All right, the subject of this,
as we conclude this section of Romans, lies in the fact that
there is a sure and certain promise from God, identified here as God's gifts
and God's calling. It says, the gifts and calling
of God are without repentance. And what that's talking about
is the gifts of salvation. It's plural because it speaks
of salvation and all the blessings that are included in the salvation
of sinners by God's grace through Jesus Christ. That gift comes
to his people, his chosen people, Jew and Gentile, by his grace
through Jesus Christ. And once God determines to give
those gifts, give that gift, how shall he not with Christ
freely give us all things, Romans 8 tells us. And they cannot be,
they can't really be refused. They can't go unreceived. Somebody
who preaches that, well, this is just a general blanket promise
to everybody, but it goes unsuccessful. It's unsuccessful unless you
receive it. That's not biblical. The gifts of God are without
repentance. And God changes not. And the
calling of God, if God determines to call a person by the Spirit
into his kingdom, that person is coming into his kingdom. That's
an irresistible, invincible calling. And it's without repentance.
God never takes it back. And the reason that God's gifts
and calling are without repentance is because it's all conditioned
on Christ. It's all in him. Now back up
here in verse 27, he says, for this is my covenant unto them
when I shall take away their sins. Now this verse connects
two thoughts. First one is what he said back
in verse 26, all Israel shall be saved. Now, as I said last
week, I believe he's talking about all spiritual Israel, as
some people think that he's specifically speaking of the Jewish segment
of the elect in a future time, meaning the whole nation. I don't
believe that's what he's saying, but as I told you, and I emphasize
this, if that's what he is saying, then that's great. I mean, I
want to bow to what God's word says. and I rejoice over the
salvation of any sinner. The Bible teaches us that, that
there's more joy in heaven over one sinner that repented, that
comes to repentance then over 90 and nine that need of not
repentance. So we ought to rejoice whoever
God chooses to save and bring into his kingdom, Jew or Gentile. If it's a nation, the pattern
that we see in the Bible is that God doesn't save nations, he
saves sinners, individuals. But here's what I believe he's
talking about is that we as Gentile believers, ought not despair
and ought not think that God is not going to save any of the
Jews because of their unbelief. We were born in unbelief. We
were lost in our sins. And if we believe today, we have
nobody to thank but God himself. We're sinners saved by grace. We are all the gifts and calling
of God. That all involves things that
we didn't earn and did not deserve. It's a salvation that's freely
and fully given. So all Israel shall be saved.
Now the second thought that this connect is that statement, the
gifts and calling of God without repentance. In other words, the
salvation of all Israel, whoever he's talking about, is the product
of an everlasting covenant of grace, for this is my covenant
unto them. Now he's not talking about the
old covenant. He's talking about the everlasting
covenant of grace here, because this is gospel truth. And the
old covenant did not provide for the salvation of any sinner
in and of itself. The old covenant was a system
of laws that were given to show us that we can never be saved
by our works. So he's not talking about the
old covenant. He says, this is my covenant. And I'm gonna be
talking about that in the message at 11 on the new covenant, to
understand that God has never and will never save any sinner
based on their works of the law. From the very beginning, it's
always been, always has been, always will be by grace through
the blood of Christ. And so when he's talking about
the covenant, he's talking about Israel, spiritual Israel, as
members of this covenant chosen by God before the foundation
of the world and given to Christ who was made to be their surety.
And so he says, he's saying don't ever think that whoever this
is, whether it be a Jew or a Gentile, don't ever think that that covenant
can be broken. That covenant was conditioned
on Christ. We talked about that in Hebrews 7. Christ is the surety
of this covenant. You're not the surety of it.
I'm not the surety of it. We're not the one who seals the
deal. Christ is, by his death on the
cross. And when he established righteousness,
that was the sealing of the deal in time. And so, This is the
covenant, he says that I'll make it. And he says, when I shall
take away their sins. Now, the Bible tells us plainly
the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sins. So
we know that this is not the old covenant. The old covenant
was ceremonial, it was temporary, it was temporal, and it was based
upon the blood of animals. Not that the blood of animals
would do anything as far as eternal salvation or taking away or purging
sins. So when is it when God in time
took away our sins? On the cross. When Christ, I've
got listed in your lesson here, 1 Peter 2.4, when he in his own
body on the tree gave himself as a sacrifice for our sins,
that we being dead to sin should live under righteousness by whose
stripes you are healed. And God's elect live under righteousness
when they're brought by the Holy Spirit to look to Christ as the
author and finisher of our faith and walk in that knowledge. That's
what living under righteousness is. It's not our achieving righteousness
by our godliness, by our living right. because we still fall
short, don't we? There are people who think, well,
once we're saved, we don't fall short anymore, that we have works
that measure up to the perfection of the law that can only be found
in Christ, and that's not so. We still fall short, but we live
in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, the Lord, our righteousness,
that our sins are forgiven. that our sins cannot be charged
to us, that we stand before God right in the righteousness of
Christ. We live in that knowledge. And
that motivates us to live godly lives. That motivates us to fight
sin and to try to be good stewards of God's grace, to be good witnesses
of his grace. That's what motivates us. Living
in that knowledge, that's what living under righteousness is.
