WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LOST TRIBES?
Part One
durch
Brian Williams
(1967)
A Sermon preached by BRIAN WILLIAMS at the Civic Theatre,
Chelmsford Saturday, 24th June, 1967
“Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed
them out of His sight there was none left but the tribe of Judah
only … So was Israel carried away out of their own land into
Assyria unto this day.” – 2 Kings 17 :18, 23.
“Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the
sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it
shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto
slum, Ye are not my people, there it a hall be said unto them, Ye
are the sans of the living God:” – Hoses 1:10
“I say then, hath God cast away His people? God forbid …
God hath not east away His people which He foreknew.” – Romans 11
:1,2.
THE seventeenth chapter of the Second Book of Kings is one
of the saddest in the whole of God’s Word because it tells of the
way in which first Israel and then Judah departed from the Lord.
You will recall that the plan of God as revealed to us
in the Bible was to bring a nation into existence to whom He
could teach His laws and His commandments, so that by the keeping
of those commandments and the keeping of God’s laws that nation
would be blessed above all the nations out the world. It would be
a servant nation, it would be a model nation; and as a result of
their obedience and their blessedness, all the other nations of
the world would glorify the Lord God of Israel. The Bible says,
“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom
He lath chosen for His own inheritance.”
So to understand the revelation of the Bible at all, we must
understand this fact of God’s purpose in bringing the Israel
nation into existence. We remember that God had made many
wonderful promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, concerning the
nation that was to spring from their loins, this nation whose
destiny ultimately was to rule with God. The very name itself,
Is-ra-el, means ruling with God or prince with God. We know also
that when the Lord Jesus Christ returns, He shall reign as King
of kings and Lord of lords, and this nation of Israel which He
created in the first place shall also reign with Him.
What I want us to see is that God has not changed boats
midstream, that He has never gone back upon His Word, that He has
not failed to keep His promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Rather, the Lord Jesus Christ came to confirm the promises
made unto the fathers, and the only reason that there are so many
different interpretations of the prophetic Word is that people
have failed rightly to divide the Word of truth: they have failed
to make the necessary distinction between Israel and the Jews.
(1) The JEWS ARE NOT ISRAEL.
Anyone who is not certain as to this fundamental difference
between Israel and the Jews will find in one book “Britain in
Prophecy” all the information he needs, and there are scriptures
which show that Israel and the Jews are still two entirely
separate people when Christ returns. (This book in its entirety
is on this Website under this section devoted to the prophecies
of the Bible – Keith Hunt).
God’s Word interprets itself, and all we have to do is to
learn rightly to divide the Word of truth, and learn also to
humble our-selves and be willing to be corrected by God’s Word,
and not just read it according to our own preconceived nations
and ideas.
In the First and Second Book of Kings and the First and
Second Book of Chronicles we have related for us the history of
these two nations or kingdoms, the one kingdom of Israel, and the
other kingdom of Judah who ultimately became known as the Jews.
You will recall that when the Israel people came out of
Egypt in the exodus led by Moses, there were twelve tribes of
Israel. If you have maps in the back of your Bible you will
almost certainly have a map showing the division of Cannon – the
promised land – amongst the twelve tribes. You will see the
portion of land that was allotted to each one.
Then you will find that in the first two verses of Psalm 114
God says, “When Israel – that is to say, the twelve tribes – went
out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange
language; Judah was His sanctuary, and Israel His dominion.” so,
in the mind of God, long before there was any division of the
twelve tribes into Israel and Judah, the division already
existed; and it existed for a very good purpose inasmuch as it
would ultimately affect the destiny, the salvation, of every
human being that has ever lived. That may sound an astonishing
statement to make, but if you will bear that in mind and remember
those important verses m Psalm 114, you will see that that is
true!
The Bible speaks in Jeremiah 33, verse 24, of “The two
families which the Lord bath chosen,” that is to say, Judah and
Israel. Elsewhere we read of two houses, or two kingdoms, or two
nations, or – in Ezekiel – of two sisters that were married to
the Lord, In the “Illustrated Bible Geography and Atlas,” it
contains coloured maps clearly showing the division of Canaan,
among the Twelve Tribes, and the later Kingdoms of Judah and
Israel, you may find most helpful.
Now, bear in mind that Kings and Chronicles, these four
books of the Bible, tell us the history of the two people which
the Lord had chosen, and the way in which they cam, to be divided
up into two nations was simply this. For some five hundred years
the twelve tribes were more or less united, but in the time of
Rehoboam [938-921 B.C.], who was the son of Solomon, there was a
revolt amongst the twelve tribes – civil war if you like – and
the result was that ten tribes broke away and called themselves
Israel, the leading tribe of which was Joseph; while the other
two tribes that remained were Judah and Benjamin and they called
themselves Judah. In Kings and Chronicles we have the history of
these two nations.
Unfortunately, a lot of people say that Israel is the Jews,
and that is one of the biggest lies that the devil has ever told.
It is one of the biggest deceptions that has ever taken in
expositors of God’s Word. In fact, the very first time that the
word ‘Jew’ is used in scripture is in 2 Kings, chapter 16 and
verse six, where you will find that Israel were fighting the
Jews, so how can they be the same people? And the Bible says that
in the last days the house of Judah shall walk to the house of
Israel and they shall come together into the land. So if you look
at that very carefully you will find that Israel and the Jews
were entirely two separate people.
(2) HOW THE TEN TRIBES OF ISRAEL CAME TO BE LOST.
Now here in Second Kings, chapter seventeen, the Bible says,
“In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hoshea the son
of Elah to reign in Samaria over Israel nine years.” The Northern
kingdom of Israel had broken away from Judah and had established
as their capital the city of Samaria, while Judah who were
ultimately known as the Jews had as their capital Jerusalem. The
King of Israel reigned in Samaria, the King of Judah reigned in
Jerusalem. So Ahaz king of Judah had been already reigning in
Judah for twelve years when Hoshea the son of Elah came to the
throne and reigned over Israel from Samaria.
“And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, but not
as the kings of Israel that were before him. Against him came up
Shalmaneser king of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant, and
gave him presents.”
How delightful are some of the verses in the Bible; what
volumes we can read into them! Here we find that Hoshea king of
Israel has become a vassal of Shalmaneser king of Assyria, and so
he gives him a present from time to time just to keep on the
right side of him! “And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in
Hoshea: for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and
brought no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by
year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in
prison.” Hoshea had sent messengers to King So who was the king
of Egypt, and had not sent a present that year to the king of
Assyria. This upset the king of Assyria very much and was just
the provocation that he needed to go against Israel and
take them all away captive. You see the wonderful human element
in what some people might think awfully dull history!
“The king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and
went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years. In the ninth
year of Hashes [722 B.C.], the king of Assyria took Samaria, and
carried Israel away into Assyria,” – all the Israelites, all the
people of the ten tribes of Israel, were carried away by this
great Assyrian army – “and placed them in Halah and in Haber by
the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.”
Now the Bible tells us quite clearly why God permitted this:
“For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against
the Lord their God, which had brought them up out of the land of
Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had
feared other gods, and walked in the statutes of the heathen,
whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel, and of
the kings of Israel, which they had made. And the children of
Israel did secretly these things that were not right against the
Lord their God, and they built them high places in all their
cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city. And
they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under
every green tree: and there they burnt incense in all the high
places, as did the heathen whom the Lord carried away before
them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger:
for they served idols, whereof the Lord had said unto them, Ye
shall not do this thing.”
