You can take your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 11. You got a hint there in our scripture reading of what we're going to be talking about today. The future of the nation of Israel. Lord willing, we'll make it to the end of the chapter this week. It's a lot of ground, a lot of ground to cover, but we'll just get right to it. This is another one of those mountaintop passages that seems to be so prevalent in the book of Romans. There's so much truth here, so much revealed by the Apostle Paul that in the end, the last few verses, he just launches into into praising the Lord for how great He is and how great these things are that we've just covered. Really, this whole section of Romans 9-11 is a mountain peak, if you will. We get such a wonderful picture of the Lord and His work in this world through this passage Scripture. As I've said before, you can see in some commentaries or a lot of commentaries that they will just leave this section out and covering the book of Romans. You'll see a lot of books or a lot of commentaries that just go over the first eight chapters of the book and then stop there. Or sometimes you'll see one that's the first eight chapters, skip 9, 10 and 11 and go right into 12 through 16. And that really does an injustice to what Paul has written here for us under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We don't want to just take out whole passages of Scripture and not deal with them. This section is actually very important for the whole argument of what Paul is saying. It's not a parenthetical thought or just a thing that he's decided to throw in here, but in fact it is very important to the whole point that he's trying to make. The goal of his writing here in these three chapters is to show that God is faithful, that God will keep His Word. In the first eight chapters, in the conclusion of that, he makes some pretty hefty promises to believers in Christ. 35, it says, who will separate us from the love of Christ? If we have our faith in Jesus Christ, nothing can separate us from the love that He has bestowed upon us. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. In verse 39, nothing that man can do, nothing that is in this life, nothing that is even outside of this life can separate us from the love of God through faith in Jesus Christ. And so that's the kind of promise that needs to have some sort of backing up, if you will. And that's what Romans 9-11 is. Because a person who has paid close attention to this may think that, well, if you're making these promises to us through, if we have our faith in Jesus Christ, then what about the nation of Israel? What about the promises that were made to them as a nation and as a people? Hence, Romans 9-11. Paul is going to say here, or has been saying, that God will keep his word to the nation of Israel. And we understand this by using an interpretation of the Bible that is literal. But not only that, we need to interpret the Bible in a literally, grammatically, and historically to understand exactly what is being said here. And there are three terms, so there are three parts to that method of interpretation or hermeneutic, you might hear it referred to as, the way that you interpret the Bible. God has revealed His Word to us. He's given us this Word. And it is the truth. God speaks to us. He's not trying to couch it in some kind of code or something that we need to figure out. When we hear words from people, we understand them literally. If the plain reading of the word makes sense, then there is no other sense. You might come across that phrase if you're into reading books about interpreting the Bible anyway. So when we read the words and we understand what they mean, that's what they mean. But there's more to it than that. It's not just a hard literalism that doesn't take into account literary devices, hence the term grammatical. You need to take into consideration the use of literary devices. Psalm 72 would be a good place to see where that comes into consideration. It says, there's several verses. Verse 5 says, let them fear you while the sun endures, and as long as the moon throughout all generations. May he come down like rain upon the mown grass, like showers that water the earth." That's obviously a literary device. It's an analogy. May he come down like rain upon the mown grass. It's speaking of the Lord. Obviously the Lord doesn't turn himself into drops of water and fall from the sky onto the mown grass. He's using a literary device there to say that the Lord comes down in that way or that it will be like that, that he's refreshing. When he comes, he will refresh the earth. That's the grammatical portion of literal, grammatical and historical. Historical means that you need to take into consideration who the author was and the audience that he was speaking to. These words aren't just given out in a vacuum. There's very few places that you can go in the Bible and just open it up, read the verse, and say, oh, that's great. I love that. Proverbs is a place where you can do that. Those are typically stand-alone verses that have a lot of truth for us. But as we'll see today in our passage, that's not the case. You need to understand who the author is, who he's talking to, and exactly what is being spoken about. You