Answers Bible Curriculum: Lesson 4 - God Judges Israel

Lord, we thank you for your kindness and goodness to us every day. Thank you for giving us your word that gives us what we need for life and godliness. Your word is truth and so we're just grateful that in, in this world that we live that is so confusing and that we can come to your word and find truth, find guidance. We just pray that as we look into the mirror of your word that you would enlighten our hearts to your Holy Spirit so we can look into that mirror, but if the lights aren't on, it can be very difficult.

To, know what we should do and how we should understand it, but we pray, Father, that your spirit would open up our eyes, not just to the black words on white pages, but open up our eyes to, to really behold you and our relationship with you and. So we just ask you to guide us. Thank you for your kindness to us. We pray this in the name of Jesus.

Amen. All right, we're going to try to answer, this is one of the questions we're gonna try to answer is, can the practices of other religions or worldviews be used positively? If they are directed toward the Lord, we're gonna see a little bit of that in our text today, when the Assyrians take Israel out and they run into a little lion problem, as we're gonna see in 2 Kings chapter 17. for the sake of time, just because there is a lot of, a lot of good material I'd like us to cover, we're gonna skip by the review.

I, I love the book of Hosea and Gomer, and there is just so much great material there. I'm glad you guys were able to cover it last week. I, wish I actually could have been a part. Of that discussion.

but Jose and Gomer is a It's a great book. it helps us understand God's love. Actually, I'll just give you one little tidbit. I I, will frequently use the book of Hosea in marriage counseling.

I really, I believe very strongly that not only can God get a lot of glory through a good marriage, he can get a lot of glory through a bad marriage when one partner is willing to love the other partner. because what they do is they put on display God's love for His people in spite of their sin. And so, it's, it's not uncommon at all that I'm using the Book of Hoseaah to really exhort somebody and challenge them, hey, hang in there. You get to reflect God's character.

even in a marriage that is not going so well, and, and the Lord can use you, to, to put on his, his, Unconditional love So let's, let's talk, let's go ahead and open up to 2 Kings. As, and we're gonna This is actually one of the. Really one of the more depressing chapters in the whole Bible. Right?

Because remember where we've come from is God had brought his people out of Egypt. And he's, eventually, they go through this 40 years of wandering because of rebellion, but eventually he takes them into the land. Before they cross into the land, God gives them instructions and he gives them Deuteronomy 28, these blessings and cursings. As you go into the land, if you keep my covenant and do the things I'm asking of you, here's all the great blessings that are gonna come upon you.

but if you violate my covenant and you go off and start worshiping other gods, here's all the cursings that are gonna come upon you. And so as the people go into Canaan, they do take the land and we have some really awesome cool things that happen underneath Joshua's leadership, but it's not too long before we're in the period of the judges, and you get into these seven cycles, right? Of God's judgment. He raises up, delivers, the people cry out, and so on.

And so there's these initial looks at Deuteronomy 28, but God keeps delivering them. And then eventually, remember the people asked for a king and God raises up Saul and he doesn't work out so good. And then finally, God raises up David. And so you have this united Kingdom period, which just seems like we're gonna have this wonderful, happy ending with David and then Solomon.

And then things just fall apart. And so we move into the divided kingdom. who's the king that starts ruling in the south again down there in Judah? Close.

Jeroboam. There, Jerry, Jerry's down in the south. Ray's up in the north. Reyaboam, right?

Oh no, I'm sorry. Jared, reverse that. Let's recycle that. Take that out of the tape.

So Jeroboam's in the north. Reyabom's in the south, and. And so we have this divided kingdom period. And do we have very many good kings up in the north?

No, no, it's pretty bad stuff. And who's the, who's the king that everybody gets compared to up in the north? Jeroboam because he basically creates a completely false system of worship, has people bowing down before these golden calves again, totally different place to go, and they just go off into Baal worship, right? In the south, you have a few kings that are good, and if you, and if you, and several kings that are bad.

And so, God keeps sending prophet after prophet to warn the people, saying, if you will repent, I will bring goodness upon you. If you persist in your rebellion, idolatry, then bad days are coming. And so when we get to 2 Kings, we now see after many, many years of patience, finally, in fact, we're talking about 250 years since the divided kingdom, period. God finally begins to bring down the curses of Deuteronomy 28.

And so this is, this is not fun stuff. And so let's talk first of all about, we'll talk, hit the 1st 23 chapters. As Assyria enters the north, and when I read this period, part of what I think about is Hitler entering Paris. I don't know if you guys ever see any of the old movies.

Or pictures of, of the Nazis marching into Paris and these French citizens just with tears in their eyes holding up their hand to Hitler. I think. That this was on that scale probably, yes, the people of Israel were wicked themselves. The French were not, the French were, were not that moral of a people themselves when Hitler marched in.

In fact, they were very immoral, they were setting the pace for immorality in Europe. but here, Syria comes down, begins to take, take over. And so this is a very depressing scene. So let's start in verse one.

as the author of 2 Kings through the Holy Spirit begins to develop. This sad period in Israel's history. Verse 1, I'm reading from a new King James, the 12th year of Ahaz, the king of Judah, so down the south. Hoshea, Hoshea, the son of Elah became king of Israel in Samaria in the north, and he reigned for 9 years.

