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. Would you turn in
your Bibles, please, to the book of
Romans, chapter 11. My errant though
well-intentioned attempt at covering two
chapters, since that has happened now a few times, I
have now become more realistic. And so tonight I'm not promising
you to do two chapters. I'm going to be focusing
in on just chapter 11 of the book of Romans, finishing
that up and comparing what we read in Romans 11 with
other texts of scripture, just so that we get a
good understanding of it, rather than chopping it
up and going then partly into the next section of Romans
that begins in chapter 12 to the end of the book, which
is the fourth and final segment of the book. Rather than chopping
it up that way, I will just spend the remainder
of this evening talking about and wrapping up these three
chapters of 9, 10 and 11, which deal with God's
promise to His covenant people, the Jewish
nation, so that we get an understanding
of some of these things that I feel has been a source
of confusion for so many. So we are simply going
to look at Romans 11, and, comparing that to
other texts of scripture that I have marked in
my Bible, to give us a fuller-orbed understanding of
God's plan for Jew and Gentile. So we typically are in
this for about an hour. I watch my time pretty
carefully and then, when time's up, or thereabouts,
we close and we go home. So it's about an
hour Bible study. If you don't think you
can be in for all of that, I understand that that's
a lot for some folks, even though it's funny
how we can sit and watch a movie for two or three
hours and barely get up. But, be that as it
may, we're going to be in it for about an hour. If you're like rolling
your eyes, going, a Bible study for an hour. You know, I don't know
if I can handle that. [APPLAUSE] Well, obviously, some can. Most all of us can. But if that describes
you, and you're thinking, yeah, I'm going
to tap out early. Then I'm going to encourage
you, while we pray and our heads are
bowed, that you tap out now by going to the
very edge or the periphery of the auditorium, so that your
getting up and moving around and leaving in the middle
of it wouldn't then become a source of
distraction to somebody who really is in it to win it. They're in it all
the way to the end. They want to get as much as
they can out of this study. So I make that announcement
from time to time. And I thought, since I'm
only doing one chapter, I have the opportunity to
make such an announcement and take up a few
moments at the beginning. Shall we pray. Father, thank you
for the opportunity you've given us to gather
again, to gather together, to pause in the
middle of our week to consider a section of
scripture that reflects so many of the promises made
in the Old Testament, promises You made to Abraham,
promises that You made to his sons and
grandson, promises that You made to
David, promises also that You gave to Jeremiah
of a New Covenant. Oh Lord, help us, who are
Gentile recipients of that New Covenant, to
understand, not only what our place is
in the grand scheme and plan that You have
laid out in Your word, but also, in particular,
what Your plan for the Jewish nation,
the nation of Israel, the covenant people,
is in the last days. Father, our heart's
prayer, like Paul, is that Israel might be saved. And, Father, if there's a way
that our lives could provoke them to jealousy,
if there's a way that we, by our
witness, our words, could help in that,
Father, we pray You will use us individually,
and as a fellowship. Lord, thank You
for those who also make this a regular part of
their study online, people from all around the world. And so we are grateful
for that technology. But here we, as Your
body, this local church, this precious flock, I
commit to You, Lord, and pray that You would, as we just
sang, break every chain and, in so doing, bind
us to You as our master, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Romans chapter 11, now we
covered part of it last week. I'm going to go back
over a couple sections, and really pick
it up in verse 11. Now, I remember, when I
first bought my first set of Encyclopedia
Britannica, I knew that it was the gold
standard in research. And I also knew that
I couldn't afford it. But there was, in a
local newspaper, somebody who had been gifted a brand
new set of Encyclopedia. Britannica. They weren't interested. They needed the cash. I saw the ad. I made the phone call. I scored a deal on Britannica. So I have loved that. And, of course, this
is all before online. Now it's a moot point. You just sign up, become
a member of Britannica, and you can do all the
research with that membership. But back in the day of libraries
and people reading books, there was Encyclopedia
Britannica, which, of all the encyclopedias,
I feel, as I said, was the gold standard. People writing
encyclopedias would look up what Encyclopedia
Britannica had to say. So it's always
interesting to me when such a reputable and
formidable source like Encyclopedia Britannica
makes a huge error. And they did in
their 1911 version of Encyclopedia Britannica. You see, the Hebrew language had
been considered a dead language since about 300 to 400
AD, after the Bar Kochba revolt in Israel, after
the Jewish dispersion around the world, Israel
was not a living language. It was not used like it
had been used in antiquity. It was only preserved in
certain synagogue prayers. The temple wasn't in use. Israel wasn't in their land. So it just sort of died. And there was talk,
among some, that God would revive it one day. Well, the scholars at
Encyclopedia Britannica in 1911 wrote this comment,
"The possibility that we can ever again recover
the correct pronunciation of ancient Hebrew is as
remote as the possibility that a Jewish empire will
ever again be established in the Middle East." If they would have just
waited, and, of course, they did have to
