F4F | A Biblical Perspective on Israel and Prophecy

Fighting for the Faith

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Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough. I am your servant in Jesus Christ.

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This is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the Word of God. Well, you've seen the news.

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There's a war on in Israel, and listen, all of the evangelical prophecy channels have just gone ballistic with prophecies about Israel, and what does this all mean in light of prophetic

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Bible prophecy and things like this? And the problem is that they are not teaching what's in accord with sound doctrine.

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Now, I want to make this clear up front. I absolutely support Israel unequivocally. I think they have a right to defend themselves against a barbaric enemy like Hamas, and as a result of that,

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I do not apologize for defending Israel or expressing that sentiment at all.

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That being the case, it's important to note that as Christians, we are to have a proper view of Israel as a nation, and unfortunately, so much of a

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Christian view regarding Israel is actually based upon bad theology and poor hermeneutics that then convolutes what the

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Bible teaches regarding Israel. So this episode of Fighting for the Faith is going to be dedicated to a deep biblical dive on the topic to help introduce you to the proper biblical distinctives and how we are to look at the nation -state of Israel.

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I'm not talking about politically, I'm talking about spiritually, because the spiritual bit of it will end up having some impact on our politics.

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But all that being said, expect this to be a long episode of Fighting for the

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Faith and a wee bit of a deep dive, that's the best way I can put it. So buckle up.

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We'll listen to a little bit of Greg Laurie just to kind of set the stage, and as far as what people are saying, you'll note that I didn't choose

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Patricia King or Charlie Shamp or one of the wingnut wackerdoodle prophets.

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Chuck Pierce will not be making an appearance here. Instead, I wanted to kind of go with the mainstream thinking out there.

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And Greg Laurie, I think, represents the balanced, or at least perceived to be balanced, evangelical view on this.

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And so we'll spend a little bit of time listening to what he has to say, and then we're going to, again, do a big deep dive regarding what does the

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Bible teach us regarding today's modern Jews. So let's do this. I'm going to whirl up the desktop, and we're going to start here, just to kind of get the ball rolling.

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And this was released by Greg Laurie the day after Hamas's attack. And so we're going to listen to just a little bit of what he has to say, and along the way

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I'll address some of the biblical bits, but I'm not going to do point -counterpoint with him the way I do with other teachers.

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Instead, this is just to kind of whet your appetite and get you at least get some kind of a context for what the average evangelical thinks as it relates to, you know,

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Israel and Bible prophecy. The Bible tells us in the end times that Israel would be scattered and regathered.

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This has happened. You want to talk about signs of the times, the super sign of the last days, and really the sign that sets the prophetic clock ticking is the regathering of the nation

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Israel into their homeland. On the heels of the Holocaust, who... Now he's gonna basically invoke

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Ezekiel 37 and 38 in this regard, and we'll do a little bit of work in 37 and 38 showing that that's actually, this has nothing to do with the current nation -state of Israel, but we continue.

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Who would have ever thought that these Jewish people who lost six million of their people to the

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Nazis would somehow regather in their homeland, but it happened against all odds. And on May 14th, 1948,

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Israel became a nation. I'm proud to say the United States was the first nation to acknowledge that. God said she'll be regathered, and then the

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Lord said she would come under attack, and specifically in Ezekiel 37 and 38, the

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Bible speaks of the regathering of Israel, and then it speaks of a large force from her north attacking her.

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That force is identified as Magog. Who is Magog? Listen, no one can say with absolute certainty, but many

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Bible students and prophecy teachers believe it's modern -day Russia. I think you can make... And we'll actually do a little bit of work on this, showing you the cross -reference to show this isn't the case.

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...very good case for that. If you get out a map of the Middle East and look to the north of Israel, you will find Russia.

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Why would Russia ever want to invade Israel? Well, there's another thing the Bible says about Magog, if she is indeed

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Russia, and that one of her allies that will march with her is Persia. Persia is the ancient name for modern

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Iran. So the Bible predicted hundreds of years ago that this large force from the north of Israel would attack her after she was regathered, and one of the allies that would attack

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Israel with Mother Russia or Magog, whoever it is, would be Iran or Persia.

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And it's only recently that the Iranians and the Russians have developed a special connection.

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Not once in the past 2 ,500 years has Russia formed a military alliance with Persia -Iran, but they have now signed a billion -dollar deals to sell missiles to Iran, and the

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Iranians have helped the Russians, providing them with drones, weaponized drones, to use in the Ukraine war.

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You probably heard about that. And Prime Minister Netanyahu said of this, Iran and Russia are very disturbing to us.

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Iran supplying Russia with drones, Russia helping Iran with nuclear weapons. The only way to stop Iran is with a credible military threat.

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So how do you stop something like this? Literally, there are hostages from Israel, old women, little children, young women, and soldiers as well, because these civilians were actually targeted in this attack.

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How do you deal with this? It's very tricky. Let's just say, for the sake of a point, that Israel decided to strike out at Iran, specifically, because they're funding all of this.

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What would that produce? Well, it could produce a conflict we read about in Ezekiel, where suddenly, because the

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Bible says that Magog will come against her will, the Bible describes hooks in her jaws, pulling her forward, almost as though Magog is coming in reluctantly, along with her ally,

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Persia or Iran. I'm not saying this is going to lead to the Ezekiel 37 -38 scenario, but I'm saying it's very interesting.

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If you get up in the morning and read this headline, Russia attacks Israel, fasten your seatbelt. You're seeing

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Bible prophecy fulfilled in your lifetime, in real time, before your very eyes.

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No, actually, you wouldn't. Even if Russia attacked Israel, that is not what the

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Gog Magog War is about, and I'll show you that from Scripture. So this sets the stage, then, if you would, for what we need to do here.

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And immediately, I just have to ask the question, and the question is this, why?

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Why are all of these biblical Christians, Christians who claim that they believe the Bible, why are they so obsessed with the current nation -state of Israel, despite the fact that only 2 %—I've done the research over the past week—only 2 % of the population of Israel believes that Jesus is the

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Messiah, okay? The predominant religions in Israel are going to be

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Orthodox, Judaism, and Hasidic Judaism. Those are your two big blocks, if you would, and neither of them actually represent the biblical religion of the

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Old Testament. And so we're gonna have to do some work here, and it's—let me just kind of say this up front.

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This is gonna upset some people, and it's gonna upset some people on the right and on the left, and I just don't care.

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The reality is that if you're gonna take issue with what I'm about to say, and what I'm about to teach, then open your

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Bible and show me that what I'm saying is wrong. I'm not interested in your politics. I just don't care.

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What I do care about is that people rightly handle God's Word, and that Christians recognize the reality regarding the current nation -state of Israel, and that is that we do not have any religious fellowship with those who are

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Orthodox Jews, Hasidic Jews, even the Karaites Jews.

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We don't have any fellowship with them whatsoever, because they do not worship Christ.

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They do not believe He's the Messiah. And as a result of it, we are dealing with two different religions altogether, and in this particular case, three.

