IS PHYSICAL-NATIONAL ISRAEL NOW GOD'S CHOSEN PEOPLE?

On February 27, 2007 I posted on the Yahoo Group Every Knee Shall Bow
an article called Rick Warren, Super celebrity, Rides the Beast.

Re: [EKSB] Re: Rick Warren, Super-Celebrity, Rides the Beast In a message dated 3/2/2007 11:49:14 A.M. Central Standard Time, steveb34205@... writes: "A problem with small groups? I find our weekly home group very edifying because we meet to worship and praise Jesus! There isn't anything at all subversive about that.... and I haven't heard of any Christian homegroup meeting for any other reason besides worshipping and praising Jesus and Bible Study! Jesus didn't come to do away with the law, but to fulfill the law. And if I read you right, Jesus DID NOT say you must follow the King James Version. If you want to get real about editions, then you need to learn Ancient Greek and Hebrew. And the Jews are God's Chosen People. They still need to accept Jesus, or Y'Shua as Messiah in order to be saved." The focus was changed in this post away from the  use of  the non-Christian dialectic by Rick Warren's facilitators in small goups to a focus on small Christian groups as though small groups in themselves were the problem stated. Claiming that Christ did not say we must follow the King James Version is a rhetorical statement. Trying to shift the focus away from the problem of the use of a non-Christian belief changing method - the dialectic - and saying Jesus did not tell us to use only the King James Version add little to an understanding of what Rick Warren and John Hagee are doing and why that is important to discern at this point in time. I want to deal with the issue of  the Jews as God's Chosen People.  John Hagee is explicit in promoting this doctrine. Lets start with Exodus 19;  1-7: "In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai...And Moses went up unto God, and the LORD called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel...Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:  And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the LORD commanded him..." Look at the "If" in front of the sentence which says "...if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be unto me a peculiar treasure unto me above all people..."  This is a conditional covanant made by the Lord with his people Israel. When we get to  the Davidic covenant we will see that it is a promise to David with no conditions attached. Leviticus 26: 1-27 says "Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the LORD your God. 2. Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD. 3. If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; 4. Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5. And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. 6. And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land. 7. And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. 8. And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword... But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; 15. And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant: 16. I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it."  The chapter goes on to describe many more curses that God promises to bring on Israel if they break his covenant. Deuteronomy 28: 1-14 says much the same thing.  God is dealing with Israel in a conditional way. If they follow and obey him, he will bless them, but if they turn away from him and his truth, he will curse them. God does say that Israel is his chosen people.  But remember that the covanant at Sinai is a conditional covenant. I Chronicals 16: 13 says ". O ye seed of Israel his servant, ye children of Jacob, his chosen ones." Psalms 105: 6 says "O ye seed of Abraham his servant, ye children of Jacob his chosen." And Isaiah 44: 1 says "Yet now  hear, O Jacob my servant;  and Israel, whom I have chosen." Paul teaches in Galatians  3: 29 that " And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."  He is talking about the spiritual seed of Abraham, which is more important for eternal life  with  Christ than being the physical seed of Abraham.  As we will see, the majority of the physical seed of Abraham broke the conditional covenant.  Those who are Christ's, being the spiritual seed of Abraham, no matter what race they are, helps explain what Peter says in I Peter 2: 9, "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people..." But, you might say, I Chronicals, Psalms and Isaiah say that Israel is God's chosen people.  If Peter is saying that those in Christ are the chosen people, or chosen generation, how can this be squared with the teaching that Israel is the chosen people?. Spiritual Israel is and has been God's chosen people.  "For they are not all Israel, which are Israel (Romans 9: 6).  Paul in I Corinthians 10:  18  makes this statement clearer in saying "Behold Israel after the flesh..."  The implication is that there is an Israel after the flesh and an Israel after  the Spirit, that is, members  of a spiritual Israel who are led by the Holy Spirit. Psalm 78: 10-11 says "They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his ways.  And forgot his works, and his wonders that he had shewed them." Israel, as a whole, the nation made up of  the people of Israel, broke the conditional covenant.  Jeremiah and other prophets deal with this falling away of Israel. The people of Israel worshipped idols, participated in ancient Babylonian or pagan rituals, engaged in child sacrifice to Moloch, worshipped the Queen of heaven, they engaged in usury, and on and on. In Ezekiel 8: 7-18 God shows the prophet a number of pagan Babylonian abominations that the people of Israel take part in, including women weeping for the pagan god Tammuz.  Stephen got stoned to death in Acts 7: 43 when he said to the Pharisees that they, and the people of Israel for many generations before them, "...took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them:  and I will carry you away beyond Babylon." If the star of Remphan is not the exact star  of Solomon, the six poined star of Zionism, it is an idol which is quite  similar. CUFI, Christians United For Israel, and John Hagee display this six poined star  idol  at their meetings. As a result  of the failure of Israel, as a whole, to keep the covenant, Isaiah 50: 1 says "Thus saith the Lord, Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away?   Or which of my creditors is it to whom  I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away." Isaiah 5: 1-7 uses the vineyard as a metaphor for Israel. "...wherefore, when I looked, that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?...And now go to:  I will tell you what I will do with to my vineyard:  I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up;  and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down.  