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promises of both the national
birthright and the scepter promise
of eterna! salvation to come
through Jesus Christ.
After 430 years, God raised up
His nation Israel-descendants of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob whose
name God changed to Israel.
To lead these people out of
Egypt ian slavery and to the
Promised Land, God called
Mases. Mases was not seeking
God. But God had caused Mases
to be trained specifically for this
commission by having him reared
as a prince in the palace of the
Egyptian pharaoh.
So now again we come to the
question, WHY did God raise up
this special Hebrew nation as
"the chosen people"? WHY, when
God never made accessible to
them His Holy Spirit?
One point to notice here. The
probability is that these people
were all--<>r nearly all--<>f the
white racial strain, unchanged
since creation.
After Jacob and his sons and
families had come into Egypt at
Joseph's behest, they were kept in
the locale of Goshen- geographi–
cally separated from the Egyp–
tians, marrying among them–
selves.
In this connection, go back
momentarily to Abraham. He
prevented his son Isaac from
intermarrying among the dark
Canaanites then in the land. He
sent his chief servant to his own
family and racial people to find a
wife for Isaac. Abraham said,
" ... thou shalt not take a wife
unto my son of the daughters of
the Canaanites, among whom I
dwell" (Genesis 24:3).
The next generation, Jacob mar–
ried Leah and Rache!, daughters of
Laban, nephew of Abraham, who
lived in the land of Haran, brother
of Abraham. The whole communi–
ty of Haran, where Laban lived,
was of the same familyancestry as
Abraham.
Jacob had six sons by Leah,
two from Rachel- all of the same
original racial stock, and two each
from the maids of' Rache! and
Leah- 12 in all. Even the maids
of Leah and Rache! probably
were of pure Hebrew stock.
40
But God specially prepared
from birth and called Mases, with
Aaron his brother to assist as his
spokesman. (Mases stuttered.)
In the plagues God caused
against Egypt, God was turning
the Egyptian gods and objects of
worship against them to show
them that these were
not
gods.
Even the plagues were sent in
LOVE for the Egyptians.
The final plague occurred on
the eve of the 14th day of the first
sacred month- starting in the
spring. The Israelites went out of
Egypt during the night part of
the 15th. They reached the Red
Sea. But pharaoh had meanwhile
changed his mind and, with his
army, pursued them.
The children of Israel had
reached the Red Sea, and they
were stopped as if dead. There
was no bridge. 1t was too far to
swim, with their women and chil–
dren . Behind them the pharaoh's
army was in hot pursuit. There
was nothing they could do. They
were stopped-HELPLESS! At that
point they had to rely on Goo!
In Egypt God had caused their
release from slavery by a series of
supernatural plagues. Now God
caused the waters of the Red Sea
to roll back to form a watery
wALL on either side, with a wide
path on the dry sea floor be–
tween.
The Israelites walked on
through. On the opposite side
they looked and saw the Egyp–
tians entering the sea-fioor path.
When the Egyptians were all
within the seawall passage, God
allowed the waters to flow back,
drowning the Egyptian army.
Broken Promlses
In due time the Israelites pitched
tents at the foot of Mt. Sinai.
God did not make them His
nation, under His theocratic rule,
without their consent.
Through Mases, God put to
them His proposition. Ifthey would
obey His laws ofHIS GOVERNMENT,
He would prosper them, and make
them the wealthiest and most
powerful of nations.
Yet all of God's PROMISES were
of a national and material na–
ture- no spiritual salvation.
The people agreed. Thus they
became God's chosen nation.
BuT wHv?
This we know: God's purpose
for them had a definite relation to
preparing for the ultimate
KINGDOM OF GOD-when
the
GOVERNMENT OF GOD would be
reestablished over all the earth,
and spiritual salvation would be
offered to ALL!
Undoubtedly, one reason was
to preserve the original racial
strain. But there was much
more.
Nations had developed knowl–
edge. Mankind was limited, after
Adam's rebellion, to the acquisi–
tion of physical and material
knowledge.
But, like educated men and
scientists today, they were saying,
"Give us sufficient knowledge,
and we will salve all problems and
eradicate all evils- we will create
utopía!"
Up to that time, mankind had
been denied knowledge from
God. God now decided to give
them knowledge of His Law–
His kind of government-His
way
of lije!
He was going to
prove to the world that without
His Holy Spirit their minds were
incapable of receiving and uti–
lizing such knowledge of the
TRUE WAYS OF LIFE. He was
going to demonstrate to them that
the mind of MAN, with its one
spirit, and without the addition of
God's Holy Spirit, could not have
spiritual discernment-could not
salve human problems, could not
cure the evils that were besetting
humanity. The nation Israel
would be His guinea pig to dem–
onstrate that fact. God had chos–
en a nation of almost perfect
original strain in its genera–
tions- its ancestry. Also they had
the quality heredity of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob (Israel).
So God entered into a covenant
with them, making them HIS
NATION.
It
also represented a
MARRIAGE covenant, with Israel
the wife, promising obedience to
her husband-Goo. It was the
physical type of the yet-to-come
NEW COVENANT.
And what did it prove?
Here was a people of almost
The
PLAIN TRUTH