Good evening, Saints.
Well, I have the privilege to expound a
mystery tonight, of which Paul says we should
not be ignorant.
It's the mystery of Israel and the Church.
Not to understand Israel as a mystery is
not to understand it.
To have a view that's only sentimental, or
out of obligation or guilt, is to miss
it greatly.
The only way to know it, to apprehend
it, is to receive it as mystery.
That's the way Paul describes it.
That's the way Paul expounds it.
And it's central to Paul's whole apostolic perception
of the faith, of reality itself, set forth
in his most important book.
He's not a systematic theologian, but in the
one book of Romans, Paul sets forth his
faith more systematically than in any other place.
So chapters 9 through 11, the heart of
the book, is devoted to this subject.
It's not some addendum, it's not an asterisk,
that will direct us to the end of
the book as a footnote.
It's smack dab in the center of Paul's
apostolic consideration.
And it needs to be in the same
place for ourselves, because if we miss it,
we miss our mandate, our calling with regard
to that people, but we miss also our
own identity.
So there's no way for the Church to
even understand itself, perceive its own reality and
call, independent of the relationship to which we
are called with this people, as a Gentile
Church.
That's why it's a mystery.
It confounds every category.
It's unnatural, that is to say, it can
only be understood, and it can only be
fulfilled spiritually.
It's the issue of God, it's the issue
of the Spirit, it's the issue of his
word, the issue of his covenant, it's the
issue.
So Lord, grace.
Grace to propound, grace to understand, grace to
receive.
This mystery is central to our faith.
If at any time we are to deserve
the appellation, the designation apostolic, and indeed, if
we don't, we're falling short of the glory
of God.
Anything less or other than that which is
apostolic is incompatible with God's intention.
Charismatic is not enough.
Evangelical is not enough.
Fundamental is not enough.
Apostolic only.
So may you derive a jealousy for that
word, because of tonight, that you have not
before had, and it will not let you
go.
It will affect every aspect of the faith.
So Lord, it's a privilege to be called
to share this, and it requires grace.
Grace to communicate, grace to receive, grace to
fulfill.
So give us a memorable and a significant
night that will affect all the future of
this fellowship, the church of this locality, and
beyond.
We thank and give you praise in Jesus'
name.
Amen.
So let's look at the verse that I've
quoted in chapter 11, verse 25.
And in my occasional dispute with those who
have discounted Israel or feel that the church
has replaced it, I find almost invariably they
never cite Romans chapter 11 and are often
just completely ignorant of its content.
Why?
Because it can only be understood as mystery.
You cannot obtain this by exercise of intellect.
This is not the issue of reason.
It's the issue of revelation.
So how is it that men who are
otherwise competent in many areas of the faith,
even impressively, are non-compassmentists when it comes
to this subject?
I suspect there's something that's blocking the flow
of revelation of the mystery, and likely it
is some kind of perhaps unrecognized but deep
-seated Gentile antipathy against the Jew.
There's a latent anti-Semitism that pervades the
whole history of the church and is much
more common than is recognized.
And until we face that and let the
Lord deal with that, we've not yet come
to the place of his intention for us.
So the whole issue of Israel is indeed
the issue of the church, as I hope
to indicate to you tonight.
Paul is answering the question of the church
at Rome, is God finished with the Jew?
And they had every reason to ask that
question because they knew that we had stoned
our prophets and now we have crucified our
own Messiah.
So isn't that final testimony that this people
have forfeited their calling and the church that
has now risen is its replacement?
It's a very logical, reasonable question to ask,
and in fact there are many who subscribe
to that view to this day, that the
church has replaced Israel because by every natural
and human reckoning they're not deserving of any
further consideration of God.
They have forfeited their place and their call.
But that's exactly the mystery, you dear saints,
that God will yet have a destiny for
a nation that does not deserve it is
not the statement of the nation, it's the
statement of God, who will have mercy upon
whom he will have mercy and elect whom
he will elect and choose whom he will
choose.
As if God has gone out of his
way to choose a people whom Gentiles would,
just by the nature of things, ordinarily reject,
because they are the least, because their track
record stinks, because they have blasphemed his name
in every nation wherein we have been sent
and even the nation in which we presently
abide.
So by every natural reckoning the church would
dismiss Israel that would have any place yet
in God's intention.
The fact that it does have such a
place and must fulfill such a place is
not the revelation of the virtue of Israel
but the revelation of the virtue of God.
Because he will have mercy upon whom he
will have mercy.
Where do we read that?
Romans chapter 11.
And God's mercy is God.
God and his mercy is the revelation of
himself in his deepest attribute and aspect.
Because the world, how shall I say it,
the world requires merit.
The world requires performance.
The world requires a basis for acknowledgement or
esteem.
But God does not make that requirement.
It's the world that has this pharisaical propensity
yet to be found in the church.
And that when you begin to take up
a subject like this the first thing that
is automatically inadvertently expressed is but they don't
deserve it.
Exactly.
They don't.
But they yet obtain it and that there
will be everlasting joy upon their heads and
mourning and sighing, fleeing away is not the
statement of their virtue it's the statement again
of God.
God in such a way as nothing less
or other will reveal him than his mercy
toward Israel.
The issue of God is the issue of
Israel and the fulfillment of God's word and
promise and covenant toward a nation who is
not only undeserving of the consideration but is
not even aware that it has such a
call and doesn't even desire it.
