Two Journeys

We are looking this morning at some magnificent verses, Romans 10:11-13, and as I was considering the message that's here, I was thinking about what I consider to be one of the greatest enemies, entrenched enemies of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and that is human pride. Human pride opposes the Gospel, human pride opposes the Gospel at every turn. And the Apostle Paul, I believe, is taking on some unique aspects of human pride found in the Jews and revealing them for what they are.

I can think of three in particular, as he's dealing in Romans 9, 10 and 11, with the great question of why the Jews are not trusting in Christ, why they have not embraced Jesus as their savior and their Messiah, despite the fact that Christ was so clearly predicted in the Prophets. Why were they not embracing Christ? And I think we get to three aspects of pride that Paul is opposing that are unique to the Jews.

The first is the concept based on pride, that salvation is automatic for the Jews, that all the descendants of Abraham, are automatically going to be saved. And that was not true, He dealt with that in Romans 9, "for not all who are descended from Israel are Israel," he's dealing with that.

Secondly, especially, that you find this in the Pharisees, but I think it was in the minds of the Jews, that salvation could be earned through obedience to the law, salvation could be earned through our own efforts, that's based on pride too, and Paul's dealing with that here saying that it is not. It's simply hearing with faith. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not something you have to ascend up into the heavens for, or cross the other side of the sea for, or go down to the depths.

It is really essentially simple, as you just heard Chris read, "that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." It's that simple. Well, for the Pharisees and the law keepers, the legalist it wasn't that simple, they had to keep all the laws of Moses, and therefore it was essentially a pride based salvation at the end you could boast.

But there was a third element of Jewish national pride that Paul is taking on right here and that is salvation is impossible for the Gentiles. The Gentiles cannot be saved unless they become Jews in some way, but God has no saving intent for the Gentiles, not as such. And what Paul is doing here is he is showing that God has had a timeless universal saving concern, and he does it in the way he always does, by citing His scripture.

Now, there's another kind of pride, that's universal really, it fits with both Jew and Gentile and it's the pride of denying that you need to be saved at all. "We don't need a Savior, we're fine as we are," and Paul deals with that as well. And so we are facing human pride here, and we're doing it with the power of the gospel and with the Old Testament scripture that Paul is quoting. God has a timeless a universal saving concern. Look at Verse 11, it says, "as the scripture says, 'Anyone who trust in Him will never be put to shame.'" Now, there were Jews who are opposing Paul at every city, everywhere he went. There were Jewish opponents, and there were also some Jewish folks that were believing in Christ, and trusting in Him. But there were many opponents. They looked on Paul as a doctrinal innovator, really as a heretic, he was a pestilence, he was teaching new doctrines he was really urging Israel to follow false gods, he was a rebel.

I believe that Paul's constant appeal to scripture again, and again, makes that charge ridiculous. Verse 11 is by my count the 42nd time that Paul has quoted an Old Testament scripture in the Book of Romans. That's incredible. over and over, he is seeking to root his gospel in the Old Testament in the Scripture. If you look, you don't have to turn there, but just right at the very beginning of Romans, which I did preach on a number of millennia ago. I know it's been a long time, but way, way, way back when, Romans 1:1-2 it says, "Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God," verse two "The Gospel He promised beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures." As he will prove in verse after verse.

And so we have right here, verse 11, begins "as the scripture says…" He's rooting God's timeless universal saving concern in the Old Testament scriptures. Now what is the context of this quote? "Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame." Well, it's Isaiah 28:16, and their Israel is facing a great danger, God is bringing a Gentile nation to invade Judah, to invade them and to destroy them. This is clearly prophesied in the song of Moses, that if they did not obey the law, if they did not follow the covenant that God would bring a people of a strange language in they would invade and there would be a destruction. And so, in Isaiah 28, the context there is that the Jews are facing their own destruction, they're basically facing Judgment Day of a smaller level.

In time and space, they're facing their own condemnation, now God sent profits especially Isaiah to warn them again and again that this was coming, but the Jews mocked the profits they refused to listen to them, including Isaiah. The Jews claimed to have made some kind of special arrangement to avoid the scourge that was about to come on them. They thought that they had made some kind of an alliance. I think it's tied to an alliance they had made with Egypt. They thought the Egyptians were going to come and face the Assyrians in Isaiah's time, and then later the Babylonians.  So it says in Isaiah 28:15, "You boast, 'we have entered into a covenant with death, with the grave we have made an agreement. When an overwhelming scourge sweeps by it cannot touch us, for we have made a lie our refuge and falsehood, our hiding place.'" You know what this is? This is salvation by works, salvation by ingenuity, salvation by a separate covenant apart from God, it's one way to be saved. And the prophet Isaiah says; it's no salvation at all because the water is going to fill up your hiding place and you'll be drowned. There is no way to escape. There is another refuge however, and he says, it right here in Isaiah 28:16. "So this is what the Sovereign Lord says, 'see I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious corner stone for a sure foundation and the one who trusts will never be dismayed.'" And that's what it says.

Now in the New Testament, we have learned what that tested precious cornerstone is, or we should say who it is. It is none other than Jesus Christ the Son of God, as the Apostle Paul quoted in Romans 9:33, you can look back a few verses, into the end of chapter nine. "As it is written, 'see I lay a stone in Zion 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.'" The stone of salvation is none other than Jesus Christ, and if you trust in Him, the overwhelming scourge will sweep by you, and you will be saved, but if you try to make a separate covenant with death, try to make some separate arrangement, try to save yourself some other way, you will be destroyed, and Paul takes that whole concept and brings it over here into Romans 10.

Now, here he adds something else in Romans 10:11. He adds this little word again, to the quote. So two words are added, and He's emphasizing it here, he says, "As the scripture says, 'Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame.'" This is God's universal saving concern, God has a concern both for Jew and Gentile not for Jew only. He has a saving concern for Gentiles. This is the principle that he's learning. So therefore, it's a universal concern and the reason for that is because there is one and only one God, there is a universal God, a God of Jews and gentiles alike. Look at verse 12-13. "For 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." Now the Jews believed and rightly so, that there is one God and only one God. Most of the pagan world at that time, the world of the Gentiles, was polytheistic. They believed in gods that had their own little domains, kind of like a government bureaucracy, the under secretary in charge of whatever. And you go to this god and he or she would take care of this or that problem for you.

They also believed in national gods. There'd be a god of the Ammonites and a god of the Moabites and a god of the Romans, or of the Greeks. That was the polytheistic way of thinking. Now the Jews understood that that was all foolishness, they understood that there was one God, and only one God. "Here Oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." He is Lord of Heaven and Earth, He rules over all things. When Jonah was sent as the reluctant missionary to the hated Assyrians, and the storm came on the Mediterranean Sea, the polytheistic pagan sailors were asking basically "What God do you worship?" He said, "I worshipped the Lord who made the sea and everything in it, who made the sky and the earth and all things." They believed in a universal creator, God. They also believe through their prophets that this one God was Judge of all the Earth as well, remember how Abraham said, concerning Sodom and Gomorrah, "Shall not the judge of all the Earth do right?" They believed in that, they believed that the Jewish God was actually judge of all the earth.

And so Amos the prophet is saying, "For three sins of Damascus, and even for four, I will not hold back my wrath, for three sins of Egypt, and even four, I will not hold back my wrath, for three sins of Babylon, and four I'll not hold... " He's involved in everybody's business, they didn’t have any problems with that, with a God who created all things, and a God who will judge all nations. But they had a severe problem with the concept of a God who had a saving concern for all nations. They couldn't accept it, that was Jonah's problem. "Throw me in the sea Lord. I have no interest in seeing a single Assyrian come to faith, none." And they hated that concept that God would not just judge the nations, but actually would save some.

Now Paul had made this point abundantly clear, the God of the Jews is also the God of the Gentiles. He said it in Romans 3:29-30 says, "Is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles too?" Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised through faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith." There is one God, and only one God, and just as there is one universal God, there is one universal need, all of us, Jew and Gentile alike, we have the same need.

Now Paul had made that very plain also in Romans 3, "What shall we conclude then?" He says here in Romans 3:9, "Are we any better?" Speaking of the Jews. "Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin as it is written… 'there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God, all have turned aside…. There is no one who does good, not even one.'" He makes it very plain there in Romans 3, Jew and Gentile alike. We hold this in common, we are under sin, and thus there is one universal need. And you know what it is? That one universal need for us Sinners is mercy, we all need mercy, we need to be saved by grace and by mercy and no other way, and that's exactly where Paul's going here in Romans 9:10-11. Why is God doing all this? Why, with the Jews, why with the Gentile? What is His ultimate end?

And the ultimate end is, it's right there in Romans 11:32, and you can look there, it's just one page over perhaps, but it says that, "God has bound all men over to disobedience, in order that He may have mercy on them all." Isn't that incredible? Basically there's not going to be anybody in Heaven saying, "I didn't get here by mercy and grace." There's not going to be a single person, Jew or Gentile, that's going to say, "I didn't need a savior." There's not going to be anybody there who's going to say, "I didn't need the mercy and the grace of God," because everybody will have been so thoroughly educated in their own sin, that they will see that they needed Christ, they needed a savior, the needed the mercy of God. So there is one universal God. There's one universal need, there's one universal Savior, therefore, and that is Jesus Christ. Christ came, not just as a Savior of the Jews, but it was a universal saving concern. It says in 1 John 2:2, that Christ "is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." He's not just a Jewish Savior, but there is saving intent to people in every tribe, and language, and people, and nation.

Isaiah saw this plainly, for God the Father spoke through Isaiah to the son in this way, it says, Isaiah 49:6, "It is too small a thing for you to be my servant, to restore the tribes of Jacob, and bring back those of Israel that I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth." It's too small, Jesus for you, just to save Jews, it's too small a thing for your glory and for the accomplishment of your purposes, you have to be a universal savior to the ends of the earth. And so therefore there is one and only one Gospel, everybody gets saved the same way, by believing in Jesus. As it says, "Anyone who trusts in Him, will never be put to shame, for 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."

Anyone and Everyone Who Calls…

And now we come to this beautiful language. Anyone... Everyone. Do you notice it? It's stressed. He puts it in there, and the quote, that's what He's emphasizing here. Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Now I know what you're thinking, you're thinking we just got done with Romans 9. How in the world does anyone and everyone fit in the Romans 9? Well, I'll say that there's no contradiction here, no contradiction. Anyone who trusts in Him, it's true will never be put to shame. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will most certainly be saved. There is a wideness and an open invitation here, that's culminating at the end of this chapter, and we'll talk about it in due time, in Romans 10:21, where it says, "All day long, I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people." That's what you get in the Gospel, you get Jesus holding out his hand saying, anyone everyone come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and it's there. And we'll talk about it when we get to 10:21. But there's a wideness to the mercy and grace and to the appeal here. But that was the wideness the Jews hated, they didn't want to see it applying to the Ninevites, they didn't want to see it applied to the Greeks and to the Romans, they hated that thought, which I think is a glorious thought, that there's a wideness of the mercy and grace of God.

Furthermore, there's no contradiction here because Romans 9 has told us, who it is that's going to call on the name of the Lord. Who it is that's going to trust in Him and not be put to shame. And is those people that God calls by His sovereign grace he's going to be working a miracle in them, There's a wideness to God's appeal here, anyone and everyone, and we must emphasize it now what is promised for anyone who trusts in him, what is extended to everyone who calls on the name of the Lord.

First he says We're going to escape shame. Look again at verse 11. "Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame." Now, from the very beginning of our history with sin, sin and shame, have been linked together isn't that so? Remember what it said in Genesis 2:25, it says the man and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame, and it's really kind of a tragic statement because Moses writing it way after the fact, was writing something about which his readers would know everything about. We know all about shame, but isn't it amazing how Adam and Eve in their early stages, the stage of purity and innocence, didn't know anything of shame?

They were free from it. Oh, wouldn't it be sweet to be there again? Brothers and sisters in Christ believers in Christ. Someday you will be, you'll be totally free of shame forever for the scripture says "Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame." But from the very beginning, there's been a link between sin and shame. I've been trying to meditate on what's the difference between shame and guilt. Some say we've become more of a shame oriented culture than a guilt oriented culture. What I think guilt is an objective sense inside ourselves that we are guilty in front of an objective standard, a sense of law, We feel guilty because we are guilty, we have violated some laws of God.

But shame is much more relational, it's the emotional content of that connection at the human level horizontally and up even more toward God. We're ashamed toward one another and we feel a sense of shame up toward God and you see that in the Garden of Eden don't you? Right away, as soon as they eat from the fruit. Listen to this Genesis 3, you've heard it before, but it says, "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, 'Where are you?' and He answered, 'I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.'

Do you see the shame all over that passage, they're ashamed with each other and hiding from each other, and they're ashamed toward God, and they're hiding from God. AW Tozer said this, "Brethren, I am not ashamed of this world that God created, I am only ashamed of man's sin. If you could take all of man's sin out of this world, there would be nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to be afraid of. Our apologies therefore, must be for humanity and for our sins." So there's a link between sin and shame.

Now, fear of shame, I think, is one of the most powerful forces in society, isn't it? Think about yourself, all the things you'll do to avoid being embarrassed, all the things you'll do to avoid being ashamed. We've mentioned before, if a man or a woman is arrested and the television cameras are there, they're going to want to hide their face with their coat. There's a sense of shame there. Some people will commit suicide rather than face the consequences of a crime that they've committed. They'd rather die than face the societal shame of what they've done. Teens, young people, will readily admit one of the things that they fear the most is being ashamed in front of their peers. They'd rather die a thousand deaths than to have everyone in their group laugh at them. And so they'll do anything they can to avoid feeling shame.

Christie and I were missionaries in Japan, one of the major features of that culture is saving face, the need to maintain your reputation in the eyes of your peers. And one of the greatest things you can do to hurt somebody is to cause them to lose face. All of this is related to shame, but friends, that's all at the human level, isn't it? It's not horizontal. How much infinitely greater will the feeling be when we stand in front of the Holy God on judgment day, when he looks at us with those pure and holy eyes that cannot even look at evil, when he knows everything that we have ever said or done and lays it bare for all to see? And there it says in Romans 2:16, this will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as the gospel declares. Or as Jesus put it this way, in Luke 12:3-5, "What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the rooftops. I tell you my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more, but I will show you whom you should fear, fear him who after the killing of the body has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you fear him."

So that's a picture of judgment day in which our secrets are laid bare and the audience there and just other human beings, it is God Almighty, it is Christ sitting on his throne. And it says, concerning God as judge, "nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account." On earth, it is terrifying to have our sins exposed, isn't it? The last thing any of us would want. But it's the ministry of the gospel to get us to think ahead to what it's going to feel like to have that happen in front of God and his holy angels.

And so we need this don't we? We need verse 11, "Anyone who trusts in Him will not be put to shame." We need a refuge from judgment day shame. And friends, what the glorious good news of the gospel is that there is such a refuge, there's a place we can hide and the overwhelming scourge will sweep by and not touch us, and that refuge is Jesus Christ. Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame.

Now, there's a way that some people try to avoid it, get away from it and that's to deny that they have anything to be ashamed of. There's a German proverb that says not to be ashamed of sin is to sin double. I think there are some people that are actually trying to turn the whole thing around and be proud of sin. You think about, for example, Isaiah 3:9 which says, "The look on their faces terrifies against them, they parade their sin like Sodom, they do not hide it. Woe to them. They brought disaster upon themselves."

Now, God is not saying through Isaiah, "It's better to cover it over, but it's better that it not be there at all." But it's even worse when you put darkness for light and light for darkness, you put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter, you put evil for good and good for evil, you turn the whole thing around and say that what is a cause for shame is now a cause of pride. Now, that we cannot do. No, rather we need to face head on the fact that there is a Holy God who has standards and we have violated them and we need to be safe from them.

And verse 11 tells us how, "Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame." Now, in context in Isaiah, the most straightforward way to understand this, to be put to shame means to trust in something that ultimately fails you. To trust in something that collapses, in the end you're destroyed. This is a big theme and Isaiah comes in again and again, Isaiah 20:5-6, it says, "Those who trusted in Cush and boasted in Egypt will be afraid and put to shame. In that day, the people who live on the coast will say, Look what's happened to those we relied on, to those we fled to for help and deliverance from the King. How then can we escape?" In that case, it was Assyria, they were trying to escape Assyria, later will be Babylon. And so they're making a connection, and he says, "You're going to be put to shame because in the end, the King of Egypt is like a splintered staff that pierces a man's hand and wounds him if you lean on it."

So it is also at the spiritual realm when you try to save yourself. When you rely on yourself, you try to save yourself by your good works, by religion, by meditation of the mind and all kinds of other things, religiosity, you're going to try to save it, that's your refuge from the overwhelming scourge. It will not save but rather you'll be put to shame on judgment day.

Another major theme in Scripture of being put to shame is in reference to a personal enemy who wants to seek your very life. Now you may say I don't have many of those. Well, maybe you don't, maybe you do. King David had them all the time, David was surrounded by enemies. And so you heard Elijah reading earlier from Psalm 25 and was one of the many times that David is thinking about his personal enemies who would love to have stripped David and put him to shame. And so what he says here is, "To you O Lord, I lift up my soul. In you I trust O my God, do not let me be put to shame nor let my enemies triumph over me." Well, the Scripture says, "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour." You have a personal enemy. You may not think you did, but you do. And what would it be like to have him triumph over you on judgment day, to have him vindicated?

But I say to you in verse 11, Anyone who trust in Christ will not be put to shame on judgment day. And so, our personal enemy is going to be there to accuse and the Lord has already said in Romans 8:31, "What then shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who could be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns?" Or in my more irreverent kind of paraphrase, "Who cares who condemns when God justifies?" Amen. We don't fear Satan's accusation on judgment day. As a matter of fact, it says in Romans 16:20, "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet." Praise be to God.

So our personal accuser, the one who was actually the one enticing us to do all that wickedness and then turns around like some righteous being, pointing a finger of accusation, he's going to be crushed on judgment day. He's going to be crushed by the overwhelming righteousness ascribed to our account on that day, the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Amen! I saw, I heard one of you say it, but amen! I know you're not allowed to, but you are actually. Go ahead. This is glorious. We're not going to be put to shame, but our personal enemy who had sought everyday of our lives to destroy us by sin will himself be destroyed and we will be vindicated. Christ came to remove our shame. He came to claim us as his own, to say, "He is mine. She is mine. My own. I bought them with my blood." And He will rebuke any who seek to accuse them. All of their sins will be removed from them as far as the east is from the west.

And how is that possible? Is it because there wasn't a real shame connected with our sin? No, there was. More than we think, friends. More than we think. But the fact is, Jesus Christ drank it to the bottom. He drank our shame when he was arrested. He drank our shame when he was accused by his own people falsely. He drank our shame when he was condemned. He drank our shame when he was spat upon and had the crown of thorns beat around his brow and when he was struck with a stick. He drank our shame when he was paraded through the streets of Jerusalem. He drank our shame when he was nailed to the cross and hung suspended between sky and earth and His blood mingled with the mud, he was drinking our shame. And when you look at that story, you need to say that is what I deserved and worse. But Jesus has taken my shame. And friends, He was actually glad to do it. For it says that "Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame," thinking nothing of the shame that he was willing to drink on our behalf. Our shame is gone if we have trusted in Him. Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame.

And what do we get? Do we get more than just not being ashamed? That's rather neutral, isn't it? You cannot be ashamed and still get nothing else. But God has far more than that for us. Look what it says, "There is no difference," verse 12, "between Jew and Gentile, the same Lord is Lord of all, and richly blesses all who call on him." Oh, Christian brother and sister, you are rich, you are wealthy, far more than you can imagine. You are infinitely wealthy in Christ. You may not feel like you are, but you are. And frankly, I think we're supposed to be meditating on our inheritance. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be, and I say should be. And how rich are you? Well Ephesians describes riches over and over. Listen to this, Ephesians 1:7-8, "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding."

Ephesians 1:18, he says, "I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe." Oh, how rich you are. It says in Ephesians 2:4-5, "Because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions." And then Ephesians 2:6-7, I love this one. Oh, think about this. "And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that," now get this, "in the coming ages, he might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus." We haven't seen anything yet. In the coming ages, he might be showing you how rich you are. In the new heavens, he's going to show you how rich you are. In the new earth he's going to show you how rich you are, through his kindness to you in Christ Jesus.

Calling on the Name of the Lord

You, friends, are rich. You're not just not ashamed, you are rich in the gospel if you are a Christian. How do we receive it? How will we get it? Well, it's already said in verse 11, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." And again, here in verse 13, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Now what does it mean to call in the name of the Lord? Maybe you've never thought of that before. I asked my kids as we're driving in and one of them said, "Well, it means to pray." Right, it does. It does. In a simple way, it does but it goes so much deeper than that, doesn't it? It means a lot more than that. We're talking about an ancient practice here. Listen to Genesis 4:25-26, "Adam lay with his wife again and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth saying, God has granted me another child in the place of Abel since Cain killed him. Seth also had a son and he named him Enosh, and at that time, men began to call on the name of the Lord." That is an ancient practice, and I say to you that there is a universally uniting fact that everyone who has ever been saved is saved the same way. We're all saved the same way.

Everyone in every generation who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Well, what does it mean? Well, later on in redemptive history, Joel quoted it. And it says, "Then afterward I'll pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams, even on my servants, both men and women. I will pour out my Spirit in those days, I will show wonders in the heavens above, and blood and fire and billows a smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Peter picked up on this and preached to them the day of Pentecost. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved and 3000 Jews were saved that day and baptized. So Jews can call on the name of the Lord and be saved. They were that day. But not even Peter fully understood that God really did mean everyone.

And so, it took later in Acts 10 at Cornelius's house when the Holy Spirit came down on a bunch of Romans, of all things, and it was clear then that they understood, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, Jew or Gentile alike will be saved. Now, to call on the name of the Lord means to call on God's character. His name is his character. You think about how in the old days with the Indians or even with the Hebrews, you would choose a name that would connect in some way to the character of the person. We don't do that as much anymore, but they did it. And so, there's a link between the name and the character. God has in Scripture revealed his character. He is good and trustworthy, he is faithful and kind, and compassionate. He is powerful. That's the kind of God. And so, to call on the name of the Lord means be good and compassionate and faithful and trustworthy for me, it means that it relates to God's character.

And secondly, it relates to God's history, to his reputation. To make a name for yourself means to craft a personal history that people can tap into and learn what kind of person you are. Your resume is how you've made a name for yourself in a way that's relevant to you getting this job. To make a name for yourself means to present your history and it relates to the kind of person you are. God has made a name for himself in history, it says in Nehemiah 9:10, speaking of the Exodus, "You sent miraculous signs and wonders against Pharaoh, against all his officials and against all the people of his land, for you knew how arrogantly the Egyptians treated them. You made a name for yourself which lasts to this very day." So God has made a name for himself in creation, he's a powerful God who created the heavens and the earth with just a word. God made a name for himself in the flood and at Sodom and Gomorrah saying, "I am a bitter and dreadful enemy of sin." God made a name for himself when he made promises to Abram under the starry sky and then kept them, and God made a name for himself at the time of the Exodus, when by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with plagues, 10 plagues, and with the journey through the Red Sea, with the water walled up on the left and the right, God destroyed Egypt and Pharaoh, to display his power and his intention on saving the Jews.

Why Does God Make a Name for Himself?

Now, why does God make a name for himself? So that a woman like Rahab can hear the stories, to hear the reputation of God and fear for herself and for her family, and say to the spies that Joshua had sent in there, "Now make a covenant with me that you will spare my life and my family." And so, the Book of James says she trusted in Christ. She was believing in Christ as He had been revealed to her at that point, and through faith she was justified. Through faith she was saved. God makes a glorious name for himself so sinners like Rahab the prostitute, and people all over the world, idolaters and pagans and Jews and us can hear of the stories and call on that name and be saved. It's not because he need some reputation or anything for himself, but so that sinners can be saved. And God's name is his promise as well. When you make a covenant or a contract and you sign your name, you don't sign your favorite vegetable at the bottom, you don't sign your favorite Bible verse, that won't do. You're going to put your name at the bottom of your promise that you're going to act a certain way.

God has signed in his name the promises that He's made. "I am the Lord," he says it over and over. And it's a point of honor to his name to keep His promises. As one Puritan said, "Show him his handwriting, God is partial to his handwriting, show it to him." So you said you would do this. You show him his promises and He is faithful to keep them. Call on the name of the Lord and God's name ultimately and finally is his son, Jesus Christ. All of these things, his character, his history, his promises come together in Christ and in Him are all the promises of God. Yes and amen in Christ. And so Jesus's personal life, his righteousness, his death on the cross, his resurrection from the dead, that is God's name.

Now finally, what does it mean to call on that name? Well, I'm going to close with an illustration. A number of years ago, I was on a evangelistic project at Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, and a tropical storm similar to what's going on now, a hurricane was making its way north and it got as far as New Hampshire where we were on a summer project, Hampton Beach Project. And it churned up the waves, it looked like Oahu out there, and the beach was basically, totally vacant, even though it was middle of August, there was no one there. So my friend and I thought this would be a great opportunity for some body surfing. Now if you think that I had a screw loose or whatever, you're right, but you know when you're that age you don't think you're ever going to die, you think you're kind of fine. And so the two of us went out there, and we started body surfing. It was a lot of fun for the first six or seven minutes. And then we noticed that the hotels were getting smaller and smaller as we were caught in some kind of a rip tide and we're being pulled out to the ocean. And then we started being afraid. And I have no idea how long it took, but for the next long period of time, we would ride some waves in, and then swim to hold more or less our place, and then ride the next wave in and swim to hold our place, and ride the next wave in and swim to hold our place.

Now you may ask, "Why didn't it occur to you to scream, "Help. Help. Help?" Well, pride kicks in at a certain point. It is no good in front of all your friends and your peers and male and female alike, to be dragged sputtering from the ocean, when not another of God's souls is swimming except the two of you, you were the only ones swimming. It just will not do to be dragged sputtering from the ocean. And so you will try to save yourself as long as you can, won't you? And so it is in reference to this salvation. As long as you think you can save yourself, you're going to try. But when the Holy Spirit convicts you, you cannot, and you're going to stand in front of a Holy God and nothing you have done will avail to save you before His holy gaze, and you will be condemned and you will die eternally in hell. When you come to that point, you call on the name of the Lord, and you say, "Save me Jesus. Save me from my sins." And He does. Won't you close with me in prayer?

I think it must have been the most extraordinary earthquake in history. I'm referring to the earthquake that shook the Philippian jail in Acts 16. I've never heard of anything like it before. An earthquake that shakes a jail to its foundations and enables all of the prisoners chains to fall off, but nobody gets crushed by a falling boulder or by a broken timber. The prison doors fly open, but no one runs away. And you remember the story, how the Philippian jailer thinking that his life was forfeit and that all of his prisoners had escaped, drew his sword and was about to kill himself, his soul hanging by a thread over eternity, over hell really, when a voice rings out from the darkness saying, "Don't harm yourself. We are all here." The voice of the Apostle Paul, saving not only his life, but his eternal soul. The jailer was trembling, and called for lights and then brought Paul and Silas out and then he asked this key question. It is the question of our soul, "What must I do to be saved?" "What must I do to be saved?" And the answer that Paul and Silas gave there is the same answer that he gives here in Romans 10:9-10. There in Acts 16, he says, "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household."

Here in Acts 10:9-10, he says, "If you confess with your mouth '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." Now, a cynic may ask, "Saved from what?" "Saved from what?" I've witnessed before and I use slogans like, "Jesus is the answer," and they're saying, "What's the question?" "Jesus is the Savior." "What's the threat? From what are we being saved?" Friends we're being saved from the due penalty of our sin, we're being saved from eternal damnation, we're being saved from hell itself. That's the saved that the Philippian jailer wanted to know about, that's the saved that's in front of us here in Romans 10:9-10, and what could be more important than that? Because everyone who does not believe stands condemned already, it says in John 3, we're in dire need of a savior. Now last week, we began to look at this incredible text on the nature of saving faith and we focused in on one aspect, the content of saving faith.

Basically we said at that point that faith must have a content, that there's a focus to our faith. Faith alone doesn't save. Fanatical Muslims and Buddhist monks, as we said, may have more faith than we do, but that's not going to save them. It's faith in Christ. We saw also last week that there is such a thing therefore as absolute, unshakable truth. And that includes even what we call metaphysical truth, religious truth. There are spiritual truths that are just true. We live in a postmodern age, as we discussed last week, in which that is seriously doubted. There is therefore ultimate truth for me and ultimate truth for you, and ultimate truth for Muslims and ultimate truth for Buddhists. They just deny the concept of absolute truth. We talked about this last week, there is truth. We said thirdly, the truth precedes experience, religious experience. It's not your testimony that saves, it's not your religious experience that saves, it's the truth of the gospel, that Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. Unshakable truths, that's what we talked about last time. The truth of the incarnation and the truth of the resurrection, that was the content of saving faith.

Now, this morning, we're going to look at the character of saving faith and the confirmation of saving faith. First the character, and the reason we need to do this is friends, the devil and his angels believe more Christian truths than you do or that I do. They know more doctrine than any of us, than all of us put together. They know all of these things and they hate them, every one. They believe that they're true. Remember how the demons said to Jesus, "We know who you are, the holy one of God." They didn't doubt the incarnation, they knew very well. It says in James 2:19, "You believe there is one God, good, even the demons believe that and they shudder." And so the content alone and believing that the content is true does not save your soul. Not alone, it's essential, but it's not all there is. The Apostle Paul isn't exchanging a legalistic life of religious obedience to laws for a dry cold, intellectual assent to a bunch of doctrines. That's not what he's exchanging here. And so, it goes far beyond that. And so what I want to say to you is that the character of saving faith is that it's a hard faith, it comes from the heart, from the core of your being. Look what it says again, Romans 10:9-10 "that if you confess with your mouth 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."

So we say that head knowledge by itself does not save you. The mental assent that these doctrines are true does not save your soul. Often in witnessing I've talked to people about the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. I love to talk about this because it meant so much in my early Christian life. Thinking about the evidence for the resurrection. I've done this before, I've said, "Now what are the options of what happened to Jesus' body? I mean could his disciples have stolen it?" Well then, what would their motive be for facing death if they knew that Jesus was buried in Peter's garden? There's not going to be much evidence and much security for facing death. Nobody's going to want to do that. So I go through all of these things and when I get to the end, I've looked at all the logical possibilities for what happened to Jesus' body, I'll say, "Well, what do you think?" And they'll say, in a flat, cold, kind of dry way, "Well, I guess Jesus rose from the dead." Do I say, "Hallelujah, you're saved! I'm so excited!" No, I know something's amiss. They assent to it, but they don't love it.

There's no life, there's no passion, there's no conversion. They're just saying, "Well you twisted my arm. I guess I really don't see any way out. I'm going to look for one, but I'm really kind of out of ideas right now on how it could be anything else or how it's even relevant to my life. So, mere intellectual assent does not save. Saving faith is a matter of the core of the personality, of the being. What we call the heart, it's a heart matter. It's a matter of the heart, it's deep and it's rooted in every part of a person's being. It's not a sham, it's not a fake, it's not hypocrisy, it's not acting. The Scribes and Pharisees that Jesus called seven times, "Whoa to you, Scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites." The word hypocrite means an actor, with a mask on, with a costume. That's not what it is, that doesn't save you. That's not saving faith. Rather it's rooted in love, ultimately. That we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all your soul and with all our strength, and with all of our mind. It's a fire that God ignites inside the heart, inside the soul of love for him.

Now, the heart's natural condition is not this way, the heart is naturally cold and dead toward the things of God. The heart is naturally, it says in Ephesians 2, dead in its transgressions and sins. There's no spark of life, or no initiation. There's no one who seeks God, it says in Romans 3. They suppress the truth in unrighteous, they love wickedness apart from Christ. And the heart, the natural human heart erect barriers and boundaries to the encroaching Gospel messenger. Barriers against Christ, really. Mark McCloskey in his book, Tell It Often, Tell It Well talks about these barriers, spiritual blindness, bad experiences with Christians and with the church. They go to church one time and somebody says something to them and is offensive or is a hypocrite or something, and then they feel they're free from considering Christ for the rest of their lives, as a result. There are barriers that are set up. Also, misconceptions of the nature of the gospel and character of God. Commitment to an immoral lifestyle, it's like, "If I believe in Jesus, I'll have to give that up, and I don't want to give that up so... " And they know that. So commitment to an immoral lifestyle.

