Please turn now in the Bible to Romans, chapter 9, verse 22. Romans, chapter 9. You'll find it on page 945. We are going through this great book of Romans, verse by verse, chapter by chapter. So we pick up right now in the middle of a paragraph, and I will explain it. I'm going to read from 922 to the end of the chapter. So on page 945, I will be reading Romans chapter 9, beginning at verse 22. Please give your attention to the word of God. What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy? which he has prepared beforehand for glory. Even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles. As indeed he says in Hosea, those who were not my people, I will call my people. And her who was not beloved, I will call beloved. And in the very place where it was said to them, you are not my people, There they will be called sons of the living God. And 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. And as Isaiah predicted, if the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom, and become like Gomorrah. What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained it. That is, a righteousness that is by faith. But that Israel, who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness, did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone as it is written. Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. And whoever believes in him will not be put to shame." Now as we go through this complex chapter, I want to remind you that he has some very basic and important goals. His first goal here is he is glorifying God by explaining the ways of God and showing how all that has happened is in accord with what God said would happen. So he is first of all glorifying God. He is secondly intimately connected to that. He is trying to give us peace. Because when we see the glories of God and the truth of God, then we can be at peace and we can rest in the goodness of God. And then thirdly, he's writing this letter to a church that had some Jewish Christians in it and then a whole lot, an increasing number of Gentile Christians in it. And he's trying to tell them to get along. He's trying to tell them how to relate to each other. And so that is his third purpose here. He is glorifying God. That's a basic purpose. So that we may have peace in God. That's a very basic purpose. so that there would be a unified, loving church. So the goals are basic. However, it's complicated because he's answering objections right here. And as you answer objections, well, it can get complicated. Because people hit you with hard questions, and it takes a careful answer. So that's where we're at. We're dealing with this complex chain of quotations from the Old Testament. Anywhere it was indented, that was Old Testament. Anywhere it was quotes around it, that was Old Testament. He's bringing the Old Testament in, and he's reasoning from it to answer the objections. What objections? Well, objections like, if Jesus is really the Messiah, why haven't more Jews believed in him? It's a good question. Why should I believe he is the Messiah? That's a good question. Of what value are God's promises if the Jews receive those promises but are not continuing in them? Will I continue in them? These are all the kinds of questions that he is addressing here. And so his thesis was back in chapter 9, verse 6. It is not as though the word of God has failed. And then he keeps quoting the word of God to show how everything that has happened is in accord with what happened before. He's quoting to show how all of this is the way it's supposed to be. And so you remember from a couple weeks ago, he said, this is the answer. Not all descended from Abraham inherit the blessings of Abraham, like Ishmael, like the sons of Keturah. Abraham himself sent some children away at the direction of God, because only in one child for him was the promise to be passed down. What he's saying, read the Old Testament. And you can see that what happens today is in line with what happened before. And when you see that, then you can have confidence in God and confidence in his promises. So where we pick up here is at verse 24. As he finishes with various objections and misunderstandings of predestination, and he comes back to his main topic, which is Jews and Gentiles within the church. Now, you might not think that's a very big issue anymore. But you might be wrong. You'd be wrong because the church is in Elkins Park, and we have many Jewish neighbors here. So this is an issue for us. And also, the Jewish Gentile division. There is a God laid down division for 1,000 years. If we can bridge that gap, then we can bridge any of the other gaps that there may be among us. Because here is actually, theologically, the big one. So let's look at this. He says in verse 24, he says, and he winds up all this discussion, and he comes back to say, God has called not Jews only, but also Gentiles. And to prove that, he begins to quote from Hosea. Now Hosea had lived 800 years before. Hosea was a prophet in Israel and Judah around 750 to 700 BC. It was during his lifetime that the northern kingdom of Israel was conquered and taken away into exile, never to return. And so as you, I hope, caught as we began reading it, the first thing we have in the book is, the Lord said to Hosea, go and marry a wife of Hordo, because the land commits Hordo. It's a statement about Israel and its unfaithfulness. And