David Jeremiah Explains God's Eternal Covenant with Abraham at Proclaim 18

and I are happy to be here for this historic occasion honoring the nation of Israel listening to everything that I have heard tonight I wonder if I am NOT the missing link in bringing these two entities together I am a conservative Southern Baptist preacher and my name is David Paul Jeremiah 740 years before the birth of Jesus Isaiah wrote these words who has heard such a thing who has seen such things shall the earth be made to give birth in one day or shall a nation be born at once as we gather here tonight Israel is about to celebrate her 70th anniversary as a nation and what amazes many people is that in those seven decades this tiny nation with a population of 8.5 million people has become the geopolitical center of the world why is this so why is this fledgling country with a total land space that is smaller than New Jersey mentioned in the nightly news more than any other nation except the United States for answers to that we do not turn to the nightly news or the daily newspaper we turn to the Bible and you have not gone far into the Bible before you discover that something very unique is going on the story of Israel begins at the very beginning it is in the very proportion of the coverage with which the book of Genesis tells its story only two chapters are given to the whole story of creation one chapter records the fall of man 8 chapters cover the thousands of years from creation to the time of Abraham and then 38 chapters deal with the life stories of Abraham Isaac and Jacob the progenitors of the Jewish race apparently God finds Abraham and the Jewish people to be of enormous importance the Almighty God of heaven and earth made a binding covenant with Abraham it's been referred to on occasion this evening what I would like to read it in its totality and I'd like for you to follow along as we put the words on the screen now the Lord had said to Abraham get out of your country from your family from your father's house to a land that I will show you I will make you a great nation I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed notice that God's covenant with Abraham consists of four unconditional promises first God promised to bless Abraham and that promise has been lavishly kept Abraham has been blessed in many ways for thousands of years the very name of Abraham has been revered by Jews Christians and Muslims a significant portion of the world's population but Abraham has also been blessed through the gifts God gave to his descendants the Jews that point is dramatically illustrated in so many ways but I've chosen just one it is illustrated by the disproportionate number of Nobel Prizes awarded to the Jewish people from 1901 to 2017 approximately 900 Nobel Prizes have been given to individuals in recognition of significant contributions to mankind of that total at least 195 have been awarded to Jews of the seven point six billion inhabitants of the world about 15 million are Jewish less than one-quarter of 1% of the total world population that meniscal percentage of the population has won 22 percent of all the Nobel prizes awarded to date it's an amazing thing especially when you see it graphically the Israelis like to tell a joke about a Jew who began to read only Arab newspapers a puzzled friend asked him one day why he said well I read all the Israeli papers and all I find is bad news about us how we are vulnerable to terrorism and attack problems with Palestinian settlements political turmoil growing isolation but the Arab papers tell nothing but good news about us they constantly claim we're all rich successful and that we rule the world these Arab newspapers may see Israel's wealth as material corruption but they are spot on in terms of how God has blessed this nation did you know that the Tel Aviv stock market lists 616 companies meaning that Israel has one public company for every 12,500 citizens that might not mean anything to you but America has one public company for every 47,000 citizens and for a nation of just over eight million people Israel generates about 500 startups every year more than every other country in the world except the United States by comparison the entire continent of Europe with a population of some 700 mm people produces only 600 to 700 startup companies each year Israel produces 500 Israel is the home to many billionaires and millionaires it is a land that has richly been blessed the prosperity of today's Israel is beyond question God has blessed this nation you cannot go there you cannot ride through the nation you cannot see what has happened there especially if you have any kind of perspective of having gone there earlier and then going back later it's almost like how could all of this have happened in just such a short time God's promised to bless Israel has been without question fulfilled and God promised to bring out of Abraham a great nation currently nearly 6.4 million Jews live in Israel another 6 million live in the United States and there's a significant Jewish population that remains scattered throughout the world add to these present figures all the descendants of Abraham who have lived throughout history and what you have is uncountable and it's in its a promise that God has fulfilled they are as numerous as the nighttime stars and God promised to make Abraham a blessing to many that promise has been spectacularly kept just think of what the world would be without the Jews without them we would have no Bible without them we would have no Jesus without the Jewish Jesus there would be no Christianity without the Jews there would be no Ten Commandments the law that has largely been the basis of jurisprudence and statutory proceedings among most of the civilized nations of the world and God forth promised to bless those who blessed Israel and curse those who curse to her and he has kept that promise faithfully no nation in history has blessed Israel like the United States of America and no nation has been as blessed as the United States of America to this day the issue of who controls this land called the promised land is most volatile in international politics but we who know the Bible stand back and we don't worry because we know the right to the promised lands already been determined by the only one who has the authority to determine it the land is called holy it's the holy land because it belongs to God and the Bible tells us that the earth is the Lord's to do with as he wills in his covenant with Abraham God designated who would control this land he gave it to Abraham and his descendants the people of Israel and the Bible tells us that his choice of Israel had nothing to do with Israel's merit in fact if you read the scriptures carefully the Bible goes out