Appendix B – The
Israel of God
continued
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Even a casual
study of Bible history reveals the
degenerating consequences of
sin. In a sin filled world, it
is unnatural to have faith in
God. Beginning with Abraham and
Sarah, we read how they became weary
of waiting on God for a son.
They took matters into their own
hands and Ishmael was the
result. Esau was Isaac’s
firstborn, but Jacob tried to steal
the birthright through deceit only to
discover that God would not accept
his treachery. Reuben,
Jacob’s firstborn son, was
emotionally unstable and he did not
conduct himself in a way worthy of
the sacred trust granted to the
firstborn. Jacob denied him the
birthright for his sexual
promiscuity.[14] Jacob
also denied the privileges of
birthright to his next sons, Simeon
and Levi, because of their violence
and cruelty. So, Jacob gave
paternal rights and the sacred trust
to his fourth born son, Judah.
In the next generation, God killed
Judah’s firstborn, Er, for his
wickedness.[15] From
that time, God’s efforts to have
Abraham’s family deliver the
plan of redemption to the inhabitants
of Earth fell apart.
When trustees
fail to discharge the terms of the
trust set by the grantor, the
beneficiaries cannot receive the
assets or gifts the grantor wants
them to have. As a consequence
of their delinquency, God sent
Abraham’s family into
Egypt. It is ironic that
Joseph, a faithful “grandson of
Abraham,” was the one who set
the stage for his family to become
slaves.[16]
Because of faithless living, God
permitted Abraham’s family to
become slaves of Pharaoh and they
lost the exalted opportunity to serve
as trustees of the gospel for the
next 400 years.
3.
God Starts Over – Calls Moses
One day at a
burning bush in the Arabian desert,
God called Moses to be a trustee of
the gospel.[17] Moses
was neither the firstborn of his
family nor was he a member of the
tribe of Judah. At this time,
lineage no longer mattered because
God was starting over. Adam and
the patriarchs had failed.
Abraham and his immediate descendants
had failed. However, God, in
keeping with His promises to Abraham,
started over with a distant
descendant of Abraham. He
needed a man to deliver the Hebrews
from Egyptian bondage so that He
could start over. So, Moses,
the murderer turned shepherd, became
a trustee of the eternal gospel.
At Mount
Sinai God offered the nation of
Israel the opportunity to become
trustees of the plan of redemption
and they accepted.[18]
Meanwhile, the population of the
world had multiplied significantly
since the flood. Many tribal
nations were scattered around Earth,
and most of them did not know about
the God of Heaven, nor His amazing
gospel. So, working through His
newly appointed trustees, Moses and
his brother, Aaron, God set out again
to make Abraham’s descendants a
family of trustees.
At Mount
Sinai, God also promoted the tribe of
Levi above the tribes to be a group
of special trustees for His family of
trustees. After a few
centuries, however, it became
impossible to tell who was leading
who. The Levites were no
different than members of the other
tribes. They did the same evil
things in the sight of the
Lord. Time after time, God sent
prophets to the kings and priests of
Israel to remind the nation the
conditions required for God’s
blessings, but the Israelites hated
the prophets and killed most of
them. Century after century,
the prophets chastised and rebuked
the Israelites for their
rebellion. In 605 B.C., God
sent the whole nation to Babylon as
captives for their rebellion, but the
captivity did not produce
repentance. The story of Israel
ends on a sad note. God tried
everything possible for 1,470 years
(thirty Jubilee cycles), but His
trustees did not measure up to the
terms and conditions of being
trustees of His gospel.
Finally, God sent the Roman army
against Jerusalem and completely
destroyed the nation. All this
happened just as He had warned from
the very beginning.[19]
4.
God Starts Over Again
After Jesus
was on Earth, He concluded that
Israel was beyond redemption, so He
created a new covenant with a new
group of trustees. Jesus chose
men who already knew God’s ways
and character. This allowed the
gospel of Jesus to spread rapidly
throughout the world. He chose
twelve men who, when the time was
right, would step out of Judaism and
become known as Christians. It
is amazing, given the failure of
previous trustees, that all but one
of the original twelve disciples
lived up to His calling!
