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[0:00] We're in Zechariah chapter 2. You may recall, just briefly by way of review, that the book of Zechariah has four parts.

[0:11] and the first part is chapter 1 up to the end of verse 6. and that is simply God saying to his people, please come back to me.

[0:26] He wants fellowship with his people. And he had put them under discipline in Babylon. They'd been in captivity in Babylon for 70 years because they would not be righteous.

[0:41] They were into all sorts of pagan stuff. They were into child sacrifice and all sorts of things, everything that God abhors. And so he disciplined them by putting them into captivity.

[0:52] And Zechariah is prophesying 13, 15, 20 years after they come out of that captivity, which was prophesied to last for 70 years.

[1:03] It ended precisely after 70 years. And the king at the time that took over, a man called Cyrus, had allowed them to return to Israel and also to Jerusalem with the intention of rebuilding the temple.

[1:20] And he'd even provided them with money to do it. So this King Cyrus was a friend of the Jews. However, we're now almost two decades from that point and the building has stopped.

[1:33] The building is being contested and the Jews are being exhorted to get on and do it. And Zechariah then, as we move into section two of the book, what we then find is that section two goes from the seventh verse of chapter one, right the way through to the end of chapter six.

[1:55] And it describes eight visions, prophetic visions that Zechariah had. And we've already dealt with the first two of these. The first one was the man on the red horse who was pictured as Jesus.

[2:11] This passage calls him the angel of the Lord. And if you study the Old Testament in depth, you'll find that every time there is a reference to the angel of the Lord, it is a reference to Jesus pre or before his incarnation.

[2:26] So it's what they call a Christophany. Then this man on the red horse was saying how angry he was with the nations that had been harsh with Israel and how he was going to judge them.

[2:41] So this first vision was actually an expansion. If you've got your books open to Zechariah, chapter one, verse 15 says, But I am very angry with the nations who are at ease, for while I was only a little angry, they furthered the disaster.

[2:55] He's criticizing these nations for being too harsh. And he's done something that God has done something that he often does, which is he uses the enemies of Israel to judge Israel.

[3:06] And then once his judgment is over and Israel has been restored, he then judges the people who is used to judge Israel. And he judges them on how harshly they have or how well they have conducted themselves with Israel.

[3:20] And so he's going to judge those nations that were too harsh. Cyrus, however, doesn't get that judgment because he wasn't harsh. So this is the man on the red horse coming to Israel at a time when they are in a low place, hence the description that they're in a ravine.

[3:38] And God is angry. And so what we've read thus far in the second section of the book is it shows that what God is going to do in that anger.

[3:51] If you remember, the second vision was horns and craftsmen and how God was going to craft the response to these nations.

[4:02] And I won't revisit it because I would run out of time if I did. So he's going to raise up these craftsmen. And if you recall, the craftsmen that he raises up is the next world empire that takes over.

[4:19] So the Babylonians, they were taken over by the Persians. The Persians then judged Babylon. Later and beyond the writings here, Persia is judged by Greece.

[4:34] And then when Greece has done its thing and becomes a persecutor of the Jews, they're judged by Rome. And we went through all of that and by all means get the study online.

[4:47] So we now come to chapter two and the next vision, the third vision is containing the whole of chapter two. So we're going to do a whole chapter, which for me is amazing.

[5:01] So let's read it and then we'll see what we can do with it. Then I lifted up my eyes and looked and behold, there was a man with a measuring line in his hand.

[5:12] So I said, where are you going? And he said to me to measure Jerusalem to see how wide it is and how long it is. And behold, the angel who was speaking with me was going out and another angel was coming out to meet him and said to him, run, speak to that young man, saying Jerusalem will be inhabited without walls because of the multitude of men and cattle within it.

[5:36] For I, declares the Lord, will be a wall of fire around her and I will be the glory in her midst. Ho there, flee from the land of the north, declares the Lord, for I have dispersed you as the four winds of heaven, declares the Lord.

[5:53] Ho Zion, escape you who are living with the daughter of Babylon. For thus says the Lord of hosts, after glory, he has sent me against the nations which plunder you, for he who touches you touches the apple of his eye.

[6:11] For behold, I will wave my hand over them so that they will be plunder for their slaves. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me. Sing for joy and be glad, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I am coming and I will dwell in your midst, declares the Lord.

