(#24 5985) Day 4 - History of Israel (Part 3 - Israel from Yehoshua to Yeshua)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulJozgeGyqU

FIRST POSTED ON 15 JULY 2019.

Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my Shabbat blog!

In our last session, we saw the importance of kingship, love and obedience in the kingdom life of God’s nation and His people. When we examine Israel’s history from the time of Yehoshua (Joshua) to Yeshua (Jesus), we find that failure in precisely these areas was what ultimately led to the country’s downfall.

It didn’t start out this way though. Following the Exodus and wilderness years, we are told that the Israelites under Joshua served God all the days of their lives (Jos 24:31).

However, when a new generation arose, they neither knew God nor what He had done for Israel. Because they did not acknowledge Him as King and instead worshipped the idols of the peoples around them, God disciplined the Israelites by allowing their enemies to force them to a point of repentance. Each time they cried out to God for help, He was faithful to raise up a judge or leader to deliver them and give them rest from their enemies. The people would remain faithful until that judge died, and then a new generation would arise to repeat this vicious cycle. The book of Judges summed it up with this statement - “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit” (Judg 17:6, 18:1, 19:1, 21:25).

Despite three centuries of going through the same cycle of idolatry, oppression, repentance and deliverance, the Israelites still did not acknowledge God as their True King; instead, they longed to be like the nations around them and demanded for a human king.

Israel existed as one united kingdom for 120 years and reached its peak in the early years of King Solomon’s rule. When Solomon completed the First Temple in Jerusalem in AM 3000 - the start of Day 4 or the Fourth Millennium - Israel was finally fully equipped to serve as the lesser light drawing all nations to worship God on His holy mountain. But this was not to be. Unlike his father David who was after God’s own heart, Solomon loved women more than he loved God. This eventually led to idolatry with disastrous consequences for the nation. Israel will only recover its former glory when Jesus returns to rule from Mt Zion during the Millennium.

But for now, the once united and powerful kingdom became divided and severely weakened after Solomon’s death. Both the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah became vulnerable to foreign powers, tempted to make compromises and fell into idolatry, corruption and injustice. And as we will see later on, both rejected the warnings of the Prophets.

God eventually punished both kingdoms and exiled the Israelites for their sins - the Northern Kingdom of Israel to Assyria in 722 BC, and Judah to Babylon in 586 BC. As mentioned before, the land rested for 70 years during the Babylonian exile to make up for all the years that Israel did not keep the Sabbatical and Jubilee cycles. God disciplined Israel but also set a definite time frame after which He would restore His people according to His mercy and faithfulness, and deal with His enemies according to His holiness and righteousness.

So, in His Kairos in 538 BC, God released His Rhema - amazingly, through a pagan king, Cyrus - who issued a proclamation allowing the Jews to return to the Promised Land to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple.

And, in His Kairos about 530-odd years after that, God Himself would come to His people as a man, the Logos Word made flesh, Jesus, the Messiah and Greater Light, Lord and Saviour of the World.

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(#23 5985) Day 4 - History of Israel (Part 2 - Lessons from the Wilderness)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv9_rGkS0v0

FIRST POSTED ON 1 JULY 2019.

Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my Shabbat blog!

In today’s session, we will cover the period from the time the Israelites left Mt Sinai until the next generation stood by the banks of the Jordan river forty years later, and the prophetic lessons we can learn from their wilderness journey.

First, when Israel set out to conquer the Promised Land, the nation was effectively entering into warfare as they would need to defeat the pagan peoples occupying the land then. Similarly, the Church is called into warfare and we must expect and be prepared for spiritual opposition as we rescue and take possession of lost souls for God’s Kingdom.

Next, the way the Israelites were encamped around the Tabernacle of God as they proceeded on their journey reflected how the life and community of the Israelites then, just as the life and community of the Church today, must revolve around worship of God as a witness to the surrounding nations. This is our primary weapon to win others to Christ - by reflecting God’s glory as His lesser light and so draw people to Him. Worship is also important in warfare as the devil will try to derail us through earthly distractions and temptations or by using fear and intimidation. We can only stand firm and overcome when we keep our focus on God alone. When we worship God in this way and have no other idols in our hearts - even things that are seemingly good such as health and family - then we won’t give a foothold for the enemy to use these against us.

