The Error of Christian Nationalism, Then Romans 11:25ff

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I'm Rich Pierce, and this is Let the Scriptures Speak. When it comes to preachers and teachers, we want to think the best of them, but thinking the best can sometimes serve as a mask for what's really going on.

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Consider the illusion of honesty. There are various ways of ignoring a text in order to create the illusion of fidelity to that text.

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For instance, the leapfrog, the jumping over of a verse or a passage in order to skip the message that is there.

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Or the three -card Monty, the tactic of concealing a verse or passage that is key to the author's case.

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Or plain old ignoring the text, the blatant disregard for an entire section of Scripture while asserting a dogmatic proposition.

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They do these things because the text doesn't support the message that they want to convey, it doesn't support their agenda, and therefore it is to be avoided.

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So they play the game and they hope that no one notices, and the result is dishonest because it creates an illusion of honesty when there is none.

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But sometimes, sometimes it's just plain as day, it's nothing more than a hijacking.

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It's just the hijacking of the narrative, it's a hijacking of the text, it is turning it inside out, on its head, or just simply turning it into something it never was intended to be in the first place.

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Now on the last program I talked about Christian nationalism, and I talked about how in the olive tree the branches that were grafted in are warned not to grumble against or criticize or be arrogant against the branches that were broken off.

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And so this is a serious concern of the apostles, but it is very well ignored by the

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Christian nationalist crowd. Many cases, I read them and I'm amazed at the callousness by which they talk about Israel.

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And I don't want to go into details, but it just runs, there's a wide swath of attacks going on.

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So where is this coming from with them? Where is this coming from? Well, I contend ultimately that the

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Christian nationalist worldview stems from a desire to bring populations to heal, so they and their friends can rule while they prepare the planet for the culmination of their end times fever dream.

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In other words, they have an end times vision that they think this is how it's all going to wrap up, and if we can just simply grab hold of the world and take control, then we can create

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Christian nations around the world and prepare the way and hand that off to Jesus.

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So we're actually the ones controlling the actions here. If we would just get our act together, we could bring it all to a wrap here.

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In reality, the Christian nationalist case comes down to a portion of just two verses in the

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New Testament, and not all of the first one and not all of the second one. So let's take a look at that.

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Turn with me, if you will, to Matthew chapter 28, verses 18 through 20, and we will get to our main study here in a little bit, but I wanted to address this issue because it's a hot topic in our day, and so let's take a look at the reason that they tell us their entire worldview has come about.

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So let's take a look. The Christian nationalist error is first of all found as they interact with the

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Great Commission. So many are very familiar with this. It is perhaps the most fundamental instruction in the entire

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New Testament to the disciples of Jesus. And so let's read it and see what it has to say.

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And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

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Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all that I have commanded you, and behold,

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I am with you always, even to the end of the age. That's it. Now, a couple of questions should be brought up here as to how we are to understand, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.

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The Christian nationalist puts an emphasis on that last part, of all the nations. So the nations are the disciples.

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See it? Okay. So question number one, is this telling us to go and make

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Christian nations? Well, the Christian nationalist says yes, it is. Or is this telling us to make disciples of all the nations?

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Ah, if you're kingdom -minded, yes, that's the answer. This issue, this text, is the foundation of their entire worldview.

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If they have mishandled this, think on this. Christian nationalist, I want you to look at this text.

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If you've mishandled this text, the entire system collapses.

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If you don't have this referring to nationalism and the propping up and creating of Christian nations and governments, if that's not what that's talking about, nothing else that you have to say matters.

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Because this is the very foundation of your system. Well, what if we give them credit here?

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What if we take a closer look and look for some examples of Christian nationalism within the New Testament?

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Let's see if we can't find something there, okay? So, in the making of nations, are there examples of this view?

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In the making of nations, okay, well, the problem here is that those examples tend to be right out of thin air, because there aren't any examples in the

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New Testament. If there were examples in the New Testament, where do you think that we would find them? Well, it would seem that the one book we'd find this unfolding in would be the

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Book of Acts, right? Well, the Book of Acts would model the all -nations command, right?

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It's where we would find this. But in fact, the Book of Acts does model the all -nations command, as it is explained there.

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Because they're to make disciples of all the nations, and the Book of Acts has the disciples, the apostles, and Paul comes along, and what are they doing?

