The Bible is Romans chapter 11. Romans chapter 11. If there's a message that doesn't
abase man, preach man low, and preach Christ high, it ain't
no message. It's just information. You'd
be better off listening to the ballgame. There are texts this
evening that are short, just a couple sentences. Paul gives
us a great mystery. That's the title of my message,
This Mystery. He gives us a great mystery and
he abases man and he solves it for us by showing us Christ.
There's that over and over and over throughout each one of these
letters that he's written. Let's look here at verse 25,
Romans 11, 25. For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant
of this mystery. Lest ye should be wise in your
own conceits, that blindness in part has happened to Israel,
until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel
shall be saved, as it is written, that I shall come out of Zion,
the deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.
For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away
their sins. Now tonight we're going to be
looking at this mystery Paul's speaking of. This is a prophecy
of what's going to happen. It's revealing of what was happening
at that present time when Paul was alive and what's happening
in the Lord's church in our day. It's a revelation of it, of what's
going on. And it's an account of what's already happened before
our Master came to this earth. for those saints from the first
saint to the last. That's what he's speaking of.
Now verse 25 says, For I would not, brethren, that ye should
be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your
own conceit. What is this mystery? What's he talking about? It's
the mystery of how God purposed to save His elect from among
the Jew and the Gentile. His people are not all the Jews,
and His people are not all the Gentiles. We know that, don't
we? Only those put into Christ before time began. Those that
Christ came to save from their sin. God's people are His elect. He calls out from among the Jews
and the Gentiles. Those that He calls, that He
draws. And those that are put in Christ, that He shed His blood
for, and that the Holy Spirit regenerates, gives a new spirit
in, and gives them spiritual life to know the Lord. And they
will be His, in Him, forever. That's the mystery. Nothing going
on in this world. That's the mystery. So what's
going on in the hearts of men and women that Christ died for?
That's the mystery. Natural man can't hear that.
That's the great mystery. God must reveal this mystery
to us because sin has totally blinded us. Due to our sin, that
mystery of God cannot be known except God reveals it in us. He must do the work. Let me turn
it over to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. I wrote this down. A historian
can tell you what has happened. An interpreter or a newscaster
on TV, they can tell you what's happening now. And then false
prophets and palm readers and snake oil salesmen, they tell
what's to come, but it doesn't happen. And then there's soothsayers. I looked that up today. It's
got a nice definition. It's a person who predicts the
future by magical, intuitive, or more rational means. A tree fell through our house
years ago. We was moving a big trunk of
that tree. It was about four foot tall. It was laying on its
side. And there's two young men helping me, and I had the bucket
of my tractor over the front of that log rolling it backwards.
And they got under it to push it, to hold it. And I said, don't
do that. If I hit a bump, that bucket
will come up a little bit, and it's going to roll right back
on you. That's rational thought, isn't it? That's soothsaying.
That's me trying to make myself a prophet and wise, isn't it?
What's God's messenger? In old times, they told what
was going to happen. That's what his prophets did.
And now in our day, his messengers tell what's going to happen.
Christ is going to save his children, his elect, his sheep, and he
will not let one of them perish. I feel comfortable in saying
that. That's going to happen. I'm confident of it. Now here,
how's this mystery, if that's going to take place, how's this
mystery revealed? Look here in 1 Corinthians chapter
2, we'll begin in verse 7. 1 Corinthians 2, 7. But we speak
the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which
God ordained before the world unto our glory. That's unto our
salvation. which none of the princes of
this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have
crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, I hath
not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of
man the things which God has prepared for them that love him."
I kept thinking of what we just saw in Jonah. What in all did
the Lord prepare? He prepared the storm. He prepared the fish.
He prepared the gourd, the wind, the worm. He prepared everything.
