While not entirely the same, Israel’s story how would it affect you if it burned

still doesn’t seem to change much. Only down?)

the characters change, but the actions
remain the same – Israel is forced to live
under foreign ruler after foreign ruler
from the point of the exile all the way up
to the dawning of a new and Kingdom in
Christ.

Jesus makes it very clear that His

Kingdom is not a Kingdom that operates
under the laws of human political
Please don’t throw this away. If you’re not going to use
science, although we try to force it, leave it for someone else to use.
Christianity to be the kind of politics that
we practice.

Instead, Jesus’ “politic” is something

new. It is simply personal involvement
EXILED
with the hurting. His rule is only just
the story of Israel’s exile
because He offers Himself as the
condemned on our behalf.
• What political issues are important
to Christians? How well do we
follow Christ in how we respond to
these issues?

For next time…

Read II Kings 17-25. Note any
questions that you have. It’s ok to have
a lot. This is a period of Israel’s history
that not many people know about.

Applying the story…

Throughout the story of the exile, we see
some of the same foolish mistakes being
made around one broad general heading
– “idolatry”.

Israel is taken captive because they

make idols of foreign made-up gods, and
because they make gods out of their The Divided Kingdom
nation, their wealth, their political power,
or their security. becomes
What are the idols in your life? If God
the Exiled Kingdom
were to shatter your idols by taking them
away from you – how would that affect
your life? (i.e. if your house is your idol,
 • The events of our life shape our
perspective. What kind of
perspective might have come out
of this wandering history?

A House Divided
I Kings 12:16-21

A history of homelessness What had been known as the nation of

Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Israel has dealt with a sense of
“homelessness” since its very
beginnings. The earliest person
identified as the forerunner of Israel is
Abraham, who began as a city dweller in
the city of Ur, but after God called him,
turned into a nomadic wandering
shepherd.
All of the Patriarchs of Israel (Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob) lived lives that were
constantly on the move. During the
reign of Joseph, son of Jacob, in the land
of Egypt – the Israelites finally received
land of their own. However, soon, this
land was no longer theirs and they were
forced into slave labor in Egypt for
generations.
Israel, the unified monarchy of the
Hebrew people under great kings such as
Saul, David, and Solomon had fallen
apart in a civil war by 930 BC.
One nation was now split into two:
• Israel, the northern kingdom with
its capital city in Samaria
• Judah, the southern kingdom with
its capital in Jerusalem
There is some debate to the effect that
this split had upon the ability of other
nations to take control of the Hebrew
people and carry them off into captivity.
Most scholars agree that a unified
kingdom would have been much harder
to defeat and carry into exile.

God called Israel out of Egypt, allowing

them to “escape” into a wilderness
wandering lasting 40 years. When Israel
finally arrived at the Jordan River, over
looking the land that had been promised
to them by God Himself, they saw that it
was already inhabited by people. They
would have to fight to take claim of the
homeland they had been promised, but
at least they had a home….for now.

• Israel lived without a home for

much of its existence. That’s not
something that sounds appealing
to us. Why do you suppose God
allowed this to happen to His
chosen people?
In response to an accusation of casting
out demons by the power of Satan, not
God, Jesus tells His accusers that “a
house divided against itself cannot
stand.”
• What issues tempt families,
companies, or even churches to
divide against themselves?

The End of History

II Kings 17:7-23

Although some of the first mentions of

Israel’s exile seem to show up in the
middle of the Old Testament (II Kings),
Israel’s exile and subsequent return form
the end of Old Testament history before
the arrival of the New Testament.

While events happened between the

return from exile (approx. 515) and the
birth of Jesus (approx 4 AD), they are
muted from Scriptural history. This
silence of Scripture spans a great period
of time in which Israel was ruled almost
exclusively by Greeks (332 BC – 129 BC).