Age of the Gentiles (Part B)

Satan is directly standing to oppose the will of God on the Jewish people. He's against the church, too.

Make no mistake. He's got enough resources to hate the church with equal enthusiasm. We know these things.

You come across somebody who is struggling in life on any level. It's spiritual. It's always a spiritual war. The weapons of the church. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God, casting down arguments of strongholds that exalt themselves against the Lord.

You hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. And now here's Pastor Rick beginning in the book of Acts chapter 15, and then he'll continue into Romans chapter 11 on this edition of Cross Reference Radio. Thus refers to the spiritual blessing that God put upon the Gentiles. Peter and Paul and James all attest to this. Acts chapter 15, Peter said God made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.

And then later when Paul is in Rome and he's preaching to the Jews and they reject him, he said, Therefore, let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will hear it. We have been watching this in history, this transition from the Jews to the Gentiles, but it will flip back, but we shouldn't be here for that. So the fullness of the Gentiles is the church age versus the times of the Gentiles, which they do belong together, but the times of the Gentiles precedes the fullness of the Gentiles to the church by 500 years.

But both are still in effect. We're still in the times of the Gentiles. The Jews do not have absolute control as it may appear.

They don't. And then the church, the fullness of the Gentiles continues until the rapture of the church. The times of the Gentiles will continue, but not the fullness. When the church saves its last soul, there's no more use for the church she's taken out. Antichrist then comes into power. Once the church saves its last soul, maybe you can get saved.

We can all get out of here. That's the idea. The apostate church will remain, and it will be more Christless than ever. So when the rapture comes, not all those who are churchgoers will go with the Lord, just the born again, those who pursue obedience according to his word. Then God will again begin to bless souls through Israel, the two witnesses, the 144,000s of Jewish evangelists preaching God's word. The Jews will evangelize Gentiles and Jews also. But for now, the church is the light of Christ, not the Jews as a people. There are Jews who are Christians that are in part of the times of the Gentiles. They're part of the church. There is also a fullness of Israel that he mentioned in verse 12.

So there is going to be a completion of things. There's a plan that God has, and he is carrying it out. Once upon a time, if God had anything to say, he said it through a Jew, with the exception of Job. If God spoke to men, he spoke in Hebrew.

Very rare exceptions to that. There are some in the book of Ezra, for example. After Pentecost, God began to speak in Greek through his servants, a Gentile language, because now we're in the times of the Gentile, which is the time of the fullness of the Gentiles, which is the church age. Past 2,000 years, primarily, if a Jew wanted to know their Messiah, they had to come through the Gentile church. Even if a Jew saves a Jew, there's this great influence of the Gentile believer, because who preserved the New Testament? Who publishes the New Testament? Whose commentaries are they reading to learn more about their own Messiah? This is not against the Jew.

This is just how things are. Verse 26, he continues, and so all Israel will be saved as it is written. The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. Yeah, after the times of the Gentile, this will take place, not in the church age.

All Israel here does not refer to all the Jews that have ever lived. Many of those Jews are judged and doomed. Only those Jews who, this is referring to, those Jews who are alive at the end of the Great Tribulation period, they will all be saved.

Jeremiah is one of the main Old Testament sources for that statement that Paul is making. So there are three aspects of Christ's second coming. The rapture of the church, the judgment of the nations, the Great Tribulation period, and Israel's Deliverer, the return of Christ. So when Paul says in verse 26, so all Israel will be saved, he's talking about the return of Christ, and he says, as it is written, which is the New Testament, the New Testament way of saying, thus says the Lord. The majority of Jews will perish in the Great Tribulation period.

We think it's bad now, it's going to get worse for them, because they're going to buy into Antichrist. And at the return of Christ, the surviving remnant will be converted. Zechariah 12, verses 10 through 14. And so all Israel will be saved. A scriptural fact. The Deliverer, he says here in verse 26, will come out of Zion and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. Well that confirms, verse 25, all Israel being saved.

This now is the millennial age. And all the Jews will be believers then. Paul is quoting Isaiah 59, verses 20 through 21, plus some other parts of scripture.

He's just rattling them off. Isaiah 59, verse 20, the Redeemer will come to Zion, Isaiah speaking, God through him, and to those who turn from transgression. And Jacob says, Yahweh, as for me, says Yahweh, this is my covenant with them.

My spirit who is upon you and my words, which I put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants. His descendants says, Yahweh, from this time and forevermore. All Israel will be saved. And the Deliverer here, of course, that comes out of Zion, Zion being Jerusalem, is Jesus. And when he says to turn, to those who turn from transgression, and Jacob, Jacob is the promised land. So you have Jerusalem, you have the promised land, you have restoration. Isaiah 45, verse 17, but Israel shall be saved by Yahweh with an everlasting salvation.

You shall not be ashamed or disgraced forever and ever. Don't listen to anybody that tells you that somehow the church has replaced Israel completely and God is done with ethnic Israel. He is not. He is most certainly not, and we're seeing it right in front of us today.

But there is a process. Isaiah 45, verse 25, in Yahweh all the descendants of Israel shall be justified and shall glory. Isaiah 60, verse 20, all your people shall all be righteous, they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified.

