Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: No other people group in the history of the world has ever been scattered for 2,000 years and be brought back to be not only a nation but one of the most powerful nations in the world. This is what God said would happen.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador with the assurance that nothing can prevent the fulfilling of God's purposes.

Brett Meador: If you follow the history of what happened in Israel and what God said would happen, it's incredible how accurate this Bible is. It's so accurate that people have tried to say people wrote the Bible after these events actually happened because it's too exact.

Guest (Male): Right before Israel's leaders, Stephen responded by recounting God's promise to Abraham concerning the land of Israel. And in today's word, Pastor Brett Meador reflects how the unconditional nature of the Abrahamic Covenant continues to impact how even the current narrative in the Middle East is leading to God's ultimate plans for the Jews through to the end times.

Brett Meador: Acts chapter 7. Stephen goes into a little history lesson with the religious guys there on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. And Stephen's going to make a real powerful point at the end of his sermon, and he's going to indict these religious guys as not believing truth and that God's going to judge them for this. And God's wrath would be upon them for that. He's going to indict this group of people, and they're going to be so mad they're going to gnash their teeth and they're going to want to destroy him so much that they start stoning him to death. This is the story.

What's the big deal? Why is Stephen going to this history lesson? Well, it had to do with the Abrahamic Covenant. That's what we call it. It's a covenant that God made that's unconditional, that God made to the Jews. And this is a huge point of contention in the world today. When you hear people call Israel the occupiers in the land of Israel today, or Palestine, as they want to call it still, they say the Jews are occupiers in that land. The story goes just like Stephen said: Abraham begat Isaac and Jacob, and then Jacob had 12 sons, and those would be the 12 tribes of Israel.

But because there was a famine in the land, the 12 sons of Jacob moved to Egypt. Joseph was there, second most powerful man in the world at the time. It's kind of an amazing story. But the Jews are there and they're there for a few decades when the Pharaoh said, "These Jews, Hebrew people, sons of Jacob, Israel, they're getting mighty." They're getting too mighty, and so they enslaved them. And they were enslaved as Stephen enumerates here for 400 years, slaves.

But the idea is the Jews would then leave the captivity as slaves in Egypt and be led by Moses to get to the border of Israel, the land of promise, the Abrahamic Covenant promise. And then God's going to give to them that land as an everlasting covenant before the whole world. He says, "I'm giving you this land." So, this is the promise. So when did they sort of, like Stephen said, "Abraham, you're not going to necessarily see that promise when you get the land, but it'll be your descendants after," and he said, "I will give it to him, your seed, a possession."

Well, when did that happen? Well, if we go to our timeline here, it's when Joshua took the land from the Canaanites there in 1500 BC. So the first thing: Abraham, 2000 BC, the Abrahamic Covenant. The next item on the history timeline you really should be aware of is Joshua took over the land, fit the battle of Jericho, the Canaanites are wiped out, not completely, but mostly.

The final city that was left was a city called Jebus. And David, right around 1000 BC, David takes the city of Jebus from the Jebusites, and it becomes the city of David, also later called Jerusalem. So now we're getting into where Israel is settled and taken over and their capital city set up in Jerusalem. Then they build the temple under Solomon and stuff like that. And things would go pretty good right up until the kings started rebelling against God. And there were some if-then statements: "If you rebel against me, I'm going to leave you onto your own devices to protect your nation."

And the Jews rebelled and worshipped Baal and Ashtoreth and Moloch and these other gods. And so God pulls his hand of protection off of them, and that's where real trouble starts. Probably the biggest is, of course, when the Babylonians was the final, the Assyrians attacked in 720, but I'm going to put 586 BC as kind of a key point. That's where Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar's leadership wipes out Jerusalem and just totally disaster. The walls of the city are destroyed, the temple's destroyed, and the Jews are taken into captivity into Babylon.

