Showers, Renald: Israel And The Abrahamic Covenant ~ Genesis 17v7

Last evening, we focused our attention on the subject of Israel and God, and we saw from the word of God that God has established a permanent, unique relationship with the nation of Israel that he has never established or ever will establish with any other nation upon the face of the earth. Tonight, I'd like to focus your attention on the subject of Israel and the Abrahamic covenant. Israel and the Abrahamic covenant. This is a very critical issue because it has incredible implications for things that are transpiring in the nation of Israel today. We want to see four uh major things about Israel and the Abrahamic covenant. The first major thing is this, the parties of the Abrahamic. A covenant is a solemn, binding relationship between at least two parties. You cannot have a covenant without two parties. And so the question is, who are the parties of the Abrahamic covenant? Now, the scriptures make it very clear that, on the one hand, the primary party is God. On the other hand, the second party is made up of a number of persons. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their biological descendants, the people of Israel. Turn with me, if you would please, uh, to the book of Genesis, uh, chapter seventeen, and if you would please look at verse seven. Genesis chapter seventeen and verse seven. God is speaking to Abraham, and this is what he says. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations. God is saying here to Abraham, this covenant I establish with you, but also with your seed, in other words, your biological descendants. And as we'll see, that would involve Isaac, and then Jacob, and then the people of Israel, Abraham's seed. Look, if you would, please, at Genesis chapter seventeen and uh, verse eighteen. and let me give some background. God had promised to give Abraham and his wife Sarah a son. They were already in advanced age, the well beyond the normal age for a man and woman to procreate a child. Time had gone by, and nothing was happening, and Abraham and Sarah had a lapse of faith, and they believed they had to help God fulfill his promise of giving them a son. And so Sarah said to Abraham, take my Egyptian handmaiden Hagar and father a child through her. And Abraham did that, and as a result, Hagar gave birth to a son by the name of Ishmael. Look, if you would please, verse 18 of Genesis seventeen. And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee. This was Abraham's way of saying, Lord, please bless my son Ishmael. Notice God's response, verse nineteen. And God said, Sarah, thy wife, shall bear thee a son indeed, and thou shalt call his name Isaac, and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant and with his seed after him. So now God is saying to Abraham, I'm going to establish with Abraham a covenant with your son Isaac and his biological seed, which again eventually would be the people of Israel. Verse twenty, And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee. Behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation, but my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year. Notice, God is saying, I shall establish my covenant, not just with you, but with your son that your wife Sarah shall bear to you next year, Isaac. But although I bless your other son, Ishmael, I shall not establish the Abrahamic covenant with Ishmael and his seed. God is making a division here between these two sons of Abraham. Now, it's important to note that Ishmael is the father of some of the Arab peoples, not all the Arab peoples. Uh, some Arabs are descendants of Esau, some of Moab, some of Ammon, and other groups. But God is drawing a line of demarcation here with regard to which biological line of descent of Abraham, the Abrahamic covenant would be established. It's not with Ishmael and the Arab peoples. The Abrahamic covenant, God is establishing exclusively now with Abraham's other son, Isaac, and his seed, the people of Israel. Go with me, please, if you would, to Genesis chapter twenty eight. Genesis chapter twenty eight, where God speaks to Abraham's grandson, the son of Isaac, who is Jacob. Genesis chapter twenty eight, If you begin looking at verse ten, Jacob is on a, a travel trip. It's at night. He lies down and sleeps, apparently out of doors on this particular night, and he has a dream of a ladder reaching from earth up into heaven, angels ascending and descending upon that ladder. And look at verse thirteen, and behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham, thy father, and the God of Isaac. The land whereon you liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed. And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south. And in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. God expresses two promises here to Jacob, that the land upon which he was lying, this was in the land of Canaan, that God would give it to Jacob's seed, Jacob's biological descendants. Now, Jacob, of course, was the father of twelve sons, and those twelve sons, in turn, became the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel. I'll give the land to thy seed, the people of Israel, and then in the end of verse fourteen, and in thy seed, namely the people of Israel, shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Those two promises, as we'll see here in a moment, were critical promises of the Abrahamic covenant. So here again, God is saying, I establish this covenant with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their biological descendants, the people of Israel. So, the first party of the covenant is Almighty God. The second part of the covenant is made up of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the people of Israel. Now, having looked at the parties of the Abrahamic covenant, the second major