wait 36 more years, because 36 years after
this was printed, they had to revise it,
because essentially what you have today is people
speaking the ancient Hebrew language as an everyday
language and doing so in the Jewish empire, in
the regathered state of Israel. So that brings us to the
very first question that is posed in chapter 11, has
God cast away His people, Paul the apostle asks, in
Romans chapter 11, verse 1. Certainly not. Obviously, for God to regather
them back in the land, as we see today, May
14, 1948, that happened, is an indication to us
that something is up. God isn't done with His people. The covenant people
are still in line to be blessed by
God in the future. Now Israel has had its share
of problems nationally. It disobeyed God. It went into captivity
for 70 years. The nation was
essentially destroyed. It had been divided
already, tribally, between north and south. The Assyrians had taken the
10 northern tribes captive. The Babylonians did the rest
on the two tribes left over in Judah. But, eventually, they
came back after 70 years. As predicted by the
prophet Jeremiah, they came back into their land. So there they were,
growing and thriving and rebuilding and
populating that land, but 70 AD rolled around. The Jews had rejected the
Messiah that came to them. Jesus held them accountable
for that rejection, in fact, held them accountable
for the very day He came to Jerusalem, fulfilling
the prophecies of Daniel. And since 70 AD,
after that, the Romans destroyed the city of Jerusalem. Again they were taken
captive, so to speak. There was a diaspora,
a dispersion into countries around the
world, until as I mentioned, May 14, 1948, when the United
Nations established Israel, again, as a nation. And that perked up the
interest of Bible scholars around the world, because
Isaiah the prophet said, or God said through
Isaiah the prophet, that the Lord will set
his hand a second time to restore the remnant
of My people, Israel. The first time was after
the Babylonian captivity. The second time
was May 14, 1948. God once again gathered,
literally not figuratively, not spiritually, Israel
within its own borders. But, as to our chapters that
we have been dealing with, the promises of
God had been coming under scrutiny, God's promises
to the nation of Israel. The national promises of
the plan of God for Israel had come under scrutiny. Why? Because Israel had
rejected the Messiah. Jesus said, you will not come
to Me that you may have life. They rejected Him. So the question is,
if they rejected Him, hasn't He rejected them? Again, that is
Romans 11 verse 1, has God cast away His people. If they have rejected
Jesus as their Messiah, then certainly God must
reject them as His people. And, as we mentioned last
week, the amillennial believer would say that's true. Now there's spiritual Israel. There's no such thing
as national Israel. There's no such thing
as geopolitical Israel. God isn't concerned with that. It's all spiritualised
in the church. We have fulfilled and
will fulfill the promises that God made to the Jews. Now, by the time this
book was written, there was already a shift in
the church from Jew to Gentile. The early church was all Jewish. All Jewish, every single
believer in Jerusalem had a Jewish background. Jesus was a Jewish Messiah. Salvation came to the Jews
through a Jew, named Jesus. So all the believers in Judaea
had a Jewish background. That changed when Peter went
to the house of Cornelius, a Gentile, and Cornelius
believed and was filled with the Holy Spirit. Things began to change. I'll get back to that story. At this point, the church is
largely, especially in Rome, not Jewish, but mostly
Gentile, non-Jewish. So just looking at who is
populating the seat next to you in church, around this
time, one could surmise, I guess God really
is done with Israel. That was sort of
a starting point. But they rejected Him. He's rejected them. Now God is turning to and
dealing with the Gentiles. Now, why would they think this? They would think
this because, indeed, and Paul will make this clear. There was a blindness
that happened to Israel. We're going to get
down to chapter 11, eventually, verse 25, where
Paul says, "Blindness in part has happened to Israel until
the fullness of the Gentiles are come in." They became hardened. They became so
hardened voluntarily that God added to that
by causing a blindness to occur, because of
their willful rejection. So I'm sort of going around
the block to get next door, but I'm going to read
a complementary verse of scripture, and that is
2 Corinthians, chapter 3, where Paul says, "Moses
put a veil over his face." This is 2 Corinthians,
chapter 3, verse 13. "Moses put a veil over his
face so the children of Israel could not look steadily at the
end of what was passing away, that is the covenant of the law. But their minds were hardened--"
their minds were hardened, or as other translations say,
their minds were blinded-- they became blind,
"for until this day," he continues, "the same
veil remains unlifted in the reading of
the Old Testament, because the veil is
taken away in Christ. Even to this day,
when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart." He's speaking of a
national blindness that occurred to the Jews, a
stupor, a spiritual stupor, so that they read the scripture,
but they don't get it. They don't have a real,
full-orbed, clear understanding of how Jesus Christ
fulfills their scripture. Now, that was true
when Paul wrote it. It's true to this day. And I'm underscoring
that, because, by the time we get to verse 25,
you'll have that as a background
of understanding. Now in the Gospel
of Luke, chapter 19, Jesus comes to Jerusalem. And as He drew near,
it says He saw the city and He wept over it,
saying, "If you had known, even you, especially
in this your day the things that
make for your peace, but now they are
