America's Roots

A nice weekend. I think some of the holidays that we have in this country are quite enjoyable. The Fourth of July is an enjoyable holiday, and before we leave this weekend, I hope that we took some time to show our appreciation and thanks to God for the country that He has allowed us to live in. We are the benefactors of so many wonderful things in a life that most of the world that has ever lived can't even imagine the life that you and I have every single day.

The type of freedoms that we have, the type of opportunity that we have to pursue our interests and to do the things that we want to in life professionally, to worship God in the way that we want and not under the dictates or watchful eye of a tyrannical state. There are a lot of things that we should be thankful for, and we remember on this weekend and every day. It's all because of what God has done.

American history, I hope we take some time to remember that on July 4th. I know the President tried to do something to remind people of what the history of this nation has been, where we've progressed since 1776. As we look at American history, there are a lot of names that we can remember. I know when I was in school, American history was always one of my favorite subjects among others as well.

But there are names we remember. There's Patrick Henry, Nathan Hale, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Paul Revere. You can go down the whole list. And it's good to remember those things because those people sacrificed a lot that we might have what we have today. They sacrificed their lives that the vision of a world and a nation that would have the freedoms we have would be there. And God has blessed the country, so it's become the greatest ever. We look back, we can talk about the pilgrims coming over to Jamestown in the 1600s, we can talk about Christopher Columbus in 1492, and he discovered America is what we are often taught.

But the roots of America go way back, way back beyond 1492. The roots of America, if we understand the roots of America, we understand a lot about the world around us today. The roots of America didn't begin in 1492. They didn't begin with the American, Indian, and things like that. The roots of America, when we understand them, give us not only a knowledge of the world that we live in, but a knowledge of the plan, a part of the plan that God has given us to understand that we live in every day.

When we look at the roots of America and we understand where the true roots of America are and where they have been, we begin to understand God, we begin to understand gratitude, we begin to understand His plan more, and we begin to understand just how great the God you and I worship is. When we look at America and the roots of America and where it was, where it started, and where we are today, we learn that God keeps His promises. He keeps His promises well beyond the lifespan of one man or another man or several generations.

He keeps His promises. When He makes them, we can count on them. And there were promises that were made way back whenever that have resulted in where America is today and other nations like it. And in it, we should find the motivation to praise God more, to think of Him more, to understand where we are living and the times we're living in more, and to realize and have the faith in Him to not count on the country but the God who made this country the way it is.

So let's go back and look at the roots of America here and progress it from way back when to where we are today and if we have time even beyond that because the roots of America begin back here really before man was ever created and put on this earth. But let's look at Genesis 12.

Excuse me. Genesis 12. When we begin to see a man here by the name of Abraham who has God opened his mind to who he is, he gave up everything. You know, if Josephus' account of Abraham is accurate and Josephus or Abraham was a man who was well-respected and high up in the society of Chaldea and the land of Ur, he gave up a lot. He gave up worshiping false gods when he understood who God was and he was willing to follow God wherever he asked and he was willing to do whatever he said. As God watched the attitude of this man Abraham, the only one on earth who was willing to do this, God asked him to do something and God made some unconditional promises to him. Genesis 12, verse 1. The eternal said to Abram, Get out of your country from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

That's the passions of Scripture there known as the Abrahamic Covenant. The Abrahamic Covenant is still in effect today. It didn't end when Israel went into captivity. It's still in effect today and will be in effect as long as Jesus Christ, as we're going to see in a few minutes, as long as there's a heaven and earth.

Let me read to you what the open Bible commentary says about this Abrahamic Covenant. Words that we would agree with and that you will find in our literature as well. It says, This covenant with Abraham is the first of the theocratic covenants. It is unconditional, depending solely upon God, to bring to pass the promised blessings. The Abrahamic Covenant is the basis of all other theocratic covenants and provides for blessings in three areas. National blessings, when he says, I will make you a great nation. Personal blessings, I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing. And universal blessings, when he says, in you all families of the earth shall be blessed.

The Abrahamic Covenant constitutes an important link in all that God began to do, has done throughout history, and into which all of God's programs and works fit. A very important covenant. A very important covenant. And if we're going to go back, and we know we could go back before the foundation of the earth, but if we're going to go back, America's roots are there in Genesis 12, 1-3.

Because God made Abraham, Abram, some very great promises, and Abraham didn't see all those promises come to be in his lifetime, his son Isaac didn't see all those promises come to be in his lifetime, his son Jacob didn't come to see all those promises in his lifetime, King David didn't see all those promises come to be in his lifetime. Now, we're on the other side of history. We've seen God's blessing.

We've seen Him fulfill these things. And throughout the course of mankind's existence on earth, we see this covenant being fulfilled before our very eyes, and it continues to exist into the future. We see when we look at what God has said about this nation, about this covenant, and what He was going to do with Abraham. And we're going to focus in not on all three parts of that covenant, but I will make you a great nation, is what we'll focus in on today, and progress that through the Bible, and then see it enacted here in our history, and the things that we know well and documented by secular sources as well.

