Doctrine of the Remnant - Part 2 — A.W. Tozer

The Remnant in Romans and Throughout Scripture

In the book of Romans, the ninth chapter, verses 27, 29, and 28, he is tired, which gives Isaiah, tired concerning Israel. So, the number of the children of Israel he is trying to deceive. Only a remnant shall be saved who will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, for the short work will the Lord make upon the earth.

Though the number of the children of Israel, he is the one who shall be saved. I began last week a two-sermon series, this is finishing it tonight, on the doctrine of the remnant in the Bible. And it's not my intention to give an exposition of the ninth chapter of Romans, a very heavy and difficult chapter.

But the 27th verse is not difficult. It says simply that regardless of how many there may be, what the population of the nation of Israel may be, only a remnant shall be saved. So, the doctrine of the remnant is a doctrine not only applying to Israel, but as I said, it applies to all mankind and to the Church.

It is simply this, that in our blind, fallen, sinful world of mankind, the overwhelming majority have forsaken God, their sins untruthened, their souls unspoken without God in the world. Two of the majority have aged in time.

But somebody said to Joseph, what is the percentage? Don't crowd me, because I can't tell you. And since the Bible does not tell me, I will not try to tell you. I only know that the word remnant means a small fragment.

The word remnant means a surviving trace, a remnant. You had a hundred dollars in your pocket, but you spend it here, and you spend it there, and you spend it the other place, and you have a dollar thirty cents.

A small fragment, a surviving trace of what you originally had. I don't give that as percentage. Now, that's what the doctrine teaches. And that it's true, it was true, I pointed out, among the nations.

It's true in Israel, it's true when Christ came the first time. The Bible teaches it will be true when he comes back the second time. Church history shows that it has been true all down the years. That of the multitude who named his name, only a remnant, a surviving trace, a small fragment were saved.

Rebuking Religious Superficiality

Now, I make the devil mad by saying this. The devil doesn't care how religious it sounds, and he doesn't care how many people crowd his church and listen to lovely phrases. Phrases about the laughter of his children, and on and on and forth.

That's how things say. The devil doesn't care. In fact, I think the old boy likes it. But when we dare to deal with things that disturb him, then we hate it, and he hates this. And so, here's the way he works.

He works to whisper to the listener, that man is a bigot. A man who would dare say that is a bigot. For a bigot is one who imagines that he and his religion is all there is, and that man is a bigot. He is strange that a bigot like that could have anybody listen to him in this day, and so they clowned out.

Well, I didn't originate this doctrine of the remnant, my friends. In fact, I didn't originate anything that I preach, and if you can discover anything that I originated, please, for God's sake, reject it out of the hand immediately and for good, because nothing that I ever originated will stand the test of the judgment day.

The fires of God will burn anything I have originated in one quick flash of flame, and it's over. But this doctrine of the remnant, this teaching that any given time in Israel, in the church, among the nations, that is in Christendom, there are large numbers of people who name his name by the surviving trace that actually know his goodness.

A small fragment that'll really know his grace. That'll make you mad, and not you, maybe, but some. And it will turn some people away. They'll go away in steaming anger and not come back, and I can't help that, but that's in the book, my friends, that's here.

Where Is the Remnant?

Now, I told you that I would talk tonight on where is that remnant? Where is the remnant? Elijah didn't know where it was in his day. There were 7 ,000 that hadn't bowed beneath the veil, which I showed you was about one-tenth of one percent of the people of Israel in that time, and Elijah didn't know where they were.

He didn't even know where the preachers were, the prophets hidden in caves. He didn't even know they were there. They were. I don't know what they were doing in caves, or maybe I do know what, and that's worth still.

But they were hiding in caves, and Elijah didn't know it. So, I don't know where the remnant is, but dare we inquire where the remnant is. Now, as soon as we bring this subject up, immediately all of the half-saved, and the one-percent-saved, and the backsliders, and the borderline, and the church members, and the professors, and those who have not the witness of the Spirit to their redemption, they begin to squirm and quote scripture, and one scripture they quote is, Judge not that ye be not judged, and they say that that man stands up there, the old digger, and he judges other people's religion, and he judges me.

What right has he to judge me? Does not Jesus say, Judge not that ye be not judged? And does not the bible say that the love thinketh no evil? And if that man had love, he would not think evil about anybody.

He would accept these, he would accept everything that is done in the name of the Lord, and he would not dare to say, only a remnant shall be saved. He would accept and believe in the good religious people that go and give of their pennies, and he would believe in them.

