Take your Bibles, if you will, and turn to Romans chapter 11. Romans 11. I want to use a word this morning. We've already read several times in the scripture. The word is remnant. What comes to your mind when I say the word remnant? Sometimes we'll hear it used something like this. Yes, the American church today has gone astray and been unfaithful to God, but praise the Lord, there's a remnant still. Used in that way, it speaks of there is still a group of Christians and churches who are faithful to the Lord. The word literally means a small remaining quantity or a small surviving group. But what about practical terms? What would be examples of that? You already know the word is used in scripture. As a matter of fact, the word remnant is used in the Bible over 90 times. It might surprise us a bit. Most commonly, it is used to speak of a small surviving group of God's people, especially after the exile. You don't need to look this up, but I'm gonna read this to you out of Jeremiah 10. Likewise, when all the Judeans who were in Moab, and among the Ammonites, and in Edom, and in other lands, heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant in Judah, and had appointed Gedaliah the son of Ahicham, son of Shaphan, as governor over them, then all the Judeans returned from all the places to which they had been driven, and came to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah at Mizpah. they gathered wine and summer fruits in great abundance." So did you catch that? The Babylonians, those were the folks that had come in, they had captured Judea, they had destroyed the city, and and they deported many people to Babylon. But the king left a remnant in Judah. He left some people there. They were the remaining people, the leftovers out of all those people who had lived there before. Now we come to Isaiah 10. If you'd like to turn there again, you may. Isaiah chapter 10, verses 22 and verse 23. Jeremiah, no, I'm sorry. Isaiah chapter 10. Now I've got Isaiah and Jeremiah mixed up, so y'all be patient with me. Yeah, Isaiah chapter 10. This is the one we read earlier. And I wanna read a portion of it again. Isaiah 10, verses 22 and I'm gonna read verses 20 through 23. I'll just read all of that again. In that day, the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel in truth. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction is decreed, overflowing with righteousness. For the Lord God of hosts will make a full end, as decreed in the midst of all the earth." He's gonna use remnant in a slightly different way than in the past. So a small group returned to the promised land. That was the remnant. But Paul uses the passage, if you wanna flip back, in Romans 9, we've studied it. Romans 9, verses 27, 28, and you'll see that he takes this out of Isaiah 10. Romans 9.27, and Isaiah, he says, he's quoting from Isaiah, Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay. So Paul uses it, but he he transforms it a little bit and he says here, only a remnant of them will be saved. Now, when he uses the word only, both in Isaiah and here in Romans 9, the word isn't in the text, it's supplied, but it catches the intention. Only a remnant will be saved. Now, get this in your mind. Paul uses this term remnant to refer to a small group of Jews from the nation of Israel who would be saved. This is what Paul was seeing in his day. The majority of the Jewish people were deceived into thinking that because of their ancestry and because of their possession of the law, they were going to be right with God. That's what they thought. But as Paul taught and as Scripture prophesied, only those embracing Jesus as the Messiah would be saved. Only a remnant of the Jews were going to be saved. Now keep all that in mind as we come to chapter 11. In chapter 11, we're going to see this idea of remnant, but again, it's used in a slightly different way, and we'll see that as we get into it. So I want us to read our text again, Romans chapter 11, and we're going to read the first 16 verses. Romans 11.1, I ask then, has God rejected his people? By no means, for I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? Lord, they have killed Your prophets, they have demolished Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life. But what is God's reply to him? I have kept for myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. So too, at the present time, there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace. What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened. As it is written, God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes it would not see and ears it would not hear, down to this very day. And David says, "'Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them. Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their backs forever.'" Verse 11. So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means. Rather, Through their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now, if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean? Now I am speaking to you Gentiles, and as much then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is a whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches." Father, this morning, as we continue to come to a passage that's not real simple, we continue to ask that you give us understanding. Help us to grasp this idea of remnant and the way Paul uses the word and forms the concept. And on all of this, help us to see Jesus, the reason all of this was written. It's in his name we pray, amen. So I need to continue to kind of give a review as we look at chapter 11. We need to approach this passage with humility. As I've mentioned, it's not easy to understand, and