I suppose.
Dear brothers and sisters, if you would turn in your Bibles to Romans 11, we will be looking at and reading verses 1 through 15.
I say then, Did God cast off His people? Far be the thought.
For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
God did not cast off His people whom He foreknew.
Or know ye not what the Scripture saith in the history of Elijah, how he pleadeth with God against Israel:
Lord, they have killed Thy prophets, they have digged down Thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.
But what saith the divine answer unto him? I have left for Myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal.
Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
But if it is by grace, it is no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace.
What then? That which Israel seeketh for, that he obtained not; but the election obtained it, and the rest were hardened:
according as it is written, God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, unto this very day.
And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumbling-block, and a recompense unto them:
let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow Thou down their back always.
I say then, Did they stumble that they might fall? Far be the thought: but by their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy.
Now if their fall is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?
But I speak to you that are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I glorify my ministry;
if by any means I may provoke to jealousy them that are my flesh, and may save some of them.
For if the casting away of them is the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?
Lord, we just come to You again in absolute and utter dependence, knowing that You are the only One who has the words of eternal life. We confess our dependence this morning upon the Holy Spirit to make those words known to us, to quicken the divine words to us, that we would not have to tolerate man speaking, but that we could hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
Open Your Word to us. We yield ourselves to You, and we say, Holy Spirit, move among us this morning. In Your precious name, amen.
Well, I think all of you know that my responsibility for some time now has been to share in the study of Romans with the brothers and sisters, both in Pakistan by Zoom—usually every other week, though the schedule does not work out perfectly—and here once a month.
So, in case you are wondering why you have to endure my speaking once a month, I have been ordered to share things I have been sharing with the brothers and sisters in Pakistan. Today, I would like us to look at the first part of Romans 11.
Now, Romans 11 is in that second section. Let me give just this Bible review, because I want you to have it in your mind as a framework. The book of Romans is a masterpiece. There is no book like it in the New Testament that goes into the depth of the glory of the gospel of God in our Lord Jesus Christ. There is nothing like it; there is nothing that can compare to it.
Even the other books that speak much about the gospel do not go to the degree of understanding that the Apostle Paul included in these sixteen chapters.
Now, for those of you who would like to study Romans, I have told this story before, but I will interrupt myself and tell it again. Years ago, when we were young brothers and young sisters, Brother Kong told each one of us young brothers, “Pick a book in the Bible you would like to study.”
Unfortunately—or fortunately—I picked Romans. If I had better sense, I would have picked Jude, or some short book, and been able to handle it. But instead, I picked a sixteen-chapter book, one of the longest in the New Testament.
So I would encourage you to choose a book, to meditate on that book, and to read the book for yourself. Do not just escape to commentators. I have a rule that I never escape to commentators until the thought the Lord has given me is secured in my thinking—until I have an outline, until I have a way. Then I will look at commentators, and hopefully they show me I was not completely wrong. But this is the way I do it, and often they enhance, adjust, and help me.
The book of Romans can be divided into three parts.
Chapters 1 through 8 present the mighty works of God: the glorious gospel presented in a way that no other author has ever presented it before.
The second part, where we are now, is chapters 9 through 11. This is the ways of God. If you look at Romans 11:33, it speaks of how unsearchable His judgments are and how untraceable His ways are.
O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past tracing out!
So these three chapters are an unveiling, or an opening, of the ways of God. We understand the gospel of God in the first section—the mighty works of God—but we understand His untraceable ways through these chapters.
Heaven’s curtain is pulled back, and we understand what God has been doing down through the ages with His people, both in the Old Testament and now in the New Testament, and what His conclusion is for those people. These are the ways of God.
Then, when you go to Romans 12 through 16, you come into the practical part.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice.
Then Paul goes on, that you may prove what is the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. In Romans 12 through 16, you discover the practical working out of the will of God—how that is done in your life. What does it look like? What should the testimony of Jesus look like in a people?
That is the will of God: a testimony expressed in living, a way of His own life in a people. So that is a broad outline. I know you have heard it before, but one day, if I say it enough, you might remember it.
