Just Because: The Story of Salvation for Children (15 page)

man who ever lived, next to Jesus.

One day a woman took another woman’s baby.

Her own baby had died, and perhaps this was why for

a while she did sil y things. The baby’s real mother

went to the soldiers and told them this woman had

stolen her baby, so the soldiers took the two women

and the baby to King Solomon. King Solomon asked

both ladies if the child was theirs, and both said

they were its mother. So King Solomon said to the

soldier, “Take the baby and cut it in half and give

them each half.”

“Oh,” said one woman, “that’s fair.”

“No, please don’t cut the child in half,” said the

other woman. “Give the child to her, or it will die.”

King Solomon took the child and gave it to the

woman who had said, “Please don’t cut it in half.”

Solomon knew the real mother would rather have

another woman take her baby than to see her baby

die. He was never going to let the baby die, but it was

a very wise way to learn the truth.

King Solomon is also famous for being the first

person to build a temple for the Lord in Jerusalem.

He didn’t like for the beautiful box called the ark to

be kept in a tent, and he believed the Lord should

have a beautiful temple. So Solomon hired 150,000

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men to build the temple of God, and it took them

twenty years to build. A little part of it is still standing

today although it was built over twenty-five hundred

years ago. The ark of the covenant was brought into

the temple, and there it remained until seventy years

after Jesus was born.

After this there were other kings in Israel, some

good, some bad. Some of them worshipped Satan,

and some worshipped the Lord. One king was called

Manasseh, and he was a real bad dude. He built

temples especially for worshipping Satan, and these

were called the temples of Baal. He sacrificed his

own children, burning them to death to please Satan.

He was a terrible and evil man. So the Lord spoke

to him through one of His prophets, but he took no

notice. The Lord told him that if he didn’t change

then bad things would happen to him. He was very

proud and didn’t listen. Then a king from a different

land came to Israel and captured him, and he was

taken away and pulled along the road with a ring that

was put through his nose. Ouch!

He finally saw what a terrible man he had been.

He realised Satan had tricked him, and he was very,

very sorry for all the evil things he had done. He

humbled himself before the Lord and asked the

Lord to forgive him. Because he was truly sorry, the

Lord forgave him and forgot all his terrible sins. Did

you know the Lord always forgets the sins He has

forgiven? Isn’t He awesome!

Manasseh had a son called Amon, and after King

Manasseh died Amon became king. Now this guy

was a real bad dude, and he did all the things his

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father had done before he asked the Lord’s forgive-

ness. I guess some people never seem to learn from

their fathers’ mistakes.

He built more temples of Baal. The people

followed him, and their hearts were turned against

God. But some people hated him, and they killed

him.Amon had a son called Josiah, and he was eight

years old when his evil father was killed. Little Josiah

became the king of Israel. Now you might think,

“How could God use a kid of eight years old to do

awesome things?” Well, as I said before, God looks

on the heart, and Josiah had a humble heart. He hated

the evil his father had done. He knew it was evil, and

Josiah wanted the people to do good and love the

Lord so he decided to pull down the temples of Baal.

In the beautiful temple of God his father had put evil

things, and Josiah destroyed everything that was

used for evil. He stopped all the witches and servants

of Satan from teaching the people, and he told the

people to celebrate the Passover, to remember when

the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt. He found the

Book of the Law, which Moses had written, and he

made the people learn God’s ways.

Josiah was a great king. He was only a kid when

he became king, but he was the best king Israel had

had since David and Solomon. This little boy changed

Israel while he was alive, Just Because he loved what

was right and hated what was wrong, and the Lord

always uses kids like that to do cool things.

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During the times when the Israelites had bad

kings and turned away from God, the Lord

would send prophets to them to try to make them

change back to Him. But sadly they usually they

didn’t listen.

One of those prophets was cal ed Isaiah. He is

one of the many famous prophets in the Bible, and

he was a great guy, ful of wisdom and love for God.

Many times the Lord would speak through him, and

he would tel the people what was going to happen

if they did not obey the Lord. Always what he said

happened. And that is how we know when a prophet is

truly speaking from God or not. If he says something

that doesn’t come true, then he is a false prophet, a

prophet NOT from God. In Isaiah’s time, if you were

a false prophet, they punished you by throwing rocks

at you until you were dead. So you had to be perfectly

right, and the only way you could say things perfectly

right was if it was truly the Lord who told you what

to say because He never makes mistakes.

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Isaiah lived about seven hundred years before

Jesus was born, but in his book he wrote down many

things that would happen to Jesus so everyone would

realise Jesus is the Lord. The Israelite people thought

God would send them a king like David to save

them, but the Lord had a different Saviour in mind.

Over the next few hundred years the Lord told many

prophets to write things about the coming of Jesus,

and you can find them in your Bible.