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So why on earth would the Bible prophesy regarding a nation -state that is legitimately, the vast majority of it, not in accord with what the truth is regarding the true worship of God?

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I know that sounds like an unfair claim, but it's absolutely true, and understand,

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I'm speaking from a Christian perspective, and I would note that any Hasidic Jew, any Orthodox Jew, would sit there and say, no,

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Rose, bro, you're the one that's wrong, because you believe that Jesus is the Messiah! And by saying that, they make my point, okay?

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So let's take a look at history, and let's take a look at biblical history and put things in their proper perspective, so we can understand what happened, how we got here, and why certain things still legitimately matter.

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So if you were to do your Bible history, you know, you go back to the book of Exodus. Children of Israel, God wonderfully, powerfully, demonstrably delivers them from slavery in Egypt, takes them to Mount Sinai, and God gives them the

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Torah, and the nation of Israel enters into a covenant with God called the

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Mosaic Covenant. And the sign of the Mosaic Covenant is the Shabbat, it's the Sabbaths, okay?

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The sign of the Abrahamic Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant, that sign is circumcision. But all of that being said, these are your kind of two

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Old Testament covenants of note, the Abrahamic Covenant and the Mosaic Covenant. Now you can also put in the

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Noahide or the Noahic Covenant as well, that is also in the Old Testament, but that's really not our focus.

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When it comes to the Mosaic Covenant, this is a covenant cut between God and Israel.

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No other nation is involved in the Mosaic Covenant, flat out. And basically, a good way to think of the

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Mosaic Covenant is that it is a, it is, it's a lease, it's like a contractual lease giving the people of Israel the rules for living in God's land, okay?

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The land of, the promised land, you know, where the nation of Israel is today. And there were very specific rules that they had to follow, all found in the

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Torah. And in Deuteronomy chapter 28, you have, as part of the

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Mosaic Covenant, the listing out of the promises of benefits if they obey, and the promises of curses if the children of Israel disobey.

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And when you read the rest of the Old Testament, you can see, over and over again, the children of Israel disobeying

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God's commands, taking his word, casting them, to his words, casting them behind their backs, and going their own way, and then

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God invoking and putting into play some of the curses from Deuteronomy 28.

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That's an important part of this. So let me, let me just read out, just, you know, to kind of give you a little bit of context.

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And I would recommend that you go and you read this, this entire chapter in context, because I'm only gonna hit certain highlights that will kind of help us understand the history of where we've been and how we've gotten to where we are.

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Okay, here's what it says in Deuteronomy 28, and you'll note, blessings for obedience, obedience to the

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Mosaic Covenant. And if you faithfully obey the voice of Yahweh your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you.

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And by the way, God's word in the Old Testament specifically says you cannot take away or add to his commands, to his word.

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Okay, those, so you gotta, you take it as is. You know, you know, only

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God can add to his word, and he added to it only from time to time. That was his prerogative. But the children of Israel were bound by his words once they were given, and they couldn't add to them or take away from them.

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That's kind of an important part. So if you faithfully obey the voice of Yahweh your God, being careful to do all of his commandments that I command you today,

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Yahweh your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth, and all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you if you obey the voice of Yahweh your

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God. This isn't a covenant of grace, covenant of works, it's a lease. Okay, if you were to go and get into a lease in an apartment building or a condominium, all right, you know, the owner of the place can say, all right, you can stay here if, number one, you pay your rent every month on time, and here's the date that it's due.

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All right, you can't have raging parties where thousands of people are in your house stomping on the ground and keeping the neighbors awake until 5 in the morning.

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You can't do that, right? You know, you can't have pets or you can have pets. You can have one or two pets. All the, all of the different rules, right?

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And of course, if you break the lease, what is the owner going to do?

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He is going to evict you, right? Same thing with the Mosaic Covenant. This, watch how this works out.

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If you obey, bless shall you be in the city, bless shall you be in the field, bless shall you be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of the ground, the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds, the young of your flocks, bless shall your, be your baskets and your kneading bowls, bless shall you be when you come in, and bless shall you be when you go out, right?

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All the blessings promised if you, what? Obey. And there's more to it, but you know, you kind of get the idea.

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But then you get to verse 15, and the remainder of this really long chapter gets super dark really quick.

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And if you know your Old Testament history, read Joshua, read

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Judges, read 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings, 1st and 2nd Chronicles, you get what

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I'm saying. Read the prophets of old, Isaiah, Jeremiah, you know, read these histories and you'll see that children of Israel were not exactly known for their tenacious obedience to God's law.

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Far from it. So, listen to the curses then. If you will not obey the voice of Yahweh your

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God, or be careful to do all of his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you, and they will overtake you.

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Cursed shall you be in the city. Cursed shall you be in the field. Cursed shall you shall be your blanket, and your kneading bowl.

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Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb, and the fruit of your ground, and the increase of your herds, and the young of your flock.

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Cursed shall be you when you come in. Cursed shall you be when you go out. Doesn't sound very good here, but it gets worse.

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The Lord, Yahweh, will send on you curses, confusion, frustration, and all that you undertake to do until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds because you have forsaken me.

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Yahweh will make the pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off the land that you are entering to take possession of it.

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Yahweh will strike you with wasting disease, and with fever, and inflammation, and fiery heat, and with drought, and with blight, and with mildew.

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I think you get the idea here. Let's see. Next portion. Yahweh will cause you to be defeated before your enemies.

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You shall go out one way against them, flee seven ways before them, and shall be a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

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Your dead body shall be food for all birds of the air, for the beasts of the earth. There shall be no one to frighten them away.

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Yahweh will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors and scabs, and itch of which you cannot be healed.

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Yahweh will strike you with madness and blindness, confusion of mind, and you shall grope at noonday as the blind grope in the darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways.

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You shall be only oppressed and robbed continually, and there shall be no one to help you.

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You shall betroth a wife, but another man will ravish her. You will build a house, but you will not dwell in it.

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You shall plant a vineyard, but you shall not enjoy its fruit. Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat any of it.

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Your donkey shall be seized before your face, but shall not be restored to you.

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All right? Those are, again, some of the highlights. Should I call them lowlights? I think that's a better way of putting it.

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Yahweh will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known.

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This is prophesying, through a curse, the Babylonian captivity of Judea, okay?

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God made good on this curse when he scraped the

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Jews out of Jerusalem and Judea and marched a remnant of them all the way to Babylon, okay?

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Read the stories found in Daniel and Esther, right? And how just a small remnant of them returned.

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Read Ezra and Nehemiah, okay? This was followed through by God, okay?

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There you shall serve other gods of wood and stone. You shall become a horror, a proverb, a byword among all the peoples, where Yahweh will lead you away.

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You shall carry much seed into the field, and you shall gather in little, for the locust shall consume it. You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm shall eat them.

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You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but shall not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives will drop off.

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You shall father sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours, for they shall go into captivity, okay?

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It continues on. All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of Yahweh your

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God to keep his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you. They shall be a sign and a wonder against you and your offspring forever.

