DEBT DIAGNOSIS

OUT OF EGYPT –  AND ON TO BABYLON

– From Slav­ery Back to Slavery

By — R. Nel­son Nash

His­tory seems to prove that mankind never learns very much.  I can think of no bet­ter place to prove my point than look­ing at The Bible.  Mankind has one eter­nal prob­lem – he wants to be God (in the pagan sense of the word).  To wit­ness the ulti­mate man­i­fes­ta­tion of this mal­ady, watch what he tries to do with his gov­ern­ment.  Let’s begin by going back sev­eral thou­sand years in the book of Gen­e­sis and start with:

God’s con­tract with Jacob (Israel) “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abra­ham and Isaac.  I will give you and your descen­dants the land on which you are lying.  Your descen­dants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south.  All peo­ples on earth will be blessed through you and your off­spring.  I am with you and will watch over you wher­ever you go, and I will bring you back to this land.  I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”  (Gen. 28: 13 – 15) Jacob had a twin brother, Esau.  In that day in time the first­born received the birthright from the father.  Esau was the older one.  Jacob and his mother, Rebekah, through some trick­ery, man­aged to steal the birthright of the first­born from his father, Isaac.   Jacob was the favorite son of Rebekah and Esau was the favorite of Jacob.  Nat­u­rally, this embit­tered Esau towards his brother, Jacob, and Rebekah tells Jacob, “Your brother Esau is con­sol­ing him­self with the thought of killing you.  Now then, my son, do what I say:  Flee at once to my brother Laban in Haran.”  (Gen. 27 42b – 43) And so, Jacob went to work for his Uncle Laban, who turned out to be a big­ger trick­ster than Jacob and his mother!    Laban had two daugh­ters, Leah and Rachel.  Jacob told Laban he would work for him for seven years in exchange for his daugh­ter, Rachel.  Laban tricked him by giv­ing him his old­est daugh­ter, Leah.  Then he said, “Work for me seven more years and I will give you Rachel.”  Laban really knew how to cre­ate a good deal for him­self. But, don’t feel sorry for Jacob.  He found a way to “get even” with Laban a few years later.  Go and search it out for your­self — see Gen­e­sis 30: 25 – 43.  Appar­ently Jacob learned very well from Laban the art of decep­tion! Jacob had ten sons by Leah.  He finally gets to marry Rachel and she pro­duces two sons  –  Joseph and Ben­jamin  — they are Jacob’s favorites, nat­u­rally cre­at­ing all the mak­ings of a dys­func­tional fam­ily.  Joseph could eas­ily be clas­si­fied by his ten older broth­ers as “a spoiled brat.”  Joseph was also “a dreamer” — and this char­ac­ter­is­tic comes in handy later in his life. Some­where along the time line, Jacob’s name was changed to Israel. A sit­u­a­tion presents itself that the ten broth­ers can get Joseph out of their lives — and noth­ing could be bet­ter — by sell­ing him to a car­a­van of trades­men on their way to Egypt. JOSEPH IS SOLD INTO SLAVERY There, Joseph is sold into slav­ery. Another sequence of events places him in prison.  We won’t go into the details of this event.  Again — search this one out for your­self, too.  It is inter­est­ing read­ing. (Gen­e­sis 39) Joseph was a model pris­oner and worked him­self up to becom­ing a “trusty.”  (Here we enter the con­cept of gov­ern­ment.  Pharoah was gov­ern­ment).  Pharoah’s chief cup­bearer and his chief baker were thrown into prison as a result of offend­ing the king and were assigned to Joseph for cus­tody.  Both the cup­bearer and the baker had a dream and Joseph cor­rectly inter­prets them –  the cup­bearer will be restored to his posi­tion in three days!  Joseph instructs him, “But when all goes well with you, remem­ber me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison, for I was forcibly car­ried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done noth­ing to deserve being put in a dun­geon.” The king’s baker didn’t fare too well.  Inter­pret­ing his dream, Joseph said, “Within three days Pharoah will lift off your head and hang you on a tree.  And the birds will eat away your flesh.”  And so it came to be. Unfor­tu­nately, the chief cup­bearer did not remem­ber Joseph — he for­got him!  Imag­ine that! Two years later Pharoah has a dream but none of his ser­vants can inter­pret it.  Finally, his cup­bearer remem­bers the abil­i­ties of Joseph and rec­om­mends him to Pharoah. Joseph inter­prets Pharoah’s dream.  “Seven years of great abun­dance are com­ing through­out the land of Egypt, but seven years of famine will fol­low them.  Then all the abun­dance in Egypt will be for­got­ten and the famine will rav­age the land.” (Gen. 41: 29 & 30) Because of this unique abil­ity Joseph becomes sec­ond in com­mand in all of Egypt, a rather rapid rise to power from such a lowly estate of being a pris­oner! Dur­ing the “seven years of plenty” Pharoah con­fis­cated 20% of all the pro­duce of the land.  (Gen. 41: 34 – 36).  There is no evi­dence that he paid for it. Dur­ing the “seven years of famine” he sold back to them, that which he had stolen! (Gen. 41: 56).   So much for a gov­ern­ment pro­gram! We tend today to think this kind of chi­canery is a mod­ern phe­nom­e­non  –  but, you see, it has deep roots going back thou­sands of years. The famine was wide­spread and Israel, back in Caanan, learned that there was grain in Egypt.  So, he sent his ten eldest sons to buy grain.  This resulted in a face off with Joseph, the one they had sold into slav­ery! (Gen. 42)  Of course, they didn’t rec­og­nize him.  They thought he was prob­a­bly a slave some­where  –  or, maybe even dead.   Joseph put them through a rather tough inqui­si­tion, but, even­tu­ally rec­on­cil­i­a­tion was achieved. “When the news reached Pharoah’s palace that Joseph’s broth­ers had come, Pharoah and all his offi­cials were pleased.”  Pharoah said to Joseph, “Tell your broth­ers, do this, load your ani­mals and return to the land of Canaan, and bring your father and your fam­i­lies back to me.  I will give you the best of the land of Egypt and you can enjoy the fat of the land” (Gen. 45: 16 – 18)  “Never mind about your belong­ings , because the best of all Egypt will be yours.”  (Gen. 45: 20) To my knowl­edge, this was among the first records of a gov­ern­ment hand­out!   It is evi­dent to me that, if you ever start tak­ing that sort of stuff — you will end up being a slave!!  It does some­thing to one’s mind and makes one depen­dent on the grantor.  There is a very strong ele­ment of depen­dency in the act of wor­ship.  You will end up wor­ship­ing that on which you are depen­dent.  And, that’s what gov­ern­ment peo­ple want you to do — be depen­dent on them.  They want to be objects of wor­ship.  