imagine there are five people who are planning to hold up a bank.
All of these five people are friends of mine.
I find out about it, and so I just beg with them not to do with it.
I plead with them, don't go ahead with this.
I try to block them from doing it,
and they push me out of the way and go on their course.
On the way to the bank, I managed to catch up with the group,
and just before they're moving in to rob the bank,
I tackled one of my friends to the ground,
and I wrestled with them on the ground,
and I managed to convince them in the process of doing that,
this is not the right course of action.
Come back with me.
And they stop, and they come back with me.
The other four continue on.
They rob the bank.
A guard and a bank employee are killed in the process.
All four are soon caught.
They're convicted.
They're sentenced, never to be released.
The one I tackled goes free.
Two questions.
Whose fault is it that the four are in prison for the rest of their life?
Secondly,
can the one that I tackled go about the rest of their life saying,
I am free because I'm such a great, moral, upstanding citizen?
The only reason they're free is because I restrained them.
I tackled them.
Such is the triumph of God's grace towards us sinners through Jesus Christ,
as it's been unfolded before us in the book of Romans.
The triumph of God's grace, as we've seen in Romans 1 to 8, radically changes everything for us.
Being made right, just, justified by Jesus Christ means that we now enjoy peace with God,
access to God, and even joy in the midst of hardships and difficulties and trials in life.
And as we saw last week, as Aidan brought the end of Romans 8 to us,
it ends with this great climax of confidence that nothing can possibly separate us from God's loving Jesus Christ.
God himself guarantees, sovereignly guarantees,
our final perseverance because our salvation is not based on our moral goodness.
It's not based on our will.
It's not based on the strength of our character at all.
God has called us, opened our minds to this truth.
He's tackled us, and now he carries us to final glory.
And so, imagine we're in Rome, and we receive this letter from the Apostle Paul,
there's a church in Rome, Jews and Gentiles are in here.
And as this is being read out to the church in Rome,
the Jewish group are going,
hang on a bit, Paul.
Wait a minute.
You've just ended chapter 8 here with this great climax of God's sovereign purposes not failing.
You say God will, those who saves, he will bring them all the way home to himself.
What about our people?
What about the Jews?
God called them out of Egypt.
But most of our people to this day have in fact rejected their God.
So maybe God's calling and purpose can in fact be rejected.
If God promised to Israel that they would be his people,
and yet the majority of them don't in fact believe in Christ,
does that mean that God's promise, his power, his mercy can in fact fail?
That is, will what you've just said, Paul, in Romans 8, stand?
Will it stand?
Will the blood-bought promises that we Gentiles and Jews are staking our lives on here, Paul,
will they stand?
Will God stand by his commitments, filled with the blood of his son?
Will he work all things together for our good?
Will the predestined be called, be justified, those who are justified in fact be glorified?
Will he give us all things in him?
Will nothing separate us from the love of Christ, in love of God, in Christ Jesus our Lord?
Is there truly now no condemnation?
And will there be no condemnation tomorrow?
Because look at God's historic people in Israel.
Romans 9, which Gary's just read to us, is, and you can see why he mentions,
there's so many references to the Old Testament,
because that's what we're dealing with, is God's historic people now.
Romans 9 is an explanation for why the word of God has not failed.
Even though God's chosen people, his historic people, Israel,
are now not turning to Jesus and being saved.
The sovereignty of God's grace is brought in as the final ground of God's faithfulness,
despite Israel's failure, and therefore as the deepest foundation of the precious promises of God
in Romans chapter 8.
This is the deepest foundation, God's sovereign purposes.
So I've got three points today.
Israel's failure, did God fail, and God's sovereignty and our failure.
So first of all, Israel's failure.
Now, Paul is here dealing with a subject not only of intellectual importance,
but of great emotional importance to him as well.
Can I just add this point?
I think this is a very significant point.
This is one of the most overlooked thing about Romans chapter 9.
Romans chapter 9 to 11 have been debated for centuries.
And they are very difficult chapters.
But the most striking thing about Romans chapter 9 is verses 2 and 3.
That is staggering.
It is staggering.
What he has just written there.
Absolutely staggering.
He has just spent eight chapters outlining the joy, the hope, the confidence of everything that he has
and you can have in Jesus Christ.
He knows the horror of rejecting Jesus.
And he is saying that he would give it all up.
All the benefits of Romans 1 to 8.
All the benefits of knowing Jesus Christ if that somehow it meant that his own fellow Jews would be saved in mass.
I had to stop there in my preparation.
Because I can't say that.
