Gooding, David: 15 - Why Were They Not Saved?

In our earlier two sessions, I have spent a lot of time trying to put the chapters nine, ten, and eleven of Romans into the context of the rest of the book. Now, in this session, I cannot go into the same detail with chapters ten. and eleven, I must content myself with simply a listing of their major contents. If we wanted to sum up the general argument of, uh, chapters, uh, uh, ten, and eleven of Romans, we could perhaps put it like this. God's promise, purpose and plan are not ruined by the defection of the majority in Israel. God's election has always secured the maintenance of Israel's God-given role. So even at this time, says Paul, there is elec- an election according to grace. The bulk of the New Testament was written by Jews. There is a remnant, therefore, now. One day, all Israel, that is Israel as a whole, shall be saved. So says Romans nine one to thirteen. Now, Romans nine fourteen to the end of chapter ten. Israel's fall and failure to be saved are altogether Israel's fault. They refuse mercy. They insist on their own merit. They will not submit. They disobey and rebel. And then the final chapter in this, uh, section of the book, chapter eleven, presents God's strategy against the background of the rebellion of the majority in Israel. Paul tells us what God's strategy is. He uses Israel's fall to enrich the Gentiles. And he uses the salvation, the Gentile salvation, to provoke Israel to jealousy, to envy, and thus to repentance as iron faith. To the grand end that he might have mercy upon all. Roughly speaking, that will do for a very rough, rough summary of the contents of these three chapters and the progression of their argument. Now, it is a fact, gentlemen, that after a preaching, the The congregation congregation, not not in infrequently print- goes away and discusses the preacher. I know that from experience, of course. The congregations don't always, uh, realize the fact that after the preaching, the preacher goes away and discusses the congregation. Paul did as you see here. He had preached to his fellow Jews hundreds of times. The very people that you might have expected to be saved. They knew the law, they knew the Old Testament, they knew of the prophecies of Messiah. The difficult thing was for Paul that while multitudes of Gentiles had been converted, in so many places only a few Jews had professed faith in Christ, and the rest had rejected it, and sometimes violently rejected it. And the thing that exercises his heart is, is, is this: why are they not getting saved? And he now gives a whole series of reasons why they were not getting saved. I can do no more than just go over some of them, or all of them, but very briefly. It wasn't, was it, that Paul had not prayed for them. My heart's desire and prayer for Is- for Israel is that they might be saved. He prayed enough for them. Why weren't they saved? It wasn't that they were irreligious. They weren't irreligious. They had a zeal for God. Then why were they not saved? Saved. You may have wondered the same thing about folks who show themselves in Christendom with great zeal for God and for rituals and for prayers and for church attendance. But if you should ask them, no, they're not saved. Why aren't they saved? First basic reason why they're not saved. It was a form of ignorance. It was, you see, that being ignorant of the true function of the law, and thinking that the law was given that through keeping the law you might a- a- attain to eternal life. You'll see. They would not submit to God's way of justifying sinners. Notice the verb used, they wouldn't submit to it. Not merely that they didn't understand it, but they wouldn't submit to it. But insisted on the way of producing their own righteousness. Many people still have that false idea of the function of the law. To use a crude analogy, the law is like a thermometer, gentlemen. You'll say, if you feel a bit shivery, and you take a thermometer and put it in your mouth, and you'll see whether your, what your temperature is, and if your temperature is going up about one hundred and thirty six or something, uh, you'll know that you're sizably ill, and about time you went to bed and called in a doctor or something, to see. Yes? The thermometer shows you how ill you are. But if one day you heard I was ill and you came and visited me and I was in bed there with a nightcap on my head and everything else, and I was vivid, uh, vigorously sucking a thermometer, you might inquire, Gooding, uh, what, why are you sucking that thermometer? And you say, I'm ill. You think I'm doing it for. Yes, but why, why are you sucking a thermometer? Well, the doctor said I got a very high temperature, and if I couldn't get the high temperature down, I could die. I'm, I'm trying to get the high temperature down. You should say, Gooding, you are ill. More ill than you realize. The thermometer registers the fact that you're ill and shows you how ill you are, so does God's law. But sucking the thermometer won't cure you. And trying to keep God's law and attain its standard won't save us. It has