Romans 11:16-24

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Chapter 11, it says,
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I ask then, has God rejected his people? By no means, for I myself am an
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Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.
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Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah? How? He appeals to God against Israel, Lord, they have killed your prophets.
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They have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.
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But what is God's reply to him? I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.
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So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace.
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What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, as it is written.
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God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see, ears that would not hear, down to this very day.
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And David says, let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them.
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Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see and bend their backs forever.
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So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means, rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the
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Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the
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Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean?
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Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow
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Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?
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And if the dough offered as first fruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.
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But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others, and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches.
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If you are, remember, it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.
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Then you will say, branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.
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That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith, so do not become proud, but fear.
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For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God, severity towards those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness.
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Otherwise, you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in.
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For God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut off, if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
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Back in 16, Paul says, if the dough offered as first fruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.
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So one common practice in ancient Israel was that as part of their sacrificial system, what they would do at harvest is the first part of the first loaf that was made from the harvest was sacrificed, and what that would do, is made as the offering of first fruits, is sanctify the entire harvest by that.
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So that's what he's talking about. If the dough offered as first fruits is holy, what he is referencing is
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Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the forefathers of our faith.
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So is the whole lump, all those who also continue in the faith after them.
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And if the root is holy, so are the branches. You see, the root is
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Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So the branches are made holy by the root, and we'll get into that a little bit later.
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He then further goes into this analogy of the olive tree and its roots, and one of the things you have to understand about ancient
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Israel is that they consider the olive tree with very high esteem. So he's using an analogy here that people will completely and utterly understand.
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Not only the Gentiles that he's talking to, but the ethnic Jews that he's talking to as well.
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The garden, Gethsemane. It was a garden of pretty flowers and things like that.
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It was an olive tree grove, for lack of a better term is what it was. It was very important.
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It was a very important commercial plant for Israel at the time, for the export of the various things that you can get from olives, olive oil being namely the biggest one.
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But then also its religious significance in the oil that it bared, because it was used in the temple.
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One of the largest things, well I won't say one of the largest, but one of the most kind of overlooked things that happened during the siege of Jerusalem in 70
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AD was the destruction of Gethsemane. The Romans made camp there and all of those trees were cut down and burned as they waited the
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Jews out as they laid siege to it. But this is the point.
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This is what he's getting into with this analogy of this olive tree that we're fixing to get into is the fact that the forefathers of the faith, being the root, not only of the
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Jews but of ourselves also, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we just read in Galatians, what is
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Paul saying, for lack of a better term that Paul is using here, grafted into the family of Abraham by faith.
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What he's doing in this section is going, he's not going after the
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Gentiles, but he's just come hard against the ethnic Jews. So now what he's doing is he's saying, oh, hang on Gentiles, don't get arrogant.
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Don't think that you have something above and beyond the Jews, because you don't.
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So in 17 he starts that analogy and says, but if some of the branches were broken off, meaning unbelieving
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Jews, and you, believing Gentiles, although a wild olive shoot, the difference here being that uncultivated olive trees bear zero fruit.
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They don't bear fruit. It's one of those unique trees that when cultivated, it bears fruit.
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Although a wild olive shoot were grafted in among the others, the believing
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Jews, and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree.
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Do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you.
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May we be reminded as Gentiles that the word comes from the Jews.
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The forefathers in the faith are, as I said before, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
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The word was entrusted to the Hebrews, and Christ himself is an
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Israelite. Now here's the question.
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Is it the Gentile believers that grafted in Abraham to their family?
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Or is it God that grafted the Gentiles into Abraham's?
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This is the point that he's making. Both the original branches of the cultivated olive tree that remain and the grafted branches both are considered spiritual family of Abraham.
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The olive tree that he's talking about is, to make it a bit more understandable, is a family tree.
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It is a spiritual family tree. So Abraham, you have
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Abraham, and you have all of his offspring, ethnically. And what
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God has done is he has cut off unproductive branches, so those branches of that family tree that are unbelieving, they're unproductive, and in those places he has taken branches from wild olive trees and put them in their place to bear fruit.
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That is what he's done. In 19 he says, you will say, then you will say, branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.
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That is true. You were broken off, they were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith.
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As Paul said, we stand fast through faith. Who covers us, who nourishes us, who cares for us, who gives us faith, who justifies us.
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If the answer to these questions is God and not you, and it is, then the general attitude that you should display all the time is humility.
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Not one of haughtiness or arrogance. There shouldn't be a single gram of pride about you.
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Furthermore, I'll ask this, what have any of us done to justify ourselves?
