Mystery Jerusalem Rising Ch 9 | True Prophets vs the Profitable Prophets- Part 1

The advent of kings in Israel proved to be a colossal failure in terms of faithfulness to the Covenant. While there were a few righteous monarchs, most were corrupt. The people reached unprecedented levels of corruption, becoming more corrupted than the nations God  had previously evicted from the Promised Land.

There were five paths that this corruption took: The monarchy corrupted the people, Monarchy was ineffective in keeping people just, the priesthood forgot God’s Laws and worshiped idols, pernicious priests and profitable prophets ruin the people, and Israel was corrupted by foreign alliances instead of trusting God. The end result of this was God’s just judgment in removing the people from the land He promised to Abraham.

The Monarchy corrupted the people.
Starting with Solomon, the kings of Israel re-introduced idolatry to the people. While Solomon started out with the right heart, asking God for wisdom rather than riches, he soon became corrupted by his power and wealth. 1 Kings 6:37-7:5 reveal that, while Solomon spent seven years building God’s house, he spent thirteen years building his own house.

While Solomon’s fall began with valuing his own interests more than God’s, it did not end there. He began to marry many foreign women. These women turned him away from the one true God to worship of false gods.

“King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites.2 They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been.”   - 1 Kings 11:1-4 NIV

Solomon created shrines for idol worship for “all his wives” (11:7). As Solomon had 700 wives, this was a major project that was executed on a colossal scale. Two specific false gods are mentioned. These are Chemosh and Molek (sometimes spelled Molech, Moloch), which according to Easton are equivalent deities1. These gods are gods of child sacrifice and are an abomination to the Lord. (see also Leviticus 18:21; 20:2-5). Solomon introduced large-scale child sacrifice, the equivalent an abortion holocaust, to Israel. For over 400 years, children were burned alive as sacrifices. Needless to say, this triggered the anger of the Lord.

Solomon’s affect on him was so profound that it permanently changed the course of the monarchy. The heir to his throne, Rehoboam, was only half-Israelite. His mother was Ammonitess (1 Kings 14:21). It was for Rehoboam’s mother that Solomon built the shrine for Molek where children were slaughtered.


God punished Solomon by splitting the kingdom during the reign of his son, Rehoboam, into two kingdoms. From Rehoboam onward, there would be two kingdoms: Israel and Judah. Israel revolted from the House of David to follow Jeroboam. The house of David, however, continued to rule over the tribe of Judah.

Jeroboam failed to trust God, but created his own schemes. He reasoned that, if the Israelites went to the temple in Jerusalem that they would revert to Rehoboam and that he would be killed. He set up two golden calves. Jereboam committed the same sin, even using the same proclamation that Aaron did when he set up the golden calf in the wilderness (Ex 32:8).

“And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David:  If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah. Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.”  - 1 Kings12:26-28

The people of Israel who were led by Jeroboam flocked to idolatry. Jeroboam’s sin shaped cultural life on such a deep level that each successive monarch continued the idolatry. Jehu was the only possible exception to this rule. He destroyed the Baal worship of Ahab but continued the idolatry of Jeroboam (2 Kings 10:18-32).

The monarchy was intended to restrain evil by not letting everyone do “what was right in his own eyes.” The monarchy was to know the law and enforce the legal standard (Deuteronomy 17:14-19). Once the monarchy became corrupt, however, it became more dangerous to morals than anarchy. This is because Satan now had the opportunity to use state power to enforce wickedness. There are a number of examples of this in the books of the Kings, with three that are particularly relevant: Jezebel, Athaliah, and Manasseh.

Jezebel was the daughter of the King of Tyre who married Ahab, King of Israel. She sought to eradicate the true religion of Yahweh God and replace it with a Phoenician version of Mystery Babylon Paganism. To this end she tried to kill off all of the prophets of Yahweh God. Things got so bad that Obadiah, a prophet himself, hid 100 of the Lord’s prophets in a cave and fed them (1 Kings 18:3-14). She then proceeded to hire 850 Pagan prophets who were paid from the royal treasury (1 Kings 18:19).

Athaliah was a relative of Ahab and granddaughter of Omri (2 Kings 8:25-27). She sought to destroy the Davidic covenant from within. When her son Ahaziah was dead, she proceeded to wipe out the entire royal line (2 Kings 11). But Jehosheba, sister of Ahaziah, took his infant son and hid them from Athaliah as the royal family was about to be murdered. The infant son, named Joash, was hidden with Jehioada the High Priest for six years. During the seventh year, Jehioada arranged for Joash to be crowned King and Athaliah to be executed.

Manasseh did the most harm to Israel of anyone in the monarchy. His father, Hezekiah, was considered the most righteous king out of “all the Kings of Judah (2 Kings 18:5).” The son does not follow the father in this case, but rebels against both his father and the Lord. Manasseh’s twofold program of evil succeeded where Jezebel and Athaliah failed. He almost completely annihilates Judaism as a living religion. Manasseh goes where no one has gone before: He desecrates the Temple.

“And he set a graven image of the grove that he had made in the house, of which the Lord said to David, and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever:Neither will I make the feet of Israel move any more out of the land which I gave their fathers; only if they will observe to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded them.But they hearkened not: and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel.” - 2 Kings 21:7-9

Manasseh was so successful that Israel, even the priests forgot that the books of the law even existed until they were rediscovered in the 18th year of Josiah (2 King 22:8-11). Judaism was extinguished from public life and the temple services  were subverted into Pagan worship and child sacrifice.

Manasseh caused Israel to sin more than the nations that God evicted. Divine justice required that God evict the Israelites from the land. God would, however, initiate one more revival so that His light would not be extinguished from the earth.

“And the Lordspake by his servants the prophets, saying, Because Manasseh king of Judah hath done these abominations, and hath done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, which were before him, and hath made Judah also to sin with his idols: Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle.And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab: and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down. And I will forsake the remnant of mine inheritance, and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies; Because they have done that which was evil in my sight, and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came forth out of Egypt, even unto this day.

Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; beside his sin wherewith he made Judah to sin, in doing that which was evil in the sight of the Lord.” 1 Kings 21:10-16

Monarchy was ineffective in keeping the people just.
Once Solomon and Jeroboam re-introduced the people to idolatry and murder, the people never quit. For the next 400 years, they pursued idolatry, sexual immorality and child sacrifice. In post-Solomon Israel, 19 out of 19 kings were wicked pursuers of idolatry, sexual immorality, and child murder. In Judah, about 12 of 24 were wicked pursuers of idolatry, sexual immorality, and child murder. Of the 12 good kings of Judah, 10 allowed the people to pursue their villainy. Only two of these kings made proactive efforts to systematically eradicate the practice of idolatry and child murder on the part of the people: Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:1-6) and Josiah (2 Kings 23:1-20).

Priesthood forgot God’s Laws, but worshiped idols.
Where was the priesthood while the kings were leading the people into oblivion? With just a few exceptions, they were joining the kings in leading the people down the pathway to Hell.

Pernicious Priests and Profitable Prophets ruin the people.

“Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it.And though they say, The Lordliveth; surely they swear falsely. O Lord, are not thine eyes upon the truth? thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.
Therefore I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish: for they know not the way of the Lord, nor the judgment of their God. I will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them; for they have known the way of the Lord, and the judgment of their God: but these have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds.
Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces: because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased.” - Jeremiah 5:1-6

In one instance, Jeremiah came into direct conflict with the Deputy High Priest, which was second only to High Priest in authority in the priesthood3  When Pashur heard  that Jeremiah was prophesying judgment upon Israel, he hit him and had him arrested. Jeremiah responded by pronouncing God’s judgment on Pashur.

