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[0:00] Well, good morning again. Thank you all for being here. Really, really nice turnout this morning, and we are grateful for your presence. I hadn't planned to use this microphone, but I do know that sometimes my voice gets a little froggy in the morning, so maybe it would be helpful if I had it.

[0:19] Also, someone requested that maybe we should record these for the benefit of the snowbirds, you know, the people who wimp out on us and go to Florida. And actually, if they had any real spirituality about them, they'd be here suffering with the rest of us.

[0:38] Before we get underway, I meant to mention these last couple of Sundays, and I just remember the last Sunday, but there's a couple of new things offered. Volume 27 of Christianity Clarified is now available, and the target number is for 50 of these.

[0:54] And when we get 50 under our belt, that'll be 1,000 segments, and I plan to quit then producing these. And this one starts off with the kind of book the Bible is and talks about some things that everybody needs to know.

[1:10] And there are a couple of interesting segments on here about why you should leave Bible study to the pros, and a couple of interesting segments as to why you shouldn't.

[1:22] And I think you would find those helpful. And one thing that I have noticed that a number of people have discovered in their study of the Scriptures, that very often they enter the Bible and the study of it and the serious investigation of it with some kind of questioning doubt as to whether this thing is really worthy of their time and effort, whether it really is the Word of God.

[1:46] And it is amazing how that when you get into the book and really start examining some things in a serious way, and I'm talking about above and beyond just reading, you will be amazed at how things start coming together in a way that is just not humanly possible.

[2:05] And the study of the Scriptures on a decent level will time after time after time confirm the veracity, the truthfulness, the worthiness of the Word of God.

[2:18] But you have to get in it in order to do that. So that's partly what we're talking about. And then it follows with some very important segments, which there are ten, even though they're less than three minutes long or less than four minutes long, each of them.

[2:33] But we are dealing with the subject of the whole Bible before its parts. What does that mean? That means there is a certain grasp that you have to have of the Bible as a whole before you will be able to appreciate segments, passages, etc. that you read.

[2:57] And we develop some of those. And the illustration that I use to try to make my point is, suppose you had never seen an automobile before in your entire life.

[3:10] And somebody shows you a steering wheel from an automobile. But that's all, just a steering wheel. And they say, now, do you know what an automobile looks like?

[3:23] Well, no, of course not. Suppose they show you a motor or an axle or a tire. You can't begin to visualize what an automobile looks like from that part. But if somebody shows you an automobile intact, everything is there and in place.

[3:41] And then you're shown a steering wheel. Oh, yeah, I know where that goes. It goes right here. And I know where the tire goes. It's one of the four. It goes right here. And you've got a perspective and a picture.

[3:53] It's the same way with the Bible. There are certain basic things about the Bible as a whole that need to be grasped before you can appreciate it in its parts.

[4:05] And that's what these ten three-minute segments are devoted to. And there are some of those left over here. I'm talking about volume 27. And if you're looking for it, don't get confused because the number of the volume is right at the bottom.

[4:18] But sometimes it's not all that easy to see. And then Marriage on the Rock, volume 10, has just been released. And it deals primarily with the basic temperaments. Why you are the way you are.

[4:31] Why your mate is the way they are. And where the temperaments came from. And the fact that whatever temperament you have, you can forget about trying to change it even if you don't like it and you want to.

[4:43] Because you can't. You are stuck with your temperament. But your temperament can be spirit-controlled. And that makes all the difference.

[4:55] And I lean heavily upon Tim LaHaye's book, Spirit-Controlled Temperament. Recommended the book. And there are some quantities of them on the table over there. If you've never read Spirit-Controlled Temperament, released several years ago, over a million copies sold.

[5:10] You ought to read the book. It is very, very insightful. So, those two are available for your consideration. And I want to thank you for being here this morning. If you will, turn with me please to Jeremiah chapter 31.

[5:26] And while you were doing that, I want to make a few introductory remarks. We have long since been committed to the strategic nature and the value of the nation of Israel and of the Jewish people.

[5:38] And this is part and parcel of the dispensational approach to the scriptures. And perhaps one of the most basic maxims of dispensational theology and dispensational teaching, one might even consider it a primary prerequisite, is that you need to make a very clear distinction between the nation of Israel and the church.

[6:09] These are not the same. They were never intended to be the same. They are two entirely different entities. And they ought not to be confused. We take the position that the Bible should be approached from a literal, historical, grammatical, exegetical, cultural basis.

[6:30] And that requires us to take what the Bible says at face value, literally. Unless the context makes it very clear that it was never intended to be taken literally, that it is figurative language.

[6:47] And there is a lot of figurative language in the Bible, especially in the poetical books, in the Psalms, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Solomon, etc. You find a lot of figurative language, a lot of hyperbole, a lot of intentional exaggeration.

[7:02] And it is utilized for the purpose of providing color and a change and a variety of language.

[7:13] Plus, it taps into the personality of the individual the Spirit of God is using to write it because personal idiosyncrasies and one's own personality comes through in the way that they write.

[7:24] So, that being the case, that means, of course, that this book, in the Old Testament especially, which in a lot of cases just gathers a lot of dust, not too many pay attention to the Old Testament.

[7:44] Matter of fact, you will not find a great many Jewish people who are even paying attention to the Old Testament today, apart from the Orthodox, because a considerable number of Jewish people throughout the world today have pretty much given up on the God of the Bible.

[8:03] And one reason for that is they think that if there is a God, he has permitted his so-called chosen people to be treated pretty shabbily by the rest of the world.

