The Jewish Final Solution to the World's Problem - The Jewish Beat Goes On

[0:00] The Jewish beat goes on. And this morning we're going to be looking a little bit at three chapters in Romans.

[0:12] So please turn to Romans chapter 9. And we'll be in Romans 9, Romans 10, and Romans 11.

[0:32] Romans chapter 9, the first five verses. I am telling the truth in Christ. I am not lying.

[0:45] My conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart.

[0:57] For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption of sons, and the glory and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the temple service in the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever.

[1:38] Amen. Then go to chapter 10, and there we'll be looking at the first five verses also.

[1:51] Brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation. For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge.

[2:10] For not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.

[2:22] For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. For Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on law shall live by that righteousness.

[2:45] Okay, please turn to chapter 11. And there also we'll be looking at the first five verses.

[2:58] I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be. For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.

[3:16] God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel?

[3:35] Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have torn down your altars, and I alone am left. And they are seeking my life.

[3:49] But what is the divine response to Him? I have kept for myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.

[4:02] In the same way then, there has also come to be, at the present time, a remnant, according to God's gracious choice.

[4:22] These three brief passages from the book of Romans provide perhaps the most significant commentary as regards the nation of Israel and its future in as brief a space as you will find anywhere in the Scriptures.

[4:44] And we just want to remind you that the entirety of the world's population is made up of people who are Shemites, Hamites, and Japhethites.

[5:02] What in the world does that mean? Well, those three names are the three different sons of Noah. They were survivors that came off the ark after the great flood.

[5:16] and they, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, each of those three sons with their wives began multiplying and reproducing and we, today, are the net result of that.

[5:31] All of the people who have ever lived in the world from the time of the great flood to the present time is a descendant of one of those three sons of Noah.

[5:43] It is almost certain that probably 99% of us here are from the Japhethic region and they were principally responsible for settling in what we would refer to as general Europe and East or West Asia and then the Hamidic people are those that settled primarily in Egypt and Africa and perhaps in the Far East comprising what we refer to as the yellow race including the Japanese and the Chinese and then the tiniest percentage of all are those Shemitic people or the Semites and they are out of the line of Shem.

[6:32] So the vast majority of us are descendants of people who were originally in Europe. Most of us have ancestors who came over to the United States from Europe probably in the 1800s maybe as early as the 1700s and despite the fact that there are probably an estimated about 3 million people that must have been on the Mayflower when they came over because it seems like so many have descendants that came over on the Mayflower.

[7:02] You wonder how that dinky little boat could hold everybody. That's, you know what I mean. Anyway, and out of all of those three major human groups the smallest of course is the Shemitic or those of the Semites and they are Jewish people and they are also Arab people.

[7:25] By the way I'll never be able to get the picture out of my mind it was just so stunning. All I could do was just stare at it for several minutes. This was a front page cover of Time Magazine that was in the 1970s and it just had this stunning picture of these two men on Time Magazine's cover and they were facing each other and one of them was Menachem Begin whose history you have in today's bulletin and the other was Anwar Sadat.

[8:06] and the caption below the picture was Isaac and Ishmael meet again. I looked at that and I thought well whatever isn't that something.

[8:20] Here are these age old enemies and they were coming together for a peace accord that of course didn't take none of their peace accords have taken and they won't until the real prince of peace organizes one.

[8:38] But this was when President Jimmy Carter was in the White House and he had orchestrated or brokered this get together at Camp David and out of it came the Camp David Accords but of course they turned out to be not worth the paper they were written on.

[8:58] And that's you know we have to admire men for making efforts like that to make those kind of good things happen but the problem is so deep and so beyond them and above them that they just cannot really begin to comprehend all that's involved.

[9:14] So this age old conflict has gone on from Isaac to Ishmael and the beat goes on today nothing has changed. Much of the Arab world there that surrounds the tiny little nation of Israel is intent on destroying it.

[9:33] Some of its neighbors are much more hostile toward Israel than others but they all would love to see Israel just pushed into the sea and forgotten.

[9:45] And yet as we have attempted to make it clear from the outset Israel was and remains the apple of God's eye and they are the principal vehicle through which world peace will ultimately come and it will be a genuine world peace when Jesus Christ is ruling and reigning as the son of David in Jerusalem.

[10:09] This is something that could take place in our lifetime. We do not know. We view the possibility of the removal of the church as being imminent.