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They're going around town to town, ethnic group by ethnic group, and making disciples.

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They're not going to the seat of government to start out and trying to convert the leaders.

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The only scenario you have of the leaders of the government is in a persecution sense.

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Paul stands before Felix or Festus, even Herod, but he's not trying to get them to turn the whole thing over and push off Rome and turn this all into a

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Christian nationalist model. He's not doing anything. In fact, the Book of Acts shows a persecuted church.

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We see this with Peter in chapter 4. We see it with Paul in chapters 21 through 28.

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We see a persecuted church. We see a church that has to go, in many cases, in hiding.

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But ultimately, what we see is the apostles making disciples, not just of a

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Jewish origin, but of the Gentiles. So the disciples have gone out, or the apostles have gone out, to reach out to the crowds.

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And you have scenarios in these crowds that are described where many didn't believe. Oh, they listened, though.

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They listened. But only a few believed. Some believed.

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And so it's a making of disciples from within those nations, not going and making the nations themselves the disciple.

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So that's the first error, the biggest one right out of the gate. Well, what about the

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Book of Romans? Maybe we'll see an example of a Christian nation being stood up, being instructed to us in the

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Book of Romans. I mean, here we are, we're studying Romans 11, and we haven't actually seen anything like that.

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We have the olive tree example that we just gave. We have 1 Kings, 1 Kings 19, I'll talk about that in a minute.

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Gee, if I were a Christian nationalist, 1 Kings 19 would be a big deal to me, because Paul references it here in chapter 11.

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But other than trying to hijack the message of chapter 13, which we'll get into, again, there's no governmental role in the

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Christian world. None. Other than as persecutor.

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And come on, think back for a second here. Did Jesus try to convert

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Pilate? Did Jesus try to convert the leaders of the nation?

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Did Jesus try to create Christian nationalism? Seems to me that he fed 5 ,000 men, and the next day he left them overnight.

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There's a reason why. Oh, he sensed that they would try to grab him and haul him up to David's house and make him king.

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Well, that would have been Christian nationalism, right? Oh, that wasn't his goal.

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That wasn't what he was there to do. And it seems that this key element here, this key person, this key piece of information has completely escaped the

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Christian nationalist world. Completely gone. There's no governmental role in the

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New Testament. So let's keep going. What about, oh, anywhere, is there anywhere in the

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New Testament we can find it? What about the seven churches in Revelation? Can we see it there? Can we see it anywhere?

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No. We can't. So where is this coming from? Where did this come from?

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Well, it stems from an external agenda. An external agenda.

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What's that agenda? It's a Constantinian agenda. So you see, as we go back to the text right here, all right, we have the

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Constantinian agenda being inserted, shoehorned in. Okay, so what do

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I mean by a Constantinian agenda? In around 313

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A .D., up to that point, the Christian religion was an illegal religion in the

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Roman Empire. And so it was persecuted, it was hunted, Christians were hunted, it was illegal to have the scriptures, it was illegal to practice, to worship, to do all the things that Christians were doing, but they had to do it in hiding, in secret.

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And you see, 313 comes along, and Constantine executes what's known as the

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Peace of the Church. And he not only makes the Christian religion a legal religion, he makes the

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Christian religion the religion of the state, the official religion of the state, whereas he's the head.

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Kind of, you know, convenient there, right? And I would assert that Constantine had a political reason for doing this.

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That's right, a political reason for doing this. And he needed to put his political enemies, who were polytheists,

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Greek, mythology was their religion, he needed to put them back on their heels, put them in their place.

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And what better to do that, what better way to do that, than to make what they're doing illegal and bring this religion here forward, this little tiny religion that is of no threat to him, and never was, all right, make that the official religion.

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And in that way, he flips the script on his enemies, and they suddenly become quite docile, perhaps even go into hiding in that scenario.

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And so there is a desire for that Constantinian agenda to come back amongst the

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Christian nationalism, the Christian nationalists. This is why they refer to the

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Christian prince idea. They would see Constantine in the line of a

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Christian king, and all the things that come from that. So they want to prop that right back up, despite the fact that there is absolutely nothing in the

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New Testament that would give them cause to do so. There was nothing in Scripture that gave

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Constantine cause to do what he did. But he did, and he did it for political expediency.

