Sound Doctrine

Guest Male: Israel is down but not out. That's next on Sound Doctrine. Hello friend, it's good to be with you and welcome again to Sound Doctrine. Pastor Jeff Johnson has an eye on Romans chapter 11 today, where the future for the nation of Israel is brought to light. Some wonder today if God has forgotten about His people. Others suggest that the Jews have been replaced by the church.

But this chapter in Romans makes it clear God isn't done with Israel, and they have a glorious future. With anti-Semitism running rampant today, this is a message that everyone needs to hear. Pastor Jeff starts us off in the Gospel of Matthew.

Jeff Johnson: Over in Matthew 13:14, Jesus is speaking here and says, "By hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive." That's kind of sad. You hear, but you're not really hearing it. You see, but you're not really seeing it. You're just existing and cruising business as usual.

Pharaoh was blind. He didn't want to see God's grace. He turned away from it. He says, "I don't know this God, and I'm not going to bow my knee to this God." He didn't see through the blood of the lamb even. His own son died because there was no blood on his doorpost. His own son. You talk about stubborn. He lost his firstborn.

Salvation is through election. And yet, we're to go and preach. We don't need to preach if you believe in election? God has elected some to be saved and the others not to. So why should we even go? Why even pray? Why even go tell somebody? You know the reason why? Yes, God has elected some because we don't know who the elect are.

I don't know who's been elected by God. So what do I do? I do the shotgun approach. I just go and wherever those bullets go and hit, that's God's elect. So I just give out the gospel. I keep giving out the gospel to as many as I can give it out to because I don't know who's elect and who's not.

I'll tell you this: I don't spend time with those that just say, "I don't want Him. Get out of my face. I can do without this whole thing." Okay, fine. Kick the dust off your feet and move along because they're blinded. They don't want to see. And if you don't want to see and you don't want the Lord and you don't want anything to do with Him, then He doesn't want you. We all choose our own friends.

And you choose those that are reaching out. And I'll tell you this, though: if you call on His name, if you reach out to Him this morning, He will save you. He will take that hand and He'll take your life and He'll show you things and do things to you that you never thought could happen. But you must reach out. And you say, "I don't know what this is all about, but I want to be a friend of God. I want to be right with God." There's no better prayer.

He'll make many steps towards you. But if you just say, "Show me, I don't believe it," and you have this attitude, well, you're blind and you're not going to see. It's not that God is blinding people. That wouldn't be right, would it?

But He does blind some. Why? Because He's not going to force His love on them. And if they're going to continue to reject, He's not going to force them. To force somebody to love you, that's rape. God's not into that. He's into those that are reaching out. He'll use the world, the flesh, and the devil to get you to a point where you'll reach out. And that's when He'll come. When you reach out.

That's when I came. How many others came at that time? Look at the hands. Every single one of us. Why? Because that's what it takes. We're so stubborn. We're like sheep. We get in a rut and we just stay there. And it's just bizarre. You want to get out of there. You want to scream. And that's how our lives were at one time. But thank God He broke through all of that and He chose us and He brought us into this life.

Many are blind. Look at verse 8. He says, according as it is written in Romans 11:8, "God has given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see." And here's the thing: that God has blinded their eyes and ears that they should not hear unto this day because they did not want to see. So He just let them be in their blindness. If they wanted to see, their eyes would be open.

And David said, "Let their table be made a snare." The table that they set all their important things on is going to become a trap and a stumbling block, a recompense unto them. "Let their eyes be darkened that they may not see, and bow down their back always." That's out of Psalm 69, verses 22 and 23.

This prophecy is definitely fulfilled. Israel's experience today. Their table, what is their table? Just like in Jesus's time, their table was a table of law. It was a table of works.

A lot of people look at the rabbis covering their heads and then they see Fiddler on the Roof and they see that woman with the two candles and praying over and they just go, "Isn't Judaism awesome? Isn't it beautiful? It's so romantic." I want to do that. Can we have those rituals at our church and can we start doing stuff like that?

