Why Israel Rejected Their King — Matthew 23 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, good to have everybody with us again. My, we've got a good group for this session of taping, and we always like to let our television audience know that we put four of these programs together in one afternoon a month, and it's always so good to see people coming in from rather distant places, as well as here in Tulsa. But anyway, for those of you in our television audience, again, we just like to always explain we are just an informal Bible study. We have no ax to grind, and we're, as I've said so often, we're not trying to twist people's arms from one denomination into another. We have no formal organization behind us, where we're just as simple as you can be. We have no PR people. We have no advertising format, and it's only by word of mouth that people are catching our program or as they're going through it. You know, the best thing that ever happened, so far as our program is concerned, is that remote deal. Boy, people can just sit there and flip through their channels, and then they hit this one. And as I told the folks before we started, you know, I think the thing that gets their attention is the class, more than myself. And they see these people sitting out here in all these different colored clothes and everything, and I think that's what stops them, thinking, hey, what is this? And then, of course, many times I think the Spirit directs them to keep on listening. So anyway, for those of you in television, we'd like you to know that we're not associated with any particular group, and we just try to get folk to get into the book and see what it really says, as well as what it doesn't say. In other words, I pointed out in the class again last night, some of these areas where we have just been programmed into thinking that it's got to be in here, and it isn't. And this is what we have to discern. What does the text really say, or what does it not say? And not just walk down some rose-petaled pathway blind to some of these things. Also we like to have television folks know that all the past programs are available on videotape, audio if you want them, and now finally I can honestly say that books number five and six are ready and available. So if you already have the first four, many of you have already got your name on the waiting list, you'll be getting yours. But for those of you who may not be aware that these programs have been transcribed, and that's all they are, these books are not authored per se. I didn't sit down and put the sentences together officially, but it's just simply a direct transcription, word for word, and the people that do the transcribing have been very meticulous in doing that. And as most of the folk of you who have read these books, it's just about like closing your eyes and you can hear me say it. And that's the way we want to keep it. But anyway, the first six videotapes, which means that's the first, what, 72 programs, will now be available in print. All right, let's turn in our study this afternoon to Matthew chapter 23, and I certainly haven't been teaching the Gospels verse by verse, but we've just more or less been taking an overview, pointing out that in Christ's earthly ministry there is nothing of the church. There's no church language in here. This is all Christ dealing under the law with the Jew under the law. And I always like to point that out, that He is constantly making us aware that this is all under the law. There is not a word said that you no longer have to keep temple worship, you no longer have to keep the commandments. It's all under the law. And just for example, when He healed the lepers, what did He tell them to do? Go present yourself where? To the priests. Because that's what the law demanded, that if they had been healed of leprosy they had to present themselves to the priests, and the priests would give them permission, of course, to come back into society. When the young rich ruler approached Jesus and he said, What must I do to inherit eternal life? What was Jesus' answer? Keep the commandments. See? It was all under law. And even when we get into the early chapters of Acts, where are the twelve apostles still meeting for prayer and what have you? At the temple. No one has told them they're not under the law. And the law was still in force, and so never lose sight of that. I just shared with a class here in the studio before we began televising, I had a call from a gentleman in Iowa just this morning, and he said, You know, I never really got much out of my Bible. And he said, I think it's because I never saw that what was written and spoken to the Jew is primarily for the Jew, and what has been written and spoken to us Gentiles is primarily for us. And what a difference that makes. Well now here again, in chapter 23 of Matthew, the language is so explicit there's no argument. And verse 37, Jesus is speaking of course in the area of the temple. The previous two chapters He's addressing the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Herodians, and He's pointing out of course their gross, what shall I say, their gross misgivings and their wrongdoings, although they thought they were so religious. But now to this great crowd, their gathering remember were approaching Passover, and so the Jews are coming in from all over the then known world, and so the temple is beginning to feel the effects of it, the crowds are gathering. And now in that kind of an atmosphere, verse 37, Jesus says, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Now as He speaks to the city, in reality what people is He addressing? Jews. So He's not talking to the world, He's talking to the Jews. And so He