Person & Work of the Holy Spirit
Randy Peterman · Jul 21, 2013
Holy Spirit (2013), No. 28
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49263571843

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So right now, in this section here, it kind of takes a little bit of a rapid trail. Did you notice as we were going, maybe you were looking at the questions in the handout, that it was way less on the Holy Spirit and more on various other details for this particular lesson? I got one nod over here. Anyone else notice that? Maybe a little less Holy Spirit in this lesson. The reason is that while it does relate to the work of the Holy Spirit, we're going to take a look at the way that scripture is revealed, and the order in which it's revealed, and how that impacts how we study God's Word. I'm going to start with some questions that aren't on here just because this is an important thing to just start the wheels turning. How many books of the Bible did Adam have? None. How about Noah? None. No books of the Bible. How about Abraham? None. How about Moses? None. How about Joshua? Joshua had five. Joshua had about five or help wrap up the fifth one. There was a sequence of events there.

How many people in the Old Testament time knew about the Apostle Paul? Zero. As you might have picked up, there's a theme that scripture was revealed over time, right? It didn't all happen at once. Adam woke up in the morning. He's like, wow, this is a really handy book to know about the future. He lived it, and then passed down. So the term for this is called progressive revelation. You may choose not to write that down, and that's fine. But progressive revelation is a term that describes The idea that scripture was given and revealed progressively throughout time.

We've had a few brief earlier discussions in this class about what do we do with the Gospels, because it's in between the Old Testament time and the crucifixion of Christ. Does it fit in with the church, or Israel, or who's it to? And we're going to discuss that some this morning. But we want to take a look at that. And the first question that we have on this page really answers the question of why we're actually going to take a look at this. So it says, why does Rideout want the reader to have a distinct concept of what the church is? And I can give you the page in paragraphs.

OK. So we're not vaguely confused in our thoughts about it. OK. We don't want to have vagueness or confusion. OK. The quote from the book is vagueness here will mean vagueness and uncertainty all through the lesson and all through our understanding of God's Word, frankly. And that right out focuses most of his lesson on the book of Ephesians. We will probably step outside of that a little bit. Everybody's certain that they don't want to be vague? I'm certain I don't want to be vague.

Question number two says, on the last paragraph of page 47, what is one of the mysteries of the church? There's actually multiple mysteries, but right now it goes into one of them. What about grace? That's one. This is actually, he answers about something else, but grace. The dispensation of the grace of God, that's what I love. Revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Holy Spirit. Did I get that? That's not what I have here.

That doesn't mean that it's a bad thing to have a lens on. The Gentiles would be fellow heirs? Yeah, the Gentiles would be fellow heirs. That's the next question. That's two. Three. I'm on two. I know, but... You were answering three? I mean, that sounds more like three. The Jews, Gentiles, and the Church. The question is, what's the mystery? And the mystery had to do with the Old Testament prophets.

They didn't have a lot of knowledge about the Jews. Gentiles and how they were going to interact. They knew that God had promised Abraham that he'd be the father of many nations, but they didn't understand how that was going to overlap and how those things would come together. Isn't Jesus one of the main mysteries? Well, no, they knew Jesus was coming. They didn't fully know what he was going to be doing. They had some confusion in the Old Testament about whether Jesus was going to come victoriously as a conqueror. They basically had two messiahs they thought were coming that had different values.

I should have said Christ in you was a mystery. Christ the what? Christ indwelling. Oh yeah, that was certainly a mystery. Not expected. But yeah, there's multiple mysteries in in the New Testament, but that's the one that is drawing rise as we're trying to go through some distinctions.

Also, the Gentiles would be the being made of the same partakers of the promise in Christ. Yes. The Gentiles were going to participate in the the work at this time and that was one of those things where the Jews had by this time pretty much thought they had it all sealed up. I'm the son of Abraham, we're good. And that's where they drew the line and so there was more going on there. Holly?

Are you going to go to, because it says that we don't want to be vague about what the church is. Do you have a definition of it or are you going to go to that? That's what number three is about. Number three is to specifically define the three major people groups as defined in the Bible. So let's do that so that there's no confusion. So question three says who are the Jews? Who's got an answer for that? I have an answer but I want to hear your answer. This may be short, but they're God's chosen people to be separate from the world. Okay, that's good. This is actually almost a two-part answer.

