Romans chapter 11, and we'll
read from verse 11. I say then, have they stumbled
that they should fall? God forbid, but rather through
their fall, salvation is come unto the Gentiles for to provoke
them to jealousy. And the apostles talking here
about the Jews. Now if the fall of them be the
riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches
of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness. For I speak to
you Gentiles, and as much as I am the apostle of the Gentiles,
I magnify mine office. If by any means I may provoke
to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of
them. 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? For if the first fruit be holy,
the lump is also holy, and if the root be holy, so are the
branches. And if some of the branches be
broken off, and thou being a wild olive tree wert grafted in among
them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the
olive tree, boast not against the branches. But if thou boast,
thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say
then, the branches were broken off, that I might be grafted
in. Well, because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou
standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear. For if God spared not the natural
branches, take heed, lest he also spare not thee. Behold,
therefore, the goodness and severity of God on them which fell, severity,
but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness,
otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. And they also, if they
abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in, for God
is able to graft them in again. For if thou wert cut out of the
olive tree, which is wild by nature, and were it grafted contrary
to nature into a good olive tree, how much more shall these, which
be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? For I would not, brethren, that
ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise
in your own conceits, that blindness in part is happened to Israel
until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel
shall be saved, as it is written, there shall come out of Zion
the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. For this is my covenant unto
them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the
gospel, they are enemies for your sakes, but as touching the
election, they are beloved for the Father's sakes. For the gifts
and calling of God are without repentance. For as ye in times
past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through
their unbelief, even so have these also now not believed that
through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. For God hath
concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon
all. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge
of God! How unsearchable are his judgments
and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of
the Lord? Or who hath been his counsellor?
Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto
him again? For of him and through him and
to him are all things, to whom be glory for ever. Amen. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. I trust that it is a truth that
none here would contradict or gainsay that we believe that
the Lord Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation. He is God's unique mediator of
peace to sinful men and women. From the eternal counsel of electing
grace to the everlasting doors of heavenly glory, no other saviour
will be found. No other name under heaven will
be given amongst men whereby we must be saved. From the source of perfect righteousness,
freely imputed to guilty sinners, that justifying grace which God
has found to lay upon the account of unworthy sinners, to the depths
of the covenant promises and the sovereign mercy bestowed
in unconditional love towards men and women. The Lord Jesus
Christ is the sole focus of the Father's pleasure and the only
deliverer of the chosen people. And this is our God, and this
is his way of salvation. This is our Saviour. And that
one, the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man, and what he suffered,
and what he did, and what he accomplished by his death, is
the only way of life to sinners. He is our only giver of life. And all who come to God by Christ
will be saved. and all who try to enter in by
another way will be eternally damned. This is the seriousness
of the uniqueness of the way of salvation. There is but one
door, there is but one way, there is but one access into the presence
of God, and that is through the righteousness which comes alone
by Jesus Christ, one for us by his death on our behalf at Calvary. Isaiah. In chapter 55, verse
6 says this, And I want to think a little bit this evening with
you about four simple lessons that we can take from this passage
in Romans 11, from those things that the Apostle has written,
which remind us of the uniqueness of that foundation, which is
the Lord Jesus Christ, for sinners such as us, wherever and whenever
they may have lived upon the face of this earth. Isaiah could
say, seek ye the Lord while he may be found. And there is a
resonance in that phrase because it is also true that while the
Lord Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation, so that way
of salvation has not always been discoverable. Seek him while he may be found. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only way of salvation. But the reality is that for many,
many people on this world, they could not find him because he
was not there to be found. The first thing I want to draw
your attention to this evening is the providential workings
of Almighty God as we see them revealed here in Romans chapter
11. The providential workings of
Almighty God. It doesn't matter whether we
had been an Old Testament Israelite or a New Testament Jew, or a
first century Gentile, or a modern day American, or Brit, it doesn't matter. The Lord Jesus Christ was only
and ever the way of salvation. And there were many, many people
who never found Christ who never saw Christ, who never heard of
Christ, and who went to a lost eternity without knowing the
way of grace. The Lord God, in his providential
dealings with men and women in the history of this world, dealt
with individuals and with small groups. He dealt with those Israelites
in the days gone by and he left many, many nations in their darkness
and without any glimpse or glimmer of the truth. And when we think
of nations, we have to think of tribes. And when we think
of tribes, we have to think of families. And when we think of
families, we have to think of individuals. men and women, boys
and girls, who never heard of the Lord Jesus Christ, who never
could call upon him while he was near. For there was no preacher
sent, there was no revelation given, there was no prophecy
declared, there were no types and symbols and metaphors set
up in their presence that they might discern by faith the Lord
Jesus Christ and in the providential workings of God, grace has come
only to a few. The working of grace has not
always been a constant thing. And we don't have to look back
very long in our own histories to see that there have been times
when missionaries have gone from this shore to lands in faraway
places in order to carry the gospel message to un-evangelised
people. And we know simply from looking
at our televisions and watching the internet that there are vast
tracts of the world today where to mention the name of Christ
would be a dangerous thing to do. We're militant religions of a
different kind. would quickly endeavour to close
down any testimony about God and the Lord Jesus Christ as
the only and unique way of salvation. Seek ye the Lord while he may
be found, call ye upon him while he is near. The revelation came
to the Old Testament saints The Old Testament, Israel, the prophets
were sent to them, not to Egypt, not to the Hittites, not to the
Amalekites. It came to Israel. And the reaction
of the people of Israel was invariably to reject the testimony that
was given. We read just on Sunday Stephen's
testimony where he said to that gathered council, the great council,
the Sanhedrin, as they stood him before them to accuse him
and condemn him, he declared, which of the prophets have not
your fathers persecuted? He was asking them a direct question.
