Romans 11_23-27： The Unfolding of the End Times
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Summary
In this episode, Pastor Ken teaches on the role of the Jews and the Gentiles in God's plan for the end of the world and the timeline of the Great Commission. God has a plan for redemption that is interdependent, interdependent and interdependent. It is a plan that is counterintuitive and counterintuitive to how we would have ever imagined it would work.
Transcript
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Today, we are in Romans 11, and we are getting fairly close to completing, I don't know what
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it is about this pulpit. There we go. I got it. Okay. Romans 11, we are continuing through
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this wonderful interconnected redemptive relationship between the Jews and the Gentiles.
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Well, there's all types of reasons because we're going to be talking about how the world is going to end
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and what the timeline of God's plan according to Scripture for Christ's return.
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We're going to talk about how we should be thinking about Israel
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and how we should be thinking about the Jews and presumption around the coven.
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There's all types of realities that are important and applicable to us as Christians.
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Now, we've seen that for the Jews' unfaithfulness, the rejection of the Messiah, that God judged them.
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He gave a covenant judgment that resulted in what I would even call reductionism.
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many were in the covenant by birth some of them were in the covenant by sacrament
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but God withheld his election his electing grace from many and I would even say from most
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we learned that God preserved only a remnant of faithful Jews during that first century
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and forward, we've seen that Paul was part of that remnant, that the disciples were part
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of that remnant, but there was not many that embraced the Messiah.
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We also learned that through that remnant, through the election of just that very little
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few, that God would use that remnant to ignite a global revival of the nations. And we call that
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the Great Commission. So this tiny little remnant of Jews, the vast majority of Israel rejects
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Christ, except this tiny little remnant. And this little remnant is sent off into the world
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to produce a global revival of the nations, which is the Greek word Gentiles.
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And billions now have come to Christ as a result of the faithfulness of that little remnant.
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We learn that this Great Commission would eventually provoke the Jews to jealousy.
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eventually as they start to see the gentiles all the nations are inheriting the blessings and the
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substance of the promises that were delivered to them but the rest of the world is inheriting
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those realities and we learn that that jealousy from the gentiles would actually result in
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a mass revival of Jews coming to Christ at the end of time. That's the basic timeline
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that we've seen here through Romans 11. This divine kind of interconnected, interdependent
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design for redemption, it should humble both of us as Jews and Gentiles. We're not Jews,
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but I'm saying is that it should humble the Jew and the Gentile. That God is working a plan
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together that honestly no man could ever come up with. This is a plan that would not birth out of
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the imagination of men. It is so counterintuitive and opposite to how we would have written the
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story. Now in the past two sermons, we've seen Paul address the issue of Gentile pride,
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presumption that we somehow have a greater grasp or claim on the mercies of God than the Jews do.
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Paul emphasized that it is not the Gentiles who support the root, but the root, the Jews,
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that support the Gentiles. That's Romans 11, 18. It's a very humbling statement. That is,
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while the Gentiles, we have covenant equality with the Jews. We're exactly the same in equality,
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but what we don't have is covenantal station in an exact manner as the Jews. So we don't have
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the exact position. They have a position of the root. We have a position that's coming as a
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blessing of that root. We know that we have equality, but we don't have, again, the exactness.
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there is a reality of spiritual ancestral honor, to some degree, gratitude for the covenant reality
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of the Jews that we have come from, that we've been grafted into. Now, that does not mean that
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we become these Jewish sympathizers and our whole world and economic and global geopolitic reality
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revolves around Israel. We know that Talmudic Judaism is wicked. It's evil. It's a rejection
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of Christ. It's idolatry and it must be condemned. But we're not to have a special animosity. We're
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to have animosity or to all types of sin and all types of idolatry. But we're not to have a special
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animosity toward the Jews, but we are to have a special pity for the Jews. And again, why do we
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have a special pity for the Jews? Because we have inherited what was promised to them.
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We should actually come, man, I feel for you. I feel, man, repent, come to Christ.
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I also believe that we should have a special hope. Now, I only say that because I believe the
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scriptures speak of a special hope. Paul says that if the rejection of the Jews brought blessings to
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the world through the Great Commission, then what greatness will come for a mass revival
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and acceptance by the Jews of Christ as Messiah? Paul says that it will be as life from the dead.
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That's in verse 15, but I actually interpreted that with many other theologians as pointing to the final resurrection.
