| ISRAEL: THE CHOSEN
PEOPLE OF GOD
Section
3 - Israel's Failure
Israel Chastised
Israel's
Failure
However, because she knows
that SHE is the chosen race, Israel has become puffed up with ideas of
her own importance and enamoured with visions of grandeur, and is thus
being carried upon the heady winds of self-righteousness and self-confidence.
Isa.29:13 KJV
Wherefore the Lord said,
Forasmuch as this people
draw near [me] with their mouth,
and with their lips
do honour me,
but have removed their
heart far from me,
and their fear toward me
is taught by the precept of men:
Mk.7:6,7
Yet He, answering, said to them that
"Ideally prophesies Isaiah
concerning you hypocrites, as it is written, that
This people with their
lips is honoring Me,
Yet their heart is
away at a distance from Me.
Yet in vain are they
revering Me,
Teaching for teachings the
directions of men. [also Mt.16:6-9]
Rom.10:1-3
Indeed, brethren,
the delight of my heart
and my petition to God for their sake is for salvation.
For I am testifying to them
that they have a zeal of God,
but not in accord with
recognition.
For they, being ignorant
of the righteousness of God,
and seeking to establish
their
own righteousness,
were not subjected
to the righteousness of God.
To this condition she has become
an addict. And, like the drug addict that we know of today, she is unable
to realise the destructiveness of that with which she has become inebriated.
And many a time did God warn her of the inevitable repercussions of her
chosen course of behaviour.
Lev.26:14-21
Yet if you neither hearken to Me nor observe all these instructions,
and if you reject My statutes,
and if your soul loathes My judgments
so as not to observe all
My instructions, to cause you to annul My covenant,
indeed, I Myself shall
do this to you:
I will visit panic upon
you, attenuation and fever,
making the eyesight vanish
and causing the soul to pine;
and you will sow your seed
for naught, for your enemies will eat it.
I will set My face against
you,
and you will be struck down
before your enemies;
those hating you will hold
sway over you,
and you will flee even when
there is no one pursuing you.
And if, after these things,
you should not hearken to Me,
then I will continue
to discipline you sevenfold for your sins.
I will break the pomp of
your strength
and make your heavens like
iron and your land like copper.
Your vigor will be spent
for naught,
and your land shall not
give its crop,
and the tree of the field
shall not give its fruit.
If you go contrary to Me
and are not willing to hearken to Me,
then I will add smitings
to you sevenfold according to your sins.
Deut.8:19,20 It
will come to be that if you forget, yea forget Yahweh your Elohim
and go after other elohim
and serve them and bow yourself down to them,
I testify against you
today that you shall perish, yea perish.
Like the nations which Yahweh
is destroying before your face so shall you perish,
inasmuch as you do not hearken
to the voice of Yahweh your Elohim.
The sad fact is that she will
continue to wallow in destructive and disastrous self-righteousness, without
a thought either about God's good name (Jer.34:16) or about those who are
being adversely affected by her ungodly behaviour.
Ex.32:9
And Yahweh said to Moses:
I have seen this people,
and behold, they are a stiff-necked people. [also Deut.9:13]
Ezek.2:3,4 And
He said unto Me, `Son of man,
I am sending you unto
the sons of Israel,
unto nations who are rebels,
who have rebelled against Me;
they and their fathers have
transgressed against Me, unto this self-same day.
And the sons [are] brazen-faced
and hard-hearted to whom I am sending you,
and you have said unto them:
Thus said the Lord Yahweh:
Act.7:51 Stiff-necked
and uncircumcised in your hearts and ears,
you are ever clashing
with the holy spirit!
As your fathers, you
also!
And she still continues to harbour
the notion that the other nations are jealous of her innate capabilities
and achievements, not realising that all these traits and talents were
God-given!
