[0:00] Your little minor prophet back in the Old Testament, the book of Hosea. The book of Hosea, because we are dealing with issues regarding the nation of Israel, and they have a very checkered past, they also have a bloody future.
[0:25] A bloody and a bright future. Unfortunately, they are going to get to the brightness only through the blood, and that will be what Armageddon is all about, and that will be partly what Psalm 83 is all about, and what we'll be talking about tonight.
[0:45] So let us begin with this first chapter, it's only 11 verses, but there are some key phrases in it that we need to understand. It begins with a very extraordinary demand that God makes upon Hosea, and we'll read about it.
[1:00] The word of the Lord which came to Hosea the son of Berai during the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel.
[1:19] First thing I want you to note right off is we are talking about a time period that involved the divided kingdom. You will see two different sets of kings here.
[1:30] One was king over the northern kingdom, which was Israel. Another was king over the southern kingdom, which was Judah. And this division came about when David's grandson, Rehoboam, came to the throne, said that he was going to impose heavy taxation upon the people, and the people said, No, you're not. We're leaving.
[1:54] And they pulled out of the Union, those ten tribes. They established themselves up north. They established their own capital, Samaria. They established their own monarchy.
[2:09] And they called a rebel who had been chased out of the country earlier by the name of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat that made Israel to sin. He had been chased out of the kingdom by Solomon.
[2:22] They called him and brought him back from Egypt where he was in exile. They installed him as the king of the northern ten tribes. And now we have a divided kingdom.
[2:34] And Hosea is prophesying during these individuals' reigns. Note, if you will, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, they are all kings of Judah.
[2:46] And be reminded that Judah remains the legitimate kingdom. That's the one that is the royal line of David. That's where the temple was in Jerusalem. Everything remains intact.
[2:58] But the renegades up north are ruled over by Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. And I want to emphasize that this can be confusing.
[3:11] So you need to bear in mind that sometimes in the Bible when you read the word Israel, it is a synonym for the whole nation.
[3:23] Actually, Jacob, who was the son of Isaac, brother of Esau.
[3:34] Jacob had his name changed. God changed his name from Jacob to Israel. Israel means prince of God in Hebrew.
[3:51] And sometimes when you read Israel, it means all of the twelve tribes. Sometimes when you read Israel, it means just the northern ten tribes after the division of the kingdom.
[4:05] And that took place in 741 or 742 B.C. And then when you read Judah, J-U-D-A-H, it derived its name from the fourth son of Jacob.
[4:27] And this Judah is the head of the royal line. It is through the line of Judah that Christ the Messiah will come. Of course, David was of the line of Judah.
[4:39] Christ is referred to as the lion of the tribe of Judah. So here we've got the northern kingdom, Israel, the southern kingdom, Judah. And by the way, they're all Jews. They're all Israelites.
[4:52] They're all seed of Abraham. But they are divided, just like here in the United States during the Civil War. We had the south and the north, but we were all Americans.
[5:03] Yet we were a divided nation. So that's similar to what's taking place here. And Hosea has been raised up of God to prophesy to these two nations.
[5:16] And bear in mind that prophets that were raised up of God never came on the scene to just be able to announce, God sent me to tell you that everything is just great.
[5:33] Just keep doing what you've been doing. Everything's wonderful. We don't have any prophets like that. Prophets were always delivering corrective rebuke because those to whom they were prophesying were always in need of it.
[5:51] Christ confronted the scribes and the Pharisees with a very solemn accusation when he said, Which of the prophets did not your ancestors persecute?
[6:07] Pretty heavy indictment. And the reason they persecuted them was because when you don't like the message, kill the messenger and abuse the messenger.
[6:21] And that's what often happens. So you've got a whole string of prophets who were raised up of God, who were faithful in delivering the messages that God gave them. And they were never appreciated.
[6:32] Not Elijah, not Elisha, not John the Baptist, not any of them, and not Hosea. So let's read on. Verse 2. When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, Go take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry.
[6:57] For the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the Lord. Tough order.
[7:12] Hosea, I want you to go down to Times Square and pick up a hooker and marry her and have children by her.
[7:27] Now, there is something within our sensibilities that just naturally rebels at something like that. And we are confident that God could not possibly ask that of Hosea.
[7:41] I mean, that is beyond the pale. So, a number of scholars approach this passage and they say, No, he didn't really do that.
[7:52] And he didn't really mean that. This is all figurative. What he was telling Hosea was to think about it and just imagine how difficult that would be.
[8:06] No, he wasn't doing any such thing. This is what he required of Hosea. And Hosea, like other prophets of God, considered one thing a lot more important than what they wanted to do.
