Please turn in your Bibles this morning to Romans chapter 11 as we continue our study through Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. Several weeks back we began a study on Paul’s fourth main division of this letter to the Romans, a section that covers Romans chapters 9 through 11, where Paul is dealing with election and he looks to Israel to illustrate this, to show us that if God is faithful to fulfill His promise to Israel, then His promises to us are sure, we can trust in Him! On the other end of the spectrum, and something we will be dealing with this morning, if God is not faithful to Israel, if the promises to Israel have failed, then we have no hope that the promises that God has made to us will come to pass. Do you see how important this section is for us to understand!
We started out looking at Romans chapter 9 where Paul spoke of ISRAEL’S PAST ELECTION, as he said “who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.” Romans 9:4-5.
Then in Romans chapter 10 Paul spoke of ISRAEL’S PRESENT REJECTION of the Messiah, Jesus Christ as Paul said, “Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” Romans 10:1-4.
Now here in Romans chapter 11 Paul is going to speak of ISRAEL’S FUTURE RESTORATION, that they will receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Now, in some denominations, for some people, and those numbers are growing, they feel that the Jews blew it by rejecting Jesus and thus, God is done with them, they have been put on the shelf, they have fallen, you might say, and they can’t get up. Arnold Toynbee, the great historian said that Israel was “a fossil civilization.” In other words, they are done with, there is no hope for them, and they are like the dinosaur, extinct! Well, not exactly!
Now, in saying that, I am sorry to say that the number of churches, denominations, people that have turned against Israel is on the rise, as I have said. Many believe in what is called, “Replacement Theology” or that the church has now replaced Israel in God’s prophetic program. It also goes by “Supersessionism” and this word comes from two Latin words, super, which means, “on or upon” and sedere, which means, “to sit” as when a person sits on the chair of another, displacing the latter.
Because of this wrong theology it has also lead to a rise in anti-Semitism, there is an increase in the hatred of the Jewish people! Let me just share with you some of what this pamphlet has to say. It is called, “Why We Should Be Concerned About Christian Zionism” and it is written by the ungodly organization, the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. And they are coming against the idea that Christians should support the Jewish people being in the land of Israel, it is not theirs. This is some of what they had to say:
It can lead to the dehumanization of Israelis and
Palestinians
Because Christian
Zionism bases support for the State of Israel on its supposed
role in the end of history, its adherents
tend to treat Israelis and Palestinians not
as neighbors to be loved, but as pawns
in a cosmic drama of divine vengeance and
retribution. The conclusion of this drama
involves the death of all non-Christians,
including Jews, through apocalyptic warfare
or divine judgment. Given these
beliefs, even many Jews wonder if the
movement promotes proper Jewish-
Christian relationships and question the
nature of the movement’s support for Israel.
It is not based on traditional teaching or doctrines
of the Church
Christian Zionism
and its theological presuppositions are nineteenth-century
innovations in Christian doctrine. The
most prominent spokesperson for these
beliefs was John Nelson Darby (1800-1882).
Although the advocates of Christian
Zionism and its underlying theology sometimes
claim to base their beliefs on
ancient understandings, generally scholars
recognize these to be recent innovations.
It is a movement with negative consequences for Middle
East peace
Christian Zionism, in its narrow ideological form, encourages political advocacy
committed to preserving control over all of historic Palestine for Jewish people
alone, including the West Bank and Gaza strip, to ensure the realization of the
movement’s own end-times hopes. This ideological approach rejects any peace
process built on a negotiated settlement towards a two-state solution to the
conflict. Leading advocates of this ideology have formed themselves into
oftentimes very public and well-funded political action groups whose aim is to
prevent any negotiations that may lead to a two-state solution to the conflict.
- Why We Should Be Concerned About Christian Zionism, National Council of the churches of Christ in the USA
Those are some pretty bold statements and we will be dealing with this issue regarding the Jewish people and their right to the land, their right to even exist and that God is not done with them. But where did this Replacement Theology begin? Believe it or not, it got its start from the middle of the Second Century and it continues on today at an increasing rate. Justin Martyr said this way back in 160 AD in regards to the Jew, “The Scriptures are not yours, but ours.” In 177 AD the Bishop of Lyon, Irenaeus declared, “Jews are disinherited from the grace of God.” And Tertullian (AD 160-230), in his treatise, “Against the Jews,” announced that God had rejected the Jews in favor of the Christians.
