Podcasts about southern baptist churches

Southern Baptist Convention membership has dropped to its lowest level in over 50 years, falling from nearly 13.7 million in 2021 to just over 12.7 million in 2025. While leaders tout rising baptism numbers, critics say this masks the real issue—declining relevance and aging congregations.The Non-Prophets dive into what this means for American Christianity, global religious trends, and why the church's cultural power may not be fading as fast as its pews.News Source The Friendly Atheist, by Hemant Mehta, May 1, 2025https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/southern-baptist-membership-hitsThe Non-Prophets, Episode 24.19.4 featuring Kelley Laughlin, Eli Slack, Jason Friedman, and Jonathan RoudabushSouthern Baptist Membership Plummets to 50-Year Low

The ERLC operates out of two locations—Nashville, as our home base, and Capitol Hill, where we've had a permanent presence for 31 years. Our work in D.C. is focused on making the voice of Southern Baptists heard in the public policy space. We do this by regularly working with lawmakers, coalition partners, and like-minded organizations to increase our influence and maintain the stance of our SBC churches, shape the cultural debates of the day, provide pastors with information they need, and equip the SBC to stand for truth in their communities. On today's episode, we're talking with Brent Leatherwood, president of the ERLC, Hannah Daniel, ERLC's director of public policy, and Allison Cantrell, senior policy associate for the ERLC, to get a better idea of the important work your ERLC does in the public square.

Show Notes:Explore our resourcesFind rest and retreat at one of the many Shepherd's House locationsFind offerings provided to Women in Ministry Advancing the Church (ATC) Podcast EpisodeWrite a review on Apple Podcasts or SpotifyVisit the contact Page(02:07) Biblical framework for giving for gospel advancement(06:02) How Reformed Baptist Church Louisville determined missions giving(10:00) Cooperative Program giving for Auburndale and other Southern Baptist Churches(14:48) How do we appropriate missions giving as a church?(18:12) Being strategic and intentional in missions giving(22:44) Prioritizing when church funds are limited(25:57) Determining who receives support and who doesn't(29:12) Final word and prayer

Show Notes:Explore our resourcesFind rest and retreat at one of the many Shepherd's House locationsFind offerings provided to Women in Ministry Advancing the Church (ATC) Podcast EpisodeWrite a review on Apple Podcasts or SpotifyVisit the contact Page(02:07) Biblical framework for giving for gospel advancement(06:02) How Reformed Baptist Church Louisville determined missions giving(10:00) Cooperative Program giving for Auburndale and other Southern Baptist Churches(14:48) How do we appropriate missions giving as a church?(18:12) Being strategic and intentional in missions giving(22:44) Prioritizing when church funds are limited(25:57) Determining who receives support and who doesn't(29:12) Final word and prayer

Send us a Text Message.Discover the inner workings of Southern Baptist churches with our esteemed guest, Dr. Michael Cloer, as we explore their unique structure and mission in this enlightening episode of "More Than Medicine." Understand how these churches operate as a voluntary network, emphasizing local autonomy while fostering a strong cooperative spirit to fulfill the Great Commission. Learn about the important roles played by the International Mission Board and the North American Mission Board, which collectively support thousands of missionaries around the globe. We also provide an insider's look at the Southern Baptist Convention's annual gathering in Indianapolis, renowned as the world's largest business meeting, where representatives make pivotal decisions to shape their mission and ministry efforts.Our conversation takes a deeper turn as we examine the critical doctrinal beliefs that set Southern Baptists apart, particularly their unwavering commitment to the authority of the Bible. Reflecting on the liberal shifts of the 1960s and 1970s that divided many mainline denominations, we contrast this with the Southern Baptists' firm stance in the early 1980s to uphold biblical authority, which continues to influence their practices today. We also discuss the organizational challenges faced by the United Methodist Church due to its more liberal trajectory, resulting in a mass exodus of members. This episode underscores the Southern Baptists' focus on gospel centrality, doctrinal fidelity, and missional urgency, emphasizing their relentless commitment to spreading the message of Jesus Christ to those who have yet to hear it. Don't miss this compelling discussion with Dr. Michael Cloer for a deeper understanding of the Southern Baptist Convention and its global mission.https://www.jacksonfamilyministry.comhttps://bobslone.com/home/podcast-production/

Happy Southern Baptist Convention Eve! Over the next few days Southern Baptist Churches from around the country will come together in Indianapolis and will debate about key issues involving our churches. Recently Ben preached a sermon from Romans 14 and we thought it would be perfect to publish it on The Glass House. It is not uncommon for christians to be passionate about their positions and opinions and not agree with one another. We hope this episode encourages every listener to keep the most important things at the center: the resurrection of Jesus, the power of the Gospel, and the unifying grace that God gives to all of us.  If you would like more on this topic, a few Lifeway authors wrote an incredible book, World On Fire: Walking in the Wisdom of Christ When Everyone's Fighting About Everything. Check it out! Thanks for listening and sharing with a friend. SHOW LINKS:-Leave Ben & Lynley a voice mail HERE-Connect with the Glass House on Instagram HERE-Please email us your questions and feedback to president@lifeway.com  or leave us a voice mail HERE

On this episode, Pastor Tommy and Pastor Trey talk about what makes Southern Baptist Churches Unique.

Mitzi Minor joined the Memphis Theological Seminary (MTS) faculty in the summer of 1993. From the beginning of her vocation as a teacher/scholar, first as a grad student, through three years of teaching undergrads, and during all her time at MTS, the primary focus of her work has been (and continues to be) the intersection of the New Testament with our own spiritual journeys. She believes deeply that critical biblical study is a significant aid along the journey and seeks to demonstrate that belief in the classroom, in the church, and when she writes.Dr. Minor was reared in Southern Baptist Churches and continues to be grateful to those good folks in that setting who taught her to love the Bible. She left the turmoil of that denomination in 1990 and was ordained by the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1991. Cumberland Presbyterians and their seminary (MTS) have provided a challenging and nurturing environment for Dr. Minor to grow as a person of faith and as a teacher/scholar. She teaches courses at MTS in the Gospels, Romans, the Corinthian letters, Revelation, NT Greek, and feminist NT studies. The Gospel of Mark was her first love as a grad student, and it inspires her still. She's written two books and numerous articles on Mark and has lectured on the Second Gospel twice. In addition, she's written a commentary on 2 Corinthians and given lectures inspired by that writing. She's also lectured on Revelation.Beyond her work at MTS, Dr. Minor also spends significant time teaching in church and retreat settings, which brings her much joy. Lay Christians benefit from critical biblical study every bit as much as seminarians! While some people insist that critical study “won't work” in church, Dr. Minor delights in proving them wrong. She delights even more in lay Christians' eagerness to understand their Bibles.If possible, Dr. Minor would spend every moment outside of work hiking somewhere and taking her camera along. But since that's not possible, she also fills her non-working hours with good friends, mystery novels and poetry, bicycle rides, being an Auburn sports fan, and attending to her large and close extended family.  - Bio from the faculty page of Memphis Theological Seminary https://memphisseminary.edu/dr-mitzi-l-minor/Music is provided by Pierce Murphy, Caldera Blue. Source:  https://www.freemusicarchive.org/music/Pierce_Murphy/through-the-olive-branches/caldera-blueComments: http://freemusicarchive.org/Additional comments:  modifications made to shorten and loop song for introduction and closing of podcast.Copyright Attribution and License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Today I am talking to Dr. Sara Robinson who is the Women's Ministry and Transition Consultant for the Kentucky Baptist Convention. Sara shares with us her story of how God slowly drew her into serving him one step at a time until here she is serving all of the Southern Baptist Churches in Kentucky! Her story is one that affirms to us that God's plans are always better than ours.   Connect with Sara  @sararobinson   Connect with Elaina @drelainabarron elainabarron.com  

The largest protestant denomination in America is expelling churches that have ordained women.

While we've taken the occasional jab at men who should know better on our show, we've never really gone full throttle … but in this episode we're going in deep with the “Untitled Misogyny” episode.We put on blast some examples they've seen on the regular … and all of it is true … and couldn't make this sh*t up if we tried.From “21 Ways To Spot If A Girl Is Promiscuous,” to even Southern Baptist Churches, the witches shed light on the ever growing Bro Culture. Still so. much. work. to. do.*Curious about how to liberate your inner witch and experience more pleasure, turn on and a deeper connection to life? Check out these selected links from the podcast!Radical Sex Witch Merch https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/theradicalsexwitchesSex Love & Relationship Coaching with CarlaSex, Love & Relationship Coaching for Women and CouplesBody of the Goddess Group Program**Book Your Free 45 minute Discovery Call with CarlaTarot Readings with Little LeahDo they love me? Will I get that promotion? What should I do next? Get answers by booking a Tarot reading with Little Leah! Get info & availability by emailing Leah at deathmothtarot@gmail.com.Have a question or comment about this episode or anything else - let us know by connecting with us on Social:The Radical Sex Witches on Instagram @theradicalsexwitchesConnect with Carla and Little Leah on Instagram: @carlawainwright @little_leah78Connect with Carla on FacebookEmail us! radicalsexwitches@gmail.comReady to turn up the heat and enjoy some Hot Summer Nights with your sweetheart? Carla is co-hosting 4 online date night events in July and August: Building Positive Vibes, Talking about Sex, Creating Epic Date Nights and Listening with Love. Only $33 (plus tx & fees), one hour long and replays available!Click HERE for all the details and registration.

First, a reading form the Book of Common prayer for Maundy Thursday. Then, Jon takes a trip down memory lane to the 2016 to see what influential evangelicals said about Donald Trump's treatment of Russell Moore. He then shares how some Southern Baptist Churches are supporting female clergy. Last, he analyzes why it is that conservatives seem to be leaderless, divided, and losing today. It was not always this way. To support: https://www.worldviewconversation.com/support/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/conversations-that-matter8971/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Dr. Michael Rydelnik is the Host of Open Line and Professor of Bible and Jewish Studies at Moody Bible Institute. Michael fielded this question in reference to a public letter addressed to the executive committe of the Southern Baptist Convention - in reference to addressing the issue of banning women pastors of any kind in Southern Baptist Churches. Dr. Rydelnik looks to scripture for his response.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Here is the strange story of the mass infiltration of Marxism and Wokism into the modern church. Why does the enemy go after the seminaries first, and how will the church come through this present crisis? Once again, the root of the ethical confusion is the antinomianism in modern evangelicalism. Here is a summary of the new expose film on enemies in the PCA, the Southern Baptist Churches, and others. 

Here is the strange story of the mass infiltration of Marxism and Wokism into the modern church. Why does the enemy go after the seminaries first, and how will the church come through this present crisis- Once again, the root of the ethical confusion is the antinomianism in modern evangelicalism. Here is a summary of the new expose film on enemies in the PCA, the Southern Baptist Churches, and others.---This program includes---1. The World View in 5 Minutes with Adam McManus -Medical center pauses transgender surgeries on minors, Dozens of abortion mills have stopped baby-killing, Australia's hostility to Christians---2. Generations with Kevin Swanson

Watch out ladiezz, this week we're welcoming a man into the club! Lanne sits down with her father-in-law, Dr. Rodney Hogue, to dive deep into the discussion of what God's Kingdom truly is and what it means for us as Christians to seek first the Kingdom of God. You might find yourself needing to take some notes on this one because there is so much good wisdom to glean from Rodney. This may also be an episode to share with your spouse, friends, and people you do life with. You will learn a lot and also be challenged with some new concepts and ideas, but don't let this overwhelm you! Jesus has so much for you and there is always MORE for us to gain, learn and receive from our King. Follow Rodney on IG @RodneyHogueMinistries Follow the club on IG @NewMomsClubPodcast . . . Dr. Rodney Hogue grew up in West Texas as a child of a pastor who served in several Southern Baptist Churches throughout Texas and Oklahoma. Rodney met Mary, an Oklahoma native, in college and they were married in 1979. In 1982, they began pastoring their first church in Bremerton, Washington and their second in Mercer Island, Washington in 1986. In 1990 they moved to Hayward, California to pastor Community of Grace Church in the San Francisco Bay Area and were there 24 years. Mary was heavily involved in every church and pastored alongside of Rodney. She started and launched new ministries in every church and is deeply passionate about not only the prophetic, but teaching children how to walk in their prophetic gifts. Together, they have three grown sons, all of whom are married, and eight grandchildren. In 2014 Rodney and Mary moved back to Texas to be closer to home and took a leap of faith into full time itinerant traveling ministry. Rodney now travels all over the world teaching on forgiveness, the Kingdom, deliverance, and freedom in Christ. He is also an author and adjunct professor at Global Awakening Theological Seminary and Ministry School. Rodney works closely with, and often travels with, various ministries including: Global Awakening, Agape Freedom Fighters, Africa on Fire, and Iris Global. Find out more about Rodney at rodneyhogue.com

  Reverend Joshua Noah is a child of God, a father of 3 amazing kids, a partner to Lawrence, a son, a brother, a friend, a spiritual listener, and an ordained pastor in the PCUSA (Presbyterian Church of the USA).   He currently works as a full-time bartender and part-time pastor along the Alabama Gulf Coast. Josh grew up in north Alabama where he attended conservative, evangelical/fundamentalist Southern Baptist Churches. When he was a teenager, his disillusionment with the hypocrisy of people in the church led him to declare himself an atheist. While attending Maryville College (a PCUSA affiliated school in East Tennessee) Josh discovered his faith again and at 26, was baptized into the PCUSA church. Following a 11 year teaching career, Josh answered the Spirit's call to ministry and attended Princeton Theological Seminary where he earned his M.Div. and M.A. in Christian Education (emphasis in Ministry with Young People). He was ordained in the PCUSA in 2015. In his 13 years of ministry, Josh has served as a Volunteer Youth Director in Houston, a Director of Children, Youth, and Family Ministry in New Jersey, a solo pastor outside of St. Louis, and now is the part-time pastor of Open Table United Church of Christ in Mobile, AL. He will begin a Clinical Pastoral Education Residency in August 2022 in hopes of becoming a Board Certified Chaplain. Connect with Pastor Josh www.opentableucc.org https://joshuanoah.weebly.com/  Pastor Josh's Coming Out Sermon (VIDEO) and article

On this episode of Rightly Dividing, we are venturing into territory marked out by popular Charismatics like Joel Osteen, Paula White, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland and others who routinely preach messages about the health, wealth and prosperity of God. Funny thing, though, when you run the references in your King James Bible, they bring you to a markedly different conclusion than the ones outlined by the prosperity gospel preachers. Don't get me wrong, God loves to give good things to His children, and sometimes He really dumps it on us, but when He does it is for His glory, not our glory. Join us on this episode of Rightly Dividing as we define what health, wealth and prosperity are according to your King James Bible. I promise you it will be an eye-opener that will help you in your daily walk with the Lord Jesus Christ, and help free you from the bondage of false teaching. Just about everywhere I look today, online, on television, or in pulpits across America, I hear preachers preaching about the 'health and prosperity' gospel that Jesus wants you to be healthy and prosperous in your Christian life. This type of preaching is not limited to the Charismatic and Pentecostal movements, and is even showing up in many Southern Baptist Churches as well. So does the Bible, rightly divided and dispensationally correct, preach a gospel of health and prosperity? It sure does, but before you run right out to 'name it and claim it', let's define health and prosperity according to the scriptures.

May 1, 2022A native of Alabama, Joe McKeever has been saved since 1951, been preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ since 1961, and has been writing and cartooning for religious publications since the mid-1960s.  He put in 42 years pastoring six Southern Baptist Churches followed by 5 years as director of missions for the SBC churches of metro New Orleans. He retired in the summer of 2009.  Joe's education includes a masters & doctorate from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary with emphasis on evangelism.  For over 15 years, Joe has drawn a daily cartoon for the Baptist Press (www.bpnews.net/comics).  He writes a column on “My Favorite Deacon” for each issue of Lifeway's Deacon Magazine, blogs almost daily for church leaders at www.joemckeever.com, and has published numerous books of his cartoons and seven ministry books.

