Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
Jeremy approaches Bible teaching with a passion for getting the basic doctrines explained so that the individual can understand them and then apply them to circumstances in their life. These basic and important lessons are nestled in a framework of history and progression of revelation from the Bible so the whole of Scripture can be applied to your physical and spiritual life.
Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
NT Framework - Living Well in Exile
As Christians we live in exile; we are not yet living in the Kingdom of God. Although we are citizens there in that kingdom, we are not enjoying life under the rule of the one righteous King of Kings. So in this session, Jeremy walks through examples of those who have gone before us demonstrating how to live well in a foreign land or under evil leadership.
More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com
This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and our series on the New Testament Framework. Today, the full lesson from Jeremy Thomas.
Speaker 2:Here's a hint of what's to come. And when you are hurting, when you are depressed, when your life has no hope, you need something that you can remember. So God wrote in apocalyptic genre so they could remember it, and so this literature is always written when believers need hope.
Speaker 1:God understands the difficult life we live. He understands that we do not live in perfectly godly cultures, whether that's a city, a state, a nation. He understands that many times we find ourselves facing corrupt institutions, institutions that operate on a very different worldview, philosophy than what we have. And yet he also knows that by his Spirit, we are able to live well in these. And he knows this because one he has provided the Holy Spirit, wisdom and guidance and discernment for us to do so. And we can be confident that we can do so because he has given us many examples from the past of people who have done just that lived well for God in the midst of an ungodly government and society. So, although times may be very difficult where you are, remember this God has provided the strength, the wisdom, the guidance, the discernment that you need to live well for him.
Speaker 2:We're going to go. We've already been with David the rise and reign of King David. We learned specifically about the doctrine of fellowship with David because David obviously has somewhat of an issue with the Bathsheba incident and so he becomes a model out of Psalm 51 for what it looks like to get out of fellowship with the Lord and then to confess and be restored to fellowship. So that's a very important part of Scripture. Then we move to the golden era and we really discussed what. I guess. This era is probably not talked about a whole lot, but what it basically does is show us what happens when you have generational loyalty to God, building over the course of like three, four, maybe five generations. That the kind of culture that you can build is what we call a high biblical culture, and Israel at that time is known as the golden era, because Solomon on the throne of David and Solomon having requested wisdom from God and God having granted it to him, putting all that together with three or four generations of loyalty to God, produced the greatest biblical culture the world has ever known. Everything in the culture, in society, as you stepped out from your home and went about your life, had biblical reminders, and so you know the great Levitical choir, things, that untold majesty, all done biblically. I mean, we have the Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, we have these venues where we can go and hear, you know the greatest music of the world. But at that time the greatest music of the world was centered in Jerusalem at the temple, with the Levitical choirs, and it was all biblically based around the one triune, god, right. So it was just awesome. It would have been just sheer awesomeness. But we also saw that all that could be thrown away in a single generation.
Speaker 2:And Solomon, toward the end of his life, decided to do what was ever right in his own eyes right, ecclesiastes. And he discovered that you know, when you go by the flesh and just human wisdom, the end of that is vanity. There's nothing there of significance or meaning or value. And so I think that Ecclesiastes is actually a testimony to the nations that this is not the way. I was a leader of Israel and I had everything and I decided to throw it all away and try your way, and your way doesn't work. There's nothing there. And so I think it's his lasting testimony to the surrounding nations which he had influenced so greatly. And so I think it's his lasting testimony to the surrounding nations which he had influenced so greatly, to look back at his earlier experience and be reminded of the greatness of his kingdom when he was with it.
Speaker 2:So that brought us then to the time of his son, rehoboam, and Jeroboam. The kingdom divided that great event where they almost have a civil war. But Rehoboam was basically a jerk to the northern tribes and the northern tribe says we have no place with the house of David, let us all go to our own tents. And so you have a dividing of the nation and now you have a northern kingdom which is known throughout the rest of the Old Testament primarily as Israel and sometime as Ephraim, because Ephraim was the most populous tribe. So when you read about Ephraim in the latter prophets, that's a reference to Israel and the southern kingdom which was known as Judah, because Judah again was the dominant population tribe. Benjamin was also there, but they were very small in relation to Judah.
Speaker 2:So you've got Israel in the north and you've got Judah in the south and they're both supposed to worship at the one place God outlined in the Mosaic law, which was Jerusalem. Their males were to come up three times a year and worship, but Jeroboam, the king of the north. He said well, if my people go down to the south and cross the border, they'll become loyal to Rehoboam and the house of Judah. And so he built two high places, right. And he said these are alternate worship sites. One was in Dan, in the far north, and that was convenient for people who lived up there. Now you don't have to go so far to Jerusalem, isn't this nice, it's convenient. A convenient store, you know, just goes, convenient. And then in the south, just above the border, at a place called Bethel. And he said again, you don't have to go all the way down to Jerusalem, just stop at Bethel and you can worship God there. But then he set up the golden calf, and so idolatry sets in in the northern kingdom, and that kingdom basically went to spiritual decay and rot very, very rapidly. And so we move into what is considered to be the kingdoms in decline period. And so the kingdoms in decline is obviously when they are declining spiritually, with the reference point being the golden era of Solomon, and so there's a decay from that period of time. So here we go with the kingdoms in decline.
