A Remnant Returns

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0:30 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord God Almighty, you have brought us safely to the end of this day. Defend us this evening and tomorrow by your mighty power, so that we may not fall into any sin, and that all our words may so proceed, and all our thoughts and actions be so directed, as to be always just in your sight. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. My Lord and my God, into your hands I abandon the past and the present, and the future, what is small and what is great, what amounts to a little, and what amounts to a lot, things temporal, and things that are eternal. Amen.

1:26 Lord Jesus Christ, be present now, and let your Holy Spirit bow, all hearts and love and truth today, to hear your word and keep your way. Give us the grace to grasp your word, that we may do what we have heard. Instruct us through the scriptures, Lord, as we draw near, O God adored. To God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three in one. To you, O blessed Trinity, be praised throughout eternity. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Let's open up our Bibles to Deuteronomy 30. We've read Deuteronomy 30 before, when we covered Deuteronomy.

2:24 And we're going to look back to it again, because the part of salvation history that we're in right now, as we study the return of the remnant from exile back to the promised land, this salvation history is foretold in Deuteronomy chapter 30. Does anybody remember what the curses were of the Deuteronomic covenant? Remember, Israel put itself under covenant with God in Deuteronomy 30. And if they keep the covenant, they get the blessings. And if they don't keep the covenant, what do they get? The curses. Right. And we see in Deuteronomy 30, verse 1, that Moses says, when all these things, which I have set before you, the blessings and the curses are fulfilled in you.

3:23 And then he goes on. So he says, when this happens, not if it happens, but when it happens. So both the blessings and the curses will be fulfilled. And what he had just written, the curses, included invasion, siege. Did I spell that right? Or is the I after the, that's right. Siege. Captivity. Exile. Famine. The sword. These are various curses. And we've seen these curses applied, especially last week, as we discussed conquest and exile. How the northern and the southern kingdom were both conquested by Assyria and Babylon, and they were sent into exile.

4:17 So these Deuteronomic curses were fulfilled. So let's, let's read for Deuteronomy 30. Okay. When the, when these, the blessings and the curses are fulfilled in you, and from among whatever nations the Lord your God may have dispersed you, you ponder them in your heart. Okay. So there's going to be like a pondering of, in exile of the sins that they have committed. So in exile, Israel is going to come to its senses. Then, provided that you and your children return to the Lord your God, and heed his voice with all your heart and all your soul, just as I now command you, the Lord your God will change your lot. And taking pity on you, he will again gather you from all the nations wherein he has scattered you.

5:10 Now notice that Moses is talking to all 12 tribes. Okay. Those from Gad and Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Judah, Benjamin, Levi. Verse four, Though you may have been driven to the farthest corner of the world, even from there will the Lord your God gather you. Even from there will he bring you back. The Lord your God will then bring you into the land which your fathers once occupied, that you too may occupy it, and he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, that you may love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul, and so may live.

6:04 So God is going to take Israel from all the nations to which it's been scattered, will bring them back to the land, and will give them a new heart. Basically God's going to do heart surgery. Why? Why doesn't he do this now? Why doesn't he give them heart surgery before all of this? It's because Israel has not asked. And we'll see that Israel continually wants to rely upon its own political ambitions and power instead of asking for the grace to be able to keep God's commandments. And so St. Augustine in the early church tells us that the law was given so that grace might be sought.

7:00 And then grace was given with the new covenant, this new law of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit and the believer. Grace was given so that the law might be kept. The moral aspects of the law, not the ceremonial aspects. Okay. So when the law says, love your neighbor as yourself, you will love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. This is being fulfilled in the person who has grace, who has this circumcised heart. But God is teaching Israel, he says through Moses, first you're going to sin against this covenant because you don't have the type of heart that it takes to keep the law. And you're not asking for it.

7:51 And so eventually, when you do transgress the covenant and you do embrace idolatry, in your exile, you'll be brought to your knees. And you'll begin to ponder these things in your heart. And then you'll be asking for the gift of grace, the gift of God's own spirit. And we'll see later on in Isaiah, that Isaiah prays for Israel. And he actually asks God to rend the heavens. In the Greek Old Testament, it says to schizo the heavens, to rip them apart, and to send forth your spirit. And this is fulfilled in Jesus' baptism. When the gospel authors tell us that the heavens were schizo, they were ripped open, and the Holy Spirit came down upon Jesus at his baptism.

8:44 With that said, let's go ahead and look at where we're at in salvation history. We have the southern kingdom was known as Judah. The northern kingdom was known as Israel or Jacob or Ephraim. Because Ephraim was the largest tribe. So it was kind of known by the largest tribe. And the northern kingdom started to be conquered in 733 B.C. And the northern kingdom kind of became like a vassal to Assyria. And Assyria started this conquest up in the north. Near, in Jesus' day, what's Capernaum. In the region of Naphtali and Zebulun. This is where the Assyrians began their conquest of the northern kingdom.

9:35 It wasn't until 722 that Samaria, the capital city of the northern kingdom, was destroyed. And that the people were brought into exile. What happened to the majority of the people in the land of the northern kingdom at that time? They were dispersed. Where did they go? They intermarried with the Gentiles and that kind of thing. They were in... The way that the Israelites said, called as, they said that they went to the north. They went up to the land of the north where Assyria was. And then they were scattered to the farthest corner of the earth. You know, they left up the north and then they just went... Assyria scattered them. And so they intermarried other Gentile pagans elsewhere and lost their national identity.