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In other words, when the church sees a mass revival of Jews, whenever that happens,
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when we see a mass revival of Jews, we know that we're close to the end.
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and that means that i believe that christ comes post or after the millennial reign which i believe
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is happening now the millennial reign of the kingdom happened after christ was resurrected
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ascended to the throne sitting at the right hand of the father you can't have a king without a
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kingdom. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. There is certainly a kingdom now that's being built.
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How is it being built? Well, it's being built through the proclamation of the gospel. What
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is Jesus doing? He's conquering. But how is he conquering? Through conversion.
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He's conquering his enemies, who were once you, through conversion.
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You've been conquered by Christ, if you've come to Christ.
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And for that reason, I don't believe that we're at the anywhere close to the end of history.
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I could do about 75 hours on this point, but I'm just going to give you a couple points.
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Exodus 26, God promises that his blessings will extend to a thousand generations.
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His blessings will extend to a thousand generations.
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Okay, whether that number is a literal 1,000, or it's just meant to represent an innumerable number.
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Whenever that term 1,000, you know, God is the God of cattle on 1,000 hills.
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No, of course he is. He's the God of the cattle on all the hills.
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it's either going to mean innumerable meaning more than a thousand but in scripture it never
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means less than a thousand it's not going to be god is going to bless to a thousand generations
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when really it's 622 no that's not how it ever works interpreting that number in scripture
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today if we use 40 years as a generation we get that term from the old testament they wandered
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in the wilderness for 40 years that one generation passed so we get that number as a basic how the
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bible records a generation is about 40 years the math shows that we are roughly 85 generations
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away from Moses where that promise was delivered. 85 generations. We're about 50 generations from
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Jesus. So according to this perspective, which again was held by many church fathers, I'm not
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a crazy person up here, many of the great reformers, the Puritans, many of the founding
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fathers of America, and a growing number of modern theologians today, we still have a long
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way to go. A long way to go. In fact, many Christians, including myself, believe that we
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are still in what I believe in history would be considered the early church era.
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I remember five years ago, Doug Wilson telling that exact statement to me and Veronica,
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and we thought that he was maybe insane. Maybe insane.
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one friend said to me in 2 000 years people will ask who was born first john macarthur or john
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calvin that that's the kind of thinking we need to have and i know that's difficult for us to grasp
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for a generation that has been told their entire life that jesus is going to return soon
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Okay, this doctrine is called the doctrine of the imminent return of Christ.
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Now, for a doctrine to be true, it must be consistently true across all of time.
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You can't say that a doctrine was not true until the 500s or it was only true in the 300s,
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but it's not true now. No, for a doctrine to be true, it must always have been true,
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obviously within context. I understand that. So, for example, if Christ's imminent return
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is true today, it must have also been true 30 minutes after the ascension of Christ.
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So, Jesus ascends. Do you think any of the disciples are going, he can come back anytime?
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Go get the nations, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded.
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Do you think anybody's thinking, we could do this in our lifetime?
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Go into the world and make disciples of all nations.
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teaching them to obey all that Jesus commanded.
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Instead, we should hold to a doctrine of what I called fulfilled return of Christ.
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Instead of the imminent return of Christ, the fulfilled return of Christ.
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And that would emphasize that Christ's second coming happens after all prophetic events,
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including the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the mass revival of the Jews.
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Once those two things occur, then Christ will return.
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furthermore we have to recognize that the doctrine of the imminent return of christ
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has ingrained what a short-term view of the future in christians which has nearly eliminated
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the long-term investment and multi-generational thinking
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that's necessary to spread the gospel and take dominion over the culture
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in other words the imminent return of christ when you think of this doctrine
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has caused an attitude in the church that you have all witnessed that basically states
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why bother improving things if things are right about to end
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we can't take we don't have enough time to take back the public schools right
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i mean jesus is coming back probably any time now i grew up in calvary chapel that was the
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message every single month seemed to be just this recurring reality. If we don't polish brass
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on a sinking ship, this thing's going to hell in a handbasket. In fact, you should pray faster that
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it gets worse quicker because that means Jesus is coming sooner. Evangelism becomes this invitation
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to invite somebody to come to the losing team. Come lose with us. Let's wait for Jesus to come
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back. Yeah, we can engage, but because we don't have much time, we can't build anything. The
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gospel is all that counts. Let's just evangelize and evangelize and evangelize and do nothing else.