[10:20] This is the blessed hope of which Titus speaks in chapter 3 looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. I think that's Titus 3.5 and we are told in 1 Corinthians 15 that in a moment in the twinkling of an eye we shall be changed.

[10:40] Our corruptible bodies will be made incorruptible. Our mortal bodies will become immortal and we shall all be changed. Paul tells us in the Thessalonian epistles in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump the trumpet shall sound the dead in Christ shall be raised incorruptible and we which are alive and remain will be caught up with them to be together in the clouds.

[11:03] It's a glorious time. That could happen before I finish this message. There isn't anything that needs to take place before this event referred to as the rapture of the church could occur.

[11:17] And when it does then evil is going to have a holiday the likes of which it has never had before because all of the salt and light is gone.

[11:30] salt is that which retards decay and preserves. And when Jesus referred to believers as being the salt of the earth he meant that you are an ameliorating substance on the earth and you help prevent things from going as bad as they could be.

[11:55] And that influence will be gone as well as the spiritual light with it. So it will be a time when Satan and his minions will have a heyday the likes of which they have never had before.

[12:11] And shortly thereafter probably we don't know exactly how much time will transpire after the rapture of the church. But at some point afterwards the contract that will be drawn up between the Antichrist and the nation of Israel as described in chapter 9 of Daniel will be signed.

[12:35] And when it is the clock starts ticking. And it is a clock that will tick off 183,800 days I believe it is which will be the equivalent of seven years.

[12:51] It is the time of Jacob's trouble. It is the tribulation period. Jesus describes it. You can find it in some detail in Matthew 24 and 25.

[13:03] Eventually we'll be there. But he said it is a time such as the world has never seen before and will never see again. There will be occasions when one third of the earth's population will be decimated.

[13:23] absolutely eliminated. We aren't talking about thousands of people. We're not even talking about millions of people. We're talking about billions with a B people.

[13:39] You just can't imagine that. That is beyond our ability to comprehend. We look at the Jews who were gassed and tortured and put to death in the Nazi prison camps in World War II.

[13:52] and that was 6 million. And as horrible as that was, that will be nothing in comparison to what this world will be looking at. There will be earthquakes, multiple, multiple earthquakes in multiple places.

[14:08] There will be cataclysmic signs in the heavens. There's going to be stellar disturbances that we do not now understand. It is going to be absolutely horrific.

[14:20] You just cannot imagine it. It will also be that time when no one will be able to buy or sell or to save life, probably will not even be able to secure drinking water without having the mark of the beast.

[14:37] It will be unimaginable what that is going to be like. And that is all described upcoming. But before we get there, I want to refer you to Matthew's gospel because we are talking about the Jew and the strategic nature of the Jew.

[14:56] And let me just put it this way. The Jew and the Jewish nation is even far more strategic than what they themselves know. The Jewish people have no idea what God has in store for them.

[15:15] or how pivotal and critical they are actually going to be when these events start transpiring. They have been chosen by God to be the spearhead nation for the entire world.

[15:28] And actually, we could go all the way back and I won't take you there, but just let me refer you to Exodus chapter 19.

[15:41] When in conjunction with calling the nation of Israel, and giving them the law of Moses there on Mount Sinai, God said to them, I am going to make you, Israel, I am going to make you a nation of priests.

[15:59] Now, this is really important, but it's a verse that's just easy to just read over and keep on reading and you never really settle on it or understand the significance. What does that mean?

[16:11] He said, I'm going to make you a nation of priests. I'm just going to give you a little thing to think about and keep it in the back of your mind because it's going to crop up time and again as we go through this series.

[16:23] God established the nation of Israel as a priestly nation, but he established them as 12 tribes, and each of those 12 tribes is given a name.

[16:37] They're found back in the Old Testament, and well, they're in the new too, but we won't belabor the point and go there except to say that the third tribe was Levi.

[16:50] He was a son named Levi, and the book of Leviticus is named after Levi because that's the priestly book, and Levi was the priestly tribe in the same way that Judah, who was a fourth-born son, is the royal tribe.

[17:06] He's the line through which the Messiah was to come, through which King David was to come, and our Lord Jesus, indeed He was. So the tribe of Levi functioned in a priestly capacity for the other 11 tribes.

[17:23] They were the ones who were responsible for establishing the tabernacle, and they created all the items of furniture, and they got together the animals for sacrifice and worship.

