With Everlasting Love I Have Loved You

[00:00:00] Day has been taken. I believe truly of the Lord Jeremiah. The prophecy of Jeremiah and chapter 31. I will read from verse three. [00:00:13] The Lord appeared of old unto me, saying, yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. Again will I build thee, and thou shalt be built, o virgin of Israel. Again shalt thou be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry. Again shalt thou plant vineyards upon the mountains of Samaria. The planters shall plant and shall enjoy the fruit thereof. For there shall be a day that the watchman upon the hills of Ephraim shall cry, arise, ye, and let us go up to zion unto the Lord. [00:01:04] For thus saith the Lord. Sing with gladness for Jacob and shout for the chief of the nations. Publish ye, praise ye, and say, o Lord, save thy people, the remnant of Israel. Behold, I will bring them from the north country and gather them from the outermost parts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame. The woman with child, and her that travaileth with child. Together a great company shall they return. Hither they shall come with weeping and with supplications will I lead them. I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters in a straight way wherein they shall not stumble. For I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn. [00:01:56] Hear the word of the Lord, o ye nations, and declare it in the isles, afar off, and say, he that scattered Israel will gather him and keep him as a shepherd does his flock. [00:02:19] Just a further word of prayer. Lord, we want to recognize afresh that without you we can do nothing. [00:02:31] We can speak many words, outline truths, give sound doctrine. But, Lord, unless that anointing of yours is upon us both the speaking and the hearing, it will all be to no avail. [00:02:47] We recognize that. And we also recognize, Lord, that you have provided the anointing through the finished work of our Lord Jesus and made it a living reality by the person of the Holy Spirit. [00:03:03] We therefore stand by faith into that anointing, that Lord, both in the speaking and in the hearing, you will be powerfully present. [00:03:14] And we ask it all with thanksgiving in the name of our messiah, the Lord Jesus. Amen. [00:03:25] The theme of this day that the Lord put upon the heart of Ian and others is taken from this marvelous prophecy contained in Jeremiah and chapter 31. [00:03:42] I believe that this particular prophecy goes to the root of a lot of the conflict in christian circles as to whether the Lord has said something about modern Israel or not. As you all very well know, there is an enormous controversy amongst christians. [00:04:02] I would to God that what was said earlier was still true. [00:04:09] Gerald said there was a day when the church, particularly the Church of England and evangelicals in all the denominations, were so solidly behind the question of a return of the jewish people to the Middle east and to the promised land. [00:04:34] And it is very interesting that in Israel that is now being recognized, there have been headlines in newspapers, evangelicals, the only friends of Israel. [00:04:49] Interesting. [00:04:50] Interesting that there is a recognition now that some of them, like William Hitler, the chaplain to the embassy, the british embassy in Vienna, had such a powerful influence upon Theodor Herzl in the very beginnings of the zionist movement, so much. [00:05:13] You would have found it difficult in days gone by to find bishops or others in the Church of England, let alone moderators of the Church of Scotland, or in other things that did not wholeheartedly support this biblical truth, that they would come a day when the Jews would return. [00:05:39] Today, it is entirely the opposite. [00:05:45] You go a long, long way in the Church of England to find people who support Israel or the return of the jewish people. It is generally looked upon as a mistake, a ghastly mistake. The Balfour declaration was a mistake. [00:06:08] The setting up of the jewish homeland in the promised land is considered to be a mistake. Well, I believe that this prophecy goes much to the heart of this whole matter. This prophecy is generally explained as being fulfilled in the return from Babylon. They very lightly simply tell us that, well, this was all fulfilled in the return from Babylon. That is roughly in the 6th century before Christ. So it has nothing whatsoever to do. One evangelical leader actually said some years ago, I don't know if he still holds to it, that Israel is a political accident and has nothing whatsoever to do with the word of God. [00:07:02] A former president of the United States, Jimmy Carter, Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher, his sisters, wonderful believers, come to some of the meetings. I've had known them, he said, when asked by an israeli journalist, sir, is there anything in the Bible about the modern state of Israel and her boundaries? And he said, nothing whatsoever that sums up the general idea. [00:07:42] And this prophecy is, along with so many others in the old