Two Journeys

I love history, and I like looking at some of the great moments in history and the great speeches. And on March 4th, 1933 one of the great speeches in the 20th century was given by Franklin Delano Roosevelt as he was inaugurated for the first of four terms as the 32nd President of the United States. At that time the United States was in the Great Depression, economics were really horrible. Our people living in places called "Hoovervilles" like little slums that all the jobless people that had to put up. And it was really a bleak time in our history. And within the first two minutes of his inaugural address FDR said one of his most famous lines he said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Now, he was saying that, because it had been fear that had promoted the tumbling and the crash of the stock market as one person after another out of fear sought to dump their stocks and it was fear that caused runs on banks, and caused banks to close. And shortly after his inaugural he shut down the banks for four days to stop that from going on so that there could be a writing and a sense of confidence so that America could make progress economically. But I began just meditating on that expression. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

And here in the passage we're looking at today we're commanded to fear. It says do not be arrogant but fear. And it's a deep subject, and it occurred to me that in this present day and age, which so denigrates the fear of the Lord that even among evangelical circles, we are thought to be and taught to be completely free from all fear concerning God, this command to fear strikes us as anomalous, as strange, as odd. Why would we be commanded to fear? It occurs to me that the fear of the Lord almost everywhere in scripture is openly and clearly proclaimed as a great blessing and a great protection. So I think it may be the case that the only thing we have to fear in this day and age is not fearing the Lord enough, but that if we do fear him properly we have nothing else to fear. And that's the message that I want to preach on today.

You know at key moments in redemptive history, God sought to produce fear in his own people. I think about the time that David was bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem, and they had contrary to scripture, loaded the Ark of the Covenant onto an ox cart, they had been commanded in the law to carry it by acacia wood pole sliding it through the loops on the sides of the golden Ark, where was the presence of the Lord and the Lord would meet with his people. It represented the presence of God to the people of God. And they were bringing it into Jerusalem, the City of David, and David is celebrating with all of his might and he's singing and praising, it's a happy and festive occasion. And suddenly the oxen stumbled and the cart started to lose its balance and the Ark started fall off the cart and Uzzah reached for it and grabbed it and was immediately struck dead and there was a shock effect. The celebration ended and it says there very plainly, David was afraid of the Lord that day. That's exactly what God was trying to promote. He was clearly seeking fear of the Lord in his own people at that moment. He could have done a number of things but he waited because they had handled the Ark in putting it on, but he waited for that crescendo moment to strike Uzzah dead and produce the fear of the Lord in his own people.

I think also about the occasion, after Jesus' death and resurrection and ascension in the early church when the Spirit of the Lord was just moving so powerfully through the church and people were selling lands and properties and bringing the money and giving it to the apostles and they were distributed to anyone as they had need. Then a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira sold the piece of property and brought some of it and put it at the apostles' feet. Peter asked, "Is this the amount you got for the land?" And Ananias lied. And immediately he was struck dead as Peter said, "How could you test the Spirit of God?" And the reaction was the same then as it was in the time of David. Great fear seized all who heard about these events. I think to myself, what is the role of fear in the Christian life? It's commanded of us here in this text, look in chapter 11 where it says, in verse 20, "The branches were broken off because of unbelief and you stand by faith, do not be arrogant." The NIV gives us, "But be afraid." A simpler translation would be just the command, "do not be arrogant but fear."

And so therefore, I think we have here a warning to Christians, it's a warning to Christians. And so I think it's necessary for us to try to understand the role, the reality of warnings in the Christian life. What are we to do with these warnings? Now, first of all, that this passage is a warning was clear from the treatment we gave last week. The Lord is speaking to gentile Christians, and he's urging them not to be arrogant or to boast over Jews who have not believed in Christ. The overall context of Romans 9 through 11 as we've discussed is the remarkable success of the Gospel among gentiles and the equally remarkable failure of the Gospel among Jews. Many, many gentiles believing in Christ, coming into the church, very few Jews were. And Paul is dealing with that in Romans 9 through 11. Now in verse 13 of our chapter if you can look at it he says there, "I am talking to you gentiles." He's speaking to the gentiles, he's addressing them and he wants them to understand some things, but most of all he wants them not to be proud as we discussed last week. Look at verses 17-18, there it says, "Do not boast over those branches." verse 20, "Do not be arrogant but fear." verse 25 and 26, "I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery brothers, so that you may not be conceited. Do not boast, do not be arrogant that you may not be conceited."

Clearly, Paul's concern is the issue of spiritual arrogance and pride. This is a warning concerning the danger of spiritual pride. Now, clearly Paul desires the gentile Christians, to understand their situation in the grace of God and to have the same attitude toward unbelieving Jews that he does like in Romans 9, where he says, "I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish." In Romans 10, he says, "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved." so he's warning them from spiritual pride. He's also warning them to spiritual perseverance in the faith, he wants them to keep on going in the Christian life. Look again at verse 19-20, he says, "You will say then branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in. Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief." Listen, and "you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant but be afraid." You stand by faith. You continue to stand in Christ by a continuing work of faith in your soul and so he is urging them to persevere in the faith. Look again at verse 22, "Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God. Sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you who believe provided that you continue in his kindness, otherwise you also will be broken off." Do you see again an urging to persevere in the Christian life? To keep moving on, to keep growing and going in the Christian life.

It's also a warning of spiritual disaster. Verse 21, he says, "If God did not spare the natural branches he will not spare you either." And in verse 22, he threatens that they will be cut off if they don't continue in God's kindness. The clear implication is that being cut off means being separated from Christ even eternally. And so in Matthew 7, Jesus said some of the most terrifying things he ever taught us, "Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly. I never knew you, away from me you evildoers." Away from me is the moment of cutting off. You will be cut off from Christ. That's when Jesus says, "Away from me, you evildoers." what a dreadful thing. So therefore, the threat is the most dire imaginable, eternally cut off from Christ. In my opinion the summary warning is this, you stand by faith, gentiles. So don't be arrogant but fear and make progress in the Christian life. That's what he's telling them here in Romans 11.

Now it brings us to this issue of the reality of warnings in the Christian life. There are many warnings to Christians in the Bible. Romans 11:17-22 is not the only warning given to Christians. Jesus warned, for example, in the Sermon on the Mount. He says, "You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery, but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye cause you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away, it is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell." Jesus there is teaching his disciples very clearly at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, his disciples sat down and began to teach them saying. Why is he threatening them with hell if they should lust? Why the warning? And then again, the book of Hebrews which we already quoted a little bit this morning in worship service is really nothing but a large warning to Christians. Do not drift away from Christ, Hebrews 2:1, through the neglect of the Gospel. Do not turn away from Christ to a sinful unbelieving heart in chapter 3, do not fall away in chapter 6. It culminates in Hebrews 10:26-27, "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we've received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left but only a fearful expectation of judgement and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God."

You might think "I'm a Christian, why do I have to read this kind of thing?" I'm troubled by these words. Why do I have to hear these warnings? And then Paul himself does it directly to the Corinthians in 1st Corinthians 9, he says he beats his body and makes it a slave, he's going to run like an athlete, he's going to finish the race so that after he's preached to others he wouldn't be disqualified from the prize and then he goes on into a warning about what happened with the Jews in the Old Testament. And he draws a very striking parallel between the Jews in the Old Testament, how God dealt with them, and the Christians in the new.

He says that the Jews all experienced something like baptism, when they passed through the Red Sea in Moses. And they all kind of partook in something like the Lord's Supper, when they ate the manna and when they drank the water that flowed from the rock which was Christ. He's clearly using new covenant language, to talk to gentile Christians, and to give them a warning, and this is what he says in 1st Corinthians 10:5 and following he says, "Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, their bodies were scattered all over the desert. Now, these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were. As it is written. The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry. We should not commit sexual immorality as some of them did. And in one day, 23,000 of them died. We should not test the Lord as some of them did and were killed by snakes, and do not grumble, as some of them did and were killed by the destroying angel. These things happened to them [to the Jews] as examples and were written down as warnings for us." Listen to that phrase brothers and sisters, warnings for us. Paul includes himself in that. Christians need to heed spiritual warnings. They're written down as warnings for us on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. "So if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall."

Key Issue: True vs. False Branches

Clearly, Paul is going through the Old Testament, looking at things from that and applying it to Christians, applying it to New Testament people for their benefit. There are therefore many dire warnings given to Christians in the Bible. Now, the key issue here, in my opinion, if we can go to the analogy that Paul uses in Romans 11, of the olive tree. The issue is true versus false branches. I believe you can be in some sense, attached to the olive tree. The olive tree represents the people of God and the development of redemptive history, the people of God. You can in some sense be attached and not really of the tree. You can be in the tree but not of the tree. You could be duct-taped on for example. You could be nailed on or stapled on, you could be put on with hot melt glue, you could be attached in all kinds of ways, but receiving none of the nourishing sap that flows from the tree into you. You can be a false branch. And I believe that the unbelieving Jews that were stripped off were not genuine Jews. They were not genuinely connected to the olive tree as proven by the fact that they rejected Christ. And so what he's saying is, just as there were fake Jews that were stripped off of their own olive tree, so there can be fake wild gentile branches taped or connected in some way to the tree without really being of the tree. And he's saying, "Watch out."

The ultimate issue is by their fruits you will know them. A branch that is truly grafted into the tree, produces fruit in keeping with the nature of the tree. And therefore if you are grafted into this olive tree, following the analogy, you will produce olives. You'll produce the fruit that God intends in the living Christian life. So there we have clearly the reality of warnings in the Christian life.

Now secondly, we see the resistance to warnings in the Christian life. Maybe you're already feeling it rising in your own heart as you listen to me. Do I really need to hear this sermon on the fear of the Lord? Do I really need to take seriously the warning of the Book of Hebrews? Do I really have to listen to the Sermon on the Mount and the warnings against lust and gouging out the eye and cutting off the hand? Do I have to take that seriously? And so there may be a resistance to warnings coming up. Sometimes the resistance comes from the idea of the doctrine once saved, always saved. You think to yourself, the Scripture teaches that a true believer in Christ can never lose their salvation. So if you know yourself to be a true believer in Christ, you don't need to heed any warnings ever again, that's the mentality. It comes from this idea of once saved, always saved. Now, I believe with all my heart that the eternal security of the believer in Christ is one of the crown jewels of the doctrines of grace.

It's a delightful thing to meditate on. It's beautiful to know that the Lord knows how to finish the salvation work in me and in you, isn't it? And Paul has labored already many times in Romans to give us that, a strong assurance. Listen to Romans 5:9-10, there it says, "Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him. For if when we were God's enemies we were reconciled to him through the death of his son, how much more having been reconciled shall we be saved by his life." What is Paul laboring to do in Romans 5:9-10? But give us a solid assurance that Jesus, dead Jesus, justifies us, living interceding active Jesus, will finish the saving work in us. It's a beautiful thing, isn't it? And then again in Romans 8:1, which by the way, just about every time I teach on the fear of the Lord or on the need that we have as Christians to heed warnings, somebody quotes Romans 8:1, so I'll quote it for you. Beause you may be want to quote to me, it says in Romans 8:1, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." "For those who live according to the Spirit…" he says later… You got to keep reading, you can't just stop at the end of verse 1. For those who live according to the Spirit, put sin to death by the power of the Spirit. That's a whole argument that he gives there.

But I'll say it, I cling to that verse. I am delighted that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And then there's Romans 8:29-30, "For those God foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the first born among many brothers. And those he predestined he also called, and those he called he also justified, and those he justified he also glorified." Nobody gets lost. That's where your once saved, always saved comes from. And also in Romans 8:38-39, "I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus." Amen and amen. Crescendo and cymbal crash. It is a fantastic doctrine and a beautiful one that we can embrace. And it's not just taught in Romans, Jesus taught it in John 6, "This is the will of him who sent me. That I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day, for my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son will have eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day."

So, what percentage of those that the Father gives to Jesus does he lose? The answer is mathematically zero. And what percentage does he save on the final day? 100%. Isn't that delightful and isn't your assurance flowing from these promises. Or this one in John 10:27-30, "My sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me, I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. No one can snatch them out of my hand, my father who has given them to me, is greater than all, no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one." Isn't that beautiful? The Trinity, the power of the Father, the Power of the son dedicated to finishing the saving work in you, nobody can snatch you out of their hand. And so the doctrine that a true Christian can never ever lose his or her salvation, never be lost to Christ, never be condemned for sin is one of the great jewels of the Gospel and it is absolutely true. But if this is true you may ask, why do we need to heed warnings like this?

Why do we need to be told to fear? Why are we told these warnings? If there's no condemnation for those in Christ, why do we have to listen to Christ's warnings about hell in connection with lust? If nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ why do we have to hear about the possibility that we gentiles will be stripped off the olive tree if we arrogantly boast over Jews? Why do we have to be told to continue in Christ, to keep believing, keep trusting, keep obeying, keep walking with him, if he has already promised that He'll lose none of all that the Father has given Him? That's the resistance to the warnings.

Secondly, there is, I believe, a failure to distinguish between godly and ungodly fear. There is a godly fear and there is an ungodly fear, and we must make a distinction. This passage commands us to fear. Verse 20. "Do not be arrogant but fear," it says. Many other passages tell us what a wonderful thing is the fear of the Lord. For example, Proverbs 1 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline." Psalm 19:9 says, "The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever." You know what, some evangelicals will say the fear of the Lord is pure, enduring until you pray the sinner's prayer, then you don't need it anymore. How can that be? It must be that the fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. Forever it's pure, forever it's beneficial to us.

In Proverbs 14:27, "The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life turning a man from the snares of death." It protects us, it keeps us safe, it's a fountain of life, the fear of the Lord. Isaiah gave a prophecy about the messiah, the branch of Jesse who is Christ. It says in Isaiah 11:3, "He will delight in the fear of the Lord." He'll delight in it. This is not just in the Old Testament, friends. It says in Philippians 2:12 that we should continue to work out our salvation with what? Fear and trembling. That's in the New Testament. Paul is telling us to do that. 1 Peter 1:17, "Since you call on a father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear." You're told to live here in this world in fear.

But other passages seem to cast some doubts on this issue of fear. For example, in Romans 8:15 we're told this, "You did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, 'Abba, Father.'" So in other words, if you're adopted you don't need to fear anymore, so people think. In verse 15. There is a kind of slavery to fear that Paul has in mind there that you're not to fall back into. But then they say, "Well then there must be no fear of the Lord that's appropriate for an adopted child of God." That is false. And even more pointedly in 1 John 4:18, it says this, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear."

Because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears has not been made perfect in love. And so they think that fear therefore has nothing to do with love and nothing to do with the Christian life. Unless you go through all the Old Testament, especially book of Proverbs where it extols the virtues of the fear of the Lord and say, "Well that's not for me anymore, I've come to Christ." I don't think it's so. Therefore I think we have to distinguish between godly fear and ungodly fear. This is how I do it. Godly fear is based on God's truth, on His nature, and His word. Ungodly truth is based on falsehood about God and His word, it's based on unbelief. So godly fear is based on truth and says this: God is holy, He hates sin, if I sin, God may well strike out at me and discipline me. If I harden my heart in sins deceitfulness, it may well be that I was never a Christian at all. I don't want to go there, I don't want to find out what that's like. I fear that outcome, I fear sin, I fear God's holy reaction to my sin. God did not spare the Jews when they rejected Christ. He'll not spare me either if I turn away from Christ. That's what godly fear sounds like.

Ungodly fear, however, is based on falsehood and says something like this, "God is fickle, and capricious, he is mean and demanding. I have to be a slave on his plantation or he'll send me to hell. I have to watch every step I make or he'll smack me. I have to keep on cranking out the good works to please him or he may become irrationally outraged at me and throw me into hell." Or perhaps something like this, "God's promises sound so true and I do believe them, and I do believe that Jesus is the son of God and died for me, but I don't know that God can keep me, I don't know that I might just sin so much he'll grow tired of me and throw me out. I might still wind up in hell even though I do believe the promises of the Gospel. God may abandon me, or his promises may not be true for me even if they're true for everybody else." That's ungodly fear, and it has to do with wrath and punishment that's contrary to the promises of the Gospel. We have to distinguish there for between godly fear and ungodly fear.

Is it right for a Christian to fear that if we sin, God may discipline us in some very unpleasant ways? I think it is. Is it right for a Christian who comes to church every week, who's here week after week, but then lurches off into some established pattern of sin, embraces that pattern of sin, stops going to church, and for decades never comes back, is it right for them to fear hell? I think it is. And so we've seen the resistance to warnings in the Christian life. What is the role then of warnings in the Christian life?

Warnings Reveal True vs. False Branches

Well as I've said, warnings reveal the difference between true and false branches. Friends, there would be no need for warnings in the Christian life if we were already done being saved. If we're already there, we don't need the warnings. But we're not safe yet. And frankly, there's the issue of true and false branches. Just because someone hangs around the church for decades or is active in the church's programs does not mean that they're genuinely alive spiritually. The warnings here reveal the possibility that people may be self-deceived. Ultimately then, the true believers produce fruit in keeping with repentance, as John the Baptist said. Jesus put it this way in Matthew seven, "By their fruit, you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown to the fire. Thus by their fruit, you will recognize them."

Jesus put it this way in John 15, "I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener, he cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit." And you say, "In me," does that mean you can lose your salvation? Like I said, the branches can be connected but not truly of the vine, as proven by the fruit. And there is no fruit. And so cut off and thrown into the fire. Therefore, this issue reveals the fact that we can be self-deceived. We can actually be going to church for a long time and not truly be born again.

Warnings Reveal Spiritual Arrogance

Secondly, warnings reveal spiritual arrogance. Friends, one of the key issues in the Christian life is, what do you do with a healthy spiritual warning? I think this sermon will bring you to a fork in the road. You listen to this, and if you excuse yourself from all warnings, I would urge you to be afraid for your soul. One of the essences of true saving faith is it takes these kinds of warning seriously, it takes them to heart. We humble ourselves, we go to Christ, we go to the Cross, we do business with God. When we feel pricked in our conscience we want to have it dealt with, and so we go to the cross. But a spiritually arrogant people thinks that he or she is exempt from all warnings. They blow them off, they don't take them seriously, they think they can dabble in sin and it won't affect them, they think they've served God enough and they built up enough capital in God's account so they can spend some of it on sin. It is not so. And so, therefore, concerning warnings, true believers need them, true believers heed them, and true believers avoid what they threaten.

False believers excuse themselves from them, do not heed them, and ultimately fulfill them. So what you do with a warning in the Christian life ends up becoming determinative about what is the nature of your faith.

Warnings Produce Godly Fear, and Fear Keeps Us from Sin

Do you fear the Lord or not? Now, in my opinion, on this issue of fear, there's no better verse than Exodus 20:20. Would you turn there in your Bibles and look with me at Exodus 20:20. I told you there were a number of times that God sought to produce fear in his people and Exodus 20:20 is one of them. Exodus 20:18, this is the time of the giving of the Ten Commandments. And no one can do fear like God can.

It always amazes me, these unbelievers that have "no fear" on their bumper stickers. Alright? "No Fear," or "Ain't Sceered" something like that. And I think to myself, "The Lord is able to make you scared. He's able to make you fear. And frankly it's evidence of great grace when he does." But here God was able to make a whole nation of maybe two million Israelites tremble so much that Moses said in Hebrews 12, his words are recorded, "I am trembling with fear." Moses was terrified. And how did he do it? Well, he warned the Israelites ahead of time, if anyone goes up in the mountain, they'll be killed. He says, "Put a barrier at the base of the mountain so no one can go up." And then he descends in a dark thick cloud with thunder and lightning, and with a trumpet call, and with the voice of God, and with an earthquake. And before long, everybody is trembling and thinking today is their final day on earth. They are terrified, God is making them afraid. But this is what the Lord says about it. This is interesting. Exodus 20:18-20 says, "When the people saw the thunder and lightning, and heard the trumpet, and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, 'Speak to yourself for we will listen, but do not have God speak to us or we will die.'" Now, look at 20:20. "Moses said to the people, 'Do not fear.'"

Isn't that interesting? He says, "Do not be afraid, God has come to test you so that the fear of God will be with you." Isn't that interesting. Do not fear if the fear of God is with you. He says, "Do not be afraid, God has come to test you so that the fear of God will be with you, to keep you from sinning." That's the purpose of the fear of the Lord. Is sin still a threat in your life? Is it still a threat in your life? If so, you need the fear of the Lord. It keeps you from sin. And therefore, I went back to FDR's words, "Do not fear, if you fear." And therefore, the only thing you have to fear is if you don't fear the Lord. Because if you don't fear the Lord, then all of the punishments are opened up for you. All of them are available, even hell itself. But if you fear the Lord, that's the beginning of the wisdom that is essential to the Christian life. And it continues with you the rest of your Christian life.

The real danger, you may say in the Christian life is not that Jesus is going to abandon me. Isn't your real fear that you'll abandoned him? Don't you know that the Lord keeps His promises. The question is, are you going to keep your side of it. Isn't that your concern? Isn't it your fear that at some point you will turn away from Christ? You know he won't turn away from you but maybe you'll love... You'll sin your way out of his love. Maybe that's what you fear. But in Jeremiah 32:40, this is the essence of the new covenant. In Jeremiah 32:40 it says, "I will make an everlasting covenant with them, I will never stop doing good to them." I will not turn away from doing good to my people. Listen. "And I will inspire them to fear me so that they will never turn away from me." That is salvation, friends.

God has promised to work in the hearts of his own people, his sons and daughters, to make them sufficiently fear Him, that they will never turn away from him into sin. And so the fear of the Lord and the warnings that produce it are essential to our Salvation. We already sang earlier in Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. It says, "Oh to grace, how great a debtor, daily I'm constrained to be. Let thy goodness, like a fetter, like a chain, bind my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here is my heart, Oh, take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above."

That's an honest person saying, "I am still a sinner, and there's still danger in my life. Oh, by the fear of God, keep me safe, keep me close, bind me."

Warnings Essential to Standing in Faith

And therefore, the warnings are essential to standing in faith. He says in verse 20. Go back to Romans 11:20. It says "branches were broken off because of unbelief. And you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant but fear." Friends, we are making our way now as aliens and strangers in hostile territory, and we're not done with the journey.

Some time ago I read a book about a downed airman in the Vietnam War and what it took to get him back to safety. And what was really fascinating about this is this guy was in hiding, it took two weeks for him to get back out of enemy territory and helicopter pilots and other pilots were radioing him. He was never speaking back to them or else they could find out where he was, but they were radioing him saying, "There are enemy soldiers on your right. You can go straight now for 100 yards and then you need to hide in that cops of trees over there", etcetera. They were seeing the big picture and giving him warnings and those warnings were essential to his escape and deliverance back to safety. So it is with scripture. It sees the big picture and it warns you when you're turning left or turning right to keep in the straight and narrow and keep walking with Christ. Do not excuse yourself from the warnings that are essential to finishing your salvation journey.

We've seen the reality of warnings, we've seen the possible resistance to warnings in the Christian life. We've talked about the role of warnings. What about the relief of warnings?

How do we get relief? Remember John Newton put it this way in Amazing Grace, "Twas grace that taught my heart to" what? Fear. "And grace my fears relieved." I believe that that's a cycle that goes on the rest of your Christian life. This is how I think it works. God's grace gives us warnings in the Bible, the Holy Spirit presses them close to us and warns us of specific dangers connected to how we're living right now. We repent, we heed the warnings. We do a course correction and continue then to make progress in the faith. The Spirit assures us that we are God's children, he's pleased with us, our fears are relieved until the next new danger comes.

And so in this way fear and the warnings that produce the godly fear are essential to finishing our journey through enemy territory until we're safe and sound. In the text Paul gives us two ways to relieve fear in the text.

Consider & Continue

First consider and second continue. First in verse 22, "Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God. Sternness to those who fail but kindness to you." The word consider means literally see, look at it, gaze it. In a moment, we're going to, at the end of the Lord's Supper, sing, "When I survey the wondrous cross." Survey two aspects of God. What are the two things were told the survey here? The goodness and the severity of God. So many of us want a Santa Clause view of God, we like the goodness part. Consider therefore the goodness of God period. But that's not what the verse says. The verse says have a twin consideration. There are some types of folks that consider only the severity of God and they miss the goodness of God. There needs to be a balance in our meditation on God, we need to consider the goodness of God, his kindness, his grace to us in Christ, the fact that He never treats us as our sins deserve, the fact that he's like a loving father of the prodigal son welcoming us back any time we repent and come to him.

We need to consider the soft gentle grace and love of God. But we also need to consider the severity of God. His terrifying wrath against sin. We need to stimulate our fear of God's holy wrath and His sharp fatherly discipline. Why would you want to be disciplined by a God who controls every atom in your body and every circumstance of your life and who says everything is fair game when it comes to making you holy? Fear the discipline of God and don't sin. We need to consider it, we need to consider what God did when... What David felt when God struck Uzzah down. What the church felt when an Ananias and Sapphira died. We need to fear what God did to the natural branches when he stripped them off because they didn't believe in Jesus. We need to consider the severity of God. Secondly, we need to continue. It says in verse 22, "Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God. Sternness for those who fell, but kindness to you provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you also will be cut off." Continue means keep going. Keep walking by faith.

Keep repenting from sin, keep praying and seeking the face of the Lord, keep reading the Bible, keep going to church, keep witnessing, keep giving your ties and offerings, keep on living the Christian life, and the warnings will only be an encouragement to you, and they will not cause you fear.

1) Take all Biblical warnings seriously

What application do we take from this? Well, first, please take all Biblical warnings serious. Don't excuse yourself from any of them. Just because you believe once saved, always saved doesn't mean you're exempt from heeding God's warnings. Consider that the warnings are essential to God's finishing his good work in your life. Consider that you are prone to wander from God through sin, through the weakness of the flesh. Take every warning seriously and bring it to Christ, let Him assure you by His Spirit, that there's presently no danger in that issue. If not then, if he says there is danger, then repent, turn away from sin. And then maintain constant vigilance over that area of sin.

2) Learn to be humble about the power of sin

Secondly, learn to be totally humble about the grievous power of sin. When you see someone else fall into sin, do not gloat, do not boast, do not feel superior, do not feel smug, and don't excuse yourself from the matter. Rather learn to say, "There but for the grace of God go I, and probably will go I, except that God's grace works fear in me right now." Fear. Don't excuse yourself from any matter. Jonathan Edwards in his resolutions said This, "Resolved to act in all respects both speaking and doing as if nobody is as vile as I am. And as if I had committed the same sins or had the same infirmities or failings as others. And that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God." Where then is boasting over other sinners? It's impossible. Be totally humble about the sins of others. I yearn for First Baptist Church to be a deeply broken and contrite and humble church over the matter of sin. Only then will we be good evangelists and good counselors to one another.

3) Learn to meditate on all that God is

Thirdly, learn to meditate on all that God is. Learn to consider his goodness and learn to consider his severity, not just one or the other. Fourthly, stand by faith, moment by moment. Continue to feed your faith with the word of God. Stand by faith. Don't say, "I've done enough, I can now coast in my Christian life. I have achieved, I've arrived, I don't have anything more to do." Evangelize, fifthly, as a humble and broken hearted sinner, not like a self righteous Pharisee. And if I can speak a word to you parents. Parent like this, goodness and severity. Not just goodness, not just severity. That's how God parents us. There are some parents that are on the permissive side and want only a sweet and loving relationship with their children, and so they avoid the severity side. There are others that embrace the severity side, but omit loving general kindness toward their children. And I've said to my own children many times, I wish that God would give me an angel right now and tell me the amount of goodness and severity you need. Okay? 'Cause I'm happy to do either one. Happy to do the goodness, happy to do the severity, whatever it takes. But both of them are ingredients in good parenting just like they are in God's dealing with us.

4) Test yourself to see if you are in the faith

And finally, can I ask you to test yourself to see if you're in the faith? We're about to come to the Lord's Supper. I'd like you to take some time and pray while I come down. And while the elements are being passed out, take the opportunities to pray. Ask yourself if you're a Christian, ask yourself if you're born again, and if you're not, don't take the Lord's Supper. This is for believers who have testified to their faith through baptism.

But if you're in some kind of sin, I'd urge you not to take the Lord's Supper, but use it as an opportunity for humiliation and for repentance. And making it right perhaps with somebody, or dealing with the sin issue in your life. But don't imagine that the Lord's Supper is for sinless perfect people, it isn't. God came to give his son, his son gave his blood that we might be cleansed of all sin. So let's close now with prayer, and then we'll come to the Lord's Supper.

We are looking at Romans chapter 11. I just love Thanksgiving, I love to think about it. I like to think about the different many things that there are to be thankful for. And I think the more you go on, the more delightful it is. And as a matter of fact, I think that thankfulness is one of the most delightful states of the human soul to God. I think God loves to see us thankful. I think about how it says in Hebrews 12, "Since we're receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe." In other words, that God looks at acceptable worship as the same as thanksgiving in that verse. I know that there's more things besides that are involved, but thankfulness is at the core of our Christian love and faith. And so therefore, I look on it as one of the sweetest spiritual states there is, the state of thankfulness, of thanksgiving.

Conversely, in our text, I believe that Paul is dealing with one of the most repugnant and obnoxious states that the human soul can be in, and that is spiritual pride, arrogance. He is fighting against it in Romans 11:16-24, as you read. I believe that pride is one of the most obnoxious states that we can be in because it means that we do not understand the grace of God, we do not understand what God is giving us. We think we deserve it, and therefore we really cannot be thankful for it. Paul, I believe, is giving a warning to Gentiles in Romans 11:16-24, that they should not be arrogant over the Jews given their spiritual situation. Remember the context of Romans 9-11, Paul is dealing with the almost universal rejection of the gospel by his countrymen, the Jews. He's struggling with that, he's working with it, he's explaining it from all different angles.

But as he comes now to Romans 11:16-24, I think his heart is getting pastoral. He is being pastoral at this moment toward both Jews and Gentiles alike. And I believe his goal in this section is the destruction of Gentile boasting over Israel, and the unity of the church. That's what he's getting at here.

Now, I believe that pride is rooted in human nature. Saint Augustine said that it is the root of all sin. I don't know if that's true, but I see that it is the root of many of my sins. It is true. Now, what is pride? Well, I think pride starts in infancy. Now, I'm not saying anything against my newborn, she's a sweet little girl, we love her, we think she's wonderful. She's been with us now almost two months, she's doing great. Nothing but a blessing. But we've noticed something about her, as about our other five children, or four children, all together five. And that is that she is intensely self-focused. She is just thinking about number one and there is no number two, except that number two might do something for number one. Number two is definitely my wife, we all disappear. We're not there. We bring her to number two, but she is number one.

And it develops from there, doesn't it? The toddler sitting in the sand box and there are the toys and there are these other beings in the sand box and they are competition. I want all the toys in the sand box and I want it when I want it. And it goes on from there to self-exaltation over others. It escalates into feelings of superiority over other people. Competitiveness comes, boasting and arrogance toward other people, and eventually a desire to exalt oneself by putting other people down. But its most obnoxious form is found in our relationship with God. Pride's ugliest form comes in its manifestation toward God himself. Basically, pride says to God, "You will not rule over me." Pride desires to take God's rightful place to rule over one's own life so that we can determine to do what we wanna do with our lives. Pride displays especially an independent spirit toward God that says to the Almighty, "I don't need you."

And it ultimately reveals itself in our religion. In atheism, which says, "I am and there is no other, there is no God." Or in works righteousness, which says, "I can work my way to God on my own. I can do things that are pleasing to Him, and He will accept me on the basis of what I've done." Or in idolatry which says, "I can make God however I want, and then I can worship the God that I've made." All of this is religious pride.

