Nothing to say, yet
Transcription
In the 11th chapter of Romans, the Apostle Paul discusses the covenant of grace, the sovereignty of God, and the place of the Jew and Gentile in God's plan of redemption. He asks rhetorical questions about God's rejection of Israel and the hardening of hearts. He emphasizes that God has not forsaken Israel and that there is still a plan for them. Paul then shifts his focus to the Gentiles and talks about the olive tree and the branches. He reassures that God's gifts and callings are irrevocable. He explains that God's anger is not like human anger and that God always keeps His promises. He talks about the sovereign choice of Israel and the hostility towards them. He urges to pray for both Israel and the Palestinians. He concludes by saying that the rejection of Israel is not total and uses the story of Elijah to illustrate the principle that God always has a remnant. Well, we're in the 11th chapter of Romans. This chapter is one of the most important chapters in the whole book of Romans because in a very real sense, it kind of is the climax of all the doctrine that the Apostle Paul is going to present throughout this book. This chapter continues to talk in more detail about the covenant of grace, about the sovereignty of God, about the continuity of grace throughout all of history. It also tells us of the place of the Jew and the Gentile in God's eternal redemptive plan. Now, to my delight, verse 26 of this chapter, let me get the right paper clip I've got here. Verse 26 says, no, let's see, 25, I don't want you to be ignorant of this mystery. Now, that's a great comfort to me because I don't understand a lot of what I'm going to teach this morning. It's somehow still wrapped up in the sovereignty of God and Dr. Crystal's favorite word when I served with him was musterion. You ask him a question that he didn't know the answer to, you say, it lies in the musterion of God. So, I kind of like the musterion too because it gives me a reason not to fully understand things. This is really a hard chapter to understand, but let me kind of walk through it with you real quick. It starts off with, he has two rhetorical questions, meaning that he doesn't want an answer for them. And so, he starts the first one, he says, the first verse, I ask then, has God rejected his people? They were rebellious, they were antagonistic, hostile toward him, they disregarded him, disobeyed him. Has God rejected them? Now, first thing we need to do is decide who them is. He's talking about the nation of Israel at that point. He offers salvation to individuals, but when he talks about Israel, most of the time in this chapter he's referring to the nation itself. And so, the question is a pertinent question because it basically says because of all the rebellion and the evil that is taking place in Israel, has God forsaken them in the covenant that he made with Abraham? And of course, that's an important question because if God were to forsake Israel because of whatever they have done, it would mean he would not fulfill his promise, and we know that God always fulfills his promises. So, it's a rhetorical question because he's actually saying does God still have a plan for Israel in redemption and in the history of the world? And the answer is he has not forsaken them. That's very, very important. So, he starts off that way. Then he introduces in verse 7 the idea of the hardening of the hearts of the people. Now, you probably never have been too concerned about that, but it really is a mysterious and obscure idea that God would harden someone's heart. Why would he do that? And maybe you've asked that question. Well, we'll talk about that and hopefully give you some relief on how to look at the hardening. Because several times throughout Romans, he talks about God hardening the hearts as he does in the Old Testament. After Pharaoh hardened his own heart, it later says during the miracles of the Exodus and the plagues that God hardened his heart. So, how do you reconcile that or how do you receive that? So, we'll be talking a little bit about that. And then he asks, the second rhetorical question is has Israel, here in verse 11, have they stumbled so as to fall? In other words, to fail completely as a nation. He says, absolutely not. So, it's really a chapter of recognizing the shortfall in the conduct and the behavior of the nation, but God is not through with them yet. Now, he's been talking to the Jews up until that point. Now, in verse 13, it all switches. I am now speaking to you Gentiles. So, from 13 to the end of the chapter, he is talking to the Gentiles. So, you will see a change in who they and them means a little bit when he's talking to the Gentiles. And then he introduces this idea of the olive tree and the branches. When you go to verses 16 and following, and that's a very important part of this, the reason I kind of titled the study of this because that's really the essence of this chapter. And then he talks again down in verse 29 about since God's gracious gifts and callings are irrevocable, and that's very important for us, the bottom line is God always keeps His promises. He's not going to bail out on you. It would be politically incorrect for me to say that when I was a boy, if you didn't keep a promise, you were an Indian giver. I have no idea what that means. It's just, you know, you give something, you take it back. God doesn't do that. Which is a good reminder that God's not like us. We have to be very careful as we read about what God does because God's not like us. When God expresses His anger, it is not like He got mad at somebody. That's the way we get angry. God doesn't get angry that way. God's anger is much