Sunday Sermon: Have They Not Heard (Romans 10:18-21)

You're listening to the preaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature teaching through a New Testament book, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to present our sermon series. Here is Pastor Gabe.

The Gospel Heard Through Preaching

If you have your Bible, please open to Romans chapter 10. If you're using your phone, turn on your Bible to Romans 10. We're picking up where we left off last time in verse 18. The Apostle Paul has been talking about how the gospel is received.

It is received through hearing. There must be a preacher who proclaims it for those who need it to hear it and therefore believe it, putting their faith and trust in Jesus Christ for salvation. When we made application to that last week, we understood that every single one of us has a role to share the gospel with somebody.

Maybe you're not called to be a preacher, maybe you're not called to be a missionary, but there is certainly someone in your life that you interact with that I do not, none of the other elders may know, a family member, a coworker, a friend who needs to hear the.

Gospel.

And so put their faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins and have everlasting life in heaven. They are saved from the wrath and judgment of God because of their sin and are given eternal glory in Christ as all of us have received who have believed in this gospel.

Now this of course has been spoken about regarding the Jews who though they have heard the gospel have not believed it. And that's what Paul is going to go on to talk about here as we conclude chapter 10.

Today.

Have they not heard? Indeed they have. And that is the title of the sermon today, Have They Not Heard? As we're looking at Romans chapter 10 verses 18 to 21. And in the context specifically of talking about the Jews, we remember that what was said at the beginning of Romans was that the gospel is for the Jew and the Greek, Jew and Gentile who believe by faith in Jesus Christ and are saved.

And our desire would be not just that Gentiles would come to believe and are saved, but also the Jews who were the first to hear the gospel proclaimed. Richard Sibbes, who was the 17th century English Puritan preacher, he said the following, the faithful Jews rejoiced to think of the calling of the Gentiles.

And why should we not joy to think of the calling of the Jews? And so we consider that as we look at the close of Romans chapter 10 today in honor of the word of the King, would you please stand? This is Romans chapter 10 verses 18 to 21.

The apostle Paul writing to the church in Rome, hear the word of the Lord. But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for their voice has gone out to all the earth and their words to the end of the world.

But I ask, did Israel not understand? For Moses says, I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation. With a foolish nation, I will make you angry. Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, I have been found by those who did not seek me.

I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me. But of Israel, he says, all day long, I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary.

People.

Prayer for the Jews and for Unbelieving Loved Ones

You may be seated as we pray. Heavenly father, we come into this passage today and we have been hearing about how people are saved. They are saved through the hearing of the gospel of Jesus Christ and putting faith in what they have heard, trusting in the God whom they have heard about, trusting in your son whom you have sent to die on the cross for our sins and rise again from the dead for our justification.

By faith in you, by faith in Christ and in the message of this gospel they have heard, it is by faith we are saved. We hear in Ephesians 2 .8, by grace you are saved through faith and this is not your own.

Doing.

It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. We have been hearing over and over again about how we are justified by faith. There are many who have heard the gospel and they have not believed.

We continue to pray as Paul prayed for his kinsmen that you would do a work in their hearts to convict them of their sin and bring them to a knowledge of the truth that they hear in the gospel. Lord I pray that you would also give us courage and boldness in these days that we would be willing to share, even with those whom we know personally, though there may be a possibility that they would become angry with us because we would call out the sin that is in their lives, tell them to repent and turn to Jesus Christ for forgiveness and salvation.

But we do not fear what man may think of this message, for it is out of love that we bring.

It.

Love for an eternal soul, knowing that it is only by faith in Jesus that they would be saved from the wrath of God and have eternity in glory above with you. Lord. We even think of those Jews who have heard the gospel and yet refuse to believe.

It.

And may you convict their hearts so that what would be said in the scriptures would be fulfilled. We are Jew and Gentile together in Christ Jesus through the gospel of our Lord. It is in the name of Jesus that we pray and all God's people said, Amen.