The Bootcamp is coming at you from the Big “D” Dallas TX. Jimbo and Bob were on the road along with big boss man Mark Clifton, leading a conference for the Korean Council of Southern Baptist Churches. Our thanks to Dr. James Kang, our translators and the many great Pastors, Staff and leaders we met […]

Rodney Hogue is a husband, father, grandfather, teacher, and author. He has been in full time Christian Ministry since 1977. Rodney grew up in West Texas as a child of a pastor who served in several Southern Baptist Churches throughout Texas and Oklahoma. Rodney met Mary, an Oklahoma native, in college and they were married in 1979. In 1982, they began pastoring their first church in Bremerton, Washington and their second in Mercer Island, Washington in 1986. In 1990 they moved to Hayward, California to pastor Community of Grace Church in the San Francisco Bay Area and were there 24 years.    In 2014 Rodney and Mary moved back to Texas to be closer to home after living away from family for 32 years. They left the full time pastorate and took a leap of faith into full time itinerant traveling ministry. Rodney now travels all over the world teaching on forgiveness, the Kingdom, deliverance, and freedom in Christ. He is also an author and adjunct professor at Global Awakening Theological Seminary and Ministry School. Rodney works closely with, and often travels with, various ministries including: Global Awakening, Agape Freedom Fighters, Africa on Fire, and Iris Global. Rodney's passion to see God's Kingdom manifest on this earth through the lives of transformed lovers of God who intentionally pursue transformation of their world. For more information, please visit: www.rodneyhogue.com     LISTEN NOW AT: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-blacksmith-chronicles-podcast/id1485445641   Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4OmhF96FBZ7wz6umnfiMnT   Destiny Image:  https://destinyimagepodcastnetwork.squarespace.com/#/the-blacksmith-chronicles/   Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/84241b46-96c3-4aed-a483-a003fd5ea74c/the-blacksmith-chronicles-podcast   Ryan Johnson — www.ryanjohnson.us RJM YouTube Channel — https://bit.ly/34Vxbgl Ryan Johnson Ministries Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/officialryanjohnsonministries The Blacksmith Chronicles Podcast Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/RJMinistries Twitter — https://twitter.com/ryanbjohnson278 Instagram — ryanjohnsonministries EMAIL — info@ryanjohnson.us

Members of Southern Baptist Churches must cast off their ever-present cognitive dissonance and come to a full understanding of what is happening to the Christian faith. Failing to recognize what this movement is and what the goals of the SBC Cultural Revolution are will result in the ideological and theological loss of the largest Protestant convention of churches in the United States. http://sovereignnations.com Support Sovereign Nations: paypal.me/sovnations patreon.com/sovnations Follow Sovereign Nations: sovereignnations.com/subscribe facebook.com/SovereignNations twitter.com/SovNations youtube.com/SovereignNations rumble.com/c/sovnations instagram.com/sovnations/ minds.com/sovnations?referrer=sovnations parler.com/profile/sovnations © 2022 Sovereign Nations. All rights reserved.

BenGreenfieldFitness.com/breedlove 24 February 2022: Spokane, Washington; Kauai, Hawai'i Robert Breedlove is a Bitcoin-focused entrepreneur, writer, and philosopher. He was raised in Tennessee attending Southern Baptist Churches but spent most of his life spiritual yet agnostic. Through his explorations down the proverbial “Bitcoin rabbit hole,” Robert found himself becoming reacquainted with Christianity at the age of 33. He was particularly inspired by Austrian economics and the teachings of Jordan Peterson, which helped him reconcile his purely objective outlook on reality with its more subjective dimensions of valuation, morality, and meaning. Robert considers himself a Freedom Maximalist and believes he has found his life's work in the Bitcoin space as a contributor to the separation of money and state. Through his writing and media work, Robert aims to elucidate the importance of freedom and self-sovereignty across all spheres of human action. Find Robert on Twitter (@Breedlove22) where he posts about Bitcoin, macroeconomics, and philosophy. During our discussion, you'll discover: -The journey to becoming a "freedom maximalist"... -The Creature and its cronies fight for survival in the digital age... -What is money anyway?... -How the gold standard began its descent into obscurity after World War 2... -Why strong private property rights are necessary for prosperity to thrive... -The superiority of Bitcoin to any other financial medium... -Health protocols and biohacks common among Bitcoin enthusiasts... -And much more! Resources from this episode: -Thank God For Bitcoin -The Secret, Absurd World of Coronavirus Mask Traders and Middlemen Trying To Get Rich Off Government Money Episode sponsors: -Organifi Green Juice -Kion Coffee -JOOVV -Magnesium Breakthrough Do you have questions, thoughts or feedback for Robert Breedlove or me? Leave your comments below and one of us will reply!

My guest today is Robert Breedlove, a Bitcoin-focused entrepreneur, writer, and philosopher. Robert is the host of the “What Is Money?” podcast. Through his writing and media work, Robert aims to elucidate the importance of freedom and self-sovereignty across all spheres of human action. To him, Bitcoin is fundamentally a humanitarian movement exposing the greatest con in human history: central banking. By learning about the connection between honest money, entrepreneurship, and civilization, we are renewing hope for the future of humanity. To this end, Robert's mission is to restore freedom, truth, and virtue in our world by tenaciously asking the question: "What is Money?” He was raised in Tennessee attending Southern Baptist Churches but spent most of his life spiritual yet agnostic. Through his explorations down the proverbial “Bitcoin rabbit hole,” Robert found himself becoming reacquainted with Christiantity at the age of 33. He was particularly inspired by Austrian economics and the teachings of Jordan Peterson, which helped him reconcile his purely objective outlook on reality with its more subjective dimensions of valuation, morality, and meaning. Robert considers himself a Freedom Maximalist and believes he has found his life's work in the Bitcoin space as a contributor to the separation of money and state. In our conversation we discuss Bitcoin, the importance of private property, the connection between Bitcoin and Christianity, the emergence of mass psychosis throughout society, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing Robert's personal spiritual journey and how Bitcoin helped him reconnect with Christianity. We discuss the connection between Bitcoin and Western Philosophy. Robert does an excellent job at explaining how the writings of Jordan Peterson and Austrian Economists helped lay the groundwork for his understanding of Bitcoin and strengthen his belief in Christianity. We dive deep into the connections between moral virtues exalted in the Bible and how those are mirrored by the rules governing Bitcoin. Our conversation transitions to a discussion about the importance of property rights for the success of a society. Robert did an excellent job at explaining why strong property eighths are necessary for a society to function properly. We go to discuss how our current economic doctrine is at odds with the natural law which may be causing the societal rifts currently facing Western Civilization. This naturally leads to the discussion of how our society is facing an epidemic of mass psychosis. We discuss the importance of independent thinking and the fight for rational thought. Another major discussion point in our conversation was the social contract Bitcoin creates for society. We discuss how the social contract created by Bitcoin is the culmination of Western Philosophy by hard coding unalienable property rights for everyone. We discuss the positive externalities of unalienable property rights will have on society. The last portion of our discussion centered around the moral case for Bitcoin and the applications of a truly sovereign monetary system from the state. This conversation will make you think about the hard questions facing our society. If you are interested in the intersection of money, politics, economics and society, you're not gonna wanna miss this conversation. Please enjoy my discussion with Robert Breedlove. -- ParaSwap: If you want to make a swap at the best price across the DeFi market, check out https://untoldstories.link/paraswap. ParaSwap's state-of-the-art algorithm beats the market price across all major DEXs and brings you the most optimized swaps with the best prices, and lowest slippage. -- This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co

I (Dave) have been called a southern baptist because I am a baptist and I'm from the south. Well, in that sense, I guess I am.  But I am not part of the Southern Baptist Convention. Southern Baptists are not necessarily from the south. Keith Myer is from New Jersey, but he heads up our local group of Southern Baptist Churches. So what better person to ask than Keith?  "Keith, what is a Southern Baptist?" On this episode Keith shares expertly concerning SBC history, current events, politics, polity, faith, and the future of this large cooperation of churches. Listen to this enlightening and educational conversation Dave and Patrick had recently with Pastor Keith Myer.

SBC church membership suffers new historic 1-year decline of more than 400K

SBC church membership suffers new historic 1-year decline of more than 400K

Title: Introduction to Titus Text: Titus 1:1-4 FCF: We often struggle with the daunting work that God has given us. Prop: Because all God’s elect, in every role, are tools of God for His purposes, we must depend on God to work through us. Book Intro: [Slide 1] Turn in your bible to Titus chapter 1. Today we begin our second of three pastoral epistles. At the beginning of I Timothy, we delved into the background of these books. Let me review that a little, especially since Titus shares the same contextual backdrop as I Timothy. As we noted at the beginning and end of I Timothy, these epistles are called the pastoral epistles, but probably should be renamed the Ecclesiastical Epistles. Meaning they were written specifically to talk about the order, practice, behavior, purpose, direction and focus of the entity known as the ecclesia, the assembly, the church. Not the building, but the people. Not necessarily on an individual level, as most epistles are written, but as a body of believers. Although disputed by more recent and more liberal scholars, Paul’s authorship is resoundingly affirmed by early church fathers and by conservative scholars. Although the history is unclear, we supposed that sometime after Paul’s imprisonment recorded in Acts 28, Paul was released and went on a 4th missionary journey. In this, Paul set up Elders in churches along the way to deal with growing problems. [Slide 2] On his way to Macedonia, he leaves Timothy in Ephesus and stops by the island of Crete. There he leaves Titus. He sails from there to the region known as Macedonia and to the city called Nicopolis. That means that I Timothy and Titus were probably written at the same time and from the same place. Probably around AD 62-63. So who is Titus? Titus was an uncircumcised gentile Christian. We know this about him because Paul says so in Galatians 2. He went with Paul to Jerusalem to authenticate Paul’s message before the other apostles. On this occasion, They did not ask that Titus be circumcised. This validates Paul’s argument in Galatians, that gentiles need not be Jewish first before being Christians. Other than this though, we don’t know much about Titus. He was an early convert of Paul, that much is true. He has probably been assisting Paul for more than a decade. We know that Paul sent him to the church of Corinth as his emissary, both delivering Paul’s message in II Corinthians and also helping the church at Corinth to understand and apply it. [Slide 3] Although we can’t be sure, it seems that unlike Timothy, Titus’ job in Crete was far less permanent. Paul talks about Titus rejoining him in Nicopolis, and in II Timothy we actually find that Titus is in Dalmatia, which is modern day Croatia and Bosnia. Across the Adriatic Sea from Italy. Titus, according to church tradition, went back to Crete after Paul’s death and remained there serving until he died. [Slide 4] With these details, a picture emerges of Titus. Although not much is said about him, and although he is only written this short letter – it seems that Titus was Paul’s righteous “fixer.” He goes to Corinth, a fairly difficult setting with all kinds of problems, and a whole lot of disunity and disorder, and helps to bring them to order. And now he is being left, for a short time, to do the same for the church in Crete. Although Paul exhorts Timothy often in I and II Timothy about his own character, and even encourages him not to be timid. Titus is never really given much exhortation. To that degree then, Titus sets himself apart from even Timothy, as a man whom God uses to right the ship. As with I Timothy, some kind of false teaching has arisen there in Crete. The teaching is similar but not identical to what Timothy was facing in Ephesus. Paul is sending Titus to get it under control but the method for doing this is somewhat different than what he recommends for Timothy. The themes in Titus largely reflect the themes in I Timothy with one addition. There seems to be a heavier emphasis on the confession of proper truth. Certainly, Paul’s message is a gospel that produces godliness. However, Paul takes pains to give strong doctrinal statements that are simply not in I Timothy. And the emphasis is on the gospel shaping the church to look like Christ. Much like the picture above – we are slaves and pawns. Jars of clay. Yet when we look into a mirror – the reflection should be our King. We are still keeping our eyes out for specific phrases. Although Paul never breaks into doxology in Titus (interesting since there is more theology here than in I Timothy) there is one “this is a trustworthy saying” in Titus. I plan to read the entire book of Titus this morning. I would ask that if you feel so inclined to read a chapter from Titus, please go ahead and make your way toward the front and sit in one of these front pews. We only need 3 volunteers today. But, before we read the text itself, and as the volunteers make their way up, there are a number of challenging passages or concepts in Titus that we will be studying. Chapter 1 1.) Is one qualification of an Elder that their children are saved? That seems… kind of out of their hands, right? 2.) Paul insults an entire people group. Racism? 3.) Christian liberty unleashed – all is pure to those who are pure? Chapter 2 4.) Wives duties are to keep the house and to submit to their husbands??? Oh boy. 5.) Slaves again. Not a problem to have them… oh Paul. 6.) Universalism again. God’s grace has appeared bringing salvation to all people?!?! Chapter 3 7.) Submission to wicked rulers and authorities… again?! That is not very American of you Paul! 8.) Regeneration precedes works. If our State of Theology Survey proved anything, it was that our church is not unified on this teaching. Many believe that faith precedes regeneration. However, Paul in Titus makes it clear that regeneration precedes works, it does not follow works. 9.) Justified by faith, grace, or works? The bible says all of them. So, which one is it? 10.) The harshest of church disciplines… for a divisive person. Pray Scripture Reading At this time, I’ll ask for three volunteers to come up to the front here and read a chapter in the book of Titus. Each chapter is no more than 16 verses long, so it shouldn’t be too taxing for us. We did this with I Timothy, and it was wonderful hearing the entire letter read in one sitting. If you are not reading, you can follow along in your bible and on the outline which was printed for you instead of sermon notes this morning. Scripture Intro: [Slide 5] I will read one more time the text for this morning. Titus chapter 1 verses 1 through 4. I am reading from the CSB this morning, but you can follow along in the pew bible on page 1345 or in whatever version you have. Transition: Well, we won’t linger long in the text this morning but I want to allow Paul to introduce himself and express his warm greeting to his friend and spiritual son, Titus. Let’s dive in. I.) Church leaders are but tools of God, used for His purposes, so we must depend on God to work through us. (1-3) a. [Slide 6] 1 – Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, i. Once again, Paul identifies himself. ii. Paul describes himself as a slave of God. This is not a title that is unique to Titus. In fact Paul calls himself the slave of Christ or God often. iii. Indeed, the New Testament writers refer to God’s people as His slaves. And although this word can refer to bondservant, ie, one who submits freely to serve another… it doesn’t necessarily mean that in the context. iv. In the truest sense of the word, Paul is the slave of God. He does what His master says, regardless of his own personal will and to the disregard of his own person interests. v. But Paul speaks often of how merciful and gracious his Master is. So it is a joyful slavery. vi. Paul also describes himself as an apostle. vii. The word itself means emissary, delegate, or ambassador. viii. If this was all the word meant, it may be true in some sense to refer to all of God’s children as apostles. In fact, Paul calls every Christian an ambassador, or representative of Christ in II Corinthians 5. ix. He does not use this word though. x. Although the raw definition of apostle can mean ambassador or delegate, it is clear that even early on in the church’s history, the word apostle was a reference to a particular office. xi. The apostle is a delegate of Christ. His representative. In a direct kind of way. This office was established for the foundation of the church and has since expired. It is interesting that no one claimed to be an apostle of Christ in the early church after these men died. By the time of John’s writing Revelation, he was the last one. xii. So has the church been established today? xiii. I read a stat the other day… Do you realize that there are 3 times more members of Southern Baptist Churches than there were citizens of the Roman Empire during the time of Nero? xiv. The church has been established, and therefore, we do not need apostles any longer. We need the apostles teaching, which is the teaching of Christ… THAT is sure. But the next big leader we wait for in the church – is the return of Christ – not another apostle. xv. In fact, with all these high-profile church leaders apostatizing doctrine, or being involved in gross unrepentant sin – I’d say that hope in any would-be-apostle is quite silly. xvi. So, all that to say – Paul is an apostle, but no, we don’t have any more today. b. [Slide 7] For the faith of God’s elect i. Paul now answers the question why. ii. Why has God made Paul His slave? Why has Paul been commissioned to be an apostle of Jesus Christ? iii. For the faith of God’s elect. Now what makes this phrase particularly challenging is because Paul uses a preposition here that has a wide variety of uses. Two of the most popular among our many English translations are… 1. According to the faith of God’s elect, meaning that his calling as an apostle is in the same vein or teaching as the faith received by God’s elect. 2. For the faith of God’s elect, meaning the purpose of his calling as an apostle was to see God’s elect receive faith a. As a subpoint here some translations say for the sake of or to further the faith of God’s elect. Meaning that his apostleship was to grow the faith of God’s elect. iv. All of these are certainly true – but I tend to favor the second option most without its subpoint. Perhaps reading up on Paul’s missionary trips these last couple weeks has colored my view, but it seems that Paul’s apostleship was all about seeing God’s elect receive faith in Christ. v. Certainly, that could mean ongoing faith. But here particularly I believe Paul is getting at seeing God’s elect come to Christ for the first time. vi. Then the ongoing nature of his apostle ministry is… c. [Slide 8] And their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness i. [Slide 9]So here we have the trilogy of faith. 1. Truth received from God by which we are saved (Christ’s faithfulness) Not in our receiving it, but in the effectiveness of the truth that we receive. 2. Growing Intellectual understanding of the faith (knowledge of the truth) 3. Proper behavior that must come from faith (godliness) from faith to faith (Romans 1) ii. The trilogy of faith toward God’s elect is the purpose of Paul’s slavery to God and apostle call from Christ. iii. This was essentially the primary focus of I Timothy – and indeed that endures in Titus. A gospel that brings faith in Christ to God’s people and grows them in knowledge and holiness. iv. But knowledge and holiness is not the ultimate goal of this faith or Paul’s calling as an apostle. d. [Slide 10] 2 – in the hope of eternal life i. When biblical writers talk of hope, they do not mean wishful pie in the sky desires. ii. Rather they mean blessed expectation of future peace and joy. iii. That hope is in eternal life. iv. But why would we hope in this? e. [Slide 11] That God, who cannot lie, promised before time began. i. So, this whole phrase starts easy enough, but finishes with a perplexing statement. ii. First, God who cannot lie has promised us eternal life. iii. That God is not a liar is simple to understand but is a mega theme in all of scripture. iv. Why will God’s Word not return Him void? Why is His word truth? Why is God faithful to His own Word? Why does God continue to show mercy and give grace? v. It all comes down to this truth. God has promised and God is not a liar. It only takes 1 lie to be a liar and God isn’t one. vi. But when did God promise this? vii. Before time began. Why is that perplexing? viii. Well, when did time begin? There can be several suggestions but really, they all revolve around the moment God spoke creation into existence. ix. So before that time, God promised eternal life. Does anyone see some problems with that? 1. Who was there to hear the promise? 2. How can this promise of eternal life happen before the fall of man? x. These are some… HUGE questions. I mean you want to talk about things that I am really not prepared to teach on, this is a BIG one. xi. But let me make a suggestion to you – in order to reorient your thinking about the elect of God. xii. God has promised that His elect will be given eternal life through union in Christ before they even existed. Before men fell. Before time began. Who did God promise this to? Christ. He promised this to His unique Son. xiii. Now already, your alarm bells are starting to ring. I realize that. Already you are probably thinking – wait, isn’t the promise of eternal life for me? It is. But the promise wasn’t made to you… it was made about you. It was made to Christ, the second person of the Godhead. Or perhaps you are struggling with the other part. How could God have chosen people to have eternal life in Christ before men had fallen into sin and death? xiv. Another time, perhaps when I am more prepared for such a large discussion, we can enter into all this. In fact, in II Timothy, I know there is a passage where this will come up again, and it is the first chapter so we’ll be getting to it fairly soon. xv. But understand this. Your salvation in Christ as the elect of God was no mere accident, nor did God leave it up to each person to decide whether they wanted it or not. xvi. My friends, if you are in Christ – God foreordained and predestined you to be in Christ before he spoke the world into being. xvii. And although He did that for you – it is a promise He made and is fulfilling to His Son. That He would gather a people for Him - forever. xviii. And my friends… God is not a liar. xix. Even though all I have said can be the cause of much debate, listen to me… don’t let it. xx. Rather – bask in the truth of God’s promise for you. If you are in His Son, you are part of a promise God made to Christ before the foundation of the world. xxi. If your response is… why me? You are on the right track. f. [Slide 12] 3 – In His own time He has revealed His word in the preaching with which I was entrusted i. Paul has spoken of the hope we have of life in eternity future. ii. Paul has reference how the promise of that life was made in eternity past. iii. Now Paul connects the end and beginning to the now. iv. God, according to His own timetable, according to His own will… v. Has revealed this redemption plan through His Word. vi. His word that is always true vii. His word that is our faith viii. His word that reveals Christ ix. God has peeled back the curtain for His elect to see this truth. Indeed, He did so as Paul himself preached it to many. Including Titus Himself. g. [Slide 13] By the command of God our Savior. i. The preaching of the gospel of God is a command levied upon this apostle. ii. He is required to take and give this truth to all. Knowing that God is in the business of revealing it to His elect. iii. And in this way… God, not Paul, Not Apollos, Not the believer themselves, no… God alone is our Savior. iv. He has promised His Son, eternal life in Christ before time began for His elect, His bride. And God has opened up the eyes of the blind, unstopped the ears of the hard of hearing, he has risen the dead, birthed anew His elect to receive His truth. v. That by faith in Christ, not faith in our faith in Christ, but by faith in Christ alone we will be saved. h. [Slide 14] Passage Truth: So, Paul’s introduction is one of power and authority. His slavery to God and apostleship from Christ is for the benefit of the elect of God and in hopes of that eternal life promised by God to His people. i. Passage Application: We have not yet arrived an any exhortation, but we can reasonably conclude that dependence on God is primary. j. [Slide 15] Broader Biblical Truth: From the rest of scripture, we know that God has appointed people throughout the ages to speak His message to the those who will receive it by faith. Paul is but one man in a long line of faithful preachers of God’s Word that is yet unbroken, even to today. k. Broader Biblical Application: And so, with humble hearts we cry out to God to continue His Kingdom work in and through us, even today. Until that hope of eternal life, which He promised to His Son for His people, would be fully realized. Transition: [Slide 16(blank)] So Paul has a high calling that is only possible through God. But who is Paul writing to, and what is his desire for that person? II.) All God’s people are tools to accomplish His will, so we must depend on God to work through us. (4) a. [Slide 17] 4 – To Titus, my true son i. Titus is a true or genuine son of Paul’s. ii. Of course, this is not talking about Titus as the physical son of Paul – but rather his spiritual son. b. [Slide 18] In our common faith i. Common here does not mean hum drum or ordinary. ii. Common instead means shared. iii. This is the word that Catholic was taken from. And once upon a time, before Roman Catholicism forever took the word, Catholic would always mean shared or same. iv. That is why in the apostle’s creed we see the expression catholic church. It doesn’t mean Roman Catholic; it means agreement in doctrine. c. [Slide 19] Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. i. As we have come to understand, grace is God’s supernatural empowering to do something that we cannot hope to ever do on our own. ii. Peace here refers to peace with men but also with God. A cessation of hostility with both. iii. Although this is one of Paul’s standard greetings, it is interesting that he goes on to mention the senders of this Grace and Peace being God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. iv. So, absent from this list is the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. v. Once again, the case is made that where God’s grace is, the Holy Spirit is, necessarily. d. [Slide 20] Passage Truth: Paul is writing to his spiritual son in common faith, Titus. His fixer. His hammer. His tool that God has given him to go and solve problems in churches. e. Passage Application: But to do this, Titus must not rely on his past, his accolades, his pedigree, or anything save the grace and peace of God. Sent by the Father and His Son the Savior Jesus Christ. f. [Slide 21] Broader Biblical Truth: So we also are instruments and tools for God’s use in this world. To be used in His power and direction to fix and mend what He directs us to fix and mend. g. Broader Biblical Application: But we cannot hope to do this on our own, or even united together. We must rely on the abundant gifts of our Father and Savior. The Triune God. Conclusion: [Slide 22(end)] So CBC, what does this brief little intro of Titus mean for us? How does it affect how we live? Paul alludes to this tension right in the first verse. He is both a slave of God and an apostle of Christ. He is both very lowly – but also of the highest rank possible in the early church. What does this mean? That no matter how we look at it – we are all tools of God used for His Kingdom. We are all equally blessed of God to be part of what He is doing, no the other way around. And although we may inhabit different roles within that framework – the bottom line is, that we are all one in Christ. We are all pawns reflecting our King. Paul is an apostle, Timothy is an Elder, Titus is a fixer – but they are all commissioned by God for the faith of His elect and the knowledge of the truth which produces godliness. They all share the same hope of eternal life that God has promised to His Son that He would give them. This great salvation, this great work we have before us – friends – it is all God. From top to bottom, from eternity past to eternity future – it is all Him. Although Paul is an apostle, he is also a slave like you and I. Although Titus is a fixer, he needs God’s grace and peace. My friends, there is no one in the universal church who is outside of this framework. And Paul is about to tell Titus to set up Elders for the church in Crete. But not because Elders are the answer. Rather because Elders are those given the role by God to reveal God’s truth. As we begin this book, knowing that there are problems that this church in Crete faces – we can gain a great deal of encouragement to know, that whatever we may face as a church in Columbus Michigan – it will only be solved by dependence on God the triune. His grace, His peace, His presence, His truth. We are like Titus. Whatever Paul is about to command, it is only possible through God’s grace and peace. And no matter what we may face in the days and years to come, it is only possible through God’s grace and peace.

