{"id":19232,"date":"2018-10-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-10-10T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/the-coming-kingdom-052\/"},"modified":"2018-10-10T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-10-10T05:00:00","slug":"the-coming-kingdom-052","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/the-coming-kingdom-052\/","title":{"rendered":"The Coming Kingdom 052"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[85],"series_event":[470],"sermon_service_type":[474],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-19232","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 052","sermon_date":"20181010","sermon_month":"10","sermon_year":"2018","sermon_notes":6120,"sermon_slides":6119,"sermon_mp3":6121,"sermon_id":"101018183457","series_or_event":470,"service_type":[474],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":85,"chapter_and_verse":"21:43","sermon_transcript":"Andy Woods\n\nThe Coming Kingdom\n\n10-10-18\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Matthew 21:43\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lesson 52\n\nLet\u2019s take our Bibles if we could and open them to Matthew 21 and verse 43.\u00a0 And we are continuing our study on the kingdom.\u00a0 As you all know the first part of our study we laid out the doctrine of the kingdom, Genesis to Revelation. We saw that the kingdom is in a state today of postponement, not cancellation but postponement.\u00a0 And from there we began to just make some general comments about Kingdom Now theology, that\u2019s the belief that the kingdom is not in post\u00adponement, the kingdom is right here and now.\u00a0 And basically we indicated you have to change the definition of the Old Testament kingdom to get that to work.\u00a0 So that\u2019s really the general problem with it.\n\nAnd from there we went into what are the passages that people to use to argue that we are now in the kingdom?\u00a0 And that\u2019s where we are now in\u00a0 our study, part three.\u00a0 And really the name of the game in all of this is people are trying to argue that Jesus set up the kingdom in His first coming. That\u2019s really where people are at; that\u2019s where the church has been at, really since Augustine, all the way back in the fourth century A.D.\u00a0 So everybody is always running to the ministry of Christ to find some kind of passage somewhere which indicates that He started the kingdom in a spiritual form back in the first century.\n\nSo that\u2019s why we\u2019ve been spending our time looking at the passages people use and showing them that they have been tried in the scales of justice (so to speak) and found wanting because when you look at each passage it doesn\u2019t really say what everybody thinks it says.\u00a0 So in this part of the study we only have three more passages to look at in the life of Christ.\u00a0 And after we finish with that then we\u2019ll move into the Book of Acts, Acts 2 is really a key battleground in all of that. So what we have left are Matthew 21:43, John 18:36 and then Matthew 28:18-20.\u00a0 And we might be able to get through one or two, I doubt we\u2019ll get to all three of those this evening but you have them there on your packet and what we don\u2019t finish tonight we\u2019ll come back next Wednesday and continue on right where we left off.\n\nSo let\u2019s open our Bibles to Matthew 21:43, this becomes one of the key passages that people use to argue that we are currently in the kingdom.\u00a0 And the passage says, \u201cTherefore I say to you, the kingdom of God\u201d Jesus is speaking, \u201cthe kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit thereof.\u201d\u00a0 So Jesus here is speaking to first century Israel and most people in their systematic theology quote this verse and they don\u2019t tell you what else is going on in that chapter but when you look it at first glance it looks that way, doesn\u2019t it?\u00a0 It looks like the kingdom is taken away from Israel and given to the church.\u00a0 And this is one of the favorite passages Kingdom Now theologians use to say we\u2019re in the Kingdom Now.\n\nSo really to understand this passage correctly you have to ask two things:\u00a0 Number one, was Jesus really saying the kingdom is taken away from Israel as a whole?\u00a0 That\u2019s question one.\u00a0 Number two, was He really saying that after it was taken away from Israel as a whole was it given to the Gentile church?\u00a0 And what I\u2019d like to show you is the answer to both of those questions is no.\u00a0 This is not at all what Jesus is saying, although many people will give\u00a0 you the impression that this is what Jesus is saying.\u00a0 So let\u2019s take these one by one.\n\nWas Jesus, in Matthew 21:43, \u201c\u2026the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit thereof,\u201d was Jesus disinheriting the nation of Israel of the kingdom promises or the idea that God is going to establish the kingdom of God on the earth one day through the nation of Israel?\u00a0 Was Jesus taking that away from Israel because of her disobedience.\u00a0 That\u2019s what most Christians believe that that verse is teaching.\u00a0 Well, verse 43 is followed by verse 44, and verse 44 is followed by verse 45.\u00a0\u00a0 You guys all agree with me on that?\n\nTake a look at verse 45, no one ever shows you verse 45 do they when they give you this theology, they just show you verse 43.\u00a0 And this really has to do with the whole parable of the tenants, if you recall, it\u2019s how in Matthew 21 how the Lord kept sending, not tenants but representative of themselves, like the prophets, then My Son, to the managers of His property and they kept mis\u00adtreating all of the people the Lord sent.\u00a0 Remember that story?\u00a0 And finally then He says well, they surely aren\u2019t going to mistreat My Son and that\u2019s what they did.\u00a0 So it\u2019s in that context Jesus says \u201cthe kingdom of God will be taken away from you,\u201d He takes that parable and he applies it to the Pharisees.\u00a0 \u201cThe kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing the fruit thereof.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s the whole context of Matthew 21.\n\nAnd then when you look at verse 45 what does it say, because it talks in there about the building that the tenants were managing being caught on fire and God coming with judgment and all sorts of things.\u00a0 Verse 45 says, \u201cWhen the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables,\u201d what parable?\u00a0 The parable of the tenant, unrighteous tenants, \u201cWhen the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables they understood that He was speaking about\u201d who? \u201cabout them.