Whose God is the LORD?

[00:00:00] Let's go to Psalm number 33, Psalm number 33 tonight. [00:00:07] We were in Psalm 33 last week as well. We looked at the first three verses about praise. That praise comes out of a heart of joy, and the result of joy followed by praise is a song. And we saw that last week. This week we're going to go to verse number 12. [00:00:28] Verse number 12, Psalm 33. Verse number 12. I'd like to just cover the significance of this verse because it is a very common verse that pretty much everybody has heard at some point or another. And I want to look at it in a little bit of detail and see what the Scriptures say about it. So verse number 12, Psalm 33. Verse 12 says this. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. [00:01:03] Would you pray with me? [00:01:06] Our Lord in heaven, we thank you for the opportunity to meet together as the people of God to study your Word. Lord, help us and be our teacher as we look at your Word. I pray especially for the practical parts of these truths, that these would not just be dry doctrines, but, Lord, they would be real, real life sources of strength to us, to your people, who are indeed your inheritance. [00:01:32] And so, Lord, as we look at your Word, please guide us in our study. Give me wisdom and help me, Lord, to say the things that your people need, to strengthen them and help them to understand your Word and then to get strength from it and to grow from it. And so, Lord, we just commit our time to you, both in our study of your Word, but also in prayer to follow that you would bless it and that you would be pleased with it. In Jesus name, amen. [00:01:59] Now you'll notice it says, of course I'll just put this out there because I'm going to come back around to this. But of course, this verse is almost always quoted. Anytime there's anything that's patriotic slash religious right, you kind of have the blend of patriotism and Christianity. And wherever they meet, this verse is probably going to be quoted. There is one other verse that's likely going to be quoted, and it's what, 2 Chronicles 7:14. Yeah, brother Phil knows it. [00:02:37] He said, 2 Chronicles 7:14. If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways. And you know the verse. Okay, we're not going to go there. As much as I want to kind of go there, we're not going to go there tonight. But you will also find this verse often quoted. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. So the first thing we have to establish and we have to understand is what is a nation? [00:03:05] What is a nation? When we say the word nation, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. And this. Look, this will help us, not just in this one verse, but throughout our study of the Bible. When we think of nation in the way we use it in our language, we think of, you know, we think of Ghana, we think of the Philippines, we think of India, we think of China, Peru, we think of the United States. [00:03:34] That's what we think of when we think of a nation. But that's not really what a nation is. [00:03:39] That's what's called a state. Right? In Scripture, though, a nation is not what we think of it. And it's a key distinction here, especially when we look at the way it's used in this particular verse. [00:03:52] A nation is a people group. A nation is a group of people who are linked together by their physical lineage, Right? That's the connection of a nation. In other words, when you talk about, for instance, as an example, you take the Philistines in Scripture, the Philistines were a nation because they all had an original ancestor. [00:04:19] That was the original Philistine. The people of Israel is a nation because they have an original ancestor in Jacob, Right? That's why they're called Israel. What is the common word you've seen in Scripture referring to the people of Israel? It's called the children of Israel. The children of Israel. That is a direct reference to the people who are the descendants of the man Jacob, who was named Israel, the prince of God. Okay? And that's a key. That's a key distinction. We'll get a little bit doctrinal here in just a minute. But, you know, when we start talking about Reformed theology and start to blur the lines and one common way that in Reformed theology that the church is described is called true Israel, how many of you ever heard something spiritual? Israel. True Israel and that kind of thing? Well, the one thing the Lord places in Scripture that really throws a wrench into that idea is the term children of Israel. You know why? [00:05:26] Because that is a direct reference to their physical lineage. Okay? [00:05:32] And these kinds of things will help us come to the right doctrine. [00:05:36] And so when we talk about a nation, we're talking about a people who have a common ancestor. [00:05:41] Is that true of anybody in America? [00:05:45] No, that's not true. So in a scriptural sense, America is not a nation. We use the word America is a state, we call it a country. But even that's. [00:05:56] That could be right, because that country refers to the land, but it's not a nation in the biblical sense. So go back to verse number 12. Now, blessed is the nation. So we're talking about. In a broad sense, we're talking about a family of people, right? [00:06:14] So if we understand the word nation, we're talking about a family of people, people who are broadly in one great family, we that has a single ancestor, okay? And I guess in some way we're all part of the same nation in as much as we have Adam as our ancestor. But as far as the nations of