Israel's Chastisement — Art Katz

It's the day of the same period of time in which Israel experiences the sorest chastisement of perhaps its entire history. This will eclipse the Exodus, this will eclipse the wilderness wandering, this will eclipse the judgment of 586 B .C. and 70 A .D. and 132 A .D. of all of the devastations that have come to Israel through Babylonians and through Rome.

Israel’s Last-Days Sifting Among the Nations

This is a modern day, last days uprooting of all Jewry. I will sift this information throughout all nations. Who can comprehend the magnitude of this and the freedom that I have traveling the nations to tell them with complete certainty, brace yourself, they're coming.

Don't tell me that there are no Jews there. I don't care what the present status is. I know that God says all nations because all nations will not only be the sifting of Israel, it will be the sifting of all nations also through Israel.

It will reveal the truth of the church of all nations in their response to the least of these his brethren, if they are not in effect also our brethren. So this is a remarkable last days saga, S-A-G-A, I don't know of anything that contains such cosmic dimensions as God's last days dealings with Israel.

So just to hope for the success of the present state, however humanly deserved that is, so misses the glory of God's intention. For this cosmic saga throughout all nations is for the purpose of all nations.

They'll not again be able to return to Allah or to Hindu gods or any of the false deities once they see the God of Jacob and the God of Israel displaying the truth of his nature and his power, both in his judgment through expulsion and his mercy through restoration and return, as well as establishing the fallen temple of Jacob, of David, which is his Davidic government and his rule over creation, which I think by that time mankind will be ready and grateful.

Amos 9 and the Restoration of David’s Booth

So just in verse 12, in order that they may possess the remnant of Eden, the tenth house of David, statement of the kingdom of God, God's theocratic rule out of Zion, out of a restored Zion that is restored through this process of sifting and return, though it takes the majority of Jews to obtain it, they will not survive this time.

We learn that where it says, all the sinners of my people shall die by their sword, in verse 10, who say evil shall not overtake or meet us, the tragic thing is that all the sinners of my people will constitute the majority of present day Jewry.

It's a remnant who return and the restored remnant constitutes the redeemed nation and then with them, this booth is repaired and restored, God will raise up its ruins, rebuild it as in the days of old.

How far back to the time of David himself, when the kingdom of David was the glory of Israel and a benevolent rule and of a Davidic dominion over the nation and even to the outlying nations characterized Israel at its glory, that will be restored.

In order that they may possess, in verse 12, the remnant of freedom, possess doesn't mean own or victimize or put under your thumb, it means they will come under the authority of this rule of God for a restored nation, which will not be suppressive, it will be servant rule, it will be the nation now that is restored as the head of nations will be the least, a servant nation to all the nations, so to be priestly means to come underneath.

I often, speaking to the German church, say I wonder what German history would have been, instead of moving in the direction of imperialistic ambition, when East and West was restored, I was one who did not rejoice, in fact I preferred East Germany, I loved serving there and it's interesting, no sooner was the wall down and the new benefits accrued, it was no longer the same congregation, they had become westernized virtually overnight and spoiled and lacked their gratitude when servants were sent to them when they were under communist oppression.

So to come under the influence of the tent of David, the theocratic rule, is not to be subdued, but to be uplifted, it is to learn the benevolence of God through a priestly people, for government is not bureaucracy, government is teaching people how to live righteously by the grace of God, by those who can come to them out of that reality and that experience which they have learned in this life.

We are being fitted for millennial rule with Christ on the basis of the wisdom and experience and maturity to which we have come by receiving the ministration of God and the shaping of our character and life for that time.

They're not going to be victims, they're going to be blessed, that's why they'll wash the feet, that's why they'll kiss the feet, that's why they'll bring back the outlying remnant on their shoulders and in their stretchers, because this is blessing for the nations.

Israel’s Return as Life from the Dead

That's why Paul says, if the falling away of them has been the blessing of the Gentiles, what shall their return be but life from the dead, this is not life. So don't misconstrue this when it says in order that they may possess the remnant of Edom, maybe more to hold and to uplift as a nurse does a child, is the attitude that redeemed Israel will have for the Gentile nations.

