We're in Romans 11 and we are
dealing with verse 25. I do want to address a couple
of things before we get into it all the way. And because someone
actually raised the question last week. So I said I deal with
it as the opportunity came up. So we're dealing with a proposition
or phrase that's given to us in verse 25 or 26. So all Israel shall be saved. This is what
we are meditating on. So all Israel shall be saved. And we started this thought last
week. Basically, we went to a lot of Bible verses in relationship
to it. And I got a question after the
study last week about a couple of verses prior to that, where
the apostle is admonishing. Gentile Church over in verse
21 through verse 24 and I want to read that and just touch on
that because I realized we actually did not touch on that and I want
to make sure we do before we go back and and look at verse
25 and verse 26 after Paul tells the Gentile Church not to be
high-minded but to fear that is to reverence salvation what
God has done for us we are to reverence Salvation should be
reverent. It should be reverence. We should
be in a sense of godly contemplation about what God has done in saving
our souls. We should never be in a position
or a frame of mind of presuming arrogantly to ourselves that
what God did for me, he should have done for me. After all,
it's me. That's wrong. And so the true
believer ought to all his days mingled with joy, mingled with
rejoicing, mingled with thanksgiving, mingled with humility, should
be fear. That is a fundamental characteristic
of every true believer. He fears God. Isn't that right?
Now, when we talk about fearing God, we're not talking about
a paralyzing phobia that causes you to run from God. We're talking
about a respectful, loving desire to know what's right and to do
what's right, because God has allowed you and granted you access
into his presence. So as sons of God, we love to
know God and we love to do God's will. That's what it means to
reverence him, to fear him. It has nothing to do With a legalistic
mentality that if I don't do right god's gonna whack my head
off The bible says in hebrews chapter 5 around verse 12 and
it was heard in that he feared that is the lord jesus It was
heard by the apostles who were then disciples how jesus reverenced
the father That's hebrews 5 12 as our example because he is
the ultimate son when he was in the garden of gethsemane Remember
how he cried out to his father, father, father, if it's possible,
nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. The disciples
marked that and they learned and they understood that the
son of God who was equal with the father feared God. And this
is a truth for God's people too. God fearing people are believers
who know who God is. They know his holiness, they
know his righteousness, they know his standard, they know
his perfections and so we live and awe and respect of that holy
and reverent is his name. And therefore his people ought
to be marked by a sense of reverence as well. So what Paul is saying
to the Gentiles is, you guys be careful now, make sure that
you don't forfeit what has come to you out of ignorance. And
so then he goes on into verse 21 and 20, 21 through 24. And
I want to briefly develop this so that we can understand what
the apostle is saying. verse twenty one for God spared
not the natural branches who are the natural branches ethnic
Israel national Israel precisely for God spared not the natural
branches take heed lest he also spared not be so he's striking
a parallel between what he did with national Israel and what
he could do with the Gentiles what he has done is established
a parallel and we talked about this a parallel in terms of stewardship. Please remember that. A parallel
in terms of stewardship. Israel, that is ethnic Israel,
was the steward of the gospel prior to the coming of Christ.
After Israel fell, as we are learning, the Gentiles are now
the stewards of the gospel. Is that not true? They are the
stewards of the gospel during this dispensation which we call
the age of grace or the gospel age or what is called the church
age. It's very important as you parse scripture to know the distinction
between the responsibility of stewardship and that of personal
salvation with Christ. It's very important to know the
distinction between what God requires of and what he says
to the church corporately and what God calls every individual
believer to with respect to his own personal salvation. There
is a difference between the corporate church, which is the body of
mass gathering of people who profess to be believers, and
every individual called, chosen, elect, saved, born again, child
of God. Do you guys understand that?
There's a distinction between The church in general called
the corporate church and the elect in that church There's
a distinction between the body that is corporate and physical
sometimes in theology. They call it the visible church
The manifest church and the elect in that church This is part of
the parables that jesus gave concerning the nature of the
kingdom of god. You guys are aware of that, right?
Jesus gave many parables concerning the nature of the kingdom of
God He gave the parable of the sower and the seed and he said
the seed was cast upon four types of soil You guys remember that
it was only the fourth soil that actually bore fruit and that
fruit remained the other three soils represent people who were
in proximity to the gospel, but they were never saved and They
represent religious people. And in some case, they represent
people who made a profession of faith and became part of the
church externally, but they were never born again because they
weren't chosen of God and they had not received a regenerated
or renewed spirit. I.E., the ultimate and quintessential
model is that of who? Judas Iscariot. If Judas Iscariot
out of the 12 whom Jesus picked to be his model of the New Testament
church. Remember, the number 12 is the
number of what? Spiritual government. As there
were 12 tribes in the Old Testament, so there are 12 apostles in the
New Testament. They represent the 12 months
of the year. They establish the sun and the
moon and the stars, which are timekeepers to give this world
its process until Jesus comes. And so you have in Jesus' gathering
together of 12 you have him intentionally allowing one person who is a
reprobate called the son of perdition and the devil to be among the
12. What he's teaching by that is in the local corporate church,
there is always the possibility that many are some, few or more
of the members in that church are not saved. It is a fallacy
of interpretation to make equal the corporate church in its nature
to that of the individual believer. Everybody that says Lord Lord
is not of the kingdom of God and this is what is called the
mystery of the kingdom So men and women have to first personally
examine themselves whether they are in the faith whether Christ
is in you of a truth lest you be reprobate that's 2nd Corinthians
chapter 13 around verse 5 and then corporately what we have
to do is examine the church and assess whether or not the local
church is is made up of a larger preponderance or majority of
true believers and that can only be based upon a couple of things. The real authentic presence of
the Spirit of God working through the truth of the gospel seeing
to it that the majority of the members in the church are truly
born again. if they are truly born again
then the nature and characteristic of that church will be that of
the presence of the lord the preaching of the gospel the love
of the worship of the saints a vitality and dynamic where
we love the truth in the midst of that local church if that
local church is largely made up of saved and unsaved? Well,
it will be a carnal institution very much like the church at
Corinth, having all kinds of problems, all kinds of divisions,
all kinds of conflicts, all kinds of issues. Morality will be a
problem in that church. Idolatry will be a problem in
that church. Schisms will be a problem in
that church. Conflicts will be a problem in that church because
you have a mix between saved and unsaved, elect and non-elect,
darkness with light, people who are of the world and people who
are not of the world, people who sit at the devil's table
and people who sit at the table of Christ. You're going to have
that conflict in your local church where what men have done is gathered
together to themselves tares instead of fruit. Am I making
some sense? And Jesus taught his disciples
to understand that this is what goes on throughout all of church
history where some men labor faithfully to see to it that
there is a an authentic salvation experience on the part of those
who become members in the church and others are just building
a social institution. They really don't care about
whether people are saved. They just are into numbers, social
activities and the latest what we call fad in religion. So the
general question that's asked among these categories of people
is not how sound is the preaching in that church? The question
is, how fast is your church growing? The question is not how seriously
committed are the members are the people in that church to
Christ and to his gospel and to his commission to get the
gospel out. The question is, how lively are they in all of
the social activities that go on in the church? What kind of
new programs do they have? What kind of innovative techniques
are they engaging in in order to bring people into the building?
