34 - THE FALL THAT IS STILL MAKING HISTORYAugust 22, 1965
Henry F. Kulp
Romans 9: 1 - 5 I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.
We have been telling you that in the 9th chapter Paul opens with sorrow after he closes the 8th chapter with joy. He has sorrow because of the fall of the nation Israel. He is sorrowful and heavy-hearted because of the great privileges from which they fell, and last week we spent a great deal of time showing you that there has never been any other nation that God has dealt with but the nation Israel. All the other nations He has dealt with, He has dealt with them in conjunction with the nation Israel. We showed you that for 2,000 years God was waiting for Abraham, and in Abraham, God placed the blessing in his seed.
We told you how Moses cried out, What other is like unto thee, that has God so near. Then we went to David as he exclaimed over the nation Israel, and the greatness of the nation Israel. All the while the other nations were without God. But finally the day came when God sent a Jew to the nations of the world, and He had a new message, a message of complete grace. There was no favorite nation—anyone could come to God through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is something brand new.
1/ This week I want us to see the great heights of privilege that the nation Israel had, and to understand these heights, let us look at Romans 9: 4, 5 Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.
First of all, it says, Who are Israelites. That is their name. I think it would be good for us to find out how they got their name. First of all, Abraham was the first Hebrew, but Abraham was not always a Hebrew. Before his call to leave his country, Abraham was a Gentile. He was Syrian by birth, and is referred to by such in the Bible. Even, Jacob, his grandson is referred to as a Syrian.
Deuteronomy 26: 5 And thou shalt speak and say before the Lord thy God, A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous:
2/ It was in the land of his birth that God called this man, Abram, the Syrian, to go into the land of Canaan. It was only then that Abraham became a Hebrew. The first time the word, Hebrew, is ever used in Genesis 14: 13 And there came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew; for he dwelt in the plain of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and brother of Aner: and these were confederate with Abram.
And it means to cross over, and it simply means one who has come across or crossed over. And Abraham was called a Hebrew because he has come from his home in Caldea, and crossed over the river to come into the land of Canaan, and since Abraham was a Hebrew, his descendants were also called Hebrews. But Abraham was not an Israelite, nor was he a Jew. The first Israelite was Jacob, the grandson of Abraham. He was called Jacob by his mother. Then let us trace his history.
3/ Genesis 32: 24 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.
Here we have Jacob alone and wrestling with a man until the breaking of the day. Jacob had given up everything for the Lord. I think when people read this they don’t see clearly just what Jacob did. Jacob, people think, and we will use their language, they think he was a crook. They put Jacob down as the worst character in the Old Testament. But that is not true, God didn’t say so, the Bible doesn’t say that he was. Do you know of any place in the Bible where you will find anything against Jacob? Jacob went down to Syria and there he got two wives, and he worked for them. He worked for his uncle Laban. Laban truly was a crook, but not Jacob. Laban took everything away from him. He was the crook. But then the time came when Jacob had to go back to Bethel. This is the place of blessing, but between Jacob and Bethel was Esau with 400 armed men, and Esau had threatened to kill Jacob. Jacob said, I have to go to Bethel, so he took everything he had in this world, and sent it to Esau as a present to appease Esau in order that he might go to Bethel. He risked everything he had in the world, and he did it for God.
4/ Notice verse 24 Jacob was left alone and there wrestled with a man until the breaking of day, verse 26 And he said, Let me go for the day breaketh. The man was an Angel, the Lord Himself, and He said to Jacob, Let me go, but Jacob would not let Him go. Jacob said, I have hold of the Lord now and I am going to hold on. He just would not let go. The Angel said, Let me go, and Jacob said, No, not until you bless me, and He said unto him, What is thy name, and he said Jacob. He said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel.
5/ What does Israel mean? Notice Jacob’s mother called him, Jacob, but God changed Jacob’s name to Israel, which comes from three fragments of other words—ISH—meaning great, and EL, the abbreviation of Elohim, one of the names of Jesus. We then have these three fragments, Israel, literally meaning, THE GREAT MAN OF GOD, OR THE PRINCE OF GOD. The name became a nation which sprang from him. He had twelve sons called therefore, the sons of Israel, and their descendants have been known since that time by that name, the children of Israel meaning the great man of God, or the Prince of God.
