Revelation Now (new)

Israel In Prophecy

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Jac Colon

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Series Code: RNN

Program Code: RNN000004


00:18 Israel, what a nation.
00:23 Two times in her past
00:25 she was nearly, totally destroyed
00:29 and once again Israel is a nation in her own land.
00:39 Practically the entire world is looking to the Middle East
00:44 as a sign at the end of this world's history.
00:49 In the Old Testament, the temple was the center,
00:54 the focal point of Israel's worship.
00:58 The temple was the place
01:00 where the sacrifices were offered,
01:03 the temple was the place
01:05 where God was to meet with His people.
01:10 But in the year 70 A.D.
01:12 the Roman general Titus destroyed the temple.
01:19 Prophets predicted it would happen,
01:22 and prophets predicted the temple would be rebuilt.
01:25 One of my very favorite places is in the Old Testament
01:28 Book of Amos 9:11,
01:31 "In that day I will restore David's fallen tent.
01:35 I will repair its broken places, I'll restore its ruins,
01:40 I'll build it as it used to be,
01:42 so that it may possess the remnant of Edom."
01:45 He forced all the time
01:46 when Jerusalem and the temple would be restored
01:50 and today, along with the popular novel series
01:54 left behind, was 70 million people
01:57 are following along the popular Christian understanding
02:01 looking to the Middle East,
02:03 waiting for the temple to be rebuild
02:05 as a sign of a very end of this world's history.
02:11 This is a novel. Now God uses novels.
02:15 He used these books
02:17 to create in people an awareness
02:19 of the seriousness of the times
02:20 we are living in, but this is a novel.
02:23 This is a truth and we find our truth
02:25 in this book, amen. Amen.
02:28 So what does the Bible teach us about the Israel of God?
02:33 When I first started studying this topic,
02:35 I discovered three--
02:38 I call them curious Bible texts.
02:43 The fist one is in Revelation 2,
02:46 I'm going to show you two of them quickly here
02:48 and then later on, we'll get to the third one.
02:51 Revelation 2:9, Jesus said,
02:55 "I know the slander of those who say that they are Jews
03:01 but they are not, they are a synagogue of Satan."
03:07 Now synagogue is another word for temple.
03:12 So who is it that would say,
03:15 I am a Jew, when they are not a Jew.
03:21 But in fact, they are of synagogue of Satan.
03:25 Now that made me curious.
03:30 And then the second one
03:32 Romans, turn to Romans 2:28,
03:36 "A man is not a Jew, if he is only one outwardly,
03:42 nor a circumcision merely outward and physical.
03:45 No, a man is a Jew
03:49 if he is one inwardly
03:52 and circumcision is circumcision of the heart
03:56 by the spirit, not by the written code."
03:59 Now that's curious to me,
04:02 he says "A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly."
04:07 This means, that a man can be born into a Jewish family,
04:12 and be physically and outwardly Jewish,
04:16 but for some reason, God says he's not a Jew.
04:23 Now that made me curious.
04:29 And I began to wonder.
04:32 Is it possible that these curious texts are telling us
04:37 that may be we are overlooking
04:39 the real significance
04:43 of Israel in prophecy?
04:48 So I began to study from Genesis
04:50 all the way through to Revelation,
04:52 and I found a beautiful thread of truth,
04:56 that focuses and centers on Jesus Christ
05:00 just like the Book of Revelation says it to you.
05:03 I want you to just fasten your seatbelts,
05:06 hold on for dear life
05:07 because we are going to cover a lot of Bible,
05:10 not time for a lot of stories this time,
05:12 we are going to cover a lot of Bible
05:14 from Genesis all the way through Revelation.
05:16 So let's pick up where we left off.
05:18 Adam and Eve had just plunged the world
05:20 into the depths of sin and despair
05:21 when they ate the fruit from the tree,
05:23 that God said they shouldn't eat from.
05:25 And then we learnt that God was there running after them,
05:30 calling after them, where are you?
05:32 When they were fleeing from Him,
05:33 they were running from God
05:35 and He went running after them.
05:36 That's the kind of God that we serve.
05:39 We run from Him, He comes after us.
05:44 And then He gave him a promise, remember in Genesis 3:15,
05:48 "And I will put enmity between you"
05:50 that's the serpent, the devil "and the woman,
05:53 and between your offspring"
05:54 those who choose to follow the devil and hers,
05:58 "And he will crush your head and you will strike his heel."
06:01 The strike on the heel was when Jesus,
06:03 the offspring of the woman died on the cross,
06:06 but it wasn't the final blow,
06:08 because He was raised up again, three days later,
06:11 ascended to heaven and one day soon
06:14 He's going to comeback
06:15 and crush the head of the serpent.
06:19 This is the first prophecy in the Bible.
06:22 All the rest of scripture is unpacking
06:24 that one promise that the seed of the woman,
06:27 Jesus, is going to crush the head of the serpent.
06:30 But we need to understand that when God told Adam and Eve
06:34 there was only one woman living on this planet
06:38 and that was Eve.
06:42 Naturally, they thought that she was the woman.
06:50 And she would have a son
06:52 and her son would be the one
06:54 that crush the head of the serpent.
06:58 In fact, she did have a son,
07:02 and they named him Cain.