[8:24] And that was whatever God wanted to do. Because when you realize that you live and move and have your being in him, you serve at his pleasure and you draw every breath from the source of this being, this God in whom we live and move and have our being, nothing can please him more and nothing is more in your best interests than to do what he tells you.
[8:57] Whatever that might be. And I'd be the first to admit this is a tough order, but I just want to run this thing by you one time. When we get to heaven, you'll have opportunity to ask Hosea, wasn't that really unfair?
[9:18] Don't you think God was really out of bounds when he asked you to do such a terrible, terrible thing? To marry a prostitute and have babies by her? Yeah. How could he do that?
[9:29] You really got a raw deal, Hosea. Hosea's going to say, hey, I was privileged to be able to do the will of my God.
[9:40] And I had my questions, of course. I'm only human, but I was intent on doing his will more than mine. And in like manner, of course, our Lord's only ambition was my meat is to do the will of him that sent me.
[10:00] Nothing mattered to Christ more than fulfilling the Father's will. And I just want to say this in passing. Whatever it is God requires of anybody, I don't care how bizarre it looks or how unsavory it looks or how impossible it looks, God can be trusted and he knows what he's doing.
[10:25] We could say the same thing about that man born blind and lived for several years as a blind man so that Christ could heal him at the opportune time.
[10:40] And if you were to ask that blind man, and I'm sure probably plenty of people will when they get to heaven, don't you feel you were cheated out of part of your... No, no, no, no, no. You see, when you have God's perspective, and we don't, we don't, that's one reason we have the scriptures, is to give us God's perspective because our perspective is sorely lacking.
[11:03] We can't even see the next 30 seconds and even if we could, we often wouldn't know what to do with it. But God's perspective is complete. So, trust me, don't feel sorry for Hosea and don't say, man, I could never do that.
[11:18] You can do whatever God calls you to do. So, let us read on. And the reason he's to do this is because the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the Lord.
[11:29] And what was a harlotry? Of course, it was idolatry. That's what the people were steeped in, was the worship of false gods and false idols. And what God is going to do is use Hosea as a living object lesson and example to the nation.
[11:48] And I'm sure it would get their attention. So, he went and took Gomer. Now, I do think if I had been Hosea, I would have found a hooker with a different name.
[12:06] Something about the name Gomer that, I mean, I would have preferred to look for bubbles or somebody like that. But Gomer, oh well, let's go on.
[12:17] The daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. And the Lord said to him, name him Jezreel. Now, there's a reason for all of this.
[12:31] A reason for all of this. Name him Jezreel, for yet a little while, and I will punish the house of Jehu, that was one of the kings, one of the most wicked guys who ever sat on the throne.
[12:46] I will punish the house of Jehu for the bloodshed of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.
[12:59] Now, the way he's going to do that, of course, is he's going to use the Assyrians, a pagan nation, to come down from the north, besiege the city of Samaria, throw up an embankment around it so nobody can get in and nobody can get out, and he's going to starve them out, and it will get to the place of where they will become so desperate, they will result, they will stoop to cannibalism to stay alive, and eventually the city will fall, and they will be carried off into captivity, they'll leave the uneducated behind to till the land, and to send the produce up north, and all of the intelligentsia, and all the shakers, and movers, all the educated people, they will carry off into captivity, and that's going to happen around, I gave you a wrong date before,
[14:02] I think I said 741, 741 is when this captivity happened, this is when the north was carried into Assyrian captivity, 931 was when the kingdom was divided, that's just 70 years after David was on the throne, so make that correction, that mental correction if you will, the northern ten tribes are carried off into northern, into Assyria and northern captivity, and those that remain behind will be intermarried with their captors, and they will begin having children, and these children will come to be known as the Samaritans.
[14:47] Meanwhile, the two tribes in the south, Judah and Benjamin, Jerusalem is in the territory of Benjamin, this is the smallest of all the tribes, and they are going to remain intact as a nation until 586 BC.
[15:09] They will last longer than the northern kingdom, and then Nebuchadnezzar from the east, and Babylon and Chaldee will come over and carry them off into captivity where they will be for 70 years.
[15:23] So, he says, I am going to put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel, and it will come about on that day that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.
[15:36] Then she conceived again and gave birth to a daughter, and the Lord said to him, Name her Loruhamah, for I will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel that I should ever forgive them.
[15:57] But, I will have compassion on the house of Judah, that's the south, and deliver them by the Lord their God, and will not deliver them by bow, sword, battle, horses, or horsemen.