to be by altogether a different method. So justification is by faith, receiving the righteousness which comes from God, and not one that we have manufactured ourselves. But they were not saved. Why? Is it that being saved is a very difficult thing? And this justification by faith business is very difficult. And that's why they weren't saved. No, it isn't, says Paul, far from being difficult. You don't have to go up to heaven. Or down to the abyss to get it. The word is nigh you, in your mouth and in your very heart. All you have to do is to say it. And to close in on it in your heart. It's the very opposite of being difficult. How marvelously simple is God's way of salvation. Ah, but could it be that God has favorites, you see? And so, uh, he saves some but doesn't save others. No, says Paul. Whoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For the same Lord over all is rich to all that call upon him. Two things you have to do. One is to call on the name of the Lord. Second, it doesn't matter who you are, whoever you are. The same Lord over all is rich to all that call upon him, for whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. So it's not a question of God having favorites. On the other hand, if salvation is for those who call on the name of the Lord, then four conditions have to be met. And Paul lists them, of course. For people, for anybody to call on the name of the Lord, first they will have to believe in him. And for that to happen, that is, for people to believe in him, they have to hear, now please note the translation, they have to hear him, not hear about him. To believe him, you have to hear him. If people are going to hear him, for that to happen, there has to be a preacher. And not just any old preacher. For a preacher who through whose preaching people will hear not merely the preacher, but to hear Christ himself. The preacher has to be sent. Four conditions that must be fulfilled if people are to call on the name of the Lord to be saved. Well, now tell me, for many in Israel are not saved. Is it that any one of these four conditions have not been fulfilled? And that would account for their not being saved. So in verse sixteen, he says it straight. It wasn't that these conditions were not fulfilled. The trouble was that they did hear, but they would not obey the gospel. There are two words in Greek that are relevant here. The one is the ordinary verb to hear, akuo. Ah, and you're knowledgeable about akuo. Of course you are, because you understand exactly what acoustics are, and thereby you know a lot of Greek. Akuo means I hear. Then there's another verb, hupacuo, which means to obey, to listen, hear, and submit to what you hear. Believe it and submit. They were not saved. It wasn't that they hadn't heard. They had heard. They wouldn't obey. Was it then... that they couldn't actually believe? Because, you know, as some say, faith is the gift of God, and God had decided them not to give them the faith, so they couldn't believe anyway. No, that isn't true either. Because consider how faith comes. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. Yes, of course it's the gift of God. But how does God give the gift? How does he produce the faith? Well, faith comes by hearing. Hearing the word of Christ. Hearing Christ speak. It's that that draws out the faith. There's no mystery in it, gentlemen. If you were a businessman and another businessman in town came to you with a proposition and it looked okay, but as he sat there expounding his proposition to you, you would weigh him up, wouldn't you? You'd listen to him, you'd watch him, you'd see whether he was nervous and fidgety, whether he kept smoking too much, and in answer, uh, to your questions, he seemed to avoid some of them and, uh, go around, uh, uh, and as you listened, you'd make up his mind whether he was to be trusted or not. And if you decided that he would, uh, was to be trusted, it wouldn't be merely on the grounds of his proposition, but that, of course, would count, but it would depend on your weighing up him as a suitable chap to be trusted. You do the same with Christ. He has a magnificent gospel. But as you hear him, you come to believe in him. How else on earth would you ever believe in? Because of his character, because of his person, because of what he is. That brings your faith. It's not that God had decided not to give them the faith, and so they couldn't believe. But faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. They rejected the word of Christ. Moreover, it wasn't, says verse 18, that they were so dead in trespasses and in sins, it means we're as dead as a, as a fallen tree trunk. And therefore, if you are unregenerate, it's no good telling you to believe. You might as well address a, a, a, a chunk of wood and tell that to believe, or a bit of stone. You're dead in trespasses and sins, and you, you can't hear, you can't respond, anything of the sort. But it's not true. They did hear. Look at verse eighteen, will you, if you please. This is a question in Greek, but I say, did they not hear? But it's strong in Greek. That's why I