See, for them, it's all about externalities. Am I making some
sense? It's not about the true substantive spiritual issues
that constitutes the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God, according
to Romans 14, 17, is what? Righteousness, peace, and joy
in the Holy Ghost. That's the nature of the kingdom
of God. And when it's present in a local church, you can be
sure, because the word of God is taken serious, Christ is exalted,
God is glorified, sinners are humbled. Sinners are humbled. God gets all the glory. And here's
the final one. God's sheep love to have it that
way. So that's the corporate entity. And with the corporate
entity, Jesus deals with the corporate church the same way
he dealt with national Israel. He punished national Israel.
He chastised national Israel many times, didn't he? He punished
national Israel, and he chastised national Israel many times. Lamont,
can you come for a second? And in the process of chastising
them, There's a couple in the back there. You can hand them
some outlines right all the way in the back many times in his
chastising them He would speak harsh judgment language upon
the nation while at the same time speaking comforting words
to those who were true believers the true believers in the midst
of God's judgment upon the church that is national Israel would
be able to make the distinction between God's hand of chastisement
and God's judgment See those who are elect and saved and called
and graced by God we see God chastening us. We don't see him
judging us When you're unsaved God's judging you when you say
he's chastening. Am I making some sense? so the
way we understand what Paul is saying here in verse 21 for if
God spared not the natural branches and of course He didn't destroy
all the natural branches. Did he we're in Romans chapter
11 verse 21 He destroyed many of them, but not all of them
What can we account for that then? Those that were destroyed
were destroyed because they lived in continual rebellion against
God's law and they lived in continual rebellion against God's law because
they weren't saved. Right? Those who were saved struggled
in the midst of a larger body of people who weren't living
right with God. You find this all through the
Psalms, you find it through the Minor Prophets. The believer
cried out concerning treachery and violence and hostility and
immorality and all of the things that we talked about earlier
that makes up an unsaved environment. The believer, David was one of
such in the Psalms where he cried out concerning the behavior of
the wicked and the ungodly and the mischievous. Lord, when will
you rise up to judge men? Because men have just gone straight
off. They don't have any regard for your commandments. They have
no regard for your precepts. It's time for you to act That's
the attitude of the believer when immorality and disobedience
and rebellion reaches a certain level What god teaches his people
in the midst of that is he's far more patient than we are
So god allows the cup of iniquity to reach a certain status before
he brings his judgment. Isn't that right? But you can
be sure that god's going to bring his judgment So what you read
in the book of Revelation before you actually get into the larger
symbolic metaphorical language that talks about the conflict
of the church in the world until Jesus comes, the first three
chapters of the book of Revelation is devoted to Jesus, who is the
great high priest in the midst of his church, warning his church
that they must obey him or he will judge them. Isn't that right?
In the church at Ephesus, he said, if you do not repent, return
to your first love, I will remove your candlestick. To remove the
candlestick means he completely disqualified them from being
a witness. See, every local church is a
candlestick. Every local church is a light that's set on a hill,
a city set on a hill, so that men and doctors can see the light
and come in. Every local church is a candlestick. If that local
church is faithful to Christ, then Christ will be honored in
that local church and men and women will be safe. If that local
church violates God's word, if it distorts the gospel, if it
begins to call attention to itself, Christ will warn that church
and then finally he will close the doors, not physically, but
in terms of the preaching of the gospel going forth. That
church will not be known anymore for the preaching and exposition
of the word. It's just a social institution
filled with dead men and women playing religion. And then he
dealt with the other churches. He dealt with the church at Thyatira,
which was engaged in Balaam worship. Balaam worship was preaching
for money. You guys don't know any churches
like that, do you? He says, you have those who are in your church
preaching the doctrine of Balaam. The doctrine of Balaam is preaching
for money. Balaam loved the wages of unrighteousness
and Jesus said if you don't deal with it I will swiftly come and
deal with them I am he out of whose mouth goes a sharp two-edged
sword and I will deal with Balaam and we dealt with that many years
ago Jesus in his addressing each church addressed each church
with a certain attribute relevant to that church and and that attribute
went back to the Old Testament corresponding to the evil that
they were experiencing in that church. It was the sword that
killed Balaam. Numbers chapter 33 and 34 and
so this is why a sword is said to come out of Jesus now He said
I will kill Balaam. I will kill the Nicolaitans the
Nicolaitan doctrine in the church of Thyatira was the doctrine
of preeminence where the leadership of the church has such a Hierarchical
role over the people of God that they became oppressive. This
was the precursor to Catholicism This was the deatrophies doctrine
deatrophies loves to have the preeminence And so the Nicolaitans
were people who dominated the people of God and oppressed the
people of God and made everyone look to them instead of to Christ.
