Romains 9 to 11

… My exercise this evening is to say something about what Paul writes in these three chapters 9, 10 and 11 of his letter to the Romans. We know that in most of Paul's letters we have doctrine, not all of them but most of them we have doctrine and this is followed by exhortation. It's good to receive the teaching of God but we need to put it into practice as well. Paul reminded us of that this afternoon. In the letter to the Romans we have the gospel presented to us, the gospel of God's salvation. We had that very clearly in the first verse we read, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth to the Jew first and also to the Greek. And in the first part of Romans up to chapter 5 verse 11 Paul concentrates on the matter of being saved from our sins and God's judgment for them and the prime word we get in this section is the word justification. We need justification, we need to be made right with God. And then from verse 12 of chapter 5 through to chapter 8 we get the thought of salvation from sin, the power of sin, the principle of sin we heard about this afternoon in our lives, that which causes us to commit sins. I think we've all gone through the experience when we came to know the Lord Jesus, how wonderful it was to know that our sins have been dealt with, that we weren't going to suffer God's judgment. The Lord Jesus had borne that judgment upon the cross. We were on our way to heaven but it's not long before we discover that we start doing things that we thought we had been saved from. The very sins that the Lord Jesus dealt with on the cross they're recurring in our lives. Why? Because of that flesh that we heard of this afternoon. And so in these chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8 Paul shows to us the wonderful delivering power of what the Lord Jesus had done. And the wonderful answer is not to try and overcome this power of sin in our lives by our own strength. Surely we've already recognized that we're helpless to do that. We had to come to the Lord Jesus to be saved from the fruit of that sin. And so too there's help from outside for dealing with the root and that's the Holy Spirit himself. You remember that in chapter 7 we have the man who keeps saying me and I but in chapter 8 we hear constantly of the Spirit of God who indwells every believer and enables him to overcome or her to overcome the power of sin in our lives. And then from chapter 12 onwards we get the practical exhortation of the letter don't we? We get the thought of presenting our body a living sacrifice. Those first two verses of chapter 12 I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God in view of the grace the goodness of God to you in Christ that ye present your bodies. It's a practical thought that's why the word body is used there. Live in sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service and be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. But in between chapters 8 and 12 of course we get chapters 9 10 and 11 and perhaps we wonder sometimes when we read them why does the Apostle Paul put them there? Well it's an indication of why it's good for young ones particularly but also for us older ones to get to know the teaching of Paul's letter to the Romans. I once knew a brother he's now with the Lord he used to say and I'm sure most of you older ones here know this expression as well a good Roman can go anywhere. Now what did he mean by that? Well what he meant by that was was that if you understood the teaching of Paul in Romans it would equip you to go elsewhere in the New Testament and understand what is being taught there as well. There's an expression Kivis Romana Sum that's Latin and it means I am a Roman and in the days of the Roman Empire someone who could say I am a Roman could ask for the protection of Rome wherever he was in the Empire and be fairly confident of getting it. And so it is when we are good Romans spiritually if we can understand God's Word in Romans and don't for one moment think that I'm saying I'm a good Roman perhaps you'll be able to judge that after the end of this meeting but it's good to know that when we've got the teaching of Romans clearer in our minds with the help of the Holy Spirit it will help us to go into other parts of the scripture and get the help we need like the Roman citizen needed help when he ran into difficulties in different parts of the Empire. So just remember those Latin words because it brings home to us the usefulness of this book and why do I say that because as well as presenting the foundational truths of justification and deliverance that we've heard a bit about already this afternoon though in the types of the Red Sea and the crossing of the Jordan it also presents to us the practical truths that we find from chapter 12 onwards and then in these chapters 9 10 and 11 it presents to us some dispensational teaching so you're getting a range of teaching in Paul's letter to the Romans which is very foundational very helpful in setting us off in understanding God's Word we often say to people who first inquire about salvation read John's gospel and perhaps we should say to those who've just trusted the Lord Jesus as well as doing that read Paul's letter to the Romans and we would encourage the young men and sisters here to start reading Romans. I must admit that I have a tendency to go over time so I'm going to immediately speed on to what we start what we read in chapter 9 although hopefully we'll come back to some of those earlier verses that we read from chapters 1 and chapter 3. One of the criticisms that could have been made about what we read in chapter 1 verse 16 was well if there's no difference if this gospel is going out to the Jew and to the Gentile then does that mean that God has given up on Israel after all he made some very special promises to Israel let's just read one of them Deuteronomy chapter 7 Deuteronomy chapter 7 in verse 6 God says for thou art and holy people unto the Lord thy God the Lord thy God has chosen thee to be a special people unto himself above all people that are upon the face of the earth the Lord did not set his love upon