\u201d\u00a0 Who\u2019s the \u201cthem\u201d?\u00a0 First century Israel.\u00a0 See, that whole parable is aimed not at Israel as a whole but it\u2019s aimed at first century Israel. That\u2019s why Jesus, all the way through the Gospel of Matthew keeps saying, \u201call of these things will come upon\u201d who? \u201cthis generation.\u00a0 [Matthew 23:36, \u201cTruly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.\u201d]\n\nWhich generation?\u00a0 The generation of Jesus that rejected Christ.\u00a0 Because of the Mosaic Covenant and the principles given to Israel in the Mosaic Covenant of blessings and curses, the curses were about to be poured out on that generation.\u00a0 So what Jesus is talking about here, \u201cthe kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing the fruit thereof,\u201d He\u2019s not making a blanket statement that God is through with Israel.\u00a0 He\u2019s making in context a statement about how discipline is going to come to who?\u00a0 Not Israel as a whole but first century Israel.\u00a0 That\u2019s the context.\n\nVerse 43 if\u00a0 you just read it by itself won\u2019t give you that context but if you read the whole chapter, particularly the second to last verse in the chapter it becomes very clear that Jesus\u2019 remarks are aimed at only first century Israel.\u00a0 And we know from the biblical record that that\u2019s exactly what happened; the Romans came in A.D. 70, about forty years later, and pushed the nation of Israel out of her land; over a million Jews lost their lives in the horrors of A.D. 70.\u00a0 Jesus predicted this whole thing would come through the parables of tenants and many other parables that He taught.\u00a0 But when God brought discipline against Israel in A. D. 70 He was not cutting the cord on the whole nation of Israel.\u00a0 That\u2019s a misunderstanding.\u00a0 The statement that Christ makes relates to the discipline that first century Israel only would experience.\u00a0 And historically and prophetically we know that\u2019s what happened.\n\nSo the first problem with people saying \u201cthe kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing the fruit thereof,\u201d is they don\u2019t really define correctly who the \u201cyou\u201d is.\u00a0 The \u201cyou\u201d is not Israel forever, the \u201cyou\u201d is only first century Israel.\u00a0 You all with me on that so far?\u00a0 Then you\u2019ve got to answer another question about this. Well if the kingdom is going to be taken away from first century Israel and Matthew 25:43 says, \u201c[Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and] given to a people, producing the fruit thereof.\u201d\n\nNow the question is well, who was the kingdom given to?\u00a0 It was taken away from first century Israel, who is it given to?\u00a0\u00a0 And most people would say it was given to the church.\u00a0 In fact, one of my Bible heroes, a man I hold in extremely high esteem is Charles Ryrie, I use His Ryrie Study Bible <\/em>all the time, and this is a case where Ryrie gets it completely wrong.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t own a copy of the Ryrie Study Bible<\/em> I\u2019d encourage\u00a0 you to get one, but you have to understand that the notes at the bottom are not inspired by God. \u00a0\u00a0He comments on this parable, chapter 21 verse 43, \u201cTaken away from you and given to a people,\u201d he writes, taken away from the Jews and given to the church.\u00a0 [Matthew 21:43 NASB, \u201cTherefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit of it.\u201d]\u00a0 And then he goes on and he says, \u201cwhich is composed largely of Gentiles.\u201d\n\nSo Charles Ryrie is very much against replacement theology but if you look at his note here he gives an interpretation of chapter 21 verse 43 that you would find in Kingdom Now replacement theology.\u00a0 The kingdom is taken away from the Jews and given to the church.\u00a0 Well, number one, it\u2019s not taken away from the Jews, in context it\u2019s taken away from first century Jews.\u00a0 See the difference?\n\nNumber two, as I\u2019ll show you in just a moment it\u2019s not given to the church.\u00a0 That\u2019s not what Jesus\u00a0 is saying here.\u00a0 So if the kingdom is not given to the church who is it given to?\u00a0 And why is it unacceptable to interpret this as the kingdom is taken away from Israel and given to the church.\u00a0 What exactly is the matter with that interpretation?\n\nWell the problem with this, the kingdom is taken away from Israel and given to the church is the word \u201cpeople\u201d there.\u00a0 And this is where a knowledge of the original languages sort of helps you with a lot of false teachings that are floating around.\u00a0 The Bible, as you know, was not originally given in English, it was given in Greek.\u00a0 So the word \u201cpeople\u201d is a translation of a Greek noun and that Greek noun is ethnos<\/em>.\u00a0 Anybody recognize what English word we get from ethnos<\/em>?\u00a0 [someone says something, can\u2019t hear]\u00a0 Yeah, like ethnicity or nationality.\n\nEthnos<\/em> is a lousy synonym for the church.\u00a0 The church is not an ethnos<\/em>.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 Because, number one Paul specifically says in Romans 10:19, that the church is a non-nation.\u00a0 And when he says a non-nation he says a non-ethnos<\/em>.\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\u201d that\u2019s the word ethnos<\/em>, \u201cby a nation\u201d that\u2019s ethnos<\/em> again, \u201cwithout understanding, I will anger you.\u201d\n\nAnd see Paul is making the point here that as God is lavishing His grace upon the church who\u2019s becoming provoked to jealousy?\u00a0 Israel, because God has taken on another woman.\u00a0 I mean, I thought it was Israel that was the wife of Jehovah and then all of a sudden He\u2019s pouring out His grace on a bride composed of Gentiles.\u00a0 That would be us!\u00a0 And thank God He is pouring out His grace on us.\u00a0 But one of the things Paul says is God is actually using this to provoke Israel to jealousy and He is actually using the age of the church to stimulate the nation of Israel to come back into faith one day.\n\nThe seed is being planted and how is that happening?\u00a0 The seed is being planted because God has taken His blessings, which used to be poured out on Israel and He\u2019s pouring it out on the church.\u00a0 And Israel is getting jealous, she wants her position back.\u00a0 So that\u2019s Romans 9, 10 and 11, it\u2019s all about the future of Israel.