[0:00] All right, please take out your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 9. Before I get into this, I wanted to share a little bit of news, a little bit of thanksgiving.
[0:18] Following the service, I'm actually jetting out of here very quickly. I'm heading over to the island for an installation service for Nathan Giesbrecht.
[0:29] Some of you will remember Nathan. He has preached here several times. He has finished his time up at our Down Seminary, at the Master's Seminary, and he's now coming back to plant a church in the, oh man, where's my directions?
[0:46] West Shore, kind of souk area of Victoria area. Having pastored in that area, I can tell you it is no treat that he's going into.
[1:00] It is a very exceptionally rocky territory. I spend much time counseling, talking, praying for pastors that are on in that area.
[1:14] Even just this past week, a friend of mine, he's at a Calvary Chapel, just dealing with issues that most people can't comprehend.
[1:25] And he is just tenderly trying to love his sheep, and many of them continue to leave and break legs and run into fences and eat poison grass.
[1:36] And he is always there caring for them, which kind of led me to thinking about you guys this week and made me appreciate how much I love you.
[1:53] This past month, in October, we had Pastor Appreciation Month, and I thank you so much for the encouraging words, cards, and kind gifts, and I promised to use them towards golf or making my wife happy.
[2:07] But one of the things that had me thinking about is I'm just so thankful for you. I'm thankful for the music team that comes and plays.
[2:19] I'm thankful for the people that welcome, the people who serve with the children. And I have to say, we are not the most organized church, but we work. By the grace of God, we continue.
[2:30] We are blessed with gifted counselors like Dave, who are able to dig deep into troubles, trials, thorns of life.
[2:45] But one of the things I continue to say to my friends is, I hope one day you get a chance to pastor in a church like I do in Squamish, where there's maturity, there's been a desire for God's word for decades long before I ever showed up here.
[3:01] And it demonstrates, and I'll tell you where it shows up the most, is the guest preachers. Last week, we had Clarence, and over the summer, we had my best friend, Leo.
[3:13] We had Matt. And everyone just comes, and they just state, man, what a blessing you have there. When are you quitting so I can apply? But there is a love to be here and to be with you and to cherish just unity, not even just at the overall church level, but the board level as well, just as we make decisions.
[3:37] And one of the things that every man gets excited about is, I rejoice when I come in here on a Wednesday when I'm coming to work, and this place is filled with women studying God's word.
[3:49] I get thrilled that men show up to study every man a warrior. And some guys are even taking it again because they want to continue to sharpen themselves. And we really believe, as elders, that that is a road to developing leaders.
[4:04] And if you guys don't know it, every once a month, the leadership team comes together, and we study God's words, and we kind of study it in the light of how to think biblically through trials that churches have.
[4:17] And I just want to thank you so much for that. Let me just pray for you. Dear Lord, Heavenly Father, what it is, just even when we think about this membership and people being a part of the body, the reality is by our new birth in Christ, we have put inside your body and we are joined with you.
[4:40] There's an automatic membership of people who commit, love, and serve one another. I know Dave and I, as many times as we spend time together talking about the sheep, what a pleasure it is to pray, encourage, and to see some grow.
[4:58] We look at people who've repented from sin and turned back. We've seen old family wounds healed, people moving forward in their marriages, desiring to love their children and to parent them.
[5:13] We give you thanks for so many faithful servants who've come along to help, from Chris Hamilton to Matt King, and even Clarence just coming to deal with some of the apologetic aspects.
[5:26] And every single one of them just speaks of the sweetness of spirit that exists for those who love you, and they see that in this body, O God. We thank you for that.
[5:38] And just from me, O God, I pray that the people would do indeed understand that I do love them, care for them, and we demonstrate it by loving, praying, and delivering this word to them in the best way possible.
[5:53] We ask these things in your most loving and caring name. Amen. So if you think of Nathan, please think of a prayer time. David Corrente is going over with me to be a part of the installation.
[6:04] And that's a whole other thing. Wasn't last week really great, just that coming together? Listen, we ran you guys hard, right? Last week, we had Church of 99 joined us, and then we had this fellowship dinner, and then we went into a worship night, and some people were tired.
[6:21] And it's okay. It was great. And you guys didn't know I took the kids to Langley for the youth retreat. Like, if that wasn't a treat, I don't know what is.
[6:32] So let us all praise God. So let's turn to Romans 9. As you may or may not know, I decided to do this type of an excursus study. An excursus, just kind of a segue.
[6:45] We've been in the book of Romans, but we got this, there's this conflict that is happening in the world. And I was just thinking about this conflict, how this conflict seems to create conflict in other places.
