Tag Archives: World

Three Nails

Posted on by under Bible, Christian, Christianity, Commitment, Covenant, Disciple, Discipleship, Excellence, Faithful, Hard Work, LifeGiving, Mandate, Mature, maturity, Message, Mission, Movement, Revolution, Righteousness, School Of The Spirit, Training, Transformation

Jesus, the carpenter by vocation before His river and Spirit baptism, was crucified on a Cross [Paul in Galatians called it a tree, maybe because at one time it had been a tree], is believed to have been secured on that tree by three nails!

The nails did not secure Jesus any more than Pilate had authority on his own to have Him killed.

“So Pilate said to Him, ‘You do not speak to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify You?'”

Jesus shot back, “You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above [My Father]; for this reason he who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.”

So what kept Jesus on the Cross [tree]? Of course, it was not the nails that kept Jesus on that tree. For if He decided He was done with that plan He could have disintegrated the nails and the tree.

“Or do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?”

What kept Jesus on that tree was His willingness to surrender to His [the] Father’s will – to the bitter [sweet] and bloody end!

“1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”

Letting His example of surrender to His Father’s will encourages us in our will to stay steady and strong throughout our entire race!

In the Garden, Jesus was feeling the pressure of what He had agreed to in eternity past. “All who dwell on the earth will worship Him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain.”

The KJV says it this way, “And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship Him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”

The pressure in the olive or wine press became so great He experienced what is known as hematidrosis. Some say hematidrosis, or hematohidrosis, is caused when a person’s fight or flight response kicks into high gear. Others say when a person is in great duress, or distress, it can happen.

Whatever triggered it in Jesus He was in a real war for the salvation of the world!

“For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.” Jesus is man’s only Savior but not all men will do the Father’s will to be saved by Him. Those who will, will be saved by Him.

“Father, is there another way to do what we agreed to?” Jesus was willing to die for the sins of all mankind but at that moment He was looking for a different process of pain than the Cross.

Finally, after three sessions of anguished prayer, He surrendered. “[Father] Not My will but Your will be done!”

Jesus had told His disciples, “I will build My church!” “I will!”

No one could fully understand what the Carpenter meant when He said that. Many still do not understand to this day.

“I will” must be understood in the context of “Your will!”

Even today, as the resurrected Jesus continues to build His church, He is operating out of His Father’s will functioning through His surrendered will. Jesus’ full surrender in the Garden of Gethsemane [oil press, or where olives or grapes are crushed so oil or juice for making wine is extracted] was not a momentary blip on histories radar screen. No, it is an eternal commitment to do His Father’s will.

His church is securely and ultimately built on the Father’s will being executed by Jesus, and everyone else who surrenders to the Father’s will.

“10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of [the will of] God.”

God is NOT every person’s Father. God is ONLY the Father to those who do His will!

So, God’s church is being built by Jesus, the Head, doing His Father’s will and as people surrender to that same will.

Have you said, “Not my will but Yours Father be done?”

If not, you are not part of His church His will is building!

Selah

Let’s look at some verses that talk about the Father’s will. These are not exclusive!

“Not everyone who says to Me, `Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.”

  • This is being said about those who overemphasize their relationship with Christ, “Who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord.'”
  • This is being said about those who bragged to Jesus what they had done “in My name” but did not have an authentic relationship with Him – “I never knew you.”

“For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.”

  • This was in response to His natural family showing up to one of His meetings wanting to see Him. He asked the assembled crowd, “Who is my mother and my brothers?” Before they could answer He answered His own question with the above text.
“For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”
  • This was in response to the grumbling of the Jews who could not accept His testimony of who He is.
  • “31 So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.“

When we take these and the many other texts together we get the whole picture of what it means to be His people, His church!

Attending Christian services does make a person a part of His church!

Giving money or time to a Christian church or ministry does make a person a part of His church!

Amending your ways does not make you a part of His church!

What makes a person part of His church? Doing His and the Father’s will is the only way to be part of His church.

