A BIBLE STORY

by Pastor Peter J. Peters

When you sing the hymn “I Love to tell the Story” do you know to which bible story the song refers? We know that Jesus died on the cross and that story is told in the bible; other stories such as David and Goliath, Daniel in the lion’s den, and Abraham offering up his son Isaac – these are all Bible stories. Could the hymn refer to one of these?

The church world today teaches that the Bible story is this: The God of the Old Testament is God working with the Jews. Then through the Jews, He brought His son Jesus, and Jesus established a new covenant and now salvation is open to the Gentiles.

But, I want to tell you a different story. A simple study on Anglo-Israel truth and something that has taken years to gather; it is new and exciting information for many. I want you to gain an understanding about a people; and, to understand that God has not changed. The Bible says that God is the same today, yesterday, and forever. He just does not change; and, the Bible tells us that there is something that our God cannot do - it is impossible for Him to lie. Keep those things in mind while you read this.Remember, God does not change and He cannot lie.

The problem that exists today is that the words Jew and Gentile are very confusing to the church world. To the church world today, the word Gentile means non-Jew. And the word Jew means those people in the Old Testament. Think about this profound thought.The people in the Old Testament, for the most part, were not called Jews. Abraham was not called a Jew. There are many preachers that will tell you he was a Jew – but Abraham was not called a Jew; Moses was not called a Jew; David was not called a Jew; Joshua was not called a Jew. They were called Israelites.

The first time that the word Jew is used in the Bible is in 2 Kings 16:6:

At that time Rezin King of Aram recovered Elath for Aram, and cleared the Judeans from Elath entirely and the Aramians came to Elath, and have lived there to this day.

If you read the King James or another translation it says that he cleared the “Jews” out; this is the first time the word Jew is used and it is used long after the House of Israel and the House of Judah separated. The people that lived in the nation of Judah became known as Jews. It is very important to understand this.

This bible story – the bible story of that old hymn - begins in Genesis, Chapter 12.Several events have taken place by the time you get to Genesis, Chapter 12 – the creation, the garden, the fall, the flood, and in Chapter 12, God calling a man. InGenesis 12:1-3 it says:

The Lord said to Abram, go forth from your country and from your relatives and from your father’s house to a land which I will show you.

And I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that ye shall be a blessing

and I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you I will curse.And in you all of the families of the earth shall be blessed.

Note that the God that cannot lie made a covenant with a man and his name was Abram.God said that his seed was going to form a great nation. God had a plan for the world.To bless the world and He was going to bless the world through this man, Abram. It is clear – this was a promise. From this point forward the Bible is about God’s promise to Abram - all the way to the end of the Old Testament to the New Testament. Remember that Jesus said “Salvation has come to this house for he too is a child of Abraham?” So salvation has something to do with Abraham. God expanded on this covenant, inGenesis 17:1-4:

And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless.

And I will establish my covenant between me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly.

And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying,

As for me, behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of a multitude of nations.

God expanded on the covenant that He made with Abram in Genesis, Chapter 12. InGenesis 12, Abram was to father a nation; now in Genesis, Chapter 17, he was to father a multitude of nations. Continuing with Verse 5:

No longer shall thy name be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for I will make you a father of a multitude of nations.

This is talking about flesh and blood people. Out of the loins of this flesh and blood man, Abram, will come, according to the Word of God, a multitude of nations – not justa nation but a multitude of nations. No scholar can honestly say that there is any way that this was spiritualization because Abram, now Abraham, understood that he was to have a flesh and blood child. Physical flesh and blood people were going to come from him and form these nations. This is clear. Reading on in Verses 6-7:

And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will establish nations of you, and kings shall come forth out of thee.

And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you, and to your descendants after.

The physical flesh and blood descendants that were going to come from the loins of Abraham were going to be a covenant people. Isn’t that what God said? If God said it, is anyone going to annul it? No! Even all of those who may not want it to be a covenant people, who may not even know they are a covenant people – it doesn’t make any difference. God said it and that is it. Read in Genesis 17:19:

And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear you a son indeed; and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.

God was saying His covenant was not going to be with Ishmael or with any of the children of his concubines but with a son to be called Isaac. (From Isaac’s sons we get the term “Saxons.”) Now the story is beginning to develop. This is a story about God keeping His word; He is planning to bless the entire world through a people. Read inGenesis 28:14:

Your descendants shall also be as the dust of the earth, and you shall spread out to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south; and in you and your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

This is the promise passing from Isaac to his son Jacob. This is the dream that Jacob had; he is receiving this covenant. It has passed from Abram, (Abraham), to Isaac and from Isaac to Jacob. Notice that God intends to bless all of the families of the earth through these people. Now look at Deuteronomy 14:2:

For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for His own possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

These people were going to be a holy people and a chosen people. Does this mean that He does not love the other people of the world? No, it does not. I love my wife but that does not mean that I do not love your wives as my Christian sisters; just that my wife holds a special place. We see in this story that the people that come from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob become God’s wife. It is not that he does not love anyone else – He wants all wives, so to speak, blessed. But, this is His wife. Most people do not know that God was married nor do they know that He is a divorcee. When you look at the covenant that God made with these people at Mount Sinai it was likened unto a marriage covenant.

