Tonight at 6:00 PM, we continue our study of Israel and God’s purposes, or as we have titled it, “What’s so special about Israel?”

God made four unconditional and eternal covenants with Israel, and while each covenant was a further development of the one before it, each covenant also brought its own, unique blessings to the Hebrews, i.e., the Land, the Seed, the Blessings, and the Holy Spirit. The ‘seed’ represents not only the Messiah, but also Israel who will one day occupy all the land she has been promised, and the blessings are the spiritual gifts that are also available to all believers. So, it is through these four covenants that all of God’s blessings are mediated.

Because of this, the blessings which were contained in the covenants are also available to Gentiles, but only because of our relationship with Israel, for, in effect, the Church was grafted into the Olive Tree, which is the symbol of God’s blessings upon Israel. Therefore, rather than having replaced Israel as the benefactor of God’s blessings, the Church is being blessed through Israel.

Sunday evening, at 6:00 PM, we will continue our sermon series, “Follow the Lamb,” tracing the types, examples, and illustrations of the Lamb of God in the Old Testament. In our next sermon, we will focus on the “Ark of Salvation,” as found in Genesis 7:1-24. 

While more than 7 billion people were drowned in that worldwide flood, the eight people who were in God’s Ark were saved. You see, it wasn’t Noah’s Ark, it was God’s Ark, because Noah built it according to God’s divine blueprint! Salvation from God’s judgment was given to those few who were in the Ark of God. Therefore, the Ark is a picture; a type of the Lamb of God.

Every born-again believer is engaged in a cosmic spiritual war. This war began in the Garden of Eden when Satan rebelled against God’s authority and led Adam and Eve to do the same. It will not end until Jesus casts Satan into the bottomless pit of hell, where he and his fellow rebels will live forever.
The Bible is a narrative of this cosmic struggle between God and Satan, good and evil, light and darkness, righteousness and sin, the kingdom of God, and the kingdoms of this world. This spiritual warfare is manifested today in the battle for control of the world, in the desire for positions of power in our nation, in the growing apostasy of our churches, in the breakup of our marriages and families, and in the moral depravity of individual lives. We will explain this further in our introductory sermon for this new series on Spiritual Warfare. Sunday’s sermon is entitled, “Know Your Enemy.”

Tonight, we continue our sermon series, “Follow the Lamb,” tracing the types and examples of the Lamb of God in the Old Testament. In tonight’s sermon, we start on that day when John the Baptist pointed his crowd to Jesus of Nazareth and said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

Certainly, every person on the bank of the Jordan River knew what it meant to sacrifice an innocent lamb as a substitute for their sins. But John said the daily and annual sacrifices they had shared for hundreds of years all pointed to the day when the one, perfect, all-sufficient sacrifice would be made for all men. That’s why John said we should “behold” this man, for He was sent from God to pay the debt of our sins.

Just as God brought Israel out of Egyptian slavery by His mighty power, God has brought us out of our spiritual slavery to this sinful world through the powerful blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus established “The Lord’s Supper” to remind us to be thankful for His sacrificial death for our sins.

The Unleavened Bread symbolized His body that would suffer for our sins – Isaiah 53:1-11
The Red Wine symbolized His blood as the only agent that could cleanse us of our sins – 1 Peter 1:18-21

In 1 Corinthians 11:26, the Apostle Paul said, “For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord’s death till He comes.”

We will explain and observe “The Lord’s Supper” in our sermon on August 27; “This Do, in Remembrance of Me.” 

Hardly a day goes by without some major news event being reported from the nation of Israel, and especially from the Old City of Jerusalem.
Beloved, when we want to determine where we are on God’s timeline in terms of the Last Days, we need look no further than God’s timepiece and the epicenter of prophecy: Israel and even more specifically, Jerusalem.
We will continue our study tonight as we look at the eight blessings God gave Israel years ago, including the covenants, and how they are being fulfilled in our day. As you prepare your hearts and minds for this study, ask yourself this question: If God did not keep His promises to Israel, on what basis could we be sure He would keep His Promises to us?

On the last day of my first trip to Israel in 1998, the group had gathered in the ruins of the Church on the Road to Emmaus. Only as God could have designed it, I was asked to read Luke 24:13-35, where Jesus finally revealed Himself to the two men with whom he had been talking for hours. These men, two of Jesus’ disciples, were depressed and discouraged at what they had seen happen to Jesus, the man they had hoped would lead a revolution against the Romans and return Israel to its former glory. However, they had seen Him beaten, crucified, and buried in a tomb, and they were on their journey back home, sad, dejected, and without hope.
But then, in Luke 24:25-27, Jesus said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.”
For some reason, that last verse seemed to jump off the page, and when I returned home, I began to trace the steps of Jesus – the Lamb of God – from Genesis to Revelation, and for the next few years, I preached over 150 sermons entitled, “Follow the Lamb!” We will introduce this updated sermon series on Sunday night, August 20, at 6:00 PM. This first sermon title is “God Reveals Himself to Man.”

Salvation is by grace alone through our faith alone and in Christ alone. But when God saves us, He imparts to us a measure of His grace, as well as the power of the Holy Spirit, and He begins to change us from the inside out. In the third chapter of John’s gospel, the Apostle said the change was so transformative, so-life changing, it is as though we were “born again.” And, while it may take a lifetime for His work in us is accomplished, there will be some immediate changes in the way we live.
We will explain this further in our sermon as we look at “The Essential Evidences of Saving Faith.”

The Bible is primarily a history book of the Jewish people from Abraham to the Millennial Kingdom.
• The scriptures that document the events of the past are called “history,” and the scriptures that describe the events of the future are called “prophecy.”

There is a very dangerous teaching in the evangelical church today that says a person can be “born again,” and still continue to practice sin and still have the hope of heaven. They are saying a sinner may accept Jesus Christ as their Savior but never acknowledge Jesus as their lord.
This is false doctrine! First, it is impossible to be reborn by the Holy Spirit and not see immediate and lasting change in a person’s life, and to truly receive Jesus as our Savior IS to submit unto Him as our Lord. While God’s grace does allow us time to come to that conclusion, eventually every believer must confess Jesus as LORD!
We will explain this further in our sermon on Sunday, August 13 as we look at part two of: “Certain and Sure: The Essential Elements of a Confession of Faith.”