Romans 11

Normally, I put the verses in the text, but chapter 11 is quite long, so in the body of the lesson I will simply place the texts we are looking at. But I encourage you to please take the time to read Romans 9 – 11.

In the past few lessons on God and His relationship to Israel, I have focused on the Old Testament. Today, we will look at a New Testament passage. The Apostle Paul is writing here. He, a Jew whose main mission field is the Gentiles, asks a simple but very pertinent question “… has God cast away His people?” Remember, he was a part of the Pharisees who had led Israel to reject Jesus; he had overseen the murder of Stephen in Acts 7 and, for a time, persecuted the newly born church in Jerusalem before he met Jesus and was converted.

In Romans 11:1-6, we find this promise from God to Israel; the actual story of this is found in 1 Kings 19:18, but here are the verses in Romans:

“I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, ‘Lord, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life’? But what does the divine response say to him? ‘I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’ Even so then, at this present time, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise, grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise, work is no longer work.”

God promises that even though it seems that there is a total rejection of God from Israel, He has a remnant that truly believes. One of them was Paul the Apostle. The early church folks were all Jews, and Jesus is a Jew of the tribe of Judah. Even now, there are true Jewish believers, and as we get closer and closer to the return of Jesus, that will intensify even more. Once we are fully into the Tribulation period, the primary focus will be on evangelizing the Jews from all over the planet. They will be saved by grace, just like you and I, according to Romans 11:5-6.

In the next text, we will see that the Jews are currently blind for the sake of the Gentiles, you and I. Their temporary blindness has given us Gentiles the opportunity to be saved and added to the Family of God as children of Abraham. According to Romans 4, Abraham is the ‘father of all who believe.’ Here in Romans 11:11-12, we see this temporary blindness is for our sake, but one day, it will be a blessing for the Jews:

“I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!”

One day, all Israel will be saved; Romans 11:25-27 tells us this. Not all of Israel that has ever existed from Abraham, but all of Israel who is alive at the time of the return of Jesus in Revelation 19. Here is what it says in Romans:

“For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; For this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.”

One day, the Jews will see Jesus and accept Him as their Messiah and Lord. They will believe, and Jesus will heal their hearts, open their minds, unstop their ears, and be worshipped by them. That day is not that far off. The players involved in the end are in place. Nothing needs to happen as far as the Rapture is concerned that is an imminent event, but the Tribulation has very clear events that require certain things to be in place, and those pieces are coming together like a puzzle.

God promises Israel that He will take away their sins, and He says that as a covenant. God, as we learned last week, makes covenants that He has to uphold since man cannot in his own power ever uphold a covenant with God. Time and time again, we can see that God is not done with Israel. He has preserved them in and amongst the nations of the world. He is bringing them back; right now, because of the attack by Hamas, there is a return of military-aged young men who are prepared to defend Israel to the death. Israel will be, according to Daniel, the central focus of the end. There will be treaties or at least one treaty signed with Israel at the beginning of the end to bring about ‘peace and safety,’ Daniel 9:27:

“Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; But in the middle of the week, He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, even until the consummation, which is determined, is poured out on the desolate.”

This is Daniel telling us about the end and how Israel is involved. The ‘many’ is Israel, the one week refers to 7 years, and this alludes to the rebuilding of the Temple and the restarting of the sacrifices. But there is trouble in this treaty and a harsh reality that forces Israel to look for the real Messiah. They will, He will come, and they will believe.

Be wary of those who say God is done with Israel. No way!! He cannot and will not break the covenant He has made with her. He cannot and will not break the covenant He has made with you and me in Jesus.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

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Online: https://www.mmbchurch.ca

Email: support@mmbchurch.ca

 

Genesis 15

Over the past few weeks, we have been looking at God’s promises to the nation of Israel. It is clear that God is not done with Israel. Jesus, as we have pointed out, is a Jew, born in the line of Judah and through Mary, the rightful heir to David’s throne. In 1 Kings 9:5, we see this promise to David,

“Then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, ‘You shall not fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.'”

