Broken Vessels: Prophets, Part IV

Welcome! Today is our final message from the series entitled Broken Vessels. In this series we have studied the lives of a large number of Old Testament Characters, from Adam up to Elisha. Two general observations from this series: First, we have seen a lot of sin. Without fail, people called by God, people for whom God had spectacular plans, have fallen far short of what they were called for. From the absolutely catastrophic sin of Adam, to Noah getting drunk, to the deceptions and favoritism issues of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and on and on – Moses striking the rock in anger, Gideon’s weak “second half,” Saul’s complete abandoning of God, David’s infidelity and murder to cover it up, Solomon’s turning to other gods and the pleasures of this world, and then the long succession of wicked kings in the fractured nations of Israel and Judah, even the prophets failing – for example, Elijah’s meltdown – we have seen a lot of sin.

Now how should we respond? Should we say, everyone sins, so I guess my sin is not that bad? Absolutely not! Romans 1 is clear that sin happens because people choose to suppress the truth that they already know. People choose to not glorify God, and one of the reasons is that they do not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God. Romans 1 says that God responds by “giving them over” to what they desire to do. He gives them over to their foolish thinking and their shameful lusts. And then they do what just comes naturally. So is our sin “not that bad”? Quite the contrary – our sin separates us from God; it severs a tie that God has with us. And the ultimate price for sin is an eternal severance, an eternal separation from God. What, in all creation, in all imagination, could be more serious, more devastating, than this?

Broken Vessels: Prophets, Part III

Welcome! We are coming close to the end of our series entitled Broken Vessels, where we have looked at the lives of a number of Old Testament characters and seen how, far from perfect though they were, God used them to accomplish His purposes. We are in a series-within-a-series on prophets, focusing in on a period in Israel’s history where Elijah, Elisha, and other prophets tried to get wicked kings and people who had forsaken God to return to their Creator, to the One who wanted to be their Savior and Shepherd.

Last week we focused in on the latter half of Elijah’s life, and what we saw wasn’t very pretty. Something happened to Elijah after God’s fire miraculously consumed the altar and offering that he set out in the presence of false prophets and of the people, and after it miraculously began to rain again after more than 3 years of what appears to be total drought. I have two theories about what happened to Elijah – internally, in his head and heart. These are not mutually exclusive – it is possible that both were true, and indeed, this is what I think. It is also possible that neither were true, but I share them so you can consider them.

Broken Vessels: Prophets, Part I

Welcome as we continue in our series entitled Broken Vessels, where we have considered the good, the bad, and the ugly in the lives of people God used, willingly or unwillingly, to serve His purposes in the history of Israel. And the history of Israel is really the history of everyone, as it was through this line that Jesus, the savior of all nations, came into the world.

The titles of the messages for the last several weeks has been Kings, and we have started to progress through the history of the kings the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah. In Judah, there have been some good kings and some bad kings, but in Israel it has been all bad. Last week we talked about Asa, king of Judah, one of the relatively good kings, although he did not finish well, refusing to seek the Lord in sickness. Today we are going to look at Ahab, an especially rotten king in the line of rotten kings of Israel, and as our title says, we are going to look more deeply at the lives of prophets who lived during these kings. Today we are going to focus on the prophet Elijah. Let’s pick up the story with the introduction of King Ahab in I Kings 16.

Broken Vessels: Kings, Part II

Welcome! Today we continue our series called Broken Vessels, in which we have explored major characters from the Old Testament. The last time, which was two weeks ago, I gave you a handout on the kings of ancient Israel and Judah. We spent our time looking at the first kings of the divided kingdoms, Jeroboam and Rehoboam. Prior to these kings, Israel was a united kingdom under David and then Solomon.