And the Spirit of Christ said to that church by way of John
is, I know your words. I'm going to deal with you if
you don't repent and fix this problem. There's another problem
going on. This was Pergamos. There was
another problem going on in the church of Thyatira where they
allow women preachers. See, there's nothing new. You
suffer that woman, Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. I
didn't call her, you called her. She called herself a prophetess.
And she's seducing my children, causing them to commit idolatry
and fornication. Tell her if she doesn't repent,
I've given her space, I'm going to kill her and her children
in bed with death. And I share with you that goes
all the way back to Ahab and Jezebel. And it goes back to
Jehoshaphat. And it goes back to Azariah who
married... Ahaziah who married Jezebel's daughter, Athaliah. And God killed Athaliah and God
killed Jezebel and God caused Ahaziah to be sick in his bed
and die. So he actually brought the same
kinds of judgments in the New Testament church that he did
in the Old Testament church because the New Testament church becomes
the fulfilled Israel. Isn't that what we've been saying?
The same symbolic terminology that was used in the Old Testament
church is now given to the New Testament church particularly
in the book of Revelation in order for us to be able to go
back in order to look forward. We can go back to the Old Testament,
understand that God is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore.
That the Jehovah of the Old Testament is the Jesus of the New Testament.
That the God of justice and wrath and mercy in the Old Testament
is the same God of justice, wrath, and mercy in the New Testament.
Only in the New Testament, he's not doing it in a physical way
as he did in the Old Testament, because Israel was what we call
a theocracy. A theocracy with a political
construct. The New Testament church is not
a theocracy. It's a spiritual kingdom with
Christ as head. He is the theomonarch. He rules
the church through the gospel. We have no political institution. We have no physical real estate.
We have no earthly institution by which we cleave to like national
Israel did. God's people are scattered abroad
in every part of the world. and they are received into the
kingdom of God by faith through regeneration, and they are connected
to him through the gospel. It is a simple format that God
has always worked with over 2,000 years. The preaching of the gospel,
the calling in of his elect, the salvation of sinners testified
through the waters of baptism. That's how you confess Jesus
as Lord, in the waters of baptism. They always have. And once they
were baptized, they were publicly identified as God's people. They
didn't always necessarily have buildings. They didn't always
necessarily have choirs. They didn't always necessarily
have bands. They didn't always necessarily
have organs. All they had was the fundamental
institution of the preaching of the gospel, the Lord's table,
and baptism. And that was what constituted
a local church. Am I making some sense? And so
this is what Paul is talking about in Romans chapter 11. He's
saying to you Gentiles, you guys have had a good start. We are
in about AD 52, 53. You guys have had a good start.
I just want you to know, you guys have the same stewardship
responsibility as national Israel did. With the exception of the
elect, who by the way, the elect always listened to God in terms
of his judgment. The elect always respond to God
in terms of his judgments. In other words, I'm listening
to God when God tells me to make my calling and election sure.
How about you? I'm listening to God when when God tells me
he that continues to the end, the same shall be saved. How
about you? I'm listening to God when he
says, if you sow to the flesh, you're going to reap of the flesh.
But if you sow to the spirit of the spirit, you shall reap
everlasting life. I'm listening to God. Are you? I'm listening
to God when he tells his believer, listen, I've saved you, I've
called you by my grace, I've redeemed you, you are mine, lock,
stock and barrel, therefore glorify God in your bodies which are
his. I'm listening, aren't you? But the non-elect won't. They'll
continue playing the same religious games that national Israel did.
Now, I say that to say this, that's the essential warning
given in verse 21 and 22. Now, notice what he says in verse
22. Behold therefore the goodness of behold therefore the goodness
and severity of God After warning them of the possibility. We are
dealing with hypotheticals here. Not not necessities, but hypotheticals
He does this he says I want you guys to pay attention to two
things God's goodness and God's severity on them which fail Severity
do you see that that is those who rebelled against God they
died under judgment, didn't they? but on them which uh but but
toward the goodness now what does this word goodness correspond
to the gentiles paul said has received the goodness of god
what does that correspond to salvation the preaching of the
gospel the deck the declaration of the person and work of jesus
christ has been made known to the gentiles that's god's goodness
to the gentile and in romans chapter 2 what what paul said
in romans 2 was The goodness of God was designed to lead them
to repentance. So here's what Paul is saying.
You guys think about the goodness of God now and don't get yourself
in a position where you find yourself forfeiting it. Out of
presumption and out of arrogance, so he goes on to say. But toward the goodness, if you
continue in his what? All right, now mark this. He
puts what we call a condition clause. And this condition clause
is absolutely legitimate and necessary. He says, God has been
good to you. We have already identified that
goodness as God coming to them in the person of Christ and in
the preaching of the gospel. Isn't that right? That's God's
goodness to the world. That goodness has affected some
of them because they became saved. They now are stewards of that
goodness. Isn't that right? Remember the
demoniac in Mark chapter 4? I'm not going to go into that
whole discourse, but it's a wonderful message of how God saved me.
Maybe some of you too and God saved that demoniac and when
he saved that demoniac one of the evidences of being saved
Is that you want to be with Jesus? Remember that that demoniac just
wanted to be with Jesus, but Jesus said no no No, I want you
to go back home to your people and tell them how good God has
done to you Isn't that what he said? Tell them the good things
that God has done for you. So the job of that demoniac who
is now saved and in his right mind and clothed in the righteousness
of Christ and having the gospel in his mouth was to go back home
and tell them the truth about how he got saved. He had to tell
them that he wasn't looking for Jesus. Jesus came looking for
him. That he didn't set himself free christ set himself free
that he didn't raise himself from the dead But christ did
can you imagine how good jesus is he crossed the river of the
galilean sea? And it was a storm that was just
about to destroy the ship And jesus made it all across all
the way across just to meet one man. He met that man on the shores
Right by the tombs. He saved him and then he climbed
in the boat and went back on the other side He didn't even
go into the town where there were thousands of people. Why? Because he came to save that
which was lost. He came to seek out the lost
sheep of Israel. He came to seek his own. And then he went on
back. His commission to his servant, that former demoniac, was to
go back and tell your people how good God has been to you.