deeper than that. It's a violation of His holiness and a heresy of His truth. And that's a great deal of difference. So as we go through here, chapter 9 now focused on the sovereign choice of Israel. They were put in a favored position by the sovereignty of God. God picked them out. In the Old Testament, God basically said, I didn't pick you out because you were good. You weren't good. I didn't pick you out because you were big because you were a little bitty. You know, God said, I just picked you out because I love you. It was a sovereign choice of God. The hostility, and we'll talk a little bit about this, in the world toward the Jewish people because God picked them out. Well, if you don't accept God, you're going to hate what God accepts. And so the antipathy goes all the way back into the Old Testament times and certainly is true today. We won't take time to chase that rabbit, but it is almost unthinkable and indescribable and unfathomable and whatever other word you can think of what's happening on our college campuses today. I mean, well let me back up one step further. Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people. Now, it's true that the Palestinian people in Gaza chose Hamas which was a bad choice but Hamas has a violence and an antipathy toward Israel that may be residual in the hearts of the general Palestinian public but let's not pass on to the Palestinians all of the violence and the barbarian actions of Hamas. But that's typical because that's been the way it's been with the Jews ever since God chose them and it makes sense because people who didn't respond to God are not going to like that they're God's champions and so when we pray for Israel we need to pray for a lot of Palestinian people who are caught in the middle and probably even choose to be in the middle sometimes but still we need to pray for both Israel and the Palestinians. Chapter 10 reveals that there is no difference between the Jew and the Gentile. Jew and Gentile is established as both coming to salvation by grace through faith. And chapter 11 now presents the rejection of the Jew with God's previous promises and his eternal plan in spite of Israel's rebellion and rejection of Christ. In this chapter he's going to tell you what he's going to do with his chosen people that he miraculously preserved down through history. You just think of the history of the Jewish people. God miraculously saved them preserved them in spite of continual attacks upon them that continue even to this very day. The Jews are likely more attacked and hated today than any time in history. And that's really a tragic conclusion. The hatred of Israel is now obvious across the world and even across mainstream America. Verse 1 the rhetorical question God has basically said that God hasn't rejected his people has he? And the answer is emphatically absolutely not. They've been disobedient and obstinate but God hasn't repudiated the people as a nation. In fact it's interesting that Paul in talking about that introduces himself as a descendant of Abraham and a member of the tribe of Benjamin. It would be unlikely that he would have been identifying himself that way if God had rejected Israel because those are two key components to Israel itself. Just three simple things about this chapter. First is the rejection of Israel is not total. The rejection of Israel is not total. It talks about when he gets down to the olive tree it talks about some of the branches were broken off. Not all of them. Some of them. So the rejection of Israel is not a total rejection and he illustrates this by in verses 2 to 4 by bringing up the story of Elijah. Now you know that is a fascinating story. Here was Elijah. He just had achieved a dynamic and an incredible victory over the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. Remember that? Over 400 priests of Baal were slain and God sent fire from heaven and boy here is Elijah. He is riding high. It's been a great day and then he gets a letter. He gets a letter from Jezebel and she says I am after you and I am going to get you and kill you. Here is the guy that just whipped up on 460 Baal priests and here is this woman sending him a letter and he panics and so he runs. As fast as he can he runs and we find him away from Mount Carmel and he is in a cave. He is 40 days in a cave and he is having a self pity party. I mean it is really an incredible self pity party. He says your nation is evil. They have killed the prophets. They have burned down your altars and I am the only one left. God said I have 7,000 who have bowed their knees to Baal. You are not the only one. Elijah thought he was by himself. I am going to whip up on the whole world by myself. He spent 40 days hiding in a cave. He wasn't doing too well going to whip up on the whole world was he? He thought he was all by himself. The principle is that which runs all through history and all through the Bible. God always has a remnant. God always has a remnant. For instance, I was reading about Noah here recently and here is a guy that God came to and said I want you to build this boat and here is the blueprint for it. The only problem was it was 200 miles from water and God said I am going to send rain and you are going to need to have this boat and Noah said what is rain? They never had had rain. They had dew but as far as I know they never had had rain. So here he is he is 200 miles from water and he is going to build a boat that has been used to pattern building all of our aircraft carriers about the same dimensions and he never heard of rain and he is 200 miles from any water and he said yes. And he built that boat for 120 years. So far as we know he never had a convert except his