THE FUTURE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL

Dr. W. A. Criswell

Romans 11:24-29

11-28-54    7:30 p.m.

The sermon tonight is the conclusion of the message begun this morning on the text in the eleventh chapter of the Book of Romans and the first verse:  "I say then, hath God cast away His people?" Is God done with the children of Abraham?  Is there no future for the Jewish nation?

In the sermon tonight, there will be a lot of reading – a lot of quoting from God’s Word; but, I’d like to take a moment to show you how the apostle Paul himself, when he preached and when he wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, how very, very much he quoted and read from God’s Book.

The ninth, the tenth, and the eleventh chapters of the Book of Romans are a great parenthesis.  From chapter 1 through 8, he’s talking about our salvation by faith.  Then chapters 9, 10, and 11, he is discussing the problem of Israel’s unbelief.

And now, you just look – I shall follow them one right after another – you look how he quotes from the Bible.  He quotes Genesis 18:10, Genesis 25:23, Malachi 1:2-3, Exodus 33:19.  He quotes Isaiah 19:16, Hosea 2:23, Isaiah 10:22, Isaiah 28:22, Isaiah 1:9, Isaiah 8:14, Isaiah 28:16.

He continues in the tenth chapter:  Deuteronomy 30:12-14, Isaiah 28:16,  Joel 2:32, Isaiah 52:7, Isaiah 53:1, Psalm 19:4, Deuteronomy 32:21, Isaiah 65:1, Isaiah 65:2.

Then in the eleventh chapter of the Book of Romans, he quotes 1 Kings 19:10, 1 Kings 19:18, Isaiah 29:10, Deuteronomy 29:4, Psalm 69:22-23, Numbers 15:19-21.  He quotes Isaiah 59:20-21.  He quotes Isaiah 40:13-14, Job 35:7, and Job 41:11.  He quotes from God’s Book in this little section, 9 through 11, he quotes that many times from the Holy Word.

When a man preaches like the apostle preaches, he preaches God’s Book.  When a man delivers a message like apostle Paul or the rest of these men of God – when he delivers a message – he will deliver a message from the Book.  They preach the Word like the Lord Jesus Himself did.  There was placed in His hand the roll of the prophet Isaiah, and He found the place where it read; and then He read it and preached from the Book [Luke 4:17-20].

So tonight may I say as I said this morning?  These are not my ideas.  They are not concoctions or imaginations configured out of my brain.  I’m just a voice – a preacher of the Word – and we are going through the Bible, and these things are in the Book.

This morning, we began with the Jewish nation, the Jewish people, in their unbelief and the terrible trial and tribulation – the sorrows and tragedies – that have characterized those people of God all through the centuries and the millenniums.  And now tonight, we speak of their future.  Do they have a future?  Has God cast away His people?  The answer of Paul is: "God forbid.  God forbid . . . God hath not cast away His people whom He foreknew" [Romans 11:1-2].

Then he says: "For I would not, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own conceits, that blindness in part is happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in" [Romans 11:25].  And then when the fullness of the Gentiles be come in, then "all Israel shall be saved, as it is written: ‘There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob’" [Romans 11:26a].  "For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance," without change [Romans 11:29].  The covenants that God has made stand forever, and the promises God hath made are never annulled.  

So we begin tonight looking at the covenant promises of God to His chosen people Israel.  The first covenant that we shall mention, and the first promise, is the promise of the Lord God to Israel that they shall have the land of Palestine forever and ever.  Now, we read from the Word in the seventeenth chapter of the Book of Genesis, the seventh and the eighth verses:

And the Lord God said to Abram:  "I will establish My covenant between Me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee.

And I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God."

[Genesis 17:1, 7-8]

That is the covenant.  God called it a covenant that He made between Himself and Abraham and Abraham’s seed.  Forever they were to have the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession.  Now, look again at that same covenant in the twenty-third chapter of the prophet Jeremiah:

"Behold the days come," saith the Lord, "That I will raise unto David a righteous Branch; and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.

