Sermon 11-12-23

Pastor Ray Lorthioir

Trinity Lutheran Church

W. Hempstead, NY

Based on Deuteronomy 28-29, Jeremiah 31 and Romans 11

Is God Against Israel?

The fifth book of the Torah, Deuteronomy, is different from the other four. It’s the personal testimony of Moses as God’s appointed leader for Israel. In it Moses recalls all his struggles to bring Israel out of Egypt and through the forty years of wandering in the desert finally into the land of Canaan — the land promised to Israel by the LORD Himself. Deuteronomy also contains the multiple covenants — the agreements — the LORD made with Israel by which they were to live in the promised land.

Deuteronomy contains many laws and commands by which Israel was to live righteously before the LORD under those covenants. This includes the Ten Commandments. All these commandments, however, were both a blessing and a curse. If the nation of Israel had been able to keep the commands of the LORD, the blessings the LORD promised to Israel as a result would have been quite fabulous. On the other hand, the curses and penalties for not keeping the LORD’s covenant are severe to the extreme.

There’s one other feature of Deuteronomy. Moses was given a prophecy about what would happen to Israel in the future. And that prophecy is most accurate about what did happen to Israel in that future time that is now long ago. It’s called the Babylonian Captivity.

For this very reason, those who refuse to believe that prophecy from the LORD is possible say that Deuteronomy could not have been written by Moses. Instead, they hypothesize that it was written long after by someone who lived through the disaster of the Babylonian Captivity. Israel left Egypt about 1400B.C. The Babylonian captivity began in 587B.C. So, there’s about an eight hundred year difference in time frame depending on whether you believe that prophecy is real or not. As for myself, I accept that prophecy is real. Moses did receive this prophecy. Therefore, I accept Moses as the author of Deuteronomy.

Here’s what we read in Deuteronomy 29:1, “These are the terms of the covenant the LORD commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb.” Horeb is Mount Sinai. So notice, the LORD made more than one covenant with Israel. It’s this second covenant made in the land of Moab that governed Israel’s existence in the land that became known as Israel.

Here’s the good news of both covenants. Deuteronomy 28:1, “If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.” A series of tremendous blessings follow. Here’s just a sampling of them from Deuteronomy 28:7-11, “7 The LORD will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven. 8 The LORD will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The LORD your God will bless you in the land he is giving you. 9 The LORD will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the LORD your God and walk in his ways. 10 Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will fear you. 11 The LORD will grant you abundant prosperity. . . .”

But then, a lengthy section begins with Deuteronomy 28:15, “However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. . . .” As always, the main disobedience involves serving gods other than the Lord. For we read in Deuteronomy 6:13-15, “13 Fear the LORD your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. 14 Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; 15 for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you. . . .”

Unfortunately, for the eight hundred and more years between the Exodus and the Babylonian Captivity, Israel flip-flopped between serving the Lord and serving other gods. Now, when Israel served the Lord, they did so in obedience to His righteous Law. But when they departed from the LORD, they descended into ungodliness of every kind. And for this ungodliness, the LORD punished them.

It’s in Deuteronomy 28 that Moses predicts the siege of Jerusalem that would eventually sweep Israel away into the Babylonian captivity because of Israel’s unfaithfulness to the LORD. We read in Deuteronomy 28:36-37, “36 The LORD will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your fathers. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone. 37 You will become a thing of horror and an object of scorn and ridicule to all the nations where the LORD will drive you.” Again, we read in Deuteronomy 28:47-48, “47 Because you did not serve the LORD your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity, 48 therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the LORD sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.” It’s in verses 53 through 57 that the most horrifying aspects of a siege are described. The famine will be so great in besieged Jerusalem that a mother would even eat her baby.

And then we come to Deuteronomy 28:63-67, “63 Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess. 64 Then the LORD will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods — gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. 65 Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. 66 You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life.”

