Podcasts about jewish savior

Listeners of this podcast know that when Christmastime rolls around, the SASF podcast likes to focus on the less appreciated Bible stories that lead up to the birth of the Christ:. You may remember past Advent episodes on the Levite's concubine, Onan, and Tamar. This year, the guys discuss the place of the Jewish people in the Christmas story. Why? Well, nobody needs a reason to talk about the Gospel, but in addition (if you're on X), you've definitely noticed a certain vocal minority who loves nothing more than to denigrate the Jews. Don't worry, we don't spend much time on those dummies -- but we do spend time discussing the meaning of Christmas, its place in history, the rights and wrongs of Zionism, Old Testament heresies like Talmudic Judaism, and, of course, the Jewish story that is the whole basis for the birth of our Jewish Savior... and why we're Christians now. You're also going to find out that you're the second lobster on the heavenly sheet in Peter's vision, so get used to not being the main character. Merry Christmas!

Jesus is born of parents who both trace their lineage to the covenant promise of God.

Jesus is born of parents who both trace their lineage to the covenant promise of God.

Who has Jesus come for? The angel told Joseph: “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” His name means “The Lord saves,” because He will save his people from their sins.   But who are “his people?” Who is it that Jesus has come to save?   Now, from our vantage point the answer seems obvious: Jesus came for all people!   But when Jesus first showed up, it wasn't quite so obvious. After all, Jesus is the Messiah, the Anointed One of Israel, a Jewish Savior for the Jewish people. And of course, Jesus did come for Israel.   But more than that, Jesus is the hope of all the world! It's interesting that Matthew has already hinted at the fact that Jesus has come, not just for Israel, but for the entire world. Matthew goes out of his way in the genealogy from chapter 1 to show us not only that God can work scandals to His glory but also that God is including Gentiles (non-Jewish people) in His redemptive plan.   And just so we don't miss the point that Jesus came for all people, this passage in Matthew 2 with the three Wise Men, the Magi, emphasizes that Jesus is the Savior of the world.   From the story of the Magi, we learn three things:   The Magi: God makes Himself knowable. Are you listening? The Quest: God makes Himself findable. Are you seeking? The Offering: God makes Himself receivable. Are you welcoming?   Who has Jesus come for? He's come for you.   Matthew 2:1-12   Living the Message episode: https://youtu.be/gZd4b5uwuBE   Questions about this sermon can be emailed to livingthemessage@moodychurch.org.

Sunday December 19, 2021 10:30 A.M. Message from Life Church Boston Sermon Notes Luke 2:1-21; Matthew 1:1-17; Matthew 1:20-21; Luke 1:26-33

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,ROMANS 1:16SIT DOWN. BE HUMBLE.This reveals Paul's heart. In a sophisticated city like Rome, some might be embarrassed by a gospel centered on a crucified Jewish Savior and embraced by the lowest classes of people – but Paul is not ashamed. - GUZIKSIMPLE IS POWERFUL.1 This letter is from Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, chosen by God to be an apostle and sent out to preach his Good News. 2 God promised this Good News long ago through his prophets in the holy Scriptures. 3 The Good News is about his Son. In his earthly life he was born into King David's family line, 4 and he was shown to be[a] the Son of God when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit.[b] He is Jesus Christ our Lord. 5 Through Christ, God has given us the privilege[c] and authority as apostles to tell Gentiles everywhere what God has done for them, so that they will believe and obey him, bringing glory to his name.ROMANS 1:1-516 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave[a] his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.JOHN 3:16 “The gospel is not advice to people, suggesting that they lift themselves. It is power. It lifts them up. Paul does not say that the gospel brings power, but that it is power, and God's power at that.”  - MORRIS23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard.ROMANS 3:23Jesus showed us what it really means to be HUMAN.“I'm not a sinner because I sin, I sin because I'm a sinner.”“If missing the mark is the fruit of sin, then the root sin is PRIDE.”5 In the same way, you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders. And all of you, dress yourselves in humility as you relate to one another, for“God opposes the proud     but gives grace to the humble.”[a]6 So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. 7 Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. 1 PETER 5:-7The fix to our sin problem is not trying to SIN LESS, its receiving grace from Jesus to be SINLESS.The Fix Is God's Ferrari Grace“God opposes the proud     but gives grace to the humble.”1 PETER 5:5The Key To God's Ferrari Grace Is Humility

Boris Goldin 2/11/2018 Chosen People Ministries: https://chosenpeople.com/site/ Learn more about Boris: https://chosenpeople.com/site/boris-and-shulamit-goldin/

I. Life in a Mixed World: The Wheat and the Weeds So as we resume this morning, our study in the book of Isaiah, we come immediately to Isaiah 56, and next time also Isaiah 57, and I'm only doing Isaiah 56 today, but in these two chapters we're going to see a rhythm going back and forth between the righteous and the unrighteous, between the wise and the foolish, between what Jesus would call in one of His parables, the wheat and the tares of the weeds, between the wheat and the weeds. Friends, we really do live in a mixed-up World and it seems more evident as time unfolds here in our country. And Jesus told a parable about the mixed-up nature of our world, spiritually in Matthew 13, the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds, he described the kingdom of heaven in this way like a Man Who sowed good seed in his field. But at night while everyone was sleeping, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and then went away and then when the wheat sprouted and formed heads and the weeds became evident. And his servants came to him and said, "Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?" And the owner of the field said, "An enemy did this." servant said, "Do you want us to go and pull them up?" He said "No… because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn." Now, Jesus in interpreting the parable said, "The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. [We will call Christians] The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The wheat and the weeds grow together in close proximity, side by side. We live life together, but in the end, we will be separated one from another. And the righteous will go into the kingdom of heaven, but the wicked will be burned up with unquenchable fire in hell. "The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Our Decaying Orbit with the Surrounding Culture Now, this mixed existence that we experience as Christians is part of what makes this life so difficult. It's difficult for us but friends, it's hardly a new phenomenon. It's been going on a long time. Isaiah saw the same thing in his day. And we're going to see in the rhythm of these two chapters Isaiah 56, and then next time Isaiah 57. As Isaiah goes back and forth between the wheat and the weeds. We're going to look at two of those aspects this time and then next time more. One of the great challenges for us as we come to Isaiah is to try to understand the prophet in his own day, in his own language, his own words, his own setting, but then also see the timeless eternal vision of God, the words of God to every generation of God's people who don't live exactly when Isaiah lived but that timeless message that goes on through all generations. So we're going to see Old Covenantal type language here in Isaiah 56, but we're going to see principles that must be only fulfilled through the New Covenant and through the timeless message of Christ across every generation. He's going to speak clearly about those that are outsiders that would have been excluded in the Old Covenant being welcomed in and worshipping with God, as you heard in the text. He's also going to speak clearly about the great wickedness of Israel's Watchmen, of their shepherds, their leaders, and how they were living self-indulgent lives of feasting and following Canaanite religions. Now, these things happened, I think, right before the exile to Babylon. And so he's going to use language speaking about the sins that led to the exile to Babylon, and then speak about the re-gathering of Jews coming back in, and all of that is relevant to Isaiah's immediate circumstance. But if you look bigger, I think, they all pre-figure the in-gathering of people all over the world into the church of Jesus Christ through faith in Christ. So you've got to hold your mind in both, in both worlds, Isaiah's world and then the world that we live in today. Now, let's speak for a moment about the world that we live in today. I said that it's pretty obvious it's getting more obvious all the time, that we live in a mixed-up world, that we live side by side with people who do not love and cherish Jesus Christ as we do. And their lifestyles make it very plain that they do not cherish God's word, the way we do, and the fact that they are living out their rebellion against God, and unbelief right in front of us, right around us makes our lives far more difficult. Jesus knew that in the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds. This is a mixed-up world. And for us as American Christians, it's especially challenging, because we live in a time in which we can look back where Christianity had a direct influence on our culture, on our government, our politics, on our lives very directly, especially here in the South, in an area that we used to call the Bible Belt, where the history of the saturation of the gospel and the influence of Christianity and culture was more evident. And government, not just here in the south but throughout the country, a little more supportive of Christianity used language that was taken from the Bible, public officials frequently sought days of fasting and prayer to the God of Heaven. Christianity was directly held in honor in government schools, and in the marketplace. Judeo-Christian values, you've heard that phrase so-called were honored in the schools and in public culture. There was a Christian ethic behind most of the laws of our country, even what became eventually known as misguided laws like prohibition had a very strong Christian basis in a Christian root. There was a strong church backing to the damage that alcohol did and that's what led to prohibition. However, as American citizens, we have to realize that the documents which established our nation such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Bill of Rights, are in no way overtly Christian, keyword being, "overtly." None of these documents mention Jesus or Christ or Christianity or the Trinity or salvation. The anti-establishment clause which says that the federal government will set up or establish no religion for the people, clearly means we're not overtly Christian, we're not establishing and clearly revering Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and the American government never have. Yet we're well aware of how influential Christianity was in the lives of people who wrote those words, in the lives of those who governed according to their principles. In many cases, they were clearly Christian people in other cases not so. And yet for all of that, the general esteem with which Christianity has been held here in America is clearly a decaying orbit and I believe it's going to get worse, not better. I think it's going to become harder and harder to be clearly Christian in America. It's going to take courage, and it's going to take perspective, we need to understand what's going on. We live in a mixed-up world. We're going to be surrounded by unbelievers, they're going to be living out their unbelief in front of us. And friends for us this is a tremendous opportunity for the gospel. It's a chance for us to show the light in a very dark place. Alan Cooperman who is a director of religious research for the Pew Foundation said this, "Overall, there are more than four... "Listen to this, "More than four former Christians to every convert to Christianity in this country." So what that means is there are more... A four-to-one ratio, of those that are renouncing a previous allegiance to Christianity, then there are those that are saying that they are taking on a new allegiance to Christianity. Four to one. A Newsweek poll says that there's a great rise in the unaffiliated group, sometimes called the religious nones. Now, you shouldn't think like a Roman Catholic nun. N-U-N. It's more that you answer in the poll, religious affiliation none, none. The rise of the nones, it's happening more and more in our country, it's accelerating, especially among what's called the millennials. So that's the younger generation they're coming into their 20s, or just post-college, etcetera. More than 35% of that group of people are unaffiliated with any religion at all. So that's what we're looking at. And issues that we've been very well aware of that have been pressing on the consciences of evangelicals, like abortion and gay marriage and now especially in our state, transgender bathrooms and the whole issue of transgender-ism, have revealed I think the decaying nature of the relationship between biblical Christianity and American culture. So we're in for a rocky ride, I think. And frankly, I think we're in for the same rocky ride that most of our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world have been experiencing every day of their lives. Brothers and sisters in China and Muslim countries or in other places, even in atheistic West, like in the Czech Republic other places where it's just much harder to live out a Christian life. They've known about this all their Christian lives. And so we're going to be experiencing that more and more. What we need then is we need to turn to the word of God, as never before, and find out what God is doing in the world. And derive hope and strength and purpose from that. And I think it's a great time for us to be turning back to Isaiah, and looking at and picking up where we were. We got up to Isaiah 55. And let me just give a little bit of review on the first 55 chapters of the book of Isaiah. No I'm not going to do that. Starting in chapter one, no that would take a while. But what I actually want to do is zero in on the central theme, I think of the entire book of Isaiah, and really of the whole Bible, and that is the way that the book of Isaiah, reveals Christ the savior. And we've been following that magnificently in the book of Isaiah with an individual called the suffering servant. So look with me at Isaiah 42. I'm just going to trace this out very quickly. Isaiah 42, we're introduced to the servant of the Lord, verse one, "Behold my servant whom I uphold my chosen one in whom I delight, I will put my Spirit on Him and He will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or cry out, or raise His voice in the streets. A bruised reed, He will not break, and a smoldering wick, He will not snuff out. In faithfulness He will bring forth justice. He will not falter or be discouraged, until he establishes justice on earth. And in His law, the islands will put their hope." Friend just reading those words, I get happier and happier the more I read. This is Jesus, Matthew 12 says very clearly Jesus. He is the suffering servant, who comes to bring justice and righteousness to all the Earth, but who advances His kingdom in a very gentle tender loving way. He doesn't quarrel or cry out in the streets. That's not... He's not a rabble rouser, or a rebel or something like that. He just proclaims justice and tenderness and mercy. He doesn't destroy broken-hearted weak sinners, but He binds them up and saves them. Isaiah 42. Then if you look at Isaiah 49, we have the servant of the Lord, Isaiah 50 portrays Him. Let's start with Isaiah 49, especially verse six. This is the Lord, speaking to the servant of the Lord says, “And now the Lord says, he who formed me in the womb to be Him servant to bring Jacob back to Him and gather Israel to Himself for I'm honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has been my strength. 'It is too small a thing for you to be my servant, to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel, I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.'" So here's the servant of the Lord, and it's too small to work for Him to be just Israel's savior, Israel's Messiah. God has bigger plans than that for the servant of the Lord. And that is to bring salvation to the ends of the earth. To restore and bring back even Gentiles. He is the light for the Gentiles. Isaiah 50. The servant of the Lord is revealed as clearly a suffering servant. He doesn't hide His face from mocking and spitting or His back from being beaten. He's going to pay a price to redeem sinners in the world. Then you get to Isaiah 50, 52 and 53, if you look at Isaiah 53, just go right in 53:6. Isaiah 53:6, 53 five and six, let's do that. "He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him, the iniquity of us all." So that's a substitutionary atoning work of Jesus. We are no better than those that are living sinful lives around us, no better than them at all. We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and God has laid on Jesus, the suffering servant, the iniquity of us all. He is our substitutionary atonement. He was pierced for our transgressions. This is the Gospel, and Isaiah 54 makes it plain. I'm not going to go through that chapter. But that Zion, the people of God, the tent that takes in the people of God needs to get a lot bigger, and larger tent make it bigger. There's going to be a lot more people coming in. And then in Isaiah 55, there's this beautiful invitation, "Come. All you who are thirsty, come to the waters. And you who have no money, come buy and eat, come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why spend yourselves on what doesn't satisfy?" And then in 55:6, he says so beautifully, "Seek the Lord while He may be found, call on Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him and to our God, and he will abundantly pardon." So this is the focus, and this is right where we're at in Isaiah 56. Now, here's the thing. With the wheat and the weeds, some people are going to be drawn in by that beautiful message of Christ crucified, resurrected, salvation offered freely to any who repent and believe. They're going to come, and they're going to feast from all over the earth. And others are not going to accept it. They're going to have a hard hearts. They're going to live out their rebellion to the end of their days, and they're going to make life miserable for Christ's people. That's just what's going to happen. And so we have this mixed-up experience. So that brings us now to Isaiah 56. II. The Wheat: Humble Outcasts Welcomed In (vs. 1-8) Now, as we look at verses 1-8, we see the effect of the Gospel going to people who in the old covenant would have been excluded. We're going to talk about that, but God has this beautiful, magnificent salvation plan that he fashioned as we learned clearly from the book of Ephesians. He fashioned before the foundation of the world. From before the foundation of the world, He set his love on us in Christ, and He poured out spiritual blessings on us when we were still unborn in his own mind and heart. In Christ, he did us every good that we would ever need. Even long before he said, we were created. Before he even said, "Let there be light," God had this salvation plan. And that plan was to redeem us by the blood of Christ. Now, the redemptive plan of God began when Adam and Eve fell into sin. There's no need for redemption before that. When Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were expelled from the Garden of Eden. They were kicked out. They were excluded. They're on the outside. And God put an angel there with a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. So they would not be permitted to re-enter Eden and eat from the Tree of Life. So I just want you to picture that in your mind because we're going to talk about people excluded, but I want you to include yourself in that category. We were all of us kicked out. As a human race, we were excluded from heaven. We are excluded from fellowship with God because of our sins. We're on the outside. Now, in redemptive plan, the redemptive plan of God, God chose out a specific people, the Jews. And he did it with the call of Abraham. At that point, his name was Abram. In Genesis 12, God called Abram out of Ur of the Chaldeans and said, "Leave your country and your people, and go to the land I will show you." And he says this, "I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. Whoever curses you, I will curse. And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." So the Jewish nation then became a launching pad for the salvation of the world. God intended to save his chosen people, that he chose in Christ before the creation of world to save them through a Jewish plan of salvation, ultimately through a Jewish Savior as Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, "Salvation is from the Jews." And so God brought Israel up out of Egypt, up out of the promised land... Up out of Egypt into the promised land, through the Red Sea, brought them into the promised land. And, at the mountain of the 10 Commandments, he said this to them. He said, "If you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations, you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole Earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." So what that means is, "I'm going to bless you, oh Jewish people, so that you can be a blessing to the whole earth." That was God's purpose. Psalm 67 captures it very, very well. It says, "May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that your ways may be known on Earth, your salvation among all nations. May the peoples praise you, Oh God, may all the peoples praise you." The peoples are the Gentiles, the non-Jewish nation. Oh God, be gracious to us, the Jews, so that we might be a blessing to the Gentiles. That was the idea of the concept. And we've seen that in Christ, that desire is fulfilled. Jesus is the son of Abraham. He's the Son of David, He is Jewish, and he is the savior of the earth. Now look at Verse 1. "This is what the Lord says, 'Maintain justice and do what is right for my salvation is close at hand, and my righteousness will soon be revealed." That's powerful. "My salvation is drawing near now. My righteousness is coming close." Isaiah lived six centuries before Jesus was born. But in God's mind, a day is like a 1000 years, and a 1000 years is like a day. The time for salvation is drawing near. Now, we could say that the prophet might have been talking about the deliverance from the exile of Babylon, and I think that might be part of what he had in mind. The deliverance from Babylon is a picture though of the greater deliverance that Jesus works for all of us from sin, from the captivity of sin. And so, we could say that both of them are in His mind. The Jews are going to come back from Babylon, they're going to rebuild the destroyed city of Jerusalem, they're going to live there, and that's an important thing, but that's not the fulfillment of the glorious words of Isaiah 56, not at all. Something bigger is going to happen. The Jewish nation that would be established under Ezra and Nehemiah would continue living under the old covenant, under the laws of Moses. They would continue to offer animal sacrifice, to keep the Sabbath regulations, they would continue to follow the old covenant. But all of this has in view the day in which those old covenant strictures would be abolished, would be removed. And so, godly Jews are described here, in verse one and two. This is what the Lord says, "Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand, and my righteousness will soon be revealed. Blessed is the man who does this, the man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil." This is the call for the people of God, the Jews of Isaiah's day, or those that would come back under Ezra and Nehemiah, the godly Jewish nation, to live godly, upright lives under His law, as they waited for His redemption. The nation had been wicked, they've been sent into exile, disobeying God's laws, they had plundered the weak and helpless, they'd taken advantage of the widow and the orphan, they had shed innocent blood, they'd been sexually immoral, they'd been idolaters, that had led to the exile. "Okay, when I bring you back in, lead righteous, godly lives now, and in that way, my salvation will draw near, the nation will be able to continue." Now, for us as Christians, we have to hear this in a Christian new covenant sort of sense. We're not waiting for the restoration from Babylon, that's done, that's in the rearview mirror. What are we waiting for? We're waiting for Jesus to come back. We're waiting for the second coming of Christ. Well, what kind of lives should we live while we wait for that? 2 Peter 3 makes it very plain. It's going to be very similar type of language here. "Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be?" Second Peter 3:11-12. "You ought to live godly and upright lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming." So, we ought to be holy and we have to do evangelism and missions, that's what that verse says. And then, Second Peter 3:14, "So then, dear friends, since you're looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with Him." That's Peter writing to new covenant saints. We get the same kind of language here, in Isaiah 56, one and two. "Live godly, upright lives as you wait for righteousness of God to come near. As you wait for the next event in redemptive history to come, live godly and upright lives," that's what the call is here. Godly Outcasts Welcomed Now, in verse three, we see godly outcasts welcome. Now, this is where it gets really fascinating. Look at verse three. "Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the Lord say, 'The Lord will surely exclude me from His people.' And let not any eunuch complain, 'I am only a dry tree.'" So now, we're looking at foreigners, by that I mean, the text means Gentiles, outsiders, and eunuchs, eunuchs. It speaks of people, then, that are categorically excluded in the old covenant from the assembly of the Lord. They're out, they're outsiders, they can't come in. They're not allowed to come in. Eunuchs are specifically mentioned as excluded in every case in Deuteronomy 23:1. And then, specific Gentiles are excluded in Deuteronomy 23:2 and Deuteronomy 23:3. For example, 23:2 says, "No one born of a forbidden marriage or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, even down to the 10th generation." And then, verse three of Deuteronomy 23, "No Ammonite or Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, even down to the 10th generation." These are what we would call aliens and strangers, they're outsiders, they're excluded from fellowship with the people of God because of the law. Now, we believe in Christ, all of those exclusions are abolished, they're removed. We believe that this chapter foresees the day when those exclusions are taken away. "Let no foreigner say, 'I'm excluded.'" "I'm no longer excluded." Why not? Because Jesus came and fulfilled the old covenant and brought in with His blood a new covenant. And in that new covenant, there are no such restrictions. We saw this plainly in Ephesians chapter 2, let me read that again. By the way, I'm not going back to Ephesians, I just can't seem to let it go. I love the Book of Ephesians. But Ephesians 2:11 and following is the clearest passage on the fact that these exclusions are being removed. Says in Ephesians, 2:11-12, "Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called 'uncircumcised' by those who call themselves 'the circumcision.' Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world." That's how it used to be, oh Gentiles, how you used to be excluded by the law of Moses. Deuteronomy 23. The law of Moses kept such people out of the assembly of the Lord. It was what Paul called a barrier, a dividing wall of hostility. You couldn't come in. Yet through Isaiah the Prophet, even centuries before Jesus was born, there was foretold the day when those restrictions would be removed. The barrier would be taken away, and you would be allowed, as a Gentile, an uncircumcised Gentile, to enter the assembly of the Lord. You'd be welcome to come in. Now, God doesn't allow these outsiders in without transforming them. They have become radically different people; God has cleansed them of all their pagan defilements, He's washed them clean by the blood of Christ, they're made new in their hearts. John the Baptist said that God is able out of this stones to raise up children for Abraham, and so He has done. He has removed our hearts of stone and given us a heart of flesh. That's the condition for coming in now: Transformation by the Spirit of God. Ezekiel put it this way, about outsiders coming in. He said, "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean…" Ezekiel 36:25 and following, "I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols, I will give you a new heart and I'll put a new Spirit in you and I will remove from you the heart of stone and I will give you a heart of flesh and I'll put my Spirit in you and I will move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." That's the transformation of the new covenant, the transformation, the change wrought by the spirit of God, or again in Ephesians 2, 13-15, "but now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ, for He himself is our peace, who has made the two one," [Jew and Gentile] and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in His flesh the commandments and regulations that kept us out his purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace." This is the redemptive work of Christ. The Rewards of Inclusion Now, look at the rewards of being included say, "Well what do I get if I'm included?" Look at it, it's beautiful, these are rich blessings for those humble transformed outsiders. Each of these are carefully described before, the blessings are listed. The fact is you have to be changed in order to qualify, not every eunuch is blessed, not every outsider is brought near, that's not true. What does it say? Verses 4-5 "This is what the Lord says: 'to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbath, and choose what pleases me, and hold fast to my covenant, to them I will give within my temple and its walls, a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off." So the conditions are covenantal language. Now in Isaiah's day that was old covenantal language; keep the Sabbath, do the sacrificial system, all that. We know that that's just a type and a shadow of the salvation, Jesus came to bring for us in the New Covenant. The requirement is simple. Believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, trust in Him. Repent of your sins, believe in Christ and you will be brought near, you'll be given a new heart, the Holy Spirit will change you from the inside out, you'll be transformed, and you will meet the requirements and look at the rewards a place in God's temple, a spot within its walls a secure permanent place of honor, and everlasting name that will never be cut off, never be forgotten. It's amazing. Now this is very similar to the promises made to the church of Philadelphia in Revelation 3:12. Listen to this. "To him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God. And the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God, I will also write on him a new name." That's very similar to Isaiah 56, isn't it? So what's happening, we're talking about heaven that's coming, the new Heaven, the new Earth, the new Jerusalem, if you become in Christ brought near, transformed from the inside out, God is going to adopt you as one of his sons or daughters, he's going to give you an everlasting name better than a biological son or daughter. You'll be his forever and ever. Biological names are forgotten, if you don't think so read First Chronicles and all those genealogies you know exactly, who are these people? If the Lord doesn't return any time soon, within three or four generations probably, no one on Earth will know your name, no one. Everyone will forget you, everyone you knew will be dead, long gone. That's just the way of the earth, that's the way of death. This is talking about an eternal remembrance. An eternal relationship. This is adoption by an eternal father, and the giving of a name that you will have forever and ever. And it will never be forgotten. That's eternity, that's heaven, that's a new Jerusalem. And it must refer to that spiritual temple as we've talked about again and again, in Ephesians 2, that new and living structure in Ephesians 2, 1 Peter 2, we are all living stones built into that habitation, that eternal habitation. We will receive a name and a place in that forever and ever if we draw near. And in heaven we will be able to offer sacrifices. 1 Peter 2:9-10, says "You are a chosen people, a royal Priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God." Think about that; once you were outsiders now you're inside, once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. We are drawn in and we can offer up sacrifices, of praise to God. Ultimately in heaven, there's going to be a multitude greater than anyone can count from every tribe, language, people, and nation. And they're going to be drawn near Revelation seven. They're going to be given white robes and palm branches and they're going to cry out salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb, and they're going to stand listen to this revelation 7:13-15 this multitude greater than any cookout Where are they from? They're from the Great Tribulation, they've washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb, therefore listen to this Revelation, 7:15, they are before the throne of God and they serve Him day and night in His temple so that this is the language of Isaiah 56. The eunuchs, who are brought near, the outsiders who are brought near, we are given a place in the eternal temple of God and a name better than anyone could ever have in this world and forever we will bring our sacrifices and offerings in praise and they'll be accepted. That's what Isaiah is predicting. Verses 6 and 7, "Foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord, to serve Him, to love the name of the Lord and to worship him all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it, and who hold fast to my covenant, these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations." Now, the conditions have to be met, you have to repent and believe and be drawn near in the new covenant, you have to bind yourself to the Lord by faith, you have to yearn to love him and to serve him and to follow him and to love the name of the Lord and to worship him. The Sabbath, I believe, is fulfilled in Christ. But it's also commemorated in the Lord's Day assembly around the world of Christians who come on the first day of the week to celebrate, not looking back at the old creation, but looking ahead to the new creation, first day of the week when God is going to make everything new. So, we assemble together and so we get all of these blessings and he says, "My house will be called the house of prayer for all nations." You know that Jesus quoted this, he was talking about Herod's Temple, a temple built by a wicked man, but he honored it as what it was, a beautiful type and shadow and picture of a future reality, a heavenly reality, a heavenly temple, when people from all nations would be welcomed, and would pray and worship God in that heavenly temple, and that now the temple of Herod's day, it should be a place where they're praying toward that end and where Gentiles are welcomed to worship the true and living God in light of the new covenant, Jesus had come to bring. Instead what did he find? Corruption, money changers, people trying to make money out of religion and it enraged him. And so he sat down and he braided a whip, and he overturned the benches of the money changers, and he drove out the all of the animals and he cried out in the words of Isaiah 56. "My house will be a house of prayer for all nations." He's quoting Isaiah 56 as he cleanses the temple. Now eventually he would will that that temple be physically, completely destroyed. Its days were over, it was obsolete, the Old Covenant was done, and so the Romans finished it off. New Exiles Gathered In But the vision was still there, that in the heavenly realm there would be, all nations assembled to worship God and there would be in verse 8, new exiles drawn and look at verse 8, "The sovereign lord declares, he who gathers the exiles of Israel. I'm going to gather still others to them besides those already gathered." I'm going to do a kind of a second re-gathering. So we're going to bring in the Jews from Babylon, and they'll be re-gathered but then I'm going to do a second re-gathering I'm going to gather other exiles and bring them in. Well, who are they? Well, In Isaiah 11:12, it says that God "will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel, he will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four corners of the earth." So there's this banner raised for the Gentiles and a gathering of people from all over the world and then even more plain in John 11:51-52, it said that "Jesus would die for the Jewish nation and not for that nation only, but also for the scattered children of God to bring them together and make them one." Non-Jews, who are called the scattered children of God, they are the elect, chosen before the creation of the world, they would be gathered in Jesus's name, to one place. That's what verse 8 is talking about. I'm going to gather still others beyond those already gathered. So Verses 1 through 8 show the delights of the plan of salvation, for humble people once excluded, for exiles scattered all over the Earth, rich blessings of fellowship an eternally secure place in God's eternal temple where you will worship forever and ever. My question to you is, are you included or are you still an outsider? Are you on the outside looking in or have you been drawn in through faith in Christ? That's what you have to ask. This is visionary Old Testament prophetic language, let me speak quite plainly. Do you know yourself to be a Christian? Do you know yourself to be forgiven through faith in Christ? Have you been drawn in through faith in Christ, having repented of your sins have you found forgiveness through Christ? Are you spiritually now offering sacrifices to God, are you spiritually feasting on Christ? Are you looking forward to the day when you are literally sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. Is that you? If not, If you know yourself to be an outsider believe that God brought you here for this moment and I'm calling on you while there's time, call on the Lord while he is near. Forsake your evil ways and find forgiveness in Christ. III. The Weeds: Self-Indulgent Leaders Devoured (vs. 9-12) The rest of the chapter deals with weeds, deals with people who hear that kind of invitation, hear that kind of gospel presentation and don't believe. Now they're a special category. They are leaders, they are the watchmen of Israel, but they're wicked, look at them described. They're self-indulgent leaders verses 10-12. "Israel's Watchmen are blind, they all lack knowledge they're all mute dogs, they cannot bark, they lie around and dream, they love to sleep, they are dogs with mighty appetites, they never have enough, they are shepherds who lack understanding, they all turn to their own way, each seeks his own gain. Come, each one cries, let me get wine, let us drink our fill of beer and tomorrow will be like today or even far better." Well, final paragraph to this chapter is a judgment on the watchmen of Israel. I believe it's speaking to the leaders of the Jewish nation, their kings, their prophets, their warriors, their leaders who were given positions of power and authority in the nation to serve the people not to take advantage of them or to fleece them. Israel's watchmen are the guardians of the nation, those who stand on the walls, to protect her from danger and from slaughter in the night. They are called on therefore, to deprive themselves of sleep during the night. What good is a sleeping watchman? They're supposed to be up on the walls, but they're asleep. They're supposed to be sacrificing themselves, they're supposed to be alert and courageous and wise and self-sacrificial. But instead these watchmen are deplorable. Ezekiel the Prophet was called a watchman for Israel. He said, "Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me." So that picture is a sleeping city, a walled fortress, and there's a possibility of an attack in the night. The watchman's job is to stand on the walls and warn the sleeping people, "Get up, there's danger." And so what God says to Ezekiel the watchman, he says, "When I say to a wicked man, 'You will surely die,' and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. 19 But if you do warn the wicked man and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his evil ways, he will die for his sin; but you will have saved yourself." So that's what a watchman does. Now, these watchmen are deplorable, they are blind. I mean, think about that, what good is a blind watchman? Just ponder that for a while. They are ignorant, they lack knowledge, they are mute dogs. Now, what good is a watch dog that can't bark? Isaiah calls them lazy dogs. They lie around and love to sleep, like the sluggard, they can't even pull their hand out of the dish and bring it to their mouth. They can barely rouse themselves out of bed, they're lazy. He calls them dogs with mighty appetites. Like Paul says in Philippians 3, "Their God is their stomach." They love a good meal. They love to feast. They're living for themselves, they're greedy. They never get enough. And not only that, they think the feast will never end. I like the NIV on verse 12, I really do. "Come, each one cries, let me get wine, let us drink our fill of beer. And tomorrow will be like today or even far better." That's an interesting translation, I think it's a good one. In other words, I think things are just going to get better and better. Things are really good for us right now, but they're going to get better and better. No fear of the Lord, no fear of impending judgment, just complacent, lazy comfortable expectation that life, prosperous comfortable life, is just going to keep on going the way it always has. Well, verse nine speaks of a different kind of feast, it's a different kind of feast, and these watchmen are actually invited to it. But look at it, "Come all you beasts of the field, come and devour, all you beasts of the forest." So Israel's watchmen are invited to the feast, but not as honored guests, but actually as the food. They're going to be invited to be devoured by the beast, they're going to be judged by the wrath of God. This very much reminds me of Revelation 19, when there's the armies of the Earth assembled to fight against Jesus in His second coming glory. And it says there in Revelation 19:17, it says, "I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in mid-air, 'Come, gather together for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings and generals and mighty men, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, small and great." And so the birds came and feasted on their flesh. It's a picture of terrible judgment from God. So, simply put, at the end of the world, God is going to separate out the wheat from the weeds. And verses 9-12 give a picture, in very graphic kind of picture form, of the judgment that's going to come on those who live their lives for their stomach, for their flesh, who do not use their positions of influence and authority to glorify God. IV. Applications Alright, so applications, I've already given you the most important one. Come to the banquet of Christ while there's time. Feast on him, trust in him. Don't remain an outsider. Be welcomed by faith in Christ into God's holy temple. Accept the gifts that He wants to give you. He wants to adopt you as one of his sons or daughters. He wants to give you a name in his temple that will never end. Accept his conditions, the conditions of the new covenant, they're simple. Confess Christ as your Lord and Savior, repent of your sins, and you will be saved. Secondly, understand, Christian brothers and sisters, the mixed nature of this world. It is lamentable, we are going to grieve, it's going to cause us trouble, but it's just the reality. It's going to be like this until the end of the world. Look on it as an opportunity. Don't consider yourself superior to any of those that appear to be weeds. That's the whole thing. The reason the servants can't root them up, they can't tell the difference. Saul of Tarsus, what did he look like the morning he was converted? He looked like weeds to me. We just can't tell the difference, we never know what God's sovereign grace could do. We never know. And so, let's look on the wickedness of the people around us as an opportunity to speak the truth in love into their lives and see God save some of them. The weeds make up ISIS as they behead Christians. The weeds make-up anti-Christian college officials who issue edicts and rules that keep Christians from freely sharing the gospel on their college campuses, or professors who use their positions to speak anti-Christian doctrines to those that have to listen to them, or non-Christian government officials, not just in the US but all over the world, who use their positions of power and influence to hinder the work of God in the world. Making bad decisions, and issuing bad judgments, and bad decrees, or even to crush the Gospel overtly. The mixed up nature of this world is a constant grief to us. It's going to continue, but it's temporary. Some day the Lord is going to purge this world. In the mean time, we're going to have to bear with this suffering that comes from it and to see God use us to win people to Christ. Also, along with that, let's have a deep compassion for those that are lost, let's weep for them. Let's not feel superior to them. Let's, like Paul says, "I have a great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart." And Jesus wept over Jerusalem. So ask God to make you a little less annoyed with the weeds, a little less irritated by them, and instead pray for them. Paul says in 2 Timothy 2, "I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvations in Christ Jesus with eternal glory." You know what it is? The elect are surrounded by un-elect. The wheat that hasn't been converted yet, they're surrounded by weeds that are going to pound you as you try to reach the elect. Even the elect themselves are going to treat you badly until they're finally converted. I did the same myself. They're going to beat you up while you're rescuing them from the lagoon. You're going to swim out there, and they're going to beat you up the whole way as you drag them to safety. And then they're going to cry and thank you. But that's what happens. This is the price we pay for being evangelistically fruitful in this world. Thirdly, a warning to leaders, to watchmen, be faithful. Elders, especially I want to say a word to you who are elders in this church, let us not be anything like the watchmen that are described in this chapter. Do not live for your stomach, do not live for pleasure, do not live for temporary things. I call on me and others to live up to the holiness that this passage talks about. We ought to keep watch over ourselves and the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made us overseers. Richard Baxter in his reform pastor said this, "Take heed to yourselves, lest you live in those sins that you preach against in others. Lest you be guilty of that which daily you condemn. Will you preach God's laws and yet willfully break them? If sin be evil, then why do you live in it? And if it be not, then why do you dissuade men from it? If sin be dangerous, then how dare you venture on it? And if it be not, then why do you tell men so? If God's threatenings be true, then why do you not fear them? And if they be false, then why do you needlessly trouble men with them and put them into such frights without a cause?" So that's just a warning to all of us who are elders and leaders in spiritual positions in the church, not just in this church, but in any church. I also want to give a similar warning to political leaders. God is going to hold political leaders, senators, congressmen, presidents, elected officials to account for what they did with their position of authority. And if they used their position to hinder the work of God, God is going to judge them. Finally, a word for missions. Verse seven says, "My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations." I yearn for this church to be on fire for evangelism and missions. That we would be a house of prayer for all nations, for the spread of the Gospel to the ends of the earth. I especially call on home fellowships. When you meet tonight in your home fellowships, be certain you pray for missionaries, be certain you pray for unreached people groups, that you keep your heart extended to the ends of the Earth, where Jesus has believers who have not yet been converted. Move your heart out there in prayer. My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. Close with me in prayer.