And yet he will succeed in it as
an ultimate testimony not only to his word
but to his power.
And that he will employ the Gentile church
as the agent for that fulfillment is the
final staggering aspect of the whole mystery.
Because where should we expect that Gentiles should
have any interest in Israel's fulfillment and let
alone that they should be participant that if
they are not fulfilling that role Israel will
not obtain it.
So for example when we read a text
like Ezekiel 37 the Valley of Dry Bones
where they are reduced to utter hopelessness to
which the nation by the way has not
yet come the Nazi holocaust did not obtain
it but there is a future holocaust coming
for which the conditions are already fomenting in
which the nation will come to the place
where it will say we are cut off,
we are without hope we are as dry
bones.
Why is that so remarkably important?
Because we Jews are the epitome of man.
The issue of the Jew is an ideological
question.
We are the picture of human self-sufficiency
human confidence human ability man and all of
his assumption and who else could have taken
an abandoned malarial wasteland and in half a
century made it a remarkable high-tech civilization
resuscitating a dead liturgical language and having one
of the greatest military forces on earth and
with atomic arsenal and all the kinds of
things that only Jews could perform but will
not succeed in performing because the issue of
Israel is not to set forth the prowess
and ability of Jews but the grace and
mercy of God.
We have got to be reduced in our
presumption about ourselves as man and we are
on a divine course to be brought to
that desperation and pitch where we have exhausted
every prospect as you can see Israel the
state even now scrambling trying to find every
expediency and clever motion notion to ease its
predicament and bringing one successor after another as
prime minister all of whom are brilliant and
that we would all be desirous of such
men in high office in our own nations
and yet all are calculated to fail.
So there is a great ideological issue I
am trying to compress in one statement tonight
what already takes at least a three day
seminar to expound but you need to understand
this because if you have any affinity for
the present state of Israel and a desire
to see it succeed you are going to
be grossly disappointed you are going to be
embarrassingly disappointed you will be less and less
able to defend the nation as it grows
more desperate and is required to employ expediencies
that contradict its own hope to have been
an exemplary Jewish nation and will find itself
acting very much like any gentile nation in
the world and in fact even acting very
much like the gentile nation that has so
recently persecuted it unto death Nazi Germany so
brace yourself for a necessary dissolution and collapse
of human expectancy in the state of Israel
it's more than I can explain to you
in one night which raises you mean God
will allow a state to be raised only
that it should fail exactly and it will
be succeeded by his own work when I
will restore I will return I will establish
I will plant so that for the whole
millennial future the restored nation will be able
to compare its own premillennial Zionist experience attempting
by its own ability and prowess to establish
a homeland and a state and failing exacerbating
its neighbors necessarily and provoking them to such
a place where their children become human bombs
and their parents of these human sacrifices are
proud that their children have done something even
by being blown to pieces themselves to destroy
the hated enemy this is the result of
the last analysis of however well-meaning men
may be when they seek in the independence
of God to establish something as ultimate as
a national homeland let alone a prophetic fulfillment
of a nation that will bless all the
families of the earth it is not only
bound to fail but to fail disgracefully this
is hard work so Paul says in verse
25 I would not brethren that you should
be ignorant of this mystery because it's the
only way to understand the majesty of the
issue of that nation and the purposes of
God from the beginning and elect people with
a destiny that will affect all the nations
of the earth and be the locus of
God's theocratic rule very few Christians ever consider
the subject of Israel in the context of
the government of creation and yet we know
in Isaiah chapter 2 that all nations shall
come up to the mount of the Lord
and God will teach us the ways of
the God of Jacob and that the law
shall go forth out of Zion and the
word of the Lord out of Jerusalem believest
thou this?
you English saints who have had more difficulty
in sharing this view than any other nation
the greatest resistance to this view has come
to me in the UK or its affiliates
South Africa, New Zealand, Australia there's something residual
in the English psyche in the national fabric
that is somehow repulsed by and is antithetical
to Israel that Israel should have a destiny
that perhaps will even eclipse Great Britain I
think those nations that have lingering aspirations for
empire instinctively and to resist a nation that
is called to be central to all nations
the measure of your humility in Christ is
your agreement with God in what he has
chosen because the law must go forth out
of Zion is not a piece of poetry
it's a statement of God's literal intention and
if you knew what I know you would
realize that the church has historically been guilty
of taking all of the literal statements of
Israel's restoration and her centrality to the nations
and spiritualizing it so that Zion is no
longer a geographical location in Jerusalem it's a
condition of uttermost spirituality which in fact it
is as a second use of the word
Zion but a principle of scriptural interpretation is
that the first use must be what is
intended by the grammatical context so where the
grammatical context indicates a literal interpretation that's our
first obligation after that you can preach it
as a spiritual index of spirituality the church
has used its spiritualizing to nullify the very
literal promises with regard to the nation first
because they had not the faith to believe
for them and second they had not the
desire to desire for them it's something like
the elder brother who's unwilling even to see
the the profligate return and receive such a
welcome from the father as a robe, a
ring and a feast you never did this
for me and I've always been dutiful and
faithful blah blah blah and refused to enter
the celebration this is no small question what
the attitude of the church is toward Israel
and toward the Jew is the whole issue
of Israel's redemption because as I said Ezekiel
37 shows the nation being reduced in which
they themselves say verse 11 chapter 37 we
are cut off we are without hope we
are dry bones anyone who has studied anything
in the history of Israel or contemporary Israel
knows that that national acknowledgement has yet to
be made and that even the Nazi holocaust
did not obtain it but a proclamation of
another kind never again can you compare these
two statements?
