Let's turn in our Bibles to Romans
chapter 9. We're going to have a two-part message
this morning. We're going to be here in Romans
9. this hour and the next. So, Romans
chapter 9. Let me get there myself. We're looking at great advantage. When our Apostle Paul was expressing
his sorrow for his countrymen, he gives a list of advantages
that they had that God gave them. And this is a great advantage.
And I want to read these and then we're going to take about
three of these this hour and then look at about three of them
in the next hour. Let's begin in Romans 9 and verse
4. Paul says, Who are Israelites
to whom pertaineth the adoption and the glory and the covenants,
and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises,
whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh
Christ came, who is over all, God, blessed forever. Amen. Not as though the word of God
hath taken none effect, for they are not all Israel, which are
of Israel, the children of Israel themselves, along with all these
other advantages God gave, are all proclaiming the gospel. I mean, God used this people,
themselves, to proclaim the gospel, to show forth Christ. And He
used these other advantages He gave them to show forth Christ. And they're in the midst of all
this. They themselves and all these advantages they had to
behold Christ who was coming. They had such great advantage
given to them by God. And as we look at their advantages,
we need to consider the great advantages God's given us. We
have great advantage in this place. Our young people are growing
up under the gospel. That's great advantage. That's
great advantage. No sinner will be able to plead
ignorance in the day of judgment. Not any sinner can plead ignorance
on the Day of Judgment. We know that from Romans 1.20.
All men are without excuse. God has given a witness in His
creation so that men are without excuse. But especially the children
of Israel, they're without excuse because of all this great advantage
God gave to them. And especially you and I, we're
without excuse because of the great advantage God's given to
us. I want to look at these first three things mentioned here this
hour. We'll take the rest next hour.
Paul says these kinsmen of his are Israelites. They're Israelites. This was Paul's kinsmen after
the flesh. This was his nation after the
flesh, the nation Israel. They were Israelites. Israel
was the name passed down to them from their father Jacob. But it was the pre-incarnate
Christ who gave Jacob that name. And do you know that's Christ's
name? He's Israel. Go with me to Isaiah 49. Christ's name. They went by His name, Israel. That's Christ's name. Look here,
Isaiah 49 verse 1. This whole chapter is Christ
speaking. Listen, O Isles, unto me. Hearken,
ye people from far. The Lord hath called me from
the womb. From the bowels of my mother
hath He made mention of my name. And he hath made my mouth like
a sharp sword. In the shadow of his hand hath
he hid me, and made me a polished shaft. In his quiver hath he
hid me, and said unto me, Thou art my servant, O Israel, in
whom I will be glorified. This is Christ speaking. Look
down at verse 6. And he said, It is a light thing that thou
shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to
restore the preserved of Israel. I will also give thee for a light
to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end
of the earth. This is Christ speaking. He is Israel. That's His name. He's the one God's given for
a light. He's the one down the page He
says that God gave for a covenant of the people. That's His name
is Israel. You know the meaning of that
name. That name means as a prince. As a prince hast thou power with
God and with men and hast prevailed. That's what Israel means. A prince
who has power with God and with men and who has prevailed. Doesn't that describe Israel,
our Savior? He is the prince of life and
he has prevailed with God. He has power with God and he
has prevailed with God and with men. As the one mediator between
God and men, between God and His people. The one mediator
who could bring God and His people together in peace. And that's
what Christ has done. Our Israel has done this. And
He has power and has prevailed with each one of His people.
The same way He had power and prevailed with Jacob. And what
He did by that power and how He prevailed with Jacob is He
made Jacob prevail with Him. That's why He gave Him His name,
Israel. Go with me over to Genesis 32.
I want you to see this. Genesis chapter 32. We've looked
at this. You remember how the Lord prevailed
and made Jacob to prevail? He got him alone. That's the
first thing He did. And that's the first thing God's
going to do when He prevails in the heart of a sinner. He's
going to get that sinner alone. just him and that sinner. Genesis
32 verse 24, it says, Jacob was left alone and they wrestled
a man with him until the breaking of the day. That man, in Hosea,
is called the angel. That's the pre-incarnate Christ
Jesus, the Son of God, who came and wrestled Jacob. And it says,
and when Christ saw that Jacob prevailed not with him, Jacob
prevailed not because he was trying to resist the Lord. He was trying to wrestle back. And you're never going to prevail
when you're trying to do something in the strength of your own flesh.
