End of Life, End of Times: God's Grand Future for Israel Various Texts

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Okay, we apologize for the technical difficulties.
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From our understanding, you may have been with us for a couple minutes and it just went out. We have better internet from this part of our church building, so what
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I'm going to do is I'm going to start from the beginning and preach this sermon from here, where we believe that you'll be able to stay with us the whole way.
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Again, Happy Mother's Day, as I already mentioned. But let's jump in once again. Now as we have already seen in our sermon series,
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End of Life, End of Times, the people of Israel play a prominent role in the end times.
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This morning we are going to focus on God's great future for Israel. Now this morning
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I am going to make the case that one should see the promises in the Old Testament as being fulfilled to the people whom they were given to, namely
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Israel. We are going to see a related sermon to this two weeks from today on why the millennium is necessary to bring these ancient promises to fulfillment to the people of Israel.
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This morning I am going to spend a lot of time talking about a theological error that started in church history and is still very prominent today.
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This error either completely takes away or diminishes God's wonderful promises to his ancient people.
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This is important for us to understand because God's character is on the line, as I will explain to you.
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Now what I showed you is that during this future seven year tribulation, I do not believe the church will be here, but rather Christ is going to return and gather his church before the seven year tribulation and take the church to be with him in heaven.
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But of course Israel will be here because this is God's plan and they play a prominent role in the future.
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So here is our big idea this morning. God has a grand future planned for the nation of Israel as he does the church.
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And may we not miss it. God has a grand future planned for the nation of Israel as he does the church.
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And may we not miss it. Now I am not going to be taking us to a specific place in the
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Bible this morning. We will be jumping around. But as always, I encourage you to write down the passages that I give you.
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Now last fall, we wrapped up our sermon series in Genesis. And what we saw in Genesis is that the nation of Israel started with one man,
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Abraham. God called him to go to a land he did not know, and the Lord promised him that he would bless him with offspring, make a nation of them and give them this land, the land known as the land of Canaan or as we know as the promised land.
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When the Lord made these promises to Abraham and his offspring, understand once again as I mentioned that the
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Lord's character is on the line. What he promises he must fulfill since he is a promise keeper who always tells the truth.
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And these promises that the Lord made are forever promises to Israel. They don't go away.
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The Lord told Abraham in Genesis 17 -8, I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession, and I will be their
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God. These promises to Abraham are forever. And in two weeks, as I mentioned, we are going to see how this fits into the 1 ,000 year reign of Christ on the earth.
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These promises will be fulfilled in that period. So what the
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Bible makes clear is that God does have a future for Israel. Now there is a view out there that I've already alluded to that does not agree with what
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I'm saying. This view is known as replacement theology or super sessionism, and those are words you probably have never heard in your life.
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The terminology isn't so important as understanding what I'm explaining the idea here.
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But what this view says is that the church that started with Christ and his apostles replaces
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Israel. In other words, all the promises to Abraham and his offspring are fulfilled spiritually in the church, and what they argue is that the
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New Testament says this. Now, there are places in the
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New Testament where the writers describe the church in such a way where it sounds like Israel and the church are the same people.
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For example, in 1 Peter 2 .9, the apostle Peter wrote, You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who calls you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
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Peter is talking to the church, but it sounds like Peter is saying that the church is the new
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Israel. What we must keep in mind is that we need to put ourselves in the shoes of the original audience.
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Whenever we read anything, we must ask the question, how would the original audience have understood this?
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For a Jew to read the Old Testament and find out that some believe that the promises to them are replaced by another people, this would be preposterous in their mind.
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Now, it is true that as time goes on, the later people of God know more about the prophecy and how it is fulfilled.
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Yes, that is very true. The New Testament gives us a bigger and clearer picture.
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However, much of what was taught to Israel, they understood correctly. And God's commitment to his ancient covenant people still stands to this day, and it will always stand.
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Now, I already mentioned replacement theology to you, and how proponents of this view say that the promises to ancient
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Israel are fulfilled spiritually in the church, and how the new people of God becomes the people of God, and so God does not have a major future for Israel, as the
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Old Testament might indicate. Now, you might be asking, where did this teaching come from, and why do people still believe that this is true?