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Let's not build any institutions. Let's not build anything long-term. Let's not focus on multiple
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generations because you know what? Jesus is going to come back. In fact, maybe you don't even want
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to get married. You don't even want to have kids because the world's getting worse.
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are no longer here, who admitted that they did not have children because of that eschatology.
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They repented of it on their own, realized it was wrong, and became post-millennial.
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Why play hard if you know you're going to lose?
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this is not how the historic church thought about history
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also by the way this is not how the roman catholic church even thinks about history
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you know the roman catholic church i believe misses the gospel but what they do get right
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Now, I'm not saying that this is a Roman Catholic doctrine.
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This is actually what I would call a Puritan doctrine.
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It was held by many people, all Christians throughout time.
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is how for centuries, Christians had no problem
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The Cologne Cathedral, you guys ever seen a picture of the Cologne Cathedral?
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It's one of the most magnificent buildings on earth.
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The Cologne Cathedral that's in Germany took 632 years to build.
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It was started in 1248 and it finished in 1880.
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You don't begin projects that span centuries if you believe in the imminent return of Christ.
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Do you understand that connection and correlation?
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Is that if you think that it's just going to get worse and that Christ is coming back soon,
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you will never think long term about anything but when you think that you're actually building the
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kingdom through the church the proclamation of the gospel and that christ isn't coming back for
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possibly thousands of years you have no problem taking on a long view of history multi-generational
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it's why again we build churches today that basically after 100 years need to be demolished
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and rebuilt? Why don't we just build it out of rock? The ones that are, there's buildings in
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Europe that are still there. It's actually, honestly, financially cheaper to just build it
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that way than tearing it down every hundred years and rebuilding it. But we don't think that way
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anymore. If you've gone to Europe and you see all the beautiful architecture and all the beautiful,
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And here, everything is disposable and microwavable and, you know, eliminated quickly.
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In fact, if we want the world that they had, we have to believe what they believed.
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We are so selfish that we can't even think long-term to build something that I won't actually experience,
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but actually will be a blessing to my great-grandchildren.
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we have bumper stickers that have the elderly saying spending my children's inheritance
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it's so gross we're not thinking down at all because we're so busy thinking of ourselves
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the idea of the imminent return of christ it really only gained traction in the 1800s try to
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go find the imminent return of Christ, use AI. You don't even need like a research assistant
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anymore. Go ask AI about the history, which I did, of the imminent return of Christ.
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It was really only gaining traction under the father of dispensationalism, John Nelson Darby,
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mid-1800s. And since then, there have been hundreds of failed predictions on the return
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of Christ. All of these denominations that are what I would say cults that really started in the
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late 1800s were really a result of all this predictionism that came out of the misinterpretation
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of the end times. In fact, using AI, I found that prior to the 1800s, there were only about 20 to 30
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documented predictions of the return of Christ. So you're talking 1800 years, and you have about
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20 to 30 documented predictions of the return of Christ. That's about 1.3 predictions per century.
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Okay, 1.3 predictions per century. After the 1800s, there's nearly 300 documented predictions
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from the return of Christ. That's 150 predictions per century. Do you know how much money has been
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made and how much just nasty charlatanism that has happened from predicting the return of Christ?
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instead of just looking back at what church history has always believed.
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Now, again, yeah, there are always people that had a premillennial view,
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but the vast majority of Christians throughout church history
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really held to an amillennial view or a postmillennial view,
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which is really very similar and had a long view of history.
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In other words, we need to return to a long view of history.
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we need to see how the great commission where god will save the nations
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through the proclamation of the gospel has millennia to go let me give you some more data
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well actually let me just say one other thing this should change the way you live
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instead of buying something that's from ikea that's going to fall apart in you know two years
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this should change the type of dinner table that you buy for your family
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it should change the type of art that you put on your walls it should change the type of
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church building that we save for you know just uh two weeks ago me and veronica had the
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blessing of going to moscow idaho i might get the exact details of this wrong but
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i have the general details about 40 years ago they started saving for a building
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as a church and they met in a gymnasium for a school for about 40 years give or take
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and they saved because they wanted to build a stone cathedral
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and they made a commitment to not building or starting the building until they could basically
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pay for it cash there's a book that he wrote about this process called let the stones cry out
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and it's a biblical defense for architecture for churches and this is a protestant church by the
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way and we went three weeks ago or two weeks ago up to moscow idaho and i believe this sunday
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is the very first sunday that they are gathering in the first portion of that cathedral
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they are building it into three sections and the first section is finished
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and it's an amazing thing to see that Doug had this vision 40 years ago the whole thing may not
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be finished before he dies he's 73 I don't know how many years they have left to save and to spend
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but there's something that needs to change in the way we think about the church and our lives
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having a long view of history. How does this connect? Well, actually, I want to say one last
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thing. I want you to think about how you can bless future generations of Christians today.
