The only ones who have judgment for those who persistently refuse the facts of Jesus being the Messiah, our Christ. But they were not doing the best they could do when it came to this and that's what he's calling them out on.
They were doing the best they wanted to do. And we face this in Gentiles to this day, the same problems Paul faced with the Jews, we face with people too. The same excuses for unbelief, the same challenges, just different flavors, but ultimately it's the same. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Book of Romans.
Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the Book of Romans Chapter 10 with today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Romans Chapter 10, we'll get four verses out of this one and we'll take the first four verses. So if you have your Bibles open, Romans Chapter 10 verses 1 through 4. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved, for I bear them witness they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Zealous ignorance, that's the title.
A historical and global practice. There are many religions that have a lot of sincerity and passion, but they're ignorant of truth and that doesn't matter it seems to many of them. May whatever is going on in our life, whatever hardships we may be facing or disappointments, may we never fail to remember that we are still to be always ready to share the Gospel, because it is about the truth. Also, may the Lord open our eyes to not underrate the value of going through the Bible in church.
It is Satan who doesn't want churches to use the Bible, or at least to get them to use less and less of the Bible. Well, as for our study, just to review, in Romans 9 through 11, Paul is centering his attention on salvation of the Jews. In the ninth chapter, he talked about their past.
He went all the way back to Jacob and Esau and Pharaoh. In this chapter, he is dealing with Israel's present time, right now for them. And then in chapter 11, he will cover God's promises dealing with Israel's future.
So that's just a rough outline of chapters 9 through 11, and there's much here for we who are not of the nation of Israel, we Christians. Now, given Paul's prior personal history before his conversion to Christ, you might ask, what gives him the right to preach to the unconverted? What gives him the right to preach to sinners having such a dirty background?
Not morally speaking, but religiously so. And point to one who did have a moral problem, David, King David. He just made a horrible time of it as king in one particular episode in his life, and God forgave him. David, of course, did repent, did not come easily for David. And then God used him. God used him to write what we know as Psalm 51. And in that Psalm, David says, Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
Well, that's Paul's situation, too. It's what he wanted his fellow countrymen to understand. King David continues in Psalm 51, Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. And then he goes on to ask God to create in him a clean heart. And he says it this way, O God, renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence. Take not your Holy Spirit from me.
There's a lot of passion coming out of that. David was not ignorant of God's mercy, and neither was Paul, who is a recipient of God's mercy. And that allows him to offer the same kindness of God to those who would treat God as God. After centuries of seeking righteousness through ritual, his Jewish brethren, according to the flesh, they failed over and over again. And the idea of righteousness by faith was difficult for them. To move from righteousness by ritual to righteousness by faith and bring the Gentiles in on top of that was just very difficult for those who were determined to boast of their own self-righteousness. Jesus, therefore, became a stumbling block to them, and they were warned about this in their own scripture. Paul quotes it in chapter 9 in the 33rd verse, the last verse, and he's joining two verses from Isaiah the prophet, who warned about the Messiah coming being a stumbling block, and now it's happening in the days of Paul. We can learn from how Paul stood up to his beloved countrymen.
We, too, ought to stand up to those in our country, in our neighborhood, in our families, wherever we find ourselves. We're not to cave in. We're not to be caveman Christians where we cave in because we think the truth is less important than someone's feelings.
It's not a popularity contest. It's about preaching the truth, and the Christian must look into what they believe. What do you believe about Jesus Christ, and why?
And why do you reject all the other religions of the world? Job was very sure about his God. He said, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
There are no other gods for Job. And then he adds how my heart yearns within me. Well, now we look at the first verse. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. Well, I had the church, and I need to point this out, because there is a heresy going around. We're going around for some time that the church has utterly replaced the nation of Israel, and God has done with Israel, but now it's the church. Well, God has replaced Israel with the church as far as being a light bearer for the truth of God, but God has not abandoned ethnic Israel. And the Bible in the Old Testament and New Testament are loaded with what God is going to do with them.
We'll get to that in chapter 11. But according to that teaching, the church is now Israel. Well, then according to this verse, the church is lost.
That's what he says. My heart, desire, and prayer is for Israel is that they might be saved, which presupposes they're lost. So there's one verse, and there are others, that refutes that heresy, and that is what it is. That didn't come out of heaven, that kind of teaching comes out of hell, that God would forsake the nation of Israel in the end. So the nation Israel remains distinct from the church, and that's important. A lot of Christians can't see that. They don't know how to make that distinction from Old Testament to New Testament, and they don't understand many times that they're ministers of a new covenant, and they try to live in both worlds, and they end up becoming usually very legalistic.
