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From Heaven With Love
roused to crush out the truth, the Lord brought His servants face to
face with kings and rulers, that they and their people might receive
light. The greatest monarchs were led to proclaim the supremacy of
the God whom their Hebrew captives worshiped.
During the centuries that followed the Babylonish captivity, the
Israelites were cured of the worship of graven images, and their
conviction became fixed that their prosperity depended on obedience
to the law of God. But with many of the people the motive was
selfish. They rendered service to God as the means of attaining
national greatness. They did not become the light of the world
but shut themselves away in order to escape temptation. God had
placed restrictions on association with idolaters to prevent them
from conforming to the practices of the heathen. But this teaching
had been misinterpreted. It was used to build up a wall between
Israel and other nations. The Jews were actually jealous lest the
Lord should show mercy to the Gentiles!
How They Perverted the Sanctuary Service
After the return from Babylon, all over the country synagogues
were erected, where the law was expounded by priests and scribes.
Schools professed to teach the principles of righteousness. But
during the captivity, many of the people had received heathen ideas,
and these were brought into their religious service.
The ritual service had been instituted by Christ Himself. It was
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a symbol of Him, full of vitality and spiritual beauty. But the Jews
lost the spiritual life from their ceremonies and trusted the sacrifices
and ordinances themselves, instead of Him to whom they pointed.
To supply that which they had lost, the priests and rabbis multiplied
requirements of their own; and the more rigid they grew, the less of
the love of God was manifested.
Those who tried to observe the minute and burdensome rabbini-
cal precepts could find no rest from a troubled conscience. Thus
Satan worked to discourage the people, to lower their conception of
the character of God, and to bring the faith of Israel into contempt.
He hoped to establish the claim that the requirements of God could
not be obeyed. Even Israel, he declared, did not keep the law.