we want to go back to our study of sovereign election Israel and eschatology. That's a rather technical title but that really is what I'm trying to convey to you. A bit of a theological lecture more than anything else. So take you to school a little bit, not in the normal preaching style but maybe a little bit more like the classroom.Certainly the nation Israel is at the center stage of history in the world. It has been for a long, long time, particularly since it was reestablished as a nation last century. But even before that, Israel was always a preoccupation for the world. That little country tucked there in the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea on the western border of the Middle East has been a focal point for world history in many, many ways since it was chosen by God to be the land of promise for His people and since it is the very place where He sent His Son to do His mighty work of redemption and salvation. Israel is still center stage in the world. They are in the newspaper every day, on the news every night. Their...their particular place in history is by all human reckoning a very tenuous one, a very fragile one. They look like at any moment they could be completely engulfed and swept into oblivion by the surrounding enemies, the massive Islamic world. But that will not happen..that will not happen. They are not now under the protection of God because they're apostate and they've rejected their Messiah, but they will be preserved as an ethnic people because God does have a future plan to save a generation of them to give them the promises that He made in the Old Testament...
