The Kingdom of Heaven and the Church on Earth
6.The way to heaven

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Times of Refreshing: Summary and Application

Series 1:    “The Kingdom of Heaven and the Church on Earth.”

Topic 6:       The Way to Heaven

Key Text:     Isaiah 40:1-5; John 14:1-7

1. Why there needs to be a Way

  1. 2004 survey for NSW Bible Society reports that the church is “an almost insurmountable obstacle” between people and Jesus.
  1. In Eden, Adam and Eve sought to be Lord of their own joy. Humans blame God for spoiling the fullness of their joy (Gen 3:12-13). “If I were God…”
  1. God bars “the way to the tree of life” so perfect joy is now impossible (Gen 3:22-24).

Application Questions

Do your experiences with secular Australians confirm the Bible Society research?

What evidence do we have that people get angry with God because they see him as “a spoil sport”?

2. The Way to the Land of Promise

  1. Abraham is the first person God calls on a new way outside of Eden (Gen 12:1; Acts 7:2- 4). His trustful obedience was at the core of his relationship with God (Gen 15:6).
  1. Israel too is called to come out of Egypt and journey with God on the way to the Promised Land (Ex 23:20- 21; Deut 8:2; 16:13-17).
  1. Canaan was to be a new Eden (Deut 8:7-10). Idolatry however led to exile in Babylon and the need for a new exodus (Isa 40:3).

Application Questions

Where is your Eden (be honest)? Do you need to surrender this up to the Lord?

3. The Exodus of the Gospel

  1. John the Baptist prepares the people for a new exodus (Mark 1:1-5) by proclaiming the “way of righteousness” (Matt 21:32 cf. Prov 8:20; 12:28; 16:31; 2 Pet 2:21), warning of a coming judgement (Luke 3:7) and promising forgiveness.
  1. Those who respond are common people conscious of their sins (Luke 3:10, 18; Matt 21:32; Luke 7:29)
  1. The religious professionals and authorities refused to listen to John (Mat 22:35; Luke 7:30) because of their self-righteousness (Luke 8:9).
  1. By polarising the community John prepared the way or the coming of Messiah (Jer 4:3; Hos 10:12).

Application Questions

Who are the tax collectors of our time? Who are the Pharisees?

What conclusions can we draw if we do not see religious polarisation in our day?

4. Jesus is the Way

  1. Jesus’ miracles, like that of the first exodus, make him popular (Mark 1-7).
  1. It is on “the way” (Mark 8:27; 9:34; 10:17, 32) to Jerusalem to perish (Matt 23:37; Luke 13:33) that he tries to tell his disciples he must suffer (Mark 8:34; 9:31; 10:33- 34).
  1. To follow Jesus we too must be willing to go the way of death (Luke 14:6-27). This means abandoning the cherished values of our class.
  1. Jesus leads the way to the Father (John 14:6). This is through the cross, where he accepts God is in the right and humans are in the wrong.
  1. His loss of the Father’s joy on the cross (Ezek 18:23) suspends his normal sense of right and wrong (Mark 15:34).
  1. The resurrection reverses the cross (Heb 1:9; 12:1) by returning Jesus to the pleasure of the Father, this is the true paradise of God.

Application Questions

What is the hardest thing God could ask you to suffer for him?

When are you most aware of the Father’s joy?

5. The Way of the Church

  1. Jesus has opened a new way into heaven (Heb 10:19-20).
  1. Christians became known simply as people who belonged to “the Way”; they had returned to God (Acts 9:2; 19:9; 22:4; 24:14).
  1. In humility they had learned to accept that God opposes the proud but justifies those who humbly trust him (Hab 2:4a, b; Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11; Heb 10:38). This is the way of God.
  1. False prophets in the church today seek to make the way easy by forgetting God’s holiness, righteousness, wrath, justice and eternal judgement (Matt 7:13-14).
  1. This “gospel” has nothing to do with forgiveness because it has nothing to do with the fear of God (Ps 130:3-4).
  1. It is “bad people”, who will be the good ground into which the gospel message brings forth fruit – thirty fold, sixty fold and one hundred fold.