Then, in the beginning of the Fourth Century, 306 AD, Constantine became the first, so-called, Christian Roman Emperor. And then in 321 AD he made Christianity the official religion of the Empire to the exclusion of all other religions. That meant that Christians were no longer persecuted but it was the beginning of the discrimination and persecution of the Jewish people!
And out of all this we see the increased writings of anti-Jewish material by church leaders. Let me give you a few more examples:
Hilary of Poitiers (AD 291-371) wrote: “Jews are a perverse people accursed by God forever.”
Gregory of Nyssa (died AD 394), Bishop of Cappadocia: “the Jews are a brood of vipers, haters of goodness . . . ”
St. Jerome (AD 347-407) describes the Jews as “ . . .serpents, wearing the image of Judas, their psalms and prayers are the braying of donkeys.”
Also, at the end of the Fourth Century, the Bishop of Antioch, John Chrysostom, wrote a series of eight sermons against the Jews. He wrote, “I have said enough against those who say they are on our side, but are eager to follow the Jewish rites . . . it is against the Jews that I wish to draw up my battle . . . Jews are abandoned by God and for the crime of deicide, [the act of killing a being of a divine nature; particularly, the putting to death of Jesus Christ], there is no expiation possible.” In other words, for murdering Jesus, they can’t be saved!
The result of this anti-Semitism is as follows:
The result of these anti-Jewish teachings continued onwards throughout Church history, manifesting itself in such events and actions as the Crusades, the accusation of communion host desecration and blood libel by the Jews, the forced wearing of distinguishing marks to ostracize them, the Inquisition, the displacement of whole Jewish communities by exile or separate ghettoes, the destruction of synagogues and Jewish books, physical persecution and execution, the Pogroms [an organized, often officially encouraged massacre or persecution of a minority group, especially one conducted against Jews]. Ultimately, the seeds of destruction grew to epic proportions, culminating in the Holocaust, which occurred in “Christian” Europe.
Had the Church understood the clear message of being grafted into the Olive Tree from the beginning, then the sad legacy of anti-Semitic hatred from the Church may have been avoided. The error of Replacement Theology is like a cancer in the Church that has not only caused it to violate God’s Word concerning the Jewish people and Israel, but it made us into instruments of hate, not love in God’s Name.
- Clarence Wagner, Jr., The Error of Replacement Theology
Today in America we see denominational churches like The Presbyterian Church USA, The Lutheran Church, The Evangelical Lutheran Church, The United Methodist Church, The Episcopal Church and The Roman Catholic Church just to name a few that are involved with this unbiblical doctrine that gives rise to anti-Semitism! We see this in The Emergent Church Movement, and even the so-called Bible Answer Man, Hank Hanegraaff, believes this lie. He wrote:
At the heart of the popular end-times theology is the belief that God has two distinct people—one of whom must be raptured before God can continue His plan with the other. Rather than teaching that God has two categories of people, Scripture reveals only one chosen people who form one covenant community, beautifully symbolized by one cultivated olive tree. First, far from communicating a distinction between Israel and the church, the Scriptures from beginning to end reveal that God has only ever had one chosen people purchased “from every tribe and tongue and language and nation” (Rev. 5:9). . . Furthermore, just as the Old and New Testaments reveal only one chosen people, so too, they reveal only one covenant community. . . Finally, the one chosen people, who form one covenant community, are beautifully symbolized in the book of Romans as one cultivated olive tree (see Romans 11:11-24). . . it is not the natural children [i.e., the Jews] who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring (Romans 9:6-8). Jesus is the one genuine seed of Abraham! And all clothed in Christ constitute one congruent chosen covenant community connected by the cross.