And they're there for 70 years. And so now, who's in Israel? Well, there's a tiny group of Jews, but it's mostly in desolation. After the Babylonians crushed Israel and Jerusalem in 586, you were pretty much under the servitude of Babylon and so there was not a lot of Jews were left. They were mostly killed or taken into captivity. So Jerusalem sits desolate and empty for 70 years. So fast forward after that, they'd go back under the leadership of Zerubbabel, Nehemiah, and Ezra in 516 BC. Artaxerxes gives the commandment to them: "Go and restore and rebuild your city, Jerusalem, and build the walls."

And so they do, but it's a small group of about 50,000 Jews that go from captivity to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. So the Jews are back there in Jerusalem, going along just fine. But the problem with being in Israel and Jerusalem historically, all the nations that came and went through history, Israel was the speed bump between the battles. It's really kind of interesting in history that a lot of times Israel wanted nothing to do with the Seleucid and Ptolemy conflict. The Ptolemies in the south in Egypt and the Seleucids up in Assyria. They don't want nothing, but the battleground would actually be Israel.

And so if you remember Antiochus Epiphanes and all that, there were all kinds of problems. But let me go over some of the big ones. Israel suffered under these conquests and wars and militaries. A big one was in 330 BC. Alexander the Great conquers the known world, including Jerusalem. Interesting story: he doesn't destroy Jerusalem. He was planning on destroying Jerusalem, but a little priest by the name of Jaddua comes out and asks to say something to Alexander before he crushed Jerusalem.

So they let him into the tent, and Jaddua opens a scroll to what Daniel the prophet spoke of in Daniel chapter 2, how there would be a ruler of Babylon that would come. And then after Babylon would come the Medo-Persians, the two arms of silver of Daniel chapter 2. And then he said there's a great nation, a mighty horn, a strong leader who would conquer the world, who's mentioned here: he's the belly of brass. And Jaddua said, "Guess what, Alexander, you are that belly of brass in the Jewish Bible."

Interesting: Alexander the Great was so intrigued by that, he decided not to crush Jerusalem. He did sort of put them under servitude, like a vassal state of Greece or whatever the Greek Empire, but he didn't crush Jerusalem. He just rode his horse peacefully into Bucephalus there into the city streets of Jerusalem. But that was a big deal. All these huge nations and conquerors would come through Jerusalem. After Alexander, then the Roman Empire. And the Romans would rule Jerusalem and the Israeli region for 666 years. Kind of interesting.

If you include the Byzantine era, which is kind of part of that deal. Now, it's at this time the Romans, this is where Israel history, it's really important and if you don't believe in the Bible, if you follow the history of what happened in Israel and what God said would happen, it's incredible how accurate this Bible is. It's so accurate that people have tried to say people wrote the Bible after these events actually happened because it's too exact, too perfect.

But we have proof that the Bible was there in these words before in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. So it takes their argument out. But one of the things God said is, "If you don't follow my word and keep my statutes, commandments, and judgments, I'm going to scatter you among the nations," God says. And when did he do that? It would be after Jesus came and prophesied. Jesus said, "Not one of these stones will stay on another here in Jerusalem, the temple." And Jesus dying on the cross, that was the biggest event of all history.

But Jesus said, "Shortly after I'm gone, this city's going to be crushed." He was prophesying that in Matthew 24. When did that happen? Well, that would be AD 70, where we call that the time where Titus, it was a horrible event where just like Babylonians in 586, the temple was leveled, the walls were destroyed, Jerusalem's in rubble. And Rome, Titus Longeimus kills 116,000 Jews in one day there in Jerusalem and throws their bodies over the wall of the temple.

97,000 people were thrown into slavery and taken to Rome in Italy. Next time you're in Rome and you see the glorious Colosseum of Rome, your tour guide won't tell you this, but it's the Jews who built the Roman Colosseum. Jewish slaves built that. But be that as it may, the 70 AD taking over of Jerusalem, 1.19 million people died, Jewish people died because of Roman brutality. And this begins something called the Diaspora. This is where the Jews were scattered and through the next few centuries the Romans would make it bad.

Like Hadrian said, "If you see two Jews talking in Jerusalem, you can kill them right there. You have legal right to kill them if you see two Jews talking in Jerusalem." So the Jews weren't really hanging around Jerusalem after Hadrian was on the scene, the emperor of Rome. And as part of the Diaspora. Now, the scattering of the Jews in the Roman Empire in AD 70, do you understand God said that would happen? So exactly. Let me just show you one place: Ezekiel chapter 11, verse 16, where it says, "Therefore say, thus saith the Lord God, although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet I will be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come."

