Podcasts about Messianic

Shirley was raised in a non-Jewish home in Texas.  However, her Grandmother was Jewish and Shirley remembers celebrating Shabbat.   She had a desire to learn more about her Jewish roots and she and her husband started attending a Messianic congregation in Austin. The moment she entered, she felt like she was at home. Shirley became a widow five years ago and has remained active in the congregation. Her family knows she is a prayer warrior and Shirley‘s greatest desire is to make a positive impression on others so they will see Yeshua in her.

Segment 1 • Jonathan asks: “What should I find out before dating a Messianic Jew who believes in Jesus but still practices Jewish traditions?” • Ryan wrestles with a difficult church decision: When does weak preaching become a reason to leave? • Anonymous asks how a wife can biblically submit when her husband's financial decisions are leading the family deeper into debt. Segment 2 • Todd continues to address the question from the previous segment regarding biblical submission when a husband's spending habits seem reckless? Segment 3 • Tom asks a heartbreaking question: Does chronic illness make me a sluggard in God's eyes? Segment 4 • Joe wonders if a Christian can truly be saved while feeling little or no joy because of a medical condition and medication side effects. • Anonymous asks whether Bible quizzing helps children treasure Scripture or risks turning God's Word into a competition. • Steve discovers his church is pre-tribulational, pre-millennial, and dispensational—and wonders what that really means. • Anonymous asks a sensitive church question: How should congregations care for worshipers with disruptive Tourette's syndrome without excluding them? ___ Thanks for listening! Wretched Radio would not be possible without the financial support of our Gospel Partners. If you would like to support Wretched Radio we would be extremely grateful. VISIT https://fortisinstitute.org/donate/ If you are already a Gospel Partner we couldn't be more thankful for you if we tried!

Monte Judah examines President Trump's proposed agreement with Iran, Israel's growing isolation, Temple Mount developments, and escalating tensions throughout the Middle East from a biblical prophetic perspective.00:00 Introduction & Headlines00:40 Trump's Iran MOU Announcement02:45 Terms of the Proposed Agreement04:10 Strait of Hormuz Escalation05:40 Military Responses from the U.S. & Israel07:00 Iran's Position on the Agreement08:15 Analysis of the MOU10:50 Biblical Perspective from Jeremiah 1712:10 Haredi Protests in Israel13:00 Hezbollah & Northern Border Conflict14:00 Judea and Samaria Developments15:00 Temple Mount Tensions16:00 Ministry Updates & ClosingStay connected with Lion and Lamb Ministries and deepen your understanding of God's prophetic plan.Watch exclusive teachings, weekly updates, Bible studies, and original programming at:https://lionandlamb.tvExplore Monte Judah's books and teaching resources:https://www.messianicmarketplace.org/collections/monte-judahVisit the Messianic Marketplace:https://www.messianicmarketplace.org/Learn more about Lion and Lamb Ministries:https://www.lionandlambministries.org/Discover The Greater Exodus teaching series:https://thegreaterexodus.com/Subscribe to Yavoh Magazine:https://www.yavohmagazine.com/If these teachings bless you, please consider supporting the ministry and helping us continue proclaiming the Gospel, teaching Torah, and sharing prophetic truth around the world:www.LLGive.comThank you for standing with Lion and Lamb Ministries.

John McKee discusses the development of our ministry's first Practical Messianic commentary: Galatians. Originally released in 2004, it has undergone several significant revisions and expansions.

Messianic Apologetics editor John McKee surveys the Book of Joshua from a Messianic perspective.

Messianic Apologetics editor John McKee reviews the one, ongoing significant area, where the Messianic community just cannot seem to have proper resolution: our identity. There are doubtlessly distinctions between Jewish and non-Jewish Believers, just as there are males and females. But are our individual identities to be more important and significant, than our identity in the salvation of Yeshua the Messiah?

Receiving Divine Influx

Many Messianic people are of the conviction that today's Messianic movement is a great deal like the First Century ekklesia. Was it actually a stable faith community, or one riddled with problems and challenges

Receiving Divine Influx

In this opening lesson of the Gate of Repentance (Shaar HaTeshuvah) from Orchot Tzaddikim, Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe explains that repentance is one of the greatest gifts Hashem ever gave humanity. As we approach Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the message is clear: no matter how far a person has strayed, the moment they sincerely turn back toward Hashem, they are welcomed with open arms. Repentance is not about perfection—it is about reaching out for Divine help and allowing Hashem to lift us from our mistakes and guide us toward a fresh beginning. The episode explores a remarkable Talmudic teaching that Teshuvah reaches all the way to the Heavenly Throne of Glory. Through a vivid description of Moshe ascending the seven firmaments, Rabbi Wolbe explains how each level of Heaven praises a different spiritual ideal, yet at the highest level the angels praise repentance. This demonstrates that teshuvah is among the most elevated forces in creation. In fact, the Talmud teaches that repentance was created before the world itself, alongside the Torah, Gan Eden, Gehenom, the Beis HaMikdash, the Throne of Glory, and the name of Mashiach. Rabbi Wolbe further explains that the Torah is the instruction manual for life. Just as every complex creation requires a blueprint, the world was created with a Divine manual to guide humanity toward success. Since human beings inevitably make mistakes, Hashem created repentance before creation itself, ensuring that failure would never be final. The lesson is one of hope, accountability, and optimism: every person can return, repair, and grow. The episode concludes with a vision of the Messianic era, when the world will be filled with Divine wisdom and clarity, and humanity will fully recognize its purpose—to know Hashem and serve Him. _____________This Podcast Series is Generously Underwritten by Peter & Becky BotvinRecorded at TORCH Centre in the Levin Family Studios (B) to a live audience on September 8, 2025, in Houston, Texas.Released as Podcast on June 7, 2026_____________This series on Orchos Tzadikim/Ways of the Righteous is produced in partnership with Hachzek.Join the revolution of daily Mussar study at hachzek.com.We are using the Treasure of Life edition of the Orchos Tzadikkim (Published by Feldheim)_____________Listen, Subscribe & Share: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jewish-inspiration-podcast-rabbi-aryeh-wolbe/id1476610783Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4r0KfjMzmCNQbiNaZBCSU7) to stay inspired! Share your questions at aw@torchweb.org or visit torchweb.org for more Torah content.  _____________About the Host:Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe, Director of TORCH in Houston, brings decades of Torah scholarship to guide listeners in applying Jewish wisdom to daily life.  To directly send your questions, comments, and feedback, please email: awolbe@torchweb.org_____________Support Our Mission:Our Mission is Connecting Jews & Judaism. Help us spread Judaism globally by sponsoring an episode at torchweb.org.Your support makes a HUGE difference!_____________Listen MoreOther podcasts by Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe: NEW!! Hey Rabbi! Podcast: https://heyrabbi.transistor.fm/episodesPrayer Podcast: https://prayerpodcast.transistor.fm/episodesJewish Inspiration Podcast: https://inspiration.transistor.fm/episodesParsha Review Podcast: https://parsha.transistor.fm/episodesLiving Jewishly Podcast: https://jewishly.transistor.fm/episodesThinking Talmudist Podcast: https://talmud.transistor.fm/episodesUnboxing Judaism Podcast: https://unboxing.transistor.fm/episodesRabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection: https://collection.transistor.fm/episodesFor a full listing of podcasts available by TORCH at http://podcast.torchweb.orgv_____________Keywords:#JewishInspiration, #Mussar, #MasterClass, #Repentance, #Teshuva, #YomKippur, #NewBeginning, #Growth, #Return, #Elul, #MessianicEra, #GrowthMindset ★ Support this podcast ★

In this opening lesson of the Gate of Repentance (Shaar HaTeshuvah) from Orchot Tzaddikim, Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe explains that repentance is one of the greatest gifts Hashem ever gave humanity. As we approach Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the message is clear: no matter how far a person has strayed, the moment they sincerely turn back toward Hashem, they are welcomed with open arms. Repentance is not about perfection—it is about reaching out for Divine help and allowing Hashem to lift us from our mistakes and guide us toward a fresh beginning. The episode explores a remarkable Talmudic teaching that Teshuvah reaches all the way to the Heavenly Throne of Glory. Through a vivid description of Moshe ascending the seven firmaments, Rabbi Wolbe explains how each level of Heaven praises a different spiritual ideal, yet at the highest level the angels praise repentance. This demonstrates that teshuvah is among the most elevated forces in creation. In fact, the Talmud teaches that repentance was created before the world itself, alongside the Torah, Gan Eden, Gehenom, the Beis HaMikdash, the Throne of Glory, and the name of Mashiach. Rabbi Wolbe further explains that the Torah is the instruction manual for life. Just as every complex creation requires a blueprint, the world was created with a Divine manual to guide humanity toward success. Since human beings inevitably make mistakes, Hashem created repentance before creation itself, ensuring that failure would never be final. The lesson is one of hope, accountability, and optimism: every person can return, repair, and grow. The episode concludes with a vision of the Messianic era, when the world will be filled with Divine wisdom and clarity, and humanity will fully recognize its purpose—to know Hashem and serve Him. _____________This Podcast Series is Generously Underwritten by Peter & Becky BotvinRecorded at TORCH Centre in the Levin Family Studios (B) to a live audience on September 8, 2025, in Houston, Texas.Released as Podcast on June 8, 2026_____________This series on Orchos Tzadikim/Ways of the Righteous is produced in partnership with Hachzek.Join the revolution of daily Mussar study at hachzek.com.We are using the Treasure of Life edition of the Orchos Tzadikkim (Published by Feldheim)_____________Listen, Subscribe & Share: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jewish-inspiration-podcast-rabbi-aryeh-wolbe/id1476610783Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4r0KfjMzmCNQbiNaZBCSU7) to stay inspired! Share your questions at aw@torchweb.org or visit torchweb.org for more Torah content.  _____________About the Host:Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe, Director of TORCH in Houston, brings decades of Torah scholarship to guide listeners in applying Jewish wisdom to daily life.  To directly send your questions, comments, and feedback, please email: awolbe@torchweb.org_____________Support Our Mission:Our Mission is Connecting Jews & Judaism. Help us spread Judaism globally by sponsoring an episode at torchweb.org.Your support makes a HUGE difference!_____________Listen MoreOther podcasts by Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe: NEW!! Hey Rabbi! Podcast: https://heyrabbi.transistor.fm/episodesPrayer Podcast: https://prayerpodcast.transistor.fm/episodesJewish Inspiration Podcast: https://inspiration.transistor.fm/episodesParsha Review Podcast: https://parsha.transistor.fm/episodesLiving Jewishly Podcast: https://jewishly.transistor.fm/episodesThinking Talmudist Podcast: https://talmud.transistor.fm/episodesUnboxing Judaism Podcast: https://unboxing.transistor.fm/episodesRabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection: https://collection.transistor.fm/episodesFor a full listing of podcasts available by TORCH at http://podcast.torchweb.orgv_____________Keywords:#JewishInspiration, #Mussar, #MasterClass, #Repentance, #Teshuva, #YomKippur, #NewBeginning, #Growth, #Return, #Elul, #MessianicEra, #GrowthMindset ★ Support this podcast ★

Toni Bogart currently serves as a producer researcher at Sid Roth Ministries, bringing a wealth of insight and experience to her impactful work in media. As a Messianic believer who deeply loves God and people, her life and career are firmly rooted in her faith and a passion for ministry. With over forty years of professional accomplishments, Toni is a gifted worship leader and keyboardist who previously shared her talents as an inspirational PTL singer. She is also a dynamic keynote speaker who uniquely balances her vibrant creative spirit with a sharp acumen for business. Throughout her diverse journey, Toni remains dedicated to using her multi-faceted gifts to inspire others and lead them into the presence of God.

