Lesson 13 - Genesis 13

well while seed of Abraham tour class was founded on the need to study the first five books of the Bible the Torah it's also is probably the most profitable for us when we can understand the relevance the Torah has for our for believers in our day and age and we then we apply it to our lives it is said by many preachers and teachers that we today are in a very special time in history we are eyewitnesses to the age-old Bible prophecies coming to pass and they're right but to put that into perspective it is good to realize that not every generation has witnessed prophetic events coming to pass so one would think that when a prophecy of God didn't come to fruition God's people would get all excited about it yet the church and the synagogue the Earth's secular Jewish population as for the most part greeted two of the most important events in all prophetic history the rebirth of Israel is a Jewish nation and the return of the control to Jerusalem to the Jewish people sometimes with a disinterested yawn I think is primarily because first we don't know the Bible well enough to know biblical prophets prophesy let alone see it when it happens and second even if we do somewhat know the Bible we don't realize that fulfillments of prophecy don't happen every day or even every century in fact with the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD for all practical purposes the unfolding of biblically prophesied events went into hibernation for an expended extended period of time for better than eighteen centuries not a single prophetic event that is outlining the Bible came to pass oh there was a lot going on in the world in preparation for the day that God would once against the prophetic clock ticking counting down to the end of all things as we know them for almost 1,900 years God's people had nothing from which to gauge just where in Bible history we stand that's not the case for us living today however to look around us you'd think nothing out of the ordinary was happening just within this past week in June of 2015 - civilization changing events happened that we're going to look back upon in a few years maybe in just a few more months and perhaps then we'll grasp their enormity first the leader of the largest segment of Christ Church on planet Earth the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church openly and formally sided with Israel's archenemy the Palestinians and therefore equally is formally cited against Israel second one of the last bastions of Christianity in the West the United States of America formally declared gay marriage to be the law of the land there can be no more appeal nothing could be a greater affront to God the Creator than what has just happened all taking place literally in a matter of hours all I can say is pray and prepare well after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD the next prophesied event that was to occur was the return of those who had been dispersed in exile from what is called the Roman dispersion or Roman exile the Jewish people believers and non-believers kept their bags packed and waited expectantly for that return from egg probably for just a few decades following the Roman destruction of view of Jerusalem because they were outlawed from that city but the return didn't happen the Gentile Church in the Messianic Jews of the second century AD thought certainly Christ was going to return at any moment Paul certainly thought that and likewise the traditional Jews thought that the return to their homeland rebuilding of their temple was imminent didn't happen those worshiping the God of Israel and living in the third century while they were getting restless getting pretty worried about what was taking so long for God to call his people back to the Holy Land but their worries weren't put to rest in the 4th century the thoroughly Gentile lized Church of Jesus Christ was still awaiting his return the Jews of every nation to which they had emigrated wondered if if maybe the time was finally near when they could go back home as did those of the fifth the sixth the seventh the eighth centuries right on up to about the 17th century when Christianity took a fateful turn and many in the Christian of the Christian institutional leadership came to the conclusion we must have been miss reading those biblical prophecies about the return of Israel to their homeland all along much of the church concluded that Israel wasn't going to return at the least there wasn't going to be a Jewish Israel and that the Israel the Bible spoke of both the people in the land were symbolic of something else but what they decided it had to be of the Gentile Church the new mainstream beliefs that arose in which today dominate the Christian landscape began mostly in the 17th century and those police centered on the newly held conviction that Israel had been replaced by the church it was given the fancy theological name supersessionism or his laypeople are more familiar with replacement theology this new doctrine held that Israel had been thoroughly and permanently rejected by Yahweh because so many Jews had rejected God's Son and that all the promises of land and of redemption that the Hebrews had received through the covenants of Abraham and Moses this was taken away from them it was handed over to the Gentile Church that is the Gentile Church would now get all the blessings promised to Abraham those promises that we read