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Zacharias Song of Salvation Pt. 2 Luke 1:67 - 80

November 4, 2018 Speaker: Jim Galli Series: The Gospel According to Luke

Topic: Sunday AM Passage: Luke 1:67–80

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      67 And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying:
      68 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
            For He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people,
      69 And has raised up a horn of salvation for us
            In the house of David His servant—
      70 As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old—
      71 Salvation FROM OUR ENEMIES,
            And FROM THE HAND OF ALL WHO HATE US;
      72 To show mercy toward our fathers,
            And to remember His holy covenant,
      73 The oath which He swore to Abraham our father,
      74 To grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies,
            Might serve Him without fear,
      75 In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.
      76 “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; For you will go on BEFORE THE LORD TO PREPARE HIS WAYS;
      77 To give to His people the knowledge of salvation
            By the forgiveness of their sins,
      78 Because of the tender mercy of our God,
            With which the Sunrise from on high will visit us,
      79 TO SHINE UPON THOSE WHO SIT IN DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW OF DEATH,
            To guide our feet into the way of peace.”
      80 And the child continued to grow and to become strong in -spirit, and he lived in the deserts until the day of his public appearance to Israel

Last Sunday AM was frustrating for me.  Not the best.  This Psalm is so important, it's such a wonderful bridge of the Old Testament to the New.

My fear is that modern christians just ignore the old testament.  We think well, it's not for us, it was for them, and there's weirdness, and the New Testament is confusing enough, leave it alone.

Here's something;  The first century church, that turned the world upside down with it's holy power, did it with the Old Testament.  They were in the process of writing the New, and they used the Old Testament to evangelize the known world.

What Zacharias says here, with the power of the Holy Spirit is such a window for us into what the remnant of believing jews believed and how the old testament led some to Christ, and for others, it was a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.

Zacharias focuses in on 3 old testament promises or covenants that God made to the jews and shows us how Christ Jesus, Messiah Jesus ultimately fulfills all of the covenants, all of the promises made to Israel.

Covenental theology is a big topic.  Smarter men than me have talked about it for centuries.  Let me give you a thimble full, from my thimble sized brain.

Scholars recognize 6 covenental promises, distinct from each other, that God gave to the patriarchs and to Israel.  3 of them have nothing to do with salvation or redemption.

First is the covenant to Noah.  God promised to never judge the world by drowning it with water, again.  He will judge the world, this time with fire, but never again with water like Noah and 7 other survivors from the entire human race experienced.

Next is the covenant with Moses and Israel, the law.  The commandments.  Blessings and cursings.  But no one is ultimately saved by keeping God's law.  We can't do it.  

So then, the only sure thing from the covenantal law is cursing.  The law doesn't save us, it damns us.  We were damned anyways, but the law showed us why.

And the third covenant that cannot save us is the promise of a priesthood forever.  

None of those save, and none of those are present in Zacharias song of salvation.  But he speaks of 3 promises that do have everything to do with salvation.

We covered the first one last Sunday.  Badly perhaps, but we looked at the Davidic covenant.  God promised a King who would reign forever on David's throne.  He will be in the line of David.  And ultimately, this King will not only rule Israel, He'll rule the entire world, from David's throne in Jerusalem.

68 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people, 69 And has raised up a horn of salvation for us In the house of David His servant—70 As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old—

But Zacharias doesn't talk about the usual thing that came into every jews mind when they thought of Messiah and Israel reigning over the rest of the earth.

They thought of political strength and power.  Pre-eminence.  Israel on top, the rest of the world below Israel in power.  That was every jews thoughts when they thought of the Davidic covenant.  

Zacharias is a righteous jew.  He is part of the believing remnant.  And he doesn't talk about political pre-eminence in the earth, he talks about redemption and salvation.

Zacharias was one of the rare jews who understood that what the messianic reign on David's throne involves is nothing less than the Son of the Most High coming and deposing the ruler of this world.

He understood that sin would have no place in this coming kingdom.  And that's why when he says God is coming to fulfil His promise of a King forever on David's throne, he says this King will accomplish redemption for His people and be a powerful Savior, a horn of salvation.

This King isn't coming to reign over a wicked sinful nation.  He's coming to accomplish righteousness.  Redemption.  Salvation.  His reign will be in righteousness, with a rod of iron.  

The next covenant on Zacharias mind is the covenant given to Abraham.  We just studied these things together in our mini-topical series on faith.  We'll review God's promise to Abraham quickly.
Gen. 12:1Now the LORD said to Abram,
            “Go forth from your country,
            And from your relatives
            And from your father’s house,
            To the land which I will show you;

      2And I will make you a great nation,
            And I will bless you,
            And make your name great;
            And so you shall be a blessing;

      3And I will bless those who bless you,
            And the one who curses you I will curse.
            And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

God promised Abraham a great nation, real estate, and that ultimately through him all the families of the earth would be blessed.

