Just a little bit about homework. We talked about Leviticus last week as far as God telling Israel, I will never renege on my covenant with you despite how you behave and whatnot. That Leviticus 26 passage comes from a background of the five cycles of judgment. And it's important to understand the five cycles of judgment given to Israel. Okay, so what I'm gonna show you right now, if you wanna write in your Bibles or you wanna write a note out to the side or whatnot, I'll show you the five cycles, and then here's what we want you to tell me, is to let me know where Israel is at in these cycles, okay? So this is Leviticus 26, and you wanna start Well, in verse 1, you can see in Leviticus 26, you shall not make idols for yourselves, neither carved images. He goes on, you should keep my Sabbaths, you walk in my statutes, in verse 3, and on and on and on about obedience to him, okay? If you do obedience, obviously blessing. If you don't, disobedience brings cursing. But the cursing then becomes very severe. so if you want to go all the way down to verse 14 verse 14 starts the first cycle okay so let's read that and you can read it with me but if you do not obey me and do not observe all these commandments and if you despise my statutes or if if your soul abhors my judgments so that you do not perform all my commandments, but break my covenant, the Mosaic covenant, not the Abrahamic or anything like that, okay? I will do this to you. So here's what happens at the first cycle when you mess around with me. I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever, which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. I will set my face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues." So there's some consequences there. The idea here is a terror that could come from enemies, obviously. Diseases will encompass Israel, plagues and things of that nature that causes sorrow and people will die. As far as the land is concerned, you're going to sow your seeds in vain and nothing's going to grow. In fact, your enemies will eat it, whatever you grow. You're going to be defeated by your enemies. They're going to reign over you, you'll be under subjection to them, and you will have an inordinate fear that someone's always trying to get you. Okay, first cycle. And then if you move to the second cycle, verse 18 starts this. So the second cycle says, and after all of this, do you see how it starts the second cycle? And after all of this. So if you don't respond to this first cycle of judgments, it's gonna get a little harder for you. If you do not obey me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. So what I gave you the first time is going to be seven times over. So he starts ramping it up. I will break your pride. I will break the pride of your power, which Daniel actually uses that phrase in Daniel chapter 12 about the tribulation. He says the tribulations to break the power of Israel, which is referring to their pride, right? So I'm going to break you down. I'm gonna break your pride. I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. Basically, he's talking about the production of their land and whatnot. And your strength shall be spent in vain. You're just not gonna be able to get anything agriculturally out of your land. For your land shall not yield its produce. nor shall the trees of your land yield their fruit." So I'm really going to stick it to you as far as food is concerned. You perhaps might see many famines coming into the land because of your disobedience, which obviously would result in death and many, many problems. So that's the second cycle. Then in verse 21, it starts the third cycle. Then if you walk contrary to me and are not willing to obey me, I will bring on you seven times more plagues according to your sins." So it's 14 more times than the original one, okay? I will send wild beasts among you. or maybe even criminal activity is the idea, which shall rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number, and your highways shall be desolate. So I'm gonna destroy your population, basically, with crime, infant mortality, your livestock and all that stuff that, you know, goats, sheep, everything, dead, and no one's gonna be traveling through you anymore and trade and whatnot. And so you lose your trading ability with other nations. That's the third judgment. Now you move to the fourth, verse 23. And if by these things you are not reformed by me, but walk contrary to me, then also will I walk contrary to you, and I will punish you seven times for your sins. Now we've wrapped it up from the original punishment to 21 times over. I'm going to punish you now. The intensity ramps up to level 21, if you're following his calculations, okay? And I will bring a sword against you that will execute vengeance of the covenant. When you are gathered together within your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you should be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I have cut off your supply of bread, 10 women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall bring back your bread by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied. And the idea is you're gonna be taken over by your enemy, famine's gonna be in the land, and they're gonna cut you in half. Okay, so that's the fourth. So then the fifth one starts, and it's a long one, okay? The fifth one starts from verse 27 all the way to 39, okay? So let's read that. And after all of this, if you do not obey me, but walk contrary to me, then I also will walk contrary to you in what? Fury. This is it. And I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sin. Now we're up to 28. 