Heavenly Enemy #1: Pride

Now, I believe that God has made pride, as we might say, heavenly enemy number one. It says in Isaiah 2:12 and following, "The Lord Almighty has a day in store for all the proud and lofty, for all that is exalted, and they will be humbled. The arrogance of man will be brought low and the pride of men humbled. The Lord alone will be exalted in that day and the idols will totally disappear." Therefore, I believe that the ultimate goal of the gospel is the glory of God in a salvation done in such a way that human pride is humbled. God is glorifying himself by saving us in a way that we will all only be able to say, "Praise be to his name and to his name alone. Praise be to the name of Jesus." "Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord." That's what the Lord is working out here. And that I think is the purpose of the climax of this whole chapter. In verse 32 it says, "God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on us all." He humbled the Gentiles by revealing that we were on the outside, that we were unfit for citizenship in Israel because of our uncircumcised hearts and our uncircumcised lives. And now he humbles the Jews by binding them over to a spirit of stupor to spiritual blindness so that they cannot see in Jesus their own Messiah, their own Christ. So both Gentiles and Jews alike, nationally, are humbled.

God has bound all of them over to disobedience so that He can have mercy on them all, so that when we are on that final day, when we stand before God, we will know as we are escorted into heaven, and as we are welcomed there, that it was not through our own merit or our own righteousness but only through the mercy of God, and we will honor Jesus as our Savior in a way that would be impossible if any of the shred of arrogance and pride were left.

Now, Jewish arrogance over Gentiles was addressed earlier in Romans. Jewish arrogance over the Gentiles was addressed earlier. In Romans chapter 2, Paul deals with it there. Now, the Jews might have had a temptation to be arrogant based on certain lavish things that God had said to them as a people. For example, in Exodus chapter 19 it says, God spoke to Israel and said, "Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations, you will be my treasured possession, although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."

Now God had given Moses many laws that excluded Gentiles from worship, among them was circumcision. Therefore, the Jews felt that they had ample reason perhaps to boast over their Gentile neighbors. They sometimes would even call them uncircumcised dogs. But Paul strips Israel, strips the Jews of their boasting based on a simple fact, they were unable to keep the law. They could not keep the law of Moses. And so he says in Romans 2, "Now you, if you call yourself a Jew, if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God," he says, "You then who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written, God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." And then later in Romans 2, again, it says, "Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as if you were uncircumcised." In effect, that sets the image for the branches being stripped off. He's saying if you don't keep the law, if you do not follow God, you become as though you were not circumcised.

So there Paul is laboring to strip Jews of any boasting they might have over Gentiles. But now here he is addressing Gentiles who claim to be believers in Christ. And he's using Romans 11 to ward off any reverse Gentile boasting over the Jews. The whole problem of Romans 9-11 is based on the overwhelming success of the gospel among the Gentiles in every tribe, and language, and people, and nation which just seems to flourish, and the overwhelming failure of the gospel among the Jews. And that might leave the Gentiles to get the feeling that they had actually replaced the Jews in God's affections. Look at verse 19 and 20, "You will say then, Branches were broken off so I could be grafted in. Granted," he says. Actually there is a school of theology called replacement theology in which the church just replaces the ethnic Jews. Really, God has literally no concern whatsoever anymore for the physical descendants of Abraham. I think Romans 11 totally rejects that, it's impossible, but there's this idea of replacement. And so, I think Paul here is seeking to put the Gentiles in their place. Look at verse 13, he says very directly, "I am talking to you Gentiles." He's addressing the Gentiles directly.

Now, I think if you read between the lines here and also later in Romans, when you get to chapter 14 for example, when it's talking about some people hold one day more sacred than another. Others think everyday is alike. I really think that the church in Rome was made up of both Jews and Gentiles. A numbers of times in Romans, he addresses the Jews and then another time he's addressing the Gentiles. I think that the Roman church was made up of both Jews and Gentiles. And if you read between the lines, it's possible that there was some tension there, perhaps some controversies or some disagreements. And I think he really wants the unity of the church. He wants Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians really to love each other and to honor God in their relationship with each other. So he's seeking pastorally here for unity. But I believe his biggest concern has to do with the glory of God in salvation. If you are arrogant spiritually, it shows something about you. It says something about how you think you are made right with God. And so he's dealing with the issue of the glory of God in salvation.

Now, as we look at the history of the church of what we could call Christendom, there is a sordid history of anti-semitism. There is, in my opinion, a sordid history of the very kind of boasting over the fallen Jewish branches that Paul is warning against here. Now, as I begin to talk about this painful topic of Anti-semitism within those who claim to be Christians, I wanna begin by being very careful about what is not anti-semitic. The Bible, specifically let's say the New Testament, is not anti-semitic. The Gospel of John is not anti-semitic when it claims that the Jews had a role in the death of Christ. It is true. So also did the Romans. And evangelism of Jews in the name of Christ is not anti-semitic.

Perhaps you saw recently a story concerning the chaplain to the Washington Nationals baseball team? His name was Jon Moeller. He was dismissed from his ministry by the team because he affirmed with a nod only, he affirmed that Jews who do not trust in Christ will be lost eternally if they do not repent. A Washington Post reporter put this story on the front page of the Washington Post, and a Washington Rabbi loudly stated that the Washington Nationals' locker room was now being used, listen to this, to preach hatred. I guess, done with a nod. To say that Jews and Gentiles need to trust in Christ for their salvation is not anti-semitism. It is the truth. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost in Israel first. Paul says, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile, the gospel is for salvation, for everyone who believes. It is not anti-semitic to say to a Jewish person, you must repent and believe in Jesus Christ for the salvation of your soul. It is true that his blood was shed for both Jew and for Gentile alike and it is not anti-semitic to tell them the truth.

But that does not mean that there has not been anti-semitism in the history of Christianity.That is false. If we were to say that the church has never been guilty of this. You could look for example at the crusades. Beginning in the 11th century, around 1096 Christian leaders launched a series of crusades against Muslims to win control of Palestine back from the Muslims. On their way to the Middle East, the crusader armies attacked Jewish communities along the route. The first crusade was especially bloody. Entire communities of Jews were forced to choose between baptism and death, and because most of the Jews refused to choose baptism, there was a slaughter. Maybe as many as 10,000 Jews were killed in the first crusade, in the first six months alone. Godfrey of Bouillon, leader of the first crusade, vowed this, to leave no single member of the Jewish race alive and ordered the synagogue in Jerusalem burned to the ground with its entire Jewish congregation inside. The first crusade.

Then medieval Europe. In many cities in medieval Europe the Jews were gathered into communities and high walls were put around them. This led to further, obviously, separation and alienation 'cause they didn't interact much. And when the black plagues swept through and killed a third of the population, it was the Jews that were blamed. Then there was the inquisition in the Roman Catholic church in Spain. The original purpose was to root out heresy, but it spread to include Jews, and they were forced to wear ridiculous looking conical hats and subject to public ridicule and some of them were even tortured. Therefore, many Jews fled Spain to live in North Africa.

Martin Luther, during the time of the reformation, wrote a terrible treatise against the Jews. As a matter of fact, as you read it you wonder if it's the same man that wrote the things you're reading at another time in his life. I think he originally had hoped that with the gospel openly having been reclaimed and now preached in its purity that the Jews would now flock into the church. And so he was very open and friendly and welcoming early in his ministry, but toward the end he wrote this terrible document which was later used by the Nazis. In the late 1800s, there were pogroms against the Jews in Russia and Poland, organized with at least complicity from the church. She didn't speak out against it. And then, of course, the worst example of all is in supposedly Christianized Germany during the rise of Nazism. And we all know what happened as 6 million Jews were murdered simply for being Jewish. Adolf Hitler had visited the Passion Play at Oberammergau in 1934, that's just a reenactment of the Passion of Christ, the death of Christ, and it's done every 10 years.

And he was there in 1934 and this is what he said, he said, "It is vital that the Passion Play be continued at Oberammergau, for never has the menace of Jewry been so convincingly portrayed as in this presentation of what happened in the time of the Romans." So, it's a dreadful history. The kind of boasting over the stripped off branches that Paul is talking about here has actually happened, it's actually occurred. Now there is a very serious threat in the text to those who boast. Look at verses 20 and 21, he says, "Do not be arrogant but be afraid, for if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either." In other words, and we'll talk about this, God willing, next time. But if you're the kind of person who boasts over people who are stripped off from God, what does it say about your own heart? I'll talk more about that later in this message next week, but be afraid. There's a threat of eternal condemnation for those who act this way and have an arrogant attitude.

Well, Paul, instead of just stating that we should not boast over these branches gives six reasons for Gentile humility toward unbelieving Jewish people.

1) Israel’s Lasting Consecration as God’s Chosen People (vs. 16)

Look at the first one in verse 16, and that is Israel's lasting consecration as God's chosen people. Verse 16 there, he says, "If the part of the dough offered his first fruit is holy, then the whole batch is holy. If the root is holy then so are the branches." He takes here that sacrificial language, where in Numbers 15 a part of the dough was offered to God, but the implication is that the whole lump belongs to God. The first fruit offering really represents the whole being really God's ultimately. Now, when it says if the part of the dough offered as first fruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy. The word holy means sacred or set apart unto God for his special use. And I believe that the part of the dough offered as first fruit to God refers to the patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They were the first, and to them, the promises were made. With them, the covenants were made. They were set apart to God as holy and therefore, the lineage that comes from them is set apart to God as well.

If you look down at verse 28, it says, "As far as the gospel is concerned, the Jews are enemies on your account. But as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the fathers,"  on account of the patriarchs. That's Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So what do we get out of that? What it means is that we Gentile Christians are actually seen to be children of Abraham, he's actually our father in the faith. We've become somewhat spiritually adopted children of Abraham. This was already covered in Romans chapter 4. It says in verse 16 and 17, "The promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring, not only to those who have the law, but to those who are the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written, I have made you the father of many nations." We are Abraham's children, we Gentile believers. And we should understand that as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were broken off and given to God, holy and sacred to him, then their lineage as well is in some sense set apart unto God for his sacred use. And so therefore, Gentiles should not boast over the fallen state of the Jewish nation because the nation as a whole is still holy to the Lord, even if individual Jews have not believed and have been broken off. The whole is still sacred or special unto God.

2) The “Olive Tree” Is Jewish in Heritage (vs. 17-20)

Secondly, is this image of the olive tree. Look at verses 17-20, the olive tree is Jewish in heritage. And so Paul picks up on this gardening image and speaks of roots and of a tree, an olive tree. It's an unforgettable image. Now, the olive tree is a living entity, it's got a development, it's got a history, it grows year by year with developing branches coming up off the trunk. And on those branches, the gardener that's tending the olive tree expect to see some fruit. Now, some fruitless branches have been stripped off, it is true, and some wild branches have mysteriously been grafted in. Yes, that's true, but the tree itself remains a tree, it remains alive, it's drawing up the nourishing nutrients and moisture from the soil, and it's sucking it up through the trunk and out it goes. It's an olive tree, and it is Jewish in nature.

And therefore, I believe the tree represents God's people, his children by faith. And until recently in Paul's day, it was exclusively a Jewish tree. It is the Jewish history, it's the patriarchs', it's the law of Moses, it is the prophets', it is the history of God's loving provision for the Jews. God's people found their identity from the development of God's promises to the Jews. Now, the tree is not Israel per se. In other words, we would not say the tree, the olive tree is every physical descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He's already dealt with that in Romans 9, not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. So, it's not every biological descendant from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but rather it's a heritage that flowed from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it's a Jewish tree. And Jesus made it very, very clear, salvation is from the Jews. We get saved by this Jewish tree, and therefore, Gentile Christians should not boast over fallen Jews because the tree of salvation is Jewish in nature, essentially Jewish, through the promises made to the Jewish patriarchs and through the development of Moses, David, and the prophets.

3) Gentiles Are Wild, by Nature Excluded, by Grace Included (vs. 17-20)

The third reason that we Gentiles should not boast over Jews who do not believe in Christ is, that the Scripture says here that we Gentiles are wild by nature, excluded, only by grace included. I hope that doesn't offend you, it doesn't offend me, I'm a Gentile, to be called the wild olive branch that was grafted in contrary to nature to a tree that's not my own. But that's what Paul says. Look at verses 17-20. "If some of the branches," he says, "have been broken off, and you, the wild olive shoot have been grafted in among the others, and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this, you do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, 'Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.' Granted, but they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid." And look down at verse 24 for more of the same image. "After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?"

The picture here is of the wild by nature Gentiles. That's what Paul says. "The tree from which the Gentiles was cut was wild." Now, what does that mean? It means it's not tended, it's not cultivated, it doesn't have a gardener, it's not handled with care and with skill and with intelligence. It's just left to go. You can imagine if you went on one of those long treks through the mountains of West Virginia, or some wild place that you could go for several days, into a place where perhaps nobody had been in decades. And let's say you came to a clearing, and you found an apple tree there. And clearly it's a wild apple tree, you look and see, and it's just sprung up somehow, the birds carry the seeds there, there's no evidence of a human being having been there for years. And you pluck one of the apples off and you notice that the insects have kind of gotten to it. It's not like the apples you see in the supermarket, and you might, if you were up to it and you're organic kind of person, just go ahead and eat the apple such as it is, with everything found inside. But that would be a wild apple tree, uncultivated, untended, left alone.

Let's say, conversely, you went to an orchard. You drove there, and you parked, and you get out and there are the workers in the orchard, and they hand you a bag that you buy for $5 or $10, and you can fill it as full as you want, and they lead you to a certain place where are these long lines of trees, almost laser perfect, like this, and you look and all of the apples are perfectly round, untouched by insects, they are just cultivated and perfect. This is clearly a cultivated apple tree. This is the image that Paul is using. The Gentiles were not tended by God, they were basically left to go to hell whatever way they chose. They developed their own mystics, they developed their own histories, they developed their own sinful habits and shrines and priests and priestesses. They were never confronted by God through the law and the prophets, they were never judged, they were never restored by the loving heavenly Father, they were left to grow wild, and they did grow wild.

But Israel is a tended, cultivated, olive tree. Tended by the promises of God, by the commands of God, through the law of Moses, by the warnings of God through the prophets, by the leadership of God through holy men like Joshua and Samuel and David, and disciplined by the judgments of God as he brought the Assyrians and the Babylonians, and then restored back to the promised land. It is a cultivated olive tree. But the Gentiles are wild, they're just left to go. And therefore, Paul in Acts 14, talking to the pagans at Lystra, you remember that? He goes and preaches the gospel, and there's this great big response. And then when they see the healings, they say, "Oh, well, Paul must be Hermes and Barnabas must be Zeus." And they start offering sacrifices to them like they're the gods come down in human form. And Paul and Barnabas are just so upset, and they go out and they confront these pagans, these Gentiles, and they say this, "Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We're bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God who made heaven, and earth, and sea, and everything in them. [Listen] In the past, God let all nations go their own way."

Now, you tell me what that means. That is exactly what he's saying here in Romans 11. They're wild, they're just left to go however they saw fit. He just let them go their own way. And yet, contrary to nature, some have been cut out of their wild olive trees and have been grafted into this Jewish tree. It's an incredible thing, that they are cut out of their wild by nature trees, and they're grafted in. And now, contrary to nature, they're sucking life giving sap from this Jewish tree. Abraham has become our father, Jesus the King of the Jews, has become our King and our Messiah. The Jewish Bible has become for us the very word of God, the promises made to Abraham have become the hope of our future and the joy of our hearts. How could it be? And the Holy Spirit has been given to previously wild Gentiles to make them conform now to the perfections of God's holy law, to give up their sexual immorality, and their idolatry, and their emptiness, and their wild revelry, to give it up. To actually that God has written his holy law on our own hearts, he's done that to us, we who are wild by nature.

And this is done, it says, contrary to nature. What an interesting expression. It's the second time in Romans that's come up. The first time was to talk about what I believe is Gentile perversions, even homosexuality. That they give up the natural relations and do what is contrary to nature. Now, here, he uses it for our salvation. It is contrary to nature for us Gentiles to think of ourselves as spiritual Jews, but so it is. And so, contrary to nature, we have been grafted into this Jewish tree. Therefore, Gentiles must not boast over the fallen branches of the cultivated olive tree, because we were by nature excluded, we were on the outside, we were rejected. We should be very, very, very humble about that process, because the only difference between us and them is the sovereignty and the grace of Almighty God. That's how it happened to us. So, where then is boasting? It's excluded, it cannot be.

4) Israel Supports Gentile Christians, Not the Other Way Around (vs. 17-18)

Fourth, Israel supports Gentile Christians, not the other way around. Look what he says in verse 17 and 18, "If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, the wild olive shoot have been grafted in among the others, and now share in the nourishing sap drawn from the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this, you do not support the root, but the root supports you." What do I get out of this? It means that I as a Gentile, I derive all of my spiritual life and vitality from being grafted into this Jewish tree. Everyday, I suck nourishing sap from this tree. I do it by coming to Christ and calling him my Savior. He is the vine and I am the branch, another image from John 15. And apart from him, I can do nothing, but I'm in him, and his sap is flowing through me, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And also, when I read the Scripture, when I come to this Jewish book, when I open up the law of Moses and the prophets, when I read Job, when I read the Psalms of David, when I read the New Testament written by the apostles, I am deriving nourishing sap from this olive tree. So therefore, Gentile Christians should not boast over the fallen branches, the rejected Jews, because we derive our moment by moment life and health and spirituality from being included in this Jewish olive tree. We are supported by it, we're lifted up off the ground, off the muck and mire of our Gentile pagan ways, we're lifted up into a better life, and ultimately will be lifted up into heaven itself. Where then is boasting? How can we boast over the branches that were stripped off through unbelief? We should be humble, everyday we should turn to that Jewish book, the Bible, and we should draw our life giving nourishment from its pages, and we should turn to Christ. And in this Jewish God, we live and move and have our being. And so the tree supports us, we do not support the tree.

5) Gentiles Will Get No More Special Treatment Than Jews Did (vs. 19-23)

Fifth, Gentiles will get no more special treatment than the Jews got, if we boast and are arrogant. Look at verses 19-23, Paul concedes that individual Jews were cut off from their own olive tree. He says it's true, and he says, "Yes, they're now lying on the ground," metaphorically. But Paul goes deeper and asks why did it happen? What happened to them? Look in verse 19-23. "You will say then, Branches were broken off so I could be grafted in. Granted, it's true, but they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid." We'll talk about that next week. "For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God. Sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again."

Now, the clear teaching that Paul gives here is, the Jews were cut off from their own olive tree because of unbelief. They refused to trust in Christ. In my opinion, the root of that, Augustine was right, is pride. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, who is Christ. Pride in their national heritage, pride in their own law keeping, pride in their religious achievements, even pride in their national sufferings. And therefore, when Christ came and said so offensively, do you think that those Galileans were worse sinners than the others? I tell you, no. But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. They were very offended, very offended.

And when Jesus died on the cross, when he was nailed to the cross and hung up on a tree under a curse of God, and had a sign over his head, 'This is Jesus, the King of the Jews', they were so offended. They went to Pilate and said, "Take that sign off, or say do not say he is the King of the Jews, but he claimed to be the King of the Jews." They were so offended, the death of Jesus was offensive. And when the apostles preached that he died taking their curse on himself, dying the death of a condemned man, because Jews and Gentiles are alike, equally sinful in the sight of God, they were brutally offended by this, very offensive to them. And so therefore, Jesus was the stumbling block to Israel because of one wretched state of the sinful human soul, and that is pride. That's what led them to reject Christ, that's why they didn't believe.

But Paul says, "What would the root of Gentile boasting over fallen Jews be?" What's the root of that? Is it not the same? Is it not pride that would cause you or I to boast over Jews who don't believe in Jesus? To say, "Oh, look at them. There they are praying and God doesn't hear their prayers. They don't know the right way. If only they'd come talk to me, I'd tell them the right way." Isn't that pride?

Now, next week, we'll talk about the meaning of the severe warning to Gentiles who boast. We'll deal with the question of how this fits into the doctrine of 'Once saved, always saved.' I do not believe that Paul is teaching here, that a living branch sucking nourishing sap from the olive tree can't ever be cut off and thrown away. I do not believe it, but I do believe that arrogant boasting proves they were never truly grafted in at all. And therefore, Gentile Christians should not boast over unbelieving Jews, because God will not spare fake Christians any more than he spared fake Jews. And boasting people are not truly saved people.

6) God Is Able to Graft Jews Back In, and Someday He Will

Finally, God is able to graft the Jews back in, and friends, some day he will. Isn't that exciting? Someday, he's going to take branches up off the ground in one generation, and he's going to graft them back into their own olive tree. That's the mystery we're getting to. I've mentioned this mystery, I read it before, and I've mentioned it a few times, but it's coming. God is gonna scoop those branches up and he's gonna graft them back into their own olive tree. Verse 23-24, "If they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature and contrary to nature, were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?" The whole issue in Romans 9, 10 and 11 is God's sovereign grace. God can do anything he wants to do with his grace. He has that kind of power. And if God can take us from our wild background that had nothing to do with this Jewish olive tree and all of its heritage, how can we possibly imagine he can't graft the Jews back into their own olive tree?

Saul of Tarsus, breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. He wakes up thinking another good day to kill Christians. What are the odds he's going to lay down that night or go to sleep that night a Christian? What are the odds he's going to believe in Jesus that day? Well, God doesn't do odds, have you noticed? What He does is, he confronts Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus with resurrection glory and says, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?" "Who are you, Lord?" "Your world's about to change." "I am Jesus, the one you're persecuting." He is able to take a branch off the ground and graft it back in again. So how can you boast over somebody who might later today be your own brother or sister in Christ? And furthermore, what kind of Gentile believer will it take to get that done? What kind of Gentile evangelist will he send to do the job? One who's arrogant and boasting over the Jews in their broken off state? No, but one who, like Paul, has great sorrow and unceasing anguish in his heart for the Jewish condition, 1ho is praying in chapter 10, verse 1, "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved." One who, in chapter 10, is willing to go and preach the gospel, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news." That's the kind of Gentile it's going to take to bring these Jews to faith in Christ.

And boasting over the stripped off branches is totally inconsistent with that evangelical work.

What applications can we take from this? First, can I urge you... You may think, "Hmm, boasting over Jews that don't believe in Jesus. This is not my number one topic in my life. I'm facing this, I'm facing that, I'm facing the other."

A. Search Your Heart and Your Life for Spiritual Pride

Let me ask you a question, do you really think you're so free from spiritual pride? Do you really think that there is no spiritual pride in you at all? You really totally embraced the doctrine of grace, that you are saved contrary to what you deserve, not because of what you've done? Is it possible that there is no vestige of spiritual pride in you at all? I think it's impossible, and frankly, the longer I go on in my Christian life, the more I see what a monster it is.

And so I want to say in Psalm 139, "O Lord, search me and know me and try me and see if there's anything offensive inside." Show me my spiritual pride. Perhaps, you've said when you heard of some sinful thing, "I'd never do something like that." Be careful. Be careful what you say like that. Perhaps you've comforted yourself with at least you haven't murdered or stolen or committed adultery, at least not with your body. Perhaps you've heard a story about some sin that another Christian has committed, and you excused yourself and felt superior. But have you forgotten how many sins you are cleansed from? Sins of the mouth, gossip, slander, deceit, sins of the mind, unclean thoughts, arrogant thoughts, sins of the wallet, selfishness, and greed, sins of the passions, anger, and lust, and pride. Have you forgotten? Oh, that we might never boast except in the cross of Jesus Christ. Come to the cross again, because it says in Psalm 51:17, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart O God, you will not despise."

B. Search Your Heart and Your Life for Anti-Semitism

Secondly, can I urge you to search your heart for anti-semitism? Is it impossible that you have no attitude of boasting over the branches that are stripped off? That you have no sense of mockery toward the Jews? Are you where Paul was, where he has great sorrow and unceasing anguish for their present situation? Is there no anti-semitism inside you?

C. Ask God to Give You Paul’s Stance Toward Lost Jews and Gentiles

Thirdly, ask God to give you Paul's stance toward lost people, both Jews and Gentiles. That you could be the kind of person who would have great sorrow over the lost, who would pray for them, and who would be willing to go and witness to them.

D. Take God’s Warnings to Heart

Fourth, as we're going to talk about next time, take God's warnings to heart. You're commanded in this text, "Do not be arrogant, but fear." And we're going to talk about what fear Paul has in mind here, but it is a good state of the soul.

Finally, if I can speak to any that are here that have never trusted in Christ, come to Christ today. We will not survive the kind of scrutiny that this Holy God will give us on judgment day on our own. We need Jesus. You need to trust in Christ, believe in Him, trust in Him. Don't leave this room without trusting in Christ. You don't need to go anywhere, all you have to do is bend in your heart and acknowledge to God, "I am a sinner, Lord. And apart from the blood shed on the cross by Jesus, apart from the blood shed in the cross, I will have no hope of surviving judgment day." Acknowledge it, trust in him. Jesus is a wonderful Savior, magnificent Savior, trust in him today. Close with me in prayer.

As we continue in our study in Romans, we're looking for the second week at Romans 11:11-16, and we're looking at the question of God's purpose in Israel's stumbling, God's purpose in Israel's rejection of Christ. And this morning, I'd like to take you in your mind's eye, by the Spirit and by the Word, to a valley. A valley of vision, through the Spirit. Perhaps it was most terrifying of all the visions that Ezekiel, the prophet, had when the Lord did the same for Him. Took him to a valley and set him in the midst of it, and as he moved through the valley, he saw that it was filled with dead men, the bones of dead men. And the bones were bleached and dry, there was no sign of life whatsoever, they were a slaughtered horde. They've been dead so long that the bones were so dry and bleached in the sun, that there seemed to be no hope whatsoever for their future.

And Ezekiel was asked a simple and direct question, "Son of man, can these bones live again?" Ezekiel perhaps felt the sense of both dread and hope at the question. He answered the only way he could, "O Sovereign Lord, you alone know." That's a good answer, don't you think? "Only you know whether these bones can live again." Then the Lord commanded him, "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord.'" And while Ezekiel obeyed and spoke the Word of the Lord to those dry bones, he heard a deep and mysterious rattling sound, as bone joined a bone.

I can't imagine what that sounded like. Terrifying and amazing, wonderful and dreadful at the same time. And there, after the bones were joined, lay a bunch of dead skeletons. But a moment later, the wind of the Lord blew on those skeletons, and tendons and flesh came upon them. And so they stood, fully formed, but still dead, there was no breath of life in them. Once more the Lord commanded the prophet Ezekiel, "Son of man, prophesy to the breath." And as Ezekiel spoke the Word of the Lord, the sound of the rushing wind came from the four directions of the compass, and breathed life into those dead corpses, and they came to life.

Now, what did this vision mean? Now, Ezekiel prophesied at a time when Israel's hopes seemed completely cut off, dead. The national future seemed bleak indeed. Because of their sins, the Lord had raised up Gentile armies, the Assyrians, and then the Babylonians, to evict the Jews from their promised land. Most of them were slaughtered, the few that remained were deported to a foreign land, to Babylon. For most people, this means the end of a national existence. And so, Israel's hopes seemed as dead as those dry bones. The vision ends in this way, Ezekiel 37:11-14, "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel." "These bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, 'Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone, we are cut off.' Therefore prophesy and say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them. I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land, then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and have done it,'" declares the Lord.

Now the lesson of the vision is the same as the lesson of redemptive history, when it comes to the Jews, and that is that the sovereign God has power to call things that are not as though they were, and has the power to give life to the dead. He can do that. He had the power to do it to Israel's hopes in the Valley of Dry Bones. And frankly, that's how the nation of Israel began, when a 100 year old wandering, desert dwelling Aramean named Abraham, had a miracle worked in his own seemingly dead and dry body. And so he was able to beget a son, Isaac, and thus the Jewish nation began. And Paul commented on this in Romans 4:17, speaking of the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were, that's how it began. How fitting then that Romans 11 says that's exactly how it will end as well.

For if you look at verse 15, in Romans 11, it says, "If their," the Jews, "If their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be, but life from the dead." And that's what we're talking about. The Alpha and the Omega of the Jewish nation is life from the dead, it is the power of God to call things that are not as though they were. That's the whole history. And that's the meaning of the vision of the dry bones.

I said to my kids I thought it was appropriate for Halloween, they said, "Don't mention it, please don't." But now I've mentioned it. What could be more powerful than skeletons that seem to have no life, coming together with a rattling sound, and bringing not death, but life? God has the power to transform anything, even death to life.

Now what is the context here in Romans 11? Well, the context is that Paul is deeply troubled and deeply disturbed by the problem of the Jews rejecting their own Messiah. And he's asking the question, "Does this mean that God's Word has failed, that God is not sovereign and powerful to bring forth these kinds of promises?" And he says, "It is not as though God's Word has failed." And then in Romans 9, he focuses on individual salvation, he talks about unconditional election, he talks about the fact that God has the power before the foundation of the world to choose those who are His, and that they will most certainly come to Him.

He also talks about individual responsibility in the end of Chapter 9, and in Chapter 10, saying the Jews stumbled over the stumbling stone, they refused to believe in Christ because they were trying to establish their own righteousness. And they couldn't accept a simple Gospel of repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, where Jesus does the work, Jesus gets the glory, we get the salvation. They couldn't accept it, and so they stumbled over Christ.

But now, in Chapter 11, Paul turns to the issue of the future of the whole nation. What is the future of the nation of Israel? What does God have planned for them as a whole? And we see the grace and mercy of God, even in the midst of a dismal situation there. We've seen already two of the graces in that God had not completely rejected all of the Jews. Paul himself was a Jew, and in every generation there would be a remnant preserved by God's grace, a remnant of Jews who would believe in Christ and trust in Him. Paul, a Jewish believer in Christ, was an example of that. So were all the first generation Jews that believed in Christ.

Secondly, we see the mercy and grace of God, in that He uses the transgression of the Jews to save Gentiles. That's what we saw last week. But God has that power to do it.

The third grace and mercy we're going to see is, this rejection of the Jews is not permanent, but at the end of the age, there will be a great in-gathering of Jews through faith in Christ. And that's what he gets at in the rest of this section.

Now, last week we saw that God has a purpose in Israel stumbling. Some of us stumble over the idea of God having a purpose in human sin, but God does have a purpose. We saw in the example of Joseph and his brothers, how they meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. And God has that kind of power to intend and mean things that appear evil, and mean it for good.

We see that especially in the cross of Jesus Christ, don't we? The most wicked act in history, but it is my salvation, and yours too, if you trust in Christ. A wicked act, an act of sin. And what their motives were, we talked about last week, they will be judged for it and assessed. Each one of them, Pontius Pilate, and Judas, and Herod, and all of them. But for us, God meant it for good, that we might have eternal life and salvation.

We also saw last week that God's purpose for the Gentiles in Israel's transgression was salvation. Look at Verse 11, it says, "Because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles." It says again in Verse 12, it speaks of riches for the world, it says also there as riches for the Gentiles. In verse 15, it says, their rejection, the Jews' rejection, is the reconciliation of the world.

So we have salvation for the Gentiles, riches for the world, riches for the Gentiles, reconciliation for the world. We saw all this last week. One of the good purposes of God in the rejection of the Jews, the transgression of the Jews, is that salvation has come to the Gentiles.

But what we're going to see now this week is that God also has a good purpose for the Jews in all of that. What is God's purpose for the Jews? Well, we see layers of purpose in verse 11. Look at Verse 11. "Again I asked, did they, the Jews, stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? May it never be, not at all," he says. "Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles." He doesn't stop there, "In order to make Israel envious." So God doesn't just stop with the salvation of the Gentiles, He goes beyond that and says the salvation of the Gentiles is going to have an effect on the Jews.