Speaker 2:Let's just talk a little bit about the event. The event itself is going to teach us the doctrine of sanctification and all five aspects that we learn at the conquest the phases, the aim, the means, the dimensions and the enemies are all added to in this event. So what is this event all about? Again, after the kingdom divided, you have north and south. Now both kingdoms remain secure. Okay, as far as their position before God, they're still quote-unquote.
Speaker 2:Israel and God made an Abrahamic covenant with the descendants of Abraham, isaac and Jacob in the 12 tribes. So it's made with all 12 tribes, even though they're now divided into two kingdoms. So their position is secure. But their experience with God is fluctuating because they are either in obedience to the Mosaic covenant or they are in disobedience. So you see, a lot is going on with the covenant. So you've got the Abrahamic covenant. That gives them their position. It's secure because God made the covenant. He said I will do this. It's called the one-way covenant, meaning all the obligation rests with God to keep the covenant. But the Mosaic covenant, which was given at Mount Sinai, is a two-way covenant Obligations on both sides of the fence, obligations by God and obligations for Israel, and so if Israel doesn't meet their requirements, well then God is going to discipline them. So their experience is fluctuating and if they're going into decline then obviously they're going to get a lot of spanking, okay, a lot of divine discipline during this period.
Speaker 2:Now the problem becomes how you understand the relationship between this Abrahamic covenant, which secures their final position in the world as the nation who inherits the land that God promised that was promised to be, or deliver the seed to the world, who we know is the Messiah and how they will become a worldwide blessing. Okay, how do those things happen if over here you've got this other covenant, the Mosaic covenant, and God says if you obey you'll be blessed, but if you disobey you'll be cursed or disciplined? That's the problem, because in the period of the kingdom's decline they're under a lot of discipline. So the question is how are they ever going to reach righteousness so that they can enjoy the blessing that God promised in the Abrahamic covenant? The two covenants seem like they're in contradiction, you see, one promising all this blessing, the other one promising blessing conditioned on righteousness, living according to the law.
Speaker 2:So this period of history sets in motion what for them was a paradox, like how is God going to resolve this motion? What for them was a paradox, like how is God going to resolve this? His answer was that God is going to make a new covenant. So a third covenant has now come into the picture the Abrahamic and then the Mosaic. And the Mosaic's the problem. They can't keep that. They're just constantly breaking it. So how is God going to resolve that? Well, he's going to make a new covenant that replaces the Mosaic covenant.
Speaker 2:At that time, you have Jeremiah the prophet, you have Ezekiel. These guys are revealing that the Mosaic law is growing old already and it will become obsolete. And then God will make a new covenant. But it wasn't happening in Jeremiah's day not yet. It was something that was going to come, though, so it was revealed.
Speaker 2:So what's the significance of the new covenant, then, in this period in history? The significance is that the new covenant promises that God will give Israel a new heart and he will place his spirit within them and they will obey, and therefore they can enjoy all the things God promised in the Abrahamic covenant, like the land and being a worldwide blessing, and enjoy the seed, the Messiah. So this becomes God's solution to the problem of the Mosaic covenant. He basically revealed that it was temporary okay, it was temporary and that the new covenant which would take its place would be everlasting. And, of course, the book that discusses this in the New Testament it's very clear, is Galatians, chapter 3. The law of Moses was given until Christ came, meaning until is a temporary term right, so it does not continue. We're now under the new covenant, but we're not Israel. And all this, we are just enjoying and partaking of the blessings of this covenant. So that's the background of this event.
Speaker 2:These are the stories of Elijah and Elisha. They're going to the nation. They're saying you idiots, what are you doing? You're going way off into the deep end, into paganism and more and more idolatry. And God is obviously going to discipline you. You need to repent, you need to come back to the Lord and that way the Lord can bless you. But in the midst of that, they should have come to the recognition that we can never keep this law, we can never do this and we're never going to be blessed. So that would force them to start to look for an external righteousness. We need righteousness, but it can't come from us trying to keep the law. It's got to come from some external source. And that was what was significant about the new covenant. In the new covenant, which is centered on the Messiah and his ratification of that covenant by his own shed blood. They would. If they turned him in faith, if they believed in him, then they would receive the righteousness and the new heart and so forth and be able to obey. So that's what the event is all about.
Speaker 2:The kingdoms are in decline Now. The doctrine again is sanctification. We've got five aspects of this and I'm going to go through these Phases the aim, the dimensions, the means and the enemies. We learned that with the conquest, with Joshua, but we get more revelation about it here in this period of history. So this is 2 Kings 17 to 25, the major prophets, like Isaiah, jeremiah, ezekiel, and the minor prophets.
Speaker 2:First of all, the phases. We already knew about the positional. I've already mentioned it. Right, this secured their position in the plan of God. So no nation has ever had God make a covenant with it except the nation Israel. Period over and out. God didn't make covenants with America, he didn't make covenants with Great Britain, he didn't make covenants with any other nation on earth. He made a covenant with the nation Israel and through them to bless other nations on the earth. But the covenant is made with Israel, so that secures their position, and they already knew that from the days of Abraham. So that secures their position, and they already knew that from the days of Abraham. In the days of Moses. Of course, we have the second phase, which is experience, and that was all relative to the Mosaic covenant. If you obey, you'll be blessed, if you disobey, you'll be cursed. They knew about those two phases, but again, what they learned about was a third phase, during this time period, when the prophets, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, started revealing things about a new and better covenant that would come along. And so that is the third phase of sanctification, what we call ultimate. It's when God gives Israel a new heart, a heart that will obey because he's placed his spirit within them, and so forth and so on. So that's the great thing about this period is the revelation of a new covenant.
