God's Enduring Faithfulness

Good afternoon to all of you. Thank you, Mr. Finchel, for a very gracious introduction. Mr. Finchel didn't fill out the blanks in the Seattle area because of the busyness of the Council of Elders. Mr. Finchel became my pastor. Mr. Denny Luecker moved up from Los Angeles, and he and I were full of Council work clear up to here. Seattle was begging for full-time attention, which neither of us could give. Matt and Lisa came in, and they were pastor and pastor's wife in the Seattle area. He was my pastor, Denny Luecker's pastor. We enjoyed very much the time we had together. It's always an old-home week when ministry get together. Barry Cortice was talking about the length of time he had known Matt, and we can't match that by any means. But we moved to the northwest 26 years ago, and it would be at that time that I met the Cortice family. And so when I looked at Barry giving the sermonette, I thought of all the layers of Cortice's mom and dad, and siblings that I had known during the ten years that we were in that area. We were watching the rest of the assignments with a degree of... Fumor is probably not the right word, just the reminiscences, the warm reminiscences. Mr. and Mrs. McNeely were our neighbors in Indiana in the time period between 1984 and 1990. Mr. McNeely and I would get together and flog golf balls around a course in Fort Wayne called Three Rivers. And indeed, it had three rivers, and we drowned many a golf ball. My son Ryan is giving the split tomorrow, and Ryan at that time doing the math going back to 1984 was still a schoolboy. Not really attuned to the things that dad and other associates were doing, but nonetheless a part of the comings and goings, as I would drive over to Fort Wayne and we would enjoy a round of golf. The stories could go on to other ministers, but I'll leave it at that, lest I consume all my time with reminiscences. Totally unplanned, in terms of the groupings, totally unplanned is the fact that this is our third time in Canmore in four years. Four years ago, we came here deliberately. Our oldest son, Phillip, his wife Jenny, our grandchildren Emily and Connor, enjoyed Canmore four years ago. We thought, well, trip of a lifetime. In fact, I was talking to a member from Bellingham that said, on my bucket list, and I grinned, and she went on to say, was Canmore. Well, it was on our bucket list also. When we saw the next year's feast planning, and we saw Kelowna, we said, well, okay, they moved from Canmore to Kelowna, and never gave it a second thought. Then came an announcement that said, we're in dire need of speakers in Canada. We have three feast sites with only two elders in each site. I quickly emailed the home office and said, you know, it's a pleasant drive from Portland to Canmore. If you only have two elders, I'm glad to volunteer. So that one came totally out of the clear blue. This year, as Mr. Fenschel was saying, is our Jubilee year. During this month, I'll pass my 50th year of ordination on October the 13th, and October the 19th, Diane and I will celebrate 50 years of marriage. So, as a Jubilee, we asked the family, where would you like to go? And now we came on the list, and there were other sites in the U.S. that came on the list. And when all the talking was finished, Phillip, Jenny, and the kids, Diane and I said, hard to beat Canmore. So, this is our opportunity to enjoy a Jubilee year and to enjoy it once more with our Canadian brethren and all the American transplants, who over the years have found out what a fabulous area this is, and come up here for the Feast of Tabernacles.

We were talking at breakfast this morning, and I made a statement. My son looked at me, and we started doing the mathematics, and he said, well, math is not quite right. And then we did the math again. And it turned out this will be the 29th consecutive opening message that I've had the privilege of giving. And over those 29 years, there have been notable changes in the world that we live in, and I would say one of the most notable has already been alluded to in the messages that have been given previously. I would put it in this particular way. As both nations and as individuals, we have removed God significantly from our decision-making. We have forgotten God, but He has not forgotten us.

That's the most notable thing I have noticed in the 50 years I've been in the ministry. I've watched church buildings disappear off streets that used to be highly populated. I've watched congregation sizes drop throughout the Western world. I've watched fewer and fewer people. Mr. Rex Sexton is moving in to take my pastorate by the end of November. And he moved in one of the communities of Portland. He said, you know, I did the demographic, and only 29 percent of the people in the community I've moved into are willing to claim church membership, leaving 71 percent that don't even consider themselves affiliated.