And so when Christ saw that Jacob prevailed not with him, Christ
touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's
thigh was out of joint. as Christ wrestled with him.
He touched him in power and he broke him. And that's what Christ
does in the hearts of his people. He touches us in power and breaks
us. And look what he, he left Jacob
so that Jacob had no strength in his flesh after that. And it says, And Christ said,
Let me go, for the day breaketh. And Jacob said, I will not let
thee go, except thou bless me. I want you to understand what's
taking place here. Jacob can only do one thing now that Christ
has touched his thigh. He has no strength in his flesh. All he can do is hold on to Christ
and beg Him and cry unto Him for mercy. That's all he could
do. He could just cry for mercy. And look, verse 27, And Christ
said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. supplanter,
sinner. Christ is going to touch us and
break us and subdue our flesh and He's going to bring us to
confess, all I am is a sinner. I need mercy. I need you to bless
me. Have mercy on me, Lord. I need
mercy. And Christ said, Thy name shall
be called no more Jacob, but Israel. For as a prince hast
thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. And
Jacob asked him and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And
Christ said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name?
Christ just told him his name. He gave him his name when he
said, Your name now will be Israel. And it says, And he blessed him
there, and Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, for I have
seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. And Jacob's walk was never the
same from that day forward. He changed his walk forever.
It says, As he passed over Peniel, the sun rose upon him, and he
halted upon his thigh. You see how Christ had power
and prevailed in Jacob? He made Jacob have power and
prevail with him. How did he do that? It wasn't
by Jacob's fleshly power. That had to be done away with.
So Christ touched him and subdued his flesh. That's what he does
in his people. And then Christ brought him to
confess what he was. He made it so all Jacob could
do was beg him and plead with him and cry unto him for mercy,
for a blessing. That's all he could do. And that's
how Jacob had power with Christ and prevailed. Hosea 2.12.4 says,
Yea, he had power with the angel and prevailed. How? He wept and
made supplication unto him. That's how. You want to have
power with Christ? You want to prevail with Christ?
Come to Him as a sinner with nothing, begging mercy, pleading
for mercy. That's how you'll prevail with
Christ. And that's how Christ makes His people to prevail with
Him. You see, if it wouldn't have
been for Christ coming to Jacob and doing this to Jacob, Jacob
would have never prevailed with Christ. And that's the same with
us. He has to come to us and make
us prevail with Him by this power. Sinners only have power with
God when the Prince of Life comes to us in power and prevails within
by making us have no power in our flesh, only in Christ. That's how He makes poor Nathanael's
into Israelites indeed in whom is no guile. That's the work
Christ does. This morning you and I have this
great advantage of seeing this name and seeing the gospel in
this name. We see this is Christ's name,
Israel. We see that how he gave Jacob
that name. We see the gospel in that. That's
a great advantage we have. And yet here were sons and daughters
of Jacob who were wearing that name. and in the most literal
sense they were taking the Lord's name in vain because they didn't
know Him. They didn't even know what the
name meant. Isn't that amazing? They didn't even bother to find
out what this name that they were going by means. Well, as you behold that and
you behold how they had all this advantage and yet they didn't
bother to see what that name meant. When you're sitting here
and you're hearing the names that we use and you hear these
terms we use and all these different things we speak about in the
gospel, don't just let these names go by you or these words
go by you and not know the meaning of them. Give yourself to learn
what does this mean because there's nothing in this book that's there
meaningless. It's all pointing to Christ,
everything. If we don't see Christ in it,
it's just because we don't see Him in it. But He's there. We just have to apply ourselves
to see how does this speak of Christ. Because it all does.
Everything in this book does. But you get my point. They went
all their lives and never bothered to even find out, why am I called
an Israelite? Well, how do I have this name
and what does it mean? So let's don't make that mistake.
Let's give ourselves to see what do these things mean and see
Christ in the names and in the terms and in every word that
we're using here. Then look at this next thing
he says there in Romans 9. Let's go back there. He says,
to whom pertaineth the adoption. Now when we talk about adoption,
it includes three things. Now when we talk about true spiritual
adoption, Salvation. Adoption, that part of salvation
called adoption. There's three things involved.
