Sermon Transcript — July 3, 2004
In the last few years I've come to believe, more and more, that in spite all the difficulties, in spite of the problems, in spite of leadership at times that does terrible things, that the United States has, wonderfully, been under God's blessing. The United States has been a good nation in many ways. They've made mistakes; believe me, I know. We've made mistakes. I think that's of God, not the mistakes, but the glory that the U.S. has had.
I want to talk a little bit this morning about, this afternoon, about the birthright , that we read about in the Bible because it's not a coincidence that in the last 200 years that the United States and Britain have dominated the world.
Now, our two nations have enjoyed the bulk of the world's wealth with only about six percent of the world's population. I read that, prior to World War II, the American and British peoples acquired more than two-thirds of all cultivated resources and wealth of the world, and that's remarkable! There are a lot of people in the secular world today that think that is so because we are wonderful because we're so smart, but that isn't it. They've concluded that it's our values and our way of life that has been the cause for all these blessings. The world is, for the most part, completely, totally ignorant of the real reason that God has bestowed these wonderful blessings upon us. Simply put again, it's not because we are wonderful . It's not because God looks down and says, "Oh, you're so righteous, I'm going to give you these blessings!" That's not why. Simply put, it's because God is faithful to His promises and He is faithful to His promise, the promises He made to Abraham.
I know that there are many in the world that do not believe it, that the United States and Britain are Abraham's descendants. I believe that very firmly. It explains so much of what and why certain things are happening in the world today. I'd like you to turn to Genesis 17 . Again, these things are important. This foundation is important for some things I want to tell you at the end of this message.
Genesis 17:1 " When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, ' I am Almighty God ; walk before me, and be blameless,
Vs. 2 "' And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly .'
Vs. 3 " Then Abram fell on his face; and God talked with him, saying ,
Vs. 4 "' As for me, behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations .
Vs. 5 "' No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of nations .
Vs. 6 "' I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you .'"
Now of course, these promises, can you hear me okay, the speaker seems to be, uh, the microphone seems to be going in and out a little bit, these promises start out as conditional; that is, God tells him to " walk before me and be blameless ," and then a couple of chapters later, chapter 22 and verse 15 , let's turn there, we read this.
Genesis 22:15 " Then the angel of the Lord called Abraham a second time out of heaven ,
Vs. 16 " And said, ' By myself ,' this is when he was told to sacrifice Isaac, ' By myself I have sworn,' says the LORD, ' because you have done this thing , and have not withheld your son, your only son ;
Vs. 17 "' In blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gates of their enemies (that's a very important phrase);
Vs. 18 "' And in your seed all nations of the earth shall be blessed; why? Because you have obeyed my voice .'" These are incredible promises and now they are not conditional and God is faithful.
Now, we need to understand that these blessings were passed on. In Genesis 26 , a couple of more chapters over, we read this. This is when it's passed on to Isaac.
Genesis 26:3 "' Dwell in this land, and I will be with you, and bless you; for to you, and your descendants, I give all these lands, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father ;
Vs. 4 "' And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven, and I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed .
Vs. 5 "' Because Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws .'" Make no mistake! That is why God is doing it. That's why God has done it!
You know, it's a sad commentary on today when they want to drive anything that speaks of God out of this Government. You know, we want to take those things off of the, the symbols and signs, off of buildings. It's outrageous .
A little farther over, then, the birthright is passed on to Jacob. I'm reading these because they are very, very important.
Genesis 27:26 " Then his father Isaac said to him, 'Come here now, and kiss me, my son .'
Vs. 27 " And he came near, and kissed him; and he smelled the smell of his clothing, and blessed him, and said, 'Surely, the smell of my son is like the smell of the field which the LORD has blessed . I don't have time to go into the story of how he stole the birthright .
Vs. 28 "' Therefore may God give you the dew of heaven, of the fatness of earth, and plenty of grain and wine;
Vs. 29 "' Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you: be master over your brethren, and let your mother's sons bow down to you: cursed be every one who curses you, and blessed be those who bless you. '" Of course, we know that Jacob had twelve sons who grew into families and then nations.
We know that there was a split that took place. Israel never quite lived up to what it was supposed to have been.
I need to make a distinction between the birthright and the scepter . The scepter means the rule. The birthright means the right or privilege that is acquired by birth. The scepter regards the kingly office, royal power. The promised kingly line culminates with the birth of Christ and that came through Judah .