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If you want to challenge me on that, you go right ahead, but there's no other reason.

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It's not like Constantine was suddenly a blood -bought believer who's converted and changed.

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No, I don't believe that for a second. In reality, the making of disciples is modeled for us in the book of Acts.

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Stephen, Peter, Paul, James are persecuted in the book of Acts. But most importantly, and please think on this for a second.

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If Matthew 28, if the

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Great Commission was Jesus telling his disciples to create

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Christian nations, don't you think the Holy Spirit would have known about this? Don't you think that the

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Holy Spirit would have pushed them in that direction, and guided them in that direction?

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The Holy Spirit is active throughout the book of Acts, so where's the nationalism? It's not there.

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It is a vapor. It is a ghost. It doesn't exist. So as they shoehorn these ideas into that text, an idea that doesn't belong in the text, when we compare this text again to the book of Acts, again

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I want to repeat, they're making disciples out of the nations.

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So they've shoehorned this idea into the text. We have this scenario,

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I'm behind on a slide here. If God wanted Christian nationalism, the book of Acts is where we'd find it.

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But it displays the model for us, and it isn't about taking over governments, as we saw at the end of the last lesson.

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It's about preaching the gospel as God exercises his kindness as well as his severity, just as we wrapped up in the last lesson.

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So, let's continue forward. It's important that we ask the right questions here. Now my slides aren't sliding at all.

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There we go. Asking the right questions. So when we handle a text, whether it's that one or the one we're currently in, it's important for us, again, so many times

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I keep saying this, the way that you handle the scriptures is a reflection on how you view the scriptures.

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If it is your own little playground where you can shape it, mold it into whatever you want it to be, back to my monologue, you're not being honest with the text, and the message of the text is genuinely of no interest to you.

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You have another view. You have another agenda that isn't the agenda of the text at hand.

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So when we're asking the right questions, we need to look at phrases like just as or in this way and understand how they're supposed to be understood.

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So in a just as scenario or in this way scenario, a case is being made and then you have just as or in this way and more information follows, usually with an

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Old Testament quote to be offered in to evidence for what the apostle is trying to get you to understand.

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So asking the right questions of the text keeps us on track with the point being made.

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Then we have what I keep calling fact statements, and in a fact statement scenario, we ask the right questions.

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For instance, we find a fact statement, I referred to this last time, in Romans 9, verses 6 through 8.

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If you want to follow with me there, in verse 6 it says, But it is not as though the word of God has failed, for they are not all

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Israel who are descended from Israel, nor are they children, because they are

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Abraham's seed. But through Isaac your seed will be named, he quotes the

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Old Testament. Verse 8, he then explains. This is a fact statement.

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That is, so these things that just came before, he's going to explain regarding the seed, etc.

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That is, the children of the flesh, what's the flesh? The ethnic. The children of the flesh are not considered children of God.

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Or they're not the children of God. But the children of the promise are considered as seed.

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It is clearly stated, it's a fact statement, if you're going to understand these things as they come along,

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Paul is saying you have to understand them in this way. It's the children of the promise that are the seed.

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And as I said at the tail end of the last one, when we look at Elijah, he sees himself as the last one of the children of the promise.

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And he stands firmly against the children of Israel, the sons of Israel, as he describes them.

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So here's the thing though, we went through 1 Kings 19, and I talked about Hazel and Jehu, Elisha, and all what was to happen there.

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We see it unfolding in 2 Kings and in Chronicles. All of that. You know, it occurred to me as I was studying that, that if I were a

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Christian nationalist, when we covered that, that would be fodder. Serious fodder.

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I would look at 1 Kings 19 and I'd go, hey, this is a call to violence. This is a call for us to go in and take over.

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And folks, there's only one way, there's only one way the end result that the

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Christian nationalists are looking to see happen can happen, and that is by a call to violence.

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But you see, the problem with all of that is when we come back to Paul's point, what

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Paul does with it, he points us to God's gracious choice.

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So we have God making a choice as to who will be spared.

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These are the ones, the children of the promise, that were just referenced in chapter 9.

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These are the ones that are so by faith. And so this, all this

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Christian nationalist idea, whatever idea you can come up with to try to prop it up, it's all fake.

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It's all phony. It is utterly foreign to the New Testament. It's just not there.