the world go, there are distinctions in that way. [00:06:34] Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. [00:06:38] So what we need to understand about this verse is this. [00:06:42] And this is foreign to us, but it is so true in Scripture that if we don't get it, we can really go off the rails when we try, try to and misunderstand what the Bible's saying in Scripture. And in many nations and in many countries in our world, your identity as a member of that nation is closely connected to the God of that nation, right? In other words, they're one and the same. They're practically inseparable. And you know this because, having read the Bible, you know these different things. Here you have the gods of the Canaanites were BAAL and Ashtaroth. [00:07:29] The God of the Moabites was called Chemosh. The God of the Ammonites was Moloch and Milcom. [00:07:35] The God of the Philistines was called Dagon. [00:07:39] The God of the Assyrians was called Nisroch. And all of these are in the scripture very plainly spelled out. The gods of the Babylonians was Tammuz and Nebuzz, Nebo. [00:07:49] And we could go on and on. In other words, to be that nation, to be that people group with that common family of people, meant that by default, this was your God. It was kind of. You were born into it. You were born into it. [00:08:05] Now, that's not true of Christianity. [00:08:07] Nobody is born into Christianity. It doesn't exist. [00:08:13] It doesn't matter if your father was the Apostle Paul. [00:08:18] It doesn't matter. You're not born into Christianity. [00:08:21] Now, when you're born into a family that is Christian, you start with a great number of advantages. [00:08:27] But you are not born into Christianity such that God is your God in that sense. He's your God in as much as he is your Creator, because he's the creator of everyone. [00:08:40] So you have these nations, these nations had their national gods, just like America has. So in the same way that Moloch and Milcom are the gods of the Ammonites and Dagon the gods of the Philistines, so the dollar and pleasure is the God of the Americans. [00:08:59] It's true. [00:09:02] Which touches on one of the basic problems with reading verse 12 and only seeing America. [00:09:10] Reading verse 12 and seeing America. Let me ask you a question. [00:09:14] I don't have actually used coins for the first time in quite a while today. [00:09:19] I wasted four whole quarters in a parking meter. That was dysfunctional. [00:09:26] Put it in there and it did nothing. But on that quarter it says the motto, which is the unofficial motto. [00:09:35] The official motto of the United States is E Pluribus Unum, but the unofficial motto from the 50s is in God We Trust. [00:09:45] So as a nation, you know, on its face, outwardly, we claim that God is the God of our nation, right? But we don't identify who that God is. [00:09:57] In fact, these days we say, you know, anybody, you can worship any God, it's whatever God that you think is God, and that's your God. And we all just kind of have this idea that we trust in God and he's just this kind of big blob in the sky without any real definition of who he is or what he does or, you know, that's kind of the God of America is kind of like that. It can be whatever you want. This is pluralism in our world. [00:10:22] But in practice, who does America serve? [00:10:29] The United citizens of the United States, by and large. Serve what gods? [00:10:35] They do not serve the God of the Bible. [00:10:38] They serve the God of the dollar, they serve the God of pleasure, and they serve the God of self. [00:10:46] Those are the true gods of America. [00:10:52] That's just a reality. See, this romanticized, kind of Christianized view of America is. [00:11:00] I think it's kind of putting rose colored glasses on our country and saying, this is the way it is. And you know, living down south, of course, we meet a lot of people who are very friendly to Christianity to some degree or another. But you leave this area, those of you that have been from other parts of other parts of the country, it is not nearly as friendly. Am I right, Ben? Am I right, Wendy? Not so much. Right, not so much. [00:11:29] And so let's read the verse again. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. So I caution you, when you read this verse, don't think America, if you do that, you'll miss what it's Talking about? [00:11:45] You'll miss what it's talking about. Now, remember the gods. Look what it says again. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Okay, so the nations of the world had a national God that was connected to their identity as a people. Okay, Saw it in scripture. Look at Joshua, chapter two. Don't lose your place here. We'll come back here in a second. But look at Joshua, chapter two. [00:12:16] In Canaan, they had national gods. Baal, Ashtaroth, among others. [00:12:24] So when the children of Israel under Joshua are going into the land of Canaan, they're going into among the Canaanites. And the Canaanites descending from Canaan. Right. Are one people group with their own national God. [00:12:40] So when they go in and verse number one of chapter two, and they meet this lady named Rahab, who is a Canaanite, as far as we understand, she had a God already. [00:12:51] Okay, look what it says. And Joshua, the son of Nun, sent out of Shittim two men to spy, secretly saying, go view the land, even Jericho. [00:13:01] And they went and came into an harlot's house named Rahab, and lodged there. And it was told the king of Jericho saying, behold, there came men in