SPEAKER_00: Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
SPEAKER_01: Since I didn't preach last week, a lot of people were saying, Well, you got like a two or three hour message this Sunday, don't you?
SPEAKER_01: I'll cut it to an hour and a half just because I love you all and I missed you, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Turn with me in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 12, and what I want to talk to you about today is a Christian and a biblical view of the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: This is really important in this time period, and this is a great time as we're running through scripture, as we're reading that narrative overarch of scripture as we go through the chronological Bible.
SPEAKER_01: We're in that time period now where we've just finished Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and now we are moving into the land of Egypt where the children of Israel have been in bondage, and Moses bringing them out, and God establishing the land of Israel as the place that He had promised them through the covenants he made with Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: So this is a great spot to stop and do this.
SPEAKER_01: Now, let me just give you a couple of things here.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, this is a deep biblical study.
SPEAKER_01: It would take weeks to do this in depth, and I don't have weeks.
SPEAKER_01: I could teach that long, but y'all won't sit here that long, so we're just gonna have to give you today an overview.
SPEAKER_01: So this is a picture, a high-level picture of why this is important and what it looks like.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, I'm not gonna be able to go through all of the scriptures that are in the Bible teaching all of these things.
SPEAKER_01: It is a biblical message.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna found it in Genesis, like we showed.
SPEAKER_01: I'll quote some scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: But I want to refer to you, there's a document on our website that the church did before I got here, and it was one of the things I loved about the church.
SPEAKER_01: I'm so proud of our church that we have this kind of biblical heritage.
SPEAKER_01: If you'll go to the either campus website, if you go to the About Us page, there's a document on there called What We Teach.
SPEAKER_01: And here in that document is a place, position on Israel.
SPEAKER_01: It's on page 18.
SPEAKER_01: We've shown you that just to remind you of that.
SPEAKER_01: There are lots of scriptures that will support what we're talking about today, and I want you to know that the principles that I'm teaching biblically are in line with what we teach as a church.
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean that everybody necessarily agrees with every nuance, but this is our position as we understand it from Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: And so what we'll try to do is unpack that today.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if we go back to that previous screen, there's three reasons why I'm going to take time to do this today.
SPEAKER_01: It is the appropriate time, given, as I said a minute ago, where this is Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and now the uh Exodus out of Egypt and bondage into Israel.
SPEAKER_01: It is important for three reasons that I'll look at today.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, it is theologically important to understand the role of Israel and how God used them to bring his plan of redemption into the world.
SPEAKER_01: There is also confusion in today's world over these issues.
SPEAKER_01: There are people who teach, and I'm not casting aspersions, there are people in the umbrella of evangelical life that we believe we'll be in heaven with together, but they teach that at some point the church replaced or subsumed Israel, and now the promises of God are applied to the church, not to Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And that is confusing theologically, and we don't believe that that's what the Bible teaches.
SPEAKER_01: We believe that the Bible teaches that Israel and the church are distinct from each other, and there are promises to each of those, and it's important to at least give a framework for more study or to go to places like what we teach and work your way through that.
SPEAKER_01: And that confusion then leads to other issues.
SPEAKER_01: When we're confused about Israel and their place as God's chosen people and a place of honor that they have in Scripture because of their role, then it leads to things like a misunderstanding of the significance of anti-Semitism in our world today.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, our country, if you think for some reason that anti-Semitism ended after World War II, you need to just pay attention to the news.
SPEAKER_01: It is more, it is as evident today as ever before that there is a massive move of anti-Semitism around the world and in America.
SPEAKER_01: And what we need to understand as you understand who Israel is, then you understand that that is an overall, overarching opposition of a lost and dying world against the people and plans of God.
SPEAKER_01: That's what that is.
SPEAKER_01: This is not a political matter.
SPEAKER_01: This is a fundamental biblical worldview matter.
SPEAKER_01: And as you see the world push against anti-Semitism, push against the Jewish people in this racist anti-Semitism fashion, what you need to understand is it's not Republicans or Democrats or whatever kind of a deal.
SPEAKER_01: This is a lost world, that whether it's Satan or lost people or the cultures of life or whatever, it is all a push against the kingdom of God and his plans.
SPEAKER_01: And so, anti-Semitism, racist against the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_01: It has been since the time of Abraham, and it will be until Jesus returns, because there is a fundamental understanding that this is a push of a lost world against God's work.
