Open—Steve Stewart
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132.
Yeah.
Dress for God, blessing our blessed Father our God. It's a privilege to be here this morning. We've had the privilege to be around the table Lord Jesus and now we have this time that has been set aside where two or three would speak oracles from the our Father. May we see our Lord Jesus there in the glory this afternoon to be able to take away something, Lord Jesus of thyself.
Thy character, and without us due for us here on earth, and without us do for us right now in heaven.
Well, now we'll be doing for us too, that we can see in the scriptures. We're thankful for the open word in front of our laps.
We now take it responsibly, asking the Holy Spirit to guide and direct to teach us my name. We give thanks, Lord Jesus, Amen.
Turn to Romans Chapter 9.
Romans, Chapter 9.
Verse.
One I say the truth in Christ I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost.
That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart, for I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh, who are Israelites.
Chapter 10.
Verse one.
Brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved.
Chapter 11.
I say then hath God verse one? I say, then hath God castaway his people, God forbid.
Verse 29.
For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance.
Return back to Jeremiah to some verses that were referred to yesterday.
Chapter 31.
And verse 31.
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Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah.
Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they break, though I wasn't husband unto them. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I'll put my law in their inward parts, and will write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be.
My people, and they shall teach.
No more every man is neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, No, the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity. Now remember their sin no more. Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the Son for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars, for a light by night, which divided the sea when the waves are of roar. The Lord of hosts is His name.
If those ordinances depart from before me, sayeth the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever. Thus saith the Lord, if heaven above can be measured in the foundations of the earth, searched out beneath.
I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord.
One more scripture, I'd like to look at Isaiah and chapter 18.
Brother said to me yesterday a question had been asked and I thought it was a good question and it's one that has been somewhat on my heart.
Because I think we're influenced.
By its subject and the question was this what should our attitude be towards Israel today?
In the recovery of the truth.
Brother Darby said.
In the time when he was laid up in a horse accident and his convalescence, he read Isaiah 32, Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and so on. And he said, I saw there was an economy of God that had not yet unfolded on this earth, something that was yet to come, a Kingdom on this earth, and it was the dawning.
Of the and opening up and recovery of prophetic truth.
That we have so fully today.
And the consequence was, was to see that Israel was going to come in to blessing in a coming day, and that God meant what he said that we read in Jeremiah 31. And he was going to make a covenant with Israel, with the House of Judah, and with the House of Israel, not a covenant with the Church of God. What part of the church is Judah and what parts Israel? It makes no sense.
Not a covenant that began with Adam. It says it's new.
In contrast with the old, which was the law, How can it be new if it was all the way back with that? And those things make no sense.
And so the truth began to unfold that this was a covenant that's going to be made in the future and literally with both houses of Israel and God is going to bring them back into their land and is going to bless them in the coming day and.
The result of the recovery of the truth was an awakening and Christianity as to a right attitude.
Towards the Jews and towards Israel.
Prior to that they Christianity.
Has been the persecutors of the Jews.
In the Crusades, they slaughtered untold thousands.
Hitler used the words of the great reformer Martin Luther to justify his putting to death of millions of Jews.
Who advocated that those Jews who wouldn't receive the gospel and turn to Christ should have their tongues ripped out with hot pincers and so on and be put to death?
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This was a new thought.
To the Church of God who had just looked at the Jews as Christ killers.
And in World War 2.
In southern France, or a group of Christians who from I can't remember the institution of Israel, received one of the highest accolades and honors. A group of Christians called in the French Darby's Darby Heights that sheltered Jews in World War 2 called one of the greatest acts of heroism towards the Jews who were suffering under Hitler.
In World War 2.
It affected.
Believers around the world.
It also affected the political landscape in this world.
A Balfour agreement 67 words that set up the framework for the introduction of the modern state of Israel. If you read Edwin Crosses biography of Mr. Kelly in there, you'll see a signature of Mr. Kelly and the flyleaf of one of his books on prophecy given to Lord Balfour.
Those men in the political circles of England who were largely instrumental in those things were influenced.
By the recovery of prophetic truth, it is shaped the current political picture in the world today.
But brethren had no intention.
And the recovery and the putting out of prophetic truth to involve themselves or that the Church should ever be involved with the politics of this world. Not at all.
And I think the verses we read in Romans gives us what the Christians attitude should be.
Towards the Jews today.
Desire that they should be saved. Objects of mercy, the same as the Gentiles. Because in Romans we find that God has made no difference. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
They're the objects of mercy, just as any of the rest of the lost and Paul would have been willing to give himself if he could in some way bring salvation to his brethren. Kinsman after the flesh. And God, he says, has not rescinded his purpose with them. The gifts and the calling of God are without repentance. God is not going to change His mind and His intention.
