israelites left Egypt on the very day they came to the desert of Sinai and after they set out from refidem they entered the desert of Sinai and Israel Camp there in the desert in front of the mountain then Moses went up to God and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said this is what you're to say to the house of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel
you yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried You On Eagle's Wings and brought you to myself
now
now listen
if you obey me fully and keep my Covenant then out of all the nations you will be my treasured possessions although the whole earth is mine you will be for me a kingdom of priests
and a holy nation these are the words you are to speak to the Israelites
I mean this is amazing this is a people that were slaves and now they are given
an opportunity to be Kings
what do they have to do all they have to do is obey God fully
verse 7. so Moses went back and summoned the Elders of the people and set before them all the words the Lord had commanded them him to speak and the people all responded together with a unified voice they said we will do everything the Lord has said
so Moses brought this answer back to Yahweh okay so they're no longer going to be living as aliens and strangers they are going to be a nation under God they are going to be Kings and all they need to do now is obey God fully and what we find next is is these initial laws that went from God to Moses to bring to the people and when we were viewing these laws in in comparison to the laws of Egypt and later comparison to the laws of Babylon you see how Superior these laws were to those Nations and I'll just for the sake of time we're running out of time but for the sake of uh time I'm just going to hit on a couple of them so let's take uh
let's take Exodus chapter 21 as an example we'll go to the 33rd verse
this is an example of some of the the social laws that were established for the benefit of others it's no longer about what's best for me and my family it's trying to understand what's best for the community at Large verse 33 if a man uncovers a pit or digs one and fails to cover it in an ox or a donkey falls into it the owner of the pit must pay for the loss he must pay its owner and the dead animal will be his it's it's Justice Brothers and Sisters this was very different from the laws of the Nations around them historians tell us if a man injures the bull of another and it dies they are to sell the live one and divide both the money the both the money and the dead animal equally right it's Justice it's fairness it's a contrast to what the other nations held in their rules and in their laws chapter 22 verse 21 do not mistreat an alien or oppress him why
for you were aliens in Egypt
you were aliens what does that mean to them now we're no longer aliens we are God's people we're as chosen people this is our Promised Land all we have to do is obey God fully and as a as a common voice we said to Moses we will do it we'll do everything God asks
and of course The Story Goes On Right Moses goes up and down Mount Sinai and the fourth time up
he says
the people God says the people are in an uproar chapter 24. um
Moses then wrote down verse 4 everything the Lord had said he got up early the next morning built an altar at the foot of the mountain set up 12 stone pillars representing the 12 tribes of Israel goes on talking about verse 7 the book of the Covenant these are the things that the people agreed to do and we find now that the people fail chapter 32. verse 19 when Moses approached the camp he saw the calf and the dancing and the anger and he threw the tablets out of his hand and he broke them at the foot of the mountain and he took the calf that they'd made and burned it in the fire and he grounded into powder you know the people failed
they were promised that if they obeyed God fully they would no longer be aliens they would be God's children living in the Promised Land
and they failed and this brothers and sisters is a lesson to us because we are no different
we're not
the whole story of the Bible is about that it's about the failure of Abraham it's about the failure of Isaac it's about the failure of Jacob the failure of Moses the failure of David
these things aren't hidden from us their failures aren't hidden from us the nation says will promise to do it no sooner they promise they fail
later in the Babylonian exile the people finally go back to the land and the same thing happens again
God says if you do these things you will be a nation Kings and Priests and they fail despite their promise to stay aboard
and we pause
and we look introspectively
and we think about our own baptism
right
and we look at the passage of time and we realize that we're no different
we're failures too
but thanks be to God that through Jesus Christ we have
a promise to be forgiven of our failures to be forgiven of our rebellion and that because of Jesus death and Resurrection we can have confidence that if we put to death our old ways and live a new life we will become
a nation of Kings and Priests
and that we will become citizens
of God's Kingdom here on Earth Walking with God
and in the meantime brothers and sisters we live as aliens and strangers looking for that great hope
Class 4
Original URL Sunday, January 1, 2023
Transcript
well good morning everybodyI feel like I'm in the dark I got the sun coming right on me but uh all right here we are so who remembers what we're talking about
Sandy
yes but what specifically in the Bible are we talking about the uh there you go we're talking about the Exile and um I don't blame you if uh if he didn't remember right away because I was I feel like I I lead class for a week and then I'm away for a week but um it's nice to be here how did it go last uh Sunday with the with Ben was it good yeah was it nice yeah yeah nice good
um so we are talking about the Exile and the main theme here that I'm trying to uh bring across is that
uh the bible really focuses a lot on this subject
the subject of us being strangers in pilgrims
the Bible throughout its pages
carries this theme
and we saw it originally with Adam and Eve being exiled from the Garden of Eden
we saw it when
Adam and Eve's son
murdered his brother and was exiled further
to the east away from the garden if you will
um he was to be a Restless Wanderer and so he wanders the Earth as a as a Sojourner
we see it with Abraham
but in almost in Reverse you know we talked about how Abraham was this one who was called from Babylon he was in Ur of the chaldees called the is you know part of Babylon and he go he's the first one that goes back you know from the East to the west and I think that one of the reasons the Bible perhaps records this movement of Abraham was to give the Exiles hope because the story of the Jew the story of the Israelites the Hebrew nation is really one about Exile all throughout their history
when they came to Mount Sinai and this is where we left off last week the Jews were growing from a family in Egypt you know they were Abraham's family and this family becomes a tribe and this tribe then becomes a nation and they're in a foreign land under you know a a superpower of Egypt they're treated terribly they cry out to their God God hears their cries and he rescues them and he brings them to the promised land and before they go into the promised land they go up onto the mount where God meets with Moses and gives them you know the the what we know is The Ten Commandments
and there they are there's Moses and he and he brings the message of God to the people
and he says look God has favored us he has promised us this land that's flowing with milk and honey but here's what he asks of you
and the Jewish Nation hears the the things that God says
and as a nation almost like with one voice they say we will do it we'll do everything that God asks us
and you know you'd almost like to think that there's the end of the story right that okay we've got God choosing his people it's through this people that all nations of the earth will be blessed they're going to be a nation of Kings and Priests they're going to teach the world about Yahweh the great God and and they're going to bring God's goodness to everyone isn't that a great story but the problem is no sooner do they say yeah we'll do it we'll do everything that God commands
they begin to Fall Away they begin to I mean in sort of alarming fashion they do the exact thing that God tells them not to do in the very first you know commands they all shall have no other gods before me and they're up on the mountain and they wonder where Moses is and they say oh I got a good idea let's make an idol and they make this eye this golden calf
and I think the story behind this brothers and sisters is to teach us
that we all struggle
and that God loves us despite our struggles
and I think that's an important thing to know because the story of the Bible shows over and over again the failures of all of God's people so think about it it starts with Adam and Eve they're living in Perfection and they fail then you think about Abraham the father of the faithful and he's the one who goes to a foreign land and says to his wife pretend you're my sister
and because of this lie his sister now his wife is is treated as his sister and is brought into the king's harem to be one of the concubines of this foreign King I mean it just doesn't make sense like this is the father of the faithful
and I think the Bible over and over again shows us the failings
of even those great men and women
of old
and it shows us their failings because
it's teaching us that we can't rely on ourselves and we must rely on forgiveness
we must rely on God to forgive us despite our sins
so the Jews now because they're they're at Sinai they say we'll do everything they get carried off now into exile
for 40 years they wander instead of going into the promised land they wander in the desert
as punishment as a lesson to them and as a lesson to us
so I think a lot of you remember Steve Stewart you know my brother-in-law Steve's uh grandfather Maury Stewart would often quote a passage from the New Testament and it spoke it was a I can't remember where it is Jim Sullivan you might remember Jim just woke up
what was the passage that Maury always used to quote it was based on the history of Israel these things were written before time for our learning
uh that we through patience and endurance of the scripture might have hope
and like how do I remember that passage I mean I remember listening to his talks over and over again when I would drive to work I don't know how many years ago this was you know he was sort of the first brother Mori was sort of the first of these uh
recorded Bible teachers you know in our community he he had a TV show called or he had a radio program called uh the story of the Bible and he would lead us all you know every week it was like an online Bible class it was the first of the online Bible classes right
and he would begin every one of his Bible classes these things were written you know a four time for our learning that we through patience and endurance of the scripture might have hope and I think that's one of the reasons why we so often see the failings of these people it's to teach us it's to encourage us that God will work with us despite our failings right I think that's hugely important so
the Jews wander in the desert they then finally enter the land they're in the promised land and what happens when they're there
they fail right that it wasn't like there was this you know miraculous turnaround they continue to struggle
and they begin worshiping other Idols they begin doing all the things that they promised not to do
and because of that we find years later that they get brought into captivity
and when you think about the Jewish Nation brothers and sisters think about the recordings of the Kings
so we read about the Kings and the Chronicles right so these are two of our Old Testament books
it's thought that the book of Chronicles first and second chronicles was written years later by Ezra
and when we read the Chronicles it tells us in quite Stark detail about the failing of the Kings
it tells us about all the mistakes they made
and as I say sometimes it's done for our learning years later but I believe it was also done to teach the Jews in captivity
yeah so Ezra writes and he is um
he's explaining to the Jews why they've been brought into captivity
they're despondent over the fact that they the chosen people are being treated as badly as they are
turn with me to Second Chronicles chapter 36. this is the chapter that describes
that that final
uh
destruction of the land Second Chronicles chapter 36 as I say this was likely written by Ezra many years later and he's explaining what's happened and why
uh
chapter 36 verse 15. so imagine yourself now living in Babylon as an exile having been carried across the you know the Arabian Desert
um with hooks in your noses you know just being treated you know waking up you know after you finally make that Journey everybody speaks a different language Everybody Eats different food everything looks different
okay
um
okay no I'm just a little right so uh Second Chronicles 36 it says the Lord the god of their fathers sent word to them through his Messengers again and again so the the Jews in Babylon are saying you know why did this happen to us and Ezra is saying now look you know it's not like you didn't have fair warning God Sent His prophets to you again and again and again he was trying to get you to change your ways he was trying to get you to stop worshiping idols
um he and he did this because it says in verse 15 he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place but
they mocked God's Messengers they despised his words they scoffed At His prophets until the Wrath of the Lord was aroused against his people and there was no remedy so God gave them every opportunity just as he does us but there is a time and I think this shows us that there is a time where God's patience sort of comes to an end there is a goodness of God but James tells us there is also a severity of God
there's a goodness and a severity and the severity is seen here in verse 17 where it says he brought up against them the king of the Babylonians who killed their young men with the sword in the sanctuary and spared neither young man norled
God handed all of them over to Nebuchadnezzar now
this is what actually happened to the Jews there and and it becomes in my mind so much more real when I consider the events that we're about to read in second chronicles with the images that we see
from the Ukraine or if you're old enough and you can go back and think about the images that you saw from you know World War II you remember sister Pat Sabian a a member of this meeting you know long ago grew up in England and was you know in the area where the bombings took place every night
and I remember her telling me what it was like as a child to hear the the air raid sirens go off and how her mom and dad would take her and they would go down you know into the air raid shelters as a child and how she would go to school and there would be an empty desk because a child had been you know killed as a result of the German bombings and this is what's happening in the Ukraine and in in some ways brothers and sisters that these images that we can conjure up in our mind might help us appreciate what the Jews went through when the Babylonians rolled into town
look at verse 18. uh Second Chronicles chapter 36 Sandy thanks
it says in verse 18 he carried to Babylon all the uh I'm sorry verse 17. God brought up against them the king of the Babylonians who killed their young men with a sword in the sanctuary and spared neither young man nor young woman old man or aged God handed all of them over to Nebuchadnezzar he carried to Babylon all the Articles from the temple of God both large and small and the Treasures of the Lord's Temple and the Treasures of the Kings and his officials verse 19. they set fire to God's Temple they broke down the wall of Jerusalem they burned all the Palaces and destroyed everything of value there and then in verse 20 he carried into exile
to Babylon The Remnant who escaped from The Sword and they became servants to him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power so this is what it's like it was devastating these aren't just words on a page these are recordings of the travails the struggles that real people like you and me went through at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar and this was a Divine punishment from God
showing the goodness and severity of God but even in these most severe cases God remember
has set cherubim at the edge of the Garden of Eden to protect the way back
there will be a day despite the troubles that we go through where the there will be a renewal of all things and this is the Hope of those who were in Exile but in the midst of our troubles it's really hard sometimes isn't it turn with me to Psalm 137. this is the song of the exile
the Jews are in such despair that they can you know they don't have a they don't have a temple to Worship in they're wondering whether they are the chosen people in Psalm 37 137 gives us a an inkling of what was going on in their minds
this is the song of the exile by the Rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we resign when we remembered Zion you know they talked today about post-traumatic stress disorder PTSD
you know these people are sitting by this River and they're remembering they've got these images of their family members you know being killed they've got these images of their homes being set to fire they've got images of all of the atrocities that took place
and they're I mean they're devastated and they're sitting there by these rivers in Babylon not knowing where to go not knowing what to do
there on the poplars these are the poplar trees we hung our harps
we can't sing
for there our captors asked us for songs our torment sisters our tormentors demanded songs of Joy sing to us you know this was the this was the treatment that they were getting at the hands of these you know these men
sing to us one of the songs of Zion and verse 4 says how can we sing the songs of of the Lord while in a foreign land if I forget you o Jerusalem May my right hand forget its skill may my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
so brothers and sisters these were difficult times
for the Jewish Nation it was a traumatic time and yet God did not forget
and God does not forget you or me in our time of trouble God has a plan and it won't be
it won't fall off the rails
God has always anticipated that there would be a need brothers and sisters to rescue us from sin
and from the consequences of sin
think about it from the very beginning God has had a plan
Israel's failure
teaches us that we all need Redemption
and that God's way
and that God's character can best be understood when we contrast God's goodness
with the the terrible things that sometimes happen
when we follow man's way and when we experience the consequences of our sinful nature so let me just say that again we can appreciate the the goodness of God best
when we contrast God's goodness with the wickedness and the difficulty of this life
let me open it up to some questions or comments anybody
yeah Judy
okay
Sandy's up my 80. I think it's
in Jews no I haven't Judy advertisements on the league of Christians
went through the Jews that went through these horrible things if you ever could see the faces of these people who are so grateful for an orange uh you know it is to to um get money for these people but what they went through and they would tell you or the things that each one of them went through
