Restoration of all things 9

MODULE 12: THE RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS PART 2 SESSION 9 1 When our spirits resonate with truth we will discover that there are many wonders beyond those specifically mentioned in the Bible We are walking with God on a relational journey to discover more about Him and ourselves and what our role is in restoration We have the Holy Spirit of Truth in us and with us as our guide We have Jesus, the way, truth and life, in us and with us to disciple us We have our loving Father in us and with us to Father us into sonship Agape love should be what we use to measure and test everything against If you don’t resonate with anything on the journey, park it and continue to pursue the truth with God directly There are many things that I don’t yet fully understand cognitively but that does not necessarily make them wrong There have been many things that I was convinced were true that I now realise were merely man’s opinions and ideas The 4 streams of thought that are converging into one mighty river are: Mystic sonship, Realised eschatology, Universal reconciliation, Energy frequency healing We are going to cover the other 3 streams in this module as the mystic stream is the focus of the whole EG programme The fruit of the poisoned tree of Brethrenism include: · The rapture deception · The millennium deception · The Zionist deception · The dispensationalism deception · The cessationist deception The judgment of the second coming ended the old covenant religious system Destroyed the old temple wineskin system Removed the separation and partition between Jew and Gentile Established one new man in Christ All of the types and shadows that the old covenant, Israel and the land have been fulfilled spiritually and literally in Jesus and the new covenant 2 Cor 1:20 For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us. This is issue is probably one of the greatest distractions to the restoration of all things Are there 2 peoples of God? Is secular Israel as a nation still God’s people? Is the restoration of Israel as a nation a fulfilment of prophecy? Is Jesus coming back to preside over animal sacrifices in a new temple in Jerusalem? Is Jesus going to rule on earth from Jerusalem for 1000 years? All these teachings are from the fruit of the same poisonous tree that created rapture and cessationism One issue is the concept of the covenant with Israel to be the people of God and possess the promised land as being an everlasting covenant One major issue with that position is interpreting the word Hebrew “olam” as everlasting MODULE 12: THE RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS PART 2 SESSION 9 2 Who is Israel and who are Jews? Are Jews an ethnic race or followers of the Jewish faith? Who was the land promised to? Who are Abraham’s seed and heirs? What was Abraham looking for? The whole subject of modern day Israel as a nation being “God’s people” is controversial today The evangelical promotion of this theory has created strife and enmity amongst the Christian and Jewish communities There are fundamentalist Jewish groups such as “Jews Against Israel” who vehemently oppose Zionism. There is political as well as religious strife What are the answers to these difficult questions? To answer these questions, we need to see, in context, what Jesus taught and to whom. We need to understand the old and new covenants We need a non-futurist mind-set We need to see its connection to the fruit of the poisonous tree We need to understand the relationship (or not) of the modern nation of Israel to the covenant with Abraham We need to understand the origin of modern Zionism and the origin of modern Israel and Jewish people ethnically We need to understand that the covenants in the Old Testament were not everlasting We need to understand the connection between the physical types and shadows and spiritual fulfilments The position that the existence of modern nation of Israel is fulfilment of old testament prophecy and that they are still the people of God is a very new teaching, relatively speaking, and is linked to Brethrenism and dispensationalism There are statements that are taken for granted as being true and raise much consternation and incredulity if challenged If these challenges cause you to have emotional responses, take it back to God for His perspective, as you may have ‘futurist programming’ Israel is the Promised Land, given in perpetuity to the Jews, and the return of scattered Jews since 1948 is a fulfilment of Bible prophecy. Is it? Everyone should be praying for the peace of Jerusalem – which implies Israeli subjugation of Arabs in general, and Palestinians in particular. Should we? Does it? Did Jesus not come to end the divisions and separations? Wasn’t the wall and barriers between Jews and Gentiles removed? Didn’t the spiritual distinction between Jew and Gentile come to an end with Christ and the foundation of His church? Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise. MODULE 12: THE RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS PART 2 SESSION 9 3 Colossians 3:11 a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all. ‘Israel’ or ‘people of God’ was redefined in the NT as the church that Jesus loved and died for, and is building Ephesians 5:25 ‘Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her’ … and that’s what he’s building. Matthew 16:18 I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. Jesus came to form a new wineskin where God would dwell in His people, not in an earthly physical temple Jesus was primarily addressing a Jewish audience. He declared that He was building the Ekklesia, a new wineskin He did not mention Jewish ethnicity, and certainly not any Middle Eastern territory The New Testament, in fact, contains not a single reference to the return of the Jews to the Promised Land. The promise of the land was conditional: their possession of it was always conditional upon their obedience. Jeremiah 18:7 At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it; 8 if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it. Deut 28:62 Then you shall be left few in number, whereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, because you did not obey the Lord your God. 63 It shall come about that as the Lord delighted over you to prosper you, and multiply you, so the Lord will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you; and you will be torn from the land where you are entering to possess it. Joshua 23:16 When you transgress the covenant of the Lord your God, which He commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, then the anger of the Lord will burn against you, and you will perish quickly from off the good land which He has given you.” Jeremiah 3:1 God says, “If a husband divorces his wife and she goes from him and belongs to another man, will he still return to her? Will not that land be completely polluted? But you are a harlot with many lovers…” Jeremiah 3:6 Then the Lord said to me in the days of Josiah the king, “Have you seen what faithless Israel did? She went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and she was a harlot there. 8 And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a writ of divorce…” The Old Testament records how they failed to meet the conditions and so lost the right to the land. ‘Israel’ has been redefined in the light of Christ. Present-day Israel is a secular state, unrelated to God’s revealed purpose. Jesus affirms the truth that the kingdom was going to be removed from them because of their rejection of the Messiah: Jesus, the foundation stone Their right to be the people of God was removed from them and given to a people to be fruitful MODULE 12: THE RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS PART 2 SESSION 9 4 Matt 23:42 Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief corner stone; this came about from the Lord, and it is marvellous in our eyes’? Matt 23:43 Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit of it. 45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was speaking about them. The present state of Israel certainly does not exist because its citizens have turned to God through Jesus the Messiah Israel is a thoroughly secular state, with only some practising Jews and very few Christians. The whole ‘Christian Zionism’ issue is a gigantic red herring, diverting believers from their true mission as sons of God to reveal Jesus in the Gentiles; and to be revealed as sons, to see creation set free from bondage, within the restoration of all things The usual response to these challenges is to use certain proof text passages on the Jewish question: Romans 9-11? Stating that it is clear from Paul’s words here that the Jews are a special case. It is not the case, on the contrary if you look at the true context. The theme of the whole letter of Romans is an examination of the question: who are the people of God? And Paul’s answer is unequivocal: God’s people are those who put their faith in Christ. It is not an ethnic or religious issue Whether they are Jews or Gentiles is immaterial. A Chinese, an Indian, a Swede or an Eskimo can, by trusting Jesus, be as much a descendant of Abraham as an ethnic Jew. An actual Jew has no access to the Father other than through Jesus MODULE 12: THE RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS PART 2 SESSION 9 5 Romans 4:16 For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all Galatians 3:7 Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. Romans 9-11 reveals that the Jews are not a special case for God’s favour but in spite of their obstinate refusal to recognise their Messiah, they can still accept Jesus God, in his mercy, has not closed the door on them. They are still candidates for salvation, as much as any Gentile! They have to be grafted into the true vine of God’s people as were the Gentiles: by faith, not by race or religion Paul ends up redefining what ‘Israel’ means. While recognising Jewish ethnicity, his more basic point is that the real ‘chosen people’, the real Israel, is the redeemed community: the church made up of any and all believers in Jesus The response is usually the accusation of ‘You’re into Replacement Theology, pushing Israel aside and saying the church has taken its place. And it’s heresy!’ Is it? Or is Zionism the actual ‘replacement theology’ and heresy? The true heresy perhaps is that Israel has replaced the church in so much evangelical theology The reality is that this theological position has been produced from the fruit of the poisoned tree of Brethrenism and dispensationalism and is not what Paul taught I don’t believe in Replacement Theology, as it is defined by evangelicals. My position, and actually that of virtually all mainline biblical scholars, is a different one. Continuity: there has only ever been, or ever will be, one people of God That the church does not replace Israel but that the church is Israel. The real Israel, the true people of God, the ultimate ‘chosen people’ of which the Jews in their national ‘chosen’ capacity were merely a type and shadow. The church has not replaced Israel; God’s promises to ancient Israel have been fulfilled in Christ, the Messiah, for the church, who are the people of God The church is the Israel of God: God’s people though faith Jesus fulfils all land promises God’s way of moving from ‘old’ to ‘new’ is not to replace the old with the new, but to remodel the old into the new. The earth after the Flood was still in many respects the same earth, yet new in the sense that it had been radically reshaped by the waters. We need to view these questions from the correct perspective I believe in progressive revelation: that God has made Himself known gradually, culminating in Jesus Christ. The old were just types and shadows to reveal the new Heb 1:1-2 God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, 2 in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. MODULE 12: THE RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS PART 2 SESSION 9 6 The New Testament reveals truth unknown in the Old Testament, and the New Testament writers are the Spirit-inspired interpreters of the Old. The new is in the old concealed and the old is in the new revealed. Jesus departed from Jewish centrality by choosing twelve apostles as the foundation for the new people of God in an obvious alternative to ethnic Israel with its twelve tribal ancestors. Those apostles also adopted the same ‘new people’ line. Peter takes the Old Testament phrases applied to Israel and applies them, without excuse, to the church. It is redeemed Jews and Gentiles together, he says, who are in the final sense ‘a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God.’ And not just a people, for he goes on: ‘Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.’ 1 Peter 2:9-10 was referring to Isaiah 43:2 and Exodus 19:6 as the church being the fulfilment of those prophecies 1 Peter 2:9 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 marvellous 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. In the Bible, ‘the people of God’ and ‘Israel’ are synonymous terms. Paul uses the Old Testament promises originally addressed to the Jews and, writing to chiefly-Gentile Christians in Corinth, declares, ‘Since we have these promises, dear friends…’ 2 Corinthians 6:16 – 7:1 2 Corinthians 6:16 – 7:1 16 Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them; And I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” 2 Cor 7:1 Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. The promises in the old now apply to believers in the new who are now included in Jesus Galatians 6:15-16 ‘Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision (Jews and Gentiles) means anything; what counts is a new creation. Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule, even to the Israel of God.’ Most biblical commentators see that phrase as referring to nothing but the church. Phil 3:3 for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh Some have tried to argue that the Greek word kai doesn’t mean ‘even’ here but ‘and’. The weight of scholarly linguistic opinion is solidly against them. Paul was addressing the new covenant believers as the Israel of God Paul is saying, controversially for the Judaisers who opposed him, that those who have experienced the ‘new creation’, whether they be of Jewish or of Gentile stock, constitute God’s true Israel. MODULE 12: THE RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS PART 2 SESSION 9 7 Paul makes a similar plain statement in Romans 11:26 where, after using ‘Israel’ in the ethnic sense from the beginning of chapter nine, he then deliberately shocks his readers by using the phrase ‘all Israel’ to mean the church. N.T. Wright comments: ‘Paul is clearly offering a deliberately polemical redefinition of “Israel”, parallel to that in Galatians (6:16), in which the people thus referred to are the whole company, Jew and Gentile alike, who are now (as in Romans 4 and 9:6-8.) inheriting the promises made to Abraham.’ The concept of ‘the land’ is absent from the New Testament picture completely. The real people of God, the church, are so numerous you would never fit them into that tiny country in the Middle East, even if they wanted to live there. What is the origin of ethnic Israelis today? Are they genetically related to Abraham or a Semitic race? Are Jews a race, or a religion made up of many races? Jewish adherents who reject Jesus are not the Israel of God or the people of God Abraham’s true descendants are only through Christ: it is those who are of faith who are heirs, not the natural descendants. Gal 3:8 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.” Gal 3:16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed He does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your seed,” that is, Christ. Gal 3:26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Gal 3:29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise. John 8:56 “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” Being a true Jew is not by race but faith Rom 2:28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. 29 But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God Romans 9:6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; 7 nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but: “THROUGH ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL BE NAMED.” 8 That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants. Romans 9:30 What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; 31 but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Romans 9:32 Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, 33 just as it is written, “Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and he who believes in him will not be disappointed.” MODULE 12: THE RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS PART 2 SESSION 9 8 Rom 4:16 For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all The church is the continuation of the true people of God (those of faith in Christ), not a replacement for natural Israel. Therefore Jews who become believers become part of one new man, two groups becoming one: “the Church” There is not ‘the church’ and ‘redeemed Israel’; just believers in Christ and non-believers in Christ, There is only one new group, not two There are only believers in Jesus of all races; and unbelievers of all races and religions Ephesians 2:14-15 For He is [Himself] our peace (our bond of unity and harmony). He has made us both [Jew and Gentile] one [body], and has broken down (destroyed, abolished) the hostile dividing wall between us, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace 1 Peter 2:4 Come to Him [then, to that] Living Stone which men tried and threw away, but which is chosen [and] precious in God’s sight. 5 [Come] and, like living stones, be yourselves built [into] a spiritual house, for a holy (dedicated, consecrated) priesthood, to offer up [those] spiritual sacrifices [that are] acceptable and pleasing to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:6 For thus it stands in Scripture: Behold, I am laying in Zion a chosen (honoured), precious chief Cornerstone, and he who believes in Him [who adheres to, trusts in, and relies on Him] shall never be disappointed or put to shame 1 Peter 2:7 To you then who believe (who adhere to, trust in, and rely on Him) is the preciousness; but for those who disbelieve [it is true], The [very] Stone which the builders rejected has become the main Cornerstone 1 Peter 2:8 And, A Stone that will cause stumbling and a Rock that will give [men] offense; they stumble because they disobey and disbelieve [God’s] Word, as those [who reject Him] were destined (appointed) to do. 1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a dedicated nation, [God’s] own purchased, special people, that you may set forth the wonderful deeds and display the virtues and perfections of Him Who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light. 1 Peter 2:10 Once you were not a people [at all], but now you are God’s people; once you were unpitied, but now you are pitied and have received mercy. That mercy was through what Jesus did on the cross Rest is the key to restoration and revelation Start to focus on your breathing, slowing it down, and start thinking of the name of God YHVH Breathe in deeply and exhale slowly: Yod Breathe in Hei and breathe out Vav Repeat: in Hei, out Yod, in Hei, and out Vav… MODULE 12: THE RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS PART 2 SESSION 9 9 Invite love, joy and peace to flow in you, fill your spirit and soul, and flow through you to create an atmosphere of rest around you You are in a safe place Start to think of an open heaven and set your desire upon it Steps like Jacob’s ladder leading up to heaven Hear the invitation to come up here Shift focus of our mind Walk up those steps to the door Now step through the veil into the kingdom realm Jesus is standing in the doorway Present yourself to Jesus, your High Priest, as a living sacrifice Let Him take you by the hand Ask Him to reveal restoration and the oracles of the Father’s heart Ask Him to take you into the eternal now Ask Him to take you to the fire stones Jesus, please take each person and show them what they need to receive the mandate for restoration Go wherever He takes you Copyright ©2020 Freedom Apostolic Ministries Ltd., a not-for-profit company registered in England. All rights reserved. Company number 10359676. Registered office: Freedom Centre, 1 Howard Avenue, Barnstaple EX32 8QA, UK.