What is required to be a Jew ethnically? Who do you have to be descended from? Abraham. Isaac and Jacob. So to be a Jew you've got to have, by ethnicity, you've got to have all three as forefathers. How about religiously, to be spiritually a Jew? Circumcised. Circumcised. And follow the law. And follow the law. But you could be a former Gentile and be religiously a Jew. It was possible. God made provisions in the law for someone to go from being a Gentile to committing themselves to become an Israelite and follow certain steps that were given. So it is possible to not be ethnically Jewish, but to be religiously practicing as Jews. Probably Ruth was one of those. I'm sorry, what? Probably Ruth was one of those. OK. I don't have recollection of that. I'm not saying no. I'm saying I'm on the fly. I don't have an answer to this. That's right.

What about when they came up out of Egypt? And some of the Egyptians, my understanding, the foreigners came with them. And God told them to treat them the same as they treated them. So where was their position? I know this is a little different, but where was their position? They would have been grafted into Israel and they would have just become and fallen in the law and fit into Israel. But they would have to have observed all of the law. Would they be regarded as Jews also? Not ethnically, but religiously.

When we look at Acts chapter 2 and the Holy Spirit comes down and the apostles start speaking, what languages are they speaking? Are they speaking Hebrew? They are speaking different languages. Because there were people from different parts of the world who converted to Israel or to Judaism. And Judaism had spread. So we got Jews, right? Alright, let's keep moving forward.

Who are the Gentiles? I know people who are believers and Jewish. So how about Adam? Is Adam a Gentile or a Jew? Abraham, Gentile or Jew? Gentile. And then a Jew. He was converted because he agreed to follow God into the foreign land. The Jew has to be the son of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Which means that Abraham couldn't be a Jew. Nor could Isaac nor could Jacob. But they could have been the ones through the promising. Jacob was the first Jew. Jacob was Israel. He was renamed Israel and he was the first Israelite. Because he was Israel.

He was the one after whom everyone was named. Do you know what Israel means? Not off the top of my head, I can't remember. I used to have a lot of that memorized, because as I was teaching through it, everybody in the class wanted to know all the names. Genesis is full of names and they wanted to know what they meant, but they don't remember what Israel means.

El is God, so it's something of God. How about the church? The third part of this question. It's a combination of the Jews and the Gentiles. It's a combination of Jews and Gentiles. Why are we combined? We have to look at this in question too. Well, I'm going back to that first bit where it says the church is his body, the fullness or complement of him. who is divine, being filth and all things, so it's like the church is compliments Christ? Yeah, the church is the body of Christ. So you could be ethnically Jewish or ethnically any number of gentile ethnicities, but once you are a believer, we're united in Christ.

Are there any places in the Bible that tell us that, or am I making it up? I'm sure it tells you somewhere. I'm sure it tells you somewhere too. I'm going to turn to Colossians chapter 3, and you can join me there if you choose. Colossians 3.11 says, a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew. circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all and in all. And there's lots of actual verses that Paul writes about that, even Peter gets on it in 1 Peter 3. We go back to Israel, my Bible says in the Conqueror Corporate name of Jacob's descendants, often specifically the Northern Kingdom. So there is, as you are going through the Old Testament, there are lots of references to Israel and when you get to the split nation, that's where they would refer to the Northern Kingdom instead of Judah. So any questions about Jews, Gentiles?

I think it's important to emphasize that under the Mosaic system this wasn't like the immigration system in the United States. They were to be separate from all Gentiles. That's right. The Gentiles just didn't have free access into Israel. The Jews were to actually separate themselves from all the Gentile nations. Yes, it's important to say that because you can't make it sound like, oh, gee, any Gentile that wanted to come in and hang out could. He couldn't. They wouldn't let him in.

Yeah, so so if you wanted to switch from being a Gentile to a Jew in the Old Testament times and follow the law, that was OK to come integrate with Israel, but you couldn't just come in and intermingle. Israel had their parts of the the 613 laws of the Old Testament that kept the Jews from just intermingling willy-nilly with anybody. Now, when we get to New Testament times, by then Israel has basically liberalized. And they've ignored the covenant that God made with them. And instead they have...