Angel brings another powerful message to the world. Listen in as she interviews Dr. Eugene May on Destiny Moments. Eugene May is the founder of Eagles Wings Ministries [USA] and Eagles Wings Evangelistic Ministries [Canada]. Eugene began to preach in Southern Baptist Churches as the age of fifteen. He was ordained in 1964 as a Southern Baptist pastor. In March of 1973 he and his wife, Sherry, received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and began ministering healing, miracles, and prophecy. In 1996, he was diagnosed with colon cancer and after surgery was told that the cancer had spread throughout his body. Eugene and Sherry prayed the prayer of faith and held to there faith and days later the cancer was gone and has not returned. Eugene is recognized as an Apostle and Prophet and is a part of Apostolic Resource Ministries, a fellowship of ministers. He travels to the world with an emphasis on English, French, and Spanish nations. He has published on book entitled, A Man Used Of God, and he writes consistently on FaceBook and posts videos on both FaceBook and YouTube. The FaceBook and YouTube addresses are simply Eugene May.

Dr. Mark Vander Ley and Dr. Jimmy Myers discuss the second edition of Jimmy's book "Toe to Toe With Your Teen: A Guide to Successfully Parenting A Defiant Teen Without Giving Up or Giving In." Mark and Jimmy discuss the importance of maintaining a strong relationship with your teen when setting limits.  Jimmy utilizes an acronym and recommends riding the peace TRAIN for relationship building.  He tells parents to focus on Time, Reducing Negativity, Acting against stereotype, taking an Interest in the teens world, and that Not every moment is a teachable moment. Jimmy also challenges parents to parent their teens the way God has parented them.  He describes God as a parent that is loving, forgiving, accepting, holy, just and sovereign.  Mark and Jimmy then discuss the challenge that many parents face in managing their own anger in conflict with a defiant teen.  Jimmy explains why this can be so difficult and how a parent can navigate when they are triggered Dr. Jimmy Myers is the visionary Founder, Owner, and Chief Executive Officer of The Timothy Center, located in Austin, Texas.  The Timothy Center, opened in 2001, is a unique, multi-campus counseling practice that focuses on helping adolescents and families find God's solutions to life's challenges.  The Timothy Center also provides secure online counseling throughout the state of Texas and consultation services nationwide.  As a full time, licensed professional counselor/supervisor, Dr. Myers has also served as Family Pastor at LifeAustin (lifeaustin.com) – and has served over 20 years on staff at two large Southern Baptist Churches.  In the many years of ministry to teens and their families, Dr. Myers' experience has shown him that it is never too late to turn a family around.  Dr. Myers has spent more than 30 years writing, ministering, and speaking nationwide about mental health issues, sexual addiction, teenage life, and Christian family Fearless Parenting: How to Raise Faithful Kids in a Secular Culture, (2017) Co-authored with George Barna, Baker Books Pairadocs Podcast, a weekly podcast with a Christian take on life, family, and culture. (pairadocspodcast.com) Join The Connected Family Facebook Group Connections Family Counseling on Instagram  

In this episode the guys look at the news article about Southern Baptist Churches and the abuse that has been going on. This is not a problem just in the Baptist churches but in all churches across the country. How can we fight against this and be a safe place for people.

Sexual Abuse in Southern Baptist Churches

A message from KBC Regional Consultant Bro. Alan Witham explaining how church cooperation through the Cooperative Program helps Southern Baptist Churches to fulfill the Great Commission together. The post 2-24-19 – Cooperating to Fulfill the Great Commission appeared first on First Baptist Church of Central City, KY.

This week Jason and Andrew discuss the recent Houston Chronicle article detailing sexual abuse within Southern Baptist Churches. What does this say about our denomination? Should Christians pay attention to events like this? What practical things can leadership do to make sure that our churches create an environment that protects the vulnerable? What practical things can lay people do to work toward this?  Listen as they discuss these questions and more. 

This week has been a huge week in the news. 12 Catholic survivors of sexual abuse were invited to the Vatican to discuss abuse in the church and Southern Baptist Convention president Dr. J.D. Greear made an announcement to unveil a plan moving forward for the Southern Baptist Churches in how they respond to abuse. We give our analysis in this episode and talk about how much power survivors have in changing the culture. Intro--Film Glitch by Snowflake (c) copyright 2017 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/snowflake/56350 Ft: reusenoiseOutro--I Have Often Told You Stories (guitar instrumental) by Ivan Chew (c) copyright 2013 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/ramblinglibrarian/41284

Maybe pastors still haven't found what they are looking for. Even if LifeWay is no longer strictly a resource for Southern Baptist Churches, one wonders how it is, after the dust has settled for most in the SBC on the matter of inerrancy, what does it mean a that … Continue reading The post What Are Pastors Searching For? A Conversation with Marty Duren appeared first on patheological: The Podcast for the Pastor-Theologian. Related posts: Pariah, Corporatist News, and Literacy, An Interview with Marty Duren Pastors Search For . . . : A Conversation with Marty Duren Reading the Bible: A Conversation with Peter Enns

Braxton and Nathan discuss an often unnoticed passage of scripture in which lots of people get up out of the grave and walk around. This was not meant to coincide with Halloween but it did. Also, they discuss an article about atheists who pastor Southern Baptist Churches.