I won't ask you to turn there but in Genesis 49 there is a passage that says, " The scepter shall not depart from Judah ." Then, in I Chronicles 5:2 , I'll just jump in, it says:
I Chronicles 5:2 " Yet Judah prevailed over his brothers, and from him came a ruler; although the birthright was Joseph's ." The birthright was to stay with the tribe of Joseph .
Where does the name " Israel " come from? Well, turn over just a few more pages in Genesis, Genesis 32 and verse 28 .
Genesis 32:28 " And he said, 'Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel : for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed .'" When you hear the name " Israel ," when you read the name " Israel " in the Bible, it's speaking of Jacob's descendants, particularly those that came from Joseph. Sometimes it will use that name in a collective way, other times it's very, very specific in referring to Joseph.
There's a very interesting passage in Genesis 48 . You don't read anything like this anywhere else in the Scriptures and I think it's important to go through as well. I'm going to read quite a bit through Genesis 48. I'll start in verse 2 .
Genesis 48:2 " And Jacob was told, 'Look, your son Joseph is coming to you:' and Israel strengthened himself, and sat up on his bed . Now, he was very, very old.
Vs. 3 " And Jacob said to Joseph, 'God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan , and blessed me ,
Vs. 4 "' And said to me, "Behold, I will make you fruitful, and multiply you, and I will make of you a multitude of people; and give this land to your descendants after you as an everlasting possession ."
Vs. 5 "' And now your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who are born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine ; he said they are mine , as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine .
Vs. 6 "' Your offspring, whom you beget after them, shall be yours, and will be called by the name of their brothers and their inheritance .
Vs. 7 "' But as for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel died beside me in the land of Canaan on the way, when there was but a little distance to go to Ephrath: I buried her there on the way to Ephrath; that is Bethlehem .'
Vs. 8 " And Israel saw Joseph's sons, and said, 'Whose are these?'
Vs. 9 " And Joseph said to his father, 'These are my sons, whom God has given me in this place.' And he said, 'Please bring them to me, and I will bless them.'
Vs. 10 " Now the eyes of Israel were dim with age, so that he could not see. Then Joseph brought them near to him; and he kissed them, and embraced them .
Vs. 11 " And Israel said to Joseph, 'I had not thought to see your face: but, in fact, God has shown me your offspring.'
Vs. 12 " So Joseph brought them from beside his knees, and he bowed down with his face to the earth.
Vs. 13 " And Joseph took them both, Ephraim with his right hand toward Israel's left hand, and Manasseh with his left hand toward Israel's right hand, and brought them near to him.
Vs. 14 "Then Israel stretched out his right hand, and laid it upon Ephraim's head, who was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh's head, guiding his hands knowingly; for Manasseh was the firstborn. See, Manasseh was the one that should have been first.
Vs. 15 "And he blessed Joseph, and said, 'God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has fed me all my life long to this day,
Vs. 16 "'The Angel which has redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads , let my name be named on them ,' now remember that passage, 'let my name be named on them,' again why, because God is faithful to His promises, 'and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.'
Vs. 17 "Now when Joseph saw that his father had laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him: so he took hold of his father's hand, to remove it from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's head.
Vs. 18 "And Joseph said to his father, 'Not so, my father: for this one is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head.'
Vs. 19 "But his father refused, and said, ' I know, my son, I know: he also shall be come a people, and he shall also be great: but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations.'
Vs. 20 "So he blessed them on that day, saying, 'By you Israel will bless, saying, May God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh:' and thus he set Ephraim eminent before Manasseh."
Now, in the very next chapter, Israel blesses all of his children. I don't have time to go through all of that, but I do want to concentrate on two of the blessings, chapter 49 , verse 8 , this is what he says to Judah .
Genesis 49:8 "' Judah , you are he whom your brothers shall praise: your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father's children shall bow down before you.
Vs. 9 "' Judah is a lion's whelp: from the prey, my son, you have grown up: he bows down, he lies down as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him?
Vs. 10 "'The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes;' and that's the Messiah, 'and to him shall be the obedience of the people.
Vs. 11 "'Binding his donkey to the vine, and his donkey's colt to the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, his clothes in the blood of grapes:
Vs. 12 "'His eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk.'" And, I suppose if you're from the Middle East that would mean more to you than it does to us living in a big city like Los Angeles .
Now let's read down a little bit further, let's go down to Joseph, verse 22 , listen to this blessing.
Vs. 22 "'Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well; his branches run over the wall;
Vs. 23 "'The archers have bitterly grieved him, shot at him, and hated him;
Vs. 24 "'But his bow remained in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from there is the shepherd, the stone of Israel :)
Vs. 25 "' By the God of your father, who will help you; and by the Almighty, who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies beneath, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb:
Vs. 26 "'The blessings of your father that excel the blessings of my ancestors up to the uttermost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be upon the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him who was separate from his brothers.'"
