Praise the Lord.
Let us read some verses in Romans 8 to begin with. Romans 8:28-30.
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
For whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He should be the firstborn among many brethren.
But whom He predestinated, these also He called; and whom He called, these also He justified; but whom He justified, these also He glorified.
I also want to read some verses in Romans 11, toward the end of the chapter. We will start in verse 33 and read until the end of the chapter.
O the depth of riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and untraceable His ways!
For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been His counselor?
Or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be rendered unto him again?
For of Him, and through Him, and for Him, are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen.
Let us pray.
Lord, together we worship You this morning. We just want to declare Your glory and Your marvelous ways. We can all freely sing of our Redeemer and praise You. We appreciate all Your mercy to us and Your kindness to us.
We also lift up this time to You. We pray once again that You would have mercy on us, that You would share with us Your heart, and that we would be in Your presence in this time. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Well, we have been going through the book of Romans with a certain approach, looking at preaching the gospel, especially as we go through Romans. As we have gone chapter by chapter and covered many verses, we have skipped much and neglected much doctrine and teaching. But the reason is that we are looking at something very specific.
We are not doing a Bible study, per se, on Romans. So even this time, as we go through chapters 9 through 11, I was afraid some may be upset that I do not cover one area enough or another area. But really, we are looking to pull something out of this—to learn some things to do with the gospel, sharing the gospel, and so on.
As we mentioned before, we are not looking specifically at sharing the gospel with unbelievers. We are seeing this in a broader scope, as it is in the Bible, concerning believers and unbelievers, and just sharing Christ in general.
In the past, we covered some questions. One question was, “What is the gospel?” And we discovered that the gospel is Christ—Who He is, what He has done. He is Christ and Him crucified.
We also asked, “Who preaches the gospel?” One thing we discovered was that, in a general way, Christ is the gospel preacher. When He was on earth, He preached the gospel. Even now, in an ascended way, through the body of Christ, He is preaching the gospel.
So if we are going alongside what He is doing, we need to keep in mind that the Head is the One directing all this. He is the One leading us. He is the One orchestrating things. He is the only One who can share Himself, and it is by His grace. Christ is the preacher of the gospel, and Christ is the gospel.
And what has the gospel provided? This is something we also looked at. Depending on where we are—whether we are unbelievers or believers—there is provision for all our needs. And the provision is also Christ.
Everything that we are lacking, God has provided in His Son. If we are dead in our sins and transgressions, God gives us Christ and Him crucified. We are forgiven of our sins, and we are made right with God.
If we are believers, though, we also need to be delivered from ourselves, from our selfishness, from our flesh, from sin, the power of sin, from Satan, and from the world. All the provision of God is in Christ Jesus.
So this time, we ask another question: Why is the gospel preached? Why is there the gospel? Why is all this even going about? You can broaden it almost: Why are we even here? Why do we preach the gospel? Why is Christ preaching the gospel? Why has God given us this good news? What is the purpose for all this? What is going on? How is God doing all of this?
Again, the answer we are going to discover is Christ, but we will use a whole hour to elaborate.
In chapters 9 through 11, before and after them are chapters 8 and 12. In chapter 8 and chapter 12, we see some glimpses of why. In chapter 8, the point of view is more personal, more to do with you as an individual. In chapter 12, it is like putting all the individuals together, and we can see a bigger why. This is what God is after.
In chapter 8, the verses we read a little bit ago say that God is after conforming us to the image of Christ. So, in a simple way, this is why. This is why God has saved us. This is why God has called us. This is why He has justified us: to bring us to be like Christ, to conform us to the image of Christ.
It is that we would be glorified, that He would have many sons, that Christ would be the firstborn among many brethren. So everything going on in our lives, all the things that are happening, God is working all these things toward that one purpose.
He is shaping, conforming, and working to bring Christ to be glorified through us. He has given us the life of Christ, and He wants to bring that life out, that Christ would shine through each one of us. This is what God is after.
If we ask sometimes, “Why am I here? What is the purpose of life? What am I doing?” as far as you personally are concerned, and as far as I personally am concerned, God is after bringing me from where I am to being completely conformed to the image of Christ.
So we may not know where we are at, but God knows where He is going. We just praise the Lord. He has some reason for everything that is going on.
In that verse, it says, “Those who love God, those who are called according to His purpose.” This is His purpose that we are called according to. These are the ones for whom He is working everything toward that end.
Now in chapter 12, it is a larger picture, taking all these individual believers together. Hopefully, God willing, we will get into that more next time when we go through chapters 12 through 16.