You know, as God gave Abram that blessing, throughout his life he added to it. He kind of focused, he kind of focused more on, well, this is what that means, I'm going to add to this blessing. You know, when God calls us sometimes, we understand that Jesus Christ is returning to earth. We understand there's a kingdom that He will set up. And as we learn more, God gives us a little more, a few more details as we go along, that we get a picture and a vision of what He's called us to, a vision of what the kingdom will be like.

Let's just do a short survey here through Genesis 15 and see how God enhanced the vision for Abram of those promises, because as Abraham heard that, he may not have understood what God is saying. Here's God Almighty, the God of the universe, telling me these things. But God reminds him of the promises throughout. Let's go to Genesis 15 and in verse 5, and Abram is saying, you know, I don't have any heir, I don't have any children, etc.

And verse 5 in Genesis 15 says, God brought Abram outside and said, Look toward heaven, count the stars if you're able to number them. And God said to him, So shall your descendants be. And he, Abram, believed in the Lord, and God accounted it to him for righteousness. Here's Abram, childless. God said, I made you this problem, look up in the sky, Abram. As many stars as you see, that's how many descendants you will have. Abram didn't use human logic. He didn't count to think there's no way. That's a great thing to hear. He simply believed.

He simply took God at his word. Didn't think, didn't compromise, didn't blink. He simply believed him, and God knew he believed him. And God said, this man will follow me. This man believes me. He may not understand. He may not understand how it can be that from one man and one woman, as many descendants as there are stars in heaven will be on earth. But he believed, and he enhanced that vision of what his family would be like, and that nation that would come from him would be like.

If we go on to chapter 17. Chapter 17. Here in this chapter, God is instituting the Old Covenant. A symbol of circumcision is a symbol of the covenant between man and him. And in verse 4 of 17, he repeats to Abram. At the time he's seen in verse 1, he was 99 years old.

He says, as for me, behold, my covenant, Abram, is with you. And you will be a father of many nations. 99 years old, still no direct heir. Well, I guess at this point, probably Ishmael has been born. Abram, verse 4, as for me, behold, my covenant is with you, and you will be a father of many nations. No longer will your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. I'll make you exceedingly fruitful. I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you.

These are some great promises that God is saying to a man who has one son, where they took matters into their own hands to have him, hasn't given him the son of promise yet that would come.

And through these things, these promises would, or through him, these promises would be filled. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. You'll be the father of many nations. Kings will come from you. If we go on to chapter 22. Chapter 22. God, through the many trials as Abraham, builds his faith in God through the many trials that God put him through, where he learned to just obey God and trust in him implicitly, and God asks him the ultimate Abraham.

If you love me, give me your son Isaac. Sacrifice him. And Abraham was willing to do it. God saw his heart. And in chapter 22, verse 17, after God stops Abraham, because he knew that he would do it. He loved God and believed him that much. In chapter 17, God says to him, blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore, and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. Now, those of you who have been in the church for a while, you know what that means, possessing the gate of your enemies. That would have been a tremendous thing. Not only are you a great nation, not only will I multiply you, not only will kings come for you, you'll possess the gates of your enemies.

There, you will, in essence, you will hold the world by its tail. And as you look through history, you see that some nations on earth, just a few, have possessed the gates of their enemies. And as you look at the waterways, there were two nations in particular that controlled those gates until recent times. But God kept enhancing that blessing and letting them know and showing him, this is what I'm doing.

This is the plan. Believe me. If we go to Genesis, the end of Genesis, chapter 48.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, often we say, you know, he's the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, three men who followed God implicitly. Made some mistakes in their lives, but they followed God implicitly. And as Jacob, who was named Israel, was about to die, he wanted to pass his blessing on. Abraham passed the blessing on to Isaac. Isaac passed it on to Jacob. Jacob now is ready to pass the blessing on to Joseph. Joseph's offspring. So let's pick it up in Genesis 48, verse 4.

Well, verse 3. Jacob said to Joseph, his son, his son by Rachel, one of the two wives that he had that he truly loved, that Jacob said to Joseph, God Almighty appeared to me at was, in the land of Canaan, and blessed me. 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. And now your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine. As Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine. Your offspring, whom you beget after them, shall be yours. They will be called by the name of their brothers in their inheritance. 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 Ephraim. And I buried there on the way to Ephraim, Bethlehem. And Israel looked at Joseph's two sons and said, Who are these? And here they are. And then he blessed those two young lads. Let's go down to verse 14.

Let my name be named upon them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. Let my name be on them. Henceforth they will be known as Israel. That will be their name. Joseph, you'll have other sons, and if you do, they'll be by your name. These two are mine. This is where that Abrahamic covenant will go through. Now there was a twist here because Jacob, who was, Isaac apparently was failing at this time, had his hands in the opposite of what it would be traditionally done. And Joseph, in verse 17, when he saw that his father 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 put it on Manasseh's head. And Joseph said to his father, Not so, my father, for this one is the firstborn. Put your right hand on his head. But Israel, Jacob refused and said, I know, I know, my son, I know. He also shall become a people. This firstborn Manasseh, he also will become a people, and he also shall be great. But truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations.

Quite a specific prophecy. These two young men, one would become a great nation, the older one, but the younger one would precede him, and he would be a multitude of nations.

