Did Jesus Ever Minister to Gentiles? What He Actually Said

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick, an Oklahoma rancher and farmer. Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for over 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say, time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Good to have everybody back with us again, and this is our program number four for this afternoon, and then we'll be dismissed, and we'll see you again next month. And for those of you out in television, if you ever find your way through Tulsa and you're in the area on the first Wednesday after the first Sunday, we'll, Lord willing, be taping, and you just feel free to come in and spend an afternoon with us. I guess I always have to announce, because we constantly have new listeners, that all the past programs are available on videotape, audiotape, and the little printed books there that are on the screen. And Jerry Poole is with us again today, and he does all of our transcribing, takes it off the tapes, and gets it ready for Keith Decker, who I guess does some proofreading and gets it all on the floppy disk and ready for the printer. So it's teamwork, really, everybody working together, and we just thank the Lord daily for everyone that has come in to be a part of this ministry. Again I'd like to thank every one of you for all your letters. I am still able to read every letter, you know, as it gets larger and larger, that'll get tougher and tougher to do, but so far, Iris and I both really read every letter that comes in, and I open every envelope, whether it's a check or a letter, whatever, we see it all, and hopefully I can answer most of your questions. Now I may get behind once in a while, so if I don't answer for a little bit, don't give up on me, but one will hopefully be forthcoming. Also, we have been announcing now the last several programs that we are now putting out a newsletter about every three months, in which we just have a few words concerning current events and prophecy, and we like to let people know where we are having seminars and so forth. But if you're interested, we don't want to mail them out unless you want one, you call us or write us and we'll get you on the mailing list. Ephesians 1. Alright, time's a flying, we've got to get back into the Book, and we're going to pick up where we left off in the last program. And we were, for starters, we're still in Ephesians 1 verse 10, and so we'll go back there for a moment to kick us off, and then we will continue on where we were in the earthly and the heavenly concepts of Scripture. Ephesians 1, and again let me go back up to verse 8-9 so we get the flow. Ephesians 1. Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery, or the secret, of his will, which we saw several programs back. God has a right to keep everything secret, He can reveal it when He's good and ready, and not until. Ephesians 1. The mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He hath purposed in Himself. In other words, as I've said several times this afternoon, everything begins and ends with and in God. He got everything started, He created everything, He set everything in motion, and He's going to bring it to His own end. That's why I have taught for 25 years that the world is not going to be blown up with nuclear bombs until God is ready to do it Himself. Now I do not deny that there will be nuclear warfare in the tribulation, but it's not going to happen until God is ready to let it all happen. And so I've been comfortable over the years with teaching people that we're not going to be blown up with nuclear warheads, because it just does not fit with the end times scenario. But whatever. Now we come down to verse 10, where we spent the beginning of the first part of the verse in our last half hour. "...that in the dispensation, or that period of time, of the fulness of times, which I feel is the thousand year millennial reign on the earth, that this fulness of time He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both..." So again, both indicates how many entities. Both doesn't mean three or four, it means two. So He's going to bring all things in Christ, both of which are in Heaven and on the earth, even in Him. Now then we took the concept in our last half hour that these are the two spheres that God has been dealing with ever since the beginning of human history. We went back to Genesis 1 in the beginning. God created Heaven and earth, and you can keep those two things separated all through Scripture, and you can't mix them, because the heavenly thing is that which was revealed to the Apostle Paul in the mysteries, the Body of Christ. We are the heavenly connection. All the rest of God's history is earthly. The nation of Israel and all that went around them are earthly. And when Israel rejected everything, then God turned to the Gentiles and began to work in the heavenly. Now we really didn't finish the earthly concept of it, and I guess I should put it up on the board now, that beginning with the call of Abraham, and we have the nation of Israel. You've seen me put this on the board over and over, and people comment on it, and they like this as much as anything I