Do You Not See These Things? - Part 2

Do your eyes see? Do your ears hear? Good question for each one of us. Jesus mentions that question several times, including alluding to the seven churches in Revelation. If you and I don't happen to see the looming catastrophes that are building up around us, the fulfillment of in-time prophecies that are rising up to be fulfilled, there is still time to do so. There is time for us to refocus and to get close to God, to get close to His Word, and to be prepared for the return of Jesus Christ, which He advocated that we do several times. In Matthew, the 24th chapter, in verse 37, Jesus says this, a tip for you and me, but as the days of Noah were, so also will be the coming of the Son of Man. That is a tip. That is a special tip. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating, drinking, marrying, given in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark. Now, in other words, for a hundred odd years, life was normal until the day they entered the ark. A work had been going on in their presence. Noah had been telling them. He had been a shining different example. He had this massive ark, probably being jeered at for building this thing out on the prairie. And they entered the ark, and it was sealed, and it would still be another week. Imagine that was an interesting time of rumors and news going around. People and animals sealed in the ark out there on the plain. But, as he says, they did not know until the flood came and took them all away. So also will the coming of the Son of Man be. So you and I can't just look out and say, well, if things look really, really bad, then it might be happening. He's saying life is going to be going on, you know, fairly normally. No great anticipation. Now, let's pick up the story in trying to understand what's going on in our day and how things can seem pretty normal, depending on which country you're in and which place you're in and how you've grown up and what your culture is. We might not see things quite the way Jesus Christ would want us to. Let's pick up the story where we left the Israelites last time in part one of, do you not see these things? We saw the Israelites come into their God-given inheritance in the Promised Land, and we saw that God allocated tribal lands around where He would be in the temple. But there were two underlying factors here that can help us understand what was going on then, what went on subsequently, what has happened down through time and today. There's a couple other factors. Once we understand that, we can begin to see society today through a bit of a different lens. Let's go back to Genesis 32 and verse 9. Genesis 32 and verse 9. God made a promise, and this promise is a prophecy. Genesis 32 and verse 9. Then Jacob, or Israel, said, O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, return to your country and to your family, and I will deal well with you.

As we drop down to verse 12. For you said, I will surely treat you well, and make your descendants as the sand of the sea which cannot be numbered for multitude. So God said the descendants of Jacob, the 12 tribes of Israel, would be so great it would be like the sand of the sea and they couldn't be numbered. Now when you look at the promised land, it is about the same size and shape as Vancouver Island. It's a, you know, maybe a hundred miles or so long and maybe 40 miles wide. How do you fit more people in that particular piece of land than you can number? And it grows from there. Let's go to chapter 35 and verse 9 of Genesis. Genesis 35 and verse 9. And then God appeared to Jacob again, and he blessed him and said, Your name is Jacob, you shall not be called Jacob anymore, but Israel shall be your name. In verse 11, and God said to him, I am God Almighty, be fruitful and multiply. Notice, a nation and company of nations shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body. This is a prophecy. It's not necessarily a blessing. Let's not confuse the two. This is a prophecy. God knew what would happen. This individual, Israel, would blossom out into nations with kings and descendants that were many. He says in verse 12, The land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, I give to you, and to your descendants after you, I give this land. So here's another key. They're going to be big, and they're going to be everywhere, but the land was the land that God gave to Abraham. That's where they should be. Are the modern locations of the 12 tribes some new promised land that God gave them? Is there something else missing in the Bible where God said, Oh no, I changed my mind?

Or are these prophecies about where they are today due to something else? Let's go to Deuteronomy 31. Deuteronomy 31, beginning in verse 25.

Deuteronomy 31, 25.

Moses commanded the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying, Take this book of the law and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there is a witness against you. For I know your rebellion and your stiff neck. If today, while I am yet alive with you, you have been rebellious against the Lord, then how much more after my death? Moses asked.

Gather to me all the elders of your tribes, twelve tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their hearing and call heaven and earth to witness against them. For I know that after my death you will become utterly corrupt and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you, and evil will befall you in the latter days. Because you will do evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger through the work of your hands. God knew where this was going. God knew what was going to happen down through time. And how true this has been!

