{"id":19205,"date":"2017-11-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/the-coming-kingdom-025\/"},"modified":"2017-11-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-11-01T05:00:00","slug":"the-coming-kingdom-025","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/the-coming-kingdom-025\/","title":{"rendered":"The Coming Kingdom 025"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[85],"series_event":[470],"sermon_service_type":[474],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-19205","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-matthew","series_event-the-coming-kingdom","sermon_service_type-wednesday-evenings","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"The Coming Kingdom 025","sermon_date":"20171101","sermon_month":"11","sermon_year":"2017","sermon_notes":5103,"sermon_slides":5105,"sermon_mp3":5106,"sermon_id":"111171848395","series_or_event":470,"service_type":[474],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":85,"chapter_and_verse":"16:18","sermon_transcript":"Andy Woods\n\nThe Coming Kingdom\n\n11-1-17\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Matthew 16:18\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lesson 25\n\nGood to see everybody tonight.\u00a0 Let\u2019s open our Bibles to the Book of Exodus, chapter 19 and verse 5.\u00a0 As you know we\u00a0 are continuing on, talking about what does the Bible say about the kingdom, which is really a sneaky trick on my part because if you have to study the kingdom in the Bible you\u2019ve got to study the whole Bible.\u00a0 What a dirty trick that is.\u00a0 So we\u2019re kind of learning how to put the whole Bible together since the kingdom is really the dominant theme of the Bible.\n\nWe\u2019ve traced the kingdom all the way through the Old Testament.\u00a0 We saw in the New Testament, in the Gospels, it was offered to Israel and rejected.\u00a0 And consequently at that point the kingdom was postponed.\u00a0 So we\u2019re sort of in that section where we\u2019re trying to figure out what does the Bible teach about the present program of God while the kingdom is in a state of postponement?\u00a0 And that\u2019s an age of time we call the interim age, the intervening age and it\u2019s revealed in two places in the Scripture.\u00a0 The first are the Matthew 13 parables, 8 of them together collectively tell you exactly what\u2019s happening today while the kingdom is not here.\u00a0 And we\u2019ve completed the Matthew 13 parables a few weeks ago.\n\nThe second area is the age of the church; the church began in Acts 2 and ends with the rapture.\u00a0 So it\u2019s a period of time that\u2019s a little tighter fit, it\u2019s included in the interadvent age but it\u2019s more specific.\u00a0 So to help us understand the church and what God is doing today even though it\u2019s not the kingdom but He\u2019s at work through the church, we\u2019ve looked at number 1, the definition of the church.\u00a0 What is the church?\u00a0 It consists of all people, Jew or Gentile, who have trusted in the Messiah that national Israel rejected.\u00a0 So God used national Israel in the first century, her rejection of her own Messiah, turning her over to the Romans for crucifixion to pay the sin debt for the world.\u00a0 So God took lemons and turned them into what?\u00a0 Lemonade.\u00a0 And beginning in Acts 2 He created a new spiritual man called the church and anyone that\u2019s trusted in that Messiah, rejected by national Israel in the first century, is part of this new man, this body of Christ, the church, which has been going on for about 2,000 years.\n\nNumber 2, we saw the beginning of the church, which is Acts 2, and I gave you six reasons why that was so.\u00a0 And then we looked at number 3, the purposes of the church.\u00a0 The church has three basic purposes: to glorify God, to edify the saints and to fulfill the great commission.\u00a0 We talked about those.\n\nLast time we were together we talked about why the church is not the kingdom.\u00a0\u00a0 And there are 13 reasons we gave why the church is not the kingdom.\u00a0 If you\u2019re into geometry there\u2019s really not enough points of correspondence between what the Scripture reveals about the kingdom and what God is doing currently in the church.\u00a0 The differences are insurmountable. So it\u2019s hard to argue that the church is the kingdom, as many people are doing today.\n\nAnd what I want to start talking about tonight is number 5, that the church is not Israel.\u00a0 One of the most important things you could ever learn in Bible study interpretation is the Israel\/church distinction.\u00a0 Israel is Israel and the church is the church and never shall the two trains meet.\u00a0 They are two programs of God that are completely separate.\u00a0 And understanding that saves you from so much confusion and theological error that\u2019s happening today.\u00a0 But how does this Israel\/church distinction relate to the subject of the kingdom.\u00a0 In the passages that we\u2019ve looked at in the Old Testament the kingdom cannot come until who repents first?\u00a0 Israel.\u00a0 So this goes right back to Sinai with the Mosaic Covenant.\u00a0 God says if\u00a0 you do this then I will do that. It\u2019s a conditional covenant that God entered into with the nation of Israel at Mount Sinai.\u00a0 And what is being held up if the condition is not met is the kingdom.\u00a0 We talked about that passage, didn\u2019t we, Exodus 19:5-6.\n\nAnd the thing that Israel has to do, and all of the kingdom program is being held up because they have not done this, is they must enthrone the King of God\u2019s own choosing.\u00a0 And they had a golden opportunity in the first century, with Jesus, and they turned it down.\u00a0 And so the way the covenants are structured, and we\u2019ve gone through this very carefully, the kingdom was in a state of postpone\u00adment at that point.\n\nSo Jesus, just before He left the earth says to Israel, [Matthew 23:37] \u201cJerusalem, Jerusalem, I wanted to gather you but you were not willing, behold, [38] your house is left to you desolate.\u201d\n\nVerse 39 of Matthew 23, the last verse in the chapter, \u201cFor I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until\u201d and the \u201cuntil\u201d is very important, right?\u00a0 \u201c\u2026 until you say, \u2018BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!\u2019\u201d which is a Messianic psalm.\u00a0 You\u2019ll notice it\u2019s in quotations; it\u2019s Psalm 118:26.