Palm Springs Drive Church of Christ

Series: N/A

Service: Lord’s Supper Service

Type: Lord's Supper Talk

Speaker: Dwayne Gandy

Recently my Lord’s Supper talks have walked us through the final hours of Jesus’ life — from the emotional turmoil He experienced leading up to His arrest, through Judas’ betrayal, Peter’s denial and the look of compassion Jesus gave him in the courtyard, through the illegal trials before the Sanhedrin and Pilate, and most recently, through the three hours of darkness on the cross and what happened when the light came back. This morning we pick up right there — at the moment Jesus declared, “It is finished.”

Put yourself at the foot of the cross. The three hours of darkness have been lifted and the sun has started working again. John 19:28–30 tells us: “After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, ‘I thirst!’ Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth. So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished!’ And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.”

After six hours on the cross, beaten and destroyed physically, Jesus had the presence of mind to know that before He could declare His work finished, there was one prophecy left to fulfill. That prophecy is found in Psalm 69:21, where David wrote, “They also gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” David was going through an extremely difficult period in his life — we do not know whether it was during his troubled youth, while fleeing from Saul, or during Absalom’s rebellion, but things were so bad he described himself as stuck in the mud with no way out. His enemies had given him something bitter and inedible instead of food, and vinegar instead of water for his thirst. What David described figuratively about his own suffering was fulfilled literally in Jesus.

There are two parts to that prophecy, and they were fulfilled at two different moments during the crucifixion — with two very different drinks.

The first drink is described in Matthew 27:33–34. When they came to Golgotha, “they gave Him sour wine mingled with gall to drink. But when He had tasted it, He would not drink.” The word Matthew uses for wine refers to an intoxicating beverage. The gall mixed into it was most likely derived from a bitter plant — either the poppy, from which we get morphine and codeine, or hemlock, the poison that killed Socrates. Either way, it was designed to numb the senses and dull the pain before the nails were driven in. Tradition, not Scripture, suggests that the women of Jerusalem prepared this mixture as one last act of mercy for those being crucified, in the spirit of Proverbs 31:6: “Give strong drink to the one who is perishing.” This drink was offered to everyone being crucified. The two criminals on either side of Jesus almost certainly accepted it. Who wouldn’t?

But Jesus refused it. He tasted it and would not drink. Jesus did not come to the cross looking for mercy. He came to the cross to give mercy. He was not looking for a shortcut or the easy way out. He was not looking for something that would keep Him from experiencing the full weight of the Father’s wrath — the mental and physical anguish He would endure for the next six hours. He bore it fully conscious, fully present, with nothing dulling what He experienced on our behalf. That refusal is part of what makes “It is finished” so powerful. He did not finish a watered-down version of the mission. He finished all of it, clear-minded, with nothing between Him and the full weight of what He was bearing.

But the second part of the prophecy had not yet been fulfilled: “And for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” The word John uses for the sour wine in chapter 19 is a completely different word from what Matthew uses. It does not refer to an intoxicating beverage. It refers to something more like a vinegary substance — and it is fascinating. This was something every Roman soldier carried with them as standard provisions. They mixed it with water, usually at a ratio of four parts water to one part sour wine, and sometimes added salt and honey. The most important thing it did was kill bacteria in water, which was critical for soldiers fighting all across the known world who could not always trust the water supply. The second thing it did was hydrate in a unique and powerful way — it contained electrolytes, acid, sugar, and salt. Some scholars have called it the ancient world’s Gatorade, even suggesting that it may have been a source of Roman military dominance.

There is a high probability that the vessel of sour wine described in John 19:29 belonged to the Roman soldiers on duty at the crucifixion. It was sitting right there because the soldiers brought it for themselves. When Jesus said “I thirst,” perhaps one of the soldiers took a sponge, soaked it in his own drink, put it on a reed, and lifted it to Jesus’ mouth. The Jews tried to stop him — they wanted to see if Elijah would come to save Jesus. But the soldiers gave it to Him anyway.

And that sip — that bit of hydration from a Roman soldier’s canteen — may have been exactly what gave Jesus the moisture and the electrolytes to cry out with a loud voice. Think about that. A man who had been on a cross for six hours, beaten beyond recognition, should barely have been able to whisper. And yet He shouted. He declared it for all to hear: “It is finished!” And then: “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” After which He breathed His last.

Think about the emotion Jesus must have experienced being able to utter those words. We have been talking for months about the human emotions Jesus felt on His way to the cross and on the cross. Do you like to finish things? Do you like when a task is over and you have done it and it is complete? Multiply that by a million and you begin to approach what Jesus was feeling, because now He was able to say: My mission on earth is done, and I have completed it perfectly.

That phrase — “It is finished” — is one word in the Greek: tetelestai. There is historical evidence that when a debt was paid in full, this word was written on the receipt. Paid in full. Nothing owed. Nothing remaining. When Jesus declared tetelestai from the cross, He was saying: I have completely turned God’s wrath away from you. I have paid for your sins in full. There is nothing left to add. He is the only one who could have paid that debt, and praise God that He did.

When we come to the Lord’s table, we do not come to add anything to what Jesus did. We come to acknowledge that He paid the price entirely and in full for our sins. And because of that, we have incredible hope and something extraordinary to look forward to. Because Jesus said “It is finished,” we can have our own “it is finished” moment.

The apostle Paul had that moment. In 2 Timothy 4:6–8 he wrote: “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.” The word Paul uses for “finished” is the same root word Jesus used on the cross. Paul could say it with confidence because Jesus had already said it on his behalf.

Jesus did not come to the cross to receive mercy. He came to give it. He came to finish salvation so that we would not have anything left to do except to fight the good fight and finish our race. And then there will be a crown laid up for us. What a wonderful, amazing Savior we come to celebrate.

Series: N/A

Service: Song Service

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Joe Rimmer

Series: 2026 - Q2 - 1&2 Kings - 2 Chron

Service: Adult Class B-Classroom

Type: Bible Class

Speaker: Dwayne Gandy

Series: Moving From Fear to Faith

Service: Praise and Preaching Service

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Dwayne Gandy

Nobody wants to raise their hand and praise God for criticism and rejection. Yet the Bible makes an audacious claim: criticism, even the fear of it, is something God designed for our good. In a culture that often treats negative feedback as an attack to be deflected or a wound to be nursed, Scripture presents a strikingly different picture. Criticism, rightly understood and faithfully processed, can be one of the most powerful tools God uses to shape us, protect us, and keep us on mission.

