ABANDONED FOREVER?

Romans 11:1-24
September 17, 1995
Bob Bonner

Today, we are living in a world that is heavily affected by abandonment and rejection of all kind; abandonment of morals, abandonment of the ideals upon which this great country was founded, such as hard work and taking responsibility for your own decisions. Daily, I hear of situations of abandonment by spouses or parents or children, and harsh rejection by friends and employers. When you mix a strong dosage of rejection and abandonment into the life stream of an individual, the end product will usually be an individual who has a strong undercurrent of emotional instability and insecurity that is polluting his or her soul.

If there is one place, that someone who has experienced the landslide of rejection and abandonment can hope to find some kind of refuge and security and stability it should be in the loving arms of their creator God. God is to be our refuge in a time of trouble. The Lord is our only caring shepherd in the midst of the valley of the shadow. But sometimes, even our sense of security and stability in the person of Christ is seriously shaken when we are faced with some of the emotional earthquake-type traumas of life. Whether it be a trauma of injustice, or a natural disaster that wipes out your business, home or family, or senseless accident that could have been prevented that suddenly snuffs out the life of someone you love---those kinds of shocks often times cause us to ask, “Where was God when this happened? Did He abandon me? Doesn’t He care? Couldn’t He have prevented?” When life doesn’t make sense to us or it appears to be unfair, often times, our emotional response to those situations is that we feel desperately alone and even abandoned by God.

This was the case for many of the Jews during WWII. Last year our family visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.. I’ll never forget that experience. The thousands of pictures and hundreds of hours of films and letters that cry out “INJUSTICE!” drove a deep, painful emotional stake into my heart that is hard to find words to express. After only two hours of being in that museum, my heart was so broken over the pain caused by seeing the results of oppression, hatred and the senseless killing, that a major segment of humanity suffered at the hands of others, that I physically had to leave the building…and I am not even Jewish.

If you were a religious Jew living in Germany during the late 30’s and early 40’s and had watched your relatives die or be tortured and then murdered in a concentration camp, what would have been some of the questions running through your mind at that time? I would like to suggest that probably some of the questions might have been:

“God, why have You rejected Your chosen people? Why have You turned Your back on us?”

“God, others are mocking us and You. Don’t You care?”

“Have we so offended You by our lack of worship and unfaithfulness that You have once and for all abandoned us and permanently rejected us?”

“God, we are a people without a place to live. A nation without a homeland, yet You say that we are Your chosen people, what gives? Are we still Your chosen people? Will Your prophecies, which are about 2,000 – 3,000 years old now, about us becoming a great nation, are they to be forgotten?”

Those would have been quite natural questions for any Jew to ask under those circumstances. They would have been quite natural questions for even the Jews in the first century to ask after they had been under the oppressive rule of foreign nations for several hundred years. They would have been especially reasonable questions to ask during the few short years after Jesus had been crucified by the Jews. “God, what are You going to do with us, as a nation, now that we have put our Messiah to death and most of our people still reject the risen Messiah as their Lord?” “Lord, it is obvious to us Jewish Christians that for centuries you have put us up on this shelf for our unrepentant lifestyles and for compromising our faith. Lord, will You permanently reject us Jews as Your chosen people?”

It was those feelings and questions of Jewish Christians that Paul wants to address in this closing chapter of Romans 11, which completes this segment in Paul’s letter to the Jews found in Romans 9 – 11.

In our portion of text for this morning, Paul will address two questions. The first question asked and answered in verses 1-10 is, “Has God permanently rejected His people, Israel?” The second question found in verses 11-32 is, “Why has God temporarily put Israel aside?” We are going to look at these questions and their answers, then see what we can learn today in principle for our own lives.

