SPEAKER_00: Hello everybody.
SPEAKER_00: So s no nice so nice to be with you today.
SPEAKER_00: I uh like to tell folks in the Evangelical Free Church that um there's good news about me and there's bad news about me.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the good news is that I'm Scandinavian.
SPEAKER_00: The bad news is that I'm Swedish.
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, you can't have it all, that's all I can say.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it is uh always a thrill to be with Walt and Jane.
SPEAKER_00: Uh as he said, uh there are bonds that are created uh in the crucible that are hard to be broken, and I think that's what's happened to us over the years from uh the struggles going through a seminary to uh the struggles in life doing ministry.
SPEAKER_00: And so we've uh been the sounding boards for each other for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: And uh so following very closely what they and their family have done, and they doing likewise with us.
SPEAKER_00: Um I wanted to uh share just a touch more about uh what we do personally with the chosen people ministries.
SPEAKER_00: So this is kind of the commercial announcement that I want to get out of the way.
SPEAKER_00: Although it is important that you know uh what God is doing through us.
SPEAKER_00: Um the school that Walt mentioned, the Feinberg Center for Messianic Jewish Studies, is named for Charles Feinberg, who was the first academic dean at Talbot School of Theology.
SPEAKER_00: He was a Jewish man who came to faith in a suburb of Pittsburgh and became the preeminent scholar, Jewish scholar of the Old Testament for years.
SPEAKER_00: And so we wanted to honor that memory and call this the Feinberg Center.
SPEAKER_00: Talbot School of Theology is very, very similar to the other evangelical schools around, such as Dallas or Trinity or Gordon Conwell, uh, Denver, Western, so and McMasters.
SPEAKER_00: So it's in the tradition of those of us who have uh really held high the cause of Christ among the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00: So this is nothing new to you with your background in the Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: There's always been a desire to see Jewish people meet their Messiah in uh sincerity and in truth.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what we do.
SPEAKER_00: The thing that's unique about our school that I think I would like you to know is that all of our professors and administrators raise their own support as missionaries.
SPEAKER_00: So we have terminal degrees uh to teach, and we're professors of uh at Talbot, but we raise our own support.
SPEAKER_00: That means salaries, we don't receive a salary, we're missionaries.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I speak in churches all around the country.
SPEAKER_00: It's not really the reason I'm here today, but hey, if any of you want to support us, I'd love for you to.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a sign-up sheet here if you want to get our newsletters.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's a legal pad, that's the way I do it.
SPEAKER_00: Give us your name and contact information or your card, and we'll put you on our mailing list.
SPEAKER_00: There's also a brochure that tells about the Feinberg Center, and I'd love for you to pick that up and and and read it as well.
SPEAKER_00: So I'll be down here at the front at the end of the service to talk to you more about that, or to interact with you concerning uh some I'm going to stir up your mind by way of remembrance this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I like to call this a helicopter message.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of those that kind of hovers over a few chapters of the Bible that kind of hold together as a pyricope or a segment.
SPEAKER_00: And chapters 9 through 11 in the book of Romans is certainly that.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, some have thought, why in the world was Romans 9 through 11 included in the book of Romans?
SPEAKER_00: Because it seems to be out of sync with everything else that Paul is talking about, the condemnation of the world, you know, and then the solution that is found in Christ, and chapter 3, and then on into chapter 5 and 6, where he talks about the role of the Holy Spirit after one is justified.
SPEAKER_00: And so all of these wonderful foundational truths for the Christian church are developed by Paul in this wonderful book, which is often called The Constitution of the Christian Faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's the gem of all.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're stranded on a desert island, which book would you want?
SPEAKER_00: I'll take the book of Romans, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Because it has so much, it has all that we need to know in it.
SPEAKER_00: But one of the things that it has in it is a very significant section about Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're going to look at.
SPEAKER_00: So we're hovering over chapters 9 through 11.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to read a good bit of that.
SPEAKER_00: That might be a little unusual for you, but I like to just read the text and let it sink in.
SPEAKER_00: It's not what I have to say that's important, it's really what the text says.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to pull out some principles that relate specifically to the past, blessings that have come to Israel, to the present state of rejection that we see in Israel, and to the future restoration or salvation of the nation of Israel in chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: So just to give you an idea of where we're going, that's it.
SPEAKER_00: So I hope all of you have found that passage, and we'll be reading some things together.
SPEAKER_00: This section has often been called the theodicy of the book because Paul is trying to get God off the hook.
SPEAKER_00: You know, God promised certain things, and then it seems like he's not fulfilling that promise.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, Paul answers the question: well, what is God doing with Israel?
