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[0:00] But if you have your Bibles, turn with me to Romans 11, 17 through 36. And if you're physically able and desire to do so, I'm going to ask if you'll join with me as we stand together. We read the Word of God, found in Romans 11, starting in verse 17.

[0:15] But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches.

[0:26] But if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in. Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith.

[0:41] Do not be conceited, but fear, for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you either. Behold then the kindness and severity of God. To those who fail, severity, but to you God's kindness.

[0:55] If you continue in His kindness, otherwise you also will be cut off. And if they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in.

[1:05] For God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?

[1:21] For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, so that you will not be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.

[1:34] And so, all Israel will be saved, just as it is written, the Deliverer will come from Zion, and He will remove ungodliness from Jacob. This is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.

[1:45] From the standpoint of the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But from the standpoint of God's choice, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

[1:57] For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you, they also may now be shown mercy.

[2:10] For God has shut up all in disobedience, so that He may show mercy to all. Oh, the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments, and unfathomable His ways.

[2:25] For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has become His counselor, or who has first given to Him, that it might be paid back to Him again. For from Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things.

[2:37] To Him be the glory forever. Amen. Let's pray. God, we thank You so much for this day. Lord, we give You all the praise and admiration for the opportunity You've given us to come and to worship.

[2:49] To set our hearts and minds towards You. Lord, we pray now as we have opened up Your Word, and we have read it, Lord, that Your Word would read us. Lord, that it would search us out, that it would know us, that it would show us our minds, our hearts, our very being.

[3:02] And Lord, in seeing ourselves, we would become more enamored by Your glory, and by Your grace. I pray that You would draw us closer to Yourself, Lord, and we ask it all in the sweet name of Jesus. Amen.

[3:12] You may be seated. We have been making our way through this glorious book, the book of Romans. And I will not give you very much by way of introduction, and we will make our way through it. You know that Paul is writing to the church at Rome.

[3:25] And he is writing to the church at Rome on the matter of the big issues. He is writing about the foundational doctrines of the faith. Not just the foundational doctrines of the faith during that day, but the foundational doctrines of the faith of all time.

[3:39] Those things which we must have in place. Those big rocks you must put in place first. That we may disagree on some small things. We may disagree and see different interpretations of some minor issues.

[3:53] But there are foundational doctrines of Scripture, which we must adhere to. There are big truths of the gospel, which we must acknowledge, like every other believer in Jesus Christ, where we have completely gone astray.

[4:06] And it is these that Paul is introducing to the church at Rome. He is showing them the big issues that they must have right. He is not talking to them about church government. He is not talking to them about church practices.

[4:19] Though he will make a transition in chapter 12 from 12 to 16, and he will talk about application because of these great doctrines, he is really talking to them about salvation.

[4:30] Justification by faith and faith alone. And what that salvation entails. The glory of it. It has been the book that has been used throughout the ages to draw a number of people to the true knowledge of who Jesus Christ is.

[4:43] It has shaken both individuals and churches. It has transformed mission work. It has transformed church existence. It has taken things across the great oceans, and it has moved people to share the great news of who Jesus Christ is.

[4:57] Paul makes a transition from Romans 8, where he speaks of the eternal security of the saints. That if you come to Jesus Christ through faith and faith alone, he will keep you into the palm of his hand.

[5:08] As a matter of fact, his hand is in the hand of the Father. Because he is the Father. He is God in one. It is Elohim. It is God in three persons. Existent as one, but demonstrated throughout time and history as three.

[5:21] And when you are in the hand of God, nothing can pull you out of the hand of God. And then he begins to illustrate this point to answer an argument. Because inevitably, anytime you speak a great truth, you always get a great argument.

[5:35] Anytime you proclaim an absolute truth, you will always get a counter argument. If you do not think that I'm right, all you have to do is stand on the street corner of war trace even, and the first person that comes up to you, try to talk to them about things which you know that are absolutely true.

[5:51] Because in our day and time, we live in a day of relativism, in which nothing is absolutely true. That may be true to you, they will say, but that is not true to me. Friend, if it is true to you, but not true to me, then let's be honest, then it's not true.

