Okay, good to see this good turnout today. That’s what a beautiful day in Oklahoma helps, doesn’t it? The last time we taped we weren’t that fortunate. But we’re glad to see everybody. We’ve got some visitors back from Minneapolis area, and I’ve got my son and his wife down from Duluth. The cold weather has just driven them south. I guess when you guys left it was about 30 below, wasn’t it? I know it was when Todd and Kim left Duluth. They’re down in sunny and warm Oklahoma today.

For those of you out in television, again, we like to just introduce ourselves as a simple Bible study. We don’t have any axe to grind, we don’t attack anybody, hopefully, and all we attempt to do is let everyone, regardless of their background, just simply see what the Book says. I think it’s having a lot of impact. We’re getting a lot of mail. Like I said, I think in the last taping, hardly ever does anybody give us a hard time. We trust that that’s the reason. We’re not interpreting my own ideas. We’re not hitting any denominational slant, but hopefully just showing what the Word of God says. So again, we want to thank all of you out there for your letters and your prayer support as well as financial. I had a phone call the other day from some outfit and they wanted to know who we use for a fundraiser. I said, "We only have One, and it’s the greatest One in the universe. He always supplies just enough."

All right, let’s jump in where we left off in our taping. It wasn’t the last program exactly, but at the end of the third program, which would mean there’s one in between this. We jumped ahead to pick up a little of the language which, in turn, sent us on up into the New Testament. We covered the plan of salvation, because it was referring here to Israel being saved and their sin and their shortcomings. We showed how that perfectly agrees with Paul in the book of Romans. But we’re going to come back, now, to where we left off at the end of the third program. We’ll drop in at verse 7.

"I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the LORD, and the praises of the LORD, according to all that the LORD hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses." All right, now we have to understand, as we have seen all through the book of Isaiah, that the vast majority of Israel was in an attitude of rebellion and unbelief, but in the midst of rebellious national Israel, there was always a what? A remnant!

It’s always been that way, even before Israel appeared. Probably the best example of a tiny remnant was the flood. Out of the several billion people that were no doubt on the earth, how many were spared? Eight. Now, that’s a mighty small remnant. But that’s the way God has always operated. The vast majority of the human race has no concern. They’re in an attitude of unbelief and rebellion, but it’s upon the remnant that God pours out His love and mercy. All right, now to show you this, let’s come back to Isaiah chapter 1. We’re going to look at several of these verses, now, that deal with the concept of the small percentage of the human race that actually become true believers. Now, that doesn’t mean they’re religious. There are a lot of religious people. But you see, not all religious people are truly believers.

"Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, (Do you see that? Not a large remnant, but rather a small one. If it hadn’t been for that they…) we would have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah." But, it was because of that small remnant.

Now, that should immediately make all of you think of another instance of when an Israelite, you probably don’t think of him as such, bargained with God. Where was it? Abraham - over Sodom. You remember that? He said to God, "If there are 50 righteous in Sodom, would you spare it?" God said, "Yes, for the fifty sake, I will spare it." Abraham said, "How about 45?" God said, "Yes, for 45 I will spare it." It went all the way down to how many? Ten. For ten God said, "I will spare Sodom and Gomorrah." So, since He didn’t spare it, what does that tell you? There weren’t even ten. But, this is a whole concept of Scripture, from beginning to end, that God always has that small believing remnant.

All right, now let’s jump all the way up, for example, in the New Testament. We can go to Romans, chapter 11. This is the classic example I’ve used over and over. I never apologize for it, because it is so easy to understand. When Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal up there on Mount Carmel, now remember that’s Elijah, clear back before even Isaiah. That’s about 1000 BC. You all know the story. How Elijah killed the prophets of Baal and then old Queen Jezebel heard about it and said he’d be as dead as they are. What did Elijah do? He ran and he ran and he ran. A marathon ten times over. Finally, he sat down under a juniper tree and in so many words said what? "Take my life, I’m the last one left in Israel."

What was God’s answer? Well, we pick it up in Romans, as well as in Kings, so let’s just see how Paul puts it, Romans chapter 11 and let’s start at verse 1.

"I say then, Hath God cast away his people?" Boy, now that flies in the face of a lot of Bible teaching and preaching today. They say what? "Yeah, He’s all through with the Jew. They faded away after the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD." That’s not according to this Book. Paul makes it so plain. He has not cast away His people.

"God Forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 2. God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew." In His foreknowledge, He knew everything that was going to come to pass. He knew that the Romans would destroy Jerusalem and the Temple, but He also knew that He would always have a remnant.

"Wot ye not (Don’t you know) what the scripture saith of Elijah? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, 3. Lord, they have killed the prophets and digged (or torn) down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life." 4. (But Paul asked the question.) But what saith the answer of God unto Him? (This is what God said to Elijah. Elijah, you’re not the only one.) I have reserved to myself 7000 men,…" Now, if we can call 50/50, there were also 7000 women; that’s 14,000. But, even so, out of a nation of seven or ten million, you’ve heard me say it over and over and over, what was the percentage? One tenth of one percent. One out of a thousand. Now, that’s a small, small remnant, but it’s still the remnant.

All right, now go on up into verse 5, and Paul is speaking from his own day and time in about 60 AD.

"Even so then at this present time also (when he’s writing) there is a remnant according to the election of grace." In other words, there was a small percentage of Jews that were following Paul’s Gospel, and they were coming into the Body of Christ. In fact, let me just prove that. Keep your hand in Romans and let’s flip over to Galatians chapter 3, starting at verse 26. Now, this is written primarily to Gentiles, of course, but there was a small percentage of Jews embracing Paul’s Gospel. This is how he refers to them.

"For ye are all (No designated race or nationality) the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. 27. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ (That is by the Holy Spirit, into the Body of Christ, according to I Corinthians 12:13.) have put on Christ. (Now, here’s the verse I was thinking of, verse 28.) There is neither Jew nor Greek, (Gentile) there is neither bond nor free, (or rich or poor) there is neither male nor female: (In the Body of Christ, we’re all the same.) for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."

All right, now flip back to Romans 11, again. This is why we can refer to this remnant of Jews who had become believers of Paul’s Gospel, and become members, then, of the Body of Christ.

"Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace." In other words, they were not coming in under Judaism and the Law and the Prophets, they were coming in under Paul’s Gospel, but it was just a few, a remnant.

All right, now I ran across an interesting point the other night in one of my classes. I don’t remember where it was, but turn with me to I Corinthians. It brought about an interesting point that I’d never really thought of before. I Corinthians chapter 9 verse 22, and this all fits that whole concept for this Age of Grace, not only back in ancient Israel, but in this Age of Grace: God is only expecting the few, not the many, but the few.

"To the weak I became as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save (how many?) some." Now, let’s look what Peter was trying to do? Back up with me to Acts, I think that’s chapter 3. Now, I didn’t intend to do this, so bear with me if I don’t find it. Acts chapter 3, what a difference! Peter is now preaching and appealing to the nation of Israel in hopes of Christ yet returning and setting up the kingdom. That’s what he says up there in verse 20, that if Israel would repent, then God would send Jesus Christ who was preached unto them, but verse 26 sets the criteria. Got it?

"Unto you first (Well, who’s the you? Israel! That’s who he’s preaching to.) God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away (Some?) every one of you from his iniquities." Now, what does every one mean? Every one! So, Peter wasn’t just looking for a little remnant there. He wants the whole nation to embrace Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah, and then God would send Him and set up the Kingdom. But Paul knows better than that, and he doesn’t try to win the whole nation, but reckoning instead that he can only win a small remnant. So, it’s always been.

Now, I can think of another one. Let’s go back to Matthew 24. My, I’ll shoot the whole half-hour before I get out of verse 1! Here’s another remnant, and I’m glad I thought of it just before we went back to Isaiah 63. This is the remnant that’s making the prayer of these verses in Isaiah. This is Israel’s final remnant.

Now, I’ve got to wake people up once in a while with a smile. I hope people don’t mind that. I had a call the other day, and they said, "Les, I admit this is going to be the most stupid question you have ever had. He said, "I told my pastor that I knew it was a stupid question. He wouldn’t even bother to answer, it was so stupid." This is his question. It will make you smile. "How did the writers of Scripture know when to pick up the red ink pen?" Did you get that? "How did they know to put the words of Jesus in red?" I about cracked up.

This is just a relatively modern day invention to give us the words of Christ in red. The only thing we can ever say, no matter who wrote this Book, they all wrote by inspiration. That brings up another point. I had somebody call, I think it was out in Kentucky, and they had a Bible teacher in their church who said that this Book was nothing more than stories and myths and legends. That maybe here and there was something that was God speaking, but for the most part it was stories. I said, "Listen, you go back and tell that guy that every word of this Book is Holy Spirit inspired."

You know, I picked this up years ago when I was reading an article. Somebody made the comment that Luke must have been a tremendous diarist in order to have the facts and figures of everything that happened for his gospel account as well as what happened in Paul’s journeys and so forth. No, Luke didn’t have to keep a diary! Luke didn’t have to chase all over the country asking people, "Well, do you remember this situation?" No, Luke wrote how? As the Holy Spirit inspired him to write! Never forget that. Those of you out in television, if you are confronted by someone or other with the idea that there’s less than inspiration in this Book, remember that every Word of this Book was Holy Spirit inspired, even if they did remember the details, that isn’t what they wrote. They wrote what the Holy Spirit inspired them to write. Never forget that.

All right, now we’ll drop back in at Matthew 24 verse 15. These are the words of the Lord Jesus. Remember, Matthew 24 is all Tribulation ground. He starts right off at the beginning of the Tribulation, and how it’s going to open up, but now, by the time we get to the mid-point, he can refer back to Daniel - verse 15 says:

"When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, (Now, that’s from the words of the Lord Himself – Daniel was a prophet. What does that mean? He was legitimate. He wasn’t just telling tales and legends. He was a prophet inspired of God.) stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)"

Now, we’ve got to go back to Daniel chapter 9. We’ve got to do this quickly, because I didn’t intend to do this, no way, shape, or form. But, evidently it’s what we need to do. Daniel chapter 9, verse 27. This has to do with that 490-year period of prophecy concerning the Nation of Israel. 483 of those years were fulfilled at His first advent and the cross. The other seven have never yet been fulfilled, but as we look at the situation today, those seven years are getting pretty close. We think it’s about to come upon the world. This is the final seven years of that 490-year prophecy from the pen of Daniel. Now, this is the verse that Jesus is referring to in Matthew 24.

"And he (the prince that shall come, the anti-Christ) shall confirm the covenant with many…" Now, I think that includes the whole Arab world with the Nation of Israel. They’ll finally get peace in the Middle East because of this man. But, it’s going to be a supernaturally done thing, because it’s prophecy being fulfilled. God will now be in it.

"… with many for one week: (Or for a seven-year period, it’ll be a seven year peace treaty between the Arab world and Israel.) and in the midst of the week (Now, watch this carefully. At the end of that first three and a half years…) he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation (or temple worship) to cease,…" Now, I put this on the program years ago. Here’s the way I put it. Can you stop something that’s never started? Well, no. So when did it start? It started at the beginning of the seven-year treaty.

That’s one of the statements of the treaty. The Arabs will permit Israel to build a temple up on the Temple Mount. Why, you wouldn’t dream of such a thing happening today, but it’s going to! Because, like I say, God is going to supernaturally bring it about. So, the Arab world will permit Israel to build the temple up on the Temple Mount. They’ll re-institute temple worship, everything is ready, remember, over there in Jerusalem. The mannequins are clothed with the cloaks of the priests. They’ve got all the shovels and everything for the altar of sacrifice. They’re all ready to go. So, when this peace treaty is signed and Israel gets the temple, they’ll have it for three and a half years. That’s why Paul writes in I Thessalonians chapter 5, that what will they say? "Peace and Safety."

Oh, they’re going to think the world has finally arrived. Peace has come to the Middle East, and Israel will be euphoric. After all, they’re going to have permission to once again get up on the Temple Mount. But what happens in the middle, at the end of three and a half years?

"…in the midst of the week he (the anti-Christ) shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations, (He’s going to turn on Israel with the most horrible persecution the Jew has ever experienced.) he shall make it (that is the temple) desolate, even until the consummation (or the end of the seven years) all that determined shall be poured upon the desolator." All right, now we can flip back to Matthew and probably get a little sense out of it. So, this is what Jesus is referring to – what Daniel the prophet wrote concerning these final seven years. How, in the middle of the seven years, the anti-Christ is going to go into the temple and defile it. Now, this is what he’s referring to.

"When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation,…" When the anti-Christ will go into that rebuilt temple. Now, it won’t be a fancy Solomon’s Temple. I’m of the impression it’s probably stocked someplace in a warehouse in Jerusalem. It’ll be a prefab. It’ll merely be functional, and they can get with Temple Worship once again.

Now you know, an interesting thing happened in Israel just a couple of weeks ago. They reformed the ancient Sanhedrin. Unheard of! Even the Jews were beside themselves with awe that once again, after hundreds and hundreds of years, they have a Sanhedrin. Some of the Jews were so euphoric that they literally announced to the press that this can only mean one thing – the coming of their Messiah is getting close. Well, if they think the coming of Messiah is getting close, we better agree, because we like to think so, as well. All right, time’s going by, let’s read on - verse 16.

"Then let them which be in Judea flee to the mountains: (Now, He goes down and He gives us a cross section of any society.) 17. Let him which is on the housetop (Probably retired folks who have enough that they don’t have to be out there in the fields working every day.) not come down to take any thing out of his house: 18. Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes." In other words, this is the working class. Now today, of course, that would be scientists and professional people and college people and you name it, not so much agricultural anymore, but all the cross section of the working class are lopped into this one word.

"And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! (those that are nursing) 20. But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:" Because, after all, they’re back under the what? They’re back under the Law. The Law stipulated they couldn’t walk but just a short distance on the Sabbath. Well, that wouldn’t even get them out of town. So, all of this falls in place now that this is what I’ve always called them, you’ve seen me put it on the board before, "The escaping remnant."

Now, we’ve got just enough time, I think, to go back to Zechariah, chapter 13. I think this is the remnant we’ve been talking about in Matthew 24. It’s going to be a little more than one or two percent, it’s going to be one third. One third of the Jews living at the time all this happens will be the remnant. Zechariah chapter 13 and we’ll drop in at verse 8, and if this doesn’t all fit, then I don’t know what does.

"And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third part shall be left therein. (Now what’s going to happen to the third?) 9. And I will bring the third part through the fire, (that is of Tribulation) and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them (or test them) as gold is tried: (tested) they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, it is my people: and they shall say, the LORD is my God." Now, we’re going to see, in our next program, that this is basically what these prayer type people in Isaiah are saying. That’s why I’m going to try and tie the two together. That this is that Tribulation remnant that Isaiah is foretelling back there in Isaiah chapters 63, 64, 65, and so forth.

All right, this is, I feel, the remnant that Jesus is referring to in Matthew 24. Suddenly, they’re going to get a providential desire to flee the city. One way or another He’s going to gather them together out in the mountains or the deserts or wherever, and they’re going to be protected. They’re going to be saved for all the last three and a half years of torment and tribulation. I feel, I am not saying that this is what the Scripture adamantly says, but I feel, that at the end of that three and a half years, they’re going to witness the return of Christ coming in the clouds of Glory. Every last one of those Jews are going to say what? "There’s my God!" They will suddenly become believers, by believing that Jesus was indeed their Messiah, and that He has now returned to set up the King, the Kingship, and the throne in Jerusalem. That will be this remnant that we’re going to be talking about throughout the closing verses of the book of Isaiah. So, it all fits that they will flee, they will be spared, and God will bring them through it.

Okay, once again, we’re ready to go for another half-hour program. For those of you joining us on television, we would like to thank you. We just can’t get over how you support us financially and with your prayers, and with your letters. What an encouragement to read your letters. Yesterday, one letter just stood out about how our program and our teaching had transformed their whole household. Well, what else can you expect but to let the Word do its work?

All right, now we’re going to pick right up where we left off in the last lesson. In that lesson I kind of digressed more than I intended, and we only got one or two verses, so we’re going to jump back in at verse 8 of Isaiah 63. But I want to remind you that the whole half-hour we just spent was to show that God always keeps a remnant. Even in ancient Israel, the whole nation certainly was not obedient believers. The vast majority was anything but. If you doubt me, go back and read your Old Testament. But in the midst of them, they still had that remnant of true believers. So it is today. Just because the church is full and seemingly vibrant and is making a lot of headway numbers-wise doesn’t mean that they’re all believers, because many have never placed their faith in Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection for their salvation.

I’ve given the illustration that years back, when we were in Genesis, I ordered a book from one of the Lutheran seminaries. A Lutheran theologian wrote it. It was just simply called The Flood. I’ve never gotten over the analogy he drew, I’ve repeated it before, and I’m going to repeat it again. This is so typical, I think, of what we’re seeing, especially today, with these huge mega-churches - full of a lot of excitement seemingly but how much of the truth of the Word?

But anyway he said this, "When Noah and those three sons were building that humongous ark, which remember was longer than a football field (450 feet long), and it was three stories high. It stands to reason they probably had to hire extra help." "But," he said, "When the flood came, were any of those extra workers in the ark? No. They had no concern. Even though they’d helped build it." Then he took it one step further, and this is sobering. He said, "How many church people are busy, busy, busy. Singing in the choir, teaching Sunday School, giving, doing everything, but they’re not in the ark." You know, that’s frightening. They have all the "churchianity" in the world, but they have no saving grace. This is why we try to constantly emphasize that it isn’t the work that you do, but rather it’s the faith that you have in what Christ has already done.

All right, now the same way in Israel. There was that small element that was true believers, not just worshippers. All right, jump in at verse 8. Now remember, this is the element that we’re dealing with, this little remnant of believers, but we’re picturing them in the closing days of the age or in the final days of the Tribulation. This is what we’re really referring to over and over throughout these final chapters - verse 8.

"For he said, (that is the Lord) Surely they (this remnant) are my people,…" Now you remember what the verse said in our last program. In Romans chapter 11 especially, what would God say? "They are my people." Now he doesn’t say that concerning Israel today. They are out there in unbelief. And although He’s certainly in control, He’s got them where He wants them, yet they are not a nation of believers, they are not what God will yet call "My people."

"For he said, Surely they are my people, children that will not lie: so he was their (what?) Saviour." They were true believers. So, even back in the Old Testament economy, where salvation is far different than what you and I understand, He was their Savior. Next verse:

"In all their affliction (Now, Israel has always gone through a constant time of persecution and affliction, but in all their affliction…) he was afflicted,…" That is, He suffered with them. In fact, do you remember, I think I mentioned it in our last taping which was shortly after the Tsunamis over there in Asia, that God does not precipitate these tragic events, Satan does.

Now, God permits it, but Satan is the one who moves and shakes these things. But why does Satan bring so much turmoil and suffering on the human race when he’s already got them under his control? Because Satan knows it hurts the heart of God. God doesn’t enjoy seeing those thousands being washed away. It tears at His heart, even in their unbelief. So, this is what it’s saying here, as Israel was suffering affliction, who was suffering with them? God was.

"In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he (what?) redeemed them;…" Now, you want to remember the whole book of Exodus is really a picture of what? Redemption. Redemption is buying something back that you have previously owned. Well, I haven’t got time to go into all the applications, but nevertheless, when the brothers sold Joseph down into Egypt it was the sin that broke the fellowship between him and the brothers. So, the whole process of redemption had to begin, and that, of course, was bringing them back out of Egypt 200 and some years later.

"…he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old. (In other words, up through their ancient history, the days of antiquity.) 10. But (in spite of all of His love and grace) they rebelled,…" In unbelief. They didn’t want to be collared by godliness and spirituality. They wanted to live the life of the flesh.

"…and vexed his holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their (what?) enemy, and he fought against them." Consequently, again, He used Babylon and He used the Syrians and He used other nations to be their tormentors.

"Then he remembered the days of old, Moses, and his people, saying, Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? where is he that put his Holy Spirit within him? 12. That led them by the right hand of Moses with his glorious arm, dividing the water before them, to make himself an everlasting name?" Now, every time I consider the parting of the Red Sea by Moses and the Children of Israel walking over on dry ground, I just have to mull over to myself how many of the current world’s population believe that really happened? Well, I don’t know, but I’ve got a pretty good idea - not many.

I think in the minds of most people, that’s just another legend, that’s another myth that was concocted around the campfire - but it happened. It is something that takes some faith. Yes, the water of the Red Sea parted. Now, I have one favorite portion of Scripture to prove that. Turn back with me to Joshua. If there’s any in my listening audience that may be of that persuasion, that this is just Jewish legend, that these things didn’t really happen, yes, they did! Physically. Physically, the waters of the Red Sea were parted, and Israel walked through on dry ground.

Come back with me to Joshua chapter 2 and verse 9. The spies have now confronted Rahab on the wall of Jericho. This is only a few years after - it’d be a little over forty years, because this is after the wilderness experience. They’re now coming into Israel from the east side of Jordan, and they confront Rahab on the wall of Jericho. This is what Rahab, the Jerichoite, says to these Jewish spies.

"And she said unto the men, I know (She’s not going by hearsay.) that the LORD hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you. (Now, here it comes.) 10. For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt;" Now listen, Jericho wasn’t that far from Egypt.

This wasn’t something halfway round the world that they had picked up by hearsay and legend. No, this was front-page news, if you want put it that way. Here, the God of Israel opened up the waters of the Red Sea, and that nation of several million people walked through, not through the mud but on dry land. It was an established fact in ancient history that this is what God did when He brought Israel up out of Egypt. So, never doubt it – not for a moment. This is not just some legend or some myth. This is actual historical fact. All right, Isaiah 63 once again, and reading verse 13.

"That led them through the deep, as an horse in the wilderness, that they should not stumble?" Now, that’s a play on words that the average reader will never get. Like I’ve pointed out, I think in our last taping, in the Middle East what’s the wilderness? Desert. What’s desert? Flat. I’ll never forget our trip down to Petra. Remember that? Oh, just flat for miles and miles and miles. Well, for a horse and rider what is that? Hey, that’s smooth going. That’s smooth going compared to going through the rocks and canyons of a mountainous area. So, this is the picture now, the horseman in the wilderness in the Middle East is riding without fear of stumbling or rocks or whatever like that, and this is the God who led them as someone riding on horseback on a flat desert table. Then, "they should not stumble." But, on the other hand, verse 14, we have another picture and it’s:

"As a beast goeth down into the valley,…" Now, why do beasts go down into the valleys of a terrain? What’s down there? Water! So, these are the analogies that you’ve got to look for. God brought them out just like a horseman riding on the desert, but He took care of them like animals going down to the cool water of a mountain stream.