You know, as the Bible was written, that never happened during biblical times. It never happened. It's a prophecy from God. You could read through the Bible, and at the time the last one was written, the book of Revelation, that hadn't happened to Israel. If it never happened to Israel, then the Bible was false. If that prophecy wasn't fulfilled, then we can throw the Bible out, because we would say that God didn't fulfill his promises.

He promised Abraham something, and he didn't deliver, because it didn't happen up to 90 and 100 AD. It didn't happen until many years later, but when you look at history, we know that prophecy was fulfilled. And when we see that prophecy being fulfilled thousands of years later, thousands of years later, God, who worked from the beginning of time until the time Jesus Christ returns and for time beyond that, had this in mind, and that prophecy is fulfilled, and we can believe in God.

When we see how God fulfilled that, when we see what God has done, and that prophecy is alive and well, and you and I have the opportunity to see what Abraham didn't, what Isaac didn't, what Jacob didn't, what David didn't, it wasn't there at the time Jesus Christ walked Earth, he knew it was going to happen, Abraham believed it was going to happen, we know it happened.

Because indeed, the descendants of Abraham and those two young men became a great nation and a company of nations on the Earth. Well, we know the history of Israel. We know that they followed God, eventually they went into Egypt, they were in Egypt for hundreds of years as slaves, God didn't forget his people through that time, it might have seemed to some of them. What about these promises God made to Abraham? We're his descendants and we're slaves, but God never forgot them, and he brought them out of Egypt. And for 40 years, they wandered in the wilderness, and he taught them about his way. And they were supposed to follow, and he wanted them to follow, and he made them some more promises.

Let's go forward to Deuteronomy 28. Deuteronomy 28 is Moses is about to die. He's led the people of Israel for 40 years, the 12 tribes of Israel. He's led them for 40 years, he's about to die, and he reminds them of the covenants and the promises that God has made to them. But they're part in the covenant, too, because the Abrahamic covenant was sure, regardless of what the people did, God was going to see that that covenant was fulfilled, regardless of what Israel did.

And they didn't fulfill their end of the bargain, if we can put it that way. Deuteronomy 28, verse 1, Moses speaking, God, of course, inspires us, and says, "'You shall come to pass, if you diligently,'" and boy, when we see that word diligently, I remind us, God expects the same thing of us today.

"'You shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the eternal, your God, to observe carefully,'" and boy, we should look at that word, too, "'carefully all his commandments, which I command you today, that the eternal, your God, will set you high above all nations of the earth.'" Remember that promise? "'I will make you a great nation.'" All these things. If you do that, God will set you high above all nations of the earth, and "'all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.'" You'll be blessed in the city, blessed in the country.

Blessed will be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground, and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle, and the offspring of your flocks. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. And God continues to recount those blessings.

If we drop down to verse 13, it says, "'The eternal will make you the head and not the tail. You will be above only and not beneath. If you heed, if you heed the commandments of the eternal your God, which I command you today,' and there's that word again, "'and are careful, are careful to observe them.'" Careful to observe them.

We go down to verse 15. He says, this is what's going to happen to you. On the other hand, if you depart from me, if you disregard me, if you disrespect me, if you start doing your own thing, making your own way of life, if you start compromising with my commandments, if you don't diligently follow, if you don't carefully follow, second, avoid the Abrahamic covenant.

What I said will stand because God's promises stand, and they are fulfilled, but you won't be the benefactors of the blessings you would have if you would obey me. So down in verse 15, He says, it will come to pass if you don't obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes, which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.

And then He goes through the rest of the chapter, and He details these things that will happen to them. You'll be cursed in the city, cursed in the country. All these things are going to happen to you. Down in verse 58.

You know, as He goes through all these things, and then in verse 58, He says, if you don't carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God, then He will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues, great and prolonged plagues, and serious and prolonged sicknesses. Moreover, He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they will cling to you.

Now, in some home Bible studies, we talked about the diseases of Egypt and what they were. Now, we learned that the diseases of Egypt are exactly the same as many of the diseases that plague us today. The diagnoses that none of us would want to hear, like cancer, diabetes, all these other things that can be life-threatening to us. The same diseases that were there, we have among us today. Verse 60, Moreover, He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they will cling to you. Also, every sickness and every plague which is not written in this book of the law, all those and more, and in today's world we have even more that haven't been there in history, every sickness and every plague which is not written in this book of the law, will the Lord bring upon you until you are destroyed?

He promises He'll make the many in number, but He says, You shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven and multitude. Why? Why will you lose your strength? Why will you lose your numbers? Because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.

And it shall be that just as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so He will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing, and you will be plucked from off the land which you go to possess. You'll lose all the blessings I've given you.

It doesn't say He'll destroy them as a people, but they'll lose the land that they would be on. And the eternal will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will serve other gods which neither you nor your fathers have known, nor your wood and stone. While they'd come out of Egypt, God said, you know what? If you don't follow me, if you don't diligently and carefully follow me, the covenant I made with Abraham stands.

But you'll lose the land you live in. You'll lose the things that I Lokadu blessed you with. The nation will go on, and you'll be scattered all over the place. It didn't happen in Moses' lifetime.

