The Church and the Jewish People Part 6: God's Promises

Welcome friends to the Line of Fire broadcast. Michael Brown delighted to be with you here on the front lines where we are all in the line of fire together. I'm here as always to equip you, to empower you, to infuse you with faith and truth and courage.

Jesus Yeshua our Lord and Savior has risen from the dead and in him we too overcome. We are focusing all this month on the subject of Israel and the Jewish people. Why do we say that Israel today is connected to biblical prophecy? Why is the Gospel to the Jew first? In what sense did Paul say that one day all Israel will be saved? Why should this matter to you as a follower of Jesus?

Why is the State of Israel and Israel's salvation something that should concern every follower of Jesus? We will help unpack these things for you, give you insight and ground everything in the Word of God. Another reminder we are putting together a really exciting frontline newsletter for the month of February. We'll even give you testimonies from the Gospel being preached in mosques in the Middle East.

I kid you not. So make sure you're getting our frontline newsletter. If you're not getting our emails right now go to TheLineOfFire.org.

TheLineOfFire.org and sign up today. You'll find it right on the home page. The textbook we're using along with Scripture this month, Our Hands Are Stained with Blood, The Tragic Story of the Church and the Jewish People. We'll be unpacking more of the contents of that over these weeks as well and let you know later in the show how you can get your own copy of this book.

In many ways the most important book I've ever written. Last week we talked about the Jewish roots of the faith. We talked about our Savior Yeshua, his mother Miriam, his disciples Yohanan and Shimon and Yehuda and others. We talked about the letter of Jacob better known as James. We talked about the letter of Judah better known as Jude.