I mean, that wasn't so very difficult for them to give him an answer.
Which one? Was it Moses? Was it David? Was it Isaiah or Jeremiah? Perhaps
Malachi or Micah or Jonah? Which one wasn't persecuted? And you see, God's providential
workings were always narrow and directed and limited. And even
within that, the vast majority of those who heard the testimony
turned their back against it and are considered by the saints
of God as a stiff necked people. Christ came to the Jews in the
days of his ministry and the Jews betrayed and murdered him. And the gospel was carried to
the Gentiles and the apostle Paul and a number of the other
apostles, as they took up that commission of the Lord, they
carried the gospel out into the world. But even there, we see
that it was always a narrow way, always a message which went to
one town and not another, one village and not another. that
there were times when the Holy Spirit closed down a ministry
and took a preacher away and sent him to another place and
the gospel wasn't preached. Seek ye the Lord while he may
be found. Call ye upon him while he is
near. The providential workings of
our God has been over the history of this world to show the Lord
in one place and to hide him in another. And yet we discover that in the
ways of God's dealings, as he sent his preacher here, and withheld
him from going somewhere else as he sent a prophet to one people
and held him back from another. The purposes of God have always
been accomplished and the remnant of grace have found their object. The arrows of grace have found
their target. And here is God's work in sending
out his gospel in a direct and a dedicated way in order to bring
those that are his chosen people to himself. Amidst the wide scale
rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ in this world, there is a remnant
that is being saved according to the purposes of God's will
and His grace. What a privilege we have when
we consider that in the rise and fall of nations, in the ebbing
and flows of world populations, throughout the history of this
world, upon the face of this globe, the Lord God has sent
His preachers to one and another in order to bring that individual
into a knowledge of the truth and into the experience of grace. We read about that in this Romans
chapter 11, how it was that one people were blessed with light
and then the light turned to darkness. and the gospel moved
on to somebody else. The opportunity passed, the message
was taken away, the candlestick as it were was removed and that
was the lot of the Jews and that's what the point that the apostle
is making here in Romans chapter 11. The Gentiles who had known
little I won't say nothing because there are some beautiful examples
in the Old Testament scriptures of where the gospel did go out
beyond the borders of Israel and perhaps we'll take some time
to think about some of those examples on another occasion.
But there were occasions when the gospel went out in amongst
the Gentiles and we can but imagine at what accomplishments there
was in those occasions. We have no written testimony
of it. Nevertheless, the Lord sent his
prophets to one place and to another in order to gather his
elect. And the testimony of Romans chapter
11 is that the providential workings of our God are according to his
wisdom, his ways, and his purpose. And he is accomplishing that
which he will do. Here's the thing, here's the
application. How blessed we are when the Lord
Jesus Christ comes to us. How blessed we are when we hear
the gospel. And how much ought we to thank
God and be grateful to him that he has brought that gospel to
us in our day, in our place on this globe. We could have been
anywhere. We could have been interested
in anything but by the grace of God he has put us on these
seats tonight where the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and
the way of grace and salvation is declared and preached and
he has brought us under the sound of the gospel. He has brought
Christ nigh to us. Seek ye the Lord while he may
be found. call ye upon him while he is
near. The Lord gathers his people from
here and there amid the general rejection of the gospel which
we see in our day, which is merely the continuation of a widespread
rejection that has always been there, even if there was any
illumination granted at all. The Lord gathers his people,
a privileged people, a blessed people, an enriched people, a
people of grace and mercy. And one door closes. and another
door opens. And along the way, as the gospel
goes forth, the elect are called, picked, as it were, as brands
from the fire, picked out by grace and mercy, and brought
into the knowledge of Jesus Christ, brought to call upon him, brought
to understand the significance of his blood and his sacrifice
and that which he accomplished on the cross on their behalf.