“Now Pashur the son of Immer the priest, who was also chief governor in the house of the Lord, heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things. Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the Lord.And it came to pass on the morrow, that Pashur brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then said Jeremiah unto him, The Lord hath not called thy name Pashur, but Magormissabib.

For thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will make thee a terror to thyself, and to all thy friends: and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and thine eyes shall behold it: and I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall carry them captive into Babylon, and shall slay them with the sword. Moreover I will deliver all the strength of this city, and all the labours thereof, and all the precious things thereof, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah will I give into the hand of their enemies, which shall spoil them, and take them, and carry them to Babylon. And thou, Pashur, and all that dwell in thine house shall go into captivity: and thou shalt come to Babylon, and there thou shalt die, and shalt be buried there, thou, and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied lies.”  - Jeremiah 20:1-6

The Priesthood not only deceived the people through corrupt theology, but conducted schemes of treachery to manipulate people. People would be manipulated into transgressing the law so that the law could then be used as a weapon to control or annihilate them. On numerous occasions, the Pharisees tried unsuccessfully to use this tactic frequently against Jesus. (Matt 12:10;19:3;22:15-46;Mark 3:2;8:11;10:2;12:13-15; Luke 10:25;11:16;11:54;20:23; John 8:6)

“O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived; thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me.For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily.Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.
“For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side. Report, say they, and we will report it. All my familiars watched for my halting[Stumbling or moral failure], saying, Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him.
“But the Lord is with me as a mighty terrible one: therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail: they shall be greatly ashamed; for they shall not prosper: their everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten. But, O Lord of hosts, thattriest the righteous, and seest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I opened my cause. Sing unto the Lord, praise ye the Lord: for he hath delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of evildoers.” - Jeremiah 20:7-13

Profane Prophets and Priests have scattered the people of God as a consequences of their false teaching and treachery. They have fed on the flock rather than feeding the flock. God promises that he will remove the bad shepherds and replace them with faithful shepherds. As we shall see in chapter **, he replaced apostate Judaism with the Gospel of Christ, He has also displaced religious authorities on several occasions during “the church age” when they became too corrupt*.

“Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the Lord. Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the Lord. And I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries whither I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase. And I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them: and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking, saith the Lord.
“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, The Lord Our Righteousness.Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that they shall no more say, The Lordliveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; But, The Lordliveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land.

“Mine heart within me is broken because of the prophets; all my bones shake; I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine hath overcome, because of the Lord, and because of the words of his holiness. For the land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing the land mourneth; the pleasant places of the wilderness are dried up, and their course is evil, and their force is not right. For both prophet and priest are profane; yea, in my house have I found their wickedness, saith the Lord.

“Wherefore their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in the darkness: they shall be driven on, and fall therein: for I will bring evil upon them, even the year of their visitation, saith the Lord. And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied in Baal, and caused my people Israel to err. I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness; they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.”

- Jeremiah 23:1-14 see also Ezekiel 34

Israel trusted foreign alliances instead of trusting God.
This was really where a lot of the corruption started. Solomon’s many marriages to foreign wives likely started as statecraft marriages, but over time his wives corrupted his heart away from the true God towards the false gods they served. On several occasions, foreign alliances brought forth rebuke from the Lord.

On one occasion, while Asa was king of Judah, Israel waged war against Judah (2 Chr 16:1). Asa, instead of trusting God like he did when he fought against the Ethiopians, decided to trust in foreign alliances (2 Chr 16:2-6). The scheme was successful in getting Israel to back off from warfare with Judah.

This, however, did not please God. He sent a prophet to Asa to rebuke him for failing to trust God (2 Chr 16:7-9). Because Asa failed to trust God, he lost an opportunity to defeat Syria. Judah could have both greatly strengthened her political position in the balance of power in the region and achieve peace through a stable balance of power. The political reality Asa created was to weaken Israel by strengthening Syria. Asa’s actions altered the balance of power in the region,leading to Syrian aggression that weakened both Israel and Judah, making that entire region ultimately more vulnerable to Assyrian domination.

There is a promise in 2 Chronicles 16:9 : “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.”  God is looking for people who trust Him so that He can show His power. God wants us to trust Him, not corrupting political alliances.

Asa’s foolishness did indeed lead to Syrian aggression in the region, resulting in war. His 7th-great-grandson, Ahaz, was invaded by a joint force of Syria and Israel. Ahaz was given explicit opportunity to call upon God, but he refused (Isaiah 7). When Ahaz refused a sign that God was going to deliver, Isaiah warned that Assyria would end up devastating Judah.

2 Kings 16 records what Ahaz actually did. It was the worst possible action from a foreign policy perspective, as it removed the buffers between Judah and the most powerful and aggressive nation in the region at that time – Assyria. Ahaz set the stage for the fulfillment of Isaiah’s chapter 7 prophecy when Assyria sacks Judah.

Ahaz puts his trust in Assyria to solve his problems. He show an eagerness to make whatever compromises necessary to get Assyria’s help. He makes Judah a vassal state to Assyria (2 Kings 16:7-8).  Assyria then conquers Syria and deport the Syrians. A few years later he wipes Israel as well, leaving only Judah.

In addition to making Judah a vassal state, he takes gold and silver from the house of the Lord and has Urijah the priest fashion them into an alter patterned after an altar in Damascus; this was done as an act of appeasement to the king of Assyria. Ahaz rejected  trust in God and gave both political worship to the king of Assyria and spiritual worship to a false god.

Yet another instance of Judah trusting in political alliances to their shame occurred when Babylon deported the Israelites to Babylon. The remnant that remained in the land asked Jeremiah to inquire of God for direction (Jeremiah 42). Jeremiah came back with God’s command to stay in Judah under the rule of the Babylonians, saying that it would be well for them in Judah but disastrous to them if they went to Egypt.

The remnant of Judah, however, rebelled against the Lord’s command and decided to go to Egypt in spite of the warning of disaster. They forcibly took Jeremiah and Baruch with them (Jeremiah 43). It ended up a colossal, three-fold disaster for the remnant of Judah. They suffered apostasy, destruction, and infamy.

Their backsliding went full course to full blown apostasy: They had become fully committed pagans. They totally rejected the worship of God to worship “The Queen of Heaven.” They began to argue with Jeremiah, saying it was faithlessness to the Queen of Heaven rather than faithlessness to God that brought on them the disaster they were experiencing. Jeremiah boldly proclaimed that it was faithlessness to the one True God that resulted in the disaster.

Jeremiah then offered up another word from the Lord as proof of his first word: he proclaimed that God was going to send Nebuchadnezzar to Egypt to enslave the Egyptians and destroy them. They had brought judgment on themselves and the Egyptians. The few who survive this judgment would know that the Lord had truly spoken to Jeremiah.

The dragging up of Egypt into God’s judgment on Judah would result in Judah living in infamy:”They will become a curse and an object of horror, a curse and an object of reproach (Jeremiah 44:12)”.

We are admonished to trust God rather than political alliances (Psalm 20; 44:6; 118:8-10; 146:3; Isaiah 30:1-9; Jeremiah17). Politics had a way of corrupting itself into everything it touches. Jeremiah 17:5-10 contrasts the person who trusts in God to the one who trusts in man.

“Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.

Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”- Jeremiah 17:5-10

The one who trusts in man or in social or political alliances is cursed: he will wither even in times of prosperity. The one who trust in God, however, is blessed: he will bear abundant fruit even during times of famine.

Verse 9-10 address the heart condition that determines where one places his trust. The Lord searches the “reins’ of the heart. God both sees past the outward appearance and ignores beliefs that are merely creedal. He searches for those beliefs that shape our destiny, and rewards accordingly.