about in the first few verses of Genesis chapter 12 but Israel on the other hand well they're gonna get all the curses that would come from disobedience to the laws of Moses well now let's fast-forward to the 20th century uh-oh the famous words of Apollo 13 houston we have a problem because in 1948 Israel did surprise the world and returned to the exact location to which they were exiled the Jewish nation was reborn just as prophesied and in 1967 the holy city of Jerusalem was returned to control the Jewish people just as predicted therefore ordained by Messiah and what's been the church's general reaction to these staggering events Oh for whew some excitement for the majority ambivalence the same replacement theological positions born from the lack of faith in God's Word by 17th century church leaders positions completely now intertwined and embedded within modern Christian doctrine is to this day what's still being taught and the overwhelming majority of churches worldwide it's as though the rebirth of national Israel and the return of their Jews to the homeland to claim their promises made to Abraham never happened Christians have been taught from early childhood to express disappointment and shake our heads knowingly those terrible Jews of Yeshua's day that had the unimaginable privilege of witnessing the arrival of the long-awaited Messiah but were then blinded to who he was by their Jewish leaders and traditions so blind that they encouraged the killing of the Son of God for claiming who he really was well today we of the church have witnessed that long awaited day when Israel would be returned from their exile reclaim their land inheritance and reborn as a nation we've watched on TV is the Israeli army defeated an alliance of five powerful Arab armies in a matter of only six days and then in 1967 and reclaimed Jerusalem as their own holy city for the first time since 70 AD the prophecy has been fulfilled in our generation the Jews are back and for the most part due to our Christian traditions the church has been utterly blind to its significance interestingly it was a little under 19 hundred years from the time God made his promises to Abraham until Messiah arrived and it was a little under 1,900 years from the day God kicked his people out of the land but promised he'd bring him back until the day they came back to claim that promise once and for all maybe we ought to take notice of that maybe we ought to understand that enormous changes are on the way very soon there are many mentions scattered throughout the Bible of these events but for me none has the impact of those spoken by that strange prophet of God zekiel Ezequiel was one of those jews taken from his home in jerusalem by nebuchadnezzar exiled to Babylon when the Babylonian Empire conquered Judah in 597 BC so Lutz detour just a little bit at the same time connect some dots between the promises made Abraham in Genesis 12 and 13 and Ezekiel's prophetic utterances of Ezekiel 36 and 37 and then how that connects to the events of our time by reading the prophetic story of the final return of the final exile of the Jewish people to their homeland a return that after an 18th century hiatus a prophetic fulfillment marks the resumption of the countdown to Armageddon and then the entry into the Millennial Kingdom of God so open your Bibles to Ezekiel chapters 36 and 37 if you have a complete Jewish Bible we're starting on page 689 we're gonna start with Ezekiel 36 and reread straight through to the end of chapter 37 now you human being prophesy to the mountains of Israel say mountains of Israel hear the message from out o9i don't I Elohim says the enemy's boasting over you ha even the ancient high places are ours now therefore prophesy say that Adonai Elohim says because they desolated you and they swallowed you up from every side so that the other nations could take possession of you and now people are gossiping about you slandering you there are four mountains of Israel here the message of Adonai Elohim this is what adonai elohim says to the mountains and the hills to the streams the valleys the desolate wastes the abandoned cities now preyed on and derided by the other surrounding nations therefore this is what a denial aim says in the heat of my jealousy I speak against the other nations and all of you don't since rejoicing with all their heart they have irrigated my land to themselves as a possession and with utter contempt seized it as prey there before prophesy concerning the Land of Israel and say this to the mountains to the hills the streams and the valleys that Adonai Elohim says this I speak in my jealousy and fury because you have endured being shamed by the nations the Air Force says Adonai Elohim I have raised my hand and I have sworn the nations surrounding you will bear their shame but you mountains of Israel you will sprout your branches you'll bear fruit for my people Israel who will soon return I am here for you I will turn toward you then you will be tilled and sown I will multiply your population all the house of Israel all of it the cities will be inhabited the ruins will be rebuilt I will multiply both the human and animal populations they'll increase and be productive I will cause you to be inhabited as you were before indeed I will do you more good than before you will know that I Matt and I I'll cause people to walk on you my people Israel they will possess you you will be their inheritance never