\u00a0 This is one of the strategies God\u2019s doing to bring Israel back one day, planting this seed of jealousy or envy within her.\n\nBut notice that Paull says as God pours out His grace upon us He\u2019s pouring it out on the church a non-ethnos.\u00a0 We are a non-ethnos, we are a no nation. Israel was a nation, she had one ethnicity, she had borders, she had an army, she had a taxation system.\u00a0 The church has none of those things.\u00a0 See that?\n\nSo if that\u2019s true and Jesus says the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to an ethnos<\/em> producing the fruit thereof \u00a0ethno<\/em>s, the ethnos<\/em> can\u2019t be the church because Paul says there in Romans 10:19 that the church is a what?\u00a0 A non-ethnos<\/em>.\u00a0 Who are we as the church?\u00a0 Are we a nation?\u00a0 No, we consist of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we\u2019re believers in the Messiah that Israel rejected and we\u2019re put into a new man called the body of Christ.\u00a0 Does the church of Jesus Christ consist of just one ethnicity?\u00a0 I mean do you have to be white to be a member?\u00a0 Do you have to be an American to be a member?\u00a0 NO, the work of the church is going on all over the world.\u00a0 We consist of believers from how many nations?\u00a0 All nations, that\u2019s the nature of the church.\n\nGalatians 3:28 says, \u201cThere is neither Jew nor Greek,\u201d those are ethnicities, right?\u00a0 \u201cthere is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all\u201d what? \u201cone in Christ Jesus.\u201d\u00a0 Now if we consist of believers from all nations how in the world could we be an ethnos<\/em> or an ethnicity.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t make any sense.\n\nPaul, in the Book of Ephesians, chapter 2, and this is where Paul really, in particularly chapters two and three develops what the church is.\u00a0 If\u00a0 you want to understand what the church is you would study those two chapters.\u00a0 And he says a lot of wonderful things there but one of the things he says, \u201cFor He Himself is our peace, who made both groups,\u201d now who is the \u201cboth groups\u201d?\u00a0 Now who would the \u201cboth groups\u201d be?\u00a0 Jew and Gentile.\n\nSee prior to the age of the church you have a sharp division between Jew and Gentile and today what we have is a crucified and resurrected Christ and people that are Jews and Gentiles, who are believers in that Christ, and once\u00a0 you become a believer in that Christ you\u2019re put into this new man where there is no ethnicity anymore, or reigning ethnicity.\u00a0 And the two groups have been made one and what has\u00a0 been broken down is the barrier of the dividing wall.\u00a0 I mean, prior to the age of the church you had this sharp ethnic distinction running through the Jewish world and the Gentile world.\u00a0 And isn\u2019t it interesting in the body of Christ you can have somebody that\u2019s Jewish and you can have somebody that historically been at war with the Jews, like somebody from an Arabic country, and you can have both of them believers in the same Messiah and what happens to the warfare between those two groups?\u00a0 It\u2019s gone.\n\nThat\u2019s the nature of the church, and everybody today is talking about racial this and racial that and racial reconciliation, race, race, race.\u00a0 The fact of the matter is the Bible is probably the best book ever written on the subject of race because it takes people of different ethnicities that formerly hated each other\u2019s guts and it makes people of those ethnicities, some of them anyway, believers in Christ, and they are baptized in the Spirit and brought into this one new nation called the body of Christ.\u00a0 That\u2019s the mystery of the church, something that\u2019s never happened before.\n\nYou even have in the body of Christ in early Acts the Samaritans and the Jews in the body of Christ getting along together.\u00a0 Think about that.\u00a0 Those groups hated each other\u2019s guts before the church age started.\u00a0 That\u2019s why when Jesus came into a Samaritan village and they rejected His ministry, remember in Luke 9, remember what James and John said?\u00a0 Who were James and John?\u00a0 The sons of Thunder.\u00a0 John, the love apostle, doesn\u2019t seem very loving early on, does he.\u00a0 He says, \u201cLord, shall we not call down fire from heaven and destroy these people?\u00a0 [Luke 9:54, \u201cWhen His disciples James and John saw this, they said, \u2018Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them.\u2019\u201d]\n\nSo that\u2019s racism, that\u2019s what it is.\u00a0 The seven hundred year war between those two groups, if you understand who the Samaritans and the Jews are, but in the body of Christ they\u2019re made one.\u00a0 So we\u2019re not a Samaritan movement, we\u2019re not a Jewish movement, we\u2019re not an American movement, we\u2019re not a Caucasian movement, we\u2019re not an Asian movement, there is no dominant race in the church because we have believers in Christ from all races.\u00a0 So when Jesus says the kingdom is going to be taken away from you and given to an ethnos<\/em>, that can\u2019t be a description of the church. [Matthew 21:53, \u201cTherefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people,\u201d ethnos<\/em> \u201cproducing the fruit of it.\u201d]\n\nAnd you even see really good people, like Charles Ryrie get this wrong.\u00a0 However, I\u2019ll tell you this much: ethnos <\/em>cannot describe the church but I\u2019ll tell you who it describes real well.\u00a0 You know who it describes real well?\u00a0 Israel!\u00a0\u00a0 Not first century Israel but what?\u00a0 Future Israel.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 The word ethnos<\/em> is used over and over again to describe national Israel.\u00a0 I just have two examples, one of them comes from John 11:51, it says, \u201cNow he did not say this on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation,\u201d what nation?\u00a0 In context that\u2019s Israel.\u00a0 What is the Greek word for nation here--ethnos<\/em>!\u00a0 So ethnos<\/em> is a great description of Israel.\n\nOver in Acts 24:17, I think this is Paull speaking, it says, \u201cNow after several years I came to bring alms to my nation\u201d Paul was Hebrew, what nation is he talking about?\u00a0 Israel, and he calls Israel what?\u00a0 an ethnos<\/em>! and to present offerings;\u201d\u00a0 So ethnos<\/em>\u00a0 does not describe the church, it can\u2019t, it\u2019s foreign to the concept of the church but it\u2019s a great descriptor of the nation of Israel.\n\nSo with that background in mind what is Matthew 21:43 saying?