Lesson #9Clickhere to return to the Main Bible Study Page.
The Jews are a nation with a marvelous history.Their survival through the centuries is a miracle. Persecuted, scatteredand separated they have appeared in every land under the sun. Great nationshave oppressed them and, as one writer has remarked,
They have stood at the graveside of all theirpersecutors.
There is a reason behind their greatness and theirlittleness, their separateness and their survival. The reason is God. Inour last two letters we considered a man who become known as the friendof God, Abraham the Hebrew. We saw his trek from Ur of the Chaldees, upthe great fertile crescent of the valley of the Euphrates and down intoSyria and Palestine. We heard God speak to him and promise him great things:thingsinvolving eternity and all the earth. His wife died and was buried; laterAbraham died, still a pilgrim and stranger in the land of promise, and wasburied alongside his wife.
His son, Isaac carried on the name and so did hisgrandson Jacob. The lives of these two men were like the life of Abraham- wanderers and without permanent home. With Jacob began the growth of thefamily name. He had twelve sons and it was during a time of great famine- to which that part of the world has been repeatedly subject - that thewhole company of them moved down into Egypt. Father, sons and wives made70 souls.
This was their first fixed home. Egypt the landof the Pharaohs and pyramids. With their flocks and herds, hard work andthe blessing of God they grew and prospered. Within a couple of centuriesthey were a small nation, virile and expanding. Pharaoh feared lest theyshould become a threat to the safety of Egypt and he brought them into slaveryand cruel oppression. At this time two things happened. A baby was bornand the nation cried unto God in their sufferings. They did not know thatbaby was the beginning of their deliverance from Egypt. The child was Moseswho received both a Jewish and Egyptian court upbringing. He became thevoice of God to the Jews and to the Egyptians. Under his hand, yet withoutbattle or Jewish army, the whole nation - men, women and children, togetherwith all their chattels and cattle - came forth from the furnace of afflictionunder God's strong hand. The Egyptians, wholly unwilling to lose a nationof slaves, were constrained by mighty plagues, and terror, to let God'speople go.
Moses led them forth and became their leader. Throughhim God spoke and the twelve tribes of Israel were forged into a nationwith civil and religious laws, and had the fountain of their national lifein the counsel and commandments of God.
After a lifetime's wandering in the wildernesson account of their sins and faithlessness, they were brought to the bordersof Palestine where Moses bade them farewell and died. His successor wasa, man of God and a warrior:Joshua, courageous, faithful and successfulin his tasks.
Within seven years they had settled victoriousin the land which God had promised to Abraham and his seed.
They had no king. At least they had not a kinglike other nations. They were the one nation on earth with God as its king.They were unique and their future could have been glorious.
But they were not satisfied. Don't be surprised.Such behavior fits in exactly with the repeated sinfulness of man ever sincethe garden of Eden. Of course, it appears and is much worse when the sinfulnesscomes from people with such privileges and opportunities. As God told themlater on:
"You only have I known of all the familiesof the earth:therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities."Amos 3:2.
For more than four hundred years after the deathof Joshua the national life of the children of Israel was mostly a disgracewith only short periods of repentance and reconciliation with God. But theywere still the children of God's friend, Abraham:and for Abraham's sakeand for the sake of his promise to him, God kept his part of the great covenant.
After seemingly endless wickedness there arosea new light in the darkness. An man of tremendous spiritual strength andzeal stepped into the midst of a dissolute people. He galvanized them intonational action. They became a nation once more and turned away from thepast wherein every man had done that which was right in his own eyes.
Samuel had come:the great judge and the remarkableprophet. The nation began to rise from its obscurity and the surroundingpeoples, who had been ready like vultures to feed on the dead carcass ofIsrael, fell back discomfited.
But even good men do not live forever - at leastnot in this life. Samuel grew old and his own sons were not fit to be hissuccessors. The people, blown up with pride and forgetful of their relianceon God, asked for a king. A king! A king like all the nations round about.Samuel was shot through with sorrow. It was a personal wound made by a thanklesspeople. But there was something far deeper than that:God put the spotlighton it:
"They have not rejected thee (Samuel) butthey have rejected me, that I shouldnot reign over them." I Samuel 8:7.
They had forgotten that the kingdom was the Lord's.They had not chosen him:he had chosen them. He was the king and they werehis people. It was this wonderful relationship they had failed to keep.
God gave them a king. He was such as they wouldhave chosen:tall, valiant in battle, a figurehead of a man. But he provedunsuitable and God rejected him.
There followed another king. He was a man of outstandingcharacter, in fact God described him as "a man after mine own heart."The man was David the author of many of the Psalms and the man who, as ayouth, slew Goliath the giant Philistine. David reigned as king but he knewhe was sitting on God's throne. His eyes were ever turned to God, and hisrighteousness and love were an example to God's people.
This was a landmark. If we look back down the centuriesand thousands of years, we see Abraham 2000 years before Christ and, onethousand years later, David 1000 years before Christ. God made promisesto David which were a filling out, an expansion and extension of the greatpromises made to Abraham. Let us take the things together for a moment andsee how important they are:
To Abraham God said: "Unto thy seed willI give this land (Palestine)." Genesis 12:7
and: "Thy seed shall possess the gate ofHIS enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth beblessed." Genesis 22:18.
Abraham was to have a seed, a man, who would inheritPalestine and bring blessings on every nation under the sun. Abraham neversaw that one - at least he never saw him personally - but he looked uponhim through the eyes of faith. He gazed into the future and knew that hewould come. Jesus said:
"Your father Abraham rejoiced to see myday:and he saw it, and was glad."John 8:56.
The promises made to David were of the same kind.David was descended from Abraham and God spoke in promise to David saying:
"And it shall come to pass when thy daysbe expired that thou must go to be withthy fathers, that I will raise up thy seed after thee, which shallbe of thy sons:and I will establish his kingdom ... I will settlehim in mine house and in my kingdom for ever:and his throne shallbe established for ever more."
I Chronicles 17:11-14.
What a wonderful promise! An everlasting kingship!Who could this one be? A descendant of Abraham and of David, one to bringblessings on all nations and to reign over God's kingdom for ever, an inheritorof Palestine - who is this One?
I am not answering this question here. You canbegin to answer it for yourself by reading the first verse in the New Testament.Read it and marvel that after 2000 years God remembered and began his workof fulfillment .
By the way, you are sure to want something elseto read. Try Psalm 72 and read the description of the King and his Kingdom.