never again and we are cut off we
are without hope never again is still man
shocked and bewildered by the treatment that he's
received in the holocaust but yet surviving and
assured that he'll not again suffer it because
before he was hapless and helpless a ghetto
individual but now with the state of Israel
their prowess, their ability never again is a
statement of human defiance and a confidence in
man but the statement we are cut off
we are cut out we are without hope
we are as dry bones is a statement
of ultimate dejection of ultimate what's the word?
exasperation of ultimate acknowledgement that we're finished then
God turns to someone called the son of
man and commands him to prophesy to those
bones that they might live these are the
texts out of which Paul derives his understanding
of the mystery and puts it at the
heart of his New Testament faith so who
is the son of man?
why doesn't God himself prophesy to the bones?
he's the God who brooded over the chaos
by the spirit and said let there be
and there was why doesn't he now take
the occasion to raise Israel by his own
speaking and they'll be eternally indebted to him
but no, he turns to his son of
man and commands the son of man to
prophesy the moot question is if the son
of man is a symbolic statement of the
church of the last days in its ultimate
prophetic constituency will it be willing to prophesy?
does it desire to see those dry bones
live?
why not leave them there?
isn't that the fate they deserve?
and let us be the sole object of
God's intention and glory see how great this
issue is?
the issue of attitude willingness to recognize what
those dead bones represent not only in terms
of their own fulfillment but in terms of
his glory because how does this great book
end?
this great chapter 11 ends with the most
remarkable doxology in the whole of biblical writ
from verse 33 through 36 if I get
carried away tonight I'll even sing it for
you oh the depth of the riches both
of the wisdom and the knowledge of God
Paul how shall I say it?
a sober apostle cannot contain his praise doxology
is ultimate praise because he has seen something
of the mystery that he cannot contain language
itself is stretched to breaking at the remarkable
conclusion of these three verses oh the depth
of the riches both of the wisdom and
knowledge of God how great his judgments are
past finding out who has given him shall
be given again for of him and through
him and to him are all things to
whom be glory forever this is not just
a little capstone this is not a little
piece of rhetorical flourish this is Paul this
is the apostolic mind this is the apostolic
heart and it's got to come to you
if you're going to fulfill the role toward
Israel it will be a sacrificial demand in
which the prospect of martyrdom let alone peril
will not be out of the question Jews
are going to be globally hated they're already
in process of becoming that there's a new
anti-semitism pervading the earth it's already dangerous
for a Jew to live in France that
had been for them one of the safest
places on earth and the French government is
already telling the Jewish community we're not in
a position to protect you though it's the
largest Jewish community in the continent 500,000
but it's eclipsed by 5 million Muslims who
will not be placated with anything less than
Jewish annihilation and there's a proliferation of this
demonic phenomenon called Islam all over the world
so Jews will not be safe in any
place including the United States of America we
will be globally uprooted globally hunted globally persecuted
globally in flight and Jesus said of that
time that there's a trouble coming for the
nation such as it has never before known
or will again know he's answering the question
what are the signs of the end of
the age and of your coming so he's
speaking of a last days phenomenon of a
trouble for the nation that exceeds any trouble
it has previously known or will again know
and if that time not be cut short
no flesh will survive but for the elect's
sake the time will be cut short I
believe he's referring to the time of Jacob's
trouble and the global persecution of Jews the
conditions for which are already brewing and you
have an obligation to be aware and to
know and to anticipate and to prepare for
their expulsion and their uprooting in every nation
the majority of which will not survive because
if it exceeds all previous trouble that means
it exceeds the Nazi holocaust that took six
million lives and if this will be a
greater one and yet not again to be
repeated what then will be the number of
fatalities when Jesus himself comes at the end
of the time of Jacob's trouble to oppose
the nations that are coming against Jerusalem to
destroy it and his feet come on the
Mount of Olives two thirds of Jerusalem which
is to say the nation have perished one
third passes through the fire so if that's
the ratio of survival two thirds perishing, one
third surviving not only in the land but
in the world we're talking about the demise
of ten million Jews in a period of
time even shorter than the Nazi holocaust three
and a half years so in other words
it can only be accomplished with a certain
vehemence and a bitterness that eclipses even the
Nazi determination for Jewish annihilation by the same
spirit that has always sought to annihilate Jews
you need to know what prompts that spirit
it's got everything to do with the law
going forth out of Zion the word of
law out of Jerusalem the powers of the
air are the false usurping governmental rulers over
the nations they are the rulers of this
world's darkness and want to continue to be
Nazi Germany gives us an example of powers
of the air not content merely to influence
the conduct of a nation but to totally
appropriate its whole mechanism, its whole government, its
whole strength and to employ that not only
to threaten the whole of world civilization but
to annihilate Jews and in fact military historians
cannot fathom right to the last days of
the war how material and money and manpower
was expended in the continuation of the process
of annihilation when it should have been employed
perhaps for defense showing there is a demonic
press for the destruction of Jews that had
captivated that entire nation and its and its
strength and that spirit will again be employed
in the time to come why?
because if Israel can be destroyed if there
should be no remnant returning if the redeemed
of the Lord perish and fail to obtain
redemption and to return to Zion then the
powers of the air continue their usurping of
false rule over the nations.
