Chris Garcia, Kathy's mom, she's at Martha & Mary. She's probably going to be there for a while. She's on the second floor right now. What's the bay unit? You know what the number is? 2304. So if you get a chance to go and visit her, that'd be great. If she's in a bad mood, don't feel like you've got to stay around for that. If she's not on her There's a certain kind of medication they're real reluctant to give her, but they need to give her that medication. But if she's her gentle self, and you want to visit her, that'd be a good thing. Also, further prayer for my nephew, Andrew. He was cancer-free for a while, and they got this aggressive cancer that only 1,100 people on the planet Earth have. He's in his early 30s. But now it came back with a with a vengeance. It was just all over his skull and so they removed the tumor, but they're just shocked at how quickly this kind of cancer is spreading. He's a former minor league ball player, led the Arizona league in hitting, led the next level in hitting and it just It just happened that the Major League Baseball was deep at his position, first base, so he never got called up. And at age 24, he just went to fishing with his dad. But God has really moved him and his wife, and their entire family for that matter, closer to the Lord. But just pray for my nephew, Andrew, and I really appreciate it. It really hit the family hard when we got the word that it came back. And the other thing is, on a more positive note, on Wednesday nights now I'm going to be starting the book of Revelation at Barnes & Noble. So if they get mad at us and kick us out, that would just verify, confirm the truth of the book. But whatever the case, So if you want to come out for that, Book of Revelation, Wednesday nights at 7 p.m. I'm still doing the lectures at 6 p.m. on Tuesday nights at Lincoln Avenue Bible Church on ethics. And so if anybody wanted to sit in on a few college lectures there, that would be fine as well. Now we have handouts today because we did get a few requests that I discuss the difference between Calvinism and Arminianism today as we finish up Romans chapter 10, which is the primary, I mean Romans chapter 9, which is the primary chapter that Calvinists like to use to promote their view. Remember, our Calvinist brothers are brothers in Jesus. They love Jesus just like we do. There's just some disagreement about whether or not we freely come to Jesus or if that's something that is the work the work of God. We would both agree that salvation is the work of God, but are we free to accept or reject that? So it looks like there's a couple over there that need it. Okay, so we'll be back in Romans 9. We'll pick it up at verse 18, even though we covered 18. It's a good transitional passage verse. And let's just go to the Lord one more time for prayer for His anointing. If you're visiting the church, the reason why we pray for God to anoint Whoever is preaching on that particular Sunday, whether it's me, John, Pat, or Willis, it's not because we have a lot of confidence in our preachers, it's because we don't have confidence in the flesh. And it's God's perfect Word, yet God calls imperfect men to preach His perfect Word, and we don't want to mess it up. So, just join us in this prayer. Father, in Jesus' precious name, I thank You, Lord, that so many people have come out to hear Your Word preached. And so I pray, Lord, that they would not be disappointed. So many times the Jews at the time of Christ would come to their rabbis to hear the Word of God proclaimed, and they would get hit with false doctrines from those rabbis who did not accept Jesus as their Messiah and Savior. And so I pray, Lord, that you would anoint me, that you would cancel the man and anoint me with your Spirit, and fill me with Your Spirit, and empower me by Your Spirit to proclaim Your truth, so that I would not lead anyone astray. I pray, Lord, if there's any falsehoods I proclaim from this pulpit, that You would give everyone here the courage to study the Scriptures on their own, to test everything I say with Your Word, and to reject that which fails that test. I pray Lord that you open hearts and minds to receive truth from your word and that your spirit would empower us to apply these truths to our lives so that we could be more like your son Jesus each and every day until that day when your son the Lord Jesus takes his stand upon the earth. In Jesus' precious name we pray, Amen. Okay, now remember Paul is presenting his gospel message because he's never ever been to Rome after being saved. So he's never preached in Rome. He said, I don't want to build on another man's foundation. Somebody else planted the church in Rome. Some people think it might have been Paul in the 40s AD. Then again, I mean, it might have been Peter in the 40s AD. Then again, Peter, when he preached, about 30 to 33 AD on the Feast of Pentecost, some of the Jews who were there celebrating the Feast, Acts chapter 2 tells us, were from Rome. So maybe they went back and planted the church, but since they built it on the preaching of Peter, they might have considered it Peter's work and not Paul's work. So Paul said, look, you know, God can use other people besides me. I don't need to, you know, I once used to do jail ministry. Bremerton used to have a jail and And on Sundays after church, myself and a good friend of mine, Sean Bumpus, would go and witness the guys in the jail and stuff like that. But another brother was doing jail ministry and I would sometimes go with him. But, you know, you talk to a guy for hours and you plant seed, but when he got done, he always had to come back. It was almost like he felt the Holy Spirit had not confronted a guy until he was there. And so this guy would always come back, and sometimes he'd undo the work that you did through the power of the Holy Spirit, not knowing who this guy is that you spent the last couple hours with. But there was the kind of guy, he had to have his hands on everything. If he wasn't there, the Holy Spirit was never there. You know, that was his attitude. Paul, on the other hand, recognized God can use other people. And I feel led to plant churches and preach the gospel that has never been preached before. And if somebody