God's Chosen People

by Frederick Hoehn, copyright 2013, all rights reserved.

Chapter 1

A lot of people are already familiar with the expression, “God’s Chosen People.”  God made a covenant with Abraham, apparently the first Hebrew.  God chose the Jews.

But the Jews have had a very rocky history.  Consider the holocaust.  That person, Achmadinijad of Iran said that the holocaust didn’t happen.  He is very much mistaken.  I’ve seen piles of dead Jews stacked up on the ground.  It appeared to be hundreds of dead bodies.

Was I there in Germany?  No.  I saw newsreels on TV, not current with when they were filmed, but shown years later.  If you happen to see the movie, “Judgment at Nuremburg,” with Maximilian Schell, Burt Lancaster, and Spencer Tracy, they have some of that footage in the movie.  That movie comes on once in a while on the TCM channel, I think it is.

It was no Hollywood special effects, Hitler really did slaughter a great many Jews.  About six million, apparently.

Why did Hitler do that?  Because he wanted a scapegoat to blame Germany’s problems on, and he blamed the Jews.

Why would God let that happen to the Jews?  For their transgressions against God.  Don’t you remember how God said to the Jews, “And I will throw dirty filth on you, and make you filthy, and will set you like a gazing stock.” (Nahum 3:6)

Do you see how the holocaust tends to fulfill that prophecy?

And why would God talk like that to his people?

Look at Nahum 3:1-5.

1 Woe to the bloody city!  It is all full of lies and robbery, the prey doesn't depart,

2 The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the prancing horses, and of the jumping chariots.

3 The horseman lifts up both the bright sword and the glittering spear, and there is a multitude of dead bodies, and a great number of carcasses, and there is no end of their corpses, they stumble on their corpses,

4 Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the well-favored prostitute, the mistress of witchcrafts, that sells nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.

5 See, I am against you, says the Lord of hosts, and I'll uncover your skirts on your face, and I'll show the nations your nakedness, and the kingdoms your shame.

Because of the sins and wickedness and violence that we see in verses 1 through 5 here, God pours dirty filth on his people.  Because they wouldn’t fear God and seek him and obey him.

Take a look at the Book of Lamentations, the book immediately after Jeremiah in the Bible.  In Lamentations, Jeremiah laments about many bad things happening against Israel.  Bad things that happened because God’s chosen people provoked him to anger.

It’s a very bad idea to provoke God to anger.  It’s a very bad thing to fail to be God-fearing.

Noah was God-fearing, and obeyed God in building the ark, and saved his family and animals and birds for future generations from the destroying flood that God brought against the earth.

Whoredoms and witchcrafts, and the various goings astray by the Jews from what God had commanded them.

Now in the New Testament, we Christians are not under the law, but under grace.  But God was quite strict with the Jews.

Another sin that the Jews sinned against God is that when their Messiah came, about two thousand years ago, they mostly rejected their Messiah, and crucified him.

God sends a savior, and they kill him.  Could they really expect that God would overlook their doing that?

God brought the children of Israel out of their Egyptian bondage and into the promised land.  But God warned them, “Now when you get to the promised land, don’t intermarry with the people there, because they’ll take you away from God.”

So what did Israel do?  They intermarried with the people of the land, who drew them away from God.  They worshipped idols.  The got involved in witchcraft.  God warned them about that.

You can’t spit in God’s face and expect that there’ll be no punishment.

Chapter 2

But Israel hasn’t been all bad.  Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were God-fearing.  Moses was a man of God, and prophets like Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and other prophets.  David was the sweet Psalmist of Israel.

What does God say to Ezekiel?

13 "Son of man, when the land sins against me by trespassing grievously, then I'll stretch out my hand on it, and will break the staff of the bread of it, and will send famine on it, and will cut off man and beast from it,

14 Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver only their own souls by their righteousness, says the Lord God. (from Ezekiel chapter 14)

Noah, Daniel, and Job were righteous men, but they only saved themselves by their righteousness.  God would have to punish the people of Israel for their wickedness.

