Romans 9:25-29

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Alright, we've come to the end of Romans 9.
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We've got one more Sunday. It's been quite the journey so far.
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Quite the heap of meat that we've had to be chewing on for quite some time.
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As usual, I'm going to start in verse 1 and read through again.
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But I did make some quotations this time so we can remember the context and the things about which
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Paul has been talking. Starting in verse 1, he says,
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I am speaking the truth in Christ. I am not lying. My conscience bears me witness in the
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Holy Spirit, but 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.
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They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.
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To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the
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Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. But it is not as though the word of God has failed.
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For not all who are descendants from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham, because they are his offspring.
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But through Isaac shall your offspring be named. This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
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For this is what the promise said, about this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.
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And not only so, but also, when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather
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Isaac, though they were not yet born, and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls, she was told,
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The older shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.
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But what shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means.
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For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom
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I have compassion. So then, it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.
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For the scripture says to Pharaoh, For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.
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So then, he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
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You will say to me then, Why does he still find fault?
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For who can resist his will? But who are you, old man, to answer back to God?
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Will what is molded say to its molder, Why have you made me like this?
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Paul then replies this analogy that is from Isaiah, the analogy of the potter.
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Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another vessel for dishonorable use?
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Then he poses another question, and in place of vessels of wrath,
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I want you to think of Pharaoh, which Paul has already mentioned. What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy?
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In the context of what Paul was talking about, just previously speaking of Pharaoh, who would be, if Pharaoh is the vessel prepared for destruction, who are the vessels of mercy in that context?
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The Hebrews, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.
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Even us, speaking of the saints, whom he has called not from the
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Jews only, but also from the Gentiles. As indeed he says in Hosea, those who are not my people
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I will call my people, and her who was not beloved I will call beloved.
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And in the very place where it was said to them, you are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living
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God. And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, for the
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Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.
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And as Isaiah predicted, if the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.
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If you remember back when we first talked about the unrighteousness of men,
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Paul started that in chapter 1, through 2 and through 3, he raised the concern to the church in Rome about the unrighteousness, the equal unrighteousness of all men.
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And it raised several questions, which Paul has now come back to in chapter 9.
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But since chapter 3, when those questions were first raised, Paul didn't immediately go into answering those questions, because first he needed to make sure that they were ready for the answers, just as we do when we share the gospel.
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The gospel is the first thing that one ought to hear, not the doctrine of election. What does that matter to someone who is unsaved?
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So he gave us a very in -depth gospel presentation through 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, showing us the our depravity, our equal depravity, both
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Jews and Greeks, that we needed Christ, that Christ is there for the saints, and then the undying assurance that comes from the sovereignty of God.
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And then in chapter 9 here, Paul begins to finally give us meat that we can chew on, starting with the sovereign election of the saints and how they are pulled from both
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Jews and Gentiles. Remember what we talked about before, the history of the church in Rome and what they were going through at the time, that the church in Rome was very likely started by Romans who were present at the day of Pentecost, Roman Jews.
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They took the word of the gospel back to Rome and spread it and began churches there.
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And then in 49, the emperor exiled all ethnic Jews from Rome.
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Gone. This is why Paul meets Priscilla and Aquila, they're ethnic
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Jews from Rome, they've been exiled. So in the meantime, the only people left in those churches are
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Gentile Christians, people who were not accustomed to the traditions of the people who started those churches.
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The emperor dies in 54, and they begin to return, all those ethnic
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Jews, Christians start to return to those churches that they started, and they're seeing the
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Gentile Christian run these churches that they started, that they founded, and it causes a great strife between the two, because you have these
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Christians that have these Jewish traditions right there with Gentiles who don't.
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So it causes problems. And Paul, from chapter one all the way up to now, has had to defeat those problems one by one by one.
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You're both sinful, you both needed Christ, you both have assurance in him.
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This is why you see that back and forth to the Gentiles, and then to the Jews, and then the Gentiles, and then the
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Jews. And now that he has brought them together, understand that you're one people.
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You're not Jews and Gentiles, you're saints. Now he can begin to deal with the questions that he poses, and they are questions.
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If you look, they're posed as questions through 19, 20, 21, 22, 24.
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They're all questions. Now one of them is a question that is an answer.
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Who are you, old man? But what does
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Paul do in a statement to answer these questions? Well, Paul does what he always does.
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The correct answer is, he does what he always does. He does the right thing to do. Paul references
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Old Testament text. One, because he's showing that it was already foretold, and two, because he knows that the
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Jews, the Jewish Christians that he is writing this letter to are going to do what?
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They're going to immediately run to Old Testament text, as they should.
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But he has been saying time and time again that it is not a matter of ethnicity or ethnos that is your salvation, but it is
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God's sovereign choice. 25, he says, as indeed he says in Hosea.
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The first one is Hosea 2, 23. Those who are not my people,
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I will call my people, and her who is not beloved, I will call beloved.