family which oh that is another story. In that pagan time when the Bible says that the world was only nothing but evil continually nobody believed Noah but his family did. Isn't that amazing? He was a godly man and while nobody else saw it his family saw it. You know if you really want to know what someone is like talk to their kids. Well his kids had good things to say about Noah because they accepted that. And the only ones who believed him he built the ark probably hired some help from the town people that were ridiculing him. He probably was the number one tourist attraction for decades. Everybody came to town wanted to see the idiot that is building this boat in the middle of the desert. But his kids believed him and so the only ones on earth that were spared was the fruit of his labor and his witness and that was Noah and his family. Which is a good reminder now listen carefully it is possible to live a godly life and to pass it on to your kids in the midst of an evil generation. That's what Moses tells us. Oh he got saved and that's a great story about the rain and all that kind of stuff. Important thing is that he was the only one who heard from God. The only one who believed God but he did believe him. He put faith to his actions and energy to the instructions and his kids believed him. Nobody else did. But his home was a godly home. That's what we all should strive for. What an incredible thing. Well I'm not sure how I got off of that. But Israel God has not forsaken his covenant. In fact we're going to see as we get toward the end of this chapter that he is going to at one point renew his covenant with Israel. Now it's a strange chapter because well I'll read you about it here in a moment but anyway God saved a remnant. That's where we were wasn't it? And it was a remnant of those who had been saved by faith. By grace through faith. Now anytime the Bible talks about people getting saved it's always by faith through grace. And so anytime anybody gets saved in Romans just know that he's talking about people who came by faith through grace and got saved. And so he emphasizes that grace and works when it comes to earning salvation are mutually exclusive. They don't belong together. If the nation had if the Jewish people had come to God based on their works what they earned then we wouldn't need grace. And so all the way through you have this dichotomy between grace and works. And it's not that grace doesn't produce the kind of works that we ought to all have. But the works are because of our salvation and not in order for us to be saved. That's important for us to realize. So Paul repeatedly emphasizes that no human effort can earn God's grace. What then? Verse 7 Let's see here. What then? Israel did not find what it was looking for but the elect did find it. The rest were hardened. The elect are those who had come to Christ through faith by grace and whatever they were looking for they found it. That was the remnant. But the rest didn't respond. Many in the nation were hardened. And here's the truth about the hardening of the heart that you find in Scripture. Disobedience never leaves someone in the same condition. Obedience promotes one's relationship with God. But disobedience causes a people to harden their hearts. In other words, their hardening was self-inflicted. Their hearts were hardened because they've been disobedient. Obey God you build your relationship with God. Disobey God, you harden your heart toward the things of God. It's a self-infliction that we do. And the rebellion that they had against God resulted in them becoming where they could not really hear the commands of the Lord. Now at that point, and where we are in the history of Israel, God reached a point of no return. God will let you go so far in your relationship with Him and in your relationship going away from Him. But there is a point of no return. The rebellious people were hardened by their own choices. We all have had times in our walk with God where we felt closer to God than other times. And we can remember that God spoke to us in many different ways. Sometimes it was through someone else. Sometimes it was through actions of someone else. Sometimes it was through encouragement. Sometimes it was through encouragement of believers. Sometimes it was through the direct hand of God. I can remember the night I surrendered to preach, which has been 73 years ago. 74 years ago. I can remember it like it was yesterday. I was praying for a friend that I had been witnessing to, one of my classmates, and had visited that week and shared with him again. He was in the service on a Saturday night. And I'm on the back row of a choir praying for Darrell Mayfield, 14 years old, just like me. And as clear as I've ever heard a voice, God said to me, how do you expect Darrell to be saved when you're not willing to do what I want you to do? That's what I heard. I immediately, God didn't say it, but I immediately knew God called me to preach. So that night, I walked the aisle and my good friend Bailey Stone was preaching. He's gone in glory now. Buckner Fanning was the other preacher. Buckner stood down at the front. Some of you know Buckner Fanning, Trinity Baptist in San Antonio. And I surrendered to preach. The next morning, Darrell Mayfield was saved. Now God didn't say, I want you to preach the gospel. He said, how do you expect me to answer your prayer for Darrell when you're not willing to do what I want you to do? Sometimes God speaks in strange ways. Oh, and by the way, sometimes what God tells you to do doesn't make any sense. It does to him. When I left this church, it didn't make any sense. I was 55 years old. We'd been here 16 years. We planned to live in