Romans 9:1-5

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We have, for quite some time, been in Romans chapter 8.
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Last week, we finished it up. This wonderful section of Romans that Paul and the
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Holy Spirit give us. So much encouragement and so much, to be honest with you, irrefutable scriptural evidence to do with election, predestination.
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In 9, Paul continues that theme. Starts here in 9, and it runs all the way through chapter 11.
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Now, 9 is where the more difficult things begin. So if you thought it was going slow before, get ready.
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Usually, we would start with reading the chapter, but we're at the very beginning of chapter 9, so we're going to read chapter 8 instead, because this is one singular letter.
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Starting in verse 1, Paul says this.
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There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the
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Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
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For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do, by sending his own
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Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin. He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the
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Spirit. For those who live according to the to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the
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Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the
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Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law.
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Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please
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God. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the
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Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.
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Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the
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Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the
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Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
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So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh to live according to the flesh.
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For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
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For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
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For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry,
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Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
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And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.
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So then, brothers, or I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
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For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.
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The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself might be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
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For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in pain's childbirth until now.
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And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the firstfruits of the Spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
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For in this hope we are saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope for who hopes for what he sees.
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But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with patience. Likewise, the
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Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the
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Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the
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Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love
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God, all things work together for good. Those who are called according to his purpose.
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For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
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And those whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified.
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And those whom he justified, he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things?
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If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own
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Son, but gave him up for us all, who will not also, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
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Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is
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God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died.
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More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
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Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
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As it is written, for your sake we are being killed all the day long.
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We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
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For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our
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Lord. I am speaking the truth in Christ.
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I am not lying. My conscience bears witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
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They are Israelites. To them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, the promises.
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To them the patriarchs, and from their race according to the flesh is the
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Christ who is God over all, blessed forever.
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Amen. As I said before, we had been in Romans 8 for quite some time, and I read through Romans 8 again as we begin chapter 9 so that you get more of the context of why all of a sudden
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Paul has come to the anguish that he has. He has admonished the elect and encouraged us all through chapter 8, and it has brought him here in the very beginning of chapter 9 to a point of sorrow for his people.
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As we begin to climb this hill that starts here in 9 and runs through 11, this treatise on predestination and election, let us not forget what we previously have read.
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Paul in verse 1 starts with, I'm speaking the truth in Christ. I'm not lying. Simple enough.
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How does one lie in Christ who is the truth? My conscience bears witness in the
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Holy Spirit. Paul's conscience is governed by the
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Holy Spirit, as is ours. He bears witness to what he says, that he has great sorrow and unceasing anguish in his heart.
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The words here are lupē and odunē.
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They're Greek terms meant to convey that Paul has a strong personal grief and anguish.
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We can identify with this feeling. It's the same feeling that we have when we lose a friend, when we lose a loved one, when we understand that we are saved and those we love are not.
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We can identify with this heaviness of heart that Paul has. Verse 3, he says,
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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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The word here that Paul uses should be familiar with. When I say it in the Greek, you should immediately know what it means.
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The word that is translated as accursed here is anathema, damned, as we all are according to the
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Catholic Church. But this is the word that he uses. The sentiment that he conveys is that he could take their place and that they could have his salvation.
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This intercessory grief that Paul has, the sacrifice of his own life for that of his kinsmen.
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We can, in a way, understand that. Now, Paul says this knowing that he himself cannot perform this act.
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He cannot give his life, give up his salvation for his kinsmen.
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There is only one who can atone for the sins of man. That is
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Christ. He is the only way to the Father. But Paul has understandably struggled with this.
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After all, he is a Pharisee. He struggled with it, as I'm sure that the other apostles struggled with it.
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Other Jewish Christians struggle with it. This is not necessarily unlike a sentiment posed by someone who came long before Paul, displaying by Moses at the building of the golden calf.
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In Exodus 32, 31, and 34, it says, So Moses returned to the
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Lord and said, Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold.
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But now, if you will, forgive their sin. But if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.
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Let it be done. And as I said before,
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I'm sure that in our attendance of funerals over the course of our lives, those we've been to and those we haven't been to, we can most likely identify with this sentiment, knowing that loved ones who have died were not saved, and knowing that many of the people that we know, especially here in the southern
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United States, unfortunately went to their deaths believing that they were, because they went to church every
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Sunday, because they knew the Lord's Prayer, because they did more good in their lives than they did bad, is a very difficult thing to hold.
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While we can identify with this grief on one level, it is not the same as Paul has mentioned.
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In verse 4, he starts, they are the Israelites, the blood descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the twelve tribes, the descendants of those who were brought out of Egypt.