covenant, is explained away as being fulfilled in the return from Babylon. So I believe that the Lord has led in this matter, this theme for today. [00:08:11] Loved with an everlasting love. [00:08:17] Twice the world comes love, loved with an everlasting love. [00:08:30] I have loved thee with an everlasting love. [00:08:37] That is the key to jewish history. [00:08:43] It may not always appear to be so, but it is the love of God that took hold of Abraham and revealed to him his glory. Gods, glory. [00:09:03] And changed Abraham from being a citizen of one of the great cities of the babylonian complex to a pilgrimage, a transient, a man who spent his whole life as it were, wandering and never owned a single portion except the ground in which he buried his wife in the land that God said would be his. [00:09:40] It is a love story. [00:09:44] In the Hebrew, the emphasis is even more interesting. We could translate it like this. It is correct the way it is translated. I have loved you with an everlasting love. [00:09:57] But the emphasis in Hebrew is just a little more than perhaps comes out in the English. It reads like this, with everlasting love I have loved you. [00:10:15] In other words, the emphasis is upon the everlasting nature of this love. [00:10:21] Tenacious, invincible, insuperable, unavoidable, the love of God. Of whom is the Lord speaking? [00:10:43] Is he speaking of Jeremiah? Well, if he is speaking of Jeremiah, we fully understand that the Lord loved him. Poor man. What a ministry he had. I sometimes feel the deepest sympathy with him. I don't think I have a ministry anything like Jeremiah's ministry, but I do have a very real sympathy with him. Misrepresented the butt of jokes, the sort of butt of all kinds of misrepresentations of his ministry, of what he was saying. [00:11:19] He was looked upon as a joke. All the other prophets, he called them false prophets, all said there was a glorious future for Israel and that there was no judgment was coming. Dear Jeremiah stood alone. And again and again, so unlike Isaiah, Jeremiah was always telling the Lord how fed up he was with his ministry and saying, why don't you just let me go free? I really don't want to have to have this kind of ministry. But the man was faithful to the end. [00:11:55] And if the Lord had said, I have loved you with an everlasting love, we would certainly understand it. But it isnt Jeremiah alone that the Lord is speaking of, nor is it just the faithful in Israel that the Lord is speaking of. [00:12:16] If you read carefully the passage, you will discover that in the context the previous prophecies nons after this, that the Lord speaks of Israel as a prostitute. He speaks of her as an adulteress. He speaks of her as a backslider. He speaks of her as someone who has gone after every kind of demonic principality and power, all these demonic beings. She has given herself to them, wedded herself to them, and yet here in this extraordinary prophecy, it's Israel that the Lord is speaking about. If he was speaking of the world, we would understand it. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. We all know that if he was speaking of the church, we would understand it. The Lord loved the church and gave himself up for it, that he might present it, a pure church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. We would understand it. If it was the believer, he loved me, Paul said, and gave himself for me, we would have understood it. All this is understandable. If it was just the faithful of Israel that he was speaking about, we would understand it. We would almost make a link between the faithful of Israel and the church. [00:13:52] I must say, the church is pretty faithless in her present condition. [00:13:59] But if I look at this amazing word of the Lord, it is Israel. I have found Israel in the wilderness. The Lord says, surely sin always leads into a wilderness. [00:14:20] I found Israel in a I have loved you with an everlasting love. [00:14:33] It's not the faithful, it is Israel, disobedient, backsliding, prostituted, adulterated. [00:14:48] It is this Israel that God is speaking on, hardened in her sin. [00:14:56] I have loved you, he says, with an everlasting love. [00:15:04] I don't know if any of you have ever read K. Arthur Smith's beautiful novel, Israel, my beloved, she founded a ministry, precepts upon precepts. Oh, I do wish more men had such a ministry. [00:15:29] And everywhere ive gone in the world, wherever ive found people whove been touched by that ministry, I have found spiritual character. [00:15:41] And she ends that incredible novel. [00:15:45] I dont normally read novels, but she ends that incredible novel with the words from God saying to Israel, the world saw you only as a jew, but for me, you were my beloved. [00:16:15] So really, here we have something right at the beginning which gives us the key to jewish history. We tend to think of love today as sentimental, sugary, sweet, forgiving, everything. You know, you can push anyone around if they've got love in them, you can pull the wool over their eyes. We think of someone who has that kind of love as