Why Did Jesus Only Go to Israel? Matthew 10:5-6 Explained

Hello and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 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, those of you that are with us in the studio, you can once again turn back to 1 Corinthians 15. You'll probably get tired of hearing that number for long, but we're going to spend as much time as it takes to teach this as clearly as we possibly can. And again, for those of you joining us on television, we're just an informal Bible study. We have no official support behind us, and we don't try to attack anybody or run anyone else down. We're just going to simply teach the Word as we see it, and hopefully the chips can fall where they need to. But anyway, always be aware that all the past programs, now that's a bunch of them. I think we're on tape number 29 in this series, and that means there are 28 six hour tapes available. And each six hour tape is transcribed into a corresponding little book, and now we're coming out with the little audio tapes as well in a six hour package. So if you're interested, why don't you call and write us. And again, like I said in one of my other programs, we do not push these with the idea of making a profit. We're doing it only as a service to people to get the Word out. We keep the cost down as much as we possibly can. Even when we put the cost for those who will receive it through the mail at $30, I thought that was terrible. I tried to tell Iris and the others that work with us that we've got to get to it, and they said, Now wait a minute, Jane Fonda gets that much for a 15 minute tape. And if that's worth $30, then certainly six hours of Bible teaching is worth $30. So I began to look at it in a little different light. I guess six hours is a pretty good deal for $30. Well anyway, if you're interested you contact us and we'll fill your order. Let's get back into 1 Corinthians 15 for just a moment, just for the continuity of our program and our Table of Contents as we lay them out, and then I want to come back and finish my line on the board, which of course we didn't complete in our last half hour. But we're in 1 Corinthians 15 and we're talking about the various aspects of resurrection. Now the resurrection of the just as we've been showing is seemingly in three parts, three categories. Those that were resurrected at Christ's time, and when He was the first fruits, and those that came out of the graves after He did, comprise the first fruit, which was the first part of the Jewish harvest, when they would go in and take the sampling out of their grain field. Then we have the general harvest, which we're going to talk about hopefully in this half hour, otherwise it's going to have to wait until the next one. Then the next main harvest of course is what we call the Rapture of the Church, and then you have that final aspect of the corners and the gleanings, which I feel will be again the Old Testament Saints and the Tribulation Believers, and they as we saw then from Daniel, will come back in resurrection bodies 75 days after the Second Coming, or after the Kingdom has been set up, and then they will be part and parcel of the Kingdom, and that will complete then the resurrection of the just of all the ages. But as we were taking our timeline according to the Old Testament prophetic program in our last half hour, we got as far as Exodus 19. And so just looking at I Corinthians 15 just a moment again for sake of our television audience, we were in verse 23. But every man is going to come out in resurrection in his own company, first Christ the first fruits, and afterwards those that are Christ's at His coming. But like I said, you take that and you divide it again according to the Israeli harvest, where I think the Body of Christ will be resurrected, and then after the Second Coming of Christ as we saw in Daniel, we'll have the Old Testament Company and the Tribulation Saints. Now as we come back to the Old Testament for a little bit, and continue our thought from our last program, that after God gave Abraham the Abrahamic Covenant, called him out of idolatry and promised him a separated nation, which would be holy, and it would come under the covenant promises. And that's why we call Israel the favored nation, or God's chosen people, because in His sovereignty that's the way He ordained it. And so He calls Abraham, and saves him by faith, plus nothing. Abraham wasn't saved by offering sacrifices, he was saved by being obedient to what God said, and then later of course the sacrifices come in. But He was that man of faith, who was saved by faith, even as we are, plus nothing. Then in our closing moments of the last program, we were in Exodus chapter 19, where God had promised that Israel was to be a Kingdom of Priests. Now we'll see that come into play as you come into the Book of Isaiah, and come into chapter 49. Now I'm not going to take a lot of time and then look up all of these references, there are so many, but I'm just going to take the ones that are the most clearly understood. Here in Isaiah 49 is where this