07:05 And when Cain was born, she said in Genesis 4:1,
07:10 she said, "I have brought forth a man, the Lord."
07:17 Adam and Eve thought that Cain was the descendent
07:22 who would the crush the head of the serpent.
07:23 In fact when they named him Cain,
07:25 it means in Hebrew, 'acquired.'
07:27 They thought they had acquired the fulfillment of that promise.
07:31 You see they took and understood
07:34 God's words literally.
07:40 But God meant something much deeper,
07:43 and much broader than the literal word.
07:49 And I've discovered that millions of people
07:51 make a same mistake that Adam and Eve made,
07:55 when they try to interpret God's word, literally
07:59 and God meant something far different.
08:04 They named him Cain,
08:05 because they thought they had acquired the Lord,
08:08 who would be the fulfillment of the promise
08:10 and crush the head of the serpent
08:11 but the only head that Cain crushed
08:14 was the head of his own brother, Abel.
08:21 So they misinterpreted the prophecy, Cain failed.
08:29 And it wasn't until thousands of years later,
08:34 you see that seed mentioned
08:36 again in Genesis 12 chapter
08:44 "The Lord said to Abram"
08:46 whose name was later changed to Abraham.
08:49 "Leave your country,
08:50 your people your father's household
08:52 and go to the land that I will show you."
08:56 So God wanted Abraham to leave his country
08:59 to go to a new place
09:01 and I'll show you where to go, God said.
09:04 In verse 2, "I will make you into a great nation"
09:07 underline that, God's promise to Abraham,
09:10 I'll make you into a great nation
09:12 and look, at the end if verse 3,
09:14 "And all of the people on earth will be blessed through you."
09:19 So God is promising Abraham,
09:20 if you go to the land that I'm going to show you,
09:23 I'll build you into a great nation
09:25 and all the people of the earth will be blessed through you.
09:28 Now the promise of the blessing
09:29 was not just for the nation that comes from Abraham,
09:33 the promise of the blessing was
09:35 that all of the nations of the earth would be blessed.
09:39 Underline those words,
09:41 all the people of the earth will be blessed through you.
09:43 We are going to see them again,
09:45 we are going to comeback to them, it's so important.
09:47 Abraham traveled through the land in verse 6,
09:50 "And he saw Canaanite's living in the land."
09:52 After all, he was in the land of Canaan,
09:54 that's where God brought him.
09:55 Canaanites live there.
09:58 And the Lord appeared to Abraham and He said,
10:00 "To your offspring, I will give this land."
10:05 You see God is the one who owns it all in the first place.
10:08 And He can do whatever as He pleases,
10:10 "To your offspring, I will give this land."
10:14 Now that's a promise.
10:16 I see two promises here, one, the first one is Abraham
10:20 "Through you and your offspring,
10:22 all of the nations of the earth will be blessed."
10:25 And secondly, "To your offspring I will give this land."
10:30 Now the problem is, Abraham had no offspring.
10:36 He's almost 100 years old and so is his wife Sarah.
10:42 So how in fact, she couldn't even have babies,
10:45 Sarah was barren.
10:47 So how is God going to fulfill His promise to Abraham?
10:54 Well Abraham and Sarah
10:55 started thinking about it little bit
10:57 and Sarah came up with a plan.
11:00 She says, Abraham, I have this beautiful young maid
11:03 her name is Hagar, why don't you sleep with her
11:08 and then she can have your son,
11:11 and God can fulfill the promise that He made to you.
11:15 And Abraham said,
11:17 sounds like a good idea to me,
11:23 so he did.
11:25 Abraham slept with her.
11:28 And she had a son,
11:30 and they named him Ishmael...Ishmael.
11:37 Now God could fulfill His promise
11:42 that He made to Abraham,
11:45 through your seed, Ishmael,
11:48 all the nations of the earth will be blessed.
11:54 But God said, no.
11:57 In chapter 17:19,
12:00 "Your wife, Sarah will bear you a son.
12:03 And you will call him, Isaac
12:05 and I will establish my covenant with him."
12:10 Now that's interesting.
12:11 Didn't God said, Abraham, your son, through your son,
12:18 all the nations of the earth will be blessed. He did.
12:21 Wasn't Ishmael Abraham's son? He was.
12:25 He was just as much as Abraham's son as Isaac was.
12:33 In fact, he was Abraham's first born son.
12:39 And the first born is the one that usually gets the blessing.
12:45 So why did God say no
12:49 to Ishmael and yes to Isaac.
12:54 Can't you see that here already in the Old Testament,
13:00 we can discover that God's promise
13:03 was something more than simply to a flesh
13:09 and blood physical descendant of Abraham.
13:14 If all that mattered was flesh and blood,
13:17 then it should have been Ishmael,
13:22 but God said, no to Ishmael, yes to Isaac.
13:27 There's something deeper,
13:28 something broader happening here.
13:31 Let's take a look.
13:33 By the way, Isaac went on to become
13:37 the father of the Jewish race.
13:40 Ishmael, the father the Arab race.
13:47 And Isaac and Ishmael are still fighting today.
14:01 That's what happens, when instead of trusting God,
14:08 who made us, who knows us,
14:10 who knows more about us than we know about ourselves.
14:14 That's what happens, when instead of trusting God,
14:18 we trust in our own ideas
14:20 and our own thoughts and our own works,
14:24 instead of believing God by faith.
