I had put more down on the outline, so I may dictate a little bit to you this evening because
these chapters are profound.
If the assumption of a conflict between Jewish and Gentile believers is correct as the occasion
for the writing of the book of Romans, we can already trace how Paul has begun to address
that problem.
In chapter 1 he speaks about himself as a Jew being called by God to be an apostle to
the Gentiles.
Again in chapter 1, this time in verse 16, he says that the gospel is for the Jews first
and for the Gentiles.
In chapter 2 verse 9, he says that God has placed all Jew and Gentile under sin.
In chapter 3 verse 29 and then again in verse 30, he asserts that God is the God of the
Jews and the Gentiles.
In chapter 2 and again in chapter 4, he says that one is not accepted by God on the basis
of external rituals like circumcision, which was so important to the Jews.
But whether one is circumcised or uncircumcised, in other words a Jew or a Gentile, God accepts
all on the basis of one thing and that is faith, just like Abraham.
As he begins to address this problem of Jew and Gentile relationships, there is another
question that might arise in the minds of the readers of this book regarding Israel
in particular.
Because they were aware that God had a covenant with Israel and the question may be, well
what about the relationship between God and Israel now?
See Paul has just written in this book, in chapter 8 in particular, that salvation is
by grace through faith.
Salvation includes both justification and sanctification.
In other words, what God starts, he is going to finish with our glory one day.
He tells us that salvation began in eternity past with God's foreknowledge and predestination.
It continues in the present and will be consummated in the future.
He assures us that God keeps his promises, that nothing can separate us from the love
of God, that no one can legitimately bring a charge against God's elect.
But all of these thoughts you see, particularly in the Jewish mind, would bring the question
within what happened to Israel.
Weren't they also the people of God?
Didn't they have a covenant with this same God who is faithful, Paul?
And if there is no longer distinction between Gentiles and Jews, then exactly what is the
relationship of the nation of Israel to God?
Did God fail in what happened to Israel?
Was his purpose for Israel frustrated?
Did God change his mind?
Has God's word failed?
And underlying all of those questions may be the thought, how can we be sure the same
thing won't happen to us and we'll not experience the salvation that you've been talking about?
Those may well be the thoughts as Paul is writing on now into chapters 9, 10, and 11
of the book.
It seems to me that in a certain sense, these chapters are the core chapters of the book,
the core chapters of the book explaining to us the righteousness of God.
Now you'll notice some blanks here at the top of your outline.
Here's the sentence you may want to write in there.
The righteousness of God is demonstrated in every relationship he has.
We've talked about how God's righteousness is demonstrated in his relationship to the
world.
And we have seen in our study how God's righteousness is demonstrated in his relationship to believers.
The fact is that his righteousness is demonstrated in every relationship, including his relationship
to the nation of Israel.
The relationship of God to Israel is elaborated upon in the chapters that we're going to look
at tonight in our overview.
It may be helpful to notice the outline first of all.
He talks about the past in chapter 9, at least up through verse 29, and he explains to us
the essence of the past dealings of God with the nation of Israel.
And that can be summarized perhaps in one key word, the word election, election.
We are heading toward elections in this country.
Tuesday is the New Hampshire primary.
I will be so thankful when this primary is done.
But the meeting will be on to the next one, and then the next one until we get past November,
whatever it is, and we have our presidential election this year.
We're not talking here about that kind of election, of course.
When we talk about election, we're talking about God's sovereign choosing of some to
enjoy the blessings of salvation.
I know that there are some people who stumble and have a hard time with the concept of election.
Please don't blame me for that.
Blame God if you're going to blame somebody.
It is God who talks about his elect back in verse 33 of chapter 8.
It is God who talks about the fact that he foreknew us and predestined us in verses 29
and 30.
So election is God's idea.
It is God's work.
Election is God's choosing of some to enjoy the blessings of salvation.
Now Paul, as he begins this chapter, expresses to us something of his own burden for the
people of Israel.
