Romans chapter 11, I will take
up reading where I left off. We got up to about verse 24 last
week, but I want to read 25 all the way to the end of the chapter.
My hope is to finish up with Romans 11 this morning. So Romans chapter 11, Paul is
continuing and says in verse 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 is happened
to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And
so all Israel shall be saved, 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. As concerted the
gospel, they are enemies for your sakes. But as touching the
election, they are beloved for the Father's sakes. For the gifts
and calling of God without repentance, that is, without change in God. God does not change His gifts
in His God. As Joe has pointed out, God purposed
all this eternally. Then he says, for as ye in time
past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through
their unbelief. Now think about these words.
These are astounding words. For as ye in time past have not
believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief,
even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy
they also may obtain mercy. For God hath concluded them all
in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon them all. And then
he summarizes this with this astounding statement, all the
depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God,
How unsearchable are his judgments, and that's not just talking about
condemnatory judgments. It's all about God's determinations,
determination over everything. How unsearchable are his judgments,
and look at it, and his ways past finding out, past finding
out. In other words, we could say
it is impossible to discover them all. For who hath known
the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counselor, or who
hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto
him again. For of him, and through him, and to him are all things. To whom be glory forever. Amen. Amen. My title this morning is
coming from what Paul wrote here. And he wrote it this way. all
Israel shall be saved. That's basically the thrust of
what Paul's talking about, especially in this last part of what we
call chapter 11. And so, all Israel shall be saved. Now consider this, believing
Gentiles, I wanna just briefly go back, tie this all in together,
what I said last week and what I'm gonna say today. Believing
Gentiles, That's us. Believing Gentiles must never
boast against unbelieving natural Israelites. Unbelief is the root
cause of all men's problems. Unbelief has to do with the crown
rites of Jesus Christ the Lord. Unbelief is not just a lack of
belief. It is a refusal to submit to
the kingship and lordship and redeemership of the Lord Jesus
Christ. So our particular text, verses
25 through 29 in particular, Paul kind of sums this up. Now
I want to give you five things this morning. And I'll try not
to be too long, but I want to try to cover all of this. Here's
the first thing I want us to consider. Never, never even think that
God has negated eternally, or even temporally for that matter.
Because everything that's done temporally, God purposed to do
in eternity. Joe's covered that quite well
this morning. Never even think that God has negated eternally
all present unbelieving Israelites. In other words, someone says,
well God's done with the Jews. No, he is not. For there is even
now a remnant according to the election of grace. And of course,
as we read in verse 25, for, and let me look at it, for I
would not brethren that ye should be ignorant of this mystery. That is something, a mystery
is something beyond full comprehension. We may get little glimpses of
whatever's a mystery. We may get little glimpses, but
a mystery is beyond our full comprehension. As a point of
fact, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in
the flesh. It's not something spooky, but
it's something beyond full comprehension. No. I believe that God was manifest
in the flesh, but I cannot understand how that took place. As Earl
used to say, that God combined confined himself to a virgin's
womb. The God whom the heavens cannot
contain confined himself to a virgin's womb. For I would not, brethren,
that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should
be wise in your own conceits. Do you see it? That blindness
in part, that's it, that blindness in part is happened unto Israel. And I'll stop right there for
a moment. Blindness in part, even today,
we can still say blindness in part is happening to Israel.
Now, this does not mean that some Israelites see partially,
but they don't see fully, because none of us see or know anything
yet as we ought to know it. He's talking about certain Israelites,
certain Jews, certain natural Israelites, they are left blinded. They're left blinded. In other
words, part, though it probably is a great part, a large part
of Israel, God hath left blinded. But notice what he says. 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 is happening to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles
be come in. So I'm just gonna drop that for
now, for right now. Here's the second thought. There is a fullness
of the Gentiles. Now let's see this. This is established by the word
of God. This is the Apostle Paul being moved by the Spirit to
write the truth of God. There is a fullness of the Gentiles. How do I put that? Let me put
it this way. God's elect among the Gentiles is a specific number
down to the individual. What that number is, I have no
earthly way of knowing. God is not trying to get as many
as he can in. He is calling out of the Gentiles
a people for his name. That's according to James, recorded
by Luke in Acts 15, 13 through 17. So there's an exact number
of Gentiles that God's gonna say. All right, that's established
here, right? All right, number three. Number
three, not every Israelite was blinded. but some were, and I've
already mentioned that. We're gonna move through that.