paraphrased it, you see. It wasn't, was it, that they did not hear? That wasn't the reason why they were not saved, was it? Answer, no, of course it wasn't the reason. They did hear. Yea, verily, their sound went out into all the earth, their words unto the ends of the world. Hmm. Now follows another question, verse nineteen. Was it then that Israel did not know? Israel didn't realize what was happening. And once again, it's that kind of question in Greek. It wasn't that Israel didn't know, was it? No, it wasn't that. First Moses says, I will provoke you to jealousy with that which is no nation. And with a nation void of understanding will I anger you. And Isaiah is very bold and saith, I was found of them that sought me not. I became manifest unto them that asked not after me. In other words, Paul is now saying Israel were not saved, the majority of them not saved. It wasn't that they didn't know. It wasn't that they didn't know that there was a salvation offered. It wasn't that they didn't know that people were getting saved. Isaiah had prophesied it. There would come a time when even Gentiles that weren't Jews and didn't know the first thing about God came flocking to the Savior. If you read Acts thirteen, you'll see a, a record of it happening. Paul and his companion came to Antioch in Pisidia, not to be confused with the other Antioch, and went on to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, do they, and began to preach. Well, he was a cunning old preacher when all he said and done was Paul, you see. It is not always the best idea to go into a Jewish synagogue, and when you're asked to preach, if you are asked to preach as he was, say, what's that, what you need, rabbi, there is to be saved. Are you saved? Because they mightn't like the term, you see. So Paul was handed the Bible, and he began to preach, and he says, you know, the God of our fathers exalted the people. Well, that's a nice verb, isn't it? Talk about diplomacy. Didn't they saved our people, exalted our people, and the rabbinic beads were going on and on, yeah. Exalted our people out of Egypt. Oh, yeah, was marvelous. Gave us political, uh, freedom. And then he sent the judges who delivered them. Oh yes, marvelous. They did indeed, from all the moral corruption of the time. Do you see? Marvelous. Mm. Didn't say save them. No, deliver them will do. And then after the judges, you see, he he offered them Saul, but Saul was no good, and he raised up of David seed, a savior. David who saved them from all their enemies all the way round, you know, and brought them to the head of the nation. Magnificent salvation. Even the rabbis were agreeing at that stage, really. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now this man's seed, according to his promise, is raised up unto Israel a savior. Note the context. And by him, whosoever believes, you'll see. And this marvelous salvation of which the prophets are a, a, a witness, you'll see, they raised him from the dead. Gentlemen, tell me, what is the good of all your other salvations, be they political or moral or whatever they are? What is the use of them ultimately if the whole lot of them put together land you up in the grave and there's no further hope? Surely a hope of Israel is something bigger than that, isn't it? And this man raised up a savior, risen from the dead. Magnificent salvation, but not everybody is always keen to hear too much about the resurrection of the dead, because instinct tells them that if there's a resurrection, there's going to be a final judgment. The Sadducees preferred to think there wasn't any resurrection from the dead. There's a lot of folks today prefer that as well. Talk about the resurrection, and they don't, they're not sure they want it. They like to think you die as a dog. And here comes Paul, therefore, with his crowning example of salvation, you see. By him did all the prophets witness that through this man, whosoever believed on him, is preached to you the forgiveness of sins. By him who bel- those who believe can be justified from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. Very skillful evangelism, that was. To that audience. Of course, when he moved on to Co- uh, to Athens, he didn't say, now, gentlemen, open your Bibles, please. No, that had to be a different approach altogether. Mm-hmm. But, um, there were a lot of Greeks present in the synagogue, particularly women, God-fearers. When they heard that, they said to them, I've never heard that before. We've been coming to this synagogue for years, never heard them say about about salvation like that and forgiveness. And they got very excited. And the next Sabbath, the whole city was gathered together again, the place. And multitudes of the Gentiles believed, and the Jews, when they saw it happening, got jealous and started to refute it. And Paul had to appeal to them. But gentlemen, have you not read Isaiah's prophecy that in one day God will raise up a standard in the house of Israel, in the house of Judah, and to him shall the Gentiles come? Look at them coming. Right in front of your noses. Did I, did Israel