\u00a0 [Psalm 118:26, \u201cBlessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD; We have blessed you from the house of the LORD.\u201d]\n\nSo until Israel, by reciting Psalm 118:26, until Israel does that and in so doing enthrones Christ nationally the kingdom will remain in a state of postponement and Jesus is not coming back for that nation until that condition is met.\u00a0 The purpose the great tribulation period is to invoke Israel under divine pressure to do this but those are events yet future.\u00a0 And because Israel has not done this the kingdom remains in a state of postponement for 2,000 years; it\u2019s in a state of postponement today.\u00a0 The thing to understand is the whole world could get saved but if tiny Israel has never fulfilled her condition then the kingdom can\u2019t come.\u00a0 That\u2019s how the covenants are set up by God Himself.\n\nConversely, the whole world could reject Christ but if tiny Israel fulfills her condition then the kingdom will come.\n\nSo we know from these types of statements, putting all the data together, that the kingdom is in a state of postponement and today, because the condition is not met God never leaves the earth without a witness to Himself, He is working in and through the church, which is what you\u2019re part of, it\u2019s what I\u2019m part of.\n\nBut the thing to understand is the church is not Israel.\u00a0 So follow me on this: if the kingdom comes through Israel, as I\u2019ve tried to explain, if the kingdom comes because Israel fulfills her condition and the church is not the kingdom today then the kingdom can\u2019t be present.\u00a0 So the more you understand that the church and Israel are two different things the more you become solidified in your belief that the kingdom can\u2019t be present since the kingdom is going to come only through Israel fulfilling her condition, if that makes any sense.\n\nSo the big question is, is the church Israel?\u00a0 Many people will tell you that.\u00a0 Well guess what?\u00a0 The name \u201cIsrael\u201d is mentioned 73 times in the New Testament.\u00a0 And guess what it means every single time?\u00a0 It means Israel.\u00a0 You do a word study\u2026 Arnold Fruchtenbaum in his book, Israelology, the Missing Link in Systematic Theology,<\/em> has a wonderful word study on this word Israel in the New Testament and he shows that every single time the word Israel is used it\u2019s a technical word, meaning it always refers to the same thing every time it\u2019s used.\u00a0 It refers to the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, sometimes in faith, sometimes not in faith.\n\nBut Israel in the New Testament always means Israel; it\u2019s never used anywhere as a synonym for the church.\u00a0 It\u2019s never used as a synonym for the Gentile believers.\u00a0 Even in the famous Galatians 6:16 passage, which I wish we had time to look at tonight, where the church is called the Israel of God, in fact, when you study that carefully the church is not called the Israel of God, there\u2019s a double epi<\/em> there in Greek, \u201cpeace be upon them\u201d that\u2019s one epi<\/em>, \u201cupon them\u201d\u00a0 \u201cpeace be upon them and upon the Israel of God.\u201d\u00a0 Paul, when he\u00a0 uses the expression Israel of God is not referring to the whole church in Galatians 6:16. He\u2019s referring to the Jewish Christians within the church.\u00a0 So that\u2019s what he means by the expression \u201cIsrael of God.\u00a0 \u201cIsrael of God\u201d is a very limited term.\n\nSo in the New Testament Israel always means Israel, it never means the church.\u00a0 And beyond that when\u00a0 you get into the Book of Acts, keep in mind that the Book of Acts records history right up to Paul\u2019s first imprisonment beginning in A.D. 62.\u00a0 Now when was the nation of Israel pushed into worldwide dispersion by the Romans.\u00a0 In A.D. 70, so Acts was written in a time when Israel is functioning in unbelief and guess what else is functioning?\u00a0 The church, they\u2019re functioning side by side.\u00a0 In that book Israel is mentioned 20 times and the church, which is the Greek word ekkl\u0113sia<\/em> is referred to 19 times.\u00a0 They\u2019re always separate.\u00a0 Never does Luke, in the Book of Acts, merge Israel and the church together.\n\nSo you look at some of these introductory facts concerning how the New Testament treats the nation of Israel and the church, and never does it comingle the two.\u00a0 Never is Israel used as a synonym for the church.\u00a0 Israel always means Israel.\n\nSo to help us grow in that what I have for you tonight, and I won\u2019t be able to get through all of it tonight, are 24 differences between Israel and the church.\u00a0 I got this number, 24 from Lewis Sperry Chafer; he has a list of 24, I kind of tweaked a few things here and there.\u00a0 He\u2019s dead now so he can\u2019t complain that I did that.\u00a0 And you could probably find more as you study this on your own.\u00a0 There are, at a bare minimum, 24 differences between Israel and the church.\u00a0 Now the number 24, I don\u2019t mean to get too allegorical on you, it\u2019s very interesting to me because how many elders are there in heaven representing the church in the Book of Revelation?\u00a0 24, that\u2019s kind of interesting, isn\u2019t it.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how far to push that, 24 elders, 24 differences between Israel and the church, but at least you won\u2019t forget that.\u00a0 Right!\u00a0 You won\u2019t forget the number 24.\n\nSo I\u2019m trying to convince you\u2026 I\u2019m not trying to convince you, the Bible is trying to convince you that Israel and the church are separate programs.\u00a0 So let\u2019s go through this list of 24, shall we?\u00a0 I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll get through all 24 tonight but we\u2019ll give it a good run, see how far we can do.\n\nDifference number 1, Israel is the wife of Jehovah.\u00a0 You\u2019ll see that in a passage like Isaiah 54:5.\u00a0 But the church is not the wife of Jehovah but is the bride of Christ.\u00a0 Ephesians 5:22-33.\u00a0 Israel is pictured as married to God; we are pictured as engaged to God, not having gone through the formal marriage ceremony yet but the marriage ceremony is right around the corner; it begins with the rapture of the church and at some point I\u2019ll show you the ten similarities between God\u2019s end time program for the church and a Jewish wedding.