thing we must see here this evening is the national promises of the Abrahamic covenant. The national promises of the Abrahamic covenant. When you look at all the promises that were part and parcel of this covenant, you will see that those promises fell into three categories. First, there was a personal promise to Abraham. God said this to Abraham, I will make your name great. He said that just to Abraham, and God has fulfilled that promise. Three of the major world religions today, namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all revere the name of Abraham. That was a personal promise that God gave to Abraham. Then there was a universal promise, and we refer to this last evening, and we just read it here in Genesis twenty eight where God said, and in your seed all families of the earth will be blessed. And a major part of that, as we saw last evening, is salvation provided to the nation of Israel. The Lord Jesus Christ, if you trace back his genealogy, goes back to Abraham. Jesus, in his human, human line, was a biological descendant of Abraham, and through him, salvation has come for all families of the world. We saw other blessings too, in addition to that, that God has given already through the nation of Israel. So there was a personal promise to Abraham. A second category of promise in the covenant was this universal promise that all families of the earth would be blessed through the people of Israel. But then there was a third category of promise of the covenant, and that was national promises that relate exclusively to the nation of Israel. And we need to see three things with regard to the national promises of the Abrahamic covenant. First, God promised to make a great nation of Abraham's physical descendants. Look, if you would, please, at Genesis chapter twelve and verse two, where God was beginning to spell out the promises that would comprise the Abrahamic covenant. Genesis chapter twelve, verse two, where God said to Abraham, and I will make of thee a great nation, referring to the nation of Israel. Not great in size, as we read last evening, Moses said to the generation of Jews who had survived the forty uh years of wilderness wandering, God did not choose you because you were greater in number than any other nation, for you were the fewest in number of the nations upon the face of the earth. But greatness in significance of what God would accomplish in the course of history through that nation. And we saw some of that significance last evening. So God said to Abraham, I'm going to make a great nation from your physical, biological descendants, the people of Israel. That's the nation of Israel. A second national promise involved in the Abrahamic covenant was this. God promised to give the land of Canaan from the river of Egypt in the south to the Euphrates River in the north to Abraham's physical descendants, the people of Israel, forever. Look, please, here at Genesis chapter twelve, verses six and seven. Verses six and seven. And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Morah, and the Canaanite was then in the land. And the Lord appeared unto Abram and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land. And there builded he an altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him. Look, please, at chapter thirteen, verses fourteen and fifteen. Chapter thirteen, verses fourteen and fifteen. And the Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes and look from the place where thou art, northward and southward and eastward and westward. For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed, for how long? Forever. When God says forever, he means exactly that, forever. Look, please, at chapter fifteen and verse eighteen. In that same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates. The Kenites and the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Rephaim and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Girgashites and the Jebusites. Notice the land from the river of Egypt, which would be on the southern side of Israel, to the great river Euphrates, way up north above Israel. Look at chapter seventeen and verse eight. Chapter seventeen and verse eight. God says, and I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee the land wherein you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession, an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. God promised, and the Savior have a covenant, to give the land of Canaan to the people of Israel forever. Permanent ownership of that land exclusively to the people of Israel. The third national promise of the Abrahamic covenant was this. God promised to give the Abrahamic covenant to Abraham's physical descendants, the people of Israel, for an everlasting covenant. In other words, this covenant commitment on the part of God to Israel would never end. It's an everlasting covenant. Chapter seventeen, verse seven. God said to Abraham, and I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant. An everlasting covenant. Look, please, at verse nineteen of chapter seventeen. And God said, Sarah, thy wife, shall bear thee a son indeed, and thou shall call his name Isaac, and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. Permanent ownership of the land, the covenant, God decreed to last forever between him and the people of Israel. Now, this brings us to the third major thing we must see about the Abrahamic covenant here this evening, and in some respects, this is the most critical issue with regard to the Abrahamic covenant. The unconditional nature of the Abrahamic covenant. What do we mean by that, the unconditional nature of that covenant? The fulfillment of the promises of this covenant is not conditioned upon the people of Israel, what they do. They are not required to meet certain conditions for God to fulfill the promises of this