and my first thought is how
did God let this happen I know Judy I can't it just is the saddest
a truthful thing that the evil of man and you can see it raising his head again yeah you know I mean we think about our sister Justine right now you know Justine is half a world away you know she's in Africa right now in Tanzania yeah and uh she is feeding the orphans
and the widows of the Congolese War yeah you know and I think it it points to me it points out it it reminds us
of the difference between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of men
right
remember Doug Eagles used to say it's not kingdoms of men it's Kingdom of men
is one Kingdom of man it's all the same and it all Roots back to Babylon so in our first class we talked about how when
when Adam was cast out and they kept moving Eastward they settled in a town and they created this Tower of Babel it was the Tower of Babylon and it was the first time the Bible records
the the that men were establishing names for themselves
it's the first time the Bible describes how men were creating kingdoms for themselves and so Babylon now is represent is a representation throughout the Bible of the kingdom of men and Judy to your point when we when we look and we say how did God let this happen I think what we we need to remember is it happens because
mankind is choosing to do what's best in their own eyes we do what's best for me I do what's best for me and my family sometimes even when it's at the expense of other people
and it's not always going to be that way
there will be a day when God will establish the kingdom of God here again and when that happens we will follow perfectly
the the character of God we will be those perfect rep we will be perfect images of God just as Jesus was that perfect image of God you know we've talked about how if you want to see what God is like look to Jesus if you've seen me you've seen the father Jesus would say because he showed us the character of God but in the meantime all too often the character of men boils up and God allows it to happen and I think one of the reasons is to again show us the need to rely on God does that make sense yeah yeah
what transpired during World War want to yeah it is and and I feel dirty having lived that long ago with all this terrible stuff going on yeah and my father was in a camp so
yeah your dad was right so your father was a religious conscientious objector yeah and um
you know he didn't flee to Canada no he obeyed the laws of the land and the laws of the land said that you are free to you know practice your your right to be a religious conscientious objector but you need to provide some sort of important service to this country and so we live as you know strangers and pilgrims we live as you know I remember my friend um some of you might remember my college roommate spent he was my uh he was my the best man in our wedding and uh Sven was a resident alien of the United States I always thought that you know that was a weird word he carried a green card
he was a resident alien and as a resident alien he he was required to obey the rules of the land
but there were certain things that he could not do as a resident alien that a citizen could do so for example as a resident alien he was not given the right to vote
he was not given the right to um mean he wasn't allowed to serve in the U.S army there were things that he couldn't do but he was required to obey the laws and so Judy your dad you know sort of lived as a as a stranger in a pilgrim sure he was a citizen of the United States but his citizenship first was in heaven right so he was in other words he was obeying what what his heavenly father was teaching him to do and so his convictions were that he couldn't go to war to fight but he would obey the laws and as a result of that he went to a service camp
and I believe was he fighting fires
what did he do
you know so I know a lot of these bro a lot of these young young men at the time you know went and they fought they fought uh the fires the you know so you'll you think about the fires in California for example you know and if all of the abled bodies uh young men are overseas fighting in a war who fights the fires here and it was often the religious conscientious objectors like your dad who did that
yeah they worked in hospitals I know a number of uh young men worked in um you know some of the institutions
um yeah it was hard you know but it was a service right to the country right and that I think is sort of a modern day example of living as a stranger and a pilgrim in a country that's not our own think about Daniel
right think about Daniel
not not uh not my son Daniel but you know right
um you know Daniel is a Jew he's carried into captivity he's in Babylon they come to Daniel and they say you know what
um I know you've got this nice Hebrew name
but we want to change your name and we're going to give you a new Babylonian name
and he takes on this Babylonian name and he's living there in Babylon and he is um now asked to take off his like customary clothing and he's dressed now as a Babylonian and as likely his head is shaved like the Babylonians heads were shaved and he's doing all of these things blending in
until
the laws of the land conflicted
with his conscience
right so they said to him you must Bow Down and Worship this image and he said I can't do that
you must uh start eating the Babylonian food and he said no but I'm a Jew I eat kosher he didn't do that and so we saw examples there where Daniel while living in a foreign land while living as that Resident alien obeying all the laws of the land drew a line and said there are things that I cannot do because of my religious conscience
so
comments questions
all right
um
thanks for that Judy
all right um where are we
so while the Jews are now in captivity
they do experience hope
while they are struggling
they're told that you know things will get better for you turn with me to Jeremiah Jeremiah chapter 29. now I talked about uh the Kings and the Chronicles these are the these are the books that record the Kingdom of Israel on the earth the kingdom of God on the Earth and all of the troubles that they experienced and I mentioned how Ezra was likely the author of The Chronicles and the Chronicles then describe all of the failings of the Kings you know the these Kings did what was right in their own eyes these Kings you know did these these evil things and it gave context to why
the nation was in captivity well that's chronicles kings two tells that same story of the failings and it's thought that the Kings were written by Jeremiah the prophet so Jeremiah was speaking during this time and chapter 29 of Jeremiah's prophecy
is this well-known um letter to the Exiles
this is this is what God's message was to this people who are despondent who are Weeping by the rivers in Babylon look at verse chapter 29 verse 4. Jeremiah writes and he says this is what the Lord Almighty this is what Yahweh the god of Israel says to all those I carried into Exile from Jerusalem to Babylon
so this is a letter to to them explaining what God has in plan for them
build houses settle down plant Gardens
and eat what they produce Marion have sons and daughters find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage so that they may too have sons and daughters an increase in number there do not decrease
so what was the first command you know when when Adam and Eve
were commissioned by God what were they told to do go forth and multiply and it's the same here the nation of Israel was to continue to increase verse 7 also seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I've carried you into exile
they weren't to be protesters they weren't to be you know trying to change what was happening in Babylon they were to blend
they were to get along
yes this is what the Lord all verse 8 this is what the Lord Almighty the god of Israel says do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you don't listen to the dreams that encourage them they um verse 9 they are prophesying lies
verse 10 this is what Yahweh says when 70 years are completed for Babylon I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place
and so there they are Weeping in Babylon having experienced all the things that what they went through and god holds out this carrot and says but I haven't forgotten you I know your Exiles but I will bring you back to your land
and that of course brothers and sisters leads us to the story of the of the return from Babylon to uh to Jerusalem
this is found in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah and you might think of Ezra uh the book of Ezra as as a memoir
it's it's Ezra's account of what happened to him and and in his life and and to his friends and to his family and to his people when we come to the book of Ezra it's
and and we look at Chapters seven through nine as an example we see in these letters Ezra using that that personal pronoun he's speaking on
you know he's speaking in the first person
and he's he's the book of Ezra and the book of Nehemiah are a collection of like historical documents and Census records and correspondence and all of these things but chapters seven through nine we actually see Ezra speaking in the first person and the overall theme of both Ezra and Nehemiah is that God keeps his promises remember he's promised to Jeremiah that after 70 years I'll bring you back to the land and we have to have reason
to trust that all of God's promises will be fulfilled and I think that's what Ezra's trying to get across to these despondent people
he's talking to them in these books about the future Messianic King he's talking about the wonderful Kingdom of God that will be established on the Earth he's telling them and Judy this I think is is what you were talking about when you see the pain of these people he's telling them that when the kingdom comes
his subjects the subjects of his kingdom us will be free from sin will be free from suffering we'll even be free from death
and so we see um see
um
all of these things taking place in the book of Ezra in Nehemiah
all right how are we doing for time
turn with me to uh Deuteronomy chapter 30. foreign
Chapter 30 is um going back in time now right
we're talking about the Exiles returning to the land but Chapter 30 gives us some context as to why the Jews experienced these punishments why they went through what they went through
when when all these blessings and curses I've set before you come upon you and have taken them to you and you have taken them to heart whatever the Lord your God disperses you among the Nations and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and Obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes there was a purpose
to the punishment that they went through and the purpose was that the people would in their despair turn back to God and sometimes that's what happens to us
sometimes in our despair we turn to God and this is where we need to go brothers and sisters when life is challenging when we experience the troubles in life we need to turn to God because God is a loving God and has promised us great hope
we talked about the hope that the Jews had in captivity and
um we have that same hope don't we brothers and sisters that we will return to a land so I'm going to conclude now with just a couple of things in mind
I want you to think now about the Jews who have heard this prophecy of Jeremiah
who have have recognized that after 70 years in captivity they're going to be permitted to go back across that desert to the land that had been destroyed by the Babylonians and we see a couple of examples of this return from the west from the East to the West
one example that we read about in the Bible is the Book of Esther it's here that God uses Haman to give to convince the Jews to return home turn to Esther chapter 10. anybody have that turned up I'm going to have you read for us verse 3. do you have it I can read it I guess you guys don't have a
I'll read it
Esther 10 verse 3 Mordecai the Jew was second in rank to King Xerxes preeminent among the Jews and held in the highest esteem by his many fellow Jews says because he worked for the good of his people and spoke up for all of the Jews the point here is that God used you know the in the Book of Esther evil Haman to convince more Jews to return home he did this through Mordecai he was second in rank to King Xerxes
it's the same sort of thing we saw with Daniel right second in rank to the king of Babylon so that's the first thing when God is working with certain people even in our despair
so that his purpose will carry forward and then we see it with Zechariah and haggai these are prophets prophets who motive the fate of the people to return to finish uh you know return to Israel and rebuild the Temple
Class 5
Original URL Sunday, January 8, 2023
Transcript
so we've been talking about uhexiles
and we've been trying to see this theme of the Exile Through the Bible beginning in Genesis when Adam and Eve are exiled from the Garden of Eden you see it as Cain gets exiled further Eastward until this city of Babylon really
gets formed and the story of the Exile is one where we are living
as sort of strangers in a foreign land
you know we're we're waiting for that that home we're waiting to go home right we're waiting for the restoration of all things that time when Jesus will return When the kingdom will be established when God will eventually be all in all these are our hopes these are our dreams these are our aspirations
but in the meantime we need to figure out how it is that we are to live here and now while we wait for the restoration of all things and that was something that the Jewish Nation needed to learn too because as We Know despite them having been selected chosen by God God said to them you know I've chosen you out of all the nations not because you're greater not because you're more numerous than all the other peoples but because I loved you they were his chosen people and despite the fact that they were his chosen people they rebelled they were supposed to be a blessing to the Nations they were supposed to take the ethic of God the goodness of God and and be a blessing to the Nations by showing them God's ways and when they went to the Mount uh you know when they were on Mount Sinai and and the Ten Commandments come Moses goes down to them and says you know look if you do these things you'll be a kingdom of priests and they're like we'll do it and no sooner do they promise that then they fall away and because of that they then went into the Wilderness where they wandered as Exiles once again and then the nation of Israel is now in the promised land they the the city of you know the kingdom of God is has been established in Jerusalem David is their King things are going great but all of a sudden the people are following after the ways not of Yahweh but of the Gods around them they're worshiping other gods they're doing the things that God commanded them not to do and he's patient with them and he's teaching them through the prophets that look you've got to change your ways
and if you don't change your ways there will be consequences and so last week we talked a little bit about the consequences the goodness and the severity of God and on the severe side what happened as We Know is the Babylonian Empire came in and they destroyed Jerusalem they burned the cities they burned the city they burned the homes of the inhabitants of Jerusalem and They Carried thousands of people captive
across a desert to a foreign land with a foreign culture with different languages different rules and they were there as exiles
and so today what I really want to do is I want to try and help us look to the Bible to understand how it is that we are to live as exiles
because really that's what we are we are strangers and pilgrims we are sojourners in this land and as an exile there are lessons in the Bible as to how it is that we ought to live how it is that we ought to be interacting
with our captors if you will now certainly none of us are captive you know one of the beautiful things about living in this country is we have freedoms
and you know that's just a wonderful thing
but when we look at the at the Jewish nation in captivity they had a lot to learn and I want to start once again by going back to the Prophet Jeremiah because Jeremiah
provides some very specific advice to the nation as they were about to head into captivity so turn to Jeremiah chapter 29 please
and it's it's here where we read this letter to the Exiles
um this is a letter that the Prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem um to those that were in captivity in Babylon okay so he is speaking on behalf of God and he's sending this letter across this desert so he's remained in Jerusalem after the destruction and uh all these people are now living is in captivity in Babylon and we'll pick it up in the fourth verse where the letter begins
and the letter says this is what the Lord Almighty the god of Israel says to those I carried into Exile from Jerusalem to Babylon
he says build houses and settle down plant Gardens and eat what they produce marry and have sons and daughters find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage so that they too may have sons and daughters increase in number there do not decrease so that's the sixth verse that's verses four through six
and when you think about how one might react to being
um
you know captured how one might react when one's home is destroyed you know you think about the ukrainians I mean to me that's the thing that's most visible in my mind I see those images I can relate to that you know these are people that had normal lives like us and all of a sudden their homes are engulfed they're being bombed there's you know it's just terrible so how does one react in situations like that and I would suggest that for an exile there are two ways that seem to come to mind one one way is that of resistance
right and if you think about later on in the Jewish history you think about the zealots who can tell me what the zealots were about
yeah Chris
the overthrow of Rome that's right the zealots were designed you know the the main objective of the zealots was to overthrow the Roman overlords to overthrow the Roman Empire to to make sure that Jerusalem could be managed and governed autonomously from Rome and so they would do whatever it took to try and subvert the authority of the Romans you know the zealots would carry daggers and they would you know they would murder people they would do whatever it took so sometimes when you think about those who are in captivity there is a tendency to want to sort of get back to the good old days yeah I want to I want to you know turn things around and if I've got a fight in order to do that we'll do that and that is in fact what some of the Israelites did they pushed back against God's judgments and they fought against the Babylonians and they were killed by the sword
and we saw it again with the zealots you know the zealots were that was one of the that was one of the things that we tend to want to do
the other thing that sometimes happens is there is compromise where you just sort of blend in and you become just like everybody else you lose your identity you go along to get along
compromise
and and we can see that in our lives we can see that in the lives of of the Israelites and we'll talk about that as we go through class today but I'm going to suggest that when Jeremiah wrote this letter and he's telling the people to settle down to marry their sons and daughters to to be prepared to be there for a while he was not talking about compromise