Shortly after receiving the Promised Land, we can skip forward now to Joshua chapter 23. They have come into this Promised Land. And in Joshua chapter 23 in verse 5, "...and the Lord your God will expel them before you..." He's talking about these people, the Amorites, the Jebusites, the Hivites, and others who were in that land. "...the Lord will expel them from before you and drive them out of your sight..." Some of those countries, not countries, but city-states, you might call them, that had not been driven out yet. Not all the Israelites had their land yet. "...so you shall possess their land as the Lord your God promised you..." Notice that. "...you shall possess their land as the Lord your God promised you." Verse 6, "...therefore be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, lest you turn aside from it to the right hand or to the left..." Verse 8, "...but you shall hold fast to the Lord your God..." It means to grab on and hold tight as you have done to this day. Verse 9, "...for the Lord is driven out from before you, great and strong nations, but as for you no one has been able to stand against you to this day. One man of you shall chase a thousand, for the Lord your God is he who fights for you as he promised you. Therefore be careful, take careful heed to yourselves that you love the Lord your God. Or if indeed you go back and cling to the remnant of these nations that remain among you, and you make marriages with them, and you go into them, and they to you know for certain that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations from before you. But they shall be snares and traps to you, and scourges on your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land which the Lord your God has given you." In verse 14, "...behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth, and you know in all your hearts and in your souls that not one thing has failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spoke concerning you. All have come to pass for you, not one word of them has failed. Therefore it shall come to pass that as all the good things have come upon you which the Lord your God promised you, so the Lord will bring upon you all harmful things until he has destroyed you from this good land which the Lord your God has given you. When you have transgressed the covenant of the Lord your God which he commanded, and have gone and served other gods, and bowed down to them, then the anger of the Lord will burn against you, and you shall perish quickly from the good land that he has given you." So we see here why the 12 tribes aren't in their land. We see they had a promise that if they stayed there, God would be their God. But if they disobeyed God, if they fled from him as it were, did not cling to him and follow him, they would not be in the land.

The second element we need to understand is, as we saw last time, the tribe of Joseph was prominent during their time in Egypt. Joseph, Ephraim, and Manasseh were very, very prominent. In this sermon, I'd like to examine these two underlying tribal factors that factor into why the tribes are where they are today and why they're not there in the Promised Land. The title of this sermon is, Do You Not See These Things? Part 2. Family feuds. Family feuds happen, it seems, to humanity. And they began early in the lineage of Jacob. You remember rivalries and jealousies right from the start. Esau and Jacob and his brothers and Joseph being sold by brothers down into slavery. Later, jealousy sprang up in the wilderness. In the organization, and people revolted and wanted something more than what they were given. When they came into their territories, you'll notice that their territories were different. They were all different. Some were in mountains, some were in plains, some were fertile, some were big, some were small. Joseph had the greatest allocation. In fact, Manasseh, the firstborn, had the largest land and then got another section of land on the other side of the Jordan River. Human nature never misses an opportunity to compare oneself with someone else to envy, fairness, equality, recognition, respect, rights. All these things flare up in the human mind. When Israel went into Egypt, Joseph was the benefactor. He was the leader. He was the Ephraim and the Manasseh. Then, when Israel came out of Egypt, that shifted. The tribe of Levi, under Moses and his brother Aaron, suddenly were at God's side. All the leadership was coming through them. Things had changed. The high priest family and the vedical priesthood were the only ones who could have that direct contact at the tabernacle. They were issuing the orders of when you had to do this, what you had to sacrifice, how you had to eat, how you collect your manna, etc., etc. There was a lot of rebellion during that time. We think it's just rebellion because they didn't like it. But there's a lot of other factors there, as we're going to see in just a minute. It probably encouraged the tribe of Ephraim when Moses selected one of theirs, again, to be a leader. That was Joshua. Joshua was an Ephraimite. Once again, a descendant of Joseph would be back with the helm and back at the helm once Israel triumphantly entered into the Promised Land. In retrospect, that brief interim under Levi probably seemed like kind of a fluke in a way because now you have Joshua the Ephraimite, and he is moving with God. Let's go back, though, before we go too far to Numbers 2 and verse 2, and pick up a little bit of the 40 years that took place before Joshua led them in there.

