Christianity in Exile - South Africa and Israel during the time of the Judges

Christianity in Exile

South Africa and Israel during the time of the Judges

Stes De Necker

During the time of the Judges, the Israelites lived for five periods of forty years each in peace and tranquillity, and one period of forty years, under the oppression of the Philistines.

 

During the forty years of oppression, the Israelites had certainly enough time to think about the forty years their ancestors spent in the wilderness because of their sins. But faithful to their tradition, the Israelites still could not (or didn’t want to) accept God's message in the Old Testament.

But God is a merciful God, and repeatedly forgave His children. During the period of the Judges, God pardoned His people seven times and saved them from the hands of their oppressors.

 

In Matthew 18: 21 Peter asked Jesus, "Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Then in verse 22 Jesus answered him, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven.”

How much more will God not forgive ‘seventy times seven’ times. God is merciful and longsuffering, but that does not mean that His grace will always continue indefinitely!

In the last chapters of the Book of Judges it is clearly stated that "in those days, there was no king in Israel, and every man did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges. 17: 6, 21: 25; 8: 1 and 19: 1). This view, to do "what is right in his own eyes", caused the time of the Judges in the history of Israel to be the most wicked period in their history. 

   

In South Africa today, people are also doing whatever seems right in their own eyes. This misconception is surely the biggest reason why we today have to deal with so much crime and corruption in this country. Because everyone can do ‘what is right in his or her own eyes.

Not a day goes by that the media do not report on murder; robbery; rape; assault; abortion; fornication; prostitution; corruption; fraud; theft, and the list goes on.

Barbarism; blasphemy; social ills; homosexuality; attacks on Christianity and openly challenging the authority of God, is the order of the day. And these evils come from across the total spectrum of the population regardless of race, religion or creed.

It has absolutely nothing to do with racial discrimination, skin colour, political ideology or soci-economic status. It is an endemic rot that has infiltrated and infected almost all levels and facets of society.

If we, living in South Africa, will truthfully evaluate ourselves against the criteria of God's demands for an obedient and God fearing society, we must admit that the situation today in South Africa is a mirror image of the Israelites during the time of the Judges.

In a country like South Africa which claims that 80% of its population are Christians, there must be something seriously wrong if South Africa’s Constitution, does not recognise God as the only true God. 

Legislatures, at national and provincial level, are too "sensitive" to open their sittings in the name of the Lord, because they don’t want to ‘upset’ the other religions.

The petition in South Africa’s Constitution that “God will bless and protect its citizens”, means nothing as long as He is not recognised in all levels and in all facets of society, as the true and only God.  

What many people do not realize, is that South Africa is still governed by a minority government! The only difference is that it is no longer a minority based on racial lines, but a minority based on religious belief. Christianity, which is by far the largest and the majority of the population, are governed by a minority elite which is not only socialist inspired, but a minority that fosters a the popular worldview of secular humanism and radical liberalism.

People have become more important than God.

In 1990, when the South African government's apartheid policy reached its ultimate summit, the white population of South Africa was 3.6 million people; exactly the same number of people as the Israelites in the time of the Judges!

Through the policy of apartheid, millions of people, the vast majority Christians, were marginalized and disadvantaged. Before 1994, even the Church, like many other non-governmental bodies and institutions, vigorously supported the National Government’s policies of racial discrimination and segregation.  Many of these policies were regarded as scripturally warranted! 

The election of 1994, when South Africa was handed over to a black communistic and socialistic inspired government, should, for every Christian believer in South Africa, have a much greater and deeper religious meaning than purely a political meaning. 

Disobedience and religious deterioration, rather than race colour or political ideology, was defeated at the ballot box in 1994. 

Christians in South Africa find themselves today again in exile. In exile in their own country!

The question is: How long will it take before God will once again send a ‘judge’ to free all Christians in South Africa, regardless of race and colour, from its foreign oppressors.