The Story: Watch Jewish History Flash Before Your Eyes

The story of God and His people

The Bible is a different kind of book. Other holy books are sets of rules on life and approaching the gods. They are filled with rules that must be obeyed or a vision of how to change yourself and have some kind of inner peace. The bible is different. It is a book about a relationship between a loving God and a fickle people. There are no heroes in the book other than God. As you read the Bible, you can see yourself in the ordinary people of the Bible who struggled, but by the grace of God did extraordinary things through God’s power. Follow the sweep and see how God works in ordinary lives like yours and mine.

• God builds a nation. After the world goes crazy, God begins to focus on one people and one nation. Over a 300 year period, God deals with the world through four men named Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. These are the patriarchs and God would build a nation through them. There are stories of hard times that will show you what ordinary people can do if they trust God.
        



• The nation sputters hot and cold. After such a great start, the nation struggles. 400 years in Egypt with the wealth of Egypt at their fingertips changed the nation and they forgot God. The people saw great miracles in the desert and had great deliveries through the years of the judges. Yet, the people often forgot God when times were good.




• An all too short time of glory. A Godly king led a people to worship their Lord. His name was David. He took over for Saul who started well, but soon forgot the Lord who had made him king. David was a man who put God first. Yet, he is not shown as some perfect king. He is shown with all his sins. Because of His faith, the nation prospered. Here is the nation that God wanted to have and still wants for His people.



• When the people turned their back on God. After Solomon, the nation split in two. They became two weak nations instead of the strong nation of Israel that God had created through David. God was often forgotten and the nation fell from its glory. First the Northern kingdom disappeared in 722 BC and then the Southern Kingdom was taken captivity in 586. God’s people paid a price for forgetting Him.



• A shadow of past glory. Yet, God had not forgotten them. After 70 years, He worked a miracle and brought a remnant back to Palestine. It was less than 100,000 people out of the millions that had once lived in Palestine. Here is the story of a God who won’t give up on His people. God doesn’t give up and continues to fight the tide of sin in His people and evil in the world.

One thing is constant throughout this story. It is the story of God’s love for His people. It is our story in that we can see the echo of the Jewish story in the story of the church. During the times when people worshipped the Lord, there was often glory and prosperity. During the times of forgetting God, the nation fell and times were tough. That is what makes every story in the Bible important. It is not past history. It is present reality.