Jonah didn't know that while he was in the middle of it. He
couldn't see it, couldn't understand it. Afterwards, he looks back,
after he sees Christ in it, after he knows the Lord and trusts
the Lord, he's looking to the Lord, then he looks back and
says, look what the Lord's hand of providence did for me. If
it's not been revealed, and so it cannot enter into the natural
man's heart because it's alien and it's foreign. Verse 10, but
God hath revealed them this mystery. unto us by His Spirit. For the
Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what
man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of a man which
is in him?" How do I know what one person says to another? What
you think? You only know what's inside of
you. I only know what's inside of me, isn't it? Even so, the
things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. People
claim to Know what God's thinking and what He wants, such blasphemous
statements. I don't know what you want. How
can I tell you what God wants? Apart from His Word, what He
declares to us. Verse 12, Now we have received
not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God,
that we might know the things that are freely given to us of
God, which things we also speak, not in the words which man's
wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing
spiritual things with spiritual things." Comparing Scriptures
with Scriptures. Spiritual things with spiritual
things. "...but to the natural man receiveth not the things
of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither
can he know them, because they are not spiritually discerned."
I saw a pamphlet from World War II And it was going on about
Harry Truman was, because he dropped the bomb on Japan, and
this was in the scriptures, and this here was foretold, and it
was prophecy coming true, and all this nonsense. That's comparing
the scriptures to worldly things, isn't it? That's not comparing
spiritual things to spiritual things. Who can do that? The
spirit that's in the new man. What the Holy Ghost puts in us.
That's what that's for. The Scriptures speak of Christ.
But for the natural man that receiveth not these things of
the Spirit of God, that's not good enough. Because they don't
have the heart for it. They want something more. I understand
those things. Tell me something else. I'll
be able to predict the weather of the future. It ain't good
enough for the natural man. Verse 15. But he that is spiritual
judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. There's
therefore now no condemnation to you that's in Christ. How
do we judge all things? If a bird lands on a tree branch
out there, I can judge that. God put that bird there. He's
sovereign over all things, isn't He? Natural man can't understand
that. We're not judged by it. Verse
16, For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct
him? But we have the mind of Christ.
mine and New Testament means the whole of me. We have all
of Him. Wed to Him. Now back to our text.
So God's going to have to be our teacher on this. Verse 25,
Romans 11, 25. Lest ye should be wise in your
own conceits. Now here in verse 25 and 26,
most folks religion They are wise in their own conceits, but
what they believe concern these two verses. They reveal that
they really believe God is a respecter of persons. That's not what God
taught Peter, was it? He would say, well, the Lord's
going to save that physical nation over there. He's going to save
all the Jews. At recent nation, the Lord told Peter, said, of
a truth, God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation,
he that feareth God and worketh righteousness. In every nation,
he that believes on Christ is accepted with God. The Lord is
no respecter of persons. Paul said concerning this mystery
of God there in verse 25, the blindness in part has happened
to Israel and the fullness of the Gentiles be come in, until
the fullness of the Gentiles be come in, and so all Israel
shall be saved. Here's what most say, they say,
well blindness in part has happened to that physical nation, that
political nation, until God's called the last of the Gentiles
and then God's going to raise up Israel as a nation and save
all the Jews because they're born in that physical nation
and because their father's Abraham, because of who their daddy is.
Brethren, that makes God a respecter of persons. That's saying God
saved somebody because of their natural distinctions, because
of who my parents are. Something in the person. That's
not right. That's not right. And they'll
say, well, and so all Israel shall be saved. They say this
is not spiritual Israel, but this is a physical nation. It's
not the Israel that Paul spoke of there in Galatians. We'll
turn over to Galatians chapter 6. Just a few pages there. Let's
see what Paul has for us there. Galatians 6.15. I've got to get
there. Hold on. Galatians 6.15. Paul says, for
in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision
availeth anything but a new creature. What's that? What's the circumcision
he's talking about? Being a physical Jew, it profits
you nothing. What about being a Gentile? The
Lord seems to be favoring the Gentiles, don't he? Uncircumcision
profits you nothing. It doesn't avail. What does? But a new creature. That new
birth. Now you've got something. We're
all nothing. We're born with nothing. But
if the Lord does a work in us, now we've got something. And
now we don't have something against anybody else. That new man doesn't. I said, well, she was born over
there in Israel. She's of the tribe of something
or other. Well, if she believes Christ, I don't care. That's
my sister. Well, he did this. He's just an old Gentile dog.