[6:05] Because the only way that it can be true is if it's true to everyone. And Jesus looked at things in a very narrow-minded way. And our Bible is very narrow-focused. It speaks things that are absolute, regardless of our interpretation, or regardless of our opinion regarding the matters.

[6:22] It tells us things as they are, not things as we think they should be. It proclaims to us the truth. And Paul says that if you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, it is absolutely true that you are eternally secure.

[6:37] Then the argument is, well, what about the nation of Israel? Didn't God make great promises to the nation of Israel? Can't I go back to Genesis 15 and begin to read of God's dealings with a man named Abram?

[6:49] How God called Abram out of the land of the Ur of the Chaldeans? And God began to make these great promises to him that his descendants, his descendants would rule the world. Didn't God promise Abram that his descendants would be a blessing to the world?

[7:03] Well, first of all, the first argument there is, is we have a wrong interpretation because it is not descendants plural. It is descendant. It literally means seed, singular. And his seed is ruling the world.

[7:15] And his seed is the hope of the world. And his seed is the Savior of the world because the seed, according to the flesh of Abram, go ahead and say it, is Jesus Christ, okay?

[7:26] God knows what he's talking about. I know I'm speaking fast, but man, it's good. I'm about to get excited. So we see these things as he's beginning to demonstrate for us in Romans 9, 10, and 11.

[7:37] And we come to the pinnacle of these things found in verses 17 through 36. We looked at verses 1 through 16 of Romans 11, and we saw man's misunderstanding of God's dealings with his people.

[7:50] How we think that when God proclaims promises to a group, he is speaking of every individual of that group. How God promises things, but he is always promising with individuals in mind, not necessarily just bodies in mind.

[8:04] God is the Savior. He has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Is that absolutely true? Yes. You can say amen to that. He is the Savior of the world. But will he save all of the world?

[8:16] No. Why? Jesus himself said, there are few but find it, but there are many who go the way of eternal destruction. We read it not only in the Gospels, we also read it in the letters of church writing.

[8:28] We read it in the book of Revelation. We read it all throughout the Scripture. There is never a mention of a personal Savior in the Bible. Did you know that? Nowhere in Scripture does it say that Jesus is your personal Savior.

[8:42] It never says it. The word personal is never in Scripture when referenced to the Savior. But he is your personal Savior. Why? Because while being the Savior of the world, he is always concerned about individuals because Jesus says, no man comes to me lest he be drawn, which means you're not saved because your mom and daddy are saved.

[9:02] You're not saved because your grandma and grandpa are saved. You're not saved on the basis of anyone else's merit. Praise be to God, because then you could be condemned based on someone else's merit. And I know every one of us, our families have stories.

[9:15] And while we may have great stories, we also have, I mean, let's just be honest, we have stories. Right? We have other parts of our family. And we have other sides of our family that we are thankful that the blessings of this side come, but we are also equally as thankful that the cursings of that side may not come.

[9:35] But God is concerned about the individual. And we saw that in his dealing with the nation of Israel. But this morning, I want you to see the ongoing work of God amongst his people.

[9:46] The ongoing work of God, as we find it in Romans 11, 17, to the end of the chapter. Because we're about to make this great transition, it's looking at all these great truths of our salvation.

[10:00] Romans 12 will say, therefore, which means, because Romans 1 through 11 are true, we're going to do, and we're going to live out Romans 12 through 16. If you thought Romans 1 through 11 are rough, wait till we get to Romans 12 through 16.

[10:14] Just as a side note, I mean, this is really good. I know you guys like to talk about how many points I have in my sermons. I once preached a sermon that had 11 points in it. And it came from Romans 14.

[10:25] And we're greatly on our way there. Somebody was like, somebody let me know when that sermon is, and I won't be here. But man, it was good. It was, it was, I mean, I almost preached myself into a tizzy on that one.

[10:36] I couldn't get out of it, you know? It's like, man, this stuff is really speaking good to me. It needed, we needed to hear it, but I'm not saying it, I'm going to have 11 points in Romans 14. Again, I'm not saying that, but the application sometimes is harder.

[10:50] We like to nod our heads to the truth, but when it comes to the living out and putting some feet to that truth, it begins to get a little close to home. But I want you to see this ongoing work of God.