SPEAKER_01: And finally, we need to understand this because we need to keep our eyes on the Middle East, and that causes us to keep our eyes on heaven and anticipate the return of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And there are matters about the return of Jesus that are wrapped up in what happens in Israel, prophecies about Israel, that then relate back to the theological importance of understanding this and having a biblical perspective.
SPEAKER_01: So that's why we're going to study that.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to start today, and again, I'm not going to go hour and a half, I'm just going to give a cut across the top of the trees to give you a picture of this, but this is an important time to do it.
SPEAKER_01: Now I want to remind you of the promises that God made to Abraham that are the foundation, the foundational covenant of these issues.
SPEAKER_01: In Genesis chapter 12, verse 1, the Bible says, The Lord said to Abram, now at that point he's not been, his name has not been changed to Abraham yet, but he is still, and this is God's fundamental call to Abraham, to go to the land that we now refer to as Israel, and God is beginning and setting in place his work.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord said to Abram, Go out from your land, your relatives, and your father's house to the land that I will show you.
SPEAKER_01: And so an important part of that promise is the land itself.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 2, I will make you a great nation.
SPEAKER_01: I will bless you.
SPEAKER_01: I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
SPEAKER_01: He promises there both a population of a nation, and he promises to make them a significant nation.
SPEAKER_01: Your name will be great.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 3, I will bless those who bless you.
SPEAKER_01: I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt.
SPEAKER_01: That's important for us to understand as we create a response and an understanding of life today that we recognize God has put in place and He's never removed this.
SPEAKER_01: I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.
SPEAKER_01: And that is the foundation of God's promise to use the nation of Israel to bring redemption into the world.
SPEAKER_01: Now, God is establishing a process here where the children of Israel will be the funnel or the conduit that he brings Jesus ultimately into the world as a Savior.
SPEAKER_01: He establishes a method of worship for them as the Jewish people that points to the need for a Redeemer and His promise of a Redeemer.
SPEAKER_01: And everything about this Old Testament process of establishing the children of Israel and then bringing and moving them forward is to bring the Redeemer into the world.
SPEAKER_01: Now, as you know and remember from the story, Abraham and Sarah get old and past childbearing years.
SPEAKER_01: And again, this is part of that Old Testament picture of Jesus as our Savior.
SPEAKER_01: And so Abraham goes to the Lord and says, Dude, like I'm old.
SPEAKER_01: No babies are coming out of my tent anymore, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so here's what the Bible says in Genesis chapter 15, which is another place where God reiterates his covenant with Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 12, as the sun was setting, a deep sleep fell on Abram, and suddenly great terror and darkness descended on him.
SPEAKER_01: God is putting his thumbprint on this.
SPEAKER_01: Now listen, in the setting of this, God is saying, I mean it.
SPEAKER_01: Several times in here he'll say, I mean it, and he is making this covenant.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 13, the Lord said to Abram, Know this for certain.
SPEAKER_01: God is saying, Listen, do not be misunderstanding here.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to know this for certain.
SPEAKER_01: Your offspring, not some handmaiden or some nephew or something else, your offspring, Abram, will be foreigners in land that does not belong to them.
SPEAKER_01: They will be enslaved and oppressed for 400 years.
SPEAKER_01: I will judge the nation that they serve, and afterward they will go out with many possessions.
SPEAKER_01: And then he reiterates his promise to Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: Now, that particular one I've chosen because as we look at the children of Israel, that is fulfilling that promise.
SPEAKER_01: So you see, as God makes a promise, he accomplishes that promise.
SPEAKER_01: So as we read through the events of the Exodus, we understand that that is one of those moments where God is showing his faithfulness to his promises and to accomplish what he's going to accomplish.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I want you to, there are four things I want you to see if you look back in Genesis chapter 12.
SPEAKER_01: There's four things I want you to recognize that are the promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to see the land is a promise, and God has promised them a land.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, he has promised to make them great in terms of numbers, a real, full, populated nation.
SPEAKER_01: And he has promised to make their name great and to give them significance in the world.
SPEAKER_01: He has promised to bless those who bless them and curse those who curse them.
SPEAKER_01: And then he has promised that through him, through the nation of Israel, the world will be blessed, and what he's giving there is that prophecy of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Now, of these foundational promises, first I want you to see that some of these promises have been fulfilled and some of them have not yet been fulfilled.
SPEAKER_01: So, of these foundational promises to Abraham, to Abram, Abraham, the first is that last promise, all peoples on the earth will be blessed through you.