\u00a0 What is Jesus saying when He says, \u201cthe kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit thereof.\u201d\u00a0 Here\u2019s what it\u2019s not saying; it\u2019s not saying God is through with Israel and He\u2019s transferred His kingdom blessing to the church.\u00a0 That is not what He\u2019s saying.\u00a0 That\u2019s what 99% of Christians think that verse is saying but that\u2019s not what it\u2019s saying.\n\nWhat it is saying is God is taking His kingdom blessings away, not from Israel as a whole but from who?\u00a0 First century Israel and transferring it to who?\u00a0 Not the church, but who?\u00a0 Future Israel.\u00a0 See the difference there?\u00a0 A completely different meaning.\u00a0 And you say well, is that in the context?\u00a0 Does Matthew\u2019s Gospel talk about future Israel receiving Christ in the tribulation period?\u00a0 I would say that becomes the dominant subject at the end of chapter 23 and right into chapters 24 and 25.\u00a0 In other words, this interpretation I\u2019m giving you fits perfectly with what Matthew reveals concerning the future of Israel.\u00a0 Take a look at Matthew 23: 37-39.\u00a0 This is where Jesus continues to open the door to a future generation of Israel that will respond to the message of salvation.\n\nJesus is speaking and He says, \u201cJerusalem, Jerusalem,\u201d so who\u2019s He talking to?\u00a0 Not First Baptist Church of Houston but the Jewish people.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 \u201cJerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!\u201d\u00a0 Now didn\u2019t He just reveal that in the parable of the \u00a0tenants?\u00a0 He just revealed that reality in parabolic form.\u00a0 Everybody God has sent to Israel they rejected, including the Son of God in the first century.\u00a0 \u201cJerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!\u201d\u00a0 And this is very beautiful language here, \u201cHow often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings,\u201d but the problem wasn\u2019t Me, Christ says, the problem was who?\u00a0 \u201cand you were unwilling.\u201d\n\nNow just as a quick side point on that, there\u2019s a lot of people out there that say you have no free will in salvation, God just grabs\u00a0 you and you are forced against your will to get saved.\u00a0 That\u2019s called what\u2019s being taught today is very aggressive Calvinism.\u00a0 You\u2019ll notice that Jesus did not bring His kingdom promises to these people because of their will.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 If Calvinism was true Jesus would have just rammed His kingdom right down the throats whether they wanted it or not, in the first century.\u00a0 They \u201cwere unwilling,\u201d they would not exercise their will to acknowledge Him.\u00a0 So that\u2019s how God works, He convicts people but ultimately whether a person goes to heaven or not they have to bend their will through faith.\u00a0 And why does God work that way?\u00a0 Because He\u2019s made us in whose image?\u00a0 His image, He has free will, we\u2019re made in His image so you have free will.\n\nSo God is not going to\u2026 now He\u2019ll convict you and agitate you and bother you that you need to get saved but He\u2019s not going to bring you against your free will into salvation.\u00a0 At some point you have to make a choice unto Him.\u00a0 And if He didn\u2019t do it that way He would not be respecting how you\u2019re manufactured.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 So yes, people can go to hell today if they want to, and they can harden their heart against God until their dying day and go right into hell.\u00a0 If someone wants to do that based on how they\u2019re manufactured as an image-bearer of God, they have complete permission to do that under God.\u00a0 It\u2019s a very powerful thing we have, this free will.\u00a0 [37b] \u201cI wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, [and you were unwilling.]\u201d now \u201cgather\u201d there is episunago<\/em>, gather, sunago<\/em>, can anybody think of what word comes from sunago<\/em>?\u00a0 Synagogue, which is a Jewish gathering place.\n\nSee, He\u2019s speaking to the Jews and He basically is saying I wanted to have synagogue with you, that\u2019s basically what He\u2019s saying. But the problem wasn\u2019t Me, the problem was you.\u00a0 So He says, in verse 38, \u201cBehold, your house is being left to you desolate!\u201d\u00a0 Now what house is it?\u00a0 The temple, the temple is going to be destroyed because in the blessings and curses of the Mosaic Covenant there are penalties and one of the penalties is national dispersion and destruction and worldwide dispersion which would involve the Romans coming in A.D. 70 and sacking the temple, which they did forty years later.\n\nNow it\u2019s interesting when He talks about the temple He used to say, all the way through the Gospels, \u201cMy Father\u2019s house will be a house of prayer.\u201d\u00a0 He kept calling the temple \u201cMy Father\u2019s house.\u201d\u00a0 You see how He switched the pronoun there?\u00a0 It\u2019s not \u201cMy house\u201d anymore!.\u00a0 It\u2019s not My Father\u2019s house, it\u2019s your house because you kicked Me out of it.\u00a0 And I like to use this story, my wife denies it but I have the microphone so\u2026. [laughter]\u00a0 My wife will switch the pronouns very fast related to my daughter.\u00a0 So for example, if my daughter is doing something cute my wife will say \u201cisn\u2019t our <\/em>daughter wonderful?\u201d\u00a0 And then when she acts up she\u2019ll switch the pronouns and she\u2019ll say \u201cDid you see what your<\/em> daughter did?\u201d\u00a0 She\u2019s shaking her head no back there\u2026 but I\u2019ll have to tape record it at some point.\n\nThat\u2019s what Jesus just did there, He switched the pronouns. He says \u201cit\u2019s not My house, it\u2019s not My Father\u2019s house, it\u2019s your house because you threw Me out.\u201d\u00a0 So their house is going to be left to them desolate, and then He says, \u201cFrom now on you will not see me.\u201d\u00a0 Now most people stop reading right there, God\u2019s finished with Israel.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 He\u2019s taking His promises related to Israel and given them to the church. That\u2019s kingdom now theology.\u00a0 But you see the word \u201cuntil\u201d there?\u00a0 Verse 39, that\u2019s a big deal, that word \u201cuntil.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cFor I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you\u201d who\u2019s the \u201cyou\u201d? Who\u2019s He talking to, go back to verse 37, \u201cJerusalem\u201d or Israel.