In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; this is His name whereby He shall be called: The Lord our Righteousness.

Therefore, behold, the days come," saith the Lord, "that they shall no more say, ‘The Lord liveth which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’

But they shall say, ‘The Lord liveth which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country and from all countries whither I had driven them.’ And they shall dwell in their own land."

[Jeremiah 23:5-8]

God says, "I have given that land to Israel forever and ever."  And God says in the twenty-third of Jeremiah, "I shall gather them from all the countries whither they are driven, and they will dwell in their own land."  [Jeremiah 23:8]

And once again in Ezekiel, the eleventh chapter and the seventeenth verse:

Therefore, thus saith the Lord God: "I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel."

And they shall come thither, and they shall take away all the detestable things thereof and all the abominations thereof.

And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you, and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them an heart of flesh,

That they may walk in My statutes and keep Mine ordinances to do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God.

[Ezekiel 11:17-20]

"And I will give you the land of Israel."  That covenant was made with Abraham and with his seed forever and ever, and it was renewed by the prophet in an unconditional, categorical promise to the people of Abraham.  The land of Palestine, forever, by an eternal covenant witnessed to by God Himself, the land of Palestine was given to the seed of Abraham for an everlasting covenant and everlasting possession.

And God says in His Word that some day they shall be gathered into the land of Palestine; and they shall be there a people collected from all of the nations of the earth, and they shall have their own king to reign over them:  King Jesus, the promised greater Son of David. All right, now let’s look at that covenant.  We have just read the covenant of God to Israel that the land was to be theirs forever and that some day they shall go there and it shall be theirs for a possession forever.  

All right, God also says – here’s the second covenant – God also says that the Hebrew people shall have a King over them who shall reign forever, a greater Son of David. Now, listen.  In the 2 Samuel, in the [sixteenth verse] and the [seventh] chapter, God made a covenant with David: "And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established forever before thee.  Thy throne shall be established forever."  That is the covenant that God made with David.  He should have a Son that would sit upon his throne forever and ever.  

Now we carry that covenant through.  In Jeremiah, the prophet, the thirty-third chapter, I begin reading at the twentieth verse.  Listen to it:

Thus saith the Lord: "If you can break My covenant of the day and My covenant of the night, that there should not be day and night in their season,

Then may also My covenant be broken with David My servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne.

[Jeremiah 33:20-21]

If you can change day and night, then you can also change the covenant God made with David that he wouldn’t have a son to sit upon his throne.

Moreover the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,

"Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying, ‘The two families which the Lord hath chosen, He hath even cast them off’?  Thus they have despised My people, that they should be no more a nation before them.

Thus saith the Lord: ‘These people that say Israel’s done – If My covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth,

Then will I cast away the seed of Jacob and David My servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be a ruler over the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. For I will cause their captivity to return . . . ‘"

[Jeremiah 33:23-26]

They’ll have a King over them – the King, the greater Son of David, and His throne will be established forever.

All right, we read again, this time in Amos, the ninth chapter, the eleventh and the fifteenth verses:

"In that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David that has fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old . . .  

And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them," saith the Lord God.

[Amos 9:11, 15]

That has never been fulfilled like the rest hasn’t been fulfilled.  God says they are to have a King.  "I’ll build up the tabernacle of David that has fallen – his throne – and I’ll send My people back to their land; and I will never pull them up again, but they are to abide there forever."

Now, once again, in the first chapter of Luke, when the angel Gabriel came to the virgin Mary, he said:

Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a Son, and shalt call His name Jesus.

He shall be great, and He shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David. 

And He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end.

[Luke 1:31-33]

Oh, spiritualizing exegetes come along and say, "That promise made to Mary about that Son she was to have – He’s to sit on the throne of his father David forever, and He shall reign over the house of Jacob – why, that’s the church."  Who ever heard of Jesus being the King of the church?  Who ever heard, who ever read God’s Book of the church being the Kingdom?  David’s throne is to be set up in this earth; and the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of David, is to sit upon that throne.

