City Life.

Cities have their unique character. Flagstaff, at 7500 feet, surrounded by pines is no exception. A small (by some standards) university town with a large tourist industry, this city faces its own challenges as well as possessing singular charm. My husband and I naively thought that our move to Flagstaff would give us a  small town experience, with low crime, and no drug influence for our children when we moved here in 1990. (We had watched too much Little House on the Prairie, OK?) While the crime statistics are lower in Flagstaff, than where I grew up in Oakland CA, it is still a city. The administration of justice is one of the things we hope to find in city life. We come to a city  expecting that traffic disputes, and neighborhood drama can be dealt with through just laws. We hope that barking dogs, and property line disputes can be settled without guns. We hope that Hatfield and McCoy scenarios will not be tolerated in our cities. We hope that gangs and mobs will not be given free reign. An intact system of justice is foundational to cities. The proliferation of gang activity is a sign of decay and internal civic breakdown. It is a sign of city failure. Today, big city influences, and ideas, travel fast across our country and around the world through the social media, TV, movies, and on the web. Today, we are in the middle of information wars and we struggle to find out the truth about what is happening. News media is not exempt from corruption.

Cities are not isolated today. Unheard of a hundred years ago, small towns like Flagstaff have gang activity and drugs. Even sex trafficking has been identified and arrests made in this city.  We are becoming part of a world community even in small towns. This was not true we were 100 years ago. Beneficial ideas and knowledge come packaged with destructive influences. A millennia ago, differences between isolated people groups in cities were stark. The communication available to mankind now has made these differences minimal in the developed world.

Why am I talking about cities and millennia? I would like to compare the biblical record of how God dealt with cities two to four millennia ago, to how he seems to be dealing with people today, and why this might be so. This is in answer to questions that have been put to me about the judgement of people groups, and cities, in ancient times, and the loving-kindness and forbearance which we are experiencing today. (Hey, don’t knock it!) Why does the Old Testament God seem different than the New Testament God? I am using the historical document of the Old Testament Bible for this discussion.

Why do we have cities? Even today, there is much protection and assistance to be gained in cities. People band together for common goals and pursuits, community, and safety. There is order, planning, and law. We can help each other, and pool our resources of talent and wealth to make life better for everyone.

In contrast, in the earliest biblical record, the first city was built by Cain. (I am sure he had lots of help) After killing his brother, Cain expressed fear that someone would kill him. It is interesting that God spoke to Cain, and did not judge him then, or institute capital punishment as a human practice at this time. Capital punishment was instituted later after the Great Flood, in anticipation of new civilization, law, and people living in cities, and governed regions.

The first city in the Bible was built long before the flood by the first murderer. He was afraid, and wanted protection. He was the first city planner. He was a proud man who named his city after his son, something that still happens today. The cities built by man before the flood were without justice. The proliferation of cities and kingdoms without justice, according to the capricious and corrupt will of man at the helm, led to the need for the judgement of the flood. The flood put an end to much cruelty, injustice, lawlessness, and godlessness.

The early cities recorded in the Old Testament were notable for common goals. Cities were originally centered around a deity that was central to the city. In ancient times, victory in war was attributed to whichever god was named by the victorious city or nation-state. Conquests of nearby cities and nation states were perennial realities in antiquity.

This unfortunate human experience has been present among tribal groups and nations throughout history. Most of us agree that there shouldn’t be war anymore. Growing up in the 1960’s, marches for peace and “flower power” never actually accomplished much. The Vietnam War finally ended, but new wars, genocides, bombings, gang wars, cruelty and general mayhem has continued unabated. It is the tragic state of mankind resulting from the corrupt state of man’s heart. There is something wrong with us.

 After mankind had fully corrupted itself with murder and violence to the point of no return, God began again with Noah and his family.  He began again with a total of eight human souls. After this cataclysm, the age was changed. After the chaos and whole scale violence on the earth, and judgement by God on man’s violence, God told Noah and his family that: “Whoever shed’s man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God He made man.” Gen 9:6. We have the responsibility to judge murderers and to make a just society because we are made in the image of God. He is watching us individually, and as people groups.