10:28 This is the way that Assyria destroyed a nation and got rid of their nationalism. It was by getting rid of their ethnicity. So, for instance, I have friends who can't tell you what they are, whether they're German, Swedish, Italian. You know, they don't have a clue because they're mutts. And, you know... And I can tell you I'm half German and half Swedish. But my children's children's children will probably say, we're just American. We don't know. We've kind of lost our ethnicity. Well, this is what happened with those northern tribes. The northern ten tribes that were part of the northern kingdom. They lost their national identity. And what happened with the people who were left in the land in the northern kingdom at this time? Assyria brought in five peoples.

11:21 We saw this in 2 Kings chapter 17. And those five foreign peoples and one of those five peoples were Babylonians because the Assyrians were in power at the time and the Babylonians were their subjects. And these five people came and intermarried the people in the land. And what were they known as in Jesus' day? Samaritans. Right. Samaritans. And they also... Samaritans practiced a hybrid form of religion. The true worship of Yahweh mixed in with the pagan idolatry of these five peoples who came into the land. Later on we find out that the kingdom of Judah ends up being no better than the northern kingdom with regard to idolatry. In fact, their king Manasseh destroyed his own son by fire.

12:12 He immolated his own son which is what some of the pagan gods such as Molech desired. And so Manasseh eventually repented but in the time of Manasseh God said that's it. the time has come to where you're going to experience conquest and exile as well. So after some reforms by Josiah eventually Zedekiah is the last Davidic king in the Old Testament. Zedekiah. He was we're told that under Nebuchadnezzar who was reigning at the time Zedekiah was blinded and his sons were killed and he was sent into Babylonian exile. And at the time in 586 Assyria was not the world power Babylon was.

13:04 Because Cyrus the Persian rode into Babylon in the year 539 and kind of took over Babylon. In 539 Cyrus the Persian took over Babylon. And so in 538 one year later give or take a couple of months in 538 BC we have the first return to the land by the Jews in captivity. What tribes were in captivity at the time in Babylon? Judah Benjamin and the Levites right.

13:54 So what about the Gadites and the Asherites and the Issacharites what about them? They were part of the northern kingdom so either now they're Samaritans or they're sent off into exile by the Assyria and so we have this first return to the land in 538 where the Jews come back and what do they immediately do when they come back? What do they do in 537 BC? Right. They start rebuilding the temple under Zerubbabel. is the figure that they start rebuilding the temple under.

14:41 And they end up having some problems rebuilding the temple because the Samaritans started interfering. We read about this in this chapter chapter 14 A Remnant Returns and eventually this temple was finished and dedicated in 515 BC. 515 BC. So it took them let's see here 27 years to build the temple with all the interference. So in 515 BC the second temple is complete and thereafter we call this we call Judaism. And it's called Second Temple Judaism. Second Temple Judaism because we have the second temple.

15:33 And we're told that it was much more meager than Solomon's temple. That there was simultaneous joy and weeping when it was completed. Joy because they had returned and had been rebuilt but weeping by those who had seen Solomon's temple and who were young when Solomon's temple still existed and now we're old and we're seeing this much more meager temple being built. In Jesus' day Herod was building up this meager temple to be much more glorious. And so we're told in the Gospels that they could hear the workers working on the temple when Jesus was in Jerusalem. And they were saying how magnificent and wonderful the temple is and they were talking about how it was adorned with costly jewels and it was so magnificent.

16:23 And Jesus says in the Olivet Discourse he says he's sitting on the Mount of Olives which is across a little valley from the temple mount and you can see the temple clearly right in front of him and it says that he wept. Jesus wept. And then he talked about how Jerusalem would be surrounded by armies and would be destroyed and that not one stone would be left upon another with regard to the temple. And Jesus told his followers that when they see these signs of false prophets and signs in the sky and etc. the Christians should flee Jerusalem and should cross the Jordan River east of the Jordan River to the land of Perea. And that's what happened.

17:10 There were false messiahs. There were wars and rumors of wars. There were earthquakes. There were signs in the sky. Josephus tells us about he's a Jewish historian and tells us about these chariots like going around in the air these heavenly chariots these signs in the sky. And then so the Christians flee and the Christians were not in Jerusalem when it was destroyed and decimated by the Romans under the general of the Romans who was Titus Flavius Vespasianus who later on became the Roman emperor. And this happened in 67 to 70 AD. So the second temple is going to last until about 70 AD. That's when it's going to be destroyed again.

18:00 And today we still don't have a temple in Jerusalem. There is no temple. There's one of the walls of the temple still is there and it's called the wailing wall. Because the pious Jewish tradition has it that the Shekinah glory cloud God's presence went into that wall when the temple was destroyed. And so that's a Jewish shrine. And so for the first time in Ezra and Nehemiah we see the word Jew being used. And it's being used not to refer to just those people from the tribe of Judah but also to Benjaminites and Levites all those who had returned. even though that Benjaminites really aren't you know if you want to be really exact really aren't Jews.

18:47 They're Benjaminites and they're all Israelites but this is what Jew the term Jew began to be used for. And Paul in the New Testament does not equate Jew with Israelite. For Saint Paul Israel and Israelite is someone from all any 12 tribes but a Jew is someone from the tribe of Judah. And it's very important to know and to note. Because when we read the New Testament it's going to make a difference. Now so the temple had been rebuilt in 515 BC and this is second temple Judaism. Eventually in one of these next returns to the land where we have these three returns one was in 538 we had a second return that lasted three quarters of a century that was from 525 BC to 457 BC just constant returning of the Jews to the land.