Take the time to read all of John 6 where Jesus really hammers the religious people and His own disciples with what His Father’s will is. In fact, take the time to read all four gospels, and read them slowly as if you have never read them or heard any teachings on them before. You will be shocked at what you will see, find, and learn.

I promise!

Receive and steward God’s passion, power, presence, priority, process, promises, protection, provision, pruning, purging, purity, and purpose!

Dr. Kevin M. Drury, DMin
A radical spiritual revolutionary
Revolution Movement Co-Founder
http://www.revolutionmovement.org
kdrury@revolutionmovement.org

You say you want a revolution! Join our movement and turn your world upside down so God can turn His world right side up!

Eternal Perspectives

Posted on by under Bible, Christian, Excellence, LifeGiving, Righteousness, School Of The Spirit, Training

A Farmer’s Insurance commercial states, “We know a few things because we have seen a few things”. To that I say, “Amen!”

That statement applies to my own personal life as well as my experience working with people for over 35 years trying my best to help them find and fulfill their God-given eternal purpose.

I must confess that I have no grid for Christians who are still wondering what their life is all about, all the while wandering around in lives that do not match what they have testified to me they believe God has called them to be and do.

Solomon said this in Ecclesiates 3:11 – “He [God] has put eternity in their heart.”

With this being true I often ask people, “Do you live with eternity in view or your immediate felt needs in view?” This is usually the point in the conversation they tilt!

I believe a large portion of the “Christian” population lives in and for the immediate moment rarely ever thinking about how the decisions they are making in this moment will effect their eternal purpose.

For instance, Paul the apostle wrote this to his spiritual children in Corinth. ” 2 Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world?  3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life?” [1 Corinthians 6]

“Judge the world”?

“Judge matters of this life”?

“Judge angels”?

If Christians do not step into their calling to judge this world they disqualify themselves from ever being called upon to judge in the world to come!

If Christians do not step into their calling to judge this life they disqualify themselves from ever being called upon to judge in the next life!

If Christians do not step into their calling to judge the church they disqualify themselves from ever being called upon to judge angels!

Most Christians believe we have no business judging anything or anyone. I mean didn’t Jesus say, “1 Do not judge so that you will not be judged. 2 For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can  you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” [Matthew 7].

He did say “do not judge”, but the context of that statement is don’t look past the log in your eye to cast judgment on someone else. In other words, it takes a lot of time, energy and focus to even find a speck [minute problem] in the other person’s eye you are judging. How can you do that and not see the log that is in your own eye? Or, how can you see that speck with that log in your eye?

The context is not about making no judgment. It is about making complete judgements. And it is also about not being a hypocrite judge by being so focused on the insignificant problems in other people’s lives you pretend you do not have anything in your life that you need to address.

Also, Jesus’ next statement after the “do not judge so that you will not be judged” is, “for in the way you judge, you will be judged.” Do you see that His point is the way we judge, not do not judge at all?

“Judgement begins with the household of God” [1 Peter 4:17], and it is supposed to begin with the individual temple [believer] of God. The individual Christian is, and the corporate Body of believers are, the temple of God.

Christians who do not believe we are called to judge do not know the Word of God, or do not believe the Word of God that they know!

If we are to judge the world, this life and angels we need to work on removing logs out of our purview so we can live with a clear view of eternity!

God’s people get involved with people, places and things that in no way are contributing to His eternal purpose for their lives. Needing human companionship, they meet with and in some cases marry people who will never help them find, walk in and fulfill their eternal purpose and potential.

Or, they get involved with people or activities where they have to walk away from [apostasy] their own personal revelation and experiences in God. They have not made a right judgment about their own current call from God [this life] so they will never be called upon to judge the world, angels or the next life.

This is a travesty and great tragedy!

These “believers” say, “I have not abandoned Christ. I totally believe in Him.”

My question to them is, “Then why have you turned away from the Christ [anointing, mission, mandate, message, methods and ministry] that He revealed to you and in you?”

Jesus is denied all the time by people who do not believe the God they say they believe in!

You may believe He provided you a way to get into heaven but you have abandoned His eternal purpose for you to get heaven into earth. My friends, by getting heaven into earth is how we judge the world.