we also need to guard against just trying to understand it intellectually, just so we get it in our minds. Now I'm not saying we should turn our minds off, not at all. We love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. But let's pursue this by pursuing the word, the scripture. Let's look at what the scripture says and apply our minds to it. So the theme that dominates chapter 11 is found in that first verse. I ask then, has God rejected his people? We will come back to this again and again and again. And we're beginning to see how Paul answers the question. First of all, he says, by no means, may it never be. This is unthinkable. never get that idea. And then he uses himself as an example. God hasn't rejected me, but I'm an Israelite descended from Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. And then he gives the straight-out answer. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. God chose Israel, and he is not going to forsake them. Now, Paul is very fond of repetition. We see this again and again. But in chapter 11, he's not just repeating what he said in chapter 9 and 10. Remember, going back to the end of 8, 8, 9, and 10, he emphasizes that God has foreknown, God has chosen a smaller group of individuals out of the larger nation of Israel. You remember, not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, back in chapter 9, verse 6. And then he gives the extreme example. He says, take Isaac. He had two sons. Jacob and Esau. Before they were ever born, it was told their mother, the older will serve the younger. Why? In order that God's purpose of election might continue. Not according to works, but according to Him who calls. Last Sunday, I reminded you of this idea that God foreknew, God chose Israel as a nation. I want to read it again, Amos 3, 1. Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt. You only have I known of all the families of the earth. Now, who's he talking to? He's talking to Israel. He just said, O people of Israel. He says to them, you only have I known of all the families of the earth. So God certainly knew about all the nations, but he says, I have known you in an intimate personal relationship like I have known no other nation. God foreknew, God chose his people, Israel. Now here in chapter 11, the focus is on the nation of Israel, the nation as a whole. That nation as a whole had rejected Jesus as Messiah, as we've read in chapter 9 and 10, and so chapter 10 ends with the words that Paul quotes from Israel, Isaiah. Of Israel, he says, I have held out my hands all day long to this disobedient and contrary people. And that's where we get verse 11-1 when he says, I ask then, The idea of then, it's like this, I ask then, in light of the fact that the people of Israel as a whole are rejecting Jesus the Messiah, and in light of the fact that I've just quoted from Isaiah how God spoke of Israel as a disobedient and backtalking people, does that mean that God has rejected his people? If you stopped at the end of chapter 10, you could definitely get the idea that God was fed up with Israel and he's having nothing more to do with the nation. But he doesn't stop at the end of chapter 10. He goes on and Paul says, that idea that God has rejected his people, don't ever think that that is possible. Never, never, never. That's a rather lengthy introduction, but the reason I need to keep doing this is because in chapters 8 through 10, We are bombarded with this idea that God has chosen this smaller group of individuals out of the larger nation of Israel. And when we read the New Testament, we see so many times how salvation is an individual thing. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And rightly we should emphasize that. That is certainly, certainly true. From that, we could get the idea that God has no plan for the nation of Israel. That's what chapter 11 is all about. So I want us to pick up where we left off last week. So After Paul refutes the question, gives himself as an example, and then says flat out, God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew, then he goes on in chapter 2, picking it up in the middle of verse 2, I'm sorry. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? So now we come to this illustration of Elijah. So let me go on now and read, I'm going to read that again, and we're going to go on through verse four. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life. But what is God's reply to him? I have kept for myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. You recognize this because we read the story this morning out of 1 Kings chapter 19. I may read one verse, but I'm not gonna read all of it again because we read it, it was rather lengthy, but we needed to call to mind again this idea. Now, I wanna keep reminding you of how Paul does this over and over and over again. He appeals to Scripture. Paul had an extremely sharp mind. He understood the plan of God. Pity the man who would ever get in a debate with Paul. But instead of just using his human logic, he comes back again and again and again to ground everything he says in Scripture. How we need to do that. You would say, I'm not a teacher. even in our minds as we go through these things. We need to saturate our minds with the word of God so that we ground our thinking in the scripture. Now, back to the prophet Elijah. As Joy mentioned when she read this morning, before chapter 19 is when Elijah has this great contest with the prophets, hundreds of prophets of Baal. And you remember how he did it. He called on God to come down and consume the sacrifice with fire, and he did. Wonderful. Then we go to chapter 19, and Ahab the king, his wife Jezebel, if