Romans Lesson 34: God Does Not Break Promises :: By Sean Gooding

Published on: September 17, 2020 by RRadmin7

Chapter 11:11-36

“¹¹ I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles.¹² Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!¹³ For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, ¹⁴ if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. ¹⁵ For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?¹⁶ For if the first fruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches. ¹⁷ And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree,

“¹⁸ do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.¹⁹ You will say then, ‘Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.’ ²⁰Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. ²¹For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. ²² Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. ²³And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. ²⁴For 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?

“²⁵ 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 has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. ²⁶ And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; ²⁷ For this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.’

“²⁸ Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. ²⁹ For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. ³⁰ For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, ³¹ even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy. ³² For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all. ³³ Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!

“³⁴ ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor?’ ³⁵ ‘Or who has first given to Him and it shall be repaid to him?’ ³⁶ For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.“

Thanks to all those that read the lessons. Your kind words of encouragement are good to me. I had thought to write on another idea as I was preparing this; but as I began to look at the text, another thought came into my mind, and it is that we will explore today. There is a doctrine that is going around today, not a new one, but it is becoming more and more prevalent as we see the end of the Gentile age approach. The idea is that the New Testament church has replaced Israel in God’s plan and scheme. They rejected Jesus the week of His death, and God has washed His hands of them and moved on to the Gentile church. Too bad, so sad for Israel.

But God, in His wisdom and knowing that this doctrine would arise, prepared us with the scriptural ammunition to refute this completely. He began to refute this in Daniel 9 where He told Daniel about the 70 weeks (490 years) that were appointed to Israel. Those 490 years would complete God’s plan to redeem Israel and the whole world. The prophecy is told to Daniel, and it specifically is made about ‘his people and the Holy City’; these are the Jews and Jerusalem.

In Isaiah 2 and 65, we find promises made about the kind of rest the Messiah would bring to Israel in the ‘latter days’; these are our days. The same promises are mentioned in Micah 4, and there they are expanded. God builds further on that to the Jews in the New Testament age via the pen of the apostle Paul. Here in these three chapters 9-11 of Romans, God makes it clear that He is not done with Israel.

This book was written about 57 AD, some 25 years or so after Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection. Paul would die somewhere between 64-67 AD by execution. Nero would begin to kill and execute Christians, and a lot of the Christians in Rome at the time were Jews. By 70 AD, the city of Jerusalem would be ransacked and destroyed by General Titus and a large Roman army. The Jewish people would be scattered to the ends of the earth and the city sacked. The majestic temple would be torn down brick by brick, and Jerusalem would be trampled over by Gentiles. The nation of Israel as a unified body would cease to exist just 13 years after this letter was inspired by the Holy Spirit and written by Paul.

God was getting ahead of the coming emotional, physical and spiritual pain that was coming by giving the remnant of Israel hope. Hope that one day soon, God’s judgment would be turned and He would revert to dealing with the Jews and restoring the nation. Satan has done all in His power to eradicate the Jews. In fact, it is his work to kill off the Jews that reminds us that God is not done. The Jews have been hated, hunted and slaughtered everywhere they went. I had the unfortunate opportunity to watch one of the anti-Jewish hatred propagandas from the Third Reich. They were called dirty; it was implied that they did not care about Poland and that they were almost not human. We know that story of the concentration camps in World War 2.

I saw a man the other day talking about how his mom was in the concentration camps as a Jewish girl in her 20s. He came to the USA when he was 9 with his mom; she was a survivor. One can still travel to Europe and see the camps, see the millions of shoes, the wall of suitcases and see the machines of death that killed some 6,000,000 Jews. But in all that, Satan could not win; you see, God had millions of Jews hidden elsewhere.

I spoke to a man this weekend past from Ethiopia, and he told me of the very large Jewish population in Ethiopia. He knew many Jews, many of them dark-skinned, as he grew up. Well, in our time, shortly after this massive assassination of these millions of Jews, God allowed the nation to resurrect from the grave. It has never happened before that a nation that had been ‘dead’ for almost 2,000 years had come back to life. But Israel did. On May 14, 1948, the nation formed again and was immediately recognized as a nation by the USA. To this day, Israel is surrounded by her enemies, from the Muslims in Iraq, those in Iran, those in the PLA, those in Syria and elsewhere. But, as we come to the end of the age, another enemy has arisen, posing as conservative Bible scholars. They proclaim in complete opposition to God, the Bible and the writings here of the apostle Paul that God is done with Israel. This is hogwash.

Paul lays out his case in these verses we will look at – sorry, more accurately, God lays out His case and His promise here to help Jewish believers, some of whom will be alive to see Israel destroyed and Jerusalem burnt to the ground. They will see 100,000 of their countrymen slaughtered by the Romans and another 40,000 taken into captivity. The Jewish believers will have these three chapters in this Roman letter to hold on to. Here are the things that God gave them and us; don’t ever forget that salvation comes by and through the Jews. God called Abraham. God preserved Jacob in Egypt. God brought them to the Promised land. God gave them David. God preserved the lineage of David even in Babylonian captivity; don’t forget that God sent Jesus to be born, live, die on the cross and then resurrect in Israel.