SPEAKER_00: He's made all of these promises to Israel, but now it seems as though the church is moving in a different trajectory.
SPEAKER_00: So it's called the vindication portion of the book of Romans, 9, 10, and 11.
SPEAKER_00: So I'd like to just dive into it and remind you that the nation of Israel is mentioned 11 times in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: And it should be kept in mind that it's the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the church.
SPEAKER_00: It's the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul, in his day, was talking about those who were of his own heritage.
SPEAKER_00: They were Jews.
SPEAKER_00: And his heart for them is brought out in the beginning statements of each of the chapters.
SPEAKER_00: Let's start there.
SPEAKER_00: And chapter 9, verse 1, he says, I'm speaking the truth in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not lying.
SPEAKER_00: My conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: You see, he's speaking about those non-believing Jewish people in his day.
SPEAKER_00: So we're thinking back in the past when Paul was walking around, and this is the way he viewed the landscape.
SPEAKER_00: In chapter 10, verse 1, just to skip ahead for a moment, he begins this chapter by saying, Brothers, my heart's desire and my prayer, my begging is for the Israelites, is that they may be saved.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul, in his day, wanted his Jewish family and friends to believe in Yeshua.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but I want to be like Paul as he was like Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Let's read on.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: I asked then, did God reject his people?
SPEAKER_00: By no means.
SPEAKER_00: And then Paul goes on to talk about his Jewish heritage and pedigree.
SPEAKER_00: I'm an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham from the tribe of Benjamin.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's going to say that I'm still a Jew.
SPEAKER_00: Even though my background is in Judaism, I'm still ethnically a Jew.
SPEAKER_00: Now back to chapter 9, and I want to read through the first five verses which describe for us in very, I think a passage that you're all familiar with, the blessings that God showed to Israel.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, look back on the nation, how blessed the nation was by God.
SPEAKER_00: Part of those blessings include what he says here in verse.
SPEAKER_00: I'm losing it here.
SPEAKER_00: It's in the middle of verse 2, I guess.
SPEAKER_00: There's, I'm looking at a paragraph edition.
SPEAKER_00: Theirs is the adoption as sons.
SPEAKER_00: So adopted.
SPEAKER_00: You have the nation of Israel being adopted or brought into the family without any any reason to do so.
SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy 7 tells us that it's because of his love, right?
SPEAKER_00: Remember that?
SPEAKER_00: It's that's because of his love.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't because they were a great nation or because they were large or anything like that, so smart.
SPEAKER_00: It was because of his great love.
SPEAKER_00: They were adopted, so they enjoyed the adoption.
SPEAKER_00: And they also had the divine glory.
SPEAKER_00: That means they saw the divine glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: I think that refers to the Shekinah, the Shekinah glory in the Old Testament, the Temple and the Tabernacle.
SPEAKER_00: And the covenants, I mean, the covenants that were made with Israel, from the Abrahamic to the Davidic to the New Covenant, to the Land Covenant, all those covenants that God made with Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Some unilateral, others not so much.
SPEAKER_00: But some of them unconditional covenants.
SPEAKER_00: That was to the nation of Israel, don't forget.
SPEAKER_00: And also the receiving of the law.
SPEAKER_00: What nation has such a wonderful code by which to live?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, in the detail of it, it was a gracious, loving gift from God to the people.
SPEAKER_00: They demanded it, they wanted it, they wanted to know how to walk with God, and so he said, You want to know?
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you.
SPEAKER_00: And he gave them the law as a gracious gift, as Paul says in first, I'm sorry, in Romans 7, that the law is precious.
SPEAKER_00: It is beautiful, it's wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: And so the law was given to them.
SPEAKER_00: And the temple worship and the promises.
SPEAKER_00: Theirs are the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So even it's through the Jews that we have Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, he is God over all and forever to be praised.
SPEAKER_00: So he begins by saying, in the past, God blessed Israel in his election of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: But he goes more specifically into the election in verses 6 through 13.
SPEAKER_00: So let us read that for just a moment.
SPEAKER_00: It says, It's not as though God's word had failed, for not all who were descended from Israel are Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham's children.
SPEAKER_00: On the contrary, it's through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.
SPEAKER_00: So we have a large nation chosen, but you have the promises going through only one part of those descendants.
SPEAKER_00: It was not through Ishmael, it was through Isaac.
SPEAKER_00: That's a divine choice of God, you see.
SPEAKER_00: And from Isaac comes Jacob.
SPEAKER_00: And Jacob becomes Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And the passage, 9 through 11, is talking about Israel.
