Transcript for:
Romans 11:13-24 -Grafted In Him- Pastor Rick Beaudry 2023-09-10

So Romans 11, 13 through 24, would you please stand as we read God's holy word together. Romans chapter 11, verses 13 through 24. And, for I speak to you Gentiles, and as much as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office. If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them. For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? For if the firstfruits be holy, the lump is also holy, and if the root be holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and the fatness of the olive tree, boast not against the branches, but if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou will say then, the branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well, because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith, be not high-minded, but fear. For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed, lest he also spare not thee. Behold, therefore, the goodness and severity of God on them which fell severity, but toward thee goodness, if thou continue in his goodness, otherwise thou also shall be cut off. And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if thou were cut out of the olive tree, which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more shall these be, which the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree? So Father, thank you so much for your word. Thank you, Lord, that you're helping us to connect the dots as Paul is bringing forth his treatise on the glorious gospel. And Lord, he has questions, Paul has questions, and he's trying to answer these questions as pertaining to the nation of Israel, and they being set aside, and they being blindness and pardon happening unto them, what's the prophetic picture for the nation of Israel? And Paul is addressing that here. And Lord, we pray that you would help these truths to sink down deep within our hearts, that Lord, we'd understand the prophetic time clock, that we would be ones that want to bless the nation of Israel as they're in the land once again, and to see the beautiful fulfillment of your prophecies, Lord, that are taking place. So blessed now we pray to be our teacher, we ask in Jesus' name, amen. Boy, I love studying prophecy. I love studying the Bible. I love being here in Bremerton with you and having the freedom. One of the things Vicki said years ago is that Pastor Rick doesn't have a filter. The reason I don't have a filter is because I don't have a hierarchy of people over me telling me what I can say and what I can't say. I just take the guns off and just go for it and just hope and pray somebody shows up next week. But I don't try to be a pitcher that rears back and tries to point it, I just rear back and fire it. So I do my study, I do my part, and then I just ask the Lord to help lead and guide me as we go through the scriptures. So I don't have to come up with sermons, I don't have to come up with ideas or programs or whatever. The sermons that do come out of me are as a result of studying, so we try to expositionally take the word of God and just go through the word of God. So here we are in Romans chapter 11. By way of remembrance, chapter nine, Paul dealt with the past election of Israel. Chapter 10, Israel's present rejection in this dispensation. Next week we have a word pertaining to time, verse 25. The times of the Gentiles is in Luke 21, but blindness and part is happening in Israel until, that word until speaks of the rapture. When the fullness of the Gentiles becoming, that's the rapture. And then next week as we study, we'll see the second coming also after that. So we're in this dispensation, this administration, God's dealing with the world in a time that's known as the church age. The next age after this is what's called the tribulation age, the 77 of Daniel, seven year period of time, the time of Jacob's trouble. The age after the tribulation period is the millennial age. And so that's the kingdom age, the 1,000 year rule and reign of Jesus Christ upon planet earth. And what's after the millennium? After the millennium is the eternal age, eternity, Revelation 21 and 22, new heaven, new earth, new Jerusalem. And you and I, according to Ephesians two, verse seven, he's gonna continue. He's not gonna get tired of us. He's gonna continue to pour out his love, his kindness upon you and I into the ages to come. We might start out in a marriage being so excited, honeymoon, the whole thing, oh, it's so great, and then fall out of love. That's not God, that's not his heart. He's not gonna divorce you. He's not gonna cast you aside. He's not looking for somebody else. He's playing for keeps on into eternity. Israel, the wife of Jehovah, the church, the bride of Christ, and it's so comforting to know that we're secure in him. We're grafted in him. So Paul wants to enlighten the Gentiles concerning three seeming impossibilities. Number one, is it possible the gathering of Israel, the regathering of Israel, is it possible that a nation could be thrown all over the world for 1,900 years and that God would regather them later? It's unprecedented in history. It's never happened before when a nation loses its identity. They don't even have genealogical records. When the temple was burned in 70 AD, all of the records of what tribe they're in, what family they're in, all of them are gone. And then they got dispersed all over the world, right? And then in the 40s, we got Hitler trying to wipe out six, seven million of the Jews of the 16 million on the planet, so they came under fire. But on May 14th, 1948, Israel's reborn as a nation. Unprecedented, 75 years ago. And it seems prophetically, Israel being that time clock, that we're in these last days and we're watching prophecy be fulfilled just exponentially in the present time here as the nation of Israel is reaching a point where they're talking about rebuilding the temple. And the rebuilding of the temple, according to Daniel 9, 27 and Matthew 24, Jesus said that's the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet. Gotta have the temple built for the Antichrist to come along and sign a peace treaty with the nation of Israel to hoodwink them, to make them, you know, to deceive them. And it's this peaceful peace treaty. Well, in order to sign a peace treaty, what precedes that? War. Nations are gonna go to war with Israel. Why would you go to war? Because Israel has enormous amounts of wealth, enormous amounts of oil and natural gas and strategic metals and technology. Is Israel a Christian nation? No. They've been gathered, regathered in unbelief because blindness in part has happened unto Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles come in. So we're in the church age, which starts out Jewish, continues, Jews being saved, the priority is the Jew, but it doesn't mean that they've responded to the degree they're going to in the tribulation period where God's gonna preserve a 1 3rd remnant. 2 3rds of the Jews in the tribulation period are gonna perish, according to Zechariah 12, 8 and 9. 2 3rds wiped out. In Revelation 12, the devil realizes as he's cast out of heaven, that time is short and he's gonna unleash his anger, his fury against the nation of Israel, against the woman. And the woman's gonna fight in Jerusalem there and fight hard the nation of Israel, but they're gonna lose and they're gonna flee to the area of Petra, Basra and all. But before that, many commentators feel that Ezekiel 38 and 39's gonna happen, a coalition of nations made up of Russia, made up of Turkey, made up of Iran and the Sudan and others and Germany. And they're going to, as a coalition of nations, they're gonna be drawn wanting the spoil. They're gonna see the energy. They're gonna see the enormous spoil that's there for the taking. God's gonna put a hook in their jaw, this massive power. America's not around to protect Israel. No mention of America, gone. But these nations that are continuing to build in power are going to come against Israel. God's gonna wipe out five out of every six of that invading force. Their bodies are gonna be strewn all over the hills, the mountains of Israel. And the whole world's gonna know that the true and living God's the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but they won't give him that glory. But they know they can't grab hold of the Jews and push them into the Mediterranean Sea like they dream of. They're gonna have to negotiate. And typically, when you negotiate with Israel a peace treaty, it just means we don't wanna be snuffed out completely. We need them to stop beating us so that we can rearm and hit them again. That's what their