\u00a0 The parallels are uncanny in terms of what the future is for the church and how God has patterned it after a Jewish wedding.\u00a0 But because the wedding ceremony hasn\u2019t materialized yet we are not yet the wife, we are the bride.\u00a0 So as the bride how are we supposed to act.\u00a0 Well, like any woman that\u2019s spoken for, right?\n\nPaul says to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 11:2-3, \u201cFor I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin.\u00a0 [3] But I fear lest how somehow as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.\u201d \u00a0And he basically says a woman when she walks down that aisle is wearing white for a reason.\u00a0 White speaks of purity.\u00a0 By putting herself in white basically she is saying I have kept myself pure sexually and morally for this man that I\u2019m about to marry.\u00a0 That\u2019s the whole significance of the woman in white when she walks down the aisle.\n\nSo since we are engaged spiritually then we are to put aside sins and things that would cause us to be unfaithful to the one that we\u2019re engaged to, to the one that we\u2019re betrothed to.\u00a0 That\u2019s why sin in the life of the Christian is analogized to fornication here, sexually.\u00a0 James 4:4 makes that case and so forth.\u00a0 [James 4:4, \u201cYou adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.\u201d]\u00a0 So what is the church?\u00a0 The church is the bride of Christ.\n\nDifference number 2 is Israel birthed Christ.\u00a0 Right!\u00a0 Jesus came into this world through which nation and that\u2019s why Matthew in his genealogy in Matthew 1:1-18 is very clear that Jesus\u2019 lineage goes back, first of all to David, ultimately to Abraham, His genealogy written to a Jewish audience goes back to Abraham, the beginning of the nation of Israel.\u00a0 So Jesus was not a Presbyterian; He was not a Methodist, He was not a Southern Baptist, He wasn\u2019t even a member of a Bible church.\u00a0 He was as Jewish as they come because the nation of Israel gave birth to Christ. God said I will bless the world through Israel and one of those blessings, the most dominant blessing is the Messiah Himself.\u00a0 It\u2019s Jewish all the way, Jewish blood through His veins from beginning to end.\u00a0 You go through the Gospels you see Jesus doing what?\u00a0 Going to Jerusalem to honor the various feasts which is what Jewish people do\/did and to some extent continue to do.\n\nNow compare that to the church.\u00a0 Did the church give birth to Jesus Christ?\u00a0 It\u2019s the other way around, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 Christ gave birth to the church.\u00a0 In Matthew 16:18 Jesus said, \u201cI also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; [and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.\u201d]\u00a0 So the church is a product of Christ.\u00a0 With Israel it\u2019s the exact opposite; Christ is a product of Israel.\u00a0 And so that would be, to my mind, a major, major, major distinction.\n\nWhich takes us to a third difference between Israel and the church.\u00a0 When is Jesus coming back for the nation of Israel?\u00a0 He\u2019s coming back for the nation of Israel at the end of the tribulation period when they cite Psalm118:26 which we talked about earlier.\u00a0 \u201cJerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather\u201d that word \u201cgather\u201d is very important, it\u2019s the Greek word episunago, sunago<\/em> kind of sounds like synagogue, doesn\u2019t it?\u00a0 What is a synagogue?\u00a0 A Jewish gathering.\u00a0 And what Jesus is saying is when I came here the first time to Israel I wanted to have synagogue with the nation, I wanted to gather you together and be with you.\u00a0 And He gives this beautiful metaphor, [Matthew 23:7]\u00a0 \u201cHow often I wanted to gather you together the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings,\u201d the problem wasn\u2019t Me, Jesus says, the problem was you, first century Israel, \u201cyou were unwilling.\u00a0 [38] Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.\u00a0 [39] For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, \u2018BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!'\u2019\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019m not going to have synagogue with you, I\u2019m not going to come back and gather you nationally until you acknowledge me as your Messiah which you\u2019ve never done.\n\nMatthew 23 which these verses are at the end of Matthew 23, Matthew 23 is followed by Matthew 24 which is a description of the tribulation period, which is the instrument that God is going to use to induce Israel to trust in Him.\u00a0 It\u2019s the instrument God uses in every person\u2019s life, He brings people to Himself through tribulation.\u00a0 That\u2019s what He\u2019s done in my life, it\u2019s probably what He\u2019s doing or done in your life.\u00a0 And the tribulation period was described there in Matthew 24:21-22, \u201cFor there will be great tribulation since has not occurred from the beginning of the world unto now, nor ever will be, [22] Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.\u201d\n\nIt\u2019s a time of unparalleled distress and what\u2019s the end result?\u00a0 Verse 31, \u201cAnd He will send forth His angels with A GREAT TRUMPET and THEY WILL\u201d what\u2019s the next word?\u00a0 \u201cGATHER TOGETHER [His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.\u201d]\u00a0 What\u2019s the word for gather?\u00a0 Episunago<\/em> where we get the word what?\u00a0 Synagogue.\u00a0 I wanted to do this when I came to you the first time but you wouldn\u2019t have Me so you\u2019re going into a time of unparalleled distress where you\u2019re going to recognize that everything you\u2019ve trusted in has failed.\u00a0 Then\u00a0 you\u2019re going to acknowledge Me as the Messiah, Psalm 118:26 you will cite, and then I will gather you.\u00a0 And He returns, not in the rapture, it\u2019s not talking about the rapture here, we\u2019re talking about the second advent at the end of the tribulation period to gather them and protect them from the satanically energized antichrist who is trying to kill them.\u00a0 So what you start to see is Christ is coming back for Israel in His second advent at the end of the tribulation period.\n\nNow how about the church?\u00a0 When\u2019s He coming for the church?