6/ The name, Israel and Jacob, occur more times in the Bible than any other name, except the Name of God Himself. He was one of the great men of God, and God gave His nation this name—to be great—a great prince with God. This shows their exalted position.
7/ Romans 9: 4 Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;
Again it speaks of the glory. Israel had the glory the glory of God. Notice, I said, had. When God took Israel out of Egypt, they were covered by the cloud of glory, which they called Shekinah glory. You won’t find that anywhere else in the world. There had never been any other people in the world that God protected by His own glory, as He did Israel.
NO OTHER NATION THAT HAS EVER BEEN UPON THE FACE OF THE EARTH HAS THE GLORY OF God BY ISRAEL. THERE HAVE BEEN MANY NATIONS, THEY HAVE BUILT MANY MIGHTY TEMPLES, AND THEY HAVE HAD WORSHIP BUT NON OF THEM EVER HAD THE GLORY OF GOD.
8/ Then remember, God gave them the tabernacle in the wilderness. God gave the pattern for it, and then the day came when it was finished.
Exodus 40: 1 - 3 On the first day of the first month shalt thou set up the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation. And thou shalt put therein the ark of the testimony, and cover the ark with the vail.
Then God said, I am coming down to live among My people. I don’t know, of course, and no one knows just what the feeling was among the Israelites there in the wilderness, when they had the tabernacle all finished and brought it to Moses and the Lord told Moses to set it up. You can almost see the people standing around, Three Million of them all together, there in the wilderness. You see them standing around in great expectation. They didn’t know how the Lord was coming down. The Lord had said, when the tabernacle is set up I’ll come down. They had the cloud from the time of the Passover, when they left Egypt, God put the cloud over them—a cloud by day and a fire by night, and we are told that it never left them. They had had that much, but they had no Shekinah Glory, and I don’t think any of them could imagine what the Lord was going to do, or how He was coming down.
9/ Exodus 40: 2 On the first day of the first month shalt thou set up the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation.
On the first day of the first month. They had left Egypt in the first of the month, and God had said to them, this shall be the beginning of months to you. This was the beginning of their year, and that was the beginning of their Israelitish history, so you see, they had been on a march a year—just exactly a year. They had crossed the Red Sea, they had had manna come down from Heaven, and they were still eating it. they had seen water from the rock, they had seen Moses go up into the mountain to talk with God and get the law, they had seen the one who was to be their high priest make the golden calf, but now they were ready to set up god’s house, and notice the result when they set it up.
Exodus 40: 34 Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle. That is the answer—the glory of the Lord. This is what they had been waiting for, this is why they had built the tabernacle. God came down and from that time on they had the Shekinah Glory over the mercy seat. They had the Glory of God.
10/ II Chronicles 5: 13, 14 It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of musick, and praised the Lord, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever: that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord; So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God.
Here you have the building of Solomon’s temple. Solomon built the temple on a large scale. Instead of one laver, he built twelve, instead of building an altar the size that God gave to Moses, he built an altar about ten times as big. Everything was on a large scale, but there was one thing that he did according to God’s specification to Moses, and that was the matter of the ark of the covenant. This was 500 years later, and the ark was still in existence. The time came when Solomon, having built the temple and made it so large and so big, that he made up his mind that they would have to have the ark in place to have the blessing of the Lord.
You have the ark mentioned ten times in this Scripture, just in these few verses. Because Solomon put the ark in place behind the veil, the ark with its Cherubims where God’s presence was, God blessed him. He put the ark in place, and he gathered the people together to praise the Lord. He made much of it.
When the ark was in place, God came down and filled the temple. He filled the temple so that the priests could not minister, but the important part was they had the Glory of God. No other nation had it. They had it in the tabernacle in the wilderness, they had it in the temple. What an exalted nation!
11/ Then notice, to whom pertaineth the adoption. The adoption of Israel in the Old Testament is not our adoption. Let us understand the adoption of children as we speak of it today, generally refers to the taking in and bringing up of other people’s children. This is not so with the Bible word, adoption. For the placing of sons affects only those who are already children. So adoption means placing as sons—that is as grown-up sons.