teach. And Irish reminded me that this little timeline, in simplified form of course, is in every one of our little books. So if you have our books, why don't you just look into the front page and you'll see the same timeline. But anyway, in 2000 B.C., God pulls off the little nation of Israel, and He begins His earthly ministry only to the Jew, with two exceptions. It's all nation of Israel. Don't ever let somebody tell you that Christ ministered to Gentiles, because He did not. He ministered only to the nation of Israel, and I guess I better show the verse so I can back it up. Matthew 10, because so many people get confused by the false teaching that Jesus ministered to Jew and Gentile. No He did not. He couldn't, because He came to the nation of Israel in the earthly promises of the covenant made with Abraham, and then the later covenants under that Abrahamic covenant were the Davidic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, the Palestinian covenant as we call it, because it was referring to the land of Palestine. In fact someone said, why do I use the word Palestine? Well it's in the Scripture, only once, but it is in there, and it refers to it as the land of Palestine. And so I use the term only because of its geographical clarity. We all know where Palestine is if we don't know anything else. But in Matthew chapter 10, Jesus has just called out the twelve disciples, or the apostles. Verse 5. Matthew 10. These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans, who are half-breeds, enter you not. But here was the command, Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, God's earthly people. And so Christ's earthly ministry was confined to His earthly people, Israel, and there were only two exceptions, and I'll show you one right now, and it's right in chapter 13, 15. People wonder sometimes, well how do you remember these portions of Scripture? Well I just know it's an odd number of chapters, so if it isn't in 13, I'm sure it's got to be in 15. Yeah, here it is. Matthew 15. Dropping down to verse 21, and you all know the account, I think everybody out in television knows it, but you probably don't understand the ramification of it. Verse 21, and Jesus went thence, and departed into the borders of Tyre and Sidon. Now Tyre and Sidon were up there on the Mediterranean sea coast, and the area what we now know of as Lebanon. And it was two Gentile cities, but He doesn't go into Tyre and Sidon so much as He comes out into the border area, and so He's in the border area of these two Gentile cities, and verse 22, a woman of Canaan, a Gentile, came out of that same border area, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O LORD, thou Son of David, my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil, or a demon. But he, the Lord Jesus Himself, answered her, not a word. Now what does that imply? He ignored her, yeah, He ignored her. He just didn't pay her any mind. Why? She's a Gentile. He has a ministry only to the nation of Israel. And so He answered her, not a word. And His disciples came, and they begged Him, saying, Send her away, get rid of her, for she crieth after us. Now this had no doubt been going on for several days, every place they went, here with this Canaanite woman, probably making a nuisance of herself, and so the disciples were getting kind of out of sorts, and they said, Lord, she's a Gentile, we don't have anything to do with her. Get rid of her, send her away. Well you see, the Lord's got something else on His mind, and so verse 24, He answers of course to the twelve, I am not sent, but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. See how plain that is? Now in plain English what He's saying, I do not have a ministry except to the Jew. That's what He said in Matthew 10, and now He's saying it again. I am not sent, but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Oh, and in a matter of moments or hours, here she is again, and she came and worsted Him. Now I think she had literally fell down on her knees in front of Him, and she says, Lord help me. Now you've got to be a little aware of what's going on here. Here she drops the term, Thou Son of David, because that was strictly a Jewish address, so as a Gentile she couldn't use that legitimately, so she learned something anyway, and so she dropped the Son of David bit. But now she just says, Lord help me. And again look at Jesus' answer. And He said unto her, It is not meet, or right, to take the children's bread, and cast it to the dogs. Well who were the children? Israel, the Jews. Who were the dogs? Gentiles. He says, I can't take that which is on the table of Israel, and give it to Gentiles. Why? Covenant promises. He was there to fulfill the covenants made back here to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets were all dealing with God, prophesying things concerning Israel, and the coming of their Messiah, and there's not a word in there that the Gentiles were to receive any of the blessings of Israel. They couldn't, because it was covenant ground, and that was only for the offspring of Abraham. So here it is. I cannot take the children's bread, and cast it to the dogs. Now this again, I wish I had a little more time, but I'm going to take a moment or two. You go back into Psalms 23, and you're probably like I am, you almost have to start at the beginning and go on through. But he said, "...Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over, thou settest a table before me." Now what was the table he was referring to? This place of privilege, that only Israel could enjoy, they literally feasted at the Lord's table. How? They had the Word of God. Romans chapter 2, and this is exactly what it meant, that they were feasting at the Lord�s table, because of their covenant position. And you see Gentiles were never feasting at the Lord�s table when God was dealing with Israel. Today of course yes, we�re in that place of privilege, but back here it�s only the Jew. Romans 3. Romans 3, verse 1. And Paul says, �What advantage then hath the Jew, or what profit is there of circumcision ?� In other words, what benefit is it to be a member of the nation of Israel? Oh, verse 2, much, every way. Now what are the every way? Well, they had the temple, they had the priesthood, they had the sacrifices, they had the prescribed approach to Jehovah, they had the geographical area of land that God had deeded to Abraham 2,000 years before. They had everything going for them. They had the miracles of the Red Sea, and of the manna, and of the tables of stone, and you come all the way up through the Old was constantly working in the nations of Israel with miracles. So they had a lot of things going for them. But chiefly, what was their number one blessing? That unto them were committed the Word of God. See that�s what has blessed America the last 200 years, above all the nations of the world. America up until the last 50 years, rested on this Book. We know it did. All of our forefathers were believers of this Book. Now they might not have been what we would call born again Christians, but at least they were men enough to admit that America operated on the principles of this Book. Now that was Israel�s blessing. They had the Word of God. Now flip back again to Matthew. So this was the table at which the Jews were able to literally feast the Word of God, and they were a privileged people. I can�t take the children�s bread and cast it to the dogs, but she comes back and says, �Truth Lord.� In other words she recognized that. But she said, �Don�t the dogs eat the crumbs which fall from the Master�s table?� And then he answered and said, �O woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt.� And her daughter was made whole from the very on. In other words he could heal a Gentile if he wanted to, but he was under the sovereign agreement with Israel and Abraham, and the covenant promises that he could not bore out grace to Gentiles until Israel had every opportunity to hear the offer of the King and the Kingdom, and when they rejected it, then God turns to the Gentile world. But I�m not quite ready to leave off with the earthly aspect of Ephesians 1. We�re not going to even get much further than the earthly, and we�ll pick that up in our next program. Now let�s go back to Matthew chapter 1, verse 1, and this sort of substantiates what I�ve just said, that God could not break His covenant promises with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Matthew chapter 1, the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David. Remember what the Syrophoenician woman said, �Thou Son of David, the Son of Abraham.� And that�s as far as it goes. It doesn�t go on back to Adam, it only goes from Christ�s birth back to Abraham. And you know I�m always raising the question, why? There�s a reason for it, because Matthew is going to present him as the King of the nation of Israel, Israel�s Messiah. Matthew is going to present him as the fulfillment of these covenant promises made to Abraham, and so there�s no need to go any further back because this is where everything begins as far as Israel is concerned, and so it only goes to Abraham. Now if you�ll come back from there and come up to chapter 3 once again. Now we find that Jesus� birth has been recorded, and John the Baptist is beginning to announce the coming of the King, and verse 2 of chapter 3. And this is John the Baptist�s message, and he says, �Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.� Well now that doesn�t sound earthly does it? It sounds heavenly, but where was this Heavenly Kingdom going to be? On the earth. All the things that we�ve seen in the Old Testament was that this glorious Kingdom is going to be on the earth, but it�s going to be Heaven on earth, because Christ is going to be the King. And so the whole concept now is that the King is in the midst of Israel, they are being offered the opportunity to enter into all these earthly promises which are going to come to fruition. But of course, even according to Ephesians 1 .10, that couldn�t happen until the Gentile complement had also been completed, which was the Church. Because when we enter into the Kingdom economy, like it said in 1.10, everything is going to come under Christ�s headship. The earthly people of Israel, and their earthly Kingdom, and all the ramifications of the heavenly people, the Body of Christ. So we�re going to leave the Body of