Israel and God's Desire for the Nations

Why did God choose a single nation in the ancient world? In this illuminating episode of Bible Insights, host Wayne Conrad dives deep into the scriptures to uncover the true connection between God's covenant with Israel and His global heart for humanity. 

Walking through the foundational narratives of Genesis, the poetic declarations of the Psalms, and the final visions of Revelation, Wayne unpacks how the calling of Abraham was never meant to be an exclusive country club, but rather the catalyst for a worldwide rescue mission. Discover how Israel's history, laws, and lineage perfectly paved the way for Jesus Christ to come—not just as a localized Savior, but as the redeemer of every tribe, tongue, and nation. Tune in for a profound look at God's unchanging, universal purpose that is still actively unfolding across the globe today. 

Bible Insights with  Wayne Conrad
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Transcript

Title:  Israel and God's Desire for the Nations

Date: June 6, 2026

Scripture: Genesis 12:1-3; Romans 15:8-13

AI TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to Bible Insights with Wayne Conrad. God's word is a lamp to our feet and a light on our path. 

Today's topic, God's purpose for Israel in his desire for the nations. I want us to think about God's revelation of himself and how he made this to the people of Israel. And the reason he makes this true, this reality to the nation of Israel, was because of his desire for all the nations. When you think about what happened at the beginning, you know, God created the world and he populated it with Adam and then later Eve.

And he gave to them the command to multiply and to basically populate the world with people. But mankind in Adam's transgression fell from God's design and plunged the world themselves and all of civilization since then into sin, into rebellion against God, and into spiritual darkness. Now, when we read the first 11 chapters of Genesis, we are brought into this realization that by the time we get to Genesis 10 and 11, the world is just so very lost, so very much under the sway of darkness that there seems to be no hope for them to ever realize the whole purpose for which God created the world, which was for his glory, the manifestation of his glory and his beauty, especially in mankind, whom he had created in his image in Adam and Eve. In other words, man was hopelessly lost. and the nations were given over to idolatry. Because you see, if you don't recognize or you don't know the true and living God, the religious heart of man, the desire of man to worship something greater than himself will manifest itself in idolatry.

And that's what happens to the vast majority of the world, of the ancient world, even up to today. Mankind worships the creature. Mankind worships forces of creation rather than the true and living God. The knowledge of the true and living God is something that only he can make to come to pass. And so in the darkness of the world, of the ancient world, God spoke to one man.

He manifested himself to one man. And that man's name was Abram. Abram. He was the son of Terah. He lived in what we would call today Iraq. He lived in an area that was designated in the ancient world as the land of the Chaldeans. To this man and only to this man did God speak in order to reveal himself, not for the salvation of simply Abraham and his descendants, but through him for the salvation of a worldwide people. Let me take you in the Bible to this great call of God It's found in Genesis chapter 12.

Here we read from the ESV. Now Yahweh, that is Lord, all caps, Yahweh said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great. so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Now, do you hear what God is doing? Will you see what God is doing? Out of all the peoples on earth at that time, all the different groups of peoples, God spoke to one man, Abram. He chose this man. He elected him for his own purposes. God knows why he chose this someone. We're not told why he chose Abram.

We're simply told that the Lord appeared to Abram and he spoke to him and gave him the command to leave the country that is the place where he was living, the land of the Chaldeans, to leave the land where you are and go to a land that I will show you.

And when you arrive in this area, I will make of you a great nation, a great peoples, and your name will be great and you will be a blessing and I will bless those who bless you In him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Now this is the beginning of what we call the Abrahamic covenant. God enters into covenant with Abram. Now he formalizes that covenant later in Genesis chapter 15. And there God makes a revelation of himself, a theophany in his appearance to Abram.

But in Genesis 17, then, he gives a sign to this Abrahamic covenant, in the sign of circumcision, that Abram was to take himself into all of those who were of his household, which included not only his children and grandchildren, but would include also the slaves, those that were within the gates of Abraham, those who were associated with him. So, God chose Abram. and through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God raised up for himself a people, and their name is Israel. They were the Hebrew people, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he actually formed them, you see, in the midst of their enslavement in Egypt.