Speaker 2:The aim of sanctification is always the same. What are we aiming for? Learn loyalty to God through his word. What did he tell Joshua? You know, meditate on my word day and night. That way, you will be very careful to do everything that is written within it. Do not turn to the right or to the left right, just meditate on my word, stay in my word and be strong and courageous, meaning you live by faith. Okay, you are strong in your faith and you exert it. Okay, you're courageously living by faith, trusting the promises of God. So this has always been the same. It's the same for us too.
Speaker 2:Okay, but it became obvious again during the kingdoms in decline that they couldn't obey. Okay, so this aim of learning loyalty was not being met. But through that, what was one of the main purposes of the Mosaic law? It was to show them that you are a sinner, that you are a transgressor, that you need a new heart if you're ever going to obey. In fact, this was wrapped up in circumcision, right, I mean, circumcision is the physical procedure on the eighth day with every Hebrew little boy, right, but it had a spiritual significance, right. Romans 2, 28 and 29 show us the significance. It's one thing to be physically circumcised, okay, but it really pointed to the need for a spiritual circumcision of the heart, okay. So these ideas were already present in the Old Testament. They just weren't as clear as they become during this period of the kingdoms in decline, with the prophets and the nation in disobedience clearly should have been recognizing hey, we don't have a heart that can obey, but we need one, and Deuteronomy talks about they need to circumcise their hearts. So this is not all new, but a lot of it is coming into focus.
Speaker 2:The dimensions, fellowship, again, we learn with David. But after David, I mean the nation just goes. They go hog wild into idolatry, so they get way out of fellowship. They begin to build up what I call compound carnality, which is where you sin, sin, sin, sin, sin. You don't confess and this creates the problem, right? Because once you are in compound carnality it becomes very difficult to confess. The problems, the sin patterns that you develop when you just get out of it for so long are very, very difficult to overcome because they become entrenched. And so the nation in this time period is basically entrenched, in a situation of being out of fellowship with God.
Speaker 2:So they didn't walk like David. I mean David messed up, right. I mean nobody is denying that he messed up. But what did he do when he realized he messed up? He got back in fellowship, see, and God instantly restored him and he kept walking with the Lord. And I think it's that way with a lot of Christians is they'll step out of fellowship and then they'll stay out of fellowship and then they'll lose hope and become depressed and get involved in all sorts of difficult sin patterns to resolve and they never come back to God. So that would be a situation where a believer doesn't persevere, they don't endure, they don't keep on going with the Lord. But David's an example of a believer who says, no, I'm going to persevere. Even though I sin, I persevere, I get back up and I keep going in the Christian life. And so the goal isn't to stop sinning, okay. The goal is, when you sin, to get back in fellowship with God and keep walking the Christian life, to persevere until the end. And certain rewards in the New Testament are perseverance-type rewards that we'll receive. So, anyway, the nation didn't do that, okay.
Speaker 2:So as a result the second dimension here did they grow to maturity? I mean, if you just stay out of fellowship all the time, do you think you're going to go on to maturity? No, honestly, it's just like a lot of people in this world they never learn how to live, so they're basically 65-year-old children. Have you ever met any of those? Yeah, and it's even worse because they're not little kids that you can tell what to do, so they just have their fits and basically just live like babies. And that's what was happening with the nation Israel. They never matured, they were a bunch of brats. So we have those two dimensions and the nation was failing on both counts.
Speaker 2:As far as the means of sanctification, how were they supposed to grow? Well, the law, well, they broke that continually. Remember the king that had it ripped up. And then, you know, rip that up, you know, throw it in the fire. And God said to Jeremiah okay, write it again, which shows you you can't destroy the word of God, you can't destroy it. If people try to destroy it, god will just say well, just put it down again, so you're not going to destroy it. But they ripped it apart, they hated it, they didn't want to keep it. And they ripped it apart, they hated it, they didn't want to keep it.
Speaker 2:And then grace. Grace is the means that you need to keep the law. It was available through the priests and their sacrificial activity down at the tabernacle and temple, and this was to be a continual activity. Remember the priests in the Old Testament. They never got to sit down right, because it was just continual sin. So it's continual work to deal with the sin by sacrifices right, continual sin. So it's continual work to deal with the sin by sacrifices, right, but this all looks again forward to something better, to a new law that would be given, the law of Christ that would replace the Mosaic law, and a new priesthood. So with the doing away of the Levitical priesthood, there'll be a new priest comes after the order of Melchizedek, and this is the whole book of Hebrews, right In a nutshell. And all this looks to the Messiah. So this is the means during that time, but it won't be met. So in the future there will be a new opportunity for grace through the Messiah and the Messiah's law and his priesthood.
Speaker 2:And of course, there were enemies during this time, as there are for us enemies to sanctification. I want to stop your sanctification. There's the world, the world around you, that can corrupt you. I mean, all the nations around Israel at that time were idolatrous. Isn't that how Israel became idolatrous? They looked at all the other nations. They started to import everything from those nations, just like Solomon did. You know, solomon imported wives.