Seeing From the Karakoram Mountains So, in the summer of 1987, I went on my second mission trip, I had been the year before, in Kenya, but this time I went to Pakistan, and toward the end of that summer, we made an incredible trip across the Karakoram mountains along the Karakoram Highway, into China. And the part of that incredible journey was a trip through the Khunjerab Pass, which is the highest pass in the world, in terms of altitude, it's the highest I've ever been while standing on terra firma, almost 16,000 feet. And I remember distinctly that day, it was one of the most spectacular days of my life, because I took my life in my hands and rode on the luggage rack of the van, down the Karakoram Highway, for hours. The kind of thing I wouldn't do now, as a married man with children, but I'm glad I did it, at the time. And I can't even describe, I can't put into words the scenery that I saw from that lofty perch, from the Khunjerab Pass. You can see mountains as far as... It was a clear day, and just row upon row of mountain ridges, that were just going out before my eyes. It was just amazing, and I stood there and just soaked it all in, and I just thought about it. And then it occurred to me as I was standing there, that these mountains look like they're touching each other, but they're, really, probably 20-50 miles apart. Maybe even more. And this gives me, this morning, as I begin this overview of the last section of Isaiah 40 through 66, a kind of an analogy of what it was like for Isaiah, the prophet, touched by the supernatural power of almighty God, touched by the Spirit of God, to be able to stand at a certain point in history, 7th century BC and to describe, to write down, in timeless words on a scroll, things that wouldn't be fulfilled for centuries. And they're just, literally, side by side with each other, in the words of this scroll. You go from one chapter to the next and from one theme to the next, and they're just one chapter on top of each other, but these events are separated by centuries, even by millennia. And so, Isaiah, supernaturally endued by the sovereign Spirit of God is able to write about things that were only beginning to happen in his time, or that wouldn't even happen for a long time. He prophesied, for example, the return to idolatry of Judah and Jerusalem under Hezekiah's son, Manasseh, and how that idolatry would lead to the invasion of Judah by Babylon, and how Babylon would destroy Jerusalem and the Temple. The Temple of Jerusalem would be razed by the Babylonians, leading to a small remnant of Jews, exiled to Babylon for their sins. But then, subsequently, the destruction of Babylon, by the Medes and Persians under Cyrus the Great whom he names specifically by name, in two chapters, Isaiah 44 and 45, and how Cyrus the Great would issue a decree to rebuild the ruins of Judah and Jerusalem and let the foundations of the temple be laid. He named Cyrus the Great 100 years before his parents were born, Cyrus's parents. I've often wondered if they had free will in the naming of their son. Or if there was somebody whispering, "Cyrus would be a good name. Why don't you try Cyrus?" But how this specific prophecy had been written down a century before that. And then, how this small remnant of Jews 42,000 of them, he didn't say the number, but a small remnant of Jews would return to the rubble of Judea, the rubble of Jerusalem and rebuild it? And re-establish a Jewish presence in the Promised Land, leading to the greatest single event in redemptive history, and that's the life-death resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, who's ministry, he saw more clearly than any other Old Testament prophet. Isaiah wrote, very, very plainly of the coming of the Messiah, and his bloody death on the cross, his piercing for our transgressions, and of his bodily resurrection from the dead. All of these things seen seven centuries before Christ was born. And then, the coming of the Holy Spirit, poured out in abundance like rain on the people of God, and how, as a result of the sovereign activity of the Spirit of God, the sons and daughters of God would spring up like plants from a field. And there are a lot of different ways to look at that prophecy, and we'll talk about them, about the coming of the Spirit, and how Jesus was going to be a light for the Gentiles, that he might bring the salvation of God to the ends of the earth. And how the Gospel would spread to the ends of the earth and be successful there and there would be Gentiles who would believe in this Jewish Savior. And they would repent of their sins and trust, and they would call on the name of the Lord while he was near and find salvation in Jesus, how this would happen even to the ends of the earth and to the ends of time. But how the final wrath of God would be poured out on the earth, for its wickedness and its sins, leading to the second coming of Jesus Christ. And debatably, we can talk about it, but possibly, the millennial kingdom. And if there's any Scripture that describes in detail the thousand years reign of Christ on earth, it would have to be Isaiah, although that's debated. But how people live to unnatural old age before they die, and how there's an astonishing flourishing of agriculture in the land, and all of these things. And then, what's not debatable is judgment day beyond all of that, and the separation of the entire world into believers and unbelievers and a clear depiction of the final place of condemnation, hell, in language that's right there to the very end of the book of Isaiah, but then also a depiction of the New Heavens and the New Earth, the home of righteousness is coming. All of these things, like those mountain ridges, one on top of the other, you just can reach out and touch them all as you read this book. But separated in actuality by dozens, hundreds, even thousands of years, and Isaiah saw it all. So I have a different image from another mission trip I made. A number of years later, I was preaching in Poland, and we were in a very beautiful area, rolling green hills, lakes, and I was in a hotel I was writing on the balcony of the hotel. And I looked out from where I was on the sixth floor, and just so pretty there, in Northern Poland, and there was this ultra light, you know those little planes that people fly they're like powered hang gliders? Those guys are maniacs. But I would love to have been that person. He was just barely missing the high tension power lines which I was grateful for, but he was just soaring out over this lake and just... And I'd like to kind of do that, but without any danger today and just move out over these mountain ridges of prophecy. And I want to draw out seven grand, glorious themes that are going to be recurring in these 27 chapters. Kyle said I'm going to be preaching for the next few weeks, is that what you said Kyle? Is that all I have? I better get going. I've got a few weeks. But just amazing journey that we're going to be on as we begin in Isaiah, and I want to draw out seven grand themes, that we could refer to again and again, I wonder if we need laminated cards in the pew back and as I preach chapter after chapter after chapter, in Isaiah 40 through 66. Setting the Context Okay, this morning we're going to be looking at themes one, four, six and seven. Alright, the next week will be themes two, five, and seven, next week, we're going to do one, two, three and five, it's just going to keep coming up again and again, these same seven themes. So that's the task in front of us. I want to set the context, I already done it briefly, but Isaiah is standing at this juncture, Isaiah 1 through 39, the central kind of drama there has been Assyria, and the Assyrian invasion of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and their deportation of the Jews in Israel, the Northern Kingdom. And then he goes on into the Southern Kingdom of Judah and is stopped right at the walls as we saw when I was preaching last time how the Lord sent the angel of the Lord and he killed 185,000 Assyrian troops in one night. And Sennacherib king of Assyria, turned and went back, God sovereignly led him back to his home city of Nineveh and there he died. And so you get a feeling that Assyria's done now. And though the Assyrian empire would continue for another hundred years or so, it was ever waning in power from that point on. And now we have the rise of the next great power in that region of the world, the ancient near east and that is Babylon. At the time that Isaiah lived, it was a city in the Assyrian Empire, a conquered little city state, but Isaiah saw with the eyes of prophecy, what was coming, and that was that Babylon would rise to be a mighty empire, reach its zenith, and then in a very short time, be toppled itself by the Medes and Persians under Cyrus the Great. He saw all of that. Now you may ask how does he see all this? How does he know what the future holds? How can he predict so clearly what is coming? Well, 2 Peter 1 said this, above all, you must understand this is about prophecy. This is what sets Christianity apart from every other world religion. Fulfilled prophecy specifically focused on the person and work of Christ. This is what separates Christianity apart. So those of you in the college campus, you're going to face this again and again, What makes Christianity different than Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism? Fulfilled Prophecy Start with this, "Fulfilled prophecy." Fulfilled prophecy. And so, 2 Peter 1:20-21, "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture ever had its origin in the will of man." Prophecy never had it's origin in the will of man, "but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." And so the Holy Spirit came into Isaiah the prophet, and he sat down and wrote on a scroll these timeless words about all of these things that were coming. And I want to draw out these themes now and make them plain. God is able to predict the future and no one else can because God is sovereign over the future that he predicts. He is the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy or prophet. He says, in effect, "This is what I'm going to do and nothing can stop it." And He is the King of the universe, and so he can make predictions. And he challenges the idols and he has them come in again and again on this very issue, "Bring in your idols," he says in Isaiah 41. "Let's see what they can do. All right, idols, tell us the former things if you can, and what their final outcome would be, and then predict to us, the future things. Yes, tell us what the future holds. Do something, good or bad, so that we may know that you are gods." And so he does this again and again in Isaiah 41, Isaiah 44, Isaiah 45, Isaiah 46, 48. "I can predict the future and no one else can." And so he has this power to do this in detail. I. The Infinite Greatness of God And so, now let us bring forth these themes and let's begin with the first and greatest. And it's a central theme of the Bible, it's a central theme of the universe, it should be the central theme of your life and that is, The infinite majestic greatness of Almighty God. We're going to see a celebration of the attributes of God in these 27 chapters of Isaiah that will take your breath away, strengthen your faith, give you courage to face the trials that you will face in your lives. First and foremost, the infinite greatness of God over all creation. God is majestic and powerful and infinitely greater than the creation he made. We'll see this in Isaiah 40:12, where it says, "Who has measured the water in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket? Or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance?" God is also infinitely majestic over all the idols and the gods. Isaiah 40:18, 20 says, "To whom then will you compare God? What image will you compare him to? As for an idol, a craftsman crafts it and the goldsmith overlays it with gold and fashions silver chains for it. A man too poor to present such an offering selects wood that will not rot. He looks for a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that will not topple." Well, our God isn't made of gold or silver or wood and He will never topple. He doesn't need to be nailed down, no chains need to be put on Him to support Him. He is an infinite and mighty God and all of the idols and gods of the nations are nothings. God is also infinite, and majestic over all the nations themselves including their kings and princes and rulers and all the mighty men and women of the earth. So he says in Isaiah 40:20-22, "He sits enthroned above the circle of the Earth, and its people before him are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. He brings princes to nothing and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground then he blows on them and they wither and the whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff." And so because of this God is infinitely great and majestic over all of time and history. He rules over history. In Isaiah 41:4, he says this, "Who has done this, and carried it through calling forth the generations from the beginning." Listen to this. "I the Lord with the first of them and with the last, I am He." God calls forth each generation by His sovereign power. He knits each generation of people together in their mother's wombs and he is with them as they rise to their, the zenith of their power and their strength and their energy, and then they fall off, age, and die. He's with every generation, he was with the first and he will be with the last. He rules over all of human history. He is omnipotent. He is absolutely immeasurable power. Again, Isaiah 40:26, "Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens, who created all these? He who brings out the starry hosts one by one and calls each of them by name. Because of his great power, and his mighty strength, not one of them is missing." He is also infinite in his wisdom and knowledge. Again, Isaiah 40:28, "Do you not know, have you not heard the Lord the everlasting God, is the creator of the ends of the Earth, he will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom." And yet how incredibly gentle and tender is this infinitely majestic God with sinners like you and me. How it says in Isaiah 40:11, "He tends His flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart. He gently leads those that have young." So the scope of this God is immeasurable. The scope of Almighty God from his tenderness, all the way up to measuring out the Cosmos with the breadth of his hand. So Isaiah pictures a God who is both terrifyingly immense in His power and knowledge, but also meek and lowly and tender-hearted in dealing with sinners. The display of the glory of this great God is the center piece of Isaiah 40 through 66. And so it says in Isaiah 40:9, "You who bring good tidings to Zion, go up on a high mountain you who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, Lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up. Do not be afraid, say to the towns of Judah, behold your God." That is my privilege today, I get to do that. I get to just say to you the towns of Judah spiritually, Zion, spiritual Zion, "Open your eyes and behold your God. And there is no problem in your life that even comes close to his capacities and his power and his grace, and his love, for you. So just behold, your God." How are you going to do that? Listen to the Word. Because faith is the eyesight of the soul, and by hearing God's Word, we see our God who cannot be seen. First theme. II. The Sinfulness of the Idolatrous Human Race Second theme. The sinfulness of the idolatrous human race. The wickedness of idolatry is a major theme of Isaiah 40 through 66. He mentions it again and again. This great God of ours, this great God of Isaiah 40-66 is a jealous God. He created each of us to love him, to cherish him, to worship him, to live openly for him. That's why He created you and me. And so he says in Isaiah 42:8, "I am the Lord, that is My name. I will not give My glory to another or My praise to idols." He's jealous over his glory and over his place in your heart. But instead sadly, tragically the human race, all of the human race, not just the Jews, under Manasseh and not just the Babylonians, with Bel and Nebo and all that, not just them, not just those totem pole worshipping Aboriginal tribes or whatever, not just all people apart from his sovereign grace are idolaters. Here, I'm going to reach to Romans 1:25 for the best definition of idolatry. "They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the creator who's forever praised. Amen." That is idolatry. When you exchange the worship you should be giving to God and you're worshipping, living for, ultimately living for some created thing, you are an idolater. And all of us were idolaters apart from the saving grace of God. God is at war with the idols in Isaiah 40-66, at war with them. He hates them and he's fighting them. Idols are mentioned 19 times in these chapters. So again and again, he brings them up. And as I mentioned, he challenges them probably four or five times to a duel. He wants to take them on. I love that part that I already quoted to you where He says, "Do something. But you're nothing, you don't even exist." But our God is the living God and so he wants to challenge the idolatry that is rife in our culture, our time. And let's be specific. The idolatry that tempts your own hearts, too. It is dangerous to read about the idolatry of the Jews or the idolatry of the Babylonians and say, "What wicked people, they are, glad I'm not like that." So God through Isaiah the prophet mocks the idols, makes fun of them. We've already seen that some of it, how these idols have to be nailed down or they'll topple. You remember the memorable passage in Isaiah 44, where you've got this guy who goes out and selects a worthy piece of wood, drags it home, cuts it in half and uses half of it to cook his dinner, and warm himself in his workshop, and then uses the other half and carves it and makes it into an idol and he bows down and worships it and says, "Save me, you are my god." And in case you missed the details, he goes back over it. Half of it he used to cook his meal and the other half he bows down and prays to it. It's just mockery. So, idolatry is exposed. God's hatred for idolatry is revealed, but the idolatry of the entire human race is also clearly unfolded as well. You know that Hezekiah led the Jews of Judea in a revival of true religion, biblical religion. Got rid... Finally got rid of the high places. Had everyone worship in the pattern of the Law of Moses. But then he died and his son Manasseh took his place and vigorously led them all back into wicked idolatry, including to the point of sacrificing one of his own sons, a descendant of David, a son of David, in the fire to Molech. Well that brought about the exile to Babylon, it brought about the punishment of God. Judah indulges in idolatry, and this is the very reason why Judah will be sent into exile. Listen to Isaiah 42:17-19. "Those who trust in idols, who say to images, you are our gods will be turned back in utter shame. Hear you deaf, look you blind and see. Who is blind, but my servant, and deaf like the messenger I send? Who is blind like the one committed to me, blind like the servant of the Lord?" Well, that's Judah. But all the nations are doing the same thing. And Isaiah 46:1, the prophet exposes the gods of Babylon, Bel and Nebo. You know Bel from which you get the name Belshazzar, the final king of Babylon. Nebo from which you get the name Nebuchadnezzar. These were the two key gods of Babylon. And they are exposed as the false burdens that they are, they're heavy, made of gold and they have to be loaded on ox-carts and the oxen, they're stumbling under the weight of these things. And it's saying, the crushing idolatry of the world will destroy everyone who worships those idols. So this is a problem to the ends of the earth. III. The Wrath of God in the Judgment of Sins Theme number three. The wrath of God in the judgment of sins. This is a major theme throughout the Bible, but in Isaiah 40-66. God is actively involved in human history. He's not the absentee god of Dius who started the universe up like a complex clock mechanism, wound it up and let it run. That's not the God of the Bible, it sure isn't the God of Isaiah 40-66. No, he gets involved, he moves out and one of the number one things that God does in these chapters, is pours out his wrath on idolatrous, wicked, sinful, nations. His just judgments on them, for their sins. God will judge, first his own people and purify them of their sins by slaying the wicked. Isaiah 51:17-20 says this, "Rise up oh Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord, the cup of His wrath, you who have drained to its dregs, the goblet that makes men stagger. Of all the sons she bore there was none to guide her. Of all the sons she reared there was none to take her by the hand. These double calamities have come upon you. Who can comfort you? Ruin and destruction, famine and sword, who can console you? Your sons have fainted, they lie at the head of every street, like antelope caught in a net. They are filled with the wrath of the Lord, and the rebuke of your God." So God's judgment began with the house of God, with the Jews, as he pours out his wrath on them, who said that they were Jews, but they really weren't, only in name, only. But they were generally... They were genuinely idolaters and God poured out his wrath on them. And because of that, he destroyed Jerusalem and his temple, the place where he wanted his name to dwell forever but he destroyed it, God did, by the Babylonians. So it says in Isaiah 64:11, "Our holy and glorious temple where our fathers praised you has been burned with fire. All that we treasured lies in ruins." Why? Because of the judgment of God. But God in his grace, and in his mercy, restrained his wrath completely from the Jews and by his sovereign grace left them a remnant, chosen by grace, he didn't completely exterminate them. The sons and daughters of Abraham, still exist, and God reserved for himself a remnant. He left a remnant. Now, beyond the issue of the Jews, Judah and Jerusalem, we have the consistent activity of God in judging this nation, or that nation, or the other nation for their sins. He's not just a national tribal deity, just the God of the Jews, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but he is the God of the entire world. And he is just and righteous and will judge every nation on earth for their sins. This is the God of the whole world. Not just of the Jews. And so, in Isaiah 63:6 he says, "I trampled the nations in my anger. In my wrath, I made them drunk and poured their blood on the ground." And then 66:15-16, it says, "Behold the Lord is coming with fire and his chariots are like a whirlwind, he will bring down his anger with fury and his rebuke with flames of fire, for with fire and with his sword the Lord will execute judgment upon all men and many will be those slain by the Lord." So we have many cities devastated, many people slaughtered. And the culmination of the righteous judgment of God for sin is hell and that is also pictured in the words of Isaiah the prophet. If you were to go to the very last verse in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah 66:24, you don't have to turn there now, but just listen, this is the very last verse, this is the last word. Isaiah 66:24. "And they will go out and look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me. Their worm will not die nor will their fire be quenched and they will be loathsome to all mankind." That's the end of the prophecy. Well, Jesus picked up on those same words and used them to describe hell. In Mark 9 he says, "If your eye cause you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched." Isaiah 66:24. IV. The Atonement of Sins by the Redeemer, the Suffering Servant—Jesus Christ Theme number four. The wonderful good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Amen. The good news that there is a Savior from this just wrath of God and his name is Jesus. Jesus the atoner of sins, the Redeemer, the suffering servant, Jesus Christ. No one in the Old Testament saw the ministry of Jesus Christ more clearly than Isaiah the prophet. No one. It was Isaiah that saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple. John 12 tells us, Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus' glory and spoke about Him. But he saw most specifically the promise of a full payment for all of our sins. Now it's going to begin and I'm going to start with this next week. Isaiah 40:1-2. I'm going to preach three sermons on Isaiah 40. After that, I will try, not promising, but I'll try to keep to a chapter a week. We'll do our best. But I can't do that in Isaiah 40. And look how Isaiah 40:1-2 begins. "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins." Well, there's only one way that sin gets paid for in the Bible and that's with the shed blood of Jesus Christ. There is no other atoning sacrifice, no other atoning sacrifice. So, how then did Jerusalem's sins get paid for? How then is there forgiveness? Well, the servant of the Lord, so called in the book of Isaiah, this is Jesus. And Isaiah 49:6 says that he is the light for the Gentiles. There's an Intra-Trinitarian conversation there in Isaiah 49:6. God the Father says to God the Son, what his mission is going to be. He says, "It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth." That's Jesus' mission to be the light for the Gentiles that He may bring salvation to the ends of the earth. And so we have this term Redeemer, or redeem. The term redeem or Redeemer is used 22 times in these 27 chapters. Again and again, we have this idea of redemption or redeeming. The word means to buy a slave out of slavery by the payment of a price or to buy a captive out of captivity by the payment of a price. That's what redeeming is. Now Judah and Jerusalem, the Jews will be captives in Babylon, they have to be bought out from Babylon, they have to be redeemed. And so this is the language used in Isaiah 48:20. "Leave Babylon, flee from the Babylonians. Announce this with shouts of joy and proclaim it. Send it out to the ends of the earth; say, 'The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob.'" So when the remnant went back to the promised land, when they went back, they were redeemed. Yeah, but the payment hadn't been made yet. It's like a big, grand, glorious redemptive history IOU. An Intra-Trinitarian IOU. Jesus would shed his blood to pay the price of that redemption. That's the only payment there could ever be. And then Isaiah 52:9-10, it says, "Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God." The whole world is in slavery to idolatry and to sin. The whole world is under the righteous judgment and wrath of God. We all deserve it. And Jesus Christ is the Redeemer. Not just for the Jews, that's two small a thing, said God. But a Savior to the ends of the earth for every tribe, and language, and people, and nation, everyone. And so it says in Isaiah 59:20, "The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins." So the Redeemer is coming. Now, Isaiah 53 is the clearest depiction of how that redemption would come about. Without the shedding of blood there's no forgiveness, the book of Hebrews tells us. And Isaiah 53 tells us who's going to shed his blood. And it says, in Isaiah 53:4-6 of this suffering servant who is Jesus. "Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet, we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted, but He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds, we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." But that's not enough there in Isaiah 53, you also have a clear depiction of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. He wouldn't merely die, he wouldn't merely be pierced for our transgressions on the cross and shed his blood, but on the third day, God would raise him from the dead. And so we have also in Isaiah 53:9, "He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth." Verse 11. "After the suffering of his soul he will see the light of life and be satisfied; and by his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many." He was put to death for our sins but raised to life for our justification. How awesome is that. V. The Spread of the Word and the Call of the Gospel to the Ends of the Earth Theme number five. The spread of the word of this gospel, and the call of the Gospel to the ends of the earth. this is the powerful Word of God. You've already heard it alluded to. "All men are like grass and all their glory is like the flower of the field." Isaiah 40:6-8. "The grass withers and the flowers fall when the breath of the Lord blows on it. Surely, the people are grass. The grass withers, and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God stands forever." And then you heard Damien read so beautifully Isaiah 55:10-11 "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and will achieve the purpose for which I sent it." So God's going to unleash this powerful force in the world called his Word. What we know is the gospel of Jesus Christ, he's going to unleash it. And he's going to let it do it's powerful work and it will not come back empty, it's going to come back with what he intended to achieve having been done. And he has in mind the ends of the earth. What do we mean by that? Every tribe and language and people and nation. Isaiah is the prophet of the Gentiles. You could call him that. He's talking again and again about us. And he says, there in Isaiah 42:12, "Let them give glory to the Lord and proclaim his praise in the islands." What are the islands? Far away places. If you're living in Jerusalem, the islands means the ends of the earth. We've already seen that in Isaiah 49:6, "That you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth." Isaiah 52:15 says, "So will he sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of Him. For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand." This is the spread of the Gospel predicted in the Book of Isaiah. It's going on right now. And so there are these messengers of good tidings. Isaiah 52:7, "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, 'Your God reigns.'" How beautiful are the feet of those who bring that good news. And then listen to this Isaiah 66:19, "I will set a sign among them and I will send some of those who survive to the nations." I'm going to send them out to the nations, "to Tarshish," that's Spain, that's like Gibraltar. That's a long way away from Jerusalem when you don't have very good sailing vessels. "I'm going to send them "to Tarshish, to the Libyans and Lydians (famous as archers), to Tubal and Greece, and to the distant islands that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory. They will proclaim my glory among the nations." That's clear missions, friends, in Isaiah 66:19. And at the center of that message is a call to repentance and faith. Isaiah 45:22, "Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth." That's repentance. Turn, turn away from your idolatries, turn away from your wickedness and away from your sin, turn unto me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth. Isaiah 45:22. Isaiah 53:1, "Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" When God reveals his arm, people believe, that's what happens. They believe and in that belief they are saved from their sins. Simple justification by faith. Isaiah 59:20, "The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins." And so, we have going out to the ends of the earth this invitation to free grace which you heard again, read for us already. How beautiful is this? Isaiah 55:1-2, "Come to me all you who are thirsty, come to the waters. And you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good and your soul will delight in the richest of fare." And then later in that same chapter Isaiah 55:6-7, "Seek the Lord while He may be found, call on Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man, his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God, and he will freely pardon." So I just want to stop right now, this ultra light flying over mountain ridges, and just stop for a moment and say, have you ever done this? Have you ever called on the name of the Lord for the salvation of your soul? Have you sought the Lord while he may be found? May I say more accurately, are you seeking the Lord while he may be found? It's not just once, that's just the first time when you come to Christ, then you'll be seeking him the rest of your life while he may be found, and you're finding him day after day, by the Spirit. But have you done that? Do you know for certain that your sins are forgiven you through repentance and faith in Christ? You're included in all of this, you're included in Isaiah 40 through 66. You're among those nations that are there to the ends of the earth. Have you repented, and trusted in him? VI. God’s Restoration of Israel and of the Promised Land Itself Number six. God's restoration of Israel and the Promised Land itself. Real quickly. God is going to restore Israel, He's going to rebuild Jerusalem. He says it very plainly in Isaiah 44. Cyrus is going to allow the remnant to go back, he's going to say to the rubble filled towns of Judah, "Let it be rebuilt," and to Jerusalem, "Let it be restored," and of the temple, he will say, "Let its foundations be laid." By the way, that must have been a shock in Isaiah's day. "Oh, any word from the Lord?" "Yes. Yeah. There is." This is Hezekiah's day now, everything's going well. Things are flourishing, things are going really well. Everybody's high places removed. He said, "The good news is, God is going to move Cyrus the Great to rebuild the temple." "Rebuild it?" "Well yeah, he's going to... Well, he's going to have the foundations laid after him then it'll get rebuilt." "Lay the foundations of the temple." "But we have a good temple. It's running real well." "Yeah, well let me tell you what's going to happen to that temple." Well, God ordained that that temple be destroyed but he also ordained that it be rebuilt and that a small remnant of Jews would come back to that pile of rubble that was Jerusalem and under Nehemiah, rebuild the walls and the city itself, and under Ezra and Haggai rebuild the temple even though it was smaller. And why did he want to do all that? Because he was excited about a small number of 40,000 Jews returning? No, to set the stage for Jesus, so that Jesus could say to the Samaritan woman, "Salvation is of the Jews," and that would mean something. And so, he's setting up a play... A set on a play with curtains, and with everything needed setting it up, so Jesus could come and die there. He would restore it, but bigger than all that, the language of restoration of a remnant streaming back to Jerusalem, it's spiritual language for the success of the Gospel. And God is going to pour out his Spirit and it's going to rain down like righteousness, it says in Isaiah 45, that the Spirit is going to rain down and his, God's, sons and daughters are going to spring up by the sovereign power of the Spirit. If you're a child of God today, you're included in that prophecy, you're one of the sons and daughters of Abraham, you sprung up by the sovereign power of the Spirit and you are now flourishing for the glory of God. That's the restoration of the Jewish nation. So yes, physical, but ultimately spiritual. And in the end, he's going to be restoring the land itself. Lots of environmental verses in Isaiah. God has a lot of interest in what's happening to planet Earth and he's going to be restoring all of it. VII. God’s Glory in the New Heavens and New Earth Ultimately, number six or seven, the theme, "the New Heavens and the New Earth". Ultimately He's going to build a new Jerusalem, Isaiah 60, and the light of this new Zion will shine, and the glory of Lebanon will come and all of the glory of the gentile nations will flow in, and all of the Gentile converts, let's put it in that language, will beautify the New Jerusalem with their faith in Christ. And they will live there forever and ever as Peter calls us, living stones in that eternal sanctuary, that eternal temple, we're going to be there and we're going to beautify that place, every tribe and language and people and nation. And it's going to be majestic. And it says in Isaiah 60, "No longer will violence be heard in your land, nor ruin or destruction within your borders but you will call your wall salvation and your gates praise. And the sun," listen to this, "The sun will no more be your light by day or the moon, your light by night." Does that sound familiar? Revelation 21 coming right from Isaiah. "For the Lord will be your everlasting light and your God will be your glory." And then finally, the New Heavens, and the New Earth, Isaiah 65, "Behold I will create New Heavens and a New Earth. The former things will not be remembered nor will they come to mind, but be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create. For I'll create Jerusalem to be a delight and it's people a joy, and I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take the light of my people, the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more." That's the new Jerusalem. Isaiah saw all of that? Yeah, and more besides. So come in the next number of weeks to hear some of these sermons from Isaiah because these themes are going to enrich us time and again. VIII. Applications Application number one, come to Christ, number two, stand in awe of fulfilled prophecy, stand in awe of it. Stand in awe of this Bible, this miracle that we carry around and underestimate all of it, stand in awe of what's in it, and be comforted that your God is such a mighty God that He can dwarf all of your problems. And so, as we sang earlier, when you pass through the fire you're going to make it all the way through, you're not going to be consumed. When you go through the waters you're not going to drown. The fire and the water are not for your destruction if you're a child of God, but for your purification, and he's going to strengthen you through all of that. So pray for me as I prepare for next week, I look forward to meeting you again on Isaiah 40 next week. Close with me in prayer.