And that's what God calls us to do. Now, if God has given
me his gospel and he's called me to preach that gospel, but
then down the line somewhere I have been sort of distorted
in my thinking. Somehow I have gotten too big
for my britches and somehow somebody has told me there's a way to
modify this gospel. You're carrying it on the staves
of faith and obedience. That's cool, but that's old school.
We have a newer technology. We got better ways to do this.
We can get this gospel out on some of the much more modern
methods now. So let's break this thing down
and let's start using some of our business model approaches
to get the gospel out. Now I am courting the wrath of
God. Now I am courting the wrath of
God because God's gospel must be preached and proclaim God's
way. if God's going to bless it. Otherwise,
if you are helping God get folks saved by your methodology and
techniques, you get to share in the glory when you get to
heaven with God. After all, God, if it wasn't
for my wisdom and my smarts and my learning, you would have never
got this kind of fruit out of this. Am I making some sense?
All right. So then he says, if you continue
in the gospel, otherwise you also shall be what? Cut off.
And they also, verse 23, if they should not still abide in unbelief,
shall be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.
Who is God able to graft in again? Israel, ethnic Jews, right? If
they don't remain in what? Unbelief. Well, now how are they
gonna come out of unbelief if God doesn't give them faith?
They won't. Are you hearing me? The passage
is underscoring what we call in hypothetical. If you happen
to begin to see Jews who despise the gospel and trust in their
own good works, like many religious folk do, starting to recognize
that they're hell-bound sinners and nothing in their hands they
bring simply to the cross, which they despise, they cling. If
you start to see Jews now believing the gospel, understand God did
something to remove unbelief and plant faith in their heart.
Isn't that true? And so what Paul is saying to
the Gentiles is, don't ever ask the question, can God do it?
Because if God can save you, God can save anybody. Isn't that
right? And see, you and I become the
model of that because our salvation was impossible with man. Am I making some sense? My salvation
was not the product of me, my wisdom or my learning. My salvation
was the product of God's eternal mercy in Christ and his saving
power through Christ And so if God can save me he can save anyone
and this is what Paul is trying to do with the with the Gentile
brother and do what he Was doing with the Jewish brother put them
back on level ground in other words No one has preeminence
over anyone else in terms of the scheme of salvation. It's
all of the Lord You guys got that? All right, so it's very
important for us to understand that. He goes on to say in verse
24, so that we can get back to our text, four, if you were cut
out of the olive tree, which is wild by nature, and we identified
that olive tree as Adam, remember that? Adam was a wild olive tree. The adjective wild in the scriptures
always connotes the husbandman leaving that plant or that vineyard
or that tree to itself. A wild vineyard, a wild olive
tree is a tree or a vineyard where the husbandman has left.
The husbandman is God. He's the one that takes care
of his own vineyard. He prunes that vineyard. He waters that
vineyard. He hedges that vineyard about, isn't that right? He chases
off the foxes and he sees to it that the vineyard grows fruit.
But if God in his justice decides to leave that vineyard, then
that vineyard starts to grow wild grapes because it was unattended. That's what happened to the human
race when Adam fell. When Adam fell, he became a wild
olive tree unattended by God and therefore bitter olives that
were not fruitful for any good purpose. but the olive tree that
Paul uses in Romans 9 was what we learned earlier the promise
of the gospel given to Abraham where God intentionally in his
sovereign providence moved in time and in space as we know
it to deal with one man and through that one man produce a nation
by whom Jesus would come into the world. That one man was Abraham.
God hedged Abraham about, he hedged Isaac about, he hedged
Jacob about, he hedged the 12 tribes about, even with all their
problems, he made sure he hedged them about just enough to fulfill
his promise to Abraham. And that promise was a seed.
And who was that seed? You guys got it. And so what
Paul is saying here, if you were cut out of an olive tree, which
is wild by nature, and you were grafted contrary to nature into
a good olive tree, how much more shall these which be natural
branches be grafted into their own olive tree in other words
he's establishing the hypothetical that it was possible for God
to take you who had nothing to do with the covenant you had
nothing to do with the promises you had nothing to do with the
blessings ostensibly God was dealing with Israel all alone
you weren't under law you weren't under grace you weren't under
the the temple ceremony ceremonies you didn't have any of the tutoring
system that national israel did you weren't cultured you weren't
tutored you weren't taught you were just a wild olive tree you
were like a just straight blank heathen with nothing on your
brain but sin no reference point to righteousness at all with
regards to the gospel am i am i painting the picture i'm just
trying to help you and and if god can take a just a a rank
sinner and grabbed him into a system that he had started two years
before Jesus, 2,000 years before Jesus, and 2,000 years after
Jesus, certainly he can take that group of Jewish people who
are still under Torah, ostensibly, still under certain of their
traditional systems, the Mishnah, the Tanakh, and all of the historical
writings of the Jewish church, as it were, waiting for Messiah
to come, even though he's already come, If he can take a gentile
who wasn't prepared He can easily take a jew who already has what
we call the fundamentals of the gospel in the old covenant system
They're simply missing christ Who is the essence of it? Am
I making some sense? So now the gentile church is
set back in its proper place And paul goes on to talk about
what we what we began to talk about last week is called the
mystery He says now that i've straightened you out Now that
I've helped you, uh, avoid the calamitous conclusion and thinking
that somehow you're saved because you're special. Now that I've
got you back on proper platform, think about this verse 25 through
verse 27. And I'm going to actually deal
with verses 25 and 26 tonight again, as we dealt with last
week. And I try, I want to try to seal this up. He says, for,
I do not want you to be ignorant. I do not brother and want you
to be ignorant. this what mystery we talked about that last week
at length didn't we I Do not want you to be ignorant of the
mystery. So what we're gonna do with verse 25 is a brief Exegesis
of the passage for us to understand the mystery. It's in the verse
Listen to what he says lest you should be wise in your own conceit
That blindness in part is happened to Israel. That's point number
one You know what we learned last week Be careful what Paul
is saying to the Gentile church is this Israel is blinded Because
this is part of the mystery purpose of God blindness in part blindness
in part We talked about the concept and nature of the mystery last
week. A mystery is something that's hidden with God and can
only be made known by God. Isn't that right? A mystery is
something that cannot be naturally figured out by our own carnal,
rational thinking. When God uses the term mysterion,
it's the Greek word for to close the mouth. You see, if God doesn't
speak, we don't learn anything. To close the mouth means that
god retains within himself his own counsel his own purposes
his own wisdom until god speaks to us We can't know anything.
