Let us now turn to the book of Genesis chapter 22 Genesis chapter 22 if you are using the church Bible you'll find it on page 21 and We shall read from verse 15 verse 15 The Lord God pronounces his promise and the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time and said, By myself have I sown, said the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore, and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice. And the title this evening is, Israel failed God and was cast out. Israel failed God and was cast away. So this was the promise to Abraham by God, that his seed by his seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed and that he will multiply him so much like the stars of the heaven and the sand which is upon the seashore. Now in our last talk we saw how God formed a nation from one man, Abraham, and out of Abraham came Isaac, his firstborn, that was promised by God. And from Isaac came Jacob again by promise, and from Jacob came his 12 sons, and thus the children of Israel multiplied and became a great nation as the Lord God had promised Abraham. The question is, Did the newly formed tribe or the nation called Israel comply to the commands of God and called them, the Lord had called them and separated them from the rest of the world and did they remain in the will of the holy and righteous God? Did they also reject God, rebelled against him just like the nations of the world did? Did they move away from God and did the same abominations which the people of the world did before they were formed for God? Well, God told them over and over again that they should not be like the nations of the world whom he was casting out, destroying them. Deuteronomy chapter 18 verse 9, When thou art come into the land with the Lord thy God, giveth thee, thou shall not learn. You shall not learn to do after the abomination of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire or that use a divination or observer of times or an enchanter or a witch and so on. Read Deuteronomy chapter 18 when you go home. The whole world had gone in the way of Satan. They broke every command of God and the nations had become a great whore. God revealed himself to be almighty to Abraham while the nations, great and small, had turned to Satan, the father of lies and a murderer. God revealed himself to Abraham and to Moses as the Lord God Almighty, as the I Am that I Am. And God revealed to them that He is their shield, their exceedingly great reward. And God revealed to Israel that He is the righteous and holy God, a loving and a just God. And at the same time, God showed that He is the just God that does not spare the guilty. He has to punish evil, he has to punish wickedness, he has to punish rebellion and sin and abomination because he is the holy God, the just God. Jeremiah in chapter 9 verse 24, it is written, but let him that glory in this, that he understand it and knoweth me that I am the Lord which exercises loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight. While he is loving and kind and righteous, he is also just. And so by forming Israel for himself, God actually restarted his relationship that he used to have with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He wanted to be among his people like he was with Adam and Eve. The place where he dwelt would be holy and his people would be holy. So God formed Israel to have relationship with them, like the father to a son. therefore he calls Israel his firstborn. Exodus chapter 4 verse 22, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn. And God formed Israel to have relationship with them like a husband to a wife. Isaiah chapter 54 verse 5, For thy maker is thine husband, the Lord of hosts is his name, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, the God of the whole earth, shall he be called. And God formed Israel to have a relationship with them like a farmer to his vineyard. Isaiah chapter 5 verse 7, For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the man of Judah his pleasant land. God formed Israel to have a relationship with them like a shepherd to his flock. Isaiah 40 verse 11. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd. He shall gather the lamb with his arm and carry them in his bosom and shall gently lead those that are with young. The Lord is my shepherd. There is nothing I shall want, says David to the Lord. And again in Psalm 80 verse 1, give your O shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock, thou that dwellest between the cherubim, cherubim, shine forth, shine forth. And God formed Israel to have a relationship with them like the king to his subjects. to his people. Zephaniah 3.15 The Lord hath taken away thy judgment. He hath cast out thine enemy, the king of Israel. Even the Lord is in the midst of thee. Thou shalt not see evil anymore. In Isaiah chapter 44 verse 6 he declares, Thus saith the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts, I am the first and I am the last, and beside me there is no God. Our God is a God of relationship. So if God is a father, a husband, a king, a farmer and shepherd to Israel, then God must relate to Israel like what he says he is to Israel. Did God perform these duties? Yes, 100%. God did it. God remained faithful to the covenant he made with his people. He fulfilled all the promises made to Israel. He executed his duty as the father, as the husband, as the king, as the farmer, and as the shepherd, meticulously, without failing in any of these departments. But did Israel behaved himself like a son should, like a wife should, like a subject to the king should, like the good sheep should, and produce good fruits like the good vine or a tree? No. It totally failed as a nation to be what God had called them. and to relate to him in this manner. God gave them the written law so that they could read it, remember it, understand it, cleave to it, cling to it, keep it, and obey it. If they obeyed, they would be blessed, but if they disobeyed, they would be cursed just as the other nations were