The Plan of God [Ezekiel 16] (Jeff Samuel)

By the we come before you together as a church, as a as an

assembly, as a congregation of your people.

Lord, our heart this morning is to worship you.

Thank you for who you are. Thank you that you are Jehovah

Jira, the, the Lord who provides.

Thank you for everything you've provided to us.

Thank you for this building that we're sitting in in the middle

of stormy weather where we can together worship you and thank

you for all your provision. Lord, we don't take it lightly.

Lord, we, we present our offering to you this morning as

a token of, of that understanding that it all comes

from you anyway. And the show that that is our

trust as we put this offering to you.

We, we, we have this understanding that that every

good thing we have comes from you.

And we thank you for that this morning.

Lord, we thank you that in the beginning was the word and the

word was, was with God and the word was God.

Lord, we thank you for Jesus Christ, the living word.

We thank you for your written word.

Lord, we thank you for Jeff and his his love for you, his love

for your word and his deep insights into it.

And we just pray as He brings your word to us this morning,

Lord, that we would all be transformed by it, that we would

be changed by it, that we would lean more towards Christ because

of it. Lord, thank you for our church

family, for the way we can love and support each other and build

each other up. Lord, again, thank you for a

chance to be here this morning. We pray these things in Jesus

name, Amen. Okay, well, good morning church.

We're taking a break from Luke. And so for the next two weeks,

they're just open topics and then we're gonna go back into

Luke. So the trouble with an open

topic has it's open. And so I found lots of things

that I thought would be really interesting and I thought, ohh,

I could go this way and I could do that.

But something kept coming back, which just, you know, some

sometimes things can get like you feel a burden or a,

something that God's doing. And so I try it actually to get

away from it. I tried to do other things, but

I keep coming back to this. So that's what we're going to to

go through this morning. So what I'm going to do this

morning is something maybe a little bit different, but we're

going to go through a topic and I'm going to use it as an

illustration to see what I see as part of the plan of God.

Now that can be quite spirit scary to speak on.

There's a guy called Jobin the Bible, if you remember him, and

Jobe has much positions God through Satan will Satan would

allow the allowed to remove all of the positions that he has.

He takes everything from him and then he takes his family.

Only his wife was left with him, and then he'll take his health

and the rest of the chapter. The books as it goes through as

a conversation between Joe and his three friends and the three

friends is Eliphaz, Bildad and Sohar.

And the whole part of the Bible is this back and forward

speaking on behalf of God. And at the end of the book it

gets to the place where God will actually speak.

And he would say of these three friends, he said they didn't

speak for me. They didn't actually know my

plans, my purposes. They didn't speak on my behalf.

And so Joe will actually be asked to do a sacrifice for his

three friends so that they will be forgiven in front of God.

But there's a fourth guy and his name is Elijah, who which means

he is God. And he turns up in the chapter

at the exhaustion of the three friends trying to understand

what Job was going through and and trying to get it.

It's exhausted. And so Ellie, who will speak and

he will just speak about Job's wrong and that he's being

self-righteous. But also he sees the problems of

the other three friends that they're not speaking on behalf

of God of the speaking on their own thoughts about how God

works. And so this morning that's why

it's a little bit of fear is because I'm presenting or trying

to talk to you about is what I think as God's plan and his

purposes. And that can be scary.

And my speaking on the side of Ali who or Ali Fez Bill dead and

so far or am I speaking on the side of the Lahu and you'll have

to weigh these things up. But my speaking about the plan

of God and his purposes because it's coming from God or is it

coming from maybe my own just knowledge of the Bible and

things that I think of and you're going to be able to

wrestle with these things this morning.

So what I'm wanting to do is to walk through the plan of God,

but I'm wanting to do it in two relationships.

The first relationship is Jehovah or God with his wife,

the nation of Israel. And then look at the second

relationship with this, which is Christ and his bride, which is

the church, and see how the stages of the relationship has

walked, walked or towards transversed through history so

that we can come to this place in which we Live Today.

There's so much about this topic that is in the world's news and

everything that's going on. So we're going to try and go

through a through it in this sort of way.

So the first thing that we're going to go right back to the

time of the OHH. Sorry.

What I want to do is walk through the various stages of a

relationship between God as it relates and and the church as

well. So we're gonna go right back to

the time of the flood. So God does a reset.

We all understand that the great flood, he resets this world.

He starts eight people in the boat, the reset happens and then

God will do something quite miraculous, which is different

to previously because he's going to draw out a people for

himself. And that people will be known as

the tribe or the nation of Israel.

But primarily it comes from one person whose name is Abraham.

He was Abraham. He will have his son who will be

Isaac. Isaac will have his son who will

be Jacob. And Jacob's name has changed to

Israel. And from that point on, we have

this idea of this, this Jewish nation, the nation of Israel.

And so the idea is that what I really want you to to grabs or

get to grips with is that that the covenant that we're talking

about was called an unconditional covenant when it

comes to Abraham. It's found in Genesis chapter

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

12, Genesis chapter 15, Genesis chapter 17, Genesis chapter 22.

Genesis 15 · chapter mention Genesis 17 · chapter mention Genesis 22 · chapter mention

It's the promises of God, irrespective of what Abraham is

going to do or what Isaac or Jacob will do and has nothing to

do with what they are going to do.

It's all to do with God's plans and his purposes.

And he makes the covenant so much if you can remember what he

does when he actually comes time to making the covenant is he

gets animals. He they cut them in half and

they put them beside. And then the usual practise is

that you would walk through together as you make the

promises of the covenants that you make.