Here is a case most of us have never considered: God designed the fear of criticism and rejection to serve us. Just as physical pain alerts us to danger in our bodies, the discomfort of criticism is meant to alert us to danger in our lives and choices. God uses the fear of being called out — the fear of our flaws being exposed — as a motivator to do what He asks of us.

The story of Cain in Genesis 4 illustrates what happens when that healthy fear is ignored. God warned Cain that sin was crouching at his door, but Cain did not heed the warning. His failure to develop a proper fear of rejection and its consequences led him to murder his brother — and ultimately to the worst kind of rejection: exile from his family and separation from God’s presence. The lesson is sobering. A healthy fear of rejection, embraced early, can prevent catastrophic consequences later.

Jesus Himself employed this principle in Matthew 18, where the process of church discipline is outlined. Each escalating step — a private conversation, then two witnesses, then the full church — is designed to use the fear of separation and isolation as a restorative, even preventative, tool. The goal is never punishment for its own sake, but restoration. And honest, hardworking people who dread criticism often do their best work precisely because they don’t want to disappoint. That instinct is a gift.

No figure in the Bible received more criticism from more directions than David. Three distinct encounters in his life reveal not just how he handled criticism, but why his approach worked — and what made each situation unique.

1. Eliab’s Jealous Attack (1 Samuel 17:28) — When young David arrived at the battlefield with supplies for his brothers, he overheard Goliath’s taunts and began asking questions about the reward for whoever defeated him. His oldest brother Eliab responded with harsh, personal criticism: accusing David of pride, of abandoning his few sheep, of just wanting to see the excitement of war. The criticism was unjust, emotionally charged, and rooted not in David’s actual failure but in Eliab’s own anger and jealousy — a jealousy made more bitter by the fact that Samuel had passed over Eliab and anointed David as king.

David’s response is a masterclass in emotional wisdom. He asked two simple questions — “What have I done now? Is there not a cause?” — and then turned and walked away to speak with someone else. He did not defend his character, accuse Eliab of jealousy, draw others into the argument, or — most importantly — allow the criticism to stop him from pursuing what God had prepared him for. It matters who is giving the criticism. Eliab was David’s peer at best, and a man God had already passed over. David treated him accordingly.

2. Saul’s Legitimate Concern (1 Samuel 17:33) — When David volunteered to fight Goliath, King Saul’s objection was reasonable: David was young and inexperienced; Goliath had been a warrior his entire life. This was not jealousy or spite — it was an accurate observation from the reigning king, a recognized authority. David’s response shifted accordingly. Rather than dismissing the concern, he provided evidence instead of assertions, recounting how God had helped him kill a lion and a bear while protecting his father’s sheep. Then, critically, he redirected the conversation toward God: “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”

David also refused to become a people-pleaser. When Saul offered him his oversized armor, David tried it, recognized it didn’t fit, and took it off. He was not going to let criticism — even from an authority — cause him to fight in a way that wasn’t his own. How you handle criticism from a jealous peer and how you handle criticism from a legitimate authority are both valid responses, but they are not interchangeable. Wisdom knows the difference.

3. Michal’s Sarcastic Contempt (2 Samuel 6:20) — After successfully returning the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, David celebrated with uninhibited worship — leaping and dancing before the Lord in a simple linen garment rather than his kingly robes. When he returned home, his wife Michal met him with dripping sarcasm: “How glorious was the king of Israel today, uncovering himself before the eyes of the servants’ maids!” The text reveals that she had watched from a window and despised him in her heart.

David’s response here was the most direct of the three. He knew her motives, knew the criticism was wrong, and refused to manage her feelings or soften the truth. His reply named who he was actually trying to please: “It was before the Lord, who chose me.” He wasn’t dancing to impress anyone in the crowd; he was worshiping God. Then, in a striking declaration of future intent, he told Michal he would be even more undignified than this if that was what praising God called for. When the critic has no legitimate authority over the thing being criticized — and when their contempt is clearly personal — the right move is to name your true audience and keep going.

Beyond criticism lies the deeper wound of outright rejection. When Absalom seized the throne and David fled Jerusalem barefoot and weeping, a man named Shimei followed along the hillside, cursing him and throwing stones. David’s general, Abishai, wanted to kill Shimei on the spot. David refused. Instead, he reframed the critic as a possible instrument of God: maybe God sent him to say this. He compared the lesser pain of a stranger’s insults to the greater pain of his own son’s betrayal, and he expressed hope without demanding immediate vindication.

Most powerfully, David surrendered the entire outcome to God. “If I find favor in the eyes of the Lord, He will bring me back,” he told the priest Zadok. “But if He says, ‘I have no delight in you,’ here I am — let Him do to me as seems good to Him.” That is not passive resignation. That is the deepest possible act of faith: releasing the verdict to the only Judge whose opinion ultimately matters.

Picture David walking up the Mount of Olives — rejected, barefoot, weeping, stones raining down — still walking. Not stopping, not retaliating, not collapsing. Just walking toward whatever God had next for him.

Centuries later, another figure walked the same hill. Also rejected. Also betrayed by someone close to Him. Also abandoned by His people. Jesus wept over Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. He sweat drops of blood in Gethsemane. He was arrested there. And He kept walking — through the rejection, through the betrayal, through the cross — because He knew whose voice was final. “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.”

The same hill. The same faith. The same anchor. Held by the same God.

The throughline of David’s entire life — in the face of jealous siblings, skeptical kings, contemptuous spouses, and raging enemies — was this: his identity was anchored in God’s choice, not human approval. He knew God had chosen him. He processed each criticism without being defined by it. He discerned what each situation required and responded accordingly. He never let criticism derail his mission. And he redirected every attack back toward God.

The question is worth sitting with: Do you belong to God? If you do, His is the only approval you truly need. That doesn’t mean criticism stops hurting. It doesn’t mean you ignore every voice or stop growing. It means you have a filter. When criticism threatens to paralyze you, ask — is this from someone with legitimate authority and honest concern? Then listen carefully and provide evidence where you can. Is this from someone whose contempt is personal and whose motives are questionable? Then name your true audience and keep walking.

Criticism can sharpen us, protect us, and keep us on the right path. But if we let the fear of it rule us, it can stop us in our tracks and silence the very work God placed us here to do. That is exactly what the enemy wants. God’s desire is that we process criticism correctly, respond to it appropriately, and keep walking in the direction He has called us. Just keep going. That’s what faith looks like.