As we all know, a journey that should have only lasted eleven days (Deut 1:2) ended up taking forty long years (Num 33). This wilderness period is prophetic of the forty jubilees from the time the Church - filled with the Holy Spirit - moved out of the upper room on the Day of Pentecost almost two thousand years ago until now, as this generation - like the one led by Joshua - await Jesus’ return to lead us into the Promised Land of the Millennial Kingdom and ultimately into eternity with God.

The number forty in the Bible is often associated with testing and trials, patient obedience and judgment. Like Moses who was up on the mountain forty days (Ex 24:18, 32:1), Jesus is “up on the mountain” of God’s heavenly throne these forty jubilees, a trial period to test whether we will remain faithful to Him while we wait for His return. We can either be like the rebellious three thousand who died at Mt Sinai during the first Pentecost, or the believing three thousand who were saved on the Day of Pentecost (Ex 32:28, Acts 2:41).

Ultimately, at the heart of the matter is the matter of the heart. Kingdom life is about God’s Kingship over Israel and the Church and the lives of each and every citizen of the kingdom. It was, is, and will always be about Love and Obedience. As Jesus Himself put it, “If you love me, keep my commands” (Jn 14:15). Obedience should not be out of habit or even duty, which can only fulfill the letter but not the spirit of the Law. It must ultimately stem from love for God.

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(#22 5985) Day 4 - History of Israel (Part 1 - Israel & the Church)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg97WKe_EHs

FIRST POSTED ON 15 JUNE 2019.

Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my Shabbat blog!

Over the next few blog posts, we will conclude Session 3 by looking at the history of Israel and what it means for the Church as God’s royal priesthood and holy nation today. By Church, I want to clarify that we are speaking here about the Church in its visible form - as an institution, denomination or local body of believers that we belong to - just as by Israel, we are referring to the visible Jewish nation. This is because God has chosen to work through these earthly communities (Ekklesia) to bring about His spiritual plans and purposes.

In 1 Cor 10:1-11, Paul pointed out how Israel served as an example for the Church. He used the Greek term tupos, which means, in the technical sense, a pattern in conformity to which something must be made; in an ethical sense, a warning; and in a doctrinal or Biblical sense, a person or thing prefiguring or foretelling a future person or thing as it relates to Jesus. In other words, what happened to Israel is not only instructive but PROPHETIC of what will come upon the Church even as Jesus’ return draws near. In fact, as we will see later, Israel’s history would virtually repeat itself in the growth and development of the Church.

That the Church should behave like Israel, as though they were both from the same tree, should come as no surprise. In Rom 11:11-32, Paul warned Gentile believers not to be proud, thinking that they were superior to the Jews. This was because they were in actual fact ingrafted into God’s Kingdom in place of the Jews, who were the natural branches as it were but who had been cut off for now due to their rejection of Jesus. As I had briefly mentioned in our last session, the entire nation of Israel would be removed from the face of the Earth for almost 2,000 years following the Roman Exile in 70 AD. In its place, the largely Gentile Church was ingrafted in as it were to bear the fruits of the Kingdom of God among the nations during this “time of the Gentiles”. However, when the fullness of the Gentiles have come in - by this, Paul was referring to Jacob’s prophecy regarding Ephraim that we learnt about earlier on - Israel will be revived to prepare for Jesus’ return, even as the ingrafted branches of the Church begin to wither - something I hinted at in my last session and that we will go into in greater detail in my future podcasts. And we know that Israel has indeed been reborn since 1948.

So we see then that the Church is not separate from Israel - not distinct from, let alone replace Israel as the final or perfected Kingdom of God. The Church is here for a season and a purpose. To phrase it another way, both Israel and the Church are the same Kingdom of God but revealed in different ways at different times. While Israel was, historically, how God chose to reveal His Kingdom through whom Jesus first came, and eschatologically or in the end times, for whom Jesus will return, prophetically, the Church - which was a “mystery” (Eph 3:6, 10) until then - was how God chose to reveal His Kingdom in whom the Body of Christ reaches its full maturity - the fullness of the Gentiles - before Jesus returns.

This correct understanding of how Israel and the Church are related is important because it determines the Church’s true identity and mission - especially in this Kairos when - as we saw in our last session - Jesus will return soon to establish His millennial kingdom and rule.

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Click here to study more about the relationship between Israel and the Church as the Kingdom of God.

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