The Bible: Clearly & Literally True

Transcript

GRM 1071
2/19/2012
The Bible Simply and Literally True
Selected Verses
Gil Rugh


We've been studying biblical prophecy together for a little while now, and we're talking about the kingdom, the kingdom that God has prepared from the foundation of the world, but a kingdom that is prophesied to come at a point in time and be established on this earth. And what I want to do today is pull several things together, and there will be some review and some reading. So I hope you'll track along a little different than what we usually do in looking into particularly a passage of Scripture. But it's very important we understand these issues and the importance of these issues.
Let me just put us again on track where we are, if you'll put the chart up. We're talking about the kingdom and the kingdom as we talk about it is this thousand-year period in particular. We have the coming of Christ here to earth, that's about 2,000 years after Abraham lived on earth. So just to set the time. Abraham about 2,000 years before Christ. It was to Abraham God gave the Abrahamic Covenant which is foundational to His dealings with His people Israel. Then you have the coming of Christ, His death and ascension to heaven. This is the church age that will climax with the Rapture of the church. That's where the church will be bodily removed from the earth, caught up to meet Christ in the air. Followed by a seven-year period. Remember God's plan for Israel was unfolded as covering 493 years, in the book of Daniel that is revealed. Four hundred eighty-three years ended just before the crucifixion of Christ. With the rejection of Christ God's program with the nation as a nation is put on hold here. After the Rapture of the church He picks up with His final seven years in dealing with Israel and then He will return to earth and Christ will set up His kingdom over which He will rule. That's the general overview of God's prophetic program.

We have it titled with the resurrections here because we were looking specifically at the different resurrections and their timing. So we just put those on that timeline. We've looked at the matter that there are different views on this what we call the millennium. That comes from Revelation where six times God says this will be a thousand-year period. Millennium comes from the Latin for a thousand years, it's a thousand years. Now there is a difference of opinion among those who read the Bible and who claim to be Bible-believing Christians on what is called the kingdom. Some are amillennial, we talked about them. The “a” in front of millennium means no millennium. They believe that the kingdom that we say is a thousand years here is really figurative or spiritual. They don't take it literally. Rather they say with the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ to heaven here, the kingdom began. And it is a spiritual kingdom over which God rules. And so there is no literal seven years here, there is no thousand-year period. This is just a kingdom, God is ruling from heaven, believers make up that kingdom. At the end of the kingdom Christ will return and we'll go into eternity. We'll talked about the reasons for that a little more fully.

Then there are those who are postmillennial. Postmillennial means after the millennium. They believe basically, similar to the amillennialist, they use the same approach to interpreting the Bible, but they believe the kingdom began back here with the resurrection and ascension of Christ, but it is spiritually in force. But what's going to happen is through the work of God's people down through history and things are going to get better and better in the world until ultimately we bring in the kingdom because we've reformed society in the world. We'll have this period of blessing and prosperity and peace on the earth for a thousand years. And then at the end of that Christ will return to earth. So He won't return here, He won't return here. It starts here and then Christ will return here after that thousand years and we just go into eternity. That's why it's called postmillennialism, Christ comes after the millennium.

Then there is premillenialism. So those three basic views. If you know those three—amillennial, post-millennial, premillennial. Premillennialists believe that Christ will return to earth before the thousand years to set up a literal kingdom on the earth. Now we did divide premillennialism into two groups—covenant premillennialism and dispensational premillennialism. We are dispensational premillennialists, we believe that Christ will return to earth to establish the kingdom before the millennium, but we believe He will come before the seven years, called the 70th week of Daniel, to take the church to heaven. Covenant premillennialists do not see a distinction, basically, a clear distinction between Israel and the church. So they believe that the kingdom began back here and then there may be a spiritual characteristic of the kingdom, but there is going to be a return of Christ to earth before the literal kingdom. No special seven years here, there may be a time of tribulation and trial for all people, but Israel and the church are not clearly distinct. They are blended together overall and God's program for Jews and Gentiles will be completed in the church. Christ will return at the end of His plan for the earth and we'll have a thousand-year kingdom.

So covenant premillennialists and dispensational premillennialists both believe Christ will return to establish the kingdom on earth. Dispensationalists believe there is a clear distinction between Israel and the church, we should take Old Testament prophecies consistently in a literal manner of interpretation.

I've done some of this before, but I want to review with you why is there a difference in these views, if we are all Bible-believing Christians. Why are some who claim to be Bible-believing Christians who believe in the death, burial and resurrection as the payment for their sin, who are trusting Him alone for salvation, why do they believe that there will be no literal earthly kingdom, but we are in the kingdom now who are the postmillennialists or even the covenant premillennialists who don't see a clear distinction between Israel and the church.