of its way to demonstrate that it was not because Israel was more numerous than other people in the world for she was the very least according to Deuteronomy 7 7 it was not because Israel is more sensitive to God than other nations although God called her by name Israel did not know God Isaiah 45 4 it was not because Israel was more righteous than other nations when God confirmed his promise to the Jews he reminded them that they were a rebellious stiff-necked people so if God chose to bless the nation of Israel not because she was more populous or more spiritual responsive or more righteous why did he choose the Jews why did he choose them and before I give you the answer I want to tell you a story for the last thirty years Donn and I have had the joy of taking people to Israel on tours our last trip was in April of 2016 and we had about 700 people with us for all of you who go to Israel that translates into 14 busloads of people circulating around that little land when we were in the process of going there and after we arrived I was told that there weren't any hotels large enough to take care of our whole group in the Galilee area and then they told me that some of us including Donna and I would be staying in a city called Hertz Aliyah and the rest would be staying in Tiberias all well and good but then they told me that the distance between the two cities was 80 miles and that I had to speak to both groups on the first night I wasn't sure how I was going to do that but I was told that we would drive from Hertz Aliyah up to Tiberias where I would speak to the people there and then we would get on a helicopter and fly back to Herzliya to address the people there now I'm a pretty brave dude and I don't have a spirit of fear but I'm gonna tell you when you go to Israel you think about life a bit differently than when you stay here I used to have a guy come and talk to our people about going Israel and try to comfort them about that and his punchline was it's as close to heaven from Israel as it is from the United States now I'm not really sure that helped any of us but when you go to Israel there's a sense that it's a different situation I've never felt afraid I've always felt very safe there I mean everywhere you look somebody's ready to take somebody out if they don't do right but flying over Israel at night in a helicopter well we drove to Tiberias we did our event there and then three of us Steve dick myself Charles Billingsley headed toward what I thought was the airport but I didn't see any signs of any airport anywhere we drove in fact we didn't stay on the paved roads we were bumping around and I'm wondering what world are we doing and what if I agreed to do here there was no sight of any helicopter and then the driver said see over in the corner I looked over in the corner of this field and I could see a penlight being held up and there was a helicopter sitting in the corner of this field and that was our ride back - herzliya and my heart started to pound we got out of the car and walked toward the helicopter and the pilot walked over and he said to me are you David Jeremiah and I said yes sir you sit in front he said oh come on man what what are you talking about I got in the front there were still no lights there were no lights on the helicopter until we were airborne and then the lights did come on and what happened in the next thirty minutes I will never forget when we flew over Israel at 1,200 feet and saw the holy land from God's perspective and I remembered this verse that answers the question I posed a few moments ago from the book that K Arthur told me she's been reading lately the book of Deuteronomy a land the Land of Israel for which the Lord your God cares the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year the answer to the question why did God choose the Jews is that it was his sovereign purpose to do it his sovereign purpose means he cares what happens to the people and to their land he is not merely a passive observer he didn't just make the decision and then go do something else the Bible says every day every hour of every day over the entire surface of the land of Israel Almighty God is watching some have suggested that the promise that God made of land to Abraham's descendants is not to be taken literally I hear a lot of that these days they say it's merely a symbol that indicates a general blessing some people say his promise of land is simply the promise of heaven but the Bible is way too specific to let us get by with any such vagueness the Bible describes the land in definite terms and it outlines it with clear geographical boundaries dr. John Wahlberg said this when he wrote these words he said the term land use in the Bible means exactly what it says it's not talking about heaven it is talking about a piece of real estate in the Middle East and then Wofford who's not really funny but once in a while says something or other humorous he said if all God was promising Abraham was heaven he should have stayed in earthly caddies why go on this long journey why be a pilgrim and a wanderer no God didn't say it was heaven he said it was a land and the land promised to Abraham takes in much more area than the present nation of Israel occupies when I show them this little this little slide that I'm going to show people y'all tonight people are always surprised Israel everybody's fighting over where it gets to control Israel if they only knew how much land God really gave Israel they probably maybe leave them alone and hope they don't get stirred up and go take some more land that they own but look at this slide notice on this slide the little sliver of Israel and the outline of all of the land Genesis 17 says this way I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you and I will give you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger all the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession and I will be your God in this remarkable prophecy God promised Abraham and his descendants the land of Canaan as their possession in perpetuity when you look at the map and locate that tiny strip of land Israel now claims as hers you can see that she does not now nor has she ever fully occupied the land that was described to Abraham in God's covenant prom if Israel were currently occupying all the land promised to her she would control all the holdings of present-day Israel Lebanon the West Bank of Jordan and substantial portions of Syria Iraq Saudi Arabia and that will never happen until a millennium but one day Israel will occupy all the land that the Lord God has given her and the king himself will be in charge whenever you talk about Israel and the Jewish people you always are on miracle ground everything about this is miraculous Jerry Fraser who's