And I said, well, I don't know if he really meant that. That way... See, in the serpent they didn't have to come into the garden and ask, hey are you sure he meant that? They just did it on their own. I got a definition for Israel. Let's see if I can get back to the first part of it. He who strives with God. Ah, that's right. Because he, Jacob, wrestled with God. I didn't hear a word he said. He who strives with God is the definition for Israel. Thank you for looking that up. You're welcome. And the Jews themselves definitely wrestled with God.

If we read through the Old Testament you can see that they were very reluctant to obey over and over and over again. Now don't they still believe that the Messiah will be coming one day? Oh yeah, they're prepared for Jesus to come the first time. in the future, someday. Which is, my dad mentioned a couple of weeks ago when he was teaching, I think it was last week, that when he was talking to a rabbi, he said, when the Messiah comes, we will ask him if it's his first or second time. I happen to at least believe in, based on what's revealed in the New Testament, they won't have any questions in their mind. They won't have to wonder. They'll know. Gordon?

Yeah, just going back to also Jew to Gentile and that, and how the Jews When you go back to the mystery about Christ coming and that, it brought me back to Romans 9, where Paul is telling them, you know, they should have known to some degree, because in 9.25, as he also says in Hosea, I will call those who are not my people, my people, and her who is not my beloved, beloved. And it shall be that in that place where it was said to them, you are not my people, there they shall be called sons of the living God. I mean, you know, I think the mystery is there, but, you know, well, they don't understand it.

And yeah, it was they decided, well, that's too crazy because we're the chosen people and all the references, kind of going back to what you're saying, that you're saying about all the references to Christ. And you go through all those references to Christ.

And yet they chose not when the Messiah showed up. They were saying, you know, first or second time they had so many different things that were pointing to Christ and what he was going to do. They also had some things that said that the Gentiles would come. And yet, they chose not to believe and Paul brings it up. And there are some other references that point out that. It was revealed by prophets in the Old Testament, but they did not understand it. It was mysterious to them.

I was just thinking too, the church is really a heavenly organism, right? Yes. whereas Gentiles and Jews were all earthly. So that's pretty different. Yeah. It makes a big difference to have the understanding that the Jew and Gentile distinction is an earthly distinction, whereas the church is a heavenly organization. Everybody heard that?

Also, the Jews understood that in the future, that the gentile nations would be blessed, but they would be blessed through Israel. So they did, when the church comes along, that doesn't fit the template. That this whole new group is growing up by God and it's not through Judaism. It comes out of Judaism, but it's not through them. Did everybody hear that?

No, the Jews thought that The Gentiles would be blessed through Israel and they didn't understand that the church would come out of Israel and be separate from Israel and the blessing would come distinctly. They thought the Gentiles would become Jews and then they would be left.

I think it varied depending on who had to. I mean there was a joke I heard in seminary from a Jewish formerly ethnically Jewish believing professor who said wherever there's two Jews there's three opinions. It's one of those things where Professor Bum said that and made us all laugh like that. But the truth of the matter is that there were lots of diverse opinions. My dad has a different joke about the tradition being arguing about who's right. But it would depend to a certain degree on what the topic was. So we'll keep moving forward with and understanding of those distinctions between the three groups.

Question four is what inheritance or blessing does Israel expect to receive? They expected that once again be an earthly kingdom such as they had during Solomon's reign. Yeah, they were expecting an earthly inheritance. And why did they expect that? Anyone know why they expected that? Because they're all sinners. Because the Messiah would come. That's what they were promised. They were promised it. You can find it in Genesis 12, or Genesis 15, or 17, or 21. But let's take a look at Genesis 15, 2-7, because it's a clear statement of what God promised. I've already turned there, so I'll go ahead and read out loud.

Abraham said, O Lord God, what will you give me, since I am childless? And the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus. And Abraham said, since you have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir. Then behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, this man will not be your heir, but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.

And he took him outside and said, now look toward the heavens and count the stars, so that you are able to count them. And he said to him, so shall your descendants be. Then he believed in the Lord, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. And he said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess it.

