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Should the Chosen People Be Proud Because They Are Abraham’s Children?
Eric V. Snow, sermonette, July 9, 2011, Ann Arbor, MI,
UCG-AIA
Many years ago, I casually read through a religious article in the political magazine “Commentary.” Historically this magazine has been controlled by neo-Conservative Jews. Its writers normally aren’t serious about their Jewish faith. This article was interesting since it described two ways about how Jews could react to their own teaching that they are God’s chosen people: 1. Because they know the true God’s ways better, they can become prideful and look down on the more ignorant, inferior gentiles. 2. Because they know the true God’s ways better, it increases their burden in life since they have to obey God more compared to other nations. So why bring up this issue? Since we teach the doctrine of the United States and Britain in Prophecy, many of us in the Church of God could react similarly in either way. We need to make sure that we avoid the first possible reaction, and that we embrace the second.
S.P.S.: Let’s not
allow the doctrine of USBIP to become a source of personal or national pride.
By “pride” today I mean that attitude in which someone looks
down on others as inferior creatures for any reason. This viewpoint says, “I’m better than you, so then I may ignore
you or mistreat you.” The main source
of the trouble comes from making the comparison: People aren’t proud about being rich, smart, or good looking by
themselves. Rather, they are proud
because they are richer, smarter, or better looking than someone else.
People who believe themselves to be descendants of Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph should resist the temptation to look down on others of
different nations and ethnicities.
I have three points today:
1. If God’s chosen
people have received more physical and spiritual blessings, that increases
their level of responsibility to God.
Romans 2:17-24+
v. 21: Do we live up
to what we know? Since America and
Britain have printed and distributed far more Bibles historically than other
nations because they are Protestant countries, doesn’t that increase their
level of responsibility to God? That’s
true even though the great majority of people in America, Canada, Britain,
Australia, and New Zealand aren’t truly called Christians. A number of social statistics indicate many
sins more common in America than many other countries, including ones that have
almost no traditional Christians living in them, such as Japan, which is one of
the most unbelieving countries on earth.
Compare rates of divorce, illegitimacy, abortion, murder, rapes, etc.,
country to country: What do the
physical descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh have to boast about? The violence, sexual scenes, and bad
language portrayed in American movies and TV help to corrupt the world and make
us look bad as well. The gay rights
movement that seeks to whitewash the promiscuous gay lifestyle also started
here as well.
Vs. 24: Hypocrisy is
the key problem here. Our sins make
other people question the goodness and righteousness of the God that we
supposedly believe in and worship nationally.
Their logic is bad, of course, as I have explained in past
sermonettes: As a matter of logic, no
number sins committed by Christians can prove the Bible true or false. After all, what skeptic says that the sins
of the atheistic Communists prove that God exists, which is equally good
reasoning. But it’s still a national
embarrassment nonetheless. The
descendants of Joseph obviously aren’t living up to their spiritual
responsibilities even when we admit that that most people aren’t called.
Mr. Armstrong’s perspective was fundamentally sound: He emphasized that this teaching meant that
God would punish America and the other native English speaking peoples. He avoided “triumphalism.” He never claimed that God would save us from
serious punishment because we’re descendants of Jacob and Joseph: “But, as salvation is given first to
Israel, so is corrective punishment” (USBIP, p. 171).
2. Spiritual
salvation isn’t tied to ethnicity, nationality, or race. This should be obvious to Christians of any
church, but it’s worth bringing up in this context.
Acts 10:34-35
Peter learned this lesson when God told him to visit the
Roman army officer Cornelius. And
remember, he was the apostle to the Jews, not the gentiles. God doesn’t play spiritual favorites or
discriminate for or against people because of uncontrollable factors like who
their ancestors were. Instead, what
matters is their level of faith and obedience after being called salvation by
God based upon His grace.
3. Despite the
doctrine can be abused, it’s still true.
Genesis 35:10-12
Besides America and the British Commonwealth countries that
I’ve mentioned already, what combination of nations could fulfill these verses
and similar ones? The land they have
can’t only be what the modern state of Israel presently has in the Middle East. The Jewish people didn’t fulfill this text
and others: They are only one nation,
not many. They haven’t been that
blessed materially. Also, the countries
that fulfill these texts need some kind of common ethnic tie: One can’t just randomly pick two or three
nations or groupings of nations of plainly different ethnicities and claim that
they fulfilled them. HWA believed that
this doctrine could be proven using the Bible alone.
Other teachings can be abused also, and that doesn’t prove
they are false: Grace can become a
license to sin. Honoring parents can
lead to child abuse when pushed too far.
Wife beating definitely can
result from pushing the doctrine of submission too far. Careful Sabbath observance can degenerate
into legalism and Pharisaism.
So in conclusion:
The doctrine of United States and Britain in Prophecy shouldn’t be
abused. The descendants of Jacob and
Joseph shouldn’t have national or personal pride because of their
ancestry. That’s because our nations
haven’t lived up to their spiritual responsibilities and because salvation isn’t
tied to ethnicity. After all, as Mr.
Armstrong wrote so many years ago (p. 175), “The Great Tribulation is
this sevenfold intensity of corrective punishment which God is now soon going
to lay on Britain-America!” Are we
going to feel any pride in our physical ancestry then?
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Does Islam cause terrorism? Click here: /Apologeticshtml/Moral Equivalency Applied Islamic History 0409.htm
Is the Bible God’s Word? Click here: /Apologeticshtml/Is the Bible the Word of God.htm
Why does God Allow Evil? Click here: /Apologeticshtml/Why Does God Allow Evil 0908.htm
Is Christian teaching from ancient paganism? /Bookhtml/Paganism influence issue article Journal 013003.htm
Which is right?: Judaism or Christianity? /Apologeticshtml/Is Christianity a Fraud vs Conder Round 1.htm
/Apologeticshtml/Is Christianity a Fraud vs Conder Round 2.htm
Should God’s existence be proven? /Apologeticshtml/Should the Bible and God Be Proven Fideism vs WCG.htm
Does the Bible teach blind faith? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Gospel of John Theory of Knowledge.htm
Links to elsewhere on this
Web site: /apologetics.html /book.html /doctrinal.html /essays.html /links.html /sermonettes.html /webmaster.html For the home page, click here: /index.html