says, O Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets. Remember we made reference to that when we talked about the unpardonable sin a week or two ago. O Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them who are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and you would not. Now of course we in America have been in a culture where we no longer see these chickens sneak off and put together a clutch of eggs and hatch them, and then someday come out with their little brood. Now I grew up, and as a kid I can still remember that. Once in a while an old hen would get away with it, and Mom wouldn't find her eggs, and one day here she'd come with fourteen, fifteen little chicks. And just with her clucking, they could keep pretty good control over that whole brood. But I remember as I was looking at this and getting ready for this program, when I was a kid, and I was probably five or six years old, a big huge storm was coming up, and so Dad and I ran for the house, and it happened to be the summer that one of these old hens indeed had this brood of chicks, and we'd always been kind of watching them. And as that storm began to blow and the rain came down, she had called all of her chicks under her wings, and had gotten on the leeward side of a big old box elder tree, otherwise she'd have never withstood it, and the wind was blowing, but all those chicks had come under her except one. And so out of the window as we watched that rainstorm blow, that one little chick just got rolled over in the wind and the rain, and it got drowned of course, but the rest of them were safe under that old hen. And every time I see this, and I read this, I can't help but picture that. That when the storm blew, those little chicks were safe and secure, all cuddled under that old mother hen. And see Jesus uses that analogy that this is what He wanted to do with Israel. All through their two thousand years of history He had been just more or less, excuse the expression, but He had been just clucking over them. He had just been watching over them, protecting them, and supplying all their needs in miraculous ways. But like the one little chick I was just referring to, Israel wouldn't listen. And they came under all of their judgments, they came under all of their adversities simply because they would not be obedient. And now here again, God has sent the Son in fulfillment of all these Old Testament promises, that they could have the King and the Kingdom, they could have salvation, they could have redemption, they could have forgiveness, if they would just recognize who He was. But instead what was their response? Does anything good come out of Nazareth? And as I've pointed out so often, instead of coming into Jerusalem on a big prancing white Arabian steed, which most of the emperors in that day did, He came in how? On the colt of a donkey, see the lowliest. And it just threw them a curve. But nevertheless the offer went out there that He was their King, and He was ready to give them the Kingdom if they would just believe. But He says, you would not. You would not. Now I've said in my classes over the years, and I'll probably say it more than once in the future, there is one aspect of all of this I know that is hard to comprehend. And that is that God in His sovereignty is in control of everything, everything. And yet He never takes away the free will of men and nations. Now those two concepts are hard to bring together, but yet it's so true. And the best way I can explain it in my own mind is that before He ever created anything, the Godhead, and we're going to look at a verse that shows this, the Godhead could look down through the eons of time and knew exactly what every person in every nation would do. Now that's called foreknowledge. Now then with foreknowledge you see, He could also plan for any contingency, because He knew what was going to happen. And yet He never took away the free will of mankind. Now same way with Israel. Israel had absolute freedom to accept Him and have the kingdom, but they also had the free will to what? To reject it. And this is what they're doing. And it doesn't throw God a curve, because He knows what they're going to do. Let me show you the verse I just had in mind, Acts. That would be in Acts chapter 2, an amazing verse. And I guess I didn't get the impact of it until just maybe a year or two ago. And I'm sure that's the way a lot of Scripture is to a lot of us. We read it, but we really don't get the impact of it as we read it. Acts chapter 2, beginning with verse 22. Acts 22, verse 22, Peter on the day of Pentecost, and again he's addressing this great mob of Jews. They're in the temple complex gathered now for this feast of Pentecost. And he says, You men of Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by Him in the midst of you, as you yourselves also know. Now here it comes in verse 23. Him, this Jesus, being delivered by the determinate counsel, now that's spelled with an S, by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken and by wicked hands crucified and slain. Now what does that mean, the determinate counsel of God? Well, the only way I can look at it is that the Trinity, the triune God, three persons, yet one, and as the Trinity consulted within itself before anything was ever created, they agreed within the Trinity, knowing everything that would take place, that when fallen man would need a Redeemer, when fallen man would need a salvation, it would be that second person of the Trinity who would step down from that invisible Godhead, take on flesh, and go the way of the cross, through the way of burial and resurrection for man's eternal redemption. Now you see, that was all foreknown before anything was ever