God’s faithfulness:

1. God’s faithfulness: …in the Old Testament?

2. 2009-2010: Genesis-Deuteronomy, Job • 2010-2011: 1st Samuel-Isaiah • 2011-2012: Jeremiah-Malachi, John • 2012-2013: • Old Testament overview • The Gospels • Revelation

3. Top things that turn people off about God • Human suffering • Scary images of God • “God’s people” • “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.”

4. God’s Faithfulness in the OT? • “To trust the God of the Bible is to trust an irascible, vindictive, fierce and ever fickle and changeful master…” - Mark Twain • “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal…pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” - Richard Dawkins

5. “What if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness? • Not at all!” (Romans 3:3,4) • “Will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness?

6. Our Unfaithfulness • “GOD saw that human evil was out of control. People thought evil, imagined evil--evil, evil, evil from morning to night. GOD was sorry that he had made the human race in the first place; it broke his heart.” (Genesis 6:5-6 – The Message)

7. God’s Faithfulness • “Noah had no faults and was the only good man of his time. He lived in fellowship with God, but everyone else was evil in God’s sight, and violence had spread everywhere.” (Genesis 6:9-11) • “The LORD said to Noah, ‘Go into the boat with your whole family; I have found that you are the only one in all the world who does what is right.” (Genesis 7:1)

10. Our Unfaithfulness/God’s Faithfulness • “Joshua said to all the people, ‘This is what the LORD God of Israel says: Long ago your ancestors, Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor, lived on the other side of the Euphrates River and served other gods. (Joshua 24:2) • But I took your ancestor Abraham from the other side of the Euphrates River. I led him through all of Canaan and gave him many descendants. I also gave him Isaac.” (Joshua 24:2-3)

11. Our Unfaithfulness • “Abram’s wife Sarai had not borne him any children. But she had an Egyptian slave woman named Hagar, and so she said to Abram, ‘The LORD has kept me from having children. Why don’t you sleep with my slave? Perhaps she can have a child for me.’ Abram agreed with what Sarai said. So she gave Hagar to him to be his concubine. (This happened after Abram had lived in Canaan for ten years.) Abram had intercourse with Hagar, and she became pregnant. When she found out that she was pregnant, she became proud and despised Sarai.” (Genesis 16:1-4)

12. God’s Faithfulness • “But God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, ‘Hagar, what's wrong? Do not be afraid! God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Go to him and comfort him, for I will make a great nation from his descendants.’” (Genesis 21:17-8))

13. Our Unfaithfulness • Isaac and Rebecca • “Isaac preferred Esau, because he enjoyed eating the animals Esau killed, but Rebecca preferred Jacob.” (Genesis 25:28) • Esau married 2 Hittite women • “They made life miserable for Isaac and Rebecca” (Genesis 26:35) • Jacob (Heal grabber, to deceive; Jeremiah 9:3,4)

15. God’s Faithfulness • “He dreamed that he saw a stairway reaching from earth to heaven, with angels going up and coming down on it. And there was the LORD standing beside him.” (Genesis 28:12-13)

16. Our Unfaithfulness • “Then Jacob made a vow to the LORD: ‘If you will be with me and protect me on the journey I am making and give me food and clothing, and if I return safely to my father’s home, then you will be my God.’” (Genesis 28:20-23)

17. Our Unfaithfulness • “Not until the next morning did Jacob discover that it was Leah.” (Genesis 29:25) • “Jacob had intercourse with Rachel also, and he loved her more than Leah.” (Genesis 29:30) • “Jacob deceived Laban by not letting him know that he was leaving.” (Genesis 31:20)

18. Our Unfaithfulness • “Rachel had taken the household gods and put them in a camel’s saddlebag and was sitting on them. Laban searched through the whole tent, but did not find them.” (Genesis 31:34,35)

19. Our Unfaithfulness: The rape of Dinah • “We cannot let our sister marry a man who is not circumcised; that would be a disgrace for us. We can agree only on the condition that you become like us by circumcising all your males.” (Genesis 34:14,15) • “Three days later, when the men were still sore from their circumcision, two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, the brothers of Dinah, took their swords, went into the city without arousing suspicion, and killed all the men…” (Genesis 34:25)

20. God’s Faithfulness • “God said to Jacob, ‘Go to Bethel at once, and live there. Build an altar there to me...’” (Genesis 35:1)

21. Our Unfaithfulness • “While Jacob was living in that land, Reuben had sexual intercourse with Bilhah, one of his father’s concubines; Jacob heard about it and was furious.” (Genesis 35:22)

