Aug. 13, 2017 An Unfailing Word From An Unfailing God by Pastor Josh Sheldon

Romans 9 and the Question of God’s Faithfulness

Well turn please to chapter 9 of the book of Romans the text for this morning's message will be Romans chapter 9 and The first six verses and we'll stop about halfway through the sixth verse of Romans 9.

I'm speaking the truth in Christ. I am NOT lying. My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers my kinsmen according to the flesh.

They are Israelites and to them belong the adoption the glory the covenants and the giving of the giving of the law the worship and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs and from their race according to the flesh is the Christ who is God over all blessed forever.

Amen. But it is not as though the Word of God has failed and God blessed the reading of his word and The preaching and reception of it this morning. You know sometimes theology can be perceived as lacking in having any emotional content as though it's just a dry field of academic study and There's no pathos to it.

No emotion to it. No depth of feeling. It's just a technical exercise that sets out before the hearers Propositional truths and what Paul answers here in Romans 9 1 through 6. Is just that it's as though someone said to him.

Well, yes, that all sounds good. But is there no feeling behind it? Is there no emotional depth to this. It's as if someone said to him, you know, all this sounds great everything you've taught in chapters 1 through 8 is just fine.

It's it's good enough, you know to turn the world upside down if you preach that Paul you could really have some impact. But there's a couple of problems with this these first eight chapters. One you seem to care more about proper theology than you do people.

I mean if what you've said so far is true, then your own people are condemned. They are in a word going to hell. Most of them anyway, don't you care about them Paul? Aren't people more important than your grand academics?

That's one way to look at it what Paul is answering here second if the holders of the adoption and the glory the covenants if God gave them all that and the Promises of all things Paul stops that list with promises.

He gave them promises if they have all that and still they're cut off. Just how good are God's promises? The question is why should I trust him now. Romans 8, you know as we're going through this series.

We really slowed down. We really put the brakes on the preaching and we focused on very small sections of just chapter 8 of Romans. And we found as we went through chapter 8 that it's a chapter full of assurances.

Assurances of your salvation. Assurances of what God has promised in Jesus Christ. Assurances given to you by the witness of the indwelling Holy Spirit. That you can be confident. That what God has promised in his son Jesus Christ is indeed Certain and so the question comes up to Paul.

Whether there was a Actual little literal person asking this question or he simply knew that that would rise up to the minds of the people. He's he was giving this letter to preaching to. How good are his promises if the people who had the promises that people he had set aside for his self?

For his own glory if they are not saved. Why should I believe Paul that I am? I'm sure neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers and all the rest of that at the end of chapter 8 great sounds fine but The people who you keep saying had the promises had the adoption had the glory.

Had the words of God given to them by the prophets and they recorded and preserved them that people. If the promises aren't good to them, why should I believe they're good to me? Now the first four verses of chapter 9 would bolster the idea of Israel's preeminence as The people of God, I'm sorry.

I said chapter 9 in chapter 4 the first four verses of chapter 4 would bolster this idea. It says then what advantage has the Jew or? What is the value of circumcision and Paul answers that question that theoretical question much in every way?

To begin with the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God and he asks What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithfulness nullify the faithfulness of God? This question he left hanging back there in chapter 4 gets answered in full detail.

Not just in chapter 9, but chapter 9 through 11, which will be our text for quite some time. Does their faithlessness? Nullify the faithfulness of God by no means we're still in chapter 4 for just a moment.

Let God be true though. Everyone were a liar as it is written that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged. You know when I was in high school The the Jesus movement was really in full swing.

That was back in the 70s, of course. And when people would come to me all excited about this gospel as the Jesus movement was burning through society. Everyone's really excited about that. They've come to me and tell me the gospel and tell me I need to repent and believe in Jesus Christ and my answer would be Why a Jew?

I don't need that. I'm one of God's chosen people and I was so ignorant of my faith or my religion. I should say back then I couldn't even have articulated I'm a child of Abraham through the flesh. All I knew was I was a Jew.

I Spoke Hebrew you don't or I speak Hebrew. You don't. I'm saved and I don't need this Jesus thing. I don't need any of that. You see the Apostle Paul here is not taking an excursus in chapter 9 from his line of thought that he's been developing throughout this book.

