7 Minutes
Biblical passages all have a similar context...they are truth. And God, by His word and through His people is trying to arouse a deaf world. God has a people who are coming to the end of themselves and back to Christ. And to cause them to sense God’s presence, and also His purposes God reminds us that the earth is His and He will not relinquish control over the events that lead to godliness. God chose a genesis method of separation and association. Time from eternity. Light from darkness. The dry land from the waters. Man from God. Abraham from Lot. Hebrews from Egyptians. Six days for labor from one day of rest. Israel from Judah. His people from the world. Scattering is initiated when man fails to give first thought to God. This is the beginning of depravity. Shame for sin disappears. The sorts of this scattering are rebellion, obstinacy, betrayal, distrust, shamelessness, and greed, comprising an audacious self-centeredness against God and fellow man. These are not the characteristics of a nation that would bring honor to God. Sin is rapidly revealing less of a stigma, and the sense of shame has been slowly replaced by a growing boldness of attitude, a flaunting of sin. Much of that sense of shame has disappeared from the world and in American psyche in particular. This is the kind of conduct the "whore's forehead" pictures. It represents the blatant, audacious sin of the average person who is out in public, openly displaying what she is, promoting herself, and tempting others to engage in sin with her...the Jezebel of today. The whore's forehead represents obdurate practice of sin done overtly with no attempt to camouflage. This relaxed and careless public acceptability of sin did not happen overnight. It gradually became tolerated over decades. Its growth was significantly aided by a so-called Christian church that abandoned its responsibility to "cry aloud and spare not" and show God's people their sins. We must be very prayerful to guard ourselves from succumbing to the temptation of being drawn into the same casual approach. It is our responsibility to overcome sin.
This is the condition that leads to God’s rebuke of His people. As part of God's warning to the last day people, He promises to unsteady their ability to understand, reason, and think things through. Confusion of heart for disobeying His voice and failing to observe His commandments and statutes with judgment creates for these a dreadful situation.
Deuteronomy 28:29
We must always consider the word of God to enhance our ability to discern rationally and reasonably to come to the real solution of returning to God. For those who ignore the cause and effect relationship God will take away understanding and wisdom. They consider not their disregard relative to their scattering. The great fault that these promote is that it is the enemy of God that causes such scattering. But in reality it shows their discomfort with God’s word. They fail to see that assigning blame to the enemy to provide a measure of comfort for themselves does not leave them victimless. The unstated implication of this notion is that the enemy somehow outsmarted or outmaneuvered God. God promises the scattering because of unbelief. Because of His sovereignty, He is the only One who can bring about what happens to the Babylonish conclave found among the people. On the other hand, the enemy can only do what God allows him to do. God will respond to spiritual neglect among His people. God’s scattering today has been organizational rather than geographical and catastrophic. And we are even more accountable because of our privileged position and also the principle of truth not just made available to us, but given to us.
Amos 3:2
Scattering results when God’s people walk contrary to His way. Seldom does God instruct me to write out the scripture that the wise may search them. But review the following verses that are written out here from Deuteronomy 29:22-28...
So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the LORD hath laid upon it; And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath: Even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger? Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt: For they went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them: And the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book: And the LORD rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day. The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.
Consider the people being spoken to. Could this be God’s people whose blood memory is there, and they are now here? Are these words spoken for “generation to come”? Has the restoration of God’s people been completed? The bible understands that it is addressing not only those standing before our day on the east side of the Jordan River, but all the descendants of the children of Israel as well. This prophecy pertains to today's descendants of Israel as noted in Revelation 7:4-9. We must consider and reflect on all things. Contemplate the trials, consider the blessings. And compare the experience. There will be much decadence among the people, but there will be an unprecedented prevalence of faith to appear in God’s stand out people.
Jeremiah 31:10
To God, gathering is a purposeful and overt reversal of the current situation. Upon seeing our changing attitude, our repentance, God intervenes by altering His own course, backing out the scattering He imposed earlier. God will go where He needs to gather His people.
Deuteronomy 30
Jesus Christ, will not delegate the work of regathering, nor will he gather from a distance. He will be with us always. He will have us go to the nations and gather the elect and the remnant. Christ’s participation is assertive in the gathering process. He sends to us the Holy Spirit to guide us. The scattering actually is the sowing of God. The reaping is His gathering. The evident underlines God’s personal engagement in the gathering underscores the purpose of Christ’s work: for the Son of Man came to seek...
The word of God prepares His responsible servants to seek actively for stray sheep, to the point of searching them out. Was the scattering of Israel and Judah beautiful in its time? If we study Lamentations without reasoning with principled consideration of truth concerning God's entire purpose, the situation appears very dreadful. However, reasoning the events, the answer is undoubtedly, yes, it was beautiful and good. Because of the messaging of the blessings and curses, it was suitable for that occasion. What about the scattering of the church? Was it beautiful? The same is true. Because of the messaging to the seven churches our going through it may have been stressful, requiring painful adjustments while enduring to the end, but in God’s expressed time, it will most certainly be beautifully good. Is correction good? Do we really want to continue doing things wrong? If God had not done what He did when and how He did it, how many serious spiritual character and attitude flaws would have gone uncorrected? How disastrous would they have been to the salvation of many? How many people have we fellowshipped with in the past who have seemingly been confounded by revealed truth? The reality may be that they were “tares.” Perhaps they no longer fellowship with God’s people because God delayed their true calling. If not for God’s intervention all would have been lost. It is critical for us to keep in mind always that God knows the end from the beginning. His foreknowledge captures the entire span of events. If we think the scattering has been difficult to accept, we need to be patient because prophecy reveals that things will become much worse as time concludes. Will the descendants of Israel, scattered within the western world, learn that it is not the president, monarch, congress, or parliament of any earthly nation that rules, but that God in heaven reigns over all? We are witness to a continuing erosion of that calling of God that offered salvation to those who would desire to live in the fear of God. A painful reckoning must come. To complicate matters, God has scattered His people all over the western world according to His purposes. One of the results of this is that the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob no longer even know who they really are, and their conduct and attitudes reveal that most do not care. God is seeing His return with weeping and supplication. These are the ones who have survived the sword. Conditions will continue to deteriorate as we approach Christ's return because they must. If God allowed the people to turn away from Him without consequence, their hearts would be fully set in them to do evil. God knows those whose hope is in Jesus and He will cause many to sleep to save them. He loves them too much to allow them to become incorrigible.
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