G-d didn't waste any time at all. In Genesis, chapter 3, Adam and Havah (Eve) are hiding from G-d after eating the forbidden fruit and G-d punishes the serpent (HaSatan - the adversary) by promising, in verse 15 that G-d's offspring "will crush your head and you will strike his heel." Immediately we know that G-d is going to send someone later on. As for Adam and Havah, he sacrifices two animals for them and makes clothing out of the skins to cover up their nakedness.

G-d next calls Abram in Genesis, chapter 12, verse 1-3: Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father's house, To the land which I will show you; And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." G-d chooses Abram, whose name he changes to Abraham, to be the father of a great nation. In Genesis 15:13 G-d says: And God said to Abram, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. " But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve; and afterward they will come out with many possessions. And as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. Then in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete. And it came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces.

On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates." And again in Genesis 22:15, G-d says to Abraham after he tried to sacrifice Isaac: Then the angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, "By Myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. And in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice." The nation Abraham has fathered is now in Egypt as slaves and G-d is about to bring His last plague upon this nation that won't let His people go. In Shemot (Exodus) 12, Now the LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, "This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, On the tenth of this month they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their fathers' households, a lamb for each household. Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. And you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight. Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. And they shall eat the flesh that same night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. And you shall not leave any of it over until morning, but whatever is left of it until morning, you shall burn with fire. Now you shall eat it in this manner: with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste-- it is the LORD'S Passover. For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments-- I am the LORD. And the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; and when I see the blood I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt." G-d will pass through the land of Egypt and kill all the first born-Jewish and Egyptian. But, He has provided a way out for the Jewish people. They can save their first born if they kill a lamb and spread it's blood on the doorpost and lintel. This actually forms a cross when it is done. So now G-d has shown a sacrifice of one animal for Adam and one for Havah (Eve) and now a sacrifice of one animal for a whole family.

The Israelites are now in the wilderness of Sinai and G-d gathers them together and says in Exodus 19:5 "Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." He later instructs them to build a tabernacle where they could get together and have fellowship with Him. In Numbers 29:11 G-d instructs the nation to sacrifice one male goat as a sin offering. So now we have one sacrifice for an entire nation. We also have a role for Israel-they are to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Just as we appoint a pastor or a priest to be over us in a church, G-d has appointed a nation to be the minister or shepherd for all the other nations. Israel is to go out and witness to the world.

The remainder of the Old Testament account reflects her inability to do this. So G-d has to intervene in her affairs and sends the prophets to rebuke and bring her back into line. She doesn't listen. He has to punish her. She is unfaithful. So Israel is G-d's chosen people. She is first and also first-born among the believers. What happens to the first-born? They are saddled with the most responsibility and are disciplined the most. Those of you who have more than one child know this as a fact. Romans 1:16 says: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." There are sixteen other verses in the Brit Chadasha (Renewed Covenant-New Testament) that say the same thing. To the Jew first... It is part of G-d's Plan that the Jew would receive it all and give it to everyone else.

So the Jews are set apart and made holy. G-d gives them the Torah-His words of instruction on how to live a holy and blameless life and this sets them apart as a people from all the other nations around them. Human nature being what it is, this makes people curious and perhaps a little jealous of them because they are different. They don't eat pork, they remember the Sabbath every Saturday and keep it, and they only observe certain feasts that are in Leviticus and stay away from many non-biblical events. This makes them different and because they are different, they get blamed for many things that happen. But, they are doing G-d's will and for that they will be blessed. Only they are not doing all of G-d's will for He had a plan and that plan called for His Son to come into the world and bring the Jews and the rest of the world to salvation.

So, G-d now offers up His one and only Son to be a sacrifice for all mankind. One sacrifice for all. The whole of the Torah depicts the Son. Everything Jewish people do points to Him; but, yet, they cannot see Him. This is because they rejected Him when he first came. In Mark 8: 31 it says: "And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again." And in Romans 11:25-32 it says: "For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles has come in; and thus all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, "THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB. AND THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS." From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God's choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient, in order that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy. For God has shut up all in disobedience that He might show mercy to all."

So nothing has been done away with. Yeshua said in Mathew 5:17 -20, "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law, until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and so teaches others, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. "For I say to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven." Everything is still in effect. The Torah is G-d's teachings to us on how he wants us to act as holy people. He would like all of us to practice the Torah and live a Torah-observant lifestyle. G-d has not replaced the Jewish people with the church. The Jewish people will be saved after the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And when the Gentiles come in, guess what happens. Galatians 3:26-29, "For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise."

What the Jewish people haven't accepted yet is the Renewed Covenant contained in Jeremiah 31:31-34, "Behold, days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them," declares the LORD. "But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. "And they shall not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them," declares the LORD, "for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."

And what is the role of the Gentiles in all of this? What should you be doing? Let's look at Romans, 11:1: " 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. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? "Lord, THEY HAVE KILLED THY PROPHETS, THEY HAVE TORN DOWN THINE ALTARS, AND I ALONE AM LEFT, AND THEY ARE SEEKING MY LIFE." But what is the divine response to him? "I HAVE KEPT for Myself SEVEN THOUSAND MEN WHO HAVE NOT BOWED THE KNEE TO BAAL." In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God's gracious choice. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace. 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." 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 jealous. Now if their transgression be riches for the world and their failure be riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be! But I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, 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, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?

You are to make them jealous. Have you done that yet? How are you supposed to do that? Does this building, this church make them jealous? Does the pork chops you eat make them jealous? How about your music? Does that make them jealous? What does?

Your relationship with G-d is supposed to make them jealous? Is your relationship with G-d such that it would make anyone jealous? Especially Jews. I know lots of Jews who have a better relationship with G-d than many of us and they do not even have the son. Tevye, in Fiddler on the Roof, had a better relationship with G-d than many of us. I would like to leave you with this challenge.

G-d blesses those who bless Israel and curses those who curse Israel. Where are you at and what are you going to do to make some Jews jealous? Because Yeshua will not come back until they ask for Him and they have to be jealous to do that.

What an awesome day that is going to be when the nation of Israel repents and cries out for their Messiah to come back when they repeat Mathew 23:39, "For I say to you, from now on you shall not see Me until you say, 'BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!" Baruch Ha Ba B-shem Adonai. And when that happens, it says in Zechariah 12:10, "And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him, like the bitter weeping over a first-born. And they will look up on the Mount of Olives and the one they will see will be a Jewish boy named Yeshua Ben David, Jesus, son of David. Our Mashiach-our Messiah.

Last Update: 02/04/2008