Israel's past election
Israel's Past Election Part 2 • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 13 viewsPaul discusses Israel’s national election
Notes
Transcript
Turn to Romans chapter 9 and John 8
Before we begin, I’d want to emphasis the importance of meeting with singles and families under 60 next Sunday after service.
We will offer pizza, we’re asking for a donation of $5 or more to cover costs because I’d like to talk to you about things you’d like to do outside of Sunday services to help us become closer. I plan on doing this again with the 60 and older group next month. But I’d like to find out what you want when it comes to other studies, group events or home groups. It’s important we gather in some way for food and fellowship and learning!
I promise not to keep you long, we could even have the meeting while we eat. But please come and let’s discover
what we want to do!
As we get into this portion of Romans, we will be studying God’s sovereignty which means He’s the One true eternal God who knows beginning to end.
In review let’s look at Romans 8:28–30
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. 29 Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers; 30 and those whom He predestined, He also called or appointed; and those whom He called, He also justified [cleared their debt of sin and trespass]; and those whom He justified, He also glorified.
So, as Hebrews states, He’s same yesterday, today and forever. And scripture is loaded with the doctrine dealing with God’s sovereignty. Here’s another...
4 ...just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him in love...
Church is ekklesia in the Greek and means “called out ones”.
That’s why when we answered that call of God or drawing of the Holy Spirit, there was repentance of sin and submission to His Lordship, and through our decision, God justified or cleared us of all sin & trespass, wiping out the guilt and replacing it
with unashamed hope.
Yet God foreknew the day we would do that or “He knew our future choice in advance” that we would accept His Son thus He could easily predestine, appoint or call all believers to be conformed to His Son!!
And God already sees us glorified “past tense”. Even though it is future for us, death is swallowed up in victory, and in the future our mortality will put on immortality or eternal life.
And as we simply love and obey God sacrificially, that’s when we sense a purpose in our lives on earth to serve, worship and pray by the Holy Spirit who lives in us and gives us those righteous desires to be in the church community.
“….well…in the same way God gave this message to the Jews first, the privileges of adoption, God’s glory, the unconditional covenants, giving of the law [conditional], the priesthood in the temple, and all the promises were given by God to raise up a righteous people to reach the pagan world but they like us, had to choose this day whom they will serve made their worst mistake with the last privilege in 9:5 whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.
When God came to this earth as a man his first recorded statement was at the age of 12 when his parents Joseph and Mary realized He wasn’t in the caravan headed back to Nazareth so worried sick, they raced back into Jerusalem only to locate him speaking to the rabbis in the temple.
When His parents saw Him, they were astonished, and Mary said to Him, “Child, why have You treated us this way? Behold,
Your father and I have been anxiously searching for You.” ”
And He said to them, “Why is it that you were searching for Me? Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?”
So, from a young age little Yeshua knew His mission was to be the Christ or the anointed One; the foretold Messiah!!! Scripture goes on to say He grew in wisdom and stature. The final privilege God gave Israel was the Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed forever. They missed it! But God knew they would!
Sadly, as we read the gospels, when Yeshua is 30 years old, He’s fulfilling prophecies of Isaiah and prophets & Psalms speaking of healing, the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. The lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy. But the nation had a different idea regarding their Messiah.
They assumed He would be like another Judas Maccabees who was a Jewish priest and military leader 160 years earlier. He was the one recaptured and rededicated the temple when it was desecrated by the Syrian King Antiochus Epiphanes. This was the origin of Hanukkah to remember Judas who was a champion of the Jewish faith and a symbol of resistance against oppression.
This was the kind of conquering King Israel was looking for in their Messiah.
But when He came on the scene, He was a carpenter living in a Podunk town as a meek and mild servant healing Gentiles at Galilee, even on the SABBATH day even humiliating the elders in Jerusalem who were caught up in their traditions!
Thus, they saw this Yeshua as a blasphemer, imposter and criminal not their Messiah even though He tried to tell them but they finally trumped up false charges and false witnesses against Him and put Him on a secret trial handing Him over to Pilate to have Him crucified. All the while fulfilling the prophecies concerning their rejection!!
As we talked about last week from the very beginning of the nation when Moses led them out of Egypt God already knew Israel was a stiff-necked people, and ironically,
Israel didn’t enter into the Promised because of “unbelief”. Same reason they rejected the Messiah!
Not much had changed in the Jewish mind, so Paul reminds them of these privileges of God’s faithfulness and takes them back to the beginning of it all! Let’s look at
Romans 9:6–8
But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s seed, but: “through Isaac your seed will be named.” [Paul explains further] That is, the children of the flesh are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are considered as seed.
Keep in mind this is about Israel’s election...not the church or Christian. Being a natural descendant of Abraham, didn’t automatically make you a child of the promise. Now this statement would outrage the average Jew then and now! To understand this fully we need to hear from the Jews themselves. Turn to John 8.
