I have entitled this message, The Salvation of Israel and the Gentiles, for the reason that Paul draws together all of his lines of thought that he has given us to this point. and it does include Israel as well as the Gentiles. There's a lot in Romans 11, but if you were to want to simplify it and make it really simple in terms that you can already understand, can you hold your thumb right in chapter 11 and turn to chapter 8? If you would take Romans 8 28 and just label it across chapter 11, We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. That's it. Whatever you may find tricky in the analogy of the olive tree, the grafting in, the grafting out, so on. Please know that Romans 11 is all things working together for the good for those that love God. You see, if you love the Lord, everything coming down in your life, whatever is coming at you in your life, whatever is going on around you in your life, is working together for your highest good. That is the message of Romans 9, 10, and 11. It is this, God is faithful even when his people are fickle. That's the message of Romans 9, 10, and 11. God is faithful even when his people are fickle. So that Romans 11 is all about that reality. It is all about God working everything together for the good. That's not exaggeration. That's salvation. That is not hyperbole. That is reality for us. Paul wrote to the Philippians and he said, being confident of this very thing that he who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. He is working all things together for your good. So what Romans 11 does is it shows the integrity of God and his resulting faithfulness. See, God has made promises to Israel and he has every intention of fulfilling them, even though they have blown it badly. And that is an encouraging word to us, because it is the same God that is our God, who even though we have blown it badly, even though there are times that we do not believe, he abides faithful. So we have the entire chapter to look at. We have in front of us the remnant, the restoration, the revelation, the riches. An outline simply to give you a place to hang your thoughts, keep them organized as we move through here. God has made His promises, He will be true, and that is what I rest in. To begin with here, we have the remnant of God's people. When you finish Romans chapter 10, there's a question that arises, and that is, has God cast away His people? So Paul addresses that in verse 1. He says, I say then, has God cast away his people? Certainly not. For I am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin. So he answers that question with his own person. His very life is an example. He says, for I also am an Israelite. Now what is interesting is that, first of all, Paul says, has God cast away his people? If he has, then how could I be a Christian? For I am one of his people. But there's something in this statement that is even beyond just the reality of Paul's salvation. There is packed into this statement the way he was saved. Let me ask you a question. How was Paul saved? Was Paul saved when everybody looking on was beginning to think he's just about there? Was Paul saved when everybody was thinking, God is working, God's answering our prayers, He's really getting soft? No. Paul was on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians, to imprison them, to torture them. He was as fully against God as he had ever been in his life. Paul was saved like that, when nobody thought he was going to be saved. He was saved instantly, he was saved sovereignly, he was saved suddenly, when everything to all outward appearance would have given the indication he will not be saved. So packed into the fact that he says, has God cast away his people? Certainly not. Look at me. When he says, look at me, it isn't just I'm saved, but look at how I was saved. Look at how God did it. Look then at how God will do it. Because he becomes in microcosm form a foreshadow and a prophecy of how God will save his people when all Israel will turn in that time of the great tribulation period on earth to recognize Jesus Christ as their Messiah And how will it happen? It will happen in a time of great persecution. It will happen in a time when nobody would think that Israel is going to come to recognize Christ as the Messiah. It will happen suddenly, sovereignly, and it will happen by the hand of God. That is packed into what he is saying right here. And the rest of the chapter proves that. So has God cast away his people? First example to say no is Paul. The second example is the prophet Elijah. Look at verse 2. See how fast we're moving? We're already in verse two. God has not cast away his people whom he foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says? Every time I read that phrase, I turn it into a prayer. And I say, Lord, don't let me be caught not knowing the answer. Because this comes up quite often in the Bible. Do you not know what the Scripture says? And I find far too often I have to say, yes, I don't know. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah? Then he says an interesting thing, how he pleads with God against Israel. Did you see how he pleaded about Israel? How he intercedes with God, notice it says, read it again, against Israel, not for Israel, against Israel. What is the picture? What is Paul saying? Why would Elijah pray against Israel? Elijah lived in a time of great apostasy. Elijah, when he had his encounter with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, was dealing with the great apostasy. However, after that great victory, he fled into the wilderness and he is, at this point, hiding out in a cave beneath a broom tree. And he effectively turns and he says to God, I am the only one left. There's nobody left in Israel that seeks you. You have not kept your promises." He's crumbling. They're all apostates. So he's pleading against them. God they have torn down your altars, they have prayed to false gods, judge them all, God, and in the meantime, at least in judging, you'll prove that you are true to what you have said because it appears that you are not keeping any of your promises true. They're all gone but me. He pleads against Israel. Now what does God say back to him? Very critical. What is the divine response? Verse four. What does the divine response say to him? It says in the Danny Bond paraphrase, listen pal, I have 7,000 more just like you. If you think there's none, if you think you're the only one left, Mr. Righteousness, There's 7,000 more like you. I have kept my word. You don't see it. I know what I am doing, and you don't know what you are doing. You want to know why? Because he was exhausted. You see, Elijah prays this after he enters the greatest trial of his life, which comes after the greatest victory of his life. Now listen very closely because there's a lifetime lesson to hear. See, how many have found out that there's certain things in life that make you tired? Somebody said life itself. Don't go any farther, I'm tired enough. How about those of you that are into aerobics and you're making your comeback? Step up, step down, step up, step down, step up, alright, already I'm tired. Those of you that pump iron. You pump till you get the burn and then you finally, your arms are like noodles and you stop, right? That's tired, okay. But how many surf? Let's get the real men out here, ladies. When you surf, you can get so tired after a good session, when there's good waves, we call it being noodled out. You cannot stroke one more paddle, you just turn around and let a wave carry you to the shore, and you just let the board hit the sand, you roll off and lay there. You're noodled out, surfed out, noodled out. That's tired. But how many have found that on the battlefield in spiritual warfare, there comes an exhaustion that goes far beyond any physical exertion? Have you found that to be true? You see, Elijah the prophet won the day with the prophets of Baal, yes, on Mount Carmel. But following that, there was an exhaustion. In his exhaustion came an attack. He had the greatest victory of his life, but that victory pulled upon his resources to the point that he was exhausted. Every great victory will leave you exhausted. Because it takes everything to stand. And having done all, when the smoke clears and the battle's over, to still be standing, it demands everything of you. So when it was all over, he'd won the victory, but he gets a note. And it is a fresh attack. And it comes from Jezebel who has killed many and vows in the note to kill again. This time she will not stop until she kills the prophet Elijah. It's not an idle threat. We often joke that he got a note from a woman and ran. Can you blame him? I'm an angry woman. Don't get a gal mad. We often joke about that. At least us men do. You ladies never do. The reality is he got a note from a woman who had the power to send troops to hunt him down and to kill him. It was a real threat. And he was exhausted. When you gain tremendous spiritual victory and it drains you to the point of exhaustion and then the devil hits you again broadside, often we don't handle it very well. He took off running, broke all of his previous records in the 100-yard dash and marathon. He ran for his life with good cause. You see, what happened to him is that he was hit by fresh forces from Satan, full broadside, and he didn't handle it very well. And what was God's prescription for him to gain victory again? God sent an angel to him. He's under the broom tree. He's suicidal. He's praying against God's people. He's saying, God, you haven't fulfilled your promises. He's not in good shape. After his greatest victory came his greatest trial. And what was God's prescription for him? Elijah, you're kind of out of your mind. You're getting depressed and suicidal. You're praying wrong prayers. Elijah, here's my prescription from heaven. Go to sleep. Get some rest. Wake up, have a little angel food. Go back to sleep. Get some rest. He sends the angel again. Hi, I'm back. Grilling up some more angel food cake for you. Here, have a few bites. Very good. Have a drink of water. Got some bottles chipped in. Drink up, Elijah. You're tired, man. Angel food cake, little water. Go back to sleep, Elijah. What was the prescription? Sleep, rest, food? And then following that, fresh revelation from God himself, God's word. That's what we take with us today. We realize that after some of our greatest victories will come our greatest trials and a time when we've been exhausted on the battlefield. What we need to regain our footing is we need to go to sleep. We need to get some food. We need to rest. We need to get back in the Bible, get fresh revelation from God, and