Intellectual dishonesty, willing to kind of bend the rules of logic, and of their own minds in order to evade the force of the Gospel. And then there's fear, fear of what people will think if you commit yourself to Christ. All of these are obstacles and they only increase if you're talking about overseas, cross-cultural situations where you got false religions, false world views, family members that will kill you, perhaps, even if you come to Christ, there's all kinds of obstacles. And so, the heart cannot change itself, ultimately. We don't have power over our hearts. You may think you do, but we don't. We don't have the ability to choose as an act of the will, to love what we once hated, and to hate what we once loved. This is a supernatural transformation that only God can work. The radical transformation that these verses describe can only be accomplished by the Holy Spirit. Sinful human heart doesn't have power over its own affections, over its own allegiances. Still less can it decide, "I'm going to follow Jesus, I'm going to love Jesus, I'm going to believe that Jesus is Lord, and that God raised him from the dead, and I'm going to make Jesus my Lord, I'm going to follow Him and obey Him and love Him." We don't have that power.

This is the work of the Holy Spirit of God. This is what conversion really is. This is what it means to be born again. It's a radical transformation. Now, we've been talking here in Romans 10:9-10, after all of this incredible complexity, Romans 9, the sovereignty of God, the depths of the understanding, none of us will ever fully figure it out. And before that, eight other chapters of really deep and ultimately complex Christian doctrine. Isn't it delightful to come to Romans 10:9-10? The simplicity of saving faith. "That if you confess with the mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and if you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." But for all of that simplicity Paul makes another statement in 1st Corinthians 12:3, and he says this, "Therefore I tell you, no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit." Isn't that amazing? For all that simplicity, you can't do it. You can't, unless the Spirit works within you. You won't.

Now, you know what I mean, don't you? You know that it's not just saying, "Jesus is Lord." I can make a percentage of you say the words, "Jesus is Lord," right now if I wanted to. Some of you are going like, "I'm not saying, I'm not going to do what he says. I never turn to the neighbor when they tell us. I don't do those things. When the pastor says... I don't get involved in that. I'm just here listening, I'm not here participating in a group activity, okay, I'm not doing that." But I could make at least a percentage of you say the words, "Jesus is Lord," or I could go to any unbeliever, I could write the three words, "Jesus is Lord," on a piece of paper and say, "Read this," and he or she would read it. Is that open sesame? The cave of salvation opens up, if you just say these magic words, "Jesus is Lord." That's not what we're talking about, we're saying from the heart you believe that Jesus is Lord, that God raised him from the dead. You can't do that, except by the Holy Spirit of God, that's what Paul is saying.

The Need For a New Heart

And so therefore, you must have a new heart. You must have heart surgery, and I don't mean the physical organ that does such an incredible job of pumping blood through your veins day after day after day. I mean the core of your being, you must have a transformation. And that's the very thing friends, that's the very thing that God promises to do through Jesus Christ. Isn't that marvelous? That is the central promise of the New Covenant. It's the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant, the promise of a heart transformed by the power of God. Listen to Ezekiel 36:26-27. There it says, the Lord says, "I will give you a new heart and put a new Spirit in you and I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh, and I'll put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." God has promised to take out our unresponsive, cold, dead heart of stone and give us a living heart, give us a heart that loves Jesus, give us a hard that lives for the glory of God, give us a new heart. He has that power and he alone has that power.

And that's what he's promising to do in the gospel. Then the first thing that that new heart does inside, is it sees the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ. And the second thing that heart, that new heart does is believes in Jesus for salvation. It sees who Christ is and says, "I trust him, I love him, I want him." It's a heart, it's a matter of the heart. That's what the saving faith is. There's a genuineness and an honesty there, a truly turning and a truly trusting it comes from the heart. Joel 2:12-13, the prophet there, the Lord speaking through the prophets says, "Even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning. Rend," [that means reap or tear]  your heart, and not your garments." See Jews when they showed, they wanted to show outward shock or blasphemy, or grief or something, they would tear their clothes. Paul and Barnabas did that when some sought to worship them, and the high priest did it when Jesus said he was God, they tear their clothes. Joel says, "I don't want to see your clothes torn. Don't tear your clothes. You Jews are good at the externals."

And all of us are that way. We can externally tear the clothes, that's easy. No, rend your heart and not your garment. It's a heart transformation for Jew and Gentile alike. And ultimately, it means that Christ becomes your treasure, he becomes what you value most in your heart. Jesus told two parables about this in Matthew 13. "The kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy, went off and sold everything he had and bought that fields... Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he sold everything he had and bought it." The treasure, the pearl, that's what's truly valuable. Worth everything else in your life, what is your primary treasure? Jesus becomes your primary treasure when you're saved. That's what you cherish above all things.

Like the Apostle Paul says in Philippians 3, "Whatever was to my profit, I now consider loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him. Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith, I want to know Christ and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, and the power of his resurrection, becoming like him in his death and so somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead." Those are words pouring out of a heart that loves Jesus, a heart that sees nothing else in God's creation as precious and valuable and worthy of being treasured as Jesus Christ. It's a heart, a matter of the heart, it's a heart faith. Demons will always know more scripture and more doctrine than we do, but they hate Jesus with every fiber of their being. We, Christians, we love Jesus. He is our treasure and Jesus says, "Where your treasure is, that's where your heart will be also."

When George Beverly Shea was 23 years old, he faced a decision: Should he accept a high-paying job as a songwriter in New York City? He had some offers he was talented. Or should he use his musical gifts to serve Christ, specifically for a Christian radio program? And as he was sitting at the piano and thinking about it, he was a composer, a poem by Mr. Rhea Miller came across him and he said, this is it, "I'd rather have Jesus." And we sang it earlier today, didn't we? "I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold. I'd rather be his than have riches untold. I'd rather have Jesus than houses or land. I'd rather be led by his nail-pierced hand, than to be the king of a vast domain or be held in sin's dread sway. I'd rather have Jesus than anything this world affords today." That's what a saved heart says. Now, if that old poetical language isn't the way your heart says it, it doesn't matter. But you'll be saying it somehow. You'll be saying, "Jesus is of a greater treasure than anything else in God's world." That is the character of saving faith, it's a heart faith.

Thirdly, what is the confirmation of saving faith? Basically, the principle is this: Genuine saving faith results in an outward transformed lifestyle. You're going to present something differently to the world than you would have if you weren't a Christian. And it begins with a statement from the mouth. That's where the whole thing starts. It all begins with a confession that Jesus is Lord. Look what it says in verse 9-10, "that if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified and it is with the mouth that you confess and are saved."

The core teaching of James, chapter 2, which some people find a very troubling chapter, as though it's somehow contradictory. Paul was teaching justification by faith alone apart from works of the law, and then James comes along and says, "You got to have the works." You've got to have the works if you're going to be saved. And people are troubled by what James says in James 2:14. "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds, can such faith save him?" That means there's different kinds of faith. There's dead faith, and there's demon faith, there's deceptive faith and then there's saving faith. And saving faith is a living thing and living things produce fruit. Things come, deeds come, an outward presentation to the world around comes because of true, genuine, saving faith. Says again in James 2:17, "In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action is dead." Now, I think that the first action that a saved person takes, the first movement that comes is usually with the mouth. They usually say something about it. They talk about it, they say something.

And that's what I think is step one of this confirmation. I'm going to look at five steps quickly of how saving faith is confirmed to the outside world.  

Step 1: Confirmed by Confession With the Mouth

The first step is confirmation by confession with the mouth. Now, this word, confess with the mouth Jesus is Lord, what that means is to swear honestly and deeply, it's to make the most significant statement that the mouth can make. Like some people would do it by swearing with an oath. We get this in Matthew 14:6-7, on Herod's birthday, talking there about Herod's birthday, the daughter of Herodias, danced for them and pleased Herod so much. The NIV says, "That he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked for." That word is the same as what we get here in Romans 10. He confessed it, he swore it, and the word was so binding on him that even after she asked for John the Baptist head on a platter, he couldn't go back on what he had said. There's a seriousness to the word that's spoken. That's what is going on here, is a serious swearing or confession. Literally, the word means, to say with, to agree with our mouth, what God the Father does about Jesus, that He is Lord, we're saying it with our mouth.

The mouth thus becomes a window for the whole world to look into your heart. Apostle Paul put it this way, in 2 Corinthians 4:13, "It is written, 'I believed therefore, I have spoken.' With the same spirit of faith that we believe and therefore we speak." You believe something, you're going to talk about it, you're going to say something. Now, what I think happens is, the heart believes first and then out comes the words, or else it's hypocrisy. And so therefore, Jesus says that there's a direct connection between what you say with your mouth, what you believe in your heart. In Matthew 12:33-37, after Jesus' enemies said, "It is by Beelzebub, the king of demons that He drives out demons." And Jesus said, "You know, you can't just say those things. The things you say matter. What comes out of your mouth makes a difference." This is what He said, "Make a tree good, and its fruit will be good, make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is known by its fruits. You brood of vipers, how can you, who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks."

That's what I'm talking about, out of the overflow of what's in your heart, you're going to say something, the mouth speaks. "The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that men will have to give an account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken." Listen to this, "For by your words you'll be acquitted, and by your words you'll be condemned." Jesus said, "Just give me a list of what they've said and I'll tell you what's going on in their heart." Now, He can do that, we can't. All He has to do is have a complete list of your words and He will know whether you're saved or not. If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' you will be saved. As a matter of fact, the connection is so strong that Jesus put it this way in Matthew 10:32 and 33, "Everyone who confesses me before men, I will also confess him before my Father in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I will deny him before my Father in heaven." And so therefore, a verbal confession of Christ is essential to our salvation, we're going to say something about it.

We're going to say Jesus is Lord. We're going to speak, we're going to talk about what we believe, that's the first step.

Step 2: Confirmed by Prayer from the Heart

The second step that is confirmed by prayer from the heart, I get this out of Verse 13, where it says, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." We usually think of that in terms of prayer, and I think rightly so. Almost every witnessing track that I've ever used ends up with something called, The Sinner's Prayer. Have you ever seen The Sinner's Prayer? I remember, I was trained in The Four Spiritual Laws, and I don't know that I could completely recite The Four Spiritual Laws, Sinner's prayer. But it went something like this, "Lord Jesus, I need you, thank you for dying on the cross for my sins, I now surrender control of my life, I want you to take the throne of my life, and make me the kind of person you want me to be, in Jesus name, amen." There's The Sinner's Prayer.

I was listening to a tape Jeremy gave me from Voddie Baucham, is a African American preacher, very powerful, I love listening to him and he's got a great sense of humor. He was talking about his friend Steve, who was leading him to Christ, and after a number of weeks of sharing, and witnessing, and talking, Voddie Baucham was alone, at one point, he was in a locker room and he realized, "I didn't need to seek any more, I didn't need any more information, I knew, I believed. I just knew it. And so, I got down on my knees and that sweaty, nasty locker room." And this is what he prayed, "God, that thing you did for Steve, that he's been telling me you want to do for me, now is good." Now, you're not going to see that printed at the back of most tracks, that's not the approach that most of us take. But he goes on and he says, "One of the best things Steve ever did for me is, he didn't change my prayer." Though we know it's not magic words that save, it's not the words of the Sinner's Prayer, is what comes out of the heart, and the person just saying, "Save me." Now, some people believe that that's the moment of justification, that until you say the Sinner's Prayer, you're not justified, I don't think that that really is possible.

If you look at Verses 13-14, Romans 10, and there it says, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then can they call on the one they've not believed in?" Do you see that? You have to believe before you can call. Therefore, I say to you, every genuine Sinner's Prayer that has everyone prayed, they're already justified before they said a word. And what the Sinner's Prayer is, is the first fruit of a justifying faith. And it isn't the last time they're going to call on the name of the Lord, is it? They're going to be calling and calling and calling and calling on Jesus the rest of their lives, that's just the first one. And Jesus does make us vocalize our need, doesn't He? He says to blind Bartimaeus, this blind man sitting by the road, and He says, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me." And Jesus seems to be a bit dense when He says, "What do you want me to do for you?" He's not dense, He's making Bartimaeus vocalize his need. "Tell me what you need." He knows what we need before we ask. But there's something very significant about speaking what we need. "Jesus save my soul." But I'm just telling you, before you say those words in truth, you already believed them in your heart and you were already justified.

For it is with the mouth, it is with the heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with the mouth that you confess and are saved. So that's what the Sinner's Prayer is.

Step 3: Confirmed by Water Baptism

The third step is that it's confirmed by water baptism. Now, you may say, "I don't see any water in Romans 10:9-10, so, where in the world? I thought you're an expositional preacher, I don't see any water, what's going on here?" Well, what I believe is that the confession with the mouth is the first stance of an outward communication to the world, "I am a Christian." There's got to be a hearing audience that's listening to you say, "Jesus is Lord." And the Lord Himself ordained that one of the earliest things that Christian does, is testify to the outside world, Jesus is Lord, by submitting to water baptism. That's the way that we believe that we make a public confession of Christ that He is Lord, and by submitting to water baptism. And we make you stand back here... Oh, you guys are still there, I never look at you, watch you there. We make you stand right back there and there's a microphone, and the people have to read their testimony, of how they came to faith in Christ. And I've had people be afraid to do it, and they say, "Do I really have to make this public confession?"

I said, "Yes you do." But Jesus is going to help you. It's just the first step of lots of challenges in the Christian life. And that water baptism is a public confession. Now, let me say a note about the idea of walking the aisle. We've talked about this before, but I think it's a good moment to say it. In many Evangelical churches, there's an invitation to come to Christ at the end of the sermon. I actually give invitation to come to Christ through the whole sermon. Frankly, the Word of God is a constant invitation to believe and to trust. Remember what it was that saved Abraham, what did he say? What did he do? Nothing. He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, that's justification by faith. It's in the heart. So, I guess by logic, you shouldn't be coming forward, you should come out of your tent and look up at the stars. It's got nothing to do with what you're doing with your body, although it will come out as you confess your faith to the outside world. But it's faith that justifies. And so, in many of the Evangelical, Baptist churches at the end of the sermon, there's this invitation, and people are encouraged to get up out of the peers and to make their way to the front.

And that has become such a major issue that it's somewhat of a tradition, almost boarding on traditionalism. And Voddie Baucham was talking about that, He said, "I'm asking you to stay put." I want you... Or go to the back, or do something, but coming to the front doesn't do anything to you. What it does do, and the kernel of what was good about that is a willingness to be not ashamed but a willingness to make a stand for Christ, to be publicly known as a Christian." Now, that is true, and I think that's exactly what's going on here in Romans 10:9-10. But friends, coming forward wasn't really possible than an age when there were no buildings, in which they met at Solomon's colonnade, in which there were small house churches and all that, there was no building in which you could come forward to, or in, or whatever is at the end of that sentence. Coming forward doesn't save you, hearing and believing saves. And then after that, there's going to be a lot more asked of you than merely coming forward.

Water baptism friends, is the way that we begin to make a formal testimony to the watching world that we are Christians. Well, I have another one. Now, if it helps to come forward, sometimes I think it is effective to say, "Look, if you would like to come forward and pray, kneel down, if you want somebody to pray with you... " Those things are fine, and we're going to do them, that's why I continue to go forward and I still have people come up and we pray together, and that's wonderful. There's nothing wrong with that. I just want to take away the sense of a sacrament almost, away from coming forward. It is hearing the Word, preach and believing that saves. And after that, we confess with our mouth, Jesus is Lord, and then water baptism is a formal way we testify to the watching world that we are saved.

Step 4: Confirmed by a Transformed Lifestyle

Now, the fourth step is that it's confirmed by a transformed lifestyle. Ron Hamilton who does the Patch the Pirate tapes wrote a song about hypocrisy, and he said this, "Your walk talks, and your talk talks, but your walk talks louder than your talk talks." Let me put that in simple terms, people are watching how you live, not just what you say. They want to see if your lifestyle lines up with what you're confessing with your mouth.

So, if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, but you live contrary to His commands, that is no confirmation of saving faith, actually, it's quite the opposite. Saving faith produces a transformed lifestyle. Saving faith can be seen not in itself, but in the fruit that comes from it. And so therefore, Paul writes at the beginning of this letter, Romans 1:8, "First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world." Nobody can report on faith, but we can report on the fruit of faith, we can see what's happened to you. He says the same thing in 1 Thessalonians 1:8-10, he says, "The Lord's message rang out from you, not only in Macedonia and Achia, your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore, we don't need to say anything about it. For they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus, who rescues us from this coming wrath." Paul says, "The Thessalonian Christians, everybody could see your changed life. You stopped doing evil things. The gross sins follow way quickly, the drunk stops drinking, the drug addict stops using. Those that are sexually immoral, they stopped sleeping together."

There's a change in lifestyle because you're a Christian, and that's genuine. And then after that, the Lord has the rest of your lives to work on the real hard issues, the root issues of pride and lust and greed, and selfishness, the rest of your life. But a transformed lifestyle will be evident for everyone to see, that's the fourth step.

Step 5: Confirmed by Perseverance Through Suffering

The fifth step is confirmed by perseverance through suffering. You know about the rocky soil, the seed falls on it, and at once receives it with joy, but since he has no root he lasts only a short time. And trouble or persecution comes because of the Word, he quickly falls away. The ultimate confirmation of saving faith is perseverance over the years. Perseverance, facing two different kinds of suffering. First, suffering in temptation, you persevere in a lifestyle of holiness, fighting the good fight of faith. 1 Timothy 6, Paul talks about Timothy's confession, he said, "Fight the good fight of faith," they're linked together. It's an internal war of holiness and righteousness.

And secondly, making a verbal confession to the outside world. Speak to your neighbors, speak to your co-workers, speak to your classmates, tell them that you're a Christian, say that you believe that Jesus is Lord, you've got to speak the words. Because we're going to see later in Romans 10:17, "Faith comes by hearing." And earlier than that, that there's got to be a preacher. Somebody's got to be willing to say the words. You have to be willing to be counted as a Christian. You have to say, "Jesus is Lord," you have to be willing to say. Friends, nobody's going to get upset if you say, "God bless you," after somebody sneezes. Nobody is offended by the word God. Say, "Jesus", say "Jesus Christ. Jesus is Lord. Christ is my savior," that's when it's going to get offensive. Acts 4:12, "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to man by which we must be saved," than Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Say the name and be willing to be counted worthy of suffering for the Gospel.

III. Applications

What application can we take from this? Is understanding that we've gained the nature of true saving faith. First and foremost, friends, are you saved? Are you saved?  Are you saved from your sins? Are you saved from wrath on Judgment Day? Do you believe that Jesus is God in the flesh? Do you believe that God raised Him from the dead? Do you believe it with your heart?

Secondly, has Christ become your treasure? Is He your greatest desire? Is it your yearning to see Him in the face? Is it your yearning to see his glory and to be with him where He is? Is that what you want? For it says, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." And you think about it a lot. Do you wonder if Christ is pleased with you? Are you thinking, "Is this a Christocentric lifestyle?" And you're thinking, you're just thinking about Christ, you love Him, He's your treasure. And is your mouth and your life confirming that Jesus is your Lord? And if your answer to that is no, then you're not saved, you're still in your sins. Come to Christ. Jesus stands with his hands extended and says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I'll give you rest." Come to Christ today. Come to Christ and believe in Him, and trust in Him for the salvation of your souls.

And if you are a Christian, does your life live up to your testimony? Have you allowed some other things to crowd out your love for Christ? Is He still the only treasure of your heart, the ultimate treasure of your heart? Do you need some weeding work done? And are you willing to stand and be counted as one of his own? Make a confession that Jesus is your Lord publicly, to a watching world. That's going to give you a hard time for making that confession, are you willing to do it? Jesus Christ is calling on us as Christians to make this confession, "Jesus is Lord," to a world that hates Him. People's souls are relying on the willingness of Christians to make that confession. Won't you do it? Close with me in prayer.

We're looking this morning at Romans 10:9-10, two of the greatest verses and the clearest verses on the issue of saving faith. When we were on vacation, my family and I had the joy and delight of being in Arlington National Cemetery and seeing the Marine Color Guard, their precision drill team do their silent drill. And really was a remarkable thing to watch these Marines in their dress uniforms, doing all of these drills without any commands, the result of literally countless hours of practice, they're imbued with the spirit of dignity, knowing that they were in a legacy of one drill team after another, and that they were carrying the banner for the Marine Corps. And so they were standing in a line and they would do these things up and down the line and the timing was just perfect, precise, and you'd hear the kind of clattering. It was almost like a domino effect up and down the line, and we were all truly impressed while being truly hot too. It was very hot in DC over there, but we really enjoyed watching this.

After it was over, the Marines got on the specially designed bus which had a huge recruiting ad on the side for the Marines. And what it was, was a huge Marine sword, a shiny sword, held by a white glove, a hand with a white glove and the beautiful sleeve of a Marine dress uniform. You didn't see the man, but you saw this sleeve and the white glove and the shiny sword. And above it where the words, huge words, simple message, "Earned, never given." Earned, never given. And I went up to a Marine after is over, who had one of those swords that was earned and never given, and I asked, "What does that slogan mean? Earned, never given?" He said, "Well, this sword is given to non-commission officers after they go through certain training, and they go through intense trials and all kinds of different things, and once they reach that level, then the sword is awarded. It's never given to anybody who hasn't gone through those tests and those trials. That's what it means, earned, never given."

And I found myself grateful for men that are willing to go through those trials and we're defended by Marines who are willing to be that precise, and to go through that kind of training. But it got me thinking about the Gospel, and I was delighted, and am delighted to be able to preach to you a Gospel that is given, never earned. That God in His wisdom is willing to give us eternal life. Actually, we must not seek to earn it, it's a Gospel that is most definitely given, and never earned. It says in Romans 6:23, "The wages of sin is death." That's what we earn. If we want what we earn, what we earn is death. "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus." Isn't that wonderful? Given, and never earned. And you know why? Because God wants it guaranteed, and if it's earned, we will not get it.

It says in another place in Romans very plainly. "What does the scripture say? 'Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.' Now, when a man works, his wages are not credited him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work, but trusts God, his faith is credited to him as righteousness." And so it's just a simple gift from a God who justifies the wicked, the scripture says. And then in our passage, it says very plainly, Romans 10:8-10. "What does it say?" Namely the Word of faith. "What does it say? 'The word is near you, it is in your mouth and in your heart.' That is the Word of faith that we are proclaiming. That if you confess with your mouth '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."

The beautiful simplicity of saving faith. Saved from what? Well, saved from what we truly deserve, saved from what we have earned, saved from the wages of sin, which is eternal death, condemnation, Hell. We will be saved from that simply by believing in Christ.

Now the context here of Romans 10:9-10, Paul is dealing in Romans nine through 11, with the issue of why it is that the Jews, God's chosen people, His special people, were it seems so universally rejecting saving message, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Why were they rejecting? Romans 9, we saw, is the answer from the top down, the heavenly perspective, they were rejecting because of the sovereignty of God, the sovereign plan of God. And we saw all of that in all of its deep mysteries. But as we go on to Romans 10, we see it more from the human point of view. The Apostle Paul says that the Jews were too zealous to establish their own righteousness rather than to take God's free gift of righteousness. They wanted a salvation that was earned, never given. They wanted to be able to say, "I achieved this through my own efforts."

Look at verse 3 of the same chapter here, Romans 10:3. It says, "Since they, the Jews, did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness." Do you see that? And so, they were zealous to establish their own righteousness, and therefore they were in no market to receive the free gift of righteousness through faith in Christ. Now, for two weeks, we're going to look at Romans 10:9-10. Basically it's a three point sermon in two weeks, so that gets a little complicated, I know. And it's even worse because all three of them begin with C, and you think you'd preach them all in one morning. But it's a three part sermon, a three point sermon in two weeks.

This week, we're going to see the content of saving faith. The content, the mental aspect, what it is we must believe. Next week we're going to see the character of saving faith, that it is a heart matter, a matter of the heart. And we're going to see the confirmation of saving faith, namely what flows out into your life because of this saving faith. So the content, the character, confirmation of saving faith.

Let's look first at this issue, the content of saving faith. And just that thought itself is radical in this day and age, at least to many. Faith must have a content. There are some things we are believing, and by believing those things we are saved. Faith must have a content. And what that means is that faith alone itself is not enough to save your soul. Just having faith does not save anybody. Friends, there are a few American Christians that can match the faith and fanatical devotion of extremist Muslims who are willing both to kill and be killed for their faith. Few of us can match that level of commitment. Few American Christians can match the faith of a Buddhist monk who sits motionless for hours conquering all of his internal drive, so that he can achieve some kind of enlightenment through meditation. Few of us can achieve that level of belief and commitment.

Faith itself doesn't save anybody. Faith is the human capacity to trust, to venture forth on unseen realities, and put your whole life on the line for those realities. We have that capacity to trust. But saving faith itself is a gift from God, He gives it directly to the soul. And faith itself must have an object. I was reading some time ago, I love reading about history, and William L. Shirer, who wrote one of the authoritative histories of the Third Reich, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, was talking about... He was a CBS correspondent in Nazi Germany, in the years that lead up 1930s, that led up to World War II. And he was there at the Nuremberg Rally, the Nazi rally, in September of 1934. And he was astonished by the rabid fanaticism he saw among the German populace for this man Adolf Hitler. And this is what he wrote that night, the night of September in 1934. He says,

"About 10 o'clock tonight, I got caught in a mob of 10,000 hysterics who jammed the moat in front of Hitler's hotel shouting, 'We want our Führer.' I was a little shocked at the faces, especially those of the women, when Hitler finally appeared on the balcony for a moment. They reminded me of the crazed expressions I saw once in the back country of Louisiana, on the faces of some holy rollers who were about to hit the trail. They looked up at him as if he were a Messiah. Their face is transformed in something positively inhuman. If he had remained in sight for more than a few moments, I think that many of the women would have swooned from excitement."

My friends, faith itself doesn't save. No, it is faith in Christ that saves. It's faith that Jesus is Lord, that God raised Him from the dead that we're talking about this morning, that's what we're discussing. There is a faith that justifies, and God has revealed what that is. Now, behind this is a concept, like I said, that is surprising to some, or at least rejected or opposed by some. And that is that there is such a thing as absolute truth. Even in the religious and spiritual realm, there is such a thing as truth, there is such a thing as content.

The Insanity of Post-Modern Relativistic Truth  

Now, post-modern man is relativistic. We tend to deny, or post-modern man denies this concept that there are absolute truths. We teach that... We are taught that truth is subjective, that there actually can be something, get this, that's ultimately true for me, but not ultimately true for you.

How can that be? Doesn't that cause you want to scratch your head? How can it be that God raised Jesus from the dead for me, but He didn't raise Him from the dead for you? And I don't mean in sense that the person doesn't believe it, but I'm saying that it happened at all. But that's the way it is, we're in this relativistic kind of postmodern phase now, where we question all of these truths.

Ravi Zacharias was writing about this, and he talked about it in a kind of a homely sort of way, talking about an umpire calling balls and strikes. He said a pre-modern umpire would have said something like this, "I call them what they are." A modern umpire would say, "I call them as I see them." A post-modern umpire says, "Ain't nothing 'till I call them."  In other words, that truth and reality is in here, and I kind of created by what I claim and what I say I believe.

Do you see how self-centered that is? Do you see how weird it is? I think what we need is some of the earlier Disney where they said, I think, in Lady and the Tramp where the Siamese cats are saying, "We are Siamese if you please, we are Siamese, what, if you don't please." Amen. Okay. I don't know how far that's going to get you in life, but think about it, alright? We are Siamese if you please, we're Siamese if you don't please. We just are Siamese. And if you don't please, it's your problem, okay, because it is what I am. And now we're living in a post-modern era, in which we deny this idea of content and absolute truth. I don't really know how you can live that way, I don't think you can, I just think it's a mental fad. I don't think it's going to last long.

The Absolute Truth of the Gospel

Romans 10:9-10 shows that there are absolute truths, that truths like this are not relative. Now, our culture is going to call us arrogant, as though we're preaching ourselves as saviors. Our culture is going to call us narrow minded because we refuse to celebrate other people's version of spiritual truth. Our culture will cause bigoted because we reject out of hand anything that opposes these truths as having come from the devil. Christians these days seem intimidated by these things, that we're going to be seen to be arrogant and narrow minded and bigoted. And they are intimidating. And so we tend to be humble about these truths. GK Chesterton saw this a while ago, saying that humility is becoming misplaced. It no longer pertains to self opinion, where it ought to be, rather it now pertains to truth, where it ought not to be. A Christian should not apologize that the Grand Canyon is magnificent. Neither should they be embarrassed to declare that that is a beautiful sunset. And why then should we be embarrassed to declare that Jesus is Lord, and that God raised Him from the dead? That is the truth, and it's a truth that saves. And if we believe these things, we will have eternal life.

This says another thing to me, and that is that truth precedes and rules over religious experience. I was taught when I was in a college fellowship, I was being trained in evangelism, and very grateful for the evangelistic training that I received in college, I loved it and grateful for it, but one of the things they told me at the time, they said, "You need to focus on your personal testimony." Why is that? "Well, because your personal testimony can't be argued against, it can't be refuted." Well, that may be true, but it could also be called irrelevant. It might be called irrelevant. For example, a Buddhist could say that their meditation, the Zen meditation, has brought them to new heights of self-understanding, and a new sense of peace has flooded into their souls, and so much order and meaning has come to their lives now because of Zen Buddhism.

Tom Cruise and others will tell you what's, gladly tell you what Scientology is doing for them. What a weird cult that is, but he's glad to tell you of his experiences with Scientology. Hindus in India, some of them say they have reached experiences, levels of experience where they feel that they are out of the body. But what is the truth behind all of these things? And how would we respond to secular psychologists who have put them all in one bag, and even do studies that put electrodes on the head and find out what's happening in your brain waves when you're having these religious experiences, and dismiss it all biochemically and psychologically? Behind all of this, there needs to be some objective truth. And the difference between the Judeo-Christian tradition, and our Christian faith and the others, is it's based on historical events, realities, and facts, that God raised Christ from the dead.

God the Father Raised Jesus Christ From the Dead

In 1 Corinthians 15:17 it says, "And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." In other words, that historical fact did not happen, your faith is worthless. That's not a post-modern thought, friends. That says there is something that's absolutely true, and that is that the tomb is empty. Now, what is the content that Paul says we must believe? Well, look again at verse nine and 10. It says, "If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." The content, friends, focuses squarely and totally on the person of Jesus Christ, that's our content, He is our content. We're believing things about Jesus. Christianity is so totally identified with this person, Jesus of Nazareth, whom we call Jesus Christ, more so than any other religion that there has ever been.

Buddhism probably could continue without if there had never been a Gautama, the original enlightened one. He laid down some spiritual principles that would still stand, and I think the same is true of Mohammed in Islam. But Christianity disappears if there's no Jesus of Nazareth, it's totally focused on Him, who He was, what He said and did.

The Doctrine of the Incarnation and Full Deity of Christ

And what specific doctrines do we have in mind? Well, first the doctrine of the incarnation, the full deity of Christ. 'Jesus is Lord' is a statement in which we are declaring that Jesus, this man was actually God in the flesh, we're believing that He was God, we're worshipping Him as our Lord and our God. Now, Jesus of Nazareth was a real man, He was really born, He really lived, He really died, He had a body, He had a face, hands, feet, He ate, He slept, He walked, He spoke, and prayed. He breathed, and wept, and He bled, just like any man.

Now, Jesus of Nazareth is the politically correct term to use to refer to that individual. If you read Time magazine or News Week and they're referring, they're going to generally try to refer to Jesus of Nazareth, not to Jesus Christ, because Christ is the title Messiah, and they don't believe that. So we'll just say, "This man, Jesus of Nazareth." I'm saying, "Okay fine, Jesus of Nazareth, He's Lord, He is God, He took on a human body, He walked on this Earth, and He died for my sins." That's what we're claiming, we're claiming that this man, Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, is God.

