God's Purpose for Israel

I want to start today's sermon by going to Romans 9. Romans 9, I read something here in the last couple of months, actually, while we were preparing to do our Beyond Today programs over in Europe. And we had to do all this research into the process of Reformation. And I read something about this that I had read before, but I just hadn't thought about and considered for years. Romans 9 and verse 10, breaking into a little bit of thought here, but Paul is writing about the sovereignty of God. God makes decisions in human history to carry out His plan. And not only this, he says, He said, As it is written, Now, this was used by various, what was Martin Luther, John Calvin, and others to say, that God looked at Jacob before he was born and said, I'm going to give you salvation. And he looked at Esau and said, and I'm sending you to hell. And that became a part of a whole doctrine of predestination, that basically God, before anybody's born, decides whether you're going to have it or help. And which was a basis of a lot of the process of Reformation. Actually, what is being said here is much more simpler than that, but it is very, very important to understand. The election here, what Paul is talking about, is that in God's plan, in God's interaction with human beings, He chooses people, whether it's a person or a family or groups of people or nations, He chooses people to carry out His plan. In the midst of Satan being the God of this world, God is interacting here and here and here with people to carry out His plan. The election here has nothing to do with salvation. It has to do with, I'm choosing you to do what I want you to do. And I'm choosing you for something else. The reason I say that, if you look, there's actually good promises made to Esau, too. But they were totally different than what was made. Isaac. So what does this mean? This promise that is made to Isaac and passed on to Jacob. You know, it's Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And then to a nation called Israel. What did God do through those people? What was His purpose for saying, I'm going to use you? And how does that fit into both salvation history and the prophecy in the future? And what does it have to do with the Church? You know, today it's very interesting. We sort of have two extremes. People, because the only group of the nation of Israel that is recognized today are basically the Jews, or the nation of Israel today. And we have inside Christianity two extremes. One is the Messianic Jewish movement that says, we have to become like Jews, and then God loves us more. The more we are like Jews, the more we please God. Then you have the other extreme, which is called replacement theology, which says, God has thrown away all Israelites. He wants nothing to do with them. In fact, it was that religious belief that actually allowed many Christians to participate in the Holocaust.

There are many Lutherans and many Catholics who were able to participate in the Holocaust, because they believed that Jews had been cursed by God. Therefore, they had no purpose in God's plan anymore, because God was now working with the Church. Well, God is working with the Church. I mean, God's emphasis today, and I'm not saying the Catholic Church, I mean the true Church, God is working with the Church today. So why has He chosen the Church? What is the purpose of the Church? Why did He choose Israel? What was the purpose of choosing Israel? Understanding these two things is very important, because both of them have to do with God's plan of salvation for humanity. Now, I can't do all this in one sermon, but I want to at least lay the groundwork today of why God worked through Israel. We've got to see the big picture of what God is doing, and then why God chose the Church, and the great picture of what God is doing in the Church. They have similar purposes and different purposes. There are some similarities, and there are some major differences between what God is doing through Israel and what God is doing through the Church. And we need to understand that. So we start with, okay, what was God's role in choosing Israel? What was His purpose? I mean, when we look at the Old Testament, almost the entire book is about one family who became a group of tribes who became a nation. So we started with Genesis 12, and this is very important, Genesis 12, because when we get into the Church, Genesis 12 is actually part of what God is doing in the Church today. So this is real important. God chose Abraham and Sarah. Abraham and Sarah. There are no Israelites at this point. There are no Jews. There are no tribes. There is just this couple. And God looks down on this couple and says, I'm going to use you. So He entered into their lives. They responded, and as they responded, He began to use them. But look what He says in verse 1. Now the Lord said to Abraham, Get out of your country. This is the first thing He told him once he entered into this relationship with God was. He wanted him to move to this land. And it was a long ways away. He said, I want you to sell everything you have, pack up, and I want you to move to a place that so far you can't even imagine how far it is. And I want you to go there because I'm going to give you something there. Get you out of your country from your family, from your father's house, to a land that I will show you, and I will make you a great nation. So He says, one of the promises made to him here is, I'm going to make you a great nation. And I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse you who curses you. And then this next part of this sentence is so important. You know, you can stop with, I'm going to make you into a great nation. But the next part of this sentence is actually vital to understanding both God's work through Israel and God's work through the church. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