- Hank Hanegraaff, Does the Bible Make a Distinction Between Israel and the Church?, CRI Journal, Vol, 31/Number 01, p. 54
The way that Hank puts this it almost seems plausible, he almost seems right, except when you hold it up to the light of the Scripture! And we are going to clearly see that the Church and Israel are two different entities. Yes, those Jews that come to Christ are part of the body of Christ but make no mistake about it, we are the wild olive branch and the Jews are the natural olive branch and we are the ones that are grafted in, not the Jews!
Again, let me share with you the thought behind this idea of Replacement Theology, as David Hocking explains:
“Replacement Theology is the belief that the Church of today has replaced Israel in God’s prophetic program. It teaches that God judged the Nation of Israel for their sin and disobedience in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple (Herod’s restoration project) in 70 AD, and that Israel has forfeited the right to God’s “everlasting covenant.”
Again, I believe this is an important subject for us to understand or we are going to come up with all kinds of crazy ideas about the Jews and their right to be in the land of Israel. Before we get to our text this morning, and we will, let me share this story with you. We are told:
About 250 years ago, the King of Sweden had troubling doubts about whether the Bible was really true in every word. He asked Count von Zinzendorf, bishop of the Moravian Church, to give him proof that the Bible was truly inspired of God. The King had set aside 10 hours to hear what might be said. To his majesty's surprise, Zinzendorf informed him that the time allotted was far too much. He only needed to say one word. Astonished, the King asked what that could be. The Count replied, “Jews.”
Today we would add one more word, “Israel.” In Zinzendorf's day, that tiny and beleaguered nation, born on May 14, 1948, did not exist except in the hearts of Zionists who had never given up awaiting the fulfillment of the “God of Israel’s” solemn promises. The continued existence of Israel today, surrounded by more than a billion Muslims who have sworn to exterminate her and who continually plot and repeatedly attack her in the attempt to do so, is one of the most astonishing miracles of modern times.
- Dave Hunt, The Berean Call, 05/28/2009
With that said, let’s begin reading in Romans chapter 11 and we are just going to read verse 1 this morning as we look at this issue of God being done with the Jewish people or ISRAEL’S FUTURE RESTORATION!
After all that Paul said in Romans chapter 10 of Israel, the logical conclusion is that God is done with His people, the Jews. But that is not the case as Paul tells us. What is his proof? He looks at his own life, a Jew, a Pharisee at one time, a keeper of the Law for righteousness at one time, a persecutor of the church of God, and yet, he got saved! Thus, the nation of Israel is no different and Paul’s point is simple, one day, the nation of Israel will be saved just as he was saved!
Listen to what God says regarding His people in Jeremiah 31:35-37, “Thus says the LORD, Who gives the sun for a light by day, The ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night, Who disturbs the sea, And its waves roar (The LORD of hosts is His name): ‘If those ordinances depart From before Me, says the LORD, Then the seed of Israel shall also cease From being a nation before Me forever.’ Thus says the LORD: ‘If heaven above can be measured, And the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel For all that they have done, says the LORD.’” In other words, God is in control and He will not fail His people, the Jews, they will be saved or we are in trouble!
Yes, Romans 11:15 says, “For if their being cast away . . .” and some just stop there and say, “See, God has cast them away, He is done with them.” But they don’t read on and thus, they miss the point. Paul goes on to say in this verse, and I will read it from the start so you don’t miss the point, “For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?”
In other words, yes, God has cast off His people but He has not rejected all of them. Paul is living proof of that as I have said and when they do return, and they will, it will be like they came back to life. You see, God is not done with Israel; the Church has not replaced Israel. And those that think so are wrong, not because I said so, but because God has said so in His Word!
Think about this for a minute. In the Bible God identifies Himself 203 times as “the God of Israel”. That is a pretty big number. Not only that but we are told that He is, “the God of Jacob” 28 times. Again, that is a pretty good number. And He is also called, “the God of Abraham” 17 times. And lastly, He is called, “the God of Isaac” 13 times. Guess what, He is never called the “God of any other ethnic group.” He is never called “the God of Ishmael” or “the God of Esau” but He is the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, may we not loose sight of that fact!
So we are going to spend the remainder of our time this morning looking at the Jewish people and their right to be in the land and this covenant that God made with them. First we are going to look at this land that is being disputed today. Some feel it should be divided up between the Jews and the Palestinians because they both have been in the land for thousands of years. That is a false statement. First of all, what is a Palestinian? You don’t know because there really are no ethnic people that are Palestinian. Let me explain for those who are not familiar with this.
