Israel’s Problem is Unbelief

Transcript

GR 2245
7/05/2020
Israel’s Problem is Unbelief
Romans 10:9-13
Gil Rugh

Let’s go to Romans chapter 10. I was thinking that I was going to say how important these chapters are but since this is the word of God everything is important. God doesn’t say anything that is not important. But certain portions of the word are important for certain reasons. Chapters 9, 10, and 11 have a special place in the word of God because they explain to us how Israel fits into the present working of God where they are no longer the focus of His work in the world and His work of salvation in particular. But they have not been discarded. And so, there’s an explanation of what their present condition is and why they are in this condition. By the time we get through chapter 11 we will see nothing has changed regarding the promises. I’ve encouraged you as you review these chapters, to look down through the chapters since the quotes from the Old Testament are those set off for us in capital letters. You’re reminded that he is building his remarks on what the Old Testament said.

As we examined this, we see he is not changing any of the meaning or what God said in the Old Testament. He is showing that what has happened to Israel is consistent with what God said and it’s consistent with the ultimate fulfillment of His promises to Israel. We’ve seen in chapter 9 and we’re looking at in chapter 10, that the Old Testament stands true and as it was given. I stress this because a major division in evangelicalism is between those who interpret the Old Testament and its prophecies literally and those who do not. There are those who are within the realm of evangelicalism and believe in salvation by grace through faith in Christ, but they think with the coming of Christ that changes the way we interpret the Old Testament. I think chapters 9, 10, and 11 refute that. He is just showing the consistency.

A little bit of review. We’ve looked through the first eight verses of chapter 10. First, the difference between chapters 9 and 10. We have that slide that we already looked at, but a reminder. Chapter 9 explains why some Jews are saved but not all and showed how that was consistent with the promises of God in the Old Testament. Now he’s clearly narrowed it down. Not every physical descendant of Abraham was the object of God’s saving mercy. And even in the line that God has chosen, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, there was a selective exercising of His sovereign mercy. And that’s the explanation why some Jews are saved, and why they were in the position they were in, in the Old Testament and continue to have a special part in the plan of God. Chapter 10 explains why some are lost. They won’t believe. So, chapter 10, it’s only by the mercy of God that anyone is saved but we’re dealing particularly with the Jews because we’ve demonstrated that all are sinners, so none deserve or earn mercy or God’s salvation. So that’s what we’re about in chapter 10, why some of the Jews are lost. They won’t believe.

I have some review points on those first 8 verses so let’s walk through those. Point one, it should be our desire and prayer, the prayer of our heart that the lost be saved. And I’ve left these generally but it’s important that we keep in mind chapter 10 is about the Jews, though Paul expresses his desire for the salvation of Israel. That should be the desire of our heart. The sovereignty of God and His sovereign choices never change our responsibility. So, it should be the desire and prayer of our hearts that the lost be saved. That’s how Paul begins chapter 10. “Brethren, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them (referring to Israel) is for their salvation.”

Point two, it is possible to have zeal without knowledge. Verse 2, “…they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge.” And just as a side point, we need to be careful about having knowledge without zeal. In Titus chapter 2, beginning in verse 11 “…the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness…” and so on, so we would be “…zealous for good works.” Zealous for doing what is pleasing to God. The Jews have a zeal without knowledge, but we want to be careful that doesn’t mean that we can have knowledge without zeal. The two are to go together among God’s people.

Point three, man must subject himself to God for salvation. That’s in verse 3. “...they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.” They were concerned about establishing their own righteousness. Again, he is talking about the Jews, but the principle and the point is the same. We have religious systems that have established their own plan for being righteous before God. In fact, every religious plan is such a plan, except what God sets out in the word of God. People are religious. They can be very religious. They can be zealously religious as the Jews were. But you must subject yourself. The problem the Jews had, the problem people have is what they have is good enough. We hear the testimonies from some of our people who are out going door-to-door sharing the gospel in the parks, whatever. Sometimes you come across religious people when they are not open to hear what you have to say or don’t want to take material. We already have our own way of being righteous. That’s a serious concern. A serious problem. This is part of saving faith. Refusal to believe is refusal to submit. We talked a little bit about this in our study of Jude earlier today.

Point four, I put it as the Ten Commandments. Verse 4, “For Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” The Ten Commandments cannot make one righteous. The Ten Commandments are basically just a concise summary of the six hundred and thirteen commandments of the Mosaic Law. I won’t go into any more detail than that. “…Christ is the end of the law…” the goal of the law, ‘telos’, meaning the goal of the law. The law was never a way of righteousness. It was a matter of obedience flowing out of your faith in God and what He now instructed the Jews to do. I put it as the Ten Commandments, just a summary of the law, but the Law was never a way of salvation. It was preparing Israel for the goal that God was to bring about with the coming of His Son and it should have prepared Israel. And it would have if they had their faith in the God of Israel. But they had transferred their faith from the God of Israel over into their own works. So, they weren’t prepared. They failed to appreciate. Sadly, some people still think, well I try to keep the Ten Commandments. Christ is the end of the law, the goal of the law. They were just to prepare. The Law was broader than the Ten Commandments but would be encompassed under that umbrella.