Numbers 2 and verse 2. God spoke to Moses and said, Every one of the children of Israel shall camp by his own standard. So you will have a standard. You will have your crest of your tribe, and that will be your standard. So now we have a close identification with which tribe you're in. Beside the emblems of his father's house. So now we have this identity, this culture, this personal pride, and they shall camp some distance from the tabernacle of meeting. And then he goes down and shows where they will camp. I'll just describe that to you.

Each of the 12 tribes was grouped into four divisions, and each of those four divisions had a lead tribe. So if you were of one tribe, you were linked with three other tribes, and one of those tribes would be the head. Thus you had four heads, and then you had eight that weren't heads, and each of you had these standards. On the east side of the tabernacle was Judah, with the tribe of Issachar and Zebulun. Judah was the leading or the coordinating tribe. It was the one who would be in charge of those three. On the south side of the tabernacle was Reuben, with Simeon and Gad, subject to Reuben. On the west side was Ephraim, with Manasseh and Benjamin. Remember that. You have Joseph, Ephraim, Manasseh, and you have Benjamin. And then on the north side of the tabernacle was Dan, with Asher and Naftali. And this is how they camped. Remember how Jesus' disciples argued who was the greatest? This is not far from any of us. We all have human nature, and we all do these comparison things. Let's go to Numbers chapter 1, just back up to verse 52 of Numbers chapter 1. And when the tabernacle is to go forward, the Levites shall take it down. So that's a special group. Only they could disassemble and prepare the tabernacle for travel. And when the tabernacle is to be set up, the Levites shall set it up. The outsider who comes near shall be put to death. Obviously, they were special.

The children of Israel shall pitch their tents, everyone by his own camp, everyone by his own standard. So here we have it, laid out. In verse 53, but the Levites shall camp around the tabernacle of the testimony that there may be no wrath on the congregation of the children of Israel, and the Levites shall keep charge of the tabernacle of testimony. So there it is. It's laid out. If everybody submitted to God and they submitted to authority, everything would work very, very well.

But let's look at Numbers chapter 10 and verse 13.

Numbers chapter 10 and verse 13. They weren't always camped.

So they started out for the first time. They all packed up and they started out for the first time. According to the commandment of the Lord by the hand of Moses. And the standard of the camp of the children of Judah set out first. So whenever they traveled, Judah led. That was special. They led. They had a standard. They, in a sense, were right up there by the burning cloud or the burning fire at night, the cloud by day. Very special. They set out with their armies.

In verse 17 we find coming after that, then the tabernacle was taken down and the sons of Gershon carried the tabernacle. So Levites then followed these first three tribes with the physical building. The wood, the skins, that were the structure. So the structure followed the first three. Now we come down to verse 21. Then the co-hethites set out carrying the holy things. So you had, in verse 18, Reuben followed, Reuben and two tribes followed the physical structure of the temple, and then came the holy things. Now right before the holy things was Zebulun.

I'm sorry, right before the tabernacle was Zebulun, right before the holy things was Gad. And then the holy things of the tabernacle followed there in verse 21. Right behind the holy things were Ephraim. Ephraim. Ephraim we find down in verse 22, and the standard of the camp of Ephraim set out according to their armies, and they were right there with the holy things. Now it's one thing to have the holy things behind you. That's not what you're looking at. But Ephraim looked at the holy things. Everything that was holy. The Ark of the Covenant, the holy things from the temple. All of that was right there. And Ephraim, and the leaders of Ephraim in the front row, were special. Verse 25, back at the tail, the standard of the camp of the children of Dan, the rear guard of all the camps, it says. You know, when you're at the back of a few million animals and people, you're kind of in the ruts and dodging things. And there's not a lot to see. You don't feel real special back there, probably. So during this wilderness journey, Levi was temporarily the most prominent.

But their standing was hotly contested. We see the leaders of Reuben seeing the tabernacle in their front line view, and Zebulun, right in front of the tabernacle, or the holy things, they join in a challenge of Levitical preeminence. Numbers, chapter 16, and verse 3, going forward.

Numbers, chapter 16, and verse 3, you take too much upon yourselves. Korah.