hither to night of the children of Israel to search out the country. And the king of Jericho sent unto Rahab, saying, bring forth the men that are come to thee which are entered into thine house, for they be come to search out all the country. And the woman took the two men and hid them. And said, thus there came two men unto me, but I wist not whence they were. And it came to pass about the time of shutting of the gate, when it was dark that the men went out, whither the men went, I wot not pursue after them quickly, for ye shall overtake them. [00:13:39] But she had brought them up to the roof of the house and hid them with the stalks of flax which she had laid in order upon the roof. And the men pursued after them the way to Jordan, unto the fords. And as soon as they which pursued after them were gone out, they shut the gate. So she lied to protect them. [00:13:56] But here's what I want you to see. [00:13:58] Why did she lie? To protect them. Okay, Verse eight. And before they were laid down, she came upon them upon the roof, unto them upon the roof. And she said unto the men, I know that the Lord hath given you the land and that your terror is fallen upon us. And that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you. For we have heard how the Lord, Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when ye came out of Egypt, and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites that were on the other side of Jordan. Other side, Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed. And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts did melt. Neither did there remain any more courage in any man because of you. For the Lord your God. Not my God, not the God your God. You see what she's saying? You understand what she's saying here? [00:14:56] The Lord is not her God. [00:15:00] BAAL and Ashtaroth are her God. [00:15:02] She's of Canaan. She's not of Israel. [00:15:06] She says, the Lord your God. Because the Lord was the God of Israel. Capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. That was first. That was a name that was first introduced to the children of Israel. When at the burning bush, Moses says, you want me to go lead the people of Israel out of Egypt? What do I tell them? Your name is the God of Israel. What do I tell them? And he said, I am. That I am. You tell them, my name is I am. [00:15:38] And then he introduces this name, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. The technical word is the Tetragrammaton. It's four letters, but. But that's signified the name of God. In other words, God says, I want you to know me by this name. You know, it's kind of like saying, you know, we have our given name, but to our friends, we have another name that only our friends are allowed to use, Right? [00:16:03] And it's kind of like that. The Lord says, this relationship I have with you, this is my name. This is my covenant name. [00:16:10] And the Lord introduced it at that point. [00:16:14] And so at that point he identified himself with this, all caps, Lord, to the children of Israel. And he says, I am your God. [00:16:22] I am the God of Abraham. [00:16:24] Follow me, Isaac, Jacob and all of his children. [00:16:30] That's a nation. [00:16:32] And the God associated with that nation and their identity is the Lord God. [00:16:38] That's why she says, rahab says, your God. Verse 11. [00:16:42] He said, she says this for the Lord your God. He is God in heaven above and in the earth beneath. Now, so you can see what this lady is doing. I go back. Don't lose Psalm 33. But go to Hebrews chapter 11. [00:16:59] Hebrews chapter 11. [00:17:09] Look at verse number 31. [00:17:16] Hebrews 11:31 says this by faith. [00:17:21] Rahab the harlot. Rahab perished not with them that believed not when she had received the spies with peace. [00:17:29] She's listed in the hall of faith. Why is she listed what was the substance of her faith. [00:17:37] The substance of her faith was not that she believed Israel was going to destroy her nation. [00:17:44] The substance of her faith was this, that the God of another nation was the true God. [00:17:57] So she, see, she had her own God, right? [00:18:02] But what she did is she basically turned her back on her own God to align herself with the God of another nation. That was anathema. You didn't do that because you were not only betraying your God, you were betraying your people. You're betraying your very identity, your very DNA. [00:18:25] And this sounds a little bit odd to us, does it not? Because in America, we don't have that. [00:18:29] We just don't have that. [00:18:31] You're born in the United States, you can be different religion, you can be Hindu, you can be Muslim, you can be whatever. It's not a part of the American identity to be a Christian. [00:18:42] Now there are some people that want to enforce that, but I'm not one of them. But I'm just America as it is. That's where it is. Okay? [00:18:50] So imagine the act of faith this lady took. She is turning her back on her people. You know, there are many places in mission fields where missionaries take the Gospel to those nations. [00:19:04] And their religious identity, their God, if you will, is closely integrated with who they are, their very DNA, as a people, as a nation. [00:19:15] And for them to become a Christian is a serious matter. It is not just a matter of changing religions. It's a matter of. It's a crisis of their very identity as a people. You were born this, you are this, you are born Palestinian, you are Muslim, right? It's a part of who you are. [00:19:38] So when you know that, you see this lady Rahab and you're like, wow, this is some serious faith. [00:19:46] It was a serious decision for her to do this because she turned her back on her, her very. Her very people. She became a people less person. Now we know that she was later integrated as a proselyte among the Hebrew people because of her faith in Jehovah. [00:20:06] Now go back to Psalm number 33. [00:20:13] Blessed, verse 12. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. [00:20:17] So let me ask you a question. [00:20:19] All that we've seen so far. What nation has Jehovah as its God? [00:20:30] Israel. [00:20:32] Israel. This verse is undeniably talking first and foremost, certainly not about America, but not even first and foremost about a Christian, although we'll get to that in a minute. [00:20:48] But it's talking about the people of Israel, which obviously fits the context of Psalm 33, given it's obviously the people of Israel. [00:20:56] Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Now I want you to go to First Peter, chapter two. [00:21:06] First Peter, chapter two. [00:21:12] You know what? If you listen and this is something that gets people off doctrinally a lot. Okay? This is something that gets people doctrinally, that gets sidetracked for people that are into that kind of thing. It gets them sidetracked. Was everyone in Was everyone that was a physical descendant of Israel a believer in Jehovah? [00:21:32] Obviously not. [00:21:34] There are physical descendants of Israel from the Old Testament that are at this moment burning in hellfire. [00:21:41] Right? That's just a fact. [00:21:43] Okay. [00:21:45] Okay. [00:21:47] But if you were a physical descendant of Israel, did you enjoy the blessings of the covenant that God made with the people, the children of Israel? Absolutely. Because those blessings involved where you lived. It involved your land. [00:22:04] Right. [00:22:05] It involved your access to the truth, to the scripture. Right. This is all from Romans. It's mentioned in Romans. It involves all these. All these blessings. That's why the Bible says, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. In other words, Israel. You have a special blessing among all the nations of the world because it is only your nation and that has the true God, the true worship, the true scripture, the truth, access to God, a relationship to God and all of these multitudes of blessings regarding the land he's given you and the promises he's given you, and the kingdom he's given you, and all of these blessings. So when you say, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, that includes a whole truckload of things, right? [00:22:56] Israel. [00:22:57] And you know what? You didn't have to be a believer in Jehovah to enjoy a lot of those blessings. [00:23:06] All these unbelievers with Joshua that walked into the land of Canaan and got their little plot of land and got their made their little house and got their wells that others had dug that God promised them. Remember that those people were not. They didn't get those things because they were an individual believer, but because they were part of the covenant people of God that God and the promises God made to Israel as a nation. [00:23:30] Now, that didn't save their soul, but they did participate in that because their nation was blessed because God was their God was the Lord Jehovah. Everybody still with me now, First Peter. [00:23:51] First Peter, chapter two. [00:24:01] Let me get there myself. [00:24:06] First Peter, chapter two and verse number, Verse number nine. [00:24:16] Now the beginning of First Peter, chapter one, verse one. [00:24:23] It addresses this epistle, this letter to the strangers that are scattered abroad. Okay? [00:24:31] So you got go to chapter Two, verse number nine. [00:24:34] Peter is speaking through the spirit of God to these believers, these Christians. Now he says this, but ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood. Notice what it says. An holy nation. [00:24:50] You see that? [00:24:52] An holy nation. Now, what is a nation? A nation is a people that share a common physical lineage. That's what a nation is in Scripture. [00:25:02] Notice what it says. A peculiar people. Notice the word people that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light. But notice verse 10. [00:25:13] Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. A lot of people think that first Peter is written to Jewish people. [00:25:25] But the problem is verse 10, because the Jewish people were a people. And he says, you weren't a people. [00:25:32] You were not a people, but now you are a people. [00:25:36] So this is. I believe this is referring to. To the Lord's writing this to the people of God, to. We would call it the church. He's writing it to them. And he's saying, before you were not a people. In other words, you were a bunch of independent individuals from different nations and all that, and you had no common ancestor. You were from some from the Philistines and some from the Amalekites and some from the Babylonians. You were from all nations. A lot like we're in here right now. [00:26:05] But he calls them a holy nation. And for this reason, Listen, going back to the question of Reformed theology, this is one of the verses that really trips, that really trips up Reformed theology, because this is based upon this. [00:26:21] They build the whole argument of spiritual Israel for those of you that are familiar with that. But here's what I want you to see. [00:26:27] To these people who are not of the same race, who