So Abraham was expecting descendants. He was expecting blessing. He was expecting a land. So the way we have heard, I say we, looking at my wife, when we were in seminary, we heard over and over and over and over and over again, the land, the seed, and the blessing. The land, the seed, the blessing. So those are the three things that Abraham was promised. And those are the things that Israel was expecting to inherit. They thought they were the seed, the descendants. They didn't realize that it was going to be Christ, the singular seed, that would be even more important.

Paul goes into that, but we will not go there now. Any questions about the earthly inheritance of Israel? Anybody really wish they were a Jew instead of part of the church? The land grab in the Middle East right now? Yeah, I think the thing to this goes back to question number one, or whatever the vagueness of the church and wondering the distinctions between the church Jews and that and covenant theology where All of Israel's blessings were earthly.

And when we try, the covenant is to try and bring us back to all the earthly. And what a mistake. You know, Archdionysus, it's a heavenly organization. And to link the covenants to, you know, put us back to the earth is crazy. And so the distinctions are very important. Because, you know, the covenant tries to link us back to all these Jewish, land-earth based promises and yet we are a spiritual heavenly organism. And so that vagueness is very critical to know who we are as a church body versus trying to give us all these great promises on the earth.

And so there is importance to that distinction. Did everybody hear what Courtney is saying and understand what Courtney is saying? Probably. It's good if you can hear it, but it's also good if you understand it. Did you hear we said about Covenant Theology? Who's familiar with the term Covenant Theology? I've got some people who are. How about Presbyterians? People familiar with Presbyterianism? OK. I'm picking them, but there's multiple denominations that are called Covenant Theology, or who hold their theology is called Covenant Theology.

And they see that the Church is just, or that Israel is the Church in the Old Testament. and they blur those lines of distinction and they say we should apply the law to ourselves because the law was given to Israel and the church and it was Israel in the Old Testament. We're not teaching that and I kind of avoided talking about that because I wanted to not cause any confusion but Courtney is right. But we are not under the law, the church is not Israel in the Old Testament.

You know, in the course of my life, I've been acquainted with a lot of Jewish people, particularly through my parents and even... I'm sorry that you make them sin like that. But, you know, it just has distressed me because they don't believe in an afterlife. And I'm just... The majority of them just believe this is it. Is it because of the promise to Abraham? That's the Sadducees. Sadducees don't believe in an afterlife. But the Pharisees did.

So the Jewish tradition going back to where they split between the two groups. That's an old idea. Not every Jew holds to that though. So don't assume that that's the case if you run into somebody who's Jewish. They will have varying perspectives on that. So be aware of that.

Alright, so question 4 says that there is an earthly inheritance that Israel was expecting. And then question 5 says, according to Ephesians 1-3, what blessings does the church expect to inherit? I have a hand in there. Where and what blessings does the church expect to inherit? In heaven and places. In heaven and places? In Christ. And what kind of blessings are they? Spiritual. And how many of them do we have? Every spiritual blessing. Yesterday I was teaching in Fort Collins and this particular passage came up.

And I used the analogy of baseball cards. Now not all of you collected baseball cards, I'm guessing. But I used to collect baseball cards. And the worst part about collecting baseball cards is you'd open up the pack and you'd get three cards you already had, and it would take you longer to collect the set. Of course that's why the baseball card companies sold them, as they made more money that way.

But the spiritual blessings, we don't collect the set. We have been given every single one. But they're heavenly, and it's with who? Christ. They're not your blessings for being awesome. How did we inherit them? Because we're in Christ. Because we're in Christ. We were baptized into his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. We're identified with him.

Do you have a question? It is qualified wisdom. Wayne? I was just looking at the word expect to. It kind of infers that that's something in the future for the church, that it's right now. You know, that was me. trying to copy the form of question four, and you're right, we have already been blessed with every spiritual blessing depending on the places on the cross. Thank you for correcting me. So the cross happens, expecting to, so this is according to Ephesians, and I'll tell you where and what blessings the church can bring.

But it was a trick question. Why does he have a trick question? I was like, why does he have a trick question? That's it. Unless I have another one, and I don't know. So our inheritance is an eternal blessing in the heavenly places, which we receive by being baptized into Christ at the moment that we were born. So it's past tense and not future tense. I hope this isn't a rabbit trail. You don't have those in this classroom.

