Fully Devoted: Israel, Act 2Sample

Taken Into Exile

Imagine what it would be like to be ripped from your home and taken to a vastly different country over a thousand miles away from everything you’ve ever known, with no certainty about whether you would ever be able to return. This was the situation the exiled generation found themselves in. They had worshipped other gods and taken advantage of the last and the least for too long. They ignored the warnings of the prophets and rejected the presence of God. So God gave them what they thought they wanted. He allowed them to be a part of the nations they were lusting after. 

This chapter of the biblical story, the Exile, is a defining period for the people of Israel. Before this, they had experienced being enslaved by the Egyptians, being occupied by the Philistines, but this … this was different. Never before had they experienced such a dramatic defeat at the hands of their enemies. Never before had they been carried away from the land that God had promised them. Never before had they tasted the bitter consequences of sin so severely. 

One of the most striking prophetic statements from this part of the story comes from the Prophet Ezekiel:

Then the glory of the LORD departed from over the threshold of the temple and stopped above the cherubim. While I watched, the cherubim spread their wings and rose from the ground, and as they went, the wheels went with them … Ezekiel 10:18-19 NIV

Ezekiel said this to the people of Israel before they were taken into exile. In his message of warning, he was trying to wake the people of Israel up to the reality that they had so defiled the name of their God and the temple He called home that, if they didn’t repent, He would leave. Based on the accounts of the prophets, it seems like the people didn’t take this warning seriously. They took the presence of God for granted. 

And so the people of Israel, ruled by their sinful desires, continued to indulge in idol worship and injustice. These people who had once been rescued by God from Egypt, had in many ways become a new Egypt. The consequences of their sin was exile. To be taken from the land they had been given and into captivity in Babylon.

This pattern of human rebellion, God’s offer of redemption, and our rejection of that offer just keeps repeating itself. It started in the garden with Adam and Eve. They walked with God in the garden of Eden. They had freedom and purpose and intimacy, but it wasn’t enough. They wanted more. And that lust for more sparked a rebellion in their hearts that threw all of creation into disorder. The consequences of their rebellion? Exile from Eden. 

Now, so many generations later, the pattern is being repeated. The people of Israel, chosen by God to be His holy nation, rebel against Him being their God. God sends the prophets to call out their wrongdoing and invite them to return to Him. But they reject His offers of redemption. Their unrestrained desires lead to people being trampled over in the pursuit of power. To stop this cycle of sin and violence, God allows them to experience the consequences of their rebellion. What were those consequences? Exile from the Promised Land. 

But God is a faithful God. He maintains His love to the thousandth generation. Eventually, His glory would inhabit a new temple. But this temple would not be one made of brick and mortar. This would be a temple made of flesh and blood. 

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14 NIV

God’s glory departed from the temple in Jerusalem, but it returned in the person of Jesus. And now, because of Jesus, everyone who is in Christ has become a new temple! The Church, the people of God living out the will of God, is the new temple. A community of forgiveness and redemption. A community stitched together by the Spirit of God and formed by the grace of Jesus. 

The exile was never meant to be a final judgement. The exile was one more step in God’s plan to rescue humanity from sin and restore creation. 

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:4-5 NIV

Journaling Questions 

• What verse or verses stuck out to you today? Take some time to write those down. Why did they stand out? 
• In your own words, describe the significance of God’s glory leaving the temple. How might the Jewish people have felt when they heard those words from the prophet Ezekiel? 
• How does your view of yourself and the way you live change knowing that the presence of God now dwells in you?

Memory Verse

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8 NIV