Now in Deuteronomy, chapter 26, verse 16, we find what God
said to Israel, that is to say the twelve tribes, before they
went into the promised land:
“This day the Lord thy God hath commanded thee to do these
statutes and judgments: thou shalt therefore keep and do them
with all thine heart, and with all thy soul. Thou hast avouched
the Lord this day to be thy God, and to walk in His ways, and to
keep His statutes, and His commandments, and His judgments, and
to harken unto His voice: and the Lord bath avouched thee, this
day to be His peculiar people, as He bath promised thee, and that
thou shouldest keep all His commandments; and to make thee high
above all nations which He bath made, in praise, and in name, and
in honour; and that thou mayest be an holy people unto the Lord
thy God, as He bath spoken.”
You understand the principle. God revealed Himself to
Israel. He did not for the time being reveal Himself to any of
the other nations of mankind, but He revealed Himself peculiarly
to Israel, and when He gave to them the ten commandments they
understood something of the character and righteousness of God.
By those ten commandments they knew that God was holy and
righteous and just and perfect. And the commandments of God are
not grievous; they were not intended to produce bondage, but they
are a mirror, if you like, so that when we look into the mirror
of God’s Law we see whether we are clean or ditty. And so it is
God’s commandments which establish the fact of sin, because sin
is the transgression of the law. Every one of us have broken
God’s Commandments and therefore the Bible says that we are
sinners.
And just as for every law there must be a penalty for
breaking that law, so the Bible says that “the wages of sin is
death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ
our Lord.” So God said to Israel, “I will make you the greatest
nation if you will keep my commandments,” which we know that they
were not able to do, as we shall see later on. God knew full well
that no nation in the world could ever attain unto true
righteousness and holiness by mere external formal obedience to
God’s commandments.
Man can only keep God’s commandments as he has the grace of
God in his heart, as he is redeemed by the precious blood of
Jesus, and as he has a new nature and a new character; then the
commandments are written on his heart, and he is able to walk
before God as God desire.
The Lord said to Israel, “If you will keep my commandments,
I will be your God and you shall be my people, and I will make
you the greatest people in the world, so that all other nations
shall see how blessed you are by keeping my commandments.” And
so, of course, all the other nations would have to acknowledge
the God that made Israel great. I am sure you can see the
principle of that!
Now if you look in Deuteronomy, chapter 28, you will see
that the Lord left Israel in no doubt as to where they stood:
“And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt harken diligently unto
the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all His
commandments which I command the, this day, that the Lord thy God
will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: and all
these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee if thou
halt harken unto the voice of the Lord thy God. Blessed shalt
thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.
Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy
ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kin,
and the flocks of thy sheep. Blessed shall be thy basket and thy
store. Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed
shalt thou be when thou goest out The Lord shall cause thine
enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face:
they shall come out against the, one way, and flee before thee
seven ways. The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy
storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and He
shall bless thee, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
The Lord shall establish thee an holy people unto Himself, as
He hath sworn unto thee, if thou shall keep the commandments of
the Lord thy God, and walk in His ways. And all people of
the earth” – please notice this, for this was the purpose of God
in bringing Israel into existence as a nation – “shall see that
thou art called by the name of the Lord; and they, shall be
afraid of thee. And the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods,
in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in
the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the Lord sware unto
thy fathers to give thee. The Lord shall open unto thee His good
treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his
season, and to bless all the Work of thine hand: and thou shalt
lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow. And the Lord
shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be
above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou harken
unto the commandments of the Lord thy God, which I command thee
this day, to observe and to do them: and thou shalt not go aside
from any of the words which I command thee this day, to the right
hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.”
What a marvellous destiny God promised to the children
of Israel if only they would walk in obedience to His
commandments! God said, “I Will make you the greatest nation in
the world; you will enjoy peace, health, prosperity, true
happiness in every sense of the word,” and God’s ways are sell
the same today, and the reason why this world is so full of
frustration, misery, despair, sin, hatred and wickedness, is
because it has turned its back upon God’s laws; because man in
his wisdom which he thinks is superior to God’s, has turned his
back upon everything that God has said and gone his own way. The
Bible says, “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but
the end thereof are the ways of death.” “The way of peace they
know not.”
God promised marvellous blessings to Israel if only they
would walk in obedience to His laws, keep His commandments and
obey His Word. God said, “I will bless you above all the nations
of the world.” “But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not
harken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all
His commandments and His statutes which I command thee this day;
that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake the:
cursed shalt thou he in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the
field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store. Cursed shall be
the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of
thy kin,, and the flocks of thy sheep. Cursed shalt thou be when
thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when then go est out.
The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke in
all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be
destroyed, and until thou perish quickly; because of the
wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me. The Lord
shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until He have
consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest to possess
it. The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a
fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and
with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they
shall pursue thee until thou perish. And thy heaven that is over
thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall
be iron. The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and
dust: from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be
destroyed. The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine
enemies: thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven
ways before them : and shalt he removed into all the kingdoms of
the earth.”
(3) THE TEN TRIBES WENT INTO CAPTIVITY AND NEVER RETURNED.
Everything that God said came to pass. Thus we read in the
Second Book of Kings, chapter 17 and verse 13: “Yet the
Lord testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the
prophets, and by all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil
ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all
the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you
by my servants the prophets. Not-withstanding they would not
hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their
fathers, that they did not believe in the Lord their God. And
they rejected His statutes, and His covenant that He made with
their fathers, and His testimonies which He testified against
them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after
the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the Lord
had charged them, that they should not do like them. And they
left all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made them
molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped
all the host of heaven, and served Baal. And they caused their
sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used
divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in
the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. Therefore the
Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of His
sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only.”
The Israelites never went back to the promised land! They
never went back! The Lord removed them out of His sight: there
was none left but the tribe of Judah only. And as if to emphasize
the importance of what is being said, verse 23 says again, “The
Lord removed Israel out of His sight, as He had said by all His
servants the prophets. So was Israel carried away out of their
own land to Assyria unto this day.”
That is to say, when this particular book of the Bible was
written, the Israelites were still in captivity, they were still
there in Assyria, and never at any time in Bible days or since
have the Israelites ever returned to Palestine.
If anyone is dis-inclined to believe the Word of God, let
him go to any library and consult any standard work of reference,
any book on the history of the peoples of the east, and let him
read what happened in the eighth century B.C. Any and every
history book you care to examine will tell you that between 735
and 670 millions of Israelites were carried captive by the
Assyrians, and every one of those history books will tell you
that nobody to this day knows what happened to all those
Israelites. Except a few Holy Ghost Christians! Glory to God!
I want to let you into a secret! Turn to Romans, chapter 11,
and the first two. There Paul asks the question, “I say then,
hath God cast away His people? God forbid. For I also am an
Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God
hath not cast away His people which He foreknew.”
How strange it is that most of our churches are preaching
diametrically the opposite to what Christ taught! They say that
God finished with Israel because they did not keep His
commandments, that He cast them off, finished with them, and then
had to start something else called the Church of God to make up
for the awful mistake that He made when He chose Israel.
But Jesus Christ came to confirm the promises made unto the
fathers! “God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the Son
of man, that He should repent: hath He said, and shall He not do
it? or has He spoken, and shall He not make it good?”
Did not Jesus say that He had chosen Israel, and that they
should be a holy nation unto Himself? Well then, let us believe
the Word of God, and not the tradition of some of the churches!
Let us believe what God says. “Let God be true, but every man a
liar.”
Let us go back then to Second Kings, chapter 17, and we
shall see the continuation of the story. Remember, the ten tribes
of Israel have been carried captive into Assyria because of their
great wickedness: “The Lord was very angry with Israel, and
removed them out of His sight: there was none left but the tribe
of Judah only. Also Judah kept not the commandments of the Lord
their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made.