so you might have noticed, as she begins to have children, they get names that are not the most positive names. One is named for the capital, but only to say that the capital will fall. Next one is named No Mercy, to say that God is done having mercy. Next one is named Not My People, to say that God is saying to Israel, you're not my people. But then, at the end of what we read, there was a pivot to hope. Yet he will have mercy on no mercy. And he will say to not my people, you are my people. He prophesied judgment first, but mercy later. And back there in chapter 1, there was the mention of the sand of the sea. And those who are like the sand of the sea, in the place where it was said to them, you're not my people, you will be called children of the living God. Now, as you come to the book of Romans, what he's saying is, just as God at that time promised to save paganizing Israel, Israel going pagan, so in the day of the Messiah, he will do something even greater. He will save those who are simply pagans. And you look at the wording of it. God will say to those who are not my people. Now, who was not God's people? Well, in an Old Testament understanding, everybody who was in Israel was not God's people. But he's saying, those who are not God's people, God will say to them, you are my people. So say, look at that wording. That wording fits Gentiles perfectly. What God promised in a small way in the Old Testament will become true in a big way in the time of the Messiah. And in chapter 15, you're going to get many more quotes from the Old Testament about God calling the nations. He's saying in Psalm 67, let all the nations praise him. And so this wish of Psalm 67, he's saying, is becoming true in Jesus. So God promised to call not only Jews, but also Gentiles. That's the first thing he establishes. And the second thing he establishes, and God said, that it would only be a remnant of Israel that would believe. And so he quotes for that from the prophet Isaiah. Now, we love the prophet Isaiah. There's so many glorious, soaring passages in the prophet Isaiah. I don't know if there's ever a better author than Isaiah. If you want some stirring words, you can read in Isaiah. And yet, Isaiah's own ministry was rather grim. When he was first called, you have it in Isaiah 6, he has an amazing vision of the Lord. He says, I will go, send me. And then God says, go and make the heart of the people dull, so that they will see and not perceive, hear and not understand. Isaiah says, how long? And God says, until cities are desolate. It's a very rough passage there in Isaiah chapter 6. And so he quotes here in chapter 10, blinking by sand. And so he says, Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant will be saved. There's a remnant theology all through the Old Testament. And that comes from that time. You can think of that time when Elijah is saying, Lord, they're all worshiping Baal. And God says, no, they're not all worshiping Baal. I have 7,000 who have not. And we think, oh, 7,000. He shouldn't have gone alone. He had 7,000. But that's a country, and he's only talking about 7,000. That's only a remnant of the nation. And so through the Old Testament, through the prophets, there's this what's called remnant theology, to say that there are some Israelites who are true to the Lord, even when most are not. And so what's God going to do in this situation? Well, God's going to keep covenant. Keep covenant first by judging those who have broken covenant. That's the way God is faithful to keep covenant, when he brings down the penalties of the covenant on people. But then also bring the remnant through and out the other side. And so that happened with the exile. And Paul is saying, and it's happening again now, a remnant does believe in Jesus. Look at all the apostles. You say, look at me and Barnabas and Silas. That is how it is now. Go to Israel. All the churches are all Jewish in Israel. And a minority in each of these different churches through Greece and Italy. You see, there's a remnant that is saved. The majority is not. And that's all in line with Israel. So there's on the quote from the second place again. As Isaiah predicted, if the Lord of Hosts had not left us, us Israelites, offspring, we would have been like Sodom that was entirely erased. We would have been like Gomorrah that was entirely erased, except that God left us an offspring. That's that remnant theology. There's judgment, but there's also hope for those who are faithful. So he's saying, and he's proving it from Hosea and from Isaiah, he's saying, look, God promised to call Gentiles, and he promised to save a remnant of Israel, but that implies not a majority. And that is what we see he's saying. at the present time. And so the big point here is that belonging to God's people at a deep level depends on his call. That's what he developed in the previous passage. God must call us, and we must respond. That's why Jesus spoke to Nicodemus. You must be born again. And Nicodemus says, well, how do you do that? You can't go back into your mother's womb. Jesus says, well, of course you can't. You must be born from above. God must call you. God must do a work in you. So you must be called by God. Belonging to God's people depends not on our biology and not on our works, but on God's call. And so as he develops that, he's saying, not only is belonging to Israel not enough, Flying to