IS GOD FINISHED WITH THE NATION OF ISRAEL? (Part 1)
God’s Invitation to Grace ❧ Part 48
Romans 11:1-6 ❧ June 9, 2024
The late well-known Rabbi Harold Kushner tells of a story of a young boy who came home from Sunday School after being taught about Israel escaping Egypt and crossing the Red Sea. His mother asked him what he’d learned, and he told her: “The Israelites got out of Egypt, but Pharaoh and his army chased after them. They got to the Red Sea and couldn’t cross it and the Egyptians were getting closer. So, Moses got on his walkie-talkie, the Israeli air force bombed the Egyptians, and the Israeli navy built a pontoon bridge so the people could cross.” His mother was shocked. “Is that the way they taught you the story?” She asked. “Well no,” the boy admitted, “but if I told you what they told us, you’d never believe it.”
Really, the whole history of the nation of Israel is laced with the impossible to the unbelievable. If you wanted to demonstrate the existence of God all you have to do is examine the history of the Jews. Their existence even today is a miracle. There is no other nation like them in the history of mankind. In 135 A.D. Rome expelled the Israelites from their land during what was called the Bar Cochba revolt. After a three-year long revolt against Rome, the Jews became a dispersed wandering nation without a land, government, or army. On May 14,1948, following the Holocaust of WWII, and after no small controversy, Israel resettled their former land and became a nation once again after 1,813 years of survival! There has never been a nation like Israel in all the history of mankind. Seen any Hittites or Amalekites lately? In spite of literally thousands of years of incredible persecution and near impossible situations and the fact that the place of Israel just happens to be at the joining of three different continents – Africa, Asia, Europe, is a tremendous testimony that God exists. But far more than merely the existence of God – Israel’s history reveals the character of God’s faithfulness! There is no greater illustration of God’s faithfulness than His relationship with the nation of Israel.
That’s what Romans 11 is about – God’s great faithfulness. The question that the following thirty-six verses revolve around is has God given up on the nation of Israel? Since they rejected their Messiah and God is now blessing the Gentiles through Christ, is the nation of Israel nothing more than a forgotten memory of the past? Read Romans 11:1-14. Has God given up on the nation of Israel? Paul’s answer is: Of course not! KJV God forbid!. Paul’s underlying question in these verses is can we trust God in His promises? You may be in a place of questioning God’s faithfulness, God’s trustworthiness in your own life right now. This message is not just about God’s great faithfulness to the nation of Israel, but about the rock-solid trustworthiness of God for all who trust in Him. Paul’s reasoning goes something like this. If we can’t trust God to keep His promises to the nation of Israel, and there are lots and lots of them, then how can we trust God to keep His promises to us?Paul gives us two affirmations why we can trust God.
- Personal: Paul. I ask, then, has God rejected his own people, the nation of Israel? Of
course not! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham and a member of the tribe of Benjamin (V.1). Paul asks: Is God finished with Israel now that the Church is here? NO! Paul himself is living proof God is still keeping His promises to Israel. Paul was a card carrying dyed in the wool Jew if there ever was one! You couldn’t more Jewish than Paul! He called himself a pure blooded citizen of Israel…a real Hebrew is there ever was one! (Phil. 3:5, NLT). Someone has said Paul was so Jewish he was extra Jewish! Paul’s answer to his question – Has God rejected (pushed away) His own people? His answer is the strongest way you could say NO. Of course not!
If God has given up on Israel, He certainly wouldn’t have chosen Paul! Anyone would have been easier to save than Paul. He was an angry, militant, blood-thirsty, murderous Pharisee bent on destroying anything to do with Jesus. If such a Christ-hating Jew as Paul could be brought to a saving faith, turned from rebel to worshiper, then the Gospel has power to save any Jew. Paul’s own transformation of coming to Christ made it obvious that God could not possibly have rejected all Israel. He was living proof that God’s promises to Israel were still being carried out.
It is not accident that no less than three times in the book of Acts tells the story of Paul’s coming to faith in Christ (Acts 9, 22, 26). It has been pointed out, and I agree, Paul’s life is a shadow, a pattern of what will happen someday for the nation of Israel. Paul said of his own coming to Christ that he was one who was untimely born (1 Cor. 15:8). In 1 Timothy 1:16 he says, God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in him and receive eternal life(1 Timothy 1:16, NLT). Just like Paul was startled and humbled by Christ’s sudden appearance in Acts 9, so one day Israel will one day be startled and humbled by Christ’s sudden appearance when He returns a second time (Zech. 14:4; Acts 1:11; Rev. 1:7; 19:11). Like Paul, their breath will be taken away when they realize the very One whom they had rejected was in fact their Messiah. Then I will pour out a spirit of grace and prayer on the family of David and on the people of Jerusalem. They will look on me whom they have pierced and mourn for him as for an only son. They will grieve bitterly for him as for a firstborn son who has died (Zechariah 12:10, NLT). On that day, God will cleanse them from all their sins and impurity (Zechariah 13:1). Paul’s life is a picture of how God will someday save the nation of Israel.
Have you ever met someone who couldn’t stand to hear anything about Jesus or the Bible, or God? They instantly become argumentative and angry. Paul is a good case and point that no matter how hard people may seem or how impossible it may seem for them to come to Christ – God can turn the hardest of hearts to Himself. Paul’s first affirmation of God’s faithfulness is himself. If God can save me, He can save anyone!
