Friday, March 05, 2010

God the great evangelist

Isaiah 55:1-9
1 Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. 3 Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. 4 See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. 5 See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.
6 Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; 7 let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. 8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Many of us have gone to church services where people have been invited to come forward to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Appeals have been made and the evangelist has called out to people to come forward to be embraced by God and receive salvation. Some of us came to faith in such moments of invitation and appeal.
Here we see an invitation that comes from God himself. Yahweh is the evangelist calling out to us. He says:
Come, Come, Come
Listen, Listen
Delight, Incline
See, See
Seek, forsake, Return
Twelve imperative commands are here. Twelve heartfelt appeals out of the heart of God are here given. A cry from Yahweh to Israel to complete their destination as God’s chosen people by responding to His call in faith. This is a call to trust in God’s mercy and repent. It is an appeal to be reconciled to Yahweh.
The promises are clear. God is inviting us to a free spiritual feast. We will find mercy, pardon, steadfast love, covenant, and the nations converted to a son of David. In God’s love and promises to David, He will now bring hope and salvation to all of His people. He warns us to try to buy the kingdom with our own righteousness or from the idols of the nations is insanity. Only in the covenant of grace do we have hope.
God knows that the way of grace is not something that is the way of our broken humanity. The hardest concept for us to accept is that we have failed so badly morally that we need pardon. We are suspicious of mercy and feel more at home relating to God based on justice alone. Yahweh’s choice of grace is both what gives us hope and what most confuses us about Him. Yet, He asks us to trust in His goodness and not refuse His appeal. He hungers and thirst for our salvation more than we do.
So what will we do in response to this intense and passionate appeal? How will our hearts respond? Are we ready to accept God’s invitation to feast with Him?
Christological - Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30 ESV)

Moral-Seek the Lord and forsake wickedness

Eternal - And the angel said to me, "Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb." And he said to me, "These are the true words of God." (Revelation 19:9 ESV)


Prayer: Lord let me listen and respond to your love.


Contemplation: God is seeking me.

Action: Focus on God’s love for you and see it as greater than your love for God.

Will Israel Be Rejected?

I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. (Romans 11:1 ESV)

God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? (Romans 11:2 ESV)

"Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life." (Romans 11:3 ESV)

But what is God's reply to him? "I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." (Romans 11:4 ESV)

So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. (Romans 11:5 ESV)

But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace. (Romans 11:6 ESV)

What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, (Romans 11:7 ESV)

as it is written, "God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day." (Romans 11:8 ESV)

And David says, "Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them; (Romans 11:9 ESV)

let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their backs forever." (Romans 11:10 ESV)


Literal - The question is if God has rejected all the Jews? Has all Israel been lost? The answer Paul shouts out here is “NO!” such an idea must never be considered. Paul makes three points in response to this question in this section of Romans to prove his answer to this question.
(1) That God had saved him, a Jew, and therefore the gospel of Messiah Jesus cannot mean that God had cast off all Jews Rom 11:1;
(2) That now, as in former times of great turning away from God, God had chosen a remnant of Jews to believe Rom 11:2-5;
(3) That it was predicted in the Hebrew Bible that a part of Israel should be hardened Rom 11:6-10;
So has God utterly and for all time rejected the Jews? No for even now there are some who believe in Messiah Jesus and are saved. So anyone that would say that the gospel of Messiah Jesus declares God to have abandoned all Jews and His promises to Israel simply is not telling the truth. Israel has turned away from God by their rejection of the Messiah. This is a great spiritual apostasy and rebellion. But it is not final. God is not done working with the nation of Israel.

