Is the World's Cup of Iniquity Almost Full?

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. Okay, good to have you all back, and I guess this is our fourth one already this afternoon, and then we'll be on our way home once again. And again, we always like to welcome our television audience and let you know we're just an informal Bible study. We hope that we don't preach at you, but on the other hand, we hope we can give you an appetite to search the Scriptures, to study them, and we know that a lot of them are responding in that way according to our mail. Over and over we get a letter that says in so many words for the first time in their life they are studying and reading and enjoying their Bible. Well, nothing thrills us more. Again, we always like to remind folks we know we have new listeners every day, and that is that all our past programs are available on videotape and the printed page, as well as the audio cassette package. And we put 12 programs on one six -hour package, whether it's the audio or the book or whatever, for two reasons—to hold down the cost and to hold down storage space, because it's a lot easier to keep a six-hour tape than it is a two -hour. So that's two of our reasons for doing that. Okay, I guess that's enough renouncements, isn't it? That does it, honey. Okay, let's go back where we left off in Ephesians chapter 4. Jerry's got verse 23 up here on the board, and I'm going to drop back to verse 22 though for just a moment, and a little more comment on it than what we had when we left in the last program. And so now we are to put off concerning the former manner of living, the old man or the old Adam, which is corrupt according to his deceitful lusts. And we looked at that. The whole word corrupt in Scripture is that which is in complete opposition to God. It includes, of course, violence. It includes the immorality and the dishonesty and all the stuff that makes up for the world of wickedness all around us. Now again, I think once in a while, since the media and the world around us is constantly ridiculing the fact that God doesn't always put up with men's foolishness forever, and that there is a day of judgment coming, I'm going to take you back before we go any further to Genesis chapter 15. And of course it goes without saying that whenever Israel, God's covenant people, would go down the tube as we put it, God would judge them. Four nations would come in and overrun them, and tax them to death, and enslave them, and put their young sons in the armies, and so forth. And then when Israel would finally cry and cry, then God of course would bring them back out of it, and bring them up to a high plane, and then again they'd go for a while, and down they'd go. In fact, the book of Judges, a 400 year period of Israel's history is nothing but a roller coaster. Up they'd go, and down they'd go. Back up, and they'd no more get into a period of prosperity and obedience to the Law, and then they would get sensuous, they would get materialistic, and then down they'd go. Well, it's always been that way, that God doesn't always wink at man's wickedness, but one of the first evidences I think is a word I can use, that God will do this, is here in Genesis 15, where He is promising Abraham that his offspring, in other words the nation of Israel, would one day be going down into Egypt, into captivity. All right, in verse 13, God said to Abram, know of a surety. Now when God says it, you can bet on it, it's going to happen. So He says, know of a surety that thy seed, or your offspring, the generations to come, shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs. Now He doesn't name Egypt, but we know now from our side of the coin that that's who He was talking about. And they shall serve them, and they, that is the Egyptians, shall afflict them for 100 years, and also that nation whom they shall serve, again speaking of Egypt, God says, I will judge, and we know He did. And afterward they, the children of Israel, shall come out with a great substance. Now coming back to Abraham himself, thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace, thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But, now here's the verse I wanted to bring to you, but in the fourth generation, they, the children of Israel, who have been down now in Egypt all these years, they shall come hither. Now remember when you read Scripture, always determine not only to whom is it spoken, but where were they? Well they were in the land of Canaan, probably on one of the mountain ridges going up and down the center of the country, and from that high place God was promising him, you know, that his offspring would have that whole area. And so He says, after the fourth generation, the children of Israel will come here to the land of Canaan again. And why wait 400 years? Because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. See, in other words, God's going to give those Canaanite tribes at least a couple hundred years to clean up their act, which was possible even for a pagan if he wanted to. But did they? No, they kept going deeper and deeper into the gross immoralities and the things that that