{"id":18473,"date":"2018-02-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-18T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/ecclesiology-014\/"},"modified":"2022-01-12T17:16:44","modified_gmt":"2022-01-12T23:16:44","slug":"ecclesiology-014","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/ecclesiology-014\/","title":{"rendered":"Ecclesiology 014"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[12],"series_event":[484],"sermon_service_type":[473],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-18473","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-genesis","series_event-ecclesiology","sermon_service_type-sunday-school","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"Ecclesiology 014","sermon_date":"20180218","sermon_month":"2","sermon_year":"2018","sermon_notes":20018,"sermon_slides":20019,"sermon_mp3":20020,"sermon_id":"21818950307","series_or_event":484,"service_type":[473],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":12,"chapter_and_verse":"15:18-21","sermon_transcript":"Andy Woods\n\nEcclesiology 14\n\n2-18-18\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lesson 14\u00a0\u00a0 177-189\n\nFather, we\u2019re grateful for another day, another day to worship You, serve You, learn of You.\u00a0 I do pray, Father, that You\u2019ll comfort the families and loved ones of those that were killed, massacred in this latest uprising and I just pray for protection and provision for Your flock all over this country, including here.\u00a0 But I do pray that the God of all comfort would make Himself very real to those that are grieving very real losses today.\u00a0 And I just pray that Your Spirit would somehow use this to draw people to what\u2019s important, which is the cross and the resurrection of Jesus.\u00a0 I pray that\u00a0 You will be with us in Sunday School as we look at the doctrine of the church and in the main service that follows as we continue through the Book of Daniel.\u00a0 And I do pray for the illumination of the Spirit, that the Spirit would be alive and at work in our lives as we study today and fellowship together.\u00a0 And I do ask, Father, that we would leave here changed people, either folks would get saved if they\u2019re not already or they would sort of leave here with sort of a reinvigorated under\u00adstanding and energy to serve You and walk with You this week under Your resources.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be careful to give You all the praise and the glory.\u00a0 We ask these things in Jesus\u2019 name, and God\u2019s people said\u2026 Amen.\n\nLet\u2019s turn in our Bibles if we could to the Book of Genesis, chapter 15, and as you all know we\u2019ve been moving through a subject n systematic theology that\u2019s called Ecclesiology, and don\u2019t let that word scare you, it just means the doctrine of the church.\u00a0 What does the Scripture reveal about the church.\u00a0 And we\u2019ve looked at the definition of the church, the difference between the universal and the local church. We\u2019ve looked at when the church started, Acts 2.\u00a0 And the last several Sundays we\u2019ve been talking about differences between Israel and the church and we went through about twenty-four of those.\n\nWe competed Roman numeral V last time and now it\u2019s new concept time so we\u2019re here in Roman numeral VI, and I want you to introduce you to an idea that I think is a terrific description of the church.\u00a0 It\u2019s a word that most people look at, they don\u2019t recognize it because it\u2019s hardly mentioned more but it\u2019s a word that describes what I think is the uniqueness of the church in the plan and program of God.\u00a0 As I\u2019ll be showing you I didn\u2019t make this word up, I got it from one of my favorite theologians, Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer, and he describes the church as such a unique concept in the program of God that he calls it an intercalation.\u00a0 So we\u2019ll be talking about what an intercalation is and what that means.\u00a0 In other words, the church is so unique it\u2019s not just an extension of what God has done in and through Israel in Old Testament times and it\u2019s not just an extension of what God will do in and through Israel in the future.\u00a0 The unique age of time that we\u2019re in now, the only to really describe it is what he called an intercalation.\n\nSo we\u2019re going to be developing that and you guys know me well enough by now that we can\u2019t just get into that, we\u2019ve got to lay a foundation, right.\u00a0 So to appreciate the intercalation idea we\u2019re going to walk through this ten part outline.\u00a0 [Prolegomena \u2013 Introduction, Theology \u2013 Study of God, Christology \u2013 Study of Christ, Pneumatology \u2013 Study of the Holy Spirit, Anthropology \u2013 Study of Man, Hamartiology \u2013 Study of sin, Soteriology \u2013 Study of salvation, Angelology \u2013 Study of angels, Ecclesiology \u2013 Study of the Church, Eschatology \u2013 Study of the end]\n\nWe may not\u2026, in fact I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll finish it today.\u00a0 But this foundation is sort of necessary to figure out exactly what the work of God today is because people recognize God has been working in\u00a0 this age for 2,000 years, they just have a very difficult time explaining it.\u00a0 And if you can\u2019t really explain the church as a unique work of God you really don\u2019t appreciate our age, which is unique to anything that\u2019s ever happened in redemptive history.\n\nSo to get us going here, number 1 on my list is you first have to recognize God has an unconditional program with Israel.\u00a0 There isn\u2019t a more foundational part of the Bible than Genesis 15 that explains that. So what I\u2019m going to the first part of our study today I\u2019m just going to read to you Genesis 15, it\u2019s only 21 verses, and notice the commitments that God has made to Israel.\u00a0 And if you can understand Genesis 15 you can understand where history is moving.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t understand Genesis 15 then the things that God is going to do in the future are kind of\u2026 has done in the past and is going to do in the future are kind of a blur. So Genesis 15 is foundational and there\u2019s a reason why God revealed this early on; it\u2019s the foundation of what we call the Abrahamic Covenant.