In good times, give thanks, but put your confidence in the God behind the blessing, not the blessing itself. In tough times, stay strong, because even if you can’t see it, God is always helping, always working, and always keeping his promises. From Abraham to Elijah to Paul to you, the thread of his faithfulness has never once broken. The world is moving toward its intended end. His plan unfolds exactly as he designed it. He is that kind of God. He makes promises and never breaks them. 

At some point, we have to face an uncomfortable problem: God’s promises to Israel don’t seem to have come true. And that matters because if God didn’t keep his promises to Israel, why would we trust him to keep his promises to us?

In the Old Testament, God made big promises to his people: a nation and land with Abraham, an everlasting throne with David, and a new heart and full forgiveness with the New Covenant. These weren’t suggestions. They were sworn commitments from a God who does not go back on his word.

Now look at history. Their hold on the land has always been contested. The temple has been gone for nearly 2,000 years. No king from David’s line has sat on a throne since the Babylonian exile in 600 BC. Nothing in human history, not even the modern state of Israel, matches the wide vision that Isaiah spoke about. Many people in the nation were spiritually lost in Old Testament times, and most did not accept the Messiah when he arrived. Today, only around 2% of Jewish people believe in Jesus.

The Question

So what do we do with that? What happened to God’s promises to his people? How do we explain the grand promises God gave to Israel with what we see in reality, not just today, but throughout history?

Paul faces this head-on in Romans 11:1: “I ask, then, has God rejected his people?” The phrase “cast away” carries weight. It means a final, total dismissal, a decision to have nothing further to do with them. It’s like what God did to Saul in the Old Testament in rejecting him as king (1 Samuel 15:23).

Has he given up on Israel? It would be easy to come to this conclusion. If the Jewish people are God’s chosen, why do so few believe while Gentiles stream into the church? Has God’s word failed? Has his purpose collapsed?

These are not just historical questions; they are deeply personal ones. If God made clear promises to a certain group of people and those promises seem unfulfilled, the issue doesn’t just stay in the past. It reaches into your life right now. Every promise God made to you, every hope you have, and every prayer you trust him with — all this relies on whether God really keeps his word.

So the answer to this question matters more than we might think.

Paul’s Answer

Paul’s answer is immediate and emphatic. “I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means!” Paul then establishes that God’s rejection of Israel is not total by offering three converging lines of evidence.

Personal Evidence (1b-2a)

For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.

Paul himself is Exhibit A. He was a full-blooded Israelite — a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. He had also been the church’s most dangerous enemy: calculating, relentless, and complicit in the murder of believers. He was so feared that after he changed, only Barnabas, a very kind man, was willing to support him.

And yet God went after him. He met him on the Damascus Road, stopped him in his tracks, and brought him, struggling and protesting, into the kingdom. He didn’t just save Paul. He made him an apostle.

As long as even one Jewish person has come to faith in Christ, no one can credibly claim that God has abandoned his people. Paul’s story alone dismantles that argument.

And this is where the gospel comes into full view. The same kindness that changed Paul — who had blood on his hands and was hurting others — is the kindness available to anyone who wants to accept it. Jesus lived the life we couldn’t live and died the death we deserved. He rose again, proving that God keeps every promise he makes. If you’ve never trusted him, today is the day. Come as you are.

Notice Paul’s words in verse 2: “God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.” He chose them, not because of anything they did, but simply because he decided to. And he will not walk away from that choice. Scripture has always been clear on this:

For the LORD will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the LORD to make you a people for himself. (1 Samuel 12:22)

For the LORD will not forsake his people; he will not abandon his heritage. (Psalm 94:14)

Paul presents his own story as evidence that God has not abandoned Israel. But then he offers a second line of evidence:

Historical Evidence (2b-6)

Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.” But what is God’s reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

We think we see the full picture, but so did Elijah.

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