Old Testament Episodes – Page 2 – What Does This Mean?

Sunday School: Daniel and the Lions

Encore post: Daniel lived a long and remarkable life. As a young man, he was carried off into exile by the Babylonians. Because he showed remarkable leadership skills, King Nebuchadnezzar brought him into the court. He lived a long life in service of Babylon, living until the Persians conquered the empire. He continued to serve the Persians.

Daniel was an honorable official and fell victim to politics in the high ranks of the Persian Empire. His enemies succeeded in getting a law passed that Daniel could not keep. (Daniel 6) The law required that no one pray to any god other than the king for thirty days. Even though he knew the law, Daniel continued his custom of praying three times a day, facing Jerusalem, giving thanks to God. His enemies turned him in to King Darius, who, even though he was Daniel’s friend and didn’t want to condemn him, ordered him thrown to the lions.

Being above reproach, Daniel did not respond as many politicians in his day and those in government even to this day. He did not retaliate, but allowed his innocence to speak for him. Having been thrown to the lions, God rewarded Daniel’s trust and faithfulness by sending an angel to protect his servant. When the king saw that Daniel was still alive, he restored Daniel and had his enemies thrown to the lions.

Daniel has become a model for civil service for Christians. His example of faith was praised by the writer of the book of Hebrews along with his friends Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. He shows us the way to love God and serve our nation as well.

Blog Post Series

Sunday School: Three Men in the Furnace — or is it Four?

Encore Post: Ancient peoples looked upon their leaders as lesser gods, worthy of worship. They built statues to honor themselves and required all people to worship them. This practice continued even in Roman times to the pagan Caesars. It was seen as a patriotic act, similar to saying the pledge of allegiance and saluting the flag. From time to time, kings would enforce public worship of their statues or the statues of their gods to test the loyalty of their subjects.

For Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, loyalty to God was more important than life itself. They trusted that God could deliver them and placed full trust in Him. Yet they were prepared for God to take them to His side instead. God sent his Son as the Angel of the Lord to protect His servants in the fire. The writer to the Hebrews included these men in the great chapter on faith. (Hebrews 11:32-34) Christian martyrs throughout the centuries looked up to these men for inspiration when called to choose between God and country.

Faith is trusting God to keep his promises. It holds on to the fact that God kept the most important of his promises to his people in the Old Testament. In the person of the Son of God, THE Angel of the Lord, he became a man in the womb of the Virgin Mary, lived a perfect life for us, suffered and died at the hands of a pagan government, rose again from the grave and ascended to heaven. Because he has done these things, we are certain that he will keep the rest of his promises — to bring us to be with him forever when we die and raise us from the grave at the last day. It is that faith that sustained Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, their friend Daniel, all the martyrs for the faith who obeyed God rather than man. With them numbered may we be, here and in eternity.

Blog Post Series

Sunday School: Ezekiel, A Prophet in Exile

Encore Post: We actually know a good bit about Ezekiel because he tells us as much about himself. He was the son of a priest in Jerusalem. Having that connection, he probably had great knowledge about the temple. He was married, and he lived in Tel-abib near the Chebar canal, and he had his own house. He paid attention to the words of Lord, that the exile was not going to be a short venture.

Judah was facing her worst defeat ever. People were being ripped from their homes and sent into exile. And we know why this was happening. God let it happen because of their manifest sin against him, particularly running after other gods.

This was Ezekiel’s message: Judah was ripe for the Lord’s judgment. One vision that he saw was that of the Lord’s Spirit leaving the temple. This may or may not have happened in “real life,” but what is clear in the vision is that gracious presence of the Lord was leaving the people of Jerusalem. As we remember from a few weeks ago, the people would know that a prophet was in their midst. And this came to be known as Ezekiel’s prophecies came true. The exiled community began to recognize their sin and need of forgiveness.

And the Lord, through Ezekiel showed mercy to the people. Ezekiel’s vision of the Glory of the Lord at the beginning of the book shows a throne with wheels within wheels, implying that the Lord is mobile. While the gracious presence of the Lord was not seen by Judah for a time, it did not mean that the Lord was far from them. The Law was doing its work bringing them to repentance making them ready for the Gospel.

What we see in Ezekiel is the promised hope found in Jesus, the Good Shepherd who would come and seek the lost. He would bind up the injured, and strengthen the weak. He would be the one to feed the sheep on good pasture.

