Now let's look at Romans 11,
beginning at verse 11. He'd been talking about, here
in the first part of chapter 11, about how the rejection,
the Jews' rejection of Christ, the Jewish nation as a whole,
not every individual Jew, Paul himself was a Jew, he said that,
but their rejection of Christ didn't in no way mean that God
has cast away his people which he foreknew. And the people that
he foreknew refers to his elect. God's chosen people, chosen in
Christ before the foundation of the world. Those whom Christ
had redeemed. Those who are justified before
God by the grace of God through the righteousness of Christ.
and indicated and known as they are called out of the world and
into the fold, the sheep fold. My sheep hear my voice. And he
made it clear now that there is a remnant among the Jews.
Even though the nation as a whole rejected Christ, there's always
been a remnant. in every generation, and it's
a remnant according to the election of grace. Anyone who is saved,
anyone who is justified, anyone who is sanctified, whether they
be Jew or Gentile, you know that it's totally by God's sovereign
grace and mercy, and has absolutely nothing to do with their ethnicity,
their culture, their language, their skin color, or anything.
There's nothing in any sinner that would merit or draw God's
mercy. It's always totally grace according
to God's purpose because it seemed good in his sight. And so Paul
has made this point. But then he says in verse 11,
and he's talking about the Jewish nation here, he says in verse
11, I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid,
but rather through their fall is come unto the Gentiles, or
salvation is come unto the Gentiles for to provoke them to jealousy. Now this is an interesting way
of looking at things. This is God's way. And here's
what he's asking. He says, well, the reason that
they fell, was it God's purpose in dealing with this nation all
those hundreds of years under the old covenant? Was it his
purpose only just to destroy them and nothing else? Was that
his ultimate goal? Have they stumbled so that they
should fall irretrievably? And so now is it impossible for
any Jew to be saved? And Paul says, God forbid. God
forbid, he says, may it never be. That's some of the strongest
language you'll find to set forth a negative. No, no, no, no. That's not the reason all this
happened. It wasn't just for their destruction alone. They
were destroyed, but God's ultimate design in the fall of the nation
Israel is twofold, he says here. Number one, he says they felt
that through their fall, salvation has come unto the Gentiles. Now,
think about how the lost Israelites looked at God's favor upon them. They felt it was because of their
Jewishness. They believed that God favored
them because of something in them. I've often said there were
three reasons that the unbelieving Jews claimed that they were saved,
that they were children of God. Number one was their pedigree,
where Abraham's seed, that distinguished them. Number two was their circumcision,
the circumcision of the males representing the families. And then number three, they kept
the law of Moses. And Christ destroyed all of those
false refuges. He told him one time, he said,
I know you're Abraham's seed physically, but you're not Abraham's
seed spiritually. You don't do the works of Abraham.
You seek to kill me. Abraham saw my day and rejoiced,
he said. And so he says, that's a false
refuge. And Paul wrote about that. He
said, they are not all Israel which are of Israel. And the
children of the promise, they're the children, that's believers.
And then secondly, circumcision, he said, it doesn't matter whether
you're circumcised. John the Baptist told him that.
He spoke of Christ being able to baptize them with fire, which
is the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration and conversion.
Circumcision meant nothing. Paul said, God forbid that I
should glory save in the cross of Christ by whom the world is
crucified unto me and I unto the world for in Christ Jesus
circumcision or uncircumcision means nothing but a new creation. That's the new birth. And then, keeping the law of
Moses, Remember what Christ told him in John chapter five? He
said, Moses will be your judge. Moses in whom you trust will
be your judge. He's talking about the law there.
He's not talking about Moses personally. In other words, you
say you're saved by your works of the law. You're made righteous
by your works of the law. That same law will judge you
condemned. Because we're all sinners. And
so they stood in their pride, in unbelief, in their pride saying
that God favors the Jews and the Gentiles are nothing but
dogs. And so what they would have done is they would, even
when some came over to give mental agreement to the gospel, they
thought, well, that's to the Jews and Gentiles are not included
unless first, They submit to circumcision and keeping certain
things, certain laws that we impose upon them. We see that
in the book of Galatians. And so Paul says here, by inspiration
of the spirit, that one of the reasons that they fell was so
that that gospel would not be confined to the nation. And because
of their fall, you can read about it, for example, in Acts chapter
eight, after Stephen's death, where great persecution came
on them, and they were spread, scattered throughout the world.