When Solomon died, Rehoboam his son became king. Rehoboam was a weak leader, and the people were not unconditionally in support of him. Two weeks ago we learned how the people of Israel outside Judah demanded that Rehoboam treat them with a light hand. Rehoboam, rejecting the wise counsel of Solomon’s advisors, and instead consulted his own young foolish friends who said he should tell the people that he would be even harsher than his father, much harsher. Foolish Rehoboam took this advice, and the result was that Israel (except for Judah and the tribe of Benjamin) rejected him as king. Jeroboam, a man who was called by God by the prophet Ahijah much like how David was anointed during Saul’s reign, stepped into the power vacuum and became king of Israel, beginning the centuries-long division between Israel and Judah.

Broken Vessels: Kings, Part I

Welcome! Today we continue our series called Broken Vessels, in which we have been learning by example how God uses people, fallible, broken people, to fulfill His good purposes. I want to start with a picture – the picture above. What is wrong with this picture? Take your time looking at it. We will come back to it.

Now, I want to talk about an incident late in Solomon’s life that sets the stage for the next 400 years or so. Fred has taught on Solomon the last few weeks, and we saw how Solomon, when he became old, allowed some of his many wives to turn his heart away from the Lord and towards the false gods that his wives followed, including Ashtoreth, Molech, and Chemosh. He actually built altars on high places and sacrificed offerings to these false gods. This brings us to I Kings 11:9

Broken Vessels: Solomon, Part II

David pretends to capture the city of Rabbah that has already been captured:

Now Joab fought against Rabbah of the sons of Ammon and captured the royal city. Joab sent messengers to David and said, “I have fought against Rabbah, I have even captured the city of waters. “Now therefore, gather the rest of the people together and camp against the city and capture it, or I will capture the city myself and it will be named after me.” So David gathered all the people and went to Rabbah, fought against it and captured it. Then he took the crown of their king from his head; and its weight was a talent of gold, and in it was a precious stone; and it was placed on David’s head. And he brought out the spoil of the city in great amounts. He also brought out the people who were in it, and set them under saws, sharp iron instruments, and iron axes, and made them pass through the brick kiln. And thus he did to all the cities of the sons of Ammon. Then David and all the people returned to Jerusalem.--II Samuel 12:26-31

Broken Vessels: Solomon, Part I

Solomon’s mother, Bathsheba

 
Bathsheba did not get her name from her habit of taking baths.  Her name Bathsheba means “the daughter of an oath”.  Her father’s name was Eliam meaning “people of God”.  Her grandfather’s name was Ahithophel the Gilonite. It is believed that this is the same Ahithophel the Gilonite from the city of Giloh mentioned in II Samuel 15:12. Giloh was one of the cities allotted to the tribe of Judah by Joshua in Joshua 15:51.  For this reason, I believe that she was from the tribe of Judah.

We have no record of how she met and married Uriah the Hittite.  We don’t know that she even knew of David’s scheme to have her husband murdered by the Ammonites.  Furthermore, we have no evidence that would suggest that the Lord would not have worked things out righteously to have David eventually marry this Bathsheba or have some other woman bear David a son that would have resulted in the line of David that would eventually lead to the birth of Jesus Christ so that he could be called son of David. We do know that Jacob (who was later named Israel) prophesied when he blessed Judah before he died saying, “the scepter shall not depart from Judah nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet until Shiloh comes.”

Broken Vessels: David, Part III

Welcome! Today we will do the third part of our series on David, a part of our larger series called Broken Vessels, a series where we have looked at how God has used people as part of His larger plan even though they repeatedly sin and fail, and how God has even used these failings into His larger plan.

Last week I left you with a cliffhanger! We were reading in I Samuel 30 how David and his men had just come back to their town, Ziklag, a town deep in Philistine territory, only to find that the town was a smoldering ruin and all the women and children and the few men that had been there were gone! Upon seeing this calamity, the passage says that “David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep. David’s own wives had been taken – Ahinoam and Abigail; David’s first wife, Michal, if you recall, was now another man’s wife, this all having been arranged by Saul, who was fixed on killing David because of jealousy and his fear of losing the throne to him. 

