If you have your Bibles, please open them to Romans chapter 11. The assembly of believers in Rome were made up of two distinct groups with two distinctly different backgrounds. It was made up of Jews who knew of Abraham. and Moses and David and Isaiah. They had the law, they had the prophets, they had the covenants, they had the promises. They had the adoption. And then there were the Gentiles who had come out of paganism. They either believed in many gods or they believed in no gods. But they knew nothing of the law of God. They knew nothing of Abraham and Moses and David and Isaiah. In Romans chapters 9 through 11, Paul focuses on Israel and the Jews and their rejection of the promised Messiah. If you were to look into what The rabbis, current rabbis, think of Christianity. And what they think of Christianity's claim that the Jews must come to Christ in order that they would be redeemed, they would say that that is stupidity and foolishness. That God had made promises again and again in the Old Testament that this was an everlasting covenant with them. And that they don't need to move from their position. Because they have a covenant with God. That He promised would be an everlasting covenant. That they have a history of time and again when they rebelled against God. And that He sent them off into exile. Or disciplined them under the whipping boy of another nation. They would repent. He would bring them back. And things would resume as they were before. And this happened again and again and again. What they fail to remember is in Jeremiah chapter 3 and verse 8, God wrote a bill of divorcement for the nation of Israel. He divorced her and chose to go after Judah. from which Jesus came from the tribe of Judah. Judah, the small group of people in the southern kingdom, that the 12 tribes of Israel were divided during the reign of Rehoboam and Jeroboam. Rehoboam being the son of Solomon, king of Israel, and ultimately Jeroboam, son of Nebat, who also vied for the same title. Rehoboam, as we have looked at just recently in 2 Chronicles, Rehoboam, when he was appointed by his father Solomon, Solomon who had built the temple, the very thing that David wanted to do, his father David, but David was a man of war with bloody hands. God said that he would not build a house for him, but that his son Solomon would. And Solomon built the house. And Solomon dedicated the house. And God said to Solomon, as long as you follow after me, and you remain faithful to me, and do not intermarry with the women of other tribes and other nations, and remain faithful to me, I will continue to bless you. And God gave to Solomon more wisdom than he had ever given to any man. And God added to Solomon's wisdom wealth and riches beyond compare. But Solomon in his foolishness and in his sinful heart chose to marry women from other tribes and other beliefs. And they did exactly what God said would happen. They corrupted his heart and he worshiped other gods and joined other gods and other worships and other sacrifices in with the sacrifice of God. And upon Solomon's death, his son Rehoboam took his place. He had an opportunity to repent of those things. And Rehoboam, when he consulted with the sages, the wise men that were Solomon's counselors, they told him to ease up on the people. Lift the burdens upon them. Earn their trust. Show them that you are for them and not against them. Work with them and they'll work with you. And then he consulted with his contemporaries, the men of his own age, who said, don't listen to those old crotchety old men. You assert your authority. You go in there and you tell the people who you are that you think that my father's thigh was heavy on you. Well, my finger, my little finger will be heavier than my father's thigh. I will show you who's boss. And the people rebelled. And 10 of the tribes, known as the tribe of Israel, they followed Jeroboam, who caused Israel to sin. And Judah and Benjamin, they followed Rehoboam and were called the tribe of Judah. They made up the southern kingdom. The 10 tribes of Israel made up the northern kingdom. When I was in seminary, I had a hard time remembering the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. And I remembered it by thinking that in the north it's cold. And the northern tribes, they were cold against God. And the south is warm. And the southern tribes, the southern kingdom of Judah was warm toward God. But God established way back then that there was going to be a distinction between national Israel, who was cold toward God, and the tribe of Judah, whose heart beat for God. When we come to the coming of the Messiah, the promised Messiah that God had promised the nation of Israel, He would send them a deliverer. The deliverer was foretold many times in the book of Isaiah, in the book of Ezekiel, in the book of Daniel. Prophesied the false prophets in the prophecy of Jeremiah and talked about those who would twist the truth of God and falsely represent Him. The Jews to this day believe that Jesus endorsed the Sanhedrin, the 70, because Moses had sent out his 70 and that this was the Sanhedrin. And that because the Sanhedrin rejected Jesus as the Messiah, the Jews in following their sages would reject the Messiah. Because they didn't have the right to interpret