[MUSIC PLAYING] Calvary Church is
dedicated to doctrine. And we want you to experience
the life change that comes from knowing God's word
and applying it to your life so we explain the
Bible verse by verse. Every chapter. Every book. This is expound. So we're in Romans, chapter 10. Last week my aim was to
teach chapter 9 and 10. [LAUGHS] I laugh because you laugh at
the idea of me doing that. But tonight, by God's grace, I'm
going to do chapter 10 and 11. [LAUGHTER] And I hear some laughs
and that's legitimate. I get that. But we're in chapter 10 at
least of the book of Romans. Covered a few verses. I said I would go back and
we'll take it in one fell swoop. Now, we believe
that after Paul's third missionary journey,
in which the Bible tells us he spent three
months in Greece-- that's in Acts, chapter 20-- that from Greece, somewhere
in the late winter to early spring of AD 57
or AD 58, that is when and from where Paul
wrote the book of Romans. During those three months,
while he was in Greece. He would leave Greece
after collecting money from Macedonian churches to
help the church in Jerusalem. He had taken up an offering
for those believers in Jerusalem, to help them. And no doubt, while he was
writing the book of Romans, under the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit, he was thinking about Jerusalem. He was thinking
about his people. He was thinking about what
he was going to say to them and what he was going
to do in Jerusalem. And probably, out of
that prayerful cogitation before the Lord,
in the Spirit, he wrote chapter 9, 10, and
11 of the book of Romans. A great section of scripture. I've told you before, Romans
is divided up into four parts and this is the
third part, where he talks about the plan of
God for Gentiles and Jews, but he has the Jewish
nation in mind. And if you recall-- if you don't, you can look
at it-- the very first verse, in chapter 9, where he says,
"I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my
conscience also bearing me witness in the
Spirit, that I have a great sorrow and continual
grief in my heart." And he says who it's for. His kinsmen according
to the flesh. That's the Jewish people. He begins chapter 10
with a similar kind of a sentiment where he says,
"Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel
is that they may be saved." I am not Jewish. In fact, I am, by birth,
the polar opposite. I am a German Gentile,
born and raised in America. But I did spend time in Israel. I've been there 41 times and
the first couple of times I lived there on a kibbutz. And I remember the
feeling my first visit, on a Passover evening,
when I was looking out from the kibbutz toward
the Mediterranean Sea, looking over that beautiful
farmland of northern Israel up by the border with
Lebanon, and the contacts, the people I had met on that
kibbutz, the love I already had for them-- considering the
blindness that I came up against when I tried to share
Yeshua, Jesus, with them-- and I had a very similar kind
of a sentiment that Paul had. Even though I certainly can't
relate to it like Paul could, or like a Jewish
person can, but as close as a German background,
Gentile American can feel. I felt the weight of this verse. My heart's cry, my deep
anguish and prayer, is that Israel might be saved. And he says, "For
I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God--"
they have great enthusiasm-- "but it's not according
to knowledge." It's not a zeal that is
according to knowledge. Zeal characterized
Paul the apostle when he was Saul of Tarsus. He was a very
zealous Jewish man. He was so zealous
he thought, I'm just going to go
find those people who call on the name of Jesus in
synagogues up in Damascus. I'm just going to arrest
them and kill them. He was so zealous that when they
stoned Stephen in Jerusalem, Saul was cheering them
on, kill him, kill him. That's how zealous he was. And when he writes
his own testimony to the church at Phillipi,
in Philippians chapter 3, he gives his background,
his pedigree. He says, I was "circumcised
on the eighth day, of the stock of Israel,
of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews-- concerning zeal, I
persecuted the church." You want to talk
about enthusiasm? Paul said, you want
to talk about zeal? I was so enthusiastically
zealous for Judaism that anybody who
defected and called upon Jesus as the Messiah
I persecuted, I went after. They were on my blacklist. He had a zeal for God. So Paul says, I can relate. I can relate because
I was one of them. A zeal for God-- an
enthusiasm for God-- but it was not
according to knowledge. That is, it wasn't based
on a correct understanding of the scriptures, the
Old Testament, the Torah, the Tanakh. They read it. They read it, Paul said,
but they don't get it. They don't understand it. They don't understand the
predictions it's making and the fulfillment in Christ. You know, zeal is good but
zeal is dangerous if it's not channeled by knowledge. If you're just
enthusiastic-- ooh, we love people with passion-- I don't. I don't want somebody who's
passionate for some dumb idea, some stupid idea,
some errant idea. It has to be based on truth. Jesus said, you are ignorant. He said that to the
religious Pharisees. "You err, not knowing
the scriptures nor the power of God." Oh, you have a zeal but it's
not according to knowledge. "I bear them witness,
they have a zeal for God, but it is not according
to knowledge." I was reading about an