I can't say that.
Here is a love for people that is incomprehensibly staggering in the Apostle Paul.
We also see it in the Old Testament in Exodus with Moses.
It is a great reminder as we jump into Romans 9 to 11
that Paul, while incredibly logical, was never cold.
Never cold in his emotions.
He feels the unceasing anguish of knowing that his people that he loves have rejected their Savior.
And instead of seeking to ignore it,
instead of seeking to alter his theology to deal with that,
he lived with it.
He lived with it.
And so if the next three chapters pose an intellectual or a moral challenge for you,
it is important to remember that Paul is not writing from some kind of ivory theological tower
out of a college somewhere.
This is not a lecture.
This is Paul with a heart that longed to see his own people saved.
It is, however, a salvation that was just as open to them as it was to the Apostle Paul.
His own people have had the exact same opportunity that he has to receive Christ,
but they have rejected this salvation.
And in verses 4 and 5, there are eight privileges that have effectively been rejected.
And each one of these privileges pointed Israel forward, forward, forward to Jesus as their Messiah.
The adoption of sons, which refers to Exodus 4 verse 22,
where Israel is called God's son.
Jesus taught that through him we can now approach God as father.
The divine glory refers to God's visible glory cloud dwelling amongst his people.
John chapter 1 verse 14 tells us,
And it says in John 1 verse 14,
We have seen his glory.
Same as Moses and Israel in Exodus.
The covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship, the promises, the patriarchs,
all pointing forward to the Messiah.
And lastly, Paul says,
From them is traced the human ancestry of Christ.
That is, it is obvious, but often overlooked, that Jesus was himself a Jew.
By God choosing to enter his creation as a Jew,
he not only was giving the Jewish nation an incredible honour,
but was in fact making it easier for them to relate to the Son of God than anyone else in the world.
And so with all these privileges and opportunities,
why is it that God's historic people have not recognised their often promised and long-awaited Messiah?
That brings me to verse 6 and my next point,
Did God in fact fail his people?
And this is the bulk of Paul's argument in Romans 9.
In 6 to 13, Paul firstly makes the point that God's promises have not failed.
That is, God's word to his people, his promise to his people has not failed.
And to clarify that point, he says in verse 6,
Not all who are descendant from Israel are Israel.
What he means there is that not everyone who is racially God's historic people are truly God's historic people.
In other words, it is so essential as we come into this argument here,
that we define Israel properly to see that God's promises have in fact not failed.
Some who are racially descendant from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are not God's true people.
And others who are not racially descendant from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are in fact God's true people.
And Paul, to build on this, gives two Old Testament examples.
He's calling his people here to look at God's promises just a little bit more closely.
He says,
Ishmael was Abraham's physical descendant.
But he was not Abraham's spiritual descendant.
Only Isaac was a child of the promise and inheritor of the blessings from God.
And the same principle is there in verse 10 with Isaac's twin sons.
They had the same father, both physically descendant, ultimately from Abraham.
But only one is the spiritual descendant and inheritor of the promise.
What Paul's doing here in this section is tackling the really thorny question of why anyone loves God.
And why anyone does not love God.
It's an answer that is hard to avoid and even harder to accept.
In verse 11, he tells us that God's choice to bless Jacob and not Esau was made prior to their birth.
Secondly, this choice was not based on foreknowledge of how the child would turn out in life.
It was made before either child had done anything good or bad.
Verse 11 reinforces the point of God's sovereign choice by adding in order that God's purpose in election might stand.
Verse 12 further reinforces this point by telling us that blessing from God does not come by works,
but by him who calls.
And for good measure, in verse 13, Paul adds a paraphrase of Malachi chapter 1 verses 2 and 3,
Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.
Now, we've got to be careful here not to read into the word hate,
some sort of an emotional thing that we might add to it.
Paul's teaching here is very similar to what Jesus says in Luke 14
about his disciples hating their families,
about the cost of discipleship, if you like.
He's not saying that you must have a strong emotion against your family
as much as he's saying that there is a preference and allegiance to Jesus over everything else.
That's his point.
It's an allegiance question.
God chose to put Jacob over Esau.
But not because Jacob was morally superior to Esau.
Just read the Old Testament and you will see that clearly,
that Jacob is in no way morally superior to Esau.
It was by God's gracious choice.
Paul's defense of God's promises in the Old Testament is pretty straightforward.
Those promises were never automatically given to the physical descendant of Abraham.
A spiritual faith was necessary to inherit the promise.