In fact, he's just talked about how we cannot be separated from Christ and the love of Christ.
He goes on to say, but if we could be, he said, I would be willing to suffer that for
the sake of Israel.
I am willing to be cursed to go to hell, to be separated from Christ if only my kinsmen
according to the flesh would come to faith.
That is his transition into the subject of Israel.
He explains to us in verses 1 through 5 some of the privileges enjoyed by the Israelites.
But he goes on in verses 6 through 9 to tell us about election.
He says in the first place, election, God's choice, is not based upon ancestry.
He points out that there is a distinction between physical descendants and spiritual
descendants of Israel.
True election was demonstrated in the life of the person who was chosen.
It is demonstrated by what we sang about just a few moments ago, faith and obedience, trust
and obey.
That's the demonstration that one is truly elect.
Israel had not trusted or obeyed as a nation.
They had rejected Christ.
Therefore, although they were the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they
were not among the elect.
He illustrates this fact that election is not based upon ancestry by the sons of Abraham.
Although Abraham had a son before Isaac, what was his name?
Ishmael.
It was Isaac, the one born later, who was the son of the promise.
His descendants were regarded by God as the ones chosen for his purpose, bringing the
Messiah into the world.
The point that he's talking about here is that no Israelite could claim to be truly
one of God's chosen just because he was a physical descendant of Jacob, Isaac and Abraham.
And that God's elective purpose for Israel is not nullified just because the physical
nation of Israel as a whole rejected his word.
God's purpose goes on.
A point of application that we can draw out of these verses is this, that salvation has
nothing to do with physical ancestry or bloodline.
Nothing whatsoever.
I was talking with someone recently who was sharing that she is the only Christian in
all of her family as far as she knows.
That is her siblings, her parents, her aunts and uncles, the only one.
God has reached into the midst of that family, all of whom are lost to this point and saved
one.
Salvation is not based upon our ancestry, it is based upon our trust in Jesus Christ
and God's choice and God's perspective.
Now in verses 10-13 he tells us that neither is election based upon merit.
We don't gain points with God and therefore God chooses.
That isn't the idea.
There are some who might argue that Isaac's choice was based upon his being the son of
Sarah, the free woman, while Ishmael was the son of a slave woman.
But his next illustration shows that that premise is not true.
There's no human merit at all involved in God's free choice.
He talks about Esau and Jacob who were born to Isaac as you know.
These twin boys had the same parents.
Neither had any merit over the other because of his parentage and God chose Jacob prenatally
while he was still in the womb of his mother.
So the God's choice of Jacob was not based upon the conduct or the character of either
one of the children.
God's choice is not based upon human merit.
It is God's free choice.
Now why is this so?
Well he explains in verse 11 so that God's purpose according to election might stand,
that is it's not frustrated by the failures of man.
God's purpose will stand even if men fail.
Israel's failure in this case will not nullify the ultimate destiny of God's purpose for
that people.
There is a point of application that we can draw from this and that is the salvation today
has nothing to do with works or personal merit.
We don't get brownie points with God by what we do that's good.
We don't have demerits with God.
It has nothing to do with our works, with personal merit or worth.
It has to do with God's free choice.
And that is what he talks about now in verses 14 through 29.
First he's told us that election is not based upon ancestry nor upon merit, but it is rather
based upon God's grace and is according to his free choice.
A couple of questions arise in Paul's mind as he imagines his readers trying to comprehend
what he's talking about.
The first question is, well isn't God unjust in selecting one and overlooking another?
He deals with that question in verses 14 through 18.
He says no, God is not unjust at all.
Now rabbinic Judaism in that day just like humanistic and liberal theology today says
that God is merciful to those people who deserve it.
And they're unaware of the very contradiction in that statement.
You see mercy has nothing to do with what a person deserves.
If it's deserved it's not mercy.
But that's the general idea.