So God's purpose then, ultimate purpose for the Jews, in the salvation of Gentiles is the salvation of Jews, that's His ultimate purpose. God intends salvation for the Jews. Now, already we're talking about individual Jews, like Paul, who are saved. But Paul has a vision here of the future, he has a vision here of the future of the nation of Israel. And so he talks about the hopeful words and the hopeful intentions he has for the Jews. Look at verses 11-15, and see all the hope there is for the Jews. In Verse 11 he says, "Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all. Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring." Verse 13, "I am talking to you Gentiles, in as much as I am the Apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them."

Verse 15, "For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what would their acceptance be, but life from the dead." Now, in that section, Paul talks about the fullness of the Jews and of their acceptance. This is referring to their relationship with God through Jesus Christ. This is referring ultimately to salvation for a whole generation of Jews, the final generation of Jews. He speaks of the fullness of the Gentiles at the end of this chapter, he's speaking also the fullness of the Jews. The fullness of the Jews and the fullness of the Gentiles comes together at the end of the world. Well, how will this occur?

Paul says it's salvation through jealousy, salvation through envy. What an odd thing. Isn't it a strange thing the plans and purposes of God? We would never have come up with a salvation plan like this. God raising up a people, the Jews, making extraordinary promises to them saying they are His peculiar people, putting them under a conditional covenant, watching as they disobey that covenant again and again, ultimately bringing the Messiah, physically descended from the Jews, but they reject Him, and so God rejects them. Turns to the Gentiles, the Gentile saved in large numbers, the Jews become envious and jealous, they turn back to their Messiah and believe, and God gets the glory for all of it.

Would you have come up with a salvation plan like that? It's extraordinary, and it is deep it. Look what he says, in Verse 13 and 14, he says, "I am talking to you Gentiles, in as much as I am the Apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them." Paul says, "I magnify my ministry," "I make much of my ministry, I talk about it a lot. I am the Apostle to the Gentiles." Now, don't misunderstand Paul, what he's saying here. He doesn't make much of himself. He doesn't make much of how great a person he is. Not at all, he's very humble about his own sin. He talks about how he was a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and a violent man, in 1 Timothy. He doesn't make much of himself. But he does make much of his ministry. Why? Why does he glorify his ministry? Because he wants his own people to be provoked to jealousy, so that they'll say, "Hey, I want some of that. I want to sit at that table, I want to feast with the Gentiles. I'm out, I'm excluded. I want to believe in Christ."

Case Study #1: Antioch

And so Paul's goal is to make the Jews jealous. How does this work? Well, there are a variety of case studies of this in the Book of Acts. First, in the city in Antioch, in Acts 13. There, Paul and Barnabas are ministering. They go as usual to the Jewish synagogue. They preach the Gospel boldly and clearly using the Old Testament to prove that Jesus is the Christ. At the end they give them a warning saying, "Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish, for I'm going to do something in your days that you would never believe even if someone told you." He gives them a warning to believe in Christ. As Paul and Barnabas are leaving the synagogue, a number of the Jews come up and invite them to speak further on these things the next Sabbath. When the congregation was dismissed, the Word of God went out through all that city, and a week later just about everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, were there to hear the Word of the Lord.

It says there in Acts 13, "When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy." And now they're at the fork in the road, aren't they? Filled with jealousy and they can either believe in Christ and say, "I want to be part of that," or they can begin to persecute, and that's exactly what they did. They talked abusively against what Paul and Barnabas are saying. Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly, "We had to speak the Word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles." That's Paul making much of his ministry to the Gentiles? Who is he talking to there? The Jews. He's saying, "We're going to go to the Gentiles, for this is what the Lord has commanded us, 'I have made you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring My salvation to the ends of the earth.'" When the Gentiles heard this, they were filled with joy and they honored the Word of the Lord, and all who were pointed to eternal life, believed.

So, what does Paul do? He tells the Jews who are becoming abusive, he says, "You reject the Word of God. Guess what we're going to do? We're going to turn to the Gentiles, your Gentile neighbors, and we're going to preach the Word of God." And huge numbers of the Gentiles were saved.

Case Study #2: Corinth

Second case is in Corinth, in Acts 18:6-8. The Jews began to oppose Paul and become abusive, so Paul shakes out his clothes in protest against them. He says, "Your blood be on your own heads. I am clear of my responsibility. From now on, I will go to the Gentiles." Is Paul really done with the Jews at this moment? He really isn't, he's onto Plan B. Plan A is, whenever he goes to a town, he goes to the Synagogue and openly and clearly reasons with them from the Scripture. But when they oppose, when they become abusive, he goes to plan B. He says, "I'm going to the Gentiles now, you watch and see what's going to happen." So he goes to the Gentiles.

Then Paul goes next door to the Synagogue, to the house of Titus Justus, a worshiper of God, a Gentile. He goes literally right next door and sets up shop there, and huge quantities of people come to the house of Titus Justus, and they believe in the Lord. And the Gentiles are saved, huge numbers of them. Crispus, the synagogue ruler, a Jew, and his entire household believed in the Lord and were added to the number, and when they heard him preach, Crispus, a large number of others were saved. You see what's happening? Paul goes and he sets up shop right next door to the Jewish Synagogue, makes much of his ministry as the Apostle to the Gentiles, and Crispus, the Synagogue ruler says, "I want to be involved. I want Christ."

Case Study #3: Antioch

Third case is at the very end of the Book of Acts, Paul and the Jewish leaders in Rome. Paul's there under house arrest, he's in chains for the Gospel. He wants his audience with Caesar, and he's going to get it. In the meantime, he's got some freedom to preach. The first thing he does is that he sends for the Jewish leaders. Usually he would go to the Synagogue, but he can't do it because he's under house arrest, so they come to him. He begins to explain the Gospel to them, and the same thing happens as always. Some of them were convinced by what he said, but others would not believe. They disagreed among themselves, and they began to leave after Paul had made this final statement, "The Holy Spirit spoke the truth to your forefathers, when he said through Isaiah, the prophet, 'Go to this people and say, "You'll be ever hearing but never understanding. You will be ever seeing, but never perceiving." For this people's heart has become callous, they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise, they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.'"

"Therefore, I want you to know," says Paul to the Jews, "That God's salvation has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen." What is Paul doing there? But what he says here in Romans 11, he makes much of his ministry in the hope to arouse some of them to jealousy, and save some of them. And you might say, "What is this whole jealousy theme? Why would God use jealousy to save people's souls?" Well, they said he was going to do this back in the Song of Moses, back in Deuteronomy 32, which we studied last week. The Song of Moses was taught to the Jews right before they entered the promised land, right before they crossed the promised land, Moses taught them a song. Telling them their pre-history, everything they were about to do before they did any of it. And because it was a song, they would remember it. He said, "The song will testify about you, and frankly, against you, for generations to come."

Now this is what the Song of Moses said, this is before any of it happened. Deuteronomy 32:16-21. "They made Him jealous with their foreign gods. And they angered Him with their detestable idols. They sacrifice to demons which are not God, gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared gods your fathers did not fear. You deserted the rock who fathered you, you forgot the God who gave you birth. The Lord saw this and rejected them, because He was angered by His sons and daughters. 'I will hide My face from them,' He said, 'and see what their end will be. For they are a perverse generation, children who are unfaithful. [Listen to this] They made Me jealous by what is no God, and they angered Me with their worthless idols. I will make them envious by those who are not a people. I will make them angry by a nation that has no understanding."

Strategy. The Jews enter the promised land surrounded by pagan worship, the Jews are led astray by pagan gods, they forsake God, they make God jealous and envious, because the relationship's somewhat like a marriage. And so God says, "Since you do this, I will make you envious by those who are not a people. I'll make you envious by the Gentiles." Well, how does He do this? The first thing He does is, He does it militarily. He blesses the Gentile armies who come and invade His people. This happens in the Book of Judges, it happens all through Israel's history. Ultimately, it happens when the Assyrians deport the northern tribes of Israel, and then a 100 some odd years later when the Babylonians deport the rest. God blesses the Gentiles militarily.

Habakkuk struggles with this, he can't understand why God would bless such a godless people. He's just saying what He's doing what He said He would do. He is blessing the Gentiles as they come in and militarily defeat the Jews in their own promised land, and take control. It's what Jesus called the 'times of the Gentiles'. And during the times of the Gentiles, the Gentiles are in charge in the promised land. The Gentiles are ruling over the Jews, and so God makes them jealous militarily. But secondly, through the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, when Gentiles in large numbers hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and believe. In huge numbers, and that's been going on for 2,000 years, all over the world, in every tribe, and language, and people, and nation, almost everyone. Gentiles are hearing the Gospel, they're responding, they're believing. There's a streaming of the nations, Isaiah 2, to Zion spiritually. They're believing in a Jewish Messiah, they're being grafted into a Jewish olive tree, they're believing in large numbers in Jesus Christ.

And as a result of that, Paul says, the Jews get jealous, they're left out, they're on the outside, they're not feasting at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but the Gentiles are. The Gentiles are getting the gifts of the Spirit, they're seeing miracles done, they're seeing the evidence of God, but they are left out. God is not blessing the Jews, He's blessing the Gentiles, and as a result, they're starting to get jealous. And isn't it a beautiful thing how God redeems jealousy? Isn't it a beautiful thing how God uses jealousy? The Jews making God jealous leads to their own condemnation, but God uses jealousy to lead ultimately to their salvation. Look what it says in verse 12 The ultimate end of this is life from the dead. But if their transgression it says, "means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring?" And then again in verse 15, "If their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be, but life from the dead." The ultimate end for the Jews is life from the dead.

Now, I believe this means spiritual resurrection, as in Ezekiel. I'm talking about bones that come to life spiritually. We were all dead in our transgressions and sins. When you hear the Gospel and believe, you are resurrected and raised to life spiritually. But I think it also means literal, physical resurrection, that the tombs will be opened. The Jews and Gentiles who believed in Christ will come forth. It will be life from the dead when the Jews at last believe. Now, when will this happen? Well, it'll happen at the end of the world, because what else is left to happen after that? The fullness of the Gentiles has come in.

Look at verse 25-27. "I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited. Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and so all Israel will be saved, as it is written, 'The deliverer will come from Zion, he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.' And this is my covenant with them, when I take away their sins." So there's a mystery here, when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, then the fullness of the Jews will come and join them. And at that point, it will be the end, it will be life from the dead, it will be like resurrection from the dead.

Now, that is God's purpose for the Gentiles, salvation. That is God's purpose ultimately for the Jews, salvation. But what is His overarching purpose in all of this? It is that God alone will get the glory for salvation, that God alone will be praised when people from both Jew and Gentile alike are saved by mercy. God does all of this that He would get the glory, and He alone. Look at verses 30-32. "Just as you Gentiles who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience," verse 31, "So they now too have become disobedient, in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you. For God has bound all men over to disobedience, so that He may have mercy on them all."

God has sovereignly orchestrated history in such a way, that the Gentiles have a long history of wickedness in pagan idolatry, in selfish empire building for their own glory, in making of themselves idols, or making for themselves idols. That Gentiles have a long history, so that when we are saved out of that, we cannot boast in our national origin, we are humbled we are saved by mercy. And individually, each one of us knows we have sinned greatly, we have broken the laws of God, we are fully aware that we do not deserve salvation. So that when we stand in Heaven clothed in a righteousness that we didn't earn, when we stand in Heaven forgiven of all of our sins, when we get to see God in the face, when we get to live forever and ever in the new Jerusalem, the home of righteousness it's called, when we live there, not one of us will be boasting about ourselves. For God has bound us Gentiles over to disobedience, so that He may have mercy on us and we know we are saved by mercy alone.

Well, He's done the same thing now with the Jews. He's bound them into 2,000 years of rejecting Christ, 2,000 years of national blindness, 2,000 years of stumbling at Christ, so that when He takes away the blindness, they will not boast about being Jewish, they will boast in Christ, and in Christ alone. It is a salvation plan that is designed for one thing, to humble human pride and to give God the glory while saving us from our sins. And in the end, God will be glorified.

For myself, I think by then I'm going to be tired of talking about myself. Tired of talking about anything to do with me. I know what my history is. And I think each one of you is gonna be tired of talking about yourselves too. You want a better topic, one that will last for eternity, one that's worth talking about for thousands and thousands of millennia. And it isn't going to be you, and it isn't going to be me. What is worth talking about for all that time? Is it not the glory of God in saving sinners like us? In the end that is God's purpose.

What application can we take from this passage? Well, first and foremost, and we're going to talk about this more God willing in the future, but don't despise in any way the Jewish people in their lostness. Don't look down on them. We'll talk more about this in the future, but what I want to say is instead, can we not reach out to them with the Gospel? Can we not in some way, whatever way Paul means here, make them envious that they're not included right now? How do you do that? Well, first, get to know some Jewish people, reach out to them, with friendship, build some relationships with them. If you don't know any, then pray that God would give you some that you can reach out to.

And second of all, don't say, "My goal is to make you jealous of me. I'd really like to make you jealous." Don't do that. God has called on us to be wise, don't do that. Rather say, "Isn't it an incredible thing that sins can be forgiven? Isn't it a marvelous thing that we don't fear death, but we can look forward to something even better? Isn't it a marvelous thing that after we die, we'll get to sit at a table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of Heaven?" Matthew Chapter 8. We get to do that, isn't that wonderful? Using Jewish languages you're saying, "We get to feast with the patriarchs. Isn't it a wonderful thing that we get to know Isaiah who talked about Christ, and predicted His sufferings and the glories that would follow? Isn't it a marvelous thing that that animal sacrificial system has been fulfilled in Jesus, and we don't have to offer animals anymore, but rather it's all been completed, and our sins are forgiven through the blood of Christ?"

You're drawing them in, making them thirsty, just like Jesus did with the Samaritan woman at the well, saying, "Don't you want some of this? Don't you want to be included? Isn't it a marvelous thing that the spirit can come into some dry bones and make us come to life? Isn't it a marvelous thing that God has a salvation plan for every tribe, and language, and people, and nation, all around the world?" So in this way, make them envious of the spiritual blessings of the Gospel.

Second of all, never doubt that God has power, be confident in God, have power to make even the most dreadful thing, even the most dreadful thing come for His glory. God can use something terrible like the murder of Jesus, and like the transgression of the Jews, to do glorious things. He says, "If God can do that," he uses a logic here, "If God can do all this good thing because the Jews have sinned, how much more glory will come when He turns them around?" You see what God can do? God can take even the most wretched things in your life, even other people's sins against you, even your own sins, and He can work in the midst of all of that for His glory, and for His grace, and for His mercy. Nothing derails the plan of God. Isn't that marvelous? So, give Him thanks and praise and be confident in this God.

And finally, simply learn the lesson of Romans 11, and say, "Not to us, not to us, but to Your name alone be the glory. Thank you God, thank you for saving me." Close with me in prayer.

We continue to look in Romans 9-11, at one of the deepest and most perplexing problems connected with the gospel and that is the problem of the Jewish rejection of Jesus as their Messiah. We have seen that the Jews do not see in the prophecies of the Old Testament, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the way that we do, led by the Spirit. And we have seen that this spiritual blindness over the last two weeks that we've been studying was actually a judgment by God, it was given by God. God gave them a spirit of stupor, God gave them eyes that do not see. God gave them ears that do not hear to this very day. That's Romans 11:8-10. But what we haven't answered is why, why would he do such a thing? And that's what verse 11 till the end of the chapter, deals with. What are God's purposes in the hardening of the Jewish nation? Now, we've seen already that this blindness, this hardening, is not universal, that there are some Jews and that there will be in every generation, some Jews that believe in Jesus as their personal savior, the Apostle Paul was one. He said, "I am an Israelite myself, I am a believer in Jesus and I'm Jewish, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews," he called himself.

And so the hardening, the blindness is not universal. There are some Jews in every generation, who are chosen by God to believe in Jesus. But it says very plainly in 11:7 that what the Israelites sought to establish through their own righteousness, they did not establish. The elect did, but the others were hardened. And so therefore, we have two categories of the Jews, those that are elect the chosen ones, who have come to faith in Christ. The rest are hardened. But what we haven't answered is, why that hardening has come. In verse 11:11, up through the end of the chapter is the answer. And what we're going to see is that this spiritual blindness that's come on the Jews is part of an incredible and complex plan of God, which will culminate at the end of the world in something glorious and majestic. All of it done to the glory of God. And we're going to see that something so devastating as the rejection of the Jews, of their own Messiah, is actually part of a glorious plan of God, that God has a plan for the Gentiles, God has a plan for the Jews, and overall God has a plan to display his own glory in all of it. And that's what Romans 11:11 is all about.

Now, it's not easy, as some of you have told me. And we've been discussing how deep and complex Romans 9 through 11 is. Well, that means we're right where we need to be. Because the one who wrote it said that. "Oh, the depths of the rich is the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out. Who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been His counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay Him? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to him be glory forever and ever, amen." That's how we end in Romans 11. So we should not imagine as we travel through those verses that Paul was referring to when he talks about that that we're going to be sipping on milk. That we're going to be just tasting the light things of God, we are not. And here, as we go from 11, verse 11 on, we're trying to find out what God's purpose is concerning the nation of Israel.

And the question that Paul asks here is what does the future hold, what does the future hold for the nation of Israel? Where are we going with the Jews, what does the future hold? Has Israel stumbled so as to fall beyond recovery the NIV gives it.

New American Standard translates verse 11. "I say, then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they?" expecting the answer? No, and Paul answers it immediately. May it never be. We should not imagine that this stumbling, this blindness, this deafness, this stupor that's come over the Jews, their inability to see in Jesus, the fulfillment of all of their prophecies, we shouldn't imagine that this is going to go on forever, God is not through with the nation of Israel yet, he has yet more glorious plans. And so that's what we're looking at. Look at verse 28 and 29 at the end of the chapter toward the end, Israel is still special. Israel's still set apart in God's mind, Israel's still foremost in God's plans, as you look in verse 28 and 29, it says, "as far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account. But as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the Patriarchs. For God's gifts and His call are irrevocable." In other words, God has called the Jews to be His own nation, and in a mysterious way, is going to continue working in and through this nation to the end. Now, some of you have told me that your favorite verse in the Old Testament is Jeremiah 29:11, and you see Jeremiah 29-11, in many different places, put up on posters, little magnets on stationary all those kinds, not every verse in the Bible gets that kind of treatment, I've noticed, but there are some that are just cherished and they're special. And Jeremiah 29:11 says this. "I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." Well, that is coming true here in Romans 11. God has great plans for the Jews. He's not finished with them, yet.

And what is in the future? Well, it's a mystery. That's exactly what the Apostle Paul calls it. Look at verse 25-27 of chapter 11. "I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceded. Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved." That does not mean every individual Jew that has ever lived for 2000 years will end up in Heaven. That's not what he's saying, but I believe what he's saying is, at the end, at the end of the world, God will work a miracle of revival among the Jews, so that they will come to recognize Christ as their savior.

So therefore, the main idea we have here is that God has a purpose in Israel's stumbling. And that purpose is glorious.

Now, this may be a troublesome thought to you, it may bother you as a matter of fact, that God has a good purpose in something so dreadful. Just to consider the good purpose of Israel stumbling out of fellowship with God, stumbling through not believing in Christ, means we must be talking about God. Does the devil, who does harden hearts and who does blind eyes, does the devil have any good purpose in doing that? He does not, for Jesus said in John 10, "The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly." And so the devil can have no good purpose in the hardening of the Jews and the blinding of their eyes against Christ though he does that work. 2 Corinthians 4 says He's the God of this age and He's blinded their eyes. They themselves have no good purpose in turning away from Christ, they just don't believe in Him, they're not convinced. They're not persuaded, and so they harden their own hearts, and they blind their own eyes, but to no good purpose. But Romans 11 is talking about good purpose, glorious purpose in all of this, that must be God. For God alone can turn something glorious and bring something glorious out of this sin.

Now, look at the layers of purpose in verse 11, He says this. "I ask them, did they, the Jews stumble in order that they might fall beyond recovery? Not at all. Rather because of their transgression. Salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious." Do you see the purpose? We've got levels of purpose. First of all, he says... Did they stumble, in order that... That's purpose? What is the purpose in their stumble? They stumble, so that they might fall beyond recovery may it never be. Well what is the purpose?

Well, he gives us in verse 11 the initial purpose. They stumbled so that salvation could come to the Gentiles, they stumbled out of fellowship with God, they stumbled on the stumbling stone of Christ so that we Gentiles could receive the gospel. That's what Paul says. There's a second purpose, and you get it again with this language in verse 12. "Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery?" And then he says, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. This is what we call an infinitive of purpose. Like I went to the store to buy some milk and some eggs. I came to Durham to study at Duke University. I came to Haiti, to work with Dr. Philippe. These are statements of purpose.

Well, it says that salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. So there's a layer of purpose. First Israel stumbles so that the gentiles can believe the gospel, then the Gentiles believe in the Gospel makes Israel jealous so that they'll come back to Christ. Those are the levels and the layers of purpose. We also see it in the how much more language, in verse 12. Verse 12 says, "If their transgression means riches for the world and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring." In other words, look at what I've done with Israel's transgression. Look what I've done through Israel's sin, I've brought riches to the Gentiles, I've brought riches to the ends of the earth. But if I bring riches through their transgression, think what will happen when I bring their fullness. What will it be, but life from the dead.

What a glorious thing that is. And so there is this complex level of purpose. We get these statements again and again. Look at verse 19. In verse 19-20, it says, "You will say 'branches were broken off, so that, that's purpose I might be grafted in.' That is true." In other words, unbelieving Jews who did not trust in Christ, were in some sense broken off from the continuing people of God, the olive tree, they were broken off so that the Gentiles could be grafted in, and Paul says that is true, that is exactly what has happened. Again you get it in verse 25.

"Lest you be wise in your own conceits. I want you to understand this mystery brothers. A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in." Again, there's a measuring out a purpose behind the Jews rejecting of Christ. And again, in verse 30-32, "just as you were at one time disobedient to God, have now received mercy because of their disobedience." That's purpose. Verse 31, "So they, too, have now become disobedient, in order that, that's purpose, by the mercy shown to you, they also may now receive mercy. Verse 32, "For God has consigned all to disobedience, in order that, that's purpose, He may have mercy on them all." Layer upon layer of purpose in the Jews rejecting Christ, and that purpose is God's. This leads us to a deep and a difficult concept and it is this: The God who hates evil, and who cannot even look upon sin for his pure and holy eyes, yet in a mysterious way ordains evil for His own glory, and for the joy of His people. That is the doctrine here, The God who hates evil, who cannot be tempted by evil. He actually ordains it for his own purposes.

Joseph and his brothers

Now, there are two clear examples of this in the Bible, you may stumble over this, you may say, "This is difficult." How could God ordain something evil, how could God establish something evil? Well, clear example of this is Joseph and his brothers, in the old testament. You remember the story, Joseph was one of Jacob's 12 sons, seemed to have gotten Jacob's heart. Jacob loved him because I think he was Rachel's son. Rachel had difficulty having children. Jacob loved Rachel and so, when Joseph was born Jacob chose him, it seems and gave him this coat of many colors, and his brothers hated him, they were jealous of him, they wanted to kill him. And they intended to kill him, but instead in the sovereignty of God, they decided to sell him as a slave to Egypt. And so he was sold as a slave into Egypt. Now, after Jacob had died, by this time Joseph was the second most powerful man of all of Egypt. He's in charge of everything, the lives of his brothers are in his hand, and they know it, they come groveling in front of Joseph and beg him.

Oh, please don't kill us for what we did. Just before your father died, Jacob, he said, please be generous to your brothers. I don't know if he ever said that. The brothers were given to lying, but at any rate, they came and they were very worried about what Joseph would do now that Jacob was dead. But Joseph made this incredible statement, reverberates through time. In Genesis 50:20, he said this, "As for you, you meant it for evil, against me, but as for God, he meant it for good to bring it about, that many people should be kept alive as it is today." Now, that is profound and deep.

You meant, God meant. You intended, God intended. You purposed, God purposed. Your intention, your meaning, your purpose is different than God's, but God had an intention, a meaning, a purpose in this wicked action. Now, it will not do to say, what you intended for evil, God turned and worked out for good. That's not what it says, it's the same word, both before and after. The same intention, the same meaning word. Now, some of you have heard the saying when life hands you lemons, make lemonade. I've seen it up on those inspirational posters. They never inspire me. I think of them as a little bit cliché. I look at them and say, "What am I getting out of this, when life hands you lemons... " What do we mean by that saying?

Well it... Ultimately it's an admission that we don't control our own world, we don't get to choose the stuff that comes toward us. And so we have to have a basic optimism so that when life hands you something sour, and it seems useless that you actually know how to turn it around and do something good and make lemonade with it. Can I tell you something? Life doesn't hand God anything. Our God is a king, our God is a sovereign, He is an emperor, it doesn't hand him anything. He chooses, He decides, He is the king. And so, that's saying they work for us and you can get something good out of it, but it does not work for God because what they meant for evil, God meant for good. Now the highest example of this, we're going to find is in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ

The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is, in my opinion, the most purely wicked act that there has ever been in history. Why? Because Jesus was the only truly innocent man that there has ever been. He committed no sin, no deceit was found in His mouth, and yet they crucified him wickedly. It was a wicked act. It was a sin. It was a transgression and there were all kinds of people involved. Have you noticed?

There was Judas. What did he mean? What did he intend? 30 pieces of silver, he was motivated by greed. What about Annas and Caiaphas the high priest? What did they mean what do they intend? Greed, Jesus was cutting in on their business by cleansing the temple, over turning the tables of the money changers. That bothered them. They were like mafioso and he was cutting in on their business and so they were motivated by greed, and by power and revenge. Annas and Caiaphas. What about king Herod who wanted to see a miracle, he was motivated by boredom and a desire for entertainment and then when he could get nothing out of Jesus, he sends him back to Pilate for political motivation. And the two of them from that day on, were friends. And what about Pilate, what did he intend? What did he mean in the death of Jesus? I believe he wanted nothing to do with Jesus. He would have loved nothing better than just send Jesus on his way because his wife had suffered a great deal in a dream, and he was afraid of Jesus, and he had heard about Jesus' Miracles and I think he thought Jesus was in some sense a God incarnate. Not "the" God, he didn't have the Jewish way of looking at things, but he thought that Jesus was deity when he asked him, "Where did you come from?" He's afraid of Jesus, but he's even more afraid of the Jews, because they were going to tell Caesar, so he's motivated by fear, he's motivated by convenience and he washes his hands of Jesus and out he goes. Those are their purposes and they have to stand accountable each one for their own intentions and purposes.

But God had a higher purpose. And you know what God's purpose was? To save me from my sins and you too if you trust in Him. That our salvation might be worked there by the greatest wickedness and sin there has ever been in history, and God intended it. He meant it, he planned it for our salvation, before the foundation of the world. And so it is that God actually can ordain and establish sin and evil while himself not tempting or dragging anyone to do sin, and wickedness, and evil. But intending it for a glorious purpose.

Now, what is God's good purpose in the hardening of the Jews? What good thing could come from it? Well, I've already mentioned one. And the first that Paul mentions is salvation for the Gentiles. Next week, God willing. I'll talk about the last two which is salvation for the Jews, and glory for God's name. We'll get to that next week. But God had a purpose for the Gentiles. Look at verse 12. "If their transgression means riches for the world and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring?" The transgression of the Jews and rejecting Christ has meant riches for Gentile believers around the world. We've gotten rich on it, friends.

We've gotten rich on mercy, we've gotten rich on Grace, we've gotten rich on the wisdom of God's plan. And friends, we are standing to inherit an infinitely greater amount of wealth and riches than we have even at this present time for the Holy Spirit is merely a deposit guaranteeing our full inheritance. We're going to get still richer yet. The riches of glory in Christ Jesus are ours because of the transgression of the Jews, that's what Paul says, "We got rich on it." We got riches on reconciliation. Verse 15, "if the rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be, but life from the dead."

Why did the Jews have to disbelieve so that the Gentiles could believe?

Now you may ask at this point a deep question. Why did the Jews have to disbelieve so that the Gentiles could believe? I don't see the connection. Why couldn't God have worked out a plan so that both Jews and Gentiles together could believe? My answer is I don't know. I don't know. All I know is the purpose is given there and it says there's a connection, but I will speculate, I have two levels of speculation. First of all, Jesus would never have been crucified, and second of all, even if he had, the Gospel would never been preached to Gentiles. That's my guess.

So, bear with a minute or two of speculation. First of all, Jesus would never have been crucified. Let me bring you to the moment where he is convicted by the Jewish authorities. Jesus stands in front of the high priest, the high priest represents the Jewish nation, the high priest says, "Enough of these false witnesses this isn't working. They can't get their stories together. Let's cut to the chase."

He asked Jesus... Jesus directly. "I charge you under oath by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One." Remember what Jesus said in Mark's gospel, "I am." That's God's name, that's the name that the angel of the Lord spoke to Moses out of the flames of the burning bush. "I am." But Jesus didn't just leave it to that, He said in the future, "you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven." He quoted Daniel 7, to help the high priest see, how someone could be both son of man and son of God at the same time. I am.

Now the high priest has been brought to a pass hasn't he? He's been brought to a fork in the road, he has one of two options. You know what they are? He can either fall down and worship Jesus at that moment, or he can kill him for blasphemy. There's no other option. Jesus left him none. If he, representing the Jewish nation, had embraced Jesus as the Messiah as the king, he would never have been crucified. You say Why? The Romans wanted nothing to do with him? Pilate said, "Am I a Jew? It was your own people who handed you over to me. What is it you've done?" He didn't want anything to do with Jesus.

And yes, we gentiles through Pilate’s washing of His hands and His cowardice, we are culpable in the death of Christ. God ordained it that both Jew and Gentile worked together that Jesus be crucified. But I'm just saying the scripture says in John 18, Jesus would never have been crucified because Pilate would have dismissed him. So speculation one, we would not have even had to crucified Christ. Therefore we have atonement. But second of all, even if we had a gospel, would the Jews have preached it to Gentiles?

Would they have gone out and sacrificed? And we've learned all you have to do is simply believe this gospel that Jesus dead on the cross is your salvation, Jesus risen from the grave is your eternal life. All you have to do is believe this, you don't have to do any great religious works, you just have to hear and believe this gospel. It's a Jewish message. Salvation is from the Jews. And so therefore it was going to be carried by Jews, and we learned in Romans 10 that beautiful feet were going to take it across mountain ridges, and across oceans and proclaim this message. Because faith comes from hearing. Would they have done it? I don't think so.

I think there was so much hatred built up. A wall of division between Jew and Gentile. So much hostility that the Jews would have either been apathetic to gentile salvation or they would have desired like Jonah frankly, that the Gentiles go ahead and be destroyed. Why was Jonah so angry, why was he so upset? He didn't want Nineveh saved. So would the Jews have taken the gospel to the Gentiles? We were studying the book of Acts in Sunday school, and we're talking about how the Jewish apostles and the early church super saturated Jerusalem with the gospel.

I mean they went house to house. Everybody heard many times, many times they heard, then they heard, and they heard they're not going anywhere, They're staying in Jerusalem until Stephen got martyred, and the Sanhedrin persecuted them because of they... The Sanhedrin, did not believe in Jesus, and they're scattered throughout Judea and Samaria, and began preaching like Philip did in various other places.