\n\nSo notice Genesis 15:1,\u00a0 it says: \u201cAfter these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, \u2018Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; Your reward shall be very great.\u2019\u00a0 [2] Abram said, \u2018O Lord GOD, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?\u201d [3] And Abram said, \u2018Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir.\u2019\u00a0 [4] Then behold, the word of the LORD came to him, saying, \u2018This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.\u2019\u00a0 [5] And He took him outside and said, \u2018Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.\u2019\u00a0 And He said to him, \u2018So shall your descendants be.\u2019 \u00a0[6] Then he believed in the LORD; and He\u201d that\u2019s God, \u201creckoned it to him as righteousness. [7] And He said to him, \u2018I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it.\u2019 [8] He said, \u2018O Lord GOD, how may I know that I will possess it?\u2019 \u00a0Verse 9, \u201cSo He said to him, \u201cBring Me a three year old heifer, and a three year old female goat, and a three year old ram, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.\u201d\u2019 [10] Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds. [11] The birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.\u00a0 [12] Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and<\/em> great darkness fell upon him. [13] God<\/em> said to Abram, \u2018Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. \u00a0[14] But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. [15] As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. [16] Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full.\u201d\u00a0 [17] And it came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared<\/em> a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces.\u00a0 [18] On that day the LORD made a covenant\u201d and you\u2019re an underliner or a circler in your Bible you should have that word \u201ccovenant\u2019 circled, because that\u2019s the key to the whole thing.\u00a0 Back to verse 18, \u201cOn that\u00a0 day the LORD made a covenant \u00a0with Abram, saying, \u2018To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river\u201d watch the language very carefully, not the border of Egypt, \u201cthe river\u201d of Egypt, you say well who cares?\u00a0 It\u2019ll become a big deal in just a little bit.\u00a0 \u201cTo your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates:\u00a0\u00a0 [19] the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite [20] and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim [21] and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite.\u201d\n\nSo here obviously we\u2019re not talking about the church; I\u2019m sort of laying the foundation for the fact that the church is something unique to this age and\u00a0 yet you really can\u2019t appreciate the church as something unique to this age until you understand the commitments that God has made to the nation of Israel.\u00a0 This is the beginning of God\u2019s whole work with the nation of Israel; it\u2019s what\u2019s called the Abrahamic Covenant.\n\nAnd one of the things I want to communicate to you about this covenant is that it is unconditional.\u00a0 What does unconditional mean?\u00a0 Basically it means that God is obligating Himself to act based on the promises that He has made regardless of what Abram and his descendants do.\u00a0 That\u2019s what we mean by unconditional.\u00a0 Conditional is if I do X, Y and Z then God is able to do something in return.\u00a0 So that\u2019s what we call a conditional covenant, conditional promise, it\u2019s bilateral.\u00a0 This is not conditional at all; it\u2019s unconditional, it\u2019s unilateral, it\u2019s God obligating Himself to act in history in a particular way regardless of what Abram or his descendants do.\n\nNow why would we say that this covenant is unconditional?\u00a0 I\u2019ve got five reasons here.\u00a0 The first reason is because of what is called, those words, ANE that I\u2019ve got capitalized there, don\u2019t let that frighten you, that just means Ancient Near East.\u00a0 ANE, Ancient Near East covenant ratification ceremony\u2026 when God entered into a covenant with Abram and his descendants in the time period of Abraham, which was about 2,000 B.C. and we know this from every piece of archology that we\u2019ve ever unearthed from that time period, when parties entered into a covenant they entered into a covenant in a particular way.\u00a0 And basically what happened is they took animals and they killed the animals and cut the animals in two and they put the two\u2026 they put these severed animal parts in two parallel rows and then the parties to the covenant passed through these severed animal pieces.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what you see happening here.\n\nAnd when you entered into a covenant of this nature it was very solemn; the Book of Hebrews says you were as good as dead when you entered into it because your life was no longer your own, you lived for the purpose of fulfilling what you have obligated yourself to do according to the covenant or contract terms.\u00a0 So what you see here is the covenant ratification ceremony but I hope you notice something very peculiar\u2014Abram never passed through the animal pieces.\u00a0 Did you notice that?\u00a0 He was put to sleep, just like God put Adam to sleep in Genesis 2 and brought forth from his side woman, so in the same way God put Abram to sleep.\u00a0 Abram never passed through the animal pieces, God alone as represented by the oven and the torch (which are common metaphors to describe God in the Scripture), God alone is represented by the oven and the torch passing through the animal pieces.\n\nNow if the covenant was not unconditional but conditional Abram would have passed through along with God.\u00a0 God would be saying to Abraham you do your part and I\u2019ll do My part. \u00a0And that is NOT what\u2019s happening here at all.\u00a0 God is saying I\u2019m going to do My part, period, regardless of what you do!\u00a0 And that\u2019s what\u2019s represented by Abram being asleep and God alone passing through these animal pieces.\u00a0 So that\u2019s the first reason why we believe that this covenant is unilateral or unconditional.\n\nNumber two, there are no stated conditions anywhere for Abram to perform.\u00a0 God doesn\u2019t say hey Abram, if you and your lineage do this and this and this then I\u2019ll do that.