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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Come to number 44 on the first. We'll work till Jesus comes and we'll be gathered home. To Jesus Christ I've bled for rest he may, we cease to roam and leave for succor on his breast till he conduct me whole. We'll work till Jesus comes. We'll work till Jesus comes. We'll work till Jesus comes and we'll be gathered home. On the last I saw death once my Savior's side for long. My steps shall flow with him I'll break death's chilling tide and reach my heavenly home. We'll work till Jesus comes. We'll work till Jesus comes. We'll work till Jesus comes and we'll be gathered home. We'll work till Jesus comes and we'll be gathered home. We'll work till Jesus comes and we'll be gathered home. We'll work till Jesus comes and we'll be gathered home. We'll work till Jesus comes and we'll be gathered home. There's no disappointment in heaven. No weary sorrow or pain. No hearts that are bleeding and broken. No song with a minor refrain. The clouds of our earthly horizon will never appear in the sky. For all these sun shining gladness will never a sob nor a sigh. I'm bound for that beautiful city my Lord has prepared for his own. Where all the redeemed of all ages sing glory around the white throne. Sometimes I go home sick for heaven and the glorious eyes there shall behold. What a joy that will be when my Savior I see in that beautiful city alone. There'll never be rent for our mansions. Then our taxes will never come due. Our gardens will never grow threadbare. But along will be faithless and new. We'll never be hungry nor thirsty. Nor anguish and poverty there. For all the rich bounties of heaven. The sanctified children will share. I'm bound for that beautiful city my Lord has prepared for his own. Where all the redeemed of all ages sing glory around the white throne. Sometimes I go home sick for heaven and the glorious eyes there shall behold. What a joy that will be when my Savior I see in that beautiful city alone. There'll never be rent on the doorknob. Nor funeral trees in the sky. Nor rains on the hillside of glory. For there we shall never more die. Beyond the beyond there forever. Transformed in a moment of time. Immortal sin in his likeness. The stars in the sun to outshine. I'm bound for that beautiful city my Lord has prepared for his own. Where all the redeemed of all ages sing glory around the white throne. Sometimes I go home sick for heaven and the glorious eyes there shall behold. What a joy that will be when my Savior I see in that beautiful city alone. Amen. Amen. All right. Good morning. Welcome to our church. At this time we'll go through our announcements. If you don't have one of these bulletins, slip your hand up real high. We'll have an usher get one out to you. And just keep your hand raised real quick until our ushers. We've got a couple up front over here. And if you open up to the first page, you'll see the service time is listed here. Sunday morning at 1030. Sunday evening again at 5 o'clock. Wednesday night at 7 is our Bible study. We started the book of Jeremiah this last week. It's chapter number two. Hope we can make it out to our Bible study on Wednesday night. We've got the soul winning opportunities listed there as well as our salvations and baptisms for the month of July as well as for the year. If you notice there, I kind of updated the way that we're displaying the information to include the church plant in Greenville. We had a lot of salvations on that marathon that we had on the opening weekend. And it'll be a good opportunity for us to kind of follow along and see how just see how they're doing. See how everything's going, see how the progress is coming and just rejoice in the work that's being done there. That's the whole point is just, you know, we're fully invested in this church plant. We want to see it thrive and grow and succeed and really reach the people of Greenville while we're doing work here. We, you know, we've committed a lot to that plant. So we really hopefully your hearts in as much as my heart is in seeing success with reaching a community, especially with the salvations and baptisms. That's what we're really trying to do the most is to reach people the gospel of Christ. So we're going to kind of monitor that and just see how things are going. And it's a good opportunity to see the full efforts of Strong Old Baptist Church laid out for you there. So a lot of great work has been done this month so far in July. If there's any salvation to report for the week, let's just count them up right now. If there's anyone has any salvation. Yes, sir. On Friday. Amen. Yes, sir. Last Sunday. The Saturday group. Cool. And yes, sir. Friday. Amen. I miss anybody. Great. Good. Good job. Good work. Keeping up preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Of course, we have the scheduled times that are listed there in the bulletin. There's also times that other people meet up and go out and preach the gospel as well. So if any one of these scheduled times doesn't work out for you, if you'd like to come out and join us to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. And these scheduled times just don't fit with your schedule. Just talk to one of us. Talk to myself. Talk with us. There's plenty of people that still go out and there's other areas. There's people in Lawrenceville that go out. There's you know, the Monday night I think is still in Duluth area. There's the Stone Mountain group on Saturday. These are some of these are printed here. But then there's other people that also do their own soul and English at various times. So we could we could try to hook you up with someone that's closer to your area to make it more convenient for you. We will do whatever we can to try to make it easy for you to preach the gospel to people. And if you hear you say, you know what, I've never even done that before. That's fine. You could come out with us and we will train you. We'll show you. You can just you could just come alongside and partner up with us and just be a total silent partner. See how we interact with people. You can see what scriptures we turn to and how we explain the gospel and just try to break it down and just make sure it's really easy to understand. And you can also see how we are committed to helping people to truly understand the gospel, because it's not enough just to preach at somebody and then just say OK and just kind of pronounce them saved or try to get them to go through some quick prayer or something. We really care about people and their souls and understanding the free gift of salvation, understanding eternal security, that that once Jesus saves you, it is permanent, is forever. It is good news. So, yes, we are all about preaching the gospel here. So so we'd love to have you join us. And again, like I said, if you've never done it before, just come alongside and see how how we communicate with people and bring up the gospel and all that. So please join us for that. We actually have a time this afternoon, right after a little bit after the morning service. Give you time to get some lunch and we meet up right here at one thirty if you want to join us for that. All right. Continuing on the next page here, we got the prayer requests. So we've got Mrs. Miller's going to be expecting that child, I think, really, really soon here, any any day now, essentially. So please be in prayer for her. And of course, there's many other ladies that are also with child. So please pray for all of our pregnant women that are in church, as well as all the other people that are on here. There's many people who have very serious problems. We we re-added Delaney Gorman. That's Mrs. Adler's friends who has autonomic dysfunction, which there's you know, there's really not like a cure for it. So she has a lot of issues with that and and a lot of hard times in general to face. So please remember her in your prayers. We added Mark Campbell as Brother Kent's. It's one of Brother Kent's friends. His father has aphasia, which is a type of Alzheimer's. Right. And he's he's not like recognizing people. Is that right? Or accepting commands. Is that kind of. Did I remember correctly on. Yeah. Immediate family. The communication part is kind of kind of gone. Right. So he's not really comprehending what people are saying to him and not able to communicate with with other people, at least verbally. So. Yeah, yeah, that's it's a really, really difficult thing to deal with. I would I don't even know what it's like for the person who's afflicted by that. I could only guess and imagine, but I do know what it's like to be a family member of someone who's dealing with that. It's very hard. It's very stressful. It is not an easy situation at all. It's very sad. It's taxing emotionally and even sometimes physically. So please, let's pray. We'll pray for for the family as well as for Mark so that that we can, you know, hopefully things will be manageable and he can be relieved from from this affliction he's dealing with. And then Miss Courtney Taylor's great grandmother is suffering from dementia and was hospitalized from not eating and low sodium. And again, this is a similar type of a thing. These brain problems really, really can cause a lot of other issues and are a lot to deal with. And unfortunately, the tailors aren't able to get up there, I think, because of sickness. So please pray for them as well. And then I also was just updated this morning. Dominique has a cousin, right, whose best friend is of the family of the man that was killed at the at the Trump rally yesterday. So her dad. Right. It's his cousin's best friend's dad that died. So obviously that's tragic and the loss of life there. So we're going to add that to our prayer list to pray for the family of the man that was killed at that event. And let's see, is there anything? Did I miss any updates or anyone who added a prayer list? I think I included everyone. I might have missed something. Does anyone have any updates or any additions? Yes, ma'am. Solid enough. OK, I know it's never going to be perfect. Yeah. OK. Yes. Stable, like kind of normal routine. That's a