KINGDOM LIFE EMPOWERMENT CONFERENCE -DR OKEY ONUZO - DAY7

John McKee discusses the development of our ministry's first Helper series volume, the Messianic Winter Holiday Helper, and how it logically led to the release of additional resources.

Messianic Apologetics editor John McKee surveys the Book of Deuteronomy from a Messianic perspective.

Welcome to the second Messianic Checkpoint! Jeff Cavins joins Fr. Mike to introduce the Gospel of Mark and discuss how this short Gospel helps us understand both the identity and mission of Jesus. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

On today's Bible Answer Man broadcast (06/03/26), Hank discusses the seven attributes of identification that point directly to Jesus as the fulfillment of Messianic prophecy as laid out in the booklet, Jesus: The Superstar of Biblical Prophecy.Hank also answers the following questions:Were miracles in the New Testament real events, or just spiritual allegories and metaphors? Alec - Fredericktown, OH (7:09)It seems every few years there are new English translations published; why are there so many versions? George - San Francisco, CA (16:02)If God is infinite, how can He know everything in His mind if that knowledge is also infinite? Albert - Anderson, CA (19:07)What do Jehovah's Witnesses believe about hell? James - Lebanon, MO (21:47)

Messianic Apologetics editor John McKee discusses some of the changing dynamics of the Messianic spectrum. We commonly call ourselves part of “the end-time move of God,” but how many people actually believe it, or are willing to evaluate what this might involve? Are things not as ideal as we think they should be, precisely because we have a unique role to play in a future—too many are afraid of?

Attaining Divine Inspiration

In this episode I explore an easily-overlooked text with surprising political implications. In Romans 8:29-30, Paul claims that we were “predestined to become conformed to the Image of His Son” and that because of this will have been “glorified”. What does Paul mean? In her book Conformed to the Image of His Son, Dr. Haley Goranson Jacob argues that Paul is claiming believers are conformed to Jesus's status and  function as the Son of God who rules over creation, and that our glorification denotes a sharing in that rule. She explains how ‘glory' when applied to humans in the Greek Old Testament regularly denotes power, authority, and dominion, that the restoration of human glory is an important subtheme in Romans 5-8, and that the sharing in Christ's inheritance which Paul articulates in Romans 8:12-17 is a participation in his rule. The language of ‘image' in Romans 8:29 is evocative of Genesis 1 and Psalm 8, where humans are, as God's image-bearers, given dominion over His creation, and since Jesus now rules are king over all creation his family, defined by faith and the Spirit, participate in that rule. The political implications are significant; I discuss how the church is God's set-apart family and that we are given the task of and empowered to rule over creation, which we must do in conformity with the crucified Messiah. The church exercises political power, but the political power must be cruciform and congruent with Christ's Messianic reign. I also discuss how passages like this should be brought into the conversation about the Bible and politics.  Media Referenced:            Ephesians 1 Episode: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-248-far-above-all-rule-and-authority-ephesians-115-23/ Philippians 2 Episode: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-248-far-above-all-rule-and-authority-ephesians-115-23/ Galatians 4 w/ Cody Cook: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-245-galatians-41-7-and-deliverance-from-this-evil-age-with-cody-cook/ Liberty and Authority: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-184-liberty-authority-and-the-political-spectrum/  The Protestant Libertarian Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and a part of the Christians For Liberty Network. The Libertarian Christian Institute can be found at www.libertarianchristians.com.Questions, comments, suggestions? Please reach out to me at theprotestantlibertarian@gmail.com.  You can also follow the podcast on Twitter: @prolibertypod, and YouTube, @ProLibertyPod, where you will get shorts and other exclusive video content. For more about the show, you can go to theprotestantlibertarianpodcast.com. If you like the show and want to support it, you can! Go to libertarianchristians.com, where you can donate to LCI and buy The Protestant Libertarian Podcast Merch! Also, please consider giving me a star rating and leaving me a review, it really helps expand the show's profile! Thanks!

Attaining Divine Inspiration

Are you tired of the cultural narrative that we are all just accidental bioproducts in a meaningless universe? The latest episode of Anchored by Truth dismantles worldly fatalism by exploring the deeper theological meaning behind Crystal Sea's powerful song, Revelation Rider. Through a detailed discussion of fulfilled biblical prophecy, hosts R.D. Fierro and Victoria K. reveal how God has intentionally steered human history from the very beginning. By examining the stark contrast between Christ's humble first coming in an unimportant town and His triumphant final return, this episode provides a solid anchor for anyone searching for ultimate purpose and victory in a world full of woe. -- The Mystery of Faith: Exploring why the foundational declaration of Christ's death, resurrection, and return is the absolute anchor of Christian hope. -- A Sovereign Design: Understanding how the certain return of Jesus proves that human history is moving toward a precise, divinely determined destination rather than a random end. -- From Bethlehem to Egypt: A historical look at Herod's failed attempts to thwart the Messianic line, and how his brutality unintentionally fulfilled ancient prophecies. -- The Value of the Hidden Gifts: The surprising historical worth of frankincense and myrrh, and how God provided the exact financial resources the holy family needed for exile. -- The Despised Town: Why Jesus spent 30 years in Nazareth, proving that God's value system prioritizes humility and faithfulness over worldly status and grandeur. -- Seamless Coherence: Analyzing the remarkable unity of Scripture, which contains over 60,000 internal connections woven together by dozens of authors across 1,500 years. Scriptures for Further Study -- Luke 1:26-28 -- Romans 8:37 -- 1 Timothy 3:9 -- Revelation 19:11-14 -- John 1:1 -- Revelation 22:12-13 -- Matthew 2:7-11 -- Jeremiah 31:15 -- Hosea 11:11 -- Matthew 2:15 -- Matthew 2:19-23 -- John 1:43-45 This is episode 371. +++++++ You can find more information here: http://www.crystalseabooks.com/

April 25, 2026 - Equipped 2026 - Day 3 - 10:00 AM Session   Text Questions:  Is Genesis 3:15 The First Messianic Prophesy? - Bart Warren   A rigorous theological analysis arguing that Genesis 3:15 is the “protoevangelium”—the first gospel and first messianic prophecy—grounding the claim in narrative context, Hebrew linguistic features, cross-textual biblical themes, and historical reception. The talk concludes that the verse promises a human deliverer who will be wounded yet ultimately triumph over the serpent (Satan), restoring hope and access to life through Christ's victory.   Duration 41:18

Monte Judah analyzes the confusing "cease-fire" actions between the U.S. and Iran, Israel's intensifying campaigns against Hezbollah and Hamas, and internal political shifts within Israel regarding the Haredim.00:00 - Broadcast Begin: Mid-East Tensions Flare 02:10 - Naval Engagements & Drone Interceptions in the Gulf 05:15 - Escalation Under the Guise of Diplomacy 07:30 - Ground and Air Campaigns in Southern Lebanon and Beirut 10:05 - Targeting Hamas Leaders and Financial Networks 12:20 - Political Fractures Inside Israel's Knesset 14:45 - Trump's Impending Iran Deal & Internal Cabinet Divides 17:10 - Prophetic Implications of Current Cease-Fire Agreements 18:25 - Lion & Lamb Ministries Announcements Stay connected with the truth of God's Word and stay informed on how current world events align with biblical prophecy. Stream all of our commercial-free video content, teachings, and weekly broadcasts directly by subscribing to Lion and Lamb TV.Main Ministry Website: Discover articles, television broadcast schedules, and foundational prophetic teachings at Lion & Lamb Ministries.Messianic Marketplace: Find solid biblical resources, books, commentary, and media bundles to enrich your study library at the Messianic Marketplace.Monte Judah Collection: Access specific, curated teachings and theological insights directly from Monte Judah via the Monte Judah Marketplace Collection.Yavoh Magazine: Read our free monthly prophetic publication in digital format or sign up for print delivery at Yavoh Magazine.The Greater Exodus: Dive deeper into the prophetic truths surrounding Israel's future and the end-of-days alignment at The Greater Exodus.Support the work of this ministry by making a secure, tax-deductible donation today at LLGive.com.

Messianic Apologetics editor John McKee reviews how far too many of us in our lives, wait for something big or dramatic to occur, in order for God to get our attention. How much of a blessing is it, really, to have a time of peace and tranquility, to do the necessary work or make the necessary changes, before something big or dramatic takes place?

Steve Stockton welcomes back Pastors Eric and Justin from Sound the Shofar Messianic Ministries for a continued discussion on the occult influence in rock music. Find them on the web: https://www.facebook.com/groups/123168699032724Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/missing-persons-mysteries--5624803/support.

Mary Kissel warns that prioritizing the Strait of Hormuz over dismantling Iran's nuclear program lacks necessary strategic leverage. She stresses the danger of a messianic regime partnering with major powers like China and Russia. (5)1919 GERMAN DELEGATION

Join Rabbi as he defines 8 prophetic Messianic revelations that define Jesus as the Messiah. **** BECOME A MONTHLY PARTNER - https://djj.show/YTAPartner  **** DONATE - https://djj.show/YTADonate  **** TEACHING NOTES -  https://djj.show/7vy 

Venture into the shadowy realms of power and secrecy with Already Dead, where hosts Jose Galison (@towergangjose) and Austin Picard (@theatrethugawp) dissect the intricate web of conspiracy, covert operations, and the underlying political machinations that might just be pulling the strings of our society.What to Expect: Live Listener Interaction: Call in to share your theories, ask burning questions, or discuss personal experiences related to the topics at hand. In-Depth Explorations: Each episode focuses on a different conspiracy or hidden aspect of political history, offering a platform to question and analyze what's often left unsaid. Thought-Provoking Guests: We invite individuals with insider knowledge or those who've taken the red pill to discuss topics that range from the fringe to the forefront of conspiracy culture. Critical Analysis of Current Affairs: We don't just report on events; we interpret them through the lens of parapolitics, looking for patterns and hidden agendas.Join Us: Every Tuesday at 9:30 PM ET, dive into the depths of the unknown with us. Subscribe, participate in our live call-ins, and be part of a community that seeks to understand the world beyond the surface narrative.Disclaimer: This podcast thrives on speculation, hypothesis, and the examination of alternative theories. It's meant to provoke thought and encourage personal research. Not all discussed is proven fact, but rather a call to question, explore, and understand.Warning: For those not ready to challenge their worldview, tread carefully. Once you enter the world of Already Dead, you might find that the truth is often already dead to the uninitiated. Welcome aboard, where curiosity is your guide.Please consider supporting our work- Austin's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/TheUnderclassPodcastAustin's Spreaker: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-underclass-podcast--6511540Austin's Rumble: https://rumble.com/user/TheUnderclassPodcastAustin's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheUnderclassPodcast#AntiTechExtremism #TotalitarianTechnocraticTakeover #BraveNewWorld #DystopianAIInfrastructure #ProjectStargate #AIDataCenterProliferation #NationalSecurityPresidentialMemorandum7 #CounterterrorismStrategy #FlockSafetyPSYOP #MassSurveillanceState #KimKardashianCocaineSmuggler #SKIMSDrugTrafficking #BalenciagaSatanicFashionLine #KenPaxtonPedoProtector #PedophileOccupiedGovernment #TheAbrahamAccords #DisingenuousPeaceProposal #IsraelAttacksLebanon #IsraelLebanonEscalation #TrumpsMessianicProcessBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-underclass-podcast--6511540/support.