The concept of “Palestinians” is one that did not exist until about 1948, when the Arab inhabitants, of what until then was Palestine, wished to differentiate themselves from the Jews. Until then, the Jews were the Palestinians. There were the Palestinian Brigade of Jewish volunteers in the British World War II Army (at a time when the Palestinian Arabs were in Berlin hatching plans with Adolph Hitler for world conquest and how to kill all the Jews); there was the Palestinian Symphony Orchestra (all Jews, of course); there was The Palestine Post; a Jewish newspaper and so much more.
The Arabs who now call themselves “Palestinians” do so in order to persuade a misinformed world that they are a distinct nationality and that “Palestine” is their ancestral homeland. But they are not a distinct nationality at all. They are the same – in language, custom, and tribal and family ties – as the Arabs of Syria, Jordan, and beyond. What’s more, many of the “Palestinians”, or their immediate ancestors, came to the area attracted by the prosperity created by the Jews, in what previously had been pretty much of a wasteland.
Dave Hunt gives us insight into this idea of a Palestinian. He wrote:
To the British Peel Commission in 1937, a local Arab leader testified, “There is no such country as Palestine. ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented . . .” Professor Philip Hitti, Arab historian, testified to an Anglo-American Committee of inquiry in 1946, “There is no such thing as Palestine in history – absolutely not!” To the UN Security Council on May 31, 1956, Ahmed Shukairy declared, “It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria.” Eight years later, in 1964, Shukairy became the founding chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and coined the infamous slogan, “[W]e’ll drive the Jews into the sea.” And he wasn’t even a “Palestinian”! Like Arafat, he was born in Cairo. The Palestinian Liberation Organization was not founded by Palestinians but has been used to exploit these abused people in Islam’s war against Israel.
- Dave Hunt, Judgment Day!, pp. 82-83
And please understand that the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands. Israel represents one-tenth of 1 percent of the landmass and yet, the so-called Palestinians want it all! But whose land is it. Listen to what God has told us in His Word, the land belongs to the Jews, God has given it to them, and it was His in the first place and it is still His!
In Genesis 12:7 we are told, “Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I will give this land.’ And there he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.” That is pretty clear, the land of Israel belongs to the Jews!
In Genesis 13:15 we are told, “for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever.” Think about this for a minute. This land that God gave to Israel is theirs forever!
In Genesis 15:18 we are told, “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.’” God made this covenant with Abram or Abraham and the land is theirs.
In Genesis 17:7 we are told, “And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you.” Again, it is an everlasting covenant that God made with the Jewish people and if His everlasting covenant that He made to them is not everlasting, then what about the everlasting covenant that He made with us, does that mean it is not everlasting? You see, you open up a can of worms when you try to altar the Scriptures!
And in I Chronicles 16:14-18 we are told, “He is the Lord our God; His judgments are in all the earth. Remember His covenant forever, The word which He commanded, for a thousand generations, The covenant which He made with Abraham, And His oath to Isaac, And confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, To Israel for an everlasting covenant, Saying, ‘To you I will give the land of Canaan As the allotment of your inheritance.’”
God gave to Israel an everlasting covenant and He uses that phrase some eleven times in regards to this covenant. And folk’s, just because the Jewish people, as a nation rejected what their prophets said about the Messiah, just because they rejected the Messiah, it does not mean that God would then break His everlasting covenant with them because then it would not be an everlasting covenant!
And think about this for a minute. The word “Israel” is mentioned 2,565 times in 2,293 verses in The King James Version of the Bible. The city of “Jerusalem” is found 811 times in 764 verses. Thus, in contrast, the word “Jerusalem” is not even found once, not even once in the Qur’an and yet Muslims claim that this city is their third holist city! The Jews have been in the land of Israel continuously for about 3,000 years, not so with the so-called Palestinians! There are so many myths out there that people believe are the truth and they are not the truth, they are myths like I have said.