else started a church somewhere, that's fine. So he's saying, look, I don't want to make waves or anything. This isn't my work, my mission field. But on my way to Spain, he thought, he ended up going there in chains when he got arrested in Jerusalem for preaching the gospel. But I want to stop there, but I don't want to freak you out. So here's the gospel I would have preached. He said, condemnation. We're all sinners. We cannot save ourselves. We're all condemned. But the good news is that if you trust in Jesus alone for salvation, you'll be justified, declared righteous by God the moment you first believe. Then you'll enter into the process of sanctification. Now, just because we were not saved by works doesn't mean that we believers can just go right on sinning. Paul says, may it never be. How shall we who died to sin still live in it? At the same time, that doesn't mean once you get saved, once you get justified, you're going to get sanctified, set apart for God's holy purposes. by obeying the law. Paul says, no, you place yourself under the law. The law is going to do what God intended the law to do. It's going to prove to you how holy God is and how sinful you are. The law is going to spank you. It's going to slam you. And so then how do we, if we're saved by God's grace alone, through faith alone and Jesus alone, how do we grow? How do we get sanctified? by God's grace alone, through faith alone, and Jesus alone. That doesn't mean that we throw out our Bibles. Because when God tells us His laws, we're not concerned about the letter of the law. We're concerned about the Spirit of the Law, and the Spirit of the Law, Jesus explained that as loving God with everything you've got, and loving your neighbor as yourself. At the same time, if you think, wow, I have this personal relationship with Jesus, and He's leading me to do this, and He's leading me to do that, if you constantly read the Scriptures and say, how come Jesus led me to do something that His Word says, thou shalt not do, then you've got to start scratching your head and start saying, wait a minute, the true Jesus of the Bible will never lead me contrary. to His Word. And so justification, sanctification, and finally glorification, when God perfects us, completes the work that He starts in all believers. Well, now he comes up with a big question. Romans chapter 9 is not Paul's lecture on divine sovereignty and human free will. Both Calvinists and Arminians want it. They say, yeah, this is where Paul lectured. No. If he would have lectured on that chapter, he would have titled it, What About the Jews? In fact, it'd be part one and part two and part three, or chapters 10 and 11. So the whole issue is, wait a minute. It's like, Paul, you're telling me that salvation is not by the works of the law. It's by God's grace alone. We can't earn it. We receive it through faith alone, in Jesus alone, and then you're telling me in Romans 4 this is nothing new. This was taught in the Old Testament as well. But how could that be? How could the God of Israel design a way of salvation when his own chosen people reject it? Most of the people that are coming to Jesus right now, Paul, are Gentiles. Very few Jews are coming to Christ. And so, Paul, this is the Jewish issue. And let me tell you, there's probably more false teaching going on about the Jewish issue in the church right now, 9, 10, 11. There's one group that's saying that the church has replaced Israel, that God's got no future for the land of Israel or for the Jews. And let me tell you, Paul points out, God keeps His promises. There is a future for Israel. At the same time, there's some people who misinterpret the New Testament's teachings on Judaism to try to get us back under the law. And that's not the case. We're saved through faith in Christ. We're going to grow through faith in Christ. And so now Paul has to explain, well, wait, it's the objection that, Paul, if what you're saying is true, how come so many Jews don't accept Jesus? How come so many Jews reject Jesus as their Savior? God chose the Jews. He elected the Jews. Yet, according to you, most of them are hell-bound. If they don't turn to Jesus for salvation, they're lost. How can you be of God's chosen nation and end up in hell? And they're not even saying, just because you're Jewish and we're circumcised, you're going to heaven. I don't think they're arguing for that, but I think they're just saying, it just seems to make sense that if they're God's chosen nation, the majority of them ought to be excited about Jesus. And that's not the case. What's going on, Paul? And Paul starts out by saying, you know, I wish I were lost and that they were saved. I love them so much. And there's great benefit to being a Jew. However, God's election to salvation is not based on physical descent. It's not based on human effort or works. And it's not even based on man's will. Okay? It's not based on physical descent. There are a lot. Paul will say, look, you read the Old Testament, there's lots of sons of Abraham. that are hellbound. Okay? Ishmael was the son of Abraham and his descendants, they were hellbound unless they came to Christ. Many of the Muslims, many of the Arab people came through Ishmael. Some came through Esau. Another one, the grandson of Abraham, he's outside of it. But then Paul even points out, even if you're a descendant of Abraham through Sarah, that doesn't guarantee salvation. He's going to quote some verses at the end of this chapter from the Old Testament showing very clearly that only the remnant are going to be saved. See, by God making Israel His chosen nation, you know, at that time when God chose Abraham, each nation was worshiping their own false god or gods. So God said, you know what? It would be better for me to start my own nation and enter into the battle of the gods than to try to work with the whole world. God was working with the whole world before the flood. Look how that turned out. Then he was working with the whole world until the Tower of Babel. Look how that turned out. Then after the Tower of Babel, he's working with all the nations. Look how that turned out. So God said, and it's not any failure in God, it's just man is so messed up. And God said, you