\u00a0 \u201c\u2026until you\u201d that\u2019s a generic \u201cyou,\u201d collective \u201cyou,\u201d \u201cuntil you say,\u201d what? \u201c\u2018Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD\u2019\u201d\u00a0 [Matthew 23:37-39, \u201cJerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.\u00a0 [38]\u00a0 \u2018Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!\u00a0 [39] \u2018For 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]\n\nAnd Ron, you all know Ron who comes to this church, what\u2019s Ron\u2019s last name again, Ron Smith, he\u2019s got that memorized in Hebrew but in English it\u2019s \u201cBlessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD!\u2019\u201d\u00a0 Which is Psalm 118:26 which is a Messianic Psalm.\u00a0 [Psalm 118:26, \u201cBlessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD \u2026.\u201d]\u00a0 And what He is saying is I\u2019m not coming back for this nation until this nation verbally acknowledges Me as the Messiah.\u00a0 That\u2019s what He\u2019s saying.\n\nAnd you see, that\u2019s where you need to put Romans 10:9-10.\u00a0 Everybody\u2019s got Romans 10:9-10 down today as part of their gospel tract and evangelism.\u00a0\u00a0 Romans 10:9-10 is not the gospel for the church age believer, you all know Romans 10:9-10, right?\u00a0 What does it say, it says, \u201cthat if you confess with your mouth Jesus as<\/em> Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; [10] for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.\u201d\n\nRomans 9 is all about Israel, Romans 9-11.\u00a0 Romans 9, Israel in the past elected; Romans 10, Israel in the present rejected; Romans 11, Israel in the future accepted.\u00a0 That\u2019s where you put Romans 10:9-10.\u00a0 Romans 10:9-10 is what future Israel will publicly say.\u00a0 What are they going to publicly say?\u00a0 \u201cBlessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD,\u201d Psalm 118:26.\u00a0 Until future Israel publicly acknowledges Me as Messiah I am not coming back to this nation. See that?\u00a0 And the problem with taking Romans 10:9-10 and making it part of the gospel that\u2019s proclaimed in the age of the church is you added a condition that God never added for people coming into the church to the gospel.\n\nI mean, think about this;\u00a0 when people say we\u2019ve got to follow the\u00a0 ABC method to get people saved, \u201cA\u201d admit you\u2019re a sinner, \u201cB\u201d believe in Jesus, \u201cC\u201d confess.\u00a0 You\u2019ve all heard that, right?\u00a0 That\u2019s kind of a standard formula that a lot of parachurch ministries will use.\u00a0 A. B. C., so if you just do A and B and you never do C then you probably aren\u2019t a Christian.\u00a0 Well think about this:\u00a0 what if you don\u2019t have any vocal cords, who are you going to confess to?\u00a0 Or what if\u00a0 you\u2019re in an Islamic country and somehow you hear the gospel from somebody, a missionary or something and you know that if you speak up about Christ your family could be tortured and so you don\u2019t say anything.\u00a0 Are we going to say that those people over there aren\u2019t Christians because they didn\u2019t do C, they didn\u2019t confess.\n\nI mean, when you really start to think about this A. B. C. method it works pretty well in America but it doesn\u2019t work real good in a totalitarian country.\u00a0 And with this A.B.C. method almost nobody ever will show you John 12:42.\u00a0 What does John 12:42 say,\u00a0 John 12:42 says, \u201cNevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, for fear\u201d of the Jews, or \u201cfor fear that they would be put out of the synagogue.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 So you got a lot of people that heard Christ and they believed in Him for salvation but they wouldn\u2019t say anything about it because they were afraid of being kicked out of the synagogue.\n\nNow are we going to say that all those people aren\u2019t saved because they didn\u2019t follow the A. B. C. method?\u00a0 Of course they were saved, because John sets up one single verb that must be acknow\u00adledged by a lost sinner before they can be saved.\u00a0 It\u2019s not A.B.C.\u00a0 It\u2019s the B, anytime someone adds an A or a C to the simple Believe they\u2019ve just altered the Gospel.\u00a0 Do you see that?\u00a0 And one of the reasons people do that is they think Romans 10:9-10 teaches you\u2019ve got to confess Christ publicly to be a Christian.\u00a0 What I\u2019m trying to show you is Romans 10:9-10 doesn\u2019t belong in the proclamation of the gospel today; it belongs in Matthew 23:37-39, something Israel had to publicly acknowledge for Jesus to return.\u00a0 Romans 10:9-10 is what we would call a dispensationally misapplied verse for another dispensation and concerning Israel and it\u2019s setting it up as a condition for someone to receive the gospel today.\n\nNow having said all that am I against people confessing Christ?\u00a0 I think it\u2019s a great idea to confess Christ but here\u2019s the deal.\u00a0 Your confession of Christ publicly doesn\u2019t relate to whether you go to heaven; it relates to rewards at the Bema Seat Judgment of Christ.\u00a0 The confession of Christ publicly relates to rewards received or not received.\u00a0 A person believes and never says anything because of fear of man, they\u2019ll go to heaven but they won\u2019t have rewards at the Bema Seat Judgment.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 And the moment you add an \u201ca\u201d or a \u201cc\u201d to a simple message of \u201cb\u201d or believe is the moment we just taught a works salvation and people do this all of the time because they use Romans 10:9-10 not understanding the context of what Romans 10:9-10 is talking about.\u00a0 [Romans 10:9-10, \u201cthat if you confess with your mouth Jesus as<\/em> Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; [10] for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.\u201d] \u00a0\u00a0I had no plan on going off on all that, by the way.\n\nSo he says, \u201cYou\u201d (Israel) will not see Me again until you say \u2018Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD.\u201d\u00a0 So He\u2019s opening the door that there\u2019s going to be future Israel that\u2019s going to receive Christ and experience salvation.\u00a0 So the interpretation of Matthew 21 that I\u2019m giving you is consistent with what follows in Matthew\u2019s Gospel.\u00a0 Do you see that?\u00a0 It fits beautifully with the whole context of the book.\n\nAnd flip over to Matthew 24:31, what does Jesus start talking about in Matthew 24:31?\u00a0 The tribulation period?