And the Lord rejected all the seed of Israel,” – that means He
rejected all twelve tribes. He had already rejected the ten
tribes that went into Assyria and now 130 years afterwards He
rejected the two tribes – “and afflicted them, and delivered them
into the hand of spoilers, until He had cast them out of His
sight. For He rent Israel from the house of David;” – this is
recapitulating on what has gone before “and they made Jeroboam
the son of Nebat king and Jeroboam drave Israel from following
the Lord, and made them sin a great sin. For the children of
Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they
departed not from them; until the Lord removed Israel out of His
sight, as He had said by all His servants the prophets. So was
Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this
day.”
As we have already said, they never returned to Palestine.
“And the king of Assyria brought men front Babylon, and from
Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim and
placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of
Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities
thereof. And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there,
that they feared not the Lord: therefore the Lord sent lions
among them, which slew some of them. Wherefore they spake to the
king of Assyria, saying, The nations which thou hast removed, and
placed in the cities of Samaria, know not the manner of the God
of the land: therefore He hath sent lions among them, and,
behold, they slay them, because they know not the manner of the
God of the land. Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying,
Carry thither one of the priests whom ye brought from thence; and
let him teach them the manner of the God of the land.”
Remember, these people that now came to live in Samaria were
not Israelites, nor were they ever converted to the Lord God of
Israel…”Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from
Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel, and taught them how they should
fear the Lord. Howbeit every nation made gods of their own, and
put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans
had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt … So
they feared the Lord, and made unto themselves of the lowest of
them priests of the high places, which sacrificed for then, in
the houses of the high places. They feared the Lord, and served
their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried
away from thence. Unto this day they do after the former manners:
they fear not the Lord, neither do they after their statutes, or
after their ordinances, or after the law and commandment which
the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, Whom He named Israel;
with whom the Lord had made covenant, and charged them, saying Ye
shall not fear other gods, or bow yourselves to them, nor serve
them, nor sacrifice to them: but the Lord, who brought you up out
of the land of Egypt with great power and a stretched out arm,
Him shall ye fear, and Him shall ye worship, and to Him shall ye
do sacrifice. And the statutes, and the ordinances, and the law,
and the commandment, which He wrote for you, ye shall observe to
do for evermore; and ye shall not fear other gods. And the
covenant that I have made with you ye shall not forget; neither
shall ye fear other gods. But the Lord your God ye shall fear;
and He shall deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies.
Howbeit they did not harken, but they did after their former
manner. So these nations feared the Lord, and served their graven
images, both their children, and their children’s children: as
did their fathers, so do they unto this day.”
What a tragic story, and what an apparently ignominious end
to God’s people! Ten tribes carried into captivity; millions of
Israelites carried captive into Assyria never to return to their
own land, leaving behind two tribes of Judah that kept God’s
commandments a little better than their Israelite fellows had
done and enjoyed intermittent revival, until they too apostatised
so badly that God had to write them off, or so it seemed. By this
time the Assyrian power had fallen and the great empire which
took its place was Babylon. The king of Babylon came and took
Judah captive, and carried them all away into Babylon, leaving no
one behind save a few stragglers, just a tiny remnant of the
people …
(4) THE JEWS RETURNED TO PALESTINE BUT ISRAEL DID NOT.
You might have thought that that was the end of the story
and that God had slipped up somehow, because He had had such high
hopes and expectations of these twelve tribes of His Israel
people, and now they had failed Him so miserably and God had
apparently finished with them and sent them all away, just like
He promised, just like He warned through His prophets.
But now we are to look at another key chapter in the Bible,
Hosea chapter one. Hosea prophesied before Israel was carried
into Assyria and before Judah was carried into Babylon. He
prophesied about 785 B.C., that is to say, rather more than sixty
years before the fall of Samaria [722 B.C.] and the final
capitulation of Israel to the invading Assyrian armies.
“The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in
the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Bud Hezekiah, kings of Judah,
and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel. The
beginning of the word of the Lord by HosEA. And the Lord said to
Hosea, “Go, take unto the, a wife of whoredoms and children of
whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing
from the Lord.”
Now the Bible says that when God made His covenant, the old
covenant, with His Israel people, He was married to them. But the
Bible talks about Him divorcing Israel, putting away His wife,
because Israel had gone after other lovers. Israel had committed
whoredom by going after false gods; she had committed adultery,
and so the Bible says that the Lord Jesus wrote them a bill of
divorce, although He was married to Israel and had been good to
His wife. So here, Hosea is commanded of God to take certain
steps which would enact the fate of the people of God. He was to
marry an unfaithful woman. “So he went and took Gomer the
daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son. And the
Lord said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little
while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of
Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of
Israel.”
This was before it happened ! More than sixty years before
Israel was taken captive to Assyria and lost, God said through
His prophet that it was going to happen! “And it shall come to
pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the
valley of Jezreel. And she conceived again, and bare a daughter.
And God said unto him, Call her name Lo-ruhamah: for I will no
more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take
then, away.”
The name ‘Ruhamah’ means mercy, and ‘Lo’ means ‘not;’ so God
said, “I want you to call your little girl Lo-ruhamah – no
mercy – because I will not have mercy upon the house of Israel;
but I will utterly take them away. But I will have mercy upon the
house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God, and
will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by
horses, nor by horsemen.”
We have seen already that the ten tribes of Israel were
carried captive into Assyria, and 130 years later the two tribes
of Judah, having also forsaken, their God, were carried captive
into Babylon.
God would give them light
by Brian Williams
(a sermon given in 1967)
We have seen already that the ten tribes of Israel were
carried captive into Assyria, and 130 years later the two tribes
of Judah, having also forsaken their God, were carried captive
into Babylon.
But after seventy years, under Cyrus king of Persia, the
Jews were permitted to leave Babylon and come all the way back to
Palestine, and their descendants were there in Jesus’ day.
How did they come back? They did not have to fight their way
back! They were given permission to return to Jerusalem to
rebuild the city and to rebuild the temple, exactly fulfilling
what God had said through His prophet Hosea “Who is he that
saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?”
How can you know a tree prophet?
When he says a thing is going to happen and it comes to
pass, just like he said! “But I will have mercy upon the house of
Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God, and will not
save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by
horsemen.” How marvellously that was fulfilled! Read the books of
Ezra and Nehemiah, and you will find that 42,360 Jews took the
opportunity to return, together with some seven thousand other
people, making just about fifty thousand people that undertook
the long trek from Babylon to Jerusalem, and to rebuild the city
and to rebuild the house of God. And the descendent, of this
mixed multitude were there in Jesus’ day, the only surviving
recognisable remnant of God’s people, because the ten tribes had
gone into Assyria and were apparently lost. Nobody would now
recognize them as being God’s people. And of all the Jews that
had gone into Babylon, only fifty thousand returned and the
others were dispersed. It was the descendants of that remnant of
the Jews that returned to Palestine that was there in Jesus’ day.
Now the Bible says, “Now when she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she
conceived, and bare a son. Then said God, Call his name Loammi:
for ye am not my people, and I will not be your God.” The
name ‘Ammi’ means ‘My people,’ the word ‘Lo’ means ‘Not,’ so
when He said, Call your little boy Lo-ammi, it means ‘Not my
people’ or ‘No people’. So Hosea has three children by his
unfaithful wife. The first one is called ‘I will have my
revenge,’ the second is called ‘No mercy,’ and the third is
called ‘No people,’ revealing picturesquely the forthcoming fate
of the ten tribes of Israel.
(5) SURE PROOF OF ISRAEL’S IDENTITY.
