- 40th International Bible Conference, July 30, 2008     “And you shall command the children of Israel that they bring you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to cause the lamp to burn continually. In the tabernacle of meeting, outside the veil which is before the Testimony, Aaron and his sons shall tend it from evening until morning before the LORD. It shall be a statute forever to their generations on behalf of the children of Israel.”  Exodus 27:20-21     The Things God Shows Us through the Nation of Israel“‘Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen, silk, and embroidered cloth. You ate pastry of fine flour, honey, and oil. You were exceedingly beautiful, and succeeded to royalty. Your fame went out among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through My splendor which I had bestowed on you,’ says the LORD God. ‘But you trusted in your own beauty, played the harlot because of your fame, and poured out your harlotry on everyone passing by who would have it. You took some of your garments and adorned multicolored high places for yourself, and played the harlot on them. Such things should not happen, nor be. You have also taken your beautiful jewelry from My gold and My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself male images and played the harlot with them. You took your embroidered garments and covered them, and you set My oil and My incense before them. Also My food which I gave you ? the pastry of fine flour, oil, and honey which I fed you ? you set it before them as sweet incense; and so it was,’ says the LORD God. ‘Moreover you took your sons and your daughters, whom you bore to Me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your acts of harlotry a small matter, that you have slain My children and offered them up to them by causing them to pass through the fire? And in all your abominations and acts of harlotry you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, struggling in your blood. Then it was so, after all your wickedness ? “Woe, woe to you!” says the LORD God ? that you also built for yourself a shrine, and made a high place for yourself in every street. You built your high places at the head of every road, and made your beauty to be abhorred. You offered yourself to everyone who passed by, and multiplied your acts of harlotry. You also committed harlotry with the Egyptians, your very fleshly neighbors, and increased your acts of harlotry to provoke Me to anger. Behold, therefore, I stretched out My hand against you, diminished your allotment, and gave you up to the will of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd behavior. You also played the harlot with the Assyrians, because you were insatiable; indeed you played the harlot with them and still were not satisfied. Moreover you multiplied your acts of harlotry as far as the land of the trader, Chaldea; and even then you were not satisfied.’”  Ezekiel 16:13-29 The book of Ezekiel is a record of the things that the prophet Ezekiel saw and heard from God in a vision concerning the coming destruction of the Israelites and the reason for that destruction. At the end of the book of Ezekiel, it talks about how many Gentile nations apart from Israel would be judged, and then we have a record concerning the restoration of Israel. The passage that we have just read in Ezekiel chapter 16 contains the words that God addressed to Israel as this nation appeared in the image of a woman. The image of a nation is depicted in the form of a person. The reason we are studying matters such as this is to consider how the image of this one nation?Israel?presented in the Old Testament is related to each of us individually as we live in the world today. In Ezekiel chapter 16 verse 22 it says, “And in all your abominations and acts of harlotry you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, struggling in your blood.” The seed of Israel, which began with Abraham, went over to Egypt and there it grew, presenting an image of a small child in God’s eyes. Then the Israelites escaped from Egypt under the leadership of Moses. Yet, even though God showed them the great miracle of the protection of their firstborn through the blood painted on the doorposts and lintels of their houses, and the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea, when Moses went up Mount Sinai and did not come down again, they made a golden calf and worshipped it. (See Exodus chapter 32)Also, even after the Israelites entered the land of Canaan and there established their nation, the worshipping of idols continued to be a feature of their lives. It did not happen just once or twice; they went on and on doing this without end. They forgot their position?that God had raised them up to a majestic position, that He had chosen them and that they had been entrusted with His word and with the law?and they worshipped Gentile gods, came to compromises with the nations surrounding them, intermarrying with Gentiles and adopting their customs. God was grieved to see this and so he had passages like this recorded through the prophets.If, however, we read the words recorded by the prophets from the book of Isaiah to the book of Malachi, we come to see that, through the problems faced by the Israelites, God, who has been watching over this nation throughout history, is telling us, as individuals who read the Bible today, that we have exactly the same problems. Such is the power of the words that the Bible speaks to us. Through the history of Israel and through the fate of this nation, we are able to realize that God’s word is living and that the Bible is the unchanging truth. Not only that, but it is also such that it allows us to see our true selves through the mirror by the name of Israel. As we read such events in the Bible, we may easily think to ourselves, “Why did the Israelites do such things?” God had chosen the Israelites and yet, even just from reading the book of Ezekiel, we can see how extremely shameful their actions were. Their women grabbed men in the streets and committed fornication with them. They made idols and committed fornication with them. There are records of things that they did which, from a moral point of view, are beyond comprehension. But consider whether their actions are any different from the thoughts that arise in your mind? Do you think that you have never had such strange and filthy thoughts, and that such thoughts would never even enter your head? God watched as the Israelites defied Him, turned their backs on Him, and wandered in the opposite direction, and through this He presented us with an image of all mankind. Before we judge this nation as having done well or not, before we ask why they did such things, we need first to think about Adam, who was the first to turn his back on God and disobey His words. We are born as sinners, having inherited the blood of Adam. We are born into this world as sinners from the beginning, programmed to listen to the voice of our blood and live in this world for the sake of pleasing ourselves and making ourselves happy. It is as it says in the Bible, “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). Since God was very well aware of this state of mankind, He made a plan to resolve this problem. The Old Testament tells how, in order to carry out His plan, God chose one family from amongst many, and through that family established the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel, which was established in this way, came to walk the long path of history as though in the image of a person following a course similar to that of the life of a human being. In Galatians it says, “Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” (3:24) When we see this image of the Israelites, who had the words that appear in the Old Testament and the words of the law recorded by the hand of Moses in the Old Testament and yet were still not satisfied and rebelled, it is important for us to acknowledge that we are just the same as they were. This is precisely the heart that God requires of us.   