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Nothing. As Paul said, we stand fast through faith, and a faith that didn't even originate from us comes from the
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Holy Spirit. So while we're thinking about that, let's also let the word remind us of where our value lies.
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First Corinthians 6, 9 -11 says this, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
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And such were some of you. And by that he means, so were you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the
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Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. You're no different.
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In 6, in chapter 6, 1 Corinthians chapter 6, again 19 -20, it says, you are not your own, for you were bought with a price, so glorify
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God in your body. If more people thought about themselves this way,
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I think we would be a lot better off than we are. There's a reason that Paul refers to himself as a bond -servant, as a slave.
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And he doesn't mean someone who put themselves in that position.
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He means someone who was purchased, who is there involuntarily. You were bought.
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You were purchased. And the price for that was the blood of Christ. Our value is in the one who bought us.
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It is in Christ. Otherwise, who are we?
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Who would we be? We would still be idolatrous pagans, living our lives, hating
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God, on our way to hell. That's right.
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There are very, I don't want to say there are very few, but there are few sins in your life that can destroy your life as badly as the two
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I'm fixing to mention. Sin itself is destructive.
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We know this. The truth of scripture tells us this. The first one is sexual immorality.
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We've had a really good example of this here recently. We've had plenty of examples of that one over the years.
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Men who have come up in the church, men who were powerful men in the secular world who completely destroyed their lives with sexual immorality.
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It is one of those sins that not only will destroy your home life, but your career, and it infects every aspect of your life.
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The other one is pride. Pride, though being as destructive, is not as blatant as sexual immorality is.
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When you participate in sexual immorality, you know you're doing it. You may not think of it as a sin.
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Some people don't. But even those who know sin don't see pride coming.
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That is something that you can be absolutely fully involved in and never realize that it's a problem.
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It is vastly more difficult to deal with, both by yourself and from an outside perspective.
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The sin of pride is also the origin of disobedience. What did
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Adam and Eve want? They wanted to be like God. It's pride.
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It creeps up on you, and it creeps up slowly. And just like other sins, just like sexual immorality, it creeps and puts its tendrils into every aspect of your life.
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Let's do a thought exercise for a moment. I want you, for a moment, to think about all the things that you have done for God, the furtherance of the
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Gospel, and for the Church. Really think about them.
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I'll give you ten seconds. Okay. Ephesians 2 .10
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For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which
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God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. What have you done?
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What have you done that you should be proud of? As we have gone through Romans, we have seen that we are, as elect, not responsible for our salvation, for our justification.
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We didn't choose God. We, in fact, couldn't choose God. We were given our faith.
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We are given our provision. We are put where He wants us to do that which
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He wills. And even the good works that we do are prepared beforehand by Him for our sanctification.
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So what have any of us done that we can be proud about? The only thing that we should have is humility.
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Friends, be reminded consistently that the story that we have the benefit of being included in is not about us.
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It is about Him. One of the most common things that we see in the church throughout the centuries is apostasy, is it not?
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Church after church turning away from the truth, whether it is that they slide into some form of apostolic gifts that they think continued, or some form of egalitarianism, or some form of patriarchy, or a lack of doctrine, or too heavy an emphasis on it.
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Plenty of churches and individuals start out with the intentions of spreading the good news of the gospel.
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This is a primary charge of the church. The gospel. Too many fall away because they drift off into their own desire for whatever doctrine or other thing they want to do that they put ahead of the gospel.
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Understand that just as we draw nutrients, as the branches draw nutrients from the root, not the other way around, all the doctrine that we have comes from the gospel.
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Let's take, for instance, the doctrines of grace, which no doubt give us an absolute rich understanding of scripture.
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Total depravity. The depravity of man. This doctrine explains a lot.
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Once you understand total depravity, you understand why humans do the things that they do. All the time we see things in the news, and it's like, why would a person do that?
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The depravity of man. That's why. What is it without the gospel?
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What is that truth without the gospel? Unconditional election.
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This is a recent one. Two chapters ago. Unconditional election.
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What is our election without the gospel? Limited atonement.
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Christ died for the elect, not the entire world. What is it without the gospel?
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Irresistible grace. The fact that once God grabs a hold of you, there's nothing you can do to stop him.
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What is it without the gospel? Perseverance of the saints. Same thing. What is it without the gospel?
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The root of everything is that Christ died for us. And faith alone in him and his finished work is the only thing that matters.
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Beyond that, what is the value of the richest doctrine or the grandest churches or the largest influence apart from the gospel?
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What does it matter? The cynical writer of Ecclesiastes Do you know what he calls it?
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All of these things that we get up to. The word he uses is
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Hevel. It's a Hebrew word. It means something akin to wispy smoke.