In other words, what he's saying here is that God's promise to his people,
his word to his people has not failed at all in any way.
It's been misunderstood.
It's been misunderstood by his people.
He also asserts that this necessary spiritual faith is ultimately a function of God's choice.
Those who freely come to God are those who are freely chosen by God.
As I said, this teaching is not hard to understand, but it isn't easy to accept.
One initial response that many people have is an emotional response,
and it is that God's electing choice seems arbitrary, random.
And especially when you look at the Old Testament, you look at Jacob and you go, why him?
But Paul does not say here that God has no reasons to choose who he chooses.
All we are told is that the reason for his choosing has nothing to do with the individual.
That's all we're told.
Has nothing to do with the individual.
God has every reason to choose who he chooses.
We're just not told why it is.
But we do know it has nothing to do with the individual.
There is no superiority of one individual over another.
Nevertheless, this raises a second question of whether God had failed Israel.
Have a look at verse 14.
What then shall we say to this then?
Is God unjust?
Paul says, no, not at all.
In other words, if God's the one who does the choosing,
then why doesn't he choose everyone, all of Israel?
In verses 15 and 18, Paul again turns the Old Testament to form his answer.
In Exodus 33, Moses asked God to show him his glory
and not to depart Israel despite Israel rejecting God consistently.
God's response to Moses is in verses 18 to 19.
And he says,
I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you
and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence.
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy
and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
God's words to Moses here are not the words of some arbitrary bully.
You see, mercy and compassion by their very definition
can never, ever be an obligation.
To say it is unfair for God to have mercy on some and not others
is in itself a self-contradictory statement.
The moment we declare mercy to be unfair
is the moment mercy becomes an obligation.
And therefore, it's no longer mercy.
And none of us wants that.
If you look at the rest of Romans,
no one wants mercy to be an obligation.
Mercy is always undeserved and totally free.
God is free to give it to all.
He's totally free to give it to some.
And he's totally free to give it to no one.
He's free.
For instance,
imagine a rich person deciding to choose
20 homeless children.
and gifting them with a home to live in
and, you know,
cupboards full of food,
clothes on their backs,
full education,
a job in their companies.
That rich person could do the same thing
for many more than 20 children,
but they choose 20 children.
That's it.
Does anyone have the right to say
that that rich person is being unfair
by not helping
all the homeless children?
In the end,
that person has no obligation
to help any of them.
their action to those 20 is sheer mercy.
And there is,
can be no suggestion
of it being unfair
to all the rest.
See,
the early chapters of Romans tell us
that no human being
can have any claim
at all
on God's mercy.
And if they did have a claim on it,
it can no longer be called mercy.
And since Romans 6 tells us
the wages of sin is death,
then the real shock,
the real shock of Romans 9
is that God would extend
his mercy
to anyone.
Anyone.
Not
everyone.
Paul then expands
on this point
of whether God
is unfair
by turning
to the example
now of Pharaoh
in verses
17 and 18.
and this builds
on the
early chapters
of Romans.
He comes to this
same issue
of God's fairness
but now from the opposite direction.
This is the Egyptian leader
who enslaved
God's people
who
anyone set up
against him
as
you see
in those early chapters
of Exodus.
He kills them.
and he did that
because he decided
that he would do it.
And in verse 17
Paul is quoting
from Exodus
9
16.
I have raised you up
for this very purpose
that I might
show you
my power
and that
my name
might be proclaimed
in all the earth.
God has compassion
and he wants
to have compassion
and hardens
those whom
he wants
to harden.
Again
these are hard
verses
but they make
a lot of sense.
If you go back
and you read
Exodus 4
to 14
you will notice
two things
that's happening
at the same time
in those chapters.
God hardens
Pharaoh's heart
to fulfill
his plans
and Pharaoh
at the same time
hardens
his own heart.
Pharaoh
sets himself
up against
God
and against
God's people.
In other words
Pharaoh
is not
an upstanding
moral man
that God
comes along
and hardens
his heart
so that he
becomes
cold and evil.
That's not
what's happening
in Exodus
4 to 14.
Somehow
both
God hardening
and Pharaoh
hardening
are both
true
at exactly
the same time.
God's
hardening
of Pharaoh's
heart
is God
giving
Pharaoh
over
to what
Pharaoh
has already
chosen
to do.
And we see
that in
Romans chapter
1.
Pharaoh
decides
to resist
God
and God
reinforces
that position
for Pharaoh.
God
gives
Pharaoh
what he
has already
chosen.
God's
plans
work
through
our choices
not
despite
our choices.