SPEAKER_01: Those have been fulfilled already through Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He has accomplished his plan of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus came, he died on the cross for our sins, he rose again, he's the author and finisher of our faith.
SPEAKER_01: He has accomplished salvation, and salvation and the gospel, the good news of salvation are going around the world, and people are being saved, and they will be saved, and one day he will return and take his redeemed children home to be in heaven with him forever.
SPEAKER_01: And so we know that that promise has been accomplished, fulfilled in Jesus, and it is being accomplished.
SPEAKER_01: I want to give you another thought.
SPEAKER_01: All people on the earth will be blessed through you.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just the person of Christ and salvation of his name that blesses the world, but it's also the body of Christ, the church, is blessing the world around.
SPEAKER_01: I get so sick and tired of people ripping the church and attacking the bride of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you, you better be careful when you attack Jesus' bride.
SPEAKER_01: Just better be careful about that.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what I know churches are having an incredible impact around the world.
SPEAKER_01: Just in a nutshell, in a couple of weeks, men in our church, we're going into a prison where we have been one of many churches around the state of Arkansas supporting a prison ministry that has the best recidivism rate and impact of any other program ever designed in the history of America.
SPEAKER_01: Why is that?
SPEAKER_01: Because they're not making up man plans.
SPEAKER_01: They are going to God's word and they're teaching men about redemption in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: They're being saved, they're discipling them.
SPEAKER_01: As Jesus says, if any man is in Christ is a new creation.
SPEAKER_01: Old things have passed away and all things become new, and they are coming out as new men, and they are living for Jesus and making a difference in the world.
SPEAKER_01: All of the sociology and all of the universities and all of the nonsense of all of that and all of the efforts and all of the liberal politics and all of that stuff trying to impact prisons and all that kind of stuff, the only programs that ever work and have a major impact on recidivism, that means the rate at which you return to prison, are the ones that are evangelical, biblical-based, gospel-oriented, and they always work.
SPEAKER_01: We are doing crisis pregnancy centers and we are ministering to people.
SPEAKER_01: Babies are being saved.
SPEAKER_01: Women and men who've been a part in the past of that abortion experience and the wounds and the struggles that are there, they come there for healing and they recognize God's grace.
SPEAKER_01: It's the church doing that.
SPEAKER_01: When you put together all of the counseling and all of the financial planning, and you put all of the marriage counseling and all of the depression counseling, and you put all of that together that the churches are doing, it overwhelms what the rest of the world is trying to do to help people.
SPEAKER_01: If you put together all the benevolence of all the churches in the river valley and all that we do collectively as the greater body of Christ, we are the ones who are taking care of the down and out and struggles and people.
SPEAKER_01: It is the body of Christ doing that.
SPEAKER_01: We are building water wells around the world, schools around the world, seminaries around the world, orphanages around the world.
SPEAKER_01: It is the body of Christ that is impacting the world.
SPEAKER_01: And it is because we have been changed by the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: It is the gospel work of Jesus, and it is his work through the church that impacts the world and takes the gospel around it.
SPEAKER_01: Don't let me ever hear you say anything negative about the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean you can't, we can't disagree about this or that or whatever, but I mean as a macro thing, the body of Christ, it is the bride of Christ, and God is working around the world for people to be saved.
SPEAKER_01: There's rampant revival in places like Iran and Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
SPEAKER_01: There's rampant revival in places like China that are supposedly closed, but they tell us they estimate between 40 and 50,000 people a day are being saved in China.
SPEAKER_01: God is faithful to his work, and just as he redeemed the children of Israel out of Egypt as an Old Testament picture of the redemption he would bring, he is doing that in the world today through the Savior that he promised.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what is the role of the church in Israel?
SPEAKER_01: They are distinct from each other.
SPEAKER_01: They are distinct.
SPEAKER_01: The church is people who have given their lives to Jesus Christ and trusted him as their Lord and Savior.
SPEAKER_01: And that is different than the role or the place that the children of Israel have in God's plans.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Right now, God is moving to advance through the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: If you read Romans 11, you'll see that God is working and he is working through the church, but you will also see that he makes it clear in Romans 11 that they are distinct and the prophecies of God will not be changed to his people Israel.
SPEAKER_01: That's reaffirmed all throughout Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Let me show you this verse in Jeremiah 31.
SPEAKER_01: This is what the Lord says.
SPEAKER_01: The one who gives the sun for light by day, the fixed order of moon and stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea and makes its waves roar, Yahweh of hosts is his name.