28 times over the original cursing. So I'm 28 times more intense. And now Yahweh is saying, I'm going to do this to you. I'm specifically going to do this to you myself. I'm not going to have an enemy do it. I'm going to do it. You should eat the flesh of your sons. and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. It'll get so bad for you, you will resort to cannibalism. That's how bad I'm gonna make it for you. I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, cast your carcasses on the lifeless forms of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you. I will lay your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries to desolation. I will not smell the fragrance of your sweet aromas. I will bring the land to desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it. I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you, and your land shall be desolate and your cities waste. The land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemy's land, and the land shall rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate, it shall rest, for the time it did not rest on your Sabbaths when you dwelt in it. And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. And sound of a shaking leaf shall cause them to flee. They shall flee as though fleeing from a sword, and they shall fall when no one pursues. So they live in constant fear is the idea. They shall stumble over one another as it were before a sword when no one pursues. And you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And those of you who are left shall waste away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands. Also in their fathers' iniquities, which are with them, they shall waste away. okay that's the fifth cycle and then obviously we read i think last time verse 40 but if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers with their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to me and that they also have walked contrary to me and that I also have walked contrary to them and have brought them into the land of their enemies if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they accept their guilt then I will remember my covenant with Jacob that's the Abrahamic covenant and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham I will remember and I will remember the land okay so we read that last week as the promise that if they confess their sins I'll start the whole program up again with them, and they will get to enjoy the Abrahamic Covenant. Okay, based on that, those are the five cycles that God told Israel, I'm gonna put you in. Where is Israel at currently in those cycles? Can you tell from reading those passages where they are at? You know, no? These are bad, this is a bad warning. They did cannibalism sometimes, but it had a culmination of cannibalism in one final act. But notice, they've had cannibalism situations, but what's in the section of the cycle that you're referring to? What are the other things in there that goes along with the cannibalism? they're scattered. So they've had cannibalism before, but they've never been scattered. What's going on in the fifth cycle is you're eating your own kids, but I'm scattering you. Your land is laid desolate. And we have right now half of Israel in the land. Where's the rest of the Israelites? They're scattered still. Yeah? They're not all back in the land. Okay? So what you're seeing right now is the end of the fifth cycle, because he's pulling them back in the land. The fifth cycle says, I'm kicking you out of the land. When did he kick them out of the land? 70 AD. He gave Israel 40 years to repent from rejecting the Messiah. The nation of Israel didn't. Unpardonable sin happened. What's in the fifth cycle? What did he say he's going to do to their temple? Did you see what's in the fifth cycle? It's the only cycle that refers to their temple, right? He's gonna leave, I'm gonna leave your temple desolate. What happened in 70 AD? So you see, you have all the factors in the fifth cycle that have been now completed. Destruction of, he says your city, right? In verse 33, I will scatter you among the nations and draw out the sword after you. Your land shall be desolate and your cities waste. What cities? Well, the primary city, your capital, Jerusalem, will be laid to waste. That happened in 7 AD. Then the references to the temple are in what passages? Oh, verse 31. I will lay your cities waste, bring your sanctuaries to desolation. That's the temple. So it's Jerusalem, the temple. I'm scattering you among the nations, you're always going to be afraid in the nations, and eventually you're going to eat your own kids during this period of time. When did they eat their own kids during the fifth cycle? 