Peter himself did, not want to go to Cornelius and preach them the gospel, remember? The Lord had to show him three times a vision of a sheet, let down with all kinds of filthy animals that represented the Gentiles, in my opinion. Get up Peter. Kill and eat. Three times, Peter says "No way." Well, he says, "No Lord I've never even anything impure and unclean." And then the Lord says to him three times, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." When he goes to Cornelius's house, and breaks Jewish law by entering that Gentile home, to preach in the Gospel, he says, "Now I know how clear it is, that God does not show favoritism but accept people from any nation who believe him and do what is, right." That's what it took to get Peter to go to a gentile. Chapter 11. A whole recounting of Chapter 10 is there for only one purpose, Acts 11, to teach us how hard it was for Jewish Christians to accept the idea of Gentile believers. Very tough. And then along come the Judaizers party, that said... No, no, this is too easy. The Gentiles have to become Jews, they got to be circumcised in order to be saved. Do you not see how difficult it would have been for the Jews to evangelize?

Now, I told you that was just speculation. The Bible doesn't tell me, but it does say branches were broken off so that you, a wild olive shoot could be grafted in. That's what it says. And so God's initial level of purpose in all of this is so that the Gentiles might get rich on the Gospel. Now next Week, God willing, we're gonna see what his purpose is for the Jews and ultimately what his purpose is for the glory of His own name.

What application can we take from this? Well, I want to bring you to Hurricane Katrina. Our church has voted to embrace an adoption relationship. Kind of a partnership will be a better word with Bayview Baptist Church in Gulfport. But after Hurricane Katrina left its track of devastation there was all kinds of theological speculation in its wake. Have you read any of it? Really fascinating. All the theology that's done on the wake of a hurricane. Most of it bad, I have to be honest with you. How could a good and loving God really be in charge of everything when this wreckage is left behind? How can it be? As a Matter of fact, John Piper writing an article talks about Daniel Shore, who is a National Public Radio senior news analyst. He linked the devastation of hurricane Katrina with the concept of intelligent design, which he disagrees with. He would like evolution and only evolution taught in schools. This is what Daniel Shore said, "If this, [the hurricane] was the result of intelligent design, then the designer has something to answer for."

Oh, was that striking. It's like a cold slap in my face to read that. Can you imagine the designer God answering to Daniel Shore? Can you imagine the scene at the end of the book of Job, reversed? Where Job is answering the... Asking the questions, and God's got to answer Job. Oh no, God answers out of a whirlwind and we keep our mouth shut and we listen to what he has to say for He is mighty, and He is sovereign, and He is exalted.

But you know what struck me? How prone I am to do the same thing that Daniel Shore does. I do it almost knee jerk reflexively. As soon as something happens that I don't like in my life, I begin to look upward and say why?  As though he needs to tell me why. As though he needs to give me an answer of why this or that or the other happened, whether financially or in a medical situation, or an unanswered prayer or some disappointment in this disappointing life, we immediately look up to God. Big issue or small. And we say why. Give me an answer. You have something to answer for God. I think Romans 9 through 11 is a good corrective to that problem. Wouldn't it be better for us, who know so little about life in the world just to put ourselves humbly at the feet of God? Just humbly say, "Whatever you're doing, even if it's the deepest and the most complex plan and I can't figure it out, even if I can't trace out your hand through all of what you're doing in my life, I trust you, Lord. I trust what you're doing, I trust what you're doing in this medical situation, I love when you're not answering prayer. They may die, they do die. I still trust you, Lord, I trust what you're doing in my financial life, I trust what you're doing with my job, I trust what you're doing with my children, I trust what you're doing in the things that pertain to me. I'm not going to murmur against you, I'm not going to complain. I can't trace out your ways. They're too high for me, they're too complex for me. I just trust you." To me. I think that's a comprehensive application of Romans 11.

Secondly, simply this, you've seen today, the testimony of four individuals who trusted in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and have testified by baptism. Where are you with God? Someday, opposite from Daniel Shore, someday you will have to answer to the almighty, Someday you will have to give an account of your life to Him. Are you ready? Are you ready, for that searching penetrating questioning where you'll have to give an account for every careless word? Are you ready? Have you trusted in Christ, Do you believe in Him? Is He your savior? Close with me, if you would, in prayer.

If you would, turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 11 and we continue for the second week to look at these verses, Romans 11:7-10. And what an incredible topic the Apostle Paul has taken up for here in Romans 9-11 as he deals with the condition of his countrymen, those of his own race, the people of Israel, the Jews. And he deals with the specific situation of why it is, in generation after generation, that the Jews are rejecting their Messiah, the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And we've seen how Paul has answered it at many levels. He answers in Romans 9 by dealing with God's sovereignty over individual people and their salvation. "It is not as though God's Word has failed for not all who are descended from Israel are Israel." Romans 9:6, and he deals with that doctrine of unconditional election as we saw. But then we saw also the more human side, toward the end of Romans 9:30-33 and then on into Romans 10, how Paul says that Israel sought to establish their own righteousness. They sought to establish their own righteousness through the law. And in that way, they stumbled over the stumbling stone, they stumbled over Jesus. They couldn't accept Christ, they couldn't accept a salvation simply by grace through faith but that salvation is offered to any who believe, Jew and Gentile alike.

If they just hear the Gospel message because faith comes from hearing, Romans 10:17. If they just hear the Gospel message, faith springs up in the heart and they believe that Jesus is Lord, and that God raised him from the dead and they will be saved. A simple Gospel message, not a message of great religious achievements or good works done one after the other, but a gospel of grace. But they couldn't accept it because they were seeking to establish their own righteousness. He's been dealing in Romans, I believe, 9 and 10 with specific individuals, with the question of why individual Jews were dying and were being lost to eternity. And what a grief that is but I think he stepped back and takes a larger view in Chapter 11 about the whole nation, the Jewish people as a whole. Is God through with the Jews? That's question in Romans 11 as a whole. And Paul brings that question up in 11:1, he says, "I ask then did God reject His people? May it never be." that's his answer. No, he has not. He has not rejected his people and the first evidence he brings up in Romans is that he himself is a Jew and a believer in Christ and so it will be in every generation there will be what he calls a remnant. He likens it to the 7,000 who had not bowed the knee to Baal in Elijah's day and he says that he's always going to have his remnant of Jews and that proves that God has not forsaken His people.

Well, how does it prove that? Because none of them would be saved, except by the direct grace of God, and if God were done with the Jews, then he would be done with them entirely and none of them would be saved, but that simply is not true. So the fact that there is in every generation, a remnant of believing Jews proves that God is not through with the nation as a whole. But here 7-10 he says, "What then what Israel sought so earnestly, it did not obtain." Self-righteousness, righteousness by their own efforts. Israel was seeking that way. It didn't obtain it that way, but the elect did through Romans 10, righteousness through simply believing in Jesus. They got it the rest were hardened. And here in verses 8-10, it explains that hardening and we began to look at it last week, but it says here as it is written verse 8, "God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes so they could not see and ears so that they could not hear to this very day." And then in verse 9, "David says, 'May their table become a snare and a trap a stumbling block and retribution for them. May their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see and their backs be bent forever.'" And so last week, we saw that Israel has a blindness, a spiritual blindness.

Paul's call right from the very beginning, Ananias was told "I will show him how much he must suffer for my name." And a lot of that suffering came through this Jewish unbelief. It was external persecution and it was internal anguish as he said, "I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart for the Jews that are being lost." And so there's so much suffering. But externally he was being persecuted from one place to another. Right at the very beginning in Damascus and left city wall in a basket, through Jerusalem when the Grecian Jews tried to kill him. Right through place after place after place. Pisidian Antioch, in Lystra, Iconium and then the internal Antioch and then over in Nicaea in almost every place where the Jews had been scattered through the diaspora, the scattering that happened when the Assyrians and the Babylonians came in, and as a judgment from God the Jews were scattered from their Promised Land, they went and established synagogues and Paul went always to the Jew first and then to the Gentile and the Jews some of them would believe but many would not.

So we saw this stupor and this blindness and the biggest problem as we saw last week, was that the Old Testament prophecies, the ones that pointed to Christ, ones that proved that Jesus is the Christ. That's what he brought with him into the synagogues, place after place, they didn't speak Jesus to the Jews. They didn't see Jesus in Isaiah 53, they didn't see Jesus in Daniel chapter 7, The Son of man passage. They didn't see Jesus inn Psalm 16, the resurrection Psalm. They didn't see Jesus in Psalm 22, the crucifixion Psalm where it says, "They have pierced my hands and feet." And you may be wondering how can they not? How can they not see Jesus in Psalm 22? "They have pierced my hands and feet?" How can they not see it in Isaiah 53, "All we like sheep have gone astray… and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." How can they not? But Paul says, It's a blindness. Israel has a spiritual stupor and a blindness. That was the first point last week.

The second point is that that stupor and that blindness is caused by God, by God himself. And we spent the rest of the time on that. Look what it says in verse 7-8, "What then what Israel sought so earnestly, it did not obtain but the elect did the others were hardened." so he's describing the hardening, "as it is written God gave them," those were the key words from last week. "God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes so that they could not see and ears so they could not hear to this very day." This was the difficult part for us to accept and understand, why God would do this. We see that God is a God that says in one scripture that desires all men to be saved. And so we have a hard time understanding how that can be true, but there it is, it's right on the page. God gave them this spiritual blindness. But what I didn't describe last week as the passage continues is how God gave them that blindness and I believe that is answered in verses 9-10.

I believe that Israel's stupor and blindness spiritually were caused by God's blessings. That God had given them richly, had blessed them richly and so their table of blessings became a snare and a trap a stumbling block and a retribution for them. As it says in Verse 9, "May their table be a snare and a trap a retribution and a stumbling block for them."

Now, here Paul is quoting one of David's many curse psalms. Sometimes they're called imprecatory psalms, these curse psalms are very striking to us as we read these psalms we think this seems a little strange, why David would be cursing his enemies. Now curse psalms are generally not personal. I find as I look at David and his personal life he's actually very gracious to his enemies, isn't it? When he had an opportunity twice to kill Saul, he didn't do it because Saul was the Lord's anointed, when his own son Absalom rose up against him, David wept and wept, when he heard that Absalom was dead. And so you might say there's kind of a disconnect here between a man who was so merciful and gracious to his own enemies personally, but then under the inspiration of the spirit, he writes these curse psalms that are difficult and that's exactly what this is. Psalm 69:22-23, "May their table be a snare and a trap." Now, this table I believe represents blessings. When you think of a table, you think of the place where you sit down and eat. For most of you I would think it's a positive feeling unless you're not a good cook or you don't have any good friends to sit with, but when you think of a meal, you think of joy and blessing, you think of happiness, you think of a place where your needs are met, a place of blessing, really.

And so I believe this table represents God's blessings to Israel. First their physical blessings, the land flowing with milk and honey. We're going to talk more about that in a moment, but served on a laden table of blessings for Israel, I think about the shepherd Psalm, of course, Psalm 23, "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord and I'll sit at his table forever." There's a sense of that table, the blessings of God physically, and then even more I think spiritual blessings God had laid in their table spiritually with spiritual richness and spiritual blessings. I think it brings us right to thinking about the table that was set up in the tabernacle in the tent of meeting, where the Jews met with God where they worshipped and there was a table and it was laid out with blessing in Numbers 4:7 it says, "Over the table of the bread of the presence, they shall spread a cloth of blue and put on it the plates, dishes for incense the bowls and the flagons for the drink offering, the regular show bread also shall be on it." also it says in Malachi 1:7 and 1:12 where the Jews there were tired of the sacrificial system and they sniffed at it and they said, "The Lord's table has become a burden."

And so the table, the Lord's table then represents the sacrificial system and all of the spiritual blessings that God was laying on the Jews.

How Does the Table Become a Snare and a Trap?

Well, how then does the table become a snare and a trap as it says in verse 9? "David says, 'May their table become a snare and a trap a stumbling block and a retribution for them.'" Well, let's start with the spiritual blessings first. The sacrificial system of animal sacrifice of pouring out of the blood of sacrifices and the table, the show bread all of that was a shadow pointing ahead to a reality that was to come. The Jews were celebrating in the Old Covenant style as God had commanded a signifying truth that someday would be fulfilled. Now, we Christians know it was fulfilled in the death of Jesus and so when Jesus died on the cross, there was no longer any need for animal sacrifice, longer any need for all of those ceremonies that pointed ahead to Jesus. No longer any need for it at all.

It reminds me of our relationship with my wife. Shortly after I met her I went on a mission trip and she gave me some pictures, of herself and I carried them around all summer long in Pakistan, they got destroyed pretty much because they were out in all the dusty roads and the places and I looked at them so much, and there I was looking at the pictures of her. I looked at her picture and I enjoy that and it reminded me of her, I couldn't wait to see her again. But once we got married, there was no need for me to be looking at that picture anymore. As a matter of fact, it would be a bit odd don't you think? Here I am I okay, we're married now, I appreciate that you like my picture but put it aside. It's time has passed. I'm here. The reality, I'm the real life. And so I think the Jews to hold on to the table, to hold on to the sacrificial system, when Jesus is the reality is the same thing. How could they hold on to that which was a shadow and not cling to that which was real namely Jesus. But they did, didn't they?

And they would always have this tendency to hold on to the temple of the Lord as it says in Jeremiah 7:4, "Do not trust in deceptive words, saying the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord." They had a tendency to say, God has given us this temple, this sacrificial system, that means he will never judge us, he loves us, and that is it, the law of Moses. But when Jesus came and fulfilled it when John the Baptist pointed at Jesus and said, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." instead of embracing him, they rejected him and they held on to their own sacrificial system and when God sent a messenger, Stephen, who told them very plainly, the time for this is over, it's finished. Jesus has come to put an end to that and to bring you on into the new covenant. They rejected that message. They got false witnesses together in Acts 6:13-14 against Stephen and testified, "This fellow," Stephen, "never stopped speaking against this holy place and against the law for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us." So they're clinging to that table of Old Testament spiritual blessings when they should have let it go and then ready for the next stage. When Jesus had come they should have embraced him but they refused. They trusted in their table and they missed the blessing.

They also trusted in their physical blessings and they turned to other gods. What do I mean by that? Well, the table also represents God's blessing of Israel materially, physically. The fact that he gave them lavishly in the promised land. Now when Israel was led by God, out of Egypt, through the desert, they knew there was no other God, but the true God. He had showed himself through many signs and wonders through Moses, through all of the miracles that he did. But when they entered the Promised Land, and when they conquered all of their enemies, they settled into a life of comfort and ease, and at that point, all the difficulty started for them spiritually. They quickly forgot God and in their ease and comfort and affluence, they turned away from the true God and they experimented with exotic gods like food connoisseurs testing different flavors from different lands or like wine tasters who sought to mix together different vintages of wine. And they kind of mixed their own religion together. A little Chumash, a little Baal maybe even a lot Baal and Ashteroth, Baal's female consort. And then you've got all of these other tribal deities that surrounded them and some Yahweh too, the God who brought them out of Egypt. We'll give him a place at the table as well. They were arrogant and they forgot the God who gave them their blessings.

God Warned Israel about Idolatry

Now, God warned Israel about this very specifically in the book of Deuteronomy. These quotes are so important to my message that I have them printed in your bulletin, so that you wouldn't take the time to look there. But look what it says in Deuteronomy 8. Now, I'm going to read more of the quote from Deuteronomy 8 that is printed in your bulletin, but you'll see where I begin to pick up what is printed in your bulletin. Deuteronomy 8 beginning at verse 7, it says, "The Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams and pools of water with springs flowing in the valleys and hills, a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey, a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing, a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills and when you have eaten, and are satisfied praise the Lord your God for the good land, he has given you be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws, and his decrees that I'm giving you this day otherwise when you eat and are satisfied when you build fine houses and settle down, when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your hearts will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery."

That is a very serious warning concerning the danger of the material physical blessings that God was giving to Israel and how they might ultimately lead Israel astray from worshipping the true God. That Israel's table might become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them was exactly in Moses' mind in Deuteronomy 8. And so, he warned them that it might happen and they should be careful and beware not to let it happen.

Then in Deuteronomy 32 he goes beyond that. In Deuteronomy 32, in the song of Moses he actually tells them in predictive prophecy that that is precisely what is going to happen. He doesn't just warn them as in Deuteronomy 8, he tells him it is going to happen. Now, the song of Moses, Deuteronomy 32, it's one of the most extraordinary chapters in all the Bible, it's the fifth book of Moses. Perhaps the fifth book, the scripture that was ever written and before anything had happened, before they had entered the Promised Land, God Gave in prophetic vision to Moses, the whole history of Israel and exactly what would happen. Song of Moses is extraordinary. As a matter of fact, before Moses gave the song of Moses God told them what the song was about and why he was giving them a song.

In Deuteronomy 31:19-22 he says, "Now write down for yourselves this song and teach it to the Israelites and have them sing it. So that it may be a witness for me against them." In other words, people just tend to remember the words of songs. I know that we have a number of scripture memory tapes like from Steve Green, hide them in your heart and the kids listen and just by singing, they learn the memory verses. And I know that there's a number of hymns that just follow the lines of certain verses and you know them. I know him whom I believed and I'm convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him against that day. You learned the song and it you can remember it easily. And so God gave to Israel this song of Moses, and he said I want you to sing it, teach it to your children and teach it to their children after so that it will be a witness for me against them.

Why against them? Well, he says in verse 20 of Deuteronomy 31, "'When I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, the land I promised on oath to their forefathers, and when they eat their fill and when they thrive they will turn to other gods, and they will worship them, rejecting me and breaking my covenant. And when many disasters and difficulties come upon them this song will testify against them, because it will not be forgotten by their descendants. I know what they are disposed to do even before I bring them into the land I promised them on oath.' And so Moses wrote down this song that day and taught it to the Israelites."

I cannot stress for you strongly enough how important the song of Moses is in Romans 11, because here we have the theme of jealousy. God said the Israelites would make him jealous by gods that were not true gods therefore he would make them jealous by the Gentiles. It's exactly what we're going to see in Romans 11, but here he gives them a warning about the table becoming a snare and a trap and this is what he says, Deuteronomy 32:12-15, "The Lord alone guided him, no foreign God was with him." Speaking of Israel, "He made him ride on the high places of the land and he ate the produce of the field, and he suckled with him with honey out of the rock and oil out of the flinty rock, curds from the herd and milk from the flock with fat of lambs, and rams of Bashan and goats, and with the very finest of the wheat and you drank foaming wine made from the blood of the grape. But Jeshurun, [that's Israel] grew fat and kicked, you grew fat and Stout and sleek. Then he forsook God who made him and scoffed at the rock of His salvation." Verse 16, "They made him jealous with their foreign gods."

That's a prediction and that is exactly what happened. Israel's material prosperity, their comfort, their ease, their affluence in the Promised Land hardened their own hearts against God and led them to experiment with false gods, they led them away from the true and living God. The prophets who came later warned them about this again and again perhaps one of the more famous of these warnings is in Amos 6:1-7 where it says, "Woe to you who are complacent in Zion and to you who feel secure on Mount Samaria, you notable men of the foremost nation to whom the people of Israel come. You lie on beds inlaid with ivory and you lounge on your couches, you dine on choice lambs and fattened calves. You strum away on your harps like David and improvise on musical instruments, you drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest lotions to do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph and therefore you will be among the first to go into exile. You're feasting and your lounging will end." These kind of prophecies are repeated again and again in Isaiah and Jeremiah and in Amos 6.

Ultimately the worst of all is that they did not see in all of his blessings the highest blessing that God intended to give and that is salvation through Jesus Christ. That Jesus is the table of blessing. Jesus is the ultimate feast, it is through Jesus that we will sit at table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus is the feast. They didn't see it, and they didn't realize that these good blessings were meant to lead them to Christ. Now, you may ask, "How can God's blessings actually bring about blindness and hardness?" I thought God's blessings were blessings. I thought they were meant to be good, how can it be that this thing, this beautiful Promised Land with all of the plentiful food and all of the gold and the silver, and all of the prosperity how can this which everyone sees to be a blessing actually become an avenue of curse. Well, it's interesting isn't it strange how sunshine when it hits and heats up wax, the wax melts but when it hits clay, the clay gets hardened. The same sunshine has a different effect, whether it's wax or whether it's clay.

And here's how it works. Whether adversity or prosperity, whatever comes to you if it's not also met with a transformed heart by the grace of God it will harden you against God. If you go through a prosperity without the transformation of the grace of God, it will actually harden you against God though it is generally considered a blessing. And if you go through adversity, if the transforming grace of God isn't there inside your heart, it will harden you against God and you will curse him and you'll be angry at him for bringing the trouble into your life. But the whole thing changes when the grace of God is there. When the grace of God is in a heart, then the blessings that come the person mouths and says, "I don't deserve this, I don't deserve this prosperity, I don't deserve these good things. How can I use them to advance the Kingdom? How can I use them to be a blessing for others, for the poor and the needy, the widow and the orphan? How can I use these blessings for the glory of God?" That's what a transformed heart says to those blessings and along with it they give thanks to God and they enjoy the good things that God gave, but they're not stingy, they don't hold on, they don't become a backwater where pollutants then grow like bacteria instead they're just open handed and it flows when the grace of God is there.

And also when the grace of God is in heart adversity comes and suffering, then they shine like the sun. They're so different from the unbelievers, they are trusting in God, they believe there's a purpose in the suffering. They are able to put on display the courage and the otherworldly mentality of a Christian. And they just shine, they flourish. Therefore, everything is the grace of God. Do you not see it? Everything. And if God gives the grace then it's a blessing, but if God gives the blessing without the transformed heart it becomes a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution.

What application can we take from this? Well, I had a number of applications. I think first of all, we just need to accept the things that are revealed, whether they're pleasant to us or not the scripture says, "God gave them." and we need to accept what it says. God hasn't told us everything about his infinitely deep plan. As a matter of fact Paul himself marveled at the end at the depth of the riches, the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his ways, his paths are beyond tracing out. We can't know everything that God is doing with the Jews and everything he's doing with us but we should accept what he has revealed and say, it's true and I accept it, I don't fight against it, I rejoice in it.

Secondly, I think we should be humbled by this sovereign plan of God. I believe the ultimate purpose in all of this is that God would be glorified in the salvation of a multitude greater than anyone can number from Jews and gentiles alike who all of them know they were saved by grace alone apart from their own merits. And so God gets the glory and we get eternal joy and we are deeply humbled by it, and I think that's a marvelous thing. And therefore, let's be humbled now, let's be humbled now, let's be deeply humbled by what God is doing with the Jews and let's be secure in God's salvation plan. He who began a good work in us he will carry it on to completion. Everything comes down to the grace of God and if God has given you his grace, he's going to keep giving you his grace until in the end you are perfect in Christ, fully saved. That's your security. Not because you may be wealthy or because things are going well in your life or because you can see all kinds of evidences of blessing around you. No, that could be a snare and a trap. The real question is, has God transformed your heart to love him and to trust him and to follow him? That is your security that God keeps his promises.

But now I speak directly to you and to me as American Christians who live in a land flowing with milk and honey. This is very convicting for me. This is a warning to me. And friends if you read all of Romans 11, you'll realize it was intended to be a warning to Gentile Christians not to boast and not to be arrogant lest they also be stripped off the tree. A true Christian doesn't boast over the Jews in their state. And a true Christian doesn't look at this issue of material prosperity becoming a snare and a trap without trembling inside our hearts, especially not American Christians. Brothers and sisters, we live in a land of prosperity. Do we not? Depending on how you measure we may be among the most the wealthiest nations that have ever been on God's earth. All you need to do is travel overseas and see what passes for wealth in many other places and you realize how wealthy we are. And I do not say it by means of boasting you must know that. I say it by means of a warning that our material prosperity can actually harden our hearts against the Holy Spirit of God. That we through comfort and ease and affluence, we can lose the ability, the sensitivity to hear what God is saying to us.

We've got something to protect and therefore we don't venture forth in missions. We have something to protect and therefore we're not willing to hear certain things from Scripture. May it never be. We have a veritable river of blessings flowing on to our groaning tables. We have food in abundance, we have money in abundance. I'll never forget coming back from my first mission trip going to supermarket, I think it was Kroger and I was just in the bread section. I mean, just the bread section. Do you know that I actually frequently do groceries these days and I once spent 15 minutes looking for Thomas's English muffins. And they were there. It's just that that wasn't the only thing that was there. You know how many different kinds of English muffins there are. They were raisin kinds and there were different brands of the same thing and then there was all kinds of different dietary breads and low sodium breads and there... Oh, it was almost... There was a whole row of breads. We are a blessed people, we have been lavished upon. We have been lavished upon.

We have first rate hospitals, we have well paved roads, we have a stable government. Whatever you think about who's in charge of it, we have a stable situation, we are set up for prosperity. The land here is rich and fertile and produces well year after year after year and because of that we have a wealth of the nations people coming from all over the Earth some of the best, the brightest people all over the world coming here, we have been greatly enriched by that. We have constant entertainment available. You can literally amuse yourself to death as one author put it. We live in a bountiful, beautiful, secure, blessed and abundant land. We live in a land flowing with milk and honey. Therefore, we are under the same warning as the Jews lest we forget God. Lest our hearts become hardened by our prosperity, lest we stop hearing Jesus speak to us when he says, "Give it up and follow me." I'm concerned about that. We must ask ourselves if our love of money and pleasure and ease has hardened our heart. Do you love Jesus now as much as you did when you first knew him? Do love his word as much? Do you spend as much time in prayer? Do you still weep when he speaks to you through the Spirit? Are you soft and yielded to him? When he speaks do you obey him? Are you following that internal prompting of the Spirit? And if not may I suggest that this may be a reason why. I'm not saying that it definitely is but it may be. Beware.

Now, do I say that we should all go ascetic, strip ourselves of all material possessions, sell everything we have and become mendicant beggars? Some have done that in history. We're talking about that in our home fellowship in Randy Alcorn's book. No, I don't think that's the answer. The answer the Scripture gives to the wealthy again and again is be thankful, be humble and use the wealth for his glory. That's the answer. But all I'm saying is here spiritually guard your heart. Ask yourself, am I soft and yielded to Jesus? Am I willing to hear him speak? Ultimately friends, the table of blessing is Jesus. Don't let any of God's good lesser gifts take his place in your life. Come to Jesus, if you have never trusted in Christ, believe in him now. Come to him. He is the table of blessing. He will never fail you. If you have already trusted in Christ but you feel that some other idols have come and have taken his place in your heart throw them out. Throw them out and come to the table of Jesus again and feast on him. Close with me in prayer.

Turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 11. We are continuing our series in Romans, and we come to Romans 11:7-10 that you heard Chris just read. These are some amazing verses, and as I was thinking about them, I thought about the capability that God has given us of eyesight. I think that the human eye is one of the most extraordinary things in the universe. As a matter of fact, it's so complex and extraordinary that Charles Darwin, the originator of the Theory of Evolution, used it as an example of extraordinary organs that are so complex and so incredibly put together, that he doesn't know how they could have been evolved and so it troubled him.

The human eye has an incredible complexity to it. There are 7 million cones and 75 to 150 million rods at the back of your eye in the retina taking light from off my face and from this room and transferring it at this moment to chemical impulses that your brain is receiving a sight. You can see all different kinds of colors, different hues and shades you can see a tiny spark of light if somebody lights a match a 100 yards away, you can see that, or a little red LED on a cell phone from a long distance all the way to different shades and hues. You can tell the difference between the color of the leaves in August after a rain and the color of the leaves in September when they're a little bit more pale green and you know that they're just getting ready to turn. You can tell that difference because the eye can just take in literally millions of different shades, and intensities and wavelengths and just recognize them as color. The human eye is truly astounding. And so therefore, I think Darwin have every right to be suspicious that evolution could not have put this thing through. It is not an accident of biochemistry, coming up from a little pond of slime over millions and millions of years but rather eyesight is a personal gift from the creator God, the eternal God, that he gives as he chooses. And none of us deserves it, it's just a gift of grace, it's something he gives or he doesn't give according to his will.

Now, you may wonder why God wouldn't give it and that's a mystery, isn't it? If you think about it, this is exactly what God told Moses as Moses was standing on holy ground, he was told by God to take off his sandals, for the place where he was standing was holy ground. And brothers and sisters I have that sense with Romans 11:7-10. The doctrines that are taught here, are holy and high and difficult, and so there's a sense of the holy ground. And so Moses was told to take off his sandals for he's standing in the presence of almighty God. And God gave Moses a difficult mission to go back to Pharaoh and tell him to let the people go, and Moses was ruminating on this question, which was totally irrelevant to the mission. Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh? That's irrelevant. "I will be with you," he was told. But he was saying, "I'm not really good at speaking actually." And so God said this striking thing to him in Exodus 4:11, "The Lord said to him, who gave man his mouth, who makes him deaf or mute?" Listen to this, "Who gives him sight or makes him blind is it not I, the Lord." Now, half of that, we embrace and we welcome, and we say, I praise God and my eyesight is a gift from God, but that's not all that God said there. Who gives him sight and who makes him blind? Why? Why would God form an eyeball in a human head that is incapable of receiving sight? Why would he do that?

That's the very question that the disciples posed to Jesus, you remember in John 9 when they came across a man who had been born blind. And they were deeply troubled and they were asking a theological question, who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind? Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life." Now there is a deep question and a deep concept, there is actually a purpose to this man's blindness. There's a 'so that's behind it, there's a reason for it, a good and redemptive purpose. That God's power and his work might be displayed in his life and friends what is true in the physical realm with physical eyesight is also true in the spiritual realm with spiritual eyesight. God gives physical vision, or he does not, and he gives spiritual eyesight or he does not, and that is his purpose and he does all of these things so that the works of God might be displayed in history that he might be displayed as the giver of eyesight, the giver of spiritual sight, the giver of salvation that he might be worshipped as the only savior that there is.

Why would God thereby give spiritual blindness to anyone? That is the question. That is the question of Romans 11. God loves to take away blindness. Jesus did that in John 9, he took away the blindness of that man who had been born blind and I can't imagine the joy, it must have been for him at that late date of his life to see color for the first time. What it must have been like for him as a fully grown man to see his first sunset, that's incredible, God loves to take away blindness. But the question we have to ask is, Why would God give blindness specifically a spiritual blindness? Specifically, why is it that the Jews do not see Jesus in the Old Testament? Why is it that they don't see Jesus as their Messiah and their Christ? We believers in Christ we see him, don't we? We know that he's the Christ, when we read Isaiah 53, we see Jesus there. Why don't they?

That is the question that Romans 11 is dealing with, and I want to just give you a simple concept, Simple to say, but difficult to grasp. God gave Israel their spiritual blindness. That's what Romans 11:8 is teaching. God gave Israel their spiritual blindness and beyond that as we'll see in the rest of the chapter in Romans 11, he has a purpose in doing it. He has a good and glorious purpose in doing it and I'm not going to get into all of that today, it's going to be the unfolding of Romans 11 of what God's purpose is in this spiritual blindness. But today, I want to say it simply in a plain way. God gave Israel their spiritual blindness, that is what the Lord says here in Romans 11.

Now let's get our context, again, as we try to understand Romans 9 through 11, the question that Paul is dealing with in these chapters, Romans 9, 10, 11 is this issue of why the Jews were not embracing Christ as their Messiah. It is a big problem. And the question that goes, it goes even deeper. The question is, how can God who seems to have made all of these marvelous promises to the Jews has he forsaken them? Has he broken his promises? Has God's word failed? And if God's word is failed to the Jews, how do you know it's not going to fail toward you as a gentile believer? That's a big issue.

And so Paul takes it on and on in Romans 9, 10, 11 that is his answer to this whole problem of Jewish unbelief in Christ. His first answer in Romans 9, specifically in verse 6. It is not as though God's word has failed for not all who are descended from Abraham are Abraham's. They are not all who are descended from Israel are actually Israel. There is a physical nation of Jews physically descendant from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but then there is the spiritual Israel, the remnant within and they are the elect, and God chooses them unconditionally. Romans 9 teaches that very plainly, we've been through Romans 9, carefully. And Paul's first answer of this question is the issue of individual personal election by God, sovereign election, unconditional election.

