Allen Jackson - God Is Watching Over Us - Part 2
When God says, pray for the peace of Jerusalem. I don't believe he means just pray for an absence of military conflict. I believe he's telling us to pray for the peace of the people in the land and their relationship between God and himself. It's a violent place. God says woe to the nations of the world that take a hand against what he's declared over that place. The nations of the world ignore that. To the north of Israel, is Syria and Lebanon.
Lebanon is occupied by a terrorist force, Hezbollah. You may have heard of them in the news. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization recognized that way globally. They are recruited, funded, and supported with military equipment by the Iranians. They're a proxy in Lebanon with tens of thousands of missiles pointed at Israel. They are poised on the border of Israel for the purpose of the destruction of Israel. Next door in Syria, the pipeline nation to Hezbollah are the Syrians engaged in a civil war. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been slaughtered, the Christians at the head of that list. They've used weapons of mass destruction on their own people multiple times.
Iraq is occupied these days predominantly by ISIS, one of the most violent expressions of terrorism we know in the world. Adjacent to Iraq is Iran, the leading international state sponsor of terrorism. They're recognized globally as the number one. They're at the head of the list in the world of the sponsors of terrorism. And the United States is actively engaged in using our authority as the world leader in ensuring that Iran secures nuclear weapons. There's a logic flaw in that. It's inexplicable, it's inexplicable. Well, we have a debate at home about whether we should limit handgun availability to common citizens. We take the most aggressive global sponsor of terrorism and do our dead level best to see that they get nuclear weapons, and the inconsistency of those two positions doesn't break into our consciousness.
While we struggle with racism and its expressions in our culture appropriately so, we have a nation on the global stage that says as soon as they can, the leaders of Iran repeatedly for many, many years has said as soon as they can, they intend to annihilate the Jewish people from the planet. It's as racist a statement as you can make. And our government aggressively leads the way in the global stage in helping them become nuclear. It's irrational. It can only be understood with spiritual motivation. And I think the Christians struggle on this point.
We'll step back into scripture and say, "Well, God watches over Israel he'll protect them". And I believe that to be true, but God doesn't do it absent the people on the ground. I've been visiting Israel since I was a boy. I went the first time in 1970. I was a very small boy. And I've been back and forth many times. The past several years we've taken tours and I've taken hundreds, thousands of people, I suppose, with me to Israel. But when I invite people to come to go to Israel, they're usually from a Christian population. Always they say the same thing to me. What do you think their first question is? "Is it safe"?
Now, that same group of people, when we do this story, they say, "Oh, God's watching over Israel. They don't have to worry. Nothing will happen to them". Until you invite them to come go with you. And then they say to me, "Well, now, wait a minute. Is it safe"? Well, wait a minute, if it's safe for the Israelis, do you not think it's safe for you? Isn't the same God watching you? We got a little inconsistency in our hearts. God is gathering the Jewish people and he's causing them to flourish in the desert, but it takes the very best they have. There are young men and women, when they graduate high school, serve in the military.
The women for two years, the guys for three. They don't stand on some distant reserve post, they stand on the front lines of some of the most violent expressions of hatred in our world. They are a nation in constant vigilance. I hear us talk about war fatigue in our nation. I understand, I know that it's appropriate. But Israel fails to exist if they don't stand in vigilance. Now, that's what's happening in the nation of Israel, or that's a brief window into it. But there's some other, there's another thing. I told you there were two things God was doing in the earth in parallel, simultaneously. He's regathering the Jewish people.
The second thing he's doing is preparing the church. Preparing the church. It's no less an expression of the power of God. It is no less supernatural. It is just as inexplicable from logical terms. The gathering of the church, this time not a group of ethnic people to a particular location on the planet, but a group of people from every race, nation, language, and tribe being bound together under the Lordship, the headship, of Jesus of Nazareth as Christ, Lord, and King. And the preparation of the church carries with it many of the characteristics of the regathering of Israel. There's a gathering. Our word for it in church world is "evangelism".
