Revelation: Week 20a - Israel (Pt 1)

We're talking about something that kind of been built not to just my whole study of things getting into this point I know today is a there's a lot of people maybe you're coming to the room a little nervous about what's what's going to be said today And you know whether or not you're gonna understand. I really think you can calm down I think you're gonna believe and trust everything or that you're going to receive the things that I'm saying because they're just I'm just speaking from the Bible. We're gonna be in the Bible a lot today I think I'd rather put that on God than on me Anyway, we are in a section called Revelation questions that we've taken put the book of Revelation on hold for a few weeks here We've been talking about the rapture These are all things that are circling around our eschatology conversations Talk about the rapture last week. We had those four representatives of the different views of eschatology coming up on the stage I know some of you are ready to get back into Revelation But I think what we're doing here is really important We are going deeper maybe than most people want to go or like to go and you're being challenged to kind of think through some things Yourselfs. I'm just thinking I this is good for us. This is good for us to get into these deeper things to think a little more deeply about it And not just have me tell you all the answers matter fact I want to remind you of verse from Hebrews chapter 5 But solid food is for the mature For those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from Evil I know this has not all been easy Last week. I know some of you how many of you walked out do you guys know the pan millennialism But not too many of you know that okay well pan millennialism after you walk out last week I'm a pan millennialist and that is just everything will pan out in the end That's the kind of millennial science. I don't know what's going on here. God's got it all. I just leave it at that Um, but I do think this is gonna be fruitful I want to give you before I start a little bit of a heads up about where we're going What to expect in the coming week. So if you look at the screen again You can see this week and next week we're going to be talking about Israel. So we're going to be in the 20th chapter I guess of your revelation guidebook this week and next week and then We're going to take a little break for Palm Sunday for Easter of course are coming in and then after Easter We're going to do baptisms and Sometimes I have this inclination to kind of rush through the baptisms, but we're going to stop a little bit and just spend some time Just celebrating with people. I think that's really important and then on the 19th of April John Melisa from Rwanda is going to be here and so we're going to hear a little bit from him and some of the things that are happening on Just on the missions front through Crossroads, which is really important You know sometimes I I get so caught up and eschatology, you know all the things that's gotology that I need to just like Pop my head up above the surface again and look around and be like oh, yeah, there's people out here and There's people who need Jesus and and we're the church and God called us to be a part of it So we're going to be putting pause on a few things. We're going to get back to Revelation at the end of April But um, but I think these things are are really really important So that we just kind of remember who we are as a church. It's really easy to get caught in the in the rabbit hole of eschatology sometimes so Today, I'm going to start a very important conversation with us That is very much you know front and center with everything right now all the events that we see Unfolding in the Middle East coming back to this topic to this question um all of the uh all the thing we know war and Iran we know you know October 23 There's all sorts of things all of the ongoing news and instability that is coming out of that entire region Israel in particular is in the headlines every single day And so it's right here like right in smack dab in front of us and whenever israel's in the headlines We start to kind of dig into these deeper questions. We start to go. Oh, yeah. What do we think? What do we believe? What is God doing with Israel today? This this God still have a plan for Israel in his big scheme redemptive story um, and then how is Christians? Are we supposed to think about Israel as as Christians? What what do we how do we think through this? And so um if you've been in your Bible at all You know that Israel holds a very very special and unique place in their relationship with God There's no other nation in the Bible that holds the place that Israel holds they were chosen By him out of any other nation from the very very Beginning so I want to start off today um you have sermon notes I gave those to you because I'm going to be pouring out a ton of thoughts and scriptures and different things And I know you trying to keep writing all those things down will be difficult. So I gave you sermon notes And you can also use your revelation guidebook to take more notes if you need more space than that But let's just start off by establishing this one simple fact Number one on your outline israel holds a unique place unlike anyone else in God's plan Um today I'm going to start in the beginning I'm going to start all the way back with Abraham And we are going to kind of explore and it's going to be really really quick because we're going to go through the entire new testament And then all of the modern era from night from 70 AD all