So we are going to look at this first part of Romans 11. The primary subject of these three chapters is the mystery of election. That is what it has to do with: the mystery of election.
Romans 11:25 says, “I do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, of this mystery.” Now, what mystery is he talking about? The Bible speaks about a number of mysteries, but if you look carefully in these three chapters, you begin to discover a dominating word: election.
The word election occurs six times in the New Testament, and four times in Romans 9 through 11. So I do not think there is any doubt about what this mystery is that we are talking about.
Think about this, brothers and sisters: election. What does it mean? We need to understand, if we are going to know God’s ways, what election means. If you look at the Greek word, it means divine selection.
Is that not a beautiful thing? I do not know if it hits you as strongly as it hits me, but God has chosen you. God has chosen me. It is not some leader, some preacher, or some religious person who has led me. God Himself has selected you. That is what election is.
You remember, I think it is in John 15—perhaps verse 16—when the Lord was speaking to His own and said:
Ye did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that ye should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide.
This is what these chapters deal with. When we come to the end of Romans 11, it really becomes apparent what the apostle is dealing with.
So the subject today is election in the present time. I want you to remember that. In Romans 11:5, it speaks about the present time. If you look at the second part, from verse 16 through the end of the chapter, you discover election in what you could describe as the fulness of times. The phrase is actually the fulness of the Gentiles, but in fact it is the fulness of time.
So we have the present time through verse 15, and through the rest of the chapter we have the fulness of times. We are given an entire picture—a grand divine picture—of what this mystery of election is.
We will look at it in three points. It is easy that way. You can remember three points, and you might remember something in the middle of those three points.
First, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. If you do not understand that single thing—that what God was doing was calling a remnant to Himself according to the election of grace—you have missed the point of verses 1 through 6.
Second, we will consider present election and prevailing blindness. We are dealing with present election, but there is another issue that God is explaining in His ways and in why He chose to work this way: prevailing blindness.
Finally, the third thing, and the great conclusion of these first fifteen verses, is the fall that brings salvation to the world. That is verses 11 through 15.
A remnant according to the election of grace. Verse 1 of Romans 11 is a very provocative question. You need to notice that.
Paul often says things in this book that sound very provocative, and then he gives the divine reaction to them. In other words, he exposes spiritual wrong thinking and immediately corrects it with a visceral reaction. You know what visceral means? It means it comes from the depth of your being.
“I say then, Did God cast off His people?” Do you not think that is a provocative question? Can you imagine if God, who is calling a people, would just cast away His people forever?
Brothers and sisters, this does not have to do only with the Jewish fall and Jewish turning away from God. This main question has to do with us as the current people of God. Think for a moment: if God were to cast away His people, where would we be? What hope would we have?
How could we stand in this evil day, awaiting the coming of the Lord, if we thought all the time that at any moment, for any wrong, God would cast away His people? That is the importance of this provocative question.
At the end of Romans 10, you begin to understand that Paul is addressing the possible divine rejection of Israel. Remember, chapters were added by men, and verses were numbered by men. Thank God for them. How would we ever know the Bible, memorize it, and teach it without their aid?
So in Romans 11:1, Paul shares his visceral reaction immediately. He says, “Far be the thought.” In other words, it is an adamant no. God cannot cast away His people forever.
What a comfort that needs to bring to our hearts when we think of it: far be the thought.
I have also mentioned to you to pay attention to that phrase. You cannot understand the book of Romans if you do not understand the phrase far be the thought. That is a Pauline phrase. Nobody else in the Bible uses that phrase—only the Apostle Paul—and he uses it ten times in the book of Romans.
He is constantly bringing out wrong thinking and immediately exposing it so that we can understand the heart, the mind, and the ways of God.
There are two proofs that show us that God could never cast away His people. Paul, first of all, uses himself as a proof.
For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
No one was steeped more deeply in Judaism than the Apostle Paul. You remember his defense later on, I think in Acts 22, before the council. He says, “I was a student of Gamaliel,” that famous teacher who earlier in Acts told them, “Do not fight these ones. If it is of God, it will last; if it is not of God, it will not last.”