written a lot in the area of prophecy once wrote he said you can't find the ancient neighbors of the Jews anywhere have you ever met a Moabite do you know any Hittites are there any tours to visit the ammonites can you find the postal code of a single Edomite no these ancient peoples disappeared from history and from the face of the earth yet the Jews just as God promised returned to their land and today we see this prophecy being fulfilled right before our eyes fact back in 2006 for the first time in nineteen hundred years Israel became home to the largest Jewish community in the world surpassing the Jewish population in the United States from the meager six hundred and fifty thousand who returned when the Jewish state was founded in 1948 the Jewish population of Israel has swelled to approximately 6.4 million God's promise and the prophecies of his word are overwhelmingly challenging us to place Israel in the center of our prayers of our purposes and of our protection before I say my final word tonight I want to tell you a story about another mirror in Israel that most people I do not know about in fact I'll have to honestly tell you I didn't know about this until I took my last trip to Israel in 2016 my wife was told by her friend I think Ruth Vic told her this that there was us there was a street in Jerusalem where there was good shopping and we Steve and I have learned to be very sensitive to those terms when they come up so we listened and the name of the street was Ben Yehuda Street I had never been there but I'd agreed to go so I went to Ben Yehuda Street and when I go on a shopping tour my main thing is to find a place to sit down and wait till it's over so I was seated there and and I looked up at that Street and I thought I wonder who in the world Ben Yehuda is I mean what did he do how did he get his name on a street sign in downtown Jerusalem and so I asked one of the tour guides who was with us and he said look I'll bring you a book tonight you can read about it so he did he brought me a book on Eliezer ben-yehuda I became interested in this story because I saw a sign and this book captured my attention I couldn't put it down it read like a modern-day novel or mystery the book was written by a man named st. John and in this book he tells the story of this remarkable man Saint John said that this was a story of a man who made enemies of his best friends who went to prison for his beliefs was always on the verge of death from tuberculosis yet fathered eleven children gathered the material for a 16 volume dictionary unlike any other fill illogical work ever conceived and he died while he was working on the word soul ben-yehuda devoted his life to the restoration of the Hebrew language to the Jewish people everyone who knows about the stability of Israel today knows it's wrapped up in two things not just the land but the and the language for 41 years Eliezer ben-yehuda live for nothing else every morning he got up with only one purpose and that is to discover another Hebrew word that have been lost and recover it for his dictionaries that he was creating the story of his total dedication in accomplishing his vision is the definition of the word endurance because of him the Jewish people no longer speak 150 languages their national tongue is an unbroken circle the national language of the State of Israel is Hebrew when he started to work on this project it was during the Ottoman Empire and he was public enemy number one he spent many years in jail and at that time Hebrew was spoken only in religious contexts it had not been used in daily life for 2,000 years but he lived to see the day when virtually every Jew in his country wrote on their census form under mother tongue the word Hebrew he lived to see the day when Hebrew was the language of the courts the theatres of business society and public affairs and during the 41 years he had struggled to bring this about he had often been called a fool and a fanatic after his death a eulogist added one word to that epitaph and this is what it read here lies Eliezer ben-yehuda faithful fanatic I remember when I read that not having anything to do with this language I just thought that would be a pretty cool goal to have for your life to be a faithful fanatic and I never realized that what he did was connected to a prophecy until one day I was reading in the minor prophet of Zephaniah and this is what I read for then I will restore to the people a pure language that they all may call on the name of the Lord to serve him with one Accord God used that faithful fanatic to become the fulfillment of Zephaniah prophecy so today when you go to Israel yes there's a beautiful land there but when you go to Israel you just listen carefully you'll hear people speaking the beautiful language we call Hebrew it's taken me a long time to appreciate that because I took Hebrew and Seminary and it's about killing me but Hebrew in Israel is different than Hebrew in seminary Hebrew in Israel is the beautiful language of the people of God what a what a thrill it is for us to gather here in this place and hold up this nation this prophetic nation this god-breathed nation with our prayers and our support I'm honored to be a part of the NRB as we stand together with our friends in Israel let's stand together shall we father God we thank you for the history of redemption we thank you that we have this book we call the Bible which tells the story of your love for us and Lord the gospel which you tell us is to the Jew first and then to the Gentile we thank you for all the work that is being done in that nation and we thank you for the many men that I have met and others have met who not only our faithful Jews but there are faithful teachers of the Word of God and they pastor evangelical churches most of them not very large but faithfully week after week they declare to the people of that land that the Messiah has come and that he is available to all who will receive him tonight we pray for the Peace of Jerusalem we pray for the progress of the gospel in Jerusalem we pray for the protection of this nation and we thank you for the major things that have happened in recent days to strengthen the ties between our two nations and may the God who has blessed this land helped us to understand that our blessing is conditioned upon how we treat that little sliver of a nation about which we have spoken tonight and so we pray Lord God that you will bless Israel and you will bless america and bless us tonight as we think these thoughts and we pray in the matchless name of our redeemer and savior and coming Messiah the Lord Jesus Christ amen [Applause]

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Length: 27min 3sec (1623 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 14 2018