But the second answer that he gives in Romans 9:30-33, and then in chapter 10 is that Israel has pursued their own righteousness. They've pursued self-righteousness and thereby they stumbled over what God was doing, they stumbled over Christ, they couldn't believe in him, they couldn't accept him because they were trying to establish their own righteousness. God was establishing a simple and straight forward Gospel of salvation. A Gospel of justification by faith alone in Christ apart from works, that anybody can receive simply by hearing and believing. You just hear you believe you're justified from all of your sins. But it was something they could not accept.

Now Romans 11 is Paul's more or less, final answer to this immense problem of the Jews, and he begins right from the start in verse 1 by saying first of all, God has not rejected the nation of Israel, and I believe in Chapter 11, he's dealing with the future of the nation as a whole, he's dealt with individual Jews up to this point in chapter 9 and 10 but now he's dealing with the whole nation.

And he said it's not as though God has turned his back on the nation, either because I'm an Israelite. The fact is that there are Jewish believers in Christ, and if God had forsaken the Jews entirely if he had turned his back on them there would be none. Nobody gets saved, except God works it. Simon Peter was told this, this was not revealed to you by man but by my Father in Heaven, nobody can be saved, except by the sovereign work of Almighty God. And you know why, because salvation is a miracle, it's a miracle to be born again and to live for ever and ever, it's something only God can do. Isn't that a marvelous thought? But he's saying, if God had forsaken the Jews entirely there would be no Jewish believers but there are in every generation there are. God has reserved a remnant, the 7,000 that have not bowed the need of Baal, he's held on to them, they are his in every generation, he's got his Jewish believers in Christ. They're precious. Just like the 7000 that had not bowed the need of Baal. They are his remnant.

But God has hardened the rest of Israel as he said he would, and he covered the issue of hardening with Pharaoh's heart in chapter 9, Now, he brings it up again here in Chapter 11, Israel's hardening therefore is a part of God's eternal plan. And therefore I say to you very plainly that every single human being on the face of the earth either gets election or hardening from God. One or the other. We all get something from God, God's not passive, he deals with each one of us, deals with us, and we either get election and salvation from it or we get hardening. And so it was also with the Jews. There's no difference and God has a purpose in that. We're going to see that purpose in the rest of the chapter. Not today, but I'll tell you already what it is, it is that gentiles might be saved and that Israel might be humbled and in the end saved that God might get the glory that everyone gets saved the same way by mercy alone and that is what God is working, that is his ultimate purpose.

Now first, we need to take on this issue of Israel's stupor and blindness. And we start right at the beginning of Paul's ministry. Paul was called by God to be the apostle to the gentiles, but from the very beginning of Paul's ministry, he had to face Jewish opposition to Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, when Ananias he went to lay hands on Paul that he might have his sight again, his sight might be restored, and he might be baptized into the fellowship of believers, Ananias didn't want to go. That's a tough ministry to go and baptize Saul of Tarsus, he didn't want to go because he had heard that this man is a vicious persecutor, and so he was. But the Lord said to Ananias, "Go this man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the gentiles and their kings," listen, "and before the people of Israel." Yes, he was apostle of the gentiles, but he had a ministry to Israel. And so in every city, he went to the Jew first and then to the gentile. He went to the Jew first, he went to the synagogue first, he was ministering to Jews.

Paul’s Evangelistic History with Israel

Well, it started right from the beginning, as soon as Paul was in the city of Damascus and he had been baptized, he had miraculously received again his sight, he began to preach boldly in the synagogue in Damascus that Jesus was the Christ, the Jews didn't know what to make of him. They expected Saul to come but they didn't expect this. They were shocked, they were stunned, they were amazed and then they plotted to kill him.

Well, that was the first in the long and vicious journey. It was so bad that Paul had to be lowered in a basket at night over the wall of Damascus, so he could make his escape. Well, where does he go? He goes to Jerusalem, and there the Grecian Jews tried to kill him, and so they hustle him off back to Tarsus and it says, "Then all the churches in Judea had peace," because everywhere Paul went, he just stirred people up, especially the Jews. When he began on his missionary journey in Acts 13, in Cyprus it was Elymus, a Jewish sorcerer that opposed him and Paul had to deal with him. When he goes to Pisidian Antioch it says that the Jews filled with jealousy talked abusively against the gospel and they had Paul expelled from the city. He goes to Iconium then, and some Jews believed but the rest stirred up the gentiles and plotted to have Paul stoned. In Lystra they actually accomplished that. Some Jews believed but the rest of the Jews stirred up the gentiles and actually had him stoned. He was stoned, dragged out of the city and left for dead. Some people believe he was dead, and God raised him from the dead, so he could continue his ministry. Picked himself up out of a pile of stones and continued to minister. He goes to Thessalonica and there, the Jews formed a mob and stirred up a riot in the city trying to kill Paul.

He goes to Berea, and there they are more noble-minded and they search the scriptures and a lot of them come to faith in Christ. But some Jews from Thessalonica come down stirrup the people and have Paul expelled, they'd like to kill him in Berea. He goes to Corinth, and the Jews opposed Paul there and became abusive, but God thwarted their plans and told him that he would have some space or some protection around him so that he would not be killed and so that he could minister and for a year and a half, he ministered in Corinth. In Ephesus Paul tried to reason with them in the synagogue, but they became obstinate. So Paul left them, and rented a lecture hall where he could carry on his ministry, the lecture hall of Tyrannus. He worked there for two years. In Greece again the Jews made a plot against him to show just as he was about to sail for Syria, so he couldn't go on the boat. They were going to get on the boat with him and assassinate him there probably, so he had to go overland. He goes to Jerusalem, and some Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul in the Temple and assumed that Paul had brought a gentile into the temple, so they started a riot, and tried to kill him. They tried to pull him limb from limb.

And then some other Jews formed a conspiracy. And bound themselves with an oath not to eat or drink until they had murdered Paul. Finally he ends up in Rome and the Book of Acts ends with him meeting with the Jewish leaders explaining the Gospel. Some of them believed and some of them didn't, and began to oppose him. And the Book of Acts ends with the warning from the Book of Isaiah that they would believe and not be hardened. That is the history of Paul's ministry in the Book of Acts, and how consistently the Jews opposed to him.

And why do they do that? Well, it's because of the blindness, it was because the spirit of stupor, it was because of the deafness. They could not see Christ in what Paul was presenting in the law and in the prophets, in the Scriptures. They couldn't see it, and so they were blind. Paul's summation of the ministry you really can see in Romans 7:11 "What then," it says, "What Israel sought so earnestly it did not obtain but the elect did, the others were hardened." And so there is the elect, but then there's those that are hardened.

 And so, it is at the present time. At this present time as Paul says in verse 5, "So too at the present time, there is a remnant." So to at this present time, there's also a remnant in our day and there are also Jews that reject. There are many, many Jews as we've mentioned: Messianic Jews, Jews for Jesus, that have embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ, they are our brothers and sisters, they are delightful people who have retained the knowledge of Jewish heritage and Jewish customs but have believed and embraced the New Covenant of faith in Jesus Christ. Estimates of Jewish Christians in the US, over a 100,000 that's a good number but still really very small, percentage-wise. Most Jews reject the Gospel, perhaps bitter by gentile antisemitism. And let me tell you something, one of the major themes of Romans 11 is how ridiculous and how wicked is gentile antisemitism. It's a form of arrogance that Paul's going to be ministering directly against it in Romans 11, how wrong it is for the gentiles to boast over the Jews. But it has happened again and again and because of that there's some bitterness, some memory.

You remember a few years ago when Mel Gibson came out with his film The Passion of the Christ, there was a great hue and cry about the possibility of antisemitism coming from this film. At that time Abraham Foxman, who was president of the Jewish Anti-defamation League, was vocal about the possibility that Gibson's film might stir up reprisals and attacks against Jews all over the world. And this is what he said, "For almost 2,000 years in Western civilization four words legitimized, rationalized and fueled antisemitism. Those four words are 'the Jews killed Christ.'" And that's what he's afraid was going to come up as a result of Gibson's film. Well, this history of Jewish antisemitism connected with the Jews and the killing of Christ while neglecting the fact that Pontius Pilate, sentenced him to death, and so in the providence of God, both Jews and gentiles worked together that Jesus would be killed is perverted and wicked in sight of God.

Now the film as far as I know, didn't produce any great antisemitism but it was a great concern. Frankly, most Jews that I know, and most Jews in America today are really actually secular people. They don't attend worship services, statistics show, the majority of them do not. Majority of them do not read the Scriptures, the Old Testament. A majority of them, do not know much even of their Jewish heritage. As a matter of fact, there was a story in the San Jose Mercury News talking about the union of Orthodox rabbis from the United States and Canada formally declared that 80% of the US Jews who are reformed or conservative "are not Jewish." That's what their own rabbis were saying because there was a secularizing tendency in American Judaism.

Deepest Issue: The Old Testament Does Not Speak Christ to Them

So what is it at the present time the situation hasn't changed at all. There is a blindness, there is a rejection of Christ. They do not see God, they do not see Christ, when they read the Scriptures, they do not understand that these things testify concerning Christ. The deepest issue is that they do not see Jesus in the Old Testament prophecies.

In Isaiah 53, it says, "Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. Yet, we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted, but He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds, we are healed, we all like sheep of gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Does that speak Jesus to you? Well, it speaks Jesus to me, but it does not speak Jesus to the Jews that read it. On the website that I've mentioned before, Jews for Judaism, an obvious response to Jews for Jesus. The website there said that the best interpretation of Isaiah 53 is that it refers to the Jewish nation as a whole. The Jewish nation as a whole has in some sense, suffered for the sins of the world, the Jewish nation as a whole is like a lamb led before God for the slaughter.

Well, the Jews have suffered greatly but are the Jews innocent and pure? "He committed no transgression, nor is any sin found in their mouth." How can that be said? Their own prophets testify against them that this is not so. Moses said ahead of time, that it would not be so. And frankly, right in the middle of Isaiah 53, Isaiah says it's not so, for he says this, "For the transgression of my people he was stricken." Who are Isaiah's people? They are the Jews and therefore Jesus is the Savior and the only savior, the Jews have. For the transgression of Jews He was stricken, and for Gentiles too. But they don't see it, they don't see Jesus in Isaiah 53.

Neither do they see Jesus in Daniel 7, "The Son of Man vision," where it says, "In my vision at night, I looked and there before me was one like a son of man coming with the clouds of Heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power. All peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed." Who is the Son of man? He is led into the presence of the Ancient of Days on the cloud of heaven. But all nations and all nations worship him, but he's not the Ancient of Days in this vision. He's the son of man. Who is he?

I was on a plane flight back from China, and there was a Jewish woman sitting to my right, pinned between my seat and the wall of the plane, but I was gentle with her, I think, anyway, I don't know. But we had some incredible conversations about... I just stuck to the Old Testament. Psalm 22, pierced hands and feet; Psalm 16, "You will not let your holy one see decay." I mean just all the best scriptures, went to Daniel 7, she'd never heard of the Son of Man vision, never heard of it. Attend synagogue worship every week in Brooklyn, New York. I said, "When you get back," she talked about her Rabbi in Brooklyn, I said, "When you get back, ask your Rabbi this question, 'Who is the 'son of man' in Daniel 7?" Just ask him that question.

I think Jesus is asking you that question right now. They don't see, they don't see Jesus in the "Son of Man" vision. The Jews for Judaism site said this also, is in some sense, Israel, in some sense, the Jewish people. Alfred Eder Shin, who was a convert to Christianity from Judaism in the 19th century, wrote an incredible work, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. He cited 456 passages in the Old Testament which Jewish commentators in the Talmud, ancient Jewish commentators had identified as messianic; including Daniel 7, including Psalm 110, including Psalm 16 and some of these others. They had identified them as messianic. The Jews were almost unanimous in agreeing that the Son of Man passage in Daniel 7 was messianic, the Talmud said this. In the Babylonian Talmud, the Jewish Rabbi Akiva said that the throne set up in the heaven was one for the Ancient of Days and one for the son of David.

Well, another Jewish commentator, criticized him and said, "That's blasphemy." How can you have a throne for the Son of Man right next to the throne of the Ancient of Days? But they didn't fully understand the deity of Christ, the incarnation, but they were right there, and they said, "It's messianic. But after after Christian evangelists, and apostles began to use these passages to prove that Jesus was the Christ, they turned and said that they're not messianic. There was a blindness that came over. Jesus faced it even in his own day, He said in John 5:39-40, "You diligently study the Scriptures, because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the scriptures that testify about me. Yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life." And Paul says in effect a veil is over their hearts whenever the Old Testament scripture is read. It says in 2 Corinthians 3:14-16, "But their minds were made dull, for to this day, the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away."

Now the question is: Israel's blindness, their stupor, their deafness, their inability to see Christ in these passages; what is the cause of it? And Paul's answer here is stunning. Look at verses 7 and 8. It says, "What then, what Israel sought so earnestly, it did not obtain but the elect did. The others were hardened, as it is written. God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes so that they could not see and ears so that they could not hear to this very day." Now, Paul has already mentioned hardening in Romans 9. He talks about the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, and summarizes it in Romans 9:18. He says, Therefore God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden. As I said, Every human being gets either mercy or hardening from God, one or the other.

And so the Jews, some of them got mercy, some of them were hardened and the same thing here in verse 7. What Israel sought so earnestly, it did not obtain but the elect did, the others were hardened. Paul says it again in Romans 11:25, look down further on the same page in Verse 25, he says, "I do not want you to be ignorant to this mystery brothers so that you may not be conceited. Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in." So there's this hardening.

The Key Concept: God Gave them the hardening

Well, the key concept is where does this hardening come from? Well, the text says it comes from God. The key words here are: "God gave them." Do you see it in verse 8? God gave them a spirit of stupor, God gave them eyes so that they cannot see, God gave them ears so that they could not hear to this very day.

Now I believe that they close their own eyes. I believe that. I believe they made a choice, and they close their own eyes. Jesus says so. In Matthew 13:15, it says, "This people's heart has become callous. They hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise, they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and I would heal them." They closed their own eyes, that is true. Furthermore, another scripture teaches us that Satan blinds our eyes. Satan actually has the power in some way, through his world system to blind people's eyes. 2 Corinthians 4:4 says, "The god over this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God."

But friends, yes, individual sinners blind, their own eyes. Yes, it is true that Satan blinds their eyes. But that's not what Paul is talking about here. Here he ascribes it ultimately to God Almighty, to God Himself. Notice the connection between 7 and 8. It says, at Verse 7, "the rest were hardened." Verse 8 begins, "as it is written," so he's going to explain the hardening. That's what he's getting at here in verse 8, he's explaining the hardening. Now verse 8's quotation, he's about to quote, he really is mixing elements from Deuteronomy 29:3-4 and Isaiah 29:10. And he changes it a bit, he actually intensifies it. Deuteronomy 29, Moses said to Israel at that time. Listen to this: "With your own eyes, you saw those great trials, those miraculous signs and great wonders. But to this day the Lord, listen, has not given you a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear.”

So there is something that God has not given them, He's not given them an understanding of mind, not given them eyes that see, not given them ears that hear. Well what, what is it they didn't see? Well, they had seen 10 miraculous plagues in Egypt, astounding plagues. They had seen a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire. They had seen water walled up on the left and the right, they had seen God do astounding things. They had seen water from a rock, they had seen manna every morning miraculously appear to feed millions of people every day for 40 years. They had seen miracle after miracle, and Moses said, Still, you don't see.

You still don't know him, you still don't see. And so they were in some sense blind. Actually, Paul intensifies it. What Moses said God did not do, Paul says God did, he gave them eyes that do not see and he gave them ears that do not hear and it says very plainly, in Verse 8, God gave them a spirit of stupor. This is a quote from Isaiah. It's related to drunkenness, you can imagine somebody who's had too much to drink way too much to drink, slumped over a table disgusting, filthy, wretched and you go pick the man up by the scruff of the neck and shake him. And ah, you just can't get anything out of him, just not there. That's what Isaiah 29:10 is talking about, there's a spirit of stupor. They don't see spiritual truth and there's nothing you can say that will get through to them. That's what Isaiah 29:10 is talking about. Romans 11:8 says God gave it to them, He gave them a spirit of stupor. He gave them this blindness, He gave them this hardness.

It's a similar statement made in John Chapter 12, actually directly parallel to Deuteronomy 29. Deuteronomy 29 talks about all the Exodus miracles, all the plagues, all of the things that they saw. John 12 talks about all of Jesus' miracles, all of the things He did. The signs and wonders to prove the deity of Christ. Walking on water, feeding the 5000, raising the dead, healing a man born blind, casting out demons with a word; incredible power. A river of miracles. What more evidence could there have been? And this is what John says, a summary of Jesus' public ministry in John 12:37-40 "Even after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in their presence, they still would not believe in Him. This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet, 'Lord, who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?' [That's Isaiah 53] For this reason they could not believe, because as Isaiah says elsewhere, 'He has blinded their eyes and deaden their hearts so that they can neither see with their eyes nor understand with their hearts nor turn, and I would heal them.'"

He has blinded their eyes, He has deaden their hearts. Who can John mean but God himself? But you don't have to wonder in Romans 11, Paul says it directly, Paul's answer therefore to the grief, the grief and the agony of Jewish rejection of Christ is that God has given them, the spirit of stupor, and the blindness. Now there is a purpose for it. And we're going to talk about it in Romans 11. All I want you to see this morning, is that He did it. Now originally, this was going to be a three part sermon. This morning as I was going through it, I said, "My goodness." And you probably saying the same thing, you know it's 12:10, and you're saying, "My goodness, were only two points through this three point outline." The third point is so deep and so weighty, that it really deserves full treatment next week. It has to do with how God did it, and how a table of blessing can become a stumbling block.

And it's a message I think we Americans need to hear almost as much as any message that I've worked on and so I'm not going to hurry through it. There is a way that our blessings can become our curses that they can blind us and deaden us spiritually. I think that's what happened to Israel as well. We'll talk about that next week this week. This week all I want you to do is just understand the simple words, God gave them.

Now, by way of application, I want to say this, I was listening recently to a John Piper sermon on Romans 9, 10 and 11. And he was talking about the way that Americans approached Bible truth. And I read a lot of good books that helped me understand church life and a lot of good perspectives and I learned but I'm hearing more and more about relevant preaching. Relevant preaching.

Well, let me tell you something, I never have a yearning to be irrelevant, I don't like to be irrelevant. I guess youth call it random. What a random thing. I don't desire to come up here and be random. I actually am kind of methodological I'm just going through and taking the next passage and preaching what it says. So there's a certain pattern there, but when we get to this issue of relevant preaching you know what they're really meaning? Pragmatic, practical preaching. Preaching where I'm told 10 things I can do to improve this problem area of my life.

Right? I'm having marital troubles, what do I, what are four things, three things, two things, I can do to help me be a better husband, okay? What are some things I can do to be a better parent? I want to make more money, or I'm having trouble financially, I've got physical problems. How can I cope with my chronic illnesses or that of a spouse or a loved one? I've got problems in my life, and friends I am not in any way saying that everyday life isn't hard, it is.

But John Piper was talking about the arrogance of the pragmatism in thinking that either the preacher or the hearers can actually know what they need, that we can actually figure out what we need to hear in order to get our problems fixed and solved.

You know what I think you need and I need? I need the word of God. Because all scripture is useful and beneficial and health producing. And therefore, I don't presume to tell a physician, "Would you give me this prescription, or that one?" This is not... Well there may be some input I might have on what this medication did to my body last time, but I wouldn't presume to tell them what to mix into the medicine, how much less would I tell God, Please tell me what I need to hear so I can fix these four problems, that are immediately pressing in my daily life. All Scripture is relevant, and especially something right in the middle of Romans. It must be relevant. So therefore, what could the relevance be to you, of knowing that God gave Israel it's spiritual blindness.

I asked that question, this one as I was going through this message. And I had a kind of a mental vision of God seated on His throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple, and these seraphs, these burning angels before whom I would really be tempted to worship are covering their faces in His presence. And He dwells in unapproachable light, and He is awesome, and He is exalted and all heaven is circled around Him and focused on Him. And I realize the relevancy of that vision, that God is an awesome, powerful King, and I am a created being. I am a servant. I am saved by grace alone, and if I can see Jesus in Isaiah 53, it's because God gave it to me to see it.

If I can see Jesus's hands and feet pierced, in Psalm 22, it's because God gave it to me to see it. It's the very thing that Jesus said to Peter, Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. God has willed to show you himself.

And what could be more relevant than that, to know that there is a King who rules over every detail of life and it's not an accident or a tragic circumstance that these Jews are rejecting Christ. It is part of a deep and mysterious redemptive plan that God holds the powerful key to, and when He wants, He will release salvation for the Jews, and they will turn to Him, and they will embrace Him. In the words of Zechariah, They will look on him, and they will see him for the first time, and they will mourn for Him as for an only son, and they will embrace Him. And Paul says in Romans 11, what will that be, but life from the dead? Close with me in prayer.

So we come to Romans Chapter 11 and we come to another great section in Paul's unfolding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And we've been seeing in Romans 9-11 how Paul is dealing with the problem of the Jews, specifically why it is that the Jews are almost universally rejecting Jesus Christ, their Christ, their king, their Messiah. Now, as we look at the Jews in history, it's really quite an astonishing story, isn't it? If you think about the Jews as a nation, they make up a vanishingly small percentage of the world population, but they have an overwhelming influence and on human history. If you look at an amazing percentage of Fortune 500 companies are started by and run by Jewish people. A remarkably high percentage of graduates from Harvard and Yale and other institutions of higher learning come from a Jewish background. A high percentage of PhDs awarded in this country every year are to Jewish people. Also, amazingly high and striking percentage of Nobel Prize winners come from a Jewish background. Most presidents, when they put their cabinets and their high level officials together, they want to have a representation of the population as a whole, it's good politically to do that, but you look at the cabinets of the last four Presidents and those at the highest levels of government, an overwhelming percentage or a large percentage come from a Jewish background.

But as I look at the Jewish nation, one of the most amazing things about the Jews to me, just looking at it spiritually and looking at it scripturally, is that they still exist at all. It's really quite remarkable that they're even here at this time, the Jews as a nation were begun when a wandering Aramean named Abram was called by God. He had no children, his wife was barren. They tried for decades to have children and to no avail. And even after 20-plus years after a promise was made to him, still no children. And by this time, his name has changed from Abram to Abraham, and God had shown him the stars in the sky, and he made a promise that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless is a sand in the sea shore, but there's no evidence of that yet because Isaac hadn't been born. It's really astonishing that the Jews even came to existence at all. And that's one of the points that Paul makes earlier in Romans, is that God calls into existence things that are not. He has that power to do it.

But not only that, He has maintained and sustained the Jews as a recognizable people through centuries, even through millennia of hostile history, and that's really quite remarkable. The fact of the matter is the Jews, through their sins, just like we Gentile sinners, through our sins, merited the wrath of God, and any of us could have been erased from history any time by the sovereignty of God, but God has not done that with the Jews, nor will He. Other tribes and other nations of peoples, Gentiles have become extinct. For example, if you look at Deuteronomy 7-1, there's a listing there of the seven nations that the Jews expelled from the promised land: The Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Do you have any Jebusite friends? Have you ever met a Hittite? Have you ever spoken to a Hivite? Who are these peoples? They have become extinct. Any of their seed that were left were blended into other Gentile cultures and they are lost.

The same is true even in North American history. Some of you have read the book by James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans. What happened to The Mohican people? Well, they became extinct as a nation around the time of the French and Indian War. But the Jews, despite repeated crusades and inquisitions and pogroms and genocides and holocausts still maintain an identity. And not only that, wherever they are around the world, they maintain a distinct Jewish identity. The question is, why? And Romans 11 I think gives a stunning and deep and mysterious answer to that question, and that is that God is not through with Israel yet. He's not through with the Jews as a nation yet. Now the context here of Romans 11 is Romans 9-11 where Paul is dealing with the question of the Jews. Why are they almost universally rejecting Christ? In Romans 9, he gives an answer from God's sovereignty, that God is sovereign over human salvation. God elects people to be saved not on the basis of anything they have done. "Before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad…" God sovereignly elects and chooses people, that's from that perspective, Romans 9 looking down, the sovereignty of God. And so God's word hasn't failed Israel because "not all who are descended from Israel are Israel," and those that God has chosen, they are indeed saved.

Then Romans 10 gives more of a human explanation, that the gospel is essentially simple, that all you have to do is believe in Christ, it's that simple. But the Jews desiring to retain their own righteousness, to be saved through their own obedience to the law, rejected God’s righteousness and stumbled over the stumbling stone, Jesus Christ. And God has been holding out His hands offering salvation. It says in 10:21, "All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people." The Jews had heard, they had rejected. So that is more of a human point of view.

But now here in Romans 11, I think we shift back to the high view, the big view from the sovereignty of God perspective. And whereas up to this point I think we have been primarily speaking of individual people, individual salvation, what happens to individual Jews, what happens to individual Gentiles, "Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame," "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved," that's speaking individually, here I believe, in Romans 11.

He's now speaking corporately. He's looking now at the whole nation, the Jewish nation, and saying, and seeing, does God have a future for the Jews? In Romans 11 the answer is overwhelmingly yes Look what he says in verse 1, "I asked then, did God reject His people? By no means." So Paul there asked a profound question. He asked a question followed up on the last verse of Chapter 10 concerning Israel, he says, "All day long I've held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people." You may think God's been holding out His hands all this time now finally saying, "Enough is enough, I'm not doing it anymore. I have reached out to you for centuries and now I have turned away from you forever." Paul says that's precisely what God has not done. God has not rejected His people. The answer actually comes in the negative. No, "by no means." "God has not rejected His people" has he?" And then he goes head and answers it, "By no means," or "May it never be."

Now, the grounds for rejection abound. All you have to do is look at the history of the Jews and see how many times they had provoked the Lord to anger. For example, at the beginning of their consciousness as a nation, as they were coming out of Egypt in the Exodus, they came to Mount Sinai and there they made the golden calf. And God was angry enough with the Jews to destroy them entirely at that point. It says in Exodus 32:9-10, "'I have seen these people,' the Lord said to Moses, 'and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone, so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them, and then I'll make you into a great nation.'" Well, that's what God said right there at the time of the golden calf. Then more than 40 years later, Moses said this to the Jews. As they're about to enter the promised land, the book of Deuteronomy 9:6 and following, "Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness," speaking to the Jews, "It is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people. Remember this and never forget how you provoked the Lord your God to anger in the desert. From the day you left Egypt until the day you arrived here, you have been rebellious against the Lord. At Horeb you aroused the Lord's wrath so that he was angry enough to destroy you."

So this is the repeated characterization of the Jews right at the very beginning and then throughout the prophetic history in the Old Testament, we see it again and again. Isaiah said that they were as rebellious as Sodom and Gomorrah. Jeremiah was commanded not even to pray for them before the time of the Exodus... Or the exile Babylon. Daniel poured out his heart and soul in Daniel 9 in prayer for his own people and for their sins. Nehemiah, after the restoration back to the promised land, after the exile to Babylon, prayed this, in Nehemiah 9:29-30 it says, "You warned them to return to your law, but they became arrogant and disobeyed your commands. They sinned against your own ordinances, by which a man will live if he obeys them. Stubbornly, they turned their backs on you. They became stiff-necked and refused to listen. For many years, you were patient with them. By your spirit you admonished them through your prophets, yet they paid no attention."

And around the exact same time as Nehemiah, Ezra the priest was so frustrated with the fact that the Jews had, even at that point, a tiny remnant had come back, a little over 40,000 of them compared to several million, maybe 5 or 6 million in the time of David in the census, 5 or 6 million down to 40,000 in the promised land, a tiny little remnant has come back and Jewish history in the promised land can continue, and even then they're still violating the Old Covenant by intermarrying with pagan women. And Ezra was so frustrated that he pulled out his own hair in prayer. I've mentioned before, that's nothing compared to Nehemiah, who pulled out their hair. Either way, hair was getting pulled out. Either Ezra's pulling his hair out or Nehemiah pulled their hair out, but there was this intensity. How can it be, after all of this, still the sin is there?

Are we any different, brothers and sisters? Are we not also stiff-necked? Are we not also rebellious against the Lord's commands? How many times has He been good to us? How many times has He commanded us, and we do not bend that neck into the yoke of Jesus Christ? We can't point any fingers, but this is the clear testimony of the history of the Jews. Christ himself told the parable of the vineyard and the tenant farmers, in which the owner of the vineyard sends one messenger after another to these tenant farmers, and all they do is kill the messengers, and then they kill the son when he sends the son. Clearly a history of the Jews. And Jesus in his sevenfold woe in Matthew 23 culminated this way: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house has left you desolate, for I tell you that you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'" And then Jesus left the temple, Jesus leaving the temple symbolically a picture of the desolation of Israel and its temple. When Jesus left, he was the glory of Israel.

Stephen, one of the original seven deacons, recounted all this history in what I think maybe one of the most brilliant sermons in history. And he very subtly and cleverly crafts a message that draws the hostile audience in to listen to a recounting of Jewish history, but every time he's subtly making a point that whenever God raises up a deliverer, like Joseph referenced to his brothers, or Moses in reference to the time of the Exodus, or Moses again when the time came to enter the promised land, the Jews rejected, wouldn't listen and turned away, even in some cases sought to kill the messenger or the deliverer, like Joseph. And he culminates his message, Stephen does, in Acts 7:51-52: "You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears, you are just like your fathers, you always resist the Holy Spirit. Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the righteous one. And now you have betrayed and murdered him. You who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it."

That's what Stephen said. And it is true, it's a summary of Israel's history. Israel's constant pattern of rejection of the messengers now culminated in the murder of the Messiah, killing their king and their Messiah. Now, God saw to it that Gentiles were also involved through Pilate and the Romans. All of us stand guilty, there's no difference between Jew and Gentile in that matter. But Stephen culminates it, as does Paul before the Sanhedrin, and Peter as well, saying, "You killed the author of life," you killed your Messiah. This is a constant pattern.

Now, friends, all of this was ample ground for God to have rejected the Jews as a nation forever. God had the power to do it, there was certainly provocation to do it, but God has not done it, nor will He. And that's what Romans 11 is about. The Jews will continue as a nation until the end of time. And why is that? Because God wants to display His glory in turning them to Christ. Isn't that marvelous? I can't keep the secret. Of course you've read it, it's no secret. The Jews as a nation are going to be turning back in a marvelous way and embracing Christ at the very end, we will see that.

Now, Paul's clear assertion here is that God has not rejected His people. He says, "May it never be." I like the King James Version, gives us, "God forbid that He should turn away and reject His own people." But then he needs to substantiate it and he gives three levels of proof. The first level of proof is that God is still saving Jews. God is still saving Jews. Look what he says. "May it never be. I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham from the tribe of Benjamin." That's what he says. Paul's life and his calling as a Jewish Christian is evidence and proof that God has not rejected His people. Now, for the third time in Romans 9-11, Paul identifies himself with the Jews. He does at the beginning of Chapter 9, he does it at the beginning of Chapter 10, and now here again at Chapter 11, he identifies himself with the Jewish people. Paul was still Jewish when he wrote this, he was a Jewish Christian, a Jewish Christian. Now I came across a group called Jews for Judaism. You perhaps heard of Jews for Jesus, this is a response to Jews for Jesus. They are Jews for Judaism, and basically they say that Jews for Jesus makes as much sense as Buddhists for Jesus. You can't be both Jewish and Christian, so they say.

But Paul would vigorously deny that, and again and again, he gave his Jewish credentials. It was important for him to maintain that and to say that he was still Jewish. In Philippians 3:5, he says he was "circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law of Pharisee."  Or in Galatians 1:14 he says, "I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age, and I was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers." No one could refute the genuineness of Paul's Jewish credentials. He establishes them again and again.