It didn't happen in Abraham's lifetime. It didn't happen in David's lifetime. Another prophecy, if God's word is to be taken seriously and to believe in it, it had to happen somewhere along the line. Otherwise, we don't have to pay attention to the Bible. But it did happen, as we know. Well, Israel went into the Promised Land. They had Joshua lead them for 40 years. After that, there was the period of the Judges. During that time, God learned about them. They did what was right in their own eyes.

And then after the period of the Judges, they wanted a king. Saul was chosen as king. You know that he disappointed God. He was removed as king. But David was the second king of Israel, and he very much pleased God. He was a man after God's own heart. And God made a covenant with David as well.

Let's go to 2 Samuel. 2 Samuel 7. 2 Samuel 7, verse 8. It says, Now therefore, thus shall you say to my servant David, who was king at this time, Thus says the eternal of hosts, I took you from the sheepfold, from following the sheep, To be ruler over my people, over Israel. And I have been with you wherever you have gone. I have cut off all your enemies from before you. I have made you a great name, like the name of the great men who are on the earth.

Moreover, I will appoint a place for my people Israel, And I will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, And move no more. Nor shall the sons of wickedness oppress them any more, as previously.

Well, when David heard those words, The people will move no more. He might have thought, this is the land God gave us. This is the land that He promised our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We're here. We'll be here forever. But we know from biblical history they weren't there forever. They disregarded God. They disrespected God. God, in 722 BC, allowed Israel, the ten northern tribes, to have became the nation of Israel, with Judah being the other kingdom. God took them from that land. And yet He told David, they'll move no more. They'll move no more. There's got to be an explanation. Because they moved. They moved. Yet God told David, your people will move no more.

It didn't happen in David's lifetime. It didn't happen in the rest of the king's lifetime. It didn't happen in Jesus Christ's lifetime. It hasn't happened in our lifetime. But the Bible says there will be time when the nation of Israel will be transplanted, or God will bring them, and they will move no more.

Forever. Well, we'll follow that through a little bit here. Let's drop down to verse 12. When your days, David, are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

I will be his father. He shall be my son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the son of men. He'll pay the price for sinning, but my mercy shall not depart from him as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you.

Your throne shall be established forever. Well, if we're to take God at his word, the throne of David is still somewhere on earth today. If it's not, then we can throw the Bible out. Because God said, your throne will be established forever. And yet, we know Israel, the northern ten tribes, ceased as a nation, eventually Judah too, through which the kings and the Davidic line went through. They eventually lost their kingdom as well. Many would say the throne of David ceased at that time. Yet back here in Luke, Luke 1, verse 31, when Christ, the infant, was born, these words were spoken over him, Luke 1, 31. And behold, you will conceive, Mary, in your womb, and bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

He will be great, and he will be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David. He'll give him that throne. Many at that time thought, oh, if he's the Messiah, God will give him that throne at that time. That throne still existed at that time. We know when he came the first time, it wasn't to take the kingdom back to Israel that he came for a purpose to live, to die for mankind's sins.

When he comes back the next time, he'll take the throne back. He'll be King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and he'll be given when he returns that throne. Let's go back to Psalm, Psalm 89. Look at a prophecy there, or a statement there, I guess, Psalm 89.

Psalm 89, verse 3, I've made a covenant with my chosen. I have sworn to my servant David, your seed I will establish forever, and build up your throne to all generations. Say, and then we go through the rest of the chapter. Down in verse 30, we revisit this again, verse 30 of Psalm 89. If his sons forsake my law and don't walk in my judgments, if they break my statutes and don't keep my commandments, I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes. The covenant I made with David still stands.

If they disregard me, if they disrespect me, if they disobey me, if they turn away from me, they'll pay the price, because there is a price to sin. But the Davidic covenant will remain in place. I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless, my loving-kindness I will not utterly take from him, nor allow my faithfulness to fail. I made a promise. I will keep it. My covenant I will not break, nor alter the word that has gone out of my lips.

Once I have sworn by my holiness, I will not lie to David. His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me. And therein you get a kind of a definition of the word forever, O-L-A-M, in the Hebrew. As long as the sun and moon exist, as long as there is a sun, David's throne will endure.

It will be established forever, like the moon, even like the faithful witness in the sky. Somewhere on earth David's throne still is, or those words are not true. Now, we've talked about this before, and I'm not going to go into it.

You know, you can look on our website, and I'm sure there's a sermon that goes back three or four years ago, so it talks about the throne of David. Where is it today? And it goes through it, and commonly we believe it is residing in the most popular monarchy on earth, the most popular throne on earth, the most visible throne on earth. And that is in Great Britain. And you can follow history through that. You can read booklets on it.

You can read secular history, and it all points there. The point is, when God says forever, He means forever. He means forever. He meant forever with the Abrahamic covenant. He meant forever with the Davidic covenant. And if there isn't the descendants of Abraham on earth somewhere today, if they didn't become a great nation and a multitude of nations, then the Bible is not true.

If David's throne doesn't still exist for Christ to return to, the Bible isn't true. And yet we know it is true, and those things exist on earth today. Over in Ezekiel, the prophetic book of Ezekiel, in Ezekiel 37, and you'll remember chapter 37, it's the chapter that begins with the bones coming together. Often on the last great day of the Feast of Tabernacles, we'll refer to that chapter, talking about the resurrection after the millennium. In verse 37 and verse 24, speaking of this Davidic throne, and clearly Ezekiel 37 is a prophetic chapter.