Application Questions

Where are the false prophets in the church today?

“Go for souls and go for the worst” said William Booth. Was this gospel wisdom or foolhardiness?

“Despite outward appearances and middle class niceties and the politeness the church is still full of candidates for the gospel, if only we were real about it.” Is the church you belong to an open community of confession of sin?

Times of Refreshing:

Series 1:    “The Kingdom of Heaven and the Church on Earth.”

Topic 6:       The Way to Heaven

Key Text:     Isaiah 40:1-5; John 14:1-7

Introduction

Over the last five weeks we have been struggling with the core issues of what is wrong with the church in western society today. The manifest problems of materialism, control, immorality, prayerlessness and lack of spiritual power are symptoms.

One of my greatest fears is that this series it will turn out to be just another event that leaves nothing unchanged a the foundations.

This is why it was encouraging for Andrew to use Isaiah 40 last week in opening up the role of prophetic ministry in preparing the way of the Lord for spiritual renewal. (See Appendix 1 for Isaiah 40.)

In a 2004 survey done by a professional research group for the Bible Society in New South Wales, the chief conclusion reached was that most Australians do not have a problem with Jesus, but the church, “organized religion”, is seen as an almost “insurmountable obstacle”.

Many people think that Christians are just not “real”. Could it be that Jesus words are true of us? 13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them.” (Matt 23:13).

If, we are committed to seeing significant transformation in the church we must ask what the way of God means for our own lives, and whether we are willing to embrace it.

Why there Needs to be “A Way”

This begins with understanding why there needs to be a way back to God at all. This means going back to the story of human rebellion in the Garden of Eden.

Eden was a wonderful place, its name means “delight” and all its features make it paradise. Adam and Eve lived in sheer joy, and God was Lord of it all.

When the tempter said, if you eat of the delightful tree “you will be like God knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5) he distorts two ultimate concepts in human experience— god-likeness and joy.

Apparently Adam and Eve came to believe that God was Lord of joy for his own sake, and in holding back from them the tree of knowledge he was not only holding back a fuller joy but thought that he was right to do so (Gen 2:17). So our first parents took it upon themselves to be Lord of their own joy in full conviction that they were right to do so.

Nothing seems to be able to shake the human conviction that we are in the right and God is in the wrong. (We are righteous judges and God is an unrighteous Judge.) Humanity obsessively tries to bring God down to below its own level— “it was the woman you gave me” said Adam, it was the snake you made implies Eve (Gen 3:12-13). “If I were God… see that there were no dictators, cancer, deformed children, poor people, tsunamis, aging.” People resent their height, weight, looks, race, gender, and even the weather. In other words, if only we were God we would keep paradise going. Most ignorantly, God’s greatest reminder that he alone is God, death, is used against him. I remember clearly my mother at my father’s funeral crying out in pain and complaint, “It’s not fair.”

At the end of the story in Eden God banished Adam “…he placed on the east side… cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.” (Gen 3:22-24).

[The way to Paradise was barred forever with no hope of return. “innocence, purity and ideal happiness cannot be entered again by man on earth.”] It is the impossibility of living in Eden – like bliss that a constantly reminds human beings that they are not God. If only we would accept that this is right, but we won’t. Marxism held out a utopian view of a future without poverty, Moslems desire to reach paradise, Buddhists have their Nirvana, when the Bali bombs went off the newspapers were filled with comments about a lost paradise. Look at the lottery and travel ads and see how the image of a blessed state grips the consciousness.

Whether it is by food, drink, sex, drugs, self- satisfaction, music, entertainment, prosperity or religion (Rom 3:10-11) the goal is to be Lord of our own joy. To shake this obsessive complex of self convinced rightness over what is best for our lives God must set his people on an entirely other way.

The Way to the Land of Promise

The first person to be called on this journey was Abraham. He was called to leave Ur, one of the most sophisticated cities of the ancient world and to travel the land of Canaan (Acts 7:2-4). His story doesn’t focus on the cost of leaving his homeland, nor on what Canaan was like, nor on his moral character (twice he lied about Sarah being his wife (Gen 12:10-20; 20:1-13)) but on of his response to God. [The hinge text about Abraham and why he lived in the favour = pleasure of God is Genesis 15:6,] “6 And he believed the Lord; and the Lordb reckoned it to him as righteousness.” (For further comments see Appendix 2.)