Now here is one of the key verses in all the Bible, Hosea
chapter one, verse ten. If you cannot understand this verse then
I guarantee that you cannot understand the Bible! “Yet the number
of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which
cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that
in the place where it was said unto them, Ye am not my people,
there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living
God.”
Remember what we have seen in 2 Kings 17. Israel gone into
captivity in Assyria never to return, the Jews gone into
captivity in Babylon and permitted to return after seventy years.
Gad says to Israel, I will have my revenge. You who are no longer
obtaining mercy, you who are no longer am people, I am no longer
your God. Yet in spite of all that, “the number of the children
of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be
measured nor numbered.” God says He will make this Israel people
so great in number, who shall be able to number the fourth part
of them? They are the thousands of Manasseh and the ten thousands
of Ephraim!
God says that in spite of the fact of His not having mercy
on Israel, of finishing with them, and sending them into
captivity never to return, He will make them as the sand of the
sea for number, “and it shall come to pass, that in the place
where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall
be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.”
What does that mean, sons of the living God? The Bible says,
“He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many
as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God,
even to them that believe on His name.” It means Christians. The
Bible says, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed
upon us, that we should be called the sons of God therefore the
world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not. Beloved, now are
we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be:
but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for
we shall see Him as He is.”
Hath God cast away His people which He foreknew? Paul says,
with all the power at his command, “God forbid.” How could God
cast off the people to whom He had made such glorious and exceed-
ing great and precious promises, that they should be a people
after His own heart? How could God do away with this people and
so nullify the promise made to Abraham when He said, “In blessing
I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as
the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea
shore, and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in
thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because
thou hast obeyed my voice”, and, when He promised “In Isaac shall
thy seed be called”; when He said, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau
have I hated”; and when He said, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful
and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee,
and kings shall came out of thy loins,” all of which promises
were to be fulfilled “in the last days”
Praise the Lord! Everywhere in the Bible we find that the
last days are shown to be this Christian dispensation. Look at
Hebrews, chapter one, and the first two verses: “God, who at
sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the
fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us
by His Son.” So the last days are the days of the Christian
dispensation when the good news of the gospel is sounding forth
throughout the ends of the earth, and God said that in the last
days, Joseph’s descendants would be “a nation and a company of
nations”. From his elder son Manasseh would come a great people,
and from his younger son Ephraim would come a multitude, or
fullness, of nations that would be as the dust of the earth,
spreading abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north,
and to the south, inhabiting the waste places of the earth; a
people blessed with blessings of heaven above and the earth
beneath and the deep that lieth under; a people blessed above all
the nations of the world; a people that would take the gospel
throughout the ends of the earth, because they would be the sons
of the living God.
What happened? O glory to God! God did not break one of His
promises. Oh how I wish could proclaim this to Billy Graham’s
congregation at Earl’s Court Arena tonight! I wish I could shout
it from every rooftop and proclaim it from every pulpit: “Blessed
be the Lord God of Israel; for He bath visited and redeemed His
people.” How did He do it? We have read it so many times this
week: let us look again at Isaiah, chapter 53. God sent His
prophet to speak to Israel, and he said, “Who hath believed our
report?”; and who will believe the message that we bring? It is
almost too fantastic for words! “Who bath believed our report,
and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For He shall grow up
before Him as a tender plant, and as a mot out of a dry ground:
He bath no form or comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there
is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and
rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and
we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we
esteemed Him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried
our Sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and
afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was
bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was
upon Him; and with His stripes we am healed. All we like sheep
have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and
the Lord bath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was
oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His month: He
is brought as a Iamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her
shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His month. He was taken from
prison and from judgment: and who shall declare His generation?
for He was cut off out of the land of the living: for the
transgression of my people was He stricken. And He made His grave
with the wicked, and with the rich in His death; because He had
done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it
pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He bath put Him to grief: when
Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His
seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord
shall prosper in His hand. He shall see of the travail out His
soul, he shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall my righteous
Servant justify many; for He shall hear their iniquities
Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He
shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He bath poured
out His soul unto death: and He was numbered with the
transgressors; and He bare the sin of many, and made intercession
for the transgressors.”
What happened? Israel was carried away captive. God said I
will have my revenge, you will no longer be my people and I will
not be your God, and I will utterly take you away. But in spite
of that, that the promises made to Abraham and the fathers might
stand, and that all the World might wonder at the grace, the
love, the compassion, the mercy, the incomparable Wisdom of
Almighty God, God says He will make His Israel people so great in
number that it is impossible to count them, and in the place
where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, it will he
said of them, You are Christians, sons of the living God. In the
last days of this Christian dispensation, the ten tribes of
Israel are to have became a Christian nation.
How could it come about? By redemption. To redeem means to
buy back something that belonged to you in the first place. The
Bible says, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He hath
visited and redeemed His people.” “Thou shalt call His name
JESUS: for He shall save His people from their sins.” O glory to
God!
“Paschal Lamb, by God appointed, All our sins on Thee were
laid; By almighty love anointed, Thou hast full atonement
made: All Thy people are forgiven Through the virtue of Thy
blood; Opened is the gate of heaven;
Peace is made ‘twixt men and God.”
May we close with Jeremiah, chapter 31, verse 31, to round
off what we have said:
“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new
covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in
the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the
land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an
husband unto them, saith the Lard: But this shall be the covenant
that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days,
saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and
write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall
be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his
neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for
they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest
of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I
will remember their sin no more. Thus saith the Lord, which
giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon
and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea
when the waves thereof roar; The Lord of hosts is His name: If
those Ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the
seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me far
ever. Thus saith the Lord, If heaven above can be measured, and
the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also
cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done,
saith the Lard.”
O that we might understand the matchless grace of God! How
would the new covenant be established with the house of Israel?
How could God have mercy upon this people whom He had cast
off for breaking the very commandments, the keeping of which
would make them to be the greatest people in the world? Read
Matthew 26, verse 26: “And as they were eating, Jesus took bread,
and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and
said, Take, eat; this is my body. And He took the cup, and gave
thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this
is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the
remission of sins.”
The Lord said, “I will make a new covenant with the house of
Israel”, and Jesus, the night He was betrayed, said, “This cup is
the new testament – the new covenant – in my blood.” Hallelujah!
His Israel people, cast away, never returning to Palestine,
is in the last days, in the economy of God, to be frond a people
that as a nation has begun to come under the new covenant, that
has embraced – at least nominally – the glorious Gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and is known throughout all the ends of the
earth as a Christian nation and commonwealth of nations.
The apostle Paul sums it all up in Romans, chapter 11,
reading from verse 29: “For the gifts and calling of God are
without repentance.” God called Israel in the first place, and
“God hath not cast away His people which He foreknew.” “For as ye
in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained merry,
through their unbelief: even so have these also now not believed,
that through your mercy they also may obtain merry. For God hath
concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon
all.”
God purposed for His Israel people to be lost, to become an
obscure people, that in the fullness of time they might receive
the Gospel of His dear Son the Lord Jesus Christ, in ignorance of
their true identity, that through them the nations of the world
might also come under the blessings of this new covenant.
And so Paul throws his arms up in the air, words almost
failing him at this point to express the great and marvellous
thing that God has done, and he says: “O the depth of the riches
both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His
judgments, and His ways passed finding out! For who bath known
the mind of the Lord? Or who hash been His counsellor? Or who
hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him
again? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things:
to whom be glory for ever. Amen.”
You know what happened to the Lost Tribes, and you know who
they are.
“Ye seed of Israel’s chosen race, Ye ransomed from The fall,
Hail Him who saves you by His grace, And crown Him Lord of
all”
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LOST TRIBES?
