March 28, 2021 - Romans11:25-27

Those of you who do not know me and my name is Lauren Crandall and just a regular guy here serves with you guys. And if you're visiting for the first time, I just want to say welcome and want to let you know that we've been going through the book of Romans for the last couple weeks the last week. We took a break and I trust that you've been enjoying the study like I have in hearing from the different guy each week and have been able to share with us. And so this week I'm going to be looking at Romans chapter 11, and we're going to be looking at versus 25 6 and 7. And I will be addressing this question with you today. How do I know what is true? Or how do we know? What is true? But before we get over to Romans 11, so if you want to start turning that way, I just want to do a quick review to catch up to where we've come so far as we know the author of Romans is the Apostle Paul and it was written around 8057 and it was written to Jewish Believers the descendants of Abraham and two Gentile Believers as well. Just five years earlier. The Jewish Believers were expelled from Rome and they were starting to come back and because of that there was tension that was mounting in the church around laws and what was acceptable to eat and what is circumcision necessary to Paul writes the book of Romans to bring Unity to the church in Rome. He writes in the fullest detail the fullest expression of the gospel and the good news about Jesus is life about his death in about his resurrection. If we were to look at Romans as a whole the whole book, it could be broken down something like this chapters 1 through 4 reveal God's righteousness and that man is sinful. End. Romans 3:23 comes to mind right for all have sinned if we were to look at Chapters 5 to 8. They would reveal how God creates a new Humanity in the person of Jesus Christ, man is now justified by faith. We now have a new status we have now have a new family and we now have a new future because of Christ chapters 9 through 11. The film God's promises to Israel Paul notes this as a mystery in just a little bit. I'm going to take us through what that mystery actually and then the last four chapters chapters 12 through 16 talks about the unification of the church and unification comes from serving one another

And we just started spoke about this and Sunday School going through a new class called compelled in the first guy that spoke today. He was talking about servanthood. So if you're not plugged into Sunday school, there's a plug for you come on in at 9:30 on Sunday mornings. It's just a phenomenal class. So before I get to the text in Romans, I do when I give you a road map to where I'm going today, and I have three points that I want to discuss with you in the first one will be this. There's a possibility that someone here today as question the authority and or the reliability of the Bible or perhaps you're struggling with a belief in God or you're struggling with some foundational views. I hope to demonstrate today that you can trust what is written in the Bible. My second point is to look at the mystery and that's in verse 25, which will get you in just a minute. And then lastly my third point is going to be this we're going to look at how God reveals himself to us through his word. Historical evidence and prophetic evidence will come into play today in the both of those very much time together. But before we go any further, let's just go to the Lord in prayer.

Father I just sent thank you for your word. I think you for what you put on My Heart Lord. I pray that the busyness of this week would be set aside for a few moments and that together we could look into your word and we danced at your Holy Spirit Will challenge us and then more importantly Lord that it would change us so that when we leave this facility today we leave differently than when we came in and asked this in your son's name. Amen. To my first point of getting back to those in the room who may be questioning the reliability of the Bible.

Perhaps you're struggling with some foundation reviews and I believe it's important that I start here today because if you don't believe that God created the heavens and the Earth if you don't believe you have a purpose, I don't believe you'll be convinced that what I'm going to share to you today out of the word of God will make a difference in your life. You see it was written for me. It was written for you and it was written for mankind to get to know in to serve him better. I want to establish a foundation for why we as Christ followers believe that the Bible is indeed the word of God and I want to do this by asking you a series of questions. Questions to ask for you to consider in regards to your uniqueness, which is supported in the creation story. And what is written in the actual word of God and so as I drove some questions about you you need to answer them back to me, but they'll just consider them Ponder them in your mind. So my first question do you believe mankind was created or mankind was evolved creation or evolution?

In the world they say there's a proximately 8.5 billion people. That's a whole lot of folks. How many users are there? Is it again? How many users are there? Far as I know you are the only one of you or are you not? And science would support this you have your own DNA. You have your own fingerprint? And if we were to go to a court of law, they would use that DNA or that fingerprint to find you guilty or innocent. my next question based on science. Does this represent chaos such as Evolution or does it represent intelligent design? I believe you have to say it's intelligent design would you not. I hope you give me a little bit of ground here to say that it takes more faith to believe in happenstance. Then it does a Creator because you are a unique because I am unique this means that we are both rare and we are both valuable. If you can agree that your rare unless you're valuable. My next question, who are you valuable to?