The answer to the first question of, “Has God permanently rejected His people?” is a resounding “No!” and in the first ten verses of Romans 11, Paul gives us four proofs to that end. Let’s begin reading the text and then look at each of the four proofs. I am first going to read this passage from the New American Standard Bible and then from the modern paraphrase entitled, The Message, so that you can pick up a little more easily the emotional flavor of this text. This verse in the NASB reads, “I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.” The Message puts it this way, “Does this mean, then that God is so fed up with Israel that He’ll have nothing more to do with them? Hardly. Remember that I, the one writing these things, am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham out of the tribe of Benjamin. You can’t get much more Semitic than that!”

Paul’s first proof of the fact that God has not cast off all of Israel is himself. Paul is saying, “Consider me, I am a chosen man of God and I am Jewish!” In Rome at the time of this letter there were both people who were Jews by birth and Gentiles who had become Jews through proselytizing. Paul wants to make it clear to his Jewish readers, most of whom had never met him, that he wasn’t a proselyte Jew, but a thoroughbred Jew. Secondly, he stresses that he came from the Jewish tribe of Benjamin, which by most Jews was considered to be the most spiritual and blessed tribes of all Israel. His point then is if God had chosen him, then God couldn’t have rejected all of Israel.

Paul continues with verse 2, “God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew.” Paul’s second argument that God has not rejected Israel forever goes back to God’s nature and that He “foreknew” Israel. To “foreknow” Israel does not simply mean to be aware of something beforehand, but it also carries with it the idea of determining that what you know will come to pass.

In addition in Greek the term “to know” carries with it a sense of intimacy, knowing something personal about someone. It is used of a relationship that is to be permanent, as in a husband knowing his wife. So, when Paul says here that God foreknew Israel, he means that God had an intimate and personal knowledge of a people to whom He had committed Himself forever---a relationship between Himself and Israel that had become known throughout the world at the time. And once committed, God is not fickle, He will not change. Once committed to Israel, He will always be committed to Israel. Paul’s second proof then, is for the Jews to consider God’s eternal and irrevocable plan for the future of Israel based upon God’s character of foreknowledge.

Paul adds a third proof to Israel’s not being rejected by God in the rest of verses 2b-6. He writes, “Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, [and] how he [meaning Elijah] pleads with God against Israel?” [then Paul quotes Elijah’s words from when Elijah thought that he was the only Jew alive that believed in Yahweh and hadn’t turned his back on Yahweh. Elijah cried out] “Lord, they have killed Thy prophets, they have torn down Thine alters, and I alone am left, and they are seeking my life.” [Then Paul asked his Jewish readers] But what is the divine response to him? [What was God’s response to Elijah’s question? God said to Elijah, and Paul quotes here] “I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” 7,000 men may not seem like very many believers when you consider that there were probably 4,000,000 Jews alive during Elijah’s time. But 7,000 committed believers a still more than just one Eiljah, and that was a word of encouragement to a man who felt all alone.

Sometimes we even as Christians, whether we are Christian teenagers as school or a Christian employee in the work place…we feel like we are the only ones there. That’s why we need the encouragement of retreats with people of our own age and sex. High School summer retreats, men’s and women’s conferences, events like Promise Keepers. Those kinds of events encourage us and give us the bigger picture and show us that God is still moving in our lives.

The Jewish-Christians needed to know this as well. They needed to be reminded that there is still a believing remnant of Jews that God will not turn His back on…and because of them, He will keep His promises to the nation as a whole. Paul goes on to say, “In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious choice.” In other words, God has sovereignly decided to choose to open or keep open the eyes of a small group of Jews who will continue to believe in Yahweh and follow Him faithfully through His Messiah, Jesus Christ.

To emphasize God’s roll in this, that it is His sovereign choice to save a remnant, Paul adds in verse 6, “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.”

In other words, the fact that there are still some Jewish believers who have not turned there back on God has mostly to do with the fact of God’s sovereign choice to save some rather than their desire to be saved to remain faithful.