22. “Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children because Joseph had been born to him in his old age. So one day Jacob had a special gift made for Joseph—a beautiful robe.” (Genesis 37:3)

24. Our Unfaithfulness • Judah marries a Canaanite woman • “When Judah saw her, he thought that she was a prostitute, because she had her face covered. He went over to her at the side of the road and said, ‘All right, how much do you charge?’ (He did not know that she was his daughter-in-law.)” (Genesis 38:15,16) • “About three months later someone told Judah, ‘Your daughter-in-law Tamar has been acting like a whore, and now she is pregnant.’ Judah ordered, ‘Take her out and burn her to death.’” (Genesis 38:24,25)

26. God’s Faithfulness • Joseph: “You plotted evil against me, but God turned it into good, in order to preserve the lives of many people who are alive today because of what happened.” (Genesis 50:15-20)

27. Our Unfaithfulness • “Weren’t there any graves in Egypt? Did you have to bring us out here in the desert to die? Look at what you have done by bringing us out of Egypt?” (Exodus 14:11)

28. Mount Sinai: Our Unfaithfulness • “Put to death any woman who practices magic. Put to death anyone who has sexual relations with an animal. Condemn to death anyone who offers sacrifices to any god except me, the LORD” (Exodus 22:18-20)

29. Our Unfaithfulness • “Do not have sexual intercourse with any of your relatives. Do not disgrace your father by having intercourse with your mother. You must not disgrace your own mother…No man or woman is to have sexual relations with an animal; that perversion makes you ritually unclean” (Leviticus 18:7,23)

31. God’s Faithfulness • “The LORD said to Moses, ‘I will come to you in a thick cloud, so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will believe you from now on.” (Exodus 19:9)

32. Our Unfaithfulness • 40 years rebellion… • “They answered Joshua, ‘We will do everything you have told us and will go anywhere you send us. We will obey you, just as we always obeyed Moses, and may the LORD your God be with you as he was with Moses! Whoever questions your authority or disobeys any of your orders will be put to death. Be determined and confident!’” (Joshua 1:16-18)

33. Joshua’s final sermon: Our Unfaithfulness • “Now then,’ Joshua continued, ‘honor the LORD and serve him sincerely and faithfully. Get rid of the gods which your ancestors used to worship in Mesopotamia and in Egypt, and serve only the LORD. If you are not willing to serve him, decide today whom you will serve, the gods your ancestors worshiped in Mesopotamia or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are now living. As for my family and me, we will serve the LORD.’ The people replied, ‘We would never leave the LORD to serve other gods!’” (Joshua 24:14-16)

34. Our Unfaithfulness • “The LORD’s servant Joshua son of Nun died at the age of a hundred and ten. He was buried…That whole generation also died, and the next generation forgot the LORD and what he had done for Israel. (Judges 2:8-10) • “And so the people of Israel settled down among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. They intermarried with them and worshiped their gods.” (Judges 3:5,6)

35. Judges: Our Unfaithfulness • “They found Adonibezek there and fought him. He ran away, but they chased him, caught him, and cut off his thumbs and big toes.” (Judges 1:5-7) • “He took his concubine’s body, cut it into twelve pieces, and sent one piece to each of the twelve tribes of Israel.” (Judges 19:29)

36. God’s Faithfulness Gideon: • “Then the LORD’s angel came to the village of Ophrah and sat under the oak tree that belonged to Joash…His son Gideon was threshing some wheat secretly in a wine press, so that the Midianites would not see him. The LORD’s angel appeared to him there and said, ‘The LORD is with you, brave and mighty man!’

37. Gideon said to him, ‘If I may ask, sir, why has all this happened to us if the LORD is with us? What happened to all the wonderful things that our fathers told us the LORD used to do---how he brought them out of Egypt? The LORD has abandoned us and left us to the mercy of the Midianites.’

38. “Then the LORD ordered him, ‘Go with all your great strength and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I myself am sending you.’ Gideon replied, ‘But Lord, how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least important member of my family.’ • The LORD answered, ‘You can do it because I will help you. You will crush the Midianites as easily as if they were only one man.’ Gideon replied, ‘If you are pleased with me, give me some proof that you are really the LORD. Please do not leave until I bring you an offering of food.’ • He said, ‘I will stay until you come back.’ (Judges 6:11-18)