Salvation is a Jewish story. Jesus is a Jew. The first Christians were Jews, the Bible was mostly written by Jews, and the entire book of Revelation, once we get past chapter 4, is about Israel. Jesus is a Jewish Messiah, a Jewish King, and the world we are waiting for is going to be centered in Jerusalem. Everything about salvation is Jewish.

The next thing is that God is the one who graciously and miraculously brought in the Gentiles. It was not normal that we Gentiles, called the wild olive branches (see verse 17), could be brought in to the Kingdom. BUT GOD, in His loving kindness and gracious goodness, miraculously grafted us in and brought us into His family through the Jewish Saviour, Jesus. In normal farming it is impossible to graft a wild olive branch to the cultivated one; it was and is truly a miracle that God has done for us.

There will come a time, maybe soon, that the ‘fullness of the Gentiles,’ the number that God knows will be redeemed is done, and then He will return to working with Israel. Paul warns that we should not become arrogant and forget where our salvation came from. We tell a Jewish story, about a Jewish man/God, who died just outside Jerusalem; He was even executed as the King of the Jews, was buried in a Jewish grave and was resurrected as the Jewish Saviour.

Lastly, God does not owe us an explanation. He is God. If He wants to deal with the Jews who rejected Him, it is His business and His alone. He also will keep the promises that He made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In verse 29, we are told that the calling and gifts of God are irrevocable. Thank God!!! If God could lie to the Jews and break promises to the Jews, then He could do the same to us, and eternal life would not exist. But God cannot lie. God cannot break a promise, and He cannot go against His expressed will. Soon, very soon, in fact, we see the groundwork, as like many presidents before him, President Trump has orchestrated a treaty between the UAE and Israel. These little treaties are tests and precursors to the one that will change the world.

One day soon, a man, an unknown seemingly insignificant leader, will broker a treaty between Israel and her enemies; this treaty will signal the beginning of the Tribulation. Notice that the treaty is between the rival Jewish brothers: the pretenders, the Arabs like Iraq, Iran and Turkey, a lot of the Muslim world, the descendants of Ishmael; and rightful heirs of Israel, the descendants of Abraham through Jacob. It is the Gentile age that will come to an end. The Jews have been put on hold for 2,000 years for our sake, but the time is running out, and the day, that day, is coming.

My Gentile friend, I too am one, have you trusted in the Jewish Messiah? Have you confessed your sinfulness, recognized your impossible situation, that you cannot please God or attain to God’s holiness on your own? Then if you have come to that point, I can tell you that is in the right place to call on Jesus, the Jewish Saviour, who will save you and cleanse you from all your sins, washing you in His blood and giving you His righteous perfection via sending the Holy Spirit to live in you. Then you will be saved forever. God can never revoke your salvation because, like He keeps His promises to the Jews; He will keep His promises to you.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding

Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect With Us

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Email: missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

Romans Lesson 33: God is Not a Loser :: By Sean Gooding

Published on: September 9, 2020 by RRadmin7

Chapter 11:1-10

¹ I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. ² 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, ³ ‘Lord, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life’? ⁴ But what does the divine response say to him? ‘I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’ ⁵ Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace.

“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.⁷ What then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks; but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded. ⁸Just 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 very day.’ ⁹ And David says: ‘Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a recompense to them. ¹⁰ Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see, and bow down their back always.’”

We live in tumultuous times. Just yesterday I was speaking with a colleague at my workplace, and we were discussing how the last 6 months have been one of the largest transfers of wealth in the history of the world. We have men like Bezos whose worth have just about doubled in the past 6 months (to about 200 Billion Dollars) while smaller companies are still struggling, and many are going out of business. In my little town, there are countless empty storefronts that will never come back. Even very large restaurant chains, some who have been around for 30+ years, have gone under in this COVID debacle.

It is not my intention in this lesson to get into that, but just think that as we move ahead and the push to globalism is shoved down our throats, it will be easier to control businesses if the vast majority are run by a small group of persons. It will be easier to make laws that restrict the smaller stores if the bigger stores own everything. Soon all of our food, medicine, clothing and just about everything we buy will be held in the hands of an oligopoly, and they will be controlled by evil men who are not interested in the individual customer but serve a ‘bigger’ vision.

I was speaking to a Russian couple in my office who have been in Canada for almost 3 years, and they were astonished at the fact that it is very hard to pay for anything with cash. They have the money, but many places will not take more than a few thousand in cash. The legal paperwork and the hoops one must jump through to prove the chain of ownership is circus-like. They blurted out to me that this is all about control. They knew what that was like growing up in Russia, and they were astonished to see it here in North America.

We are like the frog in the pot; the government is gradually turning up the temperature, and we are boiling to death very, very slowly. It would be easy for us to think that the world system is winning, they have the upper hand, and they are about to ‘checkmate’ our King. But nothing could be further from the truth. God’s not dead, and soon He will come out roaring like a Lion.

