1 Chronicles 5:24-26: "These were the heads of their families: Epher, Ishi, Eliel, Azriel, Jeremiah, Hodaviah and Jahdiel. They were brave warriors, famous men, and heads of their families. But they were unfaithful to the God of their fathers and prostituted themselves to the gods of the peoples of the land, whom God had destroyed before them. So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria (that is, Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria), who took the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh into exile. He took them to Halah, Habor, Hara and the river of Gozan, where they are to this day."
The leaders, both governmental and spiritual, have led the people astray, and they have followed willingly after other gods. They are to receive their due punishment: removal from the land that marked their spiritual and physical home.
While it would be difficult to view the captivity as anything but the culmination of Israel and Judah's long moral slide, God still has redemptive purposes through this historical detour. Despite Israel and Judah's sin, God will remain faithful to His promises to give them (and later the Church) a land of their own. First, the people of God will face an exile to Assyria but will receive physical restoration in the land less than 100 years later. God would then direct His Son to come to earth, demonstrating God's love and forgiveness through His life and through His death, offered as an atoning sacrifice for sin. Still, after the birth of the Church, God orchestrated persecution of the disciples, which ironically encouraged the growth and spread of the Gospel both in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
As I reflected on the coming exile, several verses came to mind:
Romans 4:16-17: "Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written: 'I have made you a father of many nations.' He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were."
Hebrews 11:13-16: "All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them."
Philippians 3:20-21: "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body."
Romans 8:18-25:
"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
"We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."
As we celebrate the upcoming U.S. Independence Day, may we remember our heavenly citizenship. Do you ever find yourself feeling like a "stranger" on earth? If we are seeking to live a holy life, the Scriptures tells us that we will!
I encourage you to rejoice in God's plans for the Church and for your life today: redemption. Praise Him that He leads us through mountaintop experiences and sloughs of despair. He teaches us through the mundane about the heavenly, and He never stops loving us, even as our sinful nature separates us from Him. Indeed, it is during this time of exile and judgment that God raises up a number of prophets who speak clearly about the coming Messiah, describing His birthplace, His appearance, and even His atoning death.
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