hidden from your eyes." You are blinded to that. You are hardened to it. That spiritual stupefaction
has ruled over you. "For the days will come," Jesus
continues, saying to Jerusalem, "the days will come upon
you when your enemies will build an embankment around
you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you,
and your children within you to the ground. And they will not
leave in you one stone upon another, because
you did not know the time of your visitation." He is predicting the
fall of Jerusalem under the Roman siege
that occurred in 70 AD under General Titus. They're going to come in
and destroy this town, take the stones, toss
one off the other. And if you go and see the
ruins today of Israel, you will see how complete that
destruction is, one stone not left upon another. So they lost their temple. They lost their
national identity. They lost their land. They lost eternal life. And so Paul begins
in this section by asking a series of
questions, rhetorical questions. It's that Socratic method. He offers a question as
somebody who would dissent in a conversation would ask. Somebody would say, well,
wait a minute now, Paul, I have a rebuttal. So he supposes that. So he asks a question
then will answer it. And one of those questions
is, as we noted, in verse 1, has "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." He didn't cast me away. I'm a Jewish rabbi. I believe in Jesus
as the Messiah. He continues in
verse 11, "I say then have they stumbled
that they should fall?" It's the next question. Let me put that in a
more understandable way. Have they fallen so
they can't get up? You know the commercial. That medical alert, I've
fallen and I can't get up. And it's no laughing
matter, I mean, that really is a tragedy
when that happens. But the question is
have the Jewish people fallen to the extent that
that fall is irrecoverable? That God has set them aside
from His plan in the future, have they fallen so
they can't get up? "Certainly not, but
through their fall to provoke them to
jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles." It's tragic that the
Jewish people did not see Jesus as the Messiah. Now many did. Hundreds did, thousands did. We see that in the book of Acts. But as a nation, they
were so hardened, their leaders would
not permit it. So they rejected Jesus. They were glad when
He was crucified. But, as tragic as it was,
it opened a door for God to let Gentiles,
non-Jews, come in. That is one of the grand
points of this chapter. Because Jesus was
rejected by Israel, salvation was offered
to the whole world. Remember the parable
of the wedding feast, and people said, no, I'm
busy, no, I won't come. They didn't come, so the
master of the feast said, go into the highways and byways
and get anybody who will come. That's the same truth. Non-Jewish people, anybody
who would believe in Jesus, could be admitted to it. And really that was the idea
of Israel from the beginning. When God first
established the nation, who did he establish it through? Who was the first person? Abraham. God called Abraham out
of Ur of the Chaldees, and He promised him a land. And He said, I'm going to
make a great nation out of you, Abraham. I'm going to bless you. I'm going to make
your name great. I'm going to bless
those who bless you. I'm going to curse
those who curse you. And in you, listen to this,
all the families of the earth will be blessed. Not some of the families, only
those with a Jewish background, will be blessed. All of the families of
the earth will be blessed. And my family has been blessed. This German American
Gentile family has been blessed,
because of what Jesus did in bringing salvation. It was God's intention
from the beginning to let Israel be a
light to the Gentiles, Isaiah said very clearly. But they rejected God's plan. God had a plan for them. The question is, does God
still have a plan for them? According to Paul, yep, He
still does have a plan for them. Even their faithlessness to Him
can't cancel His faithfulness to them. In fact, it should
provoke them to jealousy, because salvation has
come to the Gentiles. Now verse 12, "if their fall is
riches for the world," that is, their rejection has opened the
door for non-Jewish people. The world, anybody can believe. If their riches, "if their
fall is riches for the world and their failure riches for the
Gentiles, how much more their fullness." If their rejection of
God and His setting them aside temporarily brought
such blessing to the world, can you imagine if God decided
to restore them, bring them back, regather them, and
cause them all to believe? What would that mean? How much more their fullness,
"for I speak to you, Gentiles, inasmuch as I am
an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry." It's interesting that
Paul, a Jewish rabbi, became the one that God used
to open the door of faith, largely. Though he used Peter at
first with Cornelius, He used Paul as the
apostle to the Gentiles. And Peter, in Galatians, is
called the apostle to the Jews. So you have Peter, who is from
Galilee, a largely Gentile region, the apostle
to the Jews, and you have Paul, a Gamaliel,
Jerusalem-trained rabbinic scholar, Hebrew of the
Hebrews, tribe of Benjamin, Jewish, true blue Jew, an
apostle to the Gentiles. I love it, because God's call
is often counter-intuitive. If you wonder, Lord, why did
You call me to that ministry, or to that place, or to that
group, or in this situation, just know that. Sometimes God calls
you to do something and has a little
smile on His face when He does it, because He
calls you the areas, you go, I don't have any
experience with this. I'm not good at this. Moses, I'm calling
you to lead My people. I-I-I can't even talk,
Moses said, I stutter. You want me to be
a spokesperson? Wrong guy. Paul, the Jewish
rabbi, an apostle to the Gentiles, "how
much more their fullness." I'll get back on track. "For I speak to you
Gentiles, inasmuch as I am an apostle
