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God's Dealings With Israel (3)

Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee . . . . I am the Lord thy God . . . . But my people would not hearken to my voice . . . . So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lusts . . . . Psalm 81:8-14.

In explanation of the various and somewhat strange things God says in this Psalm about Israel, whom He calls, "My people," we were talking about the fact that God deals with His people in the same way as a farmer works in his wheat field. And, just as a farmer must deal with the wheat and the tares, so does God deal with "His people" which is composed of elect and reprobate.

Please review the last two issues to refresh your minds with the things we have said.

Towards the end of the last issue, we were talking about the fact that the nation of Israel (as also the church) sometimes went astray from God's commandments and committed all the wickedness of the heathen nations. Psalm 81 is a description of Israel in that condition.

But what we must remember is that even when Israel was so wicked, God's elect were still in the nation. Although they may very well have fallen into the sins of the wicked, and although they did not protest vehemently against the evils which were present, still they were God's elect, and they did serve God just as the prophets of God whom Obadiah hid in a cave by fifties during the awful days of Ahab's wickedness.

So it is in the church. In any given denomination it may very well happen that the denomination becomes corrupt in doctrine, in worship, and in the government of the church. If it has not become entirely the false church, there may be elect found in it as yet. But the elect are themselves often weak. They may be grieved with apostasy; they may long for better days; they may remember the good times of the past; but, even if they do not participate in all the evils present in their church, they are parties to these evils because so often they do not vigorously protest. They let things slide. They don't want to make trouble. They fear being mocked by the leaders in the church. They tell themselves that they will, privately and in their own hearts, keep the faith. And so they become partakers of the evil of their churches.

So it was in Israel; so it is today.

According to Psalm 81, God sent his judgments upon Israel: "So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lusts . . ." (vs. 12).

We may notice in passing that this was a very particular form of God's judgment upon a wicked nation. God sometimes does this to nations, to churches, to individuals. He gives them over to their sins so that they may sin all the more: ". . . and they walked in their own counsels" (vs. 12). God punishes sin with more sin. He pushes them more deeply into the sin of which they are guilty.

But it is not our purpose now to discuss that question, although it is very interesting -- and frightening.

Our purpose is to ask the question: Why does God do this to those whom He calls, "My people?"

The answer is very clear.

A farmer subjects his wheat field to brutal treatment when he combines or threshes the field so that the wheat may be separated from the chaff and from the weeds. All the weeds and all the chaff are discarded and destroyed. The wheat is saved.

God sends judgments upon a nation, a family, a church, for the same two-fold reason. He destroys the wicked and punishes them for their sin. But through the very judgments which destroy the wicked He saves His people by bringing them to repentance and sorrow for sin.

He did that to Israel when God brought them into captivity where the wicked were destroyed and the elect remnant, after 70 years, were brought back to Canaan.

God does that to his church when it becomes apostate. Judgments come. The wicked are turned over to their own sins so that apostasy and ungodliness grow worse. But through these judgments the elect are brought to see that they cannot stay any longer in such a church, that they must, for themselves and their children, come out, lest they be partakers of the evil deeds which surround them. And so they reform the church by leaving an apostate institution and establishing anew the true church of Christ.

And God's purpose is accomplished in the salvation of the elect and the just judgment of the wicked.

Zion is redeemed through judgment, the prophet Isaiah cries (Is. 1:27). There is no other way, for the people of God who are saved are also sinners. Judgment must begin at the house of God, Peter says, for the righteous are scarcely saved (I Peter 4:17, 18). Prof. H. Hanko

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Additional Info

  • Volume: 6
  • Issue: 15
Hanko, Herman

Prof. Herman Hanko (Wife: Wilma)

Ordained: October 1955

Pastorates: Hope, Walker, MI - 1955; Doon, IA - 1963; Professor to the Protestant Reformed Seminary - 1965

Emeritus: 2001

Website: www.sermonaudio.com/search.asp?speakeronly=true&currsection=sermonsspeaker&keyword=Prof._Herman_Hanko

Contact Details

  • Address
    725 Baldwin Dr. B-25
  • City
    Jenison
  • State or Province
    MI
  • Zip Code
    49428
  • Country
    United States
  • Telephone
    616-667-6033

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