Israel has known this condition more than once in its history. Something good came out of the first scattering of Israel between 721 and 587B.C. In Babylon, some Jews learned how to remain faithful to the LORD and serve Him alone in the midst of pagan cultures. Thus, in the book of Daniel we read of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego being thrown into a fiery furnace because they refused to worship the king of Babylon’s idol. They miraculously survived without a burn mark or even smelling like smoke. And Daniel himself was thrown into a den of hungry lions overnight because he refused to pray to anyone but the LORD. In the morning he was still there by the hand of the LORD. His enemies were then thrown to the lions and they were devoured. This first scattering lasted until 517B.C. when Israel was allowed to resettle their land.

However, there was a second great scattering in 70A.D. and again in 132A.D. The Jewish historian, Josephus, described the siege of Jerusalem in 70A.D. And it was just as gruesome as the one in 587B.C., if not more so.

Jesus predicted this second destruction of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. We read in Luke 19:41-44, 41 “As he [Jesus] approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42 and said, ‘If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace — but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43 The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. 44 They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you.’” Indeed, after the siege of 70A.D. the Romans leveled Jerusalem stone by stone. They plowed it over and started a little Roman city in its place.

If I didn’t know better I would say from all of this that it almost sounds like the LORD Himself is anti-Semitic. Of course, that’s impossible. So, why did these things come upon Israel and Jerusalem?

Being in covenant with a most holy God is a terrifying thing for rebels and sinners. But, it’s what Israel had to bear following their experience with the LORD at Mount Sinai. The living God expects those He is in covenant with to be perfect like He is. He expects fundamental righteousness from those He is in covenant with. However, Original Sin makes such righteousness impossible for any human. As Paul noted in Romans 8:3, the sinful nature is more powerful than God’s Law. Therefore, it’s impossible for any human to keep the Law.

Consequently, unless the LORD had had mercy on Israel for millennia and continues to have mercy on Israel to this day, the LORD’S wrath would have destroyed Israel centuries ago. The Jewish people would not exist today. The Bible would not exist. Jesus never would have been born into this world. But because of His original covenants with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the LORD is faithful. As Paul says in Romans 11:28-29, “28. . . as far as election is concerned, they [the Israelites] are loved on account of the patriarchs, 29 for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable.”

Now this brings us to the modern state of Israel. Here’s the question. Is the modern state of Israel still in the covenant the LORD made with them millennia ago in Moab? Do the LORD’s terms of occupying the land still count? If so, I would say the modern state of Israel probably wouldn’t exist. For, how faithful is a modern secular state to the covenants its Creator God made with its ancestors millennia ago? And how faithful are the present people living in Israel? Secular Jews, of which there are many in Israel, believe all kinds of things. Some have idols in their lives like Buddha. And what about the Orthodox Jews? Are they truly faithful to Torah? Or are they more faithful to Talmud and the traditions of the elders? And how do they all regard Jesus who said He is the Messiah?

From the moment Israel was brought back to life as a political state with the partitioning of Palestine in 1948, the state of Israel has been surrounded by enemies. Time and again Israel has heroically fought off those enemies, sometimes under long odds against them. But Israel is still surrounded by enemies. And barring divine intervention, that doesn’t look like it’s going to change any time soon. So, are Israel’s enemies the punishment sent against them because of disobedience to the ancient covenants?

To answer that, there’s one more covenant we need to look at. It was prophesied by Jeremiah in Jeremiah 31:31-34, “31 ‘The time is coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,’ declares the LORD. 33 ‘This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,’ declares the LORD. ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, “Know the LORD,” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,’ declares the LORD. ‘For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.’”

What are the terms of this new covenant? Through the grace of the forgiveness of their wickedness and sin made by the LORD Himself, the people gathered under this covenant will know their Creator God. They will know the LORD as the forgiver of their rebellion and sin so that He might dwell with them. Likewise, instead of the LORD’S righteous Law being imposed on them from without, the people of this covenant will have that righteous Law written on their hearts and on their inner will.

In the New Testament, this section of Jeremiah 31 is quoted in the letter to the Hebrews. And immediately following the quote we read in Hebrews 8:13, “By calling this covenant ‘new,’ he [the LORD] has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.” Thus, the first covenant has disappeared for all involved, even Israel. It has been superseded by a covenant that the LORD made not only with Israel but with the entire world — even Muslims, if they will believe it. 

Here’s how Jesus expressed the New Covenant in Matthew 26:26-28, “26 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat; this is my body.’ 27 Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you. 28 This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.’” St. Paul passed on a similar version of Jesus’ words in 1 Corinthians 11:25-26, “25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.”

Just what is this New Covenant? We read in Hebrews 9:15, “Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance — now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.” Being made totally righteous before the LORD through the blood of Messiah is the eternal inheritance promised to all  who have faith in Jesus. It rests entirely on the forgiveness of sins won by Messiah on the cross.

This great promise even has an effect on believers still forced to live in these bodies born in Original Sin. This is proclaimed in Hebrews 13:20-21, “20 May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, 21 equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” 

In those verses, did you notice that this New Covenant is an eternal covenant? It’s not like the first covenant which Israel broke. For this New Covenant doesn’t depend on our goodness in this life. It depends entirely upon the perfect righteousness of the God/man, Messiah Jesus. And it depends entirely upon faith in Jesus’ perfect righteousness demonstrated on the cross and guaranteed in His resurrection. For this reason, this eternal covenant is available to the entire world, including Israel, by faith in Messiah alone.

Now, ever since the New Covenant was established, there have been many Israelites in the last two thousand years who have rejected it. Typical is the resistance Paul and Barnabas met in an ancient city called Pisidian Antioch when they preached the Gospel of Messiah Jesus in the synagogue there. Thus, we read in Acts 13:44-48, “44 On the next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. 45 When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and talked abusively against what Paul was saying. 46 Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: ‘We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles. 47 For this is what the Lord has commanded us: “I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.”’ (Isaiah 49:6)  48 When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.”

Over the centuries, there have been many Jews and Gentiles who have not considered themselves worthy of the blood of Messiah and His gift of eternal life. And thus, the Lord Jesus has been rejected, despised and ridiculed by many. But there are many others who have been given grace to believe the truth. And this age will not end until the full number of believers — both Jews and Gentiles — have been called into the Kingdom of God.

So, one thing I wanted to make clear by going through all of this is simply that today’s Israel is not under those old covenants. Like the rest of the world, it’s under the New Covenant. So, keep that in mind.

Now, I want to make a final point about a matter that the Apostle Paul made in his letter to the Romans. In chapter 11, he speaks about believing Gentiles. He calls them wild olive branches who by the grace of God have been grafted into the domestic olive tree which is Israel. He doggedly points out that the root stock of Israel — the faith given to the patriarchs — supports the Gentile church. The Gentiles have no other support.

Just to be clear, the Rabbinic Judaism that grew up about 100A.D. and is still the dominant brand of Judaism in our time is not the root stock of the Church. For many reasons Rabbinic Judaism is an aberration from the Judaism of Jesus’ time. Rather, the root stock of the Church is found in the LORD’S Gospel promises made in Scripture to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David and the Prophets. Rabbinic Judaism denies that these Gospel promises point to Jesus. For this reason, there’s a huge difference between Rabbinic Judaism and the Judaism of the patriarchs. Thus, it’s the Church’s Jewish root stock of the many Gospel promises found in Moses and the Prophets that the apostle speaks of in Romans. 

Paul concludes his discussion by saying this to the Gentiles in Romans 11:17-21, “17 If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, 18 do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. 19 You will say then, "Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in." 20 Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.”

“Do not be arrogant, but afraid.” There it is. If Messiah’s Church is willing to obey this command of the LORD given through the Apostle, then anti-Semitism can never rear its ugly head in His true Church. Repent! Don’t be arrogant! Rather, let every Gentile believer humbly rejoice that they have been given the same faith in Messiah Jesus that God first gave Abraham.

For information about Abraham’s faith in Jesus, check out Romans chapter 4. There’s a bunch of other places we could go too. But we don’t have time for that this morning. So, we’ll simply say: Amen.

All Bible quotes are from the NIV.