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It's there one moment and it's gone the next. Even we in our lives on this earth.
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How long do we have? If we're lucky, 70, 80 years.
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Maybe 90. If God is very gracious with us. I won't say lucky.
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If God is very gracious with us. 120. That's the max you're going to get. What is 120 years?
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In thousands of years. Solomon, the wisest king to ever rule over Jerusalem.
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To ever rule over Israel. Favored by God. Built the temple and gained unspeakable riches.
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The writer of Ecclesiastes. And all of his works.
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All of the things that he did in his life. Hevel. Wispy smoke.
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Here and gone. And just as the many churches that we talked about before who have come and gone.
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Everything that we do. Everything that we know. Without Christ it is meaningless.
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It is Hevel. Many of those that we read about in church history.
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Many of those that knew more or understood more. Had secret knowledge or some different sort of understanding of scripture.
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That fell away. Into their own arrogance and pride. Paul says, so do not become proud but fear.
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For if God did not spare the natural branches neither will he spare you.
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For several thousand years God had this people from Abraham that he favored.
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They were the only ones with the scriptures. They were the only ones who had the law. They were the only ones who had first the tabernacle and then the temple.
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They were the only ones that he revealed himself to and gave revelation to.
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And if he cut them off what makes you think that he won't do the same?
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Gentiles? Again with scripture.
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2 Corinthians 13 5 -6 Paul says, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith.
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Test yourselves or do you not realize this about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you.
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Unless indeed you fail to meet the test. First of all, by what are we to test ourselves?
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The Word. The Word. 2
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Peter, so that we know someone else agrees with Paul. As if God wouldn't agree with himself.
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Over two writers. For this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge and knowledge with self -control and self -control with steadfastness and steadfastness with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love.
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For if these qualities are yours and are increasing they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.
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Therefore, brothers be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election.
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For if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our
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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. One of the first and foremost things that we should always do is judge ourselves.
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The vast majority of the church today man, when they pull that verse out of their pocket judge not.
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Lest you be judged. It's always the King James Version. It's always the King James Version.
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The first thing that you should do is judge yourself. The standard is
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Christ. That's the standard of acceptance.
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The only reason we're accepted is because we're in Christ through faith. So don't be discouraged when you don't meet the standard.
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But God in his wonderful grace and mercy through 2
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Peter and through other parts of Scripture gives us an idea of what our sanctification looks like.
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And if we are not meeting that test there's a problem. If we are not growing in those qualities there's a problem.
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You'll know this one for sure. Luke 6 verse 41 and 42. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
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Jumping down just a little bit into 42 he says you hypocrite. First take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck that is in your brother's eye.
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That is the point of examining yourself. How are you supposed especially in the body how are you supposed to help your brothers and sisters in Christ with their sin if you ignore your own?
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How as a church body are you to help another church or help other saints or help people who aren't saints yet, help sinners?
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If you haven't yet examine yourselves. Do this consistently and often.
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If Christ is not at the center of your faith if Christ is not the object of faith we should all know what that term means the object of faith.
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The thing in whom you have faith being Christ and the gospel is not at the center of your mind then you have in fact stepped off the path.
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If you have set something before Christ you've stepped off.
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Whether you've stepped off to the left or to the right I don't know, but you've stepped off.
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If you read Pilgrim's Progress Christian does this so often and there's even a part where he gets chased by Moses and it's quite humorous especially in the children's versions of that book angry old man chasing him with a stick.
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But just as God sends people like evangelists to help
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Christians back on the path God also sends people sends circumstance sends various measures to do the same for you for me.
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There is not a single temptation that comes along in our lives in which he does not give us an out.
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But if God did not spare the Israelites as I said before, then what makes you think he will spare
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Gentiles? As Paul said, fear, have fear.
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We read in Proverbs the beginning of wisdom, the beginning of true wisdom is what? Fear of the
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Lord. And even as elect, while we do not have to fear condemnation in the
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Lord, we do have to fear him as our Father. We have to fear, we ought to fear his chastisement.
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While an earthly father, and I know I pray that the majority of us know this fear do you remember the sound of a belt moving through belt loops very fast?
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I certainly remember that sound. But while the tools of earthly fathers is a rod or a belt or words or time out or whatever that tool may be the tools of chastisement for our heavenly father literally are time and space and circumstance.
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With the same fear that a child fears their father for chastisement you ought to fear our heavenly father.
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If you do not have that respect the first thing you need to do is get into the word because it's the only way you're going to get it.
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One of the points that Paul is making here is in this section about if he didn't spare the natural branches why would you think that he would spare you
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Gentiles? Listen, how many times in scripture do the
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Israelites go astray they start worshipping other gods and they start doing this they're full of idolatry and child sacrifice and all manner of ungodliness and God does what?
