Let us pick up the Biblical narrative in Genesis 28:13,14 where we are told that God has chosen the descendants of Jacob, whose name God had changed to “Israel,” meaning “power with God,” to be his chosen people among all of the people of the earth.  We find God speaking to him: “I am the Lord God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac ….”  God goes on to tell Jacob/Israel that his seed would be spread abroad throughout the earth–north, south, east and west.  They would become His LIGHT to the Gentile world.

In Deuteronomy 14:2 Moses told the house of Israel that they have been chosen by God to be a holy people, a peculiar people unto Him.  They were to be above all other people (Gentiles) upon the earth.  In Malachi 3:6 God warned Israel that He does not change His mind relative to what He has called Israel to be.  His command (Deut. 14:2) for holiness and peculiarity would remain in effect as their descendants later transitioned into what is called the New Covenant era which began with the founding of the New Covenant Church on the Day of Pentecost, 31 A.D.  This church was founded on the teachings of “the Word” Who, as John 1:1-4,14 proclaims, had come to earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

What the Old Covenant/Testament Israelites were required to be (holy and peculair) and do (be His light to the Gentile world), so would those in the next seven (church) eras of Israel’s history.  We are living in the seventh (Laodicean) era of that history.  Israel’s (the church’s) future was prophesied by Jesus Christ in Revelation chapters two and three.  Holiness, peculiarity and light-producing would be required of God’s true church until Christ would return to establish the Kingdom of God on earth.  However, as Christ’s description of the seven church eras reveals, the church of each era failed to be and to do what God required, just as had their ancient Israelite ancestors.  The only exception was the Philadelphia era which is still in existence as the Laodicean era gains strength and dominates the church scene today.  The apostles (sent ones) from the previous (Philadelphia) era, myself included, continue to cry out God’s Truth to the fallen Laodicean masses who call themselves Catholics and Protestants.  We warn them of their impending doom if they continue on their God-rejecting, Satan-serving way.  As Jesus warned in Matthew 7:13,14, His messengers are summarily ignored and their Gospel message is rejected.

Scripture tells us that we are not the first messengers to be rejected by the religious masses.  God sorely chastised those to whom the Prophet Isaiah ministered.  In chapter 30 of his book we find God speaking to those Israelites who did not want to hear His Word.  In Isaiah 30 God calls them “rebellious children” who refused to hear the “Law of the Lord.” Instead, they insisted that Isaiah not prophesy to them “right things.”  Rather, he must speak to them “smooth things” and “deceits.”  He was to stop teaching them God’s way; he was to lead them away from the path set out by Him.  They brazenly commanded Isaiah to “stop holding the Holy One up before us” (1:1,10,11).  In other words, he was to stop telling them about God’s Law.

God required both ancient and end-time Israelites to live as kings, as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation before the heathen Gentiles among whom He had planted them (Rev. 1:6).  God’s saints were not to deviate from His holy standard (Law) until the return of His Son to earth.  At that time they would be born again from physical to spiritual bodily consistency which would render them incapable of sin.  Until then they would, through the power of the Holy Spirit, resist Satan’s temptations to sin and thereby remain holy and righteous.  Only those who do so will inherit eternal life, as the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 5:21 and 6:22.  Jesus had voiced that same Truth in Matthew 10:22 and 24:11-13 where He states that, even though the world, including the church world, would sink into spiritual darkness, His true saints would continue to walk in His light until the end of their lives.  This Truth was echoed by the Apostle Peter in 1 Pet. 4:17,18 where he commands that church people judge themselves relative to God’s Law.  He points out that only the righteous within the church will be saved, and they just barely.

In Exodus 19:3-8 Moses told the recently freed Israelites that they must obey God’s “voice”–the Words He would speak to them later.  The people responded positively, telling him: “All that the Lord has spoken, we will do.”  Then He quoted to them His Ten Commandments–a condensed version of His Law which He wrote in stone (20:1-18).  In Deuteronomy 4:2 God reminded the Israelites that they must keep that Law exactly as He had spoken and written it.  They were not to add anything to it or take anything from it.  In Isaiah 43:10-12 God tells them that they can have no other gods before Him.