Series: Basic Bible Doctrine

Service: Sun Bible Study

Type: Bible Class

Speaker: Brian Messerli

This morning, we’re asking the number 1 question on everyone’s mind in the first century: who is Jesus?   

Matthew 21:10; Mark 4:41; Luke 7:49; Luke 9:9; John 5:12; John 8:25; John 9:35-36; John 12:34; Matthew 16:13-16

When Jesus’ ministry started, everyone was talking about Him, everyone was wondering who He was, and Jesus wanted people to wrestle with this question because it’s the most important question we can ever ask.

Question:  Why does it matter so much what we believe about the identity of Jesus?

1) It shapes everything about the way we live our lives.  CS Lewis famously said there are only 3 options about who Jesus is.  Either He was a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord.  There are no other options.  If He was a liar or a lunatic, we can disregard everything He said and carry on with our lives.  But if He’s the Lord, that means EVERYTHING He said mattered, everything He said was true, and everything He said has a direct impact on the way we live because now our goal is to honor Him.  2) It changes everything about our hope of salvation.  Many people simply view Jesus as a good man, an inspirational figure who gives us a good example and good teachings to follow, but certainly not God in the flesh and not a sacrifice for the sins of humanity, but as we’ll see later in class, He actually claimed to be God and claimed to be the sacrifice for our sins, so if He was lying or was a lunatic, we can’t hold Him up as an inspirational figure at all!  It means He’s not a good man because He lied and the religion of Islam says He’s a prophet, but if so, it would make Him a false prophet!  So now, instead of Christ’ sacrifice giving us the hope of salvation, our ability to be saved depends on us being good enough for Heaven on our own, which doesn’t offer much hope at all.  3) It affects our view of God the Father.  If Jesus really is who He says He is, we are loved far more than we could ever imagine.  We can know for certain we serve a God of justice who punishes and takes sin seriously in His holiness, but also a God of mercy who saves sinners in love and longs to forgive us.  4) It affects our view of suffering.  If Jesus is God who came to suffer in the flesh for our sins, it means we can never accuse God of not understanding what it’s like to be human and how hard it is to live in this sin-cursed world.  And we can have the hope of Heaven where there will be no more suffering ever again!  This affects our attitude in a radical way when we go through hard times.  5) It changes the way we view ourselves.  Jesus gives us the perfect blend of boldness and humility.  Because of His sacrifice, we can have the bold confidence in knowing we’re fully loved and have the power through Him to do great things, yet we still have the humility to admit we’re sinners who caused Jesus’ death.  Without Jesus, you can either have boldness OR humility, but you can’t have both.  With Jesus we can have both.

Jesus Really Existed

• It’s an indisputable fact that Jesus Christ was a real person in history.  Not even atheist scholars attempt to deny His existence anymore because even unbiased, non-Christian sources outside the Bible confirm it.  For instance, Josephus was a non-Christian Jewish historian who wrote this in 93 AD.  Pliny the Younger was a Roman official describing to the Emperor Trajan what Christians were doing, and said this.
  • Key:  Jesus is the only religious leader in history whose actual existence matters today.  Every other religious leader could have been merely fictional, made up characters, and it wouldn’t matter because we could still look to them as inspirational and follow their teachings!  But Jesus didn’t just set a good example and give us good teachings, His sacrifice changed our legal standing with God!  If He never existed and was just fictional, we could still follow His example and His teachings, but we’d end up in Hell under the wrath of God!  However, if He really came as a sacrifice for our sins, that means we’re no longer condemned by God and we have the hope of Heaven!  So it matters that Jesus existed, because the true power of Christianity isn’t just found in what Jesus taught, but what He came to do on our behalf!

Jesus and His Apostles Said He was God!

Question:  Name a verse that indicates Jesus was God and/or the Son of God.

- John 1:1, 14 - When it says He was the “Word,” that’s “Logos” in the Greek, which had a rich meaning to them.  It could refer to written or spoken words which reveal one’s thoughts, which means Jesus is the embodiment of the revelation of God’s thoughts.  But it also referred to the ordering principle of the universe.  The Greeks understood there was something holding the Universe together, some sense of order, logic, and reason operating in the background of all things in the world, and they believed it was important to align yourself with the logos in order to live a good life, they just disagreed about how to do that.  But Christianity was unique because it claimed that the rational, reasonable, ordering principle governing the Universe is actually a person, not a principle, and the way to truly align yourself with the logos of the Universe is through a relationship with Jesus Christ!

- Colossians 1:15-17 - In our first class on Who is God, we said THE #1 thing that makes Him unique in Scripture is that He’s the Creator, and here Paul is saying Jesus is the Creator too and HE is the one who governs and gives order to the Universe.  If Jesus were just a man, a prophet, or even an angel, Paul could never say something like this about Him.  Be he could because Jesus is God.

- John 8:58-59 - Remember in our very first class this quarter on Who is God, we mentioned “I AM” was God’s personal name?  Jesus actually takes the personal name of God and applies it to Himself!  No wonder the Jews tried to stone Him for it because to them this was an incredibly blasphemous claim if He was lying or being a lunatic!

- Revelation 1:8 - He’s drawing from the way God described Himself in the Old Testament as the first and the last.

- Isaiah 44:6 - The point is no one existed before Him and no one will outlast Him, He is eternal and there is no God besides Him.  He is the only true God.  Well, the amazing thing is, John shows Jesus speaking from Heaven just a few verses later…

- Revelation 1:17-18 - Now, I suppose someone could say, “Oh but when He says “I am the first and the last,” that’s not Jesus speaking, that’s God.  Well, if that’s the case, my question is, “When did God die?”  He says in v. 18 He was dead and then became alive again!  No, this is Jesus speaking, and He is using the same designation for Himself as His Father; the first and the last.  You cannot have two firsts and two lasts, there can only be one first and last, and that’s because God the Father and God the Son are both the same God.  Remember, God is triune in nature; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all one God, though they play different roles within the Godhead or Trinity.

- There are other verses where Jesus accepted worship from people, which is amazing because there are leading men and even angels in Scripture who refused worship and said, “No no, don’t worship me, I’m just a man or I’m just an angel, worship is reserved for God alone!”  Yet when people worshipped Jesus, He never stopped them.  Even in that letter Pliny wrote to the Emperor 80 years after Jesus had ascended to Heaven, he said Christians were still singing hymns of worship to Christ as a god.

