God's Promise

[Bill Bradford] The reason that the great 1,000 years will be so successful, one of the reasons, perhaps the main reason, is because simply Jesus Christ will be there.  He is not going to be simply a ruler afar off but one who is on the earth.  He will be there dwelling with the humans He created long ago.  He will be literally and bodily present.  He will be a hands-on ruler with a hands-on government and it was His intention all along to be the God of His people. And this in fact is a promise or the fulfillment of a promise, not finished even then at the 1000 year period, but a fulfillment of a promise He made long ago, if we are going to look at it.  They would be His people. He will be their God and from time to time with that off repeated statement He says, and He will dwell with them, He says.  These are very important considerations. He would have His children with Him. 

So God’s intention right from the very beginning as stated, in a grand purpose and council, meaning plan that He had from the beginning, is this His stated intentions?  We will see.  It is indeed verified throughout the pages of the word that God sent through His prophets and it shows how He interacted in history and began to come to completion with His Son. We are going to bring that in too. 

Now, there is a point here I would want to make, or let me just simply ask the question: Is there a single unifying idea from start to finish in the scripture that can be discovered? And if you identify that it will - it’s not a compilation. The Bible is not a series of random stories or histories that have no relationship to each other.  There is, what we might say, a single biblical theology and it is singular and it is not something that changes from start to finish.  So if you can identify that core, if you can identify that center of the word that God sent to men — everything that you read in the Bible is associated with that one unifying theme or idea that plainly states what God is doing. Now we will refer to that and you can then understand from that what is God’s purpose.

Now of course, to understand that and to fall in line with what God is doing has great benefits for those of us who have been called into that purpose, if we are able to believe it.  Of course we are asked to believe this. So, we make it relevant today as it was relevant of all times in the past and I thought was very well pointed out. God’s purpose, His intent, what He was doing, was relevant to also Jabez and he prayed accordingly.  It wasn’t something special that people tend to make out of that as was so well pointed out.

I want to start with Jeremiah 31:31.  You will find that what we are saying is throughout the Bible because it is repeated numerous times.  I want to start with:

Jeremiah 31:1 “At the same time,”says the Lord, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people.”

And so He begins with this. Again He states this. In fact, let me point out, God says this 50 times approximately in the Bible in one form or another. 

I will be your God; You shall be my people, and then adds on occasion, I will dwell with you.

Now when you see this as a repeated phrase you begin to understand what His purpose is, what His intent is, what indeed His desire is as we are going to see though we sometimes don’t state it in quite that way.  We might ask the question in a different way, well, why were you born, or something like this but I want to simply use the Biblical terms today where He uses these terms at certain places in the Bible and it is very important to know where He does this also.

V.2 - Thus says the Lord: “The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness - Israel, (That perhaps - the punctuation is not the best there in the New King James) when I went to give him rest.”

Another translation has it, I think it is the NIV, “I met him in the wilderness”.  Now it shows here God’s concern for His people and what He will do for them.

V.3 - The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.

Now, he has a lot of other things to say about Israel. He uses the term Ephraim here as we are going to see but it shows His deep love and mindfulness of them and their condition and their state, their physical state, their state of mind and everything that is happening to them.  He is so deeply concerned about them which shows now we have a focus here on God Himself who chose His own people.  So He says:

V.4 - Again I will build you, and you shall be rebuilt, O virgin of Israel!

This is very interesting here in that He sees and He still understands, though Israel was unfaithful to Him, He nonetheless sees here Israel. He expresses it in this term, meaning the virgin Israel, not just simply to be cleansed from past sins but to be His one.  One who belongs to Him and no one else, that is how he sees her.

V.4 - …. You shall again be adorned with your tambourines, and shall go forth in the dances of those who rejoice.

V.5 - You shall yet plant vines on the mountains of Samaria; The planters shall plant and eat them as ordinary food.

Some people then take this as, well, it is not quite literal but it is indeed literal.  Samaria, yes, Samaria. West Bank.  That is where they are going to be.  He is going to bring them back.  This is yet in the future.  It is going to happen but it shows here the deep concern. 