Point being that God is determined not to reject Israel and He is equally determined to fulfill His promises to the Jews who follow Him. So determined is God that He won’t abandon Israel, that He has chosen a remnant to follow Him. So he is saying to his Jewish readers, “If you think God has rejected Israel, then consider God’s chosen remnant. He has always made sure that there was some who would continue to believe and through whom God would fulfill His promises. 

So, in answer to the Jews question, “Has God permanently rejected us?” Paul says no, because I am a chosen Jewish apostle and God hasn’t rejected me. Secondly, God’s eternal and irrevocable plan has never been changed or withdrawn. And third, consider the fact that throughout Israel’s history, no matter how dark it has been and no matter how many Jews have turned their backs on God, God has always preserved a small remnant who would continue to believe in the Lord.

Now in verses 7-10, Paul gives us his final proof that He has not permanently abandoned Israel. Paul states in verse 7, “What then? That which Israel is seeking for, it has not obtained, but those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened; just as it is written, God gave them a spirit of stupor, Eyes to see not and ears to hear not, Down to this very day.” And David says, “Let their table become a snare and a trap, And a stumbling block and a retribution to them. Let their eyes be darkened to see not, And bend their backs forever.”

Again, I like the way the paraphrase the Message puts it. It says, “And then what happened? Well, when Israel tried to be right with God on her own, pursuing her own self-interest, she didn’t succeed. The chosen ones of God were those who let God pursue his interest in them, and as a result received his stamp of legitimacy. The “self-interest Israel” became thick-skinned toward God. Moses and Isaiah both commented on this: “Fed up with their quarrelsome, self-centered ways, God blurred their eyes and dulled their eyes, shut them in on themselves in a hall of mirrors, and they’re there to this day.” David was upset about the same thing: “I hope they get sick eating self-serving meals, break a leg walking their self-serving ways. I hope they go blind staring in their mirrors, get ulcers from playing at god.”

What in essence is God doing to the self-centered Israel, here in these verses? God is disciplining the nation. He is not rejecting them, just disciplining the. And as Hebrews 12 teaches us, you only truly discipline those you love. It’s through discipline that you are trying to instruct someone you love and someone you are committed to and someone you want to see have a brighter future. So through God’s discipline of the nation of Israel, we see that God still loves Israel and is still committed to Israel and hasn’t fully rejected Israel.

But from the Jews point of view, there arises another question. The question that the Jews were asking was, “God, why have you allowed your people to go astray for so many centuries? Why have you allowed evil to persist so long before you did anything about it? What purpose could it serve You to put Israel up on the shelf or to reject her temporarily?

It is the answer to those questions that Paul now wants to direct our attention in the next segment of verses 11-32. We won’t get through all of them in the remaining time for this morning, but we will come back to this next time. This morning we will only go as far as verse 24.

The first part of Paul’s answer is found in the first part of verse 11. He states, “I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? [meaning to permanently fall away from God so as to be permanently rejected. Paul’s answer] May it never be! But by their transgression [their deliberate rejection of the savior] salvation has come to the Gentiles,…”

In other words, one reason God has allowed Israel to wander away and to be put up on the shelf was so that God could reel in the rest of the human race. Jesus is the Messiah, the savior of all the people’s in the world, not just the Jews. God has never abandoned any in the human race before or after Israel became His chosen instrument. God has always been concerned with all people and reached out to all peoples. It was His design for the nation of Israel to be the missionaries to the Gentiles, but instead they did not reach out to the world. So, God went directly to the Gentiles.

But there is another reason why God temporarily put Israel aside. It is mentioned at the very end of verse 11 and carried down through verse 24. Let’s read verse 11 again, “I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them [the Jews] jealous. Now if their [the Jews] transgression [the sin, including the rejection of the Messiah] be riches for the world and their [the Jews] failure [to seek God first] be riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their [the Jews] fulfillment be!” Here Paul is saying that there is still going to come the fulfillment of God’s prophecies and promises that Israel will become the predominate nation of the world. There is a future for Israel, regardless of how dark it may look today. Dr. Warren Wiersbe put it this way: “Today Israel is fallen spiritually, but when Christ returns, the nation will rise again.” [p. 551 ROMANS]. God will never break His covenant agreement with Israel.