[6:27] Many nations will join themselves to the Lord in that day and will become my people. Then I will dwell in your midst and you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you.

[6:38] The Lord will possess Judah as his portion in the Holy Land and will again choose Jerusalem. Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord, for he is aroused from his holy habitation.

[6:52] So what does all this mean? I'm so glad you asked. What we have is it starts with a man with a measuring line.

[7:03] So this is actually if we were to turn back to the first chapter and verse 15. It says, Therefore thus says the Lord, I will return to Jerusalem with compassion.

[7:16] My house will be built in it, declares the Lord, and a measuring line will be stretched over Jerusalem. So the theme of that is now revisited in this third vision that Zechariah is having.

[7:29] And the first thing he sees is a man with a measuring line. If you're wondering what a measuring line is, think of tape measure. It's the modern vernacular version of it. So he's a man with a measuring line.

[7:43] And Zechariah immediately says, What's this all about? There was a man with a measuring line in his hand.

[7:54] So I said, Where are you going? And he said to me, To measure Jerusalem, to see how wide it is and how long it is. Most scholars will say, and it becomes obvious as we go further through, that this is the same man who was on the red horse.

[8:07] And it's the same man that's referred to throughout the book as the angel of the Lord. And isn't one of the other angels. In this passage, there are three persons involved talking with Zechariah.

[8:19] One is the angel of the Lord, or the man with the measuring line. The other is the angel who speaks with me. Who kind of there as a commentator right throughout these visions.

[8:30] And then thirdly, another angel who sent out to instruct the first angel as to what to tell Zechariah. So we need to try and keep them separate or we'll get confused. And so he's talking to, I would say he's talking to the Lord here.

[8:47] And he's going out to measure Jerusalem to see how wide it is and how long it is. Now you think, Well, yeah, but the Lord knows how long and how wide Jerusalem is. So why would he be measuring it?

[8:57] And I believe it's to give us the impression that he is intimately concerned with the development of both Israel and Jerusalem.

[9:09] One of the things we need to take away from this, and it will become more evident as we go through, is we are messing with God when we denigrate Israel and when we denigrate Jerusalem.

[9:22] And unfortunately, it's become very fashionable because many churches don't take the trouble to read the word and realize that God really loves Israel. In the previous chapter, he said, when he said he was going to address these nations that had oppressed Israel, he expressed his deep love for Israel.

[9:42] And he used his personal name when he dealt with this prophecy. He didn't introduce himself as Elohim, the Lord, in a kind of official way, but he announced himself to them as Yahweh, which is God's personal name.

[10:00] It's the name of intimacy. He wanted intimacy with his people. And there's a discussion in the first chapter, you may recall, between the man on the red horse and between him and Yahweh, two members of the Godhead.

[10:18] When are you going to relent? When can they come out of captivity? And there is an expression of love and a desire to take them back to himself.

[10:30] And so it's with that in mind that he is out there measuring Jerusalem. Now, Jerusalem at this stage is in ruins. It's got a temple that's in ruins and needs rebuilding.

[10:42] It's in a mess. But God is out there with his measuring line deciding how it will be restored. And you only need a measuring line if you're going to be very, very precise about how you restore it.

[10:54] You can do what we tend to do and just say, there's a patch of ground over there, we'll just chuck up a housing estate. Now, this is very, very precisely planned. But what we will learn as we progress, it's not just planned for now, for Zachariah's now.

[11:10] It's planned for a future yet to come to pass that we talk about as the millennial kingdom or the thousand-year reign of Christ. However, in principle, if we turn to Revelation 21, in case you're wondering, it's right near the end of the book.

[11:28] And we're just looking at chapter 21, verse 10 to 27. And he carried me away in the spirit. Now, I will say this is talking about the new Jerusalem, which is in the new heaven and the new earth.

[11:42] So this is even further forward. But what you see in this is the heart of God for his city. He carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.

[11:56] Having the glory of God, her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper. It had great high walls with 12 gates, and the gates of 12 angels and names were written on them, which are the names of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel.

[12:13] There were three gates on the east and three gates on the north and three gates on the south and three gates on the west. And the wall of the city had 12 foundation stones, and on them were the 12 names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb.

[12:27] I think I'll just stop there and let you read the rest when you get home. The point is, this is very, very precisely declared. This isn't something that God just chucked together, but it's something that's been in his heart for a long time, and he is preparing it meticulously.