you nor choose you because you were more in number than any people for you were the fewest of all people but because the Lord loved you and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers as the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt a special people peculiar people and God had set his love upon and if we thought for one moment that what Paul is teaching in Romans indicated that God was now no longer treating Israel in that way in his purposes then we might wonder well can we depend upon his word in regard to what Paul has written in this letter if he's going to break it in regard to the people of Israel how can we be sure of it now that we're hearing it in the form of this gospel which Paul is writing about in this letter to the Romans and what of God's love he said he set his love upon them has he just given up on his love after all though righteousness is the prominent thought in Romans the very fact that God has revealed a righteousness which is according to him it's his righteousness because our righteousness cannot meet God's holy standards shows his love for us doesn't it shows his desire to bring us to himself so in a way it's not just Paul answering the objections of Jewish people who might say well you're going against everything that God said in the Old Testament about Israel it's a question of assuring us of confirming to us that there's no question of God going back on his word or going back on his love and that's a wonderful assurance for us we who are Gentiles as well in these early verses of Romans chapter 9 we see the love of the Apostle for his countrymen for his nation for his kinsmen according to the flesh and surely the very fact that the Apostle to the Gentiles speaks in this way is another indication of God's continuing love for his people he wants to bless them look at those words the Apostle uses he says in verse 3 I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren have I ever had a love for my kinsmen like that I think it was something that came into Paul's heart in a moment that's how he felt it's like Moses blocked me out of my book he could say it wasn't their settled thought and after all Paul has only just written in chapter 8 if you look at the end of that chapter that nothing shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus but it shows the love of Paul for the people of Israel and in itself is confirmation of what he's going to teach in the remaining part of these chapters but sadly the Lord Jesus had come to Israel he had come to his own things and his own people had received him not and as a consequence of that they were losing the enjoyment of the things that God had given them look at those things in verse 4 they were losing them they were losing them because they had rejected their Messiah and he is the one who crowns those things look at that list that goes on into verse 5 whose are the fathers or of whom is concerning the flesh Christ came that is the crown in fact of the blessing that God gave his earthly people that Christ the Messiah would come from them humanly speaking who is overall God blessed forever amen he's the touchstone where do we stand with regard to the Lord Jesus Christ if we've repented from our sins and believed on him as our Savior then we're in the flow of God's blessing and we shall never be lost but the people of Israel as a nation had rejected the one who had been long promised as their deliverer as their Savior how sad and consequently that was why they were in the position they were that was why Paul had this grief this uninterrupted pain in regard to them because of their spiritual condition but did it mean that God's Word failed no in the next few verses he shows that not all are Israel that are of Israel not all of them simply because they were humanly speaking Israelites were spiritually were really Israelites and that's why the nation as a whole had turned its back on the Lord Jesus that's why when they saw him in all his moral beauty they will have to confess in the future day that when they saw him there was no beauty in him that they should desire their hearts weren't touched by the Lord Jesus there wasn't a living link with God and Paul shows them that to simply base everything upon their natural connection with Abraham was a great mistake he shows them that God had said that in Isaac verse 7 shall thy seed be called God has made a choice a choice between Ishmael the first son of Abraham and Isaac if we were going to claim that our blessing depended on the fact that we were descendants of Abraham physically then Ishmael would have to be included and you could argue that Ishmael should be the one and not Isaac working on that basis the people of Israel were actually excluding themselves and then he gives the example doesn't he of Jacob and Esau here were two twins in the same in the womb of their mother and before they were born before they had done good or anything worthless God said the less the greater shall serve the less and this is proving that God is moving according to his sovereign will and one thing we can learn from chapter 9 is that God is sovereign he chooses he decides we live in a world where we're very used now to hearing about man's rights human rights I've got rights and yet you know you'll look through the Bible and you won't find much about human rights in the Bible none of us have got any rights before God none of us at all I'm not of course advocating that we should act in an uncivilized way to each other but what I'm saying is that when it comes down to the matter of how we stand before God none of us have got any rights and it's only when we acknowledge that that we can come into blessing and that's what the people of Israel had to do you know there was a man who met with the Lord Jesus early on in the book of John and the Lord Jesus called him an Israelite indeed truly an Israelite you know who I'm speaking about Nathanael also called Bartholomew one of the Lord's disciples yes he was a true Israelite he was spiritually an Israelite and why can we say that because when the Lord Jesus revealed himself to him he said thou art the Christ thou art the King of Israel the Lord Jesus is the touchstone now let's make some applications to ourselves if this was important for Israel to receive the Lord Jesus when he came then it's absolutely important still for us to receive the Lord Jesus to acknowledge him and we're going to see that in a moment as we go through these chapters sometimes people have had a difficulty with verse 13 as it is written Jacob have I loved but he saw have I hated yes but have you ever thought where those words come in the scripture Paul is quoting from the last book of the Old Testament the book of Malachi as a result of God's dealings with these two men the choice he made at the beginning is vindicated Esau was a man literally after the flesh and Jacob was a man who though to a sinner a supplanter a man who had deceived his own father and was to have to learn that bitter lesson of being deceived himself by his own son eventually came to the point where he was broken where he wrestled with God who God touched the sinew of his thigh and he had to cling to God he had to acknowledge that he could not bargain with God as he tried to do early in his life he had to rely upon God for all his blessings and at the end of his life he's a worshiper on his staff and able to bless his sons a man who finished well because he finished with God but he saw didn't and so we see in the next few verses that there's no unrighteousness with God God acts according to his sovereign will verse 15 I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion you know when those words were said just after Israel sinned in relation to the golden calf at Sinai they had said all the Lord says we will do and before the very law had been delivered to them by Moses they had broken the first of the ten commands what's God's response in relation to them it's mercy just as we sang in our first hymn see mercy mercy from on high descend to rebels doomed to die they should have been judged immediately but God says I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion but there are those who go against God and continue to go against God and we have an example of that in Pharaoh the very person we were speaking about this afternoon verse 17 a man who hardened himself to read about it in Exodus chapter 5 he said who is this Jehovah but I should do as he says I'm paraphrasing then you read in chapter 7 when he says that it says as God said he would and you can see that the hardening of heart started with Pharaoh himself he was set against God in his own heart and as he continued that course then God exercised his right to harden his heart still further as a sign to us all and as we read those verses from Exodus about what happened to Pharaoh is it not a warning to us that here was one who despite God's long-suffering with him continued on his course and ended up at the bottom of the Red Sea if there's anyone here who hasn't trusted the Lord Jesus as your Savior don't continue on that course of rejecting him turn to him now believe on the Lord Jesus you need to be saved it's amazing that these verses no it's not amazing it's not really amazing but it is amazing that these verses in these chapters which speak so much about God's sovereignty his election his choice also prompt us prompt the Apostle Paul as we're see soon to announce the gospel to say to people come unto me come unto the Lord Jesus be saved don't stand away from God turn to him now the election of God proves that all of us left to our own devices would never come to God if it wasn't for the election none would be saved all would be lost the fact that God has to choose to save shows that we are all we are all worthless but all rebellious in his sight and that's why it says in that verse which I moved over to get to verse 17 so then it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God that showeth mercy and then in these verses that follow we get the image don't we of the Potter that is an image of God forming the vessel the vessel often a picture but notice that in verse 22 and this is where we read what if God willing to show his wrath and to make his power known endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction yes vessels of wrath what a solemn thought those going on to a lost eternity but it doesn't say that God fitted them it says they are fitted to destruction how has that happened well we may see an illustration of it in the second chapter of this very letter chapter 2 chapter 2 is where Paul deals with the moral person is he acceptable to God and we find no he's not he's not acceptable to God he's no better than the completely amoral person that we get in chapter 1 and nor is the Jew any better than him and that's in the second half of chapter 2 but we're just take this example of the moral person verse 3 of chapter 2 and thinkest thou this O man that judges them which do such things and doest the same that thou shalt escape the judgment of God or despises thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering not knowing the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance they despise God's patience God's long-suffering they despise it they think it's weakness on God's part here here never act I can get away with it I can be a hypocrite and I'll never have to face the consequences for it verse 5 but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurist up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God this is an example of one who's fitted to destruction all that end up in that awful place the lake of fire will be there on their own responsibility because they have not responded to the gospel of God but in verse 23 that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had a fall prepared unto glory yes God has a desire to make known the riches of his glory what wonderful words on the vessels of mercy those of us who have no claim on the Lord would have simply come to him in repentance and faith and we learn that he had prepared this for us before even the world's began you know I've told this story many times well it's not a story it's a kind of image and I'm sorry if you've heard it before from me or perhaps another brother but my mother always used to say this to me it's like coming to a door and you see on the door whosoever believeth those wonderful words of John chapter 3 verse 16 for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life the whosoever is available to everyone what you do you exercise faith in what God says you turn the handle you go through the door you're saved and you look back and you see there's another notice on the door on the other side of it when you're safely inside and it says chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world those two things God's sovereignty a man's responsibility they go along as parallel lines we can't bring them together in our minds it's impossible they're like the lines on a railway track the two rails if you were to stand there on the railway track don't do this but if you were to do this you would see that if you looked into the horizon they join where you are they're completely separate and you can walk a little further and there still be the same width I used to know the width between two railway tracks but I don't now between two rails of a railway track but I don't now but they're always that same width fortunately they're always separate they're two lines and we can't compromise them man's responsibility God's sovereignty whereas in the little image I've just explained to you there's an illusion that they come together in God the two things do come together he is able to reconcile these two things perfectly in a way that is beyond our comprehension our responsibility is to believe on the Lord Jesus as our savior and so Paul concludes verse 24 even us whom he hath called not of the Jews only but also of the Gentiles and so Paul is showing that if ultimately it comes down to recognizing that we've got no claims on God as we saw in those verses in Deuteronomy 7 it wasn't because of any special credible thing creditable thing about the people of Israel that God chose them chose them they were the smallest they weren't anything they weren't better than any other nation he just set his love upon them if we owe that there's nothing in us that causes us to deserve God's blessing then we can just come to him and it doesn't matter Jew or Gentile we can just come to him for blessing and so we see that although God's ways change from time to time across the centuries and the millennia of history his basic principle is always the same and we read those verses from Hosea where Paul uses the words of Hosea to really describe the position of the Jew in verse 25 and the position of the Gentile in verse 26 and we haven't got enough time to go into that in more detail but perhaps you would like to read those remaining verses of the chapter when you have an opportunity but in chapter 10 Paul moves on in his discussion of this subject and it seems to me as he's considered the wonderful opening up of the grace of God to every sinner that it warms his heart instead of having to speak about great heaviness and continual sorrow he says in verse 1 my heart's desire in fact you could translate this delight why well as we're going to see later in this chapter the very fact that Israel have rejected this way of salvation as we get at the end of chapter 9 though we haven't had enough time to go into it yet there's still an opportunity to preach to them as to the Gentile the wonderful grace of God God doesn't close up his offer of love and salvation even though these people have gone about seeking to be right with God on their own terms no you can't be right with God on your own terms there's nothing we can do to make ourselves right with God the law demands that we do the law demands righteousness on our part but as we read in chapter 3 there's none righteous no not one so it's impossible for us to be right with God on the basis of the law we simply have to come on the basis of God's free offer of salvation where he doesn't expect from us our righteousness but he gives us his righteousness and because of that we are accepted in the Lord Jesus Christ verse 4 here we see the Lord Jesus is the touchstone again for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth and then in these verses that follow Paul goes back to Deuteronomy chapter 30 and this has been sometimes felt a strange application of these words in Deuteronomy but of course Paul is dealing with Jewish objectors people who might say well this doesn't seem to accord with anything that I thought was so true of what God says in the law but if you go to Deuteronomy chapter 30 you'll see what God says to the people in regard to their situation when one day they find themselves exiled from the land no longer in the land we read about how they went into the land the land that God had promised them but a time would come when they would be outside the land because of their disobedience to God there will be no opportunity for them to keep the law in the way they had done when they have been in the land of promise what would they do then and in chapter 30 of Deuteronomy you get these words though we're running slightly over time let me just give you these words and then you can compare them with what Paul writes in chapter 10 and God says in verse 11 of chapter 30 of Deuteronomy for this commandment which I command you this day it is not hidden from thee neither is it far off it is not in heaven that thou shouldest say who shall go up for us to heaven and bring it unto us that we may hear it and do it neither is it beyond the sea thou shouldest say who shall go over the sea for us and bring it unto us that we may hear it and do it but the word is very nigh unto thee in thy mouth and in thy heart that thou mayest do it see I have set before thee this day life and good and death and even the people would have to give up the idea of hearing something can doing it in order to try and be right with God they would simply have to just cast themselves upon God and it's this principle that Paul takes up upon in in chapter 10 of his letter to the Romans he says that um don't say in thine heart verse 6 who shall ascend into heaven that is to bring Christ down from above don't think that you've got to find a savior from heaven and bring him down why he's already come and then who shall descend into the deep that is to bring up Christ again from the dead don't think that someone's got to go down into the place of judgment for you no because the Lord Jesus has already done that and God has raised him out from among the dead what Paul is saying is that the work has already been done for you and therefore in these words he says the word is nigh thee even in thy mouth and in thy heart that is the word of faith which we preach relying upon what God has said and although he doesn't mention the death of the Lord Jesus mention the death of the Lord Jesus specifically in these verses we might say might we that really and truly it's already been presented to them in chapters one to eight in this letter that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation really he's stressing the importance of putting our mouth where our heart is of saying yes I believe what God said I'm going to say it I'm going to confess it I'm going to make the Lord Jesus my Lord God has raised him from among the dead I make him my Lord the Lord Jesus is the touchstone the Lord Jesus is the answer without him there is no hope for us we must confess him as Lord the one who's in control of everything the one to whom I belong my master I believe in him at the end of chapter nine it said that the nation as a whole had stumbled at the stumbling stone who was the stumbling stone for them sadly it was the Lord Jesus himself though he had been the stone upon whom God said they would find salvation now Paul is saying look you've got to trust him you've got to make him your Lord why because God has delighted in raising him out from among the dead and exalting him at his right hand when you confess him as Lord you say God's right he has done everything for the glory of God and consequently everything for my blessing with the heart man believeth unto righteousness Christ has done it all he who went down below my sins right right down down deeper than any of us could go we have that in our hymn hymn 46 deeper far than thought can reach he went down at Calvary underneath the load of my sin where is he now he's at the right hand of God isn't that an assurance for you and me that our sins have been dealt with well shall I confess it make him your Lord it's a wonderful encouragement to us Christians but it's a wonderful encouragement to anyone who hasn't trusted the Lord Jesus there's no one else who can do this for you but the Lord himself for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved and then we get we got it I've missed it verse 12 there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him and then Paul goes on to speak about the wonderful privilege of preaching the gospel oh that I had a greater sense of the privilege of preaching the gospel we haven't got enough time to go into these words but just read them later on they show to us what a privilege it is to preach you can see now why Paul went to Jerusalem can't you even though the even though his brethren by the Holy Spirit told him not to you get a feeling why Paul did it he was so convinced that the gospel would really move the hearts of his brethren that they would trust the Lord Jesus and that's what he wanted yes his feet we sometimes criticize him for what he did but surely the feet of the apostle Paul were beautiful as he trod his life through this world to the prison cell where he spent his last years and then chapter 11 at the end of that chapter at the end of chapter 10 it says all day long have I stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people yes although we could say things about the apostle Paul we can only say them because he was in the flow in the line of his master he was in the spirit of his master he was only like this because the Lord Jesus is like this because God is like this God is holding out his hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people through his servants you get that don't you with the apostle Paul's writing in Corinthians where he says it's as it were God beseeching through us be reconciled with God have you ever thought of that God beseeching you to be reconciled to him and so we might think well with God being like that and them still as a nation turning their back on him really there's really not much chance for them at all is there God must close the door to them completely but he says hath God cast away his people God forbid don't think it may it not be and he gives three reasons why God hasn't done that the first reason is this him the apostle Paul he was the worst of the lot he called himself a chief of sinners didn't he and yet God had chosen him God had made him a minister of the gospel it's amazing of all people the Paul is the one as Saul who stands for the attitude of the nation but God had saved him God had made him his gospel preacher and then too the example of Elijah Elijah thought he was on his own there's a contrast here isn't there between Elijah and Moses Moses could say block them block me out of the book sadly and I don't criticize him because I'm sure Elijah was a greater man than I am but Elijah sadly he turned against the people you know the verses verses three and four but God had reserved God had reserved and there is an election among the people of Israel even today those who've trusted the Lord Jesus as their savior and it's wonderful to find them in verse five a remnant according to the election of grace and it's an indication that God's word is still having its effect in the hearts even of his earthly people who as a whole have turned against him but we read from verse seven downwards didn't we of what the nation has experienced and it is sad to think of the way in which as a whole the nation throughout the two thousand years since the Lord Jesus suffered and died on Calvary's cross have never turned to him have never it seems ever thought that their the vicissitudes that they've been through in those centuries are down to the fact that they crucified their Messiah you see what they've suffered what they suffered in the last