Israel was  to be God’s witness to the Gentile world.  What they would “witness” would be His Word/Gospel/Truth/light/Law.  In Matthew 24:14 Jesus said: “This GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM shall be preached in all the world AS A WITNESS to all nations.”  In Isaiah 51:4,5 the prophet noted that Israel was to serve as God’s LIGHT to the world by strictly obeying His Law.  In Isaiah 62:1-3,11,12 the prophet told them that God required them to be righteous, a holy people with a holy name.  He added that only by their obedience to Him could they remain “in His hand.”

In spite of all that God did for Israel, the people would not obey Him.  Instead, they embraced the gods of the heathen people among whom they lived.  In order to keep their minds on the One Who would come to earth as an eternal sacrifice for their sins, the Lord created another law, one which required a blood sacrifice to cover their continuous sins.  In Galatians 3:19 we find a reference to “the law that was added because of transgressions”–the breaking of the Ten Commandments He had given them at Mt. Sinai.  In verses 23-25 this added law is called the Israelites’ “schoolmaster” that would bring them to faith in the coming Christ Who would come to earth as the final blood sacrifice for their sins.  In Galatians 4:4,5 the Messiah would come to redeem Israel from the curse of the added (blood sacrifice) law which was “against them.”  His blood would take the place of the animal blood they had routinely sacrificed.

Following the death of King Solomon, the house of Israel split into two factions over a taxation issue (1 Ki. 12:1-21).  “The house of Judah,” as one faction was called, consisted of the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi who remained in the area known as Judea and came to be called “Jews”–the “southern tribes.”  The other tribes remained in the area called Samaria and were called “Israel”–the “northern tribes.”

After many years of warnings from God through His prophets, Israel–the northern tribes–was defeated and taken into slavery by Assyria in 721 B.C.  Not having learned from God’s dealings with Israel, the Jews were defeated by Babylon in 578 B.C. and taken to Babylon as slaves.

Following the defeat and enslavement of Israel, the Assyrians were attacked by Babylon, resulting in a mass exodus of their Israelite slaves who traveled to other areas of Europe where they settled by tribe in various locations which today have familiar names.  Over time Israel took on the names of those nations and accepted their languages, religions, social characteristics, etc.  Over time the Israelites came to view themselves as Gentiles.  In this way they became “lost” while actually in plain sight.  Their descendants, numbering in the hundreds of millions, continue to believe that they are Gentiles.  Hosea 8:8 states it this way: Israel was “swallowed up” by the nations within which she now lives.

Many of the Israelites who had immigrated to western Europe would later travel to the New World that would become known as the United States of America which had been founded by the descendants of Manasseh, the eldest son of Joseph, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham.  The descendants of Joseph’s other son, Ephraim, migrated to a group of islands off the coast of Western Europe that came to be known as the British Isles.  The word “brit-ish” means “covenant man.”  They were an important part of the covenant God had made with Abraham as recorded in Genesis 35:11 where He told Abraham that his descendants would become “a great nation” and “a company of nations.”  The “great nation” would come to be known as the United States of America while the “company of nations” would be known as The British Commonwealth or Empire.  The creation of the United States and the British Commonwealth took place because of God’s promise to Abraham for his obedience to Him.  Other Israelite tribes settled in other western European nations such as Denmark, Holland, Germany, Iceland, France, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, Scotland, etc.  Those Israelites took on the names of the nations in which they settled as well as their languages, social traits, etc.  It was to these people that Jesus would later send His apostles.  He called His scattered people “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mat. 10:6).  The Israelites who embraced the apostles’ Gospel message became God’s LIGHT to the Gentiles among whom they lived, some of whom would see their light, embrace it and become spiritual Israelites.  The 13 original colonies in the New World were populated primarily by Israelites from England.  Some of their brethren from the other Western European nations would later join them.  L.J.