Part One
durch
Brian Williams
(1967)
A Sermon preached by BRIAN WILLIAMS at the Civic Theatre,
Chelmsford Saturday, 24th June, 1967
“Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed
them out of His sight there was none left but the tribe of Judah
only … So was Israel carried away out of their own land into
Assyria unto this day.” – 2 Kings 17 :18, 23.
“Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the
sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it
shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto
slum, Ye are not my people, there it a hall be said unto them, Ye
are the sans of the living God:” – Hoses 1:10
“I say then, hath God cast away His people? God forbid …
God hath not east away His people which He foreknew.” – Romans 11
:1,2.
THE seventeenth chapter of the Second Book of Kings is one
of the saddest in the whole of God’s Word because it tells of the
way in which first Israel and then Judah departed from the Lord.
You will recall that the plan of God as revealed to us
in the Bible was to bring a nation into existence to whom He
could teach His laws and His commandments, so that by the keeping
of those commandments and the keeping of God’s laws that nation
would be blessed above all the nations out the world. It would be
a servant nation, it would be a model nation; and as a result of
their obedience and their blessedness, all the other nations of
the world would glorify the Lord God of Israel. The Bible says,
“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom
He lath chosen for His own inheritance.”
So to understand the revelation of the Bible at all, we must
understand this fact of God’s purpose in bringing the Israel
nation into existence. We remember that God had made many
wonderful promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, concerning the
nation that was to spring from their loins, this nation whose
destiny ultimately was to rule with God. The very name itself,
Is-ra-el, means ruling with God or prince with God. We know also
that when the Lord Jesus Christ returns, He shall reign as King
of kings and Lord of lords, and this nation of Israel which He
created in the first place shall also reign with Him.
What I want us to see is that God has not changed boats
midstream, that He has never gone back upon His Word, that He has
not failed to keep His promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Rather, the Lord Jesus Christ came to confirm the promises
made unto the fathers, and the only reason that there are so many
different interpretations of the prophetic Word is that people
have failed rightly to divide the Word of truth: they have failed
to make the necessary distinction between Israel and the Jews.
(1) The JEWS ARE NOT ISRAEL.
Anyone who is not certain as to this fundamental difference
between Israel and the Jews will find in one book “Britain in
Prophecy” all the information he needs, and there are scriptures
which show that Israel and the Jews are still two entirely
separate people when Christ returns. (This book in its entirety
is on this Website under this section devoted to the prophecies
of the Bible – Keith Hunt).
God’s Word interprets itself, and all we have to do is to
learn rightly to divide the Word of truth, and learn also to
humble our-selves and be willing to be corrected by God’s Word,
and not just read it according to our own preconceived nations
and ideas.
In the First and Second Book of Kings and the First and
Second Book of Chronicles we have related for us the history of
these two nations or kingdoms, the one kingdom of Israel, and the
other kingdom of Judah who ultimately became known as the Jews.
You will recall that when the Israel people came out of
Egypt in the exodus led by Moses, there were twelve tribes of
Israel. If you have maps in the back of your Bible you will
almost certainly have a map showing the division of Cannon – the
promised land – amongst the twelve tribes. You will see the
portion of land that was allotted to each one.
Then you will find that in the first two verses of Psalm 114
God says, “When Israel – that is to say, the twelve tribes – went
out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange
language; Judah was His sanctuary, and Israel His dominion.” so,
in the mind of God, long before there was any division of the
twelve tribes into Israel and Judah, the division already
existed; and it existed for a very good purpose inasmuch as it
would ultimately affect the destiny, the salvation, of every
human being that has ever lived. That may sound an astonishing
statement to make, but if you will bear that in mind and remember
those important verses m Psalm 114, you will see that that is
true!
The Bible speaks in Jeremiah 33, verse 24, of “The two
families which the Lord bath chosen,” that is to say, Judah and
Israel. Elsewhere we read of two houses, or two kingdoms, or two
nations, or – in Ezekiel – of two sisters that were married to
the Lord, In the “Illustrated Bible Geography and Atlas,” it
contains coloured maps clearly showing the division of Canaan,
among the Twelve Tribes, and the later Kingdoms of Judah and
Israel, you may find most helpful.
Now, bear in mind that Kings and Chronicles, these four
books of the Bible, tell us the history of the two people which
the Lord had chosen, and the way in which they cam, to be divided
up into two nations was simply this. For some five hundred years
the twelve tribes were more or less united, but in the time of
Rehoboam [938-921 B.C.], who was the son of Solomon, there was a
revolt amongst the twelve tribes – civil war if you like – and
the result was that ten tribes broke away and called themselves
Israel, the leading tribe of which was Joseph; while the other
two tribes that remained were Judah and Benjamin and they called
themselves Judah. In Kings and Chronicles we have the history of
these two nations.
Unfortunately, a lot of people say that Israel is the Jews,
and that is one of the biggest lies that the devil has ever told.
It is one of the biggest deceptions that has ever taken in
expositors of God’s Word. In fact, the very first time that the
word ‘Jew’ is used in scripture is in 2 Kings, chapter 16 and
verse six, where you will find that Israel were fighting the
Jews, so how can they be the same people? And the Bible says that
in the last days the house of Judah shall walk to the house of
Israel and they shall come together into the land. So if you look
at that very carefully you will find that Israel and the Jews
were entirely two separate people.
(2) HOW THE TEN TRIBES OF ISRAEL CAME TO BE LOST.
Now here in Second Kings, chapter seventeen, the Bible says,
“In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hoshea the son
of Elah to reign in Samaria over Israel nine years.” The Northern
kingdom of Israel had broken away from Judah and had established
as their capital the city of Samaria, while Judah who were
ultimately known as the Jews had as their capital Jerusalem. The
King of Israel reigned in Samaria, the King of Judah reigned in
Jerusalem. So Ahaz king of Judah had been already reigning in
Judah for twelve years when Hoshea the son of Elah came to the
throne and reigned over Israel from Samaria.
“And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, but not
as the kings of Israel that were before him. Against him came up
Shalmaneser king of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant, and
gave him presents.”
How delightful are some of the verses in the Bible; what
volumes we can read into them! Here we find that Hoshea king of
Israel has become a vassal of Shalmaneser king of Assyria, and so
he gives him a present from time to time just to keep on the
right side of him! “And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in
Hoshea: for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and
brought no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by
year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in
prison.” Hoshea had sent messengers to King So who was the king
of Egypt, and had not sent a present that year to the king of
Assyria. This upset the king of Assyria very much and was just
the provocation that he needed to go against Israel and
take them all away captive. You see the wonderful human element
in what some people might think awfully dull history!
“The king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and
went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years. In the ninth
year of Hashes [722 B.C.], the king of Assyria took Samaria, and
carried Israel away into Assyria,” – all the Israelites, all the
people of the ten tribes of Israel, were carried away by this
great Assyrian army – “and placed them in Halah and in Haber by
the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.”
Now the Bible tells us quite clearly why God permitted this:
“For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against
the Lord their God, which had brought them up out of the land of
Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had
feared other gods, and walked in the statutes of the heathen,
whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel, and of
the kings of Israel, which they had made. And the children of
Israel did secretly these things that were not right against the
Lord their God, and they built them high places in all their
cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city. And
they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under
every green tree: and there they burnt incense in all the high
places, as did the heathen whom the Lord carried away before
them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger:
for they served idols, whereof the Lord had said unto them, Ye
shall not do this thing.”