Now, this title 'Lord', it meant deity, it meant God, no question about it. In the Old Testament, the central name for God is a name that we strive to pronounce perhaps as Yahweh. Perhaps others use the phrase or the word Jehovah. It's four letters, and it appears over 6,000 times in the Hebrew Bible, JHVH, or YHVH, something like that. And we pronounce it Yahweh or perhaps Jehovah. Now, because of the Ten Commandment's clear prohibition against taking the name of the Lord in vain, what the Jewish scribes did is, they wrote the vowels for the Hebrew word Adonai, which means Lord, a lower title, and whenever they would come to the four letter word for 'Lord', which is usually in all caps, all capital letters in your English Bibles, whenever they would come to that, they would pronounce 'Adonai', My Lord, that's what they're saying. When the Greek Jews wanted to translate the Hebrew Bible into Greek, Septuagint, they used the word that Paul uses here, 'Kyrios', Lord, every time, 6,156 times.

This word is used to refer to God, Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and therefore, to a Greek speaking Jew. The word kyrios meant God, Lord, He is the Lord. What we are saying is that Jesus of Nazareth this man is God, that's what 'Jesus is Lord' means. It's a confession. It is the central confession, of the Christian religion. In my opinion John Chapter 20 is the utter pinnacle of John's magnificent gospel. John 20:26-31.

Jesus is presenting himself after his crucifixion presenting himself alive in the body to his apostles. Of course, you know that Thomas wasn't there the first time and said, I don't believe it, as a matter of fact, if I don't see him with my own eyes, if I don't get a chance to put my finger in his wounds and touch the mark on his side, I'll never believe it. And so Jesus appears a week later, and here's how the account goes. "A week later, His disciples were in the house again and Thomas was with them though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you and then He said to Thomas, "Put your finger here see my hands reach out your hand and put it into my side stop doubting. And believe, Thomas said to him, [the central confession of Christianity] 'My Lord and My God.'"

That's what we're saying here in Romans 10:9. We are making Thomas's confession that Jesus is 'my Lord and my God.' Remember what Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are they, who have not seen, and yet, have believed." And then John goes on to finish that chapter. "Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples which are not recorded in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His name." This is what you must believe to have your sins forgiven. "My Lord and my God," applied to Jesus of Nazareth.

John also put it at the very beginning of his gospel, in John 1:1 and 14 "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God." "And the word became flesh and made His dwelling among us…" He was fully man, and fully God, God in the flesh, come down to Earth. He is the one that we worship he is no mere man and this doctrine is taught, again and again, you had read earlier for you Colossians chapter one, verse 15, following this is what it says, "For by Him, all things were created, things in heaven and earth, visible, and invisible whether thrones or powers, or rulers, or authorities, all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything, he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him." That's what we're saying all the fullness of God dwells in this man, Jesus, Jesus is Lord.

Or it says in Hebrews 1:3, "The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word, and after He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven." This is the one that we worship now when we say 'Jesus is Lord,' we're also giving a statement of absolute sovereignty. He is the Lord, He rules over heaven and earth, He is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty Jesus said it this way, in Matthew 28:18. "All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me" for Christian that's good news, isn't it? All authority in heaven and earth is Christs. He rules on a throne. Or it says in Ephesians 1:21-23, "far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and the every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come and God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way."

That is the absolute exalted sovereignty of Jesus, that's who we worship, or again in Philippians 2:9 through 11, after Jesus willingly died on the cross, it says that "God exalted him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that 'Jesus Christ is Lord' to the glory of God the Father." this is the central confession of the Christian faith Jesus is Lord. But let me make it very personal for you, if you're a believer in Christ, what you are saying is Jesus is My Lord. He is my sovereign, He is my God, he's My savior, my ruler.

You're making Thomas's confession 'My Lord and my God,' that's why it's the pinnacle of John's gospel, 'My Lord and my God.' I don't understand, what happened some time ago, when Somebody told us that we could separate Jesus as Savior from Jesus as Lord. Where do you get that? I mean, isn't Jesus is Lord kind of right here in Romans 10:9, I would think you would need to believe that Jesus is Lord in order to be saved because it says so and they say, "Oh that's Lordship of salvation no it's just salvation in the name of the Lord." There's no difference between Jesus as savior and Jesus as Lord. You can't have Him as Savior and not as your Lord. And so what's going to happen is the true Christian is saying Jesus is my Lord in every area of my life. I think it's what Jesus was commanding us to do inviting us to do when He said, "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 receive rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

What is his yoke? It's His kingly authority, the Gospel of Matthew is all about the kingdom of Christ and what it's about, is that you are going to take that stiff neck of yours and I'm going to take that stiff neck of mine, and I'm going to put it under a yoke of authority, and I'm going to find freedom at last from the yoke of sin that I'd been laboring under all that time because his yoke is easier than sins yoke and his burden is lighter than the burden of eternal condemnation.

And so that's what I'm saying, when I say Jesus is Lord, what I think it means is, I'm going to say Jesus is Lord of my private thought life, Jesus is Lord of my dreams, my aspirations and my ambitions, Jesus is Lord of my time, my minutes and my hours and my years, he is Lord of my money. What I save what I spend on myself, what I spent on others. What I spend on my family what I give away for the Lord's service, he is Lord of all of my money. He's Lord of my sex life, He's Lord of my marriage, he's Lord of my parenting, He's Lord of the books I choose to read and those I refuse to rea.  He's lord of the movies I watch, and those are refused to watch. He's Lord of all of that area of my life, He's Lord of everything He is Lord, so therefore, His commandments, rule my life when He commands me to do something I must obey when he says You should go as a missionary, I must go when he says, "Take this Job or not that one." He is Lord. He rules over everything in my life, he is my King, my ruler, my sovereign, He is my God and a Christian is delighted about that a Christian is joyful about that. Glad to have a wise and powerful sovereign to tell him or her what to do.

The Bodily Resurrection of Christ

And we are glad to submit because he's the king, he is the Lord. That's one thing you must believe, You must also believe that God physically raised Him from the dead, you must believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. Doctrinal content is essential Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. That's what we believe and friends, not merely that the spirit of Jesus imbues us all And we all just kind of enjoy the spirit of the resurrection. Kind of like the spirit of Christmas What is that?

What is the spirit of Christmas? It just kind of kicks in right around the day after Thanksgiving, when all the sales begin and then the spirit of Christmas and we just breathe it in. That is not what we're saying. We're saying that there was a time in history when we could have stood after Jesus had been crucified and touched and heard him say to us flesh or a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see. I have... That's what we're saying. He was physically bodily raised from the dead. You know what that means. Death holds no ultimate fear for me anymore. Only thing that I fear is the process like you. But the ultimate results, I do not fear and the fear of the process reduces as I go on and grow in my Christian faith.

The tomb is empty. We've already sung about it this morning. Isn't that glorious? We're not waiting for death, we're waiting for glory, Christ is risen from the dead, and so therefore we have to believe these things. We confess with our mouth Jesus is Lord, and we believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead. And if so, we will be saved. What does that mean? It means the full record of all of our transgressions and sins, all of them for our whole life will be washed away through the blood of Christ, we will fear no condemnation we will not spend eternity getting what we deserve we'll spend eternity receiving what we did not deserve by grace. That's what it means, we will be saved. So what does that mean? It means that content is essential to evangelism. If you're going to do evangelism, you need to... You need to preach this content, you need to communicate it, content therefore is essential to save in faith.

Now, Paul is going to say it openly Look down at verses 13-15.  We'll say it more fully God willing, if we get to preach on that as we plan to. But look at verses 13-15 it says there "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 listen to this. And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?" You know what that means? You've got to have content in order to have faith, content precedes faith, You see what I'm saying?

How can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard, and how can they hear without someone preaching to them, communicating that content and how can they preach, unless they are sent as it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" Friends? We must bring good news to people who haven't heard it. We must bring good news, and that good news has content. We must tell them that there is a God who created Heaven and earth, that, that God who created heaven and Earth has laws by which He expects us to live and he has the right to give us those laws and that we have sinned and have broken those laws, the Ten Commandments, the two great commandments, we've broken them. And that we deserve eternal condemnation for having broken those laws.

But that God in his grace and mercy, sent His only begotten Son Jesus into this world to take on a human body, to live a genuine human life. He did miracles, signs, and wonders, he walked on water, He fed the 5000 with five loaves and two fish, he raised the dead, and then he was arrested falsely accused of blasphemy, he was nailed to the cross, his blood was shed as an atoning sacrifice for my sin and for yours, and he died, he literally died and on the third day, God raised Him from the dead, He ascended to Heaven, and at present sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. That's what we have to tell them. We have to tell them that content or they cannot be saved and as they listen to that content, what's going to happen is Romans 10:17, "Consequently faith comes from hearing the message of Christ."

And so as they're listening to the message what happens inside their heart faith and God justifies they hear this content, and they say, "I believe that. I believe it." And God sees what's in their heart with their heart, they believe, and they are justified, Through faith.

Now, there are two direct consequences of all this first. If our faith has content, the content must be proclaimed. Are you active and involved in proclaiming this content? Have you shared these truths with anybody in the last six months?

Well, speaking positively and encouragingly. Why don't you begin why don't you start, why don't you begin sharing this week, why don't you ask God to give you an opportunity to talk to somebody about this content? I'm not saying don't share your testimony, go ahead if it gets you into talking about the content, but talk about this content of saving faith with somebody this week. This content must be proclaimed.

Secondly, friends, this content must be protected. It is under attack and it will be ever increasingly. So in our interesting country, our pluralistic country in which we live, they will attack this content they already have. When I was living in Massachusetts I drove by almost every day, during one phase of my life, past Lexington and Concord where the Revolutionary War began, in April 19th, 1775 after the Minute Men the local militia, had been forewarned, not by Paul Revere sadly, for all the great poetry that was written, he never made it, but other folks did make it out and say The British are coming.

And so they were ready, at dawn for 1000 British regulars who were coming. Now just a handful of militia, they were standing there. And Captain John Parker, who was commanding Lexington militia said this, "Stand your ground If they mean to have a war let it begin here." Now, let me say to you that if the rights of colonials under the British Empire are worth standing and fighting for and protecting how much more these Gospel truths.

Now don't misunderstand me. We don't fight with a musket in our hands or with any weapon physically our weaponry is spiritual. It says in 2nd Corinthians 10:3-5. We defend it spiritually, we defend arguments, we challenge thoughts. So I worked for 10 years as an engineer and I know the kind of discussions that happen and people are more and more drinking in this relativistic way of thinking, challenge it.

Think of interesting and clever things to say that get them to say, "Can I really live like that?" I don't live like that. There must be some truths that we all believe and work with It challenge them. This content must be proclaimed but it must also be protected, and so we need to defend these truths from attack.

Now, what applications can we take from this? Obviously, those two proclaim... Proclaim it and protect it. Let me just speak to you, as folks that I don't know all of you, I don't know everything that's going on in your heart. Can I urge you to test yourself and see if you're in the faith.

Are you saved? Have you been saved according to my text? Do you believe that Jesus is Lord, Can you confess it, can you say Jesus is my Lord in truth do you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, do you believe? Have you felt the weight of your sin, do you know that you need a Savior, and if you... Are you willing to come to Christ and find in Him all the salvation, all the favor, you need. So I'm speaking to those that perhaps have never testified that Jesus is your Lord, Are You saved?

Have you trusted in Christ? And for those of you that have here in, in the simple text, find your assurance it's not complicated, it really just comes down to this, "If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." But we're gonna talk next week about how your confession, needs to line up with reality. You're going to be confessing not just with your lips but with your life, and I'll end with this Challenging word from Christ, in which Jesus said in Luke 6:46 "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say." Close with me in prayer.

Isn't it great to be a Christian? Isn't it great to be saved by grace? Aren't you glad that you are saved by a free gift and not by some great achievement you have to earn? And the text talks about that today, a righteousness that is by law, contrasted with the righteousness that is by faith. And I started thinking about the great things that people would be willing to achieve to save their souls. What great thing would you be willing to do to save your soul? I was thinking about that when I came across a story found in the New York Times, November 2001, and I was just amazed by this, listen to this, the story goes like this,

"The snows had scarcely melted last June, when 24-year-old Joama and her three male cousins, yak herders in the remote mountains of Northern Tibet, embarked on the most sublime journey of their lives. Their departure was not marked by any ceremony. "We just started out," she recalled. The four began mumbling mantras and raised their hands to heaven. They dropped to their knees and flung their bodies forward, fully prone against the damp earth, then they stood up, took three small steps forward, and repeated the entire sequence."

"For more than five months now, they have prostrated themselves this way, all day every day, inch-worming their way to Lhasa and its holy sites. They slowly made their way through more than 100 miles of some of the world's harshest terrain, starting from above 14,000 feet, and then followed a highway 200 more miles into Lhasa. They reached the city in early November. These days, they are inching their way along busy sidewalks in the city as they follow the three hallowed circuits around the Jokhang Temple, the holiest site in Tibetan Buddhism, in advance of praying at its inner shrines. Only here, it seems safe to say, could such a roadside spectacle attract little notice. Thousands of Tibetans undertake similar pilgrimages each year, not to mention the far greater numbers who reach holy sites by bus, tractor or ordinary treks of weeks or months."

What great thing would you do to save your soul? These people are willing to throw themselves on the ground for months and months, inching their way forward to save their souls. Religions around the world have an amazing, an astonishing array of answers to this question. Frankly, the more costly, the more fascinating, the more difficult and the more bizarre, the better. In Islam, Muslims are commanded, once in their lifetime to make a pilgrimage to Mecca and many do so at great cost. In Hinduism, people make extraordinary efforts to travel to the River Ganges, one of the holy rivers of Hinduism, to wash in its supposedly holy waters. We had a testimony a couple of Sunday evenings ago from Timothy, who told us a heartbreaking story of a Hindu woman who drowned her infant to atone for her sins. She came to faith in Christ and then wept and said, "Why couldn't you have come here a day earlier?" Because it was the day before she had done that.

Medieval Europeans, under the superstitious system of medieval Catholicism, made long pilgrimages to Rome and crawled up the staircase of Pilate on their knees, uttering prayers on every step, in an effort to save their souls. Also, during this time, the dark ages of Europe, a legend arose concerning the Holy Grail, which was the cup that Jesus supposedly drank from at the Last Supper. And the Knights of the Round Table went out on a quest to find this Holy Grail, because if you drank from it, you could have eternal life. And they were willing to basically spend their entire lives in this quest for the Holy Grail. What great thing would you be willing to do to save your soul?

Now, this theme is touched on in 2 Kings, interestingly, when a pagan military commander named Naaman desired to be healed from leprosy. He was urged by his Jewish slave girl to go see the prophet Elisha, Elisha told him to wash seven times in the Jordan River and he would be healed. At this point Naaman became irate. He said, "The rivers back in my home country are better than this one," and then his helpers came and said this interesting thing to him. "If the prophet had told you to do some great thing, you would have done it." That's the aspect of the human soul I'm latching on to here today. If we could save our souls by doing some great thing, we would do it.

Suppose salvation were a scavenger hunt of incredible achievement. Suppose immortality awaited anyone who did each of the following tasks: Suppose you had to climb a sacred mount in Tibet and pick a pink and white flower that blossomed there once every seven years, and then after that, you had to go and gather a vile of water from the Nile River and bring it to an Aborigine in the Australian Outback for him to drink, and then you had to rescue an orphan from the street of Calcutta and get them enrolled in a private school, and then you had to earn $10,000 by making something with your own hands and giving it to the poor, and then, finally, you had to go up to the Arctic and cut a block of ice from a glacier and transport it, without melting, down to the South Pole. Would you do it?

Aren't you glad you don't have to? Praise God that salvation is not a scavenger hunt of astonishing achievements that God looks to see on your resume at the end of life, and sees if you are righteous enough to enter. But instead, we have a righteousness that is ours simply by faith, and that's exactly what Paul is talking about here in Romans 10:5-10. "Moses describes in this way, the righteousness that is by law: 'the man who does these things will live by them.' But the righteousness that is by faith says, 'Do not say in your heart, "who will ascend into the heavens?" That is, to bring Christ down, or, "Who will descend into the deep?" That is, to bring Christ up from the dead.' But what does it say? 'The Word is near you, it is in your mouth and in your heart,' the word of faith that we are proclaiming: that if you confess with your mouth '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."

And so we have two different kinds of righteousness here in the text. We have a righteousness that is by law and we have a righteousness that is by faith. Now first, this righteousness that is by law, I describe it this way: What seems possible is actually impossible. Look what Moses said in verse five, "Moses describes in this way, the righteousness that is by law, 'the man who does these things will live by them.'" Well, what are these things? They're precepts of the law, the rules and regulations that God gave through Moses. If you do these things, you live by them. Well, live by them doesn't just mean live your life by them, it doesn't just mean pattern your lifestyle or organize your life by means of these laws. What does it mean? It means you will live eternally by them, you will go to heaven by them eternally. Leviticus 18:5, the Lord said, through Moses, "Keep my decrees and laws, for the man who obeys them will live by them; I am the Lord." But history proved that no human being, other than Christ, no human being could fully obey the law. Peter, in the council in Jerusalem, in Acts 15, said, "Why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?" None of them could bear the yoke of the law. They couldn't do it, and so it seemed possible, but it actually was impossible.

First Problem: Obedience Must be Perfect

Why? Well, the first problem is, your obedience must be perfect, must be comprehensive and perfect. God intends that all of his law be kept. In James 2:10-11 says, "Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point, is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, 'Do not commit adultery,' also said, 'Do not murder.' If you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you've become a law breaker." So you have to keep the whole law.

Well, how often do you have to keep the whole law? Well, you have to keep it all the time. That's the second aspect of this problem. You have to keep all of the law, all of the time. It says in Galatians 3:10, "All who rely on observing the law are under a curse; for it is written, "Cursed is everyone [listen] who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law." So you can't have your good days and your bad days under the law, it's impossible. Not and be saved by it. God intends heart obedience to the law, so you have to keep all the law, you have to keep it all the time, and you have to keep it from the heart, not just external regulations and ceremonies, you have to keep it from the heart.

It says in Deuteronomy 6:5-6, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength," and then he says, "These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts." It's a heart obedience. For example, in the 10 Commandments, he required that the Israelites not covet. He said, "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, you shall not covet your neighbor's house, or his property, or his manservant or maidservant, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." Now, one of the things about making a law is, that it has to be enforceable. I'm telling you, No Congress, no state legislature, no parliament will ever make a law against coveting. You know why? Because they can't enforce it. "Oh, you were coveting, I saw it right there. 30 days in jail." How can we read hearts and minds? But God can, and so he put it in his law. It's invasive, it invades your heart and your mind. It says, "You shall not think these thoughts, you shall not set your desire on it," says in Deuteronomy, "Anything that belongs to your neighbor." Only God can enforce that law. It's a heart obedience.

Second Problem: Extra Credit Impossible

The second problem, as we've mentioned before, is that extra credit is impossible and unavailable. You can't get a 105% on the test and then take that 5% and put it toward your bad day. Is it possible, on any given day, to do more than this? Love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. Can you do more than that on any given day? So there is no extra credit possible.

Third Problem: No Atonement for Past Sins

And thirdly, there's no therefore atonement for past sins, you can't use present righteousness to atone for past sins. Imagine a criminal standing in front of a judge, saying, "I know I committed murder, I admit it, but from now on, I won't murder anybody." "Oh, well, great! Go home. I am so glad to hear that, from now on, you will not break the law." No judge will say that. We can't use future obedience to pay for past disobedience. We are stuck, and therefore, there can be no salvation by the law.

Now Jewish legalists, like the scribes of Pharisees, set up a system of human traditions, and they lowered the standards of the law, and they figured that God would be gracious to cover the rest, and figured that, by the law, they had righteousness. This is the very problem that Jesus had with them. And what ends up happening when you do that, is it leads you to either hypocrisy or despair. Hypocrisy, in that you lower the standard and think you've met it, and then put up the front that you really are righteous and you don't need a savior. That's what the Pharisees did.

Or it leads to despair. Or, along the road to despair, insecurity, perhaps? Like the rich, young ruler, remember him? Rich, young ruler comes to Jesus and says, you remember the question he asked at the... Upfront? "What good thing must I do to inherit eternal life?" That's the question before, it's right at the beginning of this sermon. "What good thing must I achieve to inherit eternal life?"

Do you remember what Jesus did with him? He handed him the law first. He said, "What do you read? What about the commandments? Have you obeyed the commandments?" He said "Yes," and he listed, Jesus listed five of them, and two of them were, "Honor your father and mother," and "love your neighbor as yourself." I tell you that positive commands are harder than negative ones. It's harder to honor than not to dishonor. It is harder to love than not hate. You have to be active, you have to be out doing things, it's an energetic life. And do you remember what the rich young ruler said? He said, "All these I have kept from my childhood," and yet he came to Jesus, didn't he? You know why he came to Jesus? Beause he's insecure. He's not sure he's going to heaven. He's insecure, and so he says, "What good thing must I do to get eternal life?" Because he's not sure yet. And so, that whole life does not work. The insecurity. And it's built into the system.

Recently, we saw a movie about the 1980th Olympic hockey team, and it's called Miracle, it's a great movie, we enjoyed watching it. And the coach in it, Herb Brooks, a true story, Herb Brooks was a tough, tough man, tough coach, he was a whip-cracker. And after the initial tryout, he already had knew the players that he wanted for his first 25. He sat them down and he said "I'll be your coach, but I won't be your friend." Whoa! Alright. Well, decidedly, he's not going to be their friend, and he said, "There are 25 of you sitting here, 20 of you will go to the Olympics. If you give 99%, you'll make my job very easy." And what is he doing? He's holding the ultimate prize over them as a motivator, so that he's driving them by it. That is the righteousness that is by the law.

Another illustration is a story that Christie and I have enjoyed, is Anne of Green Gables. And this young orphan girl comes to live with a family that didn't want her there, hoping to get a boy to help with the chores and then, instead, they get a girl. And she's a handful, to say the least. And so she lives there under probation, she's on trial. Not really adopted. Maybe someday she'll be adopted, but she's on trial, and she just can't seem to ever do the right thing, she just goes from one trouble to the next. Do you wanna live before God like that? Maybe some day you'll be adopted, if you're good enough? That's the righteousness that is by the law. And thanks be to God, I don't stand before you today and none of you Christians who have trusted in Christ stand before God in that kind of righteousness. Amen. We stand before God in a righteousness that is a gift, a righteousness that is by faith.

That's the second part, and this is what Paul says in verses 6 and 7, "The righteousness that is by faith says, 'Do not say in your heart, "Who will ascend into heaven?" That is, to bring Christ down. Or, "Who will descend into the deep?" That is, to bring Christ up from the dead.'" Now, the righteousness that is by faith is exactly the opposite. What seems impossible has actually already been achieved. Now these two commands, these two kinds of life are contrasted. You've got the life of righteousness by works, or by law, and then that is by faith, by grace, by gift. They're contrasted here. And there are two key verses that support them in the Old Testament. Leviticus 18:5, "The man who obeys them will live by them." That's Leviticus 18:5. Then you've got Habakkuk 2:4, "The righteous will live by faith." The two are mutually exclusive, you can't have both. They're at odds with each other, they're opposite. It says in Galatians 3:12, "The law is not based on faith. On the contrary, the man who does these things will live by them." They're two different ways of approaching salvation.

From the very beginning of Romans, Paul has been commending the righteousness that comes by faith. He says "I'm not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the Gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is from faith, for faith. Just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith." There's a righteousness that is by faith. It's a simple gift of God, that's what he's been preaching all through the Book of Romans. Now, Paul decides to talk about what's impossible for man. He says, "Do not say in your heart, "Go up the heavens, go up to the heavens and get it."" Or, "Go down to the depths," these are impossible things, it's the language of impossibility.

Now he's reaching for Deuteronomy 30, in which Moses was talking about the law, and there in the law, in Deuteronomy 30, it says this, verse 11 and following, "Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It's not up in the heavens, so that you have to ask, 'Who will ascended into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us, so we may obey it?' Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, 'Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?' No, the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may obey it." Now, Moses was saying, "You Jews didn't have to go up to heaven, scaling heavenly Olympus to get the 10 Commandments, to get the law, God has come down to where you are and has given you the law. You didn't have to go any great distance, God brought it right to you."

But notice what Paul is doing here; he takes this Deuteronomy verse and he applies it to Christ. You see, the law came down and was right there, but it was in their face, it wasn't in their heart, it hadn't transformed them, it couldn't save them, it gave them no life. So actually, though the written code was near them, it wasn't in them. But Paul is talking about a word from God, that is Christ, the Living Word, who is more than just near you, he is in you. And so he takes it and mixes in Christ into the Deuteronomy quote. "The righteousness that is by faith says, 'Do not say in your heart, "Who will ascend into heaven?" That is, to bring Christ down. Or, "Who will descend into deep?" That is, to bring Christ up from the dead.'" You see how he mixes in the Gospel with the law. These were impossible things, but what is impossible for us has actually been achieved by Jesus.

Christ has done it. Christ has given us a perfect achievement. Now listen, if you wanted to try to persuade Jesus to come to the earth, first of all, you couldn't get where he lives. He says, "I live in a high and holy place, a high and lofty place." You can't get there. Man tried by building a tower of Babel to scale to the heavens, couldn't make it. You can't get there, and if he were not inclined to come to the earth, you could not have persuaded him to do it. He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. You couldn't have done it.

Two Central Doctrines: Incarnation and Resurrection

It was impossible for you, but what was impossible for you, Christ has done. He has come down from Heaven to Earth, that's the doctrine of the incarnation. In the fullness of time. He was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man, he came down from Heaven to Earth. He says this again and again, "I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but to do the will of Him who sent me, and this is the will of whom he sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given me, but raise them up at the last day." That's why Jesus came down, he came down.

And the second doctrine that is to bring Christ up from the dead is the resurrection. We could not have made Christ be incarnate and we could not have made him rise from the dead. What is impossible for us, however, Christ has achieved.

By the way, these are the very two doctrines that Paul says are essential to your salvation, that if we confess with our mouths Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead we will be saved. When you confess with your mouth Jesus that is Jesus of Nazareth, the human being, he's actually Lord, he is God, you're confessing the incarnation. That Jesus is God will talk more about this next time I preach on Romans. It's the doctrine of the incarnation, you must believe it that Jesus is God, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. These are the two doctrines, that he gives to us. And therefore Christian salvation, is essentially simple.

Look what he says in verse 8 and 9. He says you don't have to ascend into the heavens, you don't have to go down to the depths. "What does it say? 'The word is near you. It's in your mouth and in your heart,' that is the word of faith that we are proclaiming. That if you confess with your mouth 'Jesus is Lord' and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." The simplicity of salvation. Now listen our salvation was immensely difficult for Jesus. Immensely costly to him. Don't ever say that salvation was free. It's free for you but for him it was costly. But he's paid that price so that we wouldn't have to. Our salvation cost him everything he had.

He stood day after day under the full weight of the devil's temptations. And under the full weight of the Law of Moses and bore it all perfectly never sinned, and even more on the cross, when he was nailed to the cross and He shed His blood, He bore our sins in His body on the tree, so salvation was immensely difficult for Christ. But for us, it is simple. We're not on a scavenger hunt of righteousness where you have to go day after day and seek your own justification day after day, seeking to do something that will be righteous enough for you to go to heaven. You don't have to do that, you don't have to go on a pilgrimage kneeling up the stairs of Pilate muttering a prayer every step. You don't have to do what they're doing in Lhasa. So, taking months and months to travel, inches at a time to some shrine. You don't have to go to some filthy river in India and bathe in it, so that you can be cleansed and reduce your karma or whatever it is they believe.

No single righteous work or deed or action is justifiable in God's sight, it is not our righteousness. Now, many good works flow from saving faith. We'll talk about that, God willing, next time. And so there's a whole righteous life that flows but none of those justify us. We stand in Christ's achievement and therefore for us justification is simple. You believe in Christ and that's all. Paul is stressing here, therefore the incredible simplicity of salvation, just as Jesus did. There's a day in Matthew 18, it's recorded a day when the disciples came to him and they were arguing about which was the greatest in the kingdom. I'm always amazed at what the disciples had done to think they were even in the running. Do you ever wonder that?

I mean they're arguing about which of them was the greatest. They were just fishermen and tax collectors and other things, they were just ordinary people. But after a couple of years with Jesus, they started thinking very highly of themselves. And so they're having an argument about which was the greatest. And Jesus, it says, calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them, and said, "Truly I say to you, [unless you are converted] unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven." That's incredible, the astounding range of the Gospel. We just got done with what I would think is one of the hardest chapters in the entire Bible to understand, Romans 9. The depths of it is so amazing that Paul himself says in Romans 11, "O the depth of the riches, 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," the deep things of God, and they are deep.

But here, we have the simplicity of God. That if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you'll be saved. It's a simple Gospel that we preach with incomprehensible depths behind it. It is so simple a child could understand it, frankly, it's so simple Jesus said that unless you become like a child, you'll never accept it. It is that simple. The Word is near you, that's what he says. God is bringing salvation right to you. Right to where you live, right to your heart, right to your mouth. He's come down from Heaven to do it. That's what he is doing. Right to where you live, right to this room today, he's bringing it right to you.

You don't have to travel to him, he's seeking you and he's bringing the Word right to where you live. Now later in this chapter, he will advocate, why preachers need to go because they're going to fulfill that very thing. The preacher will go to bring the Word of God, right to where those folks live but he's bringing it right to where you live. Emmanuel, it means God with us. John's version of this is so beautiful. John 1:1, it says "In the beginning was... " What? "The Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Verse 14, "The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, and we beheld his glory, glory, the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." Jesus took on a human body and just brought the word salvation, right to us. God is proclaiming a word of faith to the human race and that Word is Jesus, that is the word he's saying, he is Hebrews 1, God's final Word to the human race, it is Jesus Christ, the word of faith that we are proclaiming.

Now, why did God make salvation simple? Next time we're going to talk God willing, about these great verses, verses 9-10, "If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." There's a lot in there friends, and God willing when I get back from vacation, we'll talk some more about it. It's going to be an incredible time. Saving faith is deep and these verses are deep, we're going to talk more about it. But there's an essential simplicity here. And I want to ask a question, why did God make it so simple? I think there are two reasons I want to consider with you. First to destroy all human pride. Suppose God had given you that scavenger hunt of righteousness.

God Made Salvation Simple to Destroy Human Pride

Suppose you had gone to the ends of the earth for righteousness. And suppose you'd achieved it. Do you know what you'd spend eternity doing? Boasting in your achievement or comparing stories. "How did you get that block of ice from the North Pole to the South Pole?" "Well, this is what I did, wasn't I clever?" "How did you get that vile of Nile River water down to the aborigine in the Outback?" And we'd be boasting at each other. God doesn't want it, he doesn't want it. And so to cut the root out of all human boasting, to destroy pride in knowing deep thoughts. To destroy pride in achieving great achievements. Instead, he made a salvation like this in which he does all the impossible things and we do the simple thing. We just believe in Him, and we just trust in Him. The message of the cross destroys all boasting, it says in 1 Corinthians 1:18-19 "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate." And again, it says in 1 Corinthians 1:29-31, "So that no one may boast before Him, therefore, as it is written, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord."

God Made Salvation Simple to Save All Kinds of Sinners

The second reason he made salvation simple is to save all kinds of sinners. To save all kinds of sinners. Friends, most of the people in the world are simple people. Most of the people in the world are basic thinkers. Simple people. God knows that they're not going to spend lots and lots of hours doing the deepest theological pondering. They will live simply, they will eat simply they will love simply, they will work simply and they will die simply and they'll be buried simply and within three generations, no one will know where they are buried or what that marker is except God. And so God wanted to save simple people. As a matter of fact, God delights in saving simple people.

And so it says in 1 Corinthians 1, the fuller passage, it says, "Brothers think of what you were when you were called not many of you were wise, not many were influential, not many were of noble birth, but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong, he chose the lowly things of the world and the despised things, and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus." Ponder that. "It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us, wisdom from God, that is our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore as it is written, 'Let him who boast, boast in the Lord.'"

Having chosen many simple, humble, folk to be his own, he crafted a saving message they could understand just as they are and then published it abroad to the ends of the earth, that's what he's doing.