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Yahweh your God, with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom

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Yahweh will send against you in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, in lacking everything.

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He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you. So one of the things that God threatened them with, you disobey my commands,

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I'm going to put you under the boot of your enemies. So you have the

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Babylonian captivity prophesied in Deuteronomy 28 and fulfilled in the later part of the

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Old Testament. You have the prophecy through the curses that God would basically take

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Israel and put them under the control of their enemies if they didn't obey his commands. Here's where it gets interesting.

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So if we were to just go and just do a quick survey in the book of Judges, okay, there's a pattern that emerges.

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And a pattern goes like this. I'll read several of these passages and you'll see this. Judges chapter 3 verse 7, and the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh.

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They forgot Yahweh their God and served the Baals and the Ashtoreth. Therefore the anger of Yahweh was kindled against Israel.

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And he sold them into the hand of Kushan Rishathayim, king of Mesopotamia.

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And the people of Israel served Kushan Rishathayim for eight years.

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That's one example. Here's another. And the people of Israel, this is chapter 3 verse 12, the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh.

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And Yahweh strengthened Eglon, the king of Moab, against Israel because he had done what was evil in the sight of Yahweh.

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He gathered to himself the Ammonites and the Amalekites and went and defeated Israel and they took possession of the city of Palms.

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Israel did evil. They disobeyed God's commands. God put them under the control of their enemies.

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Next text. That's two examples. Here's a third. And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh after Ehud died.

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And Yahweh sold them into the hand of Jabin, the king of Canaan, who reigned at Hazor. The commander of his army was

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Sisera, who lived in Harashoth Hagoyim. You start to see the pattern here.

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People of Israel did what was evil. God put them under the boot of their enemy. Another text.

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It's chapter 6 of the book of Judges. And it basically reads this.

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The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh and Yahweh gave them into the hand of Midian for seven years.

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What's going on here? God is making good on the threats of the

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Mosaic Covenant. If you obey, you are blessed. If you disobey, then these are the curses that will follow you.

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So, we've got a big problem here because this then gives us the missing context.

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It's not missing at all. It's only missing if you don't pay attention of the New Testament. And I'll explain.

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So again, in Deuteronomy 28, all these curses shall come upon you, pursue you, overtake you till you are destroyed because you did not obey the voice of Yahweh your

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God to keep his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you. They shall be a sign and wonder against you and your offspring forever because you did not serve

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Yahweh your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart because of the abundance of all things. Therefore, you shall serve your enemies.

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Now comes a very specific prophecy, and this one is critical to understanding the

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New Testament. In verse 49, chapter 28, listen to this threat from God.

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Yahweh will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand, a hard -faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young.

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Which nation is this? Answer, Rome. God threatened that if they would not obey his commands, he would bring a nation from far away swooping down like the

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What's the ensign of the armies of Rome? The eagle.

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Okay, this is a prophecy about Rome. No, there's just no way around it. This was fulfilled before the incarnation of Christ, which means you could begin the

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New Testament with these words, although they would be extra biblical, it would basically be a good way to set it up. The people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the

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Lord, and so God made good his threat from Deuteronomy 28, starting at verse 49, that he would bring a nation from far away, from the end of the earth, and that they would take over Israel, and that nation is

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Rome. Now, which leads to this question, what did the children of Israel do to invoke this further punishment from God that was already in place at the time of Christ?

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Now, let me read the rest of this particular portion of the curse. So, Yahweh will bring a nation against you from far away from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand, hard -faced nation who will shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young.

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It shall eat the offspring of your cattle, the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed. It also shall not leave you grain, wine, or oil, the increase of your herds or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish.

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Now, the next part of it we'll get to in just a minute, but this is clearly talking about the

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Roman occupation of Judea, and there's a little bit more to this.

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In fact, let me go to Nehemiah chapter 9. In Nehemiah chapter 9, we have the children of Israel wonderfully, beautifully, if you would, confessing their sins to God after they had heard

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God's Word taught to them by Ezra the scribe and those who were working with them so the children of Israel could understand the meaning of the text.

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This is after they had come back from exile in Babylon and they began to understand why they were made to suffer the way they did and why they went into exile.

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And so, in this wonderful prayer, and it really is a legitimate prayer, there's an interesting bit here starting at verse 26, and here's what it says.

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Nevertheless, they, talking about their forefathers, they were disobedient and they rebelled against you and they cast your law behind their back and killed your prophets who had warned them in order to turn them back to you and they committed great blasphemies.

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Therefore you gave them into the hand of their enemies who made them suffer and in the time of their suffering they cried out to you and you heard them from heaven according to your great mercies you gave them, listen to the word,

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Moshiach, messiahs, saviors, who saved them from the hand of their enemies.

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So, there's this, again, coming back to the book of Judges is a wonderful thing here and that we see this refrain, the people of Israel that was evil in the sight of Yahweh and Yahweh gave him the hand of their enemies and it names the enemy.

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And here in Nehemiah, we learned that not only did God put them into the hands of their enemies, but He had mercy on them by sending them saviors, messiahs.

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That's who the judges are, they're types and shadows of Jesus Christ. So, at the opening then of the

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New Testament, Israel is under one of the harsher curses of the

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Mosaic Covenant from Deuteronomy 28, because they are under the boot of Rome.

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So, I'm gonna ask my question again, what did they do this time? Because when you read

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Ezra and Nehemiah, the children of Israel, once they get back from exile, start off fairly well.

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Now, granted, it's not perfect, okay? And God had to send some prophets to kind of give them a swift kick in the behind in order to get them to do certain things, okay?

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Like rebuilding the temple and things like that. But still, there was a revival of the reading of God's Word and there was real repentance on the part of the nation, the national theocracy of Israel at the time of Nehemiah and Ezra.

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But you'll note that it's shortly after their lives that the Old Testament comes to an end, and there's a 400 -year period between the end of the

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Old Testament with the prophet Malachi in the beginning of the New Testament. And so, something happened in between the ending of the

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Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament that upset God greatly, so greatly that He invoked and put into play a harsh curse threatened in Deuteronomy 28 by bringing the

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Roman Empire in to conquer and to subjugate Israel. What did they do?

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That's the question. Answer. And I have an answer for you. The answer is the

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Pharisees. Now, work with me here. In all of the

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Old Testament, the perushim are never mentioned. That's the

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Hebrew word for Pharisees. They're never mentioned. They don't exist. From Genesis to Malachi, they are nowhere in the

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Old Testament, at all. Not there at all. Where did they come from, and what did they believe?

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Okay? So, here I have an article. An article from the

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Encyclopedia Britannica. This is just to kind of whet your appetite. You can do further research on this, and I've done quite a bit of research over the years on this, but all that being said, this is a pretty good explanation about where the

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Pharisees came from. So, Pharisee, a member of a Jewish religious party that flourished in Palestine during the latter part of the

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Second Temple period. Now, the Second Temple period was basically from the rebuilding of the Second Temple to, you know, to the closing of that era with the destruction of the temple in 70

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AD. So, the Pharisees' insistence on the binding force of oral tradition, the unwritten

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Torah, remains a basic tenant of Jewish theological thought. When the

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Mishnah, the first constituent part of the Talmud, was compiled about 200 CE, or I would say

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AD, it incorporated the teachings of the Pharisees on Jewish law. So, here's the idea.