[7:01] If you only notice, there's not too many quote-unquote wars in the world that create debate in our own homes, in our own countries. Just even this week, hearing from different pastors and what's going on.
[7:21] So a couple of weeks ago, and I know we got interrupted, with, so the issue is what about Israel? Sorry, my voice is given out again. The first part of the series, and it went back to all the way to October.
[7:42] I was supposed to do back-to-back, but God be praised, Matt and some other people were able to hear to come in and share their gifts with us. I did kind of a historical overview on Israel.
[7:55] And if you had any questions, and I'm thankful for the feedback that people said, it does help us make sense of the events that are going on.
[8:05] A lot of it, I leaned on my old political career. We looked at how former Israel was established in Genesis 12, and we looked at the modern-day establishment of Israel in 1948.
[8:21] And as I said, whenever there seems to be some level of conflict in Israel, there's conflict elsewhere.
[8:33] But there also becomes questions that happen in the church. Certain questions are asked. And how churches approach the topic of Israel, and as I stated before, is largely dependent upon which church tradition you grew up in.
[8:51] If you grew up in perhaps a brethren, or a Pentecostal church, or a church that, and please forgive me, there's going to be a lot of technical names, words I'm going to use, I'm going to try to explain them.
[9:06] But how you see the end times affects how many people think about Israel. So if you hold to a pre-millennial position, that means that Jesus Christ will come before the millennial kingdom, which is described in Revelations 20, you believe there is a place for Israel.
[9:28] And if you don't know, some churches get involved, their job is to defend Israel, support Israel, be all about reaching as many Jews as possible for the gospel.
[9:40] It becomes a focus. So like I said, those tend to be Pentecostal brethren, both Mennonite, Plymouth brethren, and for the most part in North America, that was the pre-dominant position of churches.
[9:55] If you grew up perhaps Presbyterian, or Anglican, or Catholic background, it generally means that you do not have much of a position on Israel. Or if you do, you just believe Israel in the New Testament is something different than Israel in the Old Testament.
[10:14] Now I didn't mention Baptists, because Baptists kind of be, they're kind of all over, because we're like a swarm of bees, right? We're all over the place, and we all have these different views.
[10:24] But, so why is that? Why the disparity in what Christians believe? Why is there debate? Sometimes there's serious debate, sometimes there's simply academic debate, and the truth be told, it can be quite complex.
[10:39] Now my goal this morning is to take a highly technical issue, and I want to reduce it to the most un-technical way possible.
[10:52] I want you to be able to understand this. I want you to be able to have not only informed conversations, I also want you to see the glory of God in it all too. Because that's ultimately why I preach the glory of God.
[11:06] Now the reality is, when we speak about these end times issues, or what's going on in Israel, it involves, the theological term is hermeneutics. That word basically means it's how we interpret the Bible.
[11:21] What rules do we follow? It also affects, like I said, eschatology, which is our end times theology. And the books that generally talk about end times are a lot of the minor prophets, the book of Revelation, the book of Daniel, and the book of Zechariah.
[11:42] All these books are vitally important for understanding end times. We also have this thing called systematic theology. And I'll just explain to you systematic theology.
[11:54] There's books. I have several of them in my office. And these books attempt to systematize everything that's in the Bible. And I would recommend everyone having a systematic theology.
[12:06] So you can look up, and it's not like a concordance that just shows you the verbs or the verses that have a certain word. You can talk about what is the doctrine of God.
[12:19] And you'll find the comments, and they'll go through history, and all these different, and they'll give you the different verses and explain why they do. And they kind of put all the verses together in that area.
[12:30] So you have the doctrine of the Bible. So every systematic theology will have many chapters on how to think about the Bible. Then there'll be the doctrine of God. Then they'll have the doctrine of man, doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
[12:44] You with me on this? Doctrine essentially means teachings. So you get the combined teachings. Now the problem with systematic theology is we get this system.
[12:57] And the problem is, say we get this system of framework, and it helps us. I have a system framework that helps me understand the flow of Scripture.
[13:08] It's when certain passages of the Bible don't really fit in my system. So you start trying to fit the Bible into your system rather than making your system fit into the Bible.
[13:21] You hear me on that? That's a danger. And any good theologian recognizes that. There's problems. Systematic theologies and thinking systematically through things is simply a tool.
[13:34] It doesn't, it's not greater than God's Word. You with me on that one? God's Word is obviously the be-all, end-all of truth. Amen? But God in His favor has given us scholars, people who combine these things together to help us understand.