SPEAKER_00: So in other words, it's not the natural children who are God's children, but it's the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring.
SPEAKER_00: And this is how the promise was stated.
SPEAKER_00: At the appointed time I will return and Sarah will have a son.
SPEAKER_00: So through the patriarchs, through Abraham, we have the son who is going to be the pro, the forerunner of the Christ Himself.
SPEAKER_00: Look also at the next paragraph, it says, not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac.
SPEAKER_00: So now we have not two different fathers, but the same father.
SPEAKER_00: And yet for the twins were born, when the twins were born, they hadn't done anything bad or good, so their choice is, it has nothing to do with whether they were good or bad.
SPEAKER_00: It's a divine election.
SPEAKER_00: In order that God's purpose and election might stand, not by him who works, but by him who calls.
SPEAKER_00: She was told the older will serve the younger.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is called worthy of saga in literature.
SPEAKER_00: It's not supposed to be this way.
SPEAKER_00: Primogeniture means the firstborn is the one who gets all the goodies.
SPEAKER_00: So this is a reversal in the whole idea.
SPEAKER_00: But God says to her, the older will serve the younger, just as it is written, Jacob, I have chosen, loved, set apart, sanctified.
SPEAKER_00: Jacob is the one who is part of this election promise.
SPEAKER_00: And Esau I've rejected.
SPEAKER_00: It's simply that he chose Jacob for a particular purpose.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here to tell you that the chosenness of the people of Israel began back then.
SPEAKER_00: This is Israel in the past, Isaiah chapter 9.
SPEAKER_00: We believe that chapter 11 talks about the chosenness in the future.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll get to there before we end.
SPEAKER_00: But something in the present is going on too.
SPEAKER_00: Are they still the chosen people?
SPEAKER_00: That's the theological issue that we ask, we have to question.
SPEAKER_00: And the question came up very clearly in the Sunday school class this morning with the college students.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, how do we how do we deal with those churches and those theologies that simply right out say the church has replaced Israel?
SPEAKER_00: There is no more Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Israel today has no reason for existence.
SPEAKER_00: The city of Jerusalem has no importance to God.
SPEAKER_00: Even the place names in the nation of Israel today, God has nothing to do with any of that.
SPEAKER_00: Now that may be true.
SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't seem like it to me.
SPEAKER_00: But there are those who are convinced that the church has completely replaced everything about Israel and has fulfilled all of those promises that were made to Israel.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not just a matter of the future, my friends.
SPEAKER_00: It impacts how we do evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: And I think all of you would agree that it is incumbent upon every Christian to share the good news with all people, all nations of the world.
SPEAKER_00: We would go, yes, you're going like this.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are with me, you're going like this.
SPEAKER_00: It's who we are.
SPEAKER_00: We must be ready and willing to share the reason for the hope that's within us.
SPEAKER_00: That's the Christian way.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean browbeat people, it doesn't mean force people to do things that they shouldn't want to do, but it means to sensitively speak into the lives of people so that they would understand the grace of God that we appreciate so much.
SPEAKER_00: That includes one of the nations that Jesus spoke about.
SPEAKER_00: Go to all the nations, I know.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a nation in Israel also.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe that in this first section, Paul is talking about that very thing.
SPEAKER_00: He has a plan.
SPEAKER_00: He's working out that plan.
SPEAKER_00: Well, some might say, what should we say then?
SPEAKER_00: Is God unjust?
SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
SPEAKER_00: Because he said to Moses, I will have mercy, upon whom I will have mercy.
SPEAKER_00: I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.
SPEAKER_00: He mentions Pharaoh from Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: I raised you up for this very purpose, he says, that I might display my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy and He hardens whom He wants to harden.
SPEAKER_00: Now there is all kinds of theological abstraction in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: And thankfully, that's not why I'm here.
SPEAKER_00: Walt will explain everything to you so you'll understand it all.
SPEAKER_00: It says that this is a mystery, but no longer will it be a mystery when Walt is through with you.
SPEAKER_00: But for me, my brain is a bit too puny.
SPEAKER_00: I can't understand it all.
SPEAKER_00: But what I do know is that in chapter 9, what can I, what is the takeaway?
SPEAKER_00: The takeaway is that God has blessed this nation.
SPEAKER_00: He's called out this nation separately.
SPEAKER_00: He has followed a path whereby we end up with Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And he's followed a path even further so that we end up with Boaz.
SPEAKER_00: And he's followed a path so that we end up with Mary and Joseph.
SPEAKER_00: And so we end up with Yeshua Hamashiach, born at an appointed time.
SPEAKER_00: Under the law, born of a woman, under the law, at the appointed time.
SPEAKER_00: He is in control, as we learned a little earlier, all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I also learned from this that not only is there an election of Israel that has to exclude others because it's an election, he has the freedom to do what he wants to do.
SPEAKER_00: And we just read about that in 14 through 13.
SPEAKER_00: It's his choice.
SPEAKER_00: He can do whatever he wants to.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have to check with me, although sometimes I wish he would.
SPEAKER_00: Verses 19 through 29 of this passage speaks of the mercy of God to Israel.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not just election, it's election of people who don't deserve to be elected.
SPEAKER_00: It's the choice of people who don't deserve God's grace and glory.
SPEAKER_00: And he describes that for us in 19 through 29.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to take the time to read the entire section, but I do want you to notice a couple of things.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 19 begins: one of you might say to me, Well, then why does God still blame us?
SPEAKER_00: It seems like if this election is true, human responsibility is out the window.
SPEAKER_00: So how do the two go together?
SPEAKER_00: And he seeks to explain this.
SPEAKER_00: But the heavy emphasis in chapter 9 is on choice.
SPEAKER_00: And why?
SPEAKER_00: It's because he's discussing the nation in 9 through 11.
SPEAKER_00: Other passages will help explain the dichotomy.
SPEAKER_00: It will help explain human responsibility and divine sovereignty.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not what we can do today.
SPEAKER_00: Please notice, however, in 22 and following, after he says the potter is the one who has control over the pots that he makes, even the cracked pots.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 22, what if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the object of his wrath prepared for destruction?
SPEAKER_00: What if he did that?
SPEAKER_00: To make the riches of his glory known, to the object of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory.
SPEAKER_00: Even us, he says, whom he also called, not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: And then he speaks about how God was going to open up the doors to the Gentile world and the people that you couldn't even understand.
SPEAKER_00: You couldn't understand their languages.
SPEAKER_00: But they're going to be believers in Yeshua as well.
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's keep going.
SPEAKER_00: I want to take you over to the last section here because he talks about Israel's unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: And in so doing, he expresses the inclusion of the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: This is in verse 30.
SPEAKER_00: What's happened in the past now?
SPEAKER_00: We have the choice of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: We have the mercy given to Israel.
SPEAKER_00: We have the undeservedness of Israel, to be sure, but we also have the inclusion of the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: What shall we say then?
SPEAKER_00: That the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have obtained it.
SPEAKER_00: A righteousness that is by faith.
SPEAKER_00: And this tells us how you get the righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: But Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it.
SPEAKER_00: Why not?
SPEAKER_00: Because they pursued it not by faith, but as it were by works, and they stumbled over the stumbling stone.
SPEAKER_00: And all is written, see, I lay a stone in Zion, a stone that causes men to stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.
SPEAKER_00: And the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.
SPEAKER_00: See, that's the message of the gospel, and we pull that out and we apply it to our ministry of sharing the faith and evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we ought to do.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody stumbles at Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But the scandalizo, the stumbling at Jesus, was especially acute with the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00: How could this man be the Messiah?
SPEAKER_00: He's the son of a carpenter.
SPEAKER_00: And they said he was the son of other things too.
SPEAKER_00: How could this man possibly be the Messiah that we've expected who's going to rule over the entire earth?
SPEAKER_00: It can't be true.
SPEAKER_00: We reject it.
SPEAKER_00: He's blaspheming.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to make sure that he dies on a Roman cross.
SPEAKER_00: That's the rejection.
SPEAKER_00: Now, you might think if they understood, if they just could understand a little bit more, they would automatically respond.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we move from the blessings that are given to the nation of Israel to the current rejection of the people.
SPEAKER_00: Now I think of this in terms of when Paul was living and writing and he saw them stumble all the time.
SPEAKER_00: And he's asking the question, why?
SPEAKER_00: Why is it?
SPEAKER_00: And I ask the question all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Like Walt said, we are in the center of Hasidic Judaism on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn.
SPEAKER_00: So every day I walk out of my office, my uh the Feinberg Center, and to see five to six, ten Orthodox Hasidic Jews right in front of our building is not uncommon at all.
SPEAKER_00: And I wonder why don't they believe?
SPEAKER_00: Why don't they understand?
SPEAKER_00: And I understand there are several ingredients as to why they don't.
SPEAKER_00: And I could go into that another time at great length, having to do with the history of the church and its persecution of the Jewish people throughout the ages.
SPEAKER_00: But why right now?