get back on our feet. We need to go to our God who will restore our soul. That is the most practical advice you can take from Elijah here and take with you for the rest of your life in spiritual warfare. But the bottom line of the context is God had preserved a remnant even in the time of great apostasy and unbelief in Elijah's day. Has God cast away his people? Look at Paul, the answer's no. Look at Elijah and the remnant, the answer's no. In verse 5, Paul says, It's interesting to just simply think about what Paul is saying. What is he saying? As he writes, he's thinking about the fact that the early church was almost exclusively made up of Jews. Now think about this. Has God cast away his people? Well, look at me, the answer's no. Or for example, look around me. See, though the nation of Israel rejected Christ as their Messiah, many did not. Many individuals saw that the early church was almost entirely made up of Jews. To the point that in Acts chapter 10, when God came to Peter, Peter was on the rooftop and he was resting and God came to him and he gave him a vision of animals, clean and unclean. He lowered it down, he said, all right, Peter, kill and eat. Peter says, not so, Lord. I have never eaten anything unclean. I'm a good Jew. And God took him through the whole thing. Why? Because he wanted him to go witness to some Gentiles. So far was that from Peter's thinking that it took an angel from God and a vision from heaven to pop him out of that mentality to just tell some Gentiles that Christ would save them. That is to say, the whole early church was Jewish. So Paul says, has God cast away his people? No, the whole early church was Jewish. Then the amazing thing is that Peter actually goes and preaches, and in Acts 1044 it says, while Peter yet spoke these words to Cornelius and his household, the Holy Spirit fell on all those that heard, and they of the circumcision that were with Peter, which had believed, were astonished. as many as came with Peter because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit. They were shocked. God has saved some Gentiles in the name of Jesus. God has filled them with the Holy Spirit. So what Paul is saying is, has God cast away his people? The whole early church was made up of Jews. That is evidence that he is still keeping his promises. And again, at issue is, does God break his promises? Will God fulfill his promises to the nation? The answer is, look at Paul, look at Elijah, and look at the early church. Now how does that work? Well, in verse 5, Even so then, it works on the principle of grace, even so then, at the present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. If by grace then, it is no longer works, otherwise grace is no longer grace. If it is of works, it is no longer grace, otherwise work is no longer work. That's a nice one, isn't it? The NIV is helpful here. If by grace no longer by works, if it were grace would no longer be grace. That's helpful. What he's saying is there's a remnant because God works his saving plan by grace. You cannot be saved by works. He's reminding us of that and that God saves when you see you can't save yourself. When you have tried and you have failed and you give up, then He rushes in to save. And we all need to know this. We all need to know this as we evangelize, and we need to know this as we look internally to search our hearts. Am I really a Christian? Have I been saved from my sin? Or have I come all this way thinking I've done all these good things and He's going to let me in after all because of all I've done? Well, Paul is saying the exact opposite. He will let you in by grace alone. When you've come to the place where you give up and come to Christ and give your life to Christ. I came across a great analogy of this and I think it's worth passing on to you. especially those of you that want to witness to others, this is helpful. A drowning boy was struggling in the water. As his mother stood on the shore, she was in agony. Fright and grief took hold of her. By her side there stood a strong man. This guy was a great strong man and a great swimmer. He seemed to be indifferent to the boy's fate. Again and again the suffering mother appealed to him, jump in the water and save my boy. And he just stood there like this. She was shocked as he made no move. And this relates to our prayers and praying for people. And by and by, the desperate struggling began on the boy's part to cease. He was losing strength. Presently, the boy rose to the surface, weak and helpless. At once, the strong man leaped into the water, grabbed hold of the boy, and swam quickly back to the shore and presented him to his mother. The mother said, why did you not save my boy sooner? Madam, I could not save your boy as long as he struggled to save himself. He would have dragged us both to certain death. But when he grew weak and ceased to struggle, then it was easy to save him. You see, that's the way it is in salvation. If there is a place of works, it is only to hinder your real salvation. If you bring up your works when someone's witnessing to you, I say to you, your works are only hindering your real salvation. It's when you come to the place where you say, my works haven't done it. I'm still guilty. I'm still empty. I'm still bound. I can't break that pattern of sin. I can't do it. I'm hopeless. Then