It was wonderful counsel. Unfortunately, they did not heed it altogether, but it was wonderful counsel. Paul was a student of Gamaliel. Not only that, but he said in his defense and in his writings, “I am a Pharisee, of the tribe of Benjamin. I am of this elect group.”
Here was this son of Judaism, and yet he was the great enemy of the church.
In Acts 8:3, not verse 6:
But Saul laid waste the church, entering into every house, and dragging men and women committed them to prison.
He ravaged the assembly—that is, the church. He did not just get in their way and try to slow down this message of the Way. He literally ravaged the assembly, entering houses one after another, dragging away both men and women, and delivering them to prison.
Here was this avowed enemy of God. Now think about it. I will give you my wrong-thinking opinion, and you can say, “Far be the thought,” if you would like. I think if anyone should have been destroyed, it should have been the Apostle Paul. If anyone should have been abandoned for God to prove that this way was His way, He should have struck the Apostle Paul right then and there.
I think that would be appropriate. Now, you can say it: “Far be the thought.” Good thinking. I am glad you are going to remember that phrase.
But God’s ways are so different from our ways. Think about it. Here was an avowed enemy who, at the martyrdom of Stephen—whose face was like an angel when they stoned him to death—received their clothing at his feet.
Yet the marvelous, wonderful ways of God were such that He said, “I will not destroy this one. I will not cast this one off. I will make him My chief spokesman.”
And I ask, “What was God thinking?” Here was this avowed enemy. If anyone should have been cast off, this one should have been cast off. But he became the chief spokesman of the gospel.
Think of it: he wrote thirteen epistles. He wrote nearly half of the New Testament, all to build up and strengthen the church—which had been his sole ambition to destroy. What ways God has.
Is that not wonderful? To me, that is one of the most beautiful things in this chapter. Paul himself is the living proof that God will not cast off His people forever. Praise the Lord for that.
But Paul brings out another thing:
God did not cast off His people whom He foreknew.
Let me read to you from Amos. Many of you may never have read the book of Amos, but Amos 3:1-2 says:
Hear this word that the Lord hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up out of the land of Egypt, saying,
You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will visit upon you all your iniquities.
“You only have I known.” Think of the added emphasis that Amos gives when he says, “of all the families of the earth.” They were foreknown. The children of Israel were foreknown.
Paul is telling us, will God cast away His people whom He has foreknown? But brothers and sisters, think of the magnitude of that: we too, we in the New Testament age, are foreknown of God.
I think everyone knows Romans 8:29:
For whom He foreknew, He also foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
The point is this: He foreknew the children of Israel, and He would not cast them off. He foreknew us. Before the foundation of the world, we were saved. He will not cast us off.
But what Amos says is that He will deal with them according to their iniquities. This begins to shape our understanding of Romans 11:1-15. God is a God who will never cast off His people permanently, but He will discipline His people.
He is a God who disciplines to recover, but never to destroy. What a difference. Are you not thankful those are His ways?
All of His discipline is to bring us back—to recover us from our blindness, from our wandering, from our leaving, and from our embracing things that are against Him. None of it is ever meant to destroy.
God will never cast away His people whom He foreknew. He will discipline to recover, but never permanently cast away.
The illustration Paul uses to make this point clear is from 1 Kings 19:14-18. This is about the prophet Elijah.
We sometimes get confused with the names. We have Elijah, and then his successor, the one who followed him, Elisha. Then we come to the New Testament, where he is translated as Elias. Who is that?
It used to trouble me when I was a young believer, just beginning to read the Word of God fifty-three years ago. I would see this name, Elias, and wonder, “Who is Elias?” It is simply the Greek rendition of Elijah. That is who it is, in case it troubles you. Greek does not have a J.
So the mystery has been solved for you in the mystery of His ways. But here Paul is speaking about Elijah. We all know the story.
Here was this prophet of God, a man of fire and of the power of God. In 1 Kings 18, he called down fire, and the prophets of Baal were utterly destroyed. Has there been a prophet with such power and authority?
Yet, when we come to 1 Kings 19, it is humorous to me—that is why I am laughing—we see a prophet not full of fire and power, but full of fear and self-righteousness. He is fleeing Jezebel. He is running for his life.