He tells Abraham, remember, there is no Israel to this point. There's just a couple. His name isn't Israel. Israel wasn't even given as a name to like. There's this couple. And He says, okay, I'm going to work through you, and I'm going to make you a great nation. But everybody on earth, everybody on earth is going to be blessed because of you. So let's see, okay, what was that blessing? And what we have is in the formation of the church, what we call the New Testament church. In the formation of the New Testament church, we have the explanation of this passage. Let's go to Acts chapter 3. So this is the foundation, then, of understanding everything we're going to talk about in the next two sermons. Acts chapter 3, verse 25. Here Peter is talking to a Jewish audience, so these are his rights, of the tribal Judah. He's talking to a Jewish audience, and he's explaining to them about Jesus Christ. And he says in verse 25, You are the sons of the prophets. Okay, you were special people. God chose you. You have a special place in what God is doing on earth. And so he said, you're the prophets. Now God sent prophets to other countries, too. You know, you look at Jeremiah, you look at other books in the Bible, and there's prophecies to all the nations around Israel. So there are prophets sent to other countries. The prophets basically came to you. I mean, Jeremiah was in Israel. Okay, even the prophecy sent out basically were Israel's. He said, I weren't to you people, is what he's telling you. You're the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saved to Abraham. Now listen to this. He goes back to that one sentence. He says, this is what God promised, and this is what God has been doing in your people. And in your seed, and in your seed, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Now he was just talking about, his whole point in this sermon, is that Jesus Christ is that seed.

The whole point here is, these people were going to be the family in which God brought the Messiah into the world. That was their purpose, or one other purpose. And notice what he says, to you first. Of course it's to them first, because the promises to Abraham and his seed, and so when the Messiah came, he came as a Jew. To who? Joseph. Now, when we get into the church, we'll see, oh, that's not where it stopped. Because he says here, to you first, God, having raised up his servant, Jesus, sent him to bless you. So he tells them, this promise of a blessing in all people started first with you, and Christ has now been resurrected. That blessing is happening. In turning away every one of you from your iniquities, he says, it's first with you. He didn't say it stops here, it's only for you, because he quotes the passage that all the families, everybody, everybody gets this blessing. He said, so it starts with you. So what we have is the very first reason here where we see why God chose Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and why they became twelve tribes, and why they became a nation. Then they split into two nations, because they could never get along.

So that, through them, he would bring the Messiah into the world. This is very important. When he chose Abraham, he said, down here, remember, this is going to be thousands of years later. Down here, this is what I'm working on, and this is what's going to happen. Now, there was a lot that happened between the colleague Abraham and a small part of Israel, because most of Israel had been lost in history at that point, being there, right?

But it didn't happen, just like he said. Mary was where she was supposed to be at that time to be chosen by God to do what? You're going to carry the Messiah into the world. She's where she's supposed to be right at that time. So this is the first reason he chose to create the nation of Israel. So that the Messiah would be born into the world. And that's the first promise he gives to the people who would be the physical descendants of Abraham. A second reason. So we have the first reason. The second reason we find in Exodus 19.

So that part of what was supposed to happen through the family of Abraham, that became eventually one tribe, and then eventually thirteen tribes, and then eventually a nation, and then eventually two nations. That purpose there starts... that's the number one purpose at the top of the list. But there's another reason. We find that in Exodus 19, verse 3.

And Moses, this is where they're brought before Mount Sinai so that God can make a covenant with them, and he gives them the Ten Commandments. And Moses went up to God, up to Mount Sinai, and the Lord called to him from the mountain saying, Thus you shall stay to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel, You have seen what I did to you, Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagle's wings, and brought you to Myself, as I brought you to Me. I have a purpose for you.

Now therefore, if you will adeam my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me, above all people, for all the earth is Mine. Here's the special treasure they're supposed to be. So we think, well, there's supposed to be a special treasure that God would give them privileges and sort of, you know, we're back to Jacob, I, Law, De, Saul, and Haden, so therefore God's going to give them salvation, and He's going to send everybody else to hell. That's not what it all happened in the Sinai covenant. When we get into the church, we'll be able to look at that. He says, and you shall be to Me, this is for a purpose, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, and these are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.