[16:14] When she had weaned Loruhamah, she conceived and gave birth to a son. And the Lord said, Name him Lo-Eme, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.
[16:32] See, these names are very significant. That's exactly what these names mean, and God is using the birth of these babies and the name that's given to them to make an announcement to everyone.
[16:44] You are not my people, and I am not your God. Yet, the number of the sons of Israel will be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered, and it will come about in the place where it is said to them, you are not my people, it will be said to them, you are the sons of the living God.
[17:07] Now, do you see what's taking place here? This is God's people being abandoned, kicked out, disowned, hit the road, I'm through with you.
[17:22] God's people. But as the story goes on, there's a reconciliation. So, there is a time period when they are his people, they are not his people, and they are his people, all of which is conditioned upon the behavior of these nations.
[17:48] it will be said to them, you are the sons of the living God, and the sons of Judah, and the sons of Israel, will be gathered together.
[18:00] Now, what that is saying is, the division of these twelve tribes, with the ten in the north, and the two in the south, that have been divided, they are going to be brought back together again.
[18:13] There will be a reunion of those divided tribes, and they will appoint for themselves one leader, and they will go up from the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.
[18:31] Now, the book we've been using as a base text, Israel Stein, by Bill Salas, has a fascinating chapter dealing with this very issue, and we have got, I just decided, indulge me, I just want to read you some of these paragraphs, and then I'll stop periodically and comment, and if you want to jump in with something, you can, if I don't see your hand raised, just start talking, and I'll stop.
[19:01] This is called, My People Israel, and this is really the crux of the matter, and I would remind you again, this all goes back to the Abrahamic covenant of Genesis 12, and folks, let me repeat it again, the promise that God gave to Abraham is the basis through which and by which God is going to restore the earth and all of humanity.
[19:36] It is through the instrumentality of Abraham and his descendants. This is the Jewish nation. of course, the central player in that, the central figure of all of that, for which God raised up a whole nation to produce him, is Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus the Messiah.
[20:00] He is the principal character, but that which surrounds him is responsible for his birth, and all of that is the nation of Israel, Abraham and his seed.
[20:11] So, let me get into this. God formally recognized the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in Scripture as his people in Exodus 3.7.
[20:23] God declared, I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt. More than 300 years had passed after the death of Jacob, and God, in remembrance of his covenant with Abraham, put the world on notice that these people were my people.
[20:46] There isn't anybody else in Scripture that God ever refers to as my people. There isn't anybody else. And he says, he says to the nation Israel, you only, you only, of all the nations of the earth, have I known.
[21:12] I think that's Amos 3, maybe verse 2. Now that's quite a statement. It doesn't mean that God doesn't know about all of the other nations.
[21:22] He knows about all of them. There isn't any nation he doesn't know about. But he singles out Israel and he says, you are the only ones that I know intimately as a nation.
[21:33] Among all the nations of the earth, you're the only ones. Now that's very, very key. Not long before, Pharaoh of Egypt had attempted to weaken God's people with his campaign to kill their newborn male children.
[21:49] This act, along with his stepped-up enslavement of the Jews, provoked the contents of the Abrahamic covenant into enactment. The historical events that followed evidenced the supremacy of God and his faithfulness to his covenant with Abraham.
[22:07] Everything subsequently fashioned by Pharaoh to harm God's people, boomerang back to harm Pharaoh and his people in a like manner.
[22:17] And this is all connected with, I will bless those who bless you, I will curse those who curse you. The world saw that these, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were the people of God.
[22:29] Nothing could suppress their supreme God from fulfilling his unconditional covenant custom made for Abraham and his descendants, the Jews.
[22:40] And if you wonder, where do the Jews get their name? J-E-W-S. It's nothing more than a shortened word that is in reference to Judah. J-U-D-A-H.
[22:51] But when you shorten it, and as it was often referred to in the Mideast, it just came to be known, people came to be known as the Jews. And it doesn't mean that they were necessarily the tribe of Judah, but it was just a generic term for those of the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they just call them Jews, and still do today.
[23:12] For you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth.
[23:27] The Lord did not set his love on you, nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples, but because the Lord loves you, and because he would keep the oath which he swore to your fathers.
[23:46] The Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Wow.
[23:57] Now listen to this. But because the Lord loves you, and because he would keep the oath which he swore to your fathers, God has to do that.
[24:14] Or he has to resign his position. He cannot be a faithless God. Our author continues, these passages from Deuteronomy, and this is taken from Deuteronomy 7, verses 6-8.