Now in Deuteronomy, chapter 26, verse 16, we find what God
said to Israel, that is to say the twelve tribes, before they
went into the promised land:
“This day the Lord thy God hath commanded thee to do these
statutes and judgments: thou shalt therefore keep and do them
with all thine heart, and with all thy soul. Thou hast avouched
the Lord this day to be thy God, and to walk in His ways, and to
keep His statutes, and His commandments, and His judgments, and
to harken unto His voice: and the Lord bath avouched thee, this
day to be His peculiar people, as He bath promised thee, and that
thou shouldest keep all His commandments; and to make thee high
above all nations which He bath made, in praise, and in name, and
in honour; and that thou mayest be an holy people unto the Lord
thy God, as He bath spoken.”
You understand the principle. God revealed Himself to
Israel. He did not for the time being reveal Himself to any of
the other nations of mankind, but He revealed Himself peculiarly
to Israel, and when He gave to them the ten commandments they
understood something of the character and righteousness of God.
By those ten commandments they knew that God was holy and
righteous and just and perfect. And the commandments of God are
not grievous; they were not intended to produce bondage, but they
are a mirror, if you like, so that when we look into the mirror
of God’s Law we see whether we are clean or ditty. And so it is
God’s commandments which establish the fact of sin, because sin
is the transgression of the law. Every one of us have broken
God’s Commandments and therefore the Bible says that we are
sinners.
And just as for every law there must be a penalty for
breaking that law, so the Bible says that “the wages of sin is
death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ
our Lord.” So God said to Israel, “I will make you the greatest
nation if you will keep my commandments,” which we know that they
were not able to do, as we shall see later on. God knew full well
that no nation in the world could ever attain unto true
righteousness and holiness by mere external formal obedience to
God’s commandments.
Man can only keep God’s commandments as he has the grace of
God in his heart, as he is redeemed by the precious blood of
Jesus, and as he has a new nature and a new character; then the
commandments are written on his heart, and he is able to walk
before God as God desire.
The Lord said to Israel, “If you will keep my commandments,
I will be your God and you shall be my people, and I will make
you the greatest people in the world, so that all other nations
shall see how blessed you are by keeping my commandments.” And
so, of course, all the other nations would have to acknowledge
the God that made Israel great. I am sure you can see the
principle of that!
Now if you look in Deuteronomy, chapter 28, you will see
that the Lord left Israel in no doubt as to where they stood:
“And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt harken diligently unto
the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all His
commandments which I command the, this day, that the Lord thy God
will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: and all
these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee if thou
halt harken unto the voice of the Lord thy God. Blessed shalt
thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.
Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy
ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kin,
and the flocks of thy sheep. Blessed shall be thy basket and thy
store. Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed
shalt thou be when thou goest out The Lord shall cause thine
enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face:
they shall come out against the, one way, and flee before thee
seven ways. The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy
storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and He
shall bless thee, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
The Lord shall establish thee an holy people unto Himself, as
He hath sworn unto thee, if thou shall keep the commandments of
the Lord thy God, and walk in His ways. And all people of
the earth” – please notice this, for this was the purpose of God
in bringing Israel into existence as a nation – “shall see that
thou art called by the name of the Lord; and they, shall be
afraid of thee. And the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods,
in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in
the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the Lord sware unto
thy fathers to give thee. The Lord shall open unto thee His good
treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his
season, and to bless all the Work of thine hand: and thou shalt
lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow. And the Lord
shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be
above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou harken
unto the commandments of the Lord thy God, which I command thee
this day, to observe and to do them: and thou shalt not go aside
from any of the words which I command thee this day, to the right
hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.”
What a marvellous destiny God promised to the children
of Israel if only they would walk in obedience to His
commandments! God said, “I Will make you the greatest nation in
the world; you will enjoy peace, health, prosperity, true
happiness in every sense of the word,” and God’s ways are sell
the same today, and the reason why this world is so full of
frustration, misery, despair, sin, hatred and wickedness, is
because it has turned its back upon God’s laws; because man in
his wisdom which he thinks is superior to God’s, has turned his
back upon everything that God has said and gone his own way. The
Bible says, “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but
the end thereof are the ways of death.” “The way of peace they
know not.”
God promised marvellous blessings to Israel if only they
would walk in obedience to His laws, keep His commandments and
obey His Word. God said, “I will bless you above all the nations
of the world.” “But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not
harken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all
His commandments and His statutes which I command thee this day;
that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake the:
cursed shalt thou he in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the
field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store. Cursed shall be
the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of
thy kin,, and the flocks of thy sheep. Cursed shalt thou be when
thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when then go est out.
The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke in
all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be
destroyed, and until thou perish quickly; because of the
wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me. The Lord
shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until He have
consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest to possess
it. The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a
fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and
with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they
shall pursue thee until thou perish. And thy heaven that is over
thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall
be iron. The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and
dust: from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be
destroyed. The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine
enemies: thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven
ways before them : and shalt he removed into all the kingdoms of
the earth.”
(3) THE TEN TRIBES WENT INTO CAPTIVITY AND NEVER RETURNED.
Everything that God said came to pass. Thus we read in the
Second Book of Kings, chapter 17 and verse 13: “Yet the
Lord testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the
prophets, and by all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil
ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all
the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you
by my servants the prophets. Not-withstanding they would not
hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their
fathers, that they did not believe in the Lord their God. And
they rejected His statutes, and His covenant that He made with
their fathers, and His testimonies which He testified against
them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after
the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the Lord
had charged them, that they should not do like them. And they
left all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made them
molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped
all the host of heaven, and served Baal. And they caused their
sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used
divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in
the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. Therefore the
Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of His
sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only.”
The Israelites never went back to the promised land! They
never went back! The Lord removed them out of His sight: there
was none left but the tribe of Judah only. And as if to emphasize
the importance of what is being said, verse 23 says again, “The
Lord removed Israel out of His sight, as He had said by all His
servants the prophets. So was Israel carried away out of their
own land to Assyria unto this day.”
That is to say, when this particular book of the Bible was
written, the Israelites were still in captivity, they were still
there in Assyria, and never at any time in Bible days or since
have the Israelites ever returned to Palestine.
If anyone is dis-inclined to believe the Word of God, let
him go to any library and consult any standard work of reference,
any book on the history of the peoples of the east, and let him
read what happened in the eighth century B.C. Any and every
history book you care to examine will tell you that between 735
and 670 millions of Israelites were carried captive by the
Assyrians, and every one of those history books will tell you
that nobody to this day knows what happened to all those
Israelites. Except a few Holy Ghost Christians! Glory to God!
I want to let you into a secret! Turn to Romans, chapter 11,
and the first two. There Paul asks the question, “I say then,
hath God cast away His people? God forbid. For I also am an
Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God
hath not cast away His people which He foreknew.”
How strange it is that most of our churches are preaching
diametrically the opposite to what Christ taught! They say that
God finished with Israel because they did not keep His
commandments, that He cast them off, finished with them, and then
had to start something else called the Church of God to make up
for the awful mistake that He made when He chose Israel.
But Jesus Christ came to confirm the promises made unto the
fathers! “God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the Son
of man, that He should repent: hath He said, and shall He not do
it? or has He spoken, and shall He not make it good?”
Did not Jesus say that He had chosen Israel, and that they
should be a holy nation unto Himself? Well then, let us believe
the Word of God, and not the tradition of some of the churches!
Let us believe what God says. “Let God be true, but every man a
liar.”
Let us go back then to Second Kings, chapter 17, and we
shall see the continuation of the story. Remember, the ten tribes
of Israel have been carried captive into Assyria because of their
great wickedness: “The Lord was very angry with Israel, and
removed them out of His sight: there was none left but the tribe
of Judah only. Also Judah kept not the commandments of the Lord
their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made.