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The next one is Hosea 1, 10, verse 26. And in that very place where it was said to them, you are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living
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God. Now the origin of this text, the original meaning of this text when it was given by Hosea was to the kingdom of Israel that had broken their covenant with God with their apostasy.
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And while the original text speaks of God's reclamation of a remnant of those who had become apostate,
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Paul uses the text to refer to Gentiles as well, who had, by general revelation, become apostate from God.
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This is one of the reasons that we have to let Scripture interpret Scripture. Not our life experience, not another book, not the
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Apocrypha, but Holy Scripture itself. This is
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Paul, under divine inspiration of God the Holy Spirit, pointing to an
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Old Testament text and saying, it means this also. Now, if we did not have the
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New Testament, we would not have that information. So how is it possible to understand even the
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Old Testament without the New? It's not.
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Not in its fullness. By the way,
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Peter says something similar in 1 Peter 2, 10. He says, once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.
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Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. But Paul, as he has done many times before, is telling the
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Jewish Christians to which he is speaking that the Gentiles are indeed numbered among the elect and that this was foretold in Old Testament text.
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This is something, as I said before, that he consistently does over and over and over again, all through Romans.
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What have we seen him do? Anytime that there's an injection, he goes, oh wait, remember here when it said this?
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And what do they normally do? If the Holy Spirit truly has a hold of them, what are we supposed to do?
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We should do the same thing to any teacher, just like the
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Bereans. Anytime we hear anybody say anything about Scripture, the first thing that we should do is immediately go to the text.
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Is what he said true? And that's what
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Paul is counting on. Because if indeed you are in doubt with the Holy Spirit and you go and you fact check what he is saying against the
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Scriptures, you will see it. Not because Paul convinced you of it, but because it's subjectively there and the
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Bible says there is no birthright to salvation. It has been and always will be a gift from God.
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And this plays out many times in just the Old Testament with the Gentiles being grafted into the family of God.
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The Jews, they were supposed to stay pure. They weren't allowed to intermarry. They weren't allowed to do many different things.
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And yet, Gentiles were even literally brought into the family tree of Christ.
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In Hagar and Ruth, the examples of God's sovereign choice, that it is
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His prerogative, are there again, again, and again. Paul points out further in 27.
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He says, And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel. This is
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Isaiah 10, 22 and 23. Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved.
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For the Lord will carry out His sentence upon the earth fully and without delay. Now, there may be many that take issue with this section of the text and the context in which
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Paul is putting it, but we need to keep in mind that Paul is talking about Jews when he references
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Isaiah, ethnic Jews, and that he has been talking about sovereign election.
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There should be no issue here with the text concerning any promises made. In one of my readings,
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I unfortunately do not have his name listed here, but I'm not quoting either, just paraphrasing.
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I can find it later if someone wants it. But a teacher pointed out that if you pay attention to what
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Isaiah is saying regarding the promises, what does he say? He says that they, in fact, number the sands of the sea.
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Isaiah points this out, promise fulfilled. Because this is part of the promise to Abraham, that his offspring will be as the sands of the sea.
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There you have it. That promise is not broken. In the time of Isaiah, they also lived in the land that they were promised, that Abraham was promised.
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Promise not broken. But also
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Isaiah says that even though they do number the sands of the sea, only a remnant would be saved.
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Paul is using this in the context of saints. Elect persons.
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And this text doesn't stand by itself either. This has been pointed out. We've used 1 Kings 19 .18 before.
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Yet I will leave 7 ,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him.
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Example after example of God keeping a people for Himself. And it shouldn't be a surprise,
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God has always operated contrary to what mankind thought He ought to do, so that it would be shown that it was
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His power and His glory that accomplished the goal.
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Just as Paul pointed out previously in this chapter, He chose
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Jacob over Esau. Again and again and again through the text
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He chooses the weaker rather than the greater. Abraham is an example of this.
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He didn't choose a king. He didn't choose a wise man. He chose
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Abram, a man from the land of Ur. And then
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He chose Isaac, the second son. And that passes to Jacob.
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And then we have the whole story of Joseph. Several chapters just of Joseph and everything that he went through.
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And the example of that is God's sovereign will of putting
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Joseph in control of Egypt so that he could accomplish
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God's will. But then the promise doesn't even go to Joseph, does it?
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It goes to his brother Judah. Then you have the
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Hebrew people, not the great and powerful Egyptians, but the slaves.
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God does this for a reason. Just in the context of the
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Old Testament, as a history, have you ever read another history of another people that talk about themselves the way that the
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Old Testament talks about Israel? All the mistakes and terrible choices that they made?
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No people talks about themselves that way. The point is to point out the fact that they're weak.
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They spent 40 years roaming the desert because they were weak. And then once they get there, the only thing that allows them to overtake
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Canaan is what? God. In 29, it says, and as Isaiah predicted, this is
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Isaiah 1 .9, the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.
