Who are God's Chosen People - Part 2

In Part 1, we read that according to Moses the promises God made to Abraham were revocable to Israel. Deuteronomy 7 & 8. But the question becomes, "were the promises ever revoked to Israel?" Only a look at the Biblical story can tell us what happened and why at six major events in their history.

First, when the Israelites came out of Egypt and arrived at Mt. Sinai, they accepted the Lord's covenant. "Then Moses went down to the people and repeated all the instructions and regulations the Lord had given him. All the people answered with one voice, 'We will do everything the Lord has commanded'." Ex 24:3 (NLT). But not long after this, God called Moses up on the mountain to give him the commandments, and Moses was there forty days. Near the end of the forty days, the Israelites went to Aaron and asked him to make other gods for them to worship. They broke their covenant agreement in less than two months, and God was ready to destroy them. What stopped God was the intercession of Moses. "Then the Lord said, 'I have seen how stubborn and rebellious these people are. Now leave Me alone so my fierce anger can blaze against them, and I will destroy them. Then I will make you Moses, into a great nation'." Ex 32:9-10 (NLT). "So the Lord changes His mind about the terrible disaster He had threatened to bring on His people. Ex 32:14 (NLT).

Second, when the Israelites arrived at Kadesh Barnea at the edge of the promised land, they rebelled against God and their covenant relationship with Him. God was ready to destroy the nation again, but Moses interceded, and God reduced the penalty to forbidding that generation to enter the land. "But the whole community began to talk about stoning Joshua and Caleb. Then the glorious presence of the Lord appeared to all the Israelites at the Tabernacle. And the Lord said to Moses, 'How long will these people treat me with contempt? Will they never believe me, even after all the miraculous signs I have done among them? I will disown them and destroy them with a plague. Then I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they are'!" Num 14:10-12 (NLT). "Then the Lord said, 'I will pardon them as you have requested. But as surely as I live, and as surely as the earth is filed with the Lord's glory, not one of these people will ever enter that land. They have all seen my glorious presence and the miraculous signs I performed both in Egypt and in the wilderness, but again and again they have tested Me by refusing to listen to My voice. They will never even see the land I swore to give their ancestors. None of those who have treated Me with contempt will ever see it. But My servant Caleb has a different attitude than the others have. He has remained loyal to Me, so I will bring him into the land he explored. His descendants will possess their full share of that land. Now turn around, and don't go on toward the land where the Amalekites and Canaanites live. Tomorrow you must set out for the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea'." Num 14:20-25 (NLT).

Third, we read in Judges 1 how the Israelites failed to drive their enemies out of the land as they were required to do. In Judges 2, the Angel of the Lord appeared to the Israelites and punished them because of their failure to follow God's instructions, but they were not destroyed because they had not turned away from God to other gods. "The Angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said to the Israelites, 'I brought you out of Egypt into this land that I swore to give your ancestors, and I said I would never break my covenant with you. For your part, you were not to make any covenants with the people living in this land; instead, you were to destroy their altars. But you disobeyed My command. Why did you do this? So now I declare that I will no longer drive out the people living in your land. They will be thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a constant temptation to you.' When the Angel of the Lord finished speaking to all the Israelites, the people wept loudly. So they called the place Bokim (which means 'weeping'), and they offered sacrifices there to the Lord." Judges 2:1-5 (NLT).

Fourth, while Solomon started off as a God-fearing king, later in life he married many pagan women who turned his heart to worshipping other gods. Because of this, God said He would cause the kingdom to split under Rehoboam, Solomon's son. The immediate cause of the split was over taxes so, on the surface, God doesn't appear to be involved. All of the tribes except Judah and Benjamin followed a new king, Jeroboam. Now all of the tribes continued going to Jerusalem to worship and that worried Jeroboam about reunification and losing his throne. Answer, Jeroboam made two golden calves, placed one at each end of his kingdom, and the people began to worship these idols and other pagan gods as well. What was the result? The kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrian Army never to be identified again in the Bible. 1 Kings 12-13 and 2 Kings 17.

Fifth, after the dedication of the temple, God appeared to Solomon and renewed His promise to David, but it was conditional. "So Solomon finished building the Temple of the Lord, as well as the royal palace. He completed everything he had planned to do. Then the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, as He had done before at Gibeon. The Lord said to him, 'I have heard your prayer and your petition. I have set this Temple apart to be holy - this place you have built where My name will be honored forever. I will always watch over it, for it is dear to My heart. As for you, if you will follow me with integrity and godliness, as David your father did, obeying all my commands, decrees, and regulations, then I will establish the throne of your dynasty over Israel forever. For I made this promise to your father, David: 'One of your descendants will always sit on the throne of Israel.' But if you or your descendants abandon me and disobey the commands and decrees I have given you, and if you serve and worship other gods, then I will uproot Israel from this land that I have given them. I will reject this Temple that I have made holy to honor my name. I will make Israel an object of mockery and ridicule among the nations. And though this Temple is impressive now, all who pass by will be appalled and will shake their heads in amazement. They will ask, 'Why did the Lord do such terrible things to this land and to this Temple?' And the answer will be, 'Because His people abandoned the Lord their God, who brought their ancestors out of Egypt, and they worshiped other gods instead and bowed down to them. That is why the Lord had brought all these disasters on them'." 1 Kings 9:1-9 (NLT).

While Judah was more faithful to God than Israel was and many kings followed the Lord closely, some kings were very wicked. One of those kings was Manasseh, the son of godly Hezekiah. "Then the Lord said through His servants the prophets: 'King Manasseh of Judah has done many detestable things. He is even more wicked that the Amorites, who lived in this land before Israel. He has caused the people of Judah to sin with his idols. So this is what the Lord, the God of Israel , says: I will bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of those who hear about it will tingle with horror. I will judge Jerusalem by the same standard I used for Samaria and the same measure I used for the family of Ahab. I will wipe away the people of Jerusalem as one wipes a dish and turns it upside down. Then I will reject even the remnant of my own people who are left, and I will hand them over as plunder for their enemies. For they have done great evil in My sight and have angered me ever since their ancestors came out of Egypt'." 2 Kings 21:10-15 (NLT) Even though Manasseh later repented and tried to undo all the evil he had brought on Judah, it was too late. His great-grandsons were kings when Judah fell to the Babylonians because the nation had turned to other gods. However, because there was a remnant in Judah who remained faithful to God, in 536 BC, they or their children were allowed to return to Jerusalem.

Sixth, the final breaking of the covenant for Judah came when, as a nation, they rejected God's Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. It was god's plan that Christ would die on the cross for our sins, but the people of Judah were so caught up in a religion of "dos and don'ts" they did not recognize what they were looking for. Before the end, God gave a period for the church to begin, grow, and become a stable organization. Then from67-73 AD, the finality of Judah was ended. This period perfectly matches Daniel's 70th week. In the middle of this period, sacrifices were stopped when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. The final blow came in 73 AD when the Jews at Masada, the last Jewish stronghold, committed mass suicide rather than be captured and fulfilling Moses' warning in Deuteronomy. There was never again a Jewish nation until 1948.

The next question we must ask ourselves is "are the people who today call themselves Jews true heredity descendants of Abraham"? Looking to the scriptures, the descendants of Abraham traced their lineage through the male line. However, Jews today trace their heritage through the mother's line. Also, none of these Jews appear to have a lineage record going back to before 72 AD. True they are religious Jews, but are they truly physical descendants of Abraham? How would we really know?