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The Perushim, the Pharisees, they came into existence sometime after the

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Maccabean Revolt, and that puts them about 165 to 160

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BC. They're new on the spot, okay? And they absolutely were innovators when it comes to God, and they disobeyed

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God's command that you cannot add to His Word. And so, you'll note that the

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Encyclopedia Britannica has already made reference to something that was unique about the

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Pharisees. They believed in something called the unwritten Torah, or the oral Torah. And the way their story goes, they claimed, and again, there were no

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Pharisees prior to 165 BC. They claimed that when

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Moses ascended Mount Sinai, God didn't give him one Torah, God gave him two.

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And the second one was an unwritten oral Torah. And in some accounts that I've heard, you know, the story goes that God gave the oral

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Torah so that Gentiles would never know the whole truth and they couldn't be saved.

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That's one way in which the story is told. But all being said, this is the offending issue, is that the

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Pharisees added to God's Word and they disobeyed

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God's Word, and that's the offending issue why God sends Rome to basically put

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Judea under subjugation as he threatened, as if they didn't obey his commands.

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How do I know this? Well, let's take a look at some other texts. In the book of Mark, in the book of Mark chapter 7, we have an interesting account, and this one needs to be studied out by people.

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So, the Pharisees, here's what it says, Mark 7. Now, when the Pharisees gathered to him, to Jesus, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples, that's

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Jesus' disciples, ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. For the Pharisees and all the

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Jews, they do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to, and this should be capitalized, the tradition of the elders.

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That's a reference to the unwritten, the oral Torah, which later gets written down in the Talmuds and the

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Mishnahs. But all that being said, so here's the issue, the

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Pharisees from headquarters in Jerusalem show up to kind of check Jesus out, and they watch him, you know, heal people, and they hear him teach, and there's an important thing.

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Jesus did not obey any of the commands of the oral

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Torah. Nope. And he refused to let his disciples obey it either, and there's a good reason for that.

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So, here's what's happened. In the oral Torah, the unwritten Torah, there is a command to wash your hands.

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It's not in the written Torah. In the oral Torah, the command basically goes something like this.

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If you're out among the goyim, the unwashed Gentiles in the marketplace, their ick can get on you, and so in houses that were infected by this false religion of the

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Pharisees, they were told that they have to keep a wash basin, and they did.

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And there was a little ceremony that you had to do every time you came back in your house, and it went something like this.

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You would take the pitcher, all right, you take the pitcher, and you'd start with your left hand over the wash basin, and you pour water on your left hand.

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You would switch with right hand face down, and you would pour water on top of the back of your right hand.

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You would switch again, left hand up, water on top of your hands, you know, with the palm up, switch again, right hand palm up, water on top of that.

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You can then kind of rinse your hands, and then you have to say this prayer. I thank you, Lord God, Maker of heaven and earth, that you have given me the command to wash my hands.

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Here's the issue. You cannot add to God's Word, and the Pharisees have.

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They have added to God's Word, and their claim is that God gave the oral Torah, the unwritten

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Torah. It's not true. God did not. So this is a new kind of idolatry that has come into Israel, a very different kind of idolatry, but it's idolatry nonetheless.

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So the idolatry we read about in the Old Testament is the idolatry of abandoning

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God to worship Asherah, Molech, Baal, the starry host of heaven, and all these different false gods of Egypt, and the

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Amalekites, and the Amorites, and the Moabites, right? But this is a new kind of idolatry, an idolatry that still has a facade of worshiping the true

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God while completely disobeying his words, and taking his word and casting it behind you.

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It's a sneakier form. This is kind of like wolves in sheep's clothing kind of thing here that we're talking about.

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That's what...that's the best way to put it, but it's idolatry nonetheless, and it's devastating to what it does, because it undermines salvation by grace through faith, which is exactly what the

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Old Testament patriarchs believed. So here's what happens. The Pharisees basically say they take issue with the fact that Christ's disciples are not walking, they're not conducting their lives according to the tradition of the elders.

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For the Pharisees, all the Jews they don't eat unless they wash their hands, properly holding to the tradition of the elders.

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And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash, and there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups, pots, copper vessels, and dining couches.

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And the Pharisees, here it is, and the scribes asked Jesus, why? Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders?

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That's the unwritten Torah. But they eat with defiled hands.

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So Jesus said to them, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, you hypocrites, as it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

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In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

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And then watch Jesus's words. You leave the commandment of God and you hold to the tradition of men.

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Need I remind you of what Deuteronomy 28 says? If you will not obey the voice of Yahweh your

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God, or be careful to do all of his commands in his statute that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you.

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Straight up. So what's happening here is that Christ has basically given his verdict to the

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Pharisees. They have left the commandments of God and are holding to the tradition of men.

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And then he goes on. You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition.

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For Moses said, honor your father and mother. Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die. But you say, but you say, if a man tells his father or mother, whatever you would have gained from me is korban, that is a gift given to God, then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down and many such things you do.

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In fact, listen to Jesus's scathing rebuke of the Pharisees in Matthew 23. No other group gets this level of scathing rebuke than the

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Pharisees. Jesus said to the crowds and his disciples, the scribes and the Pharisees, they sit on Moses's seat.

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So do and observe whatever they tell you, but don't do the works they do. They tie up heavy burdens hard to bear.

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They lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their fingers. They do all their deeds to be seen by others, for they make their flacketaries broad, their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.

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But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one

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Father who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant.

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Whoever exalts himself will be humbled. Whoever humbles himself will be exalted. But now here comes, watch the details on this.

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Woe to you scribes and you Pharisees, you hypocrites. You shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces.

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You neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, for you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte.

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And when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. Woe to you blind guides who say if anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing.

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But if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he's bound by his oath. That is directly from the

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Oral Torah. That's straight -up Talmudic Pharisaical Judaism right there.

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Jesus is totally taking the entire construct of the Oral Torah and saying it is a product not of God but of men, and that it leads people to hell.

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Think about this for a second. If anyone swears by the temple, it's nothing. If anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he's bound by his oath.

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You blind fools, for which is greater the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred?

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And you say, you say, if anyone swears by the altar, that's nothing. Again, Oral Torah.

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But if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he's bound by his oath. You blind men, for which is greater the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?

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So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and him who dwells in it.

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Whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.

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Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, for you tithe mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the way to your matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness.

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These you ought to have done without neglecting the others, you blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.

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Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self -indulgence, you blind

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Pharisee. First clean the inside of the cup and the plate that the outside may be clean. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.

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You are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness.

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So you are outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

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Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, for you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, if we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them and shedding the blood of the prophets.

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Thus you witness against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up then the measure of your fathers, you serpents, you brood of vipers.