the house we built while we were here until we died. God called us to go to the President's Sunday School Board, now Lifeway. Now that was an interesting move because number one, if you're going to lead a $200 million corporation, you ought to have some business background. Or you ought to have some economic studies you did somewhere. Or something. Maybe know some math that you could read a spreadsheet. The only math I had when I was in high school was a freshman English math class called General Math. Don't remember a thing about it. I never had another math class in high school. I'm the guy that always asks questions. If teachers didn't ask their questions, then I was in trouble. But I did enroll when we moved to Houston. I'm a junior in high school now. I enrolled in Algebra I. And of course it made no sense to me at all. And the first day I asked the teacher a question, she let me know she wasn't going to answer my questions. So I dropped the class. And I took typing. To this day, I type 120 words a minute. Best thing that ever happened to me. I typed all my papers. Everything I needed for classes in school, I just whiz away. On a portable typewriter, by the way. Some of y'all remember portable typewriters. Anyway. As an aside, I also took shorthand. My favorite class. Me and 47 girls. Laughter. No way to beat that. So I used to make my secretaries very nervous because I could read their shorthand. So anyway, I had to quit reading shorthand. Finally, to graduate at Baylor, I had to pass either four or five courses in Greek or trigonometry. Laughter. Well, I said, now here's the reason. You've got to understand my rationale. In Baylor, they taught a five case Greek. At seminary, they taught an eight case Greek. Did I get that right, Jack? Okay, I sometimes confuse those two. And I knew I didn't want to take five case Greek and then have to relearn it when I got seminary. So I took trigonometry. And God is a God of grace. Laughter. My trig teacher was named Brown and he was a former pastor teaching. Paul Brown. Yep, yep. Without him, I'd have never made it out of Baylor. Fortunately, trigonometry is enough like a foreign language that I could remember all the logarithms and all the stuff that went with it though I never understood a bit of it. I got a C in that class. Never so happy. I think it was the only C I had. No, I had one grade that was a D. It was in French. And I spent my French class writing love letters to Carol Ann so I nearly flunked the course. So I made a C in trigonometry and a D in French. But I passed trig so I got to graduate from Baylor. That's all the experience I'd had. All I'd ever done was pastor a church. But you know what? I learned something. Business decisions are not hard to make if you have the right information. I mean, it's not rocket science. I mean, if you have good information, you can make good decisions. Well, I've always said that the gift God gave me was helping people understand what the Bible means so they can apply it to their lives. It's not great theological depth of stuff. It's just practical stuff. And so, I found out that if I had the right information, business decisions were not hard to make. Second thing I learned was when I was in church, I learned this, that if you want to succeed in church, you can't succeed just by being a good preacher. I didn't qualify there either. But you hire people better than yourself. And those of you here when I was here, you remember when I was gone, I always told you do not miss when I'm not here. If you want to be gone, you can be gone while I'm here. But don't miss when I'm not here. And I always tried to get the best preacher I could to come in and preach the times I'd be gone. You always want to work with people better than yourself. That'll work. So, I'll be honest with you, I didn't know what I was doing most of the time at Lifeway. Still can't read a spreadsheet. I always told them, just give me the bottom line. Don't give me all this stuff up ahead of it there. Just tell me where we are. And succeeded. We had a good time. Camelot existed during our time at Lifeway. But the point is, I had no experience going there at all. Didn't make any sense. Fifty-five and changing vocations. But, you know, we had an overwhelming sense that that's what God wants to do. Bill Anderson says it best. You've heard Bill say it probably a number of times. If love had been a call, we never would have left. And that's true. We didn't leave because we wanted to leave. We didn't leave because we thought it was a better place to be. We didn't. We just knew God wanted us to go. And so, Carol Ann was really responsible for my success. Because she prayed every day that God would tell me things that I didn't know. And sure enough, a lot of times I said things and I thought, who said that? So, the point is, our relationship with God just needs to be something that we keep close to Him. If we don't, that'll be a precious thing if we have a relationship with the Lord. If we don't, you don't have to do anything for your heart to be hardened. It's kind of like weeds in a garden. You don't have to pull them. But if you don't, they'll take over the garden. You don't have to know a whole lot, but if your relationship with God is warm and spiritual and meaningful and it's a rich fellowship with Him, if you have that kind of relationship with Him, you're going to have a hot heart and an obedient life. If you don't, without you doing anything, your heart's going to be hardened. And so, people often say, well, you know, I read the Bible and it doesn't seem to make much sense and I'm having a hard time. Well, just keep it up. Read a chapter at a time. You don't have to be in a hurry. Read