That's what being a servant of righteousness is. That's what
doing righteousness is in 1 John 2 29. What is it to do righteousness? It's to look to Christ. It's
to rest in him and live in that knowledge by faith in him. Now look at verse 28, he says,
as concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes. And
he's emphasizing the point throughout here that we need to understand
that God is sovereign here, that the unbelief of the Jews did
not cancel out or even hinder God's promise to save all Israel. And he'd said that back in Romans
9. You know, are the promises of God of none effect because
the nation Israel as a whole fell in unbelief and perished? Well, no. He said now as concerning
the gospel, getting the gospel out, getting the message out.
They're enemies for your sakes. This is how God worked things
in his sovereign will. And so he says, but as touching
the election, now here's your key. Well, what about the elect? Well, they're beloved for the
Father's sake. God loves his people with an everlasting love
and it never changes. He says, I am the Lord, I change
not, therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. The love of
God is not fickle, it's not in degrees, you know, it's not Jacob
have I loved, Esau have I loved less, that's not what it, no,
that's wrong. God's love is his purpose and
determination to save his people from their sins according to
his glory. God's hatred is his just wrath
against sinners to whom sin is charged. And that's what he's
saying there. But he says, they're beloved
for the Father's sake. In other words, for the Father's
sake means his glory is involved. His name, his reputation is on
the line here. If God, listen, if God failed
to save even one sinner whom he set his love upon, his reputation
would be shot. That's what he's saying. As touching
the election, they're beloved of God in accordance, he says
in verse 28, as touching the election, they are beloved for
the father's sakes. Now, what he's talking about
there is the early fathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and what he's saying,
that promise that our heavenly father made to them is going
to be made good in the salvation of his elect among the Jews.
God made a promise. And he's not gonna go back on
it. Verse 29 says, for the gifts and calling of God are without
repentance. It's impossible, they're immutable. God determines
to give a gift. He doesn't leave the acceptance
of that gift in the hands of sinners who by nature want no
part of it. You know, it's often, I've heard,
I think Randy, you tell me this, you know, you're talking to either
your brother or someone, somebody told him, said, it's a gift,
but you've got to unwrap it. Well, here's the problem with
that analogy. Number one, the gift's not wrapped. It's right
here. It's salvation, conditioned on
Christ alone, not conditioned on you. And secondly, it's a
gift that nobody by nature wants. So if we desire this gift, even
that desire is a gift from God. And so when God does his work,
his gifts and his calling are without repentance. And I said
that calling is an irresistible calling. It involves the Holy
Spirit convincing us of things that we by nature don't know
and don't believe. John 16 puts it that way. Christ said that he must be lifted
up. He must go away, is what he said
there. Meaning going to the cross, doing
his work, going unto the Father. Or the comforter, the Holy Spirit
will not come. The Holy Spirit's work in us
is the fruit and effect of Christ's work for us. Now there's a lot
of people that have that confused. But we have to understand this,
that what, see, that's why the cross, understanding the cross,
God forbid that I should glory save in the cross. That's why
that's so important. We need to understand that the
ground and cause of our salvation is the sovereign love of God
based upon the work of Christ who by himself, not with us,
but for us, by himself purged our sins. It's his blood alone,
it's his righteousness alone. And what the Holy Spirit does
within us in the new birth, regeneration, conversion, in that convicting
application of the truth is the fruit of what Christ accomplished
on the cross. He said, and I, if I be lifted
up, I'll draw all unto me. Well, he has to be lifted up.
