Regrettably, before long the descendants of Abraham went down to Egypt due to the need for food. They were lost after going down to Egypt. The children of God should have submitted themselves to God’s authority, but instead they submitted themselves to Pharaoh’s authority to be under his rule. As a result, God lost the means by which He could reign on earth. God no longer had an outlet on the earth that was linked to heaven.
When the children of Israel were usurped by Egypt, they fell away completely from God’s authority to Pharaoh’s authority, being no longer under the rule of God. At this point, God sent Moses to deliver them with great power. They kept the Passover, came out of Egypt, and crossed the Red Sea. Through the blood of the lamb, God delivered them out of Egypt with a mighty hand and led them to the foot of Mount Sinai (Exo. 19).
When the children of Israel were delivered by God and led to the foot of Mount Sinai, God wanted them to become a kingdom of priests, who, on the one hand, would allow God to have authority among them, and on the other hand, would be a people serving God. When their condition was normal, God exercised His authority through the tabernacle. However, after entering into Canaan, they followed the customs of the Gentiles and wanted to have a man as their king (1 Sam. 8:4-7). Initially, God found Saul and appointed him to be the king, but Saul reigned according to man’s will, not according to God’s heart. Later God found David, a man according to His heart (13:14). The nation of Israel was formed, God’s authority was exercised among them, and God’s glory was expressed among them as well. At this point, the nation of Israel reached its golden age. It became the sphere of God’s reign, and through it God was able to express His glory.
The good times did not last long. Within a short period of time the nation of Israel was defeated and became desolate. The people lost their nation and were conquered by Babylon. Babel again captured the children of Israel. Babel was the place of man’s collective rebellion; it was also the place out of which Abraham had been called by God and set apart. Babel again captured Abraham’s descendants, bringing them back to the place from where they had come, so that those who had served God would serve the devil in the temple of Babel. Even the vessels in the holy temple were carried away with them and placed in the temple of Babel. In the books written during this captivity, God is called the God of heaven. God did not have an outlet of heaven on the earth; He lost the means by which He could reign on earth. Therefore, God withdrew back to heaven.
Seventy years after the captivity of God’s people, men such as Ezra and Nehemiah were raised up; they returned from the land of captivity to recover God’s temple and His city, and once more the nation of Israel allowed God’s authority to be exercised on the earth. When the nation of Israel was defeated, the priests were defeated first, and then the kings. The order was the same in the recovery; first the temple was recovered through Ezra the priest, and then the city was recovered through Nehemiah, a royal descendant. The recovery of the temple was the recovery of the testimony and fellowship; the recovery of the city was the recovery of the authority and the kingdom. At this point, God’s reign was recovered, and the people of Israel were restored once more.
However, shortly after the restoration, the nation of Israel was defeated again. We can see the condition after their defeat in the Gospels. When the Lord Jesus came to the earth, demons were everywhere among the people of Israel. The Israelites would not allow God to reign among them; instead, the devil was reigning in their midst. At that time, the kingdom of the devil was among them, not the kingdom of God.
At this point, the Lord Jesus came to the earth. When the Lord came out to preach, the first sentence He spoke was, “The kingdom of the heavens has drawn near” (Matt. 4:17). From this we can see that the Lord’s coming was to bring the kingdom of the heavens to the earth and to exercise God’s authority among men. Moreover, the Lord told Nicodemus that he must be born anew in order to participate in this kingdom (John 3:3). The Lord also plainly said that the casting out of demons was for the kingdom of God to come to the earth (Matt. 12:28). The word of the Lord Jesus in Luke 17:21 also shows us that His presence in the midst of the children of Israel was the presence of the kingdom of God in their midst, because it was God’s authority coming to them. During the three and a half years when the Lord was among the children of Israel, He was the kingdom of God. Although the Lord displayed much power among them, the Israelites still rejected Him; therefore, in Matthew 21:43 the Lord said, “The kingdom of God shall be taken from you and shall be given to a nation producing its fruit.” This nation is the church.