Now, application for us. First of all, friends, your quest for self-righteousness ends here, drop it. God doesn't honor it, it's not possible. It seems possible but it isn't, so drop it, rather simply humbly come to the cross of Jesus Christ, simply humbly say that is my righteousness. His death atoned for all of my transgressions, his righteous life has become my righteousness simply by faith. Don't despise the simplicity of the Gospel. It's right here, in two verses, don't despise it. He's made it so simple a child can understand it. Don't despise that. And along with that may I urge you, preach the Gospel to children, share the gospel with your own young children, and if you're grown share them with somebody else's young children.

Little children, you don't have to work to get them to be like little children, older people, you have to work on them. Like Jesus' disciples. He said, "Unless you turn and convert and become like little children," the little children are already there. They're teachable, they're leadable, they're ready to believe. Share the gospel with children. Conversely, don't despise the complexity of Christianity because this very same one who gave us a simple Gospel gave us a deep Gospel and you'll be the rest of your life pondering it's depths. Ponder away, but realize you are saved the moment you believe this simple message that Jesus died for me. Close with me in prayer.

In Romans 10:1-4 we come to the connection between Romans 9 and Romans 10. We come immediately at verse 1, to a mystery in the Christian life, and we should be used to that. We live in a world filled with mysteries that we just accept everyday. Most cell phone users don't have the first idea what happens to their voice when they speak into it, and it's heard by somebody on the other side of the world, but that doesn't stop them from using cell phones. I can assure you it doesn't stop them. And most people who try to reheat a meal using a microwave aren't troubled by the fact that they do not fully understand microwave technology, they push the start button and they eat the meal a couple of minutes later, it's not a problem for them.

Have you ever stopped to ponder the remote on the TV and say, "I'm not going to use this until I understand fully what's happening with this and with the TV as well, and until I understand it I'm not watching." Now that might be a good pledge for some of you to make, because there's not a lot worth watching. But we are surrounded by mysteries that we just accept. Those are all technological mysteries, but there have been mysteries all along. Most people do not fully understand what happens when a seed is stuck into the ground. Jesus said, "Day and night, it grows so the farmer doesn't know how." He can't give an explanation, a full explanation of how it goes from seed to harvest. Only God knows that and yet he's not hindered from putting the seed in the ground, and he's not hindered from harvesting when the time comes. And so it is when we come to chapter 10 and meet right away a mystery, we realize we cannot be hindered by the fact that we can't fully comprehend how these two things go together. What are they?

Romans 9 has been portraying a picture of salvation that it comes from the sovereign will of God, that our God is a king. He rules over all things. And so, we've been wrestling with very deep statements in Romans Chapter 9, things that talk about unconditional election, Jacob and Esau, "before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad, in order that God's purpose in election might stand…" We had already learned that it was before the foundation of the world, this election, this predestination. We've seen that salvation does not depend ultimately on man, a man's desire effort, but on God who has mercy, Romans 9:16. We've seen that God in Romans 9:18 has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

And yet, here we go, in chapter 10:1 and we get Paul saying, "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved."

Now, hold on a minute, Paul. If it's all been set before the foundation of the world, then why pray for it? I don't understand, this is a mystery. And so, we have eternal predestination, and energetic prayer, and they're side by side in the very one who taught it. Later in Romans 10, we're going to get eternal predestination and energetic preaching around the world. How can they believe in the one that they've not heard of? "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!'" Again a mystery, but to Paul, you see in his life energetic prayer for the lost, and we see also this energetic preaching to the ends of the earth that the lost may be saved. Now, this is mystery and I cannot explain it fully, too, because I don't understand it myself. I don't know that the apostle Paul could have plumbed all the depths and fully understood it all, but he knew this, God was sovereign over salvation and we need to pray for the lost.

God was sovereign over salvation and we need to preach to the lost that they may be saved, and he knew that.

And so we come here in verse 1, To Paul's heartfelt prayer for Israel. Look at it verse 1, "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved." Now, here we have Paul's amazing and astonishing love for his persecutors. The Jews were constantly opposing him at every turn. They would listen for a while and then at some point, he would say something that would offend them, and they would turn on him, and eventually in many places at least, start a riot. When was the last time you started a riot? Wouldn't that have made you feel bad? Wouldn't you say, "This was not one of my best days? I didn't wake up this morning hoping to start a riot." Well, Paul started at least three of them. This was a man who stirred up deep passions, and it was the Christ-rejecting Jews that were at the heart of all of them. They would pursue Paul from place to place. They weren't content just to hear him and let him go, drive him out of their town. They'd find out where he was going next and they chased him there and they'd start trouble there.

Now, Christ had predicted this aggressive Jewish persecution of the gospel when he said in Matthew 23:34, "Therefore, I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues, [listen] and pursue from town to town." Isn't that what happened with Paul?

And Jesus had predicted it in Matthew 23, and yet here we have in verse 1 tremendous compassion by the apostle Paul for the sake of his persecutors, "brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved." We see here a Christlike compassion don't we. Just like Jesus when he says in Matthew 5:44, "I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Oh, is that hard to do. I mean, genuinely to love your enemies, to yearn for the best for them while they're beating on you, to yearn that they might be saved, to pray for those who persecute you, that's what Jesus commanded, and yet Paul is actually doing it. It's the very thing that Jesus did on the cross. In Luke 23:34, Jesus said, "Father forgive them, they don't know what they are doing."

And so we see Paul's astonishing love for his persecutors. And we see Paul's response, his heartfelt prayer: "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved." It's a genuine yearning he has for their salvation. He wants to see them saved. Thomas Brooks a puritan pastor said this, he said, "Cold prayers always freeze before they reach heaven." That's a heartless prayer, a prayer that you pray and you have no interest in the outcome. John Bunyan put it this way, "When you pray, rather let thy heart be without words, than thy words be without a heart." Sometimes, you can pray without words, you... I don't know what to say. The Lord is reading your heart, he knows what to do in that situation.

Another Puritan pastor said, "Many a mute beggar stood at the gate mute and got what he needed from God." So, it's not ornate words, it's the heart, it's the passion behind the prayer. He says, "My heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is their salvation." I believe part of the purpose of prayer is to turn us from the kind of people who really don't care about our neighbor, who really don't care what's happening with those around us, to people who really do care. As we've talked about many times before, that attitude of Cain saying, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Well, Paul didn't feel that way. He felt that he needed to intercede for people who are persecuting him, and so he prayed for them, my heart's desire and prayer. Now, there are serious theological and spiritual implications. As I've already pointed out, Romans 9, I believe, is the greatest chapter in all the Bible on the absolute sovereignty of God over human salvation.

I think it really leaves us no wiggle room. I think ultimately it's very clear as you follow the verses you say, "God is the ultimate end of salvation." It comes down to the will of God, ultimately. But then, here in Romans 10, you have these two aspects of a clear teaching on human responsibility toward the lost. We should pray for them, we should preach to them, we should do missions. Later on we're going to commission the Kazakh mission team, you got another team that's going out on a short-term mission trip. I am so excited by the development, the flowering of short-term missions in this church, one of the greatest things that's happened since I've been here, it's a delight to see.

And so, we are commanded in Romans 10, we'll get to it later on in the preaching as God permits, to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, to be those feet, the beautiful feet that travel across the mountains and rivers to bring the message to those who haven't heard. And so we have these mysteries, the absolute sovereignty of God and the human responsibility toward the lost. How do you put it together?

Well, in history, in church history, some have put it together wrongly, some have emphasized the one and denied the other. For example, some called Hyper-Calvinists, they call them, were said to William Carey, "Look, if God wants to save the heathen, he can do it in his own time, in his own way without any help from us." And William Carey, who believed in the absolute sovereignty of God in Romans 9 said, "I think God's ordained that I go as the means to the end." And he went, but the naysayers had that extreme view, they had denied chapter 10, that we need to go and preach and that we need to be praying. But then others flip it around saying, clearly we need to witness, clearly we need to be praying for the lost. And so the truths that are there in Romans 9 just can't be true. Whatever it is you are saying about them, they can't be true. Well, it's right there, what we're saying. God is absolutely sovereign, does not depend on man's desire effort.

Can we put these things finally together? I don't think so, but I know this, I want to pray for the lost the way Paul does here in verse 1. I want to pray for them, I want to have a heart of compassion for lost people around me and pray for them that they may be saved. There are so many incredible examples of people who poured out their heart in prayer for the lost and saw them saved. One of the great examples is that of Monica, Saint Augustine's mother, who prayed and wept for her errant son for years before he finally came to Christ and became one of the greatest fountains of theological truth the Lord ever raised up in church history. But it took a long time, he was an immoral young man, he was leading the life of the prodigal son. Wine, women, and song all the time, and then eventually when he started getting awakened to the need for more, he turned to human philosophy, into religious cults, not to Christ. And all along, there is Monica dying a thousand deaths in prayer every day, praying and praying, and he, Augustine told the story about his mother's intercessory prayer life on his behalf in his great book confessions. Confession's like a long testimony of how he came to faith in Christ. But it's written in the second person written to God. "And then you, Lord did this and then you taught me that."

And here he talks to God directly about Monica's prayer for him. This is what he says,

"And now, you did stretch forth your hand from above and drew up my soul out of that profound darkness, because my mother, your faithful one wept to you on my behalf more than mothers are accustomed to weep for the bodily deaths of their children. For by the light of the faith and spirit which she received from you, she saw that I was dead, and you heard her, o Lord, you heard her and despised not her tears, when pouring down, they watered the earth under her eyes in every place where she prayed. You did truly hear her. Nearly nine years passed in which I wallowed in the mud of that deep pit and in the darkness of falsehood striving off and arise, but being all the more heavily dashed down. But all that time, this chaste, pious, and sober widow such as you love was now more buoyed up with hope though no less zealous in her weeping and mourning, and she did not cease to bewail my case before you. In all the hours of her supplication, her prayers entered your presence and yet you allowed me still to tumble and toss around in that darkness."

Well, Monica became so discouraged as she saw Augustine finally turning away somewhat from the immorality at least at one level, to turning to deeper thoughts, but then he gets involved in Manichaeism which was a cult, a pseudo-christian cult, and she'd about had it.

She'd been praying for the son all of these years, she goes to this bishop and she talks to the bishop about the fact that Augustine was now wrapped up in this false doctrine and he said, "Well, God will lead him out of it, we've seen God leads so many out," she's not satisfied by that at all. She won't leave the bishop's office. She's not satisfied. Augustine wrote about it like this.

"When he had said this, she was still not satisfied but repeated more earnestly her entreaties and shed copious tears still besieging him to see and talk with me. Finally, the bishop a little vexed at her persistence exclaimed, "Go your way, as you live. It cannot be that the son of such tears should perish."

When she heard that, she took it as a prophecy from heaven that Augustine would in fact be saved. Augustine wrote this, "As she often told me afterwards, she accepted this answer as though it was a voice from on high." When at last, Augustine was converted to the true faith, Monica felt that her purpose in life was now finished and she died eight days later. It's an incredible story of persistent love in prayer.

There are others, there's Hudson Taylor, who poured out his heart day after day for the inland regions of China where he knew that there were no Christians at all. As far as he knew, totally unreached, the teeming millions of the inland regions of China. Yes, the coast line, there were missionaries, but they weren't doing that great a work either. And he just began burden and burden to pray and he prayed until China inland mission came to be.

And then there's John Hyde, the Presbyterian missionary to India, in the 19th century, he was nicknamed Praying Hyde. And with periods of outright persecution by Indian natives and few, if any conversions, Hyde began leading his fellow missionaries to pray to intercessory prayer for Indians so deep was it was called a prayer that in 1899, he began spending entire nights, face down before God. And he wrote a letter to his college, he wrote this, "Have felt led to pray for others this winter as never before. I never before knew what it was to work all day and then pray all night before God for another…In college or at parties at home, I used to keep such hours for myself for pleasure. And can I not do as much for God and for souls?"

So he began praying, By 1908, John Hyde dared to pray, what was to many at the missionary convention that met every year, an impossible goal. That during the upcoming year in India, one soul would be saved every day. 365 people converted, baptized, and publicly confessing Jesus as their savior. Impossible they said, yet it happened. He saw it happen through prayer. Before the next convention of missionaries, John Hyde had prayed more than 400 people into God's kingdom, and when the prayer union gathered again, he doubled his goal to two souls a day. Do not stop him. 800 conversions were recorded in the following year, and still Hyde showed an unquenchable passion for souls. At the 1910 convention, those around Hyde marveled at his faith, as they witnessed his near violent supplications, "Give me souls, oh God, or I die!" That's the way he would pray. Imagine praying with a man like that, it's going to be convicting, but it might heat you up a bit to just be in his presence.

"Give me souls or I die." Before the meeting ended, John Hyde revealed that he was again doubling his goal for the coming year, four souls a day and nothing less. And during the next 12 months, he traveled all over, that's when they gave him the nickname Praying Hyde. He led revival after revival. And one day, he didn't know of four people that were converted, he would spend the night in prayer for them. And the number of converts multiplied and the goal was met that year. Incredible, faithful prayer.

And then there's George Muller, one of my favorites, who had in his Prussian discipline this list of unconverted people that he prayed for every single day without an intermission. He prayed for some of them for one year, for two years, for six years, 10 years, some of them for over 20 years, some of them he prayed for until he died, and still the answer had not been given concerning them. I know of one case A. T. Pierson, his biography wrote of one case of somebody who converted after he died, two weeks after he died. He'd prayed for this guy for 40 years, every day, every day for 40 years, prayed for this lost person.

And Muller said this, "I have not a doubt that I shall meet them both in heaven for my heavenly father would not lay upon my heart a burden of prayer for them for over three score years if he had not concerning them the purposes of mercy." Now, that's the best I can do to put them together.

Is it natural for a human being to care that much about another human being that they would pray that long every day? I say it's not, I say it's super natural. And so, Muller said, they must be elect. God is working, he believed in predestination. God has called on me to pray and I'm not going to stop praying until it happens. Therefore, it is in some way, a means to an end. I cannot fully understand that but I know I want to be like this. I want to pray like praying Hyde, I want to pray like George Muller, I want to pray like Monica. Let me just stop right here in the middle of the message and just do some application.

Do you have some lost relatives? And are you beseeching Lord daily for their salvation? Parents, do you have some lost children who are wandering from the fold? They could be fully grown, they might be teenagers or perhaps they're still little and they haven't yet come into a full understanding of the Gospel. Are you praying for them every day the way that Monica prayed for her son, Augustine? Spouses, do you have a lost husband, a lost wife?

Are you praying for them every day, that they would be converted? Romans 10:1, "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved." Neighbors, are you constantly lifting lost neighbors up? Do you know the names of some neighbors that are not saved, and you're praying for them? Coworkers? When I worked as an engineer, I made a list of all the people in my immediate department and I prayed for them daily, and I prayed also that I would personally have an opportunity to share the gospel in the four-part outline, God man Christ response the full Gospel, at least some time while I was there. I saw God answer those prayers again and again. It wasn't 100%, but I had over 90%. I had a little list, woe to me if they ever found it. But I kept it hidden, and I was praying that I would have an opportunity to witness to each one of them. To witness, it was up to the Lord to convert them, but I wanted to pray for them, and to witness for them. Are you praying for your coworkers?

Recently, I was speaking to the pastor at Providence Baptist Church, David Horner, and they have a three by three program in which basically just groups of three covenant together to pray each of them for three lost people and to pray for their partners, lost people as well. So you'd be praying daily for nine lost people, every day for nine lost people.

And along with the prayer comes a kind of a subtle pressure I guess. "Hey, did you get a chance to invite him to church? Did you get a chance to say anything about the Lord to them?" that kind of thing, or even some have been more aggressive and say the three of us, let's go to each of the nine. And they would set up times and say what we do is we want to talk to you about the Lord. And they would be very intentional about witnessing to these nine folks. And when all nine had heard the Gospel, maybe they would get some new ones, and when they converted, they would start all over again. So you've got in your bulletin a little pamphlet about what we'd like to do here, three by three, and you're going to hear about it more. I don't have the time to go into it right now, but you understand the concept, find two others and do it. You don't need the ministerial staff to do any more than what you've just heard in the last six minutes. You understand, go find two other faith-filled people, and start praying for nine people. Pray for them that they would be saved.

There's a lot of things you can do. You can also adopt an unreached people group and pray for them until you see them come to faith in Christ. The Joshua project on the internet has lists of unreached people groups, you can just adopt one. Just because we don't understand how eternal sovereignty and human responsibility fits together, we can't reject it. Let's be like Paul. Let's trust in a sovereign God. And by the way, we're always trusting a sovereign God when we go to Him in prayer, aren't we? Are we going to somebody to God saying, "You think you can do something about this?" We believe that God is sovereign over salvation so we go. And do you think the Lord is going to say, "Don't come to me, that's not my department, I don't save people." Of course he saves people. That's what he's doing, so we go into the throne room and say, "Save him, save her." We keep praying for them. So let's be faith-filled and be like the apostle Paul in prayer.

Now Paul prayed for the Israelites. He says, "My heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved." In Verse Two, he says, "For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge." Now I'm not quite sure the connection between verse one and two, I think it's... He's thinking, they are so zealous, they're so powerful in their lives, think what they could be for Christ if they would be converted. Look what the Apostle Paul was, he was zealous for the traditions of the fathers, then he became zealous for the Gospel. "Wouldn't it be incredible," he's thinking, I think, "if they would be converted, for I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge."

Now, what is zeal? It's a burning desire, a relentless drive to accomplish something. We're surrounded by zealous people. There are people that are zealous for their business. Their secular zeal is to establish their business and be successful. You can get zealous day traders on Wall Street that spend basically every waking hour and many hours they should be asleep awake looking after stocks and bonds and other things. They're zealous to make money. Olympic athletes, zealous every day disciplining themselves so that they can compete in the Olympics. I've always said it's interesting, the American race walkers, the 50K race walking, do you know a single American race walker? I don't. But these folks every day are training and preparing themselves so they can just compete and finish 23rd place at the next Olympics, but they're totally zealous for their sport. They're dedicated so that they might achieve the best they can. There are political activists that are zealous for their view of politics. They are making phone calls, they're writing letters, they're down where they need to be every day, pursuing their goals, whatever they are. That's secular zeal.

There's also religious zeal, friends. We're seeing it just about every day in fundamentalist Islam, aren't we? Radical Islam, some of these people are willing to strap a bomb on their bodies and blow themselves up for their ends. But can I tell you something? Zeal does not save souls. This zeal that Paul's mentioning here, didn't save them, didn't save the Israelites. There is a zeal without knowledge, and that's what we've been talking about. Paul's own life was an avid witness, he was, as I mentioned, zealous for the traditions of the Elders. He was willing to travel long journeys to fight heresy. He was willing to harden his heart against the cries of wives and husbands and children as he broke apart families and arrested Christians. Paul's zeal for Israel and for the traditions of the Rabbis was like a raging furnace. He knew what this was about. The Jews as a nation burned for zeal, burned with zeal for God.

Pontius Pilate had a belly full of this. When he brought the legions in and the Legions established their little icons of Caesar and put them in the walls of the temple, the Jews went crazy, they rioted and they would rather die than have those Roman idols in the temple. They were willing, all of them, to die that day. A generation after Christ, what was left of the Jewish Zealots gathered at a place called Masada, and all of them died rather than give in to the Romans. Their zeal was unmatched. That same zeal led them to scream for Christ's crucifixion. They were willing both to be killed and to kill for their view of the glory of God.

Christ testified to this zeal for the law that they had. Matthew 23:15, he said, "Woe to you teachers of law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You travel over land and sea to win a single convert and then when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are." He's talking about zeal there, but it's a zeal, as Paul says, without knowledge.

Now, what do I mean by that? What did Paul mean by "zeal without knowledge"? Well I think, in context, it's without knowing the righteousness that comes from God. But let's start with this. They didn't know God. So if they didn't know God, how could they know the righteousness that comes from God? They did not know the God they professed to serve and worship. Jesus said this again and again in John 16:2-3, he said this, "They will put you out of the synagogue. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think that he is rendering service to God. They will do such things, [listen] "because they have not known the Father or me." That's zeal without knowledge, friends. They didn't know God the Father, and they didn't know Christ.

And Jesus said this again and again, in John 8:19, "They asked him, 'Where is your father?' Jesus answered, 'You do not know me or my father. If you knew me, you would know my Father, as well.'" He said later in that same chapter, Jesus answered, "If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My father, whom you claim as your God is the one who glorifies me. Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not know him, I would be a liar like you." So the Jews didn't know God. Isn't that amazing? The Jews burned with a zeal for a God they did not know, therefore the God they were serving was actually an idol of their own making, was not the true God of the Bible. And so in rejecting Christ, they rejected any possibility of a true knowledge of God.

Jesus said in Matthew 11:27, "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." So in rejecting Christ, they rejected any possibility of knowing the true God. Now, if they had known God, Jesus said, they would have welcomed Christ because Christ came from God. Instead, they sought to kill him. So therefore, any zeal the Jews displayed was zeal without knowledge because they did not know God. Now that made them ignorant. They were ignorant of the true God. They were ignorant of God's way of salvation. They were ignorant of the Gospel.

Peter spoke of that ignorance in Acts 3, it says, "The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers has glorified His Servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed. You disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. You disowned the holy and righteous one, and asked that a murderer be released to you. You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. Now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance as did your leaders." You didn't know what you were doing. They didn't know it was Christ, they didn't know he was God in the flesh.

Paul said the same was true of himself. He didn't know. 1 Timothy 1:13, "Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor, and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted, [listen] in ignorance and unbelief." I didn't know. Well, one morning on the road to Damascus, Jesus introduced himself to Paul for the first time in His resurrection glory. Well, that's who you are. "Who are you, Lord?" He said. That's ignorance, but he knew he was the Lord, it was Jesus. "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." They have a zeal, Paul says, but it's a zeal without knowledge.

Now, there is a zeal that saves souls. There is a zeal that saves souls. But it's not our zeal, it's Christ's zeal. In John 2 Jesus made a whip. You remember the story? Wove together a whip and took that whip and cleaned the temple, drove out all the cattle and sheep and doves, overturned the tables of the money changers, "Get these out of here. How dare you turn my Father's house into a market?" Did Jesus not know that Annas, the high priest, in his whole click there was connected financially to these? He knew. Did he not know that they would take it personally, especially when he does it twice? Oh, he knew. Did he not know that Annas would be motivated to kill him for what he had done? Oh, he knew. But his zeal for his father's house burned him from within. And so it said in John 2:17, "His disciples remembered that is written, 'Zeal for your house will consume me.'"

Now, the word consume there in John 2:17, is literally "eat me alive", "Eat me up." Christ's zeal for the glory of God, his zeal that the temple of God be pure, his zeal for God's holiness was so strong it led to the cross. So also his zeal for your salvation, his zeal for your righteousness, his zeal to bring you and God together, to be the mediator between sinners and a holy God, his zeal brought him to the cross, and that is a zeal with knowledge, a zeal that saves our souls. Isn't that magnificent? And Christ's zeal for you has not reduced at all from the moment he saved you. It still burns as brightly as the sun and he's never going to stop until you are done being saved. That's the zeal that saves.

But the zeal that doesn't save is in verse 3. It is a zeal to establish your own righteousness. And that's what the Jews had every day. Look at verse 3, "Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness." They didn't know the righteousness of God. This could mean they didn't know how righteous God is, and I think that's true. They think that God kind of grades on the curve, you know what I'm saying? That God can kind of coexist with pseudo-righteous people. He can't. His eyes are too pure to look on evil. You have to have a perfect righteousness. And so they underestimated how holy and righteous God is.

But I don't think that's what Paul's meaning here. They didn't know the righteousness that God gives as a gift. That's what they didn't know. They didn't know that Christ came to give you a righteousness you can survive in on judgement day. They didn't know that. It's what Paul's been talking about over and over in Romans. Look what he says, you don't have to look but listen, in Romans 1:16-17, it says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; for in the Gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed, from faith to faith, as it is written, 'The righteous will live by faith,'" There is a given righteousness, a gift of righteousness that comes by simply believing the Gospel message. They didn't know it. They didn't know it and they didn't submit to it once they heard about it.

Paul spoke later about that same righteousness in Romans 3:21 and following. It says, "But now, a righteousness from God apart from law has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify. This righteousness comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, there is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace, by the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." Jesus died on the cross to take your sins and mine on himself and to extinguish the wrath of God, the penalty against us. He also gives to us the perfect righteousness that he lived in at every moment. It is in that righteousness that we'd stand on Judgment Day.

But Israel did not know that righteousness. They didn't submit to it and they sought to establish their own. That means that every day they were seeking to make a building of self-righteousness. They would wake up in the morning and try to establish their own righteousness through good works, through achievements, through religious actions. Everything they did, their sacrifices that they offered, the animal sacrifices, their ritual washings, the way they carried on their business according to the Rabbinic traditions, the way that they did every little thing in life down to giving a tithe of their spices, every little part of their life was for righteousness sake, that they would be able to establish their own righteousness.

It's like they were building some kind of tower of righteousness, or maybe a stairway of righteousness through which they hoped to ascend to heaven. And every brick was a good deed, and the mortar that held every brick together was pride. And it stunk to high heavens. As a matter of fact, just like the Tower of Babel, God thought or was as displeased with the spiritual tower of self-righteousness the Jews were building every day as he was with the pagan tower that the Gentiles had sought to build to make a name for themselves. It says in Genesis 11, they built the tower of Babel to make a name for themselves. So also the Jews are trying to establish their own righteousness. And God would not accept it. On judgment day, He would humble them.

And so in verse 4 it says, "Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes." Israel misunderstood the role of the law. The law was not to save anybody, the law didn't save sinners, it couldn't. As we mentioned last week, the law is like a CAT scan or an MRI to tell you that you have a tumor. It does not do anything about the tumor, it doesn't heal you at all. Instead, it says, "Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes."

What does it mean, "Christ is the end of the law"? Well, the Greek word end, "telos", has three possible meanings, all three of them are poignant. First, Christ is the end of the final stage of the ceremonial law. You don't need circumcision anymore, you don't need the ritual life of Moses anymore, you don't need animal sacrifice anymore. All of that's finished because Christ has come and He is our righteousness. And so we're not under the law anymore, in that way. But better, secondly, Christ is the end goal of the law. When you get on a train station, a local train, get on a train at a train station, there's a local train with a lot of stops. And you ask what is the terminal stop? What's the final one?

I took a train when I was a missionary in Japan from Kobe to Osaka, Osaka was the final stop. I will never forget that train ride as long as I live. When I got on, I thought the train was full. We had ten more stops to go, and the same number of people got on at each stop. I've never seen anything like it in all my life. I survived but I don't know how, the breathing got tough. I got well acquainted with people I'd never met before in my life. The terminal stop was Osaka, that was it, everybody off. Praise God! And so we got off at Osaka, all of us did.

The terminal stop of the law was Christ. The law was bringing people to Christ. It was a tutor, it says in the Book of Galatians, to bring you to Christ. How so? Because you would learn through the law, you could never establish your own righteousness, you can't do it. You can't love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You can't love your neighbor as yourself. So Christ is the terminal stop of the law. Or you could look at it the ultimate goal of the law, that's why the law was given, to bring you to Christ, so that you would find in Christ, your righteousness, the end of the law.

But finally, and perhaps best, Christ is the "telos", the perfection of the law. He's the perfect embodiment of the law. The law reveals the righteousness of God, Christ reveals God's righteousness even better. Christ kept every jot and tittle of the law perfectly in his life. Christ is the perfection of a law abiding life. And thanks be to God, that perfect robe of righteousness Jesus wove every day of his law-abiding life, he gives to you as a simple gift. Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for believers, for all of us who believe.

Now, what application can we take from these verses that we've looked at? Well, let's go back to the one I made earlier. Will you please do that three by three? Will you just find two other people you want to pray with and start praying for some lost people? Romans 10:1, will you start praying for your lost neighbors, and coworkers and fellow students, if you're a student? Some people you may know that come to church, even that don't know Christ yet. Will you get together with two other people and pray for those nine folks? Pray for the lost that they would have a heart for truth, that God would send witnesses, (that's a tricky prayer, you know). "Oh Lord, please send a witness to this person that they might hear the gospel." You know what's going to happen if you pray that enough.

"Here am I, send me," you're going to say. After a while, you'll say, "Why not me? Why can't I go?" And you will. And so, you might lead somebody to Christ this year, wouldn't that be incredible. Pray that those folks would have a conviction of sin, that they would see in Christ the righteousness that they need. And the final application before we go to the Lord's table is this, just understand that Christ is the goal, the end of the law. We're not under law, we're children of God. We're not standing in a legal righteousness every day, we don't crank it out every day. That's not Christianity, friends. We're already perfect in Christ's righteousness and we're just called to live in the righteousness that Christ came to give us. Christ is the end of the law so that there's no legalism anymore. We're not going to be like the Jews building a stairway to heaven brick by brick. Neither is Christ the end of the law so that there may be license. Rather Christ fulfills the law and writes it in your heart and your mind so that you can live it by the Spirit. Close with me, if you would, in prayer.

It is wonderful to be back here with you, a delight to be able to share the Gospel with you again, and to talk about Romans. And I feel a special sense of freedom today, in that there are no notes here. Usually I have an extensive outline that I'm kind of enslaved to follow and I'm just totally free this morning. So I can do anything. You have no idea what I'm going to preach on but you know I'm probably going to be preaching on Romans 9:30-33. So that binds me already. But we had to get the bulletins to the printer before the Fourth of July Holiday. And so you have plenty of room to write down notes.

We are looking at some incredible verses, Romans 9:30-33, and as we do, I want to come at it from the perspective of one of these incredible moments, a key moment in redemptive history, in the Old Testament. One of the most, in my opinion, one of the most exciting encounters that ever happened in the Old Testament. And that was when the king of Assyria sent his army to besiege Jerusalem in the time of King Hezekiah. And we're going to come back and try to understand what happened at that moment. But at that moment, the field Commander of the Assyrian army stood there, filled with pomp and arrogance and had no idea why the Jews weren't coming out of the walled city, the fortress of Zion, Jerusalem because Assyria is undefeated and they knew very well how to lay siege to a city and to conquer it.

All the other Judean cities had been conquered already. And here is the field commander of the King of Assyria, and he asked a fascinating question, a vital question to King Hezekiah and all the remnant of the Jews that are inside the walls of Jerusalem, and he asked this question, this is in Isaiah 36:4, the field commander asked King Hezekiah, he said, "On what are you basing this confidence of yours?"

Now, I want to take that physical or military question, and I want to lift it up to the spiritual realm. On what are you basing your confidence before a Holy God? On what are you basing your standing before God? On what are you basing your confidence as you face judgment day? That careful scrutiny in which we will have to give an account on the Day of Judgment for every careless word we have spoken. On what are you basing your confidence? That is the question that these verses seek to answer. Romans 9:30-33.

Now the context in Romans 9, Paul is wrestling with a question that's near and dear to his heart, burning in his heart. The question of what is happening with the Jews? Why are so many Jews of his generation, why were they rejecting Christ, after all of those miracles, after all of the supernatural things that Christ did, after all the prophecies that He had fulfilled, why were they rejecting Christ? And he deals with that right at the beginning in Romans 9. And then he gives his primary answer. And the primary answer of why the Jews were rejecting Christ is that not all Israel are Israel. And he goes into the mysteries of the sovereign plan of God of unconditional election, that we've been seeing. God's sovereign will, he gives an answer from the heavenly realm, down, the perspective of God's sovereignty down on this question.

And he says things like this, "It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God who has mercy." He says God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden. So, it's a perspective and answering the question concerning the Jews, a perspective from the sovereignty of God. But now at the end, he turns and gives it also from a human perspective. And the answer he gives of why the Jews are rejecting Christ is they stumbled over the stumbling stone. They could not accept Christ.

We're going to talk about in what ways Christ was a stumbling stone to them. But then, on into Romans 10, it's more from a human perspective, of the freeness of the gospel's presentation that people have heard the gospel, that word has gone out to the ends of the world, the Jews have heard but they haven't accepted the message. And so, it's more from a human point of view, here.

Now, as we have studied in Romans 9, we've gotten into some of the deepest doctrines you're ever going to find talking about unconditional election, sovereignty of God before the foundation of the world. But I want to say to you this: unconditional election does not save a single sinner. Let me say that again. Predestination or unconditional election doesn't save anyone. Every sinner must have an active and perfect righteousness before God or we will be condemned. Election does not give that righteousness to us, rather it guarantees that we will get it someday. But we must have an active and perfect righteousness before the holy eyes of God. If we do not have it, we will not be saved on Judgment Day.