again will you make them childless Adonai Elohim says because they say to you land you devour people and make your Nations childless therefore you will no longer devour people and you will not make your Nations childless anymore this is that an io a heme I will not permit the nations to shame you or the peoples to reproach you any longer and you will no more cause your nations to stumble says that and I owe him the word of a dime came to me human being when the house of Israel lived in their own land they defiled it by the manner of their lives and their actions their way before me was like the uncleanness of Nita therefore I poured out my fury on them because of the blood they had shed in the land because they defiled it with their idols i scattered them among the nation's i dispersed them throughout the countries i judged them in keeping with the manor of life and actions and when they came to the nations they were going to they profaned my holy name so the people said of them these are a denies people who have been exiled from his land but I'm concerned about my Holy Name which the house of Israel is profaning among the nations where they've gone therefore tell the house of Israel that Adonai Elohim says this I'm not going to do this for your sake house of Israel but for the sake of my Holy Name which you've been profaning among the nations where you went I will set apart my great name to be regarded as holy since it's been profaned in the nations profane you profaned it among them the nations will know that I'm at a nice is at an IO ahim when before their eyes I am set apart through you to be regarded as holy for all take you from among the nations gather you from all the countries and return you to your own soil there I will sprinkle clean water on you you'll be clean I will cleanse you from all your uncleanness from all your idols I'll give you a new heart I'll put a new spirit inside of you I'll take that stony heart of flesh out of your flesh and give you give you a heart of flesh I'll put my spirit inside you cause you to live by my laws respect my rulings and obey them you will live in the land I gave to your ancestors you will be my people I will be your God I will save you from all your uncleanness I will summon Grainne and increase it not send famine against you I will multiply the yield of fruit from the trees and increase mult production in the fields so that you never again suffer the reproach of famine among the nations then you will remember your evil ways in your actions that were not good and as you look at yourselves you will loathe yourselves for your guilt your disgusting practices understand says that in i-i'm I'm not doing this for your sake instead be shamed be just made by your ways house of Israel Adonai Elohim says when that day comes for me to cleanse you from all your guilt I'll cause the cities to be inhabited in the ruins to be rebuilt the land that was desolate will be tilled whereas formerly it laid desolate for all passing by the sea and then they'll say the land that used to be desolate has become like GaN Eden and the cities formerly ruined and abandoned of wasted have been fortified under inhabited then the nations around you that remain will know that I out and I have rebuilt the ruins that replanted what I have abandoned I had and I have spoken I will do it Adonai Elohim says in addition I will let the house of Israel pray to me to do this for them to increase their numbers like sheep like flocks of sheep for sacrifices like the flocks of sheep and Jerusalem at its designated times and this degree will the ruined cities be filled with flocks of people then they will know that I'm at a nine chapter 37 with the hand of Adonai upon me ad and I carried me out by his Spirit and sent me down in the middle of the valley it was full of bones and he had me passed by all around them there were so many bones lying in the valley they were so dry and he asked me human being can these bones live and I answered Adonai Elohim only you know that and then he said to me prophesy these bones and say to them dry bones hear what adonai has to say to these bones Adonai Elohim says I will make breath enter you and you will live I will attach ligaments to you make flesh grow on you cover you with skin put breath in you you will live you will know that I'm at and I so I prophesied as ordered and while I was prophesying there was a noise rattling sound it was the bones coming together each bone in his proper place and as I watched ligaments grew on them flesh appeared skin covered them but there was no breath in them and next he said to me prophesy to the breath prophesy human beings say to the breath that adonai elohim has come from the four winds breathe breathe on these slain so they can live so i prophesied as ordered the breath and came into them they were alive and they stood up on their feet a huge army and then he said to me human being these bones are the whole house of israel and they are saying our bones have dried up our hope is gone we're completely cut off therefore prophesy and say to them what adonai elohim says my people i will open up your graves and make you get up out of your graves i'll bring you into the land of israel then you'll know that i am at an eye when i have opened up your graves and made you get out of your graves my people i will put my spirit in you you will be alive then i will place you in your own land and you will know that