Not every Israelite was blinded, but some were. In other words,
that blindness in part. Now remember, it's not some Jews
are saved, but Jews can only see so far, see so much. That's
not at all what he's talking about. There are people who teach
that. that the Jew really don't get it because it's got all this
legal baggage. Listen, we all have all of our
baggage. Jew or Gentile, we have our baggage. A lot of us have
a lot of religious baggage. And that's worse than legal baggage
because legal baggage is necessary. It's necessary, God uses the
law to show us what sin is. All right, so here's number three
again. Not every Israelite was blinded,
but some were, that blindness in part is happening to Israel.
So let's refer back to what he said, same chapter, verses seven,
what then? Israel hath not obtained that
which he seeketh for, but the election hath obtained it, and
the rest were blinded." Now that doesn't mean that when Paul spoke
here that every elect Jew had already been called. There are
some who But they pick out certain points of this and then try to
make a doctrine or establish a doctrine over it. And it's
not so. What then? Israel hath not obtained
that which he seeketh for, but the election hath obtained it,
and the rest were blinded as it is written. This is not some
new thing. I mean, this is not something all of a sudden God
starts doing something different than what he's prophesied before.
Look, according as it is written, God hath given them the spirit
of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should
not hear unto this day. It's always been like this. It's always been like this. And
David said, let their table be made a snare and a trap and a
stumbling block and a recompense unto them. Let their eyes be
darkened that they may not see and bow down their back always. So that's the third thing. Here's
the fourth thing. When the Gentile fullness comes,
okay, we're looking at exactly what Paul says here. When the
Gentile fullness comes, and the partial Israelite blindness is
lifted, all elect Israelites will be then saved. Now, I know
there are some premillennials that teach what God's done with
the church. and all the elect Jews and Gentiles
in the church are saved, then God will then reestablish the
kingdom with Israel. If you're an Israelite, you're
a shoo-in for glory. Paul does not teach that. You
cannot abandon anything he's already said. They're not all
Israel, which are of Israel. And that's always been the fact,
and it's never going to change. Not every Israelite is elect
because nor not elected, and we're not saved by blood, by
the will of flesh, or by the will of man, but we're saved
by the will of God. So again, number four, when the Gentile
fullness comes and partial Israelite blindness is lifted, and clearly
Paul says that's going to be the case, correct? God's going
to save, by all that I can gather here, Joe, God's going to save
It would seem to me a large number of natural Israelites at the
end of Gentile fullness, but it will be at the end of Gentile
fullness. So let me go back and read it
again. When Gentile fullness comes and
partial Israelite blindness is lifted, all elect Israelites
are saved. This is all Israel being saved
by the deliverer. That includes the elect Gentiles
because the elect Gentiles, according to, we can't abandon what he
said, we have been grafted into the root stock of Israel. So all Israel can't be saved
unless all the fullness of the Gentiles become him. That's included
in all Israel being saved because we're part of Israel now. Now,
this is not what I was born and raised being taught. I was not
born and raised being taught there was an election either,
other than the fact that God looked down through time, seeing
who would believe and be a believer, seeing who would serve the Lord,
and God chose those. This book teaches nothing like
that for Jew or Gentile in any dispensation. I don't care if
it's 1,000 years. If there is, and I'll just put
it that way for the sake of argument, if there is 1,000 years of Christ
literally reigning on this earth, anybody saved will be saved by
Jesus Christ just like he's been saving us for some 6,000 years
now. So again, then all elect Israel
are saved. This is all Israel being saved
by Christ the Deliverer. So let's read it again. For I
would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery,
lest ye should be wise in your own conceits. In other words,
unless you start to boast against the Jews, even unbelieving Jews. That blindness in part is happened
to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And
so all Israel shall be saved. Now note it doesn't say and so,
it says and so, it does not say now after the fullness of the
Gentiles. because he's including the Gentiles
in all Israel being saved. You see? That's something the
dispensationalist refuses to acknowledge. He just refused,
he or she refuses to, and so, not after that, not, and so then
all Israel shall be, and that is, God saves all the Gentiles
he's gonna save, then he's gonna start saving Jews again. Nowhere
is Paul saying anything like that, yet men have twisted it
to say stuff like that. And so all Israel shall be saved,
as it is written. Now there's something I wanna
point out here. I won't spend a lot of time on it, but as it is written,
in other words, Paul said this is not new. I've heard before
whether none of this was known in the Old Testament. It's not
so. Now, maybe a lot of it may not have been understood by people
of the Old Testament, and I figure that's probably true because
even people today who have the New Testament still don't understand
it because they refuse to bow to the actual language of Scripture.