Well, what about the Lord Jesus now?  The Lord Jesus is not on the throne of David.  Listen to Revelation 3:[21]: "And I also have overcome and am sat down with My Father in His throne."  The Lord Jesus is seated with God the Father in the Father’s throne in heaven, but He is not on David’s throne.  The house of David has been cast down.  The children of Israel are scattered abroad, and the kingdom has not come.

Any time anybody says you are now living in the millennium kingdom, I say he ought to have his head examined.  Brother, if this is the millennium, may the Lord help us.  What are we to look forward to?  No, sir.  There is no King David’s throne in this world anywhere, and there’s not any king reigning in this earth that even approximates the Lord Jesus.  In this world there’s nothing but war and rumors of war, fear by day and by night, sin everywhere, and certain death for every man.  And if you think that we’re living in a millennium kingdom, brother, look around you.  Read the paper, and watch your own body grow old and senile and die.

No, sir.  No. No.  There is yet to be, says the Holy Book, there is yet to be the great establishment of the Kingdom of God in this earth.  And Christ shall reign personally and visibly [Revelation 20:1-6]; and His people shall be the first Christian nation, and through them all of the world is to be converted and will be saved.  And that’s the millennium, but it isn’t now.  It isn’t now.

Let me tell you how to tell whether the millennium’s come or not.  When somebody says, "We’re in the millennium," go out to the graveyard.  If our dead are still dead, brother, we’re not in it.  For the first thing that shall come to pass in the millennium is this: that the beloved dead in Christ shall rise first [1 Thessalonians 4:13-18].  And if they’re still down there in those graves, you’re not in the millennium.  You’re still in the world of sin and of age and of death.  And some day, God’s going to change that He says.

Well, let’s go back now to what I was talking about.  We’ve got lots of time tonight.  I’m just not going to quit tonight.  We just going on, and you just seat yourself nice and quiet-like.

"Preacher, when are all of these things to be?"  That’s what the disciples asked the Lord Jesus [Matthew 24:3].  In the sixth verse of the first chapter of the Book of Acts, when the Lord was about to ascend into glory, the disciples came to the Lord Jesus, and they said: "Lord Jesus, You’re leaving.  You’re going away, and the Kingdom hasn’t come.  Lord, what of the Kingdom and what of Israel?  Lord, wilt Thou at this time, restore the kingdom to Israel?" [Acts 1:6]

Do you remember that question?  Well, that question has to have an answer.  What about the Kingdom, and what about Israel, and what about the Lord Messiah, King David’s greater Son?  What about that?

Well, the Bible has a lot to say about it.  I cannot tell you the time that it’ll come.  The Lord Jesus said, "It’s not for you to know the times or the seasons" [Matthew 24:36, Mark 13:32, Acts 1:7].  But I can tell you what the times and the seasons are like, and we’re in them right now.  We’re living in an age – a dispensation, a season – and we can look at it, and God’s told us how it’s going to be.  So we’re going to do that tonight.

What is that future?  What is that future?  Now, all of these great prophecies, they all center around the Messiah.  They all center around the greater Son of David, His coming.  All of those prophecies center around the first coming of the Lord and the second coming of the Lord.

In the first coming of the Lord – if we had just worlds of time tonight – in  the first coming of the Lord, the prophets describe minutely how it would be.