[12:45] So, go back to Zechariah and chapter 2. In verse 4, we have another angel introduced. And this second angel informs the first angel what he should tell Zechariah.

[13:02] And it says, run, speak to that young man, saying Jerusalem will be inhabited without walls because of the multitude of men and cattle within it. This must have been a source of incredulity to those hearing it for reasons that we will just briefly explore.

[13:19] So, this describes a city with no walls and completely overrun with people and animals. Why would they be incredulous? Well, when, if we turn to Ezra chapter 2 and just turn to verses 64 and 65, and as you're looking at verse 64 and 65, just cast your eye back and realize that there are loads of verses of names of people, and those are the names of the people who returned with their clans to Israel.

[13:49] But 64 and 65 says this, the whole assembly, this is the whole assembly that returned to Israel, not to Jerusalem, but to Israel, numbered 42,360, besides their male and female servants who numbered 7,337, and they had 200 singing men and women, and goes on to talk about horses and camels and stuff.

[14:15] Roughly 50,000 people returned to Israel. So, a lot didn't return. Why would that be? Well, actually, under Cyrus, they were living a good life. They had no threat.

[14:26] And so, when the Lord said you can go back to the land, they didn't go. What you then realize, if you then go to Nehemiah, and chapter 11, and verse 1, now the leaders of the people lived in Jerusalem, but the rest of the people cast lots to bring one out of ten to live in Jerusalem, the holy city, while nine tenths remained in the other cities.

[14:51] So, Jerusalem in Zechariah's day is very sparsely populated. So, they're in this derelict city with 5,000 people out of the 50,000, which were a small part of the total.

[15:06] We don't know how big the total was, but what went on with the rest, you read about mainly in the book of Esther. So, we've got 5,000 of them, and they've got this derelict city. And keep in mind that Nehemiah is going to rebuild the city walls.

[15:21] Separate story, separate study. So, there's a plan to rebuild the walls, and we've got 5,000 people in Jerusalem itself to rebuild, or from among whom the builders of the temple will be taken.

[15:36] And Zechariah says, it's going to be completely overrun with people and animals, and it's not going to have any walls. Hang on a minute, we're about to rebuild the walls. It's going to have no walls.

[15:49] So, they would have been incredulous. First, because the fact that it's going to be so populous would have been, how's that going to happen? The second thing, of course, is, in their estimation, every city needs walls in order to protect itself.

[16:06] So, immediately, they would want to rebuild the walls, and in fact, they did. But this gives us a hint that this is referring to a time beyond Zechariah's time, beyond this time when the walls will be rebuilt.

[16:19] And this is a prophecy for way in the future of Zechariah's time. Now, you could say that Israel today, Jerusalem today, has spread beyond its original borders as a majority, I would say, live outside the city wall.

[16:36] But they're not, at the moment, protected from attack. That much we know just from looking at the news. So, not only was it referring to a Jerusalem that was yet future from Zechariah's perspective, but it's still yet future, hasn't yet happened.

[16:54] And what he says, instead of a wall, he says, I will be a wall of fire around them. Let's turn back to Zechariah. So, in Zechariah 2, again, what we've just read, Jerusalem, verse 4, Jerusalem will be without walls because of the multitude of men and cattle within it.

[17:12] For I declares the Lord will be a wall of fire around her and I will be the glory in her midst. There was a similar vision given to Ezekiel.

[17:23] If you turn to the book of Ezekiel, which is back a bit. Ezekiel followed by Daniel and we want chapter 43. So this is, I would say this is about 50 years prior to Zechariah and just the first nine verses.

[17:40] Then he led me to the gate, the gate facing towards the east and behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the way of the east and his voice was like the sound of many waters and the earth shone with his glory and it was like the appearance of the vision which I saw, like the vision which I saw when he came to destroy the city and the visions were like the vision which I saw by the river Hebar and I fell on my face and the glory of the Lord came into the house by the way of the gate facing towards the east and the spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court and behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house.

[18:21] Then I heard one speaking to me from the house while a man was standing beside me and he said to me, son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place of the soles of my feet where I will dwell among the sons of Israel forever.

[18:36] Underline the word forever. People who say God's finished with Israel, I've got to explain away that word forever. And the house of Israel will not again defile my holy name, neither they nor their kings by their harlotry and by the corpses of their kings when they die by setting their threshold by my threshold and their doorposts beside my doorposts with only the war between me and them and they have defiled my holy name by their abominations which they have committed.