[8:15] And one would think that that's no way for God to look out for his chosen people. So, so long, Jehovah, I don't need you. And a great many Jewish people have turned to atheism.

[8:29] And polls that are taken worldwide continue to confirm that. But we are here to tell you that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable.

[8:41] And that includes the Old Testament. The New Testament makes absolutely no sense without the Old Testament. Christianity was born out of Judaism.

[8:55] Judaism is the cradle of Christianity. And I have taken the position, and I think I can justify this, that when you boil it right down to the final analysis, Christianity is nothing more than Judaism come of age.

[9:16] It is the logical conclusion of a full-blown Judaism, which recognizes Yeshua HaMashiach as the Messiah, and embraces him, and will one day enthrone him on that throne of David in Jerusalem.

[9:34] And that's where everything is going. And Israel and the Jewish people, whether they know it or not, whether they believe it or not, they are going to be right smack dab in the middle of it.

[9:45] They are going to be the major player when these end-time events shake out. It will not be the USA. It will be Israel.

[9:59] And we are going to look at a couple of passages today that will reflect this. They, of course, deal with the prophetic theme that we've been trying to follow.

[10:12] And I'm attempting to do this in a way that it will not be repetitious with what we're doing on Sunday morning because we're going to be up to our eyeballs in prophecy and that, too, very, very shortly, probably in another week or so, maybe two weeks.

[10:27] But meanwhile, I want to give you just a little bit of history. And let's see. I think I've got a black one here in front of the show up there.

[10:39] I'm going to just chuckle over it. So we're going to start out with 1000 BC. And the principal person I want you to think of is, of course, David the King.

[10:55] He will rule and reign for about 40 years. The first seven years of his reign will be only over the tribe of Benjamin and the tribe of Judah because the other ten tribes will not accept his right to the throne until after he has been king over Judah and Benjamin for seven years.

[11:21] And then the other ten tribes come on board and they all embrace him as their rightful king. He, of course, is the beginning of the Davidic dynasty.

[11:35] And every king that will sit on the throne I can't say Judah, but I will say every king that will sit on the throne of Israel from this point on will be and must be a direct descendant of David.

[11:57] That means in the literal bloodline of David. And that, of course, will include both Joseph a thousand years later.

[12:08] It will include Joseph and Mary. They will both be direct descendants of David the King. Mary will come through David's son Nathan.

[12:25] And Joseph will come through David's son Solomon. And that will principally constitute the royal line. It will be Solomonic.

[12:38] We won't take time to look at it, but those of you who are familiar with the curse of Jeconiah realize that this is why Joseph was not eligible to sit on the throne, although one might think by his being a direct descendant, by his being a direct descendant of David, that he would be the logical one.

[12:58] But Joseph is out of the line of Jeconiah, comes through that, and Jeconiah has a curse pronounced upon him. We gave you a handout sheet some time ago that Marvin Rosenthal wrote that was just absolutely splendid, and it explained why the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew is different from the one in Luke, and they are different, because the one in Luke is Mary's genealogy, the one in Matthew is Joseph's genealogy.

[13:29] They have some ancestors in common, and they have some that are not in common. It's a fascinating study. If anybody wants to see that sheet, I just happen to have several of them available.

[13:41] I'd be glad to make them available to you. See me afterwards. I'll see that you get one. So, we're going back to about 1000 BC. This is 1000 years before Christ is born.

[13:52] And after David, there's going to be a whole long list of kings come to the throne. And some of them, not many, some of them will be godly, some of them will seek to elevate Israel to a place of proper spirituality before the Lord.

[14:11] Most of them will be miserable failures, and they will leave a trail of blood in their wake. Out of all the kings that will sit on the throne, that will follow David, that will be a direct descendant of David, most of them will have a negative reign.

[14:31] They will not be contributing very much at all. In a moment, we're going to see what happens. Well, let's go there now. Let's go to, let's go from 1000, and these figures, by the way, these numbers are rough.

[14:44] But let's go to David's death. Solomon comes to the throne. Solomon too will reign for 40 years, and he will die.

[15:01] And in his stead, in that Davidic line, will be his son by the name of Rehoboam. R-E-H-O-B-O-A-M.

[15:14] Rehoboam. He will be the king. This is the foolish man who, when he came to the throne, he had visions of grandeur. He was a recipient and a witness of the glory and the splendor to which his father had raised the nation of Israel, and he must have taken upon himself to outdo the old man.

[15:36] because he told the people that he wanted a kingdom that was even more splendid than his father's. But it's going to cost you. So I'm going to raise everybody's taxes.

[15:50] And the ten tribes of the north said, no, you're not. We're not going to be a part of this chicken outfit any longer. We are withdrawing from the union. To your tents, O Israel, what portion have we in Jesse?

[16:05] And there you've got a split that took place in the nation of Israel between the ten northern tribes and the two tribes in the south. And that's going to be 922 B.C.

[16:23] 922 B.C. And Rehoboam will remain on the throne there in what will be known as Judah. And this is so vivid in my mind now because as a freshman, when I entered Cedarville College in 1957, I knew absolutely nothing about the Bible.

[16:43] All I knew was that I was saved and couldn't be lost and I didn't know anything else. And they threw me in this class called Old Testament Survey and half of the kids that were in there were PKs.

[16:55] The other half were MKs. They grew up on all the Bible school stories. They knew them backwards and forwards. And like a dummy, I sat there wondering, what in the world is he talking about?

[17:06] And I struggled and struggled to get a D out of that course. And I was such a pitiful student my first year. My grade point average was .6.

