God's Divine Plan, Part 3 (2)
Notes
Transcript
Irrevocable Calling
Irrevocable, cannot be rescinded, recalled or undone
We are in Romans 11 this morning
Pie
Last Sunday we were reviewing concepts that are important to what the Spirit was communicating through Paul which are important to understand.
Election/Faith
Election/Faith
Romans 9-11 is a wonderful section of Romans which covers some important concepts for believers.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.
And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,
neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
How can this be true if we see the example of Israel? Aren’t they separated from the love of God now?
If nothing separates us, those who have been foreknown, predestined, called, justified, and glorified, then what about Israel? They were foreknown. They were predestined. They were called. Were they justified? Were they glorified?
We would have to say, no. As a whole group, as a people, they were not.
Why? This is important, because if God’s foreknowledge, and calling failed, it could fail us, too. And there goes our assurance, our peace, our hope.
Paul addresses that in Romans 9-11.
And his answer has 3 parts.
First,
The Remnant
The Remnant
I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.
God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don’t you know what Scripture says in the passage about Elijah—how he appealed to God against Israel:
“Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me”?
And what was God’s answer to him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”
So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.
And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.
What then? What the people of Israel sought so earnestly they did not obtain. The elect among them did, but the others were hardened,
as it is written: “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that could not see and ears that could not hear, to this very day.”
Moses summoned all the Israelites and said to them: Your eyes have seen all that the Lord did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials and to all his land.
With your own eyes you saw those great trials, those signs and great wonders.
But to this day the Lord has not given you a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear.
Yet the Lord says, “During the forty years that I led you through the wilderness, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet.
You ate no bread and drank no wine or other fermented drink. I did this so that you might know that I am the Lord your God.”
The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.
Be stunned and amazed, blind yourselves and be sightless; be drunk, but not from wine, stagger, but not from beer.
The Lord has brought over you a deep sleep: He has sealed your eyes (the prophets); he has covered your heads (the seers).
The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.
Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.”
And David says: “May their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them.
May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever.”
Psalm 69:22–23 “May the table set before them become a snare; may it become retribution and a trap. May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever.”
He said, “Go and tell this people: “ ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’
Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”
how did Isaiah make their hearts calloused? by preaching the word of the Lord.
But, is that it for Israel? Is God done with them as a people group?
No, God is still at work to make them...
Envious
Envious
Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious.
There is an upside during this time of God setting them aside as a people group.
But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their full inclusion bring!
I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I take pride in my ministry
in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them.
For if their rejection brought reconciliation to the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.
He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry.
He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!
This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.
I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’ ”
So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone.
I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’ ”
So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.
Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’
Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel.
Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them.
I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’ ”
The word of the Lord came to me:
“Son of man, take a stick of wood and write on it, ‘Belonging to Judah and the Israelites associated with him.’ Then take another stick of wood, and write on it, ‘Belonging to Joseph (that is, to Ephraim) and all the Israelites associated with him.’
Join them together into one stick so that they will become one in your hand.
“When your people ask you, ‘Won’t you tell us what you mean by this?’
say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am going to take the stick of Joseph—which is in Ephraim’s hand—and of the Israelite tribes associated with him, and join it to Judah’s stick. I will make them into a single stick of wood, and they will become one in my hand.’
Hold before their eyes the sticks you have written on
and say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land.
I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms.
They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and vile images or with any of their offenses, for I will save them from all their sinful backsliding, and I will cleanse them. They will be my people, and I will be their God.
“ ‘My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd. They will follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees.
They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land where your ancestors lived. They and their children and their children’s children will live there forever, and David my servant will be their prince forever.
I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever.
My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people.
Then the nations will know that I the Lord make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever.’ ”
Warning: Do be Prideful
Warning: Do be Prideful
If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.
If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root,
do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.
You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.”
Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble.
For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.
Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.
And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.
After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!
I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in,
and in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”
All Israel will be saved!
All Israel will be saved!
This part is not accepted by many. Instead, they try to redefine Israel as the church. That is, Israel, the descendants of Jacob, have been rejected and replaced with the church.
Why?
We owe much to the reformers, like John Calvin and Martyn Luther for restoring to the church the scriptures and literal interpretation. For centuries, the church used allegorical interpretation: looking for a spiritual meaning behind what was literally written. The reformers, returned to a literal interpretation, reading scripture for what God said, instead of making up other interpretations.
Calvin called allegorical interpretation “Satanic.”
Luther called allegorical interpretation “dirt”, “scum,” and “obsolete loose rags.”
“To allegorize is to juggle the Scriptures.”
“Allegorizing may degenerate into a mere monkey game.”
“Allegories are awkward, absurd, inventive, obsolete, loose rags.”
“When I was a monk, I was an expert at allegorizing Scripture, but now my best skill is only to give the literal, simple sense of Scripture, from which comes power, life, comfort, and instruction.”
“Only the historical sense gives the true and sound doctrine.”
However, they were still influenced by their culture. They ate the pie from the point so to speak.
They were anti-semitic through and through.
“Set fire to their synagogues or schools and bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians.”
“Their rotten and unbending stiff-neckedness deserves that they be oppressed unendingly and without measure or end and that they die in their misery without the pity of anyone.”
I believe that because they were anti-semitic, they fell back to their old training in allegorical interpretation when it came to what scripture reveals about the future, and God working with Israel.
They started, and most from the reformed churches today, are Covenant Theologians. They replace Israel with the church, and say that all of the unfulfilled promises to Israel are fulfilled spiritually in the church.
This is why they reinterpret the literal sense of scripture
For this is what the Lord Almighty says: “After the Glorious One has sent me against the nations that have plundered you—for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye—
But the truth is, Israel is the people group, the descendants of Jacob who are blessed and loved on account of the patriarchs.
But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
Yet the Lord set his affection on your ancestors and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations—as it is today.
“The Lord will save the dwellings of Judah first, so that the honor of the house of David and of Jerusalem’s inhabitants may not be greater than that of Judah.
On that day the Lord will shield those who live in Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the angel of the Lord going before them.
On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem.
“And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.
I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city.
Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights on a day of battle.
On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south.
You will flee by my mountain valley, for it will extend to Azel. You will flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.
On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness.
It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—with no distinction between day and night. When evening comes, there will be light.
On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it east to the Dead Sea and half of it west to the Mediterranean Sea, in summer and in winter.
The Lord will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one Lord, and his name the only name.
I will bring you from the nations and gather you from the countries where you have been scattered—with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with outpoured wrath.
I will bring you into the wilderness of the nations and there, face to face, I will execute judgment upon you.
As I judged your ancestors in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will judge you, declares the Sovereign Lord.
I will take note of you as you pass under my rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant.
I will purge you of those who revolt and rebel against me. Although I will bring them out of the land where they are living, yet they will not enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord.
“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord.
“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
and in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies for your sake; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs,
for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.
Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience,
so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you.
God’s Plan Summarized
God’s Plan Summarized
For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.
Doxology
Doxology
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
“Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”
“Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?”
For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.