[19:09] So I have consumed them in my anger. Now let them put away their harlotry and the corpses of their kings far from me and I will dwell with them and we've got it again forever.

[19:21] There's a forever commitment to both Israel and Jerusalem. So this is has been seen by the prophet Ezekiel and it's now being seen by the prophet Zechariah.

[19:36] Now the idea of the wall of fire around them makes us think of the time when he led them through the wilderness where there was a pillar of fire going before them wherever they went and as long as they stayed by the pillar of fire they were kept safe.

[19:53] Of course this is slightly different. While we're in Ezekiel if we then turn to Ezekiel 38 Ezekiel 38 and 39 describe an end times battle which again is I believe yet future and I believe it's a separate battle from the Gog and Magog sorry the Gog and Magog battle is described here.

[20:15] The battle of Armageddon I believe is a separate but that's a that's a discussion for another time but chapter 38 verses 10 to 13 we read this and he's talking well I'll read it first and then explain thus says the Lord God it will come about on that day now that day normally refers to some cataclysmic event often the end times that thoughts will come into your mind and you will devise an evil plan and you will say I will go up against the land of unwalled villages so Ezekiel has seen Israel has seen Jerusalem as a land of all unwalled villages they no longer need walls to protect them I will go against those who are at rest that live securely all of them living without walls and having no bars or gates to capture spoil and to seize plunder to turn your hand against the waste places which are now inhabited and against the people who are gathered from the nations who have acquired cattle and goods who live at the centre of the world so you've got a picture here of Israel having been gathered from all over the earth

[21:27] I don't know if there's anybody here old enough to remember when that certainly happened practically speaking in 1948 when Israel was gathered to the land and the way they live now is the way they've lived since then they're not busy building walls around themselves well there is the iron dome but hey and then verse 13 Sheba and Didan and the merchants of Tarshish with all its villages will say to you have you come to capture spoil have you assembled your company to seize plunder to carry away silver and gold to take away cattle and goods to capture great spoil Israel's riches mineral and oil and otherwise so many nations desire to capture it and we are going to see when this prophecy is fulfilled we will see armies come against Israel to try and capture spoil and I'm not going to get off on one about Ezekiel 38 and 9 that's probably two or three studies of its own but the one thing

[22:31] I will say is this will come to pass and what we can see already are the political alliances needed to bring it to pass if you look at who's in bed with whom politically you will find that all the nations described in Ezekiel 38 are already palsy and are all anti-Israel and strangely they're all non-Arab Muslim nations but that's for another day so we're now at a time when Israel dwells and Jerusalem dwells without walls or doesn't depend upon its walls for defence verse 6 says going back to Zechariah verse 6 says ho there flee from the land of the north declares the Lord for I have dispersed you as the four winds of the heavens declares the Lord could I have the map up please what is odd about this statement is that Babylon's here

[23:31] Jerusalem is here so the Babylonians are east and it says watch out for the people of the north why would that be so just a little bit of geography that helps us to understand if you're going to journey from Babylon to Israel you've got the Arabian desert in the way so you have to go up north and come from the north into Jerusalem so that just clarifies for anybody who's going what's these people from the north they were east hope that explains it sufficiently now this leads to a question this instruction says got the wrong verse now wrong chapter flee from the land of the north declares the Lord so we've just discussed that 50,000 people went to Israel what about the rest were they disobedient in the time of Esther one could debate that personally I think they were but I wouldn't be dogmatic about it but it's an interesting development in the scripture that the book of Esther came about because the Jews were put through an awful lot of absolute hell when they shouldn't have even been there so great the potential extinction of Jews from Babylon or from the Persian empire the potential extinction would have come about if Haman had had his way so what happened was

[25:03] Esther came to the fore and because of her courage putting her own life at risk she was able to tell the king and Israel was delivered and that's a very very potted version but why would I think there was disobedience in this well first of all they wouldn't have suffered it if they'd been obedient but the second thing is the book itself now I need to be careful how I say this in the book of Esther you may know it as the book where God's name is not mentioned so overtly God did not put his name to what happened in the book of Esther or did he and I think this is a really this just lights me up but there are lots and lots of ways in which you can show that God has put his name in the book of Esther there are there are equidistant letter sequences that reveal his name and things like this it's a remarkable book but the one I'm going to pick this morning I'm only going to do one because we're not here to study this but I can't resist it is this in