need to keep the text in the context that it's given. And that's the literal, grammatical, historical hermeneutic. And when we use that in this passage of Scripture, Romans 9-11, there are certain implications that come about. For example, when Paul says the nation of Israel, or he uses the term Israel, he means Israel, literally Israel, the nation of people who are the descendants of Jacob. And when he says Gentiles, he means Gentiles, people who aren't descendants of Jacob. And these are all things that we need to keep in mind as we go forward in this. And the great thing about the literal, grammatical, historical method of interpretation is that that is the only system of interpretation that can be used consistently throughout all of the Bible. There are people who interpret passages of Scripture allegorically or spiritually, saying that there's some kind of meaning under the text. What it actually says, well, it really means this. Well, you can't do that consistently everywhere. You would have to pick and choose different verses. Otherwise, we could just allegorize Jesus right out of the Scriptures and say that, well, he's just an analogy for a man who lived a good life. But we don't want to do that. We need to be consistent when we interpret the Bible. And the literal hermeneutic is the only one that you can do that across the board without having to pick and choose how you want to interpret it. That allows the Scripture to be Scripture. And we place ourselves under the Scripture. We don't take authority over the Scripture and decide how to interpret it. We just read it for what it says and the truth that it is. And as we've seen in these first eight chapters, there's just so much truth in them. We've basically seen that all people are sinners, that Jesus Christ is the only way that we can be saved, and that even after we're saved, however, we still have a sin nature and we still have to live this life in the flesh on the earth. But God has promised that He will be with us. His Holy Spirit indwells us. And we can rely on Him to guide us in this life that we live here. And God has promised to do great things for us. He promises in Romans 8.28 that He causes all things to work together for good. Everything that happens in this life of ours is designed for our good, whether we can see it now or not. And He promises that He loves us and nothing can separate us from that love. And so, in order to show that God will keep His promises to us, Paul decides that it's appropriate to show that He will keep His Word to the nation of Israel. In chapter 9, we saw how he sovereignly chose the nation of Israel. He sovereignly chose Abraham to be the individual through which he would make this nation. He sovereignly chose Isaac. He sovereignly chose Jacob. He sovereignly chose the whole nation of Israel over Pharaoh. But the nation of Israel did not act in faith. Romans 9.27 says that Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that will be saved. Another term that's very important to keep in mind, the remnant, those who are faithful. Verse 30 says, what shall we say then? The Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith. But Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. The nation of Israel did not go after God in faith. The only way that we can have righteousness is through faith. That's the whole point of the first eight chapters of the letter. And Israel stumbled in that. They tried to create their own righteousness by doing good works in the law. In Romans chapter 10, Paul tells us how we can have that faith. God sends a preacher. He preaches the Word. People hear the Word. They call on the Lord and they are saved. And that's what Israel did not do. But only the remnant did that. The ones who were faithful are the remnant. The ones who relied on the Lord in faith. But then in chapter 11, Paul points out that that's not the end of Israel. They have, as a nation, they've rejected God, they've rejected the righteousness that comes by faith in Christ, but they haven't been forsaken forever. They haven't stumbled so badly that they have fallen. They still have a future. Romans 9 is all about the past of Israel. Romans 10 is about their present rejection. Romans 11 is about the future salvation of Israel. And that's where we get today. Hence the title of the message, God will save his people. This is a promise. that God has made to the nation of Israel. That's what we read in our Scripture reading, that they will have this kingdom in the future, that their Messiah will come and He will save them and institute this kingdom. And that's what Romans 11 is all about. And we finally get to that today in verse 25. And I'll just go ahead and read 25 through the end of the chapter. Romans 11.25 says, For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, so that you will not be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, just as it is written, the Deliverer will come from Zion. He will remove ungodliness from Jacob. This is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. From the standpoint of the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But from the standpoint of God's choice, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you were once disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you, they also may now be shown mercy. For God has shut up all in disobedience so that he may show mercy to all. Oh, the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become his counselor? Or who has first given to him that it might be paid back to him again? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I just ask that You would be with us in this time. I pray that Your Holy Spirit would meet here with us this morning and that You would give us the mind of Christ that we can understand Your words and that they can be presented clearly to us. And I pray that this wouldn't just be knowledge that we put into the back of our minds and carry it around like the wallet in our back pocket, but that it would be something that would change us into the people that you want us to be. I pray that you would give us a burden to live lives of obedience. Live lives that make the lost people around us ask us, Why do we have so much hope? Why do we have so much joy in our lives? I pray that Your Word would just richly indwell us and guide us as we walk in our lives. And I just pray Your special blessing over this time. In Jesus' name, Amen. So in this passage of Scripture, we basically have three sections. Verses 25-27, Paul is presenting a mystery. You can see it in your outline in the bulletin if you happen to have one of those. Verses 25-27 are the mystery. Verses 28-32 are all about the mercy of God. And verses 33-36 are all about the majesty of God. So in this section, talking about the future of Israel, the mystery, the mercy, and the majesty. Verse 25 says, For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, so that you will not be wise in your own estimation that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. The very first thing that we see in this passage is the importance that Paul is placing on this section of Scripture. He says, for I do not want you brethren to be uninformed of this mystery. Whenever he uses that phrase, and he uses it quite often in his epistles, he wants to emphasize what he is saying. The I do not want you to be uninformed. I want you to understand this. And then whenever he uses that phrase, he always puts the term brethren or brothers on with it. just really wants to impress upon them the fact of this Christian truth that he's trying to tell them. It's wonderful to have brothers and sisters in Christ. And when you travel around this world, or you come in contact with other people, and they happen to be Christians, there's an immediate bond there. At least there should be anyway. And that bond is through the fact that we have faith in Jesus Christ. And we are actually brothers and sisters in Christ. And it's a wonderful thing. And Paul is bringing that to mind here so that the people understand that what is about to come is important. And it's important that we as Christians understand what he's going to say. And what he's going to say is this mystery. And we need to understand what a mystery is before we go any further, at least a mystery in this context. It's not a mystery in the way that we typically think of it. The thing that immediately comes to my mind when I think of a mystery is the TV show Murder, She Wrote. Every episode is a mystery, something that needs to be figured out. So Angela Lansbury goes around with her magnifying glass and finds the fingerprints or sees the whatever the thing is, she gathers a bunch of clues and figures out who committed the murder. Well, that's not what Paul is talking about here. And it's also not like the mystery religions that we might hear about. I think of the Freemasons as kind of something that is along those lines, that there are an initiated few people who understand what is actually going on in this group. And you have to be initiated into the group to know the secrets. And that's not what Paul is talking about here either. This is something, in this term mystery, Paul is describing the will of God that is now being revealed to us. He is telling us the truth. He's telling us the truth of this situation that wasn't previously known. So it's like it's the end of the Murder, She Wrote show when all the people, all the potential suspects are gathered together in the room and the detective says, This person did it, and this is why. They lay out the facts of the case, and the person is revealed who it is. Well, that's what Paul is doing here. He is telling us the facts of the case, and this is the truth. So that's the aspect of the mystery. here that Paul is talking about. And there are several mysteries that Paul uses in all of his writings. There are several mysteries that Paul reveals to us in his writings. One of which is that Jesus, the physical person of Jesus, is the Christ, the Messiah. 