They were given the laws of God as a system of worship, because they were to be the witnesses of God to the world. They were His people to witness about Him. They were to be His kings and priests. You know, we've been going through the Bible studies, you know Bible studies, we sort of missed them this summer, but we do have one, by the way, this Wednesday, here.

We've been going through the tabernacle, the temples, right? And remember when we talked about Solomon's temple, it's interesting, when Solomon dedicates the temple, he gets up and says, and God, I wrote this temple to be the place where people from all the world can come to see You. He didn't see it as a place exclusively for Israel. It was a place for everybody to see God, because He understood part of their purpose to be a witness of God, a witness for God. And it is interesting, look how many people came along throughout the Bible and joined Israel, right?

People always come in and join Israel. Why? Because they wanted to worship the God of Israel. See, it's happening all through their history. People come to join Israel so we can worship the God of Israel. They were to be His special witnesses, Isaiah 43. Isaiah 43. Special witnesses to everybody else. Remember, the purpose of the blessing is so that the entire world will receive the blessing. That's the purpose of it. The purpose of the blessing is so that the entire world will receive the blessing.

So they're supposed to witness God. We don't use that term too much. We have to witness for God, but this is one of the purposes for Israel. Isaiah 43. Let's look at verse 1. But now, best is the Lord who created you, O Jacob, for he who formed you, O Israel. Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name. You are mine. So once again, God shows this through Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah. I have a purpose for you. I have chosen you. You are elected. Now, we think of the word of election as we all vote somebody in the office.

The biblical term that's translated, elected, means chosen by God. There's no democracy involved here. God chooses people and places and things. He chooses time. This is one of the great problems people have with the Sabbath. Well, time is time, though. God chooses time. It says this is holy to me. God chooses what he's going to do throughout salvation history. And our purpose is so that all the families of the earth can be blessed. That's why Genesis 12 tells us his final purpose. And these people have a place to play in them.

Verse 10 says, because all of these chapters is the message that God gave to Isaiah to bring to Israel to tell them, look, I want you to repent, I want you to do what I want you to do. You're supposed to fulfill a purpose for me.

You are my witnesses. Verse 10 says, The Lord, am I a servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he? Before me there was no God formed, nor shall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord. Besides me there is no Savior. I have declared and saved. I have proclaimed that there was no foreign God among you.

Therefore, you are my witnesses, says the Lord, witnesses of what? That I am God. I am the Lord. They were chosen to be the witnesses of God. I mean, many other people that God appeared to on a mountain and verbally gave them the Ten Commandments. They're supposed to say God exists and He has given us His Word, and we're supposed to tell you about it.

Now, when you look at the history of Israel, they didn't do that very well much at the time. Usually what they did was absorb all the other religious practices around them and made God, made Yahweh, just one of the other gods. They failed over and over and over and over and over and what they were supposed to do. It's interesting that that failure didn't stop God from fulfilling His promise that through a seed of Abraham, all the world would be blessed.

God did it in spite of them. So you have their history, which is they sort of do it right, then they fail. Then they sort of do it right, then they fail, right? Now, there's a third reason God chose them, and that is the Deuteronomy 5. This is one of the things they were supposed to do.

Deuteronomy chapter 4. Let's start in verse 5.

Here's what God says through Moses to Israel. "'Surely I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the Lord my God commanded me.' Moses said, "'I taught you what He told me to tell you, that you should act according to them in the land which you go to possess.' Now, what land were they going to? The land where God sent Abraham. Israel's taken out of Egypt and sent to the exact same place, which was part of the physical covenant God made with the descendants of Abraham. You don't have this place. When we get to the church, you'll find that what's promised to us as the church is actually much greater than the physical land. Wait, there's a greater promise to the church.

