0:00

Music.

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Founder and director, Dr. Charlie Bing. This podcast and other helpful resources

0:14

can be found at our website, gracelife.org.

0:18

Now, here's Dr. Bing. You know, I'm not an expert on Israel.

0:24

My lane is more the gospel and grace, as Robbie indicated.

0:29

That's where I've done most of my work. So I have just loved being here at the

0:33

conference and absorbing all this information information about Israel.

0:37

It's like drinking out of a fire hose, right?

0:40

And that explains the long lines at the bathroom, of course.

0:45

I appreciate the ministry of Schaeffer Theological Seminary,

0:48

and I'm privileged to teach for them also, have been connected with them for some time.

0:53

And I appreciate especially the emphasis on the pastoral ministry,

0:57

which so many schools are not emphasizing these days.

1:00

And there's such a great need for pastors out there. I get calls,

1:02

emails emails all the time, as I know Schaefer does also, asking for free grace pastors.

1:09

In other words, pastors who understand the clear grace of God when it comes

1:12

to the gospel, because that's what I'm all about.

1:15

And there's a big problem in the world when it comes to the gospel.

1:20

As many of you know, if you've been outside of the United States,

1:23

you don't have to leave the United States to know that there's a big problem

1:26

with the gospel. You know that.

1:28

People are encroaching the grace of of God with works.

1:33

And of course, the Bible says that works cancels out grace. We're saved by grace.

1:38

So grace tends to be an important concept. So I started Burleson Bible Church in 1986.

1:46

I told them I'd stay with them for three years to help them get established.

1:50

And it started from a Bible study. So I agreed to stay three years. And 19 years later,

1:59

We finally got into a building, got a nice piece of land, got into a building,

2:02

and everybody was happy, and the church was thriving as you would expect a year

2:07

later after having a new building. Everybody loved everybody. I love them. They love me. So I quit.

2:14

It's good to leave on a high note, my friends, right? Don't want to be forced

2:19

out. Don't want to be asked to leave. But I really had a greater burden on my heart for the gospel of grace and how

2:26

it needed to be preached around the world in our country, of course.

2:29

And so that's what we do. Our resources go out around the world.

2:33

I go around the world teaching in different countries, and we have a Grace Life

2:37

Institute that trains people in a four-year program, gives them a certificate at the end of that.

2:42

And then literature also is going around the world, and we're very grateful about that.

2:46

In fact, if you want to see some of that literature, go get the app GL Ministries,

2:51

and And you'll be right at your fingertips, 102 grace notes,

2:55

103 is coming out this week in our printed newsletter.

2:59

It'll be soon added to the archives there.

3:01

And it's GL Ministries. And then we have a podcast also. We have been accessed

3:06

by every country around the world. We're exploding in the Spanish world with our resources that are translated.

3:13

And even though we only have one thing in Chinese, the Chinese are accessing

3:16

it because they like to learn English. So we find them accessing that.

3:21

So this year, I've, last year I had four international trips and I was going to take a fit.

3:28

I was going to take, lead a group of Grace Life friends on a study tour of Israel in early November.

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Well, that turned out well, didn't it? I told them after the Hamas war began,

3:42

I said, well, I have two choices.

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We can cancel the trip or we can have a really authentic adventure because I

3:50

promised them an adventure of a lifetime. But of course we had to cancel the trip and it devastated, you know,

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we all felt sorry about it, but we felt so bad for the people over there who

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were so abused, murdered and tortured.

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And even for our tour guide, who was actually an American living in Israel,

4:07

married to an an Israeli woman, has two children who are in the IDF.

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And so any sympathy, any suffering we had was certainly dulled by the fact that

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we turned that into prayers for him and his family that we knew.

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So after the Hamas war began, within two weeks, they had rained 7,000 rockets

4:30

down on the country of Israel.

4:33

But you've probably heard, and now you know, that there's what Israel calls the Iron Dome.

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The Iron Dome was invented in 2011.

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It was first deployed in 2014. 2014.

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It is credited now, the numbers are not certain, but credited with well over

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4,000 destructions of enemy missiles that come in aimed at Israel.

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Their success rate is said to be 90 to 95 percent.

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And the way it basically works is they have a radar system that detects the

5:06

incoming missiles, and then they have a command and control system that calculates

5:11

the velocity trajectory trajectory of that missile and where it might land.

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And if it's going to land in a populated area, which most of them aren't,

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if it's going to land in a populated area, then they send up the missiles to

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destroy those with the 90 to 95% rate.

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So it's a very advanced technological system that the U.S.

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Helped develop, and now they're putting on their ships and so forth.

