The Key To Biblical Understanding
Sermon Notes from Pastor Don Elmore
Do you remember the message that I brought on the 3 different variations of the tribe of Judah?
- Shelahites – Mixed with Canaanites (true Jews of today)
- Zerahites – true seed of Israel
- Pharezites – true seed of Israel
The three variations of Judah still have a lot of descendants today; only one is rightly called Jews.
Deuteronomy 26:17-19:
Thou hast avouched the LORD this day to be thy God, and to walk in his ways, and to keep his statues, and his commandments, and his judgments, and to hearken unto his voice:
And the LORD hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people, as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments;
And to make thee high above all nations which he heath made, in praise, and in name, and in honour; and that thou mayest be an holy people unto the LORD thy God, as he hath spoken.
Do you take God this day to be your God? They answered: We will. God was asked: Do you take this people Israel to be your “peculiar people.” God answered: I will.
There is no record of God marrying any other people! God did not marry the Canaanites; Edomites; Philistines; Zulus, Congolese, Chinese, Kenites, Ishmaelites, etc.
Verses which prove that there was a wedding that took place between God and His people:
Jeremiah 3:14: Turn O backsliding children, said God: for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion…”
Jeremiah 3:20: Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith God.
Jeremiah 31:32: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt: which my [marriage] covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith God…”
Once we understand this husband-wife relationship between God and Israel, then we can begin to understand what “redemption” is all about. This husband-wife relationship went well at first, but then Israel began to break her marriage vows by incorporating pagan religions and thus adulterating the true tenets of God. Because of this, it became necessary for God to divorce Israel for her unfaithfulness. Now let’s see some scriptures which confirm the reason for the divorce and that actually God did divorce Israel.
Jeremiah 3:8: And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.
Deuteronomy 24:1: When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her:then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house…”
Isaiah 50:1a: Thus saith the LORD, Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away?
Note that God has married and divorced Israel. Being divorced from God, Israel can no longer call Israel by His name, therefore she became known by other names. At this stage of the game, things look hopeless as neither God nor Israel can marry again lawfully. The only way by law that either can remarry is if one or the other’s spouse were to die.
Romans 7:1-4: Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law (marriage) of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she is married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law (marriage); so that she is an adulteress, though she be married to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the [marriage] law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead (resurrected Jesus Christ), that we shall bring forth fruit unto God.
By the death of God we are free from the letter of the divorce law. The wife is bound to the Law of God through her husband.
Amos 3:2: You [Israel] only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.
President Obama has declared this month, June, as the LGBT month. Lesbians, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender month - many colleges and universities have presented themselves as “LGBT friendly.”
Group activities for LGBT students are advertised as being “fun” and “safe" for gays. They include “Fun Things To Do With Your Gay-Straight Alliance Newsletter.”
The earliest and most complete expression of militant sodomy is found in a piece by Michael Swift, published in Gay Community News, February 15-21, 1987:
“We shall sodomize your sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, of our shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your schools, in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, in your locker rooms, in your sports arenas, in your seminaries, in your youth groups… Your sons shall become our minions and do our bidding. They will be recast in our image. They will come to crave and adore us... All laws banning homosexual activity will be revoked. Instead, legislation shall be passed which engenders love between men…ALL CHURCHES WHO CONDEMN US WILL BE CLOSED.”
Homosexuality, Lesbianism, Bisexualism, Transgenderism are a sin; an abomination to Almighty God.
Aborticide is an abomination to our Mighty God. It is murder.
Interracial dating and so-called marriages are suicide to our way of life with our God. It is an abomination to our God for it destroys the children of such a misunion.
Those who hold to a biblical world view are painted as homophobes. Activist leaders are not looking for passive tolerance but for public repentance. Sometimes the activists are so aggressive that gay activism even morphs into domestic terrorism, as when churches are mobbed by noisy pro-gay demonstrators.
GOD did not give to Adam 2, 3, or 4 wives; just one--he gave him Eve.
