Remnants and Renegades (Part B)

If it is of works, it is no longer grace, otherwise work is no longer work. It's almost a tongue twister, and it's a hard verse, let's skip it.

Let's not skip it. It's essentially, it's not grace if you earn it. So it goes on the other hand, God's grace cannot be earned, but it is received. There's no such thing as salvation by effort.

It is salvation by grace, and that means you don't deserve it. 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. Now here's Pastor Rick as he continues teaching through the Book of Romans chapter 11 on this edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Well, God has not cast away his people whom he foreknew. God was ready for the renegades.

It wasn't a surprise to God. He put it into their prophecy. Amos the prophet, he details the judgments of several nations surrounding Israel with incredible accuracy, and they've been fulfilled. He prophesied against Damascus in Amos chapter 1 verse 3. In verse 6 against Gaza. Gaza was not a district then, it was an area that was largely the remnants of the Philistines. There are no such thing as Palestinians. They are Arabs. They are Jordanian Arabs that crept into the land, and they were given a chance to leave and go back to Jordan when the Jews were being repatriated in 1948.

They opted to stay, and most of the Arabs that are in main areas of Israel, they don't want any parts of Jordan or Gaza because they know the Jews treat them well. Well, Amos prophesied about the Philistines that were then in Gaza, about Tyre in verse 9 of Amos 1, Edom, Ammon, Moab, Judah, and Israel. My point is that God is demonstrating through his prophets, I know what's coming, and I'm going to tell you before it happens, so that you'll know I'm not caught by surprise. You cannot surprise God. You cannot surprise somebody who knows everything. It's like buying a gift for somebody who has everything.

Well, maybe he needs another one. Anyway, God knows the future. The far-sighted dealings, not far-side, that's comical, but far-sighted dealings of God with Israel are astounding and dealing with the world.

In a word, we call it prophecy, end-time prophecy because there's different forms of prophecy. Anyway, or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah? I'm in verse 2 of Romans 11, and so yet another appeal to Scripture. They should have got that part, how he pleads with God against Israel. Nothing new about their disbelieving their own Bibles, and that's why he's pointing to Elijah, who was pleading against the Jews. The great Jewish prophet Elijah was saying, they're all unbelievers.

I'm the only one left. This is their history. So nothing new about the chosen people opposing God. That's Paul's point. You Gentiles and Jews that are asking, how come you're not receiving your Messiah?

How come they didn't receive Yahweh in the days of the great prophet, in the days of Moses? He could have picked any time in their history. He shuts them down.

His argument wins. He's going to continue because now he's got to go on in further parts of the chapter to talk about Israel's future. But precedence for giving up on Israel or interceding for them in spite of their behavior is found in Elijah, even though it's a little misguided initially in Elijah. The widespread apostasy amongst the Jews really dragged him down. Even after this tremendous victory on Mount Carmel, we wiped out a significant number of apostate priests of Jezebel. But she held about 400 in reserve, and she held on to that power. She would have had none of that power had it not been for the Jews.

They gave it to her against their own prophet. And so at the gates of the city where it gets to him that they're going to kill you, Elijah, and he flees to the wilderness and he's dejected. There were other believers. He knew there were a handful because some of them served him. But overall, the nation was renegade, and he thought he was the last man standing. And God was not going to have that.

He was going to correct him. This brings up us today. You may be, as most of you, attend one of the best churches on earth. I know, I know. But the danger is when you have something that you really embrace and cherish and admire, the danger is in looking down on everybody else, having this Elijah complex.

This is a side note. It really has nothing to do with what we're talking about, but it's good to bring it up. Every pastor should guard against the Elijah complex.

We're the only church preaching the gospel. That just is not true, and you don't want God to address that with you. You just want to stay a step ahead of him and just not go there.

To handle this the best way is plow your field, and stop looking over the fence. If something comes to you that you have to address, well, that's one thing. But otherwise, don't go turning over rocks looking for trouble. And that would be true of a pastor or a congregation. If someone is in another church and they're enjoying it and there's no heresy going on there, you know, bless them. May God bless you there. May you be a blessing there. And if not, if there is heresy, then you need to just tell them you need to get out of there. Of course I love my church. You're welcome to come.