[13:53] And all these influences will affect how we view Israel and ultimately how we understand the church.
[14:03] If you remember, going back a couple weeks ago, I asked the question. The question was, do the events in the Middle East matter more than other tragic events around the world?
[14:15] We could think of Eritrea. We have family here from Eritrea. We have, you guys can look back to Yugoslavia, which used to be, we've had people here from Rwanda.
[14:27] Those were horrible epicenters of true evil crimes against humanity. I had, I don't know if it's the pleasure, displeasure of just even working for a short time with the UN war tribunal tracking down people who were guilty of war crimes in those areas.
[14:50] It is ugly. It is ugly. Is what is going on in Israel any more significant from a physical side point? No, I don't believe it is.
[15:02] I believe God's heart breaks for any person who's been grievously hurt. We are all created in the image of God. The Bible makes that quite clear.
[15:14] We all have a purpose. But sadly, we live in North America and we tend to be picky about what moves us emotionally. Unless the government mentions it or the press, we tend to be oblivious to what goes on around the world.
[15:29] So my first response is the events in the Middle East significant. In some ways, no. But in some ways, yes. Christians, for the most part, believe that the events occurring now in the Middle East are biblically and spiritually significant.
[15:46] And the key questions Christians need to ask themselves is, what place does ethnic Israel play in future events? Or to put it rather bluntly, does Israel and the Jews still matter?
[16:02] Do Israel and the Jews still matter? So there's three things I'd like to accomplish this morning with you. One, I want to answer the question, does Israel and the Jews still matter to God?
[16:14] That's the first thing I want to answer for you. The second issue I want to address is why do Christians think differently on this? If you are perfectly able to understand what I'm talking about in question two, you are either the smartest person in the world or I am the most brilliant teacher in the world.
[16:35] So the reality is you're probably going to miss some stuff and that's okay and I'm probably not going to be as clear as I'd like to be but I'm going to try my very best to bring us to an understanding and three, my final and ultimate point is why believing that the Jews in Israel still matters to God is of vital importance to us.
[17:01] Alright? So I'm going to be answering the question why believing that the Jews in Israel still matter to God is so vital because it will matter to us.
[17:14] Alright. So the first one, does Israel and the Jews matter to God? What's interesting, we are in the book of Romans as a part of our regular study and right from the onset Paul is addressing some really great issues right in Romans chapter 1.
[17:34] So the history of the Roman church is Jews heard the gospel that was preached right after Jesus ascended to heaven, Peter's great sermon at Pentecost.
[17:45] People got saved, people were there who took the gospel to Rome, church starts to grow in the way the early churches, the guys who are hanging out in Jerusalem during that Passover time and all that time around Jesus Christ are Jews so they go to these synagogues all over the place.
[18:00] We believe that in Rome the population was at least 10% Romans. They heard the gospel, the church has a very Jewish flavor but then there's an emperor who gets very annoyed with the Jews so he kicks them all out of Rome.
[18:14] Kicks them out and we read about Paul meeting Priscilla and Aquila on his journey because they had gotten kicked out I think it's Acts 18 so then the church is left to the Gentiles so then the church takes on a very Gentile flavor.
[18:29] So Paul has to address all these things, these issues that are coming up and one of the things that he makes certain that they understand, this gospel that I am presenting to you about Jesus Christ is not just a new gospel but it's an old gospel.
[18:46] It is the same gospel that the prophets preached in the Old Testament in the scriptures that you had. So what Paul was saying, I'm not bringing anything new here for you.
[18:57] You with me? So there was always this kind of tension between the Jews and the Gentiles and two main issues that Paul has to deal with and one of them is if the gospel is now offered to the Gentiles does that mean the Jews are forsaken?
[19:17] And you know what I mean by Gentile? Gentile is simply a word, anybody but a Jew. Alright? Anybody but a Jew. You could be German, French, English, Arabic, doesn't matter. Anybody but a Jew.
[19:29] So we're talking about, so because the Jews seem to be being replaced by the Gentiles, do they have a purpose in God's plan for redemption?
[19:43] And one of the questions that comes out of that is, as a new believer in Christ, do I need to become more Jewish? Gentiles ask this question. It was an issue in the early church.
[19:56] Do we now have to circumcise the new Gentiles? Praise God, they don't. But, at that time, that would have been one of the requirements. All the adults would have had, all gotten circumcised, be more Jewish.
[20:08] And there was nothing more Jewish set apart than a circumcision that a Jewish child underwent at eight days of age. Now the second issue is if salvation is from the Jews and is first for all the Jews, why did Israel, including their highest religious leaders, reject Jesus as Messiah, Savior, and King?