they and will look to the we'll look to Daniel to see some specific examples of the difference between what God is saying to the Israelites here who are in Babylon in this letter here and and as in Jeremiah and how Daniel left so let's let's take let's continue this letter and I I want to try and try and draw this out
what we're going to see now in this next verse is this guidance that the people are to live in peace
while maintaining God's ways
there to live in peace they're to seek the peace and the prosperity of the city but they are to maintain their identity as God's people so Jeremiah chapter 29 verse 7 now so verse 6 is where you know verses 5 and 6 is where they were to build houses and plant Gardens and sort of get you know settle down be prepared to be here for a while marry your kids verse 7 says also seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile I think that's fascinating I think that's a great lesson for us brothers and sisters that as Brothers and Sisters in Christ waiting for a kingdom to be established while we're living here in our neighborhoods we are to seek the peace of the place that we live we are to be a blessing to our neighbors we are to be a blessing to the people we're about we are to you know bring the good news to them so verse 7 says seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I carry you into Exile pray
to the Lord for it
now if you're in a foreign land as the Israelites were in Babylon where they had chimash and all of these other gods what it's saying here is pray to Yahweh for it pray to the god of Israel for it they are not to meld they are not to compromise they are not to become like the Babylonians they are to live in peace with the Babylonians but they are to continue to be people of Yahweh the god of Israel and they are to seek the peace and prosperity of the city in one of the ways they do that according to this letter from Jeremiah is they were to pray to Yahweh for it because if it prospers if the city prospers util will prosper yes this is what the Lord Almighty Yahweh the god of hosts what the god of Israel says do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have their prophesying lies to you in my name so what was happening is some of the Jewish you know Prophets we're telling the people what they wanted to hear you know the itching ears everything's all right you know in just a few years we'll be right back to where we are we're the people of God after all and Jeremiah's saying No this is a judgment from God verse 10 this is what Yahweh says when 70 years are completed for Babylon I'll come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back so if somebody tells you that it's just a short period of time it's not it's going to be 70 years a lifetime and then I'll bring you back so in the meantime settle down make homes pray for the Peace of the city you see the difference there brothers and sisters between the three options so one option as an exile is to live a life of resistance do everything you can to subvert the government the authorities that are over you and the when the Israelites tried that it was a dismal failure I mean we saw it over and over again I mean when they resisted the Babylonians they were killed their houses were burned and and all of that we see it in the New Testament the zealots didn't have the desired effect in fact it was just the opposite when the zealots came in and pushed back against Rome Rome eventually came and did what the same thing that we saw happen in second chronicles they came in and they burned the temple and they destroyed the homes of the people and the Jewish Nation as it was fell at that time because they were resisting against God's will
so the first option is you resist and I think the scriptures show us the Folly of that the second option is compromise where you become like a Babylonian
and you lose your your spiritual identity where you no longer worship Yahweh you now worshiping chimash and you blend in and you go along to get along and we see again that that's not what the Lord desires of us the third option is what we see here in chapter 29 and that was that they were to maintain God's ways they were to pray to Yahweh and they were to seek the welfare of the city and its people they were to be good neighbors and I think that's a lesson for us so let me uh pause there and open it up to any comments or questions any anybody
who's got the mic
yeah there you go Jason so throw some thoughts out you guys
nothing okay so let's turn to Matthew chapter 22. so here we are in the New Testament
and in Matthew here's what Jesus has to say about
oh thank you Sandy I'll help it's kind of like
it's kind of like being content in whatever situation you're in you know instead of yeah trying to get out of that you know being content with
you know being thankful and oh you have a question Judy
and then it's I'll probably get tossed laughs
where
did the Jews come from who
hmm
I mean no in the beginning yeah that's a great question Judy figure out sure so let's think about it because it really talks about this Exile story Judy so Judy's question is where did the Jewish Nation come from right
and I think that what we find is is we've got this nation we've got these people who have disobeyed God originally you know at the very beginning with Adam and Eve and they're exiled Eastward then what happens is Adam's son does the same thing you know he rejects God he gets pushed Eastward and the people are supposed to be God's Representatives
but they're not and they start forming names for themselves rather than names for God and they create the kingdom of man and it was an example of it was at the Tower of Babel okay so you've got the kingdom of God which is you know God's intention for the world and then you've got man who is saying we're going to do things our own way we're going to make a name for ourselves and now this this representation of the kingdom of man develops and it's known as Babylon
so that's where we are and at that point in time right after that God selects a man out of Babylon and his name was Abram
and Abram later Abraham as you know goes from Babylon and he travels back towards the towards you know from from the East to the West he's reversing this this Exile Trend and he goes back to what God describes as this land of promise he promises Abram a land and Abram now starts having a family and the family grows
and it becomes you know large enough that it's no longer just you know Abraham and his wife and children it's aunts and uncles and cousins and this family becomes a tribe
and while they are you know while they're there they then go into captivity in Egypt remember that
so it's at that point in time that the tribe Abram was a Hebrew it says this tribe now slowly becomes a nation and the promise was when they left Egypt that they would become a nation so the so to answer your question the nation of Israel really came from Abraham
right came from Abraham Abraham was the father and this now this family grows from a tribe in Egypt now they're in the promised land and it's at this point really that they become a nation in and of themselves
does that make sense yeah mark
Steve when you when you talk about the three choices an exile has and you think about it in our lives the easiest of the three is compromise right it really is I mean you just get along you know okay that's not really what I believe but I'll follow your rules just to get along so there's no hassle to me
um whereas if you attempt to live peaceably
you know and still follow the lord God you're still exposing yourself to possible you know ridicule later on at some point right let's say things change in this nation and worship isn't free anymore you know you're told to worship one way right and we just you know there's a decision to be made you know do I compromise or do I go on what I know is true so um you know compromise is the easiest way but it's the most dangerous way obviously because uh you put in your beliefs you're pushing it way into the background and that's totally against what God wants us to do
um yeah and it's and I think it's it's hard sometimes mark because there is a balancing act right I mean there's a part of us that wants to remain separate and to be exclusionary but when we look at what God told those that were in Exile is they were to make peace
they were to seek the prosperity of the nation they were to pray for it so it wasn't just about removing themselves entirely they were there among the nation and it's in that way that they became a blessing to the nation well look at Daniel in in a couple of minutes but we're going to see how Daniel sort of straddled that line and and how he did not compromise but he sort of Blended in but main but there was a line there that he would not cross
right Jason you were going to say something yeah no I like your summary of of the nation and then if a step further we have Jacob who then his name is changed
to Israel and we have the promises that where currently Israel is today that was the land that was promised to them and so now they're back from Exile in the land and Sons of you know Israel
yeah you get that Judy right so you got Abraham Isaac and Jacob and as Jason points out Jacob's name was later changed us as Abram's name was changed to Abraham Jacob's name was changed to Israel and and it's at that point really that they get that that identity
the 12 tribes right so so There Were Ten tribes in the north and there were two tribes in the South so that's where you got the ten right so Israel was in the north those were the ten tribes and then the two tribes in the South were Judah but collectively they became the 12 tribes were really you know before the Civil War you know uh that there really were one nation of Israel yeah Chris
your comments about the freedoms in this country and certainly our appreciation and not to take them for granted I saw a recently a clip where in Russia the Jehovah's Witnesses have been uh labeled now in extremist terrorist group
and actually being openly arrested and and jailed yeah so you know to that end we should be careful what we tweet and certainly not to you know bring attention to the name Chris adelphian because we never know necessarily yeah I mean we had a lot of brothers and sisters in Russia yeah yeah and well and even here you know as things yeah okay that to say that if you don't live peaceably and we have temptations to get caught up sometimes in the politics and commenting and and uh so it's just something to keep in mind so so that's a really interesting point and it's one that I sometimes struggle with and I'd love to get some feedback on this and it and it has to do
well let's just take a look at Daniel let's Jump Ahead to Daniel um so let's um to
um
where do I want to go
I guess before we go to Daniel
let's look at so let's look at Jesus thoughts about
how it is that we live in peace among the people
while maintaining our identity as God's children okay
and what does Jesus say so I think one of the passages that jumps out at me is Matthew chapter 22. and this is that that famous uh passage where they bring Jesus a coin right they're testing him you've got the zealots that say no way do not pay taxes to Rome if you pay taxes to Rome you're just you know you're you're partnering with Rome
and Jesus says what render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's look at the coin it's got his face on it that can be his give that to to Rome
but what's Jesus next comment in Matthew 22. the things that are God's and that's I think the point the point is we've got to have this priority that God is the one we serve
not Caesar we do all that we can to get along and to seek the peace of the nation and to seek the peace of our neighbors but God is our priority Acts 5. tells us that we must obey God rather than man right acts 5 and 10. so these are things that we know and these are things that we're trying to balance in our lives because God Jesus says render to Caesar the things that are Caesar render to God the things that are God we must obey God rather than man the apostles tell us but then in the same token we have Jesus in like the very next chapter Matthew chapter 23. delivering this series of woes
he's speaking out to those who are in power those who are in positions of authority now in this particular case in in Matthew 23 he's talking to the religious hierarchy he's talking to the leaders of the Jews
and he's saying to he's delivering you know woe to you scribes and Pharisees and he gives like this scathing rebuke of the people
but these are religious
authorities not Civil Authorities okay
and Chris I said sometimes I struggle when it comes to
like at what when is it appropriate to speak out against the government is it ever appropriate to speak out against the government Jesus here clearly shows that it's appropriate to speak out against religious authorities
but take a look at Mark chapter 6. and this is the one that's that's really been um you something I've been thinking about a lot over the last you know bunch of years
um Mark chapter six is uh the account of John the Baptist
and John the Baptist now speaks out against Herod
so Herod now now I think this is where I I wonder is Herod a religious leader
or is he a governmental leader
if he's a governmental leader you can clearly see that John is speaking out against him he says in chapter 6 Mark 6 verse 18 these things he says
um
John had been saying to Herod it is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife Herod is the Emperor right I mean he's he's the governor he's the one that's like in charge and he's speaking out against him against like spiritual things that he's doing wrong he's not speaking out about policy issues but he's he's pointing out that look you are married to someone who's not your wife right this is wrong and he's calling it out and I think that's the question that I sometimes wonder like at what point is it appropriate for us to call out even if it's you know political leaders who are doing things that are
you know against the the teachings of Jesus I mean is it ever appropriate or do we just keep our mouth quiet I'm curious what your thoughts are about that anybody
Sandy Chris
has the mic Chris has no power
yeah
I think is as a reminder we all know this that if our citizen re citizenship is in heaven you know if we were in Saudi Arabia or uh living there on a job furlough or something you know how engaged would we get into the local Affairs of what's going on in Saudi Arabia we feel compelled to say something right or is it you know the fact that we were born in America As Americans is that kind of pulling at our hot strings to more lures in and to forget where our true citizenship is but live by the sword Die By The Sword so if you're going to engage in the government then you have to be prepared to you know deal with the government's retribution for for so doing so okay so yeah
Sandy
um I know that um quite a few young people have I've spoken with in some of our kids as well that um how do we prevent
the bad things that are happening whether the unfairness in the government with children in school and
um you know different things like that and and it's hard and I think we can't feed the world we can't prevent harm from the world but I think that we can help those that are in need that we come across and um so when you say we can't feed the word the world I mean if there's an unfair this has that quote you know the poor will always be with you right and that's yeah and I think they are poor but you know it's a it's a it's a problem that is so pervasive that short of the Kingdom that issue will always be there we can't stop genocides we can't stop no people and evilness and
um and it is a hard thing because we're living there and we see that but I think that uh knowing that um things will change when Jesus returns so I guess that's the heart of the issue right do we just say nothing do nothing and just wait for God to come I mean let's just let's let's take it to the point of uh the treatment of the world right do we take our trash and throw it on the street because God will restore the Earth or do we take care of the earth now I think we take care of it yeah I do too and and do we uh do we ignore the poor because God will uh no you're no we do whatever we can now it's not like an either or situation I don't think it can be that yeah God will restore the Earth but in the meantime we can also be good stewards of the land I mean that's what God commanded Abraham to do to be a good steward
um similarly as it relates to
you know the treatment of foreigners right I mean that would be yeah you know our Public School Systems yeah so the content just to give some context to Sandy's comment about you know discussions with our children our son Paul was a school teacher and was working in uh
um a city where there were a large number of his students who were there as what do they call them DACA students is that what it was um these were the students that came over whose parents were not U.S citizens and they would come into the classroom fearing that they would go home and their parents would have been rounded up and uh you know that they would have no parents at home and these kids were traumatized when this was all in the news and I was really upsetting to Paul because you know these kids were truly traumatized
um and his comment was you know do we just ignore this or are the things that we can do to help and I don't have good answers sometimes for these questions right I mean these are hard questions so
I look at John's comment to Herod as an example of times when it might be appropriate to call out Injustice when we see it but again I think Chris your point is really good we are citizens of Heaven you know we are we are waiting for a kingdom from there
and we can't confuse the issue right but I don't know that it necessarily has to be either or
it's important to have empathy and sympathy and compassion yeah you know we don't have the power to fix everything you know so I think that we can be compassionate and empathetic to those that are suffering and um you know we can so so what I would say is when we think about living as an exile you know what are the choices the choices are we resist the government we revolt we withdraw
and that's one option the other option is we give in and we compromise that's the second option but I think the lesson of the scripture is that we live in peace
while maintaining God's ways and seeking the welfare of our fellow of our fellows right we we seek the welfare of the cities in which we live and the people in which we live this is what God Said in Jeremiah chapter 29 this is how the Israelites were to live in captivity so now I want to turn to Daniel and Daniel is an example of one who was taken from
Jerusalem
and brought into Babylon and we see Specific Instructions as to how he was to live
Daniel chapter 1 verse 3 is is a section that's probably familiar to us it says the king ordered you know the the chief of his officials to to bring some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobility young men without any physical defect handsome showing aptitude for every kind of learning well-informed quick to understand and qualified to serve in the king's Palace he was to teach them the language and literature of of the Babylonians the king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king's table they were to be trained for three years and after that they were to enter the King's Service So Daniel and and some of his friends you know from Israel are selected as you know they were of they were serving in the Roy in royalty in Israel let's see if we can you know take some of these captives and get the most out of them let's let's put these men in a training program so that they can serve in the court in the Kingdom of Babylon one of those that was selected was Daniel and Daniel