know what? I'm gonna have to pick one man from him, raise up my one nation. The Elohim, the creator of the heavens and the earth, will now be known as Yahweh, the God of Israel. And people can look at Israel and learn about God. When Israel obeys God, God will raise them to the mightiest nation, most prosperous nation on earth, and defeat their enemies. When she disobeys God, then the pagans will conquer them and take them captive. Okay? But God blessed Israel to be a blessing to all nations. And so, just as in the world of Gentiles, of Gentile nations, not everybody is saved. Only a remnant will be saved. It's the same with Israel. Okay? It's almost like Israel is a subset of the world where you get to really see what's going on in the world by looking at Israel and seeing what's going on with Israel. But God's election of salvation is not based on physical descent. Just because you're a son of Abraham in the flesh doesn't mean you're a son of Abraham by the Spirit. Okay? It's not based on human effort or human works, Paul argued. It's not even based on man's will. Now, I think what he's saying here is that, look, you can't just say, well, you know, there's lots of Americans who say, well, I will to go to heaven. I want to go to heaven. And they act like their will is just going to put them into heaven. God's like, no, no, no, it's my will. I determine who goes to heaven and who doesn't go to heaven. Now, at this point in Romans 9, Paul will not, he is not discussing what that determining factor for God is. Some people say it's unconditional election. God wills some to be saved and wills others to be lost. And when God wills some to be saved, He regenerates them against their will and then that causes them to believe. I don't think that's what's being said here. I think the last few verses of Romans 9, he's going to tell us what the determining factor for God is. But the fact of the matter is, God determines who gets into heaven and who doesn't. God is sovereign. It doesn't matter if you're a Calvinist or an Arminian. If you don't believe that God is sovereign, that God is in control, I don't know how you could claim to be a Bible-believing Christian. Okay? So if I disagree with our Calvinist brothers on a few dotting of the i's and crossing the t's, very important dotting of the i's and crossing the t's, but if I disagree with them a few there, that's fine, but I better not give up on... I might understand divine sovereignty, God's sovereignty, a little differently than my Calvinist brothers, but anybody who proclaims a God who does not sit in throne... Okay? That's not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible is in control. Now, whether or not man is free to accept or reject Christ, that's an issue we debate, but the fact of the matter is God is sovereign. God is in control. I remember in 1995 I was talking to Douglas Grotice. He's now a philosophy professor at Denver Seminary. He's been there for over 20 years. Good friend of mine. I see him once every 20 years. Last time I saw him was in Denver. I had given a talk and then he was giving a talk later on. He recognized me in the middle of the talk and just stopped his talk. He says, Phil, is that you? And he started talking. But he asked me what I thought in 1995 of Clark Pinnock. And Clark Pinnock started moving away from a traditional view of God to the point where he didn't believe God infallibly foreknew future free choices. And so he mentioned Pinnock, and I said, yeah, well, Pinnock's God is slowly sliding off the throne. Okay? So you've got to understand, whether you're a Calvinist or an Arminian, your God, if you've got God sliding off the throne, He's not the God of the Bible. Okay? The God of the Bible sits in throne. He is in charge. It's, you know, you could say to the pagans, my God's bigger than your God. Okay? The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob doesn't back down to any of the pagan gods. And who are not really gods at all, they're just high-ranking demons. I even think Allah is a high-ranking demon. A bloodthirsty, cruel, wicked demon that masquerades as God. But the fact of the matter is God, it is God's will, He determines who goes to heaven and who doesn't. And what he's arguing here is that God's election of salvation is based on God's promise and His merciful choice. And now, the Jews had an advantage. Still, no one's salvation is guaranteed. He's going to argue that you've got to trust in Jesus. And he's going to explain why the Jews, the chosen people of God, why they stumbled at the end of this chapter. Now, look at verses 18 and 19 of Romans 9. Therefore He, God, He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens. You will say to me then, why does He still find fault for who has resisted His will?" So the question, who resists God's will? Two different ways, two other ways of asking this question would be if somebody said to Paul, well if God made me the way I am, why does He condemn me for being me? You know, I mean, you follow that line of reasoning out, you can commit the Holocaust and say, well, it wasn't my fault, God made me this way. Okay? Another way of saying it, if God made me sinful, why does he condemn me for being sinful? Well, guess what? God didn't make you sinful. That was granddaddy Adam and Eve in the garden. They blew it. God created us perfect. Okay? And I'm telling you, this kind of thinking has no place in the church. And Paul's saying, look, he's got no place in the church, he's got no place in Judaism, in the Jewish faith. The all-powerful, all-good God, and you're going to say, well, if that's the case, Paul, who can resist His will? God can't hold me accountable for being sinful. He made me sinful. No, He didn't make you sinful. Okay, this is like the guy who's in his sixties, that is all messed up, okay? Still getting drunk, still getting in fights, still getting arrested, acting like a 14-year-old kid. You know, has blown four or five marriages, whatever it may be, the list goes on and on. The guy's in his 60s and you talk to him and he says, you don't understand how bad my parents treated me. You know? And don't get me wrong, when I go to prison, almost always it's a guy who didn't have a dad in the