“Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” taken from Lamentations chapter 3 and verse 23, right out of Scripture—faithfulness of God. That means that God keeps His word, that He is trustworthy. How important is that? That’s all-important, because we have committed our life to Him, right? We’re counting on His faithfulness. We’re counting on the fact that what He promised, He will do; that when He said, “If you put your trust in Me, embrace Christ as Savior and Lord, I will forgive your sins, I will bring you to heavenly glory, and give you an inheritance of everlasting wealth.” That’s the promise.

The question is, Does God keep His promise? We’re used to people breaking promises. But that’s not true of God, so that throughout Scripture we read, “God is faithful. The Lord is faithful.” Jesus Christ is called “the Faithful and True” because everything for us depends on that.

We have made the ultimate sacrifice. We’ve sacrificed ourselves. We literally have died to self, taken up a cross to follow Christ. We’ve committed ourselves to Him as Lord, and we are His slaves, and we are obeying Him. We have set aside the pleasures and treasures of the world with the promise that there’s something far greater than that awaiting us in eternal glory. We don’t see it yet. We wait for it. It has been promised to us repeatedly in Scripture in detail, and so we live by faith, which then poses the question, Can we believe God?

How do we know God is going to keep His promise to us? How do we know that? Well, for just a few moments tonight I want to point to a graphic illustration of that, and that is the nation Israel. God made promises to Israel all throughout the Old Testament, and God promised them that if they disobeyed Him, they would experience punishment and loss and suffering and sorrow. And if they obeyed Him and if they worshiped Him, they would be blessed. That was what was laid out for them as they entered the Promised Land—book of Deuteronomy.

God made promises, however, that were unconditional before Deuteronomy, and that would be back in Genesis when He chose Abraham and said, “Out of his loins are going to come a people who will bless the world, and from those people will come a seed who will be the Messiah. That people will be used by God to bring many to righteousness.” Did that happen? Well, we’re watching the story of Israel unfold, aren’t we?

There’s some people who think that Israel is now out of the plan of God. That’s a very strange and unacceptable notion, since they’re here. It is remarkable to think about that little strip of land with a few million people in it—that is the only Jewish homeland on the planet earth—is for some strange reason the focus of the whole world. And it seems so odd, doesn’t it, that even though the Jewish people, from a purely human viewpoint, have made massive contributions to the quality of human life—they’re a noble vine; among the strains of human ethnicity, they are remarkable, remarkable people—but we are seeing a world on fire with hate toward them.

Just exactly what is going on here? We might assume that this was something new. It isn’t; far from that. There have been efforts to exterminate the Jews going all the way back in the Old Testament. Haman wanted to exterminate the Jews in the day of Esther, a graphic effort at Jewish genocide. Certainly, the Nazis made their effort at it. And now we have the powers of Islam amassed against this beleaguered little nation.

Will they survive? Well, if they survive, if they continue to survive, then we are seeing the fulfillment of the promise of God. God promised that He would regather Israel, that He would regather them into their land from which they had been dispersed, really, for centuries. And they came back officially in 1948 and 1949 and reconstituted the nation of Israel.

This is not the kingdom return, but this is a preview of that. The prophets said, “I’m going to regather Israel. I’m going to gather them from the four corners of the earth.” You heard the words of Isaiah. “They’re going to come down from the north, they’re going to come from the east. I’m going to dry up the Euphrates River and the Red Sea so that the remnant arrives in the Promised Land. Then salvation is going to be granted to them.” Now you have to understand that that is God’s plan. And Paul sums it up by saying, “So Israel will be saved in the future.” All Israel, as a nation, after the rebels are purged out, will be saved.

Are we seeing any indication of God’s faithfulness to Israel? Well, indeed, we are, because they’re preserved, even though the whole world would like to see them removed, at least those who seem to be carrying the emotional hostility of the world. And why is that the case? Why do all these people hate the Jews? The answer is pretty simple.

Satan had two objectives. One was to destroy the Messiah; he failed at that—tried to have Him killed as a baby, he failed at that; tried to have Him killed by the Romans, he failed at that. He rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and now reigns and will one day crush Satan’s head and throw him into the lake of fire. He couldn’t prevent the plan of God with regard to the Son of God, the Messiah, from coming to fulfillment. So the only other thing he could try to do was to take down Israel.