Can you accept that? The world can accept that if we find the people to be those that we call Jews today. We must bless the Jew so God will bless us. If we curse the Jew then God will curse us. Israel is the apple of His eye. We must support them. This verse is acceptable in light of that thinking.

Or, we can accept Deuteronomy 14:2 if we just accept the fact that today His people are spiritual Israel, the church, and they are chosen above all other people. But, if we stop and read Deuteronomy 14:2 think that at that time He was speaking to a physical, flesh and blood people. He was speaking to a race of people. This is a story of intrigue, betrayal, a rocky marriage, and a story where God is keeping His word. His Word was to Abram in Genesis Chapter 12 that his seed would become a great nation. In GenesisChapter 17 God changed Abram’s name to Abraham and promised him that not only would his seed become a great nation but a multitude of nations. Further, this covenant was not just between Abraham and God, but between God and Abraham and his descendants after him for an everlasting covenant

So, we have Abram who became Abraham and the promise that a multitude of nations would come from his loins and that promise goes to Isaac and from Isaac to Jacob. If this seems elementary to you, remember that there are so many people that love the Lord and they read their Bible and try to make something of it, but they do not understand this story. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel. Jacob had twelve sons and they fathered the twelve tribes of Israel. Remember, God is keeping His word – they are going to grow and grow in number like the dust of the earth. There eventually became thirteen tribes because the son Joseph brought forth his two sons – Ephraim and Manasseh - and Jacob-Israel adopted them as his own sons, so instead of twelve there became thirteen.In Exodus they have become an immense number of people and are living in Egypt.God, through the leadership of Moses, brings them out of Egypt into the Promised Land.Something took place during the time of Moses. Read in Exodus 19:3-8:

And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the sons of Israel;

You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to myself.

Now then, if you will indeed obey my voice, and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession among all the peoples; for all the earth is mine.

And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel.

So Moses came and called the elders of the people, and set before them all these words which the Lord had commanded him.

And all the people answered together, and said, all that the Lord has spoken we will do. And Moses brought back the words of the people to the Lord.

So, God made a covenant. They are already a covenant people, but now He is going to form a nation from these people. Remember the promise in Genesis 17; eventually a multitude of nations will come from Abraham’s seed. Now God is forming this great nation of Israel and they enter into a national covenant, if you will, with God. It is likened unto a marriage covenant where they said that they would love, honor, and obey. Moses, himself, did not make it to the Promised Land, but under the leadership of Joshua those children of Israel came into the Promised Land. They settled it; they fought the Canaanites; but something happened. Their faith – their love you might say – slackened some. At this point their king was God. But, they began to backslide. They decided that they wanted to have an earthly king like all of the other nations. Read in 1 Samuel 8:4-7:

Then all the elders of Israel gathered together, and came to Samuel at Ramah,

And said to him, behold, you have grown old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations.

But the thing was displeasing in the sight of Samuel, when they said, give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord

And the Lord said unto Samuel, listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they said to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me, from being king over them.

They still were His covenant people and still in the covenant that God made at Mount Sinai. They made a bad mistake and they choose to have a physical, earthly king like all of the other nations. Samuel told them that they would be taxed, that their children would be drafted, and all sorts of things, but they wanted an earthly king – so God gave them a king. The first king was Saul. The second king was David. David was a great and mighty king; a man after God’s own heart, the Bible says. The empire solidified under his leadership, established its boundaries very methodically; but understand that until this time these people were never called Jews. And for the modern day Judeo-Christian world to teach the people that David was a Jew and that the Jews gave up God as their king is very misleading. They were called Israelites or Hebrews, but were not at this time called Jews. When David died, Solomon became king. After Solomon died things got a little bit shaky. Solomon taxed the people so much that they wanted a tax relief and demanded it. When his son, Rehoboam, took the throne, they said give us a tax relief.Read in I Kings 12:4:

Your father made our yoke hard; therefore lighten the hard service of your father, and his heavy yoke which he put upon us, and we will serve you.

When the Bible uses the word yoke, it is an economic term. The people were forced to labor under taxation. It was causing them problems. Continue in I Kings 12:14-17 to find the king’s answer:

And he spoke to them according to the advice of the young men, saying, my father made your yoke heavy, and but I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.

So the king did not listen to the people; for it was a turn of events from the Lord that he might establish his word, which the Lord spoke through Ahijah theShilonite to Jeroboam the king of Nebat.

When all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, saying, what portion do we have in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse; to your tents, O Israel; now look after your own house, David. SoIsrael departed unto their tents.

But as for the sons of Israel who lived in the other cities of Judah, Rehoboamreigned over them.

If you read this whole chapter, you will find that there was a division in the nation at this time. Now, instead of having one nation there are two nations. If you don’t understand this, you can’t understand the prophets. The ten northern tribes succeeded from the union and formed what was called the House of Israel. The House of Israel was the nation of Israel. A separate nation. The two southern tribes, Judah and Benjamin, formed the House or nation of Judah. Some of the prophets went to the House of Israel and some went to the House of Judah, and there were different prophecies made about these two nations. Now there are two nations; but God promised Abraham that his seed would form a multitude of nations. We are talking about God working very patiently to bring forth His promises.