it every day for a month. Just take your time. Talk to the Lord while you do. He's talking to you. So, harden your heart. Now, an illustration of that that I would use and the hardening of Israel is found in Deuteronomy and in Isaiah and in the Exodus back in Exodus chapter 7 when Moses first came to Pharaoh and told him to let the people go. You will probably remember that in Exodus 5-2 Pharaoh responded, and this is what Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord? Who is the Lord that I should obey him by letting Israel go? I don't know the Lord. And besides, I will not let Israel go. Now, Moses describes Pharaoh's disposition at the beginning of this encounter with Moses as Pharaoh's heart was hard. Pharaoh had hardened his heart. And you will find references to Pharaoh's heart being the hardness of his heart in Exodus 7-22 8-15, 8-19, 8-32, 9-7 and in 9-12 it says, But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart. Then 9-34 says Pharaoh's heart was hard. Now, Exodus 10-11 all speak of God's hardening Pharaoh's heart, but here's the thing. Pharaoh kept on hardening his own heart. And finally, God said, like he will say to you, That's what you want. Have at it. I'm going to give you what you want. Continual disobedience with God will result in inability to hear God and the undesirability of obeying God. We can understand that from a New Testament standpoint when we mentioned the issue of the unpardonable sin. Now, the unpardonable sin is when you so reject God that you actually don't want anything to do with Him. It would be like you say to God, God, I don't want anything like Pharaoh. I don't know you, and I don't want to know you. You reach a point where you do not any longer have the opportunity to be saved. It's called the unpardonable sin. Carol Ann and I met one person in our ministry that we feel certain had committed the unpardonable sin. We were in Kansas City and this couple, older couple, much younger than us now, probably 50, 60. I mean, they were young to us now, but they were old then. And they came every Sunday and she joined, but he wouldn't join. So we went to visit him. And he explained to us how there had been a time in his life when he was under really a sense of needing to be saved, and he refused to yield to that call of God to be saved. And he told about some time, it seemed like they had come from Denver, Colorado over. And he said, there was a time when I really knew that I needed to be saved, and that God wanted me to be saved, and I felt compelled to be saved, but I resisted and said no. And he said now, he said, I kind of like to be saved, but I have no sense that God has any interest in me anymore. And we realized we were looking at a man who committed the unpardonable sin. But it was self-inflicted. This is what this is what Israel had done. And if someone is concerned about God hardening the hearts of Israel or Pharaoh, well, it's because God just finally said, well, do it your way. Frank Sinatra said, I did it my way, right? Well, you can have your way if you want it. You won't like it. God will finally let you have your way. And that's the hardening of the heart. So the rejection of Israel was not total, but many of the people's hearts were hardened because of their disobedience. Second thing is the rejection of Israel is not final. Paul now raises the question of whether or not Israel's failure to believe had led God to abandon his covenant. And the covenant that God had with Abraham was pretty extensive. If I remember correctly, he even told them how much land they were going to get. And in the Middle East, they were going to have a pretty good hunk of land over there. That was going to be theirs. That was his promise. Well, if God doesn't fulfill His promise to Israel, then who are we to think He's going to fill His promises to us? I mean, this is important stuff. So the rejection of Israel was not final. In fact, this is where the mystery kind of thickens a little bit. Because Paul says God's not going to abandon the nation from His covenant. And again, the answer is absolutely not. But here's what happened. Because of Israel's rejection of the gospel, beginning in verse 11 in this chapter, the door had been opened for the Gentiles. So Paul makes a big deal out of the fact that Israel's failure was good for the Gentiles. And that's why I think it's in Acts 13, the apostle Paul tells the Jews, I've had it with you guys. You're hard-headed. You haven't responded to anything. I'm going to the Gentiles and they will hear me. In fact, he talks about himself here in this chapter as the apostle to the Gentiles. He wanted to remind them that the Gentiles were who he was sent to. And the door of the gospel had been opened to the Gentiles. And Paul declared in verses 11 and 12, by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel jealous. Now, if their transgression brings riches for the world and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fullness bring? That's kind of a tongue twister, isn't it? Well, let's look at it again. If their transgression, the transgression of Israel is going to bless the world because Gentiles are going to get saved and their failure is going to mean riches for the Gentiles, but when they are restored, then think of what that's going to mean to the world. Now, he set the stage for the parable of the olive tree and the branches because that's what he's talking about in that. And I would just make one other observation. In verse 12, it talks about while I just read it to you about the Gentiles and the riches that come to them. And in verse 15, he says, if their rejection brings reconciliation to the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? He's