One, adoption is the eternal act of God whereby He made a
multitude to be His eternal children in Christ before the foundation
of the world. And then two, adoption is experienced
by every child of God in time when the Spirit of His Son enters
our hearts and we're given the spirit of adoption and brought
to cry out to God as our Father. And then three, our adoption
will be complete when we're delivered into what the scripture calls
the glorious liberty of the sons of God. That is, when our bodies
are redeemed and raised incorruptible and we're completely with the
Lord, we're complete with the Lord, into that glorious liberty
of heaven. That's when the adoption is complete. Those three ways is how scripture
speaks of adoption. Now as a nation, only as a nation,
Israel was adopted by God just nationally as a nation. They
were adopted and it pictured God did that. He adopted this
one nation not to teach us of national adoption. There's no
nation in the world today that is God's nation other than His
people who are called His holy nation. But it was to picture
that holy nation, that spiritual Israel, is why He adopted this
national people to be His people. It pictured the Israel of God,
spiritual Israel, God's holy nation, His people. Have you
noticed the distinction that Paul makes in Galatians? Next
time you're reading Galatians 6 over there, you'll notice if
you go through scriptures, it speaks of Israel as the children
of Israel or it speaks of them as Israel. But when Paul was
writing in Galatians 6, he was talking about God's elect and
he called them the Israel of God. He made a distinction. He said, I'm not just talking
about that nation Israel. I'm talking about the Israel
of God. And that's what the nation, that's who the nation pictured.
The nation pictured God's true Israel, His elect people. Before the children of Israel,
before that nation, before they ever fell into bondage in Egypt,
God told Abraham they would go into bondage. God told Abraham
the exact time that He would deliver them out of bondage and
how that He would bring them to Himself to be His choice nation. He told him that. before as yet
hundreds of years before they ever even went into bondage.
And that pictures how that in eternity Like Ephesians 1.5 says,
God predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will,
according to the praise of his grace. That's what he was picturing
all along by foretelling the fact that they would go into
bondage and he would redeem them and he would be a father to that
nation. And then he was picturing our
redemption by Christ whenever he sent Moses into Egypt to deliver
him. And you remember when he sent
Moses, he said in Exodus 4.22, Thou shalt say unto Pharaoh,
Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn. Hosea 11.1 says, When Israel
was a child, then I loved him and called my son out of Egypt.
He was regarding that nation as his son, as his adopted son. And that's to picture Christ
in whom all of God's children were chosen and in whom we're
blessed and in whom we're called. and then it typified the spiritual
deliverance of God's children. He sent Moses in there, Moses
delivered them, and it pictures Galatians 4. Look at Galatians
4 verse 4. This is what he was picturing.
When at the exact time he sent Moses, just like he told Abraham
he would, and he brought the children of Israel out of bondage
at the exact time, And he said, now you're mine. You're my sons
and my daughters. You're my adopted children. And
here's what that pictured. Galatians 4 verse 4. When the
fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son, made of a
woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under the
law that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because
ye are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your
hearts, crying, Abba, Father, wherefore thou art no more a
servant, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. That's great advantage that God
gave Paul and he gave to his countrymen and they had all this
advantage of national adoption. The one nation in the whole earth
that God gave this favor to. Nobody else. And yet, without
the Spirit of God, without God subduing their flesh and giving
them a heart of understanding, what did it do? It puffed them
up and made them proud. And they thought they were somebody
just because they were natural sons and daughters of Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob and because they were the one nation God
gave the oracles to. And it puffed them up and they
became proud in their heart. But whenever God gives you grace
and he makes you to see that he has truly adopted you and
given you that spirit of adoption whereby you cry out, Abba Father,
it works in the opposite way. It doesn't puff up, it humbles.
It brings you down. And it makes you to rejoice that
God had mercy on you, that he did adopt you. We had nothing
to do with it. We had nothing to do with God
choosing us. He chose His people for the same
reason He chose national Israel. He said, I didn't choose you
because you were more in number, because you were greater people.
You were less than all people. He said, I did it because I loved
you. That's why I did it. That's why He chose His people.
And so He humbles us. He brings us down. Now, look
at the advantage He's given us. When we assemble together, when
we come together into this place, we're coming together amongst
the children of God. Amongst God's children. Think about that. God's own children. And we're coming together as
God's own children. not just amongst God's own children,
but as God's own children. We're coming together as the
family of God, God's family. That's a great advantage, isn't
it? That's a great advantage that God has given us in this
place. Just like Israel, no other nation around them had that advantage. And here you sit and there's
places all around that aren't preaching the truth of the gospel,
mixing works and grace to where it's no more grace at all, and
yet God's given you a place where you can come together with His
sons and daughters. to worship Him in truth and in
spirit. It's a great advantage. We should
never, never take advantage of it. Look at the third thing in
Romans 9. He says here, and the glory. And God gave them the glory.