- Also, there are things Jesus did that only God could do.  Like how only God is the Creator, yet the New Testament says Jesus is the Creator.   Or when Peter fell down before Him and said, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”  That’s exactly what Isaiah said when He saw the glory of God on the throne in Isaiah 6!  And actually, John says in John 12:41 the glory Isaiah saw in that throne room was the glory of Jesus!  Sometimes you’ll be reading something in the Old Testament about God, and you realize, “Wait a second, that sounds just like Jesus!”

- Psalm 107:23-31 - This sounds exactly like what happened to the disciples in the storm and how they were freaking out and at their wits end, yet Jesus caused the storm to be still and guided them to their desired haven.  There are even direct prophecies about the Messiah being God in the OT.

- Isaiah 9:6

And this is a doctrine that matters because it affects our souls.  If Jesus isn’t God, it means our sins aren’t forgiven, because the only one who can forgive sins is God because He’s the one we sinned against.  If Jesus were just a prophet or an angel, we didn’t sin against a prophet or an angel so they would have no power to forgive us our sins against God.  Plus, if Jesus was just a man and died on a cross for our sins, how could His one human death atone for the sins of all humanity?  We’ve already acknowledged in an earlier class that it wasn’t enough for an animal to die in our place for sin because human life is worth more than animal life.  So an animal dying is not enough to cover the death I owe for my sin.  A human life, however, would be a fair trade, but one human life would would only cover one other human life, not the lives of every human who ever lived.  But if that human was also God, that’s a MUCH more powerful sacrifice.  The life of God is worth the lives of all humanity combined, so for God to give up His life, it’s more than enough to atone for our sins.

Jesus and His Apostles Said He was Human

Question:  Name a verse that indicates Jesus was human.

• 1) We already saw John 1:14 where the word became flesh, essentially becoming a human being with skin, blood, and bones.  This is referred to in more formal theological language as the incarnation.  In Latin, carnis means flesh.  I think of the Spanish word “carne” which means meat.  Jesus put on the meat of human flesh in the incarnation.   2) He was born of a woman, though it was no ordinary birth.  The seed in Mary that gave birth to Jesus was planted by the Holy Spirit, so even in His birth we see His dual nature as fully God, born of the Spirit, but also fully human, born of a woman.  3) He experienced human needs.  He got hungry, thirsty, and tired.  4) He experienced human emotions like sadness, anger, and joy.  5) He was tempted to sin just like we are, but of course He never gave in to temptation!  Hebrews 4:15.  Now, it’s crucial that Jesus stayed sinless, because otherwise His death would have only paid for His OWN sins, not ours.  He would have owed His Father death for His sins, so when He died He would only be getting what He deserved.  Yet because He was perfectly innocent, His death was completely undeserved!  He deserved life, not death, yet as Tim Keller once put it, “He died the death we deserved so we could live the life He deserved.”   6) He’s referred to often as “The Son of Man.”  Which simply means “human,” and it also harkens back to a vision in Daniel where he saw one like a son of man, or human, ascending to Heaven and being presented before God and given an everlasting Kingdom, so Jesus’ humanity was part of fulfilled prophecy too!  7) He died!  As God, He is eternal and cannot die, but He could say in Revelation 1 that He died because He actually put on flesh.  And His death is another historically indisputable fact.  Not even atheists dispute it because His death is mentioned by unbiased non-Christian sources outside the Bible.  The only ones who claim He didn’t die are the writings of Islam, which is one of many reasons why their teachings should be rejected as false doctrine.
  • And what’s really amazing is that Jesus is the only person in history to have ever 1) Claimed to be God  2) Died  3) Has a major following centuries later.  There have been others who claimed to be God and died, but they had no following because gods are not supposed to die.  If you claim to be God and die, usually that means you were lying about being God.  There have been plenty of people who have died and have major followings, like Joseph Smith and Muhammad and other religious leaders, but that’s because they never claimed to be God.  Jesus is the only one in all 3 categories!  And that’s because even though He claimed to be God and died, He resurrected from the dead, thus proving His claim true!
    • Next Sunday Lord willing we’ll have a whole class dedicated to His resurrection, and I’ll teach an entire half of a quarter on it in Q4 this year, but suffice it to say His resurrection is another piece of evidence He wasn’t just a human, but God!

Jesus and His Apostles Said He was a Sacrifice for Sins!

Question:  Name a verse that indicates Jesus was a sacrifice for sins.

• John 1:29 - We mentioned this in our class on the problem of sin.  He is the fulfillment of the entire animal sacrificial system of atonement in the Old Testament.  Instead of animal dying in our place, Jesus came to die in our place.
• Mark 10:45 - A ransom is a payment to set someone free from slavery.  Jesus wasn’t going to give money to set us free from slavery to sin; but His own life.
• 1 Peter 2:24 - I want to reiterate, this cannot be said of any other religious leader.  Jesus did not just come to set a good example or give us good teachings to live by, He came to change our legal standing before God from guilty to innocent!  In fact, this is another reason why Jesus HAD to become human and put on flesh, because He had to come condemn sin in the flesh! 
  • Romans 8:3 - The Law of Moses could never make us righteous because all the Law does is tell us what’s good and evil, and what the penalty is for evil, which is death.  So the Law could not give us life or make us righteous because in the flesh, we’ve all broken God’s law and are therefore unrighteous and deserving of death!  So what Jesus did is He put on flesh and then condemned sin in 2 ways:  1) By actually doing what we all failed to do, which is to keep God’s law perfectly!  He was tempted to sin yes, but by conquering every temptation He showed that sin had no power over His flesh and condemned sin as ineffective in His life.  2) He allowed His flesh to be killed on the cross, which was like putting OUR sinful flesh up on the cross.  Notice he says he came in the likeness of sinful flesh.  Jesus’ flesh wasn’t actually sinful because He never sinned, but He took on the likeness of our flesh that had been corrupted by sin and put it to death on a cross, making payment for our sins and thus putting sin to death in the process.  And now when we put our faith in Him and are baptized into Him, our sinful flesh no longer has power over us.  We may still be tempted and may even still give in to sin, but we no longer have to be condemned by the sins of our flesh because Jesus turned the tables and condemned sin in the flesh instead!
    • And while this makes sense to us after the fact, it was utterly confusing for the disciples and the early Jews because they had no concept that their Messiah was going to die.  They thought He would suffer yes, but not die, and they had no concept that they NEEDED Him to die for their sins.  They thought as long as they kept doing their best to follow God’s laws they’d be fine!  This is why Peter rebuked Jesus when He said He was going to die and said, “May it never be!” And it’s why Paul said the cross was a stumbling block to the Jews.  They struggled so much to accept a dying Messiah.

Jesus and His Apostles Said He is King!