As we begin the Feast of Tabernacles, there's always something on the opening speaker's minds directionally. And as I mentioned, over those years, the directions have taken themselves to many different compass points. But this year, I would like to speak to the enduring faithfulness of our great God in His actions toward us and toward our people. Quite often in the Feast of Tabernacles, and understandably so, there's so much to speak about and so much to cover within the Feast, that asking, where do we go?

What direction do we go? Year by year, you find that focuses move in different ways. I was interested in listening yesterday evening to the direction that was taken by Mr. Dabkowski in the sermon. Also this morning by Mr. Corteis in the sermonette, and there were concepts and ideas in those messages that interweave very nicely with where I am going. So as we begin the Feast of Tabernacles, I'd like to pay tribute to God's enduring faithfulness. If I were to give you things to watch in the sermon this afternoon, the center point is God's enduring faithfulness. But it's that enduring faithfulness that has been the context of the Bible from the beginning stages all the way through the end.

And that context never changes. That faithfulness is interwoven as a primary thread throughout the entirety of our Bibles. And whether or not we know it, that enduring faithfulness is the quality that gives the Feast of Tabernacles its greater meaning. And it's that aspect that I was fascinated in listening to in Mr. Dabkowski's sermon last night. The story of God's love for us and his faithfulness toward us is told in the Bible in a context. And that context is unwavering in nature. Let me take you through that story this afternoon. The opening hymn could not have been more appropriate. By this time we've sung enough hymns.

You may not, if you have to stop and think, what was the first hymn we sang today? The first hymn we sang today was very appropriate because it all began with a Brahm. At the highest level, God wants a covenant relationship with all men. Every single solitary human being on this planet is an individual that God himself would love to have a covenant relationship with.

But as we all know, it takes a willingness on the part of the individual for that covenant relationship to exist. That happened with one man by the name of Abram at the time he was willing to enter the covenant. And the context of our story this afternoon is God's relationship with our people, which originated when he entered a covenant with the man Abram. If we condense the entire history of the covenant agreement with Abram and his immediate family into the smallest possible space, it would look like this.

Let's do that condensation. Genesis 12. In some of these, I will not take a great deal of time to read because we're familiar with it. The author of a covenant relationship with the man Abram began in Genesis 12, verse 1. He said, And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. This was the offer of a covenant relationship with one man. And that man was willing, with all of his heart and with all of his might, to enter and reciprocate. In Genesis 22, probably the most significant modification, it was in Genesis chapter 22 following his willingness to take all the promise, physically speaking, that he had been given, and to divest himself of it, that God found out what kind of man he was.

He waited 25 years for God to give him what God said he would. Children from a barren life.

And that only child grew to the place where he was fully invested in his life, a young man, and God said, Give him back to me. Sacrifice him. And when he got up early in the morning without even stopping to argue, to plead, to negotiate, and headed on a two-day journey that gave him so much time to think about his decision, and carried through without wavering, God said, Well, I don't want your son. I have an animal caught in the briars. Take him. Sacrifice him. Because I found out what I need to find out. And at that time, in verse 15 of Genesis 22, the angel of the Lord called to Abraham—the relationship was now far enough along that he said, I need to change your name to represent what you really are going to be, because you are going to be all of those things that I offered you in Genesis 12, and a brahm isn't the name that fits. And so your name is Abraham. And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven and said, By myself I have sworn, says the Lord.

You know what? In the United States, we pull a piece of money out of our pocket that says, In God we trust, which we don't anymore. We trust more in the color of that money than we do in the name that says we trust in it. But we put a lot of stock, and right now so does all the world in general. If they need a safe haven to run to, they run to the American dollar.

God said, Abraham, I'm going to offer you a promise on the most reliable thing in the entirety of the universe—my name.

There's nothing in the universe worth more. There's nothing in the universe more reliable than— There's nothing you can bank on superior to my name. So I'm going to swear to you by my name that because you have done this thing, and you've not withheld your son, your only son, in blessing I will bless you, in 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 gates of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you've obeyed my voice.

