Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 11, 2018 | Dear Israel: You're Killin' Me! - Israel And Me

Transcript

March 11, 2018 | Dear Israel: You're Killin' Me! - Israel And Me · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: How are you?
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: When um when I first came to the town of Topeka on the bus and uh walked from uh bus depot up here to this building, I was young, single, had no idea what was happening.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was the became the youth pastor and singles pastor, and uh a couple in the church, Bill and Clarol and Stuart were sort of adoptive parents for me.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: They fed me, uh, had the singles group in my house in their house.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up with one of their three children, Julie, there to some extent.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm older than she is.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um but anyway, they they uh uh Bill passed away.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Lord took him to glory this last week.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: His service is this afternoon, as I think you've already heard.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: But we've come to the place in the book I'm doing, which is Ezekiel.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: If you're visiting, we're going through this random, weird alien type book in the Old Testament.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're doing a 12-week series in the prophet Ezekiel, partly because we're just crazy and do what nobody else does.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um we're reading through it, 48 chapters.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you're wondering where you should be this morning, we're at chapter 36.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't, if you're not up to date in your reading, you've got a lot of work to do this afternoon.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um but anyway, um we've come to the place in this book where uh where all of the negatives, all of the judgments pretty much are over, and now we're talking about uh the future.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's appropriate.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I mentioned Bill Stewart this morning because uh he loved the future, he loved this kind of stuff, but we're talking about uh the time when we will see our loved ones again.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about what's called the millennium, we're talking about the promises to Israel, which uh Gentiles who trust Jesus as their savior will get to participate in.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And our series, of course, is Dear Israel, you're killing me, but my message titled this morning is Israel and Me.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I need some prayer, so I'm gonna stop us and pray because I decided as I was studying this that I would not only take chapter 35, but chapter 36.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Or actually, I started with chapter 36 and had to back up to 35.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I need some prayer.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: We need to take some time and ask God to help me and help you to try to march through two whole chapters of this book.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think you'll like it if we can do it.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Father, um, this amazing, this amazing section, this paragraph in chapter 36, uh, about the glories that are to come, the the blessings and all that stuff, uh seem to require, uh, as we as I talk to you, it seemed to require uh the earlier stuff as well.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so I pray that as we try to march through this stuff about Israel, that we will go away with some really practical applications and will understand what your future is, what your plan is for the future for us and for Israel.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: We pray this in Jesus' name.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: A few years ago, uh a well-known author named Joel Rosenberg, uh, he used to be a bodyguard for uh uh a previous prime minister in Israel.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: He's Jewish, uh, but he became a messianic Jew, a believer in Jesus, and he's written a number of exciting novels.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I think his best book was uh a book that he had read, not a novel, just before he came to see us a few years ago.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Our governor uh Brown, actually his wife, Mary, had a book fair, statewide book fair, and so she brought him in, and so uh got to spend some time with Joel, and he preached here on Sunday morning.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And in this book, Epicenter, he he decided to choose as its title this word that is is used in, say, foreign policy spheres to talk about not just a center of something, but uh uh a very center of something that's quite important uh politically.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And and his point was that Israel and Jerusalem in specific, in particular, is the epicenter of the world.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: His subtitle is Why the Current Rumblings in the Middle East Will Change Your Future.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's his best book.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: But his point is that Jerusalem is at the center of the world, and people have said this for thousands of years, and that all comes from a promise that God gave to a man named Abram, clear back in Genesis 12.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: This was the founding of what we think of as Israel, the Hebrew people.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: And God came to this man whose name was Abram, and he said, Despite the fact that you're a hundred and your wife is ninety, and you think you're you'll never have children, I'm going to bless you with a son.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And you're going to have descendants that are going to be so numerous, they'll be as many as the sand of the sea and the stars of the sky.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: And in these three verses, he ends with this huge promise.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I will bless those who bless you.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Clearly meaning not just you and Sarah, but all your descendants.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting little sideline there is that the first curse and the second curse are not the same word in Hebrew.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is light curse, and the second is heavy curse.