\u00a0 That would be a condition but there is no condition here. If it was a conditional covenant, and there are conditional covenants elsewhere in the Bible, there would be some kind of testimony or resemblance of what one of the contracting parties has to do.\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t appear here in Genesis 15.\n\nThe third reason why this covenant is unconditional is because it is called an eternal covenant.\u00a0 And if you just flip two chapters to the right and look at Genesis 17, which is also referring back to the Abrahamic Covenant of Genesis 15, you\u2019ll see the word \u201ceternal\u201d or \u201ceverlasting\u201d used over and over again.\u00a0 For example, in Genesis 17:7 it says, \u201cI will establish\u00a0 My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, [to be God to you and to your descendants after you.]\u201d\u00a0 You\u2019ll find, we won\u2019t read all these but you can read these on your own, verse 13 you\u2019ll see the same thing, and verse 19.\n\n[Genesis 17:13, \u201cA servant who is born in your house or who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised; thus shall My covenant be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.\u201d\u00a0 Genesis 17:19, \u201cBut God said, \"No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.\u201d]\n\nNow the Hebrew word for everlasting is olam<\/em>, and that is a word used to describe God Himself in many places.\u00a0 Psalm 90:2 would be an example.\u00a0 [Psalm 90:2, \u201cBefore the mountains were born Or You gave birth to the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.\u201d]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So in order for this covenant to be eternal it has to rest completely on the performance of an eternal God.\u00a0 Do you see that?\u00a0 It cannot rest in any sense on a human instrument because as human instruments tainted by original sin we can all be, to put it in modern vernacular, very flaky can\u2019t we?\u00a0 And as you look at Abram\u2019s performance throughout his life the guy is sort of up and down a lot, kind of like us when you think about it.\u00a0 I mean, he on one of the stick has this great moment of faith, Genesis 22 where God says sacrifice Isaac and he\u2019s willing to do that.\u00a0 But in the very next chapter he kind of falls into fear and he says Sarah is his what?\u00a0 His sister, and he\u2019s already done that prior times because he\u2019s kind of trying to get himself out of hot water.\u00a0 So Abram is up and down, up and down.\u00a0 There is no way a covenant like this can rest on Abram, but if it\u2019s eternal it makes sense if it rests on God.\n\nAnd number four this covenant over in Hebrews 6, you might want to jot that down, verses 13-18, it\u2019s called immutable.\u00a0 [Hebrews 6:13-18, \u201cFor when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, [14] saying, \u201cI WILL SURELY BLESS YOU AND I WILL SURELY MULTIPLY YOU.\u201d [15] And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise. [16] For men swear by one greater than themselves,<\/em> and with them an oath given<\/em> as confirmation is an end of every dispute. [17] In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, [18] so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.\u201d]\n\nWhat does immutable mean?\u00a0 It means changeless, and if it\u2019s changeless the only thing it could rest upon for its fulfillment is a changeless God.\u00a0 Only God is changeless, right?\u00a0 Malachi 3:6 God says I change not.\u00a0 [Malachi 3:6, \u201cFor I, the LORD, do not change\u2026\u201d]\u00a0 And thank God for that, right?\u00a0 God said I change not; if God changed He could say well, yesterday you had salvation but today I\u2019m taking it back.\u00a0 Kind of like how we treat each other, today I like you, today I don\u2019t like you kind of thing.\u00a0 Fortunately God is not like us, He is immutable and there\u2019s only one way this covenant could be immutable is to rest for its fulfillment completely on the shoulders of God.\n\nAnd then finally my fifth reason why I think this covenant is immutable is no matter how wicked Abram\u2019s, whose name would be changed to Abraham, no matter how wicked his descendants became, and they were doing some pretty bad stuff, God keeps reaffirming the covenant to them.\u00a0 And you\u2019ll notice that when Abram says well, Sarah is my sister, and lies about it to the Egyptian king, God right in that context reaffirms the covenant.\u00a0 And when Jacob, whose name means deceiver, cheats his brother out of the birthright, later on in Genesis, God comes\u2026\u00a0 you see this interesting, no matter what they do God right in that same context will reaffirm the covenant.\u00a0 And in fact, the nation of Israel got so bad, if you can believe this, that just before the Babylonian deportation they were taking their own children and putting them into a fire to satisfy a god named Molech. Now you can\u2019t get lower than that can you!\u00a0 The God of prosperity, I don\u2019t mean to get too far off on these social type issues but that basically is modern day abortion.\u00a0 It\u2019s where, you know, I can\u2019t afford this kid so I\u2019m going to have this kid killed in my womb because, you know, I don\u2019t want the financial drain.\n\nThe spirit of Molech, we see it today in Roe vs. Wade, abortion, and all these kinds of things.\u00a0 The spirit of Molech is as old as the Scripture; it\u2019s basically what the children of Israel were doing.\u00a0 And that\u2019s why God sent them into the deportation for seventy years, to get this purged from their land.\u00a0 And you\u2019ll notice that right as the children of Israel are doing this, an unspeakable sin, the prophet Jeremiah comes along in chapter 31, verses 35-37 and says, \u201cThus says the LORD who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; The LORD of hosts is His name:\u00a0 [36] \u2018If this fixed order departs from before Me,\u2019 declares the LORD, \u2018Then the offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before Me forever.\u2019\u00a0 [37] Thus says the LORD, \u2018If the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out below, then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done,\u2019 declares the LORD.\u201d\n\nWhat have they done?\u00a0 They\u2019re sacrificing their children to Molech just prior to the discipline of the Babylonian deportation.\u00a0 And in the midst of that horrific, horrendous sin God comes along and says as long as there\u2019s the fixed order, sun, moon and stars, Israel will always be a nation before Me.