14:26 So every time you see a tank
14:28 rolling through the streets of Jerusalem,
14:30 every time you hear about a missile
14:32 flying over Palestine in the Middle East,
14:35 it's a reminder that we are saved by faith in trusting God
14:41 and not by works.
14:42 Abraham tried it by works and works didn't work,
14:47 only faith works, amen.
14:52 Isaac married Rebekah
14:54 and Isaac and Rebekah had two sons,
14:58 Esau and Jacob, twins.
15:00 Born from the same womb at the same time.
15:03 In fact Esau was born a few minutes ahead of Jacob,
15:07 he was the older. He was the first born.
15:10 He was the descendant
15:11 that should have received the blessing.
15:13 But God said, no to Esau and yes to Jacob.
15:19 Why?
15:23 Can't you see that the promise
15:25 God made to Abraham through your seed,
15:30 all the nations of the earth will be blessed.
15:33 Has to be something more
15:36 than simply being
15:37 a physical descendant of Abraham.
15:41 If that's all it was, then it should've been Ishmael
15:45 and if that's all it was, then it should've been Esau.
15:49 But God said, no.
15:52 There's something more happening here.
15:58 Jacob means a deceiver.
16:04 He was not a nice boy.
16:07 He deceived his brother
16:09 and his father into getting that birth right,
16:13 but Jacob repented of his sins, he asked God to forgive him.
16:18 And God forgives us when we repent, amen.
16:21 That's good news. He forgave Jacob.
16:27 In fact Jacob rassled all night with God
16:31 and finally he got the victory
16:34 and because of that God gave Jacob a new name.
16:40 He called him Israel.
16:46 A name coined by God.
16:50 A name that never existed before
16:53 either in the Bible or outside of the Bible.
16:57 A name that had spiritual significance
17:00 from its very beginning, Israel began with one man.
17:07 And it was symbolic of his spiritual experience of God.
17:13 In fact, I'll tell you a secret about Israel.
17:17 The Hebrew Israel, it's two words,
17:22 'Isra' is to rule or to be ruled.
17:27 And 'El' is God.
17:34 Israel, Israel means 'God rules.'
17:42 And every time you watch the news
17:45 and you hear a news commentator say,
17:48 Israel, he is really saying, 'God rules.'
17:54 Don't tell them that, they will quit saying it.
17:59 Israel was to be a people ruled by God.
18:02 Israel was to be a people who by faith trusted God,
18:07 believed Him to live the way He made us to live,
18:10 they would be ruled by God. Israel.
18:18 Israel began to grow
18:20 to a big family and into a nation,
18:22 then there was a famine in the land
18:25 and Israel found herself in Egypt
18:27 for over 400 years slaves to the pharaoh.
18:31 God raised up a man, Moses.
18:35 And delivered Israel from the Egyptian slavery
18:38 through the waters of the Red Sea,
18:40 where He miraculously dried them up.
18:43 Across the Sinai Peninsula to Mount Sinai
18:46 where there He gave them His law
18:49 and a blue print for the temple.
18:55 And after 40 years of the nation of Israel
18:58 wandering in the wilderness, in the desert.
19:02 We find them about to enter that
19:05 Promised Land and take possession.
19:08 Moses is ready to preach his final sermon to Israel
19:13 in Deuteronomy 28, and here it is, his last words,
19:17 before they entered the land.
19:20 Verse 1, "If you carefully obey the Lord, your God
19:23 and follow all of His commands
19:26 I give you today, and if you love the Lord,
19:28 your God with all of your heart,
19:30 the Lord, your God will set you high
19:32 above all the nations of the earth
19:33 and all of these blessings will come upon you
19:36 and accompany you, if you obey the Lord, your God."
19:41 Five times in this first 16 verses,
19:45 God says, I will pour out all of these blessings upon you,
19:51 if you obey.
19:55 After all, Israel was to be a nation led by God.
19:59 Ruled by God. If you obey I'll bless you.
20:02 Look verse 4, "The fruit of your womb will be blessed,
20:05 the crops of your land, your livestock,
20:07 your lambs, your herds, your cows, your animals.
20:10 The Lord will grant that your enemies
20:12 who rise against you be defeated."
20:14 You will be a wealthy nation, a powerful nation,
20:16 even your babies won't get sick and die,
20:19 your corn will grow taller.
20:22 But why did God want to bless Israel like that.
20:26 You see God wanted to bless Israel,
20:30 so that all of the other nations could see.
20:34 Well, her corn grows taller.
20:37 The cows get fatter.
20:39 And babies don't get sick and die.
20:42 We want to know the secret,
20:46 so they would go to Israel to find her secret
20:49 and when they go to Israel to find her secret,
20:51 they discover Israel's God.
20:55 And all of the nations of the earth
20:58 would be blessed through Israel,
21:01 if she obeyed the Lord, her God.
21:07 You see there was a condition to that promise.
21:14 Well, what would happen if Israel didn't obey God?
21:20 Verse 15 tells us.
21:21 "However, if you do not obey the Lord, your God
21:24 and do not carefully follow all of his commands
21:26 and decrees that I gave you today then,
21:28 all of these curses will come upon you."
21:32 So if you obey the blessing,
21:34 I'll gather you into the land, I'll bless you.