sort of Blended in
to a point chapters 1 verse 3 among those were some from Judah Daniel hananiah Michelle and azeriah obviously these are Hebrew names
Danielle you know E.L the god of you know Daniel uh hananiah you know with the post what is it the prefix in the post what's it called
the last section of a word what is it I don't know what I'm talking about so anyway these are Hebrew names and it says the chief official gave them new names
so they're blending in in a way right they no longer carry the name of God in their name in their Hebrew name they're given new names
to Daniel the name beltashazar to hananiah Shadrach to mishael Meshach and to Azariah Abednego or Abednego
but Daniel and here's the point right it's not about compromise Daniel Blended in but there was a line there was a point where he would maintain his identity as a child of Yahweh it says but Daniel resolved in verse 8 not to divide defile himself with the Royal food and wine and he asked the chief priests and officials for permission not to defile himself that way so again you know think about him he's he's grown up eating kosher and he's like you know I just can't break these rules I'm I'm a follower of Yahweh and Yahweh has instructed us that we are to eat kosher and so he becomes a vegetarian because the food you know even the meat if it were sort of kosher meat wouldn't be prepared likely there was no Assurance anyway that it would be prepared in accordance to the Jewish kosher laws you know such as draining all the blood from an animal before it was eaten so out of an abundance of caution Daniel says okay I will only eat vegetables and so that's one way that he is going along but is indicating that there's a point where he won't cross a line okay comments
chapter 3 verse 16. um this is the sort of the culmination this is after Daniel interprets this dream and he is given this place of authority in the kingdom and the diviners you know the king's uh dream tellers are are jealous and they devise a plan to sort of put Daniel in his place Daniel has been elevated to a position of authority because in chapter two he's he's uh
um he's interpreted this dream
and in chapter 3 we find that these uh
um astrologers were so bitter with Daniel even though Daniel's interpretation of this dream allowed these men to to live they were going to be killed by Nebuchadnezzar because they couldn't interpret the dream in chapter two chapter three shows us that they're so bitter and jealous of Daniel that they tried to undermine the whole Jewish Nation and the fact that they owe Daniel and and Daniel's God their very lives made no difference to them it's kind of amazing so chapter 2 verse 10 says this
um
they said to King Nebuchadnezzar verse 9 o King live forever you've issued a creole King that everyone who hears the sounds of the horn flute zither all these instruments Must Fall Down and Worship the image of gold so we're in chapter Daniel 3 verse 10. and that whoever does not fall down in worship will be thrown into the Blazing furnace but so these are the astrologists sort of throwing Daniel under the bus but there are some Jews whom you've set over the Affairs of the province of Babylon Shadrach Meshach and Abednego who pay no attention to you O King They don't serve your gods they don't worship the image of gold you've set up so furious with rage Nebuchadnezzar summoned these men and that's the story of the burning fiery furnace
now
when we read the story of the burning fiery furnace I want you to remember that we started our class this morning by going to Jeremiah chapter 29 which is the instructions that that God is giving through Jeremiah to the people living in Babylon and there's a section in this letter that Jeremiah writes that's really telling it's really interesting to me as it relates to the burning fiery furnace so keep your hand here in Daniel and turn back to Jeremiah chapter 29. we're going to look at the 22nd verse
so again does you know just remember now what we're reading here in Jeremiah chapter 29 is this letter that are that Jeremiah writes to those who've been taken into captivity they're now living in Babylon this is the letter where Jeremiah tells him there to live in peace they're going to you know seek the good of the city for 70 years they're going to be there but there were prophets who were saying no it's not going to be 70 years God's going to bring you back he the prophets the false prophets were you know giving them the things they wanted to hear and look at what it says in the 22nd verse God the goodness and severity of God the severity of God as he was going to punish these false prophets and how is he going to punish them verse 22. because of these false prophets all the Exiles from Judah who are in Babylon will use this curse the Lord treats you like zedekiah and Ahab these were the false prophets who were teaching the Jews that they wouldn't be there 70 years and so this curse was to go out that Yahweh would treat you like zedekiah and Ahab whom the king of Babylon burned in the fire
this was a way of punishment that was known they would burn these poor people in fire and when we come to Daniel chapter 3 Daniel now having heard this curse over and over again realizes that this might be my fate too
my friends and I are going to be cast into the fiery furnace and we're going to end here but I think this is an appropriate place to end in light of all that's been going on in our family of late Shadrach and we're back in Daniel chapter 3. Shadrach Meshach and Abednego replied to the king as they're about to go into the furnace right
King says to him you don't have to go into the furnace you can simply Bow Down and Worship this image
and they reply
in verse 17 if we are thrown into the Blazing furnace the God we serve is able to save us from your hand O King
but
even if he doesn't
we want you to know O King that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you've set up
I think that is such a passage I just find that to be such a helpful passage we have a God who is able to save us
but even if he doesn't
and brothers and sisters when we think about our lives and we think about our family and we think about the illness in our family we have a God who is able to heal us who is able to cure us of our diseases
but sometimes he doesn't
and while that's hard we have to remember that the end game
is that even the dead will be raised to life again and that God is more concerned with our Eternal salvation than with the temporal lives that we live
God is most concerned with our Eternal salvation and I think that Daniel captured this so well when he says to Nebuchadnezzar I'm not going to Bow Down and Worship that image because the God that I worship is able to save me
but even if he doesn't I won't worship you
Daniel knew he had confidence that if he were thrown into that fire
I truly believe Daniel believed in all his heart
that the God of all the Earth would do right Daniel believed that he would be raised Daniel believed that he would live again this was the hope and I think that's a hope that we can take comfort in so we wait in exile for our home land to be re-established when all the Earth will be filled with God's glory
Class 6
Original URL Sunday, January 15, 2023
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Transcript
all right everybody so let's continue our our studies on the Exile and when I talk about the Exile really what we're thinking about in this series is not just what we might know as the Babylonian exile that time when the Jewish nation was captured and brought into captivity in Babylon we're really talking about this theme of Exile that we see throughout the Bible so in terms of a brief recap we we began by looking at Adam and Eve and saw how they were exiled from the garden they they followed their own ways rather than trusting in God and they were cast out of the garden and that really in a lot of ways is where we are introduced to this theme of being exiled from home the Garden of Eden was their home their Cast Away and they live as Exiles the next thing we did is uh we talked about the the um the nation of Israel and last week you know Judy asked the question you know how do we um how do we understand the nation where was it formed and we talked a little bit about that the nation of Israel though they were cast Into the Wilderness and they were in Exile and it was really a fascinating thing in the sense that you know here is this chosen people they are selected by God because he loved themand they were called by God and given a responsibility by God to really do three things
first they were to worship God Alone
second they were to love their neighbor and thirdly together they were to pursue Justice
those were the three things that they were really that are encapsulated really in the law of the law that was given on Mount Sinai
they were to love God Alone they were to love their neighbors and they were to pursue Justice and God delivers these messages at Mount Sinai to Moses Moses shares this with the people and the people unanim in in unanimity say we will do it and no sooner do they make this this Proclamation then they fail they they begin uh by doing just the first thing they weren't supposed to do right they build this Altar and they worship this golden calf and as a result of that they go into the Wilderness for 40 years
exile
now they go into the promised land and in the promised land they are to worship God alone and they're not they're worshiping all the gods around them and because of that God sends prophets over and over and over again to warn them and to plead with them to change their ways and they don't and as a result the Babylonians come in the Assyrians come in then the Babylonians come in and the people are carried into exile so then last week we began by trying to understand how it is that how it is that we or as anyone in Exile should live and the way we did that is we began by trying to understand Daniel
how did Daniel live as an exile
and we talked about really the the two choices that at first blush become apparent you know as an exile you can either compromise and blend in with the with the people that you've been brought into captivity with right
or you can remain completely separate
and what Daniel did was sort of a combination of those two things it wasn't one or the other because the prophets said to the Jews who went into captivity that they were to settle down they were to pray for the Peace of the city and the in the inhabitants of that City they were to be there as a blessing to those people and Daniel did that you know we look at Daniel and his name was changed so in one way you think well did was Daniel just blending in you know he was uh dressing like a Babylonian his name now was a Babylonian name he was looking like a Babylonian but the difference was Daniel had a line right Daniel said okay these are things that I'm doing for the benefit of the city and the nation that are my captors but
I am first and foremost in Israelite a worshiper of Yahweh and so he maintained his kosher laws these were some of the things that he was taught to do as a follower of Yahweh
when Nebuchadnezzar built this image and had everyone bow down Daniel refused to do so and so in that way I think we see some great examples as as to how we are to live as
as how Peter describes it strangers and pilgrims we are citizens
not of this country alone I mean surely all of us who are born here are citizens of the United States but we are our true citizenship is from heaven we are waiting for Kingdom from heaven and that is where our Allegiance lies and Daniel showed us who his Allegiance was for
and we we had a great I think discussion maybe it was two weeks two weeks prior with Judy when she was talking about her dad right and how her father was a U.S citizen was called the fight and his personal convictions prevented him from doing so and yet he maintained the law which was to serve in a in a capacity that was of value to the United States he did that by serving in in the fires right I mean he was a firefighter
um you know fighting fires in in the woods this was what he did there were other conscientious religious conscientious objectives who obeyed the law of the land did a service that was valued to this country and they did so after the example I think of Daniel who was doing things for the good of the country but also maintained his own priorities as to his faith and his conscience so let me just pause there and open up to questions anybody have anything they'd like to add or discussion any discussion points
this is where I'm stretching things out Mark
okay let's watch Phil run up the aisle foreign
yeah as you mentioned that the first thing that comes to my mind is Jesus when he says run into the Seas of the things that it sees us but unto God the things that are God's that's right and that's where Daniel drew the line that's exactly you know when things come in conflict there was no conflict for him that's right you know God's ways were first yeah yeah that's a good point I think we tried to we brought that up uh that that quote from Jesus I think that's a good one yeah
anybody else
so we ended last week by looking at Daniel chapter four and let's just jump back there and then we'll we'll transition into the the next uh section here but in Daniel chapter four we've got this you know culmination of uh drama where Daniel has drawn the line he's going to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's but he's going to render to God the things that are gods and and Daniel is presented with this choice
you've got to Bow Down and Worship this image or you're going to die
well if anybody has seen there's a there's a photo from the world from the second world war that is
just
it's an image that is just so captivating to me
it's a black and white photo of a crowd
probably in the in the frame of this picture there are maybe 80 to 100 people
it was in Nazi Germany
and every one of these people in the crowd is standing at attention
and they are performing the Heil Hitler salute
but there is one man in the middle who has his arms crossed has anybody ever seen that photo
it's a fascinating photograph
there's this one man who refuses
to perform this Heil Hitler salute
and the back story
is that this man's wife was Jewish
and he understood what was happening in Nazi Germany and he would not give his Allegiance to Hitler
now I don't know what happened to this man and I don't know when this Photograph you know was first discovered but I'll try and find that and um it's really a fascinating thing and I I in my mind I can see that grainy black and white photo with this man just like this and I think of Daniel you know like if I had a picture Bible That's the picture that I'd have next to you know Daniel So Daniel in Daniel chapter 4 is presented with this choice and he and his friends there they make this statement oh Nebuchadnezzar the God we serve
is able to save us from this fiery furnace but even if he doesn't
We Will Not Bow Down and Worship You right and what a a powerful message
especially in this time within our Ecclesia where we've got so many folks that we're praying for and so many people who are hurting we have a God who is able
but even if he doesn't right
and and the point is that where we ended last week was that God is concerned first and foremost with our Eternal salvation rather than our lives
Here and Now
he wants us to be saved eternally and I think that's where Daniel's Focus was
Daniel and his friends recognize that and I think there's a great excitational point for us there the question is where did they learn that faith how did they develop such a character where they could know for sure
in their mind that no matter what the consequence they would not fall down in worship
so um
I just think it's a I think it's a wonderful lesson the three I have a note here it says the three did not expect God to save them because he followed
because they followed his laws and we must remember brothers and sisters that you know we can't expect God to save us for that same reason it's by grace that we're saved it's out of God's mercy that we're saved and I think those are some wonderful lessons Hebrews chapter 11 the the faith chapter we'll look at verse 34. um
you know the this chapter Hebrews chapter 11. yeah Hebrews chapter 11. verse 34. shows us that the experience of Daniel and his friends
was not unique
sure it was unique in that in their case they were saved from the fiery furnace
but it wasn't unique in the fact that they were cast into this furnace this was a consequence of many faithful so verse 34 says speaking of all these faithful men and women it says some face jeers and flogging
While others were Chained and put in prison so God doesn't necessarily protect us in this life and this is what we're learning here in Hebrews 11. verse 37 says they were stoned
they were sawed in two I mean just gruesome
they went about in sheepskin and goat skin destitute persecuted and mistreated
God allowed these sorts of actions
to be perpetrated against his believers
against his faithful believers
and the reason
is again because he's most concerned with our Eternal salvation
why verse 39 they were commended for their faith but none of them received what had been promised and the reason is because God plans something better for us that only together with us would they be made perfect right I mean these are passages that are probably well known to us but I think it's important to consider and to read slowly and carefully as we go through trials of our own brothers and sisters okay
so we can look forward to that day when together with us we'll meet those who were stoned and who were sought in half and who you know wandered as in deserts
and together with them with us will be made perfect that's the hope that the dead will be raised that we will live in this glorious Kingdom and while we wait for that day we live as exiles
our Our lives our lives of Exile and and that's really where the Jews find themselves because when Daniel comes to a conclusion
we you know as we work our way through the Book of Daniel we find that he's got this expectation that they're about to go back to the land
you remember why he he that so he was expecting the Jews to go back and the reason was because hundreds of years earlier the Prophet Jeremiah had foretold
not only that the Jews if they continued their misbehavior if they continued worshiping false gods Jeremiah prophesied that not only would they be put into captivity but they would remain in captivity for 70 years
Daniel Jeremiah specifically mentions the time period we find that in Jeremiah chapter 29. so let's just turn there as a refresher we've looked at this in the past
Jeremiah chapter 29 I think it's an important chapter in the Bible so we come here
and we look at the 10th verse of Jeremiah 29. and this is where Jeremiah is writing to the brothers and sisters or the Jews who are living in Exile in Babylon and he says this is what Yahweh says when 70 years are completed for Babylon I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place Daniel knows this Daniel's expecting this return he's been living in his ex as an exile he's been blending in while maintaining his faith and he's under this eager expectation that he's going to come back now we turn over to Daniel chapter 8. and here we see sort of the the culmination of Daniel's prayerful