Speaker 2:But you don't just get wives, you get the belief systems of the wives too, by the way, that's why it's really important to marry another believer. If you're a believer, you don't marry an unbeliever, because you're not just marrying an unbeliever, you're also bringing in everything from her worldview, her system of thoughts, whatever it is. So the Bible is very important. You know, if you marry someone, marry someone in the Lord, you know. Marry someone who shares the same set of beliefs, belief system. So Israel was just intermarrying with anybody and taking in all of their idolatry. And God even used these nations like Assyria and Babylon to finally discipline and judge them right as he sends them into exile. Of course they all had the flesh, which the flesh we also have it. It's our sinful nature that we still have that wars against us. And then, finally, the devil and the devil was the one in the Old Testament. Who's behind the foreign nations, stirring them up against Israel for disciplinary measure.
Speaker 2:And by corollary, you might look at a passage like 1 Corinthians 5.5. This is one of those strange passages where, honestly, a lot of expositors are like I don't know what this means or aren't sure what this means or don't give much explanation of what it means. But it's the passage where Paul is talking about a believer at Corinth who is having relations with his father's wife and in that passage he says you guys are worse than the Gentiles. You're living lives that are more horrible than people who aren't even Christian, which shows you that Christians can live lives that are worse than non-Christian. 1 Corinthians 5.
Speaker 2:But in that passage Paul says I turn such and such person over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh. And people say what does this mean? Turn him over to Satan for destruction of his flesh? Well, it's turning him out to the world where Satan rules, to undergo Satan's wrath and discipline upon the believer, just like Israel. What did God do? God turned them over to nations that were controlled by Satan. Okay, so Paul is using Old Testament imagery, the ideas that Satan is behind these nations like Assyria and Babylon, to go in and influence Israel and also to discipline Israel, and he takes that over to the New Testament. He says a believer who's so far out of it? Paul just says I just turn him over to Satan. It doesn't mean he lose salvation or something like that, any more than it means that Israel is suddenly not Israel and lost all God's promises or something that's silly, but what it is is it's talking about turning them out to the world for extreme divine discipline under satanic influence. So that's what's going on there.
Speaker 2:So we get a good review here at the kingdoms in decline, of all five aspects of sanctification the phases, the aim, the means, the dimensions and the enemies. But the main thing that we have to walk away from is realizing that in this period it becomes very evident that israel is not going to keep the mosaic law. But there's a bright glimmer of hope because god says but there's going to be a new covenant, and that new covenant will provide a new heart and a spirit who will be placed within you, that will obey, and all that sets up what is necessary for Israel to enjoy the land eternally that God has promised them, enjoy the seed and be a blessing to the world. And so when will the new covenant be fulfilled to Israel? When will they have this new heart and this new spirit? Well, at the second coming, when they believe in Jesus as their Messiah and he takes them into his kingdom that he establishes on earth. So all the new covenant looks to that point in time.
Speaker 2:Okay, the other event that we want to look at briefly is the exile itself. Remember, I said it kind of in on a sour note today, because they're not going to come back, they're going to keep going negative to the Lord, so they're not going to listen to the prophets. We know that they killed the prophets. They hated the prophets. They saw the prophets. They sawed the prophets in half. I mean, these aren't exactly lovely images.
Speaker 2:How many of you would want to be a prophet? Yet today, everybody wants to be a prophet. If they realize that you're going to have to run around naked like that one Old Testament prophet, remember Do you want to do that? Do you want to run around naked? How many of you want to be sawed in half? Okay, yeah, but so why would I want to ever be a prophet? I mean, god raises up prophets, but I mean I'm not one. I'm telling you right now. So it's not exactly a desirable thing. I'm just pointing out it was a tough position to be.
Speaker 2:In Jeremiah, the weeping prophet who I'm named after, nobody ever responded to that guy's ministry. How would you like that to be your ministry, where you minister to these people not like you, but people who reject me? Just reject, reject, reject, reject, reject, reject, reject, reject. You know to the point. You're like God. Why do you want me to? I mean, what is my point? Why am I even here? Jeremiah was faithful. He just kept going. I mean, it's a tough name to live up to, so poor guy.
Speaker 2:Okay, so the exile. So they're going to go down, down, down. So the nation continues to rebel against God and God disciplines them again by sending them into exile to foreign countries, namely Assyria. For the northern empire, the dates there would be like 721 BC and for the southern kingdom of Judah they lasted longer. They stick around until about 587 BC. So this is a very significant period in history when the southern kingdom, the kingdom of Judah, which was the house of David, was in this tribe. So you've got the Davidic covenant that we read from today in Psalm 89, that God's going to keep his promises, no matter what, to David, right. So this house, judah this is a very serious moment in their history.
Speaker 2:Okay, if Babylon comes in and they do on three occasions with Nebuchadnezzar, and on the last occasion they send them all in exile and they just destroy Jerusalem and the temple, and you have to wonder what's going to happen to the house of David. Is it going to survive? So there are three things that happen at this time that indicate that the kingdom of God, which has started at Mount Sinai when God gave them the law and God is their king, and now he was going to take him right into the land and that was going to be the kingdom right in the land, the promised land, where God is the king, okay, and mediators ruling like Moses and Joshua, and so forth. Well, that kingdom, which is what we know as the kingdom of God, that kingdom, which is what we know as the kingdom of God, vanished from history in 587 BC, when Babylon destroyed the temple, destroyed Jerusalem and dispersed the Jewish people, taking many into captivity in Babylon. So it was in existence for about 900 years or so. The kingdom of God was actually on earth. Now it disappears from earth and there's three evidences that it disappeared from earth at that time, all given during the period of the exile.