It's not as though he finished his theological basis in eight chapters. And then he goes off in an entirely different direction for chapters 9 through 11. I Would be very satisfying for those who believe that the church and Israel are two distinct peoples in God's sight and that he has two separate tracks for them tracks of redemption distinct Israel in the church.

As has been his habit throughout this letter he uses the diatribe style of writing where he enters dialogue with and answers the questions of this imaginary participant in dialogue with him. What Paul does in chapters 9 through 11 is to defend God's honor in the gospel.

The questions coming from this diatribe partner this imaginary partner who would ask him what about the Jew way back in chapter 4 Paul? You said what advantage does he have and you started to answer that and now after chapter 8 and you give me all these Assurances that the Holy Spirit gives us.

What about the Jews. In the first five verses and then the first part of chapters of verse 6 that I read to you really sets the tone for Those whole three chapters 9 through 11 and as we go through these chapters.

We'll see that God is sovereign and Independent acting and choosing and saving according to his good and predetermined will. His good and predetermined purposes. We'll see that he did in fact give them every chance to believe.

And we'll see that he still offers them the the blessing of everything their advantages. Testified of. And we'll see that the inflow of gentle Gentiles meets with God's will as he set forth and committed himself.

Too long ago by the prophets. For now with just the first few verses in view I want to set the table for all that follows through the end of chapter 11. God willing we'll also see that chapter 9 does not take us down a new road.

But continues the direction that we've been following all along. Paul's emphasis as it's been throughout this book of Romans his emphasis is on God. His emphasis on God. Romans 9 through 11 answers a lot of questions about Israel, but it's not really about them.

It's about God. It's about the gospel of salvation that God sent his son for. He's not insensitive to Israel's plight. He never stopped identifying himself as a Jew. It was his practice to begin preaching in the local synagogue.

And he reasoned with them from the scriptures what we today call the Old Testament. And he reasoned with them and he proved to them that Jesus is the Christ that he is the point of everything that God had given to them.

In Philippians 3 and a few other places he sets forth his gold-standard resume as a Jew of Jews. Exceeding in Pharisee ism beyond his contemporaries moving up the ladder as we would say today. Quicker than any others because he was more gifted more zealous more energetic.

We have to remember that the believing Jews in Rome had been forced out by a Roman edict. Caesar had told them to go they were troublemakers or some of them were so he got rid of all of them and this order.

Expelling them from Rome had only recently when this letter was read in the Roman Church 2 ,000 years ago that Expulsion order had only recently been rescinded and by that time the church's tone and tenor its Demographic its culture so to speak had really changed Jews when they came back after the order was rescinded by Caesar.

They were the minority and the couldn't the Gentiles were sort of lording it over them. So let's understand up front that Paul's broken heart for Israel is not meant as an example for us. It doesn't matter that unless we are willing to give up our salvation as Paul seems willing to do.

So that others might be saved that then we are somehow sub-christian or beneath Paul's example. He is not legislating the necessary emotional qualification for evangelism. That's not what he's doing here.

He's speaking for himself. He's rebuking anyone in the church who feels any ascendancy over anyone else. Primarily the Gentiles thinking over the Jews in that church. All the way through chapter 9 verse 18 God's sovereignty is front and center.

God who is no respecter of persons chooses whom he will when he will and through whatever might means he's chosen. Whatever he is ordained. He will do in the way. He has chosen to do it and for whom and to whom he pleases.

The end of chapter 11 tells those who are grafted in no don't glory in Israel's demise. But fear God who takes such displeasure in unbelief. Fear God who takes such displeasure when people hear the gospel and Reject it here today tremble.

That this word of salvation by repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ Is being preached here this day. And some of you will leave here unbelieving. As we look at chapter 9 through 11 of Romans and the way this ends.

With the branches grafted into the root that was Israel and all those things and we will get to them God willing. Here's the answer. Don't lord it over them but fear and tremble before God who grafted you in and is very Displeased when his gospel the gospel he of his son the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for sinners is preached and derided.

This doesn't mean that the heart is absent from our desire for our family and for our loved ones to be saved. Woe to me if I do not preach this gospel. I'm willing to become all things to all people so that by all means I might save some as he says in 1st Corinthians.

But to the Apostles point. He has his great sorrow for his brothers his kinsmen according to the flesh Jews Israelites. He means unbelieving Israel. These are the ones that his heart is breaking for and the source of his anguish is something other than the fate awaiting them.