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I love that Augustine wrote down his thoughts. I don't know if he was aware
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I would be referencing his material for my sermons.
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But what a blessing it is that he wrote those things down.
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What can you do today that would bless your generations,
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that would bless the church 500 years from today?
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habakkuk 2 14 is a prophecy about how the world will be prior to the return of christ this is a
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prophecy about how the world will be prior to the return of christ listen to this habakkuk 2 14
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for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the lord as the waters cover the sea
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Are we there yet? Not yet. Incredible progress. Incredible progress going from a very small group
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of Jews to, you know, 36% of the population of the world. Incredible. Incredible. But I do believe
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in about 2,000 years that it's going to be 50% of the world will be professing Christ. And maybe
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in 3,000 or 4,000 years, 60% or 70% will be professed. Now, are all of them going to be
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converted and genuine believers? No. The reality is that we're going to have a Christianized world
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because Christ doesn't fail at what he is doing.
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One day, when this prophecy is fulfilled, we can expect it to provoke the stubborn hearts
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of the Jews to jealousy. Think about this for a second. Think about four or eight thousand years
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from today, and you have a Christianized world. It's more unified in the church than it ever has
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been. And think about the Jews still not coming to Christ. Think about the drama of the story
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are filled with people proclaiming Christ as Messiah
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That's basically the narrative that you get from Romans 11.
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Now last week we reflected on Paul's warning to the Gentiles
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to guard against covenant pride and presumption.
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it reminded us that just because we're baptized, just because we pray prayers, just because we go
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to church doesn't mean that we're saved. Just because you're in the covenant does not mean
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that you're of the covenant. Covenant inclusion, being a part of the people of God, does not
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necessarily mean that you've been born again. The true measure of salvation, the only metric
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that we can use is that we have a saving faith, a faith that rests solely upon the righteousness
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of Christ, not thinking that we are good, not believing that we have any merit of our own,
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but that we are trusting solely and completely on Christ alone. Furthermore, Paul warns that
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if God was willing to cut off an entire generation of his own people, the Jews, for their unbelief,
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for these people that had some degree of a claim upon his mercies,
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that we should not be prideful in assuming that God will not cut off our own Gentile generations
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for our unbelief, for our unfaithfulness, who do not have any claim upon his mercies.
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As I said last week, this is relevant and clear that it has occurred to the American church.
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Compared to a century ago, if you just go back to, you know, the late 1800s, early 1900s,
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we are living in a remnant generation. There are significantly less Christians today than there
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were then. We have significantly less penetration and influence in the culture today than we did
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then. The church's unfaithfulness, this kind of silence toward wickedness, this cowardice
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towards speaking the truth and proclaiming the gospel and standing for righteousness,
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there has been a consequence for that. You know, we have abortion that occurred in 1973. We have
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homosexuality being passed in a marital act in 2016, transgenderism that has been running
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rampant everywhere and even into our children's TV shows. These are all clear signs of a covenant
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judgment upon America. Now, if we desire to bless our children and our grandchildren and to
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create a more Christianized and holy and righteous nation. We have to be willing
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to stand for the gospel in ways that previous generations did not. We have to be willing to
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say and to do what previous generations were not willing to say or do. The reason that we have to
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speak out against homosexuality or against transgenderism or against feminism or against
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abortion or against pornography is because we've had too many generations of pastors
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Today, we're going to see in this passage of Scripture, Paul shift from his call,
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from Gentile humility to not be prideful against the Jews, to not presume on covenant
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rights as a Gentile people, he's going to shift his focus and we're going to return to the rationale
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for a future Jewish revival. So if you look down in your Bibles, you'll see from 11 to 16,
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he basically gives three reasons to support this Jewish revival in the future. He's talking about
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the possibility of this Jewish revival. He then kind of digresses into this discussion around
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Gentile pride and presumption, which we've been dealing with for the last couple weeks.