Edom is the biblical key word for the nations, it means literally what today would be construed as Jordan or Syria, but Edom is the biblical password for all nations, the Gentile world and all the nations who are called by my name says the Lord who does this and it is some doing, it is a doing of such magnitude, such a complete change of character from the Israel that we know now to the Israel then that only God could have affected it, a transfiguration as well as a restoration of a people who have been selfish, who didn't want to know about their calling, don't bother us that we are chosen, we just want to be the Hong Kong of the Middle East, we just want to be a commercial nation, we just want to build our skyscrapers and have a creature comfort nation, don't tell us about our calling, they will receive it and perform it by the Lord who does this, that's why it says the zeal of the Lord will perform this in Isaiah chapter 9, this is not mans doing, this could never be mans doing, this is not Zionism, this is not what man however well meaning his intentions can perform, this is God as God has never been seen in modern times, so demonstrably acting in his own power and his own nature, both in judgment and in mercy, it's a last statement to the nations, if they refuse to acknowledge the God of Jacob and the God of Israel as being God after this, the end for them is judgment, so the time is surely coming says the Lord in verse 13, when the one who plows shall overtake the one who reaps, and the treader of grapes the one who sows the seed, the mountains shall drip sweet wine and all the hills shall flow with it, I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them, they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, they shall make gardens and eat their fruit, I will plant them upon their land and they shall never again be plucked up out of the land that I have given them says the Lord your God, this is the remarkable summary in one chapter of the entire last day scenario that begins with the acknowledgement of the nation as being sinful as it will be increasingly demonstrated and is being demonstrated day by day in the conduct of the nation and acts required for its own seeming security that contradicts any presumption to be moral or ethical, it will be a sinful nation and Jeremiah says your sins will exceed even that of your fathers, so brace yourself Israel is going to become an increasing embarrassment for Christian Zionists to defend, its conduct will become increasingly indefensible as for example now the world court has determined that the wall that Israel is putting up is illegal and unconstitutional and violates international law and has usurped lands owned by Palestinians, has restricted their economy, has brought injustice and violence and it has to come down, what?