\u00a0 If you look at verse 15 it talks about the temple being desecrated, if you look at verses 21-22 it talks about a time of unequaled distress coming upon the whole world.\n\n[Matthew 24:31, \u201c\"And He will send forth His angels with A GREAT TRUMPET and THEY WILL GATHER TOGETHER His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Matthew 24:15, \u201c\"Therefore when you see the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand),\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Matthew 15:21-22, \u201cJesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon. [22] And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and began<\/em> to cry out, saying, \u201cHave mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed.\u201d]\n\nSo it\u2019s talking about God\u2019s dealings the nation of Israel after the church has been removed through the rapture.\u00a0 He says things like verse 20, \u201cPray that your flight will not take place in the winter or on the Sabbath.\u201d\u00a0 [Matthew 24:20]\u00a0 Does that sound kind of Jewish to you?\u00a0 I mean, we don\u2019t even meet as Christians on the Sabbath, the Sabbath is the last day of the week; we meet on Sunday, the first day of the week, because that\u2019s when Jesus rose from the dead.\u00a0 So it\u2019s obvious that He\u2019s talking to Jewish people.\n\nSo you can go to Israel today and you can go into what they call a sabbath elevator, where you walk in there and what you\u2019ll notice is every single button has been pushed so the elevator goes to every single floor in the hotel, ten story hotel it\u2019s going to go to every elevator and\u00a0 you think some kid got in there and pushed all the buttons and so you let the doors shut and you say okay, everything\u2019s back to normal, I\u2019ll get in this elevator and do it right, and you find once again it goes to all ten floors, all ten buttons are lit up.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 And that only exists on the Sabbath.\u00a0 Why would they have that kind of elevator on the Sabbath?\u00a0 Because you\u2019re not supposed to work on the Sabbath and so part of working on the Sabbath in their mind is what?\u00a0\u00a0 Pushing the buttons.\u00a0 So we\u2019ll just have an elevator where the buttons are all pushed.\u00a0 I mean, that\u2019s in Israel today you\u2019ll see that kind of thing.\n\nSo when Jesus says \u201cPray that your flight will not take place in the winter or on the Sabbath\u201d He\u2019s talking to Jews because the Jews won\u2019t travel on the Sabbath.\u00a0 The name of the game is when they see the temple desecrated they\u2019re supposed to flee to what many people believe is Petra in Jordan because Satan, Revelation 12, has been kicked out of heaven at that point and he begins to go down to the woman clothed with the sun and the moon and the twelve stars, which is Israel, and he tries to gobble her up.\u00a0 That\u2019s why Israel is fleeing here.\n\nSo in context he\u2019s saying when you run pray that your flight will not take place on the Sabbath.\u00a0 It\u2019s obvious he\u2019s talking to a Jewish audience here.\u00a0 And so Israel enters this time of unparalleled distress, the church is already in heaven watching this thing from the balcony seats and what is the end result of it?\u00a0 A converted Israel, which is exactly what Jeremiah 30:7 says, right.\u00a0 A time of trouble for Jacob, who\u2019s Jacob?\u00a0 Israel, \u201cBut he will be\u201d what? saved out of it.\u201d\u00a0 [Jeremiah 30:7, \u201c'Alas! for that day is great, There is none like it; And it is the time of Jacob's distress, But he will be saved out of it.\u201d]\n\nAnd if you look at verse 31 it says, \u201cAnd He will send\u2026\u201d this is not the rapture, the rapture relates to the church; this whole chapter, these two chapters really, is related to Israel.\u00a0 What did he say? \u2018Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kills the prophets and stones those sent to you.\u00a0 [Matthew 24:31, \u201cAnd He will send forth His angels with A GREAT TRUMPET and THEY WILL GATHER TOGETHER His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.\u201d]\n\nSo if you look at verse 31 it says, \u201cAnd He will send forth His angels with A GREAT TRUMPET and THEY WILL\u201d what\u2019s the next verb there in verse 31, \u201cTHEY WILL\u201d what does it say? \u201c GATHER TOGETHER His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.\u201d\u00a0 Who\u2019s the elect?\u00a0 Believing Israel, they\u2019re in faith now.\u00a0 So Jesus returns and what does He do?\u00a0 He gathers them, what\u2019s the Greek word for gather?\u00a0 Episunago<\/em>, where we get the word synagogue, it\u2019s the same verb used in Matthew 23:37.\u00a0 [Matthew 23:37, \u201c\"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.]\n\nHe wanted to have synagogue with them in His first coming but they didn\u2019t want Him.\u00a0 So He says you\u2019re not going to see me again until you say, Psalm 118:26, \u201cBlessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s where you put Romans 10:9-10, right in there, not in the gospel tract for people to get saved today but something Israel\u2019s got to do yet future.\u00a0 [Romans 10:9-10, \u201cthat if you confess with your mouth Jesus as<\/em> Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; [10] for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.\u201d]\n\nAnd then once they\u2019re in faith, they\u2019ve publicly acknowledged Him as the Messiah, according to Matthew 24:31, which is happening at end of the tribulation period, He is returning and regathering them and protecting them from Satan who has been thrown out of heaven trying to kill Him.\u00a0 So He\u2019s having the synagogue He wanted to have with them in His second coming, He wanted to have that synagogue with Him in His first coming.\u00a0 See that, because Israel always gets it right which time?\u00a0 The second time.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a perfect example of it.\n\nSo this, Matthew 24:31 is the ethnos<\/em> through whom the kingdom promises will be fulfilled.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 And if you go to Matthew 25:31 it talks about a converted Israel and the inauguration of the Davidic Kingdom, because it says at the conclusion of these things, \u201cBut when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His\u201d what? \u201cglorious throne.\u201d\u00a0 Any guesses as to which throne that would be?\u00a0 The Davidic throne that we talked about many, many lessons ago in this study, 2 Samuel 7:12-16.