Kennystix's podcast
God's Word Has Not Fallen
The following message is by Pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God is available at www.desiringgod.org. Father, it's a great comfort to me that your word is a powerful two-edged sword that pierces to the division of bone and marrow and soul and spirit. Please bear the secret things of the heart and does a work that I can never dream that it might do. So I have a few dozen ideas of things I would like to happen in people's lives, but you have hundreds and hundreds of good things planned that your word will perform in ways that I never dreamed. And I ask that you would come in great mercy and get behind your word, keep me from error, make everyone teachable and do deep, deep work like only your word can do. Long-lasting work. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Well I stayed up and watched John Kerry's acceptance speech looking for a link with Romans 9 to 11, and he did not let me down. How many saw it or heard it, raise your hand? Very interesting. Well, for those of you who did not hear, he at one point referred to Abraham Lincoln, and he didn't mention that it was the second inaugural address, but it was, and he said that God is not on the side of the Republicans and God is not on the side of the Democrats. And then he said, and I wrote it down, I want to pray humbly that we are on God's side, and the place erupted with a great, enthusiastic cheer. And I thought to myself, I wonder what in the world they are cheering for. That's a wonderful request, and unbelievably dangerous, and radical, and life-changing, to pray that you would be on God's side, on every issue, and in all of life, and into eternity, and now what I did to forge the link with Romans 9 to 11 was go print out for you the section of the second inaugural address, which is one of the greatest speeches that has ever been made in the history of this country, and it took about five minutes to speak it. It was muddy, and there were several thousand people there, it was 1865, a few months before the war was over, and this president had had, with fear and trembling, guided the nation into and through the most bloody conflict we have ever had in the history of this country, and I will be using bigger fonts tomorrow, sorry about how little this is, we're going to get that up there, there we go. But I want to read this section with you, just what's on this sheet here, and show you the context for Abraham Lincoln of that sentence, and that prayer that we would be on God's side so that you can see the bridge that happens to Romans 9 to 11. He's talking about the Confederate and Union sides now, both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a Just God's assistance in the ringing of their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, he's talking about slavery, but let us judge not that we not be judged. The prayers of both could not be answered, that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes, now we move into the remarkable vision of God that Abraham Lincoln had in his sovereign providence. The Almighty has his own purposes, and then he quotes Matthew 18, 7. The Almighty has his own purposes, woe unto the world because of offenses, for it must needs be that offenses come, woe to that man by whom the offense cometh, and then he asks a question, if we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses, it must needs be that offenses come. If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses, which in the providence of God must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both north and south this terrible war. Can you imagine a president talking like this? He gives to both north and south this terrible war, as the woe do, woe to that man by whom the offense cometh, as the woe do to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes, which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him. In other words, if we do on this day after four years of about, what, 600,000 brothers slaughtering each other on battlefields, if we do believe God brought this as a woe upon this land north and south, shall we conclude from that that God lacks any of those glorious attributes that all believers in the deity profess that he has, and of course his answer is a no. Surely do we hope fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away, yet if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bonmans two hundred fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash that shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. Now we'd like to hear a president talk like that. What Lincoln would have meant by let us pray that we are on God's side is let us pray that we submit ourselves to the providence of God, who if in his inscrutable providence did will that slavery holds sway for a season, most certainly now wills that it be ceased, and if he brings upon this nation the worst slaughter it's ever known because of that curse, God is just, God is just, that's a good link to Romans 9, a very good link for this reason. Paul's got a question here in Romans 9, 22 to 23, which according to his little dots it's probably a dash in your Bible, didn't finish, he didn't finish. The question goes like this, what if God desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory, and he breaks off, he just says, what if? And I think the sentence should be finished exactly the way Lincoln's question was finished. Shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? No, we shall not in this action view any departure from those glorious divine attributes of justice and mercy and