The Lord knows I know too many people who have chosen a spouse, career, job position or promotion that was not equally yoked with them. I know the Bible tells us not to be unequally yoked with an unbeliever [2 Corinthians 6:14], but how many believers have married unbelieving believers who drag them down and away from their own revelation and experiences in God. And how many have taken a position, even in a ministry, that caused them to “deny” the Christ that called them into the ministry?

Trust me, no spouse is better than the wrong spouse! There are a lot of married single Christian people! And that position, promotion and paycheck in ministry is not worth losing our position as judge in the Kingdom of God.

The words “matters of this life” in our 1 Corinthians 6:3 text literally means, “to spend the life, to spend your existence, time, resources, possessions.” In other words, what do we spend our life on? What do we invest our life in? Who do we invest our life in? To make the wrong judgment in these “matters” will make all the difference on if we get all of the life God purposes for us in “this life”, and the next life!

Speaking of judgment and having an eternal perspective, let’s look at what Jesus said to Nicodemus, a teacher of Israel.

“16 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. 18 He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”

I want to address a few of the important truths found in this text.

  1. Verse 17 – “God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”
  2. Verse 18 – “Those who believe in the Son is not judged, but those who do not believe have already been judged because they refused to believe in the name [nature, character, call, mission, mandate, methods and ministry] of the only begotten Son of God.”
  3. Verse 19 – “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.”
  4. Verse 21 – “But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”

Do you notice how Jesus was not sent into the world to judge the world but at the same time His coming into the world brought judgement upon the world?

Do you notice how there can be no salvation apart from judgment?

Do you notice how those who practice truth come to the Light so that their deeds [works] will manifest [come into being and into the view of the world] and be revealed as the works of God? Jesus said, “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” [Matthew 5:16]

In this verse Jesus clearly connects light to good works and God being glorified in them!

Do you notice how the lovers of darkness do not come to the Light?

Where do you stand in relation to Light and darkness?

Have you come to the Light [Jesus Christ]?

Are you manifesting your good works to prove they are wrought by God [God’s works]?

Are you afraid of the Light and being exposed by the Light?

Do you love darkness, and if you do why do you love it?

If you have experienced the Light why on earth would you dare venture back into that which is not Light?

Is your perspective temporary or eternal?

It really is that black and white!

Keep HIS Faith! Keep HIS Passion! Keep HIS Purposes!

Dr. Kevin M. Drury, DMin

A Hisstorymaker

 

It IS Possible To Not Sin!

Posted on by under Bible, Christian, Excellence, LifeGiving, Righteousness, School Of The Spirit, Training
It is possible to not sin! In fact, repentance means “I won’t do that again!”
Luke 24 ~
 
“46 and He said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, 47 and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”
 
1. Jesus said the proclamation of repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name.
 
To proclaim means to publicly cry out with urgency and with an urgency for those hearing to accept what is proclaimed or face the consequences of rejecting it. This word carries the authority of Jesus to proclaim, warn, and reveal the consequences. That is why it is “in His name”. He gave His disciples power of attorney to re-present Him.
 
In order for repentance for forgiveness of sins to be proclaimed there has to be the proclamation that there are sinners and there is sin. 
 
In our modern, or post-modern or whatever we are calling our world right now it is not in vogue to confront a person in sin and their sinning lifestyle.
 
Jesus said proclaim repentance which means to stop it, drop it, and turn to God and start living like Christ.
 
It IS possible to not sin! 
 
John said this in 1 John 2:1,2 – “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; 2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.”
 
A. John writes to “little children”. This word is teknon and is the 3rd level of spiritual maturity for the believer in the childhood [first] stage of growth. He states to these little children –
1. “You MAY not sin” 
a. Means permission is not granted to sin
2. “And IF anyone sins” not “And WHEN anyone sins”
a. John reiterates sin is not permissible nor normal behavior. Sin should be a rare exception not the norm.
b. “We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”
1. Our Advocate is more than someone who stands next to us in front of the Father. He is the One who lives on the inside of us and want to live His life through us. In fact, Christianity is not believers living for God. Christianity is God living through believers.
2. This Advocate paid the price that paid for our sin but that price includes His power to live free of sin.
 