Paul’s Primary Point: Every Jewish Convert to Christ is Evidence

Fact of the matter is all of the early Christians were Jewish, all of them were. If you look at the upper room after Jesus was raised from the dead, he had 120 believers there after Jesus ascended into heaven. They were all Jews. The original church in Jerusalem, they're all Jews. On the day of Pentecost, all of those people who had come for that feast were Jews. The first church were all Jews, so those 3,000 converts, they were Jews. After Peter and John heal the beggar in the temple, the number of men grew to about 5,000, they were Jews. After the selection of the early deacons in Acts chapter 6, it says a large number of the priests became obedient to the faith. They were Jews as well.

And even after the gospel kind of officially came to the Gentiles in Acts 10 with the conversion of Cornelius the Centurion, Paul went out and ministered, and the first place he went every time was to the Jewish synagogue. Again and again he carried out this approach, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. And when he did that, God blessed with the conversion of some Jews. Acts 14:1, for example, at Iconium, Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue, and there they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed. Isn't that marvelous? What a harvest of Jews, a great number of Jews believed. And then again, in Acts 17:10 and following, "As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now, the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness, and they diligently searched the scriptures to see if these things were so. Many of the Jews believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men." Did you hear that? Acts 17:12, "many of the Jews believed."

The fact of the matter is, the church has grown up from a Jewish olive tree. That's the image. It's a Jewish tree, and we have been grafted into it. And it continued, never stopped being a Jewish olive tree. The early converts to Christianity were all Jews. What is the point? Well, Paul's point is this: no one, and I mean no one, comes to faith in Jesus Christ apart from the will and the working of God Almighty. Salvation is a supernatural act of the power of God. Only God can make Christians. Paul's logic here is, "God hasn't rejected the Jews, I'm a Jew." What he's saying is, "If God had rejected us, I would not be a Christian, I would not be saved." Nobody comes to faith in Christ apart from the working of God."

Paul’s Secondary Point: His Astonishing Conversion and God’s Sovereign Grace

A secondary point that Paul makes here is his own astonishing conversion and his ministry is evidence of God's sovereign grace working through the Jews to reach out to Gentiles. Paul wasn't just any Jew, you know. He was a ladder-climbing Jew. He was the kind of Jewish man who wanted some day to be as high as you could get in the Jewish hierarchy. Obviously, he couldn't be a high priest from the tribe of Benjamin, but he could get up very high in the Sanhedrin, and he was ambitious. But God called him not only to be a Christian, but he also called him to be the apostle to the Gentiles. Now, you might think, "This doesn't make any sense. We got to have Peter as the apostle to the Jews and a noteworthy Gentile convert to be apostle to the Gentiles. That would make sense." But it didn't make sense to God, it's not God's way. God chose a Hebrew of Hebrews, a truly Jewish man who was breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples the day he was converted.

God wanted to show his sovereign power, so He takes this Jewish man through and through, and makes him the Apostle to the Gentiles. And so it has been even up to this present day. In every generation there have been Jews who have trusted in Christ, and have believed in Christ as their personal Savior, their personal Messiah. One estimate has as many as 250,000 Messianic Jews around the world, 250,000. And these are folks that have maintained their Jewish identity, they have synagogues, they aren't connected in any major way with the Christian church except by fellowship etcetera, but they are Jews who have realized through the scripture, that Jesus is their Messiah.

There's a beautiful example of this in the 19th century with a man named Joseph Rabinowitz. He was a Russian Jew of great learning. He was sent to Palestine in the 19th century to see if he could buy some land for the Russian Jews. They gave him money and they wanted him to go and scope out some land that he could buy in the Promised Land. Well, he went to Jerusalem and he was sitting on the Mount of Olives. Somebody had told him, "If you want a really good guide book to Jerusalem, you need the New Testament. So take the New Testament and read it as a guide book, just as a guide book to Jerusalem. So he's sitting there on Mount of Olives and he's reading the gospels for the first time. The only Jesus he had ever known was the Jesus of the Romans and of the Greeks who were persecutors of the Jewish people. That's all he knew, and what a tragedy that is, and we'll talk about it another time, Gentile persecution of Jews. It makes no sense whatsoever. But that's all he knew. He didn't know the True Christ. But as he was reading the New Testament, he was reading the Gospel of Matthew and of John, as he's looking at that, he realized something. He said, "You know why our nation is having such trouble, why the Jews are having such difficulty? Because we have rejected our Messiah. We have not believed in Jesus." He went up on that mountain a Jewish rejecter of Christ, he came down a Christian, and still a Jew.

He went back to Russia, and he established a synagogue, and over the door of the synagogue, he had this written in Hebrew. "Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this, God has made this Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ." That's what you read as you went into Rabinowitz's synagogue. That's Peter's message in Acts 2:36. He was a great teacher of parables, Joseph Rabinowitz was. He was a leader of the Russian Messianic Jewish movement. He concocted parables that would help explain to the Jews their need for Christ, like this one: "Two foolish people were traveling in a four-wheeled wagon. Noticing that the wagon was moving heavily, they examined it and found that a wheel was missing. One of the foolish people sprang out and ran ahead forward along the road saying to everyone he met, "We have lost a wheel, have you seen it?" At last, a wise man said to him, "You're looking in the wrong direction. "You should seek the wheel back where you might have left it behind." This is the mistake that Jews have been making all of these centuries. The four wheels of Hebrew history are Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus." That's the parable. We need to look back in our history for our Messiah, not look ahead and wait for him yet to come. This is the way he preached. Powerful isn't it? I'd like to hear more of his parables, but he had a powerful impact and many of the Jews were converted through his ministry.

What is the point? If God had rejected His people, if He had forsaken the Jews, there would be no Joseph Rabinowitzes, there would be no Saul of Tarsus, there would be no Felix Mendelssohns and any of the other Jews who have come to faith in Christ. It would just never happen. And why is that? Well, Jesus said it plainly, in John 6:44, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day." And again, the apostle Paul said this, 1 Corinthians 12:3, "No one can say Jesus is Lord except through the Holy Spirit." And so, argument one, God has not forsaken His people, the proof is there are always, in every generation, a remnant of Jews who have trusted in Christ as their Messiah.

Secondly, God's foreknowledge and His faithfulness. Look what he says, "God did not reject His people whom He foreknew." God is faithful to His promises. He is faithful also to His covenant." Paul is actually here quoting scripture. This is Samuel's farewell address in 1 Samuel 12:22. He said this, Samuel the prophet said this, "For the sake of His great name, the Lord will not reject His people because the Lord was pleased to make you His own." God has a reputation to uphold. His reputation is of a faithful promise keeping God. And for the sake of His own name, He will not reject His people. He has a reputation to uphold. Now, again and again in the Old Testament, God threatened to destroy the Jews. Remember how He said this to Moses? "I will make you a great nation." Remember what Moses said? He said essentially, "But if you do that, the Egyptians will hear about it and they'll think you couldn't bring your people into the promised land. God, you have a reputation to uphold. You can't do this."

Jeremiah argued in the same way, Jeremiah 14:20-21, he says, "O Lord, we acknowledge our wickedness and the guilt of our fathers. We have indeed sinned against you." Listen to how Jeremiah prays: "For the sake of your name, do not despise us, do not dishonor your glorious throne. Remember your covenant with us and do not break it." Do you see how Jeremiah is praying there in Jeremiah 14? "For the sake of your name, for the sake of your reputation, for the sake of your character and your throne, don't throw us off as a people." God is well aware of all those things, far more than Moses or Jeremiah ever was. He knows that He has linked His name to this Jewish nation, and He will not forsake them.

Paul talks about God’s foreknowledge. God did not reject His people whom He foreknew. Now, don't stumble here, okay? We've already met the doctrine of foreknowledge earlier in Romans Chapter 8. There, I believe Paul was talking specifically about individuals, individual people. And listen to what he says in Romans 8:29-30: "For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined He also called, and those he called he also justified, and those He justified He also glorified." Individual people, God foreknew them unto personal salvation. I think what's going on here though, in the context of Romans 11, is God's foreknowledge of the Jews as a nation. They are His foreknown people corporately. Now, that doesn't mean that individual Jews can't be lost. We already covered that in Romans 9, but as a nation, they are still His people. It says in Amos 3:2, "You only have I known among all the families of the Earth." The only nation that God knew in a covenant sense, like in a marriage, are the Jews. God has a reputation to uphold, and therefore He will not turn His back on the Jews.

The third proof is God's pattern of sovereign grace in raising up an elect remnant. And here we look at the case of Elijah. Look at verses 2-4: "Don't you know what the scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he appealed to God against Israel? 'Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars. I am the only one left and they are trying to kill me.' And what was God's answer to him? 'I have reserved for myself 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal.'" Now, Paul here is remembering back on to one of the darkest moments in Jewish history, a time of great apostasy. Now he's dealing in his present time with the problem of the apostasy of the Jews away from their Messiah. And so he reaches back to a time, the time of Elijah, when the Jewish nation, it seems almost universally, had rejected the true God, Yahweh, their own, their true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

It was during the time of King Ahab, an evil and a weak man who married a pagan woman, Jezebel, who became really an example of a wicked pagan queen who had great influence over King Ahab. She was a wicked woman, and an idolater. And under her influence the whole nation veered away from worshipping the true God and embraced worship of Baal and of Asherah. As a matter of fact, Jezebel was slaughtering the priests and the prophets that stood up to her. Elijah comes on the scene somewhat mysteriously, 1st Kings 17 verse 1 out of nowhere. Never heard of him before, just Elijah the Tishbite appears and says, "There will not be rain except at my word," and he disappears again. Just a mysterious and a powerful figure. He's really calling down covenant curses on Israel for forsaking God. And one of the curses was that the sky would be like iron and the ground beneath to be like bronze, that there would be a drought and a famine.

Well, you know the story of Elijah, in as much as it would be delightful to trace it out. This represents the lowest point of Eliah's personal history. He's already had the confrontation with the prophets of Baal, and Jezebel said says, "May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if you survive this night." She's going after Elijah, she's going to kill him. And so he runs for his life. He's in the middle of a desert, he lays down under a broom tree, he just wants to die. He's finished, he's done. And then he gets up, he gets a little strength, gets something to eat, an angel brings him some food, and he ends up in a cave. And he is frustrated, he's at a low point. He knows that Jezebel has 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah sitting at her table every night to eat. He knows that she has vowed to slaughter him, and he says this in verse 3, "Lord they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars. I am the only one left. I'm the remaining candle. It's flickering in a hurricane wind, it's going out Lord. There's not going to be any believers left, none, when they kill me, and they're going to kill me."

And so, for all the greatness of Elijah, for all of his great power and faith, he is really quite self-focused at this moment. He's looking inward. He's looking at his own ministry, he's looking at his own life. He's not aware of anybody left in Israel that's worshipping the true God. And even as great a prophet as Elijah was, he can still forget God. He can forget God's sovereignty, forget God's great power.

A quick application, we'll talk more about it in a minute, never underestimate what God is up to. Never measure what God is doing in the world by what you see with your own eyes is happening around you. Jesus in John 5 that God is always at His work to this very day, and he too is working. He's always doing something. Well, what's the concept here? Well, that God has the sovereign power to keep alive a remnant of His people, a remnant chosen by grace who will not forsake the true God. He's got that power. And even in the time of Jezebel He's got 7,000. Look what He says, "I have reserved for myself 7,000." They're mine. They're my chosen possession. They are my treasured possession, and no one can snatch them out of my hands. I have saved them, I have preserved them. They are mine. I have reserved for myself."

Now notice, He does not say, "There happened to be statistically 7,000 who of their own free will have decided to maintain a commitment to Yahweh during this time." That's not what He says. He says, "I have reserved for myself  7,000 who have bowed the knee to Baal." And what is the application Paul takes in verse 5? "So too at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if it is by grace, then it's no longer by works. If it were, grace would no longer be grace." God's sovereign grace, God's pattern of protecting a remnant by His sovereign grace. And so too at the present time, there are Jews that are believing in Jesus as their Messiah and that is not an accident. It is by God's sovereign plan.

Now, what does grace mean for the future of Israel? Well, If salvation were simply by the vicissitudes of the human heart, if God just kind of sets up a salvation shop and gets some good advertisement going and just hopes that people will come today, what are the odds that Jews are going to turn to Christ? The London bookmakers are always making odds about all kinds of amazing things. It's remarkable. They're probably like one of the most gambling people I've ever heard of. They'll bet on anything, not just sporting events. I wonder if you said, "Alright, what are the odds that at some point in the future, the overwhelming majority, if not the whole of the Jews alive at a certain time in a generation will turn and embrace Jesus as their personal Messiah, what odds are they going to give?" But we don't live in a universe that's governed by odds. We live in a universe that's governed by God the Emperor, God the king, and He has decreed that that will happen. And the only way we can know for sure that this mystery is going to take place is by God making it happen.

Look at 11:25-27. He says there, "I do not want you to become ignorant to this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceded. Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and so all Israel will be saved. As it is written, 'The deliverer will come from Zion, he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.'" Do you see the sovereign power of God? Do you see how God isn't searching the human heart to see if He can find some goodness or some frame or disposition in the human heart, and based on that, He will act and move. God creates what there was not before. And God by His sovereign power has the power to raise up a remnant. It's just in the final generation that remnant's going to extend to the whole of the Jews that are alive that day. God has that kind of power. And he's got that kind of power also in your life.

What can we take for application from this? Well, I already touched on this slightly. I want to go back to it. Never doubt that God is at work in your life. Don't doubt that God is at work in the world. And don't doubt that God is at work among the Jews. God is at work in all of these things. What I've found, just speaking very personally, is that God delights in hiding His work from us. It says in Isaiah 45:15, "Truly, you are a God who hides Himself, O God and Savior of Israel." We don't know what He's doing. And He does that for His own purposes. Why does He do that? Well, I think it's especially true in the ministry. Suppose you knew all of the eternal ramifications, the good ones, of you leading people to Christ or going on mission trips, of all the eternal good things that are going to come as a result of you. Would not your heart be tempted to say, "Yeah, I really am something after all. I've always had too low a self-esteem, but now I actually think I'm something. Actually, the more I think about it, that's pretty amazing. Hey, don't stand too close to me, please. Don't touch me, I'm too holy for you."

We have this arrogant streak inside us. God will not have it. He will not have us boast over the things that we accomplish. And so He works inside of a kind of narrow band. If we were getting too up in our own estimation, He will hide from us, for a long time even, any impact of our ministry. If we're getting too low, He will show you glimpses of what the word of God is doing through you. But we have a command in a couple of places concerning this matter. For example, Galatians 6:9, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." Don't give up even if you don't see the outcome of your ministry. Or 1 Corinthians 15:58, "Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourself fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." Don't get discouraged. Don't give up when you don't see the fruit. God is at work around you all the time. If so great a man as Elijah couldn't see it, sometimes you're going to feel it too. I'm the only one, I am the only one. You are not the only one. God's sovereign power will see to that.

Second of all, be humble to God's sovereign grace. God didn't search you to try to find out what He liked about you before He chose you. He chose you because He chose you. It is grace and not by works. If it were by works, then grace, friends, would no longer be grace. God has chosen Jews and Gentiles only by His sovereign grace. It says in 1 Corinthians 15:10, "It is by the grace of God that I am what I am and His grace to me was not without effect." And then again in 1 Corinthians 1:29, "It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus." Ponder that, "It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus."

Thirdly, can I urge you to be active in evangelizing Jews? We're going to talk more about this over the next number of weeks that we study this book, but I found this tendency that when I'm witnessing, somebody will say to me immediately, "Oh, I'm Jewish," as though I'm so say, "Oh okay, well, I'm sorry." My methodology may change. I may approach it differently, but I'm not going to give up.

Do not make the theological error that some of our Christian brothers and sisters are making, that Romans 11 teaches that the Jews don't need the gospel. How in the world would we become to that? What I believe Romans 11 is teaching that at some point the Jews will believe the Gospel, not that they don't need it. And therefore Paul says in this very chapter, "I make much of my ministry in the hope that I might get some of them jealous and arouse them to faith in Christ." Don't forget Jesus wept over Jerusalem. Don't forget that Paul says I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. Don't forget the dangerous game that Jews are playing by rejecting Christ, from the scripture, hardening their hearts. Who knows how long they individually have where they can repent and turn?

So be active in evangelizing Jews. And be hopeful about Israel's future. Sovereign grace guarantees a great and final day. I look on it almost like the fourth of July fireworks, right? And at the very end, there's this big... What do you call it? Big "brrrrr" at the end. I don't have any words, you know what I'm saying. They hold back about 30% and they just throw them all up at the end. I just look on that as what's going to happen. "For if their rejection is riches for the world and their transgression is riches for the Gentiles, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?" It's going to be glorious. It's going to be magnificent. And therefore you should rejoice in Jewish Christians. They're some of the most delightful people you'll ever know. Get to know some of these folks from Jews for Jesus, or Messianic Jews, and find out how God works in their lives to bring them and their families to Christ. Close with me in prayer.

When I was growing up we used to visit my grandmother's house. I still remember aspects of that house, but one thing I have in mind are some coasters that were on her end tables. They were made of acrylics or some kind of plastic and inside there were these purple wild flowers. I don't know if what they were Pansies or whatever but I remember year after year I would go and there they'd be. And they were always the same. Just like just about everything in my grandmother's house always the same and nothing ever changed and that was... There was a good feeling about that but I remember picking these plastic encrusted flowers and just looking at them and being amazed and actually feeling almost kind of a little sad like they were trapped and I'd like to help them to escape. I think that it's possible that some people look at salvation that way. That it is somehow a thing or object that you obtain at a certain point in your life. It never changes, it's just there. You prayed the prayer, and that's it forever and no one can take it away from you and if you give it on Judgment Day they'll let you in there. And that's it. It's just this static thing.

But I believe that Scripture portrays salvation as a living dynamic thing that has opened up, has been brought to life within our hearts and souls. It's alive and it must grow and it must bear fruit. It's not like that coaster in my grandmother's house of flower encrusted in plastic. The purpose of this sermon today, is to help you understand two dynamic forces that are given by God to you. One could say these are dispositions of the soul that are given by God to you to help you grow up in your salvation for the rest of your life. And I fear that when we read through Romans we're always thinking about the unsaved person, how they come to faith originally in Christ and we forget that we're not done being saved and that universal statements are being made here in Romans 10 about how that happens and they apply to us today. And there are two I want to focus on in particular one in verse 17, and there it says, "Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ." and then earlier but logically later verse 13, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

Now, many Christians I think perhaps even most Christians think of these verses as applying to the lost person and how it is they get saved in that same kind of static way of thinking. But I'm saying to you today, it's my argument today, that you need these verses. You yourself if you're a Christian, you need to hear the Word of Christ, you'll need to hear the Word of Christ the rest of your life. And secondly, you need to call on the name of the Lord, the rest of your life to be saved. That's what I'm arguing for today.

Let's first begin by talking about the various parts of salvation. I still get into difficulty when I talk about the fact that we're not done being saved and that we're still... We have to work out our salvation with fear and trembling and people are troubled by this. They think maybe it's some holdover from my Catholic days where we're kind of through works righteousness, we have to earn... It isn't anything of the sort. Salvation is bigger than justification. Justification is the beginning of the Christian life, but there's more to it than that. Now, Christ's mission when he came into the world was to save us from sin. I mean completely. Everything that sin had done to us and to this world. Matthew 1:21 the angel said to Joseph, "You will give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." And that means in my way of reading and understanding everything that sin has done to me.

And I want that salvation. I want to be completely saved not just from sin's penalty but I want to be saved from sin's power, from sin's persuasion. I want to be saved from sin's presence itself, amen. I want to be done with it forever and I'd like to see what God's going to do in the new Heaven and new Earth when he frees us forever from the groaning that this created world is under because of sin. Don't you want to see that? I yearn to see a full salvation. I want to be totally saved. Therefore, salvation has certain time aspects even for the individual.

There is a past aspect, there is a present aspect, there is a future aspect of salvation and this can be supported biblically. We have been saved if we're Christians. It says in Ephesians 2:8, "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith." so we can speak that way.

There's also a present and ongoing salvation. The Bible speaks in this way, the message of the cross, 1 Corinthians 1:18, "The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing but to we who are being saved it is the power of God." Does not a Christian say every day, "I need the power of the cross today." So there's an ongoing saving work going on in our life.

And salvation is future. We will be saved and in that in two senses, we'll be saved from this day until the day of our death or the day the Lord returns we will be progressively being saved and we're going to be saved on that great and final day, called The Judgment Day. There's two aspects of the future salvation. I find this in Romans 5:9-10, "Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him." There Paul differentiates between justification and salvation. We have been justified, but we still have yet got to be saved on the day of wrath when God will reveal his wrath. I want to be saved on that, don't you? And we will be saved. Verse 10 of Romans 5 says, "For if when we were God's enemies we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more having been reconciled shall we be saved by his life." There's something about the ongoing life of Christ that keeps saving us. I want to understand that today. I want to know how Christ's ongoing resurrected life is at work in my life saving me. And so there is past, present and future.

Therefore salvation has a beginning, it makes progress and it has an ultimate end. The beginning of salvation is justification where God by faith in his Word alone declares you not guilty of all your sins forever: Past, present and future. You are righteous in his sight. That's just the beginning though. Then there's sanctification, which you are in an ongoing way being made more and more like Jesus and that's the work of God in you, for the rest of your life to be made more and more like Jesus, sanctification. And then there's glorification in which you will be made glorious in Jesus. "Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father." That's the completed end of salvation. That's the whole thing.

What resources has God made available for this ongoing work of salvation in our souls?

Now, the question I want to ask today is, what resources has God made available for this ongoing work of salvation in our souls? And I believe verse 17 and verse 13 give us two key postures of the Christian soul. Hearing and calling. We are going to be hearing from Jesus the rest of our lives and our faith must have that hearing in order to be alive and flourishing and healthy and fruitful. You must continually be hearing the word of Christ to be healthy as a Christian. And secondly, you must be continually calling on the name of the Lord in order that this saving work be continuing in your life.

Now, let's look at verse 17 first, this idea that faith is sustained and it grows by hearing. Look again at verse 17, it says in the ESV translation, some of you use that version but others are good translations but I like this one. It says, "Faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ." Therefore faith's beginning, faith's genesis in your soul came when you heard the gospel, the word of truth.

When you heard the Gospel explained that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. I mean the things we just sang about it really, for the most part, the Apostles Creed just the life of Jesus set to music there and we just sang it. He was born of the Virgin Mary, he lived a sinless life, he did great miracles, incredible teachings, he suffered and died on the cross under Pontius Pilate, and the Jews who gave him over to it. His blood shed on the cross was a substitute for us. He died under the wrath of God for our sins. He was buried on the third day God raised him from the dead, seen by many witnesses, ascended to heaven and he's there now. That's the story of Jesus, that's the Gospel of Jesus. Now, what happens is when an evangelist, a pastor, just a witness, a coworker shares these things in the heart of somebody who is about to be saved, about to be justified, what happens is as they're hearing this Word of Christ, faith comes in in the heart. It has its genesis. It is spoken into existence into your heart by Almighty God. Just like God spoke into darkness and said, "Let there be light," and there was light. So when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation God spoke the light of his glory into your heart. 2 Corinthians 4:6, "For God who said, let light shine out of darkness, made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ."

That's what happened when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Faith was created inside you, and then on the basis of that, God justified you. He gave you Christ's righteousness, all your sins forgiven and that's permanent, nothing can ever take it. It's more permanent than that purple flower was encrusted in plastic. More permanent than that, more set, nothing will ever change it. That is permanent but that's not the end of it. That's not the end of your faith. Basically God called something to life that wasn't alive before and like all living things your faith needs food. Now, that's what I'm saying today. Your faith needs nourishment in order to thrive, in order to survive. And what I'm saying to you is that the word of Christ is that nourishment. It's the word of Christ that is the food of faith.

Now, every living thing on earth needs food to survive, that's just part of the way it is. Plants are able to make their own food by photosynthesis, are able to take light and with water and oxygen, carbon dioxide, some nitrates and things from the soil, able to make its own food. And that's the beginning of what biologists call the food chain. Animals either eat the plants or other animals, everything needs to feed to survive. God made it that way. And as a matter of fact, God is given credit in scripture for feeding every living thing, what it needs to survive. I love Psalm 104, and there the psalmist celebrates the wide range of diverse life that God has created, everything from the whale to the lion to the hyrax which I had to look up. It's a rock Badger and it lives way up in some rocky ledge in Africa somewhere and eats Moss. Aren't you glad you're not a hyrax. Aren't you glad you have something better to eat than moss? But that's what they eat.

And God made them that way. And it says in Psalm 104, "These all," all these created beings, "These all look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them they gather it up. When you open your hand, you satisfy the desires of every living thing." so there's God opening up his hand and feeding literally trillions of living entities in this world every day. We don't imagine how much power God has. God is feeding living things every day. Now, what I'm saying to you is just as that works physically, it's also at work spiritually. Your faith needs food. You need to feed, it needs to feed and if it doesn't it will grow weak. And the food of faith is the word of Christ, the food of faith is the Bible, it's the Word of God as we read it here. Now Martin Luther knew this and Martin Luther has a beautiful image. It's one of my favorites concerning Bible study. I love this image and Luther talked about his daily personal Bible study this is what he said, "For some years now I have read through the Bible twice every year." Now, if you've ever tried to read through the Bible once in a year you realize what an incredible achievement it is to read through twice in the year.

We know that George Muller did it 100 times. So he read through it twice a year for 50 years. Luther did the same. He read through the Bible twice every year, this is what he said, "If you picture the Bible to be a mighty tree, and every word a little branch. I have shaken every one of those branches because I wanted to know what it was and what it meant. I study my Bible like I gather apples. First, I shake the whole tree that the ripest may fall." Those are the easy things. The first thought you kind of shake the whole tree and three or four fall down and that's the easy thoughts right away. "Then I shake each limb and when I have shaken each limb I shake each branch and then I shake every twig then I look under every leaf. I searched the Bible as a whole, like shaking the whole tree then I shake every limb, I study book after book, then I shake every branch, giving attention to the chapters then I shake every twig or a careful study of the paragraphs and sentences and even the individual words and their meanings." What is he looking for? He's looking for food for his faith. Now out of that he will preach and teach and write his tracks and do all this stuff but first and foremost he is an individual man before God. He needs communion with Jesus today. And so do you.

And the way that God has given us food for our faith is the word of God. The goal of our reading in this case is not so we can serve or evangelize better or so we can do different other things, it so that we can be alive with Jesus today. We can have lively fellowship with our risen Savior today. That's the purpose of this kind of Bible reading. Now, let me ask you a question, is your faith weak? Is it waning? Is it anemic? Unable to meet the challenges that you're facing in your Christian life? Then feed, feed, feed on the Word of God. Feed on the Bible. Have you forgotten the beauties of Heaven? Have you forgotten the purity of God's holy eyes, that he cannot even look at sin? Have you forgotten the blessedness of having God say, "Well done, good and faithful servant." over certain aspects of your service to Him? Have you've forgotten what it'll feel like to have him say that? Have you forgotten the value of souls that are perishing around you every day? Have you forgotten the power of prayer, to heal the sick, and to move the hands of presidents and prime ministers? Have you forgotten the reality of the invisible spiritual world, with its devils and its angels, that's around you, at all times? Have you've forgotten that it's there, and of God who sits on His throne?

Have you forgotten the perfection of God's holy law? Have you forgotten that God if you are a Christian has written his law in your heart and he is moving you by the Spirit to fulfill it, have you forgotten that? Have you forgotten the history of godly men and women who went before us and who lived their lives out for examples for us? Have you forgotten the warning inherent in the flood of Noah, in the fire and brimstone that God poured down on Sodom and Gomorrah, and the 10 plagues that he poured down on Egypt, and the way that most of that first generation of Israelites died in the desert and never enter the Promised Land? Have you forgotten the warnings inherent in those stories? Have you forgotten God? Have you forgotten his sovereign power and his great goodness to us in Christ? Have you forgotten Christ, that he shed his blood on the cross to pay for your sin? Have you forgotten these things? Is your faith weak? Is it anemic? Is your grasp on these realities slipping? Then you need to feed on the Word of God, you need to feed on the Bible. Read the Bible every day.

I was reading one  of John Piper’s daily devotions and he had a section on this that was just so perfect and I thought it was just timely that I came across it a couple weeks ago as I was preparing this message. This is what Piper wrote,

"Faith feeds on the word of God without it, without a steady diet it gets weaker and weaker. If you are dissatisfied with your Christian courage and joy and purity of heart then check the way your feeding your faith. Compare the way you eat. Now listen, suppose that you start the day with a glass of orange juice. It's good and good for you. Takes you maybe five minutes to drink if you read the newspaper at the same time and then you go off to work or to school. You don't eat another thing until the next morning where you sit down and have another glass of juice. And so you go on drinking one glass of orange juice every day until you drop. That's the way a lot of Christians try to survive as believers. They feed their faith with five minutes of food in the morning or evening and then they don't eat again until 24 hours later. Some even skip one or two mornings and don't give their faith anything to eat for days. Now, the effect of starving your faith is the faith starves. It's not hard to understand and when faith is starving it is getting weaker and not able to do much. It has a hard time trusting God and worshipping and rejoicing and resisting sin. It gasps and stumbles."

Is that happening to you? Do you have a hard time joining in the worship here because your faith is weak? Do you have a hard time doing any of the good works that God has ordained for you to do? Do you have a hard time resisting any temptation at all? Could it be your faith is weak. Now, we live surrounded every moment by great threats to our faith. Our faith needs protection. The clear example of this happened the night before Jesus was crucified, when Jesus warned His disciples and specifically Simon Peter he said, "'Simon, Simon, Satan has demanded to sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you Simon that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.' But he replied, 'Lord, I'm ready to go with you to prison and death.' And Jesus answered, 'I tell you Peter, before the rooster crows today you will deny three times that you know me.'" Now, there's a lot in there but first of all the basic idea is without sustenance, without sustaining ministry by God the Father, through the intercession, the prayer of God the Son, Peter's faith would fail.

And Jesus doesn't want that to happen. And so he prays for Peter that his faith won't fail and it won't because Peter's going to turn back and he's going to strengthen his brothers. But that's not all Jesus does he doesn't just pray to the Father about Peter, he tells Peter about it and has this conversation and gives him a prediction, the Word of Christ. And when Peter fell that night, when he denied the Lord three times and when the rooster crows, you know what happened then it says in Matthew 26, "Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken to him and he went outside and wept bitterly." What recovered Peter's faith? It was the word of Christ. Does your faith need recovery today? Do you need to get back to hearing from Jesus again then remember what Jesus has said to you. Our faith is threatened, it is threatened by the Devil. 1st Peter 5 it says, "He prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Resist him standing firm in the faith because you know your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kinds of sufferings." The devil and his angels have your faith in their cross hairs. They want to destroy it if they can and so they have created a world system that entices you away from a life of faith, away from pleasing Jesus, your faith is therefore threatened. You need to hear Christ speak today, don't you? You need to hear him and the way you hear is by the Word of God. We hear by the Word of God.

The second thing that I want to say to you is that not only do you need to hear every day from Jesus by hearing the Word of God, you need to call on the name of the Lord, look at verse 13. There it says, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Now I've already told you salvation is bigger than just justification. So what I am arguing for today is you need to keep on calling on the name of the Lord to be saved. If you want to work out your salvation with fear and trembling like it says in Philippians, the essence of that is going to be an ongoing calling on the name of the Lord. Now, remember what we meant by that, first of all, the name of the Lord represents his character as revealed in his word, it represents his mighty acts in history the way he's made a name for himself, it represents his promises all the things he's promised to do and more than anything, all of it is represented in His Son, Jesus Christ our Savior. And so when you call on Jesus' name for salvation, you're calling on him to be for you, a sinner everything he's revealed himself to be in his character, in his mighty actions, in his great promises, "Save me from sin Jesus." and he does.