Deut.8:11-18
Guard yourself lest you should forget Yahweh your Elohim
by failing to observe His
instructions and His judgments and His statutes
that I am enjoining on you
today,
lest, when you eat and are
satisfied and build good houses and dwell in them,
and your herd and your flock
multiply, and silver and gold increase for you,
and all that is yours is
abundant,
then your heart becomes
exalted and you forget Yahweh your Elohim
Who was bringing you forth
from the country of Egypt,
from the house of servants,
Who was causing you
to go through the great and fear-inspiring wilderness
with burning serpents…scorpions…thirsty
ground in which there is no water,
Who was bringing forth
for you water from the flinty rock,
Who was feeding you
in the wilderness with manna,
which your fathers had not
known,
that He might make you
humble and that He might probe you,
to do you good in your
latter days.
Guard yourself lest you
say in your heart:
My vigor and the
staunchness of my hand make for me this great estate.
Yet you will remember Yahweh
your Elohim,
for He is the
One giving to you the vigor to make this estate,
that He may confirm His
covenant that He had sworn to your fathers,
to Abraham, to Isaac and
to Jacob, as in this day.
Ezek.16:8,14,15
… And I swear to you, and come in to a covenant with you,
An affirmation of the Lord
Yahweh, And you do become Mine…
And go forth does your name
among nations,
Because of your beauty--for
it [is] complete,
In My honor that I have
set upon you, An affirmation of the Lord Yahweh.
And you do trust in your
beauty,
And go a-whoring because
of your renown,
And do pour out your whoredoms
on every passer by--to him it is.
Ezek.39:23,24
And known have the nations that for their iniquity,
Removed have the house of
Israel, because they have trespassed against Me,
And I do hide My face
from them,
And give them into
the hand of their adversaries,
And they fall by sword--all
of them.
According to their uncleanness,
and according to their transgressions,
I have done with them, and
I
do hide My face from them.
Israel
Chastised
Israel has not, as yet, learned
to appreciate her high calling and responsibility; she has not come to
realise on what grounds this calling was given to her; she has not been
able to grasp the import and impact of God's declarations concerning her
role in His grand plan.
It is evident from Scripture
that Israel, as a nation, has constantly rejected God through her rejection
of His prophets (Mt.23:29-37). This attitude culminated in the rejection
and assassination of His Son (Mt.21:33-45). He is their Messiah Whom they
were, and are still, unable to recognise (Act.3:12-15) - the One
Who actually dealt with them from the time they were in Abraham.
God deigned to make a holy
covenant with this people of His choice. But Israel did not keep her part
of her unique contract with God. And even when she did attempt to do so,
she chose to observe the letter rather than the spirit of the law. She
heaped upon herself restrictions that God did not demand from her
(Mt.23:23; Lk.11:42; Isa.39:13; Mt:15:8,9; Mk.7:6,7) but she neglected
the underlying motives and objectives for the very giving of the law (Hos.6:6;
Mt.9:13; 12:7).
In figure, the house of Israel
and the house of Judah were sisters MARRIED to the Lord (Isa.54:5; Jer.3:14;
Ezek.16:8,14). But they were unfaithful and wanton in their ways - going
a-whoring after other lords (Jer.7:17,18; 9:13,14; 44:15-19,25).
Yes, Israel went into idolatry
- and God looks on her action as treachery!
Jer.3:20
KJV Surely [as] a wife treacherously departeth from
her husband,
so have ye dealt
treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD.
Jer.5:11
For dealt treacherously against Me
have the house of Israel,
and the house of Judah, an affirmation of Yahweh.
Ezek.16:30-34
How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord GOD,
seeing thou doest all these
[things],
the work of an imperious
whorish woman;
In that thou buildest thine
eminent place in the head of every way,
and makest thine high place
in every street;
and hast not been as an
harlot, in that thou scornest hire;
[But as] a wife that
committeth adultery,
[which] taketh strangers
instead of her husband!
They give gifts to all whores:
but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers,
and hirest them, that they
may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredom.
And the contrary is in thee
from [other] women in thy whoredoms,
whereas none followeth thee
to commit whoredoms:
and in that thou givest
a reward, and no reward is given unto thee,
therefore thou art contrary.