peace treaties are, traditionally. People hate the anti-Semitism is so great against the Jew. It emanates from the devil. The devil hates Christians. The devil hates the Jews. The devil hates Jesus. And we'll come after you. You'd be a target if you're gonna stand up bold for the Lord. And so, coming after the nation of Israel, the devil tried to destroy the seed of the woman so that the woman couldn't have the virgin-born son of God. Tried to mix in with the DNA and all, and tried to corrupt it and all, and God had to develop a system of bringing Noah and his family into the ark, and Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and Noah was perfect in his generations in that Noah's DNA, the genes, were still good. He hadn't tarnished them or polluted them or corrupted them with the co-interaction with fallen angels that were cohabitating, the sons of God that were cohabitating with women, and the Nephilim and others upon the planet proliferating. So God destroyed all that, and then you see that the devil's come after the nation of Israel time and time again, like in the book of Esther where Haman was trying to eradicate, destroy completely the Jews. If I can wipe the Jews out, then Jesus can't return because he's a Jew, right? He's the seed of Abraham, and so then you go from there and you see King Herod the Great, the devil's trying to wipe out the babes of Bethlehem. If I can snuff out Jesus, the babe of Bethlehem, then he can't come forth as the Messiah. So the devil's always been antagonistic toward the Jews because Jesus is a Jew, right? And we're told in Genesis 12 that God will bless those that bless Israel and curse those that curse Israel. And so the promise given unto Abraham, so we're friends of Abraham. Abraham's our father in the faith, if you will, and it pays to be friendly toward Israel. Martin Luther, when he came along, he was anti-Semitic. He blamed the Jews for the crucifying of Jesus, as him coming out of the Catholic Church and such. That's ignorant, that's gross ignorance to be anti-Semitic toward Jews, to hate Jews because you're blaming them, that they're the Christ killers and all. And you'll see that that's not God's heart. So the regathering of Israel, verse 13. For I speak to you Gentiles, so his focus is upon the Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify my office. Paul wanted to minister to the Jews, he's tried to minister to the Jews, they totally rejected him. He tries to appeal to them that he's a Pharisee of Pharisees that he was raised at the feet of Gamaliel. They know who he is, he's the brilliant Saul of Tarsus. And as he's there at the Antonio Fortress and he's trying to minister unto them and tell his testimony and all, when he comes to the term Gentiles, they're throwing dust in the air because these guys hate Gentiles. Gentiles were simply made by God to fuel the fires of hell in their minds. And so there's no way that Gentiles can be saved at all. And Paul winds up, focuses efforts more on the Gentiles and Peter more with the Jews there in Jerusalem and all. And so his office, notice my office. In Acts 9.15, how did he receive his office? He's on his way as Saul of Tarsus to wipe out Christians. He's heading all the way to Damascus and he sees a bright light, the shekinah glory of God in a desert climate with the sun there, but brighter than the sun. And he hears a voice, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he says, who art thou, Lord? I'm Jesus whom you're persecuting. Can you continue to kick against the goads? Paul's resisting the Holy Spirit. Paul's haunted, I believe, by what he saw Stephen in Acts chapter seven, when his face was shining brighter than that of an angel and he's looking up to heaven and Father, forgive them. You know, lay not this sin to their charge, you know. And they're laying the coats at the feet of one Saul of Tarsus. I believe he was haunted in the resisting the Holy Spirit. Are you resisting the Holy Spirit? Is God after you? Has God been bringing Christians into your life and people into your life with the glorious good news of the gospel and you've been trying to resist? Have you been kicking against the goads? The goad is like a sharp, like a little spear, a wooden spear, a prick that would be at the flank of the ox. And when the ox's treading, the ox sometimes might try to kick the person that's trying to plow. And so Paul, you're kicking against the goad. You're kicking against me and I'm trying to love you. I'm trying to love on you, Paul. And the more I try to love on you, the more you're resisting. And so can you kick against the goads? And so he was blinded and he's brought on a street that is called Straight and he's at a house there. And God tells Ananias the prophet to go there and when Saul's praying, go and lay hands upon Saul that he might receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, right? He's already a believer. He says, who art thou Lord? Now he's gonna receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. His commissioning, his office, he doesn't even know. He doesn't even know where it's coming from. He's being groomed to possibly be a member of the Sanhedrin, maybe the next high priest or whatever. No, he can't do that because he's from the tribe of Benjamin, but within the upper echelon, the Sanhedrin, if you will. And he's being groomed for that from a child, you know? And here he is, he says, go thy way for he is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. And Ananias says, man, this guy's a hit man. Are you sure you got the right guy? Yeah, he's the right guy. Go and anoint him. This is what he's gonna do for me. This is his office, you know? And show him what things he must suffer for my namesake. What a calling, what an office. When we face the cross, when we face difficulty, we say, is there a red state I can move to? Jay Inslee, he makes me afraid. I'm afraid of him. I better move. When we face the cross, when we face difficulty, we circumvent the calling God's placed upon us by saying, that's not my calling. That's how you get out of it. You just say, it's not my calling. Everybody has their calling, that's not my calling. Well, what's your calling? Well, my calling's this credit card here. I'm called to spend every day. The dopamine, the thrill of my brain as I'm spending money online and everywhere, that's what I'm called to do. I'm called to shop till I drop, to max this card out. That's my function in life. And we laugh, but that's really the objective. That's really the goal of many people, to have an endless supply of money and to spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, because it's pleasurable, it's exciting. It's exciting to just indulge in that way, but denial of self, take your cross up, deny yourself and go do something that might cost you, that might hurt, you might get mocked, you might get ridiculed, might lose your job. Wait a minute, that's biblical. I'm not called to do something biblical. I don't feel that, I don't feel that way. Well, Paul considered it a privilege, a privilege for the Lord to stop him from destroying himself, to stop him from destroying people's lives. He's in Acts chapter 13 when they're at Antioch, Barnabas and Saul are getting ready for their first missionary journey. And as the men are praying and fasting, they hear the Lord say, separate unto me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereof I've called them. And so the work of the Holy Spirit, ministering through a prayer meeting, identifying Barnabas and Saul, that they're gonna go on the first missionary journey. What a glorious commission, what a glorious blessing. I consider Kathy and I as church planters. I don't know very many church planters. You guys are church planters. We've been planting a church here in Bremerton for 28 years. You're supporting and being a part of a church effort to get the gospel out, to teach prophecy, to teach the word of God. And no matter how much opposition we face, we continue to move forward because all of us have a sense of we're in God's will. God's called me for such a time as this. I'm a part of a work that's resonating with the Bible. I can see in the Bible and I can sense by the Holy Spirit that we're in God's will, that if Pastor Rick would have shut the church down, I'd have had to pray about that and ask, is he really in God's will? You'd have to, wouldn't you? And how would I sell it to you? How would I sell it? I'm gonna have to sell a decision like that to you and convince you that it's a work of the Holy Spirit. You're gonna be looking at God's word and you're too into the word for me to get away with selling it to