We'll focus on amillennialism and postmillennialism because they are more clear. Many of you came out of that kind of background. You came from a Presbyterian church, a Lutheran church, a Roman Catholic church, that would have been their teaching on these matters—amillennial or postmillennial. They become very similar because they use the same method of interpretation. And as we noted, they come with the approach that with the coming of Christ and His death and resurrection, we now have the right and authority and responsibility to reinterpret all the Old Testament prophecies, everything before Christ in a new way. We call this allegorical interpretation. Some of you are taking Don's class on Wednesday nights. A reminder that it's important to take all the studies you can because you get into more depth, things are more clearly developed and explained, and it helps you understand things.

Amillennialism, postmillennialism, they follow an allegorical or a spiritualizing method of interpretation, some would say mystical where they say the literal interpretation, what you would get in a meaning is not what really is important or intended. There is an underlying meaning that is the true meaning you have to come to. The background for this goes back to the Greeks, and again if you are taking Don's class you'll get into this in more helpful detail. The Greeks back before Christ, they had their religious writers and they had their poets. And they wrote in a very fanciful way, obviously not presenting reality. And sometimes they were outright immoral in what they presented. Then you had the other side of the Greeks who were into logic, thinking, science, ethics. And how are you going to wed the two together? You can't just say those religious writings are fanciful, they are not real, we ought to ignore them, because people get offended when you say that about their religion. So what those on the side of logic and rational thinking, if we can put it that way, did was they said we have to reinterpret our religious writings and the writings of the poets. They are not promoting immorality, they are not dealing in a fantasy world. They are writing things that are not to be taken literally. We must go down below what appears on the surface to get to the true meaning and understanding of what is being written.

Well, over time that got absorbed by the Jews. You know we are always thinking we ought to adjust to the world and make what the world says and what we believe in the Bible fit. So the Jews, particularly in Alexandria where there was a strong Jewish community and a strong Greek influence, began to adopt this Greek way of thinking. We Jews shouldn't be interpreting our Bible literally. We should be getting to a more serious and deep meaning, not just taking the superficial surface meaning. And so many of the Jews began to adopt that method of approaching their Scriptures. And then of course you know who followed on with that, with the coming of Christ and the establishing of the church and then over time you had Christians picking up on that. And this desire to wed Greek thinking and Christianity and Jewish thinking and Greek thinking. And pretty soon you develop this method of interpretation that was started by these Greeks to handle their religious writings. Yes, we ought to be going below the surface, following an allegorical, a spiritualizing, mystical, looking for a deeper meaning.

And so that's why the church fathers, many of them are not reliable from the early years of the church because they had adopted that way of interpreting. Origen becomes well known for promoting allegorical interpretation, the idea that literal reading was all right for the layman who really didn't know enough to get to the deep underlying meaning. And so we end up with amillennialism with Augustine and all who promoted that kind of thinking.

So it comes back to you system of interpretation. While we are talking about this, it's crucial, this is more than just . . . People say, why do we have to make an issue over prophecy? We joke, and it's talked about, you have amillennialism, postmillennialism, premillennialism and panmillennialism. We believe it will all pan out. And we joke about that so we don't have to pay attention to this. But there is something more serious at root here, that's how you are interpreting the Bible that will permeate everything.

A recent book on how to interpret the Bible by a man who is an amillennialist. I want again just to refresh your mind, I'm not telling you they make this up. He believes, the amillennialist believes there was a coming of Christ we now are supposed to go back and reinterpret the Old Testament. The literal meaning that the Jews understood is not the true meaning. So here is what this man writes, it's a book that was published in 2006, he's a recognized amillennial scholar, been reviewed in theological journals. So I'm not picking out someone who is a flake. He calls those who take a literal view of the Bible literalists, using it as a pejorative term, to cast a shadow on those who would take such a way of interpreting the Bible. The literalists assert that God reveals through the prophets that His kingdom comes with the return of the Jews to Palestine, and we do; the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and we agree; the restoration of the temple, and we agree. I'm going to stop there because he adds things that we don't hold.

Then he says, listen to this, the New Testament clearly does not support such a simplistic hermeneutic as literal fulfillment of prophecy. You see that looking down on those who would just take a literal view. That's a simplistic view of hermeneutic, he calls it hermeneutic. Anytime you see someone talking about hermeneutic in the singular, you know they are not talking about the same thing we do. Hermeneutics is a system of rules for interpreting the Scripture, you interpret it in its historical setting, you interpret it according to rules of grammar, there are specific guidelines for interpreting.