If Canaan was first promised to Abraham, God always speaks to the Israelites of it as “a land of milk and honey.” (Deut 8:7-10).  It is to be a new Eden.  To get to the new Eden the people must follow God “the long way” “he prepared” through the wilderness to this place of joy (Ex 23:20-21; Deut 8:2; 16:13-17).  For further comments see Appendix 3.

They came out of Egypt, they wandered in the wilderness, they settled the promised land, they became idolatrous and so God exiled them to Babylon. This sets the background for a new exodus. “A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Isa 40:3)

The Exodus of the Gospel

The Jews who returned from Babylon did not saw themselves as fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecies of restoration— they had no feast of celebration, they were still under foreign rule, there was no glorious temple, the Gentiles were not coming up to worship in Jerusalem. [The community of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Qumran) were waiting for the new exodus etc.]

This whole atmosphere changes when John the Baptist bursts on to the scene. According to Mark, the Gospel of Jesus begins with the story of John. “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 2 As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way;3 the voice of one crying out in the wilderness ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’ ”4 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.” (Mark 1:1-5)

God has been silent, but now out in the wilderness (not in the synagogues, nor Jerusalem, nor in the temple courts) people begin to hear again the voice of God. It is a voice that is typically terrifying and comforting in its prophetic proclamation— at the same time speaking uncompromisingly of judgment and the “tender compassion of our God” (Luke 1:78).

John comes in the “way of righteousness” (Matt 21:32 cf. Prov 8:20; 12:28; 16:31; 2 Pet 2:210 and prepares the way of the Lord (Luke 1:76) by warning of a coming judgement (Luke 3:7). This presents an overwhelming opportunity for repentance-and-forgiveness of sin. Overwhelming that is, to those whose consciences were traumatised by their sin and need for God.

It was, “The crowds” who asked him, “What should we do?” (Luke 3:10), “he proclaimed the good news to the people” (Luke 3:18), and “the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him” (Matt 21:32; Luke 7:29). Sinners understood exactly what John was saying and so they flocked to baptism, not as a ritual but as a symbol of the death they knew they deserved to die under the judgement of God. This was their very public declaration that God was in the right and they were in the wrong and it was a cry to him for forgiveness. In this way these “sinners” “justified God” (Luke 7:29) and went to their homes justified by God (Luke 8:14).

[In doing this, John was fulfilling the prophetic words of Malachi "Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse.” “once more you shall see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.” (Malachi 4:5-6; 3:18)]

John was “turn(ing) the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous” (Luke 1:17), it was now plain, as Malachi prophesied, who was serving God and who was not (3:18). Despite all natural expectations, it was tax collectors and other sinners who embraced the “wisdom of the righteous” because they simply believed what God said through John— his was their righteousness.

If the sinners were becoming servants of God, who were those who did not serve him? “30 “By refusing to be baptized by (John) him, the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God’s purpose for themselves.” (Luke 7:30 cf. Matt 22:35). These were the holders of religious power, the keepers of the Law in two senses. Firstly, they controlled access to the religious institutions of the day— you could not enter synagogue or sanctuary without conforming to their ritualistic interpretation of the law. This excluded a whole range of people, such those in “unclean occupations” e.g. shepherds, as well as notorious sinners, from the organized religion of the day. But this first sense only flowed from the second, they actually believed that they kept the Law.

John’s coming polarised the church community of his day into two very distinct groups, those who repented and were counted as righteous by God and those “who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt” (Luke 8:9).The Pharisee stood condemned as wicked because he denied his wickedness, because he saw himself as god- like, in his self- righteousness he gave himself the status of God and refused forgiveness.