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Forth, it's hard for me to think that a system like that is just the result

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of man's technology, especially when it comes to Israel and what I know as a Bible guy about Israel.

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And so I want to look with you about, through the Scriptures in a quick survey

5:56

at first, and we'll slow down, about this iron dome of grace that God has over

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Israel through the ages. The basic idea we get from the scriptures is God preserves his people.

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He preserves his people. He preserves Israel. The same grace protects us as

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believers in Christ, as Christians.

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And it's all about grace. I tend to look at the Israel.

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What I would like to do today is just take a step back and interpret all these

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events we've been hearing about Israel through the lens of God's love and God's grace.

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You know, they're really related to each other when you think about it.

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God could love us infinitely, but that doesn't mean that we'll get saved.

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How do we get saved? It's grace that brings that salvation to us as a free gift.

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You know that old hymn at Calvary? Oh, the love that drew salvation's plan.

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Oh, the grace that brought it down to man.

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Without the grace of God, we would remain lost even if God did love us,

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but his love and his grace, of course, work together.

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And so when I look at Israel and I look at the Bible, I look at it through the

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lens of God's love and his grace, which are very, very, of course, related.

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And of course, it starts back in Genesis, Genesis, obviously,

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with creation as a work of grace, and then the first promise in Genesis 3.15

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that God would send a seed who would destroy the works of Satan was a wonderful

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promise that started to take flesh, literally,

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in the promise to Abraham and the Abrahamic covenant to give him a land and

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a seed or descendant who would bless all the nations of the world.

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And so Abraham is considered the father of the Jews. And that promise is then

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reiterated to To Isaac, his son, and to Jacob, as scheming as he was, God used him.

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And that's where Israel finds its name in Jacob, who's renamed Israel,

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one who struggles with God, which perhaps depicts or foreshadows the history

7:58

of Israel as being a disobedient, stiff-necked people most of the time towards God.

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And of course, after that, we have the story of Joseph, which takes up such

8:08

so big a part of the end of Genesis.

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And I think there's a reason for that, because in my opinion,

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Joseph is a type of Jesus Christ. He saved Israel. He saved Jacob, his father. Right.

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And so his brothers come down into Egypt and there they're saved from the famine.

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So Joseph becomes a savior for Jacob, Israel. real.

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And, you know, I don't know why God caused them to be in bondage for the 400 years in Egypt.

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I don't know that that's ever explained. You find a verse that explains that.

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Maybe it's just so God could show his grace and protection for that 400-year

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period where they keep their distinct culture, language, and identity,

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and then bring them back up into the promised land.

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Through the Red Sea, out of bondage from the Egyptians into God's promise,

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or into the wilderness at first, right?

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And this promise that God gave to Abraham, I will bless those who bless you,

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and I will curse him who curses you, follows them through the wilderness because

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they're constantly having difficulties and problems and enemies,

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and yet God preserves them there.

9:20

He provides manna to eat he provides occasionally

9:24

interrupts their meal with meat which is much

9:27

desired by them he provides water out of

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the rock he gives them the law as a

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as what we might consider a constitution for the nation you know for a nation

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has that people and as of a land it also has to have an organizing principle

9:41

a constitution and so the law becomes the constitution for this new nation that

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God brings into existence through the wilderness experience as he protects them.

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In that wilderness experience, before they enter the promised land,

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you know what happens in Moab. Balak, the king of the Moabites, wants to curse Israel, and he hires Balaam,

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a prophet, to curse Israel. And Balaam goes to curse Israel, and he returns to Balak and says, I can't do it.

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God has blessed these people, reminding them that God said, whoever would bless

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you, you will be blessed, whoever curses you will be cursed.

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I can't curse these people. In fact, they look like the innumerable number.

10:20

I even see a king emerging from them.

10:23

And so in an attempt to extinguish God's people.

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God snuck in there and loaded up Balaam with some stinger missiles or whatever

10:35

they're using and protected his people from being cursed.

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They go into the land of Canaan under Joshua, Yeshua, Savior.

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They go into the promised land, fighting the enemies, victory after victory

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after victory as they walk in obedience, a defeat when they disobey.

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But Joshua conquers the land, not totally, not completely, which caused problems

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as they go into the period of the judges, as you know.

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And so the enemies rise up and God raises up also more missiles in his iron

11:12

dome called judges, right?

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Judges are not perfect. We think of Gideon who was, when God called him, he was farming.

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Oh, mighty man of God. Oh, look, look, Lord. I'm a farmer.

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And yet Gideon takes the call after many hesitations and tests to make sure

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he was doing God's will. He conquers the Midianites.

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Samson, imperfect, immoral, but God uses him as well.

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It's the earliest photograph I could find of Samson. He was a poser.

