(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

the Old Testament has a lot of places like that but what we see in the New Testament is this big bright light shining and just clarifying everything and making everything from the Old Testament much more clear and just the teaching in the New Testament itself is a lot more clear as well just the way that it's taught so we're gonna read the rest here of Ezekiel chapter 37 and then we're gonna go and shine the light of the New Testament to really get the full picture of what's being taught here if you've been coming to our church for a while this isn't anything new for you necessarily but it's just one more example of a truth that God is teaching and and you know what that truth is the truth is is that the physical nation of Israel there's a nation right now that exists in the Middle East is called Israel and a lot of people think that they are God's chosen people because you read about Israel in the Bible right you read a lot about Israel in the Bible especially in the Old Testament there's there's all kinds of stuff and the reason why this is a big deal and really one of the reasons why I'm preaching on it again tonight is because there's an impact in our lives and there's an impact on people who want to support the nation of Israel because they think that is what a good Christian does they think they're doing right by God by saying well we have to support Israel we have to help them out we have to bless them we have to do whatever we can to help out our buddies Israel regardless if what they're doing is right or wrong because we just have this Christian obligation to Israel because Israel's in the Bible and it's foolishness because that is not what the Bible teaches Israel was used as a nation to bring forth God's Word to be a lighthouse in a dark world yes they were they were chosen by God going all the way back to Abraham as a people that God was going to use to make his name known to to make people know who God was and he did use them and he raised up prophets among them that gave us the Word of God he raised up Moses he raised up Ezekiel and Jeremiah he raised up all these various people I helped to compile God's Word and for a while they were under God's authority in the time of the judges and even you know someone in the times of the Kings to where they would look to God's law and look to God's Word as being a we are a people that has God as our ruler we are a people that values God's Word and we are going to live according to the Bible that was the nation of Israel at one point in their history now it's never been the entire group collectively there's always been people that have had that that have been stiff-necked and not receptive but as a whole that's who God was using to shine the light so it did there's definitely a reason for that however the covenant that he made with the people of Israel was a covenant that they weren't able to keep there are people that want to teach that oh no no no this is an eternal covenant and that and basically what they're saying is that there is no way that that covenant could be broken which is silly because and I'm not going to go into all the details tonight I've done this in the past I really want focus more on Ezekiel 37 but there are stipulations to God's covenant basically it's the old covenant of keeping his law and you know what just as much as we can't keep God's law completely today the children of Israel weren't able to keep God's law then either on our Wednesday night we're going through the book of second Kings and it's a it's evident you see over and over again where they're not only in sin but I mean they're just worshiping idols they're worshiping Baal they're worshiping Satan essentially and rejecting God over and over again they are breaking their covenant with the Lord and as a result even though God's long-suffering even though God is patient even though God gives them chance and opportunity after opportunity he brings them prophets he tells them to get on the right path he does all he can do to get these people back right with him at the end when Jesus Christ comes he comes unto his own and his own receive him not the Jews rejected Jesus Christ and at that moment that was the last straw that God has had enough with the people of Israel and using them when they put Jesus Christ to death said fine we're done I'm gonna and and God wasn't done revealing himself God wasn't done you know using people to promote his word he just said I'm done with the nation of Israel