Sermon Central
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Castaways Or Not? Series
Contributed by Guy Mcgraw on Apr 5, 2005 (message contributor)
Summary: Do the Jews still have a purpose in God’s plan?
Chapter 11 Paul addresses the concern: Is God done with Israel, Has He cast them aside? Is there still a literal purpose to be fulfilled through the Jews?
Every December, especially in these last years, the promotion of at least two holidays occurs, Christmas and Hannukkah. What are the Jews celebrating? A celebration of the cleansing of the temple for the ultimate coming of the Messiah. Strange in the month we celebrate the birth of the Messiah they blindly celebrate their preparation for His coming.
Even to our day the focus of the world is constantly upon Israel. Almost 100% of Bible prophecy is related to Israel. Jerusalem to this day is the spiritual center of the world. There will never be peace in the world until there is peace in Jerusalem.
Zechariah said that in the last day Jerusalem would be a ‘burdensome stone’ to all the nations of the world.
What is God doing? Where are we on the prophetic clock? Watch the Jews & Jerusalem.
THREE DIVISIONS IN THIS MORNINGS TEXT:
1. 3 Proofs the Jews have not been rejected by God
2. 2 Peoples the Jews have become
3. 1 Purpose God has ordained for the Jews
1. 3 PROOFS THE JEWS HAVE NOT BEEN REJECTED BY GOD (1) I say then, God has not rejected His people has He? May it never be!(strongest negative)
a. PAUL: For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
1) In every one of his letters Paul marvels at the grace of God. He must have often looked around at the blindness of the Jews and realize that ‘but for the grace of God there go I’. Ever stop in the midst of the idiocy of a lost world: people defend abortion, defend offensive lifestyles, promote immorality, defend arguments that leave God out of creation of man, even argue there is no God, and say thank you Lord that you opened my eyes to a world they still refuse to see.
2) Paul’s conversion illustrates the dramatic way the Jews will ultimately turn around as a people. 1 Cor 15:8 ‘a man born out of due time’. His life was a demonstration of how strong unbelief and rebellion can be and yet the glory of God can change them.
Zech 12: 8-11 In that day the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the one who is feeble among them will be like David(smallest guy like hulk hogan), and the house of David will be like God, like the angel of the Lord before them. And in that day I will destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.(Arab’s should memorize) I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, THE SPIRIT OF GRACE and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced (Jesus speaking thru Zechariah): and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son,(power of realizing what they have been doing all along to the Messiah, ‘I am Jesus Whom thou are persecuting’) and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. In that day t here will be great mourning in Jerusalem,(nation will come together to the reality that Paul knew now)
b. PEOPLE OF GOD: (2) God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew.
1) Remnant God sustains throughout history.
a) PAST: Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? ‘Lord, they have killed Your prophets, they have torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they are seeking my life’. But what is the divine response to him? ‘I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knew to Baal’.
(1) Elijah suffered from what plagues many of us: he looked at the circumstances and discounted God’s power. Prophets killed, places of worship attacked, God’s people feeling alone: LIMITED PERSPECTIVE OF MAN. Elijah lived under a government that had become totally anit-God and yet God surprised him when He said, ‘I have kept for Myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal’.
(2) It is never as bad as it looks and God is never as weak as He seems
b) PRESENT: (5) In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a REMNANT according to God’s gracious choice.
(1) God chose through Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob and so on to have a people who would be His instrument in speaking to and reaching out thru to the rest of the world. God’s Word to God’s Messiah all came through them. God is not through with them so He is sustaining them with a believing remnant.