Christ is ready to rush in, and He saves you easily. As you pray for your friends and your loved ones and you witness to them, pray that God will bring them to that point, that God will save them, that they will be broken and helpless. And I say to you, if that's where you are today, you're ready to be saved. You've seen what you can do with your own works. Now let God show you what he can do by the power of his Holy Spirit. It's not by might. It's not by power. But by my Spirit, says the Lord. Let his Spirit rule over your soul. Let Jesus be your Lord today. Call out to him. Let him save you. Prayer room is going to be open at the end of this service. Go to the prayer room with the person you came with and pray to give your life to Jesus Christ, and he will save you immediately. And as long as you trust in your works, forget it, because you're unsavable until you present yourself to him as savable. So Paul, writing of this, he says, going on, there has been a partial hardening as God cast away his people. No, he continues to keep them by the principle of grace, always a remnant. And that is because the hardening that we see, Israel receives their Messiah, He came unto His own. His own received Him not. The nation rejected. Individuals, however, did not. So there's always this remnant, Israel rejects their Messiah. They're scattered throughout the world. But the hardening is partial, and it's not permanent. Verse 7, what then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks by works, but the elect, those that have come by faith, have attained it, and the rest were blinded, but not all blinded. Just as it is written, God has given them a spirit of stupor. Look at this, eyes that they should not see, ears that they should not hear to this very day. What is this? This is again the serious issue of the process of hardening. We saw it in chapter 9. We see it here. As David says, Let their table become a snare and a trap. Their table here is the word of God. As Job said, I have esteemed the words of his mouth more important than my necessary physical food. Their table here is the word of God. David is saying in their blindness, they take the word of God, they twist it to their own destruction. That is exactly what Jesus said. You wrestle the scriptures to your own destruction. You are blind guides. Your disciples are five times as blind as you are and five-fold the children of hell as you are because you have twisted the scriptures and missed your Messiah. He is a stumbling block, as David prayed, and a recompense to them. He says, let their eyes be darkened so that they do not see and bow down their back always. It is all a part of this serious issue that the nation of Israel went through. See, when the light came to them in Christ and they rejected it, they were at the point where God had prepared them so they could receive Him. Thousands of years of prophecy. God had prepared them so they could receive Him, but He came unto His own and His own received Him not. They would not, in their own words. He's before Pilate and they shout out, we will not have this man to rule over us. That sums up Israel's response to God come from heaven. And so they would not. But then as they went along, what the prophet says is they would come to the point where they would be hardened by God where they could not. This is the dangerous process that comes up over and over again. What Paul is saying is that there was a point with Israel where they could and they wouldn't. And because they hardened their heart and hardened their hearts and hardened their hearts, there came a point where they couldn't. You see, Pharaoh went through that. God sent Moses to Pharaoh with a mouth full of the gospel. And Pharaoh hardened his heart of his own will again and again and again. Finally, we read, and we studied in Romans 9, then God hardened Pharaoh's heart. The danger here is that God comes to you The danger is to be given a spirit of stupor, eyes that do not see, ears that cannot hear. The danger is this, to go from would not to could not. Where are you today? Well, I plan on coming around to Jesus eventually. Maybe on my deathbed I'll come. Don't get heavy on me, man. This is my own thing. I'll do it my way in my time. Will you? If you will not today, maybe you won't be able to later. Let me ask you a question. Think now, hard. In the Bible, in all of the Bible, how many accounts are there of deathbed repentances from Genesis to Revelation? How many accounts? How many deathbed repentances do we read of? One. That's right. One. And only one had the answer. Do you know who it was? Do you know? The thief on the cross. Look at the scripture from cover to cover. There is one incident of a deathbed repentance. One. Why one? Well, for one encouraging reason. To show us that it does happen. Thank God it happens. But for a great warning to show us that though it happens, thank God it happens, it does not happen very often. Do not bank on a deathbed repentance because if you will not today, maybe you will be in the place of cannot then. So I say to those of you in your life who have friends and loved ones, maybe an individual dying even now, and you're waiting around, maybe if I wait a few weeks longer and they're closer to death, they'll be closer to being soft and to repenting, if I give them the gospel, maybe they'll