Chris Katulka: The whole story of God's redemption as we're going to look at is a story of taking us from Eden to Eden. You're in the middle of it right now. This world is in the middle of God's story of taking us from Eden in Genesis 1 and 2 to Eden in Revelation 22.

Steve Conover: Thank you for joining us for The Friends of Israel today. I'm Steve. With me is Chris.

Chris Katulka: Hey, Steve.

Steve Conover: Today on the program, we'll be airing a past prophecy conference from Chris recorded at Grace College & Seminary in Winona Lake, Indiana. If you're interested in joining us for this year's conference, July 14-18 at Grace College, both Chris and I will be there, and we'd love to meet you. Our topic this year is the study of the Kingdom of God. You can find out more information about our annual prophecy conferences by going to foiradio.org.

Chris Katulka: Now, the reason that we're airing a past prophecy conference is because I'm actually leaving for Israel this weekend, and while I'm over there, our video team will be working on a new project that we'll be talking about in the future. It's something very exciting.

Today's message that you'll be hearing is all about God's global plan to use Israel and the Jewish people to redeem the world.

Steve Conover: We're glad you've chosen to be with us. We hope you enjoy.

Chris Katulka: Romans 8. We're going to be looking at this idea of Israel's Redeemer and what Israel's Redeemer is Yeshua Hamashiach,  Jesus the Messiah. A lot of times, what happens is when we begin to think about Israel and the Jewish people, as we begin to focus in on this group so much that we, and this land so much that we forget about what the purpose of why God chose that people and that land was for. We forget the reason for that.

I think it's important for us to remind ourselves why this land and these people are so vital because it's not just about them. It was never just about them. It was about a global picture of what God would do. The whole story of God's redemption as we're going to look at is a story of taking us from Eden to Eden. You're in the middle of it right now. This world is in the middle of God's story of taking us from Eden in Genesis 1 and 2 to Eden in Revelation 22, from bookend to bookend.

You know what I love? It hit me the first time I saw it. In the very beginning in Genesis 1 and 2, there is a tree. A tree of, everybody?

Congregation: Life.

Chris Katulka: Life. When you get to the end of Revelation 21 and 22, how beautiful is this bookend? There is a what? Tree of life. There it is, staring at... If one author sat down and wrote the Bible from beginning to end in a few months' time, then I'd say, "Oh, what a great book ending. That's nice. In the beginning is a tree, and in the end is a tree, and God is dwelling with his people. That is beautiful." But the beauty of God's Word is that it wasn't written in a couple months by just one author. God used multiple men, over hundreds of years to communicate a story of his redemption where Moses communicates the story of God's creation where there's a tree and where John, hundreds, close to a thousand years later communicates the story of what? God in the future with a tree in the middle of the city, and God dwelling with his people. That's amazing.

Did you ever play that game before where you're communicating, in college I did it, where you try to create a story with your friends. Somebody would write a sentence, and then they'd put it in the mailbox of another person, and then they'd add a sentence, and then you'd put it in the mailbox of another person, and then after a week, you read the story. It's a mess. The story's a mess. It makes no sense.

It's funny. You know why it's funny? Because it makes no sense, but yet, in God's beautiful plan of how he's unraveling his redemptive story, he gives us his word. That was written over several hundred years with several different writers, and yet, the story remains completely clear. There is a string that runs from Genesis to Revelation, a string that binds all the pages of the Bible together, and it's the story of how God is desiring to repair this world, and he does this through his son and the plan that he has laid out from Genesis to Revelation. That should make us marvel at the handy work of God.

I want to read this for you here. This is something I wrote. It's in your books that we've given to you. "Our world is ruined." I don't have to tell you that. You just got to turn on the TV or read your newspaper. "Our world is ruined." Let me just say this. It's not just ruined in the ways that we see things happening. It's ruined in every way. Look at this.

"It's been ruined by the cursive sin that infected every aspect of God's creation, every aspect. Since Genesis 3, the corruption of sin has had a firm grip on the physical realm of God's creation. The actual earth, cosmos, and all mankind is rife with disunity, disorder, and chaos from a molecular level to a macro level, from the cells that are in us, the things that we can't even see that God created that are moving all the way to a macro level that we read about in the news on a global level. Things are in disarray. Even more, the plight of sin severed our relationship with the Creator himself. Our world and everything in it must be repaired from the devastation sin has wreaked upon it. It must be made new so that God might have that unbroken, uninterrupted relationship he so longs for with his creation."

That is a key point, everybody. That is what is so amazing about who God is, that God in his grace and mercy would desire to continue a relationship with his creation despite our complete disobedience to him. Think about that. That's called grace. The very fact that in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, instead of God packing up and leaving, what did he do? He said, "Adam. Eve. Where are you?" He searched them out in the midst of their disobedience.

