Gooding, David: 7 - Abraham & Israel (ctd)

And I want to sketch in the argument to the end of chapter eleven as I see it. Sketch is the operative word. But hitherto I have been emphasizing my understanding that at the beginning of chapter nine and for a good way through its verses, what Paul is talking about is God's choice of Israel to carry this unique role among the nations. And secondly, that his choice of Abraham did not imply that those everybody else in the world other than Abram was now lost, that God had passed them by for salvation and had decided to save Abram, but nobody else. Far from it. And God's choice of Israel as his peculiar testimony in the world, to have his presence in the tabernacle, his special revelation of the law, doesn't mean that God at that point had decided that every- to pass by everybody else and that everybody else should be lost. We are talking about Israel's special role as a witness to God in the ancient world and the vehicle through whom God will bring Messiah into the world according to the flesh. But as we proceed down that chapter, of course, it becomes obvious that if Israel are going to, uh, fulfill this role, then the question of salvation must, of course, enter into it, must it not? Because we have been at the passage that observes that God has the right of the same lump, lump to do this or that, to make a vessel of mercy or a vessel of wrath. Because both Israel and Pharaoh were, in the sense of the same lump, both outrageous sinners. Then it is in God's sovereignty that he gives Israel another chance. But when Pharaoh gets to a certain point, he then hardens him in his own choice and makes him a vessel of wrath. So that we now see that to be fully a testimony to God, you must be one or t other, vessel of mercy, vessel of wrath. Whichever a man becomes, God will use both as a witness to mankind, the rest of mankind, in order to save as many as he can, if you'll pardon the expression. I don't mean to be offensive. And he made Pharaoh into a vessel of wrath, used him so to advertise his wrath against people who deliberately and with their eyes open reject the truth, that the people of Canaan, some of them got converted, notably Rahab. And he will use vessels of mercy, so to display his mercy, as he did with Saul of Tarsus, as to encourage other people to see that God is prepared to have mercy on them as well. Either way round. To help forward the work of saving people. What do I have to do to be a vessel of mercy? And why, at the stage in which, uh, uh, Paul was talking, were Israel failing to be vessels of mercy? Well, I skip the intervening verses for a moment and come back to them and ask you to come to verse thirty. What should we say then? That the Gentiles which followed not after righteousness attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith, but Israel following a- after a law of righteousness did not arrive at that law. Why? Oh, pray notice the reason. Why. Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were of works. And if you will persist in that attitude, you'll never be a vessel of mercy, will you? What do you have to be to be a vessel of mercy? You have to be a sinner to start with. Somebody once stood in great need of mercy. And secondly, if you're going to be an advertisement of mercy, you must be prepared to receive mercy. And what God is wanting to do is to make men and women vessels of mercy to the world, like he did to Saul. That in me, says Paul, is not merely what I say, but have a look at me. I was the very chief of sinners. I thought the way of salvation was to pile up merit before God and keep his law. I discovered what a frightful mistake that was. I was a veritable unbeliever without knowing it. But all the mercy of God, he had mercy on me, and if he'd had mercy on me, he'd have mercy on you. If you won't have salvation by grace and persist on your idea that you'll earn it by your works, well, I tell you one thing, you'll never be a vessel of mercy, will you? You could conceivably be a vessel of, uh, to add, uh, uh, uh, to, uh, show people how far you can get on the line of merit. Saul of Tarsus managed to do that with a certain amount of success for many years. Hebrew of the Hebrews, uh, tribe of Benjamin, Israelite of Israelites, circumcised the eighth day, touching the righteousness which is of the law, blameless. Wow. But imagine him going around the door of Gentiles, knocking on the door, and they come to the door and say, what do you want? Well, behold me, what can be done by dint of tremendous effort? Oh, says the Gentile, yeah, it's very impressive. I could never attain it myself, of course not, no. Oh, goodbye. What would you be on those terms? Not a vessel of mercy, but a, a, a, a vessel showing how far you can get by your self-effort to keep God's law. Thank you, says God, I don't want vessels like that. My message to men is a message of mercy. If you want to be an advertisement of that, the first thing you'll have to do is to accept mercy. I tell you what, ladies and gentlemen, you can be secure down here in Southern Ireland. I shall never come knocking on your door, when you open it, say I've come to tell you how you ought to keep the law. No. I could come round your door, knock on it, and say