It hasn't happened yet. Ezekiel 37 verse 24 says, David, my servant, will be king over them. Well, David was long gone by this time. By the time Ezekiel wrote, Israel had lost their nation. They'd been dispossessed. They forgot God. They disregarded him. David, my servant, shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my judgments and observe my statutes and do them. Israel didn't do that in their time on earth.

Israel never had a good king that followed God. They instead had Jeroboam, who was the first king, who decided he was going to do things his own way, even changed the festival of the seventh month to the eighth month because he was jealous that the people would go back to Judah.

God gave him a great opportunity. What he did was, we'll do it my way. We'll do it my way. We'll compromise with that and keep the people over here. And Israel never did. They lost. They lost it all in 722. The covenant was still there. Verse 25, Then they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob, my servant, where your father swelled. And they shall dwell there. They, their children, and their children's children.

Forever. That's the future thing. When God said to David, I'll give them this land that they will move no more, that hasn't happened yet. In Ezekiel 37, we learn when that will happen. They shall dwell there, they and their children, and their children's children forever. And my servant David, dead and gone, when Ezekiel 37 was written, shall be their prince forever.

He will have, he will be sitting, on that throne that God made him the covenant with.

Well, the nation of Israel, under David and Solomon, they did become a great nation on earth. They were united, all 12 tribes, under the banner of Israel. One nation, Israel, all 12 tribes. And they did achieve great heights in the ancient world. They were a nation that people looked to. They marveled at. They were riding the high hills of the earth, as God had said. But under David, and in the beginning under Solomon, they did follow God. And when they followed God, he promised them great things, and he delivered great things. Later on in Solomon's reign, they departed from God, and kings after them, and after Solomon, they split into two nations. But let's go back and take a peek at what Israel was like back in the time of David and Solomon. Let's go to 1 Kings 10.

1 Kings 10 and verse 23.

1 Kings 10, 23. King Solomon surpassed all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom. Now, there's the greatest nation on earth at that time. King Solomon surpassed all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom. And you remember, because of Solomon's humility, when he asked God, just give me, teach me how to judge this people fairly, God did give him that heart of wisdom.

Now, all the earth, verse 24, all the earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart. That's where they were looking. The world was looking to Israel. We want to go visit him. We want to hear the words he says.

We want to see what this nation is that their God has so richly blessed. Each man brought his presence, articles of silver and gold, garments, armor, spices, horses, and mules, at a set rate year by year. And Solomon gathered chariots and horsemen, 1,400 chariots, 12,000 horsemen, whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king at Jerusalem. The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones. And he made cedar trees as abundant as the sycamores, which are in the low land.

America today is a pretty wealthy nation, but you know, in America today, silver isn't as common as stones. It was back then, under Israel, God richly blessed that nation. So we get a picture of what Israel was like. They were the head, not the tail. The world was looking to them. They came to Israel, they came to Solomon, they heard the words of wisdom, they wanted to hear them speak. They didn't do it. They didn't do what he said. They didn't acknowledge God, but they were aware of him, and they were aware that God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, richly blessed that nation.

Go back to 1 Kings 5. We find something else a little bit about that nation that was so wealthy, and often as wealthy nations, as we see the wealthy nations in the world today, included, of course, in that is America that some say is the greatest nation, the wealthiest nation that ever lived.

We say that when they have extra money and extra resources, they're always looking to explore. You know, back in those days, they, you know, well, if we look back at even our history, our national history, new frontiers that people would go to. Let's move west. Let's look at this new land. People are always looking and exploring. Today, we have money, we'll explore space. And we have satellites, so to say, there's always a new frontier to explore. When you have ample funds, you're able to do that.

Here in 1 Kings 5, we see that Israel was in that ballpark as well. 1 Kings 5, verse 1, Hyrum, we have this name Hyrum, Hyrum king of Tyre, sent his servants to Solomon because he heard that they had anointed him king in place of his father, for Hyrum had always loved David. Now, there's an alliance that's there. And Solomon sent to Hyrum, saying, you know that my father wanted to build a house, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

That he goes on and says that, and he asks for his help. And that, let's drop down to verse 7. Now, so it was when Hyrum heard the words of Solomon, that he rejoiced greatly and said, Blessed be the Lord this day, for he has given David a wise son over his people.

Oh, you know what? I knew I was missing something. Let's go back to 1 Kings 10 again. Keep in mind what I just read. I want to go back and read verse 22 after I read verses 23 to 27. 1 Kings 10, we just read 23 to 27. What a great nation that ancient 12 tribes of Israel were. Verse 22 said, For the king had merchant ships at sea with the fleet of Hyrum.

That's where Hyrum ties into 1 Kings 5. The king had merchant ships at sea with the fleet of Hyrum. Once every three years the merchant ships came bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and monkeys. And so we had Israel that was exploring in this area with this king Hyrum who had these ships.