\u00a0 He\u2019s not coming back for us at the end of the tribulation period; He\u2019s coming back for us in an event called the rapture where He is going to take us to the Father\u2019s house for seven years which precedes the tribulation period and you see a description of that event first handed out in John 14:1-4.\u00a0 [John 14:1-4, \u201cDo not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. [2] In My Father\u2019s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. [3] If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there<\/em> you may be also. [4]And you know the way where I am going.\u2019\u201d]\n\nSo what you start to see is oh my goodness, God is coming back to Israel in one time period but He\u2019s coming back for the church in a completely different time period.\u00a0 And you see, this is the birth of a doctrine which is very attacked today and one of the reasons it\u2019s attacked is the devil hates it; it\u2019s the blessed hope of the church.\n\nNow how did this doctrine come into existence?\u00a0 It\u2019s always been there but the man who sort of brought it out into the forefront was a man named John Nelson Darby who was not one of the bad guys (in my estimation) despite what you read about him on the internet.\u00a0 He was one of the good guys in Ireland in the 1800\u2019s.\u00a0 He was a man of God, He was baptizing probably a hundred people a week.\u00a0 God was using him greatly in his parish.\u00a0 But he got into a horse riding accident and I believe it was his leg that was broken.\n\nNow this is the 1800\u2019s, this is prior to X-rays and hyperbaric chambers and all of these medical advances that we have today.\u00a0 So the only thing you could do is to be immobilized and try to heal.\u00a0 So he\u2019s a man of God and what do you think he was studying? What book do you think he was studying?\u00a0 This was before cable, it was before Christian best sellers, maybe there were some, but he was studying his Bible and what he starts to see is oh, my goodness, Israel and the church are different.\u00a0 Which made him happy because the government of that day was coercing him to make his converts loyal to Ireland (I think it was).\u00a0 And he hated that because he felt that that was a hindrance put on his ministry that God never put on his ministry.\u00a0 And this idea that the church is the state and the state is the church is always something that bothered him.\n\nWell, in this time of convalescence he saw that Israel and the church are different because they are described completely different.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be giving you more differences that he saw a little bit later as we continue through the list.\u00a0 But if Israel and the church are different, if they are two trains on different railroad tracks, if they are separate programs of God guess what?\u00a0 God is coming back, Christ is coming back at a different time for the church than He is for Israel.\u00a0 So his understanding, John Nelson Darby, the Israel\/church distinction led him in the direction of the pretribulational rapture.\u00a0 Do you see that?\n\nIf you believe that Israel and the church are different, not just different people, different programs, then the stage has already been set for you\u00a0 to be a convert to the pretribulational rapture.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the way it worked for Darby and that\u2019s what I believe to this day.\u00a0 I don\u2019t put the church in Israel\u2019s end time program because Israel and the church are basically separate programs.\n\nSo a third difference is He\u2019s coming back for Israel at the Second Advent, at the end of the tribulation period.\u00a0 He\u2019s coming back for the church at what\u2019s called the rapture.\u00a0 Now I only underlined the ones where I have extended slides so if I don\u2019t have any underlining on there that means we\u2019re just moving to the next one down.\n\nThe fourth difference is leadership.\u00a0 How is Christ\u2019s leadership role described relative to Israel.\u00a0 He is described as their what?\u00a0 Their King.\u00a0 All the way through the Old Testament He is described as their King over and over again.\u00a0 For example, in the Book of Isaiah, chapter 33 and verse 22 it says of Israel, \u201cFor the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our\u201d what? \u201cking, He will save us.\u201d\n\nNow you get into the New Testament and the imagery that\u2019s used to describe Christ\u2019s relationship to the church is never the King subject the way it is for Israel.\u00a0 Other images are used.\u00a0 He is the groom, we are the bride.\u00a0 The Book of Ephesians develops that quite a bit.\u00a0 Another imagery that\u2019s\u00a0 used, He is the head, we are the body.\u00a0 So Ephesians and Colossians were written about the same time, from the same place, Rome, Paul\u2019s first imprisonment in Rome.\u00a0\u00a0 And Colossae and Ephesus are probably about a hundred miles apart when you look at them on a map.\u00a0 So you have to take Ephesians and Colossians together to get the whole picture.\u00a0 Ephesians is all about the body, which is the church.\u00a0 Colossians, on the other hand, is all about not the body but the what?\u00a0 The head.\n\nSo the emphasis of Ephesians is body, church; the emphasis of Colossians is Christ, the head.\u00a0 And if you want to understand what we are relative to Christ you flush out those two metaphors.\u00a0 It\u2019s not king subject, king kingdom the way the analogy is used for God and Israel in the Scripture.\n\nHow about the beginning?\u00a0 When did the nation of Israel start?\u00a0 Anybody remember?\u00a0 Genesis 12, the calling of Abraham.\u00a0 Why did God call Abraham?\u00a0 We\u2019ve talked about because of the spread of the mother-child cult; that affected every nation because of what happened in Genesis 11 which describes the tower of Babel.\u00a0 Genesis 11 is followed by Genesis 12; Genesis 11 is the crisis, Genesis 12 is the solution.\u00a0 See that.\u00a0 So God has to have a nation to channel His blessings to the world so He separates Abram.\u00a0 You\u2019ll notice I\u2019ve got Joshua 24:2-3 on that map there towards the bottom; it\u2019s a verse that tells\u00a0 you that Abraham, whose name at that time was Abram, was an idolater just like anybody else in the world at that time.\u00a0 [Joshua 24:2, \u201cJoshua said to all the people, \"Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'From ancient times your fathers lived beyond the River, namely, Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, and they served other gods.