And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged, but there shall come up briers and thorns..." The briers  and thorns are metaphors for God's people who go bad. In Mark 12:  1-9 Christ tells the parable of a vineyard which represents Israel.  First, the caretakers of the Lord's vineyard beat the Lord's servant. He sent another servant and they wounded him.  Finally, the Lord sent his son to work in his vineyarrd.  The husbandmen, the caretakers, of the Lord's vineyard, who clearly are the religious leaders, kill the son of the Lord.  In verse 9 it says "What shall therefore the lord of the vineyard do?  he will come and destroy the husbandmen, and he will give the vineyard to others." God   gave Old Testament Israel   to another people. God  began by giving his vineyard to a Remnant of Israel, the apostles of  Jesus Christ. Even before the Cross and Pentecost, there was a Remnant of Israel.  We find it mentioned in Isaiah 10: 20, Isaiah 46: 3, Jeremiah 6: 9, Jeremiah 31: 7, Ezekiel 6: 8, Ezekiel 11: 13, Ezekiel14: 22, Joel 2: 322 and Micah 4: 7. Isaiah 10: 20 is a prophecy about a Remnant of Israel in the end times.  "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of  Jacob, shall no more again stay upon him  that smote them:  but shall stay upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth."  This is more than just a prophecy saying there will be a Remnant of Israel in the end time. It speaks of  a "him" that had smote 'them."  This is during the Tribulation when a group of Christians who had previously been in false doctrines repent and come to the truth of Christ, but for this they are jailed and killed by other Christians who do not turn to the truth. A major scripture on this is Zechariah 13: 8-9, and also Revelation 9 on the 5th and 6th Trumpet Judgments. Revelation 9: 3-5 identifies one group of players as the locust-scorpions who do not have the power to kill the Multitude but only to torment them. The other group in Revelation 9: 19 names them as the scorpions who in verse 18 are said to kill a third part of men.  "Men" refers to the third group of players in the Trumpet Judgments, which can be called the Multitude, the one third of the apostate Chuch in Zechariah 13:9 who are brought through the fire, are refined, and then call upon the Lord, who hears them and accepts them as his people.  The fire is the tribulation during which these Christians are to be tormented and killed by the serpents. In Ezekiel 14: 20-22 God says he will send judgment upon Jerusalem, which repesents Israel, but "Yet behold, therein shall be left a remnant..." Although God divorces Israel as a whole, a he leaves a Remnant who are faithful to him.  His promises are fulfilled in this remnant.   The Remnant of Israel in Old Testament times continued to  be God's people. In Isaiah 13: 3 God talks  about  "...commanding my sanctified ones."  The sanctified ones are the Old Testament prophets and others who stayed faithful to the Lord and did not bow their knee to Baal.  His sanctified ones are  also the 144,000 of Revelation 7 and 14, a group  who have not yet been sealed  and set aside by God.. II Samuel 7: 1-12 contains the promise of God to David that "...when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shall sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed  after thee, which shall  proceed  out of thy bowels,  and I will establish his kingdom." In I Samuel, David killed the giant  Goliath which probably saved the people of Israel from being defeated by the Philistines.  Though David sinned, he was God's man, and represened spiitual Israel as well as Jesus Christ.  Saul, on the other hand, represents Israel after the flesh. Saul refused to give into God's plan to put David on the throne.  He went his own way, independent of God's plans. Since Saul did not surrender to the Lord, and obey God, he gradually went bad and tried to kill David, the Lord's man. He also consulted with a witch, or spirit medium.  In I Samuel, Saul  represents the majority of Old Testament  Israel, who departed from God. While David represents Christ and spiritual Israel, Saul represents the Pharisees and apostate Israel as well as Israel after the flesh. Finally, they are not all Israel, which  are  of  Israel.  There is spiritual Israel which includes all those who are in Christ's truth and stay in it, and there is physical Israel, the Jews who reject Christ.  Paul says in Romans 2: 28-29  that "For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in he 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." Is Paul  saying  that to  be a Jew inwardly, a spiritual Jew, means that Jews who are in Christ's truth and abide in it are spiritual Jews and other Jews who reject Christ are not spiritual Jews and not in the kingdom of God?. Yes, he is saying that, and more. Gentiles who are in Christ and have the Spirit, can be metaphoically called inward Jews, or spiritual Jews. I Peter 2: 9 says "...ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people: that ye should shew forth the praises of him that hath called  you out of darkness into  his marvellous light." Physical or unsaved Jews are in spiritual darkness. Christians who are  in the truth as stated in the entire Bible and  abide in Christ's truth and righteousness, and don't try to go their own way, establish their own righteousness or follow theology rather than Scripture, are the chosen generation Peter speaks of here. For Christians to make a major part of their doctrine the teaching that physical Israel, that is, unsaved  Jews that reject Christ, are the Chosen People is to give up the Christian's position in Christ. They follow Esau who in Genesis 25:  34 despised his birthright.  God hated Esau and he may not take kindly to a Christian's giving up his position as a member of the chosen generation to unsaved Jews. In an allegorical sense, Christians United For Israel and Hagee are re-building Edom, the house of Esau, mentioned in Malachi 1: 4. Dispensationalist celebrity preachers, like Hagee, who make the teaching that all Jews, whether they follow Christ or not, are God's chosen people a major part of their message are operating in the spirit of the wicked counsellor in Nahum 1: 11. For many of the Jews who Hagee and his followers are raising up above Christians as the Chosen People deny that Jesus Christ is God who came in human flesh.  "For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come In the  flesh,  This is a deceiver and an antichrist (II John 1: 7)." Bernard

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