All right, if you'll take your
Bibles now and turn with me to the book of Jonah, Jonah chapter 4. I'm going to conclude, I think,
the series in this book of Jonah, and I want to do so with an overview
of the entire book. Now, I read nearly everything
in my library concerning this fourth chapter of the book of
Jonah, and I wasn't satisfied with any of it. And I never have been. I've read
this thing over the years. I've sat and listened to preachers
preach everything in the book of Jonah except chapter four.
And when they come to that gourd, they just go another direction.
They never deal with that gourd. And I read John Gill and Charles
Spurgeon and John Calvin, and I read thirty or forty messages
by different men on this fourth chapter of Jonah. And they all
had good things to say. You know, some of them tried
to compare the gourd to worldly pleasures. And here's Jonah sitting
there in his little brush arbor booth that he made to hide him
from the sun. And God caused this gourd to
grow up around him and shelter him and put him in the shade.
And they likened that to worldly things that God gives us. He
gives us a good home, and He gives us clothes, and He gives
us good weather, and all those things, good crops. And then
He comes along and He takes them away. And then our attitude toward
God for taking it away, because it wasn't of our doing, but we
got it. But we're going to fuss when
God takes it away, like we did earn it, like it was ours. And in that sense, I suppose
there's a lesson there, but that's not the lesson. That has nothing
to do with what Jonah's doing, is what I'm trying to tell you. Jonah came to Nineveh to preach
the gospel, and he preached the gospel to them, and God showed
mercy to them, and it made him mad. And he went out there, and
with his lip out, he sat there in his booth and waited on God
to burn that city up. That's what he wanted. He didn't
want mercy to come to that city. He wanted judgment. And when
he prayed to God, he was more than just upset. It's the only
prayer I know of in the Old Testament where a man prayed to God in
anger. He was mad. No doubt the Lord laughed at
his servant, because there's humor there. Knowing anything
at all about the eternal living God, for a man to fly up into
the face of God, it would be just like one of your little
children when they get mad and that little lip quivers and they
stand there and you just almost laugh at them when they stand
there. Well, this is how Jonah was. But he was upset. He was
angry. Under death he was angry. And
God said, Doest thou well to be angry? Why are you angry? What are you trying to accomplish
in your anger? So what I'm telling you is this
thing is in relation to what's going on. It's not in relation
to earthly pleasures. God's not going to put a man
out in the belly of a whale and resurrect him and send him into
a Gentile city and bring him out and then set him out in the
desert to teach you a lesson about pleasures. That's not what's
going on in Jonah chapter 4. And then some dealt with this,
you know, how we personally react to God's workings in our lives.
And I suppose there's an application there, if you really want to
get into it, that God does things. I mean, gee whiz, I went from
Louisiana to Kentucky to Arkansas. And all of these things, when
they first happen, are upsetting in a way. They're upsetting because
you're uprooting your family. You're leaving job security. All these things interact and
take place in your life. And so do trials, and so do all
these other things. And then some of them talked
about Jonah's physical weaknesses and how he reacted under stress,
being tired. He'd been in the belly of a whale
for three days, and then God resurrected him, and then he
preached. For I don't know how many days. He's kept crying yet
40 days. And I can't believe that he's
out here in this brush arbor going to wait 39 more. I think
he preached a lot of those days in Nineveh. And they talked about
how he was tired and how he was reacting silly to God and his
weakness and all kinds of stuff. And none of that's got anything
in the world to do with what's going on in Jonah chapter 4. Now very briefly, let me give
you what I believe actually took place, and then I'll give you
my conclusion on the whole matter. So first of all, here's what
I see that actually took place. Jonah was a Jew. He was a Jew. He was an Israelite. He was more
than a Jew. He was a prophet. He was a prophet. A prophet in Israel was one of
the most feared and reverenced positions there was. If God's curse came on that people,
it came through that prophet. If God's blessing came to that
people, it came through that prophet. If that people was to
learn anything from God, they're going to learn it through His
man, through that prophet. God spake unto our fathers. That's
what Paul said there in Hebrews chapter 1, under the inspiration
of the Holy Ghost. He said, God spake to our fathers
through the prophets. And Jonah was a prophet, and
he was a Jew. He was a Jew. And a prophet was
to be known by things that God would declare to come. That's
what it said under the law, describing false prophets. He said if this
prophet were to foretell an event, or foretell something was going
to come to pass, or tell you that a curse was going to fall
on Israel, or a curse was going to fall on these Gentile people,
or whoever it was, whatever this event was that this prophet said
was going to come to pass, If it don't come to pass, they said,
take him out and stone him because he's not a prophet. Ain't that
what it said? That's exactly what it said. And that's exactly why when today,
when I talk about false religionists and false prophets, these false
prophets on TV and on the radio, that hasn't changed. That business
hasn't changed. And when their message is not
in harmony with the message of the gospel, they're false prophets.