whole concept of Israel becoming a nation of go -betweens, or priests, is what God had on His mind. And remember these things are all valid offers, even though God knows the nation is going to fall far short of all this. Now we can jump in at verse 6, and remember what we read in Exodus, that if they are obedient to the Law, the covenant that God is now giving them at Mount Sinai, then they would be a God then sometime down the road to funnel salvation into the Gentile world. Verse 6 of Isaiah 49, and he said it is a light thing, that thou shouldst be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will also give thee, the nation of Israel, for a light to the Gentiles. Now of course by the time we get to Christ's earthly ministry and on into the Book of Acts, even the Jews had lost sight of all this, and even in Jonah's day. I used that illustration in my class last night. When God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, what did he do? He took a ship and went west, where he should have taken a camel and gone east. But he didn't. Well why not? Those Gentiles have nothing to do with my God, but it was His God who told him to go. And so he takes ship west, and you know the story of Jonah. So finally God had to deal with him, and bring him back to shore, and send him to Nineveh. Yes, God can save Gentiles when He wants to, but the mindset of the Jew was that God had no time for those pagan dogs, and even in Christ's earthly ministry that was implied with the Canaanite woman. She said, but true Lord, but don't the dogs eat the crumbs from the master's table? Well what was she implying? The Jews were in the place of privilege. They had the Word of God, but couldn't she have a couple of crumbs? Now the Jews of course took that to the extreme, so that when Paul comes back after his missionary journeys amongst the Gentiles, and he tells them in Acts, and the minute he spoke the word Gentiles, what happened? A riot. Who would even dare to say such a word? Well now as you see in Isaiah, God's whole intent and purpose was that Israel as a kingdom of priests, would at one time go and evangelize those Gentiles. Now come back in Isaiah to chapter 2, and you'll see this in a little bit different language, but it's the same thought, still in Isaiah. Now come back to chapter 2, and now I think this will make sense. If I had read this first, you wouldn't have gotten it, but now I think you will. Verse 1 of Isaiah 2, the word that Isaiah the son of Amos saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Verse 2, and it shall come to pass, see it's going to happen God says, in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house. Now I have to stop a second, what is a mountain in Old Testament symbolism? Kingdom. You can just put that word in there, and it won't violate the Scripture. And so it shall come to pass in the last days, that the kingdom of the Lord's house, that is that royal line coming from David, shall be established in the top of the mountains, or it's going to be the top kingdom of the kingdoms, and it shall be exalted above the hills, that is smaller kingdoms, and all nations shall flow into it. Now isn't that beautiful? Once Israel's Messiah would come and set up His throne, His kingdom, there in the city of Jerusalem, all the nations of the world would just navigate, and would be brought just about like a magnet drawing steel, they would be drawn to Jerusalem. Now let me show you another verse, come all the way up to Zechariah, the next to the last book in your Old Testament, chapter 8. Another verse that we've used before, quite often in fact, Zechariah chapter 8, and now in the Old Testament, chapter 8, verse 20. "...Thus saith the LORD of hosts, It shall yet come to pass..." Sound familiar? It's exactly the way Isaiah put it. "...It shall yet come to pass, that there shall come people, and the inhabitants of many cities. And the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to pray before the LORD, and to seek the LORD of hosts, I will go also, yea, many people, and strong nations, shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem, where he hath set up his throne and his kingdom, and they shall come to Jerusalem, and to pray before the LORD. Thus saith the LORD of hosts, In those days, when Israel would be evangelizing those pagan Gentiles, in those days ten men shall take hold out of all the languages of the nations, shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, and they are going to say, We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you." Now isn't that plain? This was Israel's prospect. But we know now, looking back in history, Israel dropped it. Israel blew it as we say. But that doesn't take away the fact that God is still intending to use the nation of Israel to yet bring salvation to the Gentiles. Now let me come back to my board if I may. But all of these verses that we've been reading back here in the Old Testament, there is still not one hint of the Church Age. All we're talking about is God dealing with Israel, and at one point in time God wanted