Israel's Prophetic Future - What About Israel? Part 7

Well, let's open our Bibles this morning to Romans chapter 11 and Daniel chapter 9. We've got two passages to look at. Romans chapter 11 and Daniel chapter 9 will be in Romans 11 first.

So put a bulletin or something in Daniel 9, if you would. Every evening about dark, my dad would come through the front door. Dinner would be close to ready. You could smell it, you know, all through the house. And my brother and I would run to meet him at the door and we'd give him a big hug. And when we'd hug him and get close to him, you could smell the remnants of Old Spice still clinging to his face.

I think every dad in the world in the 50s wore Old Spice. And since I was collecting pennies, I would immediately ask my dad to dig in his pocket and pull out all the change that he had so that I could rummage through it looking for little copper treasures. And I wasn't really interested in the silver dollars or the silver half dollars or the silver quarters or the silver dimes because this was the 50s and you could get those kind of things by the ton anywhere you wanted to. In fact, my dad used to always complain that they made his pockets too heavy and he really didn't have use for all that kind of change. And I figured, well, if he didn't have use for it, why should I?

So I never paid any attention to it. How many times I have thought back on those days and wish that I had been able to see about 20 years into the future, 20 years down the road of taking all silver out of coins and of the silver boom and even today if silver has dropped back down half dollars, even that are in not such good condition or worth 10 times their face value, silver dollars 20 times and more their face value, just common ones. Maybe it sounds mercenary, but I'll bet there's a lot of you who can remember those days who wish you'd have been able to see 20 years into the future then too. Not just with regard to silver pocket change, but I bet there's a lot of us here who wish we could have seen 20 years into the future with regard to old Barbie dolls and old milk bottles. Remember how they used to come and leave them on the front porch in those little cork-lined containers? You ought to go to an antique shop sometime if you want to see what's happened to those little cork-lined containers and those milk bottles. Or how about old Lionel train sets? I think every mother in the world has thrown away an old Lionel train set. I don't know where they all went because every boy I meet had one and his mom threw every one of them away. I don't know where they are, but I sure would like to have a few of them right now. How about your old 45 records when you were growing up?

Well, this is a Christian audience. I forget. I grew up unsaved. So I had the old copies of Elvis Presley and I had the old copies of The Beatles on 45. My. How about old comic books or old baseball cards? Some of you guys remember the boxes of baseball cards you used to have, you know?

Sixty-five more throneberries and you threw them all away. My mom, when she would go through and throw all that stuff away, she'd always say, oh, it's just a bunch of old junk. Friends, I could put my kids through college debt-free with some of that old junk. If I had it right now. But who knew?

Who could see the future? And who knows but that some of the old junk you're throwing away today in 20 years might be worth a fortune. And so as far as I'm concerned, I'm not throwing away anything. I keep it all. Purple Heart calls us and I say, don't come by. We got nothing to give you. I'm keeping it all because I just don't know.

I got them hanging from the rafters down in the laundry room and everywhere. Because you just never know the future. Boy, how things would be different if you could see the future. Now, I thank God that when we look into the Bible, God allows us to see the future, not with regard to silver coins and comic books and baseball cards, but God allows us to see the future when it comes to his plan for the end of this age. God says in Isaiah 46, I am the Lord, there is none else. I am God and there is none like me. I declare the end from the beginning and I declare from ancient times things that have not yet happened.

That's God. And as you well know, the Bible is full of predictions of future events. Many of those prophetic predictions have already come to pass in time and space.

But there are some that are still yet future, some that still are yet to come to pass. And such is the case with the prophecies that we want to look at this morning, dealing with Israel's prophetic future, dealing with the future of the Jewish people that grow out of our study in the final verses of Romans chapter 11, which we want to finish up this week. Now, if you remember in chapter 11 last week, we saw that God has not rejected the Jewish people, even though they rejected him and they rejected Christ.

God has a continuing commitment to the Jewish people. This is what Romans 11 is all about. In Romans 10, God has told us that the reason so many Jewish people miss salvation is that they wouldn't do it God's way.

They were going to do it their own way. They rejected God's way. They would not submit to doing it God's way.

