for the opportunity to come and
to fellowship together under the teaching of Scripture. And
Lord, I continue to pray for all of us, for our homes, Lord,
for our spiritual joy, for our health, Lord, for everything
that we need, that we can trust in you and depend upon you. And
Lord, that we might be more and more intimate with Scripture
and more and more intimate with each other. and I pray for these
things in the name of Christ. Amen. All right. Romans 11, if
you have your Bibles, what we're seeing here is, and you're gonna
think I'm gonna be going very, very fast over the next few weeks,
but it's because Paul's teaching really just sort of does a hard
run down the hill. He's already given explanation
about election. He's already given explanation
about Israel and a lot of other things. And so when he gets to
this portion and he asked the question again about failing
God's word or rejection or things of that nature, he doesn't really
go into a lot of detailed doctrine, but rather gives examples. so
that it can better be understood. And then when we get to chapter
12, he begins to give an appeal, a therefore. And because of all
that has come to be taught thus far, Paul then says, I appeal
to you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. And when
we get there, we'll slow down a little bit and get some instruction. I don't know how many weeks it'll
take, but after this we're going to have some time and some doctrinal
studies, a couple of weeks, some different things, and then we're
going to probably deal with the Book of Galatians. I'm pretty
set on that being our next Wednesday night read-through. So, verse
1 of chapter 11, let's read the Word of the Lord. I ask then,
has God rejected his people? By no means, for I myself am
an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe
of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people
whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture
says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? Lord,
they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars,
and I alone am left, and they seek my life. But what is God's
reply to him? I have kept for myself 7,000
men who have not bowed the need to bail. So too, at the present
time, there is a remnant chosen by grace. But if it is by grace,
it is no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise grace would
no longer be grace. What then? Israel failed to obtain
what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the
rest were hardened. As it is written, God gave them
a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would
not hear down to this very day. And David says, let their table
become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and retribution for them.
Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see and bend
their backs forever. So I asked, do they stumble in
order that they might fall by no means rather through their
trespass. Salvation has come to the Gentiles
so as to make Israel jealous. Let's just stop there. Paul has
already given a clear picture and a description of election.
It is difficult and it's hard to even say this and I say it
over and over again. It's difficult for our culture
to understand the gospel of which election is the centerpiece because
the scripture is not taught as it's written. It's not taught
as it's written. You hear me use terms throughout
the entirety of our time together for years, exegesis, eisegesis,
exegesis, eisegesis. The difference between the two,
it has nothing to do with just scripture, it's how you interpret
any text, is to exegete, is let the context and the syntax of
the words define itself. Eisegesis is to take and read
into the text what you're trying to get out of the text. So you
approach the text through exegesis as the text sits, You approach
the text with eisegesis as working out what you're trying to pull
out. You make it work. It's what I used to call in high
school, making the lie work. What does that mean? Have you
changed the oil in your car? Yes, sir. I'm on it. It's done. You head straight to the oil
change place. You lie and you make the lie work. And that's
what eisegesis is. Paul has spent a lot of time
in this letter dealing with God's sovereign election as the centerpiece
of the gospel of free and sovereign grace. You will hear me use the
term free and sovereign grace a lot. And we use that combination
of language because historically when you hear free grace, you
end up getting into the Joseph princes or into the sometimes
dispensational Armenian Free grace. Grace is free. And so
when we use certain terms, we have to define exactly what we
mean. When I say free and sovereign grace, what I mean by that is
that grace is freely given to the elect. It is also understood
as it is effectual. In other words, it brings the
elect to life. It brings the elect to faith.