there's anybody worse than Ahab in the story, it's Jezebel. Jezebel finds out what happens, and she sends a message to Elijah and says, just as you killed those prophets, I'm going to kill you. May the gods take my life if I haven't taken your life by this time tomorrow. And bold Elijah, who had faced all those prophets, he runs for his life. Comes to a place where he says, Lord, it's enough, just let me die. You can hear some self-pity in Elijah at this point. And then he speaks the words, He said, this is 1 Kings 19.10, I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. And I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life to take it away. So we see Paul, he doesn't give an exact quote, but in verse three, You can certainly recognize these words of Elijah in what Paul says, Lord, he's saying what Elijah said, Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life. Now, focus on the words he says, I alone. There's nobody else who's jealous for the Lord except me, Lord, and they're trying to snuff out my life just like they've done the rest of your prophets. Now, notice in verse three, where verse two, at the end of verse two, do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? Elijah is convinced that all the people of Israel, not just Jezebel, but all the people of Israel are against God and they're against him. And like I say, he's feeling sorry for himself, but this is what he actually thinks, he assumes this to be true. Now, notice verse 4. Paul says, but what is God's reply to him? That is, God's reply to Elijah. And if you remember, it didn't come until much later in the passage. But the people who are reading this, especially the Jewish people who had become Christians, they understood what the reply was. And here it is. But what is God's reply to him? I have kept for myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." Now, it's very interesting that he says 7,000 men, and we think, well, you know, men and women, not this time. He says, basically, I've kept 7,000 males. I take it to mean, similar to when Jesus fed the 5,000 men, literally males, besides women and children. I take that, that that's what he means here. You may want to interpret it in a different way. But the point is, I have kept thousands of people, Elijah. It's not just you. Now, he's not saying, I have kept these 7,000 men alive. What he's saying is, I have kept them faithful to myself. They've not bowed the knee to Baal. You think that everyone is worshiping the idols. No, it's not true. I have kept these 7,000 men for myself. Now here's the question. What's the point? What's the point of all this? Why does Paul ask, do you not know what the scripture says about Elijah? Why is he asking these things? And that brings us to Paul's explanation. Now remember the question again in verse one. Has God rejected his people? Paul has refuted the question, he's given personal example, he's given the clear statement. Now he gives us the example of Elijah. Now, that's great, but he still hasn't told us how it all fits together. We get Paul's conviction that God has not rejected his people, but why does it seem like he had rejected his people? You could get that conclusion if you stopped at the end of chapter 10. And his explanation is going to come right out of the story of Elijah. Listen to what he says in verse 5. So too, at the present time, there is a remnant chosen by grace. This is his answer. There is a remnant. Notice especially those words. So too at the present time. Paul is linking his day with Elijah's day. As it was in the days of Elijah, so it is today. There is a remnant. That is the link between Elijah's day and Paul's day. In both cases, there is a remnant. Now, the word remnant is not used in 1 Kings 19, but the concept is front center. God kept 7,000 for himself who had not bowed the knee to Baal." It would be very accurate to read this something like this, God preserved for himself a remnant that had not gone after Baal but who had remained faithful to him. Thousands were still faithful. That's the point he's making. Paul's saying it's the same now in my day. Back to the remnant concept where we began. In Isaiah 10, he talks about the remnant as a small group of exiles returning to the promised land. But this is what I want you to get this morning. Paul is using that term remnant in verse 5 in a slightly different way. There's still a small group out of the larger group, 7,000 plus. of the nation, but now it's not so much that the 7,000 are going to be saved, as in Romans 9 27 when he quotes it, but here the idea is since these 7,000 are faithful, you can't conclude that the entire nation has turned its back on God. That's what the context tells us in Elijah's story. This is what Elijah thought. I'm the only one left. Everyone else has forsaken God. But God tells him it's not so. There are 7,000 who are still faithful to me. This 7,000, they are a pledge that the nation has not forsaken God. Now, Paul says the same thing about his day. Although, at this point in time, the people of Israel had not embraced the Messiah, don't get the idea that God has turned his back on Israel. There were many people in Paul's day, many Israelites who were following Jesus. Not the majority. The majority were not embracing Jesus as a Messiah, but there were many. And to know that, all we have to do is read the scripture. We read that there were thousands of Jews in Jerusalem who had come to Christ. So that's what we want to keep in mind. Paul himself was a part of this remnant. He points to himself, but he's just one person in the larger argument. Paul is using every argument at his disposal to show that God had not rejected his people