The
trusteeship Jesus gave to Christians
does not have any qualifications
except faith in Christ.
Biological lineage, paternal rights,
race, and culture are all
meaningless. Remember, the
ultimate purpose of a living trust is
to benefit the beneficiaries.
Therefore, God opened the floodgates
after the cross and anyone who wants
to be a trustee of His gospel can do
so. There are many titles
describing this new arrangement, but
Christians generally call it
“the priesthood of the
believer.” In effect, it
means that any person, male or
female, Jew or Gentile, can now serve
as a trustee of the gospel.[20]
Remember, the
duty of a trustee is to carry out the
wishes of the grantor. God
still wants the world to hear and
witness the power of His
gospel. God wants the world to
know about His efforts to save
mankind from the penalty for
sin. God wants everyone in the
world to know that victory over sin
is possible. God wants the
world to know that lasting joy,
happiness, and peace will come if men
and women obey His laws and
commands. God wants His
trustees to be living examples of His
gospel because “seeing is
believing.”
The history
of the Christian Church is not
wholesome or glorious. About
500 years after Jesus returned to
Heaven, the Christian Church morphed
from “the persecuted” into
“the persecutor of the
saints.” Corporately
speaking, the Christian Church
repeated the rebellious history of
the Jewish nation. Christian
leaders became focused on power and
wealth. They forgot God and
they hated those who loved His
gospel. During the Dark Ages,
the church destroyed many people who
firmly stood for God’s
truth. Sin consistently ruins
God’s trustees, because the
carnal nature is hostile toward the
eternal gospel. The carnal
nature is self-seeking and
self-important. Bible history
confirms that God’s trustees
always fail because mankind is cursed
with the carnal nature. When
the carnal nature rules, there is an
irresistible temptation to redirect
the assets that belong to the
grantor’s beneficiaries to
self. It is naturally easier to
keep (hoard) wealth than to give it
away, remaining a humble conduit
through which wealth might flow.
5.
God Starts over Again
The iron grip
of the Roman Catholic Church in
Europe was finally broken in 1798,
and the resulting freedom allowed a
new group of people to take the
gospel commission seriously.
Just as Christianity rose out of the
cradle of Judaism, Protestantism
arose from the soil of
Catholicism. Once again, God
renewed and extended the privilege of
trusteeship to anyone willing to
proclaim and demonstrate His eternal
gospel. Keep in mind that the
basic trust remains intact. The
Grantor (God) wants everyone in the
world (the beneficiaries) to benefit
from His eternal gospel. To do
this, the Grantor continues to search
for faithful trustees who will
accomplish the terms and conditions
of His trust.
Unfortunately,
Protestantism has also floundered and
become derelict in fulfilling its God
given duties. Protestantism has
lost its vision and her
purpose. It has grown
indifferent to the eternal gospel
because of materialism and
humanism. Prosperity has robbed
Protestantism of its momentum.
The spiritual awakening that
propelled 18th century
Protestantism is dead. Many
people still claim they are
protestors, but few Protestants
remember the protest.
6.
God Starts Over Again
Just in case
you have forgotten, a living trust is
an arrangement whereby a grantor
transfers something of value to His
beneficiaries using the services of a
trustee. We are now living
2,000 years after Jesus lived on
Earth, and Catholics and Protestants
combined represent only 25% of the
world’s population. The
world now has more people living on
it than at any other time in its
history. As a percentage of
people on Earth, it would be fair to
say that very few people within this
25% actually know and understand the
terms and conditions contained in the
eternal gospel.
The seven
trumpets of Revelation will sound
very soon and the whole world will
discover God’s great displeasure
with mankind. Jesus will select
and empower a new group of 144,000
people as trustees of the eternal
gospel before the Great Tribulation
begins. These faithful men and
women will come from all nations,
languages, and religions. Jesus
will give the 144,000 an
understanding of the eternal gospel
and He will empower them with Holy
Spirit power so they can tell the
world about redemption. This
group of 144,000 people will
accomplish in 1,260 days all that God
desires. The 144,000 will
confront each person in the world
with the eternal, unchanging gospel
of Jesus Christ and every person will
have to make a decision for or
against it. The 144,000 will
not fail. They will accomplish
all that the Lord wants done.
