Lesson 46a

Okay, so we are sliding our way to chapter 11, Romans 11. And this is really lesson 46. And what I try to do in this lesson... Make up your mind. You can get closer. So what I looked at as I was preparing this, I'm going to try to do 10 verses today. I think you'll see why when we get into it. But let's read the first 10 verses. Somebody want to read it? The first 10 verses of chapter 11.

God has not rejected his people, has he? May it never be, for I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people, whom he foreknew. Or do you not know what the scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he flees with God against Israel?

How far are we supposed to go? Ten. Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have torn down your altars, and I alone am left. And they are seeking my life. But what is the divine response to him? I have kept for myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Bob. In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time are remanent according to God's gracious choice. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise, grace is no longer grace. What then?

What Israel has seen, it has not obtained. But those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened. Just as it was written, God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes to see not, and ears to hear not, down to this very day. And David says, let their table become a snare and a trap, and a stumbling block, and a retribution to them. Let their eyes be darkened to see not, and bend their backs forever. Okay, question one then is, well let me set this up.

In the 9th chapter, what we see is God's sovereignty. That's really what it talks about. In the 10th chapter that Courtney just finished, it talks more about Israel being had sinned. And both of these are presented in a relative independence as explanations of the perplexing fact that which confirmed the apostle naming that the Jews did not receive the gospel, but the Gentiles did. In those chapters the two are brought into relation to each other and were shown to some extent how in the sovereign providence of God even the sin of Israel is made to contribute to the working out of the universal purposes of redemption. Only God could do that. A redemption in which Israel also shares in accordance with the inviolable promises of God.

That came from Kenneth Weiss. I thought that was a good paragraph. So, the first question I have is, has God abandoned Israel? Has He done that? No. Okay, if you say no, you've got to tell me why. There are still His chosen people. He set them aside. but he didn't abandon them. And I think, you know, sometimes, like we were talking a few minutes ago about how we need to be careful about the teaching that we're under. There's a lot of teaching out that says that God has already done this, that He has abandoned Israel. And that He has, in 77 A.D., when He had the temple torn down, that was the end.

Then there's the other side of that coin, which says, well, the church and Israel are really just the same thing. And the church is an extension of Judaism. And so what God really did is that he didn't really start a brand new thing called the body of Christ. What he did is he just evolved into the church and brought the Jews along. And so the things that are prominent in Judaism are also prominent in Christianity. You have a problem with that because you can't separate the Jews from the Mosaic system, the law system.

And the church operates on a grace system, and he talks about that in one of the verses. A guy named Philip Morrow, who at one time was a fairly well-known The last word of prophecy concerning this people Israel as a nation was fulfilled at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies. That's what he teaches.

And the all of Israel in Romans 11.26 is the whole body of God's redeemed people. Zion is where the Lord Jesus is. Those who insist upon what they call literal fulfillment of the promised blessings that were to come to Israel through Christ have completely missed the mark. So, people will tell you that Israel has been abandoned. Won't they? Or maybe you don't hear that kind of thing. I don't know. Now listen, everybody knows who Augustine is, right?

He was 4th century, 5th century AD. Interesting thing, he says, distinguish the dispensation and all is easy. You know, dispensationalism today is the cuss word of Christianity. If I stood up at that church last Sunday and said, I'm a dispensationalist, they would run me right out the back door. Because dispensationalism really means exegetical teaching of the Bible, rightly dividing the Word of Truth, and grace and law don't mix and Israel and the church are totally separate and even Augustine in the fourth century A.D. knew that and knew that if you didn't distinguish it was going to be difficult but if you do distinguish it's easy to understand that we're in a new system of grace today I found that interesting that even Augustine would know that.

Was he a Catholic? Yeah. Well, weren't they all Catholics then? I think so. No, I don't think he was a Catholic, but I think that that's kind of church history is, you know, about him. Yeah, because I think the Catholics, if I think about my high school religion class, I think his mother was canonized one of the Catholic saints. So yeah. Yeah. But he, he got it, you know. It's like Martin Luther was a Catholic priest, but he got it. At least the salvation part. So do you think that we fulfill some of the promises, the church fulfills some of the promises made to Israel?