We look here in verse 1, now Korah, the son of Ishar, the son of Coeth, the son of Levi. Korah was a Levite, but a jealous Levi. And so he gets with Dathan and Abiram and on the son of Pila, sons of Reuben, and took men, and they rose up before Moses with some of the children of Israel. So you get this personal, I want more, 250 leaders of the congregation, representatives of the congregation, men of renown. And they gathered and said against Moses and Aaron, you take too much upon yourselves, for all the congregation is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord? Which is what they wanted to do, obviously. Of course, God clarified by opening up the ground who his leaders were, but the undercurrents of jealousy would remain there. Judah led. Dan was at the rear. What if your tribe wasn't one of the big four, even? What if you were one of the subservient tribes? Was your tribe lesser than the other tribe that wasn't the head of the three? If you were the lead tribe, was your lead tribe better or less than the other lead tribes? You can see how this works. It just goes on and on. But finally, by the time Israel had crossed the Jordan, the walls of Jericho had fallen, Ephraim had reestablished its preeminence.

Joshua, the Ephraimite, set up the national headquarters deep inside the land of Ephraim. That's where it was. Let's go to Joshua 18 and verse 1. Joshua 18 and verse 1. Now the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled together at Shiloh. You can just draw a circle around Ephraim and put a bull's-eye there. And you've got Shiloh. And they set up the tabernacle of meeting there, and the land was subdued before them. So this dominant tribe flanked by its other brothers, Manasseh to the north, a big land area of Manasseh, and Benjamin right to the south. And on the southern border of Benjamin, there was a little town called Jerusalem. We'll get to that in a little bit. In Joshua chapter 19 and verse 49 now, when they had made an end of dividing the land as an inheritance according to their borders, the children of Israel gave an inheritance among them to Joshua the son of Nun. According to the word of the Lord, they gave him the city which he asked for, Timnath-Sira in the mountains of Ephraim. And he built the city and dwelt in it.

These were the inheritances which Eliezer, the priest, Joshua, the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel divided as an inheritance by law in Shiloh before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. So that's where God's tabernacle was, and that's where they met him in the middle of Ephraim. Now, this center of power, which is also the center of worship, the center of everything, in fact, was in Ephraim. National legends were associated with the land of Ephraim. Joshua 24 and verse 29. Right here at the end of the book of Joshua, notice, now it came to pass after these things that Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being 110 years old. And they buried him within the border of his inheritance at Temnath Sarah, which is in the mountains of Ephraim. Now in verse 32, the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel had brought out of Egypt, they buried at Shechem in the plot of ground which Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor. In verse 33, and Eliezer, the son of Aaron, died, and they buried him, and a hilling belonged to Phineas, his son, which was given him in the mountains of Ephraim. I mean, everybody who is the historical figurehead is buried in Ephraim. Now, later, we find in Judges chapter 4 and verse 4, an individual, a judge, Deborah, Judges chapter 4 and verse 4, now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel at the time. And she would sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Rama and Bethel in the mountains of Ephraim. Samuel would become the greatest one ever in 1 Samuel chapter 1. If we just go forward, 1 Samuel chapter 1 and verse 1, the book opens with these words. Now, there was a certain man in Rama-theim, Zoh-theim, of the mountains of Ephraim.

And this was the father of Samuel. Samuel and his whole family was from the heart of Ephraim. So the predominant tribe in Israel was Joseph, or Ephraim and Manasseh. Meanwhile, in the south, Judah and Benjamin were growing in their preeminence in that southern region. And these were powerful rivals that were developing. Judah had led the Israelites those years. Now, Ephraim was in charge, but there was quite a rivalry growing, and they were in close proximity to one another. Why was Saul chosen as Israel's first king? Why did God allow that? God started stepping the power center south out of Ephraim. We go to 1 Chronicles chapter 28 and verse 4. 1 Chronicles chapter 28 and verse 4.