1 Corinthians 2.7, Colossians 2.2. The fact that all things will be summed up in Christ, really the importance of Jesus Christ. Ephesians 1.9 is another mystery that Paul reveals to us. The rapture of the church is another mystery, 1 Corinthians 15. But this fact that all things will be summed up in Jesus Christ is what Paul is getting at here also. The fact that God in His sovereignty and in His mercy is bringing life back to the way that it was intended to be in the garden before man fell. That's the direction, that's the trajectory that God is taking this earth through His sovereignty. kingdom on the earth that we know now as the Millennial Kingdom. That is what God is driving us towards and that is this mystery here that Paul is revealing to us. And this mystery actually has two parts to it that we can see here. It says Second half of the verse says, so that you will not be wise in your own estimation, he's revealing this mystery, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And then in verse 26, we see the second part of the mystery. And so all Israel will be saved. So we have this partial hardening of Israel and the fact that Israel will be saved at a point in the future. And the reason for the revealing of this mystery is given also, so that you will not be wise in your own estimation. If you remember from the last time, in verses 18 and 21 of chapter 11, Paul gives a warning against arrogance, basically. As a Gentile believer or as a church-age believer, we should not be arrogant. We shouldn't think that we're better than other people because we have our faith in Christ. We certainly shouldn't think that we're better than our fellow Jewish believers. We should be humble and we should fear God, knowing what He can do. One of those places in Scripture that you can go and just read things that I mentioned earlier and take things away from it is Proverbs. Proverbs 16, 18. Pride goes before a fall. And we are called to fear God, to walk in humility with Him. James 4, 6 and following, walk in fear of the Lord, walk in humility because of the things that He has done for us and the things that He could do to us. We see that this hardening is the result of the rejection of God, the rejection of the faith. or the rejection of the righteousness that has been made available to us. God doesn't just harden people at will. We saw that even with Pharaoh. When Moses came to him, Pharaoh rejected the words that Moses had to say to him, and Pharaoh was subsequently hardened. And we see that here also. The nation of Israel has rejected Jesus as the Christ, as the Messiah, and they have been hardened. But this hardening is actually, it's partial in two different ways. It says that a partial hardening has happened to Israel. It's partial in number and it's partial in time also. We know that the remnant isn't hardened. Paul has been talking about the remnant of Israel all through this. These are the members of the nation of Israel who operate on faith. They believe what the Lord has said to them. They have their faith in Jesus Christ now. They are the remnant and they're not hardened. Believers in Christ don't need to be hardened. We believe. The hardening is a mechanism through which God tries to get people to believe. And it's also partial in time. And we know that from chapter 11 and verse 1. It says, I say then, God has not rejected his people, has he? May it never be. God has not completely rejected his people. So we know that this hardening will be will go away in the future. And from verse 26 it says, so all Israel will be saved. And when they are saved, they will not be hardened anymore. But a major part of this mystery that Paul is speaking about is the fullness of the Gentiles. What exactly does that mean? It says that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. When Paul uses these terms, Israel and Gentiles, he's speaking about specific people. We know from history, at the time that Paul was writing this letter about 57 AD, the majority of the people who were coming to faith in Christ were Gentiles, non-Jewish people. We can see that in the book of Acts in the later chapters after Paul has started his ministry. He goes to the Jewish people. They reject him. He goes to the Gentiles and massive numbers of Gentile people are saved. It doesn't mean, of course, that no Jewish people are saved. Obviously, they can be and are also when they place their faith in Christ. But here Paul is referring to something specific. Until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. We as church age believers, people who are putting our faith in Christ, are typically called. We are called. That's Romans chapter 10. The word goes out. God sends preachers and they call the Word of Christ to us. And if you are a believer, you respond to that call and you come in to the family of God. So when he says that until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, he's speaking of when that last Gentile person, or when that last person from this age that we are living in comes in, believes the Word of Christ, places their faith in Jesus Christ as their only hope, then something else is going to happen. And it says, and so all Israel will be saved. But Paul doesn't just leave it there, of course. It says, just as it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion. He will remove ungodliness from Jacob. Obviously, Paul is talking about salvation here. He says, so all Israel will be saved. And so this fullness of the Gentiles, sometimes you'll see commentators that will speak of the time of the Gentiles, that they'll say that this is what this is referring to now, that Gentile nations are kind of running the world at this point. But Paul is obviously talking about salvation here. He says all Israel will be saved. And so we need to keep that in