to you, I tell you what, do you know what? I've discovered that God is willing to have mercy on a wretch like me. If he'd have mercy on a wretch like me, would you? Wouldn't he? Vessel of mercy. And why did Israel not become one? Well, they wouldn't, uh, they wouldn't, they thought it as a works. Well, there were a lot of Gentiles around the Mediterranean. They hadn't even contemplated becoming a vessel of mercy. They hadn't contemplated anything in particular. Do they? When there came a knock on their door, when they opened it, it was an old hooked-nosed Jew, half squinting out of his odd eyes. Do you see? He come to inform them if they cared, they could be vessels of mercy. What was that they said? What did that mean? Hadn't even thought it. Yes. And I tell you what more says, uh, Paul, you'll see therefore, when it comes to vessels of mercy, see how God now offers to the Gentiles as well as Israel this remarkable role of being vessels of mercy. Let's just go back to the intervening verses, verses. Verse twenty three: that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy which he afore prepared unto glory. Notice there the preposition in the verb he prepared before, but with the earlier verb, the vessels of wrath are not foreprepared. Do notice that, won't you? Doesn't say they were for prepared. That he might make known, verse twenty three then, the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which therefore he prepared unto glory, even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles. And what authority is Paul to say that the Gentiles are to be given, uh, this tremendous role that hitherto has been so gloriously unique to Israel, of being vessels to carry the testimony. Well, Paul quotes the authority of Hosea. For centuries before, through Hosea, God had announced beforehand that one day he was going to call people his people that weren't his people. And that will include Gentiles, won't it? I tell you what, also it would include Israelites. For if you will look at Hosea in the appropriate part from which Paul quotes, you'll find him talking about this. He's talking about first Israel and then Judah. And he's writing in the time, uh, you'll see, uh, when the carrying away to Assyria was imminent and pronouncing his judgment on Israel. They have been my people hitherto, he says, the ten tribes, this Israel. I now pronounce that they're going to be my people no longer. Lo ammi, not my people. And from that point, Israel, the ten tribes, ceases to be his people. They're no more his people than the Gentiles around them. They are lo am I, says God. But subsequently, through Hosea, he says, ah, but there'll come a day at a place when the very people of whom I said, lo am I, they are not my people, they shall be called the people of God. You'll say, Israel, the ten tribes will be restored. They will indeed. Ah, but now see the point. It's not just that they were God's people, then they behaved a little bit badly, uh, not as God's people should, but remain God's people and then, uh, recover their aberration. They were God's people, they ceased to be God's people, lo am I. Then God will reinstate them. And when they are reinstated, it will be on the grounds that they have been lo am I, just as much as the Gentiles around them. And therefore, when God, uh, calls them once more my people, God reserves himself the right to include amongst that number now called his people masses of Gentiles who never were Israel, but now come under that same denomination, lo am I, not my people, now they become God's people. Carry this great role in history of being witnesses for God to men. With Judah, God threatened them with the same judgments. But, says Isaiah, if God had, uh, not been merciful, we should have been like Sodom and Gomorrah, utterly extinct. But in Judah's case, he left a remnant, so few that a child could count them. In his mercy, when he dismissed all the others. And Paul is about to observe that that is what God has done again with Israel. He has left a remnant even at this present time. On what ground? That they deserve to be left? Oh, certainly not. You suppose Saul deserved to be left and made part of the remnant? He deserved the very opposite. God had mercy, showed him the very light from heaven. And Paul repented and received mercy and became a remnant of the nation, still with this role of being a testimony for God in the world. And so when you come now to chapter ten, Paul continues his theme. Israel have stumbled at this stumbling stone. What stumbling stone? Well, the conditions for becoming a vessel of mercy. They won't have mercy. They they insist on earning salvation automatically, and in its nature disqualifies them from being vessels of mercy. Why on earth do they do it? Because you say they've been foreordained to do it. Oh, pardon, pardon, ladies and gentlemen. That's not the answer that Paul gives, is it? Consider these folks who are persisting in their obduracy. What does Paul do? Well, please, he doesn't say they're obviously non-elect and I can't pray for them. The very folks that are refusing mercy and insisting on earning salvation by works, it is those folks for whom he is praying. Isn't it? By definition. And I bear them knowledge, I bear them record