[11:02] Number one, I want you to see the present time of opportunity. The present time of opportunity. My brother, I'm so thankful you sang that song. Don't wait.

[11:12] First time I'd ever heard that song. I didn't know that he was singing that song. But as I listened to the words of that song, see, I love the music. I love the rhythm, but I pay real close attention to the words of every song I listened to.

[11:26] And I love the words of that song because it speaks so prominently to the first point of the message, the present time of opportunity. Paul had been speaking of God's dealing with the nation of Israel.

[11:37] In verse 16, he makes this declaration. If the first piece of dough is holy, the lump is also. And if the root is holy, the branches are too. And he is speaking not to the church here. He's speaking about the nation of Israel.

[11:49] And he's pointing all the way back in time to the nation of Israel, the root of the nation of Israel. You know them, the patriarchs, right? Those three prominent ones, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the root of the olive tree.

[12:01] And then he begins to speak of the time in which we live, this time which we do not know the end of, friend. And I wish I had hours today. We don't start tonight till five, right? So I do have hours today.

[12:13] And it is so good that you guys have given me this freedom and this liberty that we can look at this because what a truth it is. Look at what he says here.

[12:23] But if some of the branches were broken off, and you being a wild olive were grafted in among them and became partakers with them of the rich root of the olive tree, all this makes no sense to us. We kind of shake our head. This is all I want you to get out of this.

[12:35] We, anybody in here Jewish, anybody in here Jewish? No, I don't have anyone of Jewish descent. Okay. Then we are all just a bunch of wild olives. Okay. That's all it says. We're the wild olives.

[12:45] Now, what Paul is about to dictate to us is something that is rampantly or just totally against the practice of, of everything. He actually says that this doesn't make sense according to science, because if you want to take fruit and make a wild tree, bear good fruit, what do you do?

[13:03] You take the good tree and graft it into the wild tree, right? You take the apple tree and graft it into the, the wild tree over here or whatever it is. It's an amazing thing. I wish I learned how to do it, but I haven't learned how to do it yet.

[13:16] You always take the domesticated and graft it into the wild. But Paul says, this is what's so glorious here. God takes the wild and grafts it into the domesticated and makes the wild fruitful because nowhere in practice does the wild ever become fruitful because the only limbs that bear fruit on that wild tree are the domesticated trees.

[13:35] But God does things in his own way. Okay. We are a bunch of wild olive trees and he is taking us in this time of opportunity, this present time of opportunity.

[13:45] He says, we have the ability by faith. And I'm not going to take a long time to dictate out these verses because of the rejection of Israel of their savior.

[13:57] You say, what do you mean? Israel has rejected their savior. John chapter one, God became flesh and God came to his own and his own received him not. Remember that he came into his own.

[14:07] That is the nation of Israel. His own received him not. That is, they rejected him, but to as many as he called to himself to them, he gave the right to be called the children of God. And you remember, if you go all the way to the end of John, where the nation of Israel as a whole makes this great proclamation, we have no king, but Caesar crucify him, crucify him.

[14:27] We'll see that on Easter. We'll see that, that, that tragic scene, the nation of Israel turning their back. We don't want him. Get rid of this man. But because of that, some of them have been cut off.

[14:39] They've been lopped off. And because of the present time of Israel's rejection, now I'm not saying that no Jewish people are coming to faith in Jesus Christ. I myself have had the opportunity to meet what are called Messianic Jews, people who have come to salvific faith in Jesus Christ.

[14:55] And what a history they have, what a heritage of faith they possess. But here's the good news. At this time, God has extended the promises offered to the roots, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and has given those promises for whosoever will believe can be grafted in.

[15:16] Friend, listen to me. Do you know that when we come to faith in Jesus Christ, we are united to a historical event? Oh, friend, if you ever go to a church and the church tells you that the Old Testament is irrelevant, then friend, you might as well walk out to the oak tree and tell the oak tree he doesn't need his roots.

[15:31] If someone ever tells you the Old Testament is past, that the Old Testament doesn't matter, that the Old Testament doesn't have an issue, friend, your tree's limbs are no good when they're cut off from the roots.

[15:44] And in the Old Testament, you have the root of the tree we've been grafted into. You know why I get excited in the Old Testament? Because in the Old Testament, I see God's faithfulness in spite of his people's unfaithfulness.