very ancient, very old, just about to drop into the grave. [00:16:45] They have no more fire in them, the fires gone now, but theyre full of a kind of sentimental sweetness and love. But the love of God is powerful. [00:16:58] It is like fire. [00:17:00] It burns, it eradicates, it will not let go. It follows a person to the end, once God sets his love upon a human being that is one and the same time, the most wonderful thing and the most awesome thing, the most fearful thing, to be loved by the Lord. [00:17:26] Jacob was a twister. Jacob, his very name meant Twister. He came out with his arm around his brother's heel and they called him twister supplanter. It's not a very nice name to give a child, is it? I mean twister Yaakov. [00:17:48] But the Bible says three times Jacob I have loved and Esau I have hate him. [00:17:56] Maybe in the Hebrew it's not quite so dreadful because the real emphasis is on the love God has for Jacob. And by sort of in, by almost a contradistinction here he says, and Jesus I have hated. [00:18:15] But the fact still remains that the love of God for Jacob lies at the heart of the whole Bible story. [00:18:31] Why do you think God calls his people, even the church Jacob? [00:18:38] Why do you think he calls her Israel Jacob into Israel? [00:18:50] Why do you think that when you come to the New Testament you still find the name Israel? And in many people they take it for the church. [00:19:02] In one sense theyre not actually so wrong. [00:19:10] But the marvelous thing about this is that God never gave up Jacob and he is called everywhere the God of Jacob. Now wouldn't you think that extraordinary? Well, most people, of course, it just runs off them like water off of that speck. I mean you christians who read your Bible so well, the God of Jacob, why does he call himself more times the God of Jacob? Why the God of the twister? [00:19:58] It doesnt seem very nice. The God of the supplanter doesnt seem very nice. The God of the one who was always scheming doesnt seem very nice. [00:20:10] Is it any wonder that when you come to the prophecy of Isaiah, the Lord says, but now, o Jacob, I have created thee, o Jacob, and formed thee, o Israel. Fear not, for I am with thee, created Jacob, formed Israel out of Jacob. Only God could produce a prince out of a twister. [00:20:46] That is the love of God and that is the enduring, persevering, steadfast, overcoming love of God? Is it any wonder that God says, I have loved you with an everlasting love or let me put it the other, with everlasting love I have loved you. [00:21:13] I never let you go. Even in divine judgments, even in the breaking that God brought upon the affliction that God brought upon the jewish people, he has never, never given them up. [00:21:36] There is no other explanation for the survival of the jewish people. [00:21:45] They should have disappeared like all the other ancient peoples, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, even the ancient Egyptians, present Egyptians and not the ancient Egyptians for the most part, theyve all disappeared in a homogenized mass. [00:22:12] Why is it that today after 3000, 4000 years you still have a jewish people, not as some antique fossilized sort of stone from, they say, millions of years ago, but a people that are absolutely alive and at the center of enormous conflict and controversy. [00:22:45] Everyone has heard about Israel. In the most remote parts of the earth, they've heard about Israel. In the most remote tribes, they've heard about Israel. It is extraordinary. This people have survived. There is no other explanation. What is it? Is it jewish ingenuity? [00:23:04] Is it some kind of survivor gene? There's no doubt about it that the jewish people have survival genes. [00:23:18] And I'm not talking about Levi's or anything like that. [00:23:22] I mean, they've got a DNA that is extraordinary. But God put it there. [00:23:29] That's the point. God knew exactly what he was doing when he chose Abraham. [00:23:36] And God has produced a people that have become, as it were, a sign to the nations. So, dear friends, here's something tremendous. And I look at it, I think again and again, can I get it over to you? [00:23:52] Everlasting is everlasting. [00:23:58] You might say, what a stupid statement to say to make everlasting is ever. But that's because a whole lot of Bible scholars tell me that everlasting isn't everlasting. When God made an everlasting covenant with Abraham about the actual physical land of Israel, I'm told that worth was only till the Lord came and then it was cancelled. Well, well, well. So it wasn't everlasting. It was transient, it was temporal, it had a time limit. That's very interesting. Then maybe your eternal life has a time limit. Maybe it's got something within it which at one point the Lord presses a button and you're gone. [00:24:40] I mean, people don't think, what about the new and eternal governor covenant God has made with you? [00:24:50] If we say that this covenant is only for a time, no, no, everlasting means everlasting. Otherwise when God uses language, it has no meaning. [00:25:07] But if he