It brings the elect in the application of God's righteousness through
the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. to them and it is
an act of sovereignty. So grace is sovereign. It's given
sovereignly. That means God does as He wishes
with whom He wishes and He only gives and always will give grace
to the elect and to the elect alone. I cannot find and I would
offer the opportunity for anyone who's willing to sit down with
just the Bible and a particular passage of Scripture, not verse,
verse, this verse, this verse, this verse, letter, letter, letter,
book, book, book, but sit down with the Book of Romans, or sit
down with the Book of Galatians, or sit down with the Book of
Hebrews, or sit down with the Gospel of John, or sit down with
any holistic text. I'm open to any time if someone
wants to sit down with the text of Scripture and argue that there
is a free, well-meant offer of the Gospel to the entirety of
the human race. I would love it if someone would
sit down and show me that. Yet people will say that, they
will assert that, but they cannot prove that. They lie through
their teeth. They lie from their heart. They
lie from their head. They lie from tradition. They
lie and they say this is the truth, just like every cult says
this is the truth. Every evangelical denomination,
this is the truth. How is it that we're all wrong
because the majority of the world follows the broad path that leads
to destruction? And that's not even a firm enough
polemic or apologetic for our position. What is the apologetic
for our position is the complete context of the Word of God. We
don't pretext it. We don't parse it in pieces. We look at it in a whole way.
And Paul has already said that no one is justified by the works
of the law. He's already shown that Greek
and Jew are guilty before God. He's already established that
only God's gospel has the power to overcome the consequence of
sin. And only those for whom Christ
has been given will receive the life that is promised in Christ. so that it depends on the one
who has mercy. And then He's given example,
after example, after example, after example, after example,
of individuals and nations, and individuals and peoples, and
peoples out of nations. Now even to the nation of Israel,
who are God's quote chosen, but are not the elect of God. But
even in the Israelites, there are a remnant of the elect. just
like there are a remnant of the elect in every nation, tribe,
and every tongue of the world. Paul then gives a very clear,
heartfelt plea that he would love to see all of his kinsmen
come to be saved by the mercy of God, but it is not to them,
to come to believe. It is God who gives them the
truth and causes them to believe. And in their own natural way
of their righteousness and their religion, they submit not to
the righteousness of God. Remember those two weeks, which
is Jesus Christ, but they submit to their own righteousness, which
is what they've done to receive the gift of righteousness. Sound
familiar? It's extremely troubling. Most
evangelicals would say, oh yes, you know, Rome is definitely
a false gospel, false cult, false church. But they wouldn't say it of Israel. Yet Israel is the birthplace.
Judaism is the birthplace of Romanism. It is the centerpiece
of works righteousness. And they are without excuse,
just as the pagans of the world are without excuse. There is
none who have not heard and God has put his gospel message to
all the world, and the only ones who can truly hear are those
who hear the words of Christ by the spirit. And can come then
to see the truth of Christ. in then as we close out chapter
10 into where we are tonight. Paul asked the question, did
Israel not understand? Look at verse 19 of chapter 10.
I don't think I closed this as clearly as I wanted to. Did Israel
not understand? They understood. They understood
very clearly because the scripture shows us from Deuteronomy 32,
as I read a little bit of a couple of weeks ago, Moses says I, he's
speaking, God speaking through Moses, I will make you jealous
of those who are not a nation. With a foolish nation, I will
make you angry. Isaiah, I have been found by
those who did not seek me. I have shown myself to those
who did not ask for me. And then of Israel, he says,
but all the day long I have held my hand out to a disobedient
and contrary people. Who are the contrary people of
this text? The nation. of Israel? Who would be the contrary people
of today's time? The religious, self-righteous
evangelicals? Who would be the contrary people
of our culture? Not the atheists, not the vile
sinners, but those who claim to have God's Word, those who
claim to be in Christ, those who hold to their own standard
of righteousness because of the cultural distinctions of what
they have been taught from Finney to Moody to Graham and to every
other heretic purveying a false and deadly and damning gospel
from that time. Call somebody's baby ugly, they
