Now, Scripture, and Paul here
in our lesson this morning, has some things to teach us about
the nation Israel. From what we know of Scripture,
we know that throughout their history, the Jews have spent
a lot of time looking for the Messiah. And we know that in
the Old Testament Scriptures and the New Testament, and I
reckon they're still looking for him. They don't think that
Jesus was the Christ, so I would imagine they're still looking
for him to come. They're looking for a king in the Old Testament
and here at the time that Christ, even when he came, they were
looking for a king who would come and restore them to world
prominence. In Christ's day, they were looking for a king
who would come and set them free from Roman oppression. I reckon
today they're looking for a king to come and defeat all the Arabs
and set them free from the headache of the Arabs. I don't know what
they're looking for. I do know what they're not looking for.
Even today, they're not looking for what they weren't looking
for in the day of our Lord. They weren't looking for a Savior.
They were looking for a physical king, but they weren't looking
for a spiritual king. And the reason for that is, is
the natural mind can only think in the natural realm. The natural
mind can't think in the spiritual realm or think about or desire
spiritual blessings. So all they can think about is
things in the lower realm, the natural realm. They were looking
for a king to come and give them natural blessings because they
never understood all the Old Testament scriptures that talked
about the Messiah, Christ, coming as a lamb, as a sacrifice for
sin. They take all the scriptures
of the Old Testament that refer to the second coming of Christ
and apply them to his first coming. That's why they missed him, because
they were looking for things about Christ from his second
coming, not his first coming. And when Christ came as a lamb
and came as a sacrifice for sin, they missed him because they
weren't looking for a lamb. They weren't looking for a sacrifice.
And not only did they miss him, they rejected him when he told
them who he was. And because of that, God has
given the Jews judicial blindness that's lasted till this day.
They cannot see because God's given that nation, for the most
part, judicial blindness. And he took the gospel from them
and sent it to Gentiles like us. Now that had an effect on
the Apostle Paul. He's a Jew. He's a Hebrew of
the Hebrews. He's of the tribe of Benjamin,
and this has a very serious effect on him, on his mind and his psyche.
He says here, Romans 9, verse 1, I say the truth in Christ,
I lie not. My conscience also bearing me
witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual
sorrow in my heart. Now Paul tells us how important
this matter of the Jews' spiritual blindness is to him. He takes
a vow that he's telling the truth. And he calls witnesses. He calls
his own conscience as a witness. He calls the Holy Spirit as a
spirit of truth as a witness that he's telling the truth about
this matter. That he loves these Jews so much that the fact that
they've rejected the only Savior, they've cut themselves off from
the only means of salvation, God's given them judicial blindness.
That gives Paul, he says, great heaviness and continual sorrow. Some of the writers say that
the way that should be translated is depression. He's just depressed
thinking about this. And it's not just a passing thought.
It's not just a thought, well, I really hate that. And he goes
on. It's continual sorrow. Over in
chapter 10, he expresses the same thought in verse 1. He says,
brethren, My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that
they might be saved. Paul had a very deep love and
affection for these people. He desired the best for them.
You know, people who know Christ, and this ought to be a characteristic
of us, people who know Christ ought to have a care for men's
souls. We shouldn't have the attitude,
we've got the gospel and all those people don't, looking down
on them. We ought to have a care for men's
souls. This is what the Apostle Paul
had, a care for men's souls. And this care is so deep that
he makes an amazing statement in verse 3. He says, For I could
wish that myself were cursed from Christ for my brethren,
my kinsmen according to the flesh. Paul says, I would be willing
to be cut off from Christ if my nation could be saved, could
know the Lord. I'd be cut off from Christ if
my nation could be drawn to Christ. That's an amazing statement.