He did evil on the side of the Lord, but not as the kings of Israel, not as the kings of Israel who were before him. So he's not as bad as Jeroboam or Ahab, but he still did evil in the eyes of the Lord. Shal Manser, king of Assyria, came up against him and Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute, very common. It's even common today, but common in ancient times.

King of Assyria says, hey, I will allow you to still be the ruler as long as you pay me tribute. So he initially agrees to that. And the king of Syria, but the, the king of Assyria uncovered a conspiracy by Hoshea, for he had sent messengers, that is Hoshea had sent messengers to Soul, the king of Egypt, and brought, no tribute to the king of Assyria as he had done year by year. So he goes down to Egypt to this, I love the name of the king, Saul.

And, and so, he tries to make this compact with him so he doesn't have to pay the king of Assyria. Therefore, the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison. So now the king is in prison. So we've got the northern tribes there without a king.

Nobody to rule the army. And so what happens, verse 5, now the king of Assyria went throughout all the land and went up to Samaria and besieged it for 3 years. So he marches into the land and takes most of the northern tribes fairly easily. But when he comes to Syria, it takes about 3 years to besiege that city.

And if you do some of the research in some of these cities like Assyria, the reason it takes 3 years, they've got their own well supply of water. They had stored up quite a bit of food, and they've got large walls. And so, the king of Assyria and his armies, they're just waiting it out, probably on the outer edges, waiting for these guys to starve to death. And so if you read Jeremiah, Deuteronomy 28, You get a feel of probably what was going on in Samaria during this time period.

We're talking about cannibalism. we're talking about some very, very dark, dark times. But verse 6, in the 9th year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria and placed them in Halah and by Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. OK, so that's the historical summary that tells us what happens.

Some say 721 BC, others 722 BC, but this is, basically the big bomb that goes off in the northern tribes that, that the prophets had been warning them of for years. Now, the next section is going to give us an answer, why did this happen? Let's do, the author stops and says, OK, let's review why this has happened. So look at verse 7.

For so it was. That The children of Israel had sinned, had sinned against the Lord, their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and they had feared, other gods and had walked in the statutes of the nations whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel. and, and of the kings of Israel, and they had made, which they had made. Also, the children of Israel secretly did against to the Lord, against the Lord, their God, things that were not right, and they built for themselves high places in all their cities from watchtower to fortified city.

And they set up for themselves sacred pillars, wooden images on every high hill, over on green tree. Then they burned incense on all the high places, like the nations whom the Lord had carried away before them. And they did wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger, and they served idols of which the Lord had said to them, you shall not do this thing. so God had cast the previous tribes or the previous peoples out of the land because of all this crazy idolatry.

And, and if you've been here for us, you realize that idolatry is not just some innocent little thing like we see in the movie Gladiator. Idolatry is a wicked practice that just does absolute destruction to the culture. And we're gonna see some of that in the context here. So why did God eventually cast them out of the land?

Why is Assyria coming down? This is not just historical happenstance. God Himself is taking a pagan people called Assyria, who worshiped false gods, and is bringing them down to bring punishment upon Israel. And so what you have here is a clear indication of God's sovereignty over human history.

God had told them, if you obey me, you will be blessed. If you go back to idolatry and start following the gods of the peoples that were in the land before you, I will bring cursing upon you. He had sent many prophets, and finally, in God's sovereignty, he is bringing Assyria down. As Syria is not being brought down because they are a righteous people.

They're not being brought down because their, their king is this really good guy. They're being brought down by the sovereign hand of God to fulfill the promise that he made to judge Israel. And we just need to keep that in mind. I think we, we frequently forget.

In our in our present worldview, that things are not happening just because things happen. But God is in control of history, and he has the ability because he's the creator, we're not. If we tried to do this, you would, if I tried to do this, you'd accuse me of being a mob boss, right? If I hired some group to come into the United States and start destroying the US, I could be, I'd be tried for treason and you guys would say I'm a terrible guy and I'd go down in history as a terrible guy.

But God is the creator who has the ability to raise up kings, lower kings, to reward people, to punish peoples, and, and he remains holy in all of his actions. So continue on in verse 13. Yet the Lord testified against Israel and Judah. By all of his prophets and every seer saying, turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes according to the law which I commanded your fathers, which I sent to you by my servants, the prophets.

Nevertheless, they would not hear but stiffened their necks, like the necks of their fathers, who did not believe the Lord their God. That image of stiffening a, a neck is just so, I just, I like the visual of that, even though it's a terrible thing. God is lovingly sending warning after warning after warning, and they stiffen their neck. Verse 15.

They rejected the statutes and his covenant that he had made with their fathers and his testimonies which he had testified against them. They followed idols, became idolaters, went after the nations, who were all around them concerning whom the Lord had charged them that they should not do like them. So they left all the commandments of the Lord their God, made for themselves a molden image and two calves. It's a reference to Jeroboam, made a wooden image.

And worshiped all the hosts of heaven and served bail. And they caused their sons and daughters to pass through the fire. So that's just one of, one of the things that would happen in idol worship is basically burning your children alive. That's that's idol worship.

Practiced witchcraft. soothsaying, sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger. Therefore, the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from his sight. there was none left but the tribe of Judah alone.