Daniel even said the time of His first coming [Daniel 9:25-26].  And they described just exactly how He would be:  going to be born, said Micah, over there in that little town of Bethlehem [Micah 5:2].  And He’s going to be brought up in Nazareth [Matthew 2:23].  And He’s going to be meek and lowly and humble [Isaiah 42:1-4, Zechariah 9:9].  And the Spirit of the Lord is going to be on Him [Isaiah 11:2, 42:1, 61:1; Luke 4:18].  And He’s going to love poor people, and He’s going to preach the gospel to the poor [Isaiah 29:19, Zephaniah 3:12; Matthew 11:5, Luke 4:18].  And they said all through the Book of Matthew "that it might be fulfilled" [Matthew 1:22, 2:15; 4:14; 8:17; 12:17; 13:14, 21:4; 26:56; 27:9].  And they said He is going to offer Himself as the promised King of Israel – going to ride in upon the foal of an ass [Zechariah 9:9; Matthew 21:1-11].  And He’s going to His house, His Temple, suddenly and immediately [Malachi 3:1].  And He’s going to be rejected by His people [Psalm 22:6-8; Isaiah 53:2-3; John 1:11, Mark 6:1-4].  And He’s going to be crucified between two malefactors [Isaiah 53:12; Matthew 27:38].  And He’s going to be buried in a rich man’s grave [Isaiah 53:9; Matthew 27:57-60; John 19:38-42].  And the third day, He’s going to rise from the dead [Jonah 1:17; Hosea 6:2].  All of those things – and a multitude of others that I haven’t time to mention – all of those things were prophesied hundreds and hundreds of years before the Lord Jesus came into this world.

Now, many of those prophecies concern the second coming of the Lord Jesus.  Are you persuaded that the first prophecies describing the first coming of the Lord they are fulfilled minutely just like it says in the Book?  But the second prophecies, those prophecies that concern His second coming, "They are to be spiritualized away.  They are not to be fulfilled."  No, Sir.  They’re going to be fulfilled just like God said in that Book.  He prophesied the first coming of the Lord Jesus, and it happened just like the prophets said.  And when the Lord Jesus comes again, it’s going to happen just like the Lord Jesus says and as it was prophesied concerning Him.

Now in the deliverance, in the restoration of Israel, there are three of them.  All three restorations were by the hand and the intervention of Almighty God.  The first time Israel was brought back to his land was out of Egyptian bondage, and God did it [Exodus 1-15].  The second time that Israel was restored to the land was from the Babylonian captivity, and again, the Lord did it [2 Chronicles 36:11-23; Ezra 1-10; Nehemiah 1-12].  The third and the last time that the Lord God intervenes to gather His people together and to send them back to Palestine will also be in the intervention – in the will and in the grace of Almighty God [Genesis 15:18; Isaiah 11:12; Matthew 24:31; Mark 13:27].

They first will go back, gradually gathering back, in unbelief as they are today.  And some of these days, when the Lord Jesus appears, when He comes personally, they are going to be gathered from wherever they are.  And they’re going back to their land, this time converted, this time saved, this time the evangels and the preachers of the grace and the love and the Kingdom of the Son of God.

All right, where does it say in God’s Book that any such thing as that is ever going to happen?  Then let’s read together.  In the thirty-first chapter of the Book of Jeremiah, listen to the prophecy of the prophet of God:

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah –

Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which My covenant they break, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord.

But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, – in the end time – saith the Lord, I will put My law in their inward hearts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God and they shall be My people.

And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they all shall know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord, For I will forgive their iniquitiy, and I will remember their sin no more.

Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and the stars by night, which divideth the sea from the waves.  The Lord of Hosts is His name.

If those ordinances depart from before Me, saith the Lord.  Then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me forever.

Thus saith the Lord, If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth stretched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord.

[Jeremiah 31:31-37]

They’re going to abide, they’re going to live in the presence of the Lord forever; and they’re going to be a converted and a new people, and every one of them will know the Lord.  For God will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more and put His will and His law in the inward parts of their hearts.

All right, look again.  In the twenty-third chapter of the Book of Matthew, the Lord Jesus says:

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killeth the prophets, stonest them which are sent unto thee! How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her brood under her wings, and you would not!

Behold!  Your house is left unto you desolate.

For I say unto you, ye shall not see Me henceforth till you say

– until that day when you say –

"Blessed, blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord!"