great. Yeah. Amen. That's good. That's a good report. Well, and how old is she again? One. Yeah, she's young, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK. We'll keep her on the prayer list for now, but I'm glad to hear the good report that things are going well, that she's receiving care and treatment that are that's working for her. So, yes, sir. Yeah, it just it just makes you feel not so well. Probably draining. It was it seemed like it was going away, but it just recently got kind of flared up. Yeah, we'll do that. Oh, and. All right. Anyone else? All right, very good. And then down at the bottom page, of course, we pray for churches, pastors, other people doing. We know we're doing a really good work for the Lord. And I just ask this week that you pray for our church plant. Pray for evangelist Carter. It is a lot of work that he's just taken on and he's getting used to this new role. So pray for God, God's blessing on him and on his family and on the work that's going on there in Greenville, because it is a lot of work. So please, please pray for him and that plant as well. On the next page, we've got our July challenge, which is our visitor challenge. Now, we're encouraging our church members to encourage others to come and visit our church. And that's what we're kind of focused on. We do different challenges every month for just different things like Bible reading, prayer, soul winning and all these different areas of the Christian life. And this month we're just focusing on when you talk to people, encourage them, whatever you like about this church, whatever it is that that is the reason why you come here, share that with other people and let them know. And really, the spiritual reason for this is in the Great Commission, Jesus commands to go forth and preach the gospel to every creature, but also that they should be baptized and disciple, that they need to learn and grow. So coming here to church is a great opportunity to learn and become a disciple in Christ. So how many people and look, I'm not going to ask for anything else other than a show of hands. If you're visiting our church for the very first time this morning, could you or to someone from your family just raise your hand real quick so you get a. OK, I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Because even if nobody invited you to our church, we still have a gift for you. And we'll make sure you get that gift by the end of service. So we appreciate you coming and joining us. You chose a good month to come visit us because you get you get a special gift just for being here this month. So thank you for being here. And then continuing on the fundamentals conference. So things have been a little bit hectic for me, but we are still planning on doing this. And I've mentioned this before, but now we've got to imprint August 22nd through the 25th. There's still more details to come. I'll list all the preachers that are coming out. I've been I'm operating on faith at this moment. Brother Brett Stockton has been helping out with to get this thing organized and planned. And he's been communicating with other pastors. But I still need to reach out to them this week and confirm up with them who's going to be here, what days and things like that. So we get the schedule laid out. But the plan is to have preaching on Thursday and Friday night with some sowing on Saturday and not sure. Maybe we'll have a guest preacher on Sunday. Maybe not. But this is what we're what we're looking at is the 22nd through the 25th being the the the fundamentalist conference. We'll be hosting our own conference here for the first time at this building right here. So I'm looking forward to that. And I got a lot of work to do for that. Get some promo videos out there and see what kind of interest we could gather up for that conference. Bible memory passage. So let's get a show of hands of who memorized who completed verses 21 through 40 of Hebrews 11. Who completed that? So one, two, one, two. OK. And how about then the entire chapter of Hebrews 11? Did anyone get that quoted? Same people. Very good. Very good. Excellent. Excellent. So we are starting Hebrews 12. Of course, we're going through we've been going through the whole book of Hebrews chapter by chapter as our Bible memory verses. So we do our pace here as a church is two verses a week. And sometimes I give you a review week depending on how long the chapter is and stuff like that. But if you want to join us for this, you could earn a prize if you're able to quote the entire passage word perfect without making mistakes. You got quoted out loud for someone else to check your work that you've got it down pat. So if you want to do that, we've got a whole set. We got we got a four months worth of of a Bible passage here. You could memorize and earn a prize for that. We've got the upcoming birthdays and anniversaries listed down there at the bottom of the page. And that's about it for announcements. I'm taking way too much time here for this this morning. Appreciate you being here. I'm going to turn the service back over to brother Peter. Now he's going to lead us our next song. Right. Three. On the first. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. At the same time, saith the Lord, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. Thus saith the Lord, the people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness, even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest. The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel, thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry. Thou shalt yet plant vines upon the mountains of Samaria, the planters shall plant and shall eat them as common things. For there shall be a day that the washmen upon the Mount Ephraim shall cry, Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion unto the Lord our God. For thus saith the Lord, sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chief of the nations, Publish ye, praise ye, and say, O Lord, save thy people, the remnant of Israel. Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth the child together. A great company shall return thither, they shall come with weeping and with supplications, let leave them. I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble, for I am a father to the Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn. Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scanneth Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock. For the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he. Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat and for wine and for oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd, and their soul shall be as a watered garden, and they shall not sorrow any more at all. Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together, for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. And I will satiate the soul of the priest with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the Lord. Thus saith the Lord, a voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rahiel weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not. Thus saith the Lord, refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears, for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord, and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, if thy children shall come again to their own border. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus. Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. Turn thou me, and I shall be turned, for thou art the Lord my God. Surely after that I was turned, I repented, and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh. I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth. Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a pleasant child? For since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still. Therefore my bowels are troubled for him. I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord. Set thee up waymarks, make thee high heaps, set thine heart toward the highway. Even the way which thou wentest, turn again, O virgin of Israel, turn again to these thy cities. How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? For the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth. A woman shall encompass a man. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel. As yet they shall use this speech in the land of Judah and in the cities thereof, when I shall bring again their captivity. Lord bless thee, O habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness. And there shall dwell in Judah itself, and in all the cities thereof together, husbandmen, and they that go forth with flocks. For I have satisfied the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul. Upon this I awake and beheld, and my sleep was sweet unto me. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of beast. And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down, and to throw down and to destroy and to afflict, so will I watch over them to build and to plant, saith the Lord. In those days they shall say no more. The fathers have eaten the sour grape, and their children's teeth are set on edge. But every one shall die for his own iniquity. Every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge. 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 headlight of Egypt, which my covenant they break, although I was in the 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 into their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and it will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, 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. Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for light by night, which is divided at the sea, when the waves thereof roar. The Lord of hosts is his name. If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever. Thus saith the Lord, if heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will cast out all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the city shall be built to the Lord from the tower of Hanil unto the gate of the corner, and the measuring lines yet shall yet go forth over against it upon the hill Garib, and shall pass about to Goeth. And the whole valley of the dead, bodies, and of the ashes, and all the fields unto the brook of Qadron, unto the corner of thy horse gate toward the east, shall be holy unto the Lord. It shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more forever. Let us pray. Dear God, please fill the passage burden with the Spirit. Help us all be edified, and help us all learn from the preaching today. And so I ask in Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. All right, so this morning, it's kind of a part two for a sermon I preached last week. If you were here last Sunday, I taught on the doctrine of replacement theology. And if you don't know what that is, I'll briefly summarize it here. Essentially, it's the belief that while Israel was used as the people of God, I'm talking about the physical nation of Israel that descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob became Israel, of course, and there's the 12 tribes, and they're in the land of Israel. That God used that nation, he brought forth prophets out of that nation. That is the nation he was using to be the lighthouse for the world, to bring forth his truth. And while completely in the Old Testament, he had the Levitical priesthood, and they offered up the sacrifices, and everything through the Old Covenant was God using that specific group of people. Now, he wasn't the God only of those people. He's the God of the whole earth. He's the God of everybody. But that was how he decided, that was the nation that he used to be bringing forth the truth that he used to deliver the word of God unto. And of course, it was their job to be able to deliver to the world. We know, and I'm not going to prove this, I've already done this in sermons in the past, people of any nation were allowed to come and join themselves unto Israel. So it's not like there was an exclusionary based on race or anything like that. It was open, but that's where people went if they wanted to serve the Lord. They was a God of that nation. Excuse me. So, last week I kind of broke down this belief that our church holds in Replacement Theology, but it's a really big topic, and I hope you could follow along with me this morning. We're going to look at a lot of scripture, and I'm going to try not to be too boring. Hopefully the word of God is not too boring, but again, how it comes across, I want to make sure that you just really try to stay focused, because it is an important doctrine, and it's one that I'm going to do my best to just make sure it's really clear and easily understood. The problem with a doctrine like this, though, is it's multifaceted. It kind of impacts a lot of other belief systems, you could call it, in scripture. So, how you view Israel with this doctrine of Replacement Theology, and what does their role in end times events, and do you believe in dispensationalism, and all these other doctrines that could kind of form together, and if you don't really know a whole lot of what I'm saying, it's okay, because we're just going to look at the Bible, and the goal is always to have the Bible just teach us what's the truth, right? Try not to have the preconceived ideas, and just be too formed into, I've heard this my whole life, so this must be true, let's just try to let the Bible teach us. Now, if it becomes really confusing, either I'm not doing a good job of teaching, or we don't have a good doctrine, okay, because everything should be pretty clear in scripture, we shouldn't have to do a whole bunch of mental gymnastics, and try to get everything straight, and be like, whoa, wait a minute, though, I don't know, you know, like, but if you go here, here, here, here, here, you know, and then you can kind of, you see this whole thing. Core doctrine, especially the fundamental doctrine, this is a pretty simple doctrine overall, but it just, it impacts in such a way that there's so many different teachings out there, and it is where it starts to become confusing, just on a lot of different issues, a lot of different subjects, and I'm going to do my best to try to cover, especially this evening, or this morning, feels like this evening for me, this morning, that what some objections might be, of people that would say, well, no, that's not true because of this, and again, I'll just state this, you ought to always be able to answer questions about what you believe, so we should never shy away from or run away from people who want to challenge your faith, challenge what you believe, challenge the doctrine, right, and be able to answer, and reasonably answer, right, and if we don't have a reasonable answer, then we need to go back and study and see, am I right about this? We ought to be able to defend from scripture why we believe what we believe. Now, I'm just going to start off by saying this, I think the abundance of evidence is clear over a few main points. One is that God is not racist at all, that the race doesn't matter, whether that was even in the Old Testament with the children of Israel, with the seed of Abraham, the physical seed of Abraham, or not, the teaching has always been the same, salvation has always been by grace through faith, it has never mattered who you descended from, we have clear teaching all throughout scripture on that fact, and I think that's just part of who God is, he doesn't care about your genealogy and your physical descent, when it comes to your salvation, when it comes to you becoming a child of God, okay, that that is established, that is fact, I think we end up getting into weird areas with that real basic fact when we start exalting any one group of people as being special above other people, and when I say that, I mean only based on who they descended from, because God does treat his people different than the world, but who are his people? They're the children of promise, they're those that believe on Christ, those that are born again, those that are his children, okay, his children are the ones that God will treat differently than those who are not his children, clearly, again, that's something that's well established throughout the Bible, I'm not going to go through and prove that, but the fact that if you have a group of people, I don't care what their nationality is or race or whatever, God's not looking at that to determine righteousness or accessibility or even a special placement, it just isn't there, it just isn't there, so that's a real high level, just kind of a basic logical argument to say, you know, against people who want to maintain that the physical nation or people of Israel have this important part in God's plan in the future and that we still have to bless the people that are rejecting Christ, I don't believe that, I don't believe that, okay, but I'm going to make that statement now, but we're going to look at scripture again, because what matters isn't what I say or even what I believe, what matters is what the Bible actually says, so I'm going to do my best to try to prove my point to you this morning and try to answer some objections, now one objection, again, I encourage you to listen to the last Sunday morning sermon on replacement theology to get more of the pro arguments from scripture as to why I believe that replacement theology exists, that God has replaced the nation of Israel with a nation that is doing the work for the Lord, that is making the Lord their God and is going to do the evangelistic work and spiritual work for the Lord, that he's going to use whatever nation that is at the time in history that's going to choose the Lord and do that work, that's going to be the nation that he uses as he used the children of Israel back in the Old Testament, so that's the replacement part that goes along with the teaching, okay. Most of the objections though from people who are believers, Baptist, whatever, it mostly revolves around what kind of happens in the end, so most reasonable people will agree with some of the things I already said, that like yeah, of course, you know, people who are unbelievers today, they still need Christ to be saved, you know, it doesn't matter if they're a Jew or a Greek or whatever, they still need Christ, they need to put their faith on him, and reasonable people will recognize that and say yeah, just because you're physically descended from Abraham, doesn't get you a free pass into heaven, you don't just get this ticket and be like oh hey look, I'm a Jew, that doesn't matter. Like John the Baptist said, you know, early in the Gospels, hey, you know, God is able of these stones to raise up seed unto Abraham, like that means nothing. God can take this rock and raise up seed unto Abraham, like that's, who cares about that? I mean ultimately Adam was formed from the dust of the earth, so that doesn't really have any weight or carry anything with God, so that part of it is established. But some people turn to, and we read all through Jeremiah chapter 31, we're going to focus in for the moment on verses 35 through 37, and they'll say well see look, God promised to never destroy the nation of Israel, from under heaven. Okay, that's an objection to replacement theology. Now, I just have to say a few things, just making the statement that Israel as a nation is never going to be destroyed, does that mean that they're never going to be replaced? Does that inherently imply that if they say if this nation will never be destroyed, one, does that just imply that they'll always be used of God and won't be replaced with someone else? No, of course not. You can't come to that conclusion automatically. If you do come to that conclusion, you have to have some other evidence that's going to tell you, well also, they're going to always be used by God, right? So the destruction part is saying okay, so this is what we see in Jeremiah. Look at verse number 35. Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divide at the sea when the waves thereof roar, the Lord of hosts is his name. If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever. So he's talking about the sun and moon and the stars. You're like, if that's ever going to stop, he's saying then the seed of Israel is also going to stop from being a nation. And look, am I disagreeing with that statement? Not at all. Not at all. I agree with that. Well, I agree with it. It's the word of God. It says what it says. It doesn't matter if I agree with it or not. This is a promise of God. He's not going to destroy the seed of Israel from being a nation before him forever. Verse 37, thus saith the Lord, if heaven above can be measured and the foundations of the earth search out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord. So, one, God doesn't completely, isn't deciding to completely wipe out or eradicate the nation of Israel. And as we're going to see also, there is a remnant, there's a small portion of people that will believe and still will do the work of the Lord. There's always going to be individuals that are going to do that. And he promised here just not to completely annihilate the nation. But I also want to point this out to you. And this is where some of it can get a little bit more complicated and we need to pay close attention and make sure we're being consistent with how we understand things. So, being of Israel or a seed of Israel can actually mean, you know, just reference to Israel first of all by itself could be referencing a few different things. But that's why you have to get context. Context is key. Context is going to tell you and give you the understanding of what is being referenced when Israel is brought up. Israel, one, can be talking about the land. Just the land area of Israel, borders, everything, nation. It could also be referring to the nation as in the people that make up Israel. But it could also be talking about Israel as in the children of God Israel. So, spiritual Israel, those that are believers, those that are children of God, because Israel is represented as being the children of God all throughout the Old Testament. But we have many passages in the New Testament and, again, it's going to be a little bit out. We're going to go to a few of them. I'm going to show you that. That what matters is that you're part of spiritual Israel and the physical doesn't really matter that much. But, again, it depends on the context because not every passage that says Israel is only always talking about spiritual Israel. Clearly it's not. You have to just see what is the context telling us. So, let's go back up. I know we read this whole chapter. I'm going to add a little bit of commentary as we go, but we're going to start reading in verse number 11. Because it's important to back up when he gives this promise about the seed of Israel ceasing from being a nation. Let's just kind of get this full context of what the Bible is talking about here. Verse number 11 is where I'm going to start reading. We read the whole chapter already. For the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he. Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord for wheat and for wine and for oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd, and their soul shall be as a watered garden, and they shall not sorrow any more at all. Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together. For I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the Lord. So this is talking about just great blessings on his people, right? So let's keep reading. I mean, it's just these few verses, no sorrow, rejoicing, dancing, young, old, priests have fat, you know, like everything's going really well. Verse 15, thus saith the Lord, a voice was heard in Rhema, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children because they were not. This passage is quoted in the New Testament at the time when Herod sent forth to kill all the infants, basically, around the time of Jesus' birth. This verse is referenced as the prophecy of all of those little kids that were killed because they were trying to eliminate Jesus Christ. Because, you know, he heard about the prophecies, and he's like, wait, you know, we can't have this. So he just tried to kill all the kids to try to make sure Jesus died also. Of course it didn't happen. But this is that prophecy here, verse number 16. So the reason why I even bring that up, context, referring to the time of Christ, or Christ's coming, his birth here, is being a reason for the joy. It's tied to that time frame. Verse number 16, thus saith the Lord, refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears, for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord, and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus. Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. Turn now me, and I shall be turned, for thou art the Lord my God. Now, one other point I just want to make, we're reading the book of Jeremiah, and Jeremiah, this is our Bible study on Wednesday. Jeremiah's a book that, Jeremiah's preaching about the captivity going, you know, where the nation of Judah is conquered by the Babylonian empire. And they are taken captive. So, there is an immediate prophetic statement going forward of Jeremiah saying, hey, you're going to be taken captive, and everything else. And then they do go into captivity, and he continues to preach unto them while they're in captivity. And there is a hope, he also preaches that it's only going to be temporary, their captivity, but they need to repent, they need to get right with God. Right? So that there's going to be a time where they're going to be released. Jeremiah prophesies all kinds of stuff about this, so we're seeing a little bit of that here as well. Verse 19, Surely after that I was turned, I repented, and after that I was instructed. I smote upon my thigh, I was ashamed, yet even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth. Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a pleasant child? For since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still. Therefore my bowels are troubled for him. I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord. So, here we see the Lord showing mercy on Ephraim, who was stiff-necked against the Lord, but because he's repentant here, because he's softened his heart, and he's turning to the Lord, God's saying, okay, I'm going to have mercy on him. Which, again, is a common theme throughout the Bible. Right? You see the rejection of God by any group of people, but then they soften their heart, maybe it takes some rebuke, maybe it takes some punishment, they need to go through some hard times, and then they humble themselves and go, okay, you know what, I need to just turn to the Lord. And then we see a long-suffering, merciful God that will grant mercy unto those that have a contrite heart, those that will turn to the Lord in repentance. Okay, I'm turning to you, God. Verse 21, set thee up waymarks, make thee high heaps, set thine heart toward the highway, even the way which thou wentest. Turn again, O Virgin of Israel, turn again to these, thy cities. How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? For the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth. A woman shall compass a man. Now, he's also referring to, in the context here as we continue to go, as the children of Israel being his people, like a nation of people that belong to him, that they're just, now they're just backsliding, because what does it mean to be backslidden? It means you've kind of fallen back, you've slid back from where you were before. And when it comes to people who are saved, right, people who are saved, people who are born again, oftentimes will start to make improvements in their life, they'll start to clean up and get some sins out of their life, but sometimes there's parts of their life where they may start getting into sin, or getting back into old sins, or getting into new, whatever, and they're sliding back from the progress they've made. Now it doesn't mean they're no longer saved because they're sinning, or they're still a child of God, they're still saved, they have eternal life, it's forever, but they've backslidden, right, they're getting away from God instead of moving forward towards God. But that's the life of someone who's saved. Now, when someone's backsliding as a child of God, God's gonna bring chastisement, He's gonna bring punishment, He's gonna try to get their attention and be like, no, no, hey, you're going the wrong way, you gotta go this way. As a loving father is gonna chase in his son, that's what the Lord does for those who are saved. And that's why He's referring to them as backslidden as opposed to the heathen, who are just not saved at all, and when the heathen do wickedly, you know, they don't always get the judgment the way that a father disciplines a son, because they're gonna have a different judgment that's gonna come later. And I bring all of this up because in the context He's referring to Israel as being His people, being like that, but they're just backslidden a little bit, right, so how He's dealing with them and how Israel's being used is important in the context. Verse 23, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, as yet they shall use this speech in the land of Judah, and in the cities thereof, when I shall bring again their captivity. The Lord blessed thee, O habitation of justice and mountain of holiness, and there shall dwell in Judah itself, and in all the cities thereof, together husbandmen, and they that go forth with flocks, for I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul. Upon this I awake and beheld, and my sleep was sweet unto me. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will sow the house of Israel, and the house of Judah, with the seed of man and with the seed of beast. And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict, so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the Lord. This is the prophecy of, while yes, destruction's coming, and it's going to come, and you're going to be destroyed, and it's going to be plucking down, and all this other stuff, when the Babylonian empire comes and destroys you, there's also going to be a time where he's blessing with the seed of man and the seed of beast, meaning they're going to start being more fruitful, there's going to be, children are going to be born, there's going to be animals being born, you know, that God's going to bless the multitude, essentially, and just make them more of a multitude again when he brings them back, that there's going to be a time, yes, there's a time of this destruction, but then after that there's going to be a time of goodness. In those days, they shall no more say, the fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge, but everyone shall die for his own iniquity. Every man that eateth a sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge. 