Sometimes Christians act as if that's not our business, that we shouldn't be engaged in it. Jesus said, "Go into all the world". Tell everybody the message. That's our assignment. We've perverted that into our comfort and convenience. "Well, we don't know if the church should be any larger"? Well, what should we do? Put a sign by the road, "We're full. Go to hell"? Too harsh? "We're full. It's inconvenient for us to consider you. Go elsewhere". "Well, the church is just so big". Oh, all the people are saved we care about, work it out on your own. God is gathering his people. He's given us that assignment, and he's purifying his church.
In the same way he gathered the Jewish people of the land of Israel and he's purifying their hearts, God gathers us into the church and then he begins to purify our hearts. Our involvement in church, our commitment of our lives to Jesus doesn't mean we have arrived, fully formed, fully yielded, holy little motor scooters. Quite the opposite is true, is it not? We are in process, and God is directing us, waiting for us, to fulfill our assignment. The transition video you saw a moment ago delivered to you one of Jesus's... his most lengthy prophetic discourse, that one was from Matthew 24. The same discourse is mirrored in Luke's Gospel. Luke includes a line that Matthew did not. Luke says that "Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled".
Now, in the New Testament language, Gentile means you're not Jewish, so that "Jerusalem will be trampled on by the non-Jews until the time of the non-Jews is fulfilled". Well, in 70, when the temple was destroyed, Jerusalem came under the unquestioned authority of a Gentile empire, and for 2000 years Jerusalem has been under the authority of a succession of Gentile rulers and empires. Until 1967. The Six-Day War was the first time the Jewish people had authority over the city of Jerusalem in two millennia. They very quickly gave back the Temple Mount, their Temple Mount, to the Palestinians.
You see, that the church, the Christian church, began as an almost entirely Jewish initiative. The first believers were Jewish. The first disciples were Jewish. The first apostles were Jewish. The first places that the gospel was preached and taught were in synagogues or on the temple. Our Messiah is Jewish. The first miracles, the first outpourings of the Spirit, everything that describes the beginning of the church describes it as a Jewish initiative. The day of Pentecost was predominantly for the Jewish people in the city of Jerusalem. Acts chapter 3 and 4 and 5, the whole story that's unfolding in the beginning of the church. The church is a Jewish initiative until we get to Caesarea and we're introduced to a man by the name of Cornelius, he's a Roman centurion.
Caesarea was a Jewish town built by Herod the Great, he was half Jewish, and he built Caesarea and he named it after his friend the Caesar, the emperor. And Caesarea was a pagan place, at the center of Caesarea was a temple to a Roman god, not surprising. We find they're a Roman centurion, Cornelius, but he loves God. And an angel shows up to Cornelius's says home and says, "You need to send to Jaffa. Couple days away there's a guy there by the name of Peter there and you need to hear what he has to say".
You know the story. Peter shows up at Cornelius's house and the events of the day of Pentecost, the Jewish initiative, are duplicated in pagan Caesarea in the household of the Gentiles. Should be a little bell going off in the back of your head because the next event in the book of Acts is the recruitment of a rabbi by Jesus. And he's a very zealous rabbi, he's a very aggressive rabbi, he's a very well trained rabbi, but he hates Christians. In fact, he's imprisoning men and women that dare to say Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah and he's sorting through the Jewish community looking for them because at this point Christianity is still a Jewish initiative. His name is Saul of Tarsus. He becomes the apostle Paul, and Jesus reaches down on the road of Damascus one day and grabs him by the scruff on the neck and shakes him and says, "What do you think you're doing, son"?
Living Bible, but it's there. And Saul of Tarsus becomes the apostle Paul and he's labeled in scripture as the apostle to the Gentiles, to the non-Jewish world. Why would God choose a Pharisee to be the messenger to the non-Jewish world? In Philippians, in Paul's own autobiographical information, he gives it to us. He said, "I was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, in regard to legalistic righteousness, faultless. I was a Pharisee of the Pharisees". Why would God choose him? Well, as the church began to move around the Roman world and around the Mediterranean world, the pattern was, it would usually begin with the message starting in the synagogue because the message had the greatest connection with the Jewish people.