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It's wishful thinking by a bunch of posers. See, that's the other thing. Take a minute here.

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As I encounter the Christian nationalist worldview, and I encounter those who profess it,

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I look for signs of life. I look for grace. I look for humility.

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I look for an understanding that we are here to call these people to repentance, to a lost and dying world.

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We're supposed to send that message. That's what making students, making disciples is all about.

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And if we're not doing that, we're not fulfilling or following the true Great Commission.

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So with that, let's go ahead and move forward here. Talked about the call, the idea of a call to violence,

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God's gracious choice. Let's continue on with the text here. So just a little review here, real quickly, starting with Romans 11, verses 16 and following.

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We talked about the natural root and the natural branches that had been broken off. And then we talked about the wild branches being grafted in.

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We saw this warning against pride, a reminder that our standing is by faith to the

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Gentiles. And then we saw the reminder of the two conclusions that kind of wrapped up the entire point of the passage that had come along.

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The two conclusions, one being a reminder of God's kindness, which has been bestowed upon you, as well as God's severity, which is not bestowed, thankfully, upon you.

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And then we saw another instruction towards God's kindness and another warning against boasting.

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So we're not supposed to boast, we're supposed to be kind, we're supposed to be kind.

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And this is how we're supposed to proceed. So with that, let's pick up in verse 25.

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For I do not want you, brothers, to be uninformed of this mystery. Now this word mystery has been batted around over the centuries, up one side and down the other, but if we simply follow the

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Apostle's explanation, it's going to become very clear real quick what he is calling a mystery.

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But he doesn't want you to be uninformed about the mystery for a reason, so that you will not be wise in your own estimation.

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We have a scenario where the human beings, we get a hold of these mysteries, we get a hold of these ideas, and we bat them around, and we think we're wise because we've come up with some really cool

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Bible code thing, or some really cool way of reading information out of the white spaces between the black letters, and we run with it, we come up with it.

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We've got this inside knowledge idea. We see this in eschatology all the time, by the way.

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It comes to grand conclusions, writing book after book, but the problem is these books are more like science fiction novels than theological, faithful theological treatises.

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It's a real problem, and the fact is while the post -millennial loves to look at the pre -millennial dispensationalism, see the mountain of books that they've written on this stuff, and laugh at them, the post -millennial

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Christian nationalist point of view is guilty of just the same thing. They just don't have as many books on the matter.

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Again, back to the science fiction novels, but back to the text, okay? So what's the mystery?

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This is the mystery, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, a partial hardening has happened to Israel.

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I want to stop and take these things point by point. Think on this. We've already seen this explained before.

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He's explaining it again, but in a slightly different way. He's telling us what God is doing, and it is what

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God is doing and why God is doing it that is the mystery. We see what God is doing, but the why we don't necessarily understand, and that's the mystery at hand.

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So he's telling us about this, so that we don't think ourselves so smart, but that we consider the true circumstance.

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That a partial hardening has happened to Israel, well how long is this going to go on?

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We'd like to evangelize Israel at some point in time, and a partial hardening makes it really hard to find the needle in the giant haystack of the one that has been chosen by God that we can minister to, the one that we can preach the gospel to, and that will respond.

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It's kind of hard to do that. Well it's going to last until the fullness of the

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Gentiles come in. Wait a minute, when? Until the fullness of the

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Gentiles come in. So this partial hardening is going to stay in place.

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God is doing this to them, and it's going to stay in place until all the Gentiles come in.

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Well when's that going to be? How many Gentiles are supposed to come in? Well he doesn't tell us, guess what, that's part of the mystery, right?

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So we wait for that time when all the Gentiles come in, and then the partial hardening will be lifted.

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And so, and so, that's really important, we've got this down until all the

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Gentiles come in, and so in this way. And so all

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Israel will be saved. You look at that and you go,

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I don't understand, that's because it's a mystery. But all

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Israel will be saved according to this process that God is doing.

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You may not be able to figure it out, I may not be able to figure it out, and if you think you can, you need to step back and think again.

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But until the Gentiles, all the Gentiles have come in, this is going to continue to be the case.

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And in this way, all Israel will be saved. Now pushing things like the

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Ephraimite error aside, and so many other ways in which different eschatological positions have tried to rehabilitate this verse, this statement, verse 26, what has

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Paul's case been about who the true Israel is? Paul's case about the true

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Israel has been that they are the children of the promise. And the children of the promise are the children of the promise because they are so by faith.