Well, if the Spirit of God's in him, that's my brother. It
doesn't bother me any, does it? Look here in verse 16. And as
many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them and mercy
upon and upon the Israel of God. What matters is that new creature
that the Lord puts in us. And the Israel of God is God's
elect, His spiritual Israel, which is made up of Jew and Gentile. It's made up of those with a
new creature in them. And we are in that new creation, that
new spirit in Christ Jesus, in Christ our Lord. Back in our
text here in Romans 11. So who is Israel that this blindness
happened to impart? It says in verse 25, For I would
not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery,
that blindness in part has happened to Israel. Now who is this Israel? This is the same Israel he's
talking about there in verse 26. And he says, And so all Israel
shall be saved. God left that physical nation
in darkness and He blinded them and hard their hearts because
of unbelief. We just saw that previous in
the latter part of this chapter. But that's Jew and Gentile. Those
that the Lord leaves in unbelief, He left them in unbelief. It
doesn't matter if they're a Jew or a Gentile or anything else.
If they don't believe the Lord, they're in darkness. All left
in unbelief are blinded. But also, blindness, it says
there, in part, happened to God's elect, His spiritual Israel,
Jew and Gentile, because every one of us were born spiritually
blind. The Lord hasn't called us to faith in Christ yet. He
hasn't put that new creature in us yet. So we were blinded
in our birth, in part, weren't we? It is that spiritual elect
part of God's Israel that Paul's speaking of here in this verse.
And in context, Paul's speaking to Gentile believers. That's
who he's writing to. He's speaking to those Gentiles
there in Rome. And he's speaking in particular about God's elect
Jews who were yet in blindness at that time. That's why he starts
off saying it would provoke them to jealousy. That's why he magnifies
his office to them. Because the Lord had an elect
remnant still in that physical nation in Paul's day that he
hoped the Lord would call out and He knew He'd call out. But
just before that in verse 18, Paul tells those Gentile believers,
don't get high-minded. Don't get puffed up on the fact
that you were Gentiles and you believed, and those that were
Jews, they're still in blindness. They had all these benefits and
they didn't get it, but I got it. This wasn't an enlightenment. This wasn't an understanding.
The Lord did that. He grafted you in. He just said
God's able to graft in his elect from among the Jews if they abide
still in unbelief. So he's assuring Gentile believers
in his day and in our day that we have no reason to be puffed
up by that fact that we believe and others do not. And that goes
for anybody, Jew or Gentile. That's a pride of grace. Well,
I know the Lord. I've studied and understand more
and been diligent and they haven't. They just forsake it and could
care less. No better than they are, am I? I was born just as
blind as they were. Paul assures us that God shall
not lose one of his elect. So knowing God would call all
his elect Jews, as well as all those elect Gentiles, in our
text Paul says, for I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of
this mystery. Lest ye should be wise in your
own conceits that blindness in part has happened to God's elect
Israel, until the fullness of God's elect among the Gentiles
be come in, and so all God's elect Israel shall be saved. So who are the Gentiles that
shall be fully brought in? Is there still a difference? Maybe there's a distinguishment.
Maybe I'm missing something. Turn back to Isaiah chapter 11.
Isaiah explains this for us. You say, well, way back then,
before all this stuff happened? Yeah, Isaiah's going to show
us. Isaiah 11. We'll begin in verse 10. And
in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, that's Christ, which
shall stand for an ensign, that's a banner, a flag, Jehovah-nesi,
the Lord our banner. of the people of God's elect.
And to it, across their banner, shall the Gentiles seek." Meaning
both God's elect Jew and God's elect Gentile. He calls them
all Gentile because God is calling them out of all the Gentile nations.
look here, "...and his rest shall be glorious. And it shall come
to pass in that day that the Lord shall set his hand again
the second time to recover the remnant of his people which shall
be left." Now notice, the remnant of God's elect are all called
from Gentile nations, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros,
and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath,
and from the islands of the sea. The first time God set His hand
is when God sent the gospel to His elect in Israel. And the
second time He set His hand is when He's gathering all of His
elect scattered through all those Gentile nations. And He's been
doing that ever since the fall of Israel in 70 AD, when He destroyed
that political nation. Verse 12, and he shall set up
an ensign for the nations. Christ the banner is set up in
the preaching of the gospel for God's elect scattered in all
the nations. And shall assemble the outcasts
of Israel and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the
four corners of the earth. God's assembly and his elect
which he's cast out that physical nation, scattered them all over
the earth, and he's called them here from the four corners of
the earth, from north, south, east, and west. What if they
live within the boundaries of this country? It don't matter.