SPEAKER_01: And he's Yahweh is the covenant name of God, is the most holy name of God, the most prominent name of God.
SPEAKER_01: And he is reiterating here, I am the one that did that.
SPEAKER_01: I am the creator of God, and by my covenant, he is reminding him of his covenant name, and then he says, This.
SPEAKER_01: As the one who created all that, if this fixed order departs from my presence, this is the Lord's declaration.
SPEAKER_01: Again, he's putting his thumbprint on it.
SPEAKER_01: Then also Israel's descendants will cease to be a nation before me forever.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, if Israel is gone, that means the sun, the moon, the stars, and the oceans are gone.
SPEAKER_01: If you can look up in the sky and see the sun, moons, and stars, then God is still at work and his promise is still effective to his people.
SPEAKER_01: Now, here are those promises.
SPEAKER_01: Let's boil them down into just a couple of things.
SPEAKER_01: First, as you saw on that other screen, that God will, they will be fully realized in his promises as a nation.
SPEAKER_01: They have not been fully realized yet, but things have happened, things are putting in place and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: But there will be a full description of God placing them and restoring them out as his people.
SPEAKER_01: Part of that means that their land will be fully inhabited as deeded to them by God.
SPEAKER_01: I told the Chaffee campus this morning, it doesn't matter how many weird 19-year-old, hippie looking, paid by Soros, whatever, setting up tents at Columbia and Yale, it doesn't matter how much they scream from whatever to whatever, God will establish his people in the full boundaries of the lands that he has deeded to them.
SPEAKER_01: The scripture also prophesies a great revival of redemption, of salvation amongst the Jews, that there will be a massive move of the chosen people of God to become or join us as the redeemed people of God.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes people will ask questions and have confusion, are Jews saved?
SPEAKER_01: Listen, the Bible's very clear.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel is open to Jew and Gentile alike, as it says all throughout the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: But God does not separate us in terms of can you be saved?
SPEAKER_01: And he does not allow people to come into salvation outside of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said very clearly, I am the way, the truth, and life.
SPEAKER_01: No one comes to the Father but by me.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot avoid hell by being a Jewish person any more than you can avoid hell by trying to be a good person.
SPEAKER_01: If you have trusted Jesus as your Savior, it doesn't matter what race, what heritage, what people group you are, if you have given your life to Jesus Christ, you are saved.
SPEAKER_01: And there is no other means of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: But the scripture teaches towards the end times there will be a massive turn of God's chosen people, the Jews, to Jesus as the Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: And then finally, Israel will have a significant and prophesied place during the millennial reign of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is not a message on eschatology, so I don't want to get bogged down in that, but if you've never heard that or know what that term means, if you go to what we teach as a church, there is a section called Last Things, and here's what we teach that as we are going about what we're doing, as the Bible says, one day in a time that we have not predicted and don't know, Jesus will accomplish the rapture.
SPEAKER_01: Dead in Christ will rise first, we remain, we'll be caught up in the air, we'll go to heaven, well, things will be going here on the earth.
SPEAKER_01: We'll be seven years of what's called the Great Tribulation.
SPEAKER_01: Without the influence of the church, as I talked about.
SPEAKER_01: About a minute ago, the blessings of the church to the world, without the influence of the church, without that move of God and all, Satan will have free reign and it will get worse and worse and worse, and the Bible refers to that as a time of tribulation.
SPEAKER_01: At the end of that time, Jesus will return bodily to earth.
SPEAKER_01: He will establish a thousand-year or millennial reign here on the earth.
SPEAKER_01: After that, there will be a final battle.
SPEAKER_01: Satan is judged, sinners are judged, God redeems, and we begin eternity with him as our redeemer.
SPEAKER_01: In that millennial, thousand-year reign, there are prophecies about Israel being a nation during that time.
SPEAKER_01: So there's kind of the nutshell picture of that.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, Pastor, that's cool.
SPEAKER_01: That's interesting theology.
SPEAKER_01: That sounds like a Bible class or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: So what do we do with that?
SPEAKER_01: Well, I told you at the beginning it's important for us to have a framework to address these things because it does affect modern life today.
SPEAKER_01: So let me give you five responses that we have as the church.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, now as I as I go through these, listen, I'm gonna say a few things, and so just kind of bear with me.
SPEAKER_01: Don't assume farther than I said.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to how I say it.
SPEAKER_01: I'll probably not say it great.
