God's Purpose for the Church

Well, last week I started a series of two sermons. As I said, the amount of information I'm covering in each sermon is enormous. It was interesting coming in this morning for 20 minutes just standing outside as a group of us were talking about some of that information. I had two or three conversations throughout the week from people, both here and in Nashville, about that and what we're going to talk today. What I covered last time was when we look at the Bible, we have an obvious plan God has for the people of Israel. And then we have an obvious plan for the church. What are the similarities and what are the differences between those two plans? How do we go through the Scripture to be able to explain that? And as I said last week, you have two extremes in this. One is what they call replacement theology, which means God doesn't care about Israelites, Jews, and all those people who have been abandoned by God. And as I said then, it wasn't until 1962 that the Catholic Church didn't officially change their doctrine, which had been around for hundreds and hundreds of years, that all Jews were guilty of the murder of Christ by act of birth. And it's one of the reasons why so many Lutherans and Catholics went along with the Holocaust in Europe. The Jews were guilty. They were the murderers of Jesus. When they were born, they were born murderers of Jesus. So, you have that extreme. And then you have the other extreme, where Christians believe they must become messianic Jews for salvation and adopt all Jewish customs. And to tell you the truth, a lot of things that are messianic Jewish customs are not exactly Jewish either. Some of them are sort of made up. These two worlds...well, how do we understand Israel and the Church? I went through, just to recap for a few minutes, three reasons, three purposes God had for Israel. And the first one is very important in understanding the Church. And that is, Israel was a family through whom God would produce the Messiah. We showed that. We didn't show all by means, all the Scriptures. There are dozens. Even in Genesis alone. There's numerous places where it says, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed through your seed. Over and over again. This message is given. I'm bringing a blessing to everybody and you're the people I'm going to do this through. So, they would be the people that God would bring through Christ and He would come into the world. Two, Israel was to be a witness of the true God to all people. We went through and showed how they were to be...in fact, He said, you are my witnesses. You are to witness me. You are to tell people about me. You are to be the example of my people. And three, Israel was to preserve the teachings of God. In the New Testament, they're called the oracles of God. And of course, many of them died over the years to protect what we call the Old Testament. So that we can have those sets of writings. So those were three major reasons that God used those people throughout history.

So if we go back to the Sinai Covenant and we look at the covenant God made with now the nation of Israel because they were first just a family. I mean, Abraham wasn't an Israelite. They were just a family. And then they became a tribe. And then they became a series of tribes. And what we find at Sinai when He gives them the Ten Commandments and then creates this what is called the Old Covenant or the Sinai Covenant with them. He now makes them into a nation. Now remember, one of the promises made to Abraham is that I will make a great nation for you. So this is the next step in the promises made to Abraham. I'm going to make your people into a great nation. And through them I'm going to bless all the families of the earth. Those are actually two different promises. You have to do one to have the other, but they are actually two different promises.

God gave them His moral laws. The Ten Commandments are still to be kept today. He gave them a physical priesthood. He gave them a tabernacle. He gave them agricultural laws. He gave them a whole lot of laws about how to function as a nation. It is interesting, when you look through all the 613 laws that are in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, a lot of them have to do with priesthood, tabernacle, and how to function as a nation. It's a physical nation. Now, I stress as a physical nation, physical people... We look at some of the laws of the Deuteronomy, and we say, how would we even do that today? Well, you can't. Some of them don't even make sense in the Church, and how the Church would even apply them, and I don't explain why. But it doesn't mean everything in that Old Covenant was thrown out. Everything was thrown out. And this is part of how we begin to understand even how the Old and New Covenants fit together. He gave them all those things. But it's important to understand, at Mount Sinai, there's not something He promised them.

He did not promise them eternal life.

He did not say to them, and I will resurrect you, and you shall be in my kingdom forever. One of the things people miss about God's relationship with ancient Israel under that Old Covenant is that He did not give the majority of people His Spirit. He gave some of His Spirit. Let's look at an interesting scripture here in Numbers. Numbers 11. We'll pick it up in verse 16 so we get the story.

Moses is having difficulty. He's trying to administer the government over millions of people. It's just impossible that people are complaining. It's breaking down. Things aren't being done. Verse 16 says, Gather to Me seventy men of the elders of Israel, who you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them, bring them to the tabernacle of meaning that they may stand there with you. You get these tribal elders. I want you to find seventy of them. They're the absolute, most dedicated men who are following Me of all the tribal elders. And bring them to the tabernacle. Verse 17. Then I will come down and talk with you there, and I will take of the Spirit that is upon you, and will put the same upon them. And they shall bear the burden of the people with you, that you may not bear it yourself alone. Pick seventy men and I will give them My Spirit. Now Moses had God's Spirit.

But notice, the great majority of Israelites did not. So what happens here in verse 24, we pick up the story.

Let me see, where do I want to go here?