What God does is something very different.

He puts Abraham to sleep, if you remember the story, he puts him

to the side. And God will walk through the

pieces himself as a torch, showing that no matter what

Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob will do, God will keep his promises

because he promised to keep them.

And so that's what we call the Abrahamic covenant.

So from there, and in the Abrahamic Covenant, you remember

that he says that through Abraham, all of the nations of

the earth will be blessed. That's part of what's there.

There's many other things that are in there as well.

I just wanted to highlight that point.

So from there, God does something else.

He goes, you know what? Because of that covenant, I'm

gonna even further something and I'm actually going to make

myself connected to you in a way that I am going to call you my

wife. And so if you've got your

Bibles, if you turn with me to Jeromy Chapter 5, we're going to

start there. So God furthers this and he says

because of the promise that I made, I'm actually going to do

something else as well. I'm actually going to make this

covenant. Have you ever thought of the

first five books of the Bible? Genesis, What's it about?

Beginnings. That's the word Genesis makes.

Okay, fine. Exodus is about exiting

Leviticus about the Levitical priesthood, Numbers about the

numbers that were travelling in. What's Deuteronomy?

It's like a different word, right?

All the others you know Jude. Aeronomy literally means second

law. That's the meaning of the word.

You know what the problem with the Judah like we often don't.

We find it quite as a boring book.

I get that, but due to aeronomy. The reason that has the name

second law is it's because primarily it's a repeat of

Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. Know if you've realised that all

the content that's in Deuteronomy, there is a little

bit that's different, but primarily it's all from Exodus,

Leviticus and Numbers. But it's rearranged.

Rearranged is what? It's rearranged as a marriage

covenant. That's the purpose of the book

of Deuteronomy where God will sit out to his people Israel, a

marriage contract. So Jerome chapter 5, this one

says, and Moses summoned all Israel.

If you can just grab that, understand what that's saying.

All of Israel, the covenant that God will make is not just with

the believers of Israel. You need to understand that it's

with all of Israel, whether you're a believer, Jewish

believer or an unbeliever. The contract, this marriage

covenant is with all of Israel. Okay, so Moses summoned all

Israel and said to them, hero Israel, the the statutes and the

rules that I speak in your hearing today and you shall

learn them and be careful to do them.

The Lord our God made a covenant with us in hort and whore, which

is the same as Mount Sinai. So this is the what we call the

second covenant. We have the Abrahamic, which is

unconditional. This covenant is something

that's called conditional, and the picture is a marriage

winning where there's two groups, there is the Lord and

there is the nation of Israel. Again, it's all of Israel and

they are seen as his wife and and this there's going to be if

you do this, then you will get these blessings.

If you don't do this, you will get these curses.

It's different to the Abrahamic covenant.

It's a relationship based on if you then you'll get this.

If you don't, you'll receive this.

Jeromy Chapter 7. Have a look at what God says

when he's calling them. So Jeromy Chapter 7, verse 6, he

says, for you are a people wholly to the Lord your God.

The Lord your God has chosen you as a people for His treasured

position. So out of all the people who are

on the face of the earth, it was not because you were more a

number than any of the other people that the Lord has set His

love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all

peoples. But it is because the Lord loves

you and is keeping the oath, okay, The covenant that He swore

to your fathers, OK. And now what I want you to do is

go to me with me, please. Ezekiel chapter 16.

Ezekiel 16 · chapter mention

Majority of the time now we're going to stay in Ezekiel, move

there other passages. But if you hold your fingers in

the sequel, we're going to go back and forwards as we look up

this thing O Ezekiel chapter 16 and I'm going to read for this

Ezekiel 16 · chapter mention

from verse 8. This is seen like the marriage

night. This is what is Ezekiel 16 is

pictured as. And we're just going to show you

what God says in relation to this covenant that he makes,

which we call the Mosaic covenant.

So Ezekiel 16 verse 8 says when I pass to buy you again and saw

Ezekiel 16:8

you the whole you were at the age for love, and I spread the

corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness.

I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you,

declares the Lord God, and you became mine.

Judah, Romy, the whole book of Jude, Aeronomy is the marriage

covenant that God would make with the nation of Israel.

All of them, not just the believers, it would be with that

nation. And so that's the first stage of

the marriage. It's the marriage that God would

have that's separate from the Abrahamic covenant, separate

than the unconditional promises, but it's an agreement between

the two groups, the wife of Jehovah and the Lord himself.

Stage 2 is where Israel or just if I pause there.

Just imagine if, if I was to say if God made the covenant with

New Zealand, with us in that way, like, how would we stand?

Remember, it's not just with the believers, but with the whole of

New Zealand. How would God see us?

And we often think when it comes to God's dealing with Israel, we

think of it as numbers or percentages.

If 80% of Israel were following God, then God is pleased with

Israel. And if 10% were only following

God will God would do all these judgments and things like that.

That's biblically not true. You know what the percentage is.

Remember what happens with the nation of Israel?

They go from Egypt. They go towards the promised

land. God is angry with them because

of their unbelief of not going in the land.

There will be only two people that will be over the age of 20

when God makes their promise to them, which will be Joseph and

Caleb. The rest of all of the Jewish

people will die in the wilderness.

God will refresh them and bring them to himself, and then they

would go into the promised land. As they go into the promised

land, they have this great victory against Jericho.