39. “So Gideon went into his house and cooked a young goat and used a bushel of flour to make bread without any yeast. He put the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot, brought them to the LORD’s angel under the oak tree, and gave them to him. The angel told him, ‘Put the meat and the bread on this rock, and pour the broth over them.’ Gideon did so. Then the LORD’s angel reached out and touched the meat and the bread with the end of the stick he was holding. Fire came out of the rock and burned up the meat and the bread. Then the angel disappeared. When Gideon realized that it was the Angel of the LORD, he cried out, ‘Oh, Sovereign LORD, I’m doomed! I have seen the Angel of the LORD face to face!’ ‘It is all right,’ the LORD replied. ‘Do not be afraid. You will not die.’” (Judges 6:19-23)

40. “Then Gideon said to God, ‘You say that you have decided to use me to rescue Israel. Well, I am putting some wool on the ground where we thresh the wheat. If in the morning there is dew only on the wool but not on the ground, then I will know that you are going to use me to rescue Israel.’

41. That is exactly what happened. When Gideon got up early the next morning, he squeezed the wool and wrung enough dew out of it to fill a bowl with water. Then Gideon said to God, ‘Don’t be angry with me; let me speak just once more. Please let me make one more test with the wool. This time let the wool be dry, and the ground be wet.’ • That night God did that very thing. The next morning the wool was dry, but the ground was wet with dew.” (Judges 6:36-40)

42. Gideon: Our Unfaithfulness • “Gideon made an idol from the gold and put it in his hometown, Ophrah. All the Israelites abandoned God and went there to worship the idol. It was a trap for Gideon and his family.” (Judges 8:27) • “He had seventy sons born to him, for he had many wives. He also had a concubine in Shechem, who gave birth to a son, whom he named Abimelech.” (Judges 8:30-31)

43. Judges: Our Unfaithfulness • Jephthah • Samson • “Then Samson prayed, ‘Sovereign LORD, please remember me; please, God, give me my strength just this one time more, so that…. • …with this one blow I can get even with the Philistines for putting out my two eyes” (Judges 16:28)

44. Hebrews 11 • “It was by faith that Abraham… • “Should I go on? There isn't enough time for me to speak of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets. Through faith they fought whole countries and won. They did what was right and received what God had promised.” (Hebrews 11:32,33)

45. God’s Faithfulness: The Levite’s concubine • “You got your start in sin at Gibeah— that ancient, unspeakable, shocking sin— And you’ve been at it ever since.” (Hosea 10:9 – The Message) • “When Israel was only a child, I loved him. I called out, ‘My son!’—called him out of Egypt. But when others called him, he ran off and left me…he played at religion with toy gods. Still, I stuck with him. I led Ephraim. I rescued him from human bondage, But he never acknowledged my help, never admitted that I was the one pulling his wagon, That I lifted him, like a baby, to my cheek, that I bent down to feed him. Now he wants to go back to Egypt or go over to Assyria—anything but return to me!..My people are hell-bent on leaving me. They pray to god Baal for help. He doesn’t lift a finger to help them. But how can I give up on you, Ephraim? How can I turn you loose, Israel?... My insides churn in protest...” (Hosea 11:1-10 – The Message)

46. Our Unfaithfulness: The Monarchy • “Then all the leaders of Israel met together, went to Samuel in Ramah, and said to him, ‘Look, you are getting old and your sons don’t follow your example. So then, appoint a king to rule over us, so that we will have a king, as other countries have.’” (1 Samuel 8:4-5)

47. God’s Faithfulness • “Samuel listened to everything they said and then went and told it to the LORD. The LORD answered… • ‘Do what they want and give them a king.’ Then Samuel told all the men of Israel to go back home.” (1 Samuel 8:1-22) • “God gave him (Saul) a new heart…” (1 Samuel 10:9)

48. David: Our Unfaithfulness/God’s Faithfulness • “Saul told them, ‘Tell David that all I want for the bride price is 100 Philistine foreskins! Vengeance on my enemies is all I really want.’ But what Saul had in mind was that David would be killed in the fight. David was delighted to accept the offer.” (1Samuel 18:25) • “David…was a man after God’s own heart.” (Acts 13:33)

49. God’s Faithfulness: Solomon • “After you have taken possession of the land that the LORD your God is going to give you and have settled there, then you will decide you need a king like all the nations around you…The king is not to have a large number of horses for his army, and he is not to send people to Egypt to buy horses, because the LORD has said that his people are never to return there.” (Deuteronomy 17:14-16)

50. Solomon: Our Unfaithfulness • “Solomon had forty thousand stalls for his chariot horses…” (1 Kings 4:26) • “…the export of chariots from Egypt.” (1 Kings 10:29) • “Solomon’s horses were imported from Egypt”(2 Chronicles 1:16)