One of the nicknames for New Zealand is Godzone, for the nation merges two Peoples: the English (and Scots) of the British Empire who colonized the land, and the Maori, who had been converted by the Anglican and Catholic Missionaries before the treaty, stopping three decades of genocidal tribal warfare.
When American was founded the Puritans tried to set up a city on a shining hill, a place where true justice and true righteousness existed, that the world may see the glory of God.
But I mus stay this: it is immaterial. God did not spare Israel, who were founded by the commands of the Law of righteousness, and in the inheritance promised to Abraham.
Because the Israelites chose evil, not good. And if he did not spare Israel, he will spare us.
In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel, and he reigned nine years. And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him. Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria. And Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute. But the king of Assyria found treachery in Hoshea, for he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and offered no tribute 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. Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria, and for three years he besieged it.
In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, who 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 customs of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced. And the people of Israel did secretly against the LORD their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city. They set up for themselves pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree, and there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the LORD carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the LORD to anger, and they served idols, of which the LORD had said to them, “You shall not do this.” Yet the LORD warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”
But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the LORD their God. They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the LORD had commanded them that they should not do like them. And they abandoned all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal. And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings and used divination and omens and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger. Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but the tribe of Judah only.
Hosea thought he could be clever, he could triangulate between the two great imperial nations of the fertile crescent then: Egypt and Assyria. (The Greeks had not gone imperial. They were but city states). But it mattered not: the political tricks could not spare him.
And the Assyrians used the tactics rediscovered by Stalin: deport, resettle, scatter. Let the people forget their covenant. Let them intermarry. Let the people die. Fools have talked about where the missing ten tribes of Israel are, trying to claim the promises given from Reuben to Issachar.
But that is not the lesson to take. If you destroy the child (in the womb or as an infant), if you follow the rules of those around you who are not of God, you will be destroyed. Righteous does exalt a nation: and preaching corruption (calling it equality and justice) does not.
It does not. A nation will not only lose leadership, but flirts with offending a God who actively raises and destroys Peoples. There may be evolutionary pressures still on the human species, but also there is a God who we have offended.
Those of faith, in the west are a remnant.
And those who continue to say that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God are less still. But the storm is upon us. It is not time for post modern twittering, but to preserve, to restore, to return to the way of our forefathers.
Or we can continue to hate the patriarchy and be destroyed, together with our institutionalized right to infanticide and pederasty.
In this vein its interesting to read Daniel. In the face of danger he and his 3 colleagues did not abandon their culture and the relationship with God – they clung to God while fitting in with the local culture and rising to the top of it. They could have both a relationship with God and succeed in a hostile world but the latter depended on the former being respected rather than the other way around.
The interesting thing about the Founding Fathers is that, while most weren’t terribly faithful Christians, they understood that self-rule only would work with proper structure and a Christian population. And that’s because it requires one to take responsibility for themselves. And we see where the evil in the Human Heart exists when it works so hard against it.
As for ancient Israel, their kings were never willing to listen to God. They didn’t want the memo God sent to Josiah, for instance, about what was to be done.