Romans eleven and twenty-five. For I would not, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits, that blindness in part is happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved, as it is written, there shall come out of Zion the deliverer and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. For this is my covenant unto them when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel they, that is the Jews, are enemies for your sake. But as touching the election they are beloved for the Father's sake, that is Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. But as he in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy, through their unbelief, even so have these also now not believed, that is the Jews, that through your, the Gentiles, your mercy, they also may obtain mercy. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. O the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counselor, or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory for ever. Amen. I want you to notice especially that one word in verse twenty-five, at the end until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. That word until is very important. On taking up the book of Romans, we've gone through the various phases of this book, of the world's condemnation, and in God's wonderful provision, in the person of his Son to justify the ungodly all who will believe. And then we went into the passage or the section dealing with man's separation or sanctification being set apart in Christ, and also his potential and available victory over the world of flesh and the devil through the power of the Holy Spirit, as seen in chapter eight. We also mentioned several times the necessity for prayer and took out various aspects of the need for prayer, as seen in chapter eight. But then the Apostle Paul comes to another passage or portion of this book, and that is the prophetic section, beginning with chapter nine, going on to chapter eleven. Chapter nine, he's dealing with Israel in the past. And in chapter ten he's dealing with Israel in the present. He said, in the present the Jew is no more than the Gentile, for all of sinned and comes short of the glory of God. And as we mentioned in our reading, he said, as far as the gospel era is concerned, running from Pentecost until Christ comes, they are enemies for the gospel sake. God looks upon them as enemies, just as He does the Gentiles. For when we referring to the Gentiles as you have in chapter five, for when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. And so today God looks upon the Jews, just as He looks upon the Gentiles as enemies before Him. But then in chapter eleven, we find the fullness of the Gentiles having come in, and God going back to his ancient people, Israel, because he loves them, because of the promises he made unto Abraham, Isaac, and of Jacob. And so important is this subject, the Apostle, to those three chapters to us. Israel, past, present, and Israel, future. It's very interesting to trace the history of this nation. We did it, I think, a year or two ago when taking up Egypt to Canaan. And I want to say this, that we as Christians are living in exciting, thrilling, and dramatic times. I don't know any age in the church's history of now nineteen hundred years that I would sooner be living in than today. So many remarkable and amazing things are happening on every hand, especially the fulfillment of Bible prophecy. But to the world, Those who are unsaved, they are living in dangerous, dark, and doom-bound days. There's no question about that. For instance, there are various things that have happened recently in the last few years. I think a number of years ago, we mentioned ten things that had been experienced in the last fifty years that were unknown during the history of the human race before. ten things that had come to light, ten things that had been the fulfillment of prophecy, that were unknown for the thousands of years prior until the beginning of the human race upon the earth. For instance, you can take just one or two. Over in Daniel, you read these words, that in the last days many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase. You have lightning transportation. That needs no expound. the lightning transportation of today, not only of man upon the earth, but in man's flight to the moon. But there's something else in that verse that struck me, especially in the light of something I read the other day. I was going to bring and read it, possibly be a little too long. But it came from a very high governmental source, and that is the increase of knowledge. In other words, ninety percent of the present world scientific knowledge has been developed since nineteen forty. Can you imagine that? Ninety percent of the world's knowledge, scientific knowledge, has been developed in the last twenty-four years, leaving the other ten percent to be developed since the beginning of the human race. And this governmental source says that that increase in scientific knowledge in the last twenty-four years will increase. It will double by nineteen seventy-six and double again by nineteen-eighths. Knowledge, he says, shall increase in the last days or just before the coming again of the Lord Jesus Christ. To me that's amazing, it's starkly. And then again one could mention the fact of the casualty lists you find in the Book of Revelation. When I first started studying the Book of Revelation many years ago and read about the casualty lists in that book, I thought I'll never live to see the day when there'll be casualties on that scale. Under the seal there'll be one quarter of the earth destroyed. Then that leaves, of course, three-quarters. And under the trumpets there will be one-third of the earth destroyed. One-third of the three-quarters would leave one-half of the original. And then under the seals, it says that one-half, or under the vials, rather, the seven vials, will be one-half of the remaining earth destroyed. which means that three-quarters