And that's what you'll hear in many pulpits today.
God is merciful if we deserve it.
But the fact is the only true mercy is free mercy.
It is totally undeserved.
And he illustrates this by God's dealings with both Moses and Pharaoh.
God is merciful to those whom he wishes to be merciful to and he hardens those whom he
would harden.
By the way in the hardening of Pharaoh, remember that God was not overruling Pharaoh's heart.
God was simply allowing Pharaoh's heart to go its own way.
Pharaoh's heart was already hardened therefore God hardened it further.
It was a judicial hardening you see.
The point is that God reached down and chose Moses who was not worthy of salvation and
saved him.
God had mercy on him.
God did not have mercy upon Pharaoh.
Why?
Because God chose not to.
God simply allowed Pharaoh to go his own way and to harden his heart and to do what he
would.
And the marvelous thing is that God even used the wickedness of Pharaoh to accomplish his
sovereign purposes.
As he did with the nation of Israel by the way when the nation of Israel rejected Christ.
God was not frustrated by that.
And as we're going to see God knew ahead of time it was going to happen.
God predicted it would happen.
And God said what he would do when it happened.
Now there's a second question that might come to mind that Paul deals with in verses 19
through 29.
It is how can a sovereign God find fault with a man or with a nation like Israel who cannot
resist him?
How can God find fault with a mere creature?
A creature can't resist God.
Well Paul deals with this question several ways.
First of all he has a follow up question to the question.
He says who are you to reply to God?
He says God is the potter, you're the clay.
The clay has no right to question the potter.
And he says basically that we're all out of the same lump anyway, the lump of sin.
And so what if the potter chooses to take out of the lump of sin some clay and make
that a vessel of mercy and other clay to become in vessels.
So that's the potter's choice.
He can do what he wants to do.
He's sovereign.
But then he gives an enlightening statement in verses 22 to 24.
He says you know God really is patient with sinners.
If God gave sinners what they deserved we'd all be damned and judged and condemned and
in hell immediately upon our first sin.
God is patient with sinners.
Why is God so patient with sinners?
Because in the time that he's patient with sinners he is at the same time having mercy
upon some and calling them out to be vessels of mercy in whom he is going to show his glory.
And he says that means us folks, you and me, we're vessels of mercy not because we deserve
it, mercy is not deserved, it's free, it's without cause.
We're out of the same lump as everybody else, sinners, but God has had mercy and has chosen
in his grace to make us vessels of mercy in whom he would show forth his glory.
Then in verses 25 through 29 he gives a prophetic fulfillment.
He sees a prophetic fulfillment in what's happened to Israel.
God's actions are according to what he himself foretold Israel would do as a nation.
And yet even in the midst of that God would spare a remnant, he would save a remnant and
Gentiles would be included in all of that.
He quotes from Hosea and then again from Isaiah to prove his point that God had said ahead
of time what would happen, that this nation would turn from him and that those who were
not the sons of God would be called the sons of God and that God nonetheless has saved
a remnant even out of Israel.
If God had not chosen to do that then we would all be like Solomon and Gomorrah and get what
we deserve.
Verse 29 tells us that except God had shown sovereign grace and mercy all of us would
be justly judged.
We need to keep in mind that God never exercises his will to force a person to do something
over what they would choose.
That's the other side of the coin.
Some people see election as a very hard-nosed kind of a doctrine and it's not.
It is mysterious and we don't really understand in our minds how it works together with man's
will and man's choice.
It does in God's perfect mind, perfect plan.
Some people feel that election overrules man.
That isn't the point at all.
God never uses his will, his sovereignty to overrule the will of the person.
God in grace may work in the will of the person to accomplish what he wants.
As Paul said to the Philippians, it's God who works in you both the willing and the
doing.
The willing and the doing of his good pleasure.
Why was it that you perhaps received Christ and your sister or your brother did not receive
Christ in your home?
Well God graciously worked in your heart making you willing to do what he wanted you to do.