SPEAKER_01: And so if you got questions, holler at me, all that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm also trying to get this in before we do the ask the pastor deal, so if you want to ask in that setting, that's fine.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm open to talk through all these things and we'll just talk through them as you want to.
SPEAKER_01: But here, let me give you our responses.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, we must love the chosen people of God as the redeemed people of God.
SPEAKER_01: I do not understand a Christian who cannot be grateful for the impact of the Jewish people because Jesus came through them to us for our salvation.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, sometimes you hear when people are railing on these kind of topics or whatever, you know, they'll, or especially if you get liberal theologians and liberal churches, they'll attack us as fundamental Bible churches about all this stuff, and they'll set up these fake straw men arguments about what we supposedly believe.
SPEAKER_01: And one of them you hear often is, oh, those Baptist churches, you go to Sunday school and you go in the room and they got those cute little paintings, and Jesus looks like a surfer dude from California.
SPEAKER_01: He's got long, pretty brown hair, and he's got blue eyes and all that kind of a stuff.
SPEAKER_01: You know, and they'll rail on us for that.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't know why the artists painted him that way, but we know very clearly Jesus didn't look like he's from California.
SPEAKER_01: He looked like a Middle Eastern guy because that's where he's from.
SPEAKER_01: He was a Jewish guy and he looked like a Jewish guy.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: That's who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_01: And that's good.
SPEAKER_01: He was raised, he was born in Bethlehem, he was raised in Galilee, he was crucified and rose again in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: He lived his whole life right there in that area that we refer to as the Middle East.
SPEAKER_01: He's a Middle Eastern Jewish guy.
SPEAKER_01: And he is our promised Savior.
SPEAKER_01: And we are grateful for this story through the Old Testament where God establishes a path and a genealogy that clearly identifies Jesus is the Savior I sent and I've promised you.
SPEAKER_01: And it makes no sense to me whatsoever that Christians would look back at the Jewish people and have some kind of weird animus against them.
SPEAKER_01: This is what you hear sometimes, especially in younger adults, some of the influences that they have, some of the theologies that are taught.
SPEAKER_01: Again, I'm not trying to be critical, but I'm just trying to explain this to you.
SPEAKER_01: You hear this.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm not going to support the Jewish people because they killed Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, just as graciously as I can, do not take biblical advice or life advice from somebody that uneducated or unthoughtful.
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to say stupid, but the parents get mad at me when I say that.
SPEAKER_01: They're like, we're trying to teach our son not to call his sister stupid, so you can't say stupid.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: So they're uneducated and unthoughtful.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible states in red letters that Jesus explained to us in John 10, He has the authority over his own life.
SPEAKER_01: No one takes it away from him.
SPEAKER_01: Greater love had no man than this, that a man would lay down his life for his friend.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said, I have authority over my life.
SPEAKER_01: No one takes it away from me.
SPEAKER_01: I give it freely.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus voluntarily went to the cross, as the Bible says in Hebrews 12, for the joy set before him, it is the greatest picture of mercy and grace and love that we would ever understand.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus went to the cross and he voluntarily died for us on the cross to accomplish God's plan of redemption so that we could be saved.
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot more theology in that, but that just boils it down right there.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, we are to pray for the salvation of his people, and we are to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: We are to pray for those people.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says, those who bless them, he will bless, and those who curse them, they will curse.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing has removed that from Scripture as we understand it.
SPEAKER_01: We are looking forward as a part of the end times, as part of what ushers in eternity, a revival amongst the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_01: And we should be praying specifically for that revival amongst the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_01: We should be praying for the peace of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: Now, let me say this right here.
SPEAKER_01: We are not taking a stance to support Benjamin Netanyahu or some other kind of a thing, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I told the other congregation this morning, my birthday is on January the 20th.
SPEAKER_01: Every four years I get a new president.
SPEAKER_01: Which means every four years I go into counseling for a month.
SPEAKER_01: Because in my lifetime, very few of them have been a blessing.
SPEAKER_01: At least I don't have to have a third term of Barack Obama.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the Lord for that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure I can handle that.
SPEAKER_01: Just a thought there.
SPEAKER_01: But if I'm I don't even like all the stuff American presidents do, why am I going to take some stance to support everything that some guy in Israel does?
SPEAKER_01: We are talking about the nation of Israel, the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: That's who we're talking about.
SPEAKER_01: And they'll do some things right and they'll do some things wrong, just like as Americans, we do some things right and we do some things wrong.