And in response to that, we might think, well, then, if they rejected God, God rejected them. But Romans 11 says, oh, no, he didn't. That's not the way God operates.

In fact, if you look here in verse 29, it says the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance. God doesn't change his mind regardless what happens on this face of this earth. And so Romans 11 is all about assuring us that God still has a continuing commitment to his people and that he is going to fulfill every promise, every covenant that he made to the Jewish people.

God's commitment we saw last week extends to every individual Jewish person who is willing to trust Jesus Christ. God has a plan for that person. God will receive them. God will grasp them back into his program.

God will accept them and bless them and use them. God has not rejected the Jewish people as individuals. And this morning we want to go on and talk about the fact that God has also not neglected and rejected Israel as a nation. One day Israel is coming back into favored nation status. One day Israel is going to be the head of the kingdom of God on earth again. One of these days Israel will be back at the center of the focus of God's program for this world, even though they're not right now.

And we read down in verse 25 of Romans 11, For I would not, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own conceit. And here's the mystery, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in, and then all Israel shall be saved. As it is written, There shall come out of Zion a deliverer, he shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob, and this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. For, verse 29, the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance. Israel's coming back, folks.

They're coming back in. They're going to be in the center of God's program once again because God promised them lots of things He's never fulfilled to them yet. And God's going to fulfill them because the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance.

God does what He says. And so we're going to talk this morning about Israel's prophetic future. People are always saying to me, Why don't you talk more about prophecy? Why don't you talk more about prophecy? And so this morning we're going to talk about prophecy, and I'm going to give you the whole late great planet Earth rolled up into one message this morning. And so I've got a lot of information for you, but I basically want to give you an overview of how God is going to bring Israel back into the center of His program. I'm not going to try to deal with every aspect of prophecy, but just how God is going to bring Israel back into the center of His program.

And when we see it, we're going to have to agree with what the Spirit of God says in ending this chapter. Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out because nobody's known the mind of the Lord. Nobody's been His counselor. Nobody's given Him wisdom that He owes anything back to anybody for. Of Him and through Him and to Him are all things God's got the whole shooting match under control. He knows what He's doing. Now, a preliminary comment, if you would.

When it comes to eschatology, eschatology means the study of last things. As you well know, there's a lot of difference of opinion among Christians. Now, every true born again believer in Jesus Christ agrees that Jesus is coming back.

And He's coming back bodily and He's coming back visibly and He's coming back powerfully. But that's about as far as we can agree. And at that point, everybody has their own opinions.

And there's, you know, as many probably as there are theological systems. Now, I as a pastor and we as a church hold to the position that I'm going to teach you. And that is simply premillennialism, that Jesus is coming back pre, before the millennium. And He will set it up. We won't set it up.

He will. Number two, dispensationalism. That is that Israel and the church are distinct entities. They are separate entities and God has a different program for each one of them.

And third and finally, pretribulationalism, meaning that Jesus is coming back to take the church out of the world, 1 Thessalonians 4, in what we think of as the rapture before, pre, the tribulation. Those are the ways that we see the Word of God best being interpreted when it talks about future events. However, there are many fine, godly, committed believers that see it differently. And because they see it differently does not mean that they're not saved. It doesn't mean they're not going to heaven. It doesn't mean they don't love Jesus. It doesn't mean they're not under the lordship of Christ.

It simply means they understand it differently. We're going to teach it to you the way we understand it best. But I thank God whether we've got it all right or whether somebody else has got it all right doesn't really make a whole lot of difference. Jesus is coming back.

That's all that really matters. We may not have all the nooks and crannies right, but I know I'm going to be with Him one day. So, you know, I think I've got it 99% right, but I could get to heaven and find out I had it 99% wrong.

Don't think so, but could. But thank God Jesus is coming back whether you and I get it right or not. But this is the way we understand the Scripture best explained, and this is the way we're going to teach it to you. Now, to understand the events of the final days, we have to understand Daniel's prophecy of the 70 weeks back in Daniel chapter 9. So I want you to turn back there with me, Daniel chapter 9. And when it comes to having a framework or a skeleton on which to figure out what's going to happen at the end of our age, Daniel chapter 9, the 70 weeks prophecy is the most single significant prophecy that you need to understand because it's the one that gives us the skeleton on which we can hang the meat of how this whole thing is going to shake down. Now let's look at it together, Daniel 9 verse 24. Seventy weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city.