the scriptures by themselves that God set up priests, God set up sages, the Sanhedrin, the men who would read the scriptures. And ultimately, when we come to the New Testament, and we have the Pharisees and the Sadducees, many of whom were members of the Seventy or the Sanhedrin, They were those who spoke against Jesus, spoke against his authority because he denounced them in their perversion of the Word of God. We're in the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus said, you have heard it said, but I say to you. And then Jesus told them what the truth of the word was. And in Matthew chapter five, verse 16 and 17, Jesus spoke of the fact that he did not come to destroy the law. He came to fulfill it, that in the coming of Christ, he would be the fulfillment of this law that the Jews looked at from a distance and attempted to keep. So in Romans chapters 9 and 10, we have seen thus far in chapter 9, that Paul focused on Israel's past election. Reminding them that not all Israel is of Israel. That just as you had the 12 tribes of Israel, it was only the tribe of Judah. that was faithful to God. It was only the tribe of Judah whose heart beat for God. It was only the tribe of Judah that had the godly line of kings as opposed to the kings of Israel that were wicked and followed after Baal and other gods. Then in chapter 10 we saw that Paul focused on Israel's present rejection And he was saying to them, quoting Old Testament passages, that the Word of God was in their heart and in their mouth. There wasn't any new information they needed. They had all the scriptures. They had all the truth that God wanted them to have. It was simply a matter of embracing the truth and applying it. That when Jesus came, that He was the fulfillment of this. Whether you've ever worked as a seamstress, I never have, but you have patterns or you have templates that are put down and you cut around it to make a dress or something of that nature, same in woodworking or metalworking. There's a template, there's a pattern, a design that is laid down and you trace around it. And Jesus is the fulfillment of that template. You could take the template of the Old Testament and lay it down on the life of Jesus and it fits perfectly. It's a perfect fit. And so in chapter 10, he focused on Israel's present rejection, how they didn't see a need for salvation and they don't see a need for salvation today. They believe they're fine just the way they are. And they see Christianity as a disruptor. They see us as anti-Semitic. They see us as those who are belittling them and believing that their belief is inferior. That how could the belief in the covenant relationship that God made with them, how could that be inferior? That God announced this covenant among the people, 600,000 men in the Old Testament, before they left Egypt and traveled into the Promised Land. Now this morning in chapter 11, We'll see that he focuses on Israel's future restoration. And this is where it becomes very difficult. Chapter 11 is a difficult chapter. I mean, the words are very simple to understand, the words that are there. But the concepts that he lays down, Bible scholars are divided on what all this means. Does the restoration of Israel mean that all of Israel in that geographic location to the east of the Mediterranean Sea, 200 miles long, approximately from one end to the other. Is this sliver of land that is now being the hotbed of fighting between the Arabs and the Jews, the Palestinians and the Jews, the West Bank and arguing over and fighting over that little sliver of land that the Jews are going back to the Old Testament and saying, this is all part of our boundaries that God gave to us. This is our land. We deserve to have it. Their belief, the Jews' belief that on the Dome of the Rock where there is currently a Muslim mosque, They believe that that's where the temple is going to be rebuilt and they're going to rebuild it. And they're going to defeat the Arabs and they're going to tear down that mosque and they're going to build a temple there. So there are those within the dispensational community, most of the Protestant churches in Erie and the Roman Catholic Church, they believe that God is going to once again deal with Israel as a nation. and that Israel is going to be brought back on center stage and that the nation of Israel as a geographic location and as a people God is going to save each one of them. Because he says in Romans chapter 11 that ultimately all Israel will be saved. But then there are those within the reformed camp and even there there are differing positions but within the reformed camp The belief is that in Galatians chapter 6 and verse 16 where Paul refers to the church as the Israel of God. That what he's talking about when he says all Israel will be saved is that every single person whom God has chosen from before the foundation of the world. Based upon passages we see in Revelation about those whose names were written in the Lamb's Book of Life from before the foundation of the world, he is not adding names as time goes on. But the Reformed camp believes that every single person whom God has purposed to save will be saved, and that all Israel, all of his chosen people, be they Jew or Gentile, that in Ephesians chapter 2 Paul