A Boomer in the Pew

Israel Slain, 10 Tribes Forever Lost, and Unmistakably Yahweh Reigns

Bible in a Year Series - Day #196 - This post is part of a year-long series where we are reading chronologically through the Bible.  Click here to learn more.  You are most welcome to join along at any time.

Today's text from the ESV Study Bible: 2 Chronicles 28, and 2 Kings 16-17.

Israel is no more. 

Today, in our chronological journey through the Bible, Samaria is sacked, and her inhabitants carried away into exile.

Here is why God chose to destroy the Northern Tribes of Israel.

From the InterVarsity Press New Bible Commentary:

"The city fell in 722 BC, at about the time of Shalmaneser V’s death. In Assyrian sources Sargon II, his brother and successor, claims credit for the city’s capture. Those deported (6) were numbered by Sargon at 27,290. This figure seems too large for Samaria alone and probably includes people from other cities of Israel. The deportees were resettled in distant parts of the Assyrian empire (6), not all of which can be located with confidence."

Interestingly, Sargon II was held for centuries to be a Biblical myth until in 1843 French scholar Paul Emile Botta unearthed Sargon's mighty palace at Dur Sharrukin (Khorsabad), just north of Nineveh near the Tigris river.

Inside these incredible ruins was found this inscription:

"At the beginning of my rule, in the very first year I reigned…I set siege to and conquered Samaria…I carried away into captivity 27,290 persons who lived there; I took fifty fine chariots for my royal equipment."

My head is spinning as I attempt to wrap my mind around:

• God's clear and warned judgment of these apostate tribes.
• Imagining what it must have been like to have been starved for three years (the battle for the city of Samaria), and then carried away into exile.
• These people have now become the 10 lost tribes of Israel, never again to be seen, for it is from Judah God will rebuild Israel.

I grieve for Israel, but I suppose at the end of the day, this really wasn't God's chosen Israel at all.  Over the centuries, they had drifted so far from the commandments of God, through idolatry, sacrificing their own children, and significant other heinous sins, that God wiped these usurpers of his name from the face of the earth.

Certainly we must all see and learn what the human nature is capable of.

Our fallen human nature hates God, desires to place ourselves on the throne of life, and then revel in debaucheries of all kinds.

As we stand here in the burning ruins of Israel (Samaria), and can hears the screams of the women and children being carried off into slavery, we must begin to understand that Yahweh reigns, and will judge his creation.

Most sobering to consider.

And What Does the Lord Require of You?

Bible in a Year Series - Day #195 - This post is part of a year-long series where we are reading chronologically through the Bible.  Click here to learn more.  You are most welcome to join along at any time.

Today's text from the ESV Study Bible: Micah 1-7.

Today we come upon yet another of God's prophets who foretell of a coming judgment for Israel and Judah.

The Prophet Micah foretells of God's use of Assyria and Babylon to bring about this destruction and exile.

Micah also foretells of a future Shepherd-King (Messiah) who will be born in Bethlehem.

In the sixth chapter, the hearers of this prophecy are snipping back in arrogance and asking what God requires of them to avert this pending judgment:

“With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
 7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
 8 He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:6-8)

Certainly these men don't understand the true penitent heart.

It Boggles the Mind to Consider Isaiah's Prophesy of Messiah

Bible in a Year Series - Day #194 - This post is part of a year-long series where we are reading chronologically through the Bible.  Click here to learn more.  You are most welcome to join along at any time.

Today's text from the ESV Study Bible: 2 Chronicles 27, and Isaiah 9-12.

If I got these dates right, while Amos was up in Israel speaking of God's coming destruction of Israel, and a preserved remnant of David, the Prophet Isaiah was in the South giving a similar message to Judah.

Amos talked of wonderful things for the remnant, but just look what Isaiah has to say:

"For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
 7 Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this." (Isaiah 9:6-7)

Looking through the eyes of the 740 B.C. child of God, this may not have made much sense.  But to us who are thousands of years down the road, what an absolutely, incomprehensible thing!

God, in the form of Messiah, will come to earth to sit eternally upon the throne of David.  The King of Kings.

What wonder is this?  I'm speechless.

The Prophet Amos, the Coming Destruction of Israel, and the Plumb Line of God

Bible in a Year Series - Day #193 - This post is part of a year-long series where we are reading chronologically through the Bible.  Click here to learn more.  You are most welcome to join along at any time.

Today's text from the ESV Study Bible: Amos 6-9.

Today's reading from the Prophet Amos was very sobering to read and consider. 