You're valuable to the one who created you for a purpose. And I believe science is opposed Evolution and supports the creation story. If you can believe that you're just not happenstance, then I believe we have a very good starting point to say what was written in the scriptures is written for you and it's written for eye and it's written for those that don't know Christ. So I want you to take a look at the screen here. They going to pull up the first slide. And I just want to give you a few key verses. The backup The Authority behind the Bible and while I was told they gave me the wrong size text. So I will be sharing this with you rather than you reading some of this but Genesis 1:1 in the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth. There was a creation Story 6 days, right? It just didn't evolve. There was someone behind it or Genesis 1:27. So God created man in his own image in the image of God. He created them and he created them male and female. And then are we hearing about gender of neutralization today in our world? It just drives me nuts, but hear it clearly says God didn't make a mistake. You're either male or female. It's really important to know this. Psalms 139:16 your eyes saw my body before it was formed you plant and how many days I would live you wrote down the number of them in your book before I ever lived through even one of them. Again, God created he created you and he has a plan and a purpose for you and then lastly 2nd Timothy 3 3:16. All scripture is god-breathed and is useful for teaching rebuking correcting and training in righteousness. So that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. So if you would turn over to Romans 11 with me. And we're going to look at versus 25 6 and 7. Follow along with me as I read starting in verse 25. I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery brothers and sisters so that you may not be conceited Israel has experienced hardening in part in this. Full number of Gentiles has come in and in this way. All Israel will be saved as it is written that deliver will come from Zion. He will turn godlessness away from Jacob and this is my Covenant with them when I take away their sins. So now I move on to my second point and I want you to look at the verse 25 with me. It reads do not be ignorant of this mystery. And it's worth repeating hear that Paul is speaking to the Jewish Believers and he speaking to the Gentile Believers and history has afforded you and I to look back on time. But while this text was being written this mystery was just being revealed to them and in the English dictionary the word mystery is defined as something that is difficult or impossible to understand or explain. However, the word mystery in the Greek has a different meaning it's actually pronounced mousse de Dion and this mystery is not something unknowable rather. It can only be known to read Revelation. You see God must reveal it to us. Until the big question for the Jewish nation was how can the gospel before the Gentiles are not we the chosen ones? And this mystery goes all the way back to Genesis 22. So if you would turn over there in your Bibles with me. Genesis 22 we're going to look at verses 15 through 18.

It reads. The angel of the Lord called the Abraham from having a second time and said I swear by myself declares the Lord that because you have done this and have not withheld your son your only son. I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the Sands and the seashore your descendants will take possession of their cities of their enemies and through your Offspring all the nations of Earth will be blessed because you made me And what we learn from scriptures, we know that Ibraham Abraham, excuse me did not withhold Isaac which is a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ. And the Mystery is that all nations on Earth would be blessed. The Messiah was promised. The gospel is for all and it wasn't just for the Jews which is great news for us here today for for many of us. It's very important to note that it was not Abraham's faith. That credit union to be righteous. It's not what he did. It was his faith was me that was credited as righteousness and Paul wrote The Following the Romans 5:1 therefore since we've been justified through faith. We have peace with our God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand so if you would turn it back over to Romans 11 I want to look at the second half of the verse 25 Romans 11:25. Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of Gentiles has come in and in this way. All Israel will be saved. Is he because the nation of Israel rejected the Lord their hearts were hardened. However, God had a plan is noted in Romans 9:27. Do the number of children of Israel vs. Sans is a c a Remnant will be saved. To the mystery that is how God took this negative and how we turned it into a positive using the Harding of their heart to open the doors for the Gentiles to come into a saving knowledge of who he is and we're still waiting for that final prophecy to be called in. The good news is God is still calling people to repentance today until that last Gentile is called and then that Jewish Remnant will be called and I certainly waiting for that day. To my third point I will look at it now and is really the heart in the meat of my message is the answer the question. How do I know what is true? I will answer this by question by looking at verse 26 of Rome is 11. So take a look. It reads as it is written. There is our answer. We can know the truth because it's written in the word of God and I didn't remember who Paul is writing to his writing to the Gentile Believers in the Jewish Believers the descendants of Abraham. The words as it is written we would have gotten the attention of the Jewish Believers. It would have taken them back to the Book of Exodus when Moses is given the law when Moses is given the Ten Commandments and he was given the biblical laws of Judaism. They would have understood the authoritative positioning of those words as it is written. It would have gotten their attention and I don't know if any of you are golfers, but went around the golf course, there's one word that will get your attention. And that word is for right it was golf with me. I'll head in there and shot and take someone out for the word for stops people. They look they duck. They know it's there for a purpose and so it is with these words as it is written. And it's important to know that God reveals himself to us in four primary ways. He reveals himself to us through nature. All that. God has created and discloses who he is and that is noted As Romans 1:20. He reveals himself to us through his conscious the human mind's in the human heart bear witness to the existence of God Romans, 2:15 comes to mind. He reveals himself through his written word. And when I just read the verse 2nd Timothy 3:16, and lastly he reveals himself to us through the person of Jesus Christ. In the first two ways, there are General and limited but the second two ways that I just shared our full their personal and their Complete because of a relationship.