In dividing the nation in two John completed the classical prophetic task of breaking up the fallow ground for the coming righteousness of God (Jer 4:3; Hos 10:12), he afflicted the comfortable and comforted the afflicted. Therefore when Jesus came his word fell not only on hard ground, thorns and stony soil, but in the hearts of a people prepared, softened by the bullocking ministry of John, ready to bring forth thirty fold, sixty fold one hundred fold.

If we are not seeing this sort of division – and – fruitfulness in our day it is because we do not see clearly in the religious community of our time who is and who is not serving God. What is needed to set us on the way is a prophetic ministry that polarises— not around politics or morality or doctrine, but around the very good news itself.

Jesus is the Way

If John prepared the way for the coming of the Lord, Jesus was the way. The essential difference between John and Jesus is not found in their public preaching of the kingdom of God, nor in Jesus miracles, but in the journey of Jesus to the cross. For John had prepared a people for the Lord in a two fold sense— those who would listen to him (the humble and weak), and those who were stirred up to crucify him (the powerful and strong).

Jesus begins his ministry (e.g. Mark 1-7) with the sorts of miracles, healings and deliverances Israel enjoyed in their exodus from Egypt. Yet the centre of the Gospel (Mark 8- 10) reveals the power of this spiritual exodus cannot come from participation in signs, but only through the cross. When Jesus is on “the way” (Mark 8:27; 9:34; 10:17, 32) to Jerusalem, to that place where prophets must perish (Matt 23:37; Luke 13:33) he tries to tell his disciples “the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” (Mark 8:34; 9:31; 10:33-34), but they cannot listen. Like Adam in the Garden and Israel in the wilderness, their personal pleasure is more important than God’s justice.

Jesus presents to those who were “travelling with him” on the way a terrible challenge; “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26-27)

[Cf. John 6:60,66 “When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” 66 Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.”]

Let me illustrate Jesus saying with portions of a prophecy I gave in 2003.

“There is a struggle going on in the soul of the church… between a spirituality of personal blessing… and one of the way of the cross… There can be… no union with the presence and power of God… unless the church… takes up the road to Calvary. As the dominant social class present in the Australian church is the middle class, God is calling his people to become “class traitors”, that is, betrayers of the dominant characteristics of this class.

To be “class traitors” is to hate… the cherished values of our class— prosperity, security and “child- protection”. The easy road is not the way of Christ….

If we are not publicly betrayers of the Australian way of life [(not the Australian destiny or redemptive gifts)] in its materialism, we will never see the truth and experience the power of the prophetic words of Jesus, “You will be hated by all nations.” (Matt 24:9), because we will never be “missionaries at home”.

… In terms of schooling, career, personal company and so on Christians… want to defend their children’s welfare at all costs… God is calling us to give our lives away, and this includes giving our children to him without condition. Some of these precious ones must perish abroad in bearing witness to the gospel…

It is in John’s Gospel that Jesus’ most elevated statements about a new exodus [cf. Luke 9:31 “departure” Greek = exodus] are found. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?[ 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.] 4 And you know the way to the place where I am going.”c 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

The shekinah cloud of glory led to an earthly land of plenty (Ex 40:35-38), but the glory of the only Son (John 1:14) will lead to the Father in heaven.

The prophesied “way” is to be realized in a manner that no-one conceived, because human beings have never understood that it is about God and not about us. The goal of the way is that “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together” (Isa 40:5).

The cross is not the cost of glory but the way to glory (Luke 24:26), it is the termination in Jesus of the old way of earthly aspirations and the beginning of a new way. It is the end of all human efforts at righteousness. The cross is the destruction of human guilt and shame (God is not ashamed to identify with sinners) for the cross is the one place in history where a human being is so righteous that he accepts accept the verdict that God is totally in the right and we are totally in the wrong. The only person who could accept this verdict was someone of such complete lack of self-righteousness that he himself was without guilt or shame.

There is a total strangeness of Jesus experience on the cross— the “Why” of his forsakenness (Mark 15:43) cannot be explained in terms of normal standards of right and wrong, it is a pure love that totally humiliates human knowledge of good and evil. In the cross, Jesus himself is left morally suspended, for the first time in his life he cannot sense the Father’s joy, which has forever been the indicator to him of his righteous obedience.