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And now he's returning for a concluding thought, giving the fourth point. And so if the third point
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or the first three points were jealousy leading to Jewish salvation, that was kind of point number
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one. And then the second is that greater blessing will come from Jewish fulfillment, or the Jews
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coming to Christ. The third is Jewish reconciliation will bring about resurrection, which you guys
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know that I spoke about is resurrection from the dead, which speaks to the last times the end of
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history. This fourth point, and I believe it's a concluding point, is really, I've titled it,
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is God's ability to restore the Jews. And so I want you to look at this, especially this theme,
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because this is a theme that's greater than this passage of Scripture. It's really about God's
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power to take what is dead and bring it back to life. It's really trying to demonstrate the
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reality that God is sovereign over salvation. He is the one who does the cutting off and the
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grafting in. He is the one who is the decisive action for salvation for the Jew and the Gentile.
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And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able
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to graft them in again. So remember, it's always important to identify the object of a pronoun,
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so that we know the subject in context of your passage of Scripture. Again, we are smart Bible
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interpreters. That means that we are not going to be 10 or 20 or 15 years, whatever it is,
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into understanding our Bibles and not knowing how to interpret grammar. Pastors, in my opinion,
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really are professional interpreters. We are needing to have a strong command of language.
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We need to understand that recognizing pronouns and identifying who is really the subject in the context.
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So the they in 23, it says, and they also, the they in 23 is speaking to the current and future unbelieving Jews.
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Now the phrase, quote, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in.
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This can be kind of a stumbling block to a Calvinist soteriology, understanding salvation.
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Because it seems like Paul is putting emphasis on human will.
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It can sound like Paul is saying, if they choose Christ, if they would stop their unbelief and they would choose Christ, then God will graft them in.
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Now, I'm not saying that the condition is not real.
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I'm simply saying that according to the doctrine of salvation that Paul has been talking about from chapter 8, 9, 10, and now 11,
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that God meets the condition, which is faith, by gifting that faith to us.
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It is not a condition met by man, but by man through the power of God, by the gift of faith.
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Again, Paul is demonstrating, again, the sovereign nature of salvation.
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Just as he took the spiritually dead, cut off branches from the wild olive trees and grafted them in.
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He can also take off or take those branches that he has cut off from Jewish descent
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and restore them to life and graft them back in again.
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quote, in salvation, the breaking off and grafting in
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In both cases, whether cutting off or grafting in, it is God who performs the act.
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His mercy alone determines the inclusion or the re-inclusion of those once cut off, end quote.
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This is basically the argument of the next verse.
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I'm not going to offer any commentary on it because it's really self-explanatory.
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For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree,
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how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted back into their own tree?
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Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers.
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A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles come in.
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It says, brothers, a partial hardening has come upon Israel for how long?
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Until the fullness of the Gentiles come in.
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So, if the previous verses, 11 through 16, speaking on this future revival, spoke to the probability of a Jewish future revival,
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this verse really speaks to the inevitability, the certainty.
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pride often comes from ignorance of God's will and by revelation of scripture we get to learn
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these things that prior to Paul writing this or the gospels being recorded nobody understood or
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knew why the vast majority of the Jews rejected Christ it was a mystery but Paul in Romans 11
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and has revealed that mystery, that there was a purpose in the rejection of the Messiah,
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that God will work and cause all things to work together for good,
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and that their rejection meant the Great Commission for the world,
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and the Great Commission for the world would draw jealousy to the Jews,
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leading to a revival of the Jews in the future and the end of history.
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But this was not information that was known until these mysteries were revealed.
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Robert Haldane, he breaks this mystery into two parts.
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He says, the first mystery was that, quote, a partial blindness had come upon ethnic Israel, leaving only a remnant.
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Wait, you're saying that the Messiah came and there was a partial hardening and the reason the vast majority of the Jews rejected Christ is because they were made blind by God?
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The second mystery is that this blindness will continue until the fullness of the Gentiles come in.
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Until the fullness of the Gentiles have come in.
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as i've said before we we should not expect the return of christ until the great commission has
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been fulfilled and we should not expect the great commission to fail because the great commission
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is carried out by the body of Christ, and the body is only operating by the power and the authority
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of the head, which is Christ. And so is it possible for the body to fail and the head win?