And we talked about how important it is to to connect with the Jewish roots of our faith because our Savior our Messiah himself is a Jew. Today I want to give you another reason why Israel's salvation should matter to you and namely this God keeps his promises. God keeps his promises. If God could break his word to Israel he could break his word to the church. If in fact he gave unconditional promises to Israel. If it's not just a matter of the conditional promises of the Sinai covenant if you obey you'll be blessed if you disobey you'll be cursed. If he also gave unconditional promises that he would bless Israel or use Israel to bless the world. If he gave those promises if he can take them back if he can change them then he can change his promises to the church. He can take back his promises to you but conversely and this is what should encourage you if despite Israel's sin and failure despite the Jewish people rejecting Jesus as the Messiah my own people rejecting Yeshua as the Messiah if despite this God has still preserved us as a people if despite our sin as a nation God has still preserved us and still brought us back to the land as he promised and as he has protected us from extermination through the centuries we have been disciplined yes we've come under divine judgment yes but in the midst of it all God has protected us and preserved us if he has done that for Israel despite Israel's sin how much more can he be counted on trusted to keep his promises to his people who are chosen and elect in Jesus Yeshua how much more can those who make up the ecclesia the messianic congregation the church put their trust in the faithfulness of God put another way God's faithfulness to Israel is shouting to you and me as followers of Jesus Yeshua God is shouting I will be faithful to you as well in fact all the more so because the promises are ratified through the Messiah so let me let me give you an example of some of the promises that God has made he is trustworthy let's start in the book of Jeremiah chapter 31 beginning in verse 35 now why is that significant 31 35 because chapter 31 verses 31 to 34 contain the promises of the new covenant God's saying I'm making a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah not like the Sinai covenant which they broke that was a covenant written on stone giving the requirements to Israel but they fell short now I'm going to write the requirements on their heart and they will do the will of God and I'll forgive their sin and remember it no more this is the new covenant that was instituted by Yeshua at the last supper and then when he died on the cross and it is this new covenant to Israel and Judah that has now been extended to the whole world through the Messiah but please grasp this now the new covenant did not say that there would be a different people it didn't say that there would be a different Israel and Judah rather through the new covenant with Israel and Judah the mercy of God goes to the whole world so lest anyone get the notion that God was replacing Israel that God was changing who Israel was that Israel no longer meant the physical descendants of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and those who who joined like Ruth who converted to follow the God of Israel that no longer will Israel mean this rather Israel will mean all believers from all around the world and that the the the physical descendants of Abraham will just be a small little remnant no no God's making clear don't anyone mistake this don't anyone get this wrong Israel is still Israel and listen to what God says thus says the Lord if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below can be explored then I will cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done declares the Lord wow so let's let's keep reading keep reading now here's here's what comes next Jeremiah chapter 31 beginning in verse 35 if let me read this again if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below can be explored then will I cast off all the offspring of Israel for all they have done in fact that's the end of what was spoken there that's the end of the promise and I want to pick it up actually a little bit earlier thus says the Lord who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night who stirs up the seas that its waves roar the Lord of hosts is his name if this fixed order departs from before me declares the Lord then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever so as long as the sun is in the sky the sun moon and stars are so as long as the sea is still roaring as long as this natural order is still there God's saying I will never cast off Israel Israel will never cease to be a nation before me I mean that is absolutely remarkable and then if you say well what what about if Israel sins this is the Lord if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below can be explored then while I cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done declares the Lord there is an unconditional promise from God saying no matter what Israel does I will preserve Israel as a people you say yeah but Israel has now changed in meaning well then the whole promise goes out the window it's like I say to you let's say you are the Smith family and I say to the Smith family no matter what you do as as long as the earth endures I will have a permanent scholarship for all of your children grandchildren great grandchildren to go to the college of your choice that is an unconditional promise I am making no matter what you do and then the Smith family does something I don't like and I say the Jones family has now become the Smith family well now I just lied I just twisted everything when you say yeah well God has preserved Israel but Israel is now the church that everything just changed everything just changed you say but Dr Brown where do you get the idea that the promises were unconditional well first it says so here no matter what I won't cast them off for everything they've done that's number one I'm not going to totally destroy them number two is this let's go back to Genesis 15 God makes a covenant with Abraham they're still called Abram at that point and and Abram is told to take sacrificial pieces and to to cut them up and to lay them out now why was this done it's mentioned also in the Bible in Jeremiah 34 passing between the pieces this was an ancient covenantal right in in in the ancient world we have it in in different treaties evidence of it so two kings are making a treaty right they've gone to war with each other they now make a treaty for there to be peace between them so they take some sacrificial animals they cut them in half and they put one half on one side and one half on the other side with a path that they can walk through in between would you say that's a pretty bloody and gory picture absolutely then they both walk through between the pieces and they say may the gods because these are you know pagan peoples may the gods do thus and such does may the gods make us like these bloody pieces here if we violate the terms of the agreement both parties walk through what happens in Genesis 15 God puts Abram to sleep he falls into a deep sleep and a blazing lamp passes through the pieces in other words representing God who was a consuming fire God himself passes through the pieces and says I am making an everlasting covenant with you I am giving you the land of Canaan that that's that's the promise from God and only God passes through the pieces while Abram sleeps it's an unconditional covenant Israel is in the land because God willed it under the Sinai covenant God would exile Israel for sin but at any moment God can choose to bring them back because it's his unconditional covenant I want to read one more passage from Jeremiah and then I want to encourage you with the promises of God we've got a lot more scripture to look at as well Jeremiah chapter 33 beginning in verse 19 the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah thus says the Lord if you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night so that day and night will not come at their appointed times then also my covenant with David my servant may be broken so that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne and my covenant with the Levitical priest my ministers as the host of heaven cannot be numbered and the sands of the sea cannot be measured so I will multiply the offspring of David my servant and the Levitical priest who ministered to me now it keeps going the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah have you not observed that these people are saying the Lord has rejected the two clans that he chose well this is