Although this post is longer than normal, please take 15 minutes and digest what God desires that we know about him.

God is teaching us that he has a plumb line, and that plumb line will determine who are truly His.

"This is what he showed me: behold, the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. 8 And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said, “Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass by them;" (Amos 7:7-8)

"This is what the Lord God showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit. 2 And he said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me, “The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass by them." (Amos 8:1-2)

"I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said:

“Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake,
and shatter them on the heads of all the people;
and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword;
not one of them shall flee away;
not one of them shall escape." (Amos 9:1)

"All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword,
who say, ‘Disaster shall not overtake or meet us.’" (Amos 9:10)

You've seen them.  You know, the "crazy people" who hold up signs that say, "the end is near".  Well that was Amos.

God was pleased to pluck him out of the field where he was tending his flock, and gave him a vision to share with Israel. 

Although we have yet to actually come upon this foretold destruction of Israel, hearing the words of God's wrath stirs my soul to its roots.

From the very day of the Exodus, God made clear his desires to his chosen people Israel.  God built this nation from the loins of Abraham, and a great many have done nothing but try His patience.

Well, we have now come to the end of the summer of God's patience for Israel.

God is going to destroy all Israel, but he is going to do it with discrimination.  He has a plumb line that he will use to measure, and those who are truly his He will remember.  Everyone else is doomed to certain destruction, and God will never pass by them again.  That's it!  Finished!  Forever separated from God.

This is incomprehensible, and significantly difficult to read.  I try, in my mind, to place myself in the crowd listening to these words. 

I now know that I would stand the test of the plumb line, but the sheer horror is painful nonetheless.

We learn here, and all throughout the Bible, that there exists a church within a church.  There are those who call themselves God's elect, and then there are those who truly are God's elect.

Many, in ancient Israel, thought themselves elect because they were descended from those who were in the Exodus.  Likewise, many today think themselves elect because they said a magic prayer, or they have been good, or they go to church, or they "believe" in God.

Yet, here, and all throughout the Bible, we see God moving against those who stand at the gate calling out His name, yet He knows them not.

Jonathan Edwards wrote his famous Religious Affections (see my months long study on this book) precisely on this subject.

Although this is horrifying for even God's true elect to view, we all must first search our souls to make certain that we are His. 

Once again, the InterVarsity Press New Bible Commentary brings some clarity:

"But who are these ‘pebbles’, destined for removal? Not just the sinners among my people but a particular class of sinner: those who are complacent in the face of divine judgment, those who are sinners and who assert that sin is a permitted way of life by discounting the reality of coming judgment. Overtake or meet, i.e. neither catch up with us out of the past nor face us in the future, as if they were saying, ‘There is nothing in our past to merit judgment, nor will there be in the future.’ This is not the voice of those (the people who pass the plumbline test in 7:7-9) who are building their lives on the level of grace with the straight edge of law, but of complacent, uncaring sinners in a world of make–believe. Neither for Amos nor for us is this a word intended to put our salvation at peril. But it reminds us that there is a double seal on the foundation of the LORD’s house: ‘the LORD knows those who are his’ (2 Tim. 2:19) (hence our security in the unchanging will of the God who chose and took us for himself), and ‘Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity’ (see 2 Pet. 1:5-11) (the moral determination which is evidence of elect status)."

I fear there exists a great many of these complacent ones who have never read the whole of God's counsel, and therefore their pride and ignorance puts them in great peril.

In spite of this certain impending horror about to befall Israel, look at the promise for God's true elect:

“In that day I will raise up
the booth of David that is fallen
and repair its breaches,
and raise up its ruins
and rebuild it as in the days of old,
12 that they may possess the remnant of Edom
and all the nations who are called by my name,”
declares the Lord who does this.

13 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord,
“when the plowman shall overtake the reaper
and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed;
the mountains shall drip sweet wine,
and all the hills shall flow with it.
14 I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,
and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,
and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.
15 I will plant them on their land,
and they shall never again be uprooted
out of the land that I have given them,”
says the Lord your God." (Amos 9:11-15)

Oh my friend.  Oh my loved ones.  Search your soul and make absolutely certain that your name is written in God's Book of Life. 

For here we will see a certain final judgment come upon these particular Israelites, but Messiah has made it clear that there is also coming a certain final judgment for all.

The question is:  will you be among the scoffers, or the saved ones?

A most sobering question indeed!