Now, King Hyrum was a Canaanite. They were on friendly terms with Israel. Canaanites in our modern history are often referred to as Phoenicians. Now, you all remember from the history of the Phoenicians, right? They were a very progressive society. We get our alphabet from them. They were the father of many of the nations, including English that we speak today. Let me read from the Encyclopedia Britannica about the Canaanites and the Phoenicians. First, let me, you know, some of the chief cities of this, and keep this in mind for later.

The chief cities of the Phoenicians were Gebel, Sidon, Sor, Tyre, and Behor, which is modern day Beirut. Okay. The Phoenicians were known as Canaanites, meaning merchants, which characterizes well the Phoenicians. Well known to contemporaries as sea traders and colonizers, they had already extended their influence along the Mediterranean as far as Spain.

Cedar, fine linen, and fine linen were exports from Tyre. Ivory and wood carving became Phoenician specialties. They produced their own alphabet as early as the 11th century BC, and it was spread over the Mediterranean area by traders. They developed this developed from Semitic language of which Hebrew is one, also the father of the Germanic language of which English is one. Archaeologists argue that the Phoenicians are simply the descendants of coastal-dwelling Canaanites, who over the centuries developed a particular seagoing culture and skills. And they go on through some other things here in more detail. And it talks about the founding date of some cities that are around as you round the bend of southern Europe. Cadez, over in Spain. It's just right there at the southern border. If you're going to go to Spain and turn the corner, there's a little city called Cadez that's there.

So that was founded back in the 1110 BC by the Canese, by the Canaanites, by the Phoenicians. It goes on to say, Phoenician ships used to ply the coast of southern Spain and along the coast of Portugal. It is often mentioned that Phoenicians ventured north into the Atlantic Ocean as far as Great Britain. So these Phoenicians were explorers. And the ancient world always explores, right? That's how Christopher Columbus found his way over to America after many voyages.

They did the same thing back in the 1100 BC when David was king, when Solomon was king. And so Israel was right there with the Phoenicians in all this exploration. It's documented that the Phoenicians traveled as far as Great Britain. They didn't call it Great Britain at that time, but the Israelites would have been aware of this island that's out there off of the coast of this great continent that's there.

And we can keep that in mind as we look at what God was working with this nation, because they would eventually be displaced from the land that God had given them, and they would have to be relocated someplace else. But as the nation grew and as they explored all these things, God was working with them.

They were a great nation, but they eventually lost it. But you'll remember from history. Anyone here not hear of the Phoenicians? We've all heard of the Phoenicians, right? You know, when I was growing up, and I would, you know, we were in the church as I was growing up, and I knew about Israel, and it was a wealthy nation, how many people ever remember hearing about Israel in their history books? You don't hear much about Israel, do you? Sometimes, I remember, I remember one time in a history book it talked about there was a King Solomon who was king on earth, and people flocked to him or whatever. But all the stories were about the Phoenicians, but the Bible says it was Israel that everyone looked to. It's almost as if history wants to hide the people of Israel. They were a great nation, they were a great nation, but history doesn't want to remember them. Let's go back to Psalms again. Psalm 83. Psalm 83 and verse 3. The Phoenicians get a lot of credit. Israel gets very little mention. Psalm 83, verse 1. It says, Don't keep silent, O God. Don't hold your peace, and don't be still, O God. For behold, your enemies make a tumult, and those who hate you have lifted up their head. They have taken crafty counsel against your people. God made it clear Israel is my people. They were the descendants in Deuteronomy 7. He said, You're my special people, and you I look to. He wanted them to be an example to the earth. They have taken crafty counsel against your people and consulted together against your sheltered ones. They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more.

As you look through history, as great of a nation as it was, the name of Israel is rarely mentioned. It's like a forgotten thing. Sometimes it's a footnote on the lost ten tribes of Israel. They kind of had it all. They lost, and they disappeared into history. In Psalm, it said, This is what would happen to those people, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more.

And so rarely do we hear about Israel anymore.

Well, you know the history of Israel. They didn't follow God. After Solomon, Rehoboam became king, he was not a good king, and God separated the one nation of Israel into two nations. The northern ten tribes became known as Israel. The southern tribes became known as Judah. They were the Jews, as the Bible called them. They're the Jews who we read about at the time of Jesus Christ's return. They're part of Israel, but they became a separate nation. So going forward, Israel was the northern ten tribes. Judah was the southern ten tribes. Judah still exists on earth today. Everyone knows where Judah is today. They're called Israel in the Middle East. But they're really the tribe of Judah. They're not all of Israel. There were twelve tribes in Israel. That represents just a couple of them. Over in 1 Kings, over in... well, let's go look at 2 Kings, we talked about Jeroboam who departed from God. And now Israel never did follow God again. They did exactly what God warned them not to do in Deuteronomy 28. And they lost the kingdom. Let's look at 2 Kings 18. 2 Kings 18, verse 9. It came to fast in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshiah, the son of Elah, king of Israel. The Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, came up against Samaria and besieged it. Now the Assyrian Empire was a cruel empire. We read about some of the things in our world today, and back in the time when ISIS was beginning to form, some of the things that kind of raised everyone's eyebrow, like what a cruel people they were. The Assyrians made the people of ISIS look like child's play. History says they were the most cruel, cruel oppressors you could imagine. So they come up, and the whole world was afraid of Assyria. They came up against Samaria, the capital of Israel, the northern ten tribes, the separate nation of Israel. And at the end of three years, they took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is, the ninth year of Hoshiah, king of Israel, Samaria was taken. And the king of Assyria carried Israel away captive to Assyria and put them in Halah and by the Habor, the river of Gozan, into the cities of the Medes. They lost their land. They did what Deuteronomy 28 told them not to do. And God said, when you do that, all these things will happen to you. You will lose your land. It happened exactly as He said because, as it says in verse 12, because they did not obey the voice of the eternal their God, but transgressed His covenant, and all that Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded, and they would neither hear nor do them. Even though they might have been warned. They don't want to listen to that. They don't believe it. They know we're okay. We don't have to do that. God's okay with us. They wouldn't hear it, and they certainly weren't going to do it. They lost it all.