Question:  Name a verse that indicates Jesus was King.

• First of all, remember the word “Christ” is not a last name, it’s a title that means “Anointed One,” or “King.”  And when He’s called “Son of David,” that harkens back to God’s promise in 2 Samuel 7 to give one of David’s descendants an everlasting kingdom.
  • Luke 1:32-33
  • Revelation 19:16 - We’ll talk later this quarter about the nature of His kingdom, but for now it’s important to understand as King, it means Jesus has all authority in our lives.  He gets to give us commands and tell us what to do, AND in the end it also means He’s our judge and will hold us accountable for our lives.
    • 2 Corinthians 5:10 - And even if people reject Him in this life, we’re told that one day the whole world will fall down before Him and recognize His kingship.
      • Philippians 2:9-11 - And as beautiful as this scene is, sadly it’ll be too late for those who rejected Him in this life to start honoring Him as king later.  It’s so important to bow the knee now because bowing the knee later won’t go well for us.
      • Psalm 2:12
        • Jesus is a loving, sacrificial King who lays down His life for His servants, but He’s also the ferocious lion of Judah.  In the Chronicles of Narnia, the lion Aslan is meant to represent Jesus.   And Mr. Beaver says to Susan, “Aslan is a lion - the great Lion.”  “Oh,” said Susan, “Is he quite safe?  I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion?” “Safe?” Said Mr. Beaver.  “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe.  But he’s good.  He’s the King, I tell you.”
        • At the start of class, we talked about the #1 question on everyone’s mind in the first century.  Well, notice how John’s gospel ends after Jesus’ resurrection from the dead…
          • John 21:12

Series: N/A

Service: Lord’s Supper Service

Type: Lord's Supper Talk

Speaker: Brian Messerli

John 18:33 - When Jesus was born, the wise men called him “The King of the Jews.”  He will die with that same title above His cross.  I want us to appreciate why that title was so significant.  There had been no king of the Jews for 600 years, since the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC to the Babylonians.  Ever since then, the Jews were ruled over by pagan Gentile kings.  First the Babylonians, then the Medo-Persians, then the Greeks, and now in the time of Jesus, the Romans under Emperor Tiberius Caesar.

And the Jews HATED that the Gentiles were kings over them.  They hated the spiritual defilement that came with living in a land ruled by pagans, and there were a lot of Jewish revolts against those powers.  In fact, there were even Jewish revolts against Pontius Pilate, the man mentioned here in v. 33.  Pilate was a Roman military governor serving under Caesar to keep the peace in Jerusalem.

On one occasion not recorded in the Bible, Pilate was in the holy city of Jerusalem and he and his soldiers were carrying Roman flags and at the top of the flags were little images of the Emperor Caesar.  Well, the Jews took issue with that because the Romans promoted Emperor worship and the Jews believed those were graven images defiling their city.  They asked Pilate to remove them, but he refused.  The governors who preceded Pilate were willing to tolerate the Jews’ religious scruples in order to maintain peace, but not Pilate.  They protested, following Pilate and his soldiers around for days in the city, then Pilate surrounded them and threatened to kill them and the Jews stuck their necks out in defiance and said, “Go ahead,” but Pilate couldn’t do it because there would be chaos if he did.  The Jews then reported Pilate to Caesar and Pilate was beaten as punishment and forced from that point forward to remove those images when traveling through Jerusalem.

On another occasion not recorded in Scripture, the Jews needed a new water supply and Pilate built an aqueduct for them, but he raided the treasury of the temple in order to pay for it.  The Jews were furious and they rioted in the streets and Pilate ordered his soldiers to dress up like Jews and disguise themselves in the mob and launch a sneak attack, stabbing many of the Jews to death.

In Luke 13:1, Jesus mentions another occasion where Pilate killed some Jews from Galilee, mixing their blood with their sacrifices.

I share that to help you see that Pilate hated the Jews and the Jews hated Pilate.  So when we come to this trial in John 18-19, it’s really more of a political wrestling match between Pilate and the Jews, and Jesus, the true King of the Jews, was caught in the crossfire as if He didn’t matter at all, because neither the Jews nor Pilate recognized Jesus as King.  Jesus, the unrecognized king of the Jews, was used by Pilate as a pawn to humiliate the Jews, and Jesus let him do it.

Now that we appreciate the hostility between the Jews and Pilate, you’ll see it jump off the page.

John 18:28 - Right off the bat, we see the hypocrisy of these particular Jews.  They’re worried about being defiled by entering Pilate’s pagan residence, but they’re perfectly fine with putting an innocent man to death.

John 18:29-30 - Do you see the snarky attitude?  The Jews are saying, “What kind of dumb question is that Pilate?  Do you really think we’d bring him to you if he wasn’t guilty?  He’s guilty and now it’s your job to do something about it.”

John 18:31-32 - I believe this was a jab by Pilate in response to their attitude.  The Jews treated Pilate like he was their puppet to do their bidding.  But by telling them to handle it on their own, it reminded them who’s really in power.  It’s not the Jews; the Romans took away their power to execute people.  If that were in their power, they would have stoned Jesus to death, but instead they had to appeal to the higher power in the land; the Romans whom they hated, and the Roman means of execution wasn’t stoning; it was crucifixion.  Thus Jesus’ prophecy from John 12 would be fulfilled that He would be lifted up on a cross to die.

John 18:33 - The Jews brought Jesus up on the charge of claiming to be King of the Jews because they knew that would get the Romans’ attention.  They didn’t bring him before Pilate on the charge that He claimed to be the Son of God; the Romans wouldn’t care about that enough to put him to death.  But to say he claimed to be King would be viewed as a threat to Caesar.  Sadly, this grand title “King of the Jews” was used not as a genuine recognition of who Jesus really was; but as a manipulative tactic for the Jews to get their way.

Well, Jesus and Pilate have a conversation about the meaning of this title “King of the Jews,” and Jesus assures Pilate His kingdom is not of this world so He’s not going to form an army to fight Rome.  And Pilate finds no guilt in Him and tries to get Jesus released.

John 18:39-40 - Pilate was hoping they’d chose Jesus and he probably thought there’s no way they’ll choose Barabbas over Jesus.  Barabbas was a robber and Mark’s gospel tells us he was an insurrectionist, someone who actually DID rebel against the Roman government.  So not only do they trade an innocent man for a guilty man, they show favor to a man who rebels against the Romans while they are simultaneously working WITH the Romans against Jesus.  They’re siding with the Roman King and rebelling against God’s King.  They’re making themselves out to be friends with Caesar because “Hey, we’ve got Caesar’s back, we’re looking out for his best interest by warning him about this Jesus guy claiming to be king.”  Their hypocrisy and betrayal is pathetic and tragic.