wisdom, power that believers in a living God always ascribe to him. So why Romans 9 to 11, what are we about here in these four or five hours together, four in teaching and one in Q&A, what's the goal, what are we after here, why that link? One of the things you might say is that when you have a God, a vision of God, something like that of Lincoln there or of Paul here in Romans 9, you will think more deeply and more clearly and more wisely about politics and war and history and your life and your thinking and your feeling will be rooted in the whole counsel of God and you will see his providence as relevant for everything. I hope that you do. But why Romans 9 to 11, let's go there, won't you open your Bibles to this? My answer to the question of why we should give ourselves so intensively to the word like this for four hours, why you would come from 27 states and take a weekend out and pay money to be here, why do people spend time studying the Bible like this? And I want to develop a five-point argument in the next five or ten minutes for why we should do this and I'll start with the big picture and work backwards. We do it because the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. You can see that in Isaiah 50, 43, 6. I will say to the north, give up and to the south, do not withhold, bring my sons from afar, my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone whom I is called by my name, whom I created from my glory, whom I formed and made. So I don't have any doubt about why you are on planet earth and what your reason for being is. There's no doubt in my mind you exist to magnify, to display, to highlight, to make much of the glory of God. That's why you exist. And the old catechism says, "And enjoy him forever." Now I have devoted most of my life since finishing school to arguing that it is helpful to render that catechanical answer, the chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever. Almost everything I have ever written is intended to explain and defend that sentence. That the chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever. So we find in the Bible these amazing commands, delight yourself in the Lord and who give you the desires of your heart, that's a command. Then I will go to the altar of God to God, my exceeding joy, God, my exceeding joy, rejoice in the Lord always. And again I will say, rejoice. Those are commands, and the reason that they're commands is because God is glorified when you are satisfied in him. That's the sentence that flies over all of my theology, is God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him, and therefore it is your duty to pursue satisfaction in God so fully that it breaks your love affair with the fame and esteem of man and with the approval of others and sex and drugs and money and esteem and power and all the things that we fall in love with. It's a huge battle we're engaged in, and so step three in the argument, how do you find this kind of satisfaction or joy which glorifies God? Answer, see him. We must see him. I just finished a book in April called When I Don't Desire God, colon, How to Fight for Joy, which I hope will be out in September, and right at the center of the answer of how to fight for joy is we must see him. So we sang, open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Matthew 5, 8, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Their blessedness consists in seeing God. That's what will make us happy to see him. John 17, 24, Jesus prays, Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me, maybe with me where I am to see my glory, that you have given me because you love me before the foundation of the world. Jesus prayed for you just before He paid for you, and He asked, Father, on the basis of what I'm about to do, let them be with me to see me. I'm 58, and I'm reading a book right now called The Glories of Christ by John Owen. It's the last thing he ever wrote. It was an old man. He had outlived all 11 of his children, and he's writing in a way that he always wrote in one sense and seldom wrote because he knew he was getting ready to see Jesus, and all he did was write meditations on what the glories of Christ are, and the older I get, and I've outlived almost all my heroes, I mean the ones that are already dead are from centuries ago, they didn't live to be 58. To be 58 is to be old historically, and so I taste how close it is to see Jesus, and there's a lot of gray hair in this room, and I hope that you are hungry with me to see Him, and that therefore you labor in this life to see Him, that you pray that for yourself now, and you do what Moses did here. Moses said, "Please show me your glory." That's going to come into Romans 9. So that's step three in the argument. We need to see Him so that we can rejoice in Him, so that we give Him glory. Step four is that we don't see Him physically. He's not hearing more. Jesus isn't here, and the Father cannot be seen, and therefore Paul says, "Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He called you, namely to see Him, and what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints." And Jesus said, "This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear." What's the implication of seeing you do not see? The implication is there are two kinds of seeing. There's a seeing with this eye, and there's a seeing with this eye. Seeing with this eye, many people don't see with these eyes. Even when He was here to be seen physically, they didn't see what was really there. So just like they could see with these and not with their heart, we can see with our heart and not with our eyes. And