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. 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 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.

1. 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.

1. 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.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding

Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect With Us

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MississaugaMissionaryBaptistChurch

Online: https://www.mississaugamissionarybaptistchurch.com/

Email: missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

Chapter 10:14-21

“¹⁴How 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? ¹⁵ 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!’¹⁶ But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our report?’ ¹⁷ So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

“¹⁸ 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.”¹⁹ 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.’ ²⁰ 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.’ ²¹ But to Israel he says: ‘All day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and contrary people.’”

The Gospel is precious. It is all we have from the Lord, through Jesus, to be saved. Without it, we are all doomed and this is why there are so many counterfeit gospels. Satan has confused so many and polluted the plain and simple truth. Take, for example, the first sin of man in Genesis 3. Adam was given a simple directive. The Law, at that time, was one instruction – simply don’t eat from this particular tree. In the account, Satan calls into question God’s character, that He was holding out on them and they could chart their own destiny. They did not need God; they could be their own gods. They could do it without God. Look at where we have come in a short 6,000 years. I wonder what it was like the first time Adam and Eve said hateful words to each other or went to bed angry. What was it like to witness death for the first time, see a son murdered and suffer loss?

Satan always promises more than he can deliver, and God always delivers more than He promises.

We are in the same boat today. We have the simple and plain Gospel. Jesus paid it all! He is the author and finisher of our faith and there is nothing you can do other than humble yourselves, submit and trust in the work He has already completed for you. The Apostle Paul puts it this way, as he was led to write by the Holy Spirit in Ephesian 2: 8-10,

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

We are saved by grace, only through faith that is given to us by God. We do not need to do works to be saved or to stay saved. We have no reason to boast, as we have no righteousness of our own. Once we have been saved, we are able to do ‘good works,’ not for salvation but as a result of salvation. All good works before salvation is of no value. Today we will look at a couple of points from the last part of Romans 10.

• Beautiful Feet, verses 14-16

We often take feet for granted until they hurt. Anyone who has stubbed a toe or broken an ankle will attest to how useful our feet are. Some have fallen arches that hurt, and some have put on too much weight for their feet and they live in pain. Some people have hard-calloused feet that seem to defy any kind of pain. Others have delicate and sensitive feet that makes even a grain of sand in a shoe bothersome.

In Romans 10:14-16, we are told that those who carry the Gospel have beautiful feet. When I first got into the Missionary Baptist churches as a teenage boy, I saw firsthand the emphasis on sharing the Gospel. Not to say that I did not see it in my church growing up in Barbados, but I guess as a teenager I was better able to understand my responsibility for the Gospel and for others. The Great Commission, as it is often called, is found in Matthew 28: 18-20,

“And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.  Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’ Amen.”

These were Jesus’ final words to the church there in Jerusalem. This command is repeated in different ways in Luke, Acts and other places, but the idea is that they, the persons He was addressing, were to carry the Gospel, the Good News, to everyone. In verse 19, we see the word ‘Go,’ and we often leave this to the professional Gospel carrier – the Pastors and the Missionaries. But a better rendering of the word ‘Go’ would be ‘as you are going.’ This is a command to any and all the saved. As we are going about our daily lives, we should be sharing the Good News of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection, thus giving people the chance to be saved and become Jesus’ disciples. Are you and I doing that?

When was the last time you shared the Gospel with someone? When was the last time you had a conversation about the Lord’s work in your life with someone who was not a Christian?

Let me ask a more basic question. Would you be able to walk someone through the Bible, show them their need for Jesus and then provide the way to be saved and become a disciple of Jesus? We take these things for granted, yet the vast majority of Christians today are not equipped to lead someone to Jesus, so let me help you. I had to learn this stuff in Evangelism class in seminary; our class consisted of some classroom work, but we spent hours knocking on doors and asking people if they knew Jesus as Saviour? Let me offer this as well. Once you know this stuff, you are responsible to God for it, and I promise you God will send you persons who need to hear the Gospel. God has people who are seeking right now, and He will send you seekers for you to show the way.