The Gentiles should be fellow heirs with the Jews. How do you reconcile that with the fact that the Jews as a nation or as an individual are not receiving the same inheritance that we receive? In other words, The Ephesians verse says that the mystery was that the Jews and Gentiles would be fellow heirs. Heirs of what? Well we made a distinction that the Jews were going to get the land and we're not. We're going to get all the heavenly blessings. How do you reconcile the fact that the promise was made that both ethnic groups, Jews and Gentiles, would be fellow heirs?

Well, I would say that you have an Old Testament promise that was given to Abraham. And the church becomes basically a parenthesis in the time frame, because it was a mystery. And so while those who believe the gospel today believe, it changes that distinction. But the land and seed of the blessing will be in the millennium, in the future. The reason I'm asking that is because a reformed covenant guy could say, well what are you talking about? You guys, us in the church, we get the same thing that Israel does. How do you get to be fellows? That's the question.

The issue is, once whether you're Jew or Gentile or Irish or Presbyterian, when you come into Christ, all of the humanly, earthly distinctions go away. You don't get to cling to... There's no such thing as an Irish Christian. Or a Jewish Christian. You're offending your heavenly father. No, no, not offending. I'm just adding words. Yeah, my Irish heritage, are you kidding? No, I think the thing is, maybe to Mike's question, I think we try and put it in fairness.

Because we see what we have in Christ. And it's unbelievable. You know, when you look at the 213 things that we have immediately when we are placed into Christ. Unbelievable. And then we look at the Jews who get the blessings of the land. But we are both, and you can go back to that verse, but they're both beloved by Him. And we try to make an equation that says, look at all we have and look what they have. They have the land and all these blessings. But they're happy with And in the millennium, they'll have the law written on their hearts, and all the blessings are there. And we try and make this equation that says, let's weigh these things out.

And I think the Jews are blessed and beloved and are happy in what they have been blessed. And I think we try and make this equation that says, I guess we're at eternity when the Jews, are they second class citizens? No. The God of the universe designated them for a destiny. And I don't mean that in a weird, mystical way.

He had a plan for what will happen to Israel and those who, as Paul writes in Romans chapter 4, those who followed him in faith and Abraham was their father. Any other thoughts or questions on this? Because if this is overwhelming or confusing, raise your hand and ask questions because this is important for us. But it's also true that all Jewish people in the church age who put their faith in Christ have the exact same things we do, right?

They're not Jewish anymore. Their ethnicity is, they were resurrected and are adopted as sons and their ethnicity is a heavenly ethnicity. It's a new race and that really is, you don't hear that term a lot, but it is a new Christ as our federal head race. Identification. Yeah, we're identified with him and we're reborn as humanly citizens.

I don't think it's vague to talk about it because right I was trying to distinguish, eliminate the vagueness that the body of Christ is a totally separate organism race of people with an entirely set of blessings and everything is different about them and that Israel is not a partaker of any of that or vice versa.

So just in the context of Israel itself and their promises, what people would not be able to partake in that inheritance of theirs? In the Old Testament context, what was promised to Israel, they had to believe, if we go to Deuteronomy chapter 28, and it's like a chapter and a half, so we won't read it, but bookmark 28 and 29, God lays out the conditions of the covenant for Israel to operate in that covenant. The problem is that they totally disobeyed. They didn't take the land. They didn't follow through with what God told them to do. So now no one, until the Millennial Kingdom, is going to be able to participate in that.

Gentile, Jew, or otherwise. They can practice spiritual practices. I mean, the Doyles live in a neighborhood with a very high practicing Jewish population. And if you drive around their neighborhood on a Friday evening, you'll see folks who are trying to observe the law. awesome structures, building driveways in the neighborhood to follow the law. And it's pretty awesome. Driveways? Oh yeah, they have to build a tent. They'll be out right in the driveway. There's your tent. A tabernacle. Live in your tabernacle. For the feast of tabernacles. You know what?

A lot of the religions today still follow the law. Yeah. I mean, that is more important than Christianity. Even though they are, I mean Baptists, but they have a lot of laws. They don't talk about grace like this church does. Let me ask this important question.