incident that took place not long ago in Israel. There is a town in
northern Israel-- if you've been on our tours
you have either been through it or you've seen it-- it's close to the Lebanese
border, called Kiryat Shmona, and it has received a
shelling-- bombing-- from Hezbollah over the years. And, if that isn't enough,
there were some very orthodox, enthusiastic,
zealous, orthodox Jews who broke in and beat up
Jewish people in that town because they had given their
lives to Yeshua as the Messiah. They believed in
Jesus as the Messiah. It's already a hard
town to live in but then they went into the
house of a Jewish believer in Jesus, stole their
stuff, ruined their house, vandalized their house,
and roughed them up. Zeal for God, not
according to knowledge. Very, very dangerous. Verse 3, "For they
being ignorant of God's
righteousness--" now Paul has made his case, that God's
righteousness is a gift. It's not something you earn,
it's something you get. It's something you receive. But they're ignorant of that. They don't understand
that righteousness is something you receive. A right standing is
something you get. It's done for you, not by you. They don't get that. So he says, "they being
ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish
their own righteousness--" Whenever you have a
righteousness that you are producing by yourself--
you're earning it, you're working at it,
you're being religious, you're going here,
you're going there, you're doing all
the things right, and thus, you think
it is owed you. You are producing
it by yourself. It is by definition
self-righteousness. You're a self-righteous
individual. "Being ignorant of
God's righteousness, and seeking to establish
their own righteousness, have not submitted to
the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of
the law--" please mark that. Please understand that verse. Jesus Christ is the
end, the termination of, the fulfillment of, the
law "to everyone who believes." Here is the difficulty that the
Jewish person faced and faces. They have a whole
system of works, a whole religious system,
like any religion has. Even people in the so-called
Christian religions can have a system of works. In Judaism, they had sacrifices. They brought an
animal, the animal was sacrificed on an
altar, the blood was shed. They would go through
their ritualistic prayers. The pious Jew prayed
three times a day. They would tithe. They would fast. And they would brag
about it or, at least, they would acknowledge that
they have done something, whereby they have earned a
right standing before God. This is why they didn't like
Jesus so much, because he would walk up to a
prostitute and say, your sins are forgiven. And they thought,
he can't say that. Only God can say that. Or the man who was
paralyzed, and his friends let him down through
that roof, and He said, man, be of good cheer. Your sins are forgiven. That didn't make sense. You can't just confer
right standing on somebody. And Paul says, oh, yes you can. "Christ is the end--" the
fulfillment-- "of the law for everyone who believes." He's going to flesh that out
in the book of Galatians. Chapter 3 of Galatians, where
he will say, the law of Moses was a tutor, a schoolmaster-- very different from the
educational system of today-- but the schoolmaster is
going to lead you to Christ, point you to Christ. But once you come to Christ,
you don't need the tutor any longer. You don't need the
schoolmaster any longer. The schoolmaster, the tutor, the
law has fulfilled its purpose. It's done. It's over. You're not right before God
by keeping a code, a system, or a bunch of laws. Christ is the end of the law. But this didn't set well with
the Jewish people, especially the Jewish leadership. They even had a saying among
the Jews and the saying was, if there are only two
people who go to heaven-- out of anyone who's ever
lived on the earth-- if only two people go to
heaven, one will be a scribe and the other will
be a Pharisee. That was their saying. If only two people are
saved, one will be a scribe, the other will be a Pharisee. Jesus comes along and
says to the crowd, unless your righteousness
exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees you won't
by any means get into heaven. And they went, what what? They couldn't
figure that one out. That's because they're
used to earning it. Jesus came to produce it,
provide it, and give them a right standing with Him. Christ is the end of the law
to everyone who believes. Now what I didn't tell
you is, in Philippians chapter 3, when Paul does
give his testimony, Hebrew of the Hebrews-- concerning zeal,
persecuting the church; concerning righteousness which
comes by the law, perfect." You know, he goes through
all that he used to be. But he said, but all those
things I count but dung-- dung. A pile of poop-- in the NSV, the
New Skip Version-- [LAUGHTER] --that I might find Christ
"and be found in Him, not having mine
own righteousness, which is from the law, but
the righteousness which comes through faith in Jesus Christ." Very powerful words from this
ex-rabbi convert to Christ. "For," verse 5, "Moses writes
about the righteousness which is of the law, 'The man who
does those things shall live by them.'" That's Leviticus chapter 18. Paul is quoting Leviticus 18,
where basically the text is saying that if you
want to live, you have to do all the things
that the law prescribes. If you do all the things the
law prescribes, you'll live. The problem is you can't do
