Is God Done With Israel? What the Bible Really Says - Romans 9 Explained

Hello and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. I'm glad to see everybody still with us, you know, by the time the afternoon is over I expect a few to be gone for this last half hour, but good you're all here. And we're going to finally move on now into Romans chapter 9. And while you're looking for that, again, we want to invite our television audience to come and study with us, we're just an informal study group. Hopefully I don't preach at anybody, once in a while I may get close. But we try not to just preach, we want to teach the Word, and I'm not trying to twist arms so that you see things my way necessarily, but hopefully we can help people see what the book says. It's really not that hard, and the best way to study, of course, is to compare Scripture with Scripture, because Peter says in his little epistle that no Scripture is a private interpretation. Now that means that you cannot build a doctrine on one verse of Scripture here and one verse there, and you can build anything when you do that. But it's our prerogative to use all the Scripture from Genesis through Revelation and see to it that it all fits. Seemingly contradictions may arise, but when you study they just sort of fade away, they're not contradictory at all. Usually it's because in one instance God is dealing with Israel, and in another what may seem contradictory it's His dealing with the church age, and of course there are vast differences in that. All right, now I think for announcement's sake I always like to remind folk that our videos of all the past programs are available in case you like to start a home Bible study or use them in a Sunday school or whatever, we've got a lot of folk doing that. And then of course the videos have all been transcribed voluntarily, Jerry Poole, I don't know how he does it, but he's one of our class people in Macalester, Jerry volunteers his time to transcribe and to print, and then we bring them up here to the Deckers, and they're the folk who've put out Christian Mother Goose, and they've just been doing we think a tremendous job getting these little books ready for the printer. And so again we always like to thank everybody that has a part in what we're trying to do. Again, we always like to remind our listeners how much we appreciate your letters, your financial help, because after all we could never do it without you. All right, now let's for sake of time get right into Romans chapter 9. Now before we go any further I want to point out that Romans 9, 10, and 11 are parenthetical chapters. Here are three chapters that sit right in the middle of the book of Romans, and Paul is suddenly going to digress and deal with the Jew. Number 9 is going to deal with Israel's past. Chapter 10 is going to deal with God's dealing with Israel today in the present. Romans chapter 11 is Israel's future, and then we go right back to where we left off with Romans 8, and we'll go into chapter 12. Now just to show you how beautifully that fits when you make it parenthetical, remember that in a sentence structure in our ordinary English usage you can have a sentence, it makes sense, and then all of a sudden you think of something that you can stick in the middle of that sentence that would enlighten it and maybe describe it a little bit. So you open your sentence up, and what do you put in the middle? A parenthesis. You put the little curves around it. Now just look exactly how this fits in Romans. We just finished chapter 8 and all those great verses of assurance, how that Christ died for us, consequently God is for us, no one can be against us, and then those closing verses that neither principalities nor powers can keep us from the love of God. Now if you go into Acts chapter 9 verse 1, it just doesn't fit, does it? I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness, and I have great heaviness and sorrow in my heart for my kinsman according to the flesh, Israel. Well just no real connection, but oh, turn over to chapter 12, turn over to chapter 12 verse 1, which is the other side of the parenthesis. It's beautiful. For neither principalities nor powers nor life nor death can separate us from the love of God, and then what does Romans 12, 1 say? I beseech you, what's the next word? Therefore. Now what's the therefore? What he just finished up with in chapter 8. If God is securing us so completely that nothing can touch us, then I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to what? Resent your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reason. See how it fits? All right, now we'll pick that up in another program, but I just wanted you to see that this is a parenthetical section of the book of Romans where Paul is going to leave off with all of his instructions and his doctrines for you and I as Gentiles, and he's going to deal with the nation of Israel for three chapters, for past, for present, for future. All right, now then let's come back to chapter 9, and since Paul is saying it, I'm going to qualify it with some of the Old Testament scriptures, which of course he uses himself over and over in his early writings. Verse 1 of chapter 