Person and Work of the Holy Spirit lesson 21 quest. 5
Mike Doyle · Feb 27, 2022
Holy Spirit (2021-23), No. 51
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492619264356

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

OK, we are in lesson 21. And we had crawled our way to question five. We don't move very fast. It isn't because we're slow. So interesting. This should make for kind of an interesting discussion this morning. The first question, five, is in Romans 11, 16 through 24. The question is, is the olive branch the church or something else? So I think to start it off, I'm going to read those verses. Romans 11, 16 through 24.

If the first piece of dough is holy, and I'm reading from the New American Standard, the lump is also, and if the root is holy, the branches are too. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them, and became partakers with them of the rich root of the olive tree, Do not be arrogant towards the branches. But if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root that supports you.

You shall say then, branches are broken off that I might be grafted in. Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief. But you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. Behold then the kindness and those who fell, severity to you, God's kindness. If you continue in his kindness, otherwise you will also be cut off.

And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will those who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree? So basically, that can be totally confusing. But when you recognize that what the discussion is about is the difference between Israel and the church, those are the two key players in this scripture. And so the first part we're going to talk about, as you look at the question, and let's see if I said it that way.

Is the olive branch the church, or is it something else? The wild olive branch is, who is it? Would you say that the wild olive branch is just Gentiles? Or is it the church? It's the church, okay? Now, so the first thing I wanna go through is this, another question. What the church is not? Huh? It's not Israel. It is not, and we have already seen why. It is not Israel in any way.

It's a really important point. I've got about 10 bullet points here. The ordinary teaching is that God's church is one in all ages. That it began with Abraham and continues through the present dispensation and the millennium, including every saved soul to the last. So what does that say? That the church began with Abraham, and it continues today, and that the church is just an extension of Israel. Now who preaches and teaches that viewpoint in contemporary Christianity?

The Reformed Church. I'm sorry? The Reformed Church. That's right. The Reformed Church teaches that. So if you've ever been involved in a covenant or reformed church, this is their viewpoint, that the church is an extension of Israel. It is said that the Jewish church was in a broken and fragmentary condition when our Lord came to the earth, but that he repaired and reestablished it upon the firm basis of atonement. That's what they teach.

In proof of this, the following scripture is cited, being itself a quotation from the prophet Amos, and it's Acts 15, verses 16 and 17. Somebody turn to that and read it quickly. Nobody in the audience knows how to read? It's Acts 15, 16 and 17, and turn your mic on if you've got one in front of you, okay?

And the word reads, after this I will return and rebuild David's fallen tent. Its ruins I will rebuild and I will restore it. The rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord who does these things. What you have here, let me ask this question.

What's the Acts? The Acts of the Apostles is a history, right? It's a step-by-step history of what? Israel or the church or both? It's a transitional book. But what's the focus of it? Is it Israel or is it the church? It's the church. It's not the history of Israel. But it's a translation or a transition from Judaism into Christianity. Now, if you go into Acts 2, and you read the sermon that Peter stood up and said at the day of Pentecost, it's very Jewish in content. Very Jewish, right? But the transition had started by then. And until Paul comes on the scene, there isn't a clear understanding of what the difference is between the church and Judaism.

And you'll find, you know, We walk around as dispensationalists sometimes not paying attention to what our Reform non-dispensational brothers actually teach and think, but this is the biggest issue. This is the biggest issue. Why is that such a big problem? Why would it be such a big problem for a believer to adopt the position that the church is just an extension of Israel? Because then you inherit the law. You bring back the law. And that we have been saved and then dwelt by the Holy Spirit for the sole purpose of keeping the law. Oh, I think I'm going to hell. I'm not doing a very good job. Or maybe the Spirit isn't doing a very good job.

But that's what they think. And so they have a modified list of do's and don'ts. They modify the mosaic law. They don't accept the premise that if you break one of the laws, you broke them all. Oh my goodness. One, you break them all. It's like tempered glass. You ever broken a big pane of tempered glass? It breaks into a thousand pieces. Try putting them, gluing them all back together. It ain't gonna happen.

Okay, so if you go back and look at Romans 11, 16 through 24, the olive tree and its branches. From this, it is argued that the olive tree is the church and the natural branches are Jews and the wild ones are Gentiles. That's what a Reformer will argue, a guy like John MacArthur will argue from that perspective. But notice how such handling of God's word obscures all true understanding of scripture. As are the true members of the body of Christ ever broken off? Never. Never.

And in turn is the position of others only conditional upon their faithfulness. So also all that we have been learning from Ephesians would be totally wiped out. You might as well tear the book of Ephesians out of your Bible and throw it away, because it says we already have been blessed with every spiritual blessing and the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. Well, that isn't gonna fit if you're a reformer.