21:37 If you disobey the curse,
21:41 and some of the curses that He mentions,
21:45 some of the curses He mentions in verse 21,
21:47 diseases, cancer, heart attacks, aids,
21:53 bird flu, swine flu.
21:56 All the result of turning away from God?
21:59 Environment even, verse 23,
22:02 "The sky over your head will be bronze,
22:04 the ground beneath you iron.
22:07 The rain of your country will turn into dust and powder."
22:12 Even the environment is affected
22:14 when men and women rebel against God.
22:19 Can't you see, look around you,
22:21 there are terrible problems on this planet,
22:24 this world is in trouble?
22:26 But the trouble is not because of the planet,
22:29 the trouble is because of sin and rebellion against God.
22:34 Remember God created the universe
22:36 that function by certain laws
22:38 and when one of those laws is broken,
22:39 the whole thing would crash.
22:41 And He created man and woman
22:43 to live within the circle of the laws
22:45 that He put within them,
22:46 but when we step outside of that circle,
22:49 things go wrong and even the environment suffers.
22:55 Marriages will fall apart, diseases that can't be cured.
23:00 You build a house but you won't live in it.
23:02 Plant a vineyard and you'll not even
23:03 begin to enjoy his fruit,
23:04 and your donkey would be taken from you
23:06 forcefully and not returned.
23:08 That sounds like income tax to me.
23:13 Bad things happen when you turn away from God.
23:17 People that don't know you will eat
23:18 what's in your land and your labor produces,
23:20 there'll be a cruel oppression, abuse, despair
23:24 because they turned away from God.
23:28 So if you bless me, if you obey me, I'll bless you.
23:31 I'll gather you into the land,
23:33 build you into a powerful nation,
23:35 but if you disobey, then I will scatter you,
23:38 verse 64, "The Lord will scatter you
23:40 among all the nations
23:41 from one end of the earth to the other."
23:43 And His curses will come upon you.
23:46 Now the curse is just as much a promise
23:48 as the blessing, isn't it.
23:51 Mean God means what He says.
23:53 If you obey, I'll bless.
23:55 If you disobey, the curse, that's a promise.
23:57 Sometimes we tell our kids,
23:58 if you don't behave it's going to be your routs.
24:02 And they don't behave, and there's never an all routs
24:05 but not with God.
24:08 God speaks the truth.
24:11 If you obey me, I'll bless you.
24:12 If you disobey, you'll be cursed.
24:14 Not because He wants to curse us,
24:16 but because when we step outside that boundary,
24:19 bad things happen and we break.
24:26 Well, we know this sad story.
24:29 Israel disobeyed God, wouldn't listen to the prophets,
24:34 wouldn't even listen to Jesus Christ.
24:36 They crucified Him.
24:40 In 70 A.D. the temple was destroyed
24:44 and Israel was scattered
24:45 among all the nations of the earth
24:46 just the way the prophet said it would happen.
24:52 But that isn't God's final word,
24:55 Moses had a little more to say in chapter 30:1
24:58 "When all these blessings and curses
25:00 that I have set before you come upon you
25:02 and if you take them to heart
25:05 wherever the Lord your God disperses you
25:07 or scatters you among the nations," watch this
25:11 "when you and your children return to the Lord, your God
25:15 and obey him with all of your heart
25:18 and all of your soul, according to everything,
25:20 I command you today, then the Lord, your God
25:24 will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you
25:29 and He will gather you back into the land
25:32 from where you have been scattered."
25:35 So that wasn't a final word 70 A.D.
25:37 Israel was scattered among all the nations of the earth,
25:40 but God says, if you turn to Me
25:43 with all of your heart and all of your soul.
25:45 If you obey My commands,
25:47 then I will gather you back into the land
25:52 and I will bless you, there's hope.
25:57 Israel disobeyed God.
25:59 Israel was scattered among the nations of the earth.
26:04 So what does Israel have to do first,
26:09 before God can gather her back into the land?
26:14 Turn to the Lord with all of our heart, obey Him.
26:20 Well, Israel is back in the land today.
26:24 But the nation of Israel hasn't turned to God?
26:28 She doesn't obey God.
26:31 Even Howell Lindsey admits
26:33 90% of the people in Israel are atheists.
26:37 No less accept Jesus Christ.
26:40 Now we are beginning to see
26:42 more and more Jewish people in Israel turning to Jesus,
26:45 praise the Lord for that.
26:47 But that's not the nation.
26:49 So how could God gather them back into the land
26:53 when he said, if you obey me,
26:56 then I will gather you back into the land.
26:58 Did God's word fail? Of course not.
27:04 That's why we need to finish in the New Testament.
27:07 And here's that third curious text that I promised you,
27:10 Romans chapter 9,
27:12 in Romans chapter 9.
27:20 Verse 6, "It is not as though God's word had failed."
27:26 God's word didn't fail, why not.
27:29 Are you ready for this?
27:32 "Because not all
27:34 who are descended from Israel are Israel."
27:39 Some people have descended from Israel, they're not Israel.
27:43 Watch this verse 7,
27:46 "Not because they are his descendants
27:48 are they all Abraham's children." Wow.
27:52 Abraham has children
27:54 and God says, they are not his children.
27:58 What's going on here?