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To them belong the adoption. The adoption that he speaks of here is not the spiritual adoption, but of a physical adoption, spiritual adoption
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Paul has already afforded to the elect in chapter 8. Remember, in verse 15, he says, for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry,
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Abba, Father. He is speaking to the elect in this reference, so obviously it's not the same adoption, but rather the adoption of the
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Hebrew people that is, for one, mentioned in Hosea 11, verse 1,
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When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
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Now, you will immediately recognize this as a prophetic verse referring to Christ and His coming back out of Egypt after the death of Herod and the massacre of the innocent in Matthew 2 15.
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It is also a reference in its context to Exodus 4, verses 22 through 23.
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God says, Then you shall say to Pharaoh, Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you,
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Let my son go, that he may serve me. If you refuse to let him go, behold,
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I will kill your firstborn son. God is saying to Pharaoh in this,
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I regard this people as my firstborn son. This is something that we can understand in historical context, how the
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Lord regards His Son, this people which is the means by which the
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Christ would come. I would also like to point out that this is in chapter 4, not chapter 12.
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Chapter 12 is the Passover and the death of the firstborn.
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The first messages that God tells Moses to give to Pharaoh is exactly what he does.
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The end. The glory referring to the
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Shekinah glory of God that had led the Hebrew people out of Egypt in Exodus 13 21, rested on Mount Sinai in Exodus 24 15, appeared before the tent of meeting,
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Exodus 33 9, resided in the tabernacle, Exodus 40 34, and in the temple in 1
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Kings 8. They had seen the presence of God in these places.
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They had the historical record of this. It was taught in their synagogues.
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It was recorded in the Torah and in their tradition that all of the people had at some point seen the presence of God.
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The covenants, the Abrahamic Covenant, Genesis 15, the Mosaic Covenant in Exodus 19, the
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Davidic Covenant, 2 Samuel 7 12. These covenants had been given to the patriarchs and recorded and handed down for around 1 ,500 years to the ethnic
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Jews and were taught fervently among the people.
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They had the giving of the law referring to the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 starting in verse 2.
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I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
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You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.
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You shall not bow down to them or serve them for I the Lord your God am a jealous
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God visiting the iniquities of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
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You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the
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Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Remember the
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Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the
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Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work.
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You or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates.
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For in six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth, the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day.
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Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath Sabbath day and made it holy. Honor your father and mother that your days may be long in the land that the
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Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery.
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You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house.
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You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbor's.
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These laws of God that show us today as they did then that we are law breakers, that we are sinners handed down to us through the
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Hebrew people. This law that condemns and is in an absolutely integral part of any gospel presentation you should ever give.
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It's like these signs that I see posted everywhere that says Jesus saves. As I said before, from what?
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You can say that all you want. You can wear it on a t -shirt. It doesn't matter if they don't know from what.
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Wear a t -shirt that says Jesus saves on the front and on the back. It should say from his own wrath.
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This law is how we know that we need Christ. The only one who ever perfectly kept it and can redeem us from the fact that we have broken it.
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The worship given in Deuteronomy 12. This belongs to them.
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The prescribed order of worship that the Hebrew people were to adhere to without exception, including the ordinances of the priesthood.
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The promises. Meaning all the promises from Genesis 3 15 to Malachi 4 6.
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From the promise of the seed of the woman to the promise of the sending of Elisha.
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All of this was given to Israel. To them belong the patriarchs
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Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But above all of these things, above law and the worship, the promises, and the patriarchs,
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Paul says, from their race according to the flesh is the Christ who is
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God over all. Blessed forever.
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Amen. If you ever, just for a moment, need a place when witnessing to a person where they say, where in Scripture does it say that Jesus is
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God? Right there. There is no clearer affirmation of the deity of Christ than in verse 5.
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Paul's saying there's no other gift given that is more important than Christ. It is him through which the spiritual adoption comes.
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It was the God who is over all whose glory rested with the people of Israel.
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It was God who is over all who gave the covenants. It was
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God who is over all gave the law that points out that we need
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Christ. It was he who established the worship, the statutes.
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It is him who the promises are about. Now I'll take an aside here, a very short one.
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Put this in your pocket for a conversation for later. I don't know if you know this, but for anyone who is wondering, the likelihood of a man fulfilling 48 messianic prophecies, just 48 of them, is 1 in 10 to the 157th power.
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That's 10 with 157 zeros behind it. That's just 48 of them.
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There are in fact more than 324 that Christ fulfilled.
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To put that into perspective for you, the odds of you winning the Powerball are 1 in 300 million.
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It is statistically impossible for a person to fulfill all 324 of them, and yet.
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This is why in John 5 39 Christ says, you search the
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Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. This lends you to the attitude at the time.
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He's speaking to the Pharisees and Sadducees in this. You search the
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Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about me.
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But it was God who spoke to the patriarchs. It was him who spoke by the prophets.