And some would believe, and some would rebel, and they'd usually get bumped out of the synagogue and into the broader public square. But the nucleus would typically be the Jewish believers. And it was absolutely necessary to have the clarity of thought and understanding and insight that Paul's brilliant education brought to the table to protect the fledgling church from the legalism of rabbinic Judaism. And so, Paul becomes the messenger to the non-Jewish world. He's still speaking to us through his letters in the New Testament. The church began as a predominantly Jewish initiative.
For two millennia, the leadership in the Christian church has fallen in the non-Jewish world. But before the Lord returns, I believe the closing chapters in the story of the church will see again the ascendancy of the Jewish people in providing leadership in the church. But I'll tell you, one of the ways I see that emerging, when I visit Israel, and I have Israeli friends, secular Israeli friends, when they read their Bible, they don't quibble about whether the characters in the Bible existed or not like we do. When you read the book of Jeremiah, they talk about Jeremiah like he's Uncle Jerry.
How can we explain what God's doing in the church? I don't think there's any way other than God is watching over us, and he's fulfilling the same promise to Abraham. And we have, after all, been grafted in. Every blessing we have, every opportunity we have, its roots are in that same blessing to Abraham. I can tell you one thing that's ahead of us, immediately ahead of us, because it's beginning is today. There is a widening gap between the true church and the false church. I don't say that with joy or glee or delight. In direct biblical language, there's a widening gap between the bride of Christ, the church; and the harlot. It's the word the scripture uses. It's a harsh word. It's a very emotive word. It represents something more than just fault. It represents something that's unclean, impure.
The best way to be protected against deception is to know the truth. We have wrongly thought that if it's religious and it's expressed as religion that it's somehow safe. Folks, the most destructive leader the world will ever known is described to us in scripture. Be one of the most brilliant human beings that's ever been on the planet. One of the most talented gifted, able figures the world will have ever known. In fact, he'll be so remarkable that the world will gladly invite him to leadership. But he won't just do it with political astuteness, there will be a religious expression of that individual's rule. In fact, his right hand, his strong right arm, will be known as a prophet, a person of religious influence and ability, a person that will demonstrate supernatural things, the miraculous signs and wonders.
That will be the perspective that the world has on that individual. There will be religious services, religious meetings, and religious buildings. They will use the language and the words that you're familiar with. They will use the books that you're familiar with. If we didn't have the insight of the prophetic scriptures, we would be deceived and swept away. But the Bible describes that individual as the antichrist and that prophet as false. But if you don't know the truth, you'll assume that it's supernatural and it's religious. In 2 Timothy chapter 3, Paul, that same Paul I talked about a moment ago, gave us a prophetic warning.
In 2 Timothy 3, it's not in your notes but we'll get to it, I promise. He said in the last days there will be terrible times. Literally, it says "exceedingly fierce". And then he gives more than a dozen characteristics of a deteriorating human character, but his punch line is he said these people will have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof. They will deny its power. Now, in Paul's thought and writing, the power of God is inseparable from the cross of Christ. So they'll have a form of godliness, but they'll deny the centrality of the cross.
Well, what's the cross about? The cross is about "I'm a sinner and I need a Savior". The cross is about Jesus the incarnate Son of God that took away the sin of the world. A form of godliness, but they're gonna deny the necessity of the cross. They'll deny the necessity of an incarnate Son of God. The cross is about exhausting the curse of sin. The cross is about God as judge of all the earth. The cross says to us, "There aren't many paths to God because there was only one Son of God that hung on a cross". Buddha didn't. They'll have a form of godliness but deny the power of the cross because the cross is the power of God for you and me expressed on our behalf. It is the centrality of Jesus and his story that brings hope to every one of our lives.