They're false prophets. You'd write them off. Write them
off as dead men. They're dead men. Dead while
they live. Reprobates. God would give them
over to a reprobate mind to believe a lie and be damned. Give them
over to strong delusion. Well, here in chapter 3 and verse
10, let's start reading right there. It says, And God saw their
works, that they turned from their evil way, and God repented
of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them. And
he did it not. Chapter 4. But it displeased
Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry, and he prayed unto
the Lord, and he said, I pray thee, O Lord, was this not my
saying when I was yet in my own country, when I was there with
my kinsmen? Now, when I was there with people
of like faith with me, this is exactly what I said in my heart
toward you. Therefore, I fled before unto
Tarsus. That's why I left. That's why
I took off. That's why I hightailed it out
of there. For I knew that thou art a gracious
God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest
thee of the evil. Therefore now, O Lord, take thy
beseeched me, my life for me, for it is better for me to die
than to live." Now, what in the world is going on in the heart
of this prophet? Let me tell you what it is. He
is more concerned about his own reputation back in Israel than
he is with the reputation of God. Now, that is what is going
on in the heart of this prophet. That's why he's not upset because
God showed mercy or because he didn't show mercy. He's upset
because God didn't burn up that city, and when Jonah was back
in Israel, he said, God sent me down here to Nineveh, and
He's going to destroy that city, and I'm not going back to Nineveh.
I'm high down and out of here. So he took off. He didn't want
to go back to Israel as a failure. And the Israelites were going
to see him as a failure. They were going to see him as
a false prophet because God didn't burn up Nineveh. Nineveh is still
standing. It's still standing, and he's so upset about it. He
doesn't want to go back. He doesn't want to deal with
this whole thing anymore. This whole thing is out of his
hands. He couldn't even run away from
God. God had come over and arrested him and brought him down here.
And you would think his confession in the belly of the whale that
salvation is of the Lord would have been enough. It wasn't enough.
It wasn't enough. It wasn't enough any more than
it's enough with us. We look to Christ crucified on
that cross, died in our room instead, and we wake up rebels. Huh? That's the truth. That's the truth. Paul said,
what I would do, I do not. The very thing I wouldn't do,
that's what I'd do. That's what I'd do. That's where
Jonah was at. Mixed up, confused, upset. And God told him, he was sitting
there in his anger, he built that little booth and he sat
down there in it hoping that God would go ahead and burn this
place up and save him face. Now that's what he was doing
out there. And he was pouting. And God, this is still God's
child. And God caused this gourd to
grow up over him and shelter him. And it eased his grief,
the Scripture said. It eased his grief. And he sat
there in the shade for a little bit, and he thought, boy, things
are coming my way now. He's going to burn this thing
up. The tides turned. This was getting
ready to happen. And God sent a worm and ate up
his gourd. And it withered. Withered his
gourd. And then God sent a hot east
wind, and it blew on him, and that hot eastern sun come out,
and old Jonah just fainted in the sand. And there he lay in
the sand. And then God revived him, and
He told him, He said, You know, you had pity on a gourd. You
sorry about a gourd that you didn't have any labor in whatsoever. You didn't even think about planting
a gourd. You went out there and built
a little shelter out of brush. And I sent you this gourd and
caused it to grow up, and you're so sorry like I took something
that belonged to you when I took it away. But he said, you've
got no pity on this city down here if we're in at 60,000 babies. When he says in there that couldn't
discern the left hand from the right, he's talking about children,
little baby children. That's what he's talking about.