Paul continues, “But I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, [I make as much of my ministry to you Gentiles as I can, right under the Jews noses. Why?] if somehow I might move to jealousy my fellow countrymen and save some of them. For if their rejection be the reconciliation of the world, [meaning that if through their temporary rejection by God the Gentile world gets saved, then] what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?” In other words, the fact that Israel will be a nation again, even though to the rest of the world at Paul’s time, it was dead, when it came back to life and when it rules as the greatest nation of the world, which it will someday, it will be a miracle that will draw all people’s eyes toward heaven.

Hence, Paul is saying a number of things here. He is promising that God will fulfill His promise to Israel to make her the greatest of all nations one day. Secondly, there is a subtle message being sent to us Gentile believers. And that message is, don’t become so proud of your salvation and look down your noses at Israel or even forget Israel. Israel is still God’s chosen people, and we should not despise them, but instead reach out with the gospel so that they might be saved!

But in answer to the question, why has God temporarily rejected Israel, it has been to make Israel so jealous of the blessing of the Gentiles that have come by way of God, that the Jews will be drawn back to God and put their trust in their Messiah, Jesus. And the instrument that God will use to draw Israel back will be jealousy. Now, you might be questioning the use of jealousy. You might even consider that all jealousy is wrong. Well, no it is not. “Jealousy” can be good and an instrument of His grace.

There is nothing wrong with this jealousy, under the correct situation. What is wrong is how we react to the emotion of jealousy. Jealousy is different than envy. To envy someone for something is to wish you had what is rightfully theirs and not yours. It’s to covet something that does not belong to you. Jealousy, on the other hand, is to want back something that is not rightfully yours that you believe someone else is enjoying and you are not, and they shouldn’t be. 

God is presently stirring up jealousy in Israel over the Gentiles love for Yahweh. For centuries, the Jews believed that Yahweh was their God and only their God and that unless you submitted to the Jewish way of life and all of their religious traditions, you couldn’t know God. In the process, they misplaced their love for God with their love for their Jewish traditions and heritage. As a result, God has now reached out to the Gentiles, through the Jewish Messiah. And by the millions, Gentiles have responded in such great love toward God, that the Jews were becoming greatly jealous in Paul’s day, and today.

For many years, the dean of Talbot Theological Seminary, was a brilliant Jew, Dr. Charles Feinberg. I have read that he was so intelligent that he could be lecturing his class without missing a syllable all the while writing a note to his secretary. Well, this brilliant Jew came to Christ. How? Kent Hughes, a student under Dr. Feinberg tells the story. He states: “Just after Dr. Feinberg graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pittsburgh he lived in an Orthodox Jewish household. That household had a “Sabbath Gentile,” a Gentile woman who was hired to serve them on the Sabbath. Though Feinberg was not aware of it, this [Gentile] woman had taken the [Jewish] rites of purification simply so she could bear witness [of Jesus Christ] in that home. Feinberg was attracted by the quality of this believer’s life and began to ask questions. Although the woman could not give him all the answers, she took him to Dr. John Solomon, then resident head of the American Board of the Mission to the Jews and Dr. Feinberg was led to Christ. He had been made thirsty---jealous so to speak---by this cleaning woman.” [ROMANS, Hughes, p. 197]

Now, in the last few verses that we want to look at this morning, Paul points to two Old Testament illustrations that come from the prophets to demonstrate God’s commitment to the believing descendants of Israel. The first illustration has to do with something that commonly takes place in the kitchen with yeast and dough. The second illustration has to do with the life of an olive tree. 