The Apostle Paul, it's interesting when He was going about his ministry. He obviously was aware here,
writing to the Romans, that this was a door that had closed as
far as Israel was concerned. And indeed, the apostle says
as much, that the Jews rejected him in the synagogues when he
went to preach. When he went into a town, he
would go first to the synagogue. It seems to have been his pattern,
always to go to the synagogue. And there, as occasion allowed,
stand up, and declare the person of Christ. But as often as not,
he was rejected in those synagogues till the point came where he
said that the judgment of God had fallen upon their heads and
he was turning to the Gentiles to carry his message. And that's
the thrust of Romans 11. But Paul sought prayer. He sought
prayer that God would open a door of utterance. In Colossians 4,
verse 3, he says, Pray for us that God would open a door of
utterance to speak the mystery of Christ. because one door was
closing, he sought the opening of another. And there's some
wisdom to be discerned in this, I believe, because we as preachers,
we as a church, we who seek that message to go out should always
be looking for doors of utterance that might be opened. As we see,
some reject the gospel, to know that if the Lord be gracious
to one sinner, he will open that door of utterance, that a message
may go forth and that that message will be heard, received and believed. In Acts chapter 14, verse 27,
Paul and Barnabas were returning and they gathered the church
together, I think it was at Antioch, and we're told there, Acts 14,
27, they rehearsed all that God had done with them and how he
had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles. See, God did
that. God did that. You're a Gentile.
and I'm a Gentile, we don't have a Jewish background, but God
opened that door and he sent a preacher that that preacher
would bring a message of grace and salvation to us. We spoke a little bit about that,
the way in which the preachers are sent and the way in which
the message of the gospel goes out as a targeted and as a directed
ministry. the providential workings of
our God. Here's the second thing that I want to show you from
this passage here. That the holiness that we possess
is a derived holiness. The righteousness that we have
is a righteousness which comes exclusively from the Lord Jesus
Christ. The method and the means of our
acceptance with God is the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the uniqueness,
once again, of that salvation that is found in Christ. No matter
who we are, no matter where we are, no matter what we have done
or what we have not done, the gospel is always the same message. that the only righteousness that
is acceptable with God is a derived holiness that comes from Christ,
and that there's nothing in our efforts or our works that will
in any way ingratiate us towards God, make us eligible for his
blessing, earn for us his goodness and his grace, except what we
have. in Jesus Christ as a received
gift of grace. Our acceptance with God is always
according to his goodness and magnanimity, always derived from
Christ, always perfect in him. In Romans 11, verse 16, we see
that. If you just look at the verse
there, it seems as if the apostle is picking this up simply as
a way of describing this engrafting that has happened. But it's a
lovely little verse and one that we should note for the sake of
our understanding of the gospel. If the first fruit be holy, The
lump is also holy, and if the root be holy, so are the branches. The Lord Jesus Christ could say,
I am the vine, ye are the branches. The apostle here has altered
the plant that he's speaking about. He's talking here about
the olive tree, but the principle is the same, that it is the root
that testifies or proves the quality of the fruit. If you've got the good root,
then you'll get the good fruit. You get good fruit because the
root is proper. The first fruits be holy, the
lump is also holy. If the root be holy, so are the
branches. And every child of God is received
by God. only insofar as we are grafted
into the Holy Root and of that same lump as the accepted first
fruit. And so our minds are taken to
the Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle is showing us here
that while the gospel went out to the Jews and it was received
of some but repudiated by many and thereafter went to the Gentiles,
it doesn't matter whether we're Jew or Gentile, doesn't matter
whether we're old Israel or the Jews of Christ's age, doesn't
matter whether we are here today or wherever we might be on the
face of this earth. That message of the gospel goes
out and it is one factor alone which makes the difference in
the acceptance of one man or another, the righteousness of
God in Jesus Christ. Oh, to have that righteousness. Oh, to have that acceptance with
God. Oh, to be at peace with Him because
of the work of Jesus Christ. Nothing in ourselves. Nothing
of ourselves. There's nothing that we can bring
in. This, this, this, it just, cuts, takes an axe to the root
of any idea of work salvation, any idea of individuals being
in some way more pleasing to God or less pleasing to God because
of the things that they have done. We are all sinners. We are all cut from the same
cloth. We are all unworthy. And even
our righteousnesses are filthy rags before the holy gaze of
Almighty God. But he gives a righteousness,
an acceptable righteousness. He gives a holiness which we
could never attain to by our own actions or works, which is