In Genesis 15 He gets more specific.  Offspring that outnumbers the stars of heaven.  And real estate from the mediteranean sea to the great rivers of Persia.

Abraham says, how is this going to work, I don't have a son, my wife is barren, if I died right now my only heir is someone born in my household that didn't even come from me.

And God sealed His covenant promise with Abraham in the way that people in that time sealed a binding covenant.  They would cut an animal in half, a blood sacrifice and then walk through the middle of the two halves.  

God told Abraham to bring 3 animals and two birds and cut them in half, and then God put Abram into a deep sleep and He came as fire and walked through the midst of the animals confiming His covenant with Abram.  And then these verses;

17 It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces.

18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying,
            “To your descendants I have given this land,
            From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates:

19 the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite 20and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim 21and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite.”

I purposely left that final verse with all the funny names in my review because it is so telling to me.

Satan has for all these centuries been trying to extinguish the jews.  People like the monster last week who went into a synagogue and murdered 11 jews, if you asked them, they can't put a finger on where that hatred comes from.  Why the jews?  Why the hatred?

It's because the jews are still God's chosen people and people become dupes of Satan, pawns for his purpose, which is to destroy the people that God made the promises to.  That guy can't analyze that hatred.  

Flip Wilson made "the devil made me do it" a thing to laugh at, but there are people all over the world who hate the jews and want to slaughter them and don't have a clue that they are just pawns, dupes of Satan who wants to destroy God's chosen race of people through which came the promises that will ultimately destroy Satan.

Those murders last week were demonic.  Hatred of the jews is demonic.  There's no rational reason.  But here's something to consider.  

Have you run into a Kenite lately?  How about a Kenizzite or a Kadmonite?  Any Hittite's or Perizzites out there that you know of?  Any Amorites, Rephaim, Canaanites or Jebusites?  Seen any lately?

How about jews?  They're still here.  And the promises made to Abraham have never been fully realized.  

Is it interesting to anyone besides me that after 20 centuries the jews are back in their homeland and they are surrounded on all sides by peoples who are foaming at the mouth with hatred and anihilation?

God is going to bless the whole earth, through one man, one family, one nation derived from that family.   The Hebrew people, the jews.  Satan has one job.  Crush God's plan.

Beloved, there is a battle raging that our eyes can't see.  A battle between the God of armies, the Lord of hosts, and Satan and his armies of demons.  A spiritual war is raging.

But while we can't see the wind in a hurricane, we can see the houses moving off their foundations and the palm trees bending to the ground, so we know the wind is there.

It's the same, reading the signs, as we watch Israel and the battle raging over that real estate.  If we were in the heavens looking down on the earth and God gave us our spiritual eyes, we would see a war raging over God's people.  

Satan knows his time is short.  We would see a great flurry of activity, a war between Gods hosts and Satan's demons doing everything possible to totally anihilate the jews.

God preserved the jews for all of the long centuries for the drama that is playing out as we speak, and it's all about real estate that God promised to Abraham, and the peoples descended from Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.  

Satan is doing his best to block and thwart the promises that are as yet unfulfilled.  Even if it's a madman taking out 11 of them at a time.  It's all trees bowing in that same conflict we cannot yet see.

Listen again to Zacharias prophecy, his song of salvation that reaches all the way to the end of the battle I've been describing.  He see's this child that Mary who has visited his house for 3 months is carrying as the fulfillment of all of the promises they have waited so long for.

      69 (He) has raised up a horn of salvation for us
            In the house of David His servant—
      70 As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old—
      71 Salvation FROM OUR ENEMIES,
            And FROM THE HAND OF ALL WHO HATE US;
      72 To show mercy toward our fathers,
            And to remember His holy covenant,
      73 The oath which He swore to Abraham our father,
      74 To grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies,
            Might serve Him without fear,
      75 In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.

Zacharias says, this child, which his son John will be the forerunner of, the prophet who goes before the promised son, this child, the messiah will bring in this final victory in this spritiual battle between God and Satan over this real estate we call earth.

Zacharias is envisioning a time when the victory is won and the King reigns in peace.  Like a return to Eden.  The enemy of the jews, and indeed of the human race who Satan also hates and wants dead, we're only useful to him as pawns in his war against God.

Zacharias is speaking of the time when that war is over and his people the jews will serve their king In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.