I could talk about that some more but we need to move ahead to chapter 10.
It actually begins in chapter 9 verse 30 where we find the present.
He's talked about the past with Israel and he said that God chose this nation.
God chose this nation by his elective plan and purpose.
And now in chapter 10 beginning with chapter 9 verse 30 actually he tells us about the
present and that can be summarized also in one word and that is the word rejection.
This section of the book of Romans chapters 9, 10, and 11 is dispensational in character
and explains why Israel is presently where she is.
That is set aside in the program of God.
Chapter 9 gives us the story from God's viewpoint.
His sovereign will and plan is being carried out in this nation being set aside and a new
people a new entity being called forth the church.
In chapter 10 he tells of Israel's rejection from the human viewpoint that the nation failed
God in its unbelief.
So here's what happened with Israel.
He says the nation was ignorant.
Chapter 9 verse 30 through chapter 10 verse 4.
The nation was ignorant of true righteousness.
You see there are two kinds of righteousness.
There is faith righteousness and works righteousness.
Faith righteousness obviously means that one believes God and is counted righteous.
False righteousness is what one does to try to become righteous.
It's self-righteousness.
And he says Israel in ignorance tried to accomplish righteousness through its own works.
Verse 3 says of chapter 10, not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish
their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.
In chapter 10 verse 5 through verse 17 he explains then that the nation failed in its
ignorance.
The nation failed.
It failed to do what?
It failed to believe God.
It failed to believe his son, Jesus Christ.
You see righteousness with God is not something that we have to work for.
It's not something we even have to search for as though we had to go up to heaven or
down to hell.
He says it's actually very close to us, this word of salvation and righteousness with God.
It's very close to us.
It's near as he says in verse 8.
In fact all we have to do is have a transaction in our heart.
Verse 10 says with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness.
With the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
The scripture says whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.
There's no distinction between Jew and Greek.
And notice again Paul is talking about the relationship between Jews and Gentiles.
He says now there's no distinction between them.
The same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches over all who call upon him.
Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.
Well that's good news.
That's good news.
A preacher is necessary of course as he describes in verses 14 and 15, great missionary verses
here.
But the problem is that Israel as a nation now did not listen to that message.
Verse 16, they did not all heed the glad tidings about how one could be right with God through
faith in Jesus Christ, through his death and through his resurrection.
They did not heed the good news.
They failed to attain the righteousness of God because of that.
And so in verses 18 through 21 he explains that the nation was replaced.
God patiently had dealt with Israel.
He waited for the nation to return to him in faith and obedience, but their unbelief
persisted.
And what both the law through Moses and the prophets through Isaiah had warned about came
to pass, that God would replace that nation one day with a new people.
God had pled with this nation.
He had delivered the message to them.
Verse 21 says, all the day long I've stretched out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate
people.
Who is he talking about?
The nation of Israel.
But they did not heed.
They did not listen to the gospel.
They rejected Christ.
As a result of their unbelief, they were rejected.
They were set aside.
But were they rejected forever?
Have they fallen away from God never to experience the blessings that God promised to them in
the Old Testament?
Why, he says, no, that's not the case at all.
And so in chapter 11 he talks about the future.
And the word that summarizes the future is the word restoration.
Election, rejection, and now restoration.
And if you want to outline chapter 11, you may do it this way if you want.
Verses 1 through 10, God's program.
Verses 11 through 24, God's purposes.
Verses 25 through 32, God's promises.
And then finally, verses 33 through 36, God's praise.
What is God's program?
Going back to the first 10 verses of chapter 11.
Well, basically he says here that Israel's greatest days are ahead.
For Israel still has a place, you see, in the program of God.
And Paul himself is an illustration of the nation's future conversion.
And he points to himself as that.
He says, has God rejected his people, that is permanently, forever?
The idea is, may it never be.
I, too, am an Israelite.
And he explains his pedigree there.