Venture into the shadowy realms of power and secrecy with Already Dead, where hosts Jose Galison (@towergangjose) and Austin Picard (@theatrethugawp) dissect the intricate web of conspiracy, covert operations, and the underlying political machinations that might just be pulling the strings of our society.What to Expect:Live Listener Interaction: Call in to share your theories, ask burning questions, or discuss personal experiences related to the topics at hand.In-Depth Explorations: Each episode focuses on a different conspiracy or hidden aspect of political history, offering a platform to question and analyze what's often left unsaid.Thought-Provoking Guests: We invite individuals with insider knowledge or those who've taken the red pill to discuss topics that range from the fringe to the forefront of conspiracy culture.Critical Analysis of Current Affairs: We don't just report on events; we interpret them through the lens of parapolitics, looking for patterns and hidden agendas.Join Us: Every Tuesday at 9:30 PM ET, dive into the depths of the unknown with us. Subscribe, participate in our live call-ins, and be part of a community that seeks to understand the world beyond the surface narrative.Disclaimer: This podcast thrives on speculation, hypothesis, and the examination of alternative theories. It's meant to provoke thought and encourage personal research. Not all discussed is proven fact, but rather a call to question, explore, and understand. Warning: For those not ready to challenge their worldview, tread carefully. Once you enter the world of Already Dead, you might find that the truth is often already dead to the uninitiated. Welcome aboard, where curiosity is your guide.Please consider supporting my work- Patreon- https://www.patreon.com/nowayjose2020Only costs $2/month and will get you access to episodes earlier than the public No Way, Jose! Rumble Channel- https://rumble.com/c/c-3379274 No Way, Jose! YouTube Channel- https://youtube.com/channel/UCzyrpy3eo37eiRTq0cXff0gMy Podcast Host- https://redcircle.com/shows/no-way-joseApple podcasts- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/no-way-jose/id1546040443Spotify- https://open.spotify.com/show/0xUIH4pZ0tM1UxARxPe6ThStitcher- https://www.stitcher.com/show/no-way-jose-2Amazon Music- https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/41237e28-c365-491c-9a31-2c6ef874d89d/No-Way-JoseGoogle Podcasts- https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5yZWRjaXJjbGUuY29tL2ZkM2JkYTE3LTg2OTEtNDc5Ny05Mzc2LTc1M2ExZTE4NGQ5Yw%3D%3DRadioPublic- https://radiopublic.com/no-way-jose-6p1BAO Vurbl- https://vurbl.com/station/4qHi6pyWP9B/Feel free to contact me at thelibertymovementglobal@gmail.com#AntiTechExtremism #TotalitarianTechnocraticTakeover #BraveNewWorld #DystopianAIInfrastructure #ProjectStargate #AIDataCenterProliferation #NationalSecurityPresidentialMemorandum7 #CounterterrorismStrategy #FlockSafetyPSYOP #MassSurveillanceState #KimKardashianCocaineSmuggler #SKIMSDrugTrafficking #BalenciagaSatanicFashionLine #KenPaxtonPedoProtector #PedophileOccupiedGovernment #TheAbrahamAccords #DisingenuousPeaceProposal #IsraelAttacksLebanon #IsraelLebanonEscalation #TrumpsMessianicProcess

Messianic Apologetics editor John McKee surveys the Book of Numbers from a Messianic perspective.

God Destroys Israel's Enemies

Are you aware that there is a significant aspect of theology which directly affects Jewish outreach and evangelism, yet it is scarcely even acknowledged by today's Messianic movement?

