God (The Word) has made a monumental covenant with Abraham, one which promises that his descendants would become 1) a company of nations (the British Commonwealth/Empire), 2) a single great nation (the United States of America) and 3) the Savior of mankind (Jesus of Nazareth).  But many generations and many twists and turns would pass before those promises would come to pass.  Then, beginning in the early 1800’s, the first two promises came to pass as England and America rose up and quickly came to dominate the rest of the world.

Early on in their relationship, God told Abraham that his descendants (Israel) would go into slavery in a heathen nation for 400 years.  That nation turned out to be Egypt.  Following many arduous years as the slaves of the Egyptians, everything changed.  Led by a prophet named Moses, the 12 tribes of Israel were brought out of slavery with power and glory that only a God could produce (Exo. 6-14).  That it was the Word–Jesus Christ in His pre-human form–that persuaded pharaoh to let Israee go is revealed in 1 Corinthians 10:1-4 where we are told that Israel was led out of slavery following a series of devastating miracles, walked dry shod across the Red Sea, ate and drank as the result of miracles.  It is recorded that they ate spiritual meat and drank spiritual drink, “and they drank of that spiritual ROCK that followed them, AND THAT ROCK WAS CHRIST.”  In verse 9 we find Paul warning the church not to tempt CHRIST as some of their ancestors (the freed Israelites) had after He had them.  Those who did were killed by Him (5-11).  These things, Paul reminded them, were reminders/warnings for the end-time church which would exist at the end of the New Covenant age–the time in which we now live.  God’s dealings with Israel was recorded for “our instruction upon whom the end of the world has come (1 Cor. 10:11).  Why?  Because both groups would deal with the same God Who commanded that they both obey the same Law.

After leaving Egypt Moses led the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (the House of Israel) to the desert of Sin where they gathered at the foot of Mt. Sinai.  There they received a treat that very few have received–they heard God/Jesus/the Word speak in an audible voice.  Another proof that the God of the Old Testament was in fact Jesus Christ is found in the statement that no man has seen God at any time or heard His voice (1 Jn. 4:12/ Jn. 5:37).  Many people saw and heard Jesus Christ.  At Mt. Sinai there were estimated to be between one and three million people which included “the mixed multitude” of Gentiles who had come out of Egypt with them (Exo. 12:38).  These former slaves of Egypt became part of the 12 tribes of Israel by embracing Israel’s God and obeying Him and intermarrying with them.  God has always welcomed obedient Gentiles into His family.

As the Israelites waited at the foot of Mt. Sinai, Christ descended down upon the mountain in an awesome display of power and might, accompanied by fire, smoke and the shaking of the earth.  He then spoke to the people, telling them that, if they would do what He commanded them to do, He would be their God and they would be His people.  The people agreed to obey Him.  Then He spoke to them His Ten Commandments by which they and their physical and spiritual descendants were to keep as long as they were on the earth.

Following this an unbelievable episode took place among those who had professed to believe Him and promised to obey Him.  The people He had just freed from slavery with a display of power such as had never before been seen and has not been seen to this day, REJECTED HIS VOICE.  They told Moses that they did not want to hear words spoken by the One Who had delivered them and given them everything they had, including great wealth in the form of jewels, gold, silver, etc.  They wanted Moses, not God, to speak to them.  (Exo. 19:16-25; 20:1-19).  Incredibly, they did not want to hear the audible voice of the One Who had rescued them from slavery and bondage, totally destroyed the economy of the idol-worshiping heathen as they watched, killed their firstborn, brought them across the Red Sea on dry land, miraculously provided food and water for them and made them a nation.  And not just any nation, He made them HIS NATION.  Yet they rejected Him.

As a student of the Bible soon learns, rejection of God’s Law/Word/Gospel would come to be the most prominent characteristic found among of the descendants of Abraham.   After killing off a generation of Israelites by making them wander in the Sinai desert for 40 years, God settled the next generation in the land He had promised Abraham.  As would become their usual bent, the people would once again reject Him by rising up against Samuel, His priest and prophet.  Many years later God, as Jesus of Nazareth, told His apostles that anyone who rejected His Word was proving that he/she DESPISED both Christ Himself and His Father.  Today some 2.5 billion people prove their rejection of the Godhead for all the world to see by dutifully arriving at Satan’s citadels of sin each sun god day, entering his wide gate in order to hear his false prophets preach their perverted (Gal. 1:6-9), wide-way gospels (Mat. 7:13,14) which feature another Jesus (2 Cor. 11:4), another god, another truth and another salvation–all counterfeits of the true Christ, true God, true Gospel and true salvation.  Jesus warned us about false religion in Matthew 24:4,5.  But the people who call themselves by His name still “… love to have it so” (Jer. 5:31).  There is an age-old saying: “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”  If the Holy Bible is true then the saying should be changed to: “Hell hath no fury like a scorned God,” which is what two and a half billion people do every time they pay homage to Tammuz the sun god on his day while listening to their hirelings tell them what they demand to hear: “smooth things, lies and deceits” (Isa. 30:10).  His wrath is kindled every year when they honor their false god on his supposed birthday by bringing  trees in their homes, propping them up and decorating them with silver and gold (Jer. 10:1-4).  This, Jesus said, was “… the ways of the heathen.”  Just as Jesus told the Pharisees, by doing such things they make their proselytes, including their little ones, the same denizens of hell as themselves (Mat. 23:13-15).

Today, God is proclaiming loudly and clearly His wrath on sinning man.  His latest proclamation–COVID-19–has Satan-led man scrambling to find a “cure” for the latest variant.  The only cure for what ails the world is true repentance, conversion and holy living.  That will not happen because 99.99% of humanity has told God to: “Sit down and shut up.  We’ve got this.”  The “this” man has “got” is a false god–the “god of this world”–Satan–whom he bows down to, worships and serves.  Man’s god smiles as he watches the Biblical God “speak” yet another COVID-19 variant into existence and watches man run in yet another direction in a futile attempt to find a cure for it.  God is “speaking” today as He has “spoken” so many times before in so many ways (wars, “natural” disasters such as famines, floods, droughts,  hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, etc.)  His message to man has never wavered: “Repent and be converted so that your sins may be blotted out” (Acts 3:19).  Then, and only then, will such “speaking” end.

As the Lord told Isaiah concerning ancient Israel, so His messengers tell their spiritual descendants today: “‘Hearing you will hear, but you will not believe, and seeing you will see, but you will not perceive.’  For the heart of this people has turned cold; they have dulled their ears and closed their eyes, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and believe with their heart and should be converted so that I could heal them” (Acts 28:26,27).  I identify with the Prophet Jeremiah who complained to the Lord that the people did not listen to him.  The Lord’s reply: “Tell them anyway.”  And so I do.  L.J.