Speaker 2:For example, in Ezekiel 8 through 11, it traces the departure of the Shekinah glory from the temple, the departure of the Shekinah glory from the temple. So the Shekinah glory was a visible manifestation of God. It was in the most holy place. If you, let's just say, you were the high priest and you had to go in every year and you know, offer atonement on the day of atonement and you put the blood on the Ark of the Covenant on the lid, okay, where the angels, the two cherubim, were on top of it, right with wings covering their heads and God significantly enthroned above. Okay, if you'd gone into that room, it would be like a bright light, smoky cloud. I don't know how to explain all that, but basically that's what it would be like A super bright light, that's all cloud and inside the room. Okay, this was a visible manifestation of God's presence with them. Okay, of God's presence with the nation Israel. Well, in Ezekiel 8 through 11, ezekiel sees a vision of the Shekinah glory departing from the temple, which is what happened in 587 BC, and it traces it in four moves as the Shekinah glory leaves. And one of the moves is interesting because the Shekinah glory pauses and like, looks back, like reticent to leave, not wanting to leave. But this is the first evidence that the kingdom of God that was on earth at that time went invisible. It left earth.
Speaker 2:The second evidence is Jeremiah 22. We can look at that one, jeremiah 22. This is the near end of the Davidic dynasty, jeremiah 22. So, like I said, the house of David is in Judah, in the southern kingdom, and God promised in the Davidic covenant this is an eternal house, not like a man to sit on the throne right. But in Jeremiah 22, you read, read. It sounds like this, is it? It's over like god is done with his davidic covenant. That's the way it sounds. So jeremiah 22, 24 I mean, this is a scary moment. Okay, is god? Is God going back on his promises, his covenant promises?
Speaker 2:Verse 24, as I live, declares the Lord, even though Coniah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, wore a signet ring on my right hand. In other words, he's the rightful heir to David's throne. This is the guy, coniah. Okay, he says. Yet I would pull you off, like I'm done with you and I will give you over into the hand of those who are seeking your life, yes, into the hands of those whom you dread, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans. I will hurl you and your mother who bore you, into another country where you were not born, like the life you're hoping for. Um, he says, verse 27. But as for the land to which they desire to return, they will not return to it.
Speaker 2:Verse 28 is this man, coniah, jeconiah, that king, the davidic line king? Is he a despised, shattered jar. Is he an undesirable vessel? Why have he and his descendants been hurled out of the land? Why have they been cast into a land they had not known? Oh, land, land, land. Hear the word of the Lord. You know, listen, israel, Listen. Thus says the Lord. Write this man down, childless. And you start to think what there's not going to. If he's childless, there's not going to be anybody who could be the heir of the Davidic throne. Right, that's the way you think as you read this, a man who will not prosper in his days, for no man of his descendants will prosper, sitting on the throne of David or ruling again in Judah, and you think this is the end. I mean, this is the end. I mean God is done with the house of David. That's what it sounds like at a cursory reading A lot of Christmases.
Speaker 2:I go through this passage because I like to tie it into Matthew 1 and the genealogy of Joseph and that ultimately leads to Messiah and how David is. Because David's in this line David is. If you read further the story of Coniah, he did have sons, but none of them sat on the throne. And that was the intent of this passage that none of them would sit on the throne. But the line does continue, kind of like a thread, but it continues down into the time of Mary and David right in the New Testament, and David's in this line. The problem is is that David's not qualified. He can't sit on the throne because he's a descendant of this guy who was cursed Coniah. So nobody who's a direct lineal descendant of Coniah can sit on the throne.
Speaker 2:And Joseph is in this line. Did I say Mary and David? Mary and Joseph? Sorry, joseph is in this line. So Joseph, while he's in the throne line, he can't exercise the rights because he's under a curse. If Jesus was the natural son of Joseph, he would also be under the curse, but the New Testament resolves this by reminding us of Isaiah 7.14, that he would be born of a, of a virgin. So he didn't have Joseph as his biological father and therefore he avoids this curse. And when he's adopted by Joseph under adoption laws, he receives throne rights as well as the right to exercise them, which is what makes Jesus so unique and why the New Testament opens with this story, this story which mentions Coniah.
Speaker 2:In Matthew 1, coniah is mentioned and all of our minds are supposed to be on Jeremiah 22 and remembering what God said to that house at the time of the exile here and what he said was dangerous here. And what he said was dangerous. But God, like a brilliant chess player, right, he makes this move of the virgin birth and he brings in adoption. I mean, what was Joseph going to do? He was going to divorce her, send her away. Remember? The angel said no, no, no, no, because it was absolutely essential that Joseph marry Mary so he could pass on his throne rights to the virgin-born one. That had to happen. So the angel said no, she hasn't done anything wrong, just marry her. It'll all make sense. And he does.
Speaker 2:But that's the second evidence that the kingdom of God departed at this time. What's the third evidence? The third one is the book of Daniel. So we'll just flip over there. It's right after Ezekiel. So go to the right after Jeremiah and you'll come across Ezekiel and then you'll see Daniel.