The Prophet Amos Tells of God's Hatred of "Religion" and Shockingly Foretells of Israel's Doom

Bible in a Year Series - Day #192 - This post is part of a year-long series where we are reading chronologically through the Bible.  Click here to learn more.  You are most welcome to join along at any time.

Today's text from the ESV Study Bible: Amos 1-5.

“I hate, I despise your feasts..." (Amos 5:21a)

and:

“Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel;
because I will do this to you,
prepare to meet your God, O Israel!”

13 For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind,
and declares to man what is his thought,
who makes the morning darkness,
and treads on the heights of the earth—
the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name! (Amos 4:12-13)

Yahweh brings in a shepherd (despised of society) prophet to bring his message to Israel.  The prophet is able to easily gather a crowd as he tells of Yahweh's judgment on the surrounding nations.  The wealthy and apostate Israelites drink it up until the Prophet Amos then shares that God intends to also, like a mighty lion, slay Israel.

I found it very difficult to hear God say, "I hate", or "prepare to meet your God".  For centuries Israel has turned her nose to Yahweh, and their judgment is just.  But, nonetheless, when you hear these words come from your Creator, it stirs the soul.

These words do not line up with the Coca-Cola god of my youth!

Here's this from the ESV Study Bible:

"From c. 780–745 b.c. the Assyrian Empire was unable to continue the pressure it had put on the nations of the Canaanite coast during the previous century. At this same time, both Judah and Israel were blessed with fairly stable governments. As a result of these two factors, the two nations were experiencing a time of wealth and prosperity unparalleled since the day of Solomon. This was especially true for the northern kingdom, Israel. Judah tended to be more isolated from the world at large and possessed less arable land than did Israel. Thus, when opportunities for amassing wealth and the trappings of prosperity presented themselves, Israel was in a better position to capitalize on those opportunities.

As has tended to be true throughout history, the Israelites took this wealth and prosperity to be unmistakable signs of the blessing of God. Thus, they were reinforced in their belief that “the day of the Lord” would soon dawn in which God would subdue their enemies under their feet and make them the rulers of the world. But in fact, their present wealth and power was not evidence of the blessing of God. As Amos conclusively showed, they were actually under the curse of God because of their egregious breaches of their covenant with him. Much of their wealth had been amassed at the expense of the poor, whom the rich and powerful were systematically oppressing. Their worship of God was little more than attempts at magical manipulation of him, much like the religion of their pagan neighbors. It is no accident that Amos delivered his messages at Bethel, where Jeroboam's namesake (Jeroboam I) had set up a golden calf for Israel to worship in 930 b.c. at the very outset of the northern kingdom.

Thus, what the Israelites saw as the beginning of a new “Golden Age” was really the last flush of a terminal illness. And it was Amos's unhappy task to disabuse them of their foolish expectations. Not only was Israel not going to become ruler of the world, within just a few years they would not exist as a nation at all, and would continue to exist as a people only by the unmerited grace of God (9:11–15). “The day of the Lord,” far from being a day of light, was going to be a day of darkness.

As it turned out, Amos was profoundly correct. Though no human could have predicted it, God knew that Assyria was not entering its final decline but was only “catching its breath” before its explosion into its final century of greatness. In 745 b.c. Tiglath-pileser III would ascend the throne of Assyria, and hardly more than 20 years later, in 722, the northern kingdom of Israel would cease to exist."

Clearly we can see how much God will do to protect the glory, and honor of His Holy Name.

We can not understand who God is unless we also understand that he is also Judge.

Isaiah Face to Face With God

Bible in a Year Series - Day #191 - This post is part of a year-long series where we are reading chronologically through the Bible.  Click here to learn more.  You are most welcome to join along at any time.

Today's text from the ESV Study Bible: Isaiah 5-8.

 ..."I saw the Lord"...(Isaiah 6:1)

This is one of the most remarkable accounts of the Old Testament. 

Isaiah, in his vision, stood before the throne room of Yahweh, and his response was, "Woe is me". 

What an incomprehensible scene.  Yet, a good Jew knew that to see God was to die, as pure holiness will not be in the presence of fallenness.

Surprisingly, however, Isaiah is not nuked but forgiven, cleansed, and given his call from God.

There is significance for us to learn here.

Rather than suffer you through my attempt, I am going to pass the baton to Dr. Steve Lawson.

Audio:

• Face to Face Before God (Part #1)
• Face to Face Before God (Part #2)

Isaiah's Shocking Message From God: I Will Judge Israel and Cast Her Into Slavery

Bible in a Year Series - Day #190 - This post is part of a year-long series where we are reading chronologically through the Bible.  Click here to learn more.  You are most welcome to join along at any time.