Saul was a Benjaminite. So within the realm of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin, God now moves the kingship to Benjamin. Israel then entered what was a united kingdom phase. They were good enough with a man from the umbrella, you might say, of Joseph in the north. They chose him. They went along with that for a time. Historically, Benjamin was under that standard. And you had the two rival entities now with an individual that had equal access. The tribes of the north had equal access to this Benjaminite. Judah was right next to Benjaminite. They had equal access. Now, when Saul was pursuing David to kill him, notice where David fled for refuge. He went to Israel's enemy on the coast, the Philistines. These were warrior people. In fact, David had just been fighting against them. But it was so hot between the northern ten tribes and the southern tribe of Judah, the kingdom of what would become the kingdom of Judah, David left and went to Philistines.

The Philistines would later hang Saul's head in their temple. They would nail his body to their city wall. And yet, David felt safer among the Philistines than he did in the climate of rivalry that existed there. In 1 Samuel, chapter 27, verse 1, 1 Samuel, 27, beginning in verse 1, And David said in his heart, Now I shall perish some day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than I should speedily escape to the land of Philistines. So, verse 2, David arose and went there with six hundred men. Verse 3, he dwelt there, he and his men. Verse 4, He was told Saul that he had fled there. And verse 6, So Achish gave him Ziklag that day, and therefore Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah to this day. Now, the time that David dwelt in the country of the Philistines was one full year and four months. A little time later, Saul would die in battle, and David was anointed king. But king over who? We pick this up in 2 Samuel, chapter 2, and verse 4. 2 Samuel, chapter 2, verse 4. We think of this as, again, the united monarchy period of Israel, but it wasn't so united. 2 Samuel, chapter 2, verse 4, Then the men of Judah came, and there they anointed David king over the house of Judah. And they told David, saying, The men of Jabish Gilead were the ones who buried Saul. So the men of Judah took him as king. And David reigned over Judah only for several years. He reigned from Hebron, a city deep inside Judah, south of Jerusalem.

Ephraim and Manasseh reacted to this news. Let's go to verse 8. But Abner, the son of Nour, commander of Saul's army, took Ishb-Seth, the son of Saul, brought him over to Manam, and he made him king over Gilead, over the Asherites, over Jezreel, over Ephraim, over Benjamin, and over all of Israel. So when David was anointed king, the other tribes quickly anointed their own king. In verse 10, Ishb-Seth, Saul's son, was 40 years old when he began to reign over Israel, and he reigned two years. Notice, only the house of Judah followed David.

This country is split in two at this point. Philistines have had the ark of the covenant in one of their pagan temples. Saul begins to end his life, and things begin to deteriorate even further. We go to 2 Samuel chapter 3 now, in verse 1.

Now there was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David. You have civil war. This is how divided the country is. Civil war. But David grew stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker. The southern tribe of Judah and the northern tribes had a power shift, and things shifted south to Judah. War. War causes deaths, deaths of friends, deaths of family, loss of possessions. The losers suffer defeat. It makes them angry. Eventually, the northerners did unite under David during the reigns of David and Solomon. Let's go to 2 Chronicles now. 2 Chronicles chapter 1 and verse 3. 2 Chronicles chapter 1 and verse 3. Now this may seem like ancient, ancient history that's irrelevant. It has a lot of relevance to what is happening today and will happen in the future and what has happened to bring things up till now. 1 Chronicles chapter 1 and verse 13. So Solomon came to Jerusalem from the high place that was in Gibeon from before the tabernacle of meeting and reigned over Israel. The tabernacle is still up in Gibeon. It's still up there where it was. And he reigned over Israel. But what's going to happen here is he's going to start shifting south. He's going to shift the tabernacle and Benjamin to the Temple Mount at Jerusalem located on the border. And verse 3. Then Solomon and all the assembly with him went to the high place that was at Gibeon for the tabernacle of meeting. For God was there which Moses the servant of the Lord had made in the wilderness. So that's where God had been. But that was not where it was going to be. Verse 4. But David had brought up the ark of the God from Kir-jeth-jirim to a place David had prepared for him, for he had pitched a tent for it at Jerusalem. So the ark of the covenant had come to Jerusalem by now.