cursed. Now the thing to remember about Israel is that God had separated Israel from other people, from other nations. And God told Israel in Leviticus chapter 20 verse 26, and you shall be holy unto me for I the Lord am holy and have severed you from the other people, have separated you, have cut you off from other people, that you should be mine. You see that? You should be mine. You see that personal belonging is what God desires of Israel and of his people, whether then or now. You made them the kingdom of priest and holy nation. And God told Israel in Exodus chapter 19 verses 5 onward, Now therefore, if he will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then he shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine. And he shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation. God destroyed the nations. Their time was up. God had given every nation time and he gives every nation a time, even now. Time to change. Time to accept him as their Lord and King. Time to accept him as their Saviour. But Israel would not. And God destroyed them, or rather we are talking about the nations, they would not accept God as their king and lord. And so God destroyed them and gave this land to Israel. Now why did God destroy them? They did not honor God and relate to him as God wanted them to relate to him. They totally turned away, broke away from his union and walked in rebellion and did things according to their own imaginations under the influence of Satan. Now we looked into last time all the things that they did. against God and His commandments. God told Israel the same thing would happen to them if they don't do what He expects them to do. Leviticus 18 verse 24, defile not ye yourselves in any of these things for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you. cast out before you. However, it did not take Israel long to rebel against God. They had this idea that if God is God as he has shown and spoken to be, he should not bring any trouble upon them. He should not delay to act on their behalf. They should have no trouble whatsoever and their life on earth should be without any obstacles, without any pain or sorrow. The thought that God expected them to have faith in him till the end was alien to them. The thought that to look in the past of the great signs and wonders that God had performed for them and hope that God will do it again if they put their faith in him and stand with him till the end, this was just not their way of thinking. the thought that God is sovereign and he rules according to his ways and according to his time was totally unacceptable to them. And we must examine ourselves, as we did in the morning, whether we have such a mind. we walk according to the way that the nations of the world walked. And so the moment there was a danger chasing the people of Israel, like the Egyptian army chasing them from behind and the sea in front of them, they panicked and grumbled and wanted to attack Moses. They had seen signs and wonders in Egypt, God doing mighty things, bringing fear and trembling among the people of Egypt and Pharaoh, that mighty Pharaoh. Yet, at their first instant, when there was danger, they panicked and they grumbled. Have you brought us here to die and bury us here? Were there no graves in Egypt? Again, the moment Moses delayed in coming down from the mountain with the message, namely the Ten Commandments, they turned away from God and made a god for themselves, the calf or the cow. They worshipped it and made Mary. drinking and eating and playing. Now pagan worship is something like this, very worldly, where you eat and drink and play and make merry and even more than that. And we see such thing entering into the church, where there is no reverence, So you see how the old nature of the people of Israel, their old belief were constantly popping up when they encountered challenges in life. They wanted something tangible. They wanted to act, do something with their flesh in order to believe and get in union with God. During the 40 years of their travel in the desert towards the promised land, they constantly wanted to turn back and go to Egypt, although they were in bondage there. They were under slavery there. Then when God's wrath came upon them, they repented. or miracles seems to be the only language they understood. From these two they desired miracles, so they turned to the cow, and from ancient times the people were drawn to worship a goddess, a female. Looks like the idea of God, the father, being loving, kind, just, holy, righteous, faithful. And the Creator, it did not fit in their thinking. It did not appeal to their hearts. People obviously were deceived by Satan who came in the form of a serpent. The Bible says, the God of this world, the devil, has blinded the minds of the people. Now God according to his promise gave Israel the promised land. He warned them not to do what the other nations did. Leviticus chapter 26 verse 27. I want to repeat this because it is so very important. God is merciful, he is patient, he does not give up, he lingers, he forbears. He constantly appeals so that people will repent and come to him. And so he told them, if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me, then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury. And I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins, and ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat. And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it, and I will scatter you among the heathen. and will draw out a sword up to you and your land shall be desolate and your cities waste. Very strong warning. Again in Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 23 onward he told them, Take heed unto yourself, lest ye forget the covenant of the Lord your God which he made with you. I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day that ye shall soon utterly perish from of the land, whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it. You shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed. and the