[15:55] In the Old Testament, I see the mercy of God displayed in spite of the animosity and even hatred of the people of God. I see the grace of God throughout the pages of the Old Testament, extended to all the people of the world.

[16:07] And in the Old Testament, I find the promises given to the root that I've been grafted into in this present time. And friend, if you don't know what was told Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then you don't know the root that is holding you.

[16:21] It is so important that you get in all of your scripture. It is important that you be from Genesis to Revelation, because the Bible says that whosoever comes, by faith shall be grafted into the root of the cultivated olive tree.

[16:37] And that is the nation of Israel. But I'm speaking of a present time of opportunity. Because we like, as the song says, to think, well, someday, I want that.

[16:48] Someday, I would like that. Someday, I'll do that. But look at what Paul writes here. But I do not want you to be wise in your own estimation. Oh, how easy it is to think we have things figured out.

[17:02] I don't want you to be wise, according to your own estimation. I'm leaving a lot out, but I want you to see this, okay? Look at what he says in verse 25. For I do not want you, brother, to be uninformed of this mystery.

[17:15] I love it when the Bible tells us things that are mysterious. Things the Bible says, these are things in which angels long to look. They're peering over heaven's gate, looking into these things.

[17:27] So that you will not be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel. Yes, they have turned their back on him. Yes, as a whole, the nation of Israel has rejected him.

[17:39] They are still following Old Testament practices as a whole, not as individuals, but look at this, until, until. Warren Wearsby calls this one of those great until passages.

[17:51] Because God works on a time frame. Have you ever noticed that? Those that were with me on Wednesday nights when we went through the Gospel of John. You remember, there were a number of times when they wanted to kill Jesus. They wanted to kill Jesus. They wanted to stone Jesus.

[18:02] But they couldn't kill him. Why? Because his hour had not yet come. His hour had not yet come. And then there's this great transition. John 13, where it says, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come, told Judas Iscariot to go do what it is he needed to do.

[18:19] What? God works by a divine timetable. We don't know the time. Man's not in control of the time. But there is a time, look at this, until the fullness of Gentiles comes in.

[18:32] That's a great Bible study on its own. I wish I had time to get you into it. I wish I could take you to 1 Thessalonians, and then we could go back to the book of Ezekiel, and then we could go over to Revelations 1, 2, 3, and then go over to Revelation 6, and we could see about the day of the Lord and all these judgments that are coming down.

[18:47] I wish I had time to do that, but I'm just giving you enough information that you can go home and do that, okay? Because it is so good, my friend. Listen to this, but I want you to know this. Until the fullness of the Gentiles, someone's going to say, well, what is the fullness of the Gentiles?

[19:01] And I'll say to you, I don't know. But God does. You know what this tells us? That at this present time, the nation of Israel has rejected Jesus, their Savior, so that the rest of the world will have an opportunity to respond to Jesus, the Savior.

[19:20] And this will happen until the fullness of Gentiles comes in. The fullness of Gentiles means that God has an appointed number of non-Jewish people who are going to accept Him as their Lord and Savior.

[19:35] And when that number is reached, this is something that is so scary, you can read about it in 2 Thessalonians, you can read about it in the book of Revelations, probably one of the greatest known is that lukewarm church.

[19:46] Do you understand, just as the nation of Israel hardened their hearts and turned away from Him, one of the great signs of the end times is when the Gentile church turns away from Him. Because the time of the Gentiles is past.

[20:00] And it happens quick. Just in case you were wondering, if you read the seven letters of the seven churches in the book of Revelations, most Bible scholars think that that refers to seven church ages.

[20:14] And we are living in, if that is true, the Laodicean age, which means we are at a lukewarm church time. And that is the church that eventually hardens their heart and turns away from Jesus Christ.

[20:32] And they want nothing to do with Him. And this doesn't take God by surprise because that happens when the fullness of Gentiles comes in. This is what I'm telling you. Friend, I don't know when the last Gentile believer will come to faith in Jesus Christ.

[20:48] But God does. And God promises, unlike the nation of Israel, friend, listen to me, and the nation of Israel is a special people. You'll see it in just a minute. And I'll make it quick. The nation of Israel is a special people.