To help clear up some of that garbage, David Hocking said this regarding some of the myths about Israel and the Middle East:
First, the widely disseminated idea that the Jews were disbursed from their ancient homeland by the Romans in the first century A.D. is a myth. In fact it was not until the seventh century A.D. Moslem invasion that Jews were finally expelled in large numbers, murdered, or fled to nearby countries. Even then communities of Jews continuously lived in the land. It is particularly notable that even after Titus’ destruction of Jerusalem (A.D. 70), which resulted in the expulsion, or death of over 1,000,000 Jews, the Jewish population in Israel remained at around 3,000,000.
Second, the idea that immigration by Jews to Israel began following WWII and the Holocaust, that it was precipitated by the world’s sympathy, and that Jews displaced the local Arab residents west of the Jordan river is also a myth. . .
Fourth: The idea that when the Jews returned, in what Yassir Arafat now calls the Jewish Invasion of Palestine beginning in 1888 and that they displaced Arabs living on productive and verdant farms, and spreading citrus groves is total myth. Many who were there describe it differently. In the 1870’s Samuel Manning, In Those Holy Fields, London, 1874 referred to the same land as “left desolate and without inhabitants.” Nothing had changed since 1867 when Mark Twain traveled the area and wrote in Innocents Abroad (p. 349), “Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes . . . desolate and unlovely.”
- Hope for Today, David Hocking, Sept/ Oct 1997
Now, in regards to this everlasting covenant that God made with Israel regarding this land, Hank Hanegraaff writes in his book these words from his key character in the book called, The Last Disciple, “The covenant between God and Israel was broken with the rejection of His Son.” (Hank Hanegraaff, The Last Disciple, p. 88).
Please explain to me how an everlasting covenant can be broken, that it is not everlasting? You see, that makes no sense and Hank does not even explain how this could ever happen, it is just what he believes and he allows his character in the book to speak forth this jaded theology! You see, the everlasting covenant that God made with Israel regarding this land was based upon God’s faithfulness to complete it, not the Jews. Yes, because of unbelief they missed out on many of the blessings, even being removed from the land for a time, but that is not going to deter His fulfilling of His promises that He made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! Again, let me just give you a few examples from the Scriptures to show you what I mean.
In Deuteronomy 1:8 we are told, “See, I have set the land before you; go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to your fathers - to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - to give to them and their descendants after them.” In Jeremiah 7:7 we are told, “Then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.” You see, it was the promise that God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and it is an everlasting covenant.
Now some do believe that this covenant that God made with them was based on their faithfulness and when they rejected the Lord, He cut them off and is done with them. Keep in mind that when God spoke to Abraham in Genesis chapter 15 and established this covenant it was a unilateral covenant based upon God’s faithfulness because Abraham was sleeping when the covenant was cut!
Also, in Ezekiel chapter 36 we are told starting in verse 11, “I will multiply upon you man and beast; and they shall increase and bear young; I will make you inhabited as in former times, and do better for you than at your beginnings. Then you shall know that I am the Lord. . . . Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for My holy name's sake, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went. And I will sanctify My great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord,” says the Lord God, “when I am hallowed in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. . . . Not for your sake do I do this,” says the Lord God, “let it be known to you.
Be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel!” ‘Thus says the Lord God: “On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will also enable you to dwell in the cities, and the ruins shall be rebuilt. The desolate land shall be tilled instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass by. So they will say, “This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden; and the wasted, desolate, and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited.” Then the nations which are left all around you shall know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruined places and planted what was desolate. I, the Lord, have spoken it, and I will do it.’” Ezekiel 36:11, 22-26, 32-36.
Why is God doing this for the nation of Israel? It is not because they are so great but for the integrity of His name, to fulfill what He has promised them, what He promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! And yet, many Christian denominations have initiated a boycott against companies that do business with Israel because they feel that Israel has no right to the land! Replacement theologians such as the late D. James Kennedy, R. C. Sproul and others have rejected the idea that Israel is going to play any role in the fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and yet, the Scriptures seem to go contrary to what they are saying! In an, “An Open Letter to Evangelicals and Other Interested Parties: The People of God, the Land of Israel, and the Impartiality of the Gospel” over 100 Evangelical pastors signed this document and this is a portion of what it said:
“The inheritance promises that God gave to Abraham . . . do not apply to any particular ethnic group, but to the church of Jesus Christ, the true Israel. . . . The entitlement of any one ethnic or religious group to territory in the Middle East called the ‘Holy Land’ cannot be supported by Scripture. In fact, the land promises specific to Israel in the Old Testament were fulfilled under Joshua.”