You have a written test you have to pass to see if we're going to let you in or not. That's not true. But anyway, verse 3, back to what Paul is doing. He's quoting Elijah. Elijah says, Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life. So the nation turned from God. These are the Jews the prophet is speaking against.

These were severe charges from a broken heart. Now Paul and Stephen come along, and Apollos, they were Jewish preachers in the New Testament church, and they pointed out the history of the Jews and their habit in their history of killing God's prophets. This should help the audience in the church that Paul was sending this letter to. And it would circulate to other churches in the area. God can choose you to hear, and you can choose not to be chosen to believe.

I know it's not a popular fact amongst some, but that is how it is. Verse 4, but what does the divine response say to him? What is God's answer to Elijah? God speaking now, I have reserved for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to bow. So the apostasy of Israel was not a complete apostasy then, and it never has been. God has always had his remnant.

He has always had in reserve some who believed in him no matter how dark the days. Remnants of believers, nothing new to God, nothing new to Israel. Paul's point, yes, some of us Jews like me, like Stephen, like Apollos, like Matthew and Peter, some of us believe the Messiah with that remnant. But the renegade majority, that's on them.

And just look at your own history. Why God has the book of kings and chronicles and look at your own history, how many apostates and renegades you have there. So don't come up in my face telling me, oh how could you have the Bible be the chosen people of God and still miss it?

I don't know, you tell me. So verse 5, so then at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. So God has his proverbial 7,000 faithful and with this election of grace, sinners can be invited to heaven. And when they are invited to heaven, it is only through grace. God does not look from heaven and say, wow that guy really impressed me. Okay, we'll single him out and bring him in.

It's not like the, you know, major league draft of the best number one player out there. It's grace. It's God making it available. And it wouldn't be grace at all if he decided who was going to come. God elects those who believe and not those who are going to believe. Though he knows, he knows who it is going to be, but you're going to play the game out. No one will stand before him and say, I never had a chance. God has way, he has not revealed all of his ways to us.

Surprise. We have a lot of about God. We have enough about him to move forward in strength, but we don't know everything there is to know about God. He's got other moves and he's hidden them from us and we're very good with that because we have enough information to go on to trust him, to submit, to do like Mary.

I don't know, do what he says. I mean, you've got to love that moment because that's all of us. We want to learn as much as we can about what's been revealed and we want to behave ourselves when it comes to things that he has not revealed. Deuteronomy 29, 29. Well, verse 6, 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. It's almost a tongue twister and it's a hard verse, let's skip it.

Let's not skip it. It's not grace if you earn it. So it goes on the other hand, God's grace cannot be earned, but it is received. There's no such thing as salvation by effort.

It is salvation by grace and that means you don't deserve it. So ribbons on a soldier in Western civilization sort of tells, it's biographical. Here are the places I've been, here's what I've done in those places. They even have a good boy badge or ribbon, conduct medal.

I haven't been caught. I don't know what that has to do with this. Oh, I do. So every Christian has a ribbon too.

There are many of them. I've been persecuted, I have kept the faith, I fought the good fight, I'm fighting the good fight, but there's always one we all get. So in a time of war there's a standard ribbon given to troops, a national defense ribbon or medal. It means that there's a war going on and you're in the military.

It doesn't mean you've been in war, it just means it's been going on. Well the one we have is grace. You didn't earn this salvation.

You can enjoy it, you've received it, but you didn't earn this. Thank you Lord. Could you imagine how obnoxious we would be if we felt, yeah, I showed God who needs to be in heaven.

We didn't get a load of me up there. Grace does not, yeah we laugh because we know how stupid that is. But there are untold multitudes out there that think if I climb up these steps on my knees it's going to impress God. No, it's going to make you use Band-Aids and Peroxide and things like that.

I'll be sitting home later, why did I do that? Nothing's changed. Grace does not endorse that which is false. And this would explain why legalists struggle to embrace grace because they think it means that God is saying, okay, you can get away with it wrong. We're all getting away with it wrong when it comes to God. It's not like God's going to look at us when we get to heaven and say, this is a better place now that you're here. You know, I got the short end, you got the short end of the stick by coming to heaven. No, God gets the short end of the stick. There is grace that God gives us, that God offers, and there is grace that we're supposed to offer to other people because of what we have received.