Paul states in verse 16, “And if the first piece {of dough} be holy, the lump is also;…” To us, this illustration may not be too clear, but to the Jew, they knew exactly what Paul was talking about. This is a reference to the offerings and sacrifices that were made in the tabernacle. The first fruits or the first piece of dough was just a part of the entire lump of dough that the nation had brought as an offering to God. The priest would take this small portion and present it to God on behalf of the whole nation. The basic idea being that when God accepts the part, He sanctifies and accepts the whole.

Applying this to Israel’s history, we can understand God’s argument. The first fruits have always represented Abraham, the father of the Nation of Israel. Abraham was accepted before God, because Abraham did not put his confidence in his own abilities, but instead placed his faith and confidence in God and his coming Messiah. Therefore all of Abraham’s true, believing descendants would be accepted by God too, if they placed their confidence and faith in the same object of faith in which Abraham placed his confidence. They would never be cut off from God or from His relationship with the. They are claimed by God and His promises would be fulfilled in them.

Paul’s point then is that the God who made Abraham holy, by faith, is able to make his descendants holy too when they exercise the same faith of Abraham. It matters not what the other unbelieving Jews do or during what time period a person lives. If they have the faith of Abraham, just a lump of his faith, they are accepted by God.

The next illustration is that of the olive tree. Like the previous illustration the emphasis of this illustration is the place of Israel as a nation as it regards its relationship with God. It begins in verse 16, and continues down through verse 24. Paul writes, “…and if the root be holy, [the root refers to the patriarchs of Israel, such as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob] the branches are too.” “Branches” do not refer to true believers. Branches refer to the people of Israel. Later in this passage there will be a reference to wild branches which refer to Gentiles. Those branches don’t refer to believers either, but merely Gentiles and their opportunity to know Jesus. Whether a Jew or a Gentile is saved is determined by whether or not they remain part of the olive tree and produce fruit.

This is important to remember because some would have you to believe that these branches are believers and that this passage teaches that a believer can lose their salvation. But like Jesus’ comments in John 15, the branches there refer simply to Israel, not believing Israel. The way one can tell that a branch is believing Israel, is that it still abides in the vine or tree and it produces fruit. This is the same concept being taught in this passage of Romans.

Paul continues, “But is some of the branches were broken off,…” What’s Paul mean by “broken off”? He is telling us that some of the people of Israel have been and will be permanently rejected by God for their unbelief. He is also telling us that Israel’s rejection is not total rejection. There will still be some branches of Israel who believe in the Messiah and who will be saved or not cut off.

“But is some of the branches were broken off, and you, [meaning you Gentile believers] being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the [other] branches;” In other words, Israel has been and still are God’s chosen people. Sure God has rejected some of the Jews for rejecting Jesus Christ. And in addition, God has taken wild branches, branches that were not part of the nation of Israel and put them in the place of those branches that God removed. Some of those wild branches have produced fruit and some will not produce fruit. Because God has grafted wild olive branches into the tree (meaning opened up the gospel of Jesus to Gentiles), then it could lead some Christians who are Gentiles to become pretty arrogant and look down their noses at the Jews who were rejected. Some Gentiles could think of themselves as something more special than God’s chosen people who were lost, because they, the Gentiles, trusted Jesus Christ.

The fact of the matter is that even though Gentiles have chosen to follow Jesus Christ, they have done so because the sovereign God of the universe has chosen them to be a part of His eternal family. Hence, we have nothing to brag about or to feel superior about over those Jews who have refused to believe in their Messiah.

Paul continues, “…but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you [Gentiles] who supports the root, [or are the called chosen people of Israel who brought us the Messiah] but the root [Israel] supports you. You will say then, [read in an arrogant tone] ‘Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.’ Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you.” Boy, is that a clear warning! Just because someone is not a Jew who killed the Messiah, doesn’t mean that they can be conceited and think that God favors the. If we become arrogant as Gentiles, and trust in our being Gentiles to get us saved, rather than trust in our Savior for the basis of our salvation, God won’t have any more mercy on us than He had on the Jews. He will cut us off just as fast as He did the arrogant and disobedient Jew.