Was there grace in the Old Testament? Yes. But it wasn't the operating system. It wasn't the operating system that Israel had to deal with, like we have. But grace still existed in the Old Testament time. It's like the Holy Spirit came. How did that happen? Because I thought it was through the blood of Jesus. And that's how grace How were people saved in the Old Testament and who were they looking to for salvation? God. They were looking to God but they knew that someone was coming that was going to be the Messiah.

And so Christ's death on the cross covered all sin for all eternity going both directions. So grace was poured out even in the Old Testament time, not because of what had already happened, but because of what was going to happen. All the animal sacrifices did was come up with an outward sign to Israel that God was going to have to deal with the sin eternally. The animal sacrifice, the animal was insufficient to bring, to satisfy God's wrath.

But nobody knew about grace. Say that again? Nobody knew about grace until Christ, right? Well, they had an inkling. They understood. David understood. If you read about David, David got grace. When he repents after having taken Bathsheba as his wife, having killed her husband, he really repents right there in his throne room and then goes to the temple and then offers up sacrifices because he knew it was required of the law, but he knew immediately that God is gracious. Noah found grace. Noah really found grace, didn't he? One of the big people in a big giant ark. So I'm following what you're saying in the Old Testament reference, but my question revolves around the Jew today.

What's differentiating the camp? They can't do anything. Basically everything that would have been required of them to fulfill the law has been removed. So no Jew or Gentile can fulfill the law as prescribed by the Old Testament today. So within that context, within that camp, one side or the other, which Which Jewish believer or non-believer is going to find himself in line for the inheritance of those that are not today?

None. Think of it as a pause button. The earth pressed. Because God has set up the system of the church. The Lord shut down any ability for them to even comply with the law which would have forced their hand to have to reckon with Christ. And so they did the only logical thing they could do. If they didn't believe him, they just covered their eyes and said, I'm going to pretend this is not a problem. And so they kept trying to go through the motions, but they lack any of the ability to fulfill any of the requirements of the law in a meaningful way.

Because you get to fulfill all the law or none of the law. You can't just pick and choose and say, well, we don't have the temple right now. The Muslims have it. We'll just do our best. Send whistle while we work and do the best we can do. We got so many questions. We'll do Holly first.

Prior to Christ's coming, when they talk about salvation in the Old Testament, that meant faith in God? Yes. But not faith in Christ. Yes. Okay, so we talked about progressive revelation, right? We said here's this idea where the Holy Spirit was revealing things over time throughout history. Your faith was in what was revealed up to that point in time that God had revealed? Outside of the law, but then you still had faith, but still faith in God, but still practiced the law. Yes, it was absolutely and always faith in God, and you practiced the law because you had faith in God. Because that's what you knew. That's what God had revealed up until that time.

If you want to remember it this way, I have an acronym, COME, which doesn't work with my haircut. The four letters of COME expanded are C for content. The content of faith throughout time varied, because revelation was progressive. But the object was always God, the means of salvation was always faith, and the basis of salvation was always Christ's work on the cross, whether they understood it or not. They knew the Messiah was coming. God would save them by faith, and you can look at Romans chapter 4 and see that Abraham is our spiritual father because of his faith.

Not because of his words. And it was like a reversal thing again. It wasn't like you did the law to practice the law to become saved. You had faith and so you practiced the law. The best way to think in contrast is that what did Adam do in faith? He's been kicked out of the garden. He takes the skins and puts them on. Well, that's a weird thing for me. Like, why would Adam have to have faith? Because he knew God. Because he had fallen. He fell. And he had to come back to realize, oh. He had to be real. He had to be saved from his sin just as much as anyone else. So Adam did, because everybody, even Abraham, Abraham didn't have the law. But Abraham had faith. And it was credited to him as righteousness. And so faith is still fundamentally the issue all the way throughout scripture that we see faith.

You've got to have faith in what has been revealed up until that time. If the Jews were expecting a Messiah, what did they expect him to do? Save them from the law? Well at the time of Christ they expected the Messiah to come save them from Rome, but if you go back throughout the history of Israel, it was whoever of the conquering country was. There was always some Gentile power lurking.

When they disobeyed, if you look at Deuteronomy 28-29, God says, if you disobey me, I will punish you with other nations. They had a warning, and when it came, it was like boom. We knew this was coming. And you look at judges and it's the same cycle where it's like, okay, we're going to disobey and there's consequences.