\u00a0 [3] 'Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River, and led him through all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his descendants and gave him Isaac.\u201d]\n\nBut God separated him from the Ur of the Chaldeans, told him to walk by faith.\u00a0 He got saved, he learned the life of separation and gradually God began to unfold to this man various promises and ultimately a covenant called the Abrahamic Covenant, Genesis 15, and from that whole structure and God\u2019s dealings with Abram, who later became Abraham you have the beginning of the nation of Israel.\u00a0 So the birthday of Israel is Genesis 12, that\u2019s when it started.\n\nWhen did the church start?\u00a0 As we\u2019ve studied Acts 2, so Israel and the church have two different birthdays.\u00a0 How about Scripture, how much of the Scripture deals with the nation of Israel?\u00a0 Four-fifths or 80% of the Bible deals with the nation of Israel.\u00a0 A mere one-fifth, or 20% of the Bible deals with the church.\u00a0 Now just to kind of get this point across you might want to take your Bible and open it to Genesis 12, the birthday of Israel, and just put your index finger of your left hand in Genesis 12 and then keep turning in your Bible to Acts chapter 1, go over to Acts 1 and with the same hand, with your thumb of the same hand put your thumb in Acts 1.\u00a0 So you should have your index finger in Genesis 12, same hand thumb in Acts 1.\u00a0 Now without wrecking your Bible, you want to pull it up gently by the bottom because these Bibles, some of them, aren\u2019t well put together, particularly as they get older, which is a good thing, a Bible that\u2019s falling apart is usually owned by a person who is not falling apart.\u00a0 Amen. So if your Bible is falling apart that\u2019s a good thing.\n\nSo hold it up and just go like this and hold this up to your face; is that not staggering.\u00a0 Look at how much of the Bible deals with Israel and look how much of the Bible deals with the church, this little dinky bit over here.\u00a0 Now even that little dinky part, not all of that deals with the church.\u00a0 After you get outside of Revelation 4 the rest of it continues on with the nation of Israel, primarily.\n\nSo what I\u2019m saying is there is a voluminous amount of information in your Bible about the nation of Israel.\u00a0 The church is a wonderful thing and it\u2019s the part of the Bible we\u2019re most comfortable with because it directly affects us, but only one fifth of the Bible deals with the church.\u00a0 Yet most Christians today know, I would say next to nothing about that eighty percent.\u00a0 In fact, most of the sermons that you get today in modern day Christendom, in modern day Christianity do not come from that giant part, they come from that small part.\u00a0 And I\u2019m wondering sometimes if that should be true given the amount of information God devoted to the nation of Israel.\n\nSo you have a guy like Arnold Fruchtenbaum who comes along and he\u2019s a Hebrew Christian and he says you know, we\u2019ve got all these areas of systematic theology, we\u2019ve got pneumatology, the study of the Spirit, Christology, the study of Christ, ecclesiology, the study of the church, why don\u2019t we have an area called Israelology?\u00a0 And it\u2019s like duh, of course we should have an area called Israelology; why didn\u2019t I think of that?\u00a0 We should have an area of theology that systematically arranges everything that God has said about the nation of Israel, which is a major undertaking since 80% of the Bible deals with that.\u00a0 So that becomes the basis of Fruchtenbaum\u2019s doctoral dissertation which he complete at NYU, New York University, and the title of it, and some of you own it and I own it, I recommend you buy it, Israelology, The Missing Link in Systematic Theology<\/em>.\u00a0 And his dissertation committee made him cut out about a thousand pages so it should be a thousand pages longer than the published volume that you possess.\u00a0 But obviously Israel and the church are very different in terms of the amount of space that is used in the Bible one to the other.\n\nWhat about the covenants?\u00a0 Haven\u2019t we studied the covenants in this class, the Abrahamic Covenant, the Davidic Covenant, the New Covenant, the land covenant?\u00a0 What is Israel\u2019s relationship to those covenants?\u00a0 What is our relationship to those covenants?\u00a0 Well, Israel was a direct party to the covenant.\u00a0 Take a look, if you could, at the Book of Jeremiah, chapter 31 and notice if you will verses 31 and 32.\u00a0 When God entered into these covenants He always intended to bless the world through these covenants but He entered into them with one nation, the nation of Israel.\u00a0 The nation of Israel is the only nation in the history in the history of mankind that the God of the universe made a contract with.\n\nJeremiah 31:31-32, it says: \u201cBehold, days are coming,\u201d declares the LORD, \u201cwhen I will make a new covenant with\u201d First Baptist of Houston\u2026 it doesn\u2019t say that!\u00a0 \u201cI will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, [32] not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,\u2019 declares the LORD.\u201d\u00a0 By the way, you see the husband imagery there?\u00a0 He never calls Himself the groom to Israel, He calls Himself the husband to Israel.\u00a0 So Israel is a party to the covenants.\n\nWell, what are we relative to these covenants?\u00a0 I mean, don\u2019t we take communion?\u00a0 Aren\u2019t we getting ready to take communion this Sunday, in celebration of the what?\u00a0 It starts with an N; New Covenant.\u00a0\u00a0 So obviously we have some kind of relationship to these covenants.\u00a0 Well, here is the best conceptual tool I know of to explain this.\u00a0 We are not a party to these covenants for the simple reason that the church wasn\u2019t there when these covenants were made.\u00a0 The church\u2019s birthday hasn\u2019t even occurred until Act 2.\u00a0 So we are not a party to the covenant; we are, you can put this is contract terms in law, third party beneficiaries.\u00a0 You say what in the world are you talking about?\n\nWell, let me use an illustration; does anybody\u2019s car here need to be washed? \u00a0[someone answers, can\u2019t hear name, sounds like Alla] I\u2019ve seen your car, you\u2019re right, that does need a little wash.