[17:33] They were the ones who established the ritual. They were the ones who had the high priest and all of the Levites and the priests and the sub-priests under them, and they established this elaborate system of worship and ritual, and that was the responsibility of the Levites.

[17:49] They were the priestly tribe for the other 11 tribes, and a priest, biblically, a priest is someone, a priest is a man who is a go-between between man and God, and he represents man to God.

[18:05] A prophet is a go-between who represents God to man. So we've got a two-way communication here. Well, with Levi functioning as the priestly tribe, nobody gave too much thought to the idea that the whole nation is going to be a priestly nation.

[18:28] What does that mean, and how does that affect Levi and his being the priest tribe for the other 11? Well, it's just, he is saying that I'm going to make the whole nation of Israel to be a nation of priests for all of the other nations.

[18:49] And that includes everybody. That includes England and Great Britain and Ireland and Scotland and the United States and Germany and Afghanistan.

[19:00] It includes everybody. They are to be the priestly nation for all of the others. Well, how has that ever worked? It never has. It has never even come close to working.

[19:12] So, what is God just blowing smoke when he makes a statement like that? Or are we not supposed to take it literally? And if we take it figuratively, what in the world does it mean?

[19:26] It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't make any sense at all. So, we opt for the position that no, it's to be taken very literally, but it never has happened. Never has come to pass.

[19:38] And you know, some people are of the opinion that when something is prophesied or promised in a couple of hundred years, it goes by and it hasn't been fulfilled. Well, it didn't mean that anyway. Never is going to be fulfilled.

[19:49] It just doesn't mean anything. That's not the nature of the word of God. There hath not failed one word of all that he has promised.

[20:00] And God's going to bring to pass everything that he's promised, including making Israel a nation of priests for all the rest of the world. The time is coming when Israel is going to be established in their land and Jesus Christ himself is going to occupy the throne there in Jerusalem.

[20:21] Jerusalem. And he is going to rule and reign over the entire world from Jerusalem. And the whole earth will be at peace in a way that it has never been at peace before because the prince of peace will be on the throne.

[20:37] And we are told that men will make their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.

[20:49] In other words, implements of war will be done away with and everything will be implements of domestic use. And nations will learn war no more.

[21:01] We've never come close to having a time like that. This is all going to come about through this tiny, little, seemingly insignificant nation that doesn't occupy any more real state than the state of New Jersey.

[21:18] New Jersey, you look at New Jersey and it's so little on a U.S. map that they don't hardly have room enough to put anything in there except the initials NJ.

[21:29] That's how small New Jersey is. And that's about how small Israel is. Tiny little nation like that. And God says, these people are the apple of my eye. He's going to use them in a way that they could never imagine.

[21:43] And you know, the ironic thing about it is, is occasionally I have opportunity to talk to a Jewish person and get into some of these things and they give me this jaw-dropping look as if I'm from another planet when I talk about some of these things.

[21:59] They just can't fathom this. And it's a tragic thing that so many Jewish people today who are so dearly and deeply loved by their Messiah do not know him and they have no clue what God has in store for them.

[22:17] My, my, my. Well, you don't get hardly any argument from anybody about the Old Testament being Jewish, but turn if you would for a moment to Matthew and we'll just graze through here for a few things and then, oh my, I wasn't going to do much talking this morning, were I?

[22:36] Well, you see here, when you open the Gospel of Matthew in this first chapter, you're looking at a whole bunch of names.

[22:52] Half of them are hard to pronounce. And you know, there is a tendency to just scan over that list and say, yeah, there sure are a bunch of names there. It doesn't mean anything to me and I can't particularly understand what's the significance of including all these anyway.

[23:07] Were these real people? These really, oh yeah, they really live. They're real people. Yeah. And they have one thing in common and that is every one of them is a Jew.

[23:20] Well, not every one of them. Some of them. Some of them became converts to Judaism. There are three ladies involved here. And these three ladies, well, let's see.

[23:32] We've got in Matthew chapter one. Yeah, we have Ruth. Ruth is a Gentile and she came to faith in the God of Israel.

[23:48] Remember that really tender expression that she made to her mother Naomi when Naomi said, you might as well go back to Moab with your sister Orpah because I don't have anything to offer you.

[24:01] And you wouldn't have any future coming with me. And remember what Ruth says. Ruth says, no, your people shall be my people.

[24:13] And your God will be my God. Your land will be my land. And wherever you lodge, I will lodge. And that's a very tender expression. It's used a lot of times in marriage ceremonies and things like that.