Jer.11:10 They
have turned back to the iniquities of their first fathers,
Who refused to hear My words,
And they have gone after
other elohim to serve them,
The house of Israel,
and the house of Judah,
Have made void My covenant,
that I made with their fathers.
For this penchant to wantonness
they were divorced by Yahweh, their husband.
Jer.3:8-10
And I see when
(for all the causes whereby
backsliding Israel committed adultery)
I have sent her away, and
I give the bill of her divorce unto her,
that treacherous Judah
her sister has not feared,
and goes and commits fornication--she
also.
And it has come to pass,
from the vileness of her fornication,
that the land is defiled,
and she commits fornication with stone and with wood.
And even in all this her
treacherous sister Judah
has not turned back unto
Me with all her heart, but with falsehood,
an affirmation of Yahweh.'
Isa.50:1
Thus says Yahweh,
"Where is this scroll
of divorce of your mother, with which I let her go?
Or which of My creditors
is it to whom I sold you?
Behold! For your
depravities were you sold,
and for your transgressions
was your mother sent away.
And they continue to receive
chastisement from Him.
Jer.6:19
… I am bringing evil on this people, the fruit of their devices,
For to My words they gave
no attention,
And My law--they kick against
it.
Jer.11:11
Therefore thus said Yahweh:
Lo, I am bringing in
unto them evil, that they are not able to go out from,
And they have cried unto
Me,
And I do not hearken
unto them. .
Jer.9:16
And I have scattered them among nations which they knew not,
they and their fathers,
and have sent after them the sword, till I have consumed them.
Lev 26:43 Yet
the
land, it shall be forsaken of them
and shall accept its sabbath
years while it is desolate without them,
and they themselves shall
accept their depravity
because, yes because they
had rejected My judgments
and their soul had loathed
My statutes.
Hos.1:2-9 …
And Yahweh is saying to Hosea,
Go, take to you a wife of
prostitutions and children of prostitutions,
for the land is verily committing
prostitution rather than following Yahweh.
Then he is going and taking
Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim;
and she is becoming pregnant
and is bearing for him a son.
And Yahweh is saying to
him, Call his name Jezreel,
for still a little and I
visit the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu,
and I cause the kingdom
of the house of Israel to cease.
And it shall come to be
in that day
that I break the bow of
Israel in the vale of Jezreel.
And she is becoming pregnant
again and is bearing a daughter.
And He is saying to him,
Call her name Lo-ruhamah,
for I will not continue
further to have compassion on the house of Israel,
seeing that verily I was
bearing with them.
Yet on the house of Judah
will I have compassion,
and I will save them by
Yahweh, their Elohim.
Yet I will not save them
by bow, or by sword, or by battle,
by horses or by horsemen.
And she is weaning Lo-ruhamah.
And she is becoming pregnant
again and is bearing a son.
And He is saying, Call his
name Lo-ammi,
for you are not My
people, and I am not your I Am Becoming.
Hos.3:4 For
many days shall the sons of Israel dwell without king and without
chief,
and without sacrifice and
without altar, and without priesthood or thummim.
And the worst is yet to come
- for coming is THE day of reckoning, the time of Jacob's trouble
- a period of unparalleled and unequalled chastisement from God.
Hos.10:10
When I come, then I will discipline them,
and peoples shall be gathered
against them,
when they are disciplined
for their two depravities.
Dan.12:1a
"In that era shall stand up Michael, the great chief,
standing over the sons of
your people.
Then comes to be an era
of distress such as has not occurred
since there came to be
a nation on the earth, till that era.
Joel.2:30,31
And I will give miracles in the heavens above,
and signs on the earth,
blood and fire and pillars of smoke.
The sun shall be turned
to darkness, and the moon to blood,
before the coming of the
day of Yahweh, the great and fearful day.
Zeph.1:14-17
Near is the great day of Yahweh! Near and exceedingly swift!
