The Miracle and the Mystery
The Miracle and the Mystery
January 31st, 2004 and February 1st, 2004
1 Corinthians 10 NLT
31 Whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do, you must do all for the glory of God. 32 Don’t give offense to Jews or Gentiles or the church of God/. [1]/
-Notice that the Scripture says;
· Jews
· Gentiles (Greeks in some translations)
· The Church of God
-In order to get a clear picture of the plan of God through Scripture and especially in relationship to the end times, you have to distinguish who God is talking to.
-The principles that are being presented are universal. In other words, Jesus said when talking to Jews that they should do like go two miles when asked to go one etc. We should all follow those principles whether we are Jews or Gentiles.
-Yet in relationship to prophecy and the end times there is a specific plan for each of these three groups.
-Interestingly, some Jews see Christian and Gentile as the same thing. They don’t distinguish between real followers of Jesus and Gentiles who live in so-called Christian nations.
-I want to briefly trace some things through Scripture so we can get a better picture of where we are and where we are headed.
-Let me also throw in here that the best and ultimate for everyone, whether Jew or gentile is to follow Jesus as Messiah.
-Jesus is Jewish, Paul is Jewish, and the early church was Jewish.
-Your New Testament was primarily written by Jews.
The Miracle
-When I talk about the miracle I am speaking about the miracle of the nation of Israel.
-We aren’t going to cover much this morning but it is a subject that I encourage you to pursue if you want to see God’s hand revealed in a great way.
-When sin came into the world it produced an individual problem for each one of us.
-It also produced an international problem.
-For the individual, an individual was needed.
-For the second a nation was selected to be a light to the other nations and to be the standard by which nations would be judged.
Genesis 12
The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.
2 “I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”
/[2]/
-All nations would be blessed through Abraham but God was making his seed into both a spiritual and a physical nation.
-The spiritual nation is the church but the physical seed is Israel.
Genesis 13
14 The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west. 15 All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring a forever. 16 I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. 17 Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.”
18 So Abram moved his tents and went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he built an altar to the Lord.
/[3]/
-God took Abraham to a place, from which he could view the entire land and promised the land of Israel, as it would later be called, to him and his seed forever.
Genesis 15
5 He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
7 He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”
-So we know Abraham was to receive a spiritual as well as a physical seed.
-God’s design was that the world would be blessed when Israel was in its right place with David’s descendant ruling.
-We can see that this is yet to come.
The story;
Abraham has Isaac, the son of promise after first trying it his way and having Ishmael. There are problems between the sons that are still making headlines in the news today. Isaac has Jacob and Esau and they have sibling rivalry as well. Jacob runs away and ends up caring for his father-in-law’s sheep. He comes home with a large family and very rich. His name is changed to Israel after he struggles with God and sees that he can’t solve his own problems by effort and sheer willpower. He has 12 sons who become the leaders of the 12 tribes of Israel. Again we have sibling rivalry and Joseph is sold into slavery in Egypt after telling a couple of dreams to his brothers. He ends up through a series of events serving as 2nd in command in all of Egypt while all of the other nations have to come down to them for food. Eventually he reveals himself to his brothers and the nation of Israel is brought to Egypt to save them. There arises a Pharoah who doesn’t know Joseph so he puts the Israelites in slavery. The Hebrews are multiplying and Pharoah wants the boys killed. Really satan does because he is looking for the seed of the woman who would be the Messiah. Moses is spared and is trained in Pharoah’s house. God uses him to lead the people out of Egypt into the wilderness. Joshua is raised up to lead them into the land God had promised Abraham. A series of leaders or judges are raised up to lead them through certain rough times but eventually they want to be a monarchy instead of a theocracy so God gives them their first king, Saul. He turns out bad so David is raised up to replace him. Solomon becomes the successor and under David and Solomon Israel has it golden age. David was a warrior but Solomon formed political alliances with other nations by marrying their daughters. Unfortunately he began to worship their gods as well. After him the kingdom was divided between Judah in the south and Israel in the north. Israel went from bad to worse so God raised up Assyria to attack them and take them captive. They are known as the lost 10 tribes today. (Some of these tribes have been located in other parts of the world with their religion and customs pretty well intact.) Later Judah rebels and is taken captive by Babylon for 70 years. We see Daniel serving in Babylon praying for the captivity to end. God brings the Jews back to Jerusalem and the temple is rebuilt but not with the same splendor and grandeur that it had before. There are few significant events except some wars and messianic communities during this time. The last 400 years before Jesus comes are known as the “silent years”. Then who comes on the scene? Jesus. Time is marked by His appearance on the earth. He lives about 33 years with the last 3 years being ministry years. He is crucified and rises from the dead. Before He dies he tells about the future of the nation of Israel and the city of Jerusalem. Herod had built up the temple and really made it something. He had jazzed it up quite a bit. Daniel talks about what will happen to the Jews in Daniel 9 and Jesus builds on it.
Matthew 24
Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. 2 “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
4 Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ, a’ and will deceive many. 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.
9 “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
15 “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ b spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17 Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. 18 Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. 19 How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! 20 Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. 21 For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.
-You could read all of chapter 24-25 here because it fits.
-Jesus foretold the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem as did Daniel. It happened in 70 A.D. about 37 years after Jesus talked about it.
(I saw the Arch of Titus in Rome a few years ago.)
-There are many prophecies about the rebirth and restoration of the Jewish nation in the last days. Jesus’ prophecy like most prophecies had a double reference for the immediate and the far off.