So it's not just a Syria happening to come down because of this treaty that was crossed. The vassal decided not to pay his His dues. And so then the king of Assyria comes down. God is orchestrating this because of their sin.

Verse 19, also Judah did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God. It's not talking about the South, but walking the statutes of Israel, which they made. And the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel, afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of plunders until he had cast them from his sight. That's the second time we're seeing.

This idea to be removed from the sight of the Lord. The idea here is to be removed from his presence to bless. It's not like God is not aware that he's not present with them in his omnipresence, but he's removing them from his disposition, his view to bless them. Verse 21 For he tore Israel from the house of David and they made Jeroboam the son.

Of Nabath the king, then Jeroboam drove Israel from following the Lord, made them commit a great sin, for the children of Israel walked and all the sins of Jeroboam, which he did and did not depart from them, and the Lord removed Israel out of his sight. And he had said all his servants, the prophets, so Israel was carried away from their own land to Assyria as it is to this day. So the author, where he's writing from, he's saying this is still the case. Israel is still outspread amongst the peoples to this day.

Now, what do you guys, one of the things that you probably noticed here, and, and we've mentioned this in the past with just Hebrew literature in general, notice this isn't like Roman numeral 1. Letter A, letter B, letter C. Now let's talk about Roman numeral 2. How is, how is this literature, how is he describing this descent?

into judgment. Is it very linear? Like, here's the 1st point, here's the 2nd point, here's the 3rd point. What is he doing?

Yeah. Yeah, he's laying out a history. I'm more talking about literary structure here. This is Hebrew literary structure as opposed to Greek literary structure.

Yeah. Yes, exactly. It's going in a big circle, which can be frustrating to us because whether we realize it or not, we think very much with a Greek mindset. It's like if you're reading like say the apostle Paul or Luke, you're reading through the apostle Paul's epistle to the Romans, right?

He makes this point, and then he talks about this, and everything's has this linear logical order. But then you flip over to First John, and you start reading what he says about Christ, and you feel like, haven't you said that before? He's like talking in this big circle. And a lot of times the, the main point is what he's repeating over and over and over again.

Or sometimes the main point is at the center point of the X. Sometimes Hebrew writers, they write in what's called a keyism, where the thesis is in the middle. Like they'll start with a point, they work to the middle, and then they work back to that point. And so here, the writer is just telling us over and over and over again.

So that we get the thesis. The thesis is, they departed from the Lord and went to false gods, and God has brought judgment upon them. Let me say that again. They departed from the Lord and and worship false gods, and God has brought judgment upon them, and he circles back around.

Let me say it again. They departed and went to false gods, and God has brought judgment upon them. In case you didn't get it, and he says it over and over and over again, so that we get the thesis. And so we're meant to learn something from this.

Don't depart from God and start worshiping false idols. And if it happened to these people whom God had made this covenant with, it can happen to all of us. It can happen at Cornerstone, it can happen. And we, we see different points in church history where the church just departs from the truth of the gospel and begins to go after false gospels and so on.

All right, so that's, that's what we see here with Syria coming down. They have this relocation program. So you just need to imagine that you're, you're living somewhere in the northern tribes. The armies come in and they're not trying to keep mothers and children together.

They're not coming in and being nice about this. All of the horrible ravages you think of ancient attacks are happening. Including rape and taking all the women and, and moving them to these various harems and taking all the men and spreading them out in different places to work, and who knows where the children are. And so you just think of crying and weeping and mourning, and just all the ravages of all the, the terrible happenings of this type of attack.

And that, that brings us to the second part of the chapter, that is living in a post-apocalyptic Canaan. So now, the vast majority of the people have been removed from this land. as we're gonna see in this section, there are some people who have been left behind, probably the poor, maybe they decided to leave some of the elderly or infirm behind. What happens to a land though, if you take all of the workers away and it just is left vacant?

What will happen to a? A particular area. Say it again. Homestead?

OK, that's, you're jumping ahead of me there. What happens to a vacant land where there are no workers? Say it again. I couldn't hear it.

Yeah, weeds start to grow up. any animals that had been in check because there's been people hunting and protecting their families. Now they start to multiply and, think of the movie I Am Legend. I don't know if anybody's ever seen that where Will, Will Smith is, he's the only guy, is it New York or San Francisco?

I can't remember what city he's in. And as far as he knows, he's the only guy that's been there and you can tell it's been a long time. And so you've got deer running around the city, you've got lions, and then of course, you have zombies and which we're not, I'm not saying that zombies exist, but, but, the idea, it's just, there's nobody there to keep things clean and the animals just start propagating and And so we have this post-apocalyptic situation now in the northern part of Canaan.

So let's look at verse 24.

So what, what do they do? So then the king of Assyria brought peoples from Babylon, Kuta, Ava, Hammeth, and from Saarvaim and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel, and they took possession of Samaria and dwelt in its cities. The idea here though would be in, in all probability that the amount of people that were taking out were much more than the people that were brought in. There clearly is a, a relocation program.

