The LORD did not set His affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than the other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.Yahweh didn’t set his love on you nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of all peoples;The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people:Jehovah did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all peoples:
3 sermons cite this verse
… I want to go walk through verses 7, 8, and 9 of the seventh chapter of the book of Deuteronomy. I'm going to read in your hearing from the message translation by Eugene Peterson, Deuteronomy chapter 7, verses 7, 8, and 9. And it reads, God wasn't attracted to you and didn't choose you because you were big and important. The fact is there was almost nothing to you. God did it out of sheer love keeping the promise God made to your ancestors God stepped in and mightily brought you back out of that world of slavery freed you from the iron grip of Pharaoh king of Egypt know this God, your God is God indeed a God you can depend upon God keeps his covenant of loyal love with those who love him And observe his commandments for a thousand generations You may be seated in God's presence For just a few moments with your prayers I want to talk about I've got loyalty and royalty in my DNA I've got loyalty and royalty in my DNA. What happened to you that causes you to sabotage you? Is there something you haven't gotten over that keeps pulling you under? I've discovered life will beat you down until it's hard to look up. Disappointment and delays can beat the dreams out of you. There's a passage of scripture that has always arrested my attention because it speaks so much to the human predicament. …
And so when you look at that verse of Scripture, you realize that He's simply saying, here's what I promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and now I'm keeping my promise. I'm going to get you into the holy land, the land of promise. Look, if you will, in Psalm 36 for a moment. Psalm 36, and notice what he says in this passage. Beginning in verse 5, he says, Your loving kindness, O Lord, extends to the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the skies, which is his way of saying that God's faithfulness is immeasurable. You can't put it in a box. You can't contain it. It is the very nature of an infinite God to be reliable, trustworthy, constant, unwavering, unfailing, and unfaltering in every single promise and in every single thing he promises to do. Then if you want to go to the New Testament, turn, if you will, to 1 Corinthians for a moment and look, if you will, in this first chapter. There are many, many verses, but we've just taken a few here. …
We shall show how he exercises this right in several particulars. 1. In calling one people or nation, and giving them the means of grace, and leaving others without them. According to the divine appointment, salvation is bestowed in connexion with the means of grace. God may sometimes make use of very unlikely means, and bestow salvation on men who are under very great disadvantages; but he does not bestow grace wholly without any means. But God exercises his sovereignty in bestowing those means. All mankind are by nature in like circumstances towards God. Yet God greatly distinguishes some from others by the means and advantages which he bestows upon them. The savages, who live in the remote parts of this continent, and are under the grossest heathenish darkness, as well as the inhabitants of Africa, are naturally in exactly similar circumstances towards God with us in this land. They are no more alienated or estranged from God in their natures than we; and God has no more to charge them with. And yet what a vast difference has God made between us and them! In this he has exercised his sovereignty. He did this of old, when he chose but one people, to make them his covenant people, and to give them the means of grace, and left all others, and gave them over to heathenish darkness and the tyranny of the devil, to perish from generation to generation for many hundreds of years. The earth in that time was peopled with many great and mighty nations. There were the Egyptians, a people famed for their wisdom. There were also the Assyrians and Chaldeans, who were great, and wise, and powerful nations. There were the Persians, who by their strength and policy subdued a great part of the world. There were the renowned nations of the Greeks and Romans, who were famed over the whole world for their excellent civil governments, for their wisdom and skill in the arts of peace and war, and who by their military prowess in their turns sub-rued and reigned over the world..Those were rejected. God did not choose them for his people, but left them for many ages under gross heathenish darkness, to perish for lack of vision; and chose one only people, the posterity of Jacob, to be his own people, and to give them the means of grace. Psal. cxlvii. 19, 20. “He showeth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation; and as for his judgments, they have not known them.” This nation were a small, inconsiderable people in comparison with many other people. Deut. vii. 7. “The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people.” So neither was it for their righteousness; for they had no more of that than other people. Deut. ix. 6. “Understand therefore, that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiff-necked people.” God gives them to understand, that it was from no other cause but his free electing love, that he chose them to be his people. That reason is given why God loved them; it was because he loved them. Deut. vii. 8. Which is as much as to say, it was agreeable to his sovereign pleasure, to set his love upon you. …