This great man of God had defeated the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18, and now he was running and hiding in a cave. Do you not think that is strange?
He says, “Ah, I am left alone. It is just me, Lord. I am the only one, and those people have murdered Your prophets, torn down Your altars, and done despicable things. But I—I am left alone.”
Then comes the divine answer. Is that not beautiful? We often have thoughts that are not God’s thoughts. We have ways that are certainly not God’s ways. But God had to speak to this prophet, one of His greatest prophets, and He said:
I have left for Myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal.
Let me offer you my little bit of insight: do not ever think, and do not ever say, “Ah, I am left alone.” You ought to know right away from this clear, loving discipline that God detests anyone thinking in that way.
We have a problem in the church. Sometimes people are used of God, just as the prophet was, and all of a sudden they get swell-headed and think, “I am something.” How terrible. How terrible.
The correction came instantly. I love the fact that Paul recorded it as the divine answer. It was not Paul’s answer. It was not man’s answer. It was God’s answer: “I have kept for Myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”
These are the two proofs Paul uses to show that God will never permanently—and I say that with emphasis, permanently—abandon His people. He cannot, because it is against the very nature of His ways, His untraceable ways.
He could not do that. He went to the point of giving His only begotten Son to bear the sin of the world so that He would not cast off mankind forever. These are the marvelous ways of God. How we need to see Him.
Let me read you a quote from Newell, because I was extremely impressed with it. He said that Romans 11 should “at once and forever turn us away from the presumptuous assertions of those that teach God is through with national Israel, that it has no future as an elect nation in Palestine.”
I know there is very wrong teaching that has gone out: “God is done with Israel. His only concern is the church.” That is not true. You cannot read the prophets and think that. You certainly cannot read Romans 9, 10, and 11 and come away with that impression. It is impossible.
These chapters are clearly about His long-term ways—not only to save the nations, but also how He will turn Israel back to Himself.
So we come to verse 5. I know it has been a long time getting there, but it says:
Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
Pay attention to “thus then.” Whenever a writer uses that phrase, even in natural thinking but certainly in inspired thinking, he has come to his point. This is the point.
It is rather like the word therefore in the New Testament, particularly in Romans. Whenever you see therefore, pay attention to it. It is a very important word.
Here Paul is saying that right now, in the present time, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. He is not dealing with the end yet. He is not dealing with the end of the age or a future time. He is dealing with the present time.
In the present time, God’s way is that He has a remnant according to the election of grace. Who does that remnant include? Well, it certainly includes the Jews. He has not cast off His people. Paul has already proven that.
As a matter of fact, when you look at the early church in the book of Acts, the Jews are the foundation and beginning of the church of God. It is only years later, in Acts 10, when we come to Cornelius’s house, that the door opens to the Gentiles—the nations.
So this remnant according to the election of grace includes the Jews. Paul said in Romans 1:16 that the gospel was to the Jew first, and then to the nations, or Gentiles.
Let me clear up another point of confusion. When you read the Bible, you need to understand that God puts people into two groups. You can look at things however you want—Chinese, Indians, Americans, people who speak slowly from the South—but God sees only two buckets.
In those buckets are the Jews, the children of Israel, and the nations, also translated as the Gentiles. Only two groups. God is dealing here, through the Apostle Paul, with His ways for His people down through the ages in the present time and into the future.
I think most of us here fall into that second bucket. Nevertheless, I hope that gives a little clarity.
Thank God that He does not abandon His people. Thank God He has chosen a remnant. It includes Jews; it included the Apostle Paul; it included that early remnant; and, thank God, it includes us, the Gentiles. How marvelous this is.
We come to see that this election is all according to grace. It is based on nothing else. It cannot be based on anything else. There is nothing you could have done, nothing the remnant could have done, to be granted this on the basis of our own merit.
Election is at the center of God’s ways, and the election that is at the center of God’s ways is all based on grace—nothing else. How marvelous that is.
Paul understood this better than almost anyone who wrote in the Bible. Have you ever read his thirteen epistles and noticed that he begins every one with grace? Usually it is in the form, “Grace and peace be with you,” or, “Grace and peace to you.”