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If you look at the first century, the church started with Jesus and his disciples. The first members of the church were his twelve apostles, and Jesus promised to create this new people of God in Matthew 16, 18, when he said,
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I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. What we learn in the rest of the
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New Testament is that a mystery is revealed that was not known in the
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Old Testament. The apostle Paul describes this mystery in Ephesians 3, 6.
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He says, So this new people of God, known as the church, is made up of both
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Jews and Gentiles. Most of the Jews did not receive
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Christ when he came, but some did, and these joined the people of God, known as the church.
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So the early church, Jews and Gentiles, and even today we see that. There are some Jews who believe, and they join the church, but most of the church, 99 % of the church, is made up of Gentiles.
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And what Paul teaches in Romans 11, 25 is that a partial hardening has come upon Israel.
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So not a permanent hardening, like they're cast off forever, but a partial hardening.
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And this took place when Paul wrote this about 30 years after Christ ascended to heaven.
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This hardening will be there, as he says in the second half of the verse, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
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The church, as I mentioned, is made up primarily of Gentiles, who, by definition, are non -Jews.
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At Eureka Baptist, as far as I know, we have no Jews that belong to our congregation.
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We are a bunch of Gentiles. 99 % are Gentiles in the church, as I already said, and this has always been this way throughout church history, going all the way back to the late first century.
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So Israel are Jews, and the church is Gentiles, and Paul said, as I mentioned above, that the focus of this age is the church, who are mostly non -Jews.
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If you think about the vehicle that God is working through right now, it's not the Jews, it's the church.
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We are the church. If you think about all the churches all over planet Earth right now, these are the people whom
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God is working through to declare His message to the world. Now what we must understand about our human nature and our sinful nature, is that we are drawn to those who look like us, talk like us, and are a part of the same movement as us.
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And some of this can be innocent pride, like a father who's proud of his son, or a mother, like it's
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Mother's Day, a mother who's proud of their children. This innocent and holy pride,
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I guess you could call it. But there's a sinful pride also, where bias plays into things.
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We are all homers, as you might say. We have a bias toward America over other countries.
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And this can be good, because America has done much good in its history, but it can also be a sinful thing if we see other people in other nations as inferior to us, just because they're not
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Americans. Many of you have a bias toward the Green Bay Packers, and I have a bias toward the
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Minnesota Vikings. And every fall we make fun of each other, but we have this bias that is built in.
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So we have a bias toward our nation, we have a bias toward our team, and to our people. Now what
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I am telling you is that there are two peoples of God. Without even knowing it, the church has a natural bias towards the church, and not
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Israel. And you can say the same thing the other way around. Israel has a natural bias toward Israel, and not the church.
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We need to recognize this built -in bias, and work hard to overcome this, and love others as God would have us.
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Now to this point what I have done is I have set the table to answer the question, where and why did replacement theology originate?
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Where the church replaces Israel, and there are no future promises for Israel going forward.
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Where did it originate? Well, when Gentiles, starting in the early church, mostly
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Greeks and Romans, interpreted the New Testament, they believed that they fulfilled promises to Abraham and his offspring.
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And in one sense, it's true, right? If we look at the Abrahamic promises, the church is included in that, because it says that through Abraham all the nations of the earth will be blessed.
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So in a sense, this is true. But they go further than that. So in other words, it's to believe that the
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New Testament points to the fact that the church takes all the promises of Israel.
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This is known as replacement theology. And what they're saying is that this great future promise to Israel, the land promises to them, it's not fulfilled to Israel.
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This great Abrahamic promise that they would have the land from the river Euphrates to the river in Egypt.
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What replacement theologians say is that this promise is fulfilled in the church, and the land promise means that it's heaven.
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So not the land in the Middle East that belongs to Israel, but it's fulfilled spiritually in the church, and the land is not the land on the earth, but it's heaven.