"…the Spirit of the LORD caused him to rest: so didst thou lead thy people, to make thyself a glorious name." Now, this is really a prayer, you see, on behalf of this small little remnant who recognized who the God of Israel really was.

"Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory: where is thy zeal and they strength, the sounding of thy bowels (innermost being) and of thy mercies toward me? are they restrained? (Now, in the next verse there’s an interesting statement, again, that the casual reader will just slip over.) 16. Doubtless thou art our father,…" Now, did unbelieving Israel think that? Let me show you. Come back to John’s gospel.

Now, I like to jump into the New Testament as often as I can, because I don’t want someone to accuse me of staying in the Old Testament - John’s gospel chapter 8 verse 39. The Pharisees are now confronting Jesus and ridiculing Him. They’re scorning Him.

"They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father." So, they really didn’t understand God the Creator of everything as their Father. They ridiculed Christ when He claimed to know the Father and was the Father. I think I had a couple of other verses on my mind, but that should suffice. They knew nothing of God as their Father. They recognized Abraham as their father, and they were religious on that basis. But to have God as their Father; they knew nothing of it. All right, verse 16 again, back in Isaiah 63. So, the believing element can claim God as Father.

"Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not:…" Now, there again, what does that tell you? How did the rank and file of Israel feel about the true believers? They detested them. They’re nothing but negatives. They’re holding everything back. They’re not progressive. Sound familiar? Yeah, it does. It’s no different today. So it’s always been that the true believer was considered a stumbling block to progress.

"…thou, O LORD, art our father, our redeemer; (See, there’s that word again, the One who purchased their salvation.) thy name is from everlasting. 17. O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance." Now, you see, way back here Isaiah is prophesying how the remnant at the end-time, that we looked at in the last half-hour, will be waiting for the return of Christ to establish His Kingdom. So they can pray, "Return." But, did the unbelieving element want that? No. That’s the last thing they wanted.

In fact, this always brings up a question. Go back with me, I hope I don’t get myself in trouble here. I should probably look up where I was in Psalms, but anyway, go back with me to Acts chapter 7. Here we have the account of Stephen. He’d just finished his great dissertation condemning the nation of Israel, and then you come down to verse 54, Acts 7. I hope you’re catching my analogy. This is going to be the attitude of the masses of Israel compared to that remnant that will be spared and are waiting for the Lord to return - much like the unbelieving element confronting Stephen.

"When they heard these things, (That is from Stephen.) they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. 55. But he, (Stephen) being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God," Oh, that throws a curve at everybody. Why did Stephen see Jesus standing when all the rest of Scripture says, "He sat down at the right hand of the Father on high?" Well, if He’s going to return, what does he have to do from the seated position? Well, He has to stand. Was Israel ready for that in Stephen’s day? No. Now, flip back to Psalms 68, and this will show you why. Oh, they didn’t want Christ to return. That’s the last thing they wanted. But the remnant did.

"Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered: (Why? Because when He stands from that seated position, He’s going to come in judgment first before He brings in the blessings of the Kingdom.) let them also that hate him flee before him." Now, we showed that so graphically in our last set of four programs. My, when He returns He’s going to be as if stomping on the masses of humanity so that the blood is splattered on His raiment. It was compared to what? The grapes in a grape vat. Remember? All of Scripture draws that analogy that He’s going to return in wrath against His enemies, but it’ll be the greatest blessing on earth for the remnant of believing Israel who will be waiting for His coming.

"As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God." (That is his Second Coming.) 3. But (What about the righteous? They’re going to be glad.) let the righteous be glad; let them rejoice before God: yea, let them exceedingly rejoice. 4. Sing unto God, sing praises to his name: extol him that rideth upon the heavens, by his name JAH (Jehovah), and rejoice before him." Now, that’s the exuberance of the remnant at the return of Christ. But the majority of Israel? No. They don’t want Him to return. They aren’t ready for Him. So, always remember these things, that the Second Coming will be wrath and vexation on the unbelieving world, but for that remnant of Israel it’s to be the culmination of all the prophetic Scriptures.

All right, back to Isaiah, we’ve got a couple of minutes left, Isaiah 63 verse 17. The last part again:

"Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance." See, the believers wanted Him to return. Now, don’t forget the setting. This is the Tribulation remnant that is waiting for His sudden return.

"The people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little while: our adversaries (Now this, of course, is a reference to the Babylonians as well as the Romans.) have trodden down thy sanctuary. (I feel it’s a reference to the temple. But, the little remnant of Israel can claim…) 19. We are thine: (Why? Because of their faith God has redeemed them. They are a believing remnant.) thou never barest rule over them; they (That is the adversaries.) were not called by thy name." It’s so obvious now that this is the prayer and the expectation of the remnant.

Now, I think we can go right on into 64 because, after all, the chapter breaks were not in the originals, and it reads just as well without the chapter heading. So, it’s that same remnant that continues in this prayer of exultation.

"O that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down,…" Now, I think we did this in one of our last programs. Israel is waiting for Christ to come down. Turn with me to I Thessalonians chapter 4, and we’ll see the opposite effect for you and I and the Body of Christ. I Thessalonians chapter 4 and this is what we have to do. A lot of people try to put everything into one basket. No, you don’t ever do that. You just keep separating the Scriptures. The Old Testament believers expected God to come down. He’s going to stand on the Mount of Olives. He’s going to set up His throne in Jerusalem, and He’s going to give them an earthly Kingdom. But you and I, we’re going the other direction.

I Thessalonians 4 and I’m going to read them all again, because everyday we get letters from people who have just caught the program for the first time. You know, yesterday a lady called and she ordered something and I said, "Well, how long have you been listening?" One program! That’s unbelievable - one program. So, we have to constantly keep them in mind as we repeat and repeat and repeat. All right, here’s Paul’s take on what the Church or the true Church, the Body of Christ, is looking for shortly (7 years) before Israel looks for Him to come down into their midst at the end of the Tribulation. Now, it’s the same way with the two Jewish ladies grinding at the mill, one will be taken, the other left. Well, that’s not the rapture. The one taken in that case is the unbeliever. They’re going to be removed from the scene and the believer will be left, that is in the Tribulation, having received salvation through the preaching of the 144,000, but for the church age believer it’s just the opposite.

"But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, (Who have physically died.) that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. 14. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, (In other words, we believe Paul’s Gospel for salvation.) even so them also which sleep (have died) in Jesus will God bring with him. 15. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord…" See how plain that is?

Now, Israel would say the coming of the Lord is down to them. He’s going to come to the Mount of Olives. Zechariah 14 says it. Acts 1 says it. He’s going to stand on the Mount of Olives when He comes. But for us in the Body of Christ, He’s not going to come to the planet. He’s going to only come to the air!

"…shall not precede (or go ahead of) them which are asleep (who have died). (This is the reason.) 16. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17. Then we which are alive and remain (We’re still in our everyday livelihood.) shall be (what?) caught up together with them in the clouds, (He’s not going to be brought down to our midst, we’re going to be caught up.) to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." Well, that’s the beginning of eternity for us.

For Israel, it’s the beginning of the Kingdom here on earth, which will come seven years later at Christ’s Second Coming to the earth, at the end of the Tribulation. There will be a thousand years of glorious rule and reign, by their King, their Messiah, and their Redeemer.

But for us it’s already the beginning of the eternal state. We’re getting closer and closer every day. How we long for, as Paul puts it, to escape this old tabernacle of the flesh, with all of its disappointments and its pain and its suffering. One day we’re going to have that glorious new body like His resurrected body and not just for the thousand years, but for all eternity. But Israel…Israel is looking for the Messiah to come down from heaven into their midst and to set up the promised Kingdom.

Again, we want to thank all of you out in television for all of your prayer support, your financial support, and most of all your encouraging letters. I appreciate the fact that most of you know I like to have you keep them short. You don’t have to overdo it, but try to refrain from two, three, and four page letters because that crimps our time. We try to be honest with you. In fact, we had guests in our home last week from Chicago, and they were helping us open the mail, and they said, "Well, do you read every letter?" And I said, "Isn’t that what I tell people on television, so I can’t lie to them." So, yes, I’ll keep reading every letter, and it helps if you keep them short. But how we love them.

In our last lesson we got through Isaiah 64 verse 1. Now remember, as we’ve been studying the last two half-hours on the main topic of "the prayer of the remnant," it’s the believing remnant of Israel shortly before the Second Coming that is in view of the eyes of the prophet, and remember, the prophets can do that. They can leap the centuries and speak as if it’s today or tomorrow or whatever. So, this is the voice of the remnant just before Christ’s return and this continues now in chapter 64. Then we get into chapter 65; we’re going to see Jehovah, or the LORD, respond to the prayer of the remnant. Then we go on into chapter 66, hopefully in the next half-hour and wind up the book of Isaiah. It ends with all the blessings that are waiting Israel when they have the King and the Kingdom, following the soon to be, we feel, 7 years of Tribulation that is coming upon the earth. All right, but Isaiah 64 verse 1, we’re still in the words of the remnant.

"Oh, that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down (That is His Second Coming as we look at it.) that the mountains might flow down at thy presence, 2. As when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine (what?) adversaries,…" Now, I don’t like to run a good thing into the ground, but you see, in our last taping, in those first three programs, we covered some of the horrors of those final seven years, and it is beyond human description. But it is coming. God will have to do that if He’s the righteous God that He claims to be. He has to deal in wrath and judgment before He can open up the doors of the Kingdom. So, the horrors will be beyond human description.

In fact, I don’t think I did it last taping although I intended to because it was at a point just shortly after the Tsunami horrors of Asia on December, 25, 2004. As people began to call, I referred them one after the other to Jeremiah 25, and now you can turn with me for a minute to Jeremiah 25. Since this is all fresh on our memory and seeing the horrors of the destruction that was all just along the coastlines. It hardly affected the inland.

If any of you happened to see the video, it was not…oh…not too long ago, but it was long after the original, and Iris and I just happened to catch it. Here was all the water rushing back out to sea. That’s what I’ve been waiting to see, because I knew that all the waves that went over land had to go back out. Well, this video happened to show it and it was beyond description. You can’t imagine if you didn’t see it, the death and destruction as that river of water was going back out to sea. Trucks and cars and trees and buildings and -- unbelievable! But here is the graphic description from Scripture of how it will not just be on a few miles of shoreline in Asia, but this is going to be around the planet. Nothing is going to escape God’s wrath.

Now, I don’t do this to be facetious or to be sensational, but it does bear being reminded of the wrath of God that’s coming on the unbelieving world. Even as Israel knew it was going to come on all except the remnant. All right, you got Jeremiah 25 and I’ve been telling my callers to start with verse 30, so we might as well do it here. Now, if these tapes are still being shown several years from now, it’ll probably seem a little out of place. But, in view of where we are today, just stop and analyze this and ask yourself, how much of this did we see in those miles of coastline in Asia?

Now remember, that didn’t go very far inland. All the damage and havoc was just along the coastline. But this isn’t going to be limited to coastline. This isn’t going to be limited to Asia. This is going to be striking every nation on the planet.

"Therefore prophesy thou against them all these words, and say unto them, The LORD shall roar from on high, (Now this is almost the same language that we saw a couple of programs back in Isaiah 63.) and utter his voice from his holy habitation; he shall mightily roar upon his habitation; he shall give a shout, as they that tread the grapes, against (now watch the language) all the inhabitants of the earth. (Not just a few hundred thousand Asians. This will strike everybody around the planet.) 31. A noise shall come even to the ends of the earth; for the LORD hath a controversy with the nations,…" Why? Because of their unbelief! Because of their rejection of all of His love and grace.

"…he will plead with all flesh; (Not just Asia, not just Israel, not just Europe, not just America. It’s going to be the whole planet.) he will give them that are wicked to the sword, saith the LORD." The believer is not going to be in this scenario at all. This is for the majority who has chosen to reject Him. Now, the sword only speaks of one thing and what is it? Death.

"Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation,…" Now, I think this is going to include nuclear. It’s going to include natural events, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and tsunamis - you name it. It’s going to be a conflagration of every description.

"…and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts (borders) of the earth." Now verse 33, and as you look at this verse just stop and think of what you saw in Asia the last few weeks. This is exactly what we saw. But that was just one little isolated area.

"And the slain of the LORD shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth: and they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried;…" What happened over there? They couldn’t find most of the corpses to even have a funeral. Many of them were never found. We know that. Washed out to sea. We happened to catch a little clip where they had a great big firewood pier, and they were just simply throwing the corpses on it just to get rid of them to stop the disease. They didn’t have time to embalm and have funerals and bury. Well, isn’t that exactly what it says here? They will not be lamented. There’ll be no funerals. They’ll not be gathered. There’ll be no taking them into a mortuary. They will not be buried. There won’t be any reason or opportunity to. Why? Because those dead bodies:

"…they shall be dung (or refuse or trash) upon the ground." That’s what the world is facing. They can scorn us all they want. When I read these articles of scorn I just have to have two reactions. On the first hand I feel sorry for them, and on the other hand, I think, "You’re going to deserve it." Because you don’t have to be that blind; the Scripture is so plain. But anyway, this is just a little itsy bitsy tip-of-the-iceberg of what the world is facing.

All right, back to Isaiah 64 and the remnant is still pleading to God when He comes and raises his wrath and vexation against the unbelieving world, all right, verse 3.

"When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for, thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence. 4. For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him." Now, we’re going to jump up to the New Testament a minute, if I may.

Let’s flip all the way up to I Corinthians 2:9. Some of you are way ahead of me, aren’t you? That’s great! That shows that you’re getting aware of the Scriptures. I Corinthians 2:9 - now this is the Apostle Paul writing to you and I as Gentiles. I almost have to go back to verse 6 to pick up the flow. We’re not going to rush. If I don’t finish Isaiah today, why we’ll do it later.

"Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: (or spiritually mature) yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: 7. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, (or a revelation of secrets) even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our (or I think the apostle could have written, ‘my’) glory. (Because he’s the one that reveals all this, and all of this was such that-) 8. Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, (Now the princes of the world means the rulers and those with authority – Israel, as well as Gentile.) they would not have crucified the Lord of glory."

Now, what’s he referring to? Had the authorities of Israel or even the authorities of Rome known that this Jesus of Nazareth was the Creator of the universe, would they have nailed Him to that cross? No way! They wouldn’t have been that stupid But why did they? They didn’t know. They were blind in their unbelief. Like Isaiah said, it’s always been that way. They cannot comprehend. But read on.

"But as it is written, (This is where Paul is quoting from Isaiah 64.) Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that (what?) love him." Not the wrath and vexation that’s coming on the unbeliever, but the things that are prepared for the believer, it’s beyond comprehension!

Now, you know, I’m always the first to admit that Scripture, as I see it, does not really tell us that much about our eternal state. It doesn’t tell us what we’re going to be doing. It doesn’t tell us how we’re going to be operating. In fact, it almost tells us nothing, except one thing. It’s going to be what? Glorious! We cannot begin to comprehend the glory that is awaiting the true child of God.

"But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. 11. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. 12. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God." But, even that is limited to the Scriptures. The Scripture limits us to the fact that the eternal state is glorious. That’s as far as we can go.

You know, my daughter loves horses, and that’s why, of course, she experienced her horrible accident. She’s always been a horse-nut. I remember a couple of years ago, she said, "Daddy, do you suppose it’s possible the Lord will give me a horse barn a half a mile long? And I can clean stalls every day?" Because, you know, it’s funny with these gals that love horses, their favorite pastime is cleaning the stalls and putting in fresh bedding and all that. Well, I said, "Honey, we don’t know." We have no idea of what we’re going to be doing or how when we get into the eternal state.

Now, I’m of the same impression. I hope that there will be animals in glory, because I love animals. But I don’t know. I’m not going to tell people well, we’re going to have pets, and we’re going to have animals. But I know one thing; it’s going to be glorious - beyond human comprehension!

Okay, now I could probably use a few other verses, but I think we’d better go back to Isaiah 64, or I won’t even get close to finishing the Book today. But anyway, now the believers are crying out, those that have an inkling of what God has prepared for them that wait for him. That’s the next one I wanted to use. Wait for him. Turn back again to the New Testament, all of you - I Thessalonians. I should have thought of it while I was in I Corinthians, but I didn’t. That was the next key word - to wait.

Now you know, the first time I caught that verse years ago, I thought, well, now what in the world? Why did the apostle write that these Thessalonians were being commended, not condemned, they’re being commended for their attitude of waiting. Now, all we ever hear is "get to work!" Do this, do this, and do this. Because, after all, if you’re a believer God’s got things for you to do. But we’re going to temper that a little bit. Don’t get so busy doing the Lord’s work that you haven’t got time to contemplate – What’s the next big event on God’s calendar? The return of Christ! First, to take us up and then seven years later to return to the nation of Israel.

Well, all right, I Thessalonians chapter 1 and I’m going to start at verse 8 in this series because Paul is commending these Thessalonian believers, fresh out of paganism, remember, they’ve been idol worshippers. They’ve been moon-god worshippers. They’ve been the mythological gods and goddesses worshippers. There they are – trophies of God’s Grace! Verse 8:

"For from you (the Thessalonian believers) sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia (Northern Greece) and Achaia (which was Southern Greece) but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak any thing." In other words, Paul didn’t have to tell people about these Thessalonian believers. Their fame went all across the land of Greece.

"For they themselves (That is the rest of the population of Greece, when they’d talk about these Thessalonian believers.) shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, (That is, as Paul brought the Gospel to these pagans. Now watch it.) and how ye turned to God from (What?) idols (See, they were idolaters.) to serve the living and true God;" Now, here’s the verse. Along with their salvation, along with their serving, and telling others of this glorious Gospel and this newfound life apart from paganism, they were waiting.

"And to (What?) wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivered us from the (What?) wrath to come." That’s why I know we’re not going into the Tribulation. We’ve been spared that.

But what were the early believers doing? Waiting for this great event. What was the remnant of Israel doing? Waiting for that great event. Well, they didn’t live to see it, but that doesn’t take away from the fact and I think that’s where we should be today. My, in spite of all of our activity, in spite of all of our busyness, we should be able to just relax at times and say, "Lord, how long?" How long until we hear, as the songwriter put it, until we hear that great song and Christ Returneth. Okay, back to Isaiah 64. So, don’t get so busy that you haven’t got time to wait for the trumpet sound that we are confident is coming.

All right, verse 5, now this is a verse we took off from in one of our last programs, in our last taping, and I jumped up to the New Testament because of all the language here that prepared this remnant for their salvation. Now, of course, Old Testament salvation was different than ours under grace. I can’t explain it and I’ve never found anybody that really could. It’s kind of an enigma. What kind of a salvation did they have? I know it was by faith, but on the other hand, there are a lot of questions as to how much security they had and so forth.

But remember now, these are the remnant at the end of the Tribulation that we saw Jesus refer to in Matthew 24. They’re going to be escaping out into the wilderness, whereas the rest of the nation is going to suffer their death along with the rest of the world. All right, verse 5:

"Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways; behold, thou art wroth; (Now remember, the Tribulation is raging all around them. God is supernaturally protecting them out in that wilderness.) for we have sinned: (See, that’s the first step in salvation; it is to recognize our lostness or that we’re sinners.) in those is continuance, and we (because of recognizing their need) shall be (what?) saved." And this remnant was. They were saved Jews within the nation of Israel, and I’m sure they were a sprinkling of all the tribes, because they’re all going to be represented. In fact, that’s the way Paul puts it.

Let’s go back and look at it a minute, again. Romans chapter 11, I’ve got to make the point because this also precipitates a lot of questions. I hope I can find it. It’s got to be in chapter 11. Boy, some of you guys are going to have to help me find it; I’m not seeing the verse I want. Anyway, where it says, "that all Israel shall be saved." Am I looking at it and not seeing it? Thank you. Romans 11:26, this has to be answered.

"And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob." But all right, we can’t let one Scripture override another.

Now, come back with me to what we looked at in Zechariah a program or two back and our listening audience promises us that they watch every day, so they’ll remember this. Zechariah chapter 13 and this is going to answer the question. Now, I know this is repetition, but hopefully it will make a point.

"And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third (That is the third part.) shall be left therein. (That’s the remnant - one third.) 9. And I will bring the third part through the fire, (That is through the Tribulation.) and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try (test) them as gold is tried (tested): they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, the LORD is my God." All right, so this is the conclusion you have to come to when Paul says, "yet all Israel shall be saved." The Old Testament says it’ll only be a remnant. What does it mean? Only the remnant is the "all Israel" of Romans 11:26, simply to indicate that in that remnant there are members of every tribe. No tribe will be left out in that remnant.

So it will, for that time, be the "all Israel." Now, I hope that settles it even for my TV audience. When it says all Israel shall be saved, it doesn’t mean the fifteen million Jews on the planet today. It means more like five million and in that five million are representatives of all the tribes of ancient Israel.

Back to Isaiah 64, and verse 6, this is why we know this is the believing remnant, because they recognize their need. What about the rest of Israel? No, in spite of all their immorality and in spite of their idolatry, what did they do every so often down at Jerusalem? They went to the temple and that was supposed to make everything right. But the rest of the time they were horrific in their behavior. But you see, the believing remnant recognized their need and what they were and why God could save them.

"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags;…" Now, let me stop and ask you, those of you who know Christ’s earthly ministry. You know the four Gospel accounts probably better than I do. Did the Pharisees think of themselves as "filthy rags?" Why, heavens no! They were self-righteous. They could do no wrong. Even Saul of Tarsus, who later became the Apostle Paul, what was he? Religious to the hilt! He couldn’t find any fault in his lifestyle; he was religious. But the believing element could recognize what they were in God’s sight, and that’s why God could save them. Well, it’s no different today, no different. All right, reading on.

But we are all as an unclean thing, all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; (We have nothing going for us.) and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. 7. And there is none that calleth on thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities." That was the very attitude that caused this little remnant of Israel to become believers.

See, it’s no different today. The pomp and the circumstance of most of Christianity today never brings a person to recognize their need. They’re okay. They’re going to make it. They’ve got all their reasons, but you see, the first step for salvation is to recognize our lostness, as we pointed out a couple of programs ago. So, always remember that this is the first step in God’s saving grace for mortal man, whether it was Israel in antiquity or for us today in 2005 or whatever year we’re in. That first step for salvation is to recognize that we are nothing in God’s sight. Our own righteousness is nothing more than filthy rags.