The only thing that threatens them is a
kingdom come whose rule will issue out of
Zion that waits for a restored nation and
the redemption of the holy hill of Zion
in which God has set his prince alone
qualified to rule from that place as a
descendant of David from the throne of David
got the idea?
You see how literal I am?
and the way that I am I'm suggesting
you need to be also understanding that the
view that I'm propounding is not out of
the fact that I'm Jewish, that's just haphazard,
that's accidental but the fact that I have
a role to perform for the church that
has to do with Jews but I'm not
favoring them because of my ethnic identification in
fact I'm hotter on them than most.
Paul is the steward of the mysteries of
the faith we can read in Ephesians chapter
3 and this mystery also and yet he
warns us that if we are ignorant of
this mystery we should be wise in our
own conceit.
This is the only mystery for which there's
a consequence, a penalty for the failure to
obtain it.
You will become wise in your own conceit.
What are these conceits?
We are the Israel of God we are
the replacement we are the kingdom we will
bring the kingdom, we don't have to wait
for the king we'll take over the functions
of society and various other presumptions that characterize
our present day Christianity the best of our
present day Christianity is afflicted with this kind
of of conceit because it has failed to
grasp the mystery it's not something mechanical there's
something about the mystery itself that is tempering
that God intended by it to temper the
church because it shows that the church is
not some independent entity for its own gratification,
it's called into being for the very purpose
of Israel's salvation, because we read in verse
11 of this chapter, Paul repeating himself from
what he says in verse 1, has God
cast away his people?
This is what the Roman church is asking
and his answer in the most emphatic Greek
I'm told is God forbid you should say
that, God forbid you should think that that's
the least thing that you should ever consider
that he's finished with them, and then he
goes on in verse 11 to pick that
up again, have they stumbled that they should
fall?
Is God now permanently rejecting them?
God forbid, there's that great statement again, but
rather through their fall, salvation has come unto
the Gentiles if there was only a period
there, we would have been very content but
leave it to Paul to tack on one
additional statement that brings the whole house down
for salvation has come unto the Gentiles through
their fall so as or for or in
order to provoke them to jealousy have you
ever considered that?
That there's a purpose for your salvation beyond
yourself and that purpose is with them, with
a people with whom you would not otherwise
have extended yourself being Gentiles, but that salvation
has been granted to you in a mystery
that requires your participation toward them in such
a way as to move them to jealousy
for the very gospel that they have rejected,
because Paul tells us in the same chapter
they are the enemies of the gospel for
your sake he's not giving us an easy
assignment he's giving us an ultimate assignment and
I don't know in 42 years in the
faith traveling the world over, even commencing this
trip in Malaysia and through most of the
countries of Europe I'm now coming to the
end of a 3 month journey I don't
know of a church anywhere that has consciously
willfully taken this mandate to its heart and
made it a foundational premise of its entire
being to move Jews to jealousy and until
we do we will be less than God's
intention we may be happy we may enjoy
services there will be benefit undoubtedly but we
will fall short of apostolic glory for in
moving Jews to jealousy is an ultimate requirement
that extends and enlarges and calls for such
a depth of faith such a reality of
a kind that Paul does not describe or
tell us how there's no footnote there's no
asterisk on what we have to do or
perform that will move them to jealousy but
that the requirement is given is clear so
just to know that there's a purpose for
your salvation beyond yourself is itself redemptive because
the cancer of egocentrism which we practiced in
the world carnally can be brought into the
church spiritually so that it's we, us, our
our denomination, our church our ministry did you
enjoy the service?
did you like the speaker?
everything is predicated from the point of view
of the benefit that accrues to us that
is as spiritually dangerous as an egocentrism as
to be carnally taken up with questions how
does God save us from this innate propensity
to be centered in ourselves he gives us
a burden and a mandate outside of ourselves
with a people whom we would never have
chosen and not only that but a people
who by their history and nature are adverse
and are opponents of the gospel, they're not
just casual rejecters they are professional rejecters as
anyone knows who's had anything to do with
Jews as a mission field and their history
alone is so horrible in terms of what
Jews have suffered at the hands of Christendom,
the church, the name of Christ, that there
are Jews who will cross the street rather
than have the shadow of a spire of
a church fall on them.
My mother for 40 years could not understand
how I would go to Germany let alone
how I should be a believer her darling
son and her hope though she was saved
10 days before her death in her 96th
year by a dream of hell that terrified
her into the kingdom of God and enabled
her to call upon his name which she
would not even allow me to mention.
She grew up in London and still remembers
I don't know if they're true stories or
not how she was pushed into a swimming
pool by her gentile teacher and told sink
or swim Jew.
So she has a whole history of either
true or false episodes that reinforce for her
an anger and an enmity against the goyim,
the gentiles and Christians and that name in
which Jews have systematically been persecuted as anyone
who knows the history of Jews in Europe
and in Germany Jews locked themselves in their
synagogues during the Crusades to be saved from
the threat of baptism or death by the
knights with their crosses on their tunics who
looted the Jewish community and financed their pilgrimage
and in the end these synagogues were burned
down and the entire community went up in
flames long before the fire of the Holocaust
or they committed suicide there's a phrase in
Hebrew Kiddush Hashem, sanctifying the name is the
title given when a father will slit the
throats of all of his children, kill his
wife and they either take his own life
or allow another to take it.
