Come and See: an exploration of the God of the Bible and his message

In our journey through Scripture so far, we have seen the poor track record of mankind. The people throughout history have not been able to live by God’s righteous standards. History has proven that mankind has real problems with sin. If people had to depend on themselves to become righteous, then no would be able to reconcile with God and enjoy eternal life with Him. But Yahweh had a plan from the beginning. In the garden of Eden when mankind first rebelled, He had given the first pieces of information about His rescue plan. And over the course of history, He gave more information through His prophets. Then finally, He intervened in history by sending the promised Saviour to earth. We'll learn who he is. To follow the session, access the notes at https://comeandsee.online/s/Lesson-15-Gods-Rescue-Plan-Part-1.pdf

Despite Yahweh’s warnings and punishments according to the Mosaic Covenant, the people of Israel and Judah failed to be faithful and loyal to the God who saved them and loved them. In the end, God used the nation of Assyria to exile the northern kingdom of Israel. Then about 200 years later, He directed the nation of Babylon to exile Judah. While in exile, Yahweh still encouraged His people to repent and be loyal to Him. To give them hope and to help them be clear on what He was going to do, He gave them long-range prophetic information about the future. He promised to make with them a new covenant that would cleanse all of Israel and Judah of their sin and make them faithful and loyal to Him. He would return them to their land and they would enjoy an intimate relationship with Him. In the meantime, He was going to allow Gentile kingdoms to rise to power and dominate the world for a time. He gave this information about the Gentile kingdoms to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in a dream about a statute of a man made up of different metal parts. The statue was eventually destroyed by a rock cut from a mountain, but not by human hands. Daniel, an exiled Jew serving in the Babylon government, explained the vision with Yahweh’s help. To follow the session, access the notes at https://comeandsee.online/s/Lesson-14-How-Gods-People-Failed-Part-2.pdf

Yahweh had chosen to work out His plan to save fallen mankind by choosing Abraham and the nation that descended from Him—Israel. He rescued Israel out of Egypt, set them up as a nation, gave them His good law, entered into a contract with them and brought them to the land He had promised to give them. He set up Israel for success. But did the people succeed? Alas, no. Israel did not obey Yahweh completely and the people grew contented with their wealth and ended up abandoning God. Following the terms of the covenant, Yahweh disciplined the people with enemy invasion. When the people cried out for help, He raised up a judge to rescue them. This began a downward spiral for the people did not completely repent and be faithful to God. After a long series of judges that God raised to help them, instead of asking God for help with their rebellious hearts, the people came up with their own solution—they asked for a human king. Yahweh granted their request but structured the kingdom His way. But most of the kings were not loyal to Yahweh and even when He split the kingdom in two—Israel in the north and Judah in the south—the situation did not improve. Eventually, Yahweh enacted the fifth level of discipline in the Mosaic Covenant. He used the Assyrians to exile rebellious Israel and two hundred years later, He used the Babylonians to exile rebellious Judah. God’s people failed in their mission. But God was also showing how fallen mankind could not, on their own, remain loyal to Him. To follow the session, access the notes https://comeandsee.online/s/Lesson-13-How-Gods-People-Failed-Part-1.pdf

We see more of Yahweh’s character through His interactions with the nations of the world. As the Creator-God of all people, He continues to hold all nations accountable to Him. Four hundred years earlier, when He was signing the Abrahamic Covenant, He told Abraham that He was giving the evil and aggressive Amorites 400 years of grace to repent of their wicked ways. But now, 400 years later, as Yahweh led the descendants of Abraham back towards the land that He had given them, He was going to use the nation of Israel, Abraham’s descendants, as His instrument of punishment on the fully corrupted peoples of the land. As a group, these peoples were known as the Canaanites. God was demonstrating, as He had at the Global Flood and with the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, how gracious He was but also how as the all-righteous God, He would come to judge evil when it went beyond the limits of His grace. He was also using the Canaanite wars as a picture of Final Judgment, where in the future, He would remove all evil from His creation permanently and restore it to the all-good state that He had first created. To follow the session, access the notes at https://comeandsee.online/s/Lesson-12-God-Taught-About-Himself-Part-2.pdf

Now that Yahweh had given Israel His law, how would anyone know if Israel kept their side of the contract by being obedient to God? Or how would anyone know if God kept His side of the contract to bless them for obedience and punish them for disobedience? In this lesson, we will see that Yahweh put in place “lawyers” or “prosecuting attorneys” for His contract. These “lawyers” were the prophets. The prophets had three roles: they were Yahweh’s lawyers, historians and Scripture writers. God gave the people two tests to properly identify and authenticate His appointed prophets. And false prophets were to be put to death. Did Israel keep the law? Israel almost immediately failed. The people showed that they were rebellious at heart and also self-deceiving. And Yahweh demonstrated how serious He was about His contracts by holding Israel accountable for breaking the contract. He also wanted the people to see that He is a promise keeper and He could be trusted. To follow the session, access the notes at https://comeandsee.online/s/Lesson-11-God-Taught-About-Himself-Part-1.pdf