Isn't that right? So the mystery is god's purpose
his eternal purpose which he purposed in christ That unless
he tells us about it, you and I couldn't figure it out. For
instance That israel was blinded by god's judicial purpose would
have never been understood by the Gentiles unless God said
to the Gentiles, the reason for which the Jews are blinded is
because I have a greater purpose of redemption that involves you. They would have never known that.
They would have never known that as they looked out over ethnic
Israel and saw that the larger portion of ethnic Israel rejected
Christ. They might have attributed to
ethnic Israel just a stubbornness of heart, rebellious nature or
if they understand biblical anthropology and you know we're beginning
to enter into that the doctrine of hermitology is the doctrine
of sin if you understand that man by nature is dead in trespasses
and sins and that man by nature has a hard heart and he will
not receive the things of God and that what we learned in Romans
8 7 the carnal mind is what enmity against God It will not be subject
to the law of god and cannot be subject to the law of god.
They may even understand that Yet they don't understand that
there's a larger purpose behind which god leaves the nation of
israel in their native adamic state That larger purpose is
in order that god who from eternity purpose to have Millions and
millions and millions of gentiles enter into the blessing of the
covenant you guys got that So now watch this point number one
in the mysteries is blindness in Part it's happened to Israel. You guys got that He's saying
listen Israel's blinded and They're blinded by about 80% of the nation
20% are believing the gospel But that's because of a larger
scheme as point number one in the mystery point number two
in the mystery until the fullness of the Gentiles
be come in. Do you see that? In your outline,
I put, they were blinded in part in order that the revelation
of the gospel might be brought to the Gentiles in order to provoke
the Jews to jealousy. Remember that? The gospel was
given to the Gentiles and they received that gospel with this
purpose in view, that by their obedience and love to Christ,
they would provoke to jealousy the Jews that's what Paul had
been teaching right back up again for those of you who don't know
that I want you to see it in Romans chapter 11 verse 11 and 12 verse 14 actually notice what
it says no verse 11 I say then have they
stumbled that is the Jews that they should fall God forbid but
rather through their fall salvation has come to the Gentile in order
to provoke them to what 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 so their what? Fullness. For I speak to you
Gentiles and as much as I am the apostle of the Gentiles and
I magnify my office, if by any means I may provoke to emulation,
that is to pattern, 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 be the receiving of them but what? Life
from the dead. That's Paul's argument. Why?
Because he understood that the mystery was this, that the gospel
coming to the Gentiles was designed to simply provoke his brethren,
provoke them. So there was this, we talked
about this before, this reciprocity principle. The Gentiles received
the gospel. They are to share the gospel
with everyone. but specifically targeting the Jews through whom
the gospel came. This is why Paul said several
times in the book of Romans and in the book of Galatians, he
also said it in the book of Corinthians, to the Jew first and also to
the Gentiles. to the Jew first and also to
the Gentiles. And when you read the epistles that are written
to the Gentile churches, Paul always said, remember the poor
brethren in Jerusalem. Why? Because the gospel started
in Jerusalem, didn't it? Jesus told his disciples, tarry
ye here in Jerusalem, Acts chapter one. verses four through eight,
until you be endued with power from on high, so shall you be
my witnesses, and then go ye into all the world, beginning
at Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the
world. So Jerusalem was what we call ground zero of the gospel. We are thankful for Jerusalem.
We are thankful for ground zero. And as a consequence, we are
to assist our Jewish brethren who believe the gospel, i.e.
the apostles and others in getting the gospel to the Jewish people. That was the case in the first
century. That's the case today. So that's part of the mystery
that God saved the Gentiles in order to provoke the Jews. The
third part of that is until the fullness of the Gentiles come
in, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. Who knows
what that means? We're getting ready to get into
this now. Until the fullness of the Gentile come in. What
does that mean? More specific, not just the end.
What does it mean when he uses that phrase, the fullness of
the Gentiles? Remember we talked about the
Greek word pleroma, the fullness, the fullness, it means to be
furnished, it means to be equipped, it means to be thoroughly capacitated.
The earth is the Lord's and the what? Everything that be therein
and so the point is is that fullness has to do with a container reaching
its full capacity So now what does it mean for the phrase until
the Gentiles are the fullness of the Gentiles be come in? Mr. Piper I Don't know. I don't know that
that's not clear enough. I want you to think about it
my brother right there Complete salvation of all the
Gentiles that are supposed to be saved Believing the gospel. I like what you're saying. Anybody
has what are you gonna say? She one of our sisters said
is when every group, every nationality, every people group has been preached
to. That's not quite the case. It's close, but it's not quite
the case. See, he's saying when the Gentiles, when the fullness
of the Gentiles become in, you got to think now the fullness
of the Gentiles become in. There's a verse that I'm going
to have us to go to in a moment. Lisa. That's it. She got it. Listen. God knows every one of his elect
children from every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue. He has a number,
isn't that right? He said it in John chapter 10
around verse 16. He says, other sheep have I that
are not of this fold, those also I must bring in and there will
be one fold and one shepherd, right? And so in the preaching
of the gospel, we're not using like a Uzi or a shotgun We're
not just like scattering the seed and just hoping lands on
something No, we are in the preaching of the gospel cooperating with
the spirit of god in the seeking out of each and every elect sinner
chosen in christ in every nation kindred tribe and tongue am I
making some sense and when the number has come to full completion
of every elect chosen call sinner in the world among what we call
the gentile category then the gentiles have reached their what
fullness you guys got that that's what he's talking about in terms
of the fullness of the gentiles become in go with me in your
bibles to luke chapter 21 and you're going to hear jesus make
mention of this too so as we deal with this concept of the
fullness of the gentiles let me reiterate this again so that
you can understand this because this has everything to do with Luke 21 smart Evangelism Smart
evangelism I Was sharing this with the sister
the other day and and there are a number of questions that There
are a number of questions that emerge from you frequently when
you begin to take the gospel Seriously, and you begin to examine
the Word of God carefully a number of questions emerge If God is
a God of predestinating love, electing grace, if God has from
before the foundation of the world chosen sinners in Christ
to salvation, then why does he even have us to go about preaching
the gospel to every creature under heaven? Why does God do
that? That's a very legitimate question,
and it's just basically rooted in not understanding how God
operates. On the one hand, you know what
God's purpose is, but on the other hand, you're not considering
God's methodology. And I've shared this many times
before. I just want to drive this home to you because this
is a classic, what they call conundrum in theology. If God
knows everything from the beginning, if God has seen everything from
the beginning, if God has determined everything from the beginning,
if he's decreed everything from the beginning, then why are we
doing anything since it's all going to happen? Because the
God that decrees also purposes. Is that true? And so I bring
it very down. I bring it down to a very practical
level. I have eight children. How many children do you have?
