Why not all the other nations of the world?” “Why Israel?
Although God’s heart is certainly for every nation and every people to know the truth, there is only one nation and people that He made an everlasting covenant with and calls “the apple of His eye.” That nation is Israel.
God made a covenant with the people and the land of Israel:
A. With Abraham:
In Genesis 12:1-3, God promised to do 7 things:
I will show you a land
I will make you a great nation
I will bless you
I will make your name great
I will bless those who bless you
I will curse him who curses you
In you all the families of the earth will be blessed.
This covenant was:
- 1. Literal: God meant exactly what He said.
- 2. Unconditional: Abraham had to do nothing but believe.
- 3. Unilateral: God alone would fulfill His covenant – He alone passed through the two parts of the sacrifice (see Genesis 15:8-18).
- 4. Everlasting: God hasn’t changed His mind! He is the same yesterday, today, and forever!
God reaffirms the covenant with Isaac–Genesis 26:1-4
God reaffirms the covenant with Jacob–Genesis 28:13-15
God reaffirms the covenant with Moses–Exodus 33:1
God reaffirms the covenant with Joshua–Joshua 1:2-5
B. The covenant with the people
- 1. 1 Chronicles 17:21-22
- 2. Exodus 4:22-23
- 3. Psalm 147:19-20
- 4. Deuteronomy 7:6-7
- 5. Amos 3:2a
- 6. Jeremiah 31:33
- 7. Deuteronomy 32:10
- C. The covenant regarding the land
- 1. Genesis 15:17-18
- 2. Genesis 17:7-8
- 3. Psalm 105:7-12
- 4. Numbers 34:1-7
- D. It is an everlasting covenant
- 1. Genesis 17:7, Psalm 105:8
- 2. Jeremiah 31:35-37 (NIV)
- 3. Jeremiah 33:19-26 (NLT)
- 4. Ezekiel 16:60
- 5. Malachi 3:6
- 6. Numbers 23:19
- 7. Additional scriptures: Isaiah 54:4-10; 55:3; 59:21
- E. The covenant in the New Testament
- 1. Romans 9-11
- 2. Specifically these verses:
- a. Romans 9:1-5
- b. Romans 10:1
- c. Romans 11:1-5, 11-26, 29
- F. The plan of God
- 1. Genesis 3:15 – Eve’s Seed would crush the enemy’s head
- 2. God’s purpose: to use the man and the woman to bring forth His image in the earth, and to bring forth the world’s Deliverer through them
- 3. Through the Israelites, the family that began with Adam and Eve, and became a nation through Abraham, God would redeem all peoples from the effect of sin (separation from Him)
- 4. All the families of the earth would be blessed through Abraham (Genesis 2:3)
- G. The plan of the enemy
- 1. Began in the Garden – in his attempt to separate Adam and Eve and thwart God’s plan.
- 2. To destroy the people through whom Messiah would come.
- 3. Hi plan continued through the ages to seek to destroy the Israelites:
- a. Pharaoh sought to keep them as slaves in bondage
- b. Following David’s reign: division in the tribes of Israel; tried to destroy the family of David (through whose lineage Messiah would come).
- c. Nation after nation attacked Israel. Foreign powers ruled Jerusalem.
- d. Haman sought to annihilate the Jews.
- e. The Crusades, the Inquisition
- f. Hitler, modern-day Haman, sought to do the same.
- g. Anti-Semitism
- h. Replacement Theology: an interpretation of the Word held by some segments of the body of Christ.
- H. Israel is unique among nations and peoples
- 1. The fact of abiding amid relentless global Anti-Semitism
- 2. The sustained presence of a people so maligned and repeatedly plotted against
- 3. The profound influence of such a small ethnic group in such large socially-shaping ways (medicine, literature, education, finance, government)
- 4. Their spiritually impacting presence on the minds and spirits of so much of mankind
All this is evidence that the God of history has selected, appointed, and protected the Jewish people down through the millennia because He has purpose for them.
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