READ John 8:31-45
They continue to argue with him but look at verses 56-59 - Back to Romans 9
So these Jews believed because they were descendants of Abraham, a shoe-in to God’s favor or grace. Just like people around the world who claim they are the “only true church” thinking that belonging to a certain denomination means you are saved but that’s not true. Be it Jew or Gentile, you must accept the gospel of Jesus and follow Him to be saved no matter the group.
Look at Romans 9:8 again
That is, the children of the flesh are not the children of God, but the children of the
promise are considered as seed.
Remember, Abraham was a Gentile, and YHWH promised him he would be the father of many nations not One.
So, who would be the children of the flesh? Well, if you recall, Ishmael was the first born but he was born to a different mother. Hagar was Sarah’s idea but God didn’t promise Abraham that Hagar would have his promised son, He promised Sarah would . That’s why Paul quotes from Genesis 18 when the Angel of the Lord after 25 years told Abraham that Sarah would have a baby and she was listening in the tent and laughed! - verse 9.
For this is the word of promise: “At this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son.” [Gen 18:10]
Still, Ishmael was the firstborn, he should have been chosen, He was still the son of Abraham, but he was a work of the flesh. It was Isaac God chose because the promise was to Sarah who got impatient and talked Abraham into having the child through her servant girl Hagar - so like us she was trying to help God out and fulfill His promise by human means.
So, in her exchange with Abraham about their servant Hagar you might notice there was no prayer offered to God. And this decision has been a major problem ever since! Isaac means laughter because Sarah laughed at the mere notion that she would have a child but within the year Sarah had the son of promise! It’s only when Ishmael turned 13 he began to mock Isaac just like our flesh does when we reject God’s promise of salvation and Sarah cast them out as we should!!
It’s interesting to note, the Ishmaelites became the Arab people and later the birth of Islam. But only the children of promise are sons of Abraham and according to Galatians 3:16
16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your seed,” that is, Christ.
The second illustration of God’s sovereignty over Israel as a nation is found in Genesis 25 as Isaac’s wife Rebekah was also barren but Isaac prayed and she had twins. Verse 10
And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that the purpose of God according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him [God] who calls, it was said to her, [Isaac’s wife, Rebekah,] “The older
shall serve the younger.” Just as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
Now reading this, it would seem unfair that God would hate an unborn child but remember, He’s eternal and sees all of time at once so I want us to look at the verse in Genesis 25:23 and it makes things clearer.
And Yahweh said to her, “Two nations are in your womb; And two peoples will be separated from your body; And one people shall be stronger than the other; And the older shall serve the younger.”
This sounds like the foreknowledge of God You see, God foreknew what would become the nations of Israel and Edom.
But what about verse 13? Just as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated”.
This verse is written in the very last book of the Old Testament prophet Malachi just over 2400 years later. God is challenging Israel through Malachi.
“I have loved you,” says Yahweh. But you say, “How have You loved us?” “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares Yahweh. “Yet I have loved Jacob; but I have hated Esau, and I have set his mountains to be a desolation and his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness.” Though Edom says, “We have been demolished, but we will return and build up the waste places”; thus says Yahweh of hosts, “They may build, but I will pull down; and men will call them a territory of wickedness, and the people toward whom Yahweh is indignant forever.”
God foreknew what would become of both Jacob and Esau even before birth. Psalm 139:4
Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Yahweh, You know it all.
So, this is Paul showing God’s faithfulness.
We have to remember something here:
God does not hate sinners. John 3:16 makes that clear! And Theologian J.I. Packer agrees! [read]
God loves sinners and isn’t willing to see any perish ...but...but...for all come to repentance. He demonstrated His own love toward us in while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us! It’s the gospel.
The only requirement is for each of us to accept His Son who is the good news to sinners as well as the nation of Israel.
You see, Paul’s point is about God’s past national election of Israel going back to Abraham. This is not teaching about the election of individual believers.
It’s important to have context so we don’t misunderstand this text. The election of Israel does not depend on human merit, and even their disobedience cannot nullify the elective purposes of God.
God is faithful even though His people are unfaithful. And we will see how this works out later in Chapter 11.
There’s a reason why they are blinded.
If God was not faithful to the Jews, then the church is in deep trouble. We don’t have a leg to stand on. This is why replacement theology is such a heretical teaching and must be fought against!
God has His reasons ! Everything He allows to happen to Israel and everything He allows to happen to us as His church. He sees the bigger picture and we must trust His purpose and plan.
But when it comes to us, I hope and pray that we know we are elected and called by God for His purposes because miserable is the person who isn’t sure and constantly tries to earn God’s favor by their own merit. So I finish with Paul’s reminder to Timothy:
It is a trustworthy saying: For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him; If we endure, we will also reign with Him; If we will deny Him, He also will deny us; If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.
My favorite condition - If we endure, we will reign with Him if not, choose this day to receive God’s love and grace for you. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain! So as you enjoy the Super Bowl think about whether you’re on the winning side. [pray]
Let’s celebrate that with Communion