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, he's literally saying, and whoever even slanders you or insults you or thumbs their nose at you, at your descendants, I will, and now the hard curse, I will damn, I will crush, I will totally annihilate.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Just showing you how serious God is about this.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says, and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And immediately you go, well, that must mean Jesus.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you'd be right.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: The seed of Abraham, the descendants of Abraham included the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, who died on the cross, therefore blessing the whole world.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this promise that he gave about blessing, that God gave about blessing all those who bless Israel and cursing all those who curse Israel sort of uh trickles down, but now drops in a huge flood in Ezekiel chapters 35 and 36.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: In Ezekiel 35, God speaks to the nations who have cursed Israel.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: He speaks to the nations who have insulted Israel.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: He speaks to the nations who are, we would call it, anti-Semitic.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And he keeps circling around saying, because you've done this, I'm going to do this, that to you.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to turn the tables, and you've always been tromping on Israel.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: As a result, I'm going to tromp on you.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And what he says is, because you, let's take five of these things, because you maintained a perpetual hatred toward Israel, verse five, because you gave Israel over to the sword, because you said Israel will be mine and tried to go in and steal the land.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because you were angry with Israel, because you were jealous of Israel, because you hated Israel, verse 11, because you rejoiced when Babylon came in and slaughtered Israel.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: You rejoiced when that happened.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, God says, I'm against you, verse 3.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'll turn your cities into ruins, verse 4.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'll destine you for bloodshed, verse 15.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'll make you a desolate waste, verse 7.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'll treat you as you treated her, verse 11.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: What we're speaking about here is something that you're probably or should be familiar with, and that is that Israel is rather unique among all the nations of the earth in the level of animosity toward it down since the very beginning.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: It is the most hated of all nations on earth.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, you'd think immediately, right, of Adolf Hitler.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Adolf Hitler was more than a Jew hater.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he he hated Christianity at a level that was only approached by the Russian oligarchs Lenin and Stalin.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, in 1933, when Hitler rose to power, he told his right-hand man, and then his cabinet basically, he said, Christianity is the enemy of Germany.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: You can't be German and Christian at the same time.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: I hope to eradicate Christianity, root and branch from Germany.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: People don't realize this, but he was anti-Christian and he hated Christianity in the Bible, which meant, of course, he was going to virulently hate the Jews who wrote the Bible and who were the first true followers of God.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so when Hitler had a chance, he decided to try to eliminate the Jews, and he wrote in his Bible, Mein Kampf, wherever I went, I began to see Jews, and the more I saw, the more starkly they became distinguished in my eyes from the rest of humanity.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Later, I often grew sick to the stomach from the smell of these Jews.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Gradually I began to hate them.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: For me, this was the time of the greatest spiritual upheaval I have ever had to go through.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: I had ceased to be a weak-kneed cosmopolitan and become an anti-Semite.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And he says that proudly.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's human viewpoint, because we know biblically God would never have allowed that.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: He makes that absolutely clear.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: But my point is that we have anti-Semitism today.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: If antisemitism is sort of on a curve and sometimes has peaks and sometimes has valleys, we are reaching what I think is another peak about 70, 80 years later, after Hitler.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I give you as evidence just some of the articles that were at the very top of the list when I typed anti-Semitism into my into Google.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Here's one from Commentary Magazine, recognizing anti-Semitism and calling it out.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Another article, the United Nations versus Israel.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Another one.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Let's be honest, the United Nations is anti-Semitic of the 200-plus countries in the world.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Only Israel's legitimacy is challenged.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: The point of that article is that Pakistan and Israel both were given countries in 1948, and Pakistan and Israel are parallel in almost every way, and yet Pakistan's legitimacy is never questioned.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Last year, for instance, um Syria received the UN condemnation one time, Iran one time, North Korea one time, Israel 21 times, 21 times condemned by the United Nations.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's partly because of that and partly because the United Nations is turning against the U.S.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: as well, its number one benefactor, that Trump has dropped our support of the United Nations this year about$280 million, which is about a quarter of the amount we usually give them.