SPEAKER_00: There's such a a um a division between us.
SPEAKER_00: And they don't want us to be there, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: They're very resistant.
SPEAKER_00: I was saying either this morning or in the class that it's kind of like when people, Arabs, wanted to build a mosque at ground zero.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember that?
SPEAKER_00: Well, they feel the same way about the Brooklyn Center of Chosen People Ministries being right on Coney Island Avenue.
SPEAKER_00: They don't want us here.
SPEAKER_00: They've protested us.
SPEAKER_00: Thankfully, there's not been any violence as yet.
SPEAKER_00: But it might come.
SPEAKER_00: So we've got to build a bridge, and we're trying to do that gradually, just befriending the people that are around us, showing them that we're normal, and we're not trying to kidnap their children.
SPEAKER_00: We're not trying to do anything except take a stand for what we believe is true.
SPEAKER_00: And what we believe is true is very Jewish.
SPEAKER_00: Extremely Jewish.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity is so Jewish.
SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, we've lost a lot of that in our Gentile American Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: I understand it's only natural.
SPEAKER_00: But I would hope that all people would understand more about the Jewish roots of our faith.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's a simple thing to build bridges.
SPEAKER_00: I mentioned last time that I was trying to pay the, get my ticket out for the meter, you know, parking.
SPEAKER_00: I'm fumbling around, and I can tell the chassid behind me was getting a little impatient, you know, and frown on his face, and he knows who I am, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: They all know who we are.
SPEAKER_00: It's like a target on the back of our.
SPEAKER_00: So they know that we're there and that we want to see them come to faith.
SPEAKER_00: So I simply turned to him after I finally got my ticket and I said, you know, I'm so sorry.
SPEAKER_00: Could I pay for your parking?
SPEAKER_00: Such a simple gesture.
SPEAKER_00: Two bucks.
SPEAKER_00: But I so I pulled it and I said, Thanks for waiting.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so sorry.
SPEAKER_00: I took it.
SPEAKER_00: Big broad smile.
SPEAKER_00: And it was almost like, oh, a little breakthrough here.
SPEAKER_00: But that's the kind of thing we're up against.
SPEAKER_00: So please pray for those students and faculty members who are working in Brooklyn to build bridges with the Jewish community there.
SPEAKER_00: But why is it, Paul says, why is it that they're so resistant?
SPEAKER_00: Well, here it is.
SPEAKER_00: Here it is, the answer.
SPEAKER_00: So we're talking about the uh the reason for the continual rejection.
SPEAKER_00: Brothers, my heart's desire is that they would be saved, for I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: The Jewish people have often been called God intoxicated because they're so intent on knowing God.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about the Orthodox now.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul says it's an ignorant knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: It's not knowledge at all.
SPEAKER_00: It's a zeal that is ignorant.
SPEAKER_00: Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and they sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: And Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.
SPEAKER_00: I love that passage because it certainly applies to the Jewish people who are establishing their own works righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: But it also applies to people today, all around you.
SPEAKER_00: They either know about the righteousness that comes through faith in God, or they're trying to build their own righteousness, correct?
SPEAKER_00: A merit system.
SPEAKER_00: That's the difference.
SPEAKER_00: And I if I if I couldn't could leave any one thing with you in an age where uh the church seems to be missing this a lot, it would be that salvation is sola fide.
SPEAKER_00: Uh our salvation is by grace alone.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, there's an election, I don't understand it, but no elect person has ever become saved apart from faith.
SPEAKER_00: But it's only faith.
SPEAKER_00: So as you're getting the gospel right, would you please get this right?
SPEAKER_00: We're saved by God's grace, not by works.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, there's a little boasting in there.
SPEAKER_00: But we're not to boast.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Moving right along, Moses describes this righteousness that is by the law.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, the man who does these things will live by them.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's theoretically stating that, well, if you could do the works of the law, you would live.
SPEAKER_00: But the righteousness that is by faith says, do not say in your heart, who will ascend to heaven to find the Messiah, or who will to bring Messiah down, or who will descend into the deep if he's there?
SPEAKER_00: All of this is uh, I think, literary device to say that there are those who are striving to find Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the Jewish people will do.
SPEAKER_00: They're striving to find Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: And they'll go anywhere to make that happen.
SPEAKER_00: But that is a system of striving, of trying.
SPEAKER_00: And it's as though he's over there, he's over there.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to go to him.
SPEAKER_00: But what does Paul say?
SPEAKER_00: He gives us the remedy.
