Can America Learn from Israel's Mistakes?

Despite its economic woes over the past few years, America still ranks among the top ten wealthiest countries in the world.
Honestly? It's what Americans expect--to be the most powerful, the wealthiest, the most innovative. Even when the outlook looks dim, there always seems to be an underlying belief that things are destined to get better over time..."because this is America, the greatest nation in the world."

It wasn't too many thousands of years ago that another nation felt the same as many Americans--blessed, better than everyone else, undefeatable .

In the days of King Solomon, Israel was at the top of its game in terms of its economy, size, and military might. Scripture records that "all the kings of the earth were seeking the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom which God had put in his heart" (2 Chron. 9:23). With each visit, the foreigners added to Israel's wealth so that by the end of his opulent reign, "The king made silver as common as stones in Jerusalem, and he made cedars as plentiful as sycamore trees that are in the lowland" (2 Chron. 9:27).

God had blessed Israel beyond its wildest dreams, transforming the descendants of Egyptian slaves who had wandered aimlessly in the desert for forty years into the most powerful nation on earth.  

Through the prophet Ezekiel, God described all He had done to bless Israel as a nation: "I wrapped you with fine linen and covered you with silk. I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your hands and a necklace around your neck. I also put a ring in your nostril, earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your dress was of fine linen, silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour, honey and oil; so you were exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. Then your fame went forth among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of My splendor which I bestowed on you" (Ez. 16:10-14).

Yet, the nation of Israel disregarded God's laws, "played the harlot" by worshiping other gods.  To add insult to injury, Israel used all those blessings God had given it to create idols: "You also took your beautiful jewels made of My gold and of My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself male images that you might play the harlot with them.  Then you took your embroidered cloth and covered them, and offered My oil and My incense before them.  Also My bread which I gave you, fine flour, oil and honey with which I fed you, you would offer before them" (Ez. 16:17-19).

God repeats the word "My" throughout the passage to emphasize the fact that all the nation's wealth had come from Him.  Yet, all the gold, silver, cloth, oil and decadent foods--Israel used it to court not only the favor of false gods but to also court the favor of pagan countries like the Egyptians, Philistines, and Assyrians (v. 26-28).

A powerful, wealthy nation did not give God thanks for the blessings, but rather used those gifts for its own evil, wicked purposes as it turned its face almost entirely away from God--sound familiar?

History records that the Israelites did not repent and turn back to God.  Instead, they continued to think because they were God's chosen people, He would never turn His back on them.  Even when His blessings began to dry up like a raisin in the sun, they still believed they were immune from His judgment--because they were citizens of Israel, God's chosen nation, which made them the greatest--right?

Wrong.  God warned Israel time and time again that He would judge them for their worship of false idols, for their ingratitude, for their breaking of His holy law.  He warned He would "give you [Israel] into the hands of your lovers [the nations], and they will tear down your shrines...strip you of your clothing, take away your jewels, and will leave you naked and bare...they will stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords...They will burn your houses with fire" (Ez. 16:39,41).

Not too many years later, God did just that, giving Israel into the hands of its enemies, which stripped the nation of its wealth, massacred its citizens, and burned the city of Jerusalem with fire. 

As the old saying goes, "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."  

America must not believe itself insulated from God's wrath just because it has received God's blessings all these years.  Instead, it must seek to learn from Israel's mistakes.  If not, it, too, will be doomed to walk this same road, repeating the mistakes of the too many proud nations that have come before us.

One Tile in History's Mosaic

Like many other Americans, my family has a rich military heritage full of real-life war stories.  My two grandfathers fought in WWII. My father served in Vietnam. Most recently, my brother served a tour in Iraq.  It is these stories that are precious to me, the ones not found in history books, those stories of comrades who were severely wounded or who died in battle, yet whose names hold no significance to most Americans.

And still, even with headliner names and places attached to them, all stories hold importance.  

By its very nature, a study of history is like a mosaic composed of smaller photographs.  History generally glosses over the smaller stories, gives a generic, almost sterile overview with dates and statistics.  In return, most people remember this larger design shown from a distance.  Yet, only when an individual steps closer does she see the small parts that form the whole.

In learning history as a bulleted list of events on a timeline, we don't feel it, make an emotional connection to it that is needed to really understand the impact war has on a nation of individuals.

For example, consider the statement "On July 9, 1755, the French and Indian War was raging in a fight over American soil."  A date + a fact + main characters = emotionless history, devoid of application.  Yet, when we look closer at a factual, yet individual, photograph of one of a young British officer and a band of Indian sharpshooters, history becomes personal and speaks a lesson in God's sovereignty.

In a fascinating collection entitled Under God, the authors speak of the French and Indian War.  As the battle progressed, the American Indians picked off one red-coated British officer after another until only one lieutenant colonel remained mounted high on horseback. Although Indian sharpshooters fired thirteen rounds of ammunition at him and shot two horses out from beneath him, this officer remained uninjured. That evening, he found four holes where bullets had pierced his coat yet had miraculously disappeared before piercing his body.

Several days after the battle in a letter to his brother, the officer wrote, “But by the all-powerful dispensations of Providence I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me yet escaped unhurt, although death was leveling my companions on every side of me!” This officer went on to become our first president, George Washington (Mac and Tait, 2004).

Seeing this snapshot of a larger historical event speaks of God's sovereignty over life and death.

Even though war, danger, and death are synonymous in many minds, no one is promised another moment beyond this one. Life and death are ordained by God. Our days are already numbered before we were born, and no man, no bullet, no bomb, no “accident” can shorten the days God has allotted each of us.