the way up until today in like 22 minutes So good luck It'll be fun to try to keep up with this but um this is going to help us understand not only where israel has come from And what God has been doing in Israel from the very beginning But it's also going to help us understand Israel's role in the end and the way that that plays in the relationship that God has with them off into the future and then we're doing this because this is going to come up in revelation as we start to get deeper into revelation So I want to start you have a bible you're going to be gone in a lot of different places today If you want to turn first of all the genesis chapter 12 we're going to go all the way back to uh God calling Abram his name was Abram It gets changed to Abraham of course With my cold. I'm claiming that right now But it's still I'm still coughing Genesis 12123 this is the first time we meet this guy Abraham Here's what it says now the Lord said to Abram Go from your country. There will find out this country is called Er of the caldians Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you And I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed Okay, so this is a very famous moment when God calls Abram from the land of Er of the caldians And he brings him into this land that he doesn't know And he makes Abram a promise he makes him this promise um Number two on your outline God promised the first thing we're going to look at God promised Abram a lineage He said there is going to be a people a nation a family that is going to come from you and through that lineage All of the families of the earth will be blessed So this is known as the Abrahamic covenant This is a covenant that God makes with Abraham We're going to see there's other pieces to it in just a second But let's just start off with this the God promised Abram a lineage I will make of you a great nation make your name so great that you will be a blessing and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed Now of course we know that Abraham's name is is great I think we could say that is the first patriarch of Christianity Of course Judaism as well But even outside of Christianity and Judaism um ibrahim is uh is one of the top prophets in islam All there's all sorts of different religions that grab on to Abraham And his name is very well uh well very well known So if his name is great, that's one thing But how does God then bless all the families of the earth? Well you go back through the entire history of Israel And you're going to see this come over and over Through the seed of this man through his descendants You're going to see this happening all the the prophets who come along and speak the truth of God You're going to see uh Ezekiel and Isaiah and Daniel You're going to see King David come through the lineage of Abraham This is from Abraham is going to be King David King David brings in this amazing period in the history of Israel He writes many of the Psalms that we have This is the way that God is blessing the families of the earth through the lineage of Abraham But of course it gets bigger than that by the time the greatest descendant of Abraham comes onto the scene And his name is Jesus Christ good. I'm glad you knew that that's good Jesus himself. This is the this is the main way i would say that God blesses the families of the earth through this line Through the line of Abraham and of course when Jesus comes onto the scene The church begins will see next week then that we too Galatians chapter three verse 29 if you are Christ Then you are Abraham's offspring airs according to the promise So we too have a part in this whole thing I think it's fair to say we'll just start off with this general statement that Abraham had some great jeans Okay, uh just all the way down the line Abraham great jeans because of this promise that God started here in Abraham or in Genesis chapter 12 He made with Abraham but it was beyond that too. It wasn't just an offspring There was something more the God promised Abraham and that was a land and we're gonna look at that as we get into this. Number three, God promised Abram a land. For that, I'm going to have you turn a couple chapters to the right, Genesis chapter 15. And we're going to look at this promise. It's kind of a strange ritual that I'll explain to you as we get into this. But you'll see this promise that God makes to Abram about this land of Israel. So Genesis chapter 15 verse 5, I'm going to go all the way to 21, but I won't read all of it. Genesis 15 verse 5, and he brought him, that is, God brought Abram outside and said, "Such sound familiar, look toward the heaven and number the stars if you're able to number them." And he said to them, "So shall your offspring be." So this is kind of a continuation of what we've seen before. It says in he that is Abram believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness. And he said to him, "I am the Lord who brought you out from the earth of the Caldians." That's the place where Abram was, "to give you this land to possess." But Abram responds, he asks the question, he says, "But oh Lord God, how am I?" "I know that I shall possess it." Well, God's going to answer that question in the next few verses by cutting a covenant with Abram. Now we don't use that terminology. It's kind of a Hebrew idiom, a Hebrew expression about the way that God enters into this covenant with Abram. And the way that he does it is the kind of a key idea is that there's some animals that are going to be sacrificed. And those animals are going to be cut in half. And then the ideal in the way it usually works is