are not a people, he says, now you are. [00:26:35] And he calls them in verse number nine, a nation. [00:26:40] So do you and I, do we have a common ancestry that makes us a people? No. [00:26:48] Some of you come from Irish descent, Some of you come from German descent. Some of you might come from Hispanic descent. Some of you might come from other parts of Europe or French descent or whatever might be your ancestry. We don't have a connection. We're not a nation. The Church of God is not a nation. But we are. [00:27:10] Because although we do not have a physical common ancestry, yet we do have a common bond, just as a nation in a spiritual sense, because we are all connected to the Lord Jesus Christ in the family of God. [00:27:36] And in that way, we absolutely do have A common lineage, we might say. [00:27:47] Now, before we were believers, we had no connection to one another. [00:27:53] But now, by virtue of the working of the Spirit of God, although we have no physical lineage that binds us together, we're not a nation in the sense of a physical lineage. [00:28:06] We're bound together. [00:28:08] We are a people. We are a holy nation that is bound together not by the cords of physical lineage, but by the spiritual cords, the family of God. And in this way, we are absolutely a nation. That's why this verse says this. [00:28:26] That's why this verse says this. So going back to Psalm number 33, going back to Psalm 33, the first and most. The primary meaning of this is referring to Israel, but you can apply it to the church as well. You know how. [00:28:50] Because we are a nation and our God is the Lord, we're not a nation in the physical sense. But first Peter chapter two declares that we are a nation in a spiritual sense. Even though we were not a people, now we're the people of God. In other words, the connection that we have is God himself. And in that way, in the sense of way that a people group would have a connection by their lineage. So God is our Father. We are in one big family. And that's how the scripture describes us, the people of God. That's the way we are a nation. [00:29:27] So when the Bible says in verse 12, Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, this also applies to us. [00:29:34] In other words, the Lord sees the immediate. You know how you focus your eye and you can. Like I can look at this microphone and I can focus on this thing right in front of me. But just by moving the muscles in my eye, I can unfocus this microphone and I can focus on the door in the back. I can see both at the same time. And I think that's what the Lord's doing here. He's primarily talking about Israel. But then beyond that, there's a truth that we are a nation of the people of God. [00:30:04] And he says this as a result of that. We are blessed not with the same kind of blessings as Israel had, but we are blessed with a whole new set of blessings which we'll get to in just a second. Notice what it says. And the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. [00:30:27] Notice that. Inheritance, that means God's inheritance. That that is his possession. [00:30:33] Those whom God calls His own right, his personal possession. [00:30:42] The people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. The thing I want you to note from this, and then we'll go to EPHESIANS chapter one is this. [00:30:53] He speaks in the collective. [00:30:57] He says, blessed is the nation. That's a collective term. [00:31:02] And the people. That's a collective term. [00:31:05] The mass of people that make up. Now he's talking about Israel. [00:31:08] Here's why that's important. Remember, I just got done telling you that there were people that did not believe in Jehovah in Israel that enjoyed the blessings of being part of Israel, even though they weren't believers. [00:31:24] Because those blessings of being the people whose God was the Lord, they enjoyed in as much as they were those people. [00:31:36] And the reason that was the case is because God was viewing the nation as a whole. [00:31:42] All right, now come to us, the people whom he had chosen for his own inheritance. Now we go to Ephesians chapter one, and this is where we'll finish Ephesians chapter one. [00:31:59] This trips a lot of people up. [00:32:02] Verse number one, Ephesians one, verse one. [00:32:16] Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace be to you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Now notice the parallels of all the verses we've seen so far. [00:32:30] Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. [00:32:42] Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. [00:32:46] Primarily, that's talking about all the physical blessings God gave to Israel. And there were spiritual things as well. But here the Lord says he hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings. Here's the thing. As the people of God, as the holy nation that we are as the people of God, notwithstanding what charismatic principles preachers and things try to claim, mostly from quoting cherry picking Old Testament verses that apply to Israel, not to the people of God. Now the blessings that we focus on that we primarily have are spiritual in nature. That's what it says here, right? Spiritual blessings. We have no land we're given. We have no promise of wealth or prosperity or health. Did you know that? [00:33:33] But that was all promised to the nation of Israel, was it not? It was. It was absolutely promised to them, he says. [00:33:42] So these blessings are parallel, parallel, parallel. What we saw in verse number 12 of Psalm 