Now people read that and they say, “Yes, that must be true” and they don’t even think about what they are agreeing to. Joshua lived 110 years and that was the everlasting covenant that God gave to them! In fact, Moses spoke of them being driven out of the land even before they entered it, once in around 600 BC and then again in 70 AD. But God said that He would bring them back in the land once again, and He did. He brought them back from the Babylonian captivity and from the Roman persecution for on May 14, 1948 Israel became a nation again just as Ezekiel chapters 36 and 37 tell us would happen. And since that time millions of Jews have returned to Israel from over 100 countries just as God said would take place! In fact, Jeremiah 23:7-8 tells us, “‘Therefore, behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord, ‘that they shall no longer say, “As the Lord lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,” [as in Joshua’s day] but, “As the Lord lives who brought up and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the north country [from Russia] and from all the countries [all over the world] where I had driven them.” And they shall dwell in their own land.’” We are witnesses to this today!
Now here is the thing, if God’s everlasting covenant to Israel is not everlasting, then why in the world do we believe that the everlasting covenant that he made with us is everlasting! Jesus said in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Paul tells us in Hebrews 13:20-21, “Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” And Paul tells us in Romans 5:20-21, “Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
How arrogant, how proud are we to think that when God speaks of an eternal covenant with us it is eternal but when He speaks of an eternal covenant with Israel, it is not. You can’t have it both ways and the Scriptures do no support the idea that God is done with Israel, He certainly is not!
And think about this for a minute. If God is done with Israel, if they were to bring forth the Messiah and they did, and then rejected Him and now God is done with them, why is there a rise in anti-Semitism? Why in the 11th Century with the Crusaders did they slaughter so many Jews with their motto being, “Kill a Jew and save your soul” if God was done with them? Why did Hitler try to wipe them out by killing 6 million Jews if God is done with them? And why, during the Tribulation Period is there going to be one of the greatest holocausts against the Jewish people under the reign of the Antichrist if God is done with the Jewish people? That makes no sense; Satan could care less about the Jews unless, as Romans chapter 11 will show us, God is not done with the nation of Israel!
I would like to rap this study up with several points to show you that God is not done with Israel, the Jewish people and then we will dig into these verses here in Romans chapter 11 next week. But listen carefully to these points and I do realize for most of you, this you already know, but it is good to be reminded.
THE NATION OF ISRAEL WILL NEVER CEASE TO EXIST!
We have read these words in Jeremiah 31:35-37, but listen again to what the Scriptures say, “Thus says the Lord, Who gives the sun for a light by day, The ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night, Who disturbs the sea, And its waves roar (The Lord of hosts is His name): ‘If those ordinances depart From before Me, says the Lord, Then the seed of Israel shall also cease From being a nation before Me forever.’ Thus says the Lord: ‘If heaven above can be measured, And the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel For all that they have done, says the Lord.’” So, if the sun and moon don’t shine, if they are removed, then Israel will cease to be a nation! Not going to happen!
GOD HAS NEVER FORSAKEN ISRAEL!
We are told in Isaiah 49:13-16, “Sing, O heavens! Be joyful, O earth! And break out in singing, O mountains! For the Lord has comforted His people, And will have mercy on His afflicted. But Zion said, ‘The Lord has forsaken me, And my Lord has forgotten me.’ ‘Can a woman forget her nursing child, And not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, Yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; Your walls are continually before Me.’” God has not forsaken His people, the Jews and Paul tells us this very thing in Romans 11:1-2, “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. . . .” Again, not going to happen!
GOD’S PROMISES TO ISRAEL ARE NOT BASED ON THEIR PERFORMANCE OR MERIT!