They want you to think that your bless­ings in life come from them — not from God! My per­sonal obser­va­tion down through the years has been  –  when­ever there is a gov­ern­ment hand­out of any kind, nor­mally intel­li­gent peo­ple, will aban­don their pro­duc­tive efforts, go stand in line for their share of the dole  –  and watch each other starve to death!!  This point is the cen­tral theme of this paper and it will be reem­pha­sized as the story pro­gresses. And, now comes the hard part — the famine was severe through­out the whole region.  “Joseph col­lected all the money that was to be found in Egypt and Canaan in pay­ment for the grain they were buy­ing, and he brought it to Pharaoh’s palace.” (Gen. 47: 14) Even­tu­ally, they ran out of money.  Then they mort­gaged their cat­tle.  When they ran out of cat­tle, they mort­gaged them­selves.  They became slaves for 430 years.  In that many years you can really become good at slav­ery!  You can’t think past that sit­u­a­tion. So, after a lengthy time Joseph dies and, “Then a new king, who did know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt.”  (Exo­dus 1:9)  Things got much worse for the Israelite nation. Noth­ing in all the Scrip­tures indi­cates that God intended for His cho­sen peo­ple to end up in Egypt as slaves for­ever.   To me, it seems that He let this expe­ri­ence hap­pen to teach them that they should be depen­dent on Him  –  not gov­ern­ment of any kind!  Don’t ever sell your souls to gov­ern­ment, or you will end up in slav­ery. MOSES Finally God pro­duces Moses, a leader who will take them out of the slav­ery of Egypt.  God cre­ates a sit­u­a­tion in which Moses is reared in Pharoah’s house­hold and con­se­quently receives the best edu­ca­tion pos­si­ble at that time. Some­time later Moses wit­nesses an Egypt­ian beat­ing a Hebrew, one of his own peo­ple. Glanc­ing this way and that and see­ing no one, he killed the Egypt­ian and hid him in the sand. And, of course, there were a cou­ple of Egyp­tians who did see Moses’ mur­der.  Pharoah heard of this and tried to kill Moses — but Moses escaped and went to live in Mid­ian.  While there, he mar­ried. It was dur­ing this time that Moses was tend­ing the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, near Mount Horeb.  This is where he wit­nessed a strange sight –  a bush was on fire, but it did not burn up!   God spoke to him through the burn­ing bush and directed him to go back to Pharoah and bring His peo­ple out of Egypt. God tells Moses, “And I will make the Egyp­tians favor­ably dis­posed toward this peo­ple, so that when you leave you will not go empty handed.  Every woman is to ask her neigh­bor and any woman liv­ing in her house for arti­cles of sil­ver and gold and for cloth­ing, which you will put on your sons and daugh­ters.  And so you will plun­der the Egyp­tians.” (Exo­dus 3:21 – 22)  In this man­ner God pro­vided all the basic tools of a mon­e­tary sys­tem. This was by no means an easy task.  Pharoah gave them all sorts of grief while God sent plague after plague to encour­age him to “let my peo­ple go.”  This all took place over a lengthy period.  The final plague that did the trick was the one that killed the first born of every Egypt­ian fam­ily –  includ­ing Pharoah’s son.  Dur­ing the night Pharoah sum­moned Moses and Aaron and said, “Up! Leave my peo­ple, you and the Israelites!  Go, wor­ship the Lord as you have requested.  Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go!  And also bless me.”  Exo­dus (12: 31 –32) THE EXODUS As the Israelites were leav­ing and approach­ing the Red Sea, Pharoah had a change of heart –  “what have I done?  I have let the Israelites go and have lost their ser­vices!”  So, they mount up their char­i­ots and horses and pur­sue Moses and his fol­low­ers.  As Pharoah and his troops approached them, the Israelites were ter­ri­fied.  Their backs were to the Red Sea and Pharoah’s Army was clos­ing in! God says to Moses: “Why are you cry­ing out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.  Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.  I will harden the hearts of the Egyp­tians so that they will go in after them.  And I will gain glory through Pharoah and all his army, through his char­i­ots and his horse­men.  The Egyp­tians will know that I am the Lord when I gain glory through Pharoah, his char­i­ots and his horse­men.”  (Exo­dus 14: 15 – 18) And so, Pharoah and his army were drowned right before their eyes!!  Whew!  What a nar­row escape!  What a mir­a­cle!  Just how many mir­a­cles had the Israelites wit­nessed? Now they are free of Egypt!  Free at last!  Free at last!  And, where had God put them? Sinai!   There was noth­ing there to sus­tain life.  Noth­ing!  This is where God put them for the next 40 years to teach them to be depen­dent on Him.  It would be impos­si­ble for them to claim sus­te­nance from any other source.  Their minds had to be cleansed from the idea of being a slave.  They had to learn to be free peo­ple, indeed, and put their trust in God  –  not gov­ern­ment.  No gov­ern­ment pro­grams!!  Remem­ber, there is a very strong ele­ment of depen­dency in the act of wor­ship – you will wor­ship that on which you are depen­dent. All gov­ern­ments want you to be depen­dent on them — not God! GOD PROVIDES Right away He pro­vided them with the great­est doc­u­ment of human lib­erty that has ever been — The Ten Com­mand­ments.   Exo­dus, chap­ter 20 details the com­mand­ments and for the next four chap­ters there are more expla­na­tions that would help them to under­stand fur­ther mean­ing of them.  This lengthy expla­na­tion was appar­ently nec­es­sary to cleanse their minds from the par­a­digm of being a slave.  You have to learn to think dif­fer­ently. In Exo­dus, chap­ter 25, Moses goes up Mt. Sinai to meet with God and receive the tablets on which the Com­mand­ments are inscribed.   He is up there for 40 days and nights. The Israelite Nation had been grum­bling and com­plain­ing ever since they real­ized they were in a place where they were totally depen­dent on God.  Six weeks after cross­ing the Red Sea on dry land the whole com­mu­nity grum­bled against Moses and Aaron.  The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt!  There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assem­bly to death.” (Exo­dus 16: 2 &3). Now that Moses had been gone for a lengthy period, they were really angry. When the peo­ple saw that Moses was so long in com­ing down from the moun­tain, they gath­ered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us.  As for this fel­low Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has hap­pened to him.”  (Exo­dus 32: 1). Aaron responded, “Take off the gold ear­rings that your wives, yours sons and your daugh­ters are wear­ing and bring them to me.” (Remem­ber the Golden Rule — Those who have the gold make the rules!).  Aaron took what they gave him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fash­ion­ing it with a tool.  The next day they had a big party!  “We are saved!  We are going back to Egypt — hal­lelu­jah!” And, now, Moses comes down from the moun­tain and saw the calf and the danc­ing.  His anger burned and he threw the tablets (inscribed ten com­mand­ments) out of his hands, break­ing them to pieces at the foot of the moun­tain. God instructed Moses to “utterly destroy” those who had insti­gated this event.  Three thou­sand were killed that day. (Exo­dus 32: 27 & 28)   Moses goes up the moun­tain again and receives a sec­ond set of tablets with the Ten Com­mand­ments inscribed on them.  In Exo­dus 34: 14, God reit­er­ates the major point of the com­mand­ments, “Do not wor­ship any other god, for the Lord whose name is Jeal­ous, is a jeal­ous God.” In spite of the mir­a­cles that God showed them through­out their jour­ney, they com­plained con­tin­u­ally and longed to “be back in Egypt” in slav­ery.   In Num­bers 11 begin­ning at verse 4 we read, “The rab­ble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wail­ing and said, ‘If only we had some meat to eat!  We remem­ber the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost – also the cucum­bers, mel­ons, leeks, onions and gar­lic.  But now we have lost our appetite; we never see any­thing but this manna!’   At this point God became so exas­per­ated with them that He put them on an Atkins Diet!!  In verse 18 God says, “Tell the peo­ple: con­se­crate your selves in prepa­ra­tion for tomor­row, when you will eat meat.  The Lord heard you when you wailed, ‘If only we had meat to eat!  We were bet­ter off in Egypt!’  Now the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat it.  You will not eat it for just one day, or two days or five, ten or twenty day, but for a whole month – until it comes out of your nos­trils and you loathe it – because you have rejected the Lord, who is among you, and have wailed before Him, say­ing ’Why did we ever leave Egypt?’” Time and again, the Israelites com­plained so much that God was ready to do away with them all — except a rem­nant that remained loyal to Him — and start all over.  Moses pled with God to spare them. How­ever, a large num­ber did per­ish from time to time. FORTY YEARS OF EDUCATION And so, they wan­dered in this wilder­ness for forty years, learn­ing how to be depen­dent on God for sus­te­nance.  Their cloth­ing did not wear out — their san­dals did not wear out –  He fed them, but, on occa­sion He tested them with a water prob­lem.  In Num­bers 20:  2 – 5.  Now there was no water for the com­mu­nity, and the peo­ple gath­ered in oppo­si­tion to Moses and Aaron.  They quar­reled with Moses and said, “If only we had died when our broth­ers fell dead before the Lord!  Why did you bring the Lord’s com­mu­nity into this desert, that we and our live­stock should die here?  Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this ter­ri­ble place?  It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pome­gran­ates.  And there is no water to drink.” In response, (Num­bers 20:  6 – 11),  Moses and Aaron went from the assem­bly to the entrance to the Tent of Meet­ing and fell face-down, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them.  The Lord said to Moses, “Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assem­bly together.  Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water.  You will bring water out of the rock for the com­mu­nity so they and their live­stock can drink.”  So Moses took the staff from the Lord’s pres­ence, just as he com­manded him, but Moses was pretty “ticked off” at them   He and Aaron gath­ered the assem­bly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, “Lis­ten, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?”  Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff.  Water gushed out, and com­mu­nity and their live­stock drank. This action on the part of Moses gives them the appear­ance that it was Moses’ power and the use of force that solved their need for water – not the word of God.    That was a big mis­take on the part of Moses.  As a result, he was not allowed to go into the promised land.  He was allowed to view it from a dis­tance, but that was all. (Num­bers 20:12)  But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this com­mu­nity into the land I give them.” After wan­der­ing in the wilder­ness for some 40 years, they finally came to the promised land.  Moses is speak­ing in (Deuteron­omy 1:20) Then I said to you, “You have reached the hill coun­try of the Amor­ites, which the Lord our God is giv­ing us.  See, the Lord your God has given you the land. Go up and take pos­ses­sion of it as the Lord, the God of your fathers, told you.  Do not be afraid; do not be dis­cour­aged.” Where­upon  –  of all things  –   they had a com­mit­tee meet­ing!!  In verse 22, then all of you came to me and said, “let us send men ahead to spy out the land for us and bring back a report about the route we are to take and the towns we will come to.”  The idea seemed good to me; so I selected twelve of you, one man from each tribe.  They left and went up into the hill coun­try, and came to the Val­ley of Esh­col and explored it. Tak­ing with them some of the fruit of the land, they brought it down to us and reported, “It is a good land that the Lord our God is giv­ing us.” But, you were unwill­ing to go up; you rebelled against the com­mand of the Lord your God.  They say, “The peo­ple are stronger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the sky.  We even saw the Anakites there.”  Caleb & Joshua were among the 12 spies and said, “We should go up and take pos­ses­sion of the land, for we can cer­tainly do it.”  But, they got out-voted, ten to two, by the other spies who told all the peo­ple, “The land we explored devours those liv­ing in it.  All the peo­ple we saw there are of great size.  We seemed like grasshop­pers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” THE GRADUATE COURSE – FORTY MORE YEARS! As a result of this rebel­lion God gave them “the grad­u­ate course” in learn­ing to be depen­dent on Him –  forty more years of wan­der­ing in the wilder­ness!  Except for Joshua and Caleb, all the adults who came out of Egypt per­ished dur­ing this time.  Only their chil­dren finally made it to the promised land. Before going in, God gave them a large num­ber of brief­ings on what they were expected to do and reas­sur­ances that he would be with them   –   as long as they kept their end of the covenant. So, after the 40 years had passed they finally are ready to go into the land that God had promised them.  