We have the responsibility to fight corruption, and  injustice. God gave overwhelming responsibility to mankind to perform justice. God gave governments authority to deliver justice. He did this after Noah’s flood in Genesis 9. This overwhelming responsibility should drive each one of us, and especially leaders, to go to God for wisdom.

There has been varying levels of justice, injustice, cruelty and corruption displayed in human governments throughout history. Individuals who oppose corruption must band together to oppose injustice, otherwise we can be judged as part of evil and corrupt systems.

In this setting, after the flood, Babel was built. The common goal of Babel was to make a tower to heaven and a name for themselves. The attempt of human pride to reach God’s throne through human sweat and blood and to receive fame for it was judged by God. This judgement was not annihilation, but scattering, and thwarting of purpose and communication. I believe that this division of languages preserved mankind, and slowed the natural rate of fallen mankind’s corruption. Communication accelerated corruption.

Abraham, the father of the Hebrew people was called out of the ancient city of Ur, which was a city of many gods. His people lived in tents. While he grew rich and had a small army of more than three hundred, he did not build a city. The New Testament says that Abraham was looking for a heavenly country. He was a pilgrim and sojourner on the earth.

The Old Testament describes the ancient cities that were destroyed through God’s judgment as being violent and idolatrous. Idolatry seems to go together with violence and injustice. Human sacrifice of babies was frequently practiced, as well as other lawlessness as it is today.

God told Abraham that his descendants would become slaves in a land that was not theirs, and that, after four hundred years, God would bring them out of slavery: “because the iniquity of the Amorites is not full.” The gift that was given to the Amorites, and the rest of mankind, is time. God knew what people groups would do. He is outside of time. People need time to see themselves. Time was given to them for understanding of who and what they were as individuals and as civilizations.

God also gave mankind a witness of his righteous dealing with the people groups: the Israelites, and the Egyptians. He showed his provision for his people, and his power. Like the other things that God has done, he does not do them in a corner. Even in ancient times, news traveled.

Forty years of wandering in the wilderness was plenty of time for surrounding peoples to hear of the deliverance of the Jews. As the time of their sojourn in the wilderness came to a close, the Hebrews had become a large people group in the desert region of Sinai. The Canaanites, Moabites and Amorites attacked the Hebrews to prevent them from even passing their borders. Israel had attempted to pass peacefully, and promised to pay for any water that they might use, but these nations refused.

As God forged a nation out of a large tribal people group, He warned them concerning the corrupt man made cultures and religions in the surrounding area. A system of law and justice was instituted, as well as cultural feast days. There were laws regarding kosher diet, ten commandments engraved in stone, and an elaborate system of worship. The substitutionary atoning sacrifice of bulls and goats was continued. Provision for priests and their families was also made using some of these sacrifices.

There were laws concerning how people should treat each other, and how people could make restitution for wrongs. There were provisions and protections for the poor. There were prohibitions against marrying outside of their twelve tribes, and laws concerning land ownership and boundaries that would be in force when they came into their own land. These laws, customs, and worship practices, as well as family blood lines, became preserving factors of this people group. These factors were guardrails that could be protective for this fledgling people group, if they would only cooperate with God and live according to His righteous ways. The Old Testament law could protect  them from corruption from within, and from the corruption of the surrounding cultures without. God promised to protect them from  their attackers if they would keep covenant with Him. He was their salvation against many enemies. Sometimes this victory was handed to them without their actually fighting. They saw God in action for them.

This people, ( the Hebrews, later called Jews [from tribe of Judah]) had a covenant relationship with the living God. He freed them from slavery and made a nation out of them. He fed them in the wilderness and protected them. He made promises to them, and to their descendants. This agreement had obligations on the Israelite’s part.

The agreement was that they were to be a God focused group, according to the revelation of God, not their own ideas. The practice of the law would ensure this, constantly reminding them of their history, culture and purpose. They were to reject outside influences to become a “city on a hill”.

Choosing spouses from their own culture group that was tied to their inheritance in the land was an anchoring factor. If there was massive defection from honoring God according to His covenant with them, they would lose the land that God gave them, and, they could be conquered, abused, and brought into servitude again by foreign people, thus returning them to the state they were in when they were in Egypt.