Point five, that we’ve looked at and this comes from verse 6 which says, “But the righteousness based on faith speaks as follows…” You must believe in the person of Christ. That He is the Son of God who left heaven and became a man. Those truths were prepared for in the Old Testament. They are the reality of today. You must believe in the person of Christ. The summary of what he quotes from the Old Testament, a passage we’ll allude to here, a little bit more in a moment. We’ll go back there in Deuteronomy 30, but you can see this is consistent with the Old Testament. “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” It was like, we need more revelation from God. Christ has come. He is the fullness of revelation. “For in Him all the fullness of God dwells in bodily form.” Colossians 2:9. “…the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14 tells us.

You’re not searching for truth. The Truth is here. It’s not like we don’t know, and this is important to keep in mind. Sometimes chapter 10 of Romans is misused. When we get to it, we may not get to it in our study tonight, but the point is Israel knows, they won’t believe. They have the facts. That’s what this point in verse 6 is saying. They don’t have to keep looking for something or someone from heaven. The fullest revelation has come which all prior revelation was anticipating.

Point 6, you must believe in the work of Christ. He died and rose again. Verse 7, “…or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).” You see again he quotes the Old Testament and refers to that in those passages, but they’ve all been realized. What was contained in the Old Testament, Christ is the goal of that. We don’t need more revelation. We don’t need anything else. It is here and it is clear. And the Old Testament was clear, it just didn’t have everything. But if you believed what God revealed along the way as the Jews should have, they would have been prepared for the coming of Christ. Believing Jews were, but as a nation they weren’t. They had gotten off track and established their own way, a works way of righteousness. Like today some churches have gotten off track. They’ve established their own way of righteousness. Paul is showing that’s what Israel’s failure was. So, you believe in the person and work of Christ. He’s the culmination of revelation. All the sacrifices anticipated the need for a sacrifice. Isaiah 53 prophesied with about as much detail as you could give. You believe in the person and work of Christ. That’s the culmination of all prior revelation.

Point seven, the gospel is everything you need for salvation. Verse 8, “But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’---that is, the word of faith which we are preaching…” That’s another quote from Deuteronomy chapter 30. The point is you believe what God has said. That was true fifteen hundred years earlier, before the coming of Christ when Moses wrote Deuteronomy. It’s part of the first five books of the Law. Believe what God has said. That’s what you have. The word is near you. In your mouth and in your heart. They didn’t believe God and His word in the Old Testament and now the word of faith which we are preaching.

Here it is! You don’t have to look any further, anymore. All that the Old Testament has prophesied has come. So, he’s brought them through. Here the point being, Israel does not need something more or something else. That’s true for everyone, but he’s pointing out here where Israel is in the plan of God. They’re off track. They got off track. We saw that when we went back to the Old Testament in the book of Numbers. What was the problem? Why could they not go into the promised land? Disobedience. Refusal to believe God, trust Him, and then their forty years of wilderness wandering. We looked at Hebrews. They continued to test and try the patience of God by their unbelief and disobedience. It’s a repetitive pattern. So, this is what Paul is dealing with. It’s Israel’s condition.

We’ll pick up in verse 9, which really is just continuing the thought of verse 8, as you can see, “But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’---that is, the word of faith which we are preaching...” Remember we call this “the faith” because we believe what God says. That’s it! Men come up with their own systems, their own ideas. God says believe what I say. Well, man comes up with, this was Israel’s problem, they came up their own ideas. They added all these things along with the law and turned the law into something it never was intended to be. It was a way of righteousness without believing. Just do this and when you do it, you’ll be accepted by God, you’ll be righteous.

So verse 9, here’s the word that he’s preaching, “…that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord…” or Jesus is Lord “…and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved...” As revelation is given, progressive revelation, this is now the fullness of revelation. The coming of Christ. That’s the fullest and most complete revelation God had given. God was present on earth in bodily form. He could say to His disciples, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” Not that the Father and the Son are not distinct persons, but they are God. They both are persons that together comprise the one true and living God. The fullness of attributes of deity belong to Christ, as they belong to the Father, as they belong to the Spirit.