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: A book that's just been written, I think, in the last year or so, is entitled Making David into Goliath and has an interesting argument that if you look carefully, you'll see that all of the people who are against Israel are portraying them not as David, but of course the great Goliath, which is the tyrant of the Mideast, which is killing the poor Davids around it.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Other articles that I found, whose titles are interesting.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Learning to Hate Zion.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Another one.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Antisemitism is still alive in Germany, 70 years after the Holocaust.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Here's another one.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Hanagraph, I enjoy listening to Hank Hanagraph, but I noticed that about five years ago, he, I think it's about then, he flipped and suddenly decided that Israel was the great enemy.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hanagraph and Burge, I know Gary, he teaches at Wheaton College, attacked Christian support of Israel.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Why the Charlottesville Marchers were obsessed with Jews.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: This was a march, I think, a year, no, two years ago, I think, and uh right-wingers who were marching were sort of, uh there's no more Ku Klux Klan, but they were sort of like that, and they were obsessed with hatred of Jews.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: So uh it doesn't matter whether you're on the left, like the book The Left's Jewish Problem, or whether you're on the right, you can be uh a hater of Israel and of Jews.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the danger with that is that the Bible is clear in Ezekiel and elsewhere, and I'm quoting now as Zechariah, chapter 12, that it will come to pass in those days that I will seek, God says, to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now you say to me, but the United States is different, and you're exactly right that we live in a country, and secondly, we're part of a religious movement that is pro-Israel generally.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: To many people's disgust, especially in the Mideast, the United Nations is the most pro-Israel country in the world.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, we now have a UN representative named Nikki Haley, whose picture is here, who is the most outspoken brave defender of Israel.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: In all 21 of those condemnations last year, she was very vocal about how silly they were.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: And uh this the billboard you see on the screen is in Jerusalem, President Trump Mazeltov, on your decision to move your embassy to Jerusalem.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: So there's no doubt that America has taken at least an official stand in support of Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, even beyond that, you and I are part of a movement, and this is I shouldn't say you and I, if you're not a believer, if you're not an evangelical, and I know some of you aren't, there is a movement of evangelicals, and I have full disclosure, this church is an evangelical church.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Evangelicals are Israel's best friend.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Bibi Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, said that in response to, I think, the chief rabbi of Israel, who is arguing that evangelicals are as bad as Hitler, because by trying to convert Jews from Judaism to Christianity, they are removing them from being Jews, goes the argument.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, I heard this argument just two weeks ago.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Jewish person, or uh actually a close friend of a Jewish person, said, but how can a person be a Jew and a Christian?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I asked her, I said, how can a Jew be an atheist as well?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Shit, I don't know.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: I said, well, certainly 80, about 80% of Israel is atheistic practically.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: So does that mean they're not Jews?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: How about if a Jew becomes a Buddhist?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Somehow it's okay to be anything but a Christian.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: But Jew is, of course, a racial designation, and you can be a Jew and believe that Jesus is Israel's Messiah.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And Bibi Netanyahu takes that position, understands that Christians will, because of their Bible, want to lead Jews to Jesus Christ, certainly not a Christian himself, but he understands that evangelicals are Israel's best friends.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: So full disclosure, Topeka Bible Church is pro-Israel.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: I take uh lead tours over to Israel.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we're happy to have David Brickner, the director of Jews for Jesus, here.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: We support him personally.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: So back to Ezekiel.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel 35 and 36 can be summarized.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: This first point I'm making can be summarized by a phrase at the beginning of chapter 35 and in the middle of 36.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: God says to the Israel haters in 35, 3, look, I am against you.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: But in verse 9 of chapter 36, he says to Israel, look, I am on your side.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: And my first point today is that you want to be on God's side, right?
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it's smart to be on God's side, so I would suggest you don't be an Israel hater, but that you be an Israel lover, you be on God's side.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: All right?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we conclude this section, the first of three sections in chapters 35 and 36, verse 15 of chapter 36, God says, I will no longer, one day I will no longer allow the insults of the nations to be heard against you, and you will not have to endure the reproach of peoples anymore.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is the declaration of the Lord God.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's a legitimate question that we should ask, and that is why, why is the Lord so obsessed with taking care of Israel and bringing her eventual peace and prosperity?
