The Suicide of Israel-A Lesson by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 18, 1912

The Suicide of Israel—A Lesson

By C. M. S.

THE Jewish nation committed suicide when it chose its own way in preference to the way which God had appointed for it, when it demanded an earthly king in place of the King who was then ruling over them. This is abundantly proved by the subsequent history of that nation. All that God had in view for them as a nation they forfeited when they rejected the Lord of Hosts, choosing a man from among themselves to be their king, and the arm of flesh to be their trust.

God, the great King above all kings, had chosen them to be his own nation, his peculiar people, to represent his government and his character in the midst of the wicked nations dominated by the prince of this world. On the shore of the great sea of moral darkness God had set the lighthouse of Israel for a warning and a refuge.

When Israel rejected God from being king over them, they virtually voiced their preference for a system controlled by a power at enmity with God. Had God cast them off at once as a nation as they had cast him off as a king, they would have perished miserably at the hands of the very nations whose condition they emulated and whose example they followed. But his heart of love still yearned for them, still went out after them, while they were reaping the fruits of their own sowing. In that is shown the unchanging character of the tender, loving Father. From this example of God’s love and pity for the erring, we know what his attitude is toward every straying son and daughter of Adam. He has told it in his Word; but he has demonstrated it in his dealings with ancient Israel.

The key to Israel’s fall was in refusing to harken to God. Though he warned them in season, “rising up early and speaking,” they turned deaf ears to the warnings, mocked the messengers, despised the messages, scoffed at the prophets until “there was no remedy;” and the only way left to bring repentance and contrition was to let affliction do its scourging work among them. So Israel went down under the ponderous blows of the very nations she had forsaken her God to imitate. The nations around her became subject to the great king of Babylon. Israel had asked to be like the nations around her, and she went with them to Babylon in chains, to see her treasures and the goodly vessels of her sanctuary adorning the temples of heathen deities. And so it ever is when we choose out a way for ourselves in preference to the way which God has set for our feet. God allowed Israel to learn the lesson of what it means to trust in the arm of flesh; and that experience was written for our admonition.

God did not utterly cast off Israel as a people when she cast him off as a king. Four hundred ninety years were given to that people after their captivity in Babylon, to give them a chance to profit by their experience of reaping what they had sown. The crucifixion of the Prince of the prophets at their demand, filled up the cup of that nation’s wrong-doing, and God pronounced desolate the earthly house in which he had chosen to set up the symbol of his government.

Israel’s rejection of her King and her demand for his crucifixion is a type of what the great mass of the so-called Christian world will do before the second coming of Christ, when it turns from the simple gospel, and gives its worship and its influence to the “beast” power that will dominate the world at that time, and will call for the execution of the loyal servants of Jesus Christ. There were a few faithful ones who stood unflinchingly for God in the midst of all the idolatry and slavery of ancient Babylon. So while “all the world” is wondering “after the beast,” there will be found a band of faithful ones who “keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.”

Israel committed suicide as a nation in rejecting her King. We do the same thing individually when we reject the law of God, the rule of his government, and turn to the commandments of men. Christ told the Jews that, though they professed better things than to slay the prophets, as their fathers did, yet their very acts showed them to be children of those same fathers. Notwithstanding their protestations, they slew the One who sent the prophets that their fathers slew. They had all the experience of the past to look back upon and profit by; but they did worse than their fathers. Their refusal to harken to the voice of God was responsible for that sad fact. So, when we reject the Word of God and his warnings and admonitions, we do not know to what lengths we will go in opposition to God. It led the Jews to crucify Christ; it will lead the people of this age to put him to death again in the person of his unswerving people.

God is still warning men against the rejection of the only way wherein salvation lies, against the rejection of the King of kings. Israel fell as a nation through the rejection of him and his way; and men will go down as individuals to everlasting destruction by taking the course that Israel pursued. There is no safety outside the ways of God; no safety nor hope in allegiance to any other power. But they who are his, will “take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever.”

C. M. S.