So, therefore, verse 6, "'Be careful to observe them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding of the sight of the peoples who shall hear on these depths.' Jesus said, "'Surely this great nation is wise in understanding people.' He said, "'Now, I may give you these, and you've got to protect them, and you've got to keep them, and you've got to do them, so that other peoples will say, they have something special. These walls, this understanding they have.' What great nation is there that God is so near to? As the Lord your God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon Him. What great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments, that are all the walls which I sent before you to stay? Well, they take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, unless they depart from your heart all the days of your life, and teach them to your children and to your grandchildren.' He said, "'Take what I've taught you, and pass it on, and pass it on, and pass it on.' What's interesting today is, you know what, the only reason we have what we call the Old Testament today is because it was kept by Israel, and then eventually by the Jews, as one specific tribe, they died to protect what we call the Old Testament. And throughout thousands of years, scribes wrote it down, and passed it on. And you and I have the Old Testament today because that was part of their job, that was part of their calling. Now, the New Testament wasn't protected by them because they rejected it, but the Old Testament was protected by them. So what we see is a group of people that sometimes did what their purpose was, and sometimes did not. But in spite of that, the promise that what God was going to do through them would bless everybody, that promise has been carried out because God did it. Because God did it. So when you look at the history of Israel, we go back to the patriarchs. But what we find is a very interesting, I'm a little sidetrack here, but this is a very interesting prophecy in Genesis 49. And I just want to pick up one piece of it. Because in Genesis 49, we have Jacob, whose name has been changed to Israel. So it's Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and his name has been changed to Israel. That's why they're not called the Jacobites, they're called Israelites. And Jacob sits down with his sons, who are now, you know, he's getting old, he's going to die, and he says, I have been given a message of what's going to happen here in the latter days, so let's go there. Then I just want to look at one passage. Genesis 49.

Verse 1 says, and Jacob called his sons and said, Gather together, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the latter days. So he's laying off, and when history's being completed here in the last days, this is what's going to happen. But I want to zero in on what he tells Judah. What he tells Judah, because Judah would become such a dominant force in the time of Christ, because they were the major tribe that was still there.

The one tribe that everybody could still recognize. Let's go to verse 8. Judah, you are he whom your brother shall praise. Your hands shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's children shall bow down before you. Judah was known as great warriors. In ancient Israel, they were the shock troops. They were the ones that put out in front of the army. Even today, the little nation of Israel is known as a great military force.

Judah is a lion's wealth. From the prey my son, you have gone up. He bows down, he lies down as a lion. And as a lion, you shall rouse him. Verse 10. The scepter. This is the kingly power. The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a long giver from between his feet. So God says, I'm going to... Through this tribe, something special is going to happen. So it's very interesting as we go through...

If you go through the whole history of Israel, how you start with a family, and then that family gets bigger, like I said, then it gets tribes, and it becomes a nation, and it becomes two nations, and then it gets down to one tribe, and then it gets down to one family within that tribe, which is David's family. And there's a promise made to David. And there's prophecies. We'll talk about one here before we end. Prophecies about David and the Messiah coming through David. So it gets down to this family, and that's why, like I said, Joseph and Mary are where they are at the time they're supposed to be there.

That's why there are Israelites in Judea at the time when they're supposed to be there. But the rest of this, it says, until Shiloh comes. Shiloh is a noun. It could be used as a verb.

It basically means peace. But there's something in this verse that's unlike any other verse in all of the Bible. Until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the people. This person known as peace, he said, in Judah, there's going to be a royalty, a scepter, and a lawgiver. And when the peace comes, this person called peace, and this person comes, everybody will obey him. It's one of the great messianic prophecies in the Scripture.

And so even from the very beginning, these three purposes, but that first purpose is we issued over and over and over again. We stated over and over and over again. dating on a real important purpose of what God is doing here, what we see in the Old Testament. That's why in Revelation 5, Jesus is called the Lion of Judah.

In Revelation 5, you read in Revelation 5, Jesus is called the Lion of Judah. That's where his mythical nature came from a woman who was a Jew, a descendant of Abraham. God said various prophets warned Israel. Israel would not obey him.

