Transcription
Welcome to our three-part video series on Biblical history. In this series, we are going to be going over the entire Bible. Yes, we're going to go over the entire Bible in three videos. And so, as you could probably imagine, we are going to have to go quickly, and we're going to have to skip over some of the most amazing historical accounts that you have ever heard of in your entire life. And because of that, I really want to encourage you to download our chronological reading schedule. It is free. There is a link down in the description, or there's a QR code here on the screen where you can download this and read through the entire Bible in chronological order, that is, in the order in which the events took place. And you will not miss a single thing. Download this, print it out, fold it, stick it in your Bible, just like that. You are going to love it, I promise.
Now, even though we're not going to be able to cover everything that's in here, we are going to cover a lot of the foundational stories and teachings that have helped to shape our society. You know, and I imagine that if you were watching this video up to this point, that you have probably come to realize, or are coming to realize, that the Bible is an extremely important book. In fact, the Bible is the word of God. It is the greatest book that has ever been written, and it is the only place where we are going to learn where we came from, why we're here, and where we are going. You know that it was written by over 40 different men from various backgrounds and various cultures over a period of 1600 years, and yet there is a Unity of message and a Unity of purpose that is beyond human ability. Why? Because these men, men were guided by the Holy Spirit to write down the infallible word of God.
Listen to what the Bible has to say: "All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for correction, for reproof, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." Therefore, reading and studying the Bible is extremely important. Why? Why is it so important? Listen to what Jesus had to say: "The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day." You see, when Jesus returns, we will be judged according to what he has said, what is recorded in the Bible.
Take a look at this chart right here. On this chart, you see that there are two main divisions of the Bible. One section is referred to as the Old Testament, and the other section is referred to as the New Testament. You also see in this chart that there are many books in the chart, and that's because the Bible is actually a collection of many different books. And while the Old Testament is extremely important for Christians, it's the New Testament that is actually our guide today on what we need to do and how we need to live. It is the New Testament that tells us how to be saved.
And so, there are three main periods of Bible history. Number one, we have the patriarchal age, and this is an age in which God spoke to the fathers of families and the fathers of tribes (Hebrews chapter 1, verse 1). Then we have the Mosaic age, which is when the law came to mankind through Moses. That's why it's called the Mosaic age (John chapter 1, verse 17). And then we have the final biblical age, and that is the Christian age. That is, uh, how the gospel came through Christ (Romans 1:6). And so, the patriarchal age goes from Adam to Moses, and then the Mosaic age goes from Moses to Christ, and then the Christian age goes from Christ until now, and until the end of time when Christ returns. And once we see this overall picture of the Bible, we are better able to study it, we are better able to understand it, and we're going to know it so much better.
Let's go ahead and begin by taking a look at this first age of Biblical history, the patriarchal age. And in the patriarchal age, there are a lot of different points throughout history that we want to cover in this video. First of all, we want to start off talking about creation, and then the Garden of Eden, the sacrifice for sin, how wickedness spread across the face of the world, the great flood, Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, Joseph in Egypt, the birth of Moses, and how Moses freed the Israelites from Egyptian slavery.
So, let's start off with creation. It was in six days that God created everything that exists. And I mean everything. The Bible says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. The Earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters." That's Genesis 1, verses 1 and 2. And so, that's how things began, right? It was formless, it was void. God was there looking at it. And then we have the first day. "Then God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. And God saw that the light was good, and he divided light from darkness. He called light Day, and darkness he called Night. So there was evening and there was morning, the first day."
The second day, he creates the atmosphere, the oceans, the dry land. But on day three, he creates vegetation. And this is pretty unique. "Then God said, 'Let the Earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself on the Earth,' and it was so." At first, every living thing was created by miracle, full grown and bearing seed. But then after that, the natural world, everything that we see growing, continues on according to natural law, according to its kind. The Bible says corn produces corn, pine trees produce pine trees.
So, day four, he creates the sun, the moon, the stars. Day five, he creates all of the sea life, all of the birds in the air. And then day six, the final day of creation, he creates all of the land animals, and he creates human beings. "Then God said, 'Let the Earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the Earth each according to its kind,' and it was so. Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the Earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the Earth.' So God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."