Now, what is the origination of that righteousness? We've already seen it in Romans, that righteousness we stand in is Christ and its ours by faith, but we must have that righteousness. Now this is very, very difficult for us to understand and that it is just how pure and how holy are the eyes of God and how he cannot be surrounded by any imperfection. He cannot even look on evil, and therefore we must be perfectly righteous in His sight. Jesus told the mysterious parable about this in Matthew 22.

He was talking about the kingdom of heaven there and he said this,

"The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. Then he sent some more servants and said, 'Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: "My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet."' But they paid no attention and went off-- one to his field, another to his business. 6 The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.  Then he said to his servants, 'The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.' So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 'Friend,' he asked, 'how did you get in here without wedding clothes?' The man was speechless. Then the king told the attendants, 'Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen.'"

That's a parable that Jesus told, Matthew 22:1-14. Now two shocks, in the parable. First of all, the shocking reaction of the people who are invited who treated the guests, who treated those inviting them so rudely even to a point of killing the messengers, that's a shock. Clearly represents the Jews and the way they treated prophets. The second shock, however, is the king's reaction to this man he finds who doesn't have wedding clothes. Now, those of you who have been in a wedding, you know very well how expensive it is to get fully attired and properly for a wedding. If you have ever been a groomsman, or a bridesmaid or whatever, it's an expensive proposition. You've got to be dressed well. And even if you're just a guest, you need to wear your best clothes.

I've always said that weddings are one of the easiest things to crash. All you have to do is have a suit and wear it. Nobody knows everybody at a wedding, there's not one person that knows everybody at a wedding except God, God knows everybody at the wedding but nobody knows. So all you have to do is have the proper attire and you will be fine.

But this king came in and found a man who was not properly clothed. What could it be but righteousness? It's got to be that perfect righteousness that we stand before the King, and if we don't have that righteousness we'll be thrown outside to the darkness. To me, that is the meaning of the parable. And therefore, the question is, on what are you basing your confidence? What is your righteousness?

The Gentiles had a righteousness that was by faith, the Jews rather pursued a righteousness that came by legal effort. Now, if you look at the case of the Gentiles, Verse 30, "What then shall we say? That the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it. That is, a righteousness that is by faith."

Now, Paul says some interesting things about the Gentiles. First, he says they did not pursue righteousness. And oh, was that true! Paul is writing to Rome and Rome was a cesspool of immorality. Think about the emperor who, I think he was emperor at the time Nero, an ancient historian said that Nero prepared banquets in public places and used the whole city as his private house. So the whole city became his banqueting area. Another ancient historian, wrote about what it was like at one of Nero's feasts.

"[Nero] had a raft constructed in Agrippa's lake, put the guests on board and set it in motion by other vessels towing it. These vessels glittered with gold and ivory; the crews were arranged according to age and experience in vice. Birds and beasts had been procured from remote countries, and sea monsters from the ocean. On the margin of the lake were set up brothels crowded with noble ladies, and on the opposite bank were seen naked prostitutes with obscene gestures and movements. Nero who polluted himself by every lawful or lawless indulgence, had not omitted a single abomination which could heighten his depravity."

That was an ancient historian writing about Nero. Well, what was true of their feasts was also true of their religion. They would go to these, especially the mystery religions, these temples and there would be meat sacrificed to idols and there would be immorality. They lived wicked lives.

And the scripture is clear about this again and again. Ephesians 2 says that they were dead in their transgressions and sins in which they used to live, they were by nature objects of wrath. Already seen in Romans 1, these Gentiles, it says, had "become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent ways of doing evil, they disobey their parents, they're senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless." That's the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness. That's the way they lived. They had no yearning or hungering or thirsting after righteousness.

It says in 1 Peter 4, speaking to Christians, "For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do, living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation and they heap abuse on you." That's the way the pagans lived. So we should banish forever the idea of the noble savage, of the noble pagan, they were not pursuing righteousness. Rather they were pursuing wickedness. And frankly, we've already learned in Romans 3 that "there is no one righteous, not even one, no one who understands, no one who seeks God." So that means they're not pursuing God and they're not pursuing righteousness. Frankly, God is like someone who's an unrequited lover in Romans chapter 10, he says, "I was found by those who did not seek for me, I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me."

The Gentiles are a clear example of that. But some Gentiles attained perfect righteousness. How can it be that the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it? They have attained a righteousness sufficient for Judgment Day. Oh, what amazing grace, what incredible grace, that the holy God would treat the Gentiles like that. Not giving them what their sin deserves, not pouring out on them the wrath that they deserve, but rather taking all that on Christ and giving them a perfect righteousness. What grace and what mercy and what righteousness do they have? They have nothing less than Christ's perfect righteousness. Born under the law, He lived a perfect life under the law of Moses. He met every jot and tittle. He obeyed every commandment. He was obedient perfectly to his parents. Never disobeyed them once. And he never disobeyed his heavenly Father. He loved the Lord his God with all of his heart, with all of his soul, with all of his strength, and all of his mind, all of his life. And he loved his neighbor as himself, perfectly, even to the point of pouring out his blood for them.

Jesus' righteousness is perfect. It was a perfect robe of righteousness, every thread put in by actual days lived by Jesus. Jesus' perfect righteousness, and that's what the Gentiles have attained. A perfect righteousness. Now, this Gospel righteousness has already been mentioned in Romans. In Romans 1:16-17, Paul says, "I'm not ashamed of the Gospel," why not, "because the Gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes." And then in verse 17, he says, "For in the gospel, the righteousness from God is revealed, from faith to faith, as it is written, 'the just shall live by faith.'"

So, there right from the beginning, he gives us the beautiful theme of the Book of Romans and that is a righteousness that's given to us simply by faith. Something we just trust in. Christ's perfect righteousness. It says the same thing again in Romans 3:21-24, by the way, I just believe Romans 3:21-27 is the glowing heart of the Gospel. And anybody ever asks you, "What is the heart of the Gospel?" it's Romans 3:21-27. Let's only read part of it, it says, "But now, a righteousness from God apart from law has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, there is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."

That is a beautiful righteousness that's just ours my faith. It's Jesus' righteousness that He bought for us at the cross. That is the righteousness by faith. This is the very way that Abraham was saved as we already learned in Romans Chapter Four. What does the scripture say about Abraham? "Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness," a righteousness that is simply ours by faith, amen. And it's in that, that I stand before you today, a forgiven man. It's in that that all of you who are my brothers and sisters in Christ stand blameless before God, forgiven people. It is a perfect righteousness that should make you happier than you look right now. So smile, rejoice because we stand in a perfect righteousness.

But what about the Jews, the case of the Jews? Not so good in these verses, verse 31-32. "But 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." Now, it is hard to overstate how passionate were some Jews to the pursuit of legal righteousness. I mean, some people that's all they did all the time. They woke up and they had certain ritual washings, they had morning sacrifices, evening sacrifices. They had everything laid out that they were a bunch of box checkers. Do you know what I'm talking about? Just the day was lined up with a bunch of things they were going to do, and they check, check, check, check, check, check, check. And they have years of pages of boxes that have been checked. Of perfect, so they believed righteousness.

And not only that, but they thought God's laws were insufficient actually needed some help. So they added on some human traditions to be very clear what it meant to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. They added on some extra regulations like a Sabbath's day journey, which is nowhere mentioned in the Old Testament. But you have an idea of how far you can travel. It's there in Acts chapter 1, saying that the Mount of Ascension was a Sabbath's day journey from the City of Jerusalem, what is that? Well, it's what the elders had told them, that's how far you could walk without working on the Sabbath.

And so they had all of these rules and regulations, and Jesus confronted them again and again. They gave a tenth of their spices, mint, dill and cumin. I talked about this on Wednesday night. Imagine just sitting there with a microscope, nine for you, nine for me, one for you. Okay, God gets his mint leaves. God really does want his mint leaves. He has said You should have done that but you should have noticed the bigger matters of the law, justice, mercy and faithfulness, for example. Well, what of these Jews who pursue the law of righteousness, he says, they have not attained it. They have not attained it. Jesus put it this way, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and teachers of the law, you will by no means enter heaven. It's not enough. Why not? What was wrong with that legal righteousness?

Problems With Legal Righteousness

Three things. First of all, it was all external. It was all external. It did not touch the corruption of their hearts. Right after in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and teachers of the law… He then went on to say "You have heard that it was said 'You shall not murder,' but I tell you that if you're angry with your brother, you're in danger of hell." "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery,' but I tell you, that if you look lustfully at a woman, you've committed adultery with in her in your heart." So he's going to the heart of the matter. That's the first problem with legal righteousness. It was external. Jesus said in Matthew 23 that the scribes and Pharisees were like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but inside they're full of corruption, dead men's bones and everything unclean. That was the first problem.

Second of all, this righteousness was pursued for their own pride and glory. They did it to display their own righteousness with no dependence on God. It was not by faith. And thirdly, it was not humble and honest about their failings, they were not honest to say that they had not kept the law. They thought they really had kept it. You remember the rich young ruler saying "All of these commands I have kept from my childhood." I find that remarkable, because Jesus said that one of the commands is to love your neighbor as yourself, another was honor your father and mother. So we bring in mom and dad, rich young ruler, and ask from your youth, "Have you honored Mom and Dad?"

So they thought that they had perfectly kept the law and they had not. The law did not make them righteous. And Why not? Because of how they pursued it. Look what he says in verse 32. "Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works, they stumbled over the stumbling stone."

You know, they were pursuing something. They were seeking, they were, but they were not seeking God. Remember, we already learned in Romans 3, "There is no one righteous, not even one, no one who understands" listen, "No one who seeks God." So the Jews were not seeking God while they pursued righteousness, they were on their own doing it and saying, "Hey God, look at this, give me my pay, give me my reward." But it was not God they were seeking.

Look at Romans 10:3, it says, "Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness." So they're pursuing righteousness apart from God, it's their own thing. It's like a project they're doing and then they're going to show God, "Is this good enough?" It was not a seeking of God, it was by works and not by faith. The law does not give anybody righteousness. Let me say that again, the law doesn't give anybody righteousness any more than an MRI or a CAT scan gives health. It doesn't. It doesn't heal you, it shows you that you need healing. And that's what the law does as well. An MRI and a CAT scan show you that you have a serious health problem and you need to address it. It's another thing that comes along that does the healing. The law is a diagnostic tool that tells you, "You are not righteous enough."

Romans 3:20 says, "Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law, rather, through the law we become conscious of sin." The law was meant to bring us to Christ. Romans 10:4, which we'll get to, God willing, next time, "Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes." Friends, it's not those who achieve, it's those who believe. It's not works of the law that's going to enable us to stand before this holy God, it is simply by faith.

So these Jews, it says, stumbled over the stumbling stone. "As it is written," verse 33, "Behold, or 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." Now here, Paul is reaching for the Old Testament, he's reaching for quotation from Isaiah, actually two. He conflates two quotations, Isaiah Chapter 8, and Isaiah 28, and they both teach the same thing.

Let me tell you the situation in Isaiah 8. In Isaiah 8, God was telling Israel, telling Judah really, that He was bringing the Assyrians as an act of discipline for the fact that they had broken the law. So the Assyrians are coming. Now, the Assyrians were like the Nazis of the ancient world, they invented crucifixion, they were a terrifying people. And the message that the Assyrians was coming went out to pagan and to Jewish nation alike. All of those small kingdoms like Edom and Aramea, all these, they heard the Assyrians were coming, there's nothing they could do about it.

And so what Isaiah says is, in Isaiah 8, 9 and 10, "Raise the war cry you nations, and be shattered. Listen, all you distant lands. Prepare for battle, and be shattered. Prepare for battle and be shattered. Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted. Propose your plan, but it will not stand." Why not? Because the Assyrians are going to win. So go ahead and put your armor on, go ahead and fill the sand bags, go ahead and get ready for battle, sharpen your spears and your swords and get ready, and then go die, because the Assyrians are going to win. But the message to the godly remnant in Judah was this, "Don't do all that. Don't do all that. Focus on your relationship with God, God is the issue here, not the Assyrians."

And so it says in Isaiah 8:12-15, "Do not fear what they fear. Do not dread it. The Lord Almighty is the one you are to fear. He is the one you are to dread, He is the one you are to regard as holy, and He will be a sanctuary." In other words, He is the place of refuge where you will survive the Assyrian onslaught. "He will be for you a sanctuary, but for both houses of Israel, He will be a stone that causes men to stumble, and a rock that makes them fall. And for the people of Jerusalem, He will be a trap and a snare. Many of them will stumble. They'll be fall and be broken, they will be snared and captured."

Now, here's the mystery. How does one God at the same time be both a sanctuary and a stumbling stone? Well, the whole thing came down to the attitude of the people as they faced the Assyrian threat. He put it very plainly in Isaiah 7:9, write that one down, it's one of the key verses. Isaiah 7:9 says, "If you do not stand by faith, you will not stand at all." And that is true of the Assyrian invasion in Isaiah's time, and it's true of Judgment Day in the future. If you do not stand by faith, you will not stand at all.

Now, what is the lesson here? You can't save yourself, that's the stumbling stone. God Himself stands before you and says, "You cannot save yourself. In the Assyrian case, they're too strong for you, they will wipe you out. In the case of Judgment Day, your efforts, your strategy, you're putting on your armor and going out and trying every day to be a better person, it will not succeed. You will not succeed."

But if like godly King Hezekiah, you put on sack cloth and you lay down on your face and you beg God for forgiveness, and you ask Him to save you, He will be, for that kind of a person, a sanctuary. And that will highly motivate God to send out the Angel of the Lord. And in one night wipe about 185,000 Assyrian troops. Now, up until this week, I thought it was 'an' Angel of the Lord, it's 'the' Angel of the Lord. Do you know who 'The Angel of the Lord' is? The same one that appeared to Moses in the flames of the burning bush. It is the one who said to Samson's parents, "Why do you ask me my name? It's beyond understanding." It is the second person of the Trinity, He sent out Jesus. And in one night, 185,000 Assyrian troops were wiped out.

And who was with Jesus when he did it? No one. Who gets the credit and the glory? He does. Who gets to be safe? Hezekiah and the remnant inside the walls. Are they going to be boasting about what they did in their strategy? No. God gets the glory, they get the joy. God gets the glory, and they get delivered. But if they say, "Hey, we can take on the Assyrians, they will die." And so Paul chooses a perfect Scripture to say why it was that the Israelites were dying, because they didn't trust in Christ, they thought they could do it on their own. They thought they could face the onslaught of their own sin, and face the onslaught of Judgment Day, just like the Jews thought they could face the onslaught of the Assyrians, and they couldn't. They stumbled over the stumbling stone.

Now, how is Jesus a stumbling stone? Jesus is a stumbling stone, and I think He was in three senses. First, He was a stumbling stone in His person. Secondly, He was a stumbling stone in His message. And third, He was a stumbling stone in His death. First in His person, in that He was God in the flesh, virgin born, He was God almighty in human form, and they could not accept that. They couldn't accept the doctrine of the incarnation, that He could be both son of man and son of God at the same time. That was offensive to them. It was a stumbling stone. And so in John chapter 10, Jesus said, "I've shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you stoning Me?" "Not for any of these, but because you, a mere man, claim to be God." That's offensive. It was blasphemous as far as they were concerned.

Secondly, His message was offensive. You know what His message was? "Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and teachers of the law, you will not be saved." "Nicodemus, you must be born again." Luke... He says in Luke 13, "Do you think all those Galileans who died when Pilot killed them were worse sinners than all the others? No, I tell you they're not, because frankly, unless you all repent, you will all likewise perish." That's offensive. Your righteousness is not enough, you're heading toward Hell, you're on a broad road to destruction, that is unpopular. And the Scribes and Pharisees hated it, they hated that message.

But of all of it, the worst of all was that He died on a cross. That was so offensive. He was supposed to be the King of the Jews, He was supposed to be the son of David, He was the Messiah. And here He is losing to the Romans in the worst possible way, shamefully dying on the cross, His blood poured out. Oh, how offensive that was. And so Paul says very plainly in 1 Corinthians 1:23, "We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews." Paul will tell you personally why it was a stumbling block for him, because it says very plainly in the law, everyone who's hung on a tree is under a curse from God. And they could not imagine a Messiah who was cursed. That was offensive to them. And so Jesus was a threefold stumbling block to the Jews.

But anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame. It was not for all the Jews that He was a stumbling stone, but for some Jews He was a sanctuary. For some Jews, He was a savior. And so it says, "Everyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame." This is the majestic promise of the Gospel. I actually believe with all my heart that shame is one of the things we fear the most.

Yesterday Christie and I and the kids were listening to a speaker, Chris Myers, I think it was. And he said that when they made a list of the top 10 fears in America, you know what the number one fear was he said? Public speaking. Death was number three. And I thought, "No, I'd rather public speak than die, myself." But for some... And I respect those that get up and give their testimony, but they don't have the gift of public speaking and all that. I've had a number of people at Baptism say, "Do I need to get up in front of all those people and give my testimony?" "Yeah, you do, you do. But God will give you help." It's not an easy life, the Christian life. And so this is a challenge, but He'll help you, and He always has been faithful.

But people are afraid of it. You know why? Because they're afraid of being publicly shamed. I confess to you openly and candidly, it's on my mind every Sunday. I desire the protection of God. I don't want to be put to shame. Have you ever seen in the local news when some guy is moving from the court room to a waiting car and he's got his coat over his face? Why is that? Because he doesn't want to be ashamed. I think it's one of the things that we fear the most.

Look at the promise in Romans 9:33, "Everyone who trusts in Him [Christ] will never be put to shame." Freedom from shame, freedom from the sin that causes shame, freedom from judgment day shame. And there is no shame greater than that one, to have God Almighty say, "I never knew you. Away from Me you evildoers." Oh, what shame that will be. But if you trust in Christ, and not in your own works' righteousness, you will not be put to shame. He will welcome you. "Enter into the joy of your master," He will say. And so you may feel ashamed because of your sin. It's the first thing that Adam and Eve felt, wasn't it? The first thing was shame, as soon as they sinned.

Christ came to take our shame away. Isn't that a sweet message? Everyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame.

And what application can we take from this passage? Well, may I say to you that for all of us a far sterner test than the Assyrian invasion is coming. It's called Judgment Day. And it hasn't happened yet, but I tell you this, I stand before you unafraid of that coming judgement. You know why? Because I'm trusting in Christ and not in my own righteousness.

Ask yourself a diagnostic question, "What are you trusting in?" On what are you basing your confidence at that encroaching Judgement Day? Is it because you're basically a good person? Is it because you've been a Baptist all your life, or because you go to church or do a bunch of good things? Do not look inwardly, but trust in Christ and in His perfect righteousness, the only thing that's going to survive. And for yourself, can I tell you, I just urge you to do this, look in the mirror, if you're a Christian, look in the mirror and say, "I am as perfectly righteous right now as Jesus Christ by faith. And based on that strong platform of perfect righteousness, I'm going to fight sin in my life so that my performance will be, as much as possible, perfect too." And it won't be, not in this life, but you stand in a perfect righteousness already. It says it right there in Romans 9:30. The Gentiles have attained righteousness by faith.

And so we stand in there in a perfect righteousness. Now look around, look at a world that would bomb a bunch of innocent people in London for political reasons. Look at the world you know, the world of your neighborhood, the world of your office, and ask, "What are those people basing their confidence in? What are they trusting in? That there won't be a Judgment Day?" Well, that's a vain hope. God said there would be one. Well, then that they're basically good people? Well, the Scripture testifies to that one quite plainly. Are they trusting in Christ, and in Christ alone? If not, Romans 10 says, and we'll get to it, God willing, in due time, you and I have a responsibility to tell them the Gospel of Christ, so that they will learn simply by faith to trust in Him for their righteousness. Close with me if you would in prayer.

As I just mentioned, one of the great joys of my life is being a father. I have four children, soon to be five, and I delight in that. I try to be constantly available and accessible to my kids. But this week, as Christie was visiting her mom in St. Louis, I was unusually accessible to them. I brought my cell phone with me while I was teaching the Acts class on Wednesday night. You've probably never seen a teacher or preacher interrupt to receive a phone call. Thankfully, that didn't happen that night because the instruction I gave to Nathaniel, my oldest, is I'm to be your second call after 911, okay?

So you call 911, and then after that, while the person who's bleeding or dying or whatever is being ministered to, give me a call and I'll come home. Other than that, do not call this number at least during this hour while I'm teaching. I did not bring my cell phone with me up here because I see all my loved ones in front of me and so I think I'm okay. We have never been so accessible, though, as a people. I mean, we are ready, at any moment, to receive calls and yet, conversely, we've also invented call screening so that we know who it is that's calling, and some of you may actually not receive the calls if you don't want them. I think that call screening was absolutely designed for telemarketers at dinnertime. We do screen those calls. I hate to say it, it's true, but we do not receive those calls if we can avoid them.

But there are some calls that can't be avoided, or really shouldn't. There's some calls at the higher level that we shouldn't ignore. When I was a pastor up in New England, there was a volunteer fire department up there in Topsfield, and if you volunteer to be a firefighter, you couldn't ignore the call that went out. There was a certain siren they used, and if you were a volunteer firefighter, you were going to listen to that call and you were going to heed it. So also, perhaps, a wedding invitation from your best friend. You're not going to avoid that call, you're going to receive it and you're going to go, especially if you're the best man or the maid of honor. So you're going to go and receive that call. If any of you would receive a personal invitation to a dinner at the White House, would you actually contemplate not accepting that? I would go; no matter what you thought of the politics of the individual, what an experience! Just to go to the White House and sit at a dinner, that would be exciting. And then there's a subpoena from the federal court, okay? That's at a different level entirely. If you decide not to take that call, they may be sending federal marshals to come find you.

So there's just different levels of calls, some of them that we want to receive and are glad to receive, others we have no choice but to receive. Let me tell you something, there's a call in Romans 9:24 that is effective and powerful and produces salvation, and if you're a Christian today, you receive that call. You were called to be a vessel of glory, you were called to be a child of God, and you were called in an effective and powerful way by God, who created the universe out of nothing, and who likens the creation of the universe out of nothing to what he does in your heart to make you a Christian, and that's a marvelous thing to contemplate, isn't it? The powerful call of God that brings you to life spiritually and makes you a child of God. And what a joy it is to study that and to understand it, and how delightful it is.

Now, let me try to set this thing in context. We've been through a lot of truth already in Romans 9, let me try to just put it in capsule form. You may wonder why I didn't do that the first time and just do it all in one message. I guess I could do that, but there's so many wonderful truths, aren't there, in Romans and we've been learning about the sovereignty and the great power of God. The issue that the apostle Paul is dealing with has to do with the promises of God. It has to do with the word of God, and he's made us some marvelous promises in Romans 1-8, and there's a resounding crescendo at the end of Romans 8, in which we are assured that nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus, our Lord. And yet here we have this terrible difficulty the apostle Paul faces concerning the Jews.

As in our day, so also in his day, the overwhelming majority of Jews were rejecting Christ. The overwhelming majority of Jews were not trusting in him for their personal salvation, and that brought the word of God, it seemed, under question. Has the word of God failed for the Jews? That's the issue that Paul's wrestling with here. Very significant, and his answer, as we've seen in Romans 9:6 is, absolutely not. It is not as though God's word has failed. Well why not, Paul? Because not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Come again? What he's saying is that just because you're physically descended from Abraham, you are not necessarily spiritual Israel. There are the biological descendants of Abraham and then, within it, a smaller group which he calls, in our text today, the remnant. A smaller group of people to whom the promises were savingly made. God's word to them has not failed; indeed, it cannot fail.

Then he unfolds the whole mysterious doctrine of unconditional election, that we've seen, Romans 9:6-13, that whole section dealing with unconditional election and, ultimately then, after that, he deals with the issue of justice and God's freedom in doing this. Is it right and just for him to have this sovereignty, this unconditional election, is it right and just and fair? And he deals with that. Now, all of that has been a parentheses and now we're getting back to the issue of the calling of God. He mentioned it in verses 11 and 12, and he gets back to it now, here in verse 24. Now, in the verses that we're studying today, there were two remarkable shocks for the Jewish people. Shock number one was that the Gentiles are included as God's new people. That's a shock for the Jews. Very, very difficult for them to accept that the Gentiles are included, that we actually can be the people of God through faith in Jesus Christ. That's the first shock.

The second shock is that many Jews are not included among the people of God, only the remnant will be saved, and that is the second shock. And he supports the first with verses, two passages from Hosea, and he supports the second with two passages from Isaiah.

Now, I made six observations in this text and I'd like to unfold them briefly, each one, in our message today. The first is that there is a new people of God. There is a new people of God that is formed by the Word of God, it is the "us" of verse 24, We are the "vessels of mercy." It says "Even us." The vessels of mercy, prepared in advance for glory.

Secondly, there is such a thing as the sovereign call of God that makes this new people of God come to life. It is this calling of God that produces the people of God.

Thirdly, this sovereign calling of God happens within the context of a human call, a human preacher, a pastor, a missionary, a friend, a witness for Christ, who speaks the word of God and, within that, God calls individual people to repentance in faith. There is the human call of the Gospel.

Fourth, some Jews and Gentiles are both included in the new people of God. We are comprised out of Jew and Gentile. "Even us," Paul says, "whom he called, not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles." So this new people of God is made up of both Jews and Gentiles.

Fifth, we, both Jews and Gentiles, are called out of our ethnic group into a first and greatest allegiance to Christ. He becomes our Lord, and that heavenly country to which are going, that's our true nationality. We're merely aliens and strangers moving through here. We may be Americans, we may be Chinese, we may be Koreans, we may be Caucasian, we may be African-American, we may have all kinds of characteristics here on Earth, but we are called out of allegiance to all of those things to a primary allegiance to Christ and to the new people of God to which we belong.

And then finally, sixth, we are, all of us, universally humbled by the process. God intended to save us in such a way that we would know we were saved by mercy. We were saved by grace, so nobody can boast. The Jews can't boast, the Gentiles can't boast. All of us were, at one point, not God's people. And we were, at one point, brought to be God's people, through repentance and faith in Christ. There it is, there's six points of this.

Let's look at it a little bit more in detail. Let's look at the first one, and that is this idea of a new people of God. There is a new people of God, it is the "us" or the "even us" in verse 24, we are the ones. Now, I think if we could go back one verse, we'll get a clearer understanding of what Paul means there when he says "even us" in verse 24. Look at verse 23, "What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of His mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory, even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles?" We are objects of God's mercy, we are prepared in advance for glory, what an incredible thing. We are the new people of God, and we're made up both of Jews and Gentiles, as we'll get to in a minute. Now, God has a people. There is a people that God means when he says "I will be their God and they will be my people." He has this in mind, he is always had it in mind.

In Jeremiah 31:33, the prophet Jeremiah says, "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel; after that time, declares the Lord, I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts; I will be their God and they will be my people." So this is the people of God, but the question is, who are the people of God? Who are God's people? And if I put in the word "chosen," God's chosen people, your first thought might be Jews, the Jews are God's chosen people. Well, the teaching that we get here in Romans nine is that that is not the case. There is a new chosen people of God that's comprised of both Jews and Gentiles together, who have come through faith in Christ. We are the new people of God.

Now, God did dangle that language in front of the Jews at Sinai. In Exodus 19, God said this. "Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all 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." Did you notice the key word at the beginning there? It's the little word "if." It's conditional. "If you obey me fully… you will be my people," that's what God was saying there. Did the Jews obey God fully? While Moses was up getting the stone tablet version of the 10 Commandments that had already been preached by the mouth of God, they were already breaking it with the golden calf. They're already breaking the covenant, right away, right from the start they were breaking the covenant. Israel broke the covenant, and they didn't do it just once, they broke it again and again, repeatedly broke the covenant of God. As Jeremiah said very plainly, "They did not remain faithful to my covenant and I turned away from them, declares the Lord." They broke the covenant.

Now, one prophet who had an interesting ministry, who was called on to, in some way, through his life, display this broken relationship between Israel and God, was the prophet Hosea. Now, if you think you have a tough ministry, think about Hosea. The word of the Lord comes to Hosea and he is told to marry a daughter of unfaithfulness, is what she's called in Hosea. She was a prostitute, she made her living through immorality, and Hosea the prophet, a godly man, was called to marry this woman. What an incredible calling that was. Hosea had to deal with Gomer, he had to deal with the indignities of her promiscuity, her wandering lust, her lovers and her illegitimate children. Hosea, at one point, had to hunt her down and buy her off the slave block. What a shameful, shameful relationship, to have to say, "That's my wife up there, I got to buy her back, I get to redeem her." What a sad and a shameful thing.

And she conceived babies by who knows whom, and Hosea named them, appropriately, "not loved" and "not mine." Those were the names of the babies that Gomer conceived. "Not loved" and "not mine." That's who they were, and that became a symbol for Israel as a whole, they were not loved and they were not God's people. That's what was being said there in Hosea. Now God has created a new people, it is the "even us" from verse 24. We are the people of God, we are the vessels of mercy, we are the ones that are prepared in advance for glory. God has a new people and it's us and this new people is new because they include not just Jews, now, but also Gentiles, it's a new work that God is doing. Now at one point, Gentiles were excluded. I'm going to talk more about that in a minute, but Paul in Ephesians two, says that out of the two, Jew and Gentile, he's made a new thing, a new man, "one new man out of the two, thus making peace."

Now, this one new man is the new people of God, and we are called new because God is doing a new thing in the world among both Jew and Gentile. We are new because both Jew and Gentile get saved by a new covenant in the blood of Christ. We are new because both Jew and Gentile get saved by being ourselves individually transformed into a new creation. We're made new through the blood of Christ, this is the new people of God. And to them, God makes his promises, to them God will keep his covenant. They are the ones that God is addressing here in Romans 9. It is for them that God pours out his love, it is in them that God works by his power, it is for them that God orchestrates history, and with them God will dwell eternally in heaven. The new people of God, "even us." Are you included? Friend, are you included in the new people of God? Are you in the "us?" Can you say "even us?" Are you included through faith in Christ?

The second point I want to make talks about the sovereign effectual call of God. The sovereign effectual call of God. The key question is, how does this new people come to be? How are they created? Or really, we could say recreated. And the answer is, right there in the text, look at verse 24, "Even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles." It's the calling of God, the sovereign effectual calling of God. Now, he had already mentioned this back, and I said that all of the defense of his sovereignty, the justice of God and it does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God who has mercy. All of those verses, that was a big parentheses. He's bringing up unconditional election back in verses 11 and 12. Look what it says there in Romans 9:11-12. There, he's talking about not all Israel are Israel, and he brings up the case study of Jacob and Esau, the twins that are inside the same woman. And he says, "Before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad, in order that God's purpose in election might stand, not by works, but by him who calls," there's the word, calling, "by him who calls, she was told the older will serve the younger."

Now, God's purpose in election, as we studied at the time, was that he would get the glory and we get the joy. That's a good exchange, don't you think? God gets the glory because it's all his work. He gets the glory, we get saved. We get saved in a way that he gets all the glory. No flesh will boast before him, he gets the glory, that's God's purpose in election. So he's going to work in such a way that we can't boast. An unconditional election accomplishes that. Now, God's purpose in election therefore comes, listen, "not by works, but by him." Just stop right there. Remember that we said the focus is on God, there in that verse. The focus is on God, it's not by works, but it's intrinsic to God and God alone. He's not looking outside of himself to find out about election, it's all within himself. Not by works, therefore, but by him, by God.

But notice that's not all it says. He doesn't stop there, he says something interesting. "Not by works, but by God" would be true, but he goes beyond it. "Not by works, but by him who calls she was told the older would serve the younger." Now, what is this calling? Well, I believe that this is a calling that creates what it calls. It's a special kind of call and it's something only God can do. Take a minute, if you would, and look back at Romans chapter 4. We've already seen this calling once in Romans, Romans 4:17. There, it's talking about the case of Abraham and how he became the father of Isaac. Isaac then becomes a picture of a child of God, Isaac becomes a picture of a believer. How did Isaac come to be? That's what Paul's wrestling with in Romans 4. Now look what at he says in verse 17, "As it is written," speaking of Abraham, "I have made you a father of many nations, he is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed."