God Destroys Israel's Enemies

In this profound exploration of Matthew 22:1-14, we examine Jesus's parable of the wedding feast—one of the most theologically dense teachings in Scripture. This parable reveals the magnificent scope of God's gospel invitation extended to all humanity, the tragic reality of human rejection, and the sovereign grace that ensures God's purposes will not be thwarted. Through the imagery of a royal wedding banquet, Jesus addresses the religious leaders who challenged His authority while simultaneously unveiling timeless truths about salvation, election, and the nature of the Church. This episode unpacks the parable's layers of meaning, from the universal call of the gospel to the particular grace of election, equipping believers to understand both the urgency and the sovereignty of God's redemptive work. Key Takeaways The Universal Gospel Call Is Genuine and Urgent: God's invitation to salvation goes out indiscriminately to all people, regardless of ethnicity, social status, or moral condition. This external call is sincere, well-meant, and accompanied by genuine offers of grace. Human Rejection Is Willful and Culpable: The parable demonstrates that humanity's refusal of God's invitation is not due to insufficient information but to volitional rebellion. This rejection often progresses from indifference to active hostility against God and His messengers. God's Sovereign Purposes Cannot Be Frustrated: Despite widespread rejection, the wedding hall will be filled. God's redemptive plan includes the expansion of His covenant community beyond ethnic Israel to include Gentiles from every nation. The Wedding Garment Represents Imputed Righteousness: The garment required for the feast symbolizes the righteousness of Christ, received by faith alone, not earned through human effort. This illustrates the doctrine of justification by grace through faith. The Visible Church Contains Both Genuine and False Believers: The parable warns that not all who hear the gospel and enter the visible church possess true saving faith, distinguishing between the external call and the internal, effectual work of the Spirit. Eternal Punishment Is Real and Conscious: The parable's conclusion soberly affirms the doctrine of eternal, conscious punishment for those who reject Christ, depicted as "outer darkness" with "weeping and gnashing of teeth." "Many Are Called, But Few Are Chosen": This foundational statement maintains the biblical tension between the universal external call of the gospel and the particular, effectual call of God that sovereignly draws the elect to salvation. Key Concepts The Nature of the Gospel Call: External and Effectual Reformed theology has carefully distinguished between two aspects of God's call. The external or general call is the sincere proclamation of the gospel to all without distinction, inviting everyone to faith and repentance. This call is genuine on God's part—He truly offers salvation to all who hear. However, due to total depravity, the natural person will not respond to this call on their own. The internal or effectual call is the sovereign, irresistible work of the Holy Spirit by which the elect are regenerated, have their wills renewed, and are infallibly brought to saving faith. This distinction preserves both human responsibility (we are culpable for rejecting a genuine offer) and divine sovereignty (God alone saves by His grace). The parable beautifully illustrates both realities: servants genuinely invite all they find on the highways, yet the King ultimately determines who is properly clothed for the feast. The Wedding Garment and Justification by Faith Alone The wedding garment represents one of the parable's most critical theological elements. In ancient Near Eastern culture, hosts often provided garments for wedding guests, making the lack of proper attire inexcusable. Theologically, this garment symbolizes the righteousness of Christ imputed to believers—a righteousness not produced by human effort but received through faith alone. This directly confronts any notion of works-righteousness or the idea that we can stand before God based on our own moral achievements, religious observances, or church membership. The man without the garment represents those who presume to approach God on the basis of their own righteousness rather than Christ's alien righteousness. His speechlessness before judgment illustrates that on the last day, no one will successfully argue their case on grounds of personal merit. This underscores the Reformation principle of sola gratia and sola fide—salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, clothing us in a righteousness that is entirely Christ's. The Tension Between Universal Call and Particular Election The parable's conclusion—"many are called, but few are chosen"—encapsulates one of theology's profound mysteries. This statement places two realities side by side without resolving the tension philosophically. The invitation truly goes to all (universal call), yet only some respond savingly (particular election). Reformed theology maintains this biblical tension rather than collapsing it in either direction. We don't limit the external call only to the elect (hyper-Calvinism), nor do we make the internal call dependent solely on human decision (Arminianism). Instead, we affirm that the gospel invitation is genuinely universal while the effectual drawing is sovereignly particular. This means Christians can proclaim unreservedly, "Christ has died for you" to any person, knowing the offer is sincere, while simultaneously trusting that God will infallibly save all His elect through that proclamation. Memorable Quotes "The most scandalous and tragic thing that could happen at a wedding or a wedding banquet is that nobody shows up. The guests don't come. Or in fact, not only do they not come, they don't want to come—they burn the invitations." "You don't bring anything to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary." "Many a man in this world will silence his own conscience with many a fair excuse. But in that day, there will be no excuse, no plea, no delay." - William Perkins Full Episode Transcript [00:00:58] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 493 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse, and this is the podcast where we will talk about every single parable. Hey, brothers and sisters. So when was the last time that you were at a wedding? I think weddings are one of the most glorious of all kinds of human events and celebrations, and I think the solemness of the vows and the promises that are exchanged between a man and a woman in marriage in that ceremony, or maybe only equaled by the joy of those same vows and promises. And of course, the whole point of coming together to celebrate a, a wedding. Is to make that joy consummate and complete by having others participate in it. The seeing the union of a man and a woman become one, the excitement of that love expressed in promise and commitment. It's an incredible thing. And I was thinking about this recently because our wedding invitation is actually framed in, in our living room because one of the guests that we invited gave that to us as a really thoughtful gift. And so our wedding ceremony and the party that followed, and it was a. Amazing and awesome party, especially thanks to my in-laws and my parents who generously made sure that that was possible was an exceptional event that we still talk about all the time. Actually, you know, in my wedding when we had this grand kind of wedding banquet afterwards, we had a friend of ours who actually performed the song that we danced to on grand piano and sang for us, which is amazing. We had a DJ in one room and we had a live jazz band in another, and I specifically recall. That when we left late in the evening, my new wife and I, that there were still people on the dance floor having a good time. And I thought, this is the way it's supposed to be. I mean, this is a wedding. This is a wedding banquet. [00:02:58] Why No One Comes [00:02:58] Jesse Schwamb: And so it also made me think recently, especially as we find ourselves in Matthew chapter 22, continuing to look at all these incredible parables that Jesus gives to us, that perhaps the most scandalous and tragic thing that could happen at a wedding or a wedding banquet is that nobody shows up. The guests don't come. Or in fact, like not only do they not come, they don't want to come, they burn the invitations. They wanna have nothing to do with the celebration or the ceremony itself. And so Jesus has been doing all of this teaching that we've been tracking, and he's been responding to these leaders in the Jewish community, the people we call the Pharisees and the scribes who have challenged his authority. And he's been progressing in the way that he's almost ratcheting up the language that he's using, the indictments that he's bringing to them. And now he's about to bring in weddings and specifically the wedding banquet. And that is where we're gonna find ourselves in a Matthew Chapter 22. Now, by the way, I should also mention that because my wife is super popular lady and super lovable. We had a pretty large wedding. I think we had over 200 guests, and so. Because my father-in-law is retired military, we were actually able to have our whole wedding banquet, our whole celebration and party on a local army base. But because of that, it meant that before you could actually get onto the base, all of our guests. Had to be searched. So it's nothing like, you know, basically just shaken down your wedding guests before they show up. So that also was super fun.  [00:04:32] Reading Matthew 22 [00:04:32] Jesse Schwamb: But let's go to the scriptures, everybody. So here's Matthew chapter 22. Uh, listen to this as we take a look at what Jesus has to say and why he brings in weddings. Actually, it might be helpful to say or to give you something, rather to listen to or listen for before you even hear me read the scriptures because. This parable of this wedding banquet, it is definitely one of the most theologically dense parables in the entire synaptic tradition. It is set like we've been saying within the final week of Jesus' ministry in Jerusalem, and it's embedded in the sequence of confrontational exchanges that he's having with the Jewish leadership because they have challenged his authority. And so as you listen to this being read, I want you to clue in, key in as they say to a couple of things. See if you can find the, like the Christological proclamation in this. There's a, a covenantal poll. I think there's some sociological instruction and there's an eschatological warning. All of this happens as is Jesus's jam in the short span of several verses where he illuminates all of these principles of the sovereign grace of God and the summons of the gospel. Total depravity and culpability of this, these rebellious people who refuse the call, the historical judgment of God upon the covenant breaking Israel. And then of course, the subsequent expansion of that covenant into the community include to include the Gentiles. All of this is happening. In this parable, and so I want you just to listen for that as we together read. Or in my case, I guess I just read, especially if you're driving, do not read the parable that begins in the first part of Matthew chapter 22. Here's the word of God. And Jesus answered and spoke to them again in parables saying The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and he sent out his slaves to call those who had been called to the wedding feast and they were unwilling to come again. He sent out other slaves saying, tell those who have been called. Behold. I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fon livestock are all butchered and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast. But they paid no attention and went their way, one to his farm, another to his business, and the rest seized the slaves and mistreated them and killed them. But the king was enraged and he sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire. Then he said to his slaves, the wedding is ready, but those who were called were not worthy. Go, therefore, to the main highways and as many as you find there, call to the wedding feast. And those slaves went out into the streets and gathered together all they found both evil and good, and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests. But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw a man there who is not dressed in wedding clothes, and he said to him, friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes? And the man was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, bind him hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth for many are called, but few are chosen.  [00:07:50] Parable Context [00:07:50] Jesse Schwamb: Wow. So what an incredible. Story, what an incredible foundation or rubric or context in which so many rich theological concepts and pastoral concepts, doctrinal concepts are given to us from Jesus. And you'll notice that of course, chronologically here, this parable is following the parable of the two sons and the parable of the wicked tenants. Those are the vine growers that we were talking about over the last several episodes. And this one rounds everything out. It forms like a triptych of rejection parables directed against these chief priests and the Pharisees who keep coming after Jesus and his authority. And Matthew signals this kind of escalating tension. The Jewish leaders are now explicitly seeking to arrest Jesus. And Jesus responds not by treating their, not by retreating, of course, but by intensifying his indictment in this parabolic form. And here's where we arrive in Matthew 22. It's interesting to me, of course, that this is the approach that Jesus takes. He has already conveyed these two great stories, and at the end of the last one, Tony and I spoke about how this was where at least Matthew explains to us very directly that the, the Pharisees and the scribes, they understood, they discerned that Jesus was speaking about them, and yet Jesus says, I'm not done yet. I've got one more. And this is the culmination of all the things that he's been saying. And it starts again in verse one with Jesus saying, and again, he spoke to them in a parable. You know, it signals that the parable itself is still a reply. Not to a verbal question at this immediate moment, but to this ongoing posture of rejection exhibited by the religious leaders. You notice that what Matthew says here is very, I think, theologically significant in light of where Jesus explains that the parables both reveal and they conceal their instruments of divine judgment upon heart and hearts, even as they illuminate those with ears to hear. This is why I think it's just so important that as Christians. Even as we study God's word, as we participate in it, so to speak, as we let it read us, that we come with this posture of prayer, that we desperately need God's Holy, holy, holy Spirit to illuminate for us what the scriptures say, to lead us into the paths of righteousness and judgment, which are present in the scriptures, so that we may understand them with these spirit-filled eyes, with a spirit enabled brain with ears that have been unstopped by the spirit. So these parables are the mode by which Christ simultaneously honors and judges his audience. He shows indirectly what it would've been of no use to state plainly. And so the parable form itself is really part of the message here. I think that's something hopefully you picked up as we've been processing them all together, that Jesus opponents cannot arrest what they cannot fully comprehend, yet their incomprehension is itself their condemnation, right? This is, this is the mystery. Of the gospel of what God does, where there is this outward and full unbiased external call, and yet there is something that is efficacious by the power of the Holy Spirit for those whom God has chosen and called to himself so reformed to eus. Are attentive to the authorial intent in historical situatedness of each thing that Jesus says. That's one of the things I think is great about the way in which we kind of have organized our theological perspective and these parables function as a prophetic oracle of judgment. And certainly that's like in an Old Testament accent. I mean, that's the Old Testament jam. It's an Old Testament lawsuit kind of John. It's like law and order. If law and order were Moses, were doing it right. So notice that again, as Tony and I've said so many times before, what I kind of always find so phenomenal about these parables is that often we think of parables as having the main object of being a noun of some kind. It's a person, it's a place. It's a thing that is sometimes the case, but more often than not, it's one of those nouns associated with a verb.  [00:11:59] Kingdom And The King [00:11:59] Jesse Schwamb: And so we get that in verse two. The kingdom of heaven may be compared to what? To a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. And so it implies that the kingdom is being revealed and likened in a definitive act. We got verbs, loved ones. This is the classic. The ultimate, God does all the verbs because you're gonna hear her over and over again. God is going out. God is giving. God is seeking. God is going after, and these verbs are really the center of the parable itself. It's not just that it's the wedding banquet as maybe the title in your scripture gives you, but it's more about this giving of this event and it's preparing of this grand feast. And so the recurrence of this allegory seemed, I think, pretty straightforward to us. The the king is God, the Father, the Son is Christ, and the wedding banquet, which by the way in the Greek here is plural, is really emphasizing that it's a totality of an occasion. This is the Messianic feast. This is the eschatological consummation of the Covenant of Grace. And that image imagery draws like so deep from this Old Testament well and background of God as the husband and the bridegroom of Israel. Again, how lovely and amazing for Jesus and his thorough knowledge of the scriptures to draw in something that the audience would've been like, yes, I know what you're talking about. I'm totally down with that. And so the son's wedding is therefore not some kind of like incidental entertainment. It is the central event of all history, the installation of the Messianic king and the gathering of his bride. And of course, the people hearing this would've immediately gravitated toward that. I think they would've leaned in maybe even like smiled or smirked at one another, knowing that this was now all that veiled. What Christ was drawing on here was the classic presentation. Of the family of God represented in the children of Israel itself, being drawn back into consummate harmony with God the Father, where there was peace and unitedness, and a celebration of this fact that all things were now made and brought together, that God was restoring and bringing all those back to himself in his true and true kingdom that could not be thwarted. So the fact that the king gives the banquet, prepares it, sends servants, selects the guests, underscores this incredible modernistic character of salvation. I think it's impossible to miss here that God is literally doing all the verbs. The initiative at every point is divine. There's no hint here of synergism. The guests do not arrange their own invitations, literally. And so that's why in verse three, we see God, he sending out his servants. And of course that's a familiar theme. It should be to us. If you've been tracking with us the last several parables we've been speaking of because the servants represent the prophets of the Old Testament and subsequently the apostles and the ministers of the word. The invitation had already gone out to quote those who were invited. So it's this perfect passive parable in the Greek, it's, it's indicating a prior and standing invitation. This is the external or general call of the gospel going out through the preaching of the word. And notice that there is always a response. Even here, Jesus moves directly and quickly to here's what the response was. In other words, as the scripture has told us that God's word never goes out in returns void, there's always, as it were, a response here, that's illustrated for us very directly because the response is not so good.  [00:15:32] Invitation Refused [00:15:32] Jesse Schwamb: I mean, this is what would, this is horrible like wedding etiquette. They were not willing to come. And this verb I think is critical because it's volitional refusal. It's not mere ignorance. And reformed theology is insistent here against any kind of constellation that makes man's rejection of the gospel. A matter of insufficient information or circumstances we know better, right? We as people should know that we as Christians who have been changed, know that the natural man here is not natural, merely because he lacks the certain kind of information as if he could be restored or regenerated or reformed if we just knew more things. The will is in bondage to sin. And so as the Westminster Confession, faith says, man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation. This is classic Jonathan Edwards, like, you don't bring anything to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary. For some reason in my head, I said that with kind of a, a weird, almost like southern attitude, which I did not mean to convey. But the point is that this refusal is total, it's willing, it's culpable, it's damnable, it's precisely that, which makes it all the more grievous. The invitation is genuine, the refusal is genuine, and the guilt here is entirely real. So the invited in verse three, represent all of Israel. I, I would say like particularly the leaders here, Tony and I have been talking about the responsibility of these, these leaders in particular to, of course, lead Shepherd, grow these people in faith and a love toward God in a way that is toward freedom and now toward more conviction around extraneous rules or heavy burdens that they set up for them that they cannot perform. And so we have these leaders who had received the covenantal promises and the prophetic witness. I mean, that's like classic Romans nine. The rejection of the servants echoes the pattern of prophetic persecution throughout all of Israel's history. So this is sad stuff. It's a sad beginning to have this grand wedding feast prepared by this king for his son set in motion with the invitations already gone out. And essentially all of those who have been invited have Ally refused.  [00:17:49] Feast Is Ready [00:17:49] Jesse Schwamb: But what's so incredible about God and his loving kindness is still represented here in verse four. The king does not relent after the first refusal, which is remarkable. I mean, this is, again, going back to our proper understanding that we love because God first loved us. That love always leads to giving. And so therefore, God so loved the world that he gave his only son. And when did he give his son? At the fullness of time when we were still at enmity, when we were enemies with him still, he sent his son for us and he sends, therefore a second embassy with an even more urgent and elaborate message that he gives them. He puts into their mouth. And the feast, again, is not merely planned. It's prepared. It's ready. The oxen and fat and calves are images of this lavish like sacrificial celebration. Everything's all slaughtered. Everything is ready to go. Now, I don't know the last time you've been to like an epic feast. I do mean like epic over the top feast. I want you to look up something for me. When you have a chance, look up, just go to your browser of choice and type in shady maples smorgasbord. Now, I don't know if you know what a smorgasbord is, but it's like a, I guess it's like a buffet, but like if you took a buffet and multiply it by a million and then only serve like rich, decadent food and more food than you could possibly really imagine and close to where I live, there's a very famous Amish style. Buffet called Shady Maple Smoker Sport. Just go look it up. 'cause it's gonna be possible for you to describe, but all I can say to you is this isn't just like your standard buffet, it's not just like a potluck where it's like, Hey, we got ham. And, um, we've got some salads and, uh, we've got that, uh, what's that? That weird stuff. You can I, the ambrosia, like we, we've got your hydrox cookies for dessert. This is the last time I was there and uh, actually I was there with my parents and my wife and they treated us. And because this was at a part of my life where my gallbladder was trying to attack me and kill me, I remember just being so ill while I was there feeling so ill, and yet just being so disappointed and bummed out that I couldn't eat all this glorious food because there was filet mignon and lobsters. And shrimp and fish and ham like glazed ham and like carving stations. And then for desserts there was like custards and pies and ice cream and cookies and whoopee pies. And it was this over the top celebration of food. And you couldn't help but just feel like, wow, this thing that we're doing right now is like incredible. I've also, I don't think ever seen my father sample so many different desserts because it was special. This was a, a lavish and incredible celebration for us, and it was prepared, it was ready to go. And we find the same thing here. And so the second sending corresponds to this ministry of the Apostles and the early churches proclamation to Israel. The urgency of the messages come now. It reflects this eschatological pressure of the gospel. A good kind of pressure as if like there's a tea kettle on the stove and it's heating up, and now it's starting to whistle and then to boil over. The kingdom has arrived. Loved ones, the feast is set, delay is inexcusable, and, and so the language of readiness, I think is this glorious language of the gospel. The atonement has accomplished. Christ has been crucified, risen, and exalted, and the feast of salvation is prepared. And what I love is that the reformed tradition consistently insists on the sufficiency of Christ's work for all and the genuine freeness of that gospel offer. I like this is what I usually go back to, is that the cannons of dort affirm this in this way. This is the quote. The promise of the gospel is that whosoever believes in Christ, crucified shall not perish, but of everlasting life. This promise together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be declared and proclaimed to all the nations. The invitation is genuine and urgent. The feast is truly ready. [00:22:01] Mission To All [00:22:01] Jesse Schwamb: The church that I attend is part of the Christian Missionary Alliance denomination, and one of the many things I love about my church is that outward and continual focus on this very thing. That the invitation is genuine. It is urgent, and the feast is truly ready, and it is for all peoples. This freeness to, as we talked about before, scatter the seed of the gospel message unreservedly and without bias to all, all in your sphere of influence. All nations, all people, all tongues, all tribe. And my church is very serious about this. In fact, one of the things our pastor loves to do is oftentimes when he's giving it this kind of proclamation, in fact, just this Lord's day, he was speaking from Matthew 28 and about the Great Commission and the essential nature of that great commission is every Christian's promise to participate in that. It is something you and I are commissioned for and we ought to regularly evaluate our, what our prayers look like. What our finances look like and what our time looks like with respect to whether we are taking seriously that commission, which God has given to us. And so in reminding us of that very fact, one of the things he'll often say from the pulpit is he'll ask out to the congregation, he'll say, what is our middle name? And everybody will respond, missionary. And, and while it's a little bit trite, it reminds us that as part of like the essential ethos in DNA of who we are as Christians, and in fact in this particular year. One of the themes that the whole Christian Missionary Alliance nomination has been focusing on is all of Jesus for All the World takes all of us. I love that all of Jesus for all the world takes all of us. And so we have embedded in this parable here, so much of this intentionality of the gospel, of going out for all people, making this, this message and this mission available. Going out and speaking and preaching and witnessing and testifying of how great God is and what he has done in setting and preparing this gospel message for all people. But in verse five, we find out that even still with all of this, they paid no attention. They went off one to his farm and another to his business. In other words, the word here suggests this kind of contemptuous indifference rather than this active hatred that that actually comes a little bit later. But worldly affairs, a farm, some converse. All this displaces the invitation. And these are not wicked activities, of course, in themselves. Their wickedness consists in their displacement of what is the ultimate. And that I think is actually like very penetrating diagnosis of the human condition. The great enemy of the gospel, at least it seems to me, is not always, as you talk to people, like some kind of dramatic philosophical rejection, some well articulated hatred toward God. It's instead like a quiet absorption in the ordinary pursuits of life. It's like what I think Augustine called being curved inward upon oneself. The world is a great enchant. It be witches our souls, it distracts us. There are so many things that can pull us away from not only meditating on this gospel message, but coming alongside and appreciating. In participating in that great commission. There's so many things to distract us. It's, it's not as if we need a list. I think if I asked each one of you or you asked me, what are some things that you find distracting that pull you away from time and prayer time, studying God's word, time spent with my wife, time spent serving in my local church. I'm not gonna be hard pressed to find those things to say to you. So this idea that we have, whether it's the farm or this business pursuit here, I suppose it could be representative to at least great earthly loves. You have the land, kind of a agrarian rooted life, and then there's trade mercantile and acquisitive life. I mean, maybe these just suggests that the rejection spans all of our social and economic classes, both within Israel at the time and for us today. And so we move both from like this kind of cold indifference, this we'll have other things to do. I'm, I'm just too busy. And, uh, how many times do we really convince ourselves that we can justify our busyness when we feel the pull of the spirit that there is a need? We feel the pull of the gospel message because there's the gospel pressure to ensure that we are speaking truth and love to those around us. That we ourselves are responding to this invitation with our wholeheartedness, our mind, soul, and spirit, everything that we are, and we convince ourselves. Well, I just, you know, I have a lot going on right now. God, there's just so much that I need to do.  [00:26:34] Indifference Turns Violent [00:26:34] Jesse Schwamb: Now we get to verse six and things shift a little bit. Verse six reads, while the rest sees the servants and treated them shamefully and killed them. Now, what's interesting to me is the indifference, kinda just that cold lackadaisical ness of verse five escalates somehow into violence. In verse six, some of them invited not only ignore the servants, but actively persecute them. And so here we have them, basically are being told they treated them outrageously, shamelessly, they killed them, and, and that's really the language of the entire prophetic tradition, the killing of the prophets. In fact, this Greek word here is ris. It's a word for arrogance. Honor, violating, assault, a sin against the honor of both the messenger and the one who sent him both. Like the one who is the emissary and the one who grants power or vouch saves authority to that emissary. And so to assault the king's servant is of course, to come against the king, and this is an act of high treason. It's against the sovereign God of the entire universe. I, I like here something that Calvin notes about this kind of inexcusable aggregation of aggravation of Israel's sin. He writes, they not only rejected the grace, which was offered to them, but added cruelty to their contempt. That's incredible. Right? That's exactly what we do. We reject God. It's, it's of course like not only just taking all the gifts he gives us and pretending as if they're under our own authority or. Have been the result of our own talents or abilities. But instead, when we do this, we add cruelty to all of our contempt. And the reformed doctrine, of course, of total depravity is not merely the claim that humans are bad. It's the claim that following humanity left to itself moves progressively from the indifference. That we saw in the previous verse, verse five, two, hostility toward the living God in his gospel messengers, which we see in verse six. In other words, unless God constrain us, loved ones, that is the natural end of man to move from this place where I do not care about God till I hate him, and then I hate all those who represent him, all those who speak on his behalf. [00:28:46] Judgment On The City [00:28:46] Jesse Schwamb: And so the king's response here, as you might imagine, is one of anger. He's angry. He sends his troops and he destroys the scriptures, say those are murderers, and he burns their city. I mean, the verse is almost certainly this kind of pro prophecy filled in its intent and its content. It's I think, probably a transparent reference to the destruction of Jerusalem by Roman armies in 80, 70. And Matthew, even if we say he's writing after that event, or in like a conservative dating with prophetic anticipation, presents Christ as foreseeing and pronouncing the divine judgment upon the city. And this King's anger, of course, is not just, it's not anger that's looking for reciprocity. It's not just anger that's saying, this has made me upset and I'm responding viscerally and emotionally. It's not petulant rage. It is holy and righteous wrath of the sovereign whose grace has been despised and whose servants have been murdered. The destruction is complete. The murderers are destroyed, the city is burned to the ground, and there are foreign tradition kind of following. A covenantal hermeneutic, I think reads 80, 70 as this terminus of the old Covenant administration in many ways, and the judgment upon Nashville Israel for his rejection, for her rejection, rather of the Messiah, you know? While all of that is true, I think what this presents for us is a reminder of how serious our God's Holiness is. And that again, every time we sin, every time that we come against God and someone would challenge his authority as it were, either directly or indirectly, we put ourselves in the place of those who reject the gospel message. And in so doing, we ought to fall on our knees and ask for the kind of repentance that is necessary because we ourselves are putting our place, we're extending among. The murderers, and in this case, the, the message that Jesus has for those is only anger and again, is a righteous kind of anger. So one might imagine as we read in like the previous parables, that Jesus could have just entirely ended there. It almost sounds like we've drawn to a close.  [00:31:04] Invitation Rejected [00:31:04] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, there's a king. He has a wedding banquet for his son. He sent out last invitations. Nobody came. He goes to confronts the guests and not only do they say we're not interested, some of them are like, yeah, we burned all the invitations. And then the people that you sent to remind us, we killed those people. And it'll be right for the king to say. That's it. Everybody's done here. I'm shutting the whole thing down. And honestly, that could have happened in the garden. That could happen at the cross. Instead, we find something totally different. The parable goes on.  [00:31:33] Feast Still Happens [00:31:33] Jesse Schwamb: In fact, verse eight reads, then he said to his servants, the wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Notice loved ones that the feast does not get canceled. I mean, Christmas doesn't get canceled. It's just redirected. The king's purposes will not, cannot be frustrated, and this is a critical sociological and eschatological claim to me, at least. What we're seeing here is the refusal of the invited guests does not leave the wedding hall empty. Praise the Lord. It occasions the wider extension of the invitation.  [00:32:07] Gospel Offer Explained [00:32:07] Jesse Schwamb: And this idea of not worthy does not introduce a prior standard of merit by which the guests were found deficient. But instead, as you know, their unworthiness consists in their refusal To refuse the gospel is to demonstrate one's unworthiness of it. And so worthiness in this context is not some kinda like moral achievement, but it's a covenantal responsiveness. It's the openness of the creature to receive what the king graciously provides. It's why when we stand before God in the kind of judgment that we rightfully deserve, and he says something to the extent of, why should I let you into my heaven? Why should I let you enjoy eternal life with me? We should rightly say, because you promised. And because by the power of your Holy Spirit, through the faith you have given and instilled in me by this imputed righteousness, I can trust you at your promise. And so I think this verse is like so critical for understanding the well meant offer of the gospel. Again, we should together affirm that the gospel is offered to all without distinction, and that those who do not come are inexcusable. God does not will. The damnation of those who reject the gospel as a bare first intention, their damnation follows from their own culpable refusal.  [00:33:31] Mission To All Roads [00:33:31] Jesse Schwamb: And so the king says, listen guys, go out everywhere. Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding piece. As many as you find. I don't know how you're envisioning. If you were listening to this story and you were like setting the actual scene, but I don't know, to me, I just find them, the, the servants or the slaves that they look at it one another and they're just like s go time and they just turn around and start going everywhere to all the places, uh, to anyone who will listen to all the like, stops that there were on the byways. All the highways, all the roads. They're just going through all the places. Wherever the road takes 'em, that's where they're going. And all along the way they're spreading this mission, this invitation, and the mission now. Is universal in scope. The main roads, literally the, the exits, the outlets of all these places. The thoroughfares, where the roads branch out of the city and the highways diverge in the countryside. This is representing, of course, like the ends of the earth, the places where any and all may be found. And the command here to as many as you find to go to those is of course, like a command of universal scope. It's for you and me, loved ones there. There's no prior qualification, rich or poor, Jewish, gentile, moral or immoral. This is the missio day, breaking through all ethnic and social boundaries, and in this loving way, in this pastoral way, it underpins the free and indiscriminate offer of the gospel. Again, like going back to the Westminster Confession and the shorter catechism, affirming this covenant of grace that is administered by the preaching of the word. And no matter where you work, like reform theology from like William Cur, David Bernard, like to the modern missionary movement, we're drawing from this mandate of precisely this kind of universal commission. You know, it's like Spurgeon, I think once said something effect of like, Christ has done more than give a general invitation. He has given an urgent, pressing, commanding invitation to all something like that. And I always remember that because when I think about what it means to step into this role of fulfilling the great commission of understanding what Jesus is saying here, it's not just as if we're saying, listen, the world is in a dire place. This is an emergency situation. And so for all of us in our sphere of influence. To bring forward this message of the indiscriminate offer of the gospel is to take God at his word and then to deliver that word to all of those, all the highways, all the byways, all the outplace, every tribe, Tong, nation. What a glorious thing that our God has given us and put us on mission in this way so that no matter who we meet, we know we might say Jesus loves you, that Jesus has died for you. This is, I think, one of the things that those who maybe are new to the reformed tradition and the theological perspective. Find a little bit interesting to parse out, or maybe sometimes if you've had conversations like I have people think that we're parsing the words too much, but there's something to be said for the death of Jesus being sufficient for all and efficacious for the elect, that we're not simply splitting words. There we're describing very discreetly, very cogently, very crisply. This indiscriminate gospel message while at the same time recognizing that it's God's sovereign choice and will to draw those whom he will to himself. And so in verse 10.  [00:36:54] Good And Bad Gathered [00:36:54] Jesse Schwamb: These servants go out to the roads and they gather all whom they found both good and bad. And so the wedding hall, guess what was filled with guests, because this is God's sovereign prerogative because he can do all these things because even those who have denied him does not remove him from power. That he does all the verbs and so the servants obey and the results are comprehensive. They gather in all of these, and Matthew's quick to say both the good and the bad, and I think like the good and the bad pairing is significant. I don't think this is necessarily meaning that there's the morally virtuous and the morally depraved, though that probably is included somewhere. But I think this, this more, this reflection that, once again, it's all kinds of people. For God's to love the world that whomsoever, all of those who believe in him should not perish, but have eternal life. The wedding hall is filled, it was filled, and it's filled by God's sovereign action through human instrumentality.  [00:37:53] Visible And Invisible Church [00:37:53] Jesse Schwamb: And there is, like I'd say, if you're tracking with this, you should notice that there is a, a kinda a tension here. It sits between verses 10 and 11, and it's going to resolve the banquet hall is full. But you'll notice that it's not all within, well, not everybody who's within it are truly saved. And we'll get to why that isn't just a second. But the filling of the hall through the universal gospel summons does produce a mixed company. We've already talked about the parable of the terrors in the wheat before, so this, this should be news if you've been listening to us for a little while, but it's precisely the condition of the visible church in this age. Again, I just think it's fantastic that when we go to the scriptures, one of the reasons we know it's true is because God tells us the truth about the way things are. And we know that this is the way that the church is today. We would call this the visible versus the invisible church. And of course there's a distinguishing between the visible church, which consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion from the invisible church, which is the totality of the elect, those who God has actually called to himself. So the hole is full. But not all in the hall are clothed. And this is fascinating how Jesus brings in this idea of dressing of not, I mean, not what you put on your salad, a smorgasbord, but like what you're actually wearing.  [00:39:07] Wedding Garment Meaning [00:39:07] Jesse Schwamb: So in verse 11, but the king came in to look at the guests and he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. So notice that the parable scene here kind of shifts dramatically all of a sudden because the king arrives suddenly. He's present. He was speaking, he was giving instructions, he was preparing, he was a character, kind of chilling in the background. But now there's this eschatological moment the king's coming to inspect. The guests corresponds to this final judgment, and what he finds is there's a man without a wedding garment. He's at the center, I think of this parables, theological climax. So what, what is this wedding garment? I would put it to you like, as you're thinking through this and maybe interpreting listening for yourself, what do you think the wedding garment is? And I would say like what most reformed interpreters have been unified on is that this really represents that imputed righteousness, the the righteousness of Christ that's credited to the believer and received by faith alone. And so by a wedding garment, I would understand this to mean the purity and the holiness of that transforms and regenerated life, which is required of all those who are brought inside the true and invisible church. And though he immediately qualifies this as like righteousness, that is inseparable from justification. It is not earned, but it is received. In fact, I think, uh, I have my Logos Bible software up as I'm talking to you, and I see that Matthew Henry comments on this by saying, the righteousness of Christ is the robe of righteousness, the garment of salvation in which true believers are closed. I mean. That's a great turn of phrase, brothers and sisters. I love this idea of what the scriptures tell us elsewhere of putting on these garments of praise or worship, the garments of Christ, of being exchanged out as it were, for what is dirty and unsuitable for something that suits the occasion that is given to you to wear by faith alone. And of course, this wedding garment is not a work that the guest has produced, but it's a garment provided, uh, presumably like the king's servants actually supplied it. Uh, I, I think that's like a detail implied by the ancient custom and the severity of the guest condemnation for lacking it. It's almost as if the king is saying. Uh, like you were, should have been provided. Why did you not put this on? Why did by faith you not accept this? And this underscores the so gratia and so fide. The righteousness by which we stand before God on the last day is not our own, but Christ, it's received through faith. And the man without the garment represents those who presume to stand before God on the basis of their own righteousness. Whether that's religious profession. Moral achievement, charitable giving, mere church membership rather. And instead of. That alien and beautiful righteousness of Christ. So the fact that this man is inside the hall, you know, he's come in through the general call confirms that the parable addresses not only those outside the church, but those within it who lack genuine saving faith. It's almost, to me, kind of like an intra ecclesial warning. It's, it's not merely a missional observation. I think that is for all of us. It's why Paul elsewhere says. Check test, confirm to see whether you yourselves are in this faith because it is by faith that we put on these wedding garments which are appropriate and suitable for this great eschatological Messianic wedding feast with the lamb. [00:42:48] Speechless Before Judgment [00:42:48] Jesse Schwamb: So in verse 12, the king says to him, friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? And notice the man's response. I, I almost find this kind of funny because he just says, and he was speechless. Like there was, there was nothing for him, uh, to, to say it all. And of course, like this question that's posed here, this, how did you get in here without the winning government? It's not a real question, right? It's not a question of genuine puzzlement. It's the same way in which when we find God walking in the cool of the day, in the garden after the sin of Adam and E, where he says, Adam, where are you? It's not a genuine question of a quizzical nature. It's instead, this rhetorical structure is God questions through judgments. And when he says to Cain, where is Abel your brother, where is Abel, your brother? He's exposing and he's condemning. He's not merely inquiring. And so this man in response, sensing this condemnation, discerning this condemnation, this judgment that's been brought against him, I think this is why the Greek says he was muzzled. He was silenced, his mouth was shut up. He had no answer. Uh, it's not because the question was unfair. But because there was just no legitimate words that he could bring there, there was no argumentation. In other words, there's no poll mic. There was no great debate that he could have. In this moment. Every mouth will be stopped before God. I mean, that's like Romans three. The silence of the ungodly before the Divine Tribunal is a consistent biblical theme, and we find it here. Again, this is the eschatological end to those who are condemned. No one loved ones is gonna stand before God on the last day and successfully argue their case on the ground of personal merit. I love William Perkins on this topic. He was apparently really moved. I learned by this verse and by what he saw in the silence as a profound warning against false assurance. So he actually wrote many a man in this world. Silence is his own conscience. With many fair excuse. Do you hear that? I, I love that turn of phrase. So we're talking about silence. It's about being silence, but I love how he says it's very easy to, to silence, not yourself, not like somebody coming against you with debate, but your own conscience. So he writes, again, many a man in this world will silence his own conscience with many a fair excuse. But in that day, there will be no excuse, no plea, no delay. So that time of plea is now, it's in this life. It's by faith and repentance, which is why there's an urgency to this gospel message. And so the king.  [00:45:17] Outer Darkness Warning [00:45:17] Jesse Schwamb: In hearing this and knowing that this man has no excuse for his outer attire, he says to him, listen to the servants. Bind him hand and foot, cast him into outer darkness. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The sentence is severe. It's total. Of the command is given to the servants and attendance maybe in this parable and parabolic form, likely the angelic executors of divine judgment and it is binding. It renders the condemned utterly helpless. It's a picture of total divine control over the destiny of the ate. He has cast into this outer darkness, outside the light and warmth of the banquet hall entirely. And I think it's incumbent upon us to take a second and to grieve the repercussions of what is being said here. That the death and destruction of the ATE should make us grieve. It should compel us to go out into the highways, the byways, and to share this message. Unreservedly. One of the ways we know really the full anguish of what this entails is this phrase, weeping and gnashing of teeth, actually occurs seven times in Matthew, and it functions as this refrain, this chorus, this common language of this eschatological condemnation, it combines interestingly in this wordplay here, both the anguish of grief with the rage of frustrated pride. It's a portrait, not of this just like regret, but continuing imp penitent, hostility against God and eternal punishment. And I think if Tony were here, he would agree with me that we have consistently affirmed the doctrine of eternal conscience punishment. You know, the Westminster Confession says, the wicked who know not God and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ shall be cast into eternal torments. In other words, this outer darkness is not annihilation. The weeping and the gnashing continues. It implies an ongoing conscious existence. It's the image of a binding stands against the notion of this kind of postmortem repentance or universalism. The severity of that verse, I think, really must be allowed to stand in its canonical context without mitigation. The, the severity of this judgment ought to fill us with fear, not theological domestication. We, we shouldn't set this aside and be saying, well, this implies that there is nothing after that time. No, there continues to be only time with God in his presence, in eternal, consummate joy and harmony and peacefulness and celebration. Or there is literally. A weeping and a gnashing of teeth, an unresolved rage and anger where that is punished by God because he's absent where there's unmitigated pain and suffering because it is absent the presence and the mediation of God himself, who even now in this world, holds us back so that while we are sinful and we are not as bad as we could or ought to be because of his great kindness, all of us, even those. Who are not believers.  [00:48:37] Called Yet Chosen [00:48:37] Jesse Schwamb: And so because of that, it ends with these very famous in stock words in in verse 14, for many are called, but few are chosen. And that concluding aphorism is, I think, the theological linchpin of this entire thing. The contrast between this idea of called and chosen, you know, this is the vocabulary that is deliberately covenantal and elective, and we shouldn't shy away from that. Of course, it's referring to this external call, the universal proclamation of the gospel to all the hearers. The call is genuine, it's earnest, it's gentile, it's sufficient as an offer. It is the call that goes to all the highways, all who hear the gospel are truly called to repentance and faith. And for me, in my own journey of understanding what this means as God has allowed me to, that has been critical. This idea that this universal call means that it is sufficient as a call to repentance and faith for all those who hear it. And then it does become the responsibility of all those who hear it to respond to it. And so this idea then of this pairing then with the chosen and the elect is referring of course to those whom God has chosen from before the foundation of the world. The elect are those who not only receive the external call, but are effectually drawn by the eternal efficacious call of the Holy Spirit. We can look to Romans eight 30, those whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified. And I say, because this is a Reformed Theological podcast, and this is what you came here for, I presume, brothers and sisters. Then it behooves us to at least mention again that the reformed tradition has classically distinguished between that external or general call, the sincere well meant proclamation of the gospel to all without distinction, inviting everybody to faith and repentance. That call is genuine on God's part and God's doing the verbs in that as well. And then again, we, we set that over in next two, the internal, what we call like effectual efficacious call. It's sovereign. It's irresistible work of the Holy Spirit by which the elect regenerated, have their will renewed and are infallibly brought to saving faith. All those whom God has predestined unto life and those only he's pleased in his appointed and accepted time to affectionately call by His word and his spirit out of the state of sin and death to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ. I was thinking recently of this idea of the narrow path and somewhere between like the scriptures there and pilgrim's progress, and paths and journeys. I had this image in my mind of the road on which we walk. And in this life, the natural man on that road encounters all these like intractable boulders, these things that cannot be traversed. These just great mountainous pieces of rock, which block the path. And so prevent us from at least accomplishing the thing that we would like. Like to live forever, to have peace with God, to be at peace with ourselves, to love our brothers and our sisters as much as we love ourselves to honor something that is greater than us. And those boulders are things like sin, death in the devil, which constantly invade us, which constantly thwart us, which constantly block us. And in Christ, what he has accomplished in salvation is not just, I think to remove those boulders, though that would've been good enough of course to just get them outta the way. Instead, it's as if he's taken them and he's crushed them, and now to the softest sand between our toes and we walk over them in victory by the power of his name through the Holy Spirit into eternal life. Into that grand wedding feast spoil, which we have been invited because he has done this because he loves us. And so verse 14 places these two realities side by side without resolving the tension. Philosophically, this is one of the great mysteries of theology. Uh, reformed theology does not collapse the distinction by limiting the external call to the elect alone as like maybe kind of a hyper Calvinist model, but it doesn't make the internal call dependent on a human decision. As like Armenian theology would instead, you know, the tension is, is biblical. This is here for us. It's here for us, because I believe that God wishes for us to submit our knowledge and our reasoning to him knowing that he is far and above us. And because this tension is biblical, it has to be maintained. The invitation is genuinely universal. The effectual drawing is sovereignly particular. How great is our God loved ones? There is no one like him. And so there's so much in this that I think we could spend all of the rest of our life thinking about, and that would be a noble, I was just thinking today that, um, you know, unless the Lord Terrys like, maybe this will be the last series me and Tony ever do, because there's so much that's rich and deep in these parables and there's so many of them, and the teaching of Christ is, is so complete of course, for us because it gives us everything that we need for life and salvation and godliness that. We find that the more that we look into them, the more that we ask the Holy Spirit to bathe us in a realization that comes from the spirit of God, the more that we will find. They challenge us. They encourage us. They equip us. So I'm thinking and praying for you all as I hope that you are for Tony and I as we continue to wrestle with these things as we continue to talk them out, because I'm asking God that he would equip us as we look at the teaching of his son in these parables with a firm understanding of the truth and equip us with his promises and with his encouragement so that. As he grows us in our faith, our faith for us would be like a thousand eyes and a thousand wings that we would find ourselves moving from glory to glory. Because we see in these parables the great work of God for us. What he has accomplished through his son and how he continues to be for us and the son who is given for us is with us. That we have his Holy Spirit within us and who discerns the mind of God, accept the spirits of God. So love us. Let's continue to get after what's being said in these parables here because there's so much for us here.  [00:55:14] Living The Commission [00:55:14] Jesse Schwamb: And might I add, just to tack onto the end, there's also so much for the world. I know that we're quick to say, or like colloquially Christians have said in the past like, Jesus is the answer, but you I think cannot necessarily fault the world for sometimes asking, well, what is the question? And unless we go forward with this proper understanding that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That all are in need of this savior and that this gospel message is for, in fact, for all people without reservation. Full stop. I guess I ask for you and I and Tony who's editing this episode, are we going out into the highways and byways? What is the proof of the pudding in the eating look like when we examine our lives, but with specifically our finances and our time and our prayer closet and our service? Aren't we in fact concerned with the great commission that is reflected here? Are we concerned with the emergence and urgent need of this gospel message, which is for all people because God so loved the world that he gave his only forgotten son. That whosoever shall believe in him will not per but have everlasting life.  [00:56:27] Community And Support [00:56:27] Jesse Schwamb: So come hang out with us. Come talk about this parable. You know where to go. But I'm gonna tell you anyway because that's what we do. If you go to your browser, type in T Me Back slash Reform Brotherhood, t Me Back slash Reform Brotherhood, that link will take you to an app called Telegram. Telegram is just a messaging app. It's like, I dunno, iMessages for Apple or whatever you Android people are using these days. And there's just a little community that we've sectioned off there. And it's a community of listeners to the Reform Brotherhood who are talking about all kinds of things. You, you wanna be in that group? It is. It is a great group. Don't, don't reject the invitation. Don't reject it. Just, just come. I know you're thinking, listen, I got land. I got commerce I gotta deal with. That's fine. Come, come and join us. So go to t.me/reform brotherhood. One last thing. I would be remiss if I didn't thank all of those who make sure that this podcast still goes out to all the highways and the byways of the internet. That there is no Jericho paywall around it because it does cost money to put out there all the subscriptions, all the distribution. It's surprising, but there are. Intense fees with a lot of that stuff, and so I wanna say thank you, thank you, thank you to those who have listened and said, you know what? I would like to make sure. That this continues to go on. I've been blessed just by the conversation. God has done something here because again, he does all the verbs. Tony and I do zero verbs, and so because of that, they've gone to patreon.com Reform Brotherhood, and they've just decided to give a little bit of the kindness of their heart and generosity to the Lord. So if you're thinking, you know what? I've been listening for a while, and I do appreciate that this just magically, as it were, pops up in my feed and I continue to listen to it. Would you please consider helping us? Uh, Tony and I and so many other listeners who give a little bit just to make sure that together we can keep this thing going strong. And again, you can just go to patreon.com/reform brotherhood. There's also a website, uh, reform brother.com and all kinds of other fun stuff. But I will leave that to you. I, I didn't even bring it up. See, I'm just so glad that you mentioned it yourself 'cause it would've been awkward otherwise.  [00:58:31] Final Blessing [00:58:31] Jesse Schwamb: So loved ones. There are still so many more parables to go. They're all so good. So I hope that you all come back and join us next time as we continue to move through these parables. But until then, there's something that you should definitely do honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. 