When you come to the end of every one of his thirteen epistles, he also ends with grace: “The grace of the Lord be with you all.” How marvelous.
Here was one who understood that election was at the center of God’s ways, and that election is all about grace. It is nothing about what we deserve. Thank the Lord for that.
Now, the second point we want to consider is present election and prevailing blindness. Again, we are dealing with that present time, not the future.
This is very important. It is the second point the Apostle Paul makes. In Romans 11:7, he explains both present election and prevailing blindness that has happened to Israel.
What then? That which Israel seeketh for, that he obtained not; but the election obtained it, and the rest were hardened.
What an explanation. No human being could have composed such a sentence and captured all that is in God’s heart concerning election.
Remember, I have told you over and over that you need to understand the difference between obtain and attain. If my language is not clear, it is obtain with an O-B, and attain with an A-T.
To attain means you have done something that causes you to deserve what you get. You have achieved some righteousness, some work, something by your own wit, power, grit, and initiative. You have attained to it.
We often talk about self-made people. You have borne with me before on that, so I will not go into detail. But there is a different word in Romans: obtained.
Everything we get from God, we obtain; we do not attain. Do you get that? You cannot understand the ways of God unless you understand that one concept.
The Jews, it says, did not obtain it. But the remnant, according to the election of grace, obtained it. They still did not attain it. You will never attain; you will only obtain.
Then, as it says in the wonderful book of Zechariah, at the end, when we go through that door to eternity, we will look back, and I believe we will hear those words:
Grace, grace unto it.
All is of grace from the beginning to the end. I think that is marvelous.
In one verse Paul explains it all: “That which Israel seeketh for, that he obtained not; but the election obtained it.” We know God’s ways depend on this one mystery, election, and depend further on this one principle, grace. Those two things explain the wonder of His ways.
Those elected in the present time obtain election by grace. We obtain election by grace. How wonderful that is.
This phrase, in the present time, is of utmost importance. You need to understand it. You also need to understand the second part of the verse: the rest were hardened.
Now, that may cause you to stumble. Sometimes it causes me to stumble. I think, “God, why would You blind anybody? Why would You do that?”
Darby renders it quite clearly: this blindness that fell upon national Israel was hardness of heart. They hardened their hearts, and God hardened their hearts.
This is where we get hung up. We think back to Romans 9 and Pharaoh, and all of a sudden we begin to get misty-eyed and think good things about Pharaoh. We think, “How can God have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and how can He harden whom He will harden?”
But if you read the Exodus record carefully, you will discover that ten times it says Pharaoh hardened his heart. God does not harden anyone’s heart unless they harden their heart.
Even then, in the mercy of His ways, this temporary blindness or hardening is given to bring you back, to discipline you, and to draw you back to His grace. That is the only purpose.
Israel had a national disease: a heart disease.
In Matthew 15:7-9, the Lord said to the scribes and Pharisees:
Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying,
This people honoreth Me with their lips; but their heart is far from Me.
But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men.
Hard-heartedness. Darby calls it obdurate. That may be one of those archaic words we do not use. Linda does not say, “You are pretty obdurate today,” to me very often. But it literally means there is stubbornness in it. There is willfulness in it. You have determined in your heart to be hard toward God.
Therefore, He gave them up to this heart disease. Their heart was far from Him. But it was only with the thought that in the end He would rescue them.
Think of the importance of the heart. Proverbs 4:23 says:
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
Brothers and sisters, do you sometimes find, when you do not understand the dealings and ways of God, that your heart begins to harden? You begin not to listen, and you become obdurate in your own heart.
God may have to discipline us. I hope He disciplines us. I would rather He discipline us than let us go forever. That is the alternative: to let people go their way.
But because of His ways, He refuses to let them go their way. So He begins to discipline.
Think about an illustration. Here in America, the number one killer is heart disease. You may not know that. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that the number one killer in the United States is heart disease. One in five—twenty percent—die of heart disease.
That is a natural heart disease. But in this section of Romans 11:1-15, we are talking about a spiritual heart disease.