the question is how? If the key to joy in Jesus is seeing Him for what He really is, and you can't see Him with your physical eyes, but only with the eyes of the heart, how do you do that? What is that? What mediates that in that step 5? You do it by the word. For Samuel 3, 21, the Lord appeared, note that, that's a C word. Again, at Shiloh, for the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel by the word of the Lord. He appeared by the word of the Lord. I'm a preacher, and that makes me really serious. Every week I mean to make God seen by the word of the Lord. It's a miracle. I can't make it happen. I can be faithful. I can pray like crazy. I can humble myself under the word of God. I can be as close to the text as I can get. I can try the whole counsel of God and put it out there. But if God does not illumine the heart and open the eyes of the heart, if He doesn't fulfill that song that we sang, I preach in vain, because that's my goal. I want to happen. I want it to happen in Minneapolis and here, like it did in Shiloh. The Lord appeared again by the word of the Lord. And then 2 Corinthians 4, in their case, the God of this age, this world, has blinded the minds of unbelievers, this is Satan, the God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing. This is something that ought to be happening in the gospel age in which we live, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. So when the gospel, which is news to be heard with the ear, is preached and the Holy Spirit overcomes this blinding effect of the God of this world, what happens is that a spiritual light, not a physical light, it's not like lightning. A spiritual light moves from the gospel into the heart and what is revealed there is the glory of who Christ really is, so that people fall down and say, "That is worthy of my life." That's how all of you got saved who are saved, whether you know it or not. You don't have to know how you got saved any more than you have to know how antibiotics work. And most Armenians don't have a clue how they got saved. And one of the great values of studying Romans 9 to 11 is to learn what really happened to us. And what happened is that the Holy Spirit came down, you were watching Billy Graham or you were listening to a radio or you were reading a track or you were hearing a sermon or mom was telling you about the gospel after you had done something really bad at eight years old and suddenly, unlike any time before, Jesus wasn't stupid, he wasn't foolish, he wasn't boring, he wasn't doubtful, he was suddenly awesome, needed, beautiful. He cherished and you could not but embrace him for what he then irresistibly showed himself to be to your heart. He drew you out with the revelation of the light of the glory of Christ. So it happens through the Word or the gospel and now we'll walk backwards through the argument. Step five, the Word is opened, doesn't have to be through me, doesn't even have to be through a living teacher, could be through the Bible itself, tonight alone in your room. The Word is spoken or read and then the eyes of the heart, the eyes of the heart are enlightened and you see God and thus are blessed with great joy in Him and because you are now satisfied in Him, he gets glory. That's why we're doing what we're doing together, at least that's why I'm here and I hope that you will experience that. Now Romans 9 to 11 in particular. In order to see how 9 to 11 fits into this bigger picture of glorifying God and helping us be satisfied in Him, what we have to do is this. We have to go back and see how it relates to chapters 1 to 8 and we have to go forward and see how it relates to chapters 12 to 16. This is really not hard to do, it becomes pretty plain. So let's talk first about how chapters 9 to 11 relate to chapters 1 to 8. So I've put the concluding verses of Romans 8 here on the overhead, which you can look at them in your Bible if you want. By the way, the version that I'm using throughout is the English standard version new from cross way as about three years ago. I'm very, very excited and happy about this version. So whatever you have, if you see differences, that's the reason and you can ask about any of those if you want to later. Romans 1 to 8 comes to this glorious climax. Almost everybody would include some verses from Romans 8 among their favorite verses in the Bible, I certainly would. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, which He is, who can be against us, answer nobody? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn Christ Jesus as the one who died? More than that who was raised, who is at the right hand of God who indeed intercedes for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Revelation, the stress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword. Now the answer to that is nobody and nothing unless somebody with a kind of word of faith theology or health, wealth and prosperity gospel says, "Oh, the reason the sword cannot separate you from the love of Christ is because when you are a Christian, He spares you the sword." Doesn't come near you though ten thousand fall at your right hand. You have enough faith, you will get beheaded in our rap. Now Paul profoundly disagrees with that. He did get beheaded. But he didn't know that was going to happen when he wrote this, so here's what he wrote. He took the Bible at its word from Psalm 44 and he said, "As it is written, for your sake we are being killed all day long and if you have the NIV, they paraphrase it and ruin it. As they say, we face death all day long, which plays right into the hands of those who say we only