It has cost billions to put up and so the question is will they submit to an international tribunal in which of the 15 judges 14 agreed and one abstained the American representative, so does Israel dare flaunt the counsel of the world on the basis of righteousness and some justification for its own defense because the heck of it is there has been a remarkable decline in suicide bombings and buses and shopping malls since that wall has gone up, it has effectually served a very significant purpose, so the issue now is righteousness, world opinion, justice as they have determined or security and I have a sneaky feeling that Israel is going to go like this to the world, you guys can decide all you want to decide, we are going to protect our life and what will that do as the world sees this increasingly intransigent nation, are we on a route to the place where all nations shall come against Jerusalem to destroy it, that Israel will one day be as much a factor threatening world peace as Bush and his administration had determined that Iraq was, in that decision to arbitrarily and unilaterally invade another nation in the name of world security, a precedent was established that one day will make Jerusalem and Israel itself its victim, got the picture, so we are on course to something, so these things must take place but the time is surely coming or on that day that concludes all this with a millennial blessedness of such a kind as the nation has never known, that Israel will produce fruit for all nations, literally, physically, naturally as well as spiritually, it will become in the want for the want of another expression, the Eden of the world that what God intended at the first and some say that present Israel is smack dab right over the place where Eden was itself established before the fall and that what God wanted in his paradisical location will again be established through the redeemed nation and its fruit from this will go out to all the earth, that's why Paul says what is the return but life from the dead and the time is surely coming, here's an encouragement for you, you're going to see horrendous things, the nation will become increasingly sinful, the prophecies will be fulfilled, that their sins will exceed that of their fathers and then will come the judgment and expulsion through all nations but that's not the end of it, that's the means by which the greater end is obtained, for one who plows will overtake the one who reaps, this is prophetic poetry, imagery of a kind that in a few words, a picture of what millennial blessedness means because blessedness means fruitfulness, have you cried out when you pray for the blessing of God that you be made fruitful, that your energies and as a result be multiplied, that's what blessedness is, is to be made fruitful, curse is to be stunted and contracted and arid and fruitless, you are wild branches Paul says and could not produce fruit but you're grafted into their tree that you might be fruit bearing, to be blessed is to be fruit bearing and this is Israel that they are so abundant that before the crop can be taken in for one harvest they are already seeding the next so that one is on the heels of the other and a continual overflow of the bounty of God that will be a testimony, a statement to all nations that this is the chosen people of God, this is the people whom God has called, this is the people who have suffered remarkable abasement and humiliation not unlike the Lord before them, they will suffer a comparable road to Calvary which is the time of Jacob's trouble and Isaiah 53 experience of being marred more than any people and having no beauty that any should desire of them and then because of their abasement he will exalt them, there is this principle of God, breathing in and breathing out, humiliation precedes glorification, suffering precedes glory, abasement precedes exaltation for the Jesus who was crucified who stands for the nation, he is the Israel of God, he is the chosen son, precedes the nation in the experience that must follow, humiliation, rejection unto death and then resurrection and ascension and a name given above all names both in heaven and in earth, even the father gives to the son a name and an exaltation that you would think that belongs exclusively to the father but what a picture of the Godhead and the spirit of deity that the father defers to the son and gives him a name above every name both in heaven and earth, he will do the same for the nation Israel, Israel will be exalted, it will no longer be the tail it will be the head and God has chosen it as the locus of his global theocratic rule and it will be fruitful, the mountain shall drip sweet wine and all the hills shall flow with it, you can make a note of other scriptures, Jeremiah 23 from verse 3 and following is a comparable statement both of judgment and exaltation and fruitfulness, Ezekiel 36 from verse 11 speaks of God's same thing, Ezekiel 34 from verse 27 speaks of the same thing and maybe at another time we will examine those texts but in case we don't you check that out yourself, I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, fallen, disgraced, shameful, the reproach of all nations, hated and despised of men, I will restore their fortunes and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them, so here is evidently, so the redeemed of the Lord shall return to Zion, everlasting joy shall be upon the head and mourning and sighing shall flee away, in that great statement we have both elements of something that has affected the nation for mourning sorrow and sighing namely the destruction of the hope that the state of Israel had represented for us, that devastation is necessary, so I can predict with almost complete assurance that it's not the cities of antiquity that will be the rubble and ruin that need to be rebuilt and restored because when I debate with my brethren they say this is already taken care of, present Israel is already that rebuilding, I said no, present Jerusalem, present Haifa, Tiberias, all of the modern day cities of Israel will be reduced to ruin and that the first object of God and the restoration of the nation is the rebuilding of that which was laid waste and made desolate and left in ruins, it's one thing to see natural increase and what in the last analysis do we desire when it says the desert shall blossom as a rose and we say well look at these irrigation projects, we're boasting in Israel's irrigation projects but we've not seen what God can do, we need to be jealous not just for the success of men or a state but the glory of God that blesses and brings an abundance beyond anything that men could procure through their intelligence or through their technology, our problem is we're content with too little, we fall short of the glory of God and in our secret hearts we would prefer the success of a state on human grounds through man's prowess and ability and technology than we would desire to see what would be the everlasting glory of God, this millennial blessedness, and Jesus said you do error because you know not the scriptures nor the power of God and that's true of us in our Christian Zionist era, we want to see a present success and we're satisfied with that measure because we have not known the intent of God in the scripture nor the power of God and I'm going to show you at the end, we'll go back, I will do, I will, I will, I will, I will, not you, I will and therefore he'll deserve the eternal praise of glory forever, who wants to relinquish a bird in a hand for a bird in a bush, who wants to give up a present measure of success for a greater glory and how many of us will be put to that test and that exact question, the glory that we have in Oswald Chambers required the release and the giving up of a measure of prominence to which he had already attained, when you read the biography of Oswald Chambers you learn that he went through a long night of the soul, not when he was at the bottom groveling over the issue of salvation, he was a man already saved, he was a man already used, he was receiving compliments everywhere for his spirituality, his stateliness, his ability, then God brings him into a night of the soul, a long night, a death in which the good thing had to be relinquished, submitted unto death to come into the greater thing.

Death to Present Success and Ministry

How many of us have gone through that, where there's an early flash in the pan, a certain kind of success, use of the Lord even and then for some reason a threat to it or a question of letting that go for a yet greater glory, that's Israel, a certain measure of success but that has got to die, what about Jesus, in his own humanity, so impressive at the age of 12 disputing with the doctors of the law and astonishing them in his own humanity he cut such a figure, such a swath, was so impressive men would have elevated him to kingship then but that perfected humanity, however impressive had to come into death that he would be raised unto a newness of life and that would be shut down from the throne of heaven and we also might live in that newness, how should we say, he takes away the first to give the second, he removes the lesser thing to give the greater and the irony is that he himself has given the lesser thing and the most difficult thing for people to relinquish is what God has at the first given, well God called me, God gave me this ministry but he didn't give it to you to keep and to prosper and to become famous by, he gave it to you to relinquish and to die to and until you realize that you'll not come in to the greater glory of his intention, you're holding back and restraining and possessing the measure that you now have because God has given it but what has he given it for?