And I want to look at how God reveals himself to us through his written word by focusing on the historical and prophetic evidence. That is layered throughout not only history but throughout scripture and it'll dress the question. How do I know? What is true? In the historical evidence that validate to accuracy of the Bible is overwhelming and in doing some research for this message. I came across the quote written by the Smithsonian Department of anthropology located in Washington DC and they noted the following about the Bible and it's on slide 3. I don't know if it's staying and it's still small. Nevermind. I'll read it from here. They noted the following about the Bible much of the Bible in particular the historical books of the Old Testament ARS accurate historical documents as any that we have from in Antiquity and are in fact more accurate than many of the Egyptian Mesopotamian and Greek histories. These biblical records are used as our other ancient documents in archaeological work for the most part historical evidence describe took place. In people's cited really existed and I love to go on archaeology today. It's a website there several others, but you can actually look up what's happening over in Israel and what it what are they finding today? And it's amazing time and time again, they're finding different things. Like for example, Bethlehem wasn't around or known of they could never find historical evidence of it except for a little ass recent couple years. They found a stamp with Bethlehem. Is another article I came across was done by David Limbaugh. And if you recognize that name is brother was Rush Limbaugh the noted radio host. But in 2014 David released a book called Jesus on trial which was written from a lawyer's perspective on the truth of the gospel and he noted the following and I quote there's an enormous amount of evidence that the Bible is historically reliable and that that what was written by real men who were United in their commitment to truth. So real men wrote the Bible. And his conclusion is that it is 99.5% accurate, which is just an amazing number to me and there's a another book called new evidence that demands a verdict by Josh McDowell and he did a similar thing. He looked at it from a lawyer's perspective and he pulled in documents within the Bible and outside of the Bible like the historian Josephus to prove the case for the Bible it so if you never read these books would highly recommend that you go and get them. Another important thing to note is the quantity of New Testament manuscripts their unparalleled in ancient history in a Biblical manuscript is a copy of the original text and they went to Great Lengths to ensure the accuracy when they copied the Bible in the quantitative quantity of these manuscripts validate. The reliability if they were not accurately written they would have been destroyed and to give you an idea of the quantity of manuscripts. We have there's over 5,000 Greek manuscripts. There's 8,000 Latin manuscripts and there's another thousand and several other languages. And historically speaking many of these manuscripts were written very close to the events some within 30 years of the events. So there would have been eyewitnesses around. They would have been able to validate or say hey that what that's not correct. So that's really important. In addition to the extraordinary number of manuscripts that we have there's tens of thousands of quotes by early church fathers about the Bible and then contrast the manuscripts that we have from people such as Aristotle Plato Caesar axios. Is much much smaller an example D. Aristotle has a thousand manuscripts dated 12 hundred years from the events with the earliest copy written 88 5210 manuscript. 1200 years from the events for the earliest copy dated 8900 Caesar's first hand of the gallic wars has 251 manuscripts dated 900 years from the events was the earliest copy dated 81,000 in the Bible. There's a big number there's over 25,000 documented manuscripts. In the key to this is is the Bible and particularly the New Testament has only primary source authors. Again, they were eyewitnesses there were there when the events took place and there's a scholar by the name of Frederick Bruce and he noted the following the evidence for a new testament writing is ever so much greater than the evidence for many of the classical authors the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning and if the New Testament were a collection of sexually writings there off and to see would be generally regarded as beyond all doubt. pretty powerful statement and then my last comment on the historical reliability of the Bible is that Jesus used it and quoted from it. There's 39 Old Testament books and they say that Jesus quoted from over three-quarters of them find that number amazing. The Bible tells us it's about the Bible was written actually over from 1450 to 70 AD. It says it was written by 40 authors. And as you read the Bible from the beginning to the end There's One Singular thread that runs through it and that thread is God's plan to redeem mankind. It's cohesive. It's unified and we find no discrepancies. Is he the Bible supports the historical evidence of our world and it supports the evidence of our faith. The next component that I want to look at is the prophetic evidences that support the Bible there are hundreds of prophecies that we could look at and for the sake of time, I won't keep you here all day. We're only going to look at a couple of them. But if Jesus is fake and the Bible is just a bunch of stories made up by men that I want you to think about a couple questions. I put together surrounding Jesus life and surrounding his death and surrounding surrounding the historical accuracy and the prophetic accuracy. So my first question to you, how did Jesus arranged to be born into a specific family? And this was written 600 years before he was born as noted in 2nd Samuel. It reads when your days were over and you rest with your ancestors. I'll rise up your Offspring to succeed you your own flesh and blood and I will establish his kingdom. He's the one who build a house for my name and I will establish the Throne of his kingdom forever. For my second question. How did he arrange to be born into a specific City in which his parents did not live in this was written for 2 500 years before he was born in Bethlehem as noted in Micah 5:2 and it reads but you Bethlehem ephratah know you are small among the clans of Judah out of you will come one from me will be rule over Israel whose Origins are from old from ancient times. Question 3 how did he arrange his own death and specifically be crucified between two criminals written 700 years before the crucifixion told and Isaiah 53. There is therefore I'll give him a portion among the great and he will divide the spoils with this wrong because he poured out his life unto death and was numbered with the transgressors for he bore the sins of many it made intercessions for the transgressions. Number for how did the arrange to have his excuse gamble for his clothing in approximately 500 years before the events took place in Psalms 22:18. The Reeds they divided my clothes among them and cast lots for my garments. Question 5 how did he arrange to be betrayed in advance and be crucified in the exact date of the Jews sacrifice to spotless lamb for their sins and this was written 400 years before he was betrayed by Jesus by Judas. Excuse me. And Johnny teen says, what is your custom for me to released you one of these pictures at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release the king of the Jews? Question 6 how did he arrange to have The Executioner's break the legs of the two victims on each side of him and that is owned in this was written 500 years for the events. Take place in Psalms 34:20.