Satan wants to destroy Israel. You see a picture of that in the twelfth chapter of Revelation. We talk sometimes about the Battle of Armageddon which is described in Ezekiel 38 and 39, then in the book of Revelation. And what that pictures is a future time when all the nations of the entire planet converge on the little, beleaguered nation of Israel.

Why? Why are they so offensive? Why is it that the entire world hates Israel? Why is it that out of nowhere you can start a riot at a university over the hatred of Israel, from people who have no reason to hate them? Where is this coming from? Well, the Bible is clear that the end of human history is a global power–force from all parts of the earth descending on Israel and on Jerusalem for the final destruction of the Jews, only to be met by the Lord Jesus Christ; and they will all be destroyed.

Satan is working to thwart God’s plan by the destruction of Israel. There’s a scheme in his plan that’s laid out for us in Scripture, and it goes like this: Produce worldwide hatred of the Jews, escalate it and escalate it and escalate it. And I used to wonder, Where’s it going to come from? How do you get the whole world to be anti-Semitic? How do you get them to hate the Jews? The answer, of course, is Islam and the spread of Islam all over the planet, which foments this.

That’s part of the strategy, but that’s not all of the strategy. There is a very strong effort to create one world government. It’s called globalization, one world government. And what is this about? Well, behind it lies the idea that peace in the world is never going to come as long as you have nations, because nations make war against each other. So the only way to get peace in the world is to eliminate the nations; and to destroy all nations, have one world government controlling everything for the sake of peace.

Will that ever happen? Yeah, it will happen. It is Satan’s plan, but within God’s allowance. That one-world government will come—we’ll see it in the book of Revelation in a few weeks—and the head of that one-world government will be Antichrist. Globalists believe that the world is always going to be on fire, always going to be at war, and they think their purpose is peace by unification because conflict comes from warring nations hungering for power: “So to end it, let’s have one world government.” Now the greatest enemy to this is national sovereignty, and the United States is the biggest roadblock. So in the process of creating a one-world government, they are doing everything they can to destroy the government of every nation and, in particular, the United States.

United States’ political philosophy is familiar to us: natural rights, limited government, free markets, free religion, free speech, the rule of law equally. Globalists want to destroy all that. Globalists want to restrict freedom and restrict rights and eliminate nations and to eliminate property, control currency, and transfer all power to the government; and the World Economic Forum is the leader in this revolution. The plan is to remove free markets using anything you can, including a pandemic, to destroy private enterprise; to do it not only by that means, but by every means, every crisis imaginable, by endless rules and regulations. Concentrate power in the hands of a very few international leaders. Continue to gain this control through fear. And as people are made afraid, they will give up their freedoms, and they will wear a mask and get a vaccination and fall in line.

The one-world government is Satan’s plan. Why? Because he wants control of it all. And he has a man to care for that: That’s the Antichrist. One world government, led by Antichrist, with only one religion, that’s described in Revelation chapter 17; one world economy, Revelation chapter 18. And the Antichrist will rule from Jerusalem, setting up a final conflict with God.

So if you’re wondering whether we’re going to go toward globalization, yes, we are. Are we going to arrive at that globalization? Yes, we are, within in the plan of God. It’s all laid out in the book of Revelation. God is going to allow the world to come together under this man who promises peace. The Antichrist promises peace. And even Israel buys that lie for a little while, until he takes that peace and the bloodbath begins.

Why is God allowing this? The book of Revelation says in the end, the entire world will come after Israel, all of them from everywhere, from everywhere. And that’s what’s called the Battle of Armageddon, in the land of Israel. And they will think they are powerful, armies numbering in the multiple tens of millions from all over the planet to finally stamp out Israel.

Why, again, do people care about doing that? I’m not sure people actually know why, but that’s a satanic plan. It’s a plan that is being carried out by Hamas and Hezbollah and any other terrorists who kill Jews. But it’s a plan that eventually will infect the entire world, and it doesn’t seem nearly as far away as it once did. However, when they arrive in Jerusalem at that battle, Christ shows up in Revelation 19 and destroys all of them, all of them—a judgment that is both physical and spiritual and everlasting—and establishes His throne in the world, and reigns for a thousand years in Israel, and then creates a new heaven and a new earth.