[17:21] And part of it was due to my ignorance of the Bible. I just, you know, I wanted to know, but I didn't know. And you'll never believe what a breakthrough it was when I realized that there was Israel, North 10 tribes, there was a Judah, South 2 tribes, and they constituted the 12 tribes, and there was a time when they were all together, but they split up, and each one had their own kings, and each one had their own prophets, and man, I was in over my head.

[17:49] I had those guys all mixed up. I couldn't, it was terrible. And when I found this information, and I'll tell you what I attribute this to, it wasn't, frankly, it wasn't the mercy of any of the faculty.

[18:02] I think they thought I was kidding when they, when I tried to tell them how ignorant I was, but I wasn't kidding. I really was at it. And the thing that was a real breakthrough to me was Hallie's Handbook.

[18:14] And I got into that and started reading, and things started, started connecting dots and everything, and it was, it was marvelous. So that's been embedded in my brain ever since. 9-22, this split took place.

[18:27] And in the south, they continued on because they had the temple, they had the sacrifices, they had the priesthood, everything that was in place, it all remained right there. But when the north pulled out, they didn't have any of those things.

[18:41] They didn't have a government, they didn't have a capital, they didn't have a temple, they didn't have any of those things. So they created them all, but they were all spurious.

[18:52] None of them were genuine because none of them were in this bloodline, and the king who is going to come to the throne will be called Jeroboam. Not to be confused with Rehoboam.

[19:04] Rehoboam is the south, Jeroboam is the north, and he is forever going to be established as you read through the kings and as you read through Chronicles, he will be referred to as Jeroboam, the son of Nebat that made Israel to sin.

[19:19] And he put them on the skids. So the first thing they did was they started their own priesthood, and if you had the right amount of money, you could be a priest. So the priesthood was bought the soul.

[19:31] This is political corruption way back then. So Washington, D.C. has got nothing new on us. This has gone on a long time ago. And everything was for sale.

[19:43] Idolatry was rampant, and cult worship, and every kind of depravity that you can imagine was going on. They established the capital of Samaria in the north, and it later is going to be invaded by the Assyrians.

[19:58] And by the way, that will be, oh, I'm sorry, I got my date wrong here. I didn't think I could do that. Didn't think I could remember this. That's not right. This, now what?

[20:15] Oh, for crying out. Oh. Okay, use your imagination, kids. This should be 941 B.C.

[20:26] Okay? And when the split occurred, it was 722. I got my 22s and 41s mixed up. It was 722 B.C.

[20:37] when the kingdom divided into north and south. And this becomes very apparent as you read the prophets. You can determine, usually right at the beginning of the prophet as to whom he is called to minister.

[20:51] Whether it is to Jerusalem in the south or whether it is to Samaria in the north and so on. And what we're going to concern ourselves about now is Jeremiah. and if we get to Ezekiel and the dry bones, the vision of the valley of dry bones and the Russian invasion of Israel.

[21:09] But we have to lay this groundwork here in Jeremiah 31, first of all. So we've got 722, 722, I'm sorry, 741, 721, 721, when the kingdom is invaded.

[21:31] The north is invaded by the Assyrian neighbors and they besiege Samaria. They surround the city. Nobody can get in. Nobody can get out.

[21:42] The text tells us that the head of a donkey butchered sells for an incredible amount of money.

[21:55] If you can imagine paying out your life savings for the head of a donkey. Right, right, sir. Thank you. That's what's going to happen in Samaria and the city is going to be under such stress for so long that they are going to resort to cannibalism and they will be eating each other's children.

[22:16] And that's what the text says. Eventually they will collapse and they will be carried into captivity by the Assyrians. And by the way, people who did this constitute the present nation of Syria where there is so much internal strife and civil war going on right now.

[22:38] These Syrians are ever going to be the enemies of Israel. They're going to have just a conflict all through the centuries. And by the way, it is Syria, the nation of Syria that Naaman will be from.

[22:56] Naaman will be the commanding general of the army of the Assyrians. Assyrians when they come in and Elijah has him dip seven times in the Jordan River.

[23:06] You know that story, 2 Kings chapter 5. Fascinating story. These are the people. And it is also Syria where many years later, Saul of Tarsus will be journeying to round up believers in Jesus who have fled from persecution in Jerusalem to Damascus.

[23:29] And he's on his way to Damascus when he has his conversion experience. So, Israel and Syria have been off and on. they have been allies in some extent, just like the Egyptians off and on, and they have been bitter enemies to some extent.

[23:47] And the thing that complicates it, if I'm not mistaken, and I may stand corrected on this, but I think I'm right in this, I'm quite sure. And by the way, sometimes Syrians in the Bible are called Arameans, A-R-A-M-E-N-S, Arameans.

[24:00] And they too are Semitic people. Not from Ham or Jepeth, but from Shem, as is Israel.

[24:12] So, these ten tribes carried off into captivity are forever going to be referred to, erroneously so, that they're going to be called the lost ten tribes. And they were never lost.

[24:23] And no, the Mormons today are not the lost ten tribes, and neither is the United States. But that's some of the scuttlebutt that's gone around for quite a while. So, what we've got now is, let's go from, let's go from 721 in the north, and the north is going to be referred to as Israel.

[24:53] But a lot of times in the Bible, when you read the word Israel, it means all twelve tribes. that depends on where you read it in the Bible, because sometimes Israel means ten tribes.

[25:07] Sometimes you're going to read in the Bible Judah, and it means the single tribe of Judah. Sometimes when you read Judah, it means Judah and Benjamin.