Introduction Well, three weeks ago, I was right in the middle of a sermon. So, how do you begin a sermon, like that? So I want you to take that outline that I've given you in the back and just forget about it. I'm not doing that. I did a lot of that last time. I want to do something else. And I want to zero in on Ephesians 3, specifically verses 8-10, and make that the centerpiece of what I want to say to you today. I want to focus in on God's purpose in Paul's proclamation. Let me just lay my cards on the table. My idea in this sermon is that Paul is an utterly unique individual in redemptive history as the Apostle to the Gentiles. That is true, but he is also a paradigm example of an ordinary Christian, “less than the least of all God's people,” who was given a powerful ministry that has eternal ramifications, and in that way, he's an example for us. We, who are also, we should and could say, “less than the least of all God's people,” less than the least of the saints, we can have a powerful ministry of proclamation of the “unsearchable riches of Christ,” as mentioned here in Ephesians 3. We have that power through the Holy Spirit. We have that calling. Kyle talked about that in his sermon in John 20, "As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you." And so I want to heighten awareness of this and this especially comes on the heels of me having been three days in New Orleans as a trustee of the International Mission Board, and these are trying and challenging times for the IMB. International Mission Board Changes Many of you may know, many of you may not know that because of financial restrictions the IMB gave out a voluntary retirement initiative, a V.R.I., to missionaries on the field above 50 years and older voluntarily inviting them to retire from missions work. And the numbers are in the range of about 600 missionaries coming off the field. That's obviously a soul-searching time for the IMB, it's a soul-searching time for Southern Baptist churches, and a time for us, I think, as a local church to recommit ourselves as never before to missions to unreached people group missions. And so I want to do some of that through this sermon. I want to zero in on Ephesians 3:8-10, and I want to give you a sense of the grandeur and the glory of what God is doing in the world. I want you to be captivated by it. I want you to be captivated by the work of display that God is doing of His own wisdom and glory in the Church. I want you to see that. A Divine Masterpiece A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity, I was going to Serbia and I went with my daughter, Caroline, and we stopped at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and they have some of the most astonishing works of art there by the Dutch masters, some of these incredible paintings, and they're just huge. And one of the biggest paintings in the museum is a painting called The Night Watch by Rembrandt, and it's just absolutely massive. 12 feet wide 14 feet high. I'm thinking, “How much paint went into that, how many cans of paint?” You know how you go to Lowe's and it's like, "Well, I'm... " if Rembrandt were hearing this, "Cans of paint, really?" But this was a masterpiece. And you have this picture of this scene from Dutch history, and I'm not going to go into what's being depicted there, but he uses light and darkness very well, and different colors, and he highlights certain individuals and others are more back in the darkness. And it gave me a picture of just the vast complexity of what God is doing in redemptive history, the vast complexity of light and darkness, of successes and apparent failures, of pleasureful moments, and moments of great affliction and suffering that go together to make this master work. It's an illustration of God's sovereign design in history, and I want to zero in on missionaries and Christ's servants, that's all of us, as somewhat like various ragged different sized paint brushes that the Lord is using to paint this masterpiece. And He's got a plan, it says in verse 11, that He worked out before the foundation of the world. He's got it all figured out in His mind, and we can be in the hands of the master to paint this incredible masterwork, greater than anything that we can possibly imagine, even greater than a 12 by 14 painting. Now, I was reading recently a sermon by John Piper on this Scripture and I'm indebted to him for the structure. He does a very interesting thing here; he goes right to verse 10 as the centerpiece and then backs out as he often does. Some of you hear this kind of preaching, and it's helpful. He says, "What's the main point of all of this?" And he's going to say in verse 10, the main point is the display of the wisdom of God, that there's a display of the multifaceted various variegated wisdom of God in the Church, to the angels, so the powers and principalities. The means to that, and he backs up one step, is in verse 10, the Church. It is by the Church that the wisdom of God is displayed. The gathering of the people of God, “chosen before the foundation of the world,” elect from before the foundation of the world by sovereign grace completely apart from works, chosen by God, predestined, but then gathered into the Church, the gathering of the people of God, verse 10a, from all Gentile nations. The means to the end of that one step back in verse 9 is the preaching of the unsearchable riches of Christ among the nations. And then one step back from that, the means to that is the “least of the saints,” that's you and me being set apart unto God to do that proclamation. Now, the word preaching may not be incredibly helpful because not many of us are called to be public preachers, but we can proclaim “the unsearchable riches of Christ,” to the end that the Church be gathered from all the Gentile nations, to the end that the manifold wisdom of God would be put on display for the angels to see. That's what's going on in Ephesians 3:8-10. Manifold Wisdom: God’s Children Across the Globe And so I want to zero in on this masterpiece and just look at it. I want us to see it. And as you look at verse 10, we've got this idea of the “manifold wisdom of God.” Now what does that word “manifold” mean? It's not an easy word; it's not a word that we usually would use in everyday speech. And for that matter in the Greek, it's a one-off, it's only used this one time, and so it's an unusual word. Half of the word Poikilos. I usually don't say Greek words from the pulpit, but that word, it means variegated, wrought in various colors, a sense of variety. We could use the word diversity, a sense of the complexity of the wisdom of God. It's subtle; it's varied, it's intricate. But then Paul puts a prefix, polu, so the much variegated wisdom of God in the Gentile nations that are coming to faith in Christ; that's what he's talking about. And so we have very many colors in this masterpiece painting, different shades, some bright some dark. It's complex, it's astonishing, it's variegated. There are people groups from all over the world, every continent on the face of the earth, and you think about it, Europeans, so blond Scandinavians, people from Norway or Sweden, or from the lowlands like Netherlands, Holland, Germany, Britain, and Southern Europe. You've got Italians and Greeks, etcetera. Then you have people from Africa, different tribes, and they have various genetic appearances like the Ethiopians, with what Isaiah calls tall and smooth skin. And then you've got the Congolese or Nigerians, different people groups, and that God has elect from each of these groups and it's an astonishingly varied thing that God is doing here. And you've got people from Asia and Latin America and all over the world, and God is doing all of this incredible work, it says to display His wisdom. So look at verse 10b, it says, "So that through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might be made known." So this is purpose language. There's a reason why all of this has happened and God has a purpose. What is that purpose? The ultimate purpose of missions and evangelism, the ultimate purpose of the Church is display, that God would be put on display. That everyone might know how great a God He is, how glorious and radiant He is to put Him on display. God’s Glory: The Purpose of All Creation God does all things for the display of His glory, that's why He created the universe. That's why God said, "Let there be light," and why God created the heavens and the earth, and all of these things were for the display of His glory. Nothing's more important than that. Missions is not more important than that. Nothing's more important. God does everything for the display of His glory, all things. And not only did God create the world and all of its complexity, and it's amazing, I mean this planet Earth. We saw the movie Martian, and the theme of that movie is “Earth is better than Mars.” That's what I get out of that. If you want to live somewhere definitely live on Earth, not Mars. Things just grow better here and it's just better in every respect. There are other themes in that movie, whatever. Redeemed for His Glory But Earth is amazing and it's just beautiful and it's rich and complex, and the people that have grown here created in the image of God and spread out to the distant islands, and all over, and mountains, and valleys and all that; they're all over the earth. God did all of this so that the earth would be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. That's why God made everything. Well that's also why He redeemed the elect in Christ. His purpose is for the display. We're His “sons and daughters,” Isaiah 43 says, “so created for His glory.” And redeemed for His glory. And so, we're redeemed. And so Ephesians 2 talks about all of that in terms of the Gentiles, how "They were dead in their transgressions and sins in which they used to live when they followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature following his desires and thoughts, like the rest we were by nature objects of wrath. But God because of His great mercy, with which He loved us, and showed mercy on us in Christ." God made us alive with Christ, and He redeemed us out of “every tribe, and language, and people, and nation,” and He forgave us all our sins. And we, it says in Ephesians 2, second half of the chapter, we were at one point, “aliens and strangers, and excluded.” Now, mysteriously, according to Ephesians 3, we are “equal heirs with the sons and daughters of Abraham.” We are like “wild olive shoots that have been grafted in now.” We'll get into more of that. Romans 11 uses that language, but we, the Gentiles, we have been redeemed, and we are now deriving life-giving sap from this developed complex tree of Abraham's descendants. And we're just drawing, through Christ, drawing life-giving sap through this incredible work that God's doing in redemptive history. We wild, weird Gentiles grafted into that, and now we're heirs with the Jews. How amazing is that? And that's incredibly complicated and it's varied and diverse and beautiful. And that puts the wisdom of God on display. And the audience, if you're going to have display, you're going to have an audience. And the audience here interestingly are the “powers and principalities.” That's language for the angels, the angelic beings. And so, God is putting His wisdom on display to the angels. Two Kinds of Angels Now, there are two categories of angels; there are good angels, and there are bad angels. I don't know which he has in mind here. Well, let's go with both for a minute. That God is putting the Church, or putting His wisdom on display, through the Church, to the good angels, who it says in 1 Peter 1:12, "Even angels long to look into these things." They are really into what God's doing in missions. Angels are fascinated with missions; they're fascinated with everything Christ is doing, and they're leaning forward to look at what is happening. And they care about unreached people groups; they care about the lost. They care about lost people in engineering departments and at hospitals; they care about lost neighbors. They're interested in seeing the elect come to Christ, and they celebrate, and they get excited when it happens. So, good angels are watching the unfolding manifold wisdom of God here. They're excited about it, and they don't know what's going to happen. That's why they're longing to look into these things. Like, "What's going to happen next?" And it's so exciting; it's just crackling with energy up there in Heaven. What's the next thing that's going to happen? Or we could say it's bad angels, as we're going to get in Ephesians 6:12. We're told to “put on the full armor of God, so we can take our stand against our enemies in the heavenly realms,” who are demonic forces, demons, bad angels. And you could see that too, how God is putting the “manifold wisdom of God,” in the Church, on display to the bad angels. "You can't stop them. I will build my Church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. You demons can't stop the spread of the Gospel." And so that's a beautiful thing whether good angels or bad angels doesn't matter; to the “powers and principalities,” God is putting His wisdom on display, and that's an awesome thing. And you should be drawn into that; it should matter to you more than anything else in the world, the glory of God. So, missions exists to put God's variegated wisdom on display to the angels, good and bad, and to us. God has a lot to show to us too. Doesn't He? It's not just to the angels. We got that back in Ephesians 2:7 "That in the coming ages, he might show the incomparable riches of His grace." God shows no grace to the angels, good or bad. The good angels don't need it; they never sin. You think about Amazing Grace. Were they ever wretches? Were they ever lost? No they weren't. They've never been wretches who were lost and saved by grace. And then the demons, there is no Gospel for them. There's never been any hope of their redemption ever. There's no promise of it. But we can sing and forever. In Ephesians 2:7, “we're going to see in the coming ages just how much grace God has shown to all of us;” it's going to be amazing. And so all of this is for the display. The masterpiece is being painted now; missionaries and messengers of every type we are the messy brushes God is using to paint that painting. Let me just pause and say "Are you involved?" I mean are you a part of this? Are you involved in the external journey of missions and evangelism? Are you making sacrifices to speak the word Jesus to lost people around you? And if not, I just want to, as winsomely as I can plead with you to come and get involved because this is the work that God iss doing in the world. Alright, so that's the center step, the centerpiece of this, Ephesians 3:8-10. Riches in His Wisdom Divine Wisdom Displayed to Angels Now, let's take one step further removed. It's like a so that, so that, so that journey. So, the ultimate end is the display of God's wisdom. One step back is the gathering of God's worldwide Church, so that His wisdom can be put on display, so that's in verse 10a, “So that through the Church the manifold wisdom of God should be made known.” So the Church being gathered from all nations, that's how it's happening. And Paul talks about his own ministry here in seeing that happen. He says, "to me, although I am less than the least of all God's people, this grace was given to me to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things." Now, I've already talked about the mystery. It's that Gentiles could be fully heirs with the Jews; that we can be grafted in. It's interesting in Romans 11 when Paul gives us that image of wild olive shoots being grafted into a cultivated olive tree. And then just talks about that and what God's doing with the Jews as well. And at the end of that, he celebrates the same thing. "Oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable His judgments and His paths beyond tracing out. Who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been His counselor?" It's just amazing what God's doing, isn't it? It's stunning. God is gathering His global Church; He's gathering elect people, chosen from before the foundation of the world. He knows who they are, He knows what their names are, He knows where they're living, and He will not fail to bring them in, elect from every nation, but they're called by the proclamation of the Gospel. And so, it is as the Church is being built, it is through the Church, believers in Jesus Christ, that the manifold wisdom of God is on display to the angels. So that's one step back now let's take the next step back. The preaching of Christ's unsearchable riches builds the Church; that's how it happens. It's the proclamation of Jesus Christ, and not as a historical figure but I mean, as one in whom is all the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God in bodily form, Jesus as unsearchable wealth. The proclamation of that. "Although I am less than the least of all God's people this grace was given to me to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." That's what missionaries get to do. They get to sell everything they own. Christy and I did that to go to Japan. I'll never forget that. I'll never forget that yard sale. I'll never forget. I am not permitted by one of my kids to say that person's name without asking permission first, and I've not asked permission, but that was a hard day for that person as that person saw that person's toys being sold. I will never forget that. I'm not sure if that person has forgotten it. Probably has. But just selling everything. And you go as a missionary, and you go live in a foreign country. And why do you do that? Well, this is what you get to do. What you get to do is proclaim to people who have never heard of Jesus, or have heard of Him, but don't understand who He really is, haven't made a commitment to Him. They get to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ. Do you see that right in the text, the unsearchable riches of Christ. Well, what does that mean, unsearchable? Unsearchable Riches I think there's another word, like fathomless. Okay, the fathomless depths, you think about it. There's this story about Ferdinand Magellan who was circumnavigating the globe. He got into the Pacific Ocean, and it was just immense, and amazing and all that, and he wanted to find out how deep it was, so he spliced together the rope they found lying around on the deck, attached it to a cannonball, and it's like, didn't hit bottom. So they said, alright, we need more rope. So they went and got more rope and then it didn't hit the bottom, and then they got all the rope they had available and it still didn't hit the bottom; that's fathomless. So Jesus Christ is so glorious, you can take all the rope you could ever find, in terms of your own mind, and you'll never hit bottom. That's the greatness of Christ. Or the unsearchable riches, another image comes to my mind from my favorite movie Ben Hur. And they're about to have this awesome chariot race, you know what I'm talking about, that's one of the greatest scenes ever in movies. And they're going to have this chariot race. But before that this Arab guy, who owns the team of horses that Charlton Heston is going to drive goes to this Roman enemy and he wants to make a bet; he wants to bet on the race. So he's got a bunch of guys with him carrying heavy boxes of golden coins, and it's really pretty cool because he takes this metal stick, and he opens up the chest and he starts rummaging around and pushing the stick down. Rummage, push, rummage, push, rummage, push. And there's the bottom. And he's got like six boxes like that. And he wants to bet all of this money on Ben Hur. Well you can get, I don't care what size stick you get, you can rummage and push and rummage and push. Jesus' greatness, His infinite glory is immeasurable. It's unsearchable; you're not going to get to the bottom of the gold box. You'll be forever finding out just how great your Savior is, how great He was in saving you, how great He is, how great He always will be. So perhaps the unsearchable riches of Christ could refer to the infinite mystery of His person, His humanity and deity, fully God fully man. It could refer to that; it's unsearchable. Or the perfection of His life, His sinlessness, that He lived a life “tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin”. Unsearchable. You'll never get done thinking about this. Or you could think about the greatness of the power he displayed in all of the miracles he did; walking on water, changing the water into wine. And raising the dead, Lazarus dead four days, and there was nothing He couldn't do. You could ponder all of the things, speaking to the wind and the waves and it obeyed His voice. “What kind of man is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him?” The “unsearchable riches of Christ.” Well you might talk about just the infinite mystery of His substitutionary death, how He died in our place on the cross under the infinite wrath of God we all deserve for violating God's laws. For not “loving Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and not loving our neighbor as ourself,” or our corruptions and our immoralities and all of that wickedness. Put on Jesus and the fathomless wrath of God, the infinite wrath of God poured out on Jesus our substitute, unsearchable riches of Christ. And then the glory of His resurrection, the fact that God raised Him from the dead on the third day and He appeared in a resurrection body never to die again, and He ascended through the heavens, through the clouds, and sits at the right hand of Almighty God and from that place, he will return some day to judge the living and the dead, the “unsearchable riches of Christ.” You're never going to get done thinking about the greatness of Christ. And we are witnesses of all this. A Providential Plane Ride I had a witnessing opportunity on the plane coming back from New Orleans sitting next to an African-American woman who had a ministry to public defenders. And she talked about some of the problems with the penal system, specifically with African-American men, and what she does, the training she does with public defenders. But as interested as I was in her work, I was more interested in her soul. So at some point, we're going to change the subject a little bit. Talk about Jesus. So I asked her what her spiritual background was. She said, well, she was raised a Muslim. Her mother had converted from being a Baptist to a Muslim to marry a Muslim man, but then he divorced her, so then she converted back to being a Baptist after he left her. But she was kind of raised as a Muslim. She married an atheistic Jew, and now she's kind of in the middle of nothing. I'm thinking, "Alright, God brought her to me." And we had an amazing conversation. She had question after question after question. She said to me, she said, "I swore I would never talk about religion and politics, but here we are talking about religion." I said "It's fine to talk as long as we don't get heated. Treat each other with kindness." And so, she was encouraged and she had questions about Jesus, about substitution, about Islam. There just wasn't enough time on the flight. We get to do that. Brothers and sisters, we get to do that. We get to have conversations like that, and it's a little bumpy to get into those conversations, but once you're in, you may find somebody who really has a lot of questions and who wants to know more about Jesus. We get to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. Less than the Least God Works With All His Children One step back and the final one. The people who do this proclamation are “less than the least of all God's people,” that's who they are. That's who Paul is. Now Paul, I don't deny I already said it. He is utterly unique in redemptive history. There will never be another Paul ever. And we're not Paul, we can't be. We won't be. But, Paul talks about himself in verse 8, "To me was given although I am less than the least of all God's people of the saints to preach to the Gentiles." But Paul, I believe, is a role model for us, as he is a role model in redemption and forgiveness. In 1 Timothy 1 he says, "This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the worst." "But in order to display His unlimited patience and His mercy to sinners like you, He saved the worst, me, so that you'd be encouraged that He can save you too." That's the logic of 1 Timothy 1. Well, here's the logic. I'm going with Ephesians 3. The logic is if God can use me to preach the “unsearchable riches of Christ,” Paul would say, “He can definitely use you.” That's what he would say, I think. So, do you qualify as less than the least of all God's people. You're like, "No, I think I'm actually better than most of God's people." Alright, well, tell you what, why don't you just go out and do some witnessing and some missions and you'll start getting sanctified and then you'll say, "You know, I really am a sinner saved by grace. I am less than the least of all God's people." But wherever you think you are, God can use you to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ to elect people who haven't been converted yet, so that the Church can be built, so that the manifold wisdom of God can be put on display to the angels. That's what's going on in this text. Being God’s Paintbrush Do you want in? I want in. I want to be part of that. I don't want to waste my life on something God's not doing. He's painting a masterpiece. I want to be a brush in His hand. What about you? What about you? I don't think it's shameful that this VRI is going on. I don't think it's shameful that 600 missionaries are coming off the field. God does amazingly complicated things. And how is He going to use those 600 missionaries; He's going to use them wherever they go. And God's going to raise up national partners in those countries to step up into the gap and do some of those ministries. He prunes trees to make them even more fruitful. I'm not in any way discouraged, but I do think it's a time for reflection, a time for prayer, a time for recommitment. And that's true of every local church; it's true of our church. So where are we at in all of this? Are we committed to missions? Are we committed to evangelism? Are we ready to take the Gospel to people that we know that are lost? Are we willing to bear the burden of their reaction to our witnessing? Put up with that so that we can get over that and talk about Jesus and His unsearchable riches? Are we willing to suffer? Are you involved in evangelism? Do you have five lost people that you're praying for by name that God would raise up someone to witness to them? Someone to share the Gospel with them. Maybe you're ready to say, "Hey, maybe I could be that person." It doesn't have to be you; just you're praying for that person. Greater Commitment to the Masterpiece Are we, as a church, ready to be more than ever before committed to unreached people group missions. We're going into our Lottie Moon Christmas offering season; Southern Baptist Churches have a time when we sacrificial give to missions that pays the salary of career missions and missionaries and others that are serving. We set goals and we always seem to meet them. I don't want to set a goal that we wouldn't meet. "We are going to raise $5,000,000." God can do anything, but I think for me, I would love to see us give more money to Lottie Moon than we've ever given before. I would love to see the number go up from generally in the $132,000 range up to something like $150,000. And where is that extra $20,000 going to come from? Well, it's going to come from us. It's going to come from us asking questions about our lifestyle, about what we eat, where we go, what we do for entertainment, what we wear, and say, "What can I sacrifice? Missionaries are sacrificing, what can I sacrifice to give? But that's not enough. I want us to be heart and soul committed, not just financially. I want us to say, "Maybe God wants me to go." I mean, we have a lot of younger people. There could be people in the youth ministry. I think about the youth retreat. I was praying for you guys, so thrilled at the work Kevin's doing. But there could be some young people, youth, who are going to go as missionaries in the future. I want this to be a sending church, a church where you caught the vision for missions here. There are college students, a lot of you all sit over here in this area, but you could be scattered around, what are you going to do with your life? What are you going to do with your talents and your abilities? What are you called to do vocationally? And there's going to be more and more opportunities for people to go, not as traditional missionaries, but what has been called tent makers, etcetera, where you go use your vocation in a cross-cultural setting to lead people to Christ. Now, as I close, I want to say one thing, and I've been talking to you as Christians, but I know that God may well have brought unbelievers here today. And for me, I've had the privilege of proclaiming the unsearchable riches of Christ to all of you, but I'm speaking to you, who know yourself to be outsiders. You're lost right now. I want to plead with you to repent and believe in Jesus, just like I pled with Illi, that's her name, that young woman that I talked to and I just wanted her to know Christ. I said to her, I said, "You know, I really believe that God wants to know you in an intimate relationship.” She said, "Oh He knows me." I said, "Well I know He knows all about you, but I want you to know Him through Christ." And she was quiet listening to that, so I'm pleading with you if you know yourself to be an outsider God wants to forgive your sins through faith in Christ, trust in Him. Prayer Now, I'm going to close the sermon and a prayer and then we're going to have a time of celebration of the ordinance, the Lord's supper. So let's close this sermon then we'll go to the table. Father, I thank you for Ephesians 3. We thank you for what you have taught us; thank you for the manifolds, the variegated, the incredibly diverse display of the wisdom of God in the Church. Thank you that you do that through the proclamation of the unsearchable riches of Christ. You can do that through “less than the least of all God's people.” I pray that we would be faithfully involved in evangelism and missions for your glory. And now, Lord, as we turn to the table, we pray that you would just send forth your Spirit in Jesus' name, amen. Like to invite the deacons to come now. Please hear the words of institution from 1 Corinthians Chapter 11. Apostle Paul writes this: "For I receive from the Lord, what I also passed on to you, the Lord Jesus on the night He was betrayed took bread, and when He had given thanks, he broke it, and said, 'This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.'" Please pray. Father, we thank you for the Lord's supper. We thank you for instituting it through your Son. We pray that you would now send the Spirit of Christ in this very place, so that this would not be a bare memorial, O Lord, but it would be an encounter with the living God, by faith in the words of God. We pray in Jesus name, amen.