\u00a0 And if the Abrahamic Covenant was conditional, believe me, it would have been cancelled at that point, it would have been cancelled at a lot of points in Israel\u2019s history.\n\nAnd this is why no matter how hard people try you can\u2019t get rid of Israel from your theology.\u00a0 Now listen to me very carefully, even the Jewish rejection of Jesus, can you get much worse than that?\u00a0 Even that in and of itself does not cancel the Abrahamic Covenant.\u00a0 I\u2019m not arguing that people can get to heaven without Christ, that\u2019s not what I\u2019m saying.\u00a0 What I\u2019m saying is God is going to work in history to fulfill this covenant despite what the nation of Israel did to Jesus Christ back in the first century.\u00a0 That\u2019s what I\u2019m saying.\u00a0 And the reason that is so is because of the Abrahamic Covenant and it\u2019s unconditional nature.\u00a0 If you\u00a0 miss the unconditional nature of the Abrahamic Covenant you will be confused as to what the rest of the Bible in essence is saying.\n\nSo the first thing to understand about this Abrahamic Covenant is that it is Unconditional, with a capital U.\u00a0 Let me give you another word that begins with the letter U; the second thing to understand about the Abrahamic Covenant is that it is unfulfilled.\u00a0\u00a0 As we speak, in the\u00a0 year 2018, everything that God said He would do in and through the Jewish people has not been accomplished yet.\u00a0 He\u2019s done a few things but there are greater things to come if you take the text literally and at face value.\n\nNow let me take you to some Scriptures; you can jot down Joshua 11:23 \u00a0because it says the same thing as Joshua 21, but let\u2019s go for a minute to Joshua 21:43-45, because there are a plethora\u00a0 of theological voices on the horizon saying God already did what He said He would do in the Abrahamic Covenant.\u00a0 The Abrahamic Covenant has been fulfilled. In fact, just to show you how this is ingrained in the way we think, when Donald Trump moved recently our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem a lot of evangelicals, myself included, were very happy with that and as you look on social media I started seeing comments like what are these, by fellow Christians, what are these evangelicals happy about that for, don\u2019t they know that God has fulfilled His promises in the Abrahamic Covenant.\u00a0 And what do they all start quoting?\u00a0 They all start quoting Joshua 21:43-45.\n\nSo what do those verses say?\u00a0 Joshua 21:43-45, \u201cSo the LORD gave Israel all the land which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they possessed it and lived in it. [44] And the LORD gave them rest on every side, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers, and none of all their enemies stood before them; the LORD gave all their enemies into their hand. [45] Not one of the good promises which the LORD had made to the house of Israel failed; all came to pass.\u201d\n\nSo people look at a verse like that and they say there it is right there in your Bible, the Abrahamic Covenant has been completely and totally fulfilled; it was fulfilled in the days of Joshua.\u00a0 And they use a similar sounding verse, Joshua 11:23 to teach the exact same doctrine.\u00a0 [Joshua 11:23, \u201cSo Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the LORD had spoken to Moses, and Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. Thus the land had rest from war.\u201d]\n\nAnd just to get the point across they don\u2019t stop there because they think if you don\u2019t buy that argument here\u2019s my secondary argument.\u00a0 They go over to 1 Kings 4:21, which is the days of Solomon, about four centuries later, and they quote this one, it says, \u201cNow Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt; they brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.\u201d\u00a0 So they say if you don\u2019t believe the Joshua passage then there\u2019s the Solomonic passage; the Abrahamic Covenant and all of its land dimensions has already been fulfilled so you Christians, you don\u2019t have to worry about a future land for Israel, a future millennial kingdom and so forth.\n\nNow what I want to show you is that context is king, right?\u00a0 The three rules of real estate are location, location, location.\u00a0\u00a0 The three rules of Bible study are context, context, context because Joshua 11, which I didn\u2019t read, says the same thing as Joshua 21.\u00a0 Joshua 11 is followed by Joshua 13; you guys agree with me on that?\u00a0 Chapter 13 comes after chapter 11.\u00a0 And this is the age of time we live in where people cherry pick a verse or two out of the Bible to support some preexisting belief and they don\u2019t tell you what the whole context is.\u00a0 So if you just travel from Joshua 11 to Joshua 13 it says, during the days of the conquest, [Joshua 13:1] \u201cNow Joshua was old and advanced in years, Now Joshua was old and advanced in years when the LORD said to him, \u2018You are old and advanced in years,\u201d I hope when I get old and advanced in\u00a0 years the Lord Jesus Christ doesn\u2019t remind me that I\u2019m old and advanced in years.\u00a0 And look at this, \u201c and very much of the land remains to be possessed.\u201d\u00a0 So obviously Joshua 11 is not talking about a total conquest of everything that God promised in the Abrahamic Covenant.\u00a0\u00a0 It says it right there, they went into the land, as I\u2019ll be showing you in a second, they got a sliver of it, but they never got the whole enchilada, they never got everything from the Nile to the Euphrates, which is what God promised to Abraham\u2019s descendants.\n\nNow Joshua 21, the verse we did read, what book follows the Book of Joshua?\u00a0 The Book of Judges.\u00a0 So take a look at Judges 1:19.\u00a0 See on all these social media wars that I monitor I\u2019ve never seen anybody quoting any of these verses that I\u2019m sharing with you.\u00a0 They just cherry pick their favorite verses.\u00a0 Joshua 1:19, \u201cNow the LORD was with Judah, and they took possession of the hill country; but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had iron chariots.\u201d\n\nIf you go down to verse 21, \u201cBut the sons of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem; so the Jebusites have lived with the sons of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.