We all got a way of, we think this is what it is, so we'll
make the Scripture fit what we think it's supposed to be. Look,
and so all Israel should be saved. As it is written, there shall
come out of Zion the deliverer. But I'm going to say this before
I even look at it. Paul changed the wording. And we'll look at
the actual wording in the Old Testament. There's a reason for
it. It's a valid reason. But look, there shall come. So
what is Paul saying here? It's as though this is still
future, right? There shall come. And I can say that because when
we look at what the prophet actually said, we'll see how Paul changed
it, but we'll see why. There shall come out of Zion
the deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from who? Oh,
think of Jacob. Not Israel, because God has never
beheld iniquity in Israel. Remember Balaam the prophet?
The apostate prophet, but nonetheless he spoke the truth. God has not
beheld iniquity in Israel. Not in his Israel he has not.
But he does know Jacob's full of it. But he will take away
and turn away ungodliness from Jacob. Notice, not turn away
Jacob from ungodliness. The ungodliness is the problem.
The deliverer's got to take care of the problem first. Do you
see that? And shall turn away ungodliness
from Jacob for this is my covenant unto them when I shall take away
their sins. As concerning the gospel, they're
enemies for your sake, that is right now. But as touching the
election, they are beloved for the Father's sakes, for the gifts
and calling of God are without repentance. God is still dealing
with his Israel. He's still dealing with his Israel.
So, having said that, let me put it this way. There is but
one deliverer. Okay, there is but one deliverer,
or I could say redeemer. There's another word the apostle
Paul changed, but it's deliverer means the same thing. In the
Greek, deliverer means a redeemer. So there is but one deliverer
or redeemer, that is one who takes away sins. Turn to Isaiah
59 now. We'll go look at the passage
which Paul quoted from, Isaiah 59. All right, Isaiah 59, let me
keep my spot in my notes. Isaiah 59, look at just two verses.
Look at verse 20. And the, what's that word? Not
deliverer, redeemer. But I'm not saying that Paul
changed the meaning of the word, it's just translated. It's a
different Greek word, but it means the same thing as this,
a redeemer. But look, and the redeemer shall
come, what's that say? Not out of Zion. See that slight
change? See that slight change? And the
Redeemer shall come to Zion, and to them that turn from transgression
in Jacob, saith the Lord, as for me, this is my covenant with
them, saith the Lord. My spirit that is upon thee and
my words which I put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth,
nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed,
saith the Lord, from henceforth and forever. So Isaiah says,
come to Zion looking for the Messiah. Messiah had not come
to Zion yet, but he's gonna come to. That's where he actually
put away sins. Hebrews chapter one, verses one,
when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right
hand of the majesty on high. But Paul says, out of Zion, because
Messiah had already come You see it? But there's also that
sense in which sins are put away when God Almighty regenerates,
that is, washes and converts by the gospel, his dearly beloved
ones. And that's the main reference
that Paul is making in Romans chapter 11, the verses of our
text. So Paul says, out of Zion because
the work was done. And again, I say notice, it's
Jacob. That gives me comfort. It gives
me comfort because I'm a Jacob too. I'm a supplanter. I'm in rebellion against God.
I'm in rebellion against God. But thank God he turns away a
godliness from who? From Jacob's. All right, here's
number five. Israelite animosity to Christ. And that's what it is to be opposed
to the gospel. To be an enemy of the gospel
is not about, well, I just don't like this doctrine or I don't
like that doctrine. If you oppose the gospel of Jesus Christ, you're
opposed to Jesus Christ as a whole. Because you can't pick and choose
what you want to be true about Jesus Christ and what you don't
want to be true about Jesus Christ. In other words, Jesus Christ
is who he is as declared in this book. Now he's probably, no,
he's far more than what's declared in this book. But he is exactly
what is declared in this book to be true about him. You either
take him as his whole or you don't take him at all. You bow
to him as he is or you don't bow to him at all. You either
believe the gospel as it is clearly declared in this word or you
don't believe the gospel at all. But again, listen, Israelite
animosity to Christ, that is the gospel, is a Gentile benefit. But even gospel animosity never
negates God's election. Aren't you glad? Because we too
were in unbelief. Isn't that, now look at it. For
as ye in time past have not believed God. So we're just like, our
unbelief is just as much unbelief as a reprobate Israelite. One
totally rejected of God, Jack. Our unbelief is the same kind.