Lord shall scatter you among the nations, and he shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the Lord shall lead. You see that words scatter. I will scatter you out of this land, all over the nations. Having heard this over and over again, from the Lord God through his prophets. Did Israel give heed to God's warning? No. Well, there were some kings and people that did give heed. There were some judges and priests and prophets that truly loved the Lord God and walked according to the ways of the Lord, but by and large the whole nation disobeyed God. Prophet Jeremiah is an example who kept on, kept on warning and warning and warning. the people of Israel. Well, what Israel did can be summed up by what Manasseh, one of the king, did. He did exactly what the nations did against God. 2 Chronicles chapter 33 verses 1 to 9. He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, like unto the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel. For he built again the high places, he read up altars for Balaam, and made groves, and worshipped all the hosts of heaven, the sun, the moon, the stars, and so on, and served them. Also he built altars in the house of the Lord, you see, He brought in altars in the house of the Lord, whereof the Lord had said, in Jerusalem shall my name be forever. These altars were for different gods and goddesses, and he built altars for all the hosts of heaven. You see that? In the two courts of the house of the Lord, if you enter into a Catholic church, We find something very similar like this or in the Hindu temple, altars and altars and altars everywhere for different saints and different gods and goddesses. And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom, child sacrifices. He allowed child sacrifices, he introduced it, also he observed times, astrology and so on and used enchantments and used witchcraft and dealt with the familiar spirits and with wizards. Terrible, that which God had told him not to do. and the nations which practice that he cast them out. This man brought it in, a king. He wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger and he set a carved image, the idol which he had made in the house of God. Beside all this, Men practiced sodomy during the reign of Manasseh and Israel went to the extent of introducing male and female temple prostitutes during the time of Manasseh. 2 Kings 23.7. This is what the pagans, the nations practice, temple prostitution. So Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err and to do worse. Here goes the scripture which says that he did worse than the heathens whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel. 2 Kings chapter 21 verse 9, Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel. So from being called to be holy and righteous nation, Israel turned to be unholy, immoral and depraved nation from being called to have relationship with God as a son, as a wife, as sheep, as tree producing good fruits and good citizens, they turned to be rebellious nation. They turned to be prudent and stiff-hearted children. Ezekiel chapter 2 verse 4. Instead of producing good fruits, they produced briars and thorns. Ezekiel chapter 2 verse 6. They became spiritually barren and hard. And instead of being faithful wife, a faithful bride, they turned out to be a rebellious whore, practicing spiritual whoredom. Ezekiel chapter 20 verse 30 and 31, Wherefore say unto the house of the Lord, Thus saith the Lord God, Are ye polluted after the manner of your fathers? And commit ye whoredom after their abominations? For when ye offer your gifts, when ye make your sons to pass through the fire, Ye pollute yourself with all your idols, even unto this day. And shall I be inquired of by you, O house of Israel, as I live, said the Lord God, I will not be inquired of by you. Israel became worse by the day. And I think within 870 years of entering into the promised land, they became totally depraved. Their wickedness grew by the year. They killed the prophets that brought to them the word, the teaching, the warning, the love and promises of God. They defiled the temple. Their heart was far gone from the Lord God Almighty. As the Lord said, they had become worse than the nations before them and around them. Of course, there were, as I said earlier, there was time when certain kings brought reforms and they were very faithful to the Lord. David, for example, was a very faithful servant a faithful king, a faithful child of the Lord and so was Jehoshaphat, Josiah and others, Hezekiah. And so they brought reform and returned to the Lord and they were blessing. But most of the time the nation of Israel became idolatrous and adulterous. So the Lord cast them into captivity. Foreign nations came and took them away and scattered them. And God told them by the mouth of Jeremiah, Jeremiah chapter 16 verse 13, Therefore will I cast you out of this land into a land that you know not, neither ye nor your fathers, and there shall you serve other gods day and night, where I will not show you favor. I'll not show you favor. And again, the Lord goes to say, behold, I even I will utterly forget you and I will forsake you and the city that I gave you and your fathers and cast you out of my presence and I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you and a perpetual shame. We shall not be forgotten. The Lord divorced Israel. Jeremiah chapter 3 verse 8, And I saw when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a bill of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also. God drove away the northern part, the twelve tribes of Israel, hoping that the southern, the city of David, Jerusalem, will not do the same thing what Israel, the northern ten tribes did. But they also played the harlot. Now God, in his mercy, brought them back to Judah again as he promised them. He is a merciful God and he has to fulfill the promises that he had given to Israel and so he brought them back from captivity after 70 years of exile. This was because the prophecy of the Messiah had to be fulfilled