to funnel them back into this pagan, polluted stream of humanity, and thereby purify it. But Israel in her unbelief, and I'm going to leave the arrow down into the stream of Gentile humanity because they still got there, but in a complete opposite role of what God intended. So I'm going to back up and put the cross back here, and I'm going to put the three years of Christ's earthly ministry in here. And He went up and down the land of Israel, all that territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan Valley for three years. And I always test people. Can you find one place in Scripture where He ever went outside of the land of Israel? Not a one. He never went to Babylon, He didn't go to Syria, He didn't go to Greece, He didn't go to Egypt. He spent His whole three years only with the nation of Israel. Now let me show you where I'm proving this from Scripture, and come over to Matthew 10. We kind of shook a few people up. We were having our Bible studies after dinner each night in the hotels in Israel, and we had other tourists come in, and when they heard me emphasizing this a couple of them got all shook up. And they said, Who ever heard such a thing? Jesus came to the whole world. Where do you get that He just came to the nation of Israel? Well see how plain this is. Matthew 10, and now look what He says in verse 5. A lot of people don't know this is in their Bible, but it is. And these twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, into any city of the Samaritans, enter ye not, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Why? Because you see all the way up since Abraham's covenant, God is dealing only with His covenant people, Israel, in the promise of making them a nation of people, in the promise of putting them in their geographical promised land, and then one day coming to be their King, and their Messiah. Now you say, I can't swallow that. Turn with me if you will to what Paul writes to the Ephesians. Ephesians 2, and if this isn't plain, then I can't do it any plainer. How plainly the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write it. Ephesians 2, verse 11. Now of course Paul has been going to the Gentiles, and he's seeing them saved by grace, but he's reminding them it wasn't always that way. Ephesians 2, verse 11. Now look what he says. Ephesians 2, verse 11. Now remember who he's writing to. He's writing to predominantly Gentile believers at the city of Ephesus, and he says, Ephesians 2, verse 11. Now remember that you, being in times past Gentiles in the flesh, that you were Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by the circumcision made in the flesh with hands, who called the Gentiles uncircumcised. Well the Jews did, and that's all he's saying. That while the Jews were referring to you as uncircumcised, and in plain vernacular they also called them dogs. Now look what Paul says. Ephesians 2, verse 12. Ephesians 2, verse 12. Now what time is he referring to? This whole period of time during the Old Testament when Israel is under the covenant promises, and God is dealing only with His covenant people, with exceptions. I already referred to Jonah going to Nineveh, and there were a couple others. We have Rahab, the harlot, and you have Nahum and the Syrian, and so forth. But by and large, He's going only to His covenant people. Now read on in Ephesians 2, verse 12. Ephesians 2, verse 12. the covenant people. Now I'm going to take this slowly. What's an alien? He's someone who has no right or access to that government. Now I know that's fallen through the cracks in our country, but whatever. It should be that no one but a citizen and a tax payer should get anything from the government coffers. And this is what he's talking about. Gentiles had no rights from Israel. They were Gentiles, they were aliens. Now read on. Ephesians 2, Ephesians 2, verse 12. You were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, you were strangers from those covenants of promise. See what that says? Yes, Israel had the covenants, but could the Gentiles say, Hey that's for me? No. That wasn't for a Gentile, it was only for the Jew, and so you were strangers from those covenants of promise, and this was the law of the Gentiles, having no hope, and without God in the world." So the Book says, and I didn�t put this in there, but yours says it too. This was the law of the Gentiles, because God was dealing with covenant promises, and it was only for the nation of Israel until she should be such a prepared, spiritual, obedient people, and then what would God do? Hey, He would send them into the Gentile world, and they could then bring the Gentiles to a knowledge of their God. But what did Israel do? Well by now you see they had had 2,000 years of having it pounded into them that they were special, and now they couldn�t get it out of their head that anybody else was worth a nickel. Now I told you I�d show you before the afternoon was over, what I refer to as the Paul has now been out ministering to Gentiles for some 20 years or more, and he�s been having a tremendous