Now, they didn't go to Egypt as slaves. They went to Egypt as honored guests, but some 400 years later, they're not the honored guests. They are the non-hired servants who live to please the masters and to help build the master's kingdom. But God had not forsaken his people.

He remembered the covenant that he had made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he appeared to Moses in the wilderness of Midian and called him out to go into Egypt and to lead his people. But notice that God is not intervening in history simply to save the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

He is coming into history in these people. in order to make himself known, and in order to establish the line from which the Messiah would come. The Messiah is the one God had promised, even in his cursing of the snake in the garden, promised indirectly then to Adam and Eve, that the descendant, the seed of the woman would come, who would crush the head of the serpent. Now for God to make himself known, there must be a line of faith, a line of people who believe in him, who acknowledge him, who are aware of this true and living God.

That's what God is about when he calls Abram to himself. And when he establishes Israel, then as a nation. When he brought the Hebrew people out to Mount Sinai and there enacted what we call the Mosaic Covenant of the Old Testament, God was bringing these people and this nation that he gives to them his laws and his ordinances, his priesthood, his sacrifices, in order to foreshadow the work of the seed of the woman that would come, the promised one who would be descendant from the line of Judah. God moved in history in the establishment of a people of the Hebrews, in what we designate as Israel, in order to make himself known by the coming of the true Israelite, the one who is the true son of Abraham and the true son of David. and his name is Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary and the son of God. That's what God was about when he made himself known to Abraham and spoke these words.

Come out, come out from your country and your kindred and your father's house. Go to the land that I will show you. And I will make you a great nation. Your name will be great. You'll be a blessing. I will bless you. And through you, I will bless others. I will bless those who bless you. And in him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth. shall be blessed.

That's God's universal purpose, is to have a people for his own namesake from all the nations of the world, from every tribe and tongue and language. And so, Christ comes, Jesus of Nazareth appears in history, and he comes as the savior of the world. Not simply the savior of the Hebrews, but the savior of the world. And that was promised even in the Psalms. Listen to this Psalm, Psalm 96. Oh, sing to Yahweh a new song. Sing to Yahweh all the earth. Sing to Yahweh, bless his name.

Tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples. For great is Yahweh, greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the people are worthless idols, but Yahweh made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before Him. Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.

Ascribe to Yahweh, O families of the peoples, ascribe to Yahweh glory and strength. Ascribe to Yahweh the glory. Do His name. Bring an offering. Come into His courts. Worship Yahweh in the splendor of holiness. tremble before him all the earth. Say among the nations, Yahweh reigns. Yes, the world is established. It shall never be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity. Let the heavens be glad. Let the earth rejoice. Let the sea roar and all that fills it. Let the field exult and everything in it. Did all the trees of the forest sing for joy before Yahweh? For He comes, for He comes to judge the earth. He would judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in His faithfulness.

God's desire for a universal people from all the nations of the earth. Christ came through the line of Abraham and through the line of David in fulfillment of all these prophecies. So that God, in the course of time, would call forth from all the nations a people for His namesake, for the glory of His Son, Jesus Christ. In fact, Jesus even spoke of it in His prayer to the Father on His way to the cross in John Chapter 17, we have recorded for us what is properly called the Lord's Prayer, His true prayer to the Father concerning His people. We read, He lifted up His eyes to heaven, Jesus, and He said, Father, the hour has come.

Glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You. Since You've given Him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I've glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory I had with you before the world existed.

That prayer of the Lord Jesus is being answered as God is called forth from the nations of the world and all the peoples of the world, those whom he has elected and chosen to give to his son.

He calls him by means of the gospel, and they are coming. and have come through the ages, and they're coming today. They're coming to Christ. They're coming to God in and through Christ. God is making of them a great multitude in fulfillment of the promise of the covenant He made and cut with Abraham, with Isaac and Jacob, and the covenant He made with David. and the covenant he even made with Israel of old in Moses, the old covenant that's been swallowed up by the new covenant. And the end result of this is given to us in Revelation chapter seven, where John sees in this vision, behold a great multitude. that no one can number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God saying, Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and forever. That, my friends, is God's purpose for Israel in his desire for the nations brought to pass by the work of Jesus Christ, his son, and being fulfilled even today through the proclamation of the gospel to the ends of the world by those who know him. 

This has been Wayne Conrad with Bible Insights.