You might remember the story The walls fall Down.

Fantastic victory as God goes in there.

But there's a sin of one man less than 1% ascend just from

one man out of all of the nation of Israel.

And his name is Aiken, and he takes something that he's not

supposed to take. God promised that you shouldn't,

will sit to him that you shouldn't take certain things.

He takes it and hides it for himself.

The very next battle that they go into, which is against I, I,

I, they go there to try and take it and as they move towards it,

they get defeated. 36 of them die and they face a real big

defeat. God would judge the nation of

Israel for less than 1% of a people.

That would not be righteous. What if God did that to New

Zealand? What would our percentage be?

How would he deal with us? That's how we dealt with in our

nation of Israel. That's what we have to grab as

Christians, that God made a covenant with Israel, the

nation, believers, unbelievers. It's never on percentages or

numbers. It was on the entirety of the

nation of Israel, something that's really important.

Second stage, what did Israel do with this with this position as

the wife of Jehovah? What did they do with it?

So we're going to go back to the just read one verse before we go

there. Jeremiah 320 is surely A

treacherous wife leaves her husband.

So you have been treacherous to me.

Ohh. House of Israel declares the

Lord. The whole summarisation of what

happened where the God would send judges, whether he would

send kings, whether he would send prophets is that Israel

would be an adulterous nation. Even if it was less than 1%,

they would still be considered an adulterous nation.

So Ezekiel chapter 16 going to read from verse 23.

Ezekiel 16 · chapter mention

I had to find a place in the passage that's that I could read

from because the, the language is so strong.

And this part of Ezekiel, it's so strong in fact, that, you

know, we, we have the situation which is the Bible translation

from the Hebrew into the Greek. It was done by Jewish people

when they came to Ezekiel 16. They won't.

They haven't translated it as actually Ezekiel 16 says.

Do you know why? Because the language in this

chapter is so strong that even the Jewish people recognise.

And so that's one of the rules. Even today in Israel, they don't

translate this passage because they get the meaning of it and

it's so strong. It's watered down and the

situations and in most of our Bible translations come from

that. And so this is where we get

ours. But even even for in English,

you'll see the words are so strong, but it's even stronger

in Hebrew and we're not going to go there at all.

So I found a passage where I can read from and this, so it's

hopefully a little bit more tangible to your ears.

So a sequel chapter 16 and read from verse 23 and it says, and

after all your wickedness, woe, woe to you, declares the Lord

God. You built for yourselves A

vaulted chamber and made for yourself a lofty place in every

square at the heart of every street.

You built your lofty place and made your beauty and

abomination, offering yourself to any passerby by multiplying

your harlotry. You also played the harlot with

the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, multiplying your

harlotry to provoke me to anger. Behold, therefore, I stretched

out my hand against you and diminished your allocated

portion, and delivered you to the greed of your enemies, the

daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your Lord

behaviour. You played the harlot also with

the Assyrians because you were not satisfied.

Yes, you played the harlot with them and still were not

satisfied. You multiplied your Hartree also

with the trading land of Chaldea.

Even with this, you were not satisfied.

You know, the countries that he's naming here, it's the

countries that God would send on judgement or for judgement

against the nation of Israel because of the idolatry.

So Egypt, God would bring them there, they would get puffed up,

and then God would change it so that they would have become

slaves. You know what they were supposed

to do to make them turn to the Lord.

But instead of turning to the Lord, they worship the gods of

the Egyptians. The next one, the Philistines,

that's when they went into the land.

That was where the Philistines were.

They were supposed to go there. And because of the disobedience

of Israel, God said that I'm going to leave them in the land

to be a thorn to you because of your disobedience.

What it Israel do in return? They didn't accept the

acknowledgement of what was going, what was done as a

punishment, but instead they followed the gods of the

Philistines, who was the nation that took away the OR the empire

that took away the northern 12 or 10 tribes of Israel.

It's the one that's mentioned here, the Assyrians.

God says I sent them to judge you and I removed you out of the

land, but instead of being coming back to me, you actually

worship their gods. And then the last one that's

mentioned here is the Chaldeans. That's the Babylonians, exactly

the same. The Babylonians, they were taken

because of God's judgement on the people were moved to

Babylon. And instead of recognising what

God was doing, they worship the gods of the Babylonians.

That was the the problem. And so in verse 30 of chapter

16, we have like really, it sums up the whole thing.

He says how sick is your heart? That's how God sees the nation

of Israel at this particular time.

How sick is your heart? That's who you are.

And verse 32, he says adulterous wife who receives strangers

instead of her husband. That's God speaking, this is his

wife. And he says you're adulterous

wife. That's who you receive.

You receive the Assyrians, you receive the Babylonians, the

that the Egyptians were full of things because they are too just

quickly will say upon the children also, I have no mercy,

he says, because they are children of harlotry, for their

mother has played the harlot. So she who conceived them has

acted shamefully. For she said, I will go after my

lovers who gave me my bread and my water, my wool and my flex,

my wool and my drink. That is the sin of Israel, a

Dollar Tree and adultery. And so we move on to the third

stage. What happened in all these

periods of time? The judges, we move into the

third stage. If you tuned in with me, but

keep your fingers in the Q, When I come back to the air, I want

you to have a look at Isaiah chapter 50 and we're going to

Isaiah 50 · chapter mention

read from verse one with the idolatry of Israel.

God does something else and now He's going to separate Himself

from Israel, and this is the separation.