[25:19] Benjamin is frequently, I think, omitted because it was a very small tribe. It was the smallest of all the tribes. And yet, it's a very, very strategic one, because it is in the tiny tribe of Judah, in the geographical area that was assigned to Judah, when the children of Israel came into the promised land, and God divided up the land, told who was to get what.

[25:44] It was the tribe of Benjamin that landed in the city of Jerusalem. And that's what makes that so important. And Jerusalem is right on the edge, but it's under the tribe of Judah.

[25:59] And then in 586 BC, it will be the South.

[26:11] So, the South will survive 5, 11, 3, the South will survive for about 135 years after their northern neighbors have been carried into captivity and have been decimated.

[26:33] They will be able to maintain their government and their power and their influence, etc., until a major figure by the name of Nebuchadnezzar comes along, and he will be from Babylon, which is far to the east.

[26:48] this Babylon is modern day Iraq. And they are going to come against Judah and against Jerusalem, and they're going to lay a siege, just like the northern tribe had laid around Samaria.

[27:08] the Babylonians are going to do the same thing around Jerusalem. And I don't mind telling you it was quite fascinating to be able in 1990 to walk on the parapet all the way around Jerusalem.

[27:26] And the parapet is like a platform that extends out from the wall. The wall goes all the way around Jerusalem, and the parapet is extended from the wall horizontally on the inside, so you can walk all the way around it, and you can peer over the wall to the outside as you walk, and it comes up to about head high, or high enough that you can look out.

[27:54] And every so many feet, maybe every ten or twelve feet, in this solid stone wall, as you stand there on the parapet, and the parapet's just made out of wood, it's just wooden planks, it's planks that go all the way around the interior of the wall, so you can walk all the way around it, and about every ten or twelve feet, in this stone wall, there is a slit that's about three, four inches wide, and about this high, about two feet high.

[28:23] And I asked our guy, I said, what's this? And he said, that's for the archers. So the archers could kneel down, put their bows, and shoot through that slit, they would have the protection of the wall around them, and it would take a mighty good marksman to be able to put an arrow through the slit to hit a defender, but on occasion it did happen.

[28:46] And I don't mind telling you, it kind of gave me chills to realize, and you know something? There are still stains, dark stains on the exterior of the wall, where boiling oil was poured over the wall on those who were trying to climb it hundreds of years ago.

[29:07] It's all still in place, and I asked him, I said, now tell me, is this just for the benefit of the tourists? He said, no, this is the real thing.

[29:18] Nobody's ever changed it or tried to scrub it off. Amazing. Amazing. Well, let's move on. 586 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar is going to come against them and make several attempts to defeat city, and they're going to surround it, decimate the temple, wreck and ruin everything, lots of people are going to be killed, and Nebuchadnezzar is going to take all of the treasures in the temple, all of the articles of furniture in the temple, the ark, golden lampstand, table of showbread, it's going to take all of those things, confiscate them, and make the Jews carry them all the way back to the land of Babylon.

[30:05] And when they get home, the survivors, of course there would be thousands of them, and by the way, one of those who will be carried away will be a young boy by the name of Daniel, and he'll probably be between 10 and 12 years of age, and he is going to spend his entire life in captivity, either at the hands of the Babylonians, or the Medes and the Persians who succeed in overtaking the Babylonians, and he will rise to a position of prominence in Babylon, and a value much like Joseph did in Egypt, but that's another story.

[30:38] So, in 586 BC, that's when that happens, and two of the prophets who are going to be very, very active during this time, who have been raised up of God, to warn his people, because before God allows judgment to come, he always provided more than ample warning, with a plea to turn, turn from your wicked ways, why will you die, O Israel?

[31:06] And two of those prophets, and there were many more, but the two we're going to focus on, are Jeremiah and Ezekiel. They were contemporaries. Jeremiah was the older, he was more active before Ezekiel was, but both of them played a very strategic role, and both of them have a lot to offer.

[31:29] So, let's look at Jeremiah chapter 31, and bear in mind now, this is before, Jeremiah is writing before 586, when Jerusalem falls, but his warning message is, Jerusalem is going to fall, and the Babylonians are coming, he even named the enemy, and of course, the elite of Judah dismissed him, and they ridiculed him, and they said he was just a rabble rouser, he was just a sensationalist, he's just trying to stir up trouble, and so on, and so on, and so on, and he warned them repeatedly that the nation could be spared if they would repent of their sin and their idolatry, because that was the main thing, that they're going to be taken into captivity is their idolatry, and the Lord will be saying things like, I am the Lord, I change not, therefore you sons of

[32:31] Jacob are not consumed, in other words, he's saying, God is saying to Judah, listen, the only reason that you aren't completely eliminated is the fact that I am the Lord and I change not, and I've made a covenant promise, an unconditional covenant to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that's the only thing that's saving your miserable skin, that's what he's telling them, and when he starts preaching, he is ridiculed, he's persecuted, he's mistreated, all kinds of things, and yet he delivers this message, and some of it is doom and gloom, and some of it is a bright spot, and the bright spot is in verse 27 of chapter 31, and let's look at it quickly, behold, days are coming, doesn't say when they are, but he just says days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of

[33:36] Israel, and with the house of Judah, and you see what he's doing here, he's saying that this is going to be for both of them, and as he writes this, as Jeremiah writes this, the house of Israel, ten tribes to the north, they're already gone, they're off the scene, they've been carried into Assyrian captivity, but here, Jeremiah is prophesying, never mind the Assyrian captivity, God is going to see to it that those northern ten tribes are going to be brought together again with the southern two tribes, so we've got here Judah and Israel, both of whom are mentioned in verse 30, 31, I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers, and I've told you about this before, but so say I now again, when the scriptures use this term fathers in a context like this, it almost never means one generation removed, he's not saying like your dad, what he's saying is your fathers,

[34:50] Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they are the fathers, they are the patriarchs, and they are often mentioned, all three of them like that, numerous places in scripture because they are recognized as the ultimate paternity of the whole nation of Israel, it's Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers, in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them, declares the Lord.