Speaker 2:So Daniel, this is when, and Daniel 2, for example, is a good example Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the four-metal statue right, the head of gold, the breasts and arms of silver, the waist and thighs of bronze, the waist and thighs of bronze, and then the lower legs and feet of iron, and iron mixed with clay, right? You remember this statue? He kept having this recurring dream. He didn't know what it meant. Daniel was the only one who could interpret the dream.
Speaker 2:He explains the significance of the dream, and this is the third evidence that the kingdom of God went out of history at that time. The significance of the dream was this God is giving political supremacy to four Gentile kingdoms. The head of gold signified the kingdom of Babylon. The breasts and arms of silver signified the kingdom of Medo-Persia, which became later just Persia, and then the waist and thighs of bronze became the kingdom of Greece. And then the legs of iron, and then iron mixed with clay, point to Rome as the fourth Gentile kingdom. And we learn later it would have two phases an iron-only phase, only strong, and then an iron mixed with clay form, which is strong but brittle. And so the final, or fourth, empire of Gentiles would have two phases. So this is what we know, what Jesus called in Matthew 21, 24, the times of the Gentiles, when they would reign supreme.
Speaker 2:So this revelation in the statue in the time of Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar is the third evidence that there's no kingdom of God on earth right now. Instead, there's going to be the kingdom of man, and it's going to be manifested in four kingdoms, successive kingdoms, the last of which will have two phases. So my question always is is there a kingdom of God on earth right now? No, no, we are still in the times of the Gentiles, and only when the times of the Gentiles come to its completion will the kingdom of God come upon this earth. And that's the fifth kingdom. In the vision, remember, he'd see the statue, right. He'd see the head, then he'd see the breasts and arms appear, then he'd see the waist and bronze appear, then he'd see the legs and the feet appear, and then he'd see a stone this is a stone cut out without hands, meaning it's supernatural in origin and then it just flew right at the base and destroyed the entire statue all at one time, and then the stone grew to fill the whole earth. That's the fifth kingdom.
Speaker 2:Is that here now? I mean, is God's kingdom and his righteousness ruling all over the world? I mean, this is a big joke. I was talking to somebody just before about this. This idea that the kingdom is now is basically almost in every church. Pretty much almost every single church teaches kingdom now theology. Are you joking me? When the kingdom of God comes on the earth.
Speaker 2:Read Amos 5 again, right. Amos 5 says justice will roll down like waters, righteousness like an everlasting stream. Does anything in this world even remotely get close to that description? No, there's no kingdom now, not God's kingdom. There's the times of the Gentiles and these four Gentile kingdoms that began in the day of Daniel, when the southern kingdom of Judah went into exile to Babylon. So those three evidences, right. The Shekinah glory would leave the temple. So God's presence not among Israel. Second, the Davidic dynasty is cursed through Coniah. And lastly, this transfer of supremacy, political supremacy, to Gentile nations, which remains with us to this day. So you have, in these four kingdoms, let's just say, contributions are made. So I'm going to go through briefly some of the contributions on a very basic level.
Speaker 2:So Babylon contributed the concept of fractional reserve banking. Fractional reserve banking means, in a nutshell you put some money in the bank, let's say you put $5,000 in the bank. They take a large percentage of that and they loan it out to other people. Your money is not sitting there, okay, they loan it out to other people and make money on that. So it inflates the perceived money supply. It makes the perceived money supply greater than it actually is. Okay, which has a lot of repercussions for business and economics and all sorts of things, but they came up with this idea. You know, basically it's a system ultimately of theft, but anyway, this is what we live in. So they contributed to that idea and it continued.
Speaker 2:Even when Babylon went away and Medo-Persia, the second kingdom, comes, that idea remained. They inherited it, in other words, and it's been inherited down to our own day. The second kingdom is Medo-Persia, the Persians. They were the ones who really had the dream of globalism. Have you ever heard of that idea? This was the Persians who were behind globalism and their global aspirations. Now, when they were defeated by the Greeks, alexander and so forth, alexander the Great globalism didn't go away. It was inherited by the Greeks, and the Greeks also inherited fractional reserve banking, and this is what's happening. It's a building of a kingdom of man. So it's got an economic dimension, it's got a globalist dimension, and then you have Greece, and Greece comes along and we all know most of us probably know what Greece contributed human rationalism, philosophy, human philosophy, rationalism. So that was their contribution. So see, you're getting all these ideas together, okay Fractional reserve banking, globalist aspirations, humanist rationalism, autonomy. And then here comes Rome, and Rome is going to make a contribution. They're going to inherit all that. Rome is going to make a contribution. They're going to inherit all that, and they're going to make a contribution. And their contribution is law and military okay, law and military, and, and all these things are now combined okay, with rome, and continue to be combined, uh, combined, and manifest themselves in all sorts of things that we see today in our world. They are all manifestations of these four basic things. They're all thrown together.