He points to himself as actually an illustration of how Israel will one day be restored to
God.
What happened to Paul?
Well, he was spiritually blind and hostile to Christ.
He fought against the gospel.
And my friend, that's exactly where the Jewish nation is today.
And it has been for the last 1900 years, except for the remnant that God has graciously saved
out of the Jewish people.
But as a whole, as a collective group, the nation has been just like Paul was in his
pre-conversion days, hostile to the gospel.
But then Paul had a spectacular vision of the glorified Christ on the road to Damascus.
And when he had that vision, there was repentance.
And he placed his faith in the Lord.
And that's exactly what's going to happen to Israel one day.
Zechariah talks about it in chapter 12 and verse 10 when he says, they will see him whom
they have pierced.
And the spirit of repentance will be poured upon them.
The nation of Israel will one day follow Paul's example.
God's program for the nation is that they are temporarily set aside in unbelief.
They are hostile toward God.
But one day God is going to restore them.
Even now there is a remnant, just like there was in Elijah's day, as he talks about in
verse 5.
The one day the remainder, now spiritually blinded, will have its eyes opened.
That's God's program.
He talks about God's purposes in all of this in verses 11 through 24.
Why did God allow Israel to stumble?
Well, he tells us that through Israel's falling, Israel's stumbling, the Gentiles have received
grace.
This has brought much blessing to the Gentiles, those who are not God's people, those who
were not a part of God's program in the Old Testament.
He says in verse 11, by their transgression, the Jews' transgression, salvation has come
to the Gentiles to make them, the Jewish people, jealous.
He goes on to say, and if their transgression be riches for the rest of the world, and their
failure be riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be?
In other words, when God restores Israel one day, the blessings to the whole world will
be even greater than now.
If Israel's failure was a blessing to the Gentiles, how much more will be her restoration
to God one day?
He uses a powerful illustration here of an olive tree in these verses.
The tree in its roots pictures the nation of Israel going all the way back to Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, whom God chose.
He says that God has broken off the natural branches of this tree because of their unbelief,
that is, the nation of Israel.
Why did God break off those natural branches so that he might graft in some wild olive
tree branches?
Who's that?
The Gentiles.
God has broken off the natural branches and replaced them with wild branches, Gentiles,
who are now growing and prospering in the roots of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
He tells us that one day the natural branches are going to be restored in verse 24.
The church now enjoys God's blessings.
It does.
And those blessings come to us in part from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but the particular
blessings given to Israel in the Old Testament are still hers and will one day be delivered
by God to that people when they are restored.
God is not finished with Israel.
The church has not taken Israel's place in God's purposes.
Israel as a nation will be restored by God.
That's his promise.
Look at verses 25 to 32.
He tells us that one day God's plan for the Gentiles will be fulfilled.
Look how he puts it.
He says a partial hardening has happened to Israel.
Why is it partial?
Because there's still a remnant of the Jews being saved.
Until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
The fullness of the Gentiles, yes.
It doesn't mean that every Gentile is going to be saved, but it means that all of those
chosen by God from among the Gentiles will one day be complete.
Its fullness will be arrived at.
And he says, thus all Israel will be saved.
Does that mean every Jew will be saved?
No.
But all those God whom God has chosen out of the nation will be saved.
It's a collective expression here.
When will they be saved?
When God has finished his dealings with the Gentiles.
When is that?
The end of the church age.
You see the church is largely Gentile.
Some Jewish brethren are amongst us and there's really no distinction now in Christ between
us.
But the fact is in heritage, natural heritage, the church is largely Gentile.
And someday the church as a body is going to be complete.
The last one is going to be saved.
Now my conviction is that when that happens, when that last one trusts the Lord, we're
leaving here.
We're being called out of the world at that point as a people.
The rapture of the church will take place.
And then God is going to turn to Israel and he is going to finish his program and his
purposes with that nation.
As a result of that, as a nation all Israel will be saved, he says.