of this Earth's planet is going to be destroyed in a day to come. And if you look upon the Earth's population at two billion, it means only five hundred million will survive the judgments that are going to come upon this Earth given to us in Revelation from Chapter six on to Chapter ninety. Are we living in days when such casualties could be inflicted, I should say so. The United States alone has enough in its arsenal to obliterate the whole human race from the face of the earth. These are things that have developed in recent years, showing how close we are to the end time. But one of the other most amazing things to me, just as amazing as the atomic bomb and so on, is the nation of Israel. If you want to know what are the best evidences that the Bible is true, that this is the Word of God, just study the Jewish nation. And what I say now is true. The Bible really is a book. about the Jewish people. God's selection of a certain nation. There have been nations upon this earth that have no reference in the Bible at all. No reference is made to them because they would have no consequence to God. Other nations came up and passed out of existence. But here is a nation that God selected. The Jewish nation. and my what times of trouble and trial they pass through. And yet there are more in prominence today than any time in their history since Abraham, the first Jew. For instance, when you start to think of the Jewish nation from, I would say, back four thousand years ago, God chose this nation. And this nation it is told us was loved by God. We're not going into why God loved us. God said it's not because you're the greatest of all people, because he says he has a fewest, but he says, I love you, because I love you. God found it in himself, a cause unexplained why he loved the Jews. But he did. And he separated that nation from all other nations. And that nation in your Bible is described as a peculiar people, a peculiar treasure to God, a holy nation, a holy people, a kingdom of priests, a special people, and the Lord's portion. That's how God speaks of the Jewish nation in the Old Testament. For that nation was given to rebellion. It was prone to backsliding. It was prone to idolatry, and it was prone or given to a formality of religion that when the Lord Jesus Christ came, he saw it, and he exposed those scribes and parishes. He called them a bunch of hypocrites. because their religion had deteriorated into a mere formality. And if you want to see how far they had gotten from God in their religious exercises and ordinances, read the last book of the Old Testament, the book of Malachi, but also Hagia. But God punished this nation for their idolatry, for their unbelief, their breaking of the covenant. their transgression of the law, the changing of his ordinances, and the killing of his prophets. And the greatest sin of all was when they crucified God's Son. They said, This is the air. Come, let us kill. And here is this favored nation, killing God's Son. The one who is to be their Messiah. Their king, their deliverer, and we'll see in the book of Romans chapter eleven, maybe not today, possibly next Sunday, how God is going to use the blessing of the Gentiles to arouse a jealousy in the nation of Israel, and the nation of Israel is eventually going to ask the question, some individual Jews today are asking. But the nation as a whole will ask it in a coming day. Who is it that's the cause of such blessing to these Gentiles? Why do these Gentiles go around saying, I have peace? My sins are forgiven. I have everlasting life. And I'm going to be with Christ forever. And that's the language of a true born-again Christian. And this kind of thing has provoked a lot of jealousy in the Jews. Why? We believe Jesus Christ was an imposter. We don't believe he was our Messiah. And yet he has proved such a blessing to Gentile. And this is going to provoke them eventually to jealousy until they will accept Jesus Christ. As I say, individuals have been provoked to jealousy, but the whole nation will eventually. Well, the result of their rejection of Jesus Christ was that their... They were scattered among the nations. After Jerusalem was destroyed and the temple was burnt under Titus, the Roman governor or the Roman general, and he had no intention of burning that temple because of its beauty. Although a Roman general, and he hated this city, but when he saw the beauties of the temple, he didn't want to destroy it. but two of his soldiers, one carrying the other on his shoulder, threw a torch through one of the windows, into a place of the temple which was inflammatory, and the result was the whole temple was roused to the ground, fulfilling the prophecy of the Lord Jesus only a few years before that not one stone will be left upon another. Since that time the Jewish nation has been scattered throughout the world. I suppose the highest peak of their number is about twenty thousand in nineteen thirty. Because they were scattered and during the dark ages they lived more or less lived in ghettos, Jewish community, a persecuted, unwanted people, but they began to grow rapidly within the last hundred years. until in nineteen thirty there were about twenty million on the face of the earth. Hitler took care of six million during the last world war when he destroyed six million Jews. Such was his hatred to that nation. Since then they've increased another million and they claim today there are about fifteen million Jews in the world. Six million in the United States. about two million in Russia, about a million and a half in Poland, and we know that our two and a half million in Palestine, the others are scattered throughout the world, mostly in large cities. So that's the situation of the Jewish people today. And they are trodden down of the Gentiles, despised, not only scattered among the nations, but despised. by the nations, the majority of them. And the land is trodden down by the Gentiles, and says the Lord Jesus, Your house is left unto you desolate. How