Speaker 2:And so this is the times of the Gentiles, and this all started in Daniel's day, and so, obviously, Israel was going into a period where, let's just say, of darkness right For them, darkness, loss of hope, because now you are enslaved to a foreign country and you're living under their rules, now, living in their system. So this is the time of the exile. Now, what do we learn then? There's a couple of doctrinal things we learn. First of all, the doctrine of sanctification and specifically the idea of separation. So this is another idea under sanctification, and that is how do we live separate lives? Because what's happening? What's happening is the Jews are going into exile, so now they're going to have to live in foreign cultures. So they're being taken at this time to Babylon, right, the Northern kingdom had gone to Assyria, so the question is now that you're being thrown into another culture with a totally different value system than your Hebrew culture. How do you live in that? How do you live in the world and not become like the world? This becomes the prevailing problem in the time of the exile.
Speaker 2:But you have people who are leading the way. You have people like Daniel, right. You have people like Esther, these stories. So, daniel, this guy becomes one of the top government officials in the kingdom of Babylon and he's able to work as a liaison for the Jewish people while they're in Babylon. So he shows us wisdom, techniques for how to live in the world but not to be engulfed by it, isn't he? He's an amazing example. A lot of Christians name their kids Daniel, right, because they say we love this guy. This was a guy who showed us that you don't have to retreat from the world as a Christian, that you can go right in there and you can serve right along in the president's cabinet, okay. And you don't have to become corrupt. Okay, you can be like Daniel and you can stand firm and God will honor you if you live by faith, like Daniel did.
Speaker 2:Okay, esther's another one who put herself in a somewhat precarious situation in the times of Haman, who wanted to destroy every Jew. Right, and she became a liaison for her people in the king's house and God used her beauty to do that. God can use anything. This would be totally unexpected in the Bible. I would think that God would use a woman because she was super beautiful, but to be the one who delivers her people, israel, right. So she's another person who is injected in there in this time period to show how to be in the world, but not become of the world. Okay. So sanctification and separation. How do we do this? Now I'll give the three answers and then the last thing okay, as we come to the close to the end of the Old Testament, there are three basic answers that are given for separation. Okay, and separation just means this what is my relationship as a believer to the surrounding culture around me, in this case American culture? What is my relationship to that First attempt thing you can say is to accommodate?
Speaker 2:This is the most popular approach of Christians and the reason is because it's easy. It's easy, you get along with everybody in the surrounding culture, because you basically say that the value system of the culture is the value system of the Bible and we just reinterpret the Bible to fit whatever the culture says. So examples are gender-neutral translations of the Bible. Has anybody heard of those? Yeah, why did they do that? Because they're trying to accommodate and make the Bible more culture-friendly. What we would just say well, that's just compromise, right? I mean, it's God's Word and now you've changed it and you're not translating the genders of the pronouns and the nouns correctly. So you have done what you're not supposed to do, and that is change the Bible. You shouldn't do that. But that's just an example of accommodation.
Speaker 2:The second strategy is to physically separate. These are people who recognize, hey, we can't go along with the culture, we can't accommodate. I mean, we're not doing that. So what they do is they physically separate from the culture by taking themselves out of the world and kind of build their own society or group, and these would be, for example, in Roman Catholicism. An example would be monasticism and an example from Protestantism would be the Amish. We're just going to separate and form our own society over here. So that's another approach. The last approach is counterattack. And these are the people who say no, no, no, we can't go out of the world, we can't physically separate, we're definitely not going to accommodate, we can't do that. The Bible's not going to line up with our value system out there. So I'm going to remain in the culture but I'm going to develop every area of life in a distinctly Christian manner.
Speaker 2:I had a guy call me this week and he says he's on the road and he drives all the time. He used to drive big trucks, now he just drives locally where he lives. But he says he wants to get out of this because he has like a master's degree in social work. And he's like I want to go back into this, I lost my license, I need to get it all back. But how do I go back into it and not employ all the methods and philosophies that are part of social work, like which would just be all your psychology Freud, skinner, maslow, blah, blah, blah, jung, all these pagan people who came up with these psychology theories? So how do I do it? And of course I was like well, there's got to be a niche for what you are offering. And of course I was like, well, there's got to be a niche for what you are offering. You want to do social work, but you want to do it on biblical ethics and morals and basis and principles, not on all these pagan philosophy ideas. There's people, you know, just like some people say, well, I'm not going to do, you know, just traditional medicine. I want to go with a holistic doctor. In that same way. See, there's a niche for that. If you want to find that, and I was like there's got to be people who are looking for people who will do social work and help people but will do it with biblical ethics, and I bet they'll come across the country to go to you. So put yourself out there and market yourself in that way that you're not going to use these philosophies, and that's the idea of counterattack. You want to stay in the culture. You want to stay in the culture. You want to do biology or the sciences, or math or law or whatever, but you don't want to do it in a pagan manner. You want to adopt Christian presuppositions and develop these areas in a distinctly Christian manner. So here's what J Gresham Machen said about this. He lived in the early 1900s. He said instead of destroying the arts and sciences or being indifferent to them. Okay, these are two possibilities. As Christians, we can say, oh, that's terrible art, and just I hate art, and just reject art or the sciences. Another approach is we could just be indifferent to them. Who cares about the arts? It's just all about Jesus, or something like that. I get that it's all about Jesus. But Jesus is concerned about art. He's an artist. He's painting the horizon at every moment. Can we not see this? He's interested in music, he's interested in