response, establishing churches throughout Asia Minor, and Greece, and Rome, and now he comes back to Jerusalem, and boy he just about gets killed by the mob. But anyway he�s coming up here before the religious leaders in Jerusalem in Acts 22, and he recounts his whole conversion experience on the road to Damascus. He recounts his experiences out amongst the Gentiles, and how they were coming to a knowledge of Israel�s God through the Gospel, through Christ�s death, burial, and resurrection. Now let�s come down to verse 18. He�s rehearsing what had happened years back, and he says, And while I prayed in the temple, and I was in a trance, I saw him, make haste, get thee out of Jerusalem, for they the Jews will not receive thy testimony concerning me. And Paul tells his huge Jewish audience, And I said, Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them who believed on you. And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept, or held, the raiment of them that killed him. Now let�s come down to verse 21. And Paul says, And the Lord said unto me, Depart, get out of Jerusalem, for I will send you far hence to the Gentiles, Now look at the reaction of these Jews. And they gave him audience, and they listened to him, I imagine quite intently, until this word, what word? Gentile. And what happened? A riot. And they lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth, it�s not fit that he should live. Why? Because he so much as even thought Gentile. Well what had happened? Israel had completely been blinded to her true role that Jehovah had intended, and that was to be his vehicle to go out and reach these Gentiles. But they had completely rejected it in unbelief, and they won�t even permit this apostle to go to the Gentiles. They fought him every inch of the way. Now I�m not doing this to put the Jew down as a nation of people, but it was the result of all those years of being told and taught, You are God�s covenant people, you�re special. But it had gotten such control of their thinking, that they never did see the truth of why God called them out in the first place. Now of course there was one other primary reason, and I haven�t alluded to it purposely, but in the last statement of the Abrahamic covenant, what was it? And in thee, in Abraham, shall all the families of the earth be blessed. How was that going to come about? By their Messiah being crucified, and becoming the object of faith then, not just of Israel, but of the whole world. Today we proclaim the Gospel of God�s saving grace, how that Christ died according to the predeterminate counsel of God, as we saw in the first program this afternoon. And He came and fulfilled the purposes of God in bringing about the plan of redemption, not just for Israel, but for the whole human race. Now I�ve pointed out so often in my classes, just as soon as God announced to Abraham that through this man He was going to bring out a separated people, and He was going to deal with them, and that through this people would come a Redeemer of the whole human race, who immediately puts everything in high gear to thwart the program of God. Satan does, and all you have to do is look back at history, and how Satan has constantly fought God�s dealing with the nation of Israel. Everything that comes about in the nation of Israel, in their unbelief, in their attacks from the Gentile world, anything that comes about, Satan does. Even today where we are right now, why is the whole world voting against the little nation of Israel, trying to push them tighter and tighter into a smaller area of Jerusalem? Well that�s the Satanic ploy to get rid of the nation of Israel. Because if Satan can succeed in getting rid of the Jew, getting rid of the nation of Israel, then God can�t perform His prophecies, because all the prophecies rest on Israel. Can you see the ploy of Satan? Oh, he�s working overtime, not just because he hates Israel, but because he hates God. And he�s doing everything in his power to thwart the eternal purposes of God. That�s the whole reason for it. And all you have to do is just watch your news. Even when the Israeli government has scandal come in, that almost just upsets their political system. Who�s behind it? Satan is. He�s behind everything that�s happening to the little nation of Israel. But God�s not going to permit anything to remove them from the scene. They�re going to survive. Now we know it�s getting tougher and tougher for them. We know the whole world is coming more and more to the whole idea, �Well why do they have to have the land of Palestine?� Let the Palestinians have it. They were there first. What do they do with all these promises? They ignore them. And either they ignore them or they don�t even know they�re here. But God has told Jeremiah that the sun would have to leave its orbit, the moon would have to fall out of its orbit before Israel will disappear from view. 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, Kinta, Oklahoma 74552. That�s Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma 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.