not know? It's happening in front of their eyes. People were getting saved, and Gentiles if need, uh, uh, what is more, and according to what Isaiah prophesied. They knew all right. Wouldn't have it. And Paul had to warn them, beware, lest they come upon you that which is written in the prophets, despise, uh, beware you despisers and tremble and perish. How many religious people have seen conversions and still won't have the gospel. And prefer religion. Was it finally... that they weren't saved because God had not chosen them to be saved? That they weren't elect? And therefore that's a counsel they're not being saved. No, indeed not. For now at length God, brushing aside all else, himself comes to the fore, but as to Israel, he says, he says, God says, all day long did I spread out my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people are people that reject the gospel. And what is God's attitude to them? Well, ponder only the vig- vivid gesture. I stretch forth my hand, says God. And stood there all day long. Like a parent would stretch out his hand to a child and say, come, deary, come. All day long I stretched out my hands, and that was a stretch. When they took his son and nailed him to a cross, I tell you, that was some stretch of God's hands bidding Israel, come. You have to answer the question, gentlemen, did he want them to come? There are what those that tell us, no, these were the unbelieving, they were the non-elect, and God didn't want them to come. He knew they couldn't come unless he gave them the faith to believe with, and he'd already decided not to give them the faith. He'd already decided he'd not elect them. He decided to pass them by. Really? And that was why they were not saved. Well, what was he doing? Tell me. Stretching out his arms to these people. Making out he wanted them to come, when all the while he knew they couldn't come, and knew they couldn't come unless he gave them the faith to come with, and he decided not to give them the faith to come, and knew he was determined to pass them by. But, what verb shall I use? Was pretending he wanted them to come. You won't answer that gentleman by saying that God has two purposes. He has his outward purpose publicly, which he says he would have all men to be saved, but he has a private set of p- of purposes hidden from our eyes, in which he doesn't want all to be saved. God is not two-faced. Why were they not saved? It wasn't because they wanted to be saved and God wouldn't save them. It was that when God stood pleading with them, they just stood back, disobeyed, contradicted him, and rebelled. Well, you would think after that, wouldn't you? That God would now say, that's enough. You'll see. And cast away the whole nation. Romans 11 is going to raise that question then. And once more, I must appeal to, uh, Paul's Greek. Chapter eleven, verse one. I say then, it was not, it is not that God has cast away his people, is it? No, it is not indeed so. God did not cast away his people. God has not cast them away. How can you know that? Because I am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God did not cast off his people which he foreknew. Now, I'm quite aware that this same writer, Paul, in Ephesians chapter two tells us that under Christ, God has done a new thing. He has taken Jew and Gentile and not just added Jews on, stuck them on, so to speak. Uh, of the two, Jew and Gentile, he's made one new man, so making peace. That doesn't mean that Paul ceased to be a Jew, or he ceased to be an Israelite. Listen to him in Romans. I am an Israelite. He gives you his tribe and so forth. And as we saw this morning, just as in Elijah's day, God has left himself a remnant. Pray see what that means. The testimony of Israel is going on. The apostles, uh, Luke may have been a Gentile, the gospels are otherwise written by Jews, and the epistles likewise, and the book of the Revelation. The testimony of Israel is going on. Of course, Gentiles are coming in, and now, if you like, form the majority in the church. So in the same way now, there is a remnant of Israel chosen by God on the ground that they are prepared to acca- accept salvation by grace and not by their own works. It is an election of grace. When it comes to election, gentlemen, do observe that God's election is not arbitrary. Writing to the Corinthians, Paul bids them consider their election and how they've been chosen of God. Why have they been chosen of God? God has chosen the weak things of the world. Not many righteous, not many wise. God has chosen the weak things and the things that are not. Thus as he laid it down. Our Lord says he's hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. It's open to anybody to take the position of a babe. But God, in his choice, has laid the terms of salvation down. You must come as a babe. Except you be converted and become as a little child, you should not enter the kingdom of God. God's electing grace lays down the conditions of whom he's prepared to save. Here the conditions are of grace. If you won't have salvation by grace and insist on having it by your works, well, you