If there he is, he's going to call them. He's going to bring
them to the feet of Christ. Gentiles. That nation's gone. Isaiah, if he knew that it was
going to go, he didn't make it as plain to us, but he wrote
what the Lord gave him to write, didn't he? He was prophesying
what was going to happen. Paul knew that too. So when Paul says
there back in our text, until the fullness of the Gentiles
be brought in, he's just simply stating that until that last
saint is called to know Christ, whether it's a Jew or a Gentile. Paul calls God's elect Gentiles,
but he's speaking of both Jew and Gentile. And he does so because
Paul knew God was going to destroy that physical nation shortly.
This was still while it was standing, 470 AD. And so he calls them
Gentiles just like Isaiah did. Now Isaiah, God called his elect
Jews the outcasts of Israel. And he called them the dispersed
of Judah. So that we know that even though God destroyed that
physical state, God will not lose one of His elect from among
the Jews or the Gentiles. But God is gathering them from
all those Gentile nations. But it's not because of what
physical nation they're in. He's not a respecter of persons.
He's calling His elect Jew and Gentile from all those different
nations scattered about. And Paul simply says, until the
fullness of the Gentiles be brought in. Until God saves every one
of His elect. Now there in our text in chapter
11 verse 26, and so all Israel shall be saved. Now many men
mistakenly, they say and then all Israel shall be saved. It
doesn't say then. It says so. We see that somewhere
else too. It said after God called the
fullness of the Gentiles, then God's going to raise up that
physical nation again and he's going to save all the seed, the
physical seed of Abraham. Paul's talking about Abraham's
spiritual seeds who he's speaking of. All the hosts of God's elect
who make up that Israel of God. That word so there means after
this manner. After this manner, blindness
in part has happened to God's elect Israel until the fullness
of the Gentiles, God's elect Jews and Gentiles, be brought
in. And so, and after this manner, all God's elect Israel shall
be saved. We will remain foreigners, we'll
remain aliens, every one of his, until the preaching of the gospel
comes to us. Until he sends the Holy Spirit
to our hearts, convicts us of sin, convicts us of judgment,
convicts us of Christ's righteousness. After this manner. Same as every
one of them. Nothing's changed. That's what
Christ was telling Nicodemus. Everybody likes to quote John
3.16. I don't know who he's saying
it to. Here's Nicodemus, and the Lord tells him the manner
in which God loved the world. The Spirit of God makes us to
be born again. He said, you must be born again.
This is done through the preaching of Christ. It says, we preach
that we do know and testify that which we have seen. God makes
us behold Christ crucified as all our salvation and gives us
faith to believe on him. He says, and as Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be
lifted up that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but
have everlasting life. For God so, after this manner,
what he just told him, loved the world that he gave his only
begotten son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but
have everlasting life. John 3, 3-16. Paul tells us, therefore, blindness
in part has happened to God's elect Israel until the fullness
of the Gentiles be brought in and after this manner all God's
elect Israel shall be saved. Now who does the saving? That's
a great mystery. They're not all Israel that are
of Israel. God has people. Christ saves them. He will lose
none. Who does the same? Look here
at verse 26. As it is written, there shall
come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness
from Jacob. For this is my covenant unto
them, when I shall take away their sins. Now Paul's quoting
Isaiah 59. Let's turn back here and look
at it. But he's worded a couple things a little bit different
than Isaiah wrote them. Isaiah 59. Begin in verse 20. Isaiah 59,
20. And the Redeemer shall come to
Zion. Paul said, out of Zion. Isaiah
said, to. And unto them that turn from
transgression and Jacob, saith the Lord. Paul told us it shall
turn away from transgression from his Jacob's. As for me,
this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord. My spirit that
is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall
not depart out of thy mouth, speaking of his elect, regenerated
by the Spirit, nor out of the mouth of thy seed. Elect he regenerates
through our preaching. If I preach to someone, I'm using
the Lord for the Holy Spirit to speak to someone's heart.