Down here in this great city that you have no compassion for,
you're sitting out here with your lip out, waiting on me to
burn it up. Just burn it up. That's what
he wanted God to do. There are 60,000 babies down
there, and this man can't find it in his heart to find compassion
for one of them. and all that they earned and
all they're living in the cattle. He said, the only thing you're
concerned about is your little shade under your gourd and your
own comfort. You're worried about yourself.
That's what God is telling Jonah. You're worried about yourself.
Your whole idea of the ministry of God is in this little circle
right here that revolves around you. Now, that's what actually
took place. That's what actually took place.
And there's no end to the practical applications here to our own
attitude and toward the workings of God in our lives concerning
the ministry and the gospel. Jonah was more concerned with
his own reputation than he was with God's. He was more concerned
with his own ideas and concepts of what should
have taken place, his own judgments. He was more concerned with that
than he was with what God actually did. Well, brethren, when God
does a thing, it's right because He does it. God can't do wrong. All Jonah had to do was keep
his mouth shut and watch. Whatever God did, it had to be
right. Had to be right. But he was more concerned with
his own judgments about what was going on and his own ideas
about what was going on to even look and see what God was doing. Jonah was more interested in
his office as a prophet than he was in the reason why he was
a prophet. And Jonah was more interested
in how these things affected him than he was in how Nineveh
was affected by his preaching. He wasn't worried about the outcome
of Nineveh, he was worried about the outcome of Jonah. And there
he was. Can you see yourselves in this
a little bit? I can see myself. I can see myself in it. Are we more concerned? We're
more concerned over our children than we are our neighbors' children,
ain't we? Sure we are. If we publish a
bulletin, the first one gets it. My girl. My daughter. First
one on the bulletin list. That's us. We're more concerned
with ours and our own than we are with anything else. That's
just the way we are. As a preacher, am I more concerned
with what men think about what I say than I am in the will of
God in what I say and why I say it? There are some questions
here. I'm telling you, this thing is
full of practical applications. Do I put more emphasis on my
being a preacher than I do with my relationship with God? Some
people are just in love. I've known men like this. They're
in love with preaching. They're not in love with God.
They're in love with preaching. There's just no end to this goad
driven to ease his grief, but then taken away to show him the
lack of grief for those souls in that great city. He found himself thankful for
an ease to his own grief, but angry when it disappeared. And its coming and its going
had nothing to do with anything in him. One writer had a whole message
on this. This would make a good message. And I'm going to bring
a little bit of it in just a little bit later on. But the name of
his message intrigued me. I was scrolling down through
his different messages and I rolled up on this and I really thought
it would be Charles Spurgeon, but it wasn't. It was some other
man. But his whole message was on
this, God's worm. God's worm. Boy, God's worm took
away his ease, didn't it? Took away his little shelter.
All right. This is actually what took place
in my mind. This prophet sitting out here
feeling sorry for himself, worried about his own reputation when
he goes back home, not concerned with Nineveh whatsoever because
he never could see Nineveh as the children of God. He just
could not. He was a Jew. He was a Jew. Now, let me give
you what I believe is what this whole book is all about. Here
is my conclusion. The book of Jonah is about a
prophecy of a coming Redeemer. Now, that's what it's about.
To him, I know this is so because it says to him, give all the
prophets witness. All of them. This is the subject
matter, no matter what the application you might be able to make. The
subject matter of it, the heart of it, is right here. The purpose
of God in a coming Redeemer. He's coming. He's coming. who
has his beginnings declared in a man running away from the purpose
of God, but being arrested by God, and then cast into the deep,
and then being raised up by the hand of God, he goes where God
intended all along that he should go, to a people who were not
his people, and the reaction of Israel to the revealed will
of God. Now, God separated a people. And he called them after his
servant Jacob. He said, they're children of
Israel. That's where Israel, that's where
natural Israel, they're the children of Israel. And to them, Paul
said, well, what profit was there? I believe it's there in chapter
3 of Romans. He said, what advantage do they
have? What's the big deal about being an Israelite? Well, he
said, much in every way, but chiefly because unto them were
committed the oracles of God. Oracles is the spoken or written
word of God. They had the word of God. They
had the voice of God spoken to them. Think about that. That's quite an advantage. That's
quite an advantage, isn't it? God spoke to them. He didn't
speak to those Canaanites, and he didn't speak to them Hittites
and Amorites and all the rest of them. He didn't speak to anybody
down there in Egypt, but he spoke to those children of Israel.