So Pilate has Jesus scourged, I believe in part to help get Jesus released.  He has Jesus dressed up like a king with a purple robe and a crown of thorns, the soldiers slap him in the face and there’s that title again.  19:3 - Once again, this title is not used as a genuine recognition of who Jesus was; it’s used to mock and humiliate Him.  Then Pilate brings him out before the Jews and says, “Behold the Man!”  In other words, “Does he really look like a king?  Does he really look like a man capable of insurrection against the Romans?”

But the Jews don’t care and they cry out “Crucify Him!”

John 19:12 - The Jews, who HATED Caesar, are now suddenly his friends, and they resort to blackmailing Pilate.  Remember Pilate has been in hot water before with the Emperor because of the Jews and now they’re threatening to tell Caesar if Pilate releases Jesus and Caesar won’t like that.  So Pilate realizes he’s trapped and he can’t let Jesus go, so now his new goal is to mock and humiliate the Jews, and he uses Jesus to do it.  Pilate brings Jesus out to them in v. 14 and says, “Behold your King!” He was taunting them because he knew they rejected Jesus as their king.  He knew they’d hate that, and in v. 15 when they shouted “Crucify Him,” he asks again, “Shall I crucify your King?”  Again, the title “king” is not used as a genuine recognition of who Jesus was; only as a way to mock the Jews this time.  And their response is chilling…

John 19:15b - The Jews are revolting against their true King Jesus and professing allegiance to a pagan king, something their people for centuries would never do.  They’ve completely sold themselves out.

Pilate leads Jesus away to be crucified and he has one last opportunity to mock and humiliate the Jews.  Whenever someone was crucified, there would be a placard put on the cross with an inscription of the charge against them that led to their death.  Look at the charge Pilate wrote on Jesus’ placard.

John 19:19-20 - And of course the Jews weren’t happy about this in v. 21.  They told him, “You need to change it!  You need write, “He CLAIMED to be the King of the Jews,” not just “King of the Jews.”  But Pilate wasn’t having it.

John 19:22 - It was Pilate’s way of getting the last laugh against the Jews. Essentially, it was a way to mock their powerlessness.  It was a way to say, “You all are so weak and pathetic that this weak, beaten, defeated man is the only king you’ll ever have.”  How ironic because He was exactly right; Jesus was their King.

When we stand back and look at the accounts in John 18-19 it’s amazing to see how none of them recognized Jesus as king, but God did.  And in His brilliance, God used the hateful hearts of the Jews, of Pilate, and the Roman soldiers to proclaim Jesus’ kingship to the world!

Think about it.  Even though none of these were genuine, Pilate still proclaimed Jesus the King publicly 3 times, the soldiers dressed Jesus up as king and hailed him  as King of the Jews!  And then Pilate’s inscription “King of the Jews” above the cross was translated in all 3 major languages of the world at that time so that the entire world would know that He was the King of the Jews, then the Romans soldiers lifted him up high for everyone to see, enthroned upon the cross with a crown of thorns on His head.

As we partake of the Lord’s Supper this morning, we’re saying to Jesus, “I recognize you as King.”  We’re saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” not in a mocking way, but in a genuine sense we’re hailing Him as our King and Messiah and giving our lives to Him because He gave His life for us.  Instead of saying, “We have no king but Caesar,” we’re saying, “We have no king but Jesus.”  And I love to imagine what it would be like if I were there at Jesus’ trial and crucifixion and I could walk up to Jesus after He was beaten and mocked and dressed in that purple robe and say to Him, “I see you.  I recognize you.  You are the King.  You are My King.”  And I wonder how that would have made Jesus feel to know someone recognized Him.

We weren’t there, but when we partake of the Lord’s Supper, we can say that to Him; we can recognize Him as the King who gave His body and blood to save us.  We can hail and recognize the unrecognized King of the Jews!

Series: 2026 - Q2 - 1&2 Kings - 2 Chron

Service: Adult Class B-Classroom

Type: Bible Class

Speaker: Dwayne Gandy

Series: N/A

Service: Praise and Preaching Service

Type: Invitation

Speaker: Jared Morton

Series: Basic Bible Doctrine

Service: Adult Class

Type: Bible Class

Speaker: Brian Messerli

Series: Basic Bible Doctrine

Service: Sun Bible Study

Type: Bible Class

Speaker: Brian Messerli

This morning is the start of a 2 part class on the Big Picture Story of the Bible.  I want us to know this well for 2 reasons:  1) the only way you’ll be able to appreciate details within the Bible is if you see the big picture.  If I showed you this picture, like we talked about before the Lord’s Supper, you can see it with your eyes, but you don’t really understand what you’re looking at.  Your brain puts it in categories with other rough, brown things and it kind of looks like a stone wall of some kind.  But when you zoom out even just a little, now it doesn’t look like a wall anymore and the way you think about what you see changes.  Now it looks like a dirt path, but you’re still not sure where to place this path, until you zoom out fully to see the whole picture.  And now it all makes sense and you can place all the smaller details like the path, the trees, the sun shining through into a grander context so you see how all the parts work together.  That’s what will happen for us when we learn the Big Picture of the Bible.  There are 31,102 verses in the Bible.  When you read one of those verses in isolation, it’s like looking at that first picture.  You see it, but it’s hard to understand and categorize where to put it.  Well, there 1,189 chapters in the Bible, so if you zoom out beyond the one verse and read the chapter, the meaning starts to become clearer and you’re realizing it’s not just a rock wall, but a dirt path.  Well, those chapters are placed within one of 66 books, so when you zoom out to appreciate the book in which that chapter is found, you get even more clarity, and then when you zoom out to look at the Big Picture of all 66 books as a whole, now you can truly understand the Bible!

And because the Bible is God’s word and is so brilliant, seeing the details is actually more like a photo mosaic where each verse and chapter are clear and you’re usually not totally confused when you read them, but when you zoom out you see that all those verses and chapters together form a much larger picture.  And the pictures within pictures in the Bible all work together to paint a picture of Jesus.  I realize He would have looked more middle eastern than this, but sadly this was the least white option I could find, and unfortunately when I tried to zoom in on the smaller pictures it was too blurry.  But you get the idea.  I want us to Zoom out so we can see how all the details fit into a larger, bigger picture.