70 AD. And Josephus, we're very thankful for his reporting, even though it's gruesome that he did report that in the siege of 70 AD, they ate their own kids. When their kids died, they boiled them and baked them or whatever and ate them because they were starving because of the Roman legions surrounding them. Okay, so basically then if you understand Leviticus and the five cycles, Israel went through this and the fifth cycle has been for the last almost 2,000 years, the fifth cycle. They're now back in the land and they're getting reestablished obviously as a nation. There's still an unbelief, but not all of them are back. Half of them live here. Okay, so in order for the tribulation to happen, the majority of them have to eventually come back to the land. And I don't know if that happens after the rapture. I don't know how that will happen. I know it's going to be probably persecution, but eventually God gets them all back and it's out of judgment for judgment. Yeah, right. And that's the good question. You know, there's been books written on this about, you know, why do, why are a lot of American Jews even anti-Israel? They're self-hating many times and you can't figure it out. Man, you're right. The Hollywood Jew, you know, they've assumed the Marxist, the neo-Marxist mentality and the materialism. So they love it here and they fit quite well in the Hollywood. But if God's true on his promises, which I believe he is, he's gonna bring them back. And the only thing I can think of, why would the Jews leave France right now and all these other places in Europe? Because of persecution. And I hate to think this way, but I think with America, things are gonna get more ramped up anti-Semitic wise, as they already are. Last year was the highest levels of anti-Semitism according to the Anti-Defamation League. It's the highest levels. And so if you start adding things in, we're going to see more rampant anti-Semitism. You're already seeing two congressmen get sworn in that absolutely disdain Israel. The one gal wore Palestinian garb and she was calling for a one state, a Palestinian state. And then she used her foul mouth to cuss out Trump. These people like that, are the kinds of people that are going to be putting pressure on the Jews here in America. And so we shouldn't shock any of you to watch this anti-Semitism continue to roll. And I can tell you what we saw last week with all those church fathers, this is why the majority of churches are either ignorant or neutral on the subject of Israel. I'm not saying they're anti-semitic, I'm just saying, why do they not care about them? Well, you can tell. If they're of the Reformed theology types, well, they're just following the Reformers. And you saw last week what the Reformers said. Tax them, put them in prison. Burn them, kill them. I mean, really, it shouldn't be a far cry to read the church fathers and then look what Hitler did in Nazi Germany. It shouldn't be that. You can see, well, popes were saying mark them out. Popes were saying put arm badges on them and mark them out differently than the Christians. Hitler wasn't the one that came up with that. It was popes, Catholic clerics. So it shouldn't shock us that the church is not gonna be behind us. So I think to that point is there will be no one really to defend Israel. So let's say the rapture happens tonight. All the Bible believers that would ever defend Israel will be gone. There are gonna be nobody left in the church. The false church will be left behind and the false church can't stand Israel. Like Hank Canagraph and Gary DeMar and all those people. They despise Israel. That's who's left. That's who's left. So, you know, you're hitting nail on the head. Something's going to happen. I just hope I'm raptured and I don't have to see it because it can get really bad here. Anyway, so that's important to understand. Mark those out in your Bible. You can see the different timetables there. So let's go to then your book on Footsteps of Messiah. I want to skim through some passages because they keep repeating themselves. So I'm going to buzz through this quite quickly. So on page 425, that's right after we finished reading Leviticus 26. and we'll start just going rapidly through this okay so basically all these other passages starting from the five books of Moses all the way to the minor prophets you're going to see just see constantly a promise of Israel getting the land okay a promise of Israel getting the land so you start off in Deuteronomy 30 verse 5 and it says Yahweh your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possess and you shall possess it and he will do you good and multiply you above your father so even start in the five books of Moses that Moses is predicting that one day he's going to re-establish him back in the land obviously this is pointing to the messianic age again real rapidly Isaiah 27 mentions the borders that when they will get this is from the The Great River Euphrates and then the Brook of Egypt, we talked about that before. That's never happened in history, they'll get it in the Messianic period. Let's move down to Isaiah 30, 23 through 26. Again, it's just continuing to say, I will give you rain for your seed. wherewith you shall sow the ground and bread of your increase of the ground and it shall be fat and plenteous. And the idea is it just keeps going on about all these details about what will happen to Israel's land. If you go to the next page, 426, just on the bottom of that passage, it'll say, moreover, the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold as the light of seven days. In that day, Yahweh binds up the hurts of his people and heals the stroke of their wound. OK, so the idea is that In the messianic age, somehow light is increased seven times more. Not where it burns people, but it makes the crops grow at a more abundant rate apparently. And so this increase of light helps Israel in its productivity. And here's what you have to understand too. They are in the back in the land and there's no doubt by their productivity they've reestablished the land and are growing things in an abundant way. But the passages you're reading right now all have to do when Jesus is here and all have to do when he reverses the curse. I'm looking at desert here because when Jesus comes back if you read those passages in context which we're doing right now and we're skimming them all the desert of the entire planet becomes fertile. The Dead Sea becomes alive again because the water that comes out of the throne, according to Ezekiel, comes and flows into the Dead Sea and makes it alive again. And the whole thing becomes fertile and becomes, you know, tropical and jungle and whatnot, very lush. And I want to say, That's another mistake, and you have to be careful about this. This is what I've noticed, that some Christians can go too far with millennial passages. So you always have to have a balance. So what do you mean? Well, let me give you some other examples. Other passages will say that the whole world will speak one language at one point in time, in the future. And that happens in the Kingdom Age. That's the context of those passages. But then a lot of other messianic believers will take that and say, ah, that's referring to the reestablishment of the Hebrew language. And it's like, no, that has to do with 1,000 years, and everyone speaks the same language in 1,000 years. It's a restoration after what Babylon has done to us. And they'll say, the reestablishment of the Hebrew language is this millennial passage. And that's wrong. You can't do that. And you can't say the desert's blooming when it only refers to when Messiah's back. That's what we call an over-realized eschatology. So we don't want to make the mistake of replacement theology. It's promises made to Israel. But you also don't want to swing the pendulum so far that you have an over-realized eschatology and you give too much away from the kingdom. We don't have kingdom conditions right now, obviously. We can't say that. Israel back in the land, yes, but they're in Ezekiel's dry bones right now. They haven't been blown into them the spirit of life, which only comes in tribulation. And you say, well, okay, I get that. What's the practical ramifications of all this? Well, I'll tell you. Some mistakes that some pro-Israel Christians make, and I say that because we're very pro-Israel, but you don't want to go too far into what's called dual covenant theology, which is another major mistake. And what is dual covenant theology? Some people will love Israel so much that they will say that they are saved based on the Abrahamic covenant and don't necessarily need the Messiah, that the Messiah is for the Gentiles. Okay, you might not have heard that, but the big proponent of this is John Hagee. And he leads Kufi. Christians United for Israel. And a lot of people have joined Kufi. It's a good organization. They put pressure on Washington. They put pressure on a lot of congressmen and senators to be pro-Israel, and I'm all for that. But behind it is this misunderstanding of an over-realized eschatology, and including in that is the dual covenant where Israel doesn't need Jesus as their Messiah. We do. And boy howdy, if you make that mistake, you're gonna love Israel to hell. Does that make sense? Because if you're not gonna share the gospel with the Jews, you can love them all you want, but they're still gonna go to hell. And so when you see a guy like John Hagee, now John Hagee said, I don't believe in that. But the problem is I've seen what he has said. And some of his statements have been very troubling to read. Like, you know, that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah. And I'm like, then what was he doing? I don't get it. You know, that Jesus didn't claim to be Israel's Messiah. I'm like, well then, What was this all about? And so in dual covenant theology is that he came not just for Israel, he came to make propitiation for the Gentiles and that the Jews are saved by the covenants that God made with them. I'm telling you guys, that is heresy 101. Because tell me why that makes the same problem in another way as replacement theology. How is that similar? Dual covenant, they don't need Jesus because they're saved automatically versus replacement theology. What's the same commonality between those two issues? Right, they're still lost. One won't witness to them because they hate them. One won't witness to them because they love them too much. Or they think they're saved another way. It's like Satan's got you twice. Satan's got you twice. If he can't get you to hate him, he'll get you to love him so much that you won't share the gospel with him. In dual covenant, it only applies to Gentiles. And so you're like, what? What are you talking about, man? It's almost like a hyper-dispensationalism. None of what was going on in the