to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry,
if by any means I may provoke to jealousy
those who are my flesh and save some of them." As I said, salvation came
to the Jews through a Jew. Jesus was Jewish. He was raised in
a Jewish family. He was dedicated
at a Jewish temple. He went to Jerusalem to go
through His bar mitzvah, to become a son of
the commandment. He kept the Passover, He
kept the feasts of Israel. He said to the woman
of Samaria, you don't know what
you're worshipping. We know what we worship, for
salvation is of the Jews. He was a pure Jewish Messiah. It was Paul's hope,
however, that because God opened the door to the
Gentiles, and the Gentiles were now believing
in a Jewish Messiah and believing in
Jewish scripture and believing in the
fulfillment of Jewish feasts in Christ, that that would
bother some of the Jews. Hey, wait a minute. What are you doing
worshiping my Messiah? What are you doing
reading my scriptures? And still, to this day, when I
meet and talk to Jewish people, and I mention the Old
Testament, and I'll quote the Old Testament,
they go, oh, you read the Old Testament, wow. And they go, wow, you seem
to know it pretty well. And I've had some, many of them
say, much better than I do. I don't even know
my own scriptures. So it was Paul's hope that's
salvation to non-Jewish people in believing all things
Jewish about the Messiah and the fulfillment, that
would provoke them to jealousy and that would drive
them to Christ. Now that that didn't
exactly happen. It happened in some
cases, verse 15, "for if their being cast away is
the reconciling of the world," again, that door is
open to the world. Whosoever will, let him come. Whoever believes in
him will not perish. "If their being cast
away," and, again, temporarily, not permanently,
"is the reconciling of the world, what
will their acceptance be but life from the dead? For if the first fruit is
holy, the lump is holy. If the root is holy, so
also are the branches." In Ezekiel chapter 37, which
is where we left off last week, and I said to read
that in advance. So if you did your homework
you're on good ground. In Ezekiel 37, in
a vision, Ezekiel was taken to a large valley. And he saw in this
massive valley, dry bones, bones of people scattered
throughout the valley. And the Lord said to him, son
of man, can these bones live? And the prophet
said, You know, Lord. It's like, You're asking me? I should be asking
you that question. Thou knowest. You know. So He said, son of man,
the Lord said, son of man, prophesy to these
dry bones and say that breath is going
to come inside of them and they're going to live again. And it was a picture
of a resurrection, a national resurrection, because
as the skeleton gets in place, and then flesh and muscles and
sinew came on this skeleton, it became a mighty army in the
vision of Ezekiel chapter 37. God says, that is, so will
be the House of Israel, that God will cause
the House of Israel to live again, to get strong
again, and to regather again. So when he asked the
question, he has that in mind, what will their acceptance
be but life from the dead? A national restoration
and resurrection, that includes salvation
in the end of days. I'll show you that as we get
further on in our chapter. Verse 17, "And if
some of the branches were broken off and you," you
Gentiles, "being a wild olive tree were grafted in
among them, and with them became a partaker of
the root and the fatness of the olive tree, do not
boast against the branches. But if you boast, remember that
you do not support the root, but the root supports you." The reason that we can
never be anti-Semitic is because we owe
the Jews too much. We're reading their scriptures. We believe in their Messiah. We are holding on
to the covenants God gave to their forefathers. So we can't boast against them. They're the natural branches. We, as he said,
will be grafted in. I've always loved a little quip
by a man named William Norman Ewer, who said, "How odd
of God to choose the Jews." Cute little quip, "How odd
of God to choose the Jews." A little rhyme, but
he continues, "but not so odd as those who choose the
Jewish God but not the Jews." The God that you
serve is the God that made a covenant with
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the 12 patriarchs, David, and continues
to have a plan through history for His people. So he says, do not boast
against the branches. If you boast, remember you
don't support the root, but the root, the Jewish
nation, supports you. "You will say then,
branches were broken off that I may be grafted in. Well said, because of
unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare
the natural branches, he may not spare you either." Unbelieving Jews
were not spared. Apostate Israel was not spared. And so apostate Gentiles,
unbelieving Gentiles, would not be spared as well. So just because God has
opened up the door of faith to the Gentile,
the Gentile still has to believe
and come by faith. That's how one is saved,
for Jew or Gentile, so we're not to boast. Now he's giving an analogy
that anybody in that part of the world would understand. And if you're a farmer or you
have a background in this, you probably understand as well. The olive crop was
important, and still is, in the Mediterranean cultures. Countries all around
the Mediterranean Sea grow and harvest olives. I've told you before
that olive trees can grow to hundreds
of years old, in fact thousands of
years old in some cases. And you will see these enormous
trees, these wide-trunked tree of an olive. And you go, Oh boy, that's
probably got to be 10 - 12 feet in diameter. But when you get close
to that old olive tree, you'll also notice that
it's alive on the outside, but there's nothing
on the inside, that the very center
of it is hollowed out. So it's almost like a circle,
after a period of time. But it still bears fruit. Now the root is intact. So the root is getting nutrients