33, verse 4, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. [00:34:00] Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people whom he hath was it, say chosen. [00:34:06] Here it is. [00:34:08] He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world. But notice the in Him. That little prepositional phrase is important because it shows and we'll see it in a minute. The Lord is speaking also in the collective, chosen us in Him. In other words, what this is saying is that the Lord has elected a people, just like he did with Israel. [00:34:33] But in the spiritual sense, he's elected a people. We call it the Church. He's elected a people who are in Christ. [00:34:42] And everyone in that body gets these blessings, Right? [00:34:50] In that body gets these blessings. See, that's the issue with like when we get into election and the questions of election, we get hyper focused on God's electing this guy to be saved and this guy did not be saved and that kind of thing. But what it's teaching here is God chose us in Christ, right? That's the key. He's looking at the whole everyone in the Lord Jesus Christ. [00:35:18] All right, now look at what it says. So our being chosen in Him. That's the same as Psalm 33. [00:35:28] Keep reading. Verse 5. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. [00:35:42] Remember, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he had chosen for his own inheritance. [00:35:50] That is, we are a nation because we have all been adopted. [00:35:55] We have a spiritual lineage together. Not a physical but a spiritual lineage in as much as we've been adopted into one group. [00:36:02] That's what it says here. [00:36:04] To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through his blood. If you wanted to, you wanted to know all the spiritual blessings we have, a whole bunch of them are listed right here. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace, wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, he might gather. Notice this is a key I kept. I said God speaking in the collective. [00:36:41] He's not looking at the individual, he's looking at the group. Okay? [00:36:45] He says that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in Him. [00:36:58] See that two times in this passage, the Lord says, I'm looking at you as a group. [00:37:03] And really not all, not all the Verses. But many of the verses that deal with election, that are. That are difficult, are difficult because the Lord is speaking in the collective sense of the group, just like he says with Israel. [00:37:26] Now he says this. Keep reading verse number 11. In whom. [00:37:30] Notice it keeps on saying, in him, in whom? In Christ. [00:37:35] Because the Lord's looking at everybody in Christ, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance. Now this is what we receive as a possession. Our inheritance being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ, in whom ye also trusted. After that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that ye believe, ye were sealed with. With that holy Spirit of promise. That sealing is part of the process whereby we become part of that group which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession. [00:38:18] That's his inheritance. [00:38:21] Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people whom he had chosen for his inheritance. [00:38:31] You see, the Lord has made the down payment. [00:38:35] And one day he is going to take his possession. [00:38:39] He is going to take us who are his inheritance. Now think about that. No matter where you are, no matter what you do, no matter what happens to you, no matter how you might be alienated from your family, alienated from your friends, alienated from. [00:38:57] From your very nation, from your very blood relatives, right? [00:39:04] Yet you still have a people. [00:39:07] They are your people, right? You still have a nation that you are a part of. [00:39:14] You are a part of that group of the people of God because you're in Christ, right? [00:39:21] And that people will not cease when you pass away and this fleshly body passes away. No, that people will endure as the people of God forever, right? [00:39:34] This connection that we have together as the people of God, it transcends human nations and human connections like. Like that. [00:39:52] So why did I say all that? Because we're studying Psalm 33, right? [00:40:02] So Psalm 33 says, Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. I'm not talking about America. We're not talking about. If our country would just turn back to God and acknowledge God is God. Okay, that's good. We should do that. Because that's right. And he is. [00:40:15] That's not what that verse is talking about. [00:40:19] And to us, we can see those blessings because God, the Lord Jehovah is indeed our God. [00:40:28] And we have a great number of blessings because of our relationship with Him. [00:40:34] And the Lord counts us as his possession in as much as he counts Israel as his possession, which is what the psalmist says. Now, to finish, listen, it's not one or the other. It's not. Well, the. Israel is the people of God or the church is. [00:40:49] But not both. No, it's actually both. [00:40:53] It's actually both. [00:40:55] On the doctrinal level, it's both. Israel is the people of God, and in a spiritual sense, we are the nation, the holy nation of God, connected by the spiritual truths that make us one people. [00:41:10] And so we are a part of the people of God on earth. We are his people, we are his inheritance. Let's pray together.