says, with everlasting love, I have loved you, it is the key to Jacob being loved into Israel, Jacob the schemer, Jacob the twister, Jacob the supplanter, Jacob into Israel, the prince with God. [00:25:38] That is the story of every true child of God. [00:25:47] Thats why he is the God of Jacob. [00:25:51] Every true child of God has a spiritual DNA written into their very being. [00:26:02] And it is simply this. [00:26:04] God intends you to be an Israel. [00:26:10] But I must curb myself lest I leave the subject. [00:26:17] This then is the key to jewish history. She has survived all these attempts at liquidation and eradication right up to the present time. And I want to say that it is also the key to the present crisis. [00:26:35] Israel is now in a more dangerous crisis than she has ever been in the 57 years of her modern history. [00:26:45] Now it is not only from without that the threats are coming, but from within. [00:26:51] Political uncertainty. [00:26:54] A nation that is divided. [00:26:58] The possibility of violence only God can deliver. [00:27:05] And therefore this word comes to us down through the years. [00:27:10] With everlasting love have I loved thee. [00:27:15] Whatever will bring Israel to her savior, the Lord in love will do. Did you get that? [00:27:27] He may take the most extreme measures. Thats what love does. It is so amazing that it will take a person right through life and finally get them on their deathbed. [00:27:45] It would be much better to have come to the Lord much earlier. [00:27:51] But this love of God is so amazing. [00:27:59] I'm not bothered about all the other nations, frankly. I mean they've always. [00:28:10] I think in the end the United States will probably leave Israel to herself. She will give her up. She will force something upon her. [00:28:26] Certainly the UK has been trying to do it for years. The United Kingdom and the European Union. I will say no more. [00:28:36] They are in a mess themselves already. [00:28:39] And I have to keep on curbing myself lest I rejoice. [00:28:50] But we are the witnesses of something tremendous happening in the world. The growth of huge blocks moving towards the Antichrist. [00:29:07] How far off are we? [00:29:10] May be much nearer than we realize. [00:29:14] But I am not fearful of all these huge forces in the world. [00:29:24] Not even of the devil himself in this matter. [00:29:28] Because even the devil cannot outwit or quench the everlasting love of God. [00:29:40] So what is it the Lord will do? [00:29:45] How will he deal with this people? [00:29:48] How will he bring them finally to that place where they fall in love with their messiah and Redeemer? [00:30:02] He may take extreme measures, but he will win. Now I must watch myself on time. But here's the second thing about this wonderful verse that we've been taken as a theme. Here. It is. With an everlasting love I have loved thee, therefore, with loving kindness have I drawn thee. And I love this therefore. All these little words in the word of God. I remember Doctor Martinoy, Joan, in this very pulpit spent six months on. But in this pulpit from here, that godly man on fire with the fire of God. He spent six months in the Bible studies on Friday evening. But, but God. [00:30:55] Anyone who understands the force of such a little word, when it's God's word, could spend six months on it. But God. [00:31:09] Well here is something wonderful. Listen. Therefore out of this everlasting love that God loves this sinful, disobedient people. [00:31:25] With comes the grace of God, therefore, with loving kindness. This word in Hebrew. Many of you who been here years will know. I have so often quoted this word chesed. [00:31:49] It's almost untranslatable in one way because it means persevering love, steadfast love, overcoming love. But it's more than just love like that, with that character. It is merciful, covenant love. It is the kind of love within a marriage relationship, loyal, faithful, never giving up. And merciful. It's not just equals. It is the idea is something between someone superior and someone inferior, if you understand what I mean. And it is with this hesed that God says, I will draw you. [00:32:41] Therefore, when people say to me, are they not unbelieving? How can God fulfill his word through an unbelieving people, a hard necked people, a people who have rejected the Lord Jesus and still reject the Lord Jesus, I say very simply, it's everlasting love. And therefore with hereset have I drawn them. [00:33:15] The basis, hear me, of all God's dealings with this people is the finished work of the Messiah. [00:33:28] It underlies all his present attitudes toward them. [00:33:38] Sometimes in the Hebrew New Testament, this word chesed is used for the greek kharis. [00:33:48] Grace. [00:33:51] Can you explain grace? [00:33:55] I hear it explained as unmerited favor. Oh, dear. [00:34:02] Unmerited favour. What a mouthful. [00:34:06] It reminds me of american weather forecasts, precipitation and velocity, and a 1001 awful latin type words, instead of what Winston Churchill used to call good anglo saxon words. [00:34:34] Unmerited