17 Did God Reject His People? (Romans 11:1-32)

Krisan Marotta: I have a cartoon for you today. Hopefully you can see that. Get out of the way. This is one of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes cartoons. I like Calvin and Hobbes. And it actually relates to Romans 11. I'm not just bringing it up for the fun of it. So the first panel up here at the top, Calvin said, you know, Calvin is a six-year-old boy, and Hobbes is his stuffed tiger who becomes alive when Calvin's talking to him. And Calvin says, I've been thinking, Hobbes. And Hobbes says, On a weekend? And Calvin says, Well, it wasn't on purpose. He says, I believe history is a force. Its unalterable tide sweeps all people and institution along its unrelenting path. Everything and everyone serves history single purpose. And Hobbes says, and what is that purpose? And Calvin says, why to produce me, of course. I'm the end result of history. And Hobbes says, you. He says, think of it. Thousands of generations lived and died to produce my exact specific parents, whose reason for being, obviously, was to produce me. All history up to this point has been spent preparing the world for my presence. And Hobbes says, hmm, four and a half billion years probably wasn't long enough. He says, now that I'm here, history is vindicated. And Hobbes says, so now that history's brought you here, what are you going to do? And the last panel, they're sitting in a big comfy chair in front of the TV, and the TV says, Oh, you wescally wabbit. So all of history's purpose was to create a six-year-old boy to watch cartoons, you know. That attitude that's displayed in that Calvin and Hans strip is what C.S. Lewis calls chronological snobbery. And that's the notion that my generation is, and of course, people who think like me are at the pinnacle of human history, and that we judge everything that went before us as inferior. And of course, the corresponding assumption is that all the generations after us will look back at us as the golden age, the time when you know we we had it all figured out and had it all together, and they will sit at our feet, of course, you know, mine in particular, and receive what we pass on to them with gratitude. And that he calls that chronological snobbery, and that kind of pride or spiritual pride is what Paul's going to talk about in Romans 11 today, the idea that God has chosen us, called us, loved us, and therefore we're great. We're special. We have it all figured out. That somehow we pray the greatest prayers and have the best music, and that we suddenly, you know, other generations will look to us as the pinnacle sort of of human achievement. That is the warning of this passage today. Um Paul's going to turn to basically every group, believing Jews, believing Gentiles, and say, don't be too impressed with yourself. Don't think you're the best. It's all grace. So that's, I'm giving you, this is like the summary. Here we go. That's we could stop now. That's what Romans 11 is about. But since I have the microphone, I'm going to go into a little more detail. The um kind of the key verse I think of in this chapter is verse 6, where he says, and if by grace, then it is no longer by works. If it were by works, grace would no longer be grace. And that's his warning. That last phrase. If you start thinking that somehow you deserve it, or God's mercy is an entitlement, it is no longer grace. You are now back under works. So just the warning, I'm going to give you all the application first today. Spiritual pride expresses itself, I think, three ways. First, we start devaluing other people. We think, oh, if I'm so highly favored and God's given me these blessings and He's chosen me, then those other people who are not like me are somehow less, you know, and so we look at other races or other types of people or organizations or people who have a different background, and we say, well, they're not they're not quite as the spiritual giants we are. That happened in the history of Israel, and I think it's happened at times in the in the Christian church. So first we begin to devalue other people, and second, we we become foolishly enthusiastic about our own accomplishments. You know, suddenly the things we do look even better and better. And we can do this individually or as a church, you know, we think, oh, we're part of Trinity. You know, we're this great church, we've had great teaching, we've done great things in Charlottesville, we're this flagship church in our denomination, um, and we start marveling at our own accomplishments instead of realizing that they're all by the grace of God. So we devalue other people, we think more highly of ourselves than we ought. And thirdly, I think we begin to confuse intimacy with God with equality with God. So because God is intimate with me and chosen me and loves me and has this relationship with me, and let he lets me draw near to him and he calls me to him, I must be like him a lot. And we end up saying, He must see in me what he sees in himself, and we start confusing the intimacy with God with a quality for God. And Paul is going to warn against that in this chapter, say, do not become impressed with yourself. Do not think that because God has chosen you and given you these blessings, that now it's an entitlement that you deserve, and that um and start thinking