So Isaiah chapter 50 verse one, and it starts off by saying,

Isaiah 50 · chapter mention

thus says the Lord, where is your mother's certificate of

divorce with which I have sent her away.

At this stage in Isaiah, God has not given Israel the certificate

of divorce. Okay, but He is separating

Himself from her. I want you to recognise the

difference. So He goes, where is the

certificate of divorce that I gave you?

Where is it? And he says, well, which of my

career says is it? To whom I have sold you meaning

who is God and debt to that He actually sold the nation of

Israel to someone else. And then he says what actually

happened? Read the verses.

It says, behold, for your iniquities, for the iniquities

of the the Jewish nation, for your iniquities you were sold,

meaning you sold yourselves to the other lovers and for your

transgressions your mother was sent away.

And that's the idea. The picture is in Ezekiel

Ezekiel 10 · chapter mention

chapter 10. God's presence, if you remember,

was in the first Temple, and he's stayed there until Ezekiel

10 sees that God's presence is removed from the temple.

That's the separation of God from the people of Israel.

He hasn't yet divorced them, but he has separated himself from

them, which is why His presence leaves the temple.

We come into the fourth stage after the separation, which

lasted for about 100 years. We now come into something that

gets serious, which is the bill of divorcement.

And so if you turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 3, I'm going to

Jeremiah 3 · chapter mention

read from verse 6 to 10, and then we'll go back to equal.

So still hold your fingers there.

And this is the bill of divorce, you know, and Deuteronomy, it

steps out the four ways of what you're supposed to do in a

divorce. This is how you're to do it

according to Jeromy. First of all, there's some,

there's a problem or there's some iniquity.

That's step one. The second step is that you're

to write out a divorce certificate.

So you actually write it out. The third step, according to

Judea irony, is that you would take that divorce and you would

place it physically into her hand and then on the foot.

The last step was that you would then send her out.

That's the four steps that's listed in Deuteronomy.

Now when we get to Jeremiah, you're going to see these things

played out. So Jeremiah chapter 3 verse 6.

Jeremiah 3:6

And it says, the Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah, have

you seen what she did, that faithless one Israel, how she

went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and

there played the harlot? And I thought she has done all

this and she has after she has done all this, she will return

to me. But she did not return.

And who? Treacherous sister Judas or it

she saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one

Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce.

What God is saying in, in the history of it, we had the one

nation, the nation of Israel, but inside there, there was a

split where we had the 10 tribes of the northern Kingdom, 10

tribes of Israel and one in the South.

Now the, the northern one kept the name Israel.

But Israel, and we talk about it biblically, it's, it's the whole

12 tribes. But sometimes in the Bible

you'll see it was only talking about these ones, the tin in the

north. And then you had the predominant

one in the South. There were two tribes, but it's

called the tribe of Judah. So just be aware of that.

So when we're talking about it, it's a portion of Israel in this

in this context. And he says and diversity again,

she saw that for all of her adulteries, that faithful one

Israel I sent away. I sent her away with a degree of

divorce. Who is the prophet?

At the time of when the northern 10 tribes get removed from

Israel and they're taken to Assyria, guess who the prophet

is? It's Josiah.

What does the book of Hosea about someone that is a husband

to his wife? The book of Josiah is the

written degree of divorce that he hands to the northern tin

tribes and says here is your divorce document.

And so with that, the northern 10 tribes are now divorced from

the Lord, according to the Mosaic covenant that he had made

in marriage. But it's not just with him.

Keep reading. So and verse 8 halfway through

it says you too treacherous sister.

Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the Hallett

because she took her harlotry lightly.

She polluted the land, committing adultery with stone

and tree. She committed idolatry,

adultery, this teen. Yet for all this who treacherous

sister Judah did not return to me with their whole heart, but

in pretence to clears the Lord, which is the book of divorcement

for the night tribe of Judah. Who was The Who was that the

prophet at the time when Judah got removed to Babylon and she

was sent out? It's Jeremiah.

Why do you think we call them the weeping prophet?

It's the divorce. It's a writing of divorce.

Josiah is the written divorce for the northern Israel.

This is the divorce, Jeremiah, for the southern part of Israel,

and they are removed and sent out.

God has now divorced Israel and those don't know if you ever

considered that what these books are actually about and why He's

got them in this in this way. So with the divorce they removed

out, now comes the amazing part of how God works things.

They're divorced. Why then would God bring back

Zerubbabel to build the temple? Why would he then bring back the

people through Israel, from Babylon to the back to the

nation of Israel? Or he would give Nehemiah, build

the walls of that period. He's divorced from his wife now.

He's sent her out and it's only a portion of the Jewish people

that actually come back at that time that it's it's coming,

coming back. But this is where for me that

interesting or where it gets or sorry.

Let me get to the stage first before we go.

So once that's sent out, that's the divorce.

The next stage is God's punishment.

Now want you to understand, I've been divorced.

The punishment for the nation of Israel, including Judah, is from

the time of Babylon all the way through to the present time in

which we live now. That is the punishment that God

would do. It's called biblically the time

of the Gentiles. The book of Zechariah is

completely I know some of you are going through that BC if the

book of Zechariah is that book, which is what it's what it's

about. It's about Israel and the times

of the Gentiles. That's how the book is

presented. That's why it's so starts where

it doesn't finishes also where it does.

So Zechariah, is this this grouping of understanding of

where Israel is, but Israel are under punishment.

So with Israel under punishment, what does God do next?

And this is the amazing thing that he does.