There is no nation of the church. There's a nation of Israel that God has set his attention on. And so Paul here distinguishes, makes a distinction in Romans 9 and 10. In chapter 9, he said, My brethren Israel, according to the flesh. And so there he's talking about ethnic Israel. There in verse 1, chapter 10 of Romans, when he starts off with brethren, he's now talking to his fellow Christians. In Rome, the church where he's writing to at this time, they're both Jews and Christians, seemingly more Jews at this time, but a significant number of Christians. And we hit that from time to time as we go verse by verse to point that out. Again, here he's talking to both Jew and Gentile Christians. When he mentioned according to the flesh, as I said, he is stressing that they're not identical, that there are two different entities. Now, this Gentile word, brethren, a gentle word, not Gentile.
All the Gentiles can use it, and it applies to them. This Gentile word here in verse 1, brethren, as he writes, shows his tenderness and his passion for all that he's doing, whether he's speaking to the church or whether he's speaking about those outside the church. Paul was fierce in standing up for the truth, but he still loved.
He is still compassionate, but his gentle tone at no point waters down the truth. And there's one of the lessons for us. Here he is saying to them, brethren, my heart's desire. Well, why is this important to us?
Truth above popularity and safety. Well, because we are watching, and we have watched throughout history, but probably more so now, many places, assemblies, called churches, water down the truth so that people will come. And so this is a very real problem, but it is also a very real lesson here from our scripture, that here we have the great apostle Paul is passionate, and we've covered how saturated his words are with passion for his people, but he is not backing down a speck from what the truth of Jesus Christ is. Souls need to be saved, but watering down the truth erodes truth away until ultimately, even if that first generation survives, the next one won't have a chance. John, in his third letter, he starts off, well, by the fourth verse, he says, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. Why is that?
What do you mean to have a greater joy? Because the walking lies will damn your soul forever. So it's a very big deal. Jesus said, and you should know the truth, and the truth should set you free. He doesn't say, and the watered down truth will save anybody. Lost as a people, they began to turn their backs on fact and faith and scripture once Jesus came along. And to this day, the evidence for Messiah, for Jesus being Messiah, is illogically dismissed. And one of the easy places to find this is in just the Jewish treatment of Isaiah 53, the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. There was a time when the rabbi said, that's speaking of Messiah. But after Messiah comes and the church begins to tell the Jews, this is your Messiah, you need to convert to repent. Well, then the rabbis began to counter that presentation of truth. It's not the Messiah, he's talking about Israel. They tried to personify Isaiah 53. And it's illogic, as you read through Isaiah 53, this doesn't apply. Wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our sins, chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are made whole. It is most certainly talking about a person. And so when Paul is dealing with them and he says that they are ignorant, they are zealous, but they are ignorant.
It is spot on. He makes no attempt to justify their wrong, because it can't get fixed that way. Sincerity is not allowed to slay truth when it comes to God's word. He only warned them, he only warns them of judgment for those who persistently refuse the facts of Jesus being the Messiah, our Christ. But they were not doing the best they could do when it came to this, and that's what he's calling them out on.
They were doing the best they wanted to do. And we face this in Gentiles to this day, the same problems Paul faced with the Jews, we face with people too. The same excuses for unbelief, the same challenges, just different flavors, but ultimately it's the same thing. They became good at rejecting Christ and they liked it, and that's what we face too. We face people that have become really good at rejecting Christ. They've heard all the arguments, all the key arguments, and they enjoy not giving in to Jesus Christ.
They don't want him to be who he says he is. This is unbelief, and this is punishable by judgment, eternal judgment. So we take heart when we read again the first verse of Romans chapter 10, Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved.
Should it be less than that? That's our prayer. Again, regardless of what hardships we're facing in our lives, if we get a chance to preach the gospel, we take it. In verse 2 he continues, for I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge. So he says, I know them well because 20 years ago I was one of them. I was with them.
I was doing the same things. I know what I'm talking about by experience and by the truth of scripture. Again, the New Testament is not yet shaped into what we have right now. They, he says, I bear them witness, they have a zeal for God.
Well, big deal. What does it matter if your God is false? Man is religious. God has made us.
He has put it in our heart to answer questions about where we come from. Now, of course what man goes on to do with that is another story, especially when they play into the hands of Satan. Zeal for religion.
And yet they're still lost. There's another lesson. It's not enough to like religion. It's not enough to go to church. It's not enough to just say or profess that you're a Christian.
Zeal alone is insufficient. False religions are built on zeal and that which is false. We get that, but there are those that we know that don't get that.
And we should put together a system in our thinking so that we know how to have an answer for every man. You don't have to know the other religion. You just have to know Christ. And so if they mention somebody to you, you know, I believe in this, I believe in that, and did that one die for you?
Was that one born of a virgin? Then we have essential doctrines. And they are essential for a reason. Because they have to do with the eternal state of a human being. And if someone says, well, I don't believe Christ is God the Son. No, that's a violation of an essential doctrine. You're denying what God has clearly said about himself and that will damn you. So it is not hard to be zealous and wrong at the same time.
