He struggles with God

Guys,

I wanted to pass along a neat message from my pastor on ISRAEL which means "He struggles with God." Here's the Bible Story.

There is some confusion out there as people, including the church talk about Israel, what God is doing with Israel, and what promises to whom did God make. Enjoy!

Steve

"For not all who descended from Israel are Israel." Romans 9:6b

One of the challenges of reading and understanding the Bible is to make sure that we know the definition of the words we encounter. We have mentioned this before on several occasions, but today, we are entering new territory with the word "Israel." Here's the rub: Israel can refer to a person, to a country and to a people. We have to know which is being discussed or we're in some pretty tall timber. Let's see if we can help see the trees in the forest.

When Abraham's son, Isaac, had children, there were twin boys: Esau and Jacob. The story of their upbringing is too long to comment on here, but suffice it to say that these two guys didn't get along like good brothers should. Jacob, whose name means, "the deceiver" or "he deceives," eventually found himself alone at night with an angel of God who wrestled with him all through the night hours. (sound like anything that any of you have experienced?)

As the morning dawned, the angel, speaking for God, gave Jacob a new name: Israel, which means "he wrestles with God." Israel had twelve sons, who became known as, surprise, surprise, "the children of Israel." After the children of Israel's descendants left Egypt and finally made it to Canaan, they took the country (eventually!) and renamed it, of all things, "Israel." The people who populated Israel became known as Israel (still with me?).

The name Israel at some point began to mean, "the people of God." Many times they were called Jews, which came from "Judah" and referred to those people who lived there. So, "Jews" and "Israel" at times mean the same thing.

What Paul is referring to here in our verse, and what he will talk about for a few more chapters is not Israel the man, nor is talking about Israel the land. He is talking about Israel the people, but he is NOT talking about all Jews, he is talking about those who are children of God. What he is saying is that not everyone who is Jewish is a child of God. Of course, for most Jewish readers, those were fighting words!! They believed that they were indeed children of God because they were descendants of Israel the man, living in Israel, the promised land. Not so, says Paul. It really has nothing to do with your first birth and it really has nothing to do with your country, it has to do with your relationship with Jesus, which requires a second birth!

God's children may still be referred to as Israel from time to time, but they are no longer identified by their genealogy, it is now only by faith in Jesus. So, if someone calls you Israel and you are a Christian, that's a good thing! Confused? Stick around; we'll see if we can get things straightened out!

This is Pastor Bruce