Although the prophets frequently prophesy that the nation
will be destroyed they also always prophesy that it will be restored. Why?
When God made the covenant with Abraham it wasn't contingent on
Abraham's life or His faithfulness and obedience, it was contingent on God's
life and faithfulness. It was God alone
who walked through the pieces of the animals Abraham killed. Normally both covenant partners would have
walked through the alley way in Genesis 15 in a sign that it would be done to
them according to the animals if they broke the covenant. The Lord alone passed through in a sign that
the covenant would be everlasting, it would be with Abraham's seed as promised,
not just with Abraham, and it would not be contingent on their
faithfulness. Now, enjoying the covenant
blessings is contingent but the covenant itself is not. The Lord would remove them from the land for
gross negligence but would not forsake them utterly, for His Name's sake, to be
true to the promises He had made, He would always keep a remnant. There will always be an Israel.
Jesus says they have been given many witnesses to Him: John
the Baptist told of Him, the Father speaks of Him (remember at Jesus' baptism
that the word came from heaven concerning Him), His deeds, the miraculous
signs, testify to Him, and also Moses, the books of the Law, give witness
(Deuteronomy promises a prophet "like Moses"). They, however, refuse to believe these
testimonies, they do not have the love of God in them. They are looking for an earthly king and
Messiah, they want a Messiah on their terms, they want to be glorified. The Lord is offering to restore the covenant
and usher in the Messianic age and they will have no part of that because they
prefer this other messiah. He will die
to establish His faithfulness.
Paul seeks to comfort the Thessalonian church over the end
times. They were more concerned with
this issue than the other churches to whom Paul wrote. It seems they had some fear they would miss
it and because of their preoccupation with it they received prophetic words,
forged letters from Paul, etc concerning the matter. There has always been a segment of the church
that has this preoccupation and it is always ripe for deception, a willingness
to receive fraudulent books like the book of Enoch and others that purport to
tell of the apocalypse. The book of the
Revelation was one of the last accepted into the canon of Scripture for this
reason. We must be careful with apocalyptic
literature and expectations as we know that the prophetic is often misinterpreted. The people of Amos' day may have been looking
for the restoration of the northern kingdom when in fact it disappeared. The people of Jesus' day missed Him entirely. We need to accept God's word on its own terms
and, as He said, be faithful to what we have received.
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