In Psalm 89:30-34 we clearly see this played out for us as we are told, “If his sons forsake My law And do not walk in My judgments, If they break My statutes And do not keep My commandments, Then I will punish their transgression with the rod, And their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless My lovingkindness I will not utterly take from him, Nor allow My faithfulness to fail. My covenant I will not break, Nor alter the word that has gone out of My lips.” How clear can God be that God is not done with Israel because no matter what they do, He is faithful to fulfill His promises to them!
THE PARTIAL “BLINDNESS” OF ISRAEL DOES
NOT ELIMINATE THEIR FUTURE SALVATION!
In Isaiah 45:18-25 we are told, “For thus says the Lord, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain, Who formed it to be inhabited: ‘I am the Lord, and there is no other. I have not spoken in secret, In a dark place of the earth; I did not say to the seed of Jacob, “Seek Me in vain”; I, the Lord, speak righteousness, I declare things that are right. Assemble yourselves and come; Draw near together, You who have escaped from the nations. They have no knowledge, Who carry the wood of their carved image, And pray to a god that cannot save. Tell and bring forth your case; Yes, let them take counsel together. Who has declared this from ancient time? Who has told it from that time?
Have not I, the Lord? And there is no other God besides Me, A just God and a Savior; There is none besides Me. Look to Me, and be saved, All you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. I have sworn by Myself; The word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness, And shall not return, That to Me every knee shall bow, Every tongue shall take an oath. He shall say, “Surely in the Lord I have righteousness and strength. To Him men shall come, And all shall be ashamed Who are incensed against Him. In the Lord all the descendants of Israel Shall be justified, and shall glory.”’”
And in Romans 11:25-27 Paul tells us, “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.’”
Here in Romans chapter11 the focus is ISRAEL’S FUTURE RESTORATION to God and this will happen whether we agree with it or not, God has said it and I pray that I have clearly shown you that God is not done with the Jewish people. In fact, and I will leave you with this. I believe it is the petition of the Jewish people who call upon Jesus at the end of the seven-year Tribulation Period that brings Him back. In Matthew 23:37-39, as Jesus is weeping over Jerusalem and what will be coming upon her, her destruction in 70 AD, we are told, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’”
You see, as the Jews will have fled Jerusalem at the 3½-year mark of the Tribulation Period, they go to Petra and God protects them there for the last 3½ years. And it is here that they call upon Jesus and when He does return, the first place He goes is not Jerusalem, but Bozrah or Petra! So Satan once again wants to destroy them so this will not take place. I can understand the world doing this, but may the church not write the Jewish people off, they are the apple of God’s eye and the Lord said to Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Genesis 12:3. May we bless Israel and the Jewish people and let them see the love of Christ!
And if you still doubt that the Tribulation Period is dealing with not only a Christ rejecting world, but also the Jewish people, listen carefully to what Daniel tells us in Daniel 9:24, and I will only look at this one verse that says, “Seventy weeks are determined For your people and for your holy city, To finish the transgression, To make an end of sins, To make reconciliation for iniquity, To bring in everlasting righteousness, To seal up vision and prophecy, And to anoint the Most Holy.” And The Amplified Bible puts it like this, “Seventy weeks [of years, or 490 years] are decreed upon your people and upon your holy city [Jerusalem], to finish and put an end to transgression, to seal up and make full the measure of sin, to purge away and make expiation and reconciliation for sin, to bring in everlasting righteousness (permanent moral and spiritual rectitude in every area and relation) to seal up vision and prophecy and prophet, and to anoint a Holy of Holies.” God is speaking specifically of the Jewish people and the city of Jerusalem and this has nothing to do with the Church!
As I said early this morning, about 250 years ago, the King of Sweden had troubling doubts about whether the Bible was really true in every word. He asked Count von Zinzendorf, bishop of the Moravian Church, to give him proof that the Bible was truly inspired of God. The King had set aside 10 hours to hear what might be said. To his majesty's surprise, Zinzendorf informed him that the time allotted was far too much. He only needed to say one word. Astonished, the King asked what that could be. The Count replied, “Jews.” May we not forget that, they are His people and God is not done with them! And thus, since God’s promises to Israel are sure, He will fulfill them, then the promises to us are sure, He will fulfill them!