SPEAKER_01: In Britain, they do a few things right and lots of things wrong.
SPEAKER_01: It's just kind of how it goes.
SPEAKER_01: Pastor Joel and I have an ongoing discussion of that at times, right?
SPEAKER_01: But we're talking about a people group.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And we are praying for their salvation and we are praying for the peace of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what Jesus told us: Acts chapter 1, verse 8.
SPEAKER_01: You wait here until Jerusalem, and then the Holy Spirit is going to come, and he is going to empower you as witnesses, and you are going to be witnesses to me first where?
SPEAKER_01: In Judea, that is Israel, Samaria, that is in the land of the greater land of Israel in that part of the world, and the uttermost part of the earth.
SPEAKER_01: He did not say, and I get it, that first group, he's telling them start Jerusalem, then go out, but he didn't tell the rest of us not to go to Jerusalem to share the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: If we are praying for every people group to be saved, there is not an asterisk that says we pray for everybody else to get saved, but not the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_01: They are included in the evangelism that we are taking around the world.
SPEAKER_01: And so we are to pray for their salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Number three.
SPEAKER_01: Hold on right here.
SPEAKER_01: Number three?
SPEAKER_01: Number three.
SPEAKER_01: Stand against anti-semitism in your personal life, in your public conversations with other people or online, and in your political support.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what I'm going to do.
SPEAKER_01: Racism is a sin, period.
SPEAKER_01: For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Racism is always a sin.
SPEAKER_01: It always has been.
SPEAKER_01: It is an affront to a God who loves the world so much that he stepped out of heaven and died on the cross for us.
SPEAKER_01: Antisemitism, racism against the Jewish people has always been, you see it all throughout, even beginning in these first parts of the Old Testament, and it will always be until Jesus comes and wins and ends it.
SPEAKER_01: And we've got to understand what that is.
SPEAKER_01: This is not some political question on some podcast or some other deal.
SPEAKER_01: This is literally a lost world pushing back against the kingdom of God and his work accomplishing his plans.
SPEAKER_01: And we are to stand against that as a proposition.
SPEAKER_01: In our personal lives, we need to know and love the people of God and be obedient to things like praying for Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: We should learn about those things and understand them.
SPEAKER_01: I want to suggest to you a podcast.
SPEAKER_01: There's a podcast called Commentary.
SPEAKER_01: Now it's a conservative political podcast, so don't send me emails about why you're like all that.
SPEAKER_01: But here's the deal: it's a monthly magazine and a daily podcast, and the people in that are Jewish.
SPEAKER_01: And so I have learned a lot about Jewish perspective and history and all of that from listening to that.
SPEAKER_01: On Thursday, this past Thursday, they had an incredible podcast where they taught about the Temple Mount.
SPEAKER_01: And you may not understand this or know the significance of this, but just in the last two weeks, they have changed the rules on the Temple Mount.
SPEAKER_01: Jewish people pray in the mornings, in the afternoons, in the evening in a traditional Jewish sense.
SPEAKER_01: In the afternoons, that prayer is like 20 minutes long or something, I understand.
SPEAKER_01: Like it's pages and pages.
SPEAKER_01: And so in the past, they have the Muslim culture and organization that has managed the Temple Mount where that mosque is that sits on the place where the temple was in Old Testament times and New Testament times.
SPEAKER_01: If you stood in a corner, if you halfway looked Middle Eastern and you started moving your mouth, they removed you from the facility because they thought you were surreptitiously trying to pray as Jewish people.
SPEAKER_01: In the last couple of weeks, they have changed the rules to the extent that Jewish people can now take their written prayers onto the Temple Mount in front of the mosque on the land and pray.
SPEAKER_01: It is a staggering change of what's happening there, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so we need to learn about things like that and understand in our personal life.
SPEAKER_01: And so I just recommend that to you.
SPEAKER_01: Commentary, listen to Thursday one, whatever.
SPEAKER_01: I don't agree with everything they say, but it's been very instructive, and I thought I'd share it to you.
SPEAKER_01: In your public conversations, people talk about politics, that's what we do, we talk about it all the time.
SPEAKER_01: When you do it, you need to make sure as a person of God that you are being gracious and supportive of the race, the people group, the mother tongue, however you want to describe that, of the Jewish people and be supportive of them.
SPEAKER_01: And then in your political support.
SPEAKER_01: Now, hang on.
SPEAKER_01: I know people are gonna write me emails.
SPEAKER_01: Fine, whatever.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care.