covenant. Now, how do we know this is an unconditional covenant? Several things indicate that to us in the word of God. First, who made all the promises in this covenant? God did. Abraham made no promises in this covenant. Isaac made no promises in this covenant. Jacob made no promises in this covenant, nor did the people of Israel, with regard to the establishment of this covenant. God is the one who made all the promises, which means, therefore, that the fulfillment of all the promises of this covenant is dependent totally and exclusively upon God being faithful to his word and to his commitment. A second thing that indicates that this is an unconditional covenant is the manner in which God established this covenant. Go back, please, again to Genesis chapter fifteen, and we're going to see something that transpired here that to you and me in the modern Western world seems very strange. Look, if you would please, beginning at verse seven. where God is speaking to Abraham, again, chapter fifteen, verse seven. and God said to him, I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees to give thee this land to inherit it. And he, referring to Abraham, said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? And he said unto him, take me a heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtle dove and a young pigeon. And he took unto him all these and divided them in the midst. In other words, God commanded Abraham to take at least the larger animals and cut them right down the center of their body, from the tip of their nose to the tip of their tail. Cut them right down the center in two halves. And notice what he did with them, middle of verse ten, and laid each piece one against another. In other words, he took the two halves of the animals, laid them side by side with a path in between. But the birds divided he not. And when the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away. And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him. And he, referring to God, said unto Abram, know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years. God's foretelling here that, uh, several centuries in the future, Abram's descendants would migrate down to the land of Egypt, where they would be strangers, and after a while, the Egyptians would afflict them there severely. And you know, of course, from the book of Exodus, that's exactly what transpired, as God foretold here. Verse fifteen— I'm sorry, uh, verse fourteen: And also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge. And you know, God did judge Egypt. The ten plagues through Moses. And afterwards shall they, the people of Israel, come out with great substance. Remember, the Egyptians were so anxious to get the Jews out of there because they were losing everything, even their, their firstborn sons, that they began giving them, uh, jewelry and all the wealth that they had just to get them, uh, out of the land. God's foretelling this ahead of time. And then he says to Abraham, verse fifteen, and thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace, thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. God's saying, I'm going to bring them back to the land that I promised to give to you and to them. Now, seven, verse seventeen, it came to pass that when the sun went down and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces. In that same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abraham, saying, unto thy seed have I given this land from the river of Egypt under the great river, the river Euphrates. This is the way that God established the Abrahamic covenant with Abram, and it seems very strange to us. Uh, what was this smoking furnace that was passing back and forth between the hands of the animals while Abraham was in a deep sleep off to the side on the ground? That smoking furnace was a container that had within it the Shekinah glory of God. Remember, in the exodus out of Egypt, in the forty years of wilderness wandering for the people of Israel, God's Shekinah glory appeared to them as fire in the midst of a cloud. A pillar of fire enshrouded within a pillar of cloud, in essence like smoke coming from the fire. And here it is again. Notice it's a smoking furnace, a burning lamp. Every time the Shekinah glory of God appeared, it always signified the unique presence of deity, always. Remember, it's what appeared to Moses at the burning bush of Exodus chapter three, where a person of the Godhead deity spoke to Moses and appointed him to be God's appointed human deliverer of the people of Israel in their bondage out of Egypt. It was that pillar of fire in the cloud then that led them in their Exodus and across the Red Sea and into the Sinai Peninsula. On the day that Moses was called to the top of Mount Sinai, that glory fire of God came down out of heaven and resided on top of that mountain. And God gave the Mosaic law to the people of Israel through Moses, the Mosaic covenant. On the day that they dedicated the tabernacle in the wilderness as that portable worship structure for God out there, Exodus chapter forty, that glorifier of God came down out of heaven, went into that tabernacle. On the day that Solomon and the people of Israel dedicated the first temple as the permanent stationary worship structure for God there in Jerusalem, that glorifier of God came down out of heaven and filled that entire structure. Every time it appeared, it signified that deity is present in a unique pla- in a unique sense at this particular place. And that's why the Jewish people call it the Shekinah. That word meant to dwell. It was their way of saying God, in a unique sense, is dwelling wherever this glory fire of God. Well, here it is now, like a smoking furnace, a burning lamp, moving back and forth between the hands of the animals, which is saying that God, in a unique sense, has come to