derived exclusively, wholly and completely from the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is our acceptable surety. He has stood for us. When God
looks upon us, he sees Christ. When he looks upon Christ, he
sees us. And this is the derived holiness
that we have from our holy representative. You remember how that little
lamb was taken in those days gone by at the time of the Passover
in Egypt, and it was examined for several days to make sure
that it was without spot and blemish. And the Lord Jesus Christ
in his life lived perfectly before men and God. No one could bring
any legitimate accusations against him. He was perfect in all he
did and thereby he showed himself to be a worthy representative,
a suitable saviour. We cannot take a morsel or a
modicum or a smidgen of goodness for ourselves, but what is derived
from the Lord Jesus. Grafted into the root, we are
holy in Him. Righteous, perfect, spotless,
acceptable in the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 5.19 says, For
as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so in
Adam many fell. By one man's disobedience many
were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be
made righteousness. By the obedience of the Lord
Jesus Christ. By that I don't understand his
obedience to the law. It was his obedience to death.
It was his death and it was that sacrifice that he made on the
cross which derives our holiness to us. Hebrews 10, 14 says, for
by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. What's the ground of our standing? Where is our boasting? It's in
Christ. It's in what he has done and
what he has accomplished. thinking about the providence
of God's dealings with men and women and how he has placed some
in the Lord Jesus Christ from which and from whom they derive
their holiness. And that is the only way of salvation. But the wonder of this work is
that it will achieve its end. And then we come to this little
phrase, verse 26, and so all Israel shall be saved. Now, I don't understand by this
phrase that there will come a time when the nation of Israel will
all be saved. I don't see that in scripture,
although I know that there are some who take that line and understand
that this is speaking about a day to come when the nation of Israel
will turn back to the Lord Jesus Christ. But this is a promise
of God that all Israel will be saved. Not the nation Israel,
not the political state, but the children of promise, whoever
they be, whether they be Jew or Gentile. It doesn't matter. That has all been taken away
as far as the Lord is concerned now. That gospel has gone to
the ends of the earth. And this is the remnant that
is being spoken of here. This is the election of grace. This is that people that have
been placed in the Lord Jesus Christ and the eternal counsel
and will be to a man and a woman saved. All Israel. will be saved. And that's a tremendous comfort
to the Lord's people because that shows us that the Lord's
will will be perfectly accomplished. These are those identified in
Paul's argument all along. These are they to whom the gospel
was going to come, who were the children of Abraham, who were
the children of faith, those to whom the gospel came in power
to save, wherever, whenever. the Lord and his people scattered
amongst the nations, scattered amongst the ages. And he has
had a way of reaching every single one with the message of Christ,
whether that is in a figurative form or in the clear statements
of Christian gospel preaching. Whom the Father has chosen are
redeemed in Christ and called by the Holy Spirit. The great
triune God works together, a chosen people committed into the care
of Christ, redeemed to a man on the cross and brought under
the sound of the gospel by God the Holy Spirit throughout the
ages to the saving of their souls and the gathering in of his church. It's a perfect fit. It's a complete
success. It is the work of God. How could
it be any else? Here is God achieving his aim,
his end, and his purpose. All Israel is everyone to whom
the promises of grace and peace and eternal life were made in
Christ. All that were given to him, all
that were safeguarded by him, all that were under his charge
as he came as their representative and stood before God and accomplished
every demand and bestowed every grace and blessing upon them. True Israel never was a race
or a nation. It was never a matter of the
flesh. True Israel is spiritual. It's
born of grace. It's built upon the foundation,
which is Jesus Christ, our Lord. And true Israel is revealed by
faith through the calling of the gospel. Galatians 3, 7 speaks
of, Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same
are the children of Abraham. That is the all Israel, that
is the remnant people, that is the remnant of grace and all
Israel will be saved. So we see that in God's providential
purposes, the gospel goes out to certain individuals. They
derive their acceptance, their holiness, their righteousness
from the work of the Lord Jesus Christ alone. And all Israel
will most certainly be saved because the work of God has assured
it will be so. And what would man say to that
message? What has man always said to that
message? We'll find our own way, thank
you very much. We'll sort ourselves out, thank
you very much. But this is the unsearchable
purpose of God. We read in verse 33, O the depth
of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable
are his judgments and his ways past finding out! Who would have