Moses was a man of God and gave us the Mosaic law.  Israel has had prophets that did a good job.  But sometimes prophets were executed for what they told the people.  (Jesus laments over Jerusalem that had killed the prophets sent to Jerusalem by God.) (Matt 23:37)

Not many years later, Jerusalem was pretty much destroyed by invading armies.

Old Testament prophets foretold of the Messiah.  Even Moses said, “A prophet shall the Lord raise up for you like me.  Listen to him.”  That prophet that Moses spoke of is Jesus.  We don’t usually refer to Jesus as “The Prophet Jesus,” because Jesus was so much more than a prophet, but among other things, Jesus surely was a prophet.

It was prophesied that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, and Jesus was.  It was prophesied that he would be a Nazarene, and he was, having grown up in Nazareth.  God said, “I’ve called my son out of Egypt, and Jesus had been in Egypt with Joseph and Mary so that Herod wouldn’t be able to kill him.

Beside the prophesies, there were the miracles that Jesus did, and the words he spoke.  People were sent to arrest Jesus and came back empty.  They were asked, “Why haven’t you brought him?”  The answer was, “No man ever talked like him.”

Of course, Jesus had disciples from the Jews, and followers, but mostly, the Jews as a people rejected Jesus.  (“He came to his own, and they didn’t receive him.” Book of John)   Probably they were expecting the Messiah to set up an earthly kingdom, but Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.”

Jesus is head of the Kingdom of Heaven (under God the Father), and he wants people to go there, but this old earth will be destroyed, the Bible says.  (Book of Revelation)

Jesus also didn’t snuggle up to the High Priest and the Pharisees and the Saducees.  Those people, in spite of their offices weren’t very serious about God, and Jesus knew it.  Some of them he called hypocrites.

If Jesus calls someone a hypocrite, it’s because that’s what they are.  Jesus doesn’t misjudge people, he knows their thoughts.

The Jewish High Priest advised that it was better that one man should die for the nation of Israel (which at that time was under Roman rule) than that the whole nation be destroyed.  Some thought that if Jesus weren’t stopped, that the Romans would come and intervene, to the detriment of Israel.

But Jesus knew ahead of time that his people, the Jews, would largely reject him, and that he would die a martyr’s death.  One time when Jesus was telling his disciples about this beforehand, Peter said, “O, no, that’s not going to happen to you, Lord.”  Jesus said to Peter, “”Get behind me, Satan, for you don’t savor the things of God, but the things of men.”

Even though dying a martyr’s death is not an attractive thing, Jesus wanted to fulfill God’s will for him, and Peter was talking something other than God’s will.

Chapter 3

Have you seen in the Book of Judges how many times Israel got into trouble with God?  It was before Israel had split into two kingdoms.  And it was before Israel had its first king.  Israel would sin against God, so God would give them into the hand of their enemies.  Then, God would show mercy, and raise up a Judge for Israel that would provide deliverance for Israel.  After the death of that judge, Israel would again sin against God, and so forth.  Over and over again.

Then even after the Kings began, Israel would sin against the Lord.  Manasseh was one of the wicked kings, and caused his people to commit very serious sins against God.

But now that Israel is back as a nation in the promised land, since about 1948, they have problems with the bordering Muslims of various nations who would like to see the destruction of Israel.

Israel has still not accepted Jesus as Messiah.  They are still looking for the Messiah.  What will happen, of course, as we know from scripture, Israel will find a counterfeit Messiah that the Bible calls the AntiChrist.  He will make a pact with the Jews,  but after a while, they’ll see that he’s not the real Messiah.

Jesus spoke of fleeing the persecution.  Don’t go back to get your garment, Jesus said.  I understand there’s a city of refuge in the Holy Land that people can flee to when the persecution gets bad enough.

There’s a prophecy about, “Why do I see every man with his hand on his belly, like a woman travailing in birth?  It is even the time of Jacob’s trouble.”

The time of Jacob’s trouble is approaching, as the prophet said.  Israel had better be praying for God’s help.