9, I say the truth in Christ, I lie not. My conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart, for, he says, I could wish myself were accursed from Christ. Oh, how could the man say something like that? Because of his love for the Jew. I could wish myself. Who else said almost the same thing? Moses. What did Moses say? Oh God, spare this people, and if it will help, blot my name out of the book of life, but spare Israel. Moses said it. And isn't it amazing how I'm always comparing, or at least holding up in contraindication these two men, Moses the giver of the law to the nation of Israel over there on Mount Sinai, and then here comes the Apostle Paul I think also at Mount Sinai, and God gives him these doctrines of grace, and these two great men in their own respective areas, the greatest two men I think in all of human history, and both of them make that kind of a statement concerning the nation of Israel. Now, the reason I'm pointing this out is that throughout I imagine 90% of Christendom, and I'm going to include the Roman Catholics as well as Protestants, the vast majority of Christendom is of the opinion that God is all through with the nation of Israel. That God has nothing more to do with the Jew, because they rejected and crucified their Messiah, they've been called everything and anything ever since. And so most, most church members today see no connection between the little nation of Israel that's sitting there like, what shall I say, like a little hornet's nest ready to be knocked down, and if they do, it's going to be cataclysmic. But there they sit, and the vast majority of the politicians and the religious leaders of the world say there are no connection to the Jew or the Bible. They are in every way connected to this book, and never lose sight of that. That little nation of Israel is still God's covenant people. Now granted, He has set them aside, and I've put the chart on the board that we've put up over the years now, and we'll just review it. You want to remember that from Genesis 1 -1 and the creation of Adam in chapter 1, 4004 B.C., those first 2,000 years of human history are covered with 11 chapters in the book of Genesis. Just 11 chapters cover this whole first 2 ,000 years. In fact, I guess I should put it up here, 2,000 years, because Abraham comes on the scene at 2,000 B.C., so here's the next 2,000, up to the time of the cross. Then in Genesis 12, God does something totally different. Out of that one race of Adam, He picks one man. Down there in Ur of the Chaldeans, I shook somebody up a while back when I told him that Abraham was a Syrian. They thought he was a Jew. Well he became the father of the Jewish people, but originally he's a Syrian. So is Sarai. So out of Ur of the Chaldeans, and he migrates up into northern Syria, God promises that one man, Abraham, that out of him He's going to bring about a nation of people totally different than any other race of people on earth, and they are going to be the vehicle through which God is now going to communicate and bring about the whole plan of redemption to the whole human race through Israel. And so He gives Abraham the covenant. Now years, months and months ago, I spent a lot of time on that Abrahamic covenant, where God in Genesis 12 promises, I will make of you a great nation, I will put you in a geographical area of land, and one day I will come and be your king and be your government. Now that's basically the Abrahamic covenant. Then about 500 years later, He calls out Moses. Israel is now down in Egypt, they're multiplying, and He calls out the man Moses and He says, I'm going to send you in to Pharaoh, and you're going to lead My people, who had come now from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the 12 sons, you're going to lead My people out of Egypt, you're going to bring them to Myself, and I'm going to start working with this little nation of people and prepare them for the coming of the Messiah. Now that was really the whole purpose of bringing the nation out of Egypt. And of course that's what Genesis said, that when Jacob went down into Egypt, God promised him that there He would make of Jacob and those 12 sons a nation of people. And that's where the Jewish nation came from, out of those 12 sons. Alright, Moses then was given the law, about 1500 BC, 500 years after Abraham was called out of Syria. Then 1000 BC, about 500 years after the law, we have another great patriarch, David, King David. Then to David God makes another covenant, and that is that through this David would be a royal family bloodline, and through this royal family would come the King of Israel. And of course when you go and follow the genealogies, and you can buy a chart in any good Christian bookstore, when you follow the genealogies coming out of David, you've got Solomon, Bathsheba and they have two sons, I mean David and Bathsheba have two sons, Solomon on the one side, Nathan on the other. That's the family tree, and they come all the way down or up through history until finally we have Joseph on the one side, Mary on the other, and Christ is the last possible son of David that could be the King. And so He makes His appearance to the nation of