When you go through and you start reading the other blessings on the other sons, it sounds like almost nothing. It was the descendants through Jacob that were to receive these tremendous blessings.
These are blessings that were never really fulfilled in ancient Israel . It didn't happen. Now, was God unfaithful? Of course not, there was a problem with Israel . We don't really have time or need to go into that story, but you know how the nation was split and all of the things that happened and eventually being taken into captivity because of disobedience. They just wouldn't do what they, what God wanted them to do.
Now, when Israel wouldn't go into the Promised Land what happened? They had to march around the desert for 40 years until everyone that was over 20 died off. What did God say, " a day for a year "? That's how long He deferred allowing them to go into the Promised Land. If you use that same kind of thinking, you could see that " a day for a year " would delay the blessing for some time. It was in the 1800's, many things happened to set it up, but in the 1800's when Britain became so prominent just incredible things happened.
The dominance of Britain and America are profound, who can argue with what's happened in the last 200 years? You know, Britain , this little island where they say, "the sun never sets on the Empire," this little island just off the coast of Europe . God's identity is with these nations. We've had our fights. America and Britain , just like brothers, have had many fights but somehow when things really get tough in the world, they seem to come together.
You know, God didn't confer, again this is important for me to say this, over and over again, this has to be pounded in our brains. God did not confer these blessings on us because we are so wonderful. It's because God is faithful because Abraham was faithful. God keeps His promises and He kept His promises in spite of us.
Now, the point is that God, although it can appear that way at times, God really doesn't play favorites. He doesn't love the British or Americans more than He loves the rest of the world.
In Timothy it says, I don't want you to turn there
I Timothy 2:4 "For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior;
Vs. 5 "Who desires all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth;" that is God's desire.
In Acts 10 , and Acts 10 is a pretty important chapter, that's when Peter went to Cornelius, that was the beginning of seeing those that were not Israel being called.
Acts 10:34 "Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, 'In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality:
Vs. 35 "'But in every nation whoever fears Him, and works righteousness, is accepted in Him.'"
But, our world is still in darkness. We have many enemies on many fronts and I fear for our nation because we seem to have forgotten God. Now there are some threats, that now we've had relative peace for some time, of course there's been a cold war going on since after World War II, but as you look back on it now, it seems like, well, it was a relative time of peace. It's been pretty quiet in the world. We see some threats now that kind of mirror that time just prior to World War II.
A friend here sent me an article called The Agenda of Islam and I want to make a reference to that because I think it most concisely explains why there's an ongoing problem here that will not go away. This article was excerpted from a lecture presented by Professor Moise Sharon. He teaches, apparently, at Hebrew University . He's been an advisor to the government in Israel , again, I don't have time to read the entire article but I want to point out a few things that he says.
He talks about fundamentalism. You see, part of the problem is that when those outside the Muslim, particularly in the West, when they want to talk about the Muslim religion, they use Western ideas and Western words and they don't fit. He said there is no Fundamental Islam apart from Islam. It's either Islam or it isn't. It's Islam full stop, so it's not like we talk about Fundamental Christianity, but we're led down that path because of politicians and they have their reasons for trying to paint that picture: there are good Muslims and there are bad Muslims. I am not here evaluating Muslims at all. I just want you to understand the threat.
It talks about the driving principles of Islam. He says every Moslem, this is true of course, every Moslem has to acknowledge the fact that there's only one God, but it's not just that, it's that everyone has to acknowledge that there's only one God and that Mohammed is his prophet and, believe me, that changes the context considerably. What we really have is a war of civilizations because that's what this is. It's creating a civilization.
He talks about it being a unique legal system that engulfs everything. Now, we're very familiar with Christianity. We know a little bit about Judaism. The basic goals lead to salvation. They lead to salvation. The essence of Islam isn't like that. Islam has to dominate everything. The ultimate goal of Islam is to subjugate everything and it almost doesn't matter how it gets there. There's a line in here, he says: "Allah sent Mohammed with the true religion so that it should rule over all religions."
The idea, then, is not that the whole world will become a Moslem world at this time but that the whole world would be subdued under the rule of Islam. That empire was established in 634 A.D. Now he says here: "Jews and Christians could live under Islam provided they paid a poll tax and accepted Islamic superiority." If you failed to do that, then that's what Jihad is, because you're refusing to accept the authority, the rule of Islam.