Personally, I don’t expect to be around for the Great Tribulation.  The Bible says, “God has not appointed us to wrath.”  The Great Tribulation is a time of God’s wrath being poured out on the earth and its inhabitants.  I expect “The Rapture,” (the catching away of the Christians, spoken of in Thessalonians) to happen prior to the Great Tribulation.

But the Jews won’t go up in the rapture, except for a minority of Jews who are Christians.

These are serious times.  Jesus said, “Men ought always to pray and not faint.”

But those who have no time for God and the things of God will be taken in a trap like animals get trapped.

The Lord bless you.

Frederick Hoehn, www.FredHoehnMinistries.com

___James chapter 1

1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes that are dispersed around, greetings.

2 My brothers, count it all joy when you fall into various temptations,

3 Knowing this, that the testing of your faith works patience.

4 But let patience have its perfect work, so you'll be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God for it, who gives to all men liberally, and won't find fault, and it shall be given to him.

6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.  For he that wavers is like a wave of the sea driven by the wind and tossed.

7 For let that man not think that he'll receive anything from the Lord.

8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

9 Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted,

10 But the rich, in that he is made low, because as the flower of the grass he'll pass away.

11 For the sun has no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withers the grass, and the flower of it falls, and the grace of the fashion of it perishes, so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.

12 Blessed is the man that endures temptation, for after he's been tested, he'll receive the crown of life, that the Lord has promised to those who love him.

13 Let no man say when he is tempted, "I am tempted by God," for God can't be tempted with evil, nor does he tempt any man,

14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed.

15 Then when lust has conceived, it produces sin, and sin when it's finished, produces death.

16 Do not err, my beloved brothers.

17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, nor shadow of turning.

18 He chose to father us with the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

19 So, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger,

20 For the anger of man doesn't accomplish the righteousness of God.

21 So lay apart all filthiness and the unnecessary naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.

22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like a man seeing his natural face in a mirror,

24 For he sees himself, and goes his way, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.

25 But whoever looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues in it, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

26 If any man among you seems to be religious, and doesn't bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is for nothing.

27 Pure religion and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

___James chapter 2

1 My brothers, don't have the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons.

2 For if a man with a gold ring comes to your assembly in fancy clothes, and a poor man in dirty clothes comes in also,

3 And you have respect to him that wears the fancy clothes, and say to him, "Sit here in a good place," and say to the poor, "Stand there, or sit here under my footstool,"

4 Aren't you then partial in yourselves, and have become judges with evil thoughts?

5 Listen, my beloved brothers, hasn't God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?

6 But you have despised the poor.  Don't rich men oppress you, and bring you before the judgment seats?

7 Don't they blaspheme that worthy name by which you are called?

8 If you fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, "You shall love your neighbor like yourself," you do well,

9 But if you have respect of persons, you commit sin, and are convinced by the law as sinners.

10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

11 For he that said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not kill."  Now if you don't commit adultery, yet if you kill, you've become a breaker of the law.

12 Speak in such a way, and do, as those who'll be judged by the law of liberty.

13 For he shall have judgment without mercy, that has shown no mercy, and mercy rejoices against judgment.

14 What does it profit, my brothers, though a man says he has faith, and doesn't have works?  Can faith save him?

15 If a brother or sister needs clothes, and lacks daily food,

16 And one of you says to them, "Depart in peace, be warmed and filled," but you don't give them the things that are needed for the body, what good is that?

17 Even so faith, if it doesn't have works, is dead, being alone.

18 Yes, a man could say, "You have faith, and I have works, show me your faith without your works, and I'll show you my faith by my works."

19 You believe that there is one God, you do well, the devils also believe, and tremble.

20 But don't you know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?

21 Wasn't Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son on the altar?

22 Do you see how faith worked with his deeds, and by works faith was made perfect?

23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness, and he was called the friend of God."