Should they continue in their stubbornness? It's that they can't look past their traditions and see the message of all the things that God entrusted to them. This is why his heart breaks. They had the oracles of God.

They had the worship of God in the temple. They had the law. They had the covenant. They had the priesthood. They had the prophets. They had it all and they turned it into traditions as Jesus often goes against them for in the Gospels.

By your traditions you nullify God's Word. He was speaking specifically of Corbin and we all know what that's about. His heart breaks because they had it all and yet Saw it none. They can't open their Bibles and see Jesus with all God gave them.

They remained blind. The veil is taken away only in Christ and only by faith but that veil remains and it clouds their vision and Paul is fairly screaming. Can you not see him? Can you not see the Lord Jesus coming out of these scriptures.

Is he not what the prophets were looking ahead to as Peter says in his first letter. They spoke by the Spirit of Christ speaking of Christ telling of his sacrifice. Pointing them out as clearly as they could then.

Here Paul weeping. Can you not see him? With all we had is he not clear. He's right there. Isaiah. Isaiah spoke of him throughout his prophecy is Jesus glory that he saw when he was commissioned. That's in Isaiah chapter 6 and when he saw those multi-winged seraphim calling out.

Holy. Holy. Holy. What does John tell us he would they were calling out the glories of Jesus Christ. As we take the New Testament to look back to the old and tell us what it means. It was he it was Jesus who led you by the cloud and by fire.

It was he is Jesus who is the rock who strengthened you. He is your living water of Isaiah chapter 55. He is the new covenant of Jeremiah 31. He is the sacrifice of psalm 22. He is the one whose bones were out of joint whose heart became like melted wax.

He's the shepherd of the next psalm psalm 23 the one who leads us to still waters and verdant pastures. And Paul just says oh that you could see him with all this. Let's beware of traditions let's beware of when men put their own opinions into the what the scriptures say and By that in preaching as as loud and with as much energy as we can but clouding the purity of the gospel.

Well, let there never be a procedure a policy a Tradition that we have this somehow. We raise up to the level of the gospel and over. So that when we look at Jesus Christ in that cross, we've put a veil over Ourselves and consider anything that man says as more important than what God says.

Let's be careful. It's insidious. Let's not be prideful over Israel. We all have traditions. We all have things that we like to do ways. We like to do things. I'm a creature of habit. My wife will teach tease in a very gently and Reverently humorous way about how hard I work to develop habits, but lever let our habits our traditions the things we do Overtake our vision of Jesus Christ in the gospel.

So Paul screams out to them. This is why he weeps for them. This is why he says I have unceasing anguish. I tell you the truth in Christ. The Spirit himself will bear witness. I call witness to the fact that my heart breaks for them.

And in context, I think this is just this because they put their traditions that they pulled out of the scripture and With that Camouflaged Jesus Christ in those very scriptures from which they found their traditions.

That's why his heart breaks. The faith they need is no different than the faith that you or I needed when we got saved when God By the Spirit gave us faith to believe. His hope for their salvation is no different than ours is for our children our parents our brothers our sisters.

According to the flesh for our neighbors our friends family co-workers. He sorrows because they had so much that ought to have led them straight to the cross. And yet they detoured they missed it. Jesus came and presented himself.

He they he spoke all that he had heard from his father. He performed signs and wonders the like of which they'd never seen. He rode the peaceful donkey into Jerusalem. Fulfilled all that the prophets had spoken yet.

They said we will not have this one to rule over us. That is why Paul has unceasing anguish and sorrow. You know as a point that people reach. When over and over again, they have every opportunity to believe this gospel and yet refuse God's grace.

I mean how many children have been raised by godly parents catechized with the great works of catechism. Shown the living gospel. Excuse me. My personal opinion is that there's a pride that develops where people just need to be right and I'll prove I was right to eschew this by erecting higher and higher walls against it.

They'll be thick walls. They'll be impervious to assault able to withstand the mightiest siege engines. And why do we do this. Because I need to be right and If I reject this gospel week after month after year after decade and for all my life I do it to prove that I was right when I began to reject it back then.

Because I want to be right. I Want to be justified in my own sight. I think this is what happens. It's not a full-fledged exposition of it. But I think it's consistent with Hebrews 6 for for it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have been once been enlightened.