Israel. That's the whole idea of His first advent, that He came to be that promised King according to the covenants. Now this is exactly what Paul says then in verse 4. I'm not pulling this out of the woodwork, that this is what he says even in verse 4. For His kinsmen according to the flesh, in verse 3, who are Israelites, see that? To whom pertaineth the adoption, or the positioning, and the glory, and the what? The covenants. And the giving of the law, which of course was also a covenant, and the giving of the law and the service of God, and the what? Promises. Promises. My God just promised the nation over and over, see? All right. Now contrary to world opinion that these people presently called Jews, whether they're in Russia or America or in the land of Israel, contrary to what everybody says and thinks concerning these people, turn with me a moment to Deuteronomy chapter 4. Deuteronomy chapter 4. Let's drop down to verse 32. Verse 32 and 33 in particular. Deuteronomy chapter 4 verses 32 and 33. For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it, and what is it? Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard and live? What's he talking about? Mount Sinai. You remember how God came down on the mountain, and the mountain was on fire, and the smoke just pillared, and Israel was at the foot of the mountain? They weren't destroyed, and yet the presence of God was that close to them. And so God says, did ever anything happen like this to anybody else? Never. And so they are a covenant, they are a special set-aside people. Now let's go to 2 Samuel chapter 7 for just a second, as God is now giving David the promise that through him would come this royal family, and we've all heard the expression, the house of David. Well that's what it is, it is a royal family, and even though there were ungodly kings coming down through history, yet the royal blood kept together until you get down to the birth of Christ, and especially through Mary who was the physical mother, and of course God is the father, but nevertheless Joseph was the legal father, and so he too had to be included in that Davidic genealogy. Alright, so in 2 Samuel chapter 7, God is speaking to David through the prophet Nathan, and he of course is referring first and foremost to Solomon, when in verse 13, speaking of Solomon, he says, He shall build a house for my name, now that's a two -fold meaning there, he's going to build the temple there in Jerusalem, but he's also going to be the beginning of this royal family. So he shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. Now that goes beyond human history, that goes on into eternity, so we're dealing in the realm again of the Spirit. Verse 14, God says to David, I will be his father, he shall be my son, if, see now that's just exactly what we were talking about in our last program, so far as you and I as believers are concerned, if he commit iniquity, and will he? Oh, you bet he will, Israel has been failing constantly, alright, if he commit iniquity, now he's not talking just about Solomon, he's talking also about the nation, if he commit iniquity, I will chasten him, or discipline him, with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men. Has God done it to the nation? Over and over and over, Israel has come under the disciplinary action of their God, because of their unbelief, because of their sin. Then verse 15, what's the first word, but, you know I get a kick out of even my television people when they call, they'll refer to the flip side, well I know where they've heard it now, because it's one of my favorite expressions, that whenever you see this word but, look for the flip side, yes, they're going to commit iniquity, but the flip side is, never, God says, will my mercy depart from them, or from him, what is it, from him, as I took it from Saul, in other words, the analogy, what's God saying, regardless of how far Israel falls into wickedness, he's going to discipline them, and we know he has, they're still going to face the greatest discipline that any people have ever had when they go through the tribulation, but he's not destroying the nation of Israel, he has not turned his back on them forever, he has set them aside, even as I've got it here on the chart, 2 ,000 years to Abraham, from Abraham until Christ's first advent, another 2,000 years, round figures, where he dealt only with this favored nation, with some exceptions, I always have to put that in there, but it was primarily with the nation of Israel, and even after the crucifixion, you come into the early chapters of Acts, who does Peter address, oh, ye children of Israel, ye men of Israel, and Peter pleads with them to respond to the fact that the one they crucified was their Messiah, but Israel wouldn't believe it, nationally, some did, but for the most part, the nation rejected it, and so what did God do? Discipline again, and so he brought in the Roman army, yes God did, he brought in the Roman army under Titus, and Titus besieged the city, and when he finally gained entrance to it, it was the greatest mayhem that man could imagine, as those Roman legions destroyed the Jew by the thousands, took the temple down rock by rock, stone