you. Because you know better. You know better. You know that Jesus is essential. You know no matter what that we're to obey God rather than men. You know that. But I might have to sell it to a bunch of wimps. I might have to tell you what you wanna hear to try and convince you that it's loving your neighbor, it's relationships. So double mask, buddy. Double mask, you know? If you really love your neighbor. Well, you would say to me, wait a minute, I'm supposed to love God more than my neighbor. And why would I do something that's stupid because those N-96 masks don't even work. So it must be brainwashing they're trying to do to me because you're a critical thinker. You can see through it. It's not all emotions. Because you know the word of God and the Holy Spirit's ministering to you and letting you know that this is deception. It's deception. It's the greatest test the world has gone through in our generation to see if they can deceive to the point of controlling. And what's the next one? We're gonna ramp it up with fear. If you get them afraid, you can get them to do everything Goebbels said, you know? And so we have a calling. And our calling is to worship God, to be pleasing unto him, to lift our hearts unto him, to be worshipers. And Paul, in an act of worship, we'll see in the next chapter, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, what's Paul's response of being called to this mission, called to this calling, to this office? Present my body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto him, which is my reasonable service. In an act of worship and an expression unto him for him choosing me to serve him, I'm gonna dedicate my life as an offering, an offering unto God. Lord, here am I, Isaiah six, use me. Use me, Lord, if you can. And that's the beautiful cry of our heart. In Ephesians 3, he says, unto me, whom less than the least of all saints is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. It's not doom and gloom. I mean, what's a profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what would a man give in exchange for his life? Kathy was telling me about this family in Orange County that just sold their house for $55 million, number three on the list, sold in three weeks. And guess what the guy does? He's the doctor. He's the doctor to lay to some plastics, make the wrinkles go away, you know? Make it all, lift this up, lift that up, you know? And he makes the big money, the big money. And tragically, he's got twins, and both the twins are, you know, out in left field in their identity of who they are. Lesbianism, transgenderism. One of their last kids wants to have the sex change and the whole thing. But they're like, it's nirvana. Look how famous we are, look how much money we have. Kids are a mess. I mean, all you have to do is see a picture of one of these adolescent children, which I saw yesterday, and it makes me so sad. And she's got this huge scar across her chest, and she's not even an adult yet. And they've taken her breasts away. Just a child, the mutilation of a child. I don't care how much money you have. I mean, you shouldn't have children. I mean, you shouldn't even be allowed to have children if you're gonna allow that to happen to them. You're to protect them. You can't gloss over that, but hey, we're worth billion dollars. What's it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? We have the unsearchable riches of Christ. What if this little girl would have come to know Jesus? What if his parents, and he's a Jew, the guy, but his kids go to a Catholic school, figure that out. I mean, the world is crazy. I mean, you've been entrusted with these children. Get them to the finish line. Get them into heaven. That's your job. Teach them the unsearchable riches of Christ. After that, let them blossom and grow where the Lord's intended. Let them discover their calling. But your calling, my calling as a educator, as a parent, as a teacher, as a student, is to proclaim to a world that's perishing, to a world that's broken, the unsearchable riches of Christ. So Paul felt honored. He said, I magnify my office. There's no greater calling than that of being a mother. Do you magnify your office? Who else is gonna get them ready for heaven if not you? No greater office than being a father, than being a couple, the two coming together as one, being entrusted with children that God's counting on you to tell them of him, to teach them, to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. What a high, high calling. Paul says, I magnify my office. If by any means, verse 14, I may provoke to emulation, I may provoke to jealousy, I'm gonna bring the gospel to the Gentiles. And the Jews, the mindset of the Jews is that, you know, is that they're a fuel for the fires of hell. But when God begins to move and work and heal and raise people from the dead and people are getting saved, the Gentiles are responding, I'm going to provoke or move the Jews to the point of jealousy that they'll want what they see the Gentiles have been freely given. Them which are my flesh, the Jews, it might save some of them. And so blindness in part has happened unto Israel. Not all the way. Jews are getting saved all the time. Just not to the degree that they're going to in the tribulation period, that one third remnant that's gonna be saved. And the 144,000 also marked and saved. 12,000 from each tribe. So great revival upon planet Earth during the tribulation period. Innumerable multitude of people beneath the throne of God in Revelation six and seven. And by and large, an angel that's flying over with the everlasting gospel, the unsearchable riches of Christ, and the 144,000 going about evangelizing the entire planet, the two witnesses and the tribulation saints. And Paul's saying, you know, that some of them would get saved. That's what it's about, right? I pray every day, Lord, let someone get saved. Lord, at Calvary Bremerton this morning, Lord, maybe somebody will get saved today, Lord. Maybe somebody's sowing a seed. Somebody that's at work or at school, they've sown the seed of the gospel to somebody and another person's come and watered and now that person wants to come to church. They haven't committed their heart and life to Jesus just yet, but one of the things I try to do even though there may not be any unbelievers in here right now, I don't know that. I don't know. So every single week, I want you to know that I'm gonna preach the gospel, that I'm gonna finish the sermon by preaching the gospel so you and I can be reminded of how fortunate we are that we responded to the unsearchable riches of Christ. I need to be reminded. But I want you to have the opportunity collectively as a body of believers that we can watch the Lord save some of them. That as the Lord brings them here, what if we didn't share the gospel? What if we didn't do that? We just walked on out of here, you know? And you're like, and a lot of churches are like that. They're not sharing the gospel anymore. They're not giving people an opportunity to receive Christ and to raise their hand and all. And you know, I'm rejected 100 times in a row. I don't care. I can't save anybody. I'm commanded to proclaim the good news. That's between them and the Lord, you know? But for that one, every now and then there's one, right? And there's rejoicing in heaven among the angels when just one, I see these big celebrity pastors, all those people, I'm like, wow, Lord, you know I can never handle that, Lord. That's why you sent me to Bremerton. But when one, when one responds, I know the angels of heaven, there's rejoicing in heaven among the angels when just one sinner repents. And you and I get to be a part of the fruit of the faithfulness of living the Christian life and sharing the unadulterated gospel. We don't water it down. We don't try to get people in here to be comfortable in their sin and sign up for something and write checks. We don't do that. We share the gospel. We want them to get saved. We want people to truly, genuinely be saved. We want them to understand the importance of repentance, of turning from their sins and turning unto God and crying out to God because they realize Jesus is the unsearchable riches. He's our portion forever. And we're not presenting the gospel in such a way that you're gonna be healthy, wealthy, and wise. Your best life now. Because as that's breaking down, as that prosperity's breaking down, you're watching a whole lot of people in churches melting down because they weren't prepared for the reality of the persecution and the difficulty of being a Christian in a broken world. Can't be propped up by all the money anymore. The money's