So, what we are preaching, “…that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart…” Two parts of the same thing. They are distinct but they are not separated. “…you confess with your mouth” what is going on in your heart. “…you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead…” You do that and “…you will be saved.” That’s how salvation comes. You note you’re not working for it. You’re not earning it. That is salvation. You will be saved. Confessing and believing, they are part of the same thing. “…you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord…” or Jesus is Lord. You note that word “as” is in italics, so Jesus is Lord, saying the same thing, maybe a little clearer with is than as, but that’s the statement. You recognize that He is Lord.

Now in the Old Testament, the prime name for God, is what they call the tetragrammaton, the four letters. We usually pronounce it Yahweh, YHWH. We put vowels in it. Hebrew had no vowels when it was originally written. So, you had to learn how to pronounce it. We’re just guessing that that was the pronunciation, because the pronunciation got lost as Hebrew people got further and further removed. We pronounce it Yahweh. When it was translated in the Old Testament, 6,000 times, into Greek it was translated as Kyrios, usually. That’s what we have here. Jesus is Kyrios, Lord. It is declaring His deity. What does it mean, He is Lord? When the Jews, using a Greek Old Testament, and most of the writers in the New Testament seem to use the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. They would recognize this as the name for God. Jesus is Lord, is a declaration of His deity.

I did some study on the word, Kyrios, Lord, usually translated with all capital letters in the Old Testament. Not in every case, but in most of the cases. So, that’s how you recognize it there. In the confession of public declaration, you confess with your mouth what’s in your heart. How do people know what’s in your heart? They don’t know what I’m thinking. You know, we’ll say, a penny for your thoughts. Or we used to. Now what’s a penny? You don’t even bend over to pick one up. I think of when I was in grade school, I scoured the neighborhood looking for a pop bottle that might be worth 2 cents. At any rate, that has nothing to do with Romans 10.

Here the content of the confession is, Jesus is Lord. We need to understand what this means. I mention, it’s the translation of the name for God, the normal name for God in the Old Testament. The Jews would have recognized it, using the Greek translation, just like we use the English translation. We recognize the word Lord, the English word, Lord. We may not recognize the word Kyrios because we’re not reading it in Greek, we’re reading it in the English translation. For most of the Jews in Jesus’s day, Greek was the universal language. And so, they would have been using the Greek translation of the Old Testament. And I’m sure that the church in Rome and those people would have been using a Greek bible. He’s Lord, what would they have picked up with that? So, we go to the Greek dictionary and Kittel is the last word, a multi volume. This is from Kittel’s, volume 3, for those of you who chase those things down. And it’s from page 1,046. “In all religions the concept of God must contain the element of legitimate power. In other words, the power to which man must concede authority and before whose sovereignty he knows he must bow.” Now I want to stress this because sometimes even as believers, we talk about Jesus as Lord and He’s the Lord Jesus Christ. But that word Lord doesn’t really carry the weight for us. It’s become a word we use without appreciating what in the Scripture that word conveys. It conveys what it means for God to be God. For God to have any significance as God He must be recognized as the One who has absolute sovereign power. We must acknowledge His authority and bow before it. This connects to what we talk about, obedience or disobedience. Faith and obedience go together. A refusal to believe is to be disobedient.

We looked at some passages on that earlier today with Jude. They go on further, forty pages further, “…the consistent use of Kyrios in the absolute suggests God’s legitimate, unrestricted, and indivisible power of disposal over all things. This must have suggested continually to its hearers God’s unlimited control over all things. In the Septuagint the title is substituted for the name.” And when you read that in some words where they just refer to the name in the Old Testament, they’re referring to YHWH, those four letters for the name of God. “The Greek translation of the Septuagint used this as their translation, Lord, and the implication is that the hearer, the bearer, is sovereign in the absolute sense.” You see if we grasp, this we wouldn’t have as much trouble in chapter 9 with the sovereignty of God. Why do people struggle with the sovereignty of God? Well, what about man? There’s only one absolute sovereign being. That is the triune God. So, when we read here “…you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord…” He is God. You are to recognize Him as the One who has absolute sovereignty and authority over your life. That’s why obedience is an absolute requirement of true saving faith. We live in denial. Even Christians, I mean Bible-believing Christians with good intentions, they deny God’s absolute sovereignty over all His creation that’s contained in the very recognition He is Lord. Why would they use that word for God? Because to be God, He must have sovereignty. If He doesn’t, there’s another being greater or at least equal to Him.

A Greek commentator, this is not the dictionary anymore, writes “Kyrios was widely used to denote an asserted or acknowledged dominance and right of disposal of a superior over inferior. Master – slave, king – subject, God – worshiper, so to confess someone as lord denotes an attitude of subserviency, a sense of belonging or devotion to the one so named.” So, Lord is the title for God. We must recognize who He is. We bow as His slaves. You are not your own, you’re bought with a price. In Isaiah, the passages that we often go to are in chapters 40 and following, where God claims He is the creator. He has absolute sovereignty over the disposal of His creation. Now we can be thankful that this God is a good God. He is a righteous God. He is a holy God. But part of the problem is that we are not righteous, we are not holy. That’s the conflict. He is loving. But we can never take away from His sovereignty.