Just to mention something, though: at the beginning of chapter 12, you see a picture of many bodies offering themselves up toward God’s purpose, willing to do His will. Then it says that all these are put together as one body.
So that is the general picture in chapter 12: all these many bodies become one great body of Christ. This is also something God is after. This is also the why.
These are like pieces of bread for a sandwich, or bookends with some books in between. We have to keep these things in mind while we are going through chapters 9 through 11.
Something interesting about this plan of God—and confusing to our natural minds—is that God is God, but He has made man with a choice.
If God has a plan, we believe, because God is God—He is the Creator. He existed before time and before matter. He came in, created time, created matter, and created humans. He can do what He wants.
God is all-powerful. He knows everything. He is everywhere. He can do anything. He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent—some other omnis. Everything. He is God.
But there is also something unique that God is after: some who want Him back. Just as a spouse wants a spouse who truly wants them back—like Scott and Amy—even God Himself wants to be loved back.
He is not after a machine. He is not after creating a rock. He can make very big boulders and shape them however He wants. But He is after some who willingly want His will.
So this causes a very big, complex situation: God can do what He wants, but He has chosen to give us freedom to choose.
As we go through chapters 9 through 11, this is something we get into. We are considering this for our own experience of the gospel, as well as in sharing the good news with unbelievers and believers.
Why would we want to know the why? We want to know the why because we want to see the bigger picture of what God is actually after. Almost like we need a blueprint—not a blueprint, but a plan. We need to know why we are doing what we are doing.
It is like some in a battlefield going to war and not knowing the purpose of it, just being mindless soldiers. One, it seems purposeless; but also, you do not know what you are doing. You may even be doing wrong, and some soldiers have been that way.
Also, if you support it, if you are with it, how much more of the burden do you have? It is the same with the Lord: to share with Him His burden for the gospel. We want to see what His real burden is for the gospel.
Sometimes we have a burden for the gospel, it seems, but sometimes our burden is actually very selfish. We may be burdened to share the gospel or to share Christ even with believers, to fellowship with believers, but it may be for a selfish reason. It may even be to boast.
You may be burdened, in a sense—you are weighed down—but you want some prize and want to say, “This one came to Christ,” or, “I was able to teach this believer some new teaching.” This is vanity.
Actually, in that case, we need the good news. We ourselves need to be delivered from that selfishness.
We may be burdened because of the law. We may be burdened because we have some rules upon us: “As a good Christian, I need to preach the gospel to the lost. As a good Christian, I need to share with believers often.”
But it is more outward. It is more heavy. It is not really a burden from the Lord; it is just a weight upon us. Maybe somebody is saved, thank God, but the Lord actually needs to deliver us from the law now. So we ourselves, again, need the good news.
But if the Lord shares His heart with us, it is different. When the Lord shares with us His reasoning for bringing Christ to souls and bringing Christ to saints, then all the more we can rejoice in His heart. We can share His heart, and we can join in with a purpose and with a real burden that is from God.
Sometimes the Lord shows us a glimpse. He may show us man’s situation and need, and He touches our hearts. For man’s sake, even, we would go forth. But really, there is even more.
For God’s sake, we must share Christ. For His sake, we witness to the lost world because He is after something. He has a purpose. He desires many sons to be brought into glory.
For His sake, we fellowship with one another. Maybe we see somebody who is down, and for their sake, we have compassion. But at the same time, do we see the Lord’s heart for that soul, for that believer—that He wants to bring them all the way through?
For His sake, sometimes we get upset at people, but we can never get upset at the Lord. Sometimes we say people deserve what they get, and in a way, it is true. Now we have a bad attitude. But at least let the Lord’s heart touch your heart.
At least when all are rejecting, all are whatever, the Lord’s heart should touch our hearts. We may end up like Jeremiah, weeping and sharing. No one responds. No one seems to care.
Jeremiah was saying, “I am not going to share anymore. I will no longer make mention of the Lord’s name.” He says this in Jeremiah 20:9.
But the word of the Lord was burning in my heart. It was like fire inside of my bones. I got tired of holding it in. I could not.
With such a preacher as Jeremiah, he shared the Lord’s heart. He touched the Lord’s heart, and that is why he went on. That is why he could preach.
If we touch the Lord’s heart—what the Lord is after, what His heart is—then we are burdened with the Lord’s burden. If we only see man, if we only see ourselves, our burden is mixed, and maybe it is not even at all from the Lord.