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Which, of course, we all believe that if you belong to Christ, you're going to heaven. But what I'm saying is that that is not the fulfillment of the
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Abrahamic land promise that was made to Abraham. So the belief is the church supersedes
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Israel as the people of God. This built -in bias blinded the eyes of those in church history from putting themselves in the shoes of the original audience and asking how would they have understood this prophecy.
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Our biases can influence how we interpret the Bible. The goal in reading
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Scripture is to read what is really there, not to insert our own interpretation.
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And I'm afraid that this is precisely what many, not all, but what many in the church have done down through history, and this is where replacement theology came from.
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Now, what is odd about this is that many of the replacement theologians in church history are also our heroes.
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Augustine, John Calvin, Martin Luther. In so many ways, we are indebted to these men.
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In the case of Calvin and Luther, they brought the church back to the Bible 500 years ago in what we celebrate as the
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Reformation. They rediscovered the Gospel, freeing many in the church from the false teaching of the
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Roman Catholic Church. Every Reformation Day, which happens at the end of October, we celebrate their efforts.
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Much of what they wrote is valuable and we will benefit from what they wrote, but we should not follow them into error, and I'm afraid that many in the church believe almost everything they write.
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And so, they not only follow them in the good places, which I say amen, but they follow them into the ditch of error.
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Calvin and Luther believe the error that the church replaced Israel. Believing that Israel had their chance to receive their
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Messiah, Jesus, but they rejected Him, and their time has passed, and so the
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Reformers spoke of them harshly. This is tragic, since this is contrary to how the
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Bible tells us to treat Israel. Genesis 12 -3 says, I will bless those who bless you, talking to Abraham here,
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God talking to Abraham, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
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With this in mind, let's hear what Luther tragically said about the
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Jews in the 16th century. He said, Eject them forever from this country, for as we have heard,
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God's anger with them is so intense that gentle mercy will only tend to make them worse and worse, while sharp mercy will reform them but a little.
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Therefore, in any case, away with them. Luther said that, and his words are horrible.
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You should utterly reject what he said. So Luther was okay with casting off the
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Jews forever, Luther is completely at odds with what the Bible teaches, and sadly, one of Luther's and even
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Calvin's sins was that they plunged into anti -Semitism. Something that has been a major problem in the world for thousands of years.
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Even church members can plunge into anti -Semitism. Now the anti -Semitism of the
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Reformers was different from Nazi Germany during World War II. The Nazis were racist, and they saw the
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Jews as inferior just because of who they were and how they looked. While the
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Reformers saw the Jews as inferior because they largely rejected Christ. They said,
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You had your chance. You blew it. These promises aren't for you anymore. Now I want to be very clear that most people who hold to a replacement theology would utterly reject the anti -Jewish language of the
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Reformers. I have dear friends who hold to some version of replacement theology.
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I don't think they would call it that. But that's really what it is. And these are men
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I deeply respect. These are godly men who love the Lord and I've learned from them.
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So I want to be very clear. I'm not attacking anybody personally who holds to this view. I'm just attacking the unbiblical nature of this view.
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In the modern day, some theologians hold to what I call a modified replacement theology.
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So it's not the full -blown replacement theology of the Reformers, but it's a modified one.
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What they say is that there will still be a large conversion of Jews in the end times.
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And I am delighted that they say this because that's what the Bible says in Romans 9 -11. It talks about this future mass conversion of Jews in the end.
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And in these chapters in Romans 9 -11, Paul makes a clear distinction between the
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Jews and the Gentiles. What Paul does is he compares the people of Israel to a tree with natural branches.
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And he says that the church are the unnatural branches. And what he says in Romans 11 -17 is that the olive tree, the first people of God, Israel, while the
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Gentiles are the unnatural branches that come from a wild olive tree.
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What Paul teaches in Romans is that the wild branches of the church that came from a wild olive tree are grafted into the olive tree, the natural tree, where Israel's natural branches hung.
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So we get this imagery. And because of the hardening of Israel, their branches were cut off from the natural tree, which signifies the unbelief of Israel.
