In this sermon, the preacher discusses the prophecy of the valley of dry bones and the restoration of a nation from death. The sermon focuses on Ezekiel 37:21, which states that God will gather the children of Israel from among the nations and bring them back to their own land. The preacher emphasizes that this restoration will result in one united nation, with one king ruling over them. The sermon also highlights the transformation that will occur in the people, as they will no longer defile themselves with idols or transgressions, but instead, they will walk in God's judgments and observe His statutes. The preacher concludes by emphasizing the glory of God in the restoration of a forsaken and desolate nation and the exalted role of the instrument used for their restoration.

interpretation, is that scripture should be taken in its first evident and grammatical sense in the context in which it is given. If it does not make sense in that context then we're at liberty to seek another. And I think that using that hermeneutical principle that God means Mount Zion, that he's speaking about a literal Israel because he speaks about those that are halt and lame, whom he has afflicted, cannot be a reference to the church. And that with that people he shall establish his reign in Mount Zion from henceforth even forever. That it's not a transient or a passing thing, but a once and for all and eternal would help us to understand the vehemence and the bitterness of the powers who are not just temporarily set back, but finally and once and for all eternally done in. And that God himself will reign over them in Mount Zion. It may be an offense to some that the manifest demonstrable living God as king will actually preside and rule in a certain locus on the earth with a particular people. That the word of the Lord shall go forth out of Jerusalem and the law of God out of Zion. So that the issue of a restored Israel is not just the question of God's mercy toward an historically apostate nation, but the issue of God's divine rule over his creation. And that's what complicates and makes it so massive an issue. By the establishing through them of a promised theocratic kingdom initiated by the return of the kingdom of kings whose coming precipitates their repentance and conversion. They shall see him whom they have pierced and mourn for him as one mourns for one's only son. That the nation Israel that becomes the agent in league with their king in making manifest his rule is not the Israel that we presently know. It's a remnant, powerfully disfigured, made lame and halt by the severity of God's dealing toward them. And that the remnant that survives the process and the power of the depth of repentance and conversion that will be theirs is another people altogether. One that we could hardly imagine so sanctified by the depth of God's dealings that every family apart mourning. That there will not have been a sorrow and a grief and a repentance as deep in the history of the church as the bellow and cry that shall afflict this people in the moment of the Lord's revealing. We need to adjust our mindset because we can be so very easily influenced by Israel as it presently is and not understand the transfigured people whom God will employ as the instrumentality of his kingdom. And by the way, the church that will be transfigured in the very necessity of being God's instrument toward Israel's restoration, as I will speak about later on. Little wonder if this is true, that if the issue of Israel's restoration is the issue of God's theocracy and divine rule, that the heathen rage and imagine vain things. But from the very first angelic pronouncement to Mary in Luke 1 verses 31 through 33, and behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus. And he shall be great and 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. That's the first angelic pronouncement to Mary that very much underlines the issue of God's divine government and the fulfillment of the promise made to David that out of his loins one would come who would be a king. It's a fulfillment of what is spoken of familiarly in Isaiah chapter nine verse six and seven for unto us a child is born unto us a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called wonderful counselor the mighty God the everlasting father the prince of peace of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end. And I want to underline these words tonight in the context of which I'm speaking upon the throne of David to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. So that fulfills the prophetic promises of God and the national expectation of Israel which is expressed or reflected even in the comment of the disciples of Jesus in his 40-day tenure in his resurrected body when they very legitimately asked him and is this now the time to restore the kingdom to Israel and if the Lord ever had an opportunity once and for all to nullify the validity of that question and to say when will you guys ever learn that you have completely misunderstood in your carnality and selfish nationalism to think that my kingdom would be confined to any limitation such as pertains to your people or your nation or your boundaries. He had it at that time but he did not rebuke them. He did not nullify the question as being invalid. He merely set it aside so to speak out for a fulfillment at a later time because I believe that the whole tenor of scripture indicates in its evident sense that God intends that literal rule in that literal place as the fulfillment of the Davidic promise for a kingdom. Ezekiel 37 is a prophetic reference of the same thing that indicates a future fulfillment talking about the valley of dry bones and a nation being restored from death. Verse 21, thus saith the Lord God behold I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen whether they be gone and will gather them on every side and bring them into their own land and I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountain of Israel mountains of Israel and one king shall be king to them all and they shall be no more two nations neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms anymore at all neither shall they defile themselves anymore with their idols nor with their detestable things nor with any of their current inscriptions but I will save them out of all their dwelling places when they have sinned and will cleanse them so they shall be my people I will be their God and David my servant shall be king over them and they all shall have one shepherd they also shall walk in my judgments and observe my statutes and do them and they shall dwell in the land that I've given unto Jacob my servant where in your fathers dwelt and they and they shall dwell therein even they and their children and their chosen children forever and my servant David shall be their prince forever again seems to confirm yet again the statements of God about a literal return a literal rule over literal people in a literal place called the Davidic kingdom and he shall be their priest their prince I'm sorry forever moreover I will make a covenant with them it shall be an everlasting covenant none other than what we call the new testament the one and the same coming to them in the under the title of the everlasting covenant and bringing them into the bond of God there's something about the modern mind that is scandalized as I've said about such particularities of place people time that wants to remove the offense by spiritualizing it or allegorizing it away which has been the characteristic treatment of the church in modern times toward these prophetic verses and I believe that it was this that Paul had in mind when he said in Romans 11 that I would not have you to be ignorant of this mystery brethren what's the mystery the mystery is the re-emergence of Israel in the latter days and at the end of time for lest you become wise in your own conceit and not the least of that conceit has been the way in which we have handled these prophetic scriptures and found cunning and rich ways to employ them as it pertains to the church and I myself have done so and I want to say that it's a rewarding use of scripture and a provocative one and a rich one because the scriptures are so generous in the rich in their meanings that it is not out of place to make such applications to say that Zion is the church or but what I want to say is this we need we have a first obligation to apply the scripture in the intent in which God first gives it namely in its grammatical and literal sense then we may be free to find an application in a metaphorical allegorical way that could be rich stimulating and but to substitute the latter for the former is doing despite to the word of God and not only that it leaves us unprepared for the anticipation of the very things that are being described let alone the role that God intends and that is reserved uniquely for us as the church to fulfill but why should we not operate by a sound historically accepted hermeneutical first principle I'm just repeating myself receiving the word first in its evident grammatical and contextual sense and while still acknowledging its possible richness and application to other things as a secondary application so in a very important way then the issue of Israel's national redemption becomes also the issue of the veracity of the word the issue of God's honor because it deals with his covenant promises and therefore becomes the issue of God and finally if it is to be fulfilled it becomes the issue of his glory all the more that he does all these things with the least promising of all natural candidates a apostate and backslidden and unrepentant nation and if he cannot honor his promises to Israel it raises the question about his promises to the church what confidence can we have in a word of God that is no longer valid for them and yet somehow is applicable applicable and appropriate for us God is consistent and that this kind of um double dealing with the word of God I think has not served his interest in the church historically so to honor his promise to a people who are and I want to enlarge upon that about their present character that will indeed become embarrassingly worse but if you cannot honor it for Israel in their hopelessly abandoned and destitute and forsaken condition as this as a despised people is it all the more the issue of his power which is the issue of his glory we need somehow to catch a sense of what is the stratagem of God and what what is this final and last day's issue as was raised in the questions pertaining to apostles and prophets why the re-emergence of apostles or old testament type prophets and I can paraphrase the question why the re-emergence of Israel because God has an agenda because God has a purpose and the purpose is to the demonstration of the eternal praise of his glory it's his glory while it's demonstrated in the last days but of such a monumental kind that it reverberates eternally how do we presume to be prophetic and not understand that not welcome that not participate in that and not instruct the church in the things that are should be central to its own understanding if this is God's stratagem at the end of the age to this people and that the whole testimony to support it comes in the prophetic scriptures and yet consider ourselves prophetic and hope for a prophetic a church of prophetic constituency which is I will show you at the end of my remarks is the absolute issue of Israel's restoration at the end the condition of the church is the absolute determinant of whether or not there's going to be this fulfillment God has so established it though he could have done it sovereignly and independently of the church the church is his agent because in employing the church something of necessity must occur with it that transfigures it in order to fulfill its mandate toward this people as for example in Romans 11 have have they stumbled that they should fall that is to say be permanently