math, he's the author of all these things. Right, so don't be indifferent to these things and don't destroy these things. But he says, instead, let us cultivate them with all the enthusiasm of the various humanists, in other words, you know, I was listening to someone sing on the radio when I came over here and I was like she has an amazing voice. I won't tell you who it was she's not a Christian, as far as I know but like she has pursued voice, like to the nth degree. Right, why can't we as Christians not do the same thing? So he says don't be indifferent to these types of things. Let's cultivate these things, he says. But at the same time we do this, he says consecrate them to the service of our God. That's what we're trying to do, okay. So he says let us go forth joyfully, enthusiastically, to make the world subject to God, in other words, bring something to the world that the world has never seen, because what we're bringing is on such a great, high level of excellence, but it does so in a way that glorifies God. That's why I say you can go into any area of discipline, of study in life and go and become an expert in that field and you can develop it in a distinctly Christian manner. You do not have to buy into the value system or philosophies of the world that are underlying these manner. You do not have to buy into the value system or philosophies of the world that are underlying these areas. You can go into business, but you don't have to accept the business models built on pagan ideas. You don't have to do that. You can develop it in a Christian. Will it take work? Yes, you will have to think it through. You'll have to think it through, but will it work? I think God will. I think he will honor it, just like he did Daniel. Daniel became a politician. Who wants to be a politician? Daniel became a politician. Okay, but he didn't buy in all the philosophies of Babylon. He was trained in all that. Remember. They took him for several years. They trained him all the maths and sciences and politics of Babylon. He learned the language. He was the top of his class. He got a 4.0. If whatever's the top now, is it 4.0 still, anyway, um, are you getting a 4.0? See, why are we striving to be the best? Well, because we're christians. That's why, I mean, when I went to school, I had to learn all that evolution baloney, not in just biology classes, but it's in your chemistry classes, it's in your physics classes, it was in my neurobiology courses, it was in all those courses. It's all just in there, stuck in there, and you had to do what I had to answer the questions right on the test so I could get a 100%. That's what I went for. Why? Because I believe all that. No, because I want to understand it, so I can be excellent and get out and get through. And then I can go out and think it all through and work out my philosophy on the basis of Christian theology, which is exactly what I did. I said that the first two years after I graduated from the university, I learned more than I learned in all of my education, of my entire life, why? Because I had time to go and stop and back up and fix all the little mess-ups along the way and get it all within a Christian framework. So that's what he's saying we need to do, and that's what Daniel did, that's what Esther's an example of, and the last thing we'll show is this, and that is we return and we find something really really neat at the end of the Old Testament that is paralleled by something really really neat at the end of the New Testament, and that is a new type of genre, okay, that God speaks in. So we already know God speaks. That's revelation. He speaks through men. That's inspiration. But now we have this new genre that everybody is afraid to touch today Apocalyptic genre. This type of literature is highly visionary. It's symbolic, highly symbolic, and it has angelic interpreters come in and explain to the prophet. Whatever it means this type of genre and the reason God speaks like this is because believers at that time in history are living in a very dark world. Think of you. If you're an Israelite and you were taken captive and marched 800 miles to Babylon. You're in a whole new world. Your whole world's been turned upside down. All your hopes, all your dreams, all your aspirations are totally smashed. Anything you ever hoped for in your life will not happen. So it's a very, very dark place. In that context, god speaks. Apocalyptic Books like Daniel, zechariah, ezekiel there's all this stuff going on. You're like what is that thing? I have no idea what these symbols mean and all this kind of stuff, and of course, you have to study to understand what this is all about. But the reason that God gives that type of writing in that type of time period is to give hope, because symbols are easy to remember, aren't they? I mean, which of you cannot remember the four metal statue in Daniel 2? Which of you cannot remember the four metal statue in Daniel 2? Which of you cannot remember the four crazy beasts in Daniel 7? I mean like. Or the ram and the goat in Daniel 8? I mean just off the top of your head. You're like, yeah, yeah, I remember that because it's a symbol. And when you are hurting, when you are depressed, when your life has no hope, you need something that you can remember. So God wrote in apocalyptic genre so they could remember it. And so this literature is always written when believers need hope when they need hope, when they need to see that there's light at the end of this tunnel. So for Israel it was Ezekiel, daniel and Zechariah. Okay, because all those books paint this really, really dark picture of the world. But at the very end they all say the kingdom of God will return. That is the hope of the whole Bible that the kingdom will come and all this mess will be dealt with right. What book comes at the end of the New Testament for the church? That is apocalyptic? In John, the book of Revelation. And why is that book there? Because the Bible knows that toward the end of the church, which is maybe where we are now, that the world is just going to become so dark and Christians are going to lose hope as the world turns against us and hates us and all of this. And so what do we need? We need to know that there's some light at the end of the tunnel. And so the book of Revelation paints that picture and it says in the end the kingdom of God will return. Both testaments end this way. Showing you the kingdom of God is super important. So, yeah, it's a dark world now, but the light is coming. He will return, he will establish his kingdom on earth, and you and I will be there. So the exile sets us up for this new type of literature that God would speak in, known as apocalyptic.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas. If you would like to see the visuals that went along with today's sermon, you can find those on Rumble and on YouTube under Spokane Bible Church. That is where Jeremy is the pastor and teacher. We hope you found today's lesson productive and useful in growing closer to God and walking more obediently with Him. If you found this podcast to be useful and helpful, then please consider rating us in your favorite podcast app, and until next time, we hope you have a blessed and wonderful day.