Shalom,

Psalm 83:1-5 sounds like it was ripped from the current headlines! Check this out:

¹KEEP NOT silence, O God; hold not Your peace or be still, O God.

²For, behold, Your enemies are in tumult, and those who hate You have raised their heads.

³They lay crafty schemes against Your people and consult together against Your hidden and precious ones.

⁴They have said, Come, and let us wipe them out as a nation; let the name of Israel be in remembrance no more.

⁵For they have consulted together with one accord and one heart; against You they make a covenant--

There are many people calling for the destruction of Israel from various nations today. What they don't understand is what God actually said about Israel! Genesis 12:3:

³And I will bless those who bless you [who confer prosperity or happiness upon you] and curse him who curses or uses insolent language toward you; in you will all the families and kindred of the earth be blessed [and by you they will bless themselves].

We do NOT want to be among those who come against Israel! Now or forever! I really like verse 18:

¹⁸That they may know that You, Whose name alone is the Lord, are the Most High over all the earth.

He IS the One, True, Most High, Living, Almighty God of the Bible! If HE says Israel remains a nation, then Israel will most definitely remain a nation!

Yesterday, in discussing Romans 10, we left off with the question, "What about the Jews"? We'll see what Paul has to say in Romans 11 today! Let's look at verses 1-7:

¹I ASK then: Has God totally rejected and disowned His people? Of course not! Why, I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin! [I Sam. 12:22; Jer. 31:37; 33:24-26; Phil. 3:5.]

²No, God has not rejected and disowned His people [whose destiny] He had marked out and appointed and foreknown from the beginning. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel?

³Lord, they have killed Your prophets; they have demolished Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.

⁴But what is God's reply to him? I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal! [I Kings 19:18.]

⁵So too at the present time there is a remnant (a small believing minority), selected (chosen) by grace (by God's unmerited favor and graciousness).

⁶But if it is by grace (His unmerited favor and graciousness), it is no longer conditioned on works or anything men have done. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace [it would be meaningless].

⁷What then [shall we conclude]? Israel failed to obtain what it sought [God's favor by obedience to the Law]. Only the elect (those chosen few) obtained it, while the rest of them became callously indifferent (blinded, hardened, and made insensible to it).

Paul said that God had not rejected Israel. He never will! In Paul's day there was a remnant of the Jews who did believe. Paul went on to say that he would preach the Gospel to the Gentiles in the hope that his fellow Jews would become jealous. Verses 13-15:

¹³But now I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I lay great stress on my ministry and magnify my office,

¹⁴In the hope of making my fellow Jews jealous [in order to stir them up to imitate, copy, and appropriate], and thus managing to save some of them.

¹⁵For if their rejection and exclusion from the benefits of salvation were [overruled] for the reconciliation of a world to God, what will their acceptance and admission mean? [It will be nothing short of] life from the dead!

Paul goes on to remind the Gentile believers that they are the wild branches grated in and that the Jews were the natural branches. Look at verses 18-24:

¹⁸Do not boast over the branches and pride yourself at their expense. If you do boast and feel superior, remember it is not you that support the root, but the root [that supports] you.

¹⁹You will say then, Branches were broken (pruned) off so that I might be grafted in!

²⁰That is true. But they were broken (pruned) off because of their unbelief (their lack of real faith), and you are established through faith [because you do believe]. So do not become proud and conceited, but rather stand in awe and be reverently afraid.

²¹For if God did not spare the natural branches [because of unbelief], neither will He spare you [if you are guilty of the same offense].

²²Then note and appreciate the gracious kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's gracious kindness to you--provided you continue in His grace and abide in His kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off (pruned away).

²³And even those others [the fallen branches, Jews], if they do not persist in [clinging to] their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.

²⁴For if you have been cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and against nature grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much easier will it be to graft these natural [branches] back on [the original parent stock of] their own olive tree.

For those who may have set aside the call of God on your life, for whatever reason, look at verse 29:

²⁹For God's gifts and His call are irrevocable. [He never withdraws them when once they are given, and He does not change His mind about those to whom He gives His grace or to whom He sends His call.]

Find out where God wants you and GET THERE! Everything He ever promised you in His Word is just waiting for you to get with God's program! I love the end of Romans 11! Look at verses 33-36:

³³Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unfathomable (inscrutable, unsearchable) are His judgments (His decisions)! And how untraceable (mysterious, undiscoverable) are His ways (His methods, His paths)!

³⁴For who has known the mind of the Lord and who has understood His thoughts, or who has [ever] been His counselor?

³⁵Or who has first given God anything that he might be paid back or that he could claim a recompense?

³⁶For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. [For all things originate with Him and come from Him; all things live through Him, and all things center in and tend to consummate and to end in Him.] To Him be glory forever! Amen (so be it).

AWESOME! That's our God! AMEN!

I have a couple of thoughts to share on Numbers 10-11. Again, there was such an order to the plan that God had for the Israelites in the wilderness! He left nothing to chance, but had instructions even for what order they were to walk, who would go first, who would follow, and on and on until they were all in order! Amazing! I think we can trust Him to give us guidance to order OUR lives, don't you? The second thought was from chapter 10 where we see that they would move only when the cloud of God's presence would move. they never knew how long they were going to be staying in any one place. Sometimes it was a day and sometimes more. Sometimes they would leave in the morning, sometimes at night. How would YOU like to live that way? I wouldn't! And they wouldn't have had to either, if they had simply trusted God when the 10 spies came back with their evil report! God's mercy, though, is what kept them in the wilderness for those 40 years. The group that went on into the promised land was of a different mindset than the group that came out of Egypt. You and I can determine right now to have the right mindset! Find out what God wants you to do and do it! Keep a right attitude and right motives and you will not miss out on any good thing that He has planned for you! AMEN!

Shalom in Him!