Let's stop there for a second. This prophecy being given to Daniel the prophet in exile, Jerusalem has been torn down, the city walls have been flattened, Nebuchadnezzar has captured the city, Daniel is in Babylon, and while there he gets the prophecy from the Spirit of God, and the prophecy, it says here, deals with thy people, your people Daniel, and your holy city. We must notice, if we're going to get this prophecy right, that this prophecy deals exclusively and distinctively with Jews, with Israel. It has nothing to do with the church, nothing to do with the United States of America, nothing to do with anybody except the history and the saga of the Jewish people from the time of Daniel until the end of the age. Very important, or we'll get the prophecy wrong. Now let's go on. Verse 25, know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem, stop, the beginning of this prophecy is fixed.

Do you see it? It begins with the commandment going forth to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem. Now, when was that? If we can nail that down, then we can really nail down this prophecy. Nehemiah chapter two tells us that Nehemiah, when he heard that the city walls were broken down and that the city of Jerusalem was in disrepair, he went to the king and asked for permission to go back and to rebuild the city and its walls. And you'll notice here in verse 25 that not only are we talking about rebuilding the city, but verse 25 specifically says, and the wall.

Therefore, what we're talking about here is the command that went forth from the king of Persia to Nehemiah to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the city and rebuild the wall. Now, when was that? Well, Nehemiah chapter two tells us that this happened in the month of Nisan in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes. Now, we know absolutely from secular records that the 20th year of King Artaxerxes was 445 B.C. We can date that. We're sure of that.

We're absolutely positive of that. And so Daniel's 70 week prophecy begins at 445 B.C. when King Artaxerxes gave Nehemiah the permission to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the wall. You can write right next to verse 25 in your Bible 445 B.C.

because that's when it starts. Now, beginning at that date, there are 77 decreed for the people of Israel. Seventy sevens of what? Well, the word in Hebrew seven, seventy sevens, can be translated as seven anything. It can be seven days. In fact, many times this word is actually used as the word for week because that's seven days. Or it can be seven months or it can be seven years. All it means is seven anything, but obviously to make this prophecy make any sense, it's got to be 70 groups of seven years each.

And down through history, even before the time of Christ, we know that's how the Jews always interpreted it. So what we are talking about is 490 years beginning in 445 B.C. Now remember, these are lunar years. The Hebrew calendar was not a solar calendar, it was a lunar calendar. It ran on the moon. And a lunar calendar has five and a quarter days less every year than a solar calendar. A lunar calendar is only 12 times 30, 360 days.

Therefore, what we're really talking about for every one of these years is a tiny bit less than one of our solar years. And I'll explain why that's important in just a moment. Okay, so everybody with me so far? Uh-huh, yeah?

Okay. Now there are two key players in this prophecy. The first one is in verse 25. From the going forth of the commandment to restore and reveal Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince.

There's our first player. And he's pretty easy to identify because we know him to be Jesus the Messiah. There's a second key player and we find him in verse 26. It says, and after three score in two weeks, after 62 weeks, and there have been seven weeks before that, so really after 69 of the 70 weeks, Messiah shall be cut off. You say, what does that mean? It means he'll be killed.

That's what it means. Messiah will be killed, not for himself, not for his own sin, but he'll be killed. And then there appears a new player in this prophecy called the Prince that shall come.

That's all we're told about him. He's the Prince that shall come. But whoever this Prince is, he comes after the Messiah has been killed and he is the primary player in the 70th week of Daniel's prophecy. Look at verse 27. It says that in the 70th week, he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week.

There's your 70th week down in verse 27. And in the midst of that week, he, the Prince who's going to come, shall cause the sacrifice in the Temple of Jerusalem to stop. And he will set up the abomination of desolation during this 70th week.