i out and i have spoken and that i have done it this is that and i the word of that and i came to me you human being take one stick and write on it for Judah for those joined with him among the people of Israel next take another stick and write on it for Joseph the stick of Ephraim and all the house of Israel who are joined with him now finally bring them together and do a single stick so they become one in your hand and when your people ask you what all of this means tell them that I don't know Elohim says this I'll take the stick of Joseph which is in the hand of Ephraim together with the tribes of Israel who are joined with him put them together with the stick of Judah and make them a single stick so they'll become one in my hand and the sticks on which you write are to be in your hand as they watch and then say to them that Adonai Elohim says I will take the people of Israel from among the nations where they've gone and gather them from every side and bring them back to their own land I will make them one nation in the land on the mountains of Israel and one King will be king for all of them they will no longer be two nations they will never again be divided into two kingdoms they will never again defile themselves with their idols their detestable things or any of their transgressions but I will save them from all the places where they've been living and sitting I will cleanse them so that they will be my people I will be their God my servant David will be king over them all of them will have one shepherd they'll live by my ruling z-- and keep and observe my regulations they will live in the land I gave to Jacob my servant where your ancestors lived they will live there they their children and their grandchildren forever and David my servant will be their leader forever I'll make a covenant a peace with them and everlasting covenant I will give to them and increase their numbers and set my sanctuary among them forever my home will be with them I will be their God they will be my people the nations will know that I am at and I who sits Israel apart as Holy when my sanctuary is with them forever Wow I wish George Lucas or Steven spielberger to make a movie about that the first point I want to make is that this event talked about in Ezekiel is not about the return of the Jews from Babylon and since the study of these two chapters of Ezekiel could be a couple of weeks in itself I'm just going to point out a couple of important keys to understanding these verses first and foremost is the important meaning of the term the whole house of Israel also at times translated as both houses of Israel or even just all Israel now the words of Ezekiel were written over a span of about twenty-five years being beginning around the time Babylon conquered Judah in 597 BC the part we're looking at was written in the later years you need to know that about a hundred and thirty years earlier the Hebrews were a divided nation a ten tribe Confederacy lived in the northern area of the holy lands while a two tribe group lived in the south in fact the northern area was a kingdom all its own separate apart from the southern area each ruled by its own Kings I want to be very clear the unified Kingdom of Israel existed for only eighty years that's all and it was ruled over by David and then Solomon then it became divided by means of a civil war after the division the northern area went by several different names the Northern Kingdom the Kingdom of Israel some documents even refer to it as the kingdom of Joseph but for the most part as was typical for that era it was called after the name of the tribe that was dominant in the region just as a knowledge acknowledged here in Ezekiel the tribe of Ephraim from about 900 BC to the time of Ezekiel about 590 BC the northern region was known to its inhabitants as the kingdom of Ephraim a name that most believers aren't familiar with Ephraim son of Joseph was a grandson of Jacob Ephraim was adopted away from his father Joseph by Jacob then Ephraim was given a great prophetic blessing the southern kingdom however is more familiar to us it's called Judah in Bible speak the northern kingdom was called also called the house of Israel or the house of Ephraim the southern kingdom called the house of Judah these two houses the house of Ephraim the house of Judah together make up what the Bible calls the whole house of Israel yet almost all Bibles will instead of saying house of Ephraim say house of Israel which is confusing indeed house of Israel was a term used for a few years immediately following the Civil War to denote the northern kingdom but that name quickly fell out of use the point is that until and just last decade or so only one of the two houses of Israel has returned to their homeland Judah Judah is made up of what we today called Jews that another house of Israel the one that's comprised of ten of the twelve tribes of Israel was not recognized by a modern Israel for who they are and they were generally prohibited from coming home all that has changed and their remnants of the Ten Lost Tribes are returning an ever-increasing flow and an ever-increasing increasing flow as I speak and I've personally witnessed some of the new arrivals as they arrived at ben-gurion airport the part of Ezekiel 37 where he's talking about the two sticks one for Ephraim one for Judah being put back together as referring to the time when both of the houses of Israel will return