Ezekiel 36
24 “‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 28 You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God. 29 I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will call for the grain and make it plentiful and will not bring famine upon you. 30 I will increase the fruit of the trees and the crops of the field, so that you will no longer suffer disgrace among the nations because of famine. 31 Then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds, and you will loathe yourselves for your sins and detestable practices. 32 I want you to know that I am not doing this for your sake, declares the Sovereign Lord. Be ashamed and disgraced for your conduct, O house of Israel!
33 “‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: On the day I cleanse you from all your sins, I will resettle your towns, and the ruins will be rebuilt. 34 The desolate land will be cultivated instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass through it. 35 They will say, “This land that was laid waste has become like the garden of Eden; the cities that were lying in ruins, desolate and destroyed, are now fortified and inhabited.” 36 Then the nations around you that remain will know that I the Lord have rebuilt what was destroyed and have replanted what was desolate. I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it.’
37 “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Once again I will yield to the plea of the house of Israel and do this for them: I will make their people as numerous as sheep, 38 as numerous as the flocks for offerings at Jerusalem during her appointed feasts. So will the ruined cities be filled with flocks of people. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”
37 The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
I said, “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”
4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! 5 This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath a enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”
7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.
11 Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’”
/[4]/
Isaiah 66
8 Who has ever heard of such a thing?
Who has ever seen such things?
Can a country be born in a day
or a nation be brought forth in a moment?
Yet no sooner is Zion in labor
than she gives birth to her children.[5]
ABBA EBAN VIDEO CLIP
-If you were to put us into another nation we would be assimilated in two generations or less.
-America is called “the great melting pot” even though some don’t want to melt when they come.
-Jews are like Jonah in the belly of the whale. They can’t be assimilated.
-Everywhere they go they are still Jews. They kept their heritage whether they believed in God or not.
-The language was miraculously revived. Hebrew died and was restored. Hebrew is now the language of Israel.
-They have had war after war where their enemies have hounded them. No matter what happens they win and get more territory from their neighbors.
-They have had the six day war, the Yom Kippur war, etc.
-God has fulfilled His promise.
-The nations want to destroy Israel because His promise is at stake.
-They have to face the reality of God’s promise.
-He said that Israel would be reborn and it is in the face of the devil and the international community.
-Israel has a role to play.
-They are hardened in their hearts. Their best option is to follow Jesus.
-In spite of that God will reach out to Israel because of His name in spite of them.
Luke 21
24 They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem/ will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. [6]/
Abba Eban clip from recapture of Israel-1967
-God’s hand is on Israel. She has a future.
-Remember Jesus wept over Jerusalem and bemoaned the fact that when He came to Jerusalem it didn’t recognize Him.
-He came to His own and they rejected Him.
-They have paid the price for that.
-This is a testimony to us of the faithfulness of God.
-They are a testimony that the gifts and callings of God are without repentance.
-it would be good to read Romans 9-11 to get Paul, a Jew’s, perspective on Israel and her future.
Zechariah 12
This is the word of the Lord concerning Israel. The Lord, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the spirit of man within him, declares: 2 “I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. 3 On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem/ an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves.[7]/
10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem/ a spirit a of grace and supplication. They will look on b me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son. 11 On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be great, like the weeping of Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. 12 The land will mourn, each clan by itself, with their wives by themselves: the clan of the house of David and their wives, the clan of the house of Nathan and their wives, [8]/
Zechariah 13
“On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.
2 “On that day, I will banish the names of the idols from the land, and they will be remembered no more,” declares the Lord Almighty. “I will remove both the prophets and the spirit of impurity from the land.
/[9]/
-Joseph is a picture of this in the Old Testament.
-Parallels;
· Both were rejected by brothers saved the world and eventually his brothers
· Both took a gentile bride while estranged from brothers
· Both restored to brothers
-Joseph restored to his brothers is this Scripture. They recognize Him when He reveals Himself to them.
Zechariah 14
A day of the Lord is coming when your plunder will be divided among you.
2 I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city.
3 Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights in the day of battle. 4 On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south. 5 You will flee by my mountain valley, for it will extend to Azel. You will flee as you fled from the earthquake a in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.
6 On that day there will be no light, no cold or frost. 7 It will be a unique day, without daytime or nighttime—a day known to the Lord. When evening comes, there will be light.
8 On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half to the eastern sea b and half to the western sea, c in summer and in winter.
9 The Lord will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one Lord, and his name the only name.
/[10]/
-That is Jesus coming back to set His feet on the Mount of Olives.
-When Jesus was leaving in Acts 1 the apostles said;
“Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
/[11]/
-Obviously Jesus had been talking to them about a future Kingdom in Israel.
-He told them it isn’t yet, He could have said, I’m going to take a gentile bride first.
-This is the times of the gentiles.
Romans 11
13 /I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry 14 in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. 15 For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? [12]/
(THIS WEEK THE MIRACLE, NEXT WEEK THE MYSTERY)
----
[1]Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 1997 (1 Co 10:30-32). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House.
[2]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (Ge 12:1-3). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
a Or seed; also in verse 16
[3]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (Ge 13:14-18). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
a Or Messiah; also in verse 23
b Daniel 9:27; 11:31; 12:11
a The Hebrew for this word can also mean wind or spirit (see verses 6-14).
[4]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (Eze 36:37-37:14). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[5]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (Is 66:8). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[6]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (Lk 21:24). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[7]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (Zec 12:1-3). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
a Or the Spirit
b Or to
[8]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (Zec 12:10-12). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[9]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (Zec 13:1-2). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
a Or My mountain valley will be blocked and will extend to Azel. It will be blocked as it was blocked because of the earth
quake
b That is, the Dead Sea
c That is, the Mediterranean
[10]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (Zec 14:1-9). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[11]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (Ac 1:6-11). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[12]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (Ro 11:13-16). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.