DISCOVER THE BIBLE FOR YOURSELF

DISCOVER THE BIBLE FOR YOURSELF

Lesson Two
A TEMPORARY EARTHLY KINGDOM

1. God told Abraham he could not have the Promised Land yet because (Genesis 15:16) the sin of the people who lived there at the time was not yet what? _________________ Four centuries later when Abraham's descendants, the Israelites, finally arrived, God said he'd give them the land (Deuteronomy 9:5), not because of their ___________________ or _____________________________ but because the nations living there at the time were ___________________. Further, the Israelites were warned once they took over the Promised Land, if they lived as wickedly as those nations they overturned, it would eventually do what to the Israelites too (Leviticus 18:27-28)? _______________
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2. The following four centuries the Israelites lived under the rule of a Supreme Judge. What common phrase appears throughout the period of these judges (Judges 3:12; 4:1; 6:1; 10:6; 13:1)? ______________________________________________________________________________________.
They still couldn't get it right; they couldn't be perfect. Finally, during the days of Judge Samuel, the Israelites demanded he step down so they could have a king just like all the other what (I Samuel 8:5)? _____________________. God said they had not rejected Samuel, but had rejected who as their King (I Samuel 8:7)? __________________. The judges never led them to perfection.

3. The first king, Saul, had such a jealous temper that he tried to do what to David (I Samuel 19:1,2)? ______________________________. When David became king, he was very religious, but also committed adultery with a woman, then had what done to her husband, Uriah (II Samuel 12:9)? ____________________ King Solomon, David's son, built a huge stone-and-gold Temple to God (II Chronicles 3), and was famous for what two things (II Chronicles 9:22)? _______________________ and ___________________. Yet, he also built places of worship (II Kings 23:13) to gods and goddesses on the Mount of _________________ ("worshipped" by both male and female prostitution). After that, the "holy" Israelite nation drifted farther from perfect. By the fourth king, the Israelites had a civil war and divided into the north (called Israel) and the south (called Judah). The kings never led them to perfect.   They just couldn't get it right.

4. God sent prophets to the northern kingdom of Israel to warn the people whom God had treated as a wife, to return. God said through HOSEA in 11:2 that the more he called, the more they burned incense to _________. In AMOS God said twice (5:4,6) ______________________________________.
What were the Israelites doing with righteousness (5:7)? _____________________.   God disciplined people, hoping they'd return, by making their own evil to others (OBADIAH 1:15) be ___________ ______________. God through MICAH said in 6:11-12 some of their sins included dishonest ______ ________________ and the people spoke _________________. God said through HABAKKUK that (2:5) they were arrogant and their greed was as large as _____________ that could not be satisfied. They became wealthy by that which is not (2:6) ______________________.

Despite warning through prophets over three centuries, the Israelites refused to follow God who only wanted what was best for them. So the king of Assyria (II Kings 17:5-6) laid siege against it for ____ years, then deported all the people in the northern kingdom of Israel (17:8) to __________________ because they had followed the practices of those nations before, whom God had (17:8) ____________ ____________ of the land. They just couldn't get it right: They couldn't be perfect.

5. God also sent prophets to the southern kingdom of Judah, begging it to return to their spiritual husband. God implored in JOEL 2:13 for them to rend their _______________ because God is _________________ and ___________, and slow to ________________ with great ________________ and could still relent from sending a parent's punishment on them.   God said through MICAH (2:1-2) woe to those who planned ______________ on their beds, seized fields, and took people's _____________. God finally said of Holy Jerusalem through Zephaniah (3:1-2) that Jerusalem was an ______________ city, who obeyed ______________ and refused to accept ______________.

6. God through ISAIAH said in 5:20 & 22, "Woe to them who call ________________________________________________________, and are mighty heroes at _________________________." He said of their worship in 29:13 that they came near to him with their _______________________, but their hearts were actually where? _________________________________________. He declared a woe on those who carry out plans that are not whose (30:1)? ____________________ Quote Isaiah 30:18: _______________________________________________________________________________________
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Even though they became weary doing evil, they still refused to admit (57:10) "There is no _______ ____________." What separates us from God (59:2)? ______________ Isaiah lamented in 64:6 (quote): _______________________________________________________________________________________
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7. JEREMIAH was the last prophet before the final destruction of Jerusalem. Again, thinking like a husband, God said in Jeremiah 2:1-2 he remembered back to the youth of the Israelites and how they were like a _____________to him. In 4:14 God begged Jerusalem to wash the evil from their hearts and to be ___________________. In 6:16 God begged them to ask for the ______________________ to find rest for their _______________, but they refused. In 7:9,10 God said, "Will you steal, commit adultery and lie, then 'go to church' and declare 'We are _______________'?" Finally God said that if the Israelites would not listen and turn (13:17), he would weep for them in _____________________, and his eyes _________________ bitterly with tears. When Jeremiah passed on God's warning, they treated him how (20:7)? ____________________ and ___________________. Instead, false prophets spoke (23:16) visions from their own _______________ and words God never said (23:25).