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But in the future, Israel will believe in their Messiah. And this is symbolized by these natural branches once again being grafted into this natural olive tree, the very tree that the
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Gentiles have been grafted into. I know this might be confusing.
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Israel, natural tree with natural branches. The Gentiles, an unnatural tree with unnatural branches.
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When the church came, they are grafted into this original tree while Israel was cut off temporarily.
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And in the future, Israel's natural branches will once again be on that tree. So I hope that helps me explain to you that once again.
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Read Romans 11. That's where Paul explains it. So when I call modified replacement theologians, what they see in this text is that ethnic
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Israel will be grafted in. And that's right. And what grafted in means is that they will be saved in the end times.
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The Apostle Paul in Romans 11, verses 26 and 27, he says, all
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Israel will be saved as it is written in Isaiah 59, verses 20 through 21.
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The Deliverer will come from Zion. He will banish ungodliness from Jacob.
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And this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins. So we see it predicted in the
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Old Testament. And Paul says in Romans 11, all Israel will be saved. So what we see from Scripture is that God has a plan for Israel in the future.
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And even modern day replacement theologians recognize this based on their study of the
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New Testament text in Romans 11. So we should applaud them for seeing that and having the integrity to see that and to hold to that view.
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However, this is an outlier in their theology. It doesn't really fit if you think about it.
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If all the people of God down through history are considered the church, starting with Adam, all the way to the last person who is saved, then why is there going to be a mass conversion of one ethnic group, the
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Jews, in the end times when there has been a hardening on them since the church started 2 ,000 years ago?
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Why would Paul single out this one group from everybody on the earth? He does single them out by the fact that these people are going to survive the tribulation.
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Most of the people who died during the final seven year tribulation are the Gentiles and not the
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Jews. But the nation of Israel will be supernaturally spared.
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In the first half of Revelation 7, Paul describes 144 ,000 Jews. These are
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Jewish evangelists who will be protected from all the wrath of the tribulation.
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This wrath that we saw God pour out over the last two Sundays during those sermons. The Jews will be supernaturally protected.
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An angel from heaven says to the other angels who are pouring out the seal judgments in Romans 7, verses 3 and 4,
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Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we have sealed the servants of our
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God on their foreheads. I heard the number of the sealed. 144 ,000 sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel.
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Then verses 5 to 8 lists the 12 ,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel.
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These are a people who will be saved and spread the gospel in their land and all over the world.
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And these saved Israelites will not die as God supernaturally protects them.
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There are two other vocal Israelites who will be protected by God in Revelation chapter 11.
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These are known as the two witnesses. Revelation chapter 11, verses 4 and 5, says concerning them,
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These are two olive trees. Okay, so the olive, remember that's Israel. These are two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the
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Lord of the earth. And if anyone would harm them, fire pours out from their mouth and consumes their foes.
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These are two Israeli prophets who will proclaim the truth of the gospel from the newly rebuilt temple in Jerusalem and they will do this for three and a half years.
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Then the remainder of the text says that the Antichrist will be allowed to kill them and their corpse will lie in Jerusalem for three and a half days until God raises them from the dead to shock the unbelieving world.
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These people who have been preaching for three and a half years, they're going to die and then they're going to come back to life and the world is going to say, what in the world just happened?
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Then these two witnesses, these two Israelites will be taken to heaven. So we see
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God supernaturally protecting his first people, Israel, and specifically he's sparing believing
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Israel. Zechariah, chapter 13, verse 8, says that two -thirds of Israel will be supernaturally, sorry, two -thirds of Israel will perish during the final tribulation.
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But that same verse says that one -third of Israel will be supernaturally spared when
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Christ returns. The one -third will be the ones who receive
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Christ when He returns as Zechariah 12 .10 says, I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy so that when they look on Me, on Him whom they have pierced,
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Jesus at the crucifixion, they shall mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child and weep bitterly over Him as one weeps over a firstborn.
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So what we see in this text is that those who are mourning are Israel. And they are mourning over the
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Messiah that they crucified thousands of years ago. Right now it's 2000 and it won't be long before Christ returns.