\u00a0 And I\u2019m driving in and I look at [same name] car and I say that\u2019s a nice car, but it could use a little bit of a wash.\u00a0 So what I do without [same name] even knowing it is I hire Ray, do you want to wash a car Ray, I hire Ray and I say Ray\u2026 [same name] doesn\u2019t even know what I\u2019m doing, I say Ray, I\u2019m going to pay you money and I want you to wash [same name] car.\u00a0 So we get the terms of the agreement spelled out.\u00a0 Alla doesn\u2019t have any idea that we\u2019ve entered into this arrangement.\u00a0 So who are the parties to the covenant?\u00a0 Me and Ray.\n\nNow in the contractual relationship in the analogy I\u2019ll put myself in the place of God, which I don\u2019t like to do but let\u2019s just pretend.\u00a0 And if you think I\u2019m God you can ask my wife and she\u2019ll tell you otherwise.\u00a0 So I\u2019m God and Ray would be who?\u00a0 Israel.\u00a0 [same name] on the other hand would be who.\u00a0 The church.\u00a0 See how it works there.\u00a0 We have been radically blessed by a lot of these covenants but we were never in the design of God an actual party to the covenants.\u00a0 The very best we are is we get a spillover effect; we\u2019re third party beneficiaries.\u00a0 We celebrate the Lord\u2019s Table and the New Covenant not because we were there in the sixth century B.C. when the covenant was made but we get the spillover effect because God always knew He was going to bless us some way through this covenant, although we were never parties.\u00a0 So that would be a key distinction.\u00a0 Israel is a party to all of\u00a0 these covenants that we\u2019ve studied; the church is not a party to any of these covenants.\u00a0 Rather the church has been indirectly blessed, in a third party beneficiary relationship, by these covenants.\n\nAnother difference is Israel is a political nation.\u00a0 As such, as you study the Old Testament\u00a0 you will discover that she has borders like any other nation would have, that are very easily defined.\u00a0 Genesis 15:18-20 defines Israel\u2019s borders from modern day Egypt ultimately to modern day Iraq.\u00a0 Not only does she have borders but she has a capital.\u00a0 When the nation of Israel was divided north and south the capital of the north became Samaria; the capital of the south became Jerusalem.\u00a0 And you go through the Old Testament and you\u2019ll see borders, you\u2019ll see capitals, you\u2019ll see tribes, twelve tribes, and then you\u2019ll see kings because these two split sections of the nation were governed by various kings.\u00a0 Most of them weren\u2019t that good.\u00a0 The southern kingdom had 20 kings, 8 of them were good.\u00a0 The northern kingdom went 0 and 19, that\u2019s a pretty lousy season, isn\u2019t it.\u00a0 They had 19 kings, they didn\u2019t have a single good one.\u00a0 And actually we have a whole book in our Bible talking about this called the books of 1 and 2 Kings, because there\u2019s a lot of kings in those books.\n\nSo the nation of Israel has kings, it has a capital, it has borders, because the nation of Israel is just that, a nation.\u00a0 Now let\u2019s compare that to the church.\u00a0 Does the church have anything like that?\u00a0 Not at all; in fact, Paul calls the church in Romans 10:19 \u201cnot a nation.\u201d\u00a0 [Romans 10:19, \u201cBut I say, surely Israel did not know, did they? First Moses says, \u2018I WILL MAKE YOU JEALOUS BY THAT WHICH IS NOT A NATION, BY A NATION WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING WILL I ANGER YOU.\u2019]\u00a0 Why are we not a nation?\u00a0 Because we consist of people, whether Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, as a body, a spiritual man, from all the nations.\u00a0 We don\u2019t have a race, we don\u2019t have a nation, we don\u2019t have a capital, we don\u2019t have tribes, we don\u2019t have kings, we don\u2019t have a border.\u00a0 In fact, what God has done in the present church age is He has made both groups, Jew and Gentile into one new spiritual man.\n\nSo the church, if it\u2019s called anything it\u2019s called a pilgrim in this world.\u00a0 In the book of 1 Peter, chapter 2 and verse 11, a New Testament epistle describing the church.\u00a0 It describes us as \u201cstrangers and aliens, sojourners, because this world is not our home.\u00a0 [1 Peter 2:11, \u201cBeloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul.\u201d]\u00a0\u00a0 Israel is never described that way.\u00a0 Israel is right at home in the world.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 Because she\u2019s a nation just like the United States of America, just like Canada, Argentina, Japan, Venezuela, Brazil or any other nation you want to talk about.\u00a0 In fact, when the United Nations meets there is the nation of Israel, right there alongside the other nations because she has a place in this world as given by God as a political entity and a political nation.\u00a0 Not so the church.\u00a0 The church is a no nation; the church is a non-nation.\n\nNow you say well, why are you rambling on about things that aren\u2019t practical?\u00a0 Let me tell you how practical this is.\u00a0 The Roman Catholic Church, which sees itself as the new Israel, as the manifest\u00adation of the kingdom of God on the earth, the Roman Catholic Church who believes that all of Israel\u2019s blessings have been transferred to her, functions and acts like a nation.\u00a0 She has a capital, doesn\u2019t she?\u00a0 Called what?\u00a0 Vatican city.\u00a0 In fact, the Roman Catholic Church is very active trying to influence the politics of the world.\u00a0 Now why are they trying to do that?\u00a0 Why do they have a capital?\u00a0 Why do they have a Pope, a papal type leader who goes from place to place in kind of a bullet proof Pope mobile.\u00a0 I mean, the whole thing looks very political to me.\n\nWell, it makes sense if you understand what they think, that they are Israel.\u00a0 If they are Israel and they are the new Israel they\u2019re acting like a nation.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 But you see, that\u2019s not the calling of the church; that\u2019s not the New Testament description of the church.\u00a0 We transcend borders; we are a spiritual man, a spiritual body worldwide that has gone into all nations.\u00a0 This is how practical what I\u2019m talking about is; it\u2019s not just pie in the sky theology.\u00a0 If the church gets confused on something like this its purpose changes.