Alright, we are coming back here so don’t loose your place but Hosea 11:8 where He says - He says in His - as Hosea expresses in a deeply emotional and plaintive voice:

Hosea 11:8 - “How can I give you up, Ephraim?  How can I hand you over, Israel?

Ephraim of course being the chief tribe of the northern ten tribes. It means Israel, not just Israel as opposed to Manasseh.  Don’t think that because that is not what this means.

V.8 - …. How can I make you like Admah? How can I set you like Zebolim? My heart churns within Me; My sympathy is stirred.

V.9 - I will not execute the fierceness of My anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim. For (He says) I am God, and not man, The Holy One in your midst; and I will not come with terror.

He is making some statements here which we really need to take note of because Hosea of course, he also laments over Israel’s departure from God and the treachery of them and how they go to other nations and the sins and the departure of them and yes, that is true, but notice how He feels about them. He says: I can’t give you up. I will never.

V.10 - “They shall walk after the Lord. He will roar like a lion. When He roars, then His sons shall come trembling from the west;

V.11 - They shall come trembling like a bird from Egypt, like a dove from the land of Assyria.  And I will let them dwell in their houses,”says the Lord.

This is of course yet future because of course, as Hosea is writing this, is a future removal of the Northern Ten Tribes, Israel, from the land that God had originally given them and He says, I am going to bring you back.  He hadn’t brought them back yet, and He will. And He promises.  I simply wanted to point out to you how strong He feels about this.

Jeremiah 31:6 For there shall be a day when the watchmen will cry on Mount Ephraim, “Arise, and let us go up to Zion, to the Lord our God.’”

That is where He is going to be and where He is going to make His sanctuary as we will see.

V.7 - For thus says the Lord: “Sing with gladness for Jacob and shout among the chief of the nations; Proclaim, give praise, and say, O Lord, save Your people, the remnant of Israel!

V.8 - Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the ends of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and the one who labours with child, together; A great throng shall return there.

V.9 - They shall come with weeping, and with supplications I will lead them.  I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters, in a straight way in which they shall not stumble; For I am a Father to Israel, and Ephraim is My firstborn.  

V.10 - “Hear the word of the Lord, O nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him as a shepherd does his flock. 
V.11 - For the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of one stronger than he.

As I said, this is yet to come and that means it doesn’t bode well of course for our nations in the near future because they are going to be scattered but He also says He is going to gather them.  He is going to give to them the same promises that were made right from the very beginning.  He will never relent on that.

V.12 - Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, streaming to the goodness of the Lord - For wheat and new wine and oil, for the young of the flock and the herd; Their souls shall be like a well-watered garden, and they shall sorrow no more at all.

This is yet into the future.

V.13 - “Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old, together; For I will turn their mourning to joy, will comfort them, and make them rejoice rather than sorrow.

V.14 - I will satiate the soul of the priests with abundance, and My people (He says: My people) shall be satisfied with My goodness, says the Lord.”

V.15 - Thus says the Lord: “A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.”

Now that was then of course said at the time of the birth of Christ.  The Romans killed some of the children of Judah. That is only an application, or let’s say, that was used at that time to say this is what happened.  The fulfillment here is much greater ultimately toward all of Israel.  This speaks of Rachel weeping for her children.

V.16 - Thus says the Lord: “Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; For your work shall be rewarded, says the Lord, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy.

V.17 - There is hope in your future, says the Lord, that your children (He says: your children) will come back to their own border.

Now this is a part of the ancient promise.  It is still good and we should take it personally and when you pray it would be good to pray accordingly.  You pray according to what God says.  It is very interesting how we should do that.  We will look in and point that out very clearly.  Now, so much so He is going to make this happen.

V.31 - We do skip down quite a bit but you can read the same story in the previous chapter, in the chapter before that. If you go on to Ezekiel 36 for instance; you can read it in Hosea if you wish. It is there. It is all there as to what He will do. Yes, He is so disturbed and distraught and angry but He is going to do everything He will then to bring them back and they will be brought back. Now here is one of the things He will do.
V.31 - “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 -
 
V.32 - “not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord.

And it shows how He felt about them; how He was going to care for them; how He was going to protect them; how He was going to provide for them, as a husband does, by the way. 

V.33 - “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

V.34 - “No more shall every man teach his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’for they all shall know Me.

