Wednesday, February 9, 2022
“But Sarai was barren; she had no child” (Genesis 11:30 KJV).
How will the LORD God prove Israel is His miracle nation?
Israel’s patriarchs could not perform to obtain blessings from the LORD. Knowing the frailty (sinfulness) of their flesh, God had already promised to make them His people through the Abrahamic Covenant—through what He would do for them, on their behalf. Yet, at Mount Sinai, the Israelites wanted to make themselves God’s people. In their pride and self-righteousness, they actually thought their feeble religious works would adequately substitute God’s grace: “We can become the LORD’S people without His efforts” (totally ignoring they had been helpless to save themselves from sin thus far)! Here on Sinai, at Israel’s insistence, the LORD instituted the Law of Moses. They had not learned the lesson father Abraham did, father Isaac did, and father Jacob did. Now, they would literally spend centuries “learning the hard way,” failing to perform sinlessly and thereby receiving the Law’s curses and judgments.
Even into the Acts period—over 1,500 years after Moses at Sinai—Israel was still struggling in religion and still failing to overcome their sin problem. The Apostle Paul, once entangled in the same system of bondage (Philippians chapter 3), confessed in Romans 10:1-4: “[1] Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. [2] For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. [3] For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. [4] For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”
Equally confused were the Galatian saints (Christians!), mixing law and grace, ignoring grace and preferring law. Galatians chapters 3 and 4 reteach what Abraham learned, the exact lesson billions of souls worldwide refuse to realize today. They too have disregarded what God can do for us: they wrongly assume what they can do for Him in religion will make up for their sins. “Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?” (Galatians 4:21). Let us “hear the law….”
333 Words of Grace 