One of the things that the Assyrians would do, and they weren't the only ones that did this, is that they would bring new peoples in, encourage intermarriage to basically try to just wipe the gene pool out, right? And, and so they have these other peoples who have come down. Verse 25, and it was so at the end of their At the beginning of their dwelling there, that they did not fear the Lord. And I want you to pay attention to the use of fear the Lord.

Does anybody have any different words there for fear in your translation? Does it have worship? OK, worship. So it's fear or worship.

We're looking at verse 25. Anybody have another word? So it's worship or fear, OK. So they did not fear the Lord.

Therefore, the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them. So think about this, God is the one that sent Assyria down, right? Pulls his people out. But then new peoples are brought in by the king of Assyria, and they're not fearing the Lord, they're not worshiping the Lord, they're just continuing their pagan practice.

Obviously, lions and different animals have propagated, but the writer of 2 Kings gives God the credit for the lions that are roaming around and killing people who are not fearing the Lord, which if you go back to Deuteronomy 28, is a fulfillment of Deuteronomy 28, that these beasts will come around uncontrollably and drag your family away. So verse 26, so they spoke to the king of Assyria saying, the nations whom you have removed, or the nations whom you have removed and placed in the cities of Samaria, do not know the rituals of the God of the land.

Therefore, he has sent lions among them, and indeed, they are killing them because they do not know the rituals of the God of the land. And that would be very That fits right in with the cultural ideals, right?

If the rituals of the God of the land, you do those rituals, you appease the god and everything goes well. And so they just think that, hey, we just haven't learned Yahweh's rituals yet. If we do the right dances and stuff like that, perform the right sacrifices, then these lions will stop eating us. Verse 27, then the king of Assyria commanded saying, send there one of the priests whom they brought from there.

Let him go and dwell there and let him teach them the rituals of the God of the land. Now, this actually sounds like a pretty fortuitous opportunity. Perhaps the king of Assyria is gonna grab a really righteous priest who knows God, send him down there, and he can start preaching the gospel, right, of the true, true worship of Yahweh. And we'll have a revival down there amongst the pagan peoples.

That didn't turn out so well. Verse 28. Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came down and dwelt in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear the Lord, pay attention to that word, fear, worship the Lord. However, every nation continued to make gods of its own and put them in the shrines on the high places, which the Samaritans had made.

Every nation in the cities where they dwelt. The men of Babylon madeakko Benath, which is probably like a place of ritual. probably, what do they call it? I'm losing the term.

Basically, having pro, religious prostitution and worship to the god, to that particular god. the men of Cutth made, Nergal, the men of Hammoth made Ashima, and the Avites made Nibhaz, Antarctic, and the Savaites burned their children in fire to Adramelech and Anamelech, the gods of Sephriim. These must be wonderful gods that demand the burning of children in the fire. Kinda like, have we talked about the Aztec gods here in the, in, so, the Aztec god, particularly the sun god.

One of the things that he really loved is for the priest to get as many tears out of the child as he could as possible, that would please the god the most and then rip his heart out and cast the child's body down. So the Aztecs, right, wonderful. that, that's what true idol worship is about. Verse 32.

So they feared the Lord. Notice again what we're talking about fear, worship the Lord. And from every class, they appointed themselves priests of the high places who sacrifice for them in the shrines of the high places. They feared the Lord yet served their own gods, according to the rituals of the nations from among whom they were carried away.

Now look at verse 34. To this day, they continue practicing former rituals. They do not fear the Lord, nor do they follow their statutes, or their ordinances, or the law and commandment which the Lord had commanded the children of Jacob, whom he, whom he named Israel, with whom the Lord had made a covenant and charged them saying, you shall not fear. other gods nor bow down to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them.

But the Lord, who brought you up from Egypt, the land of Egypt, with great power and outstretched arm, him you shall fear, him you shall worship him, you shall offer sacrifice. so the use of fear here. If you go back to verse 33, it says they feared the Lord, then in verse 34, it says they do not fear the Lord. What is it?

Are they fearing the Lord or not fearing the Lord? Are they worshiping the Lord or not? Is this just a contradiction in the chapter 17? They thought they were Yeah, Yeah, so they, yeah, go ahead.

OK, good. So, yeah, there seems to be the word fear or the word worship seems to be being used in two different ways. So they are trying to practice the rituals of Yahweh worship and trying to worship him, but they, they haven't given up their other rituals or their other worship. So in that sense, they're fearing the Lord in an outward sense, but The ultimate diagnosis of their worship is in verse 34, and that is they do not fear the Lord.

So it seems like they're not fearing the Lord from their heart, but they are trying to fear the Lord in the rituals, just adding Yahweh to their pantheon of other gods. Does that make sense? and as we see here in the context, these are, these are terrible, terrible, terrible gods. Verse 37.

And the statutes, the ordinances, the laws, the commandments, which he wrote to you, you shall be careful to observe. Again, this is a, going back and I have a a flashback, shall not serve other gods. And the covenant that I made with you, you shall not forget, nor shall you fear other gods, but the Lord your God, you shall fear, and he will deliver you from the hand of your enemies. However, they did not obey.

They followed their former rituals. So these nations feared the Lord, yet served their carved images. So there's another use of fear in the sense of external ritual, not in the sense of heart worship. Also, their children, their children's children have continued doing as their fathers did even to this day.