Israel.
In fact, in Hebrews we read that because of the promises God made to Abraham, and he could swear by no greater, He swear by himself, and on those two things, his promise and his oath, we have.
Certainty in the refuge that we have fled to God is not going to change his mind.
If he could change his mind about Israel, what about us?
But what is and what should be our attitude? I think it's really contained in Romans. But Christianity has gotten itself involved in God's discipline with that people. And God does not look lightly upon anyone who meddles in his discipline in an individual's life, in a family life, in an assembly, or among the nations. And that's what we're going to look at.
In the 18th chapter of Isaiah.
Woe or hoe to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia or Kush. Kush settled in two areas of the world, Egypt and Mesopotamia, and the rivers of Kush are the Nile and the Euphrates. This is a land outside of the scope of the known nations that were involved with Israel in the Old Testament.
And he's calling to their attention. It's not so much woe, but hope.
That sendeth ambassadors by the sea. This is a naval power. Even vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning, hitherto a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled. Who else could that be? What other nation in this world has been so?
Scattered, So peeled. Just peeled right down to, to to the bare bones, so to speak.
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And terrible awesome from the beginning when you think of the exodus out of Egypt hitherto and still remains a nation, still is recognized as a people in this world, it could only be Israel, can only be the Jew.
Whose land? The rivers have spoiled all. They had enemies from Egypt. They had enemies from Babylon.
They've been spoiled, all the inhabitants of the world and dwellers on the earth. See ye when he lifted up an end sign on the mountains, and when he bloweth the trumpet, hear ye. For so the Lord said unto me, I will take my rest. I will consider in my dwelling place like a clear heat upon the herbs, and like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest. For, for the harvest, when the blood, when the bud is perfect.
And the sour grape is ripening in the flour. He shall both cut off the springs with pruning hooks.
And take away and cut down the branches, they shall be left together into the fowls of the mountains, into the beasts of the earth, And the fowls shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.
This land is shadowing with wings like a bird spreads its wings over its chicks. It is taking a stance towards Israel of protecting them, of promoting them, and of interfering with the government of God in that nation. This is a Western nation from beyond the rivers of Kush.
Who is the greatest protector of Israel in the world today in the Western nations?
You know.
In the end, this is going to be the beast.
It's going to be that Western empire over which he has had.
But you know, the descendants, the descendants of the peoples of the nations that occupy his Kingdom, occupy the land that we live in, and this land is going to be part of that sphere of the Western.
Empire of the Beast.
And we are interfering. I'm Speaking of us as the United States and the people. We are interfering with God's government and that nation.
We've aimed to get politically involved, and what burdens my heart is it could care less about the politics, but Christians have got themselves involved. This has become a big thing for Christians, the promotion of Israel. Why? An Israeli journalist wrote of a woman, Christian woman, over in Jerusalem who came to him near the Wailing Wall.
And knowing he was a Jew speaking to him.
She says, oh, it's so awful what's going to happen to you folks, you know, when the tribulation comes? He says, here they are putting one arm around me saying that's off, what's going to happen? Meanwhile, they're giving money to try and get a temple built over there so that the Antichrist can sit in it and bring the tribulation down on us.
What a what a horrible mix of thoughts. We have no business as Christians to involve ourselves in that way or to promote that. No, our desire for Israel is that they might be saved. It is not a wonderful Christian triumph that the United States moved its embassy to Jerusalem. And yet Christians are rejoicing everyone.
God says whoa.
He is going to come in just when everything looks ripe, just when it looks like everything's working out. And this shadowing power is going to protect them from their enemies. And he's going to bring in the Assyrian from the north and sweep through that land. And he's going to just like a pruning hook coming in just before the grapes are ripe, and he's going to sweep it clean.
And the nations are around, Israel are going to come in and just.
Feast on the carnage that's left behind.
And that Western Power is going to meet the Lord when he comes out of heaven after the Assyrian passes through, and he's going to meet his doom on the mountains of Israel too.
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This is God's thoughts about the Western Christian world's involvement.
With Israel.
My burden for us is that we would have a right attitude and a right understanding of our thoughts towards those that people objects of mercy and desire for their salvation like any other. But we are not here to promote or to protect a nation that is under the discipline of God.
In this world there's a day coming, verse seven. And that time shall a present be brought unto the Lord of hosts, of a people scattered and peeled from a people terrible from their beginning, hitherto a nation meted out and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers are spoiled to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts.
The Mount of Zion, he's going to bring it to pass.
He will yet restore them.
But not without passing under his disciplinary hand first that he might accomplish his work.
In that nation.