So we need to pause here and consider a couple of possibilities.  We have the benefit of 20 centuries of 20-20 hindsight.

Zacharias thought the things in his song of salvation were imminent.  He thought Messiah is going to be born in 6 more months, and then he has to grow up, and me and Elizabeth need to eat really healthy food because we're old, but it would sure be nice to be here and see all the promises fulfilled.  If we can hold on for 30 more years.  

And honestly the disciples who were with Jesus for 3 years every day thought the same thing.  Their final recorded words to Him as He was about to ascend back to His Father in heaven after the resurrection from the dead were;  "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?" Acts 1:6

And in Acts 3 Peter is preaching to Israel on the portico of Solomon in the temple after he and John had healed the lame man in Jesus name, and he tells them, it was Jesus who healed this man, not us, and their preaching is as if, yes he had to go to heaven for a couple of weeks but he'll be back to set up His kingdom and fulfil all of the promises.

I didn't want to take the time but Peter's sermon that day sounds like it came directly out of Zacharias song of salvation we're studying.  You can go and read through it in Acts 3.  All the same promises.  All the same hopes.  Jesus is coming back out of heaven in about 5 minutes and this is all going to happen.

But it hasn't.  And twenty centuries have come and gone.  Jesus hasn't reigned on David's throne in Jerusalem.  The Jews don't have their real estate promised to them through Abraham.  Their enemies are still crowding them on every side.  

Indeed, if it wasn't for the United States, Israel would have been anihilated by the Arabs by now.  There is no peace.  But there is a further problem for them.  Let's read on in Zacharias prophecy, his psalm of salvation that he saw as happening even in his lifetime which was about to come to a natural end.

And they don't have something else that Zacharias prophesied;  
To grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies, Might serve Him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.

They don't have the holiness or the righteousness either.  They only have the law of Moses.  And nationally, if you go and visit that nation, they have abandoned Moses law, and really, they don't even believe there is a God any more.  They are a secular nation.  Like a conservative France or something.

No promises, no holiness, no righteousness, no God.  They're just the Jews, plopped down by some miracle after 20 centuries in their ancient land.

What happened.  Do the promises mean anything?  Let's keep reading in Zacharias song;  

      76 “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; For you will go on BEFORE THE LORD TO PREPARE HIS WAYS;
      77 To give to His people the knowledge of salvation
            By the forgiveness of their sins,
      78 Because of the tender mercy of our God,
            With which the Sunrise from on high will visit us,
      79 TO SHINE UPON THOSE WHO SIT IN DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW OF DEATH,
            To guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Zacharias child came.  He fulfilled his ministry.  The jews stood by and did nothing when Herod threw him in prison and later executed him.  

So much for the Prophet from on high who would go on BEFORE THE LORD TO PREPARE HIS WAYS;

They killed the prophet and then they killed the Messiah.  And before 40 more years were up, God sent the Romans to sweep the deck clean of jews.  Their nation was obliterated.  Decimated.  Vanished.  Their temple was dismantled block by block so the soldiers could recover the gold.  Gone.  Vanished.

The jews that weren't murdered were sent wandering all over the world.  All their records were destroyed.  Everything was gone.  

Satan must have looked at what happened all those centuries ago and said to himself, I did it.  I won.  Israel is gone.  The Messiah is gone.  The promises are unfulfilled.  Except for one little thing.

Jesus rose from the dead on the third day.  He went back into heaven.  And there's that troubling little Psalm that David wrote 3500 years ago.  Psalm 110:1 The LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at My right hand Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.

If I were Satan, that would worry me.  And if you read the rest of that Psalm there's a whole lot more in there that should concern the devil.

Satan hasn't won.  God hasn't lost.  But, what is going on?  20 centuries have come and gone.  The promises are unfulfilled, partly, and God's people, Israels children are languishing.  Seemingly hopeless.  They murdered the messiah.  God swept them out of the land, what little they had of it, with a broom.  Swept clean.  

Everywhere they've wandered, they have been hated, for all the centuries.  Crushed, sent to flight, squeezed out, mass murdered.

How interesting that at Britains peak and America's moral high point, these two peoples would in 1917 allow the jews to inhabit their ancient homeland again, protected, and then 30 years later after WWII was over, we would give that real estate to them for a homeland again, right in the middle of the Arab world.

And we've made it stick.  We've weaponized Israel, and we stand in the background with our "big stick" if the Arabs should decide it's time to obliterate them once and for all.  We are poised to answer.