Broken Vessels: David, Part II

Good morning! Today we are continuing our 3-week mini-series on David, a part of the larger series entitled Broken Vessels, an exploration of the lives of key people in the Old Testament. I mentioned last week that there was no way we could have time to cover everything about David in only 3 weeks, and so this week and next we will do some skipping around.

Last week we went up to the point where David, although distraught and exhausted fleeing from Saul, continues to praise the Lord and follows the Lord’s leading and saves the town of Keilah from the Philistines. There was a powerful lesson for us here – that we too, regardless of our circumstances, should continue giving God worship and praise and also that we too, regardless of our circumstances, should continually seek the Lord and strive to do His will, particularly in terms of helping others. For us this means to keep on being salt and light to people, praying for them, giving them the good news of Jesus Christ, and helping them to grow as new believers. David is a model for us in these things.

Broken Vessels: David, Part I

Welcome! Today we begin a new miniseries within the general series called Broken Vessels, a series that focuses on personalities of the Old Testament, looking at their strengths and weaknesses, their victories and their failures, their faith and their lack of faith in God. Our focus for the next three weeks is David. Now, there is more than enough material in the Bible on David to last 20 weeks, so we will just look at certain highlights of David’s life and try to get the “big picture” of this complex man.

Previously, we focused on the life of Saul, a man who repeatedly wanted to do things his own way instead of God’s way, a man filled with a mix of pride, insecurity, and fear that is common today and in every age. Saul’s life ended tragically with him taking his own life on the battlefield, at a battle in which not only Saul fell, but his sons and his nation as well.

Broken Vessels: Saul, Part II

Today we finish a two-part series on the life of King Saul. Actually, last week in a way we finished the life of King Saul, because we saw Saul continue to disobey the Lord to the point that the prophet Samuel, speaking for the Lord, declared that Saul was no longer king, that another would become king in his place. Now we know that this is David. From this point on, the stories of Saul and David intertwine. As we go forward, I will mention David where it is essential to understanding the story of Saul, but I will save an analysis of David’s life for the coming weeks when we focus specifically on David.

Last week I started with an unflattering quote from the New Testament about Saul; this week, I thought I would start with a passage from Deuteronomy that instructs what kings should do.

Broken Vessels: Saul, Part I

Welcome! We are in the middle of a series called “Broken Vessels,” looking at key people in the Old Testament history and examining their faith and their experiences with God, warts and all. We have seen that each person has had their strengths and weaknesses, their victories and failures, and we have also learned a lot about God; His unchanging nature, His holiness, His wisdom, His goodness, His justice, and His mercy. Some of these attributes were always plainly seen from the very beginning; others, such as His mercy, we only saw glimpses of; but all attributes of God are only seen in their complete fullness in Christ. Given that this is true, it is good to be reminded why we are spending so much time in the Old Testament; it is because, as it says in I Timothy 3:16, “All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness.” And we have focused on people of the Old Testament in part because Hebrews 11 gives examples of people with regards what it means to live by faith, and of course this is something we want to do. And so this week, we begin a two-part “mini”-series on Saul.

Broken Vessels: Ruth and Samson

After a couple of weeks off, we come back to the series of Broken Vessels. This series is a study of the lives of men and women in the Old Testament. The purpose of this story is to see how God works, how God uses us, in spite of our weaknesses, our brokenness.

Today, we are going to discuss a well known man and a well known woman: Samson and Ruth. These stories are full of examples that help us understand God and the meaning of His Word in the New Testament. I worked really hard to shorten this message, and I think I’m going to keep it to less than 90 minutes.

The story of Samson starts with the familiar opening from Judges:

Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, so the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years. Judges 13:1

Broken Vessels: Gideon

We have a lot of ground to cover, so we will get right into the story of Gideon, in Judges chapter 6.

Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count the men and their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it. Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help. – Judges 6:1-6

Broken Vessels: Ehud and Deborah

Today we will look at two characters from the book of Judges. In Judges we see a repeated pattern described in Chapter 2:

Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. Unlike their fathers, they quickly turned from the way in which their fathers had walked, the way of obedience to the Lord's commands. – Judges 2:16-17

Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for them, He was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the Lord had compassion on them as they groaned under those who oppressed and afflicted them. But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their fathers, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways. – Judges 2:18-19

Broken Vessels: Moses Part II

Last week we looked at some events in the early life of Moses. We talked about how Moses, when grown up, killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew, and how Moses, after his secret was found out, fled from Pharaoh into the desert and started a new life as a simple herdsman. After 40 years of living in the desert, God appeared to him in a burning bush that did not burn up, and charged Moses with going back to Egypt and being the vessel God was to use to rescue the Hebrews from Egypt. Moses was reluctant, to say the least, and ultimately, after God explained how He would be with Him through everything, said, “Oh, Lord, please send someone else to do it!” I talked about how we can be like this as well – even though in the gospels we are told that God will be with us even until the end of the age, we are hesitant to do many things that take us out of our comfort zone. Sharing the gospel with friends and neighbors and even strangers is something over which we tell God, “Oh, Lord, please send someone else to do it!”

Broken Vessels: Moses, Part I

Today we are going to look at the first part of the life of Moses. The story really begins before Moses is born, and so we are going to look substantially also at the lives of Moses’ parents. In Exodus Chapter 1, we learn that the descendants of Joseph and his brothers became exceedingly numerous as generation after generation came and went. Eventually a new Pharaoh became concerned about how many they had become and feared that they could side with their enemies, overthrow him, or cause other terrible problems for Egypt. So he made them become slaves and forced them to do difficult, dangerous, and oppressive work, hoping that this work would kill off many of them. But what happened is that the Israelites continued to multiply.

Pharaoh then asked the Hebrew midwives to kill the babies after they were born if they were boys. They did not want to do this, and made up a lie that the Hebrew mothers gave birth before they could arrive. Then Pharaoh told his people to throw every Hebrew boy who was born into the Nile.

Broken Vessels: Joseph

The story of Joseph’s life has to be one of the most well known of the Old Testament. It is a great story that has everything in it. There is intrigue and betrayal, rescue and restoration, redemption and reunion. Not to mention, a happy ending. While God does not speak audibly to Joseph in the same way he did to Jacob, it is clear that God is orchestrating Joseph’s circumstances and blessing him even in and through the difficulties. Acts 7:9 puts it succinctly, “But God was with him.”

There is also a lot of story here. No fewer than 12 chapters of Genesis deal with the account of Joseph’s life. If I read the entire story, it would take longer than we normally spend on a message. So, I’m going to pick and choose a little bit, but I won’t take away too much because it is so important to see Joseph’s full life.

In fact, when both Jacob and Joseph are mentioned in Hebrews 11, it isn’t their faith during their lives, but their faith at the ends of their lives that get mentioned.

By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff. 

 
By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions about his bones.--Hebrews 11:21-22

Broken Vessels: Jacob

Today we are going to look at Jacob, Abraham’s grandson and the father of what became the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob is one of my favorite characters in the Bible, I think because I identify with some of his weaknesses. Now, there are far more passages on Jacob in the Bible than we have time to cover, so we will need to be selective. Let’s start, however, at the beginning:

This is the account of Abraham's son Isaac. Abraham became the father of Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan Aram and sister of Laban the Aramean. Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. – Gen. 25:19-21

Broken Vessels: Abraham

Abraham, originally called Abram, was the son of Terah. He was born in the Sumerian city of Ur (in modern-day Iraq). Terah, like his father and others before him, worshiped false gods – we know this because of Joshua 24:2, which says,

Joshua said to all the people, "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'Long ago your forefathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the River and worshiped other gods.'" – Josh. 24:2

Sumerian worship involved temples called ziggurats. In the image, you can see the Ziggurat of Ur, called Etemennigur, which, translated, means “house whose foundation creates terror.” The ziggurat was in the city center along with administrative buildings, and it was believed to be the dwelling of the moon god, Nanna, on earth. His symbol was a crescent moon. This next image shows an artifact from around the time of Abraham. You can see the crescent on the top.