the things the law prescribes. We've made that point
time and time again. Jesus made that point. There was a lawyer in the Gospel
of Luke who came to Jesus one time and said, good
Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said, well,
you've read the scriptures. What is your take on it? The guy said, well, you need to
love the Lord your God with all your mind, all your
soul, all your strength, and love your
neighbor as yourself. Jesus said, yep, that's right. You read it rightly. Do that and you will
live, Jesus said. Do those things
and you will live. Problem is no one ever had
been able to do those things, because right after that-- after he said, love
the Lord your God with all your mind, heart,
soul, strength, and love your neighbor as yourself-- Jesus said, yep,
do that and live. Then the man said, and
who is my neighbor? That's when Jesus gave the
parable of the good Samaritan to show the man who thought,
I am earning my way, that he really wasn't
keeping the law anyway. He said, go and do likewise. Go find people like that
Samaritan, who is non-Jewish, and have compassion on him. Go out of your way to
show that kind of love. But you're not doing that. "Moses writes about the
righteousness which is of the law, 'The man who
does those things shall live by them.'" But the righteousness
of faith speaks in this way, 'Do not say in your
heart, "Who will ascend into heaven?"'-- that is, to
bring Christ down from above-- or, '"Who will descend into
the abyss?"'-- that is, to bring Christ
up from the dead. But what does it say?" Now he's going to
quote Deuteronomy 30, another saying of Moses. "What does it say?
'The word is near you, even in your mouth and
in your heart--' that is, the word of faith
which we preach--" he is showing that even Moses
taught salvation by faith. "'The word is near you, even in
your mouth and in your heart.'" A good question to ask is how
close are you to righteousness? What does a person have to do? Does a person have
to make a pilgrimage? Ascend somewhere or
descend somewhere? Do you have to get on your knees
and crawl up some crazy stairs and roam until your
knees are bloody? Or do you have to make
a pilgrimage to a hill out by Santa Fe and get holy
dirt, because then you'll be closer to God? Do you have to make some
kind of a long trip, and save up your money, and
do some kind of a ritual in order to be
right with the Lord? I remember the first time I
went to Israel-- and the answer, of course, is no, you don't. First time I ever went to Israel
and lived on that kibbutz, and I went to Jerusalem
while I was living there, I remember hearing
stories of people say, man, when I
was in Israel, when I was in the Garden
of Gethsemane, the Lord was never
more real to me. It's like I could touch Him
and it was like I got lifted. I'd heard these stories. So I remember going there,
having high expectations of, (SINGING) Ahhh. And that never really
happened to me. In fact, I remember sitting
in the Garden of Gethsemane and going, it's OK,
it's going to happen. Any moment. Here it comes. That feeling, that (SINGING) Ahhh. It's going to happen. And I was sorely disappointed. I thought, man, I saved up a lot
of money to get that feeling. [LAUGHTER] I could have just
bought the book and looked at the pictures. But then I remember
flying back home and being in my little
slummy apartment in Santa Ana, California-- with a high crime
rate where I lived-- and one night,
with my Bible open, feeling the presence of God in
a very powerful, palpable way after that. After I had gotten
home from Israel. It felt so amazing. And then I thought,
man, I could have saved a whole boatload
of money if I had just done that earlier. I'm not saying
don't go to Israel, I'm saying don't go to
Israel for that reason. It's like if you're
thinking you're going to buy points
with God, or you're going to somehow
get some kind of-- and you might get some
kind of crazy experience-- but we'll see. "'The word is near you,
it's in your mouth, it's in your heart--' That
is, the word of faith which we preach-- that if you confess
with your mouth the Lord Jesus and
believe in your heart that God has raised Him from
the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one
believes to righteousness, and with the mouth confession
is made to salvation." Notice the key
elements for salvation. You believe and you
believe in your heart. It's not speaking of
the cardiac muscle, it's just in the
core of your being. It has to be a real,
authentic belief, not I just acknowledge
God exists, I acknowledge Jesus is right,
I acknowledge all that. It's in the very heart,
or core, of your being-- the authentic you,
the real you-- it's more than just a
knowledge, it's a conviction. You have the conviction that
He is who He said He is. That He is Lord. That He is God in human flesh. And that He conquered
death by resurrection. That God raised
Him from the dead. This is the core of the gospel. If you confess with your mouth,
you believe in your heart, you will be saved. "For with the heart one
believes to righteousness--" that's how righteousness
comes, by faith-- "and with the mouth confession
is made to salvation. For the Scripture says, 'Whoever
believes on Him will not be put to shame.' For there is no distinction
between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is rich
to all who call upon Him. For 'whoever calls on the name
of the Lord--'" quoting Joel chapter 2-- "'whoever calls upon the name