Have you ever considered why the Jews reject the Jewish Messiah, our Lord and Savior...What if it was because many today misunderstand Paul...Millions of Jews reject the Christian presentation of Jesus and Paul, alarmingly, because the Word of God says to. Sadly, if the misunderstanding continues, Jews are forever prevented from not only not knowing their Jewish Savior, but also from experiencing the blessings of the New Covenant. This teaching exposes the gap in the misunderstanding, and takes a first step into building a bridge...

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

Introduction As we come to Isaiah 15 and 16, I acknowledge here before you the challenge of expositional preaching. It is quite possible that there’s no congregation on the face of the earth that has had Isaiah 16:4 projected up on the walls as we did this morning, talking about fugitives from Moab and finding refuge in Christ. That’s the challenge of exposition and the joy as well. “All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.” (2 Tim 3:16) Amen. Jesus said, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Mt 4:4) Now, my brother and good friend, Andy Winn, had John 3:16 last Sunday. I get Isaiah 15 and 16. He did a wonderful job and I was greatly encouraged. But frankly, the more I studied these two chapters that we’re looking at today, the more relevancy I saw in my own personal life. I don’t know that this is something where you’re necessarily going to take a verse from it and memorize it, or something like that. Yet, it is the word of the Lord to us today. And I pray that God will enable me to preach it with power and with conviction so that our lives might be transformed. I’ll never forget the summer of 1987, when I had the privilege of ministering to refugees who had fled from the invading Russians in Afghanistan. They were across the border in Pakistan, and we went to the city of Peshawar and we ministered to them. They were the most miserable and destitute people I’d ever seen in my life. And it’s still the case. I’ve seen some poverty in Asia, in India, in Haiti, but I’ve never seen the kind of misery and pain that I saw etched on the faces of these people that had run for their lives from Russian helicopter gunships. Many of them had seen relatives and friends killed before their very eyes. Their prospects were limited. They were not incredibly welcome in Pakistan. They were safe, at least for the time being, but their prospects economically were dim. Very few people were ministering to them. They had a hard time eating and caring for themselves. And again, the future looked dim. What a joy and privilege it is to go into a situation like that and minister the gospel of Jesus Christ! Amen! To be able to bring hope where, other than the ministry of the Gospel, there would be no hope. But the 20th century really was a century of refugees. Look at World War I. Look at World War II. Look at grainy old black and white photos from World War I and footage of German dive bombers, strafing columns of refugees that are fleeing from Belgium, or fleeing from Poland, or fleeing from Russia or Ukraine. You can see a picture in your mind of what it is to be a refugee. It’s a terrifying situation to be in, to lose everything that you have except what you can carry with you. I remember a picture of an elderly French woman. She’s got a mink stole on and she’s got an evening gown and a valuable painting. She’s got it in a baby buggy and she’s pushing it down a muddy road. It’s all she has left of a former way of life. Everything that she has, she’s carrying with her. You get the sense that it won’t be much longer and she won’t even be pushing that baby buggy. She’ll be stripped of everything. So it is to be a refugee. The more I meditated on Isaiah 15 and 16, the more I saw the relevance to our lives. I don’t know that any of us will ever be refugees. I do know that the United Nations High Commission on Refugees said there were sixty-five million displaced persons in 2007. So there’s a lot of refugees around the world. There’s an opportunity for us as a church of Jesus Christ to minister. We had an opportunity to minister to some refugees who came to us from Vietnam. What a great privilege that was! We may well have a practical ministry to refugees. It could be that, if we are in fact the final generation, and some of the events that are recorded in the Book of Revelation take place, then we will actually know what it means to flee for our lives and to dwell in caves, and to look for a place of refuge from an encroaching terror that’s coming to hunt us down. We may know that. If the Lord tarries, we may never know that. But there are people, even brothers and sisters in Christ, in the Sudan and other places in the world, that are actually going through this right now. So at the physical level, I think there’s a relevance to this text. But I also see a spiritual connection. I don’t think it’s hard to find because what happens in this text is a judgment on Moab. Some unnamed invader comes into their country and the people of Moab have to run for their lives. Their military strength is gone. They have nothing left. Their religious strength is gone and they run for their lives. They actually turn, at that point, to their former enemies in Judah, the Jews. They want to see if it’s possible that they might take them in. As a matter of fact, Isaiah the prophet says that it’s the only refuge they’re going to have. I’m going to talk about who the invader could be. We don’t really know who it is. But if in fact the invader was Assyria, and if they came in during a certain time, it could be that, literally, physically, the only refuge there could be would be in Zion, in Jerusalem, with godly King Hezekiah. This, in the end, becomes a picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus, the descendant of David, the King, the Davidic King, mentioned in the middle of Isaiah 16, is in fact the only refuge there is from the coming judgment. So there is a beautiful spiritual picture of the gospel as well. The Bible does this over and over. Oh, how the Lord wants us to flee to Christ! How many different ways does it give us incentive so that we would run for our lives, run to the only refuge there is, the refuge of Jesus Christ? There are pictures again and again in the Old Testament of a place of refuge. If you go there, you are going to be safe from the coming judgment and the coming wrath. But, if you go outside of it, you’re going to be killed. You’re going to perish. Noah’s ark is a picture of that. If you’re on the ark, you’re safe. If you’re outside the ark, you are lost. Also, during the time of Passover when the Jews painted the blood of the sacrificial lamb over the door posts, the angel of death passed over. If he saw the blood on the house, everyone inside the house was safe. But if you were outside the house, your blood was on your own head. That meant you were going to die. So there’s a place of refuge, a place of security and safety, and outside there is none. Or again, we have Rahab’s house nestled in the walls of Jericho. The promise of a scarlet cord hanging down was that she and all of her relatives would be safe if they stayed in the house. But if they went outside the house, their blood would be on their own heads. They would die. It is also a picture of a place of refuge, which you have to be inside. That’s where the refuge is. Outside there is none. In the Law of Moses, there is a provision for cities of refuge where, if you accidentally kill somebody, you can run for your life. If you get there before the avenger of blood comes, you’ll be safe. They’ll protect you and keep you safe until the death of the high priest. It was a picture, again, of a place of refuge. Don’t you see how all of these are pictures of Jesus Christ? Don’t you see Christ in all of this? Don’t you see the need to run for your life? Don’t you see that there is a judgment coming, worse than the flood of Noah? It’s an eternal judgment, an eternal fire. What we stand to lose is not just our mortal lives, but our souls. We are encouraged again and again and again to run for our lives to the place of refuge, and that is Jesus Christ. So there you have it. There’s the sermon in a nutshell. What we have is a current event that’s not so current. Moabite Refugees Fleeing in Terror Prophecies Against the Nations We have, in this section of Isaiah, the oracles against the nations. Isaiah the prophet is giving an oracle, or a saying, a prophecy concerning Moab. From Isaiah 13 through 23, one nation after another is addressed through the prophetic voice. Isaiah the prophet is speaking here to the little country of Moab. We’ve had oracles against great nations like Assyria and Babylon. Last time, we looked at an oracle against the Philistines, a smaller nation. Here, the Moabites were even smaller. The Sovereign God who rules over all the earth is orchestrating the events of all the earth. He speaks an oracle through his prophet to the people of Moab, the Moabites. Who are the Moabites? Now, who were the Moabites? They were descended from Lot, Abraham’s nephew. When, in another picture of refuge, Lot fled from Sodom and Gomorrah to the little town of Zoar, he was able to survive the fire and brimstone. This is a picture, again, of refuge, fleeing for your life. But then, thinking that it was the end of the world, they took up refuge in a cave. Lot was there with his two daughters. And the daughters, thinking that they wouldn’t know any more people on the face of the earth, perhaps with the memory of the flood still very fresh in their minds, induced their father through wine to lay with them. Each of them had a son by their own father and from this came two peoples, the Moabites and the Ammonites. The Moabites took up residence on a tiny piece of land east of the Dead Sea, stretching from the Arnon River, which dumps into the Dead Sea, to the Zered River, on the border with Edom. It’s a small piece of land, thirty miles by thirty miles. It’s really small. The Moabites were not a mighty and significant people. They were usually enemies of Israel, usually in opposition to the people of God. They would fight against them. For example, during the Exodus, they would not allow the Israelites to pass through their territory, they had to go around. They hired Balaam to curse Israel, and you remember what happened with that. The Moabite women seduced the Israelite men to worship Baal of Peor through sexual immorality. It was the Moabite women that did that. As a result of all of these things, the Law of Moses forbad any of them to enter the assembly of the Lord down to the tenth generation. They were forbidden to enter. During the time of the Judges, God gave Israel over to a Moabite king, Eglon, the fat man. Eglon was murdered by one of the judges, Ehud, a left-handed man. These were the Moabites. They were the enemies of the people of God. It was Moabite wives that seduced King Solomon to worship foreign gods, to worship Chemosh, their detestable god. They occasionally organized armies to fight against the Jews, and they usually lost. They were the enemies of God’s people. By the end of Kings and Chronicles, Moabite raiders were still plundering Israel. Yet, for all of that, it was a godly Moabite woman, Ruth, who said to Naomi, “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God… May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.” (Ru 1:16-17) From Ruth came David, and through David, ultimately, came our savior Jesus Christ. Therefore, we see the grace of God in dealing with pagan people. We also see God’s saving intentions to the Gentiles and to every tribe and language and people and nation, everyone on the face of the earth. Why are They Fleeing? These are the people, the Moabites, who are running for their lives in these two chapters. It’s the Moabites who are running now. Why are they fleeing? Look at Isaiah 15:1, “Ar in Moab is ruined, destroyed in a night! Kir in Moab is ruined, destroyed in a night!” By the way, if you see Keith Pendergraff, thank him for that reading. There’s something like twenty proper nouns in that. He did a phenomenal job. I don’t know that I’m going to do as well. I was adjusting my pronunciation as I listened to him read the scripture. So thank you, Keith. We thought about that at our staff meeting, “Now, who’s going to do this reading? Please urge them to practice ahead of time.” But what is going on in Isaiah 15:1? Well, these are two cities in Moab, Ar and Kir, and both of them are destroyed in a night. They’re gone. These are their strongholds, their high places, their walled fortresses. They are nothing to the unnamed invader. In a single night, they are gone, both of them have fallen. Furthermore, their religion has proven to be empty. They turn to their high places. Verse 2 says, “Dibon goes up to its temple, to its high places to weep.” If you look all the way over to Chapter 16:12, it says, “When Moab appears at her high place, she only wears herself out; when she goes to her shrine to pray, it is to no avail.” Chemosh cannot help them. You know why? Because Chemosh does not exist. He’s an idol of their own imagination and Chemosh cannot save them. So they are running for their lives. They are fugitives. Look at Isaiah 15:5, “Her fugitives flee as far as Zoar, as far as Eglath Shelishiyah. They go up the way to Luhith, weeping as they go; on the road to Horonaim they lament their destruction.” You see a picture of a train of refugees, crying, running, leaving possessions behind, stuff strewn along the roads. That’s what’s going on. The Moabites are running for their lives. Like all refugees, they try to carry whatever they can of their possessions. Verse 7 says, “So the wealth they have acquired and stored up they carry away over the Ravine of the Poplars.” They’re going to carry their gold and silver with them. Well, how long is that going to last? It’s heavy. There comes a point where they will leave it behind. The army that’s going to come after them will pick it up and plunder them. So that’s what is happening. These are refugees leaving behind their old way of life, and the slaughter is terrible. Look at Isaiah 15:9, “Dimon’s waters are full of blood, but I will bring still more upon Dimon – a lion upon the fugitives of Moab and upon those who remain in the land.” Whether it’s a literal lion or it’s just more military conquest coming on this straggling line of refugees, it doesn’t matter. The fact of the matter is, it’s just a miserable, horrible time for these Moabites. The rivers are filled with blood. You see the image of their women in 16:2, “like fluttering birds, pushed from the nest, so are the women of Moab at the fords of Arnon.” As they’re trying to cross this river, they are panicking and weak and defenseless, a picture of the refugee. Turning to Judah for Help At this point, they turn to Judah for help. This is the only place they can turn. Frankly, this is what Isaiah wants them to do. If you look at Isaiah 16:1, it says, “send lambs as tribute to the ruler of the land, from Sela, across the desert.” Where? “to the daughter of Zion.” Reach out to the Jews. Why? Because salvation is from the Jews, your ancient enemies. Reach out to the daughter of Zion. That’s the advice that Isaiah’s giving. It’s really that God is giving it. Reach out to the Jews in your moment of distress. Historical Details Now, I have no idea, historically, what this is referring to. Nobody really knows. I have a sense of what’s going on, but nobody really knows. Of course, the big bully of the time was Assyria. It could be that in 715 BC, the Assyrians were coming down and dealing with some Arabian raiders that were making commerce difficult. As they did, they passed through little Moab. And what do the Assyrians do when they pass through somebody’s land? They do this kind of thing, this kind of conquest, this kind of bloodshed, this kind of plundering and pillaging. It could be that’s exactly what was going. The end for Moab is quite near. The End is Near Look at the end of our reading for today. Isaiah 16:13-14 says, “This is the word the Lord has already spoken concerning Moab. But now the Lord says: ‘Within three years, as a servant bound by contract would count them, Moab’s splendor and all her many people will be despised, and her survivors will be very few and feeble.” It’s a time table, three years as for a servant bound by a contract, meaning counting the hours. It’s going to be very accurate. Within that time, three years, Moab will be finished. That’s what’s going on. Look at Isaiah’s reaction, weeping for the refugees. Weeping for the Refugees God Does Not Willingly Afflict People I find it fascinating, the emotional response of Isaiah to these, who are supposedly his enemies. I tell you that God does not willingly afflict anyone. He doesn’t willingly bring suffering on anybody. So says Lamentations 3:32-33, “Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.” The consistent teaching of scripture is that it is, in fact, God that brings these disasters. There’s not a subset of disaster that didn’t come from God and had nothing to do with God. He does everything. He’s King of the Universe, but He doesn’t delight in bringing suffering. That’s not what He’s doing. It’s called in Isaiah 28:21, “His strange work” and “His alien task.” It’s not his home base. He does it for a reason, for a purpose. I believe He afflicts the nations to get them up out of their self-satisfied, self-worshipping rut, and to cause them to seek a Savior, who they would never seek if God didn’t afflict them. As King Hezekiah says as he is recovering from his illness, “Surely it was good for me to have been afflicted.” It’s a good thing, then, to be afflicted if, in the end, it means salvation for your soul. And I think that’s what’s going on here. God brings these kinds of afflictions because there is no way the Moabites will seek a Savior from the descendants of David, unless they are desperate and running for their lives. Isaiah Weeps for the Nations God brings this kind of affliction into lives, but you see the emotion, you see the compassion of God through His spokesman Isaiah. You see Him weeping for them, and it’s really quite surprising. Look at Isaiah 15:5. He says “My heart cries out over Moab; her fugitives flee as far as Zoar, as far as Eglath Shelishiyah. They go up the way to Luhith, weeping as they go; on the road to Horonaim they lament their destruction.” He’s weeping for them. He has compassion for them. In