Christ at least for now, for a later time, and come with me a little further in Matthew. Let�s go to chapter 19. I didn�t intend to do this, believe me I didn�t, so I�m having to think real fast as we go. Here we are in His earthly ministry, and oh, He�s been proclaiming to the nation of Israel that He is the Messiah, the Christ, and He�s been proving it with miracles, and signs, and wonders. Then Peter answered, and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee. What shall we have therefore? In other words, for following you. Well he�s not talking about salvation, because that was established back in chapter 16 when Peter says, Thou art the Christ. So now what Peter is saying, much like Abraham did back in Genesis 15. God promised him the land, and He promised him all these other things, and then the great man of faith still said, How do I know? How do I know you�re going to give me the land? Well then the Lord says, Okay, let�s make out a title deed. Well Peter�s the same way. The Lord just got through telling him a few weeks before this, that Blessed art thou Peter, because you have recognized who I am. But now Peter comes back and says, Well what else are we going to have? Oh they�re so human. So human. Does Jesus dress him down? No, Jesus answers and He says, Verily I say unto you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration, in other words when the earth is brought back and made like it was in the Garden of Eden. That�s what regenerate means, when you make it like it was before. So when the regeneration is accomplished, and the earth is made like it was in the Garden of Eden, which of course will be this same thousand year period of time, and the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of His glory. Now remember when Christ was on earth in His earthly ministry, except for that one time on the Mount of Transfiguration, did He reveal any of His glory? No, He didn�t in order to become the God-man who would of course go to the cross. But here He is now on the throne of His glory. This is a whole different ball game. This is when He�s going to be King of kings and Lord of lords. Now look what it says, when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His glory, which we saw back in Zechariah is going to be on the earth, and we saw in Isaiah chapter 2 that it�s going to be capitalized in Jerusalem, and all the nations are going to flow into it. Now put all that together, this is all part and parcel of the earthly part of this glorious Kingdom on earth. Now when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His glory, you, He says to the eleven, you also sit upon twelve thrones, ruling the twelve tribes of Israel. Now you see when you put all this together, then Scripture is so logical. Do you see now why Peter was all uptight when the spot that Judas had abdicated was empty? And he thought the King was coming at any moment. How can we have twelve thrones filled if we�re only eleven? So what do we have to do? Hey, we�ve got to get it filled with the twelfth man. And so Peter did, that was his first item on the agenda, if I may put it that way, to get a replacement for Judas. And so they did, they chose Matthias. Because after all, if they�re going to rule twelve tribes, they had to have twelve men, and so Matthias fills the slot left open by Judas. Well all of this just to show that God was promising to the nation of Israel this earthly kingdom. And then you come into the Book of Acts. I�m not even going to try to get into the heavenly part, we�ll wait until our next program for that. But now in Acts chapter 1. Now of course the Lord�s been crucified, He�s been resurrected, He�s been walking amongst the disciples for forty days, and to whom also He showed Himself alive after His passion, that is after His death, burial and resurrection. He showed Himself alive by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and in that whole forty day period of time, there was really only one topic of conversation, and that was the Kingdom of God. Now we always have to separate the two terms. Matthew over and over and over says the Kingdom of Heaven, and here in Acts chapter 1, and it will be again in Acts chapter 28, we have it the Kingdom of God. Well the best way I can differentiate the Kingdom of God is that whole sphere of God�s influence, of His sovereignty. Whether it�s Heaven, whether it�s outer fringes of space, whether it�s hell, whether it�s earth, anything that�s under God�s domain is included in that Kingdom of God. Now that�s a big subject. I mean anybody could talk about the Kingdom of God for days on end, and so the Lord didn�t have any trouble for forty days. But within the Kingdom of God is going to be that glorious Kingdom on this planet called the Kingdom of Heaven. It�s just like those of us sitting here in Oklahoma, we�re in the United States of America, but we�re in Oklahoma. Now in the 30 seconds I have left, verse 6. Now when they were therefore come together, they asked of Him, that is the Eleven, 11. Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel? See how plain that is? What Kingdom were they talking about? The earthly Kingdom over which their Messiah would one day rule and reign.