When God delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt, they met God at Mt. Sinai and there God not only gave them the 10 Commandments and His other laws for how to live, but He offered them a covenant, an agreement with Him that if they would obey and follow His commands, they would be His people, His treasured possession who He would bless.
He also told them that if they did not follow His laws and worship Him only that God would discipline them, life would not go well for them, and if they persisted in their sin, they would be removed from the land.
He set forth the terms of His covenant clearly and the people enthusiastically agreed to it. An additional part of this lesson goes into a timeline of when the people agreed to the covenant with God and the importance of that timing as a foundation for the legitimacy of the challenges of the prophets.
But their obedience was short-lived, and their remaining history was one of alternating between times of obedience and blessing and times of oppression and judgment.
To call them back to Himself and the covenant they promised to keep, God sent His prophets, who again and again warned them of the consequences of disobedience, and again and again, they disobeyed.
This lesson is a story of how God finally deals with Israel, and they are conquered by Assyria, never to a nation again. Yet God doesn’t give up on them and this lesson talks about that also.
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Why does God punish people?
• Where does He tell us what He wants?
• Does He give people second chances after they sin?
• What can we learn from how He disciplined people in
the Old Testament?
• I’ve got answers and more in our lesson entitled….
The Fall of Israel
and how falling is never final with our God
Yvon Prehn, teacher
Where we are
• Israel as a nation agreed to follow God, to be His people, His representatives to the world around them when they came out of Egypt.
• But they didn’t follow through on their promises. From the Golden Calf on they couldn’t seem to quit worshipping idols.
• After a period of being united through the kingships of David and then Solomon, God breaks the nation into two parts as a judgment for Solomons, and the people following him into idol worship.
• One would assume that would be a significant warning, but they continued to sin.
• God had every right to wipe them off the earth and start over, but He didn’t.
He sent prophets to warn, challenge, and encourage them to return to God
• Many lesser ones, and then the ones we’ve read about Elijah, Elisha, Amos, and Hosea were sent primarily to Israel, the Northern Kingdom.
• Isaiah and Micah start preaching also—in another lesson we’ll talk about them.
• And other prophets came after them.
• But God’s patience is over and so is Israel as a nation.
• Before we get into the details of their fall, we’ll look at WHEN & WHERE this happened.
• Because our God is one of concrete HISTORY and verifiable facts, not myths.
WHEN events happened in relationship to the Pentateuch and prophecies about them
• See the infographic, the handout on this.
• It is incredibly important that you understand WHEN books in the Bible were written and WHO wrote them for assurance of the truth in them.
• “Little” comments here and there such as, “Pentateuch canonized in the 500s BC” “disciples of Isaiah may have written this….” and similar seemingly small comments by otherwise credible Bible-teaching sources all chip away at the divine authorship of Scripture and the character of God.
• Doesn’t mean throwing out all commentaries that have one or two little errors but check out anything that sheds doubt on the extraordinary power of God as evidenced when we read the Bible as it was truly written.
• This infographic shows that confirming the date of the writing of the Pentateuch shortly following the Exodus in 1446 BC, the first five books of the Bible containing the laws and most importantly the agreement of the people to the covenant that was part of them that they made with God to follow them is critical because Pentateuch and their agreement with it was the foundation, and for the validity of God’s demands on Israel and for the preaching of the prophets to remind them of their disobedience and the consequences of it. To date it later destroys the foundational reason for God’s actions.
To date the Pentateuch later
• Or to promote its creation as a sloppy assembly of related documents put together after the return from the Babylonian exile, in 538 BC destroys the both the legitimacy of God’s actions in judgment and later restoration as well as the entire reason for the messages of the prophets that preached long before the exile and founded their claims on it.
• Instead of confirming the legitimacy of God’s demands, which the people agreed to, the primacy of the law that was the foundation for their society and religion, it turns God into a petty tyrant, whose prophets rant for no reason, and judgments that come without warning or purpose.
• That is so sad and so wrong.
• Our God has chosen to work in time on planet earth and proper dating of Biblical documents is foundation to understanding many of His actions, demands, messages, judgments, and restoring mercy.
• Moving on—not only does God act in tangible time, but in real places—no mythical lands are portrayed in the Bible.
Where it happened, map of ancient and modern Israel
Map of surrounding nations
Map of locations of Ancient Assyria and Babylon
One more—for CA residents,
Israel in comparison
This lesson is about how Israel ceased as a nation because of their sin.