Okay, once again, it is good to have everybody back. This is our fourth program this afternoon and for those of you out in television, we’re just an informal Bible study. That’s why we have the coffee cups. This is not a pseudo church or anything like that. We’re just here to search the Scriptures and to see if these things are really so.

Now, we’re especially favored today, and I mentioned it in one of our other programs, but our youngest son Todd and his wife Kim are here and with our latest grandson. He’s only eight weeks old, so somebody just reminded me today that this is probably his first real Bible study! I’m sure they’ve already had him in church someplace, but this is his first Bible study, and if the Lord tarries, someday he can look at the tape and say, "There I was, I got a good start." My goodness, I didn’t even see him on the screen. I’m not just a proud grandpa, but that’s a pretty, pretty baby!

Okay, now then, back to the things at hand - Isaiah 65 verse 1. This is the Lord’s answer, now, to the prayerful plea of the remnant just before He returns.

"I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name. 2. I have spread out my hands all the day unto a (What kind of people?) rebellious people," Now, this is Israel! They’ve had the Word. They’ve had the prophets. They’ve had the temple. They’ve had the priesthood. But it didn’t make any difference. They were just as rebellious and unbelieving as the Gentile pagan world around them.

"I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts;" Now, lest you think that this is recent in Israel’s history, go back with me to the last verse of Judges, and that would be chapter 21, and verse 25. Now, this is about shortly after they came out of Egypt. About 400 years before King David, and this is unbelievable. Samuel was the last of the judges, but this last verse just typifies ancient Israel almost from day one. Of course, Isaiah is now writing almost a thousand years later, and he’s deploring the same fact.

"In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes." Now beloved, when you let the human race do their own thing, is it good or bad? It’s never good. Okay, back to Isaiah because I want you to see that God has mercifully put up with the human race from day one because Israel was, you know, the covenant people. They should have been a people of obedience. But they weren’t. The only ones that were obedient were just that small remnant.

"A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face; that sacrificeth in gardens, and burneth incense upon altars of brick;" Now, what are they doing? Idol worship. They didn’t even build altars the way God instructed them to build altars, because when Israel was taught how to build an altar, they didn’t use brick, they used what? Hewn stone. See, bricks are manmade. They’re cooked in an oven. But see, here they used altars made of a counterfeit rather than the hewn stone as God had instructed Israel. All right, so it just all shows rebelliousness. They’re not even going to build an altar according to God’s design.

"Which remain among the graves, and lodge in the monuments, which eat swine’s flesh, (Now, you know that was forbidden all the way up in Israel’s history.) and broth of abominable things is in their vessels;" In other words, even their soup that they made was made of stuff that was totally contrary to Israel’s dietary laws.

"Which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou." My goodness, that puts it as plain as English can make it. So what are they likened to? The Pharisees. That was their attitude. They were righteous. They were holy. They would wrap their clerical robes around themselves, and they could do no wrong. But these were the same way. They say, "I’m holier than you are."

"These are a smoke in my nose, (Not the smoke of incense, as God appreciated in the temple worship. But this was acrid smoke that burned the nostrils.) a fire that burneth all the day." Now again, I think you can go back to an analogy of the ancients. They probably lived in small dwellings. They didn’t have central heat and air, so what was the normal material for burning to keep the house warm? Well, dried cow manure. Just like they did out west. So, the acrid smoke of that cattle refuse would literally permeate the whole house. That’s what they lived in. But God likens that to His experience with Israel.

"Behold, it is written before me: I will not keep silence, but will recompense, even recompense into their bosom. 7. Your iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together, saith the LORD, which have burned incense upon the mountains, and blasphemed me upon the hills: therefore will I measure their former work into their bosom." In other words, it’s been generation after generation. Now verse 8, this is an interesting little verse.

"Thus saith the LORD, as the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not;" Now, you’ve kind of got to put some thought here. What kinds of grapevines do you suppose the hired help were pulling out to burn? Well, the ones that weren’t producing - the dead ones. That stands to reason. But, as they’re about to pull out this dead grapevine, the husbandman sees what? One cluster of grapes. What does he say? Don’t destroy that good little cluster of grapes. Now read on.

"Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants’ sake, that I may not destroy them all." Again, what’s that one little clump of grapes on the dead vine a picture of? The remnant. Oh, all these things you’ve got to kind of dig and then here they come, and it just tantalizes your spiritual appetite. Don’t destroy the vine. There is one cluster of grapes that is still useful for the grape juice.

"And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains: and mine (What?) elect (The remnant again. The true believer) shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there. (Now, we come to the promises of this coming Kingdom.) 10. And Sharon…" That is the Valley of Sharon, which is just east of the Mediterranean coast. It’s one of the valleys of Israel, and now a lot of it is covered with the sand that has blown up from the Mediterranean Sea. I don’t know how much validity this has, but one of our guides over there told us how all that sand accumulates up on Israel. It comes from the Nile water coming into the Mediterranean, and then all the prevailing northwesterly winds blow it up onto the shore of Israel. So, you’ve got these huge sand dunes all along the Mediterranean seashore. But beyond them, of course, you have this productive Valley of Sharon.

"And Sharon shall be a fold of flocks, (In other words, Sharon is going to revert back to that beautiful productive valley of grass and water for the flocks of Israel.) and the valley of Achor..." Now, those of you who know your Old Testament, what was the Valley of Achor? Well, you remember Achan? This was shortly after they came across the Jordan River, and they were to have nothing to do with the spoils of the little town of Ai. They were instructed, don’t touch any of that stuff, it should all be destroyed. What did Achan do? He took some for himself, and he thought he’d gotten away with it but God knew. You remember that Achan was dealt harshly over that. The Valley of Achor became a curse to Israel. It was just something that was avoided. But, here in the Kingdom it’s going to be a valley of blessing.

"…and the valley of Achor a place for the herds to lie down in, for my people that have sought me." In other words again, for the remnant that’s going to come into the glorious earthly Kingdom that’s been promised since day one.

"But ye are they that forsake the LORD, that forget my holy mountain, that prepare a table for that troop, and that furnish the drink-offering unto that number. 12. Therefore, will I number you (Now that’s the unbelieving element again.) to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter:…" Remember what Zechariah said? Two thirds will die; one third will come through the Tribulation and be the remnant to go into the Kingdom.

"Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry: behold, my servant shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty, behold my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed: 14. Behold, my servants (That is the believing remnant.) shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit. 15. And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen: for the Lord GOD shall (What?) slay thee,…" Now, you see, I’ve mentioned the two women at the well and two people sleeping in the bed, and what does the Lord say in Matthew?

"The one shall be taken, the other left?" Well, which one will be taken? The unbeliever! He’ll be removed (die) and the believer will go on into the Kingdom economy. All right, now then, let’s drop quickly down into verse 17.

"For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former (That is the old earth.) shall not be remembered, nor come into mind." Now, of course, I guess there’s room for controversy here. Is He speaking of the new heaven and new earth of Revelation 21 and 22, or is He speaking of the renovated earth of the Kingdom Age?

I personally feel he’s talking about the renovated earth for the millennial reign. Now, you’ve got to remember the thousand-year reign of Christ is the Kingdom economy, in which Christ will rule and reign from Jerusalem. Then, at the end of that thousand years, according to Revelation, I guess we’d better go back to Revelation and take a look at that. Here in Revelation chapter 20 we find that those thousand years are over. Now remember, it’s going to be heaven on earth because Satan has been locked up. There has been no one to tempt them. They have had a perfect environment. They’ve not been tempted to sin or to rebel until Satan’s released, and then for a little while he’s going to again confuse the multitudes.

"And when the thousand years are expired, (That’s the Kingdom, the millennium.) Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, 8. And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, (All of them.) to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. 9. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, (I mean, it’s just a repetition of Armageddon all over again.) and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: (Which, of course, is Jerusalem, but this time God wastes no time.) and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them." In the next verse, Satan, of course, is consigned to the Lake of Fire. Then you go through the Great White Throne, preparing everything for the coming eternal bliss of both Israel and the Gentile world.

Now, you come into chapter 21 and John prophetically sees a new heaven and a new earth. I don’t think it’s the new heaven and new earth that Isaiah’s referring to. He’s referring to the thousand-year earth, which will be renovated. But this will be brand new.

"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were (What?) passed away;…" Peter puts it in scientific language, and he says, "that the earth and everything in it is burned up and it’s going to be dissolved." It’s going to be melted down, and out of that will then come the eternal new heaven and new earth, and again it just seems that God’s going to still maintain that separation between Israel and the Body of Christ, who are the "heavenly," even for all of eternity.

But, back to Isaiah, quickly now, we’ve only got about half the program left, already. So, here we’re preparing the earth of the millennial reign, heaven on earth. It’s going to be an earth of tremendous production. There’ll be no want. There’ll be no sweat of the brow; it’s going to be an easy production, and food will be in abundance everywhere.

"And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying. 20. There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days:…" In other words, death will be almost unknown in this thousand-year period.

"…for the child shall die an hundred years old; (In other words, at a hundred they’re still just as vibrant as a child.) but the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed." Which means there might be a possibility of someone having to be removed. I think it’s going to be so rare that the Scripture really doesn’t deal with it all that much. All right, verse 21, it’s going to be a Kingdom of tremendous activity.

"And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. 22. They shall not build, and another inhabit;…" Which was Israel’s history. They’d get their economy going and enemy forces would come in and take their crops and destroy their houses and they were under constant turmoil. But that will happen no more.

"…they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands." In other words, I think they’ll live the whole thousand-year period of time, even as they did back before the flood.

"They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring with them. (Now, the next verse is a perfect parallel with John’s gospel chapter 14.) 24. And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." Now, I think I’ve got time. Let’s go up to John’s Gospel because this has been such a confusing thing for so many people, and they can’t get it through their thinking that Christ was looking forward to the Kingdom time when He said so many of these things. They’re not apropos for us today.

John 14 verse 13. Now, this will all become a reality in this Kingdom economy, when Christ is ruling and Satan is locked up. Every Jew will be in a special manifestation of God’s grace and power. The Lord is speaking, and He says:

"And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it." What does that mean? Whatever they want. All they have to do is speak it. Providing, of course, that it’s within common sense, and I think that’s going to be a given. But it’s going to be a time when all their prayers will be answered as if they had merely had the thought.

Okay, back to Isaiah, quickly now, the last verse in chapter 65, and this is a perfect parallel for Isaiah chapter 11.

"The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,…" Now, this isn’t just pie in the sky. A lot of people scoff at this, and they say, "Well, that’s just a figure of speech." No, it is not. This is going to become a literal reality when God will literally change the digestive system of the wild animals where they will not eat of other living things. Isaiah 11 says that they will eat of everything that grows naturally, the herbs and the grasses and so forth.

"The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: (His whole digestive system will be transferred from carnivorous to eating forage.) and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. (Now, we know that the serpent will not be active in the Kingdom, so this is simply a play on words that the serpent will not enjoy all these good things of the Kingdom.) They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, (or in my Kingdom) saith the LORD." All right, now let’s go into the final chapter of Isaiah, and remember that Isaiah is 66 chapters long and our Bible is 66 books. So, there is a parallel.

"Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: (Now, what is that a significance of ? His Sovereignty. The earth is just His footstool. It’s just a little marble out of all of God’s creation. And it’s His.) where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?" I’m going to skip now, so that we get a little closer to the end, as I want to finish Isaiah today - verse 5.

"Hear the word of the LORD, ye that tremble at his word; Your brethren that hated you,…" Wow, what have we got there again? The little remnant has been hated by the majority. We’re seeing the same thing today. Even in the realms of Christendom, the true believer is more and more being scorned by the masses. They think we’re odd. They think we’re narrow-minded, and they don’t literally take this Book to be true.

My goodness, we just had a lady share with us during break time, where she was in a church out near the east coast where they gave their Sunday School kids the lesson that they came from apes – evolution. If they wanted to teach creation they could believe it if they want to. But listen, this is happening in churches. This is apostasy. It’s coming in like a flood. That’s one of the worst ones I’ve heard, but I’ve heard a lot of them almost as bad. But beloved, it’s always been this way, even in ancient Israel the true believer was scorned and ridiculed by the majority.

"…Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name’s sake, said, let the LORD, be glorified: but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be (What?) ashamed. (or disappointed.)" Now, that reminds me of a verse in Peter. I think I can take the time. Go all the way up to I Peter. It makes the same analogy. This is New Testament.

"Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, (Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah) elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded." If you want to take your concordance or Strong’s Concordance and you compare that word, what’s another word for it? Disappointed.

Now, when will the mass of the so-called religious people be disappointed? When they find themselves in the wrong place! That’s the same way with church people today. My, when they slip out into eternity, many are going to be disappointed. They’re not going to be where they thought they were going. Okay, we’re down to the final two minutes, so let’s move on up into Isaiah chapter 66, verse 7.

"Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child." Who are we talking about? Israel. What’s the man-child? Christ’s birth at Bethlehem.

"Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children." Now, we’re jumping up from the miracle of Bethlehem to the super, super miracle of the Second Coming and Christ establishing His Kingdom, and the saved of Israel entering into all the promises that they’ve been looking for. How long is it going to take to happen? In an instant. The moment Christ returns they’re going to come into the glory of that promised Kingdom.

"Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith the LORD: shall I cause to bring forth and shut the womb? saith thy God. (Oh, no way, God isn’t going to fall short of all these promises.) 10. Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her,…" Then, drop all the way down to verse 15. I’ve got to do this quickly.

"For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. 16. For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many." Now, we’ll close with verse 18.

"For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory." When will it happen? At His Second Coming, and we’re getting closer and closer every day.

My, we got some testimonies in the mail yesterday from prison inmates and we’re going to share them in our next newsletter. It’s just thrilling how the Lord is using our simple teaching of the Word to bring hearts and lives to a true saving knowledge. We just want to let you know that we appreciate so much your letters, your financial help, your prayers, everything that makes the ministry possible.

Okay, we’re going to be taking a little different approach today, as we’ve gone through the Scriptures from Genesis through Revelation and have just finished the Book of Isaiah, pretty much chapter and verse. Today I’m doing something pretty much from requests from our listeners. We’re going to do a series of studies on the Covenants.

I’ll never forget the first time I ever heard about them. I was still teaching in small Bible classes up in Iowa, and I’d been teaching the dispensations. A lady came up and she said, "Les, do you ever teach the Covenants?" Well, I hadn’t even really heard of them. She said, "Our pastor has just finished a whole series, and we’ve enjoyed it so much. I’ll just bring you his notes sometime." So, she did.

Now, that was many years ago and in the meantime I would refer to the Covenants, but I’d never really made an in depth study of them. So, today we’re going to start way back in Genesis chapter 1. Now, for those of you that may feel that a lot of people spend too much time in the Old Testament, remember that whenever I teach the Old Testament, I jump up into the New constantly. So, we’re not bogged down back in Genesis, but we’re going to start today with the first of the Covenant promises in Genesis chapter 1. I’ve had them put on the board for us, and I hope the cameras can pick them up where those of you out in television can read them. There are seven distinct Covenants that God makes - first, of course, with the whole human race. Then with Abraham and then the rest of the Covenants deal primarily with the Nation of Israel and the eighth one afterwards.

Now, this is much the same as the Gospel of John. Those of you who remember, when we studied John, there were eight sign miracles through the Gospel of John. Seven before the crucifixion and then the eighth one afterwards. Well, you’ve got the same thing here. We’ve got seven Covenants coming all the way up until we finish time as we know it, and the Kingdom is brought in, and for it we have the eighth Covenant.

The sign miracle in the last chapter of John was the eighth miracle, which always depicts - most of you now know my numbers – seven is Completion and eight is New Beginning. It’s the same way in this numbering of the Covenants.

You know, not too long ago someone shared with me that a teacher had said, "Well, this is just a book of stories. This is just Jewish myths. This isn’t really the Word of God." Well, things like this make us beg to differ. Human intellect could never think of these things, of putting things in terms of "seven." Even the Apostle Paul, in his writings to the churches, will many times group things in lumps of seven. Now, I stress a lot of these things just to prove how meticulously the Holy Spirit has put this Book together.

Now, I’m sure that none of the writers of Scripture sat down and beat their brains out trying to figure out how they could put "sevens" together in Scripture. But the Holy Spirit does it, miraculously. So, here again we have seven Covenants dealing with time as we know it, then the eighth one in the Kingdom, which is "New Beginning." Look at all these things that pertain to "seven." The first four Covenants have seven parts, then the Mosaic Covenant drops down to three, which, of course, is another prominent number throughout Scripture. Then we come back to the Palestinian, and it has seven parts.

Now, just as soon as I use the word Palestine, people get all shook up. They think it’s not a Biblical term. So, in order to prove my point, here are three references in Scripture where you have the word Palestine - Exodus 15:14, Isaiah 14:29, and 31. Again, in Joel chapter 3 verse 4 you have the term Palestine. Again, that probably deserves a little explanation.

It is really from the original word "Philistine." So, Palestine originated in the area of the ancient Philistines. As I’ve stressed many times in my classes here in Oklahoma and in seminars around the country, Palestine was never a nationalized entity. Palestine is simply a geographical area there on the eastern end of the Mediterranean in which we have the Nation of Israel. So, when I speak of Palestine once in a while, I’m not talking about the Promised Land per se, I’m talking about that part of the world that includes the Nation of Israel or the Promised Land. Now, just remember, that Palestine, as such, was never a national entity. It never had a flag. It never had a constitution. It didn’t have a language of its own. It’s simply a geographical area.

We use them constantly. We speak of the Midwest, here in America. Now, you all know the Midwest doesn’t have borders or a constitution or anything like that, yet most people know what you’re talking about when you speak of the Midwest. The Sahara is the same way. Sahara has never been a nation. It has never had a constitution or a flag or a language, but everybody knows where the Sahara is. Well, you can do that with various aspects around the globe. So, always remember that when we speak of Palestine, it is not a taking away from the Nation of Israel or anything like that. It’s just a reference to the geographical area in which we find the Promised Land, the Nation of Israel.

Now, it’s interesting, too, that down through the centuries, you see, the true Palestinians were the Jews after the Canaanites were driven out. They were there before, and then God by decree drove the Canaanites out and gave the land to Abraham by Covenant promise, as we’ll see down the road. It wasn’t until 1947 that the Arabs took over the term Palestinian. Until then, you never heard of them referred to as Palestinians. True Palestinians were always Jews. They were the ones whose homeland involved the area of Palestine. So, remember that.

Well, anyway, to continue on, after the seven parts of the Palestinian Covenant, we come to the Davidic Covenant; the covenant made starting with King David. Instead of seven, there are five parts. Of course, those of you who know anything of numerology in Scripture – five stands for grace. So, it’s just by grace that this whole Davidic Covenant is brought about.

All right, now we’re going to start with the first of the Covenants; the covenant made concerning the Garden of Eden. We just put an ‘ic’ on the end of it to indicate that it’s an Edenic Covenant. We’ll start in Genesis chapter 1 verse 28. Now, you want to remember, in verses 26 and 27 God has just created Adam, with Eve within him. Of course, she won’t appear physically until sometime later.

In chapter 1 verse 26 we have the creation of Adam and Eve - a male and female. In verse 27 He created them, but you see, they are both in Adam, so they are both called Adam. (Gen 5:2) A lot of people get shook up at that, but it’s the only thing that fits Scripture. Because you see, the woman had to be in the headship part of the man in order to be a recipient of God’s saving grace. Otherwise, we’d have had to have two Saviors. We would have had to have a Savior for the women and a Savior for the men. But since Eve was in Adam, there is only a necessity of one Savior.

All right, here begins the beginning of the Covenant concerning the operations in the Garden of Eden in verse 28.

"And God blessed them, (That is Adam and Eve.) and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish (or fill up) the earth,…" Now, that’s the first part of the seven parts in this covenant.

"…and subdue it: and have dominion…" Now, that’s the word that I always like to emphasize that most people miss. Adam was given dominion, not just over the Garden of Eden; that was just simply the area in which they functioned primarily. But see, Adam was given dominion over the whole planet and everything in it.

"…over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." See, that’s not limited to Eden. It’s part of the Edenic Covenant, but, on the other hand, Adam is now given dominion over the whole planet.

Now, remember that because when we come to the next covenant we’re going to be making some comments about that very fact. All right, as you read on, you see that God now gives them everything that is necessary for life to function. In verse 29, He gives them all the things necessary for food. In verse 30:

"And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so." Then you come across to chapter 2, and we’ll find that we’ve got the fifth part in verse 8, where God now plants the Garden, a specialized place within the dominion of the whole planet.

"And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9. And out of the ground…" We have a repetition of what took place in chapter 1. He formed all these things concerning the creation of the planet, and then you jump over to verses 16 and 17. We have the sixth and seventh part of this covenant; it delegates what God was now forbidding.

"And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: (That was the sixth part of the covenant.) 17. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely (What?) die." Now, that’s all part of God’s agreement with setting Adam and Eve in the Garden.

Now, I guess I should back up a minute and define the Biblical definition of Covenant. In our normal functioning of life we think of a covenant as an agreement, like a lease agreement or a contract or something, but a covenant, Scripturally speaking, is totally different. It should not even be compared to what we would call a human contract, because a covenant in Scripture originates and ends with God. See the difference?

We think of a contract between two parties. One has to be in agreement with the other. If one breaks it, then he’s going to have to make restitution to the one he’s wronged. But you see, these covenants, all eight of them, begin and end with God Himself. Man has nothing to do with the operation of these covenants. God can break it when He wants to. He can reestablish it if He wants to, as He’s going to do, we’ll see, with the Covenant of Law. But on the other hand, always remember that a covenant begins and ends with God.

So, God stipulated that man would now fill the earth, he would have a prodigy of human beings, he would have dominion over the whole planet, and they would eat of everything that grew naturally. They would kill nothing for food. Nor would any of the created life kill for food; everything would eat things that grew naturally. But along with all the other aspects of the covenant, they are now given the responsibility to not eat of one tree in the Garden. The day they would eat of it, death would be the result - spiritual death first, physical death later. Of course, that sets the stage, then, for the whole 6000 years of human history. God said it. God put it in motion. God will end it when He sees fit.