chapter 16:9-11, it says, “So I weep, as Jazer weeps… the shouts of joy… are stilled. Joy and gladness are taken away from the orchards; no one sings or shouts in the vineyards; no one treads out the wine at the presses, for I have put an end to the shouting. My heart laments for Moab like a harp, my inmost being for Kir Hareseth.” This is Isaiah. Isaiah is speaking. He is a man. He is reacting to his own prophecies. He’s reacting emotionally to what he is writing. But in so doing, he is God’s mouthpiece, and it is really God’s own reaction to what the Moabites are going through. That’s quite remarkable. You have to look carefully, but look at verse 10, and then on into verse 11 of Chapter 16. It says, “Joy and gladness are taken away from the orchards; no one sings or shouts in the vineyards; no one treads out wine at the presses.” Why? “For I have put an end to the shouting.” Do you see that? The word “I?” Isaiah didn’t do that. It’s not Isaiah’s work that put an end to anything. He’s an announcer. He’s a messenger. This is God speaking. Therefore, the very next verse is God speaking as well. “My heart laments for Moab.” This is the nature of our God. He brings the affliction, but He weeps at the effects. Surely, God’s ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts. They are so infinitely high above us, what God is doing in the world. But I believe He does it out of compassion. I believe He does it so that people will turn from their sins and cry out to a Jewish Savior, cry out to Christ and be saved. That’s why He does it. And unless some harsh treatment comes in most of our lives, if not all, we will never do it. We will never do it. Christ Wept for His Enemies Christ wept for His enemies, didn’t He? Didn’t Christ stand over Jerusalem and weep for the coming judgment that would come on that city? Didn’t He say, concerning the men that were murdering Him, “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Lk 23:34) Do you see His heart there? The Apostle Paul Wept for His Enemies Do you see the Apostle Paul, in Romans 9, testifying that he has a great sorrow and unceasing anguish over the Jews who are making his life utterly miserable and who would love to kill him as well? He testifies solemnly that he would trade his salvation for theirs, if he could. Amazing compassion! Do We? What about us? What about me? Every time I come to the issue of my level of compassion for the lost, I’m brought up short and convicted. I realize that I have to cry out against the stoniness of my own heart and I realize that I just don’t care enough about fugitives, refugees. I don’t care enough about the lost, the idolaters around me. I don’t care enough. And I have to fan a little ember into a flame, by a biblical meditation on what hell is actually going to be like. I have to do it. The scholarly pastor Andrew Bonar, in Scotland, lay on his bed Saturday nights. Down in the street, below his window, he could hear revelers tramping back and forth, going to the bars and the shows, an empty searching for something. He used to get out of his bed and weep over their souls and cry out, “Oh, they perish, they perish!” He would weep for them. Oswald J Smith, who brought the Gospel to over 50 countries, this is what he said, “Can we travail for a drowning child, but not for a perishing soul? It is not hard to weep when we realize that our little one is sinking below the surface for the last time. Anguish is spontaneous then. Nor is it hard to agonize when we see the little casket containing all that we love on earth borne out of the home. Ah, no; tears are natural at such a time! But oh, to realize and to know that souls, precious, never-dying souls are perishing all around us, going out into the blackness of darkness and despair, eternally lost, and yet to feel no anguish, shed no tears, know no travail! How cold are our hearts! How little do we know of the compassion of Jesus!” I take solace from the fact that you can even see that Oswald J Smith, who brought the gospel to over 50 countries, saw that weakness in his own heart. It’s not natural for us, but we ought to weep over the kind of judgments that come on the lost. We ought to travail for their souls. We see the sorrow of Isaiah and, really, the sorrow of God over the affliction necessary to save them. The Great Advantage of Refugees Advantage? How Can It Be? We also see the great advantage for these refugees. Now, you might say what advantage can there be in being a refugee? Well, on an earthly basis, at a purely secular level, I can’t possibly see any advantage. As I said, these were the most miserable people I’d ever seen on the face of the earth. I don’t mean that in terms of their emotional state. I just mean in terms of their circumstances. As I look at the hierarchy of suffering, the only think that I think is worse than running for your life before an invading army is being captured and held by a malicious tyrant who loves to torture you, with no escape or death. I think that’s probably the worst earthly circumstance you could be in. Of course, none of this compares to hell, because there is always some escape from any misery here on earth. But there is no escape from hell. Still, I think being a refugee is a horrible situation. Yet there is an advantage if, in the end, you come to your senses and come to faith in Christ, if you realize you’re really running for your life. And by that, I mean your eternal life. If you realize that your ordinary way of life was only going to lead you to hell, and something caused you to get out of that rut that was drawing you right down into hell, to get up out of that and say, “Where am I going?” If you then come to your senses and say, “I need a savior,” then it’s worthwhile. Foundations Removed There’s some advantage, then, in being a refugee. Foundations are removed. All the things you counted on and relied on are taken away. You have to think about everything anew and afresh. Everything’s been tossed up for grabs. Pride Removed Pride has been removed. Oh, that’s important. Look at Isaiah 16:6. It’s mentioned right there, “We have heard of Moab’s pride – her overweening pride and conceit, her pride and her insolence – but her boasts are empty.” Oh, they’re empty now! Now whoever it is has come in, the Assyrians, let’s say. Oh, there’s nothing left to be proud of now! Now they’re beggars looking for some place of refuge. Actually, that’s good, because Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 5:3) It’s good to get to the point where you realize you have nothing in your hands to give to the king. You’re just begging for a place of refuge. That’s a good thing. Pride has been destroyed. It’s amazing how proud we are, isn’t it? But what do we have to be proud of, really? We’re just created beings. Everything we have we receive from God. What do we have to boast about? Yet it’s in there, that worm of pride. It’s so ugly when you see it in someone else, isn’t it? It’s so ugly when you see it in another person, but it’s ugly if you can see it in yourself too. I was reading a quote by the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. I can scarcely read this without feeling a curdling effect in my stomach. He said openly what most people would never parade. Pride is just oozing from this paragraph. Listen to what he said: “What could your miseries have in common with mine? My situation is unique, unheard of since the beginning of time. The person who can love me as I can love is still yet to be born. No one has ever had more talent for loving. I was born to be the best friend that ever existed. Show me a better man than me, a heart more loving, more tender, more sensitive. Posterity will honor me because it is my due. I rejoice in myself. My consolation lies in my self-esteem. If there were a single enlightened government in Europe, it would have erected statues to me.” Wow! Listen, bro. Let’s sit down and have a conversation. Let’s get the scripture and find out what the truth really is. What’s so sad is that we’re like this, though we don’t admit it. We’re not going to bring it this far, but we think, “Has anybody ever suffered like me? Nobody loves like I love. If I really got what I deserved, they’d be erecting a statue.” I don’t know if we carry it that far, but the pride, it’s really laughable. It’s actually good to laugh at yourself. But, you know, to actually get cured from it, sometimes it takes this level of affliction. To run for your life strips you of pride. What do you have left? Where then is your resume? Where then are your possessions? Where then is your glorious future? You’re running for your life, and that’s what it’s done. So there’s a great advantage to being a refugee. The Only Safe Refuge: Christ An Invitation for Refuge It’s good if you know the refuge. Amen? If you know where to run to, now that’s a benefit. And I say to you, the only safe refuge is Jesus Christ. He’s mentioned in the text, though indirectly. With their pride stripped, the Moabite refugees have nowhere to turn but to Judah. As we already mentioned in Chapter 16:1, they’re urged to “send lambs as tribute to the… mount of the Daughter of Zion.” That’s Jerusalem. They begged for help from the Jews. Verses 2-4 of Chapter 16 say, “Like fluttering birds pushed from the nest, so are the women of Moab at the fords of the Arnon. ‘Give us counsel, render a decision. Make your shadow like night – at high noon. Hide the fugitives, do not betray the refugees. Let the Moabite fugitives stay with you; be their shelter from the destroyer.’ The oppressor will come to an and, and destruction will cease; the aggressor will vanish from the land.” A Stunning Prophecy: A Ruler from the House of David Here we have a stunning and beautiful prophecy: a ruler from the house of David. Look at verse 16:5, “In love a throne will be established; in faithfulness a man will sit on it – one from the house of David – one who in judging seeks justice and speeds the cause of righteousness.” Oh, how sweet is that promise of Jesus Christ! This isn’t any one of the Davidic kings. Yes, Hezekiah was a godly man, but he was no final refuge. He’s a picture of A refuge, but he’s not The final refuge. Oh no. The final refuge is Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. He’s the refuge. Therefore, Isaiah predicts the establishment of a Davidic throne that will reign in righteousness. This Davidic king will bring justice to the nations. It is Jesus Christ then at last, who is every refugee’s place of safety. The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run to it and find refuge. Jesus is the name of the Lord. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. You run to Him and you find refuge. What refuge is there? The foot of the cross, where Jesus shed His blood for sin. The real danger is not the Assyrian army or any army. The real danger is the wrath of God. “’Do not fear those who kill the body and after that can do nothing to you. I’ll tell you the one to fear,’ said Jesus, ‘fear the one who has the power to destroy both soul and body in hell.’” We need a refuge from hell. We need a refuge from the judgment of an all-seeing God. We need a refuge from judgment and wrath. That’s what we need. Jesus Christ is the place of refuge, amen? We can flee to Him and find safety. There is no other, there’s no other place. God didn’t ordain that Noah and five other people each build an ark. There was one ark, there was one place of refuge. And so it is with Christ. In the Old Covenant, the Moabites were excluded to the tenth generation. Oh, but praise God for the New covenant, Amen? In the New Covenant, anyone who repents and believes is welcome. “All that the Father gives me will come to me,” said Jesus, “and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.” (Jn 6:37) There is your welcome. There is your place of refuge. Jesus Christ is saying, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Mt 11:28) So He is the place of refuge mentioned right here in Isaiah 16:5. Someday the Whole World Will Become Refugees What’s the connection to our lives? Are we ever going to be refugees? Well, I can’t say. I cannot say. I do know, though, there will come a time when every nation on earth will run for their lives. If you’re alive at that time, you’ll run too. You will run too. That’s all you can do. This is what the Lord says in Isaiah 13:13-14, “Therefore I will make the heavens tremble; and the earth will shake from its place at the wrath of the Lord Almighty, in the day of his burning anger. Like a hunted gazelle, like sheep without a shepherd, each will return to his own people, each will flee to his native land.” Haggai 2:6-7 says, “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations.’” Isaiah 30:27-28 says, “See, the name of the Lord comes from afar, with burning anger and dense clouds of smoke; his lips are full of wrath, and his tongue is a consuming fire. His breath is like a rushing torrent, rising up to the neck. He shakes the nations in the sieve of destruction.” Hebrews 12:26-27 says, “At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, ‘Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.’ The words “once more” indicate the removal of what can be shaken – that is, created things – so that what cannot be shaken may remain.” God himself is going to shake the nations in a sieve of destruction. All the nations that live at that time will run for their lives. So you will be a fugitive if you live in the final generation. It is your future and mine if the Lord tarries. It is a terrifying thing. The prediction is plain in Revelation 6:12-17, “I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?’” Run for your lives! It’s going to be literal at that point. But the real danger is nothing on earth, friend. No, the real danger is Judgment Day. That’s the real danger. When you stand before Him who knows everything you ever said, everything you ever did, who knows the inclinations of your heart, who remembers everything perfectly, that’s the danger. As John the Baptist said to his Jewish enemies, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” Has anybody warned you to do that, to be a refugee from the coming wrath? Have you learned to do that? To flee from the wrath to come? Christ is the Only Refuge for Spiritual Refugees Jesus Christ is the only refuge from that wrath to come. It says in 1 Thessalonians 1:10, “Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.” Amen? He is a safe refuge from the coming wrath. It says in 1 Thessalonians 5:9, “God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” So run for your lives! In the beginning of Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian realizes that he actually lived in a place called the City of Destruction. He started to be worried about the future. Wouldn’t you if you lived in a place called the City of Destruction? He’s reading about it in the book, in the Scriptures, and he has a terrible burden on his back, a sense of guilt for his own sins that are going to press him down to hell. He talks to his wife, but she doesn’t believe. She thinks he’s crazy. The children don’t believe, they think he’s crazy. His neighbors think he’s crazy. Then Evangelist tells him to go to a wicket gate and to a flashing light, and he begins to run there. He’s running, and he’s got his fingers in his ears so he doesn’t listen to the cries of his unbelieving family and his mocking neighbors. He runs and runs for the distant salvation, running for that gate, so that his soul can be saved. Run for your lives. Do you live in the City of Destruction? Yes, you do. So do I. So we’re called on to run this race with endurance, to keep running until we’re done, to run for our lives spiritually. Applications Nothing Here is Eternal… So Flee Every Day to Christ What application do we take from this? First, nothing you see around you is eternal. Don’t be deceived. Did you say, “What? We heard a strange sermon today on being a refugee for Christ. I don’t think that’s going to happen to me.” Well, be careful, friend. Be careful, because someday you’re going to lose it all anyway. You are. And it’s good to know it. I don’t know the specific political and military situations, or earthquake, or hurricane that will cause you to be a displaced person. I don’t know whether that will ever happen to you. But I do know this, you ought to live with that kind of mentality. Live as an alien and a stranger on earth, looking ahead to a city with foundations whose builder and maker is God. Run for that place, the celestial city. Nothing will ever remove that. It cannot be shaken. Run for that. Live a Holy Life Worthy of Our Future Home… Personal Holiness Hold on to your possessions loosely. Live a holy life worthy of that final day, since is says in 2 Peter 3:11-13, “Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.” So live a holy and godly life. 1 Peter 2:11 says, “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in this world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.” Cry Out Over Our Hardness of Heart Thirdly, I would urge you to cry out over your own hardness of heart, as I do over mine. Cry out that you don’t care about the plight of the lost. Be like God. Be like Paul. Be like Andrew Bonar and Oswald J Smith. Be like these men and women who learned to weep over the condition of lost friends and relatives and co-workers. If you don’t care much, know that God knows you don’t care. He knows, however, if you’re a believer, that you want to care. You want to be healed from your hardness of heart. You want to care about the poor and the needy. Go to Him and ask Him for it. Be a spiritual beggar for that, too. Say, “Lord, change my heart. Give me tears to cry over lost people.” And stay there until He does. Meditate in depth on passages about hell. That might help you. Consider Ministry to Refugees Finally, consider in a practical way a ministry to refugees. We’ve already had some in this church that have sacrificially given to refugees from Vietnam. It’s been a sweet experience for them and for the church. You can give money to Persecution Project, which ministers to Christian refugees in the Sudan, especially in Darfur. You can minister to refugees that are non-Christians, as we did in Pakistan. Those were Muslim refugees. Perhaps God might call you to that kind of a practical ministry. In any case, whatever God calls you to do, live your life as a refugee here on Earth until God takes you to heaven. Close with me in prayer.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