Well, we're watching this happen. As I mentioned, God has put them back in their land and God has directed the Gentiles, whether they know it or not. Many times the Gentiles have helped the Jews and also have hurt the Jews, but still, they are there because God has used Gentiles. Look, if the United States did not send those carrier groups to the Mediterranean, the sending of them was to say to all the enemies of Israel, watch your step, you can go, but so far you cannot take this land. What would happen if we didn't send any reinforcements there, if we didn't have the shadow of the big stick?

Well, the Ruskies, the Chicoms, the Chinese communists, they would have all descended upon Israel. Well, it's going to happen that way at Armageddon, but this ain't Armageddon yet because the church still has work. As difficult as that work is, people are still getting saved, Christians are still being built up. John the Baptist, the Bible says, saw Jesus coming toward him and said, behold the Lamb of God. He said, look, there's the Lamb of God, John chapter 1 verse 29.

That could not be said of anyone else in human history, past, present, or future. It only applies to Christ. In a single sentence, John the Baptist united the Old Testament and the New Testament before there was a New Testament.

The sacrificial lamb of the Old Testament, the deliverer out of Zion, and the blood of the new covenant, all wrapped into the Lamb of God, the Savior. And so coming back to this 25th verse by evoking the name Jacob, what Paul is marking for us is the unchanging distinction between the ethnic Gentile and the ethnic Jew. And he is saying the ethnic Jew remains. The Gentiles will too.

But with all the attempts to wipe them off the map to complete genocide against the Jewish people, all those attempts have failed. Zion, Jerusalem, Jacob, God's people, Jesus is also the deliverer of the Gentiles, not just the Jews. 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, wait for his Son from heaven whom he has raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. 1 Thessalonians again, in the context of the rapture of the church, chapter 5 verse 9, for God did not appoint us to wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. And then he says comfort one another with these words. Paul is saying we're going to be raptured out of here.

And the twinkling of an eye will be removed. And then the great tribulation period comes in for seven years. We're always seven years away from Christ's return because the rapture, the seven year period, the return of Christ.

The three and a half years of those seven years will be the most intense. Jesus said such as the world has never seen were it not for the elect's sake, which is Israel, those days would be shortened or else they would be wiped out. Verse 27, for this is my covenant with them, that is Jacob, when I take away their sins. None of this is difficult to understand, at least I don't think.

So then what am I doing up here? There are too many details concerning Israel to ever count them. There are too many verses in the Old Testament and New that support this teaching.

Daniel 12 one, Isaiah 4 three, and the list goes on. Israel is predestined to be saved, to be restored. They will again have their throne in Jerusalem and Christ will sit upon it. They will again have their tabernacle in Jerusalem as Ezekiel the prophet has said.

They will again be the light of Christ in the world. Verse 28, concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. Well this part here concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sake.

The non born again Jews that is. The ones that were hostile against the gospel. Remember they hunted Paul. They took a vow to kill Paul. They were totally invested in destroying the gospel of Christ. And so as far as the gospel is concerned, they're enemies of the gospel. And to this day there's a hostility in Israel against the preaching of the gospel, that Christ is Messiah. So Paul is saying here concerning the gospel, Israel is for now viewed as an enemy.

Opposition to the preaching of Jesus Christ. He says but concerning the election. Now context indicates here this is the covenant with Israel. You have to look at the context when the elect are referred to.

As I mentioned, if those days will not shorten or the strong delusion is coming, impossible even to fool the elect. There it's talking about Israel. But then when John writes one of his letters and he says to the elect lady, he's talking to the church. So it is the context that will let you know whether it's a reference to the Jewish people or the Christians.

He says here in verse 28, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. Well the Jews as a people are still the apple of God's eye. No enemy of Israel will ever obliterate them.

That won't stop them from trying. It has never been about the people or the land. It has been about Satan opposing God's will.

Let me see if I can bring that out for us. Zechariah 3. And Zechariah is written by a prophet in the days when the Jews were rebuilding their temple. When they were building their second temple. And the opposition and the headaches that they faced. God dispatched Haggai and Zechariah the prophet to stir the people up, to get it done.

And that they did. Not by might, not by power, but by my spirit says the Lord. Well he's talking about building, rebuilding the temple. Zechariah 3 however, he says, Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of Yahweh and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. Joshua here is Israel personified in their high priest. And Satan was trying to stop the second temple from being built.

But this is what he's been doing all the time. Coming against the Jews. The part that stands out is Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. Had God chosen any other land than Israel to be his land, had he elected any other people to be his people, then that land and those people would have the same history that the Jews have today. They would be hounded. They would be chased. They would be hated.

Attempts at genocide, persecution, bloodshed would be upon them, racism. All those things would have fallen on any other people whom God said these are my chosen people had it not been the Jewish people. Had God chosen Brooklyn, New York or Ashland, Virginia to be his promised land, then Ashland, Virginia or Brooklyn, New York would have seen endless war just like Israel. Because it's about God's will, not so much the people.