So without Christ doing his work on the cross, there is no work,
there's no life. Romans 8.10 says that the body
is dead because of sin, that's our physical bodies. But the
Spirit, the Holy Spirit is life because of righteousness. Now
where was righteousness established? On the cross. And so when he
says here, that the gifts and calling of God, this calling
is irresistible because it involves the Holy Spirit giving life to
the dead. Just like Lazarus, come forth. When Lazarus, when life was breathed
back into Lazarus' body, you know, the Lord didn't come to
the dead body of Lazarus and say, now, Lazarus, won't you
accept me? Won't you believe, won't you
get up, won't you take the first step? I've taken all these steps,
now you take one. No. There's a, in the Catholic
church, there was a legend about a fellow they called Saint Dennis. I don't know if you ever heard
this before. But it said that he, they cut
off his head. The heathen cut off his head
and he walked, I don't know, however many miles. And they
were asking, particular preacher of the gospel said, aren't you
amazed that he walked that many miles? And the preacher said,
no, I'm amazed that he took one step, which he didn't. You know how legends go, you
know how religion is. Dead people have no spiritual
life. And when the spirit gives that
life, it will always respond in the way that God has determined
it to respond. And that's what this calling
is. It's the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. Where there's life, spiritual
life, there's going to be faith in Christ. There's going to be
repentance. There's going to be perseverance. Well, look at
verse 30. He says, for as you in time past
have not believed God. Now, understand now, remember
the pit from which we were digged. He says, yet have now obtained
mercy through their unbelief. That's what we are. We've obtained
it. We didn't achieve it. We didn't earn it. If you achieve
it and earn it, it's not mercy. But here we are in unbelief,
in rebellion, in all of our idolatry, and we obtained mercy. And the
way that God brought that mercy to us through the preaching of
the gospel was through the unbelief of the Jews. That's how, remember
he's going back to the means now. This is how God determined
to do it. That's how he got the gospel
to Galatia, to Thessalonica, to Ephesus. And you can read,
the book of Acts is replete with that, especially in the first
half of the book of Acts, where, where the gospel was beginning
to be preached in Israel, in Jerusalem, with Peter and James
and Stephen, and how the persecution came, and how there, I believe
it's in Acts chapter nine, it says they were scattered because
of that persecution. And I always put it this way,
the gospel was catapulted out into the Gentile world, mainly
through Paul, but also through others. And now that's how God
purposed to do this. And why did God do it that way?
To show that he's the one who saves. Salvation is of the Lord. It was not a matter of the gospel
council or the preachers in Jerusalem getting together and saying,
now let's devise a plan of evangelism. No, they were perfectly content
to stay right where they were, but God sent that persecution
to do it his way. So these cleverly devised schemes
of men for evangelism, they don't work, not if the true gospel's
preached. I've often said the moment a
preacher asks this question, What can I do to get more people
into this church? He's left the gospel. He's left
the scriptures. I'd love to see more people here
this morning. I'd love to see this place packed out. I'd love
to see us be talking about either expanding the building or moving
somewhere where we have a bigger place. But that's not my business. And that's really not true. No,
we're to invite people to church. We're to witness and evangelize,
yes. But we're not to compromise that
or to whittle it down to make it appealing to the natural man.
And that's what people do. I know when I was in false religion
in seminary and we were talking about church building, things
like that, it was always in a way that would get the natural man
to be content with what he or she is hearing, to get them in. And of course, you've all heard
the stories about bus ministries and things like that, putting
$20 bills underneath a seat or putting a clown on the bus. Brother Mahan said, they might
as well put a clown on the bus. They got one behind the pulpit.
And that's the way it is. But see, those are not scriptural.
Somebody says, well, we've got to modernize. OK, well, you modernize. I'm going to preach the gospel.
That's what we're here for. Well, he says in verse 31, even
so have these also now not believed that through your mercy they
also may obtain mercy. Now, what he's talking about
is this. It's like Paul said, my heart's
desire and prayer for Israel is that they might be saved.
They're in unbelief. I mentioned either last week
or a couple weeks ago, you know, about the state of Israel today
in Palestine. And people ask me, should we
support them? And the answer is yes, economically
and politically, but not religiously. We cannot support a false gospel. Those who believe salvation is
by the works and the wills of men, we cannot support that because
that's against what we believe. That's against what God's word
teaches. But they're in unbelief. We're
to pray for their salvation. We're to take any opportunity
or open door that the Lord gives us to show mercy. How do we show mercy? First,
by preaching Christ who is the mercy seat. I see these commercials
that come on TV about Christians and Jews together. And they talk
about Jews who are poverty stricken and we ought to send money to
help. Well, we ought to send money
to the poor, but I'm not going to support a false gospel. We're
not gonna send money for that. We're to help anybody who's in
need if we have the opportunity and the means. Anybody who's
really in need. But we have to think. This is
a thinking man's truth. It's not just religious, a religious
activity. But here's what he's saying.
Never think that any sinner, Jew or Gentile, is beyond the
scope of God's power and grace. If God gives us an opportunity,
let's show mercy. That's what he's talking about.
