It is good to be here this morning. I have a message that's been on my heart a long time, and I preached a version of it at Barley, Alabama, Omega Baptist Church on September 20th. And in that Bible conference, Brother Gables spoke first, and then Brother Bobby Amos, and then it was my turn. And as I sat there and listened to these two men, I could not believe what was going on. I could believe it, but I was so overwhelmed with what was going on, is the right word. We had not collaborated in any way on what we were going to preach about. And the theme could not have been more consistent in my understanding. The theme had to do, the basic theme had to do with the Old Testament prophets and how they proclaimed the gospel. Brother Gables preached on the suffering Messiah out of Isaiah and how misunderstood he was that the Christ, the Messiah, should suffer. Brother Bobby preached about the children of the promise, from the promise to Abraham in the Old Testament. Who are the children of the promise? And then it was my turn. I titled the message, What the Prophets Had to Say. And in that setting, I discarded about two-thirds of what I planned to preach. because they had already preached it. Well, you're not so privileged. You're going to get the whole load today. I hope you can endure it. The hourly version of this message has been on our new thing, Sermon Audio, where you can, on the internet, you can find this website. It's in the bulletin. And listen to sermons, not just ours, but I think we've got 144,000 sermons on that website now. about any preacher that you've ever heard of. But what is kind of scary to me, I've got this version, the first version of this message up there, and it's only been there three weeks, and 120 people have downloaded it into their computer. I'd have to preach the message four or five times here at Vineland Park to get that many people to hear that same message. So that sermon audio has a purpose, a function. The theme of this message is on the main burdens of the prophets, the Old Testament prophets. And it is a distillation of what I've studied for many years, and I do not hold myself up as a great authority on prophecy, but I believe what the Lord has shown me will cut through some of the confusion about last things, eschatology, and end times, and allow us to grasp what the prophets had to say. What were they about? Well, after Brother Gables preached his message last Sunday on Thy Kingdom Come from the Lord's Model Prayer, and as I've already had this in my thoughts, but I thought, well, I've got to preach this message here at Bynum Park. I preached it away somewhere else, I haven't preached it here. So, I decided to interrupt my series on the book of Revelation and preach a quote, new and improved version of what the prophets had to say. If you're going to understand the Bible, I think it is vital that you understand at least these two things. A lot of other things, but at least these two things. One is the nature of the kingdom of God. Brother Gables dealt with that last Sunday. And secondly, what is or was the main burden of the Old Testament prophets? What were they about? And I encourage you, if you possibly can, try to listen to my message. If you don't agree with me, that's fine. But try not to be working on your arguments against what I'm saying. And just listen to what I've got to say. Make some notes. Don't get hung up in your whatabouts. You know how that works. Somebody, he'll preach something and they say, well, wait a minute, what about this? Well, there's a lot of whatabouts. I want you to please listen. And you don't have to agree with me, but I would encourage you to Make your notes and I'll talk to you at whatever length if we need to. I did not approach this message with a system and make the text that I choose fit a system, but I tried to take the Bible and let it unfold as it does about the prophets. My theory of preaching, I don't always follow it, My theory is to tell you what I'm going to tell you and then tell you what I told you. The first thing I want to tell you is about the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven. It is not a geopolitical entity in Palestine or any other place on earth. Brother Gable made that very clear last Sunday. I don't need to go over that ground again. But the Kingdom is made up of souls who are in submission to King Jesus. The kingdom is not a race of people, a segment of people, Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, or otherwise. The kingdom is made up of people who are in subjection, submission to King Jesus. Jesus Christ said in Luke 17, And the Pharisees were challenging him and the Pharisees and their interpretation of the kingdom. That's the basis of their question. And when he was asked by the Pharisees, Luke 17, 20, when he was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, when is this geopolitical entity going to be established? That's the basis of their question. He answered them and said, the kingdom of God does not come with observation. With these physical eyes, you will not see the kingdom. Jesus told Nicodemus what? Unless you're born again, you will not see the kingdom. He continues. The kingdom of God does not come with observation, nor will they say, see here, see there, for indeed the kingdom of God is within you. Now there is no piece of ground in Palestine within me, or you either. What is the kingdom of God as defined by