It deteriorated and deteriorated to the point where he allowed the Assyrians to take the northern tribes, because they'd split into two nations, into captivity. And they would be sifted through history. The southern tribes, basically dominated by Judah, would not listen, or they would not listen. God allowed them to be taken into captivity by the Babylonians. But he brought them back. He brought them back because he still had a plan. He brought them back because he'd still made a promise. So even the fact that Judah had to come back out of captivity, was brought back, was God's way of fulfilling his promise. And the core of that promise, the base of it, the purpose of it is, all nations are going to be blessed in this descendant of Abraham.

Now, we have to step back here a minute, then, because, okay, this is just an overview of the history of it. But we still have the concept of, I guess, the one extreme. Well, then, we're all more righteous if we become more like Jews. So that's why the messianic Jewish movement is so popular in the United States right now.

Where customs of... they worship Jesus Christ as the Savior, but all these Jewish customs are integrated into their services. Now, the Jewish customs by themselves, there's nothing wrong with them. I'm not saying there's wrong with doing those Jewish customs. But they don't make you closer to God. They don't make you more spiritual, you see what I mean? So I'm not putting them down, because somebody wants to do them. I'm just saying, they're not a means of salvation or a means of being closer to God. They're just customs. And customs can have a very positive purpose.

But customs are not necessary.

But the other extreme is the replacement theology that says, Israel was thrown away. Well, if Israel was thrown away, there are dozens and dozens of promises made in the Old Testament that makes God a liar. Of course, the argument is, well, God only works through the church now. He is working through the church now, but He's never going to work through Israel again. Let's look at a couple promises. Ezekiel 37. You know Ezekiel 37 because it's read always on the last great day after the Feast of Terranins. Because we know that there are two great resurrections coming up. One is the resurrection of the return of Jesus Christ for the church. And then there is a great physical resurrection that takes place during the Great White Throne Judgment. And in Ezekiel 37, we have a promise made by God to Ezekiel. Now, remember, you know this, where God shows Ezekiel all these bones, just millions of people, bones, all over the place. He says, who are these people? Now, Ezekiel's smart, but God asks you a question. He really doesn't want your opinion. So when he said, who are these people? And Ezekiel says, oh, you know. Now, let him pretend to say, you know. See, he's asking the questions, and he keeps saying, you know the answer to that.

And God says, this is Israel. This is all the Israelites who have died. Now, this is important. They have died. Now, there is an explanation today. People try to say Ezekiel 37 and say that this was fulfilled in 1948 with the Jews, because it's all symbolic of the Jews. We lose this again? It's symbolic of the Jews being brought into Israel in 1948. That's not what this is about. It is a literal prophecy. Can you hear me in the back? I'll keep yelling at him again. Okay. It's a literal prophecy, because he tells them. Verse 11, and he says to Ezekiel, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, our bones are dry, our hope is lost, we ourselves are cut off. Israel died generation after generation and did not receive salvation. Understand this. This is what this is saying. We are lost. Generation after generation of Israel, I die throughout the Old Testament and never receive salvation.

Therefore, prophesy and say to them, Thus says the Lord God, behold all my people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring them into the land of Israel. So it's a physical resurrection, and where do they go? To the land God promised to them. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, what I am, open your graves, O my people, and brought you up from their graves. And this is why this didn't happen in 1948.

And I will put my spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. And then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken, it, and performed it, says the Lord.

They are promised the same opportunity as salvation as everyone else, because they did not receive an opportunity of salvation in their history. Because there are two chances for salvation. Everybody gets one, and it depends on when you're called to salvation. Right? I don't think it's there of one chance of salvation. They never received their chance of salvation. They're resurrected physically so that God can put His Spirit in them, and they can receive their chance of salvation. The rest of this chapter is just interesting, because it talks about when this happens, God says, I'm going to take... and He tells this week, I want you to take two sticks. One is Judah, and one is Israel, and I want you to bind them together. Because when I come and do these things, God says, I'm going to take those people that don't even know they're related, rebind them together as my people, and I will give them David as their king. Now that isn't Abigail.

It happened in 1948.

And so, when we look at these promises, the Church is not promised to be resurrected and given some area, Jerusalem, Judea, Galilee. That's not more promised! It's not a whole lot greater than that. God is not finished because He hasn't completed His promises.

And when God makes promises, He keeps promises. Jeremiah 31.