[24:34] They adequately describe the preferred client nation status once bestowed upon Israel. They were the least of all peoples, but because God loved them and swore an oath to their patriarchal fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they would one day become a holy people.
[24:53] They would be the chosen people of God, treasured above all the peoples on earth. People throughout the world would come to know them as my people Israel.
[25:08] But as we study the history of the Jewish people, we see a continual love-hate relationship with God developed amongst their culture throughout time.
[25:21] When they were in love with God, they were obedient to his callings and were blessed accordingly. They were mighty and prosperous, and the land of Israel produced bountifully.
[25:31] However, when they were indifferent toward God and had digressed into idolatrous practices, God severely disciplined them. Jewish leadership misdirected the nation.
[25:46] The military experienced defeat. Rain did not fall in due season, and the land failed to produce. This is all tied with what God told the children of Israel through Moses when they were ready to come into the promised land.
[26:03] He said, all of these blessings will be yours. And he enumerated them in the latter couple of chapters of Deuteronomy. Folks, if you will just do what God tells you, here's all the good things you can expect.
[26:18] Long list of blessings. blessings. But you need to know in advance. If you think you found a better way, and you want to go your own way and disobey God, then these are all the curses that you can anticipate.
[26:34] And we know that's exactly what's going to happen. Ron? I have a question. I assume the Israelites actually built the pyramids, and I wonder if you have a theory of why the pyramids are not mentioned in the Bible.
[26:48] Well, it might be a gratuitous assumption that they built the pyramids. I'm not saying they didn't.
[26:58] I'm just saying we don't have any clear evidence that they did. But if I could defer your questions later, I think there is a veiled reference, maybe in Isaiah 28, if it didn't move.
[27:18] And remind me, we'll get back to that, okay? Because that's an important thing. Okay. Let's see, where am I?
[27:31] Okay, yes. it says that their land will be blessed if they obey. The Israelites went back to the promised land after the second world war, and the land produced wonderfully well.
[27:49] Yeah. Well, is the Lord blessing them in spite of their not trusting him? Well, I guess the blessing would be considered a relative thing.
[28:01] I, there is no question that that the progress and the improvements that have occurred in Israel in the last 60 years is absolutely astounding.
[28:19] Because what they did was through their just plain hard work and labor and sacrifice, they made improvements, they made the land produce, while virtually all of their Arab neighbors were locked in the 18th century, and many of them still are, and they haven't even begun to keep pace, and Israel has just run off with the technology improvements, advances, everything.
[28:54] So, in a way, in a way, they are a blessed people, but nothing like what God really has in store for them.
[29:06] So, I guess we would say that it's a relative thing. And if you call their population dodging rockets from Gaza on an almost daily basis, you know, that's another thing.
[29:21] Well, let's go on. several Old Testament passages remind us that their dominant tendency was to be fickle rather than faithful to their calling as the client nation.
[29:35] As such, God gave official notice through Hosea the prophet that a time would arrive whereby the client nation Israel would become not my people, and would be stripped of their coveted My People Israel title.
[29:54] The ramifications of the fulfillment of this prophecy were staggering. Humans could question the very character of God's covenant-making capabilities if indeed God disinherited the true descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
[30:10] Excuse me. then from Genesis 22, then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven and said, by myself I have sworn, says the Lord.
[30:26] And that's an interesting expression, and it's going to be repeated in Hebrews, where God says, I swore by myself. Why did God swear by himself?
[30:40] Because there was none greater by whom he could swear. He was the only one. So he swore by himself. It's a curious expression, because just about every time man takes an oath or swears, if he's going on a witness stand or something like that, the idea is to swear by God to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but it.
[31:01] And God says, I made a promise, and it is a sworn promise, and I swore by myself to myself.
[31:12] Well, why did you do that? Well, because there wasn't anyone else to swear to. So, when you're the God of the universe, you don't have any competition. So, he says, by myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing.
[31:31] And he explains what this thing is. And have not withheld your son, Isaac, your only son, blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is on the seashore.
[31:50] And your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. How many descendants does Abraham have as of God saying this?
[32:02] One. Isaac. That was it. I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is on the seashore. And your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies.
[32:17] That's speaking, of course, of conquest over their enemies. In your seed, in your descendants, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.
[32:33] Genesis 22, 15-18. The angel of the Lord, which scholars commonly teach to be an Old Testament reference to the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ, and I couldn't agree more.
[32:46] I think that the angel of the Lord that appeared to Abraham was clearly a Christophany. He tells Abraham that God has sworn by nothing less than his own righteous character.
[32:57] That because Abraham obeyed God, Abraham's descendants would multiply without end. In those days, the numerical equivalent to infinity was the innumerable number of the stars of heaven or the grains of sand on the seashore.
