Well, what wonderful hymns we sang this morning, hey, and I just was so encouraged by that worship time because that's the truth. We were singing so much truth, and it's so encouraging to hear the truth. I'm so happy you're all here this morning together to worship and to be in the Word, to hear the Word preached, and to rejoice in the truth.

We are continuing our study of the Book of Romans this morning in our monthly communion service, and we're in a great section of the Book of Romans in chapters 9-11. These chapters are all about the nation of Israel. I want you to look with me as we begin at chapter 9 again at verse 1. As Paul introduces this section of the epistle at 9:1, he says, "I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen, according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises, of whom are the fathers and from whom according to the flesh Christ came, who is overall, the eternally blessed God, amen."

Well, this three-chapter section fits into the great doctrinal epistle to the Romans and the expounding of the gospel of Jesus Christ as it concerns the nation of Israel and how they fit into the salvation plan of God and the coming of Jesus Christ. Paul's clear teaching in chapters 1-8 concerning the gospel of grace, justification by faith, regeneration by our union with Jesus in His death, burial, and resurrection, and the salient point of salvation by grace through faith alone in Jesus alone brought up some very important questions concerning Israel and God's place for her and the promises that He made to her. 

If this gospel Paul preaches is true, if Jesus is the Messiah, then why did not Israel receive Him and usher in the long-awaited Kingdom? If salvation is available to all men, Jew and Gentile, through faith in Jesus alone, the promise of righteousness and eternal life through faith in Jesus, then what about the promises made to Israel? The unconditional promises back in Genesis and reiterated throughout the Scriptures. These are important questions for Paul to answer, not only for the unity of the church, clarity concerning things to come, but also understanding rightly the character and nature of our God. If God does not keep His promises, then we are all in big trouble because our faith, hope, and assurance are based entirely on His promises. 

If Israel has rejected her Messiah, what does this mean for the nation and the promises that God has made concerning Israel? These are vital questions, and Paul gives us three chapters to answer them. Well, clearly the references to Israel throughout this section are concerning national ethnic Israel. We've gone over that several times before, and they're even set in contrast to the church. This is about Israel. 

In chapter 9, we saw that God in His sovereignty chose to bring the promise of Christ in salvation to the world through selected individuals—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—and that His sovereign plan to bring salvation is His, is His alone, and He has every right to save whom He will, how He will. We read in chapter 11 also that God in His sovereignty has chosen to have mercy on all. We also see the balance to the sovereign side of God's salvation as we come to chapter 10 and see that the fault of Israel's failure to be saved, to receive her Messiah and inherit eternal life was not God's, but their own unwillingness to believe. 

In this, we see some profound truths about salvation, about how it is that a person comes to this salvation and why it is that most men don't believe. The key verse is verse 3, I think, of Romans 10, where Paul says, "For they being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness have not submitted to the righteousness of God." The Jews were ignorant of God's righteousness. 

Now we will see in our text today that this is a willful ignorance on the part of the nation of Israel. It was not that they did not know. It was not that they had not heard. It was that they were willfully ignorant, completely unwilling to submit to the righteousness of God. And herein lies some very important lessons for us in our understanding concerning evangelism, concerning how we are to understand the condition of lost men and their failure to believe. 

What we, as believers in Jesus Christ, are to do in the face of so much hostility towards the person of Jesus Christ, and so much unwillingness on the part of men to submit themselves to the righteousness of God. It can be very discouraging to see family, friends, loved ones persist in their self-righteousness, man-centered religions, or their own way of salvation. To see our communities unwilling to come to faith in Jesus, to call on His name, to believe Him. 

And we can begin to think that there must be a better way to reach them, a different way, that the problem is somehow in the methodology, or in the presentation. My friends, no one ever had a passion for people like the Apostle Paul. Even as we read here in the beginning of chapter 9, he said he himself would be accursed from Christ if his countrymen according to the flesh could be saved. Those are powerful words. And we see this in the life of Paul as well, willing to suffer so many things for the salvation of those who would believe through preaching. 

And Paul never varied from God's method. He never varied from God's way. He preached Christ crucified. He reasoned from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ and called on men to repent and believe, to submit themselves to the righteousness of God. This is all he ever did. He believed that through the foolishness of the message preached, God would save those who believe, that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Gentile. 

He never varied from the means that God gave to him and the command that he had to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Paul's going to make clear to us that faith can only come one way, that the central purpose that we have here is to be preachers, to be proclaimers, to be heralds of the message of Jesus Christ, the gospel of grace, salvation through faith in Him. 

