God is always trying to move toward the Kingdom of God that He wants to set up and turn all these things around and He is preparing a people for it. He does not want us looking back at what failed us and what we failed at in our lives before. He wants us moving forward. He is a forward-looking God with all kinds of plans for the future, all kinds of blessings He wants to give. And He has called people out of this world to be forward-looking with Him, but of course, very much engaged with what is going on in the present. That is our responsibility now as God's people. Physical Israel is a matter of history, for now. They will come into play again a bit later. We can learn a great deal from the Israelites failings because they are many, multitudinous failings. They rarely got anything right and we can look forward to their restoration and the future work that God will do through them. But that indeed is future. We have more pressing matters right now. Today, in River City, it is time for us to get to work. Concentrating on physical Israel or historical Israel too much will, over time, take us off track because, 1) God is not working with them now, His eyes are not there. His eyes are elsewhere and our eyes should be where His eyes are, and 2) it will distract us from pursuing God's promises to us. They had their chance, they failed. So, as part of the plan, God knew they would fail from the very beginning because they were not given access to the Holy Spirit. But as part of the plan, part of the way God is working out things toward His Kingdom, is that He switched His focus from the physical Israel that He had called through Abraham, and He instituted a new and living way to have a relationship with God. As I said, in Hebrews 10:20 He opened up the veil so that we could have a relationship with God personally, not under the terms of the Old Covenant, but under the terms of a New Covenant. That makes things so much better: better promises, better rewards, better access, a better High Priest. A far better High Priest than Aaron who made gods for the people of Israel. And so many other things that are superior to what was in the Old Covenant, what was given to Israel. While God loves physical Israel for the sake of the patriarchs, Paul says this very plainly in Romans 11:28, His priorities have changed. They have changed from physical Israel to spiritual Israel the church of God, His elect. He has put them aside for now; she will have her time in the future. But right now you could say, Israel is nothing more than a distraction to us. They have been set in abeyance, if you will, for a future work of God and they will play a major role at the end of this age, and certainly in the upcoming Millennium, they will play a major role in that government and all the goings on then. But as it says in Hosea 2:23, right now they are presently not My people. It is very clear and Paul echoes this in his Romans 9 through 11 section on Israel and as His called children, we must understand that they are not our people either. That may be stunning to hear. We may have descended from them, but they are not our people. If we are going to have the mind of Christ, we have to consider them in the same way Jesus Christ does they are not My people. Who are our people? Our brethren! Do we not call them that? All those others who have been called in this age, those are our people because those are God's people. So we have to get our priorities straight. We have to understand where God has us focused in this time. It is not on physical Israel, it is on spiritual Israel. It is on what God is doing for and with us right now and that spiritual Israel is where He is focused right now. Because He has got a job to do and time is running short, and we have to understand the urgency that He has in preparing us for His Kingdom. And we have to be willing to go where He goes. As Charles Whitaker said many years ago, when He zigs, we zig. When He zags, we zag. We have to

God had used Elijah very much and very mightily. He founded three schools of the prophets where they trained ministers and people to spread the Word of God around Israel. There was one at Bethel, one at Gilgal, and one at Jericho at least. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. He became discouraged at his apparent lack of success and the lack of fruit from his labors. It got so bad that he asked God to take his life because he felt that he was a failure. He had just finished completing three great works. He was on a high. He had just done a great work for God and he had seen the enemies of God defeated. It probably seemed like it was the beginning of a great surge in loyalty to God. He despairs for his life. He is wallowing in self-pity that nothing had been accomplished in all his great works. He said, I feel all alone and I feel persecuted. There's nobody to help me. He just felt isolated and driven by his enemies. God said, in effect, Let Me show you reality, let Me show you what's really happening here. Through the wind, the earthquake, and the fire, as well as the still small voice He shows Elijah something that he had never thought of before. Elijah had done all these great, stupendous miracles. These were great works of mighty power on God's part. God said, I'm not necessarily in all these huge workings of power. I'm not in the earthquake, I'm not in the wind, I'm not in the fire. These great displays of power are effective for a little while. I'm in the still small voice. That still small voice is a delicate whispering voice. It is a quiet voice. It is in the background. God does His most astounding work behind the scenes working, giving His gifts, His grace in the lives of His people. God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. God is working salvation in the midst of the earth. He is not destroying. He is out to give them salvation. He is gently reminding Elijah that even though he did these great works for God and that God appreciated them, the real work was being done in the salvation of God's people. That is what God is really after. The better work was being done at these schools of the prophets. There were 7,000 that He had called out to do a work for Him in that day. We have been scattered, in a sense. We feel isolated, somewhat alone, we are a small group without much strength, and possibly God will give us a work to do. We should take to heart here this admonition that we always do not know where God is working or what He is doing. We are not omniscient. We cannot see everything that is happening. There may be places where God is working that we just have no idea what He is doing and He has reserved that to Himself. We have just got to let Him work and know that He is going to get something accomplished that we really cannot comprehend. From this, Elijah was able to get up, because his faith and his hope had been restored. He knew that God was going to work through him again. We cannot know where God is working except as we see the fruits of God's Spirit working. He is still working in that manner today. He has got that still quiet voice working quietly in each individual life. We just have to let Him work. God is really aiming for each individual to turn from their sins and become His sons and daughters. A spectacular public work, even with stupendous miracles, signs, and wonders like Elijah had is not more important than the salvation of His people. That is what He is really interested in. He wants sons and daughters. He is reproducing Himself. That is what is important. We can go on with what God has given us to do with renewed confidence that God is working with His people, wherever they happen to be. He will take our efforts, as small as they may be or as large as they may be, and even then He will use them far more effectively than we could do ourselves. We can push on in faith and hope, knowing, certain that God is in charge of His work.

God's people are uniquely chosen and cherished by Him, as reflected in the psalms of praise. He has selected them as His special treasure, calling them out from among others to be His own. They are the sheep of His pasture, tended and kept by Him with care, as a shepherd watches over his flock. He provides for them, rescues them from enemies, saves them from sin, and judges both them and their adversaries, always acting for their ultimate good. His covenant love, known as hesed, binds Him to show kindness, mercy, and steadfast love to His people, fulfilling the promises He has made to them. Even His judgments are tempered with compassion, as He seeks to bring them back to Himself, offering atonement and salvation. For these reasons, God's people are called to rejoice in their Maker, to be joyful in their King, and to offer Him endless praise for His goodness, His enduring mercy, and His unchanging truth that extends to all generations.