be harder. You take them to the Gospel of David. Well, they've never been very open. Are you going to let that hold you back now while they're dying without Christ? Or is your love going to drive you in there? And will you park yourself at their bedside and say, you've never been open, but you're running out of time. Jesus died for your sins. If you die without His blood covering you, you will live forever without God in hell. Why don't you come to Christ now? You've lived a hard life. You've lived a sinful life. He loves you even now. Will you come? Will you pray with me now? And you know what? Maybe God will be gracious and maybe they'll say yes, but you better get yourself in there and tell them. Because if you don't and you wait till the last day, they may die as Charles Darwin said, I have no fear of death. That man went to the deepest hell there is. And that man has drug countless thousands to hell with his theory of evolution. They would not, then they could not. We do not trifle with this. Today is the day of salvation. If you feel God tugging your heart today, you come today and you thank God that he will receive you today. That prayer room will be open. You run to that prayer room and Jesus will run to save your soul. and so the remnant because of God's grace. He has not cast off his people. He goes on, he talks about the restoration, verse 11. He says, have they stumbled that they should fall, meaning permanently kicked out of God's plan? His answer is certainly not. But through their fall, here's the brilliance of God, to use it for their good, all things working together for the good. Through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Have they stumbled? They should fall away permanently? That God would kick them out of their plan? First answer, no. Second answer, God has used this. He built it into his plan for their own benefit. To save as many as possible. Implication here, mass restoration of the nation that we've already referred to in the time of Great Tribulation when they'll recognize Christ as their Messiah. Then he says, if God used their fall to reach all the Gentiles, how much more will he use their return? Verse 12. Now if their fall is riches for the world, then their failure, riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness. So he's saying, look at how God used their rejection to save so many Gentiles. That's how we got in. If God could use their rejection for such a wonderful thing, how will he use their turning back to him for an even more wonderful thing? And he explains here why he's taking so much time with this, with Israel. Verse 13, he says, For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles. This is tremendous here what he does. I magnify my ministry Watch this, if by any means I might provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. He's saying even now, as this epistle is read in your congregation, I'm writing this, hoping, praying that maybe even this moment, someone listening who's one of my countrymen will come to Christ even this moment. Like how are they? I'm not going to let them get all the blessings. I'm going to come along. Paul came. Paul believed. I'm going to believe. He's saying even this moment I'm hoping some non-believing Jew will get jealous of all the blessings you Gentiles have got and they'll come to Christ right this second. He said, for if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? Speaking again of the nation coming to recognize Christ as Messiah. Now we come to the olive tree. A little tricky, the analogy, but he's speaking in a mindset of an agragarian culture, where olive trees were a very big part of their life, make perfect sense to them, becomes difficult to us. I just want to explain it and move along. He says in verse 16, for if the first fruit is holy, the lump is also holy. This is God's called elect people. That's the olive tree. If the root is holy, so are the branches. So if some of the branches were broken off, that's Israel rejecting Christ and being scattered, and you, Gentiles, being a wild olive tree were grafted in, among them, and with them became partaker of the root and the fatness of the olive tree." So he's shown how some of Israel was taken out, the hard-hearted ones, and God used that to turn and bring his mercy to the Gentiles, that's the wild olive tree, who became a partaker of the root and the fatness of the olive tree, that is the God of Israel. That is Christ who is, we have seen, Jehovah. Believe on the Lord, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, Jehovah, and you will be saved. We learn that in chapter 10. Partaking of the fatness of the olive tree is just the goodness of God in Jesus Christ, Jehovah God. Then comes a warning. The Jews miss their Messiah because of pride and now to that individual Gentile who would sit in church and soak in the Bible and because of pride reject Christ as well comes a warning to the Gentiles. Verse 18, do not boast against the branches but if you do boast remember you do not support the root, the root supports you. But you will say, but the branches were broken off that I might be grafted in. This is a warning. Verse 20, well said. Because of unbelief, they were broken off. You Gentiles, if you stand, you stand by faith. Do not be haughty or proud, but fear. If God did not spare the natural