Isaiah 49: One of the Greatest Missionary Chapters So we come to Isaiah 49, and we come to one of the greatest missionary chapters in the Bible, for it takes us into the secret counsels of Almighty God, the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the discussion that they have, the Father and the Son have had for the extension of the glory of God to the ends of the earth. That's a missionary theme. Here, God the Father tells the Son that it's not enough glory for him just to save the Jews. We're going to talk about that. Now, that mission is unspeakably glorious. The restoration of the Jewish nation, unspeakably glorious, unspeakably difficult, but it is given to Jesus to do it, and I praise God for that, but it's not enough. It's insufficient glory. God has commanded Jesus Christ also be the light for the Gentiles, that He may bring God's salvation to every tribe and language and people and nation. So at present, the glory of Jesus is indescribable, He sits at the right hand of Almighty God in radiant glory and the kingdom is advancing, but I say to you that his glory is insufficient at present time. It's not enough. And I yearn to just kindle inside my heart and your hearts a desire for greater glory for Jesus. Amen? You want to see more glory for Him. You want to revere Him more yourself than you ever have before. And you want to see more people brought into the kingdom. And so, my desire is to do that through Isaiah 49, to say, "O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together." Meditate on that, what can we do to God to make him bigger? Answer, nothing. He's already infinite, but let us magnify Him together, because he is too small in our own hearts, He's too small in this church, He's too small in our community, in our nation, and in our world. And so we want to see His glory extended, we want to see more and more glory coming. This chapter also brings us face-to-face, as a sub-theme, to the constant disappointment that laborers will have concerning the Kingdom of God, about that very smallness. The fact that we look at it, and it just seems so disappointing, and so discouraging. And to face that discouragement head-on, as I think Jesus does in this text, and to say, "Yes. At present, it's small. It seems to be insufficient, but God is at work and the end will be glorious, and that we have to face that. Now, we could say, like it says in verse 4, "I have labored to no purpose, I have spent my strength in vain, and for nothing." We're going to feel that. Yet, the reward is in God's hand, and it's going to come. And so, I just meditated much on this "too small" theme, "too small." It is too small a thing for Christ to save the Jews alone. Later in the text, Zion is going to say that the physical city of Jerusalem is too small for all the people that are coming, it's too small for all the work that God is doing to the ends of the earth. Amen? That earthly Jerusalem is too small, God has something bigger planned, a new Jerusalem. And we're going to talk about all of that. So, enough introduction, we have 26 verses to get through. That's a minute and 41 seconds per verse, alright? So let's go, and you're shaking your head, but I'm going to do it, I promise. We're going to get through all 26 verses, so buckle your seat belts. Here we go. I. Christ Unveiled as God’s Salvation to the Ends of the Earth (vs. 1-7) In verses 1-7, Christ is unveiled as God's salvation to the ends of the earth. We come immediately face-to-face in this chapter with the servant of the Lord, the servant of Yahweh. This is the second servant song after Isaiah 42, the first, this is the second. The question immediately comes to us, who is this individual? Just like the Ethiopian eunuch asked it of Isaiah 53, "Who is this Chapter talking about? Who is the servant of the Lord?" Scholars have given different answers. Some say it's Isaiah himself, but it doesn't fit, it just goes beyond anything that Isaiah would claim for himself. The most common alternate explanation is that the servant is Israel. It says it right in the verse 3. We'll talk about that, but that this is the nation of Israel and the nation of Israel is meant to be a light for the Gentiles. The problem with that theory is verse 6, because it 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." How can Israel save Israel? How can Israel save Jacob? It doesn't make... It doesn't line up. There's someone else that it's talking about here, and I believe it's talking about Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus Christ, son of Mary, the Son of God. This is Jesus talking, and actually we get to hear him speak, and we get to hear the Father speak to him right in this text. So, this is an amazing text. How do I know that? Again, it's that idea of the "light for the Gentiles." After Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, shortly thereafter He was taken by Joseph and Mary to the temple in Jerusalem to be circumcised according to the Law of Moses. While he was there, He met a man named Simeon. Now, Simeon was a prophet, he was a Godly man, and he was waiting, it says, for the consolation of Israel, that means he was waiting for the Messiah. And it seems to have been revealed to him that he would not die before seeing him. That's a special revelation, isn't it? "The Messiah will come in your lifetime, just wait for him." And so, he was waiting. He thought the temple, the area would be a good place to wait, and Joseph and Mary bring Jesus, and he is moved by the Spirit, and he comes over and he looks at this baby, he takes him in his arms, and he praises God, saying, "My eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people. A light of revelation for the Gentiles and glory for your people, Israel." So, he's paraphrasing Isaiah 49:6. Jesus is the "light for the Gentiles." And then in Acts 13, Paul and Barnabas in the Synagogue... They're in Pisidian Antioch explaining why they're about to go preach the Gospel to the Gentiles, which the Jews are very angry about, explaining that, quote this chapter exactly. In Acts 13:47, "For this is what the Lord has commanded us." Very interesting word, 'us.' "I have made you, [singular] a light for the Gentiles that you, singular, may bring salvation to the ends of the earth." So, they believe that Jesus is the light for the Gentiles that brings the salvation into it. They're not it. Paul and Barnabas weren't it. But the command from God the Father to God the Son, that that was his mission, became their mission. And so, God has commanded us to make sure that Jesus is the light for the Gentiles, isn't that awesome? That's a missions verse right there. And so, that's why I believe we're talking about Jesus here. The Servant of the Lord Calls to the Nations Now, if this is Jesus, then right away, we have Him speaking to the nations. Verse 1, "Listen to me, you islands. Hear this, you distant nations. Before I was born, the Lord called me from my birth, He has made mention of my name." So here in the words of Isaiah, the Prophet, 7 centuries before Jesus was born, we have Jesus addressing the world. "Hear this, you nations, you distant islands. I have something to say to you all." So this is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, talking to us, the human race. That's awesome. In verse 1, "Listen to me you islands, hear this you distant nations." He is calling to the distant nations, the farthest, remotest people groups on the face of the earth, the Inuit people up in the Arctic region of Alaska and Canada. The cave dwellers, the semi-nomadic people in Papua New Guinea. He's calling to them, to listen to him. Blond-haired descendants of the Vikings who live in Norway, and in modern cities in Norway, He's calling to them. The tall Dinka people in Africa, the tallest... Genetically, the tallest people on the face of the earth. All these distant lands are summoned by Jesus Christ, the King of kings, the Lord of lords. He's summoning them to listen to him. And He wants them to know of his origin, where He came from. It was by the call of the Father that He was born. From before He was even born, the Father called Him and chose Him and made mention of his name. And so, in 1 Peter 1:19-20, this is an encouraging word to us as Christians, we were redeemed. You know, you were redeemed, you were bought out of sin, out of slavery, you were redeemed. "With the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake." So Jesus is the pre-existent one, the called one, The Chosen One, who is chosen by God the Father before God said, "Let there be light," to be the redeemer for the nations. The Servant of the Lord Concealed and Prepared Now in Verse 2, the servant of the Lord is concealed and prepared. There's a concealing language here in Verse 2. "He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of His hand He hid me." He is the Father, He, God, God the Father made me a certain way. He shaped me, he prepared me, he got me ready. He made me... "He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me." There's that hiding language. "He made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver." So there are two different... Hiding, concealing. Jesus was concealed in the mind of God. He was concealed in the purposes of God. And then little by little over redemptive history, he started to pay out more and more of the Jesus truth, that Christ was coming. He's paying out more and more through the prophets. Through the curse on the serpent, "The seed of woman is going to crush your head." And then little by little, he's paying out more and more truth about the coming Savior. I think about, for example, Balaam, that prophet for hire, remember him? Interesting character. But he's there, and he's there supposedly to curse Israel, but instead he blesses them, and in the middle of it he gives a prophecy about Jesus. And in Numbers 24:17, he says, "I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob. A scepter will arise out of Israel." So, he's distant, I see him, it's just murky, it's far away, but I... He's coming, though. So, he was concealed in the mind of God, and then paid out a little at a time. Isaiah gives us some of the biggest "paying out" that happened about Jesus before he was born. And then he was concealed in the incarnation, and yet revealed. Amazingly, he's both concealed and revealed. The incarnation was a form of concealing. And Charles Wesley's Christmas hymn, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, one of the verses says this, "Veiled in flesh the Godhead see. Hail, the incarnate deity." So, "Veiled in flesh." He's hidden in flesh. So you look at him, and He doesn't look like God. And it's actually a stumbling block, because he's just so ordinary in every other way. He's born in the normal way. He ate food, slept, you know, his hair grew, his fingernails, got tired, slept, just normal, normal. And so, we're going to come to it, God willing, Isaiah 53:2. "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him." There was nothing... You looked at him, you didn't see God in the flesh, you didn't see that. Now on the Mount of Transfiguration, he paid out some of that glory, remember? He took Peter, James, and John with Him up the mountain, and then took the dimmer switch... Not to 100%, alright? No one could see that and live. But His clothes became radiant as light, and His face shone like the sun, and they were just overwhelmed. And a cloud came, and "This is my son." And this revelation of the glory of Jesus, that He had laid, "Mild he lays his glory by." He laid His glory by. And so, He's veiled, He's concealed. He was concealed, especially, at the cross. Don't you see it? As you look at the cross, it's like, "How could this be God? How could God die?" It just made no sense. It was a stumbling block to people. And so He was concealed at the cross, and He was concealed after His glorious resurrection. You would say, "You know, I would have appeared to everyone." I bet you would have. Our ways are not His ways, His ways are better than our ways. And so instead, He gives the world people like you and me as witnesses. That's a concealing. So he sends missionaries to villages and they're just ordinary people, they're sinners like anyone else, and they come with a message. That's a concealing, but also a revealing. And that's the thing. And Jesus, there's weapon language used here. He made his... "He made my mouth like a sharpened sword. I was a polished arrow hidden in His quiver." That's fighting language, that's weapon language. Jesus is a weapon from God the Father, and against what? Against evil, against the contagion of evil that has encroached in His beautiful universe. And he unleashed Jesus to destroy the evil. And what he does with the elect, the sharpened sword is like a scalpel, a surgeon's scalpel, cutting out the tumor of sin out of your heart, saving your soul. His word is like a sharp double-edged sword, it's able to penetrate and convict and to bring healing. And so, He is the physician who uses His mouth to heal you from sin. But not so with His enemies. The second coming of Christ, Revelation 19, He comes with the armies of heaven, and there's a sword coming out of His mouth, and He will slay the nations, though... All His enemies, all the rebels who would not bow the knee to Him. He will overcome them with the breath of his mouth. And so, "He made my mouth like a sharpened sword," Jesus says, "And in the shadow of His hand, he hid me." The Servant of the Lord Is Called “Israel” And then, in Verse 3, comes this challenging Verse. He calls him Israel. Now, you told us this is Jesus, how can we call him Israel? Well, I already said it can't be Israel in verse 6, so we've got to find some way to harmonize this thing. It's easier, I think, to understand how God the Father would call Jesus "Israel" than to understand how Israel could save Israel. So, I think Jesus is called Israel here in verse 3. Why? Well, Israel was... Jesus was everything Israel was supposed to be, perfected, personified. He was what the Son of God should have been on Earth. Remember how Moses said to Pharaoh, "Say to Pharaoh, 'this is what the Lord says, Israel is my first-born son.'" Did you hear that? Well, no, not really. Actually, Jesus is his first-born, over all creation. He's the only begotten. But in some way, there's a connection between Jesus and Israel, the people of God, such an intimate connection. And so, in Hosea 11:1, the prophet there says, "When Israel was a child, I loved him. And out of Egypt, I called my Son." Then Matthew, in Chapter 2, ascribes it directly to Jesus, that exact quote, " Out of Egypt, I called my son." So He's identified in Matthew 2 as Israel, in some way. So, how does that work? Jesus is the perfection of what the people of God should have been. He perfectly obeyed God, He perfectly obeyed the laws of Moses. He was the perfection of what Israel should have been, He radiated the glory of God in this world. And now in the church, believers, etcetera, through the Spirit, we are the body of Christ, He's the head. There's this intimate connection. And so, we are called by His name, and He by ours. It's like a beautiful marriage in that way. And so, I think that's the way I understand this word, Israel. The Servant of the Lord Apparently Discouraged Now, another challenging verse, in verse 4. If this is Jesus, how do we hear verse 4? How do we understand Jesus saying, "But I said, I labored to no purpose, I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing"? That's a head-scratcher. So maybe you say, "Wait a minute, we're going to kick out of the Jesus interpretation, just for that part, and then back in in the rest of the verse." Well, we really can't do that, so I'm sticking to it and saying Jesus, in some way, could say this. That's the way I would say it. There seemed to be evidence of failure connected with Jesus. Do you not see it? I mean, think of this, Jesus nailed to the cross, the end of the only sinless life there's ever been on Earth. The only perfect preaching ministry there's ever been, the only perfect river of miracles there's ever been displayed. Abundant evidence of the power of God. And he's calling people, "Come unto me, and be saved." He's calling to them. At the end of all of that nailed to the cross, He's got one Apostle, John. He's got his mother, she's going to go wherever He goes. And some friends of the family who were disciples, and that's it. Wouldn't it have seemed like he could say these words at that moment? "I have labored to no purpose. I've not saved Israel. I've not saved Jacob. I've not... " You know, you could say that. Now, I think there's language like that. It was tempting to look at that moment as a failure. But understand, the verse doesn't stop there. It doesn't stop there. "Yet," He says, "What is due me is in the Lord's hands, and my reward is with my God." So, "Yeah, I understand that thought. I know you might think this whole thing was a failure, but it's not." Because as he died, you remember, he said, "Father into your hands I commit my Spirit."And with that, he breathed His last... Can I just kind of expand that and just thematically say, Father, into your hands, I commit my ministry. Into your hands I commit this death on the cross. Now do something with this. And the father says to the son, oh, I will. You sit at my right hand and you watch what I will do with this. You did everything I told you to do. You can't measure, it's impossible to conceive of the zeal the father has to do something with Jesus' death. You didn't labor for nothing. Your reward is in my hand, and I will pay it out to you over 20 plus centuries of people coming to faith and worshipping you as God for what you did. And so, there is a zeal. I want you to feel it in your heart. I have a hard time sometimes not getting emotional at this moment. I taught this in Bible studies, and at this moment I start to choke up and I was like, "Can I even conceive of how committed the father is to make sure the son gets what he deserves?" "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a foot stool for your feet," he says. This is the zeal of the father has. And the zeal, the Holy Spirit has. That's his special office in the world to come to you individually and make you worship Jesus. Thank God the Holy Spirit, he did that for you, if you're a Christian today. It's incredible to me how often I, as a pastor and I hear stories, how often we come face-to-face with discouragement in ministry. It happens a lot. It happens a lot. You're like, wow, I mean, you know, it seems like things are going well. It's like, look... It's... You know, I think the church, not just FBC but the church should be bigger, better, brighter more awesome, more obedient, more, more, more, more of everything if Jesus really was a son of God. Don't you see that? Don't you feel that? And I'm not the only one that's felt that. Martin Luther, I've told this story before, stopped preaching for 18 months in Wittenberg. He was a professor, so he wasn't a pastor, he didn't have to preach. He's like, "I'm not going to preach to you people anymore, because my preaching doesn't seem to do anything. You're still the same drunk Germans you were before the Reformation." He didn't say that, but it was kind of like that. You're the same, you were. Nothing's happening. I'm done. I'm going to go back to be a professor with my books and we're finished. And Melanchthon and other friends did everything they could, and he was intractable for over a year, a year-and-a-half. Finally he got back into preaching. Discouragement. I've labored to no purpose, I've spent my strength in vain and for nothing. You know the story of missionaries like Adoniram Judson that dug his own grave and waited for God to strike him dead, because his wife is dead, his child was dead, and he had no converts after seven years. It's like, "Did I leave Salem Massachusetts? Did I get on that boat for this?" What are you doing God? I don't understand this. Why, after all this time, is there so little to show? And yet, when he died, a government survey done by the Burmese government showed 210,000 Burmese claiming to be Christians, 210,000 by the end of his life. Labor to no purpose. Pastors can feel that way as they look at the church. Parents can feel that way as they look at their families. College students can feel that way as they try to be light shining in a dark place at their fraternity, their sorority, trying to reach a roommate and everything seems for nothing. You do some Bible studies, and the person... People don't come to Christ. It's so easy to face, but don't stop in the middle of the Verse. Yet, what is due me is in the Lord's hand, and my reward is with my God." I trust you O Lord, I want to be faithful and leave the rest to you. The Servant of the Lord Prepared to Restore Israel Verse 5, the servant of the Lord prepared to restore Israel. "And now the Lord says, He who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring back Jacob to himself, and gather Israel to himself, for I'm honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has been my strength." Alright, so the Lord says this to me. He says, He formed me in the womb, He knit me together in Mary's womb, and my mother's womb gave me a human body for the purpose of restoring Israel. If you know anything or about redemptive history, about the Bible, that is a big job. Getting the Jews at last to turn away from idolatry, to turn away from sin, and wholeheartedly to worship Yahweh, that's Jesus' special glory. That's what he was sent in the world to do, and