If you are even marginally aware of the Scriptures you probably know how God dealt with Ancient Israel when they turned away from Him. For those not aware, when ancient Israel turned away from Yahweh God, He sent foreigners to invade, harass, intimidate, murder, and steal their wealth.
Joshua sent the people away, and the Israelites went to take possession of the land, each to his own inheritance. The people worshiped the LORD throughout Joshua’s lifetime and during the lifetimes of the elders who outlived Joshua. They had seen all the LORD’s great works He had done for Israel. Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of 110. They buried him in the territory of his inheritance, in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. That whole generation was also gathered to their ancestors.
After them another generation rose up who did not know the LORD or the works He had done for Israel. The Israelites did what was evil in the LORD’s sight. They worshiped the Baals and abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They went after other gods from the surrounding peoples and bowed down to them. They infuriated the LORD, for they abandoned Him and worshiped Baal and the Ashtoreths.
The LORD’s anger burned against Israel, and He handed them over to marauders who raided them. He sold them to the enemies around them, so that they could no longer resist their enemies. Whenever the Israelites went out, the LORD was against them and brought disaster on them, just as He had promised and sworn to them. So they suffered greatly.
The LORD raised up judges, who saved them from the power of their marauders, but they did not listen to their judges. Instead, they prostituted themselves with other gods, bowing down to them. They quickly turned from the way of their fathers, who had walked in obedience to the LORD’s commands. They did not do as their fathers did.
Whenever the LORD raised up a judge for the Israelites, the LORD was with him and saved the people from the power of their enemies while the judge was still alive. The LORD was moved to pity whenever they groaned because of those who were oppressing and afflicting them.
Whenever the judge died, the Israelites would act even more corruptly than their fathers, going after other gods to worship and bow down to them. They did not turn from their evil practices or their obstinate ways.
The LORD’s anger burned against Israel, and He declared, “Because this nation has violated My covenant that I made with their fathers and disobeyed Me, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died. I did this to test Israel and to see whether they would keep the LORD’s way by walking in it, as their fathers had.” The LORD left these nations and did not drive them out immediately. He did not hand them over to Joshua. (Judges 2:6-23 HCSB).
There were fifteen judges in Ancient Israel. Let us view three examples.
Judge Othniel (Jdg 3:7-11)
The Israelites began to reject God’s law and stopped worshipping Him. They began to worship the Goddess Asthoreth and worshipped other gods known generally as Baals. That made Yahweh angry with them.
Yahweh sent the Cushite king of Aram-Naharaim in northwestern Mesopotamia to invade and conquer the Israelites. After the Israelites tired of serving a foreign king, they turned back to Yahweh and began to pray earnestly that Yahweh would deliver them from the foreign king.
Yahweh then provided a judge to deliver Israel from the Cushite king named Othniel who fought against that king and ran him and his cohorts out of the land. Then Israel obeyed and worshipped Yahweh for forty years and the land had peace during those years.
Judge Deborah (Jdg 4:1-24)
After the previous judge died, the Israelites once again turned away from Yahweh God. Thus Yahweh sent Jabin, the king of Hazor to attack and invade Israel. Jabin had 900 chariots of war at his disposal and conquered Israel and severely oppressed them for twenty years. So, once again, Israel returned to Yahweh and began to cry out and pray earnestly for help.
Yahweh raised up Deborah, who was a prophetess, to judge Israel. A woman could not lead Israel’s army so Deborah summoned Barak to come and lead the army to victory over Jabin. Barak, the brave man that he was, said he would not go to war against Jabin unless she, Deborah would go with him. Deborah agreed but prophesied that woman would get credit for Jabin’s defeat.
Barak, with ten thousand soldiers, went out and was defeating Sisera, Jabin’s general. Barak defeated all those chariots and Sisera, fearing for his life, fled from his chariot on foot. Barak and his army continued to pursue and defeat Sisera’s army.
A man named Heber, a friend of Jabin, had pitched his tent near the site of the battle. Sisera came to Heber’s tent but only his wife, Jael was there. Since Sisera knew Heber, he trusted Jael. He said he was thirsty and asked for water. Jael gave him some milk. Sisera was tired so Jael allowed him to go into her tent and rest while she stood at the door and watched for any enemies. When Sisera fell asleep, Jael took a hammer and a tent peg and drove the peg through Sisera’s head, killing him.