We ain't got a little bit better unbelief than unbelieving Jews.
All the unbelief is the same. It's rebellion against Jesus
Christ. For as ye in time past have not
believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief. That this is just astounding
to me. And I'm not gonna try to explain that. Why do I? He
said what he meant. I can't explain it all. I can't
give you an analogy that will help this all fit in our puny
little finite minds. Through their, obtain mercy through
their unbelief. Listen, even so have these also
now not believed that through your mercy they also may obtain
mercy. Now he switches the whole thing
around to a totally different thing, doesn't he? You see it?
For God hath concluded them all in unbelief that he might have
mercy upon all. In other words, Paul's going
right back to what he's already established in the word. God
Almighty is absolutely sovereign in this thing. He does as he
wills amongst the armies of heaven, but even more, even amongst the
inhabitants of the earth. And none can stay his hand or
say unto him, what doest thou? And also this, those that walk
in pride, he is able to abase. So again, number five. Israelite
animosity to Christ is a Gentile benefit, but even gospel animosity
never negates God's election or his ancient promise to his
ancient people of faith. Now, it's the fathers, not Israel
as a whole. Do you see that? It's the fathers,
those that God made the specific promise of the Messiah to. Man's rebellion never dictates
or limits God's purpose. By what I read here, there will
be a day in the end when God will save a lot of natural Jews. And somebody says, but how could
that be? If that happens, the world's bound to see this, and
everybody know the coming of Christ is soon. When God saves
somebody today, he saves them in obscurity. The world don't
know it. God could save a million Jews
today, but you know where it's going to happen? In little places
like this. Back off out of the way where
the world will never know. They'll never know. I'm not saying
nobody will. He could save millions of them,
but he's going to do it through gospel preaching in little despised,
mocked at. I mean, people see this and I'm
sure they just say, there can't be anything to that. There is
nothing to this. But there's everything with our
Christ. And there's everything. We may be a small group, but
our God ain't small. Our God may have confined himself
to human flesh eternally. but he's still not small. And
he's far more than just human flesh. He is God manifest in
the flesh. Now, maybe some of you might
be like me. And I didn't intend on trying
to go through this and explain how everything works and put
everything. Now, certain things have an order here, but we can't
put timelines on it, we can't put timeframes on it. All we
can do is say, thus saith the Lord. That's the best place to
leave it, don't you think? That's the best place to leave it. Now,
somebody says that this is, you know, I know what I used to hear,
maybe some of us used to hear this stuff, and I said, I know
what I used to hear, and we had it all marked out. I say we,
not because I had it marked out, but I was told they had it marked
out. And they could tell you exactly when this happened. When
it gets to the tribulation, they could tell you exactly when which
bowl will be poured out at what time. I mean, they've got charts.
Y'all seen them. Even if you wasn't trained up
in that, you've seen the big charts. They understand everything. They can go through the book
of the Revelation and tell you the timeline of how everything's
supposed to happen. Now, am I lying on them or not?
Am I building a strong man to beat the day? That's how they
feel. But maybe you're like me, you say, I'm still confused.
Because we want everything analytically presented before us. We want
all of our ducks in a row. We want to have Roman numeral
one, Roman numeral two. I do. I like that. I mean, my
mind's wired that way. Oh, the depth of the riches,
both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are
his judgments and his ways past finding out. Quit trying to figure
it all out and just believe what God says. And that had better
be centered around the personal work of Jesus Christ. Plus, even
if your charts are right, if Christ is not at the center theme
of all of your soul, you'll perish in spite of the chart's accuracy. Right? Christ is all in all,
not prophecy. As a matter of fact, the testimony
of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. All prophecy that doesn't have
Jesus in it, I don't care how historically accurate or prophetically
accurate it is, it is damning to the soul. So if someone says, The longer I study this book,
the more I realize I don't know as much as I thought I used to
know years ago. I look at it for, unsearchable,
so if it's unsearchable, why am I trying to search it out?