to the Holy Lands and be reunited but until very recently only one house the house of Judah the Jews had come back the common question is well isn't Ezekiel really about the return of the Jews from there babbling Babylonian exile no no it's not because that exile was only the Exile of Judah the other house of it Israel Ephraim had long ago been conquered by Assyria the people were deported they were scattered throughout the hundred and twenty nations that formed the Assyrian Empire that event happen almost one and a half centuries earlier than Ezekiel's time and basically the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom had ceased to exist as an identifiable people in other words the events spoken about in Ezekiel 36 and 37 could not have been about the return from Babylon but it had to come later yet the return of Ephraim is happening right now in March of 2005 the Israeli government officially sanctioned the return to the holy lands of people who say they're not Jews but they are Israel that is these Hebrew people seeking to emigrate to Israel are some of those long lost ten tribes of Israel the other house of Israel Ephraim once more if we're to understand prophecy and the events of our times in their proper perspective we must also grasp that the Jews are only of the tribe or kingdom of Judah the least speaking of heredity which basically represents just two tribes Benjamin and Judah Ephraim represents the other ten tribes who long assumed to be lost and unidentifiable and they're not Jews although some of them have converted to Judaism but they are certainly Israelites and they are Hebrews so the events that we just read about in Ezekiel 36 and 32nd are invisible process today if so why doesn't the church pay any attention into this today the church is in the throes of a rather severe internal debate over the land that the Jews have returned to Israel and in which Ephraim is also now coming back it is the consequences of that argument that is going to someday throw the entire world into a final war which is what the following chapters of Ezekiel would take us into if we were to keep on reading now some believers may want to argue as to the precise boundaries of the land that God gave to Abraham for all time but please hear me at the very least it includes every inch of the land that Israel has today and the land that the Palestinians claim is theirs you see the area in which Abraham stood at the moment God made him that promise and said to Abraham this is the land Abraham I'm giving to you and your descendants is right in the heart guess where of the West Bank or in the most ridiculous possible term the occupied territory that drives me nuts it's occupied not occupied by the people that ought to have it the Jews I cannot begin to tell you the downright sense of dread I have for America every time I hear our president or our Secretary of State talk about severing the West Bank from the possession of Israel through tremendous political pressure and then giving that land to the Palestinians is their sovereign nation what do you think the two-state solution is all about we don't we even have a large coalition of churches demanding the very same thing born out of a doctrine of love tolerance fairness and mercy for the Arabs and for the Palestinians this past week the United Church of Christ voted to boycott and sanction Israel and to stand with the Palestinians be aware this land in question is precisely the land God gave to Abraham and set aside for his descendants for all time God has warned those that come against Abraham's descendants those who curse Abraham God himself will come against and he will judge them in Wrath in other words they will be cursed in return every indication biblically is that indeed somebody has gonna force upon Israel the decision to surrender surrender a portion of that land that is at the center of the Abrahamic covenant the very place Abraham was standing when God said this is yours at the moment sadly it looks like it's going to be the United States government who will enforce the so-called two-state solution and the peace that the world longs for in our time is going to happen for a very brief time but the problem is that peace with the world automatically means war with God you see God's pattern of dividing separating and electing has never ended in the 21st century we are living in one of those defining and dividing moments of this God principle and part of that dividing and separating process God is bringing about is a response to one single question where do you stand on Israel where do you stand on Israel that's the question for our age and you'd like it or not we have to choose one side or the other we can choose to obey God and honor his covenants and to have peace with him or we can stand with the world the Roman Catholic Church has just chosen to stand with the world against Israel standing with Israel is standing with God not standing with Israel's enemies is standing with the world therefore against God the die has been cast it's done it happened in June of 2015 mark this on your calendars well let's finish up chapter 13 of Genesis now by rereading verses 14 through 18 so turn your Bible to Genesis chapter 13 place Genesis chapter 13 and we're just going to read a few verses it's on page 12 if you have a complete Jewish Bible verses 14 through 18 Auto and I said to offer him afterload had moved away from him look all around