home. And I think, boy, if I didn't have my dad, I'd be the one in prison. He'd be talking to me. And except for the grace of God, there go I. But whatever the case, there comes a time when you've got to take responsibility for your actions. And Paul's saying, don't blame God. You want to respond to God, be grateful that He created you. Be grateful that He put you in this beautiful, though now it's a fallen world. Be grateful and then try to express that gratitude to Him by seeking Him. And if you do that, you're going to find Jesus. But if you're going to cop an attitude and say, well, if God made me the way I am, why does He condemn me for being me? Paul's not even addressing the issue of free will or whether or not a person can trust in Christ. He's just answering objections here. And by the way, his later response is that the reason why God rejected the Jews? Because they try to please God by works, not by faith. Not by faith in Jesus. So he's going to give a fuller answer later. But his first response is that this man has no right to judge. No right to judge God whatsoever. And we do this all the time in America. C.S. Lewis called it God in the Dock. For me, a dock is like a platform of wood going off of the water, but I guess in Great Britain, when you're in the dock, you're on trial. And so C.S. Lewis said, historically, even among the pagans, man was on trial. Man never asked, how could God be just on this? A few times they did, Plato's writings, but for the most part it wasn't, how could God, how can we justify God? The big issue was, how can we be justified before God? And Paul's response here is, look, you got no right to stand in judgment on God. Look at Christopher Hitchens. The late Christopher Hitchens, an atheist, he writes a book, God is Not Great, How Religion Poisons Everything, and doesn't even realize that atheism is a religion. And there, what he does, it seems like Christopher Hitchens goes up Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments, so that he can then judge God by those standards. Okay? If there is no God, there's no moral standard by which you can judge God. The moral standard comes from God. Okay? And so, all Paul's point here is, you say, well, then God's messed up. And Paul's saying, I don't care if you're a Jew who hasn't accepted Christ, or a Jew who has accepted Christ, or a Gentile who has accepted Christ, you should know better. God is all good. He is totally righteous and we have no business judging God. Now look at what Paul says about this, you know, when the objection is raised, why does he still find fault for who has resisted his will? Look at verses 20 and 21. But does not the potter have power over the clay? from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much long-suffering, much patience, the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? Then in verse 23, and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory. And then he says, even us, whom he called not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. So he's talking about clay. Now, I don't think he's talking about the clay. I don't think he's talking about God's taking created humanity in an unfallen state. Because that's only Adam and Eve, and then they fell. So I think the lump of clay that God takes, and He molds some into vessels of righteousness, vessels that are... it's kind of like the potter's working on the clay, and the clay is fallen humanity, because that's all God's got to work with. Okay, we fell in the garden, and we've been fallen humanity ever since. Why does God take some of that fallen clay and mold it into beautiful vessels that they get on display. In the Greek it's all implied that some of these vessels are put on display and then some of these vessels are kind of used for like human waste and garbage and all the stuff. So in other words it's kind of the difference between taking the same clay and making a beautiful vase, or if I were cultured, a beautiful vase, or just making a bucket for mop water. Okay? And, see again, Paul is focusing right now on God's sovereignty, and he says that God is sovereign, He sits enthroned, He's the boss, He's free to deal with man as He chooses, Paul is not saying that God is going to be arbitrary in his justice or anything along those lines, but he's just basically saying he's the potter. He's got the right to do with the clay what he chooses. It's almost like the objection here would be, okay, well maybe salvation through Jesus for the Gentiles, but the Jews, God's got to take the clump of clay for the Jews and mold that into vessels of honor. And Paul's saying, no, not necessarily true. God's the potter and we're the clay, and that includes Jew and Gentile. And if God is willing to endure Vessels of wrath for his glory then so be it Okay, and and so God endures the unsaved man now verses 22 and 23 We read that that he endures with much patience and long-suffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction It's like God puts up with them Okay And it's for his glory and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy." I don't know all that this means, okay? But it does seem to me that at least one aspect of this is this, okay? God patiently endures vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, okay? for the sake, for His glory, and for the sake of the vessels of mercy." Okay? Were any of Cain's descendants saved? I don't know. Maybe some were. What about Esau's descendants? Any of his descendants that got saved? Probably. You see, it is possible You are not, I am not my body, you are not your body. Okay? At the same time, what makes Phil Fernandez, Phil Fernandez, my body is part of that. So it is possible that without the genetic combination that makes Phil Fernandez, Phil Fernandez, physically speaking, and I also have an immaterial soul, But it is possible that without that genetic combination, God could not make Phil Fernandez. In order to make Phil Fernandez, Phil Fernandez, as a human being, where procreation is involved, it is quite possible that every one of my direct ancestors, their existence would have had to have been actualized. Okay? So in other words, If God, you know, let's say my great-great-grandfather died without