So we bow together in a word of prayer.
Yeah, Lord, we bow here in Thy presence afresh, just to tell Thee that, as we turn to Thy Word, we need Thee—speaker and hearer alike. We need Thee, Lord, and we need to hear Thy voice.
And, Lord, we thank Thee that in these days of so much strife, and so much confusion, and so much weakness, we praise Thee, beloved Lord, that Thou art still speaking through Thy Word. We ask Thee, Lord, that we may have an ear to hear what Thy Spirit is saying to the churches.
We pray, Father, for a sensitive spirit, that we may not be so, as it were, cluttered up with our own circumstances, or with our own problems or activities, that, Lord, we are heedless to the tones of Thy voice.
Oh Lord, we want to thank Thee for Thy gracious goodness toward us all. We want to thank Thee that we are here, living monuments to Thy faithfulness. And, as a company of Thy people, we are a living monument, Lord, to Thy grace and faithfulness and perseverance. We thank Thee, and we worship Thee.
We ask Thee once more now: make Thy Word live to us all. And, oh Lord, we thank Thee that there is an anointing upon the head, our Lord Jesus, that runs down to the very hem of the garment and includes every member of the body.
We pray, Lord, that Thou wilt grant that we may all know our portion of that divine enabling and power in speaking, for speaking, and for hearing.
So we commit our time to Thee, and we remember those who suffer for Thy name’s sake, Lord, and those who are in lonely outposts in the earth for Thee; those, Lord, who are laid aside, sick. We remember all these dear ones in Thy presence and pray a special grace and a special help, a meeting of all need, Lord, in Thy family, wherever they may be found.
And we ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Just one little verse in Romans 11, a very well-known verse indeed: Romans 11:29.
Romans 11:29. This is how it is rendered in my version:
For the gifts and the calling of God are not repented of.
Another version says:
For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance.
I think the most beautiful rendering is in the New American Standard Bible:
For the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.
The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.
Last week, I spoke about the things that will not fail, in a day in which much is failing, and in days in which much more will fail. We thought last week of those things which will not and cannot fail.
There are a whole number of things that the Word of God gives to us for our comfort and our strength.
The cruse of oil shall not fail.
What a wonderful word.
Thy bread shall not fail.
Most wonderful of all:
He will not fail.
But it all really goes back to the character of God: the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
In other words, once God puts His hand to something, He will not let go, or will not take the hand, as it were, off the plough until He has finished things. He takes it right through to its end.
Now, I find this one of the greatest comforts in the whole world, in my own little experience. I find it the greatest comfort in the Bible. For I am a firm believer that, in some mysterious way which I do not understand, He chose me.
He said in John 15:
Ye did not choose Me, but I chose you.
We cannot really understand the love of God. But it is most wonderfully exemplified here in these three chapters—Romans 9, 10, and 11—and it is exemplified in the history of the Jewish people.
In other words, they are for us the most wonderful illustration, the most wonderful lesson: the power of God not only to start something, but, even when it goes wrong, in some marvellous way to bring it finally back to what He originally intended.
And in these chapters, you will, I am sure, know chapters which many people consider a parenthesis. They consider that, somehow or other, the Apostle Paul was writing the most wonderfully logical explanation and interpretation, under the Spirit of God, of our so great salvation.
And when he got to the end of Romans 8, he suddenly, as was his wont, broke off into a kind of sideline. Many commentaries will tell you that Romans 9, 10, and 11 are a kind of sideline. They are a parenthesis; they are a kind of diversion from the main theme of this letter.
And then we are told that in Romans 12:1, the apostle takes up the theme again and goes on from where he left off at the last verse of Romans 8.
I do not know, really, how people have got this idea about the Roman letter. Because, to me, Romans 9, 10, and 11 are, in fact, the foundation for all the other chapters in the Roman letter.
In other words, I believe that the apostle stops in one sense, and then he launches into something which is almost inexplicable, because you are touching the really deep things of God. Here you touch mystery. Here you touch something which the human mind reels over.
And we have, as evidence, all the theological schools of interpretation as to whether, really, we are chosen, or whether we use our free will; whether we are responsible, or whether we are predestined; and all the rest of it. It all has much to do with these three chapters, which we are told are a parenthesis and a diversion.
The fact of the matter is that what the Apostle Paul is doing is going behind the whole of history—human history, the history of the Fall, the history of Satan—going right behind, if you like, the history of our so great salvation, and putting his finger upon something in the very nature of God.
The Lord Jesus, one of His most wonderful titles, is Faithful and True.
Now, there are many things that can move us, but there is nothing I find so marvellous or so wonderful, so gloriously inexplicable, as the mystery of predestination.
For the Jewish people were predestined.
Now, you may wonder what this has to do with Christmas. But in one moment, we shall come to it.
The fact of the matter is that God chose Abraham. The Talmud tells us that Terah, Abraham’s father, was an idol maker.
That is far from being some sort of man who was in a quest, who had not much to do with heathen worship. Abraham lived at the root of the whole thing.
