What would you think the consequences of sin, rebellion, idolatry, apostasy and general wickedness would be for the people of ancient Israel? Consequences brought by God always come with ample warning. Call it a time of grace, undeserved restraint, when God gives people in sin, time to clean up their conduct and behavior. The Israelites knew what could happen and they persisted in their arrogance and idolatrous ways. When time finally ran out, it should not have been a surprise that God was bringing about their demise.
For 209 years, the 10 tribe northern kingdom of Israel had endured one evil king after another. During those years God sent nine prophets who tried to warn the 33 evil kings and the people who followed them, “Look, you are not doing things God’s way and here’s what’s going to happen. If you continue on this path, destruction is going to come.” NINE TIMES God sent His prophets with this message. As it says in 2nd Chronicles 36, “The Lord, the God of their ancestors, repeatedly, AGAIN AND AGAIN, sent these prophets to warn them.” Sadly, they mocked God’s messengers and despised their “warning words.” One version of the Bible says... “The people called them idiots. They scoffed at the prophets until the Lord’s anger could no longer be restrained and nothing could be done.”
Their failure to keep God’s commandments meant they would be expelled from the covenant God had made with Abraham. They had been chosen to be a blessing to all other nations, but now they would be delivered over to a harsh nation. God warned his people time and time again of calamity if they continued in their sinful ways. They did not turn from idolatry and fell to the Assyrians in 722 B.C..
The summary of God’s action is sobering... Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but the tribe of Judah only. (2 Kings 17:18) The 10 tribes of the northern kingdom were conquered and dispersed throughout the Assyrian empire. God “removed them from his presence” is the worst possible thing that could have happened to them. The Creator divorced Himself from them, never again to care for or restore them to their homeland. It’s as if they ceased to exist and in fact in some ways they did vanish into the cultures of the lands where they were exiled. They become known as “the lost tribes of Israel.”
The Southern Kingdom, Judah, was ruled by both good and evil kings, mostly evil ones. However, as this calamity is befalling the northern kingdom, a good king who trusted in God by the name of Hezekiah was nervously watching the events unfold. After the ruin of the northern kingdom is complete, the Assyrian King with his army of 185,000 is poised to continue southward and claim Judah.
The outcome was different... Hezekiah, by putting his trust in God, defied the Assyrian king who conquered the northern kingdom. (2 Kings 18:19; 19:15-19) That act of defiance took extreme courage and trust in God. Hezekiah was out numbered and outgunned, but he did have God on his side and he had trust and faith in God's Truth. On God’s order, an angel destroyed the Assyrian army of 185,000. (2 Kings 19:35-37). Years were added to Hezekiah’s life and the people of Judah sort of got the message, at least for awhile.
I wonder if we can draw some lessons from what many consider one of the greatest tragedies in human history... the fall of Israel.
A few things come to mind. The first and most obvious... GOD deals with disobedience but not without ample warning. God will keep his promise to bring the Messiah through Judah, even though in about 100 more years, the southern Kingdom will be vanquished by the Babylonians. God keeps his promises, especially the one about “blessing the whole world” (Isaiah 49:29) accomplished through Jesus Christ who family genealogy runs through the tribe of Judah.
That can be hard to do if TRUTH is hard to find and hard to recognize as once trusted institutions like the Church continue to pervert and distort God’s Word.
Right now, Truth is under attack and much is at stake. Christians are caught in the crossfire of alternative Christian histories, emerging faulty texts, and a cultural push to eliminate absolute Truth altogether. As a result, many churches and Christians have been deceived. Worse still, they propagate the deception that poses itself as Truth and don't even realize the apostate nature of what they are doing.
There is no middle ground ― no safe zone, no neutrality, no uncommitted in this war. There MUST be a willingness among Christians today to stand against the falsehoods, untruth and corruption permeating the Church in many forms.
Too often in the desire to be ecumenically "inclusive," not only are lies allowed, but they are often encouraged, as if the lie itself does no harm and is simply a matter of denominational variety. In hindsight, I seriously doubt any of the Israelites would agree with that sentiment considering how they were often duped into idolatry for the sake of convenience or to “be like all the nations around them.” In truth, many of the lies that are being promulgated by false teachers attack the very foundation upon which Christianity rests... the commands of Jesus Christ, the teachings of the Apostles and the New Covenant... born of the blood of Christ!
You may not see any correlation between the ancient Israelites and contemporary Church or society in general. Sure, the ancient Israelites rejected God as their king and each person did their own thing, worshipped idols and immersed themselves in activities contrary to the commandments of God. Isn’t that essentially what people, even people who “claim” to be Christians, are doing today? "There is no fear of God before their eyes," and they are "lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God" (Romans 3:18; 2 Timothy 3:4).
When the common and prevailing sentiment of most societies and cultures is one of every man believing what is comfortable and doing as he pleases, he has in effect become his own god, and that is called... humanism. But just as ancient humanism was empty, and the Israelites desired a human king, so does the modern humanistic world desire more and more governance by the authority and institutions of man, even though such leadership has been driving humanity to the brink of disaster.
Looking back, during the time of ancient Israel, all people fell into two mutually exclusive groups: those who trusted in God, and those who did not. Those who trusted in God remained as a remnant of the promise of Abraham, even thought punished for their sin, they benefited from God’s loyalty to His plan for humanity’s salvation. All others embraced other beliefs, other gods, whether they be secular or pagan and suffered the consequences of abandoning truth.
We have the history of Israel to show us the consequence of idolatry and apostasy. Her destruction shows us the consequences of rejecting God.
God has not changed, His plan of salvation has not changed, and consequently, the state of the nations of peoples has not changed. The world today is divided into two mutually exclusive groups... those who trust in God and those who do not.
Isaiah describes the noise of the unfaithful like the seas, (Isaiah 17:12-14) or the rushing of mighty waters, a roar that has no discernible message. What is the judgment for those who have never placed their faith in God? Isaiah describes is at chaff blown away in a wind, never to be seen again, never to be used for any purpose, separated from the fruit forever. This is the judgment upon those who not only reject God, but also those same people who spoil and rob, and persecute people of faith.
Likewise, the Church today is accountable for their covenant with God; those who call themselves Christians but lack true faith in God will find themselves separated from Him because of their apostasy; and today's pagan and secular humanistic nations are accountable for their rejection of the One True God, and for their persecution of the faithful remnant, true Christians. All people are accountable before God for their faith in Him or their lack of faith in Him. You have no neutrality option, to opt-out, as if sitting in a grandstand watching but free of any accountability for how the game is played.
God has given a task to all Christians to spread the good news of the gospel of salvation to all the world so that none will perish, so all could have an opportunity to place their faith and trust in God. This task is the paramount duty of the Church, because all people are accountable before God, and will give that account at the final judgment. God desires the salvation of all people. It is time for the church, the body made up of every individual Christian, to take the task seriously.
Yet across the world very few people truly acknowledge that all of these blessings come from God, and most people fail to place their faith and trust in Him. Like the ancient Israelites, they follow after other gods, gods of man's fabrication as they embrace the myriad of world religions that reject the truth of God's Word. For these, the harvest will be a heap of grief and sorrow when they come before the judgment and found to be... faithless.