Ezekiel, a prophet of the exile, gave comfort and hope to those people who had little hope. Through Ezekiel, the Lord promised comfort and future peace, peace that would come to full fruition in the God-Man, Jesus Christ.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
Christ Lutheran Church
Noblesville, IN

Blog Post Series

Sunday School: King Josiah

Encore post: King Josiah was unique. He was king at age eight. He began to love the Lord and to keep His covenant at age sixteen. Few of his royal ancestors were faithful to God and His law, most of them worshipping the gods of the Canaanites. His grandfather Manesseh was among the worst, sacrificing his own sons on their altars. His father continued the pattern, letting the temple fall into disrepair, placing idols within its walls, encouraging the people to practice the religion of their neighbors.

During these evil years, it appears that the priests removed the scroll containing the Book of Deuteronomy from the open areas of the temple and hid them in the storerooms nearby. King Josiah ordered the temple renovated and placed the High Priest in charge. As they were cleaning and repairing the building, the priests rediscovered it.

When King Josiah heard the words of this book read, he reacted with great sorrow. He realized that God’s people had wandered far from the Lord and spent the rest of his life destroying the false gods of Canaan and calling God’s people to serve their Lord. Josiah remains an example of how a devout leader can live to serve God and His people.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Blog post series

Sunday School King Hezekiah and the Assyrian Siege

Encore Post: Prior to King Josiah, there was another king who followed in the commandments of of the Lord, his name was Hezekiah. His story is covered in 2 Kings 18-20. There, the author of Kings tells us that Hezekiah did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, cutting down the Asherah poles. He recognized the idolatry which ran rampant among the people. Judah was actually bowing down before the bronze serpent that Moses made in the wilderness! Hezekiah broke it into pieces. He was zealous for proper worship of the Lord.

Hezekiah was king of Judah during the Assyrian destruction of the northern kingdom. After Israel’s defeat, Judah was on high alert. The largest superpower was knocking on their door. And Assyria was a promised instrument of the Lord to exact judgment on His people.

The Rabeshakeh, that is a spokesman for the king of Assyria, spoke to Hezekiah telling him that no god had saved the other surrounding countries. So, would Hezekiah’s God save Judah? The king of Assyria, Sennacherib, speaks of himself as a god, able to give a land that is good as if not better than what God had promised to the people of Israel way back in his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and again to the people as they were coming into the Promised Land.

Hezekiah, though afraid of the impending doom for Jerusalem, does what a faithful Christian ought to do in time of distress. He spoke with Lord’s servant Isaiah and inquires of the Lord with prayer. God has been mocked in speech of Sennachrib, and Hezekiah pleads that God hears it. He does and gives peace to Hezekiah, promising that Sennachrib will die by the sword in his own land.

Isaiah 37 records for us what happens to Assyrian army. The Angel of the Lord, struck the army and 185,000 died that night. The Lord preserved Hezekiah and Jerusalem for the time being.

We learn from Hezekiah to rely on God alone when we are in distress as well as times of plenty. Isaiah the prophet and this story of Jerusalem being under siege tells us to rely on God who gives us our daily bread. For he also gives us the blessed forgiveness of sins in the saving work of Jesus on the cross who took upon the siege of the devil at the cross and won for us the true promised land, the promise of the new heaven and new earth that is to come.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
Christ Lutheran Church
Noblesville, Indiana

Sunday School: Jonah and the Unforgivable

Encore Post: Nineveh was the ancient capital of the Assyrian Empire, located on the Tigris River in what is now modern Iraq. Our story takes place during the years when its power was growing and a number of events caused the people to focus on the service of their gods. About a century after the events of the Book of Jonah, The Assyrians invaded Israel, carried off all the people of the Northern Kingdom into exile.

Jonah is not a typical prophet. He came from a small town near Nazareth and hated the people of Nineveh for their legendary cruelty. Rather than participate in God’s plan to rescue the residents of the city from their sinful ways, he would rather go to the ends of the earth — literally. Tarshish was in Spain, which was the western edge of the known world at that time. As pagan sailors work to save his life, he seems unconcerned. When the fish swallows him, he comes to his senses and turns to God. Yet even then he only preaches to Nineveh because God commands it. He is even angry with God when the people repent and God spares them.