All right, now I think we can go on into the second covenant where we can spend a lot more time. That is what we call the Adamic Covenant. It, too, has seven parts to it. All right, now we’re going to jump over to chapter 3, and we’re going to start at verse 14. Now, you’ve got to remember that Adam has now eaten of the forbidden tree. How much time elapsed from Creation to the Fall? I’ve never found anybody that has a concrete answer. Some Jewish rabbis feel twenty-eight days. Others feel a little longer. But who knows? After all, Adam lived to be nine hundred and thirty years, so there was a lot of time to deal with it. But whatever, as soon as Adam ate of that forbidden tree, spiritual death entered. Of course, the culprit that precipitated it all was the one whom we know as Satan, or the devil.

"And the LORD God said unto the serpent,…" Now, right there I think this calls for some digging deeper into the Scriptures. Go back to verse 1 in this chapter, and we’ll see that the serpent is described as one of the most subtle. That word subtle, I looked it up one time, has got about fourteen definitions, and they’re all good. It all speaks of his intelligence and of his ability to connive and make deals, and what have you. Evidently, the serpent was not only beautiful to look at, but it must have been an upright creature. I go so far as to say that it even had the ability to speak, because Eve was not the least bit shook up when the serpent spoke. So, we’ve got to realize that Satan has simply picked the best of all creation as his vehicle for approaching Adam and Eve.

That’s the only way I can look at it, because you see, in verse 14 we find that as part of the curse on Satan and the snake that he used, it would now crawl on its belly. Well, that would be unnecessary if that had been the way it had always functioned. So, I think from that we can see that the serpent was an upright, walking, beautiful creation, and that’s what Satan chose to use.

All right, we can pretty much follow up this concept of Satan being the serpent, and the power that he has as a result of picking up Adam’s dominion. Let’s jump all the way up to the New Testament, and we’ll start picking up this fallen creature, this fallen angel with power and subtleness, and see how Scripture constantly refers to him as the serpent and Satan and the devil and so forth.

All right, in Matthew chapter verse 3, the Lord is just beginning His earthly ministry. Here we’ll see the various names associated with this fallen angel. The Lord has just finished His forty days of fasting:

"And when the tempter…." That’s what he is. He’s the tempter, and that’s what he’s called here in verse 3. All right, you can just turn the page, at least in my Bible, and you can come down to verse 5, and now he’s called the what?

"Then the devil, (the tempter) taketh him up into the holy city,…" Then, again in verse 8, he’s referred to again as the devil.

"Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain,…" Now, when you come all the way down to verse 10, this is from the lips of the Lord Jesus Himself, so this is authoritative, we don’t have to quibble over it one iota.

"Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, (Now what’s he called?) Satan:…" So now, in just this little short period of Scripture, you’ve got him called the tempter, the devil, and Satan. They all refer to that same personality. All right, let’s jump ahead a little further and see how Paul deals with this creature, this powerful entity that has been plaguing the human race since the dawn of human history.

Come up with me to I Corinthians chapter 5. I want II Corinthians 4, that’ll be the next one, but I Corinthians chapter 5 verse 5 is where Paul is dealing with gross sin in the Corinthian church, but look who’s behind it.

"To deliver such an one (the one who is guilty of this gross sin) unto (Whom?) Satan for the destruction of the flesh, (In other words, to take his physical life.) that the spirit (the soul of the individual) may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." So, here we have Satan as the culprit behind this individual’s gross immorality.

All right, if you’ll come to II Corinthians chapter 4 verse 3, you can just follow how the Scriptures, from Genesis all the way to Revelation, attribute to this fallen angel the various names that apply to the one and the same personality, or the powerful entity that he is.

"But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: 4. In whom the god (small ‘g’) of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." Well goodness sakes, who’s the god of this world? Well, the same one – Satan, the devil, the tempter, the fallen angel. He is the one that is constantly keeping people from the truth.

Now, you know I’ve made the analogy over and over on this program, I did it on the phone again yesterday with someone. If you know anything about target shooting, whether it’s with a rifle or with a bow and arrow, you know that the center of the target is that small dot we call the bull’s eye. In order to get a full credit for your ability, the name of the game is "hit the bull’s eye." If you don’t, you only get part of the points. Well, you see, it’s the same way with salvation. God is absolute. God is not One who will compromise His person and just let people get away with this and that. So, the name of the game for salvation is to hit the bull’s eye. We have to hit the truth, and we cannot let our ideas and our thinking be shunted aside by any of the deceptions of the evil one. We’re seeing it running rampant today.

Oh, they use the Bible. They use the name of Jesus. They use one thing after another, but they are not putting the target, the bull’s eye, in front of the people. So, I’m afraid that multitudes are going to miss the mark, and Satan is gleefully realizing that he’s accomplished his purpose. Because that’s all he wants to do, keep people from salvation. For a reminder to you, salvation can only be obtained by believing in your heart that Jesus died for your sins, was buried, and rose again. (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) Faith in the finished work of the cross is what saves you and nothing more or less will do the job!

All right, now let’s go back in the little time we have left, all the way to the Book of Revelation. Once again, in chapter 12, we pick up the terminology that makes it so plain who we have been dealing with throughout Scripture. We deal with him yet today, this adversary, this tempter, this devil, this Satan, this one who is out to deceive the masses. All right, let’s start in chapter 12 verse 3. Now, this is symbolic prophecy, and it leaps over quite a period of time here, but in verse 3:

"And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red (Now what is he?) dragon, (Same person, only instead of a serpent, now he’s referred to as the great dragon.) having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. 4. And his tail drew the third part of the stars (or the angels) of heaven, and did cast them to the earth:…" That’s all depicting Satan’s fall and the angels that fell with him way back in Isaiah 14. But now, symbolically, Satan stands before the woman, who, in this chapter, is the Nation of Israel.

"…and the dragon stood before the woman (Israel) which was ready to be delivered, (That is of the Christ child, and what was his purpose?) for to devour her child as soon as it was born." Well, that’s symbolic language. How did Satan attempt to do it? With the decree from Herod that decreed that every boy baby under the age of two was to be put to death. Well, that was Satan’s way of devouring the man-child as soon as it was born, so he could interrupt God’s plan of salvation for the human race.

All right, so here we find he’s referred to as the great dragon. All right, now come on down to verse 9, and we’ve got to see how all these Scriptures fit together from Genesis through the Gospels through Paul and now even to the last book of your Bible.

"And the great dragon (that you saw up there in verse 3) was cast out, that old serpent, (Now, that’s the language of Genesis 3.) called the Devil, and Satan,…" See how Scripture is putting it all together for us? These are all terms describing this great adversary of God.

"…which deceives the whole world:…" Now, he didn’t just stay in Eden. He immediately usurped the power of even, I think, the universe. I may be stretching it a little bit. Some may not agree with me, but turn with me now, just to make my point, all the way up to Revelation chapter 21. Just to make my point when I say that I think he was given the power and the wherewithal to deceive and to pollute, not just the planet earth, but the whole universe. He has defiled everything. Consequently, what’s God going to do? Well, here it comes, Revelation 21 verse 1, and now John sees, out in the future:

"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away;…" Why? Because it was all defiled. Satan had touched every bit of it one way or another. After he’s finally taken off the scene, God only has one thing left to do, and that is to destroy everything that was defiled and start over for eternity with everything brand new. No more of the curse. No more of the sin and the heartache and what have you. It’s going to be all brand new. Never forget that all the world’s problems, all the heartache, and all the suffering is brought about by this single entity. This, I don’t like to call him a person, but a personality, called the tempter, the Devil, Satan, the dragon, the serpent, whatever the case may be, it all refers to the very same personality.

For those of you joining us on television, we run four of these programs in an afternoon. We appreciate so much your response, your prayers, and your financial help. How we appreciate testimonies of how the Lord has brought salvation to so many through our simple teaching of the Word. I always have to be reminded, the Word of God is powerful, quick, and divides asunder the very soul and spirit. So, we always give the Spirit all of the credit for what is being accomplished.

All right, we started in our last program on a series of the Covenants that God has made with the human race or with Israel. In our last program, we got only as far as the first part of the second covenant. I guess I can review a little bit for the television audience. We have seven of these covenants coming up through Scripture. We’ve got the Edenic Covenant concerning Eden before the fall, the Adamic, which really sets the stage for human experience under the curse. Then we come to the Noahic Covenant as a response to the flood, and then in the center – I meant to point this out in the very first program. You’ll notice that there are three covenants on each side of what I call the lynchpin of all covenants, which is the Abrahamic. So, you’ve got these three I just mentioned before the call of Abraham, and then you have the Mosaic, the Palestinian and the Davidic after the call of Abraham. Then we have the New Covenant, which will kick in during the Kingdom Age, which will take place at the end of time, as we know it.

So, this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to take these three (Edenic, Adamic, and Noahic), and I’m only going to touch on the Abrahamic Covenant. Then, we’re going to move on to the other three (Mosaic, Palestinian, and Davidic). Then I’m going to, hopefully some time down the road, come and deal more extensively with the Abrahamic and the New Covenants.

So, in this program, we’re going to continue on into the second segment of the second covenant, the Adamic. That means we’ll come back where we left off in Genesis chapter 3, and we can now go down into verse 15. In the last lesson we dealt with how God is going to deal with Satan and his experiences, as they will unfold throughout the 6000 years of human experience. Now, verse 15:

"And I (God says) will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed;…" Now, that’s the crucial part of that verse. We’ll come back to the last part a little later. But this continual, belligerent attitude of Satan toward God begins with Adam and will not end until he is finally taken off the scene completely at the end of the Tribulation, only to be released a little while again at the end of the Millennial Kingdom.

Here is what one famous pastor referred to years ago as the "scarlet thread of redemption" that runs all the way from Genesis 3:15 to the end of the human experience. We’re going to chase it down, because again, Satan knows that the only way God can remain God is to keep all of this intact. If Satan can do anything to destroy this "scarlet thread of redemption," then the whole thing falls apart.

Now, it starts right off as soon as Adam and Eve have the two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain rises up and kills Abel. Well, in our day and time, it’s just another murder, but so far as Cain and Abel were concerned it was Satan’s attempt to immediately break the scarlet line of redemption, because the Redeemer was to come through Abel (certainly not Cain). Now, in order to pick up that "scarlet thread of redemption," I’m going to take the easy way out, and I’m going to jump all the way up to Matthew chapter 1. We’ll have to finish the genealogies of the scarlet thread in Luke chapter 3. But first, let’s look at the genealogies in chapter 1.

Now, it’s been a long time since we’ve done this on the program, so I hope I’m not guilty of repeating something that doesn’t need repeating. But, again, one of the intricacies of Scripture is that Matthew’s genealogy of Christ’s first advent only goes from Christ back to Abraham. That, of course, is the reason that the King is what Matthew presents, and the King was an unknown entity of Scripture until we get to Abraham. So, Matthew’s genealogy will only go from Abraham until we get to the coming of Christ in His first advent. Then we’ll have to pick up Luke chapter 3 to find the genealogy from Abraham back to Adam.

"The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, (The One that was born at Bethlehem who is referred to here as:) the son of David, (That, of course, kicks right back to the Davidic Covenant. That’s what the covenant was all about: that through the line of David would come Israel’s Redeemer and Messiah.) the son of Abraham." Now, here comes the genealogy.

"Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren;" You come all the way down through this genealogy, generation after generation until you get to verse 16. This Jacob is not the same Jacob of Abraham and Isaac, but a Jacob of Christ’s time;

"And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ." All right, now if you skip over to Luke chapter 3, we can pick up the rest of that "scarlet line of redemption" that Satan constantly attempted to disrupt. But, God providentially prevented it. Now, in Luke 3 starting in verse 23, we start from the birth of Christ and go backwards. Now, Matthew started with Abraham and came forward. But here, Luke is going to do just the opposite, and again, we won’t read all of the names. I merely want to make the point that we have that constant genealogical line all the way from Adam up to Jesus and His birth in Bethlehem.

"And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph,…" Of course, we know that Joseph was not His physical father, he was merely the legal father.

"…Joseph, which was the son of Heli, 24. Which was the son of Matthat,…" And so on down and we’re not going to read all these names, but you can do that in your spare time. Then, all of a sudden, you come down to verse 34 where the names get familiar.

"Which was the son of Jacob, which was the son of Isaac, which was the son of Abraham, which was the son of Thara (Terah), (Now, we’re going beyond what Matthew had.) which was the son of Nachor, 35. Which was the son of Saruch, which was the son of Ragau, which was the son of Phalec,…" All the way down to verse 36 and 37.

"…which was the son of Noah, which was the son of Lamech, 37. Which was the son of Mathusala, which was the son of Enoch, which was the son of Jared, which was the son of Maleleel, who was the son of Cainan, 38. Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth," Now, that name rings a bell. He’s the one who took Abel’s place.

"…which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God." By virtue of creation. All right, now if you just look at human history and one of the more graphic examples is the Book of Esther. In the Book of Esther, you remember there was this one wicked individual by the name of Haman in the government of King Artaxerxes. He got the grand idea that if he could just get the king to make a decree to destroy every Jew in the kingdom, he would rise to a place a preeminence, because he hated the Jews. Well, he almost made it work. But, you see, the queen was a Jewess, and she intervened on behalf of her people, and of course through God’s providence, Queen Esther was able to stop the decree. Haman went to the gallows instead of the Jew that he was trying to get rid of and so the "scarlet thread" line continued on.

But always remember, from day one, from the very onset of Adam coming out of the Garden, Satan is going to do everything in his power to thwart the fulfillment of God’s prophetic program. Of course, at the heart of it, once we get past Abraham, is the Nation of Israel. I’m always pointing that out, especially in my local classes. Don’t ever wonder why the Jews are so hated by mankind in general. It isn’t because they deserve the hatred, it’s because Satan knows that they are instrumental in fulfilling all the promises of God. If you take the Jew off the scene, then the whole Bible falls apart, because you cannot have end time prophecy without Israel in the land.

So, even today, why is the Arab world so intent on driving every last Israeli into the Mediterranean Sea? Well, it isn’t just the Arab world; it’s Satan behind it. He is determined to get rid of the Nation of Israel, so he will be the winner and God will be the loser. But you see, fortunately God is still the all-powerful, and God has decreed that it will never happen. Again, look at the way things are shaking out in the Middle East. We know that the peace process, once again, is becoming front page news, but behind the scenes, remember, there’s still that satanic effort that no matter what the little Nation of Israel does he wants it to be their demise. He wants it to set the stage for their final destruction. Of course, I haven’t even mentioned Hitler and the Holocaust. That, again, was another satanic endeavor to get rid of the Jew, to cleanse the earth of every last one of them. Then, of course, Satan would be victorious. But fortunately, we have the promises of Scripture that God is always going to be superior.

Now, drop back with me a minute to Jeremiah 31 because we know there are so many, especially prominent preachers and Bible teachers, who take the approach that God’s all through with Israel, and that even the Jews that claim to be Jews aren’t Jews at all. They’re impostors. Well, I beg to differ on the basis of the Word of God, and we’ve used these verses before, and we’ll probably use them again, especially when we get to the New Covenant. Jeremiah 31, and drop down to verse 35. This just guarantees that in spite of all Satan’s power, in spite of his fomenting the hatred of the Jew, God has mandated that it’s not going to happen. Israel is not going to disappear.

"Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night,…" In other words, He’s in control of all of the universe. Every body of space is under His control. Like I’ve mentioned in previous programs, have you ever stopped to think, that with all those billions upon billions upon billions of stars and bodies in space, why they’re not crashing into each other? They are all in perfect harmony one with another. Why? Well, that’s no accident. The Creator God is in control. All right, now if He is in such control of the universe, then how much more can He control our little solar system, because it is just a little nothing compared to the whole. But here it is.

"If those ordinances (the sun and the moon and the stars) depart from before me, saith the LORD, (In other words, if the moon should fall out of its orbit. If the sun would suddenly burn out and quit sustaining the universe. If that should happen.) then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever." Then, in verse 37, He gives another analogy.

"Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and 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." But it’s not going to happen, because absolutely they have not been the most obedient people. They’ve been anything but. But, as we’re going to see coming up through the covenants in coming programs, God does not give up on the Nation of Israel. He’s still going to have that remnant left for the end-time events.

So, we have this guarantee that the "scarlet thread of redemption" is going to be fulfilled, which, of course, led to His first advent. We also have the guarantee that all of the end-time prophecies promised to the Nation of Israel will come to fulfillment in spite of everything.

In fact, in light of the present day headlines, I’m going to take you back a minute; this thought just came to mind. Come back with me Matthew 24, because every one of us as believers, every one of us who love the Nation of Israel simply because they are God’s chosen people, we have to understand why things are taking place the way they are. All right, in Matthew 24 which, of course, is all Tribulation. We’re not there yet. We’re not in the Tribulation, although I think we’re getting close. I know we’re getting closer! I’ve said that before, we know we’re getting closer. But look in Matthew 24 verse 9. As you see the world’s hatred and the pressure from all the governments of the world upon Israel, to give in to the demands of the Palestinians and hating them if they don’t. This is what the Lord Himself said:

"Then (That is, when the Tribulation comes.) shall they (That is, all the other segments of the world.) deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be (What?) hated (Now this is Scripture! This is what we can stand on. That the Jewish people are going to be hated.) of all nations (Because they’re so despicable? No. Why?) for my name’s sake." Because He has decreed it, and we’re going to see that in the coming covenants. He has decreed that they are His covenant people. No matter how much they rebel, no matter how much the majority may be in disobedience, yet God’s mercy, as He says, will never depart from them.

All right, now in the few moments we have left, let’s go back to Genesis chapter 3, where we have this running confrontation between Satan and the seed of the woman, which of course is a reference to Christ.

"…it (the seed of the woman) shall bruise thy head…" The head of Satan, which, of course, took place at the cross. When Christ finished the work of the cross, He signaled a total victorious power over Satan and all of his demonic powers. So, that’s where his head was crushed. But, because of the suffering that Christ entailed:

"... and thou shalt bruise his (the Messiah’s) heel." So, here is the whole big picture of redemption and the coming of the Redeemer and the running battle between God and Satan in verse 15.

All right, now then, we’re going to move on to the third part of this Adamic Covenant, which is God’s dealing with the woman. You know, it’s amazing how many phone calls I get, and I had one again the other day which reminds me of this, that after all, it was Eve who ate first, and Eve precipitated the curse. No! No! Eve ate first, but she was not responsible. She was caught in a moment of weakness. She didn’t realize what she was doing and before she knew it, she had eaten. But…and here’s the vast difference, and this is what folks have to understand. The curse came about because of Adam’s disobedience, not Eve’s.

But Eve is not left scot-free, and so we’ll look at her punishment in verse 16. Here is what’s going to happen to the female part of the race because of Eve’s failure to understand what she was doing.

"Unto the woman he (God) said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children;…" Now you know, I make people smile when I refer to the Kingdom where flesh and blood people, who have come in at the front end, are going to have children. They’re going to be living the whole thousand years.

I read another article by a well-known theologian the other day and he affirmed my same thinking that they’re going to live the whole thousand-year period of time. Well, now ladies, you can smile if you want. But you see, if they have children without the curse of the pain of childbearing, having children is going to be the most delightful thing on earth! I think they’re going to have hundreds! I really do. I think women are going to have children throughout that whole thousand year period of time, and every child will be a delight because there’s not even the pain of delivery or anything, because that was brought about by the curse, and that will be lifted.

"…and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." Then wonder of wonders, the feminists should really smile at this. It’s because of the curse that the woman has been subjected to the headship of the man. That’s another thing that people can’t get through their heads. Why should women be subjected to the husband? Because Eve ate first.

That much God is going to put on her because of her not knowing better and succumbing to the wiles of Satan. So, that’s all part of the curse as it fell on the female of the human race – the sorrow and the pain of childbearing, but also that the woman is to be subservient to the husband.

All right, now let’s just look at a few of the Pauline verses with regard to that. This is exactly why Paul writes what he writes. It is because of what God covenanted here in Genesis chapter 3. The first one I want to refer to is in Ephesians chapter 5, and the next time someone raises the question in your Sunday School class or a Bible Study or something, "Why should women be subservient to their husbands?" This is the reason.

"Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God." In other words, this is what makes for good relationships, whether it’s in the home or in the local church or in a work environment, it’s giving in one to another.

"Wives, submit (You all know what that word means. It means to give in.) yourselves to your own husbands, as (This is what makes the difference.) unto the Lord." Now, when we come into the spiritual picture of all this, it makes beautiful sense. Next verse:

"For the husband is the head of the wife, even as (Now, here’s the Biblical perspective…the husband is over the wife.) Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body." That is the church, which is His body. Now goodness sakes, does Christ ever make life miserable for members of the Body? No.

He’s a benevolent head. Of course, the lesson is: this is what we, as men, are to be to our wives. We are to be benevolent instruments and never make them feel like a second-class citizen, which too many husbands do. The whole concept is that the husband is going to be the head of the wife because Eve, in a weak moment, ate of the fruit of the tree.

All right, now I’ve only got a couple of minutes left. I’m amazed how fast they go. Come with me to I Timothy chapter 2 and here again Paul is going to deal with the subservience of the woman to the husband, drop down to verse 11. You have no idea how many phone calls I get on this one.

"Let the woman learn in silence with all (What?) subjection. (Submission - now here’s the reason.) 12. But I suffer (permit) not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man," That’s the key statement. Now, I tell people all the time that women can teach, women can pray, women can do all kinds of things in the local church, but Scripturally, they should not be the senior pastor. I make no apology for that. On the other hand, I will say this, God has always been a God with a direct will, but also a permissive will, and there may be instances where He will permit a lady to maybe lead a church. Maybe a small, little church out in the boondocks where men will not go, or what ever the case may be. Maybe in the mission fields God will permit a woman to be the minister or the pastor in order to keep the church from going down completely. But God’s original purpose is that the man should be the one in authority. Now, verse 13, here’s the reason. Here’s the Biblical reason:

"For Adam was first formed, (Adam was created first.) then Eve. (Now, here’s the second part of the reason.) 14. And Adam was not deceived, (So the curse fell because of Adam. He knew what he was doing.) but the woman being deceived was in the transgression, (She was still guilty.) 15. Notwithstanding (Even though she was part and parcel of it.) she shall be saved in childbearing,.." Now, that doesn’t mean her own children, but she’ll be saved by ‘the’ childbearing, which is a reference to Christ.

So, the woman will be saved by the finished work of the cross, just like the man. But the order of the sexes was established back at the beginning.