the Lord Jesus Christ? It's a spiritual thing. Many people in our day are making the same wrong assumption about the Kingdom of God. They are anticipating a rule, a geopolitical rule in Palestine just like the Pharisees, and they are just as mistaken. Now, that's the first thing I want to tell you. The second thing I want to tell you is that God deals with individuals. This is so simple and so profound that I don't know why I haven't harbored labored on this in the past. It's so simple. From the Garden of Eden to the end of time, God saves and justifies individuals, not nations, not races. So if you have some notion that God owes the Jews as a race something, not anything to do with justification, being saved, God never has and He never will justify a sinner based on his or her birth certificate. That is a singular truth. And if it ever stays in your thinking, you'll be free from a lot of confusion about a future Israel and so on. There are two passages of scriptures that make it plain, and we read them this morning. I won't read them again, but the Acts 1043, all the prophets had to do with the gospel. All the prophets talked about the Christ, the Messiah, and Jesus told The two on the road to Emmaus, there's about six sermons in this verse, two verses, three verses. Luke 24, 25, and he said to them, O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken. Now he's talking to some, I think, men who had access and knew what the prophets had said. And you don't believe what they said. Or you would not be in grief over what happened in Jerusalem. They had thought He was the One, but He couldn't be the One because He's hanging on a tree and He's gone. Foolish ones, slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory. Brother Gable's message, the suffering Messiah. They didn't want and look for a suffering Messiah. They wanted a physical King. And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expanded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." What a sermon that was. Now that I've told you what I'm going to tell you, I will tell you what the prophets had to say. What was the main burden of the Old Testament prophets? It is true. The various prophets had messages to certain peoples, They condemned wicked kings. They condemned idolatry. They did those things. Nope, that's not that issue. But underlying almost everything that the prophets had to say was the message of Christ and His eternal purpose of coming into the world in human flesh, His impeccable life, His vicarious suffering, His victory over hell and sin and death and Satan. in His resurrection and ascension into glory, and that He had with the Father before the foundation of the world. All of that's in the prophets. Now, you've got to study them, you've got to stay with them, you've got to see how the New Testament explains what they said. It's my strong conviction, there's no way I can prove this, it's just my conviction, that everything that Jesus of Nazareth said and did was in some way in the prophets. He came to fulfill the law and the prophets. He didn't just waste time. I learned of one rather obscure prophecy in the Old Testament. I quote and refer to Charles Alexander a lot, but I got this from him, and it's in Job 9, verse 8. You can turn there if you choose, but Job was a prophet. And he said this about God. Job, in the context of Job 9, Job is speaking about God and he says, He alone spreads out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea. Did not Jesus walk on the sea? Did He not fulfill what Job said God could do? Also from Just a phrase from Mr. Alexander, he says, Jesus walks among the prophets. As he went about, as the scripture says, doing good, he was fulfilling Old Testament prophecy. The popular teaching in our day is that the prophets in the Old Testament were chiefly concerned about the nation of Israel and its eventual restoration to the land of Palestine. And the prophets did indeed prophesy about the restoration of the Jews to the land of Palestine, but I think you shall see that this fulfillment of those prophecies is not what the popular preachers of today say it is. The scriptures reveal a much deeper meaning to the words of the prophets that even the prophets themselves did not understand what they spoke in many cases. Some leading proponents of popular teaching today say that we must understand the prophets just like the Jews understood them. Just like the Jews understood them at the time of Christ. Well, that interpretation of the prophets led the Jewish leaders to put him on a tree and kill him. So much for the understanding of the Old Testament prophets. as the Jews understood them. Now, they were fulfilling prophecy also, but not by intent. It was in their determined counsel and full knowledge of God that they crucified. They didn't do it because they wanted to fulfill Scripture. The kingdom is a spiritual kingdom. It has no geographical boundaries. The kingdom is now. If you're waiting for a future kingdom, be careful. You may not be in the kingdom at all. And that's where the tension lies. If the kingdom has geographical boundaries, then it's not yet here. But if it's a spiritual kingdom, then Jesus reigns right now. And I believe that's what the Bible teaches. How much understanding of the Old Testament did the Old Testament prophets themselves have? The inspired apostle Peter writes this, and the context is in salvation of sinners. This is what Peter's writing about. In 1 Peter 1 at verse 10, of this salvation the prophets have inquired. Now, obviously when a New Testament writer talks about the prophets, he's talking about the Old Testament writers, the Scripture, the Old Testament. Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully who prophesied of the grace that would come to you." These Old Testament prophecies were prophesied about grace that would come to you. Searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. Listen carefully. To them it was revealed that not to themselves. Peter says, the inspired apostle says, it was not revealed to them, to the prophets. But to us they were ministering the things which have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit from heaven, things which angels desire to look into. The Old Testament prophets spoke about Christ and His Church, and the prophets themselves did not fully understand that truth. The meaning of what they spoke was not fully known until the New Testament. The inspired apostles and writers interpreted what they said. If anyone undertakes to do an exposition of scripture, they need to have some principles of interpretation. I am very briefly going to state my principles of interpretation. And I suggest to you that if you disagree with my principles, you ought to at least have your own set of principles. Because otherwise, you're just going to be cast about. And as I've said, you'll believe the last thing you read. You won't have any way of filtering it out. So I have some principles of interpretation. And you'll agree with most of these, I'm sure. The Bible is in error. It's fully inspired. It's infallible. It is the Word of God. It is the truth. My theology is grace, baptistic, evangelistic. I believe in the analogy of Scripture. Compare Scripture with Scripture. Let the Scripture interpret Scripture. And my first principle of interpretation is the focus of the Bible. What is this book about? Is it mainly about a race of people, the Jews, who had their day, and now we're in a parenthesis, they say, of the church, and then at the end times, it'll be the Jews again. Is that what this book's about, namely? Or is this book about Jesus Christ from beginning to end, Jesus Christ and His church? My reference to the church is what would be called the invisible church. The church of the redeemed. There's a sense in which this is a church right here. There's some people sitting on pews and one man standing. And that's a church, the local church. But within that body, there may be some hairs among the wheat. There may be some that are not redeemed. But in the church that I'm talking about here, the invisible church, they're all redeemed. They're in Christ. My second principle is that the New Testament explains the Old Testament and not the other way around. We'll get to this in a minute, but when an inspired writer of the New Testament interprets Old Testament prophecy, that's what the prophecy meant. It doesn't matter what I thought it meant. It doesn't matter what you thought it meant. It doesn't matter what the prophet thought it meant. When the New Testament writer says that's what he meant, that's what he meant. I mention this, but did the Jews understand the prophecies about Messiah? No. They were looking for an earthly king, and when Jesus of Nazareth didn't fit their image of an earthly king, they killed him. My third principle is that there is only one gospel. This has to be the truth. Abraham believed the gospel. He didn't have all the details of Jesus of Nazareth, but he believed the same gospel that you believe if you are saved, if you are justified. There's one gospel. There's one Christ. One way of being saved. And it's Jesus Christ. It's faith in Jesus Christ. Individuals, I mentioned this, but I just keep hammering on this because I think it is so profound and so misunderstood. There has never been and there never will be a race of people, a segment of people that are justified because of who they are. Justification is of individuals. The focus of the Bible is on Christ and His church. And there are two Israels in Scripture. And you have to be willfully blind not to see that there are two Israels in Scripture. Because that's what is so clear. Paul writes in Romans 9, verse 6, But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect, For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children, because they are the seed of Abraham. But in Isaac your seed should be called. That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God. But the children of the promise are counted as the seed. There is one Israel that is the Israel after the flesh, the children of the flesh. It's a nation that came into existence after God miraculously delivered the Hebrews from Egypt and through Moses gave them the law. And He gave them circumcision and diet and Sabbath keeping. And He set them apart from all the other nations on the earth But that had absolutely nothing to do with individual justification. The children of the flesh, these are not the children of God. The Hebrews were commanded to be a light to the Gentiles, to be missionaries. They failed utterly in that mission. They thought because they had the Word of God, that God owed them a blessing, that they were exempt from condemnation. Paul deals with that in Romans chapter 3. They were no different from anybody else. And so Paul anticipates the question, and what advantage