He says the New Testament does not support such a simplistic hermeneutic as literal fulfillment of prophecy. I mean, you are not very well educated and very knowledgeable. And quite frankly if you read much in the scholarly world, that's the way they treat those who interpret the Bible literally. They are just living in a non-real world. Although he does admit, because Jesus is a historical figure, an Israelite who has come in the flesh, He indeed fulfills some prophecies in a rather literal way. He can't bring himself to say He fulfills them in a literal way. He fulfills them in a rather literal way. What is a rather literal way?

He gives some examples. Micah 5:2 says the Messiah will be born at Bethlehem, and He was born at Bethlehem. Well I would say that's a literal way, not a rather literal way. He is born of a virgin, as Isaiah 7:14 says. Well, I would say that's a literal interpretation, not a rather literal interpretation. Then he goes on, and get this because this is where we are, the literalist must become a futurist. What he means by that, those who interpret Old Testament prophecy literally must believe in a future for Israel, a future seven years, a future earthly kingdom. If you interpret the Old Testament literally, you must be a futurist, since a literalistic fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy has not taken place. And so he has to agree, the prophecies that were fulfilled with the first coming of Christ were fulfilled literally. But if you're going to take the prophecies that have not been yet fulfilled in a literal way of interpretation, then you will look like we look. But of course you shouldn't do that, that's a simplistic way of interpreting the Bible. And he does have some comments on dispensationalism and dispensaltionalists for dealing in such an unscholarly way with the Scripture.

Let me give you an example of his interpretation. Greg knew we were in trouble this morning because he said to me, I see you are carrying books. Well, here we go. Since I know you are not going to buy this book and read, and I don't recommend it, it was recommended to me by a person who was saved at this church, spent many years in this church and has changed his view and thought that I ought to read this, that it might enlighten me to the way of understanding. He has three columns here and several pages at the end of his book on how to interpret the Bible so you can understand how it should really be interpreted. For example, the Old Testament promises land, the land of Israel, the land we call Palestine. Remember when God said to Abraham, now you walk around this land; everywhere your feet walk, I'm going to give it to you and your descendants. There are promises of land, people, the nation Israel, the physical descendants, a great name, blessings to the nations. He's talking about the Abrahamic Covenant—land, seed (physical descendants) and blessings for Israel and for all peoples. A prophetic fulfillment, here's how he would express the prophetic fulfillment that we would anticipate—the people of God will return to the Promised Land and be great. The nations will come to share in the kingdom of Zion.

Now we might read that and say, well, the people of God, who are the people of God in the Old Testament? Israel. But he doesn't mean that. Remember I told you that you have to be careful when people talk about one people of God? They are blurring and blending Israel and the church. So when he talks about the people of God, he doesn't mean Israel. But he says, here is the prophetic fulfillment—the people of God will return to the Promised Land. When you hear that, you're saying, the Promised Land is Israel. Right? Not him. The nations will come to share in the kingdom of Zion. Zion is Jerusalem.

Here is the fulfillment. The land is to be the new Eden, the dwelling of the people with God. Jesus is that place as well as being God and the people. Now I don't know if you can understand that. If you can, you can come explain it to me. Because what he is saying is Jesus is the fulfillment of all this, He is the place where the people of God dwell because we come to believe in Him. We dwell in Him and He dwells in us so He is our dwelling place. If that's not clear, I'll go on, he further has another.

The Bible promises entry and possession of the land. That means the people of God will return from the nations to the land of promise. Fine, if you're talking about the Jews returning to the land that God gave to the Jews. He says it is fulfilled. Jesus gains entry through His resurrection and ascension into the inheritance of the people of God. No you know what he is saying here, Jesus gains entrance by His resurrection and ascension into the inheritance of the people of God. So everything that was promised to God's people in the Old Testament as their inheritance has been inherited by Christ. By being the place where God meets His people He fulfills the meaning of the land. The land does not mean the physical land, it means Jesus is the land because when God's people are in the Land, they will be with God. Isn't that beautiful? That is ridiculous.

This man is a scholar who has retired, he taught for years biblical theology and hermeneutics. I've seen this recommended in theological journals as very helpful. How can you say Jesus by His resurrection inherited everything God had promised to His people in the Old Testament, so it's not a physical land. So you see now, you would read the Old Testament and you would think God promised the physical land to the Jews. No, that's simplistic. Don't be so foolish. Think. That's fulfilled because Christ came and God now meets with His people when they come to believe in Christ. And so Christ is the land because that's where we meet with God.