28:00 You see this is more than just flesh and blood children,
28:06 Not because they are his descendants
28:08 are they all Abraham's children."
28:09 Watch "On the contrary,
28:12 It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned."
28:17 Not Esau but Isaac.
28:20 Notice that your offspring will be reckoned.
28:23 You see, it doesn't mean that
28:26 there's no such thing as a physical Jew,
28:28 there is, but the offspring,
28:31 the promise is not reckoned as a descendant,
28:35 it's only through Isaac,
28:37 that his descendants are reckoned.
28:40 In other words, if you haven't got it yet,
28:41 He's as going to make it clear.
28:42 Now watch this in verse 8,
28:44 "It is not the natural children who are God's children."
28:49 Not the natural children,
28:52 "but it is the children of the promise
28:54 who are regarded as Abraham's offspring."
28:59 That means, Abraham has children that are not his children.
29:03 Why not?
29:05 Because it's only the children of the promise,
29:07 that are regarded by God as Abraham's offspring.
29:10 What seems to be right to us,
29:12 is not always what is right with God, remember.
29:16 And just because he had a physical son, Ishmael,
29:20 just because Isaac had a physical son Esau,
29:24 it doesn't mean that they were descendants.
29:27 Because only children of the promise
29:29 are regarded by God as Abraham's off springs.
29:31 So who are the children of the promise,
29:33 that's the big question?
29:35 And it takes us to one of my very favorite little books.
29:38 The little Book of Galatians. Galatians 3.
29:42 Who are the children of the promise?
29:47 Now if you have to take a little nap, don't do it now.
29:52 Wake up anybody next to you
29:53 that might be sleeping a little bit
29:55 because you don't want to miss this,
29:57 this is the best part.
29:58 Who are the children of the promise?
29:59 Remember, it just because Abraham had descendants,
30:02 that doesn't mean they were his children.
30:05 It's only the children of the promise
30:06 that are reckoned as his children.
30:08 Who are the children of the promise?
30:09 Here's the answer.
30:10 Verse 7, "Understand, then, that those who believe
30:17 are children of Abraham."
30:21 Who are the children of Abraham?
30:22 Those who believe, you see Jacob believed,
30:25 Isaac believed,
30:27 Esau didn't believe, Ishmael didn't believe.
30:31 So the deciding factor, isn't their physical descendancy
30:36 the deciding factor is, do they believe or not?
30:40 That's not all though, it gets better.
30:42 Here we go verse 8, "The Scripture foresaw
30:46 that God would justify the Gentiles by faith,
30:50 and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham."
30:53 Let me explain that a little bit.
30:55 'Justify 'is a technical Bible word, for 'save.'
31:00 When we are justified we are saved by faith,
31:05 the Bible says, not by works.
31:08 We are saved by faith.
31:10 So the Bible says
31:12 "The Scripture foresaw that God would justify
31:15 Gentiles by faith.'' What's a Gentile?
31:18 A Gentile is simply one who is not born a physical Jew.
31:25 I'm a half Italian, half Puerto Rican,
31:30 I am a Gentile, and so God is telling us,
31:36 the Scripture foresaw that God would justify,
31:39 Italians, Puerto Ricans, Germans,
31:45 English, African no matter what,
31:51 He would justify us by faith.
31:56 Now where did the scripture say that?
32:03 "And He announced the gospel in advance to Abraham."
32:08 What's the gospel?
32:09 The gospel is the good news
32:11 that you're not saved by being good,
32:13 you're not saved by obeying the commands, No.
32:16 We are saved, because we trust God,
32:18 because we have faith in God. We are saved by grace.
32:21 Unmerited, we don't deserve it through faith in Jesus Christ,
32:25 that's how we'll say, that's the gospel.
32:27 Jesus died on the cross in your place,
32:30 and if you accept Him as your Savior,
32:32 God gives you the free gift of eternal life.
32:35 That's the gospel.
32:37 But where did God preached the gospel
32:40 in advance to Abraham?
32:42 Here's the surprise,
32:44 when He said, "All nations will be blessed through you."
32:51 So I don't understand that,
32:54 what does that mean?
32:56 When God said to Abraham,
32:57 "All the nations of the earth will be blessed through you."
33:01 He was really preaching the gospel.
33:06 Let me help you understand that.
33:08 I will paraphrase it a little bit.
33:11 God said, Abraham, one of these days,
33:16 I'm going to send through your line, my son.
33:26 And Abraham, my son who comes through your line,
33:33 is going to die on the cross.
33:36 But that won't be the end, Abraham.
33:39 Three days later, He's going to be raised up again,
33:45 and Abraham anyone who believes in My Son,
33:51 will be saved.
33:54 Through My Son,
33:56 all the nations of the earth will be blessed.
34:04 How can you just say a weak amen. Amen.
34:07 Amen, oh that's so much better, this is good stuff.
34:11 And it gets even better, watch this verse 16.
34:14 Now this blows some people away, they don't even like it.
34:18 But I like it because it's in here.
34:21 Verse 16, "The promises were spoken
34:23 to Abraham and to his seed."
34:26 Now watch, "Abraham and his seed"
34:29 Paul says, "The Scripture does not say
34:32 "and to his seeds," with a S on the end,
34:36 meaning many people,
34:37 no, no, he says, but and to your seed,
34:41 singular, meaning one person, who is Christ.