Faith can only come by hearing a message about Jesus. And man's unwillingness to submit to the Lord of the universe, to that message of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, is not a problem with the message. It's a problem with the heart of the hearer. These are important truths for us, my friends, and they're made so clear here by Paul in the example of the nation of Israel. 

Let's look at our text at Romans 10:12. "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed, and how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things." 

"But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, 'Lord, who has believed our report?' So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. But I say, have they not heard? Yes, indeed, their sound has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world." But I say, did Israel not know? First Moses says, "I will provoke you to jealousy by those who are not a nation; I will move you to anger by a foolish nation." But Isaiah is very bold and says, "I was found by those who did not seek me; I was made manifest to those who did not ask for me." But to Israel, he says, "All day long I have stretched out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people."

I've given you five points on your outline. First, the righteousness of God. Second, unwilling to submit. Third, call on His name. Fourth, faith comes by hearing. And fifth, the unbelief of Israel. 

First we see as our context that righteousness can only come from God as a gift, God's righteousness by faith. Turn to Romans 3:19 with me, please. Let's read Paul's earlier words clarifying this important truth. Romans 3:19. "Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now, there’s your contrast here. But now, the righteousness of God apart from the law." That's such an important statement. The righteousness, not our righteousness, the righteousness of God, how? Apart from the law. Not including the law, not including works, not faith plus works, apart from the law is revealed being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God. 

Now how are we going to get this righteousness of God? Through faith in Jesus Christ. For who? Who's it for? To all and on all who believe. For there's no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness. Because in His forbearance, God had passed over the sins that were previously committed to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 

Man has no righteousness of his own. He cannot contribute to his salvation in any way. Isaiah said that all of our righteousness is as filthy rags before a holy God. The fact is that we are sinners deserving of wrath and no matter how much good we do, it does not change the fact that our very nature as men born in Adam is that of a sinner separated from a holy God. James said if we keep the whole law but offend at one point, we are guilty lawbreakers, failing to reach the perfect standard that the law requires. All have sinned and that makes us all deserving of the penalty of sin, which is death, eternal death in the lake of fire. 

But God, but God who is rich in mercy, He made a way, a provision for our salvation, a way that only God could conceive. God set Jesus forth as a full satisfactory payment for the sins of the world on the cross, dying a death that He did not deserve in my place for my sins. And in this way, God could remain just because He punished every sin and He can be the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. God's gift of grace, His full provision of salvation. But my friends, to receive this gift, it requires that we must submit ourselves to the righteousness of God and abandon any thought, any small measure of our own righteousness. 

I want you to turn with me to Philippians 3:7. I think this is one of the clearest statements in the Bible, Paul's testimony here about how he turned from religion, from Judaism, his own righteousness, and submitted himself completely to the righteousness of God. Philippians 3:7. He says, "But what things were gained to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as garbage that I may gain Christ." Look at this statement in verse 9, "And be found in Him, not having my own righteousness which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith." That's a pretty clear statement, isn't it? 

This is what it means to submit to the righteousness of God, and this is what Israel would not do. This is what men will not do today. There's a stubborn unwillingness to submit to the righteousness of God in the heart of unbelief. Listen to the warning from Hebrews 3. The author says, "Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested me, tried me, saw my works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation and said, 'They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways,' so I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my rest.' Beware brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin."

What was the problem in the wilderness after the great deliverance, the exodus of Israel out of Egypt? Was it that they did not know? Was it that they did not hear? No, the author of Hebrews goes on to say that the gospel was preached to them just as it was to us, but it did not profit them not being mixed with faith. They did not receive it. They would not believe. They would not submit themselves fully to the righteousness of God. 

It's true of men today. Religious men, relatively good men in our communities, our workplaces, our families. They are outwardly moral men quite often, pillars of the community. And yet they hold on to their religion. They hold on to their own works, their rites and rituals. They want to earn their salvation. They want to have a part in obtaining righteousness. And my friends, this is an affront to God. This is a blasphemy to God. And it's an impossibility. But they are stubborn. They are willful in their hearts to establish their own righteousness, and they will not submit to the righteousness of God. They will not call on His name to be saved. Look at verse 12 in our text, Romans 10:12. "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." 