goes to great pains to talk about how in the destroying of the veil that was in the temple, and the veil being four inches thick of fabric, You know they have, they used to have the, I can't remember what it was called, it was some kind of evangelical strongman team and they would go to churches and show with their big muscles that just like they're able to rip a phone book down the center and they're able to take an aluminum pan and curl it up and they're able to blow up a hot water bottle until it explodes, that with such strength they have all this physical strength but that God has more strength. Everybody would marvel if they would take a phone book and tear it in half, tear it down the middle. But the veil of the temple was four inches thick of fabric, four inches thick. And it tore from the top all the way to the bottom at the crucifixion of Christ. And that Paul goes on and explains that this is the picture that the middle wall of partition that separated God from the people, that that was torn down in Christ was the access into the Holy of Holies and that there is not only anymore a barrier between the people and the holiness of God, that the barrier between the Jew and the Gentile was torn down as well. And that out of those two people, he made one called the church. So when we read the book of Hebrews, And the book of Hebrews, we don't know, the author is not identified. Most believe that Paul, the apostle, wrote the epistle to the Hebrews. But as we read the epistle to the Hebrews, we understand that the writer has gone to great pains to describe the fact that the old covenant, that covenant that was made with Israel, the covenant in which God chose them as a national people, tied to that particular piece of land in the Middle East, that that is no longer binding. That it was inferior in many different ways. It was pointing to Christ, who was the ultimate. He was the superior. He was the means of redemption once and for all. That what took place in the old covenant, in the sacrifices that would happen, and the people going to Jerusalem three times a year for these pilgrimages. And the sacrifices that had to be repeated year after year after year, the writer of Hebrews said, as wonderful as they were as a means of atoning for the people's sins, they couldn't ultimately, permanently take away their sins. It had to be repeated every single year. Year after year after year after year. And the people never had the assurance that their sins were permanently taken away. That's why it was inferior. It's pointing to the one. They would offer a lamb and sacrifice the blood of the lamb and during the Passover they would sprinkle the blood and then they would eat the animal's meat and they would partake of the Lord. In John chapter 6 when Jesus said, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you cannot be my disciple. He's pointing to consuming Christ. And that in the Old Testament with the Passover, it was consuming this lamb, consuming this which is the picture of redemption. This is how we were delivered. This is how we were saved that night, that fateful night of the 10th plague. This is how we were delivered. That when we killed the lamb and sprinkled the blood on the door, on both sides of the doorposts and the lentil, and the blood was Drained into the basin at the bottom of the door you had blood on the bottom you had blood on the side you had blood on the top the entire door was encased in blood and that night at midnight when the death angel came across Egypt and in the land of Goshen when that death angel saw the blood on the door he would pass over that household and that household was spared by the blood of the lamb. And so when Jesus comes and John the Baptist sees him from afar off and says, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, this is the fulfillment of all that Israel was looking forward to. When we get to Romans chapter 11, Paul is dealing with, what about the Jews? And the title of my message this morning is, But He Said. When the Jews are confronted with their need for Christ, they will say, but he said. But God said. I have the assurance from God that this is an everlasting covenant because the blood of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob courses through my veins. I'm good. The problem is over the years, over the 21 centuries since the birth of Christ, The Jews have intermarried and intermarried and intermarried and intermarried so much so that there may be a very, very, very small portion. What's that 23 and me? What is that? Is that what that's called? That, uh, how old? The DNA thing. Yes. Is that 23 and me? Anyway, they go back and they look at your DNA and they tell you, you know, what part, like Elizabeth Warren, what part Indian was she? 1 1,000th or something like that. The point of the matter is that I'm sure in many Jewish people in their DNA, there may be very little, if any, blood or DNA from the line of Abraham, if they could even tell from 2100 years ago. But the purpose of Romans chapter 11 is for Paul to deal with these thorny issues. What do we say of our Jewish friends? What do we say of them? What hope do we offer them? And what do we do with all the promises? The Jews would say it is anti-biblical. to lay down all of these promises