The Need: We are all sinners. Begin reading in Romans 3:10-18, 23 and you should memorize 3:10 and 23. You will see that there is none righteous – not one. All people on earth are sinners and this is the thing that separates them from God. Sin means to ‘miss the mark.’ Think about shooting an arrow and missing the bullseye. God is the bullseye. No matter how perfect we try to be, we always miss God’s standard of perfection because we are sinners. In verse 23, we see that we have all sinned and fallen short of God’s perfection. As sinners, we deserve death. Romans 6:23 states that the wages of sin is death. Read the rest and memorize this verse as well. There is death in the world because of sin. Look at Genesis 3:21. God made coats of skin after man sinned. An animal or animals had to die to make coats of skin. Sin brings death, not just to man but to the whole of God’s creation. We taint everything we touch.

The Solution: God sent Jesus. Romans 5:1-8 states that we are justified in Jesus by God. This means we are declared righteous by God in Jesus. God provided a way of salvation because He loves us. Memorize Romans 5:8. God commendeth or showed His love for us in that while we yet were sinners, Christ died for us. God made a way for man to be saved, to be redeemed and to be reconciled to Him. Jesus is the Way. Memorize John 14:6. Read and know John 3:16-18.

The Plan: One has to acknowledge their sinfulness and put faith in Jesus and His work only to be saved.  Read and memorize Romans 10:9-10. Read Luke 23: 40-43 and notice one of the thieves on the cross admitted his sinfulness in verse 41 and then cried out to Jesus in verse 42. He is assured of salvation in verse 43. What is of great importance here is that Jesus does not stop proceeding to baptize the man. Salvation is not through works – not even the work of salvation. It is a gift from God, when one repents, to agree with God that you are a sinner and ask God to save you. He will do so every single time.

The Promise: Once you are saved it is forever. Read and know John 3:16. But Romans 8:1 is also important. There is now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. There is no judgment, no punishment and no Hell. You have been declared righteous in Romans 5:1. In Jesus, and you are no longer under the wrath of God but a part of His family for eternity. The next step is to be properly baptized, by immersion, at a scriptural church that teaches the truth of God, and then you are to learn and repeat. That means that, as you are learning and living life, you are to be making disciples. This is how one gets beautiful feet.

• Not everyone will hear, verse 17-21

No one likes rejection, but that is the nature of the Gospel. You should be mentally, physically and spiritually prepared for rejection. They rejected Jesus and they will often reject you. No one wants to hear that they are sinners and condemned to death before a Holy God. The Holy Spirit will lead you to people and people to you. Some will hear and accept gladly. Many others will reject the message and maybe hate you. They hated Jesus; they will hate you. We live in a time when people have been conditioned to believe that they do not have to answer to anyone and, as such, they think that there is no God to answer to. The Holy Spirit has to be the one to change them, not you.

Remember that they are rejecting God, not you. Don’t get mad. Rather, pray for them and ask God to open their eyes through His Holy Spirit so that they can see. In this passage, here in Romans 10, we are told that Israel is blind for a while, until our time (the time of the Gentiles) is finished. Some people will eventually see their need for Jesus, but there are many that won’t. They will choose Hell and reject Heaven. In the parable of the sower, in Matthew 13:1-23, the sower only had power over how much seed he sowed. Once the seed left his hand, everything else was out of his hands. As you are going, share the Good News of Jesus. This is all you have control over once the Gospel leaves you. After that, another has control over what happens.

It is hard to see people reject Jesus. I once had a client tell me that she may have been a Christian if she had met me earlier in life, but that she has been an atheist too long to change. I was able to give her daughter a copy of The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. I don’t know if she read it, but I gave her the Good News from a man who used to be an atheist. The good news for Israel is that one day soon God will return to dealing with them as a nation and they will get a chance to see Jesus face-to-face once again. One day soon, all those who rejected Jesus will humble themselves and address Him as Lord. One day soon, all those who accepted Jesus will see Him in His glory and we will rejoice with the billions of saved. We will shout enough to drown out the angels singing – the sound of the redeemed, the rejoicing of the saved, the adoration of a thankful multitude and the eternal service of a reconciled people.

Oh, what a day that will be when my Jesus returns! I shall look upon His face; the one who saved me by his grace. What a glorious day that will be! What a great song!

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding

Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MississaugaMissionaryBaptistChurch

Online: https://www.mississaugamissionarybaptistchurch.com/

Email: missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca