Romans 9:6-13
January 14, 2024
Pastor Craig Ledbetter
Bible Baptist Church of Ballincollig
www.biblebc.com
I. Introduction (Romans 9:1-5)
A. Paul just finished teaching about God’s grace to sinful people, even on pagan, Gentiles. Chapters 1-8 were glorious! A whole year we went verse by verse through those 8 chapters!
B. Paul now in chapter 9 speaks about Israel (Romans 9:1-5) – what a strange change!
1. Romans 9:1-3 I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:
2. Not writing now about Gentiles, or about Christians, but a group of people called “Israel”
3. He is Broken hearted - He weeps for them
4. Because the Jewish people have so much invested in them by God – as a special people, as God’s chosen race of people
a. Not superior, or better than other people, just set apart for a special purpose – the giving of the word of God, and the Son of God to the world!
b. They are special to God, loved by Him, and WILL be used by God throughout time!
c. Deuteronomy 7:6-8 For thou [THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL] art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
d. I know WE CHRISTIANS are likewise special to God, and loved by the Father, and are being used by God, but only because we are grafted into their place of blessing for a while, but we have NOT replaced them – THEY are God’s people – always will be!
5. Listen to all that God invested in them as a nation…
a. Romans 9:4,5 Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.
b. As a nation the children of Israel were adopted by God as HIS people by the Passover
c. Throughout their history Israel saw the glory of God!
d. As a nation they received the covenants of God – the commitments of God to them
e. They were given God’s laws
f. And were showed how to worship God the right way
g. And all the promises of God for the Land, for blessings, for protection and more!
h. They were given Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as founding fathers
i. And to THEM and through them, God gave the world His Son, Christ Jesus!
6. And yet (here is the problem) they rejected their own Messiah. Not expected!
7. And are now once again separated from the God they claim to know and worship
C. Why? What went wrong?
1. Did God fail? Did God’s word stop working?
2. Paul answers in Romans 9:6 Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect…
D. These are not easy to understand chapters – they answer many questions about Israel
1. A lot of Christians make very hasty conclusions, sometimes very hateful conclusions based on a few verses, and damage the faith of so many others who don’t really care what the Bible says, if it goes against their own personal opinions
2. Stay with me for the next several weeks…
E. The Answer Paul Gives is Amazing! (Romans 9:6-13)
1. Romans 9:6 …For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel:
2. Romans 9:7 Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.
3. Romans 9:8 That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.
4. Romans 9:9 For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sara shall have a son.
5. Romans 9:10 And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac;
6. Romans 9:11 (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)
7. Romans 9:12 It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.
8. Romans 9:13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
II. Message
A. Who and What is Israel? (Romans 9:6)
1. Romans 9:6 Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel:
2. Israel… OF Israel… Who and what IS Israel?
3. THAT is the question today
a. No one wonders who Israel was in the times of the Old Testament – we all accept Israel existed in history, and know Jesus was a Jew, and that the Bible was written by Jews, and salvation is of the Jews! Not of a Church!
b. But people sure do question who and what they are today
4. Generally, when the Bible speaks about “Israel” it is referring to…
a. The PHYSICAL descendants of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham
b. A nation of real people, not of borders
1) Israel started out as a nation in slavery in Egypt – no land, only a promise of land
2) Wandered as a nation in the wilderness for 40 years – “children of Israel”
3) They have been dispersed throughout the world, and gathered again to their land, several times throughout the past 3000 years
4) They have constantly rebelled against God and His Laws
5) They have been hated and hunted by almost every nation
6) Yet, they remain Israel
7) When everyone in Europe was Catholic, and then later Protestant, the Jews stayed Jews
8) They are a people, a nation, even though for most of the last 2,000 years, they have been without their land
B. But Are They Special to God? Are They a Special Nation? You Decide
1. What Did God Think of Jacob’s Physical Descendants? “The Children of Israel” (Genesis 28:10-14)
a. Genesis 28:10-14 And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed [ISRAEL] shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
2. Is Israel special to God above all other nations? (Deuteronomy 10:15; 14:1,2)
a. Deuteronomy 10:15 Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day.
b. Deuteronomy 14:1,2 Ye are the children of the LORD your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead. For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth.
c. Sounds like they are kind of special to God ABOVE all other peoples and nations
3. You may say, That is Old Testament – the Old Covenant. Everything changed when Jesus died and rose again. And you would be mostly right.
4. But God’s commitment to Israel cannot be broken!
a. Jeremiah 31:31-33 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
b. Jeremiah 31:35-37 Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever. Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD.
c. Romans 11:26-28 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes.
C. So what happened to Israel?
1. Why aren't they all saved?
2. Did the word of God fail?
3. Are all the promises made to Israel as a people now ripped from Israel and given to us Christians?
a. All the Promises of a literal kingdom on earth
b. With Jesus as physically here, ruling from Jerusalem as King of kings
c. With Israel as the head nation – not America, or England, or China
d. The promise of all the Promised land being for them – a lot more than is there now
e. The blessings of success and rest and joy that belong to THEM
f. Victory against all their enemies that would try and destroy them
g. We Christians often claim many of these promises – be careful, these promises belong to Israel, not to us
h. To us Christians is given suffering, persecution, enduring, serving, denying ourselves
4. But, It Seems Like the Words of God Had No Effect on Them (Romans 9:6)
a. Romans 9:6 Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect…
b. If they are God’s chosen people, with special attention by God, why aren’t they all saved and leading the way, following Jesus Christ and winning the world to Him?
c. Why are they still meeting in synagogues? Why are so many atheists, or agnostics?
d. And, Why did the Jewish leaders, the Sanhedrin want Jesus murdered?
1) After all that God has done for them, and invested in them
2) After all that Jesus did to prove He was their Messiah
3) Why did they reject, and crucify Jesus?
5. Two big reasons:
a. Not because of predestination and calvinism…
b. But Because of Blindness
1) Romans 11:25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits [ARROGANCE]; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
2) 2Corinthians 3:13-16 And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it [THE NATION] shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.
3) Temporary blindness on them as a nation, but not forever!
c. Holding onto their Self-righteousness
1) Romans 10:1-3 Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness [JESUS], and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
d. Those two conditions keep ALL of mankind lost
1) Ignorance – unwilling to open our eyes to a truth we do not already know
2) And self-righteousness – thinking you are doing just fine and don’t need a Messiah, a Saviour!
D. So, There are TWO Israel’s (Romans 9:6)
1. Romans 9:6 Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel:
2. Who are the two Israel’s?
a. A large body of people who are descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
b. And a much smaller group of Jewish people who have the faith of Abraham
c. Let that sink in!
d. There is an Israel that is only physically the children of Israel – by birth, by nature, genetics
e. And there is an Israel that is spiritual, children of God, by the faith of Abraham!
1) Romans 9:8 That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.
f. One is an outward Jew, who is not all that God wants of a descendant of Jacob
g. And one that is a Jew on the inside - converted – transformed in their heart!
1) Romans 2:28,29 For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.
2) It is not enough to be a Jew outwardly – beard, keeping the Sabbath, reciting Torah
3) You must be one inwardly – believing God like Abraham did
4) The difference is explained in the Old Testament by the phrase “circumcised in the heart” (Deuteronomy 10:16) Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart [NOT YOUR BODY], and be no more stiffnecked. [IN ATTITUDE]
5) If a Jew only is circumcised in the flesh, they physically could enjoy the blessings of God – but only physically – they would still be a sinner in trouble with God
6) It has always been easy to do religious ceremonies
7) It is a lot harder to change a man or woman’s heart! Only GOD can do that!
8) By repentance of pride, and self-righteousness, and blindness
E. DIAGRAM
F. Paul Gives Two Examples of Descendants of Abraham, Who Are Not Israel (Romans 9:6-13)
1. #1 Ishmael and Isaac (Romans 9:6-9)
a. Romans 9:6-9 Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sara shall have a son.
b. Both Ishmael and Isaac were sons of Abraham
1) Genesis 16:15,16 And Hagar bare Abram a son: and Abram called his son's name, which Hagar bare, Ishmael. And Abram was fourscore and six years old, when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram.
2) Genesis 21:1-5 And the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did unto Sarah as he had spoken. For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac being eight days old, as God had commanded him. And Abraham was an hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born unto him.
c. But Ishmael was NOT counted by God as one of Abraham’s children – Wow!
1) Genesis 22:1,2 And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
2) Now, all children are special, both to God, and to humanity – but Ishmael was not as special as Isaac was!
3) Ishmael was not part of God’s plan – only ISAAC was!
d. God rejected Ishmael completely from the promises that God gave to Abraham’s children through Isaac – Ishmael is empty!
1) God commanded both Ishmael and Hagar to be cast out of the family of Abraham
2) Genesis 21:9,10 And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had born unto Abraham, mocking. Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.
e. God promised physical blessings upon the physical descendants of Abraham through Isaac, and then through Jacob (Israel), not through any other son of his
1) Genesis 25:5,6 And Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac. But unto the sons of the concubines, [AND ISHMAEL] which Abraham had, Abraham gave [ONLY] gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward, unto the east country.
2) God overruled all Abraham's other physical descendants when he said “in Isaac shall thy seed be called” (Romans 9:7)
3) Why? Because the line of children and grandchildren from Abraham until the Messiah had to be filled with people who believed God like Abraham did
f. So, The far more important spiritual blessings of God are promised to all nations and peoples who have the faith of Abraham, whether you are Jew or Gentile
2. #2 Esau and Jacob (Romans 9:10-13)
a. Romans
9:10-13 And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even
by our father Isaac; (For the children being not yet born, neither
having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election
might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, The
elder shall serve the younger.
[THAT IS NOT HOW IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE] As it is written, Jacob have I loved,
but Esau have I hated.
b. Isaac and Rebecca had two sons as well - twins
c. But only ONE was chosen by God to bless and use – Jacob (the younger brother)
1) Chosen by God before birth even!
2) God overruled people’s normal traditional view of the firstborn
d. God totally rejected Esau – the start of the Moabites
1) Based on God’s foreknowledge – not on some arbitary choice He wanted to make
2) He knows what we are going to be like – FORE-knowledge
3) God’s judgment against Esau was proven by Esau’s wicked, bitter, sinful heart that never got right with God – never repented – never humbled himself before God!
4) God did not make Esau wicked – God knew Esau would be wicked and would never repent
5) That’s why God says, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated”
a) Paul quotes from Malachi 1:2,3 I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.
b) Jacob and Esau were born is Genesis 25 around 1850 B.C.
c) The Book of Malachi was written in 400 B.C. – Malachi is 1,450 years after birth
d) God does NOT just hate people
e) GOD chooses to love those that humble themselves and repent, and believe His promises and live by faith – like Abraham did!
f) God always focused His attention on a line of people born by His promise instead of by nature – physically
6) That’s why we Gentiles can be saved, and included now!
G. Jesus Also Reveals Two Israel’s (John 3:1-9)
1. One that is natural born, religious, physical, but born only once – as a natural Jew
2. And a second Israel, born of the Spirit of God, as a spiritual Jew
3. John 3:1-7 There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
4. Jesus was speaking to ALL the physical Jewish people, “YE” (and to us as well)
5. Nicodemas admits not knowing any of this at all, when he surely should have, being a Master teacher of the Scriptures
6. John 3:9,10 Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?
III. Conclusion
A. Stay with me as we study these chapters 9,10 and 11
1. Test what you think you know
2. Let me show you some hard to understand Scriptures and help you – that’s my job
3. The nation of Israel is not just some people over in the Middle east that should not be there, occupying Palestinian lands
4. They are messed up, wicked, ungodly, rebellious
5. Like they have almost always have been
6. But they are still in God’s plan for salvation
B. Pray for and love and bless the Jewish people
1. Psalm 122:6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.
2. Psalm 129:5 Let them all be confounded and turned back that hate Zion.
3. God loves them! He still does! I will prove it to you from Deuteronomy 7 next week!
4. God Still Watches Over Unsaved Israel
5. He will save them as a nation one day
C. Learn from them - have you noticed that most of the Bible is NOT about Christians, but about Israel, and about the Jewish people?
1. The more you learn about them and from them
2. The more you will learn about yourself
D. Win them to the same gospel that won us, and never stop trying to win them (Acts 1:8) But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
E. Because they are worth it, just as much as you and I are!
F. God invites you
1. To NOT be like Israel
2. And consider who Jesus really is, and humble yourself today, and cry out to him to save YOUR soul
G. Because the nation of Israel shows us that rejecting Jesus is serious
H. And accepting Him is your only hope!