This passage is quoted verbatim in the book of Hebrews. Jeremiah 31, 31.

The Lord says, Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord. Well, then I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, the house of Judah. Once again, all those people are going to be brought back together. They don't even know who they are today. Now, according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, the day that I took them by the hands and laid them out on the lands of Egypt, my covenant with St. Louis, this is going to be a different covenant. How is this covenant different than what He made in Sinai?

In Sinai, He said, You are my kings and my priests. You are my witnesses. You are the people that are going to protect and keep all these walls and show them and record them generation after generation.

In the New Testament, Paul says in Romans 3, What prophecies are being a Jew? Well, a lot. For one, they were given the oracles of God. That's one of the good purposes.

He says that's a pretty important purpose, right?

But there was something in that covenant that wasn't completed.

He says, So my covenant, which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my wall in their minds.

They were on tables of stone.

And I will be in their hearts and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

He talks about here and other places, how He's going to pour out His Spirit. We read that in Ezekiel. He's going to give His Spirit to them.

Which is part of a new covenant promise which is given to the Church.

They had a specific purpose that they play and they continue to play in salvation history. But it is not, it is not the promise that is given to the Church.

It is their role. So, okay, it's easy to say, well, okay, in 70 AD, God let the Romans destroy the Jews because they refused, most of them, not all of them. Most of them refused to follow Jesus as the Messiah. Now, I know thousands of them did. Thousands of them followed except the Jesus as the Messiah, but the majority did not. And God allowed them to be destroyed. And until 1948, even the tribe of Judah were just scattered throughout the world. They had no nation. They barely, you know, the synagogues barely could even connect with each other.

So, has God then? What is their purpose? Do they still have a purpose?

Yes. And that purpose is going to be fulfilled when the Messiah returns.

That purpose, there's still a purpose for physical Israel. And it is going to be fulfilled when the Messiah returns. Isaiah, Chapter 11. This is such a huge... I mean, I have to go through half the Old Testament and 20% of the New Testament to explain this.

And I'd have to do the same thing if I really want to explain the Church. But if we can just do two sermons, look at these verses, look at what's obvious. We can see what God is doing. Isaiah 11.

Well known messianic prophecy, you've heard it many times. There shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge, and of the fear of the Lord. Now, so this is the Messiah. This is Christ. But this isn't talking about Jesus as His first kind. Let's go on. His delight is in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, nor his side by the hearing of His ears. Though with righteousness He shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meat of the earth. And He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth. This is the power in which Christ comes back the second time. So He comes back the second time. Righteousness shall be the belt of His loins, and faithfulness the belt of His waist. He goes on and explains how even the nature of animals will be changed, that children will not have to fear anything. The perfect environment that He will create. And then verse 10, And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, who shall stand as a banner to the people. Now let's stop here because He's making an important point. Jesse is the father of David. He's making a point that when the Messiah comes the second time, we will know who He is because He's the descendant of Abraham, physically. Spiritually, He's God. He's the descendant of Abraham, and He's the descendant of Judah, and He's the descendant of Jesse, who makes Him a descendant of David, which there's the promises made to the Messiah.

In other words, when Christ returns, part of the proof of who He is, I'm that person prophesied to come from Abraham. People will have to know who the physical descendants of Abraham are for this to make sense. It will still be part of their purpose because we will see, or we know from the Scriptures, it says He will gather them. Remember what we just read in Ezekiel? He will gather Israel and Judah where? To the land. Where does the Messiah come back to? Jerusalem, which is what? The land. It is where He sent Abraham. It's where He sent Israel when they came out of Egypt. They will be brought back to the land. Physical Israel will be brought back to the land, although Ezekiel 37, I realize, is about the great white throw of judgment. But there's other prophecies about this happening when Christ returns the first time. I mean, Abraham returns at the beginning of the millennium. He gathers His people together.

And He gathers them together. In fact, there's the one Scripture that says as He's returning, people will mourn. The Jews will mourn because they will say, He's the one who we crucify. He's the one we pierced. They still have a purpose to be gathered together to serve their purpose to what?

Support the Messiah on earth. So physical Israel is going to be gathered at that point of His return, and notice, though, I want you to notice the purpose. Let's go back to verse 10. Let's go back to verse 10.