The next part of the story is so important because if you don’t understand it you will be missing a great part of the cross; the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and what all was done at the cross is not understood until you understand that God had married the House of Israel in Exodus, Chapter 19, with the covenant. Both the House of Israel and the House of Judah became sinful. The prophet Hosea was sent to the nation of Israel with the message to “Repent or Perish.” They did not repent. As a result, they perished. This had already happened in Jeremiah Chapter 3:8:

And I saw, that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel I had sent her away, and given her a writ of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she went and was a harlot also.

God said, “I divorce Israel” for her unfaithfulness. He said He should have divorcedJudah, too, but put up with Judah because He still had to keep the covenant and He had a plan. The House of Israel went into Assyrian captivity about seven hundred years before Christ. We hear very little more about them in the Bible after that. What happened to them? We know, contrary to what is taught in the churches today, that they did not go out of existence; we are told in Hosea 1:10 that they were going to form a multitude like the sands of the sea and that someday they would join together with the House of Judah and have one leader. What happened to those people? They dispersed to the north and to the west into the area of Europe and the British Isles and they became nations. Cut off from God – remember they were not His people; they had been divorced – but to say that they were not around is to deny James Chapter 1. Seven hundred years later Jamesis writing and this is what he says in 1:1:

James, a bond servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes who are disbursed abroad, greetings.

It says “the twelve tribes.” They were in existence and they were scattered abroad. That phrase, disbursed abroad, is only used three times in the New Testament. The above passage from James 1:1; the following passage from I Peter 1:1:

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia who are chosen

He is writing to a chosen people who are scattered or disbursed in a certain area. The third place this phrase is used is in John 7:35:

The Jews therefore said to one another, where does this man intend to go, that we shall not find him? He is not attending to go to the dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks, is he?

The word dispersion comes from the Greek and, according to Strong’s, it means Israelites living in other countries or scattered abroad. When Jesus spoke they knew about this dispersion of the ten tribes of Israel that had been cast off seven hundred years before. The prophets told them. And, they had the promises. Who were the Gentiles? Read in Romans 9:23-24:

And he did so in order that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had prepared beforehand for glory,

Even us, whom he also called, not among Jews only, but also from among the Gentiles?

Hebrews 8:8 teaches clearly that the new covenant was made with the House of Israel and the House of Judah. Paul is talking about those people that have been called. He said that “he called us from the Jews and from the Gentiles.” One of our problems is that we have the wrong definition of Gentile in our heads. We think the word Gentile means non-Jew. All you have to do is look up the Greek word for Gentile, and see that it says, “a race, a nation; plural, the nations.” The word Gentile means nation. God said to Abraham that his seed was going to form a multitude of nations. This is a flesh and blood race of people forming nations.

In Hosea we find that God had Hosea marry a harlot. Why? Personally, I think that he wanted Hosea to learn to preach from the heart and to get across to the people how God was feeling about His people going whoring after other gods. So Hosea was God’s prophet and he preached what God wanted him to preach. In Hosea 1:4:

And the Lord said to him, name him Jezreel for yet a little while, and I will punish the house of Jehu, for the blood shed of Jezreel and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.

They were no longer going to continue as a nation because God was going to put an end to their nation. Continuing in Hosea 1:5-7:

And it will come about on that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in thevalley of Jezreel.

Then she conceived again, and gave birth to a daughter. And the Lord said untohim, name her name Loruhamah, for I will no more have compassion on the house of Israel, that I should ever forgive them.

But I will have compassion on the house of Judah, and deliver them by the Lord their God, and will not deliver them by bow, by sword, nor by battle, by horses, or by horsemen.

The prophesy was that God was going to put an end to the nation of Israel, but not to the nation of Judah - the Jews of the House of Judah. He said that he would deliver Judahbut not by sword or by battle. The Assyrians, who were a world ruling power at the time, came down from the north and they conquered the House of Israel; they kept going and went into the southern two tribes, but they were stopped by the hand of God. The Assyrians surrounded Jerusalem, which was the capitol of the House of Judah. Read this in 2 Kings 19:35-36:

Then it happened that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians and when men rose early in the morning, behold, all of them were dead.

So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and returned home, and lived atNineveh.

This was the prophesy that Hosea had made coming to pass. He delivered Judah, but not by battle, sword, bow, or horseman; but by a miracle that happened that night – 185,000 died during the night. He kept the promise to the House of Israel. They were conquered by the Assyrians and were carried into exile as told in 2 Kings 17:6:

In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and carriedIsrael away into exile into Assyria, and settled them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

The Assyrians took these covenant people, these people who were under a national covenant and married to God, and carried them away. God divorced them, according toJeremiah Chapter 3.

We need to go back to Hosea Chapter 1 to find out what happened to these people. The church world today tells us that they ceased to be; they went out of existence; they homogenized with the other peoples of the world. Read on in Hosea 1:8-10:

When she had weaned Loruhamah, she conceived, and gave birth to a son.

And the Lord said, name him Loammi, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.