34:46 So when Abraham, when God said Abraham
34:48 'through your seed, singular,
34:51 all the nations of the earth will be blessed.
34:52 He wasn't talking about many people,
34:54 He was talking about one person,
34:56 and that one person is Jesus Christ.
34:59 It was singular, not plural.
35:02 Now that's exciting isn't it?
35:06 Well, if that's the case, then how all the nations
35:08 of the earth going to be blessed.
35:10 What about the promise, is Jesus the only one
35:12 that's going to be blessed and saved,
35:14 well it gets even better. Galatians isn't over yet.
35:19 In Chapter 3:26,
35:21 "You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,"
35:26 because verse 28, "There is neither Jew nor Greek,
35:30 slave nor free, male nor female,
35:33 for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
35:36 And if you belong to Christ then you are Abraham's seed
35:40 and you are heir to all the promises." Amen.
35:46 Do you belong to Jesus, if you do, then you are
35:49 a descendant of Abraham. Amen.
35:53 And it doesn't matter what kind of blood
35:55 flowing through your veins.
35:57 It doesn't matter how your mom and dad
35:59 spelled their name.
36:00 It doesn't matter what country you live in.
36:03 It doesn't matter what your blood is.
36:05 The only blood that matters
36:06 is the blood that was shed for you
36:08 on Calvary 2,000 years ago.
36:11 You believe in Jesus,
36:12 you are a descendant of Abraham. Wow.
36:18 All the promises, I can claim.
36:23 All the promises you can claim.
36:27 The promises were never based on flesh and blood descendancy
36:32 not even from the beginning
36:34 they were always based on faith in God
36:38 and trust in God through Jesus Christ.
36:41 It's always been that way.
36:43 So you see in the New Testament,
36:47 the Israel of God
36:49 consists of those who believe in Jesus Christ.
36:55 That's why Paul closes his letter
36:57 to the church at Galatia, saying in Galatians 6,
37:03 "Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything
37:07 what counts is a new creation."
37:09 And the new creation is you and me
37:12 in born again in Jesus Christ.
37:16 So it doesn't matter if you circumcise,
37:18 it doesn't matter if you are not circumcised.
37:20 What matters is, are you in Jesus Christ, a new creation.
37:24 And then verse 16,
37:25 "Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule,
37:28 even to the Israel of God."
37:32 See the Israel of God
37:34 consist of all who believe in Jesus Christ.
37:37 The church has picked up the mantle of Israel
37:42 and is carrying it on all the way through to the end.
37:48 You are a part of the Israel of God.
37:53 It doesn't mean, there's no such thing as a Jew, no.
37:57 But it does mean that a Jew is no more accepted by God
38:01 because he is a Jew than I am accepted by God
38:04 because I am an Italian, a Puerto Rican.
38:08 The only way we are accepted by God,
38:10 Jew or Gentile is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
38:17 But what about the Jews now are they finished? No.
38:22 In Romans 11 Paul tells the story.
38:24 He tells a story of an olive tree.
38:27 And he said, some of the branches
38:29 of that olive tree were cut off
38:31 because they didn't believe in Jesus,
38:34 some of them stayed in, the disciples were Jews.
38:37 They stayed in the tree.
38:40 And that was Israel. And Jesus is the tree.
38:44 And then he said, the wild olive branch,
38:46 that's me and you, Gentiles.
38:48 Wild olive branches are grafted back in,
38:51 grafted into the same tree that the Jews,
38:54 who didn't believe were cut off of.
38:58 And then those Jews he said,
38:59 finally when they believe in Jesus,
39:01 they're going to go graft it
39:03 back into the same tree with the Gentiles.
39:06 The tree is the church of Jesus Christ
39:09 when a Jew accepts Jesus Christ, he becomes a true Jew. Amen.
39:13 And so when he says I am a Jew,
39:15 he's not telling a lie.
39:17 He is not the synagogue of Satan,
39:19 he is a Jew, because he is in Jesus Christ.
39:24 And I believe Romans 11 shows the time coming
39:27 when many Jews will turn to Jesus Christ.
39:30 Because that's the only way we can all ever be saved.
39:37 Is this true?
39:40 You're saying, pastor that's not what I keep hearing out there.
39:44 Well, I don't care what's happening out there,
39:46 all I care about is what's in here.
39:49 Is it true?
39:50 Every word has come from in here.
39:52 But let's just check it out.
39:54 Let's ask Peter, Peter!
39:58 Is Jac Colon telling us the truth?
40:00 Well, turn in your Bibles.
40:04 To Peter and I am finding,
40:08 he was here this morning.
40:11 1 Peter 2:9,
40:14 "You" he is writing to the church now
40:17 watch this, you church,
40:18 "You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood,
40:22 a holy nation, a people belonging to God."
40:26 That's exactly what God said
40:28 to the nation of Israel in the Old Testament.
40:33 Now he is calling this church by the same titles.
40:37 He said, God called you
40:39 so that you can declare the praises of him
40:41 who called you out of darkness into his light."
40:44 Once you were not a people"
40:45 You were Gentiles, "You were not a people
40:48 but now you are the people of God,
40:52 once you had not received mercy,
40:54 but now you have received mercy."