We welcome each of you back for this half-hour of Bible study, and I merely invite our television audience to study the Scriptures with us. Don’t take my word for anything and for goodness sakes don’t take anybody else’s either. Instead, search the Scriptures and see if these things are really so. Learn to compare Scripture with Scripture. You can’t build doctrine on just a single verse, most generally.

All right, we’re going to get right back into where we left off in Genesis chapter 3. Again, we’re going to remind our audience that we’re doing a study on the eight covenants coming up through the Old Testament. Seven of them will be consummated before the Second Coming, and then the eighth one will be fulfilled when the Kingdom is set up.

Now, we’re going to come back to the second, the Adamic Covenant. We may get on to the next one, but for now, come back with me to Genesis chapter 3, and we’ll continue on in verse 17.

"And unto Adam…" Now, this is all part of God setting up the format for human existence for the next 6,000 years. This covenant has never yet been changed or reversed. It is still valid.

"…he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, (That is by eating of the tree.) and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; (Here it comes again; the result of the curse.) 18. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;" In other words, those things which grow naturally.

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, (In other words, he’s going to have to work for everything that he needs for his daily existence.) till thou return unto the ground; (That’s the picture of physical death.) for out of it (That is out of the dust of the ground.) wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Now, that pretty much sets the format for human existence under the curse.

Now remember, all of the world’s problems: all the world’s misery, famine, war, disease, suffering, and heartache are not God’s fault. It’s all brought in by the curse, and old Satan, of course, is the fomenter of it all.

Now, I think one of the best places I can take you into the New Testament to show you all of this would be Romans chapter 8. This says it so graphically. Let’s start at verse 18, where the Apostle writes:

"For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy (In other words, they’re nothing.) to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."

Now, I’ve got to stop there a second. How much does the Bible tell us about our future eternal heavenly experience? That’s right, almost nothing. You know, people have written, "Are we going to have homes? Are we going to have kitchens? Are we going to prepare food? Are we going to do this and do that?" Well, I just have to plead ignorance, because the Bible doesn’t tell us. We don’t know what we’re going to be doing. We don’t know what our circumstances will be. What will be some of the glories that God is preparing for us? Well, I usually answer, "Your guess is as good as mine." Because I cannot show you from Scripture what we’re going to be doing, how we’re going to be doing it, or what. All I can say is, and some of you have heard me say it a hundred times, "It’s going to be glorious!"

But, now the other side of the coin, what’s it like under the curse? We can tell you that in the next verse.

"For the earnest (the very deep down, heartfelt) expectation of the creation…" All of creation, and I think I’m not stretching the envelope again to say that it involves the universe. I may be wrong, and I don’t mind somebody disagreeing, but I think creation means everything!

"…waiteth (patiently) for the manifestation (Or the bringing into the spotlight -- of what group of people?) of the sons of God." That’s you and I. We are the "born ones" ("children of God") up there in verse 16.

So, all of creation is waiting for the day when you and I as believers are finally brought into that eternal environment with a new body, a resurrected body like Christ’s body. That is, of course, the triggering of the removal of the curse, when we are finally brought to our eternal place. All right, so all of creation is waiting for that.

"For the creation (the whole creation) was made subject to vanity,…" Well, vanity here means the results of the curse. Everything is fruitless. Everything is frustrating. Many times, even people who are relatively successful, are they happy? No. They’re miserable. You know I was reading, and I hope I’m not wrong here, but I think it was an account of Joe Lewis, who took in millions with his boxing career. Yet one of his previous opponents, Max Schmeling I think it was, had to pay for his funeral. Is that right? Okay, I’m glad I’m on the right track. Well, that’s classic of these people who take in millions, and yet they die paupers. Well, that’s the world we live in.

So the whole creation has been subjected to vanity and hopelessness. Why? Well, it wasn’t their fault. Creation didn’t do anything to bring about the curse. You and I didn’t do anything to bring about the curse. We’re merely the results of it. It all goes back to whom? Adam. Oh, I often wonder how much of that he is going to understand in eternity. How much is Adam going to realize that all of the world’s sorrows and sufferings were preempted by his act of disobedience. It was made subject to the curse.

"…not willingly, (Not because of what creation did.) but by reason of him who hath subjected the same (That is creation.) in hope." So, you see, this is why we study Genesis chapter 3. Just as soon as Adam fell, and the curse permeated the world, what did God come right back with? What we saw in the last program, that "scarlet line of redemption," to show mankind that the day would come when God would finally be superior and would overcome his adversary. All right, so the whole creation, now, is waiting for this hope that was released as soon as the curse fell. Now, verse 21:

"Because the creation (all of creation) itself also shall be (What?) delivered from the corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." In other words, everything that God has prepared for the believing element of the human race, even creation is going to enjoy the benefits of it. Of course, Isaiah 11 is a perfect example of that, where even the animal kingdom is going to come out from under the curse. Instead of killing each other for their next day’s food, they will all live in harmony, one with another. So it will be throughout creation. All the things that Satan disrupted by the curse, God is going to set straight and return it to what it was back in Genesis chapter 1, when he looked on the whole of creation, and what was His conclusion? "It was very good." It was perfect. It’s going to revert to that one day, and we don’t think it will be much longer.

"For we know (you and I as believers) that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain (suffering and sorrow, all of it) together until now." In other words, there’s really nothing that is of the good side in this life under the curse. Even those who seemingly have it so good, and we certainly reckon the fact that they do, they’re still under the turmoil and the suffering and the hopelessness of the curse.

"And not only they, (all the things of creation) but ourselves also, which have the first- fruits of the Spirit,…" Now again, he’s talking to you and I as believers who have the first-fruit of the Spirit, who have God’s saving grace.

"…even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." That change from this earthly environment to the eternal. Now, you know, that has been part and parcel of Paul’s teaching from day one.

While we’re in the New Testament, go forward with me to I Thessalonians chapter 1. If Paul’s believers back there in the first century were doing this, how much more relevant for you and I to be doing so today, because we’re 1900 and some years closer to all this than they were. All right, go to I Thessalonians chapter 1, and he is commending these Greek believers; these are Gentiles. This is Thessalonica which was up in Greece. He’s commending their faith and how that all the rest of the country of Greece was aware of these Thessalonians and their faith.

"For they themselves (That is, their fellow Greek citizens.) show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye (Now I love this!) turned to God…" You’ve heard me emphasize this before. You want to remember the whole world, excepting parts of Israel, were steeped in idolatry. They knew nothing of the God of the Bible. Yet the Apostle Paul simply preached the Gospel that saved them, which is that Christ died for the sins of the world. That He was buried for three days and three nights and arose victoriously over sin and death. Simply preaching the Gospel, these people came out of that abject idolatry. All right, read on:

"…ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; 10. And to (What’s the next word?) wait (For what?) for his Son from heaven,…" The Rapture? Yes, that’s what they were looking for! That they, too, would be suddenly translated from earth to heaven, and as they were waiting then, how much more shouldn’t we be waiting today?

So, that will be the culmination, then, of the life under the curse, with all of its heartache, sin, wickedness, degradation, and what have you. But one day, it’s going to end. It’s going to be lifted, and the earth will be delivered from that satanic power.

All right, let’s come back again to Genesis and move ahead a little further. Genesis chapter 3 once again, the last part of verse 19, and here we have, as part of the covenant, the promise of God that man will receive physical death. Now, of course, Paul teaches that some of us will live to hear the "trumpet call." But other than that, as Hebrews puts it, "it’s appointed unto man once to die and after this the judgment." That is for most of mankind. All right, verse 19 again, as a result of the curse.

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." All right, that pretty much consummates the covenant made with Adam and sets the stage for the following years of human experience.

All right, let’s move up to the next one, quickly now, to the covenant made with Noah after the flood. They call it the "Noahic Covenant" and that will be in Genesis chapter 9. Actually, I guess we can start in the last couple verses of chapter 8. This is the next covenant. Now, you’ve got to remember what has intervened. By then we had almost 1600 years of the human experience under the curse, and the only stipulation was that if they realized or recognized their sin, they could bring an animal sacrifice, and God would accept them.

But, precious few adhered to that. So, for 1600 years the human race went down, down, down morally, even though we think they went up, up, up technologically. By the time we get to Noah’s flood, we have multitudes of people on the earth. I think it’s reasonable to assume that there were at least four billion or more. They’ve gone totally down the tube, morally and spiritually. Now then, God is going to move in and judge that generation with their destruction by the flood, and you all know that one.

But after the flood, God comes back, and He’s going to reestablish yet another covenant with mankind. Genesis chapter 8 and let’s start in verse 20, Noah comes off the ark with his three sons and their wives and his own wife, a total of eight people. The first thing he does is to build an altar.

"And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, (Remember, he took seven of every clean kind onto the Ark.) and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21. And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in His heart, (Now, here comes the covenant.) I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done." Now verse 22, here’s the next part of the covenant.

"While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night (In other words, the functions of our seasons and so forth.) shall not cease."

Now, the next part of the covenant, then, is going to establish what we call human government in order to maintain law and order. See, they had no government before the flood. There was no established system of religion as we’d call it today, so there was absolutely nothing to temper the evil bent of human beings. That’s why they went down so precipitously. There was absolutely nothing to slow it.

Now, even a pagan religion, when it comes to maintaining a social order, is better than nothing, because they’re at least going to teach them the concept of right and wrong and personal rights, I don’t care what the religion is. But, before the flood they didn’t have any of that. So, that’s why it became so despicable. All right, so now God is going to temper that activity with establishing the right of mankind to set up an authority to control the behavior of their fellow human beings.

"Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you;…" This is a change in the dietary. Before the flood, they ate nothing but that which grew naturally. I don’t think that even the animal kingdom was yet as carnivorous as they became, but mankind, especially, was never given permission to eat anything that caused the loss of a life. But, now they can. Verse 3, this is a change.

"Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things." But here’s the stipulation, if they’re going to kill a living creature for food, they had to make sure that all the blood was removed.

"But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood therefore, shall ye not eat." (So, this is obvious they are killing living things for food, but the admonition was to never eat it without draining the blood, because the blood was indicative of life.) Then verse 5, here comes the establishment of authority.

"And surely your blood of your lives will I require;…" In other words there’s going to be that deterrent to murder by promising that the guilty person would be put to death.

"And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man;…" Now, in a coming program, we’re going to be looking at some of the civil laws in Israel. It’s interesting how they covered every aspect of physical existence. In other words, the law stipulated that if I have a bull and I know he’s mean and I know he’s prone to attack, if I don’t confine him and he kills my neighbor, who’s guilty? I am. What’s the sentence? Death!

Now, that was under the law in Israel. They covered every aspect of the human experience in the civil law or in what the Scripture calls the judgments. Now you see, this is just the beginning of all that, because Israel’s law defined it in more detail. Here we have the responsibility of one human being to protect the life and the property of the other human beings around him. All right, verse 5 again:

"And surely your blood of your lives I will require; (See how plain that is?) at the hand of every beast…" Now, you know, it is interesting. I read a couple of years ago where there was a man-killing tiger running loose in India. After it had killed several children and so forth, it would always go back into the jungle. The government actually set up what we would call a posse searching for humans, and they did not stop looking until they had found it, I think it was a leopard, and killed it. Well why? Because it was guilty of killing human beings and God had mandated that. It’s for the protection of each and every individual. All right, so even of beasts God will require that if it kills a man they were to be put to death.

"…at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man." Now, that’s capital punishment. Now, I know the thing that bothers all of us, and it does me as much as anybody, is that possibility of putting to death an innocent person. We shudder at that. But, nevertheless, when it’s obvious that someone is guilty of murder, then the Scripture is plain. This has never been withdrawn. The Scripture is plain that the guilty person must be put to death, and we find that in Paul’s writing, also, in Romans 13:1-4. It is God’s only deterrent to chaos, for holding society together. Verse 6, I think, exemplifies it.

"Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, (In other words, someone who has purposely killed another human being.) by man (Man’s authority under the headship of God) shall his blood be shed: (Why?) for in the image of God made he man." Man was made in God’s image. You see, this is - what should I say - intrinsic to western civilization, which has been influenced by Christianity and Biblical concepts more than the eastern world. This is why we have so much higher esteem for human life than a lot of the nations in Asia, China, and so forth, where life means nothing to them. It’s because they do not have this Biblical concept that the human being is made in the image of God, and we are to respect it with that in mind.

Now, the nation of Israel, and I don’t think there’s a race of people on earth that is as careful about the treatment of their dead as are the Jews. My, they won’t let a cemetery be uprooted. I know, because I read in the Jerusalem Post not too long ago that they were building a highway and a bulldozer happened to unearth some human bones. They had to stop. They would not let them continue with any more road construction until they determined that there were no more human bones in the area. Well, it just comes all the way back to this, this concept that the human being is made in the image of God, and, consequently, must be held up with that kind of an esteem.

All right, then as you go on into this covenant, here comes the best part of all, of course, and that jumps over to verse 9, in chapter 9, where God again says:

"And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, (Now, remember, God’s covenants are begun in God, they end with God. The human race has no room to barter or negotiate, God lays it down and that settles it.) and with your seed after you; 10. And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth. 11. And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the (What?) waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth." Never again will God destroy the earth with water. Now, verse 12.

"And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: (This is still in vogue.) 13. I do set my bow (the rainbow) in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth." As long as we see the rainbow, that’s God’s promise that He will never again destroy the whole earth with water.

Now, He will destroy it one day with fire, but He will never again send a flood upon the earth. We have this constant reminder of that every time you see the rainbow. You see, the reason this was such a unique promise is because before the flood it never rained on the earth. Consequently, there were no clouds to cause a rainbow as the earth was watered from beneath. But after the flood, the weather patterns come in and consequently we have rain, we have dark clouds, and we have the rainbow. It becomes, then, the covenant relationship between God and the planet earth and everything that’s in it.

As always, we’re so glad you’re with us. We trust that you’ll study and search the Scriptures with us. Again, we appreciate your prayers, your letters, and your financial help; everything that makes the ministry possible.

Okay, we’re going to continue right on where we left off in our last program. Again, in case we have someone who has missed the last two, three programs, we’re going through a study of the covenants. They started way back in the Garden of Eden where God mandated the environment, the responsibility of Adam and Eve in the Garden, and then the fall. Then, He lays out the program for life in the human race under the curse. That has carried on until our present time and will until the end of the Tribulation.

All right, the next covenant, as I mentioned at the beginning of our last program, is in the middle of the seven covenants that take place between Adam and the Kingdom. I’m going to come back and study it more in depth in a future program. We’ll just touch on it briefly in this program, before we move on into the next covenant, which would be the Mosaic covenant, the bringing about of the Law of Moses. But let’s first take a brief look at the Abrahamic, and like I said, we’ll come back to it in detail in a future program.

"Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, (Now remember, he was clear down there in the area of the Persian Gulf, probably south of present day Baghdad.) and from thy kindred, (That is, your household and your relatives.) and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee:" Now, the first thing I always like to point out is: what kind of people was Abram’s family? The best way to explain that is to use Scripture. Keep your hand in Genesis, we’ll be right back. Come up with me to Joshua, chapter 24 verse 2, because we have to get the big picture as we go along. These things didn’t just happen in a corner.

"And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Your fathers (your forefathers) dwelt on the other side of the flood (- Or River, that’d be the River Euphrates.) in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: (Abraham’s brother) and they (the whole family, the whole community, the whole then known world) served (What?) other gods." Now, you see that? That was what? It was idols, paganism. That’s all they knew.

Now, you want to remember, 200 years previous to the call of Abraham, you had the Tower of Babel. It was at the Tower of Babel that false religion was first introduced by Nimrod. From Nimrod on then, the whole human race was steeped in idolatry. Now, you want to remember that you’re only dealing with that small part of the world at that time, in the area of the Middle East and the Mediterranean, but they were all steeped in idolatry. They knew nothing of the one true God.

So, it was for that reason, come back to Genesis 12, that God had to separate this man that He’s going to use to bring about the Nation of Israel. He had to separate them from his idolatrous relatives. So He told him "to leave your kindred. Go from your father’s house unto a land that I will (future) show thee."

Now, here comes the covenant, and we’re going to watch it carefully before we move on. Like I said, we’ll come back to it in a future program. God says in His covenant promise:

"And I will make of thee a great nation, (separate from all the rest of the nations of the world) and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: 3. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee:…" Isn’t it too bad that the world can’t believe that? But you see, if they did, that would spare Israel all the satanic attacks, and that is not going to be stopped until Christ returns. But nevertheless, this is the promise in this Abrahamic Covenant that God will bless those who bless Israel and He will curse those who are against Israel. Then, here comes the capstone of the whole covenant. This last part of verse 3:

"…and in thee (in Abram) shall all families of the earth be blessed." No, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that. What does that mean? That through this man Abraham, God is going to set things in motion that will lead to the place where salvation will then go out and encompass the whole human race. That’s why I want to spend more time on the Abrahamic covenant than all the rest of them put together, because it’s on this covenant that our salvation rests.

It’s because of this covenant that Christ came. It’s because of this covenant that Christ suffered and died. It’s because of this covenant that the Apostle Paul came on the scene and became the Apostle of the Gentiles. That’s why Paul, over and over, refers to this man Abraham. So, that’s the Abrahamic Covenant, and we’re going to come back to it at a future time.

Now, I’m going to go ahead to the next covenant on our board and that is the Mosaic. The covenant that God made with Moses and the Children of Israel. Now, we’re going to jump all the way up to Exodus 19. Now in the interval, of course, we have the beginning of the Nation of Israel, with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and then the twelve sons. Joseph is sold down into Egypt as a slave by the eleven others, and that, of course, separated Israel from the Promised Land. It put them down in a place of slavery. It put them in a place of subjection to pagan, ungodly rulers, out of which God had to redeem the nation with the book of Exodus. We now find the nation at Mount Sinai, ready to receive - what should I call it? It is the foundation of the next covenant – The Law.

All right, let’s pick it up in verse 3, Exodus chapter 19 verse 3. The nation is now out of Egypt. They’re gathered around Mount Sinai and God is showing His presence on the mountaintop with thunder and smoke and fire. Verse 3:

"And Moses went up unto God, and the LORD called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel; 4. Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, (That is a reference to the drowning in the Red Sea.) and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, (Not that they sprouted feathers and flew, but supernaturally, miraculously, God led them out of Egypt and through the Red Sea and down to Mount Sinai. It was a supernatural event.) and brought you unto myself." Now, here the language already indicates – whose people are they? They’re God’s people. They’re His covenant people, and He has mandated it as such, and we’re going to see that now in a coming verse.

"Now therefore, (Since I have brought you out of slavery. I have supernaturally brought you to Myself.) if (Here’s the condition now.) ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then (and only then) ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above (What?) all people:…" Now, right there is the beginning of God elevating the Nation of Israel head and shoulders above all the rest of the nations and races of the world. This is why they are called the "favored nation." They are called the "chosen people." They are God’s covenant people and here is the first real indication of it. All right, finishing verse 5.

"…then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: (Here’s the reason.) for all the earth is mine:" What does that mean? He can do what He wants. God is Sovereign.

Now, you know, I learn every day. The other day somebody called and said, "Les, do you know the word Sovereign isn’t in our Bible?" Now, you know how often I’ve used it over the years. I said, "No, I didn’t know that." So, I had to look and he was right. The word Sovereign, like the word Trinity, is not in our Bible. But certainly all the evidence of what Sovereignty means is here. So, I don’t have to stop using the word, not at all. But you know it’s interesting, here I’ve been using a word that I thought was as Biblical as anything could be. But it’s true. It’s not in our Bible, but certainly all the meaning of it is. Here is one of them: "for all the earth is mine."

What does that mean? He’s Sovereign. He can to whatever He wants. This is what He chose to do. He chose to pick this one little nation of people and set them head and shoulders above all the other nations of the world, and He’s going to work through that one little nation. All the rest of humanity, as I’ve used it before, is just going to flow like Old Man River to the ocean. For the most part, they’re going to have nothing to do with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. There will be isolated exceptions. Now, the first thing that Paul writes that exemplifies that so beautifully is in Exodus. Keep your hand in Exodus and turn to Ephesians chapter 2. Because a lot of times people kind of look at me cross-eyed when I let it be known that the Gentiles were never the object of God’s grace before the calling of Paul.

The Jews were never instructed to go to the Gentiles, except to go to Ninevah. They were never instructed to evangelize the Gentiles, but quite the opposite. They were to keep all of these knowledges of God. Boy, what a word! I coined one, didn’t I? All of these things pertaining to the knowledge of God, they were to keep to themselves. They weren’t to share it with the Gentile world, because God was not in the business of saving the Gentiles. A lot of folks just say, "Where do you get that?" Well, because of language like we’ve just seen here. But here, in Ephesians 2:11-12, Paul himself makes it so easy to understand. This leaves no room for any great number of Gentiles coming to salvation in the Old Testament economy. It was impossible.

"Wherefore (Paul is writing now to Gentiles at Ephesus.) remember, that ye being in time past (What?) Gentiles…." Now, maybe for the sake of one or two listeners out in television I’d better stop. What is a Gentile? Well, in plain language, he’s anybody who is not a Jew.

A Gentile could be an Arab or a Black or an Indian or a Caucasian or you name it. If they’re not members of the Nation of Israel, they are Gentiles. Now you see, all the way from Adam until Abraham you don’t have any particular Jew or Gentile separation. These are all just simply of the race and the birth of Adam. They are what I call the Adamic race of people. But now, with the call of Abraham, God separates out one little nation, and He calls them "Jews or Israelites." The rest are Gentiles. So, from Abraham on we have that difference in Scripture of Jew and Gentile. All right, reading on in Ephesians. Paul, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit says to remember you Ephesians, and of course the churches around them.

"Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision (What was that? That was a deriding term. That was the scorn that Jews had for the Gentiles.) by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;" Or the Jew. Now verse 12, and just see how plain this is.

"That at that time (While God was dealing with Israel under these covenant promises.) ye (Gentiles) were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the (What?) covenants of promise, (That’s why we’re studying them now, today. The Gentile world was strangers from the covenants of promise.) having no hope, and (What?) without God in the world:" Now, what does that mean? They were lost, every last one of them.

Well, it wasn’t God’s fault, because they had proved, for the first 2000 years, that they didn’t have any interest in the things of God. They had proved by their idolatry, out of which Abraham came, that they weren’t concerned about knowledge of the one true God. They were satisfied in their idolatry. Look, that’s the vast majority of people today. They’re content with their false religion. They’re content with no religion. They’re not interested in real salvation, and it’s always been this way.