The future mercy upon Israel is just as sure as the current mercy that God has upon the
Gentiles.
Now in these rather complex chapters, Paul has explained to us how God in his sovereign
and providential purposes has worked to accomplish his will.
Keep that in mind.
Nothing has happened in all of history that's caught God off guard.
God has not overruled the will of man.
God allows man to make his choices and his decisions.
God allows man to take his actions, but in his sovereignty God uses every one of those
choices and actions, even of the ungodly, ultimately to bring everything out to his
purpose.
My goodness, what kind of power does it take to do that?
What kind of wisdom does it take to take all of the choices and all the actions of every
person who has ever lived and make all of those varieties of choices and actions come
out to what you want them to be?
That's exactly what God has done.
That's why Paul concludes these three chapters with praise to God.
He says, oh, the depth of the rich is both the wisdom and the knowledge of God.
The knowledge of God is his divine intuition, which foreknows the outcome of all the factors
in history before they come to pass.
God knows it all.
The wisdom of God may be defined as God's designing of all the elements in his knowledge
into a revealed purpose for mankind.
These attributes, Paul says, are inexhaustibly full.
And beyond our being able to trace out, we just get started and we get lost in the maze
and the complex mind of God.
It defies human explanation, he says.
God in his purpose, indeed, owes none of us any explanations.
He is after all God.
But he is the God of all grace and all glory.
None of us can know his mind.
None of us can advise him.
None of us can claim God as his debtor.
He concludes this portion of the book by saying, from him, through him, to him is everything.
He's the source of everything.
It's from him.
Not an exception to that in the whole universe.
And he says, through him is everything.
He is the sustainer.
There is nothing in the universe that exists currently that is not sustained by God.
Nothing.
Even evil.
It's not that God originated evil, but God has allowed it and he allows it to be sustained.
Just as he will one day deal with it, and that brings us to the final point.
To him is everything.
Everything in the universe is headed on one track toward the judgment of God.
He is the source, he's the sustainer, he's the judge.
The judgment of God is coming.
And he says, to this great God of wisdom and knowledge be glory forever and ever, amen.
The obvious point of application here is that this God who has planned the ages is a God
who is able to control your life and my life.
He's able to give us direction.
There are times when you and I feel lost and confused as though we're living in a fog
and we wonder, well, what's next, or what's around the corner, how is this going to turn
out, or what good is this experience?
But overseeing the whole thing is God.
And God knows what he's doing, and you and I can trust him, we can rest in him.
How much better it is to live that way, and to live life filled with worry and anxiety
and resistance and rebellion against God and questioning God?
How much better to say, God, I don't understand it, but I trust you, because you are God and
you know what you're doing, you're full of knowledge, you're full of wisdom, you don't
owe me an explanation anyway.
I just trust you with my life and where I am today, and where I'll be tomorrow, and
where I'll be forever.
It's a great way to live.
It's the only way to live.
Let's pray.
Almighty Father and God, God of all knowledge, wisdom, how unsearchable are your judgments,
untraceable your ways.
We admire and worship the wisdom that we see displayed in these chapters, and even though
they're written here for us to understand, our minds can hardly grasp them.
And yet we praise you for the display of your wisdom and knowledge as history has fallen
out.
And God, tonight afresh we commit our lives to you.
We commit to you what tomorrow holds.
We commit to you the experiences and circumstances we're passing through.
Father, there are some in our church family who've lost jobs in recent weeks that were
thought to be secure.
And there are others who are struggling with unexpected situations at home, and some who
are facing the possibility of life-threatening illness.
Some are wondering what decision needs to be made in light of the circumstances.
Some have exciting choices to make.
In all of these, we pray that each one of us will seek your will and your direction,
for we cannot direct our lives ourselves.
Please direct us.
Be the Lord of our choices and our decisions, and use every one of them to accomplish your
ultimate purpose for us too.
This we pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.