more highly of yourself than you ought. That's the the danger. So let me just explain where we are in the book, uh, set the stage for this chapter. In Romans 1 through 8, which we covered in the fall, Paul argues that we are justified by faith on the base uh by grace on the basis of faith, and that alone. And then in chapters 9 through 11, that's the next major section of the book, which we're going to finish today, he's basically asking the question, is the gospel too good to be true? So he's gone through 1 through 8 and said, How wonderful the gospel is. Now, is there a catch? Is it too good to be true? How do we know that God will really do all this wonderful stuff for us? And he's asking that qu answering that question by looking at Israel, saying, Okay, did God fail Israel? Did God reject Israel? If he rejected them, that opens the door to say, well, maybe he'll reject us. Maybe there's a catch to the gospel. Or but if he didn't and he was faithful to Israel, then we can have confidence that he'll be faithful to us. So in the first part of chapter 9, he argues that salvation is never based on natural advantages, our ancestry, who we are, our parenting. Instead, it is always based on divine sovereignty. So we are chosen because God chose us, not because of anything we've said or done, or who we are. In the second half of nine, he answers the question, well, is that fair? If God has mercy on whom he has mercy and compassion on whom he has compassion, is that fair that he saves some and not others? And Paul answers basically, We who are we to judge God? He knows more than we do. He's sovereign and we're not, he he has there are things which he has not revealed to us, and it is up to him to choose. And he gives some speculation on why God may act the way he acts, and says basically, he has mercy on whom he has mercy because he is the sovereign God. So in chapter 10, which we looked at last week, he answers the questions, well, then why are the Gentiles coming to faith and the Jews not? So if God sovereignly chose Israel to be his people, why are the majority of Jews turning away from him? And these Gentiles who really probably didn't care anything about God and didn't have the history or the law or the patriarchs or the blessings, why are they coming to faith when the Jews are not? Does that mean God failed the Jews because they are turning away from him and they now Jesus has come and gone and been resurrected and they've rejected him? And Paul answers, no, God has not rejected him. They do not come to faith because they are seeking righteousness on their own. They are trying to get there by their own self-effort and not by trusting God and not by trusting in the blood of Jesus. So they are not coming to faith because they're stumbling over the stumbling block that is Jesus. So now, well, he ends chapter 10 with this wonderful quote of the prophets where he says, All day long I've held up my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people. So he ends with this picture of God holding out his hands to Israel, saying, Here I am, and they are stubborn and obstinate and seeking to do it on their own. So now he's gonna say, Okay, does that mean God has rejected Israel? Is he through with them? Are they done? They had their chance, it's over, now something new is happening. And twice in chapter 11, he's gonna ask the question, did God reject his people? Um, first in verse one verse one and again in verse 11 when he asks, Did they stumble in order that they may fall? I think he's getting at the same thing. Is we talked about Israel's past, do they have a future? Is there something else going on? Is the fact that um they've rejected Jesus, who's now, you know, we've seen the crucifixion and the resurrection, and they turned a deaf ear to that, is God done with them? Has he wiped them out? And Paul's gonna say, by no means. There is still a role for Israel to play, and he's gonna use this wonderful metaphor of an olive tree to describe what's coming for Israel. And I think part of the history lesson for us, as he talks about Israel, is we're not the high point. And that's what I was trying to get out with Calvin and Hobbes. All of history didn't come to produce us. There is a role that Israel is going to play and still has to play, that is coming. And there is a greater day to come. And he's going to talk about there was this deep root in the past with the patriarchs, and that is going to come to fulfillment and flowering. So there will be a time when all of Israel will turn to faith, or so many Jews will become, will come to faith in Jesus that it will be as if the entire nation has come to faith, and He that day is coming, God's not done with them. So I think the application for us is we're part of a plan where God has given us wonderful, glorious things to do, but don't be too impressed. Don't be too impressed with ourselves. Okay, so let's look at the first ten verses then. That's kind of the overview. Let me let's go into the detail. So this is Romans 11, 1 through 10. I asked then, has God rejected has God rejected his people? By no means. I might wait, did I read that right? Has God not rejected his people? By no means. I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life. But what is God's reply to him? I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed to the knee of Baal. So too at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace, but if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace. What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened. As it is written, God gave them of God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see, and ears that would not hear, down to this very day. And David says, Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them. Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see and bend their backs forever. So he's raising the question, Alright, has God rejected Israel? Is he done with them? Is the plan for them over? And he says, No, and he gives he says two things in this section. There will always be a remnant, and there will always be some who are hardened. So it's he starts out with the re with the remnant. He says, Look at me, I'm a Jew and I'm a believer, and in every generation there will be Jews who are also believers. Um God will never allow a generation to go by without them. There is a remnant, and this thread, he's going to go on to say, will tie the root in Israel's history into its present. And I would include in that, I think he's specifically talking about Israel here, but that I believe is true of the Gentile church as well. There will always be believers. On the other hand, some will always be hardened. Um and he doesn't say what that is. You know, it could be you know 90%, it could be 10%, or we don't there's no numbers here. But even so, God will not allow the Jews to assimilate into other peoples and be lost. And if you think about that, think about the nations that were around when Paul was writing this, or the nations that were around in Israel's history. There's really no more Hittites or Chaldeans or Babylonians or a lot of the ethnic groups of the Bible have been lost. They've assimilated into other races, but there are still Jews, identifiable Jews, and God will never allow them as a race to be lost. He dispersed them all over the world, but he has not allowed them to be lost. And I don't think he ever will. Um, it may be that in any given generation the majority of them will not care so deeply for God, but he I think that's what he means by the spirit of stupor and the growing deafness and the blindness, but they will not be lost. Um He uses this interesting metaphor of let their backs bend their backs forever. That's I am not sure what that means. I'll give you my best guess. Um it seems to be a metaphor for old age. When you as people age and their backs start to curve and they bend over, and so it's this metaphor of growing old. Um, and sometimes when you grow old, that's a negative process. It's a, you know, you probably met people who seem to just get angrier and more bitter and more frustrated, and um they don't acknowledge you know the deafening that's taking place, they just blame it on everyone else. And I think that's the the picture he's got here of this growing old uh with this spirit of stupor and blindness and this bent back to anger and bitterness, as opposed to you probably know people that have grown old and they have this wonderful, one winsome spirit and gentleness, and they just seem to have more joy with their Lord, and and you just want to sit at their feet and learn everything they have to say because um they've accumulated so much wisdom. I think that's the contrast he's making with that metaphor of bending their backs. So, well, I'm gonna come back to that. Look so in 11 he says, he repeats himself, and he says, has got basically has God rejected his people? So did they stumble that they might fall? If there's always gonna be this remnant, but there will always be those who have hardened or who have the spirit of stupor and eyes that won't see and ears that won't hear, does that mean God's rejected them? And he's gonna answer that four ways. The first one is in verse 11. So I asked, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means. Rather, through their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. If you read the book of Acts, you'll know that everywhere Paul went, he would go to the synagogue first. So he'd go to a new town he'd never been before, and the first place he would go to preach the message is in the synagogues. And after he was usually run out of there on, you know, with sticks and stones or whatever, and rejected, he would then turn to the Gentiles and bless the Gentiles and give them the message. And his argument is basically that's part of the plan. God has turned to the Gentiles and is using the Gentiles to make Israel jealous. Um and that's kind of humbling, because that means you and I, we're the second fiddle, you know, we're the we're the ones that that um God's using to make Israel jealous. And I don't know about you, but I had a when I was in high school, I was a junior, and the senior guy asked me to the Valentine's Day dance, and I was, you know, who I was thrilled. Because I was sure he was asking me, you know, because of my stellar good looks and my scintillating personality. But it became very clear when we got to the dance that my whole purpose in being there was to make Allison jealous, you know. There was this other girl that he had asked first, and she turned him down, and she was like the polar opposite of me, you know, she was the small, petite, perky, blonde