Now both Jew and Gentile need to accept the Messiah Jesus to be declared righteous before God.
“For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” (Romans 3:22-25)

If a Jewish person fails to have faith in Messiah Jesus then they will be justly condemned for their sins and be lost. There will be no second chance after death. If a Gentile person failed to have faith in Messiah Jesus then they will be justly condemned for their sins and be lost. There will be no second chance after death.
Not that it would matter if there was a “second chance” for the people in hell do not have repentant hearts and continue to be in rebellion against God for all eternity. It is appointed for every human being, both Jew and Gentile that they will die and after that death they will face a final moral judgment for their lives. The only hope anyone has of being forgiven and declared righteous at that judgment is if they have been given the righteousness of Messiah Jesus as a gift and His death has been put to their account to pay for their sins. Only those who believe in Messiah Jesus have hope of pardon.
When the gospel of Messiah Jesus came only a small number of Jews believed in Messiah Jesus in the first century. For the most part their rejection of the gospel was profound, violent, and absolute. Yet, this was not the first time that Israel had rejected God’s plans, killed her prophets, or rebelled against God’s kingdom.
Their rebellion could never stop God’s plan to bring the Messiah into the world through them. God would keep all His promises that He gave to Abraham. Not all physical Israel are members of the “true Israel”. But of some chosen Jews, God has always had thoughts of love before the world was created, to be in eternal fellowship with them. These elect and chosen ones will never be rejected or lost. These are the ones that God has circumcised their hearts and have been called into a faith relationship with Him.
“But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.” (Romans 2:29 ESV)

As evidence that this is true and nothing new Paul tells the story of Elijah. The discouraged prophet complains about the nation of Israel in that day and says:
"I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away." (1 Kings 19:10 ESV)

Elijah believes that only he has remained faithful to God. He believes that “all Israel is lost”. But God tells him that he has kept 7000 faithful. God has preserved a small group and kept them from this general rebellion and apostasy that has captured Israel. God will fulfill his promises to Abraham and use his offspring to bring Messiah into the world.

God will always create a believing remnant among the Jews and never allow faith to totally die among Israel. This group is chosen by grace alone and not because they are better than anyone else. Only because God has given to them unconditional favor do they believe and are saved.


Now Paul begins to meditate on the Hebrew Bible and comes to the conclusion that the vast majority of Jewish people rejecting Messiah Jesus was all part of God’s preordained plan.

For the LORD has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes (the prophets), and covered your heads (the seers). (Isaiah 29:10 ESV)

But to this day the LORD has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear. (Deuteronomy 29:4 ESV)

And he said, "Go, and say to this people: "'Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.' Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed." (Isaiah 6:9,10 ESV)

Let their own table before them become a snare; and when they are at peace, let it become a trap. Let their eyes be darkened, so that they cannot see, and make their loins tremble continually. (Psalms 69:23 ESV)

Now it is important for us to see how God has hardened and blinded Israel. If we see this in the wrong way our perspective of God will be radically perverted.

One view is that Israel is made up of good people who are seeking God and His will. Then God blinds and hardens these good people and damns them for their hardness and blindness. This would make God a spiritual monster.

The other view is that Israel is a rebellious people. As Messiah Jesus will teach:

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! See, your house is left to you desolate. (Matthew 23:37-38 ESV)

God blinds and hardens people who are already committed to not honoring Him as God and are not thankful for what God has done for them.

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Romans 1:21 ESV)

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (Romans 1:24-25 ESV)



The way God blinds and hardens people is that God simply allows them to do what they desire to do. God stops resisting their rebellion and lets them go. God blinds and hardens people by letting them freely do what they desire to do which is to do evil. God rewards all who seeks Him (Hebrews 11:6) with revelation but punishes those who reject Him by letting them experience the consequences of their rebellion.

God is therefore just and fair in “hardening” and “blinding” people by releasing them to their unbelieving and immoral desires.

In summary, Paul makes three points in response to the question “Has the gospel of Messiah Jesus caused all Israel to be lost?”.
(1) That God had saved him, a Jew, and therefore the gospel of Messiah Jesus cannot mean that God had cast off all Jews Rom 11:1;
(2) That now, as in former times of great turning away from God, God had chosen a remnant of Jews to believe Rom 11:2-5;
(3) That it was predicted in the Hebrew Bible that a part of Israel should be hardened Rom 11:6-10;

In this response God hopes to show that the gospel of Messiah Jesus presents God as faithful, good, and just in His relationship to Israel and the Jews.

Moral: Do not harden your heart!


Eternal: All God has elected will be saved.

Prayer: Lord, help me grow in my understanding of your ways.

Contemplation: The Lord is our salvation!

Action: What can I do to actively seek God, depend on His mercy in Christ Jesus, and abandon my sense of self rightouesness?