100
the corruption that is in the world
through lust.” :
As long as probation lasts, there will
be work to do for the Master. In the
church burden-bearers are needed — not
those who are trying to occupy the high-
est position, but those who are humble,
earnest workers for Jesus. Fathers and
mothers in Israel are everywhere needed,
those who will honor God in their fami-
lies, in the church, among unbelievers,
and wherever they are. ‘Think of dif-
ferent ones for whom you can manifest
——
THE WATCHMAN
an interest, and in the fear of God make
personal efforts to reach them. As long
as, keeping self out of sight, and with
heart filled with love, you labor to seek
and to save that which was lost, the rich
blessing of God will attend you.
May the converting power of God
come upon the churches, that they may
feel a burden for souls, for the souls for
whom Christ died, and seek to save them
before the day of God's wrath breaks
over the world. '
ISRAEL: THE RETURN OF THE JEWS. No.7
J. S. WASHBURN
The Captivity of Israel
SRAEL, when the Jordan
was crossed and when Jeri-
cho was taken, was a people
of wonderful faith. The re-
proach of Israel had been
rolled away. Their sins had
been forgiven. They were
all believers. As they com-
passed Jericho each day for six days, and
on the seventh day seven times, and then
shouted at God’s command, there was no
discordant note, there was no unbeliever,
and the mighty appeal of faith and the
glorious example of obedience to God
was honored by the mighty God of Jacob
in the destruction of the walled city Jeri-
cho.
At Ai, however, there was an unbe-
liever, a rebel, and then came defeat.
God intended that every one of Israel
should be obedient, should be children
of faith, and thus the children of promise.
The people of the land were so utterly
wicked, so vile, that God had said that
the land vomited out its inhabitants.
Unnamable sins were polluting and de-
basing the human race till they were
sinking lower than the beasts, and the
justice of God intended that all those
who would not, like Ruth, the Moab-
itess, and a few other true souls among
the great mass of the wicked, become
Israelites and obey God, should be blotted
out. This he certainly had the right to
do, and it was not injustice or cruelty
for him to use his people as the executors
of his righteous judgments upon the
wicked inhabitants of the land.
He commanded them not to make
league with the inhabitants of the land.
He told them that these people should
be as thorns in their sides, and their gods
should be a snare to them. But Israel
did not obey the Lord. They forsook
the Lord God of their fathers, and fol-
lowed other gods, of the gods of the peo-
ple that were round about them. Then
the Lord said: “ Because that this peo-
ple have transgressed my covenant which
I commanded their fathers, and have not
hearkened unto my voice, I also will not
henceforth drive out any from before
them of the nations which Joshua left
when he died. . . . Therefore the Lord
left those nations without driving them
out hastily; neither delivered he them
into the hand of Joshua.” Judges 2:
20, 21, 23.
“And the children of Israel dwelt
among the Canaanites, Hittites, and
Amorites, and Perizzites, and Hivites,
and Jebusites: and they took their
daughters to be their wives, and gave
their daughters to their sons, and served
their gods. And the children of Israel
did evil in the sight of the Lord, and for-
gat the Lord their God, and served
Baalim and the groves.” Judges 3:
5-7-
Thus the children of Israel, although
at first children of faith, lost their first
love, became disobedient, and mingled
with the nations around them, and be-
came like them. God had intended that
they should be a light to the world; that
one should chase a thousand, and two put
ten thousand to flight of all the enemies
of the Lord; and that all the honest ones
among the heathen should be brought
into the light and become Israelites in-
deed, in other words, should be brought
into the church of the living God.
In the determination to have a king
rather than that God should be their
king, there was a great departure from
the Lord, which sorely grieved him. He
brought them out from Egypt by a
prophet. He would always have gov-
erned them directly through his proph-
ets: but when they chose a king, they
rejected the Lord, that he should not
reign over them. 1 Sam. 8:7. How-
ever, God did for his people and with
them all that he possibly could do. With
a sad heart he helped them whenever
they turned to him for help.
Saul was anointed king. He dis-
obeyed, departed from God, and died a
suicide. Then David was chosen, a
man after God’s own heart. Though
he sinned grievously, he repented, and
God forgave him. Then Solomon
reigned in wisdom and glory. When
he died, his son, by his threatening se-
verity, broke the nation of Israel into
two divisions. This division of the
kingdom was effected in the year 975
before Christ.
“Thus saith the Lord God of Israel,
Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of
the hand of Solomon, and will give ten
tribes to thee [that is, to Jeroboam];
. . . because they have forsaken me, and
have worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess
of the Zidonians, Chemosh the god of the
Moabites, and Milcom the god of the
children of Ammon, and have not walked
in my ways, to do that which is right
in mine eyes, and to keep my statutes
and my judgments, as did David his
father.” 1 Kings 11:31 - 33.
The ten tribes under Jeroboam imme-
diately went into the grossest idolatry.
In the year 721 before Christ, after the
kingdom of Israel had existed two hun-
dred and fifty-four years, the Lord re-
moved them out of his sight. The king
of Assyria carried Israel away into As-
syria, and filled their country with men
from Babylon and from other heathen
nations. From this date, the literal king-
dom of Israel has no place in history.
God vet bore long with Judah. Fi-
nally, in the year 608 before Christ, in
the reign of Zedekiah, the long-suffering
of God seemed to become exhausted.
“And the Lord God of their fathers sent
to them by his messengers, rising up be-