really hate you. But yet people call the gospel
what it's not all the time and they never hate it. But they
hate the true and sovereign grace of God. They cannot stomach what
the Bible has to say. And so it's easy for us to ask
the question Paul asked here in chapter 11. So has God rejected
his people? By no means. Though we see the
people of God in the sense where the Gentile, as Paul will speak
to directly in chapter 12, we see these Gentiles, I mean
in verse 13 of this chapter, chapter 11, they are thinking,
well if this is true of God, if this is true of the work of
Christ, if Christ didn't save His own nation, And if a majority
of His own nation, His own people, did not recognize Him and receive
Him, then what hope is there for us? And that's a wonderful
question. God has not rejected His people
as far as Israelites. Why? We've already learned that
true Israelites are not the ones who are the seeds of Abraham,
but those who are the sons of promise. That the decree of election
would stand. God's sovereign choosing. In
His foreknowledge, which is His eternal love before He ever created
anyone, He chose a people for Himself to love. And He took
then out of the world in its wholeness, saving a small group
of individuals every season of history. And everywhere you look,
you see a large group of people hated by God and a small group
of people redeemed by God. And then you see out of the whole
group of the world, Abram being snatched out and from him creating
an entire group of people to be sanctified, to be set apart
in a picture of election. So the whole world, there's a
picture of election in this little tiny nation out of the world,
election. But it wasn't these people per
se in their blood that caused them to be the elect. It's just
a picture of election. Because even out of that small
little group of people, they were not God's elect. But in
there, there were also elect, just like there were elect out
here. So you've got this large picture and a smaller picture
and inside both pictures you've got the same picture and ultimately
it ends up in Christ and all who are Israel will be saved.
But it has nothing to do with nationality. Nothing. And so Paul says God has not
rejected Israel. He has not rejected the Jews
for I myself am an Israelite. I am, as they argue, which is
very redundant, a descendant of Abraham. But we've already
learned it's not the sons of Abraham who are the sons of Abraham,
but the sons of the promise. Because if it were just the sons
of Abraham, Ishmael would have been it. If it were just the
sons of Abraham, then it would have been Esau. If it was just
the sons of Abraham. But it's about election. Now,
I know that in our culture, and most of you have probably had
this conversation or these types of tensions, people
believe when they hear this, well, this is all this hyper-Calvinism
stuff. It's got nothing to do with Calvin.
Calvin came along a long, long time after Paul, and Calvin bows
to Paul, not the other way around. I don't mean in a worshipful
sense. It's a bad example because Paul says bowing to Bill. He
yields. James Stiffens yields to Paul.
He doesn't yield to Baptist tradition. He doesn't yield to the confession. The confession yields to Paul. And when it's wrong, we change
it. Many of you have had these conversations
and people, I just don't think this election, this is, this
is a, they say one of several things. One is I still believe
this, the God that I know, but they don't know the true God.
They don't know Jesus because every bit of his work is to prove
he chose him, that he died for his chosen people. Well, then
you can't, the other objection is, well, you can't evangelize.
Why can't I? No, I can't evangelize like you do with a free will,
well-meant offer, with a well-meant offer. I can't evangelize like
you do that tell everybody that God, everybody's God's children
and that God wants everybody to be saved. 2 Peter 3, 9 and
all this other kind of stuff. I can't evangelize like you because
I can't share a lie. But I can proclaim the finished
work of Jesus Christ. And God, through that proclamation,
as he sees fit, will cause his people to believe. And they will
trust not in a righteousness of their own, not in an action
of their own, not in a decision of their own, but they will trust
in the finished and sovereign, free grace of God. For by grace
you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing,
but is a gift of God. The unconverted people hate the
gospel. until God changes their mind.
And they hate the gospel to the point where they say, that's
a false gospel. This is the true gospel. And
then you say, well, can you open the Bible and can you show me
with a letter that what you're saying is true? And they go. And the only way they can cover
that up is to get angry. He's a heretic. Don't let our
children be tall like him. If you don't want your children
to be taught what I teach, you better take their Bibles from them.
