sistently reject His full and free salvation! We tremble to think of God’s wrath that must be poured out upon an anarchistic, Christ-rejecting world. ISRAEL’S FUTURE RESTORATION 1. “Hath God Cast Away His People?” The words which we have just read from Ezekiel would leave a dark, dark picture in our minds, were we to stop there. But let us go to Israel’s promised deliverance foretold in the same chapter. Centuries after Ezekiel lived, the Apostle Paul raised the question, “ Hath God cast away his people?” (Rom. 11:1). And, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, he answered, saying, “God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew” (Rom. 11:2). Even though they are scattered among all the nations of the world, Jehovah has not forgotten His chosen people, Israel. He has a future for them, which is glorious with all the light of His never-failing promises. And some of these promises are found in Ezek. 36:22-28, from which we quote in part: “ Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God . . . I will take you from among the nations (R.V.), and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.” These are wonderful words; and how they tend to soothe the hearts that are nigh to be broken over Is rael’s unbelieving condition today! There is coming a time when God will act swiftly and with certainty on yet he is found in every land. No race assimilates him, yet there is no people with whom he does not live a troubled existence. How aptly does Deut. 28:64-67 describe this dispersed, persecuted, wandering people! “And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, ‘even wood and stone. And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy food have rest: but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life: in the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart where with thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.” That paragraph might have been clipped from one of our current newspapers for all its up-to-date-ness. And yet it was written by the Holy Spirit, through Moses, more than fourteen hundred years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem! It is a picture of the centuries- old Jewish wanderer, with no country, no home, no rest, no assurance of life, with only a trembling heart and fear of death. It is a picture of God’s chastise ment — “ child-training” — for Israel because of her complete failure to love and serve Him. What a lesson is here for us, my friends, and for those who spurn the offer of God’s mercy through Christ! How much sorer punishment will be meted out to those who con- THE KING'S BUSINESS
significant passages from this message of God to His people: “The enemy hath said against you, Aha, even the ancient high places are ours in possession . . . They have made you desolate . . . an infamy of the people . . . a prey and derision . . . ye have borne the shame of the heathen ('heathen’ in all these verses means ‘nations’ ) . . . When the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own way and by their doings. . . . Wherefore I poured my fury upon them for the blood that they had shed upon the land, and for their idols wherewith they had polluted it: and I scattered them among the heathen, and they were dispersed through the countries: according to their way and according to their doings I judged them. And when they entered unto the heathen, whith er they went, they profaned my holy name.” What an indictment! At least three times in this passage God says that Israel “ profaned” His “holy name.” Furthermore, God reminds His apostate people that for His “holy name’s sake” He will restore Israel, that the nations may know that He is the Lord. Now when God told Ezekiel that He had “ scat tered” His people, He meant exactly what He said. It has been stated, on good authority, that there is not a nook or cranny on the face of the whole earth where the Jew is not found. If you go to the northern ice fields of Alaska, you will find the Jew. If you sail through the tropical isles of the southern seas, there you will find the Jew. In the heart of Africa, on the plateaus of Tibet, and on the streets of New York City, London, Jerusalem — everywhere you see the familiar and unmistakable face of the Jew. For hundreds of years Israel had tried the patience of her long-suffering God before He scattered that na tion throughout the world. Read the books of Moses, from Genesis through Deuteronomy, to see the many failures and the incessant murmurings of the people, even while God was leading them from Egypt to Ca naan with a mighty hand. Read the Book of Judges to see the repeated apostasies, with the consequent punishments sent by Jehovah, in order to turn His people from their backslidings. Remember the times almost without number when the kings of both Judah and Israel did “ that which was evil in the sight of the Lord.” The mercy and long-suffering of Israel’s God — and our God — cause us to marvel. But apostasy fol lowed apostasy until finally God scattered Israel among all the nations under heaven. And for more than nine teen weary centuries the Jew has trodden from pillar to post, finding no rest for the sole of his foot. Truly he is “ the wandering Jew.” No country is his home, The mount called “Calvary”
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