This was a reversal of the good that God had done for them. While they could suffer and lose their land, the promises to them and to future generations were not annulled. If they would return to God, He would return to them.

What did both parties gain from this arrangement? Peace, prosperity, and security was the promise for the Jews. For God, He obtained a people group that could be a light to the nations, showing what happens when mankind honors the living God, and what happens when people break covenant with Him.

God had a vessel that could carry and protect His word and His covenant with mankind forward through history. The history of this people group, as well as the genealogical line of the Messiah that would save all of mankind from their sin was preserved. The vessel was the Hebrew people themselves, and the land that God gave them.

This was what was at stake when the Hebrews entered the Promised Land. Two things had happened among the people groups of the land of Canaan that Israel was to occupy. First, these people groups attacked the Israelites as they were coming out of the wilderness. The peaceful negotiations that the Jews had attempted failed.

Secondly, there had been wholesale degradation of those societies. There was no justice. When justice fails, nations are at risk for judgement. This is referred to over and over again in the Old Testament’s proclamation of judgement.

True, they were idolatrous nations, and they had no covenant relationship with the living God. The pride, cruelty and disregard of the weak, poor and needy were what they were judged for, as well as their attack on God’s people after hearing what the living God had done for them. They had become extremely cruel in their culture and practices. They demonstrated their evil by the sacrifice of babies. Lawlessness and degradation were rampant.  Showing them that their manmade gods were powerless and false was a mercy for these people groups.

They knew enough about the preservation of this people in the wilderness to know that they were pitting their gods against the God of the Israelites. That is why Rahab was able to save her household by trusting the living God as opposed to the idols of her city. She went from life as a prostitute to wife of a respected man and also entered the ancestry of Jesus. Her entire household who would join her were also protected. God is merciful when we trust Him.

While God mocked the futile idolatry of the nations, He judged them because they would not judge themselves.

The iniquity of the Amorites had become full. Many of the surrounding nations fell to the Israelites over time. The child sacrifice, sexual perversion, idolatry and all manner of injustice, darkness and evil had reached the stinking level that required judgement.

We are in danger of this judgement today because we have refused to destroy those who would torture and rape even very young children, boys and girls. Those who have degraded themselves by watching this evil are participants and are financially supporting evil. We have also allowed murder, theft and political corruption  to continue without justice.

Fortunately, many are joining together to fight against this. May those who are in any way assisting or participating in  abuse, murder and theft be quickly and thoroughly judged.

Unfortunately, Israel as the light of the nations, waxed and waned. There were periods of faithfulness in honoring their covenant with God where there was peace and prosperity, but, when the iniquity of the people surpassed the degradation of the surrounding nations, God judged them as well. He is no respecter of persons or nations.

The ultimate judgement, eventually, was the loss of the temple in Jerusalem in the millennia before Christ. The Jews were dispersed to foreign lands, and the temple destroyed. While the bulk of His people were scattered, there was always a remnant of Jews in the land of Israel, even if they had lost their Jewish state.

God used foreign kings to help restore their land and temple when they had a change of heart regarding honoring God. The temple was rebuilt prior to the first coming of Christ. When the Messiah came, the rebuilt temple was still standing, but the land and Jerusalem was occupied by the Romans. There had been a five hundred year silence from God where no word was given. No word since the warning prophetic book of Malachi. The Jews were living in a state of being chastised by God when Jesus came.

Then the Word came again in the person of Jesus Christ. The Messiah, foretold throughout the law and prophets for two thousand years, came to His own, and His own knew Him not. The age changed. The destruction of the temple, foretold by Jesus Christ, happened in 70 A.D.

The Jews had no homeland for nearly two thousand years, and no sacrifice for their sin. This was a sign to them that Jesus was their Messiah and their eternal sacrifice.  Their Messiah had come. (see Isaiah chapter 53).

Eventually, their land was partially restored to them by the League of Nations after World War II. This happened after occupation by the Ottoman Empire, as well as the British Empire prior to 1948. There were Jews, Muslims, Christians, Arabs, and Europeans living in Israel when the Jewish state was reestablished. The Jews still do not have their temple site, or their temple rebuilt.