He said, Abraham, the promise is now irrevocable. It is not contingent upon the conduct of your son, your grandson, your great-grandson's, your offspring. Regardless of their conduct, the promise is now irrevocable. Midway, as I said, in condensing the whole start point to the unequivocal faithfulness of God, it only takes a very small package to build the foundation. Midway between the two scriptures I've read to you so far is an account in Genesis 15.

God wanted to take Abraham and let him know that my promise is that I've given to you, are sure. But you need to understand that I have a timetable in mind, and I will share that with you. In Genesis 15, verse 12, there was a revelation made to Abram. In verse 12 it says, Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram. And behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. And then he said to Abram, No, certainly. So he was already deeply invested in his relationship with Abram.

He said, No, certainly, that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs. They will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. Also of the nation whom they serve, I will judge. Afterwards they shall come out with great possession. Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace, and you shall be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall return here. For the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. And it shall come to pass, and it came to pass, that when the sun went down, it was dark.

And behold, there was a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between these two pieces. And on that same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates. And so he said to them at that midpoint, he said, The timetable you need to understand, our relationship is already firm enough.

You know, all of us, we're all people of time. We want to know when. When? Tell me how long. When's it going to happen? And out of a courtesy to Abram, he said, You will live your life, and you will die of old age and be buried. And it's going to take a while. Your children are going to spend some time outside of this land. I even have a compassion upon the people who are here, and their iniquities, their deterioration in their morality and in their life has not reached the place where I am ready to push them out of that land and give it to your children.

But I will, and that time will come, and I will fulfill what I have given you. That timeline was complete. If we look for a date, that timeline was complete on a day when the man Moses was herding sheep and saw a physical anomaly, a bush that wouldn't burn up. And you know, there's not a lot to do when you're out herding sheep. There is a lot of free time. And so a curiosity like a bush that would not stop burning caught Moses' attention.

Exodus 3. If we read through the first eight verses of Exodus 3, we would read about Moses approaching the bush. The bush telling Moses to take your shoes off. This is holy ground. From within the bush, a voice saying, verse 6, I'm the God of your Father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Verse 7, the Lord said, I've surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt, and I've heard their cries because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.

So I've come down to deliver them out of the hands of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a good and a large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Parazites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. I think the concluding thought would be in verse 15, where it says, Moreover, God said to Moses, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.

This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations. If we summed up the beginning of God's faithfulness, it would sum up neatly with these four verses, these four sections. I'm calling to give you an offer. We arrive eventually at the place where I make the offer irrevocable, and it is there permanently. And oh, by the way, in between, there's going to be a while before we get there, but don't let the time in between, and even the change of circumstances, a time in servitude to another people.

Don't let that dissuade you. Nothing's going to change. The context is firm, and I am unwavering. And finally, that point in time where God said, Moses, sign these people understand that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is ready to give them what He promised to their fathers.

We all, of course, celebrate every year, in the beginning of the year, these elements. And we eventually come to the place in time where Israel is standing ready to enter covenant with God. Between Genesis 12 and Exodus 3, a bomb became Abraham, and one man and his wife became a nation of millions.

Now God was ready to enter into a different kind of relationship. And when I say different kind, I mean different only in His covenant with a man, and then later with his single son, and then later with one of his sons. Now He was ready to enter covenant with what we feel is probably three to four million people.

And we arrive at Exodus 19.

In Exodus 19, it is now time to amend the contract to fit the situation.

A God of one man to a God over a nation.

And Exodus 19, verse 1, it says, In the third month, after the children of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on the same day they came to the wilderness of Sinai. For they had departed from Rephidim, had come to the desert of Sinai, and camped in the wilderness. And so Israel camped before the mountain. And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel, You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagle's wings, and brought you to Myself.

Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice, and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people, for all the earth is Mine.

And you shall be a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.

And so Moses was given instruction, which he then followed through on, and he said, I, as God's representative here to let you know that God is ready to enter covenant with all of you.

And he wants all of you to be like Abraham.

And he wants all of you to be a special people, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.

You know, I find it fascinating over time to look at how the Bible is viewed in culture, versus how the Bible wishes to be viewed.

When I look at this area, Exodus 19 and Exodus 20, I see an area where people in our culture obsess about the law.