He's divorced his wife at this stage.

So Ezekiel chapter 16, verse 58 is the the idea of the

Ezekiel 16:58

punishment. I'm just going to read that

verse. He says you bear the penalty of

your loudness and you're abominations declares the Lord

for thus says the Lord, I will deal with you as you have done

and you are you have been you have despised the oath breaking

the covenant. He's talking about the marriage

covenant. You've broken it.

I separated from you. I've divorced the northern

tribes. I've now divorced the southern

tribes. What are we to do with all this

information? Have a look at the next verse.

So from this Israel gets punished.

Just again, to be clear, it's from Babylon all the way through

to the present day is where this punishment is sitting.

But there's something that's amazing and what God will do

next under this punishment is Ezekiel chapter 16.

Ezekiel 16 · chapter mention

And I'm going to reverse 60, he says.

Yet I will remember my covenant with you after he's divorced

them. Yet I'm gonna remember my

covenant with you and the days of your youth.

What shall we talking about? It's not the marriage covenant.

He's divorced them, but remember there was a previous covenant to

Abraham which wasn't conditional.

And he says in the Abrahamic covenant, through you all of the

people of the earth will be blessed.

And that's what he's saying. Yet I will remember my covenant

with you in the days of your youth.

I will establish it as a what? Recognise the words everlasting

covenant image. John 316 For God so loved the

world that he gave his only begotten Son, and whoever

believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal

everlasting life. The same words.

This is where the covenant starting to come in.

That you know of term with me to Jeremiah chapter 31 and we're

Jeremiah 31 · chapter mention

going to read from verse 31 with Israel being divorced.

God in his mercy and in in his grace, is gonna do something

absolutely miraculous and he pulls these people back.

Zaruba Bell comes back from Babylon to build the temple, and

this is mentioned. Thermia builds the walls.

Israel brings the people back. Why does God do this when he

divorced Israel? It's because of his covenant,

the Abrahamic 1, not the Mosaic. He pulls them back and a

Jeremiah 31. He says, Behold, the days are

coming, declares the Lord, that I'm going to make a new

covenant. With who?

The House of Israel and with the House of Judah.

Can you please recognise what that's saying?

The New Covenant in your hands, if you have the Bible, not the

electronic one, but if you have the Bible, you have two

portions, the Old Testament and what's the new one?

The New Covenant, the New Testament.

That's what you're holding your hands.

This is where the new covenant comes from in the Bible.

It doesn't come from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

It's actually found in Jeremiah 31.

Read the verses again. Behold, the days are coming,

declares the Lord. Then I'll make a new covenant.

With who? Not with the church.

Now that might be hard for some of you to hear.

It doesn't say I'm making the new covenant with the church,

but he says I make it with who? With the House of Israel and

with the House of Judah. Okay.

And he says, not like the covenant that I made with their

fathers in Egypt, the covenant that they broke, though I was a

husband to them. Again, you can see now the the

language, what it's saying. He's divorced them through the

Mosaic Law, but now he's creating something new.

The new covenant, he says, for this is the covenant that I will

make with the House of Israel after those days, declares the

Lord. I will put my law within them,

and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God

and they will be my people. The New Testament is Jeremiah

Jeremiah 31 · chapter mention

chapter 31, and it's not made with us.

It was made with the House of Israel and with the House of

Judah. In all the differences, when God

made the marriage covenant with the nation of Israel, He

included all believers, unbelievers.

That's who he made the covenant with.

The new covenant is not so. The New Covenant is only made

with those of faith. Whether you're Jewish or whether

you're a Gentile, you're pulled in because of what God has done

with the New Covenant. But he didn't make it with us.

That's what we have to realise. And it's based off again, the

Abrahamic covenant that it was. So the real thing is we we know

for us as believers, it's all about faith.

It's our putting our trust in Jesus Christ and his death and

his resurrection. That's 100% true.

You don't need to know all of this theology or the nuts and

bolts of how it works. So Steve was fantastic this

morning. He said like when you get to

these emblems, he can be lots of depth, but it can also be so

simplistic, just trusting it's a faith.

But what we do often as Christians is we take the

surface level and we stay there. It's just about the surface.

But there is so much more in God's plans and purposes.

And So what he did is that he, because of the promises that he

made to Abraham as he drew some people back, which were there.

And then God says, I'm going to do something new in your eyes,

and I'm making a covenant with Israel and with the House of

Judah. And he made the new covenant.

That's the covenant that Jesus says when he's at the Passover

table, Do this in remembrance of me.

This is my body. This is my bread for the new

covenant. It's all the reference to what's

there in Jeremiah. And so the real question then is

the nuts and bolts of it. We just come by faith to God.

And it's absolutely true. It's it's the gospel

understanding that Jesus died, that he was buried.

He rose again the third day for our sins and that he lives and

one day he's coming back again. The gospel can be really simple.

So in this relationship we have something else that now happens.

We have the pause on Israel, on their punishment.

Well, that's still from Babylon all the way to the current time.

But what happens now is that we as Gentiles for the first time,

how do we connect to this? Well, that's what a Romans are

living. I'm just going to read Romans 11

Romans 11:13

verse 13 so that you can actually see how this works.

This is the Jewish person that went out to the Gentiles to tell

us about the covenant that you hold in your hands.

It's Paul writing and he says in Romans 11 verse 13, now I'm

Romans 11:13

speaking to you Gentiles. That's what he wants us to

understand. That's us.

