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

I'll 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 who'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 Well, I'm 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 part of 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 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 Gentiles meets with God's will as he set forth and committed himself to 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 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 Hear 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 That 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 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 there's 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 4 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 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. I want you to 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 they're 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 and 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 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 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 and 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 say 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 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 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 was 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 for ordained

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?

It's 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 Repent of your sins his true and faithful word promises forgiveness.

It's a word that will never ever Fail it cannot fail so we can't sacrifice ourselves for Ourselves or for anyone else or we do make sacrifices of ourselves in the way of giving ourselves to others

We make sacrifices of praise we can sacrifice our time for each other that sort of thing

But we're speaking here of salvation Can't sacrifice ourselves for anyone in that way

So says this word of truth our scriptures We can pray we can beg

God to open the eyes of those who for whom we pray We can plead with him to remove the darkening veil so that others might see

Brethren we can go to God whose true word says that he is a rewarder of those who seek him in prayer

We can trust our God who by his word sent his son Jesus to die for our sins Romans 9 through 11 is an extended defense of God's truthfulness of his faithfulness of his sovereignty of his power is a defense of this gospel

From chapter 1 verse 16 this revelation of the righteousness of God For in it is the power of God to save I'm paraphrasing as you understand

Is the power of God to save for all who believe? you believe this word if you this moment would drop your defenses against it and believe

Was being preached This gospel is powerful and reliable to say because the very

Word of God Chapter 9 the first part of verse 6 it is not as though the

Word of God has failed The Word of God forever settled in the heavens shall never fail.

Amen Heavenly Father. Thank you for this day. We thank you again for your word We thank you

Lord for bringing us together to hear this word I pray Lord that what clarity has been given to this gospel would do good to those who

Have trusted in Jesus Christ that would become more like him And father we pray that today would be the day of salvation for those who know not the

Lord Jesus Christ that they would Divest themselves of themselves and put their faith hope and trust in the

Lord Jesus Christ And put their eternal souls into the care of this gospel

Which your word is guaranteed your faithful word that can never fail and for this we give you thanks in Christ's name.