I. Eternity

• In eternity before time God purposed the salvation of sinful people. - Ephesians 3:8-12
• The history of the world, properly viewed, is the story of the development of this plan.
• The Bible tells this story until God has brought His plan to perfection through Christ and in His saved people, His church.

• In six days the Lord created the universe, including the earth, all living things on earth, and the first man and woman, Adam and Eve.
• God created man and woman in His own image. - Genesis 1:27
• He gave man dominion over all His creation. - Psalm 8:3-9
• He placed Adam and Eve in a beautiful home where they had everything they could properly desire, including direct, intimate communion with God. - Genesis 1:31; 2:8-9; 3:8

• But Adam and Eve sinned, i.e., they violated God’s law. - Genesis 2:16-17; 3:6
• Death and sorrow resulted. - Genesis 3:16-19
• Adam and Eve lost their beautiful home and their intimate companionship with God. - Genesis 3:22-24
• All since have likewise sinned. - Romans 5:12
• With the curses the Lord gave the first, faint promise of a Savior. - Genesis 3:15

• Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel.
• Cain killed His brother and became the first murderer.
• Adam and Eve had another son, Seth.
• Eventually all people except Noah and his family became wicked.

• The Lord destroyed the world of that time by a great Flood that lasted over a year and covered the entire earth.
• Noah and his family were the only people saved in the ark.

• After the Flood God commanded people to repopulate the earth.
• They rebelled and built a great tower as a symbol of unity so they could remain together.
• God caused them to speak different languages, so they were scattered across the earth.
• All the different kinds of people on the earth descended from the three sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

• Over time the Lord God appeared to a man named Abram who lived in the Ur of the Chaldees (in modern Kuwait).
• He gave Abram three great promises and told him to leave his home to go to a land He would show him.
• These three promises outline the Old Testament and connect the Old to the New. - Genesis 12:1-3,7
  1. Nation
  2. Seed
  3. Land
• These promises, in the form of a covenant, were passed down to Abram’s (Abraham) heirs: Isaac and Jacob (Israel).
• God sent Jacob’s son Joseph into Egypt to preserve Jacob’s family, the children of Israel, until it was time for them to inherit the promised land.

• Over time the Egyptians forgot Joseph and made the Israelites their slaves.
• God raised up a deliverer, Moses.
• When Pharaoh refused to let Israel go, God sent ten plagues on Egypt to show He is the only true God.
• After the tenth plague, the Passover, Pharaoh let Israel go.

• Moses the servant of God led Israel through the Red Sea on dry land and through the desert to Mt. Sinai.
• At Mt. Sinai:
  1. Moses received from God and gave to Israel the Law, including the Ten Commandments, which became Israel’s covenant with God.
  2. Moses built the tabernacle by a divine pattern as God’s dwelling among Israel and Israel’s place of worship.
  3. Moses organized Israel’s worship based on priests from the tribe of Levi and animal sacrifices.
  4. Moses counted their soldiers and organized the nation of Israel as an army.
  5. The Nation promise had been fulfilled. - Deuteronomy 26:5
  6. Israel was to keep the knowledge of God alive until the coming of Christ and was to provide the human lineage through which Christ would come.
• Israel set out for Canaan.
• They sent twelve men to spy out the land.
• Ten of the twelve gave an evil report, and Israel believed them and rebelled.
• Therefore, they were condemned to wander forty years in the wilderness until that generation died.
• At the end of forty years, the next generation went into Moab.
• There Moses repeated to them the Law and exhorted them to keep it.
• Moses died on Mt. Nebo, and Joshua became leader of Israel.

• Israel crossed the flooded Jordan River on dry ground and entered Canaan.
• God gave them Jericho.
• They conquered the land of Canaan and divided it among the tribes.
• The Land Promise was fulfilled. - Joshua 21:43-45

• Because Israel disobeyed God and did not drive out the Canaanites, God left them as a thorn in Israel’s side.
• The generation after Joshua did not know the Lord.
• They had no central government to defend the people.
• God wanted them to depend on Him as their King.
• For four hundred years they went through the oft repeated cycle:
  1. Sin (They would turn to idolatry.),
  2. Servitude (God would allow an oppressor to conquer them.),
  3. Sorrow (They would repent and pray to God.), and
  4. Salvation (God would raise up a judge to deliver them.).
• God raised up fourteen judges, and one evil man proclaimed himself king.

• Saul
  1. Israel demanded that Samuel, the last judge, make them a king to fight their battles, as the other nations had.
  2. They were rejecting God as their King.
  3. God told Samuel to do what Israel wanted, and Saul, the kind of man Israel wanted, the tallest man in Israel, became their first king.
  4. Saul became proud and rebellious, and God chose a king after His own heart, David.
• David
  1. Though David was guilty of great sins, he was a man of great faith.
  2. God promised that an heir of David would reign forever. - 1 Chronicles 17:11-14
  3. David ruled over all the land God promised Abraham. - 2 Samuel 8:3
• Solomon
  1. Solomon, David’s son, asked God for wisdom, and God made him the wisest and wealthiest man in the world.
  2. Solomon built a magnificent house for God, the Temple.
  3. Because Solomon married many foreign wives, who turned his heart from the Lord to idolatry, the Lord determined to take the kingdom from his son but to leave him a remnant to rule.
  4. We remember Solomon for his wisdom, wealth, women, and works.

• Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, foolishly refused to listen to the elders and lighten the people’s burdens, and the ten Northern tribes, hereafter called Israel, selected Jeroboam as king.
• Israel
  1. Jeroboam corrupted the worship of God in Israel, and every king of Israel followed his sinful example.
  2. Israel had ten dynasties of kings, and all of their kings were evil.
  3. The worst was Ahab, who, along with his Phoenician queen, Jezebel, introduced the horrible worship of Baal in Israel.
  4. God sent Israel great prophets, Elijah and Elisha, but they would not listen.
  5. God sent Jehu, and he killed all who sided with Ahab and destroyed Baal worship, but Jehu kept the calf worship Jeroboam had begun.
  6. God sent other prophets, Jonah, Hosea, and Amos, but, although the Assyrians listened to Jonah, Israel would not hear.
  7. God destroyed Israel by the Assyrians in 721 B.C. and scattered them throughout the Assyrian Empire.
• Judah (Southern kingdom)
  1. Judah’s kings were of the lineage of David.
  2. Some were good, and some were bad.
  3. King Jehoshaphat was personally righteous, but, because he allied himself with wicked Ahab, the lineage of David, through whom Christ was to come, was almost destroyed.
  4. Under good King Hezekiah, and with the help of the prophets Isaiah and Micah, Judah successfully resisted the Assyrians.
  5. More than any other prophet, Isaiah prophesied of the Messiah (Christ) to come.

• King Manasseh was even more wicked than the kings of Israel, and through his influence Judah was doomed.
• Good King Josiah restored the worship and service of God, but the damage was done.
• Neither the kings nor the people would listen to the prophet Jeremiah, and God brought Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, against them.
• Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem three time - 606 B.C., 597 B.C., and 586 B.C. - and finally destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 586.

• In fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecies, Judah was taken into Babylonian captivity for seventy years. - Jeremiah 25:11
• Ezekiel prophesied to the captives in Chaldea.
• Daniel prophesied about the nations and the Kingdom of God in the palace in Babylon.
• Daniel prophesied of four great empires: Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman.
• During the time of this fourth kingdom, God would establish His kingdom, it would replace all these kingdoms, and it would stand forever.

• In further fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecies, in 536 B.C. King Cyrus of Medo-Persia allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem.
• A group returned under Zerubbabel in 536 and gradually rebuilt the Temple.
• Haggai and Zechariah encouraged them to finish the Temple and to serve the Lord.
• A second group returned with Ezra in 458 B.C., and Ezra taught the people how to keep the Law of God.
• Esther, a Jewess in Shushan, the capital of Persia, became queen, and God showed He was with His people wherever they went by preserving them through Esther from the attempt by Haman to destroy all Jews.
• A third group returned with Nehemiah in 444 B.C., and Nehemiah led them in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.
• God completely fulfilled His promise to restore national Israel. - Ezra 2:70
• Both the destruction of Israel and their restoration as a nation, all in fulfillment of prophecy, were witnesses to the nations that the Lord alone is God. -Isaiah 46:9-10

• After the prophet Malachi, there was a four hundred year period of silence during which God did not speak to His people by a prophet. - Amos 8:11
• In 331 B.C., Alexander the Great conquered Persia and established the Grecian Empire.
• After Alexander’s death, his empire was divided between his generals.
• Israel was ruled first by the Ptolemies in Egypt then by the Seleucids in Syria.
• In 167 B.C. the Maccabees successfully resisted Syrian attempts to destroy the Law and the worship of the Lord and managed to set up an independent Jewish state.
• The Romans defeated the Seleucids in 64 B.C., and Palestine became a part of the Roman province of Syria.

• God spoke to Zacharias the priest as he ministered in the Temple and promised him a son who would be the promised fore runner of the Messiah.
• The years of silence had ended.
• Christ was born of the virgin Mary in Bethlehem in fulfillment of prophecy.
• He was descended from Abraham and David in fulfillment of prophecy.
• The fullness of the time had come. - Galatians 4:4
• John, the promised son of Zacharias and Elizabeth, preached that the kingdom was about to be established and called on the Jews to repent.
• Jesus Christ went about Palestine, preaching the good news of the coming kingdom, calling on the people to repent, teaching the nature of the kingdom, and working great miracles
• Jesus selected and sent out twelve apostles to preach the kingdom to Israel.
• In fulfillment of prophecy, the Jews rejected Christ and had Him crucified by the Romans
• Also in fulfillment of prophecy, on the third day He arose from the dead and was seen by a number of witnesses.

• Jesus told His apostles to preach the good news of salvation to the whole world and to teach His disciples to do so as well.
• On the first Pentecost after Jesus’ resurrection, the Holy Spirit came on the apostles and gave them the power to bear witness for Christ, to preach the good news of salvation, and to confirm their message by great miracles
• The kingdom of God had come.
• The church, God’s people saved through His Son Christ Jesus, began with the salvation of 3,000 people on Pentecost.
• The church grew dramatically.
• Peter preached the good news of salvation through Christ to Gentiles.
• Paul made three preaching trips to the Gentiles and was sent as a prisoner to Rome.
• The disciples fulfilled the Lord’s command to take the gospel to the world in just one generation.
• The third promise to Abraham, the Seed Promise, has now been fulfilled. - Galatians 3:8,16
• People of every nation and language may now become the children of God, the children of Abraham, and heirs of the promise. - Galatians 3:26-29

• Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John recorded the story of Christ in books to show He is the Christ, the Son of God.
• Luke recorded the spread of the gospel by the first generation of disciples.
• Paul, James, Peter, John, and Jude wrote letters to Christians, thus leaving a record of the teaching of Christ.

• John wrote from exile on the island of Patmos to seven congregations in the Roman Province of Asia.
• He told of the final defeat of all the enemies of Christ, including Satan, and the victory of Christ and His faithful followers.
• John promised that when Christ returns:
  1. Paradise will be restored in Heaven,
  2. God will once more dwell with His people,
  3. We will reign with Him eternally,
  4. Sin, sorrow, and death will be no more.