request his plea to God to return
so we're in Daniel chapter uh chapter 9 actually
and he says in the second verse now what's happened is uh the Babylonian Empire has been overthrown and the medes and the Persians are now in power and Daniel has maintained his place of authority in this in this new kingdom
and it says in chapter 9 verse 1 in the first year of Darius son of Xerxes a mead by descent who was made ruler over the Babylonian Kingdom in the first year of his reign I and this is the point I'm trying to emphasize this is Daniel 9 verse 2. I Daniel understood from the scriptures according to the word the Lord had given Jeremiah the prophet that the desolation of Jerusalem would last 70 years
so he's like looking at his calendar going 70 years we're getting ready
so I turn to the Lord God and I pleaded with him in prayer and petitioned in fasting and in sackcloth and Ashes I prayed to Yahweh my God and confessed
and so what we see now in the rest of chapter 9 through verse 19 is this actual quote of Daniel's prayer
and he prays O Lord O Yahweh the great and awesome God who keeps his Covenant of Love
with all who love him and obey his commands and he confesses he says we've sinned and we've done wrong and we've been Wicked and we've rebelled and we've turned away from your commands and laws we've not listened to your servants the prophets who spoke in your name to our Kings and our princes and our fathers and the people of the land
and so he begins this prayer
and he's asking God to send them back look at verse 15. now O Lord Our God Yahweh Our God who brought your people out of Egypt with a mighty hand so he's recalling the days of old when the the Exiles those the Israelites who were in Egypt are now freed from their captivity and he's saying remember that
perform that now
O Lord Our God verse 15 who brought your people out of Egypt with a mighty hand who made a name for yourself that endures to this day we've sinned we've done wrong oh Lord in keeping with all your righteous acts turn away your anger
and your Wrath from Jerusalem your city your Holy Hill right
Let Us return
and shockingly in Daniel's mind he receives a follow-up vision and the vision is crushing to him it's this huge letdown it's this huge disappointment because what he's going to discover is that while the people were going to go back to the land
there was still a time of transgression that needed to be fulfilled that yeah the people are going to go back to the land but things aren't going to be the way they used to be and that's what happens in verse
um 20. so we're in Daniel chapter 9 verse 20. while I was speaking and praying he says confessing my sin and the sin of My People Israel and making my request to Yahweh my God for his Holy Hill while I was still in prayer Gabriel the angel Gabriel that man
I had seen in the earlier vision came to me in Swift flight about the time of the evening sacrifice
he instructed me and said to me Daniel I've now come to give you insight and understanding
so what's Daniel to learn what's this great Insight that Daniel's to receive
verse 24. 77s are decreed for your people your Holy City to finish transgression to put an end to sin to atone for wickedness to bring in Everlasting righteousness to seal up the vision
so verse 24 says 77s
70 times 7. 400 and 190 years okay thanks where's my calculator now we come to verse 25. he says no one understand this from the issuing of the decree to restore and build Jerusalem until the anointed one the ruler comes there will be seven sevens and 62 7. so 7 7 that's 49 62 7s that's what 400 and 34. you add those two numbers up and you get 483 years now here's the point I mean I know this is like prophecy this is detailed these are numbers
but it's talking about a period of 483 periods
guess what happened exactly
483 years
after Cyrus proclaimed that the Jews would return
the Lord Jesus was born
exactly
483 years after this decree
so in 26 A.D
history tells us that Jesus was 30. okay
20 in in 26 A.D history tells us that Jesus was 30. that means that he was born in four BC go figure right how does that happen
um so that was the year that Jesus began his ministry and it seems that you know this 483 days or 483 periods was when Jesus began his ministry and the people were waiting they were expecting it there was a reason why Anna the prophetess in Simeon were waiting for the proclamation that the Messiah was coming right Luke tells us about how Anna the prophetess and you know these old people said I can die I've finally seen my Redemption and that's why they were looking for it So Daniel is told now that yes you folks are going to return to Jerusalem but this time of transgression is going to continue
now what's that mean for the people
that brings us now brothers and sisters to Ezra
the books of Ezra in Nehemiah give us a travel log
give us a history about the return of a captive people
to Jerusalem traveling Thousand Miles back from the East to the West going across the desert to get to the land
they're no longer exiles
they're back in their Homeland
and you'd think that everything would be perfect
but it wasn't because Daniel told us through this prophecy or Gabriel told us that this time of transgression needed to be fulfilled there was still this period where the nation would continue to suffer and long for the days of old
don't you just wish that it would be great again right our minds capture and and you know sort of nostalgia is a weird thing right we think about like how wonderful things used to be
and the Bible gives us some pretty good guidance about the dangers of nostalgia turn with me to Ecclesiastes
uh Ecclesia I think it's chapter nine
you know uh Daniel uh Andrew tabiner and I used to have a a joke
um
I can't even find Ecclesiastes where's Ecclesiastes somebody's moved it out of my Bible
that's the problem now with uh online Bibles and doing all your study on my computer so um anyway um
Andrew yeah here it's uh Ecclesiastes seven but Andrew and I used to have a joke particularly after a uh a long Jim Sullivan excitation no
there were two passages we always used to go to the first was uh
the more the words the less the meaning and how does that profit anyone right Jim I can rib you only in in the best of ways right
um it was actually after one of my talks that he quoted that to me so I I thought that was funny but Ecclesiastes chapter 7 uh speaking about Nostalgia verse 10 has these words
do not say
why were the old days better than these
for it's not wise to ask such questions right
our minds are sort of set to look backwards in fondness that the way things used to be oh if only I could get back there and I think sometimes we scrub out
some of the stuff that wasn't so great back then
and what the Bible teaches us to do I think is instead live in the moment we must not live in the past we must live for the here and the now and when the Jews were gone we're now going back into captivity they were longing for the days of old
they were wishing that things would be as they were
and so Ezra tells the story of the people now going leaving Babylon and returning to Jerusalem in waves
and it must have been a challenging thing for that first group of people to sort of raise their hand and say yeah I'll go back I mean it had been 70 years
they had built
a life there
they had family they had friends there and now they were voluntarily going back to a land that had been dormant and desolate for 70 years
I remember doing a study about Ezra and Nehemiah
and
I at the time there was a city in France
that had been
overrun during World War II and there was a horrendous atrocity that took place in this particular City where hundreds of people and children were murdered
War crime
and as a tribute to those victims
the French government chose to never rebuild that City
and you can go and you can look at photographs of that City 70 years later a place where people have not
trodden the streets where people have not walked to the ground
and you see how it has just returned to this land of wild and waste right I mean it's just it's like Chernobyl have you seen any photographs of Chernobyl after all of those years now picture yourself as an Israelite leaving Babylon and going back to a place like that where the far you know where the land hasn't been farmed and the cities and towns and homes haven't been inhabited this was their lot
they volunteered to go back there and they began to rebuild so turn to Ezra and we're going to look at Ezra
um
Ezra chapter 4. and this is a passage that I believe we've looked at previously but this is that passage where they go through they rebuild the Temple and you'd think that it would be this joyous occasion
and yet
the old folks
who were able to look back in their minds
recognized that the new Temple that they just built
paled in comparison to the old one
Ezra chapter 4 no Nehemiah Ezra chapter 4. verse 12. verse 11 says uh with praise and thanksgiving at the dedication of the temple they sang to the Lord he's good his love endures to Israel forever the people gave a great shout of praise to Yahweh because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid but verse 12. many of the older priests and Levites and family heads who had seen the former Temple wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid
right
that was the problem they were Exiles no more they were back in the land but it wasn't the same
and I think that's a lesson for us brothers and sisters because the theme of being an exile isn't so much about where we are
it's about the kingdom of which we are to be a citizen
we are Exiles while we wait for our kingdom to be established
and to me that's really the lesson that we're seeing throughout this great journey of the exile let me pause there questions comments
so from a physical standpoint the folks are back in the land they look at the temple it doesn't compare at all to the old Temple One
the quality of construction you know it's all different it's not as good
two
the glory of God is no longer in the temple
right the stone tablets that were in the Box are no longer there
God's glory isn't in the temple anymore
but thirdly
the people are now in the land but they're still not ruling themselves autonomously
when the Jews went into the Promised Land they were given those three responsibilities by God
they were to worship God Alone they were to love their neighbor and they were to pursue Justice this was the ethic of the Israelite and now the people are back in the land but they're living under the rulership of foreign countries and foreign kingdoms that have different rules different gods different ethics
and so the point I'm trying to emphasize here is that while they're back in the land they're still living as exiles
and they live that way
for a long time
the Old Testament ends
with a huge disappointment
it had been leading up to after 70 years of captivity you'll be back in the land and and there's this promise throughout the prophets of a messiah to come
of a king that will rule over them
and yet
Daniel's prophecy that he wept over was this discovery that after Babylon
there would be another kingdom the medes and the Persians and after the medes and the Persians there would be another kingdom and another kingdom
and that was just devastating to him because his full expectation was that after Babylon it would be Israel again the kingdom of God again
and it wasn't
yeah they had to land but it was foreign Nations ruling over the people with different laws different gods different ethics
and so they remained excellent
now
we turn the page
and we leave the Old Testament with this disappointment of an unfulfilled promise
the promise that God would establish the kingdom the promise that the Messiah would come and he hasn't come and there's hundreds of years that go by where there's silence
and when we open the pages of the New Testament we come to Luke
this 483 periods that Daniel prophesied about have ticked over and now 483 years have gone by
and Luke records that John the Baptist is on the scene and he's preparing the way for the Messiah
and when we come to Luke chapter 3 we're going to read about these baptisms that are taking place we're going to read about how he's preparing the people for
Jesus
chapter 3 verse 1. in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea Herod tetrarch of Galilee his brother Philip tetrarch of ituria and traconatitis and I can't even read these during the high priesthood of Anis and Caiaphas the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert and he went into all the country around the Jordan preaching a baptism of repentance for the Forgiveness of sins
What's Happening Here brothers and sisters
is John is replaying
the scene of the Jews
crossing the Jordan River coming out of Exile and going into the Promised Land
back then in the Old Testament the people crossed the Jordan River and they were to live new lives
worshiping God Alone loving their neighbor pursuing Justice and they failed
and now John is on the scene and he's saying it's time for a do-over
and he's calling the nation of Israel the people in that Nation to live differently
and to follow
the king
and it's fascinating that we see him calling out the religious hierarchy of the day as vipers it's John the Baptist who first uses that language to the Pharisees
and he's calling them Vipers
causing the people to in their mind go back to the Garden of Eden when they were first exiled the reason you were first exiled
was because you listened to the reasoning of a snake
as opposed to listening to the command of God and now you've got these religious leaders who are changing the ways of God and they are giving you Customs that you are to follow instead
and he's showing the comparison between the snake and the garden and the snake that was Leading the People religiously
and he's saying repent Let's cross over the Jordan again and let's live new lives
and what we find in the next verses
is John quoting
the words
of the prophets during the exile
he's quoting ex Exile excelic language the language of the exile
and he does that by going to Isaiah chapter 40. so let's just flip there we're going to end with this verse and then next week God willing we're going to pick up and we're going to carry this theme of the Exile in the New Testament but to conclude this class let's look at Isaiah chapter 40. and this is what John's quoting
so if we look at this in context Isaiah chapter 39 is all about the nation in Babylon
suffering the consequences of their sins
but chapter 40 of of uh Isaiah
begins with these words that I think are for a lot of us you know coming off the Christmas season we had handles Messiah
uh you know maybe in our minds and there's that great peace Comfort ye Comfort ye my people you want to sing that for us no
Comfort Comfort my people says your God speak tenderly to Jerusalem and Proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed
these words of Prophecy here in Isaiah were words that were delivered to those who were in Exile in Babylon saying that after your hard years of service have been completed you will go back to your land and John the Baptist takes the same passage and he applies at 483 years later and he says to the people Comfort ye Comfort ye he's re he's reminding them
that this process through the Jordan is going to lead to not only the people living in the land but now living under a righteous King and it's this promise of the Kingdom to come that John is going to Proclaim here as Jesus now makes his appearance as the future king of the world so we live as Exiles we might be in a country where we're citizens just as those in the in Jesus day lived in Jerusalem and in Israel proper but they still were Exiles awaiting the Kingdom from heaven and we'll end there questions or comments before we close Chris brother Chris
thanks for that Steve yeah you bet it was touching upon a subject that's so profound that I just felt that if we brought it into
the modern day of the Brotherhood the lesson here you know is uh
in looking back when we look at Ezra they couldn't discern the noise from the crowd because half were weeping in half were shelling for Joy right yeah and my point is when we think of the Brotherhood coming to the light of the truth which was lost through the Dark Ages we have to be very careful as a Brotherhood that we are not torn between the idea of looking back and seeing how was the truth lost and spending our time and trying to preserve and correct those mistakes which is what gave rise to the Pharisees in
Israel's versus looking forward to
the coming of Christ and what do we need to be doing to be moving forward okay and I've often seen the parallels where the the Brotherhood is torn between looking back and saying let's make sure we never lose the truth again but need to be careful in doing that we don't lose the truth and not be growing forward as to where we need to be going so I if you could
see the parallels and and look and say how does this affect us in our lives and in the Brotherhood and certainly I don't mean particularly this occleasure by any means I mean the Brotherhood worldwide okay but you see these sometimes the the how to discern between uh the effort to not lose the truth versus going forward to make sure we find the truth and that's awesome okay
thanks that Chris
Class 7
Original URL Sunday, January 22, 2023
Transcript
well we are continuing on our theme of the exile when I think of the Exile often I just think of this one period of time when you know the Jews were captured and we're living in captivity but I think through the course of the last six weeks what I've tried to do is demonstrate that the Exile is a theme that runs through scriptureand it's something that began with Adam and Eve and continues with us today that we are all living in Exile we have been exiled from our home the big picture is that our home is this anticipation of a kingdom where the Garden of Eden this Garden of perfection will be renewed on the Earth
and from the time of Adam
mankind has lived away from his homeland
and I think that's what I'm trying that's the major theme that I'm trying to develop in our core in our classes that we are all living today as strangers and pilgrims awaiting the kingdom to come and this is something that we're familiar with certainly as Chris adelphians this is a a long-held teaching that um we've lived with that we are strangers and pilgrims
Abraham considered himself a stranger in a pilgrim he bought a piece of property despite the fact that it had been promised to him from God he lived as though he were an alien in the land although the land was promised to him he bought a piece of property why because he was anticipating this future Glory and Hebrews 11 ends with this passage that says only together with us would they be made perfect and the these are the things that we hope for
so
when we think of the the primary Exile this time when the Jews were living in Babylon last week we spoke about Daniel and how Daniel lived this life of balance
when one is exiled there is a tendency to want to do one of two things
one thing that Exiles will do is they will fully adopt the the culture of the land in which they live I think of my grandfather you know my grandfather emigrated to the United States
he came from Ireland and while some people tell me they could recognize an Irish accent in his voice I really couldn't and my grandfather made it a point to try and
lose his Irish accent as much as possible and sort of blend in with the with the the culture in which he was that he was then living in