\u201d\u00a0 [Judges 1:27]\u00a0 Verse 27, \u201cBut Manasseh did not take possession of Beth-shean and its villages, or Taanach and its villages, or the inhabitants of Dor and its villages, or the inhabitants of [Ibleam and its villages, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and its villages; so the Canaanites persisted in living in that land.\u201d] And then there are these names to pronounce which I\u2019m not going to mangle in the process.\u00a0 So the Canaanites persisted living in the land.\u00a0 Does this sound like a complete conquest at all?\n\nIf you drop down to verses 29-36 it says this over and over again. [Judges 1:29]\u00a0 \u201cEphraim did not drive out the Canaanites so the Canaanites lived in Gezer among them.\u201d [Judges 1:30], \u201cZebulon did not drive out the inhabitants of Kidron.\u201d\u00a0 Verse 32, \u201cSo the Asherites lived among the Canaanites.\u201d\u00a0 Verse 33, \u201cNaphtali\u201d a Jewish tribe, \u201cdid not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh,.\u201d\n\nSo what am I trying to say?\u00a0 I\u2019m trying to say that when\u00a0 you put the Joshua verses back into their context it\u2019s very clear that the Joshua verses do not\u2026 they read like they communicate a total conquest but contextually that\u2019s not possible.\u00a0 So when God said He did everything He had promised to do for Israel, in Joshua 21, God is not saying I just fulfilled the Abrahamic Covenant.\u00a0 What He is saying is I\u2019ve done everything I promised to do for your generation Joshua.\n\nBeyond that, see that blue area there that\u2019s dark?\u00a0 That\u2019s what the Joshua generation got.\u00a0 You see that lighter blue area there?\u00a0 That\u2019s what God promised to Abraham.\u00a0 And even this map, I wish I were more of an artist, I would adjust it because it starts the dimensions of the land given to Abraham from a little river called the Wadi-El-Arish, and a lot of people have tried to convince me that\u2019s what it\u2019s talking about but I just don\u2019t believe, like I used to, that that\u2019s the great river of Egypt.\u00a0 I think the great river of Egypt is the Nile so this should extend, looking at this map it should actually extend further east.\u00a0 What God promised to Abram is a chunk of real estate that the nation of Israel has never acquired in totality.\u00a0 Even today as I speak the nation of Israel has but a small sliver of everything God promised to Abraham, because what\u2019s everybody fighting about today?\u00a0 The West Bank, when are the Jews going to give back the West Bank and if I\u2019m under\u00adstanding my Bible correctly I want to know when the Muslims are going to give back to the Jews the East Bank because that\u2019s what God promised.\u00a0 Now say that on social media today and see what kind of reaction\u00a0 you get from people.\n\nBut the reality of the situation is the real estate that God promised to Abraham starts all the way from modern day Egypt and it goes all the way up to modern day Iraq and it\u2019s a chunk of real estate from the Nile to the Euphrates.\u00a0 And as much as people try to make it sound like this has already been fulfilled you just look at a map and take a basic geography lesson and there\u2019s no way this has ever been fulfilled.\n\nBeyond that did\u00a0 you know that the nation of Israel didn\u2019t even get Jerusalem in the days of Joshua.\u00a0 We saw a reference to that, did we not, in Judges 1.\u00a0 But look for a second at Joshua 15 and take a look at verse 63.\u00a0 It says, \u201cNow as for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of\u201d what? \u201cJerusalem, the sons of Judah could not drive them out; so the Jebusites live with the sons of Judah at Jerusalem until this day.\u201d\u00a0 So all the way back in 1400 B.C. when the conquest under Joshua took place they didn\u2019t even have control of Jerusalem yet.\u00a0 Jerusalem was a Jebusite city and it would not fall into Jewish hands until which king?\u00a0 Anybody know off the top of their head?\u00a0 King David, which would be about four centuries later.\u00a0 In 2 Samuel 5, 4th<\/sup> century, that\u2019s a long time, that\u2019s almost the length of the duration of the United States of America times two, roughly.\u00a0 Two United States of America\u2019s later, 400 years later, four centuries later, finally the nation of Israel gets control of the city of Jerusalem.\n\nSo how can anybody with a straight face say that the land promises were fulfilled in the days of Joshua.\u00a0 It\u2019s impossible if you care about context.\u00a0 If you want to cherry pick the Bible and pick a few things here and there out of context, yeah, you can weave the case together, but if context is king it\u2019s an impossible case to make.\n\nWell, if they didn\u2019t get the territory in the days of Joshua surely they got it in the days of Solomon.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 Solomon was the last king of the united kingdom so the first king of the united kingdom was Saul, and he wasn\u2019t a very good choice, was he, by the Jews.\u00a0 He was coming from the wrong tribe, first of all. The kings are supposed to come from which tribe?\u00a0 Judah.\u00a0\u00a0 Saul came from which tribe?\u00a0 Benjamin, so they weren\u2019t really paying close attention to what God said.\u00a0 But Saul was followed by David; Saul reigned forty years, David reigned forty years, and then David was followed by Solomon who reigned about forty years and if you write down 971-931 B.C. that\u2019s the generally accepted time period of Solomon\u2019s reign.\n\nSolomon was the last king of the united kingdom because once he left the throne the kingdom was divided between north and south; ten tribes in the north, two tribes in the south, Benjamin and Judah.\u00a0 The northern tribes were headquartered in Samaria and they took on the name Israel.\u00a0 The two southern tribes were headquartered in Jerusalem, taking on the name Judah.\u00a0 So what you have to understand is the empire of Israel grew to its greatest degree geographically in the reign of Solomon, the last king of the United Kingdom.\u00a0 And the nations of Israel enjoyed probably more prosperity than it\u2019s ever enjoyed under the reign of Solomon, the last king of the united kingdom.\u00a0 Once Solomon leaves the throne everything begins to disintegrate pretty quickly.