But if we can touch His heart, then I think, by offering ourselves to the Lord for His purpose, He will fan the flame. He will burden us with that fire of the gospel, and it will be purposeful. It will not be something on the side, against what God is doing. It will only be in line with what He is after.
This is the purpose and plan of the gospel. Like we already mentioned, it is a little complex how it works because of the way God set things up.
In Romans 9, there is more emphasis on God’s choice, or divine election—we can simply say God’s choice. In chapter 10, it is more on man’s choice, or man’s free will.
In chapter 9, there are a few illustrations and things I want to bring out, but the focus really is that God has chosen. He is God the Creator. He can do what He wants. He has chosen, and He is going to do what He wants to do.
Let us look at Romans 9:15-16.
For He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.
So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy.
This is a revelation we have to see. Yet when we see it, we realize we have not really seen it. It is something beyond us: God is sovereign, and God can predestine us to be conformed to the image of His beloved Son.
What about Jacob and Esau? In Romans 9:13, before they had done anything—these are Isaac’s children, and they were twins—before they came out of the womb, God chose one and did not choose the other.
Now we, the creatures, say, “That is not fair,” right? This is our natural feeling. We say, “This is not fair.” But God chose one and did not choose the other.
God is God, and we are the creatures. God can do what He wants. God has His choice, and God is always righteous.
Remember, that verse said He will show mercy to whom He shows mercy. It is His mercy that He chose one. He could have chosen neither.
Our wrong perspective is that we sometimes believe we deserve mercy. But by definition, mercy is not deserved. Actually, wrath is deserved by all of us.
When we looked at Romans 1 and Romans 2, we saw that the wrath of God is righteous. The wrath of God is the most deserved thing for all humans. All of us only deserve wrath.
If He chose one out of mercy, this is God’s prerogative. He can do it if He wants to do it.
Here it says that He loved Jacob and hated Esau. I think, in English at least—or in our culture—this verse sounds strange. We do not really use this expression.
If we say we love somebody and hate somebody else, we are usually talking about the feeling of love and the feeling of hate. To think of God hating somebody and loving another before they had done anything sounds odd to us. It does not sound right.
But here, love and hate refer to the love and hate of choice. In other parts of Scripture, the same phrase is used.
Remember when Jesus spoke about being His disciple? If you are going to be His disciple, if you are going to love Him, you have to hate, basically, everyone. Now that sounds funny, but hear me out. Do not hate everybody. But He says you have to hate your parents. You even have to hate yourself.
What does this mean? If we have a choice between God and someone else, when we choose God, we love God. By not choosing them, in a sense, we hate them. But we do not hate them with a feeling; it is the choice.
Just as He says in Matthew 6:24, no one can serve two masters. He will love the one and hate the other. You may have two masters and feel love for both of them, but at some point both are pulling on you to make a decision: “Go this way,” “Go that way,” “Obey me,” or “Obey me.” You have to choose.
When you choose, one is loved and one is hated. This is the choice of love and hate. It is not the feeling of love and hate. It is not that God was angry in a hatred way, in a feeling way, toward Esau. It is just that because He did not choose Esau, it is the opposite of love: He loved one and hated the other.
So it helps not to think of it as a feeling, but to think of it as a choice. It is more of a technical thing. If God chose one and did not choose the other, He loved one and hated the other.
It is the same with us. If we choose God, we still love our parents, our spouse, our siblings, and mankind. Actually, if we choose God, we will love them with pure love and real love.
But as far as the choice goes, we hate our parents and even our spouse when they come into conflict with God. When it comes down to either choosing God or choosing someone else, either His will or someone else’s will, the same applies to ourselves.
Probably you love yourself, right? But when it comes down to choice, you do not feel absolute hatred toward yourself all the time. You do not have this angriness—Amy said I make up words. You do not have this feeling, but you have a choice to love God and not love yourself when you come into conflict with the Lord.
Then there is the picture of Pharaoh. With Pharaoh, God hardened his heart, right? God used Pharaoh in such a way. Pharaoh was an object of wrath instead of an object of mercy.
God wanted to use Pharaoh and display something—display His power through Pharaoh in the Old Testament, when He was going to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.
Here is another time when we have a question, either from curiosity or because we feel that we deserve mercy. If we feel we deserve mercy, we look at Pharaoh and say, “God should not have done that. Who can resist God if He chooses to make you a vessel of wrath?”
