EVENIING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
3/26/2026 5:06 PM
In this evening’s SD I continue
quoting from the sermon that John MacArthur was preaching in 2007 as this sermon
was put into his commentary on the gospel of Luke because it fit well
there. This will take me a few more days
to quote it, but well worth looking at it.
“God’s decision to set His love on
Israel was in no way determined by Israel’s performance. It was not determined by Israel’s national
worthiness. It was based purely on His
independent, uninfluenced, sovereign grace (see Deut. 7:7-8)” “7
It was not because you were more in number than any other people that
the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all
peoples, 8 but it is because the LORD
loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD
has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of
slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” “He chose them because He predetermined
to set His love on them, for no other reason but election. The survival of the kingdom of Judah, despite
the blatant sin of its rulers, depended on covenant promises God had made (read Pss. 89 and 132),
where these are reiterated). God’s
unilateral covenant declares that the Lord alone is the party responsible to
fulfill the obligations. There are no conditions
that Abraham or any other Jew could
fulfil on his own. It’s no different
from our salvation—we were divinely chosen.
But we didn’t come to Christ on our own.
We were given life by the Spirit of God in God’s time. God’s unilateral covenant declares that the
Lord is the sole party responsible to fulfill the obligations to preserve
Israel.
“Obedience is not the condition that
determines fulfillment. Divine sovereign
power is the condition that determines obedience, which leads to
fulfillment. When God gave Israel the
unilateral covenant, He knew He would have to produce the obedience in the
future, according to His plan.
“Then God gave the Davidic covenant,
2 Samuel 7, where the promise comes to David that he’ll have a greater Son who
will have an everlasting kingdom. That
is an expansion, by the way, of the Abrahamic covenant. Verse 12 says, “I will establish his
kingdom. He shall build a house for My
name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” God promises to Abraham a seed, a land, a
nation, and now, of course that embodies a kingdom, and now comes the promise
of a king. This is an expansion of the
Abrahamic covenant. And what’s notable
here, again, in 2 Samuel 7:12-13, “I will raise up your descendant…I will
establish his kingdom…I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” I will…I will…I will…again.
“This is not to say the Abrahamic
covenant is only for Israel. We all
participate in its blessings spiritually—and we will millennially. The Abrahamic and the Davidic covenants—we all
will participate in them, even those not of Israel, because we’ll participate
in salvation and be in the kingdom.
“There’s a third covenant, the New
covenant. Jeremiah 31—there can be no
fulfillment of the promises God gave to Abraham or David apart from
salvation. Throughout history there has
always been an Israel of God, there’s always been a remnant, there has always
been those who didn’t bow the knee to Baal.
God always has had a chosen people.
But not all Israel is Israel.
That is to say, not all Israel is the true Israel of God, true
believers. But God has always had a
remnant, always had a people—always, as Isaiah 6 says, a stump, a holy seed
throughout history. But in the future
there will be a salvation of ethnic Israel on a national level. And that’s the message of Jeremiah 31. Here is the New covenant given to Israel.
“We like to talk about the New
covenant because we participate in the salvation provision of the New covenant,
ratified in the death of Christ. But the
application of the New covenant is in a special way given to a future
generation of Jews. Jeremiah 31:31 says,
“Behold, days are coming,’ declares the Lord when I will make a New covenant
with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah [that is unmistakable],
not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I too them by
the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke,
although I was a husband to them,’ declares the Lord. ‘But this is the covenant
which I will make with the house of Israel’” (vv. 31-33).
“What warrant is there to say that
doesn’t mean Israel? It does mean
Israel. I will…I will…I will…I will…I
will make a covenant with the house of Israel.
“ I will put My law withing them and on their heart I will write it;
and I will be their God and they shall be My people …I will forgive their
iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more’ (33-34). Did we ever see so many “l wills’?—unconditional,
unilateral, sovereign, gracious, and irrevocable.
“We could say, “Well, maybe God
changed his mind.” Go to verse 35: “This
says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the
moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves
roar; the Lord of hosts is His name: ‘If
this fixed order departs from before Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘then the
offspring of Israel also shall cease.’”
I haven’t noticed that that’s happened. If it doesn’t mean what it just
said, it’s incomprehensible.
“And the New covenant promises the
salvation that then includes the reception of all the promises in the Abrahamic
covenant, Davidic covenant, and all the extended promises throughout the whole
Old Testament.
“What is the key feature of
this? “I will put My law within them
on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God…I will forgive
their iniquity.”
“Notice how sovereign that is: “I will do it; I will
do it in My time.”
“Look at Ezekiel 36, because this is a parallel; but I
think it’s good just to be reminded.
Ezekiel 36:24-27, “For I will take you from the nations, gather you
from all the lands and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and
you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all
your idols. Moreover, I will give you a
new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone
from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
I will put My spirit withing you,’—It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?—“and
cause you to walk in My statues, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”
“How could anybody walk in His statues and obey and
observe His ordinances? Only if He
caused them to do it. “You will live
in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will
be your God.”
“ And then verse 32, just a good reminder: “I am
not doing this for your sake,’ declares the Lord God, ‘let it be known to
you. Be ashamed and confounded for your
ways, O house of Israel!’” For whose
sake is He doing it? His own sake.
“Go to the end of verse 38. When God does this, “Then they will know
that I am the Lord (see also v. 37).” “37 "Thus says the Lord GOD: This also I
will let the house of Israel ask me to do for them: to increase their people
like a flock.” (ESV)
3/26/2026 5:55 PM
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