This happens to Jesus because God takes no pleasure in punishing the wicked (Ezek 18:23, 32; 33:11) but only in forgiving (Eph 1:5, 9), and the cost of our forgiveness is that Jesus must endure the punishment of the wicked for our sake (Isa 53:12).

The resurrection reverses all this: “9 You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” (Heb 1:9; Ps 45:7). [ “2 looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Heb 12:1).] The cross perfected the faith of Jesus and the reward for this righteousness is not Eden nor the land of Israel but the everlasting joy of the eternal God – the glory of the eternal Father (John 17:5). The pleasure of the Father— this is the true paradise of God.

The death and resurrection of Jesus shows to all the world God has always been right for us and we have always been wrong about him. He is God and we are not- all our joy is in him (Ps 43:4; John 15:11; Rom 14:17; Phil 4:4). He can be absolutely trusted.

The Way in the Early Church

“Therefore, my friends, [since] we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh” (Heb 10:19)

With heaven opened up and the eternal destiny of humanity reached in Christ the early Christians became simply known as people who belonged to “the Way” those who had returned not to Canaan nor to Eden but to God (Acts 9:2; 19:9; 22:4; 24:14).

The very core of their life was not spiritual gifts, nor inspired worship nor effective leadership nor any other element that we seek today to get the church going; at the heart of the early church was a knowledge of the “way of righteousness” (2 Pet 2:21). This way is nothing other than the gospel. This gospel is a revelation (Rom 1:17) that it is the righteousness of God to “justify the wicked” through the humility of faith (Rom 4:5) and to condemn the proud.

Habakkuk 2:4 is one of the best known texts used in the New Testament to explain the gospel (Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11; Heb 10:38). The second part of this famous verse says, “the righteous will live by faith”. Yet the first half of the verse shines light on the second, it says “Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them”, literally, in Hebrew, their spirit is “not straight”. This means that the crooked way is pride i.e. self-righteous arrogance, and the straight way is faith, and faith in God is just another way of talking about humility..

[4 Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right = “not straight” in them, but the righteous live by their faith.]

The Way Today

Jesus warned us, 13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it. (Matt 7:13-14) This [in context] is a word about the teaching of false prophets (15-23) who teach a way other than that of Jesus.

It is not what they say that is so dangerous but what they do not say. Their words are attractive, inoffensive, comforting, even drawn from parts of the Bible, a message of “love”; but it forgets God’s holiness, righteousness, wrath, justice and eternal judgement it omits repentance, and the cross. [Like the false prophets in Jeremiah (6:13-14) “14 They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, “Peace, peace”, when there is no peace.”] Like the Pharisees they pick out sins they are not guilty of (e.g the Pharisees taught much on tithing but little on pride). In this way they powerfully manipulate the immature Christian conscience.

A few year ago Tim Costello, who now heads up World Vision, appeared on national TV and said the worst thing anyone can say about someone in modern Australia is that they are a “loser” (my parents generation referred to “these people” (it is always someone else) as “no-hopers”. It seems to me that the gospel has been redefined as a success story that turns so-called “losers” into so-called “winners”.

This “gospel” has nothing to do with forgiveness. Psalm 130:3-4 says “3 If you, O Lord, should keep a record of our sins, who could stand? 4 But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be feared.” Since there is almost no evidence of the holy fear of God in the churches we must conclude that the people do not know the power of forgiveness. If you had been a tax collector or a prostitute or … the like and had come into the way of forgiveness through the ministry of John or Jesus what do you think your greatest fear would be? Losing that experience of the joy of forgiveness.

There are many things that God can share in with us, such as love, goodness, kindness, peace, wisdom, and joy. But there is one thing he can never share in with us but only give to us – because he has never been guilty he has never experienced forgiveness. It is the real knowledge of this difference between us and God that reminds us that he is God and we are simply his creatures and that the terrible burden of trying to be like God— be a someone, being a success, being well thought of, being right… is at an end.

Conclusion

“Go for souls and go for the worst” said William Booth. He said that because he knew that underneath all the vices was a self – ashamed conscience that was too excruciating to live with and that desperately needed to hear the message of forgiveness.