CrossTalk is an internationally syndicated television and radio program. The mission statement says it all: "We are boldly reaching out to change lives with the radical truth of our Jewish Savior." The host of CrossTalk is Dr. Randy Weiss. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus who has been proclaiming this message since his conversion in early 1973. Tune in weekly to enjoy teaching, humor, singing, and sharing from a Jewish man's perspective. Randy teaches about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and helps the Church be sensitized to Jewish issues. He is committed to biblical clarity, historical accuracy, and creative techniques for presenting the Gospel message to the mass media.

Introduction: The Enemy of Human Pride We are looking this morning at some magnificent verses, Romans 10:11-13, and as I was considering the message that's here, I was thinking about what I consider to be one of the greatest enemies, entrenched enemies of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and that is human pride. Human pride opposes the Gospel, human pride opposes the Gospel at every turn. And the Apostle Paul, I believe, is taking on some unique aspects of human pride found in the Jews and revealing them for what they are. I can think of three in particular, as he's dealing in Romans 9, 10 and 11, with the great question of why the Jews are not trusting in Christ, why they have not embraced Jesus as their savior and their Messiah, despite the fact that Christ was so clearly predicted in the Prophets. Why were they not embracing Christ? And I think we get to three aspects of pride that Paul is opposing that are unique to the Jews. The first is the concept based on pride, that salvation is automatic for the Jews, that all the descendants of Abraham, are automatically going to be saved. And that was not true, He dealt with that in Romans 9, "for not all who are descended from Israel are Israel," he's dealing with that. Secondly, especially, that you find this in the Pharisees, but I think it was in the minds of the Jews, that salvation could be earned through obedience to the law, salvation could be earned through our own efforts, that's based on pride too, and Paul's dealing with that here saying that it is not. It's simply hearing with faith. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not something you have to ascend up into the heavens for, or cross the other side of the sea for, or go down to the depths. It is really essentially simple, as you just heard Chris read, "that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." It's that simple. Well, for the Pharisees and the law keepers, the legalist it wasn't that simple, they had to keep all the laws of Moses, and therefore it was essentially a pride based salvation at the end you could boast. But there was a third element of Jewish national pride that Paul is taking on right here and that is salvation is impossible for the Gentiles. The Gentiles cannot be saved unless they become Jews in some way, but God has no saving intent for the Gentiles, not as such. And what Paul is doing here is he is showing that God has had a timeless universal saving concern, and he does it in the way he always does, by citing His scripture. Now, there's another kind of pride, that's universal really, it fits with both Jew and Gentile and it's the pride of denying that you need to be saved at all. "We don't need a Savior, we're fine as we are," and Paul deals with that as well. And so we are facing human pride here, and we're doing it with the power of the gospel and with the Old Testament scripture that Paul is quoting. God has a timeless a universal saving concern. Look at Verse 11, it says, "as the scripture says, 'Anyone who trust in Him will never be put to shame.'" Now, there were Jews who are opposing Paul at every city, everywhere he went. There were Jewish opponents, and there were also some Jewish folks that were believing in Christ, and trusting in Him. But there were many opponents. They looked on Paul as a doctrinal innovator, really as a heretic, he was a pestilence, he was teaching new doctrines he was really urging Israel to follow false gods, he was a rebel. I believe that Paul's constant appeal to scripture again, and again, makes that charge ridiculous. Verse 11 is by my count the 42nd time that Paul has quoted an Old Testament scripture in the Book of Romans. That's incredible. over and over, he is seeking to root his gospel in the Old Testament in the Scripture. If you look, you don't have to turn there, but just right at the very beginning of Romans, which I did preach on a number of millennia ago. I know it's been a long time, but way, way, way back when, Romans 1:1-2 it says, "Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God," verse two "The Gospel He promised beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures." As he will prove in verse after verse. I. God’s Timeless, Universal Saving Concern And so we have right here, verse 11, begins "as the scripture says…" He's rooting God's timeless universal saving concern in the Old Testament scriptures. Now what is the context of this quote? "Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame." Well, it's Isaiah 28:16, and their Israel is facing a great danger, God is bringing a Gentile nation to invade Judah, to invade them and to destroy them. This is clearly prophesied in the song of Moses, that if they did not obey the law, if they did not follow the covenant that God would bring a people of a strange language in they would invade and there would be a destruction. And so, in Isaiah 28, the context there is that the Jews are facing their own destruction, they're basically facing Judgment Day of a smaller level. In time and space, they're facing their own condemnation, now God sent profits especially Isaiah to warn them again and again that this was coming, but the Jews mocked the profits they refused to listen to them, including Isaiah. The Jews claimed to have made some kind of special arrangement to avoid the scourge that was about to come on them. They thought that they had made some kind of an alliance. I think it's tied to an alliance they had made with Egypt. They thought the Egyptians were going to come and face the Assyrians in Isaiah's time, and then later the Babylonians. So it says in Isaiah 28:15, "You boast, 'we have entered into a covenant with death, with the grave we have made an agreement. When an overwhelming scourge sweeps by it cannot touch us, for we have made a lie our refuge and falsehood, our hiding place.'" You know what this is? This is salvation by works, salvation by ingenuity, salvation by a separate covenant apart from God, it's one way to be saved. And the prophet Isaiah says; it's no salvation at all because the water is going to fill up your hiding place and you'll be drowned. There is no way to escape. There is another refuge however, and he says, it right here in Isaiah 28:16. "So this is what the Sovereign Lord says, 'see I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious corner stone for a sure foundation and the one who trusts will never be dismayed.'" And that's what it says. Now in the New Testament, we have learned what that tested precious cornerstone is, or we should say who it is. It is none other than Jesus Christ the Son of God, as the Apostle Paul quoted in Romans 9:33, you can look back a few verses, into the end of chapter nine. "As it is written, 'see I lay a stone in Zion that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts, in Him will never be put to shame.'" The stone of salvation is none other than Jesus Christ, and if you trust in Him, the overwhelming scourge will sweep by you, and you will be saved, but if you try to make a separate covenant with death, try to make some separate arrangement, try to save yourself some other way, you will be destroyed, and Paul takes that whole concept and brings it over here into Romans 10. Now, here he adds something else in Romans 10:11. He adds this little word again, to the quote. So two words are added, and He's emphasizing it here, he says, "As the scripture says, 'Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame.'" This is God's universal saving concern, God has a concern both for Jew and Gentile not for Jew only. He has a saving concern for Gentiles. This is the principle that he's learning. So therefore, it's a universal concern and the reason for that is because there is one and only one God, there is a universal God, a God of Jews and gentiles alike. Look at verse 12-13. "For there is no difference, between Jew and Gentile, the same Lord is Lord of all, and richly blesses all who call on Him, For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Now the Jews believed and rightly so, that there is one God and only one God. Most of the pagan world at that time, the world of the Gentiles, was polytheistic. They believed in gods that had their own little domains, kind of like a government bureaucracy, the under secretary in charge of whatever. And you go to this god and he or she would take care of this or that problem for you. They also believed in national gods. There'd be a god of the Ammonites and a god of the Moabites and a god of the Romans, or of the Greeks. That was the polytheistic way of thinking. Now the Jews understood that that was all foolishness, they understood that there was one God, and only one God. "Here Oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." He is Lord of Heaven and Earth, He rules over all things. When Jonah was sent as the reluctant missionary to the hated Assyrians, and the storm came on the Mediterranean Sea, the polytheistic pagan sailors were asking basically "What God do you worship?" He said, "I worshipped the Lord who made the sea and everything in it, who made the sky and the earth and all things." They believed in a universal creator, God. They also believe through their prophets that this one God was Judge of all the Earth as well, remember how Abraham said, concerning Sodom and Gomorrah, "Shall not the judge of all the Earth do right?" They believed in that, they believed that the Jewish God was actually judge of all the earth. And so Amos the prophet is saying, "For three sins of Damascus, and even for four, I will not hold back my wrath, for three sins of Egypt, and even four, I will not hold back my wrath, for three sins of Babylon, and four I'll not hold... " He's involved in everybody's business, they didn’t have any problems with that, with a God who created all things, and a God who will judge all nations. But they had a severe problem with the concept of a God who had a saving concern for all nations. They couldn't accept it, that was Jonah's problem. "Throw me in the sea Lord. I have no interest in seeing a single Assyrian come to faith, none." And they hated that concept that God would not just judge the nations, but actually would save some. Now Paul had made this point abundantly clear, the God of the Jews is also the God of the Gentiles. He said it in Romans 3:29-30 says, "Is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles too?" Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised through faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith." There is one God, and only one God, and just as there is one universal God, there is one universal need, all of us, Jew and Gentile alike, we have the same need. Now Paul had made that very plain also in Romans 3, "What shall we conclude then?" He says here in Romans 3:9, "Are we any better?" Speaking of the Jews. "Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin as it is written… 'there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God, all have turned aside…. There is no one who does good, not even one.'" He makes it very plain there in Romans 3, Jew and Gentile alike. We hold this in common, we are under sin, and thus there is one universal need. And you know what it is? That one universal need for us Sinners is mercy, we all need mercy, we need to be saved by grace and by mercy and no other way, and that's exactly where Paul's going here in Romans 9:10-11. Why is God doing all this? Why, with the Jews, why with the Gentile? What is His ultimate end? And the ultimate end is, it's right there in Romans 11:32, and you can look there, it's just one page over perhaps, but it says that, "God has bound all men over to disobedience, in order that He may have mercy on them all." Isn't that incredible? Basically there's not going to be anybody in Heaven saying, "I didn't get here by mercy and grace." There's not going to be a single person, Jew or Gentile, that's going to say, "I didn't need a savior." There's not going to be anybody there who's going to say, "I didn't need the mercy and the grace of God," because everybody will have been so thoroughly educated in their own sin, that they will see that they needed Christ, they needed a savior, the needed the mercy of God. So there is one universal God. There's one universal need, there's one universal Savior, therefore, and that is Jesus Christ. Christ came, not just as a Savior of the Jews, but it was a universal saving concern. It says in 1 John 2:2, that Christ "is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." He's not just a Jewish Savior, but there is saving intent to people in every tribe, and language, and people, and nation. Isaiah saw this plainly, for God the Father spoke through Isaiah to the son in this way, it says, Isaiah 49:6, "It is too small a thing for you to be my servant, to restore the tribes of Jacob, and bring back those of Israel that I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth." It's too small, Jesus for you, just to save Jews, it's too small a thing for your glory and for the accomplishment of your purposes, you have to be a universal savior to the ends of the earth. And so therefore there is one and only one Gospel, everybody gets saved the same way, by believing in Jesus. As it says, "Anyone who trusts in Him, will never be put to shame, for there is no difference between Jew and Gentile. The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on Him, For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Anyone and Everyone Who Calls… And now we come to this beautiful language. Anyone... Everyone. Do you notice it? It's stressed. He puts it in there, and the quote, that's what He's emphasizing here. Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Now I know what you're thinking, you're thinking we just got done with Romans 9. How in the world does anyone and everyone fit in the Romans 9? Well, I'll say that there's no contradiction here, no contradiction. Anyone who trusts in Him, it's true will never be put to shame. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will most certainly be saved. There is a wideness and an open invitation here, that's culminating at the end of this chapter, and we'll talk about it in due time, in Romans 10:21, where it says, "All day long, I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people." That's what you get in the Gospel, you get Jesus holding out his hand saying, anyone everyone come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and it's there. And we'll talk about it when we get to 10:21. But there's a wideness to the mercy and grace and to the appeal here. But that was the wideness the Jews hated, they didn't want to see it applying to the Ninevites, they didn't want to see it applied to the Greeks and to the Romans, they hated that thought, which I think is a glorious thought, that there's a wideness of the mercy and grace of God. Furthermore, there's no contradiction here because Romans 9 has told us, who it is that's going to call on the name of the Lord. Who it is that's going to trust in Him and not be put to shame. And is those people that God calls by His sovereign grace he's going to be working a miracle in them, There's a wideness to God's appeal here, anyone and everyone, and we must emphasize it now what is promised for anyone who trusts in him, what is extended to everyone who calls on the name of the Lord. II. Escaping Judgment Day Shame First he says We're going to escape shame. Look again at verse 11. "Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame." Now, from the very beginning of our history with sin, sin and shame, have been linked together isn't that so? Remember what it said in Genesis 2:25, it says the man and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame, and it's really kind of a tragic statement because Moses writing it way after the fact, was writing something about which his readers would know everything about. We know all about shame, but isn't it amazing how Adam and Eve in their early stages, the stage of purity and innocence, didn't know anything of shame? They were free from it. Oh, wouldn't it be sweet to be there again? Brothers and sisters in Christ believers in Christ. Someday you will be, you'll be totally free of shame forever for the scripture says "Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame." But from the very beginning, there's been a link between sin and shame. I've been trying to meditate on what's the difference between shame and guilt. Some say we've become more of a shame oriented culture than a guilt oriented culture. What I think guilt is an objective sense inside ourselves that we are guilty in front of an objective standard, a sense of law, We feel guilty because we are guilty, we have violated some laws of God. But shame is much more relational, it's the emotional content of that connection at the human level horizontally and up even more toward God. We're ashamed toward one another and we feel a sense of shame up toward God and you see that in the Garden of Eden don't you? Right away, as soon as they eat from the fruit. Listen to this Genesis 3, you've heard it before, but it says, "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, 'Where are you?' and He answered, 'I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.' Do you see the shame all over that passage, they're ashamed with each other and hiding from each other, and they're ashamed toward God, and they're hiding from God. AW Tozer said this, "Brethren, I am not ashamed of this world that God created, I am only ashamed of man's sin. If you could take all of man's sin out of this world, there would be nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to be afraid of. Our apologies therefore, must be for humanity and for our sins." So there's a link between sin and shame. Now, fear of shame, I think, is one of the most powerful forces in society, isn't it? Think about yourself, all the things you'll do to avoid being embarrassed, all the things you'll do to avoid being ashamed. We've mentioned before, if a man or a woman is arrested and the television cameras are there, they're going to want to hide their face with their coat. There's a sense of shame there. Some people will commit suicide rather than face the consequences of a crime that they've committed. They'd rather die than face the societal shame of what they've done. Teens, young people, will readily admit one of the things that they fear the most is being ashamed in front of their peers. They'd rather die a thousand deaths than to have everyone in their group laugh at them. And so they'll do anything they can to avoid feeling shame. Christie and I were missionaries in Japan, one of the major features of that culture is saving face, the need to maintain your reputation in the eyes of your peers. And one of the greatest things you can do to hurt somebody is to cause them to lose face. All of this is related to shame, but friends, that's all at the human level, isn't it? It's not horizontal. How much infinitely greater will the feeling be when we stand in front of the Holy God on judgment day, when he looks at us with those pure and holy eyes that cannot even look at evil, when he knows everything that we have ever said or done and lays it bare for all to see? And there it says in Romans 2:16, this will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as the gospel declares. Or as Jesus put it this way, in Luke 12:3-5, "What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the rooftops. I tell you my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more, but I will show you whom you should fear, fear him who after the killing of the body has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you fear him." So that's a picture of judgment day in which our secrets are laid bare and the audience there and just other human beings, it is God Almighty, it is Christ sitting on his throne. And it says, concerning God as judge, "nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account." On earth, it is terrifying to have our sins exposed, isn't it? The last thing any of us would want. But it's the ministry of the gospel to get us to think ahead to what it's going to feel like to have that happen in front of God and his holy angels. And so we need this don't we? We need verse 11, "Anyone who trusts in Him will not be put to shame." We need a refuge from judgment day shame. And friends, what the glorious good news of the gospel is that there is such a refuge, there's a place we can hide and the overwhelming scourge will sweep by and not touch us, and that refuge is Jesus Christ. Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame. Now, there's a way that some people try to avoid it, get away from it and that's to deny that they have anything to be ashamed of. There's a German proverb that says not to be ashamed of sin is to sin double. I think there are some people that are actually trying to turn the whole thing around and be proud of sin. You think about, for example, Isaiah 3:9 which says, "The look on their faces terrifies against them, they parade their sin like Sodom, they do not hide it. Woe to them. They brought disaster upon themselves." Now, God is not saying through Isaiah, "It's better to cover it over, but it's better that it not be there at all." But it's even worse when you put darkness for light and light for darkness, you put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter, you put evil for good and good for evil, you turn the whole thing around and say that what is a cause for shame is now a cause of pride. Now, that we cannot do. No, rather we need to face head on the fact that there is a Holy God who has standards and we have violated them and we need to be safe from them. And verse 11 tells us how, "Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame." Now, in context in Isaiah, the most straightforward way to understand this, to be put to shame means to trust in something that ultimately fails you. To trust in something that collapses, in the end you're destroyed. This is a big theme and Isaiah comes in again and again, Isaiah 20:5-6, it says, "Those who trusted in Cush and boasted in Egypt will be afraid and put to shame. In that day, the people who live on the coast will say, Look what's happened to those we relied on, to those we fled to for help and deliverance from the King. How then can we escape?" In that case, it was Assyria, they were trying to escape Assyria, later will be Babylon. And so they're making a connection, and he says, "You're going to be put to shame because in the end, the King of Egypt is like a splintered staff that pierces a man's hand and wounds him if you lean on it." So it is also at the spiritual realm when you try to save yourself. When you rely on yourself, you try to save yourself by your good works, by religion, by meditation of the mind and all kinds of other things, religiosity, you're going to try to save it, that's your refuge from the overwhelming scourge. It will not save but rather you'll be put to shame on judgment day. Another major theme in Scripture of being put to shame is in reference to a personal enemy who wants to seek your very life. Now you may say I don't have many of those. Well, maybe you don't, maybe you do. King David had them all the time, David was surrounded by enemies. And so you heard Elijah reading earlier from Psalm 25 and was one of the many times that David is thinking about his personal enemies who would love to have stripped David and put him to shame. And so what he says here is, "To you O Lord, I lift up my soul. In you I trust O my God, do not let me be put to shame nor let my enemies triumph over me." Well, the Scripture says, "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour." You have a personal enemy. You may not think you did, but you do. And what would it be like to have him triumph over you on judgment day, to have him vindicated? But I say to you in verse 11, Anyone who trust in Christ will not be put to shame on judgment day. And so, our personal enemy is going to be there to accuse and the Lord has already said in Romans 8:31, "What then shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who could be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns?" Or in my more irreverent kind of paraphrase, "Who cares who condemns when God justifies?" Amen. We don't fear Satan's accusation on judgment day. As a matter of fact, it says in Romans 16:20, "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet." Praise be to God. So our personal accuser, the one who was actually the one enticing us to do all that wickedness and then turns around like some righteous being, pointing a finger of accusation, he's going to be crushed on judgment day. He's going to be crushed by the overwhelming righteousness ascribed to our account on that day, the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Amen! I saw, I heard one of you say it, but amen! I know you're not allowed to, but you are actually. Go ahead. This is glorious. We're not going to be put to shame, but our personal enemy who had sought everyday of our lives to destroy us by sin will himself be destroyed and we will be vindicated. Christ came to remove our shame. He came to claim us as his own, to say, "He is mine. She is mine. My own. I bought them with my blood." And He will rebuke any who seek to accuse them. All of their sins will be removed from them as far as the east is from the west. And how is that possible? Is it because there wasn't a real shame connected with our sin? No, there was. More than we think, friends. More than we think. But the fact is, Jesus Christ drank it to the bottom. He drank our shame when he was arrested. He drank our shame when he was accused by his own people falsely. He drank our shame when he was condemned. He drank our shame when he was spat upon and had the crown of thorns beat around his brow and when he was struck with a stick. He drank our shame when he was paraded through the streets of Jerusalem. He drank our shame when he was nailed to the cross and hung suspended between sky and earth and His blood mingled with the mud, he was drinking our shame. And when you look at that story, you need to say that is what I deserved and worse. But Jesus has taken my shame. And friends, He was actually glad to do it. For it says that "Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame," thinking nothing of the shame that he was willing to drink on our behalf. Our shame is gone if we have trusted in Him. Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame. III. Christ’s Richness for Anyone Who Believes And what do we get? Do we get more than just not being ashamed? That's rather neutral, isn't it? You cannot be ashamed and still get nothing else. But God has far more than that for us. Look what it says, "There is no difference," verse 12, "between Jew and Gentile, the same Lord is Lord of all, and richly blesses all who call on him." Oh, Christian brother and sister, you are rich, you are wealthy, far more than you can imagine. You are infinitely wealthy in Christ. You may not feel like you are, but you are. And frankly, I think we're supposed to be meditating on our inheritance. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be, and I say should be. And how rich are you? Well Ephesians describes riches over and over. Listen to this, Ephesians 1:7-8, "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding." Ephesians 1:18, he says, "I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe." Oh, how rich you are. It says in Ephesians 2:4-5, "Because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions." And then Ephesians 2:6-7, I love this one. Oh, think about this. "And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that," now get this, "in the coming ages, he might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus." We haven't seen anything yet. In the coming ages, he might be showing you how rich you are. In the new heavens, he's going to show you how rich you are. In the new earth he's going to show you how rich you are, through his kindness to you in Christ Jesus. Calling on the Name of the Lord You, friends, are rich. You're not just not ashamed, you are rich in the gospel if you are a Christian. How do we receive it? How will we get it? Well, it's already said in verse 11, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." And again, here in verse 13, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Now what does it mean to call in the name of the Lord? Maybe you've never thought of that before. I asked my kids as we're driving in and one of them said, "Well, it means to pray." Right, it does. It does. In a simple way, it does but it goes so much deeper than that, doesn't it? It means a lot more than that. We're talking about an ancient practice here. Listen to Genesis 4:25-26, "Adam lay with his wife again and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth saying, God has granted me another child in the place of Abel since Cain killed him. Seth also had a son and he named him Enosh, and at that time, men began to call on the name of the Lord." That is an ancient practice, and I say to you that there is a universally uniting fact that everyone who has ever been saved is saved the same way. We're all saved the same way. Everyone in every generation who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Well, what does it mean? Well, later on in redemptive history, Joel quoted it. And it says, "Then afterward I'll pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams, even on my servants, both men and women. I will pour out my Spirit in those days, I will show wonders in the heavens above, and blood and fire and billows a smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Peter picked up on this and preached to them the day of Pentecost. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved and 3000 Jews were saved that day and baptized. So Jews can call on the name of the Lord and be saved. They were that day. But not even Peter fully understood that God really did mean everyone. And so, it took later in Acts 10 at Cornelius's house when the Holy Spirit came down on a bunch of Romans, of all things, and it was clear then that they understood, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, Jew or Gentile alike will be saved. Now, to call on the name of the Lord means to call on God's character. His name is his character. You think about how in the old days with the Indians or even with the Hebrews, you would choose a name that would connect in some way to the character of the person. We don't do that as much anymore, but they did it. And so, there's a link between the name and the character. God has in Scripture revealed his character. He is good and trustworthy, he is faithful and kind, and compassionate. He is powerful. That's the kind of God. And so, to call on the name of the Lord means be good and compassionate and faithful and trustworthy for me, it means that it relates to God's character. And secondly, it relates to God's history, to his reputation. To make a name for yourself means to craft a personal history that people can tap into and learn what kind of person you are. Your resume is how you've made a name for yourself in a way that's relevant to you getting this job. To make a name for yourself means to present your history and it relates to the kind of person you are. God has made a name for himself in history, it says in Nehemiah 9:10, speaking of the Exodus, "You sent miraculous signs and wonders against Pharaoh, against all his officials and against all the people of his land, for you knew how arrogantly the Egyptians treated them. You made a name for yourself which lasts to this very day." So God has made a name for himself in creation, he's a powerful God who created the heavens and the earth with just a word. God made a name for himself in the flood and at Sodom and Gomorrah saying, "I am a bitter and dreadful enemy of sin." God made a name for himself when he made promises to Abram under the starry sky and then kept them, and God made a name for himself at the time of the Exodus, when by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with plagues, 10 plagues, and with the journey through the Red Sea, with the water walled up on the left and the right, God destroyed Egypt and Pharaoh, to display his power and his intention on saving the Jews. Why Does God Make a Name for Himself? Now, why does God make a name for himself? So that a woman like Rahab can hear the stories, to hear the reputation of God and fear for herself and for her family, and say to the spies that Joshua had sent in there, "Now make a covenant with me that you will spare my life and my family." And so, the Book of James says she trusted in Christ. She was believing in Christ as He had been revealed to her at that point, and through faith she was justified. Through faith she was saved. God makes a glorious name for himself so sinners like Rahab the prostitute, and people all over the world, idolaters and pagans and Jews and us can hear of the stories and call on that name and be saved. It's not because he need some reputation or anything for himself, but so that sinners can be saved. And God's name is his promise as well. When you make a covenant or a contract and you sign your name, you don't sign your favorite vegetable at the bottom, you don't sign your favorite Bible verse, that won't do. You're going to put your name at the bottom of your promise that you're going to act a certain way. God has signed in his name the promises that He's made. "I am the Lord," he says it over and over. And it's a point of honor to his name to keep His promises. As one Puritan said, "Show him his handwriting, God is partial to his handwriting, show it to him." So you said you would do this. You show him his promises and He is faithful to keep them. Call on the name of the Lord and God's name ultimately and finally is his son, Jesus Christ. All of these things, his character, his history, his promises come together in Christ and in Him are all the promises of God. Yes and amen in Christ. And so Jesus's personal life, his righteousness, his death on the cross, his resurrection from the dead, that is God's name. Now finally, what does it mean to call on that name? Well, I'm going to close with an illustration. A number of years ago, I was on a evangelistic project at Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, and a tropical storm similar to what's going on now, a hurricane was making its way north and it got as far as New Hampshire where we were on a summer project, Hampton Beach Project. And it churned up the waves, it looked like Oahu out there, and the beach was basically, totally vacant, even though it was middle of August, there was no one there. So my friend and I thought this would be a great opportunity for some body surfing. Now if you think that I had a screw loose or whatever, you're right, but you know when you're that age you don't think you're ever going to die, you think you're kind of fine. And so the two of us went out there, and we started body surfing. It was a lot of fun for the first six or seven minutes. And then we noticed that the hotels were getting smaller and smaller as we were caught in some kind of a rip tide and we're being pulled out to the ocean. And then we started being afraid. And I have no idea how long it took, but for the next long period of time, we would ride some waves in, and then swim to hold more or less our place, and then ride the next wave in and swim to hold our place, and ride the next wave in and swim to hold our place. Now you may ask, "Why didn't it occur to you to scream, "Help. Help. Help?" Well, pride kicks in at a certain point. It is no good in front of all your friends and your peers and male and female alike, to be dragged sputtering from the ocean, when not another of God's souls is swimming except the two of you, you were the only ones swimming. It just will not do to be dragged sputtering from the ocean. And so you will try to save yourself as long as you can, won't you? And so it is in reference to this salvation. As long as you think you can save yourself, you're going to try. But when the Holy Spirit convicts you, you cannot, and you're going to stand in front of a Holy God and nothing you have done will avail to save you before His holy gaze, and you will be condemned and you will die eternally in hell. When you come to that point, you call on the name of the Lord, and you say, "Save me Jesus. Save me from my sins." And He does. Won't you close with me in prayer?