I'm speaking to you, Gentiles. And as much as I am an apostle

to the Gentiles, that's his purpose in what he was called to

do, He said. I magnify my ministry and order

somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of

them. For if the rejection means the

reconciliation of the world, give what he's saying here.

If the rejection of the Jewish people about Jesus as being the

Messiah resulted in salvation to the whole world, what would it

look like when the Jewish people, if, as we go through

another stage, would actually all accept them as an all, Not

just in part, but all of them? What does he say?

That it's his? If this is the result, salvation

comes through the rejection of Jesus, What will their

acceptance be but life from the dead?

And then he goes on. If the dough is offered in the

first fruits as wholly, so is the lump, and if the route is

wholly, so are the branches. But if some of the branches were

broken off, and you? This is talking about us as

Gentiles, although a wild olive shoot were grafted in among the

others, now sheer in the nourishing root of the olive

tree. And he says this.

Do not be arrogant toward the branches.

If you are, remember it is not you that supports the root, but

the root supports you. If a Jewish person comes to

faith today, what we often will think in the Christian circles

is that they would come to faith and they'll get folded into the

church. Isn't that usually what your

thoughts and processes are, that Jewish people, if they come to

faith, they get folded in the church?

And that's how it works. Biblically, it's the opposite

way round. It says that the covenant was

not made with the church, but it was made with Israel believing

Israel with them, that they were there.

And then we as Gentiles by faith have been grafted in that way.

So they are the branches. And then because of their

unbelief of who Jesus was, because what Jesus was doing,

and this is the amazing part of it, he had divorced his wife,

but he had not forgotten his wife.

And he made a covenant to the Jewish people through Israel,

through Judah for the believing part of the Jewish people, not

the unbelieving. And then he said, now I'm going

to invite all of us as Gentiles to be pulled into the thing that

God had made, the covenant. And that's what it's about.

It's actually about us being grafted in or pulled into the

root or the prices, the route or the cornerstone.

The trunk fills up, goes out on the branches, some of them are

broken off, and then we are grafted in.

I honestly believe that is why we struggle so much and we're

gonna struggle even further as we get on in the church age

because we doctrine is so important.

And if we think that we are the main ones and God speaks to me

and I'm the I can tell you because God speaking to me and

we don't understand the theology of Harold actually works that

we're grafted and pulled this way.

We we say that's all separate. That's got nothing to do with

me. God speaks to me and I'm the one

that's going to tell you about who God is.

And that's for me really scary because that's what I think

Joe's friends did. They speak on behalf of God

without knowing a depth of what is actually is to work inside

the the the plans or the purposes of how God has got this

working. So we as Gentiles are grafted in

verse 18 again just said do not be arrogant toward the branches.

If you remember it is not you that supports the root, but the

root supports you. You will say to me branches were

broken off that I might be grafted and and that is true.

They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand

fast and faith. So do not be proud, but fear.

So now we go into the next relationship which is the Lord

Jesus Christ. You know we as believers with

your Jewish will Gentile, we go into the same body which is the

Church of Christ since X chapter 2, the so again Jesus would give

us the symbol of the bread and the wine saying this is the new

covenant. But it doesn't start until X

chapter 2 in the Holy Spirit comes from that point on.

It's the age of the church. Jews and Gentiles believers will

be in this part. And what are we called now?

We are called betrothed Christ. Do you recognise that we're not

actually married to Christ yet? We are betrothed to Him.

We are the bride of Christ, but we aren't actually married to

Him yet. O when do we get married?

And the and the Romans live? And it also says that a personal

hardening has come to Israel until the fullness of the

Gentiles comes in at the time when God will bring the fullness

of the church to himself, being Jewish and Gentiles in this one

body. At the time when he's got all of

the all of us in this one body to the full number that he's

predetermined or that he has, then we're going to be with him

and go where he is and we will celebrate what the marriage

supper of the Lamb, which is the actual marriage.

That's where we're going to be as the church actually married

to Christ, and that's the picture that's presented.

O this is the age in which we live.

We're in the time of the church from ex Charter 2 to the time

that God will cool the fullness of the church then, and then the

church will be removed and taken up and to be presented with Him.

So what about Israel? Again, like now we've got this,

we know how things work, but what happens to Israel?

So I'm going to go now into the the seventh stage of Israel's

relationship. There's going to be a

realisation of what Israel got wrong, and that's found in

Jeremiah as early as Jeremiah. Of the three, I'm just going to

read one verse 3 of Jeremiah 3, verse 11.

Jeremiah 3:11

And this season the Lord said to me, faithless Israel has shown

herself more righteous than treacherous Judah, even though

God had divorced her. He said, go and proclaim these

words toward the north and say, return faithless Israel,

declares the Lord, I will not look on you in anger, for I am

merciful, declares the Lord. I will not be angry forever.

Only acknowledge your guilt. You know the the requirement for

the Jewish people to be grafted and back again as a nation is

that they will acknowledge their guilt.

What is the guilt, the rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ?

That's the guilt that the Jewish nation are going to have to

acknowledge. So Kariah says they will look on

me whom they have pierced, and they will mourn as one mourns

for their only child. And when they finally as a

nation will go, yes, God divorced us, but he did

something way more miraculous than that.

He gave us the new covenant. But we rejected that and so God

has gone and grafted in the Gentiles until the fullness of

the Gentiles become in. And then after that happens, the

church is going to be removed and God is going to then deal

with the nation of Israel until they will acknowledge His guilt.