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Why is that?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Especially when you see some of the horrible things, the stupid things that Israel does.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you ask the question, why, why is the Lord choose you, and why is he staying true to you?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you ask that question of certain leading Jews, certain leading religious Jews, they will tell you basically it's because we're cool.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: They don't say it that way, but their argument is that they are more spiritual, smarter, more inventive, they're more like God than anybody else, and God made a darn good choice when he chose us.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: It goes something like that.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: And forgive me for using a word that you may be teaching your children not to use right there.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you you may want to.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I'll I'll bypass that.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, actually, that's what they say.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: I never would use that word.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: So um they say darn well.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh um, so so the thing is, we God, God has a real problem when he hears that.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: I figure out, I figure they're cleaning the the barf off the floor of heaven when he hears that.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because notice what God says in the second, in this, in this opening paragraph, this is the second section.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: God says, chapter 36, 21 and 22, therefore, say to the house of Israel, this is what the Lord God says, it is not for your sake that I will act, house of Israel, but for my holy name, which you profaned among the nations where you went.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: I will honor the holiness of my great name, the name you have profaned among them.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that interesting?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Am I hearing a ringing?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Is that in my ear?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: So one never knows at this at this stage of life.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: It could be in my head.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: So now this idea that God acts on behalf of his name is is this theme throughout the Old Testament that because it's stated so often we overlook.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: God acts for the sake of his name.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: For instance, there's a couple, there's used repeatedly in Ezekiel, but I acted, chapter 20, verse 9, God says, I acted for the sake of my name.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: He did what?
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he said, I wanted to destroy Israel.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to stamp them out because they just make me mad sometimes, but I couldn't do it.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations among whom they lived, in whose sight I made myself known to them by bringing them out of the land of Egypt.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, I brought these people out of Egypt.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've stood by them, I chose them, I made promises to them, so now if I stamp them out and eliminate them and destroy them forever, what am I gonna look like?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: What's my name?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: What's my reputation gonna suffer?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 14, chapter 20.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: I acted for the sake of my name.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 48, verses 9 through 11.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: For my name's sake, I defer my anger.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: For the sake of my praise, I restrain it for you that I may not cut you off.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Behold, I've refined you, but not as silver, because you're not silver, because you're dirt, because you're dross, because you make me mad.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Israel, you are not.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: I did not choose you because of who you are, I chose you in spite of who you are, and so I'm refining you, but I'm not saying that you're silver, you know.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: I've tried you in the furnace of affliction.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: For my own sake, for my own sake I do it, for how could my name be profane, my glory I will not give to another.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that interesting?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: For the sake of his great name, Samuel said, for the sake of his great name, the Lord won't reject his people, because the Lord was pleased to make you his own.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord made a decision, and for his name, for his reputation, for his glory, the Lord cannot back out on that.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this idea is frankly in verses that you and I quote a lot, but we just overlook it.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: The third commandment, you shall not take what?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: The name of the Lord your God in vain.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Why not?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because the name of the Lord is the most important thing to him.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: His reputation, his glory is so important to him.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's crazy for you and I to take that name and sort of attach it to silly, sloppy, shabby language and to stick it in a phrase that it has not, that drags it through the mud.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: So don't do that.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, you know what, every single thing that I have done for Israel and every single thing I've done for you, he says, it's not for your sake, and it's not for their sake.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's to defend the honor of my name.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you I think I even took Israel out of Egypt and brought them through the Red Sea and did all those miracles?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's because of that promise to Abram.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: I simply had to follow through with it, lest everybody say, well, he he was stuck.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Egyptians were too strong for him.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: I had to act for the sake of my name.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: We say Psalm 23.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Do you notice why God guides us in paths of righteousness, dear Christian?
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: He guides you in Paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Why is it that in the Lord's Prayer you pray, hallowed be thy name?
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's because God wants you to care deeply about what he cares about.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: God is so concerned about this, and people sometimes will go, now I hate to say this out loud, don't want to get zapped by lightning, but why is God so self-centered?
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Why does God care so much about himself?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: If it was you saying something like this, I'd go, get over it.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: C.S.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis has a good answer to that, by the way, in mere Christianity.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't read it for a while, but he says something like this.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: He said somebody approached him, why is God so occupy, preoccupied with his own glory?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Why do we have to live for his glory?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Why do we have to say the chief end of man is to glorify God?
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Why is God, why is he so stuck on himself?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: And his answer was basically, as I recall, because it's simply the right thing, for the same reason that God will one day bring justice to the earth, because everything would be candy wompous if that didn't happen.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: If any name were above the name of the Creator, Almighty God, if any reputation were above his reputation, if his reputation was tarnished or sullied in any way, things would not be right in the universe.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: The chaos would never return to cosmos.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: We could never have heaven, on heaven, in heaven, or on earth.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: We simply have to have things in their proper order.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, God's name, God's reputation, God's glory has to be defended, has to be unsullied, has to be untarnished.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, that's what I care about more than anything else.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: So my question for you and me is, what should we care about more than anything else?