of the Lord shall be saved.'" OK. Something is at play here. I just want you to
see a relationship. The apostle Paul has been
noting in the last few chapters that salvation is by faith, but
it is a sovereign act of God. God sovereignly
chooses, or elects. He elected the
nation of the Jews to be the receptacle of the law,
to be the receptacle of truth, to be the receptacle
of the Savior. He chose them for a very,
very specific special purpose. He chooses you and I as the
elect of God to be saved. There's predestination. We have touched on
some of those things. But there is also human
responsibility at work, because it says, "whoever
calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." It's not automatic. You're not saved automatically. I was raised in
a Christian home, therefore I'm a Christian. You're not saved irresistibly. I had no choice at all. No human cooperation. I was irresistibly drawn because
a Calvinist told me I was. No, there is a human
responsibility. Yes, God enables that. That's part of His
sovereign plan. But you and I still
must make a choice. And so, who is
salvation offered to? "Whoever." That's the word that is used. "Whoever." "Whoever calls on the name
of the Lord shall be saved." "For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever--" or
whosoever-- "believes in Him shall not perish
but have everlasting life." "How then shall they call on Him
in whom they have not believed? And how shall they
believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear
without a preacher? And how shall they preach
unless they are sent? As it is written, 'How beautiful
are the feet--'" quoting Isaiah-- "'of those who preach
the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of
good things!'" "Faith comes by hearing, hearing
by the word of God." Before you hear somebody
has to be willing to speak. And you hear the
words that they speak. That's how faith is generated. "Faith comes by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God." "And how shall they preach
unless they are sent?" Now the idea of being
sent here does not imply being formally sent by
a church, or a mission board, or some Christian organization
or group necessarily, because here's the truth. You've already been sent. You've already got
marching orders, you just need to read
them and obey them. Jesus said, "Go
into all the world, and preach the gospel
to every creature." So once you read, that
you're responsible for that. Jesus said to His disciples,
"as the Father sent Me, so I send you." So you and I are sent. Even in the book of Acts,
when they laid hands on Paul and Barnabas
and sent them out, it says, "So, being sent
out by the Holy Spirit." So you and I are sent. We are called to go, and
proclaim, and preach. "As the Father sent
me, so I send you." "But," verse 16, "they have
not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, 'Lord, who
has believed our report?'" Now, if you know your Bible, you
know that that's how Isaiah 53-- that suffering servant passage-- begins. "Who has believed our report? To whom has the arm of
the Lord been revealed?" He's quoting Isaiah and the
point that he's making is, look, they have not
all believed or obeyed the gospel, for
Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our report?" Now let me give you
that context once again. What Paul is saying is that,
OK, all of this is true, and yet Israel, for the
most part, has not believed. For the most part
Israel, as a majority, rejected their Messiah. He came into His own. His own received them not. But the principle that he made
a couple of chapters back-- and it's kind of
continuing now-- is that just because the
majority doesn't believe doesn't negate God's
promise to the minority. The fact that God
made a promise-- and let's say only a few
believe it-- it's still true. And just because most
people don't believe it-- or most of the nation of Israel
rejected Jesus, and still does, by the way, to this day-- doesn't mean that
Jesus is invalid. It just shows the
hardness of their heart and the fallenness of humanity. It does not negate
the promise of God. He's going to develop that. "So then faith comes
by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." That's how faith is developed. Somebody speaks truth,
you and I hear the truth, and we make a decision of
what we'll do with the truth. "Faith comes by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God. But I say, have they not heard? Yes indeed-- 'Their sound has
gone out to all the earth, and their words to the
end of the world.'" He's quoting now Psalm
19, where David talks about natural revelation-- sun, moon, stars, biosphere,
creative genius of God. God speaks to people of His
existence, of His power, just through the
natural environment. Some message of the
existence and reality of God is evident in
creation is the point. "But I say," verse 19,
"did Israel not know? First Moses says, 'I will
provoke you to jealousy by those who are not a nation,
I will anger you by a foolish nation.' But Isaiah is very
bold and says, 'I was found by those
who did not seek Me. I was made manifest to those
who did not ask for Me.' But to Israel he says, 'All day
long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient
and a contrary people.'" Gentiles are the ones he is
referring to in verse 20. "I was found by those
who did not seek me." The Jewish people, Israel,
he's referring to in verse 21. God said, I stretched
out My hands all day long to this people. That is, the unbelief of