You see we've just lost any connection to reality, to literal interpretation. Now we say, that's just about prophecy. But once you say it's all right to interpret prophecy that way, who says you shouldn't interpret other parts of the Bible that way? So men like John Stott, who died not too long ago, some of you are familiar with his writings, was an amillennialist. So he handled Old Testament prophecy this way. But then he began to think, I really don't like the doctrine of an eternal hell. So you know what he decided? We shouldn't interpret that literally. So now we feel better. You don't have to interpret hell as a literal place of fiery suffering, it just means that people who don't become believers will cease to exist. And furthermore, some don't stop there. I was reading some writings this week written by evangelicals and they gave a footnote listing various evangelicals, who we can go all the way back to the opening chapters of Genesis back here, the creation of the world, a literal Adam and Eve, they no longer believe you should interpret that literally. But that is myth, that has an underlying meaning. It is not telling you how the world was created and that there was a literal man called Adam and a literal woman.

Well, where do we stop? But we're not done. Sounds like a TV commercial, right? But wait, just pay shipping and handling. Now there are evangelicals, one who just passed away this past year who started out interpreting the Bible literally and by the time he died he didn't believe in substitutionary atonement either. And there are a number who call themselves evangelicals in the emerging church movement who deny the substitutionary death of Christ. One has written and said that would be divine child abuse if God punished His Son on the cross for your sin. So you see what happens, where does it stop once you say it is all right to not interpret this portion of the Bible literally. Who decides where you start and stop?

That's why we have some foolishness going on. People say, let's just focus on the essentials. We Christians should be one. Didn't Jesus pray in John 13 that all of us be one even as He and the Father are one. And so we ought to focus on the essentials. What are the essentials? Just the gospel. I mean, what do you tell a person who needs to be saved? You present the gospel to him. Paul told the Corinthians, when I came to you I determined to know nothing among you, except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Let's focus on what matters, the essentials. It's true, that's what an unsaved person needs to hear, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And of course you have to interpret that literally. But let's not divide over these other things.

Part of the problem is they quote John 13 and they don't take time to realize that has already been fulfilled. That was fulfilled in the provision Christ made in His death and resurrection. Then when a person becomes a believer in Christ we are joined together into one body, Jew and Gentile alike. Read Ephesians 2-3. That's not something we're trying to be working on accomplishing today, that's something that God accomplished and it brings about the moment a person believes in Christ. And further Jesus told us in the Great Commission to go and make disciples of all the nations. And teach them everything that I have commanded you, not just what you think are the essentials.

Those or you who are in our study of Acts, we read in Acts 20, Paul says, I am free from the blood of all men because I have taught you the whole counsel of God. Who has the audacity to stand up and be God's editor and say, we're just going to focus on the essentials. Do you know what that does? What they're really saying is let's not talk about prophecy. Why? That would divide us. So you know what you're saying? Let's just not make an issue of how you interpret the Bible as long as we agree on these things. But you know what that will do, that begins to eat away because now you've said it's all right to not interpret the Bible literally. And once you open that . . . I could tell someone, read his writings starting in 1972. Early in my years here I was recommending his books to this congregation because of his writings on the inspiration of Scripture, the correct interpretation of Scripture. By the time he died he didn't even believe in the substitutionary death of Christ a couple years ago.

Who stops it? Who decides you just interpret prophecy this way. He is saying the New Testament gives us a right to reinterpret the Old Testament. We're saying God's Word does not have to be interpreted literally. And we go from one to another. Because then you not only do that to the Old Testament, you reinterpret the New Testament in passages in a nonliteral way because you have to make them fit your view of the Old Testament.

I have to read one more book, it's a good book overall. Messiah's Coming Temple: Ezekiel's Prophetic Visions of the Future Temple. It's a good book, it's too dispensationalist. To say they hold to this view, like we have right up here on the chart. They believe in the Rapture, they believe in the seven years, they believe in the return of Christ, they believe in a literal thousand years, they believe in a literal temple rebuilt here according to Ezekiel 40-48. That's what this book is about, the literal interpretation of the temple in Ezekiel 40-48. In fact here is what they say about this. In our opinion there is no reason to depart from the normal, sometimes called literal, interpretation of Scripture when we come to Ezekiel 40-48. When we encounter problems with a literal interpretation, we should seek to resolve the problems rather than quickly abandoning our interpretive approach. That's so good, so much good in here.

But later they want to talk about the kingdom, God's kingdom work. And they want to tell you “from a man who puts clearly and concisely what the kingdom says.” This man has put clearly and concisely the kingdom of God involve. Here is what is involved in the kingdom—God's people in God's place under God's rule. That was said by Graham Goldsworthy. Graham Goldsworthy is the author of the book on amillennial hermeneutics I just read to you. Now not everybody is going to be familiar with Graham Goldsworthy, but you read a statement like this—God's kingdom involves God's people in God's place under God's rule. The problem with that statement is not what it says, but how loose it is in what it says. God's people. Well we read that and we say, God's people, that would be the nation Israel in the Old Testament. That's who he was talking about. That's not what he means.