Now listen, listen to what Paul says about God, "The God who gives life to the dead, and calls things that are not as though they were." Is that not powerful? Our God is a creator. He creates out of nothing. He created the universe out of nothing. He spoke into nothing and there was something. This is the sovereign and powerful call of our Almighty God. He has the ability to call things that are not as though they were. He can do that. Now, Abraham's body, Romans 4 tells us, was as good as dead, since he was about 100 years old, and Sarah's womb was also dead. She'd been barren all her life. And yet God spoke into that deadness, he who is able to give life to the dead, he who is able to call things that are not as though they were, and he says, "Let there be Isaac." And there was Isaac.

It's a call that cannot be refused. It's a powerful call. It's an awesome call. It's a call that creates what it calls, and that's exactly what's going on here. Go back to Romans 9, look and see, "Even us," it says in Romans 9:24, "whom he also called." It's similar to what happened in John 11, when Jesus stands outside Lazarus's tomb, and he says, "Move the stone," and they moved the stone, and then what does he do? After praying to his heavenly Father, he gives a call and he says, "Lazarus, come forth."

Now, you have to know that along with the vocal command comes the power to obey it. You try it, actually don't. But I mean, if you went to a tomb and said, "Come forth," they would not come. Why? Because you don't have the power to call things that are not as though they were. You don't have the power to give life to the dead, but God does. And He has the power to call to people who are not a people and make them a people, whether they're Jews or Gentiles, He can do that. Amen. He has the power to do to that, He has the power to work in your life, He has the power to work in my life, He has the power to call righteousness in my life in a place where it wasn't before. He has the power to give life to my dead body when I'm molding in the grave. He has the power to do that. He's the one who can say, "Let there be light," and there is light. It is a call that cannot be refused. It's a call that creates what it calls.

And you know something? If you're a Christian here today, that's what happened to you. To glory, to God be the glory for what happened to you, that's what's happened to you. God called and created life. He who said, "'Let light shine out of darkness,' made His light shine in your hearts to give you the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." That's 2 Corinthians 4:6. It's the God who creates what He calls, and it's in the call that He does the creating. Now, some theologians have called this irresistible grace. You know something? I don't quibble with it. How does the darkness resist the light that God created? "No, I'm just not going to be light. I just won't." Or, "I'll think about it, I'll get back to you, God, on the light thing, okay?"

No, He says, "Let there be light," and there is light. And He speaks into your dark heart and He says, "Let there be the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ," and there is. That's what God can do, that's called being born again. You can't refuse it, and so that's why theologians call it irresistible grace. But I don't like it because it gives the image that people are being dragged, kicking and screaming like robots into the kingdom. "Oh, I hate this stuff, you know, I hate these holy rollers, these Bible thumpers. Why would I want to spend eternity with them?" And in that condition they're dragged in and here they are. "I didn't want to be here, but here I am. Irresistible grace. What could I do? Hog-tied and dragged." That is not the correct picture.

What I like to think of instead is effectual grace, that God sends forth His word and it creates that which it was intended to create. Frankly, it's really healing that which was broken by sin. What could be more desirable than Christ? Tell me, what could be more appealing, more enticing, more beautiful, and more wonderful? But it's the sinner that says, "I'm not interested in Christ." God heals that by His powerful call, effectual calling.

Thirdly, we see that it comes in the human call of the Gospel. Now, you don't see it here, if you're saying, "Well, then why are you mentioning it?" Well, because I think it goes together with this word 'call'. We're going to see it much more in Romans 10. Go over one more chapter, Romans 10. And there in Romans 10:13-15, talks about a different call, not the one I have in mind right now, but a different call. "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." That's the sinner calling out on Christ saying, "Save me Jesus, save me from sin." That's the call, and everyone who does that will be saved. "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." But then Paul goes on in verse 14, "How then can they call 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 on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news.'"

You know what that's talking about? That's talking about the human preaching of the Gospel. It's happening right here, right now, in this pulpit. It's happening in many pulpits across this land, it's happening around the world right now. Human beings are preaching Christ, they're proclaiming Christ, it's a human call. And therefore there are two calls of the Gospel. One of them an external human preaching, the other an internal sovereign powerful call like, "Let there be light," and there's light. And the external one is the cloak of the internal one, and they go together in the elect, they go together in the redeemed, and they're powerful and effective. But they don't always go together for everybody. And so you can preach to a huge crowd of thousands of people, and some of them will get it and they'll be saved and they'll repent and they'll love it, and others will be like, "When's it over? Bored, they're disconnected, they're not interested, it's not happening in their hearts. But to others its like it's the greatest message they ever heard. It was life to me.

So, what is this call? Well, it may be Billy Graham at a huge rally at Yankee Stadium, it might be a coworker on a coffee break, just the two of them talking about grace. It might be a missionary in the steamy jungles of Irian Jaya, like New Tribes Missions using a storytelling approach to redemptive history, it could be that. It could be a street preacher in Philadelphia, just standing on the corner with a bullhorn preaching about Christ. It could be a mother and a father quietly, day after day, year after year, explaining Christ to their growing children. Could be a pastor preaching an expositional message in Romans, or a Sunday school teacher on Easter Sunday explaining the empty tomb. Might be a persecuted Christian saying through bleeding lips to the very one who's beating on him or her until they're dead, "Repent and believe in Christ," preaching Christ to the very one who's persecuting.

It might happen at VBS, it might happen through a Gospel track, it might happen through Trans World Radio, it might happen in a lot of different ways. What is the message? That God the Creator, that God the Father, sent His only begotten Son into the world, Jesus Christ, who lived a sinless and holy and perfect life, and who was our substitute at the cross, who took our place, who died on the cross in our place, taking our wrath, our judgment, on Himself, and extinguished it in His death, and who was raised to life on the third day. That is the Gospel, and anyone who calls on that name will be saved. That simple message, it's going off throughout the world. Many of you have been faithful this week perhaps, even to witness and to share the Gospel, it's the human call. And there's lots of different ways it happens.

George Whitefield was a famous preacher, he used a very dramatic style, very theatrical. He would act certain things out, he was powerful to listen to. He would sometimes call on an angel and ask, "Isn't their room for one more in Heaven before the angel goes and says, 'All the elect are saved'?" And then there's this back and forth between God and the angel, and by the time you listen to this, people are like, "I want to be the last one please." And there's just tons of people believing, that was Whitefield's style. And then there's Jonathan Edwards who's got these tiny little notes, and he's just standing there reading like this, and hundreds of people are being saved because of the potency of what he's saying. External call in both cases.

It could be Charles Spurgeon, maybe the greatest preacher of the 19 century, a man so exceptionally gifted at preaching, communicating the Gospel, that he went into the Agricultural Hall where they were going to have a big rally for Christ, and he went in to test the acoustics, and he says, just to test the acoustics, thinks he's totally alone, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." And way up in the rafters is some worker up there working, doing some work. He thought he was alone. He thought it was the voice of God and he was saved, he was converted. In the external call of the acoustic testing came the internal call of the gospel of God, and it created life where there wasn't before. Its's a true story.

And it's so mysterious how the two are related, it really is. I mean, they send you to the seminary to study the techniques. God does different things in every generation, it's different in every preacher, it's different even in every occasion, in every encounter. There's some basic things that are always going to be the same, but there's some things that are different. Like how did Spurgeon himself get converted? He's going one snowy morning, he can't get to his regular church, so he ends up at a primitive Methodist Chapel, the last place he imagined he would be when he woke up that morning. So he turns into this primitive Methodist Chapel, and the regular preacher wasn't there. And this Spurgeon's own testimony, this is so good, I just want to read it to you. This is his own words about his conversion. "The minister did not come that morning, he was snowed up, I suppose. At last, a very thin looking man, a shoemaker, a tailor, or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach. Now, it is well that preachers be instructed, but this man was really stupid."

Let me read that again. "Now, it is well that preachers be instructed, but this man was really stupid." Now, I look at that, and we teach our children not to say that word, but here is Spurgeon, and this is how he's describing the man who led him to Christ. "He was obliged to stick to his text for the simple reason that he had little else to say. He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter. There was, I thought, a glimmer of hope for me in the text. 'Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the Earth.' Isaiah." And he was saved. The external call was rather shabby, frankly, rather shabby, but the internal call of God was sovereign and effective and he was converted. It's remarkable.

The fourth thing is that some Jews and Gentiles are both included. It's not just Jews anymore who are the chosen people of God. This is a shock for the Jews that the Gentiles are actually included. Look what he says in verse 25-26, as he says in Hosea, "I will call them my people who are not my people, and I'll call her my loved one who is not my loved one. And it will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people', they will be called sons of the living God." And let me tell you something, I cannot fully communicate to you how shocking these verses applied to Gentiles would have been to these Jews. If you read it in context, it's basically, it seems it's God's way of bringing the Jews back. You know the whole Hosea and Gomer thing? It's like, "Alright, it's bad now, and they're not His people, but He will restore them and bring them back." That's the natural reading of Hosea 1. But here, Paul, in Romans 9, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is applying it to Gentiles, the people who are not the people.

The Jews who had been kicked out, and so they were, but it's also Gentiles. And the basic idea is this, if God has the power to turn people who are not my people, into people who are His people, He can do it for Jews and Gentiles alike. He can do that, He has that power to turn people who are not a people of God into actually being believers, He has that power to do it. Now, the Mosaic Law viewed Gentiles as outsiders. There were regulations, you had to be circumcised. There are all of these regulations that the Jews had... The law of Moses therefore set up, what's called in Ephesians, a barrier or a "dividing wall of hostility." Jews on the inside, Gentiles excluded. They're on the outside, they're "separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world." That’s Ephesians 2. That's not just a prejudice, that was really true, God set those rules up. But the Lord had an eternal plan for Gentiles.

The Gentiles aren't Johnny-come-lately, as if He never really thought about Gentiles until the Jews rejected Christ. That is false. From the very beginning of the call of the Jews and the call of Abram, God said to Abram, that through his offspring all peoples, Gentiles, all the Earth will be blessed. From the very beginning, God has a sovereign plan for the Gentiles. And now at last, in Christ, it's coming to pass. Through the offspring of Abraham, namely Jesus Christ, we Gentiles are getting blessed, we're getting saved. And so we see the incredible riches of God's grace.

Look at Verse 26. "It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people', they will be called sons of the living God." Is that not magnificent? Isn't it incredible to be a Christian? Isn't it wonderful to have the indwelling Spirit crying out "Abba Father" within you? And isn't it great to be Father's Day and talk about it? It's a wonderful thing to have a godly father, it really is. Not everybody has one, but it's a wonderful thing to have a godly father. And praise God for it, if you have it. But if you're a child of God, the real issue is you are adopted by the living God. The living God is your father. You can call Him Abba Father, and He will welcome you through faith in Christ. "In the very place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people', they will be called sons of the living God." And He can do that from both Jews and Gentiles alike, He has that power.

Are you a child of God? Have you trusted in Jesus Christ? Have you repented and believed in Him for your salvation? Then you're adopted into the family of God. I think, of all the huge treasure box of riches that we have in Christ, it may be the most shocking and surprising that God would actually adopt us into His family. It's amazing.

Fifth, we are called out of and called into. It says, "Whom He also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles." Your first loyalty is to Christ, not to whether you are Jew or Gentile. That is not the issue. It says in 2 Corinthian 6:17, "Therefore, come out from them and be separate says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing and I will receive you." And then this one, Psalm 45:10-11, which is a marriage song, but which, I think, has end time implications. It says here… Think of us as the bride of Christ. "Listen, O daughter, consider and give ear: Forget your people and your father's house. The king is enthralled by your beauty. Honor Him, for He is your Lord. Leave your people and come be part of a new people of God." Let that be your loyalty. Folks, we are aliens and strangers in this world, this is not our home, we're just passing through. And therefore, we are not primarily Americans, or primarily Chinese, or primarily Hispanic, or primarily African-American, or primarily even male or female. We are primarily children of the living God, that's our loyalty.

And so when the fourth of July comes along, celebrate, enjoy, have a good time, have a picnic and barbecue, but understand, do the whole thing knowing you're not ultimately citizen of the US A. You are a child of God, and you are moving through to a heavenly country which will never end. That's your true home, your true place. We are called out of, and called into.

Finally all of us, Jew and Gentile alike, are universally humbled by the process. That nobody that can boast and say, "Yes, but we were the real people of God." The Jews can't do that because they were called "Not my people." The Gentiles can't say, "Yes, but He loves us best." All of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We are all humbled by this process. Look what he says in verse 27-29. "Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, 'Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved, for the Lord will carry out His sentence on Earth with speed and finality.' It is just as Isaiah had said previously, 'Unless the Lord Almighty had left his descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.'"

Oh, this is sharp and humbling for the Jews. He goes right to the source of their national pride. "Though the number of the Israelites to be like the sand by the sea," those words were spoken in Genesis 22:17, by God to Abraham. And he says this very plainly, "I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand by the seashore." And Isaiah says, "Yeah, that may be true, but only the remnant's going to be saved." And so Jacob went down to Egypt, 70 in number. Within four generations, they grew to two million approximately in number. God fulfilled His promise to Abraham, but most of those people died in the desert. They never made it to the promised land. The remnant will be saved, the remnant, the chosen ones from within the Jews, the remnant.

And we'll talk more about the remnant we go on. And the second quote in Isaiah one, even more shocking. "Unless the Lord Almighty had left us some survivors, a remnant, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah." The very next verse, Isaiah 1:10 says, "Hear the Word of the Lord you rulers of Sodom. Listen to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah." He calls them Sodom and Gomorrah. He doesn't just say it's theoretical, they are no different. You know what I get out of this, folks? It's a very, very simple saying, We've heard it before, "There but for the grace of God go I." There is no one you can look at, no one you can point a finger and say, "Yeah, I would never do that." If you would never do that, it's because of the grace of God in your life. We are humbled by that, aren't we?

Basically, he's saying to the Jews, "You know what? Except for the grace of God, you'd be just like Sodom and Gomorrah." What are they? The most wicked and perverted Gentile cities there were. You'd be the same, but the grace of God's been at work in you, calling out a remnant and protecting them. There but the Grace of God go I. This is a universal humbling. Basically, this is it, God has the power to take people who are not His people, either Jew or Gentile, and bring them over and make them His people. He has the power to take people who are not loved and bring them in, make them loved, eternally loved. This is the grace and mercy of God. All of this to the praise of His glorious grace, so that we are all humbled and we are all shown mercy. For it says in Romans 11:32, "For God has bound all men, Jew and Gentile alike, over to disobedience, in order that He may have mercy on them all."

And so you know what? Christian friend, Christian brother and sister, when you get there on the other side and you're past Judgment Day and you're there, and looking around at that multitude from every tribe, and language, and people, and nation, who were saved by mercy and grace just like you, you will boast in Christ, and in Christ alone. Christ is your righteousness, Christ is your Savior, Christ is your redeemer, Christ is your hope. He is your Lord and He will be your boast on that final day.

Now, what application can we take from this? Well, first, I don't assume that everybody here is a Christian. I don't know that you're all going to Heaven, I don't know that you're all children of the living God right now. Don't you want to come to Christ? Aren't you attracted by Jesus? Aren't you hearing within the kind of hull of this message, this human communication, a call of the living God to repent and trust Christ? Couldn't today be for you a day of salvation, the day of salvation, the day when the Holy Spirit entered your life and everything changed? Come to Christ. Can I urge you if you are hearing God speak to you right now, don't walk out of here without talking to me. You can come up during the invitation and talk to me. I've told you before, I have a hard time hearing while the music is playing. And I like the music, so let's play the music, but then afterwards, stay and talk to me. It's not two minutes of work we can do together, we can sit and talk about your soul. Don't leave here without being saved.

If you are a Christian, rejoice in the surprising, amazing grace of God. Think about what God used to save you, the external human call. Who did God use to save you? And then ask, "Are you willing to do that for somebody else?" When was the last time you opened your mouth and said something about Christ to somebody? Do it this week, invite somebody to church. I like what's in the bulletin, they talk about a new technique. "Would you like to know how to get to Heaven from Clinton, North Carolina?" That's clever, I like that. I going to try it. Not Clinton, I'll do Durham. Would you like to know how to get to Heaven from Durham, North Carolina? It's intriguing. Makes you want to say, "What do you mean?" Let's talk to people, let's give the external call, and then let God do what He will with the internal call, He's the only one that can do it. Close with me in prayer.

We're looking this morning at Romans 9:19-23. We've already seen some things in verses 19:23. And as I was thinking about this message, I was just remembering my own upbringing. Both of my parents were chemists, and I think... I don't know if the reason that I can't stand chemistry today is that we just talked about it so much at the dinner table or something like that, I never really loved it. I liked other forms of science, but not so much chemistry.

I'll never forget, my dad was a chemist and he used to wear this white lab coat, and he would cook that way. He was a chef in the kitchen and he was just... And he told me that chemistry is just really like cooking, it's finding a recipe. And I know I've eaten at the homes of a number of you, and you have some secret recipes that your relatives have passed on, and you won't give them to us, but we do enjoy eating those things when we're at your house. So that's a special thing. But I began thinking about this theme of secret recipes, and something amazing hit me. And it had never occurred to me before, but that is that two of the greatest empires in world history were strengthened and established and made their advance because of secret recipes done by chemists.

The Byzantine Empire

The first one I have in mind is the Byzantine Empire, which was the Eastern form of the Roman Empire, lasted a 1,000 years after the fall of Rome, at least in part because of a secret concoction mixed by a Jewish refugee named Callisto, who came to Byzantine and invented this concoction in the year 670 AD. It became the most dreaded weapon of the Byzantine Empire for 800 years. It extended the life of the empire for eight centuries. It first made its appearance at a battle that the Byzantine Navy had with the Muslim Saracens who were trying to destroy Constantinople, and add the Byzantine empire to the ever growing size of Muslim conquests at that time in world history. And it looked for all the world that they were going to do it, they were very powerful, until the Byzantine Navy came and engaged the Saracen, the Muslim Navy.

And out of these wooden dragons there were these tubes coming out of the mouths of the Byzantine ships, and this fire just spewed out of these wooden dragon heads and ignited the Muslim ships. That's nothing new in naval warfare to use fire. The problem was that this great fire, you couldn't put it out. The more water they poured on it, all that did was spread the fire more. It couldn't be extinguished. And so all of these Muslim ships sank, there was no remedy. And so it was from generation to generation that the Byzantine Empire was upheld by this strange Greek fire, and nobody could understand what it was. Three centuries later, a little less than three centuries later, a Russian fleet of 10,000 ships came to conquer Constantinople, Byzantine. All 10,000, the record has, sank with the Greek fire. All 10,000. Now obviously, something that powerful and potent, the recipe, the concoction for how it's to be mixed would be guarded like no other state secret. So, it was so much so that no historian today knows what's in it. There's some chemists that can guess, but nobody can get exactly the same recipe. And so that's one empire.

The Coca-Cola Empire

The other Empire, a little bit different, but the secret recipe was concocted in the lab of an Atlanta pharmacist named John Pemberton. He developed a sticky black fluid that would in some sense conquer the world. I think if he had known just how powerful the sticky black fluid would be, he would never have sold it to another Atlanta pharmacist, named as Asa Candler, for $2,300, in 1890. But over the next 10 years, the production of it went from 9,000 gallons to 370,000 gallons. Now the empire based on that sticky fluid is worth countless billions, and there's nowhere you can go where you can't drink it, mixed with carbonated water, it's called Coca-Cola. And you can't find the secret, although, on the internet there's somebody who thinks they have it. Don't you believe it, it's locked up in a safe somewhere and we'll never get it. And so these two empires advanced with a secret recipe.

I was thinking, God's empire, His kingdom has advanced because He knows the secret to your heart and mind to bring us to faith in Christ, to preserve us through this dangerous world, to prepare our hearts in advance for glory, until we are ready for Heaven, God knows how to do that. And the amazing thing is, it's different for each individual person. Not radically different, all of us have similar things, but God knows how to attract you into His kingdom. He knows how to work in your heart. He is, and another whole other way of looking at it, He is the potter, you're the clay. He knows how to shape you, and how to prepare you for glory. Isn't that marvelous? He knows the secret recipe to your heart. You don't even know it, but He does. And He knows how to prepare you for glory.

Now, this is what we're talking about today. Vessels of wrath and also vessels of mercy. The context in Romans 9 is, Paul is seeking to address a very great problem. The problem is, why the Jews, the promised people, the chosen people, were at his time and are even to this point, almost universally rejecting the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And if God made all these incredible promises to them, and if He's not keeping those promises, what does that say for the promises that came earlier in Romans 8? One promise after another of incredible blessing that God is going to give us. Are they worth the paper they're printed on? If God hasn't kept His promise to the Jews, then how will He keep His promise to us?

But Paul answers emphatically in Romans 9:6, saying, "It is not as though God's Word has failed." Why not Paul? Well, because not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. There are the physical descendants of Abraham, what we call the Jews, physically, but then there are the elect, the chosen, the remnant. There are different Biblical words for that, within to whom God had made His promises. And God's Word to them has not failed, indeed it cannot fail. And so, Paul brings us into the deep waters of unconditional election. He gives us the example of Jacob and Esau, twins in their same mother's womb, who had radically different destinies. And "before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad, in order that God's purpose and election might stand, not by works but by Him who calls, she was told the older will serve the younger."

And so He deals with this issue of Jacob and Esau. And so He says, concerning the justice of God, you know, "Is God unjust?" He deals with the question of justice, it seems that unconditional election is unjust for God to not deal with this on the basis of our achievements and our works and our choices, it seems unjust to us from the human perspective. He says God is not unjust. For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I'll have compassion on whom I have compassion." It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. Then he brings up the case of Pharaoh, and he talks about the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, and the summation in verse 18 he gives, is that God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden. And the insight we had is that God does one or the other with every single person on the face of the earth, there's no third category. It's not like there's some other mass of people that God's not doing one or the other with. He's either showing mercy, or He's hardening. And that is the work.

So we come now to verse 19, "But one of you will say to me, 'Then why does God still find fault for who resists His will?'" If God is so sovereign, so powerful, He can do anything He wants, then why does God judge anybody? How can we actually be held responsible for this? That's what he's dealing with. And we started to see the answer.

Review: God’s Rebuke

First of all, God rebukes a kind of questioning, we saw God's rebuke last time. This is just review. "Who are you oh man, who answers back to God, who talks back to God?" That's what we're dealing with there. It's not just asking questions, "Oh Lord, I want to know, tell me the truth." That's not it. There's an arguing back, and God rebukes it. So we saw God's rebuke. God is not on trial. We're not a back room, back court lawyers firing questions like a district attorney, and God, He's got to answer. It doesn't work that way, He's God, He's the king. We're created beings. So we saw that, God's rebuke.

Review: God’s Role

Secondly, we saw God's role. God is the potter, we're the clay. He is the one who forms, we are that which is formed. That is God's role. And God crafts these vessels. And the insight there was that not all vessels are crafted for honor and glory. Some are crafted as vessels of honor, some are hardened as vessels of dishonor. Some are vessels of mercy whom He prepares in advance for glory, and some vessels of wrath, prepared for destruction. We talked also last time about God's rights. Does not the potter have the right to do this? Doesn't He have the right as the creator to deal with this this way? It speaks of the rights of ownership. He is the sovereign king. And out of the same lump of clay He can make one or the other. Oh, is that humbling?

You'd like to think you're somehow out of some different stuff originally than Hitler or some of these other great evil people, but same lump of clay is greatly humbling to the human race, isn't it? It's not like He finds some pocket of good clay and makes a good vessel out of it. No, it's the same lump.

Review: God’s Rights

And God has the right to do what He wants with that simple lump, He has the right to do what He wants. That's all review, we covered that last time.

Now today, what I'd like to do is try to understand God's reason in all this. Why? Why does He do this? What is He doing? What are His reasons for all this? And we see in verse 22-23, God giving an answer, a reason. It says, "What if God, choosing to show His wrath and make His power known, bore with great patience the objects of wrath prepared for destruction. What if He did this to make the riches of His glory known to the objects of mercy whom He prepared in advance for glory?" Verses 22-23. Now, first of all, I just want you to notice God's grace in giving us this explanation. He could have just said, "Who are you, o man?" End of story. "You do not have security clearance to go through that door. You're not going in." He doesn't need to tell you any more, but He does. Isn't that remarkable? And you know what that says to me? Let's read verses 22 and 23. Let's try to understand what He says there. If He has deemed to tell us, we should try to understand what He said. It bothers me when people cut off this discussion, and say, "I don't want to talk about that. It's too deep."

Well, God didn't think so. He told you. And so we need to try to understand verse 22 and 23 of Romans 9. Amen? So let's try and understand. I don't know that we're going to perfectly get there, I actually know that you can't. Paul, who wrote it said, "Oh the depths of the riches." You're never going to get it all. Let's try to understand. He has given us grace.

Now, what are His reasons for doing this? What is His reason? Well, I think His reason for everything is to display His own glory. He does it for a display of His glory. And we're going to see display language here in this account. I'll talk to you in a minute about that. But by display, I think about my days as a mechanical engineer. I used to go to trade shows. And these trade shows would be at huge convention centers, huge rooms, and you would just wander and see all of the displays that the companies had. And the companies would spend tens of thousands of dollars for those few seconds when you'd be strolling by their part of the exhibit hall. And they knew they only had a few seconds to grab your attention, and so they would do the most incredible displays. Some of them look just like a vertical carpet, but others were state-of-the-art, flat plasma screen TVs before anyone else had them, or marbleized covers, or it looked like fine mahogany, or polished brass, or something to grab your attention. They would spare no expense.

Now, if a company is that zealous to display their products or their information to get it out, if they're that zealous for that, how much more is God zealous to put His glory on display? That's what this is about. What is God's reason for all of this? That He may be glorified, that His glory may be on display, both in the vessels of wrath and the vessels of mercy. Friends, if you don't get anything else out, get that out. God does all things for the display and for the praise of His glory. That's the reason. Well, let's try to understand it a little bit more. God's glory has been on display since the moment He created the Heavens and the Earth. From the moment that He said, "Let there be light," He has been in the process of displaying or putting out His glory. Light makes all things visible, it displays His glory.

God’s Glory is Put on Display in Christ’s Redemptive Work

But the greatest display of glory, the greatest display of the glory of God in history, has been through the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the radiance of God's glory, and the exact representation of his being, Hebrews 1:3. He is the image of the invisible God, and He came down to Earth so that He could say to His disciples who asked Him and said, "Show us the Father." He said, "Don't you know me, Philip? Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father." You want to know the Father? Look at Jesus, He's a display of the Father's glory. But even there, there's gradients of glory, and the pinnacle of Christ's display of the glory of God was at the cross and the empty tomb. The display of His glory.

So it says in Romans 3:21-26, which we did study in this church a while ago, years ago. Yes, this is an expositional sermon on Romans and it's been years. But go back and look it up, and you'll see in Romans 3:21-26, what I called at the time, the glowing heart of the Gospel. You could just sense of like the energy center of the Gospel, Romans 3:21-26. And there the Apostle Paul says this, "We are justified," that's forgiven of our sins and made righteous before God, "we are justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God... Now listen, displayed publicly as a propitiation, as an atoning sacrifice. God displayed Christ publicly as a propitiation, in His blood through faith." Listen again, "This was to demonstrate His righteousness or justice, because in the forbearance of God, He had passed over the sins previously committed. For the demonstration, I say, of His justice at the present time, so that He would be just, and the justifier of those who have faith in Christ Jesus."

What do all those words say? Well, God had passed over David's sin with Bathsheba. Nathan the prophet said, "You shall not die." What? How does a guy like that get into Heaven? God had to display His justice at the cross, He had to display His righteousness. So He put His commitment to justice and righteousness on display when Jesus died. A display. It says it three times, displayed publicly, demonstrated, and demonstration. Also, it says that God displays His love in Christ at the cross. Romans 5:8, it says, "But God demonstrates His own love for us in this, while we're still sinners, Christ died for us." Do you see all this display or demonstration language? It's a display.

So also we had the same thing in that Christ's resurrection displayed His power. Listen to this in Romans 1:4, it says "and Christ, through the Spirit of holiness, was declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord." So there's all this display, demonstration of God's justice, His righteousness, His love, and His power. We also see His patience put on display when sinners get saved. The Apostle Paul talks about this in 1 Timothy 1:16. He said, "For that very reason, I was shown mercy, so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display His unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe in Him and receive eternal life." So God put his patience on display by saving Paul. Do you see all this display language? Justice, righteousness, holiness, love, wrath, power, kindness, and patience, all put on display through Jesus Christ, the cross, and the resurrection.

God’s Glory is Put on Display in Both Types of Vessels

Now, God's glory is put on display also in both types of vessels. The vessel of wrath puts God's glory on display, the vessel of mercy puts God's glory on display. Both of them are for the display or the showing of God's glory. That's what it's for, that's the reason why God does this. Now, they're different, but both of them are for the same purpose ultimately, the display of God's glory. Now, when we use this language; a vessel, a vessel of mercy or a vessel of wrath, what do we mean by that? Well, the Greek word has two senses, one is, it could be a tool or an implement, sometimes the word is translated that way. A tool of God's glory. Another more common is something that... Like a container. You can imagine like a pot or a bowl or something, a vessel of oil, or a vessel of wine, or some other thing in the New Testament that would hold. It was a container of something, a vessel.

Now, a vessel of honor, it speaks of in verse 21, and also a vessel of dishonor. Now, the vessel of honor, the word honor usually refers to that which is accorded to God. Praise and honor and glory. Well, this is something that holds honor, it's a container of honor. If you're going to have something really honorable, you need a great container for it. I remember when I bought Christie's engagement ring, I went to the finest jeweler in Boston, and they knew how to put a ring like that in a wonderful box. I'll never forget that box, it was made in Thailand. I don't know what it was made out of, some kind of gray leather with a snap on it, but I was almost more interested in the box than I was in the ring. I don't know, I thought it was the most incredible box I'd ever seen. But if you're going to have something that honorable you're not going to put it in a plastic bag. Alright? Amen, right.

Maybe some of you men did, and your wives accepted the ring anyway, that's wonderful. It just shows their grace, doesn't it? I mean they're just so kind to us. But you want to display it well. It needs to be presented well. So this is the vessel of honor. Also in this verse, verse 21, there's the vessel of dishonor, and that's the literal translation although the NIV gives us this sense of common use, and that's possible, something that's commonly used, but either way, may I say to you, the focus is not so much on the vessels, but on the potter who can make either one? He can do either one. He knows how to do either one, he knows the recipe for a vessel of honor, he knows the recipe for a vessel of dishonor, he can do either one. He has that kind of power. He has that kind of ability.

And also verse 22-23, we have vessels of wrath and vessels of mercy. So we have vessel of honor, vessel of dishonor. Verse 21, vessel of wrath, vessel of mercy, verses 22 and 23. Well, God does all of this to display His glory.

Now, God is glorified in the vessels of wrath. That's what he's saying here in verse 22. Paul begins with a kind of a fragmented question. None of the translations really bring it across, the translators frequently try to help the Greek and I understand that, but it makes it kind of a question. What if God chooses me? But it's not what it says, although the meaning is fine, but it just says, "If God, desiring to show His wrath and make His power known, bore with great patience." NASB gives us a kind of a concessive thing, almost like indicating "If God, even though he really would like to show His wrath and make His power known, yet held himself back, bore with great patients the objects of wrath." That's the sense, but I want you to notice the "then" is never finished. "If God," then what? He never finishes it and Paul actually frequently does this, begins thoughts and doesn't finish, but you get the idea.

One pastor I heard preaching on Romans 9 reached back for Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address, one of the greatest speeches ever given by a President. It's almost at the very, very end of the bloody Civil War, and he's trying to make sense of it, and he reaches for depths theologically, that we don't really see in presidents these days. And it's an amazing thing, as he's ruminating on the Civil War and he says that, he uses this if again. He says, "If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which in the providence of God must needs come." Oh, is that deep?

 "But which having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove." This is Abraham Lincoln giving an inaugural address. I think nowadays the ACLU would arrest the president if he talked like this. But listen what he says, "If he now wills to remove slavery and that he gives both to North and South, this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came." Here's the key answer, the second half. "Shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him?" Let me put it in simple language. If God has willed this war, should we then say He's any less worthy of being worshiped? If God wills to make out of a sinful lump a vessel of dishonor, does that mean he's any less loving, any less powerful, any less compassionate, any less gracious, any less worthy of worship? The answer is no.