The psalmist David penned, “For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb….Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them” (Psalm 139:13,16). In other words, each individual's story is of equal importance to God.  He assembles us all to fulfill our role in history.

The Scripture also shows that, as the poet W.S. Merwin once said, every year, we pass the "anniversary of our death."

God intends to comfort us with the knowledge that a person’s life and a person's death are not random accidents but that He carefully orchestrates them both. We may not know the day or hour of an individual's birth and death, but God already does.

Each conception, each birth, each death were and are all on God’s calendar.

So many people are precious to us—parents, spouses, children, extended family, friends—all of whom we would probably choose to keep close by our side until we crossed over into eternity ourselves. Because we love them so much, each one of us could choose daily to live in fear of their death.

Three years ago, a woman recounted to my mother that her son was finally back from his one-year tour in Iraq, calling it the “worst year of her life.” My mom said she couldn’t relate. While she was concerned about and prayed for my brother’s safety in Iraq, she lived life without the daily, incapacitating worry. She trusted in Jesus’ words: “And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?” (Matthew 6:27).

Many of us still have family and friends who are serving overseas in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries around the globe. As we remember those who have served our country, I ask you to continue to pray for those who are still serving America.

Write to tell them of your love and support. Send a care package. But leave the worrying to God.

As Christians, we must rest in God’s sovereignty, in his ultimate control over everything, including life and death. The safest place for us to be is not in an underground bunker or in our own backyard.

No, the safest place for us to be is in the center of God’s will…even if that means being, like George Washington, in the center of a battlefield.

**For a special treat, click through the image from the Canadian Military Museums in Calgary, AB to see closeups of each tile.  The mural measures 12' x 20'.

A Case FOR Revival

Over the past month, Christians around the State of Louisiana have been uniting in prayer for revival, twenty-one days of petitioning heaven for the church to awaken, rise up, and be the salt and light it was called to be.

No, the ground has not quaked. There has been no newsworthy event of extreme religious fervor or any other symptoms equaling that of The Great Awakening. Yet, that does not mean God has not sent revival, nor that He will not send it still.

I may know little, but of three things I am certain: one, that not all revivals will look the same; two, that one soul can experience a revival and that be a miracle; and three, revival could still be waiting just off-stage in the wings.

This morning, though, my husband mentioned that not everyone believes a revival is possible because America is too far gone in its moral depravity.

Throughout the afternoon, his comment has haunted me. How hopeless a world view! That this is it...one I'm sure is shared by numerous others. What's more, how limiting is this view to God, for revival does not start in the heart of man but in the heart of God. Salvation, prayer, revival--they all start in God's heart. And who is to say what God will choose to do or not to do with the soul's of those who reside in America?

But to be fair, perhaps it's the term "revival" that is the problem, what with its connotations of entire communities flocking en mass to church buildings. Revival, though, need be nothing more than a reawakening of one soul towards God. Such an awakening then can spread outward from that one heart to another heart. Also, by the very nature of revival being defined as a "re-awakening," the term implies that revival begins in the hearts of God's people (not the unsaved), the ones who have once been awakened but who now need to be re-awakened. Hence, revival starts at the house of God.

Charles Spurgeon wrote, "While a true revival in its essence belongs only to God's people, it always brings with it a blessing for the other sheep who are not yet of the fold. If you drop a stone into a lake the ring widens continually, till the farthest corner of the lake feels the influence. Let the Lord revive a believer and very soon his family, his friends, his neighbors, receive a share of the benefit...and thus the world gains by revival" ("What Is a Revival". Sword and Trowel. Dec. 1866).

This concept of revival being for the child of God is Biblical, found both in the Old and New Testaments.

Many times, God pricked the heart of His people and they repented, turned from their evil ways and followed Him with renewed fervency. In this space, we have studied a revival after the captive Israelites returned from exile in Babylon.

Another great example is Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the temple. He prayed to God for "when" (not "if") God would stir His people's hearts towards repentance so they would reawaken and "return" to Him, bow the knee: "When they sin against You (for there is no man who does not sin) and You are angry with them and deliver them to an enemy, so that they take them away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near; if they take thought in the land where they have been taken captive, and repent and make supplication to You in the land of those who have taken them captive, saying, ‘We have sinned and have committed iniquity, we have acted wickedly’; if they return to You with all their heart and with all their soul...then hear their prayer and their supplication in heaven Your dwelling place, and maintain their cause, and forgive Your people who have sinned against You and all their transgressions which they have transgressed against You" (1 Kin. 8:46-50).

In the heart's returning is a revival.

In the New Testament, no passage speaks of revival more than the chapters in John's Revelation where he speaks to the seven churches, most of which had serious need of revival. For instance, to the Church at Ephesus he says, "Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first " (Rev. 2:4-5).

Repent. Turn away from sin because only in true repentance can one re-awaken his first love for God. Reawakening--revival.

When God sends revival, it may not look like a page out of our history books...or it might. But our God is consistent and true to His character in that He constantly seeks to refine those sheep who are His and to bring back into the fold those sheep who have gone astray.

My prayer is the one we still sing in Will­iam Mac­kay's old hymn:

Revive us again;
Fill each heart with Thy love;
May each soul be rekindled
With fire from above.
Hallelujah! Thine the glory.
Hallelujah! Amen.
Hallelujah! Thine the glory.
Revive us again.

No matter how dark it looks, my God is big enough to bring revival--to one. to millions. Revive us, O Lord.



Image from Tim Beddingfield.