that both parties of the covenant walk through the middle of these cut-in-half animals. And basically what that's saying, and this goes to this spoken of several different times in the Old Testament, it goes to this idea that, "Man, if I break this covenant, if either one of us is we're walking through this covenant, if we break this covenant, then may we become like these animals. And we be ourselves cut in half." Jeremiah 34-18, "Do not keep the men who did not keep the terms of the covenant that they made before me. I will make them like the calf that they cut into and pass between their parts." So God tells Abram, he says, "Hey, go get some animals. Abram goes and gets some animals. He kills them. He cuts them in half. And both parties are going to walk through the middle of these things. That and Abram, but this is where there's a little twist in this particular covenant because what God does just before Abram can walk through the covenant pieces himself, he puts Abram to sleep. Abram's kind of out of the picture. He puts him to sleep and he does something extraordinary. Look at verse 17, "When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, walking through the pieces here it is, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces." "On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying to your offspring, I give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates." Okay, so in other words, pay attention to this, that Abram's not the one making the covenant with God. Abram's knocked out on the ground. He's asleep on the ground. What is the one through this flaming torch and this fire pot? He is the one who walks through this covenant. In other words, what's happening here is that God's not, or Abram's not making a covenant with God, God's making a covenant with Abraham. This is not a conditional sort of covenant on Abraham's behalf, dependent on Abraham's obedience. This is an everlasting covenant that God makes, puts Abram to sleep and he says, "I'm holding up both ends for both of us." I am the one entering into this covenant, over and over, throughout the Old Testament, he calls this covenant an everlasting covenant. Now, let me pause here and just say this because I need to talk about this. There are places in the Bible where God says, "Hey, listen, I am going to remove you from this land. I am going to remove you from this land if you do not obey me." He says that straight to the people of Israel. He says, "You can look this up. I didn't put it on your sermon notes, but second Chronicles chapter 7. Write it down. Go look it up later. You can look it up." God's talking to Solomon after Solomon is built to temple and he says to him, "But if you turn aside and you forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you and you go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will pluck you up from my land that I have given to you." And if you know your Bible, you know that's exactly what God does. A few different times. The most notable, I would say, is the northern kingdom of Israel after the split of this northern and southern kingdoms, after Jeroboam, Rea-Bom, that whole scene comes on 200 years. There's split apart. You've got the northern kingdom of Israel, southern kingdom of Judah. And at one point, the disobedience of the northern kingdom of Israel gets not only seen and noticed by God, but gets responded to by God. He sends in the Assyrians, the Assyrians pack up the northern kingdom of Israel, take them off, and they never return to the land. They intermingle with other cultures around them and they never come back to this land. The closest they come is as Samaritans, which if you know the story of the Samaritans, they are a half, they're a joined race. It's the northern kingdom that gets married off to other kingdoms. They come back. People of Israel don't love the Samaritans. We know those stories from the New Testament. But even the southern kingdom of Judah, who is faithful to God for a while longer, a couple hundred years longer, they get removed from the land. The Babylonians come in. God says, because of your disobedience, I am going to remove you from this land. Babylonians come in, take them off. 70 years, they're gone. Most of them do not return. But here's what I want you to see. I want you to see that through this entire thing, that God always preserves. He calls it a remnant. There's going to be a group of people who are always faithful to God. And he, you look at the Babylonian captivity, eventually those people come back to this land. There is a remnant that returns from Babylon to the land that God had promised to them. Keep that idea of a remnant in mind. It's going to be really important as our conversation moves forward. It's critical for understanding all this. So far, everybody, you're okay? Everybody with me so far? We're moving through this stuff. You get what I'm saying so far. So we have two promises. Two covenants. The God is made with Israel. One is for a people. One is for a land. Maxucato calls them a seed covenant and a soil covenant. Those two things he makes with Abram. I want to talk a little bit more about this soil covenant. We'll get brought in this into the modern day. Israel has had the land that God had promised them. Or at least a part of that land. Let me show you what God promised. I'm not up here on the screen as a map of the Middle East. You can see Israel is not labeled up there. It should be. It's that triangular thing that goes down in the middle right under the West Bank. You can see some of the places that you probably know by now. So there's the Middle