faith. [00:34:36] Some versions have tried to find another word for grace, but you can't like the word glory. God has to reveal what it is to us. Grace. What would you be without the grace of God? Where would you be without the grace of God? [00:34:57] By grace have you been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Grace. [00:35:09] Listen to this prophecy. With everlasting love I have loved you. Therefore with grace have I drawn you. Listen. Listen again. Shall you be built, o virgin of Israel? Virgin of Israel. How can the Lord call Israel a virgin? [00:35:34] When the Lord spoke to Jeremiah, she was anything but a virgin. Now, you all know that when youve lost your virginity, you've lost it for good. [00:35:42] You can't. You can't recover virginity once it's gone. [00:35:50] What did he mean again? Shall you be built, o virgin of Israel? He actually puts it twice. Listen to the way he puts it here in verse four. Again, will I build thee and thou shalt be built, o virgin of Israel. As if the Lord is saying, it's my grace that's doing this. So I begin to understand. Here is something tremendous about Israel. The recreation of her fertility is the grace of God, and the restoration of her ecology is the grace of God. And the rebuilding of her ancient cities and towns is the grace of God and the rebirth of her language, Hebrew, as a mother tongue of three and a half million people today, is the grace of God and the reinstitution of her national institutions. The Knesset, the police, the army, the air force, the navy are all the grace of God. [00:36:58] Where will this grace lead? [00:37:03] To salvation for the Lord. It is a small thing to recreate fertility and restore ecology and to get o ancient cities rebuilt after thousands of years in ruins. [00:37:21] It's nothing as if God is only interested in such things. [00:37:30] It is the prelude to eternal salvation. [00:37:37] It is the anteroom to a union with God that is eternal. [00:37:49] Well, dear friends, you see how wonderful this is? [00:37:55] I find it amazing because I say to you, these people who tell me how evil Israel is, how unjust she is, how filled with pride she is, and arrogance and this and that and that. Tell me a thousand other things I can add to what you have to say. I live there. I'm part of it. I see it with my own eyes. [00:38:20] I want to know why God perseveres with the church. [00:38:27] What a lot of claptrap, what a lot of false doctrine, what a terrible apostasy and backsliding in the church. Yet the Lord refuses to forsake the redeemed. [00:38:53] I could stop here and talk for quite a while about this. [00:38:59] And I'm not just talking about that outward thing that is called the church. [00:39:06] I'm talking about the body of the messiah, those redeemed by God. [00:39:12] You have to go a long, long way to even find an evangelical fellowship that has any love for Israel. [00:39:23] Do you mean to tell me that when God blesses such a group and saves in their midst, it is because they are wonderful? [00:39:34] Or is it because of grace? [00:39:41] Well, dear friends, think again. Will I build you and you shall be built? [00:39:51] What a wonderful inference here that he alone will build her and because he is the builder, she will be built. [00:40:05] And Israel is today a sign to the nations. [00:40:13] I said just recently in Jerusalem, the Shavuot conference of the Christian Friends of Israel. [00:40:22] Actually it was Derek prince who first said this in my hearing when we were having a time of fellowship. [00:40:32] God chose a tree in the garden of Eden. People always say, was it an apple tree, was it a grapefruit, was it an orange tree? Was it this? Was it apricot? Was it what? Was it a peach tree? What was it? It doesn't matter. It could be anything. It could have been mango for all I know. I mean, it could have been any kind of tree. The point is not the tree or the fruit. The point is God chose that tree and said, in the day that you eat thereof, you will surely die. [00:41:05] In other words, God chose a tree, put it in the midst of the garden, and that tree would divide. [00:41:13] It would either force you to the Lord or divide you from the Lord. It would either bring you into a union with God or it would divorce you from him, alienate you from him. [00:41:31] God chose this nation and he put her in the midst of the nation. And the way those nations deal with this nation and touch this nation is the way God deals with them. [00:41:46] She divides everywhere between the sheep and the goats. [00:41:55] That leads me to the last thing I want to just say this morning. And that is again, shall planters plant vineyards upon the mountains of Samaria? They shall plant and shall eat the fruit thereof. [00:42:16] I find this quite amazing. [00:42:21] And I have to try to resist myself from being facetious, really, because all these clever theologians and Bible scholars who tell us blithely that all this was fulfilled in the return from Babylon, you wonder if they really know their bible, because when the children of Israel returned from Babylon, they never repossessed