Introduction: The Wailing Wall If you were to visit Jerusalem today, you could see a place that's a great attraction to people. To some it is a tourist attraction, but to others (Jews especially) it is the focus of intense religious feeling, a place that really is somewhat like a Jewish shrine. It's called the "Wailing Wall," the western Wall of Herod's temple. It's what's left of the temple after it was destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans. For centuries, the Jews had no access to Jerusalem, it being under Muslim domination, but finally they were able to come in a regular pattern. And Jews come from all over the world. There is a picture on the cover of your bulletin, and they face those ancient stones, and they bob back and forth and they weep and they wail for the past. For blessings from God that they no longer experience. Now, 2,000 years ago, a man who was perhaps the preeminent Jew of his day, a Hebrew of Hebrews, the Apostle Paul, wept and wailed and mourned. But not for some past tragedy but for something far greater. He wept for a future tragedy that he saw, for his kinsman, his countrymen, fellow-Jews, because of their sins and their rejection of Jesus Christ, their only hope, their Lord, their Savior, their Messiah. And so Paul begins this section of Romans as we saw last week with an outpouring of personal grief over the status of the Jews. He says there in verse 1, "I speak the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit. I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish for I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, the Israelites." He is yearning for their salvation, and he speaks of that. He speaks of that with great intensity and great passion. We discussed that last week. I found it greatly challenging to myself because I didn't know if I ever experienced this kind of sorrow and sadness and anguish over the loss the way Paul did. And I have been praying and I'll continue to pray. You know, I think God gives us the desire of our heart, but the first thing he does is gives us that desire and then fulfills it. And for me, it's my desire to have this kind of sorrow and sadness and anguish over the lost that are around me that Paul displayed here. I. Recap: The Cause, Depth, and Authenticity of Paul’s Anguish And so we saw last time the cause of Paul's anguish. Every place he went, he began by preaching the Gospel to Jews, he went into synagogues, and the pattern was established again and again. He would reason with them from the Old Testament scriptures, he would try to prove from the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah. What was so obvious to him was not obvious to them. There was a veil over their faces, over their minds, really, whenever they would consider the Scripture, whenever they would consider the Law of Moses. What Paul could see so clearly in prophecy, they just could not see. Israel is experiencing a hardening in part, and it brought him great grief, and they would then turn not just to be rejecters but persecutors. They would violently persecute him, they would chase him from place to place. And so Paul relates the cause of his anguish, that is Jewish lostness. They're rejecting the Gospel. He also talks about the depth of his anguish with overpowering emotion. He says, "I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish," and then he says an astonishing thing. He says, "I myself could wish to be cursed and cut off from Christ. I'm willing not only to not see Christ but willing eve to be cursed by Him for the sake of my fellow kinsmen." And then he has to give us a sense of the authenticity of his desire. He says, "I speak the truth in Christ. I'm not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit." Why does he use all these words, except that his attitude is unusual? His attitude really is supernatural. Nobody cares that much. Nobody cares that much. But Paul did. He said, "This is a desire that God has given me." We saw all that last time. II. The Shock of Paul’s Anguis­h But what we didn't discuss is the shock in Paul's anguish. Look at verses 4 and 5. There, he talked about what's really shocking about this whole situation with the Jews. He says, "They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption as sons. Theirs is the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them, from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised, amen." Contrary to All Expectations Now what Paul does is he goes through and he lists nine spiritual advantages that the Jews had, which makes what was happening in his day and which has continued now for 2,000 years all the more astonishing, contrary to all expectations. The Gentiles, having not in any way been racially or historically prepared to receive Christ as their Savior, are receiving Christ in huge numbers. You heard the account that Scott gave earlier, about what's happening in the nation that we're intending to reach out. Huge numbers from that country coming to faith in Christ. Large numbers. And it's been that way for 2,000 years. God's Spirit poured out on the Gentiles. The Gentiles coming in large number to embrace a Jewish Savior, to be grafted in as a wild branch into a naturally cultivated olive tree. This is the image Paul uses in Romans 11. It's contrary to anything you would expect, that that wild branch could actually start receiving nourishing sap and life-giving nutrients through this Jewish tree, that we could in effect the Jews, latter-day Jews, contrary to all expectations. But every bit as contrary to expectation is the opposite reaction by the Jews. What seems so obvious to us, that Isaiah 53 and that Daniel 7, and Psalm 22, and Psalm 16, and all of these passages point to Christ. Who else could they be pointing to? They just don't see it. It's amazing, really. They've been reading the scriptures all their lives, some of them, and they still don't see Christ in the most obvious places. It's incredible. Amazing Spiritual Advantages for Israelites And so what he does is he goes through and traces out these Old Testament advantages. They are inadequate for personal salvation. And if you don't understand that, you'll miss the whole point. All of these advantages that he describes are inadequate in and of themselves for personal salvation. Now each one of them could have been the grounds of faith, just like it was for Abram when he heard one promise of God and believed. Any of these could have been enough for saving faith. And it was for many of the remnant, the elect, and we'll talk about that. But for the nation as a whole, they were inadequate. The Israelites And what does he talk about? Well, first, he calls them "Israelites." They are of the nation of Israel. That name, of course, coming from the night that Jacob spent wrestling with the angel, you know, and the angel said, "Let me go," and he said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." That was the night he thought he was going to be slaughtered by his brother Esau who was riding down with 600 of his closest friends who all happened to be soldiers armed to the teeth, wanting to greet his brother and say hello to him. It was a tough night for Jacob. And that night, he got the name Israel, "he who struggles with God." And so that became kind of the national heritage as well. A nation that wrestles with God, they are the Israelites. The Adoption Secondly, he says that theirs is the adoption as sons, fascinating term and it has caused some to stumble. This is not the same as that eternal and individual personal adoption spoken of in the previous chapter (look back at Romans 8:14-15). And there it says, "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God." In other words, if you are being led by this in-dwelling Holy Spirit, being led by the Spirit God, you're a son of God. Next verse says, "For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back again into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, 'Abba Father.'" Now, let me tell you something. If this is the exact same thing over here in Romans 9, then you have a big problem, and so do I. Is it really possible to be individually, personally adopted by faith into the family of God and then later evicted from the family? If so, then God's Word has failed. That's the whole problem. That's why Paul's dealing with this. But this is not the adoption that I think Paul has in mind here. Rather there is more of a national big-picture adoption that God did for the Jews and spoke in that manner. You remember the time when God called Moses to go back to Pharaoh and say, "Let my people go," and there's a whole interchange where Moses does everything he can to get out of God's call in his life? Some of you are like that, I've been like that myself. Moses does not wanna go. But at one point, the Lord says, "Say to Pharaoh, 'This is what the Lord says. "Israel is my first-born son, and I told you, let my son go that he may worship me."'" That is the adoption that I think is in mind here in Romans 9, a national adoption. So also, Hosea 11:1 says, "When Israel was a child, I loved him and out of Egypt I called my Son." And you remember how the tenth plague, the most dreadful, the plague on the first-born. Basically God said, "You didn't let my first-born go, so I will kill your first-born." That's the connection there. Israel is God's first-born so. And then he says the same thing in Deuteronomy 1:31, "There you saw how the Lord your God carried you as a father carries his son. All the way you went until you reached this place." God basically picked up little Israel and put Israel up on His shoulders and carried them right to the Promised Land in a powerful way. That's the language used in Deuteronomy 1:31. But it's a national adoption. It's not individual adoption of individual Jews to personal relationship with God. The Glory Thirdly, he speaks of the glory. Again, this is not that personal glory that all of us will experience at the end of our salvation process, what we call "glorification." That's not what this is talking about. Theirs is the glorious, rather the outward and visible displays of glory that were part of Israel's heritage and history. For example, on Mount Sinai, in Exodus 24, it says when Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai. For six days, the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day, the Lord called to Moses from within the cloud. To the Israelites, the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain. Then Moses entered the cloud as he went up on the mountain, he stayed on that mountain 40 days and 40 nights. Now, what happened inside that glory cloud, we'll talk about later in Romans 9, because that has to do with individual and personal salvation. But I'm saying that the nation as a whole got to watch that glory cloud come down on the mountain. They got to see it. It's extraordinary, you and I have never seen anything like it. And it happened again and again, in Israel's history, didn't it? It wasn't just at one time. For example, in Exodus 40, after they had built the tent of meeting, the tabernacle, and it says the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the tent of meeting, because the cloud had settled upon it and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And so there's this sense of immediacy, the presence of God. You could see a cloud, you could see the glory. Moses physically couldn't go in the tent because of the glory. What an incredible thing that was. What would have been like inside your heart to have been there that day, to see that manifestation of the glory of God, and to read stories about it future generations? To know that Israel had that experience? Or later in Israel's history, at the time of Solomon's temple dedication, 1 Kings 8:10-11, "When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud for the glory of the Lord filled the temple." That's what they came to call "the Shekinah glory," the glory of the presence of the Lord. And the Israelites saw it and they experienced it in some way. But may I say to you that standing there among the congregation and seeing that glory doesn't save your soul. As a matter of fact, in some cases, it might have even been the final day of your life. In Numbers 14, the people rebelled against Moses and Aaron and spoke angry words against God. They wanted to choose leaders and go back to back to Egypt and eat all those leeks and onions and have the good life they had back there in Egypt. You remember how it was making those bricks without the straw? Forgot about that part. But anyway, they just wanted to go back. They were willing to get rid of Moses and Aaron, and the glory of the Lord showed up that day. The glory of the Lord. But it was not a good thing for them. It says as the whole assembly talked about stoning them, then the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the Israelites. The Lord said to Moses, "How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in Me inspite of all the miraculous signs that I have performed among them? …Not one of the men who saw my glory and the miraculous signs I performed in Egypt and in the desert, but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times, not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their forefathers. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it." So just to have the experience of the glory didn't save your soul. The Covenants It also speaks here of the covenants. This refers to the pattern of covenants that God had made with Israel. For example, the covenant made with Abraham in which He said, "Through your offspring, all peoples on earth will be blessed…" and "I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore…" And "To your descendants I will give this land." This was a unilateral covenant made by God with Abraham. But it did not guarantee individual, personal salvation for all of Abraham's physical descendants. That's the very point of Romans 9, which we'll develop more when we get to verse 6, not all Israel are Israel. It didn't guarantee them salvation. Or the Mosaic Covenant, "If you obey Me and keep all My commandments, then I will preserve you in the land, and you will be my people and I will be your God." Problem with that covenant, that little word "if." "If you will obey Me and keep all of My commandments, then we will have this relationship." But they didn't, they couldn't keep that covenant. Or the Davidic covenant. "You will never lack a son," said God to David, "to sit on the throne. I will build the house of your son and his kingdom will never end." Again, unilateral covenant. God said, "This is something I will do." And He did in Christ, but it did not guarantee individual and personal salvation for all of the Israelites. But those covenants were forms of display of God's glory, of communication, redemptive history. There was ample opportunity for the Jews to improve them through personal faith. But they didn't. The Giving of the Law It also speaks of the giving of the law. Clearly, this refers to Law of Moses. This was a tremendous blessing, to have the laws of God given to them. To understand, like the psalmist says, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my paths." "Oh, how I love Your law. I meditate on it all day long." It was a great gift to have the law of God. It says in Deuteronomy 4:8, "What other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?" What a wonderful body of laws it was. However, as you well know, simply having the law doesn't save your soul. Frankly, quite the opposite. The law actually condemned the Israelites because they did not keep it. Like it says in Romans 2:23, "You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?" There's no glory in having the law; there is glory in keeping the law, and they couldn't do it. Romans 3:20, "Therefore no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law, rather through the law, we become conscious of sin." It's not salvation that comes through the law. My friends, if salvation could come through the law, then what did you need Christ for? Galatians 2:21 says precisely that, "If salvation could come by the law, then Christ died for nothing." But it couldn't come that way. The Worship He also mentions this worship, which Eric said accurately earlier refers to the sacrificial system, the temple worship. The fact that animal sacrifice were given day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. Blood sacrifices. A great advantage for the Jews. Not because the blood of bulls and goats could take away sin, oh, they should have known it couldn't, but rather it was the clearest depiction of the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross you would ever have in history. The Jews got it day after day. What a great advantage. But did they take that advantage and improve it with faith? Did they believe the Gospel? No, they did not. David knew it, he said, "If offering bulls and goats could cleanse my sin, I would do it. You could have all of my bulls, if it could take away my sin with Bathsheba." The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart You will not despise. He knew that. Isaiah knew it when it said, "The multitude of your sacrifices, 'What are they to me?', says the Lord, 'I have more than enough of the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.'" I don't need this trampling of My courts, bringing these offerings endlessly. That's not what they were for. And so the sacrificial system did not guarantee personal salvation. As a matter of fact, in my opinion, if ever you think your ministry is hard, think about the ministry of the prophet Jeremiah. How would you like that ministry? "Okay, Jeremiah, here's your job. Why don't you go to downtown Jerusalem and as Nebuchadnezzar approaches with that huge army of his, I want you to tell them that Nebuchadnezzar's going to win, that he's going to destroy the temple, and that all of you people... Just a remnant of you, as a matter of fact, the rest will be slaughtered by the sword, famine, and plague, but the rest of you, the little remnant, the small few of you, the blessed ones, will get to go in exile to Babylon. Now go preach that, Jeremiah." And it's especially tough in that the Jews were trusting in the temple of the Lord. They were thinking, "God will never destroy this place." Well, now they're Jews standing wailing at the Wailing Wall as Herod's temple was destroyed. Well, that was just Herod The Great's temple, this was the temple, the Temple of Solomon, they thought God would never destroy it. Oh, how wrong they were. This is what the Lord said to Jeremiah, "Stand at the gate of the LORD's house and there proclaim this message: 'Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the LORD. This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words and say, "This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!" Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, "We are safe"-- safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you?'" "But I am watching," says the Lord.'" Oh, there was no safety in that physical temple, God proved it when Nebuchadnezzar's soldiers destroyed it. But they had the temple worship and it was enough so that if they had improved it with faith, their souls would have been saved. But it did not guarantee individual salvation for the nation. The Promises And then it also speaks of the promises, God's made many promises to Israel throughout their history. It's really closely tied to the covenants. But then there are other promises like that He would restore them back in the promised land after 70 years and He did. In the time of Ezra and Nehemiah brought them back, God fulfilled that promise. He's fulfilled more promises than we can imagine. They show God a faithful God a promise keeping God. They have a heritage of promises made and kept, greatest of them of all is Jesus Himself. They have the promises, but you know those promises don't guarantee the salvation of everyone because you know the Israelites, they have to believe the promises personally, for themselves. Abraham believed the Lord and was credited him His righteousness. Without that individual personal faith in the promises, the promises made to the nation meant nothing for you, meant nothing. The Patriarchs And then finally he mentions the patriarchs, the example of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the immense spiritual advantage Godly heritage to these men. But let me tell you something, having Abraham or Isaac, or Jacob as your father didn't mean you were going to Heaven. Not at all. As a matter of fact, that's one of the major points that Paul is going to be making in Romans 9:6-13. Physical lineage from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did not guarantee salvation. The Human Ancestry of the Christ The culmination of all of this though, the highest privilege ever, was the fact that God chose the Jews to bring His Savior into the world. That your Messiah, your Savior and mine is Jewish. Jewish ancestry. Do you find that humbling? You Gentiles, I'm a Gentile, it's humbling that God chose the Jews to bring His Son into the world and it is meant to be humbling. All of those nations on their high horses, all the Greeks and the Romans and the Babylonians with their great pride and they're great accomplishment. God didn't choose any of those nations. He chose the Jews. You think, well then Israel's up on their high horse. Well, that is the very point that Paul is going to make in Romans 9-11, how God gets Israel off their high horse, because God has bound all men over to disobedience in order that He may have mercy on them all. No one's on their high horse in front of God, not on Judgment Day. We are all humbled. What a great advantage that your nation, your little nation was chosen to be the physical avenue through which Jesus Christ would be born. The genealogy is Jewish from Abraham, through David to the Christ. It's a Jewish genealogy, and what a great advantage. But you know, for the Jews, it was no advantage to some degree, it was the stumbling but they couldn't get over. When Jesus went to preach in His home town in Matthew 13, He begins preaching and by this time, His ministry is well known, this is the second time coming to Nazareth. And began teaching the people in their synagogue and they were amazed, "Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?" They said, "Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't His mother's name Mary and are all His brothers with us James Joseph Simon and Judas and are all His sisters here with us too? Where then did this man get all these things?" Do you see the disdain? And Jesus said to them, "'Only in His home town and in His own house, is a prophet without honor,' and He did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith." So the fact that Jesus was Jewish grew up in their home town actually in the end was the stumbling block, they couldn't get over. Notice by the way, here a strong statement of Christ's deity. Look at verse five, "Theirs the patriarchs," He says, "And from them is traced the human ancestry, the according to the flesh, ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever blessed, amen." Now, I know that there are other translations but I believe (and I'm not going to take you through all of the exegesis), but I believe that he's intending fully to give a strong statement of Christ deity here, to balance off the strong statement of His fleshly humanity through the genealogy. This physical one who took on human flesh and blood through the Jews is actually God over all blessed forever, amen. Now these are the advantages to the Jews. But let me tell you something, the key concept. None of these advantages, guaranteed individual salvation for every Jew, and that's why He weeps, that's why He cries, that's why He is in great anguish. The Status of Unbelieving Jews Now the beauty is each one of those comes to full fruition when you come to faith in Christ, you become a true Israelite like Nathaniel, a genuine Jew, even if you're a Gentile, grafted in, by faith, you receive the adoption as sons, individually and personally. Romans 8. You get the divine glory. And I don't just mean some kind of fiery thing coming down on a mountain or a temporary glowing thing inside a tent. You get to see the glory of God with your own eyes, Jew or Gentile, if you have faith in Jesus, you get that, you get the covenants, all of them wrapped up in this. "This is My blood, the blood of the New Covenant…" that's Jesus summing up everything in the New Covenant you get it all. You get the receiving of the law, not outside written on tablets of stone, but inside your heart by the Spirit, yearning to obey and fulfill the Law of God love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, love your neighbors, yourself, that's what you get inside you. Jew or Gentile, you get true worship, Jesus as your final sacrifice, you get to worship Philippians 3:3, "By the Spirit of God," you get to taste what it really feels like to worship by the Spirit of God, and you get the promises. How many of them? Well, 2 Corinthians 1:20 says that as many as are made, they're yours, you get them all. All of the promises are yes and amen in Christ. Jew or Gentile, you get them all, and the patriarchs you get to have Abraham as your in faith. Following in his footsteps, and you get Christ. Now, last time I talked about Paul's anguish, the fruit of his anguish, was not mere emotionalism in chapter 10:1, he says, "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved." We also get the outpouring of Paul's life, as city after city. He goes into any reasons with the Jews, puts up with their abuse he talks to them preaches to them, he shares with them. Now, let me ask you a question, what is the significance of that? Isn't it obvious that Jews need the gospel of Jesus Christ in order to go to Heaven? Now, why do I have to believe this? Because some people don't think it's true. Some people through interesting and elaborate and intricate theology think that Jews are fine as such, leave them alone, it's just maybe plan A and we're plan B. You just go along that way, and they're fine as they are, and we're coming in our way and in the end we'll meet, that is utterly false. If that is the case, why is Paul weeping? Why would he exchange his salvation? Why? It's because there's great danger for them. Listen to this, this is a statement from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops recently, this is what it says, "The command of the resurrected Christ in Matthew 28:19, to make disciples of all nations means that the church must bear witness in the world to the good news of Christ so as to prepare the world for the fullness of the Kingdom of God. However this evangelizing task no longer includes the wish to absorb the Jewish faith into Christianity and so end the distinctive witness of Jews to God in human history. Thus while the Catholic Church regards the saving act of Christ as central to the process of human salvation for all, it also acknowledges," listen, "that Jews already dwell in a saving covenant with God." Be horrified at this statement. Be horrified. If Jews already exist in a saving covenant with God, then what's Romans 9:1-5 about? What is the sorrow and the unceasing anguish about? Is it not clear that Paul feels passionately to the depth of his being that Jews must be evangelized, that you must share the gospel with Jewish people no matter what it costs? And what did it cost Paul? I think it cost him his life. Cost him his life. Old Testament blessings are limited. The list of those blessings, is not enough to save your soul. It's magnificent and wonderful, but it's not enough to save your soul. III. Application Now, what application can we take from Romans 9, especially four and five. Well, first of all, can I urge you to thank God that you're in a covenant with better promises than these? Thank God for the New Covenant, thank God that Jesus came to be mediator of a better covenant than all of these promises, as it says in Hebrews 7:22. Thank God, it says in Hebrews 8:6, "But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which He is mediator, is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises." We have a better covenant, we have better promises now better than these. Promises of the New Covenant are overwhelming and better. And you know why? Because they reach right into our souls, and they take out our heart of flesh and they give us a heart of stone, and they give us a heart of flesh, that we can obey. Other than that, it just stands on the outside. And do you really think you as a nation would have done any better than the Jews? I tell you no, but because of the blessings of the New Covenant, we have eternal life. So be thankful. But secondly, like Paul is going to say later in Romans 11, "Don't be arrogant but be afraid." Remember how he puts up the image of a healthy olive tree with all of this redemptive history and the sap flowing through in these natural branches, the branches are getting stripped off, stripped off and then these wild branches from who knows where are being grafted into this Jewish olive tree and sap is flowing up through them. And you will say, he says in Romans 11, "Branches were broken off so I could be grafted in," granted. Interesting, he says, "Granted." "But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you Gentiles, as a whole, you stand by faith, do not be arrogant but be afraid for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you either." Now, what do I mean? It's not that we should say, "Hey we're in first place now, and there in the back," that's not it. Rather, realize what's happened to Israel, realize that because they rejected what God was doing, they stand in the present situation that they're in, and therefore, if today, you hear His voice, don't harden your heart, you individual Gentiles who call yourselves Christians, follow Jesus today, follow Him, walk with Him day by day, and serve Him. Thirdly, can I urge you to evangelize your children? Do you know that no one gets saved because they had a Jew for a father? And do you know that no one gets saved because they have a Christian for a father either? You understand what I'm saying? You Christian parents, you're bringing your children to church, praise God for that, praise God for that. The central purpose of your family should be the glory of God at this point when your children are growing, the glory of God in the conversion and discipleship of your children, that's your first greatest purpose. Evangelize your children. What benefit, what good would it be to gain the whole world and lose your family? So, you're out doing ministry do it, but don't assume just because they are kind of under the New Covenant blessings. Hebrews 6:4-6 lists how you can be enlightened, and taste the heavenly gift, and you can go through all these things and still be reprobate, you can still turn away. And can I speak to you children? You're coming here right now because your parents make you right? I hope you're coming also because you delight in the Word of God, because you delight to be here, because you want to be here, because there will come a time when you'll be out from under your parental authority, and you can be whatever you choose to be. You don't have to go to church then, but just having a Christian mommy and daddy doesn't get you to Heaven, you must repent. You must believe, you must follow yourself because you know if God didn't spare the Jews because they didn't believe, because of their heritage and their ancestry is not going to spare Gentile unbelievers either. Finally can I urge you to be active in prayer for and evangelism to Israel. Be willing to share the gospel with Jews. I was on a plane flight coming back from China and sitting next to a Jewish woman, and we introduced each other, and we started talking. I kind of felt sorry for her because she was in the window seat and I was in a middle seat and she was there with me for I guess about 10 hours. So, and when the conversation began, I started talking to her about Christian things, and she said "Oh I'm Jewish." Meaning, you don't need to talk to me about this. Shot it down, I said, "Oh great, I'm talking to the right person." It didn't end the conversation, that began the conversation. If you're ever going door to door, you're witnessing a coworker or a roommate or a classmate, or something and they say, "I'm Jewish," they think that ends the conversation. I'm telling you, it begins it. You have so much to work with, you have so much to work with. You have all of those prophecies. Say "Well have you ever read that vision of the Son of Man in Daniel 7? "The what?" "Well, let's look at it." And you can ask them about Isaiah 53. You start looking at it with them. It's not the end of the conversation, folks, it's the beginning of the conversation. And let me tell you something. God has His elect among the Jews, too, He says, "Has God rejected His people?" Romans 11 He says, "No, by no means, I'm an Israelite too." He's still saving Jews, but He saves them through the hearing and believing of the gospel. So can I urge you Gentiles, be like Paul, "My heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is their salvation." And then evangelize with courage and conviction. Don't let that be the stop when they tell you, "I'm Jewish," say, "Praise God. Let's go on and talk." And you'll see a fruitful harvest. I trust.