I don't think I want to go to verse 24. Yeah, verse 24. So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord, that he gathered the seventy men and the elders of the people, and placed them around the tabernacle. Then the Lord came down in the cloud, okay, so here we have that physical presence of God, the cloud that's there. And spoke to him, and took of the Spirit that was upon him, and placed the same upon the seventy elders, and it happened when the Spirit rested upon them that they prophesied, although they never did so again. They never exhibited this quite again, this amazing ability. They were speaking for God. Now what's interesting is two of the seventy weren't able to get there. Verse 26. But two of the men had remained in the camp, and the name of one was El-Dad, the other was Medad, and the Spirit rested upon them. Now they were among those listed, but they had not gone to the tabernacle, yet they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses, and said, El-Dad and Medad are prophesying in the camp. So Joshua, the son of Nod, Moses' assistance, one of his choice men, answered and said, Moses, my Lord, forbid them. Stop them. You know, from doing this. But notice what he says. Then Moses said to him, are you zealous for my sake? Oh, that all of the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them. He says, oh, if God would just send his Spirit upon all the Israelites, my job would be so much easier. I wish all of them could have this relationship with God. Now they had a relationship with God, but it was lacking. There was something missing in it. What's truly missing here is the ability to have eternal life.

You can obey the law of God. They could go to the tabernacle, do their sacrifices. They could keep the Sabbath. They could not steal. They could not cheat their neighbor. They could do all kinds of things, and still not have eternal life. To have eternal life, we must have God's Spirit in us. So there's a problem, and that problem is throughout their history. You see God giving his Spirit to individuals. You see some little groups getting it. You see schools of prophets at times that receive God's Spirit. You see Saul receive God's Spirit, and Lou's God's Spirit. You see David received God's Spirit. But the average Israelite never received God's Spirit. Sprinkled among them were just people who did. So this is very important in understanding. And that's why we went through a number of prophecies last week that showed that Israel would receive God's Spirit as a group in the future. Let's go to Ezekiel 36. Just one scripture I didn't read last time, just to recap a little of what we covered last time. Because this premise is so important in understanding what we're going to talk about today in terms of the Church.

Ezekiel 36 and verse 22. Actually, the whole passage starts in verse 16. But in verse 22, he says, Ezekiel 36-22, Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God, He did not do this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for my holy name's sake, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went. And I will sanctify my great name, that has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. He says, even when I sent you out, you weren't my proper witnesses. So even after they went into captivity, he said, you still didn't do it right. They think you would have learned from that, but they didn't. He says, which you have profaned in their midst, and the nations shall know that I am the Lord. He says, but I am going to prove who I am because I made promises, and I'm going to keep those promises, and I'm going to do it in spite of you. He says, says the Lord God, When I am hallowed in you before their eyes, He says, I will be made holy in what I do with you, or I will show my holiness through what I do with you, and the world will say, Ah! God keeps His promises. For I will take you from among the nations, and this is after the Ten Tribes have just scattered and lost to history, as far as secular history is concerned, for I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you to your own land. And notice what happens when He does that. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean, and I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols, and I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh, and I will give you a new heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will keep my judgments, and you will do them. Verse 28, and you shall dwell in the land that I gave your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. Once again, the promise is you will dwell in the land. Now, we showed last time, and I maybe didn't make this as specific as I should have. We're talking about these gatherings. We jump to a couple different scriptures. There's two gatherings of Israel. One is when the Messiah comes, and they're gathered from all over the world, and brought into the land, where now they serve the Messiah.

The other gathering is at the Great White Throne Judgment, when there's this resurrection of physical Israel. Remember what we talked about? In fact, Ezekiel 37 is the second-grade gathering, because they're dead. The first resurrection is the spirit life, so it can't be then, but we do know there's a great physical resurrection, after the Millennium, the Great White Throne Judgment. So there's two gatherings here. One is when the Messiah comes, and all the peoples that are scattered throughout, not just the Jews, but the other tribes, are gathered together to serve the Messiah. And then, the second time, when they're resurrected, and said, Okay, now I'm going to give you my spirit. You worshiped me, but you always failed, because you never had eternity. You only had this temporary relationship with God. So that's Israel.

So how do we now look at the Church? What is the purpose of the Church? How does that fit? Let's go to Matthew 16.

Matthew 16.

We're going to go probably a little over today, but I think the put these things together is so important.

I say a little over. We'll still end long before 12.30, but I may speak a little more than an hour. Matthew 16.

Verse 13.

When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? And they said some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, others Jeremiah, one of the prophets. So people thought He was one of the prophets that had God had brought back the life. And He said to them, But who do you say I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. You are the Christ, which is just a Greek way of word for Messiah. You are the Messiah. You're the one that's supposed to come.

And Jesus answered and said to Him, Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. Now this verse has been used to teach a number of things in different churches throughout the history, including the Catholic Church, that this makes the Pope this rock. But in Greek, this is a play on words. Peter literally means a small rock.