Secondly, God's place. Well, God's place for Israel was the land of Israel, Palestine. Right? It's not what he means by it. We know what he means by it, I read it to you. It's Christ who is the land where we meet with God. Spiritualize. Under God's rule. That would be God's appointed Messiah reigning over the kingdom. That's not what he means. They say, well, they probably take it differently. The problem is they pick up this man's statements, his view of the kingdom and now these who told us we have to be careful to stay with literal interpretation and not abandon it have this to say about the kingdom. The kingdom is both present and future. Perhaps we should say the church is the most visible and significant aspect of the kingdom of God as it is developing in the present age. That sounds like postmillennialism, the kingdom of God developing in the present age?

The kingdom order has been inaugurated because King Jesus has come. The glorious redeeming reign of God has commenced. ________________ back here. Well, wait a minute, I thought you said you were dispensational premillennial. You believe in a literal interpretation of Scripture. They wrote the whole book, they have diagrams. One of the authors of this book, it's a dual authorship, has done a whole construction of what the millennial temple will be like according to the dimensions, sizes, description given in Ezekiel 40-48. They are strong on this kingdom. But somehow now they've abandoned literal hermeneutics.

Is there a kingdom of God in the present age? Yes! The kingdom of God involves God's people in God's place under God's rule. Now you give a wrong definition of the kingdom, everything following is going to be wrong. That is not an accurate definition or description of God's kingdom. But now they have it—God's people in God's place under God's rule. You haven't identified God's people, God's place or God's rule. So they are going to do that. God's place would be the body of Christ, the church. Whoa, whoa. Somewhere now the Old Testament promises of a kingdom in the physical land of Israel, now how do we get to having the kingdom established now presently, God's place for the kingdom is the church? God's rule over His people would be exercised through Christ and His under shepherds, the elders. That sounds like Roman Catholicism, the reign of Christ being exercised by His divinely appointed representatives.

God's place would be God's people, you know where we're going with this. You have God's people, God's place, God's rule. God's people would be the body of Christ, the church. You see what we've done, and that's why I want to warn you of this and take the time with this, even if we're not careful, you open the door. You say, we're writing this, the importance of literal hermeneutics, we're battling for that, we're standing for that. We come to the kingdom, we redefine God's people, we redefine God's place for the kingdom and we redefine God's rule in the kingdom. We've allegorized, spiritualized the passages on it. And now we've opened the door. Now we have a view of the kingdom that is not biblical. And so we're in the kingdom, and we're God's kingdom people today and the kingdom is established in the church, that's the place that the kingdom centers. And the elders and church leaders have the oversight. Then we're back to what else we're going to pick up. If we're in the kingdom, we're going to pick up social action, social justice, all those things that come out of a confused view of the kingdom. You open the door.

Why do we do this? Well, everybody is doing it. We talked about social action, social justice. People think our church is narrow, we don't love other people, we don't do anything to help others. We do the most important thing, we give them the Word of life, we do what no other organization, no other group can do but the church of Jesus Christ. We give them the Word of life. You come here to learn the truth of God and hear that Word and take it in. They say, don't you come and teach? We're not teaching a different meaning, we're clarifying. Just like you teach your children to read, they have readers they bring home and learn how to read. And they have to get sentences and they have to learn what is the subject of the sentence, and what is the verb in the sentence, and what is the object. Why? So they'll be able to read with understanding, not so they can get down to a deeper meaning. So they'll be able to read it with understanding. We want to read it with understanding.

So very important, this subject of hermeneutics. When people say, we just want to focus on the essentials, you know they are abandoning consistency in their hermeneutics. They want to do kingdom work and they're adding social justice and helping the poor and bringing justice to the afflicted. View of the kingdom, I mean, the church eventually takes it up. Liberation theology swept through Latin America and South America years ago, we just take on a form of it here. We want to bring social justice. We have to stay true to the Word of God and that means we have to stay true to the proper interpretation of the Word of God. To say this is the Word of God and not interpret it correctly, what are we left with?

We believe in the clarity, the technical word is perspicuity, of Scripture, the clarity of Scripture. God has spoken clearly. That doesn't mean you just open it up anywhere and read a verse and say, I fully understand it. No. But He spoke with the intention that it be understood. We've been through this, we started out with hermeneutics on this. You read it and God intends you to understand what He said. He says what He means and He means what He says. Another thing that comes into this, you read these authors and they say, you remember there is a dual authorship of Scripture—God and man. God spoke but man wrote it down so we have to sort through this and try to make clear. Sometimes what man wrote may not be exactly what God intended. Wait a minute, how are we going to find out what God intended if what they wrote is not exactly what God intended to be written? How did that happen? It was supernatural, holy men of old spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Guaranteed they said exactly what God intended. So there is no distinction, there is one author of Scripture. He used different human writers and their personalities. We want to be careful of these things.