God gave the nation Israel glory above all other nations in that
He gave them light above all other nations. He gave them His
oracles. He didn't give that to other
nations. He gave them the scriptures. He didn't give that. He gave
them prophets. He didn't give that to others. He gave them
the Ark of the Covenant. That's called the glory. The
Ark of the Covenant. That Ark pictured Christ who
is Himself the glory of God. That Ark was, in that Ark, within
that Ark was the law of God. And we tend to, you know, I've
heard preachers say, you know, there's the mercy seat over the
broken law. But that law that was in that
ark wasn't broken. The law that God put in that
ark was the one where He rewrote the law on tablets of stone that
were not broken and said, now put them in that ark. Why? When Christ came and said, Thy
law is in my heart, He came into this earth and He said, Father,
your law is in my heart. I didn't come to destroy the
law, He said, I came to fulfill it. I came to do what my people
can't do. I came to do what no sinner's
ever been able to do. I came to fulfill the law and
the prophets. And that's what he did. He is
the mercy seat. On top of that ark was the mercy
seat. It was all connected. And that mercy seat was there.
And that's where God said, I'll meet with the children of Israel.
Right there. Above that mercy seat. Christ is that mercy seat. He's the propitiation for our
sins. That's the mercy seat. The propitiation. That's who Christ is. They had
this great advantage because they had the glory in that they
had the ark of the covenant right there in their midst. We have
greater advantage. We have Christ. We have Christ
who we see now is the one that that ark pictured all along.
We see He is the mercy seeker. We see He is the fulfiller of
the law. We see He is the one in whom
God will meet with us. They didn't see that. God's people
in that day saw it. God gave them grace to see the
pictures and the types and to understand something of that.
But we see it in such greater light than they ever saw it.
He's given us a much greater advantage. Look at Romans 3.
Romans 3 verse 24. We see now that verse 23, all
have sinned and come short of the glory of God being justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus
whom God has set forth a propitiation, a mercy seat through faith in
His blood to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that
are passed through the forbearance of God John said, my little children,
these things write unto you that you sin not, and if any man sin,
we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous,
and He is the propitiation for our sin. He's the place of mercy
for our sin. He's the place where satisfaction
has been made for our sin. That mercy seat's where satisfaction
was made. That mercy seat's where the blood
was sprinkled, and God said, when I see the blood, I'll pass
over you. And when he sees the blood on
the mercy seat, when he sees Christ's blood, that's when he
passes over his people. They had the glory in the cloud
in the tabernacle. That glory was the Shekinah glory. That cloud was the Shekinah glory.
That was the presence of God in that tabernacle. 1 Kings 8.10
says, it came to pass when the priests were come out of the
holy place that the cloud filled the house of the Lord so that
the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud
for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord.
Paul said the children of Israel had the glory. They had the glory. They had the presence of God.
They had the very glory of God in that His presence was there
in that tabernacle in their midst. We have a greater advantage right
here. Think about that. We have a greater advantage than
they had because Christ has promised His presence where He's assembled
His people together, where He's gathered us together. He's promised
His presence will be there. And Christ is in the midst of
His people. He said, look at Isaiah 52 and
verse 6. He said, My people shall know
My name. Therefore they shall know in
that day that I am He that doth speak. Behold, it is I. How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth
peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation,
that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth. Thy watchmen shall
lift up Thee voice. With Thee voice together shall
they sing. for they shall see eye to eye
when the Lord shall bring again Zion. That doesn't mean that,
it doesn't simply mean that we're going to lift up our voice. Christ's preachers are going
to lift up our voices together. It doesn't only mean that. That
is true. We all agree, God's preachers
all agree with one another, speaking by the same Spirit of God, with
the same Christ, with the same message. Christ said, they're
going to know it's I that speaks. He's saying, when my watchmen
lift up my voice, they're going to lift up their voice together
with the voice, with Christ's voice. When we speak, he says,
it's going to be my voice that goes forth, Christ said, and
my people are going to know I'm the one that's speaking. I'm
the one that's making them understand this peace, and I'm the one that's
publishing this in their hearts. I'm the one that's speaking,
and they're going to know it. They're going to know it, he
said. And so he said this in Zechariah 2.5, I, saith the Lord,
will be under her a wall of fire round about, and I will be the
glory in the midst of her. I'll be the glory in the midst
of my church. He's here where the gospels preached. They had a cloud that represented,
was a symbolical representation of the presence of God. We have
the promise. Christ said, I will be there.