Jesus. It's possible that God said, well, if he's going to die without Jesus, that's a vessel for destruction. I'm not even going to bring him into existence. Well, then if God doesn't bring him into existence, God's got to have a world without Phil Fernandez, and maybe God wants Phil Fernandez in heaven. And not because of any value in me. I tend to think that God wants the maximal number of people who under divine persuasion would freely accept Jesus as their Savior, I believe that God may want that maximal number of people in heaven. But in order to attain that, it may take millions, in fact even billions, of vessels of destruction to bring about those people who would freely come to Him. And so believers often have lost ancestors. There might even be, I mean, God knows all things. He knows every possible scenario. It's even possible that there might have been a guy who was saying, no, man is basically good. Even Anne Frank, when she died in a prison camp, one of the last things she wrote in her diary was that she could not give up on the idea of the goodness of man. And it's like, Ann, what are you talking about? The Nazis. Look what they did to you. If there's one thing that's obvious, I mean, you should not, this is why our generation is so dumbed down right now. One thing you should not have to prove is that man is sinful and evil is real. Okay? Yet there's some people out there that just believe man is basically good. And they just ignore ISIS. They ignore all the big stuff. The fact of the matter is, if I lived alone on an island, I would still believe in evil. I would still have a rotten thought, or get angry about something, and I'd say, wait a minute man, that's messed up. And so you would think that that's something that we all recognize and see. But the fact of the matter is, all this evil that's going on, God's working it for a greater good. And God endures those vessels of wrath for His glory. And so this is where You know, there is a time when you can kind of question God and get angry, but don't stay there long. Okay? Just acknowledge He's God, you're not. He's infinitely wise, you're not. And then just trust in Him. But whatever the case, look, God's the potter, we're to clay. He's in charge. There is a God, you're not Him. He is in charge. Okay? So, if God reveals His salvation message to mankind, and Paul's proclaiming it, and many of the Jews are getting upset, Paul's saying, look, let God be God and every man a liar. God's the potter, we're the clay, God makes the rules, God is good, we know He's good, we know He's just, we know He's all-knowing, we know He's all-powerful, And if He has said salvation is only through His faith in His Son Jesus, then so be it. Okay? You know, we always, and this is not just Jews, this is Christians, this is pagans, everybody wants to get God to come on board with their program. Okay? You know, I want God to be on my side. Let me tell you, God's not on your side. Hopefully, by the grace of God, you're on God's side. To be spiritually prosperous is not to get God to do your program. It's you to get with God's program. He has said there's only one way that man can be saved. I don't think it's an arbitrary way. I think it was the only way God could save us was by sacrificing His Son in our place defeating death for us through Jesus' death and resurrection. And so, if we trust in Jesus, He suffered for our sins, then we could be saved. Now, verses 24 to 26, where He talks about even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also the Gentiles. And He says also in Hosea, an Old Testament prophet, Old Testament book, I will call them my people who are not my people." See, God's people were the Jewish people. He says, I will call them my people who are not my people. He's talking about Gentiles. And her beloved who was not beloved. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said of them, you are not my people, they shall be called sons of the living God. And so, when the Jews rejected the Gospel, it was proclaimed to the Gentiles, and now this is a point in time where the Church is becoming mostly Gentile. Look at John chapter 10. This was something that Jesus foretold to the Apostles. John chapter 10, 14 to 16. Jesus said, I am the good shepherd, and I know my sheep, and am known by my own. And the Father knows me, even so I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold, not of the Jews. Them also I must bring, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock and one shepherd. And so he's saying Jew and Gentile are going to be one flock in the church. Doesn't mean we're physical Jews. Doesn't mean God owes us a piece of the Holy Land. But Gentiles are joined with the Jews in the church. And we shouldn't, by the way, they're God's chosen nation. America isn't. No other nation is. we shouldn't get arrogant. We're going to see in Romans 11 that our branches could be broken off just like the Jews. And so we don't deserve that place of favor at this particular point. And so verses 27 to 29, Isaiah also cried out concerning Israel, though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand to the sea, the remnant will be saved. You'll finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because the Lord will make a short work upon the earth. And Isaiah said before, unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom and we would have been made like Gomorrah. God's not through with Israel. Not all Jews will be saved. God has endured a backslid in Israel for the sake of the future remnant. and the remnant of Israel shall be saved." And we'll see more about that in Romans 11, 25-27. That the remaining Jews, going through the Holocaust of the Antichrist, will reach a point where all Israel, all the remaining Jews, will basically, I think, cry out to Messiah and be saved. In fact, take a look at Romans 11, 25-27. Paul says this, "...for I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery." By the way, you should try to figure out, get a strong concordance someday, and figure out every time Paul says, I don't want you to be ignorant. Okay? He's saying, I don't want you to be unaware, I don't want you to be uneducated in the ways of God. So this idea, we can be a