All right. We're going to read some passages. The Abrahamic Covenant is the foundational covenant. We've done this, we're repeating, repetition is good. I'm stirring up your pure minds by way of remembrance, as Peter said. We're not going to go back to the Abrahamic Covenant that promised a land, seed and a blessing. I just want to read the three covenants that expand the Abrahamic Covenant.

Start in Deuteronomy and see what a literal meaning is. That is all we'll tie into the kingdom which we are talking about. This is called the Palestinian Covenant as we identify it because it expands on the land of Palestine, the land God promised to Israel in the Abrahamic Covenant. So these covenants are not new in the sense that they begin something, they expand on the basic foundational covenant God gave. There will be three of them—the Palestinian Covenant, the Davidic Covenant and the New Covenant.

The Palestinian Covenant, Deuteronomy 30:1, so shall it be when all of these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you and call them to mind in all the nations where the Lord your God has banished you, and you return to the Lord your God and obey Him with all your heart, your soul, according to all that I command you today and your sons, then the Lord your God will restore you from captivity, have compassion on you, will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you.

Now note, he is talking to a specific people, Israel. Don't just talk generally about the people of God or one people of God. In the Old Testament the people of God are Israel, the Jews. You'll note it is going to require spiritual restoration. Verse 2, they return to the Lord with their whole heart and soul. To have the kingdom we're going to have to have the spiritual restoration of physical Israel, the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob turning to the Lord. Then the Lord, verse 3, will restore them to the physical land. I will restore you from captivity, have compassion on you, gather you from wherever you have been scattered around the earth.

Down to verse 5, then the Lord will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed and you shall possess it. To say that in some way Christ fulfills this and it's not the land that your fathers had. That's a superficial, simplistic way of understanding it. It's an attack on the clarity of the Word of God. He will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed. That same land that God told Abraham, take a walk and every piece of land where your foot walks, that's going to belong to you and your descendants. I'll multiply you more than ever before.

Moreover the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants. That's foundational. Physical circumcision was the sign of the covenant God established between Abraham and his descendants. It will be a sign for the Jews, but not every Jew, physical descendant, will be saved because the physical circumcision did not bring salvation. It marked them off as part of a physical nation God had chosen for Himself. But to experience salvation within that chosen nation you had to have a circumcised heart that only God could perform by the work of His Holy Spirit. So as a result of that transformation of heart, cleansing of heart, they would love the Lord God with all their heart, and all their soul. So you see a promise of spiritual restoration to a physical people, the Jews, a promise of physical restoration to the land. Spiritual restoration and physical restoration.

Come over to 2 Samuel 7. You have what is called the Davidic Covenant and this has to do with the rule of a specific descendant of Abraham through David who would rule on the throne in Jerusalem over the Jews and all the world. We'll pick up, and God reminds David in verse 8 that He was the One who took him from being a shepherd of sheep and made him ruler, the end of verse 8, over My people Israel. They want to drop Israel off that and just talk about God's people. God makes clear, when I talk about My people, I'm talking about Israel.

Verse 10, I will appoint a place for My people. Whoever they may be. That's not what He says. For My people Israel and I will plant them that they may live in their own place and not be disturbed again. Nor will the wicked afflict them anymore. They have been afflicted from the days of the judges that I gave to be over My people Israel. I will give you rest from all your enemies. Do you think we're in the kingdom? When you leave go home and turn on the news. The Lord also declares to you that the Lord will make a house for you. You're going to have dynasty here. When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your seed, your descendant after you who will come forth from you. I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name. I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me.

Verse 16, your house, your kingdom, shall endure before Me forever. Your throne shall be established forever. The way we get to that is yes, it was established here and now He rules spiritually forever. That's not what you get when you read this literally. He's talking to literal King David who is sitting on a literal throne in Jerusalem ruling over a literal kingdom. There is only one way David could understand this. If God didn't mean what He said then there was no sense in even telling David this, basically. What's the point? Fool all these people for 2,000 years until the Messiah comes, making them think that God had meant what He said? So there will be a king.

Come over to Jeremiah 31. We have the New Covenant. The Mosaic Covenant is a separate covenant, it wasn't one of the permanent covenants. The Abrahamic Covenant is foundational, it is elaborated in three covenants—the Palestinian Covenant, the Davidic Covenant and the New Covenant. The Mosaic Covenant is an add-on, governing the life of the people until the coming of the Messiah, governing the people Israel in the land until the coming of the Messiah. Then it would be abrogated. These other covenants are part of the Abrahamic Covenant and will never be set aside.