8. At last God allowed the Babylonians to capture Jerusalem, hoping that in their destitution they'd return to him and be saved eternally. The enemy set fire to the houses and broke down (JEREMIAH 39:8) the __________________. Then they exiled the Israelites to Babylon (39:9). They just couldn't get it right: They couldn't be perfect.

But God did not desert them even there. He promised they would be freed (29:10) after _____ years, time enough to repent and return to God. In fact, it would prophesied in ISAIAH 44:28 about 700 BC the very name of the future emperor who would free them and help rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. That yet-unborn-emperor's name was __________________. EZRA 1:2, written about 440 BC, says who freed the Israelites? ________________

9. But even after their return to their Promised land, people could not be perfect. So throughout all the times of the Old Testament, God prophesied a perfect King who would come and create a perfect Kingdom exactly 483 years after rebuilding Jerusalem (DANIEL 9:25-26), and after the decline of the world empires of Media, Persia, and (Daniel 8:20-22) _______________________, when Rome rises. That King (MICAH 5:2) will be born in little _______________________ and perform miracles (ISAIAH 35:5-6) on the blind, deaf, _______________ and ______________. Isaiah 53:5 said he will be __________________ for our sins, and verse 6 says our ________________ will be laid on him, and verse 10 says he will become the _________ offering in our place for our sins. ZECHARIAH 14:9 says he will become king over the whole _____________ and his kingdom will never (DANIEL 1:44) ________________. That king, of course, was to be Jesus Christ. And he would get it right: He would be perfect for us.

NEW TESTAMENT

10. Hebrews 9:1 says the __________________ testament/covenant had ordinances for ____________ and an earthly ______________. But Jesus became mediator of a (Hebrews 9:15) _________________
testament. If the first testament had been (Hebrews 8:7) _______________, God wouldn't have put in place a new one. By calling this testament (Hebrews 8:13) _____________, he made the first testament ____________ and meant for it to ________________________. Hebrews 9:15-17 says Christ became the mediator of a __________ testament so we may received the promised ________ _________ inheritance of life. For a will and testament to be put into effect, there must be the _____________ of the testator. The Old Law served as a (Hebrews 9:23) ______________________ of heavenly things. The Law of Moses was only a (Hebrews 10:1) ___________________ of the good things to come. Colossians 2:14 says God cancelled the ___________________ of the legal demands in the Law of Moses (Old Testament) and nailed it to the ________________.

11. Once Jesus established the church, we were no longer to keep any ordinances of the Old Testament Law of Moses unless it was repeated in the New Testament. Hebrews 7:24-26 says Jesus is our unchangeable priest, and always lives to ___________________ for us as our high priest. I Peter 2:5 and Revelation 1:6 says Christians are holy ________________ in this new kingdom. Hebrews 10:10 says Christians have been made holy [perfect in God's eyes] through the ___________________ of the __________ of Jesus Christ. Romans 12:1 says all Christians, as God's priests, are to offer our __________________ as daily sacrifices to God. We are also to offer the sacrificial fruit (Hebrews 13:15) of our ___________ to God's name, and the incense of our (Revelation 8:3) ___________________ to God.

12. Whenever "the law" is mentioned in the Bible, it is referring to the Law of (Luke 2:22-24,27; I Corinthians 9:9; Hebrews 10:28) _______________. James 2:10 says that if we return to that Law of Moses, then stumble at breaking even __________ part of it, we are ______________ of breaking it all. Galatians 5:3,4 says that if we even circumcise for religious purposes, we are obligated to keep the ________________ Law of Moses. When we revert to the Law of Moses, then we have ______ _____________ from grace. Galatians 3:2-3 says we do not receive the Holy Spirit by keeping the _____________ of Moses; doing that, we're trying to attain perfection in our _________________. II Corinthians 5:21 says Jesus was the only sinless one, which means he was also the only one to ever keep the Law of Moses perfectly. By imitating Jesus, we can become perfect like him (Romans 6:3-4). Thereupon we (Romans 7:4) become ______________ to the Law of Moses.