Why am I telling you this on a Thanksgiving week? Because I don’t know about you, but I am very thankful that I know the outcome of the mess that we are in. Are you not? I know you’re thankful about what’s been done for you in the past. We need to be thankful for what is yet to come. It’s a bad idea to try to destroy the Jews. Anybody who tries to do that runs right into God. They get more than they ever could have bargained for.

It is amazing, isn’t it, that God protects them and preserves them. And that is proof that He keeps His word. He promised them He would protect them, preserve them, and one day bring them to the land and to salvation and to the kingdom; and you are seeing the evidence of God’s faithfulness. Don’t be discouraged by what’s going on in Israel. This is the plan on schedule. They’re coming back. And the more challenges there are in that nation, the more of the Jews come back and come back and come back. And if you wondered whether God will keep His promises for you, look at them, look at them. Look at all that they have endured—and they are flourishing. And they have strength and leadership that makes the leaders of this country look like little children.

God does keep His promise. And I’m thankful for what the Lord has done for us in the past. I’m thankful for the cross, right? I’m thankful for the Resurrection, the Ascension, the intercession, the coronation of Christ. I’m thankful for my salvation, but I am also thankful for what is yet to come. And there’s nothing to fear. This is exactly the plan. Satan is doing exactly what he desires to do. Reread Revelation 12 when you go home tonight, and you’ll see a picture of it. Satan is doing exactly what he desires to do, and at the same time, exactly what God allows him to do, to collect the mass of God-haters into one place so that Jesus can wipe them out in one moment at His return. Look, we know the end of the story of human history, don’t we? So let’s rejoice and be thankful.

People sometimes say to me, “Is it important to know the future?” My answer is, “Absolutely.” I don’t want to know all the future, but I just want to know who wins, and that I’m on that team. And that is laid out for us in Scripture.

Nothing is happening that isn’t in the plan; and it’s in the book. Everything is on schedule. Israel exists. They’re beleaguered. They’re hated. They’re being attacked, not only by immediate neighbors but by the planet, and that’s going to continue to escalate. But God will protect them; He will preserve them until the day when they look on the One they pierced, and mourn for Him as an only son, and salvation comes to Israel. And when that happens, judgment will begin to fall on the ungodly in this world; and in fury, they will come after God and after the Jews at the end of the time of tribulation. They’ll all show up in Jerusalem, where they will meet Christ; and in a flash of sovereign, supernatural power, they’ll be roadkill for the birds. That’s the plan.

As we saw in Isaiah chapter 12, “On that day,” Israel, “you will say . . . ‘I will give thanks to You, O Lord; for although You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away, and You comfort me. Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation.’ Therefore you will joyously draw water from the springs of salvation. And in that day you will say, ‘Give thanks to the Lord,’” give thanks to the Lord. We can say thanks now, right, because we know what’s coming. And one day the Jews will join us when that salvation arrives.

All of this, whether it’s the salvation of the church or the salvation of Israel, is a salvation purchased by Christ at the cross. He bore in His body the sins of all who would ever be saved. And so while we look forward, trusting the future for us because we see the future fulfilled for Israel, we know God can be trusted. At the same time, we are commanded by the Lord to look back, and looking back to the cross to see the fountain of our salvation, the blood of Christ. Let’s bow in a word of prayer.

Father, as we come to participate in Your table now, we’re so encouraged, so encouraged to see history demonstrating Your faithfulness to a people who do not yet believe in You, to a people who continue to reject You, to a people who have not looked on the One they pierced and mourned for Him as an only son, to a people who still to this day see nothing in Christ that’s attractive. They see Him, as Isaiah said, as a sucker branch, or a root in a dry ground to trip someone up. But in spite of their unbelief, we can see Your preservation and the beginning of a regathering moving in the direction of the salvation that You promised them.

And Lord, we thank You for that. We thank You that You are the God of history; and that history is visible, discernable. And we thank You, Lord, that we’re a part of it, not because of anything that we have done but because of Christ. You placed us in Christ in His death, resurrection, and exaltation, so that we died in Him, rose in Him, and ascended in Him to the heavenlies. Salvation is through Christ, and through His sacrifice on the cross, He took Your wrath for our sin and gave us His righteousness. This we joyfully remember as we gather around His table.