GOD did not give to him Steve, or Harry, or Jerry, but gave him Eve.
God did not give to him Alescia (or any other woman of another race) but he gave him Eve; a woman of his same race.
Eleven of Jacob’s sons were born outside of the Promised Land when his name was still Jacob. One son was born in the Promised Land after his name was changed to Israel—Benjamin.
The descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob became a nation when God brought them out of Egypt and made a marriage covenant with them through Moses.
Israel remained a united nation through the period of Joshua, Judges, and Kings Saul, David and Solomon.
During the reign of Rehoboam, they split into two kingdoms (how long did Israel worship at the Temple = about 20 years).
The Kingdom of Israel had no Davidic king (all bad); no temple worship (Baal worshippers); no Levitical priests (Baal priests); no God’s law (law of their king)
Hosea, chapter one tells that they were divorced
- Scattered -- Jezreel
- No mercy -- Loruhamah
- No long the people of God – Loammi
The house of Judah went into a 70 year captivity to Babylon, but a remnant returned to Judah to rebuild Jerusalem under Ezra and Nehemiah.
The house of Israel and the House of Judah were constantly at enmity with each other. At one time the House of Israel killed 120,000 soldiers of Judah in one day - more than all the deaths suffered by the United States in WWI!
Hosea 1:1-11
- God was going to put an end to the House of Israel.
- God would no longer have compassion on the House of Israel or show mercy on them.
- God would have compassion on the House of Judah—Divine intervention to save them by His own hand by slaying 185,000 Assyrians by the death angel outside the city.
- God would call those who became not His people as “sons of the living God.”
- God would someday gather the house of Israel and the House of Judah together.
- Deuteronomy 28:63-64 indicates that two of the consequences of Israel’s disobedience to God were:
- Destroyed and brought to nought
- Torn from the land—scattered.
Ezekiel 37:15-23
- Who do the sticks represent? House of Israel and the House of Judah.
- What did God tell Ezekiel to do with the sticks and what did that symbolically represent?The 2 houses reunited into one.
John 10:14-16
- Who represents the “other sheep” and “this fold”? House of Israel and the House of Judah.
Ephesians 2:1-22
- Who is Paul writing to? To the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:(11) Gentiles in the flesh: House of Israel.
- Who are they called and what does it mean (11)? Uncircumcised; not of the covenant.
- Describe their former condition (12)
- Without Christ (the "anointing") not Christ.
- Aliens from the commonwealth of Israel.
- Strangers from the covenants of promise.
- Having no hope and without God in the world.
- According to verses 13-16, and according to the contextual history of the house of Israel and the house of Judah, what was the result of the cross and death of Jesus Christ?Reuniting of the two houses.Peace between the two.
Daniel 9:7: O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day; to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near (House of Judah), and that are far off (House of Israel), through all the countries whither thou hast driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against thee.
House of Israel = Never called Jews
House of Judah = Wrongly called Jews (except for the descendants of the Shelahites)
Benjamin = Not called Jews; there was a reason they were the first apostles including the Apostle Paul and that they all died a violent death except John.
Quote from Yale University professor—C. A. Totten (1851-1908):
“I can never be too thankful to the Almighty that in my youth he used the late Professor Wilson to show me the difference between the two houses.This very understanding of the differences is the KEY by which almost the entire Bible becomes intelligible and I cannot state too strongly that the man who has not yet seen that Israel of the Scripture is totally distinct from the JEWISH people is yet in the very infancy, the mere alphabet, of Biblical study and that to this day the meaning of 7/8 of the Bible is shut to his understanding.”
I believe that this is a great and true statement--but I disagree with one small part. Israel is not TOTALLY distinct from the JEWISH people--for the descendants of the Shelahites are Jewish as well as a few others from the tribes of Israel who also had mixed marriages.
And now it is getting closer to the days of Noah as Israel erroneously believes that there is only one race. May our GOD have mercy on our souls. May He remember His marriage covenant and save us from ourselves!