Now we tend to think of that as the sinner's prayer, right? You pray that prayer after the Gospel presentation, do you want to receive Jesus today as your Savior? And so you say yes. And so the sinner comes forward, maybe at the service or just bows with the evangelist right there and they pray the sinner's prayer. Are they calling on the name of the Lord? Well, if it's a genuine prayer that's exactly what they're doing. They're calling on Jesus to save them from their sins but is that the last time they need to do it? I contend no. I think that's just the first of more times than you can count that that soul will call on the name of the Lord. They'll be doing it the rest of their lives.

Now, I came across this marvelous thought here and it was Charles Spurgeon was preaching a sermon on Psalm 50:15. The verse is written right in your outline there. Take a minute and look at it. Psalm 50:15 Charles Spurgeon called it Robinson Crusoe's text. You know the story of Robinson Crusoe, he was shipwrecked and had a helper with him named Friday eventually and he had a whole story there. Well, it's got some strong Christian themes in it. And this verse Psalm 50:15, which is printed in your outline it says this, "Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you and you shall glorify me." That's Robinson Crusoe's text.

Well, Spurgeon... Charles Spurgeon was preaching a sermon on this and this is what he said,

"Robinson Crusoe has been wrecked. He has left on the desert island all alone, his case is a very, very pitiable one. He goes to his bed and he is smitten with fever. The fever lasts upon him long and he has no one to wait upon him, none even bring him a drink of cold water. He is ready to perish. He had been accustomed to sin, he had all the vices of a sailor. But his hard case brought him to think. He opens a Bible which he found in a sea chest and he lights upon this passage, "Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify me." That night he prayed for the first time in his life and ever after there was in him a hope in God, which marked the birth of a heavenly life."

Now, Spurgeon then applied this whole concept powerfully to us in prayer, this is what he said,

"God and the praying man take shares…First here is your share, 'Call upon me in the day of trouble.' Secondly, here's God's share, 'I will deliver thee.' Again you take a share for you shall be delivered. And then again it is the Lord's turn, 'And thou shalt glorify me.' Here is a compact, a covenant that God enters into with you who pray to him and whom he helps. He says, 'You shall have the deliverance but I must have the glory...' Here is a delightful partnership. We obtain that which we so greatly need and all that God getteth is the glory which is due unto his name."

Now, I think that God wants great glory and so he brings us through a whole lifetime of testing and troubles and difficulties and he wants us to call on his name, call on his name in every one of them so that he delivers us again and again and he gets the glory and we get the joy of salvation.

What is the Day of Trouble?

Now what is the day of trouble? Says, "Call on me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you." What day of trouble do you face? Are you in trouble? You know whether you feel like you are or not Christian you are in trouble. You're in great trouble because you're still in this world. And Jesus said in John 16:33, "In this world you will have trouble but take heart I have overcome the world." so this world in Jesus' mind, this world equates to trouble, the day of trouble. Now the trouble comes first and foremost, the threat to your soul of your own sin. The great trouble you face is Judgment Day. And you know that you've heard the Gospel you've come to believe that you can't survive Judgment Day without Jesus and so you call on the name of the Lord and he saves you from that day of trouble.

But there's more trouble for you isn't there? The fact is, you've got a journey to walk, miles and miles through enemy territory and Jesus knew that and so the night before he was crucified in John 17, he prayed for his disciples what we call the "high priestly prayer" and he's praying for them because they're in trouble. Listen to what he says. "I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world." Do you see how Jesus thinks, I'm leaving this dangerous place but they are still here. "They are still in the world and I am coming to you. Holy Father protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost." That's the danger, lost. "None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that the Scripture would be fulfilled." and then Jesus said, "I have given them your word and the world has hated them for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world even as I am not of it."

Now what would you think of a parent that left a child of age two or three in the median strip of a super highway and drove off? You'd think that's a terrible parent. Why? Because a parent is responsible to protect their children from danger, right? Do you think Jesus doesn't know that? Do you think he doesn't know that these, his believers must be protected? But we are in grave danger, friends. It's like we're in a fire zone in a war, and so we are. And so Jesus prays for us constantly because we're still in danger. He wants to protect our faith to keep it alive, to keep it strong and vibrant. And so he prays for us. But we are in danger for the rest of our lives because the Devil is trying to lead us into sin, trying to attack our faith and so he entices us. And it happens in a lot of different ways. I think we have to call on the name of the Lord in every situation so that we can grow in grace in the knowledge of Christ.

For example, perhaps a man has a habit of looking at internet pornography. In the former generations these deadly images would have been reserved for just one section, a CD section of the big city. And you had to intentionally go there to see it but that's not the case anymore. Through the miracle of modern technology to bring it right to your workstation, right to your home. Sometimes without you asking for it at all, brings it right to you. And Jesus told us the deadly danger of lust, he said in Matthew 5, "I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye cause you to sin gouge it out and throw it away. It's better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell." Jesus says the danger of lust, it's hell. And so therefore we have to stand and fight. Well, what happens if these temptations come? Call on me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you and you shall glorify me. Call on the name of the Lord, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved at the day of testing, the moment of temptation. He is faithful to make a way of escape. Ask him for it. Say, "Jesus, save me."

Or perhaps a person's overcome by selfishness and materialism, when they look at the record of their expenditures on the credit card statement they find that most of the stuff they buy is for themselves, for their own pleasure and they say, "This isn't right." They want to live differently, they want to use their money more for the kingdom of God but they're still tempted. They still think that the more stuff I have the happier I'll be. "Save me Jesus, save me from that whole way of thinking. Give me a different way of looking at money."

Or perhaps another person is struggling with depression and loneliness. Maybe they don't have anyone in their home. They live alone, maybe they're elderly, maybe they feel like their life is wasted, there's nothing going on for them, there's no purpose. Nobody really ever visits or calls. And so the devil starts to whisper depression and dark thoughts even of death into their minds. And when it's starting to get dark like that you've got to call on the name of the Lord. Give me joy Lord, give me purpose. Maybe I can't do as much as I used to do, but make me a prayer warrior for missions, give me a purpose helping to stand against this inky darkness of depression.

Or maybe somebody's getting lazy in their quiet times. They've not even been sipping on their little glass of orange juice not for weeks even. They want to make a new start, they set their alarm earlier than they've been getting up the alarm rings and immediately the battle starts. The flesh does not want to get up and there's that diabolical snooze button. Oh, that wicked snooze button and it's pulling on you saying, "You don't want to get up, come on your body needs sleep." No your body needs God, your soul needs God but you're at the point of battle and you don't even realize how much is hanging in the balance at that moment and you say, "Jesus, help me. Get me out of bed." and he does. Call on me in the day of trouble and I will rescue you.

Maybe somebody's got a habit of anger toward somebody in their family. Maybe toward a spouse, a husband or wife, maybe toward a child. The moment of temptation comes, they just want to erupt. No, call on me in the day of trouble and I'll deliver you. "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Saved from what? Saved from sin. You don't sin at that moment instead you have a sweet and a gentle answer because Jesus has stepped in and has saved you at that time.

Maybe somebody else is weak in evangelism. And the Lord's laid an office mate on their heart and say, "I want you to witness to them, invite them to church, talk to them about Jesus." And so lunch time comes and that conversation is college football, weather, current events and there's a prompting inside, "Say something, something about me." and the beads of sweat start to form on the forehead and you're saying, "I can't do it, it costs too much." You call on the name of Lord. I would advise quietly inwardly at that moment. But you call on the name of the Lord and you say, "Jesus save me from my weakness and my lack of love. Let me say something for you today."

Maybe the Lord is calling on you to get involved in a ministry or to stay up late at night to pray for somebody who's got cancer or to give sacrificially to the Durham Rescue Mission or to start a ministry get involved in some way and all of those things or any of them take a level of sacrifice that your flesh isn't ready to make. Call on me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you and you will rescue me.

The Deadly Habit of Self-Reliance

Friends, we are too self-reliant we look inward, for the resources for our lives. I was looking at a pamphlet the American Psychological Association put out on raising positive kids in a negative world. You're wondering why I was reading it. Well, not because I needed advice from the American Psychological Association, but just to find out what it is they're saying. And they said If you want your kids to be positive in a negative world, they have to have friends and be a friend. That's profound [laughter]. They need to take charge of their behavior and actions. It says look on the bright side, set new goals and make a plan to reach them and the key to it all, believe in yourself and in what you can do. Have you ever had that before? Believe in yourself. What am I supposed to believe about myself that's going to help me? I know what I am, I've been proving it for years. I want to believe in the Lord.

We are far too self-reliant. We Americans, we love the picture of the self-reliant one. The mountain man who goes out back in the 1800s and for months on end just with him and his trusty horse and his rifle and his knowledge, he can be out there in the wilderness with wild Indians and he can hunt his own game and he can do it all himself, he doesn't need you. We like that. There's something attractive about that man, the Daniel Boone figure. You can go out for months and months or even the rags to riches self-made man who can do all of these things or self-made woman. We like the story of success of what you can do for yourself. The scripture says salvation is the opposite. As a matter of fact it says you have to be weaned off of your self reliance. You have to learn somehow to stop depending on yourself. A profound passage in this is 2 Corinthians 1:8-10, don't turn there but just listen. The Apostle Paul had reached this point in his life, he had been brought through a severe trial and this is what he writes about it. "We do not want you to be uninformed brothers about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure far beyond our ability to endure so that we despaired even of life, indeed in our hearts we felt the sentence of death, but this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead."

Did you hear that? Paul says this trouble happened in my life to teach me to stop relying on myself. Well, if the Apostle Paul, one of the godliest men that ever lived, needed that so do you and I. We need to learn how to stop relying on ourselves. Call on me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you and you will honor and glorify me. By application it's really pretty straightforward. Frankly this is just application section of another sermon on these two verses. It's all application. Read the Bible every day, feed on it. Feed on it every day, take in the scripture, take in the word of God. Memorize it, meditate on it, feed on it. Are you sipping orange juice a couple of five minutes, a little devotion lit? It's not going to be enough. You need more of the word. Make a commitment to read through the Bible. Get a pattern, a program, get a note book take some notes and then call on me in the day of trouble. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord. What I'd urge you to do is make a habit of praying through everything you're facing in your day. And get friends to pray for you in weak areas. Get somebody to hold you accountable if you're struggling with some of the things I've mentioned in my message here. Say, "I am a struggling. Will you pray for me? Will you pray for me?" Call on the Lord. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Close with me in prayer.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on Romans 10:16-21. The main subject of the sermon is God's continued efforts to reach the Jewish people.

Few stories are as dramatic and tragic as the story of unrequited love. You think about how many operas and works of literature and popular songs and poems and odes are written on that theme of unrequited love. One individual loves another and the other either doesn't know they exist or doesn't share their same level of affection, wants to be just friends, perhaps, or perhaps it's a parent-child relationship in which the children are rebelling and do not love the parents the way that they should. It's a tragic story but I would say of all those stories, there's none as tragic as the story of God and the human race.

Of God and the human race, and it's pictured very dramatically for us and unfolded in the history of God and Israel. But it would have been no different with any other tribe or language, or people or nation because, frankly, all of us are in here. When it says, "I was found by those who did not seek Me. I revealed Myself to those who did not ask for Me." And so, here is God extending His arms to rebellious and disobedient people. Not just the Jews, although that's what's being quoted here, but all of us, apart from Christ, not wanting Him, not loving Him. Though, He displays His love day after day, though He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous, though He loves His enemies in ways we can't even imagine, yet we spurn Him and turn away from Him and do not love Him. It's an unrequited love.

But you know something, God won't stay that way forever. He won't be a jilted lover forever. Because His love is sovereign and powerful, and it creates what it loves, and that's my hope and yours, that God has the power to speak into a cold and dark and hard heart and transform it. Now, as we look at Romans 10:21, look at it again, the very last verse that Allan read. Concerning Israel, he says, "All day long I have held out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people." What we have here is a very different picture of God than we have had in Romans 9. It's not contradictory, it's just different. In Romans 9, we have the picture of a sovereign emperor of the universe, one who sits on the throne and who is addressing the question: Why are so many Jews rejecting the Gospel? That's what's before us in Romans 9:10-11. Why are so many Jews turning away from their Messiah? And the immediate answer that Paul gives in Romans 9:6, "Not all who are descended from Israel are Israel," he gets into the depths of the doctrine of unconditional and sovereign election. That's his immediate answer to the problem.

And so we saw the sovereignty of God there as He calls Jacob and not Esau in Romans 9:11-12 "Before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad, in order that God's purposes in election might stand, not by works but by Him who calls, she was told the older will serve the younger," but then later in Romans 9:15-16, it says of God, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion… It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort but on God who has mercy." And then again, in verse 18 of chapter nine, "Therefore God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden." Now, this is an incredible picture of God, it's a picture of God sitting on His throne ruling over all things, but specifically ruling over human salvation, ruling over human salvation, but in Romans 10, here in verse 21, we have a different picture.

Look at it again. "All day long I have held out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people." God here like the father of the prodigal son waiting for his son to return, after he's done with sin, waiting that he would come home. And we have a similar picture in Jesus when Jesus stands over the city of Jerusalem, and says, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you. How often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But you were not willing." The grief and the pain there.

Now, I say to you that it is very difficult to reconcile these two. It's hard to get Romans 9 and Romans 10 to kind of coincide in our minds. How do you get the picture of this sovereign God who gets what He wants and nobody can stop Him in Romans 9, and then Romans 10:21, He's standing and holding out His hands to sinners wanting them to come back. There are many popular depictions of a waiting Savior. You've seen perhaps the picture of Jesus standing at a vine-covered door and knocking. Behind that has be Revelation 3:20, "Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with Me," but there He is waiting, knocking, knocking, waiting. And I was troubled by that. I said, "That's not the picture of God I get. He's not passive in salvation." Someone said, "Actually, what He does is, goes around the back, crawls in the window and unlocks the door for Himself."

And frankly if he doesn't do that he'll never get in because the human heart doesn't want Him in. I accept that, I think it's true, but I think there's a theme here. Perhaps you've also seen the hymn, The Savior is Waiting. I remember listening to that and after I started to understand God's sovereignty and salvation, I said, "I'm not likely to sing this hymn again," but now when I see Romans 10:21, I begin to wonder if maybe we should sing it.

"The Savior is waiting, to enter your heart. Why don't you let Him come in? There's nothing in this world to keep you apart. What is your answer to Him? Time after time, He has waited before and now He is waiting again, to see if you're willing to open the door. Oh, how He wants to come in. If you'll take one step toward the Savior, my friend, you'll find His arms open wide. Receive Him, and all of your darkness will end; within your heart, He'll abide."

Now, what I say to you this morning is I think it's a major tragedy for any church to deny one or the other, just 'cause we can't reconcile them. I think it's a major tragedy. It hurts evangelism, it hurts missions to deny one or the other. It's very difficult for us to reconcile these two pictures. People who want to emphasize the sovereignty of God over salvation, they say that God rules over all things, the human heart, they have a hard time with the Savior's waiting. Waiting for what? He moves when He wants, and no one can resist Him. And the Scripture says that.

I was reading a reformed theologian named Dr. Van Buren and he had examples of... He's talking about the doctrine of irresistible grace, which I called sovereign grace rather than irresistible, but at any rate, that God gets who He wants, and He has that power over the human heart. At least, that's an example that he found about 100 years ago of a ballot concerning your salvation. Maybe you've seen it And there's three places to vote; two of them have been taken and there's two ways to vote, yes or no, concerning your salvation. God has voted yes, isn't that good news for you? The devil has voted no. Oh, what a shame. But no big surprise. The deciding vote is going to be cast by whom? Well, whoever gets a little tract, right? And you can get a pen and you can vote yes or you can vote no. Oh, there's all kinds of problems with that.

Are the Devil and Satan really equal in the matter of human salvation? Do we live in that kind of a universe? But even more troubling is the idea that God is waiting for you to make the final determination. It doesn't seem to fit in Romans 9. The question I want to ask this morning is, can we still retain an understanding of God as sovereign over the human heart, able to break a heart of stone, to transform it and make it into a heart of flesh. He's got that kind of power and yet He can say, "All day long I have held out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people." Is it possible to understand the sovereignty of God and a passionate appeal to sinners that they be converted? I think it is, I think it frankly must be. We've got to hold them together, we've got to keep both of them in front of us. People who have no problem with the Savior's waiting have a problem with the picture of God in Romans 9. They don't understand it, they don't see how it can be.

We've got to keep both of them in front of us. Frankly, we declare our faith in the sovereignty of God over human salvation every time we drop to our knees and ask God to save someone. I mean, a husband, a wife, a parent, child, relative, coworker. What are you asking God to do? What are you asking Him to do when you get down on your knees? Are you not saying, "Oh God, change their heart, oh, God, give them a love for things they have not loved up 'til now. Oh God, work inside them." That's what you're asking them to do, therefore you're testifying that you believe God can do those kind of things.

Or whenever we send out missionaries to seemingly impossible mission fields, unreached people groups, hostile Muslim groups, other groups that seem totally beyond our reach, frankly, any missionary endeavor, are we not stepping out confident in God, and not in ourselves, trusting in Him? But, friends, I think it is just as great a tragedy to deny that we should stand and make passionate, persistent appeals to sinners to be saved, passionate and persistent, that we need in effect to take this stance all day long. "I've held up my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people." It's what God does here in Romans 10:21 with Israel. Remember the passion that the Apostle Peter showed on the day of Pentecost.

After preaching all of that incredible Pentecost sermon, it says in Acts 2:40, "With many other words, he warned them and pleaded with them, 'Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.'" We don't know what he said, Luke doesn't tell us. He said a lot of other things that are not recorded in the Book of Acts. But do you see His passion? Do you see His heart? Do you see His warnings, His pleadings, perhaps even His tears, though it's not recorded. Do you see Him yearning for His people to be saved? And I believe both of these are taught in the Scripture. We've got to hold them together.

And probably the passage that teaches them the most plainly together is Matthew 11:25-30. These are the words of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and He says in Matthew 11:25, "I praise You, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure." Then He said this, "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father, except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him." Strong statement of God's sovereignty. The very next thing He says, is, "Come to Me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me. For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

Is some theological counselor going to sit Jesus down and say, "You seem to be theologically confused. You can't both have 'All things have been committed to Me by My Father,' and, 'Come to Me all you who are weary and burdened.'" Yes, you can. And I think this church needs both. We need a strong commitment to the sovereignty of God over human hearts, along with a passionate, tear-stained appeal to sinners to be converted. We need them both.

Now, Israel had a stumbling block in coming to Christ. And that's what we're dealing with here in Romans 10. Why didn't they come? Why were they not responding to this kind of appeal, all day long God holding out His hands. Why are they not coming? Well, we already learned there's a stumbling block. Look back in Romans 9:31-33.

It says there, "That Israel who pursued a law of righteousness has not attained it, why not because they pursued it not by faith, but as if it were by works, they stumbled over the stumbling stone. As it is written, see I lay in Zion, a stone, that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall and the one who trusts in Him will never be put to shame." So Romans 10, is dealing with the human level. Its not the level of unconditional election, but at the human level as to why the Jews were rejecting Christ. And there it says at the end of Romans 9 that they are rejecting because they stumbled over Christ. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. Now, it says in 10:3-4 that Israel sought to establish their own righteousness. It says, "They did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own therefore did not submit to God's righteousness. Christ is the end of the law for everyone who believes, so there may be righteousness for everyone who believes."

They stumbled over Christ, they stumbled over the idea that righteousness could be given simply as a gift, couldn't accept it, and so they refused it. In 10:5-7 that this righteousness is a simple gift, it's not some stunning religious achievement. You don't have to climb the highest mountain or travel to the far side of the sea or go down to the depths of the sea. No, all you have to do is hear this Word of faith and believe it. "The Word is near you, it's in your mouth and in your heart." It's a simple thing, that, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved, for it is with the heart that you believe and are justified and it is with the mouth that you confess and are saved," it's that simple. But the Jews couldn't accept it and neither could they accept verses 11-13, that this righteousness is available for everybody. It's wide open now. "Anyone who trusts in Him [in Christ] will never be put to shame."

Look what it says in verse 12, "For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile." Oh, how offensive that was to some Jews. What do you mean there's no difference between Jew and Gentile? We are God's people, we're descendants of Abraham and we're waiting for God to whip up on these Gentiles? Not save them. But what is this statement? "There is no difference between Jew and Gentile. The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on Him, For 'everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'" They couldn't accept it.

Now, the proclamation of the word of faith is essential to salvation. We talked about that last week versus 14-15: "How then can they call on the one they've not believed in, and how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them and how can they preach unless they are sent as it is written, 'how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news?'" That's the missionary endeavor. There are evangelists and missionaries, going out all over the world taking this word of faith, the gospel and simply preaching it. The Jews didn't want to preach to the Gentiles but Paul did it anyway, against some great opposition he continued to preach. And there he's defending as we talked about last time, he is preaching ministry, to both Jew and Gentile, he's reaching out with the Gospel. And the reason for that is that as we heard in verse 17, "Faith comes by hearing." Look at it, verse 17. I'm going to preach God willing, next time, a whole message on this, the final application in the sermon. I'm not going to get to it till next week. So we're going to talk more about the significance of this statement. "Faith comes by hearing." But just look at it for the first time now.

Consequently it says, "Faith comes from hearing the message and the message is heard through the Word of Christ." And so what happens is, as the missionaries, as the evangelists, as the apostles go out and they just preach Christ and Him crucified, they just preach this simple message. What happens is, while the ear drum is vibrating with the sounds, while the concepts are going in the brain, all of a sudden faith comes up in the human heart. Ephesians 2 says it's a gift of God. 2 Corinthians 4 says that God speaks light into the heart and that light is focused on the glory of Christ. But as they're listening to the Gospel, faith comes and they are justified. What a beautiful thing. Faith comes by hearing, the problem is, the Jews hardened their hearts, they did not obey the Gospel. Look what it says in verse 16, "But they have not all obeyed the Gospel." That's the ESV. There's other translations, but I think this is a good one. They hadn't heeded it, they didn't obey it. Friends, the Gospel is a command to be obeyed.

Jesus said in Mark 1:15, this is the beginning of His preaching, in Mark's Gospel, He says "The time has come, the Kingdom of God is near, repent and believe the good news," those are the twin commands of the Gospel, you must repent, you must turn away from sin, you must hate it, stop doing it, turn away from it as a principle, repent and believe the good news that Jesus is the King of the Kingdom of Heaven. And even more, as it unfolds, that He died in our place, on the cross, He shed His blood, that we might have eternal life. Repent and believe, it's a command. We obey the Gospel we also believe it, but we obey it. Well, the Jews did not, they did not obey. Now, the question you may ask, and it's being asked here in Romans 9-11 is well, the Jews are God's people. Does the fact that they did not heed the Gospel and not obey does that mean that God's Word has failed, that God's Word perhaps is ineffective or God's covenants to His people, that His promises have been broken? Oh, absolutely not. It does not mean that. In fact Israel's unbelief, was predicted 700 years before the time of Christ. Isaiah the Prophet predicted it. Look what it says, again, in verse 16, "They have not all obeyed the Gospel for Isaiah says, 'Lord, who has believed what he heard from us.'"

Now do you know where that's from? Well, that's the very beginning of Isaiah 53, that's Isaiah 53:1. What does Isaiah 53? Well, any of you who have studied the Old Testament, looking for Christ and find Him, you're going to find Him in Isaiah 53 more clearly than anywhere else in the Old Testament, you're going to find His bloody death on the cross, His substitutionary atonement His death on the cross more clearly depicted there in Isaiah than anywhere else in the Old Testament. This is what Isaiah says, "He grew up before Him. Like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him, He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering, like one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised, and we esteemed Him not surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet, we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him and afflicted, but He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds, we are healed, we all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."

That's the Gospel, friends, that's Jesus suffering and dying for us. And Isaiah introduced this saying, in effect, they're not going to believe it Lord, who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

Israel's rejection was predicted centuries before, and so in verses 16-21, I believe the Apostle Paul is basically removing any excuse from Israel concerning that rejection. He takes away the excuses.

Excuse number one would be simply we never heard about this, we never heard about Jesus, we never heard the Gospel. The problem is, they had heard. It's interesting that the people who bring this up as a, in some way, proof that the exclusivity of Christ can't be true. Because there's so many people who haven't heard the Gospel are not in that category, they have heard about Christ, and they're raising up this question and I've actually said in witnessing opportunity, saying, "Well I am so grateful that at this early stage, you have such a compassion on the lost. I'm grateful that you are so concerned about those who've never heard but the fact is you've heard."

And so whether they ever hear or not, you have to deal with this Gospel, you have heard, and that's in effect what Paul says here. He says, in verse 18, "But I asked, did they not hear, did they not hear? Of course they did. 'Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.'" And by the way, that's a remarkable citation of Psalm 19, it's incredible. Psalm 19 is a great Psalm talking about how the heavens are telling the Glory of God, The skies proclaim the work of His hands. It's an amazing thing because it's just talking about natural revelation, how the sun and the moon and the stars talk about, about God. The rising and setting of the sun every day, gives clear testimony to the existence of God, the creator. Now you say, "What does that have to do with the preaching of the Gospel?" Well, it just talks about God's commitment to communicate to the entire human race. He has a commitment to reveal Himself and in a similar way, He is revealing himself in the Gospel as these beautiful feet as the messengers, the evangelists, the apostles cross mountains and rivers and oceans, to bring this Gospel to the ends of the earth. Their testimony has gone out over all the world, God has sent out His messengers. And by the time Paul wrote Romans, progress, astonishing progress had already been made.

At the end of Romans. You can look there or just listen, but in Romans 15:18-24, you could turn there, if you want or just listen. In Romans 15:18-24, Paul says this, "I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done by the power of signs and miracles through the power of the Spirit. Listen, So from Jerusalem all the way round to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the Gospel of Christ." Illyricum is Yugoslavia. It's right across from the Italian boot, it's right there. So basically, the entire Northern Region of the Mediterranean Paul says I have fully preached the Gospel everywhere, and he goes beyond that, he keeps going in verse 20, 15:20, he said, "It's always been my ambition to preach the Gospel where Christ was not known so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation, rather as it is written. "Those who were not told about him will see and those who have not heard will understand." That's Isaiah 52, right before 53, Paul knows these verses so that I want to preach Isaiah 53 everywhere I go, kings will hear about Him and rise up princes will see and they'll fall down on their faces. Paul says, "I want to see that happen. So it's my ambition to go where Christ has never been known. But I have a problem, there's no more place for me to work in this area. Everybody's heard of Jesus, and I am a trailblazing missionary, so I've got to go on and so I'll be passing through God willing, through Rome on my way to Spain. Because I just can't find any place to work anymore."

That's incredible. The Gospel had super saturated that area. It wasn't just the apostles, it was the churches they planted, and so the Thessalonian Christians were witnessing. Their faith in God had been reported all over the world, it was multiplying and exploding, it was exciting. And so Paul can make this statement in Colossians 1:23, "This is the Gospel that you heard, and that has been proclaimed to every creature under Heaven every creature under Heaven." Well, we know now it's not literally every single solitary human being but he's saying that the Gospel had been so widely preached that it had made this kind of progress and now it's reached you, Colossians, it's gotten to you.

This is the ultimate end of the gospel ministry. Jesus said, in Matthew 24:14, "This Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations. And then the end will come." So we're going all over the world, just like the sun from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, Jesus's name will be great. So again, I asked Have they not heard?" What's the first thing Paul did in every town he went to the Jewish synagogue, and preached. Oh, they have heard. They have heard of Jesus. There's no excuse.

Secondly, we did not understand, we didn't get it, they told us about Jesus, he told us about Jesus, but we didn't understand. Well how does he deal with this? Verse 19, he says, "Again I asked, did Israel not understand? At first, Moses says, 'I'll make you envious by those who are not a nation, I will make you angry, by a nation that has no understanding.' And Isaiah boldly says, 'I was found by those who did not seek me; I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me.'"

This is a very deep answer. In a nutshell. I think what he's saying here is the fact that the Gentiles are turning to Christ shows that not understanding the Gospel is no obstacle, and no excuse you know why, because God can overcome that in anybody. First of all at one level the Gospel is so simple, a child could understand it. God sent His son, He died in our place. Trust in Him and He'll save you. It's really quite straightforward. The depths as we'll see in Romans 11, at the end are so deep none of us can fathom them all. But on the issue of understanding, that was no obstacle for the Gentiles. Now, let's remember the Gentiles… Ephesians 4 describes them in verse 17, and following, Paul says there, "So I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the gentiles do in the futility of their thinking, they're darkened in their understanding, and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that's in them, due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity they have given themselves over to sensuality, so as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more."

Those are the Gentiles. They're not sounding too good. It didn't sound like they understand anything. And frankly, Paul says right here, quoting he says, "I was found by those who did not seek me. I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me." And God is saving Gentiles by the thousands. Is that an obstacle I don't understand, I don't get it. Well, it is an obstacle that will damn your soul, if God doesn't save you from it, but He has that kind of power. To speak into a dark heart and into a dark mind He can do that. He can create light where there was darkness before. He can speak to a pagan people who have no interest in a Jewish Messiah, and suddenly they can turn. They woke up that morning a pagan idolater, they went to bed that night a Christian. Hallelujah. God has that kind of power and He can do it for Jews, too. He's going to get to that in chapter 11. God hasn't rejected His people, I'm [Paul] a Jew. He can do it in our hearts, too. And so God has the kind of power to reach out and to create inside the heart of somebody who's running from God, to create a yearning for God inside that heart, He has that power. "I was found by those who did not seek for me, I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me." That is powerful.

The final excuse is God has not revealed Himself to us, is that true? Has God not revealed Himself to Israel? Well, how many prophets did he need to send? How many prophecies about Christ was enough? As one of the Jews said, when watching Jesus, "when the Messiah comes, will He do more miracles than this man?" How much more revelation is needed? God has revealed Himself to the Jews powerfully but they have not turned. Romans 10:21, Israel has no excuse because God has constantly made an appeal to them all day long. I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people. Oh how powerful is this. Generation after generation, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has been reaching out to the Jewish people. One prophet after another. One messenger after another. Jesus told the parable of the tenant farmers in the vineyard, the landowner rents out his farm or his vineyard to these tenant farmers they are, the Jews. And then he sends messengers to collect a share of the harvest, but they kill them one after another, kill them one after another, killed them finally he says, "Well I'll send my Son. They wi'll respect my son."

They say look, here's the heir, let's kill him and take the inheritance. And so, they kill him, too. What is the point of the parable? Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem you who killed the prophets and stoned those sent to you. I'm standing there, generation after generation. I'm holding out my hands to you. And Jesus in Matthew 23, says, "Therefore I'm sending you prophets and wise men, and teachers, I'm going to send you apostles and you will kill them and you will flog them, in your synagogues, and pursue them, from town to town. That's what you will do all day long I've held out my hands to a disobedient obstinate people. But you know something, even in the midst of this, Romans 10, Do you not see, God's still doing it? Do you not see Him still reaching out, even now, through, the Apostle Paul. Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, come, take my yoke upon you. Trust in me believe in me, I'm still holding out my hands to a rebellious and obstinate people, to a people who murmur against me argue against me who refute the scriptures and show how it can't be Jesus. I've held out my hands and I continue to do so.