branches, he may not spare you either. What is he talking about? Verse 22. An unbelieving Gentile cut off from God's mercy just like an unbelieving Jew. Look at verse 22. Therefore consider the goodness and the severity of God. on those who fell, rejected God's severity, but toward you, you Gentiles who received Christ's goodness, if you continue in his goodness, here it is, otherwise you will be cut off. This, we need to stop here, because this is what I call a terrorist verse. It's one of those verses Satan uses to terrorize true born-again believers that have limited Bible knowledge. There are other terrorist verses. I think the most classic in the Bible is found in Hebrews chapter 6, verses 4 through 6. It is impossible for those that have tasted once been enlightened, tasted of the Word of God and the life to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them to repentance. That is a classic terrorist verse. Satan takes that verse to born-again Christians who do love the Lord but have limited Bible knowledge. They have a week, they don't do so well. Maybe they have a week where they are stressed out and they smoke a joint with some old companions. You get in a bad place and, oh God, it's not working in my life. You dial the phone, you call up your old friends, you go visit them, you smoke a joint, sit around in a circle, do that stupid thing again there. And then now you come home, you wake up the next day, you're all convicted for what you've done. And you turn and point in the Bible, oh God, speak to me. You open the Bible, for it is impossible for those who have tasted. Oh no! If they shall fall! No! No, no, no! God, not me! And you would be amazed at how many Christians will stand in line. I see them tearful over on this side. They're just trying to hold it together. Tissues everywhere. And then they finally come up and they say, Pastor, can I talk to you about... What does it matter? Get it out, man! We're dealing with a man here. Get it out, man! Well, I think I've committed the impossible. I think it's, I tasted it, I wasn't lying. I knew the life to come. I'm going to hell. And it's impossible to renew me. I know it's just not true because right here, you see? See, I know it's just, I know. I'm going to hell, aren't I? It's impossible to renew me. I'm going to hell, aren't I? No, you're stupid. You don't know the Bible. You're at least ignorant. I take the stupid back. Maybe you're both. But you don't know the Bible. You don't understand, that's talking about apostates. You don't understand, it's talking about a person sitting in church, soaking up the Word, facing the full revelation of Christ, worshiping with God's people, as we worship today. And you feel His presence. You feel the warm glow of His love. You taste the life to come. You hear the Word of God. You see the brilliance of it. your intellect is supercharged and stimulated by the truth of God in a way that no other literature can, and you get it all, you taste it all, you have a feeling for it all, and then you back up and you say, I understand it all, and I reject it. It is impossible then to save that person because there's not another Christ to send them to. That's it. If they don't want the only way, the only truth, the only life, the only Christ, it's impossible for them to be saved. If you backslide, God forbid, you call an old buddy, have a drink, smoke a joint, whatever, cuss all day long, you paint yourself in the picture. You say, you just did pretty good, that'll do. You paint yourself in the picture. The Lord is your shepherd. you shall not want. He leads you beside still waters. He makes you lay down in green pastures. He sets a table before you in the presence of His enemies. He restores your soul. He leads you in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. When you backslide, when you fall as a truly born-again Christian, you fall into grace, into the arms of the Lord, your shepherd, who will restore your soul and set you back on your feet and give you the strength and the life to enable you to go on again on the straight and narrow. This is a terrorist verse. You will be cut off if you don't continue in his goodness. If you don't continue in his goodness, it is to say, if you face the goodness of the gospel, if you take that talent, which is gospel privilege and Christ teaching, if you take it and you bury it and you do nothing with it, you will be cut off. You come to Christ, you receive Christ, you begin to bear fruit, you continue with him until the day you die. And every true believer will continue because the good shepherd will pick up the cast down, go get the wayward, and put them back on the straight and narrow. Jesus said to the disciples on the night before his death, he said, I will give you the helper, the Holy Spirit, and he will stay with you until the day you backslide. No. I will give you the Holy Spirit, He will abide with you." How long? Forever. He will make intercession for you. We're told in Romans, when you don't know how to pray. Christ sits on the right hand of God to intercede for you. He keeps you. It is when you receive the truth, and you reject the truth, and you don't walk in the truth, you will be cut off, like anybody else who does that. So please understand the verse in its context, and please understand that these verses in the Bible refer