Because God the Holy Spirit, when they read it, is going to
open their minds if they belong to Him, and they're going to
be at odds with you. Our neighbors and our friends
and our family, their children are going to be at odds with
them if God saves them through the Word. And then they're still
teaching this ridiculous, humanistic, weird, anti-Christ gospel. whereby they can say, I'm so
proud of you, son, for getting saved. I'm so proud of you, boy,
because you chose Jesus. Was Jesus the name of the school
I'm going to? Was Jesus the name of the puppy that I just got
from the pound? Was Jesus the name of that dish
I ate at the Mexican restaurant? Oh, you mean the God of heaven
and earth, Jesus? I didn't choose him. He chose
me. It's going to destroy households. It's not me that destroys households.
Matter of fact, I'm tactfully careful. I'm very careful. I'm not polarizing in public
like I am in the pulpit. Because it's not my place. We
can be instructed, we can be charged, we can be rebuked, we
can be trained in righteousness, we can be taught the Word of
God so that we are equipped to do the work of the ministry within
the body and without the body. In other words, outside the body.
So that when we hear the garbage that comes, we can go, no, no,
no, no, no. My pastor's been showing us the Bible and the
Bible's been teaching me the truth and we're all in unity
here. And what you just said is on
a different note. It's like having Come Thou Fount
coming out of the piano and Dr. Queller trying to sing number
two out of the book, whatever that one's called. That real
high one, it goes crazy. Yeah, 10,000 reasons. Don't like
that song. It's a song, it's great, nothing
wrong with it, just musically doesn't settle me. So God has not rejected his people.
He has accepted his people. They are accepted in Christ.
He has satisfied his judgment against them. There is no condemnation
for his people. For at the cross, the debt was
paid and by faith. You are justified. What is that faith? That faith
is believing that your justification was purchased at the cross. It's not at odds. That's what
Paul teaches very clearly. And then verse 2, after Paul
says, I'm a Jew of all Jews, sort of a brief, truncated version
of what he told the church of Philippi. God has not rejected
his people whom he foreknew. Now see, right here, context
is important. The word for knowledge in that
sense in the New Testament always deals with what? It deals with
God's affection and his, this is neat, effectual affection.
Sounds like a Saturday morning thing when I was a kid. His effectual
affection for his elect people. That God eternally has loved
for Noam a people for himself. God has not rejected those he
has loved eternally, forever, and always will. He doesn't say
God has not rejected the Israelites. God did reject the Israelites,
but God did not reject all of the Israelites. So the elect
of the Israelites, God has saved in the finished work of Christ.
God has called them to believe. He's brought them to life. So
God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. So now Paul
is moving from ethnic Israel to the elect. That's what he's
showing there. He hasn't rejected Israelites
because he hasn't rejected those whom he foreknew, of which I
am both. You see how that fits? It's simple,
isn't it? But if we come to the table trying
to make Paul the author of his salvation, trying to make Paul
the catalyst of his justification. Not only is Paul speaking against
what we think, but we can read into that all we want. We even
say later, that means that God's going to save every Jew soon. What is wrong with people reading
like that? The problem is they've never
read that. They haven't learned that from reading. They've learned
that from grandpa. They've learned that from auntie.
They've learned that from preacher so-and-so. They've learned that
from a magazine. They've learned that from a YouTube show. They've
learned that from a Q&A on the radio. They learned that somewhere
in some place when somebody was talking about something but the
gospel. And they were using everything
but the Bible to teach it. Put it to the test. God has not rejected the people
whom he has forever loved. The elect before the foundations
of the world. Do you not know what Scripture
says of Elijah? How he appeals to God against
Israel? That's a funny word, if you know
the story of Elijah. Elijah didn't appeal to God,
he just sort of complained to God. That's sort of what happened.
Elijah complained. Look at these people. Look at
what they've done. They want me to die. They're
killing us all. These are your people, God. Paul's saying, no, they're not.
Some of them are. But they're not all his. And God has said many times,
I don't respect people. I give mercy to the ones I desire
to give mercy to. Lord, they killed your prophets.