Today's text from the ESV Study Bible: Isaiah 1-4.

The book of Isaiah has now joined our chronological journey through the Bible. 

Frankly, the message of this book is so utterly shocking, I find that I am at a loss for words.

God created man.  We rebelled.  God created a chosen nation.  They rebelled.  God came to earth as Messiah.  We killed him.

It makes me weep.

Judgment.  Oh how we hate that word. 

Our human nature is happy to have God as long as he gives us the desires of our hearts, and he leaves us alone while we happily sit upon the throne of our lives.

The great problem with this plan is that although we are physically alive, we were born spiritually dead.  Furthermore, Satan is a foe who is hell-bent on keeping us this way.

Here comes Isaiah with a message for Israel that will set you flat on your butt.

God's chosen Israel is going to come under God's judgment.  He will utterly destroy Israel, but for a remnant of David, and set in place a plan of redemption for all mankind in a coming Messiah King.

There is no way you can read those words, mull them over in your mind, and not be completely stupefied.

Here is a synopsis of Isaiah's message from the ESV Study Bible:

"The central theme of the book is God himself, who does all things for his own sake (48:11). Isaiah defines everything else by its relation to God, whether it is rightly adjusted to him as the gloriously central figure in all of reality (45:22–25). God is the Holy One of Israel (1:4), the One who is high and lifted up but who also dwells down among the “contrite and lowly” (57:15), the Sovereign over the whole world (13:1–27:13) whose wrath is fierce (9:12, 17, 21; 10:4) but whose cleansing touch atones for sin (6:7), whose salvation flows in endless supply (12:3), whose gospel is “good news of happiness” (52:7), who is moving history toward the blessing of his people (43:3–7) and the exclusive worship due him (2:2–4). He is the only Savior (43:10–13), and the whole world will know it (49:26). To rest in the promises of this God is his people's only strength (30:15); to delight themselves in his word is their refreshing feast (55:1–2); to serve his cause is their worthy devotion (ch. 62); but to rebel against him is endless death (66:24).

A microcosm of the book's message appears in 1:2–2:5. The Lord announces his basic charge against the people: they have received so much privilege from God and ought to be grateful children, but “they have despised the Holy One of Israel” (1:2–4). He describes the purpose of the various judgments they face, namely, to bring them to repentance, or at least to preserve a remnant who will repent (1:5–9). Judah is very diligent to observe the divinely appointed sacrifices, but the people's hearts are far from God, as their unwillingness to protect their own weakest members exhibits (1:10–20). The Lord called his people to be the embodiment of faithfulness in this world, and yet they are now filled with rampant unfaithfulness at every level (personal, religious, and social); but God intends to purge Zion of its sinful members and set her up as a beacon of light for the whole world. In view of this glorious future, Isaiah's contemporaries should commit themselves afresh to walking “in the light of the Lord” (1:21–2:5).

In a few days we are going to read of Isaiah's foretold destruction of Israel by God.  It will be most painful to view. 

For us, thousands of years later, we too have been forewarned of God's coming judgment.  This time the message came through Isaiah's prophesied Messiah.  The big problem for mankind is that Messiah said that the coming judgment is a final judgment.

With this coming judgment, there will again be destruction, only this time the destruction is eternal, and God intends to create a whole new eternal kingdom for those who are truly his.

Many scoffed at Isaiah and perished.  Many scoff at Messiah and will perish.

We think that our finite minds are capable of determining what is true.  In fact, today many hold a view that there are many true truths, and to believe the Bible's proclaimed truth is not only ridiculous, but downright arrogant.

We must all take hold our ourselves, read the words given by the God we profess to believe in, tremble at our understanding, and as both Isaiah and Messiah proclaimed:  repent.

I know, I know, we hate that word.  But a serious look in the Bible for yourself, and these are the instructions of our Creator. 

Question is, what will we do?

The Death Rattle Begins to Sound for the Northern Tribes of Israel

Bible in a Year Series - Day #189 - This post is part of a year-long series where we are reading chronologically through the Bible.  Click here to learn more.  You are most welcome to join along at any time.

Today's text from the ESV Study Bible: 2 Kings 15 and 2 Chronicles 26.

We have now passed the fourth generation of sons on the throne of Israel that God promised to Jehu, and it is quite certain that this land no longer remotely resembles a nation wholly devoted to Yahweh.