\u00a0 It becomes a political entity and a political animal.\n\nNow we have a lot of\u00a0 political activists in our church and I say amen but the reality of the situation is politics is not the primary task of the church.\u00a0 I think it can be a task in terms of holding back evil but the reality of the situation is Jesus didn\u2019t tell us to go into the world and subdue the political systems of the world.\u00a0\u00a0 I love it when I see Christians involved in that but the primary purpose of the church is to go and make disciples of all ethnos, all the nations. We\u2019re not into collective salvation.\u00a0 We\u2019re into personal salvation.\u00a0 And when the church gets confused on this what it starts to talk about more and more is social causes, right or left, pro-life or left type causes, health care, environ\u00adment, and these kind of things become the focus.\u00a0 Not that the church can\u2019t have some kind of minor influence on those kind of things but those things by the design of God were never intended to be our focus.\u00a0 The focus is to reach and teach.\u00a0 We don\u2019t waste our time communicating collective salvation for nations.\u00a0 What we\u2019re talking about is personal salvation for human beings and individuals.\n\nSo the problem with the human race is not the fact that they don\u2019t have the right political system; the problem with the human race is personal sin<\/u> which separates them from a Holy God.\u00a0 And human beings are headed towards a Christless eternity unless they trust in the gospel.\u00a0 That\u2019s the message of the church.\u00a0 And see, these things get lost when we stop seeing ourselves as a spiritual entity but a political entity.\n\nAnother difference between Israel and the church: Israel went out and fought political wars, with who?\u00a0 With the Philistines, with the Hittites, with the Girgashites, with the Amorites, with the Amalekites, with the Jebusites, with the electric lights and the out of sights, and the termites and the mosquito bites, all of those groups.\u00a0 You read the Old Testament and there\u2019s actual physical conflict going on; there\u2019s wars, there\u2019s armor, there\u2019s casualty camps, there\u2019s real people dying.\u00a0 There is no such New Testament description of the church.\u00a0 Not that I don\u2019t support people and honor people that want to go out and defend their country in a patriotic sense, praise the Lord.\u00a0 But the reality is that\u2019s not the institution of the church; that\u2019s the institution of human government.\n\nWhat kind of wars does the church fight?\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWe wrestle\u00a0 not against flesh and blood,\u201d see the difference? \u00a0\u201cbut against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world,\u201d in other words, put on the full armor of God.\u00a0 \u00a0Our whole conflict is spiritual; Israel\u2019s whole conflict was political and physical.\u00a0 And you say well there Andy goes again, rambling on about subjects that don\u2019t matter. Well, here\u2019s why it matters.\u00a0 You\u2019ve got situations in church history where the church sees itself and the political vehicle of God to go over to the Middle East and through the Crusades and liberate Jerusalem from the Muslims.\u00a0 And they\u2019re all citing, as they go, a bunch of passages from the Old Testament.\u00a0 Well, the reality of the situation is maybe God told Israel to do that in Old Testament times but there\u2019s no such instructions for the church because the church is not involved in physical, political warfare; she\u2019s involved in spiritual warfare.\n\nHere\u2019s another difference; timing statements.\u00a0 And this is really the thing that switched John Nelson Darby into his belief that Israel and the church are different during his time of convalescence.\u00a0 You see, Darby, who was baptizing about a hundred people per week, he was having a great effect there in Dublin, Ireland and what the Lord did is say I\u2019m going to help you have a greater effect.\u00a0 How are you going to do that Lord?\u00a0 I\u2019m going to allow your leg to get broken and I\u2019m going to put you in a place of convalescence where you\u2019re not busy any more and the only thing you have to do is to study the Word of God because in that place of convalescence the Holy Spirit is going to illuminate to you something, the Israel\/church distinction.\u00a0 And from the Israel\/church distinction comes for the doctrine of the pretribulational rapture, which has been a doctrine trans generationally since the time of Darby.\u00a0 Do you see that?\n\nThe Lord could have used Darby in his generation to do great things but the Lord says I\u2019m going to do something greater in your life but it\u2019s going to take a broken leg to do that.\u00a0 See, that\u2019s a different way of looking at trials, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 We think being sidelined and being sick, being taken out of the game so to speak, we think that\u2019s some great setback.\u00a0 Let me tell you something, without the sovereignty of God in Darby\u2019s life via the broken leg his transgenerational effect didn\u2019t happen.\n\nSo one of the things that Darby started to see in the Scripture is what in Latin are called a quo ad quem <\/em>statements.\u00a0 What does that mean?\u00a0 It\u2019s just a Latin word that means beginning and end.\u00a0 What Darby started to see in the Scripture were the fact that the nation of Israel always had\u00a0 a number.\n\nFor example, in the Book of Genesis, chapter 15 and verses 13-16, God said Israel is going to go into Egyptian bondage for how many years?\u00a0 Four hundred years.\u00a0 [Genesis 15:13-16, \u201cGod<\/em> said to Abram, \u201cKnow 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. [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 complete.\u201d]\n\nThen in the Book of Jeremiah, chapter 25:11 and chapter 29 verse 10 He says you\u2019re going to go into captivity for how many years.\u00a0 Seventy years.\u00a0 [Jeremiah 25:11, \u201c'This whole land will be a desolation and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.\u201d\u00a0 Jeremiah 29:10, \u201cFor thus says the LORD, \u2018When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place.