So if all of the Israelites were saved, because Israel was elect,
we have a bunch of Baal worshipers in heaven now.
Election is typically defined today, by people who just hear the word a lot as;
God chooses who's going to be saved.
And some people will then, therefore, state what is probably an obvious corollary,
he chooses the people that aren't saved, that go to hell or whatever.
So you either have predestination,
and then well, the other ones go to hell because everybody should go to hell.
And God, fortunately, picks a few out. And so they get held by default,
or you have double predestination,
where God makes deliberate choices on both.
And I don't care about any of that, because
I think it's a fundamental misunderstanding of election. Here's why;
this idea, you can read any creed and confession you want.
Any discussion of election, and it's ultimately going to go back to the Old Testament.
To passages like Deuteronomy 7:7-8, where God chooses Israel.
And again, that's not the lone passage. There's several of these.
And so, if you raise the question, well, was Israel elect?
It's kind of a no brainer, well, of course, they were elect.
They're chosen. And then the other nations are not chosen.
Chosen and not chosen. Okay. So Israel's elect.
And should we define then election as salvation,
so we can therefore assume that because Israel was elect,
the Israelites were also elect, and then they're all saved, right?
At that moment, you might have some kind of suspect that we might have a problem here.
And they have a huge problem because
there's something in biblical history called the Exile,
which dominates the Old Testament from the prophets onward,
really, even before the prophets.
God sends the nation, north and south, collective Israel,
all 12 tribes at different points.
they are exiled, they're expelled from the land that was theirs, covenantally.
They're exiled to Babylon and thrown to the wind.
10 of the tribes are thrown into the wind by the Assyrians in 722 BC.
Judah, the last two tribes, Judah and Benjamin are taken to Babylon in stages,
but everybody's exiled. Why?
Well, fundamentally, and if we have time, we'll hit some specifics here today.
Fundamentally, the reason is idolatry. They worshipped and served other gods.
They did lots of other behavioral things that they shouldn't have,
all of which the Torah connects to "the peoples who were here"
who inhabited Canaan, who worshiped other gods."
The fundamental reason is idolatry.
So, if all of the Israelites were saved, because Israel was elect,
we have a bunch of Baal worshipers in heaven now.
That's a serious theological problem.
Okay, God does not tolerate the worship of other gods.
Just because they were Israelites doesn't mean that they were saved.
Election is not salvation.
But that is typically the way the average Christian who, you know,
knows what we're talking about here thinks of it.
That is not the way it was cast in the Old Testament.
It can't be because of the exile.
I mean, there are other reasons, but that's the big one. That's the elephant in the room.
You don't have a bunch of Baal worshippers in heaven where God says,
"Oh, well, you know, that's okay. I elected you. You could do whatever you want.
You worship any god that you wanted
but I like to do so I got to let you in. So we're good."
No! That is exactly the opposite of the lesson of the exile.
What election means... election is really about access to the truth.
Israel was elect. They alone had access to the truth about the true God.
The true God was in relationship with them, dispensing things like the Torah,
okay, giving them leaders like Moses and prophets and so on.
This nation alone was getting the truth.
They had access to the truth about the true God.
None of the other nations did.
This is why this nation was supposed to display and teach and live in a certain way
so that the other nations, their attention would be drawn.
They would have conversations, ask question. They would learn who the true God is.
And God also, you know, this is part of the goal of miracles and signs and wonders,
you know, to have the nations alerted to the fact that hey, the true God lives over here.
He's associated with this land over here. Not your deity, this one.
Okay, Israel alone had access to the truth. Now, every Israelite had to make a choice.
They had to believe that.
They had to believe that their God, Yahweh was the true God,
the God of all gods. The Most High.
And then they had to do just what Naaman did.
They had to refuse to worship any other. And they had to maintain that.
You couldn't say, "well, I'll worship Yahweh on the Sabbath,
now I worship Baal over..."
No! You believe. You acknowledge that Yahweh is the God of all gods.
Okay, he is who he claims to be. For whatever reason, get it was just his choice.
He decided to create us and wants it to be in relationship to us.
So he made a covenant with our forefathers. It's amazing.
We don't understand it, but he did it. And we believe that,
and we will never worship another. Believing loyalty.
Israel had access to the truth but they still had to believe.
They still had to make this believing loyalty decision.
Election is not about salvation. Those two things are not synonymous.
Okay, I think we fundamentally misunderstood this.