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So even in this darkest darkest age of sin,

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this darkest age of sin, when God had every reason to give up on his people,

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when everyone did what was right in his own eyes, and the horrific sins at the

12:00

end of the book of Judges that you know about, yet God protected his people through it all with this iron dome of grace.

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And so Israel becomes a nation. They go through the period of the Judges and

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then into the period period of the kings where they choose their king,

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Saul, and then David, and then the kings to follow.

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Constantly at warfare, sometimes victorious, sometimes not, but mostly victorious because of God's grace.

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And he gives David his covenant, as we've been talking about,

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promising them a bright future and a king and a kingdom that will come.

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In that period of the Kings, we have the prophet Elijah huddling in a cave,

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being persecuted by Ahab and Jezebel, thinking that he's the only one.

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And God says, no, Elijah, there is a remnant of 7,000 who have not bent the knee to Baal.

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7,000 people in this remnant that God has preserved by his grace.

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But the nations, of course, surrounding Israel, conquer Israel,

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the Syrian captivity in 722 BC of northern Israel and 586 BC of Judah,

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take them into captivity during the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

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Maybe that's why God brought that new covenant to them in the time of Jeremiah

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and Ezekiel, to remind them that there is a bright future for them.

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After the Babylonian captivity, they are subjected to the Medes and Persians.

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In the Medes and Persians, of course, you have this this whole story in the book of Esther,

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where the invisible hand of God, who's never mentioned in the book,

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is orchestrating a victory through the iron dome of Mordecai and Esther,

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who save again the nation of Israel and preserve Israel.

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And so that's commemorated, of course, by the Jewish Jewish Feast of Purim,

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which commemorates that great salvation.

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And after that period, we go into an intertestamental period of 400 years between

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the Old Testament and the New Testament, where Israel is subjected to the Seleucids and the Ptolemies and Seleucids,

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and they revolt under the Maccabees, and they gain some land.

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And through all of that difficulty and torture, If you read the apocalyptic,

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apocryphal books, read the history of the Maccabees and how they were tortured

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under the Seleucids and the Ptolemies, Antiochus IV especially.

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It's a terrible time for them, and yet they survived, and they commemorate that

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survival with the Feast of Hanukkah, because when they rededicated the temple,

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of course, the oil didn't run out on the lamps.

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So God preserved Israel there's a how you like that for a walk through the Old

14:50

Testament God preserved Israel with this iron dome of grace through every difficulty

14:55

and trial and enemy along the way.

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And then we come into the New Testament era, and we have Jesus,

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of course, coming as the King of the Jews, born as the King of the Jews,

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born as the Savior of the world, and yet he's rejected by his own people.

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But from that rejection and that death and that resurrection,

15:15

we have the payment that was made for our sins.

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But that's not a message that the Jews received well.

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And so when Paul began to preach that message and to spread it as Jesus commanded

15:26

him to, by the time he gets to the end of the book of Acts, we see the persecution

15:30

all along the way in the book of Acts.

15:33

By the time we get to the end of the book of Acts, Paul is in Rome.

15:36

He's explaining the gospel to the Jews. They reject it. He says, it's just like Isaiah said, your hearts are dull,

15:41

your ears are stopped, your eyes are blind. And he says, from now on, I'm turning to the Gentiles.

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And so a partial blindness has descended upon Israel.

15:50

And God is now working today with us who are Gentiles.

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Thank God for that. but it's temporary, we learn in Romans chapter 11.

16:01

It's temporary. There will be a time when Israel will be saved.

16:05

And those are good words for us. And that's why Romans chapter 11 begins with

16:11

the question, has God cast away his people?

16:14

And he's going to show exactly the opposite, that God has not. He's not finished yet.

16:20

He's going to give up the big picture, the end game in his work through the nation of Israel.

16:28

And so Israel is now a nation, and people are returning to that nation a little at a time.

16:37

Some of you know that I like to fish. Understatement, really. I was fishing in Alaska a couple years ago,

16:44

and our guide took us out into the ocean to a certain area he knew where the

16:48

fish congregated. It was more like a plateau under the ocean.

16:51

The fish congregate here. And I asked him, why is that, that they congregate

16:55

in this particular place? Now, you know, it's always been a mystery to science why a salmon can be born

17:01

in a certain stream, way up an inlet, and a couple years later,

17:06

after going around the world, go back to the exact spot it was born.

17:10

It's always been a scientific mystery. Now, some have postulated it's due to

17:15

the geomagnetic field, the electromagnetic field,

17:21

and they have actually found iron in the brain of some of these salmon and seminary students.