And we see some Christians literally becoming what they call Messianic Jews and they begin to get back under the law and they begin to follow the Old Testament. Trouble. Why would you want to go back to something that brings you under bondage? Why not go forward with the Lord who came into our lives? And we have the spirit of liberty. We have been freed from all that. Don't get sucked in. It's the wrong way to go.

No, it's a trap. It's a snare. It's caught a lot of people unawares and now they find themselves under the law and being obedient to the law instead of to Christ. It's a sad state of affairs. What do we have today? Well, we have His blood and we understand the blood of Jesus. We have what we call communion where we partake of His body and of His blood. And we have the cross. In other words, it's all what He has done, nothing what we have done or could ever do. It's all Him. But they're blinded.

Now, verse 11, he says, "I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall?" And that word fall there in the Greek is permanently. Have they stumbled to the point where they're just gone and obliterated? No. God forbid. Perish the thought.

But rather through their fall, their seeming fall, okay, the word there is not a fall permanently but it's just kind of a temporary fall. Through their fall, salvation is come into the Gentiles for to provoke them to jealousy.

The Jews are down but they're not out. All things are working for good for those that love the Lord, right? And so God's working good here. Their fall, seeming fall, two things happened. Number one, the Gentiles got saved, right? The Jews didn't believe in their Messiah. The Messiah was given to the Gentiles. The Gentiles embraced their Messiah and now there's a bride for Christ which is the church today. And that's all been set up.

And this literally freaked the Jews out. They didn't know how to take it. That God has let the Gentiles in? Those Gentile dogs? The Gentiles that are fodder for the fires of hell? What has happened? And they couldn't stand it. Number one, Gentiles got saved. And number two, this provoked the Jews to jealousy. In other words, they wanted to look into their God again new and afresh because if they love the Lord like they love the Lord and we need to love the Lord, it's provoking them to that jealousy.

They're upset, they're provoked, they're bugged, and they're angry because of it. How come you love God more than me and I'm supposed to be the one that loves God? And they're looking at the whole thing differently. So what did God do? To reach the Jew, He saved the Gentiles to bring them to a place of finally receiving their Messiah.

And eventually, we're going to see in Romans 11, all Israel shall be saved. Once an event takes place, it's called the event is the fullness of the Gentiles. We're going to see it in verse 25 of Romans 11. We're not there yet, but the fullness of the Gentiles is when that last Gentile comes to receive Christ into his or her life, become part of the body of Christ. When that last one, and God's got that number, when that happens, then the rapture of the church will take place. The church will be taken out of here, then the Great Tribulation period will come in, time of Jacob's trouble. The Jews will be dealt with and God will woo them to Himself and there'll be a great revival.

And that's the plan. And it's an awesome plan. I mean, this whole thing of God knowing that number and I always say when I share the fullness of the Gentiles, if you're that Gentile this morning and you're here, oh, come home. Can you imagine? This is it. This is the one. No one knows who it is. And yet you're sitting here and you're the one and as you raise your hand, as you receive Christ this morning, it's the number and we're all out of here, guys. We're gone. That's how fast it's going to take place.

Now, look at verse 12. So he says, "And if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fullness?" In other words, when they're restored, what's going to happen? Today Israel, so to speak, is on the back burner. They're just sitting there. They're just there. And they're blind in part as we're going to see as we move along through Romans. But their fall brought God's salvation, His riches, His light to the Gentiles.

And that's a glorious thing. Thank God for that. God blessed America. We came over from Europe and we entered into this land and what did God do? He blessed us. And we got so blessed that we went ahead and put it on our money. "In God we trust," right? I mean, Gentiles, we were, "Yeah, God, He's awesome. Look at what He's done."