And I think how fascinating and how ironic, because the centerpiece of these chapters is not law, but a relationship. Let me give you an illustration that I think will make the point probably as well as anything.

As I said, in this particular area, if people focus on something and they virtually obsess about something, it's the list of thou shalt nots and thou shalts in Exodus 20. And yet, verses 5 and 6 tell us what this event is all about.

We're so totally trained by the Christian world and my Christian theology that in some cases we can't see the forest for the trees. So, let's see if we can change that a little bit.

In this room, all of the adults in this room are probably in some form of covenant relationship or another.

The biggest of those covenant relationships, and I'm not talking about marriage, that's a different ballpark, but the biggest of those covenant relationships would be if you're a homeowner.

Ablise to 15, 20, 25, 30 years of covenant relationship with a finance company.

Next biggest covenant relationship is the purchase of an automobile.

And with the ability now to have 60-month loans, a five-year covenant relationship, again, with a bank or a finance company.

In most of your pockets is a piece of plastic, which is an ongoing covenant relationship for as long as you use that piece of plastic with a bank that issued that piece of plastic.

How much time in your life have you spent reading the terms of your mortgage?

How many hours have you spent reading the contract with a finance company for your automobile?

How frequently do you read the contract that goes with your credit card?

I was on vacation and I missed a car payment. I missed the due date. I got home and I thought, oh no, I'm going to have a finance penalty.

And I hate to pay finance penalties.

I got home and there was a bill, and there was no finance penalty.

Now, I've been planning to pay the car off in advance, so I've made bigger than normal payments.

And I'm so used to the contract law with credit cards that it doesn't matter how big a payment you make if you're late on a due date, you're done the penalty.

And so I looked down on my car payment and said, there's no penalty. And I started reading, and the more I read, I finally hit the statement that says, your next payment is due March 2016.

I thought, how did that work?

Well, I'm so used to credit card covenants that I didn't realize with a car company, if I had paid in advance, they kept doing the math to figure out how far I was ahead.

And they said, you're not late. You're about eight months from your next due payment.

But you know none of us sit and read the contracts. In fact, I won't even ask. I won't embarrass us. And I mean us.

And how many times on the Internet you hit that place where it says, you have to agree before you go any further?

And I want to ask how many of you push agree that you've read the contract when you just don't want to be annoyed with the contract and you push agree so you can get on with things?

Exodus 19 and 20 were not about the terms of contract. They were about God saying, here's the basis of our relationship.

Take a look at it so you're familiar with it, agree with it, live it, and then enjoy all the benefits that go along with it.

You see, I spend my time enjoying the fact I get to live in a house that I had to sign a contract with a bank to occupy.

I spend my life enjoying being behind the wheel of a car that the bank and I own, and they let me drive.

And I enjoy, as I'm up here going to a restaurant and giving them my credit card and putting it in a little machine and having a piece of paper come out.

And it's said I paid for all the meal, but I almost spent a lot of time reading the contract.

You know, we're all painfully aware as we walk through the Old Testament, we watch God working with everyone, and everyone with their exception.

You know, we look at Israel, and the history of Israel from the time of Jeroboam to the time God said, I've had it, never had a king that the Bible described as righteous.

Judah at least had a few that you could look at and say they were good men. They were men who were devoted to God, and they were men who loved God.

But on the whole, the nation eventually reached a place where it was worse than its fister nation, Israel.

We're familiar with God's unbelievable long-suffering.

We have an Israel and a Judah who are unfaithful to him, and a God who is unbelievably faithful to them.

He says, I spent you prophets, I warned you, I gave you all of these things over all of this time, and you rewarded me with nothing but your infidelity.

And yet he tolerated Israel from the time of Solomon to Israel to 586.

We arrive at Jeremiah chapter 3.

We arrive at Jeremiah chapter 3.

And in Jeremiah chapter 3 we read in verse 8, The God said, Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but went and played the harlot also.

And so it came to pass through her casual harlotry that she defiled the land and committed adultery.

And he goes on from there to describe her conduct, which eventually led to a divorce with her also.

The minor prophet Hosea enacted the prophecy.

God said, Go and marry a harlot.

He wanted Hosea to be a living testimony to the people around him.