My write-out says, but how simple it all is when we see not the church, but the privileges of grace, that olive tree is the line of privilege throughout the world's history. Understand what he's saying there? It's really interesting. How much of grace, how much of the privileges of grace did the nation of Israel have? What do you think? I like how he put that. The olive tree is the line of privilege throughout world's history. So let's identify, what is the olive tree? What's the metaphor of the olive tree?

It has roots. I'm in the Midwest. We call them roots there. and branches. I always thought it was Christ that feeds us, the branches. So when you say it's Christ, can you say that, well, the Jews had that, didn't they? They weren't grafted in inside Christ. There you go. It's really important to understand What our relationship with, now think about this, the resurrected, glorified Christ.

We have no relationship with the Jewish Messiah before the cross. We have no relationship with him at all. Do you understand that? None. The Jews certainly did because he's the Messiah. He was the one that was gonna come and be, to pay for their sins.

But the church is different because, like Jimmy said, what makes us different is that you will not ever see language in Judaism that talks about being in Christ. You won't see that language. Okay? You can talk about discipleship, you can talk about followers, you can talk about learners, you can talk about members of the nation of Israel.

But the unique thing about the, when you start looking at the vine and the branches, or the root and the branches, you gotta get into the root somehow. One of the things I'm gonna talk about later is the fact that the root, if you have a vine and a branch, the root determines if you have life or not, the kind of life you have, and how that life looks. The root does all of that. Under a legal system, the root says to the branches, you've got to act like that.

It doesn't say you are that. You have to act like that. Here are the rules, 600 and however many of them there are. You've got to act like that. Where Grace says, you are in the root, and the root determines the kind of life it is and the life will come out into the branches. Go ahead.

Our father is the vine dresser, and I always looked at this as if he is constantly pruning the branches, of which I feel like I get pruned every day. And so our bad works are being pruned out of the olive tree branches, but we're grafted in forever in life in Christ. So there's a pruning going on in our lives as well, right? We have pruning going on and we have, when you look at that John verse about the vine and the branches, we're being lifted up.

You know, if you've ever been in a vineyard, you know, they don't go around like you do on your plants in your backyard and chop them off and what they, because the more branches they have, the more grapes they're going to get. So what do they want to do? They want to make the branches productive, not cut them off. They want to make them productive. So they lift them up, tie them up, get them up so that they, or hold them up so that they will be productive. And they prune the suckers. What's that? They prune the suckers. They prune the things that prevent or fruit.

That's exactly right. But that's not true in Israel. Now, what determined the life of a Jew? He determined it. You see that? It wasn't the resurrected life of Christ. It was him, son of Adam, supposedly a man of faith from Abraham. But he didn't have new life in Christ. The root wasn't changed. Right out says, this began with Abraham. It was continued in his successors who, however, were broken off. because of their unbelief and has now passed on to Christendom.

This is what the church isn't. With multitudes of Gentiles enjoying the privileges to which they had been previously strangers. Okay? So, the church is not touched, but profession and responsibility are. Do you understand what he means by that? There's no explanation of what the church really is, but you are encouraged under this system to profess and to accept the responsibilities of a branch, which is the law.

Unfaithful Christendom will be broken off, and repentant Israel will again be restored. There's where it gets tricky. So at what point in time, if you are going to say Christendom, and the Brethren use the word Christendom, how do they use that word? When I use the word Christendom, what do I mean?

Organized. Organized? It's more than that. What do I mean? It's not part of the body of Christ. I'm sorry? Not part of the body of Christ. So why the title? Christian? Well... Joanne says it includes everyone who identifies with Christianity. Some way. Yeah. You know, we have... quote unquote, Christian denominations loaded with people who are not saved, who identify themselves as Christians, but they are Christendom, Christians in name only, okay? They're not born again. They're not in Christ, okay? So when he says the church is not touched, unfaithful Christendom will be broken off.

I find it interesting, if they're going to be broken off, were they ever in? Probably not. I think that word unfaithful is interesting there. Unfaithful in what way? Unfaithful to the truth of God's Word. Because it can sound like they weren't true to the faith in terms of their deeds, but yeah, I just wanted to clarify there.

Well, what's interesting about that, you know, if you've ever run into, oh, let's pick on one of them, run into a MacArthurite, they're vehement about what they believe. I mean, they will defend, defend, and defend. And they're pretty studious, they study. The problem is, that because the basic foundation of their doctrine is reformed, which is an extension, this whole idea that the church is an extension of Israel, and so therefore all of Israel's promises and obligations come forward in the church, then that's what they defend. And you can't really tell if they're saved or not. If you go to John MacArthur and you ask him, What is salvation? How do you get saved?