Moses is speak­ing.  Then I said to you, “Do not be ter­ri­fied; do not be afraid of them.  The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the desert.  There you saw how the Lord your God car­ried you, as a father car­ries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.” (Deuteron­omy 1: 29 — 31 (Num­bers 33: 50 – 53).  On the plains of Moab by the Jor­dan across from Jeri­cho the Lord said to Moses: Speak to the Israelites and say to them; ‘When you cross the Jor­dan into Canaan, drive out all the inhab­i­tants of the land before you.  Destroy all their carved images and their cast idols, and demol­ish all their high places.  Take pos­ses­sion of the land and set­tle in it, for I have given you the land to pos­sess.  (v.55  — 56)  “But if you do not drive out the inhab­i­tants of the land, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides.  They will give you trou­ble in the land where you will live and then I will do to you what I plan to do to them.” Moses gives fur­ther instruc­tions to them in Deuteron­omy 7 — “and when the Lord your God has deliv­ered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally.  Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.  Do not inter­marry with them.  Do not give your daugh­ters to their sons or take their daugh­ters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from fol­low­ing me to serve other gods, and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you.  This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire.” REMEMBER THE SOURCE OF BLESSINGS (Deut.   Moses con­tin­ues.  “When you have eaten and are sat­is­fied, praise the Lord our God for the good land he has given you.  Be care­ful that you do not for­get Him, fail­ing to observe his com­mands, his laws, and his decrees that I am giv­ing you this day.  Oth­er­wise, when you eat and are sat­is­fied, when you build fine houses and set­tle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your sil­ver and gold increase and all you have is mul­ti­plied, then your heart will become proud and you will for­get the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slav­ery.  (v. 17) You may say to your­self, “My power and the strength of my hands have pro­duced this wealth, and so con­firms his covenant, which he swore to your fore­fa­thers, as it is today.  If you ever for­get the Lord your God and fol­low other gods and wor­ship and bow down to them, I tes­tify against you today that you will surely be destroyed.” This is a clas­si­cal exam­ple of “the arrival syn­drome.”   I can’t think of any­thing more detri­men­tal to peo­ple than this! Moses fur­ther explains to them in Deut. 9: 4 – 6:  After the Lord your God has dri­ven them out before you, do not say to your­self, “The Lord has brought me here to take pos­ses­sion of this land because of my right­eous­ness.”  It is not because of your right­eous­ness or your integrity that you are going in to take pos­ses­sion of their land; but on account of the wicked­ness of these nations, the Lord your God will drive them out before you, to accom­plish what we swore to your fathers, to Abra­ham, Isaac and Jacob.  Under­stand, then, that it is not because of your right­eous­ness that the Lord your God is giv­ing you this good land to pos­sess, for you are a stiff-necked peo­ple. Did they carry out God’s instruc­tions?   Absolutely not!   (Judges 1:27 – 33)  But Man­asseh did not drive out the peo­ple of Beth Shan or Taanach or Dor or Ibleam or Megiddo and their sur­round­ing set­tle­ments, for the Canaan­ites were deter­mined to live in that land.  When Israel became strong, they pressed the Canaan­ites into forced labor but never drove them out com­pletely.  Nor did Ephraim drive out the Canaan­ites liv­ing in Gezer, but the Canaan­ites con­tin­ued to live there among them.  Nei­ther did Zebu­lun drive out the Canaan­ites liv­ing in Kitron or Nahalol, who remained among them; but they did sub­ject them to forced labor.  Nor did Asher drive out those liv­ing in Acco or Sidon or Ahlab or Aczib or Hel­bah or Aphek or Rehob , and because of this the peo­ple of Asher lived among the Canaan­ite inhab­i­tants of the land.  Nei­ther did Naph­tali drive out those liv­ing in Beth Shemesh or Beth Anath; but the Naph­tal­ites too lived among the Canaan­ite inhab­i­tants of the land, and those liv­ing in Beth Shemesh and Beth Anath became forced labor­ers for them. There are more exam­ples cited, but you get the pic­ture.  Instead of dri­ving them out, they made slaves of them.  Since they were slaves in Egypt, did they think “this is the way to live?”   All the adults who left Egypt per­ished in the wilder­ness wan­der­ing.  Maybe this is just the nature of man  –  enslave oth­ers to ben­e­fit my own desires. JUDGES – BUT, NO GOVERNMENT And so, for a lengthy period they lived under a sys­tem of Judges  –  there was no gov­ern­ment!   Under such free­dom a nation can­not help but pros­per!  And, when you pros­per, you can count on it — oth­ers will do their best to steal from you. 1 Samuel 8: 5.  They said to Samuel, “You are old, and our sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.”    But, when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this dis­pleased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord.  And the Lord told him. “Lis­ten to all that the peo­ple are say­ing to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.  As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Eqypt until this day, for­sak­ing me and serv­ing other gods, so they are doing to you.  Now lis­ten to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do.” (1 Samuel 8: 10 – 18).  Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the peo­ple who were ask­ing for a king.  He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will do:  He will take your sons and make them serve with his char­i­ots and horses, and they will run in front of his char­i­ots.  Some he will assign to be com­man­ders of thou­sands and com­man­ders of fifties, and oth­ers to plow his ground and reap his har­vest, and still oth­ers to make weapons of war and equip­ment for his char­i­ots.  He will take your daugh­ters to be per­fumers and cooks and bak­ers.  He will take the best of your fields and vine­yards and olive groves and give them to his atten­dants.  He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vin­tage and give it to his offi­cials and atten­dants.  Your menser­vants and maid­ser­vants and the best of your cat­tle and don­keys he will take for his own use.  He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you your­selves will become his slaves.  