Sermon Tone Analysis

! Romans 11

!! Romans 11

*Tape #8130*

*Pastor Chuck Smith*

 

Romans chapter 11.

At the end of chapter 10, Paul has been sharing Scriptures from the Old Testament that speak of God's reaching out with the gospel to the Gentiles.

And being embraced by the Gentiles as their God.

But concerning Israel, God declared, all day long I have stretched forth my hands to a disobedient and a gain saying people.

So, where the nation of Israel rejected their Messiah, He was embraced by the Gentiles.

So Paul declares, /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.

/If you think that God has been stretching out His hand, they are not responding.

They are disobedient.

Does that mean that God has cut them off?

That they are cut off from salvation and the blessings of God?

And Paul declares, certainly not or God forbid!

For he himself is a descendant from Abraham, according to the flesh, from 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"?

/You remember the story in the Old Testament, how that Elijah had the contest with the four hundred prophets of Baal there on Mount Carmel.

And how they set up the alters.

The deal was, the prophets were to pray to Baal to light the fire on their alter.

Elijah was to pray to Jehovah to light the fire on his alter.

And that the god who answers by fire be acknowledged as the true and the living God.

And we remember the story how the prophets of Baal prayed all day with no results.

Towards evening at the time of sacrifice, Elijah just to sort of rub it in, told them to pour water all over the sacrifice.

Then to ask God to send the fire which did consume the sacrifice and the alter and the water in the trenches round about.

And Jehovah was acknowledged as God.

Elijah took the four hundred prophets of Baal down to the brook and killed them.

And how that when Jezebel, the wicked queen, heard of what Elijah had done, she said, God, do so to me also if by tomorrow, I don’t have the head of the prophet.

And so Elijah fled from the presence of Jezebel.

And he went all the way down to the Sinai.

There he hid in a cave.

The Lord came to him there and said Elijah, what are you doing here?

And that’s when Elijah answered the Lord and said, I’ve been zealous for God.

They have killed all of Your prophets.

And they seek my life.

And that was repeated three times.

After the third time, /4But what does the divine response say to him?

"I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal."   /The Lord said, I have reserved unto me seven thousand men in Israel who have not bowed their knee to Baal.

Now, that’s not very many.

When you consider that the population was probably over a million men in Israel at that time, for only seven thousand to have remained true to the worship of Jehovah, is a very small percentage and a very small amount, less than one percent.

So that even though God had a remnant, it was a very small remnant that God had reserved in Israel.

You might say, for the most part, the nation at that time was apostate.

A very small remnant that God had reserved unto Himself.

When we look at Europe today, you observe a post Christian era.

Christianity has lost its influence, its power.

There are, they say, more witches in England than there are churches.

There are more mosques in England than there are churches.

You are in a post Christian era.

The United States is rapidly moving in that direction.

Now here at Calvary Chapel, you don’t really get the pulse of the nation.

I mean here we are and we all love the Lord.

We’re all zealous for God.

And God is doing a marvelous work here.

But we are not representative of the whole community.

We are just a small part of this community.

And this is a phenomenal work of God that we are seeing here, but you are a part of that small faithful remnant that God has today, but not of the Jews but of the Gentiles.

But God, among the Jews, has always had His faithful remnant.

Now Paul declares that God hasn’t cast away the Jews.

I’m a Jew.

And when Elijah felt that he was the only one left.

They have killed all of Your prophets and now they are seeking to kill me.

The Lord said, I have seven thousand.

God's faithful remnant who have not bowed their knee to Baal.

And so we represent a small remnant but really when you look at our nation as a whole, where at one time it might have been sort of classified as a Christian nation, it is so far from that today.

There has been a deliberate, willful, determined effort to really destroy the influence of Christianity in our nation.

It has been quite effective.

In the school systems, they have done a very thorough job of trying to even rewrite history in order to leave out all of the Christian influences among the Pilgrim fathers.

They are talking in the schools today, let’s not call it Thanksgiving Day.

Why?

Because that gives thanks to whom?

And thus the school teachers are sort of instructed not to call it Christmas, not to call it Thanksgiving.

It’s winter vacation.

This is sort of a fall vacation kind of a thing.

But they are trying to get away even from terms that would indicate anything concerning God.

Sad indeed!

And a denial of the historic basis of our nation.

The revisionists have taken over the textbooks and rewritten them, leaving God out.

But God has His faithful remnant always.

And among the Jews God has always had a faithful remnant.

And there are today among the Jews, a faithful remnant still, who believe in Jesus as the Messiah.

Even as did Paul.

And God has always had His faithful remnant there whom He foreknew.

/5//Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant /(His faithful remnant) /according to the election of grace.

/(God has related through grace to His faithful remnant.)

/6And 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.

/In other words the faithful remnant that God has elected are saved through the grace of God, not by the works of the law.

They have been called by God to receive His grace.

And saved by grace and not by works.

Now, He shows that works and grace are mutually exclusive.

If it’s of grace then it can’t be of works because then grace is not grace.

If we are saved by works, then it’s not of grace because then works are not works.

They are mutually exclusive.

You are either saved by your faith in Jesus Christ in receiving the grace of God through Him or you are saved by the works of the law.

It can’t be both!

In Paul’s time there was a strong Jewish influence in the church.

And they preached an admixture of faith plus works.