So when the doors burst open and the
goyim come in whose threat was baptize or
die they see the Jews already dead before
them.
This is our history you dear saints, you
need to know this this is, we take
this up with our mother's milk, it's in
the air that we breathe there's an instinctive
resentment of fear that even though you're nice
to us periodically, how long can that be
trusted?
And in nations where we've enjoyed a certain
degree of acceptance, the bottom can fall out
suddenly as it did in Germany, as will
happen in France and I believe will happen
in England as in every nation.
So they are the enemies of the gospel.
It's as if history conspires against our succeeding
with them and yet Paul doesn't say how
we ought to move them to jealousy but
what he makes clear is it's not by
individual virtuosos but by the church as the
church something that can only be corporately displayed,
something in the relationships of a body that
transcends earthly and human categories in a way
that is heavenly and altogether supernatural look how
they love one another, remember what was said
of the early church needs to be said
again not only how they love one another
but the ultimate test is how do we
love them because when Jesus comes as king,
the first judgment by which he separates the
sheep from the goats among the Gentiles in
the world and the nations is over one
question or one issue.
What did you do for the least of
these my brethren?
Read Matthew 25 which the scholars say that
he's really talking to the church that the
brethren have got to be Christians because Jews
at that time will be yet apostate and
unbelieving but the sheep and the goats both
say Lord when did we see you naked
thirsty and hungry they say Lord and so
I'm biblically exegeting that the least of these
his brethren are indeed Jews in their last
days and final extremity they're his brethren before
they're saved, they're his brethren while they're yet
in apostasy, while they're yet in flight, while
they're yet in extremity the question is if
that's what they are to him, what are
they to us?
So we're moving toward that conclusion of the
age for which the church is not now
presently fitted we will be exasperated by this
people and to extend mercy that they may
obtain mercy which is in the conclusion of
Romans 11 is an ultimate requirement from people
who do not count their lives dear unto
themselves and are willing to give their lives,
open themselves to risk of suffering for Jews
in the condition in which they will be
in their last days flight and not receive
gratitude for it and maybe even have to
suffer mean-spiritedness and backlash and the kinds
of things that Jews will say when they've
come undone remembering that this last day's extremity
will be very sudden it'll be an uprooting,
something like you find yourself in the street
the day before you were professional you had
resources, you had wealth you had possessions, the
next day all you have is what's on
your back and you're in flight from terror
so they're not going to come to us
in their best condition they're going to come
to us in their worst condition and yet
Ezekiel 20 verse 33 on says with a
fury poured out I will meet with you
in the wilderness of the nations the fury
is the last days anti-semitic persecution and
there I will meet with you face to
face in the wilderness of the nations so
the kind of face that we show them
if it's the face of only religious obligation,
I guess we have to art said it,
it was coming and now it's here, well
let's brace ourselves, we will have missed a
historic moment they need to see something more
than religious obligation, certainly they need to see
something more than irritation and resentment, which if
we are yet in our prescientition they will
provoke, the Jews have ever and always historically
been the measure and test of the truth
of the church and the greatest of the
church's giants have failed that test, the most
noteworthy is Luther himself who became a blatant
anti-semite Chrysostom, the golden mouth orator of
the early apostolic period, equally anti-semitic and
so men have been tested and missed it,
there's something about a Jew that frays us
and provokes and gets under our skin in
the way that my Danish wife does for
me maybe she's from the lost sheep of
the house of Israel, I don't know but
just when you're thinking yourself confident in your
spirituality, you come home and your wife will
say one thing or spot one thing or
make a comment or remark that boom, she
hits the blind spot and something issues from
you that is totally embarrassing, just when you
thought you had come to a place of
spiritual maturity the Jew functions like that so
I'm warning you that we should not be
embarrassed in that day because what we exhibit
with our faces will either save them or
lose them and the fact of the matter
is as a former atheist, ex-Marxist radical,
I was saved in part by that revelation
42 years ago when I left the teaching
profession with a pack on my back to
travel through Europe and the Middle East looking
for philosophical and ideological answers to a disillusioned
life instead I met Christians who were picking
up off the side of the road born
again, I didn't know there was such a
distinction, strangely moved by every one of them
just the willingness to pick up a man
like myself and this little girl who was
an American on vacation having graduated high school
half my age and I'm probing her motives,
why are you being kind to me?
I'm an ex-Marxist communist party member and
I have never seen kindness I've only seen
ideological ferocity, but I've not seen kindness and
here's this gentile girl beaming walking with me
totally unafraid how is it you're not afraid
of me?
It's the love of God she said.
How is it you're being kind?
The love of God.
Why are you the love of God?
I thought this kid mentions God one more
time, she's had it my hobby is to
wipe out Christians so what's this little girl
to me?
she mentioned God once more, I said look,
you're a sweet kid I appreciate your kindness,
but I cannot stand this God talk answer
for me one question that no Christian has
ever successfully answered what's that Art?
you've been talking about God, how do you
know that he is?
there'll be a long delay, she'll think of
something from Sunday school and I'll get my
steamroller all revved up and crush her, without
a moment's hesitation, she tilted that little face,
snub-nosed, freckled sandy-haired, what we Jews
call wasp, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant and out
of that face, she said I know that
he lives Art, because he lives in me,
and when she said that, down I went
like the struck ox, absolutely devastated the power
of that statement trying to collect myself, what
did she say?
