Who is Israel?-3

Israel/Jacob are chosen people by God. This is true and is confirmed in Deuteronomy 7.

Deuteronomy 7:1  "When the LORD your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you, 7:2  and when the LORD your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them. 

The promise from God contains some requirements. This nation that will leave Egypt must defeat and destroy all these pagan nations that are already in the land that God has promised to them. Utterly destroy sounds to barbarous to our ears, but God must know that they are too far into this horrible idolatry to be saved. Not that God is limited, but His offer is being withdrawn from them.

7:3  "Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. 7:4  "For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods; then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you and He will quickly destroy you. 

This is an oft repeated warning/commandment from God that can be found throughout the Old Testament. We have already studied just how many men have fallen from God’s rest by the allures of foreign/idolatrous women.

7:5  "But thus you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire. 

They are not only to not marry, but to utterly destroy these nations. Then they have to destroy all idolatrous elements of their evil worship of foreign gods and demons. All elements that could be used or have been used must be destroyed completely.

7:6  "For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 

Here we arrive at the verses any Bible student can recite. Israel/Judah is God’s chosen people. As such, God expects and deserves total obedience to remain as His chosen people. Unfortunately, partial obedience is actually disobedience. They never removed all these groups or destroyed all these monuments to evil. So they remained a temptation and stumbling block up to the time of their captivity and even beyond.

So clearly, Israel as a nation/family/clan are God’s only chosen people or are they? Disobedience results in blessing being removed/forfeited and curses being given instead.

Even when David was King, his own sons rebelled against him in their attempts to take his throne. Truly only a small godly remnant existed throughout all of Israel/Jacob’s history.

So how can all Israel be saved?

Romans 11:25  For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; 11:26  and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, "THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB."11:27  "THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS." 

11:28  From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God's choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; 11:29  for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

More next Saturday.