true, that beautiful temple, left unto them desolate, forsaken, and abandoned. But as I've already mentioned, from AD seventy, the land has been laid waste. The Jews have been scattered. and today they are returning back to the land of Palestine. This is an amazing thing, because Zionism only began possibly a hundred years ago. I think Zionism began about eighteen forty-eight. That is a desire for the Jews to go back to their homeland, which for so many centuries was under the heel of the lazy Turk or the Ottoman Empire. And there was no desire on the Jews to go back. There was no desire in their heart to go back to their homeland. It was just a wilderness. But an amazing thing began to happen. Just as Zionism began around eighteen forty-eight, God began sending the latter rains upon the earth. And Israel, the land of Israel, the land of Palestine, began to bring forth through. orchards began to grow, and it began to develop. And as the nation of Israel was stirred up to return, the land blossomed to receive those who came back into the land of Palestine. Until today, they have about two and a half million Jews in the land of Palestine. This is an amazing story. I think one of the most modern miracles is the six-day war of only a few years ago. It was in nineteen forty-eight that Israel was established as an individual republic, and you remember that. And also in nineteen twenty-four, first of all, they were recognized, or the land was recognized, as a home for the Jews, but they were recognized in nineteen forty-eight as a nation among the family of nations. This irritated the Arabs. The Arabs hated to see the Jews coming back and locating in the land of Palestine. And you know what happened only a few years ago, the Six-Day War, when that little Israel ripped those Arabs as a story of fascinating to read. I remember reading the story of it. I think it was in Luke magazine. And the party who wrote that article said there was almost a page out of Old Testament history. He mentioned the case of Gideon, when only three hundred men, Jews led by Gideon, destroyed the Midianites. But I thought of a case, too, over in King II, King VII. You remember here was Elisha, and he was in the city of Samaria, and Samaria was surrounded by the Syrian army. And of course those few Jews in Samaria didn't have a chance. But God was watching over them. Then one night God caused the Syrian army, and there was such a famine in the land that women were actually slaying their young for food to survive the famine. You can read it yourself in Second Kings chapter four. They were starving to death. And then God intervened. And God caused the Syrian army to hear the sound of horses and of chariots, the sound of war. And they fled. And they left their tents, as they were, with plenty of food. The horses and camels were tied. And all the Jews inside that city went out, and they had an abundance. Now what happened a few years ago during the Six-Day War? just about the same thing. The Egyptians fled. They heard noises, strange sounds, and they fled, and they left all their equipment, tremendous amounts of equipment that Hitler had, or rather that the Russians had given to them, and you know the consequences. A humiliating defeat for the Arabs, forty-five million Arabs, defeated by a little nation of a two and a half million people. But look at the situation today. It's certainly increased as far as dangerous concern for the little nation of Israel. It has increased, I would say, fifty-fold. Russia has built up a huge fortress in Egypt. There's no question. They've sent in their advisors, their military advisors. They are training the Egyptians. They've sent in all kinds of military hardware. And today, and other nations, also Arab nations, have been armed, and they're training. Forty-five million Arabs who take Israel, supported by Russia, with all her power, why they should be able to snuff her out like that. If Hitler disposed of six million, why couldn't the present enemies of Israel that surround her stuff out two and a half million? It only a matter of a couple of days, and they wouldn't take long to do it. If Israel's armaments, if her military strength were destroyed by the Russians or by what Russia has given to Egypt, those Arabs would swarm in there and slaughter every Tuesday to put their hands on. What's keeping Russia from doing it? What's keeping the Arabs from doing it? Is it world opinion? No. Russia showed how much she cared for world opinion when she went into Czechoslovakia. It's not world opinion. Let me tell you this. God is with that nation, even though they've gone back in unbelief. two and a half million people and God. They will suffer. Israel's darkest days are ahead of us. The Bible tells us that. And I'll read you some text in a few minutes. Nevertheless, Israel will survive. But today, Israel's existence has never been in greater jeopardy for the last twenty-five hundred years. as it is today. And the only answer is that God is moving behind the sea. Is God going to allow all that's happened to the Jewish nation, and especially what's happened in the last fifty and sixty years, is all this to come to naught? When God stirred up the spirit of Zionism over about a hundred years ago, when they started coming back to Israel, they began trickling back until today. You had them a nation recognized among the family of nations the first time in twenty-five hundred years since Nebuchadnezzar took over the nation, and they were slaves. Is all this the countenance? Well, if you look at it without the Bible yet, and if... what happens to Israel that's in the heart of these Arabs and many others like the Russians, they're going to be obliterated. Then everything is going to crumble. That has prophetically been leading up to the present situation of the Jewish nation. No, it's not going to come. And Russia nor the Jews, nor the Arabs, rather, are going to exterminate the Jews. God got his eye on that people, and he's going to say to us that Israel will