Israel shouldn't take anybody off guard. Traditionally,
historically they have not believed God's promises. Stephen stood in front
of the Jewish council, in Acts chapter 7,
and he said, you bunch of stiff-necked people. Which one of the prophets
did not your fathers persecute and kill? You have a long history of the
rejection of God's message, of God's truth, of God's
prophets, of God's messengers. So Paul is exploring
that using the prophets. But He was found "by those
who did not seek Me." Though the nation of
Israel, by and large, has rejected Jesus as the
Messiah, individuals-- the remnant that
he has referred to, and will refer to it
again in a moment-- are saved. But look at that last
verse of chapter 10. "All day long I have
stretched out My hands to a disobedient and
contrary people." Have you ever tried to
stretch out your hands for a long period of time? You may want to try it. Not now. Not here. But go home and just do this and
see how long you can do this. After a while, and it
won't take very long, you'll get very weary of this
and you won't have the strength to do it. So God says, you know,
I've been doing this for a long time with My people. I've been stretching
out My hand. I've been making invitations. I've sent prophet after
prophet, message after message. I predicted. I sent My Son into the vineyard. They killed Him,
like the parable. I've done this. But you can only
do this so long. That would bring up a
question in the fact that he quotes this verse. The natural thing to
ask is, well then, doesn't that mean God
has cast away His people? Disowned them? Rejected them? And that takes us to
verse 1 of chapter 11. "I say then, has God
cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite,
of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His
people whom He foreknew." It's a good answer. Has God cast away His people? Paul says, ask me. He didn't cast me away. I was a rabbi. I persecuted the church. I couldn't stand Christians. And yet I got saved. Explain that one. Intellectually I felt
superior to these people, morally superior,
religiously superior. I didn't believe in this Jesus. And yet I believe in
Jesus now and I follow him wholeheartedly. So if God has cast away
His people, explain me. He's exhibit A. God has
not cast away His people. It is a good question. Has God cast away the people-- the nation of Israel,
the Jewish people? And it's a worthy question
because some will answer that, not in the negative,
but in the affirmative. Some in the church. There's a whole spiritual
set of interpretations called amillennialism that
basically says, God has cast away
the people of Israel. And even though
the Bible predicts, I believe, a literal
millennial period for Jesus to fulfill all the promises
He made to the Jewish nation-- where He will rule and reign
geocentrically from Jerusalem, rule the world for
a thousand years-- amillennialism says
that will never happen, because the Jews
rejected Jesus Christ nationally, all of the promises
that God made to the Jews in the Old Testament
are fulfilled in the church spiritually. They're not going to have
a literal fulfillment. They have a spiritual
fulfillment. There's not going to be a
real, literal millennium of a thousand years. There's sort of a spiritual
fulfillment of that. And they negate, or cancel
out, God's unique plan for the Jewish nation,
and all the promises that God made to
the Jewish nation. So it's an important question. Has God cast away His people? The amillennialist-- and by
the way, they're everywhere. There's a lot of them. And their brothers in
Christ, sisters in Christ. As long as a person
believes in Jesus, are saved by grace
through faith-- we believe the essential
doctrines of the church-- amillennialism,
pre-millennialism-- which I believe in-- post-millennial, all
of those things-- that shouldn't separate our
fellowship from one another. We can debate over it, and I'm
happy to do it, up to a point. When a person doesn't want
to listen then I'm done. I'll debate but I
won't divide over that. Here's what an
amillennialist will say. They say, well, the Millennium
isn't a real, literal 1,000 year period. What happened is that Jesus is
right now ruling and reigning on the throne, in heaven. So the fulfillment of
all those promises, of Jesus ruling on the
throne, the throne of David, et cetera, is happening now. Jesus is seated at the
right hand of the Father, so He's ruling. So they say the Millennium
isn't a thousand year period, it's just the indiscriminate
period between the First Coming and the Second Coming,
which means right now is the Millennium. You're in it. I just got to say, based on my
understanding and my reading of what is predicted
in that kingdom age, if this is the Millennium,
I am highly disappointed. If this is it, try again. It's not so awesome. It boils down to how a
person interprets scripture. An amillennial believer
interprets the Scripture in a spiritualized way. It doesn't mean that
literally, they say. It has a spiritual meaning. Now I don't believe in
spiritualizing the text. My hermeneutic, or the
way I interpret Scripture, is called a
grammatical/historical hermeneutic. I take the grammar
and the history, and I approach the text. An amillennial believer
will say, well, so do we. We believe in a
grammatical-historical interpretation of the
Bible, except when it comes to prophecy. Then we take a
spiritualizing hermeneutic. And then my follow-up question