that they are wicked sinners with terrible corrupt hearts. No, no. Bear them record they have a zeal for God. And nothing is said to suggest that zeal for God isn't good zeal for God. What's wrong with it? It is not according to knowledge. For they have supposed, alas, uh, that the way to please God is by keeping the law, and being ignorant of God's way of making a man righteous, verse three: and seeking to establish their own, like Saul did before his conversion, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law, for righteousness to everyone who believes. Oh, how this mirrors Paul's own experience. He once imagined, being ignorant of the fact, that the law was there for him to keep so that he could gain acceptance with God, uh, uh, and justification. His ignorance had to be dispelled, and was dispelled by the light from heaven. And he learned that Christ is the end of the law in both senses, for righteousness. The law played its part in diagnosing man's sin and exposing man's sin, that men might see that there was no hope in the law by its means to en- uh, to uh, uh, merit salvation, and that it might bring them to Christ as a schoolmaster brings unwilling kids to the school- uh, as a slave brings the unwilling kids to the schoolmaster. But if, uh, Christ is the end of the law in that sense, so also is he the end in another sense, because if you're going to be justified, you must cease putting your trust in the works of the law and put your trust solely in Christ. Tell me, if that's what you have to do, is a question of doing. But the righteousness which is of faith says, say not in thine heart who shall ascend into heaven, that is to bring Christ down, or who shall descend into the abyss, that is to bring up Christ from the dead. You haven't got to scale the heights or plumb the depths. No, no, no, no. It's as easy as this. Oh, magnificent God. The word is near you. No, it's nearer than that even. It's in your very mouth, man. You want to be saved or chapped? The word is already in your very mouth. How much nearer could God put it? And if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. You don't have to scale any heights or plumb any depths. Oh, but then you'll see, uh, if it's then with the heart man believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation, but it only applies to some people. No, it doesn't. For the scripture says, good old scripture, that that whosoever believeth shall not be put to shame. For there is a lot of distinct- no, there isn't. There is no difference. Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Ah, but you say there are still some remaining difficulties, Paul. I mean, if salvation depends on believing and calling on the name of the Lord, what conditions have to be fulfilled before a man san- can so believe and call on the name of the Lord? Well, Paul lists them, verses fourteen and fifteen. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? Huh? If you're going to be saved, you must call on the name of the Lord. What conditions have to be fulfilled if you're going to call on the name of the Lord? First of all, you'll have to believe him, won't you? But then, if you're going to believe the Lord, what will have to happen first? Well, you'll hardly believe him whom they have not heard. Now, please notice that that point the sophistication of the Greek. It is not how they'll they believe in him of whom they have not heard, as though it were a mere matter of information. There are thousands of people that have heard of Christ, but the Greek, by its grammar, shows that it's not a question of hearing of Christ, it's hearing Christ. That's a very different thing, isn't it? When people hear the voice of the Son of God. The hour is coming, and now is, says the Lord Jesus, that the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God. Ah, in that sense, you'll have to hear if ever you're going to believe, and you'll have to believe if ever you're going to call on the name of the Lord. Righto, in that sense then, if you're going to hear in that fundamental sense, hear the Lord, what is necessary for that to happen? Well, how shall they hear in that sense without a preacher? Ah, but not just any old preacher either, because you can have preachers a thousand if you can afford to pay them, but, uh, some of them don't convey the living word of the living God to your heart. You'll never hear the Lord through them in a week of Sundays, would you? If you're going to hear God speak through a preacher, that preacher will have to be sent by the Lord. And being sent by the Lord who intends you to hear, when the preacher who is sent preaches, you hear. And faith comes by hearing. And having heard, you believe, and believing you call on the name of the Lord. If they are the necessary conditions to be fulfilled, why aren't Israel saved? Is it because those conditions have not been fulfilled? Now Paul answers his own questions, you'll say, from verse sixteen onwards by a series of further questions, and I shall have to bother you with Greek. Greek has various ways of asking questions. It can ask an open question. Is it raining? Well, no, is it raining? Might be yes, might be no. Or in Greek you can say, ah, it's raining, isn't it? Meaning you think the answer is going to be yes, of course it is. I don't know, of course, but you think the answer is going to be yes. Or you can say, by another construction, it's not raining, is it? And that expects the answer no. Paul has now four questions introduced by a Greek particle, which indicates that the answer to the question is going to be no. What are the questions? You'll say, they didn't hearken, says verse sixteen, to the glad tidings, for Isaiah says, who are believed our report, our hearing, the word means. So belief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. But I say, it is not, is it, that they didn't hear. What does he mean? Well, if you don't hear God speak to you, how will you believe? If faith comes by hearing. So can you say that Israel don't believe because they haven't heard? It's not that they haven't heard, is it? No, it isn't. All since Calvary, the message has gone out. I say their sound has gone out into the earth, and their words unto the very ends of the world, the message was proclaimed. I say again, uh, uh, you'll say, well, is it that they didn't know? Ah, but Paul uses again this particle that's, that indicates that the answer to the question is no. It isn't that they didn't know, is it? The preaching went out, but was it that Israel didn't know? No, it is not that way. Well, first Moses says, I will provoke you to jealousy with w- with that which is no nation, with a nation void of understanding will I anger you. And Isaiah is very bold and says, I was found of them that sought me not, I became manifest unto them that asked not after me. Will you argue that Israel didn't know that there was a gospel and didn't know that they could be saved? Don't you come that, says Paul, for multitudes of Gentiles around your very doorsteps are now getting converted. Look at it, Israel. I have a Jewish friend in Belfast. He'll tell me straight sometimes, I... Lord Jesus is not the Messiah. Well, if he is, where was he when Hitler was gassing six million of my fellow countrymen, he says. I said to Otto, Otto old chap, you know, isn't it a curious thing, don't you think, when he answered the question? The Jew Jesus led me to faith in your God, Otto old boy. Do you know what? I- I'm not just a believer in God, Otto. I believe the God of the Jews. And I'm a Gentile, and I come to believe in the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. I said, Otto, you haven't preached to me much, have you, about your God? But the thing about Jesus is he did. Do you know, Otto, he's led more Gentiles, multi-millions of Gentiles, to believe in the God of Abraham more than any other rabbi I can think of in the whole of Israelites history. I say, is it that Israel didn't know? And all these Gentiles around God's advertisement to the Jew that there's a salvation to be had. Why then aren't they saved? They've heard. They now know. You say it is because God wouldn't have them. He decided to pass them by. He has some secret counsel in which he's decided that they shall be lost. Well, if he has, pray see what this next thing means. To Israel, he says, you are a disobedient crowd. You've heard the gospel and you reject it. And all day long I stretch out my hands. Oh, what a delightful gesture of Almighty God. Like a parent stretching out its arms to a little toddler saying, come, want you to come. Tell me, is that gesture on God's part true? Israel are not saved. Why not? It's easy, you know. God's put the very word in their mouth. They've heard, they know. They reject, and God stands all day long pleading with them to come. For what a God. How long and far his arms stretched out when his gracious son was crucified at Calvary. That's how near God got. Pleading with Israel to come. None shall ever say that they didn't come because God didn't want them to come. Or if it is true that he didn't want them to come, then he stretched out his hands, inviting them, pleading with them to come as a charade, ladies and gentlemen. So they won't come. Well, what then? Verse eleven, chapter eleven, verse one. And here comes another one of those questions, and the introductory word indicates that the answer to the question is to be no. I say then, has God cast off his ancient people? It's not so, as it says, Paul, it's not so that has cast off his ancient people. No, it most certainly isn't. In spite of the persistence in rejection, God has not cast off Israel. In spite of people in Israel like Elijah. When old Jezebel and Ahab rejected the gospel that Elijah had preached to them on Mount Carmel in God's great mercy. You'll see Elijah ran off to Mount Horeb, didn't he? The mountain range of the law, and on the basis of the law he called down God's vengeance, yeah? And when Elijah appealed on the ground of the law that God would deal with Israel, God came by in the storm, the cloud, and everything else, you know. Pray don't misread it. At the end of the tremendous exhibitions of divine majesty, there came a still small voice. Oh, but pray listen to the voice, not what some people make out. That voice announced the most withering judgment that was ever to fall upon Israel. Him that, uh, escapes from Hazi'el shall Jehu slay, said the still small voice, and him that escapes from Jehu shall Elisha slay. A withering