SPEAKER_00: So the reason for the continual rejection is ignorant zeal.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe a few of you have been involved in that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: A works righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: It's the idea of I can bring Messiah somehow.
SPEAKER_00: But what does Paul say?
SPEAKER_00: He gives us the remedy to the situation, verses 8 and following.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, But what does it say?
SPEAKER_00: What does the righteousness of God say?
SPEAKER_00: It says the word is near you.
SPEAKER_00: It's in your mouth.
SPEAKER_00: It's in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: That is the word of faith we're proclaiming.
SPEAKER_00: If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved.
SPEAKER_00: For it's with your heart that you believe and you're justified.
SPEAKER_00: And it's with your mouth that you confess and are saved.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that beautiful?
SPEAKER_00: That is the simplicity of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we take this passage and we take the ones that follow that I'll touch on in a moment.
SPEAKER_00: We apply them to world missions, as we should.
SPEAKER_00: But we're hovering over chapters 9 through 11.
SPEAKER_00: And 9 through 11 is all about the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00: So just for this morning, would you think with me about the message we need to share with the Jewish rights-orients-oriented people, just as much as we have to share with the Protestant, liberal Protestant people, or Roman Catholics who may be trusting in their works, or anybody else out there.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what he says.
SPEAKER_00: It's so simple.
SPEAKER_00: The remedy is so simple, it is so practical, it is so logical, it is so biblical, it is so motivational.
SPEAKER_00: My gosh, if I can have a relationship with God simply through this simple faith, I'd go to the ends of the world for him.
SPEAKER_00: I'd live in Brooklyn for Him.
SPEAKER_00: Oh.
SPEAKER_00: For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile.
SPEAKER_00: The same Lord is over all, richly blesses all who call on him.
SPEAKER_00: For listen to this: everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know anything about who is and who isn't part of God's plan.
SPEAKER_00: All we know is that anyone, anyone.
SPEAKER_00: So I think he died for everyone, so that anyone could respond.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the next few verses because why is it that Israel's present rejection continues?
SPEAKER_00: It's because they're confused about what it's all about, what God's righteousness is all about.
SPEAKER_00: The reason is that they do ignorant works, and the remedy is simply that there is faith.
SPEAKER_00: The word of God is near you.
SPEAKER_00: There's another reason, and it's that there's no outreach.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: How can they call on the one they've not believed in?
SPEAKER_00: How can they believe in the one of whom they've not heard?
SPEAKER_00: How can they hear without someone preaching to them?
SPEAKER_00: And how can they preach unless they are sent?
SPEAKER_00: As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.
SPEAKER_00: I think Paul, I'm reading into this called Isegesis.
SPEAKER_00: I'm reading into this a little bit, but I think Paul is sitting there thinking, all right, I'm the apostle to the Gentiles, right?
SPEAKER_00: I'm out among the Gentiles all the time.
SPEAKER_00: And yet he's thinking about the Jews here.
SPEAKER_00: And what is he thinking about them?
SPEAKER_00: He's thinking, well, how are they going to hear unless we preach to them?
SPEAKER_00: And that's my message here.
SPEAKER_00: How can we win the Jewish people over to faith and Messiah unless we do the job of evangelism?
SPEAKER_00: Someone asked during the class, what is our role?
SPEAKER_00: I think our role with the Jewish people is the same as it is with those outside the Jewish fold.
SPEAKER_00: It's to share the gospel with everyone, to give a reason for the hope that's within us.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you'd all agree with that, right?
SPEAKER_00: You're not supposed to pick and choose, you're supposed to uh uh share with everybody.
SPEAKER_00: I think there's a particular calling, though, to Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00: And so this passage, while it applies to world missions, it certainly, certainly applies to the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00: Well, let me move on and uh make some other comments here.
SPEAKER_00: Um we uh are facing uh in our ministry um one of the most difficult mission fields in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Muslim ministry is exceptionally, exceptionally difficult.
SPEAKER_00: We know that.
SPEAKER_00: But so is the Jewish ministry in uh Brooklyn, New York, as well as in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: But things are changing.
SPEAKER_00: There is a change.
SPEAKER_00: More and more Israelis in particular are responding.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, when I was there in 1978, there might have been uh a hundred believers.
SPEAKER_00: Now the numbers are at 10,000.
SPEAKER_00: So in 78 there might have been three congregations.
SPEAKER_00: Now they're over a hundred.
SPEAKER_00: Things are changing in the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: People are responding, Jewish people are responding to the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: But you know, it's just a matter of being faithful and sharing it.
SPEAKER_00: The rejection continues.