plagued the human race, and they had gone so far down that when Joshua was ready to lead the children of Israel in from the east side of Jordan, what did God instruct him? Kill every Canaanite in the land, whether it's a newborn infant, or a man of many, many years. Put them to death. Why? Because they were corrupt. They were corrupt, and if you put something good in with something corrupt, you don't make the corrupt good, you make the good corrupt. And so God says, you've got to cleanse the land of them. Well, it was God's judgment on their wickedness. And so all the way up through human history, there comes points of time periodically when God says, I've had enough. The next great event, of course, was the flood. And let's see, yeah, after the flood then we come to Sodom and Gomorrah. God's judgment fell, see, and it's going to do it again. And so the Bible is just screaming that there is a judgment coming. Now I'm not saying when, but we know it is coming. In fact, on your way back to Ephesians, just stop at Luke 21, I think is the one I want this time. Luke 21, verse, oh let's see, let's start at verse 20. I hope I've got time enough. Luke 21, and let's start at verse 20. You know, once in a while I think, oh, I've got to hurry up and get through this chapter, that chapter, and then I stop and think, no, this is a Bible study, and we're not on a fast track, so we'll just study as we go. Luke 21, starting at verse 20, and it's in Christ's earthly ministry, and so Jesus is speaking, and He says, "...when you shall see Jerusalem come past or encircled with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let them who are in the midst of it depart out, and let not them that are in the countries enter therein too. For these be the days of vengeance, and all things which are written may be fulfilled." Now a lot of people get misled here, and think that this is the battle of Armageddon, when Jerusalem will be come past. It is not. This is the prediction of Titus in 70 AD. This is the destruction of Jerusalem under the Roman army, and it was awful. My Josephus gives an account of it that is just unbelievable. Over a million Jews were slaughtered unmercifully when Titus finally overran the city of Jerusalem, and it was awful. You can't imagine. You want to remember the pagans had no mercy, and the Romans of course became more infuriated than ever because of the Jews stiff resistance, and one of the things that raised the ire of the Roman soldier more than anything, as they were using their ladders hopefully to scale the walls, they would pour hot boiling oil over them. Well that was enough to infuriate anybody, but whatever. This is what we're talking about. This is the invasion of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 AD, and so it's much the same kind of language as it is at Matthew 24, which of course is the end of the tribulation. But all right. Verse 23, "...woe unto them who are with child, and to them that are nursing in those days, for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people." Now remember this is 70 AD. What is God's controversy with the city of Jerusalem or the nation of Israel? They rejected their Messiah. They rejected Him. They crucified Him, and after all the pleading, and after all the miracles that Christ performed in the midst of those Jewish people, and they were religious to the hilt, but yet they were blind to who He was, and what did they cry? Let His blood be upon our children, and our children's children. They didn't know what they were saying did they? But oh listen, the wrath of God finally came upon the Jewish people, when Titus finally overran, and then you know it's almost unbelievable the intensity of the Romans in their hatred for the Jews. Some several years later when the Romans found out that there were about 900 Jews up there on top of Masada, they spared nothing to scale the heights of Masada, just to get rid of the final 900 Jews that were still holding out against Rome. Unbelievable, but they did, and of course you know the story of Masada. When they got up there they had all committed suicide, and only a few were left to give an account of what had happened, but nevertheless the Jews there in 70 AD came under the wrath of God again, because of their national sin of unbelief concerning their Messiah. All right now verse 24. Jesus is still speaking, and He says, "...they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations." Now right there, now I didn't intend to teach Luke 21, but right here is the clue that this is not the final battle of Armageddon. This is not what Matthew 24 talks about, because in the final great battle Israel is not going to go out into a dispersion. That's going to trigger the Lord's return, but in this event the Jews were scattered into every nation in heaven. See how you take little tidbits of Scripture to tell you where it's at? And so here in this devastation the Jews would now be scattered into every nation under heaven, and we know they were. I always have to come back, I think it was Robert Michener's book, The Source, where in his opening remarks that in his research, now I remember he wrote The