East. I want to show you then overlay a picture of what God promised in Genesis 15 verse 18. There it is. He says, "To your offspring, I'll give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates." You can see now in modern day that that promise, I don't know exactly a straight line, you know, right across it. I don't know exactly how it worked. But this is as much as we have from that river to that river. God promised that line. You can see it includes the country of Jordan, it includes Syria, it includes Lebanon, it includes parts of Iraq, parts of Egypt even. Now when you look at that map, has Israel ever possessed all of that land? For the most part, no. They've never really possessed all of that land. They've been in the land. They were in the land for a long time. Never all of it necessarily, although they had some control over some of the people who were around them. But they were mainly kept into what we know today is the nation of Israel right on the east and side of the Mediterranean there. So you're looking at this, you're like, well, that promise then hasn't totally been fulfilled. And actually for a long time they were on the land. But then God removes them for a really long time. Matter of fact, we know this story. You know this picture, we've shown you this picture many times before. I'll go to that next one, Justin thinks. This is the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, right? We know this happens. So they were in the land. And then the Romans came in and the Romans sent them out. The Romans scattered the people of Israel all over the globe. We saw the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD. Remember we talked a little bit about how the all of it discourse might be talking about this very moment that Jesus predicted there's not going to be one stone that stands on the other. Indeed, if you go to Jerusalem today and you stand at the base of the temple mount, you stand right there. Ben there, there's huge boulders and rocks that used to be way up there on top of the temple mount because the Romans came and destroyed the place. They absolutely annihilated everything. The Roman Emperor Hadrian a couple hundred years later or so, and kicked almost all the Jews out of Jerusalem. And so Jerusalem came under control of the Romans. And for the next couple thousand years, Israel had no part in this land. They did not have any part in this land. I'll just kind of paint this really quick picture as a timeline up on you. screen, the Romans had it until about 324, then its Christianity gets legalized. It comes under the control of the Byzantine Empire. How many of you have been to Israel, maybe been to Jerusalem and gone into, go to that next slide, this church, the church of the Holy Sepulchre. Anybody been there? Okay, man, what an amazing, amazing place. This church was built in 335 AD. This is when the Byzantines had it, then fast forward a few hundred years to 638, and it was taken over, Israel was taken over by the Islamic caliphate, and they are the ones who in 691 built this structure. What is the name of this? Anybody know? Dome of the Rock, right? Dome of the Rock is up there on the Temple Mount. So where the Temple in Israel used to be, Romans pushed it over the edge, it's gone no more in this big flat area called the Temple Mount. That's where they build the Dome of the Rock, and what is this thing called? Go to that next one. Anybody know this? This is the Al-Aqsa Mosque. This is a mosque that is up on top of the Temple Mount to this day. It is up on top of that Temple Mount. So they built those things. Shortly, I think it was the early 700s, they built the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Israel, Jerusalem, was captured during the first crusade, goes back into the hands of the Muslims, comes under the control of the Ottoman Empire for the next 400 years until 1917, and the British take control over it. Then something big happens in 1948, which is a really amazing moment in the history of Israel. Israel was granted status as a nation. For the first time in almost 2000 years, seen as a collective nation. And parts of, at that point, parts of Jerusalem were won during an Arab-Israeli war, and then fast-forward to 1967, and for the first time again, this whole entire area, or at least Israel, has come under the unified control of the nation of Israel, for the first time in a long, long time. Now, that being said, the story is still not complete, because Israel has determined, right or wrong, they have determined to share this chunk of land with the people who had had it for the previous thousand years with the Palestinian people. And so that's why today you can go there to this day, and you will see that Israel did not destroy the Dome of the Rock, they did not destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque up on top of the Temple Mount. And they share that land to this day, which is why, of course, we see all of the conflict. In fact, the Temple Mount itself, which is this big area, this is where the Temple Mount used to be, the Temple Mount itself is under Muslim control. The Muslims control that, they kind of let people come up and down from that. When I was there in 2015, we kind of made a big decision to go up onto the Temple Mount and to see, I'll show you a kind of crazy little thing that happened when we were out there. But most Jews do not make their way up onto the Temple Mount. They don't go up there. There's a couple of reasons for it. This is a sign on your way out there, according to the Torah, entering the Temple Mount area is strictly forbidden due to