Joshua and Judges: Abrahamic Covenant and its fulfillment in the Millennium, part 2. Rom 11:25-29; Jer 32:38-40.

Title: Joshua and Judges: Abrahamic Covenant and its fulfillment in the Millennium, part 2. ROM 11:25-29; JER 32:38-40.   

 

Announcements / opening prayer:

 

 

JER 32:38 "And they shall be My people, and I will be their God;

 

JER 32:39 and I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me always, for their own good, and for the good of their children after them.

 

JER 32:40 "And I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me.

 

This new covenant which God will make with Israel differs from the Church's covenant of grace in that Israel will never depart from the Lord again.

 

When God restores His people Israel, He will plant within their hearts a respect for Him which will know no disobedience but constant surrender and devotion to Him alone.

 

This is not true in the church age and it was not true in the dispensation of Israel either.

 

DEU 29:17-18

Moreover, you have seen their abominations and their idols of wood, stone, silver, and gold, which they had with them); lest there shall be among you a man or woman, or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of those nations; lest there shall be among you a root bearing poisonous fruit and wormwood.

 

This was the first marriage contract, the Mosaic covenant, and Israel broke it and was divorced. The New covenant is a new marriage contract that Israel cannot break, so it is an extension of the Abrahamic covenant.

 

ROM 11:25 For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles has come in;

 

ROM 11:26 and thus all Israel will be saved; just as it is written [ISA 59:20],

"The Deliverer will come from Zion,

He will remove ungodliness from Jacob."

 

ROM 11:27 "And this is My covenant with them,

When I take away their sins."

 

The fact that Israel exists at all is the result of God's sovereign grace.

 

ROM 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;

 

Did Israel not disobey God? Did they not break His covenant? Do they not deserve to be forgotten? The answer to these three questions is an emphatic yes!

 

But God does not deal with the nation Israel, in light of the unconditional covenants, according to their failures, as we see here. He deals with them because of His love for the fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

 

There can be no doubt of the fact that Israel's rebellion and disobedience grieved the heart of God. Even so, He did not regret that He chose this rebellious and disobedient people to be His own. Again, what is true of us believers on an individual scale will be true of Israel on a national scale. Both we and they can only plead the grace of God. Paul confirms this in the next verse when he writes:

 

ROM 11:29 for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

 

Looking at his people, Paul was forced to admit that they deserved to be lost. Relying upon God's Word, he knew that they, the nation, would be delivered.

 

Knowing the law, he could never forget the words which God spoke to Moses,

 

NUM 23:19

"God is not a man, that He should lie,

Nor a son of man, that He should repent;

Has He said, and will He not do it?

Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

 

Satan, the amillennialist, the post millennialist, the covenant theologian would all love for you to believe that God can't make good on what His word literally says.

 

John in his vision in Revelation does not occupy himself with the details of the millennial kingdom but only with the fact and duration of it.

 

It is in OT passages that we see the character of Christ’s reign on earth fully described.

 

Covenant theology fully destroys these passages which speak of the beautiful victory of Christ realized on earth by allegorizing and spiritualizing them.

 

After the purging of the great tribulation, the Jewish believers who survived will be called to the land of their inheritance from all the corners of the earth.

 

MAT 24:29 "But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken, 

 

MAT 24:30 and then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.

 

MAT 24:31 "And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.

 

The prominence of Israel in the millennial scene is evidenced in many passages of the OT. After the purging experience of the great tribulation, those who survive become the citizens of the kingdom after the rebels are purged out.

 

Ezekiel prophesies from Babylon during the time of the captivity.

 

EZE 20:32 "And what comes into your mind will not come about, when you say: 'We will be like the nations, like the tribes of the lands, serving wood and stone.'

 

In other words, in the minds of many of the elders of the Israelites who are in captivity they thought that they would continue as any other nation. But to no other nation has such promises been given as are contained in the Abrahamic covenant.

 

It's almost as if they just wanted to be left alone by God and to exist as all the other nations. In their minds, the discipline God brought upon them in the captivity was not upon the other nations, certainly not Babylon, who worshipped idols just as they had back in Judah. "Why can't we just be left alone to live like they do? They don't get disciplined by God."

 

Is that true?

 

God made Nebuchadnezzar great so that He could use him according to His own purpose, but what of his own end?

 

JER 27:7

"And all the nations shall serve him [Nebuchadnezzar], and his son, and his grandson, until the time of his own land comes; then many nations and great kings will make him their servant.

 

What of Ur, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persian, Greece, or Rome? What of all nations other than Israel? What of the world system?

 

The grass is always greener…. over the septic tank.

 

Why can't we be like other nations?

 

DEU 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.

 

Of all nations only Israel will survive as an eternal kingdom, just as He had promised Abraham.

 

Historians with different philosophies of history than the Abrahamic Covenant find themselves at a loss to explain the Jews. Philosophies of history based on non-biblical presuppositions fail to provide any answer to Jewish survival.

 

In an essay entitled, "Concerning the Jews" Mark Twain wrote:

"He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. They Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?"