If you look back in Exodus 32, Moses made the same statement,
pretty much, in Exodus 32. This is after Moses had been
to the mountain with the Lord. He'd come down and Israel had
made that golden calf. In Exodus 32, verse 30, And it came to pass on the morrow,
that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin, and
now I will go up unto the Lord, and perventure I shall make an
atonement for your sin. And Moses returned unto the Lord,
and said, O this people have sinned a great sin, and they
have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive
their sin." And I reckon Moses had a pause there. If you'll
forgive their sin, we'll be thankful. And if not, blot me, I pray thee,
out of thy book which thou hast written." Now, I've looked and
looked and looked at those statements this week. And that's a hard statement to
understand. And being completely honest with you, I could not
make that statement. I could not make the statement
and honesty that I would be willing to be cut off from Christ for
someone else's sake. I'd be willing to give up time
to study, teach the Word, because I want people to know Christ.
I sincerely do. But I can't say I'd be willing
to be separated from Christ for somebody else's benefit. I'm
just too selfish. And the only conclusion I can
draw from that is this. I'm very thankful salvation is
of the Lord and not of men Because as far as I know, I only know
of two men who made that statement. Moses and Paul. That's a precious
few people. You won't find very many people
to be willing to be cut off from God for you. But Christ. Salvation is of the Lord. And
I'm very thankful to leave that there. But unlike me, the Apostle
Paul really felt this way. And you see it throughout his
life. He's willing to suffer extraordinary things to preach
the gospel to unbelievers. He suffered beatings. He suffered
imprisonment and hatred of his brethren, hatred of idolaters.
He suffered threatenings. Ultimately, he was killed for
it. Yet he still felt this way. I see Paul as a very forgiving
man because he felt this way about people who hated him. People
who set out to kill him. There's a group of Jews one day
said, we won't eat until this man's dead. They hated him. Made his life miserable. Yet
he still felt this way, that he'd be willing to be separated
from Christ for them. And that truly is the mind and
attitude of Christ, isn't it? Christ was separated from his
Father for people that he loved. He left the bosom of his Father
and came to this earth to live as a man. And he became accursed
for the sin that was laid on him. He became accursed for the
people that he loved when he bore our sin and became completely
and totally separated from the Father on Calvary Street. He
was accursed, cut off, separated from the Father. And he did that
for his enemies. He did it for people who hated
him. I tell you, I know where Paul learned forgiveness. He
didn't learn it at the feet of Gamaliel, did he? Because Saul
of Tarsus was not a forgiving man. He is a hard man. The Apostle
Paul is a forgiving man because he learned forgiveness at the
feet of the Master, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where we
learn that. So he goes on here in verse 4 about his countrymen.
He says, Who are Israelites? To whom pertaineth the adoption,
and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and
the service of God, and the promises. Now, Paul's kinsman, according
to the flesh, these Jews, he says the adoption pertains to
them. Now, this is not the adoption
that we talked about a couple of weeks ago, the spiritual adoption
into God's family. This is a national adoption,
a physical national adoption where God adopted the nation
Israel out of the world. He chose them, separated that
little nation unto himself. That's the adoption. The glory
pertained to Israel, and only to Israel. The glory of God's
presence dwelt in Israel, above the mercy seat, between those
wings of the cherubims, the Shekinah glory of God shone. That's the
only place on earth, the only nation that had the manifestation
of God's glory was Israel. The covenants pertained to Israel. God's promise to Abraham. that
he'd have a seed, that his seed would come and possess this land.