The sound of the day of
Yahweh! The master shall shriek there bitterly.
A day of rage is
that day,
a day of distress and
constraint,
a day of futility and
futile effort,
a day of darkness and
gloominess,
a day of cloud and murkiness,
a day of trumpet and
blast against the defended cities, and against the lofty corners.
And I cause distress
for humanity, and they go as the blind,
for against Yahweh they
sin.
And their blood shall be
poured out as soil, and their intestines as ordure.
Mt.24:15-22
Whenever, then, you may be perceiving the abomination of desolation,
which is declared through
Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place
(let him who is reading
apprehend! [cf 2Thes.2:3-5] );
then let those in Judea
flee into the mountains
Let him who is on the housetop
not descend
to take away the things
out of his house.
And let him who is in the
field not turn back behind him to pick up his cloak.
Now woe to those who are
pregnant and those suckling in those days!
Now be praying that your
flight may not be occurring in winter,
nor yet on a sabbath, for
then shall be great affliction,
such as has not occurred
from
the beginning of the world till now;
neither under any circumstances
may be occurring.
And, except those days were
discounted, no flesh at all would be saved.
Yet, because of the chosen,
those days shall be discounted.
Joel.2:11 And
Yahweh gives forth His voice before His army,
for exceedingly numerous
is His camp, for staunch is the doer of His word.
For great is the day
of Yahweh and exceedingly fearful,
and who shall endure it?
Jer.30:4-7 KJV
And these [are] the words that the LORD spake
concerning Israel and
concerning
Judah. For thus saith the LORD;
We have heard a voice of
trembling, of fear, and not of peace.
Ask ye now, and see whether
a man doth travail with child?
wherefore do I see every
man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail,
and all faces are turned
into paleness?
Alas! for that day [is]
great, so that none [is] like it:
it [is] even the time
of Jacob's trouble;… [ CV: a time of adversity it [is] to Jacob,]
Joel.1:15
Alas! Alas! Alas for the day! For near is the day of Yahweh.
And as devastation
from Him Who-Suffices is it coming.
Joel.2:1-3
Blow the trumpet in Zion! And shout in My holy mountain!
All the dwellers of the
land shall be disturbed,
for coming is the day
of Yahweh! For it is near!
A day of darkness and gloominess,
a day of cloud and murkiness,
as the dawn spread on the
mountains. A people numerous and staunch:
Like it, it has not
occurred from the eon,
and after it, it shall not
be again, unto years of generation after generation.
Before it a fire devours,
and behind it is a blaze flaming.
As a luxuriant garden is
the land before it,
yet behind it is a wilderness
desolation.
And, moreover, a deliverance
comes not to it.
God will bring all this to pass,
often through the agency of Satan.
Rev.12:12,17
…Woe to the land and the sea,
for the Adversary descended
to you having great fury,
being aware that brief
is the season that he has.…
And the dragon is angry
with the woman,
and came away to do battle
with the rest of her seed,
who are keeping the precepts
of God and who have the testimony of Jesus.
Rev.13:5-8
And to it was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies.
And to it was given
authority to do what it wills forty-two months.
And it opens its mouth in
blasphemies toward God,
to blaspheme His name and
His tabernacle, and those tabernacling in heaven.
And to it was given to do
battle with the saints and to conquer them.
And authority was given
to it
over every tribe and people
and language and nation.
And all who are dwelling
on the earth will be worshiping it,
everyone whose name is not
written in the scroll of life of the Lambkin
slain from the disruption
of the world.
July 2001
Back to:
....Main
menu of articles
....Section
1 - Introduction
.........................The
Special Place of Israel
....Section
2a & 2b - The Circumcision Covenant
...............................
The Kingdom or Territorial Covenant
....Section
2c & 2d - The Sabbath Covenant
..............................
The Sinai or Old Covenant
Proceed to:
....Section
4 - God's Good Name
.........................Still
The People Of God
....Section
5 - Conclusion
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