[33:15] This scripture offers no opt-out clause. God based this sworn oath to multiply the descendants of Abraham upon an obedient act of Abraham, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, and no matter how many the disobedient acts of his descendants that followed may have been, and they were plenty, this promise was understood to be irreversible.
[33:45] In other words, Abraham and his descendants are locked in tight, and they cannot be unlocked, because God made an oath whereby he swore by himself.
[34:03] The question then arises, could it be that the multiplication of Abraham's descendants will never cease, but, unlike their father Abraham, they as a people might reach a point of hardening or callousness toward God.
[34:22] Those who recognize the contents of the Abrahamic covenant could not conclude this definitively, because through one of his descendants, his seed, all the nations of the earth were to be blessed.
[34:37] To the spectator, it would appear as though God had indeed painted himself into a corner by Hosea's prophecy, because Hosea declares that the God of Abraham, will at some point cease to be the God of Abraham's descendants, the Jewish people.
[34:56] Reminding you of 1, 8, and 9 of Hosea. Now, when she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, she conceived and bear a son, and God said, call his name Lo-Am-I, for you are not my people, and I will not be your God.
[35:15] Then, almost in the next breath, Hosea quotes the multiplication of Abraham's descendants clause. Yet, and this is still Hosea, yet, and that yet is a big three-letter word, yet, the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered.
[35:38] And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, you are not my people. There it shall be said to them, you are sons of the living God. Welcome home.
[35:54] That's just something that I added. That's not in the text, but I think it's implied. Welcome home. I'm glad you're back. There appeared to be an identity crisis in the making.
[36:08] On the one hand, Jews were the blessed by people Israel because God swore an oath to Abraham. on the other because as a people they generally disobeyed God. He would disqualify them at some point from that coveted title.
[36:23] They would be known as not my people, though they would never face ultimate extermination as they were still promised to multiply without end.
[36:34] Lastly, as a nation, the Lord would classify them as sons of the living God. what was happening here? It was as if the Jewish people were playing Russian roulette with their heritage.
[36:52] How was this turn of events prophetically scheduled to occur? To understand this better, it is important to go back historically to the point whereby my people Israel became not my people.
[37:08] Though Hosea 1, 9, and 10 speaks of a time, when Israel would be reclassified as not my people, this declassification did not find final fulfillment during Hosea's time, whose ministry spanned from 750 to 725 B.C., a period of 25 years.
[37:28] Rather, it was a prophecy of events to come. The title, My People Israel, continued to apply even during the time of the prophet Jeremiah, whose ministry began in the 13th year of Josiah.
[37:46] They continued to hold the title, even during the Babylonian captivity, evidenced by the fact that Daniel was still prophesying from within Babylon during that period.
[38:00] Now, let me just give you a little bit of something to consider here. The way these people, the way these ancients looked at these things is, excuse me, the Babylonians had their own deities, the Assyrians had their own deities, and they were pagan, multiple deities, but of course Israel just had the one true God, that is, for the faithful people.
[38:28] But what was the great sin that caused them to be carried into captivity? It was idolatry. It was their, thank you Keith, it was their submitting to the temptation of worshipping the pagan deities around them that got them in all this trouble in the first place.
[38:48] And one would think from the standpoint of just pure justice that God would say, all right, you want to worship these other deities?
[38:59] Fine, go your own way, and I'll just write you off permanently. You are not deserving of me anyway, so long. And that would have been just.
[39:14] But it's something that God can't do. Because when he has committed himself and has given his word and has wrapped this thing up as an unconditional covenant, he cannot renege on it.
[39:30] This is a principal thing that separates God from man. God cannot deny himself. He cannot deny his word.
[39:43] He's locked in. And he did so voluntarily. And even when they went into Babylonian captivity, remember Daniel was probably 10 or 12 years old, and he's going to be in Babylon for almost the rest of his life.
[40:06] And he will be an old man by the time the 70-year captivity is up. Roger? Well, I think it will become clear as we read on.
[40:28] If it isn't, bring it up again and we'll deal with it. Okay? Let's continue. It was not plausible to think that the Jewish people lost this coveted title during the post-exilic period after the Babylonian captivity, which ended in 536 B.C., as they were instructed in the Old Testament book of Nehemiah to return to their homeland, Israel, and rebuild their temple in Jerusalem.
[40:55] During that time, God was still communicating with his people of Israel through the post-exilic prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Now, remember that. When God used Artaxerxes and Ahasuerus to send the children of Israel back, Nehemiah had instructions, build the wall, Ezra had instructions, rebuild the temple, it was going to be business as usual, resuming, and God was in charge of the whole thing.