[20:36] They knew he was coming. It was prophesied all through the Old Testament. That's why Paul says, this is nothing new. Why did they reject? And what is the consequences of that rejection?
[20:50] So let's look at Romans 9 for a moment. Now I'm not going to get too deep into our understanding of Romans because I believe the plain reading of the text says much more than I ever could.
[21:04] But we're going to come back to this when we get into our study of Romans because there's a whole sequence there. And of course at the pace we're going, Jesus will probably return before I get there.
[21:16] All right. So we're going to look at Romans 9. Just take a look at verse 30. So what shall we say then that Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it that is a righteousness that is by faith but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law.
[21:41] Why? So why are the Gentiles being saved and the Jews have been working so hard for it? Why it didn't happen? Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith. faith. But as it were based on works they have stumbled over the stumbling stone.
[21:59] The Jews having the Mosaic law and all the law misunderstood it. And they thought it was a matter of works rather than trusting and believing in works that God.
[22:10] Those laws are actually wonderful laws. When you read them and you go through and you don't understand but most of those laws are based on loving God and loving your neighbor. That's really what it was.
[22:23] Just someone brought a question and he goes what do I say about this law? And he was struggling with the idea of how can God be just? Because there's a law that if you own a bull and you know the bull is a little bit rambunctious and he goes over and he kills your neighbor you get put to death.
[22:41] Right? He's like that's kind of extreme. But if you know you have a bull that's careless and it goes over and gores people what does that say about you in that community?
[22:52] Do you want that guy as your next door neighbor? Right? If you have a guy who's got ferocious bit bulls next door and you know they attack everything that moves that come by is that a good neighbor?
[23:03] You can answer that. Is that a good neighbor? No. And it was really important that they create what's known and Jesus Christ was asked what is the law? How do you reduce all the laws? Right? To love the Lord your God with all your heart love your mind all your soul and love mankind like yourselves.
[23:18] Right? You had to take it over it was to love others as well. So all those laws pertain to those things but they gave into works forgetting about the love and honor and faith part and it says verse 33 as it is written behold I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.
[23:40] Now we'll continue reading in chapter 10. Brothers my heart's desire and prayer to God for them speaking to the Jews is that they may be saved for I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God I've flown El Al do you know what El Al airline that is the national airline of Israel and I got put in what I call the Goyim section that's the Gentile section and before I was in this other section and there was a Jew and he had he was a very conservative Jew and he had like the law written on his thing and his shawls and he simply asked me the question I know this is going to sound really look really weird to you and I said it doesn't I said it's actually very sad to me that you think that worshiping and honoring God is reduced to an activity that you do at a certain time in the same way every day without truly having the knowledge so I got moved to a different section after that but you just see those things but you couldn't question the guy's zeal for his religion right he believed he was right and he wanted to do and honor God and all that he was doing so they have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge and that's what we know we know the Jews in Jesus' day ignored what was written and followed the commentaries written or spoken by the rabbis the traditions became weightier than the word of God for being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own they did not submit to God's righteousness for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes amen
[25:34] Christ is the end of the law now flip back I'm just going to read this quickly to you before I get to Romans chapter 11 earlier in chapter 9 Paul writes they are Israelites and to them belong the adoption the glory the covenants the giving of the law the worship and the promises to them belong the patriarchs and from their race according to the flesh is the Christ who is God over all blessed forever amen so when someone asks you do Jews matter yeah Jews matter how much so look at Romans 11 and this is Paul just answering a very simple question I ask then has God rejected his people notice it says by no means that is actually the strongest emphatic way you could say no in the Greek it simply means
[26:39] God forbid God forbid has God rejected his people God forbid that would happen notice he goes from I myself and I'm an Israelite a descendant of Abraham a member of the tribe of Jacob God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew now skip down to verse 11 so I ask did they stumble in order that they might fall bing God forbid right the same way by no means God forbid no rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles so as to make Israel jealous now if their trespass means riches for the world and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles how much more will their full inclusion mean they're still important they are still there does
[27:52] Israel and the Jews still matter to God reading from that text yes yes emphatically yes so why do some people think otherwise now if you read the rest I'm not going to read it for sake of time but if we continue and we're going to get in there in Romans verse 13 it's going to talk about how we as Gentiles have now been grafted into the blessing it's like this fruitful tree that is grounded in God in God's people and these branches are breaking off and God takes us grafts us to this tree and we're part of this this vine or this branch that's growing and to and the image is if we were to get rid of the Judaism what are we holding on to the life is in the trunk it's not in the branch you with me on this it's a very simple analogy so the ultimate question is