won't get salvation. For grace in this context means not by works. If it were by works, it wouldn't be of grace. Mm-hmm. Good. What is more, however, God's judicial hardening of the rest of Israel is according to with Old Testament prophecies. God had indicated in the Old Testament. As Paul warned the Jews in Antioch of Pisidia. That if they would reject his mercy and his son, God would eventually harden them in their unbelief. But once more, verse eleven, Paul issues the last of these questions. It is, as the Greek grammarians say, a question so framed as it expects the answer no. I say then, they didn't stumble so that they might fall completely, did they? No. It's not that they've stumbled and gone to perdition. But now he's talking, isn't he, as we saw this morning, he's talking of the nation as such. Majority of Israel are at the moment unrepentant, unbelieving, reject the Messiah, and troubles galore have come upon them. But because of this falling, it doesn't mean that God has finished with the nation. They've so stumbled as the nation will never arise again. No, no, it does not mean that. I was, don't repeat this out of doors, but I was on a leading a a study group years and years ago in another country not far from here. And uh, uh, we got to this point in Romans. And there were various folks, and one was a convert. He was a... he got both his hands blown off at one stage, and then he got converted. I leave you to think out how he got them blown off. He, uh, this was in the seventies, I think. And uh, he had embraced this doctrine of election that says that God has elected some to salvation and elected some to damnation. So I appealed with this question, has God, God hasn't cast off his people, has he? And I said the answer was no. And the good man listening to it says, that's wrong. Yes, he has. I couldn't convince him there and then. Perhaps he learned better later on. But Christendom for many centuries held that God had cast them off completely. And that the church had taken the place of Israel. There was no future for Israel. In spite of what's written. They have not stumbled so that they should fall irreparably, but they will be restored. And what is more, if their fall, verse, uh, twelve, is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness. In the strategies of God, when Israel rejected Messiah, the gospel's gone out to Gentiles. It's been the enrichment of the Gentile world. But God is determined, in the end, to restore Israel. And when they are restored, how much more wealth shall it be? It will be a veritable life from the dead. But notice already Paul's, uh, description of God's strategy. By therefore salvation is come to the Gentiles for to provoke them to jealousy. Paul eventually, when he'd seen it many times, he saw it again when he went to Jerusalem and went into the temple with certain Jewish believers to pay for the sacrifices necessary for the fulfillment of their vow. And the Jewish mob set upon him and would have murdered him. But the captain of the Roman guard in the Antonia Tower saw what was happening and rushed down with a detachment of troops and rescued Paul and carried him up the steps into the Roman, uh, castle, you'll see. It was right next to the temple court. And Paul asked permission when he got to the top of the stairs to turn round and address the crowd. Oh, what a, what a moving situation. They'd nearly murdered him. So he told them the story of his conversion. It would be told, of course. You know, he says, I'm not any just old riffraff. And sparing your blushes, I trained under the leading rabbi of the day. You know, I have my degree. Wasn't like Paul to boast, was it? But he wasn't having a riffraff Jews that scarce knew A from, uh, alef from, uh, from tau, uh, A from Z. Tell him that he was a heretic. Do you know what? I, I, I, I, the, the Lord appeared to me. You know he appeared to some of the ancient prophets. He appeared to me. Why shouldn't I tell you what the Lord said? He appeared to Isaiah, didn't he? And Ezekiel? Well, he appeared to me as well. And what is more, I was in the temple, subsequent to my conversion, and the Lord said, uh, you better leave Jerusalem, for they won't listen to you, and I'm sending you to the Gentiles. And I pleaded with the Lord to let me stay in Jerusalem, but he sent me to the Gentiles, who at which point the crowd erupted. They give a got hands on him, they'd have taunt him to shreds. Jealousy. And here was a Jew giving the sacred privileges of the Jews to Gentiles. Provoking them to jealousy? Yeah, sure. Part of God's tactics to get them to see what they were missing and to bring them to repentance. I said it to, to Jewish friends of mine, you know. I said, you don't like Jesus, do you? I like him very much. But I tell you what, I says. I'm an old Gentile, you know. Yet I have come to believe not in just any old God, but in the God of Isaac, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And if you ask me how I, as a pagan, have come to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it's this Jesus that's done it for me. You show me