On Earth as in Heaven Acts 1 by William Klock It's been over ten years since I finished preaching through Luke's Gospel. I had planned to preach on the Acts of the Apostles after a short break, but it didn't happen and didn't happen and didn't happen, but as I was preaching through Ephesians these last few months and pondering the things St. Paul tells us about the what the church is and what that means for us, I got to thinking that I really shouldn't put off Acts any longer.  So I'd planned to jump into it last Sunday. Acts begins with the Ascension of Jesus, and then the very next chapter is Pentecost.  What providential timing!  And then scheduling and a trip to a clericus threw me off by a week.  So last Sunday, Ascension Sunday, you got Ephesians 6—which was a bit of an Ascension sermon—and now on Pentecost, you're getting the Ascension and next week, on Trinity Sunday, you'll get Pentecost! Now, in case you're wondering what Acts has to do with Luke, it's quite a lot. Luke probably wrote his Gospel around a.d. 59 or 60.  He addresses it to someone named Theophilus.  Theophilus means “lover of God”, so some think that Luke may have used this name symbolically and that the Gospel is for everyone who loves God.  It certainly is that, but an attribution like that seems to have been unknown in Luke's world, so Theophilus probably was a real person and was probably a patron who funded Luke's writing project.  Luke was not an eyewitness to Jesus or the events of the Gospels.  As he says in the introduction, he sought out the eyewitnesses so that he could scrupulously record the events surrounding Jesus' life and ministry.  And now Acts.  Luke wrote Acts not long later, sometime between 60 and 62.  The book ends with Paul, imprisoned in Rome, awaiting his hearing before Caesar.  There's a debate about exactly what happened to Paul after that time.  He was martyred at Rome, probably during Nero's persecution of Christians, sometime between 64 and 67.  The traditional view is that Paul's case was heard in 62, he was released, and may have travelled to Spain to preach the good news about Jesus, before returning to Rome to work with Peter to oversee the church there.  The more “modern” view is that Paul was imprisoned once and was executed between 62 and 64.  Whatever the case, since Luke doesn't mention such an important event, we can pretty safely assume he wrote during that time that Paul was awaiting his hearing.  And in the case of Acts, Luke was an eyewitness, at least to part of it.  He researched the early part of Acts just as he did his Gospel, but then he took up with Paul at the city of Troas, on Paul's second missionary journey around 50-51.  Luke spent the following ten or more years travelling with Paul as a missionary and records those events as a participant. And who was Luke other than a companion of Paul?  He was a gentile.  At the end of Colossians, Paul names him separately, apart from his fellow Jewish workers.  In that same passage, Paul describes Luke as a physician.  Beyond that we really don't know a lot about him.  He writes as we would expect a Gentile would write when writing to other Gentiles.  He writes in polished, educated Greek and he often describes Jewish customs for the benefit of his non-Jewish readers.  And when it comes to Acts, he jumps in right where he left off in his Gospel.  He ended with a condensed telling of the Ascension and he begins Acts with a more detailed account, so we'll start there.  It's page 1080 in your pew Bibles if you want to follow along. Luke writes, “Dear Theophilus, The previous book which I wrote had to do with everything Jesus began to do and to teach. I took the story as far as the day when he was taken up, once he had given instructions through the Holy Spirit to his chosen apostles.” Let me pause there.  Notice how Luke writes that in his Gospel he wrote about everything that Jesus began to do and to teach.  Brothers and Sisters, Jesus isn't done.  If Luke's Gospel were called “The Acts of Jesus”, Acts could very easily be “The Acts of Jesus: Part II”.  Jesus isn't done.  Remember what we learned from Paul in Ephesians: in the church, Jesus has established a people—purified by his blood from the stain of sin and filled with God's own Spirit—to be his new creation in the midst of the old, to carry his victory into the world to challenge the Caesars and the gods and the principalities and powers, to proclaim the good news until God's glory fills the whole earth.  Jesus continues his “acts” through us.  At the start of his ministry he told the people to pray: on earth as in heaven.  Now he's empowered us to be the people who will actually live out heaven on earth until he's finally ready to finish what he started that first Easter, and bring heaven and earth and God and human beings back together as they should be. Now, Luke goes on in verse 3: “He showed himself to them alive, after his suffering, by many proofs.  He was seen by them for forty days, during which he spoke about God's kingdom. As they were having a meal together, he told them not to go away from Jerusalem, btu to wait, as he put it, “for the Father's promise, which I was telling you about earlier.  John baptised with water; but in a few days from now you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit.  So when the apostles came together, they put this question to Jesus: “Master,” they said, ‘is this the time when you are going to restore the kingdom to Israel.'” Jesus must have been pretty exasperated by their question.  John Calvin wrote that there are as many errors in their question as there are words.  Jesus has spent forty days teaching them what his resurrection meant for them, for the world, for everything.  Think of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus on Easter Day.  Jesus walked with them for hours and explained what happened to them using the Old Testament scriptures.  We get the impression that as it all sank in they started to understand.  But clearly not fully.  Not even after forty days.  They're still thinking of the kingdom in terms of events like the Maccabean revolt.  The Messiah will raise an army and smite the pagan gentiles and put Israel back on the top of the heap—but this time it will take, it will be forever.  They're still thinking of Jesus as the king in waiting or the king in exile—like some of the Iranians wanting Reza Pahlavi to return to Iran and retake the Peacock Throne.  But that's not how God's kingdom works.  Think of all the parables Jesus told about the kingdom: It's like a tiny mustard seed.  Yes, it will grow into a huge tree, but it takes a long time.  It's like yeast.  Yes, it grows, but it takes time and the right conditions.  After two thousand years, I think we have a better grasp of this.  But not always.  There are still many, many Christians who still kind of ask the same question, as if Jesus is the heir apparent, in exile, still waiting to become king.  But Brothers and Sisters, he already is king.  The church's job is to announce his kingship—as it's carved out on our lychgate: “Jesus is Lord”— and to implement the fact that he really is king.  Now. Not someday.  Now. So Jesus responds to them in verse 7: “It's not your business to know about times and dates,” he replied. “The Father has placed all that under his own direct authority.  What will happen, though, is that you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.  Then you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judaea and Samaria, and to the very ends of the earth.” The timing?  How the kingdom is going play out?  When everything will finally be consummated?  Don't worry about that.  The Father has that worked out in his goodness and wisdom.  That' not your job.  That's not our job.  That' not even Jesus' job to know.  Their job, our job is to witness Jesus—his death, his resurrection, his ascension, the fact that he is Lord—to be God's new creation, to put off the old, lie-based way of being human to to put on the new—our job is witness that good news and God's new creation to the world.  And Jesus reiterates it again: I will make sure you're equipped for this.  He's told them already: As John baptised you with water, I will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.  The significance of that didn't seem to sink in.  It should have.  This is what the Lord had promised through the prophets over and over.  Filling his people with the Spirit was to be the great sign of the Messianic age.  It would be the thing that would finally set the hearts of his people right.  And so Jesus says it again: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.  And then you'll be my witnesses from Jerusalem and eventually out to the whole world.  The mustard seed.  The yeast.  The king returning from the far-off land.  And then, to make his point, to drive home the fact that, yes, he really is king, Jesus acts out another prophecy.  He loved to do this and so it makes perfect sense that his last act before leaving them would be another acted out prophecy.  Verse 9: “As Jesus said this, he was lifted up while they were watching and a cloud took him out of their sight.  They were gazing into heaven as he disappeared.  Then, lo and behold, two men appeared, dressed in white, standing beside them.  ‘Men of Galilee,' they said, ‘why are you standing here staring into heaven?  This Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you saw him go into heaven.'” Jesus acts out Daniel 7—maybe not something we're intimately familiar with (although we should be), but a passage—a dramatic image—any Jew knew intimately.  That's the dream Daniel had of the ferocious beasts representing the pagan kings and empires that threatened God's people.  And in his vision, Daniel sees the Ancient of Days take his throne to sit in judgement over these beasts.  Their kingdoms are taken from them and then one like a son of man comes on the clouds to heaven to take his throne.  And to him is given dominion and glory and kingship so that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.  His dominion, Daniel says, is everlasting, his kingship one that shall never be destroyed.  This the vision of the Messiah becoming king and restoring the kingdom to Israel. So in his ascension, Jesus is showing the fulfilment of God's promise to Daniel.  Coming on the clouds to take his throne.  It was an unmistakable image for the disciples.  The kingdom has been restored to Israel—of course, that's Israel reconstituted around and in Jesus the Messiah—but restored it has been.  The Messiah is on his throne.  At the end of Matthew's Gospel, when Jesus gives the disciples what we often call his “great commission” he deliberately echoes Daniel 7: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  So you must go and make all the nations into disciples.”  The Ascension means that the world is under new management.  Maybe it helps to understand how they thought of heaven.  Unfortunately, we tend to think of heaven through a Platonic lens.  It's a far away and otherworldly place.  The opposite of earth.  The real world of which this is only a shadow.  But that's Plato—pagan Greek philosophy—not the Bible.  In the Bible heaven is earth's compliment; its other half.  God created them to fit together, to mesh.  Heaven is his realm, but the two were meant to overlap, for us to share his presence.  But his part, the heavenly half, was—in the Jewish view—it was like the control room or the CEO's office.  And that's where Jesus has gone.  To take the controls, to sit at the big desk, to accede to his throne—to rule and to reign: as Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:25: “He has to rule until he has put all his enemies under his feet.” But back to Daniel 7.  If the son of man has taken his throne, then that means that the kingdom has, indeed, been restored to Israel.  There are implications there for the disciples.  One of the twelve is missing.  Judas hanged himself after betraying Jesus.  The twelve are only eleven.  If the apostles represent the fullness of Israel reconstituted in the Messiah, they need a replacement for Judas.  Twelve tribes; twelve apostles. Maybe they didn't grasp this immediately.  Luke says that after Jesus' ascension, after the two angels asked if they were just going to stand around staring into heaven all day—because: he's one day coming back in the same way—like, didn't he give you work to do?—so they went back to Jerusalem as Jesus had told them.  Verse 13: “They then entered the city (‘they' meaning Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the zealot, and Judas the son of James) and went to the upstairs room where they were staying.  They all gave themselves single-heartedly to prayer, with the women, including Mary, Jesus' mother, and his brothers.” Luke makes a point of naming them all.  And there are eleven, not twelve.  He anticipates what needs to happen.  The apostles themselves apparently weren't sure what to do, so they did the right thing: they devoted themselves to prayer.  Brothers and Sisters, don't ever let prayer be an excuse for not doing what needs to be done, but when you don't know what to do: pray.  And pray some more.  Luke doesn't say that God suddenly spoke and gave them direction, but after days of prayer they began to understand what they had to do.  They knew the scriptures.  They'd listened to Jesus for forty days.  And as they prayed, understanding came.  Prayer has a way of doing that.  As we see here, the scriptures began to percolate in Peter's head.  That's often how God leads us.  It's not often that he speaks directly and we shouldn't expect him to.  But when we're already steeped in the scriptures and when we pray, the Spirit works and things “seem” to just come together.  I'm often amazed to see how this works when I'm preparing a sermon.  So Peter stands up in the middle of the disciples.  Luke says they'd grown to a hundred and twenty by this point.  And he says—verse 16: “Brothers, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago by the mouth of David about Judas, who became a guide to the people who arrested Jesus.  He was counted among us and had his own share in this ministry.”  Luke then adds that Judas went to the field bought with the money used to betray Jesus, he hanged himself there, where he burst open and his guts came out.  Luke notes this bit as historical evidence.  The field was still called “Blood-Place” in his day. And Peter goes on in verse 20, quoting Psalm 69:25 and Psalm 109:8, “For this is what it says in the book of Psalms: ‘Let his home become desolate and let no one live in it' and again, ‘Let another receive his office.' “So,” Peter said, “this is what has to be done. There are plenty of people who have gone about with us all the time that our master Jesus was coming and going among us, starting from John's baptism until the day he was taken from us.  Let one of them be chosen to be alongside us as a special witness of his resurrection.” Through prayer and the scriptures and the prompting of the Spirit, Peter realised that if Jesus, the son of man, sits on his throne, the kingdom has been restored to Israel, and that meant that the leaders…the apostles…of this renewed Israel had better number twelve, to represent the full number Israel's tribes.  The symbolism was vital if people—particularly fellow Jews—were going to see how the scriptures and the covenant and God's promises to Israel were being fulfilled in the church.  “So,” writes Luke, “they chose two: Joseph who was called Barsabbas, with the surname Justus, and Matthias.  ‘Lord,' they prayed, ‘you know the hearts of all people. Show us which one of these two you have chosen to receive this particular place of service and apostleship, from which Judas went away to go to his own place.' So they cast lots for them.  The lot fell on Matthias, and he was enrolled along with the eleven apostles.” This may seem like a mundane detail to us, especially after the glory of Jesus' ascension.  But it was a big deal to the apostles and no less to Luke.  Their knowing the need for twelve, not eleven apostles, highlights just how much they saw the work of Jesus as being about the fulfilment and the restoration of God's people as the promises to Abraham were fulfilled and their mission was about be launched into the nations.  It was proof that this new movement wasn't really new at all.  It was rooted in God's promises and showed their fulfilment of God.  Jesus, the cross, the resurrection, Pentecost weren't just stand-alone events.  They were part of the great story that God had been telling his people for thousands of years.  In these events, God was doing what he'd promised, showing his faithfulness and revealing his glory.  That's why Peter takes us back to the Psalms here.  It's why Stephen, before his martyrdom in Chapter 7 recounts the history of Israel.  They wanted to make it clear that what's happening here in Acts was what God intended all along. I've always found it funny that for all the big deal they make choosing Matthias, he's never mentioned again. I say that, because it's a good reminder that what Luke records in Acts is selective.  As St. John writes at the end of his Gospel, if someone were to write down literally everything that Jesus did, the world could not contain all the books.  And just so with Acts.  Just so with the whole history of the church.  The world could not contain the books needed to record all the things, big and small and all amazing, that Jesus and the Spirit have done through Christians down through the ages, the famous ones and the ordinary saints like you and I.  But the little bit that Luke records for us in Acts, Brothers and Sisters, is a partial (and strategic) record—inspired by the Spirit—that ought to encourage us as it reminds us how God is fulfilling his promises here and now in us and as it exhorts us to carry on with our mission, knowing that the Spirit is with us and will equip us for everything he has for us to do. On that note, I want to conclude with two images.  Jesus was acting out Daniel's prophecy of the son of man coming on the clouds to his throne when he ascended, but there are at least two other unmistakable images in that act as well.  The first is Moses, ascending Mount Sinai, up into the clouds and thunder.  Moses went up and came down with the law.  In the same way, Jesus has gone up, but what has come down is not another law written on stone, but God's own Spirit, poured into our hearts.  Contemporary Christians often think of the Spirit mainly as the agent of amazing and miraculous gifts, but the most important work of the Spirit, Brothers and Sisters, the most amazing miracle of the Spirit, is to transform our hearts and to turn our affections toward God, to fill us with his law of love.  The other image here is that of the Prophet Elijah as he was taken up into heaven in a chariot of fire.  As he went, he threw down his mantle onto Elisha, his protégé.  In that act, he not only passed on his God-given mission to Elisha, but he empowered him to do it.  That is what the book of Acts is about.  Luke's Gospel is about Jesus and his ministry—like the Prophet Elijah—and at the Ascension he's taken up in heaven and his mantle falls to the apostles, to the church, to you and to me, and the book of Acts is then like the continuing story of Elisha, carrying on the work and ministry God had given to Elijah.  Elijah's last act was to strike the waters of the Jordan with his cloak so that they parted, and Elisha's first act is to do exactly the same.  Brother and Sisters, that's Acts.  That's the ministry of the church.  To steward the good news about Jesus, to steward God's presence, to be his temple, ever expanding until it fills the earth.  Yes, it's a difficult job—some even lose their lives for it—but Jesus has equipped us and he's given us hope in the faithfulness of God to do what he has said.  His mantle has fallen on us in the gift of the Spirit and we know that he sits on his throne as Lord.  That central gospel truth is carved on our lychgate, a reminder as we come here and as a remind when we go back out to the world.  May Jesus' ascension never be for us a mere doctrine.  May it be for us the great truth that gives us hope, the great truth that is transforming creation. Let's pray: Almighty God and Father, as you have taken your son, Jesus the Messiah to reign in heaven, and as you have let his mantle fall on us in your indwelling Spirit, fill us with bold faith and certain hope that we might be faithful stewards of your gospel and for the sake of the world until the knowledge of your glory reaches the ends of the earth your son returns again on the clouds.  Through him we pray. Amen.