and say that they were for an everlasting covenant and then come to the New Testament and say, I changed my mind. Changed my mind. It's not an everlasting covenant anymore. Now I'm going to deal with the different people and you guys are on your own. And so even among the Gentiles, the question becomes, what do we think about this? What do we say about this and why does it even matter? There is no doubt, as we read the pages of scripture, that Israel continually frustrated the grace of God. Continually. That in Psalm 136, O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures, what? Forever. Right. That's especially poignant for the Jews because they repeatedly, they repeatedly rebelled against God. We saw that this morning in our reading in 2 Chronicles chapter 14. And there is no doubt that a total rejection of the Jewish people would be warranted. They have a chronicle, their written history of the ways that they have rebelled against God. In our political arena today, politicians, I think they forget that everything is on videotape anymore. They forget that because they, they have this, they denounce this president as being, oh he, he holds this position, how terrible. But then they'll pull out a video that this man or this woman just six or eight or ten years ago said exactly the same thing that the president is saying now. And it was golden then, but now it's all wrong. There's a historical record of the Jews repeatedly rebelling against God. And so were God to ultimately and permanently reject the Jews, no one would think he was unjust or unfair or unrighteous in doing it. Because how many times when Jesus said, to his disciples you know should we forgive as many as seven times and Jesus said seventy times seven he's not looking at four hundred ninety times he's saying the forgiveness is to be given again and again and again because that's the significance of Psalm 136 verse one his mercy endures forever but we have seen passages in the Old Testament that point to the fact that God says that there is a limit to his grace that when he talks in the book of revelation about the cup of his wrath being full, that he was patient, that he was merciful, that he was kind, and he put up with the sinfulness of the people. But there came a time and there will come a time when the cup of his wrath is full. This is where it ends. No longer will I be merciful. Judgment must be doled out. So there is no doubt that their total rejection would have been well deserved, but Paul reminds us that salvation has never had anything to do with how obedient or disobedient people are. This is the key of grace. That we can look at Israel and we can say, look how many times they rebelled against God. How merciful must He be to continue to let them be rebellious? Well, all you need do is put yourself in front of the mirror. Take a look in the mirror and see how many times as you look at yourself, say, how many times have I failed God? As I've mentioned to you before, when Jesus was asked the question, what is the greatest commandment? And he said, the greatest commandment is what you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. That's the greatest commandment. So every moment, of every day that you do not love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength, you are sinning against Him every single moment of every single day. Your sins, they are beyond number. I wrote a poem for my father-in-law a number of years ago for his 95th birthday. And in writing the poem for his 95th birthday, I calculated how many times his heart had beat. Did I mention this to you before? If I have, I apologize. But I wrote this poem and I calculated. I'm thinking, okay, 60 beats a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 168 hours in a week. How many times over 95 years has this heart beat? And it was in the billions, it was in the billions that when you think about it, the wonder of the human heart, it's just a pump, but it has pumped billions of times over the lifetime of someone who lives to be 95. But that pales in the number of sins you have committed every beat of your heart. So though your heart has beat billions of times over a 95 year lifetime, your sins are beyond, what is it, Google, right? It's a one with, what is it, a million zeros after it? That's what Google is? So, it's that number Google. Your sins are just so many. There's no possible way you could keep track of them. And yet, oftentimes, when people go to bed at night, I've heard people say to me, and when I go to bed at night, I can't even think of any sins I did that day. I try to remember, I just can't. Wow. There's arrogance. There's self-sufficiency. There's independence from God. There's all those sins that Israel was guilty of and that you and I are guilty of. So it is easy to compartmentalize Israel's sins and say they have rebelled against God and therefore they deserve to be forsaken by God. But the whole issue of grace is none of us deserves to have mercy. None of us does. Mercy is always offered at the expense of someone else. That if God is going to extend mercy to you, somebody is going to pay for your sins. If he chooses to forgive yours, then who's going to pay? Somebody's going to pay. Well, in order for mercy to be extended to you