Running To Win 15 Minute Version

Dave McAllister: Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. As the killings near Gaza remind us, many ask: is peace with Hamas even possible? The saga of hatred runs deep. It all began with Isaac and Ishmael thousands of years ago and continues today. Still, Israel’s rebirth is a modern-day miracle.

Today, why the return of Jews to their land means that Christ is coming soon. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Erwin Lutzer is in a series on seven signs of Christ's return. Today we’re looking at the rebirth of Israel, the first of those signs, and how God made unconditional promises to Abraham that gave the land to the Jewish people.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Now notice what he says in chapter 17 to Abraham. He says in verse seven, the Lord is speaking again, "I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. And I will give you and to your descendants after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan." Now catch this: "For an everlasting possession. And I will be their God."

Throughout the Old Testament, God keeps confirming this to different people who are in the line of descent from Abraham. For example, let's look at Second Samuel, chapter seven, where God says this to David. And I pick this up in chapter seven of Second Samuel, and we begin at verse 12 where the Lord says, "When your days are completed and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up a descendant after you."

That's a reference to Solomon, because God says Solomon is going to build the temple, David, that you weren't able to build. And if Solomon is disobedient, I will correct him. But then God says in verse 16, "And your house," that is your lineage; "your kingdom," that is your sphere of rule where you are reigning over there in Jerusalem and the territory adjacent to it; "and your throne," that is your royalty, your right to rule, "shall be established forever."

Wow. No wonder David said at the end, he said, "Who am I, and what is my house that thou hast led me hitherto? Who could I be that you would use such a, to whom you would give, rather, such a marvelous, unbelievable promise?" By the way, isn't it interesting that when Jesus is in the womb of Mary, the Lord comes and sends an angel and says regarding the one who is to be born, "He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end." When God made this promise to David, God was thinking of Christ, who would fulfill it.

Now let's not lose sight of the premise that I have made today: that in the Bible, in the Old Testament, God predicts a day is coming when Israel is going to be gathered in the land and Jesus is going to be the Messiah whom they are going to accept. And that's why we have this connection to prophecy.

Now, I'm going to continue to read. There's an Old Testament prophet by the name of Jeremiah. The Jews were unfaithful. They turned to idols, they turned away from God, and God had the Assyrians come and take the northern tribes into captivity. And then later on, he had the Babylonians come, and they surrounded the city of Jerusalem in 586 BC, and they took the Jews off, and Jerusalem was ruled by pagans.

You have those periods of time when the Jews are out of the land. If God was saying that their obedience or disobedience was dependent on whether or not he'd keep his side of the bargain, he could have cast them off long ago and said, "I'm not going to put up with these people. I've had it up to here. Let it be. I'm going to give my blessings to somebody else if this is the way they're going to act." The remarkable thing is he hangs in there with them.

Now listen to Jeremiah's words in chapter 23. And when I read this, I want all of you to be thinking of one question: Has this ever been fulfilled? Has this happened yet? Jeremiah 23, verse three: "Then I myself shall gather the remnant of my flock out of the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture, and they will be fruitful and multiply. I also shall raise up shepherds over them, and they will tend them, and they will not be afraid any longer or terrified, nor will any be missing," declares the Lord.

"Behold, the days are coming," declares the Lord, "when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land. In his days, Judah will be saved, Israel will dwell securely, and this is his name by which he will be called: Our Lord, our righteousness." It's a reference to Christ ruling over the territory in the land.

Verse seven: "Therefore, behold, the days are coming," declares the Lord, "when they will no longer say, 'As the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt,' but, 'As the Lord lives, who brought up and led back the descendants of the household of Israel from the north land and from all the countries where I have driven them.' Then they will live on their own soil."

What a promise. It's not been fulfilled. The Jews have been scattered, they've been brought back, but they're not accepting Christ as righteousness and Christ like that, and they're not living securely in the land. Just go to Israel today: a soldier on every street corner.

Now I have to pause here because you've been so kind to listen to all that I have to say, and you know what? I've still not finished all that I'm going to say. There are some folks, and many of them are very fine Bible scholars, who believe that God is finished with the Jews as a nation because all of those promises of the Old Testament now are applied to us, the church. And these fine people, I believe, are wrong.