eroding. The money's going away. Food's going away. Health is going away. The lawlessness that's breaking out. Your safety is being eroded. Everything's breaking down right now. So who are you gonna trust in? How are you gonna cope? How are you gonna get through a day that's a day, one day that's unjust, that's unfair, that's evil? How are you gonna get through a day like that? You're gonna have to learn to cope by turning to Jesus, by relying upon Him, by asking Him for discernment. Because we have the unsearchable riches of Christ, the life of the Spirit. Paul says, I magnify my office, you know? And so he wants to save some of them. In Acts 13 in Antioch, many Jews believe. In Acts 14 in Iconium, a great multitude of Jews and Greeks believe. In Acts 14, 19, Jews from Antioch and Iconium came down to Lystra, so they're jealous. They heard of what was happening in these cities. So these Jews came down, and they're the heavies, they're the muscle. And they're gonna try and turn the people away from Jesus, blame Paul and Barnabas, and try to have them hurt. And that's what they did. So the Jews from Antioch and Iconium, they came down to Lystra and persuaded the people to stone Paul. Just a moment before, they were gonna worship Paul and Barnabas, Mercury and Jupiter. And they're getting the animals ready to make the sacrifices and worship these guys at Burning Man. And it started to rain, and it came a mud heap, and it just really didn't work out, you know? And their anti-capitalistic ideology, they're charging $1,000 per person at Burning Man. Yeah, that's really anti-capitalistic. How many people are there? It's about sex and drugs and Baal, a temple to Baal. It's a return to the occult, is what it is. And God says, I'm gonna make it rain, you know? People can't even get out of there, you know? Oh, if he'd do some more of that. Oh, I just love it. But they came down, and they stoned Paul, and all of his buddies are standing around, they're watching him like he's dead, and he stands back up. Now, if you stood back up after being stoned, not smoking a bong, but stoned, you know, dead, if you stood back up, what would you do? What would you do? I'd say, you know, Lord, this isn't fair, this isn't fair. I've served you faithfully, and now you're gonna let them stone me, you know? I'd run, I'd run back to Jerusalem or somewhere I could be safe. I'd run to a red state. I don't wanna be treated like this, you know? I want people to like me. Paul just goes right back into those cities, right back in there. And he doesn't give them a false sense of reality. He lets them know that we, through much tribulation, not the tribulation, that we, through much tribulation, must enter the kingdom of God. This is the reality, guys. If you want to, all they that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. That's a promise in your promise jar, right? No, Joel Osteen didn't include that one, you know? He said my teeth would get wider, you know? My bank account would get bigger. Well, you're being lied to. When you're mistreated, ask yourself, how was Jesus treated? You're in good company. How was Paul treated? How were the disciples treated? How was the early church treated? You're in good company. You're doing something right. At midnight, he rose and they returned to each city. You know, there's no stopping these guys. There's just no stopping them. We can beat them, we can put them in jail, and then they have a jail break, you know? The angels come at night and open the doors and the disciples leave in Acts 4, you know, in 5. You jail him in Philippi, and him in Silas, what do they do? They sing at midnight. You beat them, you beat them, you beat them, you tell them don't speak in his name anymore, and the ground shakes from these guys singing, and worshiping the Lord at midnight. In Thessalonica and Berea, riots break out. In Athens, he's there with the intelligentsia of the Grecian culture, and they say, what's this babbler have to say? And he's interacting just fine, quoting their poets and all that. He can run with the greatest intellects, natural intellects of all, and yet he concludes from that whole interaction, I'm gonna know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified. That's the most important information, the most important truth. In Corinth, one of the most licentious, wicked cities in the empire, what's he do? He plants a church. Where sin does abound, grace does much more. 18 months of establishing a church in Corinth. In Ephesus, he teaches for three years. God wrought special miracles by Paul as he was in Ephesus, and what did the silversmiths do? Those that were making all those little statues to burning man, great as Diana of the Ephesians, they rioted, they're angry, they cut into their budget, cut into their monies of being able to sell these things. They're angry at Paul. At Jerusalem, another riot erupts. The Jews try to kill him. The Romans intervene, and they beat him. He appeals to Caesar, he sails toward Rome. What happens on his way? It's not a Christian cruise trip either. The boat sinks, he's floating in the water. Now he's teaching everybody how to surf, and some on boards, and they go to the shore. And what's he do there? He heals the natives. A viper comes out of the fire when he's gathering wood, sticks to help get a fire for everybody that's cold from being in the water. A viper comes out, and the people look at him, go, he must be evil, a viper just bit him. And then he shakes it off. Oh, he must be a God. We got him wrong, he didn't drop dead. And then the chief got sick, and Paul was able to heal him, gain an audience with these folks. And then he's taken to Rome, and he's at Caesar's palace, not Vegas, in Rome, the real one, Caesar's palace. And many heard of the gospel. Many believed the gospel while Paul was incarcerated there, and the Jews were provoked. Paul magnifying his office, verse 15. For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead? Had the Jews received Jesus as Messiah that day, when they're crying out, Hosanna, Hosanna, save now, save now, save now, you and I wouldn't be here, would we? They'd have received their Messiah. They'd have ushered in the kingdom age. The church age wasn't even a view. People didn't even know there was a church age. Paul said it was a mystery once hid, now revealed. We have the advantage of looking over the Old Testament, we can see symbolism of the church, but no word church mentioned. And so once Pentecost hit, and God poured out his Holy Spirit upon those there, the church was born, the church was Jewish. And then in chapter eight, Philip goes to Samaria, half-breeds. In chapter nine, Paul's all the way to Damascus, and the gospel's going out to all these Gentile places, and revival's breaking out. Predominantly Gentiles, small amount of Jews. And so their rejection is the receiving of them be the life from the dead. And so God sent his only begotten son, he came unto his own, his own received him not. He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. In John five, Jesus said, I come in my father's name, and you receive me not. Another, the Antichrist, shall come in his own name. Him you will receive, nation of Israel. Down the line, a couple thousand years from now, there's gonna be a pretender that comes along in place of Jesus Christ, gonna sign a peace treaty with you. Him you're gonna receive. And he's coming in his own name. But me, you're not receiving. So the casting away becomes the reconciling of the world. The world has come into Christ. God cast away a rejected Israel temporarily. The national lost Israel is the world's gain. The rejected Messiah is the savior of the world. Israel, Israel's loss is the world's opportunity. We're in the church age, and it's glorious. If this is the result of her rejection, what of her reception is what Paul's saying? But life from the dead. Israel be resurrected from the dead. Paul sees the regathering. He sees the resurrection. He sees the rebirth of the nation of Israel, and the fulfillment of all that God has promised. If you do your homework and you go to Ezekiel 37, 36 and 37, today after the service, and read about the Valley of Dry Bones. This is a prophecy of 1900 years ago that God says one day he's going to regather Israel, and he's gonna cause them as a nation, not individuals in the church. That's the church, a distinction. We are not replacement theology. The church does not replace Israel. He's talking about Israel. Israel rejected the Messiah. They're cast away or set aside temporarily during the church age. Blindness in part has happened to Israel in the church age, very few believing. Gentiles, the