He said, Go and marry a harlot and have children of her.

And as they had children, God said, Name the children by these names.

And one of Hosea's children, God said, Name this child, not mine.

What you're doing is representing my relationship, Hosea.

If you were wearing a placard, it would say, Playing the role of God.

And your wife would wear a placard and say, Playing the role of Israel.

And he said, Not mine. And so we see before the end of the Old Testament the end of the Old Covenant.

But I have a question for you.

The Covenant ended, but did the context?

The Covenant ended, but did the context?

Or if I put it this way, was God's relationship with Abraham and his seed terminated?

That's the context.

We find God divorcing Israel and Judah, which ended that Covenant, but he didn't change the context. Romans 11, years after the divorce, the Apostle Paul in one of the most beautiful and passionate descriptions of God's relationship with his people.

Satan, Romans 11, he said, I say them, Has God cast away his people?

And you look in the response, there's an exclamation point. He says, Certainly not.

For I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.

God has not cast away his people whom he foreknew.

Now he went on in chapters 9, 10, 11, and that whole package to give an eloquent sermon, but he asked the Romans, he said, Has God ended the context? Has God cast away his people? And he said, emphatically, No, he has not.

At the time that we transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant, we arrive at a place in history where it's time to address the problem.

Any of you who go back to the book of Deuteronomy, when the children of the children of Israel are standing on the doorsteps of entering the Promised Land, and Moses is getting his last instruction to the second generation.

You read Deuteronomy chapter 5, and it is filled with misgivings.

And in the midst of those misgivings is a rhetorical lament that all of us are familiar with.

It is a lament that says, O that there were such an heart in them.

All the time Moses was laying out for this second generation, what had been laid out for the first generation, he's doing so because it's necessary to do, but not with the belief that it's worth the time that it takes to do it.

There is no heart.

But we still go through the covenant relationship.

As we're all very familiar, if we go back to the book of Hebrews chapter 8, it's in Hebrews chapter 8, if you have headers in your Bible, as I do, and most Bibles do, my header at the beginning of chapter 8 says, A Better Covenant. It's all about Jesus Christ coming as a high priest with better sacrifices.

And he eventually arrives at the place in verse 7 where he says, If the first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second.

And he says, Because finding fault with them.

He says, Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand and led them out of the land of Egypt, because they didn't continue in my covenant and I disregarded them.

He said, This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days.

I'll put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts, and I'll be their God, and they shall be my people.

Context didn't change.

Circumstances did.

The divorce is an ugly situation, and he divorced both Israel and Judah. But he said, You know what? I will enter a new covenant, and we will remedy the issues.

As we move from the Old Testament into the New Testament period, God's attention moves from the congregation of Israel to the Church of God.

It moves from the national body, the congregation of Israel, as the focal point to the Church of God, a universal body.

Which leads to another question regarding context.

Did the Church replace Israel in God's eyes?

Were they a replacement or were they an enhancement?

Go back, if you will, to Paul's statement, because he was writing to a Church of God congregation.

And he said, I don't want you to be ignorant regarding God.

Has he cast off Israel? Absolutely not.

Context has not changed.

You know, what I read to you in Hebrews 8 has its genesis in Jeremiah 31.

In fact, if you have notations, it will take you to Jeremiah 31 in verse 8.

Jeremiah 31, verse 31-34, because it's a direct quotation from Jeremiah.

So much earlier than the writings of Hebrews and the Apostle Paul's writings to the Romans, God inspired Jeremiah to say, No, Israel is not going to be replaced.

The Church of God did not change the context of God's enduring faithfulness to Abraham and his seed.

It has certainly enhanced it.

I chose to go this particular direction for the Feast of Tabernacles opening message, because we know our place.

As a church, as a faithful body that assemble every year at this time, as we walk through all the Holy Days, and as we have lived in covenant relationship with God, we know our place.

You know, our journey, in a sense, our journey ended on the day of trumpets.

That day when the seventh trump blows and you and I become immortal, our journey has ended.

We enter a new era, but when we enter that new era and we arrive here, the Feast of Tabernacles, you and I are sons of God.

We are the teachers. We are the leaders. We are the instructors. We are the caregivers.