[28:58] I don't want to say the ultimate question a big question is why do Christians think differently about this why do some Christians deny that Jews matter that Israel matters like I said if I'm able to give you a perfect answer to this you could consider me the greatest teacher of the modern day world so but I'm going to tell you why I don't really argue this I believe it's a blessing to understand these things and I have good friends if not best friends that think differently of this and my love for them doesn't wane or change but I believe there's so much beauty and understanding that is found in understanding God's truth and I'm going to get to a core principle which is number three so why do so many Christians and depending largely on their church background think differently about Israel and you're now coming into a quick seminary class with me all right
[29:59] I'm going to try to be quick with this the first reason is it's called hermeneutics how we interpret God's word what this means is how we study the Bible and it's both called an art and a science and there's essentially rules that we follow to make sense of the text this church and myself we hold to what's called a literal historical grammatical interpretation of scripture what that means is we let scripture interpret scripture we try to work with the most literal meaning of the text when I get to a text the question that I ask myself is what did the original readers of this text think it means right that's where it begins if you're writing a letter to someone you need to figure out I want to communicate to that person in a way that they would understand so you have to think what how would the what's the author is intent to communicate and what do people hearing it what would they understand so last week and there's a another side to it but I'm going to tell you why it's so important if I follow this literal and I don't mean literalistic when I say literalistic you know there's some psalms that talk about the mountains will clap you know it literally doesn't mean mountains are going to get up and clap for Jesus it means all of
[31:33] God's creation is going to rejoice for God right it's an idiom so there's certain parts of scripture or poetry some are history some are prophecy so you you learn there's certain genres that you learn within them but last week and this is one of the reasons why I hold to a literal historical grammatical or why this influences my position last week Clarence was here and he was from Creation Ministries International and he talked about how the earth and he believes in a literal six day creation of the earth the universe I believe that as well and one of the reasons is if you are to say that it's somewhat allegorical or it's a metaphor for something else when the text finally introduces us to Adam in Genesis chapter 2 is it still allegorical is it still a metaphor or is it still literal you with me on this so all of a sudden it's like you're reading a newspaper when I read the newspaper
[32:38] I read the comics very differently than I read the sports section when I read the dragons killed the leafs or whatever teams playing Toronto or whatever killed the leafs I don't really believe that there's these real dragons killing the Canucks right like oh my goodness there's people dying in Vancouver right you understand like there's a context in which that story is written and I read it for that story so when I get to finally Adam and Eve if I believe the first six days of creation are allegorical what's to stop me from thinking that Adam and Eve or the goddom of Eden is allegorical even how God tells me how sin came into this world one of the reasons I know they're true is that Jesus says they are Jesus talks about these in the New Testament but if you want to talk about I'm not getting into this argument but I'm going to say why I believe my system is if you say that creation happened over millions of years you'd have to explain death and some of the other issues that really didn't enter until sin entered so these are simply tools to understand you with me am I losing anybody all right so it's how we interpret the Bible so if one uses this method of interpretation if you read literally the
[34:05] Bible and understand it you land on the position that Israel matters you have to it's clear you just read it in Romans so if you don't believe Romans really means what it means you have to come up with another way trying not to abuse the clear words of scripture to make it say something different that the Jews don't matter now and I know if you hold a different position it's okay and I'm not trying to create a straw man I'm just doing so for the sake of time so but we do know that in scripture God made promises to Israel we believe that those who were given those promises intend to receive those promises as God said he was going to give them those promises we have a hold to a literal understanding of the text this is where we land that's why in the Old Testament talks about the physical land it talks about physical people talks about physical blessings it also talks about curses so the alternate way of understanding or interpret the text it's what's known as what's called pre-modern exegesis and basically this is a method that many of the early church fathers used and what they did is they used a lot of allegory to spiritualize different things here's a primary example do you guys familiar with the song of Solomon's song of Solomon the book the love book if you grew up in a really strict
[35:38] Baptist you're not allowed to read that till you're married right did you know that but it talks about an intimate relationship between a man and his wife if you hold to pre-modern exegesis you would say that is about Jesus Christ in the church because what happens is what pre-modern exegesis is they take the New Testament they take our understanding of the New Testament and they go back and reread the Old Testament you with me on that so they're taking their understanding of the New Testament and it reading back into the text and in some texts they're giving it different meanings they're spiritualizing well look at this Moses was a type of Jesus right he delivered his people like Jesus when the Old Testament was written and they were talking about I don't think anybody thought Moses was Jesus they believe he was a man used by God so there's certain types that people use so I'm very careful with all those type of points so and one thing that a pre- modern exegete does is they say the church is now Israel and the way they get to this in the
[36:53] Old Testament the Jews were God's people but we now have this thing called the New Covenant and we do believe that as well and we know that true Jews are those who place their faith in God and because we placed our faith in God we are now God's people so what's happened it's called replacement theology the church is now Israel you with me on that so that's that's generally the two big divisions hey there's good guys who who's R.C.