Before we criticize Jonah too much, consider how you’d react if God sent you to preach to people that you have no use for. Imagine being called to preach to members of murderous gangs, to Muslim terrorists or even to those who rape or beat up children or women. It’s hard to have any sympathy for them, isn’t it?

Yet that is what we are called to do. American Lutheran pastor Henry Gerecke had volunteered as a chaplain in World War II. He served an Army unit and visited the Dachau death camp. When the Army asked him to be the chaplain for the Nazis on death row during the Nuremberg war crime trials, he volunteered. How do you minister to monsters? He approached the eleven Nazi leaders that conducted the holocaust through their childhood faith. He did not gloss over their crimes. When they asked to be communed, he refused unless they truly repented and confessed faith in Jesus. It is not a surprise that seven did not. Yet four did. He prayed a childhood prayer with one as the Nazi went to the gallows.

We must never forget that we, too, are sinners and unworthy of God’s mercy. Yet God, in his love, sent Jesus to see and to save the lost — both respectable people and the monsters, too. He calls on us to rejoice, for he has found his lost sheep and brought them all home.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Blog Post Series

Sunday School: Jeremiah, The Weeping Prophet

Encore Post: Jesus, when he asked the disciples who the Son of Man was, got some interesting answers. His disciples gave him the answers, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

It is striking that Jeremiah was mentioned by name. Jeremiah is best known as the weeping prophet, and that at first glance has little to do with the Son of Man, which we see coming on the clouds in triumph and judgment. He wept for Jerusalem because her disobedience led to destruction. Jeremiah truly suffered as he witnessed Jerusalem’s fall. Jeremiah was a prophet who suffered mightily for the words that the Lord had him utter. His scroll was burned. Jeremiah was also jailed and even thrown into a cistern.

So what does it mean that the some said the Son of Man was to be Jeremiah? Did they know something about the Son of Man that the disciples did not? Did not the Son of Man come into the world to suffer? To suffer the awful fate of the cross, that was on the agenda of the Son of Man. Jeremiah is perhaps the best type we have in the Old Testament that points us forward to Jesus’ sorrow over Jerusalem as well as Jesus’ suffering at the hands of his own people due to his message.

The book that bears Jeremiah’s name and the next book in our Bible, Lamentations, speaks a lot about suffering. But this is not the only thing nor it is the last word. There is hope; there is Gospel. Jeremiah is given some of the sweetest words of the Gospel that we have recorded for us in all of Scripture. The mourning of the believer will be turned to song. The Lord’s love is never ending. Great is His faithfulness. In Christ, the true Son of Man, the one who suffered even worse than the weeping prophet, Jeremiah, has set us free from sin and death by his own death and resurrection.

So yes, Jeremiah should have been in the conversation of the Son of Man because He is a type and figure of the very Son of Man, Jesus, who suffered and died and rose to win salvation and everlasting life for us, poor, miserable sinners.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
Christ Lutheran Church
Noblesville Indiana

Sunday School: Elijah’s Mantle on Elisha Cast

Encore Post: Elijah knew his ministry was nearing the end. At Mount Sinai he complained to God that all his ministry, including fire called from heaven, was useless. He believed he was alone. God showed his prophet his glory in wind, earthquake and fire. As Moses did in the same place, Elijah hid his eyes from the glory of God — this time with his cloak, the symbol of his call as a prophet. Yet even after seeing the glory of God, Elijah was unmoved. So, in a quiet voice, God told his faithful prophet he was far from alone. To Elijah he gave a final commission: to appoint his successors.

God sent Elijah to call Elisha to be his successor. Their names sound very close in English, but are very different in Hebrew. Elijah means, “Yahweh is God.” Elisha means, “God saves.” Elisha’s name is very close to Joshua’s name. Joshua means, “Yahweh saves.” Elijah threw his cloak over Elisha, who did not miss the meaning of that gesture.

When it was time for Elijah to go, he and Elisha went to Gilgal. There the people of Israel had first camped when they came into the promised land, were circumcised as God’s people, celebrated the Passover, saw the end of the coming of Mana and the departure of the pillar of fire by night and cloud by day. There the Angel of the Lord commissioned Joshua. Then they went to Bethel, where Jacob had dreamed of the angels coming and going from heaven. Finally, they went to Jericho, where Joshua struck the first blow against the gods of Canaan.