[35:27] Now, you all know what covenant that was, don't you? It was the law of Moses. That was the law of Moses. And when Moses brought the tablets down from the mountain, he was absolutely disgusted to see that in his 40 days of absence, children of Israel had pretty much given up on him.

[35:52] After all, he'd been gone about six weeks. And they're saying things like, where is he? He's abandoned us. And somebody else would say, he's probably dead. And you know what's going on here?

[36:04] This is tragic. And this, we are paying a terrible price here. We don't have adequate food. We don't have adequate water. And the gods are punishing us. Now, wait a minute. What gods are we talking about here?

[36:16] Because it was the one true God that brought you out of Egypt, that provided the plagues, that allowed you to cross the Red Sea, and all the rest of it. But these people have a miserably short memory. And they're thinking all kinds of stupid things, like, we must have offended the God of Egypt.

[36:33] And one of the principal gods of Egypt, which they had many, is Apis. A-P-I-S. The god Apis. And he's represented as a bull.

[36:47] Four-legged animal. Bull. So, somebody gets the bright idea. I guess it might have been Aaron, which would have been shameful to Moses. I mean, how could you?

[36:57] My own brother. They make this ridiculous golden calf. And they start worshiping. it. Trying to appease the God of Egypt. Sorry we ran out on you.

[37:08] We're thinking about coming back. All that kind of nonsense. And when Moses came down from the mountain and saw what they were doing, he was absolutely livid. He took those tablets and he smashed them.

[37:23] He was going to offer a deal to the people from the God of Israel. And you know the final analysis of that made him grind up the golden calf, put it in the water and made him drink it.

[37:40] And God, benevolent, gracious, long-suffering as he is, says, okay, Moses, we'll do some new tablets.

[37:52] And they did. And Moses took those tablets to the people and said, thus saith the Lord, here's the deal. If you will obey the Lord your God, he will be your God, you will be his people.

[38:06] And it will be like a marriage. And he will protect you. And he will look out for you. And he will provide for all your needs. But if you renege and you go against him, you need to be warned that he is a jealous God.

[38:22] And just like a husband will not share his wife with anyone else, God will not share his chosen people with anyone else. And the people of Israel said, all that the Lord has said, we will do.

[38:38] You go back and tell God he's got a deal. We're going to be his people and he's going to be our God. Moses said, okay, give me a hyssop branch.

[38:50] He took a hyssop branch and dipped it in animal blood and he sprinkled the animal blood on those tablets and he sprinkled some of the people there in the front and that was the ratification of the old covenant.

[39:07] That was the sealing of the deal. We could say that it was signed in blood, but it was animal blood. And you all remember the night our Lord was betrayed, he took the cup and and he said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.

[39:29] Not animal blood, in my blood. As often as you eat of this bread and drink of this cup, you just show forth the Lord's death. And the twelve, all of whom partook of it, didn't have a clue as to what he was talking about.

[39:44] What in the world does this mean? This is his blood of the new covenant. Jesus was establishing, was affirming, was providing the rationale for bringing this new covenant into existence.

[40:03] Now, let me ask you a question. When was that new covenant put into force? When did it become operative?

[40:15] It never has. It never has. It was ratified 2,000 years ago, but it's never been put into place.

[40:28] And when it is put into place, the chief beneficiary will be the house of Judah and the house of Israel. Right now, they're not at all interested, but that's going to change later.

[40:42] Not like the covenant which I took, which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, by covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them, declares the Lord.

[40:55] But this is a covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them and on their heart. I will write it and I will be their God and they shall be my people.

[41:10] And listen, these people are going to be all Jews and they're going to be regenerated Jews. These are going to be believing Jews.

[41:24] And there is no sign of that right now. But when this is fulfilled, the Jew and Israel will be involved in a great conflict.

[41:39] and the objective of the enemies coming against them is the total annihilation of Israel. And we will see how all the armies from the world are going to mass in the plains of Megiddo.

[41:52] And they are there going to orchestrate their move to go against Israel and completely eliminate them. And they will be believing people then in verse 34, and they shall not teach again each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, know the Lord.

[42:09] For they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity and their sin, I will remember no more.

[42:19] And you may be sure that this comes only on the heels of their repentance and embracing of Yeshua HaMashiach. Because it will certainly not be done in unbelief, but it will be done in belief.

[42:34] Now, something is going to have to happen. Something cataclysmic is going to have to happen to evoke the wholesale embracing of Jesus as the Messiah on the part of Jews at that time.

[42:50] And of course, what will be happening is the campaign of Armageddon will be underway at that time, and this is going to be absolutely stunning.

[43:00] let's just make short work of the verses that follow what we may. Thus says the Lord who gives the sun by light, by day, and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar, the Lord of hosts is his name.

[43:19] If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the Lord. What is this fixed order he's talking about? Well, in the context, he's talking about the sun, the moon, the stars. That's the fixed order.

