At this point I will condence the history of the nation of Israel from the time of Samuel to modern times. Samuel was God’s priest–His strong, uncompromising leader of the nation of Israel. God spoke to him, he spoke to the people and that was the end of any and all issues. The people rejected God’s priest because he would not deviate from His will. Samuel steadfastly refused to compromise God’s Law. As a result, the time came when the Israelites demanded a king to replace Samuel so that they could be like their heathen neighbors. God gave them Saul. Saul failed. God then raised up David who brought the different factions together and united them into one unified nation. Under David Israel became the most powerful nation on earth.

Following David’s death Solomon was elevated to the national throne. Solomon increased the nation’s world status to even greater heights in terms of wealth and splendor. This was brought about partly by his marriage to the daughters of heathen kings with whom he made commercial alliances. Solomon’s kingdom grew to an unheard-of world status. So magnificent was the nation that people came from great distances to see the splendor of what he had created.

But Solomon had a moral problem. The wives and concubines he had accumulated were heathen who  refused to give up their respective religions and gods. The women eventually convinced the king to build shrines for their gods and to join them in worship of those gods. As goes the king, so go the people. Before long the Israelites were worshipping heathen gods. Because of this idolatry the nation began to deteriorate morally. Solomon, the wisest man on earth, had abandoned his God-given wisdom. As a result of his and the nation’s idolatry, Solomon’s reign marked the beginning of the end of the Israelite nation.

With the death of Solomon his son Rehoboam became king. Along with his associations with heathen kings, Solomon had used extremely high taxes to generate governmental wealth. The Israelites resented the heavy taxes and petitioned Rehoboam for relief. Instead, the new king raised their taxes. This caused ten of the tribes to separate from Judah and Benjamin under the leadership of Jeroboam who quickly led them into even greater depths of sin. Soon the southern tribes–Judah and Benjamin, nicknamed “Jews”–were at war with the ten northern tribes–called “Israel” and “Ephraim.” The first time the word “Jew” is found in Scripture the Jews and the Israelites were at war (2 Chron. 16:1). Eventually the tribe of Levi–the priestly tribe–left Israel and joined Judah and Benjamin. Judah, Benjamin and Levi–the “Jews”–lived in Judea with their capital in Jerusalem. The Israelites lived in the region called Samaria and had the city of Samaria as their capital.

Incredibly, what was at one time the world’s greatest, most powerful nation had become two warring factions. This would not be the last time the world would see God’s chosen people fall from His grace and pay the ultimate price for doing so.

Over the following generations God raised up prophets to warn both Israel and Judah to amend their ways and return to Him. Both groups ignored His warnings. As a result both suffered military defeat and enslavement. First, Israel was defeated and the survivors carried off to Assyrian slavery in 720 B.C. Then in 580 B.C. the Jews were defeated and enslaved by the Babylonians. After 70 years, in fulfilment of prophecy, some 42,000 Jews were allowed to return to the Promised Land to rebuild the Temple and the Jerusalem wall. But sin would once again cause God to punish them. In 70 A.D. He sent the Romans to destroy Jerusalem and the Temple and to enslave the Jews. Recall that Jesus had warned the disciples that a time would come when “… not one stone (of Jerusalem and the Temple) will be left upon another.” Following their defeat by the Romans in 70 A.D., the Jews were scattered throughout the world just as had been the fate of their Israelite brethren. As Old Testament prophecy had predicted, God’s chosen people were scattered among the Gentiles where they would become God’s light to the heathen world. Recall that when commissioning the apostles for ministry, Jesus told them not to go to the Jews, nor to the heathen. They were to “… go rather to the lost sheep of the house (tribes) of Israel” (Mat. 10:6) where they would teach them His gospel. From those lost sheep He would create His New Covenant Church. Recall that Jesus had said in Matthew 15:24: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” He was referring to Israel being “lost” in the social and geographical sense. The world did not know who the Israelites were. But God knew who and where they were. Jesus sent His apostles to find them to teach them His gospel which, if believed and obeyed, would result in their being converted and placed on the path to salvation. A few of the scattered Israelites heard and obeyed the Words of the apostles (Mat. 7:13,14). These few Israelites, plus some converted Gentiles, comprise the modern New Covenant Church. God’s church must not be confused with Catholicism/Protestantism.  L.J.