immediately is, on what basis? What is your basis for that? Just because it's
convenient for you? Because it's an
inconsistent hermeneutic. And then, if it's not
literal, you have to tell me what does it mean? And why does the
book of Revelation get so heavy in numbers? Seven churches, seven
seals, 144,000 seals on their foreheads,
12 gates, et cetera. I mean, why-- the measurements
of the New Jerusalem, et cetera-- if you're going to
just say it doesn't mean what it says it means,
then pray tell, what on earth does it mean? You really have a
problem with that. But there are a
lot of people who say God has cast away Israel. And that is the belief-- that is the hermeneutic--
the amillennial position, is the hermeneutic of the
Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, the Presbyterian
Church, the Church of Christ, the Greek Orthodox
Church, the Russian Orthodox Church, and a few others. I don't believe it's
a responsible way to approach the scripture. I think it does great
damage to the text. More could be said but
time is running out. So has God cast away His people? I'll just let Paul answer it. No way, Jose. Again, that's the NSV. The New King James says, God
forbid, or certainly not-- excuse me-- "For I am also of
the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin." Has God cast away His
people whom He foreknew? Or do you not know what the
Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God
against Israel, saying, 'Lord, they have killed Your
prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left,
and they seek my life'? But what does the divine
response say to him? 'I have reserved for Myself
7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." The point he is
making is that, look, the whole nation has
turned against Jesus, yet there's a small remnant
who do believe like Elijah. Now Elijah was the one
who stood on Mount Carmel and had a contest with
the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings chapter 18. You remember the story, right? He stands out there
alone, and there's all these prophets
of Baal and Asherah, and he chooses them
on in a contest. He says, look, let's get an
animal, kill it on my altar, and you do your altar,
and let's trust our gods. I'll trust my God, you trust
all your pagan fake gods, and whichever God
answers by fire and consumes the sacrifice,
that's the true and living God. Fair enough? Show on. Let's go. So they have a contest. The prophets of
Baal start first. They pray from
morning till evening. They divide their
sacrifice on the altar. They dance around. They cut themselves. Elijah taunts them, yell louder,
maybe he's on a vacation. He's traveling, he's
relieving himself. He's just-- I like his style. He just kind of mocked
them, because he realized, your religion? It's just wacky. It's wrong. So instead of saying, well,
you know, you have your belief and I have my belief, he
says, yeah, your God's fake, and just taunts them. I just kind of like his style. Then it's his turn. And to rub it in
he says, take water and pour it on my
sacrifice because water's not going to burn. And just to stack the
odds against him, he says, do it again. Do it a third time. And so they did it,
and then he utters this simple little prayer-- you know, probably like,
God, if You don't show up I'm dead meat-- [LAUGHTER] A simple little prayer-- Lord, just show up. Glorify yourself. And boom, lightning fell,
struck it, and consumed it. So he won the contest,
killed the prophets of Baal. Then he ran away from Jezebel,
way down on the Sinai desert, and he's under a broom tree
exhausted, and he says, Lord, it's enough. Just take my life. I just want to die. Look, I've been the
only one in Israel. I'm the only guy who
stands up for You. I'm the only believer. God says, Elijah, actually I
have 7,000 people just like you who haven't bowed the knee. Now, for Elijah, that's like--
whoa, that's a lot of people-- but when you think of the
nation of Israel, God's people, all of them-- there are about a
million that lived in the land at that time-- only 7,000 out of that
million believed in God, in the covenant. The others did not. So it was a very small
remnant, is the point. "Even so," verse 5--
here's the application-- "Even so then, at
this present time there is a remnant according
to the election of grace." There's always a remnant. Remember that word. A remnant, a small portion. Doesn't matter if
most don't believe. Well, you know, most
people don't believe that. So? Most people are wrong. I have no problem saying that. I have no problem. I don't care if the
majority thinks one way. Majority's wrong. I know we live in a democracy,
a republic, majority rule. Good. Majority's wrong. [LAUGHTER] I'm happy to announce that. This is what John said. Last part of 1 John, "We
know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under
the sway of the wicked one." They're wrong. They're wrong. Even so, even now--
to this present time-- there's just a remnant--
a small group-- "according to the election of grace." When Paul would go
into a synagogue-- because he went to the Jew
first, then the Gentile-- and he would share the gospel-- that Jesus is the Messiah-- usually they kicked him out. But it says, "some believed." Paul lived for the
"some believed." When Paul went to Rome and
conferred with the Jews, it said, many disbelieved,
but some believed. Paul was willing
to get beaten up, rejected from town to town,