century and there's never ever a hint that they think perhaps it was because we did wrong when we crucified Jesus never ever never ever does the thought ever appear in the writings of people who represent that nation and though so we see sadly that these verses have been fulfilled but Paul goes on to say have they stumbled verse 11 that they should fall God forbid but rather through their stumbling God has been enabled to offer his salvation to the gentile we have come into blessing through what has happened there's a richness that's come to us through his wonderful grace it's like Joseph that bow that went over the wall the Lord Jesus the blessings the fruits of what he's done have come over that middle wall of partition and have resulted in our blessing too and the apostle says I magnify my office as the apostle to the gentiles because by doing so showing to my Jewish brethren how much blessing gentiles are enjoying today through receiving the gospel I might provoke some you see some he's given up on the thought that the nation at the moment is going to come into blessing it's some but he wants some as many as possible to come to know the Lord Jesus and so he shows how he's able to preach such good things of salvation to the gentile in order that those of his own people who hear it might receive it because he knows that if the casting away of them verse 15 be the reconciling of the world what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead you know there has been much blessing in this world because of Christianity I just want to say these words we're living in a country which has given up Christianity and when this country when this country recognized Christianity when this country submitted to the bible even though many of those who made our laws didn't believe on the Lord Jesus when this country acknowledged that Christianity was the faith to have it did experience much blessing even those who weren't Christians experienced blessing but as this country has has has gone back on that has turned its back on the gospel so we see around us don't we all of us we we can't fool ourselves we see our own country breaking up breaking up before our eyes families communities all these things are beginning to go to pieces it's directly related to the way in which this country has turned its back on Christ and that's true of the whole western world to one extent or another and it's important to understand this because when Paul here talks about the olive tree he's not talking about the church as some Christians have it the idea of branches being broken out and other branches being put in in their place is totally alien to the presentation of the truth of the church as we get it in his other writings where he presents it as a body the body of Christ this olive tree is speaking about the blessings on earth that come from knowing the Lord Jesus and giving him his place and we are in a situation where Paul speaks here of those who are boasting boasting to the extent that they're saying they don't need God they know better than God and counting their heritage their Christian heritage as nothing and what will the result of that be God will stop his blessing towards the gentile the fullness of the gentile that just doesn't mean the gospel going out to everyone as it does at the moment in most countries but all the wonderful richness of blessing that comes with it when that fullness comes to an end then God will take up his earthly people again and all Israel will be saved not then just some but the whole nation at that time once it's gone through the sufferings of the day of Jacob's trouble and when all have realized their awful crime in crucifying the Lord Jesus and as we get it in Zechariah every family mourns apart they will enter into God's blessing as one whole nation and enjoy the place that God meant them to have when he chose them to be his special earthly people but that's the only way in which they're going to come into blessing when they do what each one of us here who's trusted the Lord Jesus have done when we've confessed that we're sinners and we've believed upon the Lord Jesus as our savior and so in these verses I've only really as we say scratched the surface and perhaps not very well but we see in these verses the way in which God's offer of grace to Jew and to gentile making no difference all may come does not in any way cut across his wonderful desires with regard to the people of Israel let us keep humble let us remember how we have come into blessing because the people of Israel turned against the Lord Jesus God didn't shut up his heart to us when he saw his own chosen earthly people rejecting his son no the gospel went out to us too you can read about it in the book of Acts let us be humble let us remember that we are only in this place out of God's wonderful mercy and that's why I read those closing verses in chapter 16. Why did I read them? Well because in this chapter if you look at all the names you'll find that most of the names end with US which means that they were Romans they were Gentiles these greetings are for Gentiles and today the church is primarily Gentiles but there's two people at least here who were Jews born Jews but have trusted the Lord Jesus as their savior Priscilla and Aquila Greek Priscilla and Aquila here are the election of the election of grace at this time Aquila and Priscilla Jews who have trusted the Lord Jesus and what does it say my helpers in Christ Jesus who have for my life laid down their own neck not necks neck unto whom not only I give thanks but also all the churches of the Gentiles yes that's the right spirit to have a spirit of humility to recognize that we have come into a blessing we never deserved but which comes come out to us flooded out to us through God's wonderful mercy and grace may we rejoice in it and seek to live it out in our lives as Aquila and Priscilla did shall we sing hymn 141 in deep eternal counsel before the world was made before its deep foundations on nothingness were laid God purposed us for blessing and chose us in his son to him to be conformed when here when here our course was run hymn 141 …