and me, then Christ pays. And though mercy is extended to the world, when an individual rejects the offer of forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ, they have rejected the mercy that is offered to them and they will pay for their own sins. And one of the beliefs of the Jews is, how is it possible for Jewish people to live their lives trying to do the best they can, trying to obey the law, trying to be kind. I was at the funeral of a Jewish woman who had died. It's out at the cemetery out here on Route 20 by Asbury, the Jewish cemetery. We were under the tent and the rabbi was conducting the service. And he went on and he said, oh God, in his prayer, oh God, remember what a good housewife she was. Remember how she took care of her children and kept them well-dressed and clean. How she bandaged their wounds when they were younger, and as an older woman, how she cared for the people in the synagogue. Remember that toward her. That's all they had. That's all they had. May all the good things she did, may they count towards her when it comes time for judgment. The problem is, for every one good thing she did, there were a hundred bad things that she would have done. For every good thing you do, there's a hundred bad things. And even the good things you do, those good things are done for selfish purposes. Even if you serve others, You serve others because it gives you pleasure to serve them. It makes you feel good. And you're oftentimes saddened or even bitter when someone doesn't say thank you for what you've done. You claim you did it for them. You claim you did it for their benefit. But if you don't get a thank you in return, boy, they're... See if I ever help them again. Well, that isn't for them, is it? It was for you. It was for you. So even your good deeds, they have a hook attached to them. And the hook is a sinful hook. That we have sin, we are immersed in sin. There's not a part of us that isn't sinful. I really like ginger snaps dunked in milk. I love ginger snaps. I shouldn't say I like them, I love them. I love ginger snaps dunked in milk. When you dump the ginger snaps in milk, there's always that one part of the ginger snap that doesn't get wet with the milk. It's the part where your fingers are holding on to. So that when you put it down in the milk and you bring it back up, there's that one little part of the ginger snap that, or whether that, maybe it's an Oreo, maybe you people love Oreos, but there's that one portion of the Oreo that just did not get soaked with the milk. Not so with a cinnar. We don't have that one small portion of us that is not sinful. We're completely immersed in sin. And without the mercy and the grace of God, we're without hope. So Paul reminds us here in Romans chapter 11 that salvation is not based on man's performance, but on God's mercy and grace. And that's where the Jews fell down. They took pride in the fact that they were zealous for the things of God. Paul brought that up last time in Romans chapter 10. He said of the Jews, they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. There's no doubt they're sincere, but their sincerity is misplaced. Their sincerity is not directed toward recognizing that the only holiness they have is that which has been granted to them by God, and that they are by themselves sinners in need of a Savior. That has escaped them. We saw that the grace of God was the only hope for even Israel in the Old Testament. Listen to Deuteronomy chapter 7 and verse 6. Listen. For you, this is what Moses says to the people of God. For you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people to himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. Now we can stop right there. First Peter chapter two, verse 19 or verse nine, excuse me. First Peter chapter two, verse nine says exactly the same thing of the Christians. He says, you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a peculiar people. and that God has set his love upon you that you might show forth his good works. He goes on, the Lord did not set his love on you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples. But because the Lord loves you, and because he would keep the oath which he swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Now this portion in Deuteronomy chapter 7, they're now in the land of Canaan. God has delivered them out of their 400 year bondage in Egypt. He has had mercy on them. He raised up a deliverer. What was the name of the deliverer? Moses, right? Was he not Moses? That's the deliverer. God raised him up. And he led the people out of Egypt. They wandered 40 years in the wilderness because of their sinfulness. And then ultimately Moses was not permitted to enter the land of Canaan because of his anger against the people when God was not angry with them. Moses misrepresented the grace and the mercy of God. And so God did not permit Moses to enter the land. He allowed him to see it from the top of the mountain as it overlooked the Jordan River. He could see the land. That's where the people are going to go. And then Moses died at 120 years of age. His eyes were not dim, his hands were not weakened. He was still very strong, but God took his life because he misrepresented God before the people. And then Joshua took the people