context. This is talking about the Gentile people who will be saved in this age. And when that is complete under God's sovereign plan, then the Deliverer will come from Zion and all Israel will be saved. And after this fullness of the Gentiles has come in, by using a literal, grammatical, historical hermeneutic, we can see that the focus will change to the nation of Israel. Now the focus of this world is on the church in God's eyes. People coming to faith in Christ before The day of Pentecost, basically, the focus was on the nation of Israel and God's dealing with His people. Now He is dealing with His church. And when that time is complete in God's sovereign plan, then He will turn His eyes back towards the nation of Israel. Back to the time that He will bring them, basically, to their knees so that they will place their faith in Jesus Christ. And this doesn't necessarily mean that every single Israelite will be saved. Just like the fullness of the Gentiles doesn't necessarily mean, or obviously doesn't mean, that every single Gentile person on this planet will be saved. Obviously, we don't believe in universal salvation. It means that every Gentile person who will put their faith in Christ will have done so. And so, we could apply that same thing to Israel. That only all of the people of Israel who will place their faith in Christ will be saved. And they will be what Paul refers to in Galatians 6.16 as the Israel of God. The ones who are truly faithful. And you can come across some commentators who will say that it is actually literally every single Jewish person alive on the planet will believe. And obviously there's some good evidence for that. The second half of verse 26 says that the Deliverer will come from Zion. He will remove ungodliness from Jacob. Verse 27, this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. And this is a reference to the book of Isaiah chapter 59 that Paul is basically quoting here. Isaiah 59 and verse 20. In the New American Standard Bible it says, Isaiah 59 20, A redeemer will come to Zion and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob, declares the Lord. So when this Deliverer comes, the people who turn from their ungodliness will be the ones who are saved. And we can know these things by interpreting this prophecy literally, just like Paul is doing here. He doesn't just make these claims and not back them up with something. He points us back to Scripture and the book of Isaiah in this case. But we certainly see the picture of salvation through faith in this Isaiah 59 and 20. A redeemer will come to Zion and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob, declares the Lord. And when we interpret those terms literally, this is obviously speaking of Israel. Zion is Israel. Jacob is Israel. And so these people who put their faith in this Redeemer who is coming to Zion, they turn from their transgressions and they will be saved. And in verse 27 of Romans 11, it says, this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. Verse 21, of Isaiah 59 says, As for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord. My spirit which is upon you and my words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring's offspring, says the Lord, from now and forever. And then Jeremiah 31 is another place that speaks of this same covenant that Paul is referring to here in Romans 11. Jeremiah 31 and verse 31 says, we've talked about this several times in this section, but, Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them, declares the Lord, but this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days." That's an important phrase. After those days, after the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, God will make a new covenant with His people. He says, I will put my law within them and on their heart. I will write it and I will be their God and they shall be my people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity and their sin. I will remember no more. So Paul is making reference to these Old Testament Scriptures as if they are literally true. He's using them to prove his point that all Israel will be saved. And he takes us to a passage of Scripture and he tells us what it says. And we are to understand that that literally means what he is saying. And we see several things about this new covenant. that Paul is mentioning here. In verse 31 of Jeremiah 31, it says that this is a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. And when we understand those terms literally, the house of Israel, the house of Judah, that's what it means. The new covenant is with Israel. And it also involves the taking away of their sins. He says in verse 33, I will put my law within them and on their heart I will write it and I will be their God and they shall be my people. Isaiah 59 and verse 21 also talks about that. The Spirit being put within them. And we see that this is an eternal covenant in Isaiah 59 and verse 21. It says that this will be on their descendants forever and ever. the Lord says in Isaiah 59-21. This new covenant is the covenant that God is going to use to make life the way it was in the Garden of Eden. God is a God who makes covenants with people. And a lot of these covenants are just His Word. He makes unconditionally with the people. He