sermon transcript The Covenant-Making God Calls for Holiness We come this morning to Genesis 17, and the institution of the covenant sign of circumcision. As I come to this Scripture this morning in Genesis 17, I'm brought to another place in Scripture, Matthew 5:17, where our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ said this, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." Well, that's what Jesus said about the written Word, and that includes here in Genesis 17, a command for circumcision, which in this Scripture seems established to be timeless. And so, those that were inerrantist, those that wanted a literalistic interpretation of the Bible in the first century, were greatly troubled by those who said, "You don't need to circumcise your children." They said, it says, it's timeless, it's an eternal covenant. And so, it brought the early church into the flames of controversy. The Holy Spirit led the church through that, so that we who are Gentiles by birth, are not required to be circumcised in order to go to Heaven. Somebody say amen, praise God for that. How hard would missions be if we were still required to undergo the old covenant ceremonies? Very difficult. There would be some that would be willing just like Abraham was at age 99, but God has not so ordained for us. So that brings us to another question, doesn't it? Why? Actually, two questions. Why did God establish circumcision in the Old Covenant for Abraham and for all his descendants? What was He doing? What was the purpose? And, secondly, why did he remove the requirement in the new covenant? Those two questions are going to be in the back of your mind, but first I want to just unfold Genesis 17, try to see what's in that text, and then we will come full circle at the end and try to understand those two questions. Context: The Limitations of Human Flesh Exposed Now, the context for the giving of this circumcision sign, the sign of this old covenant with Abraham was Genesis 16. Now in Genesis 16, as we looked last week, was Abram and Sarai's attempts in their own flesh to fulfill the promise of God? It was pretty obvious that try as they might again and again, Sarai, her womb barren, the two of them just could not have children physically, it was impossible. And so, they decided to take matters in their own hands, and Sarai said, “Now, here's Hagar, my Egyptian servant. Now you go and marry her and have a son by her, and he will be reckoned as mine.” And so, Abram fit into the cultural norms of the day and did a sinful thing, he did something that God did not intend. We saw the outcome of that last week in Genesis 16. God Appears to Abram Now you are in Verse 1, it says, “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless.’” Thirteen Years of Silence Now, this ends 13 years of biblical silence between God and Abram. We don't know for sure; the Bible doesn't say that there were no words from God during that time, it doesn't say that, but I think the silence is pretty stark here. Thirteen years, God has not revealed anything in Scripture, at least to Abram. After 13 years of silence, He comes and says, I am God almighty, walk before me and be blameless. God’s Call: Personal Daily Holiness There is a sense of holiness here, a sense of the righteousness of God and of His purposes as well. Now, I think the reason for the 13 years and for the strong word here is that God wants to reveal His power in human inability. Really, in human impossibility. God loves to say, “With man, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.” And so, it's clearly established that the arm of flesh can accomplish nothing. And so, He waits for 13 years as Ishmael grows up. He waits to chastise Abram and Sarai, to train them and to teach them one central lesson, said later by the prophet Zechariah. Zechariah 4:6 says, “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty.” You don't take matters in your own hands in God's kingdom. You don't do it the way you think is best. You wait on the Lord and let Him tell you what He says to do. And so, the Holy Spirit will lead. It is the spirit that will work, it is God who will get the glory when human inability is so clearly established. The human flesh has its own ways. We have our own ways of doing things. And so, Abram and Sarai took matters into their own hands. God waited to put human strength and schemes at an end. Until it became very obvious that “Abram's body was as good as dead−since he was about a hundred years old−and that Sarai’s womb was also dead.” Romans 4:19. Hebrews 11:12 says, “And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.” So, God is waiting for the dust of their rebellion to settle. And after 13 years, comes this word, this promise, again. And so, God appears to Abram, and we see here, the working of God's grace. God didn't cast off Abram and Sarai, he didn't throw them out because they were sinners or they disobeyed His patterns established from the very beginning concerning marriage, He didn't throw them out. God redeems sinners. God uses sinners. Anybody here not a sinner? Anybody willing to come and tell us how to do it? I think everybody I'm looking at here is a sinner and I'm a sinner too. And yet, if I'm a sinner, I'm up here and God can actually use me and God can use you, too. And so, he works through sinful people to accomplish His ends. The grace of God. Sometime later, Genesis 17:1 says, “When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless.’” He appears to him, and he gets a reaction from Abram. Abram, it says, falls face down. And so would you, if the Lord had appeared to you, wouldn't that be delightful to be just slain by a vision of God this afternoon, could you spend better time this afternoon than that, to fall face down before an appearance of God Almighty? And the terror and the fear of the Lord came over Abram at that moment. And he feared and he fell face down. And then came the call, God's holiness, God's purity, His perfection. Out of the perfection of His nature and His heart, He said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless.” This is a call for each one of us today. Be holy because I am holy, says the Lord, it's a call in the old covenant, and it's a call in the new covenant as well. God is a Holy God, He is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. And when it says, “Walk before me,” it means live your everyday life in front of me, Abram. Let me watch how you live. Job says, “Does He not see my ways and count my every step?” He knows the slightest inclination of my heart, He sees every word before it's on my tongue, He knows it all together completely. He knows everything about us, and so walk before me, he says, live your life on a stage in front of me. Let me watch you. And as I watch you realize, my eyes are too pure to look on evil, I can't tolerate wrong. Walk before me and be blameless. This is a rebuke, I believe, for Genesis 16. Don't do things your way. Don't follow the cultural norms. Find out what it is I want and do it, even if it's costly. The Covenant Repeated, with New Tokens Having introduced this, then He refreshes or renews the covenant, this is the grace of God. He comes again with the covenant, and you are going to see in the Covenant as it's renewed with some new tokens here, some new aspects, you are going to see the same two central promises, a multiplicity of descendants and the promised land, you are going to see those same two things reiterated here, but some new tokens. Look at Verses 2 through 8, God says, “I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers. Abram fell face down, and God said to him, ‘As for me, this is my covenant with you. You will be the father of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.’” This is the covenant reestablished as it were. Not that it ever went away because God's gifts and His calling are irrevocable. But here He refreshes it, He renews and He gives some new tokens. Why God Repeated the Covenant Now, why does God keep refreshing and renewing this covenant? Well, could it be that people are just forgetful? We forget, it's been 13 years after all, and if it's been silence, 13 years of silence and realized, he didn't have the blessing we have, you realize what a blessing this book is? We can read this day after day and refresh and renew our sense of the promises of God. Abram didn't have the written scripture, all he had is the last word that God gave him, the last word to go on, the last vision. And so, he comes and he refreshes and he renews his faith by means of the word. It's the same promise again, faith, can I tell you right now? Faith is a living thing. It's like a plant, it needs fertilizer, it needs water. My wife and I, I'm not trying. . . just me, let's put it on me. We kill all the plants we get; we kill them all. I don't know what it is we haven't killed. I had a cactus once and it took me two years to kill that, and that was tough, but other than that, we can kill anything. Christy is better than I. I don't in any way, want to talk about this later this afternoon, but anyway, definitely. I'm the one that . . . and the fertilizer, the water. That kind of thing. It needs it. Your faith is alive, it's alive and it needs food. You know what food it needs; it needs this, it needs the word. You have got to feed your faith, if you don't feed your faith, it's going to wither, it's going to shrink up. It's going to be fruitless. You have got to feed your faith with the Word. And so, God comes and He gives Abram his faith, a big meal here. He renews the promises and He speaks to him. But he also wants to establish Abram’s pattern of obedience, this could be translated in effect; “I am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless, so that I may confirm my covenant with you.” In other words, there needs to be a pattern of obedience, Abram, or I cannot confirm my covenant with you. If Abram had become utterly faithless, if he had not believed the promise, if he had, for example, had no marital relations with his wife, it would have been literally physically impossible for this promise to be fulfilled. He had to obey, he had to act on his faith, Genesis 18, 18 and 19, we're going to see that shortly. But God speaking about Abraham says, “Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just,” listen, “so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what He has promised him.” You see, there's a connection between our faith-filled obedience and the fulfillment of the covenant promise. And so, He says, “Walk before me and be blameless so I will confirm my covenant between me and you…” And then, He gives him this remarkable token, the change of a name. Now, as a preacher here, it was hard for me to change Abraham's name to Abram, but from now on, I have got to go back to what I've always known. This man is Abraham, and so he gave him the new name, Abraham. Abraham’s Name Change Names are significant in scripture. They could refer to a character trait that could be like Jacob, He who grasped the heel, he's a con-artist, he's a deceiver. There's a sense of name for Esau because he was reddy, a red or a ruddy, with his red hair, he was named Edom or Esau. Many times, in scripture, there is also the sense of the changing of a name. When Jacob went to Israel, he who wrestles with God, there was a change of the name there. Also, for God's people in Isaiah 62:2, it says, “The nations will see your righteousness and all kings your glory; you will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow.” Isn't that marvelous? And that very same promise is picked up in the Book of Revelation, in Revelation 2:17, listen to this, this is so wonderful. “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.” What an incredible blessing that is, and God has the power to change a name. And what was the change? Well, Abram meant exalted Father. Abraham meant the father of many nations. Past Tense: God Calls Things That Are Not as Though They Were Notice that God uses the past tense here in Verse 5, he says, “No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.” I have made you a father of many nations? That's exactly right. God speaks and it is even if it isn't yet, you know what I'm saying? It's as good as done because God said it. “Let there be light,” He said, and there was light. God speaks, and it is, or it will be most certainly in his good timing. And so, it says in Romans 4:17, “As it is written: ‘I have made you a father of many nations.’” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed, the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. And he does it right here in this verse, do you see that? He said, “I've made you a father of many nations,” even though he is the father right now of just Ishmael, “father of many nations.” And so, Abraham was designated to be the father of many nations, even though his body was as good as dead, and Sarai's womb was also dead, yet God has the power to call things that are not as though they were. And you know what? That's what he does at the moment of salvation, isn't it? He calls into your soul something that wasn't there before, a love for God, an estimation of the weight of the glory of Jesus Christ, the glory of God in the face of Christ. In 2 Corinthians, Chapter 4, He called a light into your soul that didn't exist before. It's called regeneration, being born again. He can do that to anybody. He has the power to speak to dead people as though they were alive and they come alive like Lazarus. And you know what, He's going to do it to you when you're in the grave. All who are in the grave will hear his voice and come out, he has the power to give life to the dead on that great resurrection day. He can do that to whole nations, he can rise a nation up out of the dust and make them a world-conquering empire, and then he can send them back into the dust. God does all these things. He calls things that are not as though they were. The Covenant Sign Given and Circumcision First Covenant Requirement Then, He gives him the covenant sign of circumcision. Look at Verses 9 through 14, this is the first covenant requirement, circumcision. In Verse 10, it says, “Then God said to Abraham, ‘As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come.’” Verse 10, “This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised.” And so, here is the covenant sign of circumcision. Now, up to this point, the covenant has been one way, God in effect saying, “This is what I will do for you.” But now here is a covenant obligation or responsibility, a covenant command, you must be circumcised and all your males with you. It is a sign, Verse 11, “it will be the sign.” Look at that word in Verse 11, “You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you.” The Sign of the Covenant Now, a sign is a symbol or something that represents a reality that already is. And so, the covenant had already come, God had already made his covenant in Genesis 15. This is so vital and so important, and Paul picks up on this in a major way in the Book of Romans. The reality was already there, the sign was given later, and so circumcision is a covenant sign. The same word is used in the Hebrew of the sign of the rainbow. For the flood of Noah, in Genesis 9:12-16, God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant.” So, here's another aspect of the sign, the sign causes remembrance. When you look at this and you see the sign, you remember the covenant. And that's the purpose of the covenant of circumcision. It was a sign. The same thing was true of the sign of the blood of the Passover lamb. In Exodus 12:13, “The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.” Here's the thing, this is a covenant sign, this is a representation that causes remembrance, that when you look at it, there is a reality behind it. There is a covenant promise. God had said, I will not destroy any of your first born, if you obey this and paint the blood of the Passover lamb, it's a sign, and that's so important. And yet in a strange way, it's also called a covenant unto itself. Look at Verse 13, “Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant.” Oh boy, now we get into some problems, and we'll get to this in a minute, this word everlasting, but there it is, it's a covenant in the flesh, the covenant of circumcision that is given. I can't go long in Genesis 17 without saying, Paul, tell me what it means, I need to understand. And so, Paul gives us an inspired commentary on this whole thing in Romans Chapter 4. Paul is dealing with the question of justification by faith alone. What does that mean? It's the way a sinner like you and me is able to stand before a holy God, righteous and unafraid on judgment day, and even before that, that today we can be, like Jesus said in John 13, the foot washing, we can be clean because of the word He has spoken to us. Aren't you hungry for that? Don't you want to be clean before God today? To stand before Him blameless and unafraid. That's justification righteousness, that we can stand before Him. Well, how does it come? Well, how did it come for Abraham? This is what Paul writes in Romans 4:9-12, "Is this blessedness” of forgiveness, of being clean before God, “is this blessedness only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised?” We have been saying that Abraham's faith was credited unto him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised.” That's us as Gentiles. We believe, but we were not ceremoniously or religiously or covenantally circumcised. We were not. He is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness may be credited to them. And, he is also the father of the circumcised,” those are the Jews, “who not only are circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that their father Abraham had before he was circumcised.” The Extent of the Sign Let me unravel all that very simply, okay, it's really this simple. Genesis 15 comes before Genesis 17. And in Genesis 15, God said, "You're righteous." In Genesis 17, "Oh, by the way, be circumcised." And so, we don't need to be circumcised in order to be righteous. That's the point that Paul makes very simply, and he makes this whole argument on the ordering of the narrative in the Old Testament, that's the way that Paul argues. The circumcision came after the righteousness. Now, what is the extent of the covenant sign? Well, look at Verses 12 and 13, "For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner−those who are not your offspring. Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant." The Penalty of Disobedience So first of all, every male among you, any male among you, part of your group, they must all be circumcised, it should be done for a newborn infant eight days old, that's when it's done at eight days, and it's to be done for generations to come, for it's an everlasting covenant. We'll get to that in a minute. Now, is there a penalty for disobedience? Yes, there is, look at Verse 14, "Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant." Now, that is serious. Do you see that as a covenant penalty, if you are not circumcised, you don't circumcise your children, you're cut off from Israel? You are left out of the people of God, very serious. That meant they were no longer a Jew, they were no longer a descendant of Abraham, as it were, because they are not circumcised. That's how serious this is. Was Circumcision an Everlasting Covenant Now, let's get to this question. Was this covenant an everlasting covenant, the way it says the word is translated here, everlasting covenant. Well, this Hebrew word “everlasting” is sometimes used to refer to God Himself. It says in Psalm 29:10, "The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord is enthroned as King forever." Is that like forever and ever and ever and ever? Yes, you just can look and see it's eternal. God is King forever. He's eternally the king, or how about this one? Isaiah 40:8, "The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God stands forever." Is that forever and ever? Yes, it's eternal, God's Word is eternal. So, concerning God's throne and concerning His word, the same word means eternally. But we get into problems when it comes to the Old Covenant issues, because the same word is used for things that became temporary when the New Covenant came, and so the word actually can mean until further notice coming from God. And, I know that that's troubling to you, but that's in effect what it is, you must circumcise until I tell you to stop. And we Christians have to accept that, because that's literally what happened. We've got to circumcise. You want to be part of the people of God? You must circumcise until I tell you to stop. The same was true of the Old Testament sacrificial system, wasn't it? You must do this. You must do it; you must do it until I tell you, it has been fulfilled. Now, here's the thing. Jesus said in the quote that I gave you at the beginning, a Sermon on the Mount, He said, ". . .until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear. . ." until what? "Everything is fulfilled." Well, this has been fulfilled, brother and sisters, this has been fulfilled. The animal sacrificial system has been fulfilled and so has circumcision. So, the word can mean something other than eternally. For example, look at Deuteronomy 15:17, don't turn there, but just listen. Speaking of a servant who wants to become a permanent member of the family, it says, ". . .then take an awl and push it through his ear lobe into the door, and he will become your servant for life." Now, is that a different forever than God's throne? Well, yeah, I mean, servant until he dies, so at least that much is the case, not eternal. Or how about this? Exodus 29:9, "You shall gird Aaron and his sons with sashes and bind caps on them. And the priesthood shall be theirs by a statute forever," or is that an eternal priesthood? Aaron's priesthood, an eternal? No, the Book of Hebrews said it was temporary. How about dietary regulations? Leviticus 3:17, "It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations, and in all your dwelling places, that you eat neither fat nor blood." Jesus declared all foods clean. Or the atonement sacrifice. Leviticus 16:34, "This will be a statute forever," these are all the same Hebrew words for you, "that atonement may be made for people of Israel once a year because of their sins," blood atonement, animal sacrificial system. And Moses did as the Lord commanded him. These old covenant regulations were called eternal or everlasting, even though the New Covenant came and overturned them or ended them, fulfilled them really. And so, the basic meaning here is that this is established as a covenant until I come and tell you otherwise. And that's exactly what happened in the New Covenant. The Covenant Child Designated: Sarah’s Son Isaac Well, God goes beyond that in Verses 15 through 22, He designates the covenant child. He makes it very clear. Now, apparently Abram, Abram, you did not know. Let's call him Abraham now. See, I have to learn. See Abraham picked it right up. He knew he was Abraham that same day. But for me, it takes a little while to go back and forth−so Abraham. Sarah’s Name Change: Meaning = Princess You apparently are confused concerning who the woman is through whom you are going to have the promised child. Well, let's make that very clear right here, and right now, Genesis 17, "God said also to Abraham, 'As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.’ Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, ‘Will a son be born to a man 100 years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?’ And Abraham said to God, 'If only Ishmael might live under Your blessing!' Then God said, ‘Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.'" Verse 22, "When He had finished speaking with Abraham, God went up from him." It's very clear after that, through whom the child, the promise is coming, it's coming through your wife, Sarah. God Exalts Marriage: It is through Sarah the Seed Will Come So, God exalts marriage the way he originally established, one man, one woman, one flesh for life. This is your wife, and it's through her that the child is going to come. Now, Sarai’s name change, the new name means princess, is fitting for a mother of kings; the previous name Sarai, the meaning is unclear. But in effect, this is a new start for Sarai, she is going to be Sarah from now on, and she is going to be the mother of kings, it's not going to be some rabble or some hoard, it's going to be an organized people with kings one after the other. And so, it's an exalted name for her and a new start and a promise of fruitfulness and blessing. Verse 16, "I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations. . ." only with God's direct, supernatural blessing will this ever come. Sarai's womb had been barren, Sarah's womb would be fruitful one time, she would have a son, and his name would be Isaac. Abraham’s Joy and Concern Well, at this point, Abraham falls face down and laughs. Now, you could think this is the laugh of unbelief, and in Genesis 18, that's what it was for Sarah, she couldn't believe it and laughed through unbelief, but this is not the laugh of unbelief, this is the laugh of joy. This is what God does to you. He blesses you so that you laugh with joy or maybe you cry with joy, but God is into filling your heart with His blessings, and so he just falls on the ground and laughs. How do we know that he believed the Lord at this moment? Well, it says so in Romans. See, Romans is the commentary. You say, "Well, what commentaries do you use? I like to use Romans 4:19-21 to comment on Abraham's life. I think it's a great commentary, and so it says right there in the commentary, it says, "Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead−since he was about a hundred years old−and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised." Isn't that marvelous? And so, he was strengthened in his faith, and as I was going over this text this morning, God showed me an indicator right in the text that he believed the Lord right there. Look what it says, "He falls on the ground." And what does he say? "Will a son be born to a man 100 years old." And what does he say next? "Will Sarah bear a child at age 90?" He didn't say Sarai. I mean, the news about Sarai to Sarah, that was just a few seconds old, he picks it up by faith, and the woman that he had known for all those decades as his wife, the wife of his youth, he had known her all her life as Sarai, he instantly changes her name in his mind to Sarah because God said so. And if God says so, that settles it to him, he's a man of faith, and so he changes her name in his own mind to Sarah, he believes the Lord. He also has a concern, and his concern is for Ishmael, like a good father, like Job who offered sacrifices for his sons and daughters thinking they might have cursed God in their hearts. If you are a good father, you will pray for your children, if you are a good father, you will be concerned about the spiritual welfare of your children. You'll intercede for them, and that's what he does for Ishmael here, "If only Ishmael might live under Your blessing," he knew in the providence of God and the sovereign will of God, Ishmael was not the child of promise, God's plans were going to go another way, but he said, "What about Ishmael?" He said, "I have heard you: I will surely bless him.” “But my covenant I will establish with Isaac.” God is very clear about that. The Covenant Obeyed Immediate Obedience: To Delay is to Disobey Well, in Verses 23-27, we see Abraham's faith in action. He obeys Him. To delay is to disobey, isn't it? You don't wait. If God tells you to do something, you do it. If He wants you to be in the intensive evangelism workshop, for example, maybe. To delay is to disobey. Alright, if God is calling on you to do something, you have to do it. And Verse 23 tells us, "On that very day Abraham took his son Ishmael and all those born in his household or bought with his money, every male in his household, and he circumcised them, as God told him." True Faith Always Results in Obedience Now, I doubt that God has asked you to do anything that difficult in the last year. This is a 99-year-old man, a 13-year-old son, every male that is with them, he had a large entourage with him, he led his family in obedience, and it was costly obedience. It was painful obedience. It was humbling obedience, and he did it, and he did it promptly, and he did it completely. True faith always results in complete and total obedience. The Promise and Purpose of Circumcision: Fulfilled in Christ Now we get back to our questions, I said at the end we would come full circle, what are the two key questions? Well, why did God command circumcision for the Jews? And why does He not command it for us? Circumcision Was Required for Jews Now, that's the question in front of us. First of all, was circumcision commanded for the Jews? Absolutely. We've seen it right here in the text. And you remember later in Exodus 4, when Moses had neglected to circumcise his own children, his wife, Zipporah, circumcises them and then basically chews him out saying, "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me. . .” because you've not obeyed in this matter of circumcision." And it says right in that text, ". . .the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him” because he did not obey concerning circumcision. So yes, this was absolutely required for the Jews, no doubt about it. Circumcision Not Required for Christians Is circumcision required for Christians? No, it isn't. And why? Well, they had a big meeting in Acts 15, it was the mother of all church conferences there, and they all met and everybody came and they discussed things out, and you think you've had some hard church conferences. Well, this was very hot because you had some folks that read out of Genesis 17, now this is meant to be an everlasting covenant, it's meant to be an eternal covenant. And so, unless the Gentiles are circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses, they cannot be saved. Paul and Barnabas come into sharp dispute and debate with them that they have got to meet to settle it, and so they do. And in Acts 15, we see a marvelous thing as both Paul and Peter stand up for what God wanted done. And that was a gospel of grace, a gospel of no longer being under the ceremonial law. And so, they wrote a letter to the Council of Jerusalem and refused to require Gentiles to be circumcised. Acts 15:28 says, "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements." It then gives a list of four things that help them not to offend their Jewish neighbors, but there is no sense of obligation or requirement to be circumcised in order to go to Heaven. And so, they resolved it. Meanwhile, the Apostle Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, wrote a whole book about it, the Book of Galatians, in which he takes on the circumcision party and says very plainly, we have freedom from the ceremonial law. You are begun by the Spirit; you are not completed by the flesh. Now that you have been born again by the power of the Spirit of God, you don't then go back under a bunch of rules and regulations that neither we nor our fathers were ever able to keep. And so, it's an epistle of freedom. Martin Luther called it his Katie Von Bora, that's his wife's name. He loved Galatians because it freed him up from the legalistic system of Roman Catholicism which is so much like that circumcision group, freed up, and Paul establishes it very plainly. As I've said in Romans 4, Abraham was justified by faith alone just by hearing the word long before he was circumcised. And so, we do not need to be circumcised physically. But the New Testament also gives us a new way of understanding circumcision, not just a physical circumcision, a cutting off of the flesh physically, but rather a new circumcision inwardly, by the Spirit. Listen to this. Romans 2:28-29 says, "A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God." You must be circumcised, but not in the old way, you must be transformed by the Spirit, you must be given a whole new nature in Christ, you must be born again by the Spirit because neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. What counts is a new creation, it says in Galatians 6:15. Also, in Colossians 2:11, it says "In him you are also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ." Now, why then did God command the Jews to do it if we don't have to do it? Well, I was reading a book recently by Jay Wile called Reasonable Faith: The Scientific Case for Christianity. This man is a good speaker and I really enjoy the things he writes. He says that circumcision was done for hygienic purposes. Have you heard this before? Dr. Wile shows how the rules regarding circumcision are based on medical knowledge that has only recently been uncovered over the last 30 years, showing that Jewish women have an amazingly lower clinical occurrence of cervical cancer than do non-Jewish women, and they trace it to the issue of circumcision. Well, that's probably true, but I don't think it was God's main thought. Okay. And why was it probably not God's main thought? Well, you know, I'm kind of offended that God would be so concerned for the Jews physically and not care about me as a Gentile. Doesn't He care about my wife? You see what I'm saying? Why would he take it off in the New Covenant, if that was His reason, hygiene? Same thing is true of the dietary regulations, they say it's because of pork. There wasn't refrigeration and all that. Have you heard this before? I'm thinking, “What? He doesn't love us.” If the reason was hygiene, He should have kept it on. Right, it wasn't hygiene. That's not why He did it. Why then? Why the rule for circumcision? Well, I believe that God put the ceremonial laws in there to carve out a people unto Himself, calling them Jews, a barrier as it were, a wall around the Jews that kept them Jewish until Christ was born. And once Christ was born, once the Seed came, there was no longer any need for the ceremonial regulations. Let me read to you. That's what it says. Galatians 3:19, "What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come." Who's the Seed? It's Christ. Once Christ was born of a virgin, once He was born, you did not need animal sacrifice, you did not need circumcision, the dietary regulations, all that's done, because Jesus was born a Jew, and once the salvation is from the Jews, once the Jewish Savior was born in a Jewish nation, God changed what He wanted done with that barrier, that dividing wall. There was a barrier, dividing wall−Jew, Gentile−He tore it down. He took it down, and you know why? Because in the New Covenant, He wants one new person. Listen to this, this is Ephesians 2:14-16, speaking of Christ, "For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one, [Jew, Gentile] and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in His flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which He put to death their hostility." Jesus at the cross tore down the barrier between Jew and Gentile, and so there wasn't any need for circumcision as a ceremonial regulation, and from then on it really is hygienic, it's not ceremonial, there's no purpose, ceremonially, there's no advantage and no disadvantage in your spiritual relationship with God concerning circumcision, and therefore decisions, if you have a boy baby, they really are hygienic, it really has nothing to do with religion, and frankly, it must not, because we're in a New Covenant now and the barrier has been torn down. Application Now, what application can we take from this. Well, first of all, just marvel at God’s ways. I mean, only God could think up something like this. Circumcision, it's not an easy sermon to preach, this is the expository kind of approach, and it's like the kind you want to skip, you know. But at any rate, in Genesis 17, I want to understand, why did He do it? I want to put my mind under His, because as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His ways higher than ours. So, let's marvel at God's higher ways, at the fact that He wanted to carve out a Jewish nation. And once Jesus was born, there was no need for the barrier any longer. Secondly, understand the purposes and limitations of those ceremonial laws, like I just said, they are finished. You don't ever need to go back to that legalism again, you must not. We have freedom from all of those regulations, but we do not have freedom from the law of Christ. We are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and we are still to love our neighbor as ourselves. Above all things, trust in God's higher promise in Christ. You know, circumcision, uncircumcision, none of that means anything. What counts is being born again. If you're sitting and listening to me today, it doesn't matter how much regulations, how many of the rules you keep and all that, you'll never go to heaven that way, it's only by believing in Jesus Christ, the promised Seed, who was to come that you have eternal life, trust in Him today. Trust in Him, follow Him, love Him. And just like Abraham did, walk before Him and be blameless, and I'm speaking now to all of you who are born again, who call yourselves Christians, in effect, the Lord comes in the same way today as He did to Abram, Abraham, and He comes and says, "I am the Lord Almighty, walk before Me today and be blameless."