Bottom line, people are people. Had God chosen the Arctic Inuit people, the Eskimos you might say, then they would be unjustly hated by the nations as Israel is. As Benjamin Netanyahu said, Israel is guilty until proven guilty. And what he was saying was we're not going to get a fair shake from anybody.

The nations will always gang up on us. Well, why is that, Benjamin? I don't know that he can answer the question.

We know the answer. It's because the will of God is on your people and your land and all the prophecies have to do with you. And it has something to do with the world around you. And Satan hates it.

He hates you. And he's crazy enough to think that he can still outdo God's will. And he's willing to kill as many people as he can to pull it off.

He won't. Remember, Satan is insane. He is not rational. He is rational when it comes to plotting his evil. But he has lost his mind a long time ago. Satan violently opposes God's choices.

And he has never had a shortage of human fools to carry out his despicable and diabolical ambitions. Every single Palestinian, quote unquote, because there is no such thing as a Palestinian. Those are Arabs in that land. They've hijacked the name to try to draw sympathy to themselves as though they've been there before the Jews. They are not. They are right out of Jordan.

They are right out of the region. But they have not been in that promised land before the Jewish people. But Satan has pulled this lie off for many. Every single one of them or every advocate against Israel that you see in the news or find in this world, whether they are protesting or just blogging it or however they're doing it or secretly in their heart, whenever they are against the Jews with this kind of hatred, it is without exception demonically influenced at the least and demonic possession at the most. They are out of their minds with hate born in hell and they are functioning on earth.

And we get to see this on various media sources. And it's just how can you justify Satan is directly standing to oppose the will of God on the Jewish people? He's against the church to make no mistake. He's he's got enough resources to hate the church, which with equal enthusiasm. We know these things.

You come across somebody who is struggling in life on any level. It's spiritual. It's always a spiritual war. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God, casting down arguments and strongholds that exalt themselves against the Lord. Well, verse twenty nine, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Well, this refers directly to the permanent destiny granted to Israel that God is not going to break his covenant with them, even though they have their privileges have been postponed.

The covenant will resume and will be fulfilled. Now, a gift and calling may be abused by a people without being abandoned by God. Well, Lord, Lord, didn't we cast out demons in your name? Didn't we perform miracles in your name?

And he says, I never knew you. Well, that just goes to show there's maybe more to the story than what is on the surface. While a gift may be irrevocable, the testimony can be ruined. This is a story of the kings. This is a story of Balaam and Samson.

Both suffered the consequences of their disobedience. Balaam and Samson both were were prophets of God. The Bible says it straight out. Balaam, he did not return to God. Samson did. Samson is listed as a man of faith in Hebrews eleven thirty two.

Balaam is listed as an insane prophet in Second Peter, chapter two, verse sixteen. These things are for our edification. We are to look at these things and find their application in life. Ultimately, God's plans will be finalized when God gives. He already knows what we're going to do with what he has given us. So if he has gifted you, he knows what you're going to do with the gift when he gives it. When he calls, he knows what you're going to do with that calling. We are either going to abuse it or we're going to pursue a testimony that glorifies God by trusting him with what he has given us.

Some do both. David, the king, I mean God blessed him in so many ways and David did incredible things to the glory of God. But he also stumbled big.

But he recovered big. How big did David recover? God used David to continue to write the Bible. Not all of it, of course, the sections that belong to David. God continued to use David to be the man of God. He used David to build his tabernacle.

Solomon didn't have anything. David saved up for that tabernacle. So the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable because God knows what he's doing. But what you do with that calling and those gifts, that's up to us. And just because you have a gift and a calling, let me assure you, it will not be easy. I promise you, if you exercise your gift and calling, it is going to be a knock-down, drag-out, tooth-and-nail fight.

Oh, maybe if you only get to exercise it for a week. But for a lifetime, you think Satan's not going to oppose that gift and calling? He opposed Israel, he'll oppose you. Anything God does, he's against by default. And anything he is for, we are to be against by default.

But we've got this traitor that lives in our heart that helps him out. We call it the flesh, the carnal nature that will be with us until this corruptible puts on incorruption. And then we will be more Christ-like than we ever could have imagined. Verse 30, for as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their obedience. Well, he's addressing again converted Gentiles in the presence of the Jews.

This letter would be read out loud in the congregation. But the faithfulness of God dealing with Israel is what he's going to cover from verse 30 to the end of this chapter. Looking over at Ephesians 2, we see that he will, now he writes Ephesians later. He's writing Romans, later on he's going to write the Ephesian letter.

And when he does, he's going to say such things as this. He says, and you he made alive who were dead and trespasses in sin. Now if I said show of hands, who's that happened to?

Every born-again believer would raise their hand. In which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince, the power of the air, the spirit, who now works in the sons of disobedience. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross-Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.

We're currently going through the book of Romans. If you're in need of hearing this message again, or want to listen to others like it, head over to crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. On our website, you'll be able to learn a little more about the ministry of Cross-Reference Radio. So make a note of it, crossreferenceradio.com. That's all we have time for today, but thanks so much for listening. Pastor Rick will be back next time in the book of Romans, here on Cross-Reference Radio.