When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have cho­sen, and the Lord will not answer you in that day.” And so, Samuel told them in no uncer­tain terms what a king would do to them. (1 Samuel 8: 19)  But the peo­ple refused to lis­ten to Samuel.  “No!” they said, “We want a king over us.  Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our bat­tles.” (1 Samuel 8: 21 – 22).  When Samuel heard all that the peo­ple said, he repeated it before the Lord.  The Lord answered, “Lis­ten to them and give them a king.” AT LAST, THEY HAVE A KING! (GOVERNMENT) (1 Samuel 10: 20 b)  Finally, Saul, son of Kish was cho­sen.  (v.23 — 24) Then they ran and brought him out, and as he stood among the peo­ple he was a head taller than any of the oth­ers.  Samuel said to all the peo­ple, “Do you see the man the Lord has cho­sen?  There is no one like him among all the peo­ple!”  Then the peo­ple shouted, “Long live the king!” Saul was a very suc­cess­ful sol­dier –   big, strong, hand­some  –  all the lead­er­ship qual­i­ties to be a king.  And, he was a good man  –  very hum­ble and sur­prised that he was to be come king.  To be anointed king was the ulti­mate expe­ri­ence one could have. How­ever, when one is placed in such a posi­tion, it is pretty easy to get off track.  He began to think he was in charge.  Samuel had warned of this prob­a­bil­ity, but no one lis­tened.  Saul was vis­i­ble, and God was not.  Saul over­stepped his author­ity and thus sealed his fate.  Man has one eter­nal prob­lem – he wants to be God.  To see the ulti­mate man­i­fes­ta­tion of this mal­ady, watch what he tries to do with gov­ern­ment.  Power cor­rupts –  and absolute power cor­rupts absolutely. Soon it became evi­dent to the Israelites that they had made a big mis­take! (1 Samuel 12:19)  The peo­ple all said to Samuel, “Pray to the Lord your God for your ser­vants so that we will not die, for we have added to all our other sins the evil of ask­ing for a king.” (1Samuel 15:10)  Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel: “I am grieved that I have made Saul King, because he has turned away from me and has not car­ried out my instruc­tions.” His suc­ces­sor was David, a man after God’s own heart.  Down through the ages, he was rec­og­nized as the great king of all time.   But, David goofed up in a big way –  his involve­ment with Bathsheba.  David tried to “worm his way out of the sit­u­a­tion” but Nathan, the prophet brought him face to face with the error of his ways.  Do you real­ize what a brave man Nathan was?  He could eas­ily have had his head cut off for his action.  (Some­times I won­der —  where is Nathan today?  We need Nathan badly!)  Unlike Saul, though, David repented. But, no mat­ter how “good” a per­son may be, he will still reap the con­se­quences of that kind of action.  It can man­i­fest itself in any num­ber of ways.  In this case, one of the results was a totally dys­func­tional fam­ily. First, his son Amnon, raped his half-sister, Tamar.  Her brother by the same mother was Absa­lom.   A cou­ple of years later, Absa­lom found a way to kill Amnon because of what he had done to Tamar.  Then he fled to another king­dom and stayed there three years.  Finally King David was per­suaded to let Absa­lom return to Jerusalem.  (2 Samuel 14:24) But the king said, “He must go to his own house; he must not see my face.” (2 Samuel 14: 25) In all Israel there was not a man so highly praised for his hand­some appear­ance as Absa­lom.  From the top of his head to the sole of his foot there was no blem­ish in him. (v.28) Absa­lom lived two years in Jerusalem with­out see­ing the king’s face.  Finally the two were rec­on­ciled and they met. (2 Samuel 15: 1 – 6))  In the course of time Absa­lom pro­vided him­self with a char­iot and horses and with fifty men to run ahead of him.  He would get up early and stand by the side of the road lead­ing to the city gate.  When­ever any­one came with a com­plaint to be placed before the king for a deci­sion, Absa­lom would call out to him, “What town are you from?”  He would answer, “Your ser­vant is from one of the tribes of Israel.”  Then Absa­lom would say to him, “Look your claims are valid and proper, but there is no rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the king to hear you.”  And Absa­lom would add, “If only I were appointed judge in the land!  Then every­one who has a com­plaint or case could come to me and I would see that he gets jus­tice.” Also, when­ever any­one approached him to bow down before him, Absa­lom would reach out his hand, take hold of him and kiss him.  Absa­lom behaved in this way toward all the Israelites who came to the king ask­ing for jus­tice, and so he stole the hearts of the men of Israel. So, you see, politi­cians have had a supe­rior model to sway the hearts of men since ancient days.  If Absa­lom were alive in Amer­ica today, he would be elected Pres­i­dent in a heart­beat!  Con­tin­u­ing this kind of action for sev­eral years, now Absa­lom decided that he was to become king in place of his father, David, and set out to kill him.  Nice guy, huh?  This all ended in tragedy and the death of Absa­lom.  King David was dev­as­tated in the loss of his errant son. Con­tin­u­ing the saga, in 1 Kings 1:5,  Now, Adoni­jah, whose mother was Hag­gith, put him­self for­ward and said, “I will be king.”  So he got char­i­ots and horses ready, with fifty men to run ahead of him.   (His father had never inter­fered with him by ask­ing, “Why do you behave as you do?”  He was also very hand­some and was born next after Absa­lom.) Adoni­jah pro­ceeded to have par­ties and sur­rounded him­self with dig­ni­taries of his own choos­ing. SOLOMON – WISEST MAN OF ALL TIME This was not to be, how­ever, and David’s choice for his suc­ces­sor was Solomon, the son of David and Bathsheeba.  Need­less to say, Adoni­jah ended up los­ing his life in this intrigue.  In fact, there was a lot of killing that took place dur­ing all this scene of David’s house­hold. Solomon started his reign with the best of inten­tions.  In 1 Kings 3: 7 – 10  he says,  “Now O Lord my God, you have made your ser­vant king in place of my father David.  But I am only a lit­tle child and do not know how to carry out my duties.  Your ser­vant is here among the peo­ple you have cho­sen, a great peo­ple, too numer­ous to count or num­ber.  So give your ser­vant a dis­cern­ing heart to gov­ern your peo­ple and to dis­tin­guish between right and wrong.  For who is able to gov­ern this great peo­ple of yours?” In v. 11 &12,  So God said to him, “Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for your­self, nor have asked for the death of your ene­mies but for jus­tice, I will do what you have asked.  