cheerleader. And I I was the tall, gawky, geeky basketball player, and for some reason, I think maybe because she took pity on him, you know, she didn't go out with any of the stuff with me. She, you know, it worked. By the end of the night, they were dancing together, and you know, that was I knew, okay, this is why I was asked to this dance. And they ended up going to the same college, and I don't know, they probably got married, but that was my role. My role at the dance, unbeknownst to me, was to make her jealous. And that's essentially what Paul's saying here, that God is using Israel's rejection for two reasons. One, to spread the blessing to the Gentiles, which is a pretty neat thing, and then when the Gentiles respond with faith, the idea is that Israel will see that and become jealous and come back to him. So he's not rejecting them. This is all part of the plan to draw them back in. Um he expands on that then. Look in verse 12. Um he's gonna argue that Israel will return to God, and that's his prophecy of this worldwide blessing is only gonna come when Israel comes back to him. So now if they're this is 1112, now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean? Now I'm speaking to you Gentiles, in as much as I am an apostle, I cannot read today, inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order to somehow make my fellow Jews jealous and thus save some of them. For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? So he's saying, if these kind of riches and wonderful things come from their rejection, and what is the wonderful thing that's coming? The blessing of the Gentiles, the bringing them, including them into the family of God, then when their full inclusion comes, when many of them turn back to faith, think how incredibly wonderful that will be. Um and there are prophecies about the time when um he I think the metaphor is the earth will bloom and they will move into this golden era, and Israel is the key to that. It's their coming back to God that is going to usher in that that blessing. So he so he says, no, he didn't reject them. He's using this their rejection to bring the Gentiles in and to make them jealous, and then he gives his next argument in verse 16. If the dough offered as the first fruits is holy, so is is the lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches. So he's referring to the offerings that were made in the temple and the sacrifices, and that when they you know make up a big pile of dough, someone would take a handful off of it and present it as an offering. And Paul's argument is if that first handful is acceptable and holy before God, then you can reason that the rest of the lump of dough is going to be holy too. And he I think he's using that as a metaphor for Israel and the patriarchs. If Abraham and the the um the patriarchs, the father of the nation of Israel, was acceptable before God, then his descendants will be too. They are not cut off, they are not rejected. Now, we know from earlier chapters that Paul would consider Abraham's descendants not just those physically descended from him, but those who share his faith. And I think that's what he's pointing to here. God will not reject them. They come from this line of faith, that line of faith is always acceptable. So then we get to the fourth argument, which really I want to spend most of our time on because that wraps up all the others, and he gives it the most detail. So this is verses 17 through 24. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others, and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. Then you will say, Well, branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in. That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith, so do not become proud, but stand in awe. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note the kindness and severity of God, severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness, otherwise you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in. For God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree? Okay, what's he talking about? The olive tree is the position of faith, the line of faith in Abraham, the people who receive the blessing. And what Paul's saying here is we Gentiles were like a wild olive tree. Now, wild olive trees produce hard, shriveled up, bitter fruit. And what do you expect when you graft that into a new tree? I don't know if you're a gardener, but if you take a nectarine branch and you graft it onto a peach tree, what will it grow? It will still grow nectarines. It will not grow peaches. The fruit is determined by the branch, not the tree. So, and you've probably you can go like to nurseries and buy these apple trees where every branch grows a different kind of apple because they've grafted them in. And Paul's saying, contrary to nature, God took you with your shriveled up, dried up, bitter fruit, grafted you into the tree, and you're producing fruit. Wonderful, glorious, nourishing, ripe olives. And if he can do that with you, what is he going to do with the natural branches? How much easier is that to put them back on the tree and see what fruit they grow? So he's pointing out God does a miracle with us. He changes us so that when we're grafted in, we no longer produce this bitter, hard, shriveled up fruit. Instead, we begin to produce the