God Cares What We Do

The Children of Israel Disobey God and Suffer Discipline

Now, we want to look at the example of the children of Israel in the Old Testament. God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt and brought them into their own land, the land of Canaan. God told them that as long as they served Him, the true God, and kept the sacrifices, and did the things He commanded them to do, He would preserve them in that land. The people obeyed for a while, but eventually they decided to do their own thing. They began to worship other gods and do things God wasn’t happy with.  God sent several prophets to them during that time. One of the big prophets was Jeremiah. Another one was Ezekiel. God kept speaking to His people and warning them. He basically said to them, “If you continue in this unrighteous way and continue to disobey Me, I will allow an enemy to come in and capture you.”  Sure enough, that is what happened.  God allowed the enemy to come in and devastate His people. Did God send this enemy or allow it? God had warned His people over and over again through prophet after prophet, “If you don’t obey Me, and if you don’t do the things I proscribed for you to do through Moses, then I will allow the enemy to come in, and that enemy will devastate you. “ The people absolutely ignored the prophets. They ignored Jeremiah.  They ignored Ezekiel and other prophets.  God allowed Assyria to come in, the Egyptians and eventually the Babylonians to come in.  They burned a lot of the cities and did a lot of damage, and took many Israelites captive back to Babylon.  Why did God allow that to happen? Number one, His people were not doing the things He told them to do. Just like Jonah got himself into a lot of trouble because he didn’t go where God told him to go, so the children of Israel had problems with their enemies because they did not obey the voice of the Lord and do the things that He wanted them to do.

But check the end of the Bible,  God does not give up on His people. He still wanted Israel to fulfill the original intention, purpose, and burden that He had for Israel. God eventually gets His way for all of us.