by stone, as the prophet had written would happen, and Israel was dispersed into every nation on the face of the earth, until about the turn of the century, they started coming back, set up the kibbutzes, and little by little, the nation of Israel was making its appearance, until 1948, they had that little war with the Arabs around them, and Harry Truman, bless his heart, was the first world leader to declare the nation of Israel a sovereign state, to this day I claim that's why he beat Thomas Dewey in the next election, but whatever, the little nation of Israel all of a sudden becomes a sovereign state once again, and yet the world says that's not anything that God has to do with, he's all through with the Jew, no he isn't, because he has promised that his mercy would never depart from the nation of Israel, all right, now let's forsake a time, go quickly all the way up to Jeremiah, chapter 31, Jeremiah 31, that's in the middle of your Bible just about, Jeremiah 31, and oh when these people try to say that the nation of Israel has nothing to do with scripture, because God is all through with the Jew, he cast them off when they crucified their Messiah, they don't know their Bible, because the scripture is adamant that he is still going to come back and fulfill these covenant promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Jeremiah 31, verse 35, thus saith the Lord, Jeremiah 31, verse 35, thus saith the Lord, who giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar, in other words the creator himself who is the sustainer and keeper of everything, the Lord of hosts is his name, now look at verse 36, if those ordinances, in other words if these laws of nature and of science, if they depart from before me, God says, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever, thus saith the Lord, if heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, if you can do that, God says, then I will cast off the seed of Israel for all that they have done, so can it be done, can't be done, will he ever cast aside Israel, never, don't you believe for a minute that God is through with his chosen nation Israel, the only problem is when they rejected their Messiah and they crucified him and Peter couldn't get him to believe in these early chapters of Acts, God raised up that other little Jew, Saul of Tarsus who we know as Paul and sent him primarily to the Gentiles as back here he went primarily to the Jew, just as sure as there were Gentile exceptions as God dealt with Jew, yes there are certainly individual Jews who can be saved in the age of grace, but as I told a caller again the other night, you cannot let the church go in and mix up with Israel in the tribulation because this is God's dealing with Israel, not the church, Jeremiah you're still in it aren't you, Jeremiah chapter 30, I hope that's right, yeah, Jeremiah 30, once in a while I just about get myself in a jam, Jeremiah 30 verse 5, I got to back up what I just said, the tribulation is primarily God dealing with the nation of Israel, and you cannot run the church into God's dealing with his covenant people because we are not under any of these covenants, they have nothing to do with the Gentile, they are Jew only and those covenants will finally come into fruition when we get over here into the tribulation, the time of God dealing with the nation of Israel, Jeremiah 30 verse 5, Jeremiah 30 verse 5, For thus saith the LORD, We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness? Why? Because of the horrible events that are coming on the earth, and it's going to be primarily centered again in the Middle East. Now I think it's scary as you read your news accounts lately, we know that several of those Middle Eastern nations have nuclear warheads, some feel Israel alone has 200, well I think you all can understand what 200 nuclear warheads can do to any part of the world, and then the Persians probably have some, Iran and Syria probably has a few, and so the potential for mass destruction is hanging over the Middle East let alone what Russia and America are doing, and so there's going to be tremendous fear, tremendous suffering like you and I cannot imagine, and it's going to be directed primarily to the children of Israel. Read on one more verse, verse 7, Alas, for that day is great, so that none is like it, and all you have to do is think back through human history the horrible things that have happened, and yet they all pale in significance when put against this final 7 years of human history. That day is great, so that none is like it, it is even the time of Jacob, and who's Jacob? Israel, and so this 7 year period is primarily the time of Israel's trouble, when God will be dealing with them, and His wrath and His vexation with the end result that out of them will come a remnant of believers, and never lose sight of the fact that all through Scripture God has had is remnant. That's it. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, OK 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, OK 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study, is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time, for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.