That's what his name means. The word rock here is from the Greek word petra, which is a mass of rocks. You're a little rock, but I'm building on a massive rock. And that's why in 1 Corinthians, Jesus is called the rock. He is the rock. In fact, all through the Old Testament, you have God called the rock. So he wasn't saying here that somehow Peter was the rock he was going to build the church on. He is a small stone in this what he was building, this build on Jesus Christ. He goes on, he says, and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, that whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Now that has been misused also. To say that in the Catholicism that they can create new doctrine. And that's not what this means. Or create new laws. What it means is, it's sort of what God, if you go back and look at what he told the Levitical priesthood, okay, here's my laws, you're going to have to administer my ways. So you're going to have to make some decisions here on how this applies. So it's not this, it's not, it's obviously not what, where they take it, but that's another subject. But here we have the founding of his church. On this rock I will build my church, Ecclesia. Now when we talked in the Bible study, we've been going through the history of the early church, remember I said Ecclesia is in Athens, that was the assembly of all the citizens. The assembly of the citizens, they called the Ecclesia. And there were some trumpets they would blow, and it was the call of the Ecclesia, and all the citizens would come together to make a decision, because it was a democracy. Well, he called the church to Ecclesia. It's those called out, that literally means those called out, they're called out to assemble before him. So we have here the foundation of the church. Now we know immediately that the church is different than Israel in Acts 21, I mean, I'm sorry, Acts 1 and 2. Because in Acts 1 and 2, we have people gathered together to keep Pentecost, who are Christians. They're followers of Jesus Christ. Most of them are Jews, but not all of them. Because it says there's proselytes. Proselytes were not all Gentiles, it means there's no Jews. It's a generic word for everybody that's not a Jew. So there's Gentiles there, that they converted to Judaism, and now they were part of the church. And what do we look as the signifying foundation of the church that makes it different than Israel? God's Spirit is given to them.

This is totally different, not to one or two, not just to the apostles, but everybody that is there, that has become part of the church, receives His Spirit.

This is what all the prophecies say was missing from what God was doing with Israel. There was no eternity to it, except the promise, that, there will come a time and I will give you my Spirit. There's the eternity, it's a promise. But they couldn't. They couldn't sacrifice enough animals. They couldn't keep the law perfect enough, because everybody's a sinner, everybody breaks it. They couldn't earn their salvation. And that's where Judaism in the first century had such trouble with the apostle Paul, because the apostle Paul was enduring away with the law. He just kept saying, you can't dance fast enough. You can't add up enough good deeds to do away with the bad deeds. The law still exists, but it can't give you salvation, because when you really understand the law, you say, oh, I'm a sinner. It's all good, I kept it here. Oh, I broke it here.

It's good, it's wonderful, it's God's gift, but it can't save you.

We have to have a seed in which all the families of the earth will be blessed for salvation to take place. And then we have to receive God's Spirit. So here we have the foundation of the church, where God is now beginning to do something different. So here you have the first church, which is basically Jews across the lights, but in Acts 1 and 2, something else happens. He gives them the gift of languages. Remember it says, they get this gift of tongues, and all over Jerusalem people are saying, wait a minute, these people are talking in my language. They're all still teaching and being able to teach in different languages. Understand the enormity of that. Judaism was going to be contained, to a certain degree, by Hebrew and Greek. But now they can go all over the world and teach it in all different languages. And what you see from the beginning of the book of Acts is an explosion of communities. They begin in Jerusalem, they go to Judea, they go to Samaria, they go to the world, because he told them that's the way to go. And as they did, you have little communities coming all over the place, and they crop up, and as time goes on, more and more and more people in those communities are non-Jews.

I mean, Corinth is at the heart of Greece. Thessalonica is in Greece. And if you look at Paul's writings of Corinth, what you see are a lot of the issues there have to do with Greek issues, not Jewish issues.

You know, like Temple prostitution.

Need offered idols. They deal with a whole other set of things that were just foreign to Jews. So the church now begins to expand out. And so much of the controversy of what you see in the earliest writings, especially of Paul, is what in the world do we do? Because remember, they're Israelites. All of the apostles are Israelites. And all the apostles are saying, okay, we know how in our experience non-Jews became part of the people of God. They converted to Judaism. But they had a problem. They were being kicked out of Judaism.

So what do we do? And at the beginning, you see, and that's what we have in the book of Galatians, they're actually, okay, no, they have to become Jews and then they become Christians. So we've got to make them Jews first, but then we make them Christians. That way we bring them into the people of God because the people of God are Israel. But as time goes on, they get kicked out of the synagogues. Now what do we do? We're not even considered good Jews anymore.

So, you know, we look at this, like, circumcision issue and we say, how silly that is. I tell you what, if I'd have been in the church, a Jew at that time, in the church, I'd have been fighting for circumcision.

Because I understand why they were doing it. But I didn't even understand Paul saying, well, wait a minute.

God's Spirit has been poured out. What does that mean? Now let's look at a few scriptures where Paul explains this. What does this mean? And how do we apply this to the fact, okay, Israel and this church where God's Spirit has been poured out? Starting Galatians 3. Because the church has a very, very important role to play in God's salvation history. And it is not the same. There are some things that are similar to Israel and there are some things that are not. One is this concept of eternal life. Not some future prophecy of eternal life, but the fact that we receive God's Spirit now, the down payment of eternal life is actually given to us now.