And now a few hundred years later, as we look now where we're at, we're going, "Oh no, something drastic has happened." We've turned our backs against God. Now it's not true in God we trust. This nation is a pagan nation going the opposite way. And now we pay. Now we pay. Now it happens. And we see what happens to a nation that turned their back upon the living God. Once dedicated, committed, now no longer there.

There is a remnant, though. Don't you feel like that remnant? Here we are, guys. We're of little strength but He's with us and we can touch a whole lot of people. What we have in here has potential of touching hundreds, thousands, and millions of people. We've got the gospel. We've got the good news.

Now, it does say in Zechariah chapter 12 that Israel in the end times will be a burdensome stone in the sight of all the nations. And those that trouble themselves with Israel are going to be touched by God, and not in a good way. Don't mess with Israel. This is in Zechariah 12, verse 1 and 2. And the whole world is going to be gathered against Israel in the end times.

And then it says over in chapter 13, verse 9, what God is going to do with Israel in the end times. "I will bring one-third part through the fire," God says. This one-third part through the fire is Israel. One-third of the nation will be refined as silver is refined and I will try them as gold is tried. They shall call on my name and I will hear them. I will say, "It is my people," and they will say, "The Lord is my God." So there is coming a time where Israel will be touched through the fire, through the tribulation period, and one-third of the nation will cry out and God will save them.

There is a Psalm in Psalm 67:7 that says, "God shall bless us, Israel, and all the ends of the earth shall fear Him." That's God's promise. He is going to bless Israel. It's coming. God hasn't forsaken them.

Look at verse 13 of Romans 11. He says, "For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am an apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify my office. If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, my fellow Jewish brethren, and that I might save some of them." Paul, remember in Acts when he was out there in the temple area and began to preach and share his testimony how God opened his eyes and everything and then he said, "And then the Lord spoke to me and said you're going to the Gentiles." The Jews came unglued. You talk about provoked. They ripped their clothes off. They said, "Away with this man." They started taking him and tearing him apart there in the temple. And they had to rescue him. The Roman guard had to go down and rescue him or they would have tore him in pieces. They were so angry. And the word that they were angry about is when he said, "And my Lord told me to go to the Gentiles." And that's when they lost it.

It does provoke them that Jesus would come and receive this people who were not a people, who were no nation, and bring them in in such a way. And Paul's saying, "May God save many Jews as we love the Lord, as they see us love the Lord, may many Jews come to know Him."

We had a brother a week ago come up to me and his wife was praying for him and he has a little boy and he goes, "I was raised in a Jewish home. I was born of a Jewish mother. I'm a Jew. And just two weeks ago, I accepted Jesus as my Messiah." And the wife is sitting there just overwhelmed. And the little kid. Can you imagine what God is doing? You talk about bringing peace to a family. You talk about bringing His presence to a home. There's nothing like it. Bringing people together, that's Jesus. He brings us together.

Finally, verse 15, we'll end with this verse. "For if the casting away of them," of the Jews, "be the reconciling of the world." Because of the Jews, we've got the Word of God today. They kept the Word holy. They kept it. They made sure that it was handed down in a proper way, that everything was done proper and in order. They brought the Scriptures to us today.

So much was done with that that when they found the Dead Sea Scrolls there in the Dead Sea area, they found the whole book of Isaiah, 1,100 years older than what we already had. And it was exactly like the book of Isaiah that we hold today. That's how much God's Word was handed down by the Jew. We owe the Jew the Word of God. They gave it to us and then they gave us the Savior. Did you know Jesus was a Jew? The Jews gave us Jesus and the whole world's been touched now by what God has done.

And that's what he's saying. "For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world to God, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?" This verse kind of seems to be a contradiction to verse 2. Remember when he said God has not cast away but then he's saying here, "For if the casting away of them." No.