Paul goes on, “Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off.” It is worth noting that according to Bible prophecy, the professing Gentile church will, in the last days be permanently “cut off” due to apostasy. 1 Timothy 4; 2 Timothy 3 and 2 Thessalonians all indicate that in the last days, the evangelical Gentile church will cease to be evangelical, and will depart from the faith.

It is my personal conviction that no matter when you think the rapture of the church happens, when the believing Christians are taken up to meet Jesus, because of the growing compromise and apostasy of the church no one will miss the believers when they disappear. There will be so few true followers of Jesus Christ left, that the police departments and missing person reports will hardly be noticed as a major disappearance. There won’t be major traffic jams on crowded freeways in the metropolitan cities and hundreds of airplanes crashing to the ground. Instead, because Gentile believers have become so few, we won’t even make a ripple in the ocean of humanity if we disappear.

And when those few believers who were left are raptured, there will be no more Gentile witness for Jesus Christ. There will be no more church. From that point on, it will be the Jews who recognize Jesus as their Messiah, who will carry on the gospel, but as a nation, not as a church. The Holy Spirit, the “restrainer” as He is called in 2 Thessalonians 2:7, will no longer indwell believers as He has in the New Testament. Instead, He will leave the earth, and literally, that’s when all hell will break loose in the end times. That’s when the beast will take over. And in three and a half years from that point, this world as we know it will end.

But notice what Paul says will happen to apostate Israel in comparison to the apostate church. He writes, “And they [Israel] also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, [in other words, if the Jews turn around and start believing in Jesus, they] will be grafted in; for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature in to a cultivated olive tree, how much more shall these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?” Whereas there will be no hope of restoration for the apostate church once they are cut off, there will be hope of restoration for apostate Israel. Why? Because through the roots of the olive tree, God will keep His promises to the patriarchs and He will fulfill all of His prophecies of faithfulness to future believing Israel.

As far as the wild olive branches go, God has already done something Paul calls, “contrary to nature” or something that goes against nature when God first put the wild olive branches, the Gentile church, into the normal olive tree. In nature, the average olive tree will refuse the grafting of wild branches. It will not produce good olives off a wild branch. But God has done a spiritual miracle to produce His normal good spiritual olive tree fruit through Gentile believers, something that he could only do before through the Jews. Hence, if God could graft wild branches into a normal olive tree and produce life or good fruit, why couldn’t He graft normal branches from a normal or Jewish olive tree back into another normal olive or Jewish stock and produce good fruit? Obviously He can and He will and He will produce even greater things when He does.

Gentiles, don’t you dare despise Israel, whether they are believing Israel or not at this point. God will return His blessing upon His people.

So, what’s Paul’s point in telling us all of this? That’s a great history lesson and lesson about the future, but so what? What applications to our lives today can we make from this passage? I see three primary ones to focus upon.

The first is that these verses once again prove that God is faithful to His promises. He says what He means. What He promises He will do, He will do. If He promises to deliver, He will deliver. If promises to judge, He will judge. God is always faithful to His promises. There will be a new heaven and a new earth. There will be eternity with Him for those who put their complete trust in Jesus and spend their lives developing a relationship with Him as their master and God

Secondly, God never abandons His chosen ones.  Once a person is saved, they are saved. But, you are not saved simply because you come from the race of Israel or you were born into a Christian home. You are only saved when you make Jesus Christ your master and savior.

The third thing that this passage teaches me is that as the church, we should not take our calling for granted, nor should we take the Lord for granted. He has put us here to call the world to worship and to follow Jesus Christ. We are here to live for Him, not our selfish plans and desires. The peace and prosperity we as individuals or as a nation enjoy, we enjoy and have enjoyed because we have sought the Lord. Should we continue to take God for granted, like our nation is presently doing, then we will continue to lose our effectiveness in this world as ambassadors for Christ. He will remove His blessing from our lives. The choice, once again, is up to each and every one of us.

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