Jonah, Nineveh, and God's Jealousy for Israel

Our brother Allen brought us this reading from the book of Jonah this morning, Jonah chapter 3 through chapter 4 verse 1. Jonah, of course the story you know, we miss the first two chapters but you know this account, I mean people who didn't grow up in church have heard the story of Jonah.

He who was told by God to go to Nineveh and tell that people to repent but Jonah rebelled against God. He got on a ship headed across the Mediterranean Sea for Tarshish to get as far away from this people as possible.

Why?

Because Jonah was afraid they might actually repent and God wouldn't destroy them. And that's not what Jonah wanted. He wanted this wicked awful people who had so persecuted the Jewish people to come to.

An end.

And so he got as far away from them as he could. But of course, you know the story. God sent a storm upon the sea tossing the boat to and fro. The men aboard the ship tried to do everything that they could in order to save themselves but they couldn't.

They were about to be capsized when finally they decided to cast lots and find out who might be the person behind this disaster that has come upon us. And as they cast lots, the lot falls upon Jonah and they say to Jonah, what is it that.

You've done?

And Jonah says, well, yes, it's true. I am running away from Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews. Well then the sailors were instantly stricken with fear. Oh, the God of the Hebrews? Of course. That's why this storm has come upon us.

And Jonah says there's no way to save yourselves but to toss me overboard. Well, they didn't want to be responsible for this man's death. So they try to throw everything else overboard. That's not working.

Finally, they acquiesce and they say, all right, taking Jonah, they throw him over the edge of the boat. And as soon as he hits the water, the storm ceases and the sailors are saved. And the scripture even records that they praised God.

God caused a great fish to come along and swallow up Jonah and he spent three days and three nights in the belly of the fish. As you know, this even being a sign of the one who was to come, Jesus Christ, who would spend three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

But Jonah, while he was, he is there, praise this prayer of repentance unto God. This prayer of salvation that we have in Jonah chapter two, God hears Jonah's prayer and has the fish vomit him up onto dry land so that he would, starting back from where he was before, make that journey across the land.

Now this time, instead of the sea to go to the city of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrians, and tell that people to repent or else God is going to come and destroy them. And that's exactly what Jonah does.

And as we had heard from Alan this morning, the people were greatly afflicted in their hearts, recognizing the violence of their hands that they had committed against even God's people and repented of this, covering themselves in sackcloth and ashes so that God would relent of this great disaster that he threatened to bring upon them.

And God indeed turned his anger away from the Ninevites. And as our brother was sure to read to us also from Jonah four verse one, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was angry. As we've read even in this passage today in Romans chapter 10, you will notice that Paul cites from Moses, I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation.

With a foolish nation, I will make you angry. And in what way would God do that with the Jewish people? Because as said through Isaiah, I've been found by those who did not seek me. I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.

That's us. And we've already heard from Romans. We were not seeking God. And yet he by his grace came to us, sought us out, brought us into his affections by faith in his son, Jesus Christ. And even through this, God is using it to make the Jews jealous.

They who are the chosen people of God, who were called out from the nations to be the people of God, they would see the blessings of God that had been given to us in Christ. And so may it make their hearts turn and repent.

And that's what we read about what we consider in this passage today, where Paul begins by asking, have they not heard? As we look at this passage together, we're going to break it up in this way. In verse 18, Paul answers that question.

Have they not heard? And then in verses 19 and 20, he asked this question, but did they not understand? And then finally in verse 21, the quote that comes again from Isaiah all day long, I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.

So first of all, we're going to hear that Israel has heard. Secondly, that Israel has known. And thirdly, that Israel has resisted. And then at the conclusion, we'll make some applications to this for us as well.

So first of all, before I get to verse 18 again, where Paul asks, has they, have they not heard? You will recognize that this is a very scripture heavy section. You may be reading from a Bible that has indentations where there are these scriptural quotes.

So you'll see one scripture reference in verse 18, another one in 19, another one in 20. There's another verse referenced in verse 21. We have four verses, four Old Testament references in this particular section.

Now Paul is appealing to a scripture heavy culture. And when I say that, I mean the Jews. We are actually not a scripture heavy culture. When I say we, I'm talking about we who live in the United States of America.