Now, now, now I'm just going to use this as an example. The
reason I always use this example is because this is what we call
the proto evangel of the Bible. In Genesis 1 26, when God created
man in his image and in his likeness, he said to man, I want you who
I've created in my image and in my likeness. To be fruitful
and to multiply and to replenish the earth and to subdue it and
to what have dominion Isn't that what he said? Well now adam says,
okay That's cool with me Since that's what you want me to do.
That's your purpose. What's going on god. Get your thing done get
it done I'll just sit around away because see you purposed
it you decreed it You can get it done. You can do whatever
you want to there's nothing too hard for you I'll just go on
back and start working in the garden The fallacy of that thinking
is disregarding what God calls purpose in connection with process. Isn't that right? The God that
purposes also gives process. The God that determines also
has a methodology by which he accomplishes his purpose. Isn't
that so? So then, it's the same question with, well, if God knows
whom he's going to save, why do we need to pray? Because God
said pray. Because God works through prayer
to change hearts and minds and position people to hear a message
that saves the soul. In other words, never separate
God's decree from God's methodology. Am I making some sense? Just
because known unto God are all his works from the beginning
of the world, that's Acts chapter 15, by the way. Known unto God
are all his works. It does not mean, therefore,
that you and I are not called to be partakers in the fulfilling
of those things. So when he tells his disciples
after the resurrection, go ye into all the world and do what?
Preach the gospel. Well that's God's purpose and
methodology by which men and women who are called to salvation
will be saved. Isn't that what we learned in
Romans chapter 10? How shall they call on him of
whom they have never heard? And how shall they believe on
him if he's not preached? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? Isn't that what the Bible says?
And so God is talking about a methodology by which men begin to call upon
God and be saved and be brought into the kingdom of God. You
cannot divorce God's decree and purpose from God's methodology.
I'll bring one even closer home to you so that you guys can make
sure you seal this in your heart. God's purposes are methods. God's
methods never contradict his purposes. You and I have to simply
reconcile an eternal God, an omniscient God, an omnipresent
God, an omnipotent God, a God who is infallible and invariable
in all of his ways. We have to reconcile that with
a God who works. We have to reconcile that. So
God says, my purpose is to see you and your seed saved. But if they're gonna be saved,
Jesse, you must raise them up in the fear and the admonition
of the Lord. You must see to it that they
hear the gospel, that the gospels preached to them, that they see
the gospel demonstrated in your life and in the life of your
wife. If I'm going to save them, it'll be through the preaching
of the gospel that is primarily witnessed through me. Now I have
the calling to make sure that my children, what? Hear the gospel. Am I making some sense now? So
I just want you to understand that there's no contradiction
between God's sovereign decree and purpose to do a thing and
it will get done. If I don't do it, somebody else
will do it. Isn't that right? If I don't do it, somebody else
will do it. So the believer who rejoices in election and in predestination
rejoicing these things, because this means that the onus and
the burden of getting it done is not on you. It's on God who
can't lie, change or what? Fail. He just simply has determined
to bring you into the equation of getting it done. So all you
do is say, OK, Lord, this is your purpose. This is your steam.
Help me. Help me so you can get glory
to yourself. Very important. Listen to what
it says here in Luke, Chapter 21. Luke 21, we've got about
15 more minutes. Luke 21, this is what Jesus said
concerning the fullness of the Gentiles. I'm in Luke 21, I'm
gonna start at verse 20 and go through verse 24. Are we there?
Now, when you shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know
that the desolation thereof is not. What is Jesus talking about
in verse 20? The destruction of national Israel
in AD 70, right? That's exactly right. Don't ever
doubt it. Jesus is speaking in the spirit
of prophecy, fulfilling the warnings of the prophets that the physical
nation of Israel would be destroyed in A.D. 70 by the Roman Titus
under the leadership of Nero. When you see Israel come past
about with armies, he's talking to his disciples in A.D. 33.
When you see Israel come past about with armies, notice what
he says. Then let them which are in Judea flee where? and
let them which are in the midst of it depart out and let not
them that are in the countries there come into it for these
be the days of what that all things which are written may
be what now let's start right there i'll do a little bit of
exegesis for you do we have the new testament writing yet are
we still dealing with the old testament writing old testament
writing jesus occupied the history of the old testament We do not
have a new testament bible as of yet everything jesus spoke
about When he used the term the scriptures that the scriptures
might be fulfilled or it is written. He was referring to the old testament
Therefore when the phrase is used all things that are written
therein is referring to all of the old testament prophecies
Are you hearing me? Which means if you're going to
be disciplined to understand the phrase, the days of vengeance,
you have to go back to the Old Testament to know what the days
of vengeance means and how to apply it in its context. A lot
of the New Testament writers completely disregard what I'm
saying, and they start putting a major futuristic interpretation
on this. First of all, Jesus has driven
the disciples to go back to Daniel 9. the abomination that maketh
desolate, standing where it ought not. They understood the Maccabean
period, 300 years before Christ, 200 years before Christ. They
understood it. They understood their Jewish brothering, some
of them fighting to keep Antiochus Epiphanes from completely diapraxing
the church in that day, Hellenizing the whole of Israel. They understood
how it was destroyed because of compromise of the gospel.