And the Lord rejected all the seed of Israel,” – that means He
rejected all twelve tribes. He had already rejected the ten
tribes that went into Assyria and now 130 years afterwards He
rejected the two tribes – “and afflicted them, and delivered them
into the hand of spoilers, until He had cast them out of His
sight. For He rent Israel from the house of David;” – this is
recapitulating on what has gone before “and they made Jeroboam
the son of Nebat king and Jeroboam drave Israel from following
the Lord, and made them sin a great sin. For the children of
Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they
departed not from them; until the Lord removed Israel out of His
sight, as He had said by all His servants the prophets. So was
Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this
day.”
As we have already said, they never returned to Palestine.
“And the king of Assyria brought men front Babylon, and from
Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim and
placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of
Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities
thereof. And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there,
that they feared not the Lord: therefore the Lord sent lions
among them, which slew some of them. Wherefore they spake to the
king of Assyria, saying, The nations which thou hast removed, and
placed in the cities of Samaria, know not the manner of the God
of the land: therefore He hath sent lions among them, and,
behold, they slay them, because they know not the manner of the
God of the land. Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying,
Carry thither one of the priests whom ye brought from thence; and
let him teach them the manner of the God of the land.”
Remember, these people that now came to live in Samaria were
not Israelites, nor were they ever converted to the Lord God of
Israel…”Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from
Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel, and taught them how they should
fear the Lord. Howbeit every nation made gods of their own, and
put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans
had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt … So
they feared the Lord, and made unto themselves of the lowest of
them priests of the high places, which sacrificed for then, in
the houses of the high places. They feared the Lord, and served
their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried
away from thence. Unto this day they do after the former manners:
they fear not the Lord, neither do they after their statutes, or
after their ordinances, or after the law and commandment which
the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, Whom He named Israel;
with whom the Lord had made covenant, and charged them, saying Ye
shall not fear other gods, or bow yourselves to them, nor serve
them, nor sacrifice to them: but the Lord, who brought you up out
of the land of Egypt with great power and a stretched out arm,
Him shall ye fear, and Him shall ye worship, and to Him shall ye
do sacrifice. And the statutes, and the ordinances, and the law,
and the commandment, which He wrote for you, ye shall observe to
do for evermore; and ye shall not fear other gods. And the
covenant that I have made with you ye shall not forget; neither
shall ye fear other gods. But the Lord your God ye shall fear;
and He shall deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies.
Howbeit they did not harken, but they did after their former
manner. So these nations feared the Lord, and served their graven
images, both their children, and their children’s children: as
did their fathers, so do they unto this day.”
What a tragic story, and what an apparently ignominious end
to God’s people! Ten tribes carried into captivity; millions of
Israelites carried captive into Assyria never to return to their
own land, leaving behind two tribes of Judah that kept God’s
commandments a little better than their Israelite fellows had
done and enjoyed intermittent revival, until they too apostatised
so badly that God had to write them off, or so it seemed. By this
time the Assyrian power had fallen and the great empire which
took its place was Babylon. The king of Babylon came and took
Judah captive, and carried them all away into Babylon, leaving no
one behind save a few stragglers, just a tiny remnant of the
people …
(4) THE JEWS RETURNED TO PALESTINE BUT ISRAEL DID NOT.
You might have thought that that was the end of the story
and that God had slipped up somehow, because He had had such high
hopes and expectations of these twelve tribes of His Israel
people, and now they had failed Him so miserably and God had
apparently finished with them and sent them all away, just like
He promised, just like He warned through His prophets.
But now we are to look at another key chapter in the Bible,
Hosea chapter one. Hosea prophesied before Israel was carried
into Assyria and before Judah was carried into Babylon. He
prophesied about 785 B.C., that is to say, rather more than sixty
years before the fall of Samaria [722 B.C.] and the final
capitulation of Israel to the invading Assyrian armies.
“The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in
the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Bud Hezekiah, kings of Judah,
and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel. The
beginning of the word of the Lord by HosEA. And the Lord said to
Hosea, “Go, take unto the, a wife of whoredoms and children of
whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing
from the Lord.”
Now the Bible says that when God made His covenant, the old
covenant, with His Israel people, He was married to them. But the
Bible talks about Him divorcing Israel, putting away His wife,
because Israel had gone after other lovers. Israel had committed
whoredom by going after false gods; she had committed adultery,
and so the Bible says that the Lord Jesus wrote them a bill of
divorce, although He was married to Israel and had been good to
His wife. So here, Hosea is commanded of God to take certain
steps which would enact the fate of the people of God. He was to
marry an unfaithful woman. “So he went and took Gomer the
daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son. And the
Lord said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little
while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of
Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of
Israel.”
This was before it happened ! More than sixty years before
Israel was taken captive to Assyria and lost, God said through
His prophet that it was going to happen! “And it shall come to
pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the
valley of Jezreel. And she conceived again, and bare a daughter.
And God said unto him, Call her name Lo-ruhamah: for I will no
more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take
then, away.”
The name ‘Ruhamah’ means mercy, and ‘Lo’ means ‘not;’ so God
said, “I want you to call your little girl Lo-ruhamah – no
mercy – because I will not have mercy upon the house of Israel;
but I will utterly take them away. But I will have mercy upon the
house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God, and
will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by
horses, nor by horsemen.”
We have seen already that the ten tribes of Israel were
carried captive into Assyria, and 130 years later the two tribes
of Judah, having also forsaken, their God, were carried captive
into Babylon.
God would give them light
by Brian Williams
(a sermon given in 1967)
We have seen already that the ten tribes of Israel were
carried captive into Assyria, and 130 years later the two tribes
of Judah, having also forsaken their God, were carried captive
into Babylon.
But after seventy years, under Cyrus king of Persia, the
Jews were permitted to leave Babylon and come all the way back to
Palestine, and their descendants were there in Jesus’ day.
How did they come back? They did not have to fight their way
back! They were given permission to return to Jerusalem to
rebuild the city and to rebuild the temple, exactly fulfilling
what God had said through His prophet Hosea “Who is he that
saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?”
How can you know a tree prophet?
When he says a thing is going to happen and it comes to
pass, just like he said! “But I will have mercy upon the house of
Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God, and will not
save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by
horsemen.” How marvellously that was fulfilled! Read the books of
Ezra and Nehemiah, and you will find that 42,360 Jews took the
opportunity to return, together with some seven thousand other
people, making just about fifty thousand people that undertook
the long trek from Babylon to Jerusalem, and to rebuild the city
and to rebuild the house of God. And the descendent, of this
mixed multitude were there in Jesus’ day, the only surviving
recognisable remnant of God’s people, because the ten tribes had
gone into Assyria and were apparently lost. Nobody would now
recognize them as being God’s people. And of all the Jews that
had gone into Babylon, only fifty thousand returned and the
others were dispersed. It was the descendants of that remnant of
the Jews that returned to Palestine that was there in Jesus’ day.
Now the Bible says, “Now when she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she
conceived, and bare a son. Then said God, Call his name Loammi:
for ye am not my people, and I will not be your God.” The
name ‘Ammi’ means ‘My people,’ the word ‘Lo’ means ‘Not,’ so
when He said, Call your little boy Lo-ammi, it means ‘Not my
people’ or ‘No people’. So Hosea has three children by his
unfaithful wife. The first one is called ‘I will have my
revenge,’ the second is called ‘No mercy,’ and the third is
called ‘No people,’ revealing picturesquely the forthcoming fate
of the ten tribes of Israel.
(5) SURE PROOF OF ISRAEL’S IDENTITY.