face it, we don't experience it. That is not what the text says. The text says we are being killed all day long. That's happening in Sudan today and I'm thankful that the government is finally getting their act together and putting some pressure on, but it's happening there, it's happening in Iraq, it's happening in China, it's happening in Indonesia. It's always happening. The sword is coming down on Christians, faith-filled Christians." And Paul makes that real plain in verse 36, "So when he says, "sword cannot separate you from the love of Christ, he doesn't mean you won't get killed. He means, though they kill you, not a hair of your head will perish." Luke 21, "Hoe with the Lord to die as gain, no separation." That's what he means. And so he goes on to say, "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us for I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers and things present or things to come nor powers nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord, if God keeps his word." And there is a huge question mark put over the faithfulness and reliability of God at the end of Romans 8 that has to be answered if we'd account on the Word of God. And that question mark is Israel is perishing the covenant people, the chosen people. That's what we'll see in the first five verses of Romans 9. My kinsmen, according to the flesh, are cut off from Christ and perishing. And everything in a devout Jew says, "That can't be." When the Messiah comes, the people are gathered. There's triumph, the enemy are defeated. There's not mass damnation. That's why Romans 9 to 11 is written. You must have an answer to Israel. The unbelief of Israel for 2,000 years with 95% of them in hell today. The chosen people of God blinded to the Messiah. A hardening has come upon Israel until the full number of the Gentiles comes in. There must be an explanation. That's why Romans 9 to 11 is written. In order so that all believers might stand on Romans 8, you can't stand on Romans 8 if God doesn't keep His Word. And it looks like God's not keeping His covenant promises and therefore there must be an explanation and He takes three chapters to do it. That's what we see when we look backward for why Romans 9 to 11 is written. So that we can have the sweet assurance and deep confidence and profound satisfaction in these promises of Romans 8. Now let's look forward to Romans 12. Where is He going? How does He come out of Romans 9 to 11? Where does it lead? If you just stay with Romans 12 to see where it leads, it's really quite amazing. You know how it begins, very famous verses. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice wholly and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. I beseech you by the mercies of God. He looks back over to 11 chapters and he has just highlighted mercy, huge in chapter 9. I have mercy on whom I have mercy. In chapter 11 verse 32, he has consigned all men to disobedience that he may have mercy on all. mercy has been huge in Romans 9, in Romans 11. Of course, chapters 1 to 8 are filled with blood bought justifying mercy. And so he looks back over to the 11 chapters and he says, "Now, by those mercies I beseech you. Take your body," you used to talk about the body in chapter 6 members, don't give them up to be members of unrighteousness, give them to be members of righteousness, instruments of righteousness. He says, "Take those bodies, hands and legs and eyes and tongue and ears and use your body as a living sacrifice to worship me in all of life, that is, make me look worthy. Make me look really good by the way you live." This is now moving from all the, you come to the end of chapter 8 and you say, "Nothing can separate me from the love of God, sword can't, peril can't, nakedness can't, famine can't, I can starve to death, I can go naked in caves and he loves me still, yes, and have a deep soul contentment no matter what horrific circumstances you may face." And all of that satisfaction and contentment is inside and nobody can see it yet and therefore God's not getting the honor, not getting the glory except as he sees your heart, he loves what he sees and he gets honor from that but he means to be known publicly, visibly and so he gets to chapter 12 and he says, "Now, you've got bodies, you've got bodies. You're not just little imprisoned hearts in love with me. You have bodies, get busy using those bodies in ways that make me look all satisfying." I'll tell you, that is huge lifestyle implications. Make me look all satisfying. Not money, not clothes, not job, not house, not recreation. Make me look like your treasure with your body, what you do with it. And what kind of life does that? And I just bulleted Romans 12, "Since he appealed by the mercies of God, he now first and foremost says the Christian life, the radical Christian life is a life of mercy." Verse 8, "Let the one who does acts of mercy do so with cheerfulness." Verse 9, "Let love be genuine." Verse 10, "Love one another with brotherly affection." Verse 13, "Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to know hospitality, show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you, now we're getting into real mercy. Bless and do not curse them, associate with the lowly, repay no one evil for evil. But never avenge yourselves." To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him these thirsty, give him something to drink. That's the summary of the lifestyle of the Christian growing out of chapters 1 to 11. "I beseech you by the mercies of God, take your body and offer them as worship, that is make me look infinitely valuable how?" By not