The demonstration of grace in the Old Testament was that when Israel was punished, then God would work things out and bring them back. That was the implementation of God's grace. To answer your question about how could God forgive the sins of a Jew 2,000 years before the cross, he did it on credit. He knew the advent of Christ and his death on the cross was such a certain thing that God could cover the Jewish sins in anticipation of the cross because it was a certainty.

All right. Ross is Ross's patient. No, I was just thinking that my questions kind of like this a little bit earlier. It's like what Jewish people are going to populate. the earthly kingdom, the millennium. And I have Jewish friends who are believing, just like the Old Testament Jews, in this Messiah who's coming. They're trusting in this Messiah.

Well, is God going to wipe out all of Israel? during the tribulation? No. There will be Jews that, and they will be fruitful and multiply. It's going to be, Israel, I've heard it this way, Israel's not going to have any problems with making babies. There will be lots of Jews who will be able to fulfill, God said to Abraham, you're going to walk the length and the width of the land, and I'm going to give that to you and your descendants. They will have that land. They will get the whole land.

It's really irritating right now that we have all the problems in the Middle East because people are trying to figure out how can we make this happen. They need it. They're not going to until the Messiah comes. He's the only one that will bring peace to be able to fulfill those promises. I say the Jewish people were waiting for the Messiah and they're still alive.

Go ahead and explain it, Mike. In Acts 2, when Peter got up and gave his first sermon, he gave the sermon to Jews. There were only people in town that day. What he told them was that you need to repent, not about your sins, you need to repent about who Jesus Christ is.

Jesus is the issue. The Jews today can dance around about their sins and they can do whatever they want. They can wear black fedoras and whatever. But the issue is, what do you think about Jesus? He's the issue. And if they don't have faith in him and his word, they're condemned. They're like every other human being. Jesus is the issue. No other issue.

That's it. anytime we ignore, and that's really critical, functionally for evangelism, anytime we try to follow any rabbit trails and don't keep the focus on Christ, it's a rabbit trail. It doesn't deal with the issue. at the time of the Memorial Kingdom will see Christ.

They will believe in him and the law will be written on their hearts and they will not be a teacher. They will be part of the new covenant according to Jeremiah. Is that because they didn't believe before the rapture that they have They don't have what we have but they just have the laws written on their heart. There will be so much tribulation and trials during that time that many will come to realize that the truth as revealed in the scripture will be there and they will be believing Jews that come in. But God's relationship with them will be established at that point in time.

I am not super savvy. Within time, eschatological things. So I would suggest that you probably take that up with other teachers who are a bit savvier on that. I intentionally took all of the apologetics classes in seminary and took the minimum requirement for eschatology. And I have to say that I'm less equipped than other teachers. But I'm not trying to figure out.

If the people literally, because it gets so bad, really put their faith in Christ, I would think they would become part of the church just like we are. And they wouldn't. God's going to preserve the Jews as a people so that when they come into the kingdom and believe after that event in time, that will be fulfilled. And the complications of what's going on in eschatology are myriad and awesome and worth a lifetime study.

But I'm not out of time. I'm not sure that's safe. But I've been blessed with every spiritual blessing and a bell in my office. So Cheryl's going to explain it to me. Yeah. OK. But let's close in prayer and then my section to take it next week. I'm going to be out of town for a couple of weeks and Mike's going to finish the class. And he's got better answers than I do. He disagrees. Gordon, I just before next week, one of the things to clarifying grace to when you said about grace, grace, grace was poured out. But it's not like the grace, the operating system.

We operate now. If you've done one 17 is. truth and grace were realized through Christ. And then the others in Romans 5, whatever it is, in 17, you know, much more, those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one. It's now our reigning principle, the operating system. We reign in grace poured out upon. We live in this operating system of grace now.

There's a distinction. Yeah, there's a distinction and the learning and understanding of grace, the system that we operate now, and having to be taught that system. So grace was poured out in the Old Testament, but now this is the system we live in. Yeah. Alright, let's close in part.

Heavenly Father, we ask that you would just clarify these things in our minds, that your Holy Spirit would show us through your word, the the way that you intended for people to walk with you throughout the revelation of scripture. We just thank you for your work and hand in our lives and we do lift up the prayer press one more time and thank you that you have a plan for all of those details.