Who have tasted the heavenly gift and have shared in the Holy Spirit? There's a clarity of presentation. There is a purity of the gospel that comes out from a plain reading an explanation of it from the scripture.

That when ignored Hardens the heart to the point. That we can't come back to it the tyranny of the immediate in life. I got to get to work. I've got to buy a house. I've got to finish school all these things.

Drive us away. Make us forget. Make us ignore the opportunities God has given us to believe. It's only by submissive faith that all this is overcome. It's only by grace that we can enter. It's only by grace that we can stand.

Paul’s Great Sorrow for Unbelieving Israel

Look again at verse 3 there in chapter 9 of Romans. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers my kinsmen according to the flesh. Now Paul could not be cut off from Christ.

Let's understand that Paul could not be cut off from Christ if his faith the faith that he explained So well was truly faith in Christ. He cannot be pulled away from him. Chapter 8 ends with this nothing.

Absolutely. Nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Including my own willingness To take their place. Even that Cannot cut us off from the love of God.

That is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Paul is entering some hallowed ground here. Once you turn your Bibles, please to Exodus chapter 32. Exodus chapter 32 in this chapter we come to Israel in the wilderness following the cloud by day and the fire by night and We come here they've actually been camped in one place since back in chapter 19 which is when they camped and stopped before Mount Sinai and Then Moses goes up and he gets the law from God.

God is giving him the law day after day. He goes up to the mountain. He hears from God and then he goes back and tells the people what God has said. All the details for the tabernacle for the priesthood for the worship of God are given and Then Moses while he's up there standing before Yahweh.

The glory of God remember it's so intense that when he comes down he has a shining to his face. That is so holy that is so Sanctified that it scares the people. They need to put that veil on they need to veil themselves from the truth.

That that word that Moses is bringing down exhibits to them. Just like the veil that guards them if you will Against the truth of the gospel in Jesus Christ, but there in chapter 32 Let me read the first six verses of Exodus when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain.

The people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said up now stop for just a second. They're saying you go up Aaron. Where is Moses at this time? Moses is up speaking to God and we know what they're gonna tell Aaron you go up.

Well not up the mountain just up a small altar you go up Aaron and make us a God while Moses is up and speaking to God. Up make us God's who shall go before us as for this Moses the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt.

We do not know what has become of him. So Aaron said to them take off The rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives your sons and your daughters and bring them to me. So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron and he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf and They said these are your gods.

Oh Israel who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. When Aaron saw this he built an altar before it and Aaron made Proclamation said tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord. And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and peace and brought peace offerings and The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

You See everything that was happening between Moses and God up on Sinai was horribly mimicked down below. Just as today today when men hear the truth. But bend it and malign it and manipulate God's Holy Word to fit their wishes and desires.

Using God's Word to justify their traditions like the Pharisees like Corbin. Hearing about grace and then counting each little cumin seed that sort of thing or hearing God's plain word. As Moses came down day by day.

I gave them the words of God. Hearing that and then saying let us play. Let us play it. Is God who made us like this is God who gave me this desire to be this way. To make this 21st century. We could say it is God who made me want someone of my own sex.

And so it would be a sin not to indulge the nature that he gave me. Which is somehow sometimes how you hear Romans 1 Exposited about the nature and going against it and all that and I'm not going to read it now.

This maligning this misusing this torturing of God's Word. They say oh, let's have pastors who would preside over such matrimony. That's what God's Word says. While the Bible is being expounded. It's plain meaning set forth.

They say in Rome Grace isn't enough. God doesn't justify all at once you get grace in doses by Rome. I mean the Roman Catholic Church. You get grace in doses and then you do works of righteousness until you have enough to merit salvation.

And don't worry if you don't do enough we'll just give you an indulgence and take it out of the treasure of merit and and You'll be okay. And they rose up to play and now look down at verse 9. And the Lord said to Moses I've seen this people and behold it is a stiff-necked people.

Now therefore let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them in order that I may make a great nation of you. God will have his people. God will have the people that he has determined to have.

His will cannot be thwarted or even changed or modified in the slightest if he had wanted to he could have made a nation out of Moses and That is to say God had or has the power to do it. But we need to ask ourselves.

Could he really? Could he really have consumed Israel and then changed and made a nation out of Moses? Would he do such a thing? You don't have to turn there. I'm gonna read more of what excess 32 in a moment.