from the soil, producing sap, sending the sap to the branches. Olives are produced. But individual branches
within that root system can become unproductive. So, and you'll see it, and
it's fascinating to see, all the farmers will
cut off the branches, toss them aside, get young,
tender olive branches, make a cut in the base
branch of the root system, and then take the branch
and make a little tip on it, and insert it into the V
that is created in the branch and tape it up. And they'll cover it up,
let moisture get to it, and it will produce olives. And you can even
take one root system and have several
different types of olives, from Kalomata olives in this
branch, to another variety, to another. We could have several
of them in one tree. So there's a
simultaneous benefit. You're keeping the tree going
by grafting in new growth, and you're taking new
growth and they're benefiting from the root system,
that has been there for years and is still very productive
in its root system. So the unproductive branches,
according to this analogy, is unbelieving Jewish
people, unbelieving Israel, Israel nationally,
cut off temporarily, while wild olive branches,
you and I, Gentiles, are grafted in. So there's that mutual benefit. We're benefiting from all
of the promises God made, all of the predictions,
all of the truths, all of the covenants, the
scriptures, et cetera, and the Messiah. So we have been grafted in. There is a simultaneous benefit. So the olive tree
is still there. We're grafted in. But understand this. We are grafted in
not as a replacement, because you still
have the root system. We are grafted in as an addition
to the Jewish people, who will be brought in in the last days. Do you follow me? OK, now in Matthew chapter 21,
I'm going to read this to you. And you can turn to
these or write these down and look at them later. In Matthew 21, let
me read this to you. Jesus gives a parable. He says, "Hear another parable. There was a certain landowner
who planted a vineyard." Now we're not with olives
now, we're with grapes, and set a hedge about it, dug a
winepress in it, built a tower, leased it to vine-dressers,
went into a far country. This is Matthew 21,
verse 34, "Now when vintage time drew near,
he sent his servants to the vine-dressers that
they might receive its fruit. And the vine-dressers took
his servants, beat one, killed one, stoned another. Again, he sent other
servants, more than the first. And they did likewise to them. Then, last of all, he sent
his son to them, saying, they will respect my son. "But when the
vine-dressers saw the son, they said to themselves,
this is the heir. Come, let us kill him and
seize his inheritance. And they caught him and
cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore, when the owner of
the vineyard comes what will he do to those vine-dressers?" Pretty easy to see the analogy. The prophets came to
the Jewish nation. They were beat. They were killed. They were rejected. Finally God said, I'm
going to send My Son. But the Bible says
He came into His own. His own received Him not. The Son was rejected. They killed Him. "So what will he do to
those vine-dressers, they said to Him? He will destroy those
wicked men miserably and lease his vineyard to
other vine-dressers, who will render to him the
fruits in their seasons. Jesus said to them, did you
never read in the scriptures, the stone, which the
builders rejected, has become the
chief cornerstone? This is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore I say to
you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and
given to a nation bearing the fruits of it." Now, we understand, by looking
at Romans 11, what that is. We are wild branches
being grafted in, bearing fruits of the
root system, which is national Israel. In another analogy, using
sheep, not grapes, not olives, Jesus said, other sheep I have,
which are not of this fold. Them I must bring in
also, that there may be one flock and one shepherd. Now He's speaking
at the same thing. He's going to bring
in Gentiles who are not of this fold,
not of this flock, not of national Israel. But He's going to bring them in
and be their shepherd as well. That's one of the grand
points that he has been making in Romans 9, 10, and 11. Now back to Romans,
chapter 11, verse 22, "therefore consider the
goodness and severity of God. On those who fell,
severity," right, they got lopped
off, temporarily. "But toward you goodness, if
you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also
will be cut off. And they also, if they do
not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is
able to graft them in again." When you gave your life
to Christ, you were given, you were gifted, and
you were grafted. You were given salvation,
given eternal life. You were gifted by the Holy
Spirit, certain abilities and capabilities for
the mutual edification of the body of Christ. That's the Holy Spirit. So you were given,
you were gifted, but you were also grafted in. You've been given
an inheritance, a heritage of Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, the patriarchs. That is our heritage as well. "For if you were cut out
of the olive tree which is wild by nature and were
grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree,
how much more will these who are the
natural branches," that is national Israel, "be
grafted into their own olive tree. For I do not desire,
brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery." I always find it an interesting
phrase when Paul tells us that we shouldn't be
ignorant of something, because I've discovered
that is precisely the area where many of us
Christians are so ignorant. Hey, I don't want you to be
ignorant about the coming of the Lord. There's a lot of
confusion about that. Hey, I don't want you
to be ignorant about how this Jew/Gentile thing works. There's a lot of
