You can follow the history of the Jews right up to the first discovered records of civilization. Somehow they have always been around, understanding the reason for that will give us a better understanding of where we fit in as a people and nation on the earth and where we as a body of believers (the church) fit in under heaven.
First, lets look at ourselves as a nation and people on the earth. Where do we come from? America. Where did America come from? Europe. What did Europe come out of? The Roman Empire. What was before the Roman Empire? The Greek Empire, then the Persian Empire, The Babylonian Empire, The Assyrian Empire, The Egyptian Empire, then you come to the Patriarchs of Mesopotamia who were founders or rulers of tribes or clans. Here you find a group of people called the Amorites, this is the first appearance of a new ethnic group that had influence on names and customs in the area of Palestine.
The Amorite influence was so pervasive during this time that even some Mesopotamian kings had Amorite names. Some settled in villages and established their own city-states, others lived as nomadic shepherds, and still others lived on the fringes of society as warlike outcasts. Such outsiders, referred to as "Habiru or Hebrew" usually served as slaves or mercenaries to others, but on occasion fought their own battles. Amorites worshiped many gods, but each city or clan identified it's own particular deity. In Mesopotamia, in cities influenced by the Amorites, there even appeared prophets of these local gods, using language very similar to that of the much later Old Testament prophets. Great stress was given to the god of the clan's forefathers. Worship usually involved animal sacrifice, but child sacrifice was also common. Apparently the animal's moment of death and shedding of blood impressed on human beings that they were responsible to forces outside themselves. You can see this echoed in Genesis 3:21 when God taught Adam and Eve that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins (Heb. 9:22). Here you start to see the emerging themes of the Bible and particularly of one man called Abram.
"Now the Lord had said to Abram: 'Get out of your country, from your family and your father's house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; .......... and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed'" (Genesis 12:1-3).
Abram or Abraham was from the Amorite family, that family's migration from Ur to Haran to southern Palestine follows the general pattern of the Amorite expansion. Although Abram's relationship with his God follows many of the Amorite patterns, it also differs from Amorite religion in significant ways. For instance, Abram's God repudiates child sacrifice (Gen. 22) also, God is not just a local clan diety. Although He makes a covenant with a particular family, that covenant exists in order to bless "all the families of the earth" (Gen. 12:3). Abram's God sets out to make a name for Himself among the people of the earth by identifying Himself with one partucular family and to demonstrate to the heavens and earth who the one true God is.
Deuteronomy 32:8 tells us in the Septuagint translation of the Bible, "When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set boundaries of the peoples according to the number of their 'angels' of God" This means that every nation God has established on the earth is set up with their own ruling deity over them. The next verses go on to explain what God has set up for Himself on the earth through the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. "For the Lord's portion is His people; Jacob is the place of His inheritance. He found him in a desert land and in the wasteland, a howling wilderness; He encircled him, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye. The Lord alone led him, there was no foreign god with him" (Deut. 32:9-12).
These verses demonstrate the connectivity of angels and man and how spiritual activity is always happening on the front of God's people with God Himself as their leader and Paganism being the worship of gods that are not and the demons or fallen angels that are. "They sacrifice to demons, not to God, to gods they did not know, to new gods, new arrivals that your fathers did not fear" (Deut. 32:17).
I believe this is still happening today with the people of God through Christ Jesus and the people of the earth. The people of God are led by the Most High through Christ Jesus, while the people of the earth are manipulated by demons and fallen angels. Does this mean that America has a diety ruling over it based on what its people do or don't do and is sectioned off by God into a spiritualy marked territory? According to Scripture, yes.
America used to be a beacon of Liberty and Freedom, now it has become so materialistic that it survives on borrowings from other nations. Hollywood's profit comes from bashing America's strength and identity as a nation under God and selling it to the rest of the world as entertainment. America's false gods lull us into a sense of safety depending on the wrong things. God has already taught man that only by the shedding of innocent blood is man reconciled to God. One thing to always remember is that Patriotism is idol worship when it is not under the authority of God. America used to be under God, this is not true today. Today, America follows manufactured political correctness in science, schools, courts, and our corridors of power rather than truth.
Therefore, what the people of America need to ask themselves is, "are we the people of God (the present day church) or are we the people of the earth who are subject to demons and fallen angels ruling over us"? Jesus asks His followers in Luke 6:46 "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord', and not do what I say". If we are going to be the body of Christ then we need to do what the Lord says to do and not what this nation says. We need to follow hard after Him because He is the one who has redeemed us from the earth (Rev. 4:4). "We are His workmanship or poem, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them" (Eph. 2:10).
Next time we will talk about the role the church has on the earth and how Jesus deals with them when He comes back. Who are the sons of God?
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