good Christian and not study the Bible? No, God doesn't want you biblically illiterate. And so he says, For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest the blindness, in part, has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. Several things I want to mention there. The blindness in Israel, when it comes to Jesus, is in part. See, why is Paul saying that? If Paul was the only Jew who believed, it would be in part. Because there will be some Jews who are saved. But you got Paul, you got the other apostles, you got the Jerusalem Church, you got Jews throughout the world who believed in Jesus. So it's a partial hardening, partial blindness. And then the word until, it means it's a temporary blindness. that temporary blindness will be removed when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. What I understand that to be saying is, at the end of the tribulation period, when the last Gentile to get saved, gets saved, and the fullness of the Gentile believers of that age has come in, then the blindness will be removed from Israel. The hardening of their hearts will be removed and at that point all Israel will cry out to God and cry out to Jesus their Messiah. And so verse 26, and so all Israel will be saved as it is written, the deliverer will come out of Zion, that's Jesus. coming out of Jerusalem. He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. All nations will be invading Israel. Zechariah chapter 14 when Jesus returns. For this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. And so basically God's not through with Israel. He has a remnant and the remnant of Israel shall be saved. In the meantime He's enduring with patience and long-suffering unsaved Jews, unsaved Gentiles, but the day will come when all Israel will be saved. Now, our Calvinist brothers, if you ask them, well, why were so many Jews not being saved? Why were they not elected, and they would say, well, they're not being saved because God just didn't choose them. Okay? Why are many Gentiles don't come to Christ? Well, because God just didn't choose them. Okay? But that's not what Paul says. Paul finally gives the answer in verse 32. But look at verses 30 through 33. What shall we say, then, that Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained to righteousness." Remember, it takes God's righteousness to get to heaven. We fail to get that through works, so we can only get that as a free gift through faith in Jesus. What should we say then? So the conclusion of everything he said, okay, what should we say then? That Gentiles who do not pursue righteousness have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith, the righteousness that comes by faith. So many Gentiles are coming to salvation through faith in Jesus. Verse 31, but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. None of us could perfectly obey God's commands. Verse 32, why? Here he gives the reason why the unsaved Israelites, the unsaved Jews, are not saved. And he doesn't say it's because God unconditionally chooses some to salvation and rejects others, which is the Calvinist view. Verse 32, why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at the stumbling stone. Let's stop there. So he's basically saying, look, God's election of salvation is not based on physical descent. It's not based on human effort. It's not based on man's will. It's based on God's promise and His choice that man has no right to judge God, but God has decided to elect for salvation, to choose for salvation, those who under divine persuasion those who freely choose to trust in Jesus for salvation. So when Paul, and this is one of the reasons why I'm not a Calvinist, if he had said there in verse 32, why? Because God did not choose them. I'd probably be a Calvinist. But he says, why? because they did not seek it by faith, which means God chooses to save those He foreknows would trust in Jesus. And it says, "...for they stumbled at the stumbling stone, as it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone, a rock of offense, and whoever believes on him will not be put to shame." And so Jesus is the cornerstone. The Jews stumbled over Christ by rejecting Him, They tried to save themselves by the law, but many Gentiles accepted Christ by faith. So God proclaims only one gospel. And at this point in history, that one gospel hardened the hearts of the Jews, but it melted the hearts of the Gentiles. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 23. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. This is how it hardened the hearts of the Jews. By the way, I'm a patriotic American, but don't ever let your national patriotism, your patriotism for your country, become more important to you than your love for Jesus. Okay? And believe me, that's going on in the Evangelical Church today. Well, it went on with the Jews too. Verse 23, Paul says, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, but we preach Christ crucified. Jesus died on the cross for our sins. We preach Christ crucified to the Jews, a stumbling block, and to the Greeks, foolishness. Do you know the word in the Greek for stumbling block? We get our word scandal from it. Now, we all know what scandals are. We live in America. So if you watch news, you know, you could define the word politician as a scandal-ridden person, you know? But there's just scandal after scandal, a thing that just... We all know when something's scandalous, it's like, no, that's not what... the way it should be, okay? Well, when you preach Jesus crucified to the Gentiles, to the Greeks, the guys who are into philosophy, they say, that's foolishness. Why should I worship some guy who died on a tree? That's foolishness. I'd rather study Plato and Aristotle's works or whatever. That's foolishness. And God said, the Scripture said, the wisdom of God is foolishness to the world. It's not because God's wisdom really is foolish. It's because humans are fools. Okay? We wouldn't know the truth if it hit us in the back of the head. But to the Jews, it was a stumbling block, it was a scandal. You see, the Jews did not like the idea of their Messiah, the one that they've been waiting thousands of years for, the prophesied and promised Messiah, the ultimate