The promise of the Messiah was only made to Abraham and to the
nation Israel. The promises made to David, that
a king is going to come through his line and reign on his throne,
that promise was made to Israel, to David. The covenant of the
law, that pertained only to Israel. Moses went up there to Mount
Sinai and got that law. That law was given to Israel,
just to that nation. All the details, the myriad of
details of the Mosaic Law were all given to Israel. No other
nation had that, just Israel. The service of God pertained
to Israel. That's the worship of God. Israel
is the only nation to have it. The worship of God through the
priesthood, through the sacrifices in the temple, the blood of all
those sacrifices on the Day of Atonement. The high priest wore
on his breastplate the names of those twelve tribes, and he
went in to offer atonement for their sins, just for those twelve
tribes. He didn't offer it for all the
tribes and the nations that lived around them, just Israel. That's the only nation that that
pertained to. And all the promises of God,
his promise of delivering them dozens of times from the The
nations that held him captive, there were so many of the prophets
that gave prophecy that years later came true, that God's going
to deliver Israel from this oppressor. The promise that Christ would
come. All those promises were only made to Israel. Well, he
goes on here about his nation, the Jews, in verse 5. He says,
who are the fathers? And of whom, as concerning the
flesh, Christ came, who was over all God's blessed forever. All
the fathers, the fathers of the faith were all Jews. Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, David, Moses, all the prophets were all Jews. And
that's a great blessing, but that pales in comparison to the
fact that the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, came to earth as a
Jew. That nation was so blessed, He
came of the house and lineage of David. He was raised a Jew. He was raised among the Jews.
That was God being raised a Jew amongst that nation. Here they
are going to work and to school, and there's that boy. That's
God in their midst. That was the only nation that
had Him in their midst. He came fulfilling their laws.
All those covenants, all the promises that God made that were
given to Israel, He came fulfilling in their midst. And that man
who is in their midst is over all. He has all preeminence in
everything. He is God Almighty. That man, God Almighty in human
flesh, dwelling among his people, the Jews. He came to the Jews
first. He came unto his own as a Jew.
And that's a tremendous blessing. You just can't overstate what
a blessing that is, how God has blessed that little nation. In
a sense, physically, He still blessed them. The only reason
that that nation has not been wiped off the face of this earth
is God still protecting them. That's the only explanation you
can come up with. Now, they rejected Him when He
came, but it was a tremendous blessing how He blessed them
through the years. And now verse 6, that being true,
to understand how those Jews were in judicial blindness because
they rejected the Lord. Paul says in verse 6, not as
though the word of God had taken none effect, for they are not
all Israel which are of Israel. Now we see the unbelief of the
Jews, how they rejected the Christ. But that does not mean that God
failed in His purpose. Someone might look at that And
they think, well, that's just, that was an utter, that experiment
was an utter failure. God's Word failed in giving faith
and understanding to those Jews. Well, Paul says very clearly,
their unbelief does not make void God's Word. Their unbelief
does not mean that God's Word has failed or become ineffectual.
Not in the least. The actions of men will never
thwart or change God's purpose. Never. It won't change one small
punctuation mark of God's Word. Not one now. Not one word of
God will ever fail. Every single promise will be
fulfilled and every single threat will be carried out. Every one
of them. Look over at Isaiah 34. In Isaiah 34, verse 16, seek
ye out of the book of the Lord, and read, No one of these shall
fail. None shall want her mate. For
my mouth it hath commanded, and his spirit it hath gathered them.
Not one promise will fail to meet its fulfillment. Not one.
Look over a few pages in Isaiah 55. Isaiah 55 verse 10 For as the rain cometh down,
and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth
the earth, and maketh it bring forth in bud, that it may give
seed to the sower, and bread to the eater, so shall my word
be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto
me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall
prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. And I tell all of
us, and particularly our young people, the more you see of this
world, the more you see of the world's so-called wisdom and
understanding, the more times you'll run across people that
will put forth arguments that contradict God's Word. And I
tell you in the strongest way I can think of, to never, ever,
ever put a question mark on God's Word. This Word is inerrant. There's not one word of it that's
false. There's not one word of it that's
an untruth or a slight truth. You take God's Word, you read
it, and believe it. Just believe it. Just rest in
it. I'm so thankful for God's Word.