in Jerusalem through the seed of Abraham, through the seed of David. Christ has to be born in Bethlehem according to God's promise. Jesus had to carry on his ministry in the land of Galilee and Jerusalem, Judah, the Son of God had to suffer and die and rise again in Jerusalem. The promise of the Holy Spirit had to be fulfilled in Jerusalem. But God had made it clear that Israel as a nation had become corrupt. They in their flesh could not serve God. and be faithful to God. Therefore God had to do a new thing, not of the flesh, not of the circumcision, not of the land, but of the Spirit. The circumcision of the heart, not of the flesh, but of the pouring of the Holy Spirit. And so the prophets gave the word of the Lord saying, and I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within them. I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh that they may walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances and do them. And they shall be my people. and I will be their God. God did this and through his son Jesus Christ performed what he had promised. God is spirit and those that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. So Jesus came to form a kingdom of priests and kings, form a holy nation that would not walk according to the flesh, but by the spirit, by the spirit of God. Jesus became the firstborn of the spirit and separated many others to be born of his spirit. And so with Christ began the new people of God, those who would worship him in spirit and truth. The people called to be holy by the law could not achieve to be holy and keep the standards of the Lord. The only way a person could please God was by having the power of his spirit, by being born of the Holy Spirit. God gave this gift to us, dear friends, by the birth, life, suffering, death and resurrection of his son Jesus Christ. But he began with his own people, isn't it? He began with his own people, Israel. Now how privileged we are to have this life of Christ in us. The person of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, is the greatest gift that any person can receive. By Christ a person becomes a new creation to live a life in the Spirit. And that is what he did to his disciples that were Jews. By the Spirit of Christ living in us, we become righteous and obedient sons. And that's what he did to the people of Israel, those who followed him, the 12 disciples and the rest. By the Spirit of Christ in us, we become a faithful and submissive and pure bride. By the Spirit of Christ, we become Christ's sheep following in the footsteps of the shepherd, being meek and lowly in heart. By the Spirit of Christ living in us, we become the people whose citizenship is above in heaven and governed by the sovereign rule, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Christ Jesus. And by the Spirit of Christ working in us, we begin to produce abundance of good fruits like the trees that are planted by the water side, planted, pruned and fed by the Lord. The people of Israel rejected God as their father, as their husband, as their shepherd, as their king, as their farmer. They took his son and crucified him. So what is the verdict that Jesus, the son of God, passed on Israel? Well, the Lord Jesus makes it known that just because the nation of Israel is a descendant of Abraham, this lineage does not give them any advantage over others. Just because they are circumcised, and that was a sign that they belong to God, this does not give them an advantage over others. All of Israel, have to come to the Father, through Christ the Messiah, just like any other person of the earth. As Jesus says, and I finish with this, John chapter 5 verse 39, search the scriptures, he told the Jews, for in them you think you have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me. You think you believe that the scriptures give you eternal life, but Jesus saying, the scriptures testify of me. And he continues, and you will not come to me that you might have life. Do not think that I will accuse you to the father that is one that accuses you, even Moses, in whom you trust. For had you believed Moses, you would have believed me. Why? Jesus says, for he wrote of me. He wrote of me. But if he believed not his writings, how shall he believe my words? So the Lord Jesus made it very clear that all those who believed in the writings of Moses believed in Christ Jesus. The Lord God Almighty opened their heart and mind to see the Lord crucified who suffered for them, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and the one who rose from the dead. By this, Jesus declared the nation of Israel as unbelievers. Unbelievers, they got to trust in the Savior, the Messiah. Well, next time let us see what Christ Jesus has to say about Israel. Let us pray. O loving Father, Thy people became stiff-necked, rebellious, hard-hearted, even as Prophet Ezekiel described their character. O Lord our God, we pray for the people of Israel, the Jews all over the world, and especially in Israel today. Gracious Lord, that Thou would, in Thy mercy and kindness, reveal Thy Son, Jesus Christ, to many. Take away their hard-heartedness, their anger and rebellion, their hatred against the Messiah, Christ Jesus, the Saviour. O Lord our God, we pray that they will understand that the Scriptures demand that they come to him repenting of their sin, that they may understand how they have rejected the Messiah and the signs are all over the world because they encounter men born of the Holy Spirit. O dear Lord, take away even The witchcraft that they practice even now, take away, idolatry. They practice in many forms, the Kabbalah and the things like that. O gracious Father, be merciful and save many. We thank Thee Lord for raising up this nation. through Abraham and preserving them for many, many years. And Lord our God, we pray that Thou will prepare them, their Saviour, to receive Christ Jesus before He arrives. All this prayer we make in the most precious name of our Lord and mighty Saviour, Jesus Christ, for His name's sake. Amen.