But he's not a man of love, he's not a loving man, he's a severe, harsh man. Now, my brethren, I wonder if when Jesus said, Judge not, and when Paul says, Love thinketh no evil, and when Christ said we should love one another, lay down our lives for each other, and all this that's said in the scriptures, I wonder if that was intended to end inquiry and silence rebuke.

I wonder if Jesus meant when he said, Judge not that ye be not judged, that his prophets were not to go forth, his apostles and his preachers, and speak truth to the church. I wonder if he meant that they were to go forth like the three monkeys on the what-not shelf, see no evil, think no evil, hear no evil, and get the permanent smile on their faces which never will rub off till they die, and believe in everybody and everything and everyone who says, Lord, Lord, accept him into the kingdom of God, forgetting that the same Holy Ghost who said, Judge not through the lips of the Savior, said a remnant shall be saved, a small fragment, a surviving trace.

Spiritual Diagnosis and Discernment

Well, we have in our audience tonight a friend of mine, the Dr. Elder Teitel of Columbus, a fine Christian physician whom I knew when he was a little lad in Georgetown, and I don't want him to think I've chosen this illustration because he's here for the simple reason that it's one of my favorites.

But do you know what we need in the Church of Christ now? Do you know what we need? We need diagnosis. And do you know what diagnosis is? It comes from two good, hard Greek words, meaning to know all the way through.

That's what we need in the Church of Jesus Christ, but they quote, Judge not. As soon as a man of God gets up and starts in, they say, Judge not. Well, now my illustration is this. So, if somebody isn't feeling up to par, goes to see a doctor.

The doctor, I feel as if I had a mitten in my mouth when I get up in the morning. My head just bothers me, and I don't have the energy, and I just don't feel good. And the doctor says, All right, stick out your thumb.

I said, What? He said, Put out your thumb. I said, What? He said, Put out your thumb. Well, I can't understand why you should want me to put out my thumb. Well, the doctor said, I've got to know you. I've got to know you through.

I've got to diagnose you to get to know you through. He said, It's an improper thing to do, and I did the part. And, all right, tell me, how is your appetite? Well, I don't see why that's any good. Doesn't the Bible say, Go ask questions about people?

He does not, we be not judged. Love everybody and think no evil, and don't stick your nose in other people's affairs. What do you expect from me about my appetite? Well, how do you sleep? It's a difference of view how I sleep.

I came for help. Don't you love me? I came for help. I want you to help me, but don't you love me? Yes, but I want to be asleep well at night. None of your business stuff. Absolutely not. You're a terrible man.

Love everybody, and judge nobody, and love think there's no evil, and love suffers a multitude to fall, and don't you reach in and test me with that? Give me hours for it. Well, what do you eat? Well, it's none of your business.

I want you to understand I'm no glutton. Well, let me take a look at your blood. My blood? Yes. What do you want in my blood? I want to know you. I want to know you. I came for help to you. I want encouragement and inspiration.

I don't want you to give up your mother. I don't give no blood. Well, but I can't know you until I get to your blood. Oh, you're terrible, and you're a radical dink. Why should you want to know about my blood?

Well, let me at least take your blood pressure. What do you know about my blood pressure? None of your business. Do you not realize that the Bible says thou shalt not judge unless you take my blood pressure?

You'll be judging me. What kind of a crazy business is that? Even Satan would hold his belly and laugh in hell, and yet they demand that that's the way we preach this to their congregation. They demand that that's the way to preach this to the congregation.

I want to tell you something, Matthew. We are beating the drum for revival, and we are getting thousands of people to pray into the night for revival. We might as well jump up and down on the altar of Baal and cut ourselves and cry, Baal, hear us, Baal, hear us.

We won't submit to jackboots. We won't let God find out what's wrong with us. We won't let God know us through and through, and we won't listen to the man who tries to find out the ministers who are in need.

We go to the preacher for inspiration and encouragement and confirmation in our backslidden ways, and as soon as he opens his mouth, as he prays past the night for his congregation, and would give his life for it, we shut him up.

I'll ram the effects in his mouth and say, don't you dare judge anybody. The man says, I'm a Christian, you've got to accept it, otherwise you might be grieving the Holy Ghost, and we shut up the mouth of the man who's trying to find out what's wrong and how we can cure it.