In fact, Israel's kings have been reduced to seemingly vassal status as Tiglath-Pileser III demands massive tributes, and begins to pick off Northern cities of Israel and captures its citizens for slaves in Assyria.

The end of Israel is near, and I can already hear the people's lamentations.

When I consider the fact that God has allowed me to live where I do, and when I do, I am greatly thankful.  These were barbarous times to live, and I simply can't imagine what it must have been like to see your countrymen defeated, slaughtered, and the survivors hauled off into slavery.

I suspect that if we all had a good understanding of Sovereign God, and his hatred of sin, and had in our immediate ancestry witnesses of God's wrath against evil, we might all behave differently.

Unfortunately, we have misused the many years of prosperity in our land, and I fear that many are more becoming Paris Hilton rather than obedient sons/daughters of God.

Oh that our land might enjoy another Great Awakening.

Would you Rather God Save Osama bin Laden or Nuke him?

Bible in a Year Series - Day #188 - This post is part of a year-long series where we are reading chronologically through the Bible.  Click here to learn more.  You are most welcome to join along at any time.

Today's text from the ESV Study Bible: Jonah 1-4.

Before I begin my thoughts for today, I thought I might point you to a few past articles I did from the book of Jonah:

• Jonah, Whale Vomit, and Repentance
• Was Jonah Literally in the Belly of a Great Fish Three Days and Three Nights?
• Are we to Fear God's Discipline?

Unfortunately, in our scheduled chronological journey through the Bible, we don't have time to park in the book of Jonah and muse at great length over how we might apply this book to our lives.

However, I did find this instructive from the InterVarsity Press New Bible Commentary:

The book of Jonah presents a contrast between Jonah’s self–centred hatred of his enemies and God’s compassion for them. It is clearly intended to teach readers of the book that they ought not to reflect Jonah’s attitude and practice. Twice in ch. 4 God asks Jonah what right he has to be angry—first, about God’s sparing Nineveh (v 4) and then about the loss of the leafy gourd (NIV, vine) that had shaded Jonah’s hut from the blazing sun (v 9). This latter God [p. 815] made an object lesson for the prophet. If Jonah cared about a plant, not wanting to see it die, should not God care about a whole city of people, not wanting to see them die (v 11)? Are not people (or animals, for that matter, v 11) much more valuable than plants? Don’t they have intrinsic worth? Even if they are our enemies, that should not mean that we think that they deserve no compassion from God.

    The contrasting of the relative values of plant and people in ch. 4 is only one of the two major object lessons in the book, however. The other is the contrast between Jonah’s gratitude for being rescued from a fate he well deserved, and his resentment at the Ninevites’ rescue from a fate they well deserved. In ch. 1 he confesses to the sailors that the divinely sent storm that threatens their lives is his fault and that his drowning will spare them. About to drown, he is suddenly swallowed, and thus rescued from death, by a large fish or whale (1:17). Ch. 2 records Jonah’s eloquent prayer of thanksgiving for his own rescue, thus setting up a contrast with his hypocritical dissatisfaction at the rescue of the people of Nineveh in ch. 4.

Nineveh lies in current day Iraq, and we can certainly see the bad blood that still exists today between Israel and her Muslim neighbors. For example, I suspect that there are not many in Israel today who might be praying that Yahweh might have compassion on the soul of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

To bring this point home, what if God asked you to head to the door of Osama bin Laden to demonstrate God's love for him, and instructing him to repent for his sins.  Would you do it?  Or, would you rather that God simply nuke him from the face of the earth?

Do you see why Jonah was angry?

Even more difficult, do you see what God was asking of Jonah?

Is There no Good King for God's Chosen People?

Bible in a Year Series - Day #187 - This post is part of a year-long series where we are reading chronologically through the Bible.  Click here to learn more.  You are most welcome to join along at any time.

Today's text from the ESV Study Bible: 2 Kings 14, 2 Chronicles 25.

Each day I arise at roughly 5:30, make a cup of coffee, and make my way to my home office to spend a couple hours reading the days portion of my chronological journey through the Bible.

Lately, while on this great downward spiral to Israel and Judah's destruction, it has been difficult to watch.

Each day it seems I am presented with two more kings, one in the North, and one in the South, "who did evil in the sight of the Lord".

Will no one serve Yahweh with a true heart?  Am I alone in my yearning for the days of King David?  Actually, if we understand the words of King David's Psalms, and now having been knee deep in evil kings for weeks, how we long for Messiah, the coming King that King David prophesied about.

Come Messiah, come.  I am weary of evil, and half-hearted kings.