2) I want us to understand the Big Picture because it helps us distinguish between true and false doctrine.  This is a Basic Bible Doctrines class, and while the Big Picture Story isn’t necessarily a doctrine, it helps give us a context in which to understand proper doctrine.  When detectives are solving a crime, they aren’t just looking at individual details, they’re looking at the Big Picture story about what happened that night.  They’re piecing all the details together like a picture mosaic so they can see if any details stand out as odd and depart from the overall story.  So if a suspect says, “We were out watching a movie at the time of the crime,” but they can’t find any record of him buying a ticket, and there’s no camera footage of him at the theater, there’s a detail that doesn’t fit the story.  Likewise, if someone says, “I don’t think God would ever send someone to Hell,” or on the other side, “I don’t think there’s any way God could love us,” we know both of those are false doctrines or teachings because they don’t match the Big Picture Story.  In the story of the Bible, we see over and over again that God is both a God of justice AND of love.  Or maybe it’s more obscure like the Jehovah’s Witnesses who say only 144,000 people are going to Heaven, but the rest of the righteous will be on the earth and they present heaven and earth as two separate eternal destinations.  That’s completely out of line with the Big Picture Story of the Bible.  Now, they could point to the verse in Revelation about 144,000 people being in Heaven, but they’re taking that verse in isolation out of the context of the Big Picture Story of the Bible.  For another example, there are many today who believe that one day all the Jews on earth will repent and come to Jesus; that sounds great and I would love that, but it’s completely out of step with the Big Picture Story and how God presents human nature and His plans for the future.  Key:  Doctrines are not just rules and regulations; they are reflections of God’s character and plans as revealed in the entirety of Scripture.  So if a doctrine is out of line with His character and plans, it is false and should be rejected.

Comments/Questions?

In order to trace the overall narrative flow of the Bible story, I want to break the Bible into 17 periods.  It sounds like a lot, but it really helps, and by the time we’re done, you’ll be a like a Bible Jedi and you’ll see things so clearly.

1. Before the Flood (Genesis 1-5) [ca. 5300 BC - 3000 BC]

• The letters “ca” are short for the Latin word “circa” which means approximately or about.  It’s hard to get an exact date for creation, some have attempted it by adding all the dates of the genealogies together, but that’s not an exact science because sometimes they skip generations.  There are some dates we can know with more certainty, and others we just have to approximate.
  • But this period spans the first 5 chapters of Genesis.  The word “Genesis” means “Beginnings” or “Origins,” so this is the origin story of humanity, which is great because our origin story help us understand our purpose in the world.
    • And we find that we originated from God.  God created the heavens and the earth, the plants and animals, and WE as human beings were His crowning achievement.  We were His masterpiece.  And in the beginning, we enjoyed 3 major blessings:
      • 1) Eternal life
      • 2) Rulership over creation
      • 3) Peace in the presence of God.
        • Yet when Adam and Eve sinned, they, and we lost all 3 of those blessings.  Instead of eternal life, we’re now doomed to death.  Instead of ruling over creation, we live in fear of creation, and the earth itself turned against us and became a harsh and hostile place to live, and worst of all, we lost our peace in the presence of God.  Through sin, both spiritual and physical death entered the world, and as Adam and Eve were fruitful and multiplied, sin multiplied in the coming generations too.  Their son Cain killed their other son Abel, then violence and other sins became so rampant that God committed destroy the world for their sin, with the exception of one righteous man and his family:  and that was Noah.

2.  The Flood (Genesis 6-10) [ca. 3000 BC - 2600 BC]

• As a result of sin, God basically reverses the creation process from Genesis and de-creates the world.  He allows the waters above and the waters below which He separated back in Genesis 1 to crash back in on each other and cover the whole earth with water.  Now, the flood itself only lasts for 40 days and 40 nights, but this flood period lasts for 400 years.
  • Every person except Noah’s family of 8 dies in the flood, but Noah’s family survives because God told him to build a giant ark for him and 2 of every kind of land animals.  Later the New Testament will say that in the flood, God was creating a new heavens and a new earth for Noah and his family to live, an earth that had been completely cleansed of wickedness to give them a fresh start.  So when they get off the boat, God tells Noah and his wife, and his sons and their wives to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth because He’s starting over with a new creation, and unfortunately just like had happened previously, sin multiplied too.  Noah had 3 sons:  Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and instead of filling the earth like God told them too, their descendants pridefully built a tower to stay together in Babylon.  This leads to…

3.  The Scattering of the People (Genesis 11) [ca. 2600 BC - 1880 BC]

• This period will last roughly 800 years.  When Noah’s descendants refuse to fill the earth and instead they band together to build a god-like power tower reaching to the heavens in Babylon, and because of their pride and disobedience to the one who is ACTUALLY God, He confuses their languages, forcing them to scatter and fill the earth like He commanded in the first place.  So now Noah’s descendants are split into many nations with different languages.  And Genesis is going to follow one of Noah’s descendants in particular:  the lineage of Shem, because through Shem Abraham is born, who is the first of the…

4.  Patriarchs (Genesis 12-50) [ca. 1880 BC - 1665 BC]

• The word “patriarch” means “father-ruler.”  The rest of the book of Genesis traces the lives of 4 major patriarchs, or ruling fathers over their households:  Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.
  • This period starts with God making 3 key promises to Abraham:  “I’ll give you a great land, make you a great nation, and through your seed all the families of the earth will be blessed.”  Instead of destroying the world with a flood, God planned to use the lineage or seed of Abraham to bless the world.
    • Well Abraham’s grandson was named Jacob, who was also known as “Israel.”  Israel bore 12 sons, whose families will later be known as the 12 tribes of Israel.  The youngest of Israel’s sons is named Joseph, and because Joseph is Israel’s favorite, his 11 older brothers hate him for it and they sell him into slavery to Egypt!  But Joseph is a faithful man, so God takes care of him, wins him favor with the Pharaoh, and exalts him to second in command over Egypt, which made Joseph the 2nd most powerful man on earth at the time!  And when a worldwide famine hits, guess who comes seeking help from Joseph?  His brothers, the very ones who betrayed him and left him for dead, and yet in mercy Joseph saves them from the famine, he forgives them of their sins against him, and moves all of his brothers and their families, the Israelites, to Egypt to live with him.
      • We talked Wednesday night about the foreshadowings of Jesus where a person might resemble the later work He was coming to do.  This is one of the most powerful, because like Joseph, Jesus was betrayed by His own people and left for dead, yet God raised Him from the dead and exalted Him to the right hand of his throne so Jesus became the 2nd most powerful being in the Universe, and later when the very people who caused Jesus’ death came to Him for salvation, He forgave us and invited us to live with Him forever.
      • Well, once the Israelites are in Egypt, everything is great until…