And it'll be that way until the consummation and until his destiny, his desolation, be poured out upon him. So who is this Prince who is to come? Well, whoever he is, he is the key player in the 70th week of Daniel's prophecy.

Now, by comparing him to Daniel chapter 7, we find this is the same guy as the little horn in Daniel chapter 7's prophecy. And there we find out that he speaks great things against the Most High. He makes war against the saints that are on the earth. And he does that until the Ancient of Days returns. He's the same man that 2 Thessalonians 2 talks about when 2 Thessalonians 2 tells us that he will exalt himself over everything that is called God. He will set himself up in God's Temple proclaiming himself to be God.

He's going to stay that way until the Lord destroys him at the brightness of God's coming. And finally, we can go into the book of the Revelation chapter 13 and find that he's the same one who has a mouth that speaks great blasphemies. Power was given him over the earth. He opened his mouth wide in blasphemy against God. And it was given to him to make war against the saints and to overcome them. He does great miracles and deceives them who dwell on the face of the earth by means of the miracles.

And all of those who live on the face of the earth whose name are not found in the Lamb's Book of Life shall worship him and receive his mark. Now let's play Jeopardy. The ruler of the earth in the last days, the one who sets himself up in the Temple is God, the one who has the whole earth worshiping him, who is the Antichrist. That's right. Very good.

You do well on Jeopardy, folks. Who is the Antichrist? And this is the other key player in our prophecy. And he is the one who is acting out the events of the 70th week of Daniel. Now that gives us great insight as to where the 70th week of Daniel actually happens. Where does the 70th week of Daniel take place? Well, if you remember, it says here in Daniel chapter 9 that the Antichrist sets up the abomination that makes desolate, or the abomination of desolation. You say, what is that?

I don't have the slightest idea. Many people have theorized that he goes into the Holy of Holies. Remember, the Temple is set up again because people were sacrificing. And verse 27 of Daniel 9 tells us that one of the things the Antichrist does is stop the sacrifices that are going on on the altar. But many people think the abomination of desolation is the Antichrist going in and setting up some kind of idol, or maybe even his own throne in the Holy of Holies and the Temple of Jerusalem, and thereby desecrating it with an abominable sacrifice that makes it desolate.

Who knows? But whatever it is, he's going to do it. And when he does it, Jesus tells us when it's going to happen. Jesus said, Matthew 24, in commenting on what are the signs of your coming and of the end of the age, that was the question. Jesus said in response, verse 15, Matthew 24, when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place, Jesus said, you better head for the hills if you're on the face of the earth. Because all hell's going to break loose, literally. And there will be tribulations such as the world has never seen and will never see again. And at the end of that, three and a half year period of great tribulation, Jesus said, that's when I'm coming.

What does this tell us? Well, if the abomination of desolation happens during Daniel's 70th week, during that last seven year period, and if the antichrist is running the world during that last seven year period, then we know for certain Daniel's 70th week has not happened yet. There is no temple in Jerusalem. There is no antichrist on the face of the earth. There is no abomination of desolation going on. It hasn't happened yet. So right here in Daniel 9, we have a huge gap. You say, really? I don't see it.

Where is it? No, not in the printing, but in history. There's a huge gap because we take 69 of the 77. Sixty-nine times seven years is 483 lunar years, which is 476 solar years. And if you subtract from those 476 solar years the time when the prophecy began, 445 BC, you come up with 31 AD.

Simple subtraction. And the Bible tells us that this is when the Messiah will be cut off. Now that's history. And then what happened to the 70th week? Well, the 70th week is still future. Right then at the end of the 69th week, this prophecy went on hold. And the reason it went on hold is because the Jewish people rejected their Messiah.

They were responsible for nailing him to the cross. And as part of the judgment of God, God not only put a blindness upon his people spiritually, but God also judged those people by removing them from the center of his program for the face of the earth temporarily. From the time of Abraham, the Jewish people had been the central focus of God's plan and working on the face of the earth. All of the Bible, all of God's activity centers around them from the time of Abraham until the time Jesus Christ died on the cross.

