11. Different words from God about suffering - kings to the prophets

It is often a tragic dilemma, not getting what one wants, or getting what one wants! Solomon asked for wisdom and was commended of God for his choice, and received riches as well. The more he thought about all the gifts he had been given, many wives and concubines, a large palace, a well trained, best equipped, well provisioned army, many horses, a strong thriving economy, with excessive wealth and large symbols of power and status, the more he thought about himself as self made, and he moved away from God. The brief vision of a covenant and the promises that went with the implementation of his gifts from God became a careless light in an unsafe place. Destruction loomed, and God withdrew His sanction. The scale of the ruin of Solomon and his kingdom eclipsed the scale of the rise of the kingdom of that of his father David with so much promise. And so in the lives of the ensuing kings, then in their captivity, God turned from kings to prophets. But the prophets too, speaking and enacting the messages that God had given them, failed to rein in the evil that God’s people determined to do. God seemed to draw further and further away from his people, as they made so little effort to fulfill His desires for them.

From Isaiah to Malachi there are seventeen books of the prophets. Each time, when the people’s cry was delivered to God by the prophets, the prophets would bring back the answer. Their continuing cry to God was a cry of disappointment that He is seemingly is hidden, turning His face away, and uncaring of their troubles. The answer from God that repentance would restore them with God, came back through the prophets. They never heard His searing reply.

God was not silent, for surely it was true that He spoke through his prophets. It was no more drama of the supernatural kind, no more fire not burning in bushes, no more floods of water gushing from rocks, no more heavenly manna, and 40 year lasting sandals with a light in the sky to follow. It was more than that now. The miracles had not moved His people to obey Him, nor the prophets, so God’s permanent record first preserved in fragments, and eventually brought together in one book, the Bible, became His encouragement. This permanent record eventually reached us. That record was preserved for us all and became His lasting record. It is worth saying that even when He sent His son, they did not recognize him. Peter brought the message that He condemned the “willingly ignorant”, 2 Peter 2, who decried Him in word and deed. “I have withdrawn my presence, my slowness to act is a sign of mercy to you, not slackness, though my judgments appear stern, I am suffering with you, repent at anytime, despite it all I will forgive you”.

God was condemned by those within and outside the covenant for being slack with Israel and their wickedness, despite His well known standard for them. Jeremiah 14:9, “why should you be as a man, astonied who cannot save us”. Simeon and Levi were condemned by Jacob on the occasion of the ruthless behaviour at Shechem, and later at Jacob’s death bed blessing. “You have troubled me to make me to stink among the nations”. It was not Jacob’s name so much which came into disrepute. It was God’s name, for He was known as the Saviour of the Jacob family. So God wished it known that it was not slackness, but mercy shown to His people over those long periods of slack time. 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slack, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering to us ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance”. He was not silent to their sufferings, but His covenant included obedience.

In the face of such wickedness their God was viewed as merciful by the nations round about. But in the continuing display of evil practices, the perception of the onlookers changed. God’s mercy, with the seeming lack of punishment of the Israelites, made Him “wearied” by their sinful words. They made Him appear too longsuffering, like a God of Ridicule, Malachi 2:17. So “God gave them over to their sins. I do not this for your sake but for mine. I will sanctify my name”, Ezekiel 36:22. It began in Eden, with a highlight at Shechem, and ended with Paul’s message to the Gentiles. Here at last were some “who were dead to trespasses and sins and were now quickened to receive the gospel”. This mystery was revealed in Ephesians 2:1 and now God used His son as a focus for penitence and restitution.