When God tells me through our apostle, the apostle to the Gentiles,
that's unsearchable, then Jack, why do I keep looking and trying
to search it out? And his ways, past, finding out. I can't even explain to you,
for as ye in time past have not believed God, yet now have obtained
mercy through their unbelief, even so have these also now not
believed that through your mercy they might, I can't even find
all that in my head. I can't get my mind grasped around
all of that. For who hath known the mind of
the Lord, or who hath been his counselor, or who hath first
given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again, for
of him, and through him, and to him are all things, to whom
be glory forever. So be it. So be it. Let me read it. That's one of
the reasons I picked out this song. God moves in a mysterious
way. It's not spooky. It's not spooky. It's something that cannot be
fully grasped by us now. Maybe one day, Jack, we will.
And we'll get set before our Lord and he'll explain to us
how all of this work and we'll have minds that's not clouded
by the flesh and by the old mind and the old heart and the old
conscience and all of that. God moves in a mysterious way
his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the
sea and rides upon the storm. You fearful saints, fresh courage
take. The clouds you so much dread.
We see that all around us. My message wasn't even about,
this world's in a mess. This country's in a mess. I mean,
I see stuff on TV that if you'd have told me 20 years ago, this
is going to be mainstream, I'd have said, well, it might come
to that way down here. We're seeing this madness happen
in our own lifetime, madness. Madness. Look, the clouds you
so much dread are big with mercy and will break in blessing on
your head. Even if what we're going through
now in America is the judgment of God, God is just in doing
it. And he will spare us from it.
Not the turmoil of the mind, but keep us from diving into
it headlong like everybody else. He'll keep us out here in these
little obscure limits. And just hopefully, they just
let us alone. And to let us strive to worship
our God as he is. That's what I want. But that
may not happen either. I am no prophet, but one of these
days, I know if you said this to me 20 years ago, I said, well,
it might happen, but we probably won't see it. Things happen quick
now. Almost as if they happen overnight.
It may become, if they do discover who we are and how we believe,
it may become illegal for us to meet and say the things we're
saying. Do you understand that? I don't know. I don't know. I'll
tell you this, I'm glad I don't have to raise little ones in
this situation. I'm certainly glad. But our God's in sovereign
control. See, that's me, Ellen, looking
at it from a natural standpoint. Now, look at this. Judge not
the Lord by feeble sense. but trust him for his grace behind
a frowning Providence. He has a smiling face. Now, I can kind of hang my head
on that kind of hang my head on that up. Okay. Let's turn
to before we sing it though. What number was that 67? Yes,
let's turn to 67 and here's why I wanted us to close this out.
I was just going to have prayer but And some of you may already
have this from Moose. It was Moose's bulletin from
last Sunday, it looks like. Of course, it's very short because
Moose and Sandy left Montana to come be with Dee. Anyway,
this is what Moose wrote. Moose and Sandy are still with
their son Dee in Tennessee. The time of Dee's home going
is very nigh. He requests multiple times daily
that we sing, pass me not, O gentle Savior, hear my humble cry, while
on others thou art calling, do not pass me by. Now, most of
us think of that as Christ initially saving somebody, right? Christ,
and that's true, I'm not, but here's another way in which it's
true. This hymn expresses his prayer for the Lord to take him
home, so don't pass me, take me out of here. I can't say I can relate to that
because I don't. I felt bad. I'm hurting right now because
all the work we've had to do several days, but I don't understand
what it's like to be there. So that's what he said. This
hymn expresses. He is it is D's prayer for the Lord to take him
home soon. Please join us in this prayer.
So you can remain seated. We'll close with this. Let's
sing pass me not we sing it to the honor of our Lord, but let's
sing it thinking of D and his wife children. his father and
mother and everybody that loves him and knows him. Let's do that
with him in mind. All right. Pass me not, O gentle Savior. Hear my humble cry. While on others Thou art calling,
Do not pass me by Savior, Savior Hear my humble
cry While on others Thou art calling Do not pass
me by find a sweet relief. Kneel in
very deep contrition. Help my unbelief. Savior, Savior, hear my humble
cry, While on others Thou art calling, do not pass me by. Savior, Savior, hear my voice While on others Thou art calling,
do not pass me by. Thou the spring of all my comfort,
more than life to me. Who have I on earth beside Thee? Whom in heaven but Thee? Savior, Savior, hear my humble
cry. While on others Thou art calling,
do not pass me