And so we finally have the eighth stage is the the

remarriage of the nation of Israel to God the Father.

It's an amazing thing. So the church is removed.

It's taken out of the way, God went to judgement and it ends up

in the tribulation. Didn't know that's what the

tribulations about. Where God will pressurise the

Jewish people so strongly that 2/3 of them will perish, 1/3

will be ready to acknowledge their guilt.

And it's only at that point, when they will finally, after

all this time from Babylon all the way through to the end, that

they will acknowledge this sin and call for the Messiah as the

timing of the Messiah to come back.

And so in stage 8, I'm just going to read from Isaiah 54.

It's the last was I 54 and verse when I start from verse 4, it's

after Isaiah 53, the actual words that the Jewish people are

gonna acknowledge about Jesus being on the cross.

So after that we have Isaiah 54 and verse 4.

It says fear not, for you will not be ashamed or be confounded,

for you will not be disgraced, for you will forget the shame of

your youth and their approach of your widowhood.

That's because of what they've been pushed out from.

You will remember no more. Your Maker is your husband, the

Lord of hosts is his name. The Holy One of Israel is your

Redeemer, the God of the whole earth, as he is called.

For the Lord has called you like a wife, deserted and grieved in

spirit, like a wife of your youth when she is cast off, says

your God for a brief moment, This is from Babylon to where we

are today. For a brief moment.

It's how God describes it. I've deserted you, but with

great compassion I will gather you in overflowing anger.

For a moment I hid my face from you.

Okay, But with everlasting love, again, that's the word we're

looking for, everlasting love. I will have compassion on you,

says the Lord. We'll skip down those verses,

but all I was trying to get you to recognise is that God will

remarry the nation of Israel again after the Tribulation

period. The fault of the Mosaic Law when

God made that marriage covenant with them, as it was with all

Israel, whether they believed in God or not, it was with all of

them. You know what God's going to do

in the end after the Tribulation?

It's through pressure, it's through judgement.

He is then going to take them. 2/3 will die, but the third

remaining will acknowledge their guilt.

And then we're going to have the marriage, the remarriage, but

only in faith. They're going to acknowledge

Jesus and he's gonna marry all of them.

That's what Romans live and actually says.

I'm just going to read the verse and live in 25.

He says, look, I want you to understand at least your eyes

and your eyes and your own eyes. I want you to be.

I do not want you to be unaware of this mysteries, this mystery,

brothers, a partial hardening has happened upon Israel until

the fullness of the Gentiles comes in, meaning that's when

the the church has come to its full number.

And in this way, what does it say?

All Israel will be saved. You recognise that all, every

single Jewish person at the time of the tribulation there will be

pointed out for this last third. Mildly 2/3 have already gone,

but they will all come to faith and that's where God will again

remarry the nation of Israel. So just as we close, it's just

like, what are we supposed to do with what you see in the world

today? There is a nation of Israel.

God is putting Israel in our faces more and more, and it's

going to become more and more prominent in our in our world so

that we'll have to deal with them at some stage.

You're going to have to do something.

Now, these are the options that you can have.

First one is to let the world dictate who Israel is to you.

Do it through social media, through it, through YouTube.

Do it through whatever tickles your ear.

But listen to the voices and make that judgement on the

nation of Israel. That's one option that you have.

A second one is that you're to recognise that.

What about if you could say why you believe what you think God

is doing with Israel from the Bible?

Remember the God of this world is Satan.

A Satan is the God of this world.

He influences all of the decisions that are in the

Airways that is trying to get you to see Israel in a certain

perspective. The alternative is that you

would know the plan of God for Israel because you know your

Bibles, you know the doctrine, you know what it says regarding

the nation of Israel, not based on XYZ that you see.

The other thing to recognise is the day of our visitation, God

is doing something miraculous. The nation of Israel and Ezekiel

Ezekiel 36 · chapter mention

chapter 36, remember, I'm talking in the context of God,

the nation of Israel, as the nation is still under

punishment. It's still under the judgement.

Q 36 days. God says that I'm gonna grab the

Jewish people from the four corners of the earth, and I'm

gonna bring them back into the nation of Israel.

And he says with my Roth poured out and with my anger, I'm going

to draw the Jewish people back into the land of Israel.

And I do this not for their namesake, but for my name's

sake. You know why Israel exists

today? It's for God's namesake, not for

Israel's namesake, it's for God. God is doing this, but it's in

the context that they're still under punishment.

But we're supposed to recognise that God is drawn them back for

the plans and purpose that he has.

So that's something also to consider.

CQ36 That's what it talks, the wrath of God drawing them back.

37 The dry bones were God would make life.

And who has ever seen such a thing that a nation would come

back again? Then we lead into hard chapters

38 and 39, which I believe is where we're sitting right now in

the Bible. We're in this time in the Bible.

We're actually, it's irrelevant to us.

It's actually right there. The other thing to remember is

that, yeah, again, Israel is in the time of punishment as a

nation and to remember also that that we're grafted into them.

Don't make that mistake. Don't think that your your pride

and your position is higher than what God has ordained by them

and we're not talking about Jewish people.

So please make me get understand what I'm talking about.

We're only talking about the believing Jewish people and the

covenant that God has made with Israel and we're grafted into

that. The Jewish people there there as

a nation are still under this judgement.

And remember, it's not on percentages, It's on the

totality of them entirely. Okay then finally it's what I

would you really just to close with is the way we should deal

with the nation of Israel. Israel that exists today is

because God is doing it, not because mankind are doing it.