I will give you a wise and dis­cern­ing heart, so that there will never have been any­one like you, nor will there ever be.” Solomon was the wis­est man of all time.  But, if the wis­est man of all time could mess up as badly as he did, what hope do you and I have with­out God?   How could Solomon be stu­pid enough to have 700 wives and 300 con­cu­bines?  Just think of how many mothers-in-law goes with a sit­u­a­tion like that!  Also, many of those mar­riages were the result of alliances with other nations.   His­tory clearly shows the tragic results of such a course of action.  At the very begin­ning of his reign Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh King of Egypt and mar­ried his daugh­ter. As a side note, remem­ber in the early years of our own coun­try, George Wash­ing­ton, in his farewell address, warned against any entan­gling alliances with for­eign nations.  So did Jef­fer­son and Madi­son.  We seem to have for­got­ten their warn­ings and  we are reap­ing the con­se­quences now. Then he pro­ceeds to build this huge tem­ple. The tem­ple that King Solomon built for the Lord was sixty cubits long, twenty wide and thirty high.  (I Kings 6:2).  Accord­ing to my Bible, that would be 90 feet long, 30 feet wide and 45 feet high. (I Kings 6:37 b) — Solomon spent seven years build­ing the tem­ple. For a com­plete account of what went into the Tem­ple and Solomon’s palace I urge you to read 1 Kings chap­ter 6 and 7. Next, he builds his own palace.  (I Kings, 7: 1)  It took Solomon thir­teen years, how­ever to com­plete the con­struc­tion of his palace.  It was a hun­dred cubits long, fifty wide and thirty high. (150 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high).   Note the com­par­i­son of the rel­a­tive size and time that it took to build the two struc­tures.  Can you imag­ine the tax­a­tion required to build all this?  I won­der why his palace was so much larger. Addi­tion­ally, it was all done with slave labor.  In 1 Kings 9: 15 we read, Here is the account of the forced labor King Solomon  con­scripted to build the Lord’s Tem­ple, his own palace, the sup­port­ing ter­races, the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.   In verse 20 – 23, all the peo­ple left from the Amor­ites, Hit­tites, Per­izzites, Hivites and Jebusites (these peo­ples were not Israelites), that is, their descen­dants remain­ing in the land, whom the Israelites could not exter­mi­nate  –  these Solomon con­scripted for his slave labor force, as it is to this day.  But, Solomon did not make slaves of any of the Israelites; they were his fight­ing men, his gov­ern­ment offi­cials, his offi­cers, his cap­tains, and the com­man­ders of his char­i­ots and char­i­o­teers.  They were also the chief offi­cials in charge of Solomon’s projects  –  550 offi­cials super­vis­ing the men who did the work.  Bureau­cracy never changes either, does it? In addi­tion to all this extrav­a­gance I sug­gest that you read 1 Kings: 11 for a more com­plete descrip­tion of the wealth he accu­mu­lated. (1 Kings 9)  When Solomon had fin­ished build­ing the tem­ple of the Lord and the royal palace, and had achieved all he had to do, the Lord appeared to him a sec­ond time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.  The Lord said to him: “I have heard the prayer and plea you have made before me; I have con­se­crated this tem­ple, which you have built, by putting my Name there for­ever.  My eyes and my heart will always be there.” “As for you, if you walk before me in integrity of heart and upright­ness, as David your father did, and do all I com­mand and observe my decrees and laws, I will estab­lish your royal throne over Israel for­ever, as I promised David your father when I said, ‘You shall never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’” “But if you or your sons turn away from me and do not observe the com­mands and decrees I have given you and go off to serve other gods and wor­ship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land I have given them and will reject this tem­ple I have con­se­crated for my Name.  Israel will then become a byword and an object of ridicule among all peo­ples.  And though this tem­ple is now impos­ing, all who pass by will scoff and say, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this tem­ple?’ Peo­ple will answer, ‘Because they have for­saken the Lord their God, who brought their fathers out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, wor­ship­ing and serv­ing them — this is why the Lord brought all this dis­as­ter on them.’” But, in 1 Kings 11: 1 – 6 we read:  King Solomon, how­ever, loved many for­eign women besides Pharaoh’s daugh­ter  –  Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sido­nians and Hit­tites.  They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, “You must not inter­marry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.”   Nev­er­the­less, Solomon held fast to them in love.  He had seven hun­dred wives of royal birth and three hun­dred con­cu­bines, and his wives led him astray.  As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been.  He fol­lowed Ash­toreth the god­dess of the Sido­nians, and Mol­ech the detestable god of the Ammonites.  So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord:  he did not fol­low the Lord com­pletely, as David his father had done. And in v. 9 – 13  The Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.  Although he had for­bid­den Solomon to fol­low other gods, Solomon did not keep the Lord’s com­mand.  So the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this is your atti­tude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I com­manded you, I will most cer­tainly tear the king­dom away from you and give it to one of your sub­or­di­nates.  Nev­er­the­less, for the sake of David your father, I will not do it dur­ing your life­time.  I will tear it out of the hand of your son.  Yet I will not tear the whole king­dom from him, but will give him one tribe for the sake of David my ser­vant and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have cho­sen. And so, Solomon sealed his fate.  After his death his son, Rehoboam, became king. In 1 Kings 12: 3 – 11.  And the whole assem­bly of Israel went to Rehoboam and said to him:  “Your father put a heavy yoke (taxes) on us, but not lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you.”  Rehoboam answereed, “Go away for three days and then come back to me.”  So the peo­ple went away.  Then King Rehoboam con­sulted the elders who had served his father Solomon dur­ing his life­time.  “How would you advise me to answer these peo­ple?” he asked.  They replied, “If today you will be a ser­vant to these peo­ple and serve them and give them a favor­able answer, the will always be your ser­vants.” But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him and con­sulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serv­ing him.  