Now, one thing about the Jews being scattered, if you know your history, there's been other people groups that have been scattered, but no people group have lasted more than three generations with any identity, more than three generations. In other words, if you're scattered from your homeland, if you don't get a new homeland or come back to your homeland within your, you're going to lose your identity, you'll be assimilated into other cultures and be extinct as a people group. That's just the way it always has happened, except for the Jews.

How did the Jews stay Jews? Well, it's embedded in their culture, it's not just their ethnicity, it's in their Judaism. And so they had what you might say little sanctuaries where they still practiced Judaism among the heathen. That's kind of what the Lord's saying, which kept them as a people group even though they were scattered all over the world. This is the promise. Well, if you go further into Ezekiel chapter 34, look at this.

The Lord continues, "For thus saith the Lord God, behold I, even I, will both search my sheep and seek them out as a shepherd seeketh his flock in the day that he is among his sheep are scattered. So I will seek out my sheep and I will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. And I will bring them out from the people and gather them from the countries. And I will bring them to their own land and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers and in all the inhabited places of the country."

By the rivers, that's the Jordan River. There's an idiom that you and I miss here as Americans, but the Jews know what this is: when the word says "the mountains of Israel," does anybody know what that is defining? The West Bank. The mountains of Israel includes Samaria and the West Bank, all of the West Bank is the mountains of Israel. When you read that in the Old Testament, red flags should come up and go, "Oh, that's talking about the West Bank, including Jerusalem." Kind of interesting. So, God says, "I'm going to scatter you because of your sin, but I'm going to regather you." Ezekiel 34, and then 35, 36 continues to talk about God's plan to gather Israel after their rebellion.

No other people group in the history of the world has ever been scattered for more than three generations, let alone 2,000 years, and be brought back to be not only a nation but one of the most powerful nations in the world. This is what God said would happen. And so no question I see God's hand in the scattering of Israel. But then how did the regathering go? Well, let's go back to our timeline here. After the Romans came, destroyed it. So now you go to the Byzantines and the Ottoman Turks. And that's a large period of time.

From AD 100 to the 1800s, it was more and more people groups that came and went. First you had the Byzantines, then you had the Muslims come, then you had the Crusaders, Mamluks from Egypt, and then ultimately the Ottoman Turks. You could call that what you want, some might say the Byzantine era to the Ottoman Turk era. And largely Jews were not really around Jerusalem that much. There may have been a sprinkling of Jews, a tiny bit through that era, but it was dangerous for them, especially during the Crusader era and stuff like that. But largely the Jews were still scattered all over the world.

Now, God has done a miracle that is right in front of us that you need to know about and that is when God says, "I'm going to regather you into the land of promise." How did he do that? Because it's happened. Would you agree that the Jews have been regathered in the land of Israel that was promised to Abraham and they become a mighty nation? Like if you know the deal, they become one of the top nations economically. Some say they're the best army in the world right now.

But how did God do it? Well, what happened was anti-Semitism started to swirl around the world, especially in the 1700s and into the 1800s. Anti-Semitism, that is, hatred for Jewish people. Shocking how that's just kind of the way the world rolls: the world hates Jewish people. And you can speculate why and how has that been a thing and how does that even happen, why do people hate Jews so much? You can speculate and talk about that, but I'll tell you the main reason: they're God's chosen people. And that's why the world hates them.

So basically, there was an event that happened, and this is where it plays into today's news, which is kind of fascinating. There's an event called the Dreyfus affair. And the Dreyfus affair is, you know how there's events in history, they might not be the biggest thing, but it was like the thing that kind of kicks off something in the world that's sort of big. I'd say when Ronald Reagan said, "Tear down that wall," that was a moment in history that kind of changed the course of history. Well, this is one of those moments.