In the story of Exodus, a beautiful picture that God would even take the time to establish a system where there was a requirement for a tabernacle. Why did he build a tabernacle? Exodus 25:8, "That he might dwell with his people." Wow. That should hit us. Sinful people, people that are so easily distracted, so easily prone to hate and disobedience and sin, God creates a system to dwell with them. Praise God. That's the grace of God in the Old Testament, that God would use a people called Israel to communicate his message to the world is the grace of God over and over again as he pushes his way into our world, fights his way.

I always like to tell my kids, God is fighting to have a relationship with you. He's fighting for it. Don't look away. He is fighting and has been fighting since the moment of Genesis 3 to make sure he takes control of his creation again and that you might have an un-abiding relationship, an uninterrupted relationship with him. He fought for that for you.

This is the story of how God is redeeming and repairing our world. It must be made new so that God might have that unbroken, uninterrupted relationship he so longs for with his creation. Here it is, "Shalom must be restored to his creation. He will accomplish this through his son the Lord Jesus, the Messiah of Israel."

Shalom. Shalom is one of those great words that when you get to Israel, it's the word we all know and the word we all love to use. The moment you see an Israeli, "Shalom." It means "hello," but there are moments in the Bible when that word "shalom" is more than just a hello. Shalom embodies this, it's this word that embodies this idea of completeness, wholeness. God desires to make this world whole again, complete again. He desires to bring peace to this world and shalom, not only on a molecular level, but also on a macro level, in and out, up and down.

The whole thing, not one aspect of his creation will be left. He desires to make it new and complete and whole. Romans 8 gives us, I think, one of the greatest pictures of his desire for this because I think it speaks to where we are today and the hope that we have in the future for this repair that will take place.

Turn with me to Romans 8. We're going to jump here, and then we're going to go back to Psalms 122, so look with me in Romans 8:18. The sigh of sin and the surety of shalom. Look at this, "For I consider," Paul says. Now, bear in mind, Paul has just spent the past seven chapters laying out his great argument on the sinfulness of man, his need for a Savior and salvation, and the sanctification of man. This great theological argument of the sin of man that every man is sinful, every man, every woman because we are, in the same way all of creation has been completely infused with sin, man and woman are also infused and complete with sin. We have sin in us, and as a result, because of that disunity we have with God, God sent his Son that we might have a Savior, that we might have the ability to approach God again. We have sinned. We have salvation in Romans, and then the process of God's sanctification as he makes us more like him.

Then we get to this moment of where sanctification meets something that will come in the future: glorification. Watch what it says here, Romans 8:18, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us."

I don't know what you're dealing with in life right now. We all have our stories. We all have our issues. We all have sufferings that we deal with. The suffering that Paul is talking about is more on a persecution level of the church, that the church is being persecuted, that they're being targeted, but I also believe that he's thinking of the personal suffering that comes from sin as well.

We're all suffering. We go through this. This is a part of life. The greatness of the wisdom of getting older as you're able to help the younger people out. Do the younger people ever listen? No. That's right. I never listen to my mom. You know what I say to my mom now? "You were so right." Why? Because they have wisdom of what life is like. They have wisdom of the ups and downs, the sufferings that we go through, the reality of life.

Life, as I've been saying to students that I teach that I take to Israel or when I speak at Word of Life Bible Institute, anytime I have a chance to tell young adults, I remind them, life is not easy. It's hard. Even in America, life is hard. We are the most blessed nation in the world. We have the greatest things in the world. We have the most wealth in the world. The most wealth the world has ever known before is in the pockets of most Americans. You know what? We still suffer. We still have problems.

This reality is true, that even today as we're dealing with these issues, we have to be reminded that in our present time, we are suffering, but we are suffering with hope that changes everything. It's the light at the end of the tunnel.

Paul says this, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time, this age that we're living in right now, are not worth comparing. You can't even hold a candle to it. It doesn't even compare. It's apples and oranges. It's chicken and fish. They don't compare to the glory that will be revealed."

The Revelation, everybody, of the glory that God is going to reveal and the glory that he's talking about is the resurrection of all things. This is how God is going to repair the world. He's going to resurrect it. He's going to take this ball of dirt and this human man, and he's going to make it new. He's going to take the corruptible and turn it into incorruptible. He's going to take the mortal and turn it into immortal. That's the glory that's going to be revealed. I love that word revealed, like it's a play that's opening and you have that curtain that's pulling back and revealing what's happening behind the stage, this revelation that's going to happen.

Look what it says here. "For the creation," notice, he doesn't even start with you or me. He doesn't start with us. He starts with what? "All of creation has a problem. All of creation waits with eager longing." You're not the only ones that open the newspaper and see what's happening in the world or hear a story of a family member that breaks your heart, a son or daughter or grandchild. You're not the only one. All of creation is eagerly waiting.

You know what I've been seeing more and more, even from young adults? Come, Lord Jesus. Come. I'm tired of this. I'm tired of this world. I am tired of the brokenness. I'm tired. Come. It's not just you. It's all of God's creation. When you look out into the stars and you see the universe, all of it is eagerly waiting with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God, for the creation was subjected to futility, the sin, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope, in hope that creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Wow.