What does it mean to call on His name? What is His name? The name of God is Savior. This is true in the Old Testament. It's certainly true of Jesus. Call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. The name of God is Savior. The name of God is holy, righteous, love, mercy, Lord. But the great name of God is Savior. And that's what we see in the Gospel. He is the Savior, not us, not our church. He is righteous, not us. He is able, not us. And in His grace and mercy, He has made the way. He has accomplished salvation and righteousness for us as a graced gift at the cost of His only begotten Son. 

And what He asks is that we believe, that we submit ourselves to His righteousness by faith as the only way of salvation. He asks that we believe in our hearts and we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord. He is Savior. He is in control. I trust Him fully in all things with all my life and hope and eternity. And to reject this gift, to seek to do it our way, is the ultimate blasphemy against God. Turn to Hebrews 10 with me at verse 26, please. Hebrews 10:26. A powerful passage, a warning, many warnings in the book of Hebrews. 

He presents Christ, He presents the doctrine, and He calls on them to go on to perfection, and then He gives these warnings. Hebrews 10:26. "For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation, which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Look at verse 29. 'Of how much worse punishment do you suppose will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which He was sanctified, a common or useless thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?' For we know Him who said, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay,' says the Lord, and again, 'The Lord will judge His people.' It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." 

My friends, the willful sin in context here is unbelief, an unwillingness to submit to the righteousness of God by faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is to trample the Son of God underfoot. It's to say that Jesus' blood was insufficient, that His sacrifice was not enough to count the blood of the covenant useless, worthless, to insult the Spirit of grace. My brothers and sisters, this is what religion does. Even religion that calls itself Christian, that claims the name of Christ but denies His name by their doctrines and by their works. We deny the name of Jesus when we deny who He is or what He has done. John says in 1 John 2 that he is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. 

There were those who denied who Jesus was in Paul's time. The Jews, for example, wanted to stone Him because He claimed to be God. The heretics Paul addressed in the epistle to the Colossians denied Christ's deity, claimed that He was merely an emanation from God, and that heresy has taken the form of Gnosticism which persists to this day. I had a guy tell me not too long ago that he was a Gnostic. I'm sorry, yeah, that he was a Gnostic. You know, you usually hear people say they're agnostic, but he wasn't agnostic; he was a Gnostic. They believe that through higher knowledge and human wisdom they can reach some sort of good place, I guess. 

There were those in Galatia who denied Jesus' work, what He fully accomplished in His death, burial, and resurrection, and Paul said they preach a heteros, a different, another gospel, which is not another. He says they should be cursed to hell. Those heretics preached faith in Jesus, but they added works such as circumcision and keeping the Law of Moses as requirements of salvation. This is the false gospel of the mainline Christian denominations today who place their faith in Christ plus baptism, plus sacraments, plus works, plus sacrificial offerings. It's another Jesus, my friends, who does not save completely and only by His one-time death in our place for our sins, solely as a gift, solely as grace, through faith alone. 

This is His name. This is the Jesus of the Bible, the Son of God. So we see that the failure was Israel's. In fact, they were not saved because they would not submit to His righteousness but sought to establish their own righteousness. They would not believe; they would not confess Jesus as Lord over their lives. They would not call on His name, recognizing who He is, what He has done, and trusting solely in His provision of grace. 

And we see next in our text that the problem was not that they had not heard or that they did not know. Look at verse 14 with me in our text: "How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?" I just want to make a note here, my friends, you are the preachers. You are the preachers. When I go out and I meet people on my farm, I'm a preacher of the gospel. But I'm here in this place to preach the Word so that you might be equipped to then go out to do the work of ministry. 

You are the preachers He's talking about here. How shall they preach unless they are sent? Jesus has sent you. Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things." But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our report?" Think of Isaiah. Think of Jeremiah. God sent them to Israel. Prophets. This is the Word. What did they do? Persecuted them. They would not listen. They wouldn't believe their report. They killed Isaiah. 

So then faith, he says, verse 17, comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. But I say, have they not heard? Yes, indeed; their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. Now, this is a quote. I don't have time to get into this, but where this comes from in the Old Testament is talking about creation. It's talking about the stars and the sky and all of the creation. As a witness, we see that in Romans 1 as well. It's gone out to all the earth. 

Verse 19, but I say, did Israel not know? For Moses said, "I will provoke you to jealousy by those who are not a nation. I will move you to anger by a foolish nation." Paul goes right to their Old Testament prophets and shows that Israel had heard again and again and again that they did know that God had planned all along to bring salvation to the Gentiles. That's why He chose Israel out as a nation to be a witness to the Gentiles and draw them to Him. They should have known this. They should have rejoiced in this. 