40:59 He is calling the church a holy nation, royal priesthood.
41:06 The people belonging to God.
41:11 In fact he goes on to say
41:15 and now we're getting to another good part.
41:17 Don't sleep.
41:20 "As you come to him, the living stone"
41:24 Jesus is the living stone.
41:30 "As you come to him the living stone
41:33 rejected by men, but chosen by God
41:37 and precious to Him.
41:39 You also like living stones
41:43 are being built in to a spiritual house."
41:48 So Jesus is the living stone
41:51 but we too are living stones.
41:54 The bible says, and we too
41:57 are being built in to spiritual house.
42:01 Now when we go to Ephesians 2:19,
42:07 he says "Consequently,
42:08 you are no longer foreigners and aliens,"
42:13 that's us, Gentiles, that He's talking to,
42:15 the church in Ephesus consisting of Gentiles,
42:18 he says, you Gentiles, you are no longer foreigners,
42:23 you're no longer aliens,
42:26 "But you are fellow citizens with God's people
42:31 and members of God's household."
42:34 Watch this, "Built on the foundation
42:38 of the apostles and the prophets,
42:41 with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone.
42:47 In him the whole building is joined together
42:52 and rises to become a holy temple."
42:59 You are the stones of the temple.
43:04 I promised you, I'll bring you a piece of the temple
43:07 turned to the person to your left and to your right
43:10 and say, welcome to the temple of God
43:14 because you are the stones of the temple.
43:21 I told you that I was on a committee
43:23 to rebuild the temple.
43:28 You can be on that committee.
43:38 When you tell someone about Jesus Christ,
43:40 you are on the committee to rebuild the temple.
43:45 Sometimes people get mad at me,
43:49 and they say, "Pastor,
43:50 I thought I was going to see a brick here tonight."
43:53 One lady sitting in the front row in Alaska,
43:56 had her camera there,
43:57 ready to take a picture of the stone.
44:00 I said, I'll smile for you.
44:03 She got mad.
44:05 Dot get mad at me,
44:07 get mad at whoever is telling you
44:09 that it's going to be real stone
44:11 because you are the stone.
44:14 Jesus is the cornerstone, you are the temple.
44:19 But what about the land?
44:20 God said, He promised the land to Abraham's seed, didn't He.
44:23 In Acts 7, we find a surprise there.
44:27 Acts 7, Steven in his last sermon before he died,
44:33 told the story about how Abraham,
44:35 verse 4, "left the land of the Chaldeans
44:39 and God sent him to this land that you are now living in
44:42 and He gave him no inheritance here,
44:47 not even a foot of ground.
44:49 But God had promised him that he and his descendants
44:51 after him would possess the land."
44:55 Now did God's word failed?
44:56 God said you would possess the land
44:58 and now Steven says,
45:00 that he didn't even get one square foot of God,
45:02 did God's word failed. No.
45:05 Because Abraham understood exactly what God meant.
45:09 In Hebrews, you can read that,
45:11 in Hebrews 11,
45:13 look in Hebrews 11 the faith chapter.
45:15 It says in verse 9" By faith he,
45:18 Abraham made his home in the promised land
45:20 like a stranger in a foreign country,
45:22 he lived in tents, like Isaac and Jacob,
45:25 who were heirs with him of the same promise.
45:27 For he was looking forward to a city with foundations,
45:32 whose builder and maker is God."
45:35 Abraham knew that God was not talking
45:38 about that land in Palestine.
45:41 Abraham was looking to the New Jerusalem,
45:44 to the new heaven, to the new earth.
45:46 In fact Paul himself even wrote that
45:49 God promised Abraham
45:51 that he will be heir even of the world.
45:55 You see God promises the land,
45:57 but He always gives us more.
46:01 Then what he says, he's going to do.
46:03 What a God, amen. Amen.
46:08 Abraham saw it.
46:14 In Revelation 3:12,
46:21 Jesus writes to the church
46:24 "Him who overcomes I will make a pillar
46:26 in the temple of my God.
46:28 Never again will he leave it."
46:30 You see, the church He overcomes
46:33 I'll make a pillar in the temple of my God.
46:36 You'll never leave it.
46:37 "I will write on him the name of my God
46:40 and the name of the city of my God.
46:41 The New Jerusalem is coming down
46:44 out of heaven from God,
46:46 and I will also write on him my new name."
46:49 He who as in let him hear what the spirit says,
46:51 to the church.
46:54 The New Jerusalem is the home for the church of Jesus Christ.
47:00 And you are citizens of that city.
47:03 He even says as much in Hebrews 12:22,
47:07 he says, "You have come to Mount Zion,
47:09 the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God."
47:12 We are now citizens of that New Jerusalem
47:15 even though we are here in this old world
47:17 but one day soon,
47:18 He's going to come down to this earth
47:20 and we're going to be in it
47:21 and that'll be our home for ever.
47:25 Oh, what a promise.
47:28 I know some of you are struggling.
47:31 Some of you are saying, pastor,
47:34 that's not what it says in the left behind book.
47:38 No, it's not what it says in the novel.
47:43 But it is what it says in God's word.
47:47 And you know, even in Jesus' day they struggled with this.
47:55 They had a hard time
47:57 accepting what you're hearing right now.
48:00 The Jews were stunned.