forsaken and out of the purposes of God God forbid Paul says but through their fall salvation has come to the Gentiles so as to move them to jealousy and we only need to contemplate the condition of the church even in its best condition and if we have any rudimentary knowledge of Jews to know that the best of our present condition is not at all yet calculated to begin to impress let alone to move this severest of all critics the enemies of the gospel for our sake to jealousy that is to say if we were to take the mandate seriously we have an incentive of which there is no other given by God that compels us to a quality of life and and confession and character that can while at the same time moving them to jealousy remarkably qualifies us for our eternal destiny which is to rule and to reign with him from heavenly places there's a mystery here there's a purpose here and we need prophetically to understand it so can the church be prophetic and miss this let alone be opposed to it is the question that i'm raising tonight it's remarkable how voluminous the scriptural evidence is for such a restoration and yet it remains unseen by the church one would suspect a veil over the heart of the church of a kind equal to the veil that is over the over the heart of israel we are as a church as blind to the mystery of god toward that people as that people is with regard to the messiah and to their own scriptures that veil needs to be removed and i believe that this is the set time to favor zion and that god is in process of removing it and just biographically to say this lest you think that i'm making these statements by virtue of being a jew i want you to know that i've been a jew for 61 years and a jewish believer for 26 years but that this has not been part of my understanding until the last three or four years that i'm speaking it by virtue of not being jewish and defending some kind of vested self-interest but i'm speaking it as a prophetic man to whom god has given some measure of revelation of this mystery i would not have you to be ignorant of this mystery brethren lest you be wise in your own conceit it's a mystery and therefore cannot be made known by virtue of our what shall i say intelligence or a mental examination of scripture that somehow there's a remarkable veiling though the there is a prolific weight of of evidence even with that and even being students of the scripture somehow there's a way until it's revealed because mysteries must be revealed and i believe that that time is coming the lord is removing the veil because it is so central not only for israel but particularly for the church and i just want to go on record saying a statement that i make very often in speaking of this in my opinion there is no way for the church to come into the maturity and the constituency and configuration of god's apostolic and prophetic intention independent of the mandate that god has expressly intended for it with this people israel let's take a look uh there's almost an embarrassment of riches you can almost open the book at the prophets at random and chapter after chapter after chapter speak of such a restoration but to leap into isaiah chapter 60 catch a sense of what is reiterated again and again and again interesting that in my new american standard the italic the title in italics over chapter 60s says a glorified zion and when it begins with familiar verses of horizon shine for your light has come and the glory of the lord has risen upon you for behold darkness will cover the earth deep darkness the peoples the nations that is to say but the lord will rise upon you and his glory will appear upon you and nations will come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising now i know that we have liberally used this in the church and i'm not denying that there's an uh an application that has a validity but we not we must not for that reason deny its first application to a people who's rising at a time of global darkness is yet a more dramatic cogent and uh glorious uh expression of god's dealing and that i as i hope to show you as we read on here that god can that this can no way be construed to mean the church if we see it in the context of all that is said in this chapter lift up your eyes round about and see verse four they all gather together they come to you your sons will come from afar and your daughters will be carried in the arms then you will see and be radiant and your heart will fill and rejoice because the abundance of the sea will be turned to you the wealth of the nations will come to you many references in isaiah and elsewhere in the prophets of this people being brought from afar your sons and daughters will be brought from afar from egypt and from kush and from other nations of the middle east and the coastlands and the places to which i have driven you that is perfectly in keeping with the secular history of israel known to all that we have been people in exile and i have a sense and i won't say it as a thus saith the lord and i i don't think that our exilic experience is yet finished i believe there's yet a calamitous uh conclusion to come that will fall upon my kinsmen in the middle east and yet perhaps another expulsion though they have said never again and they will find themselves again one last time and he'll call his sons from egypt one last time and from kush in those places and his sons and his daughters that is to say the saved remnant from among them will be brought from afar that's why there's a radiance that that's why sighing and mourning shall pass away when the redeemed of the lord are returned to zion having been there previously as the unredeemed and the unregenerate and if i can say it the presumptuous thinking that by their own jewish prowess and is our prowess and our ability and our expertise and our energy we would establish our own state and call it zion but of course the socialistic zionism is a very different kind of zion than the one that is prophetically to be fulfilled by the power of god alone when his people are so destitute so afflicted so driven out so without hope that only the power of god can be the factor of their return and then you shall know in that day that i am the lord who has both spoken this and performed it they must know that else they cannot be the blessing to the nations that god intended they should for what then shall their message be if they would have established themselves by their own prowess namely jewish virtue jewish brilliance and jewish ability which has not one wit of redemptive power in it but to bring the message of a god of mercy who saves us from desolation and forsakenness and affliction and restores us and makes us a people upon whom his light shines and his glory is to be seen is a message of yet another time verse 7 ends all the flocks of kadar will be gathered together you the rams of nebeloff will minister you they will go up with acceptance on my altar and i shall glorify my glorious house at the end of verse 9 again talks about surely the coastlands will wait for me and the ships of tarshish will come first to bring your sons from afar their silver and their gold with them for the name of the lord your god and for the holy one of israel because he has glorified you the issue of israel's restoration is not the issue of the restoration of an ethnic people it's the issue of god's glory and if there's anything that distinguishes apostolic and prophetic men above any and all other considerations it's this the profoundest jealousy for the glory of god no accident that romans 11 ends with a pain of praise p-a-e-n where paul breaks the limits of language and cries out all the the depth both of the the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of god who has been his counselor because paul glimpses in the mystery of israel a a design of god an agenda of such a kind that not only is god glorified in the restoration of a nation seen as forsaken and desolate by all the nations of a testimony therefore to the nations but that the the instrument which he has used for their restoration by whom they have obtained mercy is itself an exalted body and glorifies god not only in time but in eternity all the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of god how do we know that god is not that these verses not do not are pertaining to the church haven't we use them liberally in that way um verse 10 foreigners will build up your walls and bring king and their kings will minister you for in my wrath i struck you and in my favor i have had compassion upon you that can never be a statement of the church only israel has provoked god to wrath and in his wrath has he struck them and yet he says for a comforting my people for they have suffered double for their sins for their transgressions verse 14 they will call you the city of the lord the zion of the holy one of israel they will call you verse 16 you will suck the milk of nations you will suck the breast of kings then you will know that i the lord am your savior and your redeemer the mighty one of jacob the same phrase about the god of jacob to whose house we shall go when his hill is established over all the other hills in the latter days the house of the god of jacob who is also the mighty one of jacob the savior and the redeemer and they will know it when he brings them back from all the places where they have been dispersed when they will have the lord for an everlasting light and their god for their glory verse 19 verse 20 where you will have the lord for an everlasting light and the days of your mourning will be finished then all your people will be righteous they will possess the land forever that i may be glorified i remember how my first year as a believer was virtually wasted because i brought to the scripture the same gifts and mentality that i employed as a university student on secular literature i thought that i had to bring my interpretive gifts to the scripture that i used in assessing shakespeare and found out after a year of spinning my my wheels that i was going nowhere the day that my life began to turn in the significant significant way toward god and and the formative things of god began was the day in which i began to take the word of god at its face and value in its evident grammatical sense and i believe that what i experienced will be the experience of the church when they consider this i wonder if our faith books i know that the factors are complex that would indicate why it is that we have been so long obstructed in understanding what seems to me to be the evident truth of the restoration of such a people clearly israel afflicted in the wrath and judgments of god and yet restored and and will be glorified by him and how shall they be glorified because he becomes their everlasting light he becomes present and this fits with all the other scriptures that he will dwell with them and will be their king can we accept that does our faith stagger at the literalness of such a fulfillment all the more when as we watch what is presently happening with this people in that place and in the earth it seems less capable of fulfillment which is all the more reason why god will be glorified in the doing zephaniah 3 15 the king of israel the lord is in your midst we sing the lord your god is in your midst he will exalt over you with joy praise god that the church enjoys singing such choruses and finds an application for itself but i'll tell you what there's a greater joy and a greater delight and a greater glory and a greater honoring to sing that with the understanding that it does not in its first application mean us but them and i can go on to give scriptures about how from the very beginning the whole issue of the issue of god's presence with his people and in mercy shall the throne be established and he shall sit upon it in truth in the tabernacle of david judging and seeking judgment and hasting righteousness i don't want to take time to speak about the way in which we have considered