and when we come to the Book of Daniel we see Daniel doing that but only to a certain extent he adopted the culture of the Babylonian Empire but he maintained his Integrity he did not adopt the gods of the Babylonians and that's the danger right the danger is that when one is in Exile you become so fully engrossed in the culture that you're now living that you adopt everything and you lose your
identity and Daniel didn't his identity was first and foremost a believer of Yahweh the god of Israel and it was Yahweh the god of Israel not chimash not any of these other gods it was Yahweh that he worshiped and that was something that he maintained so the first thing in Exile might do when they you know when they find themselves in a foreign land is fully adopted and Daniel showed that that's not the way to go the other thing that Exiles will sometimes do is they will completely Rebel and when we come to the time of Jesus we see a lot of Jews falling into that category they were no longer living to be a blessing to the Nations they weren't living to be a um you know to support the men and women of that country and you know they're living in in Jerusalem but they're under the rule of Caesar and so the the second option then is to rebel and reject and we saw that with the zealots the zealots in Jesus time did everything they could to try and overthrow the government and I think Daniel showed us back in in in the Book of Daniel the balance that we are to strike we are to live with the people to be a blessing to the people but we are not to reject everything only those things that are counter to the to the the teachings and the worship of God and that's what Jesus taught isn't it you know Jesus taught you know Mark brought it up last week you know we are to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and render to God the things that are gods we are as it says an ax to obey
um what is it acts 5 and 10 who can tell me must obey God rather than man right so when man's ways are opposed to God's ways well as as Exiles we follow God's ways okay so this is all I think this is all pretty straightforward we we know these things and that then brings us to the New Testament
and so the Jews have returned from exile and you would think that the Old Testament would end with this just euphoric we're back in the land after all of these years after all of this turmoil
we have come back across the desert we've gone to the land and here it is the Fulfillment of our dreams the Fulfillment of God's promises we're back in the land and they were back in the land and the point that we concluded with last week is that even though they were back in the land even though they were in their Homeland
they were still Exiles and the reason for that was because they were still living under the rule of babylon's successors
they did not have the autonomy to live and to worship Yahweh fully they lived under the oppression of the the Babylonian the kingdom of men and it's that in that way that they remained as Exiles even though they were in their Homeland they were under the rule and under the oppression of the kingdom of men
and so hundreds of years go by we spent a lot of time last week looking at the prophecy in Daniel that spoke about the periods of time that would take place before the Messiah would come
and now throughout the silent period of this time between the Testaments God is while quiet God is still working actively working and what's happening is the people of Jesus day are watching
and they're waiting for the Messiah to come because they know from Daniel's prophecy that that the time is is near and so you've got people like Simeon and Anna the prophetess who are waiting for the consolation of Israel remember that they're waiting for the consolation of Israel we they see this child born
and Simeon says I can die in peace
that's what they were waiting for they were watching for the for the coming Messiah
and so he's now on the scene he's born
and this then brings us to the the subject of today's class which is John the Baptist because John is preparing the people for Jesus
and the way he does that is he does it by reminding the people that just like the Jews who left Egypt to go into the promised land they are to start over
they are Exiles going into the Promised Land
that's what we saw in the Old Testament scriptures where the Jews are going into the promised land and when they go in they go through the Jordan River
and once they landed in you know once they arrived in this Promised Land they were to do three things they were to worship God Alone Yahweh the god of Israel they were to love their neighbor and the third thing they were to do is they were to pursue Justice
and the story of the Old Testament shows us that they failed spectacularly
at all of those three things
so John the Baptist now is on the scene he recognizes that the Messiah has been born
and he is destined to prepare the way for the Messiah and the way he does that is he goes out into the wilderness
and it was designed I think brothers and sisters to cause the people of the day to say this seems familiar
when was the last time our nation was in the wilderness they would have gone back in their minds I think John was probably trying to get them anyway to go back in their minds to that point where they were leaving Exile in Egypt and going into the Promised Land so now he's in the wilderness and he's if in essence saying to the people you have a chance for a do-over you were supposed to go into the promised land and love Yahweh alone love your neighbor and pursue Justice and you didn't do it we now have an opportunity to try again because Jesus is here and he is going to be the king of Nations so not only will we have a Homeland
but we will have a righteous King that will rule over us and so the purpose of these baptisms in the Wilderness at the Jordan River was a it was described as what a baptism of repentance
they were to change their ways they were to go through the river just as the Jews did and come out into the Promised Land
destined
promising themselves and us
that they would love God love their neighbors and pursue justice so that's where I want to focus today so before we move into that let's just pause and uh questions comments
okay John chapter one please we're going to look at the 31st verse
this we're going to at two passages this first one in John is going to describe to us the purpose of John's Ministry and it's in this 31st verse that we read about uh him proclaiming that Jesus is the Lamb of God this is the section where you know John looks up in the 29th verse and he says the next day John saw Jesus coming towards him and he says look the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world this is the one I meant when I said a man who comes after me has surpassed me and he was before me he's talking about importance he's talking about
um you know reputation he was before he was more important than me is what he's saying here and in the 31st verse this is the point I want to try and bring out here is this now describes the purpose of John's Ministry he says in verse 31 I myself did not know him but the reason I came baptizing with water
was that he might be revealed to Israel
this brothers and sisters was why John came baptizing to reveal that Jesus was the Messiah and to prepare the way for Jesus
and when we talk about preparing the way part of that is preparing the minds of the of the people to receive Jesus message
and I think that's what John's doing with this baptism of repentance he's softening their minds he's getting them ready and prepared to hear what Jesus has to say turn also to Acts chapter 19. again this is describing uh the the purpose of of John's Ministry and we're going to look at the fourth verse
Paul at this point is in Ephesus
um
and the people are asking him questions so we'll start in the in chapter 19 of Acts verse 1. it says one Apollos was at Corinth Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus there we found some disciples and asked them did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed
and they answered no
we've not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit
so Paul asked them then what baptism did you receive
John's baptism they replied so these so what we see here is we've got these Believers in Yahweh who've been baptized by John but they've not received the Holy Spirit and they're not even familiar it seems with the baptism of Christ
they were baptized by John Paul said John's baptism was a baptism of repentance he told the people to believe in the one coming after him so what was John's message John's message was look
believe the one that comes after me he was great he is greater than me that's what we read in acts in uh in John in John chapter one so John's preparing the way for Jesus he's telling the people that that Jesus is coming but in this particular case they haven't connected the dots yet and that's what Paul is doing so he he says Paul says in verse 4 John's baptism was a baptism of repentance he told the people to believe in the one coming after him that is Jesus and on hearing this
they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus and When Paul placed his hands on them the Holy Spirit came on them now this was done of course this holy the Holy Spirit gift was given so that the congregation of Believers could
have evidence that God was working in their lives and to assist the Ecclesia to grow and to spread the gospel truth so that more people would learn
about the baptism of Jesus and the coming Kingdom okay
so he so John came to prepare uh the People by teaching salvation through uh through repentance and forgiveness and this is the exact same thing
that John's father prayed about
right
so John the Baptist comes he's preaching forgiveness he's preaching repentance
and this is what John's father prayed about you know so you think about like Ben you're you're about to be a dad you know can you imagine and you think about this child that's growing and you know there's going to be a day when you hold this baby and you're going to pray over your son or your daughter and this is what Zechariah did you know Zechariah prayed to God about his child so let's read about that prayer and we're going to turn now to Luke Luke chapter 1. and where it's a long chapter um
we're going to go to the 76th verse how about that huh
so verse 67 in for the context speaking about uh you know verse 57 is where we read about the birth of John the Baptist
and then in verse 67 Zechariah John's father
begins this prayer his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied so here's the prayer praise be to the Lord the god of Israel because he's come and has redeemed his people he's raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David as he said through His prophets long ago salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us so again think of the context of this these people are living in the land but they are truly political Exiles they've got a power that's oppressive to them and Zechariah is saying look salvation's coming it's not always going to be this way verse 71 salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us this is coming Zechariah is praying to show Mercy to our fathers and to remember His Holy Covenant the oath he swore to Our Father Abraham
verse 74 to rescue us from the hand of our enemies and to enable us to serve him without fear in the Holiness and righteousness before him all our days
so think about the worship that was going on in the days of Jesus
the Jews would travel from all over the known world to on these pilgrimages and they would arrive in Jerusalem and they would go to the temple and there they would perform their acts of worship they would they would uh they would go in with their animals to be sacrificed and the priests would sacrifice these things and and this was part of their their lives as a as an Israelite but while they did these things the Roman authorities looked down over them
literally and figuratively literally by the fact that within the temple itself the God's Temple at the at the North End of the Temple there was a a Roman barracks
it's called the Antonia Fortress
and it was it was where the Roman soldiers would sleep and eat and it was situated in such a way that the Romans could stand on the roof of this Antonia Fortress and look down into the temple courts where the Jews were worshiping and it was designed by Rome to show the Jews always
that they were under Roman control although they had the autonomy to worship freely
Rome still oversaw everything they did even in the temple courts
and so Zechariah is praying about this and he says in verse 34 he's praising God and he's talking about the Redemption of his people and he's saying that in verse 74 he's going to rescue us from the hand of our enemies to enable us to serve you God without fear in Holiness and righteousness
and so now you imagine
we talk about Ben holding his soon to be born child right we talk about Zechariah now
holding his baby John the Baptist and he says to John verse 76 and you my child
will be called
a prophet of the most high
for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him
to give his people the knowledge of Salvation through the Forgiveness of their sins because of the tender mercy of our God by which the Rising Sun Will Come to Us from Heaven to shine on the living in darkness and the shadow of death to guide our feet into
the path of peace
they weren't living in peace and John is holding his baby and he's saying you're going to be a prophet of the most high for hundreds of years
Yahweh has not spoken to the people there's been this period of Silence and now it's about to be broken
and Zechariah knows this he's experienced this himself and now he's praying for this baby and he's explaining the purpose of John the Baptist that he was to prepare the People by teaching salvation through repentance and forgiveness this was the thing that his that John's dad prayed about over him
so it's said that the gospel message really started with John and it did John was preaching salvation he was preaching repentance and it was leading up to this gospel message John's Ministry was not just preparation for the gospel message it was the beginning of the Gospel message judas's replacement was required to have been a disciple from John's baptism in onward so we were in Acts let's go back to Acts chapter 1. and I'll show you what I mean by that
Acts chapter 1 verse 76 I'm sorry verse 21. just kidding
uh Acts chapter 1 verse 21. so what's happened here is you know Judas has betrayed Jesus he has uh gone out into the uh you know he's left the disciples he's he's committed suicide the disciples are replacing Judas and here's the instructions that they're given verse uh 21. therefore it's necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out Among Us beginning from John's baptism
to the time when Jesus was taken up from us
from for one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection
you see the point here the point was look we're going to replace Judas and we need to do it we need to choose this replacement from among the people that have been with us since the beginning of the Gospel message it's going to include John's disciples because they've been there the whole time
they've been there the whole time and I think that's the point the point is John's Ministry wasn't just a preparation for the gospel it was part of the Gospel Peter tells us the gospel began in Galilee
but with John's preaching this is what this is what Peter said so let's look let's I flip the page uh to the 10th chapter of Acts
um
we're going to look at this 37th verse so Peter is at cornelius's house here
um
and he's speaking to the crowd
he says Peter began to speak
he says I now realize in verse 34. I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear Him and do what's right you know the message God sent to the people of Israel telling the good news of peace
through Jesus Christ so Zechariah was praying this for this peace right he was talking about you know the freedom to serve God in peace and now Peter's picking up on that he's talking about this piece
and he says in verse 37 you know what happened throughout Judea beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached that's where the gospel message began it began there in Galilee after when after what after John's baptisms and I think that's such an important uh concept
so what was it that John was preaching
what was it what was his message
his message was about his it was a message about baptism
it was a baptism of repentance
and I think this is where I'm trying to develop the theme of the exile this baptism was that they were recreating
the travel that the Jews went through when they left Egypt under the oppression of the Roman of the Egyptian Empire through the Jordan River into the Promised Land
and now John is saying you're going to do the same thing you're going to be in the wilderness you're going to go through the Jordan River and you've got this chance to start over repentance right it's a baptism of repentance
so when we think about
Christian baptism You Know Rich mentioned it in his opening prayer you know where We've Come Together before our Memorial meeting we open the word of the bible to read it but I would suggest more importantly we're bringing our children downstairs to be taught
so that they can make an informed decision about their life and whether they want to enter the Waters of baptism and that's what Rich prayed about right he prayed that our children will desire baptism
and so baptism is such a thing and when we is such an important thing and when we we when we think about baptism
we often do so looking back to the death and the resurrection of Jesus that's what you know with hindsight that's what we do when we think about baptism right we go to Romans chapter 6 and we say the reason we're baptized is to associate ourselves with the death and the resurrection of Jesus our baptisms into the water signify a going down into the grave we are in essence crucifying our sinful nature we're saying I no longer want to serve myself I no longer want to serve sin
I want to put that to death in my life that's what Paul tells us in Romans 6. and when we come out of baptism we are associating ourselves not with the death of Jesus but we're associating ourselves now with the resurrection of Jesus we're saying if I go down and Crucify My sinful nature when I come up out of the water
I can be assured that just as Jesus was raised from the dead I will be raised from the dead too
it gives us this confidence it's a it's a lesson for us
that yeah if we put sinful nature to death we can live forever Just as Jesus was raised to live forever
so for us
living after the death and resurrection of Jesus our baptisms remind us specifically about that
but what about the people who lived before the death and resurrection of Jesus
what was baptism about for them
wasn't about Jesus death he hadn't died yet wasn't about his resurrection he hadn't been raised to life yet
in John's day
those who were baptized
were baptized not looking backwards like like us but they were looking forward
to the time of the death and the resurrection of Jesus so let's go to John chapter 1. and I guess the point is it's it's the same thing about death and Resurrection
the difference is John was foretelling the death and resurrection of Jesus where we can look back at the historical event
see the difference
and from the beginning of John's message that's what he taught
what was the first thing John said when he saw Jesus
look
the Lamb of God
that was the first thing it was this man is going to die
just as the lamb is sacrificed in the temple