Jeremiah 17:10 is a cross references to Rev 2:23, which is a part of the letter to the church of Thyatira. In this letter Jesus threatens judgment the church for tolerating Jezebel; He is about to cast her and those who commit “sexual immorality” with her into a “bed of tribulation” (Rev 2:22). Jezebel in this passage is, without doubt, a cross reference to the historical Jezebel who was married to Ahab king of Israel. She was a schemer who stole Naboth’s vineyard through craftiness (1 Kings 21). Those who trust in schemes are cursed, but those who trust in God are blessed.

References

1 http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionaries/eastons-bible-dictionary/moloch.html

2 Literally eat at Jezebel's table
3 http://biblehub.com/commentaries/gill/jeremiah/20.htm

Gender politics and social contructivism at the Olympics

South African Caster Semenya won the women’s 800 meter final, bringing once again to the fore front the  controversy over gender identity politics.

Semenya’s win is not without controversy as last summer, the Court of Arbitration for Sport suspended the "female hyperandrogenism" policy, which was adopted in 2011 by the International Association of Athletics Federations (track and field's governing body) and deemed high levels of natural testosterone as a competitive advantage. Semenya is believed to be one of the athletes who benefits from the genetic condition yet she has never confirmed her condition. 

This underscores the problem of the gender-is-nothing-but-a-construct argument, also known as social contructivism. Biology determines success at the Olympic level, and does so in a discriminatory way. In the case of Semenya, he has testosterone levels of a male. This is typical of those with a Y chromosome like Semenya has. Testosterone levels heavily influence such fundamentals of physicality as muscle mass and muscle density. Having the testosterone levels of a male means he is competing with the physique of a biological male regardless of other non-conformities that may be at play here. He should either competed with male competitors. The only way to justify him competing with females is to argue for the elimination of gender classification in athletics. Keep in mind that this would all nut eliminate female athletics, as the best females generally cannot compete with the best males.

Patterns for the church among the nations - The law as schoolmaster

Many Christians today make the mistake that, since we are no longer bound by the covenantal construct of the Mosaic Covenant, that the Old Testament is no longer of value to the New Testament Church. Nothing can be further from the truth. In several places in the New Testament we are instructed that the Old Testament contains patterns that have fulfillment in the New Testament. It is through understanding these patterns that your faith can be transformed from a merely personal religion to the faith of a king who is advancing the Kingdom of the King of kings.

In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul is warning the Corinthian church against idolatry. He writes of the pattern of events in the Mosaic narrative, showing how swift judgments came from God upon those who did not follow the law and who did not follow Moses' lead. He writes in vs 6 that " Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted." Paul was specifically referring to the events of the Exodus and wanderings in the wilderness, but the Mosaic Covenant expands this pattern to include the whole pattern of events that happen to the Israelites the whole time they are under the Mosaic Covenant. Deuteronomy 28 gives a list of blessings to those who follow the Covenant and curses to those who fail to follow the Covenant. In Colossians 2:16-17 Paul quite explicitly says that the entirety of the law and prophets is a type and shadow that is fulfilled in Christ. Everything in the Old Testament, including those things that are not legally binding today, has an application in Christ.

In Galatians 3:23-24 we are instructed that the law is a schoolmaster:

But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. - Galatians 3:23-24

What does a schoolmaster or school teacher do. They do two things. They impart knowledge and principles. They also train by examples which involves discipline. "Discipline" comes from "disciple- ling." Such teaching often involves hard lessons that involve "making an example." these examples embed principles. The mature, just person - the one who bases his life on faith (Habakkuk 2:4; Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; Hebrews 10:38), draws out the correct inferences and make correct decisions based on these exemplars.

God ordained Israel to be the body politic for God's people; Making correct inferences from the exemplars of the Old Testament transforms one's faith into faith that advances the Kingdom of God on earth. This does not mean that we are to promote the Mosaic law as legally binding on gentile nations today. Christ has done away with that application. What it does mean is that that child of God will apply these principles within the current cultural and political contexts in which we find ourselves.  As we do this we will find that the Kingdom of God moves forward in our own communities and nations. We will also find that we gain insight into the heart of  God.

Donald Trump and the reign of Cyrus.

There are many sophistries about the World Wide Web offering justifications of an unjustifiable candidate for President of the United States. In Evangelical circles there is a particular temptation to paint dubious Biblical analogies to prop up support for him. 

One popular analogy is to liken him to Cyrus king of Persia. Cyrus was prophesied about 400 years before his reign in Isaiah 44:28. He is introduced in the narrative of Scripture in 2 Chronicles 36:22-23, where it recorded Cyrus making the decree to restore Israel and rebuild the temple. The book of Ezra records this chapter in the history of Israel.

One fact that stands out that is germane to this discussion is that Cyrus does not appear in the story until after the national apocalypse of Israel has run its course. Cyrus played the role of a post-apocalyptic restorer. If Cyrus is a Biblical type, it is the type of post-apocalyptic restorer.  Those who would fulfill the role of an antitype of Cyrus for America cannot appear until after America's national apocalypse has run its course. As America is at the eve of such judgement, Trump cannot at this time fulfill the type of Cyrus.

Mystery Jerusalem Rising Ch 8 | The Covenant of David – God’s vision of the body politic

Israel’s first king, Saul, fell short of pleasing God. With the exception of the affair with the witch of Endor, Saul avoided engaging in idolatry (1 Sam 28:4-25).

Saul made two major mistakes as king. The result of these mistakes was that he was rejected from being king. These mistakes revealed that Saul was extremely self-willed. He wanted to do God’s will on his own terms, and it didn’t work.

One of these mistakes was that he made unauthorized sacrifices (1 Sam 13:9-14). Samuel promptly rebuked him, saying “Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God, which he commanded thee: for now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel for ever. But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee”(vs 13-14). Saul lost the opportunity for a dynasty, because his heart sought self-will rather God’s heart. The Lord then sought out a man who truly was seeking God’s heart.

When Samuel spoke of the “man after his own[God’s] heart,” he was referring to David. The system of judges was an epic fail because the people, and for the most part the judges, did not have God’s heart. The kingdom would also fall short because most of the kings would seek their own self interests rather than God’s interests. The only answer for effective governance of God’s people is for both the government and the governed to seek God’s heart. God found in David such a man and made a covenant with him.

Because David sought God’s heart, it bothered his conscience that he had a fine mansion made of cedar, while the Presence of God dwelt in a tent. He decided to build for God a fine mansion, but God had greater plans.

“And it came to pass, when the king sat in his house, and the Lord had given him rest round about from all his enemies; That the king said unto Nathan the prophet, See now, I dwell in an house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains.And Nathan said to the king, Go, do all that is in thine heart; for the Lord is with thee.

And it came to pass that night, that the word of the Lord came unto Nathan, saying, Go and tell my servant David, Thus saith the Lord, Shalt thou build me an house for me to dwell in? Whereas I have not dwelt in any house since the time that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day, but have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle. In all the places wherein I have walked with all the children of Israel spake I a word with any of the tribes of Israel, whom I commanded to feed my people Israel, saying, Why build ye not me an house of cedar?

Now therefore so shalt thou say unto my servant David, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I took thee from the sheepcote, from following the sheep, to be ruler over my people, over Israel: And I was with thee whithersoever thou wentest, and have cut off all thine enemies out of thy sight, and have made thee a great name, like unto the name of the great men that are in the earth. Moreover I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more; neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more, as beforetime, And as since the time that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel, and have caused thee to rest from all thine enemies. Also the Lordtelleth thee that he will make thee an house.

And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men: But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee. And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.”  - 2 Samuel 7:1-16

There are three key features to this passage. David’s throne was to be an everlasting throne (key#1). If his children disobey, then they would be chastised with stripes, indicating there would be times when the throne of David would be in exile as God’s judgment (key#2). The covenant, however, was unbreakable: God would never take His love away from David, and therefore the throne of David would never be destroyed.