So Jael got the credit for defeating Sisera, just as Deborah had prophesied. There was peace again for forty years and Israel worshipped Yahweh and followed His laws.
Judge Gideon (Jdg 6:1-8:21)
Once again, Israel turned away from Yahweh and this time Yahweh sent the Midianites to invade Israel. The Midianites were so cruel to the Israelites that Israel had to run and hide in the mountains, in caves, and in strongholds where their food and provisions would be safe. The Midianites would destroy Israel’s crops and livestock; they continually and purposely devastated the land so that the Israelites were miserable.
Israel remembered Yahweh and began to cry to Him and prayed earnestly to him to stop the Midianites when they came to invade. Yahweh sent a prophet to remind them that He, Yahweh told them not to fear (or worship) the gods of their enemies but they disobeyed Him.
The Angel of Yahweh came and visited Gideon. The Angel of Yahweh is considered to be an actual appearance of Yahweh to men, which is also know as a theophany, or an appearance of God to man. The Angel of Yahweh came and sat under a tree while Gideon threshed grain inside of the wine press so the Midianites would not see him and steal his grain. A wine press was a large enclosed area when the grapes would be stomped to remove their juice. It was enclosed bay a wall that had a drain on one side where the juice would flow into containers.
Yahweh told Gideon that the LORD was with him. Gideon, not recognizing Who the Angel was, retorted, “Then why has He abandoned us into the hands of the Midianites?” Yahweh told him to go and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Gideon tried to back out by claiming that he was too young. Yahweh said “I will be with you.” Gideon, beginning to realize Who this was, asked Him to give a sign the He was indeed Yahweh, and to wait until Gideon could bring Him an offering.
Gideon went and prepared a meal for the Angel of Yahweh and brought it to Him. The Angel of Yahweh told Gideon to place the meal and pour the drink upon a nearby rock. Gideon did and fire came up out of the rock and consumed the meal and the Angel of Yahweh vanished from his sight. Gideon then definitely knew he had seen Yahweh. He then said “I and going to die, for have seen Yahweh face to face.” The voice of Yahweh then told Gideon to not be afraid for he would not die. (In Exo 33:20, God told Moses not to look at His face for no one could look upon Yahweh and live. Gideon knew this.)
Gideon, wanting to make sure the he was the one to lead Israel against Midian, put a dry fleece on the ground and left it overnight. He said to Yahweh if the fleece gets wet with dew and the ground around it remains dry that will be a sign that he was the one to lead Israel. It happened just as he asked; the fleece was wet and the ground dry. Gideon wanted one more assurance. This time he wanted the fleece to remain dry and the ground around it to be wet with dew. It was so. So Gideon was convinced.
Gideon gathered an army of thirty-two thousand and went to face the enemy who were camped in the valley near Mount Moreh. Gideon camped above the valley and near enough to enjoin the battle. But Yahweh said he had too many men. Gideon told the men if they were afraid they could leave. Twenty-two thousand left and ten thousand remained. Yahweh said that was still too many.
Yahweh told Gideon to have the men go down to the nearby Spring of Harod to drink. Three hundred men drank from their hands and the remainder knelt down to drink. Yahweh chose the 300 men who drank from their hands to go with Gideon to the battle. Yahweh said he would give Gideon the victory over Midian with just 300 men.
God had caused the Midianites to have a dream that a loaf of barley bread rolled into the camp and destroyed a tent. The dream was interpreted to mean it was the sword of Gideon and God had handed the entire camp over to Gideon.
Gideon divided his men into three companies of 100 and they quietly entered the camp in the night at the beginning of the middle watch, which is about 11 PM modern time. Each man had a trumpet in one hand and in the other they had a torch hidden inside a clay pitcher. When Gideon gave the signal the men blew their trumpets and broke their pitchers to expose the torches and then shouted “The sword of the LORD and of Gideon!” The entire Midian army was spooked and began to fight each other and fled the area. The 300 and the other men Gideon had called to his army pursued and defeated the Midianites. Once more the land had peace forty years until the Israelites again turned from God.