But then it switches. Because God put the Jewish people on hold as a judgment for what they did. And since Daniel's prophecy only deals with the Jewish people, listen now, Daniel's prophecy goes on hold for the 70th week.

Do you see that? And in between, we have 1950 years to date of gap. That doesn't appear in Daniel's prophecy because Daniel wasn't talking about the church or the Gentiles. He was only talking about the Jews and they're on hold. But God took the church and God saved Gentiles and saved Jews in the church. God put us in the central focus of his plan for the age now.

It's been 1950 years and who knows how much longer it will be. But one of these days, God will be through using the church in this way. God will be through with what Jesus called the times of the Gentiles. And when the times of the Gentiles have been fulfilled, Jesus said Jerusalem will be trodden down until the times of the Gentiles have been completed. But when that has happened, when God has finished what he wanted to do with the church and finished his judgment on Israel, suddenly we believe God is going to come back.

He's going to take the church out of the world and suddenly he's going to switch back to the nation of Israel as being his primary focus for his program and his plan for the earth. And at that very moment, Daniel's 70th week is going to suddenly be revitalized and revived and go into action. We know it as the tribulation period, that seven-year period at the end of the age right before Jesus Christ comes back.

Did you ever wonder why it was seven years? Because it is the last seven of Daniel's prophecy. Now understanding that gives us a framework in which we can understand the events of the last days. But before I go on to talk a little more about that, may I take just a moment to talk to you about Daniel's 69 weeks and Jesus's first coming. You know, this is the most astoundingly accurate prediction of the Messiah anywhere in the word of God.

Do you realize that? I mean, to figure out when the Messiah is going to actually come and be killed, all you've got to be able to do is subtract. You don't have to have a PhD.

You don't have to have a seminary degree. You don't even need a calculator. You can figure it out with an abacus. If you want to take long enough, you can count it on your fingers and your toes, and you can figure it out.

All you've got to do is subtract 445 from 476, and it's obvious. Folks, we know the book of Daniel was well known in the time of Christ from the Dead Sea Scrolls. There were many copies of it that were copied and studied.

We know it was loved. We know it was read and understood. And right here in Daniel 9, we have an exact chronological prediction of when the Messiah would come. How do you think Simeon in the temple, Luke chapter 2, knew? The Bible says he knew that Jesus was coming before he died. How did he know that? Well, all he had to do was pick up the book of Daniel and read it and subtract, and he could figure it out. And Anna, the great prophetess in the temple, Luke chapter 2, the Bible says she was there every day, actively waiting, expectantly knowing the Messiah was at hand.

How did she know? All you've got to do is read Daniel chapter 9 and subtract. And this is why Jesus rebuked and castigated the leaders of his day, the Jewish leaders, as mercilessly as he did, because, my dear friends, they knew. They knew Daniel's prophecy. Jesus said to them in Matthew chapter 16, you hypocrites, you can look up and tell when it's going to rain and when the sun's going to shine, you can read the signs of the sky. Why is it you can't read the signs of the time? You know Daniel's prophecy. Don't tell me you don't. You're a bunch of hypocrites. You knew I was coming.

All you've got to do is subtract. Jesus said, search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me. Jesus said, you guys know the Bible. It's not that you don't know enough.

It's not that you haven't seen enough. It's not that you don't understand enough. The issue is, Jesus goes on to say in John 5, you will not come to me. You will not obey me. You will not submit to me that you might have eternal life. The issue was defiance, not ignorance.

The issue was self-will, not the need for more information. And you remember in Luke chapter 16, when in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, Lazarus who was in hell said, well, at least if I can't get out of hell, let me go back. I've got five brothers back there, and if I could rise from the dead and go and tell them, at least they wouldn't end up in hell. Remember what God said to him? God said, Lazarus, listen, they have Moses and the prophets. They have the Word of God to read, and if they won't read and obey the Word of God, they are not going to listen even if somebody rose from the dead because it's an issue of the will, not an issue of information.

And in fact, somebody did rise from the dead, and they still didn't listen. When I was in Israel in 1983, we were riding with a tour guide. We were coming back from Masada. We were on our way down through the beautiful valley there near Jerusalem, and I was sharing Christ with this tour guide.

