God's Chosen People: Chastened
March 29, 2012
By: John Barnett
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God has made hundreds of promises to the direct descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—know as the nation of Israel, the Jewish people. In fact, there are more verses and chapters of the Bible are devoted to the Jews, the Nation of Israel, and their future on Earth before the end of the world—than any other subject or topic in all of the Scriptures.
All of the promises and predictions that God made are part of His offer to us that identifies Him as the true God. We could boil all of those hundreds of promises down to 12 clear groups.
We could even more narrow the field of the hundreds, and the twelve to what we could call the “Big Three” promises God has made. These are the focus of much of the world news keepers these days. These three are red alerts for any student of Bible prophecy. God says I will stake my entire reputation on the predictions that: 1. the Jewish people will be acting as a sovereign nation; and 2. in possession of Jerusalem at the end of days; and 3. they will begin seeking to build a temple, that will cause such a stir, that all the world’s nations will be against them.
But, before we go to see the 6th of those promises, we need to start in Isaiah and see who exactly made those promises, and even more importantly, why. The One who talks to us when we read the Bible, God Himself has staked His trustworthiness on whether or not He can accurately predict the future. Always remember that:
PROPHECY IS THE TEST TO SHOW WHO IS GOD
God has left His signature, the proof that He is who He claims to be—in the form of prophecies (God explaining future events in clear details that can be verified). So the huge amount of prophetic verses in our Bible is a strong and comforting place to encourage our trusting God. As we begin open with me to Isaiah 41:21:
"Present your case," says the LORD. "Bring forth your strong [reasons,"] says the King of Jacob. (NKJV)
Only the One and Only True God can predict the future with absolute accuracy!
1. TRUST THE ONLY GOD WHO ACCURATELY KNOWS THE FUTURE.
Isaiah 41:23 "Show the things that are to come hereafter, That we may know that you are gods; Yes, do good or do evil, That we may be dismayed and see it together."
2. PROPHECY PROVES GOD IS REAL.
Isaiah 42:5-9 "Thus says God the Lord, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, Who gives breath to the people on it, And spirit to those who walk on it: 6 “I, the Lord, have called You in righteousness, And will hold Your hand; I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, As a light to the Gentiles, 7 To open blind eyes, To bring out prisoners from the prison, Those who sit in darkness from the prison house. 8 I am the Lord, that is My name; And My glory I will not give to another, Nor My praise to carved images. 9 Behold, the former things have come to pass, And new things I declare; Before they spring forth I tell you of them.”
3. PROPHECY PROVES GOD IS RELIABLE.
Isaiah 46:9-10 "Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,’"
4. PROPHECY REVEALS TO US THE GOD WE CAN TRUST.
Isaiah 48:3-5 “I have declared the former things from the beginning; They went forth from My mouth, and I caused them to hear it. Suddenly I did them, and they came to pass. 5 Even from the beginning I have declared it to you; Before it came to pass I proclaimed it to you, Lest you should say, ‘My idol has done them, And my carved image and my molded image Have commanded them.’"
5. TRUSTING GOD DETERMINES OUR ETERNAL DESTINY.
Isaiah 48:17-18, 22 "Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, The Holy One of Israel: “I am the Lord your God, Who teaches you to profit, Who leads you by the way you should go. 18 Oh, that you had heeded My commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, And your righteousness like the waves of the sea. 22 “There is no peace,” says the Lord, “for the wicked.”
As we look at the history of Israel since God made this challenge, we can see that NOTHING more attests to the reliability of Scripture than the remarkable way God has kept His Word. You can see that as you read the paper or follow the news every day!
So, if you listen, read, or watch the news and find Israel, Jerusalem, the Temple Mount mentioned: you are hearing an echo of God’s promises and predictions! How many of you in the past month have heard or seen any news about Israel? You are hearing the echoes of promises and predictions God made thirty-five hundred years ago!