The disciples would have understood that too because that was part
of their culture. Am I making some sense? They would have been
raised up remembering what they call Hanukkah Hanukkah is the
festival of lights which the Jews observe every year and the
festival of lights is what took place honoring the battle that
took place between the Maccabeans and Antiochus Epiphanes and they
successfully drove him out even though the temple was decimated
they were able to maintain their identity and so the Jews would
yearly remember that so the disciples would have understood this too
When Jesus says again, when you see his desolation draw nigh,
flee to the mounds, don't return back. For these be the days of
vengeance that everything which was written may be fulfilled.
Verse 23, but woe unto them that are with child. Woe unto them
that are pregnant. That's what the construction
there in the Greek is. Woe unto them that are pregnant
and to them that give suck. That is to have little ones that
are still nursing, right? In those days. for there shall
be great distress in the land and wrath upon this people what
people the Jews the wrath of God now let's lock it in to 8070
and let's understand the difficulty that Jesus is talking about I'm
just doing a little exegesis is that okay so Jesus said, warn
to women that are pregnant at this time and warn to women that
are having babies to breastfeed and to take care of at this time.
Why? Because there was no such thing as buses and cars. Donkeys
and mules, no buses and cars. When you see the enemies in compassing
about national Israel, when you hear the rumors of war and wars
that are starting to escalate, when you begin to sense that
there is a destabilization of your culture, a destabilization
of your economic system, when you begin to realize that people
are fearful and anxious, when you begin to see one here, Kind
of slip away from living in the Bay Area and another year slipping
away from living in the Bay Area because everybody understands
that the economy is about to fall because of a tension between
the Roman Empire, which was the greatest nation in the world
at that time and the Jewish people. Jesus is already warning the
elect who were still among those Jewish people who were called
Christians, which means there was a diversion or a dichotomy
between the Christian Jews and the Jewish Jews. The Jewish Jews! lived under a false sense of
security, thinking that they were all right, but Jesus had
warned his disciples, listen, this thing is not stable at all.
It's coming down in about 37 years. And I want you to keep
your ears open so that when you see the destabilization and the
culture falling apart and the escalation in a false sense of
peace among the Jews who are not hearing you as you preach
the gospel, be ready to flee when you see Jerusalem come past
about. And the majority of Christians
fled from Jerusalem to the mountains of Pella so that they were not
overcome by the judgment in the year AD 69 and AD 70. They fled
because they heeded the warning. They fled because they remembered
what our Lord had said 37 years earlier. Are you guys hearing
what I'm saying? They fled because they knew that
the Lord had prophesied the judgment of Israel because Israel had
continued in the same pattern that it had engaged in all its
previous history. Rejecting the prophets. Now they
have rejected the quintessential prophet, Jesus himself. And so
the only thing left for Israel was desolation. So the Jewish
Christians who loved their own Jewish brethren would preach
there But they didn't build homes there. They didn't put their
401ks there. They didn't put their Roth Ivers
there. They always had one foot in and one foot out. And when
they started seeing the warnings, they fled. Am I making some sense? All right, let's go on, because
I want you to see this. And so the women that had children at
that time made it very difficult to travel. The women that had
children in those days made it very difficult. If you were to
read Matthew's gospel on this, or Mark's, it says, not only
woe unto them that are with child and those that give second those
days, but woe unto you if this experience takes place in what
we call the winter or the Sabbath. In the winter, traveling was
difficult. It snowed during that time in Palestine. Can you imagine
women that are seven, eight months pregnant trying to get down the
road running from Nero and the Roman Titus or having children
in their hand? They could do it, but it's going
to be difficult. It's going to be very difficult or on the Sabbath,
which is what happened. This is quite interesting. I'll
talk about this and next week we will develop more fully the
latter part of our text. So Israel shall be saved. But
just for the historical value here, which is beneficial to
you, the historical value. The nation of Israel, when they
came under the judgment at that time, the Sabbath day was a day
where Israel inviolably worshiped God. The Sabbath day for them
was Saturday. What that meant was their enemies
always knew where they could find the Jews on Saturday. You got it. All right. Now, I'm
going to help you with this. This is good. I thought about
this like 20 years ago when the Lord revealed this to me, I said,
Lord, I thank you that I live in the gospel age and not in
the age of law. I'm going to show you why. And
I've talked about this before. Some of you still think that
there's something special about the Sabbath day. That's just
a statistical probability rate with over 137 people in this
building right now. Some of you may be under the
delusion that somehow God exalts one day above another when the
Bible is very clear that he doesn't. All you got to do is read Romans
chapter 14. I'm looking forward to getting there. Now, it's all
right for you in your own mind to say, I want to set aside Saturday
if you want to. But if you set aside Saturday
as some type of form of self-righteousness, you've just abandoned the gospel.
Am I making some sense? Okay, so for the for the Jews
the Sabbath day was a binding Covenant law on pain of death
To violate the Sabbath meant to die. Do you guys know that
this was not one of those leave it or take it commandments? This
was part of the law. It was smack dab in the middle
of the Ten Commandments thou shalt honor the Sabbath day the
man that doesn't is profane, he shall be cut off from his
people. It was violating the Sabbath on the part of Israel
that brought God's judgment in 587 BC, and then again in AD
70, because they violated God's Sabbath. And so here's the thing,
under the old covenant, God had given Israel an official day
to worship, but that's because they were a theocracy. They had
a political model of government. They had political real estate
with a military army and a judiciary and a court system, a complete
internal structural system by which the nation could operate
on a both political and religious level. I told you earlier in
our study that is radically different than the local gospel church.