\n\nSo what people do is they\u2019re always running off to the Solomonic era to find a fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant so we would become convinced that the Abrahamic Covenant has been fulfilled and we really wouldn\u2019t care any more about Israel\u2019s future.\u00a0 And so their favorite verse is\u00a0 1 Kings 4:21, which you read it at first glance it looks like the dimensions were fulfilled in the Solomonic reign but the devil\u2019s in the what?\u00a0 The details.\u00a0 \u201cNow Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines,\u201d now I think the river there is probably the Euphrates, \u201cfrom the river to the land of the Philistines, to the,\u201d what\u2019s the key word, \u201cborder of Egypt.\u201d\u00a0 Whoops, \u201cthey brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Well, God\u00a0 didn\u2019t promise the nation of Israel territory to the border of Egypt; He promised the nation of Israel territory to the what?\u00a0\u00a0 The river of Egypt.\u00a0 So with the Solomonic reign I would \u201cclose but no cigar.\u201d\u00a0 I mean close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, right. It doesn\u2019t count with the fulfillment or prophecy.\u00a0 When God fulfills His Word He fulfills it very literally as we\u2019ve been studying.\n\nAnd beyond that, look at that last clause there, \u201cthey brought\u201d what? \u201ctribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.\u201d\u00a0 What was happening in the Solomonic empire is these surrounding nations were under his authority in a tributary sense, meaning he taxed them and they submitted to his taxes but, and study the Old Testament very carefully, these surrounding nations were never annexed, if you will, into the borders of Israel.\u00a0 When Solomon left the throne what happened to all those tributary nations?\u00a0 They quickly left.\u00a0 So as much as people try to make this work I don\u2019t think the Abrahamic Covenant was ever fulfilled in the days of Joshua nor the days of Solomon.\n\nAnd there\u2019s another problem with all of that.\u00a0 How long would the nation possess the land?\u00a0\u00a0 In the Abrahamic Covenant it\u2019s very clear that they would possess it forever, when God was sort of priming Abraham for this covenant that he was about to receive, He said, all the way back in Genesis 13:15, actually let\u2019s back up and read verse 14, \u201cThe LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, \u2018Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; [15] \u201cfor all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants\u201d what\u2019s the next word\u2026for a few centuries?\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t say that does it, it says \u201cforever.\u201d\u00a0 They would eternally possess this is what it\u2019s saying.\u00a0 And when you understand what is promised compared to what was gained under Joshua and Solomon you very quickly see that Israel has never possessed that land forever.\n\nIn fact, as I mentioned before, when Solomon left the throne the kingdom was divided between the north and the south; the ten northern tribes were swept away and pushed out of their land by the Assyrians in 722 B.C.\u00a0 You can read about that in 2 Kings 17, leaving how many tribes?\u00a0 Just two, and they were removed from their land by the Babylonians for at least seventy years in 586 B.C.\u00a0 You can read about that in 2 Kings 25.\u00a0 And as you know from postexilic history the nation of Israel migrated back into their land after the captivity and rebuilt their temple.\n\nThe Books of Ezra and Nehemiah talk about that, about four centuries pass and Jesus Christ shows up and He offers them the kingdom on a silver platter, which they turned down.\u00a0 And Jesus told them because you\u2019ve done this the cycle of discipline in the Mosaic Covenant, not the Abrahamic but the Mosaic is about to start up again and you\u2019re going to be kicked out of your land again.\u00a0 And that happened when? A.D. 70 under the Romans.\u00a0 And at that point the nation of Israel is pushed into what\u2019s called the diaspora, which is just a fancy word that means the dispersion, the global dispersion, something Moses predicted would happen when God gave him the covenant at Sinai, which I haven\u2019t spent any time really talking about; I\u2019ve been focusing on the Abrahamic Covenant.\u00a0 But it\u2019s obvious that Israel has possessed parts of the land at different junctures but she has never possessed the land forever.\n\nSo Andy, what are you trying to get at? I\u2019m trying to communicate two words relative to God\u2019s program for Israel.\u00a0 Number 1, unconditional; number 2, unfulfilled. \u00a0Here we are in 2018 and I can boldly use those two words\u2014unconditional, no strings attached, and number 2, everything God said He would do has never been completely and totally fulfilled.\n\nNow you say well, Andy, I think you\u2019re taking these too literally.\u00a0 Well let me just sort of explain something; let me explain why I take it literally.\u00a0 My background is a legal background and I spent some time in private practice in California, practicing contract law.\u00a0 A covenant from God, the Hebrew word berith<\/em>, Genesis 15, is the equivalent of a contract in\u00a0 modern day business.\u00a0 A contract by definition has to be construed according to ordinary usage of terms.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 Because how in the world could you tell if one party is in breach of the contract or not.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t have literal terms in a contract there\u2019s absolutely no way to ascertain compliance with the contract.\u00a0 Right? That is the basic definition of the contract.\u00a0 That\u2019s the basic nature of a contract.\u00a0\u00a0 And so what God is doing in the rest of the Old Testament is He\u2019s determining compliance and that\u2019s why this language from the River of Egypt to the Euphrates, that\u2019s why you have to take those in a literal sense, because God has revealed Himself to Israel and bound Himself to Israel in contractual form.\n\nAnd so if it\u2019s a contract that, by definition makes it having to be construed according to its normal or literal terms.\u00a0 That\u2019s why the system of theology that we promote here, dispensationalism, is an easy system to understand for people with a legal background.\u00a0 That\u2019s why when you get into the past and you look at people like C. I. Scofield, legal background!