The Lord's complaint against His people has a particular
content, He condemns greed, drunkenness other specific sins. First, He speaks against the greed of the
wealthy, those who join house to house and field to field. The Land, recall, was given by the Lord and
everyone had their own land. It was
possible to lose your land due to debts but every fifty years it was returned to
the original owners since it all belonged to the Lord anyway. There is no evidence that this was practiced according
to the Lord's command, so the wealthy expanded their holdings and the poor were
simply their servants or moved away from their ancestral land. The Lord has serious complaints then against
drunkenness of the people, mentioning it in several ways, including the
sarcastic comment that there are those who are heroes at drinking wine and
valiant men at mixing strong drink. The
people have clearly rejected God's law and called evil, good, and darkness,
light. We are responsible for the
revelation we have received.
There will soon come a day when the Gentiles will trample
Jerusalem and they will hold it until the time of the Gentiles is
complete. That day came only about forty
years later, when the temple was destroyed and it continues to this day in that
the temple mount, God's dwelling place, has been occupied by the Muslims since the
7th century and the Dome of the Rock, an Islamic temple, has been there since
the late 7th century. The time of the Gentiles
has extended then 1300 years into our day.
Do our hearts ache for the coming of the kingdom of God in the same way
the Jews long for the day of restoration?
Do we hurt for the state of the world as they do for Jerusalem? There will come a day of restoration of
Jerusalem but it will be the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, not
simply the Jews restored to the old one.
We are not in darkness, we have received the revelation of
Jesus, the revelation that will mean our salvation and our eternal
destiny. We are, then, to live as
children of the light, children of the revelation but also children who reveal the
Father's love and His coming judgment to the world. We are those who are to point to an alternate
world, another kingdom, the Lord's kingdom.
In this interim between the comings of Jesus we are to be harbingers of
the second coming, those who are awaiting that coming that we might now begin
to live in the kingdom through the power of the Spirit in us. We are to participate in kingdom living now
while we long for its fullness.
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