7.
God’s Final Trustees Will Live
Forever
This study on
God’s trustees does not end with
the Second Coming. The people
who are redeemed will serve as
trustees of the eternal gospel
throughout eternity. They will
serve God as priests and kings.
Because the redeemed have shown
themselves to be faithful and
obedient to the King of kings, He
will greatly honor them in the ages
to come just as they honored Him on
Earth. It is interesting that
the redeemed are the seventh and
final group of trustees. As the
number seven signifies a full and
complete number, so the redeemed will
testify of God’s endless love
forever.
Seven
Groups of Trustees
- The
patriarchs
- The
lineage of Abraham
- The
nation of Israel
- The
Christian church
- The
Protestant movement
- The
144,000
- The
redeemed of all ages
Summary
When sin
began, God implemented the plan of
redemption as a living trust.
God determined that “enlightened
brothers” should humbly labor
for their “brothers in
darkness.” God also
determined that His trustees should
be living examples of living by
faith, displaying His love and
grace. The foundations of the
eternal gospel never change although
expressions of faith do change.
In other words, there is no other way
to please an infinite God than
through faithful obedience.
Through the ages, God’s trustees
have proven to be a failure.
This is why the final trustees of the
eternal gospel will be sealed (carnal
nature removed) before they begin
their work. This will enable
the 144,000 to accomplish all that
God wants. Hopefully, this
study illuminates the fact that
God’s trustees are only that
– trustees. They are not
the Grantor of redemption. In
fact, trustees cannot save anyone and
they cannot condemn anyone.
This is God’s work. The
only thing that God’s trustees
have to offer is enlightenment.
Through word and action, their lives
will reflect the light of the eternal
gospel. Because salvation does
not come through a church or a tribe,
a numberless throng of saints will
sing together on Heaven’s
shore: “. . .
Salvation belongs to our God who sits
on the throne, and to the Lamb.”[21]
Part
II
Now that we
have considered the concept of a
living trust, we can examine another
important topic. Many
Christians do not realize the
necessity or importance of being
counted an heir of Abraham.
They read this verse, “If
you belong to Christ, then you are
Abraham’s seed [Greek:
sperma], and heirs according
to the promise”,[22] without
understanding the profound importance
of the verse. Here is the
problem: Long ago God promised
to give the world to Abraham and his
descendants. If Christians are
not counted as heirs of Abraham, then
Christians will have no place to
spend eternity.
We will
examine this interesting topic in
just a moment. For now, please
consider this. When two people get
married, it is said that six people
are involved.
- There
is the guy he thinks he is.
- There
is the guy she thinks he is.
- There
is the guy he really is.
- There
is the girl he thinks she is.
- There
is the girl she thinks she
is.
- There
is the girl she really is.
Normally,
after two years of marriage, only two
of the original six people remain
alive: The guy he really is and
the girl she really is. The
death of four people is announced one
solemn day when one spouse says to
the other, “You have
changed! You are not the person
I married!” I have used this
marriage illustration to demonstrate
that two spouses can appear to
be six different people.
Similarly, two groups of people,
sheep and goats, can be described as
twelve different types of people in
God’s sight! With this
thought in mind, please consider the
following definitions and notice the
name of the variable that identifies
each group because these variables
will be used throughout this study:
- Jews
J1 = A
Jew (an individual who descended from
Abraham, loves God, lives by faith
– a saint)
J2 = A
Jew (an nonreligious individual who
has Jewish parents, heritage or
culture)
J3 = A
Jew (a religious zealot who is an
ignorant, arrogant, unloving,
hardheaded individual whose God is
his religious opinion)
J4 =
Israel (corporately speaking, all
Jews)
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