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Sends an army kills a lot of them and they're dispersed. And they become faithful again he brings them back, they're good for a while and then they roll right back into the same thing and this happens over and over and over even to one point where they've lost the law if that is the chastisement of God for them what is ours?
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Notice throughout time throughout the past 2 ,000 years how many churches have fallen away?
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How many? We have one major one just now in recent history a worldwide church split and the majority of the faithful church isn't even in this country where the church started because they preferred to pursue what tickled their ears cut off, a branch cut off it's one thing to go through physical chastisement to go through a circumstance that when you come out the other end you go got it,
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I understand whether that's poverty or an accident,
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I won't say accident but some sort of physical ailment, whatever it may be it's difficult for sure no denying that spiritual chastisement is a whole other thing
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Paul says in 22
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Note then the kindness and the severity of God severity towards those who have fallen but God's kindness to you provided you continue in his kindness otherwise you too will be cut off and even they if they do not continue in their unbelief meaning unbelieving
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Jews will be grafted in for God has the power to graft them in again for if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree how much more will these the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree it is one thing to remove a branch from a tree and to graft a totally different branch onto it it can be done it's very laborious but it can be done it takes time and a lot of care it's another to remove a branch and put it back same tree, same organism takes no time at all seen it done remember who gave you your faith who grafted you in the harsh consequence for the majority of Jews and how they were cut off in God's kindness with you you who hated him when he saved you in making the same assumptions that you're good because of who you are or what you've done or what church you go to careful that you do not make the same mistake also let me point this out what is more likely that the majority of the branches would be cut off from that tree or that other branches would be grafted in what's easier the latter is more difficult the idea that first of all that God would cut off the vast majority of the nation of Israel from the gospel from salvation and that it would go to pagan idolaters who weren't even seeking
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God in any manner and God did both comparatively how easy it is to graft in those branches it is certainly within his power to restore whomever he wills doesn't matter and as the elect, as the church, we must endeavor to make sure that we do not fall into the same pride either because of our work or because of our level of knowledge or because of anything else these things are very easy to fall into very easy we do it all the time and we don't even know we're doing it this is why as before I emphasized the importance of becoming a member of the church so that you are around other saints who can point these things out to you who are you more likely to listen to?
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let me ask that question who are you more likely to listen to? someone you've never met before in your life and that you see once a week that you really don't know that you really kind of know their name but that's about it or a family member someone who has known you for a really long time someone who cares for you someone who understands the way that you think you share a worldview with you are vastly more likely to listen to a family member especially when they point out something negative now, understandably we don't like hearing it from scripture even as saints it's hard and it takes a very long time to find joy in it but part of the reason that we have the church is so that not only do we hear it from the word but we can aid each other in pointing out those things when we fall into them and help each other get out of them while we go through these things and while we aid each other remember to rejoice in God's wonderful, wonderful kindness that he has shown to us and also, rather than be arrogant to say to yourself ha ha, he he,
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I'm saved they're not, pray for them in the humility that you ought to have as a saint pray for those people who are not that is a horrifically terrible thing that they are chasing after the place that they're going, that the vast majority of them are going to end up in, is hell and while the secular world may throw words around and consider these things nonsensical it is not a place that I would want my worst enemy to end up cut off from all grace for eternity that is what hell is it is a place that unrepentant reprobate sinners go it's a real place but it's not a place that's ruled over by a guy with a pitchfork
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God rules over hell as he rules over all of creation but it is a place devoid of any grace weeping and gnashing of teeth by that he means one, weeping, we get that one the gnashing of teeth is hatred something you see in infants this is how you know children with depravity is real have children the thing that comes naturally is anger gnashing of teeth the people there aren't sorry that they're there because they rejected
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God even there they hate it
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Sproul and possibly some other people that he may have gotten this from had this thing where he would say if God walked into hell flung open the doors and opened the doors and said
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I've given you another chance all you have to do is recognize me as God and Lord and Savior worship me and I'll let you out they would slam the door in his face because they would rather suffer in hell than be subject to God's rule a prominent atheist who
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I believe passed away not too long ago admitted he would rather suffer in hell for all time than be subject to the
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God of the Bible and if the
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Lord did not save him in the latter years of his life or the last moments of his life, that is in fact where he is pray for them we know that the number of the elect comparatively to all of the people who have ever lived on the earth is a small number we know that, scripture says so but let's pray that even that small number is a ginormous number of people and while we still have time while they still have time share the gospel because there will come a day when there is no more time when there will be no more