tells the nation of Israel specifically in the Abrahamic Covenant and this New Covenant that I am going to do these things for you and it doesn't matter what you do. And that's what Paul is saying here also, that even though they have rejected the Christ, rejected Jesus as the Christ, he is still going to carry out his Word, carry out these promises that he made way back almost 3,000 years ago to Isaiah and Jeremiah when he revealed his Word to them and he said he's going to do these certain things for the nation of Israel. He's going to do it. And that's what Paul is telling us here in these verses, that God will keep his Word to his people. And the reason for this is to bring the world back to this life the way that he originally created it. So God has made these series of covenants to bring us to the point where we can have and enjoy life the way it was supposed to be. And that's what we saw in Isaiah 65 also. Just a glimpse of how that life is going to be, where there will be peace between people and between the animal kingdom and people also. The strife will be taken away. Life will be as it was originally created to be. So this is the mystery that Paul is speaking of. A partial hardening has happened to Israel until that last Gentile person is saved by faith. And that doesn't mean necessarily that no more Gentiles will be saved after that point in time, but just that God has this plan for the universe that now the focus is on primarily the Gentile church, people who are putting their faith in Christ. And when that time has come to an end, then the Deliverer will come to Zion and all Israel will be saved. So even though we have this mystery here, the one thing that is abundantly clear in really this whole letter, and this section in particular, is that we serve a God of mercy. Notice verses 28 through 32. It says, from the standpoint of the gospel, they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God's choice, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you, they also may now be shown mercy. For God has shut up all in disobedience, so that he may show mercy to all." This is obviously the mercy of God on display, but not just to the Jewish nation, but really to the whole world. God is a God of mercy. And the last time I think I misspoke on my percentages. There are approximately 13 million Jewish people on the planet now, and if we figure there are 6 billion people on the planet, that means that the Jewish nation is 0.2% of the population of the world. That's pretty small. One-fifth of 1% of the world is Jewish. And God specifically chose that nation And he specifically had mercy on that nation. But we see here that God has mercy on the other 99.8% of the people also. It says in verse 28, from the standpoint of the gospel, they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God's choice, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. That word God's is inserted into the text there in the New American Standards. It's talking about from the standpoint of choice, to the standpoint of election, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. As a whole, as a general rule, the nation of Israel, the Jewish people, are enemies of Jesus Christ. And they have been from the beginning. And this is because of the Gospel that He came to preach to them. They were creating their own righteousness through the law. And that feels kind of good. make a standard and then reach that standard, you feel pretty good about yourself. That you've accomplished something. And unfortunately for the nation of Israel, that's what they did for their salvation. They created a standard. They met the standard. And we've arrived. We did it. We're good to go. But Jesus Christ, of course, sees the heart and knows that on the inside, those people were not saved. He called them whitewashed sepulchers and several other things that weren't very flattering. People cannot create their own righteousness. And they were, in fact, looking for a Messiah who would deliver them from their circumstances, would deliver them from Rome and set up this kingdom that they know all about from the Old Testament. The Old Testament is filled with descriptions of this kingdom. The Messiah who will come and set up a kingdom on this earth and the nation of Israel is going to rule and everything is going to be great. And that's what they wanted. They wanted to be delivered from their circumstances, made the superpower of the world and rule over the nations and man, this is going to be great. But there's one qualifying thing that is a real problem for people. In order to be in that kingdom, you need to be righteous. And that was all of Jesus' preaching in the Gospels, basically, is that you need to have righteousness. Righteousness that is far exceeds that standard that had been set up by the Pharisees. And they didn't want to have anything to do with that. They wanted to keep their law, keep their standard, keep their own standard of righteousness, but have all the benefits. And we can do the same thing. We need to ensure that our faith is in the right thing and we're not setting up standards that we can meet and then feel good about ourselves. We need to humbly realize that we are sinners and that we need the Lord to save us. But we see that