Paul is giving us the light at the end of the tunnel, what it will look like when this repair happens and the longing that not only we but all of creation has for this moment, for we know that the whole creation has been groaning, Verse 22, together in the pains of childbirth until now. This is an amazing illustration because I can remember the day my daughter was born. I remember it like a movie that plays in my mind of how we were at our house and how we ended up at the hospital. I could remember all of the talking and back and forth of how this whole process is going to go down. I could remember standing there next to my wife and holding her hand. It was an amazing moment, but there's tension. There is tension. There's tension. Men? There's tension.

All of a sudden, there's screaming and there's yelling and there's chaos. It seems like... What's going to happen? You don't know what... You're looking at the doctor. The doctor's looking at you. You have no idea what's going on. I don't know what's going on. Then all of a sudden, Olive appears, and it's like the whole room goes silent. All of the pain and all of the emotions and all of the chaos dropped off, and it was just me, my wife, my daughter. That's it. It was quiet. That's when you get your picture. You'd never take the picture 10 minutes earlier. You get the picture when it's done.

The world is in a moment of birth pains, but the moment that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah of Israel reveals himself? Peace. Peace. We wait. The pains of childbirth until now, Verse 23, "And not only creation, but we ourselves, you and me who have the first fruits of the Spirit," you, right now, have the very Holy Spirit of God dwelling in you.

One of the questions that came in last night during the Q&A that didn't get a chance to get answered was, "How do I tell a person who doesn't believe that they can keep their salvation that God promises eternal security?" It's right here. If you are a believer in Jesus the Messiah, you have been indwelt with the Holy Spirit of God. "You have been sealed," it says in Ephesians 1:14 and 15, sealed. He uses the same phrase Paul uses here in Romans 8. "You've been sealed until the day of the revealing," and in Ephesians 4, "You've been revealed until the day of redemption, of resurrection." You can't get rid of it.

If you are a true believer in Jesus the Messiah, you have been locked in. You've been sealed. You have the beginning of the Kingdom in you. You're Kingdom people. Did you know that? The very promise of the Holy Spirit was a promise of a Kingdom, and it's dwelling in you with anticipation of the future Kingdom that's coming, but you're citizens of it today. You're supposed to act, we are supposed to act as citizens of the Kingdom now. That's going to help us as we look at Psalm 122 in a moment.

But you have the first fruits of the Spirit, you and I. That Spirit within us that understands the Kingdom coming, it groans. It groans inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. Folks, that's the moment that the dead will rise and come back to life, the redemption of our bodies. When we talk about being redeemed, the hope we have in redemption is that one day, just as Jesus came bursting out of the grave, our bodies too will come bursting out of the grave. They will be redeemed.

Steve Conover: We've been enjoying a message Chris delivered at a past conference. Chris, if our listeners are interested in attending one of this year's conferences, what should they do?

Chris Katulka: Yeah, Steve, these are our National Prophecy Conferences. There's actually three opportunities for our listeners. The first is this July 14th through the 18th at Grace College & Seminary in Winona Lake, Indiana. Again, in September, September 6th through the 10th, you can go to our National Prophecy Conference at Eden Resorts & Suites in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Then finally, for our Canadian listeners, September 19th through the 21st at Victoria Inn & Convention Center in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Listen, if anybody's interested in going to one of our National Prophecy Conferences, you can go to foiradio.org, that's foiradio.org. There, you can find out all the information about our upcoming Prophecy Conferences.

For our Canadian listeners, you can also call 888-664-2584. Again, that's 888-664-2584 to find out more information about the conference in Winnipeg. Just to let you know, get you excited, the National Prophecy Conference is all about the coming Kingdom of God and how that God's Kingdom really spans from Genesis to Revelation. We're going to be looking at every aspect of the Kingdom of God that spans the beginning of the Bible until the end. It's going to be a fantastic study. We hope to see you there.

Steve Conover: The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry has been sharing the love of the Messiah and supporting Israel and the Jewish people since 1938. If you feel led to support our work or you simply want to reach out to us, visit foiradio.org. Again, that's foiradio.org. You can call our listener line at 888-343-6940. Again, that's 888-343-6940, or you can write to us at FOI Radio, P.O. Box 914, Bellmawr, New Jersey, 08099. Again, that's FOI Radio, P.O. Box 914, Bellmawr, New Jersey, 08099. Let us know where you're listening when you call or write. Our host and teacher is Chris Katulka. Today's program was produced by Tom Gallione, co-written by Sarah Fern. Our theme music was composed and performed by Jeremy Strong. I'm Steve Conover, executive producer.

The Friends of Israel is a production of The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. We are a worldwide Christian ministry communicating biblical truth about Israel and the Messiah while fostering solidarity with the Jewish people.