Here is one of the key terms in this: He wants His children to know Him.  How about it for us?  Answer the question.  Do you want your children to know you?  Yes, you do. Or course you do because that is your legacy. So too He wants His people to know Him.

V.34 - … from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

He says He will do that.

So here then the ancient promise, as we have a continuance of it being fulfilled, that He made to Abraham.  The New Covenant here however, as specifically stated, is with Israel and Judah, the nation of Israel. You and I live and operate under the terms of the New Covenant but also in another sense as Israel does, we are also under the continuing covenant made with Abraham in terms of the promise of salvation as the New Covenant is also.  But that is first to Israel, then to all people, but He will send a Seed and the blessing is going to flow from that Seed and He stated this right there in the blessing that He made to Abraham.

I want to go to:

Deuteronomy 29:9 “Therefore keep the words of this covenant, (and that was the covenant He had made with them but He urges them to keep the words of that covenant) and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.

Indeed, the prospering and not the harm, would come as a result of them to remember the covenant that God chose to make with them.  He is making it with them now.  He made it with Abraham; now He is making it with them.  He is extended it to them and so we have then the development of that covenant as it continues, as we will see.

V.10 - “All of you stand today before the Lord your God: your leaders and your tribes and your elders and your officers, all the men of Israel,

V.11 - “your little ones and your wives - also the stranger who is in your camp, from the one who cuts your wood to the one who draws your water -

V.12 - “that you may enter into covenant with the Lord your God, and into His oath, which the Lord your God makes with you today,

V.13 - “that He may establish you today as a people for Himself, and that He may be God to you, just as He has spoken to you, and just as He has sworn to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

V.14 - “I make this covenant and this oath, (He says) not with you alone,

V.15 - “but with him who stands here with us today before the Lord our God, as well as with him who is not here with us today.

That is His promise, for ever, that He put for the sake of the recipients of everything - He is saying to a covenant - to know that this is what He will do, and He will carry them out.

I want to show you this in just a moment here, but let me explain first of all that again, as has been pointed out, He speaks of it as the blessing first of all, and it is expressed in various ways, not only just a covenant but everlasting covenant.  He uses the word “oath”;  He says “I have sworn”;  He uses the word “descendants” and “seed” and “land” and “inheritance” and we see it expressed this way in the Old Testament. 

If you move on over into the New Testament it speaks of “the promise” and that’s how it was understood.  The word in the Greek is: epanglia, meaning “the promise” - 41 times in the New Testament used in precisely that way.  You cannot overlook it.  What He says and repeats and states over again - we should take note.

It is expressed in a number of ways in the Old Testament such as: The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob which the prophets referred to again and again.  This is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Remember what He said.  He would say over and over again: I am the Lord your God. He would say repeatedly: I am the God, the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt - 121 times. This is not insignificant. We should take note of what He says. He means what He says and it gives to us that understanding of not only just a mind but everything that He intends to do and you understand that purpose, that plan.

Let’s go back to Genesis 17 and let’s see if we can see some of this and the way it was said here.

Genesis 17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless.

V.2 - “And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.” He says.

When God says something - He is God - it is good. It is good for all times. People disconnect the Bible. They think there are different theologies of the Bible and say well, God changed things later or God only fulfilled them up to a certain point and that is the end. I want to show you today these are still to be fulfilled.  Yes, it is an ongoing development of this in the history of man.  There has been much of that fulfilled but it is not over yet.  It just continues and it is not going to cease and you will see that all the way to the very end of the Bible.

V.3 - then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying:

V.4 - “As for me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations.

Why does He say that?  Why does He say He knew Abram will be a father of many nations?  There is a very simple answer to that. This is what He wants. This is what He so desires more than anything else, to be a Father to His people and so I am going to do that with you Abram. We are going to work out the plan this way. 

V.5 - “No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations.

That’s why then. So it is important to Him and so He calls him by a different name to illustrate that.

V.6 - “I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you.

Now here is the clincher:

V.7 -“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.

Do you believe that? This is what He says. He is never, ever going back on that. If He does then He can’t be God. God is not a man that He should lie.