is there in being a Jew if being a Jew doesn't get you saved? Well, there's a great advantage. You had the oracles of God and so on. That doesn't mean you're justified. And the other Israel is the church in Galatians 6.16. The church is called the Israel of God, the seed of Abraham, according to the promise in Romans 9.8. But the children of the promise are counted as the seed. All of the promises that God made to national Israel concerning a land have been fulfilled or forfeited, or they were intended to refer to Christ and the church. There is no future national Israel. It saddens me and sometimes amuses, not the word, but you have to laugh at some things, that the people who find all of these Old Testament prophecies about Israel being restored to a land don't seem to find in those same passages that it was contingent on obedience. They were not unconditional promises. They were to be obedient. And I don't think you can find in your Bible that they were obedient. The modern country in the Middle East that is called Israel is not the Israel of God's prophecy. Israel as a nation disappeared in A.D. 70. No one living person today can prove that they are a Jew. The reason is they were big on genealogical records. And all those records were destroyed when Jerusalem was destroyed in A.D. 70. Nobody, no Jew, nobody today can trace their lineage back and say, aha, I'm from this tribe, I'm from that tribe. Those records are gone. But Paul defines a Jew I hope you're a Jew. In Romans 2, 28, he says, 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 of the heart and the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men, but from God. I'm a Jew. I praise God that I'm a Jew. circumcised in the Spirit. Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, Ephesians 5.25. The church is the final object of the love of God in Christ and there is nothing to follow the church. When Christ returns, that is the end of this present age and the age to come continues. And I've done this personally. I challenge you to do it if this doesn't ring true to you. The Bible speaks of two ages, the present age and the age to come. And that's all the ages you're going to find in the Bible. I'm reminded of something. I've been listening to Charles Alexander getting his sermons up on the internet. And Brother Jim and Walter and anybody that preaches will probably steal this now, because I'm stealing it. He was speaking at a church in Canada. And he said, Mr. Blakeney has limited me to ten minutes. But I will tell you when the ten minutes start. And he preached on and on and on, and he said, and there's a clock. So I'll know when my ten minutes are up, but I don't know whether that clock is correct or not. I think he was putting on the man. I don't think the man had limited him, but it was beautiful the way he delivered it. And in this case, he preached about 80 minutes. What the prophets had to say. Now, I've got a whole bunch of references here. I'm just going to share a very few of them. In my outline, I have not even all of them, but a lot more than I'm going to read to you. Here's the question. What does the New Testament say about the prophets? What did the prophets have to say? What the prophets had to say? Matthew 26, 55, And that hour Jesus said to the multitudes, Had you come out as against the robber with swords and clubs to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple. You did not seize me. But all this was done that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Luke 18, 31, Then he took the twelve aside and said to them, Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem. And all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and be mocked and insulted and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again. In John 1.45, Philip found Nathanael and said to him, We have found Him of whom Moses and the Law and also the prophets wrote. Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Acts 3.18, But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all his prophets, that the Christ would suffer, he has thus fulfilled. We read this from the bulletin, Acts 10.43, To him Christ, that is to him, all the prophets witnessed that through his name, whoever believes in him will receive remission of sins. And I could go on. But that's my point. The New Testament writers tell us that the Old Testament prophets talked about Christ, mainly about Christ. Another burden that they had. And it took a direct revelation from God to get this across to Peter. But another burden they had was, and it's directly related to Christ and it lays the foundation for the New Testament, is that there would be elect Gentiles and elect Jews in the same body with no privileges belonging to the Jew. Now that was hard for Peter to take. The majority of the Bible teachers today still insist that Israel after the flesh and the church are two separate entities and that they never come together in the same body. But Peter learned that they did and they must. A godly Jewish man like Peter had to overcome his prejudice and he had to learn That justification had nothing to do with race or ethnicity. What the prophets had to say. When James or Peter or Paul make a New Testament application of an Old Testament prophecy, that should satisfy us. Now, there are those that deny this principle. They say, no, the Old Testament prophets about a national Israel are yet to be fulfilled, and they must