wonderful cultivated olives. And if God can do that with us, how much more can He do that for the people who were or the natural branches, as he calls them? And what's the point of that? This is where he's saying, don't be too impressed with yourself. The what is it where he says, Don't be arrogant but be in awe, don't be arrogant but be afraid. So look how how he's gone through this chapter. He starts out with his analogy of Elijah, where Elijah is there saying, I'm the only one left. And God stops him in the middle of the speech and says, Hold it, you're you're not the only one. There are 7,000 other people. That point in Elijah's life is after, you've probably read the story of where he challenges the prophets of Baal, and they uh they each have a bull on the altar, and he gives the prophets of Baal like a day and a half, or I've forgotten two days, and they can to get Baal to accept their offering, and they dance around and they sing and they cut themselves and they do all these shenanigans and nothing happens. And then Elijah turns to his offering and he first he soaks it with water so it's like totally wet and there's no way it would ever burn. And then he stands and prays and says, God, you know, accept this offering, and this fire comes down and not only consumes the bull, it consumes the stones that it was built on and turns them into or melts the stones. So there's this wonderful display of God's power, and Elijah thinks, Oh, now they're gonna all turn back to me. Now they will see. Well, they all try to kill him. So he's running for his life, and he ends up under this tree, and he says, Okay, God, just take me now. I'm the only one left. I've done everything I can do, and I'm I'm it. And God stops him in the middle of the speech and says, Hold it. You think you're the only one doing anything here? Let me tell you, there are 7,000 other people. You're not the only one. Don't be too impressed with yourself. I have kept for myself a remnant. You are who you are by the gift of grace. And I think that's the warning for us as a church. You know, think, oh, okay, look at how wonderful we've done. Look at the way God's blessed us. Um and he says, now, don't be too impressed. Um He uses this analogy of other branches, or he says, Don't say in your heart, you know, well, these other people were hacked off so that I could be grafted in. There must be something about me, and he's saying, No, God will give life where he gives life. We're just branches. We're nourished by the root. We don't support the root, the root supports us. So he turns to Israel and he says, Don't be proud. You're um you're an obstinate people, the majority of whom have these eyes that don't see and ears that don't hear. Then he turns to the remnant and says, Don't be too impressed with yourself because it's not a heroic achievement. God has has chosen to keep you there. And then he turns to the Gentiles and says, Yes, you were grafted in, but you could just as easily have been grafted out. So don't be too impressed with yourself. Um it's the exact opposite of my Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. You don't want to read history saying, ooh, it all came to produce me. Instead, you read history saying, Thank you, Lord, for making me who I am and putting me where I am. So the response he wants from us is gratitude, not arrogance. So he says in um whatever verse that is, do not be arrogant, but be afraid or be in awe. I think what he has in mind there is not terror, not like be afraid and and terror or fear of God in that sense, but the immense respect and honor that God is due when we realize that we are here because of his kindness and his mercy and his grace. So he is completely without limits. There's nothing about us that forced him to choose us. Um instead, so we don't want to think too highly of ourselves. Instead, we want to be grateful. I think that's his idea. Look carefully at the kindness and severity of God. There is wrath of the unbelief, and you are here by his kindness and his grace. So individually, I think that's true as a generation. We want to be sure that we don't think, well, we're the foundational one, you know, we're the ones that taught all the other generations how to think and act. And we didn't he's saying, No, you didn't sink the deep roots of faith. That belonged to another generation, another generation gave that. Um we probably won't be the last generation, um, because it seems to me what he's predicting is there will be a day when so many Jews will come to faith that it will catch the world's attention, and they will start saying, Hmm, who is this God? And that's part of the plan. Right now there are so many Gentiles coming to faith, and the purpose of that is to catch Israel's attention. Um so we would do well, I think, to go back and read church history, learn from the lives of those who've come before us, hear the conversations of the Bible, and know that we're all part of the plan not to be arrogant. Okay, what haven't I covered? One of my minutes. Okay, so let me just wrap up the argument of where we are in this book and in in chapter 11. Paul's given us several reasons why God hasn't rejected his people. So that's really the question he's been arguing from chapter 9 on. Is God rejected him? Did he fail Israel? Did his word fail Israel? And he says, no. Um