You know how he answers? He will say to you, well, the Puritans said this, and these people said that, but he'll never tell you what he says. He just gives you a description of what all of these other people say, and he won't say that salvation is 1 Corinthians 15, three through five, and that's it. and that you're in Christ. He won't tell you that. Yet he's a boy, he's a tremendous teacher and preacher and has a huge following, but he's a reformer. So he doesn't understand grace. And he doesn't teach grace.

Guess what? If I'm sitting in the fourth row of, what's the name of that church is in California? I'm a member of Christendom. If I'm not saved, number one, I'm not gonna get broken off because I never was grafted in. See? Anyway, when that comes around, when does Israel get grafted back in? Oh, one other distinction. One other distinction before I ask that question.

God always dealt with the nation of Israel as a nation. the whole bunch of them. He has, since the resurrection of Christ and Pentecost, dealt with humanity on a one-on-one basis. He dealt with me personally. He dealt with you personally, not as a nation. Sometimes I think he forgot the Irish, no. And that's a huge difference. Because it means that each one of us who are members of the body of Christ have been dealt with from the very beginning, personally, intimately, one-on-one with the Lord Jesus. That is not the way he deals with Israel. But there's going to come a time when Israel will be restored, grafted back in. As a nation. Millennium. When will that happen? What event? At the millennium. At the millennium? They'll look upon him whom they have slain. They will look upon him whom they have slain. And they will realize. And they'll realize.

When does that happen? I think it happens at the beginning of the Millennial Kingdom when the 144,000 Jews, who are all believers, enter in. And they are considered the nation. you see that they are considered the nation not each one individually it's all of them together the nation so they became believers after the church was taken up and so they're not part of the church and that's correct the foundation of the of the new millennium age so uh... with in terms of time space uh... when when is that uh... and at the church age happen rancher It happens at the rapture, right?

Later today, right? Hopefully. Hopefully it's today. Maybe before 1130. So we have a period of time between the rapture of the church the week of Daniel, or a time before the week of Daniel starts, the week of Daniel, and then Christ returns with us and reestablishes the nation of Israel as the center, I don't want to use the word country, as the central nation of the world. He will live in Jerusalem, rule and reign from there through the Jews. And they will get all of the stuff that he promised Abraham. Where are we going to be?

With Christ. Explain. You sound like Luke Jenkins in Sunday school with the kids. Every time I ask a question, he would say, Jesus. It didn't matter what the question was, Jesus. Right answer every time. Every time, right? So a one-word answer requires an explanation. You want an address?

We'll be ruling and reigning with him where he is. We will be. We will rule and reign with him. So you're right, Cheryl, that we will be with the Lord Jesus wherever he is. That means we're all going to crowd into Jerusalem. What it means is that our intimacy with Christ would be like the Father and the Son. Physical distance won't matter. The Lord Jesus was here and His Father was in heaven, and you know what? They were face to face. Hey, Mike? Yeah?

I'm still kind of stuck. If we can back up a little bit. A little. Yeah, I'm sorry. That's all right. If he's talking about some of the branches were broken off and you being a wild out and all of that, and then you go on and it says in 18, do not be arrogant toward the branches. So in Romans 11, he's mostly talking about Jews here, right? Yeah. Okay, so would it be because the verse above that in 16, it says, if the first piece of dough is holy, the lump is also holy. And if the root is holy, the branches are as well, that they were broken off, not because necessarily of them at the time, because the nation was part of the branch because they were God's chosen people and God being triune, that would include both the Holy Spirit and Christ. but when he came and died, it's a whole, it's a whole new thing. So it's kind of like, you know, I don't know how to say what I'm saying so that, because if you're going to talk to somebody about dispensation and anything, and they bring you to here and you're like, well, if we're always saved, then which branches are broken off. So how, how do you answer that?

All right, how'd you get to be a Jew? Let's say we live in 300 BC. How'd I get to be a Jew? You're born into it. Is there any other way to become a Jew? No. Sure, sure there is. Oh, there was? Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, I can become a proselyte. Oh, OK, OK. Or I could marry in.

And I'd have to go through the instructions and that kind of thing, and I don't know what they do. Maybe they circumcise you to give you the, that's the sign that you're one of them. Because there's a lot of incidents in the Old Testament where Gentiles were grafted in. Now, how do you get ungrafted then? Yeah, I'm just stuck on how were they broken off. What is the sin that causes you to be broken off?