It's not theological, it's not even intellectual what's
the power of that statement, and then realizing
that it was true and she had the
face to prove it that little Gentile face
exuded the light of God and that light
is the light that lightens the Gentiles is
equally the glory of the people of Israel
you see, we're in something together, you dear
saints you're the key to our salvation and
we're the key to your nation when we
shall come into the fulfillment of our calling
as a nation of priests and a light
unto the world for the world needs us
in that distinction it's profane and only the
priests can teach the difference between the profane
and the sacred we have a holy calling
but we have to become a holy people
to fulfill it and that is not our
present condition therefore we have to be sifted
dealt with, be brought to an end to
ourselves, and then be redeemed through your faces,
your witness your mercy the moving of us
to jealousy the willingness to take risks in
our behalf at a time when we're globally
hated if that doesn't move us to jealousy
I don't know what will so, Paul says
that blindness in part, in verse 25 is
happened to Israel until the fullness of the
Gentiles be come in this chapter 11 and
elsewhere throughout the prophets and the scriptures indicate
again and again that Israel needs to be
acted upon, that what comes to it must
come to it from outside itself for it
will be reduced to a place of utter
destitution and inability in itself to affect its
own redemption and that must necessarily be they
have got to be brought to the place
of total helplessness and dependency on what comes
to them from outside themselves that it should
come to them through Gentiles and through the
church who celebrate the name that they can't
even pronounce is an utter and staggering phenomenon
so that's the mystery that when the fullness
of the Gentiles be come in so all
Israel shall be saved as it is written
there shall come out of Zion the deliverer
and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob, for
this is my covenant unto them when I
shall take away their sins if we did
nothing else but spend the one evening pondering
that statement it would be time well spent
you need to burrow in to this remarkable
apostolic mouthful that shows that the issue of
Israel is not Israel but the church when
the fullness of the Gentiles be come in
so the deliverer will come out of Zion
he's waiting for something not from Israel but
from the fullness of the Gentiles the church
but what does he mean by fullness is
he meaning the number that need to complete
the church of people for his name from
among all nations and the church will have
fulfilled its missions in the world and its
local evangelism because there is a number that
have to replace the fallen angels who's going
to be ruling in the heavenly places who's
going to rule and reign with Christ in
the kingdom that's to be established in places
that are now occupied by fallen angels that
are opposed to God's rule they will be
ousted they will be cast out and their
prince will be put in chains and confined
and finally destroyed so there's a number of
replacement this is not I can't show you
a text and I'm talking out of something
that I surmise that makes perfect sense for
me, that there's a replacement of fallen angels
that will occupy the heavenly places in conjunction
with the restored Israel in the earth so
there will be a harmony in the rule
of God out from Zion from the restored
nation and by those glorified saints who will
rule and reign with Christ as overcomers, remember
that?
you haven't thought about that you haven't desired
that you thought overcomers were for some rare
minority but not yourself, you're just an average
saint, yes?
and you'll remain an average saint until you
take this mandate and call seriously, for it
compels you to come to this ground, we
need the challenge of being to Israel what
we must and that we are the key
to a deliver coming out of Zion and
taking transgression from Jacob when the fullness of
the Gentiles be come in so I'd like
to suggest that it's not only a numerical
fullness, it's also a qualitative fullness that is
to say, you've come to a full maturity
of the faith that can be called prophetic,
apostolic, even Hebraic, that you've lost your Gentile
coloration and you've taken on a transcendent identity
of a kind that for the want of
a better word could be called Davidic or
or Hebraic it's not that you've become Jews,
but your personalities have been formed and shaped
under the influence of the Psalms the Prophets,
the Patriarchs, the Scripture and you've come into
a place that exhibits to the Jew what
they themselves ought more rightly to have been,
because you are showing forth a fruit being
grafted into their tree, having once been a
wild branch that was fruitless where do we
learn that?
In Romans chapter 11 stop me wherever I
go, I'm too long or you've just reached
the point of saturation but Paul takes up
this figure about the casting away of them,
being the reconciling of the world, what shall
the receiving of them be but life from
the dead for if the, verse 16, the
first fruit be holy, the lump is also
holy and the root be holy, so the
branches or some of the branches be broken
off, and you being a wild olive tree
were grafted in among them and with them
partakers of the root and fatness of the
olive tree, boast not against the branches, but
if you boast you bear not the root,
but the root thee, and thou wilt say
then the branches broken off that I might
be grafted in, well yes, because of unbelief
they were broken off and you stand by
faith, but be not high minded, but fear
for if God spared not the natural branches,
take heed lest they also spare not thee
behold therefore the goodness and severity of God
on them which fell severity but unto thee
goodness if you continue in his goodness, otherwise
thou also shalt be cut off and they
also if they abide not in unbelief shall
be grafted in for God is able to
graft them in again, now listen you dear
saints perhaps the issue of jealousy is the
issue of bearing fruit of a distinctive kind,
because you are in a covenant relationship with
God by which you receive his life and
it gives expression to fruit of an eternal
kind that abides, a certain quality of relationship,
a certain grace that is transcendent that moves
you up and above and beyond your own
culture, a national origin into a kind of
a heavenly kingdom relationship presently while you're yet
in the earth but how do you obtain
that by the sap that flows out from
the root of the tree in which you
have been grafted but if you're not conscious
that you have been grafted in having once
been a wild and fruitless branch, you do
not receive the benefit I don't know that
I'm authorized to say that but I'm taking
prophetic liberty because I see so many fruitless
branches among Gentiles that are technically grafted in
but have not acknowledged the privilege nor are
they grateful and to the degree that they
have not the faith both to appreciate and
to be grateful for the privilege of being
grafted into this ancient tree and deriving from
its root and its sap the life of
fruit, they will not derive that fruit, they'll
remain fruitless even in their grafting so this
is a remarkable figure that Paul is employing
to show the mystery of the relationship between
the Gentile church and Israel that there's a
tree that is eternal of which the sap
is the life of God through its root
and that the benefit is only derived by
those that are grateful for the privilege and
do not look upon their Christianity as some
kind of innovation that took place in New
Testament times and was the beginning of a
whole new phenomenon but rather see it as
the continuum of something that already had a
long existence into which they have been placed
though they were once far off without God
without hope in the world until they were
brought nigh by the blood of Israel's Messiah
am I saying too much?