Prophetic Rebuke and Biblical Judgment

It's true that I am only to stand up and preach love, that I'm only to stand up here and tell you from the book of Ephesians how wonderful you are. If that's true, then all the prophets whose faith since the world began were all wrong, beginning with Enoch.

Enoch, who said, that the Lord cometh with all his saints to take judgment on the ungodly for all the ungodly deeds they have ungodly done. Doesn't that sound very much like inspiration and encouragement?

That must sound to me more like a little diagnosis, somebody getting into it to find out what's wrong. Well, if I don't dare do it, and you won't let me do it, then all the prophets were wrong, and Christ was the greatest transgressor of all.

For there was nobody that could look you through and make you feel like two cents devaluated. Nobody could do it as well as our Lord Jesus Christ could. That's the way it is, and all inquiry must be ended, and all rebuke, silence.

Then the apostles also were great sinners, and also great bigots and Pharisees. For if you don't believe it, read what Paul wrote to the Corinthians, read what he wrote to the Colossians, read what he wrote to the Galatians, read what Peter wrote to the generals of the Christians scattered abroad, read what Jude wrote about the people that crept into the church, read what John in his first epistle, and all his epistles have said, read what James said.

Had these men not heard the text, judge not that you be not judged? Sure they'd have heard that text, but they knew what it meant, and these others don't. Had Paul not heard the text, love thinketh no evil, when you wrote to the Galatians and said you're circumcising yourselves, I wish you'd cut your throat?

Well, he didn't say that. You just read a little letter and dig around a little bit and see whether he didn't say what amounts to that. He said, I wish you'd cut yourself clear off. He said, you lovers of Jewish circumcision who are always trying to make Christians circumcised, I wish you'd get clear cut off.

He said, get rid of yourself, get out of the church. He was the man who wrote this text which said that love thinketh no evil, and love, love, love, he said, was the greatest thing in the world. And then he told the Galatian Paul's teachers, get out of here and cut yourself off.

Paul was ever to diagnose, to inquire, to search, to get at blood, and take blood pressure. Then I asked Judge Elliot if the mystics were all wrong, and the reformers were all wrong, and Luther should have been in jail, and Finney should have sent a pervert to in jail, and all the men who have moved the world for God all should have been in jail.

And yet, that's true. Also, it's impossible to obey the scriptures. If I do not, if I cannot, if I dare not exercise moral justice, if I dare not stand up and look at a thing and decide in the light of God's word whether it's right or wrong, then I cannot obey the scriptures.

The Lord has given me a commandment which I cannot obey. Be well, well, he says, come in cheap clothing, jeans and loving pussycats, zero June's pay, don't judge anybody but accept everybody at his own fake value, and be loving as the Savior was.

All right then, when the wolf comes along dressed in a sheep's fleece, what do I do? I say, good morning, sheepy, and I don't dare allow myself to believe that he's a wolf, even though I see his slobbering fangs.

I have got to be loving and not judge him. Why, the Lord's using him. Why don't you be quiet, dear brother? I would be afraid, and you know there's nobody who can get quite so effusively love-making as these blind men who are afraid to face the truth.

Be loving, dear brother, and they call you, you know, and call you dear brother with their white hands. My dear brother, if I am not to be able to tell a wolf when I see him, then how am I going to keep the wolf out of the fold?

And I'm supposed to do it. He said, beware of wolves, and if I can't tell a wolf when I see one, how can I beware of that which I don't identify? Tell me. Then he says, by the fruit he shall know them.

Testing Spirits and Guarding the Church

Now, I go out to an old rundown gardener's orchard, and I start looking for sheep-nosed apples, the kind we used to raise out in Pennsylvania. Sheep-nosed apples. I've already changed their name. Tell them now, you'll have twice.

But, there were sheep-nosed apples to us, and I go looking around for sheep-nosed apples, but all I can find is a crab-apple, and a thorn-apple, and a sour, dried-up degenerate apple full of worms, and I go looking for sheep-nosed apples.

Somebody says, what are you doing really? I'm out here judging fruit, and I'm out here looking for fruit. Well, but you're not supposed to. Why? The Bible says that's not. And you're not supposed to judge fruit, you're not supposed to enjoy it.

Why, it isn't loving, doesn't Paul say, loving is all evil? And that you should judge not, you shall not be judged, and you love everybody. Now, that poor crab-apple's doing the best it can, and that thorn-bag there, as big as a small marble, that tries to look like an apple, that's a sheep-nose on the world.