Conclusion
This same scenario occurred again and again. There were fifteen judges in the book of Judges: Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah, Gideon, Abimelech, Tola, Jair, Jephthah, Ibzan, Elon, Abdon, Samson, Eli, and Samuel. They ruled for 350 years. With each judge Israel turned away from Yahweh and He would send invaders from other nations to rule Israel in order to get them to turn back to Him. When they did turn back to Him, He would raise up a Judge who led them to defeat their enemies and the Israelites had peace during the reign of that judge.
Israel was a nation of people that Yahweh chose for His own:
The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the LORD loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. “Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments (Deuteronomy 7:7-9 NKJV).
Historically, the USA began when Christian separatists, who wanted to have the freedom of conscience to worship God without the government regulating their worship, made arrangements to move to New World. After securing the means to travel to the New World, a portion of them traveled there on the Mayflower. They ended up building their town, Plymouth, at Cape Cod, where they could worship God as they believed the Bible commanded them to.
These Pilgrims considered themselves to be much like Israel as that nation left Egypt, wandered in the wilderness, and finally came into the Promised Land. So their leaving England, sojourning in the wilderness of Holland, travelling to the Promised Land in North America, and settling there, was similar to the ancient Israelites entering Canaan. When they landed at Plymouth, they found cleared land, no hostile Indians, and a man, Squanto, who helped them to plant crops and cope with the wildness of the land and who interpreted for them when they spoke to the friendly Indians.
Because of their faith in God, and the faith of other Christians moving to the New World, He blessed their endeavors and our nation grew and prospered under His blessings. Under God’s blessing, we won a war of independence against the most powerful military in the world. We survived a major civil war that threatened to end our country. We have had unparalleled prosperity in this country because of the influence Christians had on our culture.
As long as our country honored God and His people, who are Christians, He continued to bless us. At one time the Supreme Court actually stated in the dicta of Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U.S. 457 (1892), that the United was a Christian nation, in other words, a nation of God’s people.
Yet, just as the ancient Israelites did, our country began to turn against God. Christianity and its influence have now been officially and legally expelled from society. The “Separation of Church and State” became law through the Supreme Court decision, Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, in 1947.
Several other court decisions since then have removed prayer and the Bible from public schools and basically removed any vestiges of Christian opinion, thought, or influence from our country. Thus the United States has officially turned away from God and has stopped worshipping Him. We now worship the gods of greed, free sex, power, money, materialism, pleasure, etc., and anything but God.
Our borders are being invaded by people attempting to enter the United States illegally. They are trying to avoid our procedures that legal immigrants must follow. In fact there are approximately 20-30 million of these illegal immigrants in our country. At this very moment, in November of 2018 AD, there is a “caravan” of people at the southern border of the United States demanding we give them unfettered access to our country without following legal immigration procedures.
These people are assaulting our border patrol agents, cutting holes in our fences, climbing over our fences, and rioting when they don’t get their way. These people came from Central America, passed through other countries including Mexico to try to invade our country. They are now staged in Tijuana just over the border with San Diego. They are causing a humanitarian crisis in the City of Tijuana and the mayor there has asked for international help. The city is having trouble housing and feeding the people from the caravan and keeping the peace.
What is happening here is an invasion of our country. This is similar to what happened to ancient Israel. Our country will be forever changed if we allow the unlimited and haphazard entry of any and all who wish to enter our country whether or not they meet our immigration standards.
We have enemies from without and from within. There is a faction of powerful elites in our country that want us to open our borders and allow the invasion of such people. This faction wants our country to be changed for the worse because they believe it will give them power. So we are under pressure from outside forces and internal forces that want us to be changed into a third world country where a cabal of elites run the country and severely limit our liberties and take away our prosperity.
This is an invasion. It is an invasion, which I believe is being allowed by God in order to get us to turn back to Him. This is a call from God to turn from our wicked ways, humble ourselves and pray and seek God’s face so he will forgive our national sin and heal our land. The ball is in our court. We need revival.
Do you know Jesus Christ as your Savior? He is going to return to the world soon. Are you ready? When He does if you do not know Him as your Savior, you will join all those who do not know Him in “Outer Darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Mat 22:13-14).
Mark Oaks, November 29, 2018