the first one is he isn't he has turned to the Gentiles to make uh Israel jealous. So he hasn't rejected them. Our coming to belief and our being included in the blessing is part of the plan. He wants to reach Jews. Secondly, he says the Old Testament promises of the worldwide blessing hinge on the restoration of Israel, and it won't come until Israel is back in relationship with God. So that's a second argument. His third one, then, is if the first Jews, the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, could be made holy by God, then he will be able to make their line of faith holy for thousands and thousands of years. So there is hope for Israel, there's hope for us. And then his final argument is the olive tree, that the natural branches were broken off and the unnatural branches grafted in. And if God could do that wonderful miracle and produce glorious fruit with the Gentiles who didn't have all these spiritual advantages, then when a Jew becomes a Christian, think how much more God can do, how much uh how easy that would be. There's a sense in which a Jew becoming a believer, he's fulfilling his spiritual heritage, he's completing it. Whereas Gentiles essentially, we we are becoming like spiritual Israelites. We're the ones who are changing. Alright, so that brings us up to verse 25, and this is where he promises, I think, the restoration of Israel. Up till now he's been alluding to it, now he's going to give it um his full or state it outright. So 25 through, where are we going to go? 29. Lest you be wise in your own conceits, again the warning, don't be too impressed with yourselves. I want you to understand this mystery. Brothers, a personal hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob. And this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins. As regards the gospel, they are enemies of God for your sake, but as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. So he says, the hardening was prophesied, the awakening is prophesied. There will be a time when Israel will turn back, the fullness of the Gentiles will close, and there will be a fullness of Israel. Now, the first thing to note is the hardening is partial. Not all Jews are turned away from God, not all Jews are hardened. We don't know, I don't think he gives a number, but he does tell us it's partial and it's limited in time, it's not going to go on forever. God is this hardening of heart has happened until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. Now that's an interesting phrase. What does that mean? What's the fullness of Gentiles? I can't tell you exactly, but I'll tell you my best guess at this point. Some people have interpreted this to be a number, that there is a specific number of Gentile believers who must come to faith, and when we reach that number, that's the magic number, and then something will happen and Israel will start being converted. I don't think this refers to a certain number because it's not just in this chapter, it's not the first time he used it. If you go back up to verse 12, he talks about the fullness of Israel in verse 12. Um I think it's translated their full inclusion, but it's the same word in the same phrase. So if it was used of the of the Jews in 12 and now it's being used of the Gentiles in 25, what's he talking about? Um in 12 he says, now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean? I don't think he's talking about a diminished number so much as their spiritual state or their spiritual health, that there was a time when the the majority of Jews had this spirit of stupor and their eyes wouldn't see and their ears wouldn't hear, so their spiritual riches were diminished, if you will. There weren't a lot of them who were believing. So that when you think about the Jews, do you think about Yahweh? Do you think about their God? Not necessarily. There was a time when that wasn't the case, notably the Exodus, right after the crossing over, everyone was afraid of the Jews and their God. That event was so miraculous and so breathtaking, the world took note of it, and they were afraid of these people who crossed over the uh the river and who was their God. And when you thought about the nation of Israel, you thought about their God, that kind of spiritual heritage has been lost and diminished. But I think what Paul's predicting is it will come back. There will be a time when God will call them back after this fullness of the Gentiles. And that gives me hope because yes, it sounds like, oh gosh, you know, we're here the second fiddle, the second date to make them jealous. But it seems to me that what he's predicting, if I'm right here, is that there will be a time when the Gentile church is so full of joy and light and goodness that the Jews are gonna go, hey, what do they have? And they're gonna come back. So that's my guess, that's what it implies to me, is that he's going to bring such an awakening in the Gentiles that the Jews are gonna stand up and take notice and say, We should have that, and then they're gonna stand up and take notice and come in such numbers of faith that the whole world's gonna say, What's going on here? Who are these people? So, now I know there's a lot of controversy, I don't know how, I don't know when, but that's what it implies to me. And of course, my first thought is, oh, it's gonna