But I'll go forward to Hebrews chapter 6 at verse 17. So when God desired to show more convincingly To the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose He guaranteed it with an oath so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie.

We who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. It's impossible for God to lie. Now look again in your Bible if you're still at Exodus 32. At verse 11, but Moses implored the Lord his God and said Oh Lord.

Why does your wrath your wrath burn hot against your people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power? And with a saving hand. Why should the Egyptians say with evil intent did he bring them out to kill them in the mountains and good to consume them?

From the face of the earth. Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. Remember Abraham Isaac and Jacob. Your servants to whom you swore by your own self and Said to them I will multiply your offspring as the stars of the heaven and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring and they shall inherit it forever.

And The Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people. Is impossible for God to lie and Moses pleads with him to remember his covenant his word freely given the sovereign God of his own free will.

Making a promise to mere men. Remember what you promised to Abraham Isaac and Israel your servants to whom you swore by your own self. This is Moses's plea. Why did I read all this from Exodus 32? Because Paul In saying how his heart breaks this unceasing sorrow this grief.

He has in his heart for Israel. Paul is with Moses. Imploring the Lord on behalf of the people who had seen God's great grace who had seen the truth in Jesus Christ. But God did not take Moses up on his offer any more than he did Paul with his God made a nation out of Israel.

God had promised to Abraham Isaac and Jacob. He would make a nation out of them and It's impossible That God should lie. It's impossible. It could never be that God would not keep his word. Let's understand a few things here, which will help us as we go through 9 through 11 of Romans.

First thing is this God does not move to plan B. God doesn't have a plan B. That's one of the problems I have with the dispensational viewpoint. I have many dispensational friends. I don't deride them.

I love them. And I understand that they like I get their case from the Bible. And so we're both looking to the Bible. I Love them. But this is one of my problems with that particular Framework. It amounts to a plan B is God just can't quite figure out how to get his will past these stubborn Stubborn people so he makes a different nation.

He says well if they won't follow my strategy, I'll go find someone who will. God didn't make a nation out of Moses because he had never intended to. It wasn't. Say that's not bad. Let me think about that for a minute now, you know Moses.

I'll stick to plan a. I thought it through. And there's a few holes in your idea here. So if it's okay with you, I'll go back. No, this isn't God. God doesn't even consider these alternatives. We said before Some time ago.

I don't remember what scripture I was in when I said it. But I could say it again that God doesn't really even plan things He ordains. He doesn't have contingencies and that's what plans by nature are.

They have to have contingency if these things work out. Then this plan will come to fruition. This isn't God. God wills. We could say God speaks and that dear ones is the end of the story. He didn't make a nation out of Moses because he had promised the patriarchs that they would become a nation By which all the earth would be blessed.

If the Lord had switched to Moses then his word is open to being questioned. He would have to defend himself from the accusation that he lied or at worst that he Best or that he misled people. I Really think if we don't get this we're never gonna be able to sort out the rest of Romans 9 through 11.

No plan B. The Sovereign God sets his will forth reveals it to us as much as we need to know it and That dear ones is the end of the story. The second thing is Paul is answering the premise that if God's Word to Israel seems to have not quite panned out.

Why should I trust him? How powerful is this God he's gonna make a nation of this people they won't become that nation that he intended. So how powerful is he? How worthy of trust is he really? May imagine a man who says he loves a girl and asks for her hand in marriage and she thinks it sounds great.

He talks a good game and the love he professes for her sounds valid. He promises her the world. Look, he says look how I'll take care of you. You live in Saratoga where you'll dine sumptuously. I'll put you in an s-class Mercedes.

I'll love you with an everlasting love and nothing can separate you from that love with me when I say I will I certainly will and Then just before she goes to buy her gown. She finds out that there's another girl To whom he made the same promises and there she is right down the street and she's living in a broken-down old trailer.

She has very little food to eat. It certainly isn't sumptuous food. Her beauty is faded and her bones are brittle. She's haggard and she's tired. And he looks and kind of shrugs. He says her. Oh, don't worry about her.

I've set her aside now. I love you. I did love her. I did love them, but it didn't quite work out. They weren't good enough. They wouldn't obey me. You see I've got another plan. I've got a better plan.