charismatically the tabernacle of david as being the issue of the restoration of davidic worship and as much as i enjoy and applaud that restoration i believe that there's a deeper meaning that has been lost to us and that has been a typical expression of our chutzpah as the church the conceit of the church to think that's so great a thing as the restored tabernacle that has fallen down is to be is the issue of worship shows how much we have missed that is in my opinion the issue of the davidic kingdom the theocratic government of god that has fallen down and will be raised up again in the coming of the king and that all nations will come to it that's not to deny the importance of worship but it's to assert the first meaning of those scriptures i believe in micah that the tabernacle is not nothing other than the dwelling place of god on the holy hill of zion which is although also at the same time the locus of his government and of his rule psalm 102 excuse me for dipping into different versions here verses eight my enemies reproach me all the day they are they that are met against me are sworn against me for i've eaten ashes like bread and mingled my drink with weeping because of thine indignation and thy wrath for that has lifted me up and cast me down it's clearly god's judgment and wrath upon this people but in verse 13 thou shalt arise and have mercy upon zion isn't it interesting the word mercy is the predominant word in romans 11 with regard to the role of the church toward israel that by your mercy they may obtain mercy where did paul get the theme of mercy but from the very scriptures that we're now considering thou shalt arise and have mercy upon zion for he will have mercy upon whom he will have mercy that's the long and the short of it for he is who he is and he will be whom he will be for the time to favor her yet the set yea the set time is come for thy servants take pleasure in her stones and favor the dust thereof so the heathen shall fear the name of the lord and all the kings of earth thy glory when the lord shall build up zion he shall appear in his glory these few verses deserve such uh exegetical attention and just to make a few suggestions because i have not the time it looks like for that the word for thy servants take pleasure is not merely an acknowledgement of something congruent with god coming to have mercy on zion but the very thing that releases that mercy or that expresses that mercy that when something in the church will take place that has a pleasure in her stones and favors her and the dust thereof something is released in the operation of god by which his mercy comes to that people it's a causative factor and not a mere accompaniment to israel's restoration in the same way that so the heathen shall fear the name of the lord by seeing these things the fear of god his judgment and his mercy his goodness and severity is so pronounced and writ large that the fear of the gentiles toward him is affected and the kings of the earth thy glory when when the lord shall build up zion and i'm saying that that zion is that literal hill in that literal place with that literal people in the davidic messianic theocracy when he shall appear in his glory when thy servants take pleasure in her stones is something to dwell upon i think we can all just frankly admit as servants of the word and lovers of truth that there has not been a conspicuous love affair between gentiles and jews historically and even to this hour that even in our truest moments when we examine our own hearts toward this people i'm speaking now as a man of the church rather than of my own nativity that there's something about a jew that is not calculated to warm the cockles of our hearts there's something about jews that is abrasive we had a little taste of that this morning something irritating something about their success something about their very nature their aggressiveness that i don't believe is inadvertent or accidental i believe that they are created in the very image of god more for the our the testing and the purifying of our hearts than perhaps any other purpose that is served by that makeup when will when will her dust have favor in our sight and her stones that we have come to such a place beyond what shall i say charismatic fascination with the mystique of israel or or like liking the the toughness of the israeli or whatever it is that has appealed to the church up till now none of that will stand the test of time this is a much deeper affection namely that of god himself who has inscribed them in the palms of his hands and will not allow the seasons to cease without fulfilling his word toward them and that may be the very issue of israel for the church is the issue of god our proximity to him the knowledge of his heart and the union with his heart and loving what he loves and hating what he hates despite every natural and antagonistic and irritating factor to the contrary a church that can rise above the natural and the inflammatory and the irritating and the vexatious to love the people whom all the world is coming to despise and to love the stones and the dust thereof because we know that in that stones and dust is the issue of his soon coming and his reign and his glory is another church and it's a church for which god is waiting and will not have independent of this mystery i want to end tonight with a little reference to ezekiel 37 we've already looked at it i want to go back there because i want to end with the implication of all this as i have now several times stated for the church and we all know what that chapter describes an israel that has become a valley of dry bones hopeless and so staggering a statement of death and hopelessness that the prophet has to be brought by the spirit down into the valley of dry bones that however much the prophet is the man of truth it's a truth of such a grim kind for which even he has not the stomach to consider that he needs to be brought by the spirit even as i'm trusting god through