\u2019\u201d]\n\nAnd then when you go over to the Book of Ezekiel, chapter 4 and verses 5-7 it says, \u201cFor I have assigned you a number of days corresponding to the years of their iniquity, three hundred and ninety days; thus you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. [6] When you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but<\/em> on your right side and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah; I have assigned it to you for forty days, a day for each year. [7] Then you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem with your arm bared and prophesy against it.\u201d\n\nSo in other words, Ezekiel, I want you to lie on your side for 390 days and then I want\u00a0 you to turn over and I want you to lie on your side for 40 days.\u00a0 Well why am I doing that Lord?\u00a0\u00a0 Well, the 390 days corresponds with 390 years of Israel\u2019s disobedience and the forty days corresponds with the forty years of the southern kingdom\u2019s disobedience.\u00a0 See what\u2019s going on in the Old Testament?\u00a0\u00a0 You\u2019ve got actual years. \u00a0And then God gave Israel a clock called the seventy weeks of Daniel, which I hope you know something about now since we\u2019ve spent six weeks Sunday morning going over it; it\u2019s a 490 year stopwatch.\u00a0 See how Israel keeps having a number.\n\nNot only that, the nation of Israel is given a calendar for spring feasts (three), fall feasts, here\u2019s where they fall on the calendar system.\u00a0 A few feasts were added later in Israel\u2019s history.\u00a0 So Israel has numbers, Israel has calendars, Darby is looking at his New Testament, the 20% of it that relates to the church and he says you know what?\u00a0 There is not one calendar in the New Testament related to the church.\u00a0 There is no number.\u00a0 Why is it that Israel has all these numbers and all of these dates and has all of these calendars and\u00a0 yet you go into the New Testament and you read what God says about the New Testament church and there\u2019s not one date given, there\u2019s not even a calendar.\n\nSo you have a quo ad quim<\/em> statements related to Israel but not a single one related to the church.\u00a0 And Darby, the light goes on, he says you know what, Israel and the church are different spiritual organisms and if they are different spiritual organisms then Christ is coming back at a different time for the church than He is for Israel.\u00a0 And thus you see from the Israel\/church distinction the corollary position of the pretribulational rapture.\u00a0 See that.\n\nIf you believe what I\u2019m saying about Israel and the church being different the pre-trib rapture is a chinch.\u00a0 Well, you know, why is Andy talking about all these kind of things and not talking about anything practical.\u00a0 Do you want to know how practical it is?\u00a0 Do you know how many churches there are out there that try to impose a Christian calendar on their congregations?\u00a0 And they\u2019ve got the whole thing worked out; we\u2019ve got the Advent season, we\u2019ve got this season, we\u2019ve got that season.\u00a0 I grew up in a church like this, we\u2019re going to celebrate Pentecost at this particular date and this particular date and they\u2019ve got a whole calendar worked out.\u00a0 And then you start to say well, why in the world are we doing that when God never gave the church a calendar, not that a calendar can\u2019t be a nice organizing tool just to see where we are in the season.\u00a0 The reality is we are such a different DNA spiritually that we don\u2019t have a calendar.\u00a0 Israel had all the calendars; the church doesn\u2019t have a calendar.\n\nNow let me take this one step further.\u00a0 I just got back from a prophecy conference, I\u2019ve done two prophecy conferences in October, do you realize how confused people about all this stuff, out there?\u00a0 Do you realize how many people there are that think the rapture is going to occur on Rosh Hashanah, which is the Feast of Trumpets, and this is how they think.\u00a0 They think well Paul talks about a trumpet associated with the rapture and let\u2019s connect that trumpet with Israel\u2019s feast of trumpets on the Jewish calendar.\n\nSo there are people, and I know a guy in particular, he puts out extra food for his animals and things, extra milk for his cat on Rosh Hashanah, the feast of trumpets because he thinks he\u2019s going to be raptured\u00a0 on that particular calendar day.\u00a0 And I\u2019m thinking well, the cat is still going to starve because you\u2019re going to be gone permanently.\u00a0 [Laughter]\u00a0 But there is all these people doing this.\u00a0 They\u2019re trying to set these dates for the rapture.\u00a0 The reality is when you do that what have\u00a0 you just comingled?\u00a0 Israel and the church.\n\nWhy would you take the rapture, which is an event for the church and the church by nature is dateless?\u00a0 Why would you impose upon that new spiritual man a calendar system for something to occur in church history which concerns Israel?\u00a0 This is how practical this is.\u00a0 There are churches today that are completely wrapped up in these Jewish feasts and they make it sound as if you don\u2019t celebrate these you\u2019re outside the will of God.\u00a0 Some Messianic fellowships push the envelope greatly in this direction, in my estimation.\n\nNow don\u2019t get me wrong, as we\u2019ve been studying the Book of Daniel we\u2019ve made reference to these feasts.\u00a0 I want you to know they\u2019re there; you have to understand these feasts in order to understand the Bible but they were never designed to be imposed directly on the church.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 Because Israel and the church are what?\u00a0 Separate!\n\nHow could you set a calendar date for the rapture when the church by nature is calendar less and dateless.\u00a0 Do you follow?\u00a0 And the reason I interject these things is I want us to understand that what we\u2019re talking about here, the Israel\/church distinction that saves you from a ton of confusion that is widespread out there in the body of Christ. Well, speaking of clocks and calendars\u2026 I guess if I don\u2019t have a calendar I can just keep going, right?\u00a0 I\u2019m just kidding.\u00a0 I think in human terms it\u2019s 8:04 so I\u2019d better stop talking.\u00a0 So we will dismiss people to pick up their kids if the need to do that and we\u2019ll pick it up here next time with the priesthood.\u00a0 And we can open it up for Q and A if you want to do that.","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