Mystery Jerusalem Rising Ch 7 - From Chaos to Corruption to Chains in the Promised Land

The Law of Moses provided a much needed legal structure for the people of God. It had one major weakness: no adequate mechanism to internalize the law in the hearts of the people. The result of this was that the people periodically forgot the hard lessons the Israelites learned under Moses. Those who saw what the Lord did for Israel remembered the hard lesson. Israel was faithful during the lifetime of Joshua and the elders who served alongside of him. After they died, Israel departed from following the Lord and served false gods.

“So the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord which He had done for Israel.  Now Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died when he was one hundred and ten years old.  And they buried him within the border of his inheritance at TimnathHeres, in the mountains of Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gaash.  When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lordnor the work which He had done for Israel. Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baals;” 

- Judges 2:7-11

Because God knew they would be so quick to depart, he left some of the nations there. The narrative in  Judges 1:1-22, which begins after the death of Joshua, documents the nearly complete victory of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin in conquering its portions of the land. These two tribes had Joshua and Caleb as tribal leaders. Due to the faith of these men who persisted in faith for over forty years, these tribes walked more consistently by faith when it came time to enter into battle. This resulted in almost complete victory for these tribes.

The other tribes, however, fell short of total victory. They failed to conquer some of the territory that was promised to them. The tribe of Dan failed completely. Judges 1:23-36 documents the failures of various tribes to take the land. The result of this failure is that foreign nations continued to occupy parts of the Promised Land.

Judges 2:1-5 tells that God’s messenger appeared to tell them that, because  they were not fully faithful, that God would no longer drive out all of the nations from the land. This would remain the case until the reign of King David. Judges 2:6-11 is a flashback to the great assembly of Joshua in Shechem(Joshua 24). The Israelites followed the Lord during the days of Joshua and the elders that served with him, but revolted against the Lord afterward. The ever so quick tendency of Israelites to rebel explains why God left these nation in the land.

The continued existence of these nations in the Promised Land had a two-fold purpose. Israel would first be tested to see if she would follow God. She would also be taught war. She would also learn of the cycle of timeout-conflict-victory that brings Fatherly discipline to the children of the Heavenly Father.

“Now these are the nations which the Lord left, to prove Israel by them, even as many of Israel as had not known all the wars of Canaan; Only that the generations of the children of Israel might know, to teach them war, at the least such as before knew nothing thereof; Namely, five lords of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites, and the Sidonians, and the Hivites that dwelt in mount Lebanon, from mount Baalhermon unto the entering in of Hamath. And they were to prove Israel by them, to know whether they would hearken unto the commandments of the Lord, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses.”    -  Judges 3:1-4

Israel would undergo seven cycles of bondage followed by crying out to God, followed by God appointing Judges to deliver them (Judges 2:13-19). They spent about a third of their time under the judges under occupation by foreign powers (114 years). Judges Chapters 3-16 documents these cycles. I have placed a summary of these cycles below:

Passage	Invader/Judge	time in bondage	Judge	Rest
Judges 3:7-11	Mesopotamia	8	Othniel	40
Judges 3:12-30	Ammon and Moab	18	Ehud	80
Judges 4-5	Jabin of Canaan	20	Deborah	40
Judges 6-8	Midian	7	Gideon	40
Judges 9-10:5	Abimilek	3	Tola	23
			Jair	22
Judges 10:6-12:13	Philistines and Ammon	18	Jephtah	6
			Ibzan	7
			Elon	10
			Abdon	8
Judges 13-16	Philistines and Ammon	40	Samson*	20
			Samuel
Total: 390		114		276

*Samson only partially delivered Israel. Samuel finished the job

Judges 17-21 as a dark, sad epilogue

Judges 17-21 refer to two events that are off of the maim timeline. Judges 17-18 document apostasy of the tribe of Dan and Judges 19-21 documents a civil war between the tribe of Benjamin and the rest of Israel.

Chapter 17 begins with someone named Micah creating a graven image, prohibited by the Law of Moses and the Ten Commandments. Micah hires a Levite to be priest to his homemade god. The narrative continues in chapter 18 where the tribe of Dan takes away from Micah both his priest and his home-made god (18:18-20). According to verses 30-31, The Danites set up these idols and perpetrated this idolatry the entire time the Mosaic Temple was in Shiloh.

Judges 18:1 indicates that this during a time when the tribe of Dan did not yet get is inheritance. This would place this rebellion at about the time of the first backsliding of Israel (Judges 2:11).

Judges 19-21 records both perversion and civil war. This narrative begins when the secondary wife or concubine of a Levite flees him to her father’s house. The Levite pursues her. After an extended layover at her father house, they travel back home. They make a stop in Gibeah and spend the night in the house of an old man. Thugs from the town surround the house and desire to know the Levite homosexually. The Levite throws his wife to these wolves to be raped and abused all night long. The rape was so savage that she died the following morning.

When the Levite sees his wife dead on the porch the next morning, he chops her into twelve pieces and sends a piece to each tribe of Israel. The Israelites demand that Benjamin hand over the thugs. Benjamin responds by attacking the Israelites, starting a civil war.

Conclusion of Judges
Four times in Judges 17-21, the phrase “there was no king in Israel” appears (17:6, 18:1, 19:1, 21:25). The first and last occurrences of this phrase in the epilogue also add everyone did “what was right in their own eyes.” In both of these final stories in the book of Judges, there were no heroes; everybody was a bad guy. The conclusion of the book of Judges is that the system of elders and judges was a complete failure. The people of God showed that, at this time in history, they were simply not mature enough for self-governance. The last judge in the timeline of the book of Judges, Samson, was not the only judge at the end of this period. Another judge, Samuel, was his contemporary. After Samson’s death Samuel would be confronted with the epic failure of this system on both a personal and professional level.

Israel asks for a King.
The last major occupation in the main timeline of the book of judges was that of the Philistines. This occupation lasted forty years. Judges 13-16 documents this occupation and indicates that God appointed Samson to be judge; he judged Israel twenty years. The text, however, give no indication that Samson succeeded in ending the occupation.

Samuel begins his ministry during this occupation. Samuel was the last of the judges and the first of the prophets. God used Samuel to inaugurate a new chapter in the history of God’s people. Samuel’s ministry affected both the ecclesiastical and civil governance of God’s people.

Samuel’s first word of knowledge was confirm a previous prophetic word that Eli’s  priestly line was going to go extinct because his sons were taking unauthorized portions of offerings and committing sexual immorality with women coming into the temple(2:27-3:18). While Eli rebuked them, he did not use his high priestly authority to remove these evil shepherds from the priesthood.

Traditional Jewish understanding asserts that removal of Eli's father's house was applicable only to Ithamar and his descendants¹, but the text is actually an indictment of the whole Aaronic priesthood. It was Eli’s “father” in Egypt (1 Samuel 2:27-28) that was ordained to be priest for Israel that is the complete subject of this judgment according to vss 27-28. This would be the whole household of Aaron that was chosen out of Israel to be priests. God is promising to remove Aaron from the priesthood.  In this word of judgment, there is a promise that God will ”raise me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in mine heart and in my mind: and I will build him a sure house; and he shall walk before mine anointed for ever”(1 Samuel 2:35). This was fulfilled in Christ.

Samuel finished what Samson started. Sometimes after Samson crashed the temple of Dagan and killed off most of the Philistine government, Samuel led the people first in repentance; he then led them into battle, driving them out and ending the forty year occupation.

Sometime after this victory, when Samuel “was old, that he made his sons judges over Israel” (1 Sam 8:1). Samuel would experience the epic failure of the system of judges firsthand. His sons were not righteous judges, but “turned aside after dishonest gain, took bribes, and perverted justice”(1 Sam 8:3 NKJV).