I will be the one speaking and my people will know I am speaking. My watchman will lift up the
voice together with my voice, Christ said, and my people will
know I'm the one that's speaking. And I'll be the glory that is
her defense. I'll be in the midst of her and
I'll be the glory that protects her and is her defense. He said in Isaiah 60, Thou shalt
know that I, the Lord, and thy Savior, and thy Redeemer, the
mighty one of Jacob, he says, the Lord shall be unto thee an
everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. That means our light,
our protection. our salvation. Everything we
need is contained in that word glory. And God said, Christ said,
I will be that to my people. I'll be the glory of my people.
Her shield and her defender, her protector, her preserver,
her guide. I'll be all things to her. Her
wall shall be called salvation because I'll be the glory in
the midst of her. I understand that people that
don't know the gospel, they hear this and it just sounds like
just so many words to them. But if Christ ever reveals Himself
in a sinner's heart, from that time forward, we hunger and thirst
to be in His house where His gospel is preached because Christ
is there. Christ is there. We have a tendency
to think, you know, oh, I'm not going to go because, you know,
they won't miss me and, you know, and this and that. But we should
think about it like this. Christ is preaching wherever
his gospel is preached. Christ is there and he's preaching. He's there. in the midst. David was in the
wilderness and you know more than anything else what he wanted?
He wanted to go to the Lord's house. He said, O God, Thou art
my God, early will I seek Thee. My soul thirsteth for Thee. My
flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water
is to see Thy power and Thy glory. so as I have seen thee in the
sanctuary. He said, I envy the sparrow that
just has a nest built in the rafters of the Lord's house.
That little sparrow is getting to see the glory of my Lord. And here I am out here in this
wilderness in a dry and thirsty land where no water is and I'm
hungering and thirsting to be there to see that glory. Do I
have that hunger? Do you have that hunger? Wherever
Christ dwells in the heart, He gives that hunger. We want to
come to His house to hear Him speak and see His glory in our
midst. But if He left us to ourselves,
this would be our wasted privilege. This is what would be said of
us if He left us to ourselves. Listen to this sad, sad testimony
to wasted privileges. He came unto His own. and his
own received him not. After all this advantage God
gave him, here he come. He came to them first and they
didn't receive him. They didn't receive him. But
some did Many as received Him, to them gave He privilege to
become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name,
which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man, but of God. He subdued their flesh. He made them prevail with Him.
He made them beg mercy with Him. And He made them Israelites indeed. And then they knew. They knew
now after that. They knew why they'd been going
by that name all along. We've got Christ's name. That's
what He's done for us, brethren. I pray God will pour out His
grace and birth a sinner today. Wouldn't it be wonderful to give
life to a dead sinner today? And to make some sinner here
for the first time see what great advantage God's given them. and no longer want to just waste
it anymore. But now rejoice to receive Him
and to behold His glory and to behold His name and all that's
involved in His name and to bow down and worship Him. Wouldn't
that be wonderful? That's what I pray for. Let's
stand together. We'll come back second hour and
look at these others. I'm not going to go through These
individually, I'm going to lump some of these together, but you'll
see what I mean when we come back. Let's stand together. Father, we thank you for this
word. Thank you for the privilege you've given us and these great
advantages that you've given us as your people. Lord, don't
let us ever, ever take for granted the great privilege you've given
to your people. Make us to continually be amazed
that you have blessed us with these privileges. Don't ever,
ever, ever let it become just meaningless to us. Make it ever a joy in our heart
that you've had this mercy to show us this grand privilege
that you have in giving us this place and this gospel, these
hearts amongst the family of God to behold your glory, to
know your presence. What mercy, what grace you've
shown us. Lord, how we do, we thank you
but we don't thank you nearly like we should. We don't value
this like we should. Lord, make us do so. Forgive
us of our sin and our complacency and our dullness. Make us truly
rejoice, Lord, and be thankful. We ask that You come now and
reveal Yourself in the hearts of Your people. Reveal Yourself
in the heart of one of Your lost sheep. Make us truly all now
worship you in song and in scripture and in prayer and in the gospel. Make us now worship you, Lord.
We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.