be us, you know, here in Charlottesville. We're gonna be the ones, right? Probably not. It probably won't even be our generation, but look at what's happening in Asia and the African continents, and you know, maybe that's where it's gonna start, this this incredible awakenings that are happening in those other countries. Who knows? But Paul's prediction is um, I think that there will be a time when the Jews will come back to God, and that that will that's part of the plan. Our inclusion is to bring that about, and then their fullness coming back is to catch the whole world's attention. Okay, so how does he conclude this? Verse 30 Just as you were at one time disobedient to God, but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too now have been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they may also now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that me he may have mercy on all. So again, he's restating his point that their rejection was to give an opportunity for the blessing to go to the Gentiles, and the Gentiles' acceptance of that is to give the Israelites a chance to become jealous and come back. And by the way, that's the answer to the question Has God failed? Did God's word fail Israel? His answer is no, because this is part of the plan. Their rejection and their hardening is allowing the blessing to go to the Gentiles, and the blessing to the Gentiles is calling them back. He hasn't rejected them, he's lowing them, he's trying to make them jealous with us. So, no, God has not failed. He's using that very hardening as a means to reach the Gentiles and using the Gentiles' response as a means to reach back to the Israelites. And if you think about it, it's a pattern we've seen before. If you for those of you who come to the church, think about the early chapters of Exodus. Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and the Egyptians were stiffened in their resistance to God so that this nation could be born. And this Jewish nation then was born by God's miraculous hardening or awakening and uh crossing of the Red Sea. So these people were hardened to give birth to Israel, and now we've reversed it. Now Israel is hardened, and the Gentiles, including the Egyptians, are being included in the blessing to draw them back. So it is, in a sense, he says it's their hardness that allowed the gospel to go forward to the Gentiles, and now it's gonna the circle is gonna complete and come back. And the I think the part the point of all this is we're all in the same boat. God has bound everyone over to disobedience that he might have mercy on who he wants to have mercy. None of us earns it, none of us deserves it. There's nothing about us that requires God to bless us. His mercy is based on his sovereignty, his loving kindness, his grace. So he's looked at all these different angles and said, okay, believing Jews, don't think you're the last, the only ones. You're not, God always has a remnant. The church, I think by analogy, we want to take that to heart. Then he looks at Gentiles and says, Don't be too impressed with yourself. God could be could just as easily graft anyone, you know, cut this branch off and bring that branch in. So how how does he conclude this? Having seen all this, remember he started chapter 9 with this anguish of prayer of why are my fellow Israelites not saved. Now he concludes in 33 with this wonderful doxology: O the depths and the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor, or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen. I think part of his response is it looked like failure to us. It looked like rejection to us. It looked like maybe God's word has failed, but it was all part of this wonderful, miraculous plan to spread the blessing worldwide. And his response is, who could who could have predicted? Who could understand that? How unsearchable are his ways? Who has known him? And then again, I think even in his prayer, he includes that warning. Who has given a gift to him that he be might be repaid? Who has given God something so that now God is obligated or in that person's debt? And his answer is of course no one. For through him and uh from him and through him and to him are all things. Well, let me stop there so I can give you a chance to ask some questions. Let me just pray to close us. Thank you, Father, that you are faithful and that you have not rejected your people, whether they come from physically from the Line of Abraham or spiritually from the Line of Abraham. We thank you that you are the God of glory and mercy and justice and truth, and we pray that we would be ever more amazed in understanding of your kindness and your severity, and that you would make us the people you want us to be. Teach us that you are not someone we manipulate or someone we use to find parking places or remove the annoyance of our lives, but we should bow before you in humble gratitude at the grace that you've shown us. Um we pray too for just through your work in history and throughout generations that we would be mindful that we are part of the plan and a beautiful stream of history that flows from Abraham to the close of of time. And we pray that you would be working your will to open the eyes of those you want to see and using us in our feeble efforts uh to bring that about. Thank you, and in Jesus' name. Amen.