[20:59] The rest of the world does not hold the position the nation of Israel does. Because once the time of the Gentiles is over, when I read the book of Revelations and I read about the judgments that are there, once I read, and I read in the book of Ezekiel, and I see even in the book of Isaiah, and I see 1 and 2 Thessalonians, which by the way, every chapter ends with a reference to the coming of Jesus Christ in 1 and 2 Thessalonians.

[21:21] When I read all of these writings, you know what I find? That when the time of the Gentiles is over, it's over. No more Gentile comes.

[21:33] Which means if you're in this room today and you're a Gentile, and if you're not Jewish, you are Gentile, and every one of us are Gentiles. And you have not accepted, and I'm not using this as a scare tactic, I'm using this as a truth preaching.

[21:44] And you have not fully, truly accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. You have given Him control of your life. I'm not saying if you nodded your head to some truth, I mean that you have really given Him absolute control of your life.

[21:55] If you say someday that'll be a good idea, my friend, listen to me, you don't know when that day comes that the invitation is no longer extended.

[22:07] Because the scary thing is there will still be churches in existence. But those churches will not be preaching the truth, 2 Thessalonians. They will be tickling the ears and saying things that man wants to hear so that God can give them over to a debased mind being deluded so that they will believe the lie so as that they cannot be saved, 2 Thessalonians 2.

[22:34] When that day is over, it's over. But praise be to God, it's not over yet because we still live at a time of opportunity. You say, how do you know? Because not only do we see the present time of opportunity, we see the program of future events.

[22:47] Again, I'll make it as quick as I can. I know I'm talking fast and I'm trying to cover this ground. I want you to see it because if I stopped right there, we wouldn't have the entire message. I want you to see the program of future events. This is how we know that that time is not over.

[22:59] It says then that when the fullness of Gentiles has come, look at verse 26, so all Israel will be saved. Now, I'm a little interpretation guy of the Bible, okay?

[23:12] I'm just one of those guys that when I read the Bible and it says something, usually I just follow what is the most natural reading of the Scripture. Unless I can go back and find out that there's some misinterpretation of words there, I just, so when it says, so then all Israel will be saved, I really think that means so then all Israel will be saved.

[23:31] Now, it does not mean all Israel that has ever lived will be saved. It doesn't mean that. It means all Israel that is alive at that time will be saved.

[23:42] This is why I know that it means that. He gives two Old Testament quotations found in the book of Isaiah. I believe it's Isaiah 59. You have to read Isaiah 59 and 60 to get it in context. The deliverer will come from Zion and he will remove ungodliness from Jacob.

[23:54] This is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. This is why I believe they will be saved. Now, I don't, again, have time to get into the rapture of the church, the fullness of the Gentiles, the tribulation, all these things. I just want you to understand this.

[24:05] God has a way of dealing with his people. We've seen it in the Egyptian captivity. We've seen it in the Babylonian captivity. Really, we see it better in the Babylonian captivity where God calls the people to himself. He is their special God.

[24:16] They are led away into captivity and they come back and God is their God. He's in their midst. He's in their presence and they go back into captivity because time passes and they begin to deny him and they go back into captivity and then he redeems them and he calls them to himself and there's this thing called the Shekinah glory is there and the glory of God is in their midst and he is setting them free.

[24:35] That's what I believe the tribulation is. It is God's dealing with his people and it says the deliverer will come. When Jesus shows up and stands in the middle of his people, he himself will remove their sin and those that are alive that day will be cleansed and forgiven and at that time, God is no longer working on a worldwide scale.

[24:57] He is working in a special people nation of Israel scale. He's calling them to himself because God has used the nation of Israel to bring the gospel to the world even through their rejection.

[25:11] He uses their rejection to extend the gospel to the world so that the world's response to the gospel can extend the gospel back to the nation of Israel and God is doing this in a special way.

[25:22] Look at this. He says he'll be there and from the standpoint of the gospel, they're enemies for your sake. You know, the nation of Israel had to reject Jesus. Blows your mind. I mean, mind out the window, right? They had to reject him or we would have never been able to accept him.

[25:36] Think about the guy writing this book here, the book of Romans. Think about Paul, an apostle to the Gentiles. Why was Paul an apostle to the Gentiles? It's because when he stood in the synagogue of the Jews, the Jews got mad at him and he did it three times and then Paul says, from this time on, I'm going to the Gentiles.