this man is going to die he was pointing forward to the death and the resurrection of Jesus and it was an invitation there for all of Israel everybody to come into the Wilderness and repent it was available to everyone so this practice of immersion this practice of going down into the water was very common
in John's day
it's not like you know for for us
when we think about baptism
you know they're
there probably aren't a lot of churches that still perform adult baptisms right
for us it's a normal thing it's it's you know the hope of every parent that their child will enter the Waters of baptism
it's somewhat a unique thing in today's culture
but during the life of John
baptism was very very common it went by the name of Mikvah
Mikvah it's a Jewish word and it and it was um
it was something that was common to the pilgrims who were traveling to
Jerusalem
to enter into the temple
in order to go into the temple in into the presence of God
the Jews had to become ritually pure
so go back to your old testament you know uh and think about the laws that we read about in numbers in Leviticus right
these laws didn't actually make the people pure
but they were ritual things
one of one of them was to avoid
contamination by dead bodies right if you touched a dead body or came in presence of someone who had died you became ritually impure
and you could not go into the presence of God and so brothers and sisters when Jesus talks in a very biting way to the Sadducees and the Pharisees and he calls them whitewashed sepulchers
though that that expression the white-washed Sepulcher that was a common thing when someone had recently been interned somebody dies they put them into a new burial Crypt they would whitewash
that area as a warning to people who were traveling through the land wait a minute there's whitewash on that stone that means there's a dead body there I must avoid going near that whitewashed Sepulcher because if I get near it I will become ritually impure and I will not even though I've traveled all these miles to get to Jerusalem I'm not going to be able to go into the temple to worship God that's the purpose for the whitewash Sepulcher and so even after that long journey they've avoided the whitewash they've come to the land the first thing they had to do before they went into the into the temple is they had to go into a Mikvah bath
this was a baptismal tank
on the south side of the of the Temple
there were large stairs that led up into the temple platform and on either side of these stairs Underground
there were mikvabas and every single pilgrim had to pay
money
to the religious leaders so that they could go into the Mikvah bath and become ritually pure before ascending the stairs and going into the Temple mount that's how it was that's what they did
and John now is baptizing people in the Jordan River
when most people entered these Mikvah baptismal Waters they did so under the auspices of the religious leaders
and this was something that they did on their own but they had to get approval from the religious leaders
but now John is out and he's physically immersing these people himself
and I think that's why brothers and sisters the Sadducees and the Pharisees come out into the wilderness
to ask John wait a minute who gave you the authority to allow these people to become ritually pure what are you doing performing these baptisms this is something that we as the religious leaders are in control of these people come to Jerusalem and they go into the mikvabaz You've Got No Authority whatsoever
to immerse these people that's why they went out to challenge John
so we'll read about that in um I think it's Luke
got ahead of my notes uh Luke chapter 3 I think
so uh we're in Luke chapter three
and he says in the second verse during the high priesthood of honest and Caiaphas the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert he went into all the country around the Jordan preaching a baptism of repentance for the Forgiveness of sins
as is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet and here he quotes from Isaiah chapter 40. the words he quotes we talked about this last week these are the words of the exile these are the words that are promising that although you're in captivity I'm going to bring you back through the desert to the promised land
these are the words that were written to Exiles and this is what John quotes a voice of one calling in the desert prepare the way for the Lord make straight paths for him every Valley shall be filled in every mountain and Hill made low we're going to make it easy for you Exiles when you go back to the land from Babylon you're going to go on straight paths you've got no undulations you don't have to go down treacherous Hills you don't need to climb high mountains we're going to make it smooth for you the Crooked roads in verse 5 will become straight the rough ways smooth and all mankind will see God's salvation so this is what this is what Isaiah prophesies this is what John quotes and John said to the crowds in verse 7 coming out to be baptized
you brood of vipers
who warned you to free from the coming wrath produce fruit in keeping with repentance
and do not begin to say to yourselves we have Abraham as our Father for I can tell you out of these Stones God can raise up children for Abraham the ax is already at the root of the trees so John's Venom here if you will I think is directed at this at the religious leaders in particular who've come out to challenge him to question him as to what Authority he has to perform these baptisms and the first thing he does is he brings the mind of of us his hearers and those people back to Genesis where the Exile began
he points them
to that time when the serpent
said will God will you really die
he points them to the the Viper
who caused man to question God's Authority
who caused man to say you know what we're going to do things our way rather than God's way
and John's quote here is designed to get us to think about that the ax is already at the root of the trees the tree of life that will keep you alive forever is no longer available to Adam and Eve because they've been exiled from the garden as a result of their Rebellion
verse 10 the crowd says what should we do
and John answered the man who has two tunics should share with him who has none
again he's pointing back to this the Hebrew scriptures and the CH and the promise
that the people had made to worship God Alone to love their neighbors and to pursue Justice and these are the things that John is instructing the people to do this is how they repent they repent by doing the things that they were supposed to do when they went into the promised land the first time now you've got a choice your choices do you want to do over
and that's our life isn't it I mean our life brothers and sisters is one where we continually fail
baptism gives us that first opportunity to be forgiven of our sins and as a result of Jesus death and as a result of our putting on his name we have the ability to come to God continually in prayer seeking forgiveness again
This Promise of forgiveness is one that's so important and this is what John was teaching and preaching he was saying if you've got two tunics you gotta share one this was how they were to love their neighbors
um what should we do this is all in response to the crowd's question Tax Collectors he says in verse 12. who came to be baptized teacher they asked what should we do don't collect any more than you're required to he told them then some soldiers asked him and what should we do and he said don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely be content with your prey with your pay and the people were waiting expectantly and were all wandering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ
of course when we read that
we need to recognize that the word Christ there is the word Messiah
the crowd's been waiting for the Messiah the Jews have been waiting for the Messiah all their lives and now they're wondering is John the Messiah
John answered them in verse 16 I baptize you with water but one more powerful than I will come the thongs of whose sandal I'm not worthy to untie he'll baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire
and so John was promising this baptism of the holy spirit in the future remember we went to acts and and the the people said you know I think it was was it Peter said um you know did you receive the Holy Spirit when you were baptized and they're like What's this Holy Spirit we haven't heard of it John was promising even to his disciples that Jesus would be greater than him and that Jesus would baptize with the holy spirit so he was foretelling of that time
okay
in Jesus day the Jews were back in the land but they were living as political Exiles living under Roman oppression some Israelites wanted to resist the zealots others gave in and adopted Roman culture and its Gods but Jesus taught his followers to live like Daniel
um
one day Jesus is going to return as the king of the Nations and this is the very thing that Daniel Prayed about this is the thing that Daniel looked for that was the stone that would come you know this was the vision that he received and until then brothers and sisters while we wait for that great day we live as immigrants we live as pilgrims and that's what Peter tells us in First Peter that we are to live awaiting a kingdom from heaven
Class 8
Original URL Sunday, January 29, 2023
Transcript
this is going to be the last class that I do in a long time I guess so uh yeah we've been uh cranking away for a bit I think we started at the beginning of last month and and I volunteered to do December and January I guess and uh I didn't know that January had like a million Sundays in itso I think there were five Sundays this month so a lot we're going to finish up our discussion about the Exiles
um not so much just the Exiles found in the Babylonian exile but the Exile that we all are a part of and our Focus today will be a continuation of the life of the New Testament exile
you'll remember that after the Israelites returned to Jerusalem from yes so we're talking about the New Testament Exiles in in last week we sort of got through this this uh background where the Israelites have returned to Jerusalem they've left their Babylonian captivity they've traveled across the Arabian Desert they've come into their land and there's this great disappointment although they're in their land their Homeland they still feel like Exiles because they are not autonomously ruling over themselves uh they're still under the the rulership of foreign nations with foreign culture and the glory of God is no longer in the place as it was before and so there's a disappointment and then there's hundreds of years where God is silent
they've they're in the land the Old Testament the Hebrew scriptures are no longer being written we come from Ezra and Nehemiah and Malachi these are the last books of the Old Testament and then there's this period of Silence
and years go by but during these years there are those who studied the scriptures and they came to Daniel and they realized that Daniel foretold the time when the Messiah would come
when there would be a lord
l-o-r-d a lord one who they would give their allegiance to a messiah who would save them
and
Daniel was so specific in the number of years that would take place
that there were individuals who were watching the quote-unquote signs of the times they were anticipating the birth of the Messiah and we read about Hannah we read about Simeon and Anna rather who are waiting for the consolation of Israel
and that word consolation is taken directly from Isaiah chapter 40 where Isaiah is prophesying about a time when the people will see the Messiah in Isaiah 40 it begins with Comfort e Comfort ye my people
and that word Comfort is the same as that word consolation we were waiting for the consolation of Israel and the Messiah now is on the scene he's been born and the one who comes before him to prepare the way for this Lord is John the Baptist and last week we spoke a little bit about John the Baptist and I'd like to uh I'd like to recap or or just touch on a couple of additional points maybe I should say as we we come there the first thing that I'll bring out is when we think about this Prophet this man John the Baptist the first thing that I would point out to you brothers and sisters is that if there was anyone who could be a reformer
of the the
bad leadership in Israel it would have been John the Baptist because he had a perfect pedigree
do you know what I mean by that I mean he he had a genealogy he had a lineage that that the Jews would have looked to and said if there's anybody that's prepared to lead us it surely it's this man and genealogies were an important thing so when the Israelites went back from their captivity in Babylon there were genealogies prepared that showed the people were sort of quote unquote authorized to return to the land when we think about John the Baptist I want you to go to Luke chapter one and this is the this is where we read about the birth of John
and some of the things that led to his birth and to
um
you know him preparing the way for Jesus and the first thing I'll do is I'll have you look at uh I'm we're in Lou I said John I meant Luke Luke chapter one
and we're going to look at the fifth verse
and the reason we're coming here again is to try to understand the pedigree of John the Baptist so Luke chapter 1 verse 5 this is a section of passages that talk about uh the foretelling
of the preparer's birth John the John the Baptist so chapter one verse 5 in the time of Herod King of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah
so the first thing we know is that John the Baptist is the son of a levitical priest
not just any levitical priest his father belonged to the Priestly division of abijah
his wife Elizabeth was also no just let this sink in his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of
Aaron
like the very first priest and so if there's anybody that is you know born into this world who has the lineage who has the
um you know the papers that would be impressive to the Jewish leadership it would have been somebody like John the Baptist they would have looked at him and said you know descendant from Aaron his father is a priest his you know from the tribe you know from the lineage of abijah I mean he's like everything that they had wanted and yet John saw his role not as the one that was going to actually do the Reformation John realized that it would be someone else's role
to
reform the evil ways of the religious hierarchy
and the reason he knew that is because
towards the end of the Jewish scriptures these things are specifically foretold so I want you to look at the very last book of the Old Testament
we're going to turn to Malachi
and in Malachi chapter 3 there is a section that
really
um speaks poorly
of the religious hierarchy it there are passages here where the levitical priesthood is being corrected
and we're going to look at verse Chapter 3 of Malachi and we'll start in verse 7. and here the prophet is sort of you know correcting the evil ways of the Jewish nation and the Jewish leadership in particular and he says ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them
return to me and I will return to you reminds me of the passage in James draw near to God right
and God will draw near to you return to me Malachi is saying to these priests return to me and God will return to you but you ask how are we to return will a man rob God yet you rob me but you ask how do we rob you in ties and offerings you are under a curse the whole nation of you because you are robbing me bring the whole tithe into my Storehouse and there may be food in my house test me in this says Yahweh Almighty and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much of my blessings that you will not have room for it so what was happening here is the Levites were supposed to be you know taking a tenth of the people's you know earnings the tenth of the people's belongings and giving it to God and they were sort of you know putting some of it in their pocket and the prophet here is calling them out for that and then when we as we continue down
um I will prevent um verse
12 then the Nations will call you blessed for yours will be a delightful land says Yahweh Almighty you've said harsh things against me says Yahweh yet you ask
what have we said against you and so there are all these passages where the the prophet is speaking ill of the leadership of the day and the point is in uh in these CH in these verses is that the Reformation is going to come and let's just look at verse 3 chapter 3 verse 1. he says see I will send my messenger who will prepare the way for me right this is what John the Baptist understands the he understands that he's going to be the messenger he's not going to be the reformer he's going to prepare the way for the reformer because look at what it says next in verse 1 then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his Temple the word Lord there brothers and sisters this is not the word for Yahweh this is not speaking about Yahweh this is talking about the Lord the the um the Messiah the one that they will give their allegiance to that's what the word Lord means
so this one you're you're hoping to come he's going to come suddenly the Lord you're seeking will come to his Temple the messenger of the Covenant whom you desire will come says Yahweh Almighty but who can endure the day of his coming who can stand when he appears he will be like a Refiner's Fire or a launderer soap he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver he
will purify the Levites and that's the point I'm trying to drive home here as it relates to John the Baptist although his pedigree was perfectly aligned for him to sort of Reform from the inside
he said well that's not my role the prophets have foretold
that the Lord himself the Messiah is the one who will purify the Levites
and so instead John the Baptist whose father prayed over him held this child in his hand and prayed that he would recognize that he was the messenger that was to come before the Lord John the Baptist evidently
under the tutelage of his father and mother the priest and the descendant of Aaron understood perfectly his role
and Luke tells us that he lived
as an exile
outside
of the temple grounds he lived as an exile in the wilderness until
the time was appointed for him to proclaim the way of the Lord and we read that in Luke in um uh
Luke Chapter 1. Luke chapter 1 we find at the very end of the chapter this you know 80 verse chapter we find Zechariah of the priest the father of John the Baptist praying over him and he says in verse 6 76 and you my child will be called a prophet of the most high for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him Zechariah is channeling Malachi here there's a hyperlink here that brings us right back to Malachi and Zechariah is teaching this baby this praying for this baby that he'll know that he's the one that's to prepare the way and the chapter ends in verse 80 with these words and the child John the Baptist grew and became strong in spirit and he lived in the desert until he appeared publicly to Israel
he lived as an exile and so now he's bringing the people to his attention you know bringing the People Into the Wilderness for the purpose of reforming their hearts he's not reforming the the Levites that's left for the Messiah he's trying to reform the people and prepare their hearts to receive the message of the Lord the one they are to give their allegiance to he's trying to prepare the way make it you know Jim Sullivan Jim I remember when you were in college you were a stand-up comedian right or shortly after college and you would go in and you would tell you know you would have a a you know you'd have your routine and if you had somebody that that bombed before you right made it an off awful lot harder to win the crowd over