We're not a scripture heavy culture. Now that might be unusual to think about that when you consider how much, how many Bibles we have. Like every one of you has at least a Bible. You even have a Bible on your personal device that you could access text from there.

We are a very literacy heavy culture, a high literacy rate in our culture, but we're not a scripture heavy culture. And you've heard statistics all the time about how the literacy rate in the United States has gone down and whatnot.

Well, it doesn't matter. We're still one of the highest literacy cultures in the history of man. Even as I was preparing this sermon, I just looked down at my desk and I saw my open Bible. There was another closed Bible there.

I had a journal, a book of contacts for like contact information. I had the second London Baptist confession of faith, an exposition of the second London Baptist confession of faith. I had two books providing outlines of New Testament epistles.

I had some tax information spread out on my desk from when I was working on my taxes a few weeks ago. There was a soundboard with writing on it. There was a box of thumb tacks with writing on the box.

There was an unopened envelope containing a form letter that will try to convince me to change insurance agents. There's an unopened pack of Chick-fil-A sauce with the ingredients written on the lid.

And even the cloth that I use to wipe my glasses had writing on it. That is a literacy heavy culture, my friends. We have writing on everything. On your way to church this morning, you pass by billboards and signs marking the streets that you would turn down.

So we are a high literacy culture. But that actually speaks against us when you consider that we are not a high scripture.

Culture.

Israel Has Heard the Gospel

Now what would the difference be? Well ancient Israel was a scripture heavy culture. They were very devoted to the scriptures. Most Israelites had more scripture memorized than you do now. Even though they did not have personal Bibles, a personal copy of the Old Testament scriptures, the Law or the Prophets, they did not have that in their own homes.

But by the time that a Jewish boy was 13 years old, he already had memorized the first five books of the Bible. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Not only did he have all five of those books of the Bible memorized, but he also had all of the Psalms memorized.

Most of Proverbs and most of the Prophets. By age 13. And it's probably because we are such a high literacy culture that we don't memorize much.

Scripture.

Why do I need to memorize it? When I always have a Bible right here that I can open up and go to whenever I want. And I'm speaking against myself as much as anybody. It's not like I have an entire book of the Bible memorized that I could just quote to you right now.

There's definitely a lot of scripture that I do have memorized, but nothing compared to what most Jews had memorized in this particular day. So we're not a scripture heavy culture. We are a movie heavy culture.

We're still just as devoted to the power of story as ancient Israel, but we're a lot more visual than we are auditory. You probably have more movies memorized than you do scripture. And just a single line from that movie will trigger in your mind everything else about that movie, right?

I'll be back. I am your father. Houston, we have a problem. And you know, many other lines from those films, just because I quoted you a single line of dialogue from that movie. Well for the Jews, all you would have had to do is say one line of scripture and they would know everything else about that scripture that you just quoted.

So for them, they were a scripture heavy culture and they could recall with great detail the scriptures that you were talking about. And that's exactly what Paul is doing right here. This is exactly why he makes references to these passages.

And it's hopefully that anybody else, any other Jew that may hear of this and hear what Paul is writing to this church that is primarily Gentile in Rome, that the Jews would hear this and be convicted of heart and come to a knowledge of the truth and the gospel that they already had heard even in the old Testament scriptures.

And I'll show you that too, as we, as we go through this together. So first of all, Israel has heard, as we read here in verse 18, but I asked, have they not.

Heard?

Indeed they have. Remember this principle that we heard laid down last week in verse 17, faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ, saving faith comes from hearing the message of the gospel and believing it over and over.

We have heard through Romans that we're saved by faith from the first thesis statement that Paul makes at the beginning of the letter, chapter one, verse 17, the righteous shall live by faith. And then he's been expositing out that scripture reference, which was made from Habakkuk two, four in Romans three 25, we read that we are justified by the grace of God who put forth his son to be a propitiation for our sins to be received by faith.

In the next chapter, Romans four, five, we read to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly. His faith shall be counted as righteousness. Then Romans five, one, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans eight, one, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus in Romans nine 30 to 31. We heard that Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it. That is righteousness that is by faith.

But Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching.

That law.

Why?

Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. And so in reading the words that we heard last week, faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. Someone is likely to say, oh, I see what the problem is.

I understand why the Jews don't believe these are God's chosen people. Why don't they believe and be saved? It's because they just haven't heard. And so in verse 18, Paul beats that question to the punch.

But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed, they have for their voice has gone out to all the earth and their words to the ends of the world. Now, again, this is an Old Testament quote to the Jews who knew the scriptures well, who knew the Psalms.

They hear that and they understand exactly what Paul is referencing. It is a quote from Psalm 19. And you might have recognized it from our call to worship this morning. What are we talking about here?

Whose voice is theirs? Their voice has gone out into all the earth. Whose voice is that? Well, let me read it to you again as Chris, as Brother Chris had read it for us this morning. We read starting in verse one of Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God.

The sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world.

And that verse exactly that that line exactly is what Paul is quoting here. So whose voice is it that's being referenced as their voice? It's the heavens that declare the glory of God. Now, some may take that to mean that the angels declare the glory of God.

Stephen said in Acts 7, 53, the law was delivered by angels, but you did not keep it. But the context here in Psalm 19 is specifically the natural heavens that declare the glory of God. As Psalm 19, verse four goes on to say, in them, in the heavens, he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber and like a strong man runs its course with joy.

Its rising is from the end of the heavens. But while the heavens do indeed declare the glory of God, the heavens don't declare the message of the gospel, right? Remember that I said to you a couple of weeks ago that the message of God that we find in nature is enough to condemn the world, but it's not enough to save the world.

Paul said in Romans 1, 20, that the evidence of God is clearly seen in all that has been made so that man is without excuse. So no one will be able to say on the day of judgment, we just did not know.

The evidence of God is there. In fact, there's even a message that is being spoken in all that has been made. No one believes this room came into existence by accident. No one even believes that all these benches and the speakers and sound and the screens and everything else was just set up for us by chance so that we could come in here and worship today.

And so it is the case that nothing in this world has come into existence by accident. It is all by the hand of God. Everything that has been made testifies to that. But that message is not that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins and everyone who believes in him will be saved.

You can't just go out in nature and observe nature and come to that conclusion. So while the message of God is proclaimed in all that has been made, that would be enough to condemn the world, but it's not enough to save it.

So why does Paul reference Psalm 19 here if it's not the message of the gospel that the heavens declare? Psalm references Psalm 19 simply to say this, that when God means to say something, it will be proclaimed.

In whatever means it needs to be said, he will make sure that his message is said. God has communicated even through the heavens. Just as God set the stars in the heavens to declare his handiwork, so God has appointed messengers to shine as lights in the world, as messengers of the gospel, to proclaim his gospel from one end of the earth to the next.

And the Jews have heard the gospel. And of course they've heard it. In Acts 1 .8, Jesus said to his disciples, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

Jesus had preached to them, then he sent his disciples to preach to them. They all had heard and they rejected what they had heard. Even to this day, the Jews hear a word that they refuse to believe. Israel occupies what we affectionately refer to as the Holy Land, right?

They are surrounded by relics of Jesus' ministry on this earth. The town in which he was born, according to the scriptures. Where was Jesus born? That's an open question. You can answer that one. He was born in Bethlehem, just four miles from Jerusalem.

In fact, when the Magi came, according to Matthew 2, when the Magi came saying, where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him. King Herod didn't know what they were talking about.

He had to consult his own wise men who said, oh yeah, there is something in the scriptures.

About that.

And Matthew demonstrates there in Matthew 2 that a Gentile people knew of this coming Messiah. The Magi knew about it. The Jews who had the scriptures did not know. Bethlehem is a tourist attraction today, a short drive away from Jerusalem.

And yet, the Jews continue to refuse to believe in their Messiah who would even come to them. They know of the place where he was crucified, the tomb where he was laid, that he was risen from the dead in accordance to the scriptures as said in 1 Corinthians 15.

He was buried and raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. The Jews have not only the natural revelation of God in the heavens, they have the special revelation of God that is given in the scriptures.