And that does not mean they always deserve it. There are people that are, now sometimes we can't, you know, you got to watch, you have to be firm and clear unless you come off as an enabler. But still, we are expected to know how to administer grace. That's called discernment.

Jude talks about that, plucking some from the fire, but making a difference. There's a lot to figure out in Christianity when you come to Christ. And the best way to start figuring it out is to remember you don't know anything until the Holy Spirit's given it to you.

That's a safe place to be. I sometimes look forward to coming into the pulpit because I know that there's going to be an added blessing upon me that I don't get anywhere else as a rule. We call it unction or anointing. The old Christians back in the 1700s, 1800s, they spoke a lot about unction, anointing, the fire that comes from heaven. Not necessarily in animation, but just that assurance of the presence of God as you're speaking about the things of God.

Removing the doubt, giving insight and real application and not just theological treats. Well, verse 7, what then Israel has not obtained, what it seeks, but the elect have obtained it and the rest were blinded. So that goes back to my introduction where I said, then, you know, how come the Gentiles are coming in without the Bible, without being chosen? Well, that's what Paul is, he's answering that right now. He's summing it up, but here's his big argument.

He's done it already, he's going to keep on hitting it because that's what we do. We make our point 20 times in a sermon, for example, only to find someone, come back a month later and say, hey, I was listening to this other guy online and the lights just turned on when he said this. And you can't say to them, but you're saying to yourself, I made that point like 10 times last sermon and you were in here because I saw you sleeping.

Anyway, such is life. The way God keeps us all in place. Well, they didn't obtain it because they didn't want it on God's terms. So if the Jewish nation is missing out on their Jewish Messiah, it's because of their stubborn hearts and that is highlighted here by the words that he used.

The evidence insists upon a decision to believe, but they don't like the terms. Going back to Romans 10 verse 21, but to Israel, he says all day long, I've stretched out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people. Can God say that to the church, people in church? Not all of us, but yes, there are those that are just churchgoers. That's all they are. There are others that are churchgoers and their soul follows hard after God.

They're trying to get it right. They're moving as hard as they can move behind the Lord, as fast as they can go to keep up with him. So these words are a declaration of fact. He says, and the rest were blinded. This is, again, he's answering the question, but the word blinded here in the Greek is actually hardened. There's another word that the Greeks would use for blindness and that ain't it. It's in the King James, the old and the new.

Maybe the majority text might use it, but I didn't check, but I wouldn't be surprised. And the reason why they've opted for blindness instead of the word hardness is because it's an interpretive rendering on where Paul is going because in verses 8 and 10, he does use blindness. And so they just said keeping it consistent. They meant well.

I think that they should have stuck with the original. They were hardened in their heart. They were adamant in their disbelief. Well, we come across people like that. You've come across Gentiles who won't receive the gospel after you've laid it out to them.

They have no defense against it, but they're hard. Some of them are almost as though they're saying, yeah, I believe it, but I'm not giving you the satisfaction of telling you. I'm not giving God the satisfaction.

They're bitter, maybe. Anyway, Pharaoh of Egypt. Do you know the Bible tells us that twice before God is said to have hardened his heart that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. God just ratified that. God said, fine.

You want to be obnoxious? Okay, but I'm going to control it. Don't think because you're against me you get to control how that plays out. And so it is the sovereignty of God when scripture says that God hardened the heart of Pharaoh who already hardened his heart.

It's ratification. Mark tells us that Jesus saw the hardness of the heart in the Pharisees. I mean, the Lord heals a guy on the Sabbath. They had a problem with that. And so Jesus was disturbed by the hardness of their heart.

That includes the blindness. Paul said this of the Gentiles in Ephesians 4, one of the best chapters in the Bible, Ephesians 4, when he tells them don't walk like the world is walking. Having your understanding darkened, your hearts hardened, Ephesians 4, 17 and 18. So the passion, the passion of the Greek in the days that Paul was living in and ministering in with the others, with the other Christians, passion of the Greek was for knowledge. Greeks wanted to learn, establish universities, the brevity of wit, how much wisdom could you put into as few words as possible. They were very impressed by that. The Romans, on the other hand, was impressed by knowledge, yes, but more by power.