So from the writer's perspective, this is still the case in the northern part of Canaan, is you have all these children, they're still worshiping all these false gods, but they've just added Yahweh to their pantheon of gods. And by the way, this is the people group that eventually becomes the Samaritans that we see on the pages of the New Testament. And so you have this hatred between the Samaritans and the Jews that rise up once Jew, the Jews are returned back to the land and Ezra and Nehemiah, and then they're taken over again by, Greece and then Rome, and then we, we have the situation we have in the New Testament.

So what we're gonna do at this point is, is talk about this.

This idea, we see God fulfilling his promise to judge. And, and then now we see in the land, there's just this really mixed up situation. And so let's ask a couple of questions about this. Has the Abrahamic experiment failed?

Now remember, God, took Abraham out and he showed him the stars, right? And he said, look up at the stars. You, you're, the people that come from you will be greater than the stars, and I, I'm gonna promise to give you land, and I'm gonna give you a seed, and you are gonna be a great blessing to all nations for my name's sake. And if you guys remember when we talked about the Abrahamic promise, did we call that a bilateral covenant or a unilateral covenant?

In other words, was this a covenant that was based upon God's people promising to obey, and then if they obeyed, God would fulfill his part of the bargain? Or is God saying, I will fulfill this on my own for my name's sake? Which one is it, unilateral or bilateral? Unilateral and yet we see Israel here being thrust out of the land according to what we see in Deuteronomy 28, even though God had waited for hundreds of years to finally bring this to pass.

Do we now have the failure of the Abrahamic experiment? I want you to turn over to Romans 9. Because this is, this is pretty crucial to our interpretation. Of the Old Testament.

And even just our understanding of what is God, what is Christ doing with the church and his kingdom, and when we see ups and downs and, apostases, how are we to understand? What Christ is doing when he says the gates of hell shall not prevail. And yet at times we look out at the church and it seems like the gates of hell are prevailing. How should we How should we understand this?

So, let's start in Verse 6 of, we'll look at Romans 9:6. Where Paul says, but it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. He's talking about Israel now. 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 shall be called. What it seems like Paul is saying, he's talking about the New Testament situation. he, he had gone out, Peter had gone out to preach the gospel to the Jews and, and Christ had made Paul an apostle to the Gentiles, but his practice was very often to go into a city, he would preach at the synagogue, frequently get rejected, and then he'd go preach to the Gentiles, and he's seeing the Holy Spirit fall upon the Gentiles.

And so there's many, many non-Jewish people that are coming to know the Lord, right? And so he's asking this big question, what's going on then with all these promises that have been made to Israel? I look out across the Jewish nation who I love and I'm preaching the gospel to them, and the vast majority of them are not believing. So has God rejected his people?

And he, he brings up a very important point here. is the physical seed of Abraham, the people that are just in the, the borders of Israel and are part of the national political entity of Israel, they're not all true Israel, but Israel is within that political entity. It's, it's, it comes from the seed of Isaac. It's not all of the seed of Isaac.

And so it seems like what Paula is suggesting. Is that true Israel is within the political entity of Israel. So God did bring his promise to judge Israel as a nation. And, but the implications that we see this bear out further in history is God had always left himself a remnant.

There are always those who continue to be faithful. To the Lord, even when everybody else was turning to Baal worship. In fact, do you guys remember when we were talking about was it Elijah? Elijah gets really depressed, and they just like, who, who's really following the Lord?

Everybody's following Baal. And then the Lord has to tell him, hey, I have preserved for myself, what is the number, like 3000? 7000 people who have not bowed the knee to bail. And there seems to be this principle on the page of scripture that God continues to fulfill his promise, Abrahamic promise, even in the darkest of times.

and so let's, in light of that, let's flip over to Amos, because I want you guys to see Actually, what? Let's see, do we want to do Romans first? Yeah, let's do, since we're in Romans, let's go to Romans 9:25 and then we'll go to Amos. 9:25 to 31.

Is that where we want it? Yeah, let's start at 9:25. So he says also in Hosea, I will call them my people who are not my people and her beloved who is not beloved, and it shall come to pass in the place where I have said to them, You are not my people, they shall be called sons of the living God. Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel.

Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved. He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, but the Lord will make short work upon the earth. As Isaiah said before, unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have been like Gomorrah. So you see this idea of remnant.

Then verse 30, what shall we say then that the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained a righteousness, even the righteousness of faith. But Israel pursuing the law of righteousness has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? what, I think I'm in the wrong chapter.

I'm sorry. Is it, I think it's more chapter 11. Is that right, you guys? Yeah I'm looking for the word irrevocable.

That's chapter 11. OK, here we go. Yeah, so, yeah, there's verse 29. You got it, Brian.

Let's look at Yeah, verse 25 there in 11, for I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own eyes, on your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved as it is written, the deliverer will come out of Zion and he will turn away the ungodliness from Jacob, and this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. Concerning the gospel, they're enemies for your sake, but concerning election, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers, for the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.

I had a lot of, I had several professors in seminary that really camp on that word irrevocable.