Listen to Jeremiah 31. Now listen up, all of you who think that Israel does not have a future because God is finished with them. I think he wrote this text for people who might think of things like that. You'll notice what he says, Jeremiah 31, verse 35: "Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; the Lord of hosts is his name. If this fixed order departs from before me," declares the Lord, "then the offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before me forever."

Thus says the Lord: "If the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out below, then also I will cast off the offspring of Israel for all that they have done," declares the Lord. God says, "I'm hanging in with the nation. I will not cast them off at the end of time. I will fulfill my promises to them."

The prophets keep saying the same thing. In the evening service, I'm doing a series on the book of Amos. But before we get to Amos, let me just read some words from Ezekiel. And I'll give you the reference after I have read it, so that you just listen carefully to what the prophet Ezekiel says: "Therefore, say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord God, it is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went."

"And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord," declares the Lord, "when I prove myself holy among you in your sight. For I will take you from the nations and gather you from all of the lands and bring you into your own land. And then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean."

"I will cleanse you from your filthiness and from your idols. And I'll give you a new heart and remove the heart of stone from your flesh, from you, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I'll put my spirit within you." Well, the text goes on, but notice what God is saying: "I'm going to bring you back into your land, and then you're going to be converted. You are going to accept the Messiah and the power of the Holy Spirit of God in your life."

I mentioned prophets such as Amos. They all say essentially the same thing. Amos said, and by the way, that passage of Scripture was Ezekiel chapter 36, but Amos says in chapter nine: "Also I will restore the captivity of my people Israel, and they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will also plant vineyards and drink their wine and make gardens and eat their fruit. I will also plant them on their land, and they will not again be rooted out from their land," says the Lord God.

Well, we've talked about the Old Testament covenants. We've talked about the prophets. What about the New Testament? Jesus said in the book of Luke, he said that Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled. The key word there is "until." Until the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled. Clearly, in his mind, he was thinking that then, again, the Jewish era will begin in the city of Jerusalem.

The Apostle Paul confronted by people who said, "Well, you know, the Jews rejected Jesus. And because they rejected Jesus, God is finished with them. God is taking the promises of the Old Testament and just giving them to the church." Paul meets that opposition directly in chapter 11 of the book of Romans. He says, "I say then, God has not rejected his people, has he? May it never be because I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin."

He goes on to say that not all Israelites are going to believe, most assuredly, but he's saying that there's going to be a remnant. There are going to be some people who are going to be alive at the return of Jesus Christ, some people from that nation, and they will believe on Jesus. He says in verse 26: "And thus all Israel shall be saved. As it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion and he will remove ungodliness from Jacob, and he will make a covenant with them." That means that there's going to be a generation of descendants of Abraham who are going to be saved because they recognize Jesus Christ to be the Messiah in fulfillment of the Old Testament promises.

And my dear friend, if you recognize that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, he is the Savior, you will begin to understand how valuable you are because, after all, he died for us. And the good news is that no matter how often we fail, God is able to reach us in our failure. That's actually why I wrote a book entitled, Failure: The Back Door to Success.

I wanted to help people to understand that no failure is entirely fatal, so to speak, if it is recognized that God is able to take us out of the pit and actually put us on our feet and help us to understand that we can have a brand new beginning. For a gift of any amount, we're making available for you a book entitled, Failure: The Back Door to Success.

Dave McAllister: Pastor Erwin Lutzer, with part two of The Rebirth of Israel, the first sign in his series, Seven Signs of Christ's Return. Next time on Running to Win, more details of why Israel's rebirth points toward the coming of Christ.

It was Corrie ten Boom who said:

Guest (Female): There is no pit that is so deep that God is not deeper still.

Dave McAllister: Failure is like a pit, and Pastor Lutzer has written a book he calls Failure: The Back Door to Success. This life-changing book will be sent as our gift when you give a gift of any amount to support Running to Win. Just call us at 1-800-215-5001. That's 1-800-215-5001. Online, go to offerrtw.com. That's offerrtw.com. Or write to us at Running to Win, Moody Church, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Ask about Failure: The Back Door to Success. This is Dave McAllister. Running to Win comes to you as a ministry of the Moody Church.