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. And this is the most current context as we get to that passage about them ceasing from becoming a nation. First of all, I also want to add that it makes sense that he's consoling the children of Israel, especially at that time, with them not ceasing from being a people, as they're like being invaded and destroyed, and you've got the Babylonian empire just completely taking them, taking them captive, and just kind of losing everything, right? That like, it's not an utter destruction, so don't worry about that. God's not going to just completely wipe you out, because of all this destruction that's happened, there is going to be a time of rebuilding, replanting, you're going to be brought back into the land, and everything else, so he's giving them that encouragement, specifically even for that time. But now he references this new covenant, this is, it's all relevant, so please stay with me, because one of the points I'm going to make is that there's only two covenants that have ever been made, and this is part of that overlap with other doctrines and things, we don't, I don't believe that there's only two covenants that have ever been made, and this is part of that overlap with other doctrines and things, we don't, I don't believe that there's all these different plans for different people at different times, there's a hyper dispensational doctrine that teaches that like salvation's been different, it was different for Adam and Eve, and then it was different for Noah, and then it was different for people under the law of Moses, and then it was different, it's going to be different in the future, it's different for the church, that is not the case. One known has ever been saved by following the law, ever. Old Testament, New Testament, it's never been done. People have always been sinners, people have always broken the law, there's a law there, it's a schoolmaster to lead us unto Christ. People have always been saved by faith, read Romans chapter 4 as your homework if you disagree with me on that, Romans 4 clearly spells out Abraham, David, Moses' law, everything, people and what you might, what some people call different dispensations, all saved through faith, all saved by believing. So, again, there's an abundance of evidence there, I can't teach on every single thing too deep because it's such a big topic, but here we see the reference to the New Covenant, verse 32, or verse 31, 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 is talking about the covenant delivered to Moses, Moses led them out of Egypt, which my covenant, they break. So even in Jeremiah's day, which is still Old Testament, which is still under the time of Moses' law, clearly people weren't keeping the law to be saved, because he already said they broke it. In fact, they broke it before Moses could even come down from the mountain. He has the law in his hands and what does he do? Throws on the ground and they're broken, right? It's symbolic of just the broken law, like immediately, of how imperfect human beings are, just representative of that. Why? Because he came down and they had already made idols and they're doing all this other stuff, they're partying up and doing all this. Like, what are you guys doing? Like, you clearly see I'm here talking with the Lord and bringing instruction and you do this? This is that first covenant, this is that old covenant which no one was ever able to keep. Not according to the covenant, again, verse 32, 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 break, although I was and husband unto them, said the Lord, but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. So, this is important because some people will try to make a claim later, we're going to spend the majority of time on Romans 11, believe it or not, and I have to hurry to make that the majority. They claim that there's this other covenant, this extra covenant with the children of Israel, in order to have this special place for Jews at end times events. But there's only two covenants, there's only two testaments. The covenant and the testament are the same thing. This is the covenant and this is what we clearly see in scripture, you'd be hard pressed to prove to me that there's any other, you know, covenants, testaments, I know people say there's an Abrahamic covenant, but it's still a covenant of faith. You know, the circumcision was a token, a sign of what? Of their faith. Verse number 33, 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 neighbor 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. This is the salvation found in the new covenant, which is brought in with Jesus Christ and his death, burial, and resurrection. Now, then we go into the context of them never ceasing to exist, right? The nation, the seed of Israel never ceasing. Well, it comes right after he's saying there's this new covenant and you're going to be saved, right? So, I think there's room to say that who's the Israel talking about there? It's saved Israel that he's talking about never ceasing from being a nation. Let's go to Romans 11 now. Romans 11. Oh, man. All right, I've got to decide right now what I'm going to do because you don't have as much time as I want to say this morning. So, Romans 11. Again, we're going to get the context, but here's the verse that is the objection to replacement theology. The verse is found in verse 26 of Romans 11. We're just going to look at that first so I can kind of set the stage for the reason why we're going here and what I want to cover with this. Romans 11 and 26 says, and so all Israel shall be saved as it is written, there shall come out of Zion the Deliverer and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob, for this is my covenant unto them when I shall take away their sins. There are people out there that would say, well, no, Israel can't be replaced because there's this promise of all Israel being saved and the argument is that there's a future event when Jesus comes back that all the physical Jews, all the seed of Abraham, the people who we would commonly call Jews today, mostly accepted as being Jews, are going to all turn to Christ and believe on him and get saved. So this is how other people understand or interpret this passage. Just this is what I'm trying to show that that's not what this is saying. Okay. And as always, context matters. So let's not, you know, if that's what this is saying, we shouldn't see any other things that would contradict that or suggest a different way of understanding this passage, right? It should be pretty clear. But you can't just jump to a verse, a verse, a verse if you don't, if you're not considering the surrounding context. You got to make sure that the claim you're making for each passage you cite makes sense in the whole context. So let's start with verse number one of Romans 11. The Bible says, I say then, hath God cast away his people, which again ties back to what we were just reading in Jeremiah, right? So hath God cast away his people? And this is the context kind of all of Romans too. I mean, read the whole book of Romans. Romans is real popular of saying, hey, there's neither Greek nor Jew. You know, there's neither male nor female in Christ. We're all one in Christ. It doesn't matter if you're a Jew, if you're a Gentile. None of that matters. And read Romans one, two, three, four, five, you know. This whole book of Romans deals with this subject. So I mean, you just get the whole, you get the context through the whole book. If you want more homework, read all of Romans and still try to wrap your mind around this concept of replacement theology because I think it's taught very consistently throughout the whole book, as well as Galatians, you know, other places we're not going to turn to this morning. So have God cast away his people? God forbid. Why? Well, I'm also an Israelite of the seed of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin. So he's saying like, well, no, God didn't just cast off all of Israel. Now what did Israel do? He cast off all of Jesus, by and large, right? In general, with the broad brush, the Bible even says that, that he came unto his own, his own received him not. Does that mean every single individual didn't receive him? No, of course not. But as a nation, as a collective, as a whole, Christ was rejected. And this is, when we're talking about replacement theology, we're talking about as the whole. As the collective, okay? That's what this doctrine's about. Not about the individual, not anything else. So, and it's not about the race, it's about the belief. It's because it's the belief of the whole that is rejecting Christ. As a collective. So, but has he completely cast away his people? No, of course not. Why? Because there's plenty of Jews, physical Jews, physicals of Abraham. He's like, I'm of the tribe of Benjamin. But what? But he's saved. He's a child of God. He's inheriting the promises of Abraham. By his faith. So of course they can't all just be cast off. They still exist. Because there's a remnant. God hath not cast away his people, which he foreknew. What ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? How he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets and digged down thine altars, and I am left alone and they seek my life. So this is Elijah being quoted. If you remember from the Old Testament, this is back when Elijah was a great prophet and he stood for the Lord. You have all these prophets of Baal and it was real popular in the country, real popular to be a Baal worshiper and he's the one standing up, he's that voice in the wilderness just crying out and being like, no, this is what the Bible says, this is what the Lord says and the