Paul tells us in Ephesians you who were
far off and without hope and without God
in the world have been brought nigh by
the blood of Messiah into the covenants and
promises and hopes of Israel, into the commonwealth
of Israel, you were without hope you were
without relationship but by his blood you have
been brought in because salvation is of the
Jews but if you're too proud to acknowledge
that and you'd rather not be in that
tree but you have a tree of your
own choosing then you'll just be a dried
up Gentile and fruitless in any eternal sense.
This is critical and more than that he
says don't boast against the tree yes their
branches were broken off that you might be
brought in but God is able to graft
them in again but if you don't abide
in kindness you can be broken off therefore
fear behold the severity and the goodness of
God well you dear saints if we don't
behold the goodness and severity of God in
his dealing with Israel where shall we behold
it?
If we don't come to a fear seeing
how far he has dealt with them who
are the chosen ones and yet the apple
of his eye and there's yet another holocaust
coming by which they shall be sifted to
obtain a remnant that shall return to Zion
what shall we say?
The issue of the fear of God the
sense of awe that is so presently absent
from the church is absent in exact proportion
as this mystery is not known and has
been lost there's a lightness that pervades the
church over which I ache and I believe
that it can be attributed in the last
analysis to the ignorance of this mystery because
nothing more reveals God both in his severity
and his goodness in his judgments and in
his restoration and mercy than his dealing with
this people and if we don't see it
there where shall we see it?
That is to say nothing gives us a
more accurate understanding of God as God than
his relationship with this nation throughout its entire
history and the future that is yet to
come as well as his destiny to miss
the issue of Israel is to miss God
as God we'll continue to use the vocabulary,
we'll call it Jesus and sing hymns and
all the rest but the reality the deepest
aspect of that reality will be lost to
us unless it's obtained here notice the text
that we're grafted in in verse 17 among
them and with them partake in that root
and fatness of the olive tree so not
all Israel rejected the Lord we know the
early church was totally Jewish you came into
an already existing redemptive phenomenon called a body
that you might be partakers with them but
if you don't see them and see yourself
as an exclusive entity apart from them you
lose the value both of the root and
its sap so it depends on how gentile
you are, how offended you are too proud
to be part of that tree it's interesting
I had contemplated this as another subject for
tonight the tenth of Shem the blessing that
Noah pronounces upon his son Shem who has
covered him in his fallenness and says prophetically
Japheth shall be expanded that's Europe Europeans are
expansive in technology and economics and so on
but Japheth shall dwell in the tenth of
Shem God's final what's
the word for the last days eschatology thank
you God's final eschatological glory is that Japheth,
the European nations will dwell in the tenth
of Shem that left to themselves being expansive
they are not only instruments for good but
evil as we've seen in two world wars
and even now the ambition that yet remains
with Japheth but there's a redemptive blessing and
a benefit that comes with abiding and dwelling
in the tenth of Shem because Shem is
the spiritual and Semitic Hebraic reality that God
has invested in that people and you need
us and you'll be blessed by dwelling with
the tenth once we ourselves are in that
place so the end of the whole redemptive
drama is the relationship of nations to Israel
and it even begins in Deuteronomy 32.8
that when God determined the number of nations,
he did so in view of the number
of the sons of Israel that from the
very beginning, I've never heard anyone preach from
that text, from the very beginning the issue
of the nations is the issue of Israel.
Israel is central to the nations and there
will not be peace, there will not be
millennial blessedness until the nations give themselves to
that relationship, not reluctantly chafing inwardly but gladly
submitting to the design of God though it's
contrary to every Gentile impulse to submit to
a people like that to the holy hill
of Zion where we'd much rather have some
mountain or something out of our own nationality
that we think far more appropriate to the
kingdom.
God has gone out of his way to
cut us off at the pass, to nail
us in our Gentile pride by the requirement
to submit to that nation which he has
chosen, even in its terrible track record though
he will exalt it, not because of its
deserving but because he will have mercy upon
whom he will have mercy.
The question is, will you have it?
And in fact, if you don't have it,
they will perish because Paul says having told
us that the gift and callings of God
are without repentance that you in times past
have not believed God, have now obtained mercy
through their unbelief.
If they had not fallen, temporarily been set
aside, salvation would not have come to the
Gentiles.
Their setting aside was a requirement in the
wisdom of God.
