Thank you being so attentive and engaged this morning, as we are dealing with this all important subject of God’s Plan for the Ages. Understanding the basic principles of Bible study concerning Israel’s place in God’s future plans, and her relationship to the Church is important. They are not the same, but they are related to each other in God’s economy. Remember, Things different are not the same / not alike.
The three basic principles we must remember are:
1. God reveals his progressive revelation through successive dispensations or stewardship arrangements of time. The purpose of which was to reveal, that no matter how simple the responsibility, man could not fulfill it. Adam condemned us all when he “ate the fruit”!
Romans 5:12: Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
We will walk through these next Sunday, and see how God provides salvation through Christ, proving that he is the perfect sacrifice necessary for man’s redemption.
2. Taking God’s Word literal is necessary to understanding God’s Plan for the Ages. It says what it says. All the Bible was not written to me, but all the Bible was written for me.
2 Timothy 3:16-17: All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
2 Timothy 2:15: Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
3. The physical Kingdom of Heaven (on earth) and the spiritual Kingdom of God are not the same. Israel is the chief focus of the Kingdom of Heaven and the Church is the chief focus of the Kingdom of God. Please see the attached picture and print it out to help in your personal Bible study. We will continue in our study of God’s future plans for his estranged wife, Israel, this coming Sunday.
Jeremiah 3:14-15: Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion: And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.
Jeremiah 3:8-9: And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also. And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks.
Even though Israel is currently in rebellion, as a nation, she will repent and return to fellowship with her husband, God!
Jeremiah 31:31-34: Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
I will do my best to bring everything to a conclusion this coming Sunday.