[Matthew 23:37-39]

There is a day coming, says the Lord Jesus, when Israel shall look up and say to Jesus, their Christ, their Messiah, their King: "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord!"  And until that day, says the Lord Jesus, all of the house of Israel shall be in desolation.  They will be despised and scattered among the nations, but the time is coming – the time is coming when they shall look up and say: "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord."

Look again.  Look again.  In the eleventh chapter of the Book of Romans, Paul says: "Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in; and then shall all Israel be saved" [Romans 11:25-26a].  All Israel is going to be saved when the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.

Now, listen to the Lord Jesus:

And when you shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.

Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let them which are in the midst of it depart out, and let them not that are in the countries enter there into.

For these be the days of vengeance that all things which are written may be fulfilled.

Woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days! For there shall be a great distress in the land and wrath upon this people.

[Luke 21:20-23]

I had a couple come to me who wanted to have a family and refused because, she said to me, "It says in God’s Word: ‘Woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days for there shall be great distress and wrath upon the people.’"  And she said, "What if I were pregnant or what if my child were nursing and those days were to come?"

I said, "Oh, my dear child, listen!  That prophecy concerns the terrible destruction of Jerusalem when the Lord Jesus said: ‘Not a stone shall be left one upon another in this vast and beautiful temple, but it shall be utterly destroyed’ [Matthew 24:2; Mark 13:2; Luke 19:44].  And when you see those armies gathering around Jerusalem, then flee, Judea – flee to the mountains, flee to Perea, flee to Petra, flee to Lebanon – for there shall be awful tribulation in those days [Matthew 24:15-16; Mark 13:14; Luke 21:20-21].  And woe unto a mother that is pregnant and can hardly walk, and woe to a mother that is giving suck to her child, and she can hardly run [Matthew 24:19; Mark 13:17; Luke 21:23].  That was Jesus’ way of saying ‘those awful days.’"

And I said to that girl, "That isn’t now.  That isn’t now.  That concerns that terrible day in the destruction of Jerusalem."  And I have a good ending to that.  They had their baby and their family, and they’ve been happy.  I tell you when you read the Book, you need to read it with the enlightenment of God upon you.

All right now to continue.  "There shall be distress in the land and wrath, and they shall fall by the edge of the sword and shall be led away captive in all nations" [Luke 21:23-24].  That was literally fulfilled.  And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled [Luke 21:24; Romans 11:25].

The prophecy of the Lord was – and it happened forty years after – Jerusalem is going to be destroyed, and it will stay trodden down of the Gentiles.  The Gentiles will possess it until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled [Luke 21:24].  And when that time comes – when the fullness of the Gentiles be come in – all Israel shall be saved [Romans 11:25-26].  That’ll be the sign of the coming of the Lord God.

Did you know in this last war between Israel and the Jordan kingdom, the Hashemite kingdom of Transjordania – did you know that there was a vigorous band of those Jewish soldiers that took Jerusalem?  And had they taken it and kept it, the Lord Jesus Christ would have had to come or His Bible is not so and His promises are not true.

But what happened?  The time has not come for the return of the Lord Jesus and the end and the consummation of this age.  And nobody knows why, but that Jewish army retreated.  And when the thing was finally settled and the line of demarcation was made by the U.N., all of the old city of Jerusalem – all of it is still in Gentile hands.

If the time ever comes when Jerusalem is given to the Jews, then the times of the Gentiles is done; and the Lord Jesus shall appear in glory, and all the final denouement of the age will begin as it is written in the Revelation, and in Mark 13, and in these apocalyptic passages from the lips of our Savior in Luke [Luke 21:10-38] and in Matthew [Matthew 24].

Now, for a moment, may I speak of the fullness of the Gentiles?  Romans 11:25: "until the fullness of the Gentiles, and then shall all Israel be saved."  And then Jesus uses the same thing.  He says: "Jerusalem is to be trodden down until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled" [Luke 21:24].