In response to this, the elders of Israel approached Samuel and asked him to give them a king, pointing out the epic failure of his sons as their argument. He was distressed and went before the Lord.

“Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah,And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. 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 thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and shewthem the manner of the king that shall reign over them.” - 1 Samuel 8:4-9

God instructs Samuel to give them what they wish. The Lord says that their request is the latest in a long pattern of rebellion that has been going on “since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day.” God then instructs Samuel using the words “Now therefore.” These words signify “because.” It is because of this pattern of rebellion that Samuel was to give them a king. God had concluded what the book of Judges had alluded: the system of judges was an epic failure.

Everybody but Samuel agreed that the system of judges was a failure. Although the text does not specify this, there is no doubt that the elders of Israel were thinking about the pattern of epic failure in the 390 year history of Israel under the judges.The elders thought that the format of the system of judges was flawed. What they did not understand was that the system of judges was designed to fail when the people ceased to be faithful to God. Deuteronomy 28 and other places in the Mosaic Law promised that a curse would fall on them if they forsook the covenant.

When the elders asked for a king, they failed to realize that the root problem with the system of judges would simply be replicated in a system of kings. The root problem was that human nature was corrupted by sin (Gen 3, Rom 5). What this corruption of human nature did was translate “doing whatever was right in his own eyes” to following his selfish desires. Setting up a king did not do away with selfish ethical reasoning, but only gave a monopoly to a single person. Doing what was right in the king’s eyes quickly degraded into kings fulfilling their selfish desires at the expense of the people (1 Sam 8:11-18).

In chapter 9, I will show how government by kings ended up as a colossal failure. In the midst of this failure, God moves to create a dynasty that will result in the emergence of perfectly just and incorruptible King. It is to this work that we now turn our attention in ch 8.

References
1 "Eli The High Priest 2772 - 10 Iyar 2870/2871", Nissan Mindel, Chabad
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/112391/jewish/Eli-The-High-Priest.htm

Mystery Jerusalem Rising Ch 6 - The Purpose of the Mosaic Covenant

The children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were lacking in any formal governmental structure prior to Moses. While they had the heritage and promises of Abraham that they would be a nation, they lacked the necessary structure to possess and maintain sovereignty over the land they were promised. God sent moses to provide this for His people. The Mosaic Covenant provides for a number of things God's people needed including a robust  legal structure. This legal structure would train up or "schoolmaster" an immature people. The Mosaic Covenant also makes provisions for rollover into the New Covenant, including  prophesying the coming of a  "Prophet like unto Moses" and the Coming King, and  the provision of the eternal Priesthood of Melchizedek. For these reasons the Mosaic Covenant is a uniquely breachable covenant. This chapter will displose further detail concerning the purpose of the Mosaic Covenant.

The Mosaic Covenant provides a legal structure.
We read in John 1:17 that “the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” However, we have seen that both law and grace were manifested in the Old Testament prior to Moses.

God’s law existed in the Old Testament prior to Moses. It only by understanding that God’s law pre-existed Moses that we can explain why Adam was punished as a transgressor when he disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden. It only by understanding that God’s law preexisted Moses that we can explain that God’s justice demanded a world-wide flood on the earth in Noah’s time. It only by understanding that God’s law preexisted Moses that we can make any sense out of the discourse found in the book of Job.

God’s grace also existed in the Old Testament prior to Moses. We read in Gen , that Noah found “grace in the eyes of the Lord.” The fact that God credited Abraham faith as righteousness can only be explained in terms of God’s grace (Gen 15:6). Paul appeals to Abraham’s faith-based righteousness as an Old Testament argument for salvation by grace in Romans 4.

“What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.’ Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, Saying, ‘Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.’

 “Cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also?for we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. How was it then reckoned? when he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.”  -Romans 4:1-10

If both law and grace both pre-existed Moses, then what does John 1:17 mean when it says that “the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”  It is referring to the establishment of a governmental structure of law and grace. Moses established the first governmental structure for God’s law and Jesus Christ established the governmental structure for God’s grace*.

Prior to the institution of government in Gen 9:6, where God commanded that murderers be executed by man’s hand, there was no government. Between Noah and Moses, governments simply followed the wishes of the leader without reference to God’s law. Government simply became another tool for rebellion against God. The advent of government created the environment for the rise of Mystery Babylon at the Tower of Babel1; God responded by splitting up the world on the basis of language. Moses delivered to the world the first governmental structure based on God’s law.

The governmental structure delivered by Moses has three basic levels of authority: ecclesiastical authority, civil authority, and the authority of the conscience. There are definite spheres in which these operate with a separation of powers. This means that the priests do not have authority over secular matters or matters of conscience; secular authorities do not have authority to administer the priesthood or dominate the conscience. While the authority of the conscience is supreme in the heart, subject only to God, the ability to act upon it in spheres controlled by the priests or the elders may be restricted.

Ecclesiastical authority is vested in the Priesthood of Aaron. The priests have authority over the temple, the sacrificial system, and determinations of ceremonial uncleanness. In these matters, the determinations of the priests are binding upon the people (Ex28;Num3; Deuteronomy 17:8-12).

Civil authority is vested in a system of elders. Elders enforce civil laws and settle disputes. It was the job of the elders to resolve tort disputes and adjudicate criminal complaints on the basis of precepts found in the Law of Moses (Numbers 11; Deuteronomy 17:8-12). The authority of the elders in these matters is binding upon the people.

“I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me. And if thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, if I have found favour in thy sight; and let me not see my wretchedness. And the Lord said unto Moses, Gather unto me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people, and officers over them; and bring them unto the tabernacle of the congregation, that they may stand there with thee. And I will come down and talk with thee there: and I will take of the spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone.”

- Numbers 11:14-17

When Moses complained the burden of legal jurisprudence was too heavy for him to do by himself, God told him to anoint the elders to administer the law. These men would not make decisions concerning the temple or ceremonial cleanness, but would administer secular matters of the law.

The authority of the conscience is vested in the heart of the individual. The conscience has authority to determine belief. There are three passages that explicitly designate the conscience as the arbiter of belief.

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with allthy soul, and with all thy might.And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thineheart:And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk ofthem when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by theway, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall beas frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thygates.”  - Deuteronomy 6:4-9

“For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.” -Deuteronomy 30:11-14

“And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto the priests the sons of Levi, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and unto all the elders of Israel. And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles, When all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Gather the people together, men and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this law: And that their children, which have not known any thing, may hear, and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess it.”

-Deuteronomy 31:9-13

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 tells us that the Word of God is in the hearts of the people; teaching authority is vested in the parents, not the priests and not the elders.Ch 30:11-14 tells the people that they do not need to call on someone in the enlightened elite to fetch it for us; it is in the heart upon people hearing and meditating upon it. Deuteronomy 31:9-13 teaches us that Moses wrote down all of the law to make knowledge of the law available to everyone. There is no secret law known to only a few people.

While the Priests and the Elders would assume a teaching role in promoting knowledge of the law in the life of the community, neither of these groups were given authority to bind the conscience. It is the conscience that has ultimate authority to determine belief, subject only to God. It is also in the conscience that man has communion with God.

This three part legal structure exists in some form in all ages of God’s governance over his people, and every apostasy or departure from God involves an imbalance in this structure. Within this structure are checks and balances that act as a bulwark against apostasy. It was the job of the Priests to ensure that the temple functions were administered in accordance to God’s commands. The Elders insured that secular society and civil transactions were administered in according with God’s law. The conscience is the storehouse of essential morality and acted as a check to institutional apostasy on the part of the priests and elders.

In the subsequent history of God’s people, we will discover that apostasy was frequent. We will see that it was not only numerous individuals that departed from God, but often institutions also entered into apostasy. God would deliver His words to the consciences of faithful servant and they would deliver words of prophecy to bring the people of God back to the correct path. Sometimes the people listened to the prophet; other times the prophet would proclaim words of judgment followed by chastisement6 from God. There is more information on how this process works in “True Prophets Vs the Profitable Prophets.”