And it was Stephen who said:
The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, and said, Get thee out.
It was God who took the initiative. And God took hold of Abraham with one great purpose, and that was to form a people—if you like, a vessel. And that vessel was to be the means of bringing salvation to the ends of the earth.
That vessel failed. But it failed only in the larger part. For, as the apostle argues in these three chapters, there was a remnant, an elect remnant, who did not fail.
That elect remnant, of course, were the writers, under God and under the Holy Spirit, of our New Testament. That elect remnant were all the ones we think about now: Simeon and Anna, Zacharias, John the Baptist, Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary, and Joseph, and many others.
They were the first twelve apostles, and later the one born out of due time, the Apostle Paul. All these were that elect remnant, who became, as it were, the means by which the salvation of God came to the ends of the earth.
And that is why the apostle again argues here in these chapters that they had to fall. There was no other way. Here is the mystery of it: first, he tells us that they were responsible for their fall, and that God holds them responsible for their fall—their turning away from the Messiah, their rejection of the King.
But he also tells us, “Be very careful that you do not sneer at them and deride them, because they had to fall so that salvation might come to the Gentiles.”
And salvation, through their fall, has come to the end of the earth. All over the earth, in every nation, from every tongue, from every people, there has come a redeemed multitude from this gospel that went out from this remnant.
Truly, as the Apostle Paul argues, the natural branches were severed and laid on one side, and the wild olive branches were grafted in. They had to fall. Can you explain that to me?
We have it, of course, if we turn to Acts 2:23, in the first message ever preached by the Apostle Peter under the anointing of the Spirit of God. He had said an awful lot of things before, but this was the first real message he preached. And this is what he said:
Him, being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye, by the hand of lawless men, did crucify and slay.
Here you have the two seas meeting. You have, on the one side, that great current of God’s determinate counsel and foreknowledge. What a wonderful word that is: determinate counsel. Not just counsel—determinate counsel and foreknowledge.
There is something to wrestle with. There is something that baffles the greatest of human minds. But we have a far greater mystery, for we have the other sea here: “Ye.” There is the responsibility. By the hand of lawless men—without the law, that is, Gentiles—did crucify and slay.
You are morally responsible for the crucifixion and slaying of the Prince of Peace.
What is so wonderful here is that it says in Romans 11:25:
I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this mystery, lest ye be wise in your own conceits.
How interesting a word that is for those of us who would dispense with these three chapters. It is very easy for us to be wise in our own conceits if we do not understand this mystery—that is, unless we have got a glimpse of it.
We may be baffled. We may find it inexplicable. But somehow or other, we have a glimpse of this thing:
I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this mystery, lest ye be wise in your own conceits, that a hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in;
and so all Israel shall be saved.
The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. What a wonderful word.
Now, what has this really got to do with Christmas? Well, you see, this is how the Apostle Paul introduces it. Let us read on, Romans 11:26:
And so all Israel shall be saved, even as it is written,
There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer;
He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:
and this is My covenant unto them,
when I shall take away their sins.
This wonderful prophecy was fulfilled in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
There shall come a Deliverer out of Zion.
Our Lord Jesus Christ. And that is Christmas.
And here we are back with this one little sentence: the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
You see, dear, dear child of God, the fact is this: God could have thrown His hands up in horror when the first pair sinned, and when the whole creation was ruined by the Fall. He could have somehow blasted the whole thing into oblivion and started all over again with fresh material. But the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
The fact is this: God has something in His heart. And far, far more glorious than blowing the whole thing up, blasting it into oblivion, and starting with fresh material, is to take the fallen soil—ruined, corrupt, perverted material—and do something with it.
The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
If we had here this morning—and we cannot have them here unless they look on, I do not know—if we could have here that great cloud of witnesses: Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and Joshua, and Samuel, and David, and Solomon; and then on down, right through to all the prophets, and the other kings, and so on and so forth—I think every one of them would say, “Amen.”
The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. We gave the Lord plenty of scope to give us up, and we got through only because the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
When I think of Abraham and his slips, when I think of what he produced through Hagar, when I think of Jacob and all his deceit, when I think of David and his terrible fall, when I think of Solomon and his eight hundred wives, let alone all his concubines, his high places, and all the rest of it—I take tradition, which I firmly believe is true: Solomon, when he was a young man, wholly followed the Lord, but in his middle age he fell far away into sin; but in his old age, he returned to the Lord.
The fact of the matter is that the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
There shall come out of Zion a Deliverer. Do you not see that behind your salvation lies this one little statement? Do you not see that it is just because the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable that He sent the Saviour into the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that there was a Bethlehem, that there was a Gethsemane, and there was a Calvary?
And there was an Olivet, and there is yet to be an Olivet.
Because whatever we may feel about that scrappy place, Jerusalem, the fact is that the feet of our Lord are not going to touch Piccadilly, or the Champs-Élysées, or Washington, or Rome—not even the Vatican.