Source probably 20-30 years ago, in his research he had found Jews in every sovereign nation on the face of the earth, none accepted. And so when God says He would scatter them into every nation, He was literal. All right, and so that's what Jesus is saying, that they would as a result of this invasion by the Roman army, the destruction of Jerusalem, they would be led away captive into all nations. The dispersion that has lasted for the last almost 2,000 years. But all right, that's not the part of the verse we're really looking for. The last part, "...and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until..." That's what kind of a word? Time word. See, it doesn't say the date and the month, but it says there's coming a day and a month and a year when the fullness or the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled. Now what's that speaking about? Their cup of iniquity. Just like He said that the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full and would need another 200 years to fill it, so also the times of the Gentiles, by the time it has run its course, their cup will come to the full. And so again we're getting closer and closer as we see the wickedness circumventing the globe. I still maintain, I love America, and I still maintain as often as getting, we are still head and shoulders above the rest of the world. I maintain that, that we are still above the rest of the world when it comes to our morality and our knowledge of God and so forth. But the time is coming when the cup of iniquity of the Gentile world will be full. And of course I always tie that in with Romans 11.25. And I usually like to picture it as a simultaneous filling. Over here you have the filling of this cup of iniquity on behalf of the Gentiles, but over here you have the filling up of the body of Christ. And they're almost filling together, they're coming up together. Now don't forget what he said in Luke 21, that Jerusalem would be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. In other words, God will have to bring Israel upon the Gentile world. Now the other side of the coin is verse 25 of Romans 11. For I would not, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery or this secret, lest you should be wise in your own conceit, and here it is, that blindness, that is a spiritual blindness, that blindness in part, in other words, it's not sealed forever, it's only going to be for a period of time, that blindness in part has happened to Israel, and again the time word, until there will be a day and a month and a year, we don't know what it is, but there will be that time when the fullness of the Gentiles is come in. Now those are two totally different concepts. In Luke it's the cup of iniquity of the Gentile world. The deeper they go into sin, the fuller they're getting their cup of iniquity. Over here we have the filling of the Body of Christ, and now for the last 1900 years people have been coming into the Body of Christ, and it's getting closer and closer to its completion, and they will almost work in union. Now of course the cup of iniquity of the Gentiles will go seven years beyond, but over the big picture there's not that much difference, and so what we're seeing today is that the Body of Christ is nearly complete, the cup of iniquity of the Gentile world is also nearly complete. Well hold your hand in Romans because I think our next verse in Ephesians is going to send me right back there. Ephesians 4, verse 24, "...and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." Not a façade, not a counterfeit, but the real thing. Okay, Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6, starting at verse 5. Romans chapter 6, verse 5. Everybody got it? Romans 6, verse 5, "...for if we..." Now remember Paul always writes to the believer. He never writes to an unbeliever. He expects us to contact them. "...for if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man..." The old Adam, that sin nature that we're born with. "...that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin..." In other words that influence of the old Adamic nature might be destroyed or put out of commission. "...that henceforth we should not serve sin." And then you come on down to, oh goodness I don't want to take all these verses, it takes too much time. But verse 8, "...now if we be dead with Christ..." In other words that we shall also live with Him. In other words if we identify with His death, His burial, and resurrection by faith, then God identifies us in that same set of circumstances. That we have been crucified in the old Adam, we have now been given a new nature, and we'll look at that in another verse in a moment. But as He rose from the dead, we arose from the dead. As He paid the penalty on our debt, God sees us literally on the cross in the person of Christ. He saw us in the tomb in the person of Christ. He sees us in resurrection power in the person of Christ, and we appropriate all that by faith. We can't put it in a box, we can't lay it on a table and analyze it, but we take it by faith, and just simply believe it. And I think we're getting through to a lot of people that this is where it's at, that you just simply believe it. We can't always understand it, we can't always comprehend it. My goodness we can believe it, if we know that God has said it, and it's true. All right now then I said we stop in another verse, 2nd Corinthians chapter 5. Again I told you in one of the other programs, I was going to leave that verse because I wanted to come to it later. Well now here it is, 2nd Corinthians chapter 5. Now let's just start at verse 14. 