this is an old accusation thus they have despised my people so that they no longer regard them as a nation in their sight thus says the Lord if I have not established my covenant with day and night and the fixed order of heaven and earth then I will reject the offspring of Jacob and David my servant and will not choose one of his offspring to rule over the offspring of Abraham Isaac and Jacob for I will restore their fortunes and will have mercy on that wow is the promise to David standing through Yeshua through Jesus the Messiah yes in the same way the promise to Israel stands friends this is a picture of the faithfulness of God okay I've got an important announcement for you and I will be right back I'm Paul Burnett a board-certified doctor of holistic health I have never met anyone deficient in caffeine or sugar but I have met many people deficient in energy supporting vitamin b12 unlike other oral b12 supplements Alfred Libby's slow dissolve super b12 is fast 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dispel lies with truth to overcome evil with good that's how we fight the weapons that we have are spiritual weapons but we see god's faithfulness in the natural that gives us encouragement for his faithfulness in the spiritual if you're not getting my emails that means you're not getting my equipping edifying eye opening frontline newsletter yeah i was going to mention one of the features hebrew word of the month that's part of the features as well make sure you sign up now go to the line of fire.org it's absolutely free tell your friends about it frontline newsletter next edition will be coming out in just a couple of weeks in mid february okay so back to our our premise here today that the promises of god to israel should be meaningful to you because it tells you that god can be trusted in other words it's not just spiritual it's not just abstract it's not just something out there that we can debate theologically you know we're talking about in the physical natural realm the world in which we live yes here and now today you see the faithfulness of god to israel you see how the nations of the world hate israel you see the rising tide of anti-semitism you can see something irrational in the hatred of the jewish people we're going to unpack that in in future shows this month you'll find it incredibly eye-opening where we show you the demonic nature of anti-semitism i mean i mean demonstrated to you i've done it on on college campuses university campuses jail columbia years ago and no one faculty students no one could argue against my thesis in an effective way no one had a better answer than that anti-semitism was was demonic a demonic attack to they want to wipe out the jewish people oh yeah we'll get into all that but you see the battle raging but in the midst of it the faithfulness of god the faithfulness of god god saying i will keep you i will preserve you you look at the natural state of israel you look at the the jewish people around the world and you see in the midst of the trials the tests the attacks wow god has kept us god has preserved us he told the prophet jeremiah chapters 30 and chapter 31 he said i'll make an end of all the nations where i scatter you but i won't make an end of you i'll discipline you but but i won't make an end of you and you think okay what happened to israel what happened to babylonia what happened to ancient rome ancient gree i mean they're all gone the empires were gone and the jewish people scattered among them and yet the jewish people were preserved i mean how how in the world can that be if not for the promises of god all right just a few more promises for you let's see let's go over to the book of isaiah and we'll go to chapter 49 verses 14 to 16 isaiah 49 14 to 16 but zion said the lord has forsaken me my lord has forgotten me i mean that's how the jewish people felt in babylonian exile and here's god's response can a woman forget her nursing child that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb now we would say no surely not but god says no even these may forget yet i will not forget you hear those words again god asking the question can a woman forget her nursing child that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb yeah he says god says even these may forget yet i will not forget you behold i have engraved you on the palms of my hands your walls are continually before me so we can take this as a spiritual promise to us directly that god's saying i will never forsake you i'll never leave you but here's what we need to do first let's remember this was a promise that god gave to the jewish people i will not forget you a nursing mother may stop having compassion on her own child but i will never stop having compassion on you i've engraved you on the palms of my hands your walls are continually before me speaking about the walls of the city of jerusalem that god always sees this and remembers this now you can say how much more faithful will he be to me as someone beloved in his son if we've seen this level of faithfulness to sinful israel how much more can we be assured of god's faithfulness to us in his son yeshua and then we know his calling to live holy lies and godly lies we also know we've fallen short what about our failings what about where we fall in short we come back to god for mercy will he have mercy well did he have mercy on israel yes then he'll have mercy on us all the more be encouraged but if god could forsake israel if god could say well strike one strike two strike three you're out that's what some people teach today in the body well-meaning teachers teachers who love god love his word they say that that god's finished with israel as a nation in the year 70 that that was strike three they rejected jesus the messiah god brought judgment on the temple in jerusalem scattered the jewish people and that's it forever and that's what he did forever individual jews can be saved but the purposes of god through the nation of israel are now done and they'll be fulfilled exclusively through the the church that's completely bogus scripturally it's completely bogus scripturally and the fact is if god scattered then he regathered if he destroyed he's rebuilt that's reality man didn't do that god did that through imperfect human beings all right another promise for you we looked at this a little bit at the end of the last week about the heart of god in terms of of his heart for israel paul's broken heart isaiah 62 isaiah 62 verses six and seven on your walls oh jerusalem i have set watchmen all the day and all the night they shall never be silent you who put the lord in remembrance take no rest and give him no rest until he establishes jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth so this call remains you have to say well now jerusalem is now the heavenly jerusalem where jerusalem represents the church then these words can just be changed someone can now come along with the the newest testament and say well everything that was in the new testament about jesus death on the cross and all these promises no that's just he didn't really die on the cross it's all spiritually understood we say no we reject that that's nonsense you can't just go and change it if a later revelation comes and changes the prior revelation then it's not true that's the whole way that god could test the false prophets that that initially you have the torah and if a prophet comes along and says follow other gods and works a miracle and brings a prophetic word that happens you reject what that person says you reject it as totally false why because it violates the written word so also today if someone comes and says well i am the messiah or i am jesus or paul was wrong no we have the word we reject them so anything that changes the meanings of the words so that they no longer mean what they originally meant you throw that out god's promises remain true and in the next broadcast we're going to go into psalm 105 and we're going to see how his promises tie in with the land of israel today i want to say it once more the fact that god has kept his promises to israel gives you the absolute assurance as a follower of jesus yeshua he will keep his promises to you rest in it stake your life on it it's true this is dr michael brown thanks so much for tuning in just a reminder that we are listener supported if we have been a blessing to you if you're being enriched in the word and prayer in your own walk with god through this broadcast then stand with us so that we can reach many many more and bless many many more together friends we're making a difference so go to the line of fire.org the line of fire.org and click donate