24 You see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.

25 Likewise also wasn't Rahab the prostitute justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?

26 For like the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

___James chapter 3

1 My brothers, don't be many masters, knowing that we'll receive the greater condemnation.

2 For in many things we offend all.  If any man doesn't offend in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.

3 See, we put bits in the horses' mouths, so they'll obey us, and we turn around their whole body.

4 Look also at the ships, which though they're so large, and are driven by fierce winds, yet they're turned around by a very small helm, wherever the captain wants.

5 Even so, the tongue is a little member, and boasts great things.  See how great a matter a little fire kindles!

6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of sin, so is the tongue among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature, and it is set on fire by hell.

7 For every kind of animals, and of birds, and of snakes, and of things in the sea, gets tamed, and has been tamed by mankind,

8 But no man can tame the tongue, it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.

9 With it we bless God, the Father, and with it we curse men, who are made after the likeness of God.

10 Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing.  My brothers, these things ought not to be.

11 Does a fountain send out at the same place sweet water and bitter?

12 Can the fig tree, my brothers, produce olive berries?  Or a vine, figs?  So no fountain can yield both salt water and fresh.

13 Who is a wise man and possessing knowledge among you?  Let him show out of a good lifestyle his works with meekness of wisdom.

14 But if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, don't glory, and don't lie against the truth.

15 This wisdom doesn't descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.

16 For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.

17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be reasoned with, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.

18 And the fruit of righteousness is planted in peace by those who make peace.

___James chapter 4

1 Where do wars and fightings among you come from?  Don't they come from your lusts that war in your members?

2 You lust, and don't have, you kill, and desire to have, and can't obtain, you fight and war, yet you don't have, because you don't ask.

3 You ask, and don't receive, because you ask wrongly, so you can consume it on your lusts.

4 You adulterers and adulteresses, don't you know that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God?  Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world is an enemy of God.

5 Do you think that the scripture says for nothing, "The spirit that lives in us lusts to envy?"

6 But he gives more grace.  So he says, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble."

7 Submit yourselves therefore to God.  Resist the devil, and he'll run away from you.

8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.  Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double minded.

9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and cry, let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.

10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he'll lift you up.

11 Don't speak evil about each other, brothers.  He that speaks evil about his brother, and judges his brother, speaks evil about the law, and judges the law, but if you judge the law, you're not a doer of the law, but a judge.

12 There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy, who are you that judges someone else?

13 Go on now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we'll go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and make a profit,"

14 Actually, you don't know what will happen tomorrow.  For what is your life?  It is a puff of steam, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.

15 For you ought to say, "Lord willing, we'll live, and do this, or that."

16 But now you rejoice in your boastings, all such rejoicing is evil.

17 Therefore to him that knows to do good, and doesn't do it, to him it is sin.

___James chapter 5

1 Go on now, you rich men, cry and howl for your miseries that shall come on you.

2 Your riches are corrupted, and your clothes are moth eaten.

3 Your gold and silver are rusted, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh like fire.  You've heaped treasure together for the last days.

4 See, the wages of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which you've kept back by fraud, shouts, and the shouts of those who've reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabbath.

5 You've lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton, you've nourished your hearts, like in a day of slaughter.

6 You've condemned and killed the just, and he doesn't resist you.

7 Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.  See, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, and has long patience for it, until he receives the early and latter rain.

8 You also be patient.  Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is getting near.

9 Don't grudge against each other, brothers, so you won't be condemned, see, the judge stands at the door.

10 Take, my brothers, the prophets, who've spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.

11 See, we count them happy that endure.  You've heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.

12 But above all things, my brothers, don't swear, not by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath, but let your yes be yes, and your no, no, so you don't fall into condemnation.

13 Is anyone among you afflicted?  Let him pray.  Is anyone merry?  Let him sing psalms.

14 Is anyone sick among you?  Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord,

15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he has committed sins, he'll be forgiven.

16 Confess your faults to each other, and pray for each other so you'll be healed.  The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man is quite does a lot of good.

17 Elijah was a man subject to passions like we are, and he prayed earnestly that it wouldn't rain, and it didn't rain on the earth for three years and six months.

18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.

19 Brothers, if any of you strays from the truth, and someone converts him,

20 Let him know, that he that converts the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.