V.8 - “Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession: (As He says. Yes, indeed. Nothing will change that. I don’t care who is there in the meantime. It is going to go to him, go to you, and to your descendants) and I will be their God.”

That is still yet to happen. He is going to carry that out to where yes, He will be their God.  He will be our God. We will know Him from the least to the greatest.

V.9 - And God said to Abraham: “As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations.
You should really take note of the language used here. He means this literally. He means this.

You go down to Genesis 22:16 on the occasion where God told him to sacrifice Isaac through whom the promise, the promise of blessing would come and He says - and of course he was saved from that, and now God says:

Genesis 22:16 … “By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son -

V. 17 - “blessing I will bless you, (This is how it was put - in these terms, in the strongest of terms.  Indeed a blessing but, I will bless you. It will happen because I am going to do this) 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.

And He makes that statement to show how it would then unfold as time went on in the various epochs of man’s existence. 

V.18 - “In your seed (He says) all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”

And so this, and then He is speaking then as Paul interprets it, Seed, singular, referring to Jesus Christ and then all of the nations shall be blessed through that and in the New Testament He puts it in the form of a promise. It is very important to understand that concept, the idea of a promise because people tend to explain how people are going to be served with the opportunity for salvation through a theology which is not correct and - but it is a very simply matter. How and why is it going to be done? Very simply: He promised. Do we understand that? He promised. The issue is not whether you should keep God’s law or not. That is a contrived issue made up first of all by the Jews and by the later proponents of certain aspects of Christianity in which they wanted to make something out of that, and you cannot do that. 

Once you understand the purpose of God, once you understand the core, the unifying theme, the basic idea of the Bible, you are not going to be subject to a lot of wrong interpretations of the Bible. It has to fit with that one basic, singular, unifying thought and idea that is expressed in the Word of God from start to finish. Understand that and you are not going to be led wrong. You can never deviate from that. God is not a person who caused His will to be written in a random style in dealing with various peoples throughout history in different ways. He had one purpose; He continues with one purpose; He always will have one purpose and it stands and it is important to know what that one purpose is.

Now, if you do not accept - let me just ask this: if you do not accept the Bible having that, a unifying theme - let me put it this way - a single purpose from start to finish, your study of the Bible will yield incorrect results. Okay? Now, so we are discussing that today.

Let’s go to:

Hebrews 6:10 For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister.

V.11 - And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end.

He is using the same basic idea here when we move on over to the New Testament. People whom He has called at this time and there are several, two places at least in the book of Hebrews, I think there are more than that, where He says, do not cast away your confidence at all. You stay with it. There is a very good reason as to  why you should do that and pray accordingly, because God promised.  That is what He is saying here and He is never going to go back from this. Something we need to stay with.

V.12 - that you do not become sluggish, (in other words, you serve God otherwise) but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. (He says).

What promises?

V.13 - For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself,

We believe that God is, who He is, what He is, or you may as well throw the whole thing out of the window. He can never go back on what He says.

V.14 - saying, “Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.”

V.15 - And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.

That is the promise that was given to him as sworn, alright?

V.16 - For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute.

V.17 - Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise (notice) the immutability of His counsel, (or purpose) confirmed it by an oath,

V.18 - that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.

The Bible makes it so clear - very clearly. The preachers of the Word don’t have to struggle with this. It is there. 

V.19 - This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enter the Presence behind the veil.

And then of course he goes on to explain other aspects of that. 
Let’s move on. The promise fulfilled to Israel is a promise then that will carry over unto the resurrection of judgment. He will fulfill His promise to His people.

I’ll show you then that this is something that carries on over into the New Testament aspect of it but there are a lot of people that will have to be brought into that as we will see in Ezekiel 37, in which you heard at the Feast about the resurrection of judgment in which Israel will come forth again and by extension all other people too.

We begin with:

Ezekiel 37:21 “Then say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Surely I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, wherever they have gone, and will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land;

Again, when is this?

V.22 - “and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all; they shall no longer be two nations, nor shall they ever be divided into two kingdoms again.

V.23 - “They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols, nor with their detestable things not with any of their transgressions; but I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them. Then they shall be My people, and I will be their God.

V.24 - “David My servant shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd; they shall also walk in My judgments and observe My statures, and do them.