gospel goes out, people believing, the church being built. Upon this rock I'll build my church, Jesus said, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. So we're in that church age, but then he says he's going to regather them, and he's gonna cause the bones. He's gonna breathe into them and cause life, cause them to come back from the dead as a nation, not individuals, but as a nation, the nation of Israel. And so very important to not allow yourself to fall into the trap of many churches today that don't teach prophecy, that don't see Israel and the land as a sign of God's faithfulness of Ezekiel 36 and 37. And they have a preterist view or a replacement theology that the church has replaced the nation of Israel, and they lost it all because they rejected the Messiah. So in Ezekiel 37, the dry bones are made alive. Verse 13, and ye shall know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of the graves. Verse 14, and ye shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land. Then shall ye know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it, saith the Lord. So the Zionist movement, the Zionist movement that preceded World War II, where the Jews began to have this desire to go back to Israel, but how are they gonna do that? Palestinians, a whole lot of people already own the land, the whole thing. How do you rebirth a nation like that? And so the British aren't really wanting it, and they're kind of setting the stage where the Jews are really gonna lose anyway when they allow the Arabs and everybody to fight over the position, the place there, but God miraculously allows the Jews to prevail. And so they do prevail on May 14, 1948. The nation is reborn, coming out of World War II, the sympathy that the world had toward the Jew as they're going through that fire of the Holocaust and all, and they had this yearning, this huge desire, this yearning to go back to their land and to regain their own identity as being Jews, and so we've seen this modern-day rebirth of the nation of Israel. And so Paul saw the second coming of Christ, his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the kingdom age and all. The earth shall be full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea, that of revival. So in Genesis 1.27, God made them male and female, made Adam and Eve male and female, and these were the first two people that didn't have belly buttons, and only people. In Genesis 2.7, God told Adam, God said it's not good for Adam to be alone, so God had Adam begin to name all the animals that came along. God was wanting a helpmate for Adam. Wasn't good for Adam to be alone. Now God fashioned Adam from the dust of the ground, and God breathed life into him. You and I are just made of clay, jars of clay. We're the temple of the Holy Spirit. The value of these minerals and stuff is just pennies, right? But because the Holy Spirit lives and dwells within us, and because we've been created by the true and living God, and we've been redeemed with his blood, we're very, very valuable, costly. Cost God his son to redeem you and I, right? He'll go and sell all that he has to purchase this field, this earth, to get this treasure which he considers you to be, to be a part of his family. And so Adam there, he breathed, just as the nation of Israel there in 37, he's gonna breathe life into them, bring them back from the dead. And then with Eve, Adam fortunately wasn't in a hurry. Any of you guys in a hurry for a wife? If you get too much in a hurry, what if Adam would have settled for a beast? You know, you don't wanna settle for a beast. And he said that he saw that none of the beasts, none of the animals were a suitable helpmate for him. So God caused a great sleep to come upon Adam. And from a rib bone, God brought forth woman, God brought forth Eve. And he says, wow, man, look at that. And so that's God of creation, you know? And so God can do the same thing with the nation of Israel. Unprecedented in history that 1900 years later that God would take a dead nation and breathe life, cause the bones to come alive, the sinews, the flesh to come upon it, and then God to breathe the pneuma, the Holy Spirit to be breathed into the nation. And they don't quite know their place yet. They don't know their Messiah, but they're reeling, they're developing. And how prolific it is that you and I have this timepiece that we know we're living in the times of the soon return of Christ because the nation of Israel is in the land. And so God has set Israel apart for himself. The casting off is temporary. The regathering is absolute. With God, nothing will be impossible. And notice it says, for if the first fruit be holy, the lump is also holy. And if the root be holy, so are the branches. So the first fruit, that of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, set apart, the lump, the branches, Israel, is set apart for God. Nothing will be impossible. So Paul wants to enlighten the Gentiles concerning three seeming impossibilities. One, the regathering of Israel. Secondly, the rejection of the Gentiles. Would the Gentiles really reject during the church age after all we've had? Would Americans reject Jesus? Would Americans turn away from Jesus? Would Americans adopt a policy within government of anti-God, anti-take the Bible out of schools, take prayer out of schools in the 60s? Would Americans really do that? A so-called Christian nation built upon a Judeo-Christian ethic, and God we trust on our coins, would we really turn our backs upon God? And if we did turn our backs upon God, what would be the consequences thereof? Would we suffer the same type of consequences as the nation of Israel nationally turning its back upon God? And God says, your city's gonna be left to you desolate. Titus is gonna surround you, put a siege upon your city. Not one stone's gonna remain upon another. If God does that to his own, what will he do to Americans? Is Jesus an American? Are we exceptional? Are we that exceptional? I don't think so. We're in trouble, absolutely. We're in big trouble, why? Because too much is given, much is required. The Western banks are pressuring Uganda because Uganda says they don't want monies going toward any of this woke transgenderism, abortion, none of this stuff. They wanna stand for righteousness, so the banks are pressuring them the same way BlackRock and the banks pressure corporations if they don't walk in lockstep with their brainwashing and their social agendas of transgenderism and LBGTP and all that other sort of thing. Recently I saw where my hometown, Huntington Beach, a four to three decision decided no masks in their city, no vaccine mandates. Now that's really not that big a deal in all honesty because a whole lot of people are taking that position, but thankfully they did it publicly. Publicly they came out with it. In Kitsap County here, the first time around, that's how we were. We didn't have to wear a mask and we didn't have to follow any vaccine mandates. We were free. The sheriffs did not arrest you. You were free. You had the protection of the Constitution. Even though publicly nobody announced it, in actuality that's how it was. Now individual businesses could throw me out. I get thrown out of tractor supply. I get thrown out of Ace Hardware. I get thrown out of the Crunch Jam and I get thrown out of the Galaxy, get thrown out of this restaurant, that restaurant. Everybody, ooh, look at him, he doesn't have a mask, well. And I don't know how they were so emboldened. I don't know how they were empowered. I don't know what they're thinking, the group think or whatever, that somehow they're gonna impose this whole thing upon me, but they tried it. That's part of the whole craziness of it all. And so the rejection of the Gentiles. Can the Gentiles lose their position of favor? Verse 17, and if some of the branches, the Jews, be broken off, and thou being a wild olive tree, Gentiles, were grafted in among them, and with them partake of the root and the fatness, the sap of the olive tree, so the place of blessing, we don't take the place of Israel, but we as Christians, we as Gentiles, we enter into the promises that were given to Abraham. God told Abraham, and thee all nations of the earth would be blessed. We are blessed by the nation of Israel. Just, I've seen a list about this long from time to time of all of the patents, of all of the brilliant Jewish men and women in Israel, the technology in the medical field, the development of medicines and procedures and valves and just brilliant, brilliant people, brilliant minds in Israel and the tech community and all, but just from a standpoint of, if you hate