17:26

And but they

17:29

they that's one theory that's one

17:32

theory and that may may go away to explain it but what's kind

17:35

of replacing that is what or combining with

17:38

that is a theory that these streams when it

17:42

rains they it washes down the molecules and every stream has its unique stamp

17:46

or smell and those molecules get dispersed in the ocean and the salmon begin

17:50

to pick it up like pharanomes invisible invisible scent detectors and they eventually

17:56

find their way because that that's the only way you can account for them going to the exact same spot.

18:03

Smell home. They catch a whiff of it while they're in the ocean and they return.

18:08

Now, I don't want to compare Jews to salmon, kosher salmon even.

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But when God gave the new covenant and told about the end game,

18:17

I think that they caught a whiff that God was at work.

18:22

Isaiah 43, 5 through 6, Fear not, for I am with you. I will bring your descendants

18:26

from the east, and I will regather you from the west.

18:28

I will say to the north, Give them up, and to the south, Do not keep them back.

18:32

Bring my sons from afar my daughters from the ends of

18:35

the earth this final regathering of israel

18:38

would have sparked in the did spark

18:41

in the hearts of jewish people around

18:44

the world and so in five movements called uh aliyah which means descend or going

18:51

ascend or going up from the language of the psalms of ascent going up to zion

18:57

at least five waves in late beginning in the late 1800s they They begin to return to the land.

19:04

Jeremiah 31, again, in the new covenant says, Behold, I will gather them out

19:07

of all the countries where I've driven them from my anger and my fury and my great wrath.

19:12

Ezekiel 36, for I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of the

19:16

countries and bring you into your own land. Jeremiah and Ezekiel and their people needed to hear that at that time because

19:22

they were being dispersed in captivity in Babylon.

19:26

It looks like the doors were shut for Israel. It looks like lights out,

19:29

but God was saying, I'm not finished with you yet.

19:32

Here's the long, here's the long game. Here's the, here's the big picture.

19:36

And assuming that I think the Jewish people began to return to the land and.

19:44

Has been pointed out, they're returning to judgment. But wasn't it the new covenant

19:48

promises where they caught the whiff of a homeward call?

19:53

And so by 1948, Israel declares its independence as a nation.

19:59

And it was a shock to the world, actually.

20:02

It shocked the world. It shocked the Muslims.

20:06

Since 1948, 3 million have returned. And they not only survive, but they thrive.

20:13

They thrive in a way that it's hardly humanly possible to explain.

20:19

And I'm not saying that this is the fulfillment of the kind of thriving they're

20:23

going to experience of the new covenant, but how else do we explain the fact

20:27

that Israel has become a fertile place?

20:31

The promise under the new covenant is that the wilderness and wasteland shall

20:35

be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the road,

20:38

it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice.

20:42

But maybe the farmers who began to cultivate this desert land of Israel had

20:48

that in mind as they began to work.

20:51

Did you know that Israel has more orchards and produces 10 times as many apples

20:57

as Russia? In your face, Putin.

21:01

Applesauce. Israel has the highest agricultural agricultural output per capita

21:07

of any country in the world. Not just agriculturally. They're one of the healthiest countries in the world.

21:14

The United States is number 33. The only country in the world that has more trees today than it did 100 years ago, Israel.

21:22

450 million trees planted.

21:25

They reuse and recycle more water than any country in the world by huge margins.

21:29

They desalinate water greater than any country in the world and export it and

21:34

teach other nations how how to do it. They have the highest ratio of university degrees per capita of any nation in the world.

21:40

The highest number of engineers and PhDs per capita by a large margin.

21:46

The highest rate of entrepreneurship by women.

21:50

More museums, more orchestras per capita than any country in the world publish

21:55

more books per capita by a large margin.

21:57

The largest number of startup companies per capita in the world and the highest

22:01

amount of research and development centers in the the world,

22:04

more Israeli companies are listed on the NASDAQ than all of it,

22:07

all of European companies. If my research is correct, they developed the first microprocessor for personal

22:13

computers and the first firewall to protect computers.

22:17

In medicine, they developed the pill cam, which is a pill camera that is swallowed

22:21

to show the insides of a person. They developed Waze. Are you thankful for that?

22:26

They developed Waze and it has over 150 million users worldwide,

22:30

worldwide the second most downloaded traffic app and they developed mobile eye

22:36

a leader in the race for self-driving cars not sure i'm going to be thankful

22:40

for that don't trust those.

22:44

That's not the fulfillment of the new covenant. That's just a foretaste of what it's going to be like.

22:48

But how do you explain that kind of prosperity from the tragedy of a Holocaust

22:52

where 6 million Jews are murdered to a nation born overnight becoming immediately

22:58

a world military power and all of that?