When the two prophets arrived at the Jordan River, Elijah rolled up the cloak into a staff like Moses’s. He struck the River and it parted — just as it did in the same place for Joshua. Like Moses, Elijah would depart this world from just outside the promised land. As the chariot of fire carried Elijah into heaven in a whirlwind, Elisha caught his cloak. The new prophet struck the Jordan with it and it parted. God had made Elisha the heir of Elijah’s ministry.

Nearly two thousand years later, Moses and Elijah met with Jesus as those he would send watched. The new Joshua (Jesus’ name is the Greek form of Joshua’s name) would suffer, die and rise again to defeat sin, death and the power of the devil. Rising from the dead, he breathed the Holy Spirit on his appointed prophets. From generation to generation, one generation’s prophets have laid their hands upon those who would take up their stoles after them. God of the prophets, bless the prophets’ sons, Elijah’s mantle on Elisha cast. Make each one nobler, stronger than the last.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Blog Post Series

Sunday School: Elijah, The Man of God when There were Few

Encore Post: Elijah is not credited with any of the books of the Bible, but he is remembered as one of the most powerful prophets of the entire Old Testament. His stories are legendary for those of us who listened to our moms and dads read bible stories before bed. He was the prophet who prophesied a 3 year drought. He was the prophet who worked the miracle of flour and oil, and raised the widow’s son from the dead. He was the prophet who called down fire on Mount Carmel in the midst of the Baal priests. And we can’t forget about him being taken up to heaven by a whirlwind and a chariot of fire.

Elijah was the Lord’s man. But even in the midst of great triumph and acts of the Lord, Elijah shows himself to be afraid. I should say, it is difficult to determine if Elijah is afraid or he is tired of preaching to people who do not believe. You can read Dr. Maier’s great commentary on Kings from CPH for that answer. But what we do know is that Elijah runs to Mount Horeb wishing to die because he thinks he is the only prophet of the Lord left. The Lord is merciful to Elijah. The Lord tells him the truth of the situation. The Lord has 7,000 men who have not bowed down to Baal.

What a great comfort to Elijah! He is not working in vain. The Lord worked to bring about repentance and faith in the time of great apostasy then, and He still works now through the preaching of His Word. What great comfort to us now! The Word of the Lord remains the same.

In the days of Malachi the Lord promised to send Elijah prior to the great day of the Lord. Jesus plainly tells his disciples that John was the Elijah. And we must not forget that Elijah was on the mountain of transfiguration with Jesus and Moses, speaking about Jesus’ own exodus.

What a man of the Lord! Elijah was used by the Lord to bring about repentance and faith in the time when there were few who believed and worshiped the true God of Israel. Thanks be to God that in these days where the world appears to be going in that same way, there are those who preach the same message of Elijah.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
Christ Lutheran Church
Noblesville, IN

Sunday School: Solomon Asks for Wisdom

Encore Post: When God invited Solomon to ask for a blessing, Solomon asked for wisdom. Solomon’s request pleased God for several reasons. First, he was humble, realizing his limitations. He was still very young and had little experience governing. Second, he sought to serve God first. He asked for wisdom — the ability to use knowledge well to meet needs and discernment — the ability to tell right from wrong. He sought first God’s Kingdom and righteousness. God granted him what he asked for — and riches, fame and long life as well.

King Solomon was the son of King David and Bathsheba. His life shows how completely God forgives, since David committed great sins with and because of Bathsheba. They deserved to die, but God forgave them, let them live and gave them a second son. Solomon would be an ancestor of the Messiah.

Under Solomon, Israel became a prosperous and powerful nation. Solomon was a great organizer. He reformed the kingdom’s bureaucracy, making it more efficient and channeling its prosperity effectively. He built God’s Holy Temple and numerous other buildings. He became a collector of proverbs, many of which appear in the Book of Proverbs. According to tradition, the Books of Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs are written by the King, although much debate about this exists among scholars.

As great as he was, Solomon was a sinner also. He married hundreds of wives, mainly to secure treaties. He allowed them to worship the gods of their fathers and even constructed temples for them. For this reason, God caused the kingdom to be divided during his son’s reign. Yet, for the sake of the one greater than Solomon, his sins are forgiven, along with ours.