Am I making some sense? What that means then is God's
intention for national Israel was for them to live in that
little piece of real estate called Palestine, 60 square miles. And if they obeyed God, God would
see to it that none of their enemies could penetrate their
forces and harm them. What that means is every Sabbath
day, had they done the Sabbath the right way, they could have
went to worship. and enjoy God never ever having
to worry about their enemies infiltrating the camp and destroying
them. But you see, to worship God apart from faith is profane. That's what the Hebrew writer
said in Hebrews chapter 4 verse 2 because the word preached to
them wasn't mixed with faith It didn't profit them that heard
it which means even though they touted their whole group of family
members on out to the Synagogues on the Sabbath and they went
to the temple on the Sabbath because they have rejected the
gospel. They were wide open to the enemy They were presumptuous
They were arrogantly presumptuous Nothing will happen to us. I
remember when Caiaphas asked Jesus the question. Are you the
Son of God? Jesus looked at Caiaphas and
said in a few minutes, you're gonna find out that I'm the Son
of God Hereafter you shall see the Son of Man coming on the
clouds of glory not physically but in sovereign power Executing
his providential judgments upon national Israel just precisely
as he had prophesied Am I making some sense? Then they would know
that jesus is lord Because when the word of the prophet comes
to pass, then you know that the lord has sent him And so jesus
is telling copies is going to happen. So they're living in
a continual state of disobedience But they're presuming upon god
that if they go through outward works of religion that god would
honor them But see this is what god has plainly said plainly
said I desire mercy and not sacrifice Obedience rather than the sacrifice
of your lips. Isn't that what he said? All
right. I'll close out with this This is good when God ended the
old covenant system at Calvary when Jesus said to tell us die
and the ground shook and The Lord himself rent the veil of
the temple from top to bottom that veil was 30 feet high That
veil was thicker than 18 inches Only God can rent that veil God
rent that veil from top to bottom and he said the way into the
holiest of all has been made By the way, there was no ark
of the covenant behind that veil God saw to it that it was destroyed
by Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BC So Israel was frontin Israel was
frontin But it didn't matter because the ark of the covenant
was only a type of the reality which was in Christ The ark came
when he was clothed in flesh and walked that earth for 37
my years and we beheld his glory the glory as of the only begotten
of the Father full of grace and truth He is the propitiation
for our sins. Isn't that what the Bible says?
So we're not looking for a physical ark My son asked me that question
the other day because you know when you watch PBS PBS will give
you a left turn They'll send you down to Ethiopia and you'll
find this old antiquated temple with some my Ethiopian brother
and their Orthodox Christians Standing outside watching guarding
pretending that they have the Ark of the Covenant on the inside
Who you fooling? Let me can I share something
with you If the Ark of the Covenant was on the inside of that building
you better know the Catholic Church with all that money and
all those soldiers and And all that plundering they've done
over the last 2,000 years, dominating countries, decimating countries,
tearing down temples and stealing all the artifacts in all the
countries of the world. Nobody's stopping them. They
would have been went through that temple and took that ark.
They got all the artifacts in the Vatican right now. Do you
know that? Go to the Vatican. You see all these artifacts from
all these different religious quarters of the world. They would
have been had the Ark of the Covenant there. Gotta use some
sense here. This is all about money, folks.
Religion is about money. Now we're gonna let you walk
inside the temple, but we're not gonna let you go behind that
door because nobody can look at the ark and live. But make
sure you pay your $10 and then go on out. And ignorant folk
buy into it all the time. I'm glad God destroyed that ark.
because we will worship everything but the true and the living God
as long as we can see it. All right, I got one more thing
to say, I'll let you go. When he destroyed the old covenant
system by renting the veil of the temple, Having said it is
finished. He made a new and living way
by which we would enter into the true tabernacle And that's
heaven itself We go into heaven through the person of jesus christ
by the spirit of the living god and we have access to the father
Not to a temple now watch this and therefore our sabbath is
not a physical day Our sabbath is a person Our rest is a person. That person is the Lord of the
Sabbath, the Lord Jesus Christ. And what that means is we rest
every day in every place we live. You know what that means? When
they were hunting the Christians down in the first century, they
were saying, now on what day do the Christians worship? They
said, I don't know, because they didn't never establish like a
physical day. You might find the Christians worshiping late
at night at 12 o'clock on the top of a mountain, early in the
morning in the catacomb caves, way out in the seaside. God allowed
the freedom of the gospel in order to see to it that his people
had the type of liberality, the mobility necessary to maintain
the church throughout this 2,000 year period, because we've been
under lots of persecution. for the people of God worship
is every day. Once the gospel gets established
in a land and that land comes under the auspices of the scriptures
and the commandments and we are free to worship like we have
in America, then we worship on one day because it constitutes
order. It would be crazy for us to say,
well, you know, some Christians worship on this day, some on
that day, some on the other. We believe in a God of order.
So we worship on the first day of the week because it corresponds
to the resurrection of Christ. But we're not bound to that by
a law, only the law of grace in our hearts. Otherwise whenever
we have to worship we will worship and wherever we must worship
We will worship whenever God calls us to worship whether it's
Monday or Sunday Because our worship is in spirit and in truth
not in Jerusalem Nor in the mountains of Samaria, but in Christ and
in glory Isn't that good? All right, let's close in prayer.
Father, we thank you for your time. We thank you for your word. We
thank you for your truth as it is in Jesus. We thank you for
your fullness. We know one day the gentiles
will come into a complete fullness and we are part of that fullness
We thank you lord that you've delivered us out of darkness
into your marvelous light that you have grafted us into that
marvelous olive branch Which is your promise in christ? And
we have now been made partakers of the divine nature and we are
so thankful so thankful to you for that It's all by grace all
by your mercy all by your goodness if it had been for the lord,
where would we be? and we thank you lord that our
help comes from the lord who made heaven and earth as we go
our way give us traveling mercies take us home give us rest tonight
prepare us to worship you in this free land on sunday in spirit
and in truth because you're worthy of it in jesus name we pray amen
god bless you