just for the, but some believed. It's always the remnant. And so, today, "there's a
remnant--" a small group-- "according to the
election of grace." If you look at the idea of
Judaism, there are in the world today about 15 million Jews-- Jewish people-- alive
on planet Earth. 15 million. About 350,000 of those 15
million are believers in Jesus. That's a small fraction. If you look at the nation of
Israel itself, just Israel-- the state of Israel,
modern Israel-- Israel has a population of what? Around 9 million people? 6.5 million, I
believe, are Jews. It's estimated that 30,000
of those 6.5 million are Messianic believers-- Jewish believers in Jesus. 30,000. You go, that's not very many. Yet it's a thousand times more
than just a few years back. In 1948, Israel became
a modern nation. They were regathered
on May 14, 1948. In May 14th of 1948,
there were 23 believers in Jesus in Israel. 23. Not 2,300. 23. Now you have 30,000. Yeah, I mean, it's
a small fraction, but it's a whole lot more. So God is doing a work. And it's always a
remnant, He says. Verse 6, "And if by grace,
then it is no longer works; otherwise grace is
no longer grace. But if it is of works,
it is no longer grace; otherwise work is
no longer work." In other words,
grace and works-- salvation by grace, salvation by
works-- are mutually exclusive. It's not like grace
plus, because as soon as it's grace plus my baptism,
grace plus my faithfulness to the church, grace plus
my regular tithing, now I'm adding a work to the grace. I didn't crawl up on the cross
with Jesus and help Him out. I didn't add anything. There was nothing
I did on that day. He did it all. That's grace. I just came along one
day and heard that that happened and believed that. That's how I'm saved. I didn't do anything to earn it. So grace and works are
mutually exclusive. And we say, oh God, I'm
going to try harder, I'm going to be a good boy,
I'm going to be a good girl, I'm going to show You,
and I'm going to earn-- as soon as you
start earning stuff, you are insulting God who gave
His only Son to show the world, you are hopeless and
helpless without My gift. Otherwise it's no longer grace. Now he says, "What then? Israel has not obtained what
it seeks--" what is it seeking? Righteousness, or right
standing before God-- "has not obtained it"-- because it's a
self-righteousness-- "but the elect have obtained
it, and the rest were hardened. Just as it is written, 'God has
given them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see,
ears that they should not hear, to this very day.'" The modern Jewish person-- religious Jew-- is faced
with the predicament. You see, the Old
Testament requires that animals be brought, on
their behalf, in a Tabernacle or in a temple. There is no temple left. In 70 AD, that
temple was destroyed by the Roman general Titus. Since then, there's
been no temple. Since then, there's been
no altar of sacrifice. Since then, there's
been no atonement. So you ask a modern,
religious Jew, what do you do with your sin? How do you get that-- I mean, your ancestors
brought animals to a temple. Blood was shed, covered it
up till the next sacrifice. And then it happened all over
again, and all over again. There were daily evening,
morning sacrifices. Yearly sacrifice. Passover. What do you do? You have a predicament. If you don't have
a temple you don't have a means by which your
sins can be carried away. There's no sacrifice. Now they'll give you an
answer, and the answer goes back to verse 3. "Being ignorant of
God's righteousness, and seeking to establish
their own righteousness--" they'll tell you about,
well, you know, every year-- Yom Kippur-- we look
back and we think, I hope my good deeds
outweigh my bad deeds. It's very similar to Islam. It's all by works. It's all by self-righteousness. But it's a real problem. They have nothing by which
to atone for their sin. Of course, there
is an atonement. It's in Christ, but
they reject Him. "And David says," verse 9,
"'Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block
and a recompense to them. Let their eyes be darkened,
that they may not see, and bow down their back
always.'" He's quoting Psalm 69, a messianic Psalm, that
predicts the suffering, in part, of the Messiah, the
rejection of the Messiah, and, in part, the
death of the Messiah. He selects a very interesting
little text out of that. He says, "Let their
table become a snare." The table-- where you spread
out to eat, have a feast-- was considered always
a place of safety. And so, the idea is, the very
thing that they have trusted in is the very thing
that condemns them. And what they trust in is
their religious observance. But because their religious
observances are keeping them from trusting in Christ, their
table-- their place of safety-- ensnares them. It's not a safe place to be. It's a very dangerous and
precarious place to be. "'Let their eyes be darkened,
that they may not see, and bow down their back always. I say then--" verse 11-- "have they stumbled
that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their
fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation
has come to the Gentiles. Now if their fall is
riches for the world, and their failure
riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness! For I speak to you
Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle
to the Gentiles--" being a Jewish rabbi, yet
he turned to the Gentile-- "I magnify my ministry,
if by any means I may provoke to jealousy