This is just a wrong perspective. Before we try to get into how this works, we do not need to see that. What we need to see is simply to look back and say, “God is God. If He gave me mercy, He did not have to do it. I do not deserve mercy. No one deserves mercy. It is God’s choice.”
There is also a picture of a potter and the clay in this chapter. Let us read part of that in Romans 9:19-21.
Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth He still find fault? For who withstandeth His will?
Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why didst Thou make me thus?
Or hath not the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?
This is really our attitude much of the time. How can He find fault with Pharaoh, with Esau, or with anyone? But we are the formed thing. Shall the piece of pottery say to the potter, “Why are You making me this way?”
We have to be humble when we look at God’s choice. We have to learn our place, bow low, and worship Him.
Many of us are fine with Romans 9:23: that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy which He prepared beforehand for glory. We are fine with this because we have experienced this.
But what about the other side—the vessels of wrath, God’s righteous wrath? Stepping outside our own compassion for ourselves, we must realize that God has His choice. He shows compassion to whom He will show compassion. He is God. He is the Creator, and we are the creation.
Now we will move to Romans 10, looking at the other side of this. Man has a free choice.
There is a quotation in verses 5 through 7 from Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy, you can be overwhelmed with the law of God. What God says to them at that time is, “Do not say, ‘Who will go so far high? Who will go so far deep?’” It is right there next to your heart. It is right next to your mouth.
Do not say this is impossible to do. If you read Deuteronomy or the first five books of the Old Testament, you may say, “This is so much.” But what God says is, “Do not say, ‘Who shall ascend into heaven?’ And do not say, ‘Who is going to go down into the abyss?’”
Then Paul gives interpretation, or elaboration, when he writes this. It is like he gives a footnote for each quotation. “Who shall ascend into heaven?” Paul says this means, “Who shall bring Christ down to the earth?” “Who shall go down into the deep?” This means, “Who is going to raise up Christ from the dead?”
Then, concerning it being right next to your heart and right in your mouth, he says that this is the word of faith—the word of faith which we preach, the gospel.
Basically, do not say, “How am I ever going to do this, follow God, keep His commandments, and live righteously before God?” Instead, realize Christ came down. God did that. Christ rose from the dead. God did that. He has brought this good news right next to your heart. The word of faith is right there. All you must do is receive it.
So it is not so hard. With our free will, we have the choice, but the amount that we are actually choosing is very small. God is working so much. He has done everything. Our part to play is very small.
It is right there already in the heart. If we believe with our heart that God raised Him from the dead, and we respond with that faith and confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, we will be saved.
There is some part for us to play, but notice how small it is. Faith is not a work. Faith is just receiving. To believe is to receive. To believe is to see that God has done everything.
There is the functioning of our choice, but even that, God gives us grace to do. Again, we can marvel at how God is doing everything. Just as the last verse we read in Romans 11 says, it is of God, through Him, and for Him. He gets all the glory.
There is also a pattern, almost a repeating circle. The question is: How are we going to call upon Him if we have not believed? It says, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” But how can we call upon Him? We have to believe, right?
But how are you going to believe unless you hear the word of faith as preached? How can you hear unless someone preaches it to you? How are they going to preach unless God sends them, unless they have been sent from God?
Notice that there is even dependence here on circumstances. Who is behind all this? God has sent the preacher. God is behind all of it. He is the One working all things for good to those who have that slight, tiny bit of a love-choice in their hearts.
By themselves, they would not be able to choose God, but there is some small thing there where He knows their heart. He knows they would respond. So He works all these things. He sends forth the word. He raises someone up to share.
This is our experience as unbelievers and as believers. Many of us here came to Christ through someone else sharing—maybe personally, maybe through something written down, maybe through a meeting we were at.
Sometimes someone is born again through looking at the sky and seeing a cloud shaped a certain way. I do not know. But normally, God does not just give a dream and save someone. When He does that, it is usually to the shame of the church.
His normal way is that He gives these beautiful feet, gospel feet, and sends someone along the way to share.
It is the same with believers. We may sometimes receive much help directly, but often the Lord sends believers into our lives to share Christ with us all the time. We really need one another. God has given us grace through one another. He is using people to share Himself.
So none of us can boast. We cannot say, “I am at the place I am now because I had such a love and desire for God.” No, really, God has loved you so much and brought all these things around in your life—bad things and good things, people sharing Christ and people breaking you down.
He is arranging all these things to mature us and bring us unto His purpose.
In Romans 11, these two aspects come together. I want to bring out a couple of words that are helpful to remember. When we talk about God’s choice, God’s divine election, one word to remember is foreknowledge. When we talk about man’s choice, one key word is faith.