The gospel, as I say, was catapulted throughout the world, the Gentile
world, in their fall. Now, that doesn't mean that God
doesn't have some of his elect among the Jewish nation. That
doesn't mean that there's no Jew who's going to be saved.
But the Jewishness and their traditions and their unbelief,
it's not gonna stand between the salvation that God has provided. It's not gonna stand between
God and his chosen people, Jew or Gentile. And look over at
Ephesians chapter two. Let me show you this. In Ephesians chapter two, what
this passage is talking about is the unity of the church. It
really is. Even back up in the first verses
here, it's talking about how God has quickened us together
and raised us up together and made us sit together. Well, that's
talking about his church because he's not talking about the new
birth specifically here, that's included because we weren't born
again together. Some of you were born again,
maybe before I was, or maybe I was before you in time. What
he's talking about is when Christ died, we all died. He's our representative. When he was buried, we all were
buried. When he arose again, we were all risen again with
him. He's our representative. He's our surety. Well, on down
here he says, In verse 11 of Ephesians 2, look at this, he
says, wherefore remember that you being in time past Gentiles
in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which
is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hand. So he's
talking about a division between the physical Jew and the physical
Gentile. Verse 12, that at that time you
were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel.
The gospel was to be found in Israel. It was there, even when
they didn't believe it, it was there in type and in picture,
in the prophets and the evangelist. And he says, you were strangers
from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God
in the world, verse 13, but now in Christ Jesus, you who sometimes
were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. Near unto
God. Verse 14, for he is our peace
who hath made both one, that is Jew and Gentile in Christ,
and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us. You remember what historians
sometimes call the third temple. You had Solomon's temple and
it was destroyed. Then you had the second temple
that was built under Zerubbabel and Nehemiah. And that was still,
the remnants of that was still existing by the time the Roman
Empire conquered Judea. And Herod became the king. Herod was not a Jew, he was an
Idumean. But he started rebuilding around
the ruins of the second temple, and that's called the third temple.
And he was elaborate. The reason he did that was political,
because he wanted to have the Jews on his side. So he was building
them that temple. And you remember when Christ
told his disciples, he said, you look out here and you see
this great building and all that? That's what he was talking about.
That was the third temple. Well, in that third temple, There
was a wall built that separated the Jews from the Gentiles outside
the outer court. The Gentiles who had converted
to Judaism could go into that place, but they couldn't go into
the inner circle beyond that wall. That was a wall of partition.
And that's what Paul's referring to here, that middle wall of
partition. There is no separate, in the kingdom of God, By his
grace, through the blood of Christ, there is no separation between
Jew and Gentile. And he says in verse 15 of Ephesians
2, having abolished in his flesh, that's Christ, the enmity, even
the law of commandments contained in ordinance, for to make in
himself a twain of two, one new man, that's the church. So, speaking
peace. And then look at Galatians chapter
three. In Galatians 3, verse 26, he says, for you are all the
children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. That's God-given faith.
For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put
on Christ, united to Christ, put him on by God-given faith.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, that's Gentile, neither Jew nor
Gentile. There's neither bond nor free,
there's neither male nor female. In other words, these natural
distinctions have nothing to do with our salvation. And he says, for you are all
one in Christ Jesus and if you be Christ, if you belong to Christ,
then are you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise.
Now Paul, back in Romans 11 now, he's saying that even God in
his sovereign providence overruled the sinful unbelief of the Jewish
nation and cast them off in order to get the gospel out to the
Gentiles. This is the way God sovereignly and powerfully did
it. So that's the first reason. He was not the Lord. And you
know, the book of Acts is replete with examples of this, where
you had unbelieving Jews who claimed to believe the gospel,
but tried to confine it to their Judaism. And if you look, even
the last word of the book of Acts, if you look it up in the
original language, is the word unhindered. In other words, the
gospel going out, preached into all the world to every creature,
unhindered with man's pride and divisions and the walls that
man puts up. Say, well, the gospel's not for
this race or this group or that nation, it's just for us, no.