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Go a little bit further in John. John 8 verses 48 to 58.
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It says, and the Jews answered him, are we not right in saying that you are
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Samaritan and have a demon? Jesus answered them,
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I do not have a demon, but I honor my father, and you dishonor me.
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Yet I do not seek my own glory. There is one who seeks it, and he is the judge.
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Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.
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And the Jews said to him, now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, as did the prophets.
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Yet you say, if anyone keeps my word, misplaced, sorry, yet if anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.
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Are you greater than our father Abraham who died, and the prophets who died?
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Who do you make yourself out to be? Jesus answered, if I glorify myself, my glory is nothing.
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It is my father who glorifies me, of whom you say he is our God. There's another verse for what
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I was talking about before. But you have not known him, I know him.
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If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him, and I keep his word.
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Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.
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So the Jews said to him, you are not yet 50 years old, and have you seen
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Abraham? Jesus said to them, truly, truly,
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I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.
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So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
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Remember what I said before about no clear affirmation in Scripture? Paul outright says it, so there's no need for contextual understanding.
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The fact that Christ just said, before Abraham was, Yahweh, I am.
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This is why they picked up the stones to throw at him. He just called himself
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God. So he's either telling the truth, or he's a crazy blasphemer deserving of the death that they sentenced him to.
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We know as the church, as elect, that he is in fact telling the truth. And it's not a matter of belief either.
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Not for the elect. The fact that God exists in an eternal triune state, the
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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is just as much a fact as that we are sitting here right now.
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Whether we believe it or not makes no difference. Subjectively true. But it was for the
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Jews that these things had been given to keep, to hold, to preserve. For that, as the church, we should be truly grateful.
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What Paul is lamenting here is that even though they had all of this, all of these things that he previously mentioned, his people rejected their
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Messiah. The Apostle John also points this out.
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The very beginning of his gospel, chapter 1 verse 11 and 13, he came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
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But to all who did receive him, who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
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Despite all that they had been given, the Jews had put their hope into their own fulfillment of the law, and into a political
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Messiah, one that they still look for today.
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Now, not to get off track, there seems to be, as there has been for quite some time, a very divisive political polarization on the subject of the
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Jewish people. There are those that support them wholeheartedly, and there are those who hate them.
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How is the church to be? We're not dealing with politics here.
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How is the church to be? Well, there seems to be a large consensus in the evangelical church that they should be lifted up in high esteem as first -class citizens, and yet, as unbelievers, that there's no reason to share the gospel with them, because they're ethnic
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Jews. The reality is that the church should feel the same way about the
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Jewish people that Paul does. They are image -bearers.
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They are the means by which God predestined to give the world all that he has.
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Everything that we have talked about today comes to us through them, the most preeminent of which is
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Jesus Christ, even though they still display a rampant hostility toward their
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Messiah and toward the people who represent him. Most do not even understand that he is a
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Jew. I don't know how many times I have watched testimonies from Jewish Christians in Israel who, upon reading the scripture, realized when they got to Matthew, wait, what?
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He's Jewish? I thought it was Greek. I thought it was some white guy.
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It was very helpful that Matthew starts with a lineage. The primary view of Christians towards the
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Jewish people should be the same as any other unbeliever. They need the gospel, just as the rest of the world does.
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I want to point this out. I wasn't going to put it in here, but I did. Just a short snippet for all of the reading
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I did in preparation for this. I did rabbit -hole seven or seventeen times, but one of those times
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I made a decent attempt at looking up how many Protestant ministries operate in Israel in that region.
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I found specifically one that is well -known and well -hated.
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One of the most hostile places that you can go in missionary work is
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Israel. They hate you there, but one of the things that kept coming up was a statistical analysis of the population.
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So I looked at several. As of 2020, around one in ten of the population of the state of Israel, the modern state of Israel, one in ten identifies as Christian.
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One in ten, and we're used to dealing with small numbers when we talk about the church.
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Seventy -five percent of those that identify as Christian are Roman Catholic. They're not
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Christians at all. Drop that number a little bit more. As of 2021, there was at least one community of Baptists over several different small cities.
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The number to about 900. Now there are other
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Protestant denominations there. Presbyterians and Pentecostals.
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Very few of them, but for a nation that the
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Evangelical Church set so high on its pedestal, not a whole lot going on there.
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There's people through which we have all this. Through which
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Christ came. We will most certainly see more of Paul's lament as we move through chapter 9.
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The grace and power of God's predestination and election. I will leave you with a quote, as I often like to do.
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The lament of another over the Jewish people.
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One even greater than Paul. Matthew 23, verses 37 to 39.
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It says, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it.
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How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you were not willing.
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See your house, see your house is left to you desolate.
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For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the
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Lord. Amen. Thank you.