hitting back, by not passing the rumor along, by not insisting on the last word in the argument, by not putting down others, by treating with kindness the people that have to treat you like dirt. You live like that, people are going to say, "Hmm, so you're not getting your satisfaction from revenge, you're not getting your satisfaction by playing one-upmanship in argument, and you're not getting your satisfaction by not taking risks because of the way you are kind towards your enemy who has it in for you and you're not getting your satisfaction from holding up in your house, lest anybody come and see the dust there and you still have people over. Where are you getting your satisfaction? God? Our lives simply have to look counter-cultural, otherwise nobody's going to conclude God off of our lives. Nobody's going to say that lifestyle is worship. The world is not very interested in the avoidances of our lives, like don't steal, don't commit murder, don't lie, don't commit adultery, because most of them are able to do that pretty well, just pretty well, and it doesn't impress anybody. It's mercy. It's not returning evil for evil. It's doing good. Jesus says, "You've heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, like everybody else." I say, "You love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you. If you only love those who love you, what do you do more than the tax collectors? If you only greet your brothers, what do you do more than others?" It was just huge to Jesus that we, when slapped on the right cheek, we turn the left, give to Him who asks, don't turn away from Him who wants to borrow from you. If someone sues you to take your cloak limb, have your shirt as well, these utterly inexplicable acts of mercy, this lifestyle that's so free from money and so free from the praise of men and so willing to risk death and ignominy, that's what we'll get a name for Jesus. So that's where Romans 9 to 11 is going. We will bump into some really heavy, heavy theology. And I just want you to know Paul is coming from the sweetness of the promises of Romans 8, longing for you to have those as the rock-solid pillar of your life, and he's heading towards lifestyle issues of 12, 13, 14, which are as practical as the day is long. So if you say this chapter 9 to 11 just isn't very important, you are thinking very differently than the Apostle Paul. He would have gone straight from 8 to 12, which he could have done very easily if he thought that way which he doesn't. So now we're ready to do 9, 1 to 5. If you're wondering how we're going to get through this at this pace, we're not. But we will try to get farther than I think we can. I don't know how far we're going to get. I'm going to go real slow through Romans 9, 1 to 23. It'll take us all of tonight and some of tomorrow morning. Then we'll go fast from 9, 24 to the end of 10 and then we'll slow down again and what that means for how far we'll get I'm not sure. But these are the heavy things and we'll do the best we can. All right. I'm going to read this with you. Romans 9, 1 to 5. I'm speaking the truth in Christ, I am not lying. My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. Why? For I could wish, not really possible, but I entertain this hypothetical world in what such thing might be possible, it's not, but I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. In other words, they are accursed and cut off from Christ. I wish I could take their place. Verse 4, what's so astonishing about this now is that they are Israelites to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, the promises to them belong the patriarchs and from their race according to the flesh is the Christ who is overall, God overall, blessed forever, amen. Now what is the point of those three, those five verses, three, three points I want to make. Number one, Israelites are perishing in spite of their privileges. Israelites are perishing in spite of their privileges. This is absolutely important to see because it's the failure to see it that causes hundreds of scholars, pastors and laymen to put a twist on verses 6 to 23 that they do not have. One of the common ways of emasculating verses 6 to 23 is to say these verses don't have anything to do with eternal destiny and they don't have anything to do with individuals. These verses only have to do with peoples like Edomites and Jews and they only have to do with historical destinies like who prospers and who doesn't. That is the common escape hatch for this chapter, for those who do not want to believe what it says. Verse three will not allow that interpretation. The problem Paul is wrestling with here is not Jew versus Edomite, Jew versus Gentile. The problem is some Jews, many Jews in spite of their huge privileges are perishing. That's the issue. And the chapter is written to give an account of how the covenants of God with Israel can be true if some Jews are perishing, that's the scope of the chapter. If you miss that here, you'll miss everything in chapter nine. That's the first point. Second point in these five verses is Paul is deeply grieved about this situation. So let tears cover this chapter, please, because we're going to talk about things that make some people believe tears are impossible. Because when it first lands on them, their heart and minds are in such a construction of reality that they say, "If this is true, I'd never weep over anybody." That's their problem. That's not the Bible's problem. Paul introduces this by saying two amazing statements about his grief, great and unceasing. I'm a Christian hedonist. Everything I write has to do with joy. I'm