And if you would only believe it, why, you'll find all the Lord loves is your sins. Why should you be so hard on them? So, I got those sneakers away. I don't even dare know the difference between a big, gorgeous, juicy, sheep-nosed apple and a crab, because I'm doing judgment.

You can't obey the scriptures, the Lord's given us proof we can't obey here. By the proofs you shall know them, and if you can't exercise moral judgment and criticize and discriminate, then you can't obey what you've been told to do.

And John says, try the spirits that are there of God. And if I can't and don't dare try the spirits, I've had people, you know, I don't scare easily. That's one strange thing. I was afraid of everything when I was a kid.

Afraid of winds, afraid of dogs, afraid of everything. But in the kingdom of God, I don't scare easily. And they come to me and say, I'd be appraised to say what you've just said. My sister said, God bless her, she's a wonderful Christian.

My sister was a wonderful Christian, but she sat up at my house alongside of me on a bench, and she, like all other children, talks a lot, and she asked me about somebody, currently in the public eye, and I gave a little appraisal.

And she said, oh, now watch what you say. Oh, I'd be afraid to judge. Afraid to judge when God Almighty sent me to do it? Afraid to distinguish a crabapple from a sheep's nose when God sent me to do it?

Afraid to look at a wolf and say you're a wolf when God said look out for wolves? Afraid to try the spirit when God said try the spirit, whether it be of God? God isn't going to send me out to do something and then damn me for doing it.

He's not going to send me out and say, now you go out and judge the truth, and then damn me for judging truth. I approve all things and hold fast to that which is good, and if we can't exercise moral judgment, I want to know how we can know good from bad.

If anyone that's called a brother commits fornication or does any of these other things, I admonish them, don't eat bread with him. That is, don't have communion with him at the Lord's house. Well, we say nowadays, we don't dare do a thing about this.

Dear the Lord, dear children, they all mean well, and therefore don't say anything. As Paul said, we'd better say something. Churches have died the same way. They've died by getting infections in them that they couldn't get rid of and didn't get rid of, and pretty soon the infection flared up and destroyed their whole body.

Humility Rather Than Presumption

They all die the same way. I think I've made my case, I've convinced myself anyhow, and I trust I have you. Where is that remnant? Somebody say, you don't dare ask that question. You don't. There's a very small remnant of this place even in Mississippi.

There are 60 million Christians and members of church now, and many Christians and American members of church. 60 million Christians are alive in the earth today. You know what would happen if there were 60 million Christians in the earth in America today?

There would be a doxology that would bring the sputniks down. There would be a doxology that would rise to heaven and send up such a glorious wave of music that the stars would pause to flit. But there's no body can get me to believe that.

Though there were children, there should be in numbers the sands of the sea. Small fragments, shall we say, they survive in crates that yet remain. So it was in Noah's day, so it was in Israel down years, so it was when Christ came the first time so it was when he comes the second time.

So has it been in church history, and so is it today. We are where we are because we have silenced the creatures who dare to find out what's wrong with us, who dare to inquire where is the remnant or is there a remnant.

You say, then what are we to do? Let's beware something. Let's beware presumptions and the sectarians. Let us beware the spirit that says, I am right, judge yourself by me. The wonderful thing about a right man is he doesn't want to talk about it.

The wonderful thing about a godly man is he doesn't know he's godless. The beautiful thing about a holy man is that he's the only one that doesn't know it. As soon as we begin to talk about how holy we are, we're not holy anymore, if we ever were.

If somebody else says a man is holy, I'll listen. But if he gets up and says he is, I'll close my ear right there because I don't want the decibels to disturb the atoms inside my eardrums, because I know he's not telling the truth.

A good man doesn't know he's good, and a holy man isn't aware he's holy, and a righteous man thinks he's miserable. I'm such a poor wretch, how I love my Savior's soul. I'm a happy God, but when I think of myself, it makes me sick.

So, remember, let's look out for presumptions. Save me, said the holy man, save me from presumptions. Save me from self-righteousness that says, stand apart, I'm holier than thou. No, no. We want this church to have a standard as high as the New Testament, but we never want anybody in this church to be so good that he can't help a drunk man up the stairs and get him seated and sit beside him and do what they expect to win him.

We want everybody in this church to be as pure as the blood of the Lamb can make them, but we don't want a woman in this church that wouldn't be willing to help a harlot painted off the street, and help her in here, and lead her to title, and lead her to Christ.