Perhaps if they had remained, you would not
have received their message, or it would have
come to you with their pharisaical pride.
They had to be set aside in order
for you to come into the faith which
is in the salvation which is of the
Jews.
But the gifts and callings of God are
without repentance.
And what is the gift and calling?
To bless all the families of the earth.
To be a nation of priests and a
light unto the world.
Even by a people who do not even
know that that's their calling, and don't even
desire to be that, they would much rather
be the successful Hong Kong of the Middle
East.
But despite their intention, despite their rejection, God
must fulfill it because it's the issue of
his promise and the issue of his word.
The issue of God, of Israel, coming into
its destiny is totally, in the last analysis,
the issue of God as God.
All the more because they're unwilling, because they're
unseeing, because they're undesiring.
So for them yet to come in to
this calling is the statement of his faithfulness
and his power over and against their own
unwillingness.
And that will glorify him forever.
See what I mean?
Everything is stacked against fulfillment that if he's
to succeed, and to succeed through a Gentile
church, it will be to the everlasting praise
of his glory.
And that's how the chapter ends.
That he might have mercy upon all, that
these now do not believe that through your
mercy they also may obtain mercy.
You're going to have a grand opportunity in
the last days to express that.
And it will not come at your convenience,
it will come at your risk.
If they are hated globally and despised, and
there's an Islamic terror which no nation can
control, and in fact even to oppose it
is to invite devastation for the nation itself.
We see the nation's already cowering, and your
Prime Minister with his red cord around his
wrist this morning, in the eighth day since
he received it from Hindus, already a condescension
to minorities and other religions to show a
kind of a liberal mentality that will in
the end betray Jews, and will defer to
those Islamic and other peoples who hate them.
So for you to extend mercy will make
you an object of persecution yourself.
And why should you?
What's in it for you?
What did they ever do for you?
And to do it, not just reluctantly, with
a grim sense like, I guess I have
to, but counting it a privilege.
And you're rejoicing for the privilege of having
aided so much as one Jew to be
part of the remnant that returns to Zion
with everlasting joy upon their heads.
It's for you unspeakable privilege and joy.
Even if it requires suffering or the loss
of life, because you know that you'll receive
a martyr's crown.
Because you know that if you're stripped, you
have a greater recompense in heaven than you
had in what was taken in the earth.
If you know that in yourself.
So see what is required?
What is required is apostolic faith, apostolic expectancy,
apostolic understanding of eternity, its rewards, for which
Paul said, seeing the invisible weight of glory,
I count my present suffering both momentary and
light.
We have got to come to that mentality,
that view of eternity, that sense of eternal
reward, that sense of destiny and calling with
this people as privilege.
And that's why Paul says in that conclusion,
O the depth of the riches, both of
the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable
his judgments, his ways pass finding out.
Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Paul didn't make this up, and I've not
made this up.
This is too complex.
This is too rich.
This is too altogether contrary to what human
reason would dictate.
That Gentiles, a Gentile church, should be the
salvific agent of God for Israel's redemption, by
an ability to address bones and the authority
of God by which they might live, that
they're speaking in resurrection authority and power, and
desire to see that nation raised in a
faith that exceeds its present faith, that is
the faith of the Son of God, and
a faith that can only work by love
and not by sentiment.
You see how far you have to go?
In fact, your sentiment is the greatest obstruction
to that love.
Sentiment is false love, and it's cheap and
easy to have a sentimental attitude toward Israel
to go plant a tree or attend a
conference.
But we're neglecting the Jews that are right
in our locality, so any true relationship with
the Jew that does not require radically of
us is a false relationship, a sentimental relationship
that makes no requirement.
This is ultimate requirement because this is of
Him, but it's also through Him that it
might be to Him as glory forever.
So before I was called on, I felt
a wave of weakness.
I couldn't stand up during the worship time.
I was preserving my little strength that was
ebbing away, and needed something to lean on.
It just means that individuals that continue to
pray, their individual prayer is a circle.
So our prayer has got to reflect a
reality of a kind by which we're more
than just alongside each other, but as human
church, those that believe we are together.
See, this compels us to find the ground
of reality that church needs first, and thus
know again at the end.
And I can tell you, having lived 32
years in community, what it takes to be
together is suffering.
Community is not a lark that's imagining before
it's born.
But it takes a willing participation because we
cannot be to the Jew what we must,
except how shall we be able to absorb
the impact of Jews coming into this broken
condition, totally dejected, angry, mean-spirited, just as
single individuals.
It takes the conservative strength of a tested
body to receive that impact morally, physically, spiritually,
and to do to them what we want,
and make no requirement of them.
And if they're mean-spirited and are not
grateful, we're not offended.
We don't need their gratitude.
We have His, and we can show them
the face of their God in love.
That makes no requirement in His uncondition.
Why is God speaking like this now?
Because we need to begin now with the
conscience, which
is always humiliating.
Give yourself.
With a congregation of this kind, with a
pastor of this kind, with a history of
this kind, where will you succeed?
This is about as auspicious and as encouraging,
just the sight of them as any before
which I've stood.
And so I'm asking my God that you
who have brought me in this surprising way
in these days, for this one night and
this one statement, jealously, to nurture it, and
that you'll not allow a syllable to fall
to the ground.
Amos chapter 9, where you said this, will
revive the Holy Spirit for all of His
fullness, and may they be eternally fruitful to
all our consideration.