ignorance about this. So when he says that,
it's because it's an area that can be complex
and has to be sort of unwound, and examined, and
put back together. "So I do not desire, brethren,
that you should be ignorant of this mystery,"
musterion, a Greek word that means something
that was not understood, not put forth in
the Old Testament but now has been
revealed in the New. That's generally how
the word is used. "I don't want you to be
ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your
own opinion, that hardening in part," or again, some
translations say, blindness in part, "has happened to
Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be
saved, as it is written." So notice verse 25,
blindness or hardness in part has happened to Israel. We know that. We've established that. They rejected their Messiah. God set them aside temporarily. Jesus said, you don't see it. You're blind to it. You're hardened to it. But there's a time
frame, "until." Jewish people,
generally speaking, there's always a remnant. There's always a blessed
exception to the rule. And I love seeing a Jewish
person come to faith in Yeshua, Jesus, as Messiah. But the general rule, Israel
nationally, blindness in part has happened unto Israel
until, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. The fullness of the Gentiles
means the full number of the Gentiles. Most translations that
are more modern than this, well, we'll put that in there. Until the complete number of the
Gentiles, or the full number of the Gentiles be come in. So, once again, Israel
rejected Jesus as the Messiah. It caused persecution of the
early church in Jerusalem. Peter, under the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit, was led to the house of
a soldier named Cornelius in Caesarea, a Gentile,
whose prayers were heard, whose alms had come up
before God as a memorial. Peter was on a rooftop,
and, around noon, he saw the vision of
a sheet being let down from heaven with all
sorts of unkosher meats and four footed
animals and everything not cool for a Jew to eat. And God said, Peter,
rise, kill, and eat. And Peter, being
Peter, said, I'm not going to do what You just said. No way. I'm not going to do it. I'm kosher. I'm Jewish. I've never had anything
common or unclean. And God said what
I have cleansed, you shall not call common. And He was preparing Peter
for what was about to happen. He said, there's
men that are going to be knocking on the door. When they come to the
door, don't ask questions. Just go with them. He goes to the
house of Cornelius. He says, look, you guys
know that I'm a Jew. This is Peter speaking. I can't go into the
house of a Gentile. You guys know that, right? It's like unkosher,
unclean, uncool. I'm paraphrasing. But the Lord sent me here. So here I am. What is it you have? What do you want to know? So he said, you know,
Peter began then to preach the gospel to him. Cornelius believed, and
Cornelius was the first Gentile convert in the church. It created a huge
stir in Jerusalem, so that by Acts chapter 15
this council gets together of church leaders. And Peter stands
up and says, now you guys know that
the Lord chose me to be the guy to open up
the door to the Gentiles. I went to Cornelius. And you know that God
chose to make the word of the gospel known to them. You know that. And so they were conferring. What do we do going forward,
in terms of laying burdens on Gentile believers who come
to have faith in our Messiah? So that's Cornelius. He was the first one. Since then, millions
of Gentiles, including, probably, how many
of you tonight in this room are non-Jewish, raise your hand. Raise your hand up. OK, put your hands down. How many of you are Jewish? Raise your hands. OK, there's just a sampling. You don't have to be
ashamed, raise it up high, nice and high. So I'm counting one, two, three. See, you guys are
the remnant, as far as this chapter is concerned. But, blindness in part
is happening to Israel until the full number
of Gentiles be come in. So God has chosen,
God knows there's a certain number of
non-Jewish people, who, during this age, the church age,
are going to come to believe in the Jewish Messiah. And when that number is
full, and only He knows it, at that point the day of
grace, the age of grace, the church age will be over. The rapture of the
church will take place. And the last period
of world history, known as Daniel's 70th
week, will take place. In case you don't know
about Daniel's 70th week, Israel, as a nation, has always
been the prophetic timetable in scripture. Daniel the prophet was
given a vision in chapter 9 of that book. And the angel said
to Daniel, Daniel, 70 sets of seven,
seventy sevens, are determined for your
people and for your Holy City, Jerusalem. From the going forth
of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem,
until the Messiah the Prince, shall be 483 years. And I've shared with you
that great work of Sir Robert Anderson, who computed that
from the exact date that was given by
Artaxerxes Longimanus to restore and rebuild
Jerusalem, to build the wall, to build the streets,
was March 14, 445 BC. He counted how many
years until Jesus the Messiah, which
was April 6, 32 AD, and he found not only
was it 483 years, but it was to the
exact date 173,880 days after the commandment was
given by Artaxerxes until Jesus stepped foot on
the Mount of Olives and presented Himself
as their Messiah. No wonder Jesus
wept over Jerusalem and said, if only you
had known the things that make for your peace
in this your day. But they are hidden
from your eyes. You didn't know the
time of your visitation. You should have known that. That's what Daniel predicted. So 69 of those sevens
have been fulfilled, from the time of Artaxerxes
to the presentation of Jesus on the Mount of
Olives, 483 years. But the angel said 70 sevens. 483 years is 69 of those sevens. There is still a final seven
