Protective Judgments (5) - Israel

Establishing Israel did two things to constrain the growth of evil in the world.

1. God gave Israel the law to constrain personal and social evil. God intended that other nations to copy Israel and get a similar reduction in personal and social evil by applying God’s law. Unfortunately, Israel chose to copy the nations and have a king, so they never demonstrated the benefits of God’s law to the nations. The law should have constrained personal evil in Israel and throughout the world.

2. God planted Israel in the playground of empires in the middle of the world to provide himself with a prophetic voice to announce protective judgments against emerging evil in the surrounding empires and nations. The strategic position of Israel in the Middle East meant that any emerging empire would eventually pass through it on the way to do battle with its enemies. The rampaging of the empires gave the prophets of Israel authority to speak God’s judgments against them. When the empires took people from Israel into captivity, they bought prophets into their midst and strengthening the power of the prophetic voice. Joseph and Daniel are prophets who ended up within the empires that God planned to destroy. Protective judgments and the prophets constrained political evil.

These two solutions were not perfect, because only the cross and the spirit can fully deal with evil. However, this two-pronged strategy for dealing with personal and political, should have kept the world from totally going to the dogs.