Now this part is very interesting, I think I'll read a little bit of this. "Mohammed did accept the existence of all Biblical prophets before him. However, he also said that all these prophets were Moslems. Abraham was a Moslem. In fact, Adam himself was the first Moslem. Isaac and Jacob and David and Solomon and Moses and Jesus were all Moslems. All of them had writings similar to the Koran, therefore, world history is Islamic history because all the heroes of history were Moslems." This helps to put things in context.
Now, they asked the question, if everybody is Moslem why isn't the Bible similar to Koran? Well, Mohammed's answer was, it was at the beginning, but the books were forged. The books that are now used are forged books. He's talking about Islamic law here, the laws are very clear, Jews and Christians have no rights whatsoever to independent existence. They can live under Islamic rule provided they keep to the rules that Islam promulgates for them.
The professor talks about two houses. The world being seen. There's two houses. The world that falls under Islam is known as Dar El Islam. The House of Islam. Guess what the name of the second house is? It's not the world of non-Moslems. It's Dar El Harb - House of War. The world has to be at war until it comes under Islamic rule; that God sent Mohammed with true religion so that truth will overcome all other religions.
Interestingly, there are precedence that are set in history that allow certain things to happen. I'll give you an example here. When they talk about territory, territory, territory, why is that so important? It's important because once a territory comes under Islamic rule, they can never be outside of Islamic rule. To them it's an occupied territory.
A few years back, you remember when Yassar Arafat signed a Peace Accord? Some of the old-timers here, at least, remember that, right? Ever hear of Arafat signing a Peace Accord? Well, it talked about this precedent. They can't have peace because the world is either Islam or House of War. So how can he have signed a Peace Accord? Well, in their mind it wasn't really a Peace Accord it was a ceasefire. That's different. After he signed that Peace Accord, he spoke to a group of Moslems in Johannesberg. Let's see, he says here, now, he says to them: "Do you think I signed something with Jews, which is contrary to the rules of Islam?" He claims he didn't. What he was doing was following Muhammad's example.
You see there's a precedent. He said remember the story of Hodaic. I'm not sure I pronounced that correctly. He said the prophet made an agreement there with the tribe of Quraysh for ten years, but then he trained 10,000 soldiers and within two years marched on their city of Mecca . Thus, an Islamic jurisdiction became a legal precedent, which states that you are only allowed to make peace for a maximum of ten years. Secondly, at the first instance that you are able you must renew the Jihad, thus breaking the peace agreement.
This professor then says, "In Israel it has taken over 50 years of this country for our people to understand that they cannot speak about preparing a peace with Moslems. It will take another 50 years for the Western world to understand that they have got a state of war with the Islamic civilization that is virile and strong. This should be understood when we talk about war and peace. We are not talking about Belgium . We're not talking about France . We're not talking about England . We're not talking about it in Germanic terms. We are talking about peace and war in Islamic terms."
What makes Islam accept a ceasefire? Only one thing: when the enemy is too strong. So they say it's a tactical choice. It doesn't even matter if the conditions are embarrassing.
The professor writes here, "What are you talking about? You're in the Middle Ages. Don't you understand the mechanisms of politics? I will tell you one thing, we haven't seen the end of it because the minute a radical Moslem power has atomic, chemical, or biological weapons they will use it."
I don't remember where all these conflicts are but I heard someone on the radio, within the last couple of months, that said that there were something like 17 or 18 conflicts going on around the world. He said that in every single case it involves Islam. This professor writes, "This is the reason, what we have in Yugoslavia and other places is because Islam succeeded in entering these countries. Wherever you have Islam, you will have war. It grows out of the attitude of Islamic civilization. What are the poor people in the Philippines being killed for? What's happening between Pakistan and India ? Knowing Gandhi was successful at getting independence from Britain , that's when that split occurred. The Islamics moved north. They've been fighting for decades and decades over Kashmir ."
I worked many years for the church. I was working in the art department one day and Herbert Armstrong walked in with an Indian man that was a, I'm not sure what his job was, but he was doing work at the Hague . Mr. Armstrong was showing him around and they came in and we happened to have some article with a map of India on it. This man was a very well-educated man and he said, oh, the map is wrong. This area up here is India . We said, oh, we're sorry. We'll fix it. We checked it out and found out that that area was in dispute. India claimed that that territory belonged to them. Pakistan claimed that it belonged to them. I thought, "Isn't it interesting? Here this well-educated man, just very matter-of-factly, he didn't say that it was in dispute, he just said, oh, it belongs to us.