\u00a0 John Nelson Darby, who retrieved pretribulationalism from the pages of Scripture, legal background, because a lawyer is trained basically in the art of contract law and God, you start to see very quickly, made a contract, unconditional, with the nation of Israel.\u00a0 So it has to be literal.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 So that\u2019s why I\u2019m saying what I\u2019m saying in terms of close but no cigar. \u00a0God has done things in Israel\u2019s past but they\u2019ve never measured up to what He\u2019s promised.\n\nSo because Israel\u2019s program is unconditional and unfulfilled Israel has a future because we\u2019re taking the contract literally.\u00a0 What God said regarding the land promises have to be literal.\u00a0 As you look at this it says\u2026 we read this earlier, Genesis 13:14, \u201cThe LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, \u2018Now lift up your eyes\u201d doesn\u2019t\u2019 that kind of look literal, he\u2019s looking at something, look at what, the angels strumming harps in the clouds?\u00a0 No, \u201clook\u201d see how earthly this is, look to the north, look to the south, look to the east, look to the west,\u00a0 [15] \u201cfor all the land\u201d what land?\u00a0 The land he\u2019s looking at as he\u2019s standing there in the land of Canaan, \u201cfor all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever.\u201d\u00a0 And if that weren\u2019t enough he says walk around it.\u00a0 Verse 17, \u201cArise, walk about the land,\u201d see how literal this is through its length, and it\u2019s breadth, \u201cfor I will give it to you.\u201d\n\nLook at this, [18] \u201cThen Abram moved his tent\u201d doesn\u2019t that sound like geographical movement there, \u201cand came and dwelt\u201d see these geographical places, \u201cby the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron, [and there he built an altar to the LORD.]\u00a0 So because Abram was told to actually walk around the land that he and his descendants would one day possess, the language of the text makes this very literal.\u00a0 And you wouldn\u2019t believe what theologians do with this; they wave a wand and they try to make this heaven or the afterlife, or something like that.\u00a0 And you can\u2019t do that, well you can do it I guess, if you don\u2019t care what the passage says.\u00a0 The passage is very, very literal.\n\nSo how do we understand Israel\u2019s program?\u00a0 The first letter beginning with you, unconditional.\u00a0 The second letter beginning with you, which is what? Unfulfilled.\u00a0 The third letter, I couldn\u2019t make \u201cyou\u201d out of some of these, I don\u2019t have the creativity,\u00a0 maybe some of you guys can put these all into you, I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 Now when I say that people will be working on it all sermon, so don\u2019t put too much sweat\u00a0 into that.\n\nThe third letter is literal, the program for the nation of Israel is literal.\u00a0 The fourth concept related to Israel is the program is truthful.\u00a0 God\u2019s veracity and God\u2019s character is on the line.\u00a0 Why do I say that?\u00a0 Because,\u00a0 you know, philosophers ask this question: can God make a rock so big that He can\u2019t lift it, and I would say the answer is no, God is always sovereign over His creation.\u00a0 There are certain things God cannot do; He cannot make a rock so big that He can\u2019t lift it.\u00a0 One of the other things that God cannot do is to what?\u00a0 To lie, it\u2019s impossible for Him to lie.\u00a0 In fact, jot these verses down; Numbers 23:19, \u201cGod is not a man, that He should lie, [Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?\u201d]\u00a0 Titus 1:2, it\u2019s impossible for God to lie. [Titus 1:2, \u201cin the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago.\u201d]\u00a0 And I think Hebrews 6:18 says the same thing, it is impossible for God to lie.\u00a0 [Hebrews 6:18, \u201cso that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.\u201d]\n\nSo when God speaks\u2026 and thank God that\u2019s true, right?\u00a0 Or else He could say well, that salvation that you have and that eternal life that I promised you, I really didn\u2019t mean what I said.\u00a0 I mean, we ought to rejoice, as fallen human beings saved by the grace of God, that God doesn\u2019t lie.\u00a0 In fact, that\u2019s the only thing I really have going for me at the end of the day.\u00a0 I have the promise of God and because they come from God\u2019s mouth they have to be true.\u00a0 If the promises weren\u2019t true it would be a denial of who God\u2019s character is.\u00a0 Amen.\n\nSo Israel\u2019s program is truthful; once God obligates Himself to certain things He will move heaven and earth to make sure that everything He said will be fulfilled.\u00a0 You can just take it right to the bank, that\u2019s how God is.\u00a0 In fact, that is how we should understand the Book of Exodus, where the nation of Israel was liberated from Egyptian bondage after 400 years.\u00a0 Why did God liberate Israel through the Exodus and the ten plagues and the parting of the Red Sea, arguably other than Jesus\u2019 death on the cross and resurrection from the dead, probably the greatest redemptive event in the history of mankind was the Exodus.\n\nSo why did God do that?\u00a0 Did God feel sorry for His people because they were in Egyptian bondage?\u00a0 I\u2019m sure He did, but when you look at Exodus 2:24 you see why God did what He did.\u00a0 [Exodus 2:24] \u201cSo God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with\u201d who? \u201cwith Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,\u201d because one of the provisos of the Abrahamic Covenant\u2026 and you probably picked up on this as I read the chapter earlier, you\u2019re going to go into a foreign land and you\u2019re going to come back into this land with great possessions, speaking of the sojourn into Egypt and their return back from Egypt, ultimately into the Promised Land, it took a couple generations once they came out of Egypt to execute that but it finally got executed.\u00a0 Why did God set the whole chain in motion?\u00a0 Because God remembered His covenant.\n\nProbably one of the greatest things, a lot of wonderful things have happened in my life, but one of the greatest is studying under J. Dwight Pentecost (who\u2019s now with the Lord) at Dallas Seminary because he just jammed this principle into our heads, mine in particular, that the covenant is everything.