that was the focus, the narrow focus of his mission on earth for three years. You remember he went up to Syrophoenicia area, up there and there's this woman coming and asked for a miracle and he didn't even answer, he just walked right by, odd moment. And she finally, I think... I think she literally stood right in front. You know, a mother's love. We'll get to that later in the text, but a mother's love, like, do not ignore me, my child needs healing. So he says, "It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to their dogs." "Yes Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table." Do you remember that? But what did he say before that? "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." But by the time of His resurrection, that was done to the Jew first, what? And also to the Gentile. He sends out His Apostles to the ends of the Earth. And so, he says, "Look, that was the first mission, but now, the mission is to the ends of the earth." And friends, please don't go into those theological systems that tell you there was a plan A and that failed, now we're in a plan B, and the church is God's plan B. Have you ever heard that before? Some of you have, it's outrageous and ridiculous. God doesn't have a Plan B, God doesn't need a plan B. He knows exactly what he's doing. And so, to the Jew first and now the time has come and the Gospel gets unleashed to the ends of the earth. The Servant’s Mission to the Ends of the Earth Look at Verses 6-7, 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've kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth. This is what the Lord says, the redeemer and a holy one of Israel, to him who is despised, and abhorred by the nation to the servant of rulers, kings will see you and rise up. Princes will see you and bow down. Because of the Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen you." So this is awesome, this is an inter-trinitarian conversation. Father speaking to the Son. And He says, it's too small a thing, literally too light a thing in the Hebrew. Too light. It's too lightweight for you to only do that. Now, the Hebrew word for glory is Kavod, it's related to massiveness, a massive weight of the glory of God. He says, "Therefore, it's insufficient glory for you only to save the Jews. That's too light for you." He is also the light for the Gentiles to bring God's salvation to the ends of the Earth. The people walking in darkness will see that eternal life, light. They will see the glory of God. And the mission will be successful, isn't that awesome? We will succeed. We're on the winning team. Kings will see and they will rise up out of their thrones like the king of Nineveh. Remember when he got up out of his throne, took off his royal robes and got... Put on sack cloth and abased himself before God? The kings are going to see you and get up out of their thrones and princes are going to see, and they're going to bow down to you. We'll see this again in Isaiah 52:15, where it says, "so will He sprinkle many nations" with His blood, sprinkle them "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." So this Gospel is going to go out to Kings in Africa, kings in Europe, kings in Asia, they're going to hear these things, and many of them are going to get saved. II. God’s Day of Salvation for the Exiles (vs. 8-13) Now Verses 8-13, God's day of salvation for the exiles. We come in Verse 8 to God's day of salvation. Look at Verse 8, "This is what the Lord says, 'In the time of my favor, I will answer you, and in the day of salvation, I will help you. I will keep you and I will make you to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land and reassign its desolate inheritances." Well, Paul quotes this Verse, Isaiah 49:8, in 2 Corinthian 6:1-2, to the Gentile believers in Corinth. This is what he says, "As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain." What he's saying is the Gospel's come to your town, I'm pleading with you that it would not have come in vain. And then he says in 2 Corinthian 6:2, "for he says, 'in the time of my favor, I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.' I tell you, now is the time of God's favor. Today, now is the day of salvation." So this gives a sense of urgency to all of this. Do you not see it? I think about this Verse every time I witness. And I get to the end of a time in which I'm saying, God sent his son into the world. He lived a sinless life, perfectly obeyed the laws of God, died an atoning death in our place on the cross. Rose from the dead, physically on the third day and appeared to eye witnesses, and he stands now ready to save anyone who repents and believes in him. Will you believe in Him? Will you trust in him? If that individual says, "You know, the things you're saying make a lot of sense. I'm going to think about that. I'm going to think about that." As a matter of fact, I actually had one individual tell me that they're planning to become a Christian right before they died. They're going to live a fun life, they're going to do what they want to do, the money, the different things. They got all that planned out, all of that, they got the whole life planned out and then right before they die, they're going to become a Christian. I said, "Well, that's... There's a lot of things wrong with that, but you know, how do you know when you're going to die?" You have someone right now that God sent to sit next to you on this plane and tell you about Jesus. You may never get another chance. More than that, you find the things I'm saying compelling and you feel yourself pulled, you may never feel that again. Today is the day of salvation. Now, one last detail look at the Isaiah text, alright, this is interesting. "This is what the Lord says." We've been following that, it's God the Father who's he saying it to? To Jesus. So we got to continue that, he's saying this to Jesus, not to sinners, he's saying it to Jesus. "In the time of my favor, I will answer you" Jesus. And "in the day of salvation, I will help you." I will keep you Jesus and I will make you Jesus to be a covenant for the people. To restore the land and reassign its desolate inheritances. Well, why is that important? Well, here's the thing, in 2 Corinthian 6, it's applied to the sinners. So if you hear God speaking to you, call on him and then in the day of salvation he'll hear you. No, no, in the day of salvation, God the Father will hear the son, call to the son, and he's your mediator and he'll go with your name to the Father and the Father will accept you. That's powerful. He's not going to listen to you, apart from Jesus, He's not going to circumvent Jesus. Go to Jesus, call on Jesus' name, and He will save you. So just stop for a minute. Are you saved? Have you trusted in Christ? God brought you here today to hear this. Do you know that you are saved? Do you know that your sins are forgiven? Today is the day of salvation, you may never hear the Gospel again. You don't know how long you're going to have to die. Now, I'll say this, if you're a Christian, and God has given you... You know, He's given all of us this work of evangelism and missions. Use this urgency to spur your cell phone, don't postpone the work of evangelism and missions. Be urgent inside yourself and when you're sharing, there should be a sense of urgency, say, "Please, come to Christ. I'm pleading with you." I mean, even make it a little socially awkward. You're like, "But why?" Because it's not okay for them not to believe in Jesus. It's like, Well, that's okay, just let me know what you think and hey, get back to me, next six months is fine. Don't do that. Say, I am going to pray that you will not even be able to sleep tonight, because this thing is weighing on you so much. I've said that to people. The Restoration of the Exiles from the Distant Lands They look at me, think... But it makes sense with the conversation we're having. So in Verses 8-12, The Lord has promised the restoration of the exiles from the distant land. And God says, "I will make you to be a covenant for the people to restore the land and reassign its desolate inheritances, to say to the captors come out and to those in darkness, be free. And they will feed beside the roads and they'll find pasture on every barren hill. And they will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat on them. And He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them to sites of springs of water. I will turn all my mountains into roads, and my highways will be raised up. And behold, they will come from afar. They're going to come from the north and some from the west and some from the region of Aswan. Which scholars tell us is Sinema or China. They're going to come from distant places, and they're going to come back and rebuild. So the image here is of a journey and God promises to protect them on their journey and to bring them back. And the Promised Land, Jerusalem pictured here is a desolate inheritance of rubble-filled city and God promises to rebuild the city with exiles and to gather them from very distant lands. And this would be physically fulfilled literally fulfilled under Ezra and Nehemiah when the exiles came back and they rebuilt the city of Jerusalem, and resumed Jewish history under Gentile domination then. But that's not all these Verses have in mind. Why did God do that, why did he want the physical literal city of Jerusalem rebuilt? Well because... I want you to picture here's an illustration, imagine a... The producer of Broadway musicals, that wants to go around to other major cities in the US and put on major musicals and he's got one in particular, he comes to a major urban area and he finds an old theater that used to be really popular and well-known and all that, but it's run down now and he chooses that one and refurbishes it, and fixes the seats up, and gives it a new paint job, and cleans all the rubbish out and especially gets the stage ready. And he gets the curtains ready and he gets the lighting ready, Why? For the musical that's going to come there. And so God is getting Jerusalem ready for the greatest drama there ever has been or ever will be in all of human history, for the sending of Christ to Jerusalem, to be despised and rejected by his own people, to die on the cross and to rise again, in that Jewish setting that's why he's doing it. So it's not an end in of itself, but the exiles are coming back a steady stream, resulting verse 13 in tremendous praise and joy, shout for joy oh heavens rejoice oh earth, burst into song oh mountains, for the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones. III. Despite All Appearances, the Exiles Will Return (vs. 14-21) In verses 14 through 21, despite all appearances, the exiles will return. "Zion speak", Zion is the city of God Jerusalem, the place where God dwells with his people and Zion says, "The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me." This is similar to Jesus in verse 4. Is it even possible for all the exiles to come back? Can it even happen? It's too hard. And so Zion, the city of God is personified and speaks here saying this... I don't see how this can even happen. God has forsaken me and forgotten me, but look at verses 15 through 18, "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne, though she may forget I will not forget you. Behold I have engraved you on the palms of my hands, your walls are ever before me, your son's hasten back, and those who laid you waste depart from you, lift up your eyes and look around you, all your sons gather and come to you, as surely as I live declares the Lord, you will wear them all as ornaments, you will put them on like a bride." It is impossible for God to forget Zion, he uses this analogy of a mother's love for her nursing baby, you think of a mother holding her baby right here, and the love that she has for that child, what wouldn't she give to protect her child? . It maybe in some ways the greatest love there is on earth, the greatest human love there is, think of just the image of a mother's committed love for her children, she'd die for them. And so if she can't forget, I can't ever forget Zion ever. And he says, "Though she may forget," look there are some women that do forsake their children, there are some women that selfishly save their lives rather than their children, it happens and even godly mothers there's a limit to their love. You mothers know exactly what I'm talking about. And your kids push you close to that limit, more regularly than you might want to admit, but you still love him, but he's saying, "Even though she may forget my love for Zion is infinitely greater than any mother's love for her children. I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Your walls are ever before me, I will never forget what I'm intending to do with you." So I'm going to rebuild and despite all appearances, the exiles will return. Verses 17-21, "Your sons hasten back, and those who laid you waste depart from you. Lift up your eyes and look around; all your sons gather and come to you. As surely as I live," declares the LORD, "you will wear them all as ornaments; you will put them on, like a bride. Though you were ruined and made desolate and your land laid waste, now you will be too small for your people, and those who devoured you will be far away. The children born during your bereavement will yet say in your hearing, 'This place is too small for us; give us more space to live in.' Then you will say in your heart, 'Who bore me these? I was bereaved and barren; I was exiled and rejected. Who brought these up? I was left all alone, but these-- where have they come from?'" That's language of joy, of rich lavish joy at Zion's children. Now what is all this talking about? Well physically the exiles are going to come back, and they did come back, 42000 of them came back under Ezra and Nehemiah and they came back and rebuild. But I believe this is talking about both and, not either or, but both and. Yes this is prophesied, yes God would be their rear guard he would go before them, He would level the mountains, He would make sure they had enough to drink, he would get them there. But the big picture goes back to Verse 6, God has made Jesus to be the light for who? , the Gentiles that he may do what? Bring God salvation to the ends of the earth. And the beautiful thing in the New Covenant is you don't need to go to Jerusalem, you don't need to go to the literal physical city of Jerusalem. God has moved on. The text itself says it's too small, if every believer in Jesus on Earth went to Jerusalem right now, I mean the physical city of Jerusalem what would that be like? That would be interesting around the Dome of the Rock, wouldn't that be an interesting moment? . All of the Christians making a pilgrimage. Millions, hundreds of millions place is too small. So this is ultimately talking about the advance of missions and the streaming of spiritual exiles who are coming to the true new future Jerusalem, the one that's getting ready up in heaven, the heavenly Zion that some day when it's done will descend like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband, and we the living stones in her walls set in place we are through evangelism and missions, being set in this new Zion, this new Jerusalem is getting built and it is glorious. That's what these verses are talking about. IV. The Gentiles Will Aid the Redemption of Israel... or Be Destroyed (vs. 22-26) Final section, the Gentiles will aid this process or they're going to be destroyed. Verse 22 and 23, "This is what the Sovereign LORD says: 'See, I will beckon to the Gentiles, I will lift up my banner to the peoples; they will bring your sons in their arms and carry your daughters on their shoulders. Kings will be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground; they will lick the dust at your feet. Then you will know that I am the LORD; those who hope in me will not be disappointed.'" Here's what I make of this, as the Gospel spreads, more and more gentiles are going to become basically spiritual Jews and they're going to see that salvation comes from the Jews, and they are glad to be grafted into a Jewish olive tree and to think like Jews and to consider themselves sons and daughters of Abraham, and they're going to say surely, to the Jewish heritage, God is with you. And I want to be part of that. And so these kings and queens will actually literally use their positions of power and their influence to spread the Gospel and to advance and hasten the building of this Heavenly Zion. It's going to happen. But some of them, verses 24 through 26, will resist and oppose. Verse 24, “Can plunder, be taken from warriors or captors rescued from the fierce?" Yes. The Lord says, "Yes, Captors will be taken from warriors, plunder retrieve from the fierce. I will contend with those who contend you and your children I will save, and I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh and they'll be drunk on their own blood as with wine, and then all mankind will know that I, the Lord am your Savior, redeemer, the mighty one of Jacob." So what's going on here? Some gentiles will use their positions of power and influence to resist and oppose the building of the heavenly Zion. They're going to try to oppose it, just as Sanballat and Tobias used their positions in the book of Nehemiah to try to stop the rebuilding of the wall. They use their position to hinder the work of God. And there are some kings like that. Some kings like Xerxes and Ahasuerus helped the building. Some of them, they'll resist and oppose. So it's non-Christian leaders, non-Christian senators, non-Christian congressmen and women, non-Christian Supreme Court Justices, non-Christian President of prestigious liberal arts universities and professors at those universities, and non-Christian local officials who used their positions and dictators and premiers and kings and emperors using their position to hinder Christ and the building of his Kingdom, and to oppress his people and incarcerate them, and beat them, and kill them. God says in these verses, "I'm going to deal with them, I'm going to judge them. Read about it on book of Revelation. V. Applications 26 verses friends Many of the applications I've given you all the way through but just briefly, magnify the Lord with me. Make Jesus greater in your own heart. Make Him greater. Go back over verses one through seven and find things to praise Jesus for. Exalt Him in your life. Through your personal holiness, magnify Him. Through your evangelism and missions, magnify Him. Secondly, get on board with what He's doing in the world. He is bringing God salvation to the ends of the earth. December is generally a month in which we focus on missions at FBC especially through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and I've been so thrilled to be part of this Church. I'm amazed, we're in the top 100 in giving in Lottie Moon nationwide among Southern Baptist Churches, that's amazing. There's like 16,000 Southern Baptist Churches. Were in the top 100. There are a lot of bigger Churches than ours. But you should know that the 135,000, I don't know the exact amount that we gave last year would not even come close to paying for all the Church members that we have overseas with the IMB. Now, we don't have to do it alone, but just know put in perspective what we give and then the ones we're sending out, every dollar in the Lottie Moon offering goes directly to supporting missions to unreached people groups. That's where it goes towards. So be generous. Pray about what you and your family will do for Lottie Moon. And if I can go beyond that extend it, mission isn't just done in December. So, how about praying about what you can give to the great commission fund in May, or April, or August. Think about your lifestyle and how you want to live in light of the spread of the gospel. Thirdly, understand the temptation to discouragement that we all feel concerning the spread of the gospel and fight it. Be an encouragement to the elders. Many of you are very encouraging to me personally, be that encouragement. The work of the ministry is hard. It's hard to see what's coming of all this. Be encouraging to our directors. Be encouraging to Matthew as he does city outreach. Be encouraging to Kyle as he reaches out at Duke, and State, and Central, and UNC. Being encouraging. It's easy to get discouraged at these ministries. Be encouraging to Kevin and all. Be encouraging to those that are laboring, okay? And then as parents, be encouraged that if you're sowing good seed in your kids that you have been faithful to do what God calls you do no matter how they turn out. Be faithful and leave that to Him, fight discouragement. Fourthly, urgency and salvation. I just, it would break my heart if the Lord would tell me through an angel or some other way that there's some un-regenerate person here that would walk out of this place still un-regenerate thinking they're going to have time to repent next week or next year. Don't leave this place lost. And again to you Christians, be urgent on evangelism and missions. Fifth, meditate on how God has promised to never forsake you ever. He cannot, will not stop loving you. It doesn't matter what you're going through. He has engraved you in the palm of His hand. He will never forget you. He will never lose you, He will never leave, never forsake you. And finally, as I did in my pastoral prayer today, meditate much on the glory of the coming Heavenly Jerusalem. Read about it in Revelation 21 and 22, feed your heart on where we're heading with all of this. Close with me in prayer.