The Mosaic Covenant schoolmasters an immature people.
Galatians 3:19-4:5 says that the people of God were under the law in the same way that a minor child is under tutors and legal guardians until the “age of majority.” Another way of expressing this concept is to describe the relationship of God is that of a Father to his children. Heb 12 describes our relationship to God precisely in those terms.

The concept of God as the ultimate Father with the people of God is not unique to the New Testament. The Law of Moses speaks of the relationship of God to His people as a love relationship:

“The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people:  But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

“Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations; And repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face. Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command thee this day, to do them.  Wherefore it shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep, and do them, that the Lord thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which he sware unto thy fathers:” – Deuteronomy 7:7-12

Whereas Deut 7 describes the relationship of the Lord to his people as a love relationship, Ch 32 describes it specifically as that of a Father with His children:

“Because I will publish the name of the Lord: ascribe ye greatness unto our God. He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.
“They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation. Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and established thee? Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.
“When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.For the Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.”

-Deuteronomy  32:3-12

If God be our Heavenly Father, then should He not train us – discipline us- as a father does his children. Good fathers provide reasonable, age-appropriate boundaries for their children. A good father will treat a toddler in a different way than he treats his teenage or adult children. Numerous rule that apply to small children drop off as the child matures into an adult. This is that Paul meant when he said that the Law of Moses was a guardian and tutor until faith was revealed Gal 3:19-4:5). An example of rules meant to train small children that would drop off as the small children reach greater maturity can be found in Leviticus 11:43-45

“Do not defile yourselves by any of these creatures. Do not make yourselves unclean by means of them or be made unclean by them.  I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves along the ground.  I am the Lord, who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy. ‘These are the regulations concerning animals, birds, every living thing that moves about in the water and every creature that moves along the ground.  You must distinguish between the unclean and the clean, between living creatures that may be eaten and those that may not be eaten.’ ” 

- Leviticus 11:43-47 NIV

The moral status of a person had nothing to do with the nature of animals he eats. Eating the flesh of an unclean animal does not make the heart of a human evil. As Christ Jesus said, food goes through the digestive tract and is expelled as waste (Mark 7:17-23). Man is defiled by what is in the heart, not the stomach.

What was the purpose of these rules, then? The purpose of the food laws and ceremonial cleanness rules was to train God’s people to discern between clean and unclean. God used food as a concrete example to illustrate a principle whose primary application was not always concrete. God was training his people to make a distinction between good and evil, right and wrong, moral and immoral, and just and unjust.

The Mosaic Covenant provides for Rollover into the New Covenant.
The biggest difficultyfor some in developing a coherent Biblical theology is how to reconcile the Mosaic Covenant with the rest of Scripture. The answer is that was meant only to be temporary legal structure. Jewish people, however, are often troubled by the many references to statutes in the Covenant being “perpetual.*” These objections are answered by the fact that the Mosaic covenant provides for its own obsolescence. There are four provisions, from within the Mosaic Covenant, for its demise and replacement by better covenants: the provision for a Prophet like unto Moses, the provision for a New Covenant to those faithful to Mosaic Covenant, the provision for the coming King, and the provision of the eternal Priesthood of Melchizedek.


The Mosaic Covenant provides for a Prophet like unto Moses. Moses occupied a unique position in the Mosaic Covenant as its Lawgiver. In this position, Moses set the terms of the covenant. The Biblical prediction that another prophet “like unto Moses” meant that another would come who would have power to set terms of the covenant between God and His people. Acts 3:20-23 tells us that Christ Jesus is the “Prophet like unto Moses” and the Lawgiver of the New Covenant. This is important to know as it will be demonstrated that the Mosaic Covenant makes provision for replacement by the New Covenant.

“The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken; According to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not.

“And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken. I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.” 

- Deuteronomy 18:15-18

The Mosaic Covenant provides for a New Covenant to those faithful to Mosaic Covenant. In Exodus 19, God commanded people to consecrate themselves. In verses 5-6, a promise is given. “if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.” Obedience to the covenant results in being positioned as a nation of kings and priests. The promise of installing the nation as kings and priests eliminates the need for a Levitical priesthood, as it limits priesthood to the Levites. Because Christ was faithful to the Mosaic Covenant during his earthly life, He became a nation of kings and priests without the need of the Levitical priesthood. The abolition of, or succession to, the Levitical Priesthood is a major change in the Mosaic covenant.

This promise was not available to those who first heard it. They were prohibited from approaching the mountain blessed with the special Presence of God filled under penalty of death.  Moses was faithful in the midst of an unfaithful nation. On one occasion, God was about to wipe out the nation of Israel and create a new nation from Moses. Moses intercession saved them. Notice that Moses does not argue that wiping out everybody but he would violate the terms of the covenant.

“Only rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the Lord is with us: fear them not. But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. And the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel. And the Lord said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them? I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they.

And Moses said unto the Lord, Then the Egyptians shall hear it, (for thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among them;) And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land: for they have heard that thou Lord art among this people, that thou Lord art seen face to face, and that thy cloud standeth over them, and that thou goest before them, by day time in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night. Now if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying, Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the wilderness. And now, I beseech thee, let the power of my lord be great, according as thou hast spoken, saying, The Lord is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.

And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to thy word:But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice; Surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it: But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it.”  - Numbers 14:9-24

God promised to wipe them out for plotting to kill Moses. Because Moses was faithful to the covenant as God’s servant, God was offering create out of Moses a nation of kings and priests. The annihilation of all of Israel but Moses would have annihilated the Levites and trashed the Mosaic Covenant. When Moses interceded, he did not appeal to the Law, but to God’s glory. God had the right to rescind the Covenant as they breached it.

God put it into Moses heart to intercede, as it was not time for the next phase of God’s plan to unfold.Whereas Moses was faithful as a servant, Christ was faithful as a Son. Because Christ was faithful, He was offered the same opportunity that Moses. When Christ was offered the opportunity to become a nation of kings and priests that was promised in Ex 19:6, He accepted.

The Mosaic Covenant provides for the coming King. The Mosaic Covenant anticipated that the Israelites would someday choose to be ruled by a king rather than by elders or God. Guidelines were given for the conduct of the king:

“When thou art come unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me;Thoushalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother.

“But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the Lord hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.

“And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites:And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them: That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel.”

- Deuteronomy 17:14-20

In the days of Samuel, the people demanded a king. This provided an opportunity for God to commence an everlasting covenant with David. The Throne of David is an everlasting throne that will inherit all nations. It is from this throne that Jesus Christ rules the earth.

The Mosaic Covenant presupposes the provision of the eternal Priesthood of Melchizedek.The Mosaic Covenant is a fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham. If Abraham was ancestor of the Levites, then who was priest for Abraham? Gen 14:18-15:6 records the encounter with Melchizedek, priest of God Most high, with Abram (Abraham).

“And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all.

“…After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir. And, behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness.”  - Genesis 14:18-20;15:1-6

After Abraham emerged from battle victorious, Melchizedek blessed him and received tithes from him. It is after Abraham received the blessing from Melchizedek that the Word of the Lord came to him. Abraham was justified by faith in that Word which was given after he received the blessing from Melchizedek. God had already chosen him and used Melchizedek to formally set him apart before revealing justification by faith and long before the Abrahamic covenant was confirmed. The priestly authority of Melchizedek precedes and supersedes that of the Levitical priesthood. The argument, in fact, can be made that the authority of the Levitical priesthood is dependent on the authority of the priesthood of Melchizedek. At the very minimum, the priesthood of Melchizedek opens up the prospect of God’s people having access to God apart from the Levitical priesthood.