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Monte Judah examines Israel's new tribunal for October 7 terrorists, escalating Iran tensions, Hezbollah attacks, Gaza developments, and prophetic implications shaping today's world events.0:00 Opening Headlines0:45 Memorial Day Reflection2:10 Israel's Military Shortage4:35 Draft Debate in Israel6:40 October 7 Tribunal8:50 Judea & Samaria Heritage Efforts10:15 Gaza Flotilla Stopped11:50 Hezbollah Escalation13:40 Hamas Target Eliminated15:00 Violence in Judea & Samaria17:20 Iran Nuclear Negotiations20:10 Netanyahu & Trump Phone Call21:45 Strait of Hormuz Naval Battle25:00 China and U.S. Naval Strength26:10 Congressman Massie Defeated27:05 Domestic Terror Attack in San Diego27:50 Friends of the IDF Campaign28:30 Feast of Tabernacles Reminder29:00 Shabbat ShalomLionandLamb.tv PromoExperience biblical teaching, prophetic insight, and Messianic discipleship with Lion and Lamb Ministries.Watch weekly teachings, Messianic World Update, prophecy studies, festivals, and exclusive content at:Lion and Lamb MinistriesExplore Monte Judah's teachings and study resources at:Messianic Marketplace – Monte Judah CollectionShop books, resources, gifts from Israel, and Messianic materials at:Messianic MarketplaceLearn more about the prophetic message of the Greater Exodus:The Greater ExodusSubscribe to Yavoh Magazine for biblical insight and teaching:Yavoh MagazineSupport the ministry and help us continue proclaiming the Word of God around the world:LLGive.comJoin us at LionandLamb.tv for trusted Messianic teaching, world events from a biblical perspective, and encouragement for believers preparing for the days ahead.