[41:28] And God said, I'm going to give you over to your enemy, I'm going to use pagans to discipline you, and you're going to be in a strange land, you are going to be their slaves for 70 years, and I'm going to keep you there until this whole generation dies off, and I'm going to bring your kids back.
[41:49] And all the while, they are under divine jurisdiction. This is a time of their chastisement. even up to the time of the first advent of Christ, they were still operating in the official capacity of my people Israel, as evidenced by the fact that John the Baptist, also a Jewish prophet, continued to disseminate prophecy.
[42:14] This is very important. I mean, this is very important. John's gospel opens up with, there was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
[42:27] And he raised up John the Baptist to prophesy to his covenant people. And if they were no longer God's people, if he had permanently written them off, God isn't going to send John the Baptist to them, to warn them or to tell them about anything.
[42:47] Why should he? Forget it. They're not my people, but they were his people, because he's locked into them. For over 700 years, the inference inherent in this prophecy haunted the Jews.
[43:00] And he's talking about this statement in Hosea, you are not my people. And the Jews would read that, you are not my people. That cut, especially a faithful Jew, that would cut them right to the quick.
[43:17] Ooh, ooh, we are not his people. when could that be? How could we not be his people?
[43:29] When is that going to happen? How is that going to happen? I don't want to be around when that happens. This was heavy medicine for these people. It haunted the Jews.
[43:41] Then came the seed, Christ. Until that point, the Jews continually wondered when they would become not my people.
[43:52] What generation would be stripped from the responsibilities of the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises given by God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
[44:05] This is Romans 9 and Romans 10. All these were appointed to the people of God, my people, Israel.
[44:16] And no one else, no other nation on earth was given the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, the promises. Only Israel.
[44:28] Could it be, now the plot thickens. This is where it gets really critical. Could it be that Gentiles would someday replace the Jews in God's eyes?
[44:48] As preposterous as the thought appeared, Old Testament prophecies familiar to the Jews spoke of the Messiah.
[45:00] Listen to this. Spoke of the Messiah. And who is a Messiah? A Jew. spoke of the Messiah being a light to the Gentiles.
[45:20] That's enough to make the Jews a little nervous, isn't it? This is an important area of study because the assumption within the preponderance of the church today is that this was exactly what happened.
[45:39] Many believe that God is done with the Jew and that the Jewish people are no longer my people Israel. They believe that the Jew has no further place within the overall prophetic plan of God.
[45:56] They surmise that the church has replaced them as the people of God. Estimates tell us this dangerous misconception known as replacement theology is held by as much as 85% of the visible church.
[46:19] So you belong to a tiny minority of about 15% of Christians throughout the world.
[46:30] including Roman Catholic and virtually all of the Protestants who take the position that the church has taken over for Israel.
[46:43] Israel is gone permanently. We must now look at the nation of Israel, at when the nation of Israel lost its coveted title.
[47:00] God finally fulfilled this prophecy in the generation that rejected Christ. Matthew 12 24. This was when the nation Israel committed the unpardonable sin, the denial of Christ as Messiah based on demon possession.
[47:19] And from that time forward, the title began to wane. And beginning in A.D. 70, and continuing into the centuries of worldwide dispersion that followed, the Jews assumed the title, not my people.
[47:35] The fulfillment of Hosea's prophecy had finally come, and the Abrahamic covenant hung in the balance. Would God abandon the covenant he made with Abraham and, in so doing, disinherit Abraham's children, the Jewish people?
[47:54] perhaps he would replace the true descendants of Abraham with Gentiles. It would be highly unlikely that he would choose the former because to abandon an unconditional covenant would be to defame his own character as the true God over all creation.
[48:12] I really like what our author says in the next statement. One can bet that Satan and his fallen angels packed the theater at that time to see God work his way out of this quandary.
[48:30] Uh-oh, how's the big guy going to get out of this? He's boxed himself in a corner. The answer everyone awaited finally came in one of the eight mysteries of the New Testament.
[48:45] A mystery is the revealing of information in the New Testament that had not been disclosed in the Old. Years later, Paul resolved the dilemma by introducing the mystery.
[48:57] Romans 11, 25, So that you may not claim to be wiser than you are, brothers and sisters, I want you to understand this mystery. A hardening has come upon part of Israel until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.
[49:18] Romans 11, 25. It was no mystery that Israel would become hardened. After all, they would eventually become so calloused that they would become not my people.