All right, so the Gentile world, then, was totally separated from all of the covenant promises of Israel. All right, now back to Exodus 19, we can pursue this a little further for the next few moments. How that God is now going to supernaturally invoke the covenant promise of a religious system of Law. Now, most of you know, I do not like the term "religion." Well, Judaism, The Law, was a religion. Because it was a works thing, based on faith, but nevertheless Judaism demanded works. It was a process and we’re going to be looking at that. They had to do this and they had to do that. In fact, you might as well drop back down to Exodus 19 verse 8, and that says it all.

"And all the people answered together, and said, All that the LORD hath spoken we will (Believe? No, but rather - ) do." So, they gladly embraced a works religion. All right, I think we can move on over into chapter 20.

What is it? The Ten Commandments. Hopefully you’ve all learned them when you were kids in Sunday School or Daily Vacation Bible School. The Ten Commandments which are causing such a furor today. Well, I’ve got mixed emotions. Naturally, they are certainly God’s format for society. The Ten Commandments are still the basic laws of God. I’ll never take that away. But for us as Grace Age believers, you see, the Law is moot, it’s been crucified with Christ. But for the unbelieving world, it is still God’s moral Law.

All right, now I’m not going to go through all the Ten Commandments. I trust you all know them forwards and backwards, but here in Exodus 20, now, is the unfolding of the first part of this three-part covenant. We have the moral law, the Ten Commandments. All right, when we come on over to chapter 21 verse 1, we come to the second part of what we call the Law. It’s the civil law, what I referred to, I think, in the last program. Now, in these succeeding chapters and on into the book of Leviticus, the civil law covered every aspect of human relationship with other humans. As I mentioned, if you have an animal that’s known to kill and you let it kill someone, then you are responsible for it.

It is like this all the way through. How you dealt with your neighbor in business transactions. Morally, how you behaved yourself in society. This was all covered in what I call the civil law. I think probably a good portion of Israel’s 613 laws, which the rabbis concocted out of the five books of Moses, would cover a lot of those little details. It’s interesting to see how much of Israel’s civil law is a part and parcel of our own Western civilization. I wouldn’t doubt that when the British, way back in history, put together the Magna Carta, those men took a lot of their ideas from Israel’s civil law. Because after all, God was the one who gave it.

All right, for just an example now, chapter 21, we start with the term "judgments," which means in plain English, rules of government.

"Now these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them." Now, this is aside from the moral law, the Ten Commandment Law. All the way through, we have judgments covering the various aspects of Israel’s day to day experience within the nation. You come through all these succeeding chapters; these are the judgments to maintain society in the Nation of Israel.

Now, I’m going to take you all the way up to the next part of the law, which is the ceremonial or the ecclesiastical or the ritual part of the law. Now remember, you’ve got the moral law, the Ten Commandments. You’ve got the civil law – how to deal with your fellow neighbor. Now, we come to the ecclesiastical or the religious part of the law, and that is going to entail the priesthood and the tabernacle, which later became the Temple.

Okay, now I think we can come all the way up to chapter 24 verse 3, where we now have what I call the third part of the Law of Moses. Now, this is just sort of scratching the surface. I expect a lot of my listeners to dig a little deeper. You can do all this instead of watching the stupid television! Get into the Book and pursue this a little further in all three aspects. But now, we’re getting ready to establish the worship or the religious system of the Law.

"And Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD, (Do you see that? God said it.) and all the judgments: (all these rules and regulations) and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the LORD hath said will we do." Well, you heard that before, didn’t you? All right, now going on down to verse 7.

Exodus 24:7-8

"And he took the book of the covenant, (This mandate that God has now placed upon the Nation of Israel.) and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the LORD hath said, will we do, and be obedient. 8. And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD hath made with you concerning all these words." Now, you want to remember that blood has been the intrinsic part of God’s relationship with man, leading up to the shed blood of Christ on the cross of Calvary. All right, now as we move on down in chapter 24, come to verse 12.

"And the LORD said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them. 13. And Moses rose up, and his minister Joshua: and Moses went up unto the mount of God." All right, now as Moses is up in the mountain, starting in chapter 25, God begins to lay out to Moses all of the ramifications of the tabernacle, all the aspects of it, all the materials of it. He lays out to Moses, just as plain as language can make it, that it was supposed to be built according to the tabernacle which was already in Heaven. This was merely a copy of it.

Now, as we come all the way through these chapters of Exodus, we get to the place of the priesthood in chapter 29, maybe I’m going too far. Just a minute, I want to start with the priesthood here, if I can. Chapter 29 verse 1, and I want you to remember that in order to exercise the religious system that is going to center around the temple, the sacrifices, and all of the ramifications of the tabernacle worship, you had to have a priesthood. You had to have designated men to carry out all these systems of worship. All right, here we come, chapter 29 verse 1.

"And this is the thing that thou shalt do unto them to hallow them, to minister unto me in the priest’s office:…" Now, you haven’t seen this before. This is something totally new in human history, that God is establishing a priesthood.

"…Take one young bullock, and two rams without blemish, 2. And unleavened bread,…" And so on and so forth. Then, verse 4:

"And Aaron and his sons thou shalt bring unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and shalt (Watch this. Do what?) wash them with water." That was one of the first processes of becoming a priest. It was wash, wash, and wash. This was not only for entering the priesthood. As they would begin to go through the ritual of accepting the sacrifices, stopping at the laver of cleansing, and going on into the ministry of the temple or the tabernacle, before they could begin to minister, what did the priests have to do? Wash! Wash! Wash! Even though physical water could never take away their sin, yet symbolically, it was speaking of a cleansing before they could step into the office of the priesthood. So, all of this now becomes the third aspect of this covenant of Law. First, there were the Ten Commandments. Then the judgments, or the rules and regulations of civil life. Then, the religious system to compensate for their time and again failures and their errors and their sinfulness. So, this is all part and parcel of the covenant of the Law. Dig deeper and study more, as you go along.

Again, for those of you joining us on television, and we trust that every day there are new listeners, we have to make a short explanation that we’re not denominational. We’re not underwritten by anybody. We’re just a simple Bible teaching class. We’re independent, and we answer only to the Lord Himself. But, on the other hand, we need the prayers and support of everybody involved. So, we do thank you for your letters, your prayers, and your financial support. It’s so thrilling and encouraging, as we read our mail, to hear of the impact – in fact we had a gentleman stop by yesterday who was just traveling through this part of the world, and he’d been listening for seven or eight years. He had never made contact with us, but he said, "Les, your program has changed my life!" Well, that is so typical of so many men that we realize the Lord is reaching out to.

So, we’re going to jump right in where we left off after our last program taping. We’re going to continue this afternoon with the covenants that God has made, predominately between Himself and the Nation of Israel, and that’s why we refer to Israel over and over as His covenant people.

Now you know, the vast majority of the world doesn’t have a clue. In fact, in yesterday’s paper or one of the news magazines I read, one of the Arab leaders of the Middle East said, "Where in the world do these Jews get the idea that they’re the chosen people?" Well, this Book is full of it. We can stand on the authority of this Book, because it’s the only proven Word of God on the planet.

There may be tons and tons of religious writings and books, but they are not the inspired Word of God, which has proven itself by fulfilled prophecy. Any time someone asks you, "Well, why are you so adamant that you can trust the Bible as the only true Word of God?" It is because of fulfilled prophecy! I’ve said that on the program over and over. There is no other book on earth that could foretell things a hundred years in advance or a thousand years in advance, yet now, what do we see happening today? Prophecies, literally several thousand years in advance are all falling into place. In fact, I had a phone caller just yesterday who asked, "What are some of the signs of the time that we’re near the end?" Well, that’s not hard for those of us who know our Bible. The number one sign of the times is Israel back in the land.

Those of us that have just come back from over there, it is unbelievable what they have done, even in just the last five years! It’s just mind-boggling. Why? Because God is in it! They don’t think so. You ask the average Israeli, "Is God doing all this?" You get the answer, "No. No, we’re doing it ourselves." But we know better, and this Book that has proven itself by fulfilled prophecy is full of the Covenant Promises that God has made with His Chosen People, the Nation of Israel.

All right, now the last taping we went through some of the earlier Covenants, even before Israel became a nation, and that goes back to Creation. The Edenic Covenant that God made with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, when everything was still perfect. The curse hadn’t fallen. Sin hadn’t shown up. It was a covenant promise.

Then, of course, the next one was a covenant that God made with Adam, the Adamic Covenant. This was how God would deal with Adam outside the Garden under the ‘curse.’ Then we kept moving on to the Noahic Covenant, where God made a promise to Noah and the families that never again would He destroy the planet with water. So, He set the rainbow in the clouds as an indication of that covenant.

Then, we came to the next one, if I remember correctly, and it was the Mosaic Covenant. Oh, the Abrahamic Covenant is in there between the Noahic, and Mosaic. I’m going to leave the Abrahamic Covenant to later, as we just scratched the surface in the last taping. We’ll cover it in more detail later. So you see, your Covenants are another way of a timeline. They just keep coming up through Old Testament time. All right, we’re going to come back and spend more time on the Abrahamic Covenant. Nevertheless, that was the onset then of the Nation of Israel and all the covenant promises that would follow in the steps of the Abrahamic Covenant.

Now, after Abraham has established the Nation of Israel, and Israel is going to become a special set aside vehicle through which God can work amongst all the nations of the world, we come to the Mosaic Covenant, which was Law. We covered the three aspects of Israel’s Law: the Moral Law or the Ten Commandments, the Ecclesiastical or ritual or the Temple Worship part of the Law, and the Civil Law – how to get along with your neighbor and how to settle problems between individuals or between communities. Those three parts comprise what we refer to in Scripture as the Mosaic Law.

All right, now that brings us up to the next great Covenant promise, and that has to do with the Promised Land. We’ve referred to the title of it as the Palestinian Covenant. Now, I know in the last taping I explained it, but I’m going to repeat it again, that whenever we use the term "Palestine," it does not refer to the Promised Land per se. Palestine is just a geographical area off to the east of the Mediterranean Sea. It can go all the way out to the Persian Gulf, really. But, it is always referred to in Scripture as Palestine, coming from the term Philistines. Within the geographical area of Palestine, we have the Promised Land, the Nation of Israel.

For most of us who know our Old Testament, Israel only went a little ways east of the Jordan River. This was for the three tribes that Moses gave permission to stay on the east side of the Jordan River, providing they sent their young men in with the rest of the tribes to fight for the independence of the land of the Canaanites. All right, now we’re going to take a look at all the promises that are associated with this land. These promises were given to the offspring of Abraham.

They now have the Law in place. They have the Tabernacle, and they’re ready to move on up into the Promised Land. Now, in order to verify that Israel’s taking over of the land of Canaan was by God’s design, let us turn to Deuteronomy 29. It wasn’t greed on the Israeli’s part, it wasn’t greed on Moses’ part, but God had mandated that that strip of real estate, between the Mediterranean and especially the Jordan River, was the Promised Land. Later, when Christ sets up the Kingdom, this will, of course, go all the way out to the Euphrates River.

All right, now if you’ll come with me to Deuteronomy 29, we have the first mention of this covenant promise of a piece of real estate, or what we call the Palestinian Covenant.

"These are the words of the covenant,…" See, there’s the word. Now, maybe I should stop and define a covenant again. A covenant in Scripture is that which originated in God, even though it’s on behalf, in this case, of the Nation of Israel, yet it stops with God.

In other words, even though Israel may break these covenant promises, God does not break the covenant Himself. We’re going to see that, especially when we get to the New Covenant where they refer to the Old Covenant, "which Israel broke," but God didn’t. So, always remember that these covenant promises are unbreakable, until God decides to end it of His own volition.

"These are the words of the covenant, which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, (this covenant is) beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb." Now, what’s he talking about in Horeb? Well, that’s the covenant of Law that was given back at Mount Sinai. So, this is a second covenant involving the Children of Israel. In the first, He gave them the Law as we’ve already explained – the Moral Law, the Ecclesiastical Law, and the Civil Law.

Now, God is giving them yet another covenant, because, after all, you cannot have a group of people unless they have a homeland. Otherwise, it’s just anarchy, and they’re just nomads. So, they’re going to have to have a homeland, and God, by design, has now set the stage for Israel to go in and take over the land of Canaan. They’ve been working and promoting it and getting it ready for Israel for 430 years, remember, and now this becomes the covenant of the land that God is going to promise to Israel.

"And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Ye have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land; 3. The great temptations (or testings) which thine eyes have seen, the signs and those great miracles:" All right, now come down to verse 7.

"And when ye came unto this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, came out against us unto battle, and we smote them: (They defeated them.) 8. And we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance unto the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh." Now, those are the three tribes that stayed on the east side of the Jordan River. Now, you know I always like to use geography and history to make these things plain.

Remember that when Moses left Sinai, he took them up to the south side of the land of Canaan, Kadesh-barnea, and told them to go in and take the land. Well, I trust you all know by now what happened. In unbelief they rejected it. They said, "We can’t do it." So, they came back out into the wilderness for forty years, until that generation died off. Now, Moses brings them around on the east side of the Dead Sea, which is on the east side of the Jordan River, and they’re going to come from the east into the land of Canaan. All right, now as they’re approaching the Jordan River from the east, they see the land of Canaan out in front of them. In fact, on a clear day you can be up on Mount Nebo where Moses died and, on a clear day, you can see clear across to the Mediterranean Sea.

Now, those of you that were just with us in Israel know it’s amazing how much of the land you can see from a high spot. We were on one of the promenades above the city of Nazareth the other day and it was a beautiful day. Wasn’t it? My, the pictures of that up there are just unbelievable! But you can stand up there, just in front of Nazareth, and you can look almost to the Sea of Galilee, because the Nation of Israel is so small. All right, here again these three tribes are going to stay on the east side of the Jordan.

Now, I’ve got to make a point. I’m constantly referring to the fact that Jesus never had anything to do in ministering to Gentiles in His earthly ministry. The one question that people like to throw up to me is: "Well, what about the Gadarenes, where he sent the demons out of the swine and into the sea?" Well, the Gadarenes, you see, were generations removed from what tribe? Gad! So, He wasn’t dealing with Gentiles, he was still dealing with the offspring of these three tribes who had stayed on the east side of the Jordan River. Easy to understand if you know what the Book says. Okay, now then, after giving permission for those three tribes to stay east of the Jordan, we have verse 9.

"Keep therefore the words of this (What?) covenant,…" This agreement that God is going to give the Nation of Israel the homeland for them to enjoy as their own land. All right, now verse 12.

"That thou shouldest enter into covenant with the LORD thy God, and into his oath, which the LORD thy God maketh with thee this day: 13. That he may establish thee today for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, (that is, to the fathers) to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob." All right, now right there again I’ve got to remind you of that verse that we use over and over in Romans 15 verse 8. Many of you should be able to start quoting it from memory. What does it say? "Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision (the Nation of Israel) for the truth of God, (But for what purpose?) to confirm (or to fulfill) the promises made unto the fathers:" That’s what Paul writes.

All right, who were the "fathers?" They were Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What were the promises? That God Himself would take the nation into their own Promised Land and after a period of time, they didn’t know how long, but after a period of time He would come in the person of God the Son, the Messiah of Israel, and rule and reign from Jerusalem. Now, this is all part and parcel of getting Israel ready for the coming of their Messiah.

All right, now I think we can come all the way down to chapter 30. Now we’re going to leap the centuries, almost the millennia, and we’re going to see a prophetic promise concerning the Children of Israel. They’re going to be uprooted out of this Promised Land at least twice. The first time was when Nebuchadnezzar came from Babylon and overran the city of Jerusalem and destroyed the city and the Temple. He burned it to the ground and took the nation of Israel captive. Well, seventy years later a small remnant came back.

The second time it happened, it was almost déjà vu, only now it’s the Romans. In 70 AD Rome besieged the city of Jerusalem. Rome crashed the gates and destroyed the Temple and uprooted the Jews out of the city and out of the land, by God’s decree.

All right, now here we pick it up in Deuteronomy chapter 30. Now remember, this is Moses writing 1500 years before Christ. Or 3500 years before where we are today, and we’re seeing the fulfillment of this promise and prophecy right now, today.

"And it shall come to pass, (Now, when God says it’s going to happen – you can just bank on it!) when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou (that is, the Nation of Israel) shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath driven thee," Now, watch what that says. That means every nation on the planet will have Jews within it, because they’ve been uprooted out of the land, and God has providentially scattered them into every nation under heaven. Now of course, when Moses writes, it’s prophecy. But now, here you and I are, sitting in the daytime, looking at these fulfilled promises. After being scattered, they are now brought back into their Promised Land, verse 2:

"And shalt return (that is, to their homeland) unto the LORD thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul;" All right, now verse 3, when they would come back from this final dispersion:

"That then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee." Now, isn’t it hard to comprehend why the world in general can’t understand that? They won’t read it. Don’t just blame the unbelieving world, most church people won’t. They refuse to believe these things. They don’t even want to read it.

But there it is in plain English. I can’t put it any other way, that after they’ve been dispersed into every nation under heaven, God is going to providentially bring them back into their homeland, as we see even today. All right, verse 4, I think this is even interesting. In case a Jew is even out in outer space, with a rocket or whatever, or if he’s on a space station:

"If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence he will fetch thee:" Now, I want you to be constantly aware of this one word ‘land.’ Over and over and over, God is talking about this covenant by which Israel will have her homeland.

"And the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, (That is, back under the time of Joshua, especially, and then going on through the times of the judges.) and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers." Now verse 6, we’re going to come back to this when we deal with the New Covenant. I don’t know if we’ll get that far today or not. I hope to. But when He deals with Israel under the New Covenant, then verse 6 kicks in - not until. In other words, even tonight, if you ask the average Jew anywhere in the world anything pertaining to these promises, he’s totally ignorant of them. They just do not have a comprehension that God is providentially taking care of them. He’s helping them overcome all the obstacles, because it’s prophecy, it has to happen. All right, so "the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land."

Well, we’re not going to finish everything I wanted on this one, but I’m going to jump up, for sake of time, all the way to Ezekiel. Ezekiel talks more about some of these promises than any other major book of prophecy. I’m going to bring you into Ezekiel. I think I’m going to go to chapter 34, and let’s start with verse 11 - Ezekiel 34 verse 11. Now, don’t forget what we’ve just covered. God, by covenant design, has set aside that piece of real estate between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River and a little beyond for His chosen people. It’s by His Sovereign design. No United Nations can overrule it. No White House decree can overrule it. Congress can’t overrule it. This is the Sovereign God.

"For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out." Now, I’ve made the statement, and I’ve been surprised that I didn’t get flak. Who are the "sheep" of Scripture? Israel! The Jew.

The Jew is the sheep of Scripture and their Messiah, God the Son, is their Shepherd. Now you see, Paul never refers to you and I as Gentile members of the Body of Christ as sheep. He doesn’t refer to Christ as our Shepherd. Now, he does use it in one place in one of his letters, but not as He’s the Shepherd of the Body of Christ, but He’s the chief Shepherd of all Creation. So, always make that distinction – the sheep of Scripture are the Nation of Israel.

"As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; (as Israel was in the dispersions) so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. (Now verse 13, and listen, these are the promises of God.) 13. And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land,…" Now, do you see why some of us get upset when the Israeli government, probably under the pressure of our American government, wants to give back land to the Arabs. That flies into the face of God’s promises. They have no right to give one square foot to anybody but the Nation of Israel. It’s covenanted. It’s theirs by God’s design.

"…and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel…" Now, it’s interesting. You know we promoted a little paperback several months or maybe a couple of years ago, with the title of The Mountains of Israel. Now, all the mountains of Israel, as we see them delineated in the Old Testament, are presently under Arab control. They are in the West Bank. Do you think God’s going to rest until that’s been corrected? No way! So, as we sometimes wonder what in the world is the future? We can rest assured that one day God’s going to set everything straight according to His promises.

"…mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country. 14. I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be:…" Now, he’s talking about the people not the sheep. Even in these mountainous areas of Israel, it’s going to be lush and green and productive. Now, you know, this is the one thing I think we all noticed. Israel has had an abundance of rain and snow all winter. The Sea of Galilee was full once again. The last time Iris and I were over there, it was almost pitiful. The shoreline was way, way out, and they had reached what they called the "red" line, where they could not longer take water from it. This time, it was full to the brim, and the countryside was just beautiful. Everything was green and the flowering trees were in bloom. We could genuinely see how it is definitely like a rose blooming in the desert today.

All right, now you can get a good picture of this. They aren’t even close yet. This is all going to take place after Christ returns and sets up the Kingdom. But we’re already seeing the beginnings of it. All right, verse 14 again, "I will feed them in a good pasture and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be: there shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel." Now, that’s symbolic language, of course, but how the nation is going to enjoy all the blessings of Jehovah.

"I will seek that which was (What?) lost,…" Oh, the Nation of Israel tonight, for the most part, is lost in unbelief. They don’t even have a comprehension that everything that they’re able to do is by God’s design. It’s really sad. Yet, we who know Scripture know better. We know that God is in Sovereign control of everything that’s taking place over there. All right, read verse 16, and then our time’s going to be gone.

"…and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but I will destroy the fat and the strong; (That is, their enemies.) I will feed them with judgment." I’ve always defined that word "judgment" in Scripture as a benevolent government. Whenever we speak of judgment, like here, it speaks of a benevolent government that indeed is operating for only one purpose, and that is for the good of the people that are under it. Then verse 17, and I guess it will be time to close,

"And as for you, O my flock, (my Nation of Israel) thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I judge between cattle and cattle, between the rams and the he goats. 18. Seemeth it a small thing unto you to have eaten up the good pasture, but ye must tread down with your feet the residue of your pastures? and to have drunk of the deep waters, but ye must foul the residue with your feet? 19. And as for my flock, they eat that which ye have trodden with your feet; and they drink that which ye have fouled with your feet. 20. Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD unto them; Behold, I, even I, will judge between the fat cattle and between the lean cattle." Now, all He’s saying there is that when Israel comes into the place of blessing, all of those who have opposed her will come under the wrath and the judgment of a Sovereign God.

Once again, for those of you in the studio audience, we’ll pick right up where we left off in Ezekiel 34. For those of you joining us on television, for sake of new listeners that have just caught our program for the first time, we’re a simple Bible study. We don’t try to get too theological. I guess my number one prerogative is to help people see what the Book really says. For example, in this Age of Grace, we teach that for salvation, from Paul’s writing of I Corinthians 15:1-4, you must believe that Jesus died for your sins, was buried, and rose again, plus absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing else goes with that for salvation! It doesn’t matter what I think or say. It doesn’t matter what some denominational teacher says, but what does the Word of God say?