and led them into the promised land. But Moses, as he's telling the people who they are, he reminds them that they are a holy people to the Lord. They continually rebelled against him they continued to do that even though. He said you are a holy people it bred within them a complacency and Indifference that we're already in the family of God. It really doesn't matter what we do Because we're in and Though they continually rebelled against him he continually extended mercy to them listen to Leviticus 26 verse 44 yet for all that When they are in the land of their enemies, that is, when he sends them out to be disciplined, for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break my covenant with them. For I am the Lord their God. But for their sake I will remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the Lord. So, in light of that, what should we think concerning Israel and their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah? And in chapter 11, Paul asks two questions. First question he asks is, has God cast away his people? Has he utterly rejected his people? Is that what's happened? And if not, the second question is, have they stumbled so far as to be beyond hope? And Paul answers both questions in the negative. No, certainly not. Meginotah, the strongest negative in the Greek language. May it never be. Never, never, never. And he gives four reasons for that answer. I have three on the board. I'm not going to get to all three of those today. There's a fourth one, which I plan to do next time we come together. The fourth one is God himself. But in Romans chapter 11, we see in verses 1, or in verse 1, Paul himself, he uses himself as the rationale. Here's how I know God is not done with Israel. He saved me. Secondly, he referenced Elijah the prophet in verses 2 through 10 where he said, consider what happened in the days of Elijah and Ahab the king. And then he points out the Gentiles themselves in verses 11 through 24. And then lastly, number four, which we will not even get close to getting to today, verses 25 through 36, God himself, of what he has said, what he has done, and what he is willing to do. So first of all, Paul himself. Look at verse 1 of Romans chapter 11. I have tried to get through each one of these chapters in one Lord's Day setting. And though my intention is good, I think I have robbed you in many ways of the details of these chapters because they are just so rich and so full that, I mean, It's like the black preacher in the black church where the white preacher came and they had an hour and a half of praise and worship music. And then when it was time for the white preacher to get up and preach, he said to the black preacher, how long do I have? And the black preacher said, brother, you take as long as you want. We didn't come here to leave. And so the thing is that Paul himself is here reminding the people that he is the ultimate example. And I don't want to miss any of these truths and these tidbits and these foundational principles. And so I had purpose to take at least two weeks on chapter 11. It looks like it's going to be closer to three. But Paul himself, look at verse one. I say then, has God cast away his people? Certainly not. For I am also, or I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. So here's Paul's first question. Has God cast away his people? Cast away means to reject or to push away from oneself. Is that what God has done? Has he so pushed them away that they are too far to return? Have they gotten so far away that they can't come back? Has God ultimately abandoned his very own people? Certainly time and again they have provoked him to anger. Go with me if you will please to the book of Nehemiah. Chapter 9. Nehemiah chapter 9. Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job. Old Testament. chapter nine. In Nehemiah chapter nine, starting with verse twenty six, and the whole chapter Goes all the way to the 38th verse But we're just going to be reading from 26 to 31, but the whole chapter is where the people confess their sins But in Nehemiah chapter 9 verse 26 Read what the prophet says nevertheless they were disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their backs, and killed your prophets who testified against them. To turn them to yourself they worked great provocations. Therefore you delivered them into the hand of their enemies who oppressed them. And in the time of their trouble, when they cried to you, you heard from heaven. And according to your abundant mercies, you gave them deliverers who saved them from the hand of their enemies. But after they had rest, they again did evil before you. Therefore you left them in the hand of their enemies, so that they had dominion over them. Yet when they returned and cried out to you, you heard from heaven, and many times you delivered them according to your mercies and testified against them. that you might bring them back to your law. Yet they acted proudly, and did not heed your commandments, but sinned against your judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them. And they shrugged their shoulders, stiffened their necks, and would not hear. Yet for many years you had patience with them, and testified against them by your spirit and your prophets. Yet they