Well, this professor then goes on to talk about how the Islamic world not only has an attitude of open war, but also war by infiltration and he says that this is one of the things that the Western world just isn't paying enough attention to. He says, "If America doesn't wake up, one day Americans will find themselves in a chemical war, and most likely an atomic war inside the U.S. "
Now, last, and just a couple of more references I want to make from this article, it talks about the difference between Christianity and Islam, but I don't want to get into that necessarily, but I'll just read a couple of quotes here.
"I'm speaking now as a historian. I try to understand how Islam sees the end of days. At the end of days Islam sees a world that is totally Moslem, completely Moslem under the rule of Islam, complete and final victory. Christians will not exist because, according to many Islam traditions, the Moslems who are in hell will have to be replaced by somebody and they will be replaced by Christians. Jews will no longer exist because before the coming of the end of days there's going to be a war against the Jews, for all Jews should be killed. I'm quoting now from the heart of Islamic tradition. From the books that I read by every child in school, the Jews will all be killed. They will be running away and they'll be hiding behind trees and rocks and on that day Allah will give mouths to the rocks and trees and they will say, 'Oh Moslem, come here, there is a Jew behind me, kill him.' Without this, the end of days cannot come. This is a fundamental of Islam."
And then he goes on to say that essentially we're in a state of war, even if we don't recognize it, and it is a war that will not end . Now do you think that article was biased?
I would like to read this is something that I copied off the internet today, it says, Al-Qaeda Reportedly Warns Europe . It says, "To the European people, you only have a few more days to accept Bin Laden's truce or you will only have yourselves to blame." It said the statement was reported to be from this Islamic group, or the group that claimed responsibility for the train bombings in Madrid , or in Spain . It also said this: "Muslims in the West should depart to Muslim states if they can," the letter said, "those who cannot should take precautions and live in Muslim areas and have enough food to last a month, find ways to protect themselves and their families, leave enough money in the house to last one month, or longer, and to pray a lot that they put their faith in God's hands." The statement said, "Attacks would continue until the United States," now listen, how does this fit with what I just told you, the statement said, "Attacks would continue until the United States freed Muslim prisoners, ended its war on Islam and until all Muslim land, including Jerusalem and Kashmir, is cleansed of the stain of Jews, Americans and Hindus."
Now, there is an odd comment that was made, at least it seemed odd to me at the time when we read about the bombings in Spain, when this group claimed responsibility for it, they rattled off the usual reasons why, but included in it was because of the Crusades, what happened during the Crusades. That was in the 13 th Century.
"I offer a truce to them," this is Europe , "with a commitment to stop operations against any state which vows to stop attacking Muslims or interfere in their affairs," Bin Laden said. "Whoever rejects this truce and wants war, we are war's sons and whoever wants this truce, here we bring it. The race is now between you, time, and European governments which refuse to stop their attacks against Muslims, do not blame us for what will happen and we apologize to you in advance if you are among those killed."
Well, it has a few other things in there.
We have a war of civilizations . Now, I understand better now some scriptures that come to mind that I won't turn to, but I understand them better now in this context. " Peace, peace, when there is no peace ." Well, you might think we have peace when we have a ceasefire. How about, " those that kill you will think they are doing God a service "? We only have to remember a few recent beheadings and some of the things that were said.
Two last scriptures.
I Thessalonians 5:1 " But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you.
Vs. 2 " For you yourselves know perfectly the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.
Vs. 3 " For when they say, 'Peace and safety'; then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman; and they shall not escape. "
And then, Matthew 24 , start in verse 6
Matthew 24:6 " And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
Vs. 7 " For nations will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in various places.
Vs. 8 " All these are the beginning of sorrows.
Vs. 9 " Then they will deliver you up to tribulation, and kill you; and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake.
Vs. 10 " And then many will be offended and betray one another, and hate one another.
Vs. 11 " Then many false prophets will rise up, and deceive many.
Vs. 12 " And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.
Vs. 13 " But he who endures to the end, shall be saved. "
We can see some of these things happening. As I said at the beginning, the United States is a great nation. It's distressing that we have so much trouble around the world, but there's a phenomenon that most don't understand outside of Christianity and it's a very narrow area of Christianity at that, and that is, that the world cannot explain the hatred of the Jews. They can't do it. I've heard people talking recently that they don't understand it, why, but the hatred of America is, it's the same thing as the hatred of the Jews. He said it's that intense. We're in difficult times.
We hope that God will continue to bless us. May God's Spirit be upon you all and take care of you.