That's who he's talking about. thy seed, nor out of the mouth
of thy seed's seed, those that they grow up and preach to, saith
the Lord from henceforth and forevermore." That's what Paul
was quoting. Now look back at our text in
Romans 11. Here's how he puts it. It'll make a little more
sense together. Verse 26. There shall come out
of Zion the Deliverer. Christ is the Deliverer, the
Redeemer, who alone delivers His elect. And He came to earthly
Zion out of heavenly Zion. He came to earthly Jerusalem
out of heavenly Jerusalem. And Christ came when He came
to this earth the first time and He comes now as the Gospels
preached in the hearts of His people. He visits us. We look for the Lord's return.
But I want Him to visit this heart today. I want to hear of
Him today. I want to be able to see Him
today. and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob." Jacob is all his
elect, both Jew and Jitah. We are Jacob's in ourselves. We're supplanters. We're deceivers,
every one of us, until the Lord changes our name, just like He
did Israel. We were born lying and conniving,
anything we could to get ahead, and the Lord wrestles with us
in our hearts when He comes from Zion. into our hearts, speaking
peace to us. And he dislocates our hip, or
whatever he's got to do to us, and he says, now you're going
to be called Israel. That's your name. And he said, for this is
my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. Have we
seen every bit of this according to God's eternal purpose, that
everlasting covenant of grace? which is between God the Father
and Christ His Son and it's freely given to us. And Christ fulfilled
the terms of that covenant for us willingly, fulfilling the
law on the behalf of His elect, every bit of it, so that there
remains nothing for us to do except believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and to be saved from all eternity. What's left for us
to do? Nothing. Look to Him. It's so easy to hear a message
and If somebody you don't know and you're like, something ain't
right. Well, are they telling you to do or are they telling
you it's done? I can't do. I ain't nothing but Jacob. I'm
just a deceiver. Since Christ took away the sins
of His people on the cross and He satisfied the justice for
us, therefore He must and shall take away the sins of us and
experience. in our hearts, and He purges
our conscience from dead works to serve the true and living
God. If that transaction took place, the Lord ain't going to
let us wander around forever, just serving ourselves and serving
different lusts. Christ died for His sheep. He's
going to call that sheep. He's going to deal with us. He's
going to purge us. We bring forth fruit, and then we're going to
turn from our dead works of what we can do and what we think and
our righteousness, and we're going to bow to Him only. Every
one of us. And the Spirit shall never be
taken from His elect. That new life He puts in, that
new creation, it's forever. So be sure to get this. We're
not expecting to go to that earthly nation on the other side of the
ocean, in an earthly city, in an earthly temple, and worship
Christ. Christ is making His people a
new creation. And He's been doing that ever
since He came. Christ is raising up holy, spiritual
nation, the Israel of God, that true seed of Abraham. And God
has called and elect Jews and elect Gentiles from Gentile nations
through the preaching of Christ, our ensign, Christ our banner. And if you believe on Christ,
then you are the sons of Abraham, the Israel of God. That's who
you are. Paul told us there in Galatians
3. For you are the children, for you are all the children
of God by faith in Jesus Christ. For as many of you as have been
baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Therefore, there is
neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, there is neither
male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you be Christ, then you
are Abraham's seed. to Israel, if you believe Him,
put in Him, and are heirs according to the promise. What a promise
to His people from eternity that He's fulfilled. It's done. That's
the great mystery. From before the world began,
God put a people in Christ from every nation, tribe, kindred,
tongue under heaven. And those that were in Him, He
went to the cross for, living perfectly for, shed His blood
for, bore the wrath of God for, and rose again for. That's Israel. That's who He's talking about.
I hope that was clear. I hope that's blessed to you.
Let's pray together.