This homeland was given to the Jews because of the Holocaust as well as the repeated expulsions, and genocides of the Jewish people in Russia and Europe over the last two millennia. Never again was the Zionist cry.

Interestingly, the Zionist movement is mainly a secular and political one in Israel today. The movement is to preserve the Jewish people and give them a homeland. A large part of the population wants to  preserve the Jewish people and their traditions, but they believe in their own strength, resilience, and the basic good of humanity in the world to preserve them. Zionism, for many, has little to do with faith.  The Orthodox religious Jews are still waiting for the Messiah. Many of them in Israel are opposed to the Zionist state. They believe the secular Jewish state dishonors God. They are waiting for God to be their deliverer as in the Torah. I am sure the lines are blurred among the many ideologies represented in that country.  The secular state of Israel today has many influences and operates  much like other democratic states. Their main goal is self preservation, as they live surrounded by hostile and cruel nations. Their laws, in many cases, are much like our own is this country. They believe in human rights. They have Judean-Christian values. They have a democracy.

The restoration of the temple foretold in the Bible will change the age and herald the second coming of the Messiah. The temple restoration will be a sign. Just as the fall of that temple was a sign that changed the times.  When the temple is restored,  we will see the anti-Christ and the beast, foretold in both the Old and New Testaments.

What does this have to do with cities? Well, it is related. Jerusalem, the city of peace (which is what Jerusalem means) will one day truly be the city of peace. The New Jerusalem will be a city built by God, instead of by fallen man, it won’t be subject to corruption. It is the destination of those who honor God, who have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb of God.

This city is antithetical to the cities built by man, that are subject to corrupt human government, which is full of injustice. We keep trying, but we will never get it right in our fallen human state. Many today believe in a utopia built by mankind. History has countless examples of men trying to do this. It has never worked. It is beyond the moral power of corrupt mankind to do this. Ingenuity cannot do this without an overhaul of the heart of man.

So, why doesn’t God judge cities as He did in the Old Testament times? We are becoming a world city. The One World Government foretold in the Bible sounds like it should be peaceful. The New World Order will be run by sinful man. This government will not be just. It will be cruel and lawless. Murder and unjust laws will be rampant. The sacrifice of babies will be common.  It will culminate in the final judgement of all mankind. If you think that the New Testament God is non-judgmental, read the last book in the New Testament: Revelation- full of judgement.

Judgement is being postponed until the iniquity of the world is full. His beloved ones who are willing to put their trust in Him, are the ones who  honor God. They recognize and admit that they fall short of true righteousness and continually come to the Lord Jesus to  receive His mercy and grace. They are waiting on God. His grace is open to whosoever wills. Who will choose life? We each have a choice.  God is faithful. He has promised that those who come to Him, He will in no wise cast out. Those who come to Him in the name of the Passover Lamb, Jesus, will not come into judgement but have eternal life. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. For this person, sins are removed as far as the east is from the west.

At this time those whose sins are forgiven are living side-by-side with those who refuse to admit their unrighteousness and their need for the Savior. In His time, these two kinds of people will be separated out.

There is great forbearance in this time period after the sacrifice of the only begotten Son of God. Jesus compared this time period to the time of Noah, where the world is allowed to continue for a time without judgement. We sin against one another and hurt one another. We sin against God by not honoring our Creator. The loss and death that is ever present with us in this fallen world should help us to choose life, to trust in the Savior that God has provided. We are not sufficient in ourselves.  We all sin against God, and we even sin against our own conscience. The fear of the Lord is like a strong tower. Run into it and be safe.

The world is like the parables of the wheat and the tares, and like the woman who leavens her dough with yeast. The yeast in the bread, and the weeds in the field of wheat, cannot be separated out with out destroying the wheat or the bread. These will be separated out ultimately in the last judgement of God at the great white throne. This is the age of grace. We have been given the gift of time.

Time is given for us  to know ourselves, and see our history. I for one, know myself well enough to know that I do not want justice from God for myself. I want mercy and forbearance. I want HIs grace. I have already passed from judgement into life by the provision of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, and I am destined for the Eternal City. This option is open to the whole world in this age of grace, while there is still time.