19:40 And then we had a third return to the land in 444 BC. And Ezra was a descendant of Aaron. So Ezra was held the Aaronic high priesthood. And Ezra came back to the land and he created a religious reform. and the Jewish Talmud tells us that if the law had not been given through Moses it would have been given through Ezra. is such a huge figure in Jewish history and in their eyes. The book of Ezra holds a very prominent place in the Old Testament. What Ezra did. Ezra was the reason that the Israelites ended up divorcing their pagan spouses because Ezra was like look it's the pagan spouses who got us into trouble to begin with.

20:36 Let's not have the temple be destroyed again. So Ezra created this very serious reform. And so also much of the Old Testament was put into its final form under the time of Ezra about that time. So Ezra's very important also for the Old Testament canon for its formulation. And then in 446 BC Nehemiah a layman so he's not a priest Nehemiah the layman and this is in 446 BC he convinces the emperor of Persia of Medo Persia.

21:25 The Medes and the Persians were not the same people. The Medes were a separate people than the Persians. But the Medes were kind of subjugated to the Persians. And so sometimes the Persian Empire is known as the Medo Persian Empire because it consisted of both Medes and Persians. And so Nehemiah came in and he wanted, he was, he convinced the Persian emperor to make him the governor of Judea. And he rebuilt the walls, had the walls of Jerusalem rebuilt in how many days? This is a good Bible trivia quiz. Julia, very good. 52 days. I wish I had a piece of candy I could throw back there to you.

22:12 A cough drop maybe. We're in that time of year. So Nehemiah had the walls around Jerusalem rebuilt in 52 days. Which is really fast. I mean, it's like, you know, it's how we put up buildings today almost. In the Middle Ages it would take them a century to build a church. Today we build them in like six months like that. And so Nehemiah is a very important figure. So Ezra and Nehemiah are very important figures. And so we have these people returning to the land but the problem is that we have Levites returning to the land. We have Benjaminites returning to the land. We have Jews returning to the land. But Moses said back in Deuteronomy 30 that wherever you were scattered I'll bring you back.

23:05 And he's talking to all 12 tribes. So what about the Gadites and the Asherites and all these other tribes? Well these tribes had no return to the land. They're gone. They're you know the Mormons will say that well some Manassahites came over on a ship across the Atlantic and they settled somewhere. We don't know where it is. North, South, Central America. And then they were the ancestors of the Native Americans. They had all sorts of wars and then eventually they all died out. died and so no. But even then that's just one tribe of Manassah. Let's turn to the book of Jeremiah. To Jeremiah chapter 23. This is going to start getting exciting so you guys will wake up.

24:01 Jeremiah chapter 23. Jeremiah chapter 23. Jeremiah is prophesying right before and during the destruction of Jerusalem. So he's there. 586. He's watching Nebuchadnezzar's soldiers march up to the city. And he's telling his people don't fight. Resistance is futile. You're going down. Your sins they've brought this upon you and there's no good in resisting. And so we read in chapter 23 he gives us this prophecy of the Messiah.

24:53 Now Zedekiah is the last Messiah of the Old Testament and Jeremiah tells the Jews at the time tells them about what's going to happen in the future. This is what he says Jeremiah 23 verse 1. Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture says the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord the God of Israel against the shepherds who shepherd my people. You have scattered my sheep and driven them away. You have not cared for them but I will take care to punish your evil deeds. I myself will gather the remnant of my flock from all the lands to which I have driven them and bring them back to their meadow.

25:46 There they shall increase and multiply. I will appoint shepherds for them who will shepherd them. so that they need no longer fear and tremble and none shall be missing says the Lord. Behold the days are coming says the Lord when I will raise up a righteous shoot to David as king he shall reign and govern wisely he shall do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah shall be saved Israel shall dwell in security this is the name they give him the Lord our justice therefore the days will come says the Lord when they shall no longer say as the Lord lives who brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt but rather as the Lord lives who brought the descendants of the house of Israel up from the land of the north and from all the lands to which I banish them they shall again live on their own land so the key to this passage when this is going to happen is that it's going to be the

27:00 descendant of David the righteous shoot to David so when the anointed one the Messiah the descendant of David comes there's going to be an appointing of shepherds and the true shepherd is who's going to shepherd them is going to be Yahweh himself through these shepherds and it's going to talk about when God brought them out of Egypt you know that was the exodus that's being talked about all throughout the Old Testament wow when God did this for us when God brought us up out of Egypt but rather it's going to be no when God brought them out of all the lands which he had scattered them the new Egypt Assyria Babylon wherever turn to the New Testament and I want for you to listen to this real quick you can just please don't flip there you can write it down it's Mark 6 34 when he disembarked and saw the vast crowd his heart was moved with pity for them for they were like sheep without a shepherd

28:18 and he began to teach them many things by now it was already late and his disciples approached him and said this is a deserted place and is already very late dismiss them so they can go to the surrounding farms and villages and buy themselves something to eat he said to them how many loaves do you have go and see and when they had found out they said five loaves and two fish so we gave orders to have them sit down in groups on the green grass the people took their places in rows by hundreds and by fifties then taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven he said the blessing broke the loaves and gave it to them to his disciples to set before the people he also divided the two fish among them all they all of fragments and what was left of the fish those who ate of the loaves were five thousand men not including the women and children tells them to rest on the green grass

29:37 and they were like sheep without a shepherd and so he has his disciples feed them Jesus doesn't feed them directly he does it through his apostles psalm 23 the lord is my shepherd there is nothing i lack in green pastures you let me graze to safe waters you lead me yahweh is known as a shepherd in the old testament psalm 23 brings us out mark in mark 6 talks about how jesus saw them like a sheep without a shepherd and so he fed them on green grass evoking psalm 23 as well as jeremiah's prophecy jeremiah 23 so god is going to appoint shepherds and so we see jesus appointing his apostles to feed them he appoints shepherds for them who will shepherd them and remember jesus in the parable of the lost sheep where you know he's going to leave the 99 and go for the lost one this brings out the passage where it says that none shall be missing not a single sheep shall be missing god will care for