talking about a real revolution and a great celebration. It's like being raised from the dead. When Israel gets saved, it's going to be a blessing to the whole world. And that's what he's driving to. Now, I want to say again, we're talking about facts today, but we don't have any way of understanding all that that means. I mean, I can't tell you how Israel's going to be saved. I know they'll come by faith through God's grace. I don't have any details about the rest of it. It would help all of us, though, if we'd realize that we're not on God's program committee. We're on his preparation committee. And God's going to be God, and we're not going to be God. And there's going to be some things mysterious, and that's why I've said often, sometimes misunderstood, that salvation is not, we're not saved because we understand something. We're saved because God said it, because we have faith in God, and that God is going to do what he said he would do, and we have faith in that. But when the Jews finally get saved, it's going to be like life from the dead, Paul said. What a wonderful day that's going to be. Zechariah, the prophet, this is what he said about this. Then the Lord, my God, will come, and all the holy ones with him. On that day there will be no light. The sunlight and moonlight will diminish. It will be a unique day, known only to the Lord, without day or night. But there will be light at evening. On that day the Lord will become king over the whole earth. The Lord alone, and his name alone, Zechariah 14 5 and 6. He's describing a great spiritual awakening that's going to sweep the whole world. That's an amazing thing. When the Jewish people embrace the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ, it's going to be like a resurrection. The condition of Israel has been a major focus from the beginning in chapter 9. He's pointing us toward the end time, the celebration when the Lord returns and when the millennium victory, we'll talk a little bit very little bit about the battle of Armageddon here in a minute. It's going to be a great time of celebration. He introduces the parable of the olive tree and its branches. In that parable the olive tree represents the people of God of whom Israel is a branch. A branch. The tree includes all the saved from Adam until the last person who will be saved before the millennium. It's not a picture of the church. It's not a picture of Israel, but it's a picture of the redeemed of all ages. He's talking about that. That's what the olive tree represents. This is what he says in verses 16 to 25. If the root is holy, then are the branches. Now if some of the branches were broken off, and you, though he's talking Gentiles, you, though a wild olive branch were grafted in among them and have come to share in the root of the cultivated olive tree, do not boast that you're better than the branches. But if you do boast, you do not sustain the root. The root sustains you. Then you will say, branches are broken off so that I might be grafted in. True enough. But they were broken off because of unbelief, but you stand by faith. So don't be arrogant, but beware. Because if God did not spare the natural branches, he'll not spare you either. Therefore consider God's kindness and severity. Severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness toward you, if you remain in his kindness. Otherwise, you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not remain in unbelief, will be grafted in. Now he's talking about the Jews who will have to be grafted in because their branch is broken off. But it'll be a separate process. If you know anything about putting in branches that don't belong on a tree, you know, it's a complicated process. But he says it shouldn't be too bad with the Jews because it's their tree. So, you know, they'll all be naturally grafted into it. So, otherwise, you'll be cut off. Even they, if they do not remain in unbelief, will be grafted in because God has the power to graft them in again. So he's talking about the Gentiles being grafted in. Jews have had their branch broken off. Now they're going to have to be grafted back in again. You see why it's a mystery. I don't know how all that's going to happen, but it's going to be a great time. And the parable of the olive tree is God's ultimate plan for Israel and the world. When the good branches representing the Jews are broken off, the engrafting of the Gentiles and the ultimate restoration and engrafting of the Jews is also seen. So, the good branches of the olive tree are broken off, the wild branches are grafted in and forlorn, the good branches that were broken off are going to be grafted back in. Paul clearly declares that the natural good branches in the olive tree were Israel. The nation has a place of privilege through the sovereign grace and goodness of God. Why did God choose the Jews? God didn't give us an answer to that. He just said, it wasn't because of anything about you, I just wanted to do that. And if He's sovereign, He can do whatever He pleases. Someone said, one of the great writers over the years, I can't remember where I read it, he said, you can say no, and you can say Lord, but you can't say no, Lord. If He's Lord, you can't say no to Him. And so, He is through Israel, God planned to bless the world through Israel. And thus far, as we'll see in a minute, it hadn't been working that way very well. Through Israel, the good news, the blessings of Abraham was going to spread to the whole world. And through Israel, that's how God planned to make Himself known. And He did mighty wonders, miraculous things to preserve them. Which tells us He had special plans for Israel. So, the good branches, those