Unbelief. Unbelief, right. So here comes the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, and He clearly, in this three and a half year ministry, laid out the fact that He was the Messiah. And he did everything that required of Judaism to verify his position with miracles and his word and everything he said. So every single Jew at that point has a responsibility to do what? To believe that he is the Messiah.

And if they don't, what happens? Okay, right. Then they're broken off. Right. Okay, that makes sense. OK. Sorry. No, don't be sorry. If people like you didn't talk, I mean, I'd be sitting here scratching the back of my head. People like me? Yeah. Can I be a person like her for a second? Sure, go for it.

I was just thinking that we can't be ungrafted. We're permanently in Christ's life. That's right. But I think in some ways Paul's saying don't be arrogant because he took the branches away in the Jewish dispensation, so don't be arrogant, because he could do that to you too, but he's not, because he can't go against his word, but I look at it now, we can never be ungrafted, but we can be pruned, and part of our branches can be cast into the fire because of, you know, just in our conditional bad works, but we're forever a branch.

That kind of makes sense? No, that's right, well think about it, are we a branch? Well, it says there's many branches on the tree, so I would think that... Well, no, no, think about this for a minute. If I can't be cut off, and I agree with you, where do I hang out? You have the branch, you have the root, you have the branches, and then you've got the fruit out on the end.

Am I a branch? I'm not a branch. I'm in the vine. I'm part of the vine. And the vine is where the life is. The branch demonstrates the kind of life that's in the vine, or the root. You see that? The root has life, unique life. And I've been, not to use the word grafted, I have been placed in the root. I love that. I never thought of it that way. Now, from a practical standpoint, walking around and demonstrating fruit, you could say, yeah, I'm a branch in that sense. But it's in this body. But positionally, I am in the root. You see that? If any man be in Christ, who's the root? He's the new creation. So I was just going to say verse 17, it is specific to that very thing.

You, meaning Gentile Christians, being a wild olive, were grafted in. So that's where we get the grafting. But this was a reverse of what was typically done, right? A wild olive branch would be grafted into a wild root. And this was an opposite, though it did happen, it was pretty rare. But here you have something odd, right? That's what it's, it's not what a contrary to nature, Romans 24 says it down below. This was a contrary to nature that Christian Gentiles were grafted in through belief into this root.

But it goes on and at the very end of verse 17, that's where what you're talking about, Mike. they became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree. So we are partakers of the root. I think that's where, Jimmy, what you're saying is that thinking of it that way is equally important as thinking of it in terms of being a branch. Right. You okay with that? Wow. That was awesome. So, let's see if we can, we've only got a couple minutes, but let's see if we can get through.

What does Rideout quote as the destiny of Israel? I'll give you the quote, it's Isaiah 2, two through four. And here's the quote, and it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains and shall be established above all the hills and all the nations shall flow from it. flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways and we will walk in the paths and out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. and he shall judge every nation, and shall rebuke many peoples, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations will not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

So, Rideout uses that quote as the destiny of Israel. How many people have you talked to in your lifetime that use that quote about the church? It has nothing to do with the church. Then question seven is, what does Rideout quote as the destiny of the church? He quotes Revelation 21, 22, and 23.

And there came unto me, this is for the church, came unto me one of the seven angels, which had the seven veils, full of the seven last plagues, and talked to me, saying, Come hither, and I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God.

And her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. And I saw no temple therein. For the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city has no need of sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it, for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. That's our destiny. We are the bride of the Lamb. We are the Lamb's wife.

Now, I'm going to close with this. When I went searching for a wife, why didn't I go to the Dumb Friends League? Because they only have dogs and cats there. So why wouldn't I marry one of them? There's a new policy. They have horses now. Well, yeah, we've reverted back to the Democrats League. But in order for any of us to be the bride of Christ, we have to share his very existence. I married Donna because she's a human being. She qualifies. How do we get qualified to be the bride of Christ? We have to be on his level of existence. So to be recreated in Christ, resurrected life qualifies us. So now we can be the bride.

The Jews never arrive at that. The nation of Israel never arrives at that. You see that? Don't you have to distinguish gender also? What's that? Don't you have to distinguish gender also? No, no because in Christ Jesus, there's neither male or female Yeah, but You ain't gonna go marry a guy.

Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, that's why I'm called a bride Right Sure Okay, we got to get the musicians and so they can go practice We're five minutes late let's close Dear Father, how we thank you for your word. How we thank you that, for how you determined that each one of us would become a member recreated in your dear son. Looking forward to being the bride, his bride. And that this new life that we have, resurrected life in Christ Jesus, that we might grow into that more and more every day and understand how incredible that is. and that we are not under the promises made to Israel, we are totally new. And we're so thankful for that, Father, and we pray in your son's precious name, amen.