(350) – FOREVER 2

We remember the words of Solomon, which are words of Jehovah, who said: “I know that whatever God does, it shall be forever.” (Eccl. 3:14).

Jehovah chose Israel to be his people: “You are the children of Jehovah your God: you shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead. For you are a holy people to Jehovah your God, and Jehovah has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth” (Deut. 14:1-2). Jehovah chose Israel to be a priestly kingdom (Ex. 19:6). Jehovah declared that he was the king of Israel, saying: “I am Jehovah, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King” (Is. 43:15). The land of Canaan belonged to Jehovah, even though Sodomites, the Canaanites, dwelt there: “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine” (Lev. 25:23; Gen. 12:5-6; 10:19). The city of Jerusalem, which David took from the Jebusites, was chosen as a dwelling place for Jehovah, eternally, for it is written: “Some of the heads of fathers’ [houses], when they came to the house of Jehovah which is in Jerusalem, offered willingly for the house of God to set it up in its place” (Ezra 2:68; Ps. 135:21). Ezra did not say: “the house of Jehovah will be”, but “the house of Jehovah is”, and this happened in 530 AD. How is this? Did Jehovah dwell in the ruins? Ezra was sent with Zerubbabel to rebuild the temple, for Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed and burnt it (2 Chr. 36:19). Is it not written that everything God does will last forever? In the days of Rehoboam, son of Solomon, the kingdom of Israel was divided in two. The very Jehovah destroyed them, and also the city where they lived together with the temple of his glory. He himself spoke, saying: “I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and I will cast off this city which I have chosen, even Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, ‘My name shall be there’” (2 Kings 23:27). Jehovah took responsibility for this complete destruction because, if he did not, it would mean he was being forced by Nebuchadnezzar to vacate his house. What a failure! And Jehovah had said that he had sanctified the temple forever (1 Kings 9:3). He had also confirmed his throne forever (2 Sam. 7:16). And Jehovah did not fulfill his promise. Had he not been able? Had Satan been stronger? Isaiah said: “For Jehovah of Armies has planned, and who can stop it? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?” (Is. 14:27).

The promises of Jehovah are flawed, for they do not get fulfilled. He saved his people from the Egyptian yoke and took them to the desert to kill them in his wrath and infernal fury (Deut. 32:22). He did not kill them right there, because he did not want the nations to speak evil of him (Ex. 32:10-12). Later he wished to destroy them again, but Moses prevented the massacre, or the Egyptians would say that Jehovah did not have the power to conclude the work. This is what we read in Ps. 95:10-11. The same text is repeated in the letter to the Hebrews: “With whom was he displeased forty years? Wasn’t it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?” (Heb. 3:17). He did not immediately kill them, thus satisfying his bloody fury, because the people would speak ill of him; he then killed 150 a day, for forty years. Psalm 7:11 says that Jehovah is the god that gets angry every day. In Psalm 121:4, though, we read that god does not sleep. Have you thought about this? Forty years of uninterrupted wrath and fury? As to me, I am sad about it, for it is so good to love! And, to love our enemies is even better. Jehovah did not rest, though, neither day nor night. Forty years passed and he was constantly eaten by hatred (Ps. 78:59).

It is a fact that all the good that Jehovah promises, or promises to perform, he is not able to accomplish. Jehovah had said that the house of the high priest Eli would be perpetually before him. Because the children of Eli sinned, Jehovah, obsessed by wrath, changed his project and destroyed the house of Eli (1 Sam. 2:30-36). He cast terrible and eternal curses forever. The evil of Jehovah is eternal, but the blessing and good are not.

When a nation or man sins against Jehovah, he repents from the good that he had promised and trumps up monstrous evils (Jer. 18:10-11). When Jehovah blesses and the person sins, he curses the very blessing, and that forever: “Now, you priests, this commandment is for you. If you will not listen, and if you will not lay it to heart, to give glory to my name,’ says Yahweh of Armies, ‘then will I send the curse on you, and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have cursed them already, because you do not lay it to heart. Behold, I will rebuke your seed, and will spread dung on your faces, even the dung of your feasts; and you will be taken away with it’” (Mal 2:1-3).

The most blessed man of the Old Testament was David. Look at what Jehovah said of him to Saul, king of Israel: “But now your kingdom shall not continue. Jehovah has sought for himself a man after his own heart, and Jehovah has appointed him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept that which Jehovah commanded you” (1 Sam. 13:14). And Jehovah said more: “I have found David, my servant. I have anointed him with my holy oil, with whom my hand shall be established. My arm will also strengthen him. No enemy will tax him. No wicked man will oppress him. I will beat down his adversaries before him, and strike those who hate him” (Ps. 89:20-23). And he goes on to say: “He will call to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation!’ I will also appoint him my firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. I will keep my loving kindness for him forevermore. My covenant will stand firm with him. I will also make his seed endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven. If his children forsake my law, and don’t walk in my ordinances; if they break my statutes, and don’t keep my commandments; then I will punish their sin with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. But I will not completely take my loving kindness from him, nor allow my faithfulness to fail. I will not break my covenant, nor alter what my lips have uttered. Once have I sworn by my holiness, I will not lie to David. His seed will endure forever, his throne like the sun before me. It will be established forever like the moon, the faithful witness in the sky.’ Selah” (Ps. 89:26-37).

Let us read the rest of the psalm where David answered to Jehovah: “But you have rejected and spurned. You have been angry with your anointed. You have renounced the covenant of your servant. You have defiled his crown in the dust. You have broken down all his hedges. You have brought his strongholds to ruin. All who pass by the way rob him. He has become a reproach to his neighbors. You have exalted the right hand of his adversaries. You have made all of his enemies rejoice. Yes, you turn back the edge of his sword, and haven’t supported him in battle. You have ended his splendor, and thrown his throne down to the ground. You have shortened the days of his youth. You have covered him with shame. Selah” (Ps. 89:38-45). After David’s adultery, Jehovah executed cruel vengeance against him. He killed the child born of the adultery (2 Sam. 12:14-19). Jehovah, too, aroused a mad passion between Amnon and his sister Tamar. After the incest was consummated, Amnon hated his sister and sent her away. Next, Absalom, Tamar’s brother, killed Amnon in a party. Amnon was David’s firstborn (2 Sam. 16:21-23). Joab, then, killed Absalom against David’s will (2 Sam. 18:9-15). David deemed himself cursed of Jehovah (2 Sam. 16:5-12). The life of David became a living hell.

In the end, Solomon, son of David and Bathsheba, whom Jehovah chose to rule in the place of his voluptuous and lubricious father, marries a thousand Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonean and Hittite women, and also the daughter of Pharaoh. These thousand women corrupted Solomon, who became an idolater, and the kingdom split in two before it came to an end (1 Kings 11:1-13; 2 Kings 23:27). Jehovah changed all his blessings in curses forever.

 

By Pastor Olavo Silveira Pereira

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