When God said, "Let us create man in our image, according to our likeness," we need to understand that God is a spiritual being, and we are spiritual beings as well. We are far different than any of the animals. We have a soul, we have a spirit that will live on forever. Even though our bodies may die, our spirit will continue on in the afterlife, and we'll, we'll talk about all that later on. When God said, "Let us make man in our image," I believe that he was talking to the other two persons of the Godhead, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
After God had created Adam from the dust of the earth and breathed life into him, he was alone. He was the only human being on Earth. And God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make a helper who is fit for him." Now, an animal will not do. Listen to what the Bible says: "Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name." So Adam gave names to all of the cattle, to the birds of the air, to every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found a helper comparable to him.
And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the Flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man he made into woman, he brought her to the man. And Adam said, "This is now bone of my bones and Flesh of My Flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one Flesh. This account is actually the institution of marriage as we know it. Later, Jesus is going to use this account to define marriage as one man and one wife united (Matthew 19:3-6).
After creating Adam and Eve, God didn't just abandon them on the Earth. No, he created a wonderful place for them to live. It's called the Garden of Eden. God provided everything that they would need in that Garden, including the Tree of Life, which if they ate from it, they would be immortal, plus the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. But because God actually loved them, he gave them choice. Do they want to serve him and follow him, or do they want to serve themselves and follow themselves, or do they want to serve Satan and follow Satan? In other words, he gave them free will to choose to obey him or not.
Now, they could eat from any tree in the Garden, except for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This is what the Bible says: "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, 'Of any tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.'" Now, death means a separation. It could be a physical separation of our spirit and our body, but it's also a spiritual separation between a person and God. That's going to be important here in a second.
Unfortunately, though, Satan deceived Eve by telling her that if she ate from the Tree of Knowledge, that it's not going to be that bad, right? God's being too restrictive with you, that she would not die. In fact, she would become like God. Satan told her. Now, unfortunately, she believed Satan and she ate from the tree, and she gave some to Adam, and immediately they knew the difference between good and evil, and they were ashamed of their sin, and they tried to hide themselves from God. And as a consequence of their rejection of God's love, the rejection of his commandment to not eat of that tree, they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden. They died spiritually, in other words, they were separated from God, and they would die physically as well.
Thankfully, though, God did not leave mankind without any hope. God said to Satan, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." Centuries later, Satan will bruise Jesus's heel, in other words, he will give him a non-life-threatening wound at the crucifixion, because Jesus will then rise from the dead. And by rising from the dead, Jesus will actually crush Satan's head, or bruise his head, in other words, he will give Satan in this battle between God and Satan, a devastating blow. But Jesus shows us that while he was able to overcome death, we too can overcome death through him. We'll talk about that more in a later video.
The next thing that comes up in the Bible is actually this idea of sacrifice for sin. Adam and Eve turned their back on God, right? They could, they could never again enter into the Garden of Eden. They could not live forever, and there was no way in which they could pay for their sins themselves. They needed an animal sacrifice. You know, and, and God was just in setting this system up, this arrangement up, because he knew that Jesus would come, and that Jesus would be willing to sacrifice himself to atone for the sins of everyone. And we'll talk more about that later as well.
Thankfully, Adam and Eve did obey one of God's other commands, and that was to be fruitful and multiply, and they began having a bunch of children. Two of them, though, were named Cain and Abel. See, Cain, he grew up to be a farmer, and Abel, he grew up to be a shepherd. And one day, they were out offering sacrifices to God. And Abel, by faith, offered an animal sacrifice from his flock, because of course, he was a shepherd. But Cain, in disobedience, he offered a vegetable sacrifice. And God accepted Abel's sacrifice because it was by faith, in other words, by the word of God. But he rejected Cain's sacrifice. And rather than repenting, and rather than offering the proper sacrifice, Cain became jealous and eventually murdered his brother Abel. Cain and Abel represent two different types of worshippers. Abel showed his love of God by worshipping God as he was directed, and Cain, right, he showed his lack of love for God by substituting vegetables rather than an animal. And God will not accept substitutes.