Remember, we can keep these laws. We can do this way. We can go to the Holy Days. We can keep the Sabbath. You cannot commit adultery. And if you do not have God's Spirit in you, you will not receive eternal life. And it was the problem that ancient Israel faced all the time.

Because it was missing in the covenant. It was only a future promise. Now I say missing in the covenant. It's there. But it's a future promise. And it wasn't present for them. So Galatians 3. And let's start in verse 26.

Now, we have to read a couple of sentences here to see the subject because we're breaking in the middle of the thought a little bit. But, for you are all... So he's talking to the church in Galatians. He says, You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. So his argument is, look, Christ is what makes you part of the church. We're back to that idea of the seed of Abraham. Let me show you in a minute why I say that. Because there's a premise here he's working off of. There's an important premise. He says, okay, if you've put on Christ, you've understood that Christ is the seed of Abraham. And you've been baptized, so you've entered into this new covenant. Which is... That was the outward expression that you'd entered into the covenant. That's why in another place Paul argues, to which you understand there is circumcision for the church. But not physical circumcision, spiritual circumcision. There is baptism. You must be baptized and receive God's Spirit. You are now a participant in what is called the Ecclesia.

So you become this participant because you understand Christ, and you've been baptized, and you've received God's Spirit. Then he makes this remarkable statement in verse 28. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And then verse 29 is a shock. I mean, this is an explosion in that first century. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Now, if you're a Jew, you say, wait a minute, wait a minute, okay. I can sort of accept that. I mean, that's not a totally foreign concept. But still, how do you become Abraham's seed? Don't you have to be circumcised? Here's what they would have taught in the first century. You have to be circumcised, and you have to, at least once in your life, go to the temple and do a sacrifice. And you have to be baptized. They had a form of baptism. You have to do those three things, and now you are, even though you're a Gentile.

Now, when you go to the synagogue, you sit in a different room than the natural born Israelites. But you're still part of it. Okay, you're accepted as part of it. Sort of part of it.

He's saying the whole point of this is Christ. Now, why would he come up with that?

Why would he say, you are Abraham's seed? Doesn't matter, Greek. He's obviously not doing away with the different attributes. I mean, my wife's still a female, I'm still a male. But we're both, we're both of the seed of Abraham. We're spiritually before God as his children, sons and daughters.

The premise is in Galatians 3. Let's go back to Galatians 3, verse 16. Now, to Abraham and his seed where the promise is made. Okay, so you're right back to where we were at the beginning of last week. To Abraham and his seed where the promise is made, he does not say, and to the seeds, as of many. In other words, yes, Abraham would become a great nation, and that nation would bless people, but he said that's not what the specific promise is. There's two promises here. One to the physical descendants of Abraham, one to the spiritual descendants of Abraham. And to seeds, as of many, as of one, and to your seed, so he quotes it again, who is Christ.

There's his premise. That's why he can now say what he says at the end of the chapter, that we just read. So you understand then, once we have become blessed with the blessing of Abraham's seed, who is Christ, we're now brought into what Christ is doing. And what is Christ doing? He's building his church.

He said, I've come to build a church. So, the reason is I'm here. So now, people are brought into this church. Now, there's still Jews, there's still Gentiles, there's people from... people came into the church now from all over the world. It's amazing how mixed peoples were throughout the Roman Empire. All kinds of people came into the church. And they were coming in, and because of the blessings made Abraham, through this particular seed, they could become of the seed of Abraham. And so we literally have now, in Paul's writings, an explanation of two blessings. And it is two blessings, two purposes. Both still exist, by the way. The blessings to physical Israel, and what God was going to do through them, still exist. We went through that, how there's a future, and a prophecy about that. But the blessings to the church are greater. The blessings to the church, the promises to the church are greater. Let's go to Ephesians 2. And one of the programs that I did over in Germany here last month, I actually go through Ephesians 2 here, in fairly great detail. We'll go through as much detail now, here today. He's right into the church at Ephesus, which has a large amount, and probably majority of people, they were not Jewish. Some are. Ephesus was a church that was one of the larger churches. They actually had to go rent, a few... They actually had to go rent an assembly hall. They had to go rent a hall. Many of the churches met in people's houses, or they built rooms on the houses. They found them today. And archeology has found what they call church houses. Where they have someone's house, and they go next to room on it. And they could have anywhere from 30 to 50 people. The biggest one they found could seat 100 people.

So they built a church house. They went and built an assembly hall. I mean, rented an assembly hall. So it's probably a pretty good sized church. Possibly outside of Jerusalem. Probably the biggest one. Jerusalem... When you have 3,000 people baptized in one day, that's a big church. Although we do know that people in Jerusalem were scattered through persecution, too. So they all stayed there. So now he's talking to a church. He's writing to a church. Who many of them, of course, are not physical descendants of Abraham. And he says, therefore remember that you, once Gentiles of the flesh, who are called uncircumcision, by what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands. He says, okay. You were uncircumcised, so you were considered outside the covenant God made with Israel. And the truth is, to be part of the covenant God made with Israel, you had to be circumcised.