establish this covenant with Abraham. But notice, God is the only one moving back and forth between the halves of those animals. Abraham's not moving between those halves at all. He's asleep on the ground, off to the side. And this is God's way of indicating that he's the one who's making all the promises. He's the one who's making all the commitments in this covenant. Abraham is not making any commitments when it's established. He is asleep on the ground. But why cutting these animals with the two halves apart from each other with a path in between? This was one of the significant ways of two parties in the ancient world establishing a covenant. If both parties were making commitments, then both parties would pass back and forth between the halves of those animals. But if only one party was making all the commitments, then only that party would pass back and forth between the halves of the animals. And what the parties were making the commitments were saying by this action is this: May the same thing be done to me that we've done to these animals if I don't keep the commitments that I make in this covenant. And so notice the way this covenant was established. Only one part of the covenant went back and forth between the hands of the animals, and that was God. And so God is the one who's making all the commitments. Abraham was not making any of the commitments in this covenant. Now there's a third line of evidence that indicates this was unconditional as far as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the people of Israel are concerned. From the time that God established this covenant with Abraham, up until the time of King David, many centuries had passed. And during that time, the nation of Israel had sinned in numerous ways against God, over and over and over again during those centuries of time. But in spite of all those sins, notice what David wrote in First Chronicles, chapter sixteen, beginning with verse fifteen. First Chronicles chapter sixteen, verse fifteen. And beginning with verse fifteen. David is writing to the people of Israel. Again, First Chronicles, chapter sixteen, beginning with verse fifteen. David says to the people of Israel, be ye mindful always of his covenant, God's covenant. Notice he calls it God's covenant here. The word which he commanded to a thousand generations, even of the covenant which he made with Abraham and of his oath unto Isaac, and has confirmed the same to Jacob for a law and to Israel for an everlasting covenant, saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance. David is making it very clear, in spite of all the sins that the nation of Israel has committed against God, since God established that covenant with Abraham, that covenant is still in effect with the nation of Israel. And he's telling them, remember it. Remember that covenant that God established with your nation as an everlasting covenant. There's a fourth line of evidence to the effect that it was unconditional, that God is the one who will keep all the conditions. What was Israel's ultimate sin against God? In a sense, we're remembering it this season of the year. Israel's ultimate sin against God was its rejection of his son, Jesus Christ, their Messiah and Savior, and they're crying out for his crucifixion. There could not have been a greater sin by the nation of Israel than that against the true and the living God. But in light of that, turn with me, please, to a passage we looked at last evening, but I want you to see it again from a different perspective, and that is Acts chapter three. Acts chapter three, and we'll begin with verse twelve. We know last evening that Peter and John, by God's grace, had performed a miracle of healing of a lame man. And in light of that dramatic miracle, a crowd of people there in the temple area gathered around Peter and John, and Peter took that opportunity to preach to the crowd of Jews that were there. Acts chapter three, verse twelve: And when Peter saw, saw the crowd gathering, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? Or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk? The God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his son Jesus, whom ye delivered up and denied him in the presence of Pilate when he was determined to let him go. But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead, whereof we are witnesses. Peter's pointing out to them, do you realize what you have done in rejecting Jesus Christ as your Messiah and Savior? You've been guilty of killing God's Holy One, His begotten Son. But in spite of that, notice what he says to that same crowd of Jews in verse twenty five. Ye are the children. Notice the present tense. Not you were. Ye are the children of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, and in thy seed shall all kindreds of the earth be blessed. Unto you first God, having raised up his son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning er- away every one of you from his iniquities. Peter's saying, in spite of this incredible sin that you've committed in rejecting God's son and having him killed, you are still the children of that covenant, that Abrahamic covenant that God established with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the fathers of the nation of Israel. Now, surely, if the Abrahamic covenant had been dependent upon the obedience of Israel for the fulfillment of its promises, surely that covenant would have been nullified by Israel's worst sin, but it was not, which again says God is the one who made all the promises, God is the one who made all the commitments, and God is the one who's responsible to fulfill its promises. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the people of Israel did not make any commitments in the establishment of that covenant. So it boils down to, is God faithful to his word? Will he keep solemn commitments he's made to human beings? Now that brings us to the fourth and final thing we want to see here this evening about the Abrahamic covenant, and that is the effects. The effects of the Abrahamic covenant upon Israel. The effects of the Abrahamic covenant upon Israel. Two effects. First, the Abrahamic covenant guarantees Israel's permanent existence as a nation. It guarantees Israel's permanent existence as a nation. Since the Abrahamic covenant is unconditional by nature, and since God declared it to be an everlasting covenant with the people of Israel, then the people of Israel must exist forever. If they pass off the world scene, then it's not an everlasting covenant. It's not. Turn with me, if you would, please, to Jeremiah chapter thirty and verse eleven. Jeremiah chapter thirty and verse eleven. God is speaking to the people of Israel. In Jeremiah's day, and if you read the prophet Jeremiah, Israel was in incredible rebellion against God and headed for serious judgment at the hands of the Babylonians, by the will of God, because of their persistent rebellion against God. But notice what God says to them, verse eleven of Jeremiah thirty: For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee. Though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee. But I will correct thee in measure and will not leave thee altogether unpunished. God said, yes, Israel, I will punish you, I will correct you when you sin against me, but I shall never make a full end of you as a people or a nation. I might do with all other nations, I shall never do that with you. Look at significant promises that are statements that the Apostle Paul made in Romans chapter eleven. Romans chapter eleven, uh verses twenty eight and twenty nine. And as I'm sure you know, in Romans chapter eleven, Paul is dealing with the issue of what is the relationship of Israel to God, uh, in this present dispensation in which we're now living. Verse twenty eight, Paul says, as concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes. He said, that's true of Israel in this present dispensation. You know, the majority of them, is what he's saying is they are enemies of the gospel for your sakes. And may I say, you know, I, I minister with a mission board that's trying to reach Jewish people with the gospel around the world, and I have to tell you, the overwhelming majority of Jewish people worldwide are totally secular in nature today and could care less about God or spiritual things. Tragically, the great majority of them know almost nothing of their spiritual heritage. They know almost nothing of their Tanakh, their Old Testament scriptures. Some of them, yes, they know that somewhere in their past history there was a great man by the name of Moses, but that's about all they know. It's tragic. And I heard a Jewish man say, you can be an absolute atheist and be a Jew, but you can't be a believer in Jesus Christ and be a Jew. You can be a Jew as an atheist. Don't believe in God at all. Don't believe in the Old Testament scripture at all. You can still be a Jew, as far as other Jews are concerned. But you can't believe in Jesus and be a Jew. That's the mindset of the average Jewish person today. So Paul says, as concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes, but as touching the election, and here comes the idea of God choosing them for unique relationship with him, as we addressed it last evening from the Old Testament scriptures, as touching the election, they are beloved for the Father's sakes. God still loves them. Or we saw last night, one of the part of the basis of God choosing Israel for this unique relationship in a way he hasn't any other nation is because earlier he'd singled out their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, be the special objects of his love. That's what Paul's referring to here. They're enemies of the gospel for your sakes, but it's touching the election, God choosing them for this unique relationship with him. They're beloved for the Father's sakes, for the gifts and calling of God are without. And by the calling here, he's talking about calling them for this unique relationship with him, and the gifts refer to all the things God has done with them, including the establishment of this Abrahamic covenant, and he says those things from God are without repentance, literally are irrevocable, even while they are enemies of the gospel, God's unique relationship with them and his establishment of the Abrahamic covenant with them is irrevocable. It cannot be revoked. God will never revoke it because it's everlasting covenant that he established with them, and he's faithful to his word. Now, the implications of that is this. This guarantee that Israel will exist permanently as, as a nation or as a people explains the reason for the continued existence of Jewish people today, in spite of repeated persecutions and attempts at genocide made against their nation throughout history. They're still here. Many of them have been eliminated, but they're still here as a people. And this guarantee of their permanent existence as a nation stands as an unyielding, immovable stone against which anti-Semitism will dash itself to bits in the future tribulation period, when anti-Semitism will make its last and greatest effort to totally eliminate Israel from the face of the earth. No matter how ugly and powerful anti-Semitism may become, it will never be able to totally annihilate the people of Israel from the face of the earth because of that unconditional Abrahamic covenant. It's an everlasting covenant between God and Israel. The second effect of the Abrahamic covenant upon Israel, not only does it guarantee Israel's permanent existence as a nation, but it guarantees Israel permanent ownership of the Promised Land. Permanent ownership of the Promised