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, uh, to move to the third point, the question is, how is God going to pull this off with such a recalcitrant people as Israel who make him so mad?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: How is God gonna pull this off and somehow, you know, uh honor his name, fulfill his promises?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he answers that in the most beautiful and most famous passage in chapter 36.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: A passage that has delighted people for thousands of years and been quoted in the New Testament, because it sounds like a New Testament passage.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: God says, I'm gonna do seven things for you.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, regather and return.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the countries, and I'll bring you into your own land.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's a promise.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna bring you into your own land from all over the world.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: We we preached on this, I think, a month or so ago.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: This this verse was similar in Ezekiel 11.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord God says, I'll gather you from the peoples, assemble you from the countries where you've been scattered, and I'll give you the land of Israel.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Hundred and like 60 years ago or more, before Israel started trickling back into the land, a famous Calvinist Baptist preacher in London called Charles Haddon Spurgeon preached a bold prophetic message in 1855, just before the Civil War, on the return of the Jews to the land, which wasn't happening yet.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, the hour is approaching when the tribe shall go up to their own country, when Judea, so long a balling wilderness, shall once more blossom like the rose.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think we attach sufficient importance to the restoration of the Jews.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: We don't think enough about it.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly, if there's anything promised in the Bible, it's this.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: You can't read the Bible without seeing clearly there's to be an actual restoration of the children of Israel.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: For when the Jews are restored, the fullness of the Gentiles will be gathered in, and as soon as they return, then Jesus will come on Mount Zion, and the Halcyon, that means happy days of the millennium, shall then dawn.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: We shall then know every man to be a brother and a friend.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Christ shall rule with universal sway.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Handel's Messiah now breaks out.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so so this is this is the interesting point.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: This promise of regathering and returning.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: What happened is, of course, at the end of the 19th century, 1880, 1890, and so forth, the Jews did start coming back to the land.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: It became a groundswell, and then came the slaughter in World War II, and the United Nations gave Israel, you know, uh announced that it was it was now a country in 1948, and you know everything since then.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: But and in fact, they uh Jewish people keep going back to the land.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's just been a couple of years ago that uh Israel, the number of Jewish people in Israel passed six million, past the number of Jewish people in America.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: About 15, 16, 17 million uh in the whole world, by the way.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that's first, we gather and restore to the land.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, he promises, I'll cleanse you from sin, I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you'll be clean.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'll cleanse you from all your impurities and your idols.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is the first really of three statements about conversion that God will save, convert his people spiritually.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, new heart and spirit, I'll give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'll remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now we heard this heart of stone, heart of flesh thing back in chapter 11.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: God says, I'm going to give them one day integrity of heart, put a new spirit within them, remove their heart of stone from their bodies, and give them a heart of flesh, so they'll follow my statutes, keep my ordinances, and practice them.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Number four, right at the middle of the seven, is the most surprising one.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: When you hear of the Holy Spirit, you think, New Testament, that's when the Holy Spirit was promised to every believer, but all of a sudden you find the third member of the Trinity mentioned clearly in Ezekiel chapter 36, verse 27, I will place my spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says, I will make the promised land your home.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he uses words here that he used elsewhere in the prophetic literature to talk about the millennium when the Lord Jesus Christ will rule from Zion.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: He says, You'll live in the land that I gave your fathers, you'll be my people, and I'll be your God.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Number six, he says, No more welfare in those days, no more food stamps.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'll save you from all your uncleanness.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'll summon the grain and make it plentiful, and I'll not bring famine on you.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'll also make the fruit of the trees and the produce of the field plentiful, you'll no longer experience reproach among the nations on account of famine.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Won't it be great?
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: Economic prosperity in those days.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody sitting alongside the street begging, nobody on welfare, nobody on food stamps, nobody in debt.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be fantastic.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Amen?