No matter how long you live, this is the one thing, the one
and only thing that will never fail you. Both the written word
and the incarnate word. That's the only thing, the only
person that will never fail you. Your mind will fail you. Your
friends will fail you. Your health will fail you. Everything
will fail you but this. God's word. Both the incarnate
word and the written word. Never put a question mark on
it. But people will. And they'll say, well, God's
word failed with the Jews. And Paul says, no. They're not
all Israel. which are of Israel. Now what
on earth does that mean? That seems like a statement that
just contradicts itself. Not every Jew is a member of
true Israel, spiritual Israel. Look here at verse 7. He explains
this. Neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they
all children, but in Isaac shall thy seed be called. You see,
the Jews thought that God would only ever bless them, the Jews,
the natural descendants of Abraham. Well, Paul speaks earlier part
of this letter to the Romans showing how God's going to justify
both Jew and Gentile through faith. Not through works, not
through their lineage or who their parents are, but through
faith. Look back at chapter 3 and verse 29. Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles?
Yes, of the Gentiles also. Seeing it as one God which shall
justify the circumcision, the Jew, by faith, and the uncircumcision,
the Gentile, through faith. He's the God of all nations,
of everyone. And those Jews should have seen
that very easily in Ishmael and Isaac. the two sons of Abraham. Both those boys were descendants
of Abraham. They were both sons of Abraham.
But God only blessed one of them, didn't He? Now Ishmael, he is
just as much a natural son of Abraham as Isaac is. They are
both equally sons. But God only blessed Isaac. And the Jews, they were so proud
of the fact that they descended from Abraham. Yet some of the
people that they hated the most were descendants of Abraham,
too. They were equally descendants of Abraham. Both Jews and Arabs
are both descendants of Abraham. They both claim Abraham as their
father. Well, he is, naturally speaking. But God's spiritual blessing
only came through Isaac. Look back at Genesis 17. God
said this before Isaac was even born. because this is God's purpose.
Genesis 17, verse 19, And God said, Sarah thy wife
shall bear thee a son indeed, and thou shalt call his name
Isaac. And I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting
covenant, and with his seed after him. And as for Ishmael, I have
heard thee. Behold, I have blessed him. I
will make him fruitful, I will multiply him exceedingly, Twelve
princes shall he begat, and I will make him a great nation." And
God did bless Ishmael. He was true to his word. But
all those blessings to Ishmael are physical blessings, aren't
they? But look what he says about Isaac in verse 21. But my covenant
will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee
at this set time in the next year. God's spiritual covenant
is established with Isaac, with just one son. God's blessings
of salvation, his blessing of justification, eternal life comes
through the spiritual descendants of Abraham. Not the physical
descendants, but the spiritual descendants of Abraham. And if
you look over in Galatians 3, we'll see the definition of who
this seed of Abraham, the children of Abraham are. Galatians 3 verse 7, these are
the people that this covenant is established with. Know ye
therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children
of Abraham. Not his physical descendants,
he's talking about Gentiles here too, those which are of faith,
the same are the children of Abraham. And the scripture foreseeing
that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before
the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be
blessed. Not just one nation, but all
nations. Not just the Jews. This blessing
comes to members out of every nation on earth through the gift
of faith. Not through being somehow tied
to Abraham in your genealogy, but through the God-given gift
of faith. Abraham is the father of many
nations. Not just one, but many nations. And Isaac's natural sonship is
like so many other things we see in the Old Testament. It's
a picture. It's just given to us as a picture
of spiritual sonship. You see, there are many Jews
who are not members of true Israel. Now, there are many Jews who
are members of true Israel, by God's grace. There may not be
many today, but there are many. And there are many Gentiles who
are part of true Israel. And the common denominator No
matter what your natural genealogy is, Jew or Gentile, the common
denominator of everyone in true Israel is faith, faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now verse 8, that is, and here
he is explaining what it means in Isaac, shall I see you be
called. That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these
are not the children of God, but the children of promise are
counted for the seed. People do not become God's children
because of who their fleshly ancestors are. All our parents
can pass on to us is flesh, who and what we are. Those Jews were
not sons of God because they descended from Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. And the same thing is true, and
we need to guard against this as our children do. Parents know
this, but our children, we need to warn them. We're not believers. part of God's elect, part of