year period, a seven year period we call the tribulation. The first half is more mild. The middle part is the
abomination of desolation. The last three and a half
years is the great tribulation period. That seven year period
is Daniel's 70th week, when the full number of
Gentiles is come in, that is when non-Jewish people, the
full number that only God knows, come to faith in Christ. When that number is hit,
the rapture happens. The church age is over. God again then turns
to deal with Israel, in restoring Israel to her God
through the tribulation period, so that by the end of
the tribulation period, Israel, those alive, will
come to faith in Jesus. They'll come to faith. They'll come to believe in
Jesus, as a nation, set aside temporarily, restored,
regathered in the end times. So blindness has happened
to Israel, hardening in part has happened to Israel, till
the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so, verse 26, look at
this, all Israel will be saved. The deliverer will
come out of Zion, and he will turn away
ungodliness from Jacob, for this is My
covenant with them when I take away their sins. Now this phrase,
all Israel, is not used diachronically, meaning
all Jews of all time saved. It is used here synchronically,
that is, all of the Jews alive at that period of
time, the end of times. During that time, that
70th week of Daniel, the seven year period
of the tribulation, we know that 144,000 Jewish
evangelists, sealed by God, will be witnessing, not only to
the nation, but to the world. We know that God will send
two witnesses to Jerusalem, I believe Moses and Elijah,
who will perform great wonders. Many of the hearts of the
people will come back, will believe that Jesus is
the Messiah during that time. And I want you to hear
about the turning back in Zechariah chapter 12. Now I'm reading Zechariah
chapter 12, verse 9, "It shall be in
that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations
that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour out
on the House of David, and on the inhabitants of
Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and supplication. "They will look on Me
whom they have pierced. They will mourn for him as
one mourns for his own son and grieve for him as one
grieves for a first born. In that day, there will be a
great mourning in Jerusalem like the mourning
at Haddad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo, and the
land shall mourn every family," et cetera. And then it goes on to
talk about their salvation. Now think back to when
Jesus stood in the temple, in Matthew 23, and said, you
will not see Me here again, until you cry, blessed is he who
comes in the name of the Lord. When will that day be? As predicted by
Zechariah chapter 12, when there is a mourning,
a sudden recognition, we've blown it. He is the Messiah. He is the pierced one. He is the one we rejected. And they will turn to Him. And so, at that time, all
those surviving of Israel will be saved, all of them. God will restore His people. God will fulfill His promise
to the Jewish nation, after that period of time. By the way, a little clue, in
Jeremiah chapter 30 and 31, it talks about the future
time of tribulation, but it goes under a
different moniker. It's called the time
of Jacob's trouble. The time of Jacob's
trouble, Jacob is another name for Israel. The Jewish people will
experience great trouble. I commend to you the last
part of the Book of Daniel, chapter 12, talks
about great trouble that will happen to the Jewish
nation during a tribulation period, especially
to the Jewish people. It'll be a great time of
testing, great time of trouble. But the end result is that
all the Jews at that time will be saved. The deliverer will
come out of Zion. He will turn away
ungodliness from Jacob, for this is My
covenant with them when I take away their sins. So the blindness is lifted. Concerning the gospel, they
are enemies for your sake. Boy, I am barely going
to finish chapter 11. I'm glad I camped on just one. "Concerning the gospel,
they," the Jewish people, "are enemies for your sake. But concerning
the election, they are beloved for the sake of
the fathers, for the gifts and calling of God
are irrevocable." Now let me unpack
that a little bit. Concerning the gospel, they
are enemies for your sake. Rejecting Jesus, turning
away from their Messiah, thereby becoming
your enemies, they were the enemies of so many
of those believers in the New Testament book of Acts. As hard as that was, it was
a benefit and a blessing because it opened the
door of faith to them. So, concerning the gospel they
are enemies for your sake. Concerning election
they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. The temporary
blindness benefits us, but God has made a promise to
the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. And part of the covenant
that God promised Abraham is called the
Abrahamic covenant. God promised Israel the
land that is Israel today. It's a land promise. It's also known in
Deuteronomy, it's called the Palestinian
covenant, or that land was given to the progeny of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the 12 tribes, "For the
gifts and callings of God are irrevocable. For as you were once
disobedient to God, yet now you have obtained mercy
through their disobedience, even so these also have
now been disobedient, that through the
mercy shown you, they also may obtain mercy. For God has committed
them all to disobedience, that he might have mercy on all. O the depths of the
riches of both the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable
are His judgments and His ways past finding out." There's a great story
about a Prussian King named Frederick the Great, who doubted
scripture and said to his court chaplain, well,
show me some proof. What can you, what
can you show me that proves the
inspiration of the Bible? And the chaplain looked