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, uh, repentance, or we could call it spiritual insight, God says, and at that point you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that weren't good, and you'll loathe yourselves for your iniquities and detestable practices.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: You will have the heart of God when it comes to looking at life and activity.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: You'll feel the way God does about sin and about righteousness.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: And oh, by the way, God concludes, let me remind you, it's not for your sake that I'm doing this.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Don't start getting an ego thing going that somehow I'm gonna save you or deliver you or cleanse you because you're something cool, because you're not.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's not for your sake that I'll act.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is the declaration of the Lord God, let this be known to you.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that's chapters 35 and 36.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: We've uh flown over it, and I've really already answered uh so what for the first two of the three points, but let me resummarize those.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: The first of the applications here, I have to say, is love Israel.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if that makes you throw open your mouth a little bit, I'm sorry, but I what you need to do is you need to think about your best friend and how and how you know what you try to love the children of your best friend.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, you know, I need you to love my children.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: I need you to feel about them the way I do, which is sometimes I'm absolutely repulsed by their behavior.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: And yet I'm staying true to them because they're my people, and I want you not to be an Israel hater.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: Let me put it this way to God, what you think, when you think about Israel, is one of the most important things about you, because they're his chosen people and his children.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm glad that this church is a supporter of Israel.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Not everything Israel does, but a supporter of Israel.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm going to say something controversial now about how we love Israel, because of course, Jewish rabbis and Jewish leaders would strongly say that if you witness to Jewish people to try to lead them to Christ, you're an anti-Semite, you're like the Holocaust, you know, deniers, you're like Hitler because you're going to turn them from Jews into Christians and they'll no longer be Jews.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Which, of course, is not true.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: A Jewish atheist is still a Jew, a Jewish Buddhist is still a Jew, a Jewish believer in the Jewish Messiah, Jesus, is still a Jew, which is why I think the best thing you can do is support evangelism to Jews.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're not going to send a group over.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: We thought about it, we tried to send a group over to help Jews for Jesus, who's going to conduct the first major organized evangelistic campaign in the city of Jerusalem since the days of Jesus and the apostles.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to happen in the month of May.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: Jews for Jesus are bringing all 200 missionaries to Jerusalem.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be, it's going to have a lot of branches.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's going to be uh sports evangelism, there's going to be an evangelistic outreach to Hasidic Orthodox Jews, there's going to be an evangelistic outreach to red light district, uh prostitutes, and so forth.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's going to be an outreach to the Ethiopian Jews, to the Russian Jews, and so forth, a number of different outreaches.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: But the goal is to make the name of Jesus Christ glorified and an option.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: And they're finding already that Orthodox Jews are more, far more open to it than they had thought.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to pray for them, and we need, if you have a chance to give to this campaign, it's a wonderful campaign.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because I firmly believe, as much as the Pope has done some great things, his statement, his edict a few years ago, that the Catholic Church would not support any evangelism to Jews seems to me to be the height of anti-Semitism.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: If it is true that Jesus said to the Jews, if you do not believe in me, you die in your sins.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Then to refuse to introduce Jews to Jesus Christ is to be happy to have them die in their sins and be lost forever.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: And therefore, I realize it's controversial, but I think it's vitally important that we save Jews from dying in their sins.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: So number one, love Israel.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, number two, have one great passion.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's for God's name.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: They went out, says 3 John 7.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: The Christians went out for the sake of the name.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: Every morning, you ought to go out for the sake of the name.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: That ought to be your one overriding passion.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: I have no problem with other passions.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Ask my wife, ask my children, ask my grandchildren.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm one of the most embarrassingly passionate people about a whole lot of things.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to me about books.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm extremely passionate about books.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to me about chess.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: Played a couple games this week.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm passionate about I'm passionate about basketball.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Especially about KU, any Kansas basketball, KU and K-State this year.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: Not so much Wichita State, sorry.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: But and K-State football.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm passionate about all sports.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm passionate about golf.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm passionate about a lot of things, but listen to me carefully.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: Many of you are passionate about these things too.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: And they're really good things, especially the ones I'm passionate about.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: And certain kinds of food as well.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, blackberry pie.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, passionate about those things.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: But but listen to me, listen to me.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: If your passion for God's name, God's glory, God's reputation, doesn't make all your other passions pale into insignificance, then you realize that you're not standing with God because the number one thing that God is concerned about, God's number one passion, is for his own name, is for his own glory.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: You and I should be just as passionate about that, more passionate about that than we are about anything else we do.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: The Westminster Confession is right, chief end of man is to glorify God, to be concerned about his name, and frankly, I didn't mention this in the other services.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think the Westminster Confession nails it when it says the four primary ways to do that are affection, uh, adoration, uh, and uh appreciation and obedience.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: And what they mean by appreciation is that during the day when you see something that reminds you of God, you go, thank you, Lord.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like for me, it's waterfalls.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, thank you, Lord.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you for being the creator.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: And when it comes to uh adoration, that's why you come to church and you raise your hands or you adore him and you sing to him and you go, how great thou art in your heart as you're reading the Bible in the morning, right?