There is a third, un-named covenant that Zacharias alludes to, though he doesn't name it.  Listen closely to his song;

76 “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; For you will go on BEFORE THE LORD TO PREPARE HIS WAYS;
      77 To give to His people the knowledge of salvation
            By the forgiveness of their sins,
      78 Because of the tender mercy of our God,

Salvation and forgiveness of sins because of the tender mercy of God, are words that describe the final covenant, and theologians have given it a name.  We have the Davidic covenant.  The Abrahamic covenant.  And this final covenant in Zacharias song has a name.

If you flip in your Bible to the pages immediately before Matthews gospel you'll read the name of this covenant.  Do you see it?  After Malachi, and before Matthew, what does it say?

The New Testament.  Testament is another word for Covenant.  The New covenant.  

Let me show you the new covenant quickly in the Old testament.  We'll move quickly, so I won't ask you to turn there, just listen carefully.

Deuteronomy 30 pictures the restoration of Israel to their land, but it also introduces something never seen before;  1 “So it shall be when all of these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind in all nations where the LORD your God has banished you, 2 and you return to the LORD your God and obey Him with all your heart and soul according to all that I command you today, you and your sons, 3 then the LORD your God will restore you from captivity, and have compassion on you, and will gather you again from all the peoples where the LORD your God has scattered you. 4 “If your outcasts are at the ends of the earth, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you back. 5 “The LORD your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it; and He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers.

      6 “Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.

God says, a day is coming, after I restore you to your real estate, when I am going to operate on your heart.  I'm going to do an operation and replace the sinful heart with a heart that will love the Lord your God, so that you may live.

We see it again in Jeremiah, as Israel is on the threshold of disaster.  The punishing nation is about to capture them and carry them away, and Jeremiah looks way into the future and says this:

Jeremiah 4:4
Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, remove the foreskins of your hearts, O men of Judah and people of Jerusalem. Otherwise, My wrath will break out like fire and burn with no one to extinguish it, because of your evil deeds."

There's a sequence to the verses I'll read from Jeremiah's prophecy.  In this first mention in chapter 4, God says, you need to circumcise your hearts, or else I'm going to come in judgement.  

They could not, and He came in judgement.  Awesome judgement.  But He isn't finished with Israel.

In Jeremiah 24:7 He says;
I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the LORD. They will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with all their heart.  He says I'm going to give them a heart to know me.  They couldn't circumcise their own evil hearts.  I will do it for them.

And then in Jeremiah 31, listen to how this new heart progresses. 31 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. 33 “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

      35 Thus says the LORD,
            Who gives the sun for light by day
            And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,
            Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar;
            The LORD of hosts is His name:

      36 “If this fixed order departs
            From before Me,” declares the LORD,
            “Then the offspring of Israel also will cease
            From being a nation before Me forever.”

37 Thus says the LORD,
            “If the heavens above can be measured
            And the foundations of the earth searched out below,
            Then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel
            For all that they have done,” declares the LORD.

So two things we'll take away from there.  If you're listening to someone who says God has walked away from Israel forever and the church is the new Israel.  That's called replacement theology.

And God says, yeah, that will happen when the sun and the moon and the fixed order of the stars fails.  Umm, it hasn't failed yet.  And He says, if you can measure the heavens above and discover the foundations in the center of the earth, then Israel will be forgotten.

With all of our current science, guess what we've learned.  We can't find the end of the heavens.  It is immeasurable.  And we can only explore a few hundred feet down into the earths foundations.

Why would you say God has forgotten His people Israel.  Yet, not less than John Stott, in Britain, when he was asked, What is the significance of the jews inhabiting their real estate again, he said, there is no significance at all.

And that's a common belief among my reformed brethren.  It makes me sad, because I am a lover of reformed theology.  I'm a good Calvinist until you get to eschatology.  And then sadly, they are out to lunch.  When the moon and sun move out of their places, God will forget His people Israel.

Those are rhetorical statements folks.  They clearly teach that first of all, these things will not happen and secondly, God will not forget His chosen people.  He'll punish them and call out another people for His name, a bride for His son, but He will not forget His promises to Israel.

And secondly, He says, a day is coming when I'm going to perform heart surgery on all of them.  In Romans 11, Paul says emphatically;

25 For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in;

26 and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written,
            “THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION,
            HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB.”

      27 “THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM,
            WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS.”

28 From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; 29 for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

How could you read that and say, Israel is forgotten, the church is the new Israel.  I scratch my head in astonisment.  29 for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable !  That seems pretty clear to me.

And the new covenant is spelled out in those verses.  
             all Israel will be saved; just as it is written,
            “THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION,
            HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB.”

      27 “THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM,
            WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS.”