Knowledge is power according to the Roman way of going around things. But the great calling and distinction of the Jewish people was not the call for knowledge or power, but for righteousness of Yahweh. That was their quest.

It was to be. They missed their national appointment by missing Christ because the hardness of the heart befell them, except for those amongst the remnant. And the Gentiles have been just like that ever since, the same thing. There are Gentiles that harden their hearts and there are Gentiles that come to Christ. Converted Gentiles get it by faith, by trust, and there's more that goes, every time a pastor steps into the pulpit and is anointed, he is preaching on faith, on what it means to trust God, to believe in God, to trust Him with your salvation and your eternity. And there's a lot to it.

It's not a single session. Unconverted Jews missed it by turning the blind eye. And so we come to verse 8. Just as it is written, God has given them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear to this day.

So again, he's answering their objections. You mean to tell me the Gentiles are just going to heaven and all these Jews nowadays just reject? Yes, that's what I'm telling you, because there's a stupor upon them, just as there was upon Pharaoh. He's quoting Isaiah. He's going to blend Isaiah, two verses from Isaiah and a verse, Deuteronomy 29, 4 with Isaiah 29, 10 and Isaiah 6, 9.

He's blending these to teach them what's going on. A judgment in consequence of their hardened hearts, which brings blindness. They controlled their choices.

They did not control its outcome. There's a gnat up here and I can eat the gnat because Christians aren't barred from eating them. For those of you who don't know, we're covering some of this in Leviticus. Anyway, you don't want to see me gag on a gnat, do you?

Because you won't see me swallow a camel. All right, we've got to get out of here so we can hurry it back here next time. I know. See, you know, when you read the Bible, if I'm in my devotional time and I'm in a book, say, I'm in Gospel of Mark, I can't wait to get to the next book. Then I get to the next book and I can't wait. It's just like I can't be happy where I am, even though I'm enjoying my time there. And I know that's how it is here. You can't wait for the next session, even though you're enjoying this one.

So, thank you. You know, in this coming a day, when God will deal with renegades in Christendom, with apostates in Christendom, it's covered for us, especially in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, because they did not have the love of the truth. They did not receive the love of the truth.

They will be judged. So again, God is consistent. You can't say, well, I'm glad he got those Jews in line.

Whoo! But he's not messing with us. We can be as rotten as we want.

That's not true. So, back to verse 8, eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear to this very day. So, God has vindicated.

This is not random judgment. We looked at this habit of choosing religion over Christ. That's why they don't want to see him, basking in their rituals rather than using their eyes.

Now, this is important. They have eyes to read the Scriptures. They had eyes to see the miracles. They had intelligence enough to spit out a conclusion that matched what God was saying, and the renegades did not, but the remnant did.

And that is the bottom line. Verse 9, and David says, let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a recompense to them. Verse 10, let their eyes be darkened so that they do not see and bow down their backs always.

Enslaved. That's a messianic psalm. That's a psalm about the coming Messiah and how he is rejected. And David, under the anointing of the Spirit, is saying there's a consequence to not applying what the Scripture clearly reveals because you got other issues. And we go through that perhaps so you've been denied something in life and you're bitter against God.

Well, you are entering into the same waters that the Jews who were renegades entered into. You got a grudge with God. You don't like how he's doing things. You resent that he's given someone more than you. Those kind of things crawl into us, especially if you've been around a long time.

And you should learn how to identify it and deal with it and not put up with that. There are some heavy things that befall us in life. None of it should be permitted, and I say this very humbly and cautiously, none of it should be able to knock us out of our faith. And this is what the Bible teaches. And so, a messianic psalm which call for judgment upon those who mistreated Christ. That's what Psalm 69 is about. And that's what Paul is quoting. Fantastic knowledge of the Word. We close with this verse, Acts 15, 15.

And with this, the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written. 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 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 in the book of Romans, here on Cross-Reference Radio.