5.  The Exodus (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers 1-13) [ca. 1665 - 1450 BC]

• 70 years later Joseph dies, and a new Pharaoh rises to power who had no appreciation for Joseph or his family.  In fact, he’s paranoid that the Israelites are going to take over Egypt, so he makes them slaves.
  • Now, we don’t have time to get into this, but the Israelites were not enslaved for 400 years in Egypt, they were enslaved somewhere between 100 to 150 years in Egypt.  Maybe I’ll address that in the next Q&A…
  • But after being enslaved for at least 100 years, God sends a man named Moses to tell Pharaoh to let His people go (or exit, or make an Exodus.  That’s what the book of Exodus is named after, Israel’s Exit from Egypt).  Well of course Pharaoh’s not going to let go of his entire workforce, so he scoffs at Moses and at God, so God sends 10 plagues on Egypt, parts the Red Sea, and uses Moses to lead the Israelites in an Exodus out of captivity!  Pharaoh and his army are drowned in pursuit, and God brings the Israelites to Mt. Sinai and where He officially introduces Himself to them.  He makes a covenant with them, or an agreement to have a relationship, and says, “I will be Your God and you will be My people.”
    • As part of the conditions of the covenant, He then gives them a set of laws, which will later become part of a larger collection of laws called The Law of Moses.  They weren’t Moses’s, they were God’s laws delivered through Moses to the nation of Israel.
      • Well, God tells the Israelites to build Him a tent, or tabernacle, so He can dwell with them and travel with them on their journey from Egypt through the wilderness to the land God promised to give Abraham’s descendants hundreds of years before.  But the only way a holy God can dwell with unholy people is to set up a system of animal sacrifices offered by priests as payment and cleansing for their sins.  Priests were like mediators representing man to God and God to man.  Those priests would come from the Israelite tribe, or family, of Levi.  That’s what the book of Leviticus is about.  It’s about the work of the Levite priests and all the proper procedures at the tabernacle to ensure a holy God can dwell in their midst by cleansing the nation of sin.
        • Well, when God finally brings them to the Promised Land of Canaan, they take a census and number the able bodied men to go to war and conquer the evil Canaanites.  That’s why the book is called Numbers, because they numbered their soldiers.  But unfortunately, even with a sizable army, they don’t trust God to deliver the land to them.  They send 12 spies, one for each tribe of Israel, into the land and 10 of them come back and say, “There’s no way we can take this land!  There are giants in there!”  The only 2 spies who were faithful and said, “God will keep His promise and give it to us,” were Joshua and Caleb. For the rest of the faithless Israelites, God punishes them with 40 years of…

6.  Wandering in the Wilderness (Numbers 14-36; Deuteronomy; Joshua 1-5) [ca. 1450-1410]

• For 40 years, the Israelites wander as nomads until the entire faithless generation dies.  And now that there’s a new generation of Israelites, Moses re-iterates God’s law to remind them who they are and Whose they are.  That’s what Deuteronomy is all about.  Deuteronomy means “Second law.”  Moses delivers the law a second time, but it’s not repeated verbatim, Deuteronomy adds more laws to the collection and also has more of a focus on God’s love.  It’s one of my favorite books.
  • Well, at the end of Deuteronomy Moses passes away and hands the leadership torch to Joshua, and it’s Joshua’s job to finally lead the Israelites into the land of Canaan to defeat the evil Caananites and take possession of the Promised Land.  Joshua 1-5 brings them right to the border of Canaan, which leads to…

7.  Invasion and Conquest (Joshua 6-24) [ca. 1410 - 1360 BC]

• God tells Joshua and the Israelites to be strong and courageous because He’ll fight for them!  The Canaanites had been in sin against God for over 400 years without repenting, and it wasn’t just jaywalking.  They were sacrificing babies in the fire to false gods, so God was simultaneously keeping His promise to bless Abraham’s descendants by giving them this great land of Canaan, while also cursing the Canaanites by destroying them for their sin.
  • And at this point, God has fulfilled His promise to Abraham to give His descendants a great land and to make them a great nation.
  • Joshua 21:45 - The problem is, the Israelites disobeyed God, because even though they won many battles, they failed to drive out the Canaanites completely.  God warned them not to leave any of them in the land and it came back to haunt them because they influenced Israel to worship false gods and become idolators just like the Canaanites they went in to destroy.
    • After Joshua died, Israel turned away from God and worshipped idols and as a result, God uses the Canaanites they left in the land, as well as other nations surrounding Canaan to attack and oppress them.
    • So the Israelites cry out to God for help and he sends them military deliverers, or…

8.  Judges (Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel 1-9) [ca. 1360 - 1050 BC]

• The Judges were primarily military leaders, though some of them may have ruled in people’s cases like a court judge as well.  But they were sent by God to rescue His people from oppression in the Promised Land.  Unfortunately, the judges aren’t very good moral examples, but the nation of Israel is so evil, they’re kind of the best Israel has to offer.  This is one of the darkest periods in Israel’s history, characterized by constant idolatry and division among the 12 tribes.
  • There’s a cycle on repeat for around 300 years:  the Israelites sin, God sends a nation to oppress them, the people repent and cry out to God for help, God sends a judge to deliver them, and they experience peace for a while, but then the cycle starts all over again.  And truthfully it’s not just a cycle, it’s a downward spiral because every time the pattern repeats, the people slip even further into sin and depravity until the book ends with one of the most heinous and depressing sins ever committed.  They have become just as evil as the Canaanites they were sent in to destroy.  This is what the book of Judges is all about, but the good news is the book of Ruth shines like a light in the dark.  There’s a righteous man named Boaz in the line of Abraham who marries a righteous foreign woman named Ruth; they show us even in an evil land, there are still faithful people, and through them God is still preserving a faithful seed of Abraham through whom one day all the families of the earth would be blessed, just like He promised back in Genesis 12.
    • Well, Samuel was the last of the judges, and because of their rampant sin, the Israelites had become divided and hostile towards one another, and they thought the solution was to unite themselves under a King like the rest of the nations, so they ask Samuel to appoint a king for them.

9.  The United Kingdom (1 Samuel 10 - 1 Kings 11; 1 Chronicles 10 - 2 Chronicles 9; Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Job) [ca. 1050 BC - 930 BC]

- To be continued.