be fulfilled literally, and all the prophets, Old Testament prophets, didn't have anything to do with Christ and the church. I'm not making this up. I'm quoting directly out of a commentary. A well-known, now departed, Bible teacher wrote, and this is a direct quote, To take the promises God gave to Abraham and apply them to the church is nothing short of spiritual robbery. To spiritualize Israel and teach that the church has taken the place of God's chosen people is to wrongly divide the word of truth. That's one interpretation. That's one camp. That man is saying, and he has a lot of friends, that the Old Testament prophets had nothing to do with the church and Christ. But that's precisely what the New Testament writers did. In Isaiah 8, 18, Isaiah is saying something. And I believe Paul wrote Hebrews. As I said at RLE, I'm not sophisticated enough to believe otherwise. I've read all of the stuff, but it doesn't hold up in my mind. But Isaiah 8, 18, Isaiah says, Here am I and the children whom the Lord has given me. Now, without going into a lot of historical context, in Isaiah chapter 8, Isaiah is presenting two literal, physical sons to King Ahaz. Here are the children. Here am I and the children whom the Lord has given me. But Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 10, and the context, you can test it out, the context is the redeemed of the Lord and the church. Hebrews 2.10. For it was fitting for him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one. For which reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I declare your name to my brethren in the midst of the assembly. I will sing praise to you, and again I will put my trust in him, and again the writer of Hebrews, talking about the church, he says, here am I and the children whom God has given me. Isaiah is talking about one thing. The New Testament writer says, here's what he meant. Here's how you apply what he meant. Here am I and the children that God has given me. Take another example. Chapter 15, very familiar passage. Acts 15, I want you to see this. Acts 15, verse 1. And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. Now what's going on here? The gospel was being preached and non-Jews, Gentiles, were being justified, being saved. The church at that time was Jewish. And yet here are these Gentiles out here that think they believe in Messiah. What do we do about them? And certain men were going around and saying, well, they've got to become Jews. Make them Jews and then they can be saved. That's not what happened. I read this from the bulletin, but this is one of the most powerful statements I think the Scripture has in the matter of this subject. Verse 11 in Acts 15. Now here's Peter. Here's Peter. The Lord had to teach him in the matter of Cornelius not to call something unclean that he called clean, that is, a Gentile. In Acts 15 and 11, here's Peter. But we believe through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we, we Jews, shall be saved in the same manner as they. You see how Peter turned it around? The argument starts out that Gentiles have got to be Jews. Peter says, no. Here's the way it works. We Jews have got to be saved just like the Gentiles have been saved. You see that? Isn't that beautiful? Well, after this dispute, Verse 12, Then all the multitude kept silent, and listened to Barnabas and Paul, declaring how many miracles and wonders God had worked through them among the Gentiles. Now after they had become silent, as you teach, you learn to look for that pregnant pause, when everybody quits talking and jumps in. When they had become silent, James answered and saying, Men and brethren, listen to me. Simon has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name. Now, there's a lot in that phrase, at the first, not just at the beginning of the New Testament church, but from the Garden of Eden. God has saved Gentiles. And with this the words of the prophets agree. Now here's an interesting point. James is going to quote one prophet, but he says this is the words of the prophets plural. This is what all the prophets were about. Just as it is written, after this I will return and rebuild the tabernacle of David which is fallen down, I will rebuild its ruins and will set it up so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord. Even all the Gentiles who are called by my name says the Lord who does all these things, known to God from eternity, are all his works." If you go back to Amos, he's quoting Amos chapter 9, and you read Amos, and stop. Don't read anything else. You have to read Amos. And you would have to conclude that Amos is talking about restoration of Israel to the land. That's what he says. Verse 15. But what's this business about David's tabernacle and the Gentiles who are called by my name? So James, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says here's what Amos is talking about. He's talking about what's going on right now with Gentiles and Jews in the church. That's David's tabernacle. It's the redeemed. It is most likely that James understood Amos to mean the restoration of natural Israel until the Holy Spirit spoke to him, through him, And it's important to see that James does not try to explain what Amos thought it meant either. It doesn't matter what Amos thought it meant, because now James is telling you what Amos meant, no matter what Amos thought. I'm going to spend a little time on this theme in Romans 