[24:26] But do you know what she was doing there? Ruth was converting. She was converting from the pagan Moabite religion that actually sacrificed children.

[24:38] She was converting from that to the God of Israel. And she said, and your God will be my God. And remember Rahab the harlot when Joshua and Caleb went out to spy out the land.

[24:59] And they went into the land, into the city of Jericho. And Rahab the harlot, practicing the oldest profession, had a little place there on the corner of the city.

[25:12] She took them in and hid them. Remember, hid them under a bunch of flax when they came looking for them. And they said, because you rescued us and because you saved us, when we come and attack this city, you will be safe.

[25:27] Now you take this red cord and you tie this red cord around your home. And we're going to give word to our troops when we attack that they are to attack every home that doesn't have that red cord on it.

[25:42] And you will be spared. And she became a believer. And her name was Rahab the harlot. She is in this genealogical line. we don't know if she married Joshua or if she married Caleb, but she is a direct ancestress of Jesus Christ as a converted woman to Judaism.

[26:08] And all of these names here, these are all Jewish. They're all Jewish. And when you come over to chapter 2, we've got an account given regarding the birth of our Lord.

[26:23] And of course, these are all Jews. Chapter 3, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness. Well, who is John the Baptist? He was a Jew. His mother was a Jew, and his father was a Jew.

[26:37] His father was a priest. His name was Zacharias. His mother's name was Elizabeth. And they gave birth to John the Baptizer. And he is a Jew. And when these people come out to John to be baptized, who are these people that are coming to him for baptism?

[26:55] They are Jews. And what are they getting ready for? Why are they doing that? You know who was baptized up before this time? It was just priests.

[27:07] Only the priests were baptized like this. They went through the ritual purification and the cleansing as their induction into the priesthood. and they went through this ceremonial purification.

[27:20] But John, when John is baptizing all these people who are coming to him, there's no indication that he is asking them, by the way, are you from the tribe of Levi?

[27:31] Because if you're not from the tribe of Levi, you can't be a priest. No? Well, he was from the tribe of Levi, but he didn't request that anybody else should be. Why was that?

[27:42] What's going on here? Now, when you start connecting the dots, it gets pretty profound. What was it that God said way back in Exodus 19-7?

[27:53] I'm going to make you a nation of priests. So, here is John out there baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom of God is at hand.

[28:08] That means it is nearby. Now, I want you to make some connections here because this is really, really important. When all these people come to John to be baptized of him, they are all Jews.

[28:28] But they are not priests. Why would he be baptizing? This is a get ready thing. this is the time that God was referring to when he said he was going to make Israel a nation of priests.

[28:49] That's exactly what John was getting about. He was baptizing all of these people, getting them ready because the Messiah would be coming and introduced to the entire world and Israel will become a nation of priests.

[29:05] And we know, never happened that way. But the people were electrified. They were excited. Some of these people were jumping up and down because what God had promised with the coming of the Messiah and righting all of the wrongs in the world, it is about to take place and we are the people who are going to be prime movers in this.

[29:28] We need to get ourselves ready. And they came out in huge throngs to be baptized of John to get ready, for the Messiah. And one day, John looks up and he sees his second cousin coming down the road.

[29:46] And he cries out, Behold, the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world. Why? It must have been electrifying.

[29:59] And he came and John baptized him as that get ready part of the message. So, when John began proclaiming this message, repent for the kingdom of heaven was at hand, there's two ways you can go.

[30:15] You can either believe him or not believe him. The religious establishment did not believe him.

[30:27] They didn't buy into John or John's message. And the reason they didn't was because John did not meet their qualifications as to what a prophet of Israel should be like.

[30:41] John was weird. He wore weird clothing, camel's hair. He had a weird diet, locusts, and wild honey.

[30:53] He didn't seem to have any of the cultural refinement about him, like an Isaiah. he was a rough, rugged individual. He didn't seem to have any polish to him at all.

[31:06] He was just a kind of a rugged individual. And he didn't mince words. This guy was not politically correct. He actually called a spade a spade.

[31:18] And he made a lot of people angry because he called sin what it was. And he didn't sugarcoat anything. So he made a bunch of enemies. And they started getting it in for him.

[31:30] And eventually, you talk about truth speaking to power, John pointed his bony finger at Herod and said, it is not right for you to have your brother's wife.

[31:50] And he called him out. And he paid for it dearly. It cost him his head. Sometimes it can cost you dearly for doing the right thing.