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Not genealogy, not works, not anything but belief in the

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Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. And at the same time, if that olive tree is to be called

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Israel, that faith tree is to be seen as Israel, then he's just described for us what all of Israel looks like.

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He's gone through the grafting, the pruning, and then the grafting in, and the tree flourishes in the process, and so do the branches flourish in the process.

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And in this way, see it? And so, so all of the

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Gentiles are being grafted in. And once all the Gentiles have been grafted into the tree, and so all

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Israel will be saved. That's what he's saying. There's no getting around it.

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Now, what happens after that partial hardening is lifted?

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I don't know. Let's keep reading and see. But here's the example.

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This is one of those just -as statements, more information to follow. Well, we're going to go through that here now, okay, we're 30 minutes into the lesson.

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Just as it is written, the

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Deliverer will come from Zion, he will remove all ungodliness from Jacob, and this is my covenant with them when

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I take away their sins. So this is all caps, so this is an Old Testament reference that we need to,

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I need to read this into your hearing. So I want you to understand the bigger picture of what is front -loaded into this quotation here.

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So, just as it is written. Well, let me read this from Isaiah, the first part is from Isaiah chapter 59, beginning at verse 9.

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You might want to pause here, go look that up and follow along with me. If not, then we're going to read

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Isaiah 59 verse 9 and following. Therefore, justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us.

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We hope for light, but behold darkness. Remember something, Isaiah, Isaiah is that prophet that foretells 400 years beforehand, foretells of the captivity, of the fall of Israel and the

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Babylonian captivity. He's the one that sees it happening beforehand.

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Jeremiah is the one living through it. So, Isaiah is crying out and he's giving us this prophecy in reference to the captivity.

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This is what it's like living through this. Therefore, justice is far from us, righteousness does not overtake us.

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We hope for light, but behold darkness. We hope for brightness, but we walk in thick darkness.

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We grope along the wall like blind men. We grope like those who have no eyes.

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We stumble at midday as in the twilight. Among those who are vigorous, we're like dead men.

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All of us growl like bears and moan sadly like doves. We hope for justice, but there is none, for salvation, but it is far from us.

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For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins answer against us.

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For our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities.

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Transgressing and denying Yahweh and turning back from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving in and uttering from the heart lying words.

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Justice is turned back and righteousness stands far away, for truth has stumbled in the street and righteousness cannot enter.

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So it is that truth is missing, and he who turns aside from evil makes himself plunder.

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Then Yahweh saw, and it was evil in his eyes that there was no justice. And he saw that there was no man, and was astonished that there was no one to intercede.

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Then his own arm brought salvation to him, and his righteousness upheld him.

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He put on righteousness like a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head, and he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself with zeal as a mantle.

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According to what they deserve, so he will pay in full wrath to his adversaries, what is deserved to his enemies, and to the coastlands he will pay what they deserve.

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So they will fear the name of Yahweh from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun.

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For he will come like a rushing stream, which the wind of Yahweh makes flee.

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We're going to pick up right here with verse 20. A redeemer, this is what

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Paul is quoting here, a redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgressions in Jacob, declares

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Yahweh, as for me, this is my covenant with them. This is verses 20 and 21,

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I got that up there for you. Says Yahweh, my spirit which is upon you, and my words which

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I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your seed, nor from the mouth of your seed's seed, says

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Yahweh, from now and forever. And then we're looking at Isaiah 27,

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Isaiah 27 verse 9. Therefore, so that's the last part of what

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Paul tacks on here at the end, therefore through this, Jacob's iniquity will be atoned for, and this will be the whole fruit of the turning away of his sin, when he makes all the altar stones like pulverized chalk stones, when

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Asherim and incense altars will not stand. So you understand,

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Asherim were the idols or the altars of the cult goddess of Asherah, a

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Canaanite deity of motherhood and fertility. Always a big emphasis on the fertility side of things in the old cults that were popular of the day.

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But understanding the difference when he cites Zion here, when he cites Jacob, this is both in reference to Israel, one would be

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Zion would be geographical reference, and Jacob would be a spiritual reference in reference to Jacob or Israel as God named him.