Through foreknowledge, God, Who exists outside of time, sees everything throughout all time. It is like, instead of a video where you fast-forward and rewind, it is a DVD where you can see all the different slides and choose which spot to go to.
God Himself sees man’s heart. He sees what people would do in this circumstance or that circumstance, even though man has choice. God, through foreknowledge, knows the hearts of men. He knows what you would do.
Now, His knowing something does not mean He is going to make you do something. It is different. Just because I know what happens at the end of something does not mean I caused it to happen. But according to what He knows, He acts.
It says that we have been predestined according to foreknowledge. God, with foreknowledge, knows who has that tiny, small choice in their hearts, that they would respond with love. He knows who those are, and He knows who those are not.
So He destines ahead of time. He predestines those ones to be called and conformed to the image of Christ. This is how God is working.
When you think about it, how marvelous it is. It is like chess. Imagine that you knew what the other person would do if you moved a certain piece. Sometimes we guess, but imagine you knew every single thing they would ever do in response. That is how you played your game.
Then imagine there are ten chessboards and you are playing ten people at the same time. Every time one of them chooses one way, it affects all the other nine. Think of how complex that game would be. Every move you make affects all of them.
Now put in about a hundred million chessboards. This is the situation. God is working with everyone, and everyone has free will. Everyone is choosing every moment to do different things.
As they say, a dead butterfly could affect someone over here, and somebody could die for some reason because a rock fell down. It is so complex. Think about it: inside of time, how the past affects the future in all these amazing ways.
But God can look from eternity into time. He can see everything and all the choices. According to that, He plans out His whole purpose and works in everyone’s lives. He allows or disallows things to happen in each one of our lives.
Everything going on with us believers, every single thing in your life, has been allowed by God. We cannot blame everything on God, because in this world we have sin, Satan working, and many people with choices. These people are making choices all the time.
But God is allowing things, and sometimes He works here and there to use these things for His purpose. If something bad is happening, we can look up to Him, knowing that He is in charge of everything and knowing that He has a will.
He wants to shape us, just like that potter making the cup, or whatever he makes. He wants to make us into Christ and to be like Christ—conformed to the image of Christ.
When something is going on, if it is good, the Lord is using it. If it seems bad, hard, hurtful, or crushing, these are things the Lord is using in our lives. He is bringing us to be more and more like Christ in this way.
So we can never complain at God. Our hearts have to appreciate His mercy to us. We are vessels of mercy. Vessels of mercy are vessels He is using to shape into Christ.
Just because we are vessels of mercy does not mean it will not hurt. There is another picture of a potter in Jeremiah 18. This time, there is something wrong with the clay. There is some piece in there, some stubbornness, some hardness of clay, or some object in it.
God is making something, but because of man’s stubborn will, He has to break it back down and reshape it. Maybe He takes the hard clay, crushes it, and adds some water. I do not know. I did not do well with clay in art class.
But I know you can reuse it even if you mess up. This is what God is doing. He is beating out, in a sense, the stubbornness and softening our hearts.
He knows that there is something small in your heart—that you really want to want Him. But because we have this hard outer shell, He is dealing with us. So He works everything for good.
The same is true with Jacob and Esau. Through foreknowledge, we have, in a sense, some foreknowledge in this case through the Bible. We can look at their situation before they were born, while also seeing what Jacob and Esau were actually like later.
Esau despised his birthright. In a sense, he made little of the things of God. He was not really responding to what God was after.
Jacob, on the other hand, even though he was just as evil as Esau, born in sin the same way, and even using bad ways to accomplish things, had some desire in him. He wanted the blessing of God. He wanted what God was after. He knew there was something good in it.
God saw that ahead of time. Before they were born, through foreknowledge, God chose one and did not choose the other because He knew their hearts already. He could choose one and not choose the other, then work through the circumstances to bring about what He wanted and turn Jacob into Israel, bringing glory out of him.
It is the same with Pharaoh. God knew Pharaoh’s case. The Bible says Pharaoh hardened his heart, and it also says God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. These two go together.
Pharaoh had a choice. He was free to choose what to do, and he chose to harden his heart. He could have been one of those kings, like later kings who blessed Israel and said, “Go, build the house of your Lord.”
But instead, he was a king trying to hold them back, trying to keep them serving him and not serving God. So God used that. He used Pharaoh for His glory, to display His might and His power.