We were just in a little car. And for everything I brought up, he had an argument. For every way I would try to attack him, he had some answer. And so finally I said to him, you believe the Bible, don't you? Absolutely. You believe the Old Testament? Absolutely. You believe everything in it is right?

Absolutely. I said, okay. So I opened to Daniel chapter 9, and I read him this prophecy. All right, let's subtract now.

445 from 476 is 31 AD. Take a guess who the Messiah could be. He didn't have an answer. He said, I didn't really realize that was in there. I said, well, maybe he didn't, but it's in there. Read it for yourself. He said, well, I'm going to have to talk to my rabbi about that.

It's true. He said, I'm sure he's got an explanation. I said, well, I don't know whether he does or not, but it seems to me, how's he going to explain away simple subtraction? And I pressed him on it and pressed him on it and pressed him on it, you know, and you don't want to be in an argument with two Jews, folks.

And so we argued back and forth for a while, and finally he turned to me, obviously irritated, and he said, look, I don't care if my rabbi doesn't have an answer. I don't care if I can never explain it away. It doesn't make one bit of difference.

I will never believe that Jesus is the Messiah. That's the issue. The issue is not information. The issue is the heart, the will. I believe there's a lot of Gentiles in a very similar situation to this man. A lot of Gentiles who've had relatives share Christ with them.

Maybe some of you had a husband or a wife share Christ with you, a son or a daughter, a mom or a dad, a friend, a pastor, or who knows what. And you know all the information you need to know. The issue is not information. The issue is our stubborn wills that we don't want to submit and we don't want to obey and we don't want to yield, and we're not going to, folks. I can't help but believe in a crowd like this. There are some of us here in that very same boat.

Watch out. It's a very dangerous position to be in because if God rejected His own special people when they took that kind of a position, believe me, believe me, if you're not willing to submit, He'll do the same for you. If you know what's right, if you know Jesus Christ is who He said He is, if you understand that information, God help you. God help you not to be guilty of Jesus' sentence, but you will not come to Me that you might have eternal life.

Come to Him if you know that you need to. Now let's go on and finish up this 70th week real quick. What's going to go on during the 70th week of Daniel? How's it going to all lead to Israel coming back into the center of God's program? Well, the 70th week of Daniel is called in Jeremiah chapter 30, the time of Jacob's trouble. Even though the tribulation period of seven years comes upon the whole earth, Revelation 3 says, it is primarily intended to purify the sons of Levi. Many of you remember that great chorus from the Messiah, and He will purify the sons of Levi. It is a time of Jacob's trouble. It is a seven-year concentrated period in which God is going to do a work among unbelieving Israel, numbering today some 6 to 11 million around the world.

Who knows exactly how many there are, but there's a lot of them. And most of them are in unbelief, but God is going to do a work during those years in those people's lives. And listen to the work He's going to do. The Bible says that by the end of the tribulation period, when Jesus returns, Zechariah 13, verse 9, this is what's going to happen. And it shall come to pass that two-thirds of the nation, Israel, shall be cut off and die. Two-thirds of the living Jewish people on the face of the earth are going to be massacred by the antichrist and by his final solution to the Jewish problem.

If you think Hitler had a final solution, you ain't seen nothing yet. Wait till the antichrist gets through. As a matter of fact, the battle of Armageddon at the end of the age when the armies of the antichrist are destroyed with the return of Jesus and when Jesus sets up his kingdom, if you read in Zechariah chapter 12, you'll find out that the reason all these armies are in the valley of Megiddo is that they have all come against Jerusalem to do warfare. They're going to wipe out the rest of the Jewish population that they have already wiped out, and they're planning to do it right then. And they're in this valley, 30 miles to the north, moving on Jerusalem when the Bible says that Jesus comes and the Lord shall go forth and fight against those nations as when he fought in the day of battle.

It's going to be quite a battle. You can read about it at the end of the book of the Revelation. But two-thirds of the nation will be killed. However, listen, but one-third, Zechariah 13, shall be left. And I, God says, will bring that one-third through the fire, and I will refine them as silver is refined, and I will test them as gold is tested. That is why this is great tribulation, Jesus said, such as the world has never seen before and will never see again, because if you're going to refine silver and you're going to test gold, you need heat, and you need lots of it. And that's what the tribulation affair is all about, refining Israel. And they shall call on my name.