Self-righteousness. You don't have to be self-righteous, and you don't have to be bigoted and presumptuous. What, then, is the right attitude? The right attitude is, refuse to compare yourself with anybody else.

Compare yourself with Jesus. I remember hearing dear old William Jennings Bryan, when he had turned preacher, and all he did in his old age, and was a better preacher than 99 percent of the preachers who were supposed to be preachers.

I heard him preach when he was quite an old man, just a little while before he went to heaven, and he said the difference between evolution and our Christian is this. He said an evolutionist goes out Sunday morning to the zoo, stands in front of me, and congratulates himself upon how far he has sprung from the days that he taught.

But, he said a Christian goes to church Sunday morning, and since reverend came, listens to the preacher preach, and looks out where he has to go yet before he's perfect at his heaven taught. And, if you could have heard him go, the man who belongs to the remnant isn't asking if he does, and he isn't inquiring.

He is hoping, and believing, and trusting, and seeking, and longing, and he's comparing himself not with somebody else, but with the Savior. Compare yourself with somebody else, and you'll be as powerful as Lucifer.

Compare yourself with Jesus, and you'll be as meek as Moses. So, the thing to do is not to look for the remnant. The thing to do is to beware presumption and self-righteousness, and to compare yourself only with Jesus.

Assurance, Reward, and Faithful Service

And then, when you've done that, I am an unprofitable servant. When I was younger, the Ecclesiastical Bible was my alma mater, you know, and I got my degree there, and my theology, and I still like it, in terms of it all.

Although, I don't think all the notes are in the same sentence. But, when I was busy with Pittsburgh, I was seriously wondering about, when I became mayor, five cities, and I could preach on the five crowns.

I don't speak lightly. Somebody's going to rule over five cities, but now I know not who it will be, but I know who it will be. When I actually believed that I would have a starry crown, we used to sing far, far away beyond the starry sky, and about the crown we would wear.

I hope, but I don't know. I'm saved, I know. That I live in the heart of God, I know. That I walk with the Savior, I know. That I wake in the night and say, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God, all night and fall back to sleep, I know.

That I carry a hymn book in the Bible everywhere I go, that I know. And that the Lord is literally, literally becoming nearer and dearer as the years go by, I know. That I am his child, I know. That my name's in the Lamb's book of life, I know.

But further than that, don't push me, because I don't think that I'm going to have much of a crown. In fact, I've had an understanding with God about that, and if he surprises me by giving me a little crown, I'll be the happiest man on the golden train, because I don't expect it.

I've done, I've been too mean, I've been too sinful, wasted too much time, been too lazy, too cowardly, too everything for a man to have a crown. So I'm not expecting, and I'm not trying to be humble, so you'll go away and say, Oh, Moose Christ, that dear, humble man, brother, there isn't a humble Adam in my body.

The old Adam made me as proud as hell, and it's only the cross of Christ that can save me from the city of Texas. I'm only just testifying, and I've got a right to do that. To tell you that I don't expect much of a reward.

I like to have understandings with God. I go to God and have understandings with him. I go to God and talk it over and settle things and say, Now, God, where was I? I think on the train. I like to take a roommate that talks a little, but it makes an office for me and I've got to work.

So I shut the door and get down and get a very old pair of training pants, get down on my knees, save my suit, and I get down there and I've been quiet for hours and hours, my Bible open. I told God something the other day that I just like to pass on.

I said, God, I know where I belong. To God, I understand. If I go to hell, you'll have one man there singing your praises. If I go there, you'll have one man that won't keep his mouth shut, but will run all around over that dark place telling how good God is and how wonderful is the blood of the Lamb.

I have another understanding, that if I have in my life failed so completely as it is, what I've done, there's one thing not even God can take that right in and say, Brother, I went to the Moody Bible Institute, I was going to Northern Baptist, I went to this and that seminary, I was there with the government, I went to your church, and take that away.

Satan can't rob me of that. Don't suppose that'll be a reward enough. Won't it be a reward enough to see somebody there, it's there because you live? I think that'll be a crown, and that's nobody can take away from me.

At no circumstances can I rob you of that. When I get letters, as I do, oh, Brother, I just read something, you know, how God has blessed me. Nobody can take that away. But the point is, you're going to have to come with humility, and not say, I'm holy, stand thou astide.

But say, Lord God, I trust that by thy grace, and the power of thy blood in the everlasting covenant, I'll have some little reward there. By telling you this, in my opinion, I believe it's more than an opinion, I believe it's insight.