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So moving forward and understanding for this, he says back to Romans 11, all right, a partial hardening has happened to Israel.

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I want you to see this and how that quote falls into place, though both of those quotes fall into place, a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the

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Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, just as it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion, he will remove ungodliness from Jacob, this is 59, 20, and this is my covenant with them,

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God's covenant, verse 21, when I take away their sins, this is from 27, verse 9.

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He's put these two passages together to bring in the full force of what both have to say.

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And so take a look at both of the chapters, all of 59. Go take a look at all of 27.

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He's not seeing them in order, he's again invoking them with the full weight of what's there.

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But that 27, that chapter 27 thing, which ironically is in verse 27 here, this is messianic, taking away their sins, the deliverer will come.

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So let's continue on with our text. We've loaded all this information, there's a boatload of information that's been loaded in here.

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From the standpoint of the gospel, they are, this is in reference to Israel, he's still speaking directly to the

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Gentile believers, okay, from the standpoint of the gospel, they are enemies for your sake.

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Now the Christian nationalists, a particular wing of that, love to grab hold of this text.

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They love to, oh see, there are enemies. We have to treat them like enemies, and we have to despise them like enemies.

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Well, we're going to get into that in chapter 12 as to how that works. But again, let's continue on here, and we're going to see a little bit more.

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From the standpoint of the gospel, they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God's choice, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers.

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Oh, now, here's a question. Is this in reference to, when

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Paul uses the word standpoint, is he invoking what we might call a standpoint epistemology, epistemology of the study of the truth, okay?

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So is this a standpoint truth? He's not invoking a standpoint epistemology, because that would be a subjective thing.

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So from where I stand, I see it this way, and from where you stand, you see it that way, and the two are completely opposite testimonies.

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That's not what's being said here. He's saying from the point of view of the gospel, they're enemies for your sake, okay?

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Well, from the point of view of the gospel, there's multiple perspectives here is what he's putting on, putting forward.

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From the point of view of the gospel, they defy the gospel, okay? The Jew rejects the gospel.

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He has rejected his own Messiah, okay, and not accepting

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Christ. So that's the first standpoint. The second standpoint is that of God's choice, and from the standpoint or from the point of view of God's choice, they're beloved for the sake of the fathers, because of the fathers, because of what, and this goes back to what is being said and what he's saying in the first part of Romans chapter 9.

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He keeps repeating this theme, this thought. So ultimately, whether it's

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God's choice side of it or the gospel side of it, whichever perspective, those perspectives give us a fuller idea of what is going on with Israel, the way in which we should look at them, okay?

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Let's continue on here. For the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

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So that's his conclusion here. We need to understand that. So for God's choice, from the standpoint of God's choice, they're beloved for the sake of the fathers.

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So he concludes that by saying for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

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So there's something going on there in God's relationship with Israel, and folks,

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I'm not a dispensationalist, all right? There's something going on there that can't be taken away.

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It's irrevocable, and if you think you can put your finger on it, you're better than I am.

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But I would suspect to say we have the situation to where we have a tendency to extrapolate information.

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So this says this, so it must mean that. Well, we've got to be really careful here, all right?

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So the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable, and that is an overarching point, it can't be taken away.

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It's the same kind of point that Paul says when he talks about, in Romans 9, the things that belong to ethnic

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Israel that can't be taken away. Same concept, okay? For just as you were once disobedient, so he's going to explain this whole thing now.

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We're still kind of in the mystery land here. We really are. For just as you were once disobedient to God, same as them, they're disobedient right now, you were once disobedient, going to remind you of that, okay?

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But now have been shown mercy. Why were you shown mercy? You were shown mercy because of their disobedience.

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Seeing it? Because of them. You have been mercy. So these also, them, they, so they also now have been disobedient.

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So what is he describing for us? He's describing a situation to where we were disobedient and they were being mercy, and now they're disobedient, and we're being mercy, okay?

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Are you seeing it? So this is where we are. So these also now have been disobedient.

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What's the result of that? That because of the mercy shown to you, oh, they also may now be shown mercy.

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So these also now have been disobedient. That because of the mercy that's been shown to you, they also may now be shown mercy.

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There's a hope here, folks. You can't look past it. You can't dismiss it. There is a hope of Israel that they would be shown mercy, okay?