SPEAKER_01: Go ahead.
SPEAKER_01: That's fine.
SPEAKER_01: But here's the deal.
SPEAKER_01: Not talking about all politics, but I need you to understand a biblical worldview.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care who your grandmama and your great-granddaddy voted for.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care.
SPEAKER_01: It is our job as the people of God to bring our biblical worldview to our understanding of things.
SPEAKER_01: And if anti-Semitism is a move of a lost and dying world pushing against the work of God and the gospel, then it is clear that we should be against that movement that is against the work of God.
SPEAKER_01: Now you've got the left-wing part of the Democratic Party and people even more left wing than that, and it is clear that that is a base part of their political philosophy.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't make it that way.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it is.
SPEAKER_01: Now you also have a group on the right.
SPEAKER_01: The Tucker Carlson world and that wing, he is every bit as anti-Semitic as anybody in the squad.
SPEAKER_01: And if you don't understand that, you need to learn and research and pay attention.
SPEAKER_01: And we don't follow that any more than we follow the other.
SPEAKER_01: Because all of it, how in the world do you get a position where those people would never agree on anything except their opposition to the Jewish people?
SPEAKER_01: That tells you that that is the push against the work of God.
SPEAKER_01: Not in some individual person or Illuminati, but as my pastor where I grew up used to say, we are twice-born people in a once-born world.
SPEAKER_01: And a once-born world and all of that influence, lost people, Satan at work, confusion, everything else, all of that wrapped up as a lost world that is in opposition to the work, the redemptive work of God.
SPEAKER_01: Now here's another thing I want to tell you.
SPEAKER_01: I haven't commented on this, but I feel like I need to.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to my logic.
SPEAKER_01: If you will support the abortion of babies and have that lowering of the standard of life that God has created, then it's not going to bother you to neuter children and do surgery and give them drugs and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: If your philosophy is gay marriage and all that is supportive, then it leads us to what's a gender, nobody has a gender, and you have a Supreme Court justice that can't even define what a woman is.
SPEAKER_01: You see the trajectory of those thought processes.
SPEAKER_01: A few weeks ago, we saw in Minnesota, which has a massive liberal political structure that has a huge orientation of a Muslim anti-Israel move in it.
SPEAKER_01: You have these forces at play that fund all this kind of stuff, and they go from protests to invading the worship service of a Southern Baptist evangelical church and shut down their service.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't go after a liberal Methodist church, they didn't go after a Unitarian church, they didn't go after a Mormon church, they didn't go after Jehovah's Witnesses Church, they didn't do any of that.
SPEAKER_01: They went against the redeemed people of God.
SPEAKER_01: And that, just so you understand, is a church when we give to Andy Armstrong at Easter in a few months, that's our church we're sending to spread the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And they attacked our church.
SPEAKER_01: If they will attack the chosen people of God, it doesn't take anything to move to attack the redeemed people of God.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta understand these things matter.
SPEAKER_01: They matter.
SPEAKER_01: And so however you address that, I'm not speaking about ice or what they're doing right or wrong or anything.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01: Don't jump off in other things.
SPEAKER_01: What I'm telling you is when we vote, when we move into public discourse, when we support people, when we do these things, we need to be way more active as the body of Christ and as salt and light, and we need to work with a biblical worldview to push against how a lost world is pushing against the work of God.
SPEAKER_01: It is our role in society as salt and light.
SPEAKER_01: Four, you pay attention to Israel as the crux of things happening.
SPEAKER_01: Tired of watching these protests from the worldview of Gaza or Saudi Arabia or whatever else.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, Christians, I don't want war any more than anybody else does.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not commenting on that stuff.
SPEAKER_01: But what I'm telling you is when you look at that and you begin to sort through these things and conversations you read and hear or have or whatever else, you have got to learn to look at the Middle East through Israel's eyes and not through two-party solutions and ending war and all this other kind of nonsense.
SPEAKER_01: It makes me laugh and cry at the same time every time I hear some president talk about they're gonna promise to end and bring peace to the Middle East.
SPEAKER_01: Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus will bring peace to the Middle East when he defeats all of that.
SPEAKER_01: And it won't happen before then.
SPEAKER_01: And we've got to understand and filter out this nonsense, and we've got to learn to understand those things from Israel looking outward, not outward at Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And so when we see things like the Temple Mount being opened up for Jewish prayers and all other kinds of stuff, you you've got to look at this stuff in light of what's happening.
