Tagged: Israelite
Ridiculous and Treacherous
Please read Isaiah 5:20-30. Online access: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/
Is the Old Testament ever long!
It isn’t so much that it’s a lot of pages – it’s that the story seems to be slowly, SLOWLY dying. The Death-to-Life Project that God intended to work out with Israel simply has not worked.
The Death-to-Life Project was supposed to begin in Israel and bless the entire world. But, not only has the project fallen short of that goal, it looks like the project has been completely emptied of its meaning and purpose by the people with whom it originated.
God looks at His people and sees that they have become both ridiculous and treacherous; people who
- call evil good and good evil
- are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight
- are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks
- acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the poor
So, I look at the two main players in this story, God and Israel, and I have a hard time imagining how the story will get any better.
God’s Lawsuit
ca. 710 BC
God’s Death-to-Life Project is going poorly.
Many years earlier, God made a covenant with Abraham, intending to bless all people through him. However, Abraham’s descendents, Israel, had very little interest in the covenant.
Patiently, God sent prophets to Israel to warn them that He wouldn’t allow their unfaithfulness to continue. Again and again, He invited them to return to Him. They refused.
In 722 BC, the northern portion of Israel fell to the Assyrians.
There was still time in the south for God’s people to recognize both the depth and danger of their unfaithfulness to God.
God sent the prophet, Micah, to Israel with a dramatic message. He was summoning them into the courtroom of all creation:
“Stand up, plead my case before the mountains;
let the hills hear what you have to say.
“Hear, you mountains, the Lord’s accusation;
listen you everlasting foundations of the earth.
For the Lord has a case against His people;
He is lodging a charge against Israel. . . .”
Please read Micah 6:1-8. Online access: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/
Worthless
Please read 2Kings 17:1-23. Online access: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/
722 BC
God’s intention was to bless all people through the nation of Israel.
However, when King Solomon died, Israel split into a northern kingdom (Israel) and a southern kingdom (Judah). Furthermore, God’s people began to divorce themselves from God.
Two hundred years later, the northern kingdom collapsed.
God’s verdict regarding Israel was harsh: They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless.
If God’s Death-to-Life Project were to continue, it seemed that it would have to move through Judah. However, as Israel was falling, things weren’t looking much better in Judah.
When Religion and God Didn’t Mix
ca. 760 BC
The people of Israel could be religious, but it turned out that their religion didn’t have much to do with God.
The prophet, Amos, told the people what God was seeing in Israel; a religion of personal preferences and empty ritual, lacking love and justice. Amos warned them that they were headed away from God, toward ruin.
Please read Amos 5:18-27. Online access: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=amos+5%3A18-27&version=NIV
Marvelous
King David’s son, Solomon, marveled at the fact that he had become king of God’s “treasured” people, Israel.
He told God, “. . . I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?” (1Kings 3)
Then, when he completed construction of the temple, Solomon gathered the people of Israel to dedicate the temple. He spread out his hands toward heaven and marveled at the fact that the God of the universe was making His home with Israel,
“But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!” (1Kings 8)
And, Solomon anticipated that people all over the world would marvel,
“As for the foreigners who do not belong to your people Israel but have come from a distant land because of your name – for they will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm – when they come and pray toward this temple, then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Do whatever the foreigners ask of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name.” (1Kings 8)
During Solomon’s reign, Israel prospered.
The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones. . . . (2Chronicles 9)
For a brief time, the kingdom of God’s people, Israel, was marvelous.
Please read 1Kings 8:54 – 1Kings 9:9. Online access: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+kings+8%3A54+-+9%3A9&version=NIV
A Failure, a Foreigner, and Faithfulness
We have reason to wonder if God’s Death-to-Life Project is failing.
In a comment on my post “god Cycle,” Darrell characterized the book of Judges as “ugly,” and he’s right. God’s plan was that Israel would shine – that He would shine in Israel. Instead, for the few hundred years covered by the book of Judges, Israel is dull, dark, and cold.
Leave the book of Judges.
Turn the page to the book of Ruth, and read,
In the days when the judges ruled. . . .
Not a promising start.
However, during this miserable stretch of time when the Israelites take only brief breaks from their blatant infidelity to God, a foreign woman enters the story humbly.
She’s faithful.