Our God is worthy of worship, no matter what He wills and chooses to do. That's what Paul does in Verse 22, "If God... Is he any less worthy of worship?" Now, what does God display in vessels of wrath? Well, first he displays his wrath. Puts his wrath on display. If there were no vessels of wrath there would have been no flood of Noah. There would have been no fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah. There would have been no handwriting on the wall at Belshazzar's feasts the very night that Babylon fell under the judgment of God. There would be no Book of Revelation as it was written, no bowls of wrath and there'd be no Hell. All of these things were displays of God's character and His nature, and you know what it teaches us? That God's eyes are too pure to look on evil, He cannot tolerate wrong, He has an aggressive and passionate response to evil. That's what it teaches me about God.

What else is put on display? Well, His power. God uses the wickedness of men to bring Him ultimate praise. He used the wickedness of Pontius Pilate and Annas and Caiaphas to put Jesus to death so that we could have a Savior. Isn't that incredible what God can do with wickedness? That's amazing. And so we see His power also. We saw it in the 10 plagues with Pharaoh, God has an amazing power. Nothing stops God and so in His will up come immense obstacles to the gospel, and he overcomes them one after another, generation after generation, His church is faced with obstacles that seem insurmountable and we keep getting over it. How? By the power of God. And so God shows His power.

Christ hating Roman Empire did not stop the advance of the Gospel. Neither did the Barbarian hordes who swept across, or the Viking invasions, that didn't stop the gospel either. Even in our present time, Christ hating Nazi regime did not stop the gospel of Jesus Christ, and nor will aggressive militant Islam, either. God shows His power in this way. He also shows his longsuffering patience. He puts up with a lot. He puts up with more sin than you can imagine. He sees every heart, He knows the inclination of every heart. He sees it all. And He puts up with so much. Look what it says in verse 22, "what if God, choosing to show His wrath and make His power known, bore with great patience…" There's an extra Greek word in here to help it, already it's patient but it's great patience. If you don't think God needs great patience to put up with sin, you don't understand the holiness of God and none of us do, but that's the amazing patience of God. God put up with the sin of the Amorites for about... In my estimation, about 500 years after he made the promise in Genesis 15. That's a long time and He said, "The sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure." so the Amorites were given time to fill up the measure of the sin of their forefathers. God is so patient. How patient was He with the Jews as they just disobeyed the law of Moses generation after generation? Finally, He brings the Babylonians. He's so patient.

I've told this story before, but it fits here, of a 19th century debate between a godly Scottish pastor and a renown atheist. The atheist was filled with all kinds of sassy and provocative speech, and everybody just loved listening to this guy speak, he was very entertaining as these types of folks frequently are, but he ended by taking a watch out of his vest pocket, back in the 19th century, they had those, they didn't have wristwatches, and he would dangle the thing over the pulpit, just dangle and said, "I will give God, if He exists, three minutes to strike me dead for all the blasphemies I've spoken today." So he'll time three minutes. Oh, that's pretty suspenseful, three minutes.

You can imagine the effect. And after those electric three minutes were done and he walks off the podium, says, "Your turn," to the godly pastor to come and give his presentation. And he began by saying, "And did my esteemed friend really think he could exhaust the patience of the Almighty God in a mere three minutes? But do not be deceived, God cannot be mocked." You can't mock God any more than you can take a wet stick and marble or steel. You can't mock God, you're just mocking your own soul. But God is patient, isn't He? He doesn't bring our judgment down immediately, He is patient. Another display that's not mentioned here is His love for His enemies because He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. He is so good to people who hate Him, so good to them.

Now, how does He deal with vessels of wrath? What does He do with them? Well, first He creates them. Let's keep that in mind. There's nobody here on earth that wasn't created by God. There's nobody here that wasn't actively knit together in their mother's womb by God. That includes the vessels of wrath. That includes, friends, Judas Iscariot. You remember Judas? Jesus said, "The Son of Man will go just as it has been written about Him, but woe to the man by whom He goes, who betrays him." Listen. Jesus said, "It would have been better for him if he had never been born." Now, think about that for a while. Then why was he born? Because God knit him together in his mother's womb. You mean that God chose something for Judas that was not better for Judas? Yes, He did. And why? Because that was the will of God, that Judas be knit together. The depths of the wisdom of God are beyond us. But this is true, God knit Judas together in his mother's womb knowing full well what he would do.

What else does God do? Well, He lavishes goodness on them, as I've already mentioned. Paul says the pagan idol worshipers in Derby in Acts 14:17 it says, "He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons. He provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy." God does that for people who hate Him? Who worship His rivals? Who worship idols? Yes, that's the kind of God we love and serve. He withholds just punishment for a season, but he records every careless word that they have spoken, every single deed. Romans 9:18 says that He hardens their hearts, as we've already learned. He does limit the damage that they do while they're here on earth, controls it in some way. And in the end He justly takes their lives from them, it is the death penalty for sin. He judges them with a perfect judgment on Judgment Day, and then destroys them eternally in hell. This is the teaching of the word of God.

But one thing He does not do, He does not regenerate them by His sovereign grace. He does not take out their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. In all of this, God is glorified. That's the teaching of Romans 9.

Can I say to you at this moment? Thanks be to God that that's not the end of the story. It could have been, you know? It could have been only vessels of wrath, but instead there is verse 23. "What if He did this to make the riches of His glory known to the objects of His mercy, whom He prepared in advance for glory. Even us…" it says in verse 24. Thanks be to God that there is the second category. That didn't have to be, there's not for the devil and his angels, they don't get a second chance, there's no gospel for them, but there is one for us. There is a savior for us, thanks be to God. And God does all of these things, this display, for us.

He is patient with the vessels of wrath so that he gives the vessels of mercy time to repent. God is not slow in keeping His promise. Second Peter Three, "He is patient with us not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." And so he is waiting and waiting. Aren't you glad that God didn't end it 500 years ago? Aren't you glad you were born? Aren't you glad that you came to faith in Christ? Aren't you glad you're going to get to see God and His glory? Aren't you glad God is so patient? I'm glad that He is navigating history, navigating redemption, so that I could get born and so could you and we could love Christ and see Him for ever. Now what a beautiful thing that is. And so we are, in effect, the audience of His glory. Remember I was talking about all the display? God puts his display on, He does it for us, so that the vessels of his mercy might see all of His glory.

God has much to show us, He has much to show us. I look forward to it. Do you realize that God has infinite glory to show us, and you can, even in heaven, you'll only be able to take in so much at a time? Did you ever wonder what you're going to do in Heaven forever and ever? Maybe you're saying, "I'm not really into strumming a harp. Alright? I mean, I could do it for a few hours, but eternity? Forever strumming a harp, sitting on a cloud with other harp strummers? I'm not into that. And frankly, I don't think there's anything here on earth that I'd want to do forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever." Well, you're thinking like the present world. There's going to be a new heaven and a new earth, and constant displays of God's glory.

Ephesians 2:6-7 says this, "And God raised us up with Christ, and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages, He might show," there's that display language, "He might show the incomparable riches of His grace expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus." Oh, is that incredible. So what's going to happen is, they're just going to be kind of new waves of God's glory, and He'll be like, "Hey, did you see that?" Course I saw it, I'm watching, I can see it. And there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth to explore. You'll all be like the Lewis and Clark Expedition. You're going to go find what there is to see. And you're going to go over the next hill and look down at some incredible valley that God has recreated by His power and glory and your jaw is just going to drop open, and you're going to say, "Praise God, praise God, to God be the glory."

And because "eye has not seen, nor ear has heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man" listen, "what God has prepared in advance for us who love Him." So we don't know when it's coming, but it's coming and it's going to be incredible. And what's going to be put on display? Well, the riches of His glory. Wealthy people like to put their riches on display in many cases, okay? They like to have extravagant displays, like you look at Louis the 16th and the Sun King, and he's got Versailles and all the artwork, and it's just a lavish display, and his wealth was in land and gold and artwork and all that kind of thing. If you go to Bill Gates' house, you can see the world's number one collection of electronic reproductions of great works of art, isn't that interesting? You're going to stand and look at a flat screen, and see the MonaLisa. And he has exclusive rights to that, okay, I guess at least at that transmission level. So at any rate, that's what you'll see at Bill Gates' house, that's the display of his wealth.

What is God's riches? What are our riches and not in stocks, not in bonds, not in real estate holdings, not in gold or silver or rare objects of art. Our riches are in God's kindness and glory in Christ Jesus, that's our riches, that's what we're rich with. Is that enough for you? It's enough for me. And frankly, all the other stuff, it's just dust in the wind. You are richer than all of them combined if they don't know Christ. We are rich people. He's going to be putting the display of His riches and His glory on forever. Our commodity is glory, that's what we get. And we are called here vessels of glory. Actually, the phrase is literally vessels of mercy. But what kind of mercy are we talking about? The mercy that He showed to Moses on the mountain. Remember Moses said, "Now show me your glory," and He said, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy." The mercy that He's showing us is His glory.

We don't deserve it, we can't demand it, but he's going to give it to you anyway, if you're in Christ. Isn't that beautiful? Vessels of mercy. And the vessel is going to be like, you're going to be like a... A vessel, a pitcher just filled up with the glory of God and then refilled again and again. You'll be like a sponge saturated, so much will you be filled with glory. You know, Moses, his face shone just being in a little presence of the glory of God. No, we're not going to just have a temporarily fading shining face. We're going to be so saturated with the glory of God that it says in, Jesus said in Matthew 13, "Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father." Oh, you can't even imagine how God's glory will fill you and saturate you if you're a vessel of glory. Well, what does He do with these vessels of glory? Well, He prepares them, it says, in advance for glory. That's incredible.

Do you realize that God is working on you every moment of your life, if you're a Christian, preparing you in advance for glory? "What if He did this," verse 23, "to make the riches of His glory known to the objects of His mercy, whom He prepared in advance for glory?" Paul puts a little prefix in there on something that didn't need it. Isn't prepare always done in advance? I mean, woe to the student that prepares for a test after the test is over. Okay? That's generally unwise. Or to the homemaker, or host or hostess that prepares for the party the next day. Okay, when the guests come, they look around and say, "Was it tonight?" Alright. We don't prepare except in advance, but Paul strengthens it by saying, "Prepares in advance for glory." He is working on you right now to get you ready for glory, if you are a Christian. He's getting you ready and there is nothing wasted, nothing is wasted. The pieces of bread and fish at the feeding of the 5000, Jesus said, "Let nothing be wasted." Collected it all. Well, then how much less events in your life that come to you filtered through the hands of a sovereign and loving God who knows what He's doing in your life, He's preparing you in advance for glory. Now He is not preparing your bodies in advance for glory. No offense. I'm not saying that you don't look wonderful, you do, but I can tell you right now, you need to be rescued from your bodies. Again, no offense, don't misunderstand me. Pastors have to be so careful.

I'm not saying you look terrible, I'm just saying you need to be rescued from your bodies. Paul says in Romans 7:25, "What a wretched man I am, who will rescue me from this body of death?" We need to be rescued, you know why? Because flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, nor can the perishable be clothed with the imperishable. We got to be changed, we got to be transformed, and we will be, and therefore, even as we're dying, God is preparing us for glory. Isn't that marvelous? Because these bodies can't come with us. Outwardly we are wasting away, but inwardly, we're being renewed day by day. So the preparation in advance for glory is something inside you, it's in your heart, it's in your soul. He's getting you ready for glory, He's giving you a taste for glory. He's preparing you. And isn't it beautiful that Jesus said, "I go and prepare a place for you." "Do not let your hearts be troubled, trust in God, trust also in me, in my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not, so I would have told you for I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me so that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going."

Jesus said there He is preparing a place for us, but this text says He is preparing us for the place. He's working both ends, He's preparing the place for us, He's preparing us for the place. He's going to get everything ready, and when everything is ready, then comes the wedding day. Then comes the wedding day. And so it says in Revelation 21:1-2, it says, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there's no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband." Christ is getting His bride ready. He's getting her beautiful, He's dressing her in fine linen, which stands for the righteous deeds of the saints. She's going to be spectacular, she's going to be glorious, she's going to be attractive to Him and He will marry her and He will live with her forever and ever. And if you're a Christian, you're part of that. He's preparing you for the wedding day.

And in the meantime, everything's according to the recipe. He knows what He's doing, He knows how to get you ready for that day, He knows how to mix in certain ingredients of suffering and sadness along with joy and satisfaction, moments of comfort, moments of sorrow, all of it wisely mixed together for this purpose, that you would be prepared in advance for glory.

Now what application can we take from this sermon that was originally 18 pages, and then got reduced. So much in here, so much in here. I just want to focus on you, speaking first to Christians, feel the potter's hands all over your life. Feel Him working in you and preparing you in advance for glory. This is the meaning of Romans 8:28 when it says, "God causes all things to work together for good. For those who love God and are called according to His purpose." What is His purpose? To conform us to the image of Christ.

And so everything that's happening to you is preparing you for glory, it's getting you ready. And so when you hear a sermon, God is preparing you in advance for glory. When you read a missionary biography, God is preparing you in advance for glory. When you have a great conversation with a Christian friend, when you have a quiet time, when you get down on your knees and pray, God is preparing you in advance for glory. When you go on vacation and you go to the Grand Canyon or the mountains or the ocean, and you say, "Wow, look at that," God is preparing in advance for glory. And when you sin and God disciplines you, and you are convicted by the Holy Spirit and you confess it and you renounce it, and with sadness you yearn in your heart, never to do that sin again, God is preparing you for glory.

Furthermore, God is using you to prepare other people in advance for glory, "for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to walk in them." So what does that mean? Means when you speak a word of encouragement, when you use your spiritual gift of administration or financial generosity or prayer or teaching, you are helping others to be prepared in advance for glory. When you go on a mission trip, you're helping other people, you're preparing them in advance for glory. When you invite a friend to church, you were an instrument in the hand of God to prepare them in advance for glory. It's incredible how God uses us to shape and mold His church, so that all things work together for the good of those who love Him and are called to coordinate His purpose. You are called to a life of significance. What is your ministry? Are you walking in the good works that God is going to use in your life to prepare somebody else in advance for glory? Oh, do them all the more, store up treasure in Heaven for glory.

Now, to the non-Christian friend, don't you want this? Aren't you hungry for it? Don't you yearn to have the potter's hand all over your life? Don't you yearn to have the blood of Jesus Christ atone for all of your sin, so that the record book is thrown away and God embraces you as a son or daughter of God? Don't you yearn for Christ? Then come to Him today, trust in Him as your personal savior, love Him, believe in Him, trust in Him, and then watch what He does to prepare you in advance for glory. We who are already Christians, now we've been at it for a while and sometimes it's wonderful and sometimes it's not. But in all things God is working to get us ready for that glorious, glorious wedding day. Close with me in prayer.

This morning we are looking this morning at Romans 9:19-23. One of the things my family and I like to do is to go to historic places like Williamsburg or Conner Prairie in Indiana or some of these other places where they do crafts from the colonial era. Some of you enjoy doing that kind of thing too. I like to see the blacksmith make an iron hinge or the gunsmith make a rifle barrel with a long kind of interesting drill. I like to see the joiners making furniture and cabinets. That's really an amazing thing. The tailor sitting cross legged on a table all day long, sewing. I wonder how they do that. It looks like a stiff position, but that's where they are and they're just working. But I especially love to see the potters doing their work, you know what I mean? The skilled potter, who takes some clay out of some container of clay, and then slaps it down on the wheel as it's spinning, and then with just artful fingers he just makes the thing seemingly come to life.

I love that moment where he puts his fingers inside and just pulls up and it just grows right in front of you. Have you seen that before? It's an amazing thing. And out of this lump of clay comes a pitcher or a bowl or something according to his skill and his vision, what it is he's trying to make, it's a marvelous thing. And that is the image that the apostle Paul uses to talk about what God is doing in the world with people. And it's an incredible thing, and we need to understand it in context.

Paul here in Romans 9, is dealing with a very deep and significant question. The question has to do with whether God's Word has failed. And the issue is that the Jews in large number, are, were and still are, rejecting the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And they're not just any people, but they are people that had received great privileges and amazing promises and prophetic warnings and all kinds of things and here they're rejecting Christ. And so Paul is dealing with that.

Now we as Christians, we cherish the promises of God, don't we. And all the incredible things that God has said to us, like in Romans 8, "And we are assured that nothing else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus." Isn't that wonderful. Those are just words. But for me, they're not words. That's the foundation of my hope, that's what gives me joy. I cling to that. But Paul has to take up this problem, if God's Word has failed to the Jews, how do I know it's not going to fail to me? And so, he's dealing with that question. Has the Word of God failed? And he strongly answers it in verse 6 of chapter 9, "It is not as though God's Word has failed, for not all who are descended from Israel are Israel."

And so, he sets up this category, where there are the physical descendants of Israel, the Jews, physically and nationally, but then within that a subset of the true Israel. "Not all who are descended from Israel are Israel." And then he brings us to the mystery of unconditional election. He goes beyond just saying that, he says that God decides who's in each category. And he makes that decision before any of us are born or do anything good or bad. It's the doctrine of unconditional election. The case study was Jacob and Esau. "Before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad, in order that God's purpose in election might stand, not by works but by Him who calls. She was told the older will serve the younger just as it is written. Jacob, I love and Esau I hated." This is the doctrine of unconditional election. In order to deal with that though, up comes the question of God's justice. It seems unjust for God to do this. Unconditional election seems unjust and so he has to raise the question and answer it in verses 14-16.

Is God unjust? And He deals with the issue of, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." It makes an amazing summary statement in verse 16. It does not, therefore, depend on the man who wills, or the man who runs, but on God, who has mercy. It doesn't depend on human will, it doesn't depend on human effort, it depends on God, who has mercy. And then he deals with the negative side as we did the last time, two weeks ago, that we looked at the hardening of Pharaoh's heart and how God doesn't just deal in the lives of the Jacobs but he also deals in the lives of the Esaus. And he deals with the doctrine there of hardening. And the summary then, after dealing with the case of Pharaoh, in verse 18, he sums it all up saying, "Therefore God has mercy on whom He wills to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wills to harden." There it is, in verse 18. And we covered that last time. Now, as Paul frequently does, he raises up an objection to his doctrine.

Now, I've mentioned before he does this because he's a veteran evangelist and apologist, defender of the Christian faith, he's going from place to place in all these synagogues, he has heard this before. "One of you at this point is going to say this to me..." And isn't it refreshing that he does that? I want the doctrine tested, I want the answers that are popping up in my mind to be dealt with. And so he brings up this incredibly deep and I think confirming objection. "One of you will say to me, that why does God still blame us for who resists His will?" That's the objection that Paul is dealing with here in verse 19. Now, what is the objection? Well, the way I understand it is this basically, if God is so all powerful as you're saying, Paul, if everything just comes down to His will. If He can do anything He wants, then why does anybody go to hell, frankly. Why does He blame anybody? For who resists His will? Why doesn't He just save everyone? Has that question ever occurred to you? I know it's occurred to some of you, because you come and talk to me about it. And so, yes, it's on our minds, we're trying to understand it. Why doesn't he just save everybody? If it doesn't depend on the man desires or wills but on God who has mercy, why doesn't He just have universal mercy?

Oh yes, you know the question's in your mind, you have this question. And I remember the first time I read this thinking, "Oh good, I'm going to get an answer. And instead, I get a security alert clearance and I'm not allowed to go in the room. "Who are you oh man to talk back to God?" I'm not cleared for that room, it seems. And yet, amazingly, he goes beyond, and starts to give some of his reasons even past that statement. So it's remarkable what God's doing here in Romans 9, but He's dealing with this objection.

Now, as I look at the objection in my opinion, as I look at it, there's a true aspect to it, and a false one. The objection contains a truth and it also contains a falsehood. What is the truth to the objection? No one can resist the will of God. That is true. God gets what He wants. Some call it the doctrine of irresistible grace. I like effectual grace better. None of us are dragged kicking and screaming to faith in Christ, we run and embrace him don't we? But I look on that as effectual grace, it has an effect on us, effectual grace. So the true aspect is, who resists His will? More on that in a minute. The false aspect is, if God is so sovereign, absolute sovereignty must nullify human responsibility so that there can be no Judgment Day. That is false. Now how those go together, I don't know. And I challenge you to find any human being who does. I can't put it all together. And if you want the removal of mystery you've come to the wrong place, and you're listening to the wrong sermon. I'm not here to remove mystery there is mystery in our faith isn't there? There's limitations to these brains and so there's limit. But truth, I believe God's will is final. The scriptures teach it over and over again. But one of the clearest passages on this, is Isaiah 14:24-27. Don't turn there, but just listen.

There Isaiah is dealing with the problem of the Assyrian empire. And Assyria, a mighty empire, was invading and took over the Northern Kingdom of Israel and was going to come right up to the neck, it says in Isaiah, of taking over Judah as well. But God says, this far, you go and no further and then I'm going to crush you, that's what He says in Isaiah 14 to the Assyrian. Very interesting, but these are the statements that He makes. Isaiah 14:24, "The Lord Almighty has sworn," very strong statement. "The Lord Almighty has sworn, surely as I have planned, so it will be. And as I have purposed, so it will stand." Now, what is that saying? Means, I'm the king. I rule. What I plan stands. I was talking to one of my children about that this morning, I said. "What would you think of a child in a home getting up and telling his or her parents, "Well these are my plans today. I'm going to eat such and such for breakfast, I want to make bacon and eggs and all that, and have some toast, maybe some yogurt. And after I get done, I'm going to go play with the neighbor kids for a while, and then I'll do some of my school work and when I get done with that, I'm not sure what I'd like to do. I would like to spread some mulch on the yard and maybe cut the grass a little bit, and then when I get done... "

He'd stand there in amazement saying, "Excuse me? Well, those are wonderful plans. They're subject to change. Okay, why? Because I'm the daddy. That's why. You don't get to decide, you don't get to choose." So there's an issue of authority. The highest authority however, isn't subject to change. What He plans, it stands. What He purposes that's the way it's going to go. And He says It openly over and over in Scripture. He says later in that same section, Isaiah 14:27, "For the Lord Almighty has purposed and who can thwart Him. His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?" Answer, No one.

So that is true. The objection is true. Who resist His will? But the conclusion from the objection is not. That means we're all free, we're all robots, none of us is responsible for the things we do. That. My friends, is not true. We will give an account on the Day of Judgment for every careless word that we have spoken. That is a fact. So the objection is put together in a package of truth and error and we have to try to understand it.

Now in my opinion, this very objection kind of proves the interpretation we've been giving all along in Romans 9, of God's absolute sovereignty in salvation. A free will approach to salvation does not have to answer this question. Somebody would never even think to say, "Well then why does God still find fault for who resists His will in a freewill scheme?" It would never come up. If people make their ultimate choices, then they get the ultimate conclusion of those choices and that's it. But here, this objection proves we are dealing with absolute sovereignty, aren't we?

As if the open texts weren't enough that openly say it, he raises this question. Now, as I look at this, I see basically, four parts to the answer. And it's just amazing how they all begin with R, isn't it amazing when that happens? But I tell you this, I like alliteration, but I don't ever want to force a text under certain letter schemes. Certain letters are better than others. Q is really bad. I've never been able to do Q but R is good. And in this case, I think it does lay out the text, pretty well for us. First, we're going to see God's Rebuke. Second, we're going to see God's Role. Third, God's Rights. And fourth, but not really this week, probably more like next week, God willing, we'll see God's Reason for all of this. Okay?

First, God's Rebuke. Basically, this begins with God putting humanity in its place. We are put in our place here. Look at verse 20. "But who are you, Oh man, to talk back to God?" This is a rebuke. "Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, Why did you make me like this?" The focus here is on our weakness, our frailty as created beings, our mortality. The human race has forgotten itself and it's wisdom to know who we are, isn't it? So, as we deal with the issue of God's sovereignty in salvation, it's good for us to have an attitude check at a certain point. We are, uppity. Is that a good word? We're uppity. Human beings are uppity. We don't stay in the place that God created us for. There's an upward mobility in the spiritual realm, just like the devil when he said, "I will ascend to the most high, I'll sit on God's throne." We have that in us, and so we don't stay in our place, we are uppity. And so therefore, it's good for us to be humbled, to be quieted at a certain point. Because we misunderstand our relationship with God as a result. And so there are some things that God has designed to humble us. For example, in Psalm 8:3-4, David said, "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers. The moon and the stars, which you have set in place, you know what I think? I think what am I? What is man, that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?"

Now, that's humbling. A nice walk under a star strewn sky, that'll do it. Or look at a mountain range, that will put you in your place. Look at the ocean as it's raging on a stormy night, that'll put you in your place. And then there's just theology. Just as you read scripture. In Ecclesiastes 5:2 it says, "Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you, you're on earth. So let your words be few." There's a humbling there. I actually think that Isaiah 40 through 49, those 10 chapters, are written to humble us so that we remember that, "He sits enthroned above the circle of the Earth, and its people are like grasshoppers in front of Him. All the nations are like a drop in the bucket, he weighs them like they're dust on the scale." Does that not put you and me in our place? It does. And so therefore, God wants to humble us. But one of the number one things that God does to the people that He loves is He begins by humbling them. I already talked to you about Moses. "Stop, don't come any closer. Take off your sandals." And Moses is trembling on the ground. He can't even look, he's so fearful.

God did that to Abraham in Genesis 15 when He was going to appear to him and confirm the covenant. A thick and dreadful darkness came over Abraham and he was afraid. It was a fear. He did that with Isaiah when Isaiah saw a vision of Christ seated on His throne and the train of His robe filled the temple, and there were Seraphs, each with six wings and they were calling to one another, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord Almighty. And the door posts and thresholds shook with the voice of the angels. And Isaiah says, reasonably, I think, "Woe is me. I'm a sinner." He means to humble Isaiah there. He meant to humble the Israelites at Mount Sinai with that display of power when He came down in a cloud, and there was lightning, and thunder, and there was a loud voice and a trumpet and the whole ground under their feet shook. And the people were terrified. Don't tell me God wasn't trying for fear there. He was.

He was trying to bring the fear of God in the hearts of people. And it worked, because they said, as God began to speak to them, they begged to not hear His voice anymore, and God said, "It's a good thing. Oh, that they would always fear me and obey my commands." So God does mean to humble us and He means to keep us in our place. Why? For our own good, because it is reality. He is God and we are not. He sits on the throne and we will not, except in that we sit on Christ's throne through redemption. But He is God. And so we need to be humbled. Therefore we have to have the right attitude.

Martin Lloyd Jones put it this ways so beautifully. Talking about this whole difficult chapter of Romans 9, he says this,

“You cannot understand? You are tempted to question and to argue, and to query? The reply to you is, ‘Who are you, O man, that replies against God! Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, why have you made me like this?’ ‘But that,’ you may say, ‘is not a fair argument. It is rather a prohibition of argument, and the exertion of an unfair authority.’ To which I reply that we were never meant to argue with God, and that we should never have started from the assumption that it was to be a discussion between two equal disputants. God is in heaven, and we are upon the earth. God is holy and we are sinful. God knows all things, and sees the end from the beginning.... God needs no defense, for He is on the throne. He is the Judge of all the earth. His Kingdom is without end. Cease to question and to argue! Bow down before Him! Worship Him! Get into the right attitude yourself, and you will begin to understand His actions.”

Lloyd Jones is right. And that's all that happens today in this sermon, is that you feel a humbling in a downward direction, like it says in Psalm 95. "Come let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our God, our Maker. For He is our God and we are His people, the sheep of His pasture." Oh, that's a good thing, isn't it, to be humbled. There's a sweet feeling that comes from that.

Now, the issue here is, is God on trial? Is he needing to answer our cross examination? Are we the district attorney pacing back and forth and thinking of our next question, as we orchestrate this debate with God and make Him dance to our logical tune? Is that what's going on here? "Enough." says Romans 9. Stop. Remember, who you are. Remember who you're speaking to. Think. You're dust, created, and if you're a Christian, you're a vessel fitted for glory by His power. That's marvelous.

But we are not in any position to talk back to God. The word means here, doesn't mean ask an honest question. That's not what we're talking about here. Doesn't mean, I have a question I really would like to know. I'm trying to understand, that's all fine. I lack wisdom, James says He gives honestly, and generously out without rebuke. He's not going to rebuke you for asking for wisdom. But that's not what this verse is talking about. Here we're talking about answering back or arguing back, or in the parental child relationship, talking back you know. There's the back talking and that is cut off here. We are not to talk back to God. This is, I think a rebuke that refreshes us. It doesn't sting, it actually heals us, friends. It heals us. It's a good thing to be in our place, because the place that God made is good. And so after God had rebuked Job, Job repented in sackcloth and ashes. He said his disputations with God, were over forever. You're not going to argue anymore.

And so it says in Job 40, "The Lord said to Job. Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him? Let him who accuses God answer him." And then Job answered the Lord. "I am unworthy. How can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once but have no answer. Twice but I will say no more." Job said, I don't have anything else to say. I've seen the Lord and He has quieted me. And so friends, let's start with the rebuke. "Who are you oh man to argue against God?" Let's not argue anymore.

The second is God's role. God is the potter and we are the clay. I love that song. Wasn't that beautiful? I mean it's delightful, the sense of God at work in our lives, is one of the most encouraging ones you'll ever find in your life. And to know that God is wise about what He's doing in your life, His hands are on the events of your life, nothing comes to you except through His fingers, and He's wise, He is the potter we are the clay. It's such a beautiful thought.

And it is all true for us as Christians as you listen to all the words of the song. It's true. But I think Paul is using it differently here in Romans 9, a little bit. The thought itself is the same, but he's dealing here with vessels of mercy, and vessels of wrath and what God is doing there. And here it says, "God is the potter and we are the clay." It says, "Shall what is formed," verse 20, "say to Him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'" The Greek word is plasma from which we get the word plastic, and all that. There's a sense of something moldable, shapeable, you can work with it. We're being molded and shaped, and fashioned. The point is essentially our changeability. We are moldable, we are changeable. Every day then, we are shaped and molded and changed in some way. By things we read, by conversations we have with people, by experiences that we have out in the world. All of those things mold us, shape us, affect us. Christian, non-christian everybody, all over the world. That's what it is we are moldable, we are shapeable.

The contrast is God, He never changes, never. Nothing molds and shapes God. God isn't progressing, He's not improving, He's not getting worse either. He is the same yesterday, and today and forever, always. God is fashioning us after His own purpose. He is working on us by His own internal vision. Many testimonies of people, craftsmen and artists talk about the artistic process. One French artist was talking this way, he said, "A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him, the image of a cathedral." It was a rock pile, it could eventually, 128 years later be a cathedral. But there's a vision. The artist working. Michael Angelo was talking about one of the angels that he carved out of marble and he said, "Well, I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." Isn't that marvelous.

Another time, Michael Angelo was asked while he was sculpting his David, "How do you know what to carve away?" His response was reported to be, "I simply remove everything that doesn't look like David." See there it is, you know. Sculpting in one easy step. I don't know how he gets the veins and tendons and how it looks like it's actually skin on the marble, that's amazing that he was gifted. But that's what... He's got an internal vision and he works with the block of marble until it is the way he saw. That is what God is doing in the world. God, God, God's medium, is people. That's what He's working in. Michelangelo worked with marble there making that statue. Others work with canvas, and oil-based paints. God works with people. He is the potter and we are the clay. We're moldable.

And what is He doing in the elect? What's He doing in we who believe in Jesus Christ? Well, it says in Romans 8:29, "Those God foreknew, He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He, Christ, might be the first born among many brothers." So God's internal vision is his own Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And what is he doing? Well, basically, I take everything out of him or her that doesn't look like Jesus. That's it, that's sanctification, that's the work that He's doing. He's fitting us for glory. More about that God willing next week. But he is the potter and we're the clay.

Look at verses 20-21. "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, Why did you make me like this? Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes, and some for common use?" Now, pottery is an ancient art, it's been around for a long, long time. Ancient, ancient art. The potter and the clay is a strong image from Old Testament days. The human race, Adam originally came out of the dirt. And God, in an amazing way, shaped out of clay Adam's body. It says in 1 Corinthians 15:47, "The first man is from the earth." He's earthy. That's us. Okay, but then the prophets especially Isaiah, have the image of the potter and the clay for example, Isaiah 29, "Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the Lord, who do their work in darkness and think who sees us? Who will know?You turn things upside down. As if the potter were thought to be like the clay. "Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, 'He did not make me.' Can the pot say to the potter, 'He knows nothing.'" But that's what a sinner does.