[43:31] And they really are fixed too, as they make their movement about the universe, like clockwork. And he is saying, you see all of these things? He's going to give an illustration, and he's saying, if this fixed order departs from before me, declares the Lord, then the offspring of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever.

[44:00] Thus says the Lord, if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out below, then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done, declares the Lord.

[44:12] So this is just another way of saying, ain't no way I'm going to ever forsake these people. Not that they will not deserve it, because they will have deserved it time and time again.

[44:27] I would have been more than justified in bailing out on them, if it were not for the fact that my integrity would be at stake. And I will not lie to Jacob.

[44:44] And when the birth of John the Baptist is announced, and the birth of the Messiah is announced, both Mary and Zacharias make reference, make reference to the promises that God gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

[45:00] And both Mary and Zacharias repeated and said, now God is making good on his promise by sending the Messiah. This is really some kind of stuff, I tell you.

[45:13] So this is Israel in perpetuity. And can you not see why we really, really have to insist on a strategic future for the nation of Israel?

[45:28] Do they deserve that? No, of course not. So who does? You? No, nobody does. Nobody does. But it is Israel to whom God made these promises.

[45:40] And his integrity is at stake if he doesn't make good on them. And this is the backbone of dispensational theology. And dispensationalism simply recognizes, and another good word for dispensational is administration.

[45:57] What does an administration do? It administers. It does things. It passes laws. It carries out things. It enacts.

[46:08] It protects. It does all kinds of things. That's what a dispensation is. It's just another name for administration. And it means that there are different ways, different methodologies, different motives, different ends that are sought in each administration that comes into power.

[46:29] And we see that all the time in our own national politics. How that whoever is running for president, they have a platform. And they have planks in the platform.

[46:39] And these planks represent the things that they stand for. And they list them. And the idea is to get the electorate to sign on to those positions taken in that plank.

[46:52] And if we are elected, these are the things we're going to administer in our administration. And that's exactly what a dispensation means.

[47:03] It is not a block of time. Although all administrations function and are carried out in time and space. But it isn't a block of time.

[47:14] And with all due respect to C.I. Schofield, whom I admire greatly, I will be sharing a three-page paper with you on C.I. Schofield and his Schofield Reference Bible, which is a magnificent book.

[47:27] I remember I thought I had almost gone to heaven when I got my first Schofield Reference Bible. And yet, I think he unintentionally led us astray here in his definition of dispensations.

[47:40] But be that as it may, we'll talk more about that later. This is very, very important. So this is why we say, in the Bible, Israel has to remain Israel, and the church has to remain the church.

[47:53] Now, I just want to give you an idea. What would you do if you were going to spiritualize this? If you were going to allegorize this passage? What would you do?

[48:04] Well, I'll tell you what our friends have done, who are of a reformed persuasion, and this is the way they see it. This is the replacement theology, this is that which says the church has taken the place of Israel.

[48:19] And when you read these passages here, like in Jeremiah 31, where it's talking about the whole house of Israel and the house of Judah, they would say, well, yes, that's what it meant.

[48:34] That's what it meant when Jeremiah wrote that. But, because of the unbelief and the rejection, the nation of Israel, of their Messiah, God has written them off.

[48:50] And he has replaced Israel with the church. So now, when you read this, house of Judah and the house of Israel, what does that mean?

[49:05] that means the church. It has, this has become the church. You have to be able to look behind the literal and see the real intent.

[49:20] And the real intent is that this is the church. And they have to do that with everything that pertains to the future of Israel. all of the blessings that God promised to Israel are transferred to the church, which is the body of Christ, and Israel is completely out of it.

[49:39] All of the curses that God pronounced upon Israel, they can keep. They can have the curses, but the church gets all the blessings. And this, in my estimation, is just a skewed way of looking at the scriptures and making them say something and infer something that they simply do not say.

[49:59] Someone has said, when you read the Bible in the plain sense, makes good sense, seek no other sense. And here we've got a very literal situation. Now, keeping this in mind, I want you to turn over to Ezekiel chapter 37.

[50:19] And Ezekiel was a contemporary, a younger contemporary of Jeremiah, and he's going to be talking about a lot of the same things. And it is remarkable what he's going to be saying.

[50:30] This is one of the most thrilling in all of the Bible, I think. And it's called The Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones. It is apparent we will not get to the Russian invasion of Israel in this session, so we'll try to reserve that for the next, but it's a very, very important time.

[50:49] And chapter 37, Ezekiel says, the hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the middle of the valley, and it was full of bones.

[51:06] Now keep in mind, this is not a literal thing, he's saying, because it was a vision. This was just a picture that God was giving to Ezekiel.

[51:19] And he caused me to pass among them, and round about. I can just see old Ezekiel just making his way in and around all these bones.

[51:31] Here's a pile of bones all over the place, human bones, dry bones. And he said to me, son of man, can these bones live?

[51:44] And I answered, oh Lord God, thou knowest. It's another way of saying, I don't have a clue. They look pretty bad to me. Again, he said to me, prophesy over these bones.

[51:57] In other words, speak over these bones, and say to them, oh dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones, behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and that you may come to life.

[52:19] And I will put sinews on you, make flesh grow back on you, cover you with skin, put breath in you, that you may come alive, and, and here's the end result, and you will know that I am the Lord.

[52:37] The Jew today does not know this. He does not know this. This phrase is going to be used over and over again, especially in the Old Testament, and you will know that I am the Lord.

[52:53] So I prophesied as I was commanded, and as I prophesied, there was a noise. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine that?