Gospels with his interaction with the Jews meant anything, I guess. It's just, it's really difficult to put my arms around it. But guys, a guy like Hagee has 9,000 people that go to his church and thousands of people following him and almost 5 million signed up at Kufi. Right? I can't defend stupidity. I can't defend it. I don't know what to say to somebody that says the Jews are saved by the covenants and the Gentiles have to be saved by Jesus. It just doesn't make any sense. It doesn't... And he stated these things in some of his books. And it's like, wow. And he did this. This is what shocks me. When I started doing research on this, he said this back in the 80s. And no one picked up on that. And people just let it go. And he had been always an Israel advocate, as you recall. He started back in the late 70s supporting Israel. He's one of the main guys supporting Israel, which is great and all that. and he started having a night to honor Israel and whatnot. But he would make those statements and he never really backed off of it. Now he claims he's not dual covenant, but I don't know what you do with those words in those statements. So I tell you that because I want you to be aware that, oh, there's another side that I have to worry about. Yeah, you do. Yeah. And so you can't make either of the two extremes. You have to stay balanced in your scripture. A couple more things, then we'll take a break. As we move, page 426, just like I was saying, it says, the land will be well watered in this time. The wilderness, in Isaiah 35, 1 through 2, the wilderness and the dry ground will be glad, and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as a rose. They take that passage right now and put it on today. It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice even with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it the excellency of Carmel and Sharon." Those are right on the coastlines areas. They shall see the glory of Yahweh, the excellence of our God. So that's the thing is, here's what they miss. They shall see the glory of Yahweh in conjunction with the deserts blooming. So question, Bible 101. Where is the glory of God right now? Is it in Israel? No, where's the glory? The glory is in heaven, where God is. When he comes back and Messiah reigns, I know this is Bible 101, but I just can't believe there's Christians that don't get this. It's the well water desert is in conjunction with the Shekinah glory in the land. Messiah comes back in the glory cloud. That's the sign of his return, the glory cloud. When he sits on the throne in this temple that he makes, the glory will be around him because he's Yahweh. That's when you know the glory's back in the land. Once the glory is in the land, according to Isaiah, the deserts will bloom, supernaturally, not by the Israelites' ingenuity, but by supernatural abilities of the Messiah flowing from his throne. If you ever read Ezekiel in the Messianic passages 40 through 48, you'll talk about the millennial river that flows from the throne of the Messiah. And that thing is supernatural and makes everything just grow like the Garden of Eden. Anyway, if you just move on real quick, Isaiah 65, again, Isaiah 65 is contextually all about the messianic kingdom. Basically, it says, you shall build houses, inhabit them, they shall plant vineyards, they shall eat the fruit of them. That's not right now, that's in the kingdom. They shall not build, and another inhabit. They shall not plant, and another eat. For as the days of a tree shall be the days of my people, they'll live a thousand years basically, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for calamity, talking about children, for they are the seed of Yahweh and their offspring with them. And it shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer, and while they are yet speaking, I will hear. Question, Bible 101. If you're an unbeliever, will Yahweh answer you in prayer? No. There's only one prayer he'll answer. What is that? Salvation prayer, right? He doesn't answer. He can hear. He's not deaf, right? You know, he's omniscient. He knows what people are saying to him. But the idea, Hebraically, is I will not hear you when you're in disobedience. That's an anthropomorphism. I'm not going to answer your prayers. Notice Isaiah 65 says the land is going to flourish. You're going to have a lot of children. but it's in conjunction when I will hear you. And before you even utter your prayer, I'm gonna answer you directly. What does that tell you the context? Is it Israel now? No, it can't be. This is Israel in salvation. This is Israel that during the messianic age, when they pray and when we pray, or wherever we're at in the planet or the universe, God already knows what I'm gonna ask. He'll answer me right before I ask him, is the idea. He'll say, Eric, yes, yes, you can do that, before he even answers. the prayer will come back to him. God, Messiah will directly answer him where he's at. And that's promised to the Jews in the millennial reign. So that's the thing is, you can't take verses out of context and say, oh, I'm building houses, I'm planting vineyards. Isn't that great? We're back in the land. It's like, no, you have to be able to say the Messiah's answer in your prayers. And you're not, and you're not, and you're not, and you're not.