I love such portraits, and you do too. How do I know this?
God created us to be loved, and no one can love us as God does.
Perhaps there has never been a people more rebellious than
His chosen people:
·
“Children have I reared and brought up, but they
have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s
crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand. Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity,
offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the
LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged.” (Isaiah
1:2-4 (ESV)
For the first six hundred years of Israel existence, from
the time of Abraham, their God had treated them with kid-gloves. He never
punished them until the debacle at Mount Sinai. Elsewhere, God had cried out
that there was nothing more that He could have done for Israel. He likened
Israel, His bride, to a vineyard He had planted for her:
·
“He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted
it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a
wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild
grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me
and my vineyard. What more was there to
do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield
grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? And now I will tell you what I will do to
my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break
down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste; it shall
not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command
the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts
is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he
looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an
outcry!” (Isaiah 5:2-7)
Throughout the writings of the Hebrew Prophets, we encounter the very same denunciations of Israel. They had even sinfully descended beneath other peoples (Ezekiel 5:7; 16:46-47):
·
“Your evil will chastise you, and your apostasy
will reprove you. Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake
the LORD your God; the fear of me is not in you, declares the Lord GOD of
hosts. For long ago I broke your yoke and burst your bonds; but you said, ‘I
will not serve.’ Yes, on every high [pagan] hill and under every green tree you
bowed down like a whore. Yet I planted you a choice vine, wholly of pure seed.
How then have you turned degenerate and become a wild vine? Though you wash
yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your guilt is still before
me, declares the Lord GOD. How can you say, ‘I am not unclean, I have not gone
after the Baals’?” (Jeremiah 2:19-22)
There were even times when it seemed that God was on the
verge of divorcing Himself from His people (Hosea 1). However, He also assured
Israel that He would never utterly divorce His people. Instead, Israel had
consistently divorced themselves from their God:
·
This is what the LORD says: “Was your mother [Israel]
sent away because I divorced her? Did I sell you as slaves to my creditors? No,
you were sold because of your sins…(Isaiah 50:1 {NLT2}; 59:1-2)
Israel’s choices, the things she loved, had separated her
from her God. Nevertheless, He promised that He would eventually rescue His
unworthy people:
·
The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their
voice; together they sing for joy; for eye to eye they see the return of the
LORD to Zion. Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem,
for the LORD has comforted his people; he has redeemed Jerusalem. The LORD has
bared his holy arm [the Messiah; 53:1] before the eyes of all the nations, and
all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. (Isaiah 52:8-10
(ESV)
Even before the promised Messiah, God always had His hands
outstretched to His rebellious people:
·
“Return, faithless Israel, declares the LORD. I
will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, declares the LORD; I will not
be angry forever. Only acknowledge your guilt, that you rebelled against the
LORD your God and scattered your favors among foreigners under every green
tree, and that you have not obeyed my voice, declares the LORD. Return, O faithless
children, declares the LORD; for I am your master… (Jeremiah 3:12-14)
However, Israel refused to acknowledge that they had
betrayed their God. Even though Israel continually rejected His pleadings, God
continued to reassure Israel of His unceasing love:
·
But now thus says the LORD, he who created you,
O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I
have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will
be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you
walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior… (Isaiah
43:1-3)
However, Israel had other hopes and dreams. Instead, nothing
short of the coming Savior would change Israel’s heart for her Redeemer:
·
“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her
iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all
her sins. A voice cries: “In the
wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway
for our God…And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall
see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” (Isaiah 40:1-3, 5)
What is this “glory of the Lord,” which was to be revealed?
Jesus pointed to the moment of His glory. It wasn’t when He created the world
or even when He’d return to establish His everlasting Kingdom (Isaiah (9:6-7).
Neither! Instead it was when He humbled Himself to be tormented on the Cross for
those who hated Him (Romans 5:8-10):
·
And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for
the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of
wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears
much fruit.” (John 12:23-24)
He died for their sins, but even then, Israel rejected Him.
However, this wasn’t the end of this story of love. God would return and reveal
Himself to Israel as the One they had murdered:
·
“And I [God] will pour out on the house of David
and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so
that, when they look on me [God], on him whom they have pierced, they shall
mourn for him [God], as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over
him, as one weeps over a firstborn. On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will
be as great…” (Zechariah 12:10-11)
Their rejected God and Savior will open their eyes so that
they will see what they had done to Him, and they will mourn with profound
sorrow. Even though His Chosen People had rejected their God, He will not allow
them to grieve for long. Instead, He will promptly restore them, cleansing them
from the pollution of all of their sins:
·
On that day there shall be a fountain opened for
the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin
and uncleanness. (Zechariah 13:1)
Israel had rejected their grieving Savior for centuries, and
yet their God never gave up on them.
I needed to see the many Biblical portraits of God’s love,
since I never felt loved. As a result, I was always trying to be someone else
so that I could be loved. Even after Jesus had opened my heart to believe in
Him, it still felt that, in my case, He had done so reluctantly, and that He
really didn’t love me. Therefore, I prayed that He would love me, or, if He
already did, then He would show me this conclusively. He has, and I now rejoice
in Him.
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