His feet are going to stand upon Olivet. He is coming back to the very place from which He left. And the soil that saw Him in His thirty-three years will receive Him again, and He will walk upon it.
The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
There is no turning aside with God. It says in James 1:17:
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with Whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning.
A shadow cast by turning. God is not going to turn from His purpose.
And what is the basis of His purpose? Why can God persevere with failing and faulty people such as you and me? Because a Deliverer has come out of Zion. That is why.
A Deliverer has come out of Zion, and He has turned away ungodliness from Jacob.
This is My covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.
The fact is this: you are part of Israel. I am part of Israel—the true Israel of God.
And the basis for all God’s dealings with you and with me is simply and only the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the devil.
By death, He has brought to naught him that has the power of death, even the devil. What wonderful words these are.
A Deliverer has come out of Zion, has come out of Zion. And the basis for all God’s working, and all God’s activity, and all His undying faithfulness, is the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This does not mean that you can sin and get away with it. It does not mean that you can turn away from God’s highest and best and not suffer, or suffer terribly.
Here again, I bring you back to our illustration. I bring you back to the Jewish people.
Their sin, their second best, has been a terrible thing. Two thousand years—a bloody history: hounded from pillar to post, pogrom, Inquisition, concentration camp, liquidation schemes, and all the rest of it.
But the end of the story is yet to be written, and the end of the story will be unutterable glory.
When God judges, once the judgment has fallen, God shows tremendous mercy.
We are yet to see the end of this story. But I promise you that it will be glory. It will be glory.
And not just the kind of ethereal glory, but the manifestation of the glory of God on this earth in such a way that hills and valleys will dance with joy. The very trees will clap their hands. The whole earth will be finally filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.
And behind it all lies this one little sentence: the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
So do not think, dear child of God, that what I am saying is that you can sin, that you can live loosely, that you can turn away from God’s highest and best for you, and that it will all be all right.
Yes, what God will do is this: you will still be found there at the end. And, in some strange way, if you learn your lessons, the very way you have gone will teach you more than in any other way.
But you will have lost something, and you will have suffered much. Yet, in the end, you will find that God is absolutely faithful, for both His gifts and calling are irrevocable.
How wonderful, therefore, it is to find on this Christmas Sunday that the basis of everything is this coming of a Deliverer out of Zion, who has turned away ungodliness from Jacob.
When finally the Jewish people are converted to God, when finally, in multitudes, they turn to the Lord, and the natural branches are restored to the olive tree, and so all Israel shall be saved—what God has begun, God will have completed.
When that happens, then we shall understand anew this little word: the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. It will happen.
And the basis of it is this: that there came two thousand years ago our Lord Jesus into this world, born of a virgin at Bethlehem, brought up in Galilee of the nations, crucified in Jerusalem outside the city wall; and He ascended into glory, the right hand of the Majesty on high, from the Mount of Olives.
That is the basis for the conversion of the Jewish people. There is no second basis. Some people have got the idea that God is going to do something altogether apart—not at all. It is going to be the same thing, the same basis.
They shall look unto Him Whom they pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as for an only son.
What a day, when every family, every Jewish family, goes into mourning over the Messiah that was crucified.
And what a day for the church. For it will be life from the dead—life from the dead—for the whole church: a dynamic that will carry us through the last phase of the history of God’s people to the coming of our Lord.
Oh then, dear child of God, maybe you are a little afraid of what 1975 holds. Maybe you wonder just what it is going to mean for your living standards, for your income, or your home, for your job, your career—or maybe worse—or peace itself.
What we do know is this: the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. His name is Faithful and True.
Faithful is He that calleth you, Who will also do it.
Shall we pray?
Yeah, Lord, we do want to thank Thee for Thy nature. There would be no salvation for us but for what Thou art. There would have been no Deliverer coming out of Zion, no Saviour, no Keeper, O Lord, but for Thy nature.
And we thank Thee and worship Thee, and we pray that Thou wilt open all of our eyes to something of the mystery of that determinate counsel of Thine, that foreknowledge of Thine. O Lord, may we all catch some glimpse of Thy heart of love.
Thou hast said somewhere:
I am the Lord thy God; therefore ye are not consumed, O ye sons of Jacob.
Lord, we find it amazing that just because Thou art unchanging, we are not consumed. For we would have thought, Lord, that Thou, in Thine infinite holiness and majesty and righteousness, would have, Lord, shrivelled us up, wouldst have consumed us.
But, Lord, because of Thy grace and Thy love and Thy faithfulness, because Thy gifts and calling are irrevocable, Thou hast said, “Therefore, O ye sons of Jacob, ye are not consumed.”
We praise Thee, we worship Thee, Lord, and we pray that every one of us may, Lord, not fall back from Thee, nor fall into sin, nor choose a second best or a third best. But, Lord, may we choose Thy highest and Thy best for us all individually and as a people.
And may we be kept from sin. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil.
So we thank Thee, and we praise Thee, and we worship Thee in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.