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How are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I, Jesus here is clearly showing his divinity,

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I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will crucify and kill, some of you you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous

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Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.

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Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. Are you starting to see it?

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When you go back to this article from Encyclopædia Britannica, again, this is not a super, you know, extensive thing here, but the point is, is that the act of Pharisaism is the most influential movement in the development of Orthodox Judaism, extended well into the second and third centuries.

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The Pharisees preserved and transmitted Judaism through the flexibility they gave to Jewish scriptural interpretation in face of the changing historical circumstances.

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In other words, today's rabbinic Orthodox Judaism is the direct theological descendant of the religion of the

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Pharisees, and that's the predominant religion of the nation -state of Israel, which is exactly the idolatry that put them under the boot of the

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Roman Empire that God threatened them with in Deuteronomy 28.

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They have never repented of their theological innovations and adding to God's word through the so -called

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Oral Torah. Okay, that's an important part, but now we got this.

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There's another part. God threatened further punishments if they didn't repent of their idolatry, which is what

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Pharisaical Judaism is. It's idolatry. He then goes on to threaten them with this next thing.

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They, the Romans, threatened above, shall besiege you in all of your towns until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout all of your land.

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You ever heard of Masada? And they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout all your land which Yahweh your

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God has given you, and you shall eat the fruit of your womb and the flesh of your sons and daughters whom

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Yahweh your God has given you in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you.

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Yeah, cannibalism was a part of the siege of Rome in 70 AD. Read Josephus' Jewish Wars and also

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Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History if you would like some of the gory details. They're nightmarish when you consider it.

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The man who is the most tender and refined among you will begrudge food to his brother, to the wife he embraces, and to the last of the children whom he has left, so that he will not give to any of them any of the flesh of his children whom he is eating, because he has nothing else left in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you and all of your towns.

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The most tender and refined woman among you who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and tender will begrudge to the husband she embraces, to her son and to her daughter, her afterbirth that comes out from between her feet, and her children whom she bears because lacking everything she will eat them secretly in the siege.

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This all took place, this has already happened, this happened in 70 AD, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in your towns.

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So note, not only did Israel not repent of their

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Pharisaical idolatry, which is what it was and is, they doubled down on it and God kicked them out of the land and caused this siege to happen under the

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Roman Empire, which he had threatened earlier above in this text. And then he says this, if you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name

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Yahweh your God, then Yahweh will bring on you and your offspring extraordinary afflictions, severe and lasting, and sicknesses grievous and lasting, and he will bring upon you again all the diseases of Egypt which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you, every sickness also and every affliction that is not recorded in the book of this law,

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Yahweh will bring upon you until you are destroyed. Whereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, you shall be left few in number, because you did not obey the voice of Yahweh your

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God. And as Yahweh took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so Yahweh will take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you, and you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to take possession of it.

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God threatened them with eviction, mm -hmm, it happened. And Yahweh will scatter you among all, all the peoples from one end of the earth to the other, that happened, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone which neither you nor your fathers have known, and among these nations you shall find no respite, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot, but Yahweh will give you there a trembling heart, and failing eyes, and a languishing soul, your life shall hang in doubt before you night and day, you shall be in dread and have no assurance of your life.

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That continues to this day. In the morning you shall say, if only it were evening, at evening you shall say, if only it were morning, because of the dread that your heart shall feel, and the sights that your eyes shall see.

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And Yahweh will bring you back in ships to Egypt, a journey that I promised that you should never make, and there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.

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Okay, so this explains a lot of things. It explains why

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Israel was under the boot of the Roman Empire at the time when Christ was born, is because of their idolatry.

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The idolatry of adding to God's Word this so -called oral or unwritten

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Torah of the Pharisees. It was rank idolatry disguised as a pious form of the religion of Yahweh, and we're gonna have to make some distinctions here now.

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And here's where I would basically have you begin to learn another category in Scripture.

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When we talk about Israel in the Bible, there are more than one way of talking about Israel in the

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Bible. Let me explain. So Israel can be referring to a genetic race of people.

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This is most certainly true, okay? And these are the direct biological genetic descendants of Abraham through Isaac and then on to Israel.

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So to the 12 tribes of Israel, that's what we're talking about. Just people who are genetically related in that family, in that race.

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So religions of this race are going to include something you may not have heard of, but a category you have to learn.

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And that is, is that when you think about what was the religion that was practiced and believed by Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, by Samuel the prophet, by Joshua, by Moses, by King David, by...

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you get the idea. What religion was that? Answer. It was not the religion of the

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Pharisees. That didn't exist until 165

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BC. It's a different religion.

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So the scholars I read refer to the religion believed and practiced by the patriarchs of the written

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Old Testament, the Tanakh, refer to that religion as Yahwehism.

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David was a Yahwehist. Jeremiah was a Yahwehist. Isaiah was a Yahwehist. Neither of them, none of the patriarchs of the

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Old Testament were followers of Pharisaical Judaism. That's a different religion.

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So Pharisaical Judaism and Hasidic Judaism, neither of these are biblical.

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They are flat -out rebellious innovations and additions to God's Word contrary to His command that you cannot add to His words and His commandments.

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So neither of these are biblical, and neither Pharisaical Judaism nor Hasidic Judaism were practiced by any of the patriarchs of the

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Old Testament, not at all. So when we talk about the genetic race of people and the religions practiced by...

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by the way, there are some other forms of Judaism. You can talk about the Essenes. You can talk about the

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Karaites. Those are kind of lesser -known, but either way, Yahwehism is the religion of the

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Old Testament patriarchs. Pharisaical Judaism isn't. Hasidic Judaism isn't.

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Okay? So when we talk about Israel, there's a second way to talk about it. We're going to talk about the children of Abraham or the children of God through the promise, i .e.

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those who have the same faith as Abraham. This then is going to include Christians, both

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Jews and Gentiles. So this is an important distinction that a lot of today's evangelical so -called prophecy experts and evangelical pastors who are thinking that the current conflict in Israel has something to do with biblical prophecy, this is a distinction they fail to make, or they refuse to make it, claiming that it's a form of something called a replacement theology.

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It isn't replacement theology at all. It's just a biblical understanding of what

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Scripture says in the New Testament. So that being the case, I want to show you something here.

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And I'm going to show you an image from the Nova music festival that was attacked by Hamas.

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And I want you to think about this for a second here. In no way am I saying that the

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Jews in Israel, that God was the one smiting them by sending

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Hamas. That's not what I'm saying. However, I'm going to note something here. This should be disturbing and should help wake you up to the fact that when we're talking about the current modern state of Israel, we're talking about a nation that is in rank rebellion and apostasy to this day.

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They still haven't repented. And in fact, they might actually be going even further back in their apostasy than before the time of the

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Pharisees. Let me explain. So this video, and you'll have to find it on YouTube, it's called

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Israeli festival goers gunned down by Hamas as they flee supernova music festival. This was put out by the

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Times and the Sunday Times. And I'm just gonna play a little bit of it, and I want you to see something here.

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So we've seen all these things. This was the stuff we woke up to last

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Sunday. All right, these poor people.