the holiness of the site. Not any Jew just wanders up onto the Temple Mount because that's where they believe the holy of holies was. Of course, the presence of God was on top of that Temple Mount in the Temple. But when we were up there, some Jews did make their way out there. There's little groups of Jews who have the courage to go up onto that Temple Mount to pray. Most of them do not. But we were up there when a group of Jews did. And pardon my cinematography here, I'm holding my 2015 flip phone or whatever it is I was recording with. But I just recorded this little incident while we were out there. Go ahead and play that. The Jews are being led up onto the Temple Mount right now. They're narrating. And I think the Muslims are not happy about that. But they're being escorted by police. All the landless people are yelling. I'm putting this Superman over here. Ladies are following them. Kind of an exciting little moment on top of the Temple Mount which we did not mean to be a part of. You hear them screaming a lahu Akbar which is something we've heard before. A la is the greatest. Anytime a Jew makes a way up onto the Temple Mount they'll run over there and start screaming at them. The Jews that we were watching made their way off to the Eastern part, side of the Temple Mount. And they were going to be there to pray. But most Jews don't do that. Most Jews are not going to wander up onto the top of the Temple Mount. They're going to stay right here which is called the Western Wall. This is the wailing wall or the weeping wall in Israel. This is on the base of the Temple Mount but it's kind of as close as Jews can come to the holy of holies without actually going up onto the Temple Mount. This is the wall that people come to by the thousands and thousands of Jews come here to pray. So Israel's return in 1948 and then again in 1967 while it's still not complete you can see. God of turmoil, a lot of unanswered questions, a lot of things that are still playing out. This was for most people as they're looking at it. This is a sign that God was still at work with Israel. That he was still honoring that covenant. That he had made all the way back in Genesis chapter 12 and Genesis chapter 15 that God was still part of that. They see these things are like look it. God has brought the people back to Israel. As a matter of fact I want you to go to one more place. Ezekiel chapter 36. I want to read this prophecy from Ezekiel and I want you to hear in it some of the language that sort foretold some of the things that are happening here. So we're going to be in Ezekiel 36 and along with start verse 23 and I want you to listen to this in light of what we know about the world and what's happening today. So, verse 36 verse 23. God says through the prophet Ezekiel he says, "I will vindicate the holiness of my great name which has been profaned among the nations and which you have profaned among them and the nations will know that I am the Lord declares the Lord God when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes." Listen, I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries. Remember Israel and after the Romans was scattered all over the world. I will gather you from among the nations. Gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle you clean. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness and from all your idols. I will cleanse you and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. Listen, you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers and you shall be my people and I will be your God." So when Israel was granted nationhood brought back to the land many people saw that as a confirmation of this everlasting covenant that God had made with Abram that this is the super sign that this is like a huge sign that the way that we saw this playing out is actually playing out that way. But for us, I want you to hold on to this because we're going to start looking forward pretty soon. For us, the land of Israel, this little chunk of real estate, this little chunk of geography, this land is going to play a very central role in the end times. It is going to play and important. This is why we keep watching it. Every time something comes onto the news we look at it, we see what's going on. Over and over the Bible keeps coming back to this plot of land. Matter of fact, I put some on your sermon notes, but I'll show you a couple of them. First of all, we're told from Zachariah chapter 144 that Jesus sets his feet, not just on any old mountain, he sets his feet on the mount of olives when he returns. And at that moment, the mount of olives is split from east to west. The split from east to west goes north and south. That's the place that Jesus is going to come back. It's not any random mountain, it's that mountain. Jerusalem becomes a focal point of all the world conflict. Zachariah 12, 3, all the nations of the earth will gather against Jerusalem. The final gathering of armies happens at a place called Maghito. This is tell Maghito when we're there. We went to this a lot of excavations and a lot of things going on there. This is on the southern side of the Jesueryl Valley in Hebrew. This is the place called Armageddon. We know that from Revelation chapter 16, verse 16, they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon. So this is the place. This is the real estate. This is the geography. And there's tons of them. of others I could point to, but this land that God promised is important. It all keeps coming back to the land of Israel, right? Not in some spiritual sense, in a very real physical, tangible sense. So number