King of Israel. They wanted a king who would be exalted above the nations, who would be honored, who would be praised. They did not want him to die the most painful way possible, crucifixion, and also the most shameful way possible, naked. on a cross. And so to the Jews, there were thousands of Jews ready to embrace Jesus as the Messiah, and when He died naked on the cross, in the most shameful way possible, in a public place on a hill called Calvary, many Jews, in fact most Jews, said, enough is enough. That's not my Messiah. That's not my King. In fact, many Jews could look at Jesus and could look at a false Messiah, a failed revolutionary like Barabbas, and say, well we want Barabbas. Because at least he's trying to conquer the Romans. He's trying to be the kind of Messiah that we want. But the Jews stumbled over Christ by rejecting him. It was a scandal to them that their Messiah would be slaughtered and would die. I mean, From the world's perspective, Jesus of Nazareth, if you take the resurrection, if you just forget about what happened on Sunday, and you're just looking at Friday night, from the world's perspective, Jesus of Nazareth looks like one of the world's greatest, one of the greatest failures in history. And that's because the world doesn't even realize He died on that cross for our sins, just like He promised. and then He rose from the dead to conquer death for us. But the reason why the Jews were rejected, it wasn't God's unconditional election or God's arbitrary choice. The reason why they were rejected was because they refused to trust in Jesus for salvation. Now Paul, a Jew, he trusted in Jesus. The Apostles were Jewish, they trusted in Jesus. There were thousands of Jews. Just as today, we meet Jews who trust in Jesus for salvation. Praise God for that, and pray for Israel. Because the last domino, I don't know about you, but I want Jesus to come back. But the last domino that has to fall to usher in the second coming of Jesus Christ to the planet Earth, is when the blindness gets removed from the Jews, the veil over their eyes gets removed, and all Israel cries out to Jesus and gets saved. Now, as we're wrapping this up right now, I just want to talk about the Calvinism, Arminianism. I'm going to try to go through this real fast. If you have questions about it, you can talk to me after the service, but the five points of Calvinism are the first five. It spells tulip. Tulip, okay, total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints. I've added monergism and regeneration precedes faith because I think that that helps to explain the Calvinist view. Okay, now the Arminian response is on the other side, Jacob Arminius and John Calvin. Okay, Total depravity, it doesn't just mean that man is sinful and he cannot save himself. Total depravity means man is sinful, he cannot save himself, and he cannot even freely believe in Jesus and his own strength. So total depravity also would mean total inability. Man is unable to believe in Jesus on his own. We just don't do anything We don't desire to do anything good. We don't seek God. We don't desire God. And so man is so totally depraved, he cannot freely accept Jesus. A lot of people don't understand this. Jacob Arminius agreed. Jacob Arminius believed in total depravity. That man is so totally depraved, not one of us, not Phil Fernandez, not you, not John Calvin, not Jacob Arminius, none of us would freely trust in Jesus for salvation and our own strength. But to that doctrine, Jacob Arminius added prevenient grace. So before God gives us saving grace, He gives us a preceding, enabling grace which sets the will free. So that as God draws us, He sets our will free to believe. So, in other words, if you believed in Jesus, both Calvin, if you trusted in Jesus for salvation, both Calvin and Arminius would agree, you could not have trusted in Jesus without God's power. God gets all the glory. Okay? So, he believed in prevenient grace. The difference there between Calvin and Arminius is going to be that Calvin believed it was irresistible grace. He gives, God gives irresistible grace to some, So they have to believe. Arminius would say, no, he gives resistible grace to all, enables all to believe, but we can still resist that. So Calvin then taught, and by the way this is spelled out by followers of Calvin, he didn't systematize his thought, but on unconditional election, that God did not choose us before creation based on His foreknowing whether we were going to believe or not. Instead, God just, out of all mankind, none would believe. God just chose, I'm going to regenerate these so that they will then believe. So in other words, God chose some to believe and chose not to give faith to others. So it was an unconditional choice. solely of God, whereas Arminius said, no, God's choice, God's election is conditional. And that's why I think that verse 32, it says, why? Why are so many Jews lost? It's because they didn't come to God through faith in Jesus. They stumbled at the stumbling stone. Limited atonement, Calvinism only makes sense then if God died if Jesus died only for the elect. So a true Calvinist cannot tell his neighbor, Jesus loves you and Jesus died for you. If Calvinism is true, God doesn't love all mankind in a salvific way, in a saving way. He only loves the elect. and Jesus only died for the elect. By the way, I think there's very clear passages that teach Arminius' view of unlimited atonement, that Jesus died for all mankind. So, Jesus loves all mankind, died for all mankind, then empowers us to believe, but still allows us the ability, you know, still leaves with us the ability to resist God's grace. So in Calvinism, the elect were saved by God's irresistible grace. They could not resist. See, I don't mean to make fun of the other side, but in a debate I mentioned that Calvinists will spend hours trying to persuade a person to freely accept Jesus as their Savior, and then once he gets saved, they'll spend hours trying to convince them that they didn't really freely believe after all. Okay? And see, when Paul was asked by the Philippian jailer in Acts 16, verse 30 and verse 31, what must I do to be saved? He didn't say, well, you're totally depraved. God's either elected