The eyes of the world are upon the Jews of Israel like no other people; and on the city of Jerusalem, like no other city. Jerusalem is indeed a "burdensome stone" (Zech. 12:1-3) around the necks of all nations of the world, the most vexing and volatile problem the United Nations faces today. There is no ordinary explanation for this! What the Hebrew prophets declared thousands of years ago and what seemed utterly fantastic in their time is being fulfilled in our day.
Last time (71209) we saw that there are 12 keys God has given us in His Word to identify the nation among nations that will signal the end of days. Those people are the Jews, the nation of Israel, His Chosen People of Promise:
This is only part of the evidence, as we shall see, that the prophesied "last days" are upon us and that our generation will likely see the remainder of Bible prophecy fulfilled.
There are so many more specific prophetic passages to be fulfilled in the last days; based on the prophecies, which have already come true, we must conclude that these too will literally unfold in the not-too-distant future. Thus God has declared that the most appalling time of utter destruction both for Jews and for the entire population of the world lies yet ahead. To speak in Biblical terms God says watch out, "the time of Jacob's trouble" (Jeremiah 30:7) spells danger and misery for the entire planet.
WHAT DOES GOD SAY SPECIFICALLY?
Look with me at this incredible summary of all specifics God has revealed about His Chosen People of Destiny, the Jews.
Now, feel the impact of God's Words to a man standing out in the sands of the Middle East, in a Land called Canaan. God spoke in Genesis 15 and said, I am giving this Land to your children forever as a testimony to all the World, that I AM GOD!
This may be one of the most important studies we have ever undertaken, so feel free to trace these points and verses in your Bibles as we go along!
1. God stakes His reputation on people He identified as His chosen people of destiny, the Jews, the descendents of Abraham, and He named them Israel.
God picked one man in Ur of the Chaldees and asked him to walk hundreds of miles through the desert to a land filled with powerful kingdom states (Genesis 11-12); and there in a series of revelations, the Almighty God of the Universe solemnly swore to this man a nation would descend from him that would be the Chosen People of Destiny (Genesis 13, 15). Those people are the Jewish People, the Israelites, or as I like to call them God’s Chosen People of Destiny (Deuteronomy 7:6-7).
Deuteronomy 7:6-7 “For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. 7 The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples;"
2. God promised to give a land to His chosen people of destiny the Jews with clearly defined boundaries (Genesis 12:1; 13:15; 15:7, 18-21) to Abraham.
He renewed that promise to Abraham's son Isaac (Genesis 26:3-5), to his grandson Jacob (Genesis 28:13), and to their descendants after them forever (Leviticus 25:46; Joshua 14:9; etc.).
Genesis 15:7" He also said to him, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”
Genesis 15:18-21 "On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates— 19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”
3. God promised to bring His chosen people of destiny to the Promised Land.
It is a historical fact that God brought these "chosen people" into the "Promised Land," an amazing story of miracles in itself.
Exodus 6:7-8 "I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. 8 And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD."
4. God promised to judge His chosen people of destiny if they forgot Him in the Promised Land.
When the Jewish people entered the Promised Land, God warned them that if they practiced the idolatry and immorality of the land's previous inhabitants, whom He had destroyed for their evil (Deuteronomy 9:4), He would cast them out as well (Deuteronomy 28:63; 1 Kings 9:7; 2 Chronicles 7:20; etc.). That this happened is, again, an indisputable fact of history.
Lev. 26:14-44 "Remember all the promised curses on Israel for disobedience we covered before? The same warnings are repeated in Deuteronomy 28."
Deuteronomy 28:66 "And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life "
1 Kings 9:7 "then I will cut off Israel from the land I have given them and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. Israel will then become a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples."
2 Chronicles 7:20 "then I will uproot Israel from my land, which I have given them, and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. I will make it a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples."
5. God promised to scatter His unfaithful but chosen people of destiny from the Promised Land.
God declared that His people would be scattered "among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other" (Deuteronomy 28:64;Nehemiah 1:8; Amos 9:9, Zechariah 7:14). And so it happened. "The wandering Jew" is found everywhere. The precision with which prophecies fit the Jews alone becomes increasingly remarkable as fulfillment follows fulfillment, until the case for God's existence through His dealings with his chosen people is irrefutable.