2. Jesus said “Christ must suffer and rise again from the dead the third day.”
 
This separates Christianity from all the religions of the world. Christ is alive and is inviting everyone to come to Him and to get to know Him – personally.
 
3. This proclamation would begin “from Jerusalem.”
 
Jerusalem was the launching pad! Jesus said “from” not “in” Jerusalem. The world is the focus not Jerusalem! “God so loved the world . . . .”, not God so loved Jerusalem! The church would be well served to understand this major point! [I have a teaching series and future book titled – JESUS AND JERUSALEM. You can find the series on YouTube].
 
4. This proclamation was to go into “all the nations.”
 
Every ethnic group and every person in every national boundary is to hear this eternally exciting message.
I say eternal because John said this about the gospel – “6 And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having an eternal gospel to preach to those who live on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people; 7 and he said with a loud voice, “Fear God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come; worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters.” [Revelation 14]
 
The eternal gospel includes the true worship of the One true God, who is the Creator!
And that is why I said exciting. It doesn’t get any more exciting than meeting, getting to know, growing in the knowledge of Him, and getting to spend eternity with the Creator of the heavens and the earth.
Do you know Him?
Keep HIS Faith! Keep HIS Passion! Keep HIS Purposes!
Dr. Kevin M. Drury, DMin
A Hisstorymaker

I’m A Dominionist! Are you?

Posted on by under Bible, Christian, Excellence, LifeGiving, Righteousness, School Of The Spirit, Teamwork, Training

I am a dominionist who believes wholeheartedly in dominionism!

To the Christian critic of dominionism and its dominionist proponents, I have some questions?

Are you a defeatist who believes in defeatism?

  • Do you believe the prince of darkness will extinguish the Light of the world?
  • Do you believe the prince of the power of the air will defeat the One who created air?
  • And do you believe the prince of darkness will chase the citizens of light off the planet?

Are you an escapist who believes in escapism?

  • Are you looking for Jesus to come rescue you off the planet He loves?
  • Are you willing to relinquish the planet you are to inherit?
  • And are you resigning yourself to one day go to a place called heaven instead of every day being a vessel through which God wants to reveal and release heaven in earth?

Genesis 1:28 KJV

“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.'”

Did you notice the writer of Genesis said God said, “Have dominion?”

What is the purpose in having something you have been given if you are not going to use what you have that was given to you?

Jesus said, “Freely you have received, freely give.” [Matthew 10:8] The context of that command was the preaching [revealing, declaring] of the present tense reality of the arrival and expansion of God’s kingdom on earth.

The manifestation of God’s kingdom of light materializes in the undoing of everything the prince of darkness has done, is doing or will ever do.

Original man’s original sin does not alter God’s original mission for men!

The failure of men does not cause God to fail nor does it cause the commission of man to partner with God to fail.

Jesus came along and along with many commands said this ~ “18 “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” [Matthew 28]

Jesus literally said to His disciples [apostles] to go evangelize the world. Somehow through the corridors of time His command has been corrupted and His design has been diminished.

He said “Go and make disciples of all nations” and that has been reduced to hopefully get some converts in the nations.

I believe this is the same commission His first disciples [Adam and Eve] were given in Genesis 1 – “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it.”

Fruitfulness speaks of successful productivity as well as successful reproduction in having children.

Multiply speaks of having children but more importantly their reproduction was to reproduce children who would love and serve God and His purposes for the planet.

Replenish speaks of cultivating a culture where the earth would constantly be filled with the fulness of what God intended when He commissioned His “man” to take Paradise to the planet.

Subdue speaks of using the authority God gave them to bring anything and everything not in subjection to God under the rule of God.

And then the command to ‘rule’ or ‘have dominion’ speaks of being the head, not the tail; being leaders not followers; being givers not borrowers; being those blessed by God to be a blessing for God in the earth He created for His people to inhabit.

The question then arises on how are we to rule or have dominion.

The how is through servant leadership, not physical force!

It is through leading people to the Lordship of Jesus Christ!

It is through leading them out of the land of their limitations into the land of plenty!