12/ This adoption came from the life of the Hebrews. In the life of a Hebrew boy there came a time appointed by the father when the adoption proceedings took place, and the boy was declared to be the son and heir of that father. Before that time he had been a son indeed but under tutors and governors, he had been told what he must and must not do, what he may and may not do. He was on a plane with a servant at that time. But finally the time appointed arrived he was now a grown up son. It was assumed that he no longer needed overseers to keep him in check. This is true of the church—the time is coming at the second coming of Christ then we will be declared to be the full-grown sons of God. This is also going to be true of the nation Israel. God had set a time when they would be declared the full grown sons of God.
Notice, Galatians 4: 4, 5 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
Notice, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. Notice, he is talking about the nation Israel. They were under the law, and it is not difficult to see why He says we, are not they. He is not talking of Gentiles, he is talking of the Jews. In the early part of the Book of Acts, Peter offers them the adoption and the Glory, but they rejected it.
13/ The day is coming when Israel will come into the place of adoption, and it will be at the time of the resurrection, when Jesus Christ comes back again.
14/ But for a moment, let us look at this nation Israel and the Glory of God. I suppose that some of those great nations, the Babylonians, the Ninevites, the Egyptians, the Assyrians passed through the wilderness when Israel was in the wilderness, and they would say what about your worship? The Babylonians would say, You ought to see our magnificient temples and those who lived in Nineveh would say, You ought to see our mighty temples and some of the ruins are still in existence today. They were great masterpieces. Then the Jew would say, come and see what we have. And what would be shown to this Gentile? —Just a tent. It didn’t look very imposing. Just a tent in the wilderness, but over the tent, the glory of God, the glory of the everlasting God, the Shekinah glory. This is what God had given them, and it was far better than anything the Gentiles had with their mighty, magnificent temples. What a position this nation had!
15/ Notice what else it has to say, about the covenants. The great covenants God gave Israel. This world will never have any blessing except what God put in the covenants that He made with Abraham and David. Oh, what blessing for the world is in those covenants! God said to Abraham, I will make a covenant for you, and God took an oath that He would do it for Abraham. He would give Him a land and people. Then God gave David a covenant, and He also took an oath. He swore that He would not lie to David, and He said to David, I will give you a king, and a throne and a kingdom. To Abraham, He gave a land and a people to David a throne, a king, and a kingdom. All the blessings that God has for this world are all wrapped up in those covenants. God had not made a promise to bless anywhere in the world except through Abraham and David and their covenants
16/ Then it says, the giving of the law. God gave the law to Moses. All nations have law. As a matter of fact, the old Roman law is considered wonderful. Every lawyer has to study Roman law. But the Roman law is founded upon the law of Moses—this is a proven fact. This world has been making laws for centuries and when man passes a law, they pass the best law they know how to frame, and I guess that is the best they can do. The Gentiles have done that. But when God gave the law, He gave a perfect law to the nation Israel. Israel is the only one with a perfect law.
17/ Then notice, the service. This means a religious service. God gave to Israel service, and it meant a ritual. They were to have an altar, they were to have the laver, they were to have candlesticks, they were to have the golden altar, they were to have the shewbread, they were to have the ark. They were to have the Levites, that is, the priests. That was a service, and He never gave it to anyone else. Those who have rituals and rites today, how wrong they are. God never gave an altar to a Gentile. He never gave the service, the priesthood to anyone but Israel. We don’t need candles, we don’t need gowns, we don’t need an altar. All we need is the Lord Jesus Christ.
18/ You might say, Israel had a wonderful position, and that is true, but you know, I wouldn’t trade places with them. I’d rather live in this day and age and just trust the Lord Jesus Christ. You might say, the Jews have everything down here, and I’ll agree with that. You might say, they have more than church—yes, they do, physically. The Jews belong here, but we do not belong here. And one of these days, the Lord is coming to take the believers and the church, where they belong.
Someone has said, that the church is like a ship—it is built on land, but it is meant for water. The church is built on earth, but it is meant for Heaven, and it belongs up there, but the Jews are meant for this earth—they have earthly blessings. But ours are heavenly.
Ephesians 3: 1 - 4 For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, Whereby, when ye read, ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)
AMEN
Ref: 08/22/1965 / 34 - THE FALL THAT IS STILL MAKING HISTORY / 10/16/2020
No comments:
Post a Comment