I love you. I really really do and this time it'll work. I promise. How much like God does that sound? That's sort of what Paul's defending God against. The question Paul starts answering here and continues through the end of chapter 11 is not so much about Israel.

It's about God. It's about his sovereignty. It's about his faithfulness. About how human endeavor human will human sin and how none of that acts on God that he is sovereign and therefore. The whole build up to chapter 9 as we go through the confidence inspiring chapter 8 the work of the Holy Spirit within Testifying witnessing to you that you truly are adopted and that nothing can separate you from the love of God that adopted you.

This is what he defends in chapter 9. Explaining Israel and how their lack of belief their unbelief does not nullify God's Faithfulness. Nothing can change what God has done for you. What he is determined to be yours in Christ Jesus not your sin not your failure.

Not you're not my not anything and nor did that happen with Israel with God's people whom he foreknew. The third thing I want to point out is verse 6. The first part of it which with with which we ended our text this morning.

But it is not as though the Word of God has failed don't look at Israel and their failure to believe and could and Relate that to God and say therefore God's Word has failed. It is not as though the Word of God has failed and this is really one of the keys to the rest of chapter 9 Through 11 God's Word forever settled in the heaven does not fail.

It cannot fail. I was already three short passages to this very point. You don't have to turn there. I won't give you time really. Of the conquest of Canaan we read in Joshua 21 45. Not one of all the good promises that the Lord has made to the house of Israel has failed.

All came to pass. Joshua's last words in Joshua 23 14 Included this and now I am about to go the way of all the earth and you know in your heart and soul all of You that not one word has failed of all the good things that the Lord your God promised concerning you all have come to pass.

For you not one of them has failed to borrow from Jesus. Not a single jot or tittle failed to come true to borrow from Isaiah 55. When God sends his word his purposes like the rain he sends that brings forth the crops.

His word will not return to him void. It will accomplish that for which I sent it not a single word a single promise said Joshua to the Israelites has failed and Then centuries after that this last one then there's Solomon's dedication of the temple in first Kings 8 56.

He says blessed be the Lord who has given rest to his people Israel according to all that he promised. Not one word has failed of all his good promise. Which he spoke by Moses his servant. See man's failure man's faithless failure to grab these promises with both hands and to hang on to them insist on being blessed before he lets go.

Man's failure to do his part notwithstanding. Notwithstanding God's Word is true the gospel. I preach to you every Sunday. You who believe in Jesus Christ and hear me plead with you to become more like him the gospel.

I preach every Sunday to you who do not believe and plead with you. I plead with you to overcome your pride. To repent of your sin to believe this gospel and to put your trust your hope your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and What he did on the cross your failure to believe.

Does not in any way not in the slightest bit impinge on the truthfulness and the faithfulness and the power to save of The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank. Paul had all this in mind in Romans chapter 9 verses 1 through the first part of verse 6 one last point.

Paul says. I could wish myself accursed. If only my being accursed. Anathema is the word. If only I could be cut off and if that would do some good to save some of Israel I would do it. Moses says no do not make a great nation of me.

Keep your word Lord to Paul's point. I could wish myself accursed. Only Christ could give himself for another. Moses offer who's real he meant it. Paul told the truth also he calls God as witness. He lays his conscience bare.

He would if he could offer himself in place of his kinsmen. We have to take Paul at his word. But only Jesus Christ only the spotless Lamb of God. Only he could give himself as the atoning sacrifice for the sin of others.

Paul couldn't give himself as a sacrifice for the sin of one. Paul the great Apostle could not give himself as a sacrifice for his own sin. Only Christ. Only his suffering only his work on the cross could be attributed to anyone else and so wonderful so great so All powerful is that work?

This is it has power to save the entire throng this countless throng that God foreordained. Moses couldn't do it because he like Paul was a sinner in need of grace. Christ had to die for him as he did for Paul as he did for you.

If Paul's wish were even remotely possible. Then what becomes of grace? What becomes of faith. If I could be cut off from God in a way that would be efficacious to save anyone. Then what of Christ's cross?

Would that not empty the cross of all meaning and power? Its exclusivity. If my being a curse could save someone then God might just as well have put me on the cross or You or any other sinner, but may it never be.

Only Jesus Christ could atone for my sin. Only his death could pay for others. If you haven't put your hope your trust your faith in Jesus. I Would plead with you. I'd invite with you invite you this day this moment to do just that.