31:05 them all with this righteous shoot to david this new exodus also remember how jesus took his disciples a three days journey north of galilee to caesarea philippi to appoint peter you know over them as the prime minister when he said you are capha and upon this capha i will build my church and i will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven which you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven which you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven that place is was right at that place there was a big rock you know with the pagan shrine on top of it that was this pagan shrine this temple was to the god pon and there was this huge rock and so jesus is using this rock and comparing it to peter and saying you are kepha peter you are the aramaic word for rock is kepha he says upon this church the true church my church i'm going to build my church upon you kepha you peter the true rock and i'm going to

32:14 have the true church not this false church made to the god pon guess what the god pon or tell me if you know what the god pon was the god of shepherds the god pon was the god of shepherds and jesus when he's appointing peter as his prime minister he's doing it in a place where we have the god of shepherds and jesus is the true shepherd who is appointing his shepherds is this old testament starting to bring the new testament to life a little bit reading jeremiah 23 where i want for you to keep these verses written down so that you can go back and you can look at these prophecies jeremiah continues to use the same type of figures over and over again in his book let's turn to chapter 30 of jeremiah chapter 30 and we're going to go to verse 8 on that day says the lord of hosts i will break his yoke from off your necks and snap your bonds stranger shall no longer enslave them instead they shall

33:40 serve the lord their god and david their king again there's the son of david whom i will raise up for them but you my servant jacob fear not says the lord be not dismayed o israel behold i will deliver you from the far off lands your descendants from their land of exile jacob shall again find rest shall be tranquil and undisturbed for i am with you says the lord to deliver you i will make an end of all the nations among which i have scattered you but of you i will not make an end i will chastise you as you deserve i will not let you go unpunished so god is saying you know i will send you in exile we'll allow nebuchadnezzar and his armies to destroy the temple in jerusalem and take you in exile but eventually you're all going to chapter 31 and let's look at verse 7 for thus says the lord shout with joy for jacob exult at the head of the nations proclaim your praise and say the lord has delivered

35:01 his people the remnant of israel behold i will bring them back from the land of the north remember that's where the northern kingdom was exiled so this is not just the southern kingdom this is the northern kingdom i will gather them from the ends of the world with the blind and the lame in their midst so when jesus went and cured blind bartimaeus when jesus cured the paralytic or you know the person who is the crippled man who was born so from birth when this is happening jesus isn't just these are prophetic actions he's fulfilling the old testament the blind and the lame specifically are who jesus goes and he heals the mothers and those with child they shall return as an immense throng they departed in tears but i will console them and guide them i will lead them to brooks of water on a level road so that none shall stumble for i am a father to israel ephraim is my firstborn a quotation

36:10 of exodus 422 exodus 422 when god told moses to go to pharaoh and release them i'll kill your firstborn son hear the word of the lord o nations proclaim it on distant coast and say he who scattered israel now gathers them together he guards them as a shepherd his flock the lord shall ransom jacob he shall redeem him from the hand of his conqueror so this idea of a restoration from exile is called is shown in jeremiah 23 as a new exodus here it's tied up with the idea of redemption this is so when we hear about redemption in the new testament it should be inseparable from the gathering of all the tribes and back into one under jesus this is it says that the lord shall ransom jacob he shall redeem him from the hand of his conqueror so ransom redemption the blind the lame a gathering let's look at verse 31 the days are coming says the lord when i will make a new covenant with the house of israel

37:30 and the house of judah and now we know that that's not the same thing you know there's a house of israel and then there's a house of judah and this is why jeremiah uses the name judah and the name israel together it will not be like the covenant i made with their fathers the day i took them by the hand to lead them forth from the land of egypt for they broke my covenant and i had to show myself their master says the lord okay so the people couldn't keep the covenant so the law was given remember what saint paul said why was the law given because of transgressions we're told in galatians but this is the covenant which i will make with the house of israel after those days says the lord i will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts i will be their god and they shall be my people this is covenant language there's gonna be a covenant so i will be their god they shall be my people

38:26 no longer will they have need to teach their friends and kinsmen how to know the lord all from the least to the greatest shall know me says the lord for i will forgive their evil doing and remember their sin no more so no longer will the law be external and we'll have to read the Torah to know how to elderly person in a nursing home from the greatest to the least will have the law of God written on their hearts and everybody can know God the same not just the scribes the scholars this doesn't mean that we're going to have to do away with catechism but it does mean that you're given the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit wisdom knowledge piety fear of the Lord courage counsel knowledge wisdom what's the other one that goes together with knowledge and wisdom no not discernment Lord give us knowledge give us wisdom give us understanding thank you sister good okay well let's let's go and continue

39:51 some more let's look at let's look at Jeremiah 33 talks about the restoration of Jerusalem okay the restoration of Jerusalem let's look at verse seven I will change the lot of Judah and the lot of Israel and rebuild them as of old I will cleanse them of all the guilt they incurred by sinning against me okay so there's this is going to include a forgiveness of sins so we have a forgiveness of sins it's called redemption it's going to happen through a ransom there's going to be a restoration of Israel under the Messiah the King David's son let's look at verse 11 the cry of joy the cry of gladness the voice of the bridegroom the voice of the bride the sound of those who bring thank offerings to the house of the Lord singing give thanks to the Lord of hosts for the Lord is good as mercy endures forever for I will restore this country as of old says the Lord so we're told that there would be a