He asked them, “What is your advice?  How should we answer these peo­ple who say to me ‘Lighten the yoke (reduce taxes) your father put on us’?” TAXES, TAXES, TAXES! The young men who had grown up with him replied, “Tell these peo­ple ‘My lit­tle fin­ger is thicker than my father’s waist.  My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heav­ier.  My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scor­pi­ons.’” So, this was the course of action by Rehoboam  –  even heav­ier tax­a­tion.  Guess what?  This results in the divi­sion of the king­dom.  Ten tribes become the North­ern King­dom under the rule of  Jere­boam, who was one of Solomon’s offi­cials may years prior  –  thus ful­fill­ing the promise God made ear­lier (three para­graphs above).  Oner­ous tax­a­tion has been a pri­mary fac­tor in divi­sion of nations all through­out his­tory.  I’m sure it was so in this case, too. In 1776 thir­teen inde­pen­dent colonies seceded from the mother coun­try, Eng­land, and went to war for ten years on account of out­ra­geous tax­a­tion.  It was two per­cent in the South and one per­cent in the North! In 1 Kings 12: 16 – 20  When all Israel saw that the king (Rehoboam)  refused to lis­ten to them (because of the out­ra­geous tax­a­tion), they answered the king: “What share do we have in David, what part in Jesse’s son?  To your tents, O Israel!  Look after your own house, O David!”  So the Israelites went home.  But as for the Israelites who were liv­ing in the towns of Judah, Rehoboam still ruled over them.  King Rehoboam sent out Adoniram, who was in charge of forced labor, but all Israel stoned him to death.  King Rehoboam, how­ever, man­aged to get into his char­iot and escape to Jerusalem.  So Israel has been in rebel­lion against the house of David to this day. King Jer­oboam had prob­lems with his thought processes almost imme­di­ately.  Because of his fear that the king­dom would be reunited, he took mea­sures to lead the North­ern King­dom to wor­ship­ing idols.  In 1 Kings 14: 7 -   Go, tell Jer­oboam that this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I raised you up from among the peo­ple and made you a leader over my peo­ple Israel.  I tore the king­dom away from the house of David and gave it to you, but you have not been like my ser­vant, David, who kept my com­mands and fol­lowed me with all his heart, doing only what was right in my eyes.  You have done more evil than all who lived before you.  You have made for your­self other gods, idols made of metal; you have pro­voked me to anger and thrust me behind your back.  Because of this, I am going to bring dis­as­ter on the house of Jer­oboam.  I will cut off from Jere­boam every last male in Israel  –  slave or free.  I will burn up the house of Jer­oboam as one burns dung, until it is all gone.’ So, Jeroboam’s king­dom only lased 22 years.  Judah, under King Rehoboam was no bet­ter  –  they did evil in the sight of the Lord  –  and his king­dom only lasted 17 years. There was con­tin­ual war­fare between the two king­doms dur­ing their reigns. There­after, there was a suc­ces­sion of kings and a con­tin­u­ous down­ward spi­ral of evil.  Every once in a while there was a good guy, like Hezekiah and Josiah, but, gen­er­ally speak­ing it was not a very pretty pic­ture that fol­lowed for many years.  All the things that Samuel had warned them about when they asked for a king had now taken place.  But, search the scrip­tures dili­gently and you will find no place where they lamented ask­ing for a king except the occa­sion just after King Saul when they rec­og­nized their mis­take. BACK IN SLAVERY As a result of all the sins of the North­ern King­dom they were first to be taken into exile by a for­eign nation.  In 2 Kings 17: 5 & 6 we read:  The king of Assyria invaded the entire land, marched against Samaria and laid siege to it for three years.  In the ninth year of Hoshea , the king of Assyria cap­tured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. A num­ber of years later Judah fell to the same fate as a result of their sins.  They were taken to Baby­lon and their city of Jerusalem and the tem­ple was reduced to rub­ble.  Now they were all back in the slav­ery they had expe­ri­enced in Egypt.  They had rejected their depen­dence on God and had adopted the ways of all the other nations. All of this expla­na­tion has been to bring the story to the book of Ezekiel.  The South­ern King­dom is in exile and in Chap­ter 23 Ezekiel is reveal­ing to them the mes­sage from God telling them how they came to this fate.  When one ends up in an awful mess, one needs to under­stand “how you got here.” GOD’S MESSAGE TO EZEKIEL Fol­low­ing is the entire chap­ter:  The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, there were two women, daugh­ters of the same mother.  They became pros­ti­tutes in Egypt, engag­ing in pros­ti­tu­tion from their youth.  In that land their breasts were fon­dled and their vir­gin bosoms caressed. The older was named Oho­lah and her sis­ter was Oholibah.  They were mine and gave birth to sons and daugh­ters.  Oho­lah is Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem.  Oho­lah engaged in pros­ti­tu­tion while she was still mine; and she lusted after her lovers, the Assyr­i­ans –  war­riors clothed in blue, gov­er­nors and com­man­ders, all of them hand­some young men, and mounted horse­men.  She gave her­self as a pros­ti­tute to all the elite of the Assyr­i­ans and defiled her­self with all the idols of every­one she lusted after.  She did not give up the pros­ti­tu­tion she began in Egypt, when dur­ing her youth men slept with her, caressed her vir­gin bosom and poured out their lust upon her. There­fore I handed her over to her lovers, the Assyr­i­ans, for whom she lusted.  They stripped her naked, took away her sons and daugh­ters and killed her with the sword.  She became a byword among women, and pun­ish­ment was inflicted on her. Her sis­ter Oholibah saw this, yet in her lust and pros­ti­tu­tion she was more depraved than her sis­ter.  She too lusted after the Assyr­i­ans –  gov­er­nors and com­man­ders, war­riors in full dress, mounted horse­men, all hand­some young men.  I saw that she too defiled her­self; both of them went the same way. But she car­ried her pros­ti­tu­tion still fur­ther.  She saw men por­trayed on a wall, fig­ures of Chaldeans por­trayed in red, with  belts around their waists and flow­ing tur­bans on their heads; all of them looked like Baby­lon­ian char­iot offi­cers, natives of Chaldea.  As soon as she saw them, she lusted after them and sent mes­sen­gers to them in Chaldea.  