23:03

Can that be explained in human terms or is that God's grace?

23:09

Well the problem is israel still surrounded by

23:12

their enemies this small nation is surrounded by huge arab

23:15

countries that have all kinds of oil resources and

23:20

people and armies and as soon as israel declared its independence in may 14

23:25

1948 may 15th the next day they were attacked by five arab nations egypt syria

23:32

jordan lebanon and iraq immediately invaded israel and after a 10-month war, Israel was victorious.

23:40

And then 1967, there are other skirmishes and wars, to be sure,

23:45

the ones we are most familiar with, the Six Days War.

23:48

In 1967, the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and later Iraq attacked Israel.

23:53

The goal was to wipe Israel off the map, they said.

23:57

They had a huge superiority in armor and aircraft and troops.

24:02

Egypt had 100,000 troops, oops, 900 to 950 tanks, and 600, there were 600 Arab planes altogether,

24:10

and Israel defeated them in six days with 200 aircraft in a preemptive strike

24:16

that took out the other air forces.

24:20

Afterwards, Israel held Sinai, the Golan Heights, Gaza, West Bank,

24:24

and for the first time in 2,500 hundred years, they regained control of Jerusalem.

24:31

Can we explain that in human terms? The Yom Kippur War in 1973,

24:36

the Arab nations attacked again on the holiest day of the year for the Jews

24:40

to win back territory that they lost in 1967.

24:44

Egypt and Syrian forces attacked Israel, and despite the surprise and the heavy

24:49

losses, Israel, with the urgent help of the United States, once again prevailed.

24:55

And now on October 7th, 2023, Hamas attacks Israel again in a murderous, a terrorist act of war.

25:03

And war has begun in what we might call the war with Hamas.

25:08

Anyone want to predict the outcome of that?

25:11

Now we know through history that Israel doesn't always win, but if you want

25:14

to take a place of bed, I'm willing to take it. That they're still under God's iron dome of protection and that they will prevail

25:21

through that the satanic spirit of anti-semitism remains expressed in this this

25:29

mantra from the mountains to the sea palestine will be free.

25:35

Well, so God is still keeping and prospering them in the present.

25:39

We look to the future. The new covenant tells us that they will be prospered in many different ways.

25:46

Jeremiah 31, 31 through 36 summarized here tells us that the new covenant is

25:52

not like the old covenant. In fact, the fact that it is called the new covenant does away with the old

25:56

covenant of the law under Moses. In fact, what God's going to do is not carve the law in stone,

26:01

but in hearts in the new covenant. it.

26:04

It'll be internalized, and the motivation will be in the heart and the minds

26:08

of people of Israel, and he will be their God, and they will be his people in

26:13

a very special and intimate relationship, and they will all know him.

26:17

They will all know him, again, speaking of that intimacy, and their sins will be forgiven.

26:23

And as has been explained, the new covenant will be as secure as the sun, moon, and stars.

26:28

When the sun, moon, and stars cease to exist, so will the new covenant it ceased to exist.

26:32

He goes on to say in another place, Isaiah 41, and those who strive with you

26:38

shall perish and you shall seek them and not find them.

26:41

Those who contend with you, those who war against you shall be as nothing as a non-existent thing.

26:47

God's got Israel covered in the future as well.

26:52

Zechariah 12 verses 8 through 10, a graphic description of those end days.

26:56

In that day, the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

27:00

The one who is feeble among them in that day will be like David,

27:04

and the house of David shall be like God. Maybe that means unconquerable. Like the angel of the Lord before them.

27:11

It shall be in that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come

27:15

against Jerusalem, and I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants

27:19

of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplication.

27:25

Then they will look on me in whom they've pierced. Yes, they will mourn for

27:28

him as one mourns for his only son and grieve for him as one grieves for a firstborn.

27:34

When Jesus Christ returns and Israel sees the wounds and they look upon him

27:40

whom they pierced, there will be a great national conversion.

27:46

It will start on the inside. it will result in a physical or a national conversion,

27:53

the conversion of a whole nation. Romans 11, 26, 29, from a New Testament perspective, the Apostle Paul says,

28:00

and so all Israel will be saved as it is written.

28:05

So he starts out chapter 11, remember, as God cast away his people.

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And then he explains how God is sovereignly working and using Gentiles in the process.

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And he concludes, all Israel will be saved as it is written.

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The deliverer will come out of Zion and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob.

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For this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. from Isaiah 59.

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Concerning the gospel, they, unbelieving Jews, are enemies for your sake.

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But concerning the election, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers,

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for the sake of the fathers. Because God made a promise to Abraham, a promise of grace, conditioned upon

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nothing, because Abraham was sleeping when God made the covenant,

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conditioned upon nothing but the promise, the word of God, and the grace of God.

