Here is the Mystery: God has a plan to bring his salvation upon all the nations, culminating in the final and full redemption of the nation of Israel. God will do this by bringing all under the conviction of their disobedience so that they will understand that a right standing before Him can only come through His mercy— it is not earned or gained by moral effort, it is only received by faith.

Judaism is at our roots. It is the ladder by which we are brought up into the promise of Jesus Christ. Don't neglect your Old Testament. Don't look down upon the Israel of God. Don't think you can stand in your Christianity apart from the undergirding and the promises God gave and will keep to all of Israel. The Gentile believers Paul was writing to could not trace the faithfulness of God through their own fathers who were pagans. And so, they may have felt as if they stood out as singly the people who have been birthed by God. Paul tells them, you are here because of God's faithfulness to the Jewish fathers and his promises to them. Don't boast over them be humble.

There is an incentive for Paul as an Apostle to the Gentiles to continue to seek to bring some of the Jews to Christ. They represent a bridge into God's salvation for the whole nation. And Paul knows the salvation of the nation as a whole will only increase the blessings of the World and the believing Gentiles as a whole. Israel's falling away has precipitated a movement of the Gospel upon the Gentile world and brought to them salvation and riches and reconciliation... This can only mean to Paul that their return will mean a fuller expression of that salvation, greater riches and a more enriched and vigorous experience of the abundance of life we have in Jesus Christ.

An interesting observation in the writings of the Prophets will reveal a cross current of love and hatred. The prophet will pray and plead for and with his nation to turn them back to the Lord and next he will be railing against them in their sins. He will be found in his prayers, defending them before the Lord in one turn and then in the next speaking of them with great disdain and anger

Simply consider what it means to obey the gospel. "But they have not all obeyed the gospel..."

Last week we spoke on the Urgency of our Prayer – "My hearts desire and prayer is for all of Israel to be saved." And we spoke on the centrality of our Proclamation "That if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you shall be saved." And now we must turn to embrace the Necessity of Evangelism as our Profession. the prayers and the proclamation that rise from this great hope... now lead us to a point of identity... we come to a point where our Profession is embraced.

Romans 10:1-13 brings us to the peak application of the book of Romans. Here Paul, led by the Holy Spirit, brings us into the culminating expressions of the Christian before the glory of the Gospel.

Paul guides us to consider the sovereignty of God that lies behind this gospel. God is sovereign in how he saves (in mercy to those who believe). God is sovereign in who he saves (as we will see God crafts for fitness the vessels of mercy). And God is sovereign in order and timing in which he brings his salvation to the nations.

An overview of Romans 9 brings us to verse 22-24 and the challenge to the obstinate heart. Who are to to say to the one who has formed you? Consider God's sovereignty before your Salvation.

From James 1:9-11 the danger of finding our identity in temporary things is corrected by the truth found in God's Saving GRACE!