Not to be retained but to be yielded, to be relinquished even unto death and out of the resurrection of that God given thing comes the greater glory, he's not asking you to die to the natural thing but to the thing even given of himself, Israel is not an accident, the state of Israel is not some historical aberration that can't be explained, God himself is its author, it exists by his grace, by his providence but it does not exist to be retained as being the fulfillment of what is described here, that measure has got to be submitted to death in order to obtain this measure and because we have not understood this principle in our own lives and been willing for it in our own lives, we cannot foresee it for Israel or desire it for Israel and that's why the Christian Zionist mentality wants Israel to succeed presently on the basis of its own humanity as it wants to succeed itself presently on the basis of its own religiosity and so you'll have a good church and a charismatic show and programs, is that the glory?

That has got to be submitted to death in order to come into that transfigured church that is a bride for the bridegroom but we ourselves are unwilling to let go, Israel will have no choice in the matter, it must be yielded to this process of God but we have a choice and in fact if we don't let go before them, if we don't submit to a death waiting for us, we shall not be to them what we must, we cannot be to them, the salvific agents of God or the prophetic entity that speaks to those bones that they may live except that we ourselves have come into the place of resurrection and into that greater life so the issue is not Israel, the issue is the church, is it willing to die, is it willing to bite the bullet, is it willing to see its own coveted thing yielded, submitted, relinquished, let go, enter death and that's why the one movement always opposes the one that follows, so that the Pentecostals who had to be opposed by the denominations that said that the Holy Spirit has passed, there is no such thing as today's baptism of the Holy Spirit and they had a fight against that opposition, they themselves now fight against the prophetic and say that there is no such thing now as prophets and apostles, the previous order always contends against the future because it wants to hold and possess and retain that which is given but given not to remain but to be yielded and to be relinquished, to how many women have I said, impressive women, more impressive than their husbands who are gifted and able, I said has God gifted you in order to supersede your husband or is he waiting for you to, has he given you the gift and the ability not to retain and to exploit but to relinquish, when you give it up unto death you might see a resurrection come forth in your husband who has never acted in fullness in God and has allowed you to take the lead because he prefers to sit back and watch the football games and is only happy that he has taken this good initiative but he is the head and when you yield up what God has given you in giftedness and ability you might find it remarkably come forth in him in a resurrection form and because you have died to that call and giftedness you will find a complete satisfaction and identification with him for his success is your success, you are no longer rivaling and contending entities who are sharing the same house for convenience, there is one life and he is the head of it and you are rightly submitted and therefore what you are seeing now is a greater expression than you have ever seen had you continued to exercise your own giftedness in your ministry but it is the same thing, to die is to relinquish, is to yield up, Ben Israel died if you don't know that, we are on the resurrection side here because 15 or so years ago God brought his entire thing into death including these grounds, it was entirely given up, we lost everything, we lost our IRS, federal recognition as a non-profit religious organization, we were required to abandon the property, it languished, it was open to the vandals for the elements for 3 years and God didn't say for how long it must be submitted up to death but it was clear that somehow without explanation isn't that dying, it's not so much dying if God tells you why but when you have to bear something without him explaining it and bear it by faith, trusting that he does all things well, he is perfect in all his ways and what we are suffering now though is inexplicable and seems to us unnecessary will end up redemptively with the reaper on the heels of the harvester and hills dripping with wine if you don't believe and why should you believe because the same God who is going to restore Israel out of death will restore you, the same mystery, the same God, the same glory, so it was clear we had to vacate and I think I've mentioned many times that the one elder who would not receive my prophetic interpretation of God calling everything into death, he couldn't see it, I had already left, my children were in one place, he was in another, I'm out and he had moved into my house because he always wanted to live in a rustic environment and now he had it and a little small circle of souls that remained that he continued to be an elder, I would not heed that I'm saying God is calling the entire Ben Israel thing into death, I can't say why and you know when that call came, it would have been easier to have responded if it had come earlier because then we could see that death was necessary, we're walking into walls, we're cumbersome, we're difficult, the relationships are strained, we're suffering poverty, yes, yes, bring this into death by all means, but when does he call us to death?

When we come out of that, when we see light at the other end of the tunnel, where we're beginning to live harmoniously, there's something beginning to flow, we're having invitations overseas, books are being published and we're beginning to get it together, then he calls us to death, that's why it's more difficult to relinquish and let go when something has become an object of our identification and our hope but falls short of his glory, got the picture?