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No. No, we rise and we fall together. We are one, united together.
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the promise of Jesus that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.
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We have every possible reason that the Great Commission will be fulfilled
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because it's done by the power and authority of Christ.
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All authority has been given to him in heaven and on earth.
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We have no reason to doubt the success of the Great Commission.
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As of 2024, approximately 3.4 billion people, about 42% of the world, live in unreached people groups with little to no access to the gospel.
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In other words, if you think about Habakkuk's prophecy in 2.14,
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for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the
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sea we are not there yet we're not there yet and when you think about the judgments from the
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covenant judgments of God on nations for their unfaithfulness and the kind of ebb and flow of
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God redeeming his elect through time this could be millennia before we start to see
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Until then, until that time, a partial hardening will remain on the Jews of ethnic Israel.
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Jesus actually confirms this in Luke 21-24. He's giving a prophecy about the destruction of
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Jerusalem, but he's also giving a little bit of an insight to this timeline, this eschatological
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timeline of the Gentiles and the Jews and how they relate with one another. It says,
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quote, they will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations,
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and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, speaking of 70 AD.
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But then it says this, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, end quote.
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this is an incredible statement by Jesus it also again this is not a doctrine of Paul this is
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really a doctrine of Christ that is being reiterated by Paul in verse 26 Paul offers
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a greater clarity on this passage of scripture to support this claim he says
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As it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion.
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He will banish ungodliness from Jacob, and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins, end quote.
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I mean, I'm talking a huge debate over the word all in verse 26.
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Now, the context is speaking specifically of ethnic Israel.
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And so it's easy to, there's multiple perspectives.
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Is Paul talking about all Israel, meaning every single Jew that is alive at the time that the Gentiles have fully come in?
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Is that all, everybody that's a part of the nation of Israel or everybody that's of Jewish descent?
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Or does it speak of all as the, all of the true Israel, all of the children of Israel
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from Abraham by faith, the Jew and Gentile, will all of them be saved?
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And honestly, I look to, I look to many commentaries.
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What I believe Paul is specifically speaking to is ethnic Israel, though he oscillates
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between the spiritual Israel and the geographic Israel, I really do believe that I lean towards
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the former in the fact that when Christ has brought in all of the Gentiles and we provoke
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the nation of Israel or the people of Israel, the Jews, to jealousy and God grants that mercy
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I believe that every one of them will be saved.
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Now, I can't say that with complete authority, but the text does, and in this way, all Israel will be saved.
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I landed there because in Matthew 19.26, Jesus says,
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With man, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.
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The salvation of an entire nation, all within, say, one generation, sounds impossible, but it's also what makes it sound like God.
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And what I mean by that is that, I'll share a quote from the early church.
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This gentleman says, quote, I believe that Christ died for me because it's incredible.
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I believe that he rose from the dead because it's impossible.
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In other words, the very incredibility, the very impossibility is what makes it sound more divine or divinity.
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It's those real things that you go, I can't believe that God can do that.
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And that's the very reason why I believe that God did that.
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And when someone asks me, how can you believe in a God that created everything in six days?
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i wouldn't want a god that can't raise the dead or speak galaxies into existence or or you know
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change uh the outcomes of history and wars and kings in fact scripture tells me that god does
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all of these things and it's the very thing that actually makes me have reverence and awe in the
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glory of God. So if I could sum up this sermon, I would say we need a biblical view of redemptive
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history. We need to view history, how the Bible views history and that God has taken this tiny
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remnant caused a mass revival of billions of Gentiles in the Great Commission that will one
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day provoke a tiny nation to return to their Messiah. By God's providence and plan, the nation
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will come and the resurrection of the dead will follow at the end of history.
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we need to see that God is sovereign over salvation
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we need to learn to remain faithful for the sake of our generations
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we need to extend our view of history so that we start to see things in centuries and not in
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decades we need to teach our children about multi-generationalism
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and most of all we need to get to work yes all of our work needs to be done in faith
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but we need to do something we need to be faithful and build institutions and families
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engage the culture proclaim the gospel christianize these places to the glory of god
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Father, we thank you, Lord, for this long view of history,
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Lord, we ask that you would bless us with wisdom
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on how to apply these thoughts around the Great Commission