So the Jews have not only the natural revelation of God in the heavens, they have the special revelation of God that's given in the scriptures. And even if the Jews dismissed the New Testament entirely and had the Old Testament only, the Old Testament would still be enough to point them to Christ.

This was how the apostles used the scriptures when they would go from town to town sharing the gospel. They would preach according to the Old Testament and showing how Jesus is the fulfillment of what is written there in the Old Testament scriptures.

One of the most famous practicing Jews in America today is Ben Shapiro, co-founder of The Daily Wire. He said, from a Jewish point of view, we don't believe in the divinity of Christ. We don't even think he was a prophet.

What do I think he was historically? I think he was a Jew who tried to lead a revolt against the Romans and got killed for his.

Trouble.

Now Shapiro met a few times with the famed Bible preacher John MacArthur. His book Doctrines of Grace, which is the last book that he published or that he had edited for publication under his name in his lifetime, that's our book of the month for the month of May.

MacArthur went home to be with the Lord last year, as many of you know, and Shapiro, when John MacArthur died, he recalled the first time that he sat down and interviewed MacArthur. And Shapiro said, before the cameras even started rolling, MacArthur spent at least the first 30 minutes of their conversation telling Ben why he needs to become a Christian.

And Ben said, I did not find that insulting. I could see that as a friend, he cared for my eternal soul. And we should pray that men like Shapiro would believe the gospel and so be saved. He has heard, as many Jews today have heard.

Friends, I would be bold enough to say that every Jew today has heard the message of the gospel with very few exceptions. It's in their heritage. It's in their very scriptures. The word has gone out from them to the ends of the world.

And so of course the Jews have heard. But maybe, okay, second part here, after we look at this in verse 18, maybe the argument could be made that they haven't understood the message that they have heard.

They've heard the gospel, but they don't understand the gospel, do they? Well, Paul responds to that as well. And look now at verse 19. But I ask, did Israel not understand? First Moses says, I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation.

With a foolish nation, I will make you angry. Verse 20 is a second reference in response to this question. Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, I have been found by those who did not seek me. I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.

In the legacy translation, verse 19 is rendered, but I say, did Israel not know? Rather than the word understand, as we read it here in the English standard version, know meaning didn't they have knowledge?

They heard the gospel, but did they know what it was that they were hearing? And in case someone wants to argue, well, the Jews could just claim ignorance. Paul cites law and prophet, Moses and Isaiah.

In whose writings were the Jews conversant? The law and the prophets. What did Jesus commonly cite back to the Jews? That which they knew, that which they were familiar with, the law and the prophets.

In verse 19, Paul quotes Deuteronomy 32 verse 21, they have made me jealous with what is no God. They have provoked me to anger with their idols, talking about Israel. So I will make them jealous with those who are no people.

I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. And that's in reference to us who are Gentiles. As said to us in first Peter 2 10, once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. And though you may have called yourself an American, or you may have identified yourself by your ethnicity, or maybe you have just called yourself human or an earthling.

The fact remains that apart from Christ, we are without a people. In sin, we are divided. We're divided from God and we're divided from each other. In Titus 3 3, Paul described us in our pre-conversion state this way.

We were hated by others and we were hating one another. That's who we were before we came to Christ. There is no real unity apart from Christ. Unbelievers may be like-minded in sinful pursuits, but they are also divided from each other in the interest of those same selfish, sinful pursuits.

Now, in Christ, we are the people of God. And that's who the Jews are supposed to be, right? They were called out from every other nation. They are the descendants of Abraham. They were given the promises.

They were supposed to be the people of God, but with uncircumcised hearts and whoring themselves out with other gods, they have been cut off from Yahweh. And instead of the blessing and favor of God that has been extended to those Jews who considered to be God's people, they are instead no people.

The Jews now are no people if they don't believe in Christ. The Jews would look at us and they would consider us to be foolish people. We read about our, we did read about our own foolishness back in Romans chapter 1, claiming to be wise, they became fools, remember that?