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But they're going to look on Him whom they have pierced. And they're going to receive Him. They rejected
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Him the first time. And the second time when Christ returns they are going to receive Him with open arms.
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They are going to believe in Him. They are going to turn from their sins. And they will once again be
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His people. Another point concerning the preservation of Israel during the tribulation is the 1000 year reign of Christ as I've alluded to several times.
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Millions of Jews will populate the kingdom during this time. But these will be people without a resurrected body.
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The church, the members of the church, us, we will have resurrected bodies at this point because we will have been raptured with Christ to heaven.
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And when we are raptured that's when we are given a resurrected body. However, Israel is going to be supernaturally spared during the 7 year tribulation.
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And they're going to enter the 1000 year reign of Christ with the bodies they had while they lived on earth.
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And so we see once again God supernaturally sparing Israel during this 7 year tribulation.
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So we can see very clearly that God has a very special plan for Israel in the end times.
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And if these were people who were cast off forever, if these promises were not theirs, we wouldn't see this great future that God has planned for them.
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But we do see it. It's very clear in the pages of Scripture. And God wants us to see this.
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We are the church. He wants us to see this. When one reads the Bible from beginning to end, there should not be a surprise that there is a grand future for Israel laid out in the
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New Testament. This is why we must understand that God is not only going to save Israel, but He's also going to restore them to their land.
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This land that I've already mentioned. This land from the river Euphrates to the river in Egypt.
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The restoration of Israel is a huge topic in the Old Testament. If you pick a book, you'll find it just about everywhere.
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From Isaiah all the way through the prophetic books. The story of Israel in the
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Old Testament is largely a dark history because of their idolatry against the
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Lord. But the prophecies in the Old Testament spoke of brighter days, much brighter days at the end of the world.
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So let me read one of the most glorious prophecies in Jeremiah 31 -39.
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This is the new covenant that is promised to Israel. And by the way, this is the covenant that we as the church share in.
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And I believe we are sharing in right now. So here's what the Lord says, Behold, the days are coming, declares the
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Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when
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I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant that they broke.
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Though I was their husband, declares the Lord, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the
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Lord. I will put My laws within them and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their
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God and they shall be My people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and his brother saying, know the
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Lord. For they shall all know Me. From the least of them to the greatest, declares the
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Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more. Thus says the
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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.
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The Lord of hosts is His name. If this fixed order departs from before Me, declares the
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Lord, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before Me forever.
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Thus says the Lord, if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below can be explored, then
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I will cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done, declares the
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Lord. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when the city shall be rebuilt for the
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Lord from the tower of Hananel to the corner gate. And the measuring line shall go out farther straight to the hill
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Gerab, and shall then turn to Goa. The whole valley of the dead bodies and the ashes and all the fields as far as the
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Bor Kidron to the corner of the horse gate toward the east shall be sacred to the
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Lord. It shall not be plucked up or overthrown any more forever."
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So we see the certainty of this very bright future for Israel. Think about this.
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In that passage, what God said is as certain as how the universe works.
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I mean, the sun rises in the east. Think of the earth. It rotates. It spins once every day.
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It orbits the earth 365 days. It orbits the sun,
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I should say, 365 days every single year. Think about how God has fixed the heavens and how certain everything is.
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And what He says, He says if we can't trust that, then we can't trust this.
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And we can trust that because God is faithful. And we see that every day in the way that the world runs and the way that the universe runs.
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And He's saying as firm as that is, that's how firm My promises are to Israel.
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And yet, people are so flippant to say these promises are to the church. And yet,
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God says no, they are not. They're for My ancient covenant people. They are not cast off forever.
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So what we see in this text are two realities that I've already mentioned. The salvation of Israel, which most
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Christians today believe. But we see something else, which I'm sad so many
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Christians do not see. We also see the restoration of Israel. Something that so many
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Christians do not believe. Try to find a church that talks about the restoration of Israel into their homeland.