SPEAKER_00: There's a continual rejection, and the rest of the chapter talks about that.
SPEAKER_00: But there are some who do respond.
SPEAKER_00: Uh let me share one one story, and it shows you how little we have to do with it.
SPEAKER_00: I was given a call by uh fellows in the church that I pastor, pastored uh in New Jersey.
SPEAKER_00: They were construction workers.
SPEAKER_00: They called me up and they say, uh, Doctor, they call me Greg.
SPEAKER_00: They said, Greg, we've got a we've got a Jewish anesthesiologist here.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, good for you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you have a Jewish anesthesiologist there.
SPEAKER_00: No, we're working in his house.
SPEAKER_00: We're building countertops for him and everything.
SPEAKER_00: And he's asking these questions, and we can't answer them.
SPEAKER_00: I wondered if you'd be free to come over and chat.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, I'm pretty busy.
SPEAKER_00: No, I didn't.
SPEAKER_00: I dropped everything and I said, Oh, this is great.
SPEAKER_00: And so we went over and sat around the table, and and Craig was his name, uh, the uh the anesthesiologist, and he kept asking these questions, and I was trying to give the answers, and and he was saying, I I, you know, that that sounds that sounds good to me.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I said, Well, here's what we'll do.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you these books which I had brought.
SPEAKER_00: I said, You're gonna want to read these books, and I'll get back with you sometime and we'll talk even more.
SPEAKER_00: Won't that be nice?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I think I want to do this now.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, you we don't have time for you to read all the books now.
SPEAKER_00: I said, No, I think I I want to believe that Jesus is uh Messiah now.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, you know, you might want to wait along this.
SPEAKER_00: No, I didn't.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, if you're sure you understand what we're talking about, he said, I think I understand.
SPEAKER_00: How do I do this?
SPEAKER_00: And so here this prominent Jewish anesthesiologist from Summit Medical Center bowed his head and expressed his faith in Yeshua.
SPEAKER_00: So, uh, how much did I have to do with it?
SPEAKER_00: Nada.
SPEAKER_00: Basically, God was working.
SPEAKER_00: And uh what I'm trying to tell you is that God is still working with the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00: So um, come help us.
SPEAKER_00: Support this work.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is given as the power of God into salvation to the Jew first, and then to the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: But it's always to the Jew first.
SPEAKER_00: It's to be a priority.
SPEAKER_00: All right, let me finish in the last 10 minutes just to tell you what I think, and this is my personal opinion, about the future.
SPEAKER_00: Because I think Paul has done this for us.
SPEAKER_00: He said, look, here's what's happened to this nation that has been called out by God.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the continual rejection, and you're just gonna have to deal with it, but you've got to keep going and preaching, and you know, you've got to have pretty feet.
SPEAKER_00: How beautiful are the feet.
SPEAKER_00: But what's gonna happen in the future?
SPEAKER_00: Some people say, well, there is no future for Israel because we've replaced Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 11, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: I ask then, did God reject his people?
SPEAKER_00: Meganoito, Paul says, May it never, ever be.
SPEAKER_00: Look at me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm an Israelite, he says, descended from Abraham, tribe of Benjamin.
SPEAKER_00: God did not reject his people whom he foreknew.
SPEAKER_00: And then he gives a couple of examples.
SPEAKER_00: Take the life of Elijah when he thought he was the only one, and all of a sudden 7,000 wouldn't bow the knee to Baal.
SPEAKER_00: And therefore, Elijah was informed that no, there are a lot of others around.
SPEAKER_00: Is there a future for the salvation of Israel?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Is there a future for the salvation of individuals like Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Weinstein?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Is there a future for the nation of Israel?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Let's read on.
SPEAKER_00: He says, uh, so too at the present time, this is down at the end of the paragraph, there is a remnant chosen by grace, and if it's by grace, then it is no longer by works.
SPEAKER_00: If it were grace, it would be no longer grace.
SPEAKER_00: It's always going to be by grace.
SPEAKER_00: What then he says?
SPEAKER_00: What Israel sought so earnestly, it did not obtain, but the elect among them did.
SPEAKER_00: The others were hardened, as it is written, and then he talks about giving a spirit of stupor, so that some hear but they don't understand.
SPEAKER_00: But some, the Mitch Glazers of the world, the Arnold Fruchtenbaums of the world, the Craig Weinsteins of the world, the Jews who have accepted the Messiah, they are the remnants, they are the ones who are within, and they are the individual Jews who are saved today.
SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you, those who will be saved at the end, when it says in chapter 11, verse 25, when he says, we don't want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brother, so that you may not be conceited.