Let's continue on with the story and talk about how wickedness began to spread across the face of the Earth, right? As humans continued to multiply on the Earth, Cain started a trend in humanity that would grow until it, it basically dominated nearly everyone. The Bible says, "Then God saw that the wickedness of man was great on the Earth, and that every intent of the thought of his heart was only evil continually." Because this evil had spread to nearly everyone, God decided that it was time to cleanse the Earth. God used a great worldwide flood to cleanse the Earth of all wickedness, and he gave mankind another opportunity to serve God in righteousness.
Thankfully, Noah and his family were still serving God. God instructed Noah to build this giant ark, or boat, you might say, that would save his family and enough animals to repopulate the Earth. Now, God was patient during this time. He was allowing time for people to repent. He wasn't just going to wipe them out with no warning. Noah actually preached. He preached for 120 years while he was building the ark. Peter refers to this later on in the New Testament and says that "God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you." But when the time came, and God's patience ran out, Noah and his family entered the ark. God shut the door. Nobody could open it. Noah had warned them for 120 years, but they rejected Noah's warning, they rejected God's love, and God's patience ran out. The world flooded. Everybody died except for Noah and his family. They were brought safely through the water in the ark. You know, and, and it's so sad because all of those people who rejected God's love and rejected Noah's warning had nobody to blame except themselves.
And today, it's, it's really not all that different. People are living today according to their own desires. They are living the ways that they want to live. They are defining their own truth, and it's not much different than than it was back then in Noah's day. And you know, God's patience, it will run out someday. The Bible says, "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but his longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the Earth and the works that are in it will be burned up." As Noah warned the people of his day that God was going to destroy the Earth with a flood, the Bible continues to warn us that one day God will destroy the Earth and everything on it with fire.
You know, as a little side note here, as the water destroyed the disobedient, it also saved Noah and his family in the ark. And today, those that are saved are in God's spiritual family, and that is, that is the church. So let's get back to our story here. Over a year they were in that ark, waiting for the water to go down so they could get out. Well, the water finally recedes, and God instructs Noah to exit the ark. They sacrifice to God, and then God displays a rainbow in the sky. And this is where we find the real meaning of the rainbow. The real meaning of the rainbow is it is a promise from God that he will never flood the entire Earth again. But don't forget that Peter reminds us, while the Earth won't flood again, God is going to destroy it during Judgment Day with fire.
The next people that come onto the scene here after Noah and his family exit the ark and began to multiply is Abraham and Isaac. They enter the scene about nine generations after the flood. And in the meantime, right, the people had multiplied, they had banded together and decided they were going to build the Tower of Babel, a tower up to the heavens. They were being disobedient to God because they were supposed to spread over the entire Earth. And so God scatters the people. The population increases. People are now speaking different languages all over the world. But once again, sin begins to increase.
And like Noah, Abraham loved God, and he actually obeyed God. So God calls Abraham. He says, "Leave your homeland and go out to a new land that I will show you." God promised that Jesus, the Messiah, would actually be a descendant of Abraham (that's in Galatians 3:16). And so God renews this promise, right, with Abraham several times throughout the Book of Genesis, that his descendants will be as numerous as the sand on the seashore, or as uncountable as the stars in heaven. But the problem is, Abraham does not have any children, and he is old. He's like, he's almost 100 years old. So God sends three men to Abraham to tell him that he would in fact have a son. And so Sarah, she overhears these three men talking to Abraham, and she laughs because they were almost 100 years old, and there was no way that they were going to have kids. But just as God promised, Isaac was born a year later.
And so Isaac grows up, and Abraham sends back to his own people, back to his homeland, to find him a wife. He finds Rebecca to be his wife, brings them back. They have children. They have twin sons, Jacob and Esau. And so Jacob and his son Joseph become the next two people in the narrative that we really need to talk about. Jacob, while he had Joseph, he had 12 sons. Now, Joseph was his favorite son because he was born when he was very old, and as, right, his favorite son, of course, he got special treatment. He got a special coat, a coat of many colors, and this causes jealousy within the family, within all of his other brothers. He is the, he is the youngest son, gets special treatment, this is our father's favorite, so on and so forth. You can imagine it's going to cause all kinds of problems. But to top it off, Joseph begins to start having these dreams where he's imagining sheaves that bow down to him, and that the planets come and bow down to him, and he tells his family about this, and that this is how his family is going to bow down to him one day. And as you can imagine, it doesn't go over very well. This made his brothers even more angry with him. Even though these, these dreams did come true later, and God was speaking through him, it made his brothers extraordinarily jealous.
