God's Plan for RedemptionSample

After sin came into the world, we see that perfect world unravel and spiral into the imperfect world we know today. God watched as the people he created to know and love Him began to turn away from him and toward their own desire for control and power. In doing so, many things were done that brought hurt and pain to others. God looked around for people who were still loyal to him, and he found a man named Abraham (who was called Abram at first). We follow the story of Abraham’s family, who became the nation of Israel. God invited the Israelites into a relationship meant to restore mankind’s relationship with Him. But in the end, they also walked away from God…over and over again. We see this, especially in the book of Judges, where our reading is from today. God sets up a judge to correct the people and point them back to God, but they fall away, and that’s what happens in the whole book! But it’s not just in Judges that this happens. There is a pattern in the Old Testament of God setting up someone to be his representative and put his people back on the right path. All of these stories begin to set the stage for the hope that people will have in the Messiah, who will come and save them. While the Israelites didn’t know what to expect, we know that this Messiah was Jesus. Jesus came to do what humans could not accomplish, saving humanity.