Let's go back to that promise. All nations. Everybody gets this blessing. Everybody gets this blessing. That's what it says in Genesis 12. He comes back, gathers Israel, so that now He gives the blessing to all people. Israel still has a purpose. If they're gathered together, now we're talking about physical Israel, now we're talking about the church here. If those people are gathered together when the Messiah comes, to show that He is the Messiah, these are the people that I used to bring, you know, the plan of salvation through. These are the descendants of Abraham.

What will they be doing?

Zechariah 8. Zechariah contains a lot of messianic prophecies.

Zechariah 8.

Zechariah 8.

Zechariah 8. And let's go to verse 1.

Again, the word of the Lord of hosts came saying, Zechariah 8.

Zechariah 8. Zechariah 9. Can mean Israel. Can mean the church. Zechariah 10. Does this look quite as fancy as the context?

Zechariah 10. Zechariah 11.

Zechariah 11.

Zechariah 10. Zechariah 11. This is the happy, productive society.

We're living in Jerusalem and around that area in this world, ruled over by the Messiah, whose kingdom extends over the whole world. The death is alone opposed. Behold, I will save my people from the land of the east and from the land of the west, and I will bring them back. And they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God in truth and righteousness. So guys, if I'm going to bring them back, this remnant, and they're going to be there, and they're going to fulfill their job as my people, what was their job as my people that God gave them in the past?

They were to witness Him! They were to be the witness of God! They are now the witnesses of Jesus Christ, the very one they reject. They will be the witnesses of Jesus Christ. And Israelites either worship falsely or deny completely. So they still have a purpose in the plan of God. They still have the purpose. Remember the third purpose was to preserve the teachings of God. Remember that? There's an interesting passage here in Zechariah 8, verse 20. Let's get down to verse 20. Thus says the Lord of Hosts.

And all these prophecies talk about gathering the physical, the sense of Israel to the land. All these prophecies talk about that. But then they always talk about how this blessing goes to the world. It just isn't them. They just have a specific purpose in this. So I want to keep stressing that, because that's what Genesis lays the foundation for this. That's just the Lord of Hosts. People shall yet come, inhabitants of many cities. The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us continue to go and pray before the Lord to seek the Lord of Hosts.

I, myself, will also go. This is going to be a time when people all over the world are going to be saying, We need to follow God. We need to go to that place, you know, where Christ has come back. Who saved the world, who stopped the, you know, the world will be on the brink of absolute destruction, total death, when Christ returns.

And here's this people will be gathering and say, We've got to go there. We've got to connect with Him. We've got to go to God. That's really what He represents the real God, not our gods. There's this desire now for the whole world, which is God's plan. Yes, many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of Hosts in Jerusalem and pray there before the Lord. The world now is being gathered together to Christ as their Christ and to God as their God.

But notice verse 23, Thus says the Lord of Hosts, In those days ten men from every language of the nations shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man, saying, Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you. The purpose of Israel will still be what? What they failed at? To bring people, now we're talking about physical Israel, physical earth, it's the Gondi, you know, Gondimari, to bring people what? To their God, to everybody's God, which is what they were supposed to do all along.

His kings embrace to worship Him, His witnesses. It says that this time they will still be His witnesses. Let me tell you about our God, my God, your God, the God. That's a great purpose, that physical Israel will have to be drawn to Christ, so they can fulfill that purpose during the leaves. See, every scripture we've read so far is about physical people. Some are physical people. It's not talking about the spiritual purpose of the Church. It does this no good to try to become Jewish to be better Christians.

That's not what this is about. But it does this no good to say, well, God doesn't have a purpose for the physical distance it's enabling. In Romans, Paul spent three entire chapters explaining God's purpose for physical Israel. But then we have an interesting question. Why did God seem to suddenly stop working through Israel as His primary way of reaching the world and change to the Church as His primary way of reaching? Because that's what happened in the first century AD. But that's actually part of the prophecy step. That was part of the plan, the step all along, that He would have and elect people. He would choose to do His purpose in reaching the world. That's why next week we have to discuss the purpose of the Church.