survive the coming dark and dreadful days that are before. The physical battle against Satan hordes was fought. Nineteen hundred years ago, the physical battle. or rather I might say the spiritual battle. When at the cross the Lord Jesus Christ, He faced Satan, all Satan's hordes, an only one who could see into the spiritual realm, the spiritual atmosphere, could see the hosts of evils, the demons, supported by Satan, that surrounded the cross, seeking the death of the Son of God and to keep him in the chain and zip of death, to prevent it from rising again from the dead. Satan then had his chance if he could have kept Christ in the chains of death. He was at the feet of God's purpose, but Satan couldn't do it. And up from the grave he arose with a mighty triumph or his foes. He arose the victor or the dark domain, and he lived forever with his saints arrayed. Hallelujah, Christ arose. There was where the spiritual conflict took place, between Christ and Satan. But the physical conflict is ahead, and it's going to be the arm again. Today, Satan is behind all this enmity, this bitterness, this hatred against the Jew. All you've got to do is read Revelation twelve. You see the woman? with the crown with the twelve stars upon her head, speaking of the twelve tribes of Israel, and the great red dragon who was trying to devour her child as soon as it was born, but did not succeed, and Christ was caught up to heaven. Then the great red dragon turned his enmity upon the woman that brought forth the man's child and persecuted her. And he's been doing it ever since. But the day he's turned on the heat. This is Satan's hour, he thinks. If only he can destroy Israel. He could not prevent Christ coming the first time. He could not prevent Christ rising from the dead. Now things are shaping up for Christ to come back the second time, to destroy the hosts of evil, and set up his kingdom and reign, and the devil says, I'll try and stop. For if Christ reigns, that means I'm doomed. And the physical conflict is ahead. Just as Satan tried to prevent Christ's first coming, he's going to try and prevent his second coming. And just as he tried to prevent Christ's victory over the grave, Satan is going to try and prevent Christ's victory over the world and his hope that it will be assembled in that day at the Armageddon. But Satan is going to be defeated. You read these things in your newspaper, not references from preachers, in most cases, and it should be preachers, or should be speaking on these things, but a lot of editors, statesmen, politicians, military men, and this was in your paper here the other day. Now we enter a danger zone of World War III. by Joseph Aslov, and I'm just going to read this passage, only think the little Israel situation confronted by the overwhelming manpower superiority of the Arabs, plus the overwhelming superiority in modern weapons that the Kremlin has conferred upon the Arabs. In these harsh circumstances, how does anyone suppose that Israel has survived? The answer is that Israel has only survived by shining courage, by amazing skill, and by the ability to keep Egypt and the other Arabs off balance. Israel has kept them off balance by hitting back wherever necessary with great boldness and precision. The freedom to hit back has, in truth, been the indispensable ingredient of Israel's survival. Israel's actual survival is therefore at stake today because the Soviets, by a new move, they have never made anywhere else in the world, have deprived Israel of her freedom to hit back against Egypt. It is as simple as that. Weighing this fateful development and surveying the present mood of this country, one thinks of Adolf Hitler's invasion of the Rhineland that happened when our Congress was busily passing the silliest and most pernicious piece of legislation in the American record, the Nye Neutrality Act. And here are men writing about Israel's plight and her chances, her fate chances of survival against the overwhelming odds against her. She's going to survive. Now I want to read to you some of these texts I said I would my time and moving on. I noticed in that text, or we noticed as we read it, in verse twenty five, about the fullness of the Gentiles. a hardly in part has to fall in Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. What is meant by the fullness of the Gentiles? The fullness of the Gentiles is that period of time from Pentecost until Jesus Christ comes. That's the fullness of the Gentiles. But you read about the times of the Gentiles in Luke Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until, and I want you to know that word, until, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. Now the times of the Gentiles began under Nebuchadnezzar twenty-five hundred years ago. It will continue until the Battle of Armageddon, when the times of the Gentiles will end. Before Nebuchadnezzar the Jews rule. Then there can be a ruler for twenty-five hundred years. The Gentiles are ruled, but when Jesus Christ comes, at the army getting dead after that, the Jews will rule with Christ as their kid. And then again notice in Acts three, and here's Peter talking to the Jewish leaders, Repent ye therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. and he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you, whom the heavens must receive until, notice that word, until the times of restitution of all things which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. And all those things that God promised, oh Israel in the Old Testament time, will come to pass at the restoration of all things. And then you have the great tribulation mentioned, In Daniel seven and twenty-one, I beheld, and the same horn, that coming world dictator and power we have in time to speak on, made war with the saints and prevailed against them. And ever since there has been that satanic power prevailing against Israel, and the coming world dictator will be the fiercest of them all, prevailing against the nation of Israel until Christ comes for Israel's final victory. Then you have God's protection of his people in Isaiah twenty-six and twenty. Come, my people, and this refers to the days ahead. Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers and shut thy doors about thee. Hide thyself as it were for a moment, a little moment, until, there's that word again, until the indignation be overpassed. And in those coming days of great tribulation, God is going to protect the remnant, a hundred and forty-four thousand. are referred to that refuse to take the mark of the beast, and there will be more beside that. God is going to protect his will in those coming dark days. Then you have the untilled of punishment in Jeremiah thirty, and verse twenty-three. Behold the whirlwind of the Lord. Go forth with fury. A continuing whirlwind. It shall fall with pain upon the heads of the wicked one. That is the beast. and the fierce anger of the Lord shall not return until he has done it, and until he has performed the intent of his heart. In the latter days he shall understand it, referring to the coming judgment of the Battle of Armageddon referred to in your Bible. Then the until of accomplishment in Ezekiel twenty-one, twenty-seven, I will overturn. I will overturn. I will overturn, says God. And it shall be no more, that is, the kingdom until, there's that word, until again, until he shall come, whose right it is to reign, and I will give it him, that Jesus Christ. Well, I've just given you a brief outline of what's ahead. That word, until. And you have the until, the next thing is the rapture of the saints. That could happen today. Because remember, before all this pause on Israel, and they're preparing for it, and before the Battle of Armageddon, Jesus Christ is coming for the church. He's coming for every born-again person. Everyone who's saved by the grace of God, not unconverted church members, know that those who are really born again, Christ is coming. You take them out, and the church will be complete. That's the next thing on God's agenda. That will happen before all this breaks loose over in Palestine so you can see how close we are. The rapture, then the rise of the beast, the great tribulation, the protection of the remnant, the Armageddon, Israel's restoration or conversion, and Christ reigning. Seven scriptures for that little word until, until. God says these things will happen on my calendar. But they cannot happen until Isaiah. And little Israel will not be destroyed, but God has promised and made promises. We may have time to refer on that tonight. Why little Israel will survive in the days coming when Jesus Christ will return. And Israel will be preserved. Israel will be protected. She will be delivered. And the times of repression shall come, and Israel shall reign throughout the millennium. Christ, I would say, thus you have that little word until we are here as Christians, witnessing and waiting until Jesus Christ returns and he could come today. As I was studying this this week, especially yesterday, I almost had to stop my studying, and I did, get on my knees, and thank God. for the nearness of their coming again of the Lord Jesus Christ. These things are so momentum. I read that from the Mac to sing this hymn. At the beginning I am going to read it and conclude. My heart can sing when I pause to remember. A heartache here is but a stepping stone. Along the way that's winding always upward this troubled world is not my final home. The things of earth will dim and lose their value, if we recall they are borrowed for a while. And things of earth that cause the heart to tremble, remembering there will only bring a smile. This weary world with all its toil and struggle may take its toll of misery and of strife. The soul of man is like a waiting eagle, when its release is destined for the sky. But until then my heart will go on singing. Until then, with joy I'll carry on. Until the day my eyes behold the city. Until the day God calls me home. That's the Christian hymn. Until the song of Solomon you read these words. Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away. That has reference to the bride, the church. Until the day breaks. He said, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense. Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away. The hill of the mountain of myrrh speaks of the cross because myrrh speaks of bitterness. Frankincense, the hill of frankincense speaks of fragrance and of the fragrance of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. thought before us in that verse. And he says, until Jesus comes, until these things happen, I shall live in healing the very fragrance of the cross of Christ. That is my resting place. That is my ticket to mansions in the sky. Oh, until then, until the daybreak. And what a daybreak that will be as we sing in one of our hymns. Some golden daybreak Jesus will come. Some golden daybreak battles all once. He'll shout the victory right through the blue. Some golden daybreak will lead. But what about you? Are you ready? That's great. Our Father in heaven... In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to thy presence. We thank thee for the coming again of the Lord Jesus Christ. Though we thank thee for that daybreak, when all shadows shall flee away, shadows of sorrow, disappointment, and ill health, and loneliness, uncertainty, and death, all these shadows shall flee away in that day, that glorious daybreak. Oh, God, we're waiting. We can almost hear the footfall on the threshold of the door, and our hearts, our hearts are yearning to be with him evermore. We pray for those this morning who are not Christians, who are not born again, who do not know Christ as Savior. May the remembrance of all these things that are before us today, thy word being so graphically fulfilled. May these things, Father, reach their hearts and bring them to a saving knowledge. of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is our humble prayer. We ask it in our Savior's name. Amen.