Deuteronomy 28:64 "Then the LORD will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known."
Now we come to the sixth promise God made to Israel:
6. God promised a curse upon His unfaithful but chosen people of destiny as they wandered the world without their Promised Land.
God warned that wherever they wandered the Jews would be "an astonishment, a proverb, a byword…a curse and a reproach" (Deuteronomy 28:37; 2 Chronicles 7:20; Jeremiah 29:18; 44:8).
Amazingly, this has been true of the Jews all down through history, as even the present generation knows full well. The maligning, the slurs and jokes, the naked hatred known as anti-Semitism, not only among Muslims but even among those who call themselves Christians, is a unique and persistent fact of history peculiar to the Jewish people. Even today, in spite of the haunting memory of Hitler's holocaust which once shocked and shamed the world, and in defiance of logic and conscience, anti-Semitism is still alive and is once again increasing world-wide.
Deuteronomy 28:37 "You will become a thing of horror and an object of scorn and ridicule to all the nations where the LORD will drive you."
2 Chronicles 7:20 "then I will uproot Israel from my land, which I have given them, and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. I will make it a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples."
Jeremiah 29:18 "I will pursue them with the sword, famine and plague and will make them abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth and an object of cursing and horror, of scorn and reproach, among all the nations where I drive them."
Jeremiah 44:8 "Why provoke me to anger with what your hands have made, burning incense to other gods in Egypt, where you have come to live? You will destroy yourselves and make yourselves an object of cursing and reproach among all the nations on earth."
7. God promised to chasten His unfaithful but chosen people of destiny.
Furthermore, the prophets declared that these scattered peoples would not only be slandered, denigrated, and discriminated against, but they would be persecuted and killed as no other peoples on the face of the earth. (II Chronicles 7:20-22) History stands as eloquent witness to the fact that this is precisely what has happened to the Jews century after century wherever they were found. The historical record of no other ethnic or national group of people contains anything that even approaches the nightmare of terror, humiliation, and destruction which the Jews have endured down through history at the hands of the peoples among whom they have found themselves.
2 Chronicles 7:20-22 /"then I will uproot Israel from my land, which I have given them, and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. I will make it a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. 21 And though this temple is now so imposing, all who pass by will be appalled and say, "Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this temple?" 22 People will answer, "Because they have forsaken the LORD, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—that is why he brought all this disaster on them." '
"And I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth, for their hurt, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them" (Jeremiah 24:9).
My God will cast them away, because they did not hearken unto Him: and they shall be wanderers among the nations (Hosea 9:17).
God has made hundreds of promises to the direct descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—know as the nation of Israel, the Jewish people. In fact, there are more verses and chapters of the Bible are devoted to the Jews, the Nation of Israel, and their future on Earth before the end of the world—than any other subject or topic in all of the Scriptures.
All of the promises and predictions that God made are part of His offer to us that identifies Him as the true God. We could boil all of those hundreds of promises down to 12 clear groups.
We could even more narrow the field of the hundreds, and the twelve to what we could call the “Big Three” promises God has made. These are the focus of much of the world news keepers these days.
These three are red alerts for any student of Bible prophecy. God says I will stake my entire reputation on the predictions that: 1. the Jewish people will be acting as a sovereign nation; and 2. in possession of Jerusalem at the end of days; and 3. they will begin seeking to build a temple, that will cause such a stir, that all the world’s nations will be against them.
As we look at the history of Israel since God made this challenge, we can see that NOTHING more attests to the reliability of Scripture than the remarkable way God has kept His Word. You can see that as you read the paper or follow the news every day!
So, if you listen, read, or watch the news and find Israel, Jerusalem, the Temple Mount mentioned: you are hearing an echo of God’s promises and predictions! How many of you in the past month have heard or seen any news about Israel? You are hearing the echoes of promises and predictions God made thirty-five hundred years ago!
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