Paul got that from Zacharias.  And from Moses.  And from Jeremiah.  And just for frosting on that cake, listen to Ezekiel 36

22 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went. 23 “I will vindicate the holiness of My great name which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD,” declares the Lord GOD, “when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight. 24 “For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land. 25 “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. 28 “You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God.

That's the new covenant.  God has promised to restore Israel, but not just restore them, He's going to give them a mighty King to reign on David's throne, His name is Jesus, and God is going to perform surgery on every heart in Israel.

He's going to remove their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.  And he says He will put His Spirit in them.  Inside them.  And that new heart of flesh with the indwelling Holy Spirit will cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.

God's going to write His law inside their new hearts.  They are going to live righteously before their King.

What did Zacharias say in his salvation song?  

       74 To grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies,
            Might serve Him without fear,
      75 In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.
      76 “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; For you will go on BEFORE THE LORD TO PREPARE HIS WAYS;
      77 To give to His people the knowledge of salvation
            By the forgiveness of their sins,
      
That is all new covenant speak.  Zacharias was looking forward to the new covenant promises when God would surgically remove our stony hearts and give us a heart of flesh.  

Messiah will do this.  And who is the Messiah?  Zacharias doesn't miss a tick.  In the final words of his song he dwells on what the old testament says concerning the Messiah.

78 Because of the tender mercy of our God,
            With which the Sunrise from on high will visit us,
 
Where is he drawing this from?  From the same prophet who declares that God will announce Messiah with a prophet, a forerunner.  Malachi.

1 “For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze,” says the LORD of hosts, “so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.” 2 “But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall. 3 “You will tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing,” says the LORD of hosts.

The sun of righteousness.  It's a play on words.  This sunrise is the glory of the Son of God.

Of Him Habakkuk 2 says;  14 “For the earth will be filled
            With the knowledge of the glory of the LORD,
            As the waters cover the sea.

The earth will be full of the dazzling light of the Glory of God.  He is the sunrise.

And then old Zacharias draws from Isaiah and says;  79 TO SHINE UPON THOSE WHO SIT IN DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW OF DEATH, To guide our feet into the way of peace.”

He quotes the messianic Isaiah 9.

So then, where are we in all of this.  Did the promises to Israel fail?  

Certainly, if Zacharias is looking on from heaven he would have said a long time ago, my goodness, this hasn't played out the way I thought it would.

60 years into this great parenthesis that we all with 20-20 hindsight call the church, Paul tells us what happened.  Again, in Romans 11 where he talks about what has happened to Israel for 3 chapters, 9, 10, and 11.

We read it already once.  25 For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery—

That word mystery, the word in the greek means something that no one saw coming.  A surprise that no one knew about ahead of time.  Zacharias, the disciples, no one saw a 2000 year parenthesis is God's timing where he would call the nations to himself while his own people were blinded.

That was a mystery.  Not known, not revealed, until it happened.

so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in

We are the fulness of the Gentiles.  The gates of grace are swung open wide and God has called out a people for His name from every nation on earth.

We are the bride that God has perpared for His beloved son.  And meanwhile, Israel is still largely blinded.  Partially blinded, it says.  Because God in His grace has called many many Israelites to come to Him and be completed jews.  

A remnant.  Always a remnant, they have believed and come to their messiah.  

What's next for Israel?  If God isn't done with them and all of the promises are going to be fulfilled, when will that happen?

We believe that Israel has 7 years left on their clock that God gave them in Daniel 9.  70 weeks of years.  It was in the 69th week that they murdered their messiah.  There are 7 years left, unaccounted for to this very day.

We believe that when God calls the church home, in what we call the rapture of the church, He will take all the believers, the christians to heaven and we will be the bride of Jesus, washed white and clean in His blood.

But after we've left, Israels clock is running.  The parenthesis called the church has a distinct beginning and a distinct end, and after that, Israel will have 7 years.  We call that the time of Jacob's trouble.

We also call it the tribulation period.  Tribulation, trouble, same thing.  

There will be 3 1/2 years of nervous peace.  Brokered peace.  And then all hell breaks loose on earth.  You can read about it in Revelation.  A false messiah comes and anyone who doesn't take the mark of the beast will be murdered.

2/3 of jews will perish in this time.  But finally, right up against it, when they are surrounded by armies and nuclear holocaust is about to finish the planet, Jesus returns and that is when those who remain will fulfill Paul's prophecy;  all Israel will be saved.

Thousands, on the same day, will realize that Jesus who they peirced, is their messiah and King, and they'll be gloriously saved.

Then, every promise that Zacharias was looking forward to in his salvation song will be true.  All Israel will be saved.

After that, a 1000 year reign of Jesus on David's throne where every single promise of joy and restoration will be realized for the glory of God.