His covenant, because their parents are part of the covenant, or
our grandparents are believers. Like I said earlier in our study
in Romans, it makes us better off, but not better. We've got
the same flesh everybody else does. People become children
of God because God in grace, in eternity past, chose them
and put them in His Son, in the covenant of grace. People are
children of God because God gives them faith. in Christ. People
are children of God because they've been born again. They've been
born into God's family. Look over in John chapter 1. Here's a description of the sons
of God. The true children. John 1 verse
11. He came unto his own, and his
own received him not. But, as many as received him,
to them gave he power, the right, the privilege, the power to become
sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." They have
faith. Which were born. They were born again. Not of
blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man,
but of God. They've been born again. And
that nation Israel is just a picture of spiritual Israel that God
chose out of the sons of Abraham, or out of the sons of Adam. spiritual Israel out of this
world, just like he chose that little nation, Israel, out of
the world to separate unto himself. And every one of God's children
are children of promise, just like Isaac was the child of promise. Isaac was the child promised
by God, wasn't he? Ishmael was the product of Abraham
and Hagar and Sarah's imagination, what they thought they'd come
up with. Ishmael was the product of that. Isaac was the product
of God's promise. He was the promised son. And
all God's children are promised children. They are promised to
Christ in eternity past. They are promised life and sonship
in the Lord Jesus Christ, the child of promise in God's covenant.
Second, Isaac, the child of promise, was conceived by the power of
the Holy Spirit from a dead womb. Every child of God is the same
way. Conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit through the preaching
of the Word. He uses the seed of the Word,
the incorruptible seed, the Word of God. And we're given life
from the dead. by the will of God. He gives
life where it's never been before. Just like He put life in Sarah's
womb where life had never been before, He moves in His people
and gives life where there's never been before by the power
of God, the power of the Holy Spirit. We just read it. You're
born not by the will of man or the will of the flesh, but of
God, by His power. And third, if you look over in
Hebrews 11, Isaac was conceived by faith. By faith and in faith. Hebrews 11, verse 11. Through faith, also Sarah herself
received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child
when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had
promised. And all of God's children are
like Isaac, the child of promise, were conceived in faith. Salvation
is by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, this
promise that Paul's talking about here, look over in Galatians
3, was made to Abraham and to his seed. What's that mean? Well,
it doesn't mean his natural seed. It doesn't mean those Jews that
were descendants of Abraham. In Galatians 3, verse 16, Scripture
tells us very plainly what he's talking about. Now, to Abraham
and his seed where the promise is made. He saith not unto seeds
as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed which is Christ."
That promise was made to and through the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where the promise is found
in Christ. And Isaac was that promised child. And he's a picture of all God's
children, and he's also a picture of Christ. Isaac was the child
promised by God. So was the Lord Jesus Christ,
the child promised by God. Isaiah 9, verse 6. For unto us a child is born,
unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his
shoulder. His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty
God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. This was
the promised child. This is the child that Simeon
was looking for, the salvation of God. And he waited in the
temple. He's an old man. He waited a
long time. But he knew that child was coming. And you know how he knew? God
promised him. He's a child of promise. Isaac
was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. So was Christ. John is preached from a couple
weeks ago when the Lord, the angel came to Joseph and he said
that holy thing, which was conceived in Mary by the Holy Spirit. Conceived by the power of the
Spirit. Isaac was conceived by faith. Abraham and Sarah received
Isaac by faith. They believed God, they counted
him faithful. All of God's elect received Christ by faith. That's how we receive him. We're
part of the promise of salvation through faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ, through union with Him. We're children of Abraham through
faith in Christ. One more scripture, Galatians
3. Here's the description of the
children of Abraham. We're children through faith
in Christ. Galatians 3.29, And if ye be
Christ's, Then are you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the
promise. You're Abraham's seed, you're
a descendant of Abraham if you belong to Christ through faith
in him. And that's who Paul's talking
about. He's going to go on talking about this spiritual Israel here
in the next few weeks and we'll start looking at that next week.