We live in a world that is in persistent rebellion against the sovereignty of God. They think they can decide. And that goes at all levels. We submit to government because God said He appointed them. But we recognize government primarily is populated and led by unbelieving men. Our Supreme Court makes laws. They’re not supposed to make laws, but they are supposed to interpret the laws, but it comes down that they are the final authority with the laws. And we see laws change because they don’t recognize an absolute authority outside themselves. When you deny the truth of God’s word, you’re in a sea that changes all the time because you have no absolute, final authority. You just have power. And might makes right and the dominant power sets the rules.

We as believers recognize that God is sovereign. So, my concern is not so much for the world, for the unbeliever, but we understand what a commitment of faith to Jesus Christ is. It’s a recognition He is Lord. I am not in charge. Now I owe absolute, complete obedience. Well, I have opinions. They don’t count. They don’t matter. What matters is what God says. I’m not free to preach my own opinions, my feelings. They must be submitted to the Word of God. That’s a process of growing, isn’t it? We’ve all adjusted our thinking as we’ve grown more and more and come to understand more of the Word of God.

And I realize, as I’ve shared with you, I came to a point in this area of God’s sovereignty when I was in bible college and I had a gracious professor, John Cawood. As this young person who didn’t know near what he thought he knew, I was challenged on his teaching of the sovereignty of God. And he just graciously said, alright, I have an assignment for you. I want you to go back and study this in the gospel of John. And I want you to look at this. Okay. I came back with my answers. And every time he pointed me back to the scripture to what it said, and I had fudged there. Okay, but I still don’t think you’re right. Until I finally came to the point of what? I need to acknowledge that you are right, and I am wrong, because the bible says what you’re telling me and what I’m telling you is not what the bible says. That’s the process of growth.

So here these Jews have ignored that. Try to share the gospel with a protestant who is faithful going to church, or a Roman Catholic who is faithful going to mass or whatever. They’re like the Jews who didn’t want to hear it. This is the Jewish problem in chapter 10. They are not saved. Not because they haven’t heard, not because they need someone to bring them the gospel. They already know. They won’t believe what they have heard. That’s the point. So, you believe, you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord. You understand that you should see that coming from the Old Testament, the Messiah. What would that Messiah’s name be? Immanuel. What does Immanuel mean? God with us. There is significance, there is importance. He is the Lord.

And you believe in your heart. You can confess a lot of things with your mouth. You can bear witness to something that is a lie. People do that all the time. So, the confession of the mouth is to be an expression of the heart that I have placed my faith in Christ. My eyes have been opened. I didn’t realize He was God. I do now. I confess. The two go together. I realize that God raised Him from the dead. You see I believe God in what He has said and what He has done. The resurrection is the culmination. He was raised because of our righteousness. Righteousness has been accomplished and provided. We saw that at the end of Romans chapter 4. He gave His life. He was crucified because of our sin. He was raised because of our righteousness. The work of salvation was done. You believe what God has said, what God has done.

“…for with the heart a person believes...” The word believes is the verb form of having faith. We say having faith but translate it usually to the verb to believe. It’s the same basic Greek word. In Greek it’s the same basic foundation with a different ending so to believe is to have faith. We understand that. “…for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness...” And remember that word righteousness is used eleven times, I believe, from chapter 9, verse 30 down through chapter 10, verse 10, almost a dozen times. You can count, I may have missed one. I just did it quickly before I came in. To remind myself, it’s about righteousness. How do we acquire righteousness before God? He has to bestow it upon us. We can’t earn it. We can’t work for it. “…for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness...” I thought we were working for righteousness. No! You believe God. With the mouth you confess resulting in salvation. Salvation and righteousness are interchangeable terms. When you receive God’s salvation by faith, He declares you righteous. Now you are a saved person. They become interchangeable even though they have distinct emphasis. Salvation can often be the broader term. It includes the package that we get but we are declared righteous. So that where he’s pointed.

You note, and this is where water baptism is included, then our testimony. Secret disciples, secret followers of Christ would not be considered genuine followers of Christ in the bible. Jesus said to go and make disciples out of all the nations and you baptize them and teach them. If you are obedient to Christ and you claim to have believed in Christ and you’ve never been baptized in the New Testament, you wouldn’t have been accepted in the Church as a true believer. And that’s just the beginning of a public testimony where you confess with your mouth. Well, I believed in my heart, but it wouldn’t be wise for me to make it known. Well, you don’t have any other choice. Am I known as a believer in Jesus Christ? Well, you know, I don’t have to blab it everywhere. You know, I always think of that word ‘blab.’ I went to a liberal pastor in town because I had used him as an example from the pulpit on a Sunday morning. And it just so happened that as chance would have it, there were some members of his congregation here that Sunday morning. I would call it sovereignty. And they were upset.

So, I went to talk to him. I shared this story before. And I said, I said some things about what you believe, what you teach. And if I misspoke, I want you to correct me and I will make it right next Sunday. And I’ve shared with you that he was quiet. Got a phone call. Turned away from his desk, answered the phone, turned back and he looked me in the eye and said, why should I tell you what I believe so you can blab it all over the city? Well, that told me something about him. He didn’t want what he really believed to be made known. You know what he’s talking about here, confess, confess, make it known. Like Jesus said you take those disciples, you baptize them. What did they do with those Jews who believed on the day of Pentecost? They baptized them. You know what that did? That put their testimony out there before the nation. No hiding it. Were you one of those who got baptized declaring you’re a follower of Jesus Christ? Yes, I did! And that’s what I am!

We are here to be lights, to make known who we are. This is not a secret society. This is open. Some of you share with me when people ask you what church you go to, uh, ah, Indian Hills. You wonder what they’re going to say. Be pleased. We want them to know about us. We are to be a light out there, on this hill, in this city. I know what they think that means. Oh yeah, that’s that church that punishes women for being women and all the things. Well, I understand they don’t understand. But we are not going to hide who we are. We are believers in Jesus Christ. That does mean certain things. Maybe it’ll open a door for a testimony. Well, for me to be a believer in Jesus Christ means that I want my life to be obedient to Him. And obedience to Him means I take His word as the authority for my life. And yes, that’s why we have the position we have on sex outside of marriage, on homosexuality, on the distinction between male and female, and the roles God cited. It comes from our obedience to God who has spoken in His word.

Do I miss the opportunity to be a testimony because I’m afraid of what they’ll think? Maybe I can help them understand. You don’t have to start out with saying sin makes you stupid and you are an obvious example of stupidity. No! We can say something nicer, but I want you to understand it’s not because our church has a view. What I hold to as a believer in Jesus Christ and what our church does, is what God has said. That’s what he’s talking about. You confess Jesus is Lord, that He has absolute authority. That’s why Jude is sifting out, as we are studying the book of Jude together, those who are disobedient because disobedience is an evidence of a lack of faith, as we talked about earlier today. A disobedient believer is somewhat of an oxymoron. But because we are still not perfected, it is true. We all stumble in many ways. But we want to get it fixed quickly. We can’t live disobediently. I can’t say I live a sinless life everyday of every week of every month. I want that to be my goal, but I fail. But I’m not going to live in that failure. That’s the difference between a believer and an unbeliever.

So, this confession is crucial. Verse 10, “…for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness (leading to righteousness), and with the mouth he confesses...” It’s part of the package. It’s not, well there’s two different things. You believe in your heart, that gives you righteousness. Then when you confess with your mouth, you get salvation. No! He’s saying the same thing, repeating it with different words. They go together. They can’t be separated. That’s why Jesus said if you deny Me before men, I will deny you before My Father. If you confess Me before men, I will confess you before My Father. Because true saving faith recognizes He is Lord. That means absolute sovereignty. That means the word of God rules in my life. If I won’t confess Him, then I must not believe. If I truly believe in Him, believe He is Lord, I can’t hide. That’s why the most timid, reticent people are sometimes standing out the most; because it’s almost an inherent contradiction. I wouldn’t expect them to be so bold, but they are. Why? Because there’s been a change brought about. And this is not just a natural you, this is what God has made you.

Come back to Matthew chapter 7. We are in the sermon on the mount. Look at verse 21, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not…’” do all these wonderful things in Your name? And I’ll say, “‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’” So, you see just to use the title Lord, is not what he’s talking about. It is a confession of a heart that has believed, so that a life is now obedient. It’s not just empty words to say Jesus is Lord. Does that mean something to us? That He has sovereignty over my life? I yield to Him. I yield my opinions. I yield my feelings. I yield my emotions.

When that’s our commitment, then the word of God has authority and rules in our lives. That was the beauty in Luther’s statement when he was on trial. “Unless I can be shown from the word of God that I’m in error” he can’t change. This is where he’s planted. This is where he stands. This ought to be for us. What happens to the church that alters its opinions going on with the world? We now have Christian homosexuals. I heard about a Christian college and I read that with you some time ago, that they have an alumnae association for homosexuals. I don’t even know what to say. It becomes meaningless. We just keep reinterpreting the Bible according to the world. Who is Lord? It becomes meaningless. It becomes, yes, He’s the Lord Jesus Christ like I’m Gilbert Warren Rugh. So what? He’s the Lord! That’s not a name as such. That’s a title in the sense that it conveys meaning as His name does. The name of God reveals His character. There will be many who will have a confession with their mouth, but they really didn’t believe in their heart, and the manifestation is it meant nothing. They did their own thing. They practiced rebellion and that’s why He goes on to talk about how you should build your house on the rock and other passages that we could go on with.

Come back to Romans chapter 10. You can see even when we talk about Jude, some of the overlap of Scripture. It’s a constant reminder. But it’s when the church begins to erode in these areas, they still talk about the Lord Jesus Christ. They’re a bible-believing church but they’re always adjusting their doctrine. Not because of their study of the word, but because of the way the world is going. Well, we don’t want to be seen as narrow. I want to be seen as narrow as God is, and as broad as He is. And the world doesn’t determine that. God’s word determines that. Acceptance with the world is not the measure.

So here he goes. What is he going to do? He’s going to quote scripture again from the Old Testament in verse 11. “For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.’” There are no failures. “‘…Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.’” Look at the end of chapter 9 of Romans, verse 33. “‘Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.’” Put to shame. Put to shame in the sense that you’re embarrassed. I believed a lie. I believed in Him, but I wasn’t saved. No! If you don’t stumble over Christ, the stone of stumbling, when you believe in Him, there’s no failures. You will be saved. You will not be disappointed.

He repeats what he had at the end of chapter 9 here again. This is consistent with what God revealed. Israel’s problem was not that they did not have the truth present. In that sense they knew it. But they were ignorant of what it meant. It meant they couldn’t earn their own righteousness. All the Old Testament was to prepare them for the coming of their Messiah. Messiah comes and they stumble and fall on their face over Him. They should have embraced Him. You’ve come! We’ve been waiting. We’ve been anticipating. Just like we are to be looking for Him to come, to call us to meet Him in the air. They were to be looking for His coming to earth. The whole Old Testament prophesied the Messiah, the covenant He would establish. “‘…Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.” He just quotes the last part of that. At the end of chapter 9 he explained that it’s not lacking information, it’s lack of faith in the information you have, the word of God.

“‘…Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.’ For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; for ‘Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.’” The same Lord is Lord for all. Jew and Gentile alike. Come back to Romans chapter 3. We are not going to go back to all of this, that’s why I keep reading and rereading the Bible to keep it fresh in your mind. Come to the end of Romans chapter 3 which we studied some time ago. Verse 29, “Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed…” Remember we underlined and marked this? “…since indeed God…is one.” That’s the basic statement. God is one. “…God who will justify (declare righteous) the circumcised (the Jews) by faith and the uncircumcised (the Gentiles) through faith is one.”

The point is there is only one God. There is only one Savior. There is only one way to be saved because there is only one God. That’s why we went then through chapter 4, down into chapter 5, verse 1, “…having been justified (declared righteous) by faith...” He’s the God of chapter 3, verse 30 who will justify, declare righteous Jew and Gentile alike. By faith! Then he gave the example of Abraham in the Old Testament. And we had faith, faith, faith, faith, in chapter 4. That statement then as we come into chapter 5, “…having been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand…” And yet the church gets confused that we’re saved by works or they go the other way and say, works, we don’t have to do anything! Well, wait a minute. Salvation is a matter of coming into a relationship of obeying God. We believe in Him. That’s our first act of obedience.

Come over to 1 John. All the way in the back of your bible, almost to the book of Jude, 1 John. We look in chapter 3. We’ll just do chapter 3. Look at verse 23. “This is His commandment...” So, there we have a commandment. We are not lawless. We are not antinomian because we don’t believe that we’re under the authority of the Mosaic Law. There are commandments. Here’s His commandment. “…that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him.” Abiding is mutual in the Bible. That’s not a separate class of Christians.

We have a great book on abide in the New Testament, if you’re interested in a detailed study by Rosscup. It’s been reprinted. It’s in paperback and on the shelf as you go into Sound Words. Glad that we could get it because I think it’s the best work on abide. If you want to go through the detail. Abiding is mutual. There’s been some misunderstanding by some of the old writers that has carried over into the present, that some Christians are abiding in Christ and some are not. We always abide. He abides in us. If you don’t abide in Him, you don’t belong to Him is the distinction. “The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him.”

Obedience is the connection. He commands us to believe in Him. That’s where my obedience to Christ, to the living God began. By His grace my eyes were opened, and I believed in Jesus Christ as the One who loved me and died for me. And that act of obedience that I was moved to by God’s grace, and the work of the Spirit was the beginning now of a life of faith which is a life of obedience. I trusted Christ. I get on with my life. I got that taken care of. I’m on my way to heaven. It’s the beginning of a life of faith. It’s the beginning of a life of obedience.