Jeremiah 31:31, behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with My people. Whoever they are. That's not what it says. With the house of Israel and the house of Judah, in case you don't get the point. The kingdom had split by this time, the time of the Babylonian captivity and Jeremiah. The Assyrian captivity of the northern ten tribes had already occurred. God makes clear this covenant is with the Jewish people as a whole, northern and southern kingdom, Israel as the ten tribes were known and Judah as Judah and Benjamin were known.

Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers when I brought them out of Egypt. That's the Mosaic Covenant which will be ended. But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it. You see where this is going to take place, there is going to be a spiritual transformation. I will be their God, they will by My people. They will teach each man his neighbor and each man his brother saying, know the Lord. For they will all know Me from the least of them to the greatest of them, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, their sin I will remember no more. We're going to have an evangelism meeting tonight, but you won't need evangelists carrying on here because everybody is going to know about Christ. Not everybody is going to believe in Him, but the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, as Isaiah said.

Then God says in Jeremiah 31: 35-37, the Lord who gives the sun for light by day, fixes the order of the moon, the starts by night, who stirs up the sea. The God who is sovereign over all creation, who controls everything. Verse 36, if this fixed order departs from before Me, then the offspring of Israel will cease from being a nation before Me. We had the stars last night, the moon, the sun. Then who has the audacity to say that God is done with the physical nation Israel? Where do we cross the line and say that's a denial of Scripture, not just a disagreement and we don't want to be divisive so it's all right if you hold that. It's not all right. How clearly does God have to speak?

If this fixed order departs from Me, then the offspring of Israel will cease forever from being a nation before Me forever. And then somebody has the audacity to tell me with the coming of Christ here and His resurrection and ascension, we can reinterpret all this. It doesn't mean Israel anymore. Who is he? The Protestant pope? I mean, he says it and people say . . . And then people want to say there are so many different interpretations, we don't want to get into those, we don't want to divide over those. Well, if you let Scripture speak for itself, there are not many different interpretations. Does that mean I can explain every detail of how it will work out? No, I can't. I don't have to, God has to work it out. Thus says the Lord, if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth can be searched out below, then I will cast off the offspring of Israel for all they've done. The more examine and explore space, the more immeasurable it gets to us. Does God cast away Israel?

I was watching a program in the last couple weeks on the history channel and they were talking about how they were trying to get through the cloud cover around one of the stars out there so they could see. And they haven't even touched, they don't even know how to see through the clouds yet when they get out there. Has God cast off His people?
Behold the days are coming, declares the Lord, when the city will be rebuilt for the Lord. Talking about Jerusalem. And on it goes.

We could go on to other passages. You see what there has to be, there has to be the king, the physical descendant of David sitting on the throne of David in Zion, Jerusalem, ruling over the Jewish nation who are now the central people on the earth. And all the other nations will come to Jerusalem to honor the King of the Jews who is the ruler of the world. That's required for the kingdom. You have to have the physical restoration of God's people to the physical land that He has promised them to have a kingdom. You have to have the spiritual restoration of the transformed heart of the people of God to have the kingdom. Who gives somebody the right to redefine the kingdom as God's people in God's place under God's rule as though it were some foggy, mystical things? No, it is God's people Israel in God's place, the physical land He promised to them, living under the rule and authority of their Messiah. You can't have the kingdom until you have that. And no, I cannot fellowship in ministry with those who deny that. Neither can you because it's a whole different approach to interpreting the Bible. And once you start that, who is going to say, we don't interpret the book of Revelation literally, why should we interpret the book of Genesis literally? And if you don't interpret the beginning literally and the end literally, who says you have to interpret everything in the middle literally? And pretty soon you have nothing but what liberal theology has brought, that we do like to take literally what it says about goodness and we just pull out the context and take poor as poor. And so we do good to the poor, and that's what the Bible says. And the church ends up, some of you have come out of liberal churches, with nothing to say because they don't even have the foggiest idea of what the Bible says and what it means because they reject its clarity.

All right, we're done with the introduction. There are 18 references to the kingdom in the epistles. All those references can be understood and should be understood as referring to the future coming kingdom. We're going to look at two and then we're going to take two other verses and we're done. We'll take the two from Colossians because these are verses they come to, to say the kingdom is presently here. Colossians 1:13, for He rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son. Doesn't that mean we're in the kingdom? He transferred us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of His beloved Son. Well I live in this world and the whole world lies in the evil one and Satan is the god of this world and I haven't been able to exit yet. But I have been transferred to the kingdom of His beloved Son. What would that be? That's the kingdom that He promised. I'm not in it yet, but the parallel letter that Paul wrote to the Ephesians, he tells us that we have been seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Look at your seat. I'm not seated on a seat in the heavenlies. Positionally I have that, some day I will be in the presence of God in heaven enthroned in the glory of His presence. But you can speak to me today as having been seated with Him in the heavenlies through the position I have and that I will enjoy in the future.