41:01 cry of joy a cry of gladness the voice of the bridegroom I'm going to read from John 3 I've read from this before in this Bible study John 3 29 John the Baptist says the one who has the bride is the bridegroom the best man who stands and listens for him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice this is an allusion back to Jeremiah the bridegroom's voice is what John the Baptist rejoices at for John the Baptist is the best man to the bridegroom who is Jesus let's go back to Jeremiah 33 verse 14 the days are coming let's go to verse 12 thus says the Lord of hosts in this place now desolate without man or beast and in all its cities there shall again be sheep folds for the shepherds to couch their flocks in the cities of the hill country of the foothills of the Negeb in the land of Benjamin in the suburbs of Jerusalem I didn't know they had suburbs back then I wonder if they had loaves and

42:18 chilies and Starbucks and in the cities of Judah it must be urban sprawl flocks will again pass under the hand of the one who counts them says the Lord so there would be sheep folds and they will pass under the Lord who is the shepherd he will count them the days are coming says the Lord when I will fulfill the promise I made to the in the land in those days Judah shall be safe and Jerusalem shall dwell secure this is what they shall call her the Lord our justice this is very important verse 17 for thus says the Lord never shall David lack a successor on the throne of the house of Israel again this is this is Jeremiah you know giving the words of God this is why he's a prophet prophetess means for another he's speaking for God and this is the Davidic covenant the hope that Israel has because the Davidic covenant given in 2nd Samuel chapter 7 I like this in verse 20 if you can break my covenant

43:30 with day and my covenant with night so that day and night no longer alternate in sequence then can my covenant with my servant David also be broken and he will not have a son to be king upon his throne I mean this is how as sure as night is going to come tomorrow you can be sure that there will be a son of David who will eventually sit upon the throne we say that this happened in the first century that this happened when the Holy Spirit overshadowed the Blessed Virgin Mary who was about a 15 year old Jewish virgin girl who was betrothed to probably an older man who had been married before probably who had other children from a previous marriage who was betrothed to her to serve as her guardian this is what the proto evangelium of James says it's not inspired scripture but it's an early Christian tradition and to this woman to marry this 15 year old Jewish virgin King David's descendant is

44:32 born today Jews in what we call rabbinic Judaism say that this still hasn't happened yet and we've been waiting 26 centuries and we're still going to wait longer but we say that no this occurred in the first century it's a it's a it's an early Christian tradition is that Joseph was married before and you can go to early christian writings dot com and you can read the proto evangelion of James the kind of the first gospel of James it's not inspired scripture it's apocryphal but it but it gives witness to this early tradition and I believe it was epiphanius was in the early church and when epiphanius defended the virginity of Mary he used this argument and it's very accepted especially in the east in the eastern Christian tradition this is what has widely been believed for centuries and it very well may be the case in fact if I had to choose if I had to bet if I had to go to Las Vegas and bet

45:44 I would say that yes Joseph was married before and he was a widower I would say that this would be the tradition that I would place my bet on okay so let's go ahead and we'll have some Q&A afterwards I know you guys are all like oh I have a question now but we're going to not take tangents we're going to wait a little bit longer we'll do geometry afterwards and then we'll take tangents okay the let's turn the book of Ezekiel is two books after Jeremiah after Jeremiah you have lamentations because it's destruction of Jerusalem there was a book of the Bible just talking about the Jews lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem then we have Baruch after that and after Baruch we have Ezekiel let me see here that's right and Baruch is only in Catholic Bibles so those of you with non Catholic Bibles it's one book after Jeremiah okay so we're in Ezekiel and I want to turn to Ezekiel 11 and you'll see

46:53 the same themes running through Ezekiel that run through Jeremiah and we can go through a lot of the prophets we can go through Hosea and through Micah and through these different prophets and we could see this over and over again but I'm picking out some of the major ones there's so much more that we could go into but let's turn on to Ezekiel chapter 11 and let's look at verse 14 and Ezekiel is known as the son of man in fact you might get kind of nauseous reading the book of Ezekiel it's son of man I was playing Bible trivia with my wife and the question was who in the Old Testament was called son of man something like a hundred and something times I was like because I kept complaining to her when I was reading the book of Ezekiel I was like I underlined every single time that it said son of man just I just started in the beginning and I was so mad at myself

47:52 for having started doing that because I wasted half a pencil just on underlying son of man okay thus the this is verse 14 in chapter 11 of Ezekiel thus the word of the Lord came to me son of man it is about your kinsmen your fellow exiles and the whole house of Israel that the inhabitants of Jerusalem say they are far away from the Lord to us the land of Israel has been given us as our possession therefore say thus says the Lord our God though I have removed them far among the nations and scattered them over foreign countries and was for a while their only sanctuary in the countries to which they had gone I will gather you from the nations and assemble you from the countries over which you have been scattered and I will restore to you the land of Israel they shall return to it and remove from it all its detestable abominations I will give them a new heart and put a new spirit within them

49:01 I will remove the stony heart from their bodies and replace it with a natural heart so that they will live according to my statutes and observe and carry out my ordinances thus they shall be my people and I will be their God so again we have Deuteronomy 30 the new heart being given so we have we have this new heart being tied up with restoration and a new spirit and I've had you guys read Ezekiel 20 that was your homework one time Ezekiel 24 I'm sorry 34 Ezekiel 34 and this is the prophecy against the shepherds the shepherds of Israel and so again we have like Jeremiah was talking about the bad shepherds well here's Ezekiel talking about the bad shepherds verse 10 thus says the Lord God I swear I am coming against these shepherds I will claim my sheep from them and put a stop to their shepherding my sheep so that they may no longer pasture themselves I will save my sheep that they may no