And even though God's heart was for Israel to believe, to turn to Him in faith, to receive their Messiah, and though He was so patient and long-suffering and so full of mercy and grace for so long—"All day long," He says, "I have stretched out my hands." God is willing. God is waiting. He has His hands stretched out. But the problem is that Israel is a stiff-necked and disobedient people. The problem is that they were not willing. 

Just like Jesus said when He looked over Jerusalem, "How long I've wanted to gather you together." I see this on my farm. We had a hen hatch a chick yesterday, you know, and you get close to them. Sometimes they'll have 10, 11 of them, and they all puff out like this, and all the chicks disappear. You can't see them at all in there. "How I've longed to gather you in," Jesus says, "but you were not willing." They heard; they knew. God kept sending messengers to them, kept pleading with them, even chastening them again and again. 

Think about the lengths that God has gone to with the nation of Israel in history, and yet they're still here today. What did they do when He sent even His own Son? Turn over to Matthew 21. Let's look at that parable. Matthew 21 at verse 33. It said, "Hear another parable. There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard, and he set a hedge around it. He dug a wine press in it and built a tower, and he leased it to vinedressers and went into a far country. Now when vintage time drew near, he sent his servants to the vinedressers that they might receive its fruit. 

"And the vinedressers took his servants, beat one, killed one, stoned another. Again, he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did likewise to them. Then last of all, he sent his son to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.' But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said among themselves, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.' So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vinedressers?" They said to him, "He will destroy those wicked men miserably and lease his vineyard to other vinedressers who will render him the fruits of its seasons." 

Jesus said to them, "Have you never read the Scriptures? The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it." And whoever falls on this stone will be broken, but on whomever it falls it will grind him to powder. Now when the chief priests and Pharisees heard His parables, they perceived that He was speaking of them. They killed the prophets that were sent to her. They would not hear the word of the Lord. And even when He sent His Son, they killed Him as well. 

And yet God makes this astonishing promise in Jeremiah 31. He says, "If heaven above can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done," says the Lord. And we see this confirmed in the New Testament passages like Hebrews 8 and even here in Romans 11. Let's look at Romans 11. I want to read through that and see where Paul's going here. 

Romans 11:1, "I say then, has God cast away His people?" Isn't that a great question? And he says, "Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, 'Lord, they have killed Your prophets, torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.' But what does the divine response say to him? 'I have reserved for myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.' Even so, then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. 

And if by grace, then it is no longer of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace, otherwise work is no longer work." I say then, verse 11, "Have they stumbled that they should fall?" Did Israel do so much harm, so much rejection in killing Jesus, have they fallen down to the point where they can't get back up? Are they done? Is God done with them? Certainly not. But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. 

Now, if their fall is riches for the world and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness, and here we see the hint, there's going to be a fullness. He's going to provoke them to jealousy in order that he might save some. And he goes on to say that they were broken off because of unbelief, but they can be grafted back in. Don't be wise in your own opinion. I love that verse. Don't be wise in your own opinion. You do not support the root; the root supports you. That's Jeremiah 31, Hebrews 8. The root supports us. We're blessed out of the covenant made with Israel. 

If you go down to verse 23, "They also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in. For God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut out of the olive tree, which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?" For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part, not all, blindness in part has happened to Israel until...what's the word "until" mean? It's temporary. 

The blindness is temporary, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, and so all Israel will be saved, as it is written, "The Deliverer will come out of Zion; He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob." Why? This is so important, verse 27, "'For this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.'" God will keep His unconditional promises to Israel. Why? Because they are good, because they are special, better than other nations? No, because of His promise, because of His covenant, for His great name's sake, because He's a God who keeps His promises. 

Why was Israel not saved when Jesus came? Because they would not believe; they would not submit to the righteousness of God. When will they be saved? When they believe. When they confess Jesus as Lord, and Paul says this will occur when the Deliverer comes out of Zion, and they look on the one whom they pierced, and all Israel will be saved. You know, this was a profoundly discouraging situation for Paul. He was the apostle to the Gentiles, and that was his ministry, and he was faithful and passionate in that. 

