FROM “THE MATERIAL” TO “THE SPIRITUAL”  

In the natural, the desire of almost everyone is for more material goods, in order to live, supposedly, a better life.     

Here's a free tip! If your desire is to build the world's largest religion, promise wealth to your followers - and then deliver on it!   

Sadly, too much of the Christian church has gone down this road - at least, the first part of it! The promises of the 'prosperity doctrine' however, have not delivered the goods - other than to the preachers who falsely proclaim them! How sad! No, more than sad!

Disgraceful!     

So what is the Biblical pattern?  

This is where a lot of the confusion comes in. For it depends on whether we look at the New Testament or the Old. There is a key difference between the two.      

OLD COVENANT BLESSINGS    
Blessings under the Old Covenant (Testament) were physical, applying to the family in the case of the patriarchs, and then to the nation of Israel. Abraham and his descendants were promised material blessings and a long life - and received them..

12 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. 13 Then the LORD said to him, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. 15 You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. (Genesis 15:12-15)       

The high point of God's material blessing to Israel was in the time of Solomon, conditional upon obedience to the Lord.....     

10 The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. 11 So God said to him, “Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, 12 I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. 13 Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for—both riches and honor—so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. 14 And if you walk in my ways and obey my statutes and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life.” (1 Kings 3:10-15)

Of course, as we know, Solomon went astray, and the history of Israel was all downhill from there, for the success or failure of the country was determined by the degree of obedience or disobedience of the king to the Lord. The country soon divided into two - Israel and Judah. First Israel disappeared as a nation.....

5 The king of Assyria invaded the entire land, marched against Samaria and laid siege to it for three years. 6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in the towns of the Medes. (2 Kings 17:5-6)   

.....and then Jerusalem was conquered by the Babylonians..... 

The Fall of Jerusalem     

Now Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. 25 So in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his whole army. He encamped outside the city and built siege works all around it. 2 The city was kept under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. 3 By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine in the city had become so severe that there was no food for the people to eat. 4 Then the city wall was broken through, and the whole army fled at night through the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden, though the Babylonians were surrounding the city. They fled toward the Arabah, 5 but the Babylonian army pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho. All his soldiers were separated from him and scattered, 6 and he was captured. He was taken to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where sentence was pronounced on him. 7 They killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. Then they put out his eyes, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon. (2 kings 24:20b-25:25:7)  

The Temple, and city, was destroyed and the majority of the people exiled to Babylon.....

8 On the seventh day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard, an official of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. 9 He set fire to the temple of the LORD, the royal palace and all the houses of Jerusalem. Every important building he burned down. 10 The whole Babylonian army, under the commander of the imperial guard, broke down the walls around Jerusalem. 11 Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard carried into exile the people who remained in the city, along with the rest of the populace and those who had gone over to the king of Babylon. (2 Kings 25:8-11)

.....while a remnant of the people of Judah returned under the leadership of Nehemiah and rebuilt the city walls.....       

15 So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. (Nehemiah 6:15) 

The Temple was rebuilt.....  

15 The temple was completed on the third day of the month Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius. (Ezra 6:15)

but not to its former glory.....

12 But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. (Ezra 3:12)   

After the Babylonians, the nation continued to be under the subjugation of Greece and Rome, until it finally ceased to exist in AD70. The Roman historian Josephus described its fate. 

The Wars of the Jews, Book 6 Chapter 8  

(403) So the Romans being now become masters of the wars, they both placed their ensigns upon the towers, and made joyful acclamations for the victory they had gained, as having found the end of this war much lighter than its beginning; for when they had gotten upon the last was, without any bloodshed, they could hardly believe what they found to be true; but seeing nobody to oppose them, they stood in doubt what such an unusual solitude could mean. (404) But when they went in numbers into the lanes of the city, with their swords drawn, they slew those whom they overtook, without mercy, and set fire to the houses wither the Jews were fled, and burnt every soul in them, and laid waste a great many of the rest; (405) and when they were come to the houses to plunder them, they found in them entire families of dead men, and the upper rooms full of dead corpses, that is of such as died by the famine; they then stood in a horror at this sight, and went out without touching anything. (406) But although they had this commiseration for such as were destroyed in that manner, yet had they not the same for those that were still alive, but they ran every one through whom they met with, and obstructed the very lanes with their dead bodies, and made the whole city run down with blood, to such a degree indeed that the fire of many of the houses was quenched with these men's blood. (407) And truly so it happened, that though the slayers left off at the evening, yet did the fire greatly prevail in the night, and as all was burning, came that eighth day of the month Gorpieus [Elul] upon Jerusalem; (408) a city that had been liable to so many miseries during the siege, that, had it always enjoyed as much happiness from its first foundation, it would certainly have been the envy of the world. Nor did it on any other account so much deserve these sore misfortunes, as by producing such a generation of men as were the occasions of this its overthrow.    

The age of material blessings to a nation was finally over, to be replaced by a better way.

(Part 2 next week)

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