because of their calling, because the Lord called them out from among the nations, Here, they are still beloved for the sake of the fathers, it says in the end of verse 28. We still have a kinship with the Jewish people because we are both blessed through Abraham and through the Abrahamic covenant. It said way back in Genesis 12 that Abraham would be a blessing to all the people of the world. And he is a blessing to all the people of the world through faith in Jesus Christ. But the Jewish people are descendants of Abraham also. So we have this same kind of kinship, if you will. We're distant cousins with them. And they are beloved because of the sake of the fathers. Because of the promises that were made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we as Christian believers should share this kinship with them. The Jewish people are His chosen physical people of God. And the Gentile church or believers in the church age are his spiritual children. And therefore, they're not our enemies. They are beloved through God's choice of making salvation available through faith. And we see that all people can be saved through faith. We'll see that in the verses to come. Verse 29 says, For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. And we see this great mercy that God has by making His salvation irrevocable. It cannot be taken back. The gifts being irrevocable reminds us of Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. For by faith are you saved. I'm going to ruin it because I'm trying to think too fast. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. It is the gift of God, not as a result of words so that no one may boast. The gift of God is a very important thing to understand what that means. Talking about the salvation that we have through faith. That's not of ourselves. It's a gift from God. We didn't create salvation through faith. God did. And it's a gift that He offers to us. And we know that because verse 9 says that it's not as a result of works. so that no one may boast. Salvation is a gift given through faith. So don't boast about it. That's the same thing that Paul is talking about earlier in Romans 11 when he says, do not be arrogant toward the branches, verse 18. He says that we shouldn't be arrogant towards the Jewish believers, but we should fear God. And God's calling of Israel is also irrevocable. Romans 11.1, that God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be. That's the whole point of Romans 9-11. That God will keep His Word to Israel. And we know that nothing can separate us from Christ once we put our faith in Him. Romans 8.35 and 38. Our salvation is irrevocable. Once we put our faith in Christ, we are in His hand and nothing can take us away from that. And God's calling of Israel cannot be undone either. He's made unconditional promises to them. God is the God of truth, and therefore, He cannot lie, so His people will be saved. He will carry out what He says He will do. And in verse 30 it says, Notice that he's kind of closing out this section, verses 30 through 32, just the same way that he started it in verses 11 through 15, giving the reason why the Jewish people rejected Jesus Christ. Verse 30 says, For just as you were once disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, So these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you, they also may now be shown mercy." So God, this is basically giving the whole history of the world here in these verses. God chose Israel, chose Abraham because of the disobedience of the whole world. If you remember back in Genesis, the event that takes place right before Abraham is called out is the Tower of Babel. And it is in that that the world basically began false worship. Setting up their own gods. That's what the Tower of Babel was all about. So God chooses one person through which he would make a nation who won't worship these false gods. Who will worship the one true God. That's one of the major reasons for the choosing of the nation of Israel. A people who would be faithful to God, but eventually they disobeyed what God had said. They did not follow Him. And through that, mercy was extended to the Gentile people. That's what Paul is saying here in verse 30. That through the disobedience of the Israelites, mercy is shown to the Gentiles and now the Gentile people can be saved. And the goal of this Salvation going to the Gentiles is to provoke the nation of Israel to jealousy so that they will believe also. And God is going to do that following this time of the Gentiles. When the fullness of the Gentiles comes in, His focus will turn back towards Israel. And that there will come a time that is referred to in Jeremiah 30 as the time of Jacob's trouble. And when we interpret these things literally and put the pieces together, we get this timeline of the time of the Gentiles being fulfilled, the time of Jacob's trouble, the coming of the Deliverer to Zion. And this time of Jacob's trouble is the tribulation, the time when God is bringing his nation basically to their knees so that they will believe in the one who is to deliver them. Zechariah 12.10 says that in this time they will see the one that they have pierced and they will mourn and they will believe in Jesus Christ. They will have their faith in Christ. And