Israel physically, biologically, is not only not enough, it also is not even necessary. God must call you to Jesus. Biology is not necessary one way or the other. And he's saying, furthermore, our works do not matter. He's established that with Jacob and Esau, the twins, where God called one and not the other before they were born, before they had done anything either good or bad. And so to sum up what he said, and I'm covering now the last two weeks together with today, here's chapter nine. Why has more of Israel not believed? Well, because God has not called more of Israel. But didn't he promise Abraham that his children would believe? He promised Abraham that some of his children would believe. But this is not fair. Well, God has always claimed the prerogative of choosing whom he will have mercy on. We're all guilty before God. God has always said that I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. Like a president who pardons some and not others. So the Lord, in righteousness, has mercy on some and passes by others. Then why does he find fault with us? I covered this last week. And we said, well, this is an impious question. We do sin. If we're condemned, we've earned it. If he has mercy, it's out of his grace. We have no grounds for objection. And we can see the purposes that he has, that God wishes to show his displeasure at sin. He wishes to show that he is holy. And he wishes to show that he is merciful and compassionate. And so he shows all these things. and how he handles us. It's for us to be humble and pray. And as we consider God's word, it's for us to see that nothing has happened, he's saying, that was not foretold in God's word. Therefore, you can have confidence in God and confidence in his word. But as you get to verse 30, you get a pivot. And it's as if he's saying, is there any more that we can understand? You're saying it depends on God. on God who chooses. But is there anything more we can say from the human side? And he said, yes, actually. As humans, we must respond to God's call with faith. As humans, our side is to believe God. And so starting at chapter 9, verse 30, he pivots from the divine sovereignty side of things to the human responsibility. Because that's how the Word of God uniformly treats us. God is in charge, but we are responsible. God is in charge, but we are not puppets. God is foreordained, whatsoever comes to pass. And yet, when we sin, it's our sin. And he calls us, and he speaks to us, and we are to respond. And we may not be able to put together how God is foreordained, whatsoever comes to pass, and how we're responsible. But the Bible insists that these two things are both true. And so we are responsible. We are to trace out and work as far as much as we can. So what's Mr. Confession? On this very important question, it says, God has ordained whatever is going to happen. And yet, our wills are not forced. God is not the author of sin. And secondary causes matter. They were established by God. They're not erased because God is in charge. All these things are very deep. But he's saying here, OK, the ultimate reason for Gentile faith is God's call. The ultimate reason for some widespread, and he's going to say temporary, Jewish unbelief is God's call. But we can also trace some human reasons. And they're ironic. So here, beginning at verse 30, he traces an ironic human reason. He says Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it. Now, when he says Gentiles, again, he means pagans, everybody outside of Israel. And when he says have not pursued righteousness, he doesn't mean that there weren't some Greeks and Romans and Africans and everything trying to be good people or trying to be upright. Some were. What he's saying is Gentiles as Gentiles were not trying to be righteous before the God of Israel. If they had been, they wouldn't have been Gentiles. They would have been moving into the synagogue. Gentiles as Gentiles were not pursuing being right before God. And yet he's saying a lot of them are. How did that happen? He's saying, well, the message of Jesus was preached, and people believed it. And that's what God requires, that we believe it, that we respond in faith. So ironically enough, he's saying people who were going through their lives, perhaps trying to be good, perhaps not, that doesn't even matter. They were going through life, and they heard the word of God, and they believed it, and then they were right before God, because they perceived it by faith. I hope you know people like that. Perhaps that's some of you. I was going through life being a good pagan or a bad pagan or an unbeliever, whatever I was doing. And then suddenly I heard the word of Jesus Christ and I believed. That's a common story. And it was common back then. But he says, ironically, here's the flip side. He's saying Israel, who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness, did not succeed in reaching it. It's the flip side of the irony. And you say, now, why is that? Well, at a deep level, it's God's purpose. And he's going to say, and a temporary thing. But he says, on the human side, it's because they got the wrong understanding about God's word into their heads. Having been given the law to keep, they began to say, OK, this is the way to be right with God, this law. And if I just keep this law, I will be right with God. So if I keep the Ten Commandments, and I keep kosher, and I