Signs of the Times: A Note About Chronology

Signs of the Times: A Note About Chronology

If you have been a faithful reader of http://www.arielion.com you will notice that until now everything we’ve done has been in a chronological order from Genesis through 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles as commentary on 1 & 2 Kings. We’ve gone from the creation of humanity through the calling of humanity by God to the courting of humanity by God to the marriage of humanity to God in His making a covenant with the people He chose as His people.

But this was a troublesome marriage. God was the most faithful of all husbands. He chose His people Israel above all other people. He provided her a home in the Promised Land and everything she could possibly want or need. But, after the briefest of honeymoons, God’s bride became a whore.

Israel ran after every kind of pleasure but GOD. And when she found the other pleasures were untrue she cried out to God her Husband and He came and rescued her. But even then only 1/6 or 2 of 12 tribes of GOD’s people were faithful to Him. And soon even those fell into idolatry.

That is where the chronology is at this point. 10 of the 12 tribes broke away into idolatry. Judah and the Levites who have been faithful finally fell into idolatry themselves. And God sends Judah and the Levites into captivity as punishment.

Before we get into the prophets and the exile of Judah we are going to go back and look at how the poetry and wisdom literature of the people mirrors their relationship with God. We will start with the Psalms of David and Proverbs of Solomon his son. We will move into the song of Solomon, the great marriage song of Solomon that mirrors the marriage song of Israel to God. Then we will go into Ecclesiastes to show Israel’s dissatisfaction with GOD. We will follow that with Jonah where God calls his people to be a blessing in His Name to other people even though it calls for suffering. And then we will go into the book of Job where we will find that suffering has a redemptive end.

That will give us a good basis to get back on track and go into exile and suffering with the people of God. through Obadiah, Joel, Amos, Hosea, Micah, Zephaniah, Habbakuk, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Esther, Ezekiel, Haggai, Zechariah and finish the Old Testament with Malachi.

Then we will be ready to look across the horizon of the ages into the eyes of our Savior and King in a manger.

It’s a long and winding road as the Beatles would say. But it will lead us through to the door of the Gospel in the New Testament. It will show us why we needed and still need JESUS, the Savior, today.