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So let's break it down here, okay? So you were disobedient, same as them, but now, wait a minute,

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I did all of that, didn't I? Yeah, all right, let's break that down. All right, next slide.

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In the understanding of all Israel being saved, if we look at this through an ethnic lens, there's a big problem here, and I'm trying to lay that out here for us to understand.

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And that's the generational consideration. The same generational consideration falls on the, we hear from the

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Pygmy in Africa argument, or the Gentiles who never heard the gospel over the centuries.

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The generational consideration, how many in Israel will be lost? First question.

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Second, how many Gentiles will be lost? Disobedience is in both groups, and God has mercied and will mercy both groups.

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And that is both bestowed upon on an individual level. Are you seeing it?

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You cannot understand all of Israel being saved and think that, and overlook the generations of lost

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Israelites that have gone by. It's just not possible. You're just not thinking straight.

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But if you follow the apostolic argument here, the point that he's trying to, he's laying out for us, he's showing us how

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God is doing it. We may like it, we may not like it, but this is what

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God is doing, okay? He's bestowing blessings upon Gentiles now.

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I don't know why I did that. He is bestowing his blessings on the

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Gentiles now, but at some point in time, again, it's a partial hardening in Israel, you will find that he is still granting mercy upon some of them, okay?

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And how many, I don't know. I don't. So let's continue on. Let's see where we're at here.

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Verse 32, did we read that they also may now be shown mercy, okay?

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For God has shut up all in disobedience. This is an interesting way of looking at things here, okay?

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God has shut up all in disobedience so that, this is a

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Hinnok clause. So he did this in order to do that. That's the argument here, so that he may show mercy to all.

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So we were in disobedience, they were mercy. Now they're in disobedience, and now we're mercy.

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God did this in order to be able to show that mercy to all of us.

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All of us. There's your mystery, folks. There's your mystery.

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And what does Paul then conclude from all of that? Oh, the depth and the riches.

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And the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways.

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You seeing it? Paul's marveling at this too, is what

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I'm trying to tell you. The author is marveling at it just like you and I are marveling at it.

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If you wrap your mind around the disobedience and the mercy and God's hand in time as he sovereignly brings things about, as he sees fit, he didn't have to check with you or me.

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He's doing these things. And Paul's conclusion as he tries to wrap his mind around all these things is this.

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Oh, the depth and the riches. He calls it wise, the wisdom and knowledge of God.

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How unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways.

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I heard John MacArthur call it once that the angels see God's hand in time as he takes actions and they marvel and they think, they say, isn't

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God wise? Can you imagine them marveling at it? No, he's not pointing at any scriptures.

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But this is what he has in mind, that wisdom, that unsearchable, unsearchable ways.

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Let's continue on. And then he quotes, who has known the mind of the

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Lord or who became his counselor or who has first given to him that it might be repaid to him or from him and through him and to him are all things to him be glory forever.

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Amen. Now, on the next program, which might be a few weeks off, by the way,

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I've got a lot of editing to do. This is actually the editing station here. And so I've got a conference that James did, the mini conference he did back in July.

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I've got to get that thing finished up. And I've got all the video on its way from the

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Dale Tuggy debate that I've got to work on. And so in order to do this program justice,

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I need to take a few weeks and get that stuff done so I can come back to this and give it the proper attention.

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So we will put a bookmark in it here. But keep in mind that Old Testament quote, who has known the mind of the

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Lord? You, me. Why do you do things this way,

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God? We ask ourselves this all the time. Armenians ask,

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Christian nationalists think they've figured it all out. So many eschatology guys think they've figured it all out.

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And I look at this stuff and I just go, wow, God must laugh.

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God must laugh. Who's known the mind of the Lord? Who's been his counselor?

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You know, God, I would have done it that way. You really need to rethink this entire approach.

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Maybe you need to go back to Elijah at Horeb and start over. Who's been his counselor?

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Who has first given to him? Who's given

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God alone that it might be repaid to them? You've got to think about this stuff.

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Put your ideas and your agendas in check and submit yourself.

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Push the eschatology out. Push as much of you out of the equation as you possibly can.

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We're human, we can't do everything. But try to push your preconceived ideas out of your mind and let the

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Scripture speak. Let the Scripture speak. I will see you next time.