What do you think? No? Now notice how the question is asked. that was read. The question is not how did God cast off Israel? No, he asked it rhetorically. He said, but I say surely Israel did not know. I've got to find my verse. Watch how this goes. I say then, God has not rejected His people. Has He? The way that is structured, what does it tell you? What's it really saying to you? God has not rejected Israel. Yeah, He hasn't done it. That's the point that He's making. He set them aside, but He hasn't cast them away or cast them off.

Now, why is that important? Why is it important that that be understood by us. What do you think? If you say yes to that question, if you really think that he would even consider it, where does that leave you? He might have abandoned us. Yeah, if you don't clean up your act, you're allowed to get abandoned.

Right? Isn't that what it says? That's what it would mean. This word cast away, to thrust away, to push away, to drive away, to repudiate, it's used even in the Greek classics where Oedipus says, I charge you that no one shelter or speak to that murderer and that all thrust him from their homes, kick him out. That's the word that's used here.

So we would say, okay, God didn't abandon Israel. He still has some plans for them. So, Paul then offers proof. Question two, what is the proof, what is the first proof God offers to show that God has not abandoned them, that Paul offers to show that God hasn't abandoned them? What's the first proof? Paul. Paul himself.

He had the right credentials. That's exactly right. He's been rejected. That's exactly right. He said, I myself am proof. I'm proof. Because I'm an Israelite. I'm not a Jewish proselyte. I'm a real Israelite. I'm of the seed of Abraham and the tribe of Benjamin. That's who I am. Not one of the ten tribes which was separated from Judah. I'm one of the guys, the real Jews, me.

That's the first proof. Question three, what's the second proof? That Israel has not been rejected. The prison remnant? No, well, listen to what he says. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Or do you not know that the scripture says in the passage about Elijah how he pleads with God against Israel.

What's the key word there? Foreknew. Yeah, why is that key? Because he knew that they were going to be what they were. It's more than that. In their future. When he says, I foreknew you, what does he mean? I foreknew how you would act? And so therefore, I responded that I knew you were going to be a good guy in the end, so I'll extend grace to you? What does it mean? What does it mean when God says, I foreknew you, or I foreknew them? Does it have something to do with His choice?

The choice comes after the foreknowledge. Foreknowing is knowing them personally then, before He ever created them. He knew them. He knew them personally. It's just like God foreknew everybody in this room in Christ before he ever created us in time-space reality. He knew us in Christ then.

Now, trying to explain what God is doing in eternity is a really tough thing because we can't get away from the time element of it. that then, then is not a word used in eternity. You can't use the word then in eternity. You can only use the word now. Does that make any sense? It's kind of hard to explain it.

But what he says, what he says in verse 2, God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. He knew them then. From the very beginning. That's right. It's really comforting, I think, for us to understand that. He says to the Jews, you're the only nation that I foreknew. You're it. No matter how you act, I knew you then. He's not talking about them and their affairs, but of the fact that to them only had he made himself known. Is that true, by the way? You're looking at 5,000 years of history. The only nation on the planet with all of these people, Israel is the only one that God made Himself known to. Is that right? He didn't pick a few guys in Beijing, China, and say, those are pretty good guys. Maybe I'll make myself known to them. Did He do that?

You can stack that up against Noah and the flood. It's interesting. We're studying Genesis. I've talked about this before. Most of these commentators think there are two plus billion people on the planet when the flood comes. And God looks around and He says, I'm going to get rid of all of them. but he finds one righteous guy out of that entire population. One. Is that possible?

