Nothing in This World Goes Off Course

BIBLE STUDY # 813-CHURCH IN THE HOUSES TUESDAY, MAY 20–26, 2014

Topic: “Nothing in This World Goes Off Course” Romans 9:7-18 Once and again we can see that not all Jews were in God’s plan. Some were and others were not; that’s how things are. Now we should see where we are positioned. The nation’s lineage with whom God counted with and through which He worked to carry out His plan was not including “all” Abraham’s natural descendants. It wasn’t the physical descendants that counted but rather the selection God made among all of them, God’s election when someone is chosen for a purpose in function of a preference. Paul allows us to see two examples of this in the history of Israel. Abraham had two sons: the first was born to him by Hagar the slave, and was named Ishmael, and the second was Isaac, born from his wife, Sarah. Both are natural descendants of Abraham. The Bible teaches us that when Isaac was a boy one day Ishmael made fun of him and Sarah became so angry that she asked Abraham to get rid of the slave Hagar. God told Abraham to do so whether he liked it or not. Here we can understand that it was in Isaac in whom Abraham’s descendant would preserve his name (Genesis 21:12 “But God said to him, “Do not be distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”) Ishmael had been born through a human process, natural, while Isaac had been born in fulfillment of God’s promise! THE SON OF THE PROMISE WAS ISAAC! God’s election to transmit the inheritance was granted to Isaac! In God no one can be substituted by another. (Genesis 25:23 “…the Lord said to her: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.”) Here again we see God’s election in the case of the sons of Isaac: Jacob and Esau. Rebekah, wife of Isaac was pregnant. God let him know he was going to have twins and that they would be the patriarchs of two different nations, but that when the time came the first to be born would serve and be subjected to the second. When the twins were born it was Esau who was born first, but God’s election relapsed on Jacob and it was through Jacob’s lineage through which God continued to carry out his plan. God loved Jacob, not Esau. (Romans 9:10-13 “Not only that, but Rebekah’s children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. (Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad- in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls), she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is written “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”) The nation chosen is not merely the sum of Abraham’s descendants (from whom our Savior Christ comes) but rather that in that family of Abraham a selection process is carried out in the long run of history. It is history that cries out with its events who is the chosen. It is not a matter of deeds or anyone’s merits. The proof is in the fact that Jacob was elected and Esau rejected before they were born when they were in the maternal womb. A great truth emerges from the heart of this argument for our lives: that EVERYTHING BELONGS TO GOD! That behind everything is His work, even the things that seem arbitrary and fortuitous has in Him its origins. NOTHING IN THE WORLD ADRIFTS! The election has continued its course in the long run of history. Paul quotes again the Bible in Exodus 33:19 where God himself tells Moses that He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. God tells Moses to have trust and to leave matters in His hands because He knows what He is doing. God’s attitude of mercy towards the nation of Israel comes exclusively from Him. No one can see like God and no one acknowledges like God. We are deceived, but God cannot be deceived. We can see how the divine plans are! Then, enjoy what you live because what God chooses does not drift away! God shows Moses and warns the Pharaoh of Egypt that He had placed him in the scene of history to demonstrate His divine power. That Pharaoh served as an example to humanity as to what happens to those who oppose God (Exodus 9:16 “But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”) God warned Pharaoh and he chose not to abide. Mankind can never have or pretend any rights before God. The creature (created by God) cannot expect anything before the Creator. Whatever justice God applies, the response is that men do not deserve anything, we cannot pretend anything before our just and sovereign Creator. We need to understand that in God’s treatment with humans there are two special things which are: HIS WILL AND HIS MERCY! Amen.