• But Judah continued as a nation for about 150 years.
• They SAW what was happening.
• It was as if in CA, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara counties were destroyed and Ventura and LA counties were left.
• But knowing and seeing all they did, did that change them?
Why it is important to look at maps and some of the following archeological evidences
• The Christian faith claims it is: Historical & Evidential
• True history based on true evidence
• The Bible is full of verifiable historical content:
• “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.
Luke 2:1”
• “In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. Kings 18:13”
• “Verifiable historical content” means we should expect these events to correspond to historical fact.
And they do
• Regarding Caesar—
• Secular history confirms when he existed and what he did when.
• And the Biblical accounts agree with it.
• And in the gospel of Luke especially, many details of Roman history confirm not only the history surrounding him, but many other related details confirm that related events of Jesus’s life happened in a historically verifiable time and place.
Not as many familiar with Sennacherib’s Prism
• On Sennacherib’s Prism, he says this of Hezekiah:
“As for the king of Judah, Hezekiah, who had not submitted to my authority, I besieged and captured forty-six of his fortified cities, along with many smaller towns, taken in battle with my battering rams . . . As for Hezekiah, I shut him up like a caged bird in his royal city of Jerusalem.”
• Basically, a confirmation of the Biblical account.
More on the historical basis for the Assyrian empire
• Buried and doubted for thousands of years…
• “In 1845 the young British diplomat Austen Henry Layard explored the ruins. Layard did not use modern archaeological methods; his stated goal was “to obtain the largest possible number of well-preserved objects of art at the least possible outlay of time and money. . . . .
• In the Kuyunjik mound, Layard rediscovered in 1849 the lost palace of Sennacherib with its 71 rooms and colossal bas-reliefs. He also unearthed the palace and famous library of Ashurbanipal with 22,000 cuneiform clay tablets.”
• Included the Epic of Gilgamesh
• Code of Hammurabi
• Thousands more artifacts of battles, treaties that verify Old Testament timelines and history.
Artist rendering and a photograph of the digs
One of the winged bull gates
• Photograph of the excavation
Sennacharib’s Palace
1480 ft. long, 720 wide
A football field is 360 feet long and 160 feet wide
So, his palace would have been the length of almost 4 football fields and as wide as 4.5 football fields
This is not mythology; they have been excavated.
Lachish room
• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BM;_RM7_-_ANE,_Nineveh_Palace_Reliefs_Southwest_Palace_of_Sennacherib_(701-681_B.C)_~_Full_Elevation_%2B_Viewing_South.4.JPG#file
Library of Ashurbanipal, display at the British Museum
Fragment containing Epic of Gilgamesh Tablet containing part of the Epic of Gilgamesh (Tablet 11 depicting the Deluge), now part of the holdings of the British Museum
Tablets and stele—various shapes and sizes—all detailed
Let’s now look at what the Bible says happened when Israel was conquered by this incredibly powerful enemy
• 2 Kings 17, MSG 1-2 In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea son of Elah became king of Israel. He ruled in Samaria for nine years. As far as God was concerned, he lived a bad life, but not nearly as bad as the kings who had preceded him.
• 3-5 Then Shalmaneser king of Assyria attacked. Hoshea was already a puppet of the Assyrian king and regularly sent him tribute, but Shalmaneser discovered that Hoshea had been operating traitorously behind his back—having worked out a deal with King So of Egypt. And, adding insult to injury, Hoshea was way behind on his annual payments of tribute to Assyria. So the king of Assyria arrested him and threw him in prison, then proceeded to invade the entire country. He attacked Samaria and threw up a siege against it. The siege lasted three years.
• 6 In the ninth year of Hoshea’s reign the king of Assyria captured Samaria and took the people into exile in Assyria. He relocated them in Halah, in Gozan along the Habor River, and in the towns of the Medes.
Why this happened
• 7-12 The exile came about because of sin: The children of Israel sinned against God, their God, who had delivered them from Egypt and the brutal oppression of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They took up with other gods, fell in with the ways of life of the pagan nations God had chased off, and went along with whatever their kings did. They did all kinds of things on the sly, things offensive to their God, then openly and shamelessly built local sex-and-religion shrines at every available site. They set up their sex-and-religion symbols at practically every crossroads. Everywhere you looked there was smoke from their pagan offerings to the deities—the identical offerings that had gotten the pagan nations off into exile. They had accumulated a long list of evil actions and God was fed up, fed up with their persistent worship of gods carved out of deadwood or shaped out of clay, even though God had plainly said, “Don’t do this—ever!”