I mean, we live under this illusion that everybody's good. No, we're not. We're born in sin. So, take the planet at the time that Israel is a nation, and God is saying, you're the only ones that I revealed myself to. Is that a true statement? He didn't have a few guys over here and a few guys over here and some American Indians in Montana? That these are righteous people? No, he didn't. So it's a profound statement for God to say, you're the only ones I knew. You're the only ones I made myself known to. That's scary, isn't it? So you think, well, God isn't fair. Is he fair?

We're going to answer that question in a few of the verses that are coming up. So, he knew them before their earthly history began. He personally knew the nation of Israel. So, question four. What's the difference in God referring to Israel as my people and using the word saints when he refers to the church? This is a really important distinction, I think. My people refers to earthly people. They refers to heavenly people. It's more nation versus individual. Nation versus individuals. He never refers to the church as my people. Why not? Because we're not a nation. We're a bunch of nations. We're not a nation.

Yeah, it's really interesting how we can say that, well, gee, the church in general is apostate. So maybe the church in general are God's people now. That's not a right statement. Christianity is based on a one-on-one individual personal fellowship by each individual with the Lord Jesus Christ. One is in Christ and one isn't. That's true, that's true.

On the other hand, he always refers to Israel as a nation, as a people in a country, and he calls them, they are my people. We see that expression today, I see it on Facebook once in a while, my peeps. Joanne says that he refers to them as a nation because they are earthly people. And that's the other big distinction. Are we earthly people? No. You guys sure try hard to look like earthly people. No, we're not. We're heavenly people. So we're different in the very core of who we are. We're not of the earth anymore because we're not of Adam.

Do you see that? Yeah. You know how we're saying that God only recognized Israel as a nation and called them his people, but he knew us before the foundation of the world. Individually. Individually. That's right. Yeah. When a Jew becomes a Christian, he is no longer Well, we're going to talk about a remnant, and that may or may not be a true statement. We'll see.

So, the point that I was trying to make here is that he never calls saints people. He calls them saints, set apart ones, to me, individuals. And even in, and there's some verses, and let's see, where is this one? He never refers to the church as a people or a nation.

1 Peter 2.9.

Somebody look at 1 Peter 2.9. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Sounds like we're people. Doesn't it? Or not? Actually, what that verse does That's really interesting if you spend some time on it. It's not an exception to the rule, but rather it's a proof of the fact.

Who's Peter writing to? Who does Peter write to? Jews. Huh? Just peeps? Who's he writing to? Christians. What specific group of believers is he writing to? Jewish believers. They're called the Dispora. Who are they? Dispersed. people who were Jews who are now believers who got dispersed. So he's writing to individual Jewish believers. Okay. And he categorizes them as you know, that they are the Jewish dispersion in Asia Minor. Okay. James uses the same expression to the 12 tribes which are of the Dyspora. Dyspora, D-I-S, D-I-A-S-P-O-R-A. Diaspora. Diaspora, is that how you say that?

So, and even then, God allowed these believers who came from Judaism, He allowed them, for a while anyway, to keep the feasts and go to the temple. If you were a Christian, where'd you go to church on Saturday? The temple. Yeah, you went up to the temple.

And typical the way God does things, from a positional standpoint, it's a cut and dry. It stops here and starts there. But He lets you move into it slowly. He's very gracious that way. So He operates with great patience. It's like with our spiritual growth. If there's anything that God operates in great patience, it's all of our spiritual growth for sure.

The church is not an earthly organism. It's a heavenly one. And so no matter how earthly we really try to be, we really aren't from the earth. We're from heaven. And so we're a new body. We're an entirely new creation. And it's important that we understand that. That's what Romans has been talking about that anyway. That's a huge difference.

Jewish believers, in Hebrews 3.1, are called the partakers of the heavenly calling. Now that's a real shock to a godly Jew. A real shock. Because what did God promise them?

The land. Oh, was there going to be land in heaven? You know, this idea that we're here on the earth and then there's this other physical place where there's heaven. We're going to have green grass and golf courses. Heaven is wherever the Lord Jesus is. Wherever He is, is heaven. So, an important distinction. God refers to believers individually. He refers to the Jews as His nation. His people. And He hasn't abandoned His people.