They've demolished. This is Israel. Israelites killed
your prophets just like they killed Jesus. This is the very
words. These are some of the very words. I want to get my grammar better,
make it good or These are some of the words that Stephen preached
to the people in Acts 6, 7. You've killed the prophets of
old. Now you've killed the one to whom they pointed. You've
killed Messiah. The scripture says that they
covered their ears and they screamed at the top of their voices so
they wouldn't hear the gospel of sovereign grace. So they wouldn't
hear the condemnation of God against them. So they wouldn't
hear the truth. Just like the Israelites out
of Egypt, some days after the miracles of Egypt, they sat around
the foot of Sinai and melted down gold and worshiped the calf. And then when Moses came down
and pitched a fit and then went back up and came back down, they
would tell him not to speak again. They didn't want to hear anything
that God had told them because they couldn't bear the truth
of it. This is the sense of a reprobate
person. Jew or Gentile. And most, listen
to this beloved, most reprobates confess Christ. Let me change that. Most of those
who confess Christ are reprobates. That's a little bit too broad
there. That's a lot of... Christians around here, professing
to be Christians. I'm alone. I alone am left and
they seek my life. But, Paul asked, what does God
reply to him? They haven't all abandoned me
because I have not lost my elect. I have kept for myself 7,000
men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Verse five. So too, at this present
time in which I'm speaking to you, says Paul, there is a remnant
elected, chosen by grace. There is nothing that a Jew has
ever done to get a golf clap from me, God says. There is nothing
that a professing Christian has ever done to get a thumbs up
or a smiley or a heart. But even in the greatest of their
worships, it is a vile stench to my holy nostrils. So it is only grace that can
set them before me. And it is my righteousness that
I poured in justice out on Jesus that satisfies and quenches my
destruction. And for every one whom I put
on my Son, there is no condemnation. But if it is by grace and is
no longer on the basis of works, it is no longer tethered to works. It is no longer assured in works. It is no longer relevant to works. Someone recently has posted publicly
in their ministry something to this nature. that when, and I
quote, people share the gospel, I don't quote, I'm quoting in
roughly, when people share the gospel and they don't preach
the law, there is no power of God to bring conviction of sin,
without which you can't be saved. I'm going to say this, and I'm
going to say it more than tonight, that's satanic. That's satanic. And it has blinded a lot of our
siblings. You don't preach the law. Preaching grace alone, this is
more in line what he says, is to avoid the law that actually
saves. That's what this man said. By the law, you've been saved.
That's a lie. By the law you've been made aware
of your need for salvation? That's a lie too. By the law
you recognize you're a sinner? No, the law is written on the
hearts of all men. They know what sin is. If it is by grace,
it is no longer on the basis of works. So if it's no longer
on the basis of works, then why do we preach it as if it is?
Why do we condemn those for whom Christ has died in their own
conscience when we harp over them about things that they need
to shape up in their lives? that the Bible doesn't speak
to. What does the Bible speak to? Serving one another with
a glad heart, with all affection at a cost of oneself, and loving
each other, fulfilling thus the law of Christ. Let's get that
log out of our eye before we start talking about the speck
of language, or the speck of indulgence, or the speck of profanity. I don't think there's a time
where we need to sit around here and worry about those other things
when we yet to love each other the way Christ has taught us. That's the expression there.
And the enemy of God always points at the church. The devil is the only one that
is the accuser of the brethren. So any believer that accuses
the brethren is the devil's mouth. And we've got all the Pauline
epistles and the book of James. Praise God for that blessed,
gracious gift. And the writing of Peter, James
and Peter both writing to Hebrews and Paul's letter to the Hebrews.
It's like roundhouse kicks the principles of obedience in the
face as any hope through which one can stand justified before
God. So are we to keep on sinning that grace may abound? Paul's
already answered that question. So people who would accuse me
of antinomianism based on what I just preached are the devil's
puppets. Please stop it. Listen to what I say. Listen
to what the Bible says. And do not be shaken, beloved,
when people accuse you of a trashy gospel. The world is full of it. full
of the false, trashy gospel. And it's not because we eliminate,
we preach too much on grace. It's because we emphasize too
much on works. That's a trashy gospel. You are justified in Christ.