[53:04] These bones start clicking, start making contact one with another, and you hear the rattling of these bones. By the way, you're all familiar, I'm sure, with the old spiritual that came out of this song.

[53:17] Dry bones, knee bones connected to it, and ankle bones, shin bones, all these bones connected. Now, hear the word of the Lord. They made a real song out of it, and it's a fun song to hear, and it's a fun song to sing.

[53:36] You, son of man, verse 16, take yourself one stick, and write on it, for Judah and for the sons of Israel, his companions, and then take another stick, and write on it, for Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and all the house of Israel, his companions.

[53:57] Then, join them for yourself one to another into one stick, that they may become one in your hand. And when the sons of your people speak to you, saying, will you not declare to us what you mean by this?

[54:14] And you say to them, thus says the Lord God, behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim. Now, remember, Ephraim and Manasseh were the sons of Joseph.

[54:29] And when dying Jacob wanted to bless Joseph, you notice there is no tribe of Joseph? Think about that.

[54:40] Among the twelve tribes, there is no tribe of Joseph. Yet, Joseph was the real hero of Egypt, wasn't he? But when the time came for Jacob to pronounce his blessing, he didn't pronounce it on Joseph, he pronounced it on Joseph's sons.

[54:55] And although this is lost to us and it is foreign in our culture, the greatest way that you could have honored an individual in that day was to have honored his offspring, his sons.

[55:07] The greatest compliment that Jacob could give to his son Joseph was to put his blessing on his grandsons, that's Joseph's sons.

[55:18] One was Ephraim, the other was Manasseh. And of course, they turned out to be two of the principal tribes of the north. So, here they are going to be together. And the sticks on which you write will be in your hand before their eyes, and you say to them, thus says the Lord God, behold, I will take the sons of Israel from among the nations where they have gone.

[55:42] Where have they gone? Everywhere. Everywhere. It's been scattered all throughout the Mediterranean world at this time. And I will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land.

[55:53] And that, of course, will be Israel. And I will make them one nation in the land on the mountains of Israel. And one king will be king for all of them, and they will no longer be two nations.

[56:06] What's he saying? He's saying the north and the south are going to be reunited. They'll be one nation. And they will no longer defile themselves with their idols, or with their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions, but I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them.

[56:32] And they will be my people, and I will be their God. This is the national regeneration of the nation of Israel. And it will, of course, come about one person at a time.

[56:43] This will be individual Jews embracing Yeshua and Mashiach as their Messiah. And my servant David will be came over them.

[56:53] Now, when Ezekiel said this, David had been dead and buried for hundreds of years. But David is coming back, and David is going to be a vice regent along with the son of David, his greater son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

[57:11] And they will all have one shepherd. They will walk in my ordinances and keep my statutes and observe them. And they shall live on the land that I gave to Jacob my servant, in which your fathers lived.

[57:22] And they will live on it, they and their sons and their sons' sons forever. And David my servant shall be their prince forever. This, of course, will be a resurrected David who will be ruling and reigning with David's greater son, the Lord Jesus.

[57:39] And I will make a covenant of peace with them. It will be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will place them and multiply them and will set my sanctuary in their midst forever. And Ezekiel is going to devote several pages of this new sanctuary.

[57:53] The millennial temple is going to be described. It starts in chapter 40 and he devotes several chapters to the description and the measurement of that temple. It's going to really be something. And the nations, verse 28, the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel when my sanctuary is in their midst forever.

[58:13] forever. And now we have coming invasion that will be portrayed in chapter 38 and 39 of has to be Russia.

[58:26] And we'll look at the implications of that later. And of course, I'm out of time, but I'll entertain a couple of questions. If anybody is committed to be being someplace else and you're in a hurry, please feel free to excuse yourself and leave.

[58:38] You're more than welcome to do that. Mike? The replacement folks, I think, would have a hard time spiritualizing what you just read about Israel.

[58:49] Do they just ignore this? Well, they ignore what they have to, they spiritualize what they can, and they just scratch their head with what they can't. But you've got to engage in some real hermeneutical gymnastics to do anything but approach this literally.

[59:05] And I am committed to the principle, and I think this is a very valid principle, that the Bible was given to us with the intent that it be intelligible and that you not be required to look for some deeper secret hidden meaning.

[59:23] I think that the meaning that is intended to be conveyed is right there looking at you on the surface. It is intended to be understood and taken at face value, much the same way you would read any literature item, unless, of course, you know it to be figurative and not intended to be literal.

[59:40] Yes? So the group now that calls themselves the Messianic Jews, do they believe this? Yes. Okay. Yes. Well, I guess I should qualify that.

[59:53] I can't speak for all of them, but I can't imagine what else it would be that they would believe if they didn't believe this. This is critical stuff, and it's part and parcel of what Israel is all about.

[60:06] Scott? Yeah. Yeah, when you're talking about the dry bones and breathing the breath into the dry bones, I was wondering if the breath is the same word used back in Genesis when God created man that also referred to spirit.

[60:22] I would have to look it up, but I'm almost positive that it does. And it's a ruach in the Hebrew, and it is breath, and sometimes in the Bible, and it's a little confusing because I can't vouch for this with the Greek because I don't know the Greek.

[60:47] I do know a little Hebrew, but I know a little Greek. Okay? Her name is Marvis. And in the Greek, in the Greek, wind, air, breath, and spirit are all translated with the same word, pneuma.

[61:11] P-N-E-U-M-A. Pneuma. From which we get the word pneumatic and pneumonia. And it has to do with air, wind, breathing, pneumatic tires, and pneumatic tools, and all of that good stuff.