Now, you go into all the world and preach the gospel to every
creature, anybody who'll listen, whether they're white, black,
red, whatever, male, female, Jew, Gentile, that's what this
is all about. So God catapulted the gospel
out over the world. Now, the second reason that they
were cast off, that this happened, he says, was to provoke them
to jealousy. You know, Paul mentions that
three times in the book of Romans. God is going to save all spiritual
Israel. And I believe the Bible is clear
that he saves them through the preaching of the gospel. I believe
that. I don't believe God just zaps
people. I believe it pleased the Lord by the foolishness of
preaching to save them. Now, how that preaching gets
to them, we might be able to talk about that a little bit,
but it's gonna be the preaching of the, the gospel is the power
of God unto salvation. I was talking to a fellow last
week who talked about the thief on the cross. He said, well,
the thief on the cross didn't hear the gospel. I said, really?
He didn't hear it? Well, first of all, how do you
know he didn't hear it? I mean, what do you know about
that thief? You don't know anything about him other than he was a
thief. That's all you know. You don't know, I believe he
was a Jew. I believe he grew up in Judea
there. And then I know the thief heard the words of the Lord himself
on the middle cross. And there's gospel there. But
you know, I am dead set sure that that thief heard the gospel.
And even if we didn't have the words of Christ recorded, how
do I know that? I'll tell you how I know that.
Again, it pleased the Lord through the preaching of the gospel.
The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Faith comes by
what? Hearing, and hearing by the word
of God. Now here in the Thief on the Cross, you have a historical
narrative. You don't derive your doctrine
from a historical narrative. You derive doctrine from the
teaching passages of scripture, and then you submit the historical
narratives to the clear teachings. And if God says, the gospel is
the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believe, that
applies to the Thief on the Cross too. But you know why people
wanna say the thief didn't hear it. They wanna claim salvation
when they didn't hear it. That's really where it goes to.
But you see, God uses means. And some people say, well, God's
powerful enough to do this. God can do anything he wants
to do. Well, okay, what does he want to do? Read it in the
Bible. If it pleased him to do something,
wouldn't you say that's what God wants to do? So yeah, okay,
God does what he wants to do. Now when somebody says God can
do anything, well he can't lie. He can't go against himself,
he can't deny himself, we know that. But if you wanna know what
God wants to do, read the Bible, and here's what he says. Well,
he even takes the sinfulness of man and overrules it for the
good of his people. He provoked the Jews to jealousy. And what he's talking about here
is that many of the Jews in seeing the power of God in working salvation
upon Gentile believers would be provoked to jealousy and it
would incite them to seek salvation by God's grace. in Christ. I think you may see an example
of that or the beginning of that in the book of Acts, chapter
15, when they had that Bible conference, you know, when certain
Jews came down saying that, well, these Gentiles, they've got to
be circumcised or they can't really be in the kingdom of heaven. And then I think Paul and Peter
and James, all three stood up and said, no, no, it's by grace. It's not by circumcision. So,
but that's just another one of the many great examples, again,
of God overruling the unbelief, the sinfulness of man to accomplish
his purpose. All things work together for
good to them that love God. We'll look at verse 12 of Romans
11. He says, now if the fall of them
be the riches of the world. Now that's where I got the title
of this message. and the diminishing of them,
the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness. What's
he saying there? Think about it. If their fall
was worked out sovereignly by God to be the riches of the world,
the gospel going out all over the world, first it went out
through the Gentile world through the apostle Paul, and then it
began to spread even more and more. And even, you know, I look
at that even going up through history and even up to today,
I know there's a majority of false Christians and false churches
out there today. I do know that. But you think
about the gospel has been spread all over the world through the
new covenant era. And so it wasn't confined. So
it's been the riches of the world. Now the world that he's talking
about here is the world of God's elect. That's the only one it
could be talking about because unbelievers, those who live and
die in unbelief, the gospel's not riches to them. In other words, it's an awful message
to them. The world hates us. Light has
come into the world and the world loved darkness and hated the
light. So whoever he's talking about here in the world, he's
talking about those whom God has brought through the power
of the spirit under the preaching of the gospel to see the riches
of the glory of God in Christ. And that's how it's the riches
of the world. Anytime that we We look at the word world, we
have to look at it in its context. Just like John 3.16, he's talking
about the world of believers there. That whosoever believeth
should have everlasting life. That's talking about God's people
all over the world. When you look at 2 Corinthians
chapter five, and what I think is verse 19, God was in Christ,
reconciling the world unto himself, What does it say? Not imputing
their trespasses unto them. Whoever he's talking about in
the world there, God doesn't charge them with their sin. You
see that? And if he doesn't charge them
with their sins, what does he charge them with? The righteousness
of his son. And so they cannot be condemned.