What application can we take from this? Well, next week we'll talk about faith comes by hearing. But I just want to zero in on this one thing. I believe that we at First Baptist church, we Christians, we need to imitate God in this. Look at verse 21, Concerning Israel, He says, "All day long. I have held out my hands to a disobedient obstinate people." All day long, all day long, shows perseverance, long-suffering, putting up with the obstacles that have come your way when you try to lead someone to Christ. Putting up with the obstacles that come your way when you try to plant a church in an unreached people. The long suffering, putting up with the obstacles that come when you try to lead a spouse or a child or a friend to Christ, all the flak. The guy who led me to Christ, put up with so many things, I will not want to see a video tape of what I did to him for those 18 months. I was unkind, I was rude. And the Lord reminds me of it often. He says, "Have you done as much for this individual as Steve did for you over those 18 months in bringing you to Christ? "No Lord, I haven't." "Well, hang in there, persevere, be long-suffering, don't give up easily."

So all day long I see that patience there I also see initiative. I have held out my hands. It starts with God and moves out and reaching out to you. There's an initiative. We don't wait for the sinners to come here, then they won't. Why would they come here? We go from here out. We take the initiative and find out where they are. In passion, I've held out My hands. This is tough for me. I can witness on an airplane in a kind of a cold "oh, by the way, this is an interesting thing" sort of way without risking much. But if they start to see some tears coming down my face, like "Whoa, you getting a little heavy on me here, this is too intense back off." And they don't want that. There's an intensity there, but then Acts 2:40, "With many other words, He warned them and pleaded with them. Save yourselves from this corrupt generation." Where is that warning and pleading in our evangelism where is the holding out your hands to a disobedient obstinate people. Be willing to be counted a fool for Christ's sake. See the passion, and see the persuasion. I've held out my hands Come now, let us reason together. Let's talk about these scriptures let's talk about the predictions about Christ. Let's reason.

And let's be willing to suffer. Look what He says to a disobedient and obstinate people. You know something, the more I go on in my Christian life, and as a pastor, the more I realize how overwhelmingly powerful, a force is sin. I mean it's just there, it's in my face all the time, not just my own sin, but the sins of others. It is tough to change a human heart, isn't it? This is a supernatural work of God, and if we are going to be fruitful, as a church, if we're going to see a lot of people baptized if we're going to see a lot of people discipled through our ministry, we will have to be willing to suffer their disobedience and obstinance while they wrestle with the Gospel. We go to be willing to put up with it. And I believe that our fruitfulness will be in direct proportion to our willingness to pay that price. The more we're willing to suffer what it takes to take the Gospel, the more fruitful it will be. And I think that's exactly what God's calling on us to do. Would you close with me in prayer?

Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on Romans 10:14-15. The main subject of the sermon is how salvation will reach the ends of the earth by God's power.

I think every preacher would like to preach just one time in their life something that would be called a deathless sermon, a sermon that lives in the minds and the hearts of the hearers. I know, as the pastor of a local church seeking to minister the word of God in week after week after week, that you can't rise to those heights every week. It's enough just faithfully to open the word and share those things that would be beneficial and strengthening to the body. I do not, therefore, promise that every sermon will be better than the previous one. I can't keep that up for long. But there was a dramatic moment in the history of missions, the history of the church, on Wednesday, May 30, 1792, when William Carey preached what came to be known as the 'Deathless sermon.' He was at a missions conference in Nottingham, England and he preached based on Isaiah 54:2-3. Earlier that year, he had written a seminal work, an incredible work on missions called An Inquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. Basically, Christians ought to do what they can and show great effort and ingenuity towards the salvation of those who've never heard the Gospel. And that was radical and revolutionary for Protestants at his time.

Now he gets up to preach this deathless sermon, and it came in basically two points, a two-point outline. Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God. And his application was missions. Now the ministry of William Carey in 1792 was directed toward one end, and that was dispelling attacks against the missionary ideal. There were people, Protestants, in this age that said that we don't need to be involved in missions. Specifically, some ministers who held in a strong way to the overall sovereignty of God over all things. God rules over all things. Their application of that is, therefore we don't need to be involved in missions. And so William Carey is seeking to defend the concept that we need to be willing to go even to the ends of the earth to share the Gospel with those who haven't heard.

I believe that's exactly what the apostle Paul's doing here in Romans 10 as well. Because his ministry was also being attacked, viciously attacked by the Jews of his age. They were vigorously against his preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles. And so Paul here is giving, I think, a defense for his ministry. And in so doing he gives us really, I think, a timeless defense of cross-cultural evangelism and missions, the imperative that we have to go even to the ends of the earth to share the Gospel. Look what it says. You've just heard it read, but the beginning of verse 13, "'Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.' How then can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.'"

Redemption Accomplished and Applied

When I was in seminary I read an incredible book on the theology of salvation. It was written by John Murray and was called Redemption Accomplished and Applied. We believe that the blood of Jesus Christ, shed on the cross of Calvary, was sufficient for the sins of all people of all times. There's nothing deficient in the shedding of the blood of Christ, nothing incomplete in it. And when he said, "It is finished", that part of the redemptive plan of God was finished, but the redemptive history was not. There was still the need to take that blood of Christ and apply it to lost people, for their individual and personal salvation. And that's been the story of the church for the last 2,000 years. Redemption was accomplished by Jesus Christ, now it's being applied by the Holy Spirit through the church.

And what a glorious story it's been, it's an incredible journey. Jesus laid out the road map. Already had it been laid out in the Old Testament, and he just merely, after his resurrection, in the short 40 days he had with his disciples after he rose from the dead and before he ascended to the right hand of God Almighty, he spent some time with his disciples and trained them and taught them in what their work was going to be now. And it says in Luke 24:46-48. "He told them, 'This is what is written, that Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.'"

Brothers and sisters, the journey from Jerusalem to Irian Jaya has been the most glorious journey in human history. It's a journey of blood and toil and tears and courage, a journey of death, of martyrdom, of ingenuity and creativity, a journey of love. And it's been remarkable. It's a story, the apostles, who, tradition has them going as far east as India, as far south as the Sudan, as far west as Spain, as far north as Cyrenae, Central Asia. The apostles, that first generation, traveled all around, and all of them paid for their ministry with their lives, except the apostle John, who died in exile at Patmos. And from the apostolic age until today, the Gospel has traveled across mountain ranges, raging white water rivers and burning sands of the desert, tundra, jungles, oceans to reach the ends of the earth, and it's been incredible.

The Theological Underpinnings of the Long March of the Gospel

Now I think the long march of the Gospel is worth studying. But I think it's also vital for us to understand the theological underpinnings of why it was right to go. Those questions are still in front of us today as they were in William Carey's era. We still need to have a defense for cross-cultural missions. We need to have a defense for it in our pluralistic age in which people doubt the idea of absolute truth, and therefore would definitely doubt the missionary endeavor. They would say, "Why in the world would you want to export something like that to the ends of the earth?" And so we have to make a defense. But it's always been that way even in Baptist history. One of the shocking things I learned in the last four or five years about Baptist history is there was something called the anti-missions movement in the 19th century, and a number of churches were against the organization of Baptist churches for the purpose of missions.

That was the beginning of the Southern Baptist denomination, was that individual churches be organized for the purpose of great commission work. But there was a backlash movement that said, "We don't need to be doing that." Frequently, the churches espousing this were talking about the absolute sovereignty of God, and that there was no need for us to get involved in that. And they didn't want to contribute any money to missions. And so, for all time in history, we have had to defend the missionary endeavor, to defend it. The apostle Paul had to do it. Just to set some context here, in Romans 9-11.

The apostle Paul is dealing with the problem of the Jews, his own countrymen, who were almost universally rejecting the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And that was greatly troubling to the apostle Paul, greatly troubling. And so he's dealing with that question. And in the middle of that whole section, Romans 9-11, he's dealing with, I think, the fact that part of their bitter opposition to the Gospel was their bitter opposition of Paul's ministry to the Gentiles. They hated the idea that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had any saving intent toward the Gentiles. It bothered them. And so they opposed his preaching to the Gentiles vigorously. A good example, this is just a little note of Paul's life and ministry, and that is his ministry to the Thessalonian Jews and then in Berea, and then what happened after that. Just a little slice of the Book of Acts and 1 Thessalonians 2, it says in Acts 17:13, "When the Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching the word of God at Berea, they went there, too, agitating the crowds and stirring them up."

You could almost ask some of these Jews, "What's your occupation or hobby, or what do you like to do?" "I like to follow Paul around everywhere he goes, and stir up mob scenes against him." They were against his preaching ministry. And they left behind their own work and their own lives so that they could pursue Paul and make trouble for him everywhere he went. And Paul talks about it in the 1 Thessalonians 2, he said, "You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches in Judea, suffered from the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus, and the prophets and also drove us out. They displeased God and are hostile to all men, listen, in their effort to keep us from speaking to the gentiles, so that they may be saved." So they were bitterly against Paul's missionary efforts toward the Gentiles, and I think what Paul's doing here, in Romans 10:13-15 is he's defending his ministry, as the  apostle to the gentiles, concerning the preaching of the Gospel. But he's doing more than that, because he's giving a kind of a universal rationale for the preaching of the gospel to anybody, Jew or Gentile. Everybody gets saved the same way. That's what we talked about last time, in verse 13, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved," Jew or Gentile, and therefore, we must preach. The Gospel must be proclaimed or people cannot be saved."

Now, Paul is defending his minister and he does so with a glorious chain of questions. You see it there in verses 13-15. He begins with the basis. Theologically, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. That's how we get saved. Just by way of review, we talked about this over the last two weeks. What does it mean to call on the name of the Lord? Well, the analogy I use last week is of a drowning man or woman, they're not going to just out of pride, they're not going to say anything until they are convinced that they're drowning, because it's just embarrassing. And so somebody who calls on the name of the Lord is stripped of any self-illusions that they can save themselves, any illusions of their own righteousness they realize they cannot, they will not be saved unless Jesus saves. And so they call in Christ's name. Now what does it mean to call in his name? Well, it means to acknowledge what has been revealed about the Lord. What is his character? What are his great acts in history and what are his promises?

That's what we talked about, to call in the name of the Lord, to call on his character, to call on his acts in history, to call on his promises and say, "Lord, what you have done for them in the past, do it for me now, save my soul."

Well, that's what it means to call on the name of the Lord. Now, Paul digs a little deeper concerning that process and in so doing, he's defending the ministry of the Gospel, he's defending missions, he's defending evangelism, and he does it with a glorious chain of questions. Verse 14, "How then can they call on the one they have not believed in, and how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard, and how can they hear without someone preaching to them, and how can they preach unless they are sent?" Now, all of these questions are what we call rhetorical questions. Rhetorical questions are questions that are asked for an effect in an argument. When you're making a presentation generally, they're questions that everyone knows the answer to, but you ask the question to draw the audience into your way of thinking, to kind of make them say back what it is that you see to be the truth.

And so he's asking questions that everyone knows the answer and they all assume a negative answer like this. No one can call in somebody they don't believe in, can they? Of course not, and no one can believe in somebody of whom they've never heard, can they? Well, of course not. And how could anyone hear or know about somebody unless someone tells them. There's no way that we could understand something unless somebody tells us. And how can they be told, unless they're sent? All of these things are just assuming an answer. And in so doing, he is making a defense. Now, Paul's assumptions here are amazing, they are deep and strong and worthy of study.

Look at the first one. "How then can they call on the one they have not believed in?" Basically, no one can call on someone they don't believe in, can they? That's what he's saying. What this means to me is before any one cries out to the Lord for salvation, before any sinner's prayer gets prayed, there is first justifying faith. First, the heart believes, then the call goes out. And we've learned from moments for and again and again that that's the faith that saves us, we are justified by that inside faith. When we have come to faith in Christ, the Lord sees and he justifies us, and then out comes the call in the name of the Lord. And so, you can't call in somebody you've not believed in. The call comes after the faith, the faith is the first thing then. We first believe, and then comes the call. But before the faith, you have to hear.

Prior to faith is hearing. "How can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?" Before you can call in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, you have to hear of him, and know of his life and his saving work. We were going out yesterday and inviting people to a picnic that we're going to have today in our International Sunday School. And I was talking to a man from an East Asian nation. He'd been here for a year and I asked him if he knew about Jesus Christ and he just kind of smiled, he said, "Well, that's what people say when they get angry or hurt themselves in this country."

I couldn't believe it. I said, "Well, you don't know anything else?" "No." All he knew was Jesus Christ is a swear word in America. I thought, we have a journey to travel, don't we. I didn't know how long I was going to get at his doorstep, I had, as it turned out about seven or eight minutes and I saw it to begin to tell him something about Christ, and who we believe he is. That He is God and he entered human history 2000 years ago.

And he was tracking, he was saying, "Oh, what happened before that?" He said, "The history of my country goes several thousand years before that," and so I had to talk about how he had always existed but he chose in the middle of history to enter in a human body. And so we got into this discussion, so already he was starting to hear in somebody he never heard of before, but he sure couldn't call on that one until he'd heard of him. And that's what Paul is getting at. You have to hear that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary, that he lived a sinless life, that he did incredible miracles, taught incredible things, that he claimed to be God in the flesh, that he was rejected by his own people, and killed for blasphemy, that he died on the cross, that he shed his blood as an atoning sacrifice for our sins, he died in our place, and that God raised him from the dead on the third day. You have to have those basic facts and without those facts and the promises that are connected with it, you can't call in the name of the Lord, you can't believe in him.

And so prior to faith is hearing and in Paul's flow of questions here, prior to hearing is preaching. Look at verse 14. "How can they hear without someone preaching to them?" Basically Paul's assumption here is you can't discern anything about Jesus of Nazareth from anything but preaching the preaching of the Gospel. Now, he's already told us in Romans 1:20 that you can discern a creator from creation. It says in Romans 1:20, "Since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." What does that mean? By looking at a sunrise or sunset, by looking at a starry night, by looking at a majestic mountain range, or looking at an interesting bird, like an ostrich or something like that, or even looking at yourself, physically, you can discern there must be a creator and he must be powerful, and he must be loving, and he must be good, you can discern certain qualities about God, but you cannot discern Jesus Christ the redeemer by looking at physical created things. You have to be told about him. You have to be told by a preacher and without a preacher, no one will know a thing about Jesus Christ.

And then the final step is prior to preaching is sending. These preachers must be sent. How can they preach unless they are sent? I believe Paul is referring initially, immediately to himself, he was a sent one to preach the Gospel, the word apostle. He's constantly referring to himself as an apostle, apostle literally means in the Greek one who is sent, a messenger of a king or a governor, sent with a message, an important message. He is a sent one. And there must be a journey traveled and there must be some news to be sent with the sent one. That's what an apostle was. Well, who does the sending?

Well, the apostle Paul was very clear about this, in Galatians 1:1, this is what he says, "Paul an apostle sent not from men, nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the father who raised him from the dead." Who sent Paul? Well, yes, the church of Antioch laid their hands on and send him off.

Definitely, and they're praying for him. But it was not the church of Antioch, that sent the apostle Paul in his missionary journeys. Local churches like ours, we can get involved in seeing what God's doing in a person's life and laying hands and saying, "We're with you, we want to pray with you, we're going to join with you." But God has called these people. It is God who does the sending. It is God who sent the apostle Paul. It was God who sent Christ Jesus as the first apostle. It's called he's the apostle of our faith in Hebrews. And it says that he was sent by God the father. Listen to this, speaking of Christ. In Luke 4:42 through 44, it says, "At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them." They wanted Jesus to be their private Messiah or their private preacher and wonder worker. "Just stay here, we'll feed you well. We got a job for you here." 

And Jesus says, "I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God," that's the Gospel, "I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent." He was a sent preacher of the Gospel sent by God the father. And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea. Well, in like manner, Jesus then commissioned the apostles and sent them as well. It says in Mark 3 that he designated 12 of them to be apostles that they should be with them and that he might send them to preach. They were sent out by Christ to preach.

And then this is consummated after Jesus' resurrection. In John 20 Jesus said, he shows them his hands and his sides, they look at the physical evidence of his resurrection, they're overjoyed at the evidence that Jesus has defeated death. Oh, what a night to be there, the night of the resurrection, that first Sunday. What an incredible time that must have been. And Jesus giving the physical evidence of his resurrection, he said this, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." Well, that's powerful, isn't it? They were commissioned to go, commissioned by Jesus himself. And then he said this, "With that he breathed on them and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.'" So the mission, they're going on as a mission, for the forgiveness of sins, they're proclaiming a gospel by which people's sins will be forgiven.

Well, I think that this commission… Let's not make the mistake that some have made in church history of thinking that this commission was only for that first generation of apostles. Some have made that mistake in church history, that is false because it says in Matthew 24:14, "This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." Friends, is the end here yet? No, the end is not here, or we'd be in the new heavens and the new earth. You don't miss something like that, friends. We would know. Some said the end has already come. Hymenaeus and Philetus in 2 Timothy said the resurrection has already taken place. How do you make that work? It seems like everything is about like it was. Friends, the end hasn't come yet. And you know what that means? The preaching ministry isn't done yet, there's still work to be done. Another evidence is the great commission itself in Matthew 28:20 it says, "And surely I will be with you," plural, "always to the end of the age." Clearly Jesus intended a sent preaching ministry to the end of the age.

You know what that means? That means some people in our generation are sent as well. I'm going to argue that if we're healthy Christians, we're all sent and that we should be saying what Isaiah said, "Here am I, send me." Give me a specific portion of this ministry of reconciliation. Give me a job to do. Give me a place in the harvest to work. I don't want to be left out. It says in Proverbs, a disgraceful son sleeps during the harvest. I don't want to be sleeping during the harvest time, I want to be involved, I don't want to be left out or left behind. I want to be involved in what you're doing, Lord.

And so, I believe that missionary history is one of the most beautiful things there's ever been. The beauty of missionary history. Look what the Apostle Paul says, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news." He's quoting Isaiah here, Isaiah 52:7, which we heard read for us earlier. "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, 'Your God reigns.'" That's the message. God is sovereign, even over sin and death.

Our God is a king. Repent and enter the kingdom of God, that's the message. And so Isaiah was foreseeing a day when messengers would go out all over with beautiful feet and take this incredible message, and take it to the ends of the earth. And that's being fulfilled, and has been in the last 2000 years. Now, in the ancient world when things were technologically at a different level than they are today, there were still these mighty empires. And if an emperor, a single man, wanted to control his extensive empire, he had to develop a network of communication, of couriers, and of roads, and of other things so that messages could be taken from his throne to the ends of his empire and he could receive news back, perhaps of a rebellion that's rising or some other issue in his empire. There has to be an interconnection of communication. The Roman Empire had it for sure; 51,000 miles of Roman roads. Satellite photos show that they are in some of the most efficient places in all of Europe. It's incredible what the Romans did. Some modern highways are built on those ancient Roman roads and they were such an effective form of intercommunication in the Roman Empire. So also in the new world, when Cortez landed in Mexico, he found some runners from Montezuma of the Aztecs that ran back, and within 24 hours, Montezuma had full information about Cortez, how many men he had, what he had with him, it was 260 miles away, 24 hours later.

So there's this system of couriers and of messengers who take the message by foot. Nowadays, we of course have the Internet and we have cell phones and all kinds of stuff in the world to become a small place. But back then, the news traveled mostly by foot. And so it was also with the news of the resurrection of Christ, it was first carried after the angel announced it to the women, the women carried it by foot to the disciples. It says in Matthew 28:8, "So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy listened and ran to tell the disciples." So, there go the feet, running with the good news that Jesus has risen from the dead. And then there's Philip with the Ethiopian eunuch, the Spirit tells him go down to the road, that desert road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza, and he goes down and there's this Ethiopian eunuch and he's riding in a chariot, and the Spirit told Philip, "Go up to that chariot and stay near it." Well, the chariot goes on by so Philip's got to run. And so he's running and saying, "Do you understand what you're reading?" He said, "Well, come on up here and explain it to me," and he's explaining the prophecy of Isaiah about Jesus Christ. How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.

Now, this brings us into a minor problem. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think the feet are beautiful. I don't mean any offense to any of you who may have spent between $25 and $50 beautifying your feet in the last month or more. You don't need to tell me who you are, we won't make you come up and give a testimony of the boutique you went to or what they did to try to make your feet more presentable. I'm not saying that they're not pretty, okay? Sisters, believe me, I am not trying to insult you. I definitely think that women's feet are more attractive than men's feet, so it's good that men don't show their feet as much as the women do. But you have to go a long way before feet are even worth looking at, wouldn't you agree? They're not naturally beautiful despite our best efforts, and even if you've gone to one of those boutiques and they're really looking good, relatively speaking, none of you would say, "My feet are my best feature really. I'm going to lead with my feet." Okay?

Then what is Paul meaning? What is Isaiah meaning, friends? What is God meaning by this expression? The way I read it is this, the news is so good, even something as low and dirty as feet will be embraced by the people out of joy. You can almost imagine, once some people come to realize what is being preached, the danger they were in apart from Christ, and how much they have been forgiven and loved. They could fall on the ground and kiss the feet that brought that good news. I think that's what's going on here. It's not that feet are beautiful, it's that the message is beautiful, it's that the missionary heart and love is beautiful, that the willingness to suffer to bring this gospel to people who have never heard, the willingness even to be martyrs for that process is beautiful. As the Apostle Paul said, "Now I rejoice in what was suffered on your behalf and I fill up in my body what is still lacking in regard to the afflictions of Christ for the sake of His body." There's nothing lacking in the atonement, but there's still needed to be redemption, not just accomplished but applied and it takes suffering to do it, doesn't it?

And he says, "I rejoice in the story, I rejoice in somebody who's willing to pay the price to bring the gospel to Colossae." That's what he's saying. And it does take suffering, friends. And you know it, and that's why some of us shrink back from getting involved. But how beautiful are the feet of those who bring this good news.

What about those who have never heard the gospel?

Now, this brings us into some difficult questions. For example, immediately off this text, I would think we'd come to the question, "what about those who haven't heard the gospel?" It comes right out of this in that it says, "How can they call on the one they've not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?" The two words not heard tells us there are people who have not heard. And as a matter of fact, as long as there are people who have not heard, there's still the opportunity or the possibility of preaching ministry.

Jesus said in Matthew 10 when he sent them out two by two, he said, "When you are persecuted in one place, flee to the next. I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes." There's different ways to interpret that, but I say this, there will always be another hill to go across and more people to preach to until the Lord finally ends the gospel enterprise. And so there are people who have not heard of Jesus Christ. Apparently, there's some living right close to us and right close to Duke University who think that Jesus Christ is a swear word Americans say. You don't have to travel very far to share the gospel to somebody who has never heard of Jesus. Well, what about them? Well, the implication is clear, without hearing they cannot believe, and without believing they cannot be saved. And so therefore, they are lost without this gospel. They are lost.

Summer of 1983, I was on an evangelism project with Campus Crusade for Christ. We were in Boston and... Actually, we were in Hampton Beach but we went down to Boston to do an outreach in Boston Common. The first time I ever preached in front of a crowd was giving my testimony and sharing the gospel in Boston Common. I thought, "Wow, if my mother could see me now, my father could see me now. What an incredible moment it was." And people are just hustling by, but some stood and listened, and I was scared out of my mind. But after that afternoon of witnessing, I found out that John McArthur was doing a Q&A, question and answer session at Tremont Temple Baptist Church just a quarter of a mile away from where we were. Starting at 7:00 o'clock that night, I was so excited. He was my mentor by radio, still is. I've seen him but I've never met him, he doesn't know me, but he's been my mentor in preaching so I wanted to go and just be part of the Q&A. Well, there are hundreds and hundreds of people there. And I couldn't leave well enough alone. I had to be one of the ones to ask a question, so I went up to one of the microphones and the question I asked was the kind of question that's asked within the first year of your Christian life, "What about those who haven't heard the gospel?"

Well, he gave an answer I'll never forget. I will never forget it. He said, "You want to say inside your heart that they're okay, don't you? That they're fine the way they are." He said, "But don't you understand what that does to the gospel ministry? It turns it on its head, it makes it bad news, not good news. Basically you're bringing death and destruction everywhere you go. Everybody was fine until the missionaries came. But now they came and brought us the bad news about Jesus, that if we don't believe in him we'll go to hell. We were fine before they came. That's not what it says here, it says, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news,' that means they're already condemned, they're already in great danger. And the missionaries came and freed them from it. And how great are the people's joy." Now, there's much more I can say about this question of, "What about those who haven't heard the gospel?" But at least this much I can say, they are lost apart from this message. They are lost.

Now, can God do something other than by human means? He can do anything he wants. He can send an angel if he wants to. He hasn't said, "I will only do it through human beings and through the church." He hasn't said that. But as we read this series of rhetorical questions, we have to act that way, don't we? That this ministry has been committed to us, and so we must take it on.

If God is Sovereign, Why is Preaching Necessary?

Second question, If God is sovereign as we've read in Romans 9, if he knows who the elect are, if He's chosen them before the foundation of the world, if they most certainly will be saved as we learned in Romans 8, then why is preaching necessary? What do we need to do? And this is the angle that William Carey was facing. There was a minister that said to him a very famous quote, "Young man, sit down. When God pleases to convert the heathen, He will do it without your help or mine."

Now frankly, I don't have anything, any problem with an aspect of what was said there except the word 'will.' When God pleases to convert the heathen, he can do it without your help or mine. That's true. But has he chosen to, friends? And I say he hasn't. I say he's chosen to do it, including us in the ministry of reconciliation. He's fully capable of doing it any way he chooses. So they took the sovereignty of God and applied it wrongly. God is a God not just of the end destination, but of the journey to get there, and he has ordained the clear preaching of the gospel message is the way that people are going to get saved. And Jesus put it this way very plainly, "He who is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters." Friends, what is Jesus gathering? Is he not gathering his sheep? Is he not gathering souls into the kingdom? Is he not gathering up his wheat into his barn and gathering the good fish in baskets? Is he not gathering people for salvation?

And if you're not involved in the harvest, you are actually scattering. If you're not involved in the evangelistic and missionary enterprise of Jesus Christ, you are scattering, Jesus says. He says also in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20, "All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them and he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors as though God himself were making his appeal through us. We implore you, be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." You see that? God's making his appeal through us. We're imploring and begging and pleading with sinners to come to faith. He's committed to us this ministry, this message of reconciliation.

Isn’t preaching becoming obsolete?

Third question. Isn't preaching becoming obsolete? We are a modern technologically advanced people who love the flash of multimedia presentations, and television commercials flash images at your eye at the rate of two or three times a second, sometimes more quickly than that. Wow! Now moviemakers are using state of the art, high-end computer, super computers to produce unreal special effects that boggle the mind and challenge the imagination and in some cases, attack the soul. But they are doing things that visually you couldn't even have imagined 10 years ago. But when you go to church, all you get is old fashioned preaching, what some people call a talking head standing behind a wooden podium and telling us how it's got to be. And we're not really like… We don't like authority. And so the whole talking head thing is probably on its way out. Isn't preaching becoming obsolete? The rest of the world knows it. Why doesn't the church know it?

I heard about one church that got rid of the pulpit and set up bar stools across the front and had every week four different people come up and just share about spirituality with a cordless mic while the pastor sat cross-legged listening to them, never said a word. That's what you get on Sunday mornings at that church. Other churches they call it emerging worship, they've gotten rid of content altogether. And so you just go in for sensory experiences, like the sound of dripping water or running water or the field of silk or you get a smooth black stone and drop it in a well talking about how God has forgotten our sins and this kind of thing. So, the content's out entirely. Isn't preaching becoming obsolete? Well, no. I think in this verse it says, it implies that preaching, the communication of the gospel by verbal means will last to the end of the world. It will last to the end of the world because the content is the ground of faith. It says in Romans 10:17, Faith comes from hearing, and the message of Christ is what they hear and that is the basis of faith, is they hear this content about Jesus. Faith springs up in the heart. It's not a flashing of images on the retina. Its content communicated in this way.

Is Preaching the only method that God can use?

The next question is, "Well, is preaching the only method that God can use?" No, there are all kinds of incredible tract ministries and books that are printed and multimedia presentations of Christ and movies that are made and other bases for getting the word across. But I believe this, there is something powerful about a human being standing in front of another human being one on one or one in a hundred, a thousand communicating the message of the gospel. I think God has ordained to bless it and He will keep on blessing it to the end of the world. There's something incarnational about, something that we're standing in front of them and sharing with them not only a message but our lives as well. And so this kind of communication will keep on going until the end.

Isn’t missions arrogant?

The final question I want to answer is, "Isn't missions arrogant?" Isn't it arrogant for us to think surely we're the people and truth will die with us, they're all waiting to hear from us, those heathen. And if we just go and just share them the truth then they can be like us. Isn't that arrogant? You may hear things like this at sociology departments and other places of high education, and just our pluralistic culture is going to say, "It's arrogant, what you're doing." It was told to me, it's been told to me two or three times. It's arrogant. Well, first of all, it would be arrogant if we were preaching ourselves as savior of the world. But Paul settled that when he said in 2 Corinthians 4:5, "We do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake." It might be arrogant if we had concocted this gospel message, if we had written it, if we had originated it, but the Scripture says prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Friends, is it arrogant to point to the Rockies and say, "Isn't that majestic?" Is it arrogant to point at a beautiful sunset and say, "Isn't that beautiful?" This is not our truth. We inherited it 2000 years later, we just come to believe it. And part of the truth is, he who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. And so we want to gather with Jesus, and so He has sent us out to share that. This is not arrogance, it is truth.

Now, what application can we take from this? Well, first, if you have never trusted in Christ, there wouldn't be any sense of me talking about missions without directly applying the gospel to you. There is no other salvation. There's no other way to be saved. If you are trusting in something other than Jesus, you will be gravely disappointed on judgment day. Come to faith in Christ now. Believe in Him, trust in Him for the salvation of your soul.

But if you are a Christian, I want to ask basically this question. William Carey said in his two-part sermon, "Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God." Can I ask you a question? What great thing or things are you expecting from God over the next year? Secondly, what great thing or things have you attempted for God in the last year based on that great expectation? Thirdly, what great thing or things are you willing to do for God over the next year? He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. Are you willing to join Christ in his gathering ministry? Are you willing to do something great for him, to shake off laziness, to shake off the deception that materialism is going to satisfy, to shake off what the devil's selling us, and to join Christ in the mission field?

Now, I know that some of you are not going to be called literally to get on a plane and go to some other place, but I've already shared with you, there are people right near us who need to hear the gospel. Some of them frankly are from our own culture. Are you willing to cross the street and share the gospel?  Let me say something directly to us at Southern Baptist. Old Testament version of evangelizing was what we could call, come and see evangelism. Jesus spoke of this when he said about Solomon, "The queen of the south came from the ends of the earth," came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom, Jesus said, and now one greater than Solomon is here. Well, the one who's greater than Solomon said, "I'm not waiting for them to come here, we're going there." And so the New Testament mission is go and tell, not come and see. Well, I fear that Southern Baptists are much more come and see evangelizers, inviting people to church, saying come, the pastor will preach a message. And so the pastor must and should preach the gospel, but most people get saved other times in the week. Are you willing to be involved at the workplace? In the neighborhood? In the halls at school at the university? Are you willing to be involved with the people you meet this upcoming week?

And are you willing to expand your circle of influence so that, like Ron was saying, you can actually get involved in the great commission that God's called us to do. What great things are you expecting from God? And what great things are you willing to attempt for God? It could be that God would lead us as a church, not only to give money. At the end of the service there'll be a deacon standing at the door to give money to Hurricane Katrina victims. And not just to go to Graystone and actually bring physical stuff, but there might be a team of retired people or people who have the ability to actually go down there, bring some of those things and use it as a platform to share the gospel. That's a great thing that maybe you weren't considering doing before today. Are you willing to consider that kind of missionary life? Are you willing to expect great things from God and attempt great things for God? Close with me in prayer.