Today marks the beginning of Senior Adult Week among Southern Baptist Churches. We are grateful for those who have gone before us and led the way for us to follow. Paul teaches on the importance of leaving a legacy as we pursue Jesus Christ. What legacy will your life leave? Sermon notes at http://bible.com/e/1QRw

1) I've visited several “Fundamental Independent Baptist Churches” and some Southern Baptist Churches where in addition to giving a call to see if anyone wants to be saved after every service they also ask in most services if anyone is “called to...

Introduction We come in Romans 11:25-32, the climax of the argument that Paul has been making concerning the nation of Israel, the Jewish people. And as I've been meditating on Romans 11, it's really been amazing the effect on my own heart and my own life. And I felt that some as we were traveling to Romania and we were in the airport in Milan, Italy and it was remarkable, the numbers of groups of Jewish men that I saw in that airport as we were waiting for the connecting flight. Actually we were fogged in so we're waiting a long time and I saw in one place, a group of about 15 or 20 men wearing wide brimmed hats and characteristic ear locks and beards and they were walking together. There was one that seemed older than the others and then there were some younger boys that were walking. I thought he might be a rabbi with a group of students around him. Later on as we were sitting in an area having some coffee and just waiting, I saw another Jewish man with his family and he was wearing a Yamaka and he was wearing a prayer shawl. And at a certain point, he stood up and he faced a wall. I assumed he was facing Jerusalem and as the Jews do praying in front of the Wailing Wall, this man began to pray, oblivious to any around him, not concerned what any might think about him. And as I sat there and observed him and as I was just thinking about the Jewish men that I had seen before that it was interesting the thoughts that were rising up inside me as I observed that. First I felt, and I'm ashamed to admit it, but I felt a kind of a spiritual pride saying, "They don't even know Christ. God can't hear their prayers." All these kind of things. "If only they knew what I knew" this kind of thing. And I was checked in that by Romans 11. I was humbled as I was working on that exact message and thinking about all the ways that God humbles Gentiles in Romans 11 and warns us not to be arrogant or to boast over the fallen branches but rather to pray for them and show concern. It changed my heart, but then I was considering the text we're looking at today, this incredible mystery that we would not know any other way except that God had told us through this apostle, "All Israel will be saved." and I thought, wouldn't it be an incredible thing if it happened now. Wouldn't it be an incredible thing if that group of Jewish men sat down to study the prophets and saw suddenly for the first time Christ where they'd never seen him before? Wouldn't it be something if that Jewish man would have an Evangelist, would have somebody explain to him the Gospel and rather than responding with hardness he would respond with faith and trust in Christ? Well, I believe that's exactly what the Bible says will happen at some point. I don't know if it's our generation, but I believe that Paul is revealing to us here that at some time in the future, the nation of Israel, will in large number, in a huge number in a remarkable way turn to faith in Christ. That's what it's revealing here. I. Context Now, let's try to understand the context. Paul has been dealing in Romans 9-11 with the question, the bitter question for him as a Jewish man: why are the Jews almost overwhelmingly rejecting the Gospel whereas the Gentiles are so in such a wide and marvelous way receiving the Gospel? What does it mean? Has God's word failed to the Jews? He's dealing with this question and it seems that God is finished with the Jewish nation, seemed that way to many gentile onlookers since they were almost universally rejecting the Gospel of Christ. Also he saw, Paul did, that the Gentiles might have been feeling tempted to feel spiritually superior to the Jews, that they were better than them in some way. And so he's writing here in Romans 11 to deal with this. And if I could give a kind of a two part summary to the whole chapter, Romans 11. I think first and foremost, Paul is saying that the rejection of Israel is not total. He says I'm an Israelite myself and there is in every generation, a remnant chosen by grace, there's always going to be some physical descendants of Abraham who will embrace Christ and believe in him. That's the first part, the rejection of Israel is not total. Secondly, we find here in verse 25, the rejection of Israel is not permanent, but rather at some time, mysteriously in the future, God is going to work. So what we've seen is a movement in Romans 11, and it's quite remarkable that the restoration of Israel is possible. He says there, God is able to graft them in again. God is able. So it is possible for the Jews to come back to Christ. Secondly, he goes up to the next level and says, "Actually, it's probable." because he says, "If you Gentiles are wild by nature and you were grafted into an olive tree that is cultivated and it's not naturally yours, how much more readily will these the natural olive branches be grafted into their own olive tree." It is actually probable then that the Jews could be grafted in, but now he moves to the final level. It's not just possible, it's not just probable, it is guaranteed that God will do this very thing, all Israel will be saved, he will graft them in again this is the astounding mystery. II. Astounding Mystery Revealed: “All Israel Will Be Saved” Look at verses 25 and 26, he says, "I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery brothers so that you may not be conceited. Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of Gentiles has come in, and so all Israel will be saved." Now, the first question I want to ask is, why does God reveal this mystery to us? Why does he tell us this? What are his reasons? Now, in the ancient world there were things called mystery religions. Paul wrote about them in Colossians 2, the kind of thing where you had to have some specialized spiritual knowledge, there was a hierarchy of spirituality and if you had that special knowledge you could make progress spiritually in this mystery religion. But actually, ironically, Christianity is a mystery religion, not in that way, but the Bible is filled with mysteries. Jesus said to his own disciples, "The mysteries of the kingdom have been made known to you but not to them." Speaking of the parables, Matthew 13. And here in... I'm sorry, in 1st Corinthians 2:7 Paul calls the Gospel a mystery ordained from before the creation of the world. He says in 1 Corinthians 2:7, "We impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God which God decreed before the ages for our glory." So the gospel is the secret and hidden mystery now being imparted. Paul speaks of this mystery again in Romans 16:25-27. He's going to end this incredible epistle to the Romans again by hitting on this theme of the mystery. Romans 16:25 and following a doxology says, "Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ," listen, "according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God to bring about the obedience of faith to the only God forever and ever be glory amen and amen." It's a mystery revealed. Christianity is a mystery religion and it's been revealed. Now, I want you to know it does not foster spiritual pride. Quite the opposite. All we have to do is humble ourselves and go to Jesus and say, "Please tell me what this means?" and God will not despise any honest and faith-filled request for wisdom, if we go to him and say, "Explain to me the scripture. Please let me know what this means." And you should do this. Romans 11 is filled with deep doctrine. There may be some things in it you don't understand. You just go humbly and simply to Christ and say, "Teach me through the Spirit what the Scripture means." That's what I did concerning verse 25. All of Christ's wisdom is available to the truly humble seeker, the one who really wants to know what Christ has to say. Israel Has Experienced a Hardening in Part And Jesus put it this way in Matthew 11:25, he said at that time, Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth for you have revealed these things to little children but hidden them from the wise and learned." God delights in doing that both in the revealing and the concealing. If you become like a little child you humble yourself he will reveal these secrets to you. Paul gives two reasons why God reveals this mystery right in his text verse 25 he says, "I do not want you to be ignorant to this mystery brothers so that you may not be conceited." So God reveals this through Paul to us, first, so that we will not be ignorant, and secondly, so that we will not be arrogant. He doesn't want us to be ignorant of what God is intending to do with the Jews, and he doesn't want us to be arrogant toward those Jews who have not yet come to faith in Christ. Well, that's the general setting at the table. Now, let's look at the mystery and try to unwrap it point by point. It says in verse 25, "Israel has experienced a hardening in part." Now Israel, I believe as throughout this chapter, is referring to the nation of Israel, the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He's already addressed this issue of Israel's hardening, he's already talked about it in verse 7, look at Romans 11:7 it says, "What then what Israel sought so earnestly it did not obtain but the elect did and the others were hardened." Now, the word hardening is 'porosis'. He's speaking of the hardening of their hearts. Simply put, I think the hardening of the Jews is their inability, their refusal to come to Christ when clearly confronted with the biblical evidence that Jesus is in fact the Messiah. Clearly confronted with the biblical evidence that he fulfills all these prophecies. There's a hardness that has come over them in part. It says, Jesus speaking to the Jews of his own day in John 5:39-40 he says to them, "You diligently study the Scriptures, because you think that by them you possess eternal life, these are the scriptures that testify about me. Yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life." That's the hardness, the 'porosis' that's come over their hearts. Also 2nd Corinthians 3:14-15 speaks of it. Speaking of the Jews Paul writes, "Their minds were dull for to this day, the same veil remains when the old covenant is read it has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts." They can't see Christ in the Old Testament, that's the nature of the 'porosis'. We've also learned very mysteriously and very difficulty for some to accept that this hardening has come from God himself, it's actually God that has brought this hardening on their hearts. Look at verse 8, "as it is written, God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes so that they could not see, ears so that they could not hear, to this very day." And we talked about that at that point. Jesus... John put it this way in John 12:39 and following, "For this reason they," speaking of the Jews, "For this reason they could not believe because as Isaiah says elsewhere, 'he has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts so that they can neither see with their eyes nor understand with their hearts nor turn and I would heal them.' Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus' glory and spoke about him." Isaiah spoke about Jesus but the Jews couldn't see it because of this blindness, because hardness that's come over. Now we see at last, the joyful ramifications of that difficult doctrine that it is God that brought the spirit of stupor. What do I mean? God himself gave the hardening and therefore God himself has the power to take it away. He gave it and he can take it away any time he chooses and that's exactly what Paul says he's going to do. He's going to take away that hardness so that all Israel can be saved. Now you might think, Why would God do that? Well, he explains that throughout the chapter but there's a beautiful illustration of this, I think, in the Book of Daniel. You remember the story about Daniel and his interactions with the potentate of the Babylonian empire, King Nebuchadnezzar, what an incredible tyrant this man was. What a force of will and domination that forced the Babylonians into a worldwide, world conquering empire. And at one point, he's boasting in his arrogance over the city of Babylon, that he's built. And so God sends him a warning in a dream, and in the dream this is what the warning is. In Daniel 4:16-17 the angel says concerning Nebuchadnezzar, "Let his mind be changed from that of a man and let him be given the mind of an animal till seven times pass by for him. The decision is announced by messengers, the holy ones declare the verdict, so that the living may know that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men." That's the lesson, God rules. And you have your kingdom because I gave it to you. And so he decreed seven years of mental insanity for this man. Seven years in which he thought he was an animal. How humbling is that? He's out eating grass like an animal for seven years. At the end of the seven years, Nebuchadnezzar was permitted to come to his senses only because God removed the insanity that clouded his normal reason. The seven years were mandated by God, the time was set by God's wisdom and power. It was announced four times, twice in the dream, once in Daniel's interpretation, and then once by the angel who brought the judgment finally. The seven years of insanity were fixed and not before that time elapsed did God permit Nebuchadnezzar to come to his senses and repent from his sin. I see a similar situation here with the hardening of the Jews. God has set it. There's a certain amount of time. And at some point my friends, at some point he's going to remove it just like he did in Nebuchadnezzar's case. And what is that time? Well, he doesn't give days, months, years, decades, centuries. It's not a time in that sense. He doesn't tell us how long it's going to be but he does tell us what's going to happen. And then the hardness will be removed. It says, "Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of Gentiles has come in." This gives the time extent of the hardening. God has measured out how long he will wait to remove Israel's hardening. He measures it not in calendar time here but in prophetic event time. This is the next thing that must happen and then the hardening will be removed. Now, I believe what this is talking about is the fullness of the Gentiles, the mass or the greater part or the great number of the Gentiles turning to Christ. I think some people get mathematically accurate saying the last single solitary gentile would be converted and then all of the Jews will be converted, etcetera. That may well be but the word just means fullness, the fullness of the Gentiles is going to come in and then you're going to get the fullness of the Jews coming in. Until the Full Number of the Gentiles Comes In So that still I think allows the possibility of some development even after this happens. It doesn't mean every single solitary person who's going to be saved gentile and then every single solitary person Jew and then the end comes. It may be that way, but it doesn't have to be that way. The word simply means fullness. And so what does it mean? Well, God has chosen people, he has his elect, and they're in every tribe, and language, and people, and nation and Jesus has said, "This Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations and then the end will come." It says in the book of Acts, the Apostle Paul says that God has determined the time set for the nations and the exact places where they should live. And so he's got his elect people among the gentile, scattered all over the world, and he's sending out missionaries with beautiful feet and they're going to the ends of the Earth and they're bringing the gospel to unreached people groups. That's what Lottie Moon helps pay for. Oh, be generous, pray and be generous because we want to see the Gospel speed to the ends of the earth to the places where people have never heard the name of Christ. And so we're sending out missionaries. Southern Baptist Churches all over the country are sending out missionaries. There are people all over the world involved in the great commission work to bring the fullness of the Gentiles in and so we know from every tribe, and language, and people, and nation they will come. It says in Revelation 7:9, "After this, I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation and tribe and people and language standing before the throne and in front of the lamb. They were wearing white robes and they were holding palm branches in their hands and they were saying, Salvation belongs to the Lord and to the lamb." That is the fullness of the Gentiles, friends. And Israel has experienced the hardening in part until that comes in, until that harvest is brought in. Now, God has measured this out. He knows how long it's going to be. Now, he's not told us in years or exactly the date that it will happen but he's told us that it is going to happen and friends we're seeing it going on right in front of our eyes, it's a marvelous thing. And isn't it amazing that for the second time in redemptive history, God is making the Jews wait until something happens with the gentiles and when that thing happens with the Gentiles then the Jews get their inheritance. It happened concerning the promised land, do you remember God told Abraham that the promised land would be his in Genesis 15, but not yet. Not yet, he couldn't get it yet. Why not? Well, it says in Genesis 15:16, "In the fourth generation, your descendants will come back here for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure." The fullness of the Amorites sin isn't complete. When that fullness of sin is complete, then I will bring Joshua with the sword and they will clear out the promised land and in come the Jews to take the promised land. Isn't that a marvelous thing? Now for the second time, God is waiting for something to happen among the Gentiles for the Jews then to get their promised inheritance. The first time it was the sin of the Amorites. Now it's the salvation of the gentiles. The fullness of the Gentiles will come in and then it will happen. All Israel be saved. And So All Israel Will Be Saved Now comes this mystery. What does it mean, "All Israel will be saved"? Dear friends, this is a mystery so deep that you would not have gained it by observation. Maybe some of you enjoy reading mystery Sherlock Homes or something like that. I remember a number of years ago there was a movie out called 'Clue'. Do you know the game 'Clue'? And so, they had Professor Plum and all these kind of things and what they told us was that there are actually different endings to the movie in different geographical regions. Well, finally one critic looked at it and said, "There's a fundamental flaw in the movie. If there are different endings, that means nothing up to that point leads in any definite direction, and so you can be watching one way and not figure it out. But one of the joys of a mystery is to try to look at the clues and see where it ends and who did it." That's what you're always trying to work out. See if you can figure it out. Well you couldn't with that movie, because there were six different endings. And so why waste your time? Because all of them could fit to each one. Well, that's the nature of a mystery, and that's what the mystery writer does, he's assembling clues that point in a certain direction. Friends, you could not have figured this out by observation. If you had gone around and just observed how it is with the Jews and the Gospel all around the world, if you had done research looking back in history, you would not have come to this conclusion, that all Israel would be saved. Actually you'd come to the opposite conclusion. This is a mystery that we would not know if God had not revealed it to us. A simple and mathematical question comes to us, "What are the odds, friends, what are the odds that the overwhelming majority of Jews in a single generation, if not every single solitary Jew, maybe, but the overwhelming majority would suddenly and amazingly convert to Christianity in one generation?" If you don't know the answer, go talk to a Jewish friend, go talk to a Jewish rabbi, ask him that question. What's he going to tell you? Zero. No chance, it will not happen. But God said it will, and friends, it will. Isn't that wonderful? God doesn't play mathematical probability games, it all has to do with what His will is, and He has told us what His will is, and this is going to happen. Now, notice how He introduces it, "Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of Gentiles has come in, and so all Israel will be saved." What are those words "And so," mean? Well, there was a strong link to the fullness of the Gentiles coming in, and Israel getting saved. How does it work? Well, the word "And so" in the Greek means "In this way, or in this manner." This is how God's going to do it. When God gets finished with His massive work among the Gentiles, when this revival or whatever it is that happens in every tribe, and language, and people, and nation happens, then the Romans 11 jealousy is going to kick in among the Jews. They're going to say, "Wait a minute, we're left out. We're left out. They're sitting at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven, and we're left out." And there's a spirit of jealousy that God's going to kindle inside of