There are many other verses like this, but God often makes a promise to David that He, God, will establish David’s throne forever and that he, David, will always have a man to sit on the throne of Israel.

In Psalm 89: 30-37, we find these verses,

“If his sons forsake My law and do not walk in My judgments, If they violate My statutes And do not keep My commandments, Then I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes. But I will not break off My loving-kindness from him, nor deal falsely in My faithfulness. My covenant I will not violate, nor will I alter the utterance of My lips. Once I have sworn by My holiness, I will not lie to David. His descendants shall endure forever and his throne as the sun before Me. It shall be established forever like the moon, and the witness in the sky is faithful.

God promises not to break the promises nor lie to David concerning his descendants; God promises David that his throne will endure forever and that it will be established forever. These are promises that are rooted in the passage that we are going to explore today. God made promises to Abraham; these are passed on to Isaac and Jacob. This particular promise that we will explore is conformed to us in the Hebrews 6,

“For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, ‘Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.’ And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise” (NKJV).

This is all a bit of setup to give us some context for the lesson in Genesis 15. This is a strange chapter if you are not familiar with the history of the time and the idea here. This all sounds like a gruesome ritual, and yet it is important. God used some of the customs of man at the time to set up a covenant with Abraham. So, let’s explore this ritual and see what God did here.

God comforts Abram and assures him that He is on his side. In Genesis 15:7, He makes a promise that He, God, will give Abram the land as an inheritance. Abram asks ‘How will I know?” A legit question. God then sets about to use a common ritual that Abram would have been familiar with to establish this promise. In Genesis 15: 9-10, here is the instruction,

“So He said to him, ‘Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.’ Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, down the middle, and placed each piece opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds in two.”

This was a common occurrence in Abram’s time. Two kings or chiefs from warring nations in particular, or at least two nations, would make a covenant of peace. They would take an animal or animals and cut them in half, allowing the blood to pool in between them. Then, the two parties would walk through the blood and, by so doing, establish whatever covenant they had made. This covenant was in force until one of the parties died. This is where the ritual takes a bit of a turn. God allows Abram to fall asleep, Genesis 15:12,

“Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him.”

This leaves just God to perform the ritual, and He swears this promise in verses 18-19,

“On the same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: ‘To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates— the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.'”

God did the ‘swearing’; Abram had nothing to do with it. God swore by Himself, and since He will never die, the promise is still in effect today. The land belongs to the descendants of Abram; it is an eternal promise that God must keep because, as God said to David, He, God, cannot lie, and for David to have a man on the throne of Israel forever, there must actually be an Israel.

I have had many discussions over the years, and not too long ago, about this very matter of literal Israel being back in the Promised Land and being the focus of God’s redemption plan. There are so many who think that God is done with Israel and invariably want to do away with the Old Testament. They hardly read the prophets and cannot seem to grasp the importance of God keeping His promises to Abram and David. If He can lie to them, He can lie to us. But God cannot lie; the nation of Israel, Abram, Isaac, and Jacob can be as secure now in the promises that God made as we can be in the promise of eternal life. David can be secure in the promise God made to him about the throne of Israel as we can be about the security of our salvation. God simply cannot break promises.

I leave you with a rhetorical question from Numbers 23:19; you should be able to answer this yourself and find your security and the security of Israel,

“God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding

Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

On Facebook (live broadcast of Sunday’s Message at 11 am): https://www.facebook.com/MississaugaMissionaryBaptistChurch

Join us on Zoom every Sunday (10:30 am) for Sunday Service AND every Tuesday at 8:00 pm for Bible Study: Meeting ID: 700 794 460 Passcode: 032661; https://us02web.zoom.us/j/700794460?pwd=M3NFRG91ZW5Sa2Z3amVyWkFnYXd6QT09

Online: https://www.mmbchurch.ca

Email: support@mmbchurch.ca