Then the Baby­lo­ni­ans came to her, to the bed of love, and in their lust they defiled her.  After she had been defiled by them, she turned away from them in dis­gust. When she car­ried on her pros­ti­tu­tion openly and exposed her naked­ness, I turned away from her in dis­gust, just as I had turned away from her sis­ter.  Yet she became more and more promis­cu­ous as recalled the days of her youth, when she was a pros­ti­tute in Egypt.  There she lusted after her lovers, whose gen­i­tals were like those of don­keys and whose emis­sion was like that of horses.  So you longed for the lewd­ness of your youth, when in Egypt your bosom was caressed and your young breasts fon­dled. There­fore, Oholibah, this is what the Sov­er­eign Lord says; I will stir up your lovers against you, those you turned away from in dis­gust, and I will bar­ing them against you from every side  –  the Baby­lo­ni­ans and all the Chaldeans, the men of Pekod and Shoa and Koa, and all the Assyr­i­ans with them, hand­some young men, all of them gov­er­nors and com­man­ders, char­iot offi­cers and men of high rank, all mounted on horses.  They will come against you with weapons, char­i­ots and wag­ons and with a throng of peo­ple; they will take up posi­tions against you on every side with large and small shields and with hel­mets.  I will turn you over to them for pun­ish­ment, and they will pun­ish you accord­ing to their stan­dards. I will direct my jeal­ous anger against you, and they will deal with you in fury.  They will cut off your noses and your ears, and those of you who are left will fall by the sword.  They will take away your sons and daugh­ters, and those of you who are left will be con­sumed by fire.  They will also strip you of your clothes and take your fine jew­elry.  So I will put a stop to the lewd­ness and pros­ti­tu­tion you began in Egypt.  You will not look on these things with long­ing or remem­ber Egypt any­more. For this is what the Sov­er­eign Lord says: I am about to hand you over to those you hate, to those you turned away from in dis­gust.  They will deal with you in hatred and take away every­thing you have worked for.  They will leave you naked and bare, and the shame of your pros­ti­tu­tion will be exposed.  Your lewd­ness and promis­cu­ity have brought this upon you, because you lusted after the nations and defiled your­self with their idols. You have gone the way of your sis­ter; so I will put her cup into your hand. This is what the Sov­er­eign Lord says; You will drink your sister’s cup, a cup large and deep; it will bring scorn and deri­sion, for it holds so much.  You will be filled with drunk­en­ness and sor­row, the cup of ruin and des­o­la­tion, the cup of your sis­ter Samaria.  You will drink it and drain it dry; you will dash it to pieces and tear your breasts.  I have spo­ken, declares the Sov­er­eign Lord. There­fore this is what the Sov­er­eign Lord says; Since you have for­got­ten me and thrust me behind your back, you must bear the con­se­quences of your lewd­ness and pros­ti­tu­tion. The Lord said to me; “Son of man, will you judge Oho­lah and Oholibah?  Then con­front them with their detestable prac­tices, for they have com­mit­ted adul­tery and blood is on their hands.  They com­mit­ted adul­tery with their idols; they even sac­ri­fice their chil­dren, whom they bore to me, as food for them.  They have also done this to me: At that same time they defiled my sanc­tu­ary and des­e­crated my Sab­baths.  On the very day they sac­ri­ficed their chil­dren to their idols, they entered my sanc­tu­ary and des­e­crated it.  That is what they did in my house. They even sent mes­sen­gers for men who came from far away, and when they arrived you bathed your­self for them, painted your eyes and put on your jew­elry.  You sat on an ele­gant couch, with a table spread before it on which you had placed the incense an oil that belonged to me. The noise of a care­free crowd was around her; Sabeans were brought from the desert along with men from the rab­ble, and they put bracelets on the arms of the woman and her sis­ter and beau­ti­ful crowns on their heads.  Then I said about the one worn out by adul­tery, ‘Now let them use her as a pros­ti­tute, for that is all she is’  And they slept with her.  As men sleep with a pros­ti­tute, so they slept with those lewd women, Oho­lah and Oholibah.  But right­eous men will sen­tence them to pun­ish­ment of women who com­mit adul­tery and shed blood, because they are adul­ter­ous and blood is on their hands. “This is what the Sov­er­eign Lord says:  Bring a mob against them and give them over to ter­ror and plun­der.  The mob will stone them and cut them down with their swords; they will kill their sons and daugh­ters and burn down their houses.  So I will put and end to lewd­ness in the land, that all women may take warn­ing and not imi­tate you.  You will suf­fer the penalty for your lewd­ness and bear the con­se­quences of your sins of idol­a­try.  Then you will know that I am the Sov­er­eign God.” So, out of the slav­ery of Egypt  –  and back to slav­ery in Baby­lon.  They put their depen­dence on earthly kings instead of God. CONCLUSION When the Israelite nation left Egypt, God explained right away that he was their king.  They did not need an earthly king.  They were to put their depen­dence in Him, not earthly lead­ers.   Mankind’s eter­nal prob­lem is that he wants to be god. To observe the ulti­mate man­i­fes­ta­tion of the mal­ady, watch what he tries to do with his gov­ern­ment. God fur­ther explained that he was a Jeal­ous God — He won’t put up with that non­sense!  As a result, mankind is always des­tined to fail in such attempts.  There has never been a Social­ist, Fas­cist, Com­mu­nist, Sta­tist, etc. soci­ety that has lasted very long.  They are all doomed to fail­ure because of this faulty premise. But, as a result of his arro­gance, mankind keeps doing the same stu­pid thing.  Now that you see my the­sis, you can trans­late Egypt, Baby­lon, Rome, Wash­ing­ton, DC!  If you have seen one, you have seen them all! Today, United States cit­i­zens are totally depen­dent on Wash­ing­ton!  If you don’t believe it, try to take away a gov­ern­ment pro­gram of some kind.  Amer­i­cans can­not con­ceive of life with­out gov­ern­ment pro­grams.  Yet, Chris­tians claim that they wor­ship God.  Based on their behav­ior, I don’t believe it.  They are back in slav­ery and can’t even rec­og­nize their sit­u­a­tion.. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ On Mod­ern Servitude

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3. Haydon says:

   August 3, 2010 at 1:52 am

   Good! The only cor­rec­tion is that they “only” had 40 years in the desert. See: http://www.abiblestudy.com/part3.html
   I belive we are going to get there!