John McKee discusses some of the development of a lesser known resource from our ministry: the Messianic Torah Helper.

Messianic Apologetics editor John McKee surveys the Book of Leviticus from a Messianic perspective.

Interview by J-TV https://www.youtube.com/@JTVGlobalJewishChannel   Weekly Hashkafa Series #197 Given by Rabbi Mendel Kessin  

Is the Jezebel spirit alive in today’s church? In this eye-opening teaching, Michael Rood exposes how spiritual leaders manipulate authority, ignore sin, and misuse the name of the Almighty to protect their positions. Just as Jezebel seized power in ancient Israel, the same pattern may be unfolding in modern churches and Messianic congregations. This is a direct call to repentance for pastors, teachers, and believers. Are leaders protecting truth—or themselves? Join this channel to get access to perks: / @aroodawakening Watch more on the Michael Rood TV App! https://bit.ly/2X9oN9h Join us on ANY social media platform! https://aroodawakening.tv/community/s... Your Donation keeps these videos going! Thank you! https://aroodawakening.tv/donate/ Support us by visiting our store! https://roodstore.com/ Support us with purchases on Amazon!* https://amzn.to/3pJu9cC Have Questions? Ask us Here! https://aroodawakening.tv/support/con... "PLEASE NOTE: This is an affiliate link. This means that, at zero cost to you, A Rood Awakening! International will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.