are the branches God spent so much time, not time, He spent so much effort and energy to bring them where they were usable. Remarkable attention and care He gave to the good branches, to Israel, that they might bear fruit. And look what He did to them. God purged them, He pruned them, He chastened them, He rebuked them, had a series of divine providential blessings, calamities, disasters, and captivity. All of that He did on people He loved. So, if you see a Christian, professing Christian, doing evil things, and He doesn't change, it's a pretty good sign He's not saved. Because whom God loves, He chastens. Every one of us, if we look carefully at our lives, if we know the Lord, there have been times God kind of gave us a spanking. And He's good at that. The tragic condition of the branches, of the Gentiles, were revealed when Christ came to this earth, that He called Israel stiff-necked, rebellious, murderers of the prophets, and guilty before God of a broken covenant. And if you want to just look a little further, just write Acts 6 down and read what Stephen had to say about them. And Matthew 23, and read what Jesus Himself had to say about Israel. The last verse of chapter 10 that we looked at last week, shows God's persistence in reaching out to Israel. This is what He said, To Israel God says, All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and deviant people. They rejected Christ, and then after the resurrection they rejected the apostles. So time, I mean, God had it at that point. They'd stepped across the line. God could no longer wait on Israel. So the gospel went to the Gentiles. Paul used the illustration of grafting in the wild branch of the Gentiles into part of the tree, which is a phenomenal thing because that means now that the Gentile believers that had been a wild olive tree had been grafted into a cultivated olive tree, and some of the branches of that olive tree had been broken off, and that just means that the Gentiles now could share the same nourishing strength that the sap from the olive tree that had been cultivated by the Lord would provide. So what He's doing here, we read it quickly a moment ago, but He's telling the Gentiles, just because you now got all the strength that the Jews have, don't get angry about it. And that's why He says, look, you don't support the root, the root supports you. Don't be arrogant about it. Don't think you've got something that the Jews don't have. That won't work. But here is again the powerful human instinct to assume credit for accomplishments in our lives. In the spiritual world, we want to somehow get human merit into it. Show God how good we are. That's why Paul emphasized to the Gentiles that if God didn't spare the good branches, what possible chance were theirs if He would spare the good branches if they, the Gentiles, would not be would not be also spoiled, also broken off. And at that point, the gospel was placed in the hands of the Gentiles. That's what happened to the church at Rome. It started off, Christianity and all the churches started off as Jewish churches. By the time we get to Rome, Rome had passed through a period of transition and the church at Rome, by the time Paul gets there, was a Gentile church. And so, what Paul is saying here is that Israel was rejected as a nation. The point is that no one was rejected as an individual. That's why Paul is saying I'm a descendant of Abraham and a tribe of Benjamin. It is important. He wasn't rejected because he was an Israelite, but he's not going to be approved because he's an Israelite. The Jews lost their uniqueness in the process of what we're seeing here. When the Gentiles were brought in, it was because of the failure of the Jews. Then when the Gentiles succeeded, as we see it in the world today, in the end times, the Jews are going to be grafted back in. But right now, the nation of Israel as such is not the carrier of the gospel, as I said to you last week. Israel is not a religious nation today. It's a secular nation. In many ways, it's a godless nation. Very few... If you... If you... Maybe you don't see things as funny as I do, but it just strikes me as being funny that the more America does for Israel, the more the American Jews complain about it. I just thought, now why is that? Well, I can't explain it except that Israel is not a spiritual nation right now. And maybe... I don't know why. You'd think the American Jews would be leading up the fight to support Israel, but some of them do, but mostly they're a silent minority. So anyway, all of this that we've been talking about was seen in prophecy because Paul quotes from Isaiah, the prophet. And the... We noticed several things. We noticed that Israel as a nation was broken off from God's olive tree, or His redemptive plan, but we noticed that not all the branches were broken off. Israel was rejected as a nation, but no one was rejected as an individual. Paul asked, has God rejected His people? Well, the answer was no, absolutely not. And so we rejoiced in the fact that God has trued His word. And we can reflect back as Paul did at the beginning of the chapter on Elijah, who thought he was the only one, but God said, no, there's a whole bunch of folks that hadn't bowed their knee to Baal. There was a remnant in Elijah's day, there was a remnant in Paul's day, and thank God for the remnant in our day. We're not a majority. We are a big minority. And not everyone who claims to be a Christian is a Christian. Billy Graham once said, I thought he might be exaggerating, but after preaching in over a thousand churches, I believe he was right, he said, the biggest mission field in America is in the church. He said maybe 70% of the people in our