50:18 longer be food for their mouths for thus says the Lord God I myself will look after and tend my sheep as a shepherd tends his flock when he finds himself among his scattered sheep so will I tend my sheep I will rescue them from every place where they were scattered when it was cloudy and dark I will lead them out from among the peoples and gather them from the foreign lands I will bring them back to their own country and pasture them upon the mountains of Israel in the lands ravines and all its inhabited places in good pastures will I pasture them and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing ground there they shall lie down on good grazing ground and here again we can see the feeding ど of the 5,000 they were out on green grass and in rich pastures shall they be pastured on the mountains of Israel I myself okay Yahweh God says I myself will pasture my sheep I myself will give

51:22 them rest says the Lord God the lost I will seek out the straight I will bring back the injured I will bind up the sick I will heal but the sleek and strong I will destroy shepherding them rightly okay just one second here if you would just write this down instead of turning there I would like for you to write down John chapter 10 this is what Jesus says it's one of the I am sayings amen I say to you whoever does not enter a sheep fold through the gate but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber remember we had the sheep fold was mentioned back in Jeremiah but whoever enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep the gatekeeper opens it for him and the sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out when he has driven out all his own he walks ahead of them and the sheep follow him because they recognize his voice but they will not follow a stranger

52:29 they will run away from him because they do not recognize the voice of strangers although Jesus used this figure of speech they did not realize what he was trying to tell them so Jesus said to them again amen I say to you I am the gate for the sheep all who came before me are thieves and robbers but the sheep did not listen to them I am the gate whoever enters through me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture a thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy I come so they might have a hired man who is not a shepherd and whose sheep are not his own sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away and the wolf catches and scatters them this is because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep back in Ezekiel 34 what is this a parable against the shepherds who were just like what Jesus is prophesying against and God says just shepherd those who came before

53:39 me were thieves and robbers they didn't shepherd the sheep verse 17 of Ezekiel 34 as for you my sheep says the Lord God I will judge between one sheep and another between rams and goats Jesus uses this in Matthew 25 starting in verse 31 where he talks about the judgment how he's the judge well here in the Old Testament it's God who's doing the judging between one sheep and another between rams and goats but Jesus says he's going to be the judge Jesus says he's the good shepherd but Ezekiel 34 it says that God's the shepherd so who is it is it going to be God or Jesus is God so whenever you have Jehovah's witnesses come to your door and they say Jesus didn't think he was God he thought he was divine you know maybe a son of God but he wasn't God show them how Jesus applied exactly what in the Old Testament talked about Yahweh to himself there's a lack of knowledge of the correspondence between

54:41 the old and the new there verse 18 was it not enough for you to graze on the best pasture that you had to trample the rest of your pastures with your feet was it not enough for you to drink the clearest water that you had to foul the remainder with your feet thus my sheep had to graze on what your feet had trampled and drink what your feet had fouled therefore thus says the Lord God and another I will appoint one shepherd over them to pasture them my servant David he shall pasture them and be their shepherd I the Lord will be their God and my servant David shall be prince among them I the Lord have spoken I will make a covenant of peace with them and rid the country of ravenous beasts that they may dwell securely in the desert and sleep in the forest Jesus goes out to the desert where there are beasts we're told in Mark 1 13 the gospels and Paul's letters are replete with Old Testament references

55:58 to show that these are being fulfilled in the ministry of Jesus and in his church after him also in verse 30 thus they shall know that I the Lord am their God and they are my people the house of Israel I compare that with Galatians 6 16 and I'll just read Galatians 6 16 for you real quick peace and mercy be to all who follow this rule into the Israel of God okay so it says that they shall know that I the Lord and their God and they are my people the house of Israel so they will they will call themselves even the house of Israel that's a name that they'll have and Paul calls the church the house of Israel at the end of Galatians because what is the church the church is Israel restored but I don't want to get ahead of myself I don't want to put the cart before the horse we're not in the New Testament yet right Ezekiel 36 oh good we're doing good on time 21 minutes left okay Ezekiel 36 we're

57:10 given a vision of the regeneration of the land a regeneration of the people look at verse 19 I scattered them among the nations dispersing them over foreign lands according to their conduct and deeds I judged them but when they came among the nations they served to profane my holy name because it was said of them these are the people of the Lord yet they had to leave their land so I have relented because of my holy name which the house of Israel profaned among the nations where they came therefore say to the house of Israel thus says the Lord God not for your sakes do I act house of Israel but for the sake of my holy name which you profaned among the nations to which you came so why is God going to restore his people because of his holy name and as we've seen before with covenants are begin because of the invoking of what God's name and so when God says he's going to act for the sake of his

58:13 name he's saying I'm going to act for the sake of the covenant because I made this covenant with you God knew that Israel sin after the Davidic covenant this is why he enters into the covenant with David so that after they incur the curses of the covenant God can act on his covenant and bring them back together and forgive them God's covenant is redemptive he knows that the son when he goes away he's going to squander his inheritance he knows that this is going to happen so he puts a GPS verse 23 or verse 24 for I will take you away from among the nations gather you from all the foreign lands and bring you back to your own land I will sprinkle clean water upon you to cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols I will cleanse you I will give you a new heart and place again here we go the new heart and I will place a new spirit within you okay this again this is Jeremiah being