\n\n[2 Samuel 7:12-16, \u201cWhen your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. [13] He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. [14] I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me; when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men, [15<\/a>] but My lovingkindness shall not depart from him, as I took it<\/em> away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. [16<\/a>] Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever. [17] In accordance with all these words and all this vision, so Nathan spoke to David.\u201d]\n\nThe Davidic Covenant is in fulfillment now.\u00a0 And then He is gathering people and letting them into verse 34, an inheritance in the what?\u00a0 An inheritance in the what?\u00a0 Kingdom, see kingdom there in verse 34, I\u2019ve got it underlined.\u00a0 [Matthew 25:34, \u201cThen the King will say to those on His right, \u2018Come, you who are blessed of My Father,\u00a0inherit the kingdom<\/u> prepared for you\u00a0from the foundation of the world.\u201d]\n\nSo what has just happened?\u00a0 Israel has been saved thanks to the events of the tribulation period.\u00a0 They have been regathered and so now the kingdom is being started through that ethnos<\/em>.\u00a0 What ethnos<\/em>?\u00a0 Believing future Israel.\u00a0 You see that?\u00a0 So what people are doing and this is one of the things that frustrates me about modern day Bible interpretation, is they\u2019re grabbing one verse, they\u2019re ignoring everything that comes before it and goes after it and making it look like it\u2019s teaching some doctrine that the Bible is not teaching.\u00a0 If you did this in the area of law you\u2019d be disbarred.\u00a0 If you did this in the area of medical practice you\u2019re probably lose your license for doing this kind of stuff.\n\nBut for whatever reason, I don\u2019 t know why it is, when it comes to Bible interpretation everybody feels they can do this with the Bible, because the fact of the matter is I can take Bible verses and string them together and make them sound any way I want them to sound if I don\u2019t care about context.\u00a0 Judas went out and hung himself, go thou and do likewise, and what you do, do quickly. [Laughter]\u00a0 So there we have it, the Bible promotes suicide. Well the Bible does NOT promote suicide, all I did was grab a bunch of verses and string them together and make it fit my precon\u00adceived idea.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 And that\u2019s what people are doing with Matthew 21:43.\u00a0 That\u2019s exactly what they\u2019re doing.\u00a0 And the fact of the matter is it doesn\u2019t teach that at all.\u00a0 And\u00a0 your average person sees that verse and they say oh well, even the great Charles Ryrie, well, there it is, Jesus took the kingdom away from Israel and gave it to the church; we\u2019re in the kingdom now.\n\nSo the bottom line to the whole thing is this:\u00a0 Therefore,\u201d and this is where we start Matthew 21:43, \u201cTherefore I say to you, the kingdom will be taken away from\u00a0 you\u201d who\u2019s the \u201cyou\u201d?\u00a0 First century Israel because they rejected Christ and they went off into discipline.\u00a0 And given to a people, or an ethnos<\/em> producing the fruit thereof\u2026 who is the ethnos<\/em>?\u00a0 Future Israel, not the church.\u00a0 That\u2019s all Jesus is saying.\u00a0 And when you put it in the whole context of Matthew\u2019s Gospel, particularly the end of chapter 23 and then 24 and then 25 you\u2019ll see that very obvious interpretation.\n\nIs the kingdom of God really taken away from Israel?\u00a0 No, it\u2019s taken away from first century Israel.\u00a0 Is the kingdom of God really given to the church?\u00a0 No, because the church is not an ethnos<\/em>; the future Israel is.\n\nNow very quickly, we believe Matthew was the first gospel written.\u00a0 Why do we believe that Matthew was the first gospel written?\u00a0 We believe that because that\u2019s what every church father taught until German higher critical liberalism started in the 19th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 Before that happened everybody, every church father, they all believed that Matthew wrote first, the fancy name for that is Mathian priority.\u00a0 And one of the reasons we believe Matthew wrote first is because of all the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, it is the most Jewish.\u00a0 For example, Matthew\u2019s genealogy in chapter 1 links Jesus back to who genealogically?\u00a0 David and then Abraham.\u00a0 Abraham is the starting point.\u00a0 Why start with Abraham?\u00a0 Because he\u2019s the beginning of the Hebrew race.\u00a0 Right? Luke, in his genealogy, in Luke 3 links Jesus back to who?\u00a0 Adam.\n\nSo why would Luke link Christ\u2019s genealogy back to Adam but Matthew links Christ\u2019s genealogy back to Abraham and David? Answer: Luke is written to a Gentile audience, emphasizing Gentile themes; Matthew is written to a Jewish audience emphasizing Jewish themes.\n\nAnother example: Mark 7 talks about a washing of the hands and it says, in a parenthetical comment, this is something the Jews did.\u00a0 [Mark 7:1-5, \u201cThe Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered around Him when they had come from Jerusalem, [2] and had seen that some of His disciples were eating their bread with impure hands, that is, unwashed. [3] (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus<\/em> observing the traditions of the elders; [4] and when they come<\/em> from the market place, they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves; and there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots.) [5] The Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, \u201cWhy do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?\u201d]\n\nThis is a custom among the Hebrews.\u00a0 Matthew 15 talks about the same ceremonial handwashing but it leaves out the parenthetical comment, this was common amongst the Jews.\u00a0 So question\u2014why would Mark\u2019s Gospel give the explanation that this is a Jewish custom and Matthew\u2019s Gospel wouldn\u2019t?\u00a0 Because Mark is written to a Roman audience who largely didn\u2019t understand Judaism so they would need some explanation.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 Matthew is written to a Jewish audience and so if you tell them, well, this is a common practice, the washing of hands, they\u2019d be saying dah, of course, we all know that.\u00a0 That\u2019s like explaining the Pledge of Allegiance to an American;\u00a0 you don\u2019t have to explain the Pledge of Allegiance to an American, they understand it.