So, we are presently looking at the covenant promises, especially between God and Israel, and how everything is leading up to His Second Coming, when He will establish that glorious heaven on earth kingdom, and Israel will come to the fruition of all of these Old Testament promises. All right, we’re picking up our text, if you will, in Ezekiel chapter 34, where the promise is that Israel will one day have the land of promise. After all, they are God’s chosen people, and God is going to make sure that they get every square acre that He deems for them to have.

We were in chapter 34, and I’m going to jump down now to chapter 34 verse 24, where God is speaking to the Nation of Israel. He says:

"And I the LORD will be their God, (Now remember, this is all looking forward to the Kingdom Age. It hasn’t happened yet.) and my servant David…" Now, mark that one down, because you see, the next covenant we’re going to be talking about is the Davidic Covenant, a covenant that God made between Himself and David. All right, so always be aware of this term David. It’s intrinsic to prophecy.

"…and my servant David a prince among them; I the LORD have spoken it. 25. And I will make with them a covenant (There’s that word again.) of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods." In other words, it’s going to be a place of complete safety. No fear of anything that could harm them.

"And I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing." All upon the promises made to the Nation of Israel.

All right, now let’s jump across to chapter 36, and then in a little bit we’ll come back to chapter 35. But in chapter 36, we continue this whole theme that, after Israel has been dispersed into the nations of the world, God will supernaturally bring them back to their homeland against all odds. If you’ve read anything at all about the years leading up to the Nation of Israel becoming a nation in 1948, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. They were under constant opposition from Great Britain, who, at that time, was the ruling force in the world. The Arab world was in constant opposition, and yet in spite of it all, the Jews ended up in the land and began clearing the land and made it ready for production. So, now in Ezekiel 36 verse 1, God continues with these prophecies concerning Israel’s coming into the land.

"Also, thou son of man, prophesy unto the mountains of Israel, and say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the LORD:" Remember, like I said in the last program, all the Old Testament mountains of Israel are in the present day West Bank. They are under Arab control. But the day will come when they will once again be part of the homeland of Israel.

"Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because the enemy hath said against you, Aha, even the ancient high places are ours in possession:" Well, isn’t that exactly what the Arab world is doing tonight? Hey, it’s ours and we’re going to enjoy it! But they had nothing to enjoy until Israel came and got it into production. Then, they came in and became usurpers of all this.

"Therefore (Because the enemies of Israel are claiming a right to the land.) prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because they (Israel’s enemies) have made you desolate, and swallowed you up on every side, that ye might be a possession unto the residue of the heathen, (or the Gentile world) and ye are taken up in the lips of talkers, and are an infamy of the people:" In other words, how Israel has been constantly held down and under derision by the rest of the world. Now verse 4:

"Therefore, ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD; Thus saith the Lord GOD to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes, and to the cities that are forsaken, which became a prey and derision to the residue of the heathen (or the Gentiles) that are round about; 5. Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Surely in the fire of my jealousy have I spoken against the residue of the heathen, and against all Idumea (which is another portion of the Arab world) which have appointed my land into their possession..." Ring a bell? My, it’s in front of us every day, these very things. They will claim it as their own.

"Prophesy therefore concerning the land of Israel, and say unto the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold I have spoken in my jealousy and in my fury, because ye have borne the shame (or the persecution and the oppression) of the heathen:" Or the Gentile world. Well, we won’t take any more verses now. Let’s come all the way down, in this same chapter, to verse 24, because I like to pick out these verses that are so explicit and yet so simple. You don’t have to be a theologian or a rocket scientist to figure out what this says. It’s plain English.

"For (God says) I will take you (the Children of Israel, the Chosen People) from among the heathen, (What did Moses say back in Deuteronomy? ‘When you’ve been scattered into every nation under heaven, you will return.’ Well, now this is how Ezekiel puts it.) and gather you out of all the countries, and will bring you into (Not the Arab’s land, but whose land?) your own land." It’s always been theirs. Even though God sovereignly uprooted them, God never took away the deed promises to the Nation of Israel that it’s their land. Even though He chastises the nation by uprooting them and scattering them, yet He never gave that land to anybody but to the Children of Israel.

All right, now we can come on over into chapter 37 and the vision of the dry bones.
Most of you know that one. I don’t have to go through those verses. But always remember that the dry bones are merely a picture of Israel out in the dispersion amongst the nations. Israel out of the land of blessing is just like a corpse. So, the picture was of these bones depicting the Nation of Israel in dispersion, and they were very white, because they’d been out there for centuries. But, now you see, come down to verse 11. These bones have come together, they have come back to life, and here is the explanation of the symbolism of the vision in verse 11.

"Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones (that he saw in that valley vision) are the whole house of Israel:…" Now, I think most of you know there has been a theological teaching abroad for many, many years that the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom were lost, and there’s really only two tribes left for the end-time. Well, now wait a minute. Do two tribes compose ‘the whole house of Israel’? No way! No way!

So right here we have evidence that the ten tribes were never lost. They were always a part of Judah and Benjamin. And so, the whole house of Israel has never disappeared from view, it is still an entity and I maintain that even today God knows what tribe every Jew is connected to. I don’t care where he is or where he’s been, God knows what tribe he belongs to. All right, so here we have it that the whole house of Israel is depicted in these bones, and now he says, verse 12:

"Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, (Israel) I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel." Now, just to show you how theologians can foul up and corrupt the Scriptures, one guy was trying to tell me one time that this was just a picture of lost mankind. That the salvation of lost mankind was depicted here in these bones coming to life. Well, now how ridiculous can you get? This is strictly a picture of Israel in dispersion brought back to the land of promise.

All right, now we can come down to verse 15. God’s going to show a further illustration that all the tribes of Israel are still intact. None of them have been lost. None of them have disappeared. They’re all ready for the return of Christ. All right, verse 15:

"The word of the LORD came again, unto me, saying, 16. Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, (Now, just picture this in your mind. Here you’ve got a piece of wood, and they were to write upon it For Judah, the Southern Kingdom.) and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions:" In other words, you’ve heard me teach before, that shortly after the kingdom was divided there was a migration of all the ten tribes to the north down into Judah. So, here we have that depicted, not only Judah and Benjamin, but also representatives of all the other ten tribes are now with them in Judah. But God is also going to make sure we understand that He has not forgotten the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom.

Now, just to show you how the New Testament is in full accord, keep your hand in Ezekiel, we’re going to come right back. Jump all the way up to Acts chapter 2, Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost. When these big wheel theologians try to tell people that the Nation of Israel has disappeared, that the present day Jews aren’t Jews at all, they’re something else, well, I can’t help but differ.

Now, here, as late as probably around 30 AD, shortly after Pentecost, in fact this is the day of Pentecost, so this would be at the same time as the crucifixion. Now, look how Peter looks at it on the day of Pentecost. Acts chapter 2 and we’ll be looking at this when we come to the Davidic Covenant as well, but here he says in verse 36:

"Therefore (because of the prophecies concerning David and the Nation of Israel back in the book of Psalms, therefore, Peter says:) let all the house of Israel know assuredly,…" Well, what "all the house of Israel" is he talking to? The Jews out in front of him. They, too, were represented by the twelve tribes of Israel, as late as Pentecost. Then Paul comes back in his epistles, and he refers to the "house of Israel." Not just Judah and Benjamin, but the whole twelve, or if you want to include the half-tribes, the thirteen or fourteen tribes in total. In Revelation chapter 7, it names all 12 of the tribes being sealed. So, they were never lost.

All right, back to Ezekiel chapter 37 verse 17, and these two sticks, one representing the southern kingdom and one representing the northern kingdom. The Lord says:

"And join them one to another (in other words end to end) into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand." Well, now what’s the symbolism? It will no longer be a divided nation. It’s going to be a nation comprised of the whole. That’s the symbolism. This stick becomes one even as they were before the kingdom divided.

"And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these? 19. Say unto them, (Now, here comes the explanation.) Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will (sometime in the future) take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, (That is one of the tribes of the Northern Kingdom.) and the tribes of Israel his fellows, (That’s the Northern Kingdom.) and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, (which was the Southern Kingdom) and make them one stick, and they (those twelve tribes) shall be one (God says) in mine hand." Now verse 21, here comes that repeated promise. My, if you don’t get anything else out of these two programs, you’ll get one thing straight, that after Israel has been scattered into the nations of the world, God’s going to bring them back, and He’s going to yet fulfill all the promises concerning His covenant people. All right, now you come down to verse 26:

"Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; (That is, with the Nation of Israel.) it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: (It’s going to go right on into the new heavens and the new earth one day.) and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore." Then, verse 28:

"And the heathen (the non-Jewish world) shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel,…" Now, it can’t get any plainer than that. They are His chosen people. They are His covenant people.

Even though they are guilty of rank unbelief and have been all the way up through history. My, just go back and read some of the books of history, Kings and the Chronicles and then the Book of Isaiah, and you’ll find Israel’s constant rebellion. Yet, God never gave up on them. As He told David and as we’ll see in the Davidic Covenant, "Even though they commit iniquity, My mercy shall never depart from them." God will never let go of the Nation of Israel. All right, verse 28 again:

"And the heathen (the non-Jewish world) shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary (or His dwelling place) shall be in the midst of them for evermore." Now, we’ll come to that when we get to the New Covenant, but let’s put that on hold for now. All right, now how are we going to deal with the Arab world and their hatred and their opposition to the Nation of Israel? Well, it’s all here in prophecy.

Now, come across the page, at least in my Bible, to chapter 38 of Ezekiel. Here we have the war and the invasion, as most of you have heard it, of Gog and Magog. But I’m just thinking that most people today do not understand what class or what group of people are really involved in this great invasion.

All right, let’s start, I think we’ve got time, right up at verse 2 in Ezekiel 38. Now remember, this battle is going to take place shortly after the Tribulation begins. Now, for years and years I just felt isolated as I taught that. I never would find anybody to agree with that teaching. Everything I ever read put it back there with Armageddon or at the mid-point. But now, believe it or not, I’m getting to see that more and more people are agreeing that this is going to take place shortly after the Tribulation begins. There’s going to be an invasion by people to the north of Israel, and God will destroy them on the mountains of Israel. All right, let’s look who they are.

"Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog,…" Now, there’s no doubt in anybody’s mind that this is a reference to Moscow and Russia. They will be the ringleaders of all this, but look who their cohorts will be.

"And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: 4. And I will turn thee back,… " In other words, God will providentially cause the military to do this. I think they’re getting ready even today. Don’t ever think for a minute that the Russian army or the Russian military power is defunct. They’re as viable as ever.

In fact, I was listening to one of my old tapes back in the Book of Revelation made in ‘91’ or ’92,’ and I made the same statement – you may think the Russian Bear is dead, but don’t you believe it. They are manufacturing just as many arms today as they ever have. Their espionage people are multiplying by tremendous numbers. They’re not dead. They are getting ready for this final great invasion. All right, now read on, verse 4 again:

"And I will turn thee back, (In other words, I will providentially turn you.) and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armor,…" Now of course, that’s the language of antiquity, and you just bring that up into present day, and you’ve got tanks and helicopters and whatever it takes to make an invasion. All right, now look who comes with the Russian leadership.

"Persia, (Who’s Persia today? Iran. Religiously speaking, what’s the nation of Iran? Muslim - ninety-nine and nine tenths percent Muslim. All right…) Ethiopia, (Down there in Africa, or if there was another one someplace else, it still doesn’t make that much difference. Ethiopia, religiously what are they? Muslim) and Libya with them; (Gadhafi’s Libya, what are they? Muslim - all of North Africa is Muslim, remember.) all of them with shield and helmet:" Now, you jump up to 6 and you find:

"Gomer;…" Well, that’s East Europe. You know, I didn’t realize until we had that Yugoslavian War, that Albania and most of Yugoslavia are totally Muslim. I didn’t know that! But that’s Eastern Europe and now, on top of that, they are migrating westward, so by the time all this takes place, a good portion of Eastern Europe will be under the heavy hand of the Muslim religion. No doubt about it. All right, so here we have all these nations listed with Russia, and they’re all Muslim. All right, now verse 7:

"Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them. 8. And after many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land (What land?) that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel,…" Well, goodness sakes, what’s that the vivid picture of? Israel today! Israel was totally devastated by the Roman invasion in 70 AD. It was overrun by one empire after another for the next 1900 and some years, and then all of a sudden, since about the turn of the century, the 1900’s, the Jews have been coming in and have been reinstituting the land and bringing in irrigation. The land, as we said earlier, is blooming like a rose. All right, so here is the picture of Israel as they now sit ripe for this latter day invasion.

"Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land,…" And so on and so forth. All right, now then, for sake of time, I have to come all the way over, skip all the verses, you can read them when you get home this evening, and let’s come down to verse 21. As these hordes of the Muslim world will come on an invasion on the mountains of Israel, from the north. They’ll probably come down through Lebanon and through the Bekaa Valley. All of the present day Syrian and Persian or Iran, and Iraq, that whole Muslim part of the world, I think, will unite with a Russian leadership, but God’s going to intervene supernaturally.

"And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord GOD: every man’s sword shall be against his brother." Now goodness sakes, what’s going to happen? In their confusion, they’ll be killing each other - multitudes of them. On top of that, verse 22:

"And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, (In other words, their battalions and their divisions of troops and whatever.) and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. 23. (and God says) Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the LORD." So, this is not the worldwide destruction of the Tribulation. This is the singular destruction of the Muslim world, as under Russian leadership they invade the mountains of Israel, shortly after, we feel, the Tribulation begins.

All right, now in the minute or two we have left, back up with me now to chapter 35, and we’ll see God’s reason for coming down on the Muslim world with such wrath. Now, the point I always want to make, "Can God save the Arab, or the Muslim?" Absolutely! Absolutely! We can pray for their salvation. In fact, we’ve got a few ex-Muslims in our listening audience. We love them. We don’t have hatred toward them. It’s just that we can’t comprehend why they have such a hatred for God’s chosen people. Well, here’s the reason from Scripture. This isn’t Les Feldick’s idea. I can love the Arab world, but that doesn’t change it, but here, look at what God decrees.

"Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 2. Son of man, set thy face against Mount Seir, (Now you remember, that was the home of Esau.) and prophecy against it. 3. And say unto it, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O Mount Seir, (or, oh tribe of Esau) I am against thee, and I will stretch out mine hand against thee, and I will make thee most desolate. 4. I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the LORD." Not for salvation, but by virtue of His wrath. Now, here comes the reason, and you can see it in every day’s newspaper.

"Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end:" Suicide bombers? It doesn’t make any difference how they do it. They’ve just killed the Jew out of simply wanting to get rid of that group of people that they have so much hatred for, and God says that His wrath is going to fall upon the Muslim world.

Now, we’re going to move on into the next segment of the covenant promises, which we call the Davidic Covenant. Remember, for it all makes sense, if you’re going to have a nation of people, what do they have to have? Well, they have to have a homeland. All right, so we established all that, through what we call the Palestinian Covenant, in the past couple of lessons.

If you’re going to have a nation of people within a geographical area of land, if you’re not going to have anarchy, and you’re not going to have everybody just doing their own thing, what do you have to have? Government. So, from day one God has been looking forward to the time when this glorious kingdom would not be a democracy, but it would be under the rule and reign of a King. So consequently, Israel started out under what we call the theocracy, under the judges where God ruled the nation through judges. But again, according to His own Sovereign design, even though Israel did it in an attitude of rebelliousness, what did Israel demand? A king.

We want a king like everybody else. Well, okay, that was all again in the divine purposes. So, who was the king that really was the apple of God’s eye? Well, not King Saul. It was David. All right, so now all the promises concerning this Davidic family are under these covenant promises just like the others. It’s a covenant between God and David in particular and the Nation of Israel, secondarily. But it all is looking forward to the time when God the Son will finally rule and reign on David’s throne from Jerusalem.

All right, let’s go back to the beginning of it now. That’s in II Samuel chapter 7, and David is now an old king. It won’t be long until he’ll die and his son Solomon will take over, but the promises of a king are not given to Solomon; they’re given to David. Let’s just start at verse 1 because this all is introductory.

"And it came to pass, when the king (that is King David) sat in his house, and the LORD has given him rest round about from all his enemies;" In other words, the Nation of Israel and the Kingdom under David had almost reached its pinnacle. Solomon will increase it a little bit, but most of it was by virtue of King David.

"That the king said unto Nathan the prophet, See now, I dwell in an house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains." So, what’s he talking about? All the furnishings of the sanctuary were still in the temporary tent that was built out in the wilderness. David is now living in a beautiful home, but the sanctuary was still made of goatskins and sheepskins and so forth.

"And Nathan said to the king, Go, do all that is in thine heart; for the LORD is with thee. 4. And it came to pass that night, that the word of the LORD came unto Nathan, saying, 5. Go and tell my servant David, (Now remember, that’s the name we’re going to be hammering on.) Shalt thou build me an house for me to dwell in? (In other words, the Temple) 6. Whereas I have not dwelt in any house since the time that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day, but have walked in a tent and a tabernacle." With that tent being made of animal skins.

"In all the places wherein I have walked with all the children of Israel spake I a word with any of the tribes of Israel, whom I commanded to feed my people Israel, saying, Why build ye not me an house of cedar?" In other words, God says, I have never accused the nation of not building me a Temple. He was perfectly content with the little tabernacle. All right, now verse 8:

"Now therefore so shalt thou say unto my servant David, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I took thee from the sheepcote, (You all know the story of the lad David.) from following the sheep, to be ruler over my people, over Israel. 9. And I was with thee whithersoever thou wentest, and have cut off all thine enemies out of thy sight, and have made thee a great name, like unto the name of the great men that are in the earth." Now, verse 10:

"Moreover I will appoint a place for my people Israel, (Here, we come back to the land covenant that we just finished.) and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, (Now, you see how clearly all this is put?) and move no more; neither shall the children of wickedness (That is the world around them.) afflict them any more as beforetime. 11. And as since the time that I commanded judges (which we just made reference to, the theocracy) to be over my people Israel, and have caused thee to rest from all thine enemies, Also the LORD telleth thee that he will make thee an house." Now, for years I was just as guilty as the run-of-the-mill church member or Sunday School attender and immediately when you see ‘build me a house’ you think of the what? Well, the Temple made of cedar and gold and silver.

Well, now that is implied to a certain degree, that God does have a building of the Temple, although it’s going to be done by Solomon. But when He tells David that He’s going to make of him a "house for his name," He’s referring to the bloodline. The House of David is not a building of mortar and stone. The House of David is a genetic bloodline going down through the centuries leading up to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, who is called in Scripture the "Son of David," because he’s down through the lineage of David. All right, now always remember that. The House of David is not the Temple. It’s not the house he lived in; it’s that genetic bloodline.

All right, so this is what God is telling him. He’s not that concerned about him building a Temple of wood and gold, but he’s going to have a bloodline, now verse 12.

"And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, (In other words, he’ll die physically.) I will set up thy seed after thee, (Who was Solomon, of course.) which shall proceed out of thy bowels (innermost being), and I (God says) will establish his (Solomon’s) kingdom. 13. (Now we have the Temple in mind.) He (Solomon) shall build an house for my name,…"

That is the Temple that Solomon built, but here comes now something beyond the physical Temple of wood and stone, again, where God says:

"…and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever." Now, you know that Solomon only ruled for 40 years. Forty years and forever do not mean the same thing.

So, immediately you have to stop and think, well, what are we talking about? Well, we’re talking about a royal family leading to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who will one day rule from Mount Zion in Jerusalem. Since it’s God the Son, the Creator God, that we’re talking about, His rule won’t be limited in years of time, but after ruling and reigning for the thousand years of the millennium, it’ll skip right up into the eternal. Consequently now, let’s just compare Scripture with Scripture. Keep your hand in Samuel, and come back with me to Genesis 1:1. Now, I’m sure most of you know the verse by memory, but it still never hurts to look at it. In Genesis 1:1, we have the very beginning of everything - Creation. But what did God create? Heaven and earth

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Well, goodness sakes, why didn’t God just say, "And in the beginning God created everything?" Well, that wouldn’t suffice, because that’s not the name of the game. The whole name of the game of Scripture is that God is dealing in two areas of human experience, the earthly realm which belongs to Israel; the heavenly realm which belongs to you and I as members of the Body of Christ.

See, that’s why everything that Paul says, concerning you and I as believers, is heavenly. And everything that we’ve been seeing concerning the covenant promises of Israel is earthly. You can’t mix them. You keep those two entities separate and this Book just opens up like a sixth-grade reader. Not quite, but just about. But that’s the problem with most of Christendom. They’ve got it all mixed up.

All right, now let’s just go back and from Genesis 1:1 let’s go all the way to the next to the last, I think Revelation 21 and verse 1. Here we come all the way from the beginning of Scripture to the last of Scripture, which is the onset of eternity. Time, as we know it has ended, and we now jump up into the eternal. But look at the language, it hasn’t changed a bit.

"And I (John says) saw a new heaven and (What?) a new earth:…" Well, goodness sakes, like with Genesis 1:1, why didn’t John just see a whole new everything? Because God keeps them separate. Even in eternity, God is going to keep the earthly operation separate from the heavenly, and I can see no breakdown anywhere in Scripture that that will ever end. God will always deal with His covenant people Israel on an earthly basis, and He’s going to deal with you and I as members of the Body of Christ on a heavenly basis.

All right, now let’s just go back and see what Paul says. Whereas we have been looking at Israel and all their earthly promises for the last several programs, let’s just see how Paul puts it so far as you and I are concerned. Let’s start first with Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 1 verse 3, and again language is so plain. You don’t have to spiritualize this. You don’t have to sit back and wonder, well, now what in the world does this really mean? Well, it just means what it says.

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us…" Now, when Paul uses those kinds of pronouns, he’s not speaking about himself and Israel, he’s speaking about himself and members of the Body of Christ, predominately Gentiles.

"…who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the (Earth? No! Where?) heavenlies…." In the heavenlies. This is where all of our future lies. We’re not looking for earthly promises. We’re not looking for an earthly king. We’re looking for the Head of the Body, who’s going to call us up unto Himself. All right let’s see, I just had another one over in Philippians chapter 3 and verse 20. This is as simple as English can make it.