You are the righteousness of God. You are sinless. You are
perfect. You are holy. You are fully and
forever sanctified. And one day you will be glorified
as Christ is glorified this very day. And until that time, let's
strive together to live that way. And when we fail, we who
are spiritual restore one another. And if we can't be restored,
we have to kick ourselves, we have to kick each other out of
the fellowship for a season. God will restore his people.
It is a promise. Because if it is not, if it is
based on works, what does he say? If it's by grace, it is
not on the basis of works. Otherwise grace would no longer
be grace. So if grace is the instrument of the means, or is
the fire by which God gives salvation, then why is it we want to preach
something else as a means of assurance? Isn't faith and assurance
the exact same thing? Yes! Paul says it in Hebrews. Faith is the assurance of things
not seen. Your salvation has not yet been
seen, has it? I'm not glorified yet. I'm waiting.
It's been revealed, but I can't touch it. I can't see it. I can't
look in the mirror and go, woohoo! Look at the righteous man. No!
Look at the sinner, who's now a saint. Look at the flesh that's
fighting against the new man, Jesus, in me. It's fighting against
God, the Holy Spirit, who is my new man. James isn't a new
man. I'm not transforming into some
wonderful chrysalis Matter of fact, the more I think
that way, the more sin comes to mind. And God help if he ever
puts me in a place where I think I don't have any. So Paul asked, then what then? What then?
What then? If this is the truth, then what
of Israel? Israel failed to obtain. What does he say there? They
failed to obtain what it was seeking. What were they seeking?
Righteousness. Salvation. They failed every
second. They failed every second. It was all a commercial pointing
to the coming of Jesus. And they hated Christ because
they found sufficiency in their knowledge of works. But it says there, the elect
obtained it. The elect obtained it. Obtained
righteousness. Why? Because Christ was given
for their account. It's fail-proof. You see why good news is a better
thing than gospel in our vernacular? Because we've forsaken the true
gospel, even in its expression. And our world thinks the gospel
is offering something about Jesus that you can get, and then you've
got to go get it. by accepting it. It is as dumb as thinking
that I can take a crayon and fly it over the Grand Canyon. The elect have obtained it, but
the rest, we're not sitting here, listen guys, the rest just couldn't
get it together. See, this is how Armenian, Pelagian,
semi-Pelagian, Evangelical cult, Romanism, Judaism, everything
else, this is how all the other false religions of Christianity
even would say this. The rest just couldn't get it
together. The rest couldn't get their lives together. The rest
couldn't be committed. You ever heard anybody tell you
you've got to be committed to Jesus in order to be saved? Lie. Because what does that commitment
look like? What's commitment? You hear me talking about trying
all the time. What is a try except a fail? Talk about it Sunday,
just for a minute. If I want to say the Pledge of
Allegiance and I get through, that's a terrible example, you
know, five words, then I start speaking a different language.
I have tried to say it, but I did not do it. So the very definition
of trying is failing. So when we try for salvation,
we always will fail. And nobody's trying and failing. And that's why they didn't get
it. Nobody's refusing. And that's
why they didn't get it. Nobody. No, it says. But the
rest were hardened. We give you a picture of the pre-cosmos
God. Perfect in every way. Simple. Sufficient. the one triune God in His glory. Let us make man in our image,
and out of these men we shall establish a people for ourself,
for whom you, son, shall die. And we have loved them with an
everlasting love. I'm speaking for God right now.
This is just make-believe. everlasting love and they will
not die. And everything that we do If
God were to speak everything that I do, and the Psalmist proves
this, the Proverbs prove this, we see it in the narrative of
Scripture, we see it in the commands of God, we see it through the
prophets, we see God speaking these things. I will do all that
I want to do, and I will do it when I want to do it, and no
man can stop me. I can change the wind, I can
stop the sun, I can move the clouds, I can keep the earth
from spinning, I can do everything I want to do. It doesn't have
to be logical. It doesn't have to be scientific. It doesn't
have to obey any law that I created for in my command I can stop
it all. And throughout all the history
of the world and everything in it, I will be glorified because
in this small, minute piece of all humanity, I will save them
by my pure mercy to the praise of my glorious grace. And the
rest I will condemn with an everlasting justice, with the fullness of
righteousness, and no man will speak against my judgments. So God gave them a spirit of
stupor. Sometimes I wonder if that's
not my problem. In a jovial way. I want a shirt that says duh. Because
I don't know. God gave them a spirit of stupor.
