Blessed are those that believe without seeing!

MOSES’ PREDICTION WAS FULFILLED IN JESUS

Jesus informed the followers of Moses, “If you believed Moses, you would believe in me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?” (John 5:46-47). Moses and the Exodus of Israel from Egypt took place circa 1290 to 1224 B.C. He was not allowed to enter the land of promise, but he gave his people a hint to what would happen to them when they exchange God the Lord with substitutes. Everything Moses has predicted has come to pass.

“After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time – if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God and provoking him to anger, I call heaven and earth as witness against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed. The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you. There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell. But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in the later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him. For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath” (Deuteronomy 4:25-31).

In time, Israel did become disobedient to God’s Commandment and the dispersion began, first by Sennacherib King of Assyria (705-681 B.C.), second by Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon (605-562 B.C.), third by Titus Flavius Vespasianus Emperor of Rome (A.D. 39-79?) and the rebirth of the state of Israel in A.D. 1945. Sennacherib took away Ten Tribes and dispersed them among the nations. They simply disappeared. He also resettled their land with his people. Nebuchadnezzar took only the best of the last Two Tribes and held them for seventy years in captivity. These people and their children returned to the God of their forefathers and were allowed to return to their homeland under Ezra, Nehemiah and Zerubbabel during the Persian kings of Cyrus, Ataxerxes and Darius (522-486 B.C.). When Israel once more forgot their God-given purpose and stretched her muscles against Rome, Titus dismembered the state of Judah in A.D. 70. In 1945, with a threat of mass suicide, Jews were allowed to return to their homeland. Everything that Moses had predicted has thus far come to pass. At least, this is the political perspective of Israel.

There is another part that Moses was able to identify and that is a new and spiritual or entirely moral Israel. Israel would again be delivered, but not from the nations, but from herself or her sinfulness. “The Lord said to me: ‘What they say is good.’ I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account” (Deuteronomy 18:18-19). The remnant of Israel would not listen and Isaiah predicted that the Prophet or Servant would be shamed, wounded and killed (Isaiah 53). Moses’ third prediction was that Israel would become jealous of a people that were not following the God of Israel, but would turn to Him in huge numbers (Deuteronomy 32:21). God turned to the Gentiles. “I revealed myself to those that did not ask for me: I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, ‘Here am I, here am I'” (Isaiah 65:1). “I will plant for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’ I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people’: and they will say, ‘You are my God'” (Hosea 2:23). Again, all the predictions of Moses, Isaiah and Hosea have happened.

The Bible is very specific to what happens to people that do not follow the will of the God Yahweh. Beware of the prophet that denies these predictions (Deuteronomy 18:21-22). The people that have become God’s people are not exempt from God’s Commandments. They too will be held accountable, like Israel is still being held accountable, for their rejection of God’s will (Romans 11:21). Grace does not exempt Christians from living within the Law (Ten Commandments). They are required to do even better by adding mercy and justice to the Law of God (Matthew 23: 23; Luke 6:36). Especially, a nation that rejects the Laws of God Yahweh has dug her own grave, and is waiting to be buried. The same applies to all of us who think we can circumvent the Will or Law of the Creator. Great caution is required when individuals act violently in the name of God or any religion. The God of the Bible or the God of Jesus does not identify with anyone that confuses evil with good. He knows them by their fruit and not by their public announcements and so should we (Matthew 7:15-23). What Moses began, Jesus completed! “When he received the drink, Jesus said, ‘it is finished'” (John 19:30). “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End'” (Revelation 21:6). Blessed are those that believe without seeing! (John 20:29).