The Recurring Cycle

There won’t be too much here that I haven’t said before, but I want to take a slightly different approach to this, I’m trying out different styles a little bit. I want to give a brief, non-detailed history of the way God and man have interacted, starting at the beginning. Okay maybe not that brief, but not impossibly long either.

God made the Earth and put man on it, everything was perfect. Then Adam and Eve sinned and it was all downhill from there. It only took six chapters of the Bible before God had had enough! So He decided to kill them all, but He left a remnant, Noah and his family who then repopulated the Earth.

And God started over.

Israel was started with a covenant between God and a man, namely Abraham. As Abraham started having descendants, Israel started to take off, more and more were born to the nation, so it grew.

Others, however, took advantage of them, and they wound up spending 400 years in Egypt being oppressed and made slaves. Yet for all this no one could keep them from continuing and growing, so Pharaoh finally started having all the males killed. Moses came along, led them out of Egypt, and they were given the law. Here is what God wants, do it and live, don’t do it and die, it was pretty straightforward. God made a great separation in what would happen to them based on their obedience or lack thereof. With their obedience and love of God they would receive great blessings, and with disobedience would come great curses and death. There was no middle ground; it was pretty extreme either way, proving that God doesn’t mess around.

So could you fulfill every part of the law from the moment you gave birth until your death? Pretty tough, and pretty unlikely, and of course it wasn’t happening. However with a right attitude towards God, humbleness, and making appropriate sacrifices when you messed up, you would be fine. Even then God was interested in relationship, did you love Him or not? If you loved Him you would obey with a good attitude.

The relationship between God and His people didn’t go as well as it should have, however. They complained, they murmured, they talked back to Moses, and when he was gone for too long they made an idol, a golden calf. And this was in the early goings of the nation, before they had even reached the Promised Land. Many died as a result of God’s anger for their actions. They wound up spending 40 years in the wilderness instead of going directly to their destination which would not have taken more than a couple weeks to get to from what I’ve heard.

Then Joshua took over, and for the most part Israel served God, although there were always exceptions. One man stole loot from Jericho and caused the entire nation to be cursed. They couldn’t defeat a little place called AI because of it, proving that one person’s wrong actions will hurt the body at large.

But when Joshua died a vicious cycle began. They would forget about God and do their own thing, transgressing against the covenant. Then God would send some sort of affliction, like an enemy. They would cry out to Him, He would send a deliverer, they would serve Him temporarily, and then it repeated itself. Then they had kings, some good, some bad, and the people pushed every limit, trying God’s patience. With some of the better kings there would be a revival of sorts, they would serve God for that time and then fall back into their sinful ways, such as with Josiah.

Over time it got worse and worse, evil gradually became just about the only thing to be found in Israel. You wonder how a nation that was founded by God could do such a thing, yet we can read all about it in the Old Testament.

Now interestingly enough, in all this evil there were a lot of enablers in the form of leadership. When you read the major prophets (in particular Jeremiah); you’ll find that they often target those who should be shepherding Israel; the priests, the prophets, and the pastors. Instead of teaching righteousness, following God wholeheartedly, and putting away the evil, they contributed to it and taught the people to do the abominations!

Finally God had enough. Amongst the prophecies it was foretold that Israel would be carried away to Babylon for 70 years. But the false prophets made Israel believe a lie. They said that it wouldn’t happen, the Babylonians would not come and take them away, and there would be peace. The people believed the lies, they thought that Jeremiah was wrong, and they fully expected peace. They were blind and headed for death thinking they had life.

But God was right, the real prophets were right, and they were carried away to Babylon. The majority of the people died, and God kept only a remnant that would rebuild.

Jerusalem was rebuilt by this remnant, and life finally returned to normal. I don’t read about a whole lot happening between that time period and when Jesus came, but it’s possible I missed something.

And God started over.

He brought a new way to us, in the form of Jesus Christ. Jesus obeyed the law, never sinned, and died for our sins. Death was conquered when He rose again, and we were provided a new covenant for salvation. It’s a wonderful thing; the precious blood will cover our sins, allowing us to have a new start!

Christianity caught on, causing a great separation between the saved and the lost. Who could figure this out, how someone could be so different? When someone doing evil sees someone doing good it often makes them angry and causes them to lash out, because they are being shown up.

And persecutions came; they were killed for their faith. Yet just like ancient Israel it could not be exterminated, the Christians grew in number and just wouldn’t go away.

But along the way something happened. There were cracks in there, little signs that all was not well. Christians started to fight amongst themselves, for instance. When disagreements came, instead of figuring things out and mending fences, they started splitting and forming their own denominations, each with their own set of beliefs. There were crusades where people were killed in the name of God. New doctrines came into acceptance that weren’t considered Biblical before. And sin crept in, slowly but surely.

Along the way there were revivals, good times when people repented for their sins and followed hard after God. But they always came to an end; the sin would creep back in.

Jesus predicted that the love of many would grow cold, and He gave the reason: “Because iniquity shall abound” in Matthew 24:12. That is happening. If you look around carefully you will see so much iniquity in the church that it is just sickening. Divorce, adultery, abortions, pornography, the list goes on and on.

The enabling factors are the same: The leadership that will not teach us to really live Godly lives, to really love Him and obey His commandments. Instead they feed us doctrines that justify our sin. Greed is swallowed up by prosperity teaching. Sin is watered down so that it can’t send you to Hell, for the security in Christ is impossible to break. Instead of saying “You shall not go to Babylon” they say “You shall not go through the Tribulation.” They themselves are corrupt, for sin abounds in leadership as well. Every now and then a scandal breaks out, but that is only the people who get caught and are prominent enough to make waves.

I stand against these people; we shall see who is right.

Because scripture is no longer being written (and I’m perfectly fine with that), we don’t get to see God’s views of what we do like we can in the Old Testament. Given that Old Testament Israel didn’t listen it’s hard to believe that we would listen either, so I suppose it would be useless in some ways.

Nothing has changed. We have sinned so long without major recourse that we think we can get away with it. When things happen we don’t view them as judgment from God anyway. After September 11 I remember that a very few dared to say that it was from God and they were quickly rebuked.

The Christians are God’s people today. Harsh as it is, any Jew who rejects Christ is on the way to Hell just as any Gentile who rejects Christ is on the way to Hell. God’s people have done so much evil for so long, that the point where God has had enough will soon we here. He will let the Antichrist come and deceive us, including, if possible the very elect, for Jesus said that also. We will have strong delusion; many have already believed the lies of our leadership who teach us bad doctrine, so taking the next steps won’t be any problem.

So yes, it will be a bit different. Instead of being carried off to Babylon we will be delivered into the hands of the Antichrist who will for a time have the upper hand (see Daniel 7:25). That is why we must keep the faith, purify our lives, and endure to the end no matter what happens. Many (actually more like most) will die, some in their sin and some as martyrs. A remnant shall again be saved, this time it’s those who endure through, clinging to Jesus. It is for the sake of the elect that the days will be shortened, or no flesh would survive, that shows just how much God loves us even in His anger for the sin.

Most have already missed the very first thing that Jesus said about the End Times. “Let no man deceive you.” (Matthew 24:4) We’re already deceived because we’ve been taught things for so long, and it’s been repeated so many times, that we rarely even question it anymore. Try suggesting that Pre-trib isn’t Biblical in a church and see where it gets you!

The time to get sin out of your life is now! The time to get to really know your God is now! He who has an ear, let him hear!