[32:01] But it's always the right thing to do, no matter what it costs you. So, that whole message that John was preaching, and the whole purpose for Israel being a kingdom of priests, came to a screeching halt.

[32:18] It was slowed with the death of John the Baptist, and then Jesus and his disciples took over from him. And you know, the disciples that had been following John the Baptist threw their lot in with Jesus, and now they are following him.

[32:34] But he is going to have the same kind of demise that John the Baptist had. It will end in death. Because those who are entrenched in power will do whatever it takes to maintain that power.

[32:54] And Jesus Christ was simply expendable. He was politically expendable. And they got rid of him. So this whole thing about Israel being a nation of priests, it has all come to a screeching halt.

[33:11] And you know what? It is still stuck on hold. It hasn't gone anywhere. Israel as a nation continues to thrive in many ways.

[33:23] But so far as there being an advance for all the other nations, that isn't happening. But the time is coming, of course, when it will. So all of this is strategically for the Jew.

[33:37] As you go through these chapters, Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount, delivered to a Jewish audience. There are no Gentiles here. These are all Jews. And you come into chapters 6 and 7.

[33:49] And you're all familiar, I'm sure, he makes a distinction between Gentiles and Jews. And a very key passage is in Matthew 10, when he calls the disciples.

[34:05] And he calls 12 disciples, and he promotes them to apostle. And out of these apostles, one, one, of course, will betray him, and that will be Judas.

[34:21] But these 12 are all given their marching orders here in chapter 10. And you know, I'm embarrassed to tell you this, but for years, as a relatively new Christian, I read these passages here in Matthew.

[34:34] They didn't say anything to me like this. I didn't pick up on this at all. When Jesus called the 12, told that he gave them authority over unclean spirits, cast them out to heal every kind of disease, every kind of sickness, names them there.

[34:51] And then, when you come down to verse 5, I want you to stop and really think about the significance of this. This is stunning when you really ask some questions.

[35:03] These 12, Jesus sent out after instructing them, saying, do not go in the way of the Gentiles.

[35:19] And do not enter any city of the Samaritans. Why not? Why not? Because they're not Jews.

[35:32] They're not Jews. And then to clarify it further, he says, but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

[35:46] Do you see that? Well, if you don't, I understand because I didn't see it either. I just read right over it and it just didn't register. It didn't grab me at all. But when you stop and ask some tough questions, why is that?

[36:02] Didn't Jesus love everybody? Yes. Didn't he come for everybody? Yes. Didn't he die for the sins of the whole world? Yes. Well, what's this exclusivity of this audience here? What's this all about?

[36:12] What's he got against the Samaritans? Or what's he got against going into the Gentiles? Doesn't he want everybody to hear the truth? Yes. Well, how do you explain this then? And you know what the answer of most people is?

[36:26] Huh? Search me? I don't know, but I'm sure Jesus has his reasons. I don't have any idea what it is. And that's the end of it. That's where it ended. That's where it ended with me for several years until I just no longer became satisfied with that kind of an answer.

[36:40] And when Jesus later confronts this woman who wanted Jesus to come and share this same chapter in the same book. Where is that?

[36:58] Canaanite woman? Yeah. Chapter 15 of Matthew. This is a parallel passage. And folks, when you read your Bible, you need to ask questions.

[37:10] Why? Who? When? Where? What? And it's amazing what sometimes comes forth. This Canaanite woman came out of that region.

[37:23] This is Tyre and Sight. This is over on the coast. And the significant thing about a Canaanite woman is she is not a Jew. And everybody who lived back then knew that of course.

[37:36] And she began to cry out saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David. My daughter is cruelly demon-possessed. But Jesus did not answer her a word.

[37:48] And his disciples came to him and kept asking him saying, Send her away. She is shouting out after us. This woman is embarrassing. She is a pest. Get rid of her. And Jesus said, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

[38:11] What do you make of that? Jesus said, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Do you take that at face value?

[38:23] You would be surprised how many people say, well, he didn't actually mean that. Yes, he did mean that. He was quite capable of saying what he meant. He said, I have to say something. But she came and began to bow down before her.

[38:36] She is making a real scene of this situation. She is Lord, help me. And Jesus answered and said, and this is something that really grabbed me. I just thought, wow, I can't imagine Jesus doing this.

[38:49] He said, it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. If I would have been that dear woman, I would have been tempted to say, who are you calling the dog?