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Okay, now, there it is. That's from the music festival, and the supernova music festival, that is a

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Buddha statue. I want you to let that sink in. What on earth is going on here?

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Okay, you would think that, you know, the nation of Israel wouldn't have anything to do with those things that are expressly forbidden by Torah.

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Okay, just again, let that sink in. So again, when we talk about Israel biblically, we can talk about the race, or we can talk about the children of Abraham who are the children of God.

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That would include the Yahwehists of the Old Testament and Christians, both Jews and Gentiles today.

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Let me prove that to you biblically. Okay, so when we go to Romans chapter 9,

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Romans chapter 9, watch what the Apostle Paul says, because Paul laments, and this is a guy who's a

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Benjamite. I mean, he legitimately is an Israelite, and he knows his Israelite pedigree, and he is lamenting the fact that so many people who are genetically his kin, that they are descendants of Abraham, have rejected

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Jesus as the Messiah. Here's what he says, I'm speaking the truth in Christ. I'm not lying.

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My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.

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Uh -huh, they are Israelites. Note this is the genetic form, right?

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And to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, the promises.

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To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the

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Christ, the Messiah, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. That, indeed, that's who

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Jesus is. But watch where he goes with this. It's not as though the Word of God has failed, for, and this is the sentence, not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.

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This is why I make this distinction between the genetic race of people and the children of Abraham and the children of God, the other

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Israel. So you'll note that among the genetic race, there are people who rightly believe in Christ in our present day, and that's the remnant that God has saved out, and yet there are a bunch of people that are still in open rebellion against God through Pharisaical Judaism, Hasidic Judaism, and those groups that completely deny that Jesus is the

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Messiah. So you have to make this distinction because the Scriptures make it, and as Christians, this has to play into how we preach and teach about the current conflict taking place in Israel.

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If you don't make this distinction, you're going to make big errors in the text that you're going to be quoting, because you're going to be misapplying them, because you're going to be applying them to the genetic race of people when the texts are clearly pointing to the children of Abraham and the children of God.

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That's the problem. When somebody quotes an Old Testament text, an eschatological text in the

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Old Testament, they keep pointing to the genetic race rather than to the children of Abraham who are the true

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Israel. So let me come back to what Paul is saying. It's not as though the Word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but through Isaac shall your offspring be named.

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This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise who are counted as offspring.

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Mm -hmm. For this is what the promise said about this time next year. I'll return in the future, and Sarah shall have a son.

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And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing, either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls, she was told the older will serve the younger, as it is written,

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Jacob I love, but Esau I hated. So here you've got a clear text. Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.

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It is through Isaac your offspring shall be named. Paul goes on and says this in Galatians 3, as many of you as were baptized into Christ, you have put on Christ.

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There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male or female.

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You're all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offsprings, heirs according to promise.

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Not only are you Abraham's offspring, if you are a believer in Christ, you are heirs according to the promises given to Abraham, straight up.

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So again, pointing to the genetic people of Israel who do not believe, who do not worship according to Scripture and deny

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Jesus as the Messiah, they're not part of true Israel at all.

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They may be genetically related to Israel, but true Israel are those who have the same faith as Abraham, the

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Yahwehists, not the Pharisaical Jews or the Hasidic Jews, and they are the children, the

01:00:04

Yahwehists are the children of Abraham and the children of God, in the same way that you and I as Christians are.

01:00:11

That's the point that Paul is making, okay? And it goes on. There's in Romans 11, let me put this in here, hang on a second here,

01:00:19

Romans 11, consider this text. So God, Paul says,

01:00:25

I asked then, has God rejected his people? No. I myself am an Israelite.

01:00:30

I'm a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.

01:00:37

Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah? This is a great place for Paul to go, because when you read the story of Elijah on Mount Carmel, who was

01:00:44

Elijah going up against? Israelites, people who were genetic descendants of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and yet they were rank idolaters.

01:00:56

So watch what he says, do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? Lord, they've killed your prophets, they've demolished your altars,

01:01:05

I alone am left and they seek my life. But what does God's reply to him?

01:01:10

I have kept for myself 7 ,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. So too at the present time, there is a remnant that is chosen by grace.

01:01:20

And I would note throughout the history of the church, there has always been a remnant of those who are the descendants of Israel who believe that Jesus is the

01:01:28

Messiah, just like Paul said here. But if it's by grace, it's no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

01:01:36

So what then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect though, they've obtained it.

01:01:43

The rest were hardened, as it is written, God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see, ears that would not hear down to this very day.

01:01:52

And David says, let their table become a snare and a trap and a stumbling block and a retribution for them.

01:01:57

Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see and bend their backs forever. So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall?

01:02:05

Well, by no means. Rather through their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles so as to make

01:02:12

Israel jealous. Now, if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the

01:02:18

Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean? Now, I'm speaking to you Gentiles, and as much as I am an apostle to the

01:02:25

Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order to somehow make my fellow Jews jealous and thus save some of them.

01:02:32

For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?

01:02:39

If the dough offered as first fruits is holy, so is the whole lump. And if the root is holy, so are the branches.

01:02:46

But if some of the branches were broken off and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant towards the branches.

01:02:56

And here's where we got to pay close attention to this. There is no such thing biblically as replacement theology.

01:03:02

The church has never replaced Israel. Instead, the better way to think of it is that Christ is

01:03:10

Israel, okay? He's always been Israel, and what does

01:03:15

Jesus say? I'm the vine, you are the branches. And those unbelieving genetic descendants of Abraham, those are olive branches that were broken off from Israel and Gentiles have been grafted in in their place, okay?

01:03:33

Listen, I am as Gentile as they get, okay? My genetic heritage is

01:03:39

European and I'm from all over the place, all right? But all that being said,

01:03:44

I don't think there's any Jewish blood in me, at least not that I'm aware of, and it has never showed up in any of my

01:03:50

DNA tests. That being the case, then should I despair? No, because this

01:03:58

Gentile has been grafted into Israel. And so you're going to note,

01:04:03

I didn't replace Israel. I've been adopted into it. I've been grafted into it.

01:04:09

I didn't replace Israel. I've been brought into it. So there's only Israel, only

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Israel is saved. And so I would dare, never dare, ever engage in anti -Semitism or any kind of hatred against those who are genetic

01:04:25

Jews, because Christ himself is the one who comes from their race.

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And I am in him, and he still holds them as beloved. So you're going to note in this text, there are very stern warnings against anti -Semitism, and they come in a very powerful way.

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Listen to what it says. If some of the branches were broken off, you, although a wild olive shoot, you were grafted in among the others, and you now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches, straight up.

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And you're going to see something important here. We continue. If you are, remember, it's not you who supports the root, but it's the root that supports you.

01:05:09

Well, then you will say, well, branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in. Well, that's true. They were broken off because of their unbelief.

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But you, you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear.

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Two strong warnings against arrogance and being proud against those branches that have been broken off.

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Anti -Semitism is off the table here. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will

01:05:36

He spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God.