What does that mean: "until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in and then shall all Israel be saved?" [Romans 11:25-26a]  What that means is this: the plērōma of the Gentiles, the full number of the Gentiles.  This is the day and the age of grace.  This is the day of the preaching of the gospel, and there are an elect that are known to God: the plērōma.  In Ephesians 1:23, Paul speaks of the plērōma, the body of Jesus, "the plērōma of Him that filleth all in all."  The body of the Lord Jesus is now being made up, and it has in it a plērōma – a certain number known to God.

And then, and in this age and in this grace, we are under the Great Commission of the Savior: "You are to be My witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth" [Acts 1:8].  We are preaching the gospel of the Son of God.  To what end?  To convert the world?  You’ll never convert the world.  To make Christian nations?  You’ll never make a Christian nation.  You’ll never win one community completely to the Lord Jesus.  You’ll not win all of Dallas.

But, we are preaching the gospel for the, for what purpose?  The Lord is calling out His elect.  He is calling out His people, and the church is called in Greek a "calling out."  The ekklēsía, the church, is the elect assembly – the plērōma, the certain number, that make up the body of the Lord Jesus Christ.  And when the last one has come in, when the last one that is elected of God – and that’s known but to God – when the plērōma of the Gentiles be come in, when the last one has been saved, then the fullness of the Gentiles is complete and the Lord Jesus shall come and "all Israel shall be saved" [Romans 11:26a].

Now, a final word.  The salvation of Israel: what will it be like?  How is it?  Now, I’ll not try this evening to go over a part of a thing that I wanted to present this morning and did though I had to do it rapidly.  When the Lord Jesus comes, Zechariah – that’s the prophet out of which I read this morning, Zechariah, and then Revelation the first chapter – Zechariah says that His feet are going to stand; they’re going to touch the top of the Mount of Olives [Zechariah 14:4].  And when His feet touch the Mount, it’s going to cleave asunder – all the things in the day when the Lord Jesus comes.

Then it goes ahead with those marvelous prophecies of the things that are going to come to pass.  And among those things, Zechariah says, they are going to look upon Him.  Israel is.  Judah is.  They’re going to look upon Him whom they have pierced; and they’re going to weep, and they’re going to cry, and they’re going to repent [Zechariah 12:10-14].  And they’re going to say: "Where did You get those wounds in Your hands?" And He’s going to say: "They came from you.  They came from the house of My friends, My own people [Zechariah 13:6].  I came unto My own, and My own received Me not" [John 1:11].  Like the Lord Jesus, in the Book of the Revelation, and He cometh with clouds: "Behold, He cometh with clouds and everybody will see Him and they also which pierced Him."  [Revelation 1:7]  And Israel is going to weep before the Lord [Matthew 24:30].  They’re going to repent before the Lord.  They’re going to cry before the Lord.

And then shall come to pass, those passages that I read in the prophets where it says: "And a nation shall be born in a day," in a day, "a nation shall be born in a day," in a day [Isaiah 66:8-10].  Israel shall be converted overnight.  It’ll be the first Christian nation.

And you have many adumbrations of the future of Israel in the Revelation.  Over here in the seventh chapter of the Book of Revelation, in that terrible and awful tribulation after the church is taken away, there is sealed of Israel:  of Judah, twelve thousand; of Reuben, twelve thousand; of Gad, twelve thousand; of Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Simeon, Levi, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin – all of the twelve tribes, there is sealed twelve thousand [Revelation 7:2-8]. 

And they are the emissaries and the preachers after we are taken away, of the gospel of the Son of God.  And look at the multitude that they win! 

And I saw a great multitude, out of all the nations and peoples and I said, Who are they?  And He said, These are they which came out of that great tribulation, the Great Tribulation.  And have washed their robes and made them white, in the blood of the Lamb.

[Revelation 7:7, 13-14]

And Israel restored, Israel restored, shall be the blessing and the instrument of God for that millennial reign that is described so often in the prophets of the Lord. 

Look at it: "It shall come to pass" in the second of Isaiah:

It shall come to pass in the last days

That the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains,

And exalted above the hills;

And all nations shall flow unto it.