Okay? You alright with that? So, in these next verses, Elijah is complaining to God. What do you complain about? He's the only one left. Yeah, it's interesting. I looked up First Kings 19, 9 and 10. This is kind of interesting. And there Elijah said, Elijah, and there he went into a cave and spent the night in that place. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him and said to him, What are you doing here, Elijah?

And so he said, I've been very zealous for the Lord of Hosts, the Lord of God of Hosts, the Lord God of Hosts. For the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars, killed your prophets with a sword, and I alone am left, and they seek to take my life. You ever prayed that prayer yourself? Verse 14, he says, again, I have been very zealous for the Lord, God of hosts, because the children of Israel have forsaken me. And now they want to get him and take his life.

So is he complaining? Or is he just laying out the facts to God? No, he's complaining. Now, none of you in this room have ever gone to God and said, now look, it isn't working out too well for me right now. Things are pretty tough. My pickup truck died. You know, the dog's got cancer. You know, all of my earthly circumstances are just awful. Have you abandoned me? Does that ever happen in your mind to God?

If you say no, you're lying. Because it does. We go to God all the time and say, hey, how come these circumstances aren't working out? Because we think God is the big screwdriver in this guy and his job is to fix whatever needs to be fixed. What's the problem with that? We're not trusting.

He already has things fixed. That's a really important point. He already has things taken care of, no matter what they look like. You know, believers that fret over politics. It's like God doesn't know who's going to get elected this year. Come on. He hasn't got all the pieces in play. Yes, he does. Yes, he does. Has he got your life, personally, already set out for you? Yeah, he does.

But you may not have the same goals he does. And therein lies the confusion, because we think God is going to bless me. When he says in Ephesians that I've blessed you with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, he's not talking about your bank account, is he? What's he talking about? Your eternal destination in your life. It's not a destination.

He says I have already done this. I've already blessed you. I've already blessed you. One of the big problems I have is thinking about, well, we ought to be going in this direction, or we ought to be doing that, or we ought to be doing this, is forgetting the fact that God has already blessed us. He's already got things in play.

He's already done things. And the problem is that I forgot that He has done that. Elijah had forgotten who God really was and is. So is he complaining? Yeah. Is that something that we can all identify with? I think so. especially when we have a circumstance in our life that probably looks hopeless to us and there isn't a ready solution. So he goes and he complains.

Now, what was God's answer? He says, I have kept for myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to bow. Elijah, you belong to a team of 7,001 guys. If you look at 1 Kings 19.18, what the Lord says that I have reserved 7,000 in Israel, I have reserved them, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth has not kissed him. Isn't that interesting? In other words, who didn't identify with him.

The sovereignty of God is so marvelously displayed right here. The nation of Israel is in an apostate situation. Ahab and Jezebel are running the country and they're tracking down anybody who's a righteous person and they're killing them. Yet God is in charge.

And He has preserved in those people 7,000 that haven't bowed their knee. It's really interesting because, like today, I think we live in an era of unbelief, or maybe put it another way, shallow interpretation of the word. And you look around and you think, well, does anybody really know what's going on? And people accuse you of being critical about the behavior or the lack of faith in Christianity, yet God has more than 7,000 now.

So again, he refers to the fact that he's sovereign, he's in charge, and he's got everything well in hand, no matter how it looks to you. And I would think it's comforting to realize that it's that way. I may not be able to see it, but Lord, you're the You have this in hand, well in hand, I'll trust you with it even though I don't see it. And that for all earthly circumstances, no matter what they are, no matter what they look like.

So I really like God's answer. And notice in the answer, the number he gives is not indefinite. He gives a precise number, 7,000. He didn't mean around 7,000, he meant 7,000. And that would be a huge number in Israel, wouldn't it? Especially with characters like Jezebel, who's chasing everybody down and trying to murder them, get rid of them. There's still 7,000 people that she doesn't even know are there.

