Deuteronomy 4:44-7:26; Mark 12:1-27

Key Verses

Deuteronomy 7:7-9
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, but it is because the Lord loves you… Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations…

How could the Israelite nation fall from such esteem? They were the chosen race. The Lord had set His love on this people. Moses implored them to pass on the covenant promises and the law down to each generation…

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise (Deuteronomy 6:4-7).

But the nation would fail to preserve the law, and the subsequent generations would fall away from the Lord. We find Jesus comparing the contemporary religious leaders to murderous tenants. Jesus warns: “He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others” (Mark 12:9).

Despite the failure of the nation, the plan of God was not thwarted. The promised Savior did come from the line of Abraham, through Judah, through David and down to Mary and Joseph. He has now thrown open the door of the Kingdom to the nations! All are welcome, Jew and non-Jew alike. And somehow, his word has been preserved for thousands of years so that we might know that God… has set His love… on us!