four, have you write this down? The land of Israel holds a unique place in God's plan. This is why we pay attention to what is happening in Israel, not because every headline is a prophecy being fulfilled. That's not what it's about, but it because it just tells us that this land plays a central role, especially as we move into the final chapters of God's redemptive story. Amen? So this is something that we're going to kind of hold on to and we'll see this play out. There's one more covenant, how am I doing on time? Oh, not great. Okay, that's okay. Second Samuel, chapter seven. I'm doing a lot today. I want to show you one more covenant. So we've seen the Abrahamic covenant. We've seen a couple of components about the Abrahamic covenant, but now we're going to look at another covenant. This is another everlasting eternal covenant. God is going to make this one with King David, with David, and he is going to speak something to David that we're going to see play off, especially into into the future. This is known as the Davidic covenant. Second Samuel, chapter seven, verse 12 is where I'll start. So God is speaking to David through the prophet Nathan. He says, "When your days are fulfilled, David, when you lie down with your father, so when you die, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name." Who are we talking about right here? Solomon, right. This is the son of David, Solomon. He's the one who builds the temple, the first temple. He builds that temple, and this is the prophecy about that. So, verse 14, "I will be to him." Oh, sorry. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom, not just until he dies, but forever. "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits aiquity, I will discipline him with the rods of men, with the stripes of the sons of men." Some people think that's a reference to Jesus himself, but my steadfast love will not depart from him as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you, and your house and your kingdom." Here's the covenant called the Davidic covenant, your house and your kingdom, shall be made sure forever before me, your throne shall be established forever in accordance with all these words and accordance with all this vision. Nathan spoke to David. I want you to just notice that this is another eternal covenant. It's not temporary. It's not conditional. God promises David that through his line, he's in the line of Abraham. Now through his line moving forward, there's going to be eternal throne, there's going to be an eternal kingdom. There is going to be an eternal king. Now, just to make sure we're all on the same page, who is that eternal king that is coming? Jesus Christ, amen. God, I'm out of make-dure. Keep going, keep going back to that. God says in Psalm 89, "I will not violate my covenant or alter the word that went forth from my lips once for all. I have sworn by my holiness, I will not lie to David. His offspring shall endure forever, his throne as long as the sun before me like a moon, it shall be established forever as a faithful witness in the sky." So in the line of David, who is in the line of Abraham, he's going to be a throne, a king, Jesus himself, and then look at how Jesus describes himself at the very end of the Bible. He says, Revelation chapter 22, "I Jesus have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David." You see how Jesus ties all of this? Jesus is the one who is going to sit on the throne that they've been looking forward to. And when he reigns, his kingdom will not just come and last for a season, not just last for a little temporary time. It's going to last forever. Now, that kingdom, the kingdom that we know that Jesus is bringing, it has been in theological turns, we say, it has been inaugurated. It's been started. We know that we are in some sense living out the kingdom here on planet earth. Jesus came and says, "The kingdom of God is at hand." It's at hand. But obviously, the kingdom is not fully done. It's not complete. It's not fully realized. We call this the already but not yet. It's already happening, but we're not all the way, all the way that we're engaging in kingdom living, but we're still praying for God's kingdom to come on earth as it isn't heaven. We're still looking for that finalization of it. Jesus has not come and established his kingship over all the earth in this way. This idea right here is what we're going to deal with next week when we get back together. We're going to say, "Okay, it's going to bring up this question that's going to be really important for us to answer." So if Jesus is coming in and he is the king, then who are the people of his kingdom? Because the kingdom isn't just a king. It's also a people. As the story of the Old Testament unfolds, we're going to start to see the prophets talking about this they call it a new covenant. We're going to start talking about this new covenant that God is making. It's going to start to come into view. This is a covenant that God is going to make with his people. It's not going to negate the old covenants. It is going to fulfill them and Hebrews tells us it's going to actually be better. Better than anything anybody has ever experienced. It's going to promise something that has been never given before. It's going to promise something. Nobody has seen quite yet. It's going to promise the transformation of the human heart. Through Jesus Christ, there is some sort of internal change that happens inside of us. We heard an echo of this when we read that passage in Ezekiel. It says, "I will give them a new heart, new spirit. I will place within them. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you." This is a little hint about the covenant. This is a promise to Israel. But what God is going to do, we're going to see him expand this thing. What God is going to do is bigger than any one nation and it has been ever since the very beginning. Remember what he promised to Abraham? What he promised to Abraham that through you, all the families of the earth are going to be blessed. This is why we see in Revelation that people from every tribe, every nation, every tongue, worshipping before the throne. Jesus is going to open this up to not just the Jewish community, but to the church, to anybody who comes into faith. What I want you to see today is I want you to see the continuity between the old and the New Testament. You watch these promises being played out, being fulfilled. We see Jesus come onto the scenes. We see these eternal covenants that God made with Israel being played out into the end times, into all of the end times. And you see God's promise that all the families of the earth would be blessed through the lineage of Abraham, the lineage of David. And you see them, the Gentiles, all of us being grafted into this. That has been spoken of from the start, through the lines of Abraham, that lines of David, through the prophets, that God would be faithful to his covenants and to see them play out. And through Jesus, every tribe, every nation would have access. That is spoken from from the start. Last thing I want you to write down. God doesn't just predict the future. He's not just throwing out guesses. He writes the future. He writes it. When God speaks to Israel, these aren't just rough predictions about something I think or I hope might happen. When God speaks to Israel and he says, this is a covenant that I am making with you. Matter of fact, Abe, go to sleep, buddy. I'm going to walk through this myself. I'm going to make sure that this covenant is not upheld by the wiles of men. I'm going to make sure that I will continue this covenant all the way through. And we're going to see that next week. We're going to see how we get grafted into that, but that God's faithfulness to Israel never changes. His faithfulness to them does not change. We're going to see this over and over and over again. God is speaking promises to Israel. And I want to tell you today, here's why you should learn, where you should know when you leave here, that the promises that he speaks to Israel are promises that we can look at and we can understand God's faithfulness to Israel so that we can understand his faithfulness to us, that we can look at the promises that he made to us and we can stop doubting those promises. We can stand with, say, I see what you're doing. I see what you're doing with Israel. I'll see how you're continuing this line. And I see what you're doing with me. You know, like you get into those moments every once in a while, you're like walking through some kind of pit and you start to question all that, you're like, I don't know, man, I don't even feel like God's walking with me through this stuff. This is a moment for us to go, oh yeah, I will never leave you nor forsake you. And we go, oh, man, we watched God's promise to Israel. We watched it and we know he's going to be faithful to that. He is going to be faithful to those promises. You know how you start going back down some path of sin, you start doing things that you know you shouldn't be doing and you're kind of, you have this little doubt in your mind, you're like, I don't know man, one of these days, God is just going to say, never mind, forget it. You've sinned too much. I'm not offering you to add anymore. And we can remember back, man, God was so even in their wandering. God was so faithful to Israel. So for us, he's the same way. He is the same way. This is why we look back to the Covenants of God. God made with Israel. And we see them in some way playing out today, exactly how we don't know, but it's playing out. We're like, oh yeah, God is faithful to us. He is faithful to the promises that he made to his people. Amen? And this is something we can hold on to. So with that being said, we're gonna stop for now. I'm gonna get you out of here. I wanna pray over you and over this time. Once you go ahead and stand to your feet, and we'll wrap it up. Next week, we're just going to, and I just want you to hear me very clearly, we are going to continue the story. And that doesn't sound like a controversial statement, but it is, we are going to continue the same story that God has been doing all along. Okay? So come back next week and let's see what we can figure out. Father God, thank you for just this story. The story of the people of Israel is really amazing. Step back and you look at it, because we know them, they're not always faithful to you. And we know us. We're not always faithful to you. So God, I do pray that you would just remind us of your faithfulness today. As we walk out, we stumble, we fall. Lord, that we would be just so aware of your everlasting love and faithfulness to us that there is nothing that separates us from the love of God through your Son, Jesus Christ. So God, whoever needs to hear that word today, I pray that they would take it right into their heart and their soul and take it right on out of here. Lord, thank you for this time together in your word. I pray that you would bless each and every one of us as we move forward, give us opportunities to speak your love and your truth to anybody we come into contact with. We love you Lord. We pray all this through your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.