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God will keep that word for the

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sake of the fathers, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

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One of the most precious statements in the New Testament, the gifts and the

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calling of God are irrevocable.

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God will not give up his nation, Israel. He will preserve his people, Israel.

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We can apply that, of course, today. And I like to use this passage with believers

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because God has promised us eternal life. His gifts and his calling are irrevocable.

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And from it, we can teach the doctrine of something like eternal security. purity.

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Let me say this first. In the 17th century, King Louis XIV of France asked Blaise

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Pascal, the great Christian philosopher, to give him proof of God.

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And Pascal answered, why the Jews, your majesty, the Jews.

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Romans 11, 5 through 6 explains that there is a remnant according to the election of grace.

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That remnant according to the election of grace is what has has preserved Israel

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and God's sovereign purposes. And that gives Paul the open door to explain what grace is.

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He says, if it is of grace, it is not of works, or grace is not grace.

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And if it's of works, it can't be of grace, or works are not works.

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You can't have works and grace mixed together. God didn't choose Israel because

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they did good things and because they obeyed him.

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You want to to know why God chose Israel? I figured it out after reading Romans

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9, because God chose Israel, period.

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Someone quipped how odd of God to choose the Jews ever still.

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Well, God in his sovereignty knew what he was doing. There's been that remnant

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as so pointed out so wonderfully in this conference.

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But I want you to note something because I don't think we should go away from

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the conference only only thinking about Israel. Preserves his people. That's you and me too. I believe that the Old Testament

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picture of Israel is, in the collective sense, analogous to the Christian experience today.

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It's not person for person. Its nation is analogous to the Christian experience,

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to the individual Christian experience. Why do I say that? Well, if you look at some passages like 1 Corinthians 9,

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Hebrews 3, you'll see that Paul uses the nation or and the authors use the nation of Israel,

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to point to the Christian experience in first

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Corinthians 9 27 Paul says you know I buffet my body

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lest I be disqualified lest I

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lose my reward he's he's talking about rewards they're not salvation and so

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he says it takes discipline for me to know that I will get my reward in the

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very next chapter in verse which did not exist in Paul's day by the way he goes

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on to to apply it to the Christian life.

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If you want to look there, I'm looking at Romans chapter. I mean,

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no, I'm not going to go to 1 Corinthians right now.

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But he talks about being baptized. Has Israel lost their privileges?

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So Paul is implying that Christians can lose theirs, their rewards.

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Just as Israel was baptized into Moses through the Red Sea, so Christians are baptized into Christ.

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In the wilderness, Israel drank from the rock, which is Christ,

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he goes on to say in 1 Corinthians 10, 4, and we drink the living water from Jesus Christ.

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If you go to Hebrews in chapter three, you see that the nation of Israel is

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promised rest in the end, under the new covenant in the kingdom of God.

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And the believers also promised rest if they persevere in their faith and are rewarded.

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Great reward of rest. I'm not teaching perseverance of the saints for salvation,

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perseverance for rewards. 1 Corinthians 10, verse 6 says, now these things became our examples.

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Our examples. Our examples for what? And he goes on to say, not to do evil like

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Israel did in the wilderness. And so we learned from it. In verse 11 in chapter 10, he says,

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now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for

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our admonition upon whom whom the ends of the ages has come.

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God preserved the record, the ugly sometimes record of Israel,

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so that we might be admonished here at the end of the ages, as time draws near.

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To do what? To be faithful to God, not to resort to evil, not to abuse the privileges

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that he's given to us by his grace. Israel, a nation created, established, founded, protected, preserved by God's

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grace, with all the privileges of the law, abused those privileges and suffered

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for it in many temporal ways.

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We also are saved by the same grace of God, a God who loved us so much He gave

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His Son and saved us by His grace through faith.

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And if we do not live for the Lord Jesus, then we are also abusing our privileges of grace.

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And there are temporal consequences for believers.

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And that's That's why he says, take heed if you think you stand, lest you fall.

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Verse 12, that's a message for us Christians based on the experience of Israel.

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You see, God preserves his people, all of his people, by his grace.

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I think that's brought home to us most powerfully in Romans chapter 8.

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You can look there if you want to. Romans chapter 8, because I don't have the verses printed out,

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but you're very familiar. Familiar now paul has argued up to

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this point that we're saved by grace we're justified through

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faith in jesus christ not by works of any

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kind and he he begins to drive home this idea of god's preservation in chapter

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8 he he says for example in verse 30 moreover whom he predestined these he also

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called whom he called these he also justified and whom he justified these he also also glorified.