to such. You see, Paul is not talking about casting off a true believer, because a true believer will continue. John Murray put it this way. He said, the perseverance of the saints reminds us very forcefully that the only ones who persevere to the end are the true saints. And all true saints persevere to the end. Let's put it another way. Richard Sibbes said, he keeps heaven for us. I like that. He keeps heaven for us. and will give us the necessary graces to bring us there. Jesus, save me, rescue me from my sin, save me from myself. It's a rescue operation from first to last. It's by grace from first to last. He keeps heaven for you. I go to prepare a place for you. If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come for you to take you to that place. He keeps heaven for you and he gives us the necessary grace to get there. If you're truly born again, you're going all the way. And he's gonna make sure you get there. I love what Charles Spurgeon said, if God lights the candle, no one can blow it out. He says, Jesus has made the life of his people as eternal as his own. That's your eternal life in Jesus Christ. So, let's move on. Verse 23, God will graft Israel in again in the end. He says, And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in. God will bring them back. God is able to graft in again. For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree? So the restoration. Then the revelation of Israel's salvation, verse 25. God knows how many Gentiles will be saved. Verse 25. For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. That is to say, God knows the last Gentile who will come to Christ and then will come the rapture. Don't you wish God would just have them show up on that screen right there, and we could all know who it was, and we could go to their house, and just surround them, so we'd get on with this thing? God knows. And when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, the rapture will come. Then will come the beginning of that last seven year period, and in the midst of that, Israel will be saved. A national revival and awakening to the Messiah, verse 26. So all Israel will be saved. As it is written, a deliverer will come out of Zion, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. For this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. For concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But concerning the election, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. God will keep all his promises, and he will bring them around. Take these verses and connect them to verse 1. I say then, has God cast away his people? Certainly not. And realize this, you students of prophecy, God is not finished with Israel. I say that because there are those that teach God is all done with Israel. That when they rejected Jesus Christ, God rejected them. All promises then that are given to Israel swing around and they only apply now to the church. And those that teach that generally hold to a post-tribulation viewpoint. And they teach that and they run into trouble when they get into Revelation, because Revelation, after these things, Revelation, as you study it, there's no mention of the church at all in the Tribulation. None. There is, however, great mention of 144,000 Jews who become like 144,000 Billy Grahams. Those that teach that God is finished with Israel, never to work with them again, has then fulfilled his promises to the church, which is now the, quote, spiritual Israel. And you've got to do a lot of spiritualizing to get to that. Spiritual Israel, spiritualizing is taking a verse out of its context and making it say whatever you want it to say. When they run into the 144,000, can't find the church anywhere in the Tribulation, but they say that the church is going through. Can't find the church anywhere in Revelation. They run into the 144,000 believing Jews, then they have to say, these are not Jews. These are spiritual Israel. This is symbolic of 144,000 church members saved by Christ. actively witnessing a tribulation. The problem with that is that in verse 1 of Romans chapter 11, Paul annihilates that argument when he says, God is not finished with the Jews. And when he gets to these verses in front of us, verse 26, God will fulfill His promises to the Jews and all Israel will be saved. They will come around in the Great Tribulation and that whole argument collapses. As for me, I plan on going up when the trumpet sounds and the rapture comes. That's when I'm going. I have no plans to stay around for the tribulation. God has always taken his people out. He will take his people out again. And it will be Jews who come to their Messiah, who are the 144,000 in a national revival and awakening. Now that could never happen, and none of this would be true If God didn't do something, because you see back in the 1800s there wasn't one Jew left in Palestine. Follow this very quick, we're almost done. There wasn't one Jew left in Palestine in the 1800s. How could God fulfill His promises to His people in Jerusalem with not one Jew there? He would have to regather them, wouldn't He? They would have to miraculously become a nation again, wouldn't they? And if they would, and if they did, that would validate everything I've just said. Do you know that in the 1800s there wasn't one Jew in Jerusalem? By 1880, 25,000 found