people in charge, Ahab was running the kingdom at that time, real wicked king, his wife Jezebel, they were Baal worshippers, all this other stuff. And Elijah's thinking, he's like this lone voice. He's the guy standing for the Lord. Remember, they had that big event where, okay, you get all the Baal worshippers, get all their prophets, and you guys call on your God. And the God that answers by fire, he's the God, is what the Bible says. So they get all their sacrifices ready and they're cutting themselves and they're calling out and Elijah's mocking them and saying, cry a little louder, maybe he's taking a nap, maybe he's asleep. Maybe he's gone on a journey, you know, hold on, because he's making fun of their God, because obviously it's not a God at all that they worshipped. But then when it comes his turn, because of course nothing happens, because they're worshipping Baal, they're worshipping the devil. He's like, okay, let's get some water over here and let's just completely soak the altar and everything, you know, just, we'll show you, we'll show you who God is, we'll show you the power of God. Right? And then he, at the time of the evening sacrifice, he makes a sacrifice to the Lord and then, right, all the water's dried up, the sacrifice, great testimony for the Lord there. But when Elijah was doing that, he just felt completely alone because no one else stood up with him. He's just fighting, he's the one man fighting against this spiritual battle against everybody. So he says, Lord, they killed the prophets because that's what Jezebel was doing, literally killing the prophets of the Lord, dig down on the altars and I am left alone and they seek my life. He's like, now they're trying to kill me, because after that event, Jezebel's trying to get him killed. But what sent the answer of God unto him? So that's how he felt, Elijah felt like he was alone, but then God answers him, I have reserved to myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. So even though he didn't know it, there were other believers out there, they were trusting in the Lord, but they were quiet. They didn't say anything. And as a side note, this is why you can't always judge whether or not someone's saved or a child of God, even based on how they lived their life. You get people who are backslidden, people who are in sin, people who are too intimidated and scared to even say anything about their faith. Now it's a shame they should have been, hey, they should have been encouraging Elijah. They should have been making it, but God said, no, there's actually 7,000. So you're not alone. So because of that and using that, he's saying, well, look, clearly, if that was the case then and you had one person standing up, well, clearly now God also, even so at this present time, also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. There's other people who believe. So it's not just Apostle Paul as like the Elijah. There's also other Jews, other people who were descended physically of Israel that also believe. And if it be by grace, then there's no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace. If it be by works, there's no more grace. Otherwise works, no more work. Great passage, not gonna continue to expand on that. Verse 7, important. What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for, but the election hath obtained it and the rest were blinded. So there's a distinction here, which is really important, between Israel and the election. And the elect, the election, people will conflate that all the time and say, well, the elect is Israel. The elect is Israel. The elect is Israel. Meaning the physical descendants and the physical nation over there right now. This is a distinction that can't be missed. Sometimes, it is talking that way. But in Romans 11, it clearly isn't. Because he's saying, hey, Israel, like the physical Israel, they have not obtained what they're seeking for, but the election have. Who's the election? Elect of grace, right? Just again, in the context, verse number 5, according to the election of grace, those that have believed, they're part of the elect. That's how that works. Election of grace. Are you elect because of how great of a person you are? No. Are you elect because of all the good works you do? No. Are you elect because of who your descendants are? No. You're elect because you put your trust in the one who really is the elect, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the chosen seed of God putting our trust in Christ and being in Christ. So we become part of the election that way. Verse number 8. It's an important distinction. This is a really important verse, especially that it shows up in Romans 11, already trying to break down this mindset of like something special about the physical seed of Israel. Verse 8, according as is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they have given unto this day. And David saith, let their table be made a snare and a trap and a stumbling block and a recompense unto them. Let their eyes be darkened that they may not see and bow down their back alway. I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid, but rather through their fall, salvation has come unto the Gentiles for to provoke them to jealousy. Now if the fall of them, and the ones that have fallen, they're the ones that have stumbled. If the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness. Now this only makes sense when you understand that God has taken away the kingdom from the nation of Israel, and given it to another nation. Because now they have fallen, so they're not, they've stumbled, but now that is gone to the Gentiles to provoke the children of Israel to jealousy. And man, there's so much to say. When you read the book of Acts, you'll see there is an air of superiority and racism among the Gentiles. There is an air of superiority and racism amongst the Jews, like the Pharisaical Jews. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, they look down on other people, they look down on the Samaritans, the Samaritans were not, now the Samaritans were a group of people, by the way, if you don't know this, going back in history with the nation of Israel, you know, we're kind of talking about Israel collectively, but after, we're talking about Israel, King David, and then Rehoboam, or Solomon, excuse me, Solomon, and then Rehoboam, Solomon's son, okay. When Rehoboam became king, Israel was divided into the northern kingdom of Israel and then the southern kingdom of Judah, and he had two different sets of kings, two different nations, whatever, for a long time, but then prior to, like we're reading about the Babylonian captivity of Judah and Jeremiah, that's the southern kingdom of Judah. Before that even happened, the northern kingdom of Israel had already been taken captive by the Assyrian nation. Assyria had come in, taken them captive, and look, I know it was a little dry, stay with me, they took them captive and they spread them out and they intermingled, so they didn't keep their genealogy pure and knowing what tribes and everything they're from, and when they became known as Samaritans, Samaria was the capital of Israel, so now they're just, they don't really have a tribe identity anymore because they've been taken captive for so long, hundreds of years, whatever, you know, and then when they came back to land, it's like, well, we don't know what tribe we're of, they're Samaritans, and you could, if you remember some of the passages in the Gospels, Jesus speaking to Samaritans, you're at the same level with the Jews, socially speaking, right? Here's where you have the story of the Good Samaritan, why does that story mean so much? Because you had the priest and the Levite, who were supposed to be these great spiritual people, when they see the guy in the ditch who'd been robbed, he'd been mugged, and near death, they just pass over to the other side, but this Samaritan, right, in their place, but the Samaritan helps him, and Jesus praises the Samaritan, right, I mean, he's the one who's being a neighbor, he's the one who's helping, he's the one who's being friendly, but they're viewing it as, oh, you're just some Samaritan, so, anyways, that, I could go on and on, like I said, this is kind of a, it really has a lot in Scripture all over the place, and getting a full understanding to view this properly. Okay. Let's get back to the passage here, verse number 13, I think, is where we should be at right now. For I speak to you Gentiles, and as much as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office, if by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save by their, who they are, they need to be saved, but also it's showing, you know, the attitude that we ought to have towards everybody, so do we hate people, you know, Jewish people? No. No. We want them to be saved, just like anyone else in the world, and the apostle Paul's saying here, hey, I'm apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office, it's a good job to go out and preach the gospel to the Gentiles, but also he's saying, yes, I want to provoke them, which is his physical brethren, to also believe because they see him going out to the Gentiles and preaching the gospel to them. Verse 15, for if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, the casting away of the nation of Israel, casting away, brings about reconciliation to the world, right? Because Israel was not doing their job of reconciling the world unto the world. They had to be cast away. What shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead? Say, well, hey, but we would like for them to come back, right? He's like, I want my people to come back, and of course, we should want the same thing, go back to the Lord because that's life from the dead. For if the first fruit be holy, the lump is also holy, and if the root be holy, so are the branches. Now, who is the first fruit and who is the holy? The first fruits, first fruits of the resurrection, for sure, and he's also known as the root in the book of John, too. John 15, he's like, you know, I'm the vine, you're the branches, so he's the root. He's the one who's bringing the source. It's Christ, and