[37:26] Sproul was one of those guys he would have been in that position but there's there's always a few different variations in the positions but they read back now why and so they would say that all the promises in the Old Testament that were meant for physical Israel are in fact not physical promises but spiritual promises that we now inherit so because Jesus came we all can be saved and and so they've spiritualized those promises that's why if you know any Presbyterians Anglicans and we know Catholics if you grew up there they baptize babies and it's because they're part of this covenant group of people and faith isn't the primary requirement for entrance into that covenant covenant but being a part of the family is a part of that covenant you with me on that one that's why we baptize people who profess in Jesus
[38:29] Christ so the only way you can truly be a part of God's people is through faith in Jesus Christ amen so even when I'm talking about later Israel I believe Israel is going to be saved and God's going to save them we're going to get to that in a second so that's why they hold to this covenant now in what's called covenant theology the gospel is the focal point it is the new Israel the church which are God's people ethnic Judaism no longer is needed now why or how do they disagree with the passages that we read in Romans and that's why I said they spiritualize the passages and how do they spiritualize there's two views of way and you guys might this might click with you because the more I look at this there's basically two views to look at the world the Greeks believed that there was a spiritual and a physical there was a dualism right good versus evil and this has affected our theology who's heard here that God needed to die on the cross to win us from Satan has anybody ever heard that theology yeah it's called ransom theology that God needed to die on the cross to rescue us from Satan and the idea is that God and Satan are like two equal evil powers if you didn't know this Jesus died on the cross to rescue you from God his wrath that was meant for you God didn't have to have his son die to defeat Satan
[40:17] Satan's a created being God can do whatever he wants with Satan he's just a simple tool God is so much more majestic but this idea of that there's physical and there's spiritual spiritual is good physical is bad why because we live in a sinful world I my flesh wants bad things we live in stuff we see stuff broken all the time there's death decay so we start to think that that must be bad so we start to long for a heaven which is perfect amen and a lot of people have this view of heaven that we're going to go in heaven we're going to live in the clouds and we'll do whatever we want it's going to be really wonderful and and Augustine or if you mispronounce his name is Augustine I will forgive you but it's Augustine Augustine is a city in Florida he came from a place where he lived in his sin and he hated his sin and he was hedonistic and after he got saved he hated the flesh he hated that sin so he started to look at things in a spiritual way and and I've seen this work out in truth truth in churches how many times do we want to read a passage and we want to look for a deeper spiritual meaning and everybody anybody ever been there come on we have like that's why they say the worst theology arrives in Bible studies because people start thinking hey what does this mean to me and it starts to translate into a whole sort of things that's missing what the intent of the author was and there seems to be something special in going for the deeper meaning but there's really nothing deeper needed to be children honor your parents right so this division happened so all of a sudden we have all these monks being created men that are going to be celibate they're going to write and they're going to do spiritual things and we see this in the church and you guys have heard me teach about this there's the thinking that doing devotions praying meditating taking off to be on spiritual retreats are really good spiritual things and they are hear me they are but it's also spiritual to love your wife it's also spiritual to be a good employer it's also a spiritual act to honor God and how you interact with your your neighbor who wants to tear down the fence and put up a
[42:52] Ferris wheel right what it's there there's and and here's one of the things that I brought up one guy says I like to get away and he talked about these treats that he did with his family they used to go to these meditation centers and I asked him how would you grow in your sanctification there well I got to think about God and it was really good and you know and I said you want to know I'm gonna be honest with you and I've been there do you know the sanctifying most sanctifying place in the world is to be with children Disneyland think about it your kids are out of control they've had far too much sugar right they've been just on a long journey they're they're either running all over like crazy banshees or they're tired and you're trying to tell me that doesn't sanctify you let's be honest you got to learn to be patient you got to learn to respond in love to be charitable right you know what I'm saying like those hard things of life is where we grow the sharpest amen and we never think of them as spiritual but they are God is using those things to draw you closer to him so this idea though grew that these men would go and and Augustine that's where this idea came that there must be a spiritual view of
