Spiritual Light

Like All The Nations

After several centuries of living among heathen who were led by kings of their own rather than by God,2 Israel approached Samuel, whom God had raised up to judge Israel, and told him, "Make us a king to judge us like all the nations" (1Sam. 8:5b).

"But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord. And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them."

The Lord then warned Israel, through Samuel, that the kings over them would be severe rulers, and He pleaded with them to be content with His own merciful kingship, but they replied:

"Nay! But we will have a king over us so that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us, and fight our battles."

(1Sam. 8:19b-20)

And when God's word came to pass, and the harshness of kingly rule divided the nation in half (1Kings 12:1-20), He still cared for her and sent His messengers to the northern half of the kingdom (called Israel) and to the southern half (called Judah), preaching love and forgiveness, pleading with Israel to turn from following the nations and to be reconciled to God.

He sent Isaiah: (1:18):

"Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be like crimson, they shall be as wool."

He sent Jeremiah (3:12-14a):

"Return, backsliding Israel, says the Lord, and I will not cause my anger to fall upon you, for I am merciful, says the Lord, and I will not keep anger forever. Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the Lord your God and have scattered your ways to the strangers under every green tree and have not obeyed my voice, says the Lord. Turn, O back-sliding children, says the Lord, for I am married unto you."

He sent Ezekiel (33:11):

"As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel?"

He sent Hosea (11:8):

"How shall I give you up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver you, Israel? How shall I make you as Admah? How shall I set you as Zeboim?3My heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together."

He sent Joel (2:12-13):

"Therefore also now, says the Lord, turn you even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning. And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness."

He sent Micah (6:3):

"O my people, what have I done unto you? and wherein have I wearied you? Testify against me."

He sent Zechariah (1:3):

"Turn unto me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will turn unto you."

He sent Amos, Elijah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, and others less known to us, but not to God. And when He sent the last prophetic voice in the Old Testament crying, "I have loved you, says the Lord" (Mal. 1:2), Israel was no longer His bride, but was married to vain paganism (Mal. 2:11) and could only respond in utter blindness and bitterness, "Wherein have you loved us?" (Mal. 1:2).

And through the next four centuries,4 one of the blackest prophecies ever spoken to Israel became a living reality: no more prophets would be sent to guide her in the paths of God.5

"Behold, the days come, says the Lord God, that I will send famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it. In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst."

(Amos 8:11-13)

And it was so.

Hope In The Dark

Those four dark, silent centuries saw the land of the Jews wracked with cruel wars, treachery, confusion and fear. The very sacredness of Israel's faith grew stale. The temple was defiled by heathen intruders. The High Priesthood became a political prize. The Law was surrounded, so as to protect it they said, by a tall, cold fence of uninspired tradition.

The religious harshness and emptiness of opinionated traditions resulted in the slow rise of sects within the Jewish religion during that time. There arose the Pharisees, the Sadducees, Zealots, Herodians, Essenes, and other faiths within Israel itself. Each had its own particular doctrine and standards, and each claimed to be the right way. Israel could no longer offer deliverance to a confused world; she was herself confused.

And as the end of this dark era neared, the situation in Israel grew desperate. The covenant of God was distorted, twisted by men of great mind and empty soul. God's original, loving intention for making that first covenant was now so foreign to what was taught by Israel's leaders that those who were persuaded to become Jews were no longer being converted to God's faith. Jesus described the situation in blunt terms:

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves."

(Mt. 23:15)

This means that Israel's pastors converted people not to God's covenant, but to their interpretation of God's covenant. It means that the religion then taught and observed by the Jews was not the religion God originally gave the nation. It meant that throughout the synagogues of Israel, rabbis were telling the congregations that they were prepared to meet God when they were not prepared, that God was their God when He was not, and that they could expect rich blessings and great favor, when only disaster and ruin lay ahead. The people were being taught to long for the day of the Lord (for surely He would greatly reward them!), but did anyone consider the words of Amos?

"Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! To what end is it for you? The day of the Lord is darkness, and not light."

(Amos 5:18)

During these long centuries, when the word of the Lord was not heard in God's vineyard, many traditions budded and grew and were added by Israel's pastors to her religious diet. They appeared authoritative, but all of them were wild, poisonous fruit, and everyone who ate of this fruit partook of its degenerate nature. Years before, Isaiah had sung this sad song of his well-beloved God and His vineyard:

"My wellbeloved has a vineyard in a very fruitful hill. And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein. And he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Why, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes? And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up, and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down, and I will lay it waste. It shall not be pruned, nor dug; but there will come up briars and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant plant, and He looked for judgment, but behold oppression, for righteousness, but behold a cry."

(Isa. 5:1b-7)

Amid all the frightening words of doom and ugly pictures of destruction found in the ancient scrolls of the prophets was one last, bright hope. In enigmatic terms, the prophets spoke of one who would come to restore and reconcile the people to God, and the hope which these promises sparked prevented the future for God's vineyard from seeming so utterly dark, for out of its dried and broken stumps and roots would rise God's great apostle. Isaiah again (11:1,2; 53:2):

"There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch will grow out of his roots. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. He will grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground."

Said Zechariah (6:12):

"Behold the man whose name is the BRANCH! And he will grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord."

And Hosea (14:5b-6, 9a):

"He will grow as the lily and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches will spread, and his beauty will be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon.

Who is wise, and he will understand these things? prudent, and he will know them?"