you from where you are to the north to the south the east and the west all the land you see I give to you and your descendants forever I will make your descendants as numerous as the specks of dust on the earth so that if a person can count the specks of dust on the earth then your descendants can be counted get up walk through the length and the breadth of the land because I will give it to you Avram moved his tent and he came to live by the coax of Mamre which are in Hebron there he built an altar to Adonai but now that I've demonstrated to you that the words of these verses are still in effect and will be until the end of the age on I really hope you can see the importance of them the land God showed Abraham is to be unconditionally Israel's forever where exactly was Avram when he stood looking around in every compass direction and all that he saw was to belong to him and his descendants the Genesis her phone places him precisely at remote Hut's or Vermont means high place which is about five miles north east of Bethel it is the highest spot in central Israel with an altitude of almost 3,300 feet from this spot even today you can see the Mediterranean Sea to the west eastward well into the modern-day city a modern day Kingdom rather of Jordan you see a long way from up there I can only imagine how clear it was back then verse 17 goes on to say Abraham was to walk the length and the breadth of the land because God gave it to him what does that mean exactly walk the length and breadth of land was he just literally to stop what he was doing and go on a trip to visit Erie every area of the land is that put that man or was this just symbolic of something maybe it's just a Hebrew idiom the Targum Gahanna tun targum Jonathan which is an early Hebrew commentary says that what was happening was that Abraham was doing doing Hezekiah Hezekiah Hezekiah was a widespread legal custom of that era it was established well before this time is used throughout the various tribes and peoples of the Middle East it was known by the Egyptians it was known by the Hittites and it's tested too in their ancient records which we have the concept was when a piece of property is acquired the new owner is to walk the perimeter of the entire property this was symbolic if you would of marking his territory not until the new owner had done this was the transfer complete and the boundaries officially established he had to walk the perimeter of the land some cultures even required the king or the ruler to walk the perimeter of his kingdom from time to time to re-establish his sovereignty over that territory why would God make Abraham do this I summarized surmise it was for ham sake and for the sake of the many who likely asked why are you doing Kazakh I have no doubt that Abraham did not make friends as a result of this well-recognized procedure because within the outline of the territory he marked with his steps were many already established kingdoms and city-states and I suspect they weren't too pleased by this foreigners symbolic declaration he was taking ownership of all of this land but there's another reason to do this as well we're going to see all throughout the Torah the remainder of the Old Testament and the entire Bible in general that when human governmental systems existed God tends to allow people involved to use the laws and ordinances and customs of their system when land transactions and contracts happen Abraham would have been completely familiar with the reason the Lord was telling him to go and walk the land because that's how things were done in fact it probably would have been very disquieting leaving much in doubt for Abraham if God hadn't ordered that to happen it would have been as though we went in to buy a car we filled out all the paperwork we laid a check on the table and the dealer says ah no need for you to I to sign anything just take the car and go we'll just take each other's word for it uh-huh we would feel pretty uncomfortable doing something like that because it's just not customary in our society normally all parties sign paperwork to make the transaction legal signing the paperwork finishes the process of transferring the ownership of the car from the dealer to you same thing here with Abraham by every legal custom of that day walking the perimeter of the land legally identified the land in question and it completed the transfer of the property thereby leaving both property both oh sorry both parties the sense of legal closure on this matter well this chapter ends with Abraham moving to Hebron and building an altar they're building altar was customary to declare one's God or one God's authority over that territory that's what Abraham was doing he says this territory belongs to you home a God of Israel will move on to Genesis 14 next time would you please rise you see yes you

Channel: Torah Class

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Keywords: Genesis, Book of Genesis, Bible, Bible study, Old Testament, Free online Bible study, Torah, Torah Class, Torah study, Tom Bradford, Genesis chapter 13, Hebrew Roots, Messianic, Ezekiel, Book of Ezekiel, Ezekiel chapter 36, Israel, Jerusalem, Whole house of Israel, 2 houses of Israel, Ephraim, House of Ephraim, Judah, House of Judah, 2 sticks, northern kingdom, southern kingdom, Abraham, Hebron, Ezekiel chapter 37

Id: qNuAtdaqYlA

Length: 44min 13sec (2653 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 26 2016