do the sacrifices, I will be right with God. And as he's already said in chapter 7, that actually doesn't work. That's what he's been saying in the first eight chapters of the book. He's saying it doesn't work because we do sin. It doesn't work because our law keeping is never perfect. It doesn't work because if you break a law, you've broken the law. You're a lawbreaker. And you can't say, I kept 100 and I broke 10. If you've kept 100 and broken 10, you're a lawbreaker. And he said, furthermore, you know your psychology. Sometimes when somebody says to you, don't do that, that's the very thing you want to do. So he's already gone through that. The law of God, Israel was to keep it. But Israel was not to say, here is the way that I will be righteous. I will keep this law. They pursued it as if it was by works. And it was not intended to be that. So clinging to the law and their interpretation of the law, they dismissed Christ. They were not open to what God was doing. And so when the message is preached, you need to believe in Jesus, the Messiah, they said, that doesn't fit. That's not right. Because I already know how it's supposed to be, and this is not right. So we're saying this is what's happening. God requires faith, and many in Israel said, I'll give you works. God said, I didn't call for your works. I called for your faith. In faith you will do many works. But the key thing is faith in what I am doing, not works. and a rejection of what I am doing. I've read a very recent version of this in seminary. I was given a nice book to read by a guy named Rabbi Jacob Neusner, I think it was. Certainly it was Neusner. And the book was called A Rabbi Walks with Jesus. And so this gentleman, a great scholar, He imagined himself, and he writes the book, and he's read his New Testament, and he says, okay, so here I am, I'm in the crowd listening to Jesus, and here's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking that Jesus is a very powerful teacher. I'm thinking that a lot of what he says is really great. I'm thinking that some of his formulations are just genius. But at the end of the day, I see him at the top of the mount with his circle of disciples, And I walk away from him, because my idea of Israel is more collective, and Jesus' idea is too individual. That's a summary of his book. Now, I know something about the intellectual Christian milieu that Neusner knew about, so I'm actually kind of sympathetic to him. He was studying in an era and among scholars who were leaning way too far on the individual side of Christianity. He actually was hanging out with Christian scholars who thought Jesus only talked about the individual and wasn't trying to build a church. So he was detecting a weakness in Jesus as he was being interpreted by the Christian scholars around him. However, Nussner also said, and of course, Jesus is a prophet. He's doing miracles. I expect miracles because he's a prophet, but I walk away. And that's the part that does not work. If God sends you a prophet, it's to straighten out your thinking. If God sends you a prophet, you have to listen to the prophet. If God sends you a prophet, you don't say, no, Mr. Prophet, I have another idea. No, God sent you the prophet to fix your thinking. And so that is the problem with Mr. Neuster's very calm and peaceful book, is he says, Jesus is a prophet, but I have another idea. And that's the kind of problem that you see right here. Israel pursued a law that would lead to righteousness. They didn't succeed in reaching it because they did not pursue it by faith. And what he means is faith in Jesus, the Messiah. Notice how dangerous wrong doctrine is. Get a wrong idea in your head, and it may never get out of there. You may need a work of God to blast the wrong idea out of your head. It's no easy thing once you get, I got it. I got my way of understanding this. You better pray it's the right way. Because if it's the wrong way, you see the difficulty of understanding it. That's why we have to work hard to understand God rightly. That's why this complicated passage is for us, because we need to work hard to understand God rightly. So he's saying, as human beings, we have to relate to God by faith. We have to respond to what God does in the world by faith. We have to trust his goodness and not our own. And so the message of this passage today is the simple and familiar passage. Come to God by faith in Jesus. This is the way you can stand before God. Have the judge call you righteous. when you come to him by faith. We don't mean faith as sort of an out there, ethereal feeling. That's not what we mean. He means faith in Jesus. And to show that, he goes on to start talking about rocks. Rocks. You see that at the end of the chapter? We're talking about stones, or one stone. And a stone that you can trip over, and that you don't want to trip over. Instead, whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. Now, what is this riff on a stone for? Well, Paul's riff on a stone follows, of course, Jesus's earlier riff on a stone that you can get in Matthew chapter 21. And the point of talking about a stone is, of course, who the stone represents and what is promised about the stone. Jesus, in this last week, as he's teaching in the temple, and the various authorities are trying to get him out of there, and they're trying to shame him. Jesus, after he explains something to the chief