MESSAGES & SERMONS 
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 Pastor Paul Pichotta
 
YOU ARE A NEW CREATION IN CHRIST
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ISRAEL’S TWO CAPTIVITIES
Pastor Ed Becker
 
 

GOD’S CHOSEN NATION  ISRAEL IN CAPTIVITY

 

 WHO IS THE NATION CALLED ISRAEL? ……. When was this name given?

  • Jacob Wrestles with God

Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that He could not defeat him, He struck Jacob’s hip socket as they wrestled and dislocated his hip. Then He said to Jacob, “Let Me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me.” “What is your name?” the man asked. “Jacob,” he replied.“ Your name will no longer be Jacob,” He said. “It will be Israel because you have struggled with God           and with men and have prevailed.                   Genesis 32:24-28

 

 
 

ISRAEL’S TWO CAPTIVITIES 

Egypt & Babylon………..

 

1. Egyptian Bondage and Enslavement

Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know this for certain: Your offspring will be foreigners in a land that does not belong to them; they will be enslaved and oppressed 400 years. Genesis 15:13

 
  • The time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years.

At the end of 430 years, on that very day, all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.       Exodus 12:40–41

  • The name Egypt means: Keme, “Black land.”      In Hebrew it means to bind with a rope (imprison) as well as literally denoting a Slave or Slavery. That troubles or oppresses, anguish.
  • EGYPTIAN BONDAGE AND SLAVERY
1. Egyptian bondage always points to the slavery to sin in the world, the bitter bondage to the wicked ways of man, bound by Satan and evil.
 
2.Egypt also represents the world and the idols of the world. Egypt  worshiped more pagan gods than  all the nations  of the world.
 
3. The descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Israel)   were  the covenant people of  God. God promised Abraham that his descendants  would be as many as the stars of heaven (uncountable) in number.
 

4. It was more than slavery to the government system of Egypt, they were whipped, beaten, oppressed  and made lower than animals.”

    Exodus 1:12-14…… “But the more they oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. 13 They worked the Israelites ruthlessly 14 and made their lives bitter with difficult labor in brick and mortar and in all kinds of fieldwork. They ruthlessly imposed all this work on them.”

 
 
5. God’s deliverance (EXODUS) from Egypt and (THE PASSOVER) was a miraculous event that represents the Lord Jesus Christ; our Passover Lamb, slain for the sins of the whole world.”
 
Exodus 12:7-8……”They must take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses where they eat them. 8 They are to eat the meat that night; they should eat it, roasted over the fire along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.”
 
  • PASSOVER means to “Hover Over”. to “Protect and  Cover ” with the protection of God.
Every house in the land  where the “blood” was applied  to the top of the door and the two door posts (a  form of the Cross of Jesus), the  Death Angle was not to do harm because  God himself  provided protection and covering when He saw the blood” .
 
Exodus 12:12-13…. “I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night and strike every firstborn male in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. I am Yahweh; I will execute judgments against all the gods of Egypt. 13 The blood on the houses where you are staying will be a distinguishing mark for you; when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No plague will be among you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
 
  • Leaving Egypt meant God’s people would leave the “old life of slavery to sin” and travel to a new land – a promised land – where God would provide them with a new life, a new government, and a new hope. A land of their own!

“And Moses said unto the people, Remember this day, in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this place: there shall no leavened bread be eaten.      Exodus 13:3

 “Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:  And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation..                       Exodus 19:4-6

 

 

2. Babylonian Captivity and Bondage

 

The prophet Jeremiah continually warned that Jerusalem would be captured and the inhabitants exiled to Babylon.

Jeremiah 2:5-7 Thus says the LORD: “What injustice have your fathers found in Me, that they have gone far from Me, have followed idols, and have become idolaters? . . . I brought you into a bountiful country, to eat its fruit and its goodness. But when you entered, you defiled My land and made My heritage an abomination.

 

Jeremiah 5:15; 19:3 …….Behold, I will bring a nation against you from afar, O house of Israel,” says the LORD. “It is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, nor can you understand what they say. . . “Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: “Behold, I will bring such a catastrophe on this place, that whoever hears of it, his ears will tingle.

 

He also foretold that after 70 years the Jews would return from Babylon:


“And this whole land [of Israel] shall be a ruin, and a waste, and these nations [the tribes of Israel] shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. And it shall come to pass, when the seventy years are fulfilled, that I will punish the king of Babylon ”                                 Jeremiah 25:11-12

 

 

  • Babylonian captivity of God’s chosen people was the result of disobedience and sin.
  • The name “Babylon” means confusion – from Babel – Nimrod.
  • It also is a term associated with rebellion to the Lord himself.
  • Babylon is continually referred to in the New testament as evil, wicked, the great harlot.
  •  
When the Isrealites were in Babylon, God did not totally forsake His covenant people. The Prophet Daniel was used mightily in Babylon. The Prophet Ezekiel lived outside of Babylon and was a voice for God.
 
Eventually  , God  brought a remnant out to rebuild Jesrusalem and the temple .  The call of Zerubbable, Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, were all used  to re-establish the 
city of God and the temple worship of Jehova.
The Book of Malachi , the last book of the Old Testament preceeds the 400 years of  silence before the birth of Christ.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

THE CHURCH, WHICH IS HIS BODY – THE BODY OF CHRIST
Pastor Ed Becker

Series
 

Part one – Understanding What the Church Really is….

Text…. Ephesians 1:17-23

17 I always pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may grant you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation that gives you a deep and personal and intimate insight into the true   knowledge of Him for we know the Father through the Son. 18 And I pray that the eyes of your heart the very center and core of your being may be enlightened flooded with light by the Holy Spirit, so that you will know and cherish the hope the divine guarantee, the confident expectation to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints (God’s people), 19 and so that you will begin to know what the immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of His active, spiritual power is in us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of His mighty strength 20 which He  produced in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion whether angelic or human, and far above every name that is named above every title that can be conferred, not only in this age and world but also in the one to come. 22 And He put all things in every realm in subjection under Christ’s feet, and appointed Him as supreme and authoritative head over all things in the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills and completes all things in all believers.

 
 
 
1. THE HUMAN BODY IS A PICTURE, ANALOGY and EXAMPLE OF THE BODY OF CHRIST
 
  • “For just as you have many members in one physical body and those members differ in their functions, so we, though many in number, compose one body in Christ and are all members of one another.”    

Romans 12:4- 8   J.B. Phillips New  Testament                                                                                                                   

  • “We are one body in union with Christ, and we are all joined to each other as different parts of one body. ”                                                                                           Good News Translation     
 
  • 1  Corinthians 12:12-13,27  ….The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. 13 Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit.  27 All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it. 
 
  • 4 We have many parts in the one body, and all these parts have different functions. 5 In the same way, though we are many, we, too—are different parts that form one body in Christ. Each one of us is joined with one another, and we become together what we could not be alone.        The Voice

 

  • Colossians 1:17-19……17 And he is THE head, prior to all else and in him all things hold together; 18 and he himself is supreme, the head over the body, the church. He is the start of it all, firstborn from realms of the dead; so in all things he might be the chief. 19 For in him all the Fullness was glad to dwell.                                                                                                                                                                                                             The New Testament for Everyone