Samaria. [00:42:53] They found in Samaria a mongrel group, the Babylonian. I mustn't get involved in this. But the babylonian system of deportation was to homogenize the whole empire and therefore stop unrest and rebellion and civil war. And the way they did it was they took one tribe from here, all the best people, and deported them thousands of miles away. And then another tribe from there and put them Here. And they sort of got intermarried. And the idea was we homogenized the whole empire. So in the end, there's Neither this nor that nor anything else. There's just babylonians. [00:43:34] For the jews, this was a horror. When they came back to find that in Samaria there were those who had Jewish blood butter, were completely submerged and lost in others. [00:43:48] And do you remember how Nehemiah would not allow them to help in the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem? Do you remember how Ezra chased them out of the house of God? It sounds so hard. When they said, we want to help you, Nehemiah said, not on your life. We will never have you help US. [00:44:09] Its all in the book. [00:44:12] They never did plant vineyards on the mountains of SAmaria. [00:44:22] And then again, think again. Think again. [00:44:26] You all know about the woman of SAmArIa. It's one of your favorite stories. We're always hearing of gospel messages from the woman of SAmaria. You remember what she said to the lord? How is it that you, Rabbi, a jew would have dealings with a samaritan? Jews don't have dealings with samaritans. Quite right. [00:44:51] No jew ever went through Samaria if he could help it. He only went through Samaria if a great grandmother was about to die in the Galilee. And she had a lot of money. [00:45:06] So you shot through Samaria as quickly as possible to get there before she died to see the will was in order. [00:45:17] Otherwise, you went the seven day long trip over the river Jordan and up the east side of the Jordan and then into the Galilee. [00:45:34] So even in the time of the New Testament, no jews were planting vineyards on the mountains of Samaria. [00:45:48] Actually, the time frame for this prophecy is after 1967. [00:45:56] For then a whole group of jewish settlers came into the area around Ariel and elsewhere in Samaria, and they found that the ground was absolutely good for vineyards. And they planted vineyard after vineyard after vineyard. And some of the best wines in Israel come from the samaritan mountains. [00:46:22] That means that this prophecy is absolutely up to date, relevant, practical and authoritative. That means that when God says, I have loved you with an everlasting love, that voice of God comes down through the thousands of years, right to our present time, and God is saying to this nation, beleaguered, misrepresented, hated by the world. [00:46:58] And he says, with everlasting love, I have loved you, dear friends. [00:47:13] Isn't that amazing? [00:47:16] I don't know what the Lord will do, but here is a word of hope. [00:47:27] If God loves this nation so much, we dont have to get neurotic. [00:47:34] Some christians get so neurotic in their prayer for Israel, as if somehow or other, if we dont pray, the whole lot will be liquidated. [00:47:49] Now, the Lord has his own ways of doing things, and im not saying you shouldnt pray. I appeal to you to become real intercessors. [00:48:00] Where are their intercessors today? Most intercession is the mouthing of a few words. [00:48:08] Where are their real intercessors? Where are the people in whom the Holy Spirit can conceive burdens that will not leave them? Like childbirth? [00:48:19] Something that grabs them, possesses them. [00:48:25] But we have to be careful that we dont take this on as if this is our burden, because this battle is not our battle. It is the Lord. [00:48:35] This whole battle taking place in Israel now about Gaza, and northern Samaria is all to do with the purpose of God and the word of God and the powers of darkness who want to destroy and destroy and destroy. And make no mistake about this, if Gaza goes and northern Samaria, part of northern Samaria goes, in the end, so will Jerusalem. [00:49:10] It's a battle. [00:49:12] I love the word. In the psalm 33 ten the Lord brings the counsel of the nations to naught. [00:49:23] Naught is naught. Cant do anything with naught. [00:49:27] However many times you multiply it, it still equals naught. Zero. The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to naught and makes the strategies or devices or plans of the people to be ineffectual. [00:49:49] I dont know what the Lord will do, but I know only one thing. [00:49:56] He has an everlasting love for this people. The same everlasting love with which he loves you. [00:50:03] The same everlasting love that he has for the church. [00:50:08] This same everlasting eternal love in his heart is for this people. [00:50:16] And until that day comes when it is fulfilled in the most glorious salvation, we have to be intercessors, standing with him the fulfillment of his purpose. May the Lord touch your heart, and may he write this word within it. [00:50:44] Thank you.