Come back to Romans chapter 10, verse 11. “For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.’ For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all…” So, the way of salvation is the same for Jew and Gentile. The problem is the Jews won’t believe. The Gentiles are believing. The Jews are missing out on the salvation that their Messiah came and provided because they won’t believe the truth. This has been Israel’s problem as we have seen through their history. “…abounding in riches for all who call on Him…” “…abounding in riches…” These riches are in Christ. Since I was talking about this, you know I use the Roman Catholics as examples because they have clear doctrine. You know what happens to Protestants? When they abandon the word of God they just turn to mush. They don’t believe in anything or they believe in everything. At least the Roman Catholics have a whole system of doctrine clearly laid out so you can see where you disagree with them and point it out.

I use Catholics, not because they are worse than apostate Protestants, but at least Catholics believe something, even though it may be wrong, it’s codified. They have a catechism. I’m an old Methodist and where do I go to find what the Methodists believe? They believe whatever you believe. Whoever you is, you fits. Not good grammar. The Catholics have the “treasury of the saints” that you can access because some of these saints acquired more holiness than they need through their works. I was reading their catechism on this and Mary has the most. This is the treasury of righteousness that you can get from the church, but we don’t need it. We have Christ and what He has done.

He is “…abounding in riches for all who call on Him…” In Christ we have everything necessary for life and godliness as Peter will write about. We get it all in Christ. It’s amazing. God doesn’t dole it out and take some of it back. And we don’t have to go to an afterlife like purgatory because we had some temporal failures. He’s taken care of it. It’s riches in Christ. When man doesn’t understand that, he does build systems out there. For the Protestants, it’s just, do your best. God understands when you’re trying to get there. For Catholics, it’s just, go through this. For other religious systems whether it’s Muslims or Hindus, they have their own things they build up. All are acts of disobedience and denial of what God says He has done and what He has provided.

That’s where the church needs to be sure that it stays fixed on the scripture. Otherwise, we’ll get out here with men telling us what we should do or not do. And God is no longer the One sovereign in our life. This church is not sovereign in your life. The word of God is sovereign in your life, and we must be true to this word. That’s why I encourage you to bring your bibles to follow along. If I am not teaching you what is biblical, that I can help clarify it because I have maybe spent more time studying it, but to help you understand it as it is. Not to change it to say what I want it to say. You ought to be able to look and say I don’t think it says that. You say that He abounds in riches for all who call on Him. Are His riches enough? If I tell you no. You have to be baptized. You’ll have to take communion. Of course, we expect you to be a good giver and then if you’ll come and do this and this. Well, wait a minute! I thought it was abounding in riches for all who call on Him.

That expression all who call on Him, we’re not going to have to chase down those references but that is another expression for a Christian in the New Testament. “Those who call on Him” in the book of Acts, I’ve got it somewhere here in my notes. Acts chapter 9, verses 14 and 21, and Acts chapter 22, verse 16, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 2, 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 22, all use this expression referring to Christians. “Those who call on Him,” “…those who call on the Lord...” That’s the identity of a Christian.

“…for ‘Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.’” So, they use that to refer to Christians. We are joined with “…those who call on Him.” They’ve turned to Him for salvation. That’s why I say anybody can be saved. He abounds in riches for all who call on Him. What is that a recognition of? Lord, I am a sinner. I am not acceptable to you. I haven’t done all the bad things that maybe other people have done, but I have sinned against You. And there’s no way for that to be dealt with because the penalty for sin is death. It may look like a minor sin, but when I rebel against You, it is not minor. I recognize my unworthiness. Christ came to die.

How rebellious is it that I reject what You have done for me, to replace it with what I am doing for You? I have to let go of everything and trust in what Christ has done for me, and then You pour out upon me the riches of Your salvation. You give it all to me. I get it all. I am born again. I am the child of God. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to grow. It’s sort of like that baby that’s born into your family that’s now my child. Completely, fully they belong to me. They become the object of my love, my care, my provision. They’ll grow and so on. That’s what I become. I become God’s child and He becomes my heavenly Father and there’s no end of His care for me because He said He’s even prepared a place for me in glory and someday He’s going to have me come to that place and I’ll never leave, and it will be perfect. Verse 13 is the promise. “…for ‘Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.’” Now these are true, that are true for salvation, Jew and Gentile alike.

I’m going to leave you with this note. He’s talking about Israel here. We don’t want to lose the context. Sometimes we come and pull these passages out and they have an application, but the problem is not that Israel needs evangelists to take them the Gospel. He’s going to pick up in verse 14 and following and tell us the problem with Israel. They have heard, but they won’t believe. This is not a challenge to say we’ve got to take the gospel to those who haven’t heard. There is a truth to that. The great commission addresses that. What Paul is making a point of in chapter 10 of Romans and we want to be clear on, Israel’s problem is not that they have not heard. The problem is they have heard, but they have not believed. That’s what chapter 10 is about. So, if we just pull out these verses and say this is a mandate that we’ve got to get the gospel out to people, there’s a truth in that but it’s not the truth that Paul is emphasizing in the context here.

