God Controls History Without Violating Free-Will (Matthew 23:37-39).

Class Outline:

Wednesday November 12, 2025

 

How wonderful it is to know that you are unconditionally loved and in that love you are secure. All believers in this age have this relationship with God.

 

How awful it is to have a deep and abiding love for someone and have it spurned.

 

MAT 23:37-39

 

Love for a faithless wife. 

 

Hosea (750 BC contemporary with Isaiah; during the reign of Jeroboam II when Israel was actually enjoying its greatest economic period) is told to marry a harlot.

 

Why? Israel continued to worship idols while they pretended to worship God.

 

HOS 1:2 When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, "Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the Lord."

 

He has children with her and the Lord tells to name one “Not shown compassion” and another “Not my people.” 

 

But this is not the end: HOS 2:14-23

 

Hosea’s wife leaves him for another man. The harlot did not change her spots. Hosea is told to get her, pay for her, and bring her back home. 

 

HOS 3:1-5

 

This has yet to be fulfilled. It could have been fulfilled in 33 AD, but they rejected Him again. He will return and they will Bless His Name. 

 

Around 150 years later, Judah was left desolate by the Babylonians.

 

MAT 23:37

How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.

 

What a wonderful choice to have - to take refuge under the wings of the Lord.

 

“How often I wanted to gather you” - likely a reference to Jesus’ first advent ministry: Repent for the KOH is at hand.

 

Chicks under wings: PSA 57:1 [David on the run in the wilderness]

 

PSA 63:1

O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly;

My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You,

In a dry and weary land where there is no water.

 

PSA 63:7

 

NT equivalent: ROM 8:38-39

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (shown Sunday)

 

JOH 17:6

I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.

 

Can you imagine your Lord being unable to keep something that was given to Him by the Father?

 

JOH 17:11

I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are.

 

We should daily thank God for our security and rejoice in it.

 

House left desolate: 

 

This happened twice before. OT situations leading up to 721 and 586. 

 

In both cases it was not keeping the law, greed and oppression by the leadership and elites, and idol worship (worldly lusts).

 

2 Kings 17:6

In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried Israel away into exile to Assyria.

 

Prophetic: (many)

ISA 7:17 (years earlier)

"The Lord will bring on you, on your people, and on your father's house such days as have never come since the day that Ephraim separated from Judah, the king of Assyria."

 

2 Kings 25:1

He [general for Nebuchadnezzar] burned the house of the Lord, the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; even every great house he burned with fire.

 

ISA 39:6 [about a hundred years earlier]

'Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house and all that your fathers have laid up in store to this day will be carried to Babylon; nothing will be left,' says the Lord.

 

JER 22:5 [a few years earlier]

“But if you will not obey these words, I swear by Myself,” declares the Lord, “that this house will become a desolation.”

 

Repeat of the past: 3rd cup full with murder of Christ and apostles. 

 

Roman campaign. Jewish-Roman War 66-70 AD.

 

The Roman governor of Syria moved south with 30,000 troops but had to retreat, and they were ambushed on their way back. This reprieve gave the believers a chance to heed Christ’s warning and get out.

 

LUK 21:20-24

"But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is near.  21"Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those who are in the midst of the city must leave, and those who are in the country must not enter the city; 22 because these are days of vengeance, so that all things which are written will be fulfilled. 23 "Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days; for there will be great distress upon the land and wrath to this people; 24 and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

 

Live in faith in the Lord who controls all the events of history.

 

The Romans would return and finish the job.

 

Jerusalem was left desolate, not by the Romans, but by God.

 

What are all the lessons we can learn by God’s historical revelation and judgment and promises?

 

Conclusion: God is faithful to every promise He makes.

 

The kingdom of God is a certainty in the future. In time, kingdoms come and go. In time individuals either accept or reject Jesus Christ.

 

Every church age believer is a member of the kingdom. One day we will each be in it where His will be done by all. Our rewards in that kingdom depends on our decisions in this life.

 

God is sovereign and choice matters.

 

Despite all the judgment that must happen, the Lord Jesus will return for Israel because He has made a promise. 

 

Pray for your nation, pray for Israel, pray for the gospel, rejoice in your security - you are under His wings.