created, and it was all consummated, you might say, in the thought process of the Trinity. Now whenever I teach this, I don't imply that the three sat down around a table and bannied about what this would happen, and so on and so forth, as men may do. But within the Trinity of the Godhead, whether it was a split second or whatever, nevertheless all three persons of the Godhead had agreed that this was the way they would do it. And that's exactly what this verse means, that by the determinate counsel, the coming together and thinking all of this through by the Godhead, the three persons of the Trinity, and they all agreed that this was the only way that they could make it all come to pass. All right, now if you'll flip back to Matthew again, chapter 23, and so now then after Jesus has made that statement, O Jerusalem, how I would have gathered you like a hen gathers her chicks, but you would not, then the next verse, verse 38 says, Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. Now I'd like to have you underline the pronoun your, because just like when God was dealing with Israel under Moses, you remember, starting out God would call them, My people, but after their stiff-neckedness, and after their rebellion, He finally tells Moses, Whose people? Thy people. Your people. So He didn't call them My people. He says, Your people. All right, now He does the same thing with the temple. Here, as Jesus is now approaching the end of His ministry, and it's obvious that Israel is not accepting Him, He refers to the temple as, Your house. Now it's the temple that He's referring to, but He calls it Your house. Now turn back with me quickly to John chapter 2, just for a quick reference of how Christ's attitude toward the nation of Israel is showing their responsiveness to Him. Here in John's Gospel, chapter 2, verse 16, where Jesus said unto them, The soul doves take these things hence, make not My Father's house. You see the difference? What is He still referring it to as? The temple of God, see? But by the time He comes here to this statement in Matthew 23, He doesn't call it My house or My Father's house. He calls it what? Your house. See what a difference that makes. Oh, how they were slipping. All right, come back then again to Matthew 23, verse 39, for He says, I say unto you, You shall not see Me henceforth until. Now, I know the UN isn't on there, but, You shall not see Me henceforth till you shall say. Now watch the language, see? This is a future event. When you shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord. Were they saying it now? No, they weren't saying anything like that now. Rather they were saying, Away with Him. We won't have this man to rule over us. But He says, The day is coming when you will say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord. All right, now there are three distinct untills that I always like to refer to. This would be the first one. You shall not see Me. In other words, He's going to be disappearing from their view in short order, but they would see Him at some future day. That's what the untill is referring to. Now, the second one would be in Luke's Gospel, chapter 21, where again He uses that same term, untill. Luke 21 and oh, I guess we can come right in at verse 24. These are the verses where He is foretelling the destruction of the temple and the city of Jerusalem by the Roman armies of Titus. See how He knows everything before it ever happened. And so now in Luke's Gospel, chapter 21, verse 24, Jesus says, And they, that is the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Jews, they shall fall by the edge of the sword. They shall be led away captive into all nations. See, now that's the clue that this verse does not refer to Armageddon, because at Armageddon and at the Second Coming, Israel is not going to be dispersed into the nations. They're going to go into the kingdom. But these Jews are going to be dispersed. So this is the clue that this is what happened at 70 A.D. under Titus. They'll be led away captive in all nations, and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles... What's the next word? Untill. Now that word untill means that there's going to be a time factor, and that at a certain period of time in the future, then the next event will come on the scene. So Jerusalem will be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. And then they will no longer cover Jerusalem with their heavy military equipment and with the boots of their soldiers and so forth. So there's coming a time when Jerusalem would be delivered from that overlordship of their Gentile captors. Now the third one that I always like to refer to, of course, is Romans chapter 11. And in an earlier broadcast, a long time ago, we put all this on the board. And as I said before, I'm so remiss in reviewing on these television programs because of the people that are buying the tapes. It rubs me wrong to have something in a tape that they've paid good money for five, six months ago, and then have me say the same thing again. But I think that has been alleviated a little bit. The last several books that I've read, I've noticed, you know, how an author can get a book that thick? Well, I found out how they do it, by repetition. Why, you can go down the line, and five, six chapters later, they say practically the same thing they said back in chapter 2. So I'm going to use that as a cop-out. I'm going to review probably more than I intended to. But here in Romans chapter 11, you drop down to verse 25. And Romans 11, of course, is the chapter where Paul deals with Israel's future, how that she will be grafted in again. And then he comes down to verse 25, and he says, Now, mystery, of course, is a word that's