priests, he says, haven't you read Psalm 118, where it says, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone? This is the doing of the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes." He said, let's unpack that. The stone the builders rejected became the cornerstone because God made it so. He said, now what is that talking about? And you look at what he's saying, and you can tell. He's saying he's the stone. He's saying he's going to be rejected by the builders who are the chief priests. And he's saying it won't matter in the long run, because God will make him the cornerstone. And then he goes on from his Psalm 118 stone grift to Isaiah, because Isaiah has these two different prophecies about a stone. In Isaiah 28, 16, it says, the Lord, I lay in Zion a firm stone as a foundation, and he who trusts in him will not be put to shame. And so already, by the time of Jesus, people reading their Hebrew Bibles said, this is a messianic prophecy. The Messiah is being called a stone here. The Messiah is the cornerstone. The Messiah is the foundation stone. But of course, there was that problem, that in Psalm 118, even while it's prophesied that God will establish a cornerstone, the builders were going to reject it. And in Isaiah, there's a second stone passage in chapter 8 that we read. The passage that says, I lay in Zion a stone, or rather it's more, the Lord will be a sanctuary. Good, that's a good thing. So you want the Lord to be a sanctuary and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. There's your remnant theology. He'll be a sanctuary to those who trust in him, but he'll be a stone of stumbling to those who do not trust in him. The word trust is there, faith, believing. And unfortunately, you might say in Isaiah 8, there's a lot more said about the stumbling than there is about the sanctuary. So Jesus had already riffed on these passages in Matthew 21. He'd said, I am the stone. The builders will reject me. God will resurrect me, that's implied. Many will stumble over me. But the one who believes in Him will not be put to shame. So the promise for us today comes in the last lines of this chapter. Whoever believes in Him shall not be put to shame. There is the promise for us. Whoever believes in Him in this stone, which is the cornerstone for those who have faith, and is a stone of stumbling for those who do not have faith. Whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. Now, the world will try to shame you. And the world may make you turn red. And the world may hit you with some objection that you don't have a word back to in the moment. But will not be put to shame is a long view. that when God comes and judges the world, those who have trusted in His Son will not be put to shame on that day. So the message for today is come to God by faith in Jesus. Believe in Him, the cornerstone, and you're caught up into this great history. Notice this great history that he's talking about. These prophecies, don't say they're 2,000 years old. That's too small a number. These prophecies from Hosea and Isaiah are 2,700 years old. They're 2,750 years old. And they're saying that God will call both Jews and Gentiles. When you believe, whether you're Gentile or Jewish, you are caught up into this story. And those prophecies were for you and about you. More importantly, the promise is for you, that you will not be put to shame. Now the devil speaks at this moment if he sees you being told. And he says to you, but not you. Not after the sins that you have sinned. Not after the life that you have lived. You spent your whole life turning your back on God and ignoring this kind of appeal and you think God is going to accept you now? That's the voice of the devil to you. Because what did the passage say? It does not depend on the works that we do, but on the One who calls. It does not depend on the works that we have done, but on faith in the One who calls. And so while there is life, there is hope. You can have 90 years of great sin behind you. Let's make it 100. You can have 100 years of great sin behind you. I don't want to rule anybody out. And yet, believe in Jesus Christ and you will not be put to shame. Here we have something equal for all. Anyone can believe in Jesus. You don't have to have a certain biology. You don't have to have lived a certain life. You don't have to have a certain education. You don't have to be part of a certain country. Anyone can believe in Jesus. For God made us all in His image. And He is calling people from every nation to believe in Him. And He has made us a way through the death and resurrection of His Son. Let us believe in Him. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank You that while You are deep and subtle, You are also true and faithful. And we thank you for your plan, some of which we've discussed today, and more of which we have to come. We thank you that you are calling people from every nation to believe in you. Lord, we thank you that you have made a way where there was no way, a way over the sins that separate us from you, a way to come before you, the holy God, when we ourselves are not holy. We thank you for our Lord, Jesus Christ, that he is the propitiation for our sins. Help us, Lord, to have faith in him and to know that no word of yours fails. Help us to hear your call today and to respond in faith. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.