59:24 repeated this is Deuteronomy 30 being repeated its taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts I will put my spirit within you and make you live by my statutes careful to observe my decrees so we have water being sprinkled and the forgiveness of sins and the cleansing and this is going to be tied up with a ransom and redemption and the regathering of scattered Israel under the Davidic king the Messiah Ezekiel 37 there are two main figures two types first there's a vision in Ezekiel 37 and then after the vision there's a prophetic action the vision is that Ezekiel sees a valley of bones and the foot bones connected to the ankle bone and the ankle bone is connected to the shin bone the shin bone is connected to the thigh bone the thigh bone is connected to the hip bone the hip very good you guys are good at this you must have read Ezekiel 37 this song comes from

1:00:40 Ezekiel 37 Ezekiel has a vision of the valley of dry bones and all of a sudden the bones start coming together and before you know it there's a resuscitation kind of a resurrection not a literal resurrection but a figure of a resurrection that symbolizes something look at verse 12 therefore prophesy and say to them thus says the Lord God O my people I will open your graves and have you rise from them and bring you back to the land of Israel okay so the bringing back to the land of Israel this new exodus this being brought back out of exile and restored is made under the the vision of a resurrection so when Jesus rises from the dead what do you think this means to Jews who have been singing and the foot bones connected to the huh it means that the restoration is happening now because we have a resurrected person Jesus' resurrection from the dead is more than just you know a resurrection it's also a prophetic action

1:01:55 it's saying look Israel is being restored and so what does Paul call the church the mystical body of Christ Christ's resurrected body so when somebody comes into the church Paul says that they've joined the body of Christ the resurrected body of Christ and to a Jew that means that restoration is occurring coming back from exile kind of neat huh this is really cool stuff I've been reading one of my favorite Old Testament biblical scholars he's not even Catholic he's the bishop of Durham England well the Anglican bishop there's a Catholic bishop but his name is N.T. Wright and N.T. Wright in his writings I mean I've learned a lot from him and this is one of the things I've learned from N.T. Wright he's a great guy I love this guy he's one of my he's also Dr. Scott Hahn before he became Catholic was reading a lot of Wright and Wright helped Dr. Scott Hahn become Catholic by reading his writings

1:03:05 that's right okay but I love Wright he has a really good he has two really good books out there that I'm going to tell you about he has The Challenge of Jesus The Challenge of Jesus very good biblical scholarship and he and he also has what St. Paul really said what St. Paul really said and I know what St. Paul really said is published by Erdman's William Erdman's press and The Challenge of Jesus I believe is published by InterVarsity Press IVP okay we have just 14 minutes left okay so we have this vision of the dry bones and this this resurrection and this is going to be the restoration and then Ezekiel's told by God to take two sticks and to write on them so they're like little batons he's going to become a twirler verse 15 thus the word of the Lord came to me now son of man take a single stick and write on it Judah and the Israelites who are associated with him okay so this stick represents the southern

1:04:23 kingdom of Judah then take another stick and write on it Joseph the stick of Ephraim and all the house of Israel associated with him okay the northern kingdom then join the two sticks together so that they form one stick in your hand when your countrymen ask you will you not tell us what you mean by all this answer them thus says the Lord God I will take the stick of Joseph which is in the hand of Ephraim and of the tribes of Israel associated with him and I will join to it the stick of Judah making them a single stick they shall be one in my hand the sticks on which you write you shall hold up before them to see tell them thus speaks the Lord God I will take the Israelites from among the nations to which they have come and gather them from all sides to bring them back to their land I will make them one nation upon the land in the mountains of Israel and there shall be one prince for them all

1:05:21 never again shall there be two nations and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms so this redemption this cleansing this restoration involves real physical unity no longer will there be a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom but they will be one and there will be one servant one shepherd and who is the shepherd verse 24 my servant David shall be prince over them and they there shall be one shepherd for them all they shall live by my statutes and carefully observe my decrees they shall live on the land which I gave to my servant Jacob the land on which their fathers lived they shall live on it forever they and their children and their children's children with my servant David and their prince forever I will make with them a covenant of peace it shall be an everlasting covenant with them and I will multiply them and put my sanctuary among them forever now this is the problem

1:06:27 where is the kingdom in the land today and is there a sanctuary there that's going to be there forever and are all we are we all living on the land this is what some Christians see today and they go this hasn't been fulfilled the sanctuary among them forever has not been established there's no the temple hasn't been rebuilt since it was destroyed in 70 AD we're not living in the land we're not all brought into the land so this must be talking about something later later on in the future but yet in the New Testament the church is called the New Jerusalem especially in the epistle to the Hebrews and we're told that the true sanctuary is in heaven where Jesus now ministers as our high priest and he officiates right now as our high priest in the temple in heaven where the New Jerusalem is the church is primarily a heavenly reality and Hebrews chapter 4 talks about how when we die and we go to heaven

1:07:34 we enter into our rest it's like we have an eternal Sabbath you see the early church fathers and the New Testament saw a fulfillment of this temple being among them forever in Jesus Christ the true temple and that this Jerusalem that's being rebuilt in this temple is not a physical Jerusalem in the physical land of Israel but it's the heavenly Jerusalem in the heavenly promised land so the scriptures are being read according to the spirit not according to the flesh and so Jews will say well this isn't happening yet we don't have the temple here on earth and we don't therefore Jesus must not be the true Messiah this has not happened exactly as it said it would happen well the early church fathers said that the Jews were interpreting the scripture carnally not according to the spirit because the heavenly realities fulfill the earthly realities and we are not to take these prophecies literally