at his King and he said, Your Majesty, I can sum it
up in one word, the Jew. The Jew, Your Majesty. It's the Jew. The survival of the Jews, the
promise God made to the Jews. That's what Paul
would offer here, the Jew, God's elected,
selected, protected group of people. "For," verse 34, "who has
known the mind of the Lord, or who has become
His counselor." I can answer that. You have. You don't know His mind, but
you've become His counselor, right? Have you ever said, God, I don't
know why You would do that. I think you should
have done this, Lord. Now, Lord, a smart move for
you to make would be this. You've offered God your counsel. You've thought God has made
a mistake in certain cases in your life. But because God operates on
such a different ability, with His cognizance,
you know, who has known the mind of the Lord? No, no, David said in
Psalm 139, such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain it. So we're dealing with God. Who has known the
mind of the Lord? No one, except Him, who
has become His counselor. The answer should be no one. Or who has first given to Him,
and it shall be repaid to him? For of Him and
through Him and to Him are all things, to
whom be glory forever. Amen. In closing, if you were to study
Jewish history, and you should. If you study Jewish history and
you don't believe in miracles, you are not a realist. If you look at Israel
nationally and you discover what other nation after
400 years of slavery, after 2,000 years of dispersion,
after two total destructions, after multiple deportations,
after tribal divisions, and a Holocaust,
not only survived but came back into a
land that they had not inhabited for 2,000 years. What other nation comes
even close to that? Back to that 1911 prediction,
or that little quip in the Encyclopedia
Britannica, Yeah, you know, the odds of that language
ever being revived are about as remote as Israel
ever getting their land back again. Fact check, they
got their land back, and they speak Hebrew in it. So Paul said, has
God set aside Israel? No, and I'm proof. I'm one but there are others. Now, we are just a remnant. But we won't always
be a remnant. In the end, at the
end of days, God will save the nation of Israel. And so it says, all
Israel will be saved. It all really comes
down to choice for us. God has His plan. Paul said God is sovereign. But in terms of us
interacting with God, we have a choice to
make, Jew or Gentile. Jew or Gentile, we can be
part of the covenant or not. We can say yes to Him or not. We can enjoy the eternal
blessings or not. You remember that
last, I think it was the last, Indiana
Jones, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Was that the last
of those films? That wasn't? OK, what was? The Kingdom of
the Crystal Skull. OK, that's right, Crystal Skull. That has nothing to do
with my Bible study. I don't know why I'm
asking it, except to say, at the end of the Indiana Jones
and the Last Crusade one, which is where they are looking for
the grail of Christ, right? The grail is protected by
one of the Temple Knights in a cave in somewhere, but
it's actually in Petra, Jordan, where it's filmed. And you know how-- do
you remember the film? You remember when
Indiana Jones comes in, and then the Nazi's there? And there's all these
different chalices, and the Knight says to both
the Nazi and Indiana Jones, choose wisely, because as
the real grail has the power to give life the false grail
has the power to take life from you, remember that? So the Nazi picks
this golden chalice and drinks water out of
it and he disintegrates. And I love it because the old
Knight turns to Indiana Jones and says, he chose poorly,
after he was disintegrated. So Indiana Jones looks
through all of the cups and sees this old clay one
and he goes, that looks like the cup of a carpenter. And he drinks from it. It's the right one. And the Knight says,
you chose wisely. I don't want to
make light of it, but too many people, when it
comes to the things of God, we would say, they chose poorly. But if you come to
the Jewish Messiah given to the Jewish
nation, but offered to anyone who will
believe, you choose wisely. And even though Israel
is presently in unbelief, one day they will not. One day they will mourn. One day they will acknowledge. One day they will see. One day they will believe,
and all Israel will be saved, and so God still has a
future plan for Israel. And all you have to do is
read the rest of the Bible, because not only will 144,000
believe, not only will two witnesses share the gospel,
but in the millennial kingdom Jesus will rule and reign
from Mount Zion in Jerusalem, in the new heaven
and the new earth. After that there's new
Jerusalem and there's 12 gates with the
names of the 12 tribes. So God still is working
with, into the future, the plan he announced to
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He has not set them aside. Enough said, we're
done with this section, we'll get into the
practical section next time. Father, thank You, that we
have been able to slow down and understand the plan, that
You have, for Jew and non-Jew. And tonight we realize
most of us in this room are wild olive branches
that have been grafted in to the root
system, that includes the prophets, the promises, the
Messiah, the scriptures, all of the benefits, all
of the nourishment, all of the sap, that came
through the Jewish people. We are enjoying the
benefits of that tonight. Lord, we pray that by our
lives, by our witness, that Jewish people that live
in our communities, our neighborhoods would
be curious, interested, and even provoked to jealousy,
that we love their nation, we love their Messiah, we love
their scriptures, and they too, that their eyes would be open. In Jesus' name, Amen. Let's all stand. For more resources from Calvary
Church and Skip Heitzig, visit calvarynm.church. Thank you for joining us from
this teaching in our series Expound.