thought that God would have purposed an eternal counsel to save a
man like me? Who would have thought that God
would have had me in his eye all that time, in all those eternal
realms, to find a way of sending the gospel to me? And these are
the unsearchable judgments of our God. He has arranged it all. He has put it all in place. He has a beginning, He has a
middle, and He has an end, and He sees every pathway. and he
is in control of all the eventualities and all the ways of this world. All time is in his charge, all
people are under his control and he brings to pass in unsearchable
judgments the wonderful end of his purpose of grace and mercy. No matter what men say, no matter
what this wisdom of the world speculates about Christianity
and what it's all about and how we get there and what we all
have to do. no matter what it determines
to be the truth and sets up as the standard and the testimony
of Christian witness or religious observance. Doesn't matter, doesn't
matter. Let them run on in their foolishness. The unsearchable judgments of
God will stand and his ways will be vindicated. The world speculates
and the world determines its own ways, but it is the wisdom
of God and it is the judgment of God that prevails and is accomplished. It is Christ's sacrifice that
matters. It was that great work of obedience. It was the preciousness of the
blood that counted with God. Nothing else, nothing else. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 24, it says,
But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ
is the power of God, and Christ is the wisdom of God. It is Christ
that was set up in those eternal purposes to be the way of salvation
for his people and all Israel will be saved and God will accomplish
it by his providential dealings, by making them fitted in Christ
to receive his righteousness and his blessings. There have been times in the
history of this world when the gospel of grace has prevailed
amongst one group, in one place, at one time. And then it has come to its end. And the gospel has moved on somewhere
else, another town, another state. another city, another country,
and the providential purposes of God have thereby been accomplished. It went to the Jews first, and
then it moved on to the Gentiles. They became the beneficiaries,
and thereby was the wisdom of God fulfilled, and the ways of
God justified. Some lived, and died without
ever hearing the gospel preached. Others heard it all their lives,
and it meant nothing to them. But to some, in God's infinite
wisdom, the message came with power and grace. And that's the
same message, the same message which is preached, the same message
that goes forth in the preaching of the Gospel. And when Paul
says, pray for us, that we might have a door of utterance granted. That's the same door of utterance
that we seek today, that we might take this message to the needy
hearts of men and women, and thereby God will call his elect
unto him. Seek ye the Lord while he may
be found. Call ye upon him while he is
near. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2,
16, to the one we are the saver of death unto death. and to the
other, the saver of life unto life. And who is sufficient for
these things? Who's sufficient for these things?
Oh, the dead. of the riches, both of the wisdom
and knowledge of God. Who is sufficient for these things? How unsearchable are his judgments
and his ways past finding out? Who is sufficient for these things? For who hath known the mind of
the Lord? Or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him,
and it shall be recompensed unto him again? That verse says, to
whom does God owe anything? To whom does God owe anything? We are privileged to be amongst
those who have heard the gospel. We are blessed to have had Christ
lifted up before our eyes when so many have been blinded, when
so many have been deafened to the accomplishments of Christ
upon the cross. But oh, what a wonder to know
that we have been made holy by him. that we have been washed
in his blood, that we are heirs of his salvation, that grace
beyond measure and wisdom beyond compare is ours eternally. It is God's goodness and it is
our utter mercy. All we can do is be thankful. All we can say is thank you. We can but praise his name. Why he should choose me and pass
over so many others. Set me in Christ and leave so
many others in Adam. free me from sin, and leave so
many others in their bonds. God only knows, and I say it
with reverence, and I say it with gratitude, God only knows
how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. Sometimes we use this little
verse right at the end of Romans chapter 11 to, as it were, round
off and bring to a conclusion our worship service as a little
benediction. And it is very appropriate that
we do and very appropriate that we remind ourselves of these
words again this evening. For of him and through him and
to him are all things to whom be glory for ever. Amen. May the Lord be pleased to remind
us that it is all of Christ, it is all of God, it is all of
his ways and his wonderful mercies towards us, that we have any
standing before him at all is entirely due to his grace, to
his unsearchable judgments, to his providential dealings, to
that righteousness which he is pleased to bestow upon us sinful
people, and to receive us in the Lord Jesus Christ as part
of that great body of all Israel that will be saved. And here
we see the grace of our God. For of him and through him and
to him are all things, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.