unique to Paul's writings, and it refers to the secret that's been kept in the mind of God. And we've stressed that over the last several months, that the church and all these events connected with the church are secret. They've been kept in the mind of God, not to be revealed until God saw fit. And so here is another one of these, that this was a secret that had been kept in the mind of God, that while God would be spending 1900 and some years calling out the Gentiles, Israel would be in a spiritual what? Blindness. Now, you can't find that anywhere else in Scripture. Now, Isaiah definitely said that their table would be made a snare, and that they would be blind and having ears they would not hear, but it was not associated with a period of time that God would be turning to the Gentiles. But here it is, and this is why it's called a secret, a mystery, that is now revealed, that blindness in part, in other words, not forever, but for a segment of time, that blindness in part is happened, or has happened to Israel, what's the next word? Until. It's not going to be a final thing. It's going to come to an end someday, their spiritual blindness, and it will come to an end only when the fullness of the Gentiles have been brought in. Now, what's the fullness of the Gentiles? The body, the body of Christ. And so when the body of Christ is finally filled, and the last person has been saved, and the church is removed, as I teach the rapture, then of course who will He pick up where He left off? Israel, the Jew, and that's when their spiritual blindness will more or less come to an end, and they'll begin to have again a spiritual relationship with their Jehovah God. But those are three untills, of course, that Jesus definitely refers to. Here in Matthew 23, it's that they would not see Him. He would be moved from their midst. He'd be going back to glory. They would not see Him until He would return, and they would be able to say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord, which of course would be at His second coming. And then the one in Luke 21, which certainly refers to that period of time that is now past, and we are coming to the end of. I shouldn't end the sentence in a preposition, should I? But anyway, we're now approaching the end of it, and the Gentiles have been overlording Jerusalem all these centuries. Now we know that they aren't per se controlling Jerusalem today, but it's the next thing to it. They still pretty much call the shots. The Gentile powers have still got the little nation of Israel pretty much under their thumb, and so for all practical purposes this prophecy is still very valid. Jerusalem and the nation of Israel is still under the basic influence of the Gentile powers, but that's going to end when Christ returns. And then the third one, that they are spiritually blind. Throughout these last 1900 and some years the nation has been blinded, but it's not a permanent blindness. It's going to end after the church has been completed. Well, only got a couple minutes left, so I'm going to come down and start chapter 24, and this will just sort of be for the television audience a wetting of your appetites for the next program. And now we're going to move into prophecy. Now we covered all these verses, almost all of them, when we were in the book of Revelation, but there again, when I realize how many times everyone else goes over these things, over and over, I guess it won't hurt me to hit it twice, but we're going to go on into Matthew 24 in our next program, and probably even the one to follow, because here Jesus now delves into prophecy. Now all of this has been prophecy. I've always connected everything, you know, beginning almost with Abraham and all the way up through the Old Testament. Everything is prophetic. Everything is saying what will happen, what will happen. That's prophecy. And here again in chapter 24, it's exactly what Jesus is going to talk about, the things that are going to happen at some point in the future. So verse 1, He has been speaking, you know, in the temple complex, but now He goes out and departs from the temple, and His disciples came to Him to show Him the buildings of the temple. In other words, from a distance, I think probably across from the Mount of Olives. So those of you who have been in Jerusalem, you know that when you're on the Mount of Olives, you just look across the Little Kidron Valley, and right up there is the eastern wall and the temple complex. So I think as He left the temple, went across the Little Kidron Valley and up on the Mount of Olives, then the disciples probably looked back and said, What about all this? See? And they said, verse 2, Jesus said, See ye not all these things? In other words, all these things of the temple complex? Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down. Now you want to remember, when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the temple, he did it how? By fire. It was predominantly cedar wood, you know, and it just burned like a matchbox. But the Romans, even though they used a lot of fire, they didn't just destroy it with fire, but they literally dismantled that temple rock by rock and stone by stone. Of course, there are a lot of legendary stories as to why they did it. Some of the Roman soldiers had heard that there was tons of gold hidden between the building blocks of the temple, and so in order to go after that gold, they just literally took it down stone by stone. But that's exactly what Jesus is talking about in prophetic utterance. He says, This temple that you're seeing will be laid low stone by stone, rock by rock. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. 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