Brothers and sisters, we need to ask the Lord to discipline us, but according to His ways, never to let us go.
Lord, we will wander. We will stray. We will disbelieve. We will seek our own thoughts. We will cast off. But according to Your miraculous ways, do not You cast off.
This is the spirit of Romans 11:1-15. Election is all about grace. How wonderful that is. We just need to see how wonderful that is.
This hardening includes an insensibility of heart, sightless spiritual eyes, and deaf ears. How debilitating it is. Can you imagine if all those things occurred in you at once? How far from God you would be.
Yet, in His mercy, He will not let us go. If you do not remember anything else, remember that this is hardening in the present time, with an end in view—a glorious end. The glorious end is recovery.
This is a temporary condition. You see it in verse 8. Again, it emphasizes the present time. There is a phrase that says, “unto this very day.” It is only for a while, and then God will do something marvelous.
The last point is the fall that brings salvation to the world. I want you to think about God’s way.
Romans 11:11 says:
I say then, Did they stumble that they might fall? Far be the thought: but by their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy.
Was this their end? Was this the permanent end? Had they stumbled merely so that they could fall? Paul again responds with that phrase: “Far be the thought.”
But listen to this: this was God’s miraculous way. “By their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy.”
Do you not see that in God’s ways He had a great plan in view through the whole thing? Do you not begin to grasp that He is in control of history, in control of all the things that come upon the earth, and that the divine plan from the beginning was to extend salvation to the nations, or Gentiles?
That was a divine plan. In that divine plan, what is marvelous is that He would use the extension of the gospel to us, bringing us into the kingdom, to provoke that natural, national people of His to jealousy.
Think about Israel. Do not cast Israel off. It is the only nation God has ever called. We love to say America’s beginnings had the Bible all in them, and of course they did to some extent. But there was only one nation God called. There was only one people who were ever a national people of His, and that is the Jewish people.
Now, He cannot cast them off permanently. I think you are getting the burden. Did they do this merely that they might fall? No. It was God’s mercy.
God’s mercy flung the door of grace open to you and me. Today we are included as the people of God, the chosen people of God, among those He has known beforehand, that He might show us the miracle of His ways.
I think this is an amazing point. That door of grace was flung open to the Gentiles. This was the very opportunity for God to save the world.
You remember what He promised Abraham in the covenant. You can read it in Genesis 12:3:
And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
Read that very carefully: all the families of the earth shall be blessed. God had no intention in history to leave the nations and the Gentiles out. This was always the divine purpose and way of God.
It is made very clear in that covenant to Abraham. It was not just to the Jews; now it is to the nations. Through the fall of this national people, we see this blessing extended to the nations—to us.
In Genesis 17:4, God said to Abraham:
Thou shalt be the father of a multitude of nations.
The same point: God’s ways never fail. He planned this. He knew this. He knew what would happen to Israel as a whole. Thank God the remnant responded, but He had a plan in mind for this present time and for the end of times, which we will get to next time.
God’s way was to provoke them to jealousy. In other words, the Jewish people will begin at some time in history to realize the blessings poured out upon us, the remnant of the Jews, and the Gentiles. They will begin to recognize how wonderful these blessings are, and they will be provoked to jealousy.
Somehow, in the miracle of the greatest gospel movement almost ever, they will be returned to God. This is what Romans 11 is about.
Now, do you think God is able to provoke them to jealousy? He is able. He would not have said it if He were not able. He is able to turn them.
Think of Exodus 20:5. This is at the giving of the Ten Commandments:
For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God.
We think jealousy is wrong, do we not? You bring up jealousy and assume it is evil, not a good thing. But I will never forget that Brother Kong said to us years ago, at Brother Steve Sheridan’s Bible fellowship on Friday night, that jealousy is actually neutral.
If you are jealous for the right things, it is good. If you are jealous that your children should grow up in the fear and admonition of the Lord, and you watch over them and make that your concern, that is a good thing.
God’s jealousy is perfect. This is the assurance that He will provoke this nation to jealousy, because He took the very name: “I am the jealous God.”