them. And so in this way, all Israel will be saved. Now, what does it mean "All Israel"? And I've already told you what I believe about the word 'Israel'. I think it's talking about the ethnic Jews, I think it's talking about the physical descendants of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. That's what I think it means. Now, what does it mean? I don't think it can mean every single solitary physical descendant of Abraham who has ever lived will end up in Heaven. Or conversely that there will be no Jews in Hell. I don't think that's what it's saying. Friends, if that's what it's saying, if that's what it's saying, then why does Paul introduced this whole topic in Romans 9-11 with these words, "I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart"? Romans 9, "For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people." Generations of Jews have heard and rejected the Gospel and have died. And Jesus said, "You will die in your sins, for if you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sins." And He said in Matthew 23 to the Scribes and Pharisees, He said, "You snakes, you brood of vipers, how long will you escape being condemned to Hell?" It cannot mean that there will be no Jews condemned, it doesn't mean that. Other people like John Calvin, and some reform theologians, believe that all it's saying is that all the elect will be saved, and that Israel equals elect. But I don't think that's what it means, with all due respect to John Calvin. I appreciate his scholarship, it takes a lot of courage to go against him, but I think we have to do that here. I don't think that he's saying that, he's revealing a mystery here, something we wouldn't have known any other way. And it doesn't fit with the context. Look what it says, "Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of Gentiles has come in." Israel, Gentiles. They're the Jews, friends. And they've experienced the hardening, and so therefore, that's the Israel that's going to be saved. We're talking about the Jews, not about the elect. Other people think it means the elect among the Jews. But friends, we already knew that. We already knew back in verse 7. It said, that what Israel sought to obtain, it did not. The elect obtained it, the others were hardened, we already learned that. No, he's talking about something so big, he's talking about a big cymbal crash crescendo at the end of redemptive history. Something so huge that it's like life from the dead. Look what he says in verse 15, "If their," referring to the Jews, "If their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be, but life from the dead." Like that, it's so exciting. It's going to be something so dramatic, it'd be like going to a funeral and seeing a dead person sit up, and you're like, "Wow." It's terrifying, it's shocking, you would never imagine. It's going to be like life from the dead, it's going to be something noteworthy, something really quite shocking and amazing. So I don't think it's saying that just the elect among the Jews will continue to trickle in, that's not what it's saying. I think what it's saying is that God is going to work in a single generation of Jews such a mighty thing, that they're going to turn to Christ. And it's what it says, "will be saved." We're not learning a new way to be saved now. They're going to be saved the way everybody gets saved. "I'm not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile." He doesn't have a different Gospel for the Jews, it's the same Gospel for all of us. And so they're going to be saved the same way we get saved, by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Isn't that marvelous? And so in an incredible way this Jewish nation is going to turn and embrace Christ. "Saved" must mean what it has meant throughout Romans. Romans 5:9, it says, "Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through Him." Can there be a saving from the wrath of God apart from the blood of Christ? No, there is nothing. There's nothing can wash away my sin, nothing but the blood of Jesus. And that's true for Jews as well, they're going to be saved by repentance of faith. We also learned in Romans 10:9-10, it says, "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. For it is with the heart you believe and are justified, and it is with the mouth that you confess and are saved." That's the same for the Jews as it will be for us, as it has been for us, no difference. So what is it teaching? That Jews are going to do that, they're going to believe in their heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, they're going to confess that Jesus is Lord. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. This is an astonishing truth. Picture it my friends, picture that group of Jews in the Milan airport, characteristically dressed. There's a picture of Jews on the cover of your bulletin, go ahead and look there, look at the picture. Can you imagine the Jewish men and women turning to Christ, repenting of their sin, listening to those with the beautiful feet that bring the Gospel of salvation, standing there at the Wailing Wall, clinging to Judaism, and then suddenly they see Christ? What an incredible thing. None of them will be saved apart from the preaching of the Gospel. But suddenly the same Gospel which has been being preached for 2,000 years, hundreds of thousands of times, will now miraculously bear fruit. Isn't that incredible? All Israel will be saved. III. Support from Prophecy: The Deliverer Will Come from Zion And then he supports it mysteriously from prophecy. There is so much in this that I couldn't handle it today, this morning. So, I'm going to share more thoughts about why Paul rearranges the quote from Isaiah. I will do that tonight. There's just too much. And he does rearrange it, he actually reverses it, exactly the opposite of what Isaiah says. Look what it says in verse 26-27, "So all Israel will be saved, as it is written, 'The deliverer will come from Zion, he will turn godlessness away from Jacob, and this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.'" He reverses Isaiah 59:20. Now listen to what Isaiah 59:20 says. "And a redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn away from transgression." Both of those are opposite. Why does he change it? Come tonight, listen, okay? But I'll say this, I believe he changes the quote. The Jews for Judaism website were all over Paul for this, saying he's twisting Scripture, he's supporting this thing with a verse that isn't even in the Old Testament, he reversed it. Why did he do it? Come tonight, I'm not going to say it now, but I will say the reason that he does it is to emphasize God's sovereignty in the Jew's salvation, to emphasize God's sovereignty. Zion has changed, it's heavenly now, and the redeemer is going to come from Zion to the earthly Zion, to the Jews. And he's not going to come to Jews who repent of their sins, and then He comes as a reward. But rather he is going to do the turning away from sin. He's emphasizing the sovereignty of God. Paul knew the Old Testament better than any of his modern day detractors, I can assure you, he knew exactly what he was doing. We'll talk about it tonight. But it says He's going to turn godlessness away from Jacob. Now, what do we mean by this? I believe there's two different kinds of Jewish godlessness, there is religious godlessness, and then there is atheistic or secular godlessness. Christ can handle both of them. Christ has the power to turn both of them away from the hearts of the Jews. What is religious godlessness? Well, it's thinking you can come to God the Father without God the Son. It's thinking that you don't need Jesus, but through your own obedience to the law of Moses by establishing your own righteousness, you can work out a righteousness sufficient for Judgment Day, that is religious godlessness. And Jesus said, "He who has the Son has life, He who does not have the Son of God does not have life." If you don't have the Son, you don't have the Father. You can't brush aside the Son and try to embrace the Father, He will not have it. Psalm 2 says, He will... He said to His son, "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a foot stool for your feet." Nobody can brush aside Jesus. And so, there is religious godlessness in those that think they can be saved apart from the work of Christ, it can't be done. But then there's secular or atheistic godlessness, and that's just people that aren't religious at all, they have no real interest in the law of Moses or any of that, they are seeking to make a living, to be powerful, successful, prosperous in whatever way they choose, and they have therefore become idolaters because they're focused on earthly things, just like Esau did, selling everything for a bowl a soup. They are living for this world, and power and prestige in this world, it is godlessness. Jesus has the power to come from Heaven by the power of the Holy Spirit, and turn both forms of godlessness away from the Jews. Hallelujah. He can do it in our hearts too. We're focused here on the Jews, and he is going to do that, he's going to turn godlessness away from Jacob. And verse 27, "This is my covenant with them, when I take away their sins." Matthew 1:21, the first time anyone ever heard the name Jesus, we'll talk about it, God willing, next week. But it was Joseph who was told by the angel, "you are togive Him the name Jesus, because," He will what? "He will save His people from their sins." Isn't that beautiful? Jesus has that kind of power. This is the covenant, this is the covenant that's not been fulfilled, and that is to save the Jews from their sins. The new covenant, Jeremiah 31 says this, "The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah." Did you hear that? "The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Judah and with the house of Israel." Those are the Jews, friends, He's going to make a new covenant with the Jews. We're just grafted into that new covenant, friends, we're grafted into the Jewish new covenant. It was made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. "It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers, when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke My covenant, though I was a husband to them, declares the Lord. This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord, I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people." That's the new covenant, He's going to take away their sin, and everything sin has done to them. We get grafted into that, Book of Hebrews Chapter 8 and Chapter 10, we get the new covenant, and we are drinking from that fountain, full forgiveness of sins. But it was meant and made for the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Oh, there's all kinds of support for this. Paul didn't have to reach for an obscure passage in Isaiah and twist it around to get it to say, there is word all over the Old Testament prophets of the restoration of the Jews. And I think the ultimate restoration is not just that they would come back 40,000 strong or some trickle amount back in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, and take up servitude dwelling places under Gentile overlords in the promised land. That's not the restoration, that's not what's spoken of in Isaiah 60, when it says of Zion, "Arise and shine, for your light has come." That's the restoration, it is spiritual restoration, restored to God Almighty through the work of Jesus Christ. And there's all kinds of prophecies that predicted, one I printed right in your bulletin, look at it. Zechariah 12:10. So vital, because here is the remedy to the spirit of stupor of Romans 11:8. God gave them a spirit of stupor. And in Zechariah 12:10, God takes it away, He takes away the spirit of stupor and gives them a different spirit instead. Look what it says in Zechariah 12:10, "I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on Me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son, and they will grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a firstborn son." Christ will remove the spirit of stupor, and a spiritual blindness, instead He'll pour on the Jews a spirit of grace and supplication, and as a people, they will look to Christ for salvation, and they will cry out to Him and they will mourn for Him. The one they themselves pierced on the cross, and they will cry for Him, and mourn for Him, and love Him, and embrace Him, and believe in Him. They will weep and wail for the wasted generations of Jews that rejected their greatest son. They will weep and wail because of their sins, and they will yearn for Christ, and they will find in Christ a warm salvation, a welcome back like the father and the prodigal son. And Christ will save them, He will not turn aside any that come to Him in repentance of faith, He will embrace them, and forgive them, and justify them, and friends, graft them back into their own olive tree. This is what the prophets say. IV. "Enemies" and "Beloved": The Two Ways God Views the Jewish Nation Now, there are two different ways, therefore, that God views the Jewish nation now. They are in one sense enemies, and they are in another sense beloved. Verse 28 and 29, it says, "As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account. But as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God's gifts and His call are irrevocable." The Jews opposed Paul every step of the way. They were Gospel enemies in Paul's day. They fought him that he would not preach the Gospel to the Gentiles, they abused him, they opposed him. It's continued on for generations, even to this present day. There are some Jews that use their positions of power and influence, even in America, to make it difficult to evangelize. It is true, they are Gospel enemies. As far as the Gospel is concerned, he says, they are enemies. But as far as election is concerned, they're beloved on account of the patriarchs. There are two different ways of looking at their situation, they are Gospel enemies, but they're beloved. Friends, the conversion of Saul of Tarsus should prove one thing, the Gospel has the power to turn enemies into friends. He can transform a bitter entrenched Gospel enemy to a friend just like that. What God can do for one person on the road to Damascus, He can do to a whole nation, He can do that, He has that power. And so God's gifts and His calling are irrevocable, He's not taking them back. And so that brings us back, friends, to the original question that Paul was wrestling with in Romans 9, concerning the Jews has God's word failed? Answer, no. He is right on top of it, He knows exactly what He's doing. There's a purpose in everything He's doing. God's word has not failed, His gifts and His calling are irrevocable, and He will accomplish His ends and His purposes in the end. V. How God’s Salvation Plan Humbles All Humanity Now, what are His ends and purposes? And with this we finish. What is God's final end? What is His ultimate purpose in all of this? Well, His ultimate goal, friends, is His own glory in human salvation, that He would be glorified in the salvation of sinners from every tribe, and language, and people, and nation, both Jew and Gentile, that He would be glorified. Look what He says in verse 30-32, "Just as you, who were at one time disobedient to God, have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience. So they too have now become disobedient, in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you. For God has bound all men over to disobedience, so that He may have mercy on them all." Oh, what a glorious and deep concept that is. To God be the glory, great things He had done, that is the end of the Gospel. That God has worked in history in such a way that both Gentiles and Jews have stopped mouths and can say nothing other than, "To God be the glory. He had mercy on me, the sinner. I was saved by grace." God intents full glory in their salvation for Himself. And so He has worked in such a way that there's nothing left but for us to boast in Christ. As it says in 1 Corinthians 1, "God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of the world, and the despised things, and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are. So that no one may boast before Him. It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God, that is our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, 'Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.'" So God had a plan for that, and the Scripture here says that God bound us all into disobedience. It's a strange expression, but the same word is used of the disciples when they're fishing, and their nets were bursting full of fish in Luke 5:6. It says, "When they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish and their nets began to break." God has enclosed the whole human race into disobedience, into sin. Now, how did He do that without enticing us to sin, as James says He doesn't do? Well, I know He does it, I don't know how to put it all together, but I know this, He has enclosed us in such a way that what is truly in our hearts, our own rebellion, our own sin, will get revealed and displayed, so that when we get saved we will be praising and glorifying God alone for His mercy to us. And so, therefore, Gentiles are bound up into disobedience through their terrible idolatries, and their orgies, and their selfishness, and their materialism, and all of the stuff that the pagan gods and goddesses, and all the stuff that Gentiles did. He bound them up into that, so that we are silenced, saved by mercy. And then He bound up the Jews in generations of hardening, so they can't see their own Messiah, but instead think they can earn their salvation through their own law keeping. He bound them into disobedience so that He can have mercy on them all. This incredible plan of God. And when we get to Heaven, friends, when we're saved, when it's all said and done, when it's finished, we will be done with the wretched theme of ourselves. We won't be thinking about ourselves anymore. God isn't bringing you to Heaven, as John Piper put it, to make much of you. He's rather bringing you to Heaven and freeing you from self-focus, so at last you can eternally make much of Him, and you will, if you're saved. And so will the Jews make much of Him, for God has bound all of them over to disobedience, so that He can have mercy on them all. Saved by mercy. And notice the symbiotic relationship, Jews and Gentiles alike had to do it. The Jews' disobedience enabled Christ to be crucified, releasing a Gospel for the Gentiles, so that they could be saved. Now, God's mercy to the Gentiles makes them jealous so that they are in the end, going to be saved too. Jews and Gentiles together alike necessary for God's incredibly deep redemptive plan. Just as you who were at one time disobedient have now received mercy as a result of the Jews' disobedience, so they then now have become disobedient, so that they can receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you. Take it home, read it, look over it. It's complex, but what He's saying is that the Jews' and Gentiles' disobedience alike is essential to God's salvation plan. So that in the end, we will stand up in Heaven, and we'll say, "To God, and to God alone be the glory. How great is your mercy to me, how great is your mercy that you overlooked my sin, that you covered me by the grace and the blood of Christ, how great is your mercy that you saved me." We said while we had time on earth, while there was time, we said, "God, be merciful to me, the sinner," and He had mercy on you, didn't He? And so that will be your theme in glory, for God has bound all men over to disobedience, so that He may have mercy on them all. And He says in another place, Romans 9:15-16, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God, the one who has mercy." VI. Application What application can we take from this? Just humble yourself before God, realize that if you're saved, you're saved because of grace and mercy, because Jesus was merciful to you, and did not treat you as your sins deserved. Therefore, can I urge you to exalt His mercy to you personally? Talk a lot about it. Say, "God doesn't treat me as my sins deserve, He's not giving me what I deserve. I'm here by grace and by mercy alone. Only by His grace by the blood of Jesus do I even stand alive today." It really drives out a spirit of bitterness and complaining if you do that. Exalt His mercy to you personally. Thirdly, accept the mysteries of God's saving plan for the Jews. Just believe this is true. Start thinking about a world in which huge numbers of Jews will someday come to Christ. Just think about that, it's going to happen. So, orient yourself to that, accept it, anticipate the glories of Christ's kingdom in which Jews and Gentiles alike are going to be praising Jesus for dying on the cross for them. Never doubt for a moment God's power to bring great joy out of terrible providences and circumstances. God is right on top of history. Nothing happens apart from His marvelous plan. And so you may be going through death, suffering, bereavement, pain of all kinds, financial difficulties, physical problems, and you may be wondering about the goodness and power of God. Never wonder, God knows exactly what He's doing, He is powerful and strong. And therefore trust God in whatever circumstance you're in. And finally, be active in evangelism. I hope as a result of our study now in Romans 9-11, if you're witnessing, sharing the Gospel, and someone says, "Oh, I'm Jewish," like that should end the discussion, oh no, that begins the discussion. "Oh good, you're Jewish. Good, let's talk about the prophets. Let's talk about the Gospel." Don't think, "Oh, that ends it, there's no chance." Of course there's a chance. God has promised someday all Israel will be saved. Close with me in prayer.