would not listen. Therefore you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. Nevertheless, in your great mercy you did not utterly consume them, nor forsake them. For you are God gracious and merciful. He is gracious and merciful. As I said, the 136th Psalm says that His mercy endures forever. And so Paul reminds them that he is a perfect example of the fact that God is not done with Israel. If God is done with Israel, his conclusion is, his affirmation is, if God is done with Israel, How do we explain the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, or ultimately the Apostle Paul? And more importantly, if that wasn't an important detail, then why did Luke, who's the writer of the Book of Acts, why did he record the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, or Paul the Apostle, why did he record his conversion three different times? One time would have been sufficient in the book, but three different times He gave Paul's testimony of how he was saved on the road to Damascus. Paul declared himself a pattern of those who would believe. First fruits as it were. Listen to 1 Timothy 1.16. Listen to what Paul says there. For this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering as a pattern to those who are going to believe on him for everlasting life." Now this is for the Jew and the Gentile as well. But ultimately the focus is, he's talking about those who would follow him. That he was a pattern to those who are going to believe. on him for everlasting life. That this is a pattern for the Jew. That just as God saved Saul of Tarsus, then he's not done with the Jews. He's not done with them. Even though previously Paul had viciously and adamantly and ferociously opposed Christianity and Christians themselves. on the day that he was converted on the road to Damascus he had letters in his hand from the high priest granting him the authority to go into houses of Jews and yank them out, Jews who had converted to Christianity, yank them out and either send them to prison or beat them or even have them killed as he did in the case of Stephen in Acts chapter 7. So he had the authority with these letters in hand to go out and wreak havoc on the Christians. So, though he previously viciously and adamantly opposed Christ and Christianity, God forgave him and saved him. If any member of the Jewish community seemed beyond the scope of God's mercy and grace, it was certainly Saul of Tarsus. Here was a man who had an agenda. in his testimony that he gives on several different occasions, his resume, his credentials, if you will. He talked about how he single-handedly attempted to exterminate Christianity. That he far exceeded his contemporaries in attempting to destroy the church. He was on a mission. It was almost a fanatical compulsion with him. That he was not going to rest until he had destroyed the church. And was personally persecuting the Lord Jesus Christ. Because you remember in Acts chapter 9. When he was confronted on the road to Damascus with the Lord. Jesus said, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? He's not saying, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting these people? They're just following me. That isn't what he said. He said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? You have a personal vendetta against me, and you will not rest until all that represents me is destroyed. And yet, in spite of that, Paul underlined his Jewishness with three statements that he makes here in verse one. that he was an Israelite. Now, if you remember, in the book of Acts, before the Roman centurion, he said that he was born a Roman citizen. And the centurion said that he had to purchase His citizenship at a price, but Paul was born in Rome, but his point was even though I was born in a Gentile city I am a Jew by birth. I have the blood of Abraham coursing through my veins. I was born a Jew I'm not a proselyte. I'm not one a Gentile from Rome who converted to Judaism. That's not me I am an Israelite through and through He takes it one step further that he was of the seed of Abraham. I am a physical descendant of Abraham. According to Galatians chapter 3, you and I, if we are in Christ, we are the seed of Abraham. We are the spiritual seed of Abraham. We didn't come from his loins. The seed of Abraham that was sent out to father children And that DNA in his seed is not part of our makeup, but we are spiritual descendants. We are the spiritual seed of Abraham who believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. He believed God. He was the physical descendant of Abraham. And thirdly, he says he was of the tribe of Benjamin. Remembering that Benjamin was part of the righteous southern kingdom Judah and Benjamin the two tribes together. He's reminding them I came I was the faithful one I Was among those who were faithful to God I? Am a Jew a Hebrew of Hebrews of the stock of Israel I am as Jewish as they come is what Paul is saying But God saved me He saved me. He was not only as Jewish as they come, he was as anti-Christian as they come. There was not one that you could find in all of Israel that was more adamantly opposed to Christ than Paul the Apostle. He personally persecuted Christ by persecuting and imprisoning and killing Christians. But he affirmed