another Jew that has led as many millions to faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as Jesus Christ has done. Yes. To provoke them to jealousy. And what next? Things that Gentile believers should remember. Paul Paul glorify. glorifies his mission to the Gentiles, therefore. Not because Gentiles are superior to Jews, but in an attempt to provoke unbelieving Jews to envy and thus to salvation. Verses thirteen to fourteen. Verse fifteen, Gentiles are to remember this, Gentile believers, that is. If the casting away of Israel has led to the reconciling of the world, their restoration will bring veritable life from the dead. Something to be looked forward and earnestly prayed for, of course. The present remnant of Jewish believers is the first fruits of the eventual conversion of all Israel. The first fruits are holy, called saints by God, every one of them. Like Gentile believers. The first fruits are holy, so will the full mass be when they are converted. Respect, therefore, for Jews. Fourthly, the patriarchs were the root, and they were holy. So are the branches, excepting, of course, those that had to be cut off. But the branches are holy. Good old Abram. Good old David. And present Jewish believers. We must have respect for the great olive tree of Israel's testimony. Yes, some branches had to be cut off, explains Paul. And Jewish Gentiles were grafted in. But do remember, it's the root that carries you, not you the root. The root, of course, was the patriarchs, wasn't it? Abram onward. Israel, a testimony in the world, the olive tree. Some, that's an understatement, multitudes of the branches had to be broken off. You have been grafted in. But grafted in to that great movement of God, God's testimony in the world, as we were thinking about in our earlier talks this morning. All God's self-revelation in the Old Testament through Israel, and we've grafted into that root. So don't boast against the branches. Because you see, if God didn't spare the branches when they sinned and when they became unbelieving and apostatized, neither, says Paul, will he spare you if you don't continue in the faith. Now, Paul is not denying the eternal security of the believer, but he is pointing out that that eternal security depends on the fact that we are believers. And here Paul talks to Gentile Christendom. When Israel apostatized and rejected the Son of God, God cut them off. You'd need a megaphone to tell Christendom that today. I don't know one university in the UK that has a department of theology where all the members of the department believe in the inspiration of God's word to start with. And how many professors of theology in Christendom have denied the virgin birth, still deny the deity of Christ, deny the literal bodily resurrection of Christ and his second coming again. Christendom apostatizing. God won't put up with it forever. And if you don't remain in faith, God will cut you off. Paul talking to Gentile, what we nowadays call Christendom. It was an early phenomenon in the church as the apostles grew old. You'll find the later epistles pointed out that even in the churches there had come in secretly men who denied the very foundations of the gospel. Read second Peter, with its moral, terrible moral laxity in the name of the grace of God, allowing all sorts of immorality, homosexuality, and goodness knows what else in the churches. And listen to some of the archbishops still. Okay, to have homosexuals accepted as believers in the congregation, and if need be, bishops. Yeah. Immorality and denying the fundamentals of the gospel. It was already happening to some of the churches to which Jude wrote and Peter wrote. Now, finally... Yes, the branches will be the, the, the, uh, Gentiles, some of them will now be cut out, and the original branches put into the olive tree, meaning that Jews will get converted, and all Israel, Israel as a whole shall be saved. And be grafted back into the testimony to God. You say, why doesn't God do it at once then? If he's meant, if his purpose has been, his strategy has been by the salvation of Gentiles to provoke Israel to jealousy and get them saved, why hasn't he done it yet? The final verses, verses thirty, thirty one, thirty two, explain that. What God has to do to get people saved. No one can be brought to believe, in the full sense of that term, until they have been brought to realize that hitherto they have been unbelievers. If you had gone to Saul when he was chasing up the Damascus road, persecuting Christians, and say, half a minute, sir, if you'll allow me to stop your chariot. Um, are you a believer? And he would have said, what do you think? Insulting me? Of course I'm a believer. He wasn't, was he? And when the glory appeared to him on the Damascus Road, he realized not only he had been an unbeliever in Jesus, but now there was no escaping it that Jesus was God. Who art thou, Lord? God was bigger than Saul of Tarsus had imagined, and Saul had was an unbeliever in God. He was brought to salvation, of course. And first had to acknowledge he was an unbeliever, and I obtained mercy because I did