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I'm sure everyone is still familiar with the Sodom and Gomorrah, the history of that. But if God had not kept a people for himself out of that,
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Israel would be no more. It would be done. Part of the point that Paul is making here, that he's really trying to drive home, especially to the
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Jewish Christians, is that your Gentile brethren have never been and will never be
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Plan B. The grafting in of the
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Gentiles into the family of God has always been part of God's divine plan.
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This is what Paul has been saying the entire time. The church in Rome thought that the distinction was between Jews and Gentiles.
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Paul is saying the distinction is between the elect and the reprobate.
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There is another thing I want us to take from this. This is the application part.
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Matthew Henry, in his commentary on this section, he says this, and the taking in the
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Gentiles were foretold in the Old Testament. It tends very much to the clearing of a truth, to observe how the scripture is fulfilled in it.
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It is a wonder of divine power and mercy that there are any saved, for even those left to be a seed, if God had dealt with them accordingly according to their sins, they would have perished with the rest.
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Had God not elected them and kept them apart for himself, they were just as guilty had he not had mercy on them, they would have been destroyed also.
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This great truth, this scripture teaches us, even among the vast number of professing
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Christians, it is to be feared that only a remnant will be saved.
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That is how it applies. The modern
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American church today has lost the plot. They have completely lost the plot on what's important, what we're here to do.
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But these wonderful doctrines, the doctrine of sovereign election that we've been discussing, it is meat.
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It is for the saints in the context of the church. It is.
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Would you go and share the gospel with someone and then immediately start talking about election? Are they far enough along?
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Does the doctrine of election count towards their salvation? No. These wonderful doctrines that we have, they're for us.
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They're for the saints. They're for our edification in the body. The first thing that anyone not in the church needs to hear is the gospel.
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And I don't care who hates me for saying it. The first thing they need is the gospel.
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Period. They don't need your political opinion. They don't need a civics lesson. They need the gospel.
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And whether you want to dress the church up like a political pundit or whatever you want to dress it up like, that's not what it is.
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We have forgotten our purpose. We have forgotten that we are the means by which
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God spreads His gospel. Well, how are we supposed to do that?
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Go to Colossians 4, verse 2.
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... ... How many Reformed church hoppers do you think that there are?
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I've met more Reformed people who church hop than I've ever met Armenians because it's not perfect.
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It's not just the way they want it. And then what happens to someone who comes upon meat and has no one to direct them in it?
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No one. They have no discipleship. What they do is they immediately fill their heads with absolute ridiculous doctrines to make it make sense because they have no one to drive them in the right direction and then they become vastly more dangerous than someone who has no idea what they're talking about, than someone who knows nothing of the doctrines of grace.
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This is blatantly apparent when we have people who are professing Reformed Christians being open racists online and justifying it with Scripture.
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This is something that we dealt with hundreds of years ago. We said, especially in this country, no more.
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And the church split because of it. That's how the
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SBC was founded. That's why it was founded. And yet this has become a problem again.
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We have people running around, unchurched individuals running around proclaiming nonsense online because they will not put themselves in a church.
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Understand that you have absolute and utter assurance in Christ. As we learned in chapter 8, there is nothing that can keep
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Him from holding you in His hands.
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Nothing. No principality, no power. He is the Lord of Lord and King of kings.
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Even in Revelation, whether we disagree or not on when
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He returns, when He returns, He returns victorious. That's the picture that we're given in Revelation.
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Not that He comes ready for battle. No, that He already won it before He even got here.
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So your assurance, that's not something that you have to worry about. Now you will because you live in your flesh.
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But Paul is saying is absolutely assured in the saints. But just as being an
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Israelite did not guarantee that you were elect, being a member in the church doesn't guarantee it either.
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You want to think about all those people who are unchurched again. We're saying that just as the
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Israelites weren't guaranteed because they were Israelites to be elect, church membership doesn't guarantee you election either.
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So all those people who are unchurched really need to take a good look at themselves. Because if it's not guaranteed through church membership even, and they don't want to be members of churches, they got more of a problem than the people in the churches have.
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You can't as a saint not be in a church. It may persist for a year or two or for a season, but the
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Holy Spirit will make you join a church whether you really want to or not. Because it is the nature of Christians to be in the body, to use an analogy of a body.
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What happens to a finger when you cut it off? If it's not reattached, what happens?
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It dies. It withers and it dies. But all that being said, just because church membership does not guarantee that you're elect, that is not an excuse for not being under right eldership that can care for you and love you and guide you in the way that you're supposed to go.
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That is their job. That is what they have chosen to do.
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It is what they have been chosen to do. They are to keep you from falling off into either ditch on the left or the right.
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And when they see you do it, call you out on it. And say, hey, you're in the ditch and you need to step back up on the path.
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We'll continue next week. We'll finish chapter 9. We'll move into chapter 10.
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As Paul tells us, tells the Romans, the
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Roman church, or the church in Rome, of Israel's unbelief and Paul's hope for them.