He is jealous over His purpose, to perform it; jealous over His Word, that sending His Word forth will accomplish what He intended it to do; and jealous over His people.
There is that wonderful phrase in both the Old Testament and the New Testament: we are a people of possession—His possession. This is what the jealous God speaks about.
Deuteronomy 4:24 says:
For the Lord thy God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.
I am praying for myself, for you, and for all that He will save, that this jealous God will never let us go. Reminding Him of His ways, He cannot and He will not.
This is the encouragement of these fifteen verses.
The last four verses are filled with divine assurance. They speak about the world’s wealth. Let me read Romans 11:12:
Now if their fall is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?
Did you notice that last phrase? “How much more their fulness?” Do you think the Apostle Paul merely inserted his own thought there? No. This is the divine thought. This is the divine answer.
He has a fulness for that people in view, and He will never let it go. That is why it speaks about the fulness of the Gentiles, which can be related to the fulness of the times. He has a fulness in view for these people.
This is the assurance we have.
Let me read verses 13 and 14:
But I speak to you that are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I glorify my ministry;
if by any means I may provoke to jealousy them that are my flesh, and may save some of them.
Here is the Apostle Paul. His ministry was to the Gentiles. This one who was such an exceptional representative of the Jewish people, and of learned Judaism, actually had his ministry come to us—the Gentiles, the nations—and to the remnant of the Jews in the present time.
But this apostle reverted back. He could not help but think about his people. He said, “If by any means.”
Brothers and sisters, that phrase explains Romans 11 so well. This is the way God thinks. Here was a man who understood the ways of God: if by any means, if God can do anything, He will provoke His people to jealousy. If in the end some are saved, He is pleased.
I think that is wonderful.
When we come to verse 15, it says:
For if the casting away of them is the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?
You already understand the casting away as the world’s reconciliation, do you not? But what will their reception be? Life from the dead.
Think about it. This is not merely Paul’s thought, as though he were trying to come up with a spiritual understanding. This is God’s way.
What does that remind you of? I will give you a hint, in case I have put the whole room to sleep. The hint is the prodigal son.
Do you remember that? What an illustration of the ways of God. I can imagine that father looking for that son to return. I can imagine him going out every morning at the break of dawn, when the light was up, looking down upon the horizon and scanning the whole horizon for that one lost son.
I can imagine that one who had a true father’s heart, every night before dusk descended and darkness enveloped the earth, coming out and looking upon the horizon. “Is my son coming home? Is he coming home?”
Then you can imagine the delight of that one day when he looked out and saw his son. He could not withhold his emotions. He ran, and he embraced that son.
Is that not wonderful? Do you not think this is an explanation of Romans 11:1-15? At the end, what will the reception be? Life from the dead.
You remember that the older brother became upset. “Father, I have never left You. I have always been faithful. I have done all these things, and You never killed the fatted calf for me.”
The father’s answer was simply:
This thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.
Let us rejoice and be merry. Is that not wonderful? That is Luke 15:24, the end of that glorious story.
When I read Romans 11, this is what I see: a Father looking out. “When will they return? Have they begun a yearning? Will this temporary blindness be removed? Will they be brought back to the fold?”
I can imagine He is waiting, looking, ready to say, “Life from the dead.”
To me, this is at least part of the explanation of Romans 11:1-15.
Thank God that we are in the election in the present time. Thank God that we have received that election according to grace. We have been selected by God.
Thank God that this blindness that fell upon national Israel is temporary, and God is doing everything He can, if by any means, to restore those who are lost.
This is the way of God. He cannot abandon. He will not abandon. All of His discipline is with recovery in view, and the divine assurance at the end is that their reception will be life from the dead.
Father, we bow in the name of the Lord Jesus, and we wonder at Your ways—Your wonderful ways.
Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the gods?
Who thinks like You, Lord? We do not. We confess it. We are wandering people, but You have set the course, and You will never change Your ways.
We commit ourselves, and all that You will call into Your kingdom, that You will finish Your glorious ways and bring about the fulness at the end. Bring about the reception at the end.
May You get all the glory. All is of grace—everything we have received. We thank You for it in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.