And here they were. They became slaves of this cruel, cruel kingdom in 722 B.C. They lost it all, and they were displaced. They were taken out of their land. God didn't utterly destroy them. He didn't kill every single one of them. The nation of Israel didn't cease at that time. They lost their land. But the people still existed. But they were carried away to these places that we have listed here in verse 11. Assyria was a big kingdom. It was a big kingdom when you look at it.

If you look at Wikipedia, it'll tell you how big the Assyrian kingdom was. You draw a line down from Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean Sea, down around Iran, up around again. They controlled all that land. Israel fell to them, and they became part of it. They carried them away to another place in these areas that are listed here in verse 11. They controlled the Caucasus. They controlled the area, as Josephus says, beyond the Euphrates. And the people were transported there. They were taken out of their land, and they were put in a different area.

I'm not going to go through all the history of that. You can read our booklet on United States and Britain and history that is documented well by secular sources. You can read a book. I forget the name of it now by Mr. Allen. That is a separate book. There's another book out. There's encyclopedias that tell you what happened if you track what happened to those people that were displaced from Israel and what happened to them where they were, and you can track them across the centuries into where they are today. You've read that. You can read it. If you need booklets on that, I can give you those, or I can give you even a separate booklet.

We won't take the time to do that because you can prove that yourself. I know when I was coming into the church, I was raised in the church, but there comes a time when you know it's the truth, and you need to do one of the most fascinating things to me that proved to me, and there were many of them, but was the United States and Britain in prophecy.

When I understood what the United States and Britain prophecy was saying and saw it alive before my very eyes, everything came clear. The plan of God, what's he doing, where are we today, where are we in prophecy, what does prophecy mean, what is the world going on, why is America not mentioned in the New Testament? The name of Israel is hidden, but if Israel is alive and well.

In fact, if you read Jesus Christ in Matthew 15, he says, I was not sent except to the lost tribes of Israel. That's where he was sent. You can read in Matthew 15, he went to Tyre and Sidon, and he talked to a lady there. She kind of knew who he was. Was she one of the lost ten tribes of Israel? James. Well, James wrote the book of book, the book of the Epistle. He sent it to the tribes, the lost ten tribes of Israel that are scattered abroad. The apostles knew where they were. Jesus Christ sent his disciples out to send them to the lost ten tribes of Israel.

It's because he came to minister to Israel, including the Jews that he was living among, but also the other tribes. Let's go back to Amos. I'm going to turn to Amos very often. Let's look at the prophetic book of Amos. It's written during the time that Israel was falling apart. It was a warning to the nation of Israel before it fell in 722 B.C. And in chapter 9 of Amos, you know, history parallels itself.

We see what the history of Israel was. God blessed them richly. They became a mighty and a great nation. They lost it all when they departed from God. Verse 9, chapter 9, and verse 8, I'm sorry, of Amos, says, Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are on the sinful kingdom. And I will destroy it, he says, from the face of the earth. Yet I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, says the eternal. I'll destroy their kingdom, but I won't wipe off Israel.

Israel still exists. I made a promise to Abraham. That exists until the time that he determines it does, until the time of the purpose of the earth is done. Yet I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, says the eternal. For surely I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, as grain is sifted in a sieve, yet not the smallest grain shall fall to the ground.

That happened to Israel. They were scattered throughout the nations. They were taken out of their land. They were dispersed over into the kingdom of Assyria. When Assyria fell, history will show. All of a sudden, there's groups of people who were showing up. The history says, where do these people come from? They had different names, Saxons, Celts, Scythians, and things like that. Let me read to you. Let me read to you here. Just one thing. This is from a secular book. It's written by George Rawlinson. It says, this is the mid-ninth century interpretation of his tune inscription, King Darius's record of his Concord by the famous transcriber and translator of the inscription, George Rawlinson. He writes, He writes, Never in the church didn't understand the truth of God. As he looked through history, he goes, here's a people that are showing up at the seventh century BC exactly when God had taken them out of Assyria, the Assyrian Empire fell 100 years later in 600 BC, and all of a sudden, these people are showing up. Where did these people come from? As he tracked it, he said, they are identical to the ten tribes of the House of Israel. Sharon Turner, author of the history of the angle of Saxons, agrees, the Sakasuna, or the sons of S-A-K-A-I, abbreviated into S-A-K-S-U-N, pronounced Saxon, which is the same sound as what we're familiar with in Anglo-Saxon, seems a reasonable etymology of the word Saxon. It takes no great leap of reason to conclude that Saxons is a corrupted form of Isaac's sons. When people study, they realize, this people, these lost ten tribes, as we watch them move across Europe, and they show up in other places, written, which we have record that they would have explored with Hiram, and then we know the history from there, spilling over the wall into other areas that they populated through time, that that's where they were. That's how they came over there. Prophecy says Israel would fall and be sifted among the nations. That's exactly what God told Jacob back in Genesis 28. Let's go way back there. Genesis 28. As the blessing went from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob. And Jacob had this experience and had a dream of a ladder reaching up to heaven. In Genesis 28, verse 12, let's read what God said here about what was going to happen to that people somewhere down the road. Chapter 28, verse 10.