Jews, this is what would happen if they weren't here. And every now and then you'll see that posted, and it's just prolific. It's incredible how God has blessed them in so many ways. And all of us are beneficiaries of that. We're blessed too in how God places his hand upon him in that way. So the spiritual blessings, as a Gentile, a wild branch, I've been grafted into the tree of the promises, covenants and blessings of God. By being grafted into Christ, I'm a partaker of God's promises and beneficiary of the promises that come to Israel. During the millennium, I get to rule and reign with Jesus as kings and priests. I get to be a part of the government there with David as his prince and Jesus as king of kings. And the nation of Israel is dominant over all the Gentile nations because at the time of the Gentiles would be over, you and I get to be a part of that as the bride of Christ ruling and reigning with the Lord. That's part of the benefit package or out of this world. So by being grafted into Christ, I'm a partaker of these things. And in Ephesians 3, 6 says, the Gentiles should be fellow heirs unto the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel. So believing Jews and Gentiles benefit. Is there anybody here that regrets becoming a Christian? Look at the benefits. Is there anybody here that regrets not taking the jab and getting double jabbed, triple jabbed, anybody? And that's like being a Christian. It's like, you know, the Lord blessed me. I didn't even know how blessed I'd be till I go to a reunion and I see people that have been jabbed four or five times. Right? When I read the sudden deaths and all the people dying and all, I had no idea just how incredibly blessed I'd be. I read an article where in the Amish community, almost negligible autism among their children because they don't have their children vaccinated with 52 vaccines in the first two years where Dr. Russell Blaylock years ago educated me that the neurological system of these children, they can't do the bundling with the Timerosal, the aluminum, the adjunct that goes in these. It wipes out their brain. They're undeveloped. These children are undeveloped and you can watch the light go out of their eyes. That's a 5,000% increase in autism. And that's before COVID. That's before all this that's happened. And the other thing you read about is you interview the Amish and they ask them, why don't you guys have COVID? And the guy says, because we don't have television. Verse 18, boast not against the branches, but if thou boast thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. And so you can't be boasting, you know, what do you have with that which is already given to you? You know, the Lord by his grace saved you. And so why do you glory in that which you freely receive? Salvation's a free gift. Verse 19, thou will say then the branches were broken off that I might be grafted in. Verse 20, well, because of unbelief they were broken off and thou stands by faith. Be not high minded, but fierce. So don't be all puffed up. A man thinks he stand, take heed lest he fall. You know, you're in because of God's grace and because of faith. They don't have the faith to believe yet, but don't get all pompous and anti-Semitic toward the Jews where you hate Jews and all. Realize that if you get too puffed up, too prideful and all, you could stray from your faith, your profession of faith, and you could apostatize, you could depart, you know, from the faith. In Matthew 21, 43, Jesus said the kingdom of God shall be taken from you Jews and given to a nation bringing forth fruits thereof. And so in the church age, we're the recipients of the many blessings that are being poured out unto us during the church age. Israel's rejections are bounty. So the nation rejected him. They were filled with unbelief and were warned of that unbelief. Even the children of Israel on their leave in Egypt, the unbelief that left many of them unable to experience the rest that God was wanting to provide. Hebrews 3, 12 says, take heed, brethren, lest there be any of you an evil heart of unbelief and departing from the living God. That word departure is always in the negative. I don't know why they try to use it in the positive in 2 Thessalonians 2, verse three, to try and use it as the rapture. It's used in the negative as apostasia, departure from the truth, the rebellion against God. And so you believe at some point, you say you believe, you profess that you believe, but then over the course of time, you start to drift away, you depart from the faith. And I believe we're watching one of the greatest prophecies being fulfilled in our lifetime, and that is apostasy. So many people that have professed to be Christians and love Jesus are abandoning the church, abandoning Christianity, leaving the church, and don't want no part of it. Why? Because it's not what they signed up for. Things are getting tougher. They didn't sign up for the tougher. They signed up for their best life now. And more and more of them are gonna realize in their disillusionment that that's not the case. And they're gonna say, where's Jesus? Where is he? I thought he, am I praying right? Am I doing, should I buy another book? Should I listen to another program? And they're being duped, they're being lied to, they're being manipulated. Without faith, it's impossible to please God, for they that come to him must believe that he is and that he's a reward of those who diligently seek him. Notice verse 20, we stand by faith. So the just shall live by faith, Romans 1, 17. And then we see that we're saved by faith, Ephesians 2, 8, 9. In Acts 26, 18, we're sanctified by faith. In Acts 15, 9, we're purified by faith. So be not high-minded, but fear, for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also not spare thee. So don't presume upon the grace of God. Enter in, and as you enter in, you must be born again. Nicodemus, you must be born again. Your privilege as a Jew and being part of the Sanhedrin doesn't get you into heaven, Nicodemus. You must be born again. Well, how can a man that is old enter a second time into his mother's womb? Nicodemus, you're thinking of the natural. You gotta think spiritual. You gotta be born of the Spirit. You gotta be born again. The Holy Spirit's gotta come into your heart and life, and Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, they got it. They're both born again and in heaven. Hebrews 4, 11, let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fail or fall after the same example of unbelief. So Caleb and Joshua, they're able to see the promised land, and they see the giants, they see the unwalled villages and how strong the Canaanites are, but they come back, and Caleb's ready to take it now. Let's take it now. He's like 40 years old. Let's do it. Let's do this. He's gotta wait till he's like 85 years old to get the chance again, because for 40 years, they're gonna go in a circle because that generation, the 10 unbelieving spies that came back gave an unbelieving report, and that unbelief permeated the hearts of everybody else. You need to be careful of that. Unbelief is poison. When you see people that are filled with fear and manipulated by fear, and it centers in unbelief, don't fall into that trap of fear and give in to that poison of fear. Continue to walk by faith, even if you have to walk alone. Walk by faith. Be the one that stands up against the tyranny, stands up against the craziness of these guys. Caleb and Joshua, they made it. A generation fell. In 70 AD, Israel was destroyed because of unbelief. Verse 22, behold, therefore, the goodness and severity of God on them which fell severity, but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness, otherwise thou also shall be cut off. And so if you don't continue in that goodness, you're gonna be cut off. Now, tomorrow's 9-11. I remember when 9-11 happened, I was at a pastor's conference thereafter, and Pastor Chuck stood up here in Seattle with the other pastors there, and he said, gentlemen, I think the hedge of protection around America has been pulled back. Now, he believed the official initial story of 9-11, the fabricated story. I, too, believed that fabricated story in the beginning until I checked it out. And I want you to remember that it happened on the Republican's watch. We're demonizing the Democrats, we're demonizing how evil they are, and you think the Republicans are so good, they're not. 9-11 happened on the Republican watch. And George Bush perpetrated it, said you're either with us or you're against us. And as I said, building seven earlier fell at 520 in the evening, no planes hit it. Never in the history of