that's the tree that we're a part of, anyone who's a believer. Your child of God is because you're in Christ. Verse 17, and if some of the branches be broken off the tree, weren't graft in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree, boast not against the branches, but if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. You have no reason to boast of the grace that was given to you, right? It's not something that you did, right? So he's saying that like, hey, this grace fall on the Gentiles because Israel needed to be replaced, but you can't brag about it. You can just rejoice that you were brought in to be part of that tree. And it says, thou wilt say then the branches were broken off that I might be graft in, right? Yeah, he's like, yeah, yeah, but, you know, it's still not both of you were saying, but they were broken off so that we could be brought in. Well, he says, yes, that's right, but why were they broken off? Because of unbelief they were broken off. He's all about faith. And thou standest by faith. Be not high minded, but fear, for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed, lest he also spare not thee. Behold, therefore, the goodness and severity of God on them which fell severity, but towards thee goodness. If thou continue in his goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. No one is just automatically safe as a nation. There's no nation that's going to do it. He was willing to take away the kingdom from Israel and give it to another nation, but you know what? Hey, nation, if you're going to stop doing the job, if you're going to turn against the Lord, guess what? You're cut off too, and he's going to turn to someone else. And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graft in, for God is able to graft them in again. He's saying, look, if they could be graft right back in, because that's what matters, is the faith. That's the point. Faith. Verse 24, for if thou were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature and were graft contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graft into their own olive tree? For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own love, the Gentiles become in. And this is where it starts to get even more deep, I guess is a good word for it. So, blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles become in. We're going to look at that, and now what I'm doing right now is just deciding how much more is going to happen to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles become in. We're going to see how much more we're going to look at, because I got about ten minutes left, and a lot more scripture than ten minutes is going to handle, so. Verse 25 again, for I would like to be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles become, and then that next verse, and so all Israel shall be saved, as is written, there shall come out of Zion the deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. And then it says in verse 27, for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away my sins. So I'm going to read this out, as I pointed out earlier, because I already talked about the covenant, there's two covenants, there's an old covenant and a new covenant. So objectors will say, well this is my covenant unto them that all Israel is going to be saved. So this is, they're establishing this like it's a new covenant for some special event in the future that all Israel, so every physical seed of Abraham or Israel is going to be just all of a sudden believe on Jesus when Jesus comes back. So that's what they're saying, well hey, when the deliverer, which is Jesus comes back, he's going to turn them from their ungodliness unto him. And then all Israel is going to be saved. So they say, we don't know how that's going to happen, but that's just going to happen because this is what it says. But this is what it says. We don't see anywhere a special covenant to the Jews only, like we see two covenants, we see the old and the new. This one's referencing Jesus Christ, which is already the new covenant. Salvation through Christ has already been established as a covenant. So how are you going to have a new covenant that's the same as the other new covenant? Turning to Jesus. You see what I'm saying? Like this is restating the new covenant that all of a sudden every single physical seed of Israel is going to believe. It's kind of ridiculous to even think that because when have you ever seen that in history ever that every single person in some nation just automatically believes? It just doesn't happen. If it were going to happen, you would think it would happen at least when Jesus Christ was on this earth the first time. If it didn't happen the first time, it wouldn't happen the second time. Because they're trying to say, Oh, but when Jesus comes back, but Jesus was already here. He already performed miracles. And in fact, when He came the first time, He came as a servant. He came in humility. He came in love. He came with the long suffering. He came with the goodness. He came with the healing. He came with all of that. But when He comes the second time, it's not for the same purpose. He came seeking to save that was lost first. You mean to tell me that the physical Israel is somehow going to be in such a different place in their hearts to accept a Jesus that's going to come back with a rod of iron to rule and reign over the nations and to ultimately pull out His wrath before He rules and reigns, that all of a sudden that's going to make them all turn to Christ when He came in love? I don't think so. I mean, that doesn't even add up to me. And you know what they'll say? It's like, well, but this is just what it says. Yeah, but let's get the context. I have to skip a couple of things. I don't want to, but I have to. Okay. So I'm going to give you a little bit of context. I have to skip a couple of things. I don't want to, but I have to. Keep your place here in Romans 11. Turn to Isaiah chapter 45. Isaiah 45. Isaiah 45. Isaiah 45. Isaiah 45. Isaiah 45. Isaiah 45. Isaiah 45. Isaiah 45. Isaiah 45. Isaiah 45. Isaiah 45. Isaiah 45. Isaiah 45. Isaiah 45. Isaiah 45. Isaiah 45. It pains me to do this, but I'm literally, like, almost out of time. Gentiles being fulfilled which is also referenced here also in Luke 21 which is parallel from Matthew 24 if you're familiar with that which is talking about the return of Christ but also there's there's other you know besides it we know it as you know talking about the return of Christ but it's also talking about the destruction of the temple it's also talking about end times at the very end so they you know as disciples at the beginning of Matthew 24 Luke 21 they say well hey when shall these things be because Jesus said you see these stones like me one stone left upon another talking about the physical destruction of Jerusalem right of the temple he's saying you see these stones one's not gonna be left on another that already happened that took place because so the first question is hey when are these things gonna happen but then they'll say say and of thy coming and of the end of the world and he answers all of those things he doesn't just answer any one he says okay he answers when the destruction is gonna happen he answers other things about his second coming and of the end of the world so in that whole passage in his in his response he's covering all the questions that they asked him but again that's a whole that's kind of a whole nother thing to really dig into and understand so it's another piece another element but in Luke 21 besides talking about the times the Gentiles being fulfilled he also says so know you that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand so when you see these things the kingdom is at hand well from last week one of the key verses I use was in Matthew 21 verse 43 the Bible says Jesus said therefore say unto you the kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof the kingdom of God's taken from you and given to another nation well when Jesus comes Kingdom of God's nigh at hand the King has already been taken from him and Matthew 8 also supports the same thought Matthew 8 verse 10 Bible says when Jesus heard he marveled and said to them that followed verily I say unto you I have not found so great a faith no not in Israel and I say unto you that many shall come from the east and west and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness there should be weeping and gnashing of teeth so again a contrast between the spiritual kingdom and the physical kingdom so the children of the kingdom being cast out in outer darkness that would be the physical kingdom but the many that come from the east and the west from all these other nations that were not Israel like physically of the of the children of the kingdom they will be with Abraham and Isaac and in heaven with them so I had you turn to Isaiah 45 look at verse number write and make notes of these and get the context get more of the context later I'm right now I'm just kind of I'm going to try to blow through as fast as I can with these main points so I'm going to start reading verse number 15 verily thou art a god that hidest thyself oh god of Israel the savior they shall be ashamed and also confounded all of them they shall go to confusion together they're makers of idols but Israel shall be saved in the lord with an everlasting salvation you shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end and what's a key part of that this is another promise of of Israel being saved but how is Israel saved in the lord but Israel shall be saved in the lord all Israel being saved it's all Israel in the lord saved hey they're saved with everlasting salvation now flip over to chapter 59 from Isaiah 45 to 59 oh man I don't want to do another sermon on this right away so Isaiah 59 is where I believe that this is um so in Romans 11 26 says and so all Israel shall be saved and that says as it is written this is the reference to as it is written and as is written there shall come out of Zion the deliverer and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob um let's start reading here in verse number 16 and he