There's a repetition of the promise, the covenant.

Didn't happen in that lifetime. Happened to Israel eventually, after all these people of the Old Testament were dead.

They were conquered. They were taken out of their land. They were scattered throughout the countries to the east, the north, the south, the west. Let me give you Hosea 1, verse 6. Hosea has another prophecy about Israel in it. God says, I'm going to remove Israel, but I'm going to show mercy on Judah. I'm going to show mercy on Judah. Judah will stay of all those nations that Assyria conquered in that big triangle or that big rectangle of what they controlled.

They were all conquered except Judah. It wasn't until 585 B.C., 140 years later, that the kingdom of Babylon that defeated the Assyrians came in and conquered Judah because they too turned from God. But Israel fell first, and they were scattered among the nations. Judah wasn't scattered among the nations. God provided for them to go back, go back, and resettle the land at another time. And so we have these nations that we see. We see in history where God was moving the people. He moved Israel. We can do, and you can document for yourself, how they moved to where they did, and there they settled from there on out.

And we can look at history as we know it. Let's go back to Genesis, or forward, I guess, to Genesis 49.

Because at the end of Jacob's life, you know, he laid his hands on those two young men, Ephraim and Manasseh. He said, one's going to become a great nation. The younger one's going to be first, and he's going to be a multitude of nations on the earth.

In chapter 49, Jacob, it says, calls his sons together, and he says in chapter 49 of Genesis 1, gather together that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days. All the way on the other side of history. We're here in Genesis, but here on the other side of history, before the return of Jesus Christ, on the other side of history, thousands of years from now, let me tell you what you are going to be like, because your nations, the nations that come from you, will still exist in those last days.

And here's a description of what they will be like. Let's drop down to chapter, to verse 22 of chapter 49. Joseph, remember Joseph, also known as Israel, as Jacob put his blessing on them, Joseph is a fruitful bow, a fruitful bow by a well. His branches run over the wall. He multiplies. He's got this space that he occupies, but he's so fruitful, he multiplies that just run over the wall. They ran out of space.

The nation of the little island of Great Britain, over a great space. They became too numerous for that. The archers have bitterly grieved him. They shot at him and they hated him. Satan's world always hates God's people. The archers have bitterly grieved him, shot at him, and hated him. But his bow remained in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob. Not by their might and their power and their intelligence and their technology.

Their hands and their strength were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob. From there is the shepherd, the stone of Israel. 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. The blessings of your Father have excelled the blessings of my ancestors. Everything you do turns out right. I've blessed you in your country. I've blessed your land.

I've blessed the fruit of your limbs. You have become a successful great nation in the last days. The earth will take notice of you, just like they took notice of ancient Israel during the times of Solomon. They will be the head, not the tail.

This is my covenant in the last days. But your part of it is you continue to obey me because if you don't carefully follow me, if you don't diligently follow me, I'll take you away from the land. I won't utterly destroy you as a people, but you will lose.

You will lose what you have, and you will pay. The blessings of your Father have excelled the blessings of my ancestors up to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills. They shall be on the head of Joseph and to the crown of the head of him who was separate from his brothers, on these two young men. If you look at all of history, go back to history, your world history books, your secular history books, look about it, read about it, go from day one as early recorded history up until now, there are only two nations in the history of the earth that fit that description.

Only two nations in the history of the earth that fulfill and that hit that Genesis 48 prophecy as well, the younger will become a great and he will be a multitude of nations in the midst of the earth. In them, there will be physical blessings to the earth, and one, Manasseh, will be a great nation on earth. Only two nations in the history of the world fit that definition. Great Britain became a multitude of nations the sun never set on that empire.

And when they began to fade, it was America that came out of Britain that became the greatest nation on earth. And in them, the nations of the world have been blessed physically. Have been blessed physically. Did they have their problems? Did they do everything right? Absolutely not. Men don't do everything right. They make mistakes. But you can look at the attitude of those two nations and the benefits that they have brought on the world and continue to bring on the world today.

And you can see prophecy. You can see the prophecy has been fulfilled. If you can come up with two other nations as you go through history and you say, that matches it too, come and talk to me, and we'll look at it. If you can't, and if America and Britain isn't fulfillment of that prophecy, then we have no reason to believe the Bible.

Because Jesus Christ said, God the Father said, the Bible says, in the last days this is what will happen, and that covenant will stand until the very end of time. Now the history of Israel doesn't end.