It is “bad people”, who will be the good ground into which the gospel message brings thirty fold, sixty fold and one hundred fold. Despite outward appearances and middle class niceties and the politeness the church is still full of such candidates for the gospel, if only we were real about it.

When you look at the state of the nation and the church it can all seem too overwhelming, but a wise writer on revival once said

“it is not our concern to transform the general situation, to deal with valleys and mountains, crooked paths and rough places… (the thing we must do is to) prepare the way of the Lord in our hearts Give God a highway… (A. Wallis) this is all we can do to prepare for the spiritual revolution of revival.

Appendix 1

Isaiah’s New Exodus

40 Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. 2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. 3 A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. 5 Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (Isa 40:1-5)

Appendix 2

Abraham’s Exodus

The first person to be called on this journey was Abraham. He was called to leave Ur, one of the most sophisticated cities of the ancient world and to travel the land of Canaan (Acts 7:2-4). God had Abraham walk up and down the length of the land – this was a journey Abraham made with God. The land of Canaan became the land of promise not by some automatic decree of God but because a man who was righteous by faith obeyed God by leaving behind his earthly securities and partnering with God on a journey.

The importance of this principle for a prophetic life first came to me as I was travelling through the vast spaces of the Northern Territory on retreat late last year. Abraham is the first person called a prophet in the Bible (Gen 20:7). I had a very clear sense of God walking with Abraham wherever he went, and it was God’s experience of this journey with this obedient servant that actually turned the land into a land that belonged to God. God took possession of the land in principle because he had a covenant partner who travelled with him.

This is a principle that is true for everyone who has ever been called a prophet or who is in any way prophetic. While it is true that “surely the Lord God does nothing, without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.” (Amos 3:7) the essence of prophecy is not supernatural communication but that the reality of the Word of God breaks out into history through the life of the prophet as he/she undergoes rejection and/or restoration. God becomes real in the historical context of the prophets as they actualize the plan of God in their own suffering.

This is something Israel never seemed to understand.

Appendix 3

The First Exodus

God led the people safely out of Egypt to Sinai (Deut 33:2; Judges 5:4; Ps 68:8). He promised to take them further but warned them “I am going to send an angel in front of you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. 21 Be attentive to him and listen to his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression; for my name is in him.”(Exodus 23:20-21).

The rest of the story is well known, what should have taken a few weeks took forty years. Time after time the people rebelled in the desert- they complained of the lack of meat, of salty water, they wanted to return to Egypt and refused to enter the land.

At the threshold of entering the promised land Moses explained the purpose of the forty years of wilderness wanderings:

2 Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. 3 He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, …in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord…. 5 Know then in your heart that as a parent disciplines a child so the Lord your God disciplines you. 6 Therefore keep the commandments of the Lord your God, by walking in his ways and by fearing him. 7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, 9 a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. 10 You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you.

17 Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.” 18 But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today. 19 If you do forget the Lord your God and follow other gods to serve and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. (Deut 8:2ff, 17-19)

Even after this speech Moses, being a prophet, knew what was in the hearts of the people.

29 For I know that after my death you will surely act corruptly, turning aside from the way that I have commanded you. In time to come trouble will befall you, because you will do what is evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger through the work of your hands. (Deuteronomy 11:29 cf. 31:29).

The abundance of God’s miracles in the desert, the miraculous provision they enjoyed and the Eden like conditions of the land that God gave them all conspired to cause Israel to forget that she was an oppressed people saved by grace and forgiven time and time again.

The problem with Israel is summed up in the words of Psalm 103:6-8 (= Ex 34:6) “ 6 The Lord works vindication and justice for all who are oppressed.7 He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel.8 The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.9 He will not always accuse, nor will he keep his anger forever.”

The whole history of the Old Testament is one long story of rebellion, idolatry, prophetic warnings and a repeat of the cycle that started it all. Exile to Babylon is a spiritual return to Egypt, it creates the conditions for a return to the foundational moment that defined the identity of Israel as a people, it was an opportunity for a second exodus.

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