Now, if we go to chapter 2, in verse 1, Solomon determined to build a temple for the name of the Lord and a royal house for himself. If we go to chapter 3, in verse 1, Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah. See, now we're back to Mount Moriah, where we were last time. In 1 Kings 9 and verse 3, 1 Kings 9 and verse 3, And the Lord said to him, I've heard your prayer, the supplication that you have made before me. I have consecrated this house which you have built to put my name there forever, and my eyes and my heart will be there perpetually. Now, if you walk before me, as your father David walked, and the integrity of heart and uprightness to do all that I have commanded you, and if you keep my statutes and judgments, see this through the lens of the northern ten tribes, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever. As I promised David your father, you shall not fail to have a man to sit on the throne of Israel from the house of David, from Judah. Wow! Joseph permanently shut out. Ephraim permanently excluded from rulership. Never would Judah lack a man to sit on the throne of David. But which man? Which man? That's the question, and we'll see the answer to that in a moment.

But, verse 6, if you or your sons at all turn from following me, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them, and this house which I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight. Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples. As we see here, God would not allow these people to dwell in the promised land if they were not going to follow Him, but they would extricate them from there. So we have this time of the United Monarchy, especially under Solomon. Things went pretty well. In chapter 11 of 1 Kings, we see in verse 26, then Solomon's servant Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and Ephraimite, get this, one of Solomon's servants in the court, and Ephraimite rebelled against the king. Verse 27, and this is what caused him to rebel against the king. Solomon had built the milo and repaired the damages to the city of David his father. There was jealousy there. The man Jeroboam was a mighty man of valor, and Solomon, seeing that the young man was industrious, made him the officer over all the labor forces of the house of Joseph. Oh, house of Joseph, Ephraim, Manasseh.

Now, it happened at that time when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem that the prophet Ahijah the Shylenite met him on the way, and he clothed himself with a garment, and the two of them were alone in the field. And Ahijah took hold of the new garment that was on him, and he tore it into twelve pieces. And he said to Jeroboam, take for yourself ten pieces, ten tribes. For thus says the Lord, Behold, I will tear the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to you.

Solomon had gotten corrupt. But he shall have one tribe for the sake of my servant David, and for the sake of Jerusalem. So this is pretty big, big stuff. In verse 42, Solomon died. In the period that Solomon reigned over Jerusalem, in Jerusalem over Israel was 40 years. And then Solomon rested with his father and was buried in the city of David his father, and Rehoboam his son reigned in his place. You're probably familiar with what happens from there.

In chapter 12 and verse 16, now when all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, What share have we in David? What share have we in Judah? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse to your tents, O Israel. Now see to your own house, O David. So Israel departed to their tents, but Rehoboam reigned over the children of Israel and dwelt in the cities of Judah. In verse 25, then Jeroboam built Shechem in the mountains of Ephraim and dwelt there.

In verse 26, Jeroboam said in his heart, Now the kingdom may return to the house of David. If these people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then the heart of the people will turn back to their Lord, Rehoboam, king of Judah. They will kill me and go back to Rehoboam, king of Judah. Verse 28, Therefore they made two calves of gold, and He said to the people, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem.

Here are your gods, O Israel. You wonder why the ten tribes aren't worthy? It should be. Well, here it is. Here are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt. He sent one up in Bethel, the other he put in Dan. And he made shrines in verse 31, made classes of people who were not sons of Levi. Verse 32, He ordained a feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month. He moved the Feast of Tabernacles. He moved the feast, the autumn festivals. And he did that. In verse 33, He made offerings on the altar.

And He ordained a feast for the children of Israel and offered sacrifices on the altar and burnt incense. So here we have a split. And Ephraim and Nasser split these tribes into two kingdoms. The Kingdom of the North were ten tribes, as we saw in that prophecy, and the Kingdom of the South with Judah. Now, in conclusion, later Isaiah revealed the identity of the one who would sit on the throne of David. It would always be available. Never lack a man to sit on the throne of David. Let's conclude by reading Isaiah chapter 9 and verse 6.

Isaiah chapter 9 and verse 6. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end upon the throne of David and over his kingdom to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. By rejecting the rule of the house of David, by rejecting the one who would sit on the throne, the ten tribes rejected the rule of their God.

They rejected the rule of the one who would become Jesus Christ. And just as God warned them, they would be removed, and they have not been in their promised land for almost 3,000 years now. Next time, in part 3, we will follow them from Israel and see where they went and find out where they are today and what's about to happen.