In chapters fifty-two and fifty-three of his book

Isaiah wrote a lot about Jesus. He said Jesus would act

wisely, He would be raised up, and His body would

be hurt and bleeding beyond that of any man, even so

that people who knew Him would say it didn’t look

like Him. He also said Jesus would not call out when

they whipped and crucified Him and He would be our

guilt offering like a lamb being killed for our sins.

Isaiah also told us who Jesus’ mother would be and,

most important of all, that Jesus wouldn’t stay dead

after He was killed but would come alive again.

The prophet Micah told us Jesus would be born

in Bethlehem, and Daniel told us how to count the

years until He would be born. All these words are

written in the Bible so we can know Jesus is the real

Son of God.

Many things also had to happen. God was still

preparing the world for when He would come down and

die for us. Isaiah told the people that if they did not obey

God a huge army would come and capture them and

they would become prisoners. Guess what happened.

The Babylonians, who had a pret y crazy name, came

and captured the Israelites. The Babylonians were the

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most powerful nation at that time. While the Israelites

were prisoners of the Babylonians, they realised they

had done wrong and repented. That means they asked

God to forgive them.

The next thing that happened was that the Persians

came and captured Babylon, and they formed the

Persian Empire. The Persians were now the most

powerful nation in the world. The Persian king sent

the Israelites away, and they spread out all over the

world, except for lots of them who went back to Israel

and Jerusalem. Now you might be thinking, “What

is so important about that?” Well, the Israelites, or

Jews as they are also called, were the only people

who believed there was only one God. Everybody

else thought there were hundreds of gods. You know,

they had a god of fire, a god of rain, a god of sun, a

god of water. Of course you and I know that’s a lot

of old rubbish, but they didn’t know that. It was part

of God’s plan to send the Jews all over the world so

they could teach others the truth about the one and

only true God, and this would prepare the world for

Jesus coming. Good idea, don’t you think?

Now the next part of God’s plan was to give the

world one, brilliant, universal language for when

Jesus came and some wise men to think about ideas

of philosophy. Whoa! What a big word. It just means

to learn things and think about important questions in

life like what are we doing here, where did we come

from and stuff like that.

Now the Lord completed this part of His plan

through a guy called Alexander the Great. Of course

young Alexander didn’t know God was going to use

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what he was doing. But sometimes the Lord uses

whoever is available, even if their reasons are different

from His, like with Joseph’s brothers who sold him

into Egypt. Alexander the Great was a Greek, and

he took over the whole world in just thirteen years.

Now we say the whole world because nobody knew

about the parts of the world that were a long way

from Israel, and there were not a lot of people living

in those places. But of course there were people in

India and China who didn’t become Persians, Greeks

and others.

After he had taken over the world, Alexander

didn’t have anything to do so he got bored and died.

Maybe he needed a good book or a good job, but he

just liked taking over the world. Now the whole world

had the ancient Greek language. It is a language people

can’t make a lot of sil y mistakes with when they are

explaining things, and this was important so people

wouldn’t tel lies about Jesus. Al these things were

preparing for when God would come to earth and

become a man. The plan of preparation was nearly

complete, and Jesus would come when the time was

perfect. The Lord becoming a person was the most

important event that ever happened, and it would only

happen at the most perfect time, Just Because God

always does things in His perfect time.

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After the Greek empire came the Roman Empire.

The Romans conquered the whole world. You

could travel anywhere you liked without a passport,

and you could have any religion you liked as long as it

didn’t say things against the Romans. The Jews were

still living all over the place, but there were heaps

of them in Jerusalem, which of course is in Israel.

There they had the temple, and to run the temple they

had these guys called Pharisees. The temple was the

most important part of Jerusalem, and it was real big.

It was about the same as twelve football fields put

together, so you can see it was very, very big.

Now the Pharisees were the men who were

supposed to be teaching the people about the Lord.

They were the ones who told the people what God’s

laws were, but they had changed the meaning of the

laws and made God seem to be very mean. They said

some people could never go into the temple and God

loved some people and hated others; but the worst

thing was they pretended to be very good when inside

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they were not good at all. These Pharisee dudes wore

long gowns and walked with their noses up in the

air, and they were really proud of themselves. They

thought they were really the cat’s pajamas. Many of

them believed they were not sinners like other people

and that they were much better than other people.

There were a few nice ones among them, some who

really loved the Lord, but not very many.

The Romans were a pret y tough bunch. They

used to give the Jews a bad time, and the Jews were

afraid of them. Whenever the people tried to disobey

the Romans, they would have very horrible punish-

ments to scare everyone so they would always obey.

The Romans made up terrible ways to kil those

people they thought were bad, and one of those

ways was to crucify the person. This was a terrible

way to die.

The Jewish people knew God would send a person

to save them. They called this person the Messiah,

or the Saviour. The Jewish priests believed God

would send someone who would be a king and have

a big army and kill all the Romans. They thought He

would be like their famous king David because the

prophets had said He would be David’s descendant.

That simply meant David would be His relative, not

that He would be exactly like David. The prophets

also said He would save His people, so they thought