John said this, “When the seventh angel blew his trumpet, there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will rule forever and ever.” [Revelation 11:15 ISV]

People have placed this verse, and many others like it, into a future time. I believe Jesus began His rule on the earth when He ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God and received His kingdom!

29 “Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30 Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne,  31 he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. 32 This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. 33 Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear.” [Acts 2]

Luke writes that Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost that David prophesied the resurrection of the Christ included His being seated on David’s throne. That smacks down any doctrine that has Jesus returning to earth to sit on a physical throne.

And ~~~~

“41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, 42 saying, ‘What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?’ They said to Him, ‘The Son of David.’ 43 He said to them, ‘How then does David in the Spirit call Him “Lord,” saying:44 “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘ Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool’ “?” [Matthew 22]

Jesus is quoting David in Psalm 110:1, which by the way can be found numerous times in the New Testament.

Jesus is on David’s throne as you read this blog and He began ruling the moment He sat down next to His Dad!

And He will continue to sit there and rule with His Dad until His enemies surrender and submit! However looooooooong that takes!

That knocks the “imminent return” theology out of contention in my mind!

And ~~~~

“9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name,  10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” [Philippians 2]

And finally, look at what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 ~ “ 20 But, in reality, Christ has risen from among the dead, being the first to do so of those who are asleep. 21 For seeing that death came through man, through man comes also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For just as through Adam all die, so also through Christ all will be made alive again. 23 But this will happen to each in the right order—Christ having been the first to rise, and afterwards Christ’s people rising at His return. 24 Later on, comes the End, when He is to surrender the Kingship to God, the Father, when He shall have overthrown all other government and all other authority and power. 25 For He must continue King until He shall have put all His enemies under His feet. 26 The last enemy that is to be overthrown is Death; 27 for He will have put all things in subjection under His feet. And when He shall have declared that “All things are in subjection,” it will be with the manifest exception of Him who has reduced them all to subjection to Him. 28 But when the whole universe has been made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also become subject to Him who has made the universe subject to Him, in order that GOD may be all in all.” {Weymouth Translation]

So, I am a proud card carrying domionist, and I believe in the total dominion, rule, and eventual subjection of the world to the Lordship of Christ Jesus, and then THE END will come!

And not a day before!

Keep HIS Faith! Keep HIS Passion! Keep HIS Purpose!

Dr. Kevin. M. Drury, DMin

His Hisstorymaker!

God Has Only One Holy Nation!

Posted on by under Bible, Christian, Excellence, LifeGiving, Righteousness, School Of The Spirit, Training

Who is the holy nation that is God’s very own possession?

This blog follows Foolish Preachers Versus The Foolishness Of Preaching where I wrote in more detail on the importance of the message of the cross of Christ being protected from being made of no effect.

This issue is one of the many where the cross of Christ is reduced to no effect, especially among those who hold to a “special favored status” theology for natural Israel. What I mean by that is the notion that “all of Israel will be saved” when they see Jesus coming in the clouds instead of having to come to the cross for their deliverance from sin.

As I stated in Foolish Preachers Versus The Foolishness Of Preaching blog I addressed this and so much more in two teaching series’ – WHO IS THE ISRAEL OF GOD, And What Does That Have To With Me; and JESUS AND JERUSALEM.

Well meaning and [I will be kind] most probably mistaken Christians promote that the natural State of Israel, and unsaved Jewish people, are God’s possession and holy nation.

You see them write or say things like:

  • God will bless those who bless [natural] Israel [the unsaved Jews] and God will curse those who curse [natural] Israel [unsaved Jews].
    • There is not one verse of Scripture in the Old or New Testaments that say this. In fact, the very opposite is said in the Scripture.

Or they say or write,

  • The day America turns its back on [the State of] Israel [unsaved Jews], is the day God turns His back on America.
    • This irresponsible statement is based on the previous statement and has zero basis in Scripture.

What does the Scripture say? The Scripture must be our only guide to understanding this very important truth that is clearly laid out for the intellectually honest to see.