11. If you want to turn there, that will be fine. It's always good if you're looking at something in your own Bible. At verse 12, I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? The Jews. Certainly not. But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Now if their fall is riches for the world and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness. I speak to you Gentiles, and as much as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry. If by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh, and save some of them, For if they're being cast away as a reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? For if the first fruit is holy, the lump is also holy, and if the root is holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches were broken off, the Jews, and you being wild, polytree, were grafted in among them, the Gentiles, And with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree. Do not boast against the branches, but if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, the root supports you. You will say then, branches were broken off that I might be grafted in. Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off. And you stand by faith. Do not be haughty but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. Therefore, consider the goodness and severity of God on those who fell severity, but toward you goodness, if you continue in His goodness, otherwise you also will be cut off, and they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in. For God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut out of the olive tree, which is wild by nature, and were grafted in contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more would these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? For I desire, brethren, that you should not be ignorant of this mystery." And I use this little phrase a lot, but I think it makes a point. You can be ignorant. Because you don't know something. But if you're stupid, not a whole lot can be done for you. If a person is stupid. I'm not making fun of stupid people. He's not saying they're stupid. He's saying they're ignorant. It's something they didn't understand. That you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion that blindness in part has happened to the Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. Here's the phrase. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written, the deliverer will come out of Zion, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. For this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins." Brothers and sisters, the mystery is not that there would be a church. That's what the popular preachers teach, that there would be a church. Christ came, he offered the kingdom, they rejected him, so here we have the church. And after a time, the church will be taken out and Israel will be restored. That's not the mystery. The mystery was the makeup of the church. Gentiles and Jews in the same body. One church, one gospel, one Christ, one way of being saved. And Romans 11 is about a single olive tree. There is not a Jewish olive tree and a Gentile olive tree. There is one olive tree and the Gentiles are grafted in to the root. And furthermore, this is not a chronological order of events. If you read until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, stop. And so all Israel will be saved following the Gentiles. You missed it. It's the manner in which all Israel is saved. Gentiles and Jews together in the same body, a remnant of the Jews, elect Gentiles from the beginning of the Garden of Eden. Just before that in chapter 9, I won't read all of this, but Isaiah, he says, though the number of children, this is Isaiah, I'm sorry, Romans 9, 27, though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved. Isaiah cries out. He is surprised and shocked that not all Israel are Israel after the flesh, but there's a remnant that will be saved. Before you ever will correctly understand Romans 11, 26, you must study the context of Romans, all the book, but especially 9, 10, and 11. Paul clearly defines Israel as individual Gentiles and individual Jews, and that makes up all Israel. If your preconceived notion is that all Israel is Israel after the flesh, the only way you can establish that is to bring that to the text. The text doesn't say it. And furthermore, it says nothing about a restoration, not a thing. That's not what the passage is about. It's about the makeup of the church. Mr. Alexander says, never underestimate the power of a preconceived notion. If my mind's made up and you're not going to change my mind, not going to listen, I don't want to hear that, your mind's made up, your preconceived notion will override. One of the most significant things that I learned about Old Testament prophecy is from John L. Bray. And I was stunned when I reread this. I read it a long time ago. It didn't mean anything to me because I wasn't into this. But when I read it a couple of years ago now, I was stunned at the simplicity of it and the profoundness of it. And I went back and I took the time and I read through the prophets to see if what he said was correct. And I recommend you do that sometimes. You don't agree with something the preacher said, go to your work, go to the Bible, test it out. But here's what Mr. Bray wrote. As to the Old Testament, I have already pointed out how that any promises made as to a