It is interesting that long before Israel became a kingdom under the first king, Saul, that the prediction was made that Israel would become a kingdom. They passed through theocracy under Moses, to confederacy under Judges in the Promised Land, punctuated with periods of anarchy (Judges 18-21). After many decades passed monarchy was elected by the tribes. In the end that too was lost in defeat and colonialism under other flags. Israel had survived as a people in slavery in Egypt, as it has survived through Roman domination before the time of Jesus, and through variegated governments thereafter for about two thousand years until a land area was vouchsafed again to the Nation of Israel in 1948. One of the great mysteries of society has been the survival of Israel through every context known to mankind and nations. They appear to have good periods and poor under virtually every pattern of governance known to mankind.
The high moment in the history of Israel is found in the prayer of Solomon at the dedication of the Temple, half way through his reign. It was a prayer of the unity for citizens in both nature and faith, and how to make both factors function well for them. As peace and blessing seemed to be easily gained for the people, something went wrong. Some fault can be found in leaders, even Solomon, but that also in the company of Saul, David, and the kings after Solomon. Against the prophecy noted in verse 16, Solomon did multiply horses (as archaeology has verified); he did multiply wives forbidden in verse 17; and wealth warning also noted in 17. Some of the affirmatives were kept, especially related to his writings noted in verses 18 made full of the affirmations of God, and the loss, both in the individual and society, for the negations of the positive character of God for life, individual and corporate. Negations took them back to Egypt’s culture even in their own country. God warned them in verse 17: Ye shall . . . return no more that way. That was the way of it. They chose to follow a government like that of neighboring nations born of secularism, sometimes with faulty and impotent gods unacquainted with righteousness – rights as God’s children in truth, humility, peace, service, and good will, a subdivision of applied love. The world of nature offered the model without the moderation of Scripture, prayer and effort. Even in failure there was the lingering vision of God’s kingdom and the warnings of Scripture – with a recipe of law for a caring society.
A similar pattern survives in us. There is something of a vision that: In God We Trust, but we will do it our way in the belief that freedom has no clear value system outside the majority rule. There is an underlying feeling that we are doing things in half-truths that miss the target objectives. We miss the wisdom of increments, in moving along to elevations step by step so to invite the masses higher, while protecting those who have virtually completed their sojourns. One of the methods of God is to meet humanity with incremental action, and call for that action. The words little by little are the words for it in Deuteronomy 7:22 KJV. The concept was given to Israel in Exodus 29-30 when they learned that God would overcome the Canaanites little by little. Increments are all that nations can handle. Too rapid success included too many problems. Increments also give time to enemies to make adjustments. By repentance matters can change to benefit. By some defense mechanisms, we gain easier conflict. We have no real hold on the ways God uses for either blessing or cursing. We do know that he permits both: gain and lose.
An illustration of the above problem has emerged in a few recent years in my state. The state went from illegality for same sex marriage – to a vote that it be inserted in the state’s constitution, to rejection of the amendment, to the reversal on the law against it, to approval of it. In a matter of months the law was moved from illegality to legality, approval, and presumption that the beliefs of three or so years earlier are now prejudicial. The commended faithful to the concepts and formation of their lives are now in the wrong. Those who were identified as wrong and illegal are now declared to be objective, correct and to form even the application of the law to their advantage. Law, right or wrong, would have been better formed for progress and good will – on patient course for public review so to be generally accepted. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020