By the way, God turned His back on natural Israel and spoke Ichabod [the glory has departed] over it 2000 years ago. God has not stopped loving them. He loves everyone where they are but that never means He loves where they are.

By the way, they became enemies of the cross when they rejected God, and His plan of salvation for the whole world – by the cross of Christ Jesus, His only begotten Son. They remain enemies of the cross to this day!

Matthew 23:37,38 NKJV

“37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! 38 See! Your house is left to you desolate.”

Listen to the impact of His words – “See! YOUR HOUSE IS LEFT TO YOU.”

First He said “Your house”. This is a clear revelation that it was not His house. Jesus was also making the point that “their house” was of their own making. God’s house is now the individual and corporate body of Christ that is made up of everyone who has been born again and surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Next He said, “Is left”. Jesus made a present tense [2000 years ago] declaration that God was abandoning them, right then. And by the way, God has never moved back in to that “house”.

Then He said, “To you”. Can it get any scarier than this. “YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN.” Another way to see this portion of His denunciation is to realize that He was very serious about their isolation and the removal of His protection. By the way, He is not protecting them even to this day contrary to the popular theological arguments to the contrary.

They have been on their own for 2000 years! Please do not say God brought them back to their land. God has not brought them back. For God to be responsible for their return He would have had to violate His own word stating that for Him to restore them to the land they would have to repent for violating their relationship to Him.

I cannot recall where they have repented for murdering the Son of God!

“Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” [Acts 2:36]

“Desolate” literally means, abandoned, divorced, uninhabited, deprived of the aid and protection of others, especially of friends, acquaintances, kindred, a flock deserted by their shepherd, a waste [place].

Jesus said, “See! I HAVE LEFT you all alone, and you will remain on your own unless, and until you repent.

Verse 39 says, “For I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” When Jesus says, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” He was speaking of His current and contemporary coming at the time He was speaking, 2000 years ago.

Jesus was not talking about some time in the distant future from when He was speaking. He was speaking to His generation which was the terminal generation – for within 40 years the end came for them.

“Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.”[Matthew 23:36 NAS] It takes a lot of manipulating the text to stretch “this generation” 2000 years into the future.

Why this extreme rejection of this historic people who had been chosen by God out of all of the nations on the planet thousands of years before? The answer is found in verse 38, “BUT YOU WERE UNWILLING.”

Friends, it is NEVER a good plan to be unwilling to do God’s will. It is never a good idea to continuously reject the overtures of a loving God who continuously does everything He can to reach you.

“How often I wanted to gather you together under My wings.” Jesus was expressing His exasperation at the lengths the natural Jewish people had gone to reject His every overture to love and protect them. He was also stating the many times He wooed them, called them, corrected them, communicated to them to come to Him – in the Old Testament!

We must understand that until Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected everything in the Gospels was Old Testament. The New Testament was being revealed [it was being unveiled, uncovered] through the life and ministry of Jesus but it was not inaugurated until the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

They left God no choice but to move on from them to a people who would value Him and His love for them.

Matthew 21:43

“Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you [natural Israel] and given to a people [born again saints], producing the fruit of it.”

This is the punch line [pun intended] that followed a scathing parable illustrating how natural Israel had been unfaithful to God, to the point of killing His Son, and He had had enough.

So, who is the only true nation that belongs to God.

Psalm 33:12 NASB

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance.”

There is ONLY one nation on this earth who can claim this verse as their own. That nation is the nation whose God is the Lord Jesus Christ!

1 Peter 2:9, 10 NASB

“9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; 10 for you once were not a people, but now you are the people OF GOD; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

God has NO other nation and He has no other people that are His possession [inheritance] and to proclaim otherwise is not Scriptural and very unwise.

If you hold to the belief that there is some other nation, an unholy nation, that God calls His own possession then you are diluting the effectiveness and affect of the cross of Jesus Christ.

I have written blogs and taught extensively on this deceptive doctrine that carried out to the extent of its illogical logic reduces the sons and daughters of God [the Church and the Bride of Christ – God’s holy nation] as second class citizens and hostages of a God who according to those who hold to this doctrine punishes people who reject the false notion they perpetrate on an uninformed people.