Let's preach the gospel. Look at verse 32. He says, for
God hath concluded them all in unbelief that he might have mercy
upon all. Now who's he talking about here?
He's talking about his elect among the Jews. Every last one
of those Jews, physical Jews, whom God chose before the foundation
of the world, just like every last one of those Gentiles whom
God chose. They're gonna be saved. God's
gonna have mercy on them. He's already had mercy on them,
they just don't know it. And that's who he's talking about.
You gotta go with the context when he says, God hath concluded
them all in unbelief that he might have mercy upon all. Listen,
if God has mercy, if that's talking about all people without exception,
then God's gonna have mercy on all people without exception,
and his gifts and his calling are without repentance. So what
does that mean? Well, that means everybody without exception is
gonna be saved. But that's not what it means. He shows us this. He says, as touching the election,
they are beloved for the Father's sake. Who's he talking about?
He's talking about the election, the elect. All the election,
all the elect, God's mercy is upon them. And so we're to look
at it that way. You know, it's like Paul, when
he was talking to Timothy and he was talking from prison. He
was talking about all the persecution. that he was going through because
of preaching the gospel. And, you know, it could be asked,
well, why do you put up with that, Paul? Why don't you just
go live in a cave somewhere and just say, basically, to hell
with everybody, you know? Well, Paul said this, he said,
I do it for the elect's sake. Remember? That's what he's saying
here. Why do we, Why do we struggle
in our religious life, in our life of faith, knowing that people
don't want to hear what we have to say and they don't believe
it. Some have derision for us. Some
even are persecuted. Why do we do that? Why do we
meet here on Sunday? To the religious world, think
about it, to false religion, what we're doing today basically
would seem futile to them. Why are you all over there in
that little group, you know? And here we got this big organization, and we've got all
these activities, and man, we're just having fun. Well, we do it for the elect's
sake. And that's what he's saying here. Now, to conclude this section,
it's kind of like he stepped back. and say, instead of being
sad about this, or being grieved, or being bitter, or being vengeful,
we ought to stand amazed in the glory of Almighty God, who works
all things after the counsel of his own will. Listen to how
he puts it. He says, oh, verse 33, oh, the depths of the riches,
both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. That's what salvation
is. It's the wisdom and knowledge
of God. What is the wisdom of God? Well, Christ is his wisdom,
1 Corinthians 1. He's the wisdom and the power
of God. What is this knowledge? Well, it's to know God. This
is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. They shall all know me.
We're gonna talk about that in the next minute. They shall all
know me, from the least of them to the greatest. There's no greater
knowledge. that a person can have than to
know God. And all who know God, it's because
God has revealed himself to them in Christ. How unsearchable are
his judgments? Why does God save one and not
another? Well, that's unsearchable. That's
his business. And that's what he says, and
his ways past finding out. Why did God choose to reveal
himself to me? You remember I told you about
that false preacher who had his 10 most wanted list? And he had
a list of 10 famous people. He made the statement, he said,
if I could get them saved, I could save the world. What arrogance. God doesn't act that way, he
doesn't work that way. His ways are past finding out. He saves nobodies from nowhere,
religiously speaking now, and brings them to accomplish his
will. You know, God does work in mysterious
ways, isn't that right? Verse 34, for who hath known
the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counselor?
You know, A lot of preachers, they act like they are God's
advisors. I'll never forget Richard Roberts,
you all know who he is, he's Oral Roberts' son. I was just
watching him one day on TV and he was preaching and all of a
sudden he looked up in the sky and he said, oh, I know that,
Lord, I'm getting to that. And I thought, you crazy idiot. My soul. I'll get to that in
my good time. Who has been his counselor? We
haven't given God any counsel or wisdom. And then verse 35,
or who hath first given him and it shall be recompensed unto
him again. Do you know what that verse is saying? God is not responsive. He doesn't respond to your will
or your way. It's not a situation, if you'll
give to him, if you'll do this, he'll do this for you. Who's
given to him first, and then it shall be recompensed
unto him again. That's not the way God works.
The covenant that he spoke of and the covenant I'm gonna preach
on in the next hour, it's a unilateral covenant and it's based upon
this. God says, I will, I will, I will,
and you will. You'll respond. That's what it
is. And so he says in verse 36, here's
what it's all about. Here's the basis and center of
everything that we do for of him, All right, and through Him
and to Him are all things. It's all of God. He's the source,
the originator. Christ is the ground. It's through
Him, through Christ, and it's to Him to the praise of the glory
of His grace are all things to whom be glory forever. Amen. Says it all, doesn't it? Aren't you glad his gifts and
his calling are without repentance? All right.