And he spoke to them through his prophets, and he spoke to
them sometimes by audible voice. Think about this. In Israel,
he demonstrated and pictured and made known his will and his
ways. Everything designed and given
to Israel was designed to minister to sinful men and reconcile sinners
to God. I wrote an article this week.
I'm going to try to get it in the bulletin. But the article
is after this scripture that says the law was not made for
a righteous man. What's it made for a righteous
man? What need does a righteous man
have of the law? He doesn't need a substitute.
He's righteous. He doesn't need a sin offering.
He doesn't need a sacrifice. He doesn't need a priest to represent
him or make intercession for him before God. He's a righteous
man. He doesn't need the Ten Commandments.
He's righteous. What does he need the Ten Commandments
for? He doesn't need threats of punishment or promises of
reward. He's righteous. The law is not
made for a righteous man. Well, what's it made for? It's
made for sinners. The lawless, the ungodly, and
for sinners. That's why the law works. It's
to keep us from being as evil as we could be. That's what the
law was about. The law was there to take away
our avenues of escape. It was to leave us, shut our
mouths and leave us guilty before God. Not for a righteous man. And everything that God designed
and gave to Israel was designed to minister to sinful men and
reconcile sinners to God. Everything. And he gave it to
them that they might be an example unto the world. That's why he
gave it to them. That his name might be declared
throughout the earth. Ain't that what he said? Throughout
the earth. Israel didn't declare his name
throughout the earth. Israel kept his name in Israel.
Now, let's be honest. Buddy, if you wasn't in Israel,
you didn't just stay away from me. You were away from me. That's
where Jonah was at. That same attitude, it rang through
Israel all down through time. You see it in the Bible, how
God just punished them one time right after the other. Finally,
over there in Isaiah, he said, why should you be smitten anymore?
He said, you're covered right now from
your head to your feet with wounds and bruises and putrefying sores,
and he's talking about all his the basements of their worship,
and all these things that He put them through, and all these
punishments and curses on them, and it didn't do them any good.
They just went right on in their old religion just like they always
do. It didn't make any difference. Just like today, we get disasters
and we get all these things that God does in the earth, and nobody
pays any attention to it. They just do a little clean up
and go right on back to the way they was. I guarantee you, I
haven't been down there, don't know anything about it, but I
guarantee you, New Orleans is still New Orleans. Huh? God come in there and watch that
place out. But it's going to go right back to what it was.
It doesn't do any good. Everything God gave to Israel,
He gave it to them designed to minister to sinful men and reconcile. And in this law was provisions
for the stranger. If a stranger was to come in,
He said, don't green all your fields. You leave the corners.
And you leave the greetings. You don't send a bunch of servants
back there picking up every little grain. You leave it there for
the strangers and the poor. And he made all kinds of provisions
through the law of God for strangers that would come in because he
said, that's where I found you. You were a stranger wandering
from God, and I found you. But Israel rebelled against God,
and it turned from his declaration of God to the world to preserve
its own honor and its own dignity. Israel had no interest in the
world. They didn't see any purpose of God
in the world, anything about the purposes of God or the law
or any of those things that concerned the world. They had no interest
in them. They had no consideration for them. They had no compassion
toward them. Here is their confession, that
Pharisee standing in the temple. Our Lord said, here is a Pharisee. The Pharisee was the best the
Jews had to offer. And here he is. And here is this
Gentile back here in the back. And he has got his head down,
and he won't even so much as look toward heaven. And he is
praying. But this Pharisee standing up
there looking right up into the face of God, and he says, I thank
God I am not like other men. Huh? Everything God gave to that
Pharisee, he gave to him to reconcile sinners, didn't he? But he's
not a sinner. He's not a sinner. This man back
here is the sinner. Lord have mercy on me, the sinner.