[26:11] Revelation 1 and verse 8 Jesus refers to himself as the Alpha and the Omega well the thing is Jesus was not Greek this Alpha and Omega is Greek Jesus wasn't Greek he was a Jew so he almost certainly would have said I am the Aleph and the Tav which is the first and the last letters of the Hebrew alphabet and it wouldn't have been translated in Hebrew because everything in the New Testament was translated into Koine Greek so what he would almost certainly have said is I am the Aleph and the Tav which means what it means I am the first and the last but Aleph and Tav together or Alpha and Omega for that matter are not a word there is no word that is written Aleph Tav it's just two letters and it's only meaningful to those who understand that the Lord had referred to himself as the Aleph and the Tav if you turn to

[27:11] Isaiah 41 verse 4 I hope you're enjoying this Isaiah 41 Isaiah 41 verse 4 in fact I'll start with verse 3 because that's otherwise it makes no sense he pursues them passing on in safety by a way he had not been traversing with his feet who has performed and accomplished it calling forth the generations from the beginning I the Lord am the first and with the last I am he now when you look at that and you look at it in the original language it doesn't use Aleph Tav but it does use this phrase I am the first and the last and you'll find it almost identically written in Isaiah 44 and verse 6 so and that's in the notes so what is interesting is the ancient texts of the Tanakh that's the Old Testament including the Torah yeah the Torah and the rest of the Old Testament they contain multiple hundreds of

[28:14] Aleph Tavs and so you'll be reading a passage could I have the next one up you'll be reading a passage and if you're Hebrew you read from right to left not left to right but this passage says and this is taken from the book of Esther there are 13 occasions when this happens in the book of Esther the majority of them in chapters 4 and chapter 9 and if you're reading the passage you come you're reading along or you'll come across Aleph Tav so this one says and Mordecai told Aleph Tav him everything that had happened to him and exactly how much silver Haman had promised to put in the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews now a similar thing happens in the creation account it reads in the beginning God created the heaven Aleph Tav and the earth Aleph Tav well that's it's a bit like you know when you make a mistake on a check and you put your initial to make so that it's like

[29:16] God putting his initial on something and saying I'm interested in the earth and I'm interested in the heaven because they're mine now in this particular one God is owning or declaring his presence in Mordecai's intervention which actually saved the Jews because Mordecai spoke to Esther Esther spoke to royalty so God is putting his name to that action now I'd love to spend two sessions going through the other 13 but we won't God did put his name on this book but he did it in a clandestine way he didn't write his name large on the book of Esther which to me indicates that he didn't overtly own it all however he did put his initials on all the bits where they got delivered from the oppression that Haman was bringing and we return to that because there's at least one example of this in the book of Zechariah and that's my little aside for today but there are roughly 700 of these spread through the texts of the

[30:20] Old Testament so back to Zechariah in verse 8 I hope you share my fun in this because it's just God is amazing so in verse 8 he says after glory he has sent me against the nations which plunder you for he who touches you touches the apple or the pupil of his eye he's literally saying if you touch Israel you'll poke me in the eye I would not want to be in the shoes of those people who had said well you know God and Israel they're all done it makes him out to be a liar we've already read about eternal concerns with Israel and if you turn to don't turn now but if you go to Jeremiah 31 verse 35 or 37 not sure which God himself says that while there are still stars in the sky there will always be in Israel so we shouldn't be so dismissive in fact I would say blasphemous about his love for Israel because the degree to which he loves

[31:22] Israel with whom he has this covenant is also the degree to which he loves me and if he can just dump Israel and take on with another bride that makes God an adulterer and if he can just dump Israel and not worry about the promises he made with Israel then he doesn't have to keep his promise to me either so my security in my salvation rests with God keeping his covenants with Israel and what we learn here is that God's glory because he says he does this after glory God's glory is not what am I trying to say it's tied inextricably it's not an abstract thing it's tied inextricably to the welfare of his people Deuteronomy 32 verses 9-12 say this for the Lord's portion is his people and his people are Israel so you mess with Israel you're messing with the