This is
crucial.
that is
we ought
not
take
God's
sovereignty
as
something
like
fatalism.
The
biblical
version
here
the Greek
notion
of fate
the Islamic
notion
of kismet
are quite
radically
different
than the
Christian
teaching
of God's
sovereignty.
in the
tragic
Greek
myth
of
Oedipus
he was
fated
to kill
his mother
and
sorry
kill his
father
and marry
his mother.
And
he
and his
parents
did
absolutely
everything
that they
possibly
could
to avoid
that fate.
And yet
despite
their working
against
it
happened.
And
it's
basically
exactly
the
same
as
the
Islamic
kismet.
It's
fate.
It's
destiny.
It doesn't
matter
what I
do.
It's
the
will
of
Allah.
It
doesn't
matter
what I
do.
That's
not
the
Christian
teaching
of
God's
sovereignty.
For
the
Christian
God
never
forces
us
to
do
anything
other
than
what
we
already
want
to
do.
God
works
his
purposes
and
plans
perfectly
through
our
actions.
And
that's
a
mystery.
I
can't
tell you
how he
does
that.
It's
a
mystery.
And
yet
it
is
both
a
beautiful
and
comforting
mystery.
It's
comforting
because
either
we
are
determined
in
our
world
by
natural
forces
such
as
fatalism
and
kismet
or
they
happen
randomly.
All
the
actions
and
events
in
our
world
are
just
random
events
and
we
are at
the
mercy
of the
elements.
It's
either
fated
or in
a
secular
world
it's
just
random.
Or
of course
there's
the
biblical
doctrine
of
certainty.
we
make
choices
under
the
sovereign
hand
of
a
merciful
God.
God
chooses
those
he
hardens
but
all
he
hardens
want
to
be
hardened.
Paul
then makes
a third
case
for why
God
is not
unfair
to have
mercy
on
some
and not
others.
This
is a
section
really
from
19
to
29
really
makes
one
point
and that
is
God
is
just
supremely
right
and
for
us
little
autonomous
kings
we
really
struggle
with
this
little
bit.
The
first
thing
he
says
in
verses
20
to
21
is
that
God
makes
us
and
has
the
right
of
ownership
as
the
creator
of
us
all.
We
are
so
far
below
God
that
we
neither
have
the
right
nor
the
wisdom
to
question
our
creator.
And
so
we
must
be
really
careful
beware
of
standing
in
judgment
of
God.
Beware
of
standing
in
judgment
of
God
and
beware
of
forgetting
that
he
is
in
fact
judge
over
us.
In
verse
21
it
says
he
is
the
divine
potter
we
are
the
clay.
The
second
thing
he
says
is
that
we
are
the
authors
of
our
own
damnation.
Notice
verse
22
God
bore
with
great
patience
the
objects
of
his
wrath
prepared
for
destruction.
Now
that's
verse
22
but
compare
verse
22
what it
says
there
with
verse
23
where
we
are
told
that
the
objects
of
God's
mercy
are
prepared
in
advance
for
glory
by
God.
That
is
what
is
explicit
in
verse
23
is
that
it
is
God
who
does
the
preparing
and
yet
in
verse
22
we
are
not
told
who
does
the
preparing
and
the
implication
is
that
the
vessels
of
wrath
are
prepared
for
destruction
by
themselves.
That
is
what
we
saw
in
chapter
one
of
Romans
where
God
hands
people
over
to
the
life
and
the
death
that
they
have
chosen
for
themselves.
And
then
the
last
point
he
makes
in
this
section
is
that
God
saves
some
and not
others
because
in
his
divine
wisdom
it
displays
his
glory
more
than
any
other
way.
If
God
had
mercy
on
all
or
if
God
condemned
all
then
we
would
not
see
God
as
majestic
and
glorious.