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's affection, because you're supposed to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a way that you're passionate for God is by loving him and having an affection for them.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the fourth one's obedience, and that's her, you know, the hard thing of doing what you know is right and doing what God tells you to do.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: That was all, yeah, I won't say extra, but but but that's the great passion you must have for God, and it must make all your other passions pale into insignificance.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Third, step into the blessing.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: What I mean by that is there is a blessing that God's gonna pour out on Israel, but you can have a part in it by being grafted into the vine, right?
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: By being part of Israel.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: You'll never be a Jew, but you can become one of the children of Abraham by faith in him.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: You can have these same things happen to you that God promises to Israel one day.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: You can be cleansed from your sins, right?
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: You can you can have a new heart in you and a new spirit, that heart of stone in you when you're lost, turning into a heart of flesh, and the Holy Spirit comes inside you because you believe in the Jewish Messiah.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what Jesus meant.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's why when he was speaking to Nicodemus, this Jewish rabbinic leader, he's quoting Ezekiel 36 when he says, Truly I say to you, unless you're born of water and the Spirit.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's where it comes from, Ezekiel 36.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: He cannot enter the kingdom of God.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why Paul quoted, thinking of Ezekiel 36, when he said, He, God saved us not because of our works done righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: There it is, this combination of water and spirit, this wonderful picture of how you can step into the blessings, step into the blessings that God's given Israel.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: Let me close with a story.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: The guy was violent.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: The guy was so violent, he was now in uh, he's one of these guys, full confession here, that I'm not uh that I have mixed feelings about when I hear they become Christians.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because they're so bad, they're so heartless.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: They're part of that group of criminals today who have absolutely no conscience, who who wound, who kill, who rob, who steal without any mortification at all.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: And this guy was in jail, and now he was in solitary because he was violent among the other prisoners.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: True story.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: And um and so he can't go to the library and he asks for a book.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: And they come back and tell him, I'm sorry, we don't have the book in the library.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: The chaplain happens to be there at the time, and the chaplain says, I've got a book for you.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think you ought to read this book, and of course, hands him a Bible.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: The guy says, No, thanks.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, I really do think this would be a good book for you.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: He says, You don't understand, you don't know me, but listen, I I've lost all feeling.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: I have, I have, uh, I have my heart is as hard, he said, as as these bars right here.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's dead.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the chaplain fortunately knew Ezekiel 36, and he said, Listen, uh, he says, you know, you have a medical problem.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: I says, I do.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Yeah, he says, you need a you just made a diagnosis that I think is accurate, that your heart is dead, it's cold, it's hard, it's beyond saving.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: You need a new heart.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: He says, but what you need is you need a doctor to give you a new heart, and you need a donor who will give you a heart transplant.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm here to tell you that you made the right diagnosis, that there's a doctor who'd like to give you a heart.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he read to him Ezekiel 37, 26, and I will give you a new heart.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: I will take your heart of stone, hard, coal, dead, and make it a heart of flesh.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: Guy's eyes widen.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: He says that the problem is you need a donor, you need some other heart.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: If somebody has to die for a heart transplant, he says, I'm here to tell you someone did die.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: Someone died for you so that you can have their heart.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: And his name is Jesus.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: And God wants to give you his heart and replace that unfeeling, dead, cold, hard heart of yours.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: And God was struck.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the next day he told the chaplain that he had a new heart.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what God will do for you.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: And when he does that for you, then all of a sudden you step into the blessings you you suddenly are going to enjoy all of the blessings that God wants to give his people, Israel.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: Will you do that?
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: Our Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for these incredible promises, just mind-blowing promises, and the fact that you are true to your word, even though we're not, even though we wander away, even though, like Israel, we stray really far away.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being loyal, for being faithful for the sake of your name, not for us, but for the sake of your reputation.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: May we always, Heavenly Father, be concerned and passionate about you, about your reputation, about your glory.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: Rather than our own, in Jesus' name.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for coming.