• 13 God had taken a stand against Israel and Judah, speaking clearly through countless holy prophets and seers time and time again, “Turn away from your evil way of life. Do what I tell you and have been telling you in The Revelation I gave your ancestors and of which I’ve kept reminding you ever since through my servants the prophets.”
The Result
• 2 Kings 7: 14 But they would not listen and were as stiff-necked as their ancestors, who did not trust in the Lord their God. 15 They rejected his decrees and the covenant he had made with their ancestors and the statutes he had warned them to keep. They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless.
• We become like what we love.
• “Guard your heart.”
Sins detailed
• 2 Kings 17:16 They forsook all the commands of the Lord their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves, and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the starry hosts, and they worshiped Baal. 17 They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practiced divination and sought omens and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, arousing his anger.
• Modern parallels to “sacrificing sons and daughters.”
• All we do and when we ignore those younger and needing help.
• We must not become callous to the needs of children either of those near us or in our world.
• Example of Compassion donors.
What happened after Israel was deported
• 2 Kings 17:24 The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Kuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They took over Samaria and lived in its towns.
• But God’s demands didn’t change, nor his reaction
• 25 When they first lived there, they did not worship the Lord; so he sent lions among them and they killed some of the people. 26 It was reported to the king of Assyria: “The people you deported and resettled in the towns of Samaria do not know what the god of that country requires. He has sent lions among them, which are killing them off, because the people do not know what he requires.”
• 27 Then the king of Assyria gave this order: “Have one of the priests you took captive from Samaria go back to live there and teach the people what the god of the land requires.” 28 So one of the priests who had been exiled from Samaria came to live in Bethel and taught them how to worship the Lord.
Their response
• 2 Kings 17:29 Nevertheless, each national group made its own gods in the several towns where they settled, and set them up in the shrines the people of Samaria had made at the high places.30. . . . .32 They worshiped the Lord, but they also appointed all sorts of their own people to officiate for them as priests in the shrines at the high places. 33 They worshiped the Lord, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought.. . . . . 40 They would not listen, however, but persisted in their former practices. 41 Even while these people were worshiping the Lord, they were serving their idols. To this day their children and grandchildren continue to do as their ancestors did.
• People are innately worshippers, yet there is always the challenge to worship God only.
• What are some things we worship in addition to God? It most likely isn’t an idol, but do we let hobbies, fun things, money, or career take the place of time that out to be given to God in our lives?
This situation of worshipping God and pagan deities is the origin of the hostility of Jews and Samaritans
• Jewish people after their own exile and return chose disdain and hatred in response to their Samaritan neighbors.
• Judah never again followed idols and they looked down on those who did in any way.
• Until one day. . . .
• A new prophet, Jesus showed them a totally different way to treat the Samaritans, when he used the example of a Samaritan to illustrate what it meant to live out the greatest commandment (to love God and neighbors),
Luke 10:25-37
• And when He shared the good news of God’s love and salvation with a most unlikely Samaritan woman and used her witness to bring many to faith (John 4:1-42).
Observations so far…
• God’s Word is based on true history and can be trusted.
• God never gives up on people.
• Israel sinned; Samaritans sinned.
• But Jesus stopped by and changed everything.
• And that wasn’t all—
God didn’t lose track of anyone
• Because those exiles sent to the farthest reaches of the Assyrian empire continued to follow God through the centuries of exile.
• And their descendants returned to Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost.
• (See the lesson on the preparation of Christmas for a complete lesson on this).
• They heard Peter preach how the long-awaited Messiah had come in the person of Jesus, died and rose for their salvation.
• And they went back to the communities God put them in long ago to share what they had learned.
Our application: no matter what our history
• Jesus can use us to bring his message of salvation to our world—a fall, corporately or personally, nationally or individually is never final with our God!
• What a joy that is to us!
• The Samaritan woman found living water and she was never thirsty again.
• People who had been exiles for hundreds of years, saw what they had read prophecies of—the fulfilment of hopes and dreams in the Messiah.
• Jesus waits to forgive and give new hope to each of us—take some time with Him and renew your life and calling today.
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