Much of the Old testament fits into five basic categories, with each category having five points. Breaking Old Testament history down like that makes it a bit easier to remember. When we look at the big picture, e.g., an overview of the five categories, it gives us a context for understanding and remembering a lot of the specific details.

The next two lessons will share the five categories with you to give you a framework (or context) to put details of Bible history into. Then we will explore each of the categories in greater detail in subsequent lessons.

Category 1 - The Beginnings

This covers how God created mankind, as well as man's early interactions with God. Things started very well, with mankind in a close and intimate relationship with God. But sin was introduced when Adam and Eve choose to disobey God and partake of the one thing He told them not to partake of. That lead to a severing of the special relationship they had enjoyed with God. The first curses were introduced and so was aging and death. As time passed and the earth's population grew, mankind became more interested in pursuing their own interests apart from God's plan for them. Sin and wickedness increased. And demonic beings began to interact with mankind and to teach them new levels of wickedness and occult practices.

In the midst of humanity's decline, there were some people who remained faithful to God. God met and interacted with them, and He caused His favor and blessings to be released in their lives.

Man's sin and wickedness increased to the point where God wished He'd never created us. So, God decided to release just judgment and destroy the wicked and rebellious creatures that His creation had become. However, God's judgment did not apply to the few godly people who were living for Him and honoring Him. He spared their lives when He destroyed the rest of humanity. From this we learn that when God releases His judgment on a wicked society, He preserves His faithful servants from that judgment.

Category 2 - The Restart Or "New Beginnings"

This covers the period of time from Noah to when the patriarchs (Joseph's brothers) were spared from dieing in the famine and given safe refuge in Egypt.

When God had first created man and woman, He gave them a mandate to be fruitful and multiply and fill and subdue the earth. God specifically documented the lives of those who remained faithful to Him as man fulfilled this commission. We find that history in Genesis 5. We reach a point in history where each of the godly men have lived their lives and died. Only Noah and his children were left alive from these godly lines. Noah was 600 years old and his youngest son was 100. All three boys had grown up and gotten married, but apparently none of them have had any children yet. (That was not unusual in those days .. Noah's dad was 182 when Noah was born and his grandfather was 187 years old when Noah's dad was born.)

Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives were all spared when God destroyed the rest of mankind via a flood. After the waters receded, God gave the original mandate to Noah and his family: they were told to be fruitful and multiply and fill (e.g., re-populate) the earth (Genesis 9:1). So they began to fill that commission. Over time, the earth was populated again. Then God started longing for a special people to be set aside from all of the other people of the earth as His people. He longed for people who will honor and worship Him, ones He could have a personal relationship with.

So God selected one individual, Abram, and called him out from his people to be set aside for God. God's call was not just on Abram, but on his descendents. We see God's faithfulness and blessings and His protection demonstrated to His people over and over again. We learn that He is faithful and He is able to carry through on His promises. We see God interact in their lives on a personal level over and over again. We learn from that that God desires a personal relationship with His people.

Category 3 - God's Government

When a great famine hit the earth, God had already worked behind the scenes to provide for His people. He arranged for them to be relocated to Egypt where they would have food and water for themselves and for their flocks. At first they prospered in Egypt. 400 years passed and everyone in Egyptian government favorably predisposed towards the Israelites died off. The new regime was afraid of them and began to enslave and oppress them so they could not be a threat to the government's power base. The Israelites began to cry out to God because of the injustices and hardships they suffered. God heard them and raised up a deliverer for them. And when He delivered them, He established His chain of command or His government over them.

God supernaturally empowered His first few leaders. They were God appointed (this was not a democracy) and they demonstrated a great deal of power and anointing. When God set up His government, He set it up around Himself. His first human leader, Moses, had the task of teaching His people how to walk in His ways and have relationship with Him. God was very present with His people during His early government. There were even supernatural manifestations, such as God leading his people as they traveled as a pillar of cloud by day and as a pillar of fire by night. Moses did not make arbitrary leadership decisions. Instead he consulted God and found out what God wanted to do, and then implemented what God said.

For the most part, that leadership style continued with Moses' successor, Joshua. God used Joshua to lead the people into the promised land and establish them in it. Both Moses and Joshua were clearly God appointed, God directed. They both experienced a great deal of spiritual warfare and enemy opposition and they both walked strongly in God's supernatural anointing and empowerment.

As time progressed, the government leaders seemed to get less God-centered or anointed. The nation of Israel went through the same pattern over and over. They would start out committed to God and under his blessings. As they prospered, they put their own agendas over Gods' and they backslid and fell into idolatry. Then God sent judgment and they were defeated or went into captivity. They would repent and cry out to God and He would raise up a judge to deliver them. Then the whole cycle would repeat.

After this cycle repeated several times, God began ruling His people through His priests and prophets. Some of them were great leaders and some were self-serving and wicked. The people felt they were unjustly treated by these carnal priests so they cried out to God to give them a king (like other nations had). The request was basically to take government out of God's hands and put it into their own hands. God honored their request and gave them a king. He selected a king that met their criteria -- Saul. Saul started out well but be became self-serving and things rapidly declined under his leadership.

Then God removed the king that met "man's criteria" and gave them a king that met God's criteria -- David. David was a man after God's own heart, and he endeavored to rule the nation God's way. He endeavored to discern and obey God's will as he led his people. Still, the onus and authority of leadership had been transferred from God to man.

From all of this we learn that God uses fallen man to accomplish His purposes. Some of the vessels He chooses remain faithful to God and are good spiritual and political leaders. Others start putting their agendas, desires and concerns over God's. In general, those type of people tend to make less than desirable leaders. But we must be aware that the leader who God selects and puts into place may not be perfect. He uses imperfect vessels from time to time. It is possible for a God appointed leader to have serious character deficiencies in some areas.