But he had a great heart for Israel, always he went first to the synagogue, always pleading with the Jews, reasoning from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ. And he met so much resistance, so much hostility, and yet he loved them, as he writes here in these chapters. And he longed for them to be saved, to fulfill their destiny, the plan of God through the person and work of Jesus. 

So in light of the rejection of his beloved brethren toward the gospel, what did Paul do? I want to ask you the same question. In light of the rejection of your loved ones toward the gospel, what should you do? Did he form a committee and seek the counsel of the marketing gurus of his day? Did he create a survey and go into the synagogues, even to Jerusalem, to the Sanhedrin, and ask them what they'd like in a church? Did he get a bunch of fervent young believers together and form a support group and show the love of Jesus to the unbelieving Jews by pressing their grapes and boiling down the juice to store it for them, or perhaps harvesting some of their crops or helping them mend their fishing nets? 

Or did he get a big venue together and draw a crowd and entertain them? Romans 10:17 literally says, "Faith comes by hearing a message about Jesus." How can a man come to faith? Only one way, by hearing the good news message about Jesus. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. The message is the method. In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul talks extensively about this. 

The message of the cross is foolishness. Jews seek a sign, and they think it's crazy. But Paul says, "We preach Christ crucified." Through the foolishness of the message preached, those who believe will be saved. Those who are called. It's the power of God unto salvation. We don't want your faith to be in the wisdom of words and the schemes of man, but in the power of God. Paul never abandoned God's plan, the command that Jesus... They stoned him. They beat him. They left him for dead. What did he do? He got back up and went back into town and preached the gospel. 

Turn over to Acts 26 here as we close. Acts 26 at verse 10. And here Paul is testifying before Agrippa, and he's giving his testimony about what happened on the Damascus Road and really in the context of his persecution of the Christians, trying to stamp out the way. And he's talking about how he was going to do this in verse 10, "This I also did in Jerusalem, and many of the saints I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. 

And I punished them often in every synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme, and being exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities. While thus occupied, he's on his way to do that, as I journeyed to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests, at midday, O king, along the road I saw a light from heaven brighter than the sun shining around me and those who journeyed with me. 

And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me and saying in the Hebrew language, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.' So I said, 'Who are You, Lord?' And He said, 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise,' look at verse 16, 'but rise and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you. 

I will deliver you from the Jewish people as well as from the Gentiles to whom I now send you. Why did He send Paul? To open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me. Then he says, 'Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.' What was Paul's life? What did he do? He preached the gospel. 

This is how he was to open their eyes, preaching Jesus Christ crucified. 1 Corinthians 15, he says, "Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preach to you, which you also received, in which you stand, by which you also are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you, first of all, that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures." 

We have a great love for men, for our loved ones, for the lost ones. We've been left in this world in order to be witnesses, to be ambassadors for Christ that the world may know. We have been given the word of reconciliation, and we implore men to be reconciled to God. We, by nature of our world, of man, live and make provision for our families and have relationships with people and interact on all kinds of various levels with all kinds of men. This is how God has designed it. He's arranged these meetings. He's given us works beforehand to do. 

My friends, it's our purpose as witnesses for Jesus to tell them the good news, to preach the gospel in order that they might believe and be saved. There's no pap method. There's no secret way. We, in the natural course of our lives, with the great love that God has poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit that was given to us, seek to find opportunity by the grace and will of God to preach Christ to men, to reason with them from the Scriptures, to love them and tell them the truth about Jesus so that they might believe and be saved. 

Faith comes by hearing a message about Jesus. This is God's way, and it's the only way that men can truly be saved, rescued from the wrath to come for their sins. Only when they hear and they choose to believe, to trust in Jesus alone, Israel would not believe. They would not submit to the righteousness, the authority of God totally and completely in their lives. They had their own way. And in their pride and unbelief, they sought to establish their own righteousness through the law, and they perished in their sins. 

That's not the end of the story. Romans 11 is yet to come next month. Y'all come back now next month. And God will make good on His promises, always, my friends, always. You know why? Because the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 

Let's close in prayer. Father, we're so thankful for Your Word, for Your truth that You tell us the truth. We rejoice in the truth, we're encouraged, and we're built up and we're prepared to go out into this world and to tell people about Jesus. Thank You for the message, thank You for the privilege of being a witness for Christ, an ambassador for You, and help us to keep our focus—help us to remember why we're here, help us to understand the great and noble work and task that You've given us: eternal life for those who will believe. 

We thank You, we praise You, we give You all the glory, in Jesus' name, amen.