[49:33] Neither was it a mystery that God would call a full number of Gentiles to be saved. However, it was indeed a mystery that not all Jews would be classified as not my people.
[49:49] This is blindness in part has happened to Israel. God's surprise was keeping the Abrahamic covenant intact by holding on to a believing faction of the Jews as the true descendants of Abraham.
[50:07] These believing Jews never assumed the title of not my people. They were simply reclassified from my people Israel to my people the church.
[50:20] Hence, we must now touch upon a second of the New Testament mysteries, the fellowship mystery. And you know that verse in Romans where Paul says, they are not all Israel that are Israel?
[50:34] What did he mean by that? It's the same thing as saying they are not all Christians who are called Christians. Same principle. And the fellowship mystery is by which when you read you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men as it has now been revealed by the spirit to his holy apostles and prophets that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body and partakers with the believing Jews of his promise in Christ the seed of Abraham through the gospel we therefore understand that God is not done with the Jew as the apostle Paul so aptly asserted in Romans 9 through 11 Paul specifically reminds us in Romans 9 25 and 26 of what Hosea 1 disclosed and Paul says as he says also in
[51:36] Hosea I will yet again call them my people Israel who were not my people and her beloved who was not beloved and it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them you are not my people there they shall be called sons of the living God we see that as Abraham promised their father as God promised their father Abraham God will never be done with the Jews though the greater part of the client nation the hardened part was temporarily stripped of the coveted title my people Israel number of Gentiles has come in the Jews were never erased entirely from God's last will and testament in addition to being heirs of the unconditional Abrahamic covenant they will be the recipients of numerous old and new testament end time prophecies yet to occur and here's the last paragraph the hardness or blindness of the nation of Israel will end after the fullness of the
[52:43] Gentiles has come in which is another way of saying after the body of Christ is complete and the rapture occurs and the church is removed then the fullness of the Gentiles will be come in and that's when the veil will be taken off the eyes of the Jew and that's tribulational content involves 144,000 12,000 from each tribe Jews worldwide will come to Christ by the droves and many will be martyred for doing so furthermore we know that ultimately all Israel will be saved that's exactly what the text says in Romans 11 the national salvation of Israel occurs with the second coming of Christ and from that point forward all of Israel remains saved throughout the messianic kingdom it is at that point that the world comes to know them as sons of the living God yet several scriptures inform us that before this happens the
[53:49] Jewish people will go from their present not my people status to their former world renowned title my people Israel we need then to determine when the Jewish people who are presently not my people become my people Israel Ezekiel wrote several prophecies clearly identifying the Jewish nation in advance of the second coming of Christ as my people Israel and that's where we're going from here Ezekiel and we'll have to reserve that for the next study because that really puts the icing on the cake and I want to remind you that next week will also be our final session we'll be breaking for the summer and the ladies are going to crank up their midweek Bible class the following Sunday or the following Wednesday now questions somebody anybody the pyramids was that did I say
[54:53] Isaiah 28 boy I got a different Bible tonight that's maybe it isn't maybe it isn't 28 well the word pyramid is not used but what it is referred to as is it's referred to as not a stone not an emblem boy I can't think of it anyway it talks about the reference
[56:14] I'm looking for I thought sure that was 28 16 no no no that's it no well if I have my concordance here I could probably dig it out real quick but anyway what the text says what the text says is that there will be a mark that is placed in Egypt and it says it almost sounds contradictory it says it will be placed on the border of
[57:16] Egypt in the middle or in the midst and it almost sounds contradictory but if you look at where the pyramid the great pyramid there's only one pyramid really I mean there's a lot of pyramids but there's only one great pyramid that's the pyramid of Cheops and that is a fascinating study in itself it is just mind boggling how they got the precise measurements of that thing and you know something our top notch technicians today still cannot figure out how they cored those stones how they made them so precise and how they fitted them together without any mortar and made them as perfect as they do and all of the other pyramids are just copycats of the original there's only one original that's the great pyramid and there is speculation that
[58:19] Job may have been the engineer of that and we can't prove that one way or another but it goes back that far it's about that old but anyway when it says about the Lord said that he would use it it would be on the border of Egypt in the midst and it sounds like well how can it be on the border and in the midst but what it is is it on the length of Egypt and that's precisely where it is located today and whether it's going to have any part to play or not I don't know but there is a fascinating thing to consider about the pyramid the great pyramid once they got inside the thing found the secret passages and everything and got inside it they could see from where they were standing and they looked right up through the shaft outside daylight and everything and they could anticipate what the position of the stars were and it's a slam dunk for astronomers today to be able to calculate where stars were at what given times because they move about so predictably and in a very precise way and as you viewed the star constellations at what they believe was the time of the birth of