not blind to that word right there. And I'm not blind to Philippians 4-4, "Rejoice always." And again I say, "Rejoice." So the apostle who said, "Always rejoice," said, "I always am brokenhearted." That governs my life, governs the feel of worship at our church. At least I labor with Chuck, my right hand guy, and Dan. This is what it tastes like at Bethlehem. We're not a bouncy, praise God anyhow kind of church. And we're not a morose, dull, boring, sullen church. There is a phrase where Paul puts them both together, 2 Corinthians 6-10, sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. I just plead with you. My guess is that the older folks among you, you just nod and you know this. You know this experience. Younger people probably have had life in such a way that they hear that and they say, "That doesn't compute with anything I've walked through yet." The older you get, the more complex you get. The more perplexing emotions are. And you wonder, "How can I be as content as I am when I'm crying as hard as I am?" You learn the mystery of the Christian life that isn't simple, that isn't carved up in little pieces, a little joy piece, a little sorrow piece. There you have it, joy piece. I'm going to have a sorrow piece, it's just not like that. And I just want to help you in this minute, grow up a little bit, just to get your heart big enough, complex enough, mysterious enough so that it's okay to be sitting there right now, broken hearted about something in your life like a lost Jew, a lost kid, husband, wife, sister, mom, dad, just broken hearted, they're real close to eternity and they may not believe and you do long that they believe and to lift your voice and sing with joy. That's not hypocritical, that's not a trick, that's Paul's experience, unceasing anguish in my heart, there wasn't any time in which his mind felt broken hearted for the Jewish people. Let me just say a word here about politics. I don't like political swagger from evangelicals, eating a kind of, give us back our country. Who do you think you are to take away our Christian land and wreck it with perversions and blood? It doesn't have the broken hearted flavor. The world, yes, they need to hear strong, prophetic, clear calls to divine righteousness. Almost sexuality is wrong, marriage cannot be two men, two women, and let us weep at the judgment that is on our land already. It's not coming, it's there, the judgment that's on us that so many people don't see it and celebrate it. Let it be with tears. Let the flavor of your conversations and your lessons be with broken heartedness and firmness. And that's just one of many examples. I just, I long for the evangelical world to be a broken hearted movement. You're just sinners so desperately in need of grace that I don't mean that you go so far in that grace that you can't do Romans 9. I mean, we're going to, we're going to see things in Romans 9 that certain churches wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole because it doesn't sound soft, warm, cuddly, and fuzzy. So that's the second thing, Paul is broken hearted over the lost Jews and he is going to explain unconditional election in that context. Third point from these five verses is Jesus Christ is God. To them belong the patriarchs and from their race from them according to the flesh that's a very, very significant qualifier is the Christ because he is God overall blessed forever. And lest you are aware of the fact that there's some grammatical punctuation things going on there that allow some versions to make it look as though Jesus is not God, we could go to chapter 10 verse 9 where it says, "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and then watch the way," Paul argues from 1st Isaiah 28 and then verse 13, Joel 2 32 where Lord is Yahweh and he argues, "You must confess Jesus as Lord for Joel 2 32 says, all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved," meaning Yahweh, is absolutely daring exegesis. To make Jesus Yahweh, Jehovah, all the fullness of deity dwells in him bodily, Colossians 2, 9. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. I just got an email from a missionary in the Muslim world who asked me, "Would you be concerned with a translation into Arabic," which is paraphrased roughly, "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was essence of God." I said, "I don't know the whole cultural situation. I just know, I've just spent four weeks on vacation reading the fourth century on this issue because I have to talk about it in February. I'm reading Athanasius and reading Arias and reading the Nicene Council deliberations and reading the fight that went on for five decades and cost Athanasius five exiles of his life to stand for the Homo Ucyon, one being with the father, one essence with the father and that Jesus is God and Arias was saying there was a time when Jesus was not and he was created in this huge battle to preserve orthodoxy in the church in the fourth century and it felt like this translation was just as slippery as some of those Aryan phrases were. I just want you to know that in a day since 9/11 in which front burner is Islam everywhere, we must talk about Jesus as God. We worship Jesus. We bow down with Thomas, my Lord and my God. We must make this crystal clear. We must not fish for language that sounds a little bit acceptable to a person who rejects not only the deity of Jesus, but the death of Jesus. If Christ did not die, everything falls down. There is no Christianity. There is no acceptance with the father. Islam is a huge issue in the world today and to live in America, which is now as pluralistic