Alright, now, remnant. Question 7, what's the word remnant mean? in our verses in verse 4 or 5, in the same way then there has also come to be the present time a remnant according to God's gracious choice. But if by grace it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace. So, is there a Jewish remnant today?

I don't think so. I think earlier you said there was a believing people who were Jews, but they were born again. And just like we all, they believe in Christ. They're in Christ. Right. And from a spiritual standpoint, they're not Jews anymore. Who said that? You said that. So they're not, they're new creatures in Christ, right?

So my background, my earthly background is Irish and German and English and all kinds of things. It's like my sister said one time, you want to go to Ireland? I said, I'm not from there anymore. She didn't understand what I was saying. She said, I'd rather go to where I'm from.

But is God going to look back and say, well, you see this line of people that were my remnant all through the church age? Are they going to be a group of godly Jews like the neighbor who lived across the street, Rabbi Pomerantz, And these are all going to be righteous Jewish people that weren't believers, weren't Christians, but they were godly Jews. Does that group exist on the earth today?

It says at this present time. It says at the present time. Remnant. The church age is a small believing minority. A small believing minority. So there are 7,000 Jewish rabbis on the earth today who haven't bowed their knee to the almighty dollar. Whoops, I can't say that. A remnant is really a word that means that what's left. If you decide to have a garage sale and everything sells but four or five things, those five things are the remnant. That's what's left.

So they're set apart. Set apart, but are they... Is there a group of Jews today that have been left out of the apparent apostasy? We don't know who they are, let's say. Will they show up when everything is exposed by God and God will say, see these guys? They were righteous guys. is the Hasidic Jewish group, the remnant. And notice that the remnant has a qualification. How do you get to be a remnant according to this verse?

The election of grace. Isn't there anybody in this audience that's going to say, no, they're not a group like that. I keep laying the bait out there for you and you won't grab it. No, they're not. Anybody from the time of Pentecost to the time of the rapture that believes in the person and work of Christ is a believer. But they may have an earthly Jewish background. And I think God is going to point to them and say, well, see, there were these Jewish people that came to Christ all through this time. They were the faithful ones. They were the ones that believed Maybe explain it this way.

Abraham believed God and he was accounted righteous, isn't that correct? What did he believe? He believed that there was going to be a sacrifice. No, he didn't believe that. What did he believe? What did he believe that God made him righteous? I'm going to make you a great nation, I'm going to give you a lot of property, and I'm going to bless the whole world through you. Is that the gospel we would get saved with today? No. But what God had revealed to him, he believed. And so he was counted righteous. So what has God revealed now?

The whole doctrine of salvation. That Christ died for our sins, He was buried and resurrected. A Jew believes that, and they're righteous. They're positioned in Christ, but from an earthly standpoint, Abraham will never be a part of the church. He's an Old Testament saint. So based on this first, do you think that salvation for the nation of Israel is based solely on God's grace? What do you think? Must be. Must be. Why? Do you think your salvation is based solely on God's grace? Which is based on, is it based on, is your salvation based solely on grace? You think so? You sure?

Yeah, grace through faith. Why is faith an element? What's the thing about faith? Something that we We exercise faith. We exercise faith. Well, can't I go to God and say, hey, I'm exercising faith. You owe me salvation. Non-meritorious. Yeah, faith isn't meritorious. That's the thing, because the merit is in what you believe and in whom you believe, not the fact that you did.

But because you did, God gives you salvation. Okay? Now, so would you say that everything God has done with the Jewish nation is gracious. The fact that he didn't abandon them is gracious. The fact that he has a remnant is gracious. It was something he did that none of them deserved.

You sure? Okay. Okay, so we'll pick up at 8 next week. We'll try to get the numbers right. Let's close. Dear Father, how we thank you for your grace. We thank you that we live under that grace and that we need to grow in that grace and in the knowledge of your dear son, the Lord Jesus. And we pray in his name. Amen.