God commanded Abraham to be circumcised. As I said, Paul would explain later why baptism is the circumcision of the heart. And you know what's amazing? You can go clear back to Deuteronomy to find prophecies about, there will come a time when I will circumcise you with the heart. So this wasn't something new. This was something that went back to the time of Moses. That I will do this someday. Paul says, oh, it's happening now. This is what he's talking about, circumcision of the heart. But he's talking to me and he says, okay, you're called the uncircumcision because you have been circumcised. That at that time, before you were called by God, he says, here's what you were. It's an interesting list. He says you were without Christ. When they were pagans and they were uncircumcised, and they were considered the uncircumcision. They didn't know anything about Christ. They probably knew very little about that crazy Jewish religion. He says, you were without Christ. We had no concept. At least the Jews knew what he was coming. You knew nothing about him. You were, now this is a very interesting statement, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, who weren't part of the nation, the physical descendants. We were part of that. He said, and strangers from the covenants of promise, he said, you knew nothing about the covenant God made with Adam, or the covenant God made with Noah, or the covenant God made with Abraham, or the covenant God made with Israel, Sinai, or the covenant God made with David, or the covenant God made, the new covenant that Jesus came in. He said, you knew nothing about the covenants, or their promises. You knew nothing about them. You were outside all of them. Having no hope, he said, you had no hope, really, of eternity, of life. And he says, and without God in the world. He said, you were even separated from God. You didn't know who God was. But now, in Christ Jesus, you were once far off, and they're brought near by the blood of Christ.

We're back to Genesis 12 and Galatians 3, where Paul ties those together. Ah, the one seed! So now he says, you are now coming into this thing that God is doing. You were outside of what God was doing, but now you're coming into what God is doing. The covenants, they apply. Christ applies. God applies. All this is happening because you've understood who the seed is. For he himself, verse 14, is our peace, who's made both one. Now, who's the both here?

The both is Israelite and non-Israelite. For he himself, Christ, is our peace, who is made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation. Having abolished in his flesh the enmity that is the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create for himself a new man from the two making peace. A new man from the two! He's creating a new people here. He's creating a new people. Now, what people zero in on here, and it's unfortunate, is the law of commandments contained in ordinances. They say, oh, that's the ten commandments. There's something just illogical about that, let alone what the words actually mean. He is saying there are things in the Old Covenant, ordinances that separated you. I mean, you were a Gentile, you couldn't go into the temple. You know, there were limitations between sometimes what Gentiles and Israelites could do. There was also a lot of oral law that was never in. It was never in God's commands. But Peter says, I can't go in and eat with Gentiles, with the Italian soldier. No, Italians are not Jews, so therefore I can't eat with you. Find that in the Bible. It's not in the Old Testament laws. They just made that one up. They made that one up. So you have all these things, some of them are part of the Old Covenant, a lot of them aren't, but they separate people. And so people zero in, so all these things, that shall not steal, hasn't separated anybody called of God, right? Well, I like stealing. I'm offended by you because you don't believe in stealing. It's just ridiculous. The Ten Commandments aren't the issues here. The moral laws aren't the issues. You break this down and say, this means all moral law. What you have is lawlessness, what Jesus Christ says when He returns. He will tell people, I know you worship me, but I don't want anything to do with you because you're lawless. He says that in the Sermon on the Mount. The important phrase here, that is really the subject, abolished, or I haven't broken down, the middle wall of separation. In the Temple in Jerusalem, there was actually a wall. They have found, in archaeology, they have found some of the plaques that were on that wall. Josephus tells us about the plaques, but they've actually found them. They're in Hebrew, Greek, I can't remember whether it's Latin or Aramaic, but there's three different languages on it. I'm sorry, you'll have to look that up if I don't remember. Here's what it says. Have you translated it into English?

No stranger, stranger here being non-Israelite, no stranger is to enter within the balustrade round the temple in closure. However is caught will be responsible to himself for his death, which will ensue. The bottom line is, if you are a Gentile and you are not circumcised, and you go beyond this wall, we will kill you.

It's the middle wall of separation. In the book of Acts, think about it. Later in the book of Acts, Paul goes to the temple. He wants to show the Jews, look, I'm teaching that the Gentiles don't have to be part of this temple to be Christians. But I'm still a Jew, I still come to the temple. I mean, he's actually showing them. I still come to the temple. And he goes into the temple, and he has somebody with him. And he gets accused, if you go and read it, but the accusing of someone else, there's Paul, who speaks against this temple. He never spoke against the temple. He just said, this is ridiculous that we say all the nations have to jump through these hoops. Okay, they don't have to jump through these hoops to be part of the church. And they say, look, here's the man who speaks against this temple and has brought Gentiles into the temple. He crossed the wall.

So you think, why would they say that? Why would they even notice that? Actually, it wasn't true. The guy with him was a Jew, but they claimed he was a Gentile. And they rioted. There were so many people involved, because they were going to kill him. They grabbed Paul, they were going to kill him, because the Romans had a little fort attached right to the temple, because there was always trouble. Of course, the guards were going, oh no, we've got another riot going on. So a bunch of Roman soldiers run out, and they say, Paul! But why were they going to kill Paul? He had brought Gentiles past the wall.