V.25 - “Then they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob My servant,

Remember what God spoke to Jacob in a dream in Genesis 28, He says: I will bring you back to this land and I will give it to you and to your descendants. That is a promise. And Jacob said - and his own life was quite unsure at the time because he was fleeing his brother Esau going to Laban his mother’s brother and he said this: You bring me back; You will be my God. You can read that. They understood the promise. They understood it exactly that way. So it says here:

V.25 - ….the land that I have given to Jacob My servant,

Understand why He said that. It goes back to Genesis 28, that particular idea.

V.25 - … where your fathers dwelt; and they shall dwell there, they, their children, and their children’s children, forever; and My servant David shall be their prince forever.

And there was a time, 2 Samuel 7, where Nathan announced to David that, I will establish your throne David over My people forever. That’s the way it will be.  So a throne entered in at a certain point. It is not an aside point. It is something that should be consider.
V.26 - “Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them;

Just like He said to Abraham. There is nothing different here now and the great white throne judgment.

V.26 - … I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in their midst (notice!) forevermore.

V.27 - “My tabernacle also shall be with them; indeed I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

V.28 - “The nations also will know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.”’”

So it is the way then that God will make Himself known to the nations by what He does with Israel. 

You see God still lives with His people. It is going to be so then. He is their God.  They are His people. It is not just an Old Covenant thing but God’s desire as He expressed it and His promise to Abraham. Now here in the valley of Dry Bones, people who are dead - to them He will fulfill this promise. He will resurrect them and they will be His people and He will be their God and His tabernacle will be with them. The promise cannot be broken.

Now I want to make a point. I requested that hymn “By the waters of Babylon” and God is going to deal with other nations and especially one that is called Edom. And it is with the children of Edom then - they were very treacherous against the nation of Israel when God was dealing with the nation of Israel and they will do so again.  Now God is going to deal with the other nations, not just Edom but all of the other nations because they had defied Him and His plan, not just because they were against Israel, this is part of it. 

God says this is My doing. Those nations are not going to destroy what I am doing and I won’t be against Edom. Let them say whatever they want to say now, I will deal with them.  And so we have the judgment against Edom. Read the story, Ezekiel 35, the whole chapter - before we get to Ezekiel 37 - even a different time but it was to make sure that all the nations know, here’s what I am doing; this is My promise; I am making My promise to Israel; I will carry out that promise and if the nations are smart they can take note of it and they can fall in line with God’s plan. That is the way He is operating. 

Now, the promise cannot be broken. We should understand that and the way we live today. Of course you can withdraw from that promise. Now, this is what Jabez was all about. He understood that promise and he was going back to that promise and He is one who can be trusted because He always keeps that promise, and you have then those who held on to the ancient promise.

Let me just make a point here: that you will find the servants of God, Abraham, Moses, David, Job for instance, all His servants were quite direct. We were talking about that in our discussion last night. They were very direct with God but they all appealed to one thing: they appealed to what God Himself had already said He will do. They appealed to His promise that He had made to Abraham. They always went back to that, especially Moses.

He said, now if you destroy these people, you know what the nations are going to say.  You didn’t carry out what You said nor were You able to do it. Now I think God was wanting Moses to say that, to understand that Moses then was also a part of fulfilling that promise in bringing the nation of Israel out and God of course agreed to that idea immediately because He had already said it. He wasn’t going against that and you will find Abraham in Genesis 15, in his discussion with God, and he says, okay, where is my descendant?  I don’t have one, he says. He says, okay, you are going to have one and then He said it again in Genesis 17.  We’ve got some discussions going on here. They were very direct; they were very forthright which defined the servants of God in speaking with God and always appealed to what God had previously said. Not something different, not something new, not something about or beyond something He never said or never intended as was pointed out, but what He already said. 

Now you can do that too. So, are you His people and is He your God? So, you have some very powerful statements and promises that He made.

Ezekiel 37:13 “Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people and brought you up from your graves.

V.14 - “I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land.  Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it,”says the Lord.’”

So when God carries out exactly what He says, He is going to carry it out even though it is going to be still yet into the future.  You are going to have people here who will have no further dissension, no further argument. They are going to be with the Lord forever. They are going to be with Him. Oh yes, they will be His people. God knows exactly what He is doing and how He is doing it. 