as it ever has been, is a huge challenge to us. Oh, how we need to think deeply and carefully about what it means to live in a pluralistic land which has never been and will never be ours. Our land is the kingdom of heaven. We are aliens and exiles and yet render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and render to God, the things that are God, submit yourself to ever-governing authority because they are of the Lord. We have a citizenry responsibility to do all that we can do. And what is that? It is very complex, is it not? I don't pretend to have all the answers for how to be a Christian in a pluralistic world. I just know if you get a chance to be interviewed, do like a lot of the runners do in the Olympics. Praise Jesus, praise Jesus, praise Jesus, praise Jesus, praise Jesus. I saw the two women who won the 100 meter dash, you know, I forget their names. Both of them, both of them said, "I just think Jesus helped me run the race." I don't know whether they mean it or not. They are dressed in a way that I wouldn't blame my daughter to run a race in. Israelites are perishing, Paul is deeply grieved, Jesus is God. So as we read now the rest of the chapter tonight and the day, I mean the hours to come, every time you hear God, don't just hear the isolation. Don't just say, "Where is Jesus in Romans 9 to 11?" Because he doesn't show up by name very often. He's here in these five verses and he's here in four verses in chapter 10. That's all. Jesus doesn't even show up in chapter 11. He's just everywhere because he's God. Okay, 10 more minutes. Let's go to six to 13. This is the heavy, part of the heavy section. The problem now, as you will see Paul address it, in this right here is that Jewish people, covenant people in spite of their blessings are accursed and cut off from Christ. That's the part right there, accursed, cut off from Christ. Wish I could take their place. Not verse six, but it is not as though the word of God has failed. That's the issue. In fact, if you were to say, "What's the main point of these three chapters?" That would be it. That's why he's writing these three chapters. It looks like the word of God has failed. Wish people with all their blessings are accursed and cut off from the Messiah. What then, what good is the Old Testament, pray, tell, with all those glorious promises? Who can trust a God like that with the promises of Romans 8? And you're going to stake your life on Romans 8 and he doesn't keep his promises to Israel? That's the issue. And his answer is the word of God has not failed. He has not fallen and then begins a three-chapter argument for that sentence. Here comes argument number one and it takes him through the first two chapters. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. That's his answer. Do you think the promises have fallen in relation to Jews who have perished without Christ? My answer, they weren't Jews. Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. Or put it another way, not all are children of Abraham just because they are his offspring. So there are two Israel's. You can be descended physically from Israel and you can be spiritually Israel. You can be an offspring of Abraham and you can be one of his children, which is different from being his offspring. Now that's a pretty daring thing for Paul to say, he's got to do some heavy duty arguing to make a Jew understand what that means. You're saying now that the reason the promises of God have not aborted in the case of these perishing Jews is that they weren't really Jews. They weren't really Abraham's children. They weren't really Israel. He says, that's right. Well how's he going to make a case for that? First of all, he states the principle in verse 8, this means that it is not the children of the flesh that is just born in an ordinary way, the children of the flesh who are the children of God. So now you've got a certain kind of Israel. You've got children of Abraham who are not his offspring. And you've got children of God who are not just children of the flesh, but they are children of promise and they are counted as offspring. So when he calls them children of promise, instead of children of flesh, he means flesh is when two people sleep together, have intercourse, become pregnant, have a baby. That's a child of the flesh. All Jews came that way, except Jesus. And he says, that doesn't make you a Jew to have a Jewish mommy, Jewish daddy. There has to be a promise and he must mean a particular promise. This one is and this one isn't a Jew. Otherwise, what's the point of saying, you know, not a child of promise? If ever you said I'm a child of promise because I was born of Jews, this argument would make no sense at all. So he's contrasting child of God and child of promise. And then you get this key word here of what constitutes Jew as offspring. It is a divine counting. I count you. I count you. I reckon you. I declare to you. I choose you as one of the "elect." I've used the word "elect." I'm not making it up. It's going to come in verse 11. Now where, how in the world is he going to defend this selectivity from the text of the Old Testament? How does he do this? It's so important because Paul's not just pulling rank on the Jewish readers here. He wants them to see that he's getting these kinds of thoughts out of the Old Testament. He is an organ of inspiration, but he does all he can to help them see there's continuity between what he teaches and what was written. So now he starts his argument from the illustration of Isaac and Ishmael first, and then Jacob and Esau second. So let's talk about Isaac and Ishmael