\u00a0 And he taught a whole class called Kingdom and Covenants, and it was just unbelievable the way he taught it and explained it.\u00a0 God moves His hand in history based on His prior covenantal\u00a0 obligations.\u00a0 And that\u2019s why J. Dwight Pentecost called Genesis 15 the most important chapter in the whole Bible.\n\nAsk your average Christian what is the most important chapter in the whole Bible; think of the answers we would come up with.\u00a0 John 3:16, maybe we would come up with that.\u00a0 We would think about Jesus\u2019 death on the cross, \u201cIt is finished!\u201d\u00a0 But no, the most important chapter in the whole Bible is Genesis 15 because that\u2019s where God lays out the conditions of the unilateral covenant.\u00a0 And if you can understand Genesis 15 then you start understanding why God is moving His hand in history, at certain junctures, to fulfill what He has promised in Genesis 15, including the Exodus.\n\nMost Christians understand the greatness of the Exodus, we learned about it in Sunday School; what we don\u2019t understand is why the Exodus happened.\u00a0 It\u2019s all connected to the Abrahamic Covenant.\u00a0 And you can do this, I think, with every major thing in the Bible that ever happens; God is moving His hand in history to fulfill His covenantal obligations which are unconditional, unfulfilled, literal, and truthful.\n\nNow what about Ezekiel 36:22.\u00a0 Now we studied this passage all the time, it\u2019s the great regathering of the nation of Israel, from the four corners of the earth in the end times.\u00a0 And most people skip right over Ezekiel 36:22 which is answering, not the what question but the why question.\u00a0 Just like Exodus 2:24 answers not the what question but the why question.\u00a0 What does Ezekiel 36:22 do?\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t answer the what question but the why question.\u00a0 Why is this end time gathering going to occur?\u00a0 It says this: Ezekiel 36:22, \u201cTherefore say to the house of Israel, \u2018Thus says the Lord GOD,\u201d look at this, \u201cIt is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My holy names sake, which you\u201d Israel, \u201chave profaned among the nations where you went.\u201d\n\nI\u2019m not doing this for you, you guys are complete foul-ups; I\u2019m doing this because of me, because if I don\u2019t do what I said I would do then I\u2019ve violated My nature.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 And that\u2019s really how to understand your salvation; every phase of your salvation has to be executed, not because of what you do or what you don\u2019t do.\u00a0 Now we should serve the Lord out of gratitude but my performance doesn\u2019t keep me saved.\u00a0 Do we\u00a0 understand that?\u00a0 My performance didn\u2019t get me saved.\u00a0 I know that much.\u00a0 And based on some of the ways we can act in our fallenness my salvation sure doesn\u2019t keep me saved.\u00a0 Well what keeps me saved?\u00a0 The promises of God.\n\nSo by way of analogy why is God going to do what He\u2019s going to do for Israel?\u00a0 Because of a covenantal obligation He made all the way back in the Abrahamic Covenant, which has never been fulfilled.\u00a0 So this means that Israel has a future that cannot be cancelled.\u00a0 You read Ezekiel 36:24-28 it\u2019s obvious that has never happened in totality.\u00a0 God said He\u2019s going to regather them from the lands and bring them back into their own land and then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean and I will put a new spirit within you.\n\n[Ezekiel 36:24-28, \u201cFor I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land. [25] Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. [26] Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. [27] I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. [28] You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God.\u201d]\n\nNow has that ever happened to the Jewish people?\u00a0 Three\u2019s rumblings of it now as they\u2019ve been regathered in unbelief to part of their land but it\u2019s quite obvious that they\u2019re not in faith right now.\u00a0 Remember the valley of the dry bones?\u00a0 Ezekiel saw that skeleton coming together and he saw skin, first muscles and skin forming over the body, and what does it say there?\u00a0 \u201cbut there was no breath in them,\u201d the body.\u00a0 [Ezekiel 37:8, \u201cAnd I looked, and behold, sinews were on them, and flesh grew and skin covered them; but there was no breath in them.\u201d]\n\nWhat\u2019s the breathe?\u00a0 In Hebrew it\u2019s the ruah<\/em>, which means spirit.\u00a0 Oh, they might make a nice country but they don\u2019t have the ruah<\/em>, the Holy Spirit inside of them.\u00a0 So \u201cI prophesied as He commanded me,\u201d now I like how this chapter starts, God asks Ezekiel can these bones live?\u00a0 I love Ezekiel\u2019s answer, \u201cLord,\u00a0 You know.\u00a0 I have no idea but You know.\u201d\u00a0 Verse 10,\u00a0 \u201cSo I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath\u201d the ruah<\/em>, the Holy Spirit, \u201ccame into them, and they came to life [and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army].\u201d\n\nAnd I heard one preacher, when I was coming of age as a Christian, preach through this passage and he said these bones are the church on the day of Pentecost.\u00a0 \u00a0And I thought\u2026 I didn\u2019t say anything, I wanted to, I thought I wish he would read verse 11, because verse 11 says these bones are First Baptist Church of Houston\u2026.Or Sugar Land Bible Church, or whatever.\u00a0 It\u2019s very clear, I mean, how do we miss this, these bones are the whole house of Israel.\u00a0 [Ezekiel 37:11, \u201cThen He said to me, \u2018Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, \u2018Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off.\u2019\u201d]\n\nNow has that ever happened?\u00a0 Has anything like this ever happened?\u00a0 Obviously Israel has a future.\u00a0 So we\u2019re going to stop here and just by way of review Israel\u2019s program is unconditional, unfulfilled, literal, truthful and it\u2019s a future reality.\u00a0 And all of this is groundwork for understanding the insertion of the church, which is us, an intercalation into the plan and program of God.\u00a0 So why don\u2019t we stop talking now and I talked too long, what else is new, so I\u2019ll try to save some time for Q & A next week.\u00a0 So happy intermission.","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t