such a foolish instrument as this you who are hearing me and those who hear this tape will be brought by the spirit down from the arrogance and conceit of our own mind and allegorizing of these scriptures to the humbling of ourselves to fall before the truth of them so too we need to be a prophetic people like the son of man who is brought by the spirit of god down into the valley which is always a place of depression which is full of bones and he caused me to pass by them round about behold there were very many and they were very dry he set me down in the midst of that valley and moved me all about and around he rubbed the issue of the death of israel into the face of this prophet significantly called the son of man because if if we need to be reminded of anything it is the apparent foolishness and disjuncture of prophetic calling to be mouthpieces for very god in the humanity that we ourselves are that was demonstrated again yet today by myself we are sons of men eminently and always will be and always will be in that tension between the holiness of our calling and the contradictory elements of our humanity and it's in that tension that god yet requires and obedience namely to speak to these bones and to prophesy to them and i appreciate what david has been speaking to us about the nature of prophetic utterance this is more than warning this is more than prophetic exclamation this is more than information this is the pro-creative word this is the word as event and you say well why didn't the god who formed creation by his own have to employ yet another agent called the son of man because i believe it gives us a picture of what is god's stratagem at the end of the age not only for their sake but for ours because i believe if my if i can say that on the in my intuitive in my intuitive heart that what god is waiting for and will not act without is a son of man company that is to say the church the true church that the remnant people of god brought to a full prophetic and apostolic constituency and character and authority whose single speaking talk about the issue of unity is not some kind of ecumenical fold the role of feigned unanimity but the work of the spirit of god which is no light thing to bring us to an accommodation and an agreement where we speak the same thing and see the same thing and say the same thing and it's evident to any man who has any experience in god at all we're not going to come to that place without pain it's going to take us suffering to bring us from the present islands of opinion that we now constitute to have a unanimity of mind which is one with his that when we speak it'll be a word in agreement which is the issue that makes it a word not of information but a word of creation that brings life from the dead into hearing that's why paul was made the apostle to the gentiles that's why nine tenths of my ministry has been to the church because the church is the key to israel's restoration a church that is habituated to obedience a church whose prophetic faith will stretch but not break when it has to consider that a word from its mouth will bring life to that which is so dead so forlorn so utterly bereft of life that it itself says in this text we are cut off we are without hope we are dry bones with the god i could hold one up tonight and you're going to feel it the texture of it the aridness that that turns to powder as you as you touch it that's the condition to which god is going to bring this people why because we are so much in ourselves so impressive in the power of our own natural life that the only way that we can be the fulfillment and the blessing to the nations is as abraham himself whose body was as good as dead to be the people of the resurrection but who has the faith to believe for that and if the word is not spoken in faith can it have can it be the causative agent that they're being brought to life from that condition in other words a sham faith a feigned faith a faith that is only correct but is not a living faith a palpable faith a dynamic faith will fail and finally in keeping with what god has spoken to us through these days it's a faith that worketh alone by love or it will not work it needs the energizing power of love for a people whom we have every right to despise or at the least to dislike and if i could suggest even more subtle psychological reasons why it is that the son of man shrank from speaking to those bones not only because he was the agent through which through whom god's very judgments came to that people and now nullifies those judgments by yet a new speaking but there's something about being son of man as god's only and chosen and privileged son that is at that seems to be threatened if there is a measure of insecurity when god will raise another and bring another son back from the grave it's the story of the prodigal son the elder son who resents the return of the younger lest it threatened the privileged and cherished position that he alone alone now enjoys with the father what i'm saying is this that of all the things that god is after when we talk about a church coming to its full prophetic and apostolic constituency is a maturity that does not resent the restoration of another son and feels that there's a measure of war sufficient for both and can exalt and rejoice for that one's return and therefore with love speak the word that will constitute that return i'll tell you there's a i know i've been fighting it there's a tension there's an opposition and i've had it out with some of god's dearest men and movements who so vehemently resist and refuse the the the whole tenor of scripture that speaks of israel's restoration and i sense that in their deepest heart is an insecurity and a jealousy about their stature and place in god that somehow even unconsciously is affected by the thought that there's another who will preclude that place and remove them from it in fact i myself suffered from that even being a jew my my jealousy for the glory of the church