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It's like finding the needle in the haystack. It's very hard to find. And that's because of this bias that people in the church have towards ethnic
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Israel. It's a racism, by the way, that nobody's talking about. And again,
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I don't want to say that if you hold to a replacement... I'm not calling you a racist.
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But there is this underlying prejudice that we have that we can miss.
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And it's worth examining ourselves to see why do we want to take these promises for ourselves.
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God has great promises for us, the church. Yes, He does. But not just us.
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Also for His ancient covenant people. We see here that Jerusalem in this passage, we see that Jerusalem will be rebuilt.
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It will never again be overthrown. We will see this in more detail two weeks from now when we talk about the 1 ,000 year reign of Christ.
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But what I will say right now is that this future earthly kingdom promise can only be fulfilled during the future 1 ,000 year reign of Christ.
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Every Israelite would have understood it this way. The great hope of the
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Jews was that the Messiah would come to the earth, drive out their enemies, and establish a kingdom on the earth.
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This is why they didn't know what to do with Jesus when He came. The Old Testament described the
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Messiah as one who would suffer in Isaiah 53. However, that was not the emphasis of the
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Jewish teaching in the first century. They taught that He was going to reign in power.
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And so when Jesus came humbly, remember He was born in Bethlehem. He lived a humble life.
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The Jewish leaders largely rejected Him and they ironically helped fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah 53 by delivering
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Him up to Pontius Pilate and the Romans to be crucified. But the
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Jews were right about one thing. The Messiah would come to reign on the earth before the eternal state began.
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The very end when everyone had a resurrected body. Israel, by the way,
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Israel in the Old Testament didn't know about the eternal state. It's described in Isaiah 65, verse 17.
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The new heaven and the new earth. This new universe that will be created where God will dwell with man.
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But this is not the Messianic kingdom that the Jews hoped for. The one where the
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Messiah would drive out His enemies. The kingdom where the Messiah would sit on the throne of David with no one ever taking it from Him.
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Isaiah 9 -7 describes this kingdom. Of the increase of His government, the Messiah's, and of peace, there will be no end.
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On the throne of David and over His kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.
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The zeal of the Lord will do this. So what we can see is the church does not replace
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Israel for many reasons as we have seen. But there is one more that I want us to explore here that is very interesting when we examine it and it comes from the
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New Testament. After Jesus' resurrection, right before He was going to ascend to heaven, the disciples asked
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Jesus a question in Acts 1 -6. Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?
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They asked Him a question about the Messianic kingdom. The great hope of the people of Israel.
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And they wondered if it was finally time. If the church and Israel were the same, this would be the time to correct them.
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Right here. No better time than this. And Jesus would have told them there is no earthly kingdom, but only a heavenly one.
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It is important to remember how the disciples would have been thinking when they asked this question.
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We need to put ourselves in their shoes. They expected that when the Messiah came, as I already mentioned, that He would rule over the earth with Israel as a superpower.
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And Jesus' answer in the next verse tells us that their understanding of these
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Old Testament prophecies concerning the future kingdom of Israel were correct.
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Think about that. This is how Jesus responds in Acts 1 -7. It is not for you to know times or seasons that the
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Father has fixed by His own authority. So Jesus does not correct their thinking.
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That's remarkable. And by the way, this blows up replacement theology. I mean, most of the
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Bible does, but this really blows it up. This future earthly reign where the
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Messiah takes the throne of David will happen. And it's not the same as the eternal state.
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Like replacement theologians say, if every believer throughout history were the church,
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He would be correcting their thinking, but He does not. This future kingdom is coming to this earth.
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Jesus will take the throne. He will reign. God will keep His promises to Israel.
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And this will happen during the millennium. In two Sundays from now, we will look at this in more detail.
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And by the way, I'm passionate about this. You can probably tell this as you're watching this.
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We were up there. I was up there preaching a little bit ago. I was passionate. Then it didn't work, and now I'm down here preaching about this.
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And hopefully you're still with me. Hopefully it works. And you might ask, why,
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Pastor Seth, are you so passionate about this? And I'm passionate about it because no one's talking about it.