[32:23] Lord's portion for the Lord's portion is his people Jacob is the allotment of his inheritance so whether they're Israel or Jacob because remember from past studies we learned that he's called Jacob when he's behaving badly and he's called Israel when he's behaving well but whether he's behaving well or badly God still loves Israel or Jacob the words Israel and Jacob are used of the man and also of the nation that descended from the man he found him in a desert land in the howling waste of a wilderness he encircled him he cared for him he guarded him as the apple of his eye or the pupil of his eye like an eagle that stirs up its nest that hovers over its young he spread his wings and caught them he carried them on his pinions the Lord alone guided him and there was no foreign God with him and I won't read on although I recommend that you do

[33:23] God describes in this passage his intense and deep love for his people so let's just let's go back to Zechariah 2 so verse 8 for thus says the Lord of hosts after glory he has sent me against the nations which plunder you for he who touches you touches the apple of his eye for behold I will wave my hand over them so that they will be plunder for their slaves then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me now what occurred to me when I read this because there is not yet a time in history when other nations have been subservient to the Jews I've not been able to find them anywhere I could be wrong but I've not been able to find it but you see if you have slaves you don't have to be a harsh slave master you can have slaves and be kind to them you can have slaves for different reasons you can have slaves because you want to develop them now if you turn to Zechariah 8 couple of pages to the right well three or four pages to the right and verse 23 verse 22 so many peoples and mighty nations will come to seek the

[34:35] Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the Lord thus says the Lord of hosts in whose days ten men from all the nations will grasp the garment of a Jew saying let us go with you for we have heard that God is with you nobody's doing that with the Jews but they will and that elevates the Jews to a place higher than other nations does it not that people will seek them out I just thought that was worth mentioning now we've never seen this to this date but I do believe it refers to the millennial kingdom slave masters don't have to be harsh but they do have to be in charge the last four verses of the chapter emphasize that Yahweh is going to dwell in the midst of his people and the hearers or readers of this word are exhorted to rejoice because the Lord Yahweh is going to possess Judah again and choose Jerusalem you may remember that in 2 chronicles 6 verse 6

[35:37] Solomon when he dedicated to the temple it is recorded there that Yahweh had chosen to have his house in Jerusalem and in his prayer of dedication and we won't turn to it this morning but if you read it in his prayer of dedication Solomon has foreseen a time when the people would be estranged from their God and he had prayed that whenever they prayed in or towards Jerusalem he would remember them and forgive and restore them and you may also recall from Daniel's book that in Daniel 6 verses 10 and 11 under threat of death he would pray towards Jerusalem every day and he was instructed if you do that you will be put to death and he did it anyway and so they chucked him into the lion's den and we all know the outcome of that the lions went hungry so Daniel's prayer was answered and the Jews were delivered from captivity while he was protected from the hungry lions so we see

[36:41] God favouring Judah favouring Israel and particularly favouring Jerusalem quick points of application the first point of application let us not be among those who denigrate Israel you might not agree with their politics you might not agree with some of the things they do but we must always recognise that they are God's people and he hasn't yet finished with them and it isn't just it's the people the land and the city all of which he has a covenant with forever so we must take care of the way in which we the shalom of Jerusalem which is only going to happen regardless of all the machinations of the politicians it's only going to happen when Jesus returns secondly we must understand that just as God has owned his people and what we've just talked about is

[37:43] God taking ownership they're his people that he loves in his land in his city and he is the one you have to deal with all that same love he also owns us probably the last verse that we'll look at today but turn to John's gospel chapter 6 and verses 37 to 40 all that the father gives me will come to me and the one who comes to me I will certainly not cast out for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me that all that he has given me I lose nothing but raise it up on the last day for this is the will of my father that everyone who belongs to the son and believes in him will have eternal life and I myself will raise him up on the last day he loves us as much as he loves the Jews and he owns us and we need to behave as if he owns us

[38:49] Yahweh wants you to turn from sin and back to him and we all have our little diversions but however diverted we are we need to return to him and that's called repentance right in Hosea it was prophesied a couple hundred years prior to what we've been reading that there would come a time when his people became not my people but in Hosea 6 restoration was available to them for them to become my people again so let's keep short accounts with God there's no point in being estranged from him for decades as often happens with people and they think they've done something well God can't reach me now I'm beyond redemption you're never beyond the redemption of God Father thank you so much for this word which has given me great excitement to study and to prepare I pray Lord that these words will dwell in our minds and our hearts for the coming week and that we will draw close to you every opportunity

[39:53]  Father I just thank you for your word in Jesus name Amen may