(Our next lesson will cover the remaining two categories, "Man's Declining Government" and "The Prophets, God's Spokesmen To Mankind").

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Much of the Old testament fits into five basic categories, with each category having five points. Breaking Old Testament history down like that makes it a bit easier to remember. When we look at the big picture, e.g., an overview of the five categories, it gives us a context for understanding and remembering a lot of the specific details.

We looked at the first three categories in our last lesson. They were

1. The Beginnings - this is the time period from the creation to the flood.

2. The Restart or New Beginnings - this is the time from Noah to the captivity and deliverance from Egypt.

3. God's Government - this is the time where God explicitly ruled His people, starting with Moses and going through the last ruling prophet, Samuel. It also includes the first two kings that God set up to rule Israel - Saul and David.

Now let's examine the other two categories.

Category 4 - Man's Declining Government

This period of history starts with Solomon and runs pretty much through the end of the Old Testament. God's people took governmental leadership out of God's hand and choose to rule themselves.

The first of these leaders was Solomon, David's son and successor. He started out as a good and godly king, but he eventually backslid. He had a huge harem and many of his wives and concubines worshipped idols. After a while he started worshipping idols with his wives, losing the favor of the Lord. The kingdom should have gone to his son, but his son was politically unsavvy and unreasonable. So Israel split into two nations. The tribe of Judah (residing in Jerusalem) stayed with Solomon's oppressive son.

The rest of the tribes split off under Jeroboam and was known as the nation of Israel. In general, Israel had a series of ungodly kings. They tried to introduce various idols so that the people would not want to worship at Solomon's temple (which was in Judah). One of the most noteworthy wicked kings was Ahab, who married Jezebel and set her up as a priestess over Israel. Ahab and Elijah had a lot of interactions and conflicts. When Ahab died, his successors were still ungodly. Israel finally fell into captivity to Assyria because God's hand of protection had lifted off of them for their sins.

Judah had a few ungodly kings, but most of them were godly and encouraged the people to worship God. One of the most noteworthy kings was Hezekiah. When the Assyrians attacked Judah (having already defeated Israel), he cried out to God for help and God delivered them. Eventually Judah had a series of ungodly kings that permitted and encouraged idolatry and worshipping other gods. Then Josiah became king and they had a national revival. But when he died, his son was a wicked and ungodly king. God finally allowed the Babylonians to defeat Judah and many of the people were carried away into exile.

The book of Daniel takes place shortly after the fall of Judah to Babylon. Even during Daniel's life in Babylon, the Medes overthrew the Assyrians and took over Babylon. (I think this was through political intrigue rather than through a battle.) That is followed (Chronologically) by the book of Ezra. About 70 years after the Babylonian captivity, the exiles were permitted to return to Jerusalem. Ezra was one of the leaders of those who returned, and he was instrumental in rebuilding the temple and altar of the Lord. Shortly after that is Nehemiah's story. Scholars think that Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem about 13 years after Ezra arrived. Nehemiah was a Jewish man in captivity who became the king's cupbearer. God put Jerusalem on his heart and he was allowed to take some time off of work to go rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. This was completed approximately 400 years before the birth of Christ.

Category 5 - Prophets As God's Spokesmen

When man took governmental rule away from God, God introduced prophets to come alongside of the kings to make His will known. Some of these kings honored God and listened to His prophets. Others of them were in rebellion with God and viewed His prophets as their enemies. Here is an overview of a few of the more major prophets:

Samuel

He worked with the first king Saul and anointed David as king. He tried to teach him how to rule in a godly fashion, but Saul's heart was rebellious and God rejected Saul as king. Samuel had some interactions with David as a young man, but he died before David was formally made king.

Elijah and Elisha

this was a power ministry that demonstrated God's supremacy over the false God's of Israel. Elijah lived and ministered in Israel during the time of Ahab and Jezebel. Elisha was personally mentored and trained by Elijah and continued the power ministry after Elijah was taken to Heaven without dieing. Elisha performed many miracles during his 60 year ministry, during the reigns of the following kings of Israel: Jehoram, Jehu, Jehoahaz, and Joash.

Isaiah

Isaiah was a prophet to more than one king of Judah, but his greatest influence was with King Hezekiah. Isaiah was involved in some fairly powerful stuff, such as God saving Judah from the attacking Syrian army and the did at least one physical healing, saving the king's life from a fatal boil. He also did at least one miracle because he caused the sun to backtrack in the sky as a sign to Hezekiah. Isaiah wrote about God's judgments and about his coming redeemer. There are many graphic passages in Isaiah that describe details of Christ's life and death.

Jeremiah

Jeremiah's ministry also spanned multiple kings, and occurred before Judah was taken into captivity by the Babylonians. His message was primarily one warning people of God's coming judgment and of their upcoming captivity to Babylon. Jeremiah was an intercessor as well as a prophet. King Zedekiah had him imprisoned for prophesying that Israel would fall to Babylon. Jeremiah was alive when the Babylonians captured Judah and the Babylonians set him free because he had prophesied in their favor. While the Babylonians took the Jews into captivity, they allowed Jeremiah to go free.

Ezekiel

While most of the major prophets worked with national leaders, Ezekiel worked a bit more closely with the people. He lived during the Babylonian exile and seemed to hold a prominent place among the Jews, where he ministered for about 23 years. The elders would often consult with him. Ezekiel's writings deal with God's coming rule and contain a lot of end-time prophecy.

The remaining lessons will examine each of these five categories in much greater detail.

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