That was his prayer. Israel, the nation, had long
since left the purpose and counsel of God and had entered into the
company of idolatry. They climbed on this ship. If
you can see Jonah as a picture of Israel, just picture Jonah. He's representing the whole nation
of Israel, and he gets on this ship, John, and he just goes
to sleep. He's right there. He's right
there in the midst of idolaters and pagans and heathens. He's
doing the very same thing they're doing. Going to the very same
place they're going. All of them on the same vessel.
All of them going the same direction. That's Israel. That's Israel. They entered into the company
of idolatry and set a course for their own destination and
their own desires. But then God sent a storm. He
sent a storm. What's the storm? Storm's Christ.
Storm's Christ. Over there in that little town
of Bethlehem, everything was just going along. They didn't
like their being under bondage, but they were satisfied. in their religion. They were
satisfied in the priesthood. Satisfied. They settled down
there and had a few divisions, you know. They had the Sadducees
and the Pharisees and the Scribes. And they were satisfied with
that. Everybody got along that way. They all had their little
cliques. They were satisfied. They were satisfied in the priesthood.
Satisfied with everything they were doing. Asleep in the ship. That's Israel. That's Israel. But over here in this little
town of Bethlehem, a baby's born. He said a son is given, a child
is born, and a son is given. That's what happened over in
Bethlehem. Here comes the Son of God, the promised Redeemer,
the Messiah, and He causes a storm in Israel. He rocks their boat,
don't He? From the time he was 12 years
old, he walked into the temple, a 12-year-old boy, picked that
Bible up and put them Pharisees scratching their head. They couldn't
understand what he was talking about out of that book. He understood
that book because that book was altogether written about him.
He was in harmony with the book. He understood the book. He understood
what it was about. And he just left them scratching
their head. They was amazed at his wisdom of the Scriptures.
God sent a storm in there. He began to talk about blessings
on somebody other than Israel. Huh? He began to go against the
grain. He went completely against everything. He was a controversial man. He
went totally against everything. And Israel despised him. They
despised him. And God arrested Israel. He arrested
them in this man. And He brings to a close rebellious
Israel. And this one man, he's the issue. He makes himself. Just like when
they woke Jonah up and they brought him up there on board, Jonah
said, I'm the issue. I'm the problem. I'm right here.
Here's the whole issue right here. Now, this rebellion and
all these things are going to be settled in Israel. They're
going to be settled. And the only way they can be
settled is for this man to voluntarily put himself into the hands of
the people and have people throw him in the sea, into the wrath
of God. And that's what happened. That's
what happened. Peter told Israel after these
things happened, he said, You by wicked hands have crucified
and slain the Lord of Glory. The only place wherein God's
name can be declared, he said, you nailed him on the cross.
He nailed him on the cross. All right, now, God raises him. He raises Israel
back out of the sea. But where does he send them? He sends them to the Gentiles.
Now, isn't that exactly what happened? When God raised Christ
from the dead, He raised Him up, seated Him up here in heavenly
places at His own right hand, and He sent His church to the
Gentiles. to that Gentile city. Well, what
happened to Israel? How did Israel receive that?
They throwed their lip out, didn't they? Huh? Made them angry, didn't
they? Just like they did Gona. See,
Gona is a picture of Israel, and here he is in his boot, and
he's lying there, and everything that he, God calls this temporary
gourd, His presence and His promises
and all these things, the tabernacle and the priesthood and all these
things that He gave to Israel gave them comfort. They saw comfort
in those things. They took ease in those things.
They took pleasure in those things. It sheltered them. You see what
I'm saying? It was a refuge for them. And
God sent a worm. He sent a worm. And He ate it
up. And that worm is jealousy. Jealousy. Jealousy is the worm. It's the
worm. And it began to eat that shelter,
just eat it up. They heard they said, and they
watched. Just try to picture Jonah sitting here, preached
to this city, and from his heart that God was going to burn that
place up. He's going to overthrow it. He
said there's going to be less in this city than there was in
Sodom and Gomorrah. There ain't going to be nothing
here tomorrow morning. except the smell of burnt flesh. That's
the only thing that's going to be in here. God's going to burn
it up. It talks about that smoke that
Abraham saw rising up out of that valley after God burned
up Sodom and Gomorrah. That's what he wanted to say.