that is the summation of this life on earth. When the nation of Israel finally repents and puts their faith in Christ, a time of tremendous blessing will be ushered in in what we know as the Millennial Kingdom. And we truly see the mercy of God and the purpose of all this in verse 32. He says, for God has shut up all in disobedience, after explaining how the Gentile people were in disobedience, the Jewish people were in disobedience. All people are in disobedience. That's Romans 1.18-3.20. All people are sinners. And here it is wrapped up in one sentence, closing off this section of the book. For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all. When we interpret those words literally, that means all people are sinners and all people have an opportunity to have their faith in Jesus Christ because God is so merciful. And Paul, of course, doesn't just say that here, but he makes it known to Timothy also in 1 Timothy 2. Verses 5 and 6, it says, For there is one God and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all. The testimony given at the proper time. Jesus Christ gave himself as a ransom for all people so that God could show mercy to all people. So we don't have time to go through it, but what should our reaction be to all of this? What should our reaction be to a sovereign God who has mercy on us? Even though Adam sinned in the garden, and that sin nature is translated to all of us, and we are all sinners, under the hands of an angry God, as it's been said before, under the hand of a God who can destroy us, the harshness of God, but also the mercy of God that we see here. What should our reaction be to that? that we are sinners, we are completely undeserving, and yet God in His grace and in His mercy offered Himself for us. He didn't make us do it. He didn't make us give our own lives for our sin, but He gave His own life. He came from a perfect heaven and gave His own life so that we could be saved. People who provoke Him to His face. Like it says in Isaiah 65, when we sin, the eyes of God are everywhere. And when we sin, we're not sinning in secret. We are provoking God to His face because He sees it and He knows it. And so, Our reaction to that should be one of just absolute gratefulness and absolute awe of the things that God has done for us. And that's verses 33 through 36. That Paul is acknowledging the incredible wisdom, the incredible knowledge of God, the absolute sovereignty of God over this world. that is so much more than just having people who are puppets, if you will, just going along with doing exactly what He dictates to us. No, He gives us a mind that we can think and do things, but yet His sovereign, perfect will is still accomplished. It's like we're playing cards with someone who is not breaking the rules, but they win every hand. No matter what we do, no matter what the cards were dealt, he wins every time. He takes all of the tricks every time. And that's the way it is with God in this world. He is completely sovereign over this world, but yet we are still given the choice of whether or not we want to have our faith in Him. And we are given the choice of whether or not we want to submit to His Holy Spirit in our lives. And our reaction should be one of submission. We should desire with our whole hearts to live lives that are holy and separated for Him. We should have a desire to follow His Word, to understand His Word, because when He is telling us these things, they are obviously important and they can change our lives and they can make us be the people that He wants us to be and that we can live lives that are pleasing So I hope that that is your takeaway from this. That God is working His plan for the world. He sees the big picture. He knows where the thing is headed on this grand scale. But at the same time, He cares about our individual hearts and how we live our lives. And He desires for us to be pleasing to Him. And obviously, we should desire to be pleasing to Him because of just the incredible, majestic, merciful things that He has done for us. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for giving us your Word. I thank you for giving us the Word who became flesh and came to this earth as a ransom for us. People who are so undeserving. People who provoke you to your face when we sin. I pray, Lord, that You would forgive us when we do that. I pray that You would forgive us of the times that we sin against You and we don't even realize it in our own finite, feeble minds. I just pray that Your Word would dwell in our hearts and that it would conform us into the people that You desire for us to be. I pray that these deep truths of your Word wouldn't just be academic knowledge, but that they would be spiritual knowledge that changes us and that causes us to be the spiritual people that you desire for us to be. I pray that we would be satisfied in the place that you have for us I pray that we would have a desire to follow you and to follow your word and to be wholly submitted to you and that we would be champions for Christ in this life that we live and that we would be a light that shines brightly for you because of the word that you have given to us. I just pray that you would go with us in this week to come and that your will would be done. In Jesus' name, Amen.