Now here is one of the key verses in all the Bible, Hosea
chapter one, verse ten. If you cannot understand this verse then
I guarantee that you cannot understand the Bible! “Yet the number
of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which
cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that
in the place where it was said unto them, Ye am not my people,
there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living
God.”
Remember what we have seen in 2 Kings 17. Israel gone into
captivity in Assyria never to return, the Jews gone into
captivity in Babylon and permitted to return after seventy years.
Gad says to Israel, I will have my revenge. You who are no longer
obtaining mercy, you who are no longer am people, I am no longer
your God. Yet in spite of all that, “the number of the children
of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be
measured nor numbered.” God says He will make this Israel people
so great in number, who shall be able to number the fourth part
of them? They are the thousands of Manasseh and the ten thousands
of Ephraim!
God says that in spite of the fact of His not having mercy
on Israel, of finishing with them, and sending them into
captivity never to return, He will make them as the sand of the
sea for number, “and it shall come to pass, that in the place
where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall
be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.”
What does that mean, sons of the living God? The Bible says,
“He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many
as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God,
even to them that believe on His name.” It means Christians. The
Bible says, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed
upon us, that we should be called the sons of God therefore the
world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not. Beloved, now are
we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be:
but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for
we shall see Him as He is.”
Hath God cast away His people which He foreknew? Paul says,
with all the power at his command, “God forbid.” How could God
cast off the people to whom He had made such glorious and exceed-
ing great and precious promises, that they should be a people
after His own heart? How could God do away with this people and
so nullify the promise made to Abraham when He said, “In blessing
I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as
the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea
shore, and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in
thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because
thou hast obeyed my voice”, and, when He promised “In Isaac shall
thy seed be called”; when He said, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau
have I hated”; and when He said, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful
and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee,
and kings shall came out of thy loins,” all of which promises
were to be fulfilled “in the last days”
Praise the Lord! Everywhere in the Bible we find that the
last days are shown to be this Christian dispensation. Look at
Hebrews, chapter one, and the first two verses: “God, who at
sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the
fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us
by His Son.” So the last days are the days of the Christian
dispensation when the good news of the gospel is sounding forth
throughout the ends of the earth, and God said that in the last
days, Joseph’s descendants would be “a nation and a company of
nations”. From his elder son Manasseh would come a great people,
and from his younger son Ephraim would come a multitude, or
fullness, of nations that would be as the dust of the earth,
spreading abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north,
and to the south, inhabiting the waste places of the earth; a
people blessed with blessings of heaven above and the earth
beneath and the deep that lieth under; a people blessed above all
the nations of the world; a people that would take the gospel
throughout the ends of the earth, because they would be the sons
of the living God.
What happened? O glory to God! God did not break one of His
promises. Oh how I wish could proclaim this to Billy Graham’s
congregation at Earl’s Court Arena tonight! I wish I could shout
it from every rooftop and proclaim it from every pulpit: “Blessed
be the Lord God of Israel; for He bath visited and redeemed His
people.” How did He do it? We have read it so many times this
week: let us look again at Isaiah, chapter 53. God sent His
prophet to speak to Israel, and he said, “Who hath believed our
report?”; and who will believe the message that we bring? It is
almost too fantastic for words! “Who bath believed our report,
and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For He shall grow up
before Him as a tender plant, and as a mot out of a dry ground:
He bath no form or comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there
is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and
rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and
we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we
esteemed Him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried
our Sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and
afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was
bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was
upon Him; and with His stripes we am healed. All we like sheep
have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and
the Lord bath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was
oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His month: He
is brought as a Iamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her
shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His month. He was taken from
prison and from judgment: and who shall declare His generation?
for He was cut off out of the land of the living: for the
transgression of my people was He stricken. And He made His grave
with the wicked, and with the rich in His death; because He had
done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it
pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He bath put Him to grief: when
Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His
seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord
shall prosper in His hand. He shall see of the travail out His
soul, he shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall my righteous
Servant justify many; for He shall hear their iniquities
Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He
shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He bath poured
out His soul unto death: and He was numbered with the
transgressors; and He bare the sin of many, and made intercession
for the transgressors.”
What happened? Israel was carried away captive. God said I
will have my revenge, you will no longer be my people and I will
not be your God, and I will utterly take you away. But in spite
of that, that the promises made to Abraham and the fathers might
stand, and that all the World might wonder at the grace, the
love, the compassion, the mercy, the incomparable Wisdom of
Almighty God, God says He will make His Israel people so great in
number that it is impossible to count them, and in the place
where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, it will he
said of them, You are Christians, sons of the living God. In the
last days of this Christian dispensation, the ten tribes of
Israel are to have became a Christian nation.
How could it come about? By redemption. To redeem means to
buy back something that belonged to you in the first place. The
Bible says, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He hath
visited and redeemed His people.” “Thou shalt call His name
JESUS: for He shall save His people from their sins.” O glory to
God!
“Paschal Lamb, by God appointed, All our sins on Thee were
laid; By almighty love anointed, Thou hast full atonement
made: All Thy people are forgiven Through the virtue of Thy
blood; Opened is the gate of heaven;
Peace is made ‘twixt men and God.”
May we close with Jeremiah, chapter 31, verse 31, to round
off what we have said:
“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new
covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in
the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the
land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an
husband unto them, saith the Lard: But this shall be the covenant
that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days,
saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and
write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall
be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his
neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for
they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest
of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I
will remember their sin no more. Thus saith the Lord, which
giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon
and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea
when the waves thereof roar; The Lord of hosts is His name: If
those Ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the
seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me far
ever. Thus saith the Lord, If heaven above can be measured, and
the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also
cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done,
saith the Lard.”
O that we might understand the matchless grace of God! How
would the new covenant be established with the house of Israel?
How could God have mercy upon this people whom He had cast
off for breaking the very commandments, the keeping of which
would make them to be the greatest people in the world? Read
Matthew 26, verse 26: “And as they were eating, Jesus took bread,
and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and
said, Take, eat; this is my body. And He took the cup, and gave
thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this
is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the
remission of sins.”
The Lord said, “I will make a new covenant with the house of
Israel”, and Jesus, the night He was betrayed, said, “This cup is
the new testament – the new covenant – in my blood.” Hallelujah!
His Israel people, cast away, never returning to Palestine,
is in the last days, in the economy of God, to be frond a people
that as a nation has begun to come under the new covenant, that
has embraced – at least nominally – the glorious Gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and is known throughout all the ends of the
earth as a Christian nation and commonwealth of nations.
The apostle Paul sums it all up in Romans, chapter 11,
reading from verse 29: “For the gifts and calling of God are
without repentance.” God called Israel in the first place, and
“God hath not cast away His people which He foreknew.” “For as ye
in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained merry,
through their unbelief: even so have these also now not believed,
that through your mercy they also may obtain merry. For God hath
concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon
all.”
God purposed for His Israel people to be lost, to become an
obscure people, that in the fullness of time they might receive
the Gospel of His dear Son the Lord Jesus Christ, in ignorance of
their true identity, that through them the nations of the world
might also come under the blessings of this new covenant.
And so Paul throws his arms up in the air, words almost
failing him at this point to express the great and marvellous
thing that God has done, and he says: “O the depth of the riches
both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His
judgments, and His ways passed finding out! For who bath known
the mind of the Lord? Or who hash been His counsellor? Or who
hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him
again? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things:
to whom be glory for ever. Amen.”
You know what happened to the Lost Tribes, and you know who
they are.
“Ye seed of Israel’s chosen race, Ye ransomed from The fall,
Hail Him who saves you by His grace, And crown Him Lord of
all”