Land. Since the Abrahamic covenant is unconditional by nature, and since God promised to give the land of Canaan to Abraham and the people of Israel forever, then Israel must hold ownership of the land of Canaan through the end of history. Now, there's an important thing to note with regard to this. This does not mean that Israel had to live in this land continuously in order to maintain ownership. There are many landlords today who own many properties, but they live only in one. They don't have to be living in all those properties at the same time continuously to maintain ownership. And so even though the people of Israel more than once have been scattered out of their land, the majority of them, so they haven't been able to continuously occupy that land and live in it, that does not nullify their permanent ownership of that land, because God gave them permanent ownership of that land through the Abrahamic covenant. Now, again, this has implications. This means, therefore, that Israel has rightful claim to the land, both today and in the future. The present state of Israel has the right to live in that land, occupy that land today, and to exist there as an independent state, because God gave that people permanent ownership of that land. Uh, which says, therefore, that God regarded Israel's scattering from the land as a temporary loss of occupancy, not a termination of ownership. Uh, and I realize this has created tremendous problems for Palestinian people. And I realized Palestinian people have been suffering in many ways, and my heart goes out to them. And God loves them, just as he loves the Jewish people. And Jesus died for the sake of the salvation of Palestinian people, just as he died, as we heard this evening, uh, not only for Jewish people, but for Gentile people. But in spite of all that, I've got to go with what the Word of God says, that God established this covenant with them as an everlasting covenant, and one of the promises of that covenant is they own the land forever, not temporarily, but forever. Now, let me, let me just conclude by pointing out to you that tragically today, there are brothers and sisters in Christ of ours, they're believers in the Lord Jesus, they believe the Bible is the word of God, they believe in the deity, the incarnation of Christ, they believe in the substitutionary atonement by the resurrection. There are some dear brothers and sisters in Christ today who hold to a system of theology that's called covenant theology and amillennialism. And many of those dear people say God is done with Israel forever. They teach that because Israel rejected God's son in his first coming, God said to Israel, that's it, I'm done with you forever. I'll save individual Jews, but I have no plan or purpose for the nation of Israel in the future. It's being called now replacement theology, replacement theology. Uh, several years ago, I was speaking at a conference in the state of Florida, and in one of my presentations, I was talking about how in nineteen forty seven the United Nations issued a mandate to divide what the Romans had called the land of Palestine into two segments, and the United Nations mandated that the smaller segment was to be given to Jewish people to reinstitute a nation state of Israel there in the Middle East. After that session, four men who were Christians came marching down to the front to confront me, and they said, you stated in your message today that the United Nations issued that mandate for the reinstitution of the nation state of Israel in the Middle East. I said, yes, I did state that. They said, that never happened. I said, how can you say that never happened? You can read the history books. It records the United Nations issued that mandate. They said, it doesn't matter what the history books said, that never happened. I said, you could go to the headquarters of the United Nations in New York City and get out the copy of the mandate and read it. They said, it doesn't matter that the mandate, the copy is there, that never happened. That the Jewish people went in there without any ruling authority and grabbed this land away from people already living there. They have no right to exist there. They should be driven out of there. I found out these are men from the Grand Rapids area who hold a covenant theology and amillennialism, amillennialism. Because you see, that theology teaches that the church is God's Israel today, is God's Israel today, and God is done with the nation of Israel. One of the major spokesmen of this in the United States, I have a copy of his article. He starts out in the first sentence, we are not dispensationalists. And halfway through the article, he makes a statement. When people say to me, what about the Jews? He said, my answer is, here we are. We are the Jews today. We're God's Israel today. There was a Jewish believer in America who wrote to him in response to that statement, said, too bad you weren't in the streets of Berlin, i- i- Berlin in nineteen forty three making that statement. Here we are, we are the Jews, you know. Uh, I don't like to have to say these things, but this is a critical issue. It's a very critical issue. Does God have a program for the future of the nation of Israel? And we saw last evening, he intends to fulfill his purpose for history through that nation. And, uh, we need to know this. This issue of the Abrahamic covenant is very critical with what is going on in the Middle East today. Lord willing, tomorrow morning, uh, with the folks from Templemore Hall here, we'll be looking at the issue of Israel and Jerusalem. The most thorny problem in the peace talks that have been going on since ninety three between the Israelis and the Palestinians is the issue of who is going to control the city of Jerusalem. And, uh, we'll relate that from a biblical perspective, Lord willing.