The Mosaic Covenant is a uniquely breachable covenant. The Mosaic Covenant is legally structured in a different way that the other covenants. In the Abrahamic Covenant, the Davidic covenant, and the New Covenant man’s role is completely fulfilled. Once Abraham showed willingness to offer Isaac, God promised to fulfill his part was guaranteed. The actions of David and of Christ likewise guaranteed God’s fulfillment of his part towards the beneficiaries of these covenants independently of their subsequent actions. The Mosaic Covenant, however, makes no such promise. In numerous places, it is made clear that God’s promise to perform His part of the Mosaic Covenant is dependent on man’s obedience to his part. Deuteronomy 28-30 describes, in detail, the conditional nature of the Mosaic Covenant. If the people of God faithfully obey all of the terms of the Covenant, then great blessings will follow. If, however, they disobey, then great curses will follow and God would evict His own people from the Promised Land.

As the Mosaic Covenant is focused on occupation of the Promised Land, eviction from the land ends the covenant. Deuteronomy 30:1-10 contains a conditional promise of restoration of the covenant. God would restore His people to the land IF they turned back to Him and after they turned back.

“When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come on you and you take them to heart wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations, and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back.

“He will bring you to the land that belonged to your ancestors, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors. The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live. The Lord your God will put all these curses on your enemies who hate and persecute you. You will again obey the Lord and follow all his commands I am giving you today. Then the Lord your God will make you most prosperous in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your land. The Lord will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your ancestors, if you obey the Lord your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” - Deuteronomy 30:1-10 NIV

As we shall see later in this book, Israel was indeed evicted from the Promised Land. Israel was evicted three times. The first time they were evicted, ten of the tribes were evicted by Assyria, scattered, and for centuries lost to history*.The second time, the two and a half tribes that remained were deported to Babylon as a group and returned after 70 years. The third eviction was a true scattering of all Israel among all nations after they had Christ crucified.

Mystery Jerusalem Rising Ch 5- Into the Promised Land

Exodus 1 takes up the narrative of the descendants of Jacob (Israel) in Egypt. We quickly discover two things about these “Israelites.” They prosper and multiply heavily while in Egypt. Because of this prosperity, the Egyptian Pharaoh becomes jealous and fearful of them. As a result, they are forced into slavery.

“Now these are the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt; each man and his household came with Jacob:  Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah;  Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin;  Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.  All those who were descendants of Jacob were seventy persons (for Joseph was in Egypt already).  And Joseph died, all his brothers, and all that generation.  But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.

 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.  And he said to his people, “Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we;  come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and it happen, in the event of war, that they also join our enemies and fight against us, and so go up out of the land.”  Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Raamses.  But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were in dread of the children of Israel.  So the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor.  And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage—in mortar, in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. All their service in which they made them servewas with rigor.”

- Exodus 1:1-14

Even though the people of God went into slavery, God never abandoned them. God blessed Jacob in spite of all his lying and scheming. God appeared to him at Bethel. Jacob referred to the place as the house of God. Jesus use to imagery of the ladder with angels of God ascending and descending to refer to Himself as the gateway to God.

“So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep.  Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

 And behold, the Lord stood above it and said: “I am the Lord God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants.  Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.  Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.”

 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”  And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!”

 Then Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put at his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it.  And he called the name of that place Bethel;”  - Genesis 28:11-19

God continued to bless and multiply the descendants of Jacob – so much that, according to Exodus 1:22, the Pharaoh decided to kill off the males. God had not forgotten them, but sent them a deliverer. It was during this holocaust that the man God appointed to deliver them, Moses, was born.

Exodus 2 documents the first 80 years of his life. Moses spent the first 40 years in Pharaoh’s house. At some point in time, Moses realized that the Hebrew slaves were his native people; he also likely sensed the call of God to deliver them*. One day, Moses decided to take the deliverance of the Israelites into his own hands. According to Exodus 2:11-15, “…it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out to his brethren and looked at their burdens. And he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren.  So he looked this way and that way, and when he saw no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.  And when he went out the second day, behold, two Hebrew men were fighting, and he said to the one who did the wrong, “Why are you striking your companion?” Then he said, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” So Moses feared and said, “Surely this thing is known!”  When Pharaoh heard of this matter, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Midian; and he sat down by a well.”

The next forty years he lived in Midian. While there he rescued the daughter of Ruel, priest of Midian, from some shepherds that were trying to deny them the use of Midian’s wells. Moses lived with Ruel and married his daughter, Zipporah. Moses' life from age 40 to 80 was relatively uneventful.

When Moses was about eighty years old, God revealed Himself. Moses saw a bush burning that was not being burned. When he approached the site, God spoke to him out of the burning bush, calling him to deliver His people.

“And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, ‘I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.’

 “So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, ‘Moses, Moses!’And he said, ‘Here I am…’

“…And the Lord said: ‘I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.  So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites.  Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.  Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.’” - Exodus 3:2-4,7-10

Supernatural deliverance from Egypt
When Moses returned to Egypt, he did not take up again the power of the flesh as he did forty earlier. God revealed to Moses His power and then commanded Moses to use this power.

“Then Moses answered and said, ‘But suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice; suppose they say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you.’ So the Lord said to him, ‘What is that in your hand?’ He said, ‘A rod.’

And He said, ‘Cast it on the ground.’ So he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it.  Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Reach out your hand and take it by the tail’ (and he reached out his hand and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand), ‘that they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.’”

- Exodus 4:1-5

Moses used God’s power to deliver Israel. Ten plagues fell upon the Egyptians. These plagues included blood, frogs, lice, boils, etc.  After the last plague, Pharaoh finally let the people go; he then relapsed and pursued them until his army drowned in the red sea.

Salvation by Grace through Faith at the Passover
When God first began plaguing the Egyptians, he discriminated against the Egyptians. By this I mean Egyptians suffered because they belonged to Pharaoh; the Israelites were exempted from these because they were the descendants of Jacob. The last plague, the angel of death, was different. The Lord required participation on the part of the delivered. He required this to show salvation by grace through faith (Eph 2:8-9).

“ For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord.

And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.” - Exodus 12:12-13

The angel of death was entering Egypt to kill the firstborn of every house. This time, God did not discriminate on the grounds of ancestry or nationality. The death angel “passed over” every house that had lamb’s blood on the doorpost; but invaded every house that did not have lamb’s blood on its door post, killing any first-born that were in the house.  If a God-fearing Egyptian followed the instruction Moses delivered and put lamb’s blood on the door post of his house, then God passed over his house*. If a godless Israelite refused to heed Moses instruction, his house suffered the wrath of God. The lamb’s blood represented God’s grace that was poured out through the shedding of the blood of Christ, and applying the lamb’s blood represent faith in God.

Partaking the Passover involved entering into, or confirming, the covenant of Abraham. Exodus 12:48 spells out rules about who may take the Passover. “And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the land: for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof.”Egyptians, Ethiopians, and other nationalities who took the Passover, because they feared the God of Israel, were from that day forward counted as heirs to  the Abrahamic covenant. They shall be “as one that is born in the land.”

Faith in the Wilderness
The necessity of entering into, and standing on, the covenant by faith applied to the wilderness. God was leading them to conquer nations stronger than they were to see whether they would trust God or not.

Numerous times, the people showed that they did not have the faith necessary to enter the land. Numbers 13-14 records the occasion when Moses sent twelve spies to spy out the land. All twelve spoke of the abundance of the land. Two of them, Joshua and Caleb, spoke with faith that the Lord would deliver the land(13:30; 14:6-8). The other ten, however, gave an evil report that destroyed the faith of the camp. They told the Israelites that there was no possibility that they could take the land (13:31-33). Their unbelief stirred up full rebellion against God.