And so later on, as Joseph's about 17 years old, Jacob sends him out to check on his brothers. And he goes out, and they see him, and they see this opportunity, right, that they have. And so they capture him, and they took his coat, and they sold him into slavery. They took that coat, they soaked it in goat's blood, and they brought it back to their dad, hoping that he would think, "Oh, he was killed by a wild beast." And that's exactly what he thought. I mean, he was totally distraught. His favorite son is now dead. He doesn't know what to do.
Joseph has been sold into slavery. He goes down to Egypt and is sold down there to another guy called Potiphar. Now, Potiphar, he was a fairly well-off guy, and he took Joseph in. And God continued to bless Joseph. He put Joseph in charge of the house. And as Joseph was in charge of the whole estate, basically, of Potiphar, Potiphar's wife began coming on to Joseph and was really wanting to sleep with him. But Joseph refused. And as he refused, he ran out of the house. But she was like holding, "Come here, right?" She was holding onto his clothing, and he ran out, leaving his clothing behind. So she had his clothing, and she goes to her husband and accuses him of attempting to rape her, basically. So he believes his wife, even though Joseph has been doing this wonderful job for him, running his estate, and he ends up putting him in jail.
And in jail again, God continues to bless him, and the jailer then puts him in charge of all the prisoners, you know, taking care of everybody in the prison. And so Pharaoh's cupbearer, or some translations call him his butler, is in there as well, and Pharaoh's baker is in there as well. And so they're both having these dreams, and they come to Joseph and ask him, you know, tell him about these dreams and ask him to interpret them. And well, the cupbearer, he had a dream that he was again serving wine to Pharaoh. Well, that's good. And the baker had a dream that he baked a bunch of bread, and the birds came and ate it. Well, Joseph, then through God, interprets these dreams and tells the cupbearer that, yeah, you're going to get out of jail and you're going to go back to serving Pharaoh. But the baker, yeah, you're going to die. It's not going to go so good for you. And both of these dreams came true just as they were interpreted. The cupbearer, he goes back to Pharaoh. Joseph remains in prison.
And then later on, Pharaoh begins having these dreams. He has these dreams about cows and grain. And then there's these seven fat cows, and there's these seven skinny cows, and the skinny cows eat the fat cows, but the skinny cows don't get any fatter. There's seven ears of grain that are fat, seven ears that are really skinny and scrawny. The scrawny ones eat the fat ones, but they don't get any fatter. And he can't figure out what this dream means, and none of his court magicians can figure out what this dream actually means. But the cupbearer, he remembers that Joseph interpreted his dream properly. And so the cupbearer then tells Pharaoh. And Pharaoh calls for Joseph, and he comes. And the Pharaoh wants Joseph to interpret these dreams. But Joseph wisely says that only God can interpret dreams. And then he goes on to interpret Pharaoh's dream through the power of God, and he says that there will be seven years of abundance, the fat cows, and seven years of famine.
And so, like Pharaoh believes him and is concerned about this. And so since Joseph did something that none of his court officials or court magicians could do, he puts Joseph actually in charge of storing up enough grain to last the seven years of famine. And because Joseph is doing such a good job at that, he actually promotes him to second in command of all of Egypt. And so it happens, right, just like the dreams predicted, and just like Joseph interpreted. Seven years of famine came after the seven years of plenty.
And so Joseph's family was suffering from the famine up in Palestine, and they had to come down to Egypt to purchase grain. But when they came to Joseph, as the official selling the grain, they did not recognize him. They actually bowed down before him, just as Joseph had predicted from his dreams. Now, as the story goes, Joseph reveals himself to them, he forgives them, he introduces them to Pharaoh. Pharaoh then invites them to come and live in Egypt. They move to this area called Goshen. They live there for several generations and continued to grow in population and became known as the children of Israel, or the Israelites.