Because the charges against him, you brought Gentiles into this place. Well, there was a court of the Gentiles. There was a place right there outside the temple where all Gentiles who worship God could go to. It was called the Court of the Gentiles. He took them past the Court of the Gentiles. Although they weren't. But it was always false, the accused begin with. But you see the accusation.

See how by this time, by the time that Jesus comes along, it's our God, not yours. Remember, they were supposed to be the witnesses of God. They'd be changed a little bit. It's our God, not your God.

And so, this middle wall of separation is real important. Because even in all of the synagogues, so out the Roman Empire, if you were a Gentile, and you became a proselyt, you had to sit in a different room. Well, if you're a woman, you had to sit in a different room, too. All the Jewish men sat in their own room.

He says, Christ came to tear that down, and to create a new man, a new people from all peoples.

Go on what he says here.

He says, Pick it up so as to create in himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that he might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, therefore putting to death the enmity, this separation of peoples. And he came and preached peace to you who are far off and those who are near. Through him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. We're back to, how does this happen? Because it's whoever receives God's Spirit.

Whoever receives God's Spirit is part of this church that God is building.

Now, this was quite a controversial thing in the church. Some people saw it right away, some did not. They argued it for decades. For decades they argued it. How does that apply? Does that mean Gentiles don't have to keep any of the walls? Well, Paul's argument was that God forbid.

But we don't have to make them do all these other things, because this is something a little different God's doing here. But he told us it was going to happen. We could do a whole sermon and never cover all the prophecies that talk about what's going to happen when God pours out His Spirit. Just, I mean, from the Old Testament.

So Paul now explains this even further, in greater detail, in any place in the Scripture in Romans. In fact, all of three chapters, Romans 9, 10 and 11, are all explanations of, God's still working through Israel, but He's working through the Church, and how does this work? So let's go, though, to... Let's start with... I'm not going to read all of it. I'm just going to read a couple verses. But let's go to Romans 2, because here, once again, He gives us His starting point in where He's going to end up.

Romans 2, 28. And, you know, part of what He says here is, you know, we can't tell Jews they can't circumcise, but we can't tell non-Jews that they have to circumcise. If we recognize that there's two levels of promises here, one to the physical descendants of Abraham, and all nations of the earth will be blessed by deceit. And Paul was the one who got that more deeply than anybody else. But the reason he says that in Romans 9, 10 and 11, he says, because he even says, I understand this because I happen to be the apostles and to the Gentiles. He says, I get how this works.

So look what he says in verse 28. For circumcision is deemed profitable if you keep the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. So, okay, so you're circumcised and you murder somebody. Well, that circumcision doesn't mean anything. Now, that seems obvious, but there was some belief among some Jews, not all of them, because, I mean, Judaism is like saying Christianity today. There are thousands of groups all arguing, right? They're all Judaism the same way. There were some Jews who believed that once you were circumcised, you were saved. Just like there are people today who believe you saved a little prayer, you're saved. You're baptized, you're saved. It's irrevocable. You can go out and kill 50 people. It doesn't matter, you're saved. So he says, wait a minute. Your circumcision means you've entered into a relationship with God. But then you go out and break the law of God, and you end up outside the covenant. So let's remember, circumcision is a law as a sign of the covenant. Therefore, if an uncircumcised man, this is a very interesting argument here, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the law, well, not his uncircumcision, he counters his circumcision. He says, what if we have a man over here who's not circumcised, but he keeps the laws of God? Now, circumcision was a law, so he's talking here about the moral law.

He says, he keeps the laws of God. This guy is there every Sabbath. This guy keeps the holy days. This man doesn't lie, cheats, steal. He loves his wife. He raises his kids, God's way. But he's not circumcised. Are you saying that somehow, because he's not a Jew, God doesn't see that?

And while not the physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the law, judge you, who, even with your written code and circumcision, are transgressors of the law. So, who's better off before God? The person who has the law and says, I'm a keeper of the law and I'm circumcised and you're not, and therefore God rejects you, are the person who bays the laws of God, but because he's not a Jew, he's not circumcised. So, okay, let's look at this here. Who's God going to look to? For he is not... Now, this next statement, the only way this makes sense is there has to be two promises. For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter, which praises not of men, but from God. So, now, the real Jews are the ones who are circumcised in the heart. And that, they may be physically a Jew or physically somebody else, not a Jew. Now, we're going to see in a minute, that does mean he says, so, physical Jews have no matter to God. That's not what he's saying. But he's obviously saying, there's two things going on here. There's two things. One has to do with God's promise to the physical distancing of Abraham, and one is people who have this inward thing going on, which is God's Spirit. So, we take that, and let's go to Romans 9. Like I said, we have three chapters here, and it would take an hour just to go through them. I'm just going to hit a couple points, because then I want to cover very quickly the purpose of the Church. What's very fascinating about Romans 9, 10, and 11 is the emotions, or are the emotions, that Paul pours into this. He loved his people, you know, or his family. And he was absolutely traumatized by the fact that the majority of them were rejecting Christ, and Jesus is the Christ. It was just traumatizing to him.