That there are promises that have been made to Israel, that cannot be undone because they were made by God Himself for his own name's sake. And so we see, if you read the, the following two verses, for as you were once disobedient to God, yet now have obtained mercy through their disobedience, even so, these who also have now been disobedient, through the mercy shown you, they also may obtain mercy. And so this is, this is a great mystery. Paul calls this a great mystery that, that in his sovereignty, God has used the hardening of Israel to actually bring Gentiles to himself, but then he will use Gentiles to provoke Israel to jealousy to bring them back to himself.

And we're talking about a remnant of Israel. If we keep the principle in mind that it's not all Israel who are Israel, Then we can have this idea of national Israel that is made up of a, also a remnant in the middle of it, right? Just like Jesus talks about the wheat and the tears that if we think of the church, let's just talk about cornerstone for a second. Is every single soul at Cornerstone saved?

No. And we just assume that based on what the Bible says. and yeah, there is a group, we could talk about Cornerstone as a church would, which would be everybody that attends and all members. But we can also talk about the remnant of Cornerstone or true cornerstone.

We could say not all cornerstone is cornerstone. Right? There are those that come to this church, that participate, maybe they're on the outer edges, maybe their children or parents who haven't named Christ yet as their own savior. Maybe they're checking the situation out.

But the Lord knows who the real saved are, who the remnant are in this body. In the same sense, there's Israel, there's, and there's true Israel. and the Lord is using Gentiles to provoke Israel back. To himself.

So in light of that, let's now turn to Amos cause I want you to see This promise that goes well beyond even our current history. We're gonna look at Amos 9, starting in verse 8. Again, remember Amos is this warning to the northern tribes, this is being spoken before 2 Kings 17. This is before Assyria comes down to take them out.

And so, But notice how this develops, verse 8. Behold, the eyes of the Lord are on the sinful kingdom. I will destroy it from the face of the earth. I will not utterly destroy the house of, and yet I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, says the Lord.

I'm bringing judgment, but I'm not gonna utterly destroy them. I'm going to, and this, this, this almost feels like a contradiction to us. I will destroy it, and yet I will not utterly destroy it. This is just a good Jewish statement.

If you understand something about Hebrew, the way Hebrews phrase things, I'm going to destroy but not utterly. it's like, Paul, in, in one of, one of his Hebrew moments, he says, I didn't baptize anybody except this guy, that guy, and that guy. But other than that, I didn't baptize anybody. That's a Hebrewism, right?

God says, I'm gonna destroy them utterly. I'm gonna destroy them, but not destroy them utterly. And so in verse 9, for surely I will command and I will sift the house of Israel. Notice this language among all the nations, and grain is sifted in a sieve, as grain is sifted in a sieve, yet not the smallest grain shall fall to the ground.

All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword. who say, the calamity shall not overtake nor confront us. And so part of what God's doing and bringing judgment upon Israel is he's sifting them out. Who are the, who are the bale worshippers within Israel, and who are the remnant.

And this is a historical sifting. But notice, verse 11, on that day, I will raise up the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down and repair its damages. I will raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old, that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord who has done this thing. Now the Lord is even talking about Gentiles coming into the fold.

Behold, the days are coming, verse 13, says the Lord, when the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes, him who sows seed. The mountain shall drip with sweet wine and all the hills shall flow with it. What's, what's Amos talking about? I went fishing, up in Mammoth with the men a couple of weeks ago, and we showed up at South Lake right when the sun was coming up.

Actually, before we could see the sun, but it was getting light. And I bait up the hook and stuff and I get it out for Sam. And then I get Joshua's, and I can't even get Joshua's in the water and Sam's like, yeah, I got a fish. And so then I get his stuff and I get Josh out, and he's like, I got a fish.

And for about like 2 hours, I could never even get my own pole in the lake. I'm just going back and forth between the two boys, between their hooks and their bait, we just caught a ton of fish. It's like the guy who's putting the bait on can't keep up with the fish coming out of the lake. And that's what he's talking about here in, in verse 13.

It's like the plowmen are overtaking the reaper. The treasures of grapes are overtaking him who sows the seed. There's so much, so much, goodness, so much production at this point. In history, that it's just dripping with wine and there's just so much wonderful stuff happening.

So verse 14 and 15, the way this book ends, I will bring back the captives of my people Israel. They shall build the waste cities and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and drink wine from them. They shall also make gardens and eat fruit from them.

I will plant them in their land and no longer shall they be pulled up. From the land I have given them, says the Lord your God. This is part of the answer to the question, has the Abrahamic promise failed? And we'll ask it a different way.

Has the Abrahamic promise failed in respect to Israel? We know that the Abrahamic promise continues towards the church in Christ, but has God rejected Israel? And what we see here is there's this futuristic look from Amos, that God is gonna bring Israel back to the land, and they will never again be uprooted from it. Let me ask you a question.

When Ezra, when we have the return of, of, of Judah, back into the land under Ezra and Nehemiah, were they uprooted another time? Yes, they were. They came back into the land, but remember, Titus comes in and just levels Jerusalem, and then they're moved out again. Then in 1948, Israel comes back into this land, but do we have an Israel that is worshiping Yahweh aright?

No, we don't. But this right here, so in the book of Amos, we have a futuristic promise that has yet to be fulfilled. And many theologians would argue that this is the millennial promise, the ultimate fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise, that God will bring back his remnant into the land. There will be such production in the millennial period, it'll just be amazing.