Now, I know a lot of people wonder why I stick with the King James. Well, I’ll tell you what, I read another interesting article the other day in a Jewish magazine, really a secular Jewish magazine. It’s usually political. Naturally, it’s conservative, or I wouldn’t read it. But, this particular Jewish writer was comparing the writings of antiquity of the Old Testament and how perfectly it was in accord with the King James, not with the NIV, not with any of these others. But it was word for word in accord with our King James.

I, again, just about hit the ceiling, and I sent the article up to my brother, and I said, "See! I’m not just knocking on dry wood. This is real!" So, this is why I stick with this King James, because I still say it’s the most accurate, and don’t ever let somebody tell you it’s hard to understand. That’s a bunch of smoke and mirrors. It’s just as easy to understand as any other translation. All right, but look what it says in verse 20.

"For our conversation…" Now, here’s where it’s good to have a marginal help in your Bible, the other word for conversation here is citizenship.

"For our citizenship is in (The covenant promises? No! Where?) heaven;…" That’s where we’re already located. Our citizenship is already established in the heavenlies. See how different this is from the promises made to Israel?

"…from whence also we look for the Savior,…" Not the King. Now, I know that shakes people up, but I can’t help it. I’m going to go by what the Book says! I don’t care what these Sunday School quarterlies say. To me, most of them are pitiful. But here the language is so plain. We’re not looking for a King; we’re looking for the Savior. Who, in another portion it says, is the Head of the Body. That’s what we’re looking for.

"…look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: (And look what He’s going to do for those of us who are heavenly connected.) 21. Who shall change our vile body, (This body that’s prone to sickness and death and pain.) that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body,…" Now, do you have to be a seminary graduate to understand that? What does it tell you? That when Christ returns and gets ready to take us out into the eternal abode that He has for us in the heavenlies, we’re going to have bodies like the one that He arose with from the tomb and the one that He ascended back to Glory.

Now, this all hit home to me as, just yesterday, I had a lady call, and some of these things tear my heart out, but when she was young she had had an abortion. She almost started weeping before she finished telling me. But in the meantime, she had become a believer. She has become a listener to our program, but anyhow, she said, "Now, Les, if I understand you right, you feel these aborted babies will be in heaven." "Yes, I think so." She said, "Well, what size or age will they be?" Well, I took her to this verse. Now, what does this tell you? No matter who we are when we get into the heavenly abode, we are all going to be the age of Christ at the time of His ascension, or His resurrection, however you want to put it, and that will be what? Thirty-three

My, I just told my son yesterday that if it wasn’t for the awful condition of the world I could just wish I were thirty-something again. There’s nothing like thirty-something. Well, that’s what we’re going to be. We’re going to have a body like His resurrected body! I don’t have to tell you what He did in those forty days after resurrection. He went right through the wall without benefit of door or window. In a split second He was clear up at Galilee. He was walking on the road to Emmaus. He went in and sat down at the supper table with them and suddenly He’s gone. When He was up there and the men were fishing, He had what waiting on the shore? He had bread and fish – breakfast. The best breakfast, I’ll bet, that was ever served to a human race. That’s the kind of a body He had, and we’re going to have one just like it.

Now, that’s why I can get adamant. Once in awhile, somebody says, "You’re getting kind of bold." No, I’m not getting bold, the Book is! The Book says we’re going to have a body fashioned like His glorious resurrected body. Now, these are promises concerning the Body of Christ in our heavenly connection.

All right, now let’s go one book further. Let’s go to Colossians chapter 1. Now who am I to argue with the Holy Spirit who inspired the Apostle Paul to use the word, but I wish he wouldn’t have used the word kingdom, because it confuses. But on the other hand, we have to understand that kingdom is merely a word designating "an economy." It’s something that is functioning. Okay, but now look what the Word says here. Colossians 1 verse 12 and this is Paul praying on behalf of his Gentile believers up there at Colossi.

"Giving thanks unto the Father, who hath made us meet (or has prepared us) to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:" That’s us. That’s where we are. We are in a spiritual understanding of the things of the light. All right, now verse 13, God the Father:

"Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, (That is, the evil of this world.) and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:" Now goodness sakes, where is the Son? Well, He’s in heaven. This is not the kingdom promised to Israel. This is that which is promised to us for eternity in the heavenlies. So, everything that Paul writes is in that regard, that as members of the Body of Christ, we are not connected to anything earthly, we are just waiting until we can get out of this place and get to the heavenlies!

And when resurrection day comes, all of our loved ones who have died before as believers, we’re all going to be reunited with the bodies like unto Christ’s resurrected body. We’re going to know one another. Now, there will be no relationships, per se, but we’re all going to be members of that glorious Body of Christ, which Paul then fills up with the term "the Church."

So anyway, these are the things that we have to understand, that even though all the promises made to Israel are earthly, yet for you and I, the promises are heavenly, not just for time but for all eternity. That’s why I feel, deep down, that Revelation does the same thing that Genesis does, it separates heaven and earth. If God was not going to keep the believer of the Grace Age separate from the earthly people Israel, then why have a new earth and a new heaven? Why not just have one eternal existence? But I think God has it all programmed that when the millennium is finished, we just jump right up into the eternal, with everything pretty much as it was during the millennium.

The only difference is, there won’t be flesh and blood having children and so forth as they were in the millennium, but on the other hand everyone will be in resurrected bodies of whatever sort.

All right, now let’s see where was I? Back in II Samuel chapter 7, weren’t we? Got to go back there for a minute, and then our time is gone, again. These half-hours go too fast, don’t they?

"He (Solomon) shall build an house for my name, (This is a reference to the Temple on the Temple Mount, but now it jumps over into eternity.) and I will establish (Or at least the millennium, let me back it off that far. We’re going to the Second Coming of Christ and the establishment of His thousand-year reign.) I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever." Now remember, what throne did Solomon sit on? David’s throne. So, it reverts back to King David, and that’s why all of Scripture refers to Christ as the Son of David. He will rule one day from the throne of David, which was on Mount Zion in Jerusalem.

Now, those of you that were with us last week when we were in Israel, you’ve got a vivid picture of all that don’t you. How that Mount Zion is about a half-mile or three-quarters of a mile south of the Temple Mount. It’s not on the Temple Mount, it’s south. That’s why it helps so to get over there. You know, whenever somebody’s been there with us, that’s the first thing they say. In fact, Pete just told me a little bit ago, "All of a sudden it just makes this Book come alive, when you can vividly see where all of these various things are located." All right, so back to our text, verse 14, God said:

"I will be his father, and he shall be my son…." Now remember, He’s not just talking about David now, He’s not just talking about Solomon, He’s talking about Israel. Israel is the "son" that God is so interested in.

"…If he commit iniquity, (Now, you know that can’t be a reference to the Son of God, because He can’t commit iniquity. It has to be God’s chosen people) I will (What?) chasten him…." He won’t break the covenants, but oh, He’s going to bring chastisement. Isn’t that Israel’s history? Sure it is.

My, as we went through the book of Isaiah, what was the constant warning? "If you don’t turn from your wicked ways, I will bring in enemies, and you’ll be hearing languages that you don’t understand." Well, it was a warning. But they would not listen. And what happened? The Babylonians overran them. It wasn’t long before the Medes and Persians overran them. The Greek empire overran them. They were under constant oppression for thousands of years, but it wasn’t God withdrawing His covenant promises. He was chastising them. Big difference

"…If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men,…" He would bring in foreign powers to subject them to heavy taxation, they would take their crops, they would take their children. Now verse 15:

"But (Flipside, even though God will chastise, even though it may take centuries of time…) my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee." Saul was the perfect example of an unbelieving king. You know the end of Saul. It was a horrible end.

All right, so God isn’t going to treat the Nation of Israel like He did King Saul. Israel is always going to be in the place of mercy and the ability to be restored to full fellowship with their Jehovah God.

Okay, good to see everybody back. We’ll just go right back to where we left off with the Davidic Covenant in II Samuel chapter 7. Again, for those of you joining us on television, if you’re a new listener, and you’ve just caught our program for the first time, we are not associated with any denomination. We just simply teach the Book as we feel the Lord has led us to teach it. Once in a while I may get a little abrasive; I can’t help that, because the Word of God is. We don’t pussyfoot around with it. If it says something, we’re going to teach what it says.

Again, we always like to thank our listening audience for your kind letters. Now really, we hardly ever, ever, ever get a letter that is less than kind. What a joy it is to open the mail. So, keep those letters coming even though we don’t get them all answered. We can’t possibly do that, but we try to answer if you have a pertinent question, especially with regard to salvation.

Okay, now I think that’s enough for introduction. Let’s go back to where we left off in our last half-hour. We’re talking about the covenant that God made between Himself and King David. Remember that David is merely the forerunner of the whole genetic bloodline that will take us up to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, who will then be the fulfillment of all the promises made to the fathers.

In fact, that reminds me, come back with me to the book of Romans. Keep your hand in II Samuel and come back with me to Romans. We referred to this verse a program or two back, but this is so appropriate in view of all these covenant promises, that Paul can write this. Contrary to probably most of Christendom who do not accept the fact that Jesus limited His ministry to the Nation of Israel. My, they can’t swallow that, and they’ll find every little excuse to try and disagree. Most of which is, "Well, what about the Samaritan woman?" Well, Samaritan’s were Jews. They weren’t Gentiles. They were half-breed, but they were more Jew than Gentile. So, Jesus wasn’t dealing with Gentiles when he dealt with the Samaritan woman, He was dealing with Jews. Like I pointed out a couple of programs back, the Gadarenes, on the east side of the Jordan, were the tail-end of the tribe of Gad, as they occupied that area way back at the time of Joshua.

All right, now look what Paul says in Romans 15 verse 8. Again, language doesn’t get any plainer. There’s no way you can twist this to mean something else.

"Now I say that Jesus Christ was (going back to His earthly ministry) a minister of the circumcision…." What does that tell you? That all He dealt with was the Nation of Israel. Now of course, we know from the Gospel account, that He had two exceptions to that. There was the Canaanite woman, and even she had to do a lot a begging before He condescended to her request. Then the other one was the Roman Centurion whose son was sick. Those are the only two in Scripture.

Now, whatever else they try to concoct, the crowds that were fed at the miracles of the fish and loaves, they try to put Gentiles in there. That won’t fly with Scripture. Because you see, and I’ll make the point here in just a minute, let’s finish verse 8 and I’ll make my point, where Paul says:

"Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision (That is the Nation of Israel.) for the truth of God, (In other words, because of all of God’s promises and all of His Covenants.) to confirm (or fulfill) the promises made unto the fathers." Now, how much plainer do you want it? What’s he telling us?

That, in His earthly ministry, He only ministered to the Nation of Israel. He could not minister to Gentiles, because they were not part of these covenant promises, and He was under covenant promise. We are not. So, this is why Jesus never invited Gentiles.

I always like to use the event in John chapter 12, where there were Gentiles among the group gathering for Passover. It was shortly before His crucifixion. He didn’t give them an audience. Philip and Andrew didn’t succeed in getting those Gentiles to talk with Him. He refused it. Why? Well, He gave the illustration "that until a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies it abideth alone: but if it die, then it will bring forth much fruit."

Well, He wasn’t just talking about wheat farmers. He was talking about His own death, burial, and resurrection, and that He could not be an object of faith to the non-Jewish world until He had finished the work of the Cross. Now that’s obvious. All right, now if Jesus indeed ministered to Gentiles, and I told somebody this on the phone the other day, then He’s the biggest hypocrite that ever lived. Now, you say, that’s a terrible statement! No. I mean what I said. If He turned around and ministered to Gentiles, after telling the Disciples what He did in Matthew 10 verse 5, how could He? Now, that would be about as double-tongued as a person could get. On the one hand tell them "not" and then He Himself goes and does it. I wouldn’t want to deal with someone like that, nor would you. In fact, let’s look at it for a moment.

Matthew 10 verse 5, now this is at the onset of His earthly ministry. He has just chosen the Twelve. Now, look what He says in verse 5. Now you see, most of Christendom - they don’t want to read this. They get angry, and say, "I don’t believe that!" That’s what I’ve heard them say. Well, that’s your problem, not mine. If you don’t want to believe even what’s in red, then you’ve got a problem! But the words in red are from the lips of the Lord Himself. Now, look what He says:

"These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, (Now, from the lips of Jesus of Nazareth.) Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter you not: (Strong language, isn’t it? But here’s the reason, in the next verse.) 6. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Now, how in the world could He give a command like that to the Twelve and then turn around and do it Himself? Does that make sense? Of course not

He’s the God of Creation. He’s the God of all righteousness. He cannot be double-tongued. He cannot lie. He cannot be hypocritical. So, on the basis of this verse, I’m adamant. You cannot twist Scripture enough to show me that He ever ministered to a Gentile, except the two. That’s why Paul confirms it in Romans 15:8.

"Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision (Nation of Israel), for the truth of God, (And what was His purpose?) to confirm (fulfill) the promises (all these covenant promises, not made to the Gentile world, but -) made unto the fathers (to Israel.)"

All right, now let’s go back and pick up--I think we can almost spend the rest of the half-hour to finish the covenant made with David – the Davidic Covenant. Let’s start where we left off in the last lesson a moment, and then we’re going to move ahead through Scripture. II Samuel chapter 7 and we left off in verse 16, where God, speaking through the prophet Nathan remember, says to David:

"And thine house (Your royal bloodline that’s going to go down through the centuries of time, leading up to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.) and thy kingdom shall be established forever before thee:" I alluded to that in the last program. That means that when the millennial reign is over, we skip right up into the eternal, where, again, we have a "new heaven" for the Body of Christ, and we have a "new earth" for the Children of Israel.

"thy throne shall be established forever." If I understand language, forever doesn’t mean forty years, and that’s all David ruled. That’s all Solomon ruled. Each ruled for forty years. I think all three of them did - Saul forty, David forty, and Solomon forty. But that’s not forever, that’s just a little tiny segment of time.

All right, now let’s jump up to Psalms 89, and let’s jump in at verse 18. All of these verses, of course, are with respect to God and Israel.

"For the LORD…" Now remember, I’ve taught in times gone by that the LORD, as it’s capitalized in the Old Testament, is a reference to Jehovah. Jehovah is the great I AM. And the I AM is Jesus of Nazareth - God the Son.

"For the LORD (God the Son) is our defense; and the Holy One of Israel is our (What?) king." See, now Paul doesn’t use that kind of language for us. He doesn’t say that the Lord is our King. He says that the Lord is the Head of the Body. But here is that constant reference of Israel’s earthiness.

"Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy one, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people. (Now, He comes back to King David.) 20. I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him: (That is as King of Israel.) 21. With whom my hand shall be established: mine arm also shall strengthen him. 22. The enemy shall not exact upon him; nor the son of wickedness afflict him." David was a man after God’s own heart. In spite of his sin, David knew how to beg for forgiveness, for one thing.

"And I will beat down his foes before his face, and plague them that hate him. 24. But my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him: and in my name shall his horn (That is his rule as king.) be exalted. 25. I will set his hand also in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers." Oh, oh! Now we’ve got to stop and think again, don’t we? Could David do that? Could David place his foot in the sea and the other one in a river? No. That’d be beyond his human ability. So, now who do you suppose we’re thinking about? Christ! The second David, The Son of David! The One who will finally rule and reign on David’s throne. All right, now this is the beauty of Scripture, see?

"He shall cry unto me, Thou art my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation." Now, do you see why I said it was God the Son? David couldn’t be the object of salvation to anybody. David was human.

Now, I told you I was going to bring out something before the afternoon was over, here’s the opportunity; it comes to mind. The other day, somebody sent me a clipping from a newspaper, I guess it was from one of the Columbus Ohio papers. Some professor of religion at Ohio State University made the absurd statement that there had never been any difficulties between one religion and another or one person and another, until you got to the Apostle Paul.

Now wait a minute! Wait a minute! Paul wasn’t the first one who divided people, Jesus did! Didn’t He? The minute Christ began His earthly ministry He started separating those that hated Him from those that loved Him. So, number one, that smart professor doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Paul wasn’t the first. Jesus was. But on the other hand, here’s the absurdity of it all. Have you ever stopped to think - was there any controversy between the pagan religions of Buddha, Confucius, and Shintoism? Was there ever any conflict between them? Not that I’ve ever read in history. Now, they may have political difference but not on the basis of their religion. You know why? If you don’t have an ounce of truth, you’ve got nothing to argue about.

Now, I’ll jump it right up to our present day. Have you ever seen a spiritually dead church have a split, unless it’s the color of the carpet? But what causes splits? When there’s a disagreement on the truth of the Word of God. Yes, there have to be times when there has to be a separation. But see, whenever you have some entity that is totally lacking in Biblical truth there’s no room for argument. There’s no dissension. So, in that regard, the old boy was right. No, the pagan religions never argued one against the other, because they had nothing to argue about.

But now, when the Apostle Paul follows in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus, you bet he caused controversy. The Jews, on the one hand, detested him, because he was now bringing up something that was contrary to Judaism. But the Lord did the same thing. So, the Apostle Paul was not the first to bring dissension. He was simply the first to come out with this glorious plan of salvation based on what he just said in Romans 15, for himself, "the truth of God." Now, The truth of God, that’s something to argue about. I had an interesting letter, and I’m sure the old boy won’t mind my referring to it. He’s a listener down in Houston, and he writes a note almost every month. Well, the last letter he wrote, he was visiting his son out in Oregon, and his son just insisted that he go along to church with him. He said, "Son, I’m afraid that I’ll hear things I can’t agree with, but okay, I’ll go." So, he went to the Sunday School class with him and he said, "Les, the first thing that Sunday School teacher said was that the blood of Jesus wasn’t Divine, it was just as corrupt as any other human being."

Now he says, "I’m a visitor there, and I tried to keep my mouth shut, but how could I?" So, he said, "I corrected him." Well, he said that set the whole class on the edge of their chairs, and the more that teacher said, the more they turned to him and said, "Well, now how about it?" And he told them like it was. So, he said the whole hour he almost became the teacher of that Sunday School class. He said, "I was just having a ball." On the way home from church he told his son, "Son, I’m sure glad you invited me to church, because I had a good time today." You know what the son said, "Yeah, Dad, I could tell."

Well, now you know, it’s letters like those that make our day. But, see, this is what you have to do. You can’t just sit there and let some Sunday School teacher roll out a bunch of rot that is as false as a three-dollar bill. Sit up and say now wait a minute that’s not what The Book says. That’s not true. That’s not right. Now, you don’t have to be nasty. You can be kind, but disagree. Stand up for what The Book says!

Okay, Psalms 89. So, now we’re speaking, not of David, but we’re speaking of the Son of David, Jesus of Nazareth, God the Son, Jehovah in the Old Testament. All right, verse 27:

"Also I will make him my firstborn, (Which is always a reference to Christ.) higher than the kings of the earth." Now, if you’re a Bible student, the kings of the earth would also include what two, great, Biblical kings? David and Solomon. But this King is higher than David, and He’s higher than Solomon. So, who is it? God the Son

"My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him." Now goodness sakes, we shift gears again. Who is the psalmist talking about? King David. Because God didn’t make the covenant just with Himself, He made it with David. All right, so he says, "my covenant shall stand fast." Now, verse 29:

"His seed also (his generations that would follow) will I make to endure (How long?) for ever,…" Then these theologians try to tell us that Israel has long since ceased to exist? That’s what they’re telling people, that the present day Jews aren’t Jews at all.

I’ve got a book at home; no, I think I pitched it. But this guy was trying to write that the present day Jews were offspring of tribes that came out of southern Russia, and then migrated into Europe and then just simply usurped the libraries and synagogues of the Ancient Jews. What a bunch of garbage! Then people fall for that? But our Book tells us that Israel is going to remain forever.

"…and his throne as the days of heaven. 30. If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; (or in His rule) 31. If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments;" Now, that’s a not reference to Christ. This is a reference, again, to David and the Children of Israel.

"Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes." Now, that caused a question at break-time. What does the Scripture mean when you have a statement like that? Well listen, back in antiquity, even more than today, if a conquering army overran another nation and especially the Nation of Israel, what did they do to their defeated subjects? Tortured them!

They would rape the women. They would kidnap the children. They would kill the men. Anything else that was worth taking back to their homeland, they would take back as slaves and servants. That’s the "rod of men and the stripes of men" in Scripture, and Israel was constantly warned, "unless you turn from your wickedness, you’ll have foreign languages around you." Well, what did it mean? Enemy forces would come in and would make life miserable for the Children of Israel. All right, they’ve got the same thing here. All right, verse 32 again:

"Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, (With chastisement, not by removing their covenant promises, but He would chastise them.) and their iniquity with stripes." In other words, the suffering of being overrun by an enemy. Now, verse 33:

Psalms 89:33

"Nevertheless (Even though God will chastise Israel.) my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, (That is - David, Solomon, and the Nation of Israel.) nor suffer my faithfulness to fail." God will never give up on Israel! He cannot. Because of the covenant promises again, see? All right, now verse 34:

"My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips." But, who could? Israel. All right, now I think we’ve got time enough. This is going to come in our next taping, but nevertheless, let’s jump up to Jeremiah 31. This just confirms what I said concerning the verse in Psalms. God won’t break His covenants. Now, He may bring them to an end, like, for example, the covenant with the Garden of Eden. After the beauty of life in the Garden was destroyed by sin, yes, God ended that covenant, but He didn’t break it before the time.

"Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will (in the future) make a new covenant (Now, that’s the next one up here on the board. The one that is new beginnings, and we’ll cover that in our next taping.) with the house of Israel, (the northern kingdom) and with the house of Judah: (The southern kingdom, the two sticks brought together, if you remember, earlier this afternoon. Now, verse 32, this just says it all.) 32. 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;…" Now goodness, what covenant was that? Law! When He gave the Law at Mount Sinai. All right, that’s the covenant He’s referring to. This new covenant will be nothing like that old covenant, now read on:

"…which my covenant they (Israel, not God) brake…." Over and over and over they broke those Ten Commandments. And has the world changed? No. Here we are 3000 years later, and we’re still breaking them every day of the human existence, but so far as Israel was concerned it wasn’t God’s covenant that He broke, Israel broke it, by constantly rebelling. All right, verse 32 reading on:

"….although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:" Did God give up on Israel because they kept breaking the Law? No. Now, that didn’t mean that they didn’t escape chastisement, and I’m afraid they also won’t escape eternal doom. But God never rescinded His covenant promises with the Nation of Israel.

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