This is foreknowledge. This is God’s viewpoint from eternity into time. Our viewpoint, though, is from time. We touch eternity through faith.
As far as our free will is concerned, as far as us stepping into this purpose of God, His plan, and walking on with Him, our way is through faith.
If you could see eternity and time, it would be like portals travelling back and forth. From eternity to time, in a sense, is like foreknowledge from God’s view. God is truly in time, present with us and working today, but from His viewpoint, He can see all time at once.
In a similar way, we are in time, but by faith we touch eternity. Eternity is real, and it is outside of time. It is the unseen. It is all that God has done in Christ, and all that He is going to bring into time.
We travel, in a sense, to eternity by faith. Romans 8 says, “Those He predestined, He called; those He called, He justified; those He justified, He glorified.” From that viewpoint, everything is past tense.
In eternity, we are already glorified. It is actually true. In time, we are not there yet. In time, there are some people today who have not yet been justified. But God already predestined them and called them. He is calling them and bringing them, but they are not saved yet in time.
In eternity, they are already justified. How do they bring eternity into time? By faith. Their first touch of eternity is when they believe on the Lord Jesus for the first time. What is in eternity is that they are already justified. When they believe on Christ, by faith, that justification is brought into time and becomes their experience.
In the same way, as a believer today, in Christ you are glorified. It is Christ shining through you.
We see the picture at the end of the Bible in Revelation 21 and Revelation 22. No one has a mistake anymore. No one has an imperfection. No one has themselves. It is all Christ shining through them.
Even though they are there, we remain individuals—we remain us—but our hearts willingly will His will, and we do not have the imperfections. In the New Jerusalem, when God completes everything, there is glory.
But in this time, our way of travelling there is by faith. In Romans 10, the word faith is mentioned often. Chapter 10 is not only speaking about unbelievers getting saved.
When we believe that God has raised Christ from the dead, then as believers, just as God raised Christ from the dead, we also walk in newness of life.
When we believe that Christ is raised from the dead, resurrection life rises up in our hearts because we are one with Christ. We are identified with Him. We have this new life.
When we deal with circumstances and other things in this place and time, we believe that God has raised Him from the dead. We believe and experience that eternal life rising up and living the Christian life through us. Christ shines through us then.
We respond. We confess Him as our Lord. We consecrate ourselves to Him completely. We are delivered from all the things that are not of Christ.
In Romans 11, I want to bring out another term. It is not actually used here, but the picture is here: the term remnant.
Throughout these chapters, a large illustration is the nation of Israel. God called them as a nation, but they rejected Him. Yet not everyone rejected the Messiah. Paul himself was a Jew. Many were saved and received the Messiah, but it was a remnant.
God worked through that remnant and began the church. Even to this day, there is a remnant that believes on the Lord Jesus.
But what about the physical calling and physical promises for the physical nation of Israel? In a spiritual sense, many things have been fulfilled. In a spiritual sense, the church is the Israel of God. But as far as the physical nation is concerned, there are prophecies that have not yet been fulfilled.
The remnant believed. They did not go by the law; they chose the way of faith. You have to humble yourself and receive His mercy. The remnant always knows that it is the mercy of God and the grace of God that carries them on.
Let us read Romans 11:32.
For God hath shut up all unto disobedience, that He might have mercy upon all.
As a nation, there was a problem of pride. Knowing that they were the called, chosen people of God, there was a problem of pride. How did God deal with this? They rejected their Messiah.
In the end, when the Lord returns, Romans 11:26 says that all Israel shall be saved.
There are verses in the Bible that speak about this, such as Revelation 1 and Zechariah 12. They speak of the tribes of Israel looking on Him Whom they have pierced.
They see Him Whom they have pierced, and there is repentance. At that time, all Israel shall be saved.
According to the prophecies, there is a point when Jesus comes physically to the earth. At that point, the nation of Israel is in a desperate situation, about to be wiped out, and the Lord physically delivers them.
At that point, they see Him. They look on Him Whom they have pierced. His scars are there. They know He is the Messiah, but they see the piercings, and the revelation comes. They see that He is Jesus Who died on the cross.
How do they come to God with no pride? They were in unbelief so that they would be objects of mercy. When they come, it is all by mercy. It is all because God has done it.
They come repenting. They come in mercy, not as ones deserving anything, because they even rejected God. God will fulfill His promises concerning the physical nation and the physical promises in the thousand-year kingdom.
What about us with the church? Is this principle similar? With the church, we have done the same thing. Though we have believed on the Lord Jesus, though God foreknew us, chose us, and justified us, as Christians we have a daily choice too.