The pot, (we) say of the potter, he doesn't know anything. Similarly, in Isaiah 45, it says, "Woe to him who quarrels with his maker. To him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground." The image is the same. And then in Isaiah 64:8, "Yet O Lord, You are our Father, we are the clay You are the potter. We are all the work of your hand." But the best is in Jeremiah 18. "This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord." So the Word of the Lord is coming to Jeremiah, but not there. He says, "Go down to the potter's house, and there I will give you my message. So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands, so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me."

So first, he is watching this thing. What does this have to do with anything? And then the Word of the Lord came and this is what it was, "O House of Israel, can I not do with you, as this potter does, declares the Lord. Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O House of Israel." Don't I have the right to do this? That's what the potter did with his pot, he reshaped it, he remolded it, he did something different with it. And you didn't cry out an objection, you didn't say, "That's unjust what you're doing there." Of course, he's the potter, that's his clay. He can do that. Now, I want to make a key distinction and I think this will be essential to you understanding Romans 9. Martin Lloyd Jones makes this point, and I think he's right. "We are not dealing here with original creation, God originally making man. I don't think so. Rather, we're dealing with man, the human race, as sinful after the fall."

That's an important distinction to make. God did not create Adam evil, He created him good. He gave Adam a will and put him in the garden and tested him. Adam chose to sin. In him, the entire human race sinned and became corrupt, all of us. That's the doctrine of original sin. As soon as each individual human being has the opportunity to choose and to obey or disobey the law of God, we sin, all of us. When the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. And so we sin as a result of being in Adam, but also from actual choices, as well. The whole human race then, is the massive lump of sinful clay. Not shaped or made sinful by God for God cannot make any one evil. It says in James 1:13, "When tempted no one should say, God is tempting me, for God cannot be tempted by evil nor does He tempt anyone."

Lloyd Jones put it this way.

"This is essentially different from the original creation, because in the original creation it was not only creation from nothing, but still more important, God created man in His own image and likeness.’ That is the opposite of dishonor. He looked upon man, as He looked upon the whole of creation, and we are told that He saw that it was good. God never created anything unto dishonor, but here we are dealing with a potter who makes one vessel unto dishonor. And that proves we cannot be dealing with human nature as such, still less with man as he was made at the beginning. It is an account of what God does with fallen humanity.

So there is the key to the whole explanation of this statement that has mystified so many people. They get hold of the idea that God has deliberately made some people that they might go to hell. That is a lie! It is not taught anywhere in the Scripture... The lump of clay is not 'humanity'; it is 'fallen humanity.'" 

It is as though God found this disgusting pile of rejected stinking clay good for nothing, and chose to do something with some of it. He chose to take some of that lump that defiled and evil pile of useless clay, and fashioned it into the perfect image of His Son. But he did more than that, the rest He gave over to the natural proclivities of their heart hardening them as vessels of wrath. He gave them over to what they wanted to be. He could have saved them all, he could have exerted His sovereign power in an awesome way. He could have transformed them all, but He chose not to. Why? We'll talk about that next week. I told you already, I'm not going to remove all the mystery, but we will discuss it more. His reasons, next week. But here is God a molder and shaper of unregenerate people, and a hardener and judge of unregenerate reprobate people. The key insight here then is that God does not fashion and shape every one for glory. Some are crafted as vessels of honor, some are hardened as vessels of dishonor. Some are vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, others are vessels of mercy, whom He prepared in advance for glory.

A final point I want to make today is God's rights. Verse 21. "Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes, and some for common use?" God has a right of ownership here. The potter/clay analogy is one of sovereign rights of ownership and craftsmanship. God owns the clay. He can make anything He wants out of it. The Greek word here is 'exousia,' power, authority. Not so much like the dynamite power that we get later in verse 22. "What if God, choosing to show His wrath and make His power known, [like dynamite] bore with great patience the objects of His wrath." Here it's rather authority, God has the authority to do this. He has the right to do it, He's the king, He's the owner, He owns all things. God can do what He wants with what He's made. And you live by this, don't you? Suppose the government came without due process of law and confiscated your house. Would you not feel a sense of injustice? Oh yes, you would. And so also in all the other areas of your property. Communism was an utter failure because it violated this basic principle of rights of ownership. Without due process of law, things were confiscated and put into a big collective pot. But God here declares His rights over the whole human race.

Now when we deal with this issue of the same lump of clay, this is remarkable, and it is humbling. Basically, God doesn't find a pocket of the rejected clay and say, "Oh here's something I can work with. Well, here's some good clay. Just, right there and pull out some good clay and work with it. And those are the Christians. No, it's the same lump folks. The same lump, as those that are going to hell. Does that not humble us? Does it not teach that there's no difference between us and them? Out of the same lump of clay God has power to do this. And what is He doing in us? Well, He's making us a vessel of honor, and I want to end with that. God is working in the believers, that we would be containers or vessels of glory. That we would have the delight and the glory of the knowledge of God inside of us. That we would hear that voice saying, "Come up here and I will show you my glory." And that we will see it. We're being fitted and prepared for glory. And if you're a child of God, no matter what is going on in your life, no matter what suffering, no matter what struggles and temptations you're fighting, you are being fitted and prepared for glory. You are being prepared in advance for honor. And oh is that so encouraging and so sweet.

Next week, I want to talk about God's reason for all of this.

Application. First, humbly ask God, humbly ask God for the proper attitude. Say, "Lord, you know I've had the tendency to argue against doctrine. I've had the tendency to reject the doctrine of your sovereignty. Will you please humble me? Like You did Job. Well, maybe not exactly like you did Job. But do a humbling work in me. I'm not asking for all of that. But humble me Lord. Do what you need to do in me to make me humble before You. To accept anything You say. Also Lord, I want to confess a sin of arrogance that I have fought against the doctrine, fought against Scripture. I want to just accept what your Word teaches." Christians, will you praise God for His incredible skill. He is working on you, right now, He's working on you. He's going to be working on you all this upcoming week. He is feeding you and preparing you for glory. And is that not a marvelous thought? Does it not take some of the sting out of the trial that you're going through? And unbelievers, if you're here and you've never trusted in Christ, He could fit you for glory too. He has the power to transform anybody's life. Come to Christ, trust in Him, believe in Him for the salvation of your soul. Close with me in prayer.

A sermon presenting the biblical reasons for fasting and its role in the internal journey of Christians.

Well, as you've heard and have heard for a few weeks, today is the International Day of Fasting and Prayer for Worldwide Evangelization. And as I was preparing for this message, I was reading a number of quotes about the power of fasting in the history of the church. And I came across this one by Charles Spurgeon, and he said this, "Our seasons of fasting and prayer at the Tabernacle," that's at his local church, "have been high days indeed. Never has heaven's gate stood wider and never have our hearts been nearer the central glory." Isn't that marvelous? Isn't that an incredible testimony? And so, also from the churches in Korea, so far, in one denomination in particular, over 20,000 Korean Christians have set themselves apart to fast and pray for 40 days. 20,000 Korean Christians for 40 days. They go up to a specific prayer mountain, and there are these little huts, and they just go in there, and they fast, and they pray for 40 days. 20,000 Koreans have done it so far. And God has moved in an incredible way in the church in Korea for a hundred years. 1884, the first Protestant church was planted in Korea. In the hundred years that followed, 30,000 Christ-honoring churches were planted in Korea. That's about 300 a year. That's incredible, the power of God moving. Now, I cannot draw a direct connection between fasting and prayer and that kind of result. I find frequently when you see these accounts of fasting and prayer in the Bible, those that are humble and are just praying and seeking the Lord, say something like this, "Who knows? Perhaps the Lord will be gracious," etcetera. And I think that that's right. God doesn't owe us a thing. We're not twisting his arm behind his back. "We fasted, so you must give us such and such spiritual outcome." It doesn't work that way. But I want to know that kind of power in this church. Amen? 

I want to see that kind of evangelistic fruitfulness in this church. I wanna see God do amazing things. I want us to live up to our potential. I want us to live up to our calling in Christ. And so, I've been looking forward to this day of fasting and prayer for a long time.

Now, I read a book, in preparation for this, by John Piper called A Hunger for God. And in it, he deals with the question of fasting, and he begins by saying, "Books on fasting are dangerous." And I was interested in that. I was interested, and I tried to understand the danger. And as I read, and as I thought, I started to see what the dangers were. In the famous epic by Homer, The Odyssey, the hero Ulysses is trying to make his way back from the Trojan War. And he gets in one misadventure after another, one dangerous problem after another, as he just tries to get his men home to their wives and to their families, just trying to come home, that's all. And that's what the story is about. Well, at one point, while navigating the narrow Strait of Messina, he and his men confront the twin perils of Scylla and Charybdis. Now, Scylla was this hideous she-monster with these heads and all that, that if the sailors got too close, they would... She would pluck them out and devour them. So you'd think, "We're gonna steer a wide course away from it." The problem is that at the other side of the Straits, there's Charybdis, which is this horrendous whirlpool that sucks ships down a hole to the bottom of the sea. And so, you've got an image of avoiding extremes, really. You can't to close to... Go too close to the one or to the other, you're gonna have problems. We have sayings like this, “Between the rock and the hard place,” or “Between the devil and the deep blue sea,” this kind of thing, where we have to find a way to navigate through some dangers.

Now, you might say, what are the dangers of fasting? Well, on the one side, you have the danger of self-righteousness. People who fast are especially tempted to this. Why? Because they want something for their effort, and they want you to know about what they're doing, and they wanna get something from God and all that. They wanna feel righteous about themselves because it's not easy to fast. And so, there's the danger of self-righteousness, people thinking they can earn favor with God or forgiveness for sins, or there's some standing of piety that you get in the eyes of others. That's the danger on one side, self-righteousness. But then there's the danger on the other side of this issue, and that is self-indulgence. On the other hand, people live for selfishness. They live for their earthly appetites. They feed themselves with more and more and more. There doesn't seem to be anything inside that's telling them to stop, and that is a great danger as well. And the result of that is a spiritual dullness and low energy that makes it impossible for us really to hear God speaking and act. So you have self-righteousness on the one side, and then you have self-indulgence on the other.

Now, as we look at the issue of fasting, we realize we Christians are not the only ones who fast. Frankly, pretty much every religion in the world has certain fastings involved, for example, Islam; you know the month of fasting of Ramadan. I've been told that more food is consumed that month than any of the other months, but they only fast during the daylight hours, and then at night they can eat, but that's a fast. The Buddhists, the monks in Tibet, they fast long, long periods of time fasting. The Hindus fast, Gandhi, as we'll talk about in a few minutes, used fasting for political purposes. Some people fast just for their health. Some people even carry it to extremes like anorexia. Some people in the Bible even fast for fanaticism's sake, in Acts 23, there's this interesting group of Pharisees, of Jews, fanatical Jews who hate Paul so much that they take a vow that they will not eat or drink anything until they've killed Paul. They've assassinated him. Now, either they got awful thin, or they gave up that vow; one or the other, but there's a vow to fast until they can assassinate the Lord's apostle. And so, fasting of itself isn't necessarily a good thing, but there are incredible benefits to us both in the internal journey of sanctification, growth, and holiness, and the external journey that the church is on of worldwide evangelization. And I wanna look at that with you this morning.

So let's look first at this issue of the internal journey of the heart. What do you desire? What do you want? What are you living for? What do you have a taste for? Fasting, if I can put it quite simply, keeps the body, physical body under orders and keeps the glory of God your primary focus and desire. That's what fasting does for you in the internal journey. Now, in order to give a warning against that one Scylla of self-righteousness, the danger of that, we need to have some Biblical guidelines. False teachers sometimes call people to fast, even extreme fast. In 1 Timothy 4, it says, "The Spirit clearly says that in later times, some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.” Listen, "They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving." Watch out for false teachers like that, who teach extreme asceticism as a way of getting close to God. God is, in the scriptures, I believe, jealous over your evangelical freedoms. He says in Galatians, "It is for freedom that Christ has set you free. Stand firm then and don't be burdened again with the yoke of slavery." So if you ever have religious leaders that are standing over you and putting on you a yoke saying, "You must fast or God will not be pleased with you," that's that extreme form of self-righteousness that we must avoid. Along with that, as I've mentioned, is the problem of hypocrisy and pride. Jesus addresses this in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew Chapter 6. He said, "And when you fast... " By the way, not if you fast. "When you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you're fasting, but only to your Father who's in heaven. And your Father who sees what is done in secret, he will reward you." The problem with the hypocrites is that they were disfiguring their faces to show men they were fasting. "Oh, I'm fasting today," and everyone just knew it. And what was their motive? That people would think well of them, that they would put them up on a spiritual pedestal. "I fast twice weekly," they'll say. And they're just way up there on that spiritual pedestal. You know what Jesus says about them? "I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full." They're not getting anything from God on Judgment Day. Watch out for that kind of thing.

There's another danger along with it is the strengthening of self-will, will power. "Look what I can do by my own will. I have mastery over myself. Look what I can do." That's the last thing that you want in a spiritual discipline, is a strengthening of will power. That's not what you want. What you want is that your will would be submitted to the yoke of the master, that he is in charge, that he is leading you, and therefore we fast because he leads us to do it, not because we can prove kind of mind over matter, that kind of thing. And we definitely don't wanna think, as I mentioned earlier, that we're in a position to make demands on God, that we can claim something on God if we fast. I think about, for example, Mahatma Gandhi, he didn't make a claim on God, but he did make a claim on his nation. Shortly after the partition of India, it was separated into an essentially Hindu country, India, and essentially two Buddhist... Sorry, Muslim countries, Pakistan and East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh, there was this partition and tremendous struggle between the Hindus and the Muslims, tremendous struggles between the two; warfare really almost, almost like a civil war. And Gandhi was so grieved over this that on January 13th, 1948, he proclaimed nationwide for himself, everyone would know, a fast to the death if the violence didn't stop. Well, at this point, he was seen to be almost like the father of the nation. Everybody revered him. Both sides revered him, and so they did not wanna see him die. And so, little by little, all of the rioting and the bloodshed stops and he's there lying on his bed dying, well, what he's done is, he's taken the nation and put its arm behind its back, say, "If you don't stop, I'm going to kill myself." But what I'm saying here is that we cannot go to God with our fast and say, “You owe us something because of what we're doing.” God doesn't owe us a thing. He never will. We cannot coerce God through fasting. He will not listen to that.

Now, as I look at Scylla and Charybdis, as I look at the danger of self-righteousness, which I've been describing up to this point in the message, and the danger of self-indulgence, I have to, as a pastor, discern which is the greater danger for us at this present time. Which is more likely to be the problem for an American Evangelical congregation? And it seems to me that the Lord has so abundantly blessed this country, abundantly blessed our farms, so that year after year, we have incredible harvest. Abundantly blessed our industries, so that year after year, we have amazing productivity. Abundantly blessed our businesses, so that year after year, we have incredible profits. Abundantly blessed our research labs, so that year after year, we have incredible discoveries and inventions and formulae. It seems to me that God has so lavishly blessed this country that the greater danger is self-indulgence here. And it's not just because of the blessings, but because of what I see, not just in this church, but in churches across America, the struggle that we have with learning to say "No" to ourselves and the blessings that God has given. The amazing thing is, and this is a kind of an irony, that one of the greatest enemies against the work of God are God's good gifts to us.

God gives us lavishly many things to enjoy, but they can become the very thing that hinders the most the work of God. Listen what it says in Mark 4:18-19, this is the familiar parable of the seed and the soils. But it says, "Still others, like seeds sown among the thorns, hear the Word, but the worries of this life, and the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the Word, making it unfruitful." Jesus lists some threats, an array of threats against the Word. "The worries of this life," he says. "The deceitfulness of wealth," he mentions and then, that dangerous vague catchall, "desires for other things." Now, what would that be? Well, anything other than the Word, anything other than the Kingdom of Heaven. Desires for other things. And therefore, I think some of God's greatest adversaries are his good gifts.

He says in Luke 14, another place, "A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet, he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, 'Come for everything is now ready.' But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, 'I bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.' Another said, 'I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I'm on my way to try them out. Please, excuse me.' Still another said, 'I just got married, so I can't come.'" So there you have a field, you have a yoke of oxen, you have a new wife, all of them good gifts from God and all of them blocking this man so he can't follow Christ into the Kingdom of Heaven. Now you would say, "Well, that's just for evangelism, right? Those things can block you when you come to faith in Christ." Friends, it's all the way across the board. It blocks us all the time. God has given us many things richly to enjoy, but isn't the parable of the seed and the soils, the idea is that thorns come in and choke it out, making it unfruitful. Desires for other things come in, so we don't want the kingdom anymore? We want something else. We have to understand our time. We have to understand how surrounded we are by diversions. Is that a good word? Diversions. What is a diversion? It's something that diverts, right? Isn't that amazing. The brilliant insights you get week after week from the pulpit. A diversion is something that diverts you. Well, what are we being diverted from? Could it be we're being diverted from the work of the kingdom? Could it be that diversions come and branch us off so that we're not doing the work of the kingdom the way we should? Diversions. Those diversions are dangerous. And along with it, we have the problem of just worldliness. The fact is we have a hard time saying "No." You know, when you live a life of self-indulgence, you get fat, physically. I mean, we actually gain weight, and America has the world's biggest problem with weight, but we also get fat, spiritually. Our hearts get sluggish to the word of God. We tend to be low energy at that point. We can't respond, or we divert the word from saying what it really does because it might hit too close to home. And at that point, we're really not ready to do what Jesus said. "If you wanna follow me, you have to deny yourself daily and take up your cross and follow." And that's painful, and anyone who's tried it has found it to be painful. And so, it's a challenge to keep carrying the cross, and Jesus says, "Deny yourself daily." That's very, very difficult to do, but there are severe warnings against self-indulgence in the Bible, James 5:5 says, "You've lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourself in the day of slaughter." Oh, is that painful? "Fattened yourself in the day of slaughter." Or it says in Amos 6, "Woe to you who are complacent in Zion, and to you who feel secure on Mount Samaria. You lie on beds inlaid with ivory, and 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. But do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph. Therefore, you'll be among the first to go into exile. Your feasting and your lounging will end."

You know, in all of this, God's glory is at stake. I asked at the beginning, what do you have a taste for? What do you want? What are you hungry for today? What are you thirsty for? Are you hungry for God or something else? It says in Psalm 16:11, "You have made known to me the path of life, you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand." God is a God of pleasure. Don't let Satan sell you an idol on that one. Our God promises incredible pleasures at his right hand. What he doesn't want us is to be diverted by his created good gifts here on earth so that we stop loving him first and foremost, and that becomes a danger, as John Piper put it so beautifully, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him." Friends, we will not be most satisfied in him if we're glutted on his good gifts. Instead we'll be satisfied with the good gifts and forget the Giver.

Now, in all of this, Christ is our example as was read for you earlier in Matthew 4, it says that, "Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil, and after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. The temper came to him and said, ‘If you're the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.’ And Jesus answered, ‘It is written, ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’" Now, isn't it fascinating that as Jesus begins the most important ministry in the history of humanity, as he begins the work of redemption after his time of identification with the human race through his baptism by John the Baptist, he is, it says in Mark, "driven out by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted for 40 days," showing a different kind of identification, an identification of him with us physically. He knows what it's like to be hungry. And he began this ministry in an amazing way with fasting, a 40-day fast, and in that 40-day fast, he prepared himself for the work. Listen to this, John Piper has this remarkable statement, "As he's preparing for great work," Piper speaking about Christ, he says, "It seems to me that this story should shake us. Here is Jesus standing on the threshold of the most important ministry in the history of the world, and on his obedience hangs the salvation of the world. None will escape damnation without this ministry of obedient suffering and death and resurrection. And God wills that, at the very outset, this ministry be threatened with destruction-namely the temptation of Satan to abandon the ministry- the path of lowliness and suffering and obedience. And of all the hundreds of things Jesus might have done to fight off this tremendous threat to salvation, he is led by the Spirit to fast." That's how he begins his warfare with the devil, by fasting. I think this should cause us to sit up and take notice, and so also the quote that he gave, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." he says, "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." Here he's identifying not just with the human race generally, but with Israel, particularly, in their 40 years of wandering through the desert. And there in Deuteronomy 8:2-3, God says, "Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these 40 years to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord." What is the lesson? Well, basically, out in the desert, they didn't eat if God didn't give the Word, and God gave the Word every day for manna. So God would give the Word, more manna, and down it would come and they'd eat. So in effect, they grew to look, not to the food, but to the mouth of God, and when God spoke, they ate. And if God didn't speak, they wouldn't eat. So also Jesus in the desert, "God the Father has not spoken yet that I eat and so I will not eat. And I will not eat until he speaks the word eat." And so you look beyond the gift of God up to the God who gives the command and say, "Lord, what is your will? Shall I eat now? And if you say, 'No,' I'll joyfully keep doing whatever it is you last commanded me to do. I live at your mouth, I live at your word, not on the bread." You learn just to be totally focused on the mouth of God. "Speak and I will move, speak and I will eat, speak and I will act, I will obey." That's what Jesus is modeling for us here, "I'll eat when God tells me and not before."

And so also we see the example of the Apostle Paul in holiness and mission in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, he gives us the image of an athlete. He said, "Don't you know that in a race, all the runners run, but only one gets the prize. Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training." Strict training. "They do it to get a crown that will not last. We do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore, I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave, lest after I've preached to others, I myself may be disqualified for the prize." What is he talking about there? Isn't he saved yet? Doesn't he know the grace of Christ at the cross is available? Of course, he preaches that all the time. He said, "Lest after preaching to others I'll be disqualified." What is he talking about? Self-discipline for the purpose of ministry, self-discipline for the purpose of holiness, brothers and sisters, self-discipline, so that we can get everything done that God wants us to do as a congregation. That's the holiness that the Apostle Paul is modeling for us. Not talking about wearing hair shirts. He's talking about keeping the flesh under, keeping it in subjection so that it's not the master. Oh, how it wants ascendancy, doesn't it? Doesn't the flesh wanna take over? Doesn't it wanna just run your day? Your appetites, they just wanna take over. Shall we deny that they're good? No. God said they were, but we must keep them under, and that is why for the sake of the internal journey, we must fast and exercise discipline.

And so we fast to guard against allowing our flesh to seize control of our lives. We fast so that we can empty ourselves of God's good gifts for a season, to open ourselves to him, himself, and to his Word. We fast like Jesus did to prepare ourselves for the great work in the ministry God has given us to do, but we do not fast to become more righteous before God, and we do not fast because God will think better of us, and we do not fast, so that he will give us something which otherwise he would not have given us as though somehow we're coercing him. Our righteousness doesn't increase at all through fasting. Internal journey, that's why we fast.

What about the external journey? Well, if you look at Acts 13, it's a remarkable thing, this church at Antioch. I believe the purpose of fasting for the external journey, and I've never known this as much in my life as I do now, and I'll probably know it even more 10 years from now, if the Lord allows me to continue as a pastor. The fact of the matter is: the Bible does not give us exhaustive commands that cover every good work we can do. There are many things, decisions we have to reach in the Christian life that the Bible doesn't directly tell us what to do. John Piper put it this way, "Most of the questions we need to answer in the planning of the life and mission of the local church, the Bible does not answer directly. It is a spiritual thing therefore, to discern which of all of the 10,000 possible good works our church could do, which ones he's calling us to do." That's not easy to do. Think where we are, folks. We're here in Durham. We're in a downtown church. We're surrounded by problems, surrounded by issues related to inner-city, surrounded by poverty, surrounded by single parents, surrounded by educational problems, surrounded by gang-related violence, surrounded by drugs. Last week, there was a radical group here protesting a pro-homosexual play in one of our schools. Where were we? Why didn't we make a godly protest rather than the ungodly protest this group made? Where is our voice? Where is our impact, our salt and light in this community? Why do so few people from the community actually worship in this church? And that's the question we have to ask. What are we called to do? What direction do we call the move? Folks, we can do it all. We can. About 350 of you come here approximately every week to worship. We cannot do 10,000 ministries. Doesn't that make sense? Aren't you relieved? You'd like to do the ministry you're called to do, right? You're not called to do 10,000 ministries. Alright? Which ones then?

Acts 13, "In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen, who had brought up with Herod the Tetrarch and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said... " Now, isn't that marvelous? "While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said... " Does he do that? Yes, he does. Does the Spirit speak? Yes, he does. Does he say this kind of thing, "Set apart for me, Barnabas and Saul, for the work to which I have called them." Yes, he does. Does he still do that? Yes, he does. What did the church in Antioch do in order to hear him? They fasted and they worshipped, and they prayed. And so in Verse 3, so "after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off." Some quick observations first, this fasting was after Christ's coming. Some Christians say fasting is an Old Covenant thing; we don't need to do it anymore. They point out that Christ never commanded us anywhere to fast. Well, the church in Antioch didn't buy that. They were fasting. That's after Pentecost. That's well into the New Testament era. They were fasting. Second observation, the fasting was a corporate fast. Now, I know that the Lord says in Matthew, we're supposed to wash our face and put oil on, and don't put oil on 'cause then that's a sure give away that you're fasting. Nobody does that anymore. But what Jesus is saying is, "It can't be obvious to anybody that you're fasting." You don't know whether I'm fasting today or not, and I'm not gonna tell you, okay, but I do think a corporate fast is a good thing. It's a good thing for a church to come together and to agree to abstain from food for a time so that we can pray together and hear the Spirit's voice. It's a good thing to do. It's a corporate fast.

Third, this fasting was an occasion for the Spirit's special guidance. The church in Antioch, Antioch was the third largest city in the Roman Empire. Do you think they didn't have 10,000 ministry directions they could go? Yes, they did. It was a crossroads. There are people from all over the place there. What was the Lord calling them to do? Alright, how about a missionary journey? Fine, who should go? There are five leaders here. Should any of them go or somebody else? How many of them one, two, all five, which ones? There was lots of ways to go. This fasting was an occasion for the Spirit to give direct guidance so that that church would know what to do, and this fast changed the course of history. It was influential. Think about what happened after Paul and Barnabas went out. Think about the change. I'm not saying there wasn't missionary work going on before this moment, of course there was, from the moment of Pentecost on, of course. But there is something significant about Acts 13. It was a fork in the road. And as they got to Cyprus, and they travelled through Asia Minor on the first missionary journey, then later Paul and Silas on the second and the third missionary journey, heading westward, going toward Europe, you know what you get out of that? You get the expansion of the church into Gentile regions. You get the westward move of the church, and in the ministry of the apostle Paul, you get such things as the book of Romans, the book of Corinthians, and Galatians and Ephesians and Philippians and Colossians and Thessalonians, and all of that, the epistles of Paul came. I'm tracing it all back to the fast? No, but this was a fork in the road, wasn't it? It was a moment in which the Holy Spirit spoke to that local church and told them what to do. And so also again and again fasting has changed the course of history. I'd like it to change our course.

I'd like God to speak to us today. I'd like him to speak to me today. I'd like him to speak to all of us today. What is happening in our church? If Christ were to speak to our church the way He spoke to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3, the letter to the church at Durham, "These are the words of him whose eyes are pure and fire coming out of them and whose feet are like burnished bronze," what would he say? What would he say is being done well by this church, and what would he say is an area of deficiency? In which ways have we obeyed him and in which ways have we disobeyed him? What would he say? Well, I think, as we were talking in the staff together, ministerial staff said, what would he say? And they said, “Well, this is a church, it seems that loves the word of God, loves to hear it taught and preached, loves to hear it accurately divided... Rightly divided. This church also has a God-centered vision for church life and ministry.” There are lots of godly people who have been incredible role models to me and who continued to be so who are doing amazing ministries here in this church, many. There is a love for and an escalating interest in overseas missions, both career missionaries that come through our number and go out and get set up and consider this their home church, and short-term missions that are burgeoning as you've seen. There's one going on right now, as you heard earlier. There is an occasional periodic sacrificial giving financially for missions, especially in December. That's a good month for sacrificial giving in missions. There's a yearning among many in this church for God-centered worship and a delight in it. There's a willingness, I think, also to face hard doctrinal issues and not run from them. Not one of you has come up and said a negative word to me about Romans 9 preaching, I tell you, that would not have been the case four or five years ago. You folks are willing to face hard things in the Bible and learn. Whether you agree with everything or not, you're not shying from it, but you're reading, learning and studying, and that's a good thing. There is some good outreach in the neighborhoods of Durham, like the Health Fair and other things. There is some outreach that goes on, and I think it honors God. There's an essential unity around the Word in this church, and that's not to be taken for granted. It's rather a great delight. There is some fruitful outreach and ministry to internationals going on and to college students. There are many other ministries as well. Please don't come to me and say, "Why didn't you mention mine indirectly?" Okay? So I'm saying many other fruitful ministries as well, you're in there. We covered on that? Okay.

But there are some areas of concern. Sometimes I worry that we love to hear God's Word more than to do it, and good teaching goes bad if you don't apply it. There is, in my opinion, not enough or little evangelical fruit. I'd like to see lots and lots of people baptized. It doesn't matter whether I'm doing the baptism or not, I just like to see it happen. I'd like to see it coming because you folks are being faithful to witness in the workplace, in your neighborhoods, and with your relatives and friends, paying the price to lead others to Christ. I'd like to see more of that. Our corporate prayer meetings are relatively poorly attended. We have them every week, and we also have them quarterly, quarterly better attended than the weekly ones, but still relatively poorly attended. We have a strange and inconsistent pattern of giving financially. We are incredibly generous at the end of the year and usually make our budget, and we have given incredibly, lavishly generously recently to Lottie Moon and some other things, but then we immediately in January get behind the eight ball and stay there most of the year, financially behind, $50,000, in our budget.

We struggle to maintain good community with each other. That's why we're moving toward at least trying in the fall a small group ministry so that we can get to know each other better and have a stronger community. Some of that's just the issue of how far a lot of you drive, and I think that's an incredible thing. We don't seem to make much of an impact on the city of Durham itself, as I mentioned. And I will say this with tenderness and love, not everyone that comes here regularly has a sacrificial spirit gift ministry here in this church. Not everyone does. And you just have to ask yourself, in the last month or two months or five months, "How many hours have I given to serve the people of this church and the work of the Lord here along the lines of a spiritual gift ministry?" Just ask it. Ask yourself that question.

I think we're at a crossroads as a church, I feel that for myself as a pastor. Good teaching must lead to good living, or it's going to go bad. If we don't step up to another level of passionate engagement in ministry, I think the church is going to go bad. But you know what, I think we will. I have that confidence. I think that's exactly what God's saying to this church. "He who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." What's he saying to you? What's he saying to you about your life? Now, you may not... I'm gonna end this message in about a minute or two, and then we're gonna close the service, and I'm gonna invite as many of you as you feel called to go down to Morgan Hall to join us in praying for an hour. So if you feel led to come, I want you to come. But even if you can't come, if you feel God leading you to be in another place, a different place, I wouldn't... I'm not gonna judge you for that. That's legalism. I'm not gonna say, I'm just gonna say, whatever you do with the prayer time right after the church, look at your life and say, "What is God calling you to do with fasting and prayer? What is he calling you to do? What is he saying to you?" Are you sailing more toward ascetic self-righteousness and tempted to be righteous because of the sheer discipline, spiritually of your life, or is there the opposite problem, more of self-indulgence and a sluggishness, that's come over you? Which of the two is a greater danger? Ask the Lord to show you. Let him work in your heart.

Let me speak one final word. Let me bring you right to the cross. Whatever you do with asceticism, with fasting, with prayer, it's not gonna save your soul. There's only one thing that can wash away our sin, and that's the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross. That's our central hope. I praise God that I am not saved by my piety. I would not be saved. I praise God for that. I'm saved by Christ's righteousness alone. If you're listening to me today, and you're not a Christian, it's not fasting you need. It's faith in Christ. Come and talk to me after the service is over. If you don't know Christ as your Lord and Savior, there's nothing more important for you to do than to believe in Jesus and trust in him. And some of you need to come back to the cross to begin with, and say, Lord, "I've not been living for you. I've not been denying myself daily and taking up my cross and following you." Please close with me in prayer.