It'll be like you're, you're fishing and you can't get another pole baited before the fish is coming out. And Israel will be back in the land in fulfillment to the Abrahamic promise. And so God will be, his people will then again be worshiping him right. And so I, I think this is the thing that we have to keep in mind when we look at 2, when we look at passes like Deuteronomy 28, and we look at 2 Kings 17, and we see God fulfilling his promise of judgment.

He's a faithful God, He will fulfill that promise. We also have to remember to look at Amos 9, that's not the end of the story, that God will fulfill his Abrahamic promise with the people of Israel, not just with Judah. But with Israel as he brings them back into the land, and I think if we're taking this, we have to take this at face value. We can't just say spiritualize this at this point and say, oh, that's just talking about heaven, and that's just talking about Christians.

No, Amos seems to be talking about land production. He's talking about, he's using terms like Israel, and it's right in the context of judgment. So in the very same chapter, God is talking about his judgment and moving them out of the land, and then bringing that people back in the land. It seems like contextually, it has to be the same.

People group, right? If he's judging Israel and then bringing Israel back down, how can it be? Israel for judgment, but the church for blessing. I don't know if that makes sense to you guys, but we're talking about a little debate here between covenantists and dispensationists.

but it seems like God is, he's gonna fulfill that promise. The promises of God are irrevocable. And in Romans 11, the promises that he's talking about are the promises to Israel, irrevocable promises. So this is something for us to keep in mind, is God faithful to judge when nations, even the people of Israel, fall into rank immorality?

He is, even though he's very patient. Is God faithful to his people and his promises to bring them back into the land and to show mercy and to turn their hearts back towards him? He is. And so this can be further applied to just what we see in the history of the church.

Jesus established the church. He said the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. He says the individual Christians have begun the good work in you all completed the day of Christ Jesus. There's times that we look out in church history, and we see some really dark times at points, right?

We look at church history, we're like, man, where is the light? Where is the gospel? There's times even in our own lifetime that We as Christians can, can feel somewhat alone as we look at the landscape of Christendom, and the way it seems like people are just caving in on the gospel and caving in on the scriptures. And yet God is faithful.

He will fulfill his promises, Christ will reign on the earth, and every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess. That he is the Lord. So even in, in judgment, I think we find, we find hope. Any, any questions that you guys have about that?

And we'll see if we have a little bit of time to talk about syncretism. Hey, you guys all got it? All right. If you have questions later, you can come up and talk to me.

Part of what we're touching on is a little bit of a debate amongst Christians as to the future of Israel. And is there really a place for Israel in the land as a, as a physical place where God is gonna bless them, or do all these promises just get picked up and transferred to the church in a spiritual way? and so what I've just argued is, is that no, God is gonna fulfill his promises to Israel in the land in fulfillment of Amos chapter 9. So, let's, let's take a few minutes to talk about syncretism because what you see in the back half of chapter 17 is this priest comes along and so they go, they don't go and select the most conservative priest, right?

They probably look for a good liberal to bring them back down into the land to teach them some Yahweh worship, but not too conservative, right? So I won't pick on anybody in particular. although I'm very tempted to. It'd be like, grabbing some liberal, pastor and, and bringing them on CNN to represent the Christian view.

Is that bug you guys sometimes? So they'll put this panel up on CNN to like debate some issue, and the one person that they picked to represent the Christian view is some flaming liberal that has no idea what the Bible, that has no real belief in the scriptures. I used to love it. I think MacArthur still does interviews, but you guys ever see the old Larry King Live shows when MacArthur, John MacArthur would be on there?

And oh, it was awesome. In fact, I remember this one episode, Larry King, really, he got to know John MacArthur very well because he was on the show a lot. And so they were talking about the issue of eternal punishment. And one of the Christian pastors up there was talking about how that God loves everybody and nobody's gonna go to hell.

And as long as, you do the very best you can, basically all religions will go to heaven. And Larry King turns to John McCarthy and he says, John, you don't believe that, do you? He knew what John was gonna say. He's like, no, I do not believe that.

Here's what the Bible says. anyway, this particular priest or whoever he was that got sent down south was not one of those. He was not a John MacArthur type. He was a guy that was gonna help them along in their syncretism.

And, we need to be careful of our own syncretism., we It's been said that we catch culture like we catch the measles. We don't just like go after the measles, it just happens to us or we catch our worldview like we catch a cold. Unexamined, we just imbibe the culture and, and so it's very easy for the church to suddenly wake up and find themselves doing things that you just wonder how does that mix with your faith. And so that gets brought up in our lesson a little bit.

Now, Brian, we weren't able to get that video, right? OK, so we're cool. So, so go online. I sent you guys last night a video of John MacArthur debating Doug Pagett.

Doug Paget is a, what do you call him, a emergent church guy, where they have yoga classes at their church. And in the video, he talks about how that they use yoga to connect with God so that we're worshiping God with mind, body and soul. And because we need mind, body and soul to find full and complete healing. In our relationship with God.

And MacArthur responds to him and says, what? we need the Bible, we need the gospel, the, the Bible never commands us to go get into various poses in order to, get closer with God. But one of the phenomena that you do see today is you will, and you can go online and check this out, is you do have Christians that are saying that they're draw drawing closer to God through things like yoga and transcendental meditation. And the response from guys like John MacArthur and Al Mohler and other people like that is, if you're going to divorce yoga from its true intent, then don't call it yoga, call it exercise.