first. Four, that's a little word that means he's arguing now for this principle that not all Israel is Israel, not all the children of Abraham are that because they're offspring, not all their children are promises because they're children of flesh. But, or four, this is what the promise said. This is Genesis 17. Not this time, next year, I will return and Sarah shall have a son, and that's the end of the argument from Isaac because now he turns to Jacob and not only but Rebecca can see if Jacob and Esau. So what, Paul really expects a lot from you here. What does he see in Genesis 1721? Next year, I will return and Sarah will have a son. He expects you to supply this. Abraham's a hundred years old, Sarah is 90, she's been barren all her life and has never had a child. They conspired to get a child of the flesh with Hagar and they got Ishmael. Now you've got seed and the promise can be fulfilled and God comes and says no. And Abraham pleads, oh, that Ishmael might stand before you. And God says, next year, I'll show up, not Hagar, not the flesh, not human possibilities. I'll show up and I will create my child of promise. That's what he expects you to supply. This is against a hundred years old, against 90 years old, against barrenness. And God says, I'm going to show up and I will produce a child, all of which he expects you to see spiritually as God is at work here to say not all those who come from your seed, Abraham, are my seed. I produce my seed. You may do what you want to do to get seed, I count as my seed whom I please. That's what he expects you to get from that story in Genesis 17. I'll show up and I will produce a child against all human designs so that you see that the child of promise was produced by miracle. He's a child of the spirit, not just a child of the flesh. That's Isaac. Now it gets even more amazing with Jacob and Esau, 10. Not only so, so not only do we have the illustration of Isaac and Ishmael, but also Rebecca had conceived children, went and read Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, let's just stop there and see how Paul is piling up differences between the Jacob and Esau pair and the Isaac and Ishmael pair to remove a loophole in the argument. The loophole is this, okay, Paul, you're trying to make a case from God's activity that he chooses as his children without respect to any human design or fitness. The reason Paul that he didn't choose Ishmael is because he had a Gentile mother. So there, your argument is down the tubes. There's a clear human distinction between Isaac and Ishmael, sure you've got one dad, but you've got two moms and one of them's a Gentile and therefore of course God's not going to choose that kid. In other words, that's exactly the opposite of what Paul is trying to say. He's got to close that loophole and it's not a problem with Jacob and Esau. Rebecca, one mom, conceived children, they're in one womb at the same time, the twins. By one man, there's no accident that he inserted that. We don't have a Hagar and a Sarah now anymore than we have a Jacob and somebody else. We have one man and one mother and we have two boys in the womb. Neither of these boys has any claim on God above the other. Paul draws that out now in verse 11, "Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, not because anything they had ever done." He said while they were still in the womb, she was told, "The older and he reverses all natural expectation, the older will serve the younger. As it is written in many quotes to our dismay, Malachi 1, 3, Jacob I loved, but Esau hated before they were born or had done anything good or evil." You're just kind of rocked, this is where we'll stop. You're just kind of rocked back and said, "Paul, why are you going there?" Nobody asks you this. Why are you taking us there? Let's say that not all Israel is Israel and move on. There are reasons and they are weighty and you need a good night's rest to be able to handle them tomorrow morning. So I'm going to stop here and pray with you and ask you to keep in mind the end of chapter 11, "O the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable are His ways and how inscrutable are His judgments, who has ever known the mind of the Lord, or who has ever been His counselor, or who has ever given a gift to Him that He should be repaid for from Him and through Him and to Him are all things to Him be glory forever and ever. Once where Paul ends after these weighty matters, God's ways to our minds are going to wind up being at least in large measure, inscrutable and unsearchable. Thank you for listening to this message by John Piper, pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Feel free to make copies of this message to give to others, but please do not charge for those copies or alter the content in any way without permission. We invite you to visit Desiring God Online at www.desiringgod.org. There you'll find hundreds of sermons, articles, radio broadcasts and much more, all available to you at No Charge. Our online store carries all of Pastor John's books, audio and video resources. You can also stay up to date on what's new at Desiring God. Again, our website is www.desiringgod.org or call us toll free at 1-888-346-4700. Our mailing address is Desiring God 20601 East Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55406. Even God exists to help you make God your treasure because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. [BLANK_AUDIO]
John Piper | Romans 9–11 confronts us with the all-pervasive sovereignty of God, especially in our own salvation. We all depend utterly and completely on God’s mercy for life.