[Isaiah 2:2] 

All of us, we’ll be going up to see the Lord and:

Many people shall go and say,

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

To the house of the God of Jacob;

And He will teach us His ways,

And we will walk in His paths.

For out of Zion shall go forth the law,

And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

And He will judge among many nations.

[Isaiah 2:3-4a]

And then it continues again:

                        There shall come forth a Rod out of the stem of Jesse,

And a Branch shall go out of his roots.

[Isaiah 11:1]

And then the Lord is described and all of those marvelous things:

                        They will not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,

                        For the earth shall be full of knowledge of the Lord

                        As the waters cover the sea.

[Isaiah 11:9]

And again:

Unto us a Child is born,

A Son is given. 

And who is He? 

He is the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God,

the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. 

And of His government there shall be no end,

Upon the throne of David,

He’ll be seated upon his throne, and He will establish it forever, "From henceforth and forever.  The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform it" [Isaiah 9:6-7].  And again in Micah:

In those last days – in those last days,He will rebuke the nations afar off; and they will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

But every man shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it.

[Micah 4:1, 3-4]

In that day, saith the Lord, Will I assemble her that halteth, and I will gather her that has driven out, and her that I have afflicted;

And I will make her that halt of the remnant, and her that was cast far off a strong nation; and the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion from henceforth, and forever.

[Micah 4:6-7] 

And that is the meaning, finally, and that is the meaning of the apostle Paul when he says in the eleventh chapter of his Book of Romans:

These Israelites, the house of Jacob, have they stumbled that they should fall forever?  No, sir!  God forbid!  But rather through their fall salvation has come unto the Gentiles.  Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness when they turn and are saved,For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall receiving of them be but life from the dead?

[Romans 11:11-13, 15] 

The New Day, the New Heaven, the New Earth!  "Blindness in part, has happened unto them until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.  Then all Israel shall be saved, as it is written:  There shall come out of Zion a Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob,for the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance" [Romans 11:25-26, 29].  Without change, He keeps His covenants forever and ever. 

Well, that’s it for this time.  I can’t explain all of that, but I believe every syllable of it.  It’ll come to pass: "the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform it" [Isaiah 37:32].  We, like the sermon I preached on the Sunday before, we shall reign with Christ.  He makes us kings and priests unto the Lord our God, and we shall reign with Him forever and ever! [2 Timothy 2:12; Revelation 5:10, 20:5-6, 22:5]   

We are His body.  We are a part of that plērōma, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all [Ephesians 1:22-23].  And some of these days, when He comes, when He comes – when He establishes kingdom in this earth and out of Zion goes forth the law, and the nations go up to Jerusalem for to see Him and to worship Him, and we have that New Jerusalem, the new City of God, coming down from heaven [Isaiah 2:2-4; Revelation 20-21] – in those glorious, wonderful days, we are His plērōma; we are His body.  We shall reign with Him forever and ever.  Our beloved dead – and when we die, if He tarries, we shall live with the Lord [1 Corinthians 15:51-56; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17].  That’s what this baptism means:  buried with the Lord.  If we die, we’ll be raised with Him as He lives. 

Now, I don’t save anybody.  It isn’t my ingenuity or preaching that converts anybody – it’s the Spirit of God.  It’s the election of the Lord.  He calls. He calls you!  And when that call comes, son, daughter, beloved friend – whoever you are – when the call comes, you answer, "Here I am Lord.  Here I am," and in your heart receive Him as your own [John 1:12].  Oh, these days that are to come, the promises we have in Jesus, and they’re all ours forever yea and amen! [2 Corinthians 1:20]  And we take them for the asking.  They’re yours for the having. 

And that’s our appeal tonight: somebody you, by faith, somebody you coming to the Savior, somebody you accepting Him; come and stand by me.  Somebody into the fellowship of the church, a family you, or one somebody you, as God shall say and lead the way, while we make this appeal, while we sing our song, will you come?  Will you come while we stand and while we sing?