The rebellious Israelites decided to “make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.”(14:4). While their bodies were delivered from Egypt, their hearts were still enslaved to Egypt. They were prepared to stone Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and Caleb to get them out of the way (14:10). Before they could carry out their murderous plot, the glory of the Lord appeared. God pronounced His judgment on them for their refusal to believe his promises.

God decided to disinherit them. He actually contemplated wiping them out, but Moses interceded for them. God did effectively disinherit them by letting their bodies die in the wilderness. (14:11-35). Caleb and Joshua were the only ones who were over 20 who would enter the land.  The rest were rejected for refusal to believe.

Entering the Promised Land
After the forty years of wandering was finished, God raised up Joshua to lead the children of Israel into the Promised Land. The book of Joshua documents these battles. The land is secured, but God stops short of completely wiping out all of Israel’s enemies.

Mystery Jerusalem Rising Ch 4 - Into famine and bondage.

Abraham’s obedience to God was not perfect. His son, Isaac, also fell short. They both had faith which was anointed by the Holy Spirit, but they did not have access to all of the components of God’s program. For example, they did not have the blessing of the Holy Spirit taking up permanent residence as believers in Christ do today. Neither did they have the scope of revelation that we do today. The Patriarchs of the Judeo-Christian meta-narrative had an immature, undeveloped faith-system.

Because their faith-system was immature, God dealt with them as a parent must deal with a small child. Paul describes this process:

“What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator.  Now a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one.

Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law.  But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.  But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed.  Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.  But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor…

Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all,  but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.” - Galatians 3:19-25; 4:1-5

There are two principles here. One was that because of sin, the law was added. This refers to the Mosaic covenant which was future to Isaac. The second was that until Christ, the people of God were generally regarded as small children who were not capable of walking solely through faith. This law was given as a choolmaster who would instruct and correct. God, as our loving heavenly Father, metes out disciplinary action in accordance to the law which was given as a schoolmaster.

“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

“For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons:

“ ‘My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord,Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;For whom the Lord loves He chastens,And scourges every son whom He receives.’

 “If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.  Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.  Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. ” - Hebrews 12:1-11

God metes out disciplinary action through actions in history. In this chapter, I will show how the patriarchs fell short of the glory of God, and in the next chapter I will show that God established the Mosaic covenant as a “schoolmaster” to guide the people until they were mature enough for a covenant of faith.

Abraham’s first compromise involvestaking the promises of God into his own hands. At his wife Sarai’s urging, he sexually approached her maid Hagar. She conceived Ishmael. This resulted in tension between Sarai and Hagar. This tension ended when Hagar was forced out of Abraham’s household.

“And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, scoffing.  Therefore she said to Abraham, ‘Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, namely with Isaac.’  And the matter was very displeasing in Abraham’s sight because of his son.

But God said to Abraham, ‘Do not let it be displeasing in your sight because of the lad or because of your bondwoman. Whatever Sarah has said to you, listen to her voice; for in Isaac your seed shall be called.  Yet I will also make a nation of the son of the bondwoman, because he is your seed.’” - Genesis 21:9-13

 Ishmael became the father of the Arabic world, which today is predominantly Islamist. Before Ishmael was born, God told Hagar that Ishmael “shall be a wild man;His hand shall be against every man.” Abraham’s compromise set the stage for numerous wars in the Middle East that have been going on for the past four thousand years, from the day Ishmael mocked Isaac to the current chaos in the Middle East.

Abraham and Isaac: Like father, like son
Both Abraham and Isaac made the same compromise when in the land of Gerar1.  They both lied to Abimelech2 about their wives. They each told Abimelech the lie that “she is my sister” because each believed that Abimelech would kill them to take the wife. (Gen 20:1-18;26:1-10)

Liars, and Family Favorites
Isaac married Rebekah and became the father of twins: Isaac favored one while Rebekah favored the other:

“Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah as wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padan Aram, the sister of Laban the Syrian.  Now Isaac pleaded with the Lord for his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord granted his plea, and Rebekah his wife conceived.  But the children struggled together within her; and she said, “If all is well, why am I like this?” So she went to inquire of the Lord.

And the Lord said to her: ‘Two nations are in your womb,Two peoples shall be separated from your body;One people shall be stronger than the other,And the older shall serve the younger.’

So when her days were fulfilled for her to give birth, indeed there were twins in her womb.  And the first came out red. He was like a hairy garment all over; so they called his name Esau.  Afterward his brother came out, and his hand took hold of Esau’s heel; so his name was called Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them. So the boys grew. And Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field; but Jacob was a mild man, dwelling in tents.  And Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.” - Genesis 25:20-28

These opposing favoritisms set the stage for sibling rivalry between Esau and Jacob. This rivalry created the temptation for Jacob to become a schemer and liar. He used this to con Esau out of the blessing.

Rebekah helped him con Esau. She coached him on how to trick Isaac into giving Jacob the blessing (Gen 27). Isaac asks Esau to hunt and prepare choice game so that he can eat it and give him the blessing he received from Abraham. She has Jacob kill from his flock; she prepares it to taste like cooked, wild game. She then dresses Jacob in Esau’s cloths. Jacob goes to Isaac, pretending to be Esau, and gets the blessing through deception.

These compromises amounted to the people of God taking the promises into their own hands. God promised Isaac; Abraham took matters into his own hands and got Ishmael; God told Rebekah that Jacob would dominate Esau; Jacob took matters into his own hands; deception and treachery became the family heritage.

There was kidnapping and murder in the family. By the time Jacob’s sons were grown, the corruption of sin was reaching an advanced stage of treachery. There are three major incidents that show their treachery: the Dinah incident, Judah’s affair, and the selling of Joseph into slavery.

The story of Dinah is found in Gen 34. When Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, was grown, she went out on the town to meet other young women in the land. Shechem, the son of the prince of that land was attracted to her. They ended up having pre-marital sex. When Shechem’s father attempted to make arrangements to acquire Dinah as a wife for him, the sons of Jacob acted deceitfully. They told the men that they needed to be circumcised first, and then Dinah would be married to Shechem. While the men were recovering from their circumcision, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi physically attacked and killed all of the men in the town. Their brothers joined them in both plundering the wealth in the town and the capture of the women and children. These women and children were likely sold into slavery to local traveling slave traders3.

The selling of women and children into slavery was preparation for the mistreatment of their own brother. Gen 38 is the story of how the second from the youngest of Jacob’s sons, Joseph, had a dream that he would rule over his brothers. Because Joseph was the first-born of Jacob’s love, Rachel, he was Jacob’s favorite sons. The favoritism, coupled with knowledge of Joseph’s dreams, drove his brothers to extreme jealousy. They threw him into a pit and sold him to Ishmaelite who sold him to an Egyptian.

Descent into famine, slavery, and idolatry in Egypt
Because the household of Abraham was wandering farther and farther away from God’s righteousness, it became necessary for God to assert Himself as a stern Father to them. The first of many instances of a pattern of chastisement was about to begin. God’s people would initially follow Him; only to subsequently wander from Him, resulting in descent to bondage or slavery. They would cry out to Him and He would deliver them.

Gen 39-50 documents the story of Joseph in Egypt. God was with Joseph in Egypt in his trials; these trials eventually open up the opportunity for Joseph to become Prime Minister of Egypt. When famine hits hard that area of the world, Joseph is in an ability to assist his family, and they relocate to Egypt where they end up becoming slaves themselves.

References

1 http://www.bibleplaces.com/gerar.htm.
2 Abimilech may have been a title rather than a name.
3 While there are no specific references to the selling of women and children into slavery, the text doers say that Dinah's brothers "spoiled the city." Women and children captured in war were commonly seen in the ancient world as spoils to be sold into slavery. This would also explain the ease in which Joseph was sold into slavery. The slave traders may have had a previous transaction history with Joseph's brothers.