unto him be glory in the church was so great that i didn't want some johnny come lately to be to re-emerge until god took the veil from my heart and eyes and showed me there's a glory of such magnitude that we need not be jealous or fear that their restoration in any way minimizes our place we have a heavenly and an eternal place with him in glorified bodies and rising and ascending and descending upon the son of man as the mutual agents of his kingdom from the heavenly stratum that we can well afford to look upon them from the earthly plane as co-laborers with us in the extension of his kingdom through his creation so we have an incentive to remove the vial from the sacred that we might be as god's mouth isn't that remarkable that that the zeke of 37 verse 14 verse 13 and you shall know that i am the lord when i have opened your graves on my people and brought you up out of your graves and you shall put and shall put my spirit in you and you shall live and i shall place you in your own land then you shall know that i the lord have spoken it and performed it saith the lord where's his hermeneutical principle where's his exegetical attention to the nuances of the word isn't it clear that he did not speak it that he's employed a son of man to speak it how does he dare take that liberty to equate the speaking of the son of man as being one with himself and as constituting that very speaking is that is he lacking in hermeneutical skills or has the prophet come to such a place in god that you can't tell where he ends and where god begins that he speaks for god as god he separated the vial from the sacred that god has so dealt with the flesh and with the soul and every aspect of that thing that is particularly prominent in prophetic personality that the man is dissolved into god he has no interest of himself for himself he is the objective selfless instrument and yet there's something in him that needs to yield to the design and the god that had that by which his fear envy intimidation insecurity is lost in the knowledge of that god by which he can speak that word of faith by love which creates so just to conclude our problem historically is that in seeing the rich typological value of prophetic scripture in application to the church we have dismissed or not considered israel in its first evident and primary application the problem lies more deeply in our unconscious antipathy to any who would compete with us for centrality with god that is a prodigal son who doesn't deserve or merit god's mercy isn't it interesting how we are found out at the very end of the age and that if we only hold the doctrine of grace as doctrine but have a heart a pharisaical heart that still inwardly celebrates its own virtues and thinks that we have been saved because of some distinguishing merit of our own we will resent this complete mercy this this this unconditional mercy because there's something in us that is self-elevating and thinks that we somehow have deserved it the issue of the jew the issue of israel becomes in the last analysis the issue of the church and becomes the issue of god the issue of his word the issue of his promise the issue of his power the issue of its fulfillment the issue of his glory ought we not as prophetic men to embrace that and to rejoice for it and to make it known and labor to bring the church to its prophetic corporateness and constituency that with one heart with one mind and with one will in obedience to the god who commands it speaks the word alone that only it can and must that brings life to the dead and therefore to the to to the nations so it's not only the dry bones that are the object of god's redemptive consideration but the son of man company the transfigured only in that faith which works by love oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of god who has been his counselor who was first given to him and it shall be given again for of him and through him and to him are all these things i didn't make it up nor did paul to whom be glory not just in time when these things are affected but forever so great is the magnitude of this mystery if you'll give me the allowance i want to sing that and put it on the tape and close with a prayer romans 11 33 through 36 oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of god how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out for who has known the mind of the lord who has been his counselor uh who has first given to him and it shall be recompensed to him again for of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever amen lord we bow before you tonight agreeing with our precious brother paul that of you and through you and to you are all things even tonight if this is not of you if this is something occasioned by the machinations of a man taking an opportunity to promulgate a favorite view it'll serve nothing but if this night is of you you've established this little audience this tape and that the speaking has been through you by your spirit that the result and the glory is for you and to you to whom be glory forever then we say so be it bless this night the speaking these days with this kind of conclusion my god put a seal on it confident that your word shall not go forth void but shall accomplish the purposes where unto it is sent willingly my god do we allow our presumptions our understandings our convictions our attitudes our doctrines our theology my god to be adjusted in the light of what you would have us to know if the set time to favor israel has come that in your genius and in your program and your agenda encouraging us even in these days that we should allow for god's whole agenda we allow also not only the re-emergence of apostles and prophets but what the important reason with which they're connected the re-emergence of a restored israel the locus of a davidic kingdom the theocracy of god in a tortured creation of earth let it be my god thank you for this occasion seal it watch over it perform it in jesus name we pray amen