https://vimeo.com/422976566

Okay, hi guys. We're back for the Jesus. No, we're not. Austin, we're back. This is the Jesus story number 11. We've only got one more to go, and then we'll be all done. And you'll know everything about the Bible, right? Everything you need to know. We've worked all the way. We started here, remember? Jesus and Paul, we started there. Then went back here and we had Adam. Can you tell me anything about Adam? What do you remember about Adam? We came in and we came in here. He what? Let's be clear, huh? They kind of fell away from God, right? They started with God, God created him, and then they kind of got lost. And then we had, what do you remember about Abraham? Road to Camel, what else? Nothing. Sacrifices son. He had a son? He did, a promised son, right? And then they got lost in Egypt, remember? Who was next? Moses. What'd he do? He took the, he took his people from Egypt. He brought them back from Egypt, and he gave them the law, and he gave them the tabernacle, and how it is that they could walk with God. How well did they do? How well did they do with God? Not good. They always struggle with that. Next, we had this guy, remember this guy? What'd he do? Who was he? He fought against Goliath. He fought against Goliath? He became king of Israel, right? And he had some problems at times, but overall, he was a man after God's heart. He really wanted to know God and follow God, and write it, did well, and then this guy we talked about last week, remember him? Who is he in the cookie thing, the Oreo cookie thing? Who's Isaiah? The cookie's poison. Prophet. He's the prophet, what's he doing? He's going to people with other people's access. Yeah, he's telling people what's really true about God. And Isaiah was warning the people, hey, you guys are not doing what God wants, and you guys are not gonna make it, and bad things are gonna happen if you don't follow God, because that's just the way it works. You end up in captivity, you end up captive. Now we're gonna talk about this guy, and look, we're almost to the end. We just got Jesus and Paul here, which we've already done. So here's a guy named Nehemiah. But before we get to Nehemiah, we're gonna talk about the exile a little bit. We're gonna talk about Israel going into exile. And let's go back and just take a little, another review back through the map we had, and we started this thing. Do you remember the map? Okay, oops, that's not gonna work. I've gotta do this, and then this, and then this. Oh my gosh, this is so complicated. Remember Abraham started out here, right? Remember where he started out, right here at Ur? What, where is that? Give me that thing. Okay, there we go. He started out here at Ur, and he brought his people here, right? And then he had Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, and then Joseph got kidnapped, and he got sent to Egypt. And then for 400 years, Israel lived here in Egypt. And then Moses comes, and he leads them across the Red Sea through the wilderness, through the wilderness, more wilderness, more, more, more. And then finally, back into the land that God gave them. And then they had kings and everything, and these kings because they wouldn't follow God and the people wouldn't follow God. Who comes and gets them? Babylon, Assyria, this is Nineveh. Remember Jonah preached to Nineveh? They come, 700 BC, and they take out part of Israel, take them into captivity, and then later from Babylon they come, and then all of Israel, they end up exporting all of Israel back to where they started. Isn't that something? They started there, they end up back there because they kind of pay. Now I want to talk to you about two of the big prophets. If we go back to, let's share another screen with you here. Okay, let's look at this right here. Okay, here it is. Now, this is the exile right here. Okay, let me go. Right here is the exile. Here's Isaiah, and now we're going to Nehemiah. Right here is when they all went off to Babylon because they had been disobedient to God and because they weren't trusting him, they got conquered. Remember, when you don't follow God, you always end up in captivity. Or we could even say like time out, you end up in time out. If you don't do what your mom wants and you don't, you know, you can get time outed or grounded. I'm going to talk to you about these two right here. Jeremiah was one of the major prophets right before they go into exile, and he tells them this, among a lot of things, he calls them back to God to repent. Remember, what would have happened if Israel repented? Would they have ended up in exile? Remember when Nineveh repented? Did they end up being destroyed? No, they didn't, right? So, if Israel repents, but they don't. And then right at the end, Babylon's outside the gate, and Jeremiah says to them, listen, if you guys will repent and turn to God and not fight, they won't kill you. They'll just come get you and take you into exile. If you fight them, you're going to lose, and you're not only going to take