When facing a crucial decision, she tells her Jewish mother-in-law, “Don’t urge me to leave you or turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.”
The man who becomes her husband also turns out to be a faithful man.
And all of a sudden, it becomes easier to remember that, throughout these dark days of Israel’s judges, God has remained faithful to Israel. The Death-to-Life Project continues. It might not be thriving, but it is moving forward.
The short book of Ruth ends with a genealogy – looking ahead to Ruth’s great-grandson, David.
The Death-to-Life Project is moving forward.
Please read Ruth 1:1-18. Online access: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/
Eviction, Conviction
Israel moved decisively and violently into The Promised Land.
Several centuries earlier, Abraham was already living in The Promised Land, but God hadn’t given the land to Abraham and his descendents at that time because, in part, “the sin of [the land’s inhabitants] had not yet reached its full measure.”
This makes me wonder what kind of process God was carrying out with the people of Canaan during those 500+ years until their sin did reach its full measure. What kind of merciful moves did God make toward them during that time?
It’s a part of the story we just don’t know.
However, with the arrival of the Israelites in Canaan, we know that the time for judgment also had arrived – and the judgment was severe. The Canaanites were to be killed or driven completely out of the land. God was giving the land to Israel.
Why?
Israel would exist to display God. People in the nations around Israel would be able to see God’s people thriving in obedience to Him, and they would be drawn to Him. At least, that was God’s intention.
It was also Joshua’s intention. Near the end of his life, after leading the Israelites into the land, he gathered the people and challenged them to choose to thrive with God:
“Now fear the Lord and serve Him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the [Canaanites], in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
Please read Joshua 24:1-28. Online access: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/
The Eyes of a Prostitute
The light was dimming in Rahab’s home, and the faces of the two men were hard to read.
“I know that the Lord has given you this land. . . .”
She had seen them coming long before they had found their way to her house. Israelites.
“. . .a great fear of you has fallen on us. . . .”
Not only Rahab. . . . Everyone in Jericho had seen them coming, and they had heard how God led the people of Israel out of Egypt, through the Red Sea. They had heard how the people of Israel had defeated two powerful kings on the other side of the Jordan. And, they could see the Israelites preparing to move toward Jericho.
“. . .all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you.”
Judgment was approaching Jericho. Rahab could see it. Her quick decision to hide the spies in her home made her a traitor to her city, and there was no hope for her in Jericho anymore. What she couldn’t see on the faces of the spies was whether there was any hope for her in Israel.
“. . .our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.
“Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you.”
She watched their faces.
Looking for mercy from the God of heaven and earth.
Please read Joshua 6:1-25. Online access: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/
God’s Visible Nation
Please read Deuteronomy 6. Online access: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/
The Israelites found it hard to trust God.
There was the golden calf incident.
Then, when God told them it was time to follow Him into The Promised Land, they couldn’t see how it was possible. They refused to go. So for forty years, God simply wandered with the Israelites in the wilderness.
Eventually, He brought them back to the border of The Promised Land.
There, before the Israelites entered the land, Moses took some time to talk with the people about their covenant with God:
“See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear these decrees and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to Him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?” (Deuteronomy 4:5-8)
Moses marveled at what God was doing in Israel, and this was exactly what God intended – that everyone in the world would look at Israel and marvel.
This was God’s next step in His Death-to-Life Project. He wanted everyone in the world to look at Israel and see
- Him!
- His people, living in love and obedience.
- their own opportunity to move toward, and find, God.
How Much is God Counting on People?
Please read Exodus 32. Online access: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/
The Death-to-Life Project moved forward with overwhelming power as God led the Israelites out of Egypt.
Then, pausing at Mount Sinai, this powerful God shook the mountain, but The Death-to-Life Project made a gentle turn. God spoke to His people,
“You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
God’s treasured possession responded wholeheartedly,
When Moses went and told the people all the Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one voice, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.”
However, only a few weeks passed before the people of Israel became concerned that Moses might never come back down the mountain and that they couldn’t count on God to fulfill the covenant. Their concern led them to modify the covenant, and they found themselves celebrating at the feet of a golden calf.
Suddenly, Moses appeared at the base of the mountain. He heaved two stone tablets away from his chest and they shattered on the ground. The situation became clear and alarming.
The covenant was broken.
And I wonder. How much was God counting on people to carry out The Death-to-Life Project?
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