And so he explains now to Rome, which has a large, probably Italian, although Rome is such a mixed group of people, who knows, people all over the world, but a large number of people come into the Church there that are non-Jews, they're Gentiles.

And he says to them in verse 1, I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying. He says, I want you to understand this. He says, this is at the core of my being. My conscience also bearing me witness of the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brother and my countrymen, according to the flesh. He says, I'd bring every Jew into what I know if I could. In other words, he's saying, God is not working directly through those people the same way he was in the past, because there's something actually greater going on, and I wish they could be part of this.

He agonized over that they could be part of this.

Who are Israelites? To whom pertain the adoption? He says, now let me tell you something. He says, there's a lot of important things God has done with Israelites, and one of them is the adoption, how to come into being a child of God. The glory, the glory of God that filled the temple, the glory of God when he stood on Mount Sinai, he said, let's not forget, those were the people that God did that with. The covenant, he keeps going back to the covenants. We're part of the new covenant. There has to be an old covenant before there's a new covenant, and there's a whole lot of other covenants. So, every one of these covenants has something to do with God's plan. They're all important.

He says, the covenants, the giving of the law, he didn't say all the law is bad. He says, who has it given to, and who has died to protect it? Why do we have the Scriptures? Why do we have the Old Testament? Because God gave it to them.

The service of God, that's very interesting. Remember I said one of their reasons was to witness God, to serve Him as kings and... I mean, as priests, that says, you will be holy priesthood to me? They were the priests of God on earth. He said, I select this nation, you be my priest.

And, this is real important, the promises.

The promises that God gave, He gave to them, that go to the whole world, through your seeing, the whole world. He said, these are the promises that all of us get. Of whom are the fathers, and of whom according to the flesh Christ came, who is over all the eternally blessed God? He says, and this is why and through whom Christ came. Because why? That's part of the plan. Now we're into the next step of the plan. And so through chapter 9 and chapter 10, He explains, okay, we're going into the next step of the plan. Now, there's still this plan still going on, but there's another plan too. So let's go to chapter 11.

And He once again defends Himself. It's very interesting, because this whole point is, of this whole three chapters is, Look! God is not just working with Israel. In fact, most of Israel has rejected God. God's creating the church. But He keeps going back and saying, You know what? This is hard for me, because I don't want my people to end up like that.

He says, I say then, verse 1, has God cast away His people? Certainly not. For I also am in Israelite at the seat of Abraham, the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His people, who before knew. Or did you not know that the Scripture says of Elijah, how He pleads with God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.

But what does the divine response say to Him? I have reserved for myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Even so then, at this present time, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. So Paul says, you know, even though the fact, the majority of the Israelites are not going to respond to God, and at this time they really were going to respond to God. He said, there will always be some who do. And he said, he found comfort in that. He found comfort in that.

But he goes on to encourage these people and say, okay, that's how I feel, but I feel toward you, as my fellow brothers and sisters who have now come into what God is doing now. And here in verse 7, because this is real important, in remembering something, why God didn't give them the Holy Spirit, without the Holy Spirit, a human being, even with God working with them, can only go so far. Understand, without God's Spirit, even if it's working with Him, without it indwelling into us, this is why Moses said, oh, I wish all of them could get the Spirit, because the great majority of Israelites never had it.

They can only go so far. Paul takes this a step further. By not giving them the Holy Spirit, this is what happened. Verse 7, what then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks, but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded. He said they can only relate to God many times in a physical way. They could never be converted. He said they were blinded. God, much of Israel's history, they weren't blinded that they could see God, but they were limited in their response to God, because without God's Spirit, we can't get there, folks.

So Paul says, so they're blinded. Why? He goes on to explain. They're blinded so that in beginning the church, He can bring people from everywhere, all ethnic groups, all racial groups, into this thing that He's doing, which is the spiritual blessing to the seed of Abraham. Once again, there's two blessings. He's doing the second blessing now. The second blessing started when Christ came, and the second blessing is all these people. He uses this sort of brilliant analogy. He says, let's take an olive tree. This olive tree is holy because the roots are holy.

The roots are God. The roots are Christ. Here's the roots of this tree. But some of the branches of the tree are doing well. So He lofts them off, which happens all the time. You prude a tree and take off the... Then He takes other olive trees, and He lofts off those branches, and He grasps them on. Now, I've seen people graft trees. It's common. He says, this is what God's doing. God's people, His tree... The Israelites, they're not getting it. Many of them, God's not going to call, so He's lopping them off. And He's grafting on other people. It's still God's people. So you read through there, He says, this is what God's doing now.

And then He goes on and says, by the way, God still has a plan for them. And this is why you can't do away with God's plan for physical Israel, because the rest of Romans 10 and 11, especially 11, goes through it. He says, but remember, God's going to graft them back on. He's going to get grafted back on, but that's what He's doing right now. The tree now, His lights are being lopped off, not all of them.