judgment. Would it blot out the whole of Israel? No, in God's mercy, it wouldn't. Though they deserved it, yet I have left and will leave seven thousand men who shall not bow the knee to Baal. That's God, in spite of the nation's fearful behavior, yet in his mercy, there is left a remnant, and I'm one of them, says Saul. On what principle has God left you, Saul? Because you're pretty good, you attained to great excellence in moral behavior. So he says, he says, on the basis of utter grace and mercy, as I have told you. I fought against Jesus Christ. The message came to me. I heard. And God, what I heard was that God was offering me mercy, and I took it. The rest were hardened. What do you mean by hardened? Well, for notice again, gentlemen, the juncture at which this is said. Having had God's pleadings, having murdered his son and being given the chance to repent, and seeing thousands of Gentiles getting converted, and with all the evidence in front of them, and having heard, and having heard God plead, they refused to have it. Then God says, that have it your way then. And he hardened them. Oh, but you see, how wise God is. He hardens Israel under his judgments. What for? And now he's going to use their setting aside temporarily in order that the gospel should go out to the Gentiles. And their for casting away shall be the very enrichment of the world. Oh, the wisdom of God. He'll maneuver every circumstance to save the maximum possible. Does that mean that Israel are forever hardened and never will be brought back? Oh no. Listen to Hosea and the rest of them. The people that are now low Amai will one day become Amai again. For God has his ways of doing it. He will provoke them to jealousy eventually by the incoming of multitudes of Gentiles. If then their falling away has been, uh, the, uh, uh, uh, reconciling of the world, verse fifteen, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the very dead? There is magnificent oceans of God's mercy ahead. For if he can contrive that Israel's casting away leads to the gospel going to the world and multi-millions of Gentiles saved, oh, what shall happen when God in his mercy again bring Israel back. And it can be done, don't think it can't be done, because if God broke off some of the natural branches and put in you Gentiles, well, God can graft in the natural branches again, and will do it. And don't you get high-minded, says Paul, talking to Christendom, because if you copy Judaism and you apostatize, God will break off Christendom. Sure he will. And Christendom seems in some quarters giving very ugly evidence, isn't it, that he's going that way. And in the name of God, Christ, and the church, he's denying the deity of Christ, and some of them the very existence of God, and denying the bodily resurrection, and denying the virgin birth. Be careful, Christendom. You too could be cut off. The role taken from you of being witnesses for God in the world. Why doesn't God then restore Israel at once? We come finally, at least I find me skipping over all sorts of detail, but I must honor my promise and give you almost an hour's discussion. Well, because how would you, if you were God, how could you save people, do you think? How would you have mercy on people? We come back to where we started. You cannot, not even if you're God, you cannot have mercy on people and give them salvation until they discover they are unbelievers. That's a very hard pill for a Jew to face. This is a very hard pill for some Protestants to face. They've been in the church all their lives and recite the Creed, but in the sense that matters, they are not yet believers, and therefore they're not born again. You try and tell them they're not believers and see how you get on. What storms of indignation and protest and a denunciation of you as a narrow-minded little religious prig who thinks everybody has got to come round to your narrow point of view. There are other points of view. Bad, isn't it? But not until they discover they are unbelievers have they got a chance of getting saved. How would you do it if we were God, to bring Israel to the point when, as a nation as a whole, they see that for centuries they have been unbelievers, although they profess to believe in God and in some sense do, God becoming incarnate, they don't believe in him. God will do it as soon as he can, ladies and gentlemen. Meanwhile, he shut up all in unbelief. We Gentiles, we were in unbelief to start with, weren't we? And then God sent us the message of his son, and we accepted the mercy and got converted, us Gentiles in this room. God is contriving everything he knows how to provoke Israel to jealousy and to shut them up to the point where they are prepared to admit they are unbelievers, and when they're prepared to admit that, oh, what dams will be broken, and the absolute flood tides of the mercy of God descend upon that wandering and wayward people. It is that, the contemplation of God's wisdom, of God's determination to have mercy on all, if I'll allow him, and of the supreme divine wisdom in devising the techniques, the strategies, and the tactics, devised to the end of having mercy upon all. That moves Paul to his profound worship of the deity as he leaves this contemplation of this grievous problem.