If we choose our own will and not God’s will, there is a problem. Sometimes unbelievers and believers ask this question and get upset about the situation. Maybe we even come up with new teachings because of this, but we do not need to.
Why does this Christian fail? Why does this Christian turn away from God? Why does this Christian not shine Christ? Why does this Christian not live like a Christian? Why is this Christian living in the world? They got saved, but I do not see much from it now.
I am even talking about ones who were really saved. Sometimes somebody prays a prayer and does not actually receive Christ. But other times, someone really receives Christ. Perhaps they run with a short sprint, but somehow they have fallen into themselves and away from Christ. They have fallen from grace.
This is probably the case with the majority of the church. Because God has given us free will, we can choose.
If He had not given us free will, we would say that once someone becomes a Christian, they will always follow the Lord. So if you ever see someone who is not following the Lord, they were never a Christian. Do you see the reasoning with that?
Some actually reason that way today. If they see somebody who has fallen from walking with the Lord, they say that person was never saved. That is their way of justifying it.
But in that case, you can never have assurance of salvation. You are always depending on whether you keep going or not. Not only that, it is just not the truth.
The truth is that even according to the Scriptures, some believers do not follow the Lord. God calls out a remnant—those who, by faith, walk with the Lord today.
With this remnant, the Lord gets what He is after. Remember, the purpose is conformity to the image of Christ.
There are believers willing to go along with the Lord today. They go along with Him, submitting themselves, allowing Him to shape them in the way He wants to shape them, accepting God’s ordained environment and circumstances.
Through tears and blood and the cross, denying themselves and following Christ, they press on.
These believers, through them, the Lord matures the body of Christ. Through the remnant, He prepares His bride. He prepares them and gets what He is after before the kingdom, before He returns.
We do not expect the whole church to rise up and be ready, but we expect that the Lord will have mercy. Some of us will receive His mercy, and some of us, by faith receiving His mercy and grace, will be ready for the Lord.
At that time, there will be suffering of loss for some believers, and there will be joy, rejoicing, and reward in the kingdom—in the thousand years with Christ.
One of the easiest places to see this is 1 Corinthians 3. There, he says your foundation is a solid rock: Christ. No one can take it away. When you are saved, it is Christ. It is assurance.
But how do you build on it? You can build with good materials or bad materials—materials that will make it through fire and materials that will burn up. We are always building, whether in a bad, sinful, or carnal way, or in a Christ-like and godly way.
When we meet Christ in that day, it says in that chapter that the works we have done, the way we have lived, will be exposed and tested by fire. If the materials are not of God, they will be burned up. If the materials are of God, it is well done; there is reward.
But if it is not of God, it says that we shall suffer loss. It says, “He himself shall be saved, but so as through fire.”
This is a marvelous way of God. Just as with Israel, He brings it around in some masterful way to bring the whole nation in, so that all Israel is saved—but all through mercy. No one can boast. Everyone has to say that it is of God.
It is the same with believers. Those who follow Him now know it is His mercy. They give Him the glory. They know it is His grace.
What about those who are not following God and are not receiving the grace of God? In the end, they themselves shall be saved, but so as through fire. There is some suffering of loss.
But after the kingdom, after the thousand years, when we come to eternity and the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21 and Revelation 22, every believer is there. All the saints of God from the Old and New Testaments are all there.
As it says, how unsearchable are His judgments, and how untraceable are His ways.
I do not think this is just for our understanding. This has to do with how we are walking today, what our way is, and how we are going along with what the Lord is doing.
In these chapters, we touch some of the heart of Paul again, the gospel preacher. At the very beginning of Romans 9, he tells us how great his burden is for Israel, his physical relatives, that they would be saved.
He says he is not lying. His conscience agrees with him in the Holy Spirit. At one point, he even wished himself to be cut away from Christ if they could only be saved.
This was not his normal daily wish. It was that at some point he had this unceasing pain in his heart for these souls. He was so burdened for them, just as the Lord was burdened for them.
I believe this is the Lord’s heart. Paul touched the Lord’s heart. He was burdened, travailed, and prayed that way.
In Romans 10:1, he says, “The desire of my heart and my prayer to God for them is, that they may be saved.”
In other parts of Scripture, we catch his burden as well. In Galatians 4, praying for believers, for souls who had come to Christ, he says, “I am travailing again that Christ will be formed in you.”
This is the heart of God, and this is the heart that the gospel preacher Paul shared in. He touched God’s heart.