[44:18] God's kingdom I haven't talked about this but that's what Jesus Christ said he did in Mark 1 15 he came to establish his kingdom and that kingdom exists now and it will exist when he comes again amen and it will be perfect when he comes but God is still growing up in case you don't know you and I cannot build God's kingdom only God can build God's kingdom but you know what we can do we can testify to God's kingdom we can testify to how God is changing lives it's making a difference when we share our testimonies hey let me tell you how God's kingdom came into my life and changed me right that's what it is let me tell you the story of my marriage and how I was going one way and God came in and change it that's God's kingdom you testify to God's work so anyhow this view that all these things spirit they just became over spiritualized so that was the birth of what's called all millennialism and it is it means there's no millennial kingdom according to revolutions 20 so Israel doesn't figure in so we don't talk about it and now there's another count count uh view on end times and and you guys have heard me talk about this in the revelations sermon series is called post-millennial and what that essentially means is that the church through evangelism the growth in the church the whole world's going to get saved and then Jesus comes back okay that's what that essentially that means and you know what that view is growing more steam Murray and I were just talking about it whenever you say post-millennialism you always go those those are crazy people because your eyes in this world knows it's not getting any better it's getting crazier and crazier and we're going to get into it why it's getting crazier in Romans chapter one but they they have this belief that if we do these things so that affects how they act they want to they want to get in there they want to save and if everyone gets saved then Jesus Christ comes so you with me I know that's kind of confusing can someone nod and say they at least understand a little bit of that right so you have the spiritual and I'm going to explain the other side to it in a second and I'm going to get and answer that question in my third point my final and ultimate point final and ultimate point is why believing that the Jews in
[46:50] Israel still matters to God and it's so vital for us for it to matter to us well I believe that the Bible teaches what is known as the new creation model it's not a spiritual model you and I both know the biblical timeline right there's a historical flow to the Bible there's a beginning a middle and an end in the beginning God created a wonderful universe without sin and it was perfect it worked wonderfully and we got to walk in that garden for a very short time then sin entered Abdon Adam and Eve God's image bearers fall for Satan's lie and sin and death enters in they rebelled against the creator and then God's rescue plan begins with these covenants as we go through the Old Testament and he tells the people that he intends to restore this creation including mankind ultimately through his son Jesus Christ but he creates these covenants the first covenant is after the flood it's called the no way a covenant
[48:10] God says I'm no longer going to destroy the world the Abrahamic covenant you will be my people and blessings will come through you my people and you will have this this land we have the Davidic covenant that's where one who is part of your bloodline will reign forever that's why Matthew 1 links Jesus to David he's the promise of that covenant and then we have this new covenant covenant that salvation is by faith and what's interesting about these covenants is they're all one-sided it's not conditional on us wasn't conditional upon Abraham it wasn't conditional upon David it was God saying by my word I will make these things happen and we know the rest of the story Jesus is born Jesus is is rejected Jesus is crucified and Jesus resurrects but through that resurrection you and I can now be reconciled to God he paves the way so to speak Jesus returns to heaven and now he has sent his Holy Spirit to dwell in believers and to build his church this is the age we now live in the church age now the spiritual vision model states that when Jesus comes again we will go to heaven but the new creation model is different the new creation model affirms the goodness of God's creation including the material aspects of this world as well in Colossians 1 16 Paul declared for by him Jesus all things were created in heaven and on earth visible and invisible the creation is composed of both spiritual and material realities and the reality is the why your marriage matters matters to God is because it matters to God is because it matters to God even though it's physical even though in the drop of eternity it's nothing it's something you with me God created it he meant us to be glorifying agents of him but spiritual and material realities have been affected by the sin and the fall of man and both will eventually be restored by God that's why in Acts 3 21 Luke writes there will be a restoration of all things new creation approach does not deny the importance of spiritual truths in realities in fact it affirms them but it opposes efforts to spiritualize physical realities or treat them as inferior spiritual and physical blessings come together if you read your Bibles you'll know in Isaiah and even Romans 8 and Revelations 21 these passages speak of a regenerated earth that Jesus will sit on the throne ruling from Jerusalem and there will be economies there will be economies there will be agriculture there will be animal kingdoms this is the one of the myths that people wrongly assume about Genesis that work is a curse no work isn't the curse Adam and Eve were given work in the kingdom and it was good and it was great and it was perfect that's part of our calling it's harder we toil in sin because of sin but what's interesting in this new creation negative consequences that resulted because of sins such as death decay and the curse will be removed