[61:27] So the words used interchangeably, and they're all translated the same way. Different words, you know, wind, air, breath, and spirit. Someone else? Yes? Marvis, when you're talking about the new covenant, and we were talking with other people, and they want to suggest that the new covenant is the gap that we're in right now.

[61:46] I can understand where it's not, but how do I explain where it is? When is the new covenant going to be? Is it after Armageddon? Is it during the millennium? When would you say would be a safe place to go?

[61:59] I would say that it would have to be... I don't know.

[62:16] I don't know. Here's the problem. And I can't verify this. I can't prove it, so it's a hill I'm not willing to die on.

[62:27] But I do get the impression that there is going to be a spiritual revival among the Jewish people.

[62:39] And it's going to begin with the revival of Judaism that will morph into a Christianity.

[62:54] And they are going to come to Christ through their Judaism. Now that's just a wise man opinion. That's the way I see it. And I think...

[63:04] And now you will not find all that many Jews that are terribly serious about their religion. And the vast majority of the Jews today will tell you that they are Jews by tradition.

[63:19] They are Jews by ancestry. They are Jews by birth. But I... I'm not a Jew by religion. You know, they're not really ends of Judea. Unless you're talking, of course, about the Orthodox.

[63:31] And they are. But the others, as far as the Old Testament is concerned, they can take it or leave it. But I think there is going to be a revival of interest among the Jewish people in their own Old Testament.

[63:45] And when they really start getting into it, it's going to lead them to where it should and where I think it will. And that is... In other words, I think... I think that...

[63:57] I think that Israel is going to have another opportunity. Only this time, they are going to do what most of the Jews did not do in Acts chapter 2.

[64:09] 3,000 responded and were baptized in the name of Jesus, the Messiah. But there was a far greater number that was not. And this time, I think, they are going to do what they should have done then.

[64:23] And they will go where their ancestors did not go. Any other thoughts or comments? Yes?

[64:34] As far as the mainline churches and back to the, you know, God has done away with Israel and church, the church gets all of their blessing. What...

[64:45] When you say, well, where does it say that in scripture? Now the church gets the blessings of Israel. What is their answer to that? How do they...

[64:57] Well, I don't know. As far as I'm concerned, they don't have an answer. And you know, the fascinating thing about the... And these are regenerate people. Okay? These are people that love the Lord we're talking about.

[65:08] People who study the Bible and they're serious about the Bible and they're serious about the Lord. They love the Lord just as much as we do, but they see these things different. And they approach the Bible... They approach everything in the Bible exactly like we do.

[65:21] And they take it literally at face value exactly like we do. Except for prophecy. Now, what gives them the logical rationale to change that horse in the middle of the stream and go from a literal interpretation the way they approach everything else to a spiritual or allegorical interpretation for prophecy?

[65:45] And I've never yet heard one good answer. Other than to say, well, this is the deeper things of scripture.

[65:56] And you have to be able to see beyond the surface to see that this is the church and no longer Israel. And I just can't see that deep.

[66:08] And when they take things... You know, I think it was Origen. Origen was the classical... allegorist. And he was way back, I think, in the second or third century AD.

[66:22] A very intelligent man, very, very and tremendously influential. A lot of people picked up on this stuff. And I think he was the one that came up with that cockamamie interpretation about the four rivers that flow out of the Garden of Eden and the Euphrates and the Heidekal and the Pishon and the Gihon.

[66:39] And he and his kind looked at those four rivers and says, now those aren't four rivers. They're not actual bodies of water, liquid H2O running through them and river rivers.

[66:52] They are virtues. And the virtues are whatever, love, joy, peace, long suffering. That's what those four rivers really mean.

[67:02] And you say, wow. How did you get that? Well, you just have to look beyond the obvious and the literal and see the deeper meaning.

[67:15] And all I can say is it's deep, all right. I'm going to tell you what it is deep in. It is deep. And you know something, the tragic of it is these people are serious and they're sincere and they mean well and I don't mean to poke fun of them.

[67:33] But it's just to me, I believe the book was given with the intent that it be understood, that it be taken at face value. And by the way, that provides an even greater base for being held accountable if you do not comply with what it says because it's set forth in straightforward language that is intended to be understood.

[68:05] And I can't imagine anyone on the judgment day being able to tell the Lord, well, I didn't know that it meant that. I wasn't able to look beyond it and see the deeper meaning.

[68:16] I think the answer is going to be, well, it's as plain as the nose on your face, there it is in black and white. And why didn't you obey it? Why didn't you go with it? And I don't think that's going to fly.

[68:27] I really don't. John? When God says, I will remember their sin no more there in Jeremiah, is that their sin of rejecting the Messiah or just their idolatry and sin?

[68:43] My guess is it's probably a blanket. It probably includes the rejection of the Messiah. I know in Daniel 9, when Daniel talks about to complete or to finish the transgression, and the definite article is there, it is articulated, it's not just a translation, but it is Israel's the translation, the transgression, and the detransgression, I think, clearly is the rejection of the Messiah.

[69:12] That was their biggie. That was the one that changed everything. That is the transgression. We will not have this man to reign over us.

[69:25] That was the transgression. And that will be completed. That will be behind him. And their sins and iniquities will be remembered no more. This is a regenerated Israel.

[69:37]  I'm sorry, my time is more than gone. Anybody else before we dismiss? Okay, yes. Can I just say what I said to you earlier? Yes, go right ahead. Thank you.