restoration to the land were fulfilled when they returned from Babylon, as recorded in the Bible, and that after that no more such promises were ever made. All the prophecies used by the Bible teach us today to try to prove a future or present restoration of Israel to Palestine are prophecies made prior to their restoration as God promised in the past. You got that? All of the promises made by the prophets were made before they returned from Babylon. And many of the prophecies indeed included future fulfillment in the sense of spiritual blessing found in Christianity cast in highly symbolical language that are best understood as God intended them to be. There are no prophecies about a restoration after the return to Babylon. That ought to be significant. Because the restoration had already occurred. Zechariah and Haggai and Malachi make no prophecies about a restoration. And there is absolutely nothing in the New Testament about a national restoration. Nothing. You have to come to the New Testament passages with that in your mind to get that out of it. It's not there. Here is the doctrine of the church. Ephesians chapter 2. If you want to know the doctrine of the church, I encourage you to read Ephesians chapters 1, 2, and 3. When were you chosen? Before the foundation of the world. In Christ. In Christ. In Christ. Ephesians 2, 11. Therefore, remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by what is called a circumcision made in the flesh by hands, that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off, have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made both one, ten thousand Jews, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments containing ordinances, so as to create in himself one new man from the two, thus making peace. One man from two, Gentiles and Jews. In chapter 3, he writes in verse 5, which in other ages were not made known, he's talking about the mystery of Christ, to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to his holy apostles and prophets, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel. And here's a verse I hadn't really seen until about a month ago. Verse 11. The context is the church, Gentiles and Jews together in one body. And verse 11 says, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. What is the eternal purpose of God? the church, Jews and Gentiles in one body, no distinction. Well, I told you what I was going to tell you, and I told you, and now I'll tell you what I told you. In my opinion, the two greatest misunderstandings about the Bible and Old Testament prophecy are the nature of the kingdom, that is that it's a spiritual kingdom and not a geopolitical entity, and that God justifies the Jews just like He justifies Gentiles and He does it as individuals, not because they're Jews. There are two Israels in Scripture. The covenant promises made to Israel after the flesh have been fulfilled or forfeited due to unbelief or they were meant for Christ and His church. There's nothing more to be fulfilled as far as a literal land is concerned. I do have a last page. I've got to it. In John 10, verse 15, As the Father knows me, even so I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have which are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock and one shepherd. There's not going to be a Jewish entity and a Gentile entity of Israel and the church, and there's one flock and one shepherd. In John 11, verse 45, then many of the Jews who had come to Mary And it seemed the things Jesus did believed in him. But some of them went away to the Pharisees and told them the things Jesus did. Then the chief priest and the Pharisees gathered a council and said, What shall we do? For this man works many signs. If we let him alone like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation." The leaders of the Jews said, If we don't do something about this Jesus, we're going to lose what little we've got left. The Romans are going to take it away from us. And one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, you know nothing at all, nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish. Now, Caiaphas thought he had just said a very profound thing about the Jews. Verse 51 says, Now this he did not say on his own authority, but being a high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for that nation only, but that he should gather together in one the children of God who was scattered abroad. If your theory of prophecy does not lead to personal sanctification and the glory of Jesus Christ, then throw it away. Prophecy is not a calendar. Old Testament prophecy had mainly to do with Christ and his kingdom and his church. And that's what the prophets had to say. Our Father, we bow before you and Lord, Would you please squash any pride of knowledge that I have? Because if I know something, it's not because I figured it out, if it's the truth. Lord, Your Word, You've kept it. Through the centuries, You have maintained a way to keep Your Word alive and available, that the gospel might be preached and that you never did make a distinction among men and women as to who they are. And Lord, I'm glad that works in the other extreme, that you can take a sinner like me and convince him that he's lost and that hell awaits him and is waiting for Him and wants Him and you snatch Him out as a brand plucked from the burning and show Him Jesus Christ and He is satisfied with Christ. He loves Christ.