1:08:32 in the sense that there will be an earthly temple and there will be an earthly return to the land and we're all going to try and fit inside of the holy land no of course not because today you'll hear people like Christian Zionists such as Haggy in San Antonio at Cornerstone Church by the way who gets a million dollar income every year sounds nice I think I'd like to become pastor there and there are these this is this type of future oriented eschatology the study of the end times that sees these prophecies not being fulfilled yet but to Ezekiel at the moment this happens there will be a covenant made and David will be appointed the prince well Peter tells us at the resurrection that Jesus was seated upon the throne of David we're told this in the very beginning of Acts of the apostles Peter says this in his Pentecostal sermon and he says you know in Jesus says at the last supper that he's

1:09:36 making a covenant then in there and then of course he's the covenant sacrifice and the high priest the epistle to the Hebrews does a beautiful job of showing the fulfillment of these prophecies in the heavenly church and how we participate in that heavenly church in the liturgy okay while we still have eight minutes let's turn to Isaiah 52 Isaiah 52 Isaiah 40 through 55 chapters 40 through 55 talks about this theme again of a new exodus and this is where the new exodus is going to occur under the suffering servant you remember Isaiah 53 we read this every good Friday in the veneration of the cross the suffering servant and in Isaiah 52 this restoration that's going to occur in this new exodus certain terms are used to describe it Isaiah 52 let's look at verse 1 awake put on your strength oh Zion put on your glorious garments oh Jerusalem holy city no longer shall the uncircumcised or the

1:11:08 unclean enter you shake off the dust and ascend to the throne Jerusalem loose the bonds from your neck oh captive daughter Zion for thus says the Lord you were sold for nothing and without money you shall be redeemed saint peter the apostle tells us that we were not redeemed by silver or gold but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ we weren't redeemed with money thus says the Lord God verse 4 to Egypt in the beginning my people went down to sojourn there Assyria too oppressed them for nothing but now what am I to do here says the Lord my people have been taken away without redress the rulers make a boast of it says the Lord all the day my name is constantly reviled therefore on that day my people shall know my renown they shall know my name that it is I who have foretold it here I am and in this next this verse seven is quoted by Paul in Romans 10 verse 15 because Paul believed that this

1:12:11 is being fulfilled in his ministry how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings the gospel glad tidings announcing peace bearing good news announcing salvation and saying to Zion your God is king hark your watchman raise a cry together they shout for joy for they see directly before their eyes the Lord restoring Zion break out together in song oh ruins of Jerusalem for the Lord comforts his people he redeems Jerusalem so what's the gospel was not a term that John the Baptist or Jesus or any of the New Testament authors came up with oh you know this is great news that we're being saved in Jesus let's just call it the good news no it comes from Isaiah it's an Old Testament term in the same way to love your neighbor as yourself wasn't a new commandment by Jesus that was already in Leviticus 19 his new commandment was to love one another as I have loved you that was a new commandment

1:13:26 well in the same way in Isaiah this is where the word gospel comes from and what's the gospel when the gospel is announced what is the Lord doing in verse eight he's restoring Zion that's the gospel that God has made king and Zion is being restored okay so to Paul when he says he's preaching the gospel and the gospel is being fulfilled and people are accepting the gospel he's saying that Isaiah 52 is being fulfilled then we have the suffering and the triumph of the servant of the Lord in verse 13 see my servant shall prosper he shall be exalted you can also write next to that John 12 32 John 12 32 Isaiah 53 is a prophecy of the passion of Christ it was his infirmities that we bore our sufferings that he endured he was pierced for our offenses crushed for our sins like a lamb led to the slaughter or sheep before the sharers through his suffering my servants shall justify many in their guilt

1:14:31 he shall bear you know this is this is Jesus this is the prophecy of Jesus his passion and then in verse Isaiah 54 verse 5 for he who has become your husband is your maker for he who has become your husband okay God is going to betroth himself to his people and we've seen Jesus being called the bridegroom in John chapter 3 John chapter 2 we have the wedding at Cana you have Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well where Jacob met his wife at a well your redeemer is the holy one of Israel called God of all the earth that's verse 5 of chapter 54 the Lord calls you back like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit a wife married in youth and then cast off says your God for a brief moment I abandon you but with these chapters just come alive and finally let's look at chapter 55 verse 1 chapter 55 verse 1 all you who are thirsty come to the water okay the book of revelation uses this verse

1:15:48 you have no money come receive grain to eat come without paying without cost drink milk and wine why spend your money for what is not bread your wages for what fails I think who is it Marty Hogan or Dan Shute you know those Jesuits are not Marty Hogan but Dan Shute is a Jesuit you know he writes all of our songs today for church I think there's a song based after this come to the water you know yeah we all know it why spend your money for what is not bread your wages for what fails to satisfy David so the new covenant is going to be a renewal of the Davidic covenant it's not just like okay we're going to do away with the old and now Jesus is going to start something brand new no it is new and it's an elevation of the Davidic covenant it's a transformation of it but you're starting with the Davidic covenant and it's fundamentally a renewal of the Davidic covenant this is what the new covenant

1:16:50 is going to be okay we're going to have to close right here we'll go ahead and close with prayer and then you can ask me whatever questions that you have afterwards does anybody have any special prayer requests Patrick Sean just Sean or Patrick as well Sean is his name okay in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Amen Heavenly Father we beseech your protection by your holy angels please send them forth to protect Sean and the troops that serve with him over in Iraq we ask for protection among them we ask for a resolution to what's going on in Iraq we especially ask for peace to be resolved and to come about between the Sunnis and the Shiite Muslims we ask for a greater share in your holiness may the study of these prophecies in the Old Testament deeper deep in our appreciation of what you have done for us and what you continue to do for us in the new covenant through

1:18:07 your eternally begotten son our Messiah the son of David Jesus Christ in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Amen Thank you. We'll see you next time.