A Prophetic Call to Complete Death

And so I tried to persuade this brother who said he was up in Israel from my prophetic ministry, why then is he not receiving my prophetic word? Because now it's goading, goring his bull, it was okay when I speak to others who got the sword of the Lord but now to speak it to his self-interest, all of a sudden I'm no longer a prophet and so he refused to budge, we had one last meeting in another city south of here, I pleaded again, he wouldn't hear of it, I said okay Lord, that's it, went to bed, the next morning was breakfast and departure, the man comes to the breakfast table white as a sheet, I look at him I say, what happened to you?

These are his exact words, before I went to sleep off, I prayed, I said Lord if I'm mistaken please show me, because he was a man that was rarely ever mistaken, he was a man of principle, and the Lord said to me if you don't leave I'll kill you, he left, listen you dear saints, I don't know what it is that we're about in full but this much I know, that we're about something of such significance in God's sight that he did not think it elaborate to take a man's life if he refused to allow to come into death, it had to come into a complete death, the marriage had to come into a complete death, Inger is not just threatening divorce, she's threatening suicide, my kids are gone, the ministry is gone, the community is gone, and I'm looking for employment as a 60 year old man with a couple of university degrees and author and can't even get a job as a dishwasher, you know what it feels like to come back every day unemployed and no visible income, it's not just the issue of income, it's the issue of dignity, it's the issue of self esteem, and you're absolutely worthless, you're obsolete cats, there's no place in the world that you have anything that the world desires that you can perform, day after day you eat that death, and that disappointment and heartache without explanation, and when you got to come back onto the property in the winter time, and the roads are not plowed out, and something had to be found, and I came in with my car, and I went as far as I could, stopped, opened the door, the dog went out of the car, and came back with his tail between his legs, the death was so rampant, so manifest, and you know what it is to come to a community that has 55 souls, children, talk, sound, and come to a place of complete silence, and the doors are creaking, and you taste the death, you eat the death, until the Lord himself will bring the restoration in his own time, and it came first with myself, and a couple, a Mexican-American couple, we lived in my house, and we were up every morning 5am, bellowing and prevailing before God for the restoration of Ben Israel, Inger said she would never come back, and then little by little, in a year and a half of prevail, the Lord began to bring this one back, that one, or someone new, and began again the formation of a renewed Ben Israel, restored for a greater glory than we had ever known previously, and some of you have heard the testimony of how the death was so desolate, that when I was by myself back in that house, I had a brother paint it, spray it yellow, we bought the paint that came out, it was returned, or mixed a false color, it was the most garish yellow you have ever seen, and I prayed, I had the guy spray the house, because I couldn't stand the grayness of death, and you know what, it multiplied the death, that attempt humanly to take the edge off, and to compensate with a little color, made it yet more haunting, made it yet more grotesque, yet more deathly, until the Lord sent me to a seminary, which was a death, Lutheran seminary, began to open the mystery of Israel, out of a season of death, and then to give an invitation, after 14 months of no speaking, I was on a silence, a sabbatical of silence, without explanation, if I visited a fellowship, I could do no more than give name, rank, and serial number, a greeting, no I can't hear a word, why, well the Lord is forbidding me to speak, I can't explain, I'm not allowed to speak, and then the invitation from California, Art you don't know me, I'm a pastor so and so, we're praying here in Sacramento, that God wants you to speak to us in a seminar on Israel the church in the last days, when I heard that, I knew that the silence was over, and that's how it began, so are you willing dear saints, to enter that ground, at the time when you're tasting success, and you're within reach of an established ministry perhaps, or a successful this or that, or something that God had given, is now really beginning to flower, and at that moment God requires it, to relinquish, to yield it up, as Israel was required to do, in order that the hills should flow with wine, the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it, and I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, when God restores the fortunes, it's not just a restoration of Ben Israel back on the land now, and it's ministry has been restored, when I restore the fortunes, it's in new dimensions of depth, of significance, and of use, that you have hardly ever touched in the previous time, however much you were allowed to flower, when I will restore Israel's fortunes, it will be a transfigured nation, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them, and that's what we're in the process of doing here, one trailer at least was removed completely, because three years of influx of weather, and moisture had just about destroyed it, many things were stolen from us in those days, by vandals, because the property was just left out in the open, for both nature and for men, they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit, you will not understand the significance of that, unless you go back to Deuteronomy 28 and 32, or Leviticus 26, and see that the Deuteronomic curse is exactly the reverse of this, you'll plant vineyards, but you'll not drink wine from it, you'll grow gardens, but you'll not eat its fruit, you'll raise sons and daughters, but others will take them, you'll not see your grandchildren, your daughters will be taken by other men, curse is the reverse of blessing, and here now blessing is the reverse of curse, so unless you understand the Deuteronomic context of this restoration, you've missed the significance, this is exactly the opposite of curse, you shall plant vineyards, and this time now, you'll drink its wine, and it will not be for others, you'll not plant and others will receive the benefit, you'll make gardens and you'll eat the fruit, not your conqueror, who leaves you to suffer famine and expulsion, I will plant them upon the land, and they shall never again be plucked up, out of land that I have given them, says the Lord your God, so here's a final capstone statement, when you examine the other scriptures that I've given, that relate to this text and also speak of restoration, there'll be other statements like, you'll not again fear, you'll not again know terror, it's not mentioned here, but it's mentioned in other places, so if this is the evidence of something yet future, this is a restoration that Israel has never known, because they have never again been subject to such a last days dealing of expulsion, by which it says in Jeremiah 16, you'll not again speak of me or remember me, as the God who has brought you out of Egypt, what are you saying, what, that's our distinctive experience, that's how Israel was born, out of removal and exile, we won't speak of you in a way, no, henceforth you'll remember me, as the God who has brought you forth, out of every land wherein I have cast you, so this is an exodus, not just from Egypt, but all the nations into which Israel shall be cast in the last days and returned through a process of sifting through the nations, by which as the surviving remnant is exposed to the mercies of God, that come to them through the believers of those nations, even simple primitive believers and the Sierra Madre mountains, Indians anticipate the coming of these Jews and will provide for them, Africans in Kenya and Nairobi have anticipated, they have received the word, they will be prepared and not at all be astonished when the bottom falls out and South African Jews are compelled to flee with their back to the sea, through Zambia, Zimbabwe and up to this spine of Africa, through Kenya, through Uganda and all those nations and find it upon the poorest of the poor and the lowest of the low, a mercy, that if people are willing to share the very sustenance of their life, to aid and to implement in the restoration of the lost sheep of the house of Israel, that they might return to Zion with everlasting joy upon their heads and mourning and sorry and fleeing away, you got to catch the grandeur of God's design by which you will be glorified forever and that Israel need not fear that they will again be plucked up and removed.