01:05:43

Severity towards those who have fallen, but kindness to you, provided you continue in what?

01:05:49

In God's kindness. Otherwise, you too will be cut off. If you don't continue in God's kindness, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news of the sins in Jesus, and show that love and mercy and grace of Christ to all people and bring them the gospel of the good news of the forgiveness of sins in Jesus, and you instead engage in arrogant hatred towards others,

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Paul says, you too will be cut off. That's disobedience as well.

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And even if they do not continue in their unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.

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For if you were cut from what is by nature, a wild olive tree, and all of us

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Gentiles were, and you were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, and that's exactly what happened to us.

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We were grafted in by grace through faith. How much more will these, the natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree?

01:06:53

Right. And that's what we should be praying for and seeking. But with that requires us also to speak the truth so that we can call them to repentance.

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Right? So lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers.

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A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.

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And in this way, all Israel will be saved. As it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion. He will banish all ungodliness from Jacob.

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And this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins. So as regards to the gospel, they're enemies for your sake.

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But notice what it says, they're enemies for your sake. And I'll explain why that is here in a second. But as regards to election, they're beloved for the sake of their forefathers.

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Beloved by whom? God. Right? Exactly. Okay.

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Anti -Semitism is off the table. But you have to also keep in mind, you are part of Israel now by grace, through faith, so stay humble.

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Right? And pray for those who are beloved in God's sight for the sake of the forefathers, but are still enemies of the gospel.

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That's the current nation state of Israel. The gifts and the calling of God, they're irrevocable.

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For just as you were at one time disobedient to God, but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by mercy shown to you, they may also now receive mercy.

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And that's the point. I've been shown nothing but mercy from God. And so I desired that exact same thing for people in Israel.

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I desire that for the people in Muslim nations. In fact, for people all around the world,

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I have good news to proclaim to you, Christ has died for your sins. And so you'll note then that we are to remain humble and preach the truth.

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And at the same time, be informed by scripture about what it is that's gone wrong and know how to properly call them to repentance.

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Pharisaical Judaism is the idolatry that God kicked him out of the land of Israel in the first place by the

01:09:07

Roman empire that led to destruction of the temple and their rejection of Jesus, the Messiah.

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I mean, that's really the whole problem going on there.

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And it's continued, that apostasy has continued to this day, except for in those who have repented and come to believe that Jesus is

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Messiah. Absolutely the case. Now, I said I would explain something here. If we were to go to Matthew chapter 22, okay?

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I went to two, hang on a second. Matthew 22. There's a couple of parables worth noting.

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In fact, let me give you a couple of texts. I'm going to add a little more context.

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I'll back up into 21, because there's two parables that are super important in this regard.

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So here's another parable. This is Jesus talking. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, built a tower, leased it to tenants and went into another country.

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And the prophet Isaiah, we know for a fact there's this wonderful portion of Isaiah that talks about this vineyard being the people of Israel, God's special planting.

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So Christ is pulling on those themes from Isaiah here, but adding, kind of putting a twist on it when he says, built a tower, leased it to tenants, okay?

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And then went into another country. When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit.

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And the tenants took his servants, beat one, killed another and stoned another. Lovely.

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Again, he sent other servants more than the first and they did the same to them. And this is talking about how

01:10:43

God sent the prophets calling Israel to repentance. Finally, he said to his son, he sent his son to them saying, they will respect my son.

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But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, this is the heir, come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.

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And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. That's exactly what happened.

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When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? They said to him, he will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.

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And Jesus said to them, have you never read the scriptures? A stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This was the

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Lord's doing. It's marvelous in our eyes. Jesus is the cornerstone. He's the stone the builders rejected.

01:11:28

Who are the builders? Israelites. The Pharisees. Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you.

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Taken away from whom? The Pharisees. And given to a people producing its fruit.

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And the one who falls in the stone will be broken to pieces. And when it falls on anyone, it'll crush him. Here again, another parable.

01:11:51

Again, Jesus spoke to them in parables saying, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast and gave it for his son.

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Sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. Again, he sent other servants saying, tell those who are invited, see,

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I've prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered and everything is come to the wedding feast.

01:12:14

Jesus is inviting the A -listers, the children of Israel, the

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Jews, the Levites, the Benjamites. That's what's going on here.

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Are they obeying and coming to the wedding feast? No, but they paid no attention. They went off one to his farm and other to his business while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully and killed them.

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The king was angry and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. That's exactly what happened in 70

01:12:45

AD. And then he said to his servants, the wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy.

01:12:51

Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find. And those servants went out into the roads and they gathered all whom they found, both good and bad.

01:13:00

So the wedding hall was filled with guests. Yeah. Their rejection of Christ has led to the gospel coming to Gentiles.

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That's what Paul was referring to in Romans chapter 11. Their rejection means that we

01:13:19

Gentiles get to be grafted in. That's the point. And Jesus made that point exactly in that parable.

01:13:25

But there's a little bit more, a little bit more. I want you to consider what Paul writes in Ephesians 2. I want you to have a biblical view here.

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And that is, don't listen to these people who are twisting up the scriptures. How am I doing on time?

01:13:39

It's going to be a long episode. Therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles, Paul says, Gentiles in the flesh, you were called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands.

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Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ. Indeed, we all were. Alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

01:14:03

But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

01:14:09

For he himself is our peace who has made us both Jew and Gentile one and has broken down in his flesh, the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two by making peace and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

01:14:35

And he came and he preached peace to you who were far off, peace to those who were near, for through him, we both have access in one spirit to the father.

01:14:43

And so then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

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I don't think there's a clearer passage. We Gentiles are now citizens of Israel, citizens of the kingdom of God, the citizenry of note, right?

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And along with the Jews, that means we're fellow citizens. We have the same rights, the same promises.

01:15:12

Everything is given to us, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the

01:15:23

Lord. You get the idea. Super clear text, but there's one more.

01:15:29

Wait, there's more. Listen to what Peter writes. Okay. As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

01:15:51

For it stands in scripture, behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious. Whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.

01:15:58

So the honor is for you who believe. Note here, Peter also holds the same theology as Paul, that Jew and Gentile who believe in Christ are all citizens of Israel, citizens of the kingdom of God, all children of God.

01:16:15

For those who do not believe the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.

01:16:22

They stumble because they disobeyed the word as they were destined to do. But you, you Christians, all of you

01:16:29

Christians, you are a chosen race. You are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

01:16:42

Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

01:16:49

The church hasn't replaced Israel. The church has been grafted into it. We Gentiles have been granted equal citizenship with Israel, the true believing

01:17:00

Israel, along with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You get the idea. So let me, let me end off by doing just a quick look at Ezekiel 37 and 38, and I'll show you a text to kind of help you with this.

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So Ezekiel 37 is not a prophecy of the restoration of the nation state of Israel.

01:17:18

Let me come back to this graph here of a genetic race of people who do not believe in God rightly, that they would be reestablished as a people group in the land of Israel.

01:17:31

That's not what Ezekiel 37 is about at all. Okay. And you can see it in the context.

