God’s Natural Olive Branches

We are Gentiles by blood, but we are Jews by faith. I am more a Jew than you are because Abraham was a Jew before the law. You are a Jew by blood, I am a Jew by faith. You can’t be both. So we cannot boast. Be not highminded, [but fear (Romans 11:20)]. If God did not spare the natural branches, [He may not spare you either (Romans 11:21)]. Now they were everything to Him, but He did not spare them for their unbelief.

You may say well God wouldn’t cast off anybody, well, He did cast them off. Don’t get that soft business where God isn’t soft. You can’t say poor thing, oh, isn’t that terrible, you see He wasn’t soft. He wasn’t soft on His own people, that He should have in a sense because He promised them everything. He was losing everything, because He promised to Abraham He was going to do this. God was losing His people. He lost His people, seemingly. He went to a people who weren’t a people. We never had a promise in this world, they were all for the Jews.

But He didn’t lose altogether, because He picked up another people. But that’s how it was in the beginning. When He called them purposely to start something with them, to start training them, that they were not supposed to mix with the nations around them, they were to be a specific people, a special people, a people that would obey that He could pour out miracles upon and shake the heavens, the earth, cause lightning to scatter their enemies, hailstones would fall from heaven, until, what did He do that for? For a special nation. Who can put up their hand to tell me why was He doing that, to make a certain, special nation?

This was to be a showcase, His whole order from the beginning was not to be a God that was going to devote time to those people, but the nations round about would see this gem and jewel and say, you have such a God, we don’t see anything visible, we don’t need it, because you’ve got this king, this priest, this provider, takes care of all your needs, works miracles for you, and He’s a supernatural God. Now, tell me, this is what you would call a missionary nation, a nation that was to prove with their lives that they had a God and that they were to be the very reflection of all of heaven, centralized in a people. And that was His whole purpose and aim was to convert the nations round about, not just to have only the Jews, but the nations round about would be converted or be saved, or be brought to God through their testimony.

Don’t tell me they can do this thing without a testimony. You cannot do it. You cannot give out some great spiritual thing and not live it. You might do it for a while, and things will run you ragged, but if you don’t live it, you have to come up to it. You can see more and more why people, and why God doesn’t let it, why some people can’t walk together. But if you walk in the light, as He is in the light. So, if I’ve got my will up, or you’ve got your will up, or somebody else has got his will up, how can you walk in the light because your will is there?

And you block the light, you hinder the light, you choke the light, you do all that because you will not let His light shine through that you might have light. So whatever is there, of sediment, of anything of your old will, or anything of the past, if the enemy can stir up, it might settle for a while, it might be years that you can put something, and then you can see sediment. Oh, it’s all clear up here, but if you have anything that is settled on the bottom, and the enemy can stir up. And when the time comes for you to make that choice, and you can’t make it. You can’t make it because there’s that sediment. There’s that will uppermost in your life. And you cannot walk side-by-side with others that have nothing that the enemy can attach himself to.

It just doesn’t work. It isn’t because someone says, look, well, you think you’re so much above me. It has nothing to do with it. It is the consequence of a person that walks in the light and the other saint that walks in the light that they see eye-to-eye. It isn’t that they are being led in the same way, but the results are the same. The means to the end might be something different, in one life to another, but the whole end will be the same, that those two people or three or that group will absolutely see eye to eye. And unless that is done we do not have any what you call success in the walk and in the body of Christ unless there is walking in the light. And the minute your will comes up against the will of God and you rebel and you may not say it, but your words.

But you do it with your life constantly, or maybe every other day, or every three days, or it settles for a while, you say, look at that, clear, but look at the bottom of it and see if anything settled there that you know is going to come to the top. That’s where you’ll find you’re not walking, or that one’s not walking in the light. So it cannot be. It came to me so strongly today. And I thought, I know this, I don’t know how many times I’ve been over it. That’s why if you don’t have right communion with God, you cannot have it with one another. If you walk in the light, as He is in the light, you have fellowship. That’s consequence. Don’t say, let’s be buddy-buddy, and let’s have supper together, nice luncheon, or a nice time together, or we’ll just talk together. Oh, did you hear about this?

Oh, I just feel so close to you today. I could go to the end of the world with you today. Oh, you’re just my type. Whatever it is, it does not work. It cannot work. It can’t be done. But if you walk in the light. It’s so simple when you see it. But it is so difficult to do. But it cannot be, that you will have something there, that God or no one else can make you do. You’re finished as long as it’s there. It has to be that that will has to be absolutely under. And that’s what will have to these Jews, to the Israelites. They began to look over into something else, to intermarry, or from one thing to another, with all of God’s plan for them.

There was a remnant, a few. You see a Daniel in Babylon, and you see just the four of them. I don’t know if there were any others, but in Elijah’s day, there wasn’t a first class. Did Elijah make it?, you find out when you start to read Romans 11. And Elijah makes false intercession against Israel. Just imagine, a great prophet like Elijah making false intercession. He prays against Israel, he says, I’m the only one that’s left.

