The God of Israel is no idol! He is the Creator of everything that exists, including His people, His own special possession. The LORD of Heaven’s Armies is His name! Jeremiah 51:19 (NLT)
Growing up, each child wants to be like someone. Some children want to be firefighters, police officers, or doctors. Others want to be the President or a teacher. Throughout the Bible, we read of people who want to be like others. Most often, we read about the Israelites wanting to be like the people of other nations and having what they have.
The Israelites descended from Abraham and Sarah. To Abram (Abram’s
name before God changed it), a man who had no heir, God promised he would have
as many descendants as the stars in the skies (Genesis 15:5). He continued this
covenant with Abram, in Genesis 15:7-8,
I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you, and I will be their God. (NIV)
God made another promise to him saying He would make Abram’s descendants a “people.” He said in Genesis 17:4, “As for Me, this is My covenant with you; you will be the father of many nations.” Before God led Abraham’s descendants out of Egypt, these people were not a “people.” The word “people” means a group of individuals called by one name and made into a nation. God made Abraham’s descendants a nation when He rescued them from Egyptian slavery using Moses and Aaron.
In Genesis 26:3-5, God reiterated His promises to Abraham’s son, Isaac. Isaac passed God’s promises as a blessing on Jacob in Genesis 28:3-4. Yet, the descendants of Abraham were not a nation. They were a collection of people from the same area. These people, by God’s plan, became descendants (heirs) of His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
In Exodus 6, when God spoke to Moses about the Israelites in
Egypt, He told him Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob knew Him as Yahweh, “the existing
One.” Yahweh God explained He had covenanted with these men. With His rescue of
the Israelites from Egypt, He declared His relationship with the people of
Abraham. God told Moses,
“I am the LORD (Yahweh, the existing One). I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by My name the LORD. I did not make myself fully known to them. I also established My covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they resided as foreigners. (Exodus 6:2-4)
God then commanded Moses to tell the Israelites, "I will take you (the Israelites) as My own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians." (Exodus 6:6-7, NIV)
God said His relationship with the descendants of Abraham is close. He called Abraham’s descendants His people. God did not call other people and make them His own. With God’s declaration about the Israelites, He made them into a nation, His nation. This nation was the inheritor of the promises God made with their founding fathers. He would be their God and they would be His people.
Consider Israel’s spiritual life. They followed God, then sinned repeatedly. These descendants of Abraham worshiped God in the tabernacle, then made a golden calf at the bottom of Mount Sinai. They promised to obey His commandments and decrees, then kept things from the villages and cities they attacked. These Israelites had a spiritual life of peaks and troughs. What caused them to stand strong for God then disobey Him? What would make a group of people called by Yahweh His nation turn their backs on Him? This God is the same One who redeemed them from slavery in Egypt. He made them to be a light for the nations (Isaiah 42:6).
What happened? The Israelites sinned against God because of temptation. The ways people lived in the surrounding nations enticed the people of God. They wanted the gold and silver. The Israelites wanted idols, false gods, like other nations had. They must have thought, “Surely, the land of those nations is thriving. Their gods are working for them, so let’s give offerings to their gods, too.” This desire for more things-more gold, fame, and glory-drew them away from their devotion to Yahweh, LORD. Their actions, words, and thoughts disobeyed God’s commandments and said to Him they were not content with what He, the Giver of all good things, gave them (James 1:17). The Israelites coveted, killed, took part in adultery, worshiped other gods, etc. They no longer distinguished themselves as the people of God, His nation. Abraham’s descendants were like other nations. They became like the nations who God allowed to defeat and rule over them. The Israelite nation, people God chose and made into a nation, became slaves and exiles. They were in bondage to other nations and to their sins. What about these other nations enticed the Israelites? For a while, these nations prospered, defeated other nations, and expanded their empires. In the end, other stronger nations defeated them.
Considering this again, we read about the Israelites and wonder how they ever could have wavered in their spiritual fervor. God was among them in by cloud, fire, amazing provision, in protection, and in power. How could they have left Yahweh to be like the other nations? Understand, they wanted what other nations had, while forgetting Who made them a nation and proved Himself faithful to His covenant with them. They wanted to be like Babylon, Edom, Amorites, and other nations.
If we look honestly at ourselves, we realize our spiritual lives are no better than the Israelites’ lives. We have had times of faithfully following God and growing in our relationship with Him, then gradually or suddenly, we stop. When we consider these dips in our spiritual journey, we realize we decided we wanted more than God was giving us. We were not content with the “good and perfect gifts” He has given us (James 1:17). Reflecting on this, we realize we are no better than the Israelites, who were no better than the Babylonians, Assyrians, and other nations around them. We each are sinners and have fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Of course, saying we fell away from God assumes we had a relationship with Him already.