their way into the land. By 1914, at the beginning of World War I, 90,000 Jews were back in the land. By 1923, 180,000 Jews were in the land. By 1935, 300,000. By 1937, 430,000. By 1945, 500,000. When their independence came and they became a nation again in 1948, there were 650,000 Jews back in the land where there hadn't been one in the 1800s. And they became a nation and Israel is there again and God will go on to fulfill every promise to them because every one of his promises is true. Israel will be saved and God will fulfill all of his promises. And so we read in verse 29, the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. That doesn't apply to your spiritual giftedness. That applies to God's promises to Israel. For as you were once disobedient to God and have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, even also now, these who have been disobedient through the mercy of God shown will come back. God committed them all to disobedience that he might have mercy on all. Summing up, Israel coming to know him at last. Finally, the riches. of God's wisdom. In verse 33 through 36 an amazing thing happens. Paul says, Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. For who has known the mind of the Lord? And who has become his counselor? Or who has given to him and it shall be repaid to him? For of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever. Amen." Hold it. What are you doing Paul? The book isn't over. It's not done yet. What happened? What's going on? Well, I'll tell you what's going on. Paul got to the end of chapter 11 and he just had to step back and marvel at such a brilliant, loving God that he would figure out a way to save, that he would be faithful though his people were fickle. He steps back and he marvels. It is a landslide of marvel looking at what he's just written, but you know something? It isn't just that that raises him to these heights. It causes him to stop like he's ending the book when he has a lot more after chapter 12. He's marveling at the gospel. He is marveling at everything we have studied to this point. You know what's on his mind when he says these words? He's thinking back to chapter 1. I am not ashamed of the gospel, it's the power of God and the salvation. And how all the human race lives in the face of creation. Enough light to respond to, to come to Christ. Yet they live in rebellion and have joy with one another in rebellion. And how they're all guilty before God when he gets into chapter 2 and then chapter 3. There is none righteous, no not one. But he rejoices in that God figured out a way to be faithful, though the human race was fickle, and that you could have salvation, chapter 3, verse 24, by grace. And he lifted up the example of Abraham, who by faith alone, by grace alone, was saved because he simply believed. And then he's thinking of chapter 5 where Adam was our representative. Where Adam sinned and then all his offspring as they were born were born fallen. And how that God figured out a way in his love, faithful though the human race fickle, to have a second Adam. another who would come to represent us all, who would live a perfect life and then die and bear our sins and rise again, so that salvation is possible to any who will believe." He's rejoicing in chapter 5. He's thinking in chapter 6, oh what a God who could work such a thing to save a man in chapter 6 and make him so born again that the old life utterly dies. Volume 1 is closed and done. Volume 2 begins. I am crucified with Christ, yet not I, but Christ lives in me." In union with Christ, chapter 6, what a joy, a brand new person. And then the wonder of chapter 7, that that new I, that new me, that new incorruptible seed conceived within is wonder of wonder still housed in humanness. And so I struggle and I sin. Oh God, what's the solution? It's in chapter 8. God uses all things together for the good, even even though you're still under construction on the way to heaven. And then he goes into chapter 9, and he shows that it's all solid because it's a sovereign God who saves by his elective purposes. And he goes into chapter 10, and he calls man to responsibility. You make your decision for Christ, or you'll be held accountable. And then he's thinking, and all that winds up in chapter 11, and he's saving Gentiles, and he's saving Jews, and he's saving anybody that will come. Oh, the riches! of my God. Truly He is an awesome God. To God be the glory. Great things He has done. Will you pray with me? Father, thank you. God, thank you for Christ. Thank you, Lord, for forgiveness. Thank you, Lord, we can come to you as guilty as a polluted gutter, and be washed in the blood of Jesus and come away white as snow. Thank you, Lord, that when saved it's by grace alone and kept forever by grace alone, and that you're reserving a place in heaven for us. We pray, Lord, for those that don't yet know you, that you would draw them to true salvation today. Work your saving work. And for those of us, Lord, that you've already done that with me, we have a new level of gratitude for you, for all that you have done in Christ. And may we realize that we have not yet seen the fullness of your grace and glory, but you will continue to unfold it now in this life and then forever. And so we give you the glory and we pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.