And he got to the place where he was the only one left, but there is a remnant of 7,000 that have not bowed their knee to Baal and never strayed away, because these Israelites were a stiff-necked and rebellious people. And the Lord just had to turn them over, and the Lord dealt with them all those 4,000 years, and in the end, they crucified the Lord of light and they put Him out of their lives, they thought. Of course, they didn’t, and the Lord had a remnant, He had His disciples. And Paul is saying that while he is writing that there was a remnant that was true to God.

God has always had a remnant. So when He saw that they had finally failed, and Jesus died on the cross, well then, that death of Jesus Christ, as He said, well, I came to the lost sheep of Israel. But when He died, that opened up the wall of partition, taken down, the curtain rent from bottom to top. God wasn’t going to get them, they limited Him. As the word of God says, that they limited the Holy One of Israel. They kept limiting Him, so they had to have a king. Not that He couldn’t, but they didn’t go through. But now that we got in, say, by the skin of our teeth, through their unbelief, if God didn’t spare them, for if God has spared not the natural branches, take heed lest we also spare not thee.

Then we find, that since this is where we are today in this sense, in the overall plan, where He is about to not spare the Gentiles, they’re about to be given up because the time has come, the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. It will be a vice versa then, it will be the remnant of the Gentiles and the power and the hope will be for the Jews. So Behold therefore the goodness and take heed therefore. Behold the goodness and severity of God on them which fell on them, severity, but on thee, goodness if (everything hinges on that “if”) we don’t continue, it will not be goodness for you.

It will be the same as they have, just as if God did not spare the angels. He did not spare Adam and Eve, He did not spare people that have sinned and continue. He has patience, but they will not accept that there is anything like wrath or God dealing with sin, just let it go. You pat the condition and you just let it go until it is cut off. And God does not cut off just like cutting your head off, He mitres it, He dovetails it, so this will all come together this age coming in, just like it’s all mitred. People won’t even notice it, but those that are wise notice.

And we see them cut off, we see the Gentiles, we see the church at large an absolute failure, and we see a hostile church coming together. This means that God has cut off the deal, so you see Bishop Donogan, he was with a Catholic somebody and had a wonderful time, just yesterday, all together. People can say, oh, how lovely, it is beautiful – the Catholics and all together. But if you bring it down to this, it is the cutting off of the Gentiles, our Gentile world will be cut off. But their putting toward severity toward thee goodness IF thou continue in His goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.

You cannot even pretend that you can stand and get by with it. When you do, you are so far on the wrong track, and that God will be merciful to me, He’ll spare me, so I will keep it up. And knowledge of such a thing. You don’t make any effort to do anything about it or call on God or think I’m going in my own way. You will be cut off. If He spared not the angels, He will not spare you. If they abide, when will they come out of it, Paul says in another Scripture. Who knows which Scripture this is?

This is part of your teaching, this is part of what you have to know. How are you going to deal with the Jews? “Well, I’m not called to the Jews.” Well, it says right here that they’ll be coming in, so what are you going to do about it? We, the remnant, can’t go ahead without them. So, you better start praying or doing something about it because there’s no enemy about it? There’s no kidding about it. All right, what do you say about it?

Scrolls, unrolled and they put on their shawls, with their cap. They cannot, they’re blind, but when their hearts turn to God, and say no matter what, my God by faith, then that veil goes. Because the spirit of blindness is a curse that fell upon them, His blood shall fall upon us and our children, and…

…but God is able to graft them in. [Everyone among the Christians that the Jews were cut off back after the crucifixion, cut off, nothing more to do with it.] People just teach that by the thousands. Someone said to me, they’re in the midst today, everybody believes this, and this is what I believe today. Everything is cut off. And God is able to graft them back in, isn’t that wonderful? “But if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more (this I love) shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree? (What can this be?) But I would not, brethren that ye should be ignorant of this mystery.” You see, this is one of the mysteries that Paul.

He was caught up to the third heaven, and he was there. There were some things that were unlawful for him to witness, but so he kept that. But the mysteries – the mystery of the church, and the mystery about this is brought down. And he has this mystery and he brings it down, and this is one of them, that lest ye should be wise in your own conceits.” He says, I would not that you would be ignorant of this. So, if you just don’t want to know anything about it. You say, “I don’t want to have anything with these mysteries.” “Lest ye be wise in your own conceits.” That blindness in part has nothing to do with Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. [Would you say in part now because there is a remnant according to the election of grace that isn’t in full?][I would say that he is saying that blindness is happened to Israel but only in part that at no time was every part, all, in captivity.][There has always been a remnant.][And it shows you what that blindness is – that you should be wise in your own conceits. I was talking with this Jew – he could not see. People can get stuck in sin.]

“And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief: Even so have these also now not believed that through your mercy (who was this mercy on?) through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.

“For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God….” Romans 26-36

Now what would keep a person who might say, well, I’m not called to the Jews. Where are you? My husband and I, our first call was to the Jews. And you look here and it shows you the heart.

You can’t be complete without them. You tell us why you’re having mercy. Without the Jews, we wouldn’t have anything like the Bible, we wouldn’t have a cycle, we wouldn’t have a Jesus, a hope.

Thomas believed because he saw Him, but blessed are they which do not see and yet believe.