God's reconciled to them. God's at peace with them on a
just ground. The non-imputation of sins, which
the Bible teaches us, is the imputation of righteousness.
David said back in Psalm 32, blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not sin, or not iniquity, and in whose heart
there is no God. Well, Paul interpreted that by
inspiration of the Spirit in Romans 4, 6. He says when David
wrote, blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness
without works, when he wrote, blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity. So that's the word world. I've
kind of looked over this, and you all can check me on this,
but I don't think the word world is ever used in the Bible to
refer to everybody without exception. Now some people would go to, or the word all, they would go
to Romans 3.23, for all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God. Is that all without exception? No. Christ is accepted
there. The elect angels are accepted.
That's all sinners, all who fell in Adam. Now that's all of them
without exception, but you see what I'm saying. You've got to
look at that. And it's the same thing here.
The fall of the Jews meant that God was not going to confine
the gospel to that one nation. But he sent it out all over the
world because he has a people out of every tribe, kindred,
tongue, and nation. And the very first revelation
of God to Abraham made that statement in Genesis 12. Through thee all
nations shall be blessed. All nations. And the Jews had
lost sight of that. You know, even in the old covenant,
they were commanded and commissioned to be a light in the world, but
they failed. And don't get proud now, so would
we. But the gospel went out all over the world. And so their
great tragedy became the riches of the world. Well, if that's
the case, then Paul's saying here in verse 12, how much more
their fullness. If their great tragedy was a
rich blessing to the world, how much more of a rich blessing
would it be to see their salvation? And I believe what he's doing
here, to add to our joy, we know this, when we look at
unbelieving Israel as recorded in the Bible and today, One of
the first things that pops into my mind is, look, Lord, if it
weren't for your grace, I'd be right with them. I'd be no different. Isn't that right? If God saved
me, he saved me by grace, and I didn't earn it and didn't deserve
it. So when I look at the unbelieving Jews, what I ought to do is look
at them with sorrow and pray for their salvation. And that's
what Paul is showing here. He's telling, he's showing that
we should be very thankful for the Jewish people as God used
them greatly in our salvation. Now how did he do that? Number
one, it was through that nation that Christ in his sinless humanity
came into the world. Whenever the Bible says salvation
is of the Jews, that's what it means. Christ himself in his
humanity was a Jew. And I thank God for the Jewish
people. I do. I'm not anti-Semitic. I just don't recognize unbelieving
Jews to be our brothers and sisters in Christ, no more than I do
unbelieving Gentiles. But I'm not against them. Somebody
asked me one time, do you support Israel? I said I support them
politically, but not religiously. They're unbelievers. Those who,
that nation, They reject the Christ, who is my Lord and Savior. How should I react to them? Should
I hate them? Should I persecute them? No,
I should pray for their salvation. Somebody asked me one time, when
we get on into Romans 11, some people believe that in the end
time, before the second coming of Christ, that God's gonna save
everybody in that nation. Now, I don't think that's what
it's saying, and you can disagree with me, but I'll tell you what.
If God would save every Jew, I'd rejoice. Wouldn't you? That'd be great. So we owe them a lot of gratitude
because it was through them that God brought Christ and he was
made of the seed of David according to the flesh. Secondly, it was
through that nation, even in spite of them, that God preserved
and sent forth his word, the gospel, throughout the world.
Remember in Romans 1.16, he says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ, it's the power of God unto salvation to everyone
that believeth, to the Jew first, and to the Greek also. That means
it came through them, it was preserved through them, even
in spite of them. I think about, when I think about
God preserving the truth, I always think about, was it, which king,
in Judah when he commanded the priest to go and clean out the
temple and they found the book of the Lord. Was that Hezekiah? I think you're probably right.