But other people are being brought in, and it's the second promise that's being done now. Salvation, eternal life, making one people out of all these peoples. That's what He said in Ephesians, I'm going to make one man out of two. Just Israelite, not Israelite. I'm making one people out of these people. He uses his brilliant analogy. Let me explain it to you this way. He said, so they get lopped off, others are being grafted on to the same tree, which is God, God's people.

He says, but don't get, if you happen to be grafted on, don't get too excited, too vain about it, because if we make the same mistakes they did, He'll lop us off. It's a very interesting, because if He lops off physical descendants of Abraham, He'll lop off non-physical descendants of Abraham. You're grafted in the tree, you've got to be having the root come up, and in other words, God's Spirit has to be in you to be part of the tree, to be part of what He's doing. And then, like I said, then He goes on to explain, so God's still not done with this, or He's still got a plan and purpose, but let's view in on the tree that He's working with right now, which is the church.

So if we look at that, that we've gone through, what are the purposes of the church? If you look at just what we've gone through now, or looked at here, I see that the purpose of the church is to be the temple of God, His dwelling place on earth, right? It's that we read. It says, we're His temple, like Ephesians. The first covenant, or not the first covenant, the old covenant or the Sinai covenant, had a tabernacle and a temple.

It required a tabernacle and a temple. In 70 AD, when Aaron's temple was destroyed, they could no longer carry out the commands of the old covenant. That's why the Jews today keep longing. They want a temple built so they could do their service to God. But there is a temple. It is us. We are the indwelling of God's Spirit. The church is God's temple. It's where He dwells on earth today. So the church is the temple of God.

It's people. For God's Spirit is dwelling in them. The second reason, and all you have to do is read Acts and all the letters by Paul and Peter and James. There is one central theme to... well, there is a lot of central themes. But there is one central theme that is involved in all those books. And that is, the church is to function as a community of those called by God as Spirit-filled Christians.

So if we are the temple where God's Spirit is dwelling in us, the second thing is we are a community of people where God's Spirit is dwelling in us. We can't be just a group of people who get together every step. We have to be bound together. Our lives are to be bound together. We are a community of believers. I made one man out of two. So He said, we all come together to be this community.

A third reason for the church is in Matthew 28. Go into all the world of what? Preach the gospel and make disciples. We have a job to do. If we stop preaching the gospel and stop making disciples, we will die. Because we will be not doing what God told us to do. So we're the temple of God. Boy, not a physical temple like the Old Covenant or ancient Israel. We are the temple of God.

That's a huge difference, isn't it? We are a community. They are a community, too. A lot of the laws in the Old Testament, in the Torah, that are about community, a lot of those still apply now. Love your neighbor as yourself wasn't something Jesus said in the New Testament. He's quoting the vinegos. It's there. Community laws. So are the moral laws still apply?

Preach the gospel. They were to be His witnesses. We're to be His witnesses. We don't like to use that term because it's really used in strange ways by some Protestant group. We witness Jesus. But you know, actually, we're told to be the witnesses of God. Now, we're to be witnesses of Jesus Christ. We are to preach the gospel.

And that just isn't for some guy on television, by the way. It's all of us to do that. Our example, how we talk, how we present ourselves to other people. We are the witnesses of God in today's world. That's who we are.

And then the fourth reason, I'll just go to 2 Timothy. This is a whole other subject in itself now. And especially, we'll probably be mentioned a couple of times coming up to the Holy Days and at the Feast of Tabernacles. 2 Timothy 2, verse 8. Let's go to 3 verse 11. He says, this is a faithful saying, For if we died with Him, with Christ, we shall live with Him.

If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. We are being prepared to serve Christ when He returns, to reign with Him for a thousand years, as He establishes God's kingdom on His return. That's one of the purposes of the Church. To be prepared as a group of people, to be resurrected.

Remember, our resurrection isn't physical. It is to become spirit beings. Raised into the family of God, prepared to serve Christ, and bringing God's kingdom to this earth. That's the first resurrection. That's one of the purposes of the Church. That says, I'm going to have a whole group of people prepared. If it's not us, He'll simply get somebody else. Because God said He's going to have a group of people prepared for Christ. That in one way is a little comforting, like, oh good, God's plan doesn't depend on me.

In another way, it's a little scary. Like, you mean I'm not indispensable? And the guy says, no, not really. I can do it with you, or I can do it with somebody else. I chose you, He chose you, to be prepared. Just as the physical descendants of Abraham have a historical prophetic role, and God's plan of salvation, the spiritual descendants of Abraham have a historic and prophetic role. We're people made up of all different groups to be the spiritual descendants of Abraham.

And in the Church, we are called to participate in the community of Spirit-filled believers, to function as God's temple on earth, to participate in the preaching of the Gospel, and to be prepared for Christ when He returns to serve Him in setting up God's kingdom on earth. You have been called, and you are here, to receive the greatest blessing that God promised Abraham. The blessing of the seed. And so we are called to be part of the Church, founded by and led by Jesus Christ.