SPEAKER_01: We've got um aircraft carriers going to the Middle East, and there's all kinds of speculation.
SPEAKER_01: Are we going to bomb Iran and all this kind of stuff?
SPEAKER_01: Listen, what's the impact on Israel if we do that?
SPEAKER_01: We've got to begin to filter and understand these things through the prism of God is working at Israel to bring about his plan, and that's what it is, and see it from a biblical worldview, not from a current political view.
SPEAKER_01: And finally, as things happen, I don't know what's going to happen.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not predicting what's going to happen, but as they happen, we need to turn our eyes to the heavens.
SPEAKER_01: We need to realize that stuff is happening over there.
SPEAKER_01: It's God moving, it's God stirring things, and God's people looking at that from a biblical worldview realize, uh oh, I better go out and tell that person about Jesus that I've been holding off on because Jesus may be coming soon.
SPEAKER_01: I want to remind you what Jesus said and how we look at these things.
SPEAKER_01: He wrote us the book of Revelation, not for us to predict when it would happen, but to know it was coming and look forward to his victory as creator God and as the redeemer of his redeemed people.
SPEAKER_01: In Acts chapter 1, again, before Jesus ascends to heaven, they come to him and they say, When are you coming back?
SPEAKER_01: How that's going to work?
SPEAKER_01: They're asking the same question that we're asking, when are you coming back?
SPEAKER_01: And he says, It's not for you to know or even worry about.
SPEAKER_01: When you get the Holy Spirit, you are to go out in power and get your little happy self out there telling people about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And the more we see Jesus coming, or the more we have a sense that Jesus might be coming, what our heart needs to be is God, there are two people on my love list who aren't saved yet.
SPEAKER_01: I need you to hold off one more day.
SPEAKER_01: Just please give me one more day to share Jesus with them and give them a chance to be saved before it all begins to unfold.
SPEAKER_01: That's the heart of a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: But we're way more interested in politics than we are in sharing the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we'll argue in a restaurant with a stranger about our view of Trump or AOC or whatever kind of nonsense.
SPEAKER_01: We'll get in all that kind of stuff, but man, you get an opportunity to tell somebody about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't want to offend anybody.
SPEAKER_01: Like, really?
SPEAKER_01: The more we see those things, the more those things about Israel and all that.
SPEAKER_01: For us as Christians, what that should mean is, man, God's on the move.
SPEAKER_01: As it says in the Chronicles of Narnia, Aslan is on the move.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is working.
SPEAKER_01: He's coming back.
SPEAKER_01: Who are we taking with us when eternity begins to unfold?
SPEAKER_01: I want you to pray as we close.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we thank you for this time, and I just praise you for all the things today: baby dedications, baptisms on two campuses, people discipling and teaching each other in Sunday school, young families, senior adults, the spread of the stage of life all in our church, two campuses.
SPEAKER_01: I want to thank you for people in our church who have a heritage of Scripture love.
SPEAKER_01: I want to thank you for the pastors throughout the history in this church that have given us the call to trust in the Word of God and to study the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: They may not have all agreed on every jot and tittle, but every one of them preached the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: They called us to Jesus and to salvation in his name as taught in the foundation of the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: I thank you for a congregation.
SPEAKER_01: We can stop and take Sundays like this, where we can dig through things that are sometimes more complicated, harder to understand.
SPEAKER_01: But I thank you for the maturity of our church that we work through these things and we can come together and discuss these things.
SPEAKER_01: I thank you for a church that has jumped into reading the scripture chronologically together.
SPEAKER_01: It's just an awesome thing to see God's people reading God's Word.
SPEAKER_01: So, Lord, today is just a time of praise.
SPEAKER_01: We just thank you that you are always faithful to your promise.
SPEAKER_01: It is a blessing to know that when you said the stars, the moon, the skies, the seas, that your promise to Israel is as clear as your hand in creation, it reminds us that you are always faithful to your promises.
SPEAKER_01: And that means you are faithful to the promise of salvation that comes through Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Just in the same way, you are faithful to those promises.
SPEAKER_01: You are faithful to the promises of your children who are saved.
SPEAKER_01: And we thank you for the encouragement of that.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, as we move into this time, we end our service.
SPEAKER_01: We know that everything that happens good in the church, every single bit of it, is because you are at work.
SPEAKER_01: We are your people.
SPEAKER_01: We give you the praise and glory.
SPEAKER_01: And we thank you for salvation in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to chapter and first, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith at First Baptist Church.