But then we read about the Jews' foolishness in Romans chapter 2. You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. You have it and you still can't follow it. And so it's said in Romans 3, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Neither Jew nor Gentile are better than the other. We are all deserving of the judgment and eternal wrath of a holy God. But God in His mercy has sent the gospel to both. As we even profess this morning in our corporate reading from Romans 1 .16, the gospel has come to the Jew first and also to the Greek or to the Gentile, as is said there.

And so one of the reasons that you are saved, dear Christian, understand as we're reading it here in Romans chapter 10 verses 19 and 20, one of the reasons that you are saved is to make Israel jealous.

That's not very politically correct, but it's what the Bible says. Now of course, God saves you because He loves you. As said in 1 John 4 .10, in this is love. Not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Ultimately, the reason why God saves us is for His glory. As also said in 1 John, I am writing to you little children because your sins are forgiven for His namesake. But another reason that He saves us, and we in this room are saved by the hearing and believing in the gospel, another reason He saves us is to make Israel jealous.

That God's love and His affection are for us and not them, who believe themselves to be on the right side of God. After citing Moses, Paul cites Isaiah, verse 20 once again, I have been found by those who did not seek me.

As we've already heard, that's in reference to us. I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me. And I say to you again, my friends, we were not looking for God. We were perfectly happy and content in our sin and were willing to go to our destruction for the things that we loved and the passions of our flesh.

But as we read about in Ephesians chapter 2, God didn't leave us dead in our sins. By His grace, He sent His Son to die on the cross for our sins. And the message of the gospel came to us and the Holy Spirit convicted our hearts and recognizing our sin and need for a Savior, we have turned to the Lord Jesus Christ because He sought.

For us.

Jesus Himself saying in His earthly ministry, I have come to seek and to save the lost. And we were as lost as they come. We have been found by Him and brought to Him through the hearing of the gospel, which Israel has rejected.

But seeing that we are in God and they are not, may it provoke them to jealousy. Let me go back to Ben Shapiro again. He's not the only popular Jew out there, but he's one of the few that you will find wearing a yarmulke no matter where he goes and whatever it is that he does.

Not even Dennis Prager or Jake Tapper wear a yarmulke. Plus, unlike most popular Jews, Shapiro talks about his faith a lot. This is a man deeply devoted to his Jewish roots and beliefs. Last month, Shapiro said the following, quote, I'm a Jew.

That means I do not believe in the divinity of Jesus, unquote. I mean, it's interesting that at the same time he says, I'm a Jew, the first clarifying detail that he gives of his Jewish beliefs is to say that means that I don't believe in the divinity of Jesus as a central tenet of his faith.

It's also a central tenet of Islam, by the way, to say that God has no son. They have inscribed that in stone on their most sacred relics. So you have Orthodox Jews and Orthodox Muslims today that will both say, will both reject Jesus Christ as the son of God.

And that's a central aspect of their faith. But anyway, Shapiro goes on to say this, quote, I believe as an Orthodox Jew that Judaism is not the only path to heaven. Judaism as a religion is not exclusive, meaning that as long as people who are not Jewish follow seven basic Noahide laws, and this includes Christians and Muslims, they too have a share in the world to come.

And those seven basic laws are things like no blasphemy, don't commit sexual sin, you shall set up a court of law, make sure you're not eating the flesh of a living animal, stuff like that, unquote. Now from the very first law that Shapiro lays down, he already has a problem.

He said that the first law is no blasphemy. Well, if Jesus is divine and Shapiro says he isn't, then what has Shapiro just done? He's blasphemed God. At Jesus' baptism, the voice of the Father was heard from heaven, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, and Shapiro denies it.

Then he is blasphemed God. And this is the epitome of what we just read in Romans 9. They did not pursue righteousness by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, and the stumbling stone is Christ.

We have the righteousness of God that is by faith in Jesus Christ, the Jews do not. They pride themselves on being the chosen people of God, and it is only those who are in Christ who have been chosen by God.

And part of the reason you have been chosen by God, again my friends, is to make Israel jealous. Again, the scriptures they would claim to be their scriptures actually bear witness against them. In Luke 16, we read the story of the rich man and Lazarus.