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Who did God glorify? Who will God glorify? All those that he justifies.

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There's no dropouts included here. If you're justified, you will also be glorified.

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That's a promise. That's an assurance. And he goes on to ask a series of questions,

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all of which show more and more the security of our salvation. Who can condemn us?

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Jesus, we've been justified by God. The judge of the universe has declared us not guilty.

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So who Who can bring a charge against us? Jesus is our intercessor. He's not lost a case.

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Brings it home in verse 35. As we're climbing up this mountain of grace,

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it seems like he's reaching the top and he tries to put it in the most eloquent way he can.

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He says, who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

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And he answers the question. Now, I always wonder why he used the word who,

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but it's the piece in Greek, which can also mean what.

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But there's usually a who behind the what.

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As we know from the experience of Israel, there is a powerful spiritual enemy

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behind Israel throughout their history,

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dogging the heels of a nation, using Genesis 3.15 language, and that is Satan himself.

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And when you look at the list here, he says, not shall tribulation or distress

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or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword.

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Now there's seven there, which seems to be that these are intended to be a group of things.

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They do share a lot of things in common. I don't think he's necessarily talking

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about the kind of trouble we naturally would fall into on our own,

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but looks like to me the results of some kind of persecution.

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And that's perhaps why he says, who shall separate us from the love of God?

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Tribulation, that's difficulties, trials, distress is all kinds of worrisome

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events. Persecution, of course, Christians in Paul's day were persecuted,

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they knew what that meant. And then he quotes Psalm 44 about we are being led to the slaughter all day long.

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In other words, we're being persecuted continually, murdered, killed, martyred.

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More Christians today are being martyred than any other time in history.

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Read about what's going on in Nigeria, Uganda, Sudan, or South Sudan, Myanmar.

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Famine you know a lot of people like to think famine

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is caused by natural causes famine is caused by people causes who

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they're caused by who causes politics greedy people

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instead of distributing the funds in the

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month and the food keep it for themselves not nakedness people don't purposely

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or accidentally get naked but when you're in persecution you have to flee your

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home and everything's burned up and you're living in the jungle you're naked

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you're exposed i think nakedness has the idea of you're totally exposed and vulnerable, not peril.

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Speaking of danger, not sword, there it is, the enemy's sword.

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No matter what an enemy devises against us, he's saying they can't separate us from the love of God.

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That doesn't mean Christians will not have difficult times like Israel had difficult

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times, but it does mean that God will always preserve us and see us through.

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God has our back. He has the long game.

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And he goes on in verse 38, for I am persuaded.

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It's as if Paul is using the most inclusive language he can.

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And it's tempting to think that he's speaking in hyperbole, but I don't know

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if this is really hyperbole, is it? He says, I am persuaded that neither death nor life, that covers a lot,

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doesn't it nor angels or principalities or powers good angels or any kind of evil power,

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it's probably mostly what he had in mind nor things present that's what's going

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on today nor things to come nothing can happen to you tomorrow that's going

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to separate you from the love of god you're worried about your finances you're

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worried about your health you're worried about the doctor's report you're worried

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about your relatives you're worried about your age. Nothing's present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,

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just spatially speaking, everywhere, nor any created thing shall be able to

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separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

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Nothing, nowhere, no one can break through God's iron dome of grace to harm

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you and to keep you from the love of God.

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Well, what does that mean for us as believers? Paul says that there's no sin

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that can separate us because in Romans 5.20, he says we're sin abounded,

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grace abounded even more. You can't out sin God's grace, which is why it's called amazing.

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No matter what you've done, it can be forgiven. It has been forgiven.

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Romans 5.20, I'm sorry, Romans 5.20 is what I just quoted.

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2 Timothy 2.13, even if we stop believing, if we are faithless,

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literally the word is from Apostuo, unbelieving, even when we're unbelieving,

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he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.

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It's one of the questions I probably get most often, and it's a difficult one

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sometimes even for me to understand.

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What if somebody just says, I'm not going to be a Christian anymore?

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You know, there's Christian leaders that have done that recently. You've seen it in the news, musicians renouncing their Christian faith. Where do they stand?

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I don't know. I need to talk with them to find out where they really stand.

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But can, can a believer really renounce the faith? I think a believer can do anything.

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I think sin is, is full, is full of possibilities.

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Even when we're unbelieving, faithless, God is not. He is faithful.

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He cannot deny himself. Deny himself what?

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Deny himself the promises that he made to us, that whoever believes in him has everlasting life.

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Just like God cannot deny his promises to Israel, so he cannot deny his promises to us.

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We experience the same wonderful, preserving dome of God's grace.