01:17:37

So Ezekiel 37, so the valley of the dry bones, the hand of Yahweh was upon me.

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He brought me out in the spirit of Yahweh and set me down in the middle of the valley. It was full of bones and he led me around among them and behold, there were many on the surface of the valley and behold, they were very dry.

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And he said to me, son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, oh Yahweh, oh Lord Yahweh, you know.

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Then he said to me, prophesy over these bones. And he said, and I say to them, oh dry bones, hear the word of Yahweh.

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Thus says the Lord Yahweh to these bones, behold, I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you and will cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you and you shall live and you shall know that I am

01:18:21

Yahweh. This is not a prophecy of how Israel would be taken out of the land in 70 AD and return in 1948.

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That's not it at all. Watch what it says. So I prophesied as I was commanded and I prophesied and there was a sound and behold, a rattling.

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Bones came together, bone to bone and looking and behold, there were sinews on them. Flesh had come upon them, skin had covered them, but there was no breath in them.

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And then he said to me, prophesy to the breath, prophesy son of man and say to the breath, thus says the

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Lord Yahweh, come from the four winds, oh breath and breathe on these slain that they may live.

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So I prophesied as he commanded me and the breath came into them and they lived and they stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.

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And then he said to me, son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say our bones are dried up.

01:19:10

Our hope is lost. We are indeed cut off. Therefore prophesy and say to them, thus says the

01:19:16

Lord Yahweh behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves. Oh my people.

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And I will bring you into the land of Israel and you shall know that I am Yahweh when I open your graves and raise you from your graves.

01:19:28

Oh my people. This is a prophecy regarding the resurrection of the dead, not the resurrection of the nation state of Israel in 48.

01:19:37

It is a misappropriation of this text to make it be anything other than that. The word of Yahweh came to me, son of man, take a stick and write on it.

01:19:47

So here we got another prophecy for Judah and for the people of Israel associated with him. And then take another stick and write on it for Joseph, the stick of Ephraim and all the house of Israel associated with him.

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You remember, there were two kingdoms. Israel was divided after Solomon's reign and broken in two, the

01:20:04

Northern kingdom and the Southern kingdom, Ephraim in the North, Judah in the South. And so here

01:20:10

Ezekiel is doing one of these prophecies where he has to do something. These are action prophecies. Takes the two sticks in his hand to make it one stick.

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And when your people say, will you not tell what you mean by these, say to them, thus says the Lord Yahweh, behold,

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I am about to take the stick of Joseph that is in the hand of Ephraim and the tribes of Israel associated with him.

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And I will join him with it, the stick of Judah and make them one stick that they may be one in my hand.

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When the sticks on which you write are in your hand before their eyes, then say to them, thus says the Lord Yahweh, behold,

01:20:41

I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone and will gather them from all around and bring them to their own land.

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I know this looks like it has to do with 48, but it doesn't. And I will make them one nation in the land and on the mountains of Israel and one king shall be king over them.

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Listen to the details about this. And they shall be no longer two nations, no longer divided into two kingdoms.

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They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols. Let's see here.

01:21:10

Is that going on? No. Okay. And their detestable things or with any of their transgressions, they haven't repented of the apostasy of the

01:21:20

Pharisees, but I will save them from all their backslides in which they have sinned and will cleanse them and they shall be my people and I will be their

01:21:27

God. My servant David shall be king over them. That's referring to Jesus.

01:21:33

And they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes.

01:21:39

That ain't happening. And they shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers live.

01:21:45

This is an eschatological promise. The Israel being described here is Israel being raised from the grave and God establishing the new heavens and the new earth.

01:21:55

That's what this is referring to, because you can definitively prove that the current modern state of Israel is still in the apostasy that got them kicked out in the first place.

01:22:08

They still cling to the false religion set up by the

01:22:13

Pharisees. That's just the truth. And Jesus isn't their king, not by any stretch of the imagination.

01:22:21

So, this Ezekiel 37 is not about what happened in 1948.

01:22:26

It's about what's going to happen when Jesus returns in glory to judge the living and the dead. And the Israel of note there is the children of Abraham Israel that will be established in the new earth.

01:22:38

That's the point of what's going on in Ezekiel 37. Then Ezekiel 38, it's a long chapter and it talks about Gog and Magog and God basically drawing them into this battle, this big battle.

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Therefore the son of man prophesied and said to Gog, thus says the Lord Yahweh, on that day when my people Israel are dwelling securely, will you not know it and you will come from your place out of the uttermost parts of the north and many peoples with you and all of them riding on horses, a great host, a mighty army, and you will come up against my people

01:23:13

Israel like a cloud covering the land. Is this the threat of Russia attacking the nation state of Israel?

01:23:23

No. How do I know? From Revelation chapter 20, cross -reference, here it is.

01:23:30

Revelation 20, when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth,

01:23:39

Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the sea, and they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the what?

01:23:52

Saints. You'll note that the Gog Magog prophecy is pointing to the second

01:24:03

Israel, the children of God, the saints, the believers. And so the reason

01:24:09

I know that is because the cross -reference makes it very clear that Gog and Magog are waging war against the saints.

01:24:19

That's what it says. So, yeah, if I could admonish you to do anything, and I mean it, anything regarding Israel at this point, as it comes to Christianity and what needs to be said in the churches, people need to stop, back up, and begin to make proper distinctions.

01:24:43

The distinction between who is true Israel, according to the way God counts it, or genetic

01:24:49

Israel, which doesn't really give you any favor with God at all. Instead, we have to keep these distinctions in mind because the

01:24:57

Bible makes them, and we need to make them without engaging in anti -Semitism nor even favoritism.

01:25:03

If Israel, during this conflict, ends up doing something wrong, it's okay to say that what they did was wrong.

01:25:12

You don't have to worry about invoking God's wrath by saying they went too far.

01:25:18

I don't know if they will. I hope they don't. But the point is that war is a horrible, awful thing, and so we need to pray for peace in the region, pray for the repentance of Israel, pray that they would have the peace that surpasses all understanding that comes from Messiah, Jesus.

01:25:34

That's what we need to be praying for, and pray that this conflict doesn't devolve into World War III.

01:25:43

I pray that that's not the case. I don't have a lot of hope that it won't. But then again, I'm not a prophet, nor am

01:25:49

I the son of a prophet, so I legitimately have no clue where this is going. I just don't like the direction of it.

01:25:55

But hopefully you found this helpful in at least being able to biblically tease this stuff out so that we make these proper distinctions between who is

01:26:03

Israel and who isn't, and the way God looks at it, and how then to understand these prophecies and scriptures.

01:26:09

All of the eschatological promises and prophecies of the prophets, like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, that are dealing with the future, that things, events to come, they have to be interpreted in light of true

01:26:23

Israel, the believing Israel rather than genetic Israel. I'm sorry, that's just the proper biblical hermeneutic now that we have the

01:26:30

New Testament. So if you found this helpful, all the information on how you can share the video is down below in the description.

01:26:36

And until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and His vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.