God gave them eyes that would not see. Ears that would not
hear. Down to this very day. There's three Old Testament references
there. Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Deuteronomy,
different places. And then David says, verse 9,
let their table become a snare and a trap. Let it become a snare
and a trap. Psalm 69. A stumbling block and
a retribution for them. Let their eyes be darkened so
they cannot see and bend their backs forever. This is an imprecatory
prayer. And so I ask, Paul says, and
we'll close after this, did they stumble in order that they might
fall? They were already fallen. And God kept them there. And it's what they want. It's
what all humanity wants. Except when he brings to life
the elect. They did. Did they stumble or
they might fall? No, no, no, no. By no means. Rather, this
is I'm going to feed in what we've already learned of the
two chapters prior. So that God's. What? Purpose of election might
stand in the salvation of his elect alone. He purposed to harden
a majority of even the picture of election through Israelites
so that through their wickedness, salvation has come to the Gentiles
because he decreed it. I will make you jealous of those
who are not a nation. But the foolish nation, I will
make you angry. It's going to make Israel jealous. Because they stood and tipped
their hat. Thank you, God, look how you've
made me. Thank you, God, look what I am. Thank you, God. While
the nations of the world, while the world, and this is where
we get another clear example of when we see the word world,
it either means one of several things and it never means the
totality of humanity or every single person. If they're trespassed, verse
12, means riches for the world. What riches? The riches of His
grace. You see people take that and go, hey, God wants us to
be rich. Baloney. God does not want us to be rich.
That's a lie, too. There are some people He grants
riches. Some of His select. But it's not a promise. Certainly
not a goal. If this failing or trespasses
of Israel, if God's reprobation of the majority of Israelites
who were a picture of the election means riches for the world, and
if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more
would their full inclusion mean? And that's a statement, not a
question. And that's where we'll stop. How much more with our full inclusion?
What does it mean, the full inclusion? See, that's where we start thinking
we've got to execute. We've got to let the text read
for itself what we've already learned. Don't put your toe in
the water and see which way the wind's blowing. Don't put your
finger in the air. Don't go to Daniel, and to Revelation,
and to Matthew, and the maps, and the table of contents. and
try to figure something out that's not clearly taught here. Paul
did not give this Roman church all that information. He said
it very clearly, and they went, yeah, we get it, Paul. So let's
read it simply, and let's get it, y'all. So the full inclusion of Israel
is not that every Israelite will be saved, but that all the elect
of God will, including many Israelites. including many Israelites. Brothers and sisters, our hope
is in the gospel of Christ that has not changed before the foundation
of the world. And there is no respecter of
persons in the mind of God whereby He allows salvation in one way
for one group and in another way for another group. It is
all by grace. It is all by His decree. It is
all because of His election of a people for Himself, including
some remnant out of Israel, including some remnant out of Georgia and
America, including some remnant out of Asia, including many of
our Palestinian brothers and sisters, including many across
the nations of the world, by His own mercy. And when we all
stand with Christ, we will understand fully what the nation of Israel
really is. To the praise of His glorious
grace. Let's pray. We thank You, Father, for Your
Word, for the truth of Your Gospel. And God, I pray, as I do all
the time, that You would give us understanding. Father, that
You would give me clarity, that You would help me teach and learn
and correct the things that I don't know. and establish the things
that I do and to be teachable and all of us to be teachable
as we pass and repass through these texts. Lord, we should
learn something. We should see certain things
and sometimes clearer than before. But above it all, Lord, we're
not trying to figure out the gospel, though mysterious, it
is clearly seen. and it is the gospel of free
and the gospel of sovereign grace. And it's in Jesus' name we pray,
amen.