Israel's Mission as a Nation

Notes

1. "He sets the bounds of the people [nations] according to the number of the children of Israel." God has always had Israel in mind. All who will be saved from this world will constitute the Israel of God, the exact number that was in "His eternal purpose," "which was given us in Christ Jesus, before the world began." God's one and only purpose in the existence of nations in this world is that that number which will constitute Israel shall be gathered out.

2. "That they might seek the Lord." Whenever a nation reaches that point in its history that men can no longer have the opportunity of seeking the Lord, the Lord has no further use for that nation, and it comes to its end.

3. "But their time should have endured forever." All who study these lessons closely will see that the Lord made every provision, first, that His kingdom in this world might have been eternally established, with Adam as its head; second, Adam having failed, after the flood provision was made for the establishment of the kingdom, with Noah as head; third, up to this time there had been no organized kingdom in the world, and the controversy was between God and Satan as to who should be king, and if the subjects of the rightful Sovereign had proved true and loyal to Him, His kingdom would have prevailed; fourth, under Nimrod, Satan endeavored to set up his form of organized government in the world, and the overthrow of that effort was the origin of nations as they have existed in this world; fifth, in the nation of Israel, with God Himself as King, the Lord sought to set up His form of organized government, in territory usurped by Satan; sixth, if the nation of Israel had been true and loyal to God and kept His commandments, He would have subdued every enemy, given them the whole earth, and "their time should have endured forever;" seventh, in God's eternal purpose provision was made, through the promised Seed, to meet every emergency and every failure on man's part, "to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed." When the plan is all worked out, God will set up His throne on this earth, and every subject who shall have proved true and loyal to the principles of His government will then "possess the kingdom under the whole heaven."

4. As Christ is the light of the world, so His church is set to be the light of the world. The Lord designed, through the nation of Israel, through the principles of His government, to reveal His character to all other nations in the world. If Israel had been true to God and His government, they would have shed the light of the glory of God upon all the world, and would have unmasked the character of Satan and his government.

5. Abraham went down to Egypt 1921 B. C. (Gen. 12:10, see date in margin.) Four hundred and thirty years would reach to 1491. Not only did they go out in that year, but on the "selfsame day of that year." Ex. 12:41, marginal date. "Like the stars in the vast circuit of their appointed path, God's purposes know no haste and no delay. Through the symbols of the great darkness and the smoking furnace, God had revealed to Abraham the bondage of Israel in Egypt, and had declared that the time of their sojourning should be four hundred years. 'Afterward,' He said, 'shall they come out with great substance.' Against that word all the power of Pharaoh's proud empire battled in vain. 'On the selfsame day,' appointed in the divine promise, 'it came to pass that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.'"—Desire of Ages, page 35.