So what should be our relationship to Israel?

Israel do not do everything right.

If you the pendulum, if it's sitting here, if we go too far

on this one, we say everything that Israel is, everything that

they do is because they're God's people and there's nothing that

they can do that's wrong. You've swung their pension on

way too far to the side. You've gone in the wrong place

because you're not listening to the scriptures that says that

God is judging them and he's doing things with them.

You'll pendulum is sitting here. You can call them out.

Guys like Yuval Harari, who was a Jewish like academic, sort of

considered very high up in World Economic forums, he actually

despises God. Should we court not call them

out because he's Jewish? Course we shouldn't.

We should say yes, what he's doing is absolutely wrong.

So that's the side. But does that mean you wish stay

over here and say, ohh, this is what we should do?

We should just absolutely hammer away or we can come over to this

side and we say, you know what's happening in the Bible today.

Even like passages like Ezekiel 36 or God dealing with Israel.

It's got no relevance at all in the Bible.

Means nothing in that way. We swing the pendulum this side

and we say no, they have nothing to do and there's no mention or

purposes for God. The centre point is right here,

and the centre point is this, acknowledging that God is one

day going to marry his wife again, which is the nation of

Israel. Do you want to go against the

Lord's anointed? Remember Saul.

Saul was called from God and he was anointed, and he wasn't a

good king. Israel has called back to the

nation of Israel. They're there right now.

They're called back, but they're not necessarily in a believing

state. In fact, it's the opposite.

But God has called them back. So that's the the picture.

Like of Saul, the next king is King David.

What was King David's relationship like to us all?

What did he do? He said.

I'm not going to go against the Lord's anointed.

That should be our position as a church.

We're not for him that everything that Jewish people do

is 100%. That's too far.

We're not totally against them because that's again too far.

The pendulum that sits right in the middle is that we go, yes,

we recognise that God is dealing with them, but I am not going to

put my hand against God's anointed.

Just like David would not put his hand against Saul.

He would call out Saul, so he would say, so why are you trying

to take my life? There's no problems calling out

people that you see that Jewish people are doing something

that's wrong. No problems at all, but don't

put your hand against them. Don't go too far where you swing

that pendulum. All I can say is in these coming

days, in these coming years, Israel is going to be what God

is doing is He's putting them up, up and up more in our face

so that you will have to make a call sometime of where you stand

with them. And with that pendulum is going

to swing. You can be over this side, you

can be on that side, or you can set, I think where the Bible

sets, which is right in the centre.

And so that's the way that I think we should do that.

We should deal with them is do the things that God says it's

recognise their future plan. Don't curse them, but neither

should we do it. You know the thing that I prayed

for like was amazing when all the nations were they going

through this process. Should we recognise the

Palestinian, the separate state and all those things.

I remember seeing all the other countries going that way,

Canada, Australia, many other countries, UK all going for that

way. Remember specifically praying in

the night to the Lord on my knees and saying Lord, please

just make if if we could make New Zealand pendulum sit in the

middle. I didn't think that it could

actually happen. I thought they would just swing

with every other state and nation had gone, would just

automatically go there, but that's what I prayed.

Lord, please let us stay in this middle.

Let us not be for Israel that everything they do is perfect.

That's not correct. It's not biblically correct, but

neither let us put our hand against them.

Let us just be neutral and let the Lord do something.

Isaiah 6211 says the Lord has declared to the end of the

earth, which is where we are in New Zealand.

He says, say to the daughter of Zion, that's the Jewish people,

your salvation is coming. It's exactly what's going to

happen in the future. And we need to know our theology

on some of this stuff. We're going to be taken.

We're going to get swept. And the more we get swept away,

the lesser we're going to be able to stand on the principles

of God. Sorry, I know it's a long time,

but it's been something that's been burdening on my heart for a

long time. And I just, yeah, I pray that I

won't be speaking on the other three friends of Job, but maybe,

Lord, if you're willing, may I speak on the side of Allaho.

It's close. And Priya, Father, we thank you

for your plans and your purposes, your arrangement and

marriage. Lord, what I just pray that we

might be able to. We thank so thankful all that

the simplicity of the gospel and what it actually means to come

to faith is just accepting you, Lord Jesus, the with sinners

that you died for us, that you rose again and you live, Lord,

and you're seated at the right hand side of the Father.

And Lord, that we just have to, we can accept you for what

you've done. But Lord, I also pray that we

might also know deeper things of your word.

Lord, leave us not on the milk. Let us not sit on the surface.

Lord, help us to understand the deeper plans and purposes of

you. Help us to rightly divide the

word of truth. Help us to see your plans and

your purposes and how we can be part of that even in a far away

country like New Zealand. Lord, I thank you for our the

people or the leaders that are in New Zealand.

I pray for our government, Lord. I do pray, Lord, that we will

stay in a neutral position. Would help us to keep the

pendulum where it should be, Lord, and help us to see the

opportunities that you're presenting to us.

But Lord, we do pray for the peace of Jerusalem as you've

asked us to do in sounds. Lord, I pray that you would help

our eyes to be opened, Lord, to recognise that you grafted us

then as Gentiles into the promises of God.

We're so thankful for what you were willing to do for us, Lord,

when we were so far away from you.

But Lord, I just thank you for this time, the opportunity,

Lord, and the burden that's been on my heart.

So just thank you for all of these things in Jesus name,

Amen.