[39:06] That's what he was actually saying. Now, we look upon that as a slur or an insult, but what he is saying is, it is not appropriate for us to take something which is valuable and give it to someone who is unable to appreciate it.

[39:25] And it comes out like, throw it to the dogs. And she said, yes, Lord. You know what she's recognizing? She is acknowledging the fact that she is not a Gentile, that she as a Gentile does not come in for the blessing and the provision that the Jew does.

[39:47] she acknowledges that. She's not arguing with him. She's saying, yes, I understand that. I understand that. And then she comes back and says, but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their master's table.

[40:03] And if there's ever an illustration of a mother's heart being poured out for a child of hers in distress, here it is. And Jesus says, well, okay, I'm not going to argue with that.

[40:24] That was a wise man. I'm not going to tangle with a mother talking about the welfare of her children. And you know what he did? He made an exception.

[40:35] He acquiesced and he said, I have not found great faith, and in another place he's going to say something like, I have not found such great faith, no, not in Israel, because some who were not even Jews expressed more confidence in him than did some of his own people.

[41:00] Now, we just go through this little exercise just to show you the peculiarity that is involved here. this is very serious stuff, and this is very significant. Don't dismiss this as just some statement that you don't understand.

[41:16] There is great significance to this. This is going somewhere. This Jew thing is really, really big, and I want you to see how big it is, because that's the only way you are going to be able to appreciate the plan and program of God as it unfolds, and some of it may very well be in our very own lifetime, right here and now.

[41:45] And the Jew and the nation of Israel is going to be right in the thick of it. So, my friend, keep your eye focused on Israel. There's going to be a lot more in store.

[41:58] Questions or comments, anyone? I've already talked more than I should have. a couple up front here. I don't know why it is the people with the questions are always the furthest from the microphone.

[42:17] It works out that way. Carolyn has a comment or a question right here. And then Shelly. I think it's, I was just going to comment, it's interesting talking about your, is that plugged, is that turned on, switched, switched on?

[42:37] I think so. Okay. Okay. There you go. Okay. When you talked about Matthew 10, five and six, it's interesting then to go back and contrast then Matthew 28, 19, where it then says after he's risen and the commission, now it is extended to all nations.

[42:57] Yeah. That's us. Yeah. That's another really huge thing. That's big. Yeah. It's very big. It's very big. We've got to acknowledge that.

[43:08] What's going on here? First he says, don't go to the Gentiles. Don't go to the Samaritans. And Matthew 28, 19, 20 is saying, go everywhere. Go to everybody. So we need to pay attention to those changes because they are not for nothing.

[43:24] They are very, very significant. Over here, Shelly has a comment, question. good observation. And we'll look at that.

[43:35] Yeah. You mentioned there were three women. Yes. And you mentioned the names of two. Who was the third one? Tamar?

[43:46] Yeah. Tamar. Tamar was the, uh, uh, Tamar was the, well, Tamar was Jewish, though, was it?

[44:00] Yeah, Bathsheba. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Tamar, uh, Tamar was the one involved. She disguised herself as a prostitute and seduced her father-in-law. Remember? Back in Genesis 38.

[44:13] But it was Bathsheba. Thank you. Bathsheba was, um, married to Uriah the Hittite. And they, by the way, probably, I can't say this for certain, but I would say, uh, I'd be willing to bet the rent that, uh, Uriah the Hittite was a converted, uh, Hittite to Judaism.

[44:35] And his wife Bathsheba, likewise, uh, no doubt that would be the case. It's not, it's not conceivable to me that David, the king, would have had someone in such, uh, delicate position that Uriah the Hittite occupied had he not been Jewish or converted to Judaism.

[44:54] Gary? Yeah, I guess the question I have is, early on, was it just not in his plan or it wasn't time yet? Is that why it was one time I didn't come to the Gentiles, and then later they changed it to, is it just because of the timing?

[45:09] Uh, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to ask you to repeat that slowly because my hearing aids are in the shop and, uh, you old preachers falling apart on me, you know? Uh, go ahead, repeat that again and I'll listen real carefully.

[45:21] I can't remember it. Ken, Ken, is the, um, the timing, is that what was the challenge there that early on he said, I'm not, I haven't come to the Gentiles, is that timing and then later it was time?

[45:39] Is that what the change, is that why the change? I'm sorry, I'm still not, I hear, I hear the, I hear the volume of your voice but I'm not getting the message.

