A Hope for Israel, A Hope for US

Romans 9.6-29

The Jews are God’s chosen people. In Fiddler on the Roof, Reb Teviah says to God in a prayer, “Lord, I know that we are your chosen people, but just once, couldn’t you choose somebody else?” Our Study of Romans has been a non-traditional one. In it, Paul tells us that there is a Law of Faith that we strive to live by. There are very few laws in comparison. It’s not really a list of do’s and don’ts. Bottom line, Paul’s point to this point is the laying aside of the Law of Moses, the Ten Commandments.

One might ask, is Paul turning his back on his fellow countrymen? Instead, Paul answers in this chapter his passion for his fellow countrymen. We can look at Acts and see his operation of first proclaiming Christ to the Jews and then to the Gentiles.

This leads us to question, “What about Israel? If the Law of Moses is to be set aside, are we saying that so too the nation of Israel? What do we do with Israel now? Aren’t they the chosen people?” These questions are answered by Paul as we continue through this chapter and into chapter 10 of Romans.

Let me rephrase the first question: Who did God choose? Reading verses 6-9, traditionally, we focus on the people God has chosen for His works. Yet Paul’s focus is on the promise, not the people. The promise is to the descendants of Abraham through Isaac. This is also important to understand. There is a movement that came along some 150 years or so after Paul that claimed Abraham as their father through Ishmael, the son of Hagar, Sarah’s first maid. It is important to know that this promise is very exact. God intended to use Isaac for the final revelation of His plan of reconciliation of the world, restoring the fellowship between God and man.

So Paul continues to explain through this, that God had chosen one lineage. Israel was a twin, the younger twin of Esau. God chose the younger to rule to older. He hated one, loved the other. Now because we know our relationship and the emotion that these two words carry, we wonder about them, applying them back to God. Consider Chinese Checkers game. Your focus is on the green marbles. You move the green marbles from your space to the space opposite you. You see the opponents’ red marbles, yellow marbles white marbles and blue marbles, but you don’t care for them. You have chosen the green. (Mainly because I like green above all other colors.) You love green and hate red. God loved Jacob and hated Esau. We are not talking eternal destinies, but divine plan of salvation. We have no idea of Esau’s destiny. We can make assumptions, but we are not to worry about it. God chose a nation based upon faith, before Jacob could “earn” it.

Through 23, Paul continues this line of God’s election. He shows mercy to the slaves of Egypt, yet He hardened Pharaoh’s heart. We look at this from our perspective and try to rationalize God’s love and mercy with what seems to be a point of judgment and execution. Paul reminds us that we are finite creatures. It would be like a lump of clay objecting to be used as a bedpan rather than shaped into a jar that would carry the king’s wine. Again, we are focused on the eternity to come, not the promise that was fulfilled.

God chose to use Pharaoh and Egypt to declare His mercy to Israel. Remember, Pharaoh, who grew up with the same influence that Moses had, the same knowledge that lead Moses to attempt to free Israel 40 years early. But Pharaoh stayed true to his own religion of worshipping idols dedicated to the sun, Rah, the moon, Allah, and the various other idols. So when God sent Moses back, based upon the actions previously taken, he used Pharaoh. Mind you, this is God’s sovereignty to use people.

Reading verses 22-26, we learn that it is the Promise that makes the People. Because we have accepted the sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf, we are called children of the Living God. This is both Jews and Gentiles. Paul’s quoting Hosea is meant to show that God never intended to keep Israel alone. Those who are not God’s people would be called His people.

Now for the bad news: Verses 27-29, Paul quotes warnings from Isaiah about Israel. Though there are many Jews, only a remnant will be saved. What is this remnant? This answers the question about God’s chosen people. The kingdom promised has always been foretold to take on a spiritual reality. We see from the first 5 verses that God used the physical nation of Israel for ushering in the Christ, redeeming the whole of mankind.

But we become confused because what we see as a remnant is not what we are used to hearing traditionally. We think that God will once again bring some great sign through Israel. Yet He does so every time that someone is clothed in Christ. (Gal 3.27.) This remnant needs to be in the light of Peter’s defense before the Jewish leaders in Acts 4.12: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people, and we must be save by [that name].” (HCSB)

And then let’s not forget the warning in chapter 11, beginning verse 17. If God didn’t spare those naturally descended from Abraham, then we ought not think ourselves better, for then our fate will be as theirs.

Let me bring this home for us today. There are 3 warnings, besides the one we just saw: When we focus on what God may or may not be doing with Israel, we become distracted. Honestly, Titus destroyed the nation of the promise back in 70 AD. Today’s Israel, by their own charter from 1948 says they are not that same nation, but became a nation, a place of refuge for the persecuted Jews in Europe. It had been in the works since the 1850s. The real focus is on the lost around us. There are people who need Jesus today and we likely are the only ones who can share that Great News with them. To do so, we need to be living that Great News. 

When we believe that God will do something prior to the return of Christ, where we look to Jerusalem still, we become lazy. We delude ourselves to believing we have time to talk to those we love about Christ. God’s return is still far off. And it is easy to do because of the third warning that we should not mistake God’s use of people as thinking that God has already determined whether or not someone will accept His invitation. He knows who will, but we do not. He knows that perhaps had Augustine taken a moment, we wouldn’t be under a jihad threat today. Perhaps if a minister had taken time for a kid in crisis because the youth minister’s focus was off, then perhaps Marilyn Manson’s music wouldn’t exist as vulgarly as it does.  2 missed opportunities.

The problem we have today is that we have lost the sense of urgency for the lost. We don’t know how much longer the world will go on. Paul expected that Christ would come while he was still here, and if not, shortly thereafter. When do you think Christ will return?

Let me finally close this message with this. God chose the nation Israel to redeem, to save mankind. For that nation, their hope became looking for the Messiah, the Christ. Because that was their hope, we now have the hope of the return of Jesus, our Christ, our Savior. Let it become our motivation to stir us to those around us, for who knows, we may not have as many tomorrows as we think.