you into exile, but you're also going to be killed. So what does Israel do? What do you think they did? Did they fight or did they surrender? Any guesses? Hi. Yeah, they did. And God said, don't fight them because they're going to come, they're going to win. So don't fight. But you know what? It's almost impossible not to fight, right? These people are coming to take your land and take your houses and take everything. And God said, listen, just don't fight. And they fought. And the next big one in that chart is a guy named Ezekiel. And Ezekiel's really important as a prophet. Where is he? There we go. Ezekiel's right down here. Where is Ezekiel? There he is, right here. Ezekiel's real important because now they're going off into exile. And Ezekiel's a guy that has a lot of dreams and visions and he shares those dreams. And one of these is that God's throne, remember God was in the temple with them? But when they came and conquered, they destroyed the temple. And so Israel's saying, well, God's not with us anymore. But Ezekiel has these dreams about this wheel in the middle of a wheel and God, and you'll read it someday, where God goes with them to captivity. They don't go alone. God doesn't lose them. They now get to discover something that's always been true about God. He never lived in the temple to start with. He just wanted them to think he was there so they could go be near him. But God was always living everywhere. God was always with us. And God says, I'm gonna go with you there too. I'm gonna be with you in captivity. And that's what God always does with his people, with those who want to be his and wanna follow him. And even when we get lost and even when we do wrong things and even when we get in trouble, it's like your mom and dad, right? They never stop loving you, even when you're a bit of a mess, even when you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. Even if they have to put you into time out or have to discipline you in some way, they still keep loving you and they're still with you. And they're hoping that when you're in captivity and as they go off to captivity for a while, that somehow that will help them stop. That's what time out's for, right? Stop and rethink. Do I really wanna be this kind of person? Do I wanna make trouble? Do I wanna find a better way to live? And then when you go into captivity, there's one other person I'm gonna talk to about. But what Ezekiel is really helpful at is God's bigger than your failure. God's bigger than you making mistakes. God's gonna still be with you. He's still gonna love you. He's still gonna walk with you. And then we have this God. Maybe you guys ever heard of Daniel? Have you heard of him? Any of you? Haven't heard of Daniel in the lion's den or Daniel? You haven't heard of Daniel in the lion's den, right? He was told not to worship God or they throw him in a lion's den and did Daniel stop worshiping God? He got pitched in the lion's den because they were trying to get rid of him. And what did God do with the lions? He was in there with these hungry lions. I hadn't eaten for days. And you think they would have eaten him, right? Did they? Why not? Do you know why not? Huh? They were dead. What, they what? They were dead. The lions were dead? No, they were alive. But God shut the mouths of the lions. They just sat there with Daniel all night, like big Zoe. You could pet Zoe on the head. Remember Zoe with the mane? That'd be the big lion. And they were hungry. But guys, now you don't get to eat Daniel. And then later, Daniel had three friends and they were brought into this place where they were told to worship this image of the king. That's something about kings. They always want to be worshiped. Everybody needs to worship me. And you got ignore God. Well, the children of Israel, they were still trying to follow God even though they were in Babylon. And so they three young men and they're really important young men. They're very gifted. They're kind of getting up into the government, helping serve Babylon. And they make this big image and they want everybody to worship the image. And then you guys say, we're not going to worship the image. And so they take them in front of this big fiery furnace and they said, you worship that image or we're going to throw you in the fire. Wow, do you know the story? You know what? So what do you think the children of Israel did? You're going to have to worship the king's image or we're going to throw you into the fire. What did they do? Do you know? Take a guess. Do you want to fire? No, they didn't worship the image. So they threw them in the fire. You know, right before they threw them in the fire the children of Israel said this to the king. They said, listen, we don't know if God's going to deliver us from you or not. But if you throw us in that fire, we're not going to bow down and worship you. But it may be that God delivers us. And he throws three of these children of Israel into the fire. And then he looks in the fire a little bit later. And how