In the passage above, there are some stark declarations that we will deal with today. I hope to bring some enlightenment and some peace into some troubled lives today. I pray that some light will shine in your darkness and that you will realize that the light at the end of the tunnel is not a train but Jesus coming to clear this mess up.

God is not done with Israel, verses 1-2

There is a devilish doctrine meandering among churches, even presumably conservative churches, that God is done with Israel. Many of the churches that teach this doctrine are Calvinist-leaning, at least here in Southern Ontario. They do not believe that everyone can be saved, and as such, they have written off Israel and teach, erroneously, that the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are not transferred to the New Testament church.

Paul calls this very thought into question in the first two verses of Romans 11: Is God done with Israel? No, He is not. And I am proof of that; I am an Israelite. If God was done with Israel, why am I saved? Paul was the main apostle to the Gentile peoples of most of known Europe, but he was a Jew and he knew that he was God’s reminder that the Jews were not forgotten and cast aside forever. I know some Jews who are saved. They have seen and understood that Jesus is the Messiah, and they have called on Him as Savior. There are entire organizations like Jews for Jesus whose sole job is to take the Gospel of Jesus to the persons of Israel. They have a unique perspective as Jews on how to share the Gospel to their people.

In Romans 11:2, Paul clearly states that God has not cast away His people. How much clearer can one be? Later in this chapter, Paul would write in verse 29 that the ‘gifts of God and His promises are irrevocable.’ God made a covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15, a covenant that Abraham slept through, and God made the covenant to Abraham using Himself only as the giver and the receiver. Thus, this covenant will never expire since the covenant expires at the death of one of the participants. God will never die (Genesis 15: 8-21).

Here we are 2,000 years later, and there are still Jews being saved, still Jews coming to the recognition of who the Messiah is and calling on Him for salvation. A literal reading of the book of Revelation will reveal that God is not done with Israel and will call 144,000 Jewish men to be missionaries to the lost Jews around the world. Then once we get out of chapter 4, the New Testament church is never mentioned again, yet we see saints in the Tribulation period, we see that the whole world is focused on Jerusalem, and the anti-Christ himself will invade and occupy Jerusalem for a period of time. The future events of the end are about Israel, at least the events that take place here on earth.

Sadly, the Jews rejected their Messiah, and for a period of time their eyes have been darkened, but that is for our benefit; we see the Messiah.

God will never be outplayed by Satan, verse 2-5

There is a story from 1 Kings 19 where Elijah has run away from Jezebel and is cowering in fear by a river. There he falls into a bit of a pity party and asks God to take his life as he is the only one left in Israel who is serving the Lord. But God makes it clear that He had more than 7,000 other men who had not worshipped a false god. This seemed to be an eye-opener to the prophet. He was so fixed on Jezebel and her evils ways that it took his eyes off the fact that more than 7,000 other men were serving the Lord faithfully.

This is how it can be today; we see the globalists on TV every day, we see the news and hear of the issues, and we can think that we have lost the battle. We are outnumbered and are being outplayed. But nothing could be further from the truth. God will not be outplayed and outmaneuvered by Satan.

Right now, there are faithful missionaries and countless churches that are doing all they can to share the Gospel. Soon, God will send out 144,000 dedicated missionaries to preach the Gospel to the Jews; we find this in Revelation 7:1-17. There are currently over 7.5 billion people on the planet, and when we look at the people who have gone before, plus the ones that are saved now, plus the ones who will see Jesus in the Millennial Kingdom and be saved, there will be billions upon billions who will be saved, and Satan is going to be outplayed. He will come to the end of himself, and he too will one day call Jesus Lord. It is Satan’s kingdom that will be destroyed, his power eviscerated and his end sure. In the end, there will be one eternal ruler, Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords. His kingdom is forever, and His reign is forever as well.

Don’t be dismayed; any perceived victories by the kingdom of darkness and his minions here on earth are temporary. God is allowing them a false sense of winning and a sense of victory that will embolden them to defy God more and more as they try to create a perfect world without Jesus. They will fail miserably. Their presumption that man is good will be their end; they are not even good themselves. They are evil and in need of redemption.

There is no Utopia without Jesus and salvation. But for now, we are the ones who benefit from the temporary blindness of the Jews. We Gentiles are being saved but soon, sooner than we all think, the Gentile age will come to an end and God will revert to dealing spiritually with the Jews. They will be saved and there will be billions of Gentiles killed in the Tribulation. Those Gentiles who enter the Tribulation having rejected Jesus will die horribly in ways that God has told us will be absolutely amazing. The Revelation makes Hollywood look like they are amateurs in creating ways to die.

Repent; today is the day of salvation. We don’t hear much today about the wrath of God. Not many preachers want to talk about Hell, sin and eternal fires. But the Bible says this in Hebrews 10:31, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God.” We will all meet the Lord Jesus one day; we will either meet him at the Bema Mercy seat or the Great White Throne judgment. Where will you meet Him? The choice is yours.