We are enacting and doing the things that Mr. Cortais was talking about in the sermonette.

We're the givers, the sharers, the care providers.

The focus when the Feast of Tabernacles comes is upon these people with whom God entered an irrevocable covenant.

We know the Greek word that represents us, the church. We are the ecclesia. We are the called out ones.

I expect somewhere during this Feast of Tabernacles, somebody will read the Scriptures about, No more will men say, Know the Lord, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters fill the sea.

There won't be any called out ones once the millennium is in full bloom.

The door will be open to everyone. The Spirit of God will be available to everyone.

We are an enhancement for a time.

And when that time is finished, we become sons of God to work with and under Christ to help these people reach the promises that God made to them.

The Feast of Tabernacles is God's crowning testimony to his faithfulness.

When this time period is fulfilled, we will get to, in the grandest fashion, witness the faithfulness of God to the promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

One of those beautiful places that makes that point is back once more in the book of Hosea.

As I said, he enacted his prophecy. He married a harlot, representative of Israel.

He acted out the role of God in this particular case. He had children. God said, name one of your children, Lo Rohama, which means, I'm not going to have any more mercy.

He went on from there to say, I want you to name another one of your children, Lo Ami, which means, you're not my people.

And so, Israel was getting a message in living examples.

I'm finished having mercy. You're not my people.

And yet, in verses 10 and 11, verse 9 says, I will return and take away my grain in this time and my new wine in its season, and it will take back my wood and my linen, given to cover her nakedness.

I'm in the wrong chapter.

Verse 10 of chapter 1, he says, And yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered.

And it shall come to pass in the place where I said to them, You're not my people. There it shall be said to them, You are the sons of the living God.

And then the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.

And so the day is coming where God will say, You remember when I said I've had it? We're finished? When I wrote you a bill of divorce?

It didn't cancel my promises. It didn't cancel my focus. It didn't cancel where I intend to go.

And he says, Eventually the day is going to come, and here we are, picturing the Feast of Tabernacles, and that is the day it's going to come, where he will say, You know what? I'm going to bring you back to the very same place, the very same geography where I said, You're not my people, and I'm going to look at the humbled remnant who returned, and I'm going to say to them, You are the children of the living God.

It's fascinating to me the number of times God with great passion says this to his people.

You know, the minor prophets are not an area that people read that often, not compared to Isaiah, the Shakespeare of the prophets, and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the three major prophets. Going through the minor prophets is an exercise that doesn't happen as often. You know what you find if you read the minor prophets at arm's length?

You find, through with all the woes and the tribulations and the days of the Lord and the darknings of the sun and the tremblings of the earth, and all the rest that's with it, is God repeatedly and incessantly, in the midst of all of this gloom and doom, brings them back to a butt.

But in the end, we will turn this all around.

And as he's telling them the dark side, and he's telling them there's also a better day, we have an opportunity to see the passion of God repeated in Scripture as he repeats to them in ways of saying, well, how do I put it in ways that you human beings can understand? And so, we look at Hosea 2, verse 13.

If you'll give me just a second, I would prefer... Let me see if I can...

You know, when you read the Bible, I was talking recently to some friends, and I said, some of the paraphrases are deadly when it comes to reading them for doctrine. But there are times where the paraphrases and modern English translations do an excellent job where no doctrine is involved in showing us the heart of God. And so, I'd like to read a few Scriptures to you out of the New Living Translation. I had to look at NLT. What am I looking at? Hosea 2. This is a rather lengthy reading from the New Living Translation, but I want you to see the passion that God has for His faithfulness. This is our New Living Translation, so it's probably better not to read more, to listen, and you'll only confuse yourself if you're in a different translation. But He addresses her as a husband to a wife, and He says, I will punish her for all those times when she burned incense to her images of Baal. When she put on her earrings and jewelry and went out to look for her lovers, but forgot all about me, says the Lord. But then I'll win her back once again. I'll lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her there. I will return her vineyards to her and transform the valley of trouble into a gateway of hope. She will give herself to me there as she did long ago when she was young, when I freed her from captivity in Egypt. And when that day comes, says the Lord, you will call me my husband and sit at my master. O Israel, I will wipe the many names of Baal from your lips, and you will never mention them again. On that day I will make a covenant with the wild animals and the birds of the sky, and the animals that scurry along the ground so they'll not harm you. And I'll remove all the weapons of war from the land and all swords and bows, so you can live unafraid in peace and safety. And I'll make you my wife forever, showing you righteousness and justice, unfailing love and compassion. I'll be faithful to you and make you mine, and you will finally know me as the Lord. And that day I will answer, says the Lord, I will answer the sky as it pleads for clouds, and the sky will answer the earth with rain, and then the earth will answer the thirsty cries of the grain, the grapevines and the olive trees. And they will in turn answer, Jezreel, God plants. At that time I will plant a crop of Israelites and raise them for myself. I will show love to those who I called not loved, and to those I called not my people. I will say, now you are my people, and they will reply, you are our God.

