"Destroyed for Lack of Knowledge"

God's favor toward Israel from the beginning was conditional--they had to be obedience. They had promised to follow in the path of obedience. "All that the Lord hath spoken we will do" (Ex 19:5,8). God promised to bless them contingent upon their continued obedience. (Le 26:3-5) "If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase…and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely."

Yet God warned of the results if they turned away from him. (1Ki 9:6-7) "But if ye shall at all turn from following me, ye or your children, and will not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods, and worship them: Then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have hallowed for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people:" (See also 2 Kings 17:13-16)

In the days before the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel to the Assyrians (722 B.C.) the prophet Hosea focused upon one of the causes of Israel's impending destruction-ignorance. (Hosea 4:6) "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children."

Through the prophet Isaiah God warned the southern kingdom of Judah of a coming time of a punitive devastation: "My people are gone into captivity for lack of knowledge" (Is 5:13). The prophetic curse was fulfilled in the Babylonian Captivity (606-536 B.C.).

Since the great truths of the Old Testament serve for our learning (Rom 15:4), surely we can conclude that a sustained ignorance of God's revelation will bring tragedy for the church or for a nation. (Isa 60:12) "For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted." (See Isa 1:4 and Psalms 33:12).

Knowledge (TRUTH) is the key. It was Jesus who said: (Mark 8:18) "Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember?"

Indeed, God's people ( Israel ) were destroyed because of lack of knowledge. Unless we wake up very soon the U.S. will destroy itself for the same reason. As a nation we must turn to God (Ac 26:20b). It is the churches responsibility to make known the manifold wisdom of God to the world (Eph. 3:10).

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