Let’s think about this. God, through Abraham, covenanted with the Israelites. Yahweh promised to be Abraham’s, Isaac’s, and Jacob’s God. That was a personal covenant for them from Him. Only from Exodus 6 does God make this covenant with a group of people, the Israelites. He chose the Israelites to be His people, a nation. God chose them to draw other people and nations to a covenant relationship with Him. They could do that by their faithfulness to Him and His to them. They were to be a light to the nations (Isaiah 49:6 & 60:3). The Babylonians, Assyrians, et al. had no covenant with Yahweh God. The people of these nations followed in other gods like Molech (child sacrifices required), Chemosh, Asherah (goddess of fertility who had temple prostitutes), and Baal. Each of their gods were false gods. These gods had no power. They were idols made by people from parts of God’s created world. They could not move themselves or cause any benefit or harm to people who bowed to them.
With this information, reflect on what this means for us. We are like Israel, who are like Babylon and the other nations. We sin and fall short of the righteous standard of God. The other nations had no god that could cleanse their sins from them. The nations’ gods could not help or save them. Their spiritual journey was a flat line in the trough. They had no hope of salvation from sin and no hope for eternal life with God. Still, they were like us, sinners separated from God.
The Israelites knew God and knew about Him. He chose them before they were a people, before each of them was born. God chose them when He covenanted with their ancestor, Abraham. These same Israelites had the prophets and priests of God who proclaimed what God required-to love Him with their whole being and to obey Him. The people who were not His people saw and heard about what God had done over the centuries. They understood from the Israelite lineage, God loved them, was gracious to them, and protected and provided for them. Still, the people of God had a spiritual journey of peaks and deep valleys. They had no steady upward growth in their spiritual journey with Yahweh God.
Consider this. God existed from before time began. He makes Himself evident in creation, provides testimony of Himself in personal accounts from people over these millions of years since He created people. The Bible, His word, tells us about Him-His attributes and works. Many of us have heard of the covenant God had with the Old Testament Israelites. This covenant was a covenant to lead the people to seek and follow Him. It carried His promise of always caring for them. Yet, God’s first covenant did not provide salvation, the cleansing from the stain and guilt of sins. God required by His laws that the Israelites twice daily offer animal sacrifices to atone for their sins. No created thing was perfect enough to cleanse people of their sins.
God had the perfect plan. He sent His Son, Jesus the Messiah, to be born as a man and live a sinless life as fully God and fully man. This Son, Jesus, died at the hands of humans. They crucified and laid Him in a tomb, which was then sealed. Yet, three days later, He rose from death to life as death’s conqueror. Forty days later, Jesus ascended to sit at the right hand of the Father in heaven to intercede for us. He was the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Jesus’ sacrifice cleanses the stain and guilty conscience from the sins of each person who believes in Him as the Son of God, the Messiah, and who confesses and repents of their sins. To be a Christian, a person must believe in Jesus the Messiah and confess and repent of his or her sins. From then, Jesus redeems the believing person. God declares him or her righteous. That makes her or him more than a conqueror through Jesus Christ. That person can know he or she will have eternal life with God in His kingdom. This is the second covenant God gave to all humanity. It surpasses the first covenant, which could not save a person from his or her sins nor give eternal life.
You must ponder on and decide for yourself whether you will believe, confess, repent, and surrender your life to Jesus. Honestly, consider your life beside the Israelites’ spiritual journey. Do you recognize you have spiritual troughs and peaks as the Israelites? God covenanted with them. This covenant was not a redeeming one. Of course, a few people of Israel showed their faith with their lives of obedience to God. God called each of them righteous. Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, Elisha, and other great men and women of faith God declared righteous.
Are you like the Babylonians and other nations who had no spiritual journey and covenant with Yahweh God? They either did not know God personally or did not know about Him they had no covenant with Him. Are you like the Israelites who wanted to be like their neighbors? Whether you are like the Israelites or like their neighbors, you still need redemption-cleansing-from your sins. Jesus paid the redemption price for you to be freed from the debt of your sins. That debt of sin is an eternal death penalty, an eternal separation from God.
Perhaps you are like the second covenant people, who are in a faithful covenant relationship with God and are co-heirs with Jesus in God’s kingdom. Unlike the first covenant, the second covenant ushered in by Jesus provides salvation and cleansing from sins for all people. Jesus died so each person could be made righteous and so God would declare them righteous. The heirs of Abraham are people of faith. Remember, God declared Abraham righteous in Genesis 15:6. This means Abraham is the father of people who believe in Jesus and become righteous through Him. The Gospel is for each person. God loves each person and wants each one to be saved from his/her sins and death. He wants everyone to become His redeemed child and co-heir with Jesus Christ. He sent His Son to earth because of His great love for each person and His desire to have a righteous relationship with each one. John 3:16 testifies to that. In it, Jesus said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Through the millennia, Many Christians have stood for Christ and endured persecution. These testimonies of His people and the Bible proclaim God’s love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness available to every person. Each person gets to make his or her decision about believing in Jesus as the Son of God. Be more than other people. Choose to be like Jesus. Jesus is the image of truth and perfection.
Be Imitators of me, as I am of Christ.
1 Corinthians 11:1 (ESV)
Who will you choose to be like?
Other people or Jesus?