Don't be deceived. I told you a few moments ago that the Jewish people have a right to a land, but the privilege of living in the land is connected to their relationship with the Lord, and that God brought them back to that land and he will purify them. But it's not always an easy path. Well, in the same way that God welcomes us into the church, God is committed to purifying his church. He says he's coming back for a church without spot or wrinkle. In Hebrews he said he disciplines those he loves. And if he doesn't discipline you, you're an illegitimate child. We will respond with rousing amens, and I believe that. We talk about God purifying the Jewish people, but I believe he'll purify his church as well. I believe there's still suffering ahead for the Christian church.
I know it's not a popular message. We've invented all sorts of theological perspectives that help us escape that. Someone said to me this week, we were talking about the study, and they said, "You know, I'm so grateful, but I don't like to talk about prophecy, pastor. I'm so grateful I don't have to think about that. I'm gonna get raptured out of it all". Well, I'm an advocate for the Rapture, I am. It's the timing of that thing that's in debate. Now, don't mistake me, I want out of here on the first load up. I don't want to tribulate to be right. But I also think we are guilty sometimes of crafting theologies that feed our commitment to comfort and convenience. I'm not opposed to comfort and convenience. I prefer them but I don't want to serve them.
And I think it would be very difficult to talk about a church that doesn't suffer if we talk to our brothers and sisters in Syria today, or if we drove across the border and talked to our brothers and sisters in Iraq today, or Iran or Saudi Arabia or Libya or Egypt or the Sudan or China or India or Russia or Japan or many, many, many of the places in the world. We have had a privilege of being in a nation where we have had freedom and liberty and opportunity for the gospel. God has watched over us, has protected us, has blessed us. And I believe he's done it so we could be a vibrant expression of his church to the nations of the world.
If we despise that, if we treat that shabbily, I think it's nonsense to think that we could imagine we will live under God's protection and provision. If the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob forfeited their place of convenience and comfort because of the hardness of their hearts, how do we imagine we will be different? I don't say that to bring shame or guilt. I want us to be awakened to our assignment. We have been distracted. The challenge, the problems we face are not about the strength of the wicked or the boldness of the immoral or the brazenness of the ungodly. The challenges we face are about the timidity of the church.
And if we will humble ourselves before the Lord, we have wrongly believed we could recite a prayer, perhaps be dunked in a pool of water, and then return to living our lives on our own terms with little interest in the things of God and imagine we were at peace with God, it is a deception. To be a Christ follower means you not only believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the Messiah, but you choose him as Lord. It's a priority statement. He gets first place. His agendas become your agendas. His moral perspectives become yours. His passions grow into your passions. It's not about where you sit for a few minutes on the weekend.
That doesn't anymore make you a Christ follower than my sitting in the gym makes me an Olympic athlete. Would to God it were true. And I think we have taken our freedom and our liberty and our abundance, and we have imagined that they were somehow our divine rights. We talk in that way, as if they are rights. They are gifts that have come from the hand of Almighty God. I don't expect the ungodly to understand that, but the church of Jesus Christ must understand it, or we will forfeit it. I'll finish that outline tonight, God willing. That's the introduction.
I brought you a prayer. I wanna pray it with you. If you'll stand with me. You know, laughter is a good thing. The Bible says that "a merry heart does good like a medicine, but a broken spirit who can bear". It's not disrespectful or irreverent. The joy of the Lord brings strength to our lives.
One of the things I'm most grateful for is we're people learning to pray. We've got a couple of years under our belt. We haven't mastered it yet, but God is raising up people here committed to praying. And if you're still standing, kind of, on the edge of that, wondering, I wanna invite you. Begin to say to the Lord, "Lord, I'd like to be a person of prayer. I'd like to be adept at that. I'd like to be as comfortable and familiar and at ease with prayer as whatever your favorite hobby is". It's a powerful, powerful tool in your life. Let's read this prayer together:
Heavenly Father, You are Lord of all. We pause today to listen to You. Grant us understanding hearts, eyes to perceive spiritual things and ears which can hear Your direction. In You we have safety and joy. Apart from You is only desperation. We pray for the peace of Jerusalem and for Your Church in the earth. Through our lives may Your will be done on this earth, in Jesus's name, amen.