Moses Foretells Israel's Future (MP 55)

Moses sang to Israel his final song,
Full of forecasts about things to come;
Righteous some of the time, but mostly wrong,
Israel suffered greatly for sins they’d done!
They were set aside when the Savior came,
For rejecting the Son that God had sent,
Refusing to believe in Jesus’ name,
Or of numerous evils to repent!
Solely given the Law and first to hear
The gospel of redemption and God’s grace,
But always turning to God a deaf ear,
They’re still in sin, with Gentiles in their place!
Israel’s redemption is yet long delayed;
When Christ returns, their sin-debt will be paid!

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SPECIAL NOTICE: Beginning MARCH 9, I will start a new series in God’s Master Plan for the world---PROHECIES OF THE COMING MESSIAH! With Israel settled in Canaan, God revealed 340 forecasts of the future life of JESUS OF NAZARETH, every one of which was fulfilled! You will not want to miss any of these amazing prophecies and proofs of their fulillment! WILLIAM J.B. CRITTENDEN
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Scripture Quoted (NIV) [Brackets added]
Deuteronomy 31:15---"Jeshurun [Israel] grew fat and kicked; filled with food, he became heavy and sleek. He abandoned the God who made him, and rejected the Rock his Savior [Jesus/God]’ “

Deuteronomy 31:16-17—“And the Lord said to Moses, ‘You are going to rest with your fathers, and these people [Israel] will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land [Canaan] they are entering. They will forsake me and break the covenant I had with them. On that day I will become angry with them and forsake them; I will hide my face from them and they will be destroyed. Many disasters and difficulties will fall upon them…’ “

Commentary on Israel’s Future
From the time of God’s call to Abraham until the death of Moses east of the Jordan River was approximately 500 years; God had overseen the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; He had nursed and nurtured the sons of Jacob through their lives and those of their descendants into a nation of millions of people; He had struck ten plagues upon Egypt and brought the Israelites out of slavery and through forty years of trials and problems of surviving the desert, until they were finally ready to enter the Promised Land and take their place as a nation—one that would introduce God to the world and lead the way for Jesus Christ to redeem mankind from condemnation for sin. And now, God tells Moses that all their efforts have been unsuccessful; that Israel will soon “abandon” Him and reject Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah (Jesus is God Himself coming to redeem men from the condemnation that their own sins and Adam’s had caused). Moses must have been disappointed after his incessant problems with this whining, complaining, unfaithful race, and I can imagine God’s sorrow as He spoke these words.

The reason God commanded Israel to destroy the Canaanites or drive them all out is that He foreknew that if any were left in the land, His Chosen people, the Israelites, would become corrupted by intermarriage or by worshiping idols and false gods. Our God is extremely jealous that those who follow Him do not stray into adopting idols or religions practices other than Christianity. He knew that the people He had chosen to be a nation of priests were weak-willed, spiritual babies that could not resist temptation (as are many modern-day people). Israel did not obey God; they did not destroy or drive out all the Canaanites. They accepted some offers of peace treaties; many were left alive, as were their idols and religious practices. Just as God knew, their failure to demolish them all led to Israel’s complete downfall. If you are a new Christian and are trying to quit smoking, don’t leave a single cigarette around the house to tempt you; you should apply this same process in all your old habits. If you have been drinking alcohol, destroy all that you have left; if you are in the habit of buying lottery tickets, don’t stop at the neighborhood U-Totem.

Israel did live in the land about 1500 years. Though their shortcomings brought turbulence, crises, and disasters, their zenith as a nation was about 1000 B.C., when David and his son Solomon reigned as kings. Shortly after Solomon died, civil war divided the nation into two, and both of these were conquered with many people being taken away from each. When Jesus of Nazareth was born, the land contained a remnant of Israelites living in Galilee in the north and Judah, including Jerusalem, in the south, under occupation by the Roman Empire. In 70 A. D. Roman General Titus besieged Jerusalem, conquered it and flattened it. He had all the land that was Canaan and the home of Israel plowed up and sown with salt, trees along the Jordan cut down, and all the cities and houses destroyed; consequently, the land that once flowed with “milk and honey, turned into desert. The people were killed or sold into slavery, and Israel had no homeland until 1948 A. D.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:9)