God’s “I Will” in Israel’s Restoration

Now just one last thing before we go, to think that men could accomplish anything like this through Zionism, through any exertion of their own will, their own ability, their own prowess, is so absurd in the light of this glory that I want to direct your attention to the reiteration of the two words, I will, verse 8, I will destroy it from the face of the earth, I will judge, except that I will not utterly destroy the house, for law I will command, in verse 9, and shake all the houses, all the house of Israel among all nations, on that day I will raise up in verse 11, the tent of David that has fallen, verse 14, I will restore the fortunes of my people, verse 15, I will plant them upon their land and they should never again be plucked up out of land, I have or I will give them, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I didn't count it, but I would be delighted if it turns out to be 7 I wills, I'll even go for 8, 8 is the number of resurrection, but this is the point we must not miss, present Israel is the statement of man, under the benevolence and providence of God, but largely the expression of man's own prowess and ability, the end thereof is expulsion, exile, suffering, death, God's restoration and making of that land a millennial blessedness and a fruit for all nations, is the issue of I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, for us as believers that the same God who I will for Israel, I will for us, Israel's destiny is our encouragement, because surely even as today I was experiencing discouragement because the enemy had allowed me for a moment to forget the I wills of God, allowed me to fasten my eyes on visible signs of things that would encourage my discouragement instead of turning my eyes up to the hills from whence cometh my help, I was viewing the wrong thing and the enemy had opportunity by that to set in a discouragement, but when your eyes are set upon the invisible God whose testimony is I will, I will, I will, so precious God our faith is encouraged by your word, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, Lord we believe in this and we thank you that you have a much greater intention that Israel has for itself, you have a much greater intention for the church than the church has for itself, you have a much greater intention for us than we have for ourselves and if we have held back and kept contained, possessed and afraid to let go and to relinquish that we might enter the greater glory through the giving up of what you yourself have given forgive us, we bless you Lord for what you reveal here in your dealings with Israel is what you are as God, thank you for so great a scenario, put it deep my God within our hearts for we are called not only to acknowledge this, to observe it, but to be participants in its very fulfillment in the measure that we have in the knowledge of you in Christ Jesus the son of David in whose name we pray, Amen.