48:02 In John 2:19, when Jesus said,
48:07 pointing to the building to the temple,
48:10 he said, "tear down this temple
48:12 and I will raise it up in three days."
48:18 They thought He was talking about the building,
48:22 and He knew they would think
48:25 he was talking about the building,
48:27 but in fact He was talking about Himself.
48:32 And they were stunned. They couldn't accept it.
48:35 They couldn't make a shift from the bricks
48:38 and the mortar to the living stone of Jesus Christ.
48:43 We can't afford to make the same mistake
48:47 that they made back then.
48:51 In fact they missed it so badly that in Mathew 27,
48:57 when Jesus was on the cross, they said,
49:01 "You who are going to destroy the temple
49:03 and build it up in three days, save yourself!
49:07 Come down from the cross,
49:09 if you are the Son of God!"
49:11 They missed it so badly
49:14 that they didn't understand
49:16 that the only way for Jesus
49:17 to truly rebuild the true temple was to die on the cross.
49:21 He could not come down from the cross
49:24 and rebuild the temple.
49:28 They missed it.
49:30 Let's not make the same mistake.
49:33 Now we can understand why Jesus said,
49:36 when He went into the temple, Mathew 12:6,
49:40 I tell you one greater then this temple is here.
49:47 But they missed it.
49:49 They kept looking at the building,
49:52 instead of looking at the man, Jesus Christ.
49:58 And no wonder when Jesus went into the temple
50:01 for the last time...
50:06 and left, He said, your house
50:13 is left unto you desolate
50:18 because the presence of the living God
50:21 was leaving that temple for the first time,
50:25 for the last time to build His new temple
50:29 by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
50:34 No wonder, He said, your house is left desolate.
50:39 But what about the antichrist, what about the antichrist?
50:43 Doesn't he rebuild that temple in Jerusalem
50:46 and then go over there and destroy it?
50:50 2 Thessalonians,
50:52 2 Thessalonians makes it crystal clear Chapter 2:4,
50:58 "He will oppose and will exalt himself
51:01 over everything that is called God."
51:04 This is anti-Christ.
51:06 "He will oppose and will exalt himself
51:08 over everything that is called God or is worshiped,
51:12 so that he sets himself up in God's temple,
51:17 proclaiming himself to be God."
51:21 Every place in the New Testament
51:23 where Paul uses the word 'God's temple'
51:26 He is talking about the church of Jesus Christ.
51:32 Antichrist sets himself up in the church
51:38 and he does his dirty work in the church.
51:45 When the whole world practically
51:47 is looking to Israel,
51:50 waiting for the mosque to be torn down,
51:52 so they can build a temple for antichrist to come.
51:57 Antichrist is doing his dirty work in the church.
52:03 What's he doing there? You want to know?
52:07 Because you're going to see
52:09 some things that are going to make your eyes
52:10 turn as big as saucers.
52:13 He would set himself up in God's temple
52:15 proclaiming himself to be God.
52:20 Revelation 21.
52:24 I want to close in Revelation chapter 21.
52:33 Verse 9, "One of the seven angels said,
52:36 "Come, I will show you the bride,
52:40 the wife of the Lamb.
52:45 And he carried me away in the Spirit
52:46 to a mountain great and high,
52:48 and he showed me the Holy City, the New Jerusalem,
52:53 coming down out of heaven from God."
52:57 Verse 12, "It had a great high wall
52:59 with twelve gates
53:01 and with twelve angels at each of the gates.
53:03 And on the gates were written the names
53:05 of the twelve tribes of Israel."
53:08 Only the Israel of God can enter that city.
53:16 Won't you walk through those gates with me...
53:21 with Israel of God?
53:30 Several years ago,
53:33 my wife and I went to a religious convention
53:37 in Toronto, Canada.
53:46 And one day a Jewish man
53:51 dressed in his black Jewish robes, Jewish hat,
53:57 and his Hebrew books and Bibles,
54:01 was walking down the hallway.
54:05 When he looked ahead and he saw an Arab man,
54:12 dressed in his traditional Arab headdress
54:18 with his Arab books in his arms,
54:22 walking right towards him.
54:27 And the Jew was afraid
54:34 and the Arab was afraid
54:41 as they approach each other closer and closer
54:46 and then they both stopped outside the same door,
54:52 about to go in.
54:55 Jewish man looked at the Arab man
54:59 and he said, are you a Christian?
55:05 The Arab said, "I am a Christian.
55:09 Are you?
55:12 And the Jewish man said, 'Yes, I am a Christian.
55:18 And the Arab and the Jew embraced.
55:26 You see the solution to the problems
55:30 is not going to be done in Washington D.C.
55:34 or by any diplomat,
55:38 the problem can only be solved
55:40 by lifting up the cross for Jesus Christ. Amen.
55:46 The true Israel of God.
55:50 Oh, Lord, God, we thank you and we praise you,
55:54 in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, for having a plan.
56:01 Sometimes men fail,
56:04 they did all the way through the Bible times,
56:07 but Your plan never fails.
56:10 And Lord, we want to be part of Your plan.
56:14 We want to walk with You.
56:16 And we want to walk through the gates of that city
56:19 rejoicing as the bride of the Lamb.
56:24 And we thank you and praise You
56:26 in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and our Lord, amen.


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Revised 2014-12-17