2nd Corinthians chapter 5, we'll begin at verse 14. "...for the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead." In other words by virtue of Adam's fall, every human being is spiritually dead when he's born into the human family. Come right back to our statement. This is why we are sinners, we're born sinners. We are the sons of Adam, and so consequently Christ died for the whole human race, because the whole human race was spiritually dead, and needed salvation. Verse 15, "...and that he died for all, that they who live..." Now we come to the believer, the one who has now believed the gospel, the one who has now been placed into the body of Christ, "...that they who live should not henceforth..." You remember that's the same word he used back in Ephesians 4? "...henceforth..." Don't walk as the unsaved Gentiles walk. All right, we've got the same word. "...that as soon as we enter into eternal life..." As soon as we enter into a salvation experience, a member of the body of Christ. "...henceforth do not live unto themselves, but unto him who died for them, and rose again." What is that? The gospel. Paul just pops it in all the time, that we are what we are because we believe that Christ died and rose again. Now verse 16, "...wherefore henceforth..." And again, since we are believing the gospel, "...we know no man after the flesh, yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth we know him no more." Now my own idea of this verse is that he's referring to Christ's earthly ministry, and Paul knew all about Jesus of Nazareth. My goodness, they were about the same age, and he walked contemporary with Jesus. We have nothing in Scripture that they ever confronted each other face to face, but old Saul of Tarsus knew who Jesus of Nazareth was. Jesus knew who Saul was, and so now he says, but now on this side of the death, burial, and resurrection, we don't know Him as still in the flesh. Now you see, that's where most of Christendom is tonight. They're still over there on the other side of the cross. They're still over there in Christ's earthly ministry, and there's nothing wrong with studying His earthly ministry, but there's no salvation in that. You don't get saved by believing that Jesus ministered to the Pharisees, and that's where they spend most of their time. Oh, that's their favorite subject, how Jesus dealt with the Pharisees, and of course it is. It's commendable, and it's something that we can learn, but that's not our salvation. Our salvation is on this side of the cross. Our salvation is on this side of His death, burial, and resurrection, and that's what Paul is saying. Since we're on this side, I'm not going to be hanging on to Jesus on that side. Can I make it any simpler? That's exactly what people are doing. They're staying with Jesus on the other side of the cross, and they don't want to face up to His shed blood. They don't want to face up to His resurrection. They'd rather talk about Jesus walking on the water. You know, I think I've put on the program once. I had a bunch of college kids when I was still teaching in Iowa, and that was just after the hippie movement of the 60s, and I had a lot of those kids, and I held a whole living room. They just packed in like sardines, sitting on the floor, and a couple of them played the guitar for an opening song fest, and boy, their favorite song every Saturday night, I see Jesus walking on the water. Hey, they loved that, but you know what? They knew nothing of the crucified Jesus. They knew nothing of the one who rose from the dead. They were still back there in the Jesus of the gospel, see, and of course we brought a lot of them out of that, but nevertheless, this is what Paul is driving home. Henceforth, since His death, burial, and resurrection, we don't spend all our time in His earthly ministry, see, and that's exactly what he says. We knew Christ in the flesh, yet now henceforth, since His death, burial, and resurrection, we know Him no more. Is she kidding? One minute left. Okay, verse 17, here's the verse I want, "...therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation." Who alone can create? Only God, only God, and so salvation again is that miracle working power of the Creator Himself, and that's why you can't do it with good works, you can't do it with church membership. It has to be that creative work of the Creator Himself who now declares us a member of the body, a child of God, one who has believed the gospel, see? Okay. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kenta, OK 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kenta, OK 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick, is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.