- Historical: Remnant. No, God has not rejected his own people, whom he chose from
the very beginning. Do you realize what the Scriptures say about this? Elijah the prophet complained to God about the people of Israel and said, “Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too.” And do you remember God’s reply? He said, “No, I have 7,000 others who have never bowed down to Baal!” (Romans 11:3-4). Paul says God has always had a remnant – a faithful few in Israel. Do you realize what the Scriptures say about this? He says, “Don’t you remember the great prophet Elijah (1 Kings 18-19)? In his day, Elijah thought that the nation had totally departed from God. Feeling as though he was all alone, he nonetheless stood faced down the godless king Ahab and snake-like wife Jezebel. They exchanged worship of the One true God for the Canaanite storm God, Baal, and the fertility goddess, Asherah. Under their evil regime they aggressively turned the people of Israel away from God persecuting anyone who did not comply. In the face of a corrupt government, Elijah prayed. He prayed the land would receive no rain and for three and a half years Israel suffered a severe drought. This is just what God said He would do if His people allowed their hearts to be deceived and worship other gods (Deut. 11:17).
There is a parallel here even today for Israel. For the past two thousand years they have been scattered, persecuted, hated unlike any other people. Why is that? God warned them if they did not live in obedience to Him, He would scatter them around the world (Deut. 26:48). Because they have rejected their Messiah. But today, we’re seeing a regathering of Israel unlike any in history. As of 2006 the greatest population of Jews is now in Israel after almost two-thousand years of wandering around the world. Why is this happening? Because God foretold that in the last days, He will make Israel a nation again and gather the people of Israel from the four corners of the world (Jer. 23:7-8). Why? Because God is keeping His Word. He has future plans for His chosen nation Israel.
You may be familiar with what happens next. Elijah calls for a showdown. He challenges Ahab and Jezebel and all their prophets of Baal and Ashera (850) to Mt. Carmel to see if their god is real or Elijah’s. The prophets build an altar to Baal and then begin summoning him to send fire from heaven to consume their sacrifice. They spend a full day in feverish worship calling on Baal to consume their sacrifice. All the while, Elijah calmly waited by the altar he built to God. At one point while prophets of Baal were dancing and gyrating around the altar they’d built and cutting themselves; Elijah mockingly asks them what was taking so long: Where’s Baal? Maybe you need to shout louder. Maybe he is too busy relieving himself or daydreaming? (1 Kings 18:26, my paraphrase). They shouted louder and cut themselves with knives and swords until there was blood everywhere. Despite all their feverish theatrics, nothing happens, their imaginative Baal was silent.
Then at the evening sacrifice it came the time for Elijah to call on God. Elijah called for them to gather around him. He then ordered the altar he’d prepared to be drenched with water not once, or twice, but three times so that there was water everywhere. Then Elijah walked up to the altar and prayed: O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, prove today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant(1 Kings 18:36). When he finished, fire came rushing down out of the sky consuming the sacrifice, the wood, even the stones it was built with. Immediately all of the false prophets fell face first to the ground and cried out that the LORD is God! Elijah then ordered that the false prophets, all 850 of them, be put to death. Ahab and Jezebel were soundly defeated. Then Elijah prayed for rain and a torrential downpour swept the land. To Elijah’s disappointment, none of this changed Ahab or Jezebel in the slightest. Instead of humbling herself, Jezebel vows to kill Elijah. At this point, Elijah’s had enough, and he flees running on foot for 18 miles to escape. He collapses in a broken defeated heap and asks God to take his life. Feeling all alone he tells God, I alone am left(1 Kings 19:14). God assures Elijah He will execute justice, but He tells the prophet he’s not alone. There are seven thousand faithful others.
Paul couldn’t have chosen a more vivid example that though the majority of Israel has turned their backs on God, there has always been a faithful remnant. I think Paul could easily identify with Elijah. What is true for remnant Israel is true for the Church as well. The Church today is filled with many who wear the label Christian but that’s about as far as it goes. One writer observed, The visible church today is mostly Gentile, and that church encompasses a large percentage of apostates, heretics, and others who reject the absolute and inerrant authority of Scripture and deny its cardinal truths, including the deity of Christ. And the Lord’s judgement will fall on the apostate Gentile church just as surely and swiftly as it did on apostate Israel (MacArthur, Romans 9-16, p. 117). Like Elijah, Paul discovered that there was yet a remnant of true believers. At no time has the entire nation of Israel been true to the Lord.
God has always had a small group of true believers that were saved by God’s grace, not works. That’s Paul’s point in verse 5:It is the same today, for a few of the people of Israel have remained faithful because of God’s grace—his undeserved kindness in choosing them. Paul says it is the same today. There is a remnant of believers among the Jews today. There are some who like to say the church has taken the place of Israel, but that’s not true. That’s Paul’s whole point – God has not rejected Israel but has always had a group of true believers. The rest of Israel looked like they were following after God, but they were doing it by works, not by grace. So, God left them in their hard-hearted stubbornness.
Paul’s point is God has promised to never reject Israel. God says in Jeremiah 33: Have you noticed what people are saying? —‘The Lord chose Judah and Israel and then abandoned them!’ They are sneering and saying that Israel is not worthy to be counted as a nation. But this is what the Lord says: I would no more reject my people than I would change my laws that govern night and day, earth and sky. I will never abandon the descendants of Jacob or David, my servant, or change the plan that David’s descendants will rule the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Instead, I will restore them to their land and have mercy on them (Jeremiah 33:24-26).
I have no doubt that there were times when Paul must have felt like Elijah – alone, terrified, rejected maybe, wanting to give up. “God, I’ve had enough. I can’t go on any longer.” It was during those times, like Elijah, like David, like Moses, like so many others, Paul had to remember God’s faithfulness to His word. God said there would only be a few of us. He said it was not going to be easy.
I think there must have been many, many times Paul poured over God’s word remembering the men and women of faith who based their lives on the faithfulness of God to His word. Paul had formed the habit of remembering, reflecting on, taking to heart, God’s faithfulness to His word.