saw that there was no man again you'll have to get all this context later I intended on going through more of the context this morning but I'm literally just running out of time so make note on the back your bulletin Isaiah 59 verse 16 and he saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no intercessor therefore his arm brought salvation unto him and his righteousness had sustained him for he put on righteousness as a breastplate and in helmet of salvation upon his head and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing and was clad with zeal as a cloak according to their deeds accordingly he will repay fury to his adversaries recompense to his enemies to the islands he will repay recompense so shall they fear the name of the lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun when the enemy shall come in like a flood the spirit of the lord shall lift up a standard against him and the redeemer shall come to zion that's the deliverer the redeemer and unto them that turn from transgression in jacob saith the lord so those that are putting their trust in the redeemer as for me this is my covenant with them saith the lord my spirit that is upon me and my words which i have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor the mouth of thy seed nor the mouth of thy seed seed saith the lord from henceforth and forever i think what we're seeing here is ultimately what matters is being in christ is being a child of god and i'll close it with romans yeah man there's too much here in the context of romans i'm gonna look at romans 9 and then a couple more verses romans 11 i'm gonna call it romans 9 verse number one i say the truth in christ i lie not my conscience also bearing me witness in the holy ghost that i have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart for i could wish that myself were cursed from christ for my brother and my kinsmen according to the flesh we see the possible desire for the for his physical kin right the other people that are that are jews who are israelites to whom pertaineth the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the service of god and the promises that those all of these things is who god you that's what god used israel for so look the israelites like god gave them all of these things like god was good to israel and he gave them all of this stuff and that's who he cares like i care about them and we see even the struggle with the apostle paul he keeps on trying to go to them but what happens they keep fighting against him in his travels and in his in the writings that we see he continues to go to them and they continue to reject he still has a heart for them and he continues to have the heart for him but he's just like you know what i'm done at one point he's just like i'm done with you i'm going i'm just completely just going to the gentiles now just because that's where their heart was that they had just just by and large rejected christ but he but he still has this this desire for them to get saved verse five whose are the fathers and of whom as concerning the flesh christ came who is overall god blessed forever amen jesus christ clearly descended from we have the genealogy in in luke and in matthew and we see clearly christ came through israel but look at verse six not as though the word of god had taken down effect for they are not all israel which are of israel again the greater context of of romans another passage just like we have in galatians chapter three and chapter four that they're not all the seed of abraham that they're physical seed but those who are children of promise those who are children of faith they're the seed of abraham and here we see they're not all israel which are of israel so the physical israelites they're not all considered to be israel neither because they are the seed of abraham are they all children but in isaac shall thy seed be called that is he's going to clarify this even further they which are the children of the flesh these are not the children of god and i mean if that statement doesn't just resound for you like the children of the flesh they're not the children of god so everyone wants to talk about oh they're the chosen people they're god's children they're god the apple of god's eye and all this other stuff the children of the flesh these are not the children of god but the children of the promise are counted for the seed it's taught consistently especially in the new testament but also in the old testament hey who are the promises made to abraham to abraham into a seed which is christ but what was the promise that there's gonna be blessing unto who all nations all nation all nations of the earth will be blessed in abraham not one nation's gonna be blessed in abraham all nations because because christ came through the lineage of abraham but abraham or abraham jesus came to save all for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that's why all the nations are blessed all the nations are representative every kindred every tongue is in heaven because christ died for all and then even if we continue reading in romans 11 because everyone wants to just stop reading in verse 27 that are going to object to the placement theology verse 28 says as concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sakes they're enemies people who don't believe and are fighting against the gospel they're the enemies so you're going to tell me they're the children of god but they're the enemies no they're not but as touching the election they are beloved for the father's sakes like the previous generation father's sakes for the gifts and calling of god are without repentance for as ye in times past have not believed yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief even so have these also now not believed that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy for god has concluded them all in unbelief and this is where god's dealing with them as a collective group he's concluded them all in unbelief now were they all literally every single person unbelief no i mean the apostle paul already said hey i'm an israelite but but god's just dealing with them as a nation god's including all unbelief that he might have mercy upon all oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of god how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out so even though they're enemies for the gospel sake we still want to preach the gospel to them right they fight against the gospel we still want to see them saved as the apostle paul did we should do the same thing but the fact is they're not our friends i'm talking about the religion of judaism it's not our friends they're our enemies because of the gospel but you know what the bible also teaches we need to love our enemies and we're going to try to get them saved now if they reject or accept that's on them but i don't see anywhere throughout history i don't see i don't see anywhere specifically in this one passage and we have all so many other passages throughout all scripture an event that would outline every single unbeliever of any nation regardless of it's a jews or or not just every single one just turning to christ i don't see that happening clearly that's not what this passage is talking about what it's talking about is people who are in christ people who are the children of god they're saved and they're going to be saved and they're the ones who have everlasting salvation and even in the end times hey israel is going to be saved because remember there's attack there's a the antichrist is going to be waging war against the saints he's going to be the one reigning out of jerusalem i believe but when christ comes he sets up his kingdom and the believers the children of god the spiritual israel will then be saved and comforted and protected through christ being the deliverer let's bow our eyes have a word of prayer dear heavenly father we thank you so much for your word i pray that you would please help everyone here to get some clarity i don't always feel like i did the best job of explaining things here lord i pray that your word did the work required for us to have a better understanding of the truth because that's what we care about the most dear lord is just that that we have pure doctrine that we're good and we understand what we believe and that the truth will will help to mold us and our view on things and that we would also help us to exhort us to go out and just continue to preach the word and preach the gospel and try to see people get saved dear lord and not be a respecter of persons in any regard but that we would just treat everybody the same in the sense that everyone needs christ everyone needs to get saved your lord help us to accomplish that mission and and build this church lord we love you in jesus name we pray amen all right we're going to sing one last song before we're dismissed i'm going to ask brother peter lead us in our last song all right church if you can open up your windows to song number 364 song 364 standing on the promises of god if you can stand with me if you're able to i'd like to have you stand solve 364 on the first through eternal ages let his praises ring glory in the highest i will shout and sing standing on the promises of god standing standing standing on the promises of god standing standing i'm standing on the promises of god standing on the promises of god when the house is torn down in fear of sale by the living word i shall prevail is standing on the promises of Christ the Lord. Melting him eternally by love's strong core. Overcoming him by the Spirit's sword. Standing on the promises of God. Standing, standing. Standing on the promises of God by Savior. Standing, standing. By standing on the promises of God. And with all you've got, on the last. Standing on the promises of God. Listening every moment to the Spirit's call. Resting in my Savior as my all and all. Standing on the promises of God. Standing, standing. Standing on the promises of God by Savior. Standing, standing. On the standing of the promises of God. Great team, thank you so much for coming, you guys. Hey. How you doing? Good to see you. Come back for someone else. Come back for someone else.