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God is always on duty He promised the Jews that God, neither in Psalm 121,

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God neither slumbers nor sleeps. He watches over us. He protects us.

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He's got us covered under his iron dome of grace. I want to go a little bit

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further. I don't even have any slides for this.

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Chapter 9. As you know, chapters 9, 10, and 11 of the book of Romans turns the discussion to Israel.

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As God cast away his people, was raised in chapter 3. and now he's answering

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it in chapters 9, 10, and 11 in the book of Romans.

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But I want you to notice that he bridges from a discussion of our individual

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salvation and security in chapter 8 to the security of the nation of Israel.

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He doesn't want the truths of grace to be lost on the nation of Israel.

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It doesn't just apply to Gentiles. So Paul has walked us up to the mountaintop of grace,

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but now he's at the peak, and he's surveying the the landscape of history and

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Bible and looking out over Israel, who is at the center of all of God's program and plan.

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And he says, God has not abandoned his people.

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Israel will be saved because God has a remnant according to his grace.

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And he develops that in chapters 9 and 10 in a wonderful way that we don't have time to go.

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But I want to do something with you. I want to go to the very end of chapter

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11, because this is Paul's final word on the deal.

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Having discussed what grace has done for every believer, having discussed what

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grace has done for the nation of Israel, this is how he chooses to win that discussion,

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that deep, deep theological discussion.

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And who can deny that Romans 9, 10, and 11 is not deep, deep theology?

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I avoided it for the first years of my Christian life because I could not understand it.

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Verse 33, Paul stops stops theologizing, and says, oh, the depths of the riches,

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both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. What is Paul doing?

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He's stopped theologizing, and he's worshiping.

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He's going from theology to doxology, which is what we should always do, by the way.

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That word, oh, in the original Greek is, oh, the dynamic equivalent would be,

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whoa, the millennial translation would be, awesome, man.

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The greatest theologian of all time stands back and gazes at the mysteries of

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God in working through grace on his nation of Israel, and all he can do is worship.

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How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out for who has

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known the mind of the lord or who has become his counselor or who has first

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given to him and he shall be repaid to him god doesn't owe us anything god doesn't

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take our advice he doesn't need our advice for of him and through him and all

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and to him are all things to whom be glory forever amen,

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good theology should lead to good worship theology leads to doxology but let's

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not stop there also leads to orthopraxy, correct behavior.

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That's chapter 12. Do you realize that in chapters 1 through 11 of the book

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of Romans, Paul doesn't tell us to actually do anything except for how to think in chapter 6?

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Other than that, he doesn't give us any practical commands about what to do

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or how to live, does he? Why? Because he spends those chapters telling us what God has done for us,

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what God has done for Israel, how God is orchestrating a plan for the whole world.

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There's nothing to do except stand back in amazement at his grace and let that

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grace motivate you now to do what is right. Therefore, in view of God's mercy, in view of the history that I've just told

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you, in view of the theology I've just explained to you that you're secure in

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God's grace, offer your bodies as living sacrifices.

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Say bodies, because everything I am is in this little carcass right here.

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Let your eyes serve God in what it sees. Let your ears serve God in what it

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hears. Let your feet serve God in where they go. Let your hands serve God in what they do.

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Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, using Old Testament imagery of a sacrifice,

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but a sacrifice is only good once. We can be good over and over again for a whole lifetime, and that's our spiritual service of worship.

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That's how we we can worship God in a practical way, by orthopraxy, by doing right.

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What does that involve? Well, that's Romans chapter 16.

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It includes pay your taxes. Can you appreciate that? I always like to point that out.

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That's how practical Paul gets. But he doesn't preach practice until he preaches

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the basis of why we should do that.

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So we're not motivated by by external law.

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We're not motivated by a legalism that looks at actions only or conforms to

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the expectations of other people. We're motivated by the grace of God and the wonder and awe it inspires in us.

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God, you really love me that much. I'm protected forever. I'm secure.

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You mean I can mess up now and then and you'll still forgive me and restore me?

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Yes, he will. And he'll glorify you. Just as he preserved the nation of Israel,

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you're under his preservation and protection as well for all of eternity. Amen.

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That's all I have to say. Appreciate you listening. Let me thank God for us.

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Lord, I thank you for the grace of God, amazing grace that we cannot explain.

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We can only stand back in wonder and in worship and appreciate it.

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We thank you for the record that you've given to us of Israel as an example

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for us who are believers today, so that we should not leave this conference

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just being amazed at Israel, but being changed by what you've done through the nation of Israel.

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We give you our lives. We give you our bodies. We give you our hearts.

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We love you, Lord. We thank you for the grace of God that's given to us through

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Jesus Christ, our Savior. In his name I pray. Amen.