But if you talk to people who really believe in yoga and really believe what yoga says it is, it's not just exercise. It's not just something for to be healthy and have a good diet. Yoga quite literally means union of the self with a God, union of the self with a God. let me just mention a couple of things here.

we're already at 10 o'clock. I've opened up a big can of worms and I can't close it. Philip Goldberg, 2010, he has a book called American Vader. Where he talks about the influx of Hinduism into our culture.

And how that we are much more of a Hindu culture today than we are a Christian culture. Ravi Zacharias calls it Westernism, is that we've taken Eastern ideas, we try to clean it up a little bit so it's more palatable to the Western mind, and then he calls it Westernism. we try to make karma something that's romantic. We take yoga and we make it just about exercise, but, if you were to ask yoga experts and if you were to talk to people in India, for instance, what do you think about 20 million Americans practicing yoga and saying it has nothing to do with spiritual life, they'd be like, huh?

That's like us doing baptism and the Lord's Supper for the meal and for the exercise of going up and down in the water. yoga to us is just like your baptism and your Lord's Supper. And so I, I posted some articles for you guys to take a look at and to at least, at least try to ask the question. Are we doing, are we, these things that have entered into our culture, avatars, karma, mantra, yoga, are these just innocent additions?

Or if you look historically why they've come into the culture like transcendental meditation, Are they syncretistic additions that actually can do harm to the church? There's a very popular show and it shows up on YouTube called Cosmic Karma or or Cosmic Kids Karma. And it's basically teaching kids the various mantras and poses and stuff in order to teach them a karma worldview. Cosma Kids yoga.

But look at the, the Al Mohler article, I would suggest as a starting place. Or if you don't really wanna read, you're kinda like me sometimes, like, I read all week, and I just watch a video? look at the John MacArthur, Doug Paget debate. It's on it's a CNN thing.

It's only about 6 minutes. And you, in 6 minutes, you get a really good idea of what Doug Paget is saying and what MacArthur's saying. The reason we bring this up is not because there's a bunch of pagans in our culture that are practicing Hinduism, it's because it's coming into the church. You can find churches here in Riverside that will say, come on out on Tuesday night for our yoga class.

and it's not just, they're not just saying, hey, this is a way to get healthy. They're saying this is a way to connect with God in a better way. And so we really need to ask the question, what does the Bible say about meditation? And what is yoga saying about meditation?

Is emptying the mind the equivalent of filling our mind with the Word of Christ? when we're doing various poses that represent various deities, in Hinduism. Is that neutral? Is that a neutral thing?

anyway, so I laid that out there to you. Look at the Al Mohler article. I guess one final thing, oh, there's also a, I also posted an article from, It's, I forget the name of the guy, but basically their whole organization is about take yoga back. They're like, we're upset that all these Americans and Christians have taken yoga from us and they're trying to divorce it from its true intent.

And so it's like this conservative yoga movement, like, take yoga back, for its true intention. And so they talk about it from their perspective, what yoga really is supposed to be about, not just all the Westernism aspects of it. And then finally, look at Al Mohler's response to his article on yoga. this is, I'll end with this.

Al Mohler said he has written hundreds of articles and he has never had more negative responses to anything he's ever written than to his article on yoga, critiquing yoga. And what he said is he read through the hundreds, all of them. He read through every critique and his, his summary of the critique was, there was not one single scriptural do or a doctrinal argument against his article. Every argument was something like, yoga has done a lot for me in my walk with Christ.

How dare you criticize something that has helped me in my worship of Jesus. But as far as like doctrinal, scriptural, apologetic arguments against his article, there wasn't anything of substance and it had the most responses of anything. And so one of his points was in his, in his response was the fact that I have gotten so many responses to my article on yoga says I'm on to something. I have touched a nerve in Christendom.

They don't want their yoga to be messed with and why is that? Let's at least ask the question, why is that? Why is it that people feel so strongly that they must attain peace through this practice? anyway, I just throw that out to you, maybe I'm wrong, but you guys do the research on your own and check it out.

Let's go ahead and pray and then we'll get ready for a time of worship. Lord, we thank you so much that you are so wise and we, come to you as, as sinners who understand that, it is very unwise for us to think that we can figure everything out by ourselves. the fool, has, is the one who stays alone and, and, and thinks that he can determine all truth alone, but we thank you that you've given us your word. And you've given us the Holy Spirit to enlighten your word.

We pray, we also thank you that you've given us pastors, teachers, apostles, prophets. we ask God that we would go to the various leaders and writers and, and while we judge their writings by scripture, we, we pray, Father, that we would try to listen to wise counsel of men and women that we trust. so we ask Lord that you would protect your church today, from the ravages that we see in 2 Kings 17. we thank you for the promises that, Lord Jesus, that you have told us that the gates fell shall not prevail against the church.

We even thank you, Lord, for just the great promise that you will fulfill with Israel in the millennium. Ask you to help us to walk in those promises, help us to resist the devil, he will flee from us, draw near to you, God, humble ourselves, and we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.