the world has an office fire caused a steel girded building to fall textbook controlled demolition into its footprint. So we don't even need to argue about the airplanes and their nose cones and all that, and all that that happened there. So it's a fraud, and that fraud was why? To bring about the Patriot Act, to bring a police state upon America, and to take away your freedoms and your liberties, to legislate away the freedom that you and I have. So you try to fly in an airplane, you gotta take your shoes off, gotta be handled, gotta be this, gotta be that, all in the name of what? The boogeyman was terrorists, and the terrorists have weapons of mass destruction. So we're gonna go kill millions of people in these foreign countries. There's no weapons of mass destruction, but we're gonna regime change whoever we want, move stuff around, and then we're gonna leave billions of armament in Afghanistan. We're gonna watch poppy fields for heroin production and all, and all in the name of what? Terrorists, you know? And it's mind-boggling how so many people still believe the official narrative. Now, when I say mind-boggling, I expect unbelievers to believe the lie. I expect them to be stuck there somehow. The media doesn't cover the Las Vegas shooting. The Las Vegas shootings, which were heinous, are like Maui, where the sheriff is the same sheriff in Maui that was in Vegas, and the media doesn't cover it. 9-11, they'll probably give a few little things about it tomorrow, but it'll be the official stories, official narrative, but a lot of people say, oh yeah, 9-11 and all that. But very few people will truly understand, and I believe that's the line of demarcation I believe America, rather than having the moral high ground of defending freedom, defending all over the world with our military and such. Instead, we went rogue. We went into these nations. We said we're gonna remove Gaddafi in Libya. We're gonna remove Mubarak in Egypt. We're gonna remove Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and these guys were strongmen that the CIA placed there, and the Christians were safe. The Christians were safe under these regimes, but General Casey said we're gonna invade five countries over the next seven years, or seven countries over the next five years. We're just gonna invade them. We're gonna regime change them, and what you find in many cases, that Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi said that they were gonna trade oil in the gold dinar, not in the global currency, which was the dollar. So you have to leverage, you have to fight, you have to force every single nation to be under the Rothschild banking system to achieve your one-world globalist system and all, and that's exactly what happened. That's exactly what took place. You bring everybody under the reign of a one-world economic system, a one-world religious system, the Abraham House that's coming, and the one-world governmental system that's coming, and so 9-11 was a big part of that, and I believe Pastor Chuck is correct. A lot of the pastors were mocking him when he said that, but I believe he's correct in that we crossed the line, and we began to do things where even our soldiers know that we didn't have the moral high ground. We didn't have justification for what we're doing, and then we vote Obama in out of our guilt, and then we have Christians being wiped out in Egypt. You remember them all? You remember all the Christians in Syria as they systematically went in and desecrated all the churches? Now, those churches and all those minorities were protected by these strongmen. You move the strongmen, and now they're vulnerable to the radical Muslims and such, and heinous, heinous crimes, and we cannot think that we are exceptional and special and that we're not gonna reap the consequences. Now, all these years later, who would have ever thought we'd be this lawless, that we'd reap what we've sown in that lawlessness towards other countries, and our own government, our own government is after you and I and labeling us domestic terrorists because we're Christians, because we read the Bible, because we have the audacity to question COVID, to question all their lies. Now they're moving in a direction of more and more censorship where people can be arrested for reading the Bible outside, you know? And you watch Canada, you watch the UK, you watch America, you watch New Zealand and Australia. We're all moving in a direction of being anti-God, against God, and moving toward the world economic forum, the globalism. I have a suggestion. Why don't we just abolish the United Nations? Yeah, yeah. You know, May 14, 1948, Israel becomes a nation, but then the Rockefeller Foundation, they bring forth the United Nations thereafter World War II. They're able to move the chess pieces, and they're moving in a direction of globalism, and they've been doing it for quite some time, but it seems when the nation of Israel was reborn that now all of the satanic stuff that's moving toward the tribulation period, God was allowing it to, according to Revelation 17, 17, he's putting it in their hearts to develop the states, the stages being set for the return of Jesus Christ. And so for you and I, what can we do individually? Jesus said in John 15, verse four, abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abides in me and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered, and men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. So if we continue in his goodness, we have nothing to worry about. The last day's apostasy doesn't affect you and I because we continue to walk by faith, every single day by faith. We're in the 2%. We're in the 2% that teach prophecy, that study prophecy. Our eyes are open. So Paul wants to enlighten the Gentiles concerning three seeming impossibilities. One, the regathering of Israel. Two, the rejection of the Gentiles. And thirdly and finally, the grafting of Israel. Verse 23, and they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if thou were cut out of the olive tree, which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? So you pot growers studied horticulture, right? And you get a pot plant that has a really good bud and it's really oily and it's really, really, really good, really potent, you know? And so you take that and you cut off a little part of it and you want to graft it into what? A wild, a wild pot plant, a plant that doesn't produce as good of buds, as good of power or whatever, you know? And so what he's saying here, the good olive branch that is grafted into the wild olive, so that the fruit bearing olive may resolve. And so he says, you never graft a wild olive branch into a good tree, it's impossible, it's contrary to nature. So again, you take the good bud and you put it into the plant that you want to grow and cause that growth, so a better illustration is the olive, right? So you take the olive branch, the olive leaf that you've been growing that has the good olives and the oils and stuff, and you put it into wild one, you cause your grove of olive trees to become more and more prolific because you're bypassing the second law of thermodynamics where the world is regressing, it's not evolving and getting better. You as a farmer, you as you cultivate the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, you're gonna have to till it and you're gonna have to keep it being prolific. It's your involvement, it's your taking and learning and studying the plants and doing that horticulture, if you will, that's causing the yield to increase. But God is able, even though it's impossible horticulturally, God is able, is anything too hard for God? So you got Abraham and Sarah, and Isaac, shall thy seed be called, is anything too hard? She's 90, he's 100, it's impossible, but there's nothing hard for God, it comes by faith. So God keeps his promises to Israel, they will be regrafted in, in Ezekiel 37, 26, it says, moreover, I will make a covenant of peace with them, it shall be an everlasting covenant with them, and I will place them and multiply them, and it will set my sanctuary in the midst of them forevermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them, yea, I will be their God and they shall be my people, and the heathen shall know that I, the Lord, do sanctify Israel when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them forevermore. So the glorious kingdom age, and this is unprecedented in history that a nation could be dead for close to 2,000 years, and that God would rebirth them and bring them back. So if America were to die, do you think America could come back 2,000 years from now? No, we all lose our