And what happened? Well, Alfred Dreyfus, a lieutenant in the French army, was accused falsely of selling secrets to the German army. He was just a scapegoat. They sentenced him to death for that. And the people in Paris went nuts and started screaming, "Death to the Jews." So, he was on death row basically because of a false accusation. Now, the French were yelling "Death to Jews," but ultimately there would be a letter that was written proving, they were able to prove that Alfred Dreyfus was innocent.

Now, you say, okay, Brett, what was that all about? Well, there was a guy we'll talk about in a second, Theodor Herzl, who saw this going on and said, "There's never going to be a safe place for Jews until we have our own homeland again." Jews scattered all over Europe. He saw the hatred and vitriol from the French, saying that with this whole Dreyfus affair. And so we'll tell you what Theodor Herzl does about that in a second. Now, what's interesting, fast forward to today: do we see anti-Semitism today?

20 years ago when I used to teach this timeline and stuff, I would say the worst anti-Semitism you could imagine was back in the 1890s. And it was. They wanted to kill Jews, they were hunting them down and beating them in the streets, and it was horrible. And I'd say it was worse than any other time in history. I can't say that anymore. Anti-Semitism in the past four years has ramped up exponentially. Did you see in the Netherlands, in Amsterdam, they're chasing Jews and beating them? So much so the Jews have had to fly El Al flights into Amsterdam to just save Jews, to pull them out of that country.

There's so much anti-Semitism. And we could just go on and on. We're seeing there's one thing we've learned from history is we've learned nothing from history. Here's Israel attacked with missiles and rockets and everything from Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran, and yet they're just fighting for their very lives to survive. When Dreyfus affair happened, along came who I mentioned earlier, Theodor Herzl. He came just a few years later in 1897. And he was the one who said Israel, the Jews would never be safe without a homeland.

And so three years later at the Congress of Basel in Switzerland, they came with a plan to have a state of Zion. This is where this term Zionist comes in. Theodor Herzl was the father of Zionism. And the world thinks that's a dirty word: Zionism. But the Jews began to catch the vision and so they started to say, "Let's go back to the land of promise. Our father Abraham was given by God this land."

So guess what the Jews did? By the way, by this time, the Jews were criticized for being wealthy and miserly. That's where the Jews get this reputation because they're good with money. So they through all these years even through all their trouble and persecution they had wealth and what did they do with that wealth? They took their money and they went down to Palestine. Now, why was it called Palestine? Just during the emperor of Hadrian of Rome, he hated the Jews and he renamed Israel to Palestina, which was named after the Philistines, who were a Phoenician people, seafaring people that came down from Cyprus and went down and settled in Gaza and that's the Philistines that David fought, Goliath and all these.

They were not Arabs, they were not Muslims. Muslims came in 600 AD, very modern religion. But the Philistines were ancient people from Cyprus, seafaring people, not Arabs. The reason that's important is because what they're trying to tell you today is the modern-day Palestinian is from Palestine and the ancient Palestinian people. No such thing. That's just a rhetorical sort of bunch of hogwash. They're Arabs, mostly from Jordan. You might call them Jordanian, who the Jordanians and other Arab nations have refused to let them come back into their lands, and they wanted to keep them in Israel as pawns to fight over.

That was the intent. So before we get to who are the Palestinians today, who was in Israel when the Jews said, "Let's go to our homeland, Palestine"? Who was there? Well, really, mostly Bedouins. It was a barren desert forsaken land. And so guess what? The Jews came and much of the land they possessed, they purchased with money. They bought with money from the Bedouin people, the lands. And by the way, the Bedouins are still there today. They're still in tents with camels.

They have Mercedes and stuff too. But they still, they have satellite dishes out their tents and then goats and stuff everywhere. The Bedouins are actually neat people. I've had tea with Bedouins in Israel and did you know the Bedouins, many of them fight in the Israeli army? There's whole divisions of Bedouin soldiers in the Israeli army. Kind of interesting. So that's really who largely was there in Israel and the Jews purchased their land. How many of you can say you literally purchased your land from the, if you live in Portland, did you pay the Blackfoot Indian tribe for your land?