The truth is you can’t be saved unless you believe the gospel. The reason he’s telling us this, is Israel already knows this truth. They won’t believe it. And that’s different than saying they don’t know. They know, but they won’t believe. That’s where we’re going. And he’s going to quote from the Old Testament to show that they know. That’s why they’re under the judgment of God. As they are, they won’t believe. And God will continue to press on them with His judgments until they are so squeezed down that they feel like they’re about to expire. And then what? They’ll turn and call on the name of the Lord. You know it’s amazing how stubborn we are in our fallenness, isn’t it? If it weren’t for the grace of God no one would be saved. None of us would.

We are stubborn people and even when we come to salvation in Christ, part of our growth is letting go of that stubbornness. That He is Lord. We sometimes put it that He is God and we are not. He is Lord. That means what? I’m the slave. He’s in charge. I am not. Israel’s problem was they created their own way. But they have the truth that needs to be believed, to be saved. That’s where he’s going. Paul’s burden for Israel, great as it is, there’s nothing he can do for them. He prays for them. He longs for their salvation, but they are disobedient to the truth. They won’t submit to the truth that they have to submit to, to be saved.

Just like we are today. What can you do with those around you? Your kids? Your parents? Your family? Your friends? If I could only beat this into them. Some of them know the truth. We have kids grown up, gone to Christian colleges, and now they’re a member of an alumnae group from that Christian college that promotes a homosexual lifestyle. They won’t believe the truth. What else can I do for them? If I have opportunity, I tell them the truth again. You pray for them, Lord in mercy and grace, bring them to the end of themselves. Make them as miserable, as hopeless as possible. That’s what it will take for Israel. They will be at the point, if you will, of extinction. They’ll finally say, I give up, we’re stubborn. We’ll fight it to the end, but God is gracious. That’s why any of us are saved. Back to chapter 9, why is anybody saved? Mercy. Why aren’t people saved? Well, it’s true they’ll have to be exposed to the gospel but that’s not Israel’s problem. They had more of the truth than any other, than any of the pagans on the face of the earth. We already saw they received the oracles of God, the word of God. Their problem wasn’t that they didn’t have the information. Their problem was they wouldn’t believe it. Just like you can be raised in the context of the truth, hear the truth, and have it shared with you. But if you don’t believe it, what’s the problem? It didn’t benefit them. We saw that in the book of Hebrews, because they didn’t believe it. How sad it is. Sad that people may not have heard the truth, but this is not Israel’s problem.

So, we want to understand. Chapter 10 is about Israel and their condition. And Paul has walked through the gospel here so he can show that their problem is a refusal to believe. Their stubborn disobedience. It is not that they don’t know the facts. They won’t believe the information God has given them and as a result they are not saved. When we get to chapter 11, we’ll find out that Gentiles are being saved because in the plan of God just like He would not allow the Jews to go into the promised land, to tie to this morning, they are closed out from God’s salvation. He’s put them under judgment. Doors have been closed. Some Jews are being saved today but the door of opportunity for that nation closed. And now God is working with the church and Gentiles in building it, but this day closed. We take advantage of it, but we may see it happening in our nation. We don’t know. The internal disintegration may not take an outside power. We may disintegrate and the opportunities will begin to shut down. It’s happened to other nations, but it will come that God will bring His judgment on the world and on the Jews with the purpose to bring a final judgment on the Gentiles and a saving judgment on the Jews. That’s what chapter 11 will tell us, and he puts together how consistent He is in an unchanging way in His work with Israel.

Let’s pray together. Thank You, Lord, for the truth of Your word. These great chapters that talk about Israel, the only nation that You have ever chosen as Your special people. The only nation that ever will occupy that place and no other nation can replace them, because You are the God of truth. The God who keeps His word. The God who honors His promises. Lord, that is our confidence as believing Gentiles today, part of the church, that You have established while Israel is under Your judgment. And we learn as we see Your dealing with the nation Israel. We appreciate the mercy and grace that brings salvation, and the opportunity that has been afforded to us as Gentile people in these days that have entered into the salvation that we have while Israel is under judgment. And we realize, Lord, we want to learn from their pattern. The church is not absolved from responsibility. We are responsible to be a people of faith, to be a people of obedience and to honor You with our lives and to testify boldly of the grace that brought us salvation. Use us in the week before us. May these days of uncertainty in our own world and in our own country be days of opportunity for us to share the only certainty there is in this uncertain world, the truth of the God who has made Himself known. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.