Israel. I like this little summary. I'm going to read it kind of slowly. It's from F.F. Bruce, and he puts it like this. In Elijah's day, in a period when national apostasy had assumed the dimensions of a landslide, there was a faithful minority of 7,000 who refused to worship Baal. And so in Paul's day, there was a faithful minority who had not rejected the gospel. Paul ought to know he was one of them. His descent from Abraham through one of the sons of Israel was well established. And yet he was a believer in Jesus, as were many more of his kinsmen, according to the flesh. They constituted a faithful remnant, chosen by God's grace, and their existence was in itself proof that God had not abandoned Israel or given up His purpose for them. Even if Israel as a whole had failed to attain his purpose, the elect remnant had attained it. And we're going to get to that. The blindness which affected the majority had been foreseen by God, but it was not to be a permanent condition. Now, so get this as simply as I can put it in Elijah's day, the 7,000 were the pledge that God was not done with the nation as a whole. In Paul's day, the Jews who were following Jesus were the pledge that God was not done with the nation as a whole. Lot of questions, but as we get further into the chapter, he is going to develop this and give more and more explanation. Next week, we're going to focus on verses 5 and 6. particularly that phrase at the end of verse 5, chosen by grace. In other words, how did this remnant come about? They were chosen by grace, and that will be our focus. So this morning, I want you to get two things. First of all, you're probably aware that people have many different opinions about Israel. When Israel is mentioned in our day, it will often ignite religious discussions. Sometimes it will stir up heated debates, political debates. And sometimes it's hard to distinguish the religious from the political because they kind of blend together. People may get in big arguments over these things. So, as we go through Romans 11, Let's not let our minds go to all the debates. Right now, let's focus on what the scripture says. Let's apply our minds and hearts to what we're reading in Romans 11 with the background of where we've been in chapters 8, 9, and 10. And let's focus on the word of God. I believe that as we depend on him and his spirit, the Lord will teach us in this passage. The second thing is, I want us to be aware that God has a grand plan for all his people. We may not know at this time exactly how to put all of it together, but God is wise. his wisdom is far above ours. Let me ask you a couple questions. How did God come up with his plan of salvation, the plan to send his son to die for his enemies? If you had been designing a plan of salvation, would you have done it this way? I dare say, no. We couldn't have dreamed up this sort of thing. God, in his wisdom, has done things in a perfect way. So we want to be careful that we don't limit God in any way. We don't want to try to figure out with our logic what is behind all this, but we want to hear and delight in the revelation of God Himself. God has told us, maybe not everything we want to know, but He has told us everything we need to know in the Scripture. And concerning this whole issue of Jews and Gentiles, he's told us everything we need to know basically in this section, Romans 9 through 11. So Romans 11 lays out God's great plan for his people. So we want to sit back as we read and study and meditate, we want to marvel at how he has put all this together for Israel and the nations. Again, we could never devise such a plan, but God has. That's why when he gets done with it in verse 32, then he says again, let me read it, 33 through 36, oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways. We can't figure them out. For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor? Or who has given a gift to Him that He might be repaid? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen. Now, this whole question of how Jews and Gentiles fit together in this plan, he's going to talk much more specifically about it. We've read this as we read down 1 through 16. He's going to deal with that and we're going to deal with that. But behind all of it, the Lord Jesus Christ this would have no meaning were it not for the truth that God sent his son to save both Jews and Gentiles back to the theme of Romans for I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is a power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek for in it is That is, in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. In the gospel, the truth that Jesus came to die and rise to save people, in that gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. Praise God. That's what stands behind everything, including Romans 9 through 11. Let's pray. Father, thank you this morning that we can work our way through these precious concepts, even though they may be difficult. We're trusting you to give us understanding, not just mental, but deep within us to embed these truths in our minds and hearts so that we won't forget. So that we can praise your name just like Paul did at the end of chapter 11 Thank you for working in us we acknowledge that we must depend on you and Not lean to our own understanding Now I just give you some time to meditate on what we're thinking about this morning Father, I continue to pray for those who are here who still have not yet come to you. I pray that they would hear you speak clearly, Lord Jesus. Repent and believe the gospel. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Thank you for that invitation. We give you all the glory this morning, in Jesus' name, amen.