Should we love and bless the unsaved Jewish people and the State of Israel?

Absolutely!

But not under the threat of a curse from God coming to ruin our lives.

We are supposed to bless those who curse us according to Jesus in Luke 6:28. We are to love our enemies according to Jesus in Matthew 5:44. But never is a curse from God associated with not doing these things. We are told that doing these things make us like our Father.

What God do they serve? I believe they serve a god they have created in their own minds. Minds which are not renewed in the New Testament revelation Jesus and the original apostles and other writers of the New Testament preached.

We will see in the following Scriptures the reason we [the holy nation of God as the people of God] are to love and bless all the nations of people of the earth, not just the Jewish State [nation, people].

How are we to love them? By telling them the truth about their need for repentance and God’s forgiveness.

In fact, John the apostle writes this in his gospel that Jesus, the Son of God and Man said.

John 3:16,17 NASB

“16 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”

  • To me these two verses clearly state God’s heart is the world, not just the Jewish world. God sent Jesus into the world to save the world. The unfortunate truth is that many in the world, both the Jewish and non-Jewish world, refuse to believe God by receiving Jesus as God’s only hope and Savior of the world.

John 3:18 NASB

“”He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.’”

  • Jesus makes it abundantly clear that those who do not believe in Him are ALREADY judged by God, and those who do believe God does not judge. So, quit with all the God is going to curse you if you do not bless natural [the State of] Israel and the natural Jew.

John 3:36 NASB

“He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”

  • Those who believe in God’s Son, Jesus, HAVE eternal life and those who do not believe not only will NOT SEE life, but they are presently abiding in the wrath of God. God’s wrath is upon those who reject Jesus, not on those who do not bless those who have rejected Jesus.

Do I have to go on? No, but I will!

John 8:31,32 NASB

“31 So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’”

  • To those Jewish people who “believed” in Him he said, “You MUST continue in my word to qualify as My true disciples.”
    • Thus, those Jewish “believers” who ceased believing in the continuing revelation of the cross and all of the benefits revealed and released through it ceased being His disciples – PERIOD!
    • We need to understand that even demons believe in Jesus but that does mean they are in a right relationship with God [James 2:19]
    • We also need to understand Jesus made all of these statements prior to dying on the cross and that every one of His original  disciples were Jewish, believed on Him, but had to come to the cross in order to be saved.
    • So, if there is some other way for the Jewish people to be saved, like seeing Jesus in the clouds, then God will have to apologize to all of the Jewish converts in the first century and beyond who  were persecuted and killed for their faith in the cross of Christ.

We have already heard from Peter in the text from 1 Peter above where he very succinctly reveals who the real people of God are post cross of Christ.

Now let’s take a quick look at what Paul the apostle had to say concerning our subject.

Paul

Galatians 3:6-9 NASB

“6 Even so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. 7 Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. 8 The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘All the nations will be blessed in you.’ 9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.”

  • Abraham, according to Paul, was an Old Testament believer in the New Testament Gospel. Abraham’s faith was in the message that God was going to bless the entire world, not just the Jewish world, through their faith in the message of the Messiah, which is salvation from sin and the punishment of sin by the life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension and Holy Spirit baptism to all who would believe in Jesus Christ of Nazareth as their personal Savior and the Lord of their life.

Now, as to the assertion that God will bless those who bless natural and unsaved Israel and curse those who curse them, let us take a look at what God actually said and to whom He said it.

Moses

Genesis 12:1-3 NASB

“1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; 2 And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; 3 And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

  • Ah! The promise of blessings and curses was given to Abram who became Abraham. This is the same Abraham who Paul said the gospel was preached to and who believed the gospel.
  • So based on the text where the misguided and mistreatment of what God actually said, a curse is reserved for those who do not bless the Abraham who believed God through the receiving of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as well as all those who like Abraham, have believed the gospel of Jesus Christ.
    • Folks, this is not complicated. God said what He meant and He means what He says. “And in you [Abraham the believer] all the families of the earth will be blessed [by believing God just as Abraham did].”

