The Old Testament sets before us Israel under the blessing and government of God. Through Israel’s history, which in its latter part was indeed sad, we learn the principles of God’s ways in purpose, government, and mercy.
“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” (Deut. 32:8).
“You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities” (Amos 3:2).
“For the LORD will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land” (Isa. 14:1).
God chose Abraham from the midst of idolatry, from the family of Shem, who carries a special blessing, to represent Him on the earth. Abraham was promised a land bordered by Lebanon on the north, the River of Egypt on the south, the Euphrates on the east, and the Mediterranean Sea on the west. This promise will soon be fulfilled to the letter; no one can alter it. He was promised that he would be blessed and that his name would be great; also he was told that God would make of him a great nation, and those who blessed him would be blessed, and those who cursed him would be cursed.
Abraham, though living in the dignity of his position before God, waited as a pilgrim in the Land which God had given him until God’s time for him to take possession. Nothing would do for a resting-place for Abraham which had not been cleansed by judgment. Abraham has long since passed into that condition which shall lead to a heavenly portion; his seed, Christ, will take possession of the Land in God’s time. This in no way infers that Christ was a part of any creation. He is the Creator, but He was born Man of a virgin to fulfill the place called for in God’s counsels. All other men had failed. He is spoken of as Abraham’s seed.
Years passed by. Israel, of Abraham’s seed, rose to power and was in possession of the Land which God had promised. Israel had not only been the chosen people by promise but had been entrusted with government and placed at the center of a galaxy of nations such as are found in Psa. 83, including Egypt, Persia, Media, revolving about what in God’s sight was the center of the earth.
But all in man’s hand failed: priest, prophet, king—each had his day. Israel through disobedience became ruined and wretched until carried away captive under ASSYRIA and BABYLON. The Assyrian yoke still remains to this day. If Israel had remained true to God, they never would have been subdued by Babylon or Assyria, but because they turned to idols, they were set aside, and all of their power and glory was transferred to the Gentiles.
Israel was guilty of many things, including the grossest form of idolatry and corruption, even to the slaying of their own Messiah; still, while under national, judicial blindness, they will be carried by Jehovah in delivering power from the clutches of the greatest enemy that has ever threatened them, directly into the grandest blessings that have ever been known upon the earth, the enemy gone forever.
“Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name:
“If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever.
“Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD” (Jer. 31:35-37).