it in ignorance and in unbelief. God has therefore shut up all to unbelief. That is, he, he will shepherd them like a shepherd's shepherd's sheep, till there's only one gate to go through. Till they come to realize that they are unbelievers. And need to repent and become believers. I don't know if you've ever had the experience, I think you must have, talking to religious people, very religious, and you talked about salvation. And you told them they need to be born again, and they they struggle with that and think you're insulting them, and I'm a believer anyway. And you say, that's good, so you're sure you're saved? No, you can't be sure you're saved. You say, well, I'm sure. How can you be sure? And then you explain the gospel, how that we come short, and we can only be saved by Christ dying for us at the cross. And now he's risen, he invites us to come, and we personally trust him and receive from him the gift of eternal life and absolute certainty of salvation. And the person says, well, well, if that's what you mean by believing, no, I'm not a believer. Well, let's hope for them then. To bring religious folks to the point where they see they're not believers. That's what God is aiming to do. Gentiles generally didn't have any much difficulty in, in admitting they were unbelievers. Jews had enormous difficulty, still do. I have a Jewish friend in town. Now and again, he invites his business colleagues and me to a lunch party to discuss all sorts of things. And since his colleagues are mostly believers, we get round to discussing, uh, the Christian gospel in the end, of course, and the future for Israel and all such things, because he is a Jew. And more than once, when we've come round to the fact that we are all sinners, he boils up with rage is difficult to contain. I am not a sinner. I will not have it. Mm-hmm. But God, under his disciplines, will one day bring the Jews to the realization that they have been unbelievers and have rejected God's own son and have refused to believe God. But he'll bring them there, that he might have mercy on all. And Paul ends with a doxology. To the wisdom and knowledge of God, demonstrated in his tactics. So let's sum up by looking through the program. There's a time limit. The temporary hardening will last only until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. Remember the phrase of our Lord as the shepherd in John chapter ten: other sheep I have which are not of this fold of Judaism, them also I must bring, and there shall be one flock, one shepherd. When the fullness of the Gentiles become in, all Israel shall be saved at the coming of the deliverer. Israel, says Paul, will then enter into the good of the covenant, that is the new covenant that God has made with them. Or will, will bring them into the covenant that was made, of course, by Christ at Calvary. The Jews will be brought into the good of it. At present, Israel is hostile to the gospel and therefore to Christians. But they are to be loved for God's unchangeable electing grace that chose their fathers. And the fairness and balance of God's strategies. The Gentiles in the past, says Paul, were disobedient. That means they rejected God's testimony. testimony. Yet now through Israel's disobedience, in Israel's term, the Gentiles have received mercy. So now the Israelites, they have now been guilty of disob- the disobedience of unbelief, that is. Like the old Gentiles were. That by the mercies shown to you, that is you Gentiles, they also, being provoked by envy, may obtain mercy. God God's stra- strategies. And gentlemen, this goes beyond mere theory, doesn't it? Because there's many a Christian heart that inwardly mourns, why are not my children saved? Why doesn't God save Israel? Feel how Paul's heart is wounded and troubled. But if we preach the gospel, gentlemen, and we believe the gospel, we have to dare to trust God's wisdom and God's strategies. So that this third part of Romans ends like the first part ends and the second part ends. So this third part ends with the doxology. But this time not to the love of God, as the first two did. The doxology to the wisdom and the knowledge of God. Let that for su- for suffice for the moment. That is a very hasty and ragged presentation, but we labor under the constraints of time. So we'll take a short break, and then, as I say, I'm not going to invite questions today. I suggest you make your questions and write them down, because I have touched on many things over which God's people, uh, argue, sometimes with love and affection, and sometimes with not quite so much love and affection, uh, you'll see. Uh, my job is not to impose my views on you, but to get you to think, of course, and, uh, where I'm wrong, please correct me. So you have questions and this and that and the other, do write them down. And, uh, when, God willing, we meet again towards the end of the year on topics that are supposed to be expositions of the book of Ruth, I may make time for the questions then, and that will have the advantage of being your mature thought on the matter. Good. Let's take a five or ten minutes break.