again
at
its
heart
this
is
a
mystery
and
this
mystery
may
seem
strange
to
us
but
that's
the
point
of
this
section
we're
not
God
we
don't
have
all
the
clues
all
the
facts
we
cannot
know
everything
or
decide
what
is
best
for
the
whole
course
of
human
history
my
goodness
we
can't
even
decide
what's
best
for
dinner
sometimes
but
these
words
ultimately
are
words
of
comfort
clarity
and
comfort
and
so
the
final
point
not
just
Israel's
failure
but
our
failure
and
God's
sovereignty
God's
sovereign
election
is
marvelously
practical
and
it's
profoundly
comforting
for the
Christian
right
now
it's
simply
I think
builds
on the
hope
of
Romans
8
that
was
outlined
for us
last
week
by
Aiden
it
means
that we
have
an
incredible
incentive
to use
our wisdom
and our
will
and our
efforts
to the
best
effect
we're not
robots
to use
it to
the best
effect
knowing
that God
and knowing
that we
will suffer
consequences
from foolishness
and wickedness
at the
same time
there's an
absolute
promise
that we
cannot
ultimately
mess up
our
lives
even
our
failures
and our
troubles
will be
used
for
God's
glory
and
our
benefit
I gotta
tell you
as someone
who regularly
fails
that is
profoundly
comforting
profoundly
comforting
the promise
of God
to his
children
in Romans
8 28
is that he
works
for the
good of
those who
love him
it is a
guarantee
to those
who are
adopted
into God's
family
through faith
in Jesus
Christ as
saviour
and if you
are not
in his
family
if you
are not
in his
family
if you
have not
come
and embrace
Jesus
Christ as
your
Lord and
saviour
then know
this
even the
good things
in your
life
will
ultimately
not turn
out for
your
good
they will
most likely
harden you
to make
you proud
or to
make you
comfortable
or to
make you
blind
to your
need
and your
dependence
upon
Jesus
Christ
as your
saviour
the other
marvellous
thing about
God's
sovereign
election
is that
his
electing
love
is
ultimate
love
if God
loves us
before he
found
something
good
in us
sorry
if God
loved us
because he
found something
good in
us
we would
always be
worried about
losing his
love because
he finds
something bad
in us
there's
something more
that I'm
going to bet
deals off
guys didn't
realise you
were that
bad
it would
always be
a concern
and in
that case
his love
would never
be a
total
miracle
but God's
love does
not love us
because we
are useful
to him
he doesn't
love us
because we
are better
than someone
else
God in
Jesus Christ
simply
says
I love
you
simply
because
I
am
love
that's
it
and that
kind of
love is
perfect
love
perfect
love
that kind
of love
is the
fountain
of
endless
praise
and
gratitude
and
thanksgiving
and that
kind of
love
ultimately
means
that you
grow
more
and more
in humility
the one
major
characteristic
of the
Christian
humility
because
God
has got
nothing
to do
with
me
you
see
the
God
of the
Bible
is so
majestic
he is
so
free
he is
so
absolutely
sovereign
that
any
analysis
that we
want to
do
of his
purposes
and plan
must
ultimately
end
in
worship
it
must
end
in
worship
it
must
merge
into
worship
the
God
of
Romans
9
will
not
simply
be
analysed
he
must
be
adored
he's
not
simply
to be
pondered
and read
about
he is
to be
proclaimed
his
sovereignty
is not
simply
to be
scrutinised
it is
to be
heralded
this
Romans
9
is not
details
for
controversy
it is
the
gospel
for
sinners
who
know
that
their
only
hope
in
this
world
is
the
sovereign
triumph
of
God's
grace
over
the
rebellious
will
of
human
beings
God
in
his
mercy
in
Jesus
Christ
has
tackled
us
to
the
ground
shown
us
his
glory
a
better
way
how
dare
we
look
down
on
anyone
else
Romans
9
comes
after
Romans
8
for this
is
not
failed
because
it is
grounded
in
God's
sovereign
electing
mercy
God's
pure
love
and
therefore
the
promises
to
the
true
Israel
and
the
promises
of
Romans
8
stand
that's
the
good
news
of
Romans
9
the
promises
purchased
by the
blood
of
Jesus
Christ
will
be
mercifully
fulfilled
by the
sovereign
power
of a
merciful
loving
God
gracious
God
you
are
worthy
of our
worship
of our
honour
of our
allegiance
of our
love
Father
please
forgive us
that we
live
day by
day
and
we
make
much
of
our
self
instead
of
making
much
of
you
please
forgive
us
where we
look
down
on
other
people
where we
are
angry
with
others
where we
self
righteously
elevate
ourselves
over
others
give us
more of
your
gospel
of grace
we pray
thank you
Jesus
for your
sovereign
grace
you have
loved
me
the
unlovable
Holy
Spirit
help us
because
our hearts
and our
minds
are so
small
we
cannot
grasp
or
appreciate
the
majesty
your
majesty
without
you
capturing
our
hearts
and our
minds
and so
as we
read
your
word
as we
study
your
word
oh
put us
we pray
in our
proper
place
at the
foot of
the
cross
our
hands
over
our
mouths
and our
hearts
just
cry
thank you
grow us
we pray
in humility
as we
adore
Christ
together
amen