So, we do find that as we read further, that what He said in the Old Testament and the New Testament, His intent is the same: to dwell with His people. Let’s turn to John 14:13. Where is He getting these statements?  He doesn’t change.

John 14:13 “And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

You do have a qualification here. This is not just for you to feel good about yourself that God is going to start doing things for you and this is not the health and wealth gospel. This is not what that means at all but if you ask anything in My name - you have to understand what the Seed of Abraham is doing and for what purpose then do you ask. 

V.14 - “If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.
Now we have a very close relationship with God who said, you shall be My people.

V.15 - “If you love Me, keep My commandments. -  is the great point here.

V.16 - “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever -

V.17 -“the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.

And the Holy Spirit, I think as we’ve had explained many, many times for us is how God the Father and Jesus Christ then dwells with us and then in this case dwells in us. 

V.18 - “I will not leave you orphans;

Fatherless; Fatherless.  It is a very interesting word here because He says, I will be a Father to you. That is what I want.

V.18 - … I will come to you.

V.19 - “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also.

V.20 - “At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.

And so we have a relationship then once again stated here going back to … where?  Abraham, and now in this instance with the men whom He has chosen and then beyond that to those who will be a part of His ecclesia and His children - His children, yes indeed His children - then He makes this pledge. 

V.21 - “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me.  And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”

And then:

V.22 - Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?”

Who is He going be a Father to? Who is He going to dwell with?

V.23 - Jesus answered and said to him, - and it wasn’t like it was before where He was there with them. This is going to be somewhat different but the intent is still the same.

V.23 - Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word;

That is what he told Abraham. Nothing has changed!
V.23 - …he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.

Just like the people from the White Throne Judgment; just like He said He was going to do with Israel. Let’s read on:

Exodus 25:8  “And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.

Do you ever get the idea God wants to be with His people? So here they are, early in the piece, coming out of the land of Egypt and God is still somewhat unknown to them in some ways, however they did see what He did and that was not conclusive in their minds because they didn’t stay loyal to Him in some ways, even after this.

V.9 - “According to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings, just so you shall make it.

And what He is saying is: Make Me a place where I can live with you. Make Me a sanctuary.  Now when you make one, make it a nice one and He gives them instructions how to do it and it was.  It turned out to be a really nice one. They did it the way the God instructed them.  So you wonder why all that took place.  Because that is what He wanted to do.

Exodus 29:43 “And there (that is the sanctuary - just to pick up in the middle of a thought here) I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by My glory.

So I will meet with you.

V.44 - “So I will consecrate the tabernacle of meeting and the altar. I will also consecrate both Aaron and his sons to minister to Me as priests.

You need them is what He is saying.

V.45 -“I will dwell among the children of Israel and will be their God. (He says).

V.46 - “And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them. I am the Lord their God.

He says, I can’t dwell among you while you still live in Egypt. You need to come out and I will make a way for you to come out and when you do you accept that in faith and you come out. He says, I will be your God and I will dwell among you.

So they lived in tents and so He lived in a tent. A very simple idea -  next to them, right in the middle. They could see it. There it was and they could see the glory of the Lord when He came to His sanctuary, to His tent, and they knew that God had something to say to them. He lived with them. God dwelt among them. They were His people. He brought them out of the land of Egypt by a promise and He sealed it with an everlasting covenant. He says it would always be that way.
Leviticus 26:1’You shall not make idols for yourselves; neither a carved image nor a sacred pillar shall you rear up for yourselves; nor shall you set up an engraved stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am the Lord your God.

Count it. How many times does He say that?  That is the reason why.

V.2 - You shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary; I am the Lord.

V.3 - ‘If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them,

V.4 - then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.

V.5 - Your threshing shall last till the time of vintage, and the vintage shall last till the time of sowing; you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.

That is what the prophets said would happen in the great 1000 years. Why?  Because God is there! He dwells there. He dwells with men and He dwells with His people.

V.6 - I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none will make you afraid; I will rid the land of evil beasts, and the sword will not go through your land.

V.7 - You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you.

V.8 - Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall by the sword before you.