many people does he see in the furnace? He sees four. He saw three in there. And now there's four in there. Who's the fourth one? The king says the fourth one looks like the son of God. So when they were thrown into the furnace, Jesus came and then he'd been on the planet. Jesus was in the furnace with them. And he protected them and they didn't get burned. And they came out of the furnace. Their clothes didn't even smell like smoke. That's how God protected him. So pretty cool, right? Even when they're in trouble, even when they're in captivity God's still looking out for his people. God's still loving him. And what other story from back in that day that I think you'll enjoy a little bit? This is from a woman named Esther right here. Let's get Esther. Okay, Esther's right here. We're gonna talk about these three guys in a minute. But Esther right here, she's a woman in Persia. Probably after the captivity is still there, she's a Jewish woman. And the king really thinks she's party. He's, I want that woman to be my wife. And she gets to be his wife. But at the same time, there's somebody working with the king. He wants to kill all the Jews. He wants to kill all the Israelites because he doesn't like them. And Esther's an Israelite and she gets to be close to the king. And now the king wants her and the people of Israel are saying, you've got to go to the king and tell him not to kill us. And she said, well, he likes me. I don't know that what if he decides he finds out I'm a Jewish person. He doesn't like me and he wants to kill me along with the rest of you. And they said, you know what? Maybe God's put you in the king for just such a time as this. Maybe you should go to the king and say, hey, protect my friends, the Jews. This bad guy is out to kill them for no reason. What does she do? She can be his wife and never be in trouble or she can tell him she's a Jew and try and protect the Jews and she could get killed for it. What does Esther do? What would you do? Protect the Jews. You protect the Jews? That's what she did. She said, you guys pray, I'll go talk to the king and because she went and talked to the king, she saved all the Jews. Isn't that amazing story? So even good things and you can read these stories in the Bible because I mean, these are fascinating stories of what's going on, okay? And then after they've been in captivity for a while, David starts to pray and say, God, isn't it time? Cause there was a prophecy about 70 years, they would be in captivity. So Nehemiah begins to pray and God raises up some three interesting people we're gonna talk about now real quick. Zerubbabel, he's one of David's great, great, great grandchildren. He's from the line of David. So he comes back to lead the people back to the place and then you've got these prophets. Hey guys, Zachariah, Malachi prophesying during that time as they're coming back for Zerubbabel. And then Ezra comes along. Ezra as a book, you can read about Ezra. Ezra, he comes back about 70 years later. Say here's 538 and then here's 458. That's, oh gosh, that's 120 years later. Ezra comes back and Israel's come back, a lot of them and settled in the land but they're not following God again. They don't know anything about it. So Ezra's a priest. He comes back and he rewrites the law and he shows them the law and he teaches them the law and he invites them back to God. And then another 100 years later, 80 years later, Nehemiah comes. This is the guy we've got the book. Nehemiah comes back and he's a governor in Israel. And he comes back to say, you know what, let's rebuild the wall of Jerusalem. There's a whole book about, we're gonna rebuild this wall and as they rebuilt it, the other kingdoms around, they didn't want the wall rebuilt because that would protect Jerusalem. They like Jerusalem being vulnerable. They could invade. So they sent all kinds of guys to say, you gotta stop building the wall or we're gonna beat you up, we're gonna kill you, we're gonna do all kinds of things. And Nehemiah kept saying, leave me alone, I'm gonna finish the wall and he built the wall. So 432, Israel's back in its place. It's got a wall they've got and they've got some years that they lived there but there's still a satellite state of Babylon. And then pretty soon, 400 years later, the Greeks come and the Greeks come and they conquer that area. Remember I told you, one of the things about where they lived in Israel, here we go back to our map here, right? Where they're living in Israel, here's the Greeks up here, right? So Babylon, remember I told you about Babylon and Egypt. So Babylon comes and conquers them, right? Then they get a few years off and then the Greeks come in and conquer them and they take over the land. And then we don't go far enough on the map that way over there somewhere is Italy. And eventually Rome comes and conquers the Greeks, conquers the Phoenicians, conquers Israel, conquers. Rome just takes over the whole planet. And when Jesus comes, that's what's going on. They're all now in this