[52:12] but the basics of the creation environment that God first created for us will be good and it will be here so that's why we sometimes get conflicting views in churches about heaven sometimes it's all spiritual but I believe it ignores the physical realities of God's new creation so now why is it important to think well of Israel before I answer that question let me ask you a question do you believe God can be trusted do you believe God can be trusted do you believe God can be trusted do you believe that God will keep his word do you believe that God will lie no right if God says something will it not happen the way God says it will happen Hebrews 10 23 it says let us hold fast the confession of our hope without ray wavering for he who promised is faithful amen so if our salvation is based on God redeeming us how could we hold this position if we no longer believe that God was going to redeem Israel and let me tell you there's far many more promises in the Old Testament speaking about the redemption of Israel than of you we can open the books of Leviticus Deuteronomy Isaiah
[53:48] Jeremiah Ezekiel Daniel Hosea Joel Amos Obadiah Micah Zephaniah Zechariah Malachi like if I went into all the verses it would be too long but these verses these promises have gone out first king 8 56 says blessed be the Lord who has given a rest to his people Israel according to all that he promised not one word has failed of all his good promise which he spoke by Moses his servant you want to know something a lot of these promises that God gave Israel was when they were in exile when they had already disobeyed they had lost the land they had lost the temple they had lost their city there was promises that promised them land there was promises of salvation and what's incredible like I said is even some of these promises were made when Israel was apostate
[54:58] God said he will protect Israel and he will hold to this let me ask you a question have you ever met a Canaanite have you ever met a Jebusite a Hittite a Parasite Parasite not Parasite how about an Amorite how about a Moabite how about an Ammonite have you ever met an Israelite so here's this group going back over three to four centuries and they're still existing in the land I don't know how to answer that except that that has to be the work of God that there is a work of God at hand working to bring about his will
[56:00] Deuteronomy 32 10 calls Israel the apple of God's eye Zechariah 2 8 says cursed is any nation that comes against the apple of my eye that word apple it's an idiom but it means God's treasure God's cherished one and we know that God loved all the nations of the world amen he did he brought redemption but there is a special love that God has for Israel Romans 9 4 they're Israelites and to them belong the adoption the glory the covenants the giving of the law the worship and the promises to them belong the patriarchs and from their race according to the flesh is the Christ who is God over all blessed forever amen see my point is friends if God cannot be counted on to keep his promises to the Jews what hope do we have is he a liar did he change his mind did Israel no longer matter how many of you in your testimonies know you walked away from the Lord but God graciously called you back you know how he usually called you back through hardship hardship that's how
[57:41] God is calling Israel back through hardship the very fact of the matter I'm going to leave you with two quotes one author says Israel's very existence as a nation is tied to the promises of God without question in fact they were elected by God as his chosen nation and by his own sovereignty unconditionally he promised to bless them the blessing that came to them in the Abrahamic covenant was not even conditioned upon them in other words God turned to do it no matter what they did God would bring about the right circumstances to fulfill his promises promises the last quote is a candid confession I subscribe to many different theological sites and what's going on in the world especially we are seeing a generally capitulation in the world of hatred towards Jews do you ever ask yourself why does the world hate Jews why thousands upon thousands of years and this guy says listen
[58:49] I'm an all millennial in my eschatology and I will still tell you this I don't know how to account for consistent and resurgent antisemitism apart from the demonic hatred of Jesus bloodline y'all can think I'm foolish or whatever but what we're seeing is not reducible to earthly geopolitical dynamics alone my friends there is a creation that is earthly that God is bringing about but there is a spiritual warfare that is fighting all around us to kill the people who will usher in the promises of God to us and attempt to make God a liar let's pray dear Lord heavenly father I just pray that even with all these words and these technicalities that there would be understanding there would be blessing and knowing that you are good we just look back at Dave's prayer the promises that God makes us as believers and father the reality is even though we are saved we still fall we sin if you could take them away what would be that sin that would cause them is it just simple unbelief that I don't trust them enough to thank them for my food or does it have to be something major and although and although they have been almost supernaturally stubborn and reluctant to the gospel we give you thanks because we were able to be saved by it because of their rejection and we are blessed but as Paul states there's a jealousy there and I pray at some time they break in every single voice in Israel every Jew around the world will simply state that
[61:06] Jesus Christ is Lord Father let us pray to that end let us pray for our own lives our own promises that you've made us may you hold us and keep fast the knowledge of your word and the knowledge of your goodness that you have to us even in Squamish which seems to be removed from much of the conflict of this world let us not be spoiled and not appreciate what we have and let us be thankful there's still people here who are desperately lost and are in desperate need of a sinner a savior God we love you and we hold fast to you in your holy name amen