churches are not saved. So all of this struggle is going on. This is what the Apostle Paul is talking about here. The Jews failed. He went to the Gentiles. The Gentiles are going to succeed, hopefully. The Jews will be jealous and if they're not, they're going to when Jesus' end times come, the Lord comes as King, they're going to...oh, by the way, in Zechariah 13 it says that when the judgment at end times come, when all Israel will be saved, only one-third of the people who were alive at the start of the millennium will be alive. Verses 7, 8 or 8 and 9 of Zechariah 13. So it will be a greatly diminished number who even survive the tribulation. And it says they'll all be saved. Don't know exactly what that means, but I know if it's talking about salvation, I think it is, then they'll be saved by grace through faith, as Paul has been talking about all along. So, thank God for the remnant. And we're almost through. And since Brother Jack's going to be going next week, I don't want to leave anything for him. So, the third thing, very quickly here, and I'll just kind of, I'll read quickly to you. The fulfillment of God's covenant with Israel is the last section, 25 to 36. There are three things that are going to happen. First is rapture of the church. This is the great hope and expectation of the church. The church will be taken away before the awful tribulation and time of Jacob's trouble. Now, having said that, I won't go any further. That's something we can debate. But don't split fellowship over it. I happen to be a pre-millennial, pre-trib believer in the second coming. Meaning that tribulation, rapture's going to occur and the tribulation will come before the Lord actually returns with His people. Dr. Bell didn't believe that. Neither does Bill Anderson. They both believe that the church will go through the tribulation. And there's some scriptural support for this. I illustrate this to you. We ought not argue about things that are not absolutely clear. We can discuss them. No need to argue about them. If you want to argue about sovereignty, the problem we have with Calvinism today is that the Calvinists want everybody to think exactly like they do. Well, unfortunately, God doesn't think that way because He has no problem with Arminianism and Calvinism being together. We do, and so we argue about it. Well, you shouldn't do that. Don't argue these things. Tribulation, that's fine. If He's going to come after you, that's fine too. But I think there's, in my judgment, lots of evidence that rapture is before the tribulation, that rapture is going to be before the Millennial Kingdom. Paul says, in fact, there is no condemnation. There's no judgment for those who are in Christ. The great tribulation period that's talked about is a time of judgment. God says, you're not going to have to face that. Well, there are others that disagree with it. Debate it, but don't split fellowship. Secondly, the judgment of the nations at Christ's return is going to take place, and that's called the Battle of Armageddon. It's really a misnomer. The Battle of Armageddon is really not a battle. They're going to be in the Bellingham Ghetto. And there are enough soldiers in Russia and China and North Korea to have 200 million soldiers. I don't know how they'll all crowd in there, but they'll be in there and they're going to get ready for battle and Jesus is going to walk out and say, and it's over. It's not really a battle, but it is a judgment of the nations. The judgment of the nations is what's going to take place at Christ's return, and those nations that lived without God and opposed the things of God and rejected God and persecuted His people, those nations are going to be judged, and they should be, but it's not going to be a battle. Third thing is the conversion of Israel because it says there will be a time in Israel whenever Israel will be saved. Well, that's certainly not true today. I read to you out of Zechariah about the day coming when Jesus would be king over the whole world. The Lord alone, in His name alone, He said, the veil is going to be removed from the eyes of the Israelites, the hardness from their hearts, the dullness from their hearing, and in their sorrow they will see that Jesus was truly the Messiah whom they crucified. And then God will write a new law not on stone, but on their hearts, and their salvation will be complete. The nations will dwell in peace and plenty and prosperity, and the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as waters cover the sea. And that's what the Word of God says. This will be a spiritual renewal of the whole human race. Here we see the power of God in full display. He overrules the failures and faults of the saints for the good of the earth. Paul celebrates all God did in the fullness of the Jews to occur when the time when Jewish domination would be over, and promises what would happen with the Jews. And all the nations of the world were brought into God's plan through the fall of the Jews with the blessings of the Gentiles will cause all the Jews to return and be grafted back in again. What an incredible picture we have. And I'll quit. I'm over time. But Paul can't stand any longer. He breaks in verse 33 into a doxology. Oh, the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and untraceable his ways. For who knows who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor and who has ever given to God that he should be repaid. For from him and through him and to him are all things to him be glory forever. Amen. It's a great way to end it up, isn't it? Well, God bless you. Lord, bless us the rest of the day and bless the service to follow. Thank you for our time. In Jesus' name. Amen.