You know, folks, they think because somebody is sincere they can't be wrong or they can't be bad. The downfall of the Jews in Paul's day and to this day was self-righteousness. Trying to appeal to God based on their ability to conform to the rituals. Built on failure to act on the facts now that they've been revealed in Christ. I'll bring that out from the scripture because even Christians can practice zeal without knowledge.
We know that. Luke chapter 9 verse 54, and when the disciples James and John saw this when they rejected Christ. And they rejected Christ with racial grounds. He's going to Jerusalem. These were the Samaritans. He's going to Jerusalem.
We don't want any part of him. Racial hatred runs deep and it has been around forever it seems. And so it's not a new thing.
And there are many race traitors out there who make big money off of stirring up the hatred. Anyway, coming back to this one, his disciples James and John saw this. They said, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them just like Elijah did?
What's this, do you want us to call fire down? I mean, what did they, these guys, what could they get right? And they had no power to call fire down. That didn't stop them from acting like they did. And of course the Lord rebuked them. You see, you don't know what spirit you are. You have this zeal, this passion for me.
But you're wrong. And the same with Peter hacking off the ear of Malchus. And the same with us sometimes. We have a passion when we're not led by the Holy Spirit, but led by some passion. If hand-picked men of God were susceptible to this era, then so are we. And humility will help keep us in check to recognize that we want to be as Christ-like as we can because we're not much used to him when we're self-like as we can. But not according to knowledge, he says, about this passion, this zeal. Well, truth and zeal, passion, they are distinct.
They're not the same thing. Because someone is zealous doesn't automatically make them right. Which is a story in 1 Kings chapter 18.
We know this story and we actually like the story. This is Elijah on Mount Carmel and he's dealing with the false prophets. That means they don't have the truth about God. That's what makes them false prophets. They're not sent by God, but they act like they are. They have nothing to back up their claims that they are prophets of God. Which is what made Muhammad very upset with the Jews because they said he claimed to be a prophet and they said prove it and he couldn't. And that didn't go well.
To this day, there's that resentment. Well, coming back to this, 1 Kings chapter 18 verse 28. There they were sincerely, passionately, and ignorantly calling on their God. So they cried aloud and cut themselves as was their custom with knives and lances until the blood gushed out on them. And when midday was passed, they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice.
But there was no voice, no one answered, no one paid attention. Well, of course, God is going to pay attention to Elijah in that story. But the point is sincerity, devotion, is no indication of truth. And yet, the lost soul often thinks if a person is sincere, how could they be wrong? Well, the answer to that is because God said so.
That's the answer. We can reason in other ways too, but the bottom line is we go by what God says. So he says, but not according to knowledge. 1 Corinthians 5, here's Paul trying to tell the Corinthian Christians that Christ is our Passover. He is the one that gives us the mercy and forgiveness from sins. And so he is encouraging them and he ties it into the Jewish practice of the Passover and he says, let us celebrate Christ.
I'm paraphrasing that part, but now I'm quoting this part. With the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, two separate things. What good is sincerity if you're lying? What good is truth if you don't mean it to the individual? As I mentioned, these indisputable facts surrounding the birth of Christ, the life, the death, the resurrection, were sincerely disallowed.
And they are to this day. You can buy, you know, you don't need many books on apologetics. If you want to get into, you know, defending the faith, one book should do it because it's not rocket science.
It's higher than rocket science and it's much easier. And to share your faith with people on the basis of reasoning with them. For instance, in Bethlehem, the children that were slaughtered by Herod looking to kill the Christ, well, this was knowledge. People knew about this thing. They understood why Herod did this. They understood that there was a connection between this newborn child and King David and the prophecies in their lineage.
What did they do with it though? That's what the question is. And it's the same thing with everyone else. We'll get to the resurrection next session in Romans chapter 10. But His birth, His life, the miracles, they knew about them. They dismissed them because they didn't care for them. It wasn't on the terms that they set because they were that impressed with their own religion. God moved forward in their religion and they did not want to go with Him. They wanted to stay where they were.
Again, as I said I think last session, don't confuse me with facts. My mind is made up. Regardless of how sincere you are, that's not the way to do it. They did not know what God's position was because they had become happy with themselves, their religion. It's like we find people that go to a church that's not preaching the Word, but they stay there. Well, my friends are there.
I'm happy there. But they're suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. They're announcing to the world, I'm a church, come get the gospel. It's like saying, you know, we have burgers and you get in there and it's no burgers at all.
Well, have they any intention of giving you a hamburger? It's a bait and a switch. That's what that is. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross-Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.
We're currently going through the book of Romans. If you're in need of hearing this message again or want to listen to others like it, head over to crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to crossreferenceradio.com and never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. On our website, you'll be able to learn a little more about the ministry of Cross-Reference Radio, so make a note of it, crossreferenceradio.com. That's all we have time for today, but thanks so much for listening. Pastor Rick will be back next time with the book of Romans here on Cross-Reference Radio.