Evangelical Christianity as we know it today, Gospel Christianity as we know it today, it's almost as far from God's liberty. It's nominal creed is biblical, orientation is worldly. We evangelicals, the holiness people, the Pentecostal people, Bible people, Bible-loving people, reliant people, we who claim to be evangelical and traditional in our Christian faith, our orientation, that is, we have gathered around.

That's where the core, that's what we circle around. Our orientation is big business, and we've just never got along with any big business man of his day, and we use them as our model. Around the banquet hall, where did I hear that a certain church has a 6 .30 supper every Wednesday night?

They do their meal, and at 8 o 'clock they have a prayer meeting, and the 6 .30 supper has a mob, and the 8 .30, the 8 o 'clock prayer meeting has a physical handful. People of different ethnicities are orientated around showmanship.

Showmanship Versus Genuine Preaching

Oh, I can always tell them I smile to myself and pray that God will awaken my spirit to the platform as I do in these schools where I go, in these camp meetings and places. I know where he's been, I know where he's been up.

He leaps up just to haunt people. He's an emcee. He knows how to do it. He smiles that greedy smile that he puts on his paddles, and he drags that damn little thing into the church. He leaps up and mounts the meeting.

Now, Jim Smith, Mabel Kersnickergis, and Harry Jones up a little. I know where he's been. I have to share the devil's doing. Orientation is key. Gets a fever check, and he carries it down the road and says, I'm preaching a sermon five blocks long.

I carry my Bible five blocks. Then he upsets the sermonist who comes to the church by acting like a whore. Orientated to play and to respect the church. There is not much difference between printers. I said, if anybody comes into your church, and he doesn't have on a nice robes, said, don't tuck him under the, behind the pulpit somewhere and get him out of sight.

He said, some brother comes shooting him, going down to an office boy to come and get this, and told him somebody to go do that, and carried that thing to the church with him. And the pastor said, they accept him in his own value.

Could I tell this old man again? He just said, right. He was preaching, and soon Lord Jackson came in, leaned against the tent pole, and a little seminary preacher who was there, said, brother preacher, Lord Jackson, Lord Jackson.

He doesn't know a thing, gobbled down him just as quickly as he would, go pop and pop, and went on to his sermon. After it was over, the little seminary preacher said, oh no, brother preacher, you'll be bored for tomorrow morning.

He said, that's an awful man, that man, Lord Jackson. He's terrible. He's a general. He'll hurt you. So the next day, the big old square-shouldered Peter, down the street, and saw the general. Said, I heard your sermon yesterday.

Peter breaks himself. Said, put her here. He said, if I had a hundred generals who had your courage, I'd soon win this war of mine, and kill me. And when a big guy swaggers down the aisle, it'll beat your neck.

So, if you cause a high enough in society, or deep enough in debt, owning enough property, or having enough bank accounts, or able to write a big enough check, shut my little old mouth. Not one. He may be a prince of this, or a cardinal of that, or a bishop of the other.

He may be the uncrowned kubar of fundamentalism, or self-appointed without portfolio, ambassador of modern-evening government. But I'll preach what God wants me to preach. Amen. I'm Bob Dunn, and I guess it's about time.

Returning to New Testament Living

But what is our job? What is our job? What is our job? A part of the race. To judge unkindly. It is not to withdraw in self-righteous, to be unloving. But it is to seek to become. To seek to become by returning to New Testament living.

A Christian is one who lives according to the New Testament. It's a return to New Testament living. In the book of Romans, the ninth chapter, verses 27 and 28, Jesus says, which is Isaiah, concerning Israel, so the number of the children of Israel, the remnants of the state, will finish the work being cut it short in righteousness.

Because of short work will the Lord make upon the earth. So, the number of the children of Israel shall be paid. I began last week two sermons, series, this is finishing it tonight, on the doctrine of the remnant in the Bible.

And it's not my intention to give an exposition of the ninth chapter of Romans, a very heavy and difficult chapter. But the 27th verse is not difficult. It says simply that regardless of how many there may be, what the population of the nation of Israel may be, only remnant shall be paid.

So, the doctrine of the remnant is a doctrine not only applying to Israel, but as I said it applies to all mankind, and to the Church. It is simply this, that in our blind, fallen, sinful world of mankind, at any given time, the overwhelming majority will be freed from God, their sins untruthened, their souls forgiven, and there will be no hope without God in the world.

Any given time. But somebody said, Mr. Chosen, what is the percentage? Don't.