\u00a0 But someone in another country, the flag and the stripes and the stars, you\u2019d have to explain it because they don\u2019t have the cultural background to understand it.\u00a0 See that?\n\nSo you put all this date together and it\u2019s very clear that Matthew was written to a Hebrew Christian audience; the earliest church fathers believed that Matthew was written to the Jews who had come to believe.\u00a0 So Matthew is answering a Jewish question; if Christ is the King then where is the kingdom, because king and kingdom go together in Judaism like horse and carriage. And so they would need an explanation as to why the kingdom is in postponement.\n\nAll of this background, to take you back to Matthew 21:43, a Hebrew understands how God can cut off one generation of Jews and put His hand of blessing on a future generation of Jews.\u00a0 A Hebrew Christian, particularly someone with Judaism in their background, already knows that\u2019s a reality.\u00a0 Why do they know it\u2019s a reality?\u00a0 Because they have a Hebrew Bible and one of the great stories, historical accounts, of Hebrew Bible is Numbers 13 and 14.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 What happened in Numbers 13 and 14?\u00a0\u00a0 They were in Goshen there in Egypt for four hundred years (that\u2019s a long time), God brought them out through the ten plagues, He parted the Red Sea, He brought them to Mount Sinai, they received the Law. According to, I think it\u2019s either Deuteronomy 1:2 all they had to do was trust God for eleven days and they\u2019re in the promised land.\u00a0 [Deuteronomy 1:5, \u201cIt is eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea.\u201d]\n\nSo just trust the God that parted the Red Sea and provided the manna and brought the ten plagues down upon Egypt for eleven days and you\u2019re in.\u00a0 You remember what happened?\u00a0 They go there, \u00a0up into Canaan, they got to what is called the southern border of Canaan, a place called Kadesh-Barnea, and what did they see in Canaan?\u00a0 The giants.\u00a0 And so what did they say?\u00a0 No problem, we\u2019re going to keep trusting God\u2026. NO, they went into fear and they became like grasshoppers \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0in their own eyes.\u00a0 In other words, they stopped trusting God and their eyes got on their own circumstances.\n\nNow that never happens to any of you guys, right?\u00a0 It is a great story for us because we fall into fear all the time and part of it is our vantage point, we\u2019re looking at our own circumstances rather than God whose done all these great things for us in the past.\n\nSo God was so displeased with that generation that what should have been eleven days turned into forty years.\u00a0 He just said okay, you guys are going to just walk around out here for forty years until you all drop dead and then I\u2019ll start working with your kids.\u00a0 The next generation, or the next what? ethnos<\/em>, and they\u2019ll trust Me and I\u2019ll bring them into Canaan. The only exception to the rule will be Joshua and Caleb who entered Canaan with the kids as seasoned citizens, not because they were believers but because they were believing.\n\nSee the difference there?\u00a0 God didn\u2019t discipline that generation because they were unbelievers.\u00a0 They were all saved, they\u2019re in the hall of faith.\u00a0 If you say they\u2019re unsaved\u00a0 you\u2019ve got a big problem because Moses didn\u2019t enter either; he died on Mount Nebo, right?\u00a0 So is anybody here going to say Moses wasn\u2019t saved?\u00a0 That\u2019s silly because who\u2019s there in the transfiguration with Christ?\u00a0 Moses and Elijah, obviously Moses was saved.\u00a0 These people didn\u2019t go to hell; they missed out on a blessing that they could have had had they not just been believers but believing.\u00a0 In other words you keep trusting God in the midst of your problems.\u00a0 Do you want to be blessed in your Christian life?\u00a0 Number one, get saved, trust in Christ for salvation. And number two, when problems come into your life keep trusting God to help you with those problems.\u00a0 Don\u2019t go into\u00a0 fear because you become a grasshopper in your own eyes because your vantage point is wrong.\n\nSo this whole generation lost a blessing which they could have had.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 And so God says that generation won\u2019t trust me, okay, I\u2019ll work with the next generation, the next ethnos<\/em>, and they entered Canaan under Joshua and Caleb forty years later.\n\nSo if God can shut the door on one generation in terms of a blessing and then transfer that blessing to a subsequent ethnos,<\/em> or generation, then Matthew 21:43 would make sense to a Hebrew Christian mind who knows that story.\u00a0 [Matthew 21:43, \u201cTherefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit of it.\u201d]\u00a0 Because what He\u2019s saying is the same thing is going to happen with the kingdom.\u00a0 First century Israel, just like the folks coming out of Egypt, could have had Canaan. First century Israel could have had the kingdom!\u00a0 Think about that!\u00a0 What a major royal mess-up.\u00a0 They could have had the kingdom of God on the earth that they wouldn\u2019t receive it on Christ\u2019s terms so God shut the door on that ethnos<\/em> and He said okay, there\u2019s a future generation that will receive My offer of the kingdom in the tribulation period.\n\nSo what I\u2019m saying is my interpretation of Matthew 21:43 fits exactly with a Hebrews Christian mind who already knows that God does this kind of thing anyway, going back to the Kadesh-Barnea incident.\u00a0 I mean, does God really close the door on one generation but bless the next generation because they\u2019re believing?\u00a0 That\u2019s what Jesus is saying here is going to happen with the kingdom, and they\u2019re thinking well, of course that could happen.\u00a0 That\u2019s the whole Numbers 13 and 14 story.\u00a0 So what I\u2019m explaining here is consistent with what we know in Hebrew Bible concerning Numbers 13 and 14.\n\nSo what\u2019s the bottom line?\u00a0 The kingdom is taken away, not from Israel as a whole but who?\u00a0 First century Israel and is going to be transferred to the church?\u00a0 NO, transferred to who?\u00a0 The future ethnos<\/em>, or future Israel.\u00a0 And so the next time we\u2019re together, which will be next Wednesday, we\u2019ll look at John 18:36 where Jesus says, \u201cMy kingdom is not of this world.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0We\u2019ll try to explain that.\u00a0 All right, I\u2019m finished talking.","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