[45:50] Can somebody up here front repeat what he said? Karen? What? The timing. That's what he's asking. The timing that he said he wasn't going to go to the Gentiles and then he did go to the Gentiles.

[46:07] Was it a matter of timing? Well, yes, it was, it was a matter of timing and it was more than a matter of timing, it was a matter of events that had transpired. You see, the thing that changed everything was the DVR.

[46:24] The death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. That changed everything. And that is predicated upon that. Matthew, of course, is after the, Matthew 28, 19, is after the resurrection.

[46:38] You know, it's referred to as our Lord's parting words to his disciples and it's called the Great Commission. Jesus' final words to his disciples, but that is a huge, huge mistake because they were simply the final earthly words of Jesus to the disciples.

[47:02] But after he is in heaven, he is going to provide further revelation as the ascended Christ to the apostle Paul who is converted on the road to Damascus.

[47:18] And this is significantly after the translation, after the ascension. And what we've got to do, and here is, this is the nub of the matter, and you'll see this important surface time and again, and it is so critical.

[47:35] And that is, the last words that Christ gave are the words that he gave to the apostle Paul. that is an updated revelation from what he gave to the twelve when he ascended before them.

[47:51] And that's the point that so many people miss. They just don't see that. But Jesus Christ had a lot more to say after he went back to heaven, and he communicated that to Paul.

[48:03] And this is what Paul meant when he said that he received an abundance of revelations from Christ. And that's the essence of Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians.

[48:25] These are books written by the apostle Paul that update, that really update the information that we have in the four gospels.

[48:36] and if you don't go with the update but stay back with the old information, you don't have the latest marching orders and it's going to be very confusing. Joe? The Great Commission, the apostles were given, they were supposed to go out and win all the Jews that were out there scattered throughout the world at that time, but they weren't able to do that.

[49:02] They planned back in Exodus, go back to Exodus, Abraham. It was intended really that the Jewish people would all become Christ. They would believe in him and know him as their savior, but they did not do that and therefore they did not win the Gentiles, win the rest of the people.

[49:22] That's very true. That was the original plan. That's where then Paul, Christ had to bring Paul into it. That's very true. That's a very powerful concept. That is so true.

[49:33] And you know when the apostles are told to go through out the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature and you'll be witnesses unto me, he tells them in Acts 1, unto Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth.

[49:44] And you know something? You continue reading in the book of Acts and you get clear up to chapter 5 and the apostles are still in Jerusalem. You get up to chapter 7 and they're still in Jerusalem.

[50:00] You get clear up to chapter 9 and 10 when Cornelius comes to faith and the apostles are still in Jerusalem. What are they doing there?

[50:11] He told them to go throughout the whole world. They haven't even got out of Jerusalem yet. What's going on? This is years later. How long does it take you to pack your bags and get on the road to all the nations in the world?

[50:23] What are you still doing in Jerusalem? And the answer is this. They were not successful in Jerusalem. The methodology was you are to proclaim the gospel in Jerusalem.

[50:38] That's the bullseye. Judea. That's the circle around the bullseye. Samaria. A bigger circle around the bullseye. And the uttermost parts of the earth.

[50:48] A bigger circle around. But they never got out of the bullseye. And the reason they didn't was because they never succeeded in winning Jerusalem. Jerusalem in turn turned on them, began persecuting them, imprisoning them, stoning Stephen, and you know the rest of the story.

[51:11] So the whole thing never really got off the ground so far as Jerusalem was concerned. Why not? Because the Jew, who is the key player in this, was not cooperating.

[51:26] that's why blindness has happened in part to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in. And when God is finished dealing with all the non-Jews, then he's going to take up the Jew again.

[51:42] That's where we're looking for. That's where we're going. Would you stand with me, please? Father, all of this tells us one really important thing, and that is you have a plan, and you are fully capable of exercising it and bringing it to pass, and we are so grateful.

[52:05] Thank you for these brief passages of Scripture that we've looked at, some of which just seem to be so confusing, and sometimes even contradictory, but we know they all mesh and meld together in such a way as to form a perfect whole.

[52:21] We want to see and understand better as we go on, how this all works, how it comes together, where it's going, and where we'll be when we get there, and we're so grateful that you've been pleased to reveal it.

[52:34] Thank you for the revelation you've given. We believe that we are accountable for what we know and what we do with it, and we wouldn't have it any other way. We bless you. Dismiss us now, we pray with your blessing in Christ's name.

[52:47] Amen.