He said they found the book and they brought it to the king and
read him the book. I mean, it was a real eye-opener.
And he began instituting reforms in Judah that would glorify God. So even in spite of them, God
preserved the word. But I'll tell you what, it's
in spite of us too, isn't it? If we were left to ourselves,
where would we be? We'd all be lost. Well, look
at verse 13. He says, for I speak to you Gentiles
inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine
office. Paul was not ashamed to be the
apostle to the Gentiles. He didn't consider himself a
second-rate or second-class apostle because his ministry was mainly
to the Gentiles. He preached to Jew and Gentile.
Peter preached to Jew and Gentile, although Peter, at first, he
did it reluctantly to the Gentiles. He had to be taught. He had to
be rebuked, you remember, one time. But Paul preached mainly
to Gentiles. Paul was the missionary, evangelist,
And he went out through the Gentile world, Ephesus, Galatia, Corinth,
and all these places, and God raised up churches in these areas,
using Paul as the means. And so he says, I magnify mine
office. It was an honor for Paul to go
out and preach the gospel. to whoever would listen to the
Gentiles. He wasn't ashamed of that, and so in verse 14 he says,
if by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my
flesh and might save some of them. Now Paul's not, obviously
he's not saying he can save anybody. He's just simply acknowledging
that God uses clay, broken vessels, broken clay pots like us to get
his message to his people. and saves them. It's God who
saves. Salvation is of the Lord. Paul knew that. But he's speaking
of himself as an instrument, a signpost you might say, to
point sinners to Christ. And he says, if by any means
I may provoke to emulation, that is to copy the Gentiles, any
of his fleshly brethren, that they might come to Christ just
like the Gentiles. There's only one gospel, there's
only one salvation, there's only one Lord. And whoever you are,
Jew or Gentile, we're all gonna come the same way. Might not
be in the same age or the same circumstance, but it's the same
way, it's Christ the way, it's by God's grace, it's by his righteousness
alone, his blood alone. And so he says in verse 15, he
says, for if the casting away of them be the reconciling of
the world. Now there again, there's the
word world. Now who's he talking about? He's
talking about some people who are reconciled. What is it to
be reconciled? It's to be at peace with God.
How can a sinner be at peace? How can God be at peace with
a sinner and a sinner be at peace with God? It must come through
the blood of the cross. That's what brings peace. It's
righteousness and peace have kissed each other, Psalm 85.
How's that happen? That's through Christ. who is
the prince of peace, who made peace by his death on the cross
between God and sinners. And so our gospel is the gospel
of peace. Listen, come to Christ. That's
how we're at peace with God. Before we come to Christ, before
we submit to him as the Lord our righteousness, in our minds,
we're alienated and enemies of God. We're at war with God, actually,
even though we don't see it and don't know it. People in religion
who don't know Christ are at war with God. People who kneel
to pray, who come to worship, who sing praises, but don't know
the Christ of this book, they're actually at war with God. They don't know it. All my life
growing up in religion, not knowing the truth, I was at war with
God and didn't even know it. But then when I heard the peace
terms through the preaching of the true gospel of salvation
conditioned on Christ based on his righteousness alone, then
I found out, whoa. You know, the Jews could look
at the Gentiles and say, they're idolaters. And you know what?
They were right. They could easily see the idolatry
of the Gentiles. I mean, look at those Philistines
bowing down to Dagon. Look at those Moabites bowing
down to their God. Look at the Egyptians. They could
easily see the idolatry of the Gentiles. But if they ever came
to a knowledge of the truth, as it is in Christ, his glorious
person and his finished work, then they see their own idolatry. Then they see their own dead
works, you see. They repent of dead works and
former idolatry. And so he says in verse 15, for
if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world,
what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead? If
God ever brings a sinner, to see the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. What is that? That's life from
the dead, isn't it? We're all born dead spiritually. So if a person comes to believe
the gospel, shouldn't I rejoice? That person's been raised from
the dead by the Holy Spirit in the new birth from the life of
Christ, just like I was raised from the dead. And so we rejoice. Jew or Gentile, all right.