that if God saved him, There was certainly hope for the rest of Israel. I'm going to stop there because Elijah takes up way too much time. Here's what Paul is doing. I'm laying down for you proofs why I know that God is not done with Israel. But being not done with Israel, what does that mean? Next week when we cover Elijah and his encounter with Ahab, Up until his Ahab, eighth king of Israel, the most wicked of all the kings of Israel up to that point in time. He was married to that horrible wretch Jezebel, who was the daughter of a pagan king. Elijah goes up against him, and we see his response. And Paul simply reminds the people of the first century. This is not the first time where it appears that all Israel has abandoned God. It's happened before. And so we'll look into that next week. So now the question is, where do we stand? Where do you stand? Considering Christ. You know, we know what we believe. And we, like the Jews, for me, before I became a Christian, and I was a faithful church goer every week. Till I was 18 years of age, I went to church faithfully every week. And Sunday school. And youth club on Wednesday night. When the doors were open at church, I was there. I was part of the junior choir. I was there. I was involved in everything that was there. Whenever there were dinners at the church, I was there serving. When I was about 12 years old, I was serving hot coffee. I had a pot and it was full of coffee. And I went to lean in to get the cup for the woman that I was going to serve. And as I leaned in, the coffee pot leaned in as well. And she must have, this was back in the 60s. She must have had one of those corsets on, because it took a little while for the coffee to sink through into her skin. So I leaned forward to grab her cup, and it went on her back. And she's sitting there, and I could see the steam coming off her back. And I thought, and then she goes, ooh, ooh, ooh, like that. She jumped up. But no one thought anything badly of me, because I was a faithful server. I was there all the time. I thought that my involvement in the church was sufficient. That that's all I need. Look how good I am. Look how I'm here all the time. I can look at other people in the church who are not faithful like I am and I took comfort in that. And this is what the Jews did. They said, we're not like other men. Look how faithful we are. We go to temple every week. We observe the Sabbath. We keep the holy days and the feast days and the high moons. We do all that. That should be enough. That was me before God saved me. That may be some of you before God saved you. That may be some of you now. I'm good enough. God uses Saul of Tarsus, Paul the Apostle, to remind us that even the worst of human beings God will extend his mercy to you. And he describes himself as the chief of sinners. If you do not see yourself as the chief of sinners, you're not in a place where God can have mercy on you. Because you must see, first of all, your spiritual bankruptcy. That I have nothing to offer him. That when I hold out my hands to God, I am not holding out my hands to give him anything. I'm holding out my hands to say to him, I have nothing to give you. I am spiritually bankrupt. I have nothing except my sin and that's what I give you, my sin. And he takes our sin and he places it upon his son. And he takes his righteousness and places it in those sinful hands of ours and says, this belongs to you. Not because you earned it, not because you deserve it, but because I am the merciful and kind God. I will punish my son instead of punishing you. That's how much I love you. Who would turn their back on that? Who would do that? And yet here's a whole nation of Jewish people who believe that their covenant relationship with God because of their circumcision, because of their faithful adherence to the law, puts them in good standing with God. Nothing could be further from the truth. May God help us as we look into this in the weeks to come. Let's bow for prayer. Our Father, we truly are wicked and sinful. We would like to think that we're better than we are. But if we look into our lives, if you looked into our lives, if you came today and you broadcast all of our sins on a giant screen, like in a movie theater, how mortified we would be. Because the secret sins of our heart would be exposed for the world to see. And yet the world makes no difference to us. Ultimately, it is you yourself who know everything about us and you know how sinful and wicked we are. You still desire fellowship with us. There is no relationship on earth that compares to this kind of love. We are wicked. We are sinful. We are rebellious. We've said time and again, I'll stop doing that. I'll do what's right. And yet we go right back to it. Thank you that it's not up to us. that we are saved, but it's because of you and your mercy and your grace. Please forgive us our sins. And Father, if there's any here that is without you, may this be the day that they see that their own righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and that it's not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to your mercy you saved us, by the washing of regeneration, by the renewing of the Holy Spirit. Be pleased to glorify yourself in our midst, we pray in Jesus' name.