The meaning there is not casting away for good. I mean, look at Jonah. When Jonah was thrown into the ocean, he wasn't lost forever, was he? What happened? God prepared a great fish. And when they threw Jonah over, he ended up in the mouth of that great fish. So really, what has happened to Israel? Israel has been preserved. That whole thing of the fish and Jonah being in the fish is a type of the tribulation and that is the Jews in that tribulation period. They're being preserved.

Jonah was really preserved because he was in all the saliva and the warmth of the gunk and the thing and he turned yellow and when the fish spit him up, I mean, this guy is preserved well. But that's a whole another story. But I'm talking about the nation Israel preserved throughout all the nations. They were scattered, weren't they? And even today they're scattered. Oh, yeah, they have a homeland, but they're scattered. And yet they're preserved. And so Jonah wasn't cast away for good, preserved in that great fish. So with Israel.

They gave us the Word, they gave us the cross, they gave us Jesus. The final reception of Israel is going to be the bringing in of the Kingdom Age. You say, "What is that? What is the Kingdom Age?" That is going to be, and it's spoken about many times throughout the Scriptures, but in Revelation 21:4 it says, "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; no more death, no more sorrow, no more crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

The Kingdom Age. God is going to bring in this incredible millennial period when the Jews receive their Messiah. Then we have this Kingdom Age coming in. Paul's saying, "Man, what's on the horizon then if all this happened because of their seemingly casting away? What's going to take place when they are restored? The Kingdom Age."

It's going to be great. And it's a literal fulfillment of Ezekiel 37's prophecy of the dry bones. He talks there in Ezekiel 37 of these dry bones and how the dead shall live. And God breathes the breath of life into these dry bones. The dry bones are Israel coming back to life. Keep your eyes on Israel. The fuse is burning down and the Middle East is ready to explode at any moment. When it really gets crazy, we should all just look up and just get ready to go. That's how fast everything's going to be going when it takes place.

Guest Male: We've been in Romans chapter 11 today on Sound Doctrine and struck with the realism that God has a marvelous plan for His chosen people. They will be restored. Pastor Jeff Johnson has a bit more to say so don't go away.

You've been listening to a study in the book of Romans here on Sound Doctrine with Pastor Jeff Johnson. We pray you've been blessed by what you heard today. Romans is one of the greatest books in the Bible and if you'd like to hear this study again, go to sounddoctrineradio.org or listen through the Sound Doctrine podcast app.

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Jeff Johnson: Finishing out, life from the dead and that's exactly what Ezekiel 37 says, there's going to be life from the dead. And Jesus today is saying, "Those who receive me, I'll cause you who were once a walking zombie, dead in your trespasses and sins, I will bring life into you. I will breathe life into you. If any man thirst, let him come to me. Out of your innermost being will flow rivers of torrents of living water." Jesus now is that breath of God upon those that will call out, those that will reach out and say, "I need the Lord. I want the Lord." And He'll come.

During that period of time, there is going to be in chapter 20 of the Revelation, verse 4, John saw all those that were beheaded for their faith. There were many that died horrible deaths. During the tribulation period, it's going to be horrendous. Yes, Israel will be saved, but to be saved at that time, you'll have to give your life to be saved. You'll have to die for your faith. It's not going to be a pretty time.

Today the Lord says, "You come now. You don't have to die physically. Yeah, I want you to die spiritually, die to yourself and live unto me." But that's a lot easier than actually being in a line that heads are being lopped off. You say, "Well, Jeff, okay, come to the family of God and be a Christian and all this stuff. All right, I don't know if I'm buying it. But you know what? I think what I'll do is I'll pass right now and I'll wait and see if that time happens and when it does, okay, then I'll give my life."

But listen, it's not going to be that easy. And the big question is, if you can't, how are you going to die for Him then if you can't live for Him now? So we need to live for Him now. We need to come into this relationship today. Now is the time. Today is the day. That's why the Bible says that. That's why God said, "Don't put it off. You don't want to be in that jam, in that tribulation period. You want to go now. You want to receive today." New life. Life from the dead.