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And I want to be a voice who is talking about it. I'm really passionate about the
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Gospel, first and foremost. The Apostle Paul said that the Gospel is of first importance.
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We must stress the Gospel more than anything. But it doesn't mean we shouldn't stress other things too.
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I think that a lot of theologians have made a mess of the beginning of the Bible with Genesis 1 by saying the earth is old or that we evolved.
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God used evolution to create things. I'm passionate about that because that's a serious area of error that has happened.
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I'm also passionate about the end. I think a lot of people have really messed up how the end happened.
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I know there's a lot of different views out there. I just don't think the Bible is that unclear. And I think a lot of the problems with how people view the end of the
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Bible has to do with replacement theology. If you're starting from the place that the church replaces
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Israel, your end times theology is going to be off in a number of places. If you understand
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Israel correctly, then you will get it right. I heard one author say, if you get the interpretation of the
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Bible right, you get Israel right. And if you get Israel right, you get the end times right.
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I think that's a good quote. So, God has a grand future planned for the nation of Israel as He does the church.
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And may we not miss it. And by the way, the grand future for the church, we talked about that.
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You might be wondering, how is that different? It's pretty much the same. We share in the new covenant with Israel.
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We are going to reign with Christ for a thousand years like Israel. We're going to be with God on the earth forever and ever.
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On the new earth in the eternal state. So, we share these promises.
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But what I'm stressing is that Israel does get these promises. So, that's my passion here.
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Israel is precious to God and we are precious to Him. We are both His people. Now, no one deserves the glorious promises of God.
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But God generously makes promises to the people He has purchased through the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ.
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And if you're listening today, whether you're Jew or Gentile, believe in the
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Lord Jesus Christ and you will be a part of this wonderful future that God has planned. And so,
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I call you to believe in the Lord Jesus. An Israelite knows the promises that have been made to him or her.
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And that Jew expects the promise to be fulfilled to the ancient covenant people, which that Jew belongs to.
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God would not be faithful if He did not fulfill them as He said He would. This is why I say God's character is on the line in these promises.
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So, it's a bigger deal than people really understand.
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God brings glory to Himself for the prophecies that He fulfills to His people, whether Israel or the church.
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And may we see the wonderful plans that God has for Israel. It's like seeing something good happen to your brother or sister.
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Israel is like a brother to us or a sister to us. And so we should, instead of saying, nope, mine.
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We should say, you know what? These glorious promises that are to us, you have this as well.
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And you know what? You were before us. Why in Romans 116 does Paul say, first for the
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Jew, then for the Gentile? Israel became before the church. And we are both precious in God's sight.
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So, I want us to see that here. That God keeps His promises to us.
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And if He doesn't keep His promises to us, the church, let me say that again.
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If He doesn't keep His promises to Israel, how can we be so sure He's going to keep His promises to us?
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There's a consistency that we must understand here. And indeed,
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He does keep His promises to Israel and He does keep His promises to His church. God could never break a promise.
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Now next Sunday, we will see the very end of the tribulation. We've gone through in the sermon series in chronological order.
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We started with the pre -trib rapture and now we've come all the way through the tribulation. And now what we are going to see is the greatest event of all.
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And that is the second coming of Christ when He comes to earth gloriously.
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And then He establishes His kingdom on the earth. And I look forward to looking at that with you next Sunday. But this time, let's bow our heads in prayer.
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Father in Heaven, I love You, Lord. And I know many listening to You who know
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You, they love You too. And Lord, we thank You for these glorious promises that belong to Your people.
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And not just the church, Lord. They belong to Your ancient covenant people.
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And my prayer, Lord, is that people in the church would see that. Like I said, it's like a brother or sister.
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We want them to have the blessing as we have the blessing. And the promises were made to them first.
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And then they were made to us, Lord. And so may we see that. May we see their important place.
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And may we understand, Lord, that Your integrity is on the line. You do keep Your promises to Israel.
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And You do keep Your promises to the church. And may we rejoice in that, Lord, and give You praise for what a wonderful God You are that You always keep
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Your promises to Your people. May we understand this in Jesus' name, Amen.