There is a question that sits like a stone in the chest of every descendant of slaves who has ever opened a Bible: if the Most High allowed it, is He not to blame for it? This lesson answers that question the way Scripture answers it, and the answer is sharper than most pulpits will say aloud. Yes, the Most High permits the captivity of His covenant people. He announced Egypt to Abram before Egypt existed as an oppressor. He named Babylon before Babylon crossed the river. Captivity, in the Scriptures, is correction, a father's discipline on a covenant nation that broke covenant. But hold the...
There is a question that sits like a stone in the chest of every descendant of slaves who has ever opened a Bible: if the Most High allowed it, is He not to blame for it? This lesson answers that question the way Scripture answers it, and the answer is sharper than most pulpits will say aloud. Yes, the Most High permits the captivity of His covenant people. He announced Egypt to Abram before Egypt existed as an oppressor. He named Babylon before Babylon crossed the river. Captivity, in the Scriptures, is correction, a father's discipline on a covenant nation that broke covenant. But hold the second half of the pattern, because it is the half they never taught you. The nation that holds the rod is itself on trial the entire time. The Most High measures His own displeasure, and He measures the captor's cruelty against it, and when the captor exceeds the mandate, when the whip lands harder than the sentence, when the killing goes past correction into malice, when the captor looks at a people in chains and says this is forever, the ledger of heaven opens a second account, and this one is against the captor. Zechariah heard it from the mouth of the Almighty: I was but a little...