V.9 - For I will look on you favourably and make you fruitful, multiply you and confirm My covenant with you.

He will always be there, always. Don’t ever forget that.

V.10 - You shall eat the old harvest, and clear out the old because of the new.

V.11 - I will set My tabernacle among you, and My soul shall not abhor you.

V.12 - I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people.

V.13 - I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves; I have broken the bands of your yoke and made you walk upright.

So He says, stand upright, be a man. You are not slaves anymore. You serve the Lord God. And so He is God who made the promise and you operate on that basis.  What basis? Not on how good you are, which you are trying to be, but you do it because He promised. 

Now, the Holy Spirit was given by promise. We go over to the New Testament, Acts 2:39 - a very simple idea.

Acts 2:39“For the promise (what promise? ) is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”

A promise. In Luke 24:49 He says, tarry in Jerusalem until the Promise of the Father is sent to you - shall come upon you.  I am just quoting from memory and you find then the promise as it is developed in the New Testament then, that you and I are the favourite recipients of salvation at this time as a result of what? Well, people like to say grace but you should understand we are the favourite recipients because of the promise.

Let me explain what He is doing and let me sum it up to you in a few words that God’s purpose, of what purpose is: It is seen as a divine plan in history which promised to bring universal blessing through the agency of unmerited, divine choice of human offspring. We see this in the key statement: In you shall all families of the earth be blessed.

Now, you need to go back there to understand that.  You wipe that out completely as an ancient theology, you loose it. You don’t have all of it. But this is where it comes from - choice of human offspring.  He did this back in the Old Testament - Isaac and Ishmael, which, Jacob and Esau, which, and it has to be His choice.  It has to be done this way.  It cannot be done any other way except by what He says is going to happen, the way it is going to happen and by His choosing.  Without that you cannot have a confidence and so then today it is done through His calling.  He chooses us and He says it is to their children, just like He told Abraham, to his descendants so too it is to the people here and it is good, it is good.

I don’t have the answers as to why it is not immediately fulfilled in the lives of some of us butI will tell you this - it will be, because He promised.  Yes or no, okay.  Where are you going to be on this?  He promised.  He made it good. That is what He is going to do then.

Let’s conclude here with a few verses. This is very interesting. Job says in:

Job 29:2 “Oh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God watched over me;

V.3 - When His lamp shone upon my head, and when by His light I walked through darkness;

V.4 - Just as I was in the days of my prime, when the friendly counsel of God was over my tent;

Very expressive, isn’t it?  I want that.  Yes, He doesn’t promise everything.  He doesn’t promise health and wealth. He just says this.  Remember how He is going to then work it out.

Now He will carry that out. Now if He doesn’t carry it out exactly the way you think He should, He had good reason for it but ultimately to fulfill this purpose.  Now, it is the way it is because God promised and He is capable of carrying it out.  In 2 Corinthians 6:16 we find Paul so moved to say this to the Corinthians:

2 Corinthians 6:16 And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?  for you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: (As God has said! As God has said!) “I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”

V.17 - Therefore “Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.”

V.18 - “I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”

We see the wonderful familial idea that was started with human beings that God wanted before the first human being was ever placed on this earth.  God wanted His own people, His own children, His own family and so He says I will make them families.  Male and female He created them and off it went from there and when He came to Abraham He says, you and your descendants Abraham, this is the way I am going to work. It doesn’t matter what it looks like; it doesn’t matter you don’t have any children now, that’s the way I want to do it - it is through your descendants. I won’t do it any other way, okay. 

Revelation 2:1 He says this about His churches living at this time: “To the angel of the church of Ephesus write, ‘These things says He who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands:

Where is He with respect to His people?  He is in their midst.  He said it enough times. That is where He would be and He made it clear, it’s where I’ll be because this is where I want to be. I want to be there. I want to be with them whether it is in the wilderness going to the Promised Land, living with them in tents, sharing that experience with them, or whether it is His people and His ecclesia now. He wants to be with them.

Revelation 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, - what does this mean? This means God is going to live with men.  He says this. 

V.13 - … the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people.  God Himself will be with them and be their God.

How many times does He have to say it so we can be convinced that this is what He will do?  And you know it will happen because He promised.