Yahweh gave Israel His law at Mount Sinai. The laws were His expectations of how they would live as a righteous nation. If we study the 613 laws we will better understand His character and righteousness. In particular, we will learn how God defines justice. To God, justice is about restitution, that is, to fix a situation so that whatever is damaged or stolen is restored. Through the law, we learn just how serious mankind’s rebellion against Yahweh was. We see the damage to Yahweh’s relationship with mankind and the damage to God’s creation. The seriousness of God’s sentence of eternal death for mankind’s rebellion shows us how terrible the crime was. God’s justice needs to be settled. At the same time, God’s heart is to provide a solution to this problem. And God demonstrates how His solution works through the use of a sufficient substitute who will take the penalty on behalf of guilty mankind. To follow the session, access the notes at https://comeandsee.online/s/Lesson-10-God-Revealed-His-Standards-Part-2.pdf

Now that Yahweh has rescued Israel out of Egypt, He is going to build them into a proper nation. He meets with the people at Mount Sinai and gives them His law that will shape their nation into a counterculture. The law that Yahweh gives is compact and yet covers all areas of society: from the economy, public health, crime, families, agriculture, the worship of Yahweh and more. Now that God has rescued Israel and made them His people and given them His law, He enters into a contract with them—the Mosaic Covenant, which are His righteous expectations of how His people are to live with Him and each other. The Mosaic Contract is a conditional covenant, where God will bless the nation for national obedience and where God will discipline or curse them for disobedience. He wants Israel to show the world what life with Yahweh is like. To follow the session, access the notes at: https://comeandsee.online/s/Lesson-09-God-Revealed-His-Standards-Part-1.pdf

We continue with the account of Abraham and his family. God grew them into a nation, now called Israel. As God had prophesied to Abraham, Israel becomes trapped as slaves in another country—Egypt. But at the right timing, God intervenes to rescue Israel. He selects one of the Israelites, a man named Moses, to lead the people out. But the Pharaoh of Egypt refuses to comply. He doesn’t acknowledge that the God of his slaves is worthy of his attention. And so begins the battle of Exodus, where Yahweh, the Creator-God of the universe, shows to both Egypt and Israel just who the real God is through a series of plague judgments. And with the final plague judgment, the death of the firstborn, God demonstrates how He is able to provide a sufficient substitute to die in the place of the one under the sentence of death. This event becomes known as the Passover and God uses this event to teach Israel more about how the promised Saviour would save people in the future. To follow the session, access the notes at: https://comeandsee.online/s/Lesson-08-Gods-Plan-to-Reach-the-World-Part-2.pdf

The people of the world continue to reject God and rebel against Him. But in His love, God continues to intervene in history to give people the opportunity to know Him and believe in Him. Out of all the people of the world at that time, God chooses to work with a man named Abram. God renames him, Abraham, and tells him that He will work out His plan for mankind through him and his family. God then makes a covenant with Abraham, promising him land as a permanent possession, many descendants who will become a nation, and that through him, God will provide a worldwide blessing for all the peoples of the world. Part of that worldwide blessing would be the fulfilment of God’s promise to send the “seed of the woman” to destroy Satan and take care of mankind’s sin problem. We see that Abraham trusts God, obeys Him and follows His instructions. To follow the session, access the notes at: https://comeandsee.online/s/Lesson-07-Gods-Plan-to-Reach-the-World-Part-1.pdf

We continue to observe what happened after God’s judgment of the global Flood. Yahweh makes a covenant with mankind promising He would never again destroy the earth with a global flood even though mankind’s heart is continuously evil. God allows His character and promise to be scrutinised by entering into a covenant with mankind. He really wants mankind to know Him and trust Him.

The post-Fall world is quite different and we observe some differences that have occurred. We also see that God reinstalls the divine institutions and adds a fourth: the divine institution of civil government with the power to exercise capital punishment on murderers. God did this to limit evil in a fallen world. Then God tells the people to go out and fill the earth once more.

But the descendants of Noah choose to be rebellious by not obeying God’s instructions to fill the earth. In their rebellion, they build a waterproof tower to reach the heavens. Yahweh judges their rebellion by scattering them through the creation of new languages. In this way, the people of the earth spread out over the re-shaped planet.

To follow the session, access the notes at: https://comeandsee.online/s/Lesson-06-God-Judged-the-Evil-World-Part-2.pdf