SPEAKER_00: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.
SPEAKER_00: You and I, the majority of the church, the Gentiles, the last Gentile to believe, and only God knows, that will be the signal.
SPEAKER_00: My personal opinion.
SPEAKER_00: As I tell my students, my humble but accurate opinion, that will be the time when the Jewish people of the world, all of them will be believers.
SPEAKER_00: It says when the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and so all Israel will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: Who are they?
SPEAKER_00: When will this be?
SPEAKER_00: It's certainly not now.
SPEAKER_00: Most Jews do not accept Yeshua.
SPEAKER_00: There will come a time in the future where when the last Gentile is part of the olive tree, there will be the conversion of the nation.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when I put one and two together, when I put prophetic truth together with the prospect of Israel having a future, I cannot escape the fact that God's going to do something very special.
SPEAKER_00: And there's going to be the leadership of the Jewish nation.
SPEAKER_00: Is it Israel today?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, maybe.
SPEAKER_00: But at some point, those Jews are going to look upon him whom they have pierced.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to weep that their people have rejected him.
SPEAKER_00: And they're going to accept him.
SPEAKER_00: And they're going to say, Baruch Abba Aronai.
SPEAKER_00: Baruch Abba Bashem Aronai.
SPEAKER_00: Baruch Abba Bashem Aronai means blessed is the one who comes in the name.
SPEAKER_00: And then all Israel will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: What's it going to look like?
SPEAKER_00: Read on.
SPEAKER_00: Paul the Jew, with Jewish thought in his mind, Old Testament scriptures in his mind, says this the deliverer will come from Zion, that's Zion.
SPEAKER_00: That's not any other place, it's Zion.
SPEAKER_00: He will turn godlessness away from Jacob, and this is my covenant with them.
SPEAKER_00: This is the eternal covenant that he made with Israel.
SPEAKER_00: When I will take away their sin.
SPEAKER_00: I know, Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Right now, he says, they're enemies for your account.
SPEAKER_00: But as far as election is concerned, they're loved.
SPEAKER_00: It's that same faithful, chesed, undying love.
SPEAKER_00: They are loved on account of their connection to the patriarchs.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the phrase: don't miss it.
SPEAKER_00: For God's gifts and his call are irrevocable.
SPEAKER_00: There has never been the revocation of the chosenness of the people of God by the existence of the church.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to encourage you, if you don't understand this, to try to apply it.
SPEAKER_00: It is a view of the future of Israel that I must say is losing ground today.
SPEAKER_00: And along with it is coming, guess what?
SPEAKER_00: An anti-Israel attitude.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll leave you with this one thought.
SPEAKER_00: There is an enemy.
SPEAKER_00: The enemy hates the Savior.
SPEAKER_00: The enemy hates you.
SPEAKER_00: And the enemy hates the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: Because the Messiah cannot come again.
SPEAKER_00: Just like he couldn't come the first time.
SPEAKER_00: They tried to destroy him the first time, the enemy did, but now he can't come again until there is a Jewish nation.
SPEAKER_00: And so I would encourage you to examine these things, and maybe you can end up the same way Paul did.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he he just explodes at the end of this passage, 9 through 11.
SPEAKER_00: Remember?
SPEAKER_00: He comes to the end of his diatribe on Israel, and he says, Oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_00: How unsearchable are his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out.
SPEAKER_00: Who has known the mind of the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Who has been his counselor?
SPEAKER_00: Who has ever given to God that God should repay him?
SPEAKER_00: For from him and through him, and to him are all things.
SPEAKER_00: To him be the glory forever.
SPEAKER_00: May we have the apostle's heart in our commitment to God's program, not Chosen People Ministries program, not the Feinberg's program, not my particular interest.
SPEAKER_00: But may we all bow the knee to the plan of God.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Father, that you love us so much, and thank you that we see a pattern here.
SPEAKER_00: That if our calling is irrevocable as Christians, if we uh are trusting in what you have done for us rather than what we do ourselves, we see that it's uh it was preceded in your relationship with your chosen people.
SPEAKER_00: Just as we uh are saved by grace through faith, so too every Jew must be saved by grace through faith.
SPEAKER_00: And uh Father, we thank you that we have a future.
SPEAKER_00: And because we have this future, uh we can rejoice in the God of our salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to understand the future of the ethnic Jew who believes in Yeshua as a Messiah and help us to see how the two come together in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: So bless this group of people, bless this church, bless this region.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Father, for our time uh of sharing together.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I pray Bashem Yeshua Hamashiach in the name of Jesus the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: Omain and Omain.