identity, we don't even know what we are, that's the infiltration of multiculturalism in Sweden and all, you're not gonna have the distinction of different ethnic groups and all pretty soon, it's all gonna be intermarried and inter-everything, and so that's what happens when the Babylonians conquer or the Syrians conquer, to exterminate that group of people, they would intermarry, they would deport them and bring them all over the place, and pretty soon, especially if they lose their records in 70 AD, nobody knows who they are, so you look at a guy named Cohen, well, Cohen, is that a priestly tribe? Oh, he must be from the tribe of Levi, that's all you have to go on, you don't have records, but God has records, God keeps great records and God kept great records in Matthew chapter one and Luke chapter three, we have the lineage of Jesus, right? We know who he is, where he came from, he's the promised Messiah. So God will regather Israel and regraft Israel into Jesus, so her olive tree, the source of all blessing to all who believe in him, you and I are grafted into him, we're grafted into Jesus, Jesus is a Jew, Jesus came forth from the nation of Israel and we're all blessed by Israel, we're all blessed by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, all blessed by the nation of Israel because Jesus came forth. In Luke 137, it's for with God, nothing shall be impossible. So he is able to save to the uttermost those who believe, but remember, if you don't believe, there's a fearful looking to of judgment. In Hebrews, the book of Hebrews, there were Jews who came to Christ, but they came under persecution, so the writer to the Hebrews was writing to a group of people that were falling back into Judaism. If you're a Jew and you fall back into Judaism, there's no persecution, but Paul's saying that system's over, that system's defunct, it's gone, it's nothing, because Christ, that was a shadow pointing to Christ, Christ has come, you can't go back in to Judaism as he's saying to the believers at that time, the Jewish believers. He says, the just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, there's your apostasy, the drawing back, falling away from the faith. My soul shall have no pleasure in him, and we are and were made for his pleasure. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but the wicked turn from his sin. So it's impossible to be rejected because of, or excuse me, it is possible to be rejected because of unbelief, and you're worried, do I believe or don't I believe? Do you believe or don't I believe? Jesus said, all that come to me, I will know why it's cast out. So if you believe, you have nothing to worry about, if you're a believer, and if we deny him, he remains faithful, he can't deny himself. I mean, just try to not believe one day, just try it. You go insane, you can't do it. If you're a true believer, you can't do it. If you can do it, then Peter says, you're like that sow, you're like that pig that, you know, we bring you in here and we call you Hillary, and we scrub you up, and we put some lipstick on your lips, you know, we put a big bow in your hair and scrub a W up, oh, look it, here's Hillary, she's a new believer, she's got a Bible in her hand, you know, look at Hillary, and as soon as we turn our back, where does she go? To the pig pen. She loves the mud, she loves Epstein Island, she loves the filth, that's where she goes, because the nature hasn't been changed, she doesn't have a new nature, she's not born again, so she's gonna revert back to her old nature. She's gonna revert back and do the things, and the dog, Peter says, will go back, you know, to the wallowing, or excuse me, the dog will go back to its vomit, to its own vomit. So you see the, nothing's changed from within, Christianity's internals, not the externals. People can trick us with the externals for a time, but when we're put in the fire of persecution, we'll begin to see those who believe and those who don't. And so, do you believe? Then you have nothing to worry about. Him that comes to me, I'll know why he's cast out, Jesus said, and so the Christian, the question is, are you in Christ Jesus? Are you grafted into him? Have you been grafted into that true vine? He said, abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit, except it abide in me. His life flowing through you, through me. And it wasn't my idea to become a Christian, God's idea, wasn't your idea to become a Christian, it's his idea, and Jesus is the lamb slain before the foundation of the earth. It's God's idea to save you. And I'm so thankful that he has a plan of salvation, and in his plan of salvation, it included me, it included you, it includes you, because he's saving us to the uttermost. We ain't seen nothing yet. The promises, the blessings, the benefits of being a Christian, we're going to realize to a greater measure when this life's over. We're just getting started. Joel had it wrong. It's not your best life now, it's your best life to come. The best is to come. And so I heard a story of a woman that was a Christian, and as she's getting older and older, they had a lot of potlucks, and a lot of potlucks after the service, if we had our own building, we could have a potluck, you know, like in the South. So you bring your food and everybody's there. And there's always a phrase that they say at these potlucks, save your fork, the best is yet to come. And meaning the dessert, right? Meaning the dessert. Well, when she was dying, she requested that she'd be buried with a fork in her coffin, in her hand. The best is yet to come, right? The marriage supper of the lamb, right? The marriage supper. There you go. I love people that love to eat. Let's pray. Father, we come before you. And Lord, we thank you for the simplicity of the cross, the simplicity of the gospel. Lord, if it was complicated, we wouldn't understand. But we thank you, Lord, that you love us. We don't know why you love us, but we know that you do, that you demonstrate it with the giving of your son. And Lord, you've given us a measure of faith to respond. We're saved by grace through faith, and that not of ourselves, it's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. And we thank you so much, Lord, for the salvation that we enjoy, the portion that's ours, that of being joint heirs with Jesus Christ. And Lord, we pray for the nation of Israel. We pray for the Jews that are scattered all over the world, that more and more, Lord, their eyes, the scales would come off, that we'd see a great revival among the Jews, Lord. We pray, Lord, more and more, that all over the world, no matter what ethnic group, male, female, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free, no matter what color, skin or whatever, we see a great revival all over the world, Lord, as we're made in your image. We pray for a great outpouring of your Holy Spirit as you bring in a harvest of souls. The fields are white unto harvest, the labors are few. Lord, use us for your kingdom and your glory. And as you pray, as we pray, if there's anybody here this morning, we pause to provide an invitation for someone that might be here, the Holy Spirit's drawn you here, and today's your day. Today's the day that you respond to God's love. For God so loved you that he gave his only begotten son, that as you respond to his love, he initiates you respond by turning from your sins, crying out to God, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, pays for your sins and washes and cleanses you of all sin. Anybody here this morning, you're coming to Christ. Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. You're calling upon Jesus. Anyone here this morning, just lift your hand up. Anyone here? Father, thank you for this period of time. Thank you for this moment, this time that we could spend together sitting at your feet. And Lord, we pray that you would continue to nourish us and fill us to overflowing with your love, with your Holy Spirit. Help us, Lord, to walk out of here, not just with head knowledge, but Lord, a greater knowledge, a greater intimacy in our walking relationship with you, a comfort, a peace that surpasses all understanding, just a blessed peace in the midst of the storms of this crazy world in which we're living. Lord, I pray that our eyes would be fixed upon Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, that you would continue to perfect that which concerns us, knowing, Lord, that you're gonna complete this work that you've begun in each of us. Lord, we're broken people in a broken world. And Lord, we thank you that you came to save us. Thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name, amen.