those who are of my flesh and save some of them." It's hard for us to grasp, but
it's important for us to know, how 2,000 years ago, a
very pious, religious, Jewish person-- especially
living in Israel-- felt about Gentiles. Want to know how they felt? Listen to a common Jewish
prayer prayed, sometimes daily, by a pious Jewish man. Went like this, God, I
thank You that I am not a Gentile, or a
slave, or a woman. Tells you what they
thought about Gentiles. Shows you what they
thought about women. That was a common Jewish prayer. When the Jewish people
referred to Gentiles they go under the moniker
[SPEAKING HEBREW].. [SPEAKING HEBREW] is
Hebrew for the nations. In other words, they are not us. We are the chosen,
they are just them. The nations. You got Jews and everybody else. God's chosen and the unchosen. I told you before,
when pious Jews would walk down the street-- especially the Pharisees-- they
would hold their robes close, lest their robes brush
up against a Gentile and they become
contaminated by it. If you want to know how a Jew
thought about other nations look at the book of Jonah. Jonah was a pious Jew. God told him to go
preach to Nineveh-- that's up in Iraq-- and give them an
extension of mercy, but it was actually couched
under a very severe sermon of judgment. Jonah was not excited
about going to Gentiles. So much so that he went
the opposite direction and ran from God. That's what he
thought about the job. That's what he thought
about Gentiles. They are not worth saving. You have to understand
how strongly they felt. Here's something else. Paul the apostle goes
back to Jerusalem. He writes the book of Romans-- those three months--
goes to Jerusalem. He gets arrested. He stands before
the Jewish people and gives his testimony-- I was on the Damascus
road, I got saved. I was like you guys. I arrested people who
called on the name of Jesus. You guys know who I am. And then he said this. When the Lord apprehended
me, and called me on the Damascus road, He
said to me, go from here. I'm going to send
you to the Gentiles. And it says, in the book
of Acts, chapter 21, and they listened to him
until he spoke that word. What is that word? The G word-- Gentiles. God is going to send
me to the Gentiles. It says, at that word
they became so incensed they tore their clothes. [RIPPING SOUND] They started screaming. [SCREAM] [LAUGHTER] And they threw dirt in the air. Wow. Yeah, they had a
zeal, not according to knowledge, ignorant
of God's righteousness. That's how they felt
about [SPEAKING HEBREW],, the Gentiles. "I speak to you
Gentiles," verse 13, "inasmuch as I am an
apostle of the Gentiles, and I magnify my
ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy
those who are my flesh and save some of them." But now, watch this. "For if they're being cast
away is the reconciling of the world, what will be
their acceptance but life from the dead? For if the first fruit is
holy, the lump is also holy; if the root is holy,
so are the branches. And if some of the
branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive,
were grafted in among them, with them become a
partaker of the root and fatness of the
olive tree, and do not boast against the branches. But if you boast, remember that
you do not support the root, but the root supports you." He's going to talk
about God's future plan for the Jewish nation. It's an incredible one. It's predicted in
the Old Testament. I can't tell you. I don't have time
to get into it. We're now closing the study. I'm sorry we have to
kind of wind this down, but I'll give you a hint--
a little bit of homework-- to prep you for next week. Go home and read
Ezekiel chapter 37, and you will find out what Paul
is talking about when he says, hey, if they're being set aside
meant awesome things for you, imagine what their
restoration's going to be like. And Ezekiel 37 predicts
the restoration of the nation of Israel
in the last days. So, with that in mind,
we'll close for the evening and pick it up next time. I tried to make it through 11. You know, I try my
hardest but I guess I need an hour and
a half teaching slot rather than an hour. Then I'd probably
do better but-- [APPLAUSE] Let's all stand together. Let's pray together as we stand. Father, thank You for
the incredible promise that You have made to the nation
that You did indeed choose, the ones that You did
indeed give the law-- give the Scriptures--
even though those texts are misinterpreted by the
bulk of the Jewish nation to this day and not
understood by them. Lord, they are
the chosen people, but their chosenness does not
guarantee eternal salvation. That only comes through
the Jewish Messiah. And any one, Jew or
Gentile, can be saved. And Lord, there's always
a remnant who does. There's always some who believe. Lord, You have awakened faith
perhaps in others tonight and we pray that those
who are joining us via Livestream, or
on radio, or here who are being awakened to
the idea that faith alone-- "faith comes by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God." In hearing the word
of God may come also a desire to be right with You. I pray that that
person would just invite Jesus to come inside
and be Lord and Master, be Lord and Savior,
change their life, give them hope, show them Your
plan, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. [MUSIC PLAYING] For more resources from Calvary
Church and Skip Heitzig, visit calvarynm.church. Thank you for joining us from
this teaching in our series, expound.