By the Deeds of the Law No Flesh will be JustifiedIn the book of Isaiah, however, God presents a clear image of a harlot in reference to this nation that Ezekiel depicts as a person, as He explains our own situation in the flesh. “Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.”  Isaiah 59:1-2 “Do I have a relationship with God, or not?”“Will God listen to my prayers, or not?”“Is God aware of the things that I desire, or not?”People in this world, particularly those who are referred to as religious, often have thoughts like this. As you read the Bible, however, you find that this is not what it is talking about and that it focuses on the problem of sin, which has been passed down through the blood from the time of Adam. God told Adam not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Thisisa shadow of the law. The law contains whole lists of things that may not be eaten; it stipulates what kind of sacrifices are to be offered; it describes the clothes that are to be worn by the priest as he offers the sacrifices; it tells ordinary people what actions are unacceptable when farming and what kind of clothes they are not to wear. When Adam was alone in this world, God did not give him so many and complex laws to follow; He gave him just one command. “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’”  Genesis 2:16-17 This command became the standard of judgment for Adam. So by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam violated the standard set by God. Similarly, the law was given to mankind, born as descendants of Adam who fell, having turned his back on God’s word and disobeyed Him. The law was, of course, given to the nation of Israel, but besides them, there are many people who make a great effort to keep the law through the Bible. Nevertheless, the Bible concludes, “By the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight” (Romans 3:20). The Bible tells us that, since we have inherited the blood of a sinner who disobeyed God’s word, we are sinners from birth and therefore there is no way that we can satisfy the law. This is because the communication with God has been severed, as the Bible says, “But your iniquities have separated you from your God” (Isaiah 59:2).In that case, what is it that God wants from us now? God told Adam not to eat the fruit, but Adam disobeyed. In order to solve this problem, God spoke through one nation called Israel, had them record His words, allowed us to hear and see the words recorded in this way, and, through these words, He gave us an opportunity for the situation to be overturned. This opportunity comes through the Bible and is the reason that the Bible exists in this world. It is also the reason that we have a Bible in our hands. If this is not your reason for having a Bible and your intent is rather to try to live a holy life, that life will have nothing at all to do with God. We sin because we were born as sinners, and we go astray because we are sinners. God has given us the life of the flesh, and that life is in the blood. Since we have inherited that blood from Adam who was disobedient, we cannot help but live our lives disobeying God. God provided His diagnosis of our present state as He spoke to the Israelites: “Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.” The Bible says that the problem is the sin that forms a barrier between us and God. “For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perversity.”  Isaiah 59:3 If you look at a picture of the blood vessels in a person’s body, you will find that they present an image the same as the person himself. All the organs and other tissues of man’s body is formed when he is in his mother’s womb through the blood. Even after we are born, it is because the blood pumped continuously from the heart travels to the deepest places in the body, to provide the cells with oxygen and nutrients and maintain them, that we are able to live and walk upon this earth as living beings. As we learn about the blood, we come to understand vaguely that we have lived our lives thus far led along by a certain power over which we ourselves do not even have control; that this force is contained within our blood; and that as we have lived, satisfying the demands of our flesh, we have been committing sins.God, the God of such people, sees them just as they are. With His eyes, He sees more distinctly than any photograph, even to the depths of our spirits which are upheld by the blood. Visible light enables people to see objects, but bees can see ultraviolet rays, which are not visible to human eyes, and every other animals see things in many different ways. Even the eyes of creatures that God has created are able to see things that are invisible to man. So, how much more must be seen through the eyes of God, who created all things, planned all things and has control over their whole makeup? “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”  Hebrews 4:12-13 This letter to the Hebrews says that the state of our spirits, which is not visible to any to any creature in this world, is naked and open to the eyes of God. Also, in the book of Jeremiah it says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (17:9). God has said, “For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perversity.” As we see here, God examines the sinful nature lurking deep within each one of us. No one else sees this, but God sees it, noticing every thoughtless remark and hasty curse. So we see that our lives are naked and open to the eyes of God. “No one calls for justice, nor does any plead for truth. They trust in empty words and speak lies; they conceive evil and bring forth iniquity. They hatch vipers’ eggs and weave the spider’s web; he who eats of their eggs dies, and from that which is crushed a viper breaks out. Their webs will not become garments, nor will they cover themselves with their works; their works are works of iniquity.”  Isaiah 59:4-6Those many people who try to live their own form of holy life through their own deeds, need to be able to confess before these words. “And the act of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood; th

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