little place that they've been conquered by so many countries. Now they don't have political leaders anymore because they don't have kings and governors. They don't have that. They're just, so they end up with a bunch of religious leaders that we meet them in the Gospels. We meet Pharisees and Sadducees and so now they're religious leaders who are contrived to control the religious life of Israel but they don't have any authority over anything else. So what does all that teach us? All that, you know, God comes, he gives them their law. Hey, this is how I want you to live. They don't do it. So they get put in time out and a lot of people die. It's not just time out. Nobody dies in your home, right? When somebody goes to time out, you still get to live, right? Because mom and dad, they know what they're doing. Hey, but they'll put you in time out if they have to. Maybe, I don't know if they do. I don't even heard you in time out. But there are consequences sometimes to not following the right things because they want to teach you how to live in a world in a way that you will be successful and fulfilled. And that's what they're trying to do, right? So Israel goes into time out and they come back and there's some good things that happen and there's some bad things that happen and they get conquered again. This time it's not punishment. It's just because they couldn't trust God to live in that part where he wanted them to live. They got conquered. But every time they got conquered, they would turn back to God and repent and say, God, we want to be your people. We want to follow. And so now God says, through Isaiah was one of the first ones God said it through, I'm going to send you. I'm going to send you a redeemer. Like Moses lifted you out of Egypt. I'm going to send a Messiah. I'm going to send my son. Now they didn't really know it was going to be God's son. It's where we get to the Jesus story. See, we're getting back to that now. Because Israel, even though they had the law, they couldn't live to the law. Even though they knew what was right to do, they couldn't do it, right? Do you know what that's like? You know what's right to do, but you just can't do it. You know mommy doesn't want you to whine when she asks you to do a chore, right? Right? You know mom doesn't want you to whine, right? And sometimes you try not to whine, but you end up whining, right? Do you, Austin? Yeah, Lindy, a little bit. All right, whining. Why? Because you just can't stop yourself. Sometimes you know what's good to do and you just can't. And the reason why, we find this out from Paul later. The reason Moses gave Israel the law, this is what you've got to do to keep God happy, Israel couldn't do it. He never expected them to do it. They weren't gonna be, somebody's walking in the room, aren't they? Somebody has to come along because we couldn't be changed from the outside. We had to be changed from the inside. The reason we couldn't obey God is because we didn't trust God. And Jesus came and showed us how it is that we could learn to trust God so that we could then learn to follow him. And wouldn't follow him by keeping a bunch of rules. We'd learn to follow him by trusting him. Now, if you, let me just think about this for a moment before we're done. If you completely trusted mom and dad, wouldn't you do everything they said? You wouldn't, look at Austin, you say no Austin, you're hilarious. You wouldn't do, if you completely trusted that mom and dad know what's best for you. If you trusted that, you would do whatever they said. But you don't trust that because we're falling little creatures like Adam. Remember, we just want what we want, right? Right, Austin? I wanna have screen time when I wanna have screen time. I wanna do the, I don't wanna clean the microwave. I don't wanna do it when I don't wanna do it. We live by our wants or we live by something bigger. Mom and dad are just kind of a picture of what Jesus wants to be in our life. So next week we're gonna talk about now the next book in this story. The book that hasn't been written yet, that completes the Jesus story. Because, but this was important, Israel couldn't do what God wanted them to do, which is why they needed a savior. And Israel expected Jesus to release them from Rome, just like they'd come out of Egypt with Moses, they'd come out of exile with Zerubbabel and Nehemiah. They thought Jesus would come, the Messiah would come and he'd get them out of Rome. But Jesus didn't wanna get them out of Rome. He wanted to get them out of the darkness in their own life, the captivity of their own. I wanna do it my way. Which is, we all do that, man, I was a kid, I get it. Your mom was a kid, she wanted to do it her way too, right? And then over time, we learned there's a better way to live than just whatever I want to do when I want to do it. And the Jesus story invites us into a different way of living. We have a Jesus to follow. And we'll talk about that next week, that's okay. One more time, kids. And then we'll be all done.