Says he protected dollar bones. Not one of them will be broken. John 19 says the soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who was crucified with Jesus and then they broke the legs of the other but when they came to Jesus they found that he was already dead and he did not break his legs. And as we go into this week the Passover week, right? What would have happened if they had broken Jesus his legs are very different difficult for him to rise from the dead and walk amongst them. Right? So his detail in planning and what took place is amazing. And then my last question number seven. How did he arrange to come back to life the exact day? He said he would as in Matthew 16:4 that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that you must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders the chief priests and the teachers of the law and that he must be killed and then the third day be raised back to life. They say that Jesus fulfilled over 300 prophecies truly amazing. That one man could do this and I found a short video that online that will demonstrate the probability of Jesus just fulfilling eight of those 300 prophecies. So if you can roll that video

you are given a juice that lays golden eggs. A magical guitar will be able to rocket to the moon. Now you can believe and believe in believe in that Enchanted Hummer and that it will bring you the chicks and a lunar experience. But if it doesn't deliver then it must not be true. It doesn't matter how much you believe it if it proves to be false it is pop, right? What about the flip side if something can be proven? Absolutely, true to actually accomplish the amazing things at 7 will do.

Whether you believe it or not, I don't believe that but have your weight all the evidence evidence. I believe believe in doesn't make what you believe and if it's not true what you believe can't be real.

How do you know what screw is really? True Christ is real if it's claimed to be God directions to the evidence proving. His claim is truly. Do you know what the probability factor is it? Only a prophecy being fulfilled in Jesus. No one in heaven to the 17th power.

Huh that one in 10 minute time.

Sandwich, every inch of the state and former pilot Girl Scout thin mint cookies to feet deep.

How do I call the jungle?

Just shoot down and pick a single blind thin mint cookie. One person could have fulfilled just eight prophecies about Jesus. When was the last time that's crazy.

Christ did not fulfill a prophecy is in one lifetime of people filled over 300.

Documenting the facts that actually happened to Jesus. There's only one thing left to do I know for me to weigh the evidence.

Because if it is true that he is the Son of God what he offers You a New Life in him? Is real now. I know it's real whether I believed it or not.

You got to love that catchy tune, don't you? But as you can see the evidence is overwhelming you and I can trust what is written in the Bible. It is God's letter to us.

Guy standing confidence in front of you today saying that you are unique and I am unique that you are created for a purpose. You are special to God. Do you have a relationship with him? Do you know him? I think the evidence is overwhelming. We learned today that the mystery is now revealed salvation is for all is for the Jews for the Gentile. And again, if you've never placed your faith in the Lord come and see me afterwards come and see Richard or talk to somebody here go out to lunch and have a conversation with it. Hebrews 11:1 says faith is the Assurance of things hoped for the conviction of not Things Not Seen where do the assurance and conviction of your faith come from? They come from now age. They come from now evidence of the things hoped for or not seen. Is your knowledge of something that allows you to trust in it? And see what evidence gives your face the confidence. So the circle back to the original question, how do I know? What is true? We find the answer written in the word of God. I love to see the word bible in the acronym for the Bible basic instructions before leaving worth Earth. And they also say when all else fails read the instructions for it is written for us to hear today. So let's pray. Father's Day