you to salvation or He hasn't. He said, no, believe on the name of the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. You and your household. And So, I agree with Arminius that we could resist God's grace. Now, the one point of Calvinism I agree with him on is the perseverance of the saints, that whoever God gives the new birth, He makes them born again, they're never going to be unborn again. They'll persevere to the end through the power of God. So the question is not, am I going to lose my salvation? The question is, am I really saved? If I'm really saved, God's going to cause me to persevere. But if you're out doing your own thing, you've got to question whether you're totally saved. Now Arminius went back and forth on this He himself came to the point where he believed it was possible for a believer to stop believing and hence lose their salvation. But there are still some Arminians today that would agree with me that you cannot lose your salvation. So that could go either way. Most Arminians today teach you can lose your salvation. But in the end what it comes down to is can a person freely accept Jesus as salvation Calvin would say no. Arminius would say yes, but only after God sets the will free. Okay, so God gets all the glory. Calvinism is called monergism, where God alone works. Okay, now Arminius would say yeah, God monergistically provides salvation for us. He monergistically chooses who's going to be saved by his will. There's a lot of monergistic aspects, and he monergistically gives us prevenient grace and enables us to believe, but in the end we have to cooperate with God's will, and through an act of the will, trust in Jesus, and so that's called synergism. In Calvinism, regeneration precedes faith. God gives us the new birth, and then that causes us to believe. But I believe Arminius is right in that the Scriptures teach, no, God gives us prevenient grace which enables us to believe, but once we believe, then God makes us born again. So I think faith precedes and in a sense is the instrumental cause of regeneration. So in other words, When you got saved, did God make you born again against your will, and then because you're born again you have a new nature that caused you to believe? It became irresistible, the gospel message. Or, did God make you born again because you trusted in Jesus? And we're not taking the Holy Spirit out of the process, but we're saying, and so basically on my view, anybody who ends up in hell, it's because they rejected. God's prevenient grace. They rejected Jesus. On the Calvinist view, there are people in hell just because they deserved hell, but we deserve hell too. And God just unconditionally did not choose them, and unconditionally chose us. And so if you have a relative who died without Jesus, in my view, in Arminius' view, it's because that relative God wanted. that relative. He loved that relative. Jesus died for that relative. He wanted that relative in heaven, but gave him. Set the will free, so that was your relative's choice not to trust in Jesus. So, in closing, when it comes down to it, the reason why the Jews rejected, they rejected the chief cornerstone. By the way, the foundation is the most important part of a building. And the cornerstone is the most important portion of the foundation. Okay? And so, unfortunately, and we need to take this to heart as a warning, we Christians, but to the Jews, they could know so much of the Bible, but if they rejected the most important part, the chief cornerstone, then they're lost. But my question to you is this. When everything's said and done, have you stumbled over the rejected cornerstone? Maybe you're going to take the Greek approach and say, no, Jesus dying on the cross, that sounds stupid. That's the new atheist. They make fun of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. That's foolishness. Or maybe it's the Jewish approach and say, no, I could never worship a guy who died the most shameful way possible. died on the cross, have you stumbled over the rejected cornerstone? And so in conclusion, we all deserve hell, still God's choice of those whom He saves is just. God sets our will free, we can accept or reject Christ, And when the Jews rejected Christ, the Gospel went to the Gentiles. God has endured a rebellious Israel for the sake of a faithful remnant. And that day will come when the sun's going to be darkened, the moon's not going to give its light, the stars fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens are shaken. Then the remaining Jews, so many will have been slaughtered by the Antichrist. The remaining Jews are going to be sitting there thinking, it's the end of the world. All the armies on earth are marching towards Jerusalem. It's the end of the world. And our Messiah never came. God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob let us down. But the young men and the old men are going to be having visions. The Prophet Joel tells us that. They're going to be having dreams. And all of a sudden, it's going to click. Wait a minute. Our Messiah came 2,000 years ago. Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus the Messiah, Jesus Christ, is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is the Promised One. The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Lamb who was slain, is the Risen King. He's the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And once all Israel cries out to God, and cries out to Jesus their Messiah, then the Deliverer, our Deliverer, will come out of Zion. I'm telling you right now, the United Nations, even our White House right now, Israel's a thorn in their side. They want to blot out Israel. And when they bring that to pass and try to blot out Israel, there's going to be one Jew who's going to show up who is too big for them to mess with. And His name is Jesus, and He is the King of kings, and He is the Lord of lords, and He is the God of Abraham, He is the God of Isaac, He is the God of Jacob, and He will take His stand. upon the earth. Do not stumble over the chief cornerstone. His name is Jesus. Don't make Him a scandal or a stumbling block. Make Him your Savior. Trust in Jesus with His salvation and no one else. Let's close with a word of prayer.