Unfortunately, after all of these generations took place, and the number of Israelites in Egypt grew so much, a new Pharaoh came on the scene who didn't actually know, or maybe didn't remember, all that Joseph and his family had done. And so he began to persecute these foreigners, the Israelites. He put them into slavery, made them work unbearable jobs, and in order to reduce the population of Israelites in Egypt, he commanded that every baby boy be thrown into the Nile River and killed.
Now, this is where Moses then comes into the scene. It was at this time that Moses was born. His mother would not obey the command and throw baby Moses into the water. And so she makes a basket that can float, and she puts it in the reeds on the side of the river where Pharaoh's daughter typically goes to bathe. And when she goes down there to bathe, she found Moses, and she fell in love with him instantly. Man, she picks him up and takes him home. And they find a nurse to help raise Moses. And you know who that nurse was? That nurse was actually Moses's mother. This is an example of God's providence working in protecting Moses.
And so, with his mother as his nurse, Moses being raised in Pharaoh's palace, he actually learned both cultures and knew that he was an Israelite. But as he grew, he saw how Pharaoh's people were actually treating the Israelites, how poorly they were treating them. And then around the age of 40, he actually makes a choice. He saw an Egyptian slave driver beating one of the Israelites mercilessly, and he rose up and he killed that Egyptian slave driver. While Moses had made his choice to defend God's people rather than to enjoy, right, Pharaoh's palace, he wasn't quite yet ready for it. He ends up running for his life. He moves to Midian, where he stays for about 40 years, working as a shepherd, until God calls him to return to Egypt and to free the Israelites.
And so the next and final section in our story is about Moses actually freeing the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. God calls Moses in a very unique way. As he's out working as a shepherd, God speaks to him through a burning bush that doesn't actually burn up. "When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, Moses, Moses!' And he said, 'Here I am.' Then he said, 'Do not come near; take your sandals off of your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. Come, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.'"
So Moses returns to Egypt and works with his brother Aaron to try and free the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. They go in, they talk to Pharaoh about it, and in his first visit, Pharaoh replies with contempt. He said, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go." And during another visit to Pharaoh, Aaron turned his rod into a serpent, which was really cool, but Pharaoh wasn't impressed by it because his magicians turned their rods into serpents. But Aaron's serpent ate the other ones, showing that God was more powerful than any of the magicians in Egypt. Unfortunately, Pharaoh was stubborn and still would not let the Israelites go.
This interaction between Pharaoh and Aaron and Moses happened several times, and each time Moses and Aaron demonstrated that God's power was greater than anything in Egypt and greater than any of the Egyptian gods. But Pharaoh continually refused to let the people go. Finally, God said to Moses, "Yet one more plague I will bring upon Pharaoh and Egypt; afterward he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely." And so, to protect the Israelites from the last plague, God told them to kill a lamb and to put the blood around the doorframe of their house, which would allow God to pass over them because they were obedient to him. It would be a sign to them. This last plague would be the death of the firstborn of all of the people who didn't have that blood around their door as a sign that they were obedient to God. And so God said, "The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt."
You know, the blood of the lamb saved the Israelites, and later on, we're going to see how the blood of Jesus saves us when we obey him by becoming a Christian. God kept his promise, and at midnight, every firstborn in the land of Egypt died, except for those families that had the blood around the door opening of their house. And finally, Pharaoh agrees to let them go. However, after they leave Egypt, they leave, and they're going out, Pharaoh changes his mind, and he begins to chase them in his chariots with his army. And when Moses and the people get to the Red Sea, they are trapped. You've got the sea in front of them, you've got Pharaoh's army behind them, and it seems like this is it, certain death is coming our way. However, God parts the Red Sea, and the Israelites are able to cross on dry land. As they get to the other side, Pharaoh and his army and his chariots, they're coming down trying to catch the Israelites. As they get into the midst of the Red Sea, God closes the pathway, and all of the Egyptians drown in the sea. Moses now has successfully delivered God's people from Egyptian slavery.
And this brings us really to the close of the patriarchal age. In our next video, we're going to see how God gives his law to the Israelites, that's the Ten Commandments, and how he fulfills his promise to Abraham to bring the Messiah, Jesus Christ, into the world. All that's going to take place in the Mosaic age. You can go ahead and watch that video right up here.