Listen to what happens. And I will hear them. A third of the Jewish people alive will call on God's name through Jesus as their Messiah.

And I will hear them. And I will say, these now are my people. And they shall say, the Lord Jesus is our God.

What a day that's going to be, folks. And that's why Romans 11, verse 26 says, and all Israel shall be saved, because every Israelite living left alive at the end of the tribulation period, one-third of them, when Jesus comes back, they will be saved. They will believe in Jesus Christ.

I'm not quite sure what it is that's going to convince them. Maybe it'll be the Battle of Armageddon. Maybe it'll be the return of Christ to defeat their enemies. Who knows exactly what it'll be in every individual heart? But there will be millions of Jews that will get saved, and every Jewish person remaining alive that enters into the Millennial Kingdom will be a saved Jew.

Millions of them. Folks, when that happens, Romans 11 says in verse 12 that there will be riches poured out on the world such as the world has never seen. And Romans 11, verse 15 says when that happens, it will be nothing but the resurrection from the dead, because that's what's going to take place in those days. Jerusalem will be the center of the world. The Lord Jesus will be personally ruling and reigning over the world from Jerusalem. Zechariah 14 says in that day there shall be upon the bells on all of the horses holiness to the Lord.

And every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness unto the Lord. And all the nations shall come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts. And the Lord shall be King over all the earth. Boy, won't that be a day. And in that day there shall be one Lord.

Not many. Won't be no Buddhas around. Won't be no Mohammeds around. Won't be anybody else around.

They're gone, folks. Won't be no antichrist around. In that day there will be one Lord, Zechariah says, and His name will be one. There won't be names for God all over the world. There'll be one name, there'll be one Lord, there'll be one King over all the face of the earth ruling from Jerusalem with the central focus of His plan once again restored to the nation of Israel.

What a day. That's how it's going to happen. And although that 70th week hasn't taken place yet, you can bet money, take it to the bank. It's going to happen because the gifts and the calling of God cannot be repented of. And it's during that millennial kingdom that God is going to fulfill every promise He ever made to Abraham and Isaac, Jacob, David, all of them.

He's going to fulfill it all because the gifts and the calling of God cannot be repented of. Now, so what? Say, man, you should have written the late great planet earth. You could have shrunk it down to 10 pages. Well, I know I've given you a lot.

I hope you were able to follow all of that. Let's ask so what before we quit for this morning. Two things very quickly. Number one, may I remind you what God says about Israel back in Romans chapter 11? He says Romans 11 verse 28, as concerning the gospel, they're enemies for your sake. The Jewish people are going to oppose the preaching of the gospel. They're your enemies when it comes to preaching the gospel. But when it comes to their election, to what God has chosen to do with them, they are beloved. Folks, as a church, as Christians, the Jewish people are not something we should despise. They're not people that we should condemn and reject. God is not done with these people.

These people are coming back in, folks. These are people that we ought to have compassion for and evangelistic concern for. No one knows but that some of the Jews you're sharing Christ with right now may not end up being some of the evangelists during the tribulation period.

There are going to be 144,000 of them. Keep sharing Christ with them. You don't know.

Neither do I. But our concern needs to be for these people because God's not through with them. And by the time it's over, Zechariah 14 says they're going to be in the center of God's program. Not us. Not the church. Not the Gentiles.

Israel. Secondly, I would say to you there's a great message here for you and me, personally. And that is what God says in the end of chapter 11. He says how unsearchable are the judgments of God. His ways past finding out.

The riches of His wisdom and His knowledge. Who knows the mind of God? Who's able to give advice to God? Who's able to tell God how to best run His universe?

Nobody is. Friends, God reassures us in those verses that the whole universe is ticking away precisely on schedule. His schedule. God's schedule. It's working exactly the way He planned it these 1950 years in between the 69th and the 70th week of Daniel. These are no surprise to God.