So, to accurately divide and rightly handle the word of truth [God], we must admit that this promise was not made to a natural people but a born again person who had believed God’s gospel that through him ALL the nations [people] of the earth would be blessed by believing the gospel as he did.

Therefore, this promise cannot and does not pertain to the natural and unsaved [unbelieving] Jewish people called the State of Israel, for they are not inheritors of the promises of Abraham – Period!

So, why do people still follow this misguided teaching? Because they, just like those in the first century that were misguided “believers”, want to keep the flesh in the forefront of their theology, to their demise. These folks are persecutors of the cross of Christ. They are deluded and they distort and dilute the power of the message of the cross of Jesus Christ.

Paul

Galatians 6:12-16 NASB

“12 Those who desire to make a good showing in the flesh try to compel you to be circumcised, simply so that they will not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. 13 For those who are circumcised do not even keep the Law themselves, but they desire to have you circumcised so that they may boast in your flesh. 14 But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 15 For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. 16 And those who will walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.”

  • I wrote about verses 12-14 in my previous blog so I will not comment here.
  • Paul in verse 15 makes it very clear that there is no advantage nor disadvantage in being Jewish or not being Jewish. The point of this text is “a new creation” which we know to be those “in Christ.”
  • There are those who try to parse the last verse where it says, “peace be upon them [the new creation – the believers in Christ Jesus], and upon the Israel of God”, as meaning there are two separate and distinct groups of people Paul is talking about.
    • One is the new creation meaning those who are in Christ Jesus, and
    • The other is the Israel of God meaning the natural and unsaved Jewish people

Let’s look at another text and see if this way of interpreting the Scripture holds up.

Mark

Mark 16:7 NASB

“But go, tell His disciples and Peter, `He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He told you.’”

  • Is the angel of the Lord saying that Peter is not one of the disciples by there being an ‘and’ between the word ‘disciples’ and ‘Peter’? Could it be that because of Peter’s denial of Jesus three times that he forfeited his place among the twelve? Or is the angel simply specifying that Peter needs special attention as a disciple and one of the future pillars of the Church because of his poor choice?

I want to tell you that Peter never was removed from his place in the special group of the apostle’s of the Lamb. And in the same way the use of the word ‘and’ in Paul’s text in Galatians 6 does not communicate a separation into two distinct groups. It simply communicates the special designation of the Israel of God – those who are part of God’s new creation, those who are in Christ Jesus.

Lastly, do not believe the “believers” who want to take you back into a natural reality and diminish or destroy your faith in and faithfulness to the revelation of the Cross of Jesus Christ. Believe it or not we still are dealing with Judaizers who cannot or will not let go of the notion that God’s blessings are tied up in natural and still unbelieving Jewish people.

They will accuse you of spiritualizing the text. I know because I get accused of that often. I also get accused of twisting the Scripture to fit “my theology.”

There is a principle in interpreting Scripture. It is simply take literal what is literal and not to take literally what is not literal.

Paul said this, “However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual.” [1 Corinthians 15:46]

This is another principle that must be understood to understand the Bible. The Old Testament, among other things, was about a natural people [Israel] seeking spiritual encounters with God. The New Testament, especially starting in the Book of Acts, is about a spiritual people living in a natural world.

First [OT] the natural. Then [NT] the spiritual. Jesus illustrated this in John 3 in His conversation with Nicodemus. He gave him natural examples of spiritual truths but Nicodemus could not understand those spiritual truths because the natural mind cannot receive anything from the Spirit of God [1 Corinthians 2:14].

These naturally minded people are either unaware of, or do not care to admit, that all of the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ Jesus, and no one and no where else.

“For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us [saints].” [2 Corinthians 1:20]

Stay close to the cross of Christ and the Christ of the cross, for in Him you live, and move, and have all of your being.

For more information on this subject please watch my series on Youtube/Bethel Church Brunswick, GA or download it from iTunes on WHO IS THE ISRAEL OF GOD, And What Does That Have To Do With Me, and my series called JESUS AND JERUSALEM.

Keep HIS Faith! Keep HIS Passion! Keep HIS Truth!

Dr. Kevin M. Drury
One of His Hisstorymakers