and so oftentimes what happens is you know you have a warm-up Act somebody who will come out and sort of get the crowd on your side and then you know we introduce Jim Sullivan he comes out and tells us jokes and everybody's in a good mood and they laugh and they're prepared to receive the message
and I'm not saying obviously obviously I'm not saying that John is preparing the way for Jesus to tell jokes but the concept is the same he's preparing the way so that the hearts of the people will be receptive to his met to Jesus message
and he's the way he does that first and foremost is
he starts drawing attention
and starts confronting boldly the religious hierarchy of the day that was exploiting the vulnerable he was calling attention to the relief religious leaders who are doing the very same thing that the Levites that the the priests in Malachi's day were doing they were exploiting the people and John draws attention to that and we read about that let's turn to um Matthew chapter 3. and here we'll see a specific example we referenced this last week uh and I wanted to come back to this because uh Chris Clark Chris gave me a a call yesterday and shared some thoughts and I thought they were really terrific and I want to share them with everybody else Matthew chapter 3 and we're going to look at verse 7. so he John's the context here is John's out in the wilderness he's baptizing people we talked about how this baptism was a baptism of repentance and it was really no different than the baptisms that people were undergoing all the time when they traveled to Jerusalem and would go into the temple grounds before they entered the temple grounds they had to be baptized they had to be immersed in a mikbah bath in order to become ritually pure
once they became ritually pure once they avoided the whitewashed sepulchers once they traveled all this way they would become ritually pure by going into a mic for bath which they would have paid for
to the Levites to the priests to the people that controlled it then they could go in and make their offering to Yahweh in the temple
and John is saying come to the Wilderness be baptized in the wilderness I will baptize you in the wilderness and the Sadducees and the Pharisees and those that controlled the myth fabazz are saying who's given this guy the authority to perform these baptisms
and they go out to the Wilderness to confront John and while they go out in their Pomp and their circumstance and they're prepared to you know make an example of this man who gave you the authority John to the Delight of the crowds that have been exploited all these years by these religious leaders
John turns the tables and that's what we're going to read about here in Matthew chapter 3. let's look at verse 7. so verse 6 shows you know that the people are confessing their sins and they're baptized by him in the Jordan River the people are reversing the experience they are reimagining the experience of the Jews all those years ago who are going into the promised land for the first time through the Jordan John is having them say look you need to repent they're confessing their sins they're going through the Jordan again before they go into the promised land and then in verse 7 when John saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing we can say why were they coming I'm convinced it was because they were upset that John was doing this he was usurping their Authority and John sees them and in front of the crowds he says you brood of vipers who warned you to flee from the coming Wrath
look what he says next verse 8. this is what Chris brought to my attention he says you brood of vipers who warned you to come from the coming wrath verse 8 produce fruit
in keeping with repentance you can't just say you're repentant you've got to have acts that demonstrate your repentance and he's saying to these men produce fruit
in keeping with repentance and do not think you can say to yourselves we've got Abraham as our father because I tell you that out of these Stones God can raise up children for Abraham
the ax John says is already at the root of the trees and every tree that does not produce good fruit
will be cut down and thrown into the fire
they needed to produce fruit
to demonstrate that their hearts were in line with God
now when the nation of Israel went into the Promised Land
they would often have to
take the towns that God had given them
from the Canaanites for example from people that were worshiping
false gods
and lived in an ethical way that was contrary to the ways of God
and they would have to go into these towns and take these towns for themselves
and what Chris brought out to me was one of the one of the requirements when they would go into these towns in battle turn to Deuteronomy chapter 20. verse 19. they're in the promised land and when you lay Siege to a city for a long time fighting against it to capture it
do not destroy its trees by putting an ax to them because
you can eat their fruit do not cut them down
why is that
because these trees were producing fruit
and what the law says next
is the trees of the field
people I'm sorry are the trees of the field people that you should besiege them however you may cut down the trees
that you know are not fruit trees and use them to build Siege works until the city at war with you Falls they were not to cut down the fruit trees because the people could eat the fruit the people could benefit from the fruit and so when John the Baptist now says to this
hypocritical religious hierarchy who is exploiting the people he says the ax is at the root of the tree
he then counsels them to repent and bear fruit
produce fruit in keeping with repentance because if you produce fruit
you won't be cut down
but if you are a useless tree
the ax is ready so it was a warning to them
so the question then is what's meant by fruit
right what were they supposed to do they're supposed to produce fruit
in keeping with repentance they were to demonstrate that they were repentant by doing good things does that make sense and when we come to Galatians is it Galatians or Ephesians 5 that talks about the Fruit of the Spirit
Galatians thanks Ben let's look at Galatians chapter 5. so they were to produce fruit what is that fruit that they were supposed to produce
Galatians gives us an example of what it is
he says in verse 19 Paul Paul's writing to the Ecclesia there he says the acts of sinful nature I'm reading from a modern version right the fruit
of sinful nature
are obvious what are they sexual immorality impurity and debauchery idolatry in witchcraft right sometimes we look at those and those are very easily identifiable sins okay you know sexual immorality it's you know it's it's a sin that's uh counter to the ethics of God and it's a very visible sin at times
but as we read through Galatians chapter 5 we see some of the other fruits of unrighteousness
let's look at continuing on
verse 20 idolatry witchcraft hatred
nobody can see hatred that's something you bear in your heart towards people
Discord
creating schism
jealousy
fits of Rage
selfish ambition now imagine that you know these are men who are given positions of leadership and they're using their Authority not to build up the people they're using their authority to divide the people into classes to label them
and this is Discord
this is schism these are the things that are the fruit of unrighteousness
Paul says in verse 21 I warn you as I did before that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God
but he just doesn't end there with the negatives he points out what the fruit of unrighteousness is
but then he says he builds up the people he encourages the people and he turns now and he says but the Fruit of the Spirit and these are the things that the religious hierarchy needed to learn if they weren't to be cut down like the the unfruitful tree they needed to Bear good fruit
and the good fruit that is written about here in Galatians Chapter 5 Verse 22 the fruit of the spirit is love and joy and peace and patience and kindness
goodness
faithfulness
gentleness self-control
so when John the Baptist is now living as an exile in the wilderness as he's calling people to come out of their exile to give their allegiance to a new king the Lord that Malachi promised
as he's doing this the hierarchy comes to him and he corrects them and in doing so the crowds love it
nobody has spoken to the Sadducees and the Pharisees the way John the Baptist did they were afraid of these people and John called them out to prepare the way for the Lord's message
and the result was that crowds now flocked to the desert to see and to hear this man's message because it gave them hope
John's pull no punches Behavior towards the Sadducees and the Pharisees allowed him to become enormously popular John in the vernacular of the day of today spoke truth to power
he spoke to the powerful in a way that other people were afraid to do and he did it because he was a messenger of God he did it because he was preparing the hearts of the people to receive the message of Jesus he was trying to reform not from the inside but to prepare the way for the Messiah who was going to provide a lasting Reformation who was going to bring God's kingdom back to the people he was going to initiate this new kingdom this new way of life
and so the crowds were ready to hear the message of Jesus
and just like John who lived as an exile in the wilderness Jesus the son of the most high God
who had a lineage that
couldn't have been better as the son of Yahweh the creator of Heaven and Earth was one who the religious hierarchy ridiculed
because from their perspective when they saw Jesus
they saw
the child of an illegitimate birth
right
that's what they saw they discounted his message because they didn't even know who his father was
this was the accusation that they were making they were saying we don't even know who Mary you know who who impregnated Mary
she was she before they were even married she was pregnant
and this man is going to correct us we don't think so but John now prepares the hearts of the people
and they're ready and so Jesus
follows
the preparer's way
John is preparing the way he's doing that by living as an exile in the wilderness and what do we read Jesus say about his experience in life the son of the most high God the one you would think who had the power to do whatever he wanted for his benefit
instead
Jesus lived selflessly
he lived
let's turn to Luke chapter 9. Jesus lived brothers and sisters as an exile
Luke chapter nine here's what Jesus says
we'll look at um
the 58th verse
a section of passages beginning in verse 57 to the end of the chapter has a uh a title a subtitle in my in my Bible
the subtitle is the cost of following Jesus
so what's happening here is uh Jesus is walking
along the road
they're walking along the road and a man said to him I'll follow you wherever you go
and Jesus replied foxes have holes
birds of the air have nests
but the son of man has no place
to lay his head
in other words Jesus says
I have no home
I live as an exile
and then he turns to these men
and he says to them
follow me
he's calling them to live the life of an exile
to recognize that a kingdom is coming and the place that they live here and now is not their home
so John
provides the example of living as an exile Jesus gives us the example of living as an exile
the next thing we look at is the similarity between John's approach and Jesus approach as it relates to the religious hierarchy John looks at the these Sadducees and Pharisees coming out to challenges Authority and he says he calls them a brood of vipers he brings the mind of the people back to Genesis when he sees the Viper the serpent causing the people to question whether they should follow God's way or follow the thinking of man you brood of vipers and Jesus brothers and sisters takes that same approach when it comes to the religious hierarchy
that was exploiting the vulnerable
and it gives us an important exhortation as it relates to the vulnerable within our own community
we need to be careful
to benefit the weak we need to build up rather than tear down we need to be gatherers rather than dividers these are the things that
Jesus wants us to do this was the way that Jesus lived
even if it meant calling the attention out you know drawing attention to the
to the Pharisees and to the Sadducees who were the leaders but were following the ways of men rather than Godly ways who were performing fruits of unrighteousness rather than fruits
of the spirit
so
Jesus just like John would provoke those
religious leaders Matthew chapter 23 gives us a a clear example of this this whole chapter is where Jesus delivers seven woes
to the leaders Jesus said to the crowds Matthew 23 verse 1 and to his disciples the teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses seat so he's respecting
their
position
as
those who sit in Moses seat and those who are to teach
the laws of God
so he says so again verse 1 Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples the teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses seat so you must obey them
and do everything they tell you
where I want your mind to go now brothers and sisters is Acts chapter 5 where
Peter says we must obey God rather than man
when the leaders are speaking God's message when they are teaching the people about the law of Moses about the laws of God they are to follow those things they are to do those things but then Jesus says but do not do what they do for they do not practice what they preach
they tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders but they themselves will not be willing to lift a finger to move them and so this again brings us to that theme of living as an exile you've got the Israelites who have returned to Jerusalem you know 400 years earlier they're in their Homeland but they still feel like Exiles because they've got rulers over them that are not doing Godly things
even in Jesus day
they are the people of God they have God's ways before them and yet they feel like Exiles because they are not being led righteously
they've got leaders that are putting demands on them that they won't even perform themselves
and Jesus now because of this draws out
um and and corrects publicly these men he
speaks truth to power
um
verse 4 they tie up uh heavy loads they put them on men's shoulders but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them verse 23 here's one of the woes woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees you hypocrites you give a tenth of your spices mint dill and cumin but you've neglected the more important matters of the law what are the things that are more important
it's things like justice
in Mercy and faithfulness
it's these fruits of the spirit
these are the things that Jesus did his teachings though their heart
right when we follow Jesus teachings it can be hard
because those who are in positions of authority can sometimes view correction like this as a threat
and Jesus says look I came not to bring peace
but I came to bring division
what
we've just talked about like
you know the fruits of the spirit and one of the one of the fruits of unrighteousness was Discord
and in Luke chapter 12 Jesus says that he came not to bring peace but division
so what's that mean
I think what it means brothers and sisters is he's saying look you need to understand
that you can't live both ways
you need to separate light from Darkness
you need to understand that there's a difference between righteousness and unrighteousness
you need to understand
that as a follower of Jesus Your Allegiance is to him
and not to anyone else that teaches differently from him
and in that way Jesus tells these exiles
that they are to give their allegiance to him and in that way Jesus says I brought division
and when that happens brothers and sisters there are consequences that are sometimes felt
when the leaders of the day who have had all of this Authority given to them feel
at risk
they feel that their position is being jeopardized
and the consequence
is that there are times
when the world hated Jesus
because of what he taught
look at John chapter 15. We Begin our class by talking about
John the Baptist calling out the religious leaders telling them that they needed to bear fruit if they were not fruit-bearing trees the ax was laid at the root and was about to cut them down
and now in John chapter 15 Jesus now describes
the Vine
the fruitful Vine
and the branches of that fruitful tree
and Jesus says in verse 8 of John 15. he says this is to my father's Glory that you bear much fruit showing yourselves to be my disciples
look at verse 14. the words of Jesus
you are my friends
if
you do what I command
I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know what his master's business is instead I've called you friends for everything that I learned from my father I've made known to you you did not choose me but I chose you and appointed you
to go and bear fruit
it's the very same message that John gave
the religious hierarchy of the day produce fruit in keeping with righteousness and Jesus now is telling us that we're his friends
if we do What He commands he appointed us as his disciples to go and bear fruit
and bearing fruit can be a hard task brothers and sisters
we need to he says in verse uh 16 you didn't choose me I chose you I appointed you to go and bear fruit fruit that will last then the father will give you whatever you ask in my name this is my command love
one another this is one of the greatest fruits of the spirit this is part of those more these more important these weightier matters of the law
but when we do that
those who are in positions of authority that feel that their power is being usurped
get worried and this is what happened to Jesus verse 15. if the world hates you for being a disciple of mine if the world hates you because you're living in Exile waiting for the greater Kingdom to come Verse 18 if the world hates you keep in mind that it hated me first
if you belonged to the world
it would love you as its own
as it is you do not belong to the world
and that's the point brothers and sisters we are to live as Exiles looking to Jesus as our Lord looking to Jesus as the one that we give our allegiance to he is our Authority we follow his teachings in his ways and I want to end by having a turn to to uh Hebrews
because in Hebrews what was happening is is the the Brothers and Sisters in Christ were being drawn back into Judaism
they they were being tempted to go back under the leadership of the of the Levites rather and the law of Moses rather than following the teachings of Our Lord rather than giving allegiance to Jesus as our Lord
and it will will end by looking at uh Hebrews chapter 13 this is the last chapter in in this uh what I think is a great exhortation
and we're going to look at the 13th verse
let us then
go to him
let us go to Jesus
where is he
he's outside the camp let us then go to him outside the camp bearing the disgrace he bore
for here we do not have an enduring City but we are looking for the city that is to come
and when that City comes brothers and sisters
we will no longer be exiled
we will live
as Adam and Eve did in the garden Walking with God
and so we pray for that day
so thanks for your attention
um next week brothers and sisters brother Mark Hampton is going to be leading our classes for the month and um Chris thanks for your comments this week it was really helpful to me in preparing class really appreciate that