But here's these Jews. They were so confident, so assured
that they were the children of God. And they weren't. And the gospel just took away
that glory. Withered that glory. And left
them with their face in the sand. It says Jonah fainted. Does that
mean God is not going to save any Jews? No. I just read it
to you in Romans chapter 11. That's not what it says. That's
not what it says. Let me read you some scriptures.
Look here in Romans chapter 9. Romans chapter 9. He says here in verse 6, he said, Not as though the word
of God had taken none effect, for they are not all Israel which
are of Israel, neither because they are the seed of Abraham
are they all children, but in Isaac shall thy seed be called.
That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the
children of God, but the children of the promise are counted for
the seed. And then listen to this over there in Ephesians
chapter 2, verse 13. He said, But now in
Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were afar off are made now by
the blood of Christ, for he is our peace, who hath made both
one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between
us. When God sent Jonah to Nineveh, he revealed his purpose of grace. He revealed his purpose of grace
in election and in redemption. But it extended far beyond the
Jews. But it was all-inclusive of that
promise that he gave to Abraham that it was going to be a blessing
on all the nations of the earth. Ain't that what he said to Abraham?
I see. Going to bless all the nations
of the earth. Out of all the nations of the
earth, out of every kindred and tribe and people and tongue under
heaven, he said, I have a people. I have a people, and I'm going
to call them out. Jonah couldn't see that. He thought
this whole thing was just on Israelites. Just on Israelites. Look over here at Colossians
chapter 1. He sent Jonah down there to Nineveh.
He revealed his purpose of grace and redemption to go way beyond
the scope of the Jew. He'd have a people, just like
he told Abraham, a people out of every kindred, tribe and nation. And what I'm preaching to you
tonight is a mystery this world don't understand. I sat and read
this scripture that I just read to you out of Romans chapter
9 to a man. I don't know how words can get
any clearer. The children of the flesh, he
said, these are not the children of God. Is there any word you
could use to make that any clearer than that? I don't know if language
could be any clearer. And this man said, well, just
in case, I'm not going to say anything bad about the children. Just in case. It's a mystery
is what I'm saying to you. What I'm preaching to you tonight
can only be understood of his own and of the saints. Now, I'm
going to show you that. Look here in Colossians, chapter
1, verse 25. Well, I made a minister according
to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you to fulfill
the word of God. Now, he's talking about himself
being a missionary to the Gentiles. Verse 26. Even the mystery which
hath been hid from ages and generations But it now is made manifest to
who? To his saints. That's the only
ones that can see this, John. The rest of them are going to
go over there and put their arm around Israel until God destroys the
whole outfit. The only ones that can see this
is his saints. It's now made manifest to his
saints to whom God would make known what is the riches of the
glory of this mystery among the Gentiles. which is Christ in
you, the hope of glory. You see, this whole book is about
this coming Redeemer, and it's about Israel. Israel was designed
and called out for one purpose, to witness the coming Redeemer. That's what they were there to
do, but they didn't do that. They got all involved in publishing
their own name and their own righteousness. Paul said, I pray
for them that God might save them, because He said they're
zealous, I'll give them that, but he says it's not according
to knowledge. Were they being ignorant of the righteousness
of God, going back to establish their own? They weren't interested
in God's righteousness. They weren't interested in witnessing
Christ as the end of the law for righteousness. So what he's
saying is they had no interest in publishing Christ or in the
righteousness of Christ. They were concerned with their
own. And despite their rebellion,
the gospel came by Israel to the Gentiles. That's how the
Gentiles learned it. Are you beginning to see? I know
you're going to have to put your thinking hat on with me here
tonight, but that's how they think. Despite their rebellion
to God, the gospel came to Israel by the Gentiles. I mean, it came to the Gentiles
through Israel. through the prophets. God preserved
that testimony of His Son through their prophets, through this
self-righteous, rebellious bunch. You read about it. They were
rebels front to back, all the way. From the time they left
Egypt, all the way up to the time they crucified Christ. Right
up to this very day, they're still rebels. Still rebels. And sitting there under this
temporary covering, sitting there under this goad, that God caused
to come up for his purpose, caused it to come up, gave him that
little temporary shelter, and then he pulled it away. He sent
the worm, and the worm eat it up, and it withered, and it went,