Well, Brett, I paid the people who owned it before that. Oh, who'd they pay? See, it's hypocrisy for us to say, you know, we took our land from the Blackfoot, as every people group did from somebody. The Jews didn't even do that. They didn't come and take the land by force. They moved in, yes, swarmed in, yes, under the Zionist movement. See, this is where we get to point number two. The first reason the Jews have the right to be in the land is God says so. That should be good enough for anyone, by the way.

Number one, God gave them their land. But number two, what nation can say, yeah, not only did God give it to them, but they also paid money largely for much of their land? I'm not going to say all of it, but Israel fair and square in the Zionist movement bought the land from the Bedouins. And by the way, if you don't believe me on the Bedouin thing, just do your history, check it out. One of the great works that is actually most informative is Mark Twain. Really? Mark Twain, like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn? Yep.

The reason he's important is he did a one-year journey to the Holy Land back in the 1890s and it was an amazing one-year tour and he documented, drew pictures, talked about everything that he saw. And what did he say? Israel's the most desolate, God-forsaken land in the world. That's what he'd write about. Word for word, "a hopeless, dreary heartbroken land." He says that it's the most desolate place on the earth. All you see is Bedouins, but you have to walk for hours and hours before you see one Bedouin tent.

That's the way he describes it. And he's even got photographs and stuff that he took. So as it turns out, the Arabs in the early Zionist movement were thrilled: "We're getting money from these European Jews and you can take our desolate barren land." And they were getting money from the Jews. This is something you won't hear in your colleges and universities. And what did the Jews call themselves when they came to that land? Did they call themselves Israelis? No. Did they call themselves Jews or did they call themselves Hebrews? You want to know what they called themselves? Anybody want to take a guess? Palestinians. That's what the Jews were, Palestinians. Don't believe me, it's all over the place. Like this is a history they're trying to erase.

But anybody know who the Palestine Symphony was back in the 1920s? It was 73 musicians, all Jews in the Palestine Symphony. The Palestinian Post, all editors and the staff and employees, Jewish people. And they considered themselves part of Palestine because that was the name given. They didn't even try to change it because they're like, yeah whatever, we're Palestinian.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador with important insight concerning the fulfilling of God's plans, purposes, and promises for his people, confirmed in today's word. And I invite you to stay right there as Pastor Brett will join me to answer a question that just about everybody has. But first, let me tell you a little bit more about Brett Meador. He's the senior pastor of Athey Creek Church just south of Portland, Oregon. Brett's been the pastor of Athey Creek for 30 years, where he goes verse by verse in his study of the Bible.

We invite you to listen each day for more from Pastor Brett. If you've missed any portion of our study, you'll find all of his messages online at todayswordradio.com. That's todayswordradio.com. All right, I have Pastor Brett with me now. There's a question that is probably the most common question that is asked by Christians, Brett, and that is: how can someone know God's will for their life?

Brett Meador: That's the 64,000 dollar question for sure. I hear that a lot. And I think sometimes we tend to overcomplicate the question. The first thing is this: God will never contradict his word. So if somebody says, "I think the Lord is leading me," but it goes against Scripture, then we know that's not the will of the Lord. So I love that the word of God, Psalm 119:105, says "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." So we have the word for clear guidance.

And then secondly, God often guides us one step at a time. Rather than give us the whole blueprint up front. Proverbs 3:5-6, you guys know that, it's "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him and then he will direct your paths." So God's will has this trust quality. So another key is just to be obedient. Sometimes people want more guidance while they're ignoring what God has already made clear. As we obey the light we've been given, it starts to get brighter and directs us to the next step.

So prayer matters, wise counsel matters, the peace of the Holy Spirit. But ultimately God's will isn't just about finding the right job or location, it's actually more about becoming just more like Jesus Christ. And when we truly desire God's glory above our own agenda, he will lead you and show you exactly what his will is.

Guest (Male): Brett, I appreciate that wise answer and I know there's somebody listening who will also be helped by that advice. Thank you, Pastor Brett. Well, if you'd like more information about Pastor Brett Meador or to hear more of his sermons, especially in the book of Acts, just go to todayswordradio.com. Next time, Pastor Brett will continue in the book of Acts with this message: "Israel or Palestine?" Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.