Tremendous passion. It has never wavered you. Though God has had to divorce these people, though He has brought about the church, He has never forgotten the promises that He made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and at the Mount upon all of their children.

Hosea 11, also from the Living Translation.

If you read in your New King James the first couple of verses, they will do a good job. Just verses 1 and 2 of Hosea 11. Those verses in the New King James put the setting now not as husband and wife, but as a dad with a young son that he loves with all his heart. He says, when Israel was a child, I loved him. And out of Egypt I called my son, as they called them. And so they went from there, they sacrificed to the bales, burned incense to carve images. I taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by their arms. But they didn't know that I healed them. I drew them with gentle cords, with bands of love. And I was to them as those who take the yoke from their neck. I scooped and fed them. He said, this was my boy. I took him by the hand. I taught him how to walk. I was there. I cared for him. I fed him. I did all of these things. Now moving on to verse 8, and I'm going to read from the New Living Translation. He says, Oh, how can I give you up, Israel? How can I let you go? How can I destroy you like Adma or demolish you like Zeboim? My heart is torn within me and my compassion overflows. He says, No, I will not unleash my fierce anger. I will not completely destroy Israel, for I am God and not a mere mortal. I am the Holy One living among you, and I will not come to destroy. For some day the people will follow me. I, the Lord, will roar like a lion, and when I roar, my people will return trembling from the west, like a flock of birds. They will come from Egypt trembling like doves. They will return from Assyria, and I will bring them home again.

Zechariah chapter 8 and verse 1. Then another message came to me from the Lord of Heaven's armies, and this is what the Lord of Heaven's armies said. My love for Mount Zion is passionate and strong. I am consumed with passion for Jerusalem. And now the Lord says, I will return to Mount Zion, and I will live in Jerusalem. And then Jerusalem will be called the Faithful City. The city of the Lord of Heaven's armies will be called the Holy Mountain. This is what the Lord of Heaven's armies says. Once again, old men and women will walk Jerusalem's streets with their canes, and will sit together in the city squares. And the city will be filled with boys and girls at play. This is what the Lord of Heaven's armies says. All this may seem impossible to you now, a small remnant of God's people. But is it impossible for me, says the Lord of Heaven's armies? This is what the Lord of Heaven's armies says. You can be sure that I will rescue my people from the east and from the west, and I'll bring them home again to live safely in Jerusalem. They will be my people, and I will be faithful and just toward them as their God.

Brethren, you can walk through Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the comments like this are numerous. We could go on to Joel. We could go on to Micah. You know, before we are finished with these fall Holy Days, and before we pack our bags and go home, we'll hit the apex.

If you go back to what Paul was saying to the Romans, the grandest illustration of the unwavering faithfulness to God, something completely and totally over the heads of the ancient Israelites, is that all of those who were unfaithful to Him and become the record from which we read, will to their great surprise one day live again.

As we look at a block of time dedicated to the millennium, and then another day dedicated to a later period, they all speak to the same unwavering faithfulness to God.

It will be a grand day when all the captives return that Mr. Cortice was talking about. And when the peoples today, Mr. Dubkowski, was talking about the blessings they have, and they don't even know who gave them to them and why they have them, and when all of that is made clear and God's Holy Spirit is given, then they will come to understand how awesome, unwavering, and unrelentingly faithful our God and their God is.