and it went. Natural Israel sitting there
fainted and falling in the sand, and he watched spiritual Israel
being resurrected from the dead. That's what he saw sitting there
in that little booth. He saw spiritual Israel being resurrected
from the dead, the same as he was from the sea. Listen to this here in Romans
11, verse 25. Now, read these scriptures in
close. He said, For I would not, brethren,
that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should
be wise in your own conceits. Now that's where God found Paul,
wise in his own conceits. That blindness in part, now he's
not talking here about a partial blindness, but he's saying this
is partially the cause for the blindness. Are you with me? That blindness in part is happening
to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles become in. Talking
about natural Israel. They're blinded. They're blinded. till the fullness of the Gentiles
be come in. And then so, all Israel," talking
about spiritual Israel now, and so, "...all Israel shall be saved,
as it is written, There shall come out a sign to deliver, and
he shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. For this is my covenant
unto them, when I shall take away their sins, as concerning
the gospel, their enemies for your sakes. But as touching the
election, they are beloved for the Father's sake. And if you
look there at that word Father, that's got the little f. He's
not talking about God the Father there. He's talking about the
fathers, the prophets. He's talking about Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, Joseph, Moses. They're precious for that reason,
that reason. See, in that rebel prophet came
the gospel to Nineveh. You see that? In this rebel Israel. came the gospel to the Gentiles. Every last one of those apostles
were Jews, wasn't there? Every one of them. He said, For
the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. Now,
listen to this. For as ye in times past have
not believed God, yet now have obtained mercy through their
unbelief, even so have these also now not believed. that through
your mercy they also may obtain mercy. What a wonderful working
of God. He causes these Jews, He gives
them over to unbelief that the gospel might come to the Gentiles. And through that mercy that He
shows to the Gentiles, that gospel in turn comes back to Israel
and they preach the gospel to Israelites. And God saved some
of them. He saved some of them. And so
all Israel, he said, couldn't be saved. All of them couldn't
be saved. For God had concluded them all
in unbelief that he might have mercy upon all. Now watch what
Paul said. He just bursts out into praise.
When he understood being a Jew, when he got hold of this, and
it really went home to his heart exactly what was going on, begin
to see and unravel all these mysteries. Do you have any clue
how great a mystery that we're talking about tonight? There's
nobody in the state of Arkansas can understand what I'm preaching
to you tonight. What have we got in here tonight?
Eight, ten? Huh? This is where Paul was,
and he was writing this message out to this church there in Rome. He's talking about these things,
and being a Jew, he can really enter into these things. And
he saw how that unbelief of the Jew was in the favor of the Gentile,
and then through the Gentiles, he learns the gospel. And listen
to this. He just bursts out here in verse
33, and he said, Oh, he said, the depth of the riches, both
of wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments
and his ways past finding out. Who hath known the mind of the
Lord, or who hath been his counselor, or who hath first given to him
that it should be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and
through him, and to him are all things to whom be glory for ever."
Amen. Expecting the wrath of God to
fall on the Gentiles when Messiah come, the opposite is what actually
came to pass. The Gentiles received him gladly,
and Israel rejected him utterly. Oh, how they despised God's favor
on the Gentiles until God showed them the true Jew. Just one true
man, one true man. Israel sat under its gourd to
watch the demonstration of the pagan. He was going to destroy
that pagan until God sent a worm to destroy his company. Listen to this over in Isaiah
chapter 14. He says, ìThe Lord spake to Israel,
and he says this, ìThy pomp is brought down to the grave, and
by the noise of thy vows, the worm is spread under thee, and
the worms cover thee.î Thereís that worm. God sends his worm to devour
and wither their hope and comfort and causes them to faint under
the fierce heat of of his gospel of his son. And there on their
face in the sand, God teaches them what he just taught men
of the salvations of the Lord. Oh, God, give me and you alike
an understanding of the riches of these treasures in this book. I tell you, I'd rather have this
than a room full of gold. I'm telling you, these are eternal
things. These are things that we're going to look at in amazement
and worship for eternity. And God just takes the key when
He wants to and unlocks a little bit and lets you see it. Huh? Down the road a little bit, you
get feeling down a little bit, He takes that key and He unlocks
another one. There's no end to that treasure.
No end to it. Oh, bless God for showing these
things to us.