These didn't catch Him napping. He knows exactly what's going on. Believe me. And He knows exactly what's going on today and in your life and in every life on the face of the earth.

God has got the whole thing under control. I was watching Flight 811, the news report about, you know, the door that blew off and all the people that got sucked out of the airplane. And someone asked me the question yesterday, why do you think stuff like that happens? As though I knew, you know. I said maybe they didn't lock the door tight.

I don't know. How do I know why stuff like that happens? But this I know.

I know that God has the whole thing under control and it's all happening right according to schedule. Folks, why do people lose their jobs? Maybe you're losing your job.

Why does that happen? I don't know. But I know that God knows and it's happening right on schedule.

Why do people get transferred when they really don't want to? I don't know. But God knows and it's happening right on schedule. Why do we have illness and sickness and financial crisis in our lives sometimes?

I don't know. But God knows it's happening right on schedule. And maybe you've got a business that's struggling. Maybe you've got children or grandchildren that are having all kinds of problems. Maybe you're single and you can't find anybody to marry you.

You've looked everywhere. Maybe somebody very close to you has died. And you find yourself saying, why, God, why would this happen? You may never know either because the ways of God are past finding out. But one thing you can know and that are that His ways are perfect and His judgments are perfect and God knows what He's doing and whatever's happening in your life, God knows what He's doing. It's all happening right on schedule. I tried to sum up the message of the whole Bible in two words.

I think the two words I would give you were these. Trust Him. That's really the message of the whole Bible. The Bible tells us who God is, tells us what His promises are, and then simply says, now trust Him.

That's the message of the Word of God. Trust Him. I get workmen sometimes who come to my house and I'm pretty finicky about the way things are done, whether it's painting or wallpapering or carpeting or whatever. And sometimes I'll ask about something and it always really gets me when they turn to me and kind of irritated they look at me and they go, just trust me, will you? Just trust me. No, I'm not going to trust Him. That's how I got all the stuff I got now in my house that I don't like is I trusted somebody.

I want to go in there and ask and I'm going to say I don't really like that corner and that line on that wallpaper looks a little crooked to me. When somebody says, just trust me, will you? No, because there's no human being that's that trustworthy. But I thank God that when God says to me, hey, Lon, just trust me, will you? That that's a different situation, folks, because there we have someone who is trustworthy absolutely and eternally.

And I want to challenge you. I know many of you are dealing with situations that you don't understand. That's okay, you probably never will understand. But you don't have to understand them to live a victorious Christian life. God never said living a victorious Christian life was based on your understanding anything except one truth, and that is trust Him.

That's it. And if you master that one truth, there's not a thing in this life you can't face and face with victory. Folks, I've made up my mind that I can trust God, that I must trust God. And God has brought me to the point where, thank God, I've been able to make up my mind, I'm going to trust God. I hope that's true of you. May God bring you to that place where you're able to say, Lord, simply trusting every day, trusting though I can't see where I'm going or what the way is like, trusting, Lord, even when tragedy befall, trusting Jesus, that is all. May God bring you to that point. You've got a God that's trustworthy.

The only issue is whether or not we'll trust Him. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for our time and your word this morning. Thank you for speaking to us about the future of Israel, letting us know once again what your plan is for them. Thank you, Lord, that the calling and the election of God is without repentance, not only for Israel. But thank you, Lord, when you called us and saved us and made us all the promises that you made us, that those things, too, are without repentance.

You never change your mind on those. And thank you, dear Father, that we can trust you, we can rely upon you, we can rest in you because you are utterly trustworthy. Your ways are past finding out. Your wisdom is above man's understanding, but your heart we can understand. And, Lord, your heart says that you love us, that you're committed to us, that you're never going to let anything happen to us that will hurt us or damage us or destroy us, and that what you want us to do is just trust you. Dear Jesus, bring us to the point, every one of us here, where we can trust you for salvation if we've never done it before, and where those of us who have trusted you for salvation can trust you for all the things in our lives we can't understand, that we don't like, that hurt. But, Lord, give us the grace just to trust you. Trust in Jesus. That is all. Speak to our hearts now, Father. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.