In Romans 8 Paul says that those that God has called He has justified, and those He has justified He has glorified. His glorified, he uses the same tense in Greek, aorist tense, which is often used of the past tense. He's right, I have been called; he's right, I have been justified. But I haven't been glorified. But he says, those He has justified He has glorified. He is speaking about what is assuredly mine in the future when the body of this humility will be transformed into conformity with the body of his glory.

What's he talking about here? We've been transformed, we no longer belong to the devil, we are no longer citizens of his kingdom. But our citizenship is in heaven from which we eagerly await a Savior, who when He comes, He will establish His kingdom. And we as the church will also be part of that.

Turn over to Colossians 4:11. He's talking about those who are fellow workers with him. Verse 10, Aristarchus, Barnabas, cousin Mark. He talks about these people. Jesus who is called Justus, verse 11. Then note what he says, these are the only fellow workers for the kingdom of God who are from the circumcision. They have proved an encouragement to me. These are the only workers, the only ones with him who are Jews who are from the circumcision. That's a way of identifying Jews, they are of the circumcision. They are fellow workers for the kingdom who are from the circumcision. What kingdom would these Jews understand? They are from the circumcision. They are working for the kingdom that is promised to them in the Old Testament that their Messiah will come. To take these verses and say, we must be in the kingdom, they are working for the kingdom, they are working unto the kingdom. Into the kingdom. Paul told on his missionary journeys, through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. He doesn't say because we are in the kingdom we endure tribulations. He says it is through tribulations we will enter the kingdom. It's this whole time of trouble and trial and the tribulations will become intensely severe there. But even for believers now there is that time.

Two passages that are taken to mean that Israel and the church are the same. Come to Galatians 6. These are the two passages. . . If you read anything on this by amillennialists, postmillennialists, covenant premillennialists, these are the two passages they take you to, to show you that Israel and the church are the same, the church is called Israel. Galatians 6:16, and those who will walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God. People say, there the church is called Israel. Well maybe Israel is called Israel. He has just spent the letter attacking false Jewish teachers. He started out in Galatians 1 saying they are cursed to hell for teaching that you have to be circumcised and keep the Law to be saved. So I want to pronounce peace and mercy upon those who walk by this rule and upon the Israel of God. They are the true believing Jews. He's not talking about Gentiles who are now called the Israel of God. They have always been Israel the nation and then within Israel those who belong to God.

Come back to Romans 2:28. And he's talking about Jews, physical, literal Jews. Verse 17, if you bear the name Jew and rely upon the Law and boast in God and so on. So he's talking about Jews. Verse 28, for he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly and circumcision is that which is of the heart by the Spirit, not by the letter. And his praise is not from men but from God. Moo who is a covenant premillennialist, a nondispensational premillennialist as we would hold it, has a magisterial commentary on Romans. But he says here is one clear example where the Gentiles are called Jews. What do you mean? He's talking in all of Romans 2 up to this point about physical Jews and they'll have to have a circumcised heart. It's not enough to be a Jew outwardly, to pride yourself in being circumcised, to pride yourself in keeping the Law. For by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified in His sight. You have to have a circumcised heart. That's not new information to the Jews. What did we read in the Palestinian Covenant all the way back in Deuteronomy 30? God says, I will circumcise your heart. To be the Jew who receives the promises given to the descendants of Abraham, you must have the faith of Abraham, which means you must have the Spirit of God cleanse your heart, remove the defilement of sin. Pictured in spiritual circumcision here. He's not talking about Gentiles.

This is a trivial way they find. These are the two major passages of those who don't interpret the Bible literally have and they take you to, to show you that the church is called Israel, that the Gentiles are called Jews.

We take the Bible literally, that 's our confidence and hope. That's why we believe that salvation is by grace through faith in Christ. We take God at His Word. God gave it to be read, to be understood and He holds us accountable. And when we respond in faith, He brings the salvation He promised.

Let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for the clarity of your Word. Thank you, Lord, that you have spoken clearly. It does not mean it is easy to understand in every portion. We must be diligent in our study of the Word to understand it, to handle it carefully and accurately. Lord, there is no excuse for us not to accept it as you have given it, to understand it as you gave it. May we be careful in our handling of the Word personally and as a church to be faithful so that we might present the Word in its beauty and its clarity and all its power. We pray in Christ's name, amen.