Even though he could have been satisfied that the believers in Galatia had all been saved and would all be in eternity, that was not the Lord’s heart. The Lord’s heart is to bring them to be conformed to the image of Christ. The Lord’s heart is that Christ would be formed in them.
So Paul was travailing again, like a woman in labor pains. He was travailing. He was praying. He was so burdened with it.
Just like in 1 Corinthians, when Paul speaks about all the physical sufferings he went through, he says the worst thing is his burden for the saints: “Who is stumbled, and I burn not? Who is weak, and I am not weak?”
If we touch God’s heart for the saints, it will move us to pray for the saints. If we touch God’s heart for the saints, we will have a desire to see the church brought into glory. We will have a desire for what the Lord desires.
If we touch His heart for lost souls, we will have a burden for those souls. We will travail and pray for those we know, and perhaps for those we do not know.
I feel that seeing what God is after will give us a taste of how we can share His heart with Him.
To be gospel preachers without the heart of the Lord—what is the point? To be gospel receivers but not touch His heart and go along with Him—what benefit is it to the Lord?
Sometimes we consider things as separate. Maybe we feel that if we are witnessing to unbelievers, that is one thing, but if we are after what God is after, that is a second thing.
According to the Bible, the two are not separated. Everything lines up with what God is after.
We may see something and become discontent. We say, “Why do I not have that passion or that fire of the gospel?” Remember, I am not just talking about sharing with unbelievers. That is included, but perhaps we do not even have zeal for the house of the Lord.
Why do I not have this zeal for the house of the Lord that Christ had? Why do I not have the burden for the saints?
For fire, there must be wood. In Romans 12, we see the mercies of God, but we offer up our bodies. We offer up our all as a living sacrifice on that altar, consecrated to the Lord.
It is like a burning bush. It is wood, but it does not burn up all the way. We are living. It is an alive piece of wood. We are living sacrifices.
If we consecrate ourselves to His purpose, to what He is after—not just to be an amazing Christian or whatever we think of, but to cooperate with His will and share His burden—He shares it with us.
When we are on that altar, the fire of the gospel is able to burn something. But there must be wind too. By the Holy Spirit, by His help in intercession, we pray.
When we start to pray, I want to challenge all of us. If we feel we do not have the burden of God’s purpose, or do not have the burden for what He is after, do we pray for these things?
“I do not have a burden for lost souls.” Now check daily: do we even mention anyone to the Lord? Maybe we know some people, but we can mention people in general too.
What about the church? Do we have a burden for the church, for the believers we know, to mature and be conformed to the image of Christ?
I think we must confess that prayerlessness has taken away our fire and our passion. When we start to pray just a little bit, our heart starts to grow a little bit. We have a little spark inside.
The more we pray, the fire is fanned, and the flame starts to grow. The Lord is not just going to zap us with fire, normally.
But if we are faithful to share in God’s heart by prayer, we may not even do anything outwardly, but if we start to share in His heart by prayer, we can touch His heart.
By faith, we touch into eternity. We see His heart. By praying that what is in eternity would come down into time and onto earth, what is in heaven would be done here on earth.
We know this believer here. They have been saved, but, Lord, they need to be delivered from this. We pray for them. We are touching God’s heart. The burden starts to grow in our hearts.
In this way, I think we can share in the real heart of the gospel preacher. The gospel preacher Paul could not leave someone alone once they got saved. They got saved, but he was not satisfied. He was so burdened that he travailed again for Christ to be formed in them.
This is our heart. By God’s grace, we can offer ourselves up to Him as a living sacrifice, be that burning bush, and pray with the Lord.
Perhaps this is a question for our own hearts: Do I pray for the saints?
We should start small. However the Lord leads you—I am just saying that if you make a list of a thousand people, you will be overwhelmed.
But the Lord will give you at least some, at least two or three whom you know and are in contact with, for whom you can pray. May we share the Lord’s heart in this way.
Let us pray.
Dear Lord, we can all stand here today and confess that we are merely objects of Your mercy. We worship You together. Even what little choice we made was really no choice.
We know that it is Your love and Your grace that have brought us this far. We can testify, even looking back, and say, “It is from You. It is of You. It is through You. All this is for You. You gain all the glory, Lord.”
We pray that together we would share Your heart. We would not be mindlessly wandering around in this life, but we would purposefully agree with Your eternal purpose.
Lord, we want what You want. We pray that You would reveal more of Your heart to us. In Jesus’ name, amen.