[59:56] Christ the constellation that was in view was Virgo interesting the Virgin yes to me that kind of leads credence that the Israelites built the pyramids because being so accurate in measurements and everything they could very well have gotten to the council of God that's true and I'm not saying that they didn't build them I'm just saying that we would really be able to take it to the bank if there was some reference or if the Israelites ever made a reference to that and it strikes me as a little strange that as monumental a project as that was and it was a monumental project that there's no mention of it of their building it or anything and that's that's hard to understand but I don't know there's a lot of things hard to understand were there other comments or questions
[60:58] Jean this is removed from what we were just discussing but during the second world war when the Jewish people were so persecuted and we still feel that they were being mistreated by Hitler terribly but according to this fellow this was another time of testing for the Jews we never even thought of it as that it is a time of testing for the Jews and it's also a time of divine discipline we didn't know that no of course not and there isn't any way that you can justify what Hitler did saying well the Jews had a coming after all it was their time of discipline and God used Hitler to murder 6 million of them and I will say this it would have been no problem at all for God to have prevented
[61:59] Hitler from doing that don't tell me he couldn't have don't tell me that God was helpless you can't take that position that's ridiculous so again we're back to this thing of perspective God allows man to exercise his evil without stepping in and preventing it that doesn't justify man doing evil it just means that God has bestowed this incredibly powerful thing upon humanity called volition and he honors the volition that he has given us that doesn't mean that we're not responsible for our choices but it just means that we have the power to make those choices and they can be pretty bad ones it's an awesome thing to consider
[63:07] Carolyn well in in my opinion they would be Jews who are in line with Jesus as their Messiah and the Jews who are not are still in this realm of not my people next week what I would like to do is spend this last session with modern Israel and what's happening now with the neighbors around them and the Psalm 83 thing and it's going to be necessary to spend some time on Islam and you you will be surprised you will be surprised about
[64:11] Islam next week did I say Keith did you have questions it would appear that you see the double speak of God they're no longer my people that almost those generations die off and it would appear just surmising that they don't know they have any proof scripturally that this is the case but for example the three Hebrew children they were young men they could have been teenagers or very young men that it was mothers that was the line of belief that they were instructed by probably their mothers not their fathers that that's a valid point yeah and I wonder if that isn't continuing to happen or has especially so long here we have these things where God seems to throw them away because they deserve it and then up comes a little plant you know someone faithful someone instructed in the truths of the
[65:17] Old Testament and it was probably probably the Jewish mothers were used to do that yeah God often has used historically he has often used adversity and he has often used pagans to discipline his own people and his discipline of them for their grumbling and murmuring in the wilderness remember he said okay you murmur against me you won't believe me and they wouldn't believe the two spies when they came back with the report of spying out the land God said you're going to just march around in circles here in the wilderness for 38 years until every last one of this cursed generation dies off and there's going to be two survivors Joshua and Caleb and I'm going to bring your kids in but I'm not going to bring you in you're going to march around circles here until you die and then he raised up
[66:20] Joshua to bring them in and he let that whole generation die off and when he had them carried into Babylonian captivity he said you're going to be there 70 years why 70 years well it had to do with their violation of not allowing the land to rest give the land that's Sabbath rest that they'd abused that for several years but at the end of that time that whole generation stubborn rebellious Jews they will have died off too and I'll bring in a fresh batch of Jews and start with them bring them back to the land just fascinating but through it all through it all God is absolutely utterly faithful Chuck oh thank you 1919 well it did move I've got a slippery Bible okay 1919 in that day unalter that's the word
[67:23] I was looking for and I cannot say that that's what this is but it fits the description in that day and you have to read the whole context here to see what the in that day is in that day there will be an altar to the Lord I think this is millennial in the midst of the land of Egypt and a pillar or it could read here the phrase could read the land of Egypt even a pillar to the Lord near its border and it will become a sign and a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt and like I said where the pyramid physically is located right now fits this description I don't know I can't say for sure that's what it's referring to but it may well be it it will be oh really well I haven't got that far okay well
[68:26] I'll look that up and I'm sorry we're going over on our time but we'll wrap this up next week not not wrap it up because there's so much more that could be said but we'll have to wrap it up next week and we'll spend some time on on Islam and I think it'll be very enlightening to you okay let's pray thank you father for another demonstration from your word regarding your incredible faithfulness and your integrity and how that we are able to take you at your word no matter what and you're the faithful God who keeps covenant thank you for that your wonderful name amen