[25:56] Because you rejected it, I'm taking it to them and we have to say, thank you, Jewish people, because if Paul had never extended the gospel to the Gentiles, then I would have never had an opportunity to hear the gospel.

[26:08] From the standpoint of the gospel, they are enemies for our sake. This is the way God works. It is mind-blowing. They had to happen this way, but from the standpoint of God's choice, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

[26:30] God made unconditional promises to those three, right? He made unconditional promises and if they are conditional promises then salvation and redemption is dependent upon man. He did not make them dependent upon them.

[26:43] They are unconditional. That means they are dependent upon God and God alone. And look at what it says. They are the sake of the beloved for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

[26:56] This ought to cause you to jump up and down in your pew if you could. I mean, if you could ever get a little Bapticostal in you or whatever it is and you could ever get a little carried away, this verse alone, this ought to be highlighted, circled, red, asterisk marks all over it.

[27:11] Something ought to be for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable, which means no one comes to the Father lest he be drawn by the Father. No one comes to me lest he be called to me and he has called us to himself and the promises he gives us, which by the way are contained in these 66 books of the Bible, they are irrevocable dependent upon your practices.

[27:29] Praise be to God. Amen. What he has promised me is not dependent upon me, it's dependent upon him, just like the nation of Israel because he has a program of future events. For just as once they were disobedient to God, but now you have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient and because of the mercy shown to you, they also may now be shown mercy.

[27:49] This is a glorious verse, verse 32. For God has shut up or put everybody in a box all in disobedience so that he may show mercy to all.

[28:00] Now, this is so good and I'm going to transition to the last and final point really quick, but I want you to see this, okay, because this is so good. You can say, why did the nation of Israel have to reject Jesus? Because if they did not reject him, they would be saved based on their works and they would have been saved based on their efforts.

[28:20] But the Bible says, salvation is through grace and grace alone, not in the works of any man lest some may boast. And if the nation of Israel had fully embraced him, they would have said, yep, for all these years we've been doing this temple service exactly right.

[28:34] Yep, here you are. We're glad, Lord, we've been working our way here and we finally reached it. It is by works. They had to be disobedient because God had to show every one of us our disobedience, including his own special people, so that he could show that the reason they come to him is through mercy.

[28:53] You know why it's so important to understand the laws? Because we need to understand how disobedient we are. We need to know our disobedience so that we can wrap our arms around his mercy. Now, look at this final, last and final one and I'm leaving some out but this is so good, this last and final one.

[29:07] Not only is it the present time of opportunity, not only is there the program of future events, there is the praise of his salvation and really this one is pretty straightforward, okay? Not a lot of exposition in this one, just look at these last few verses because when Paul took time to think about the way God works salvation out, think about this just for a minute, God called a people to himself so that the world would know who he was.

[29:29] God displayed who he was to the world through that people, the nation of Israel. God came to his people so that his people could reject him so that he could offer himself to all the world and as he offers himself to all the world, he is using the acceptance of that offer to be the very motivating fact to call his people back to himself.

[29:48] God is using the world's rejection to be the acceptance of his people and God is working in all the failures and all the harsh judgments of man to bring about his divine purposes.

[30:02] What God intended to do, he is doing. Because the nation of Israel rejected him, the gospel went out into the world. Because the world is accepting him, the gospel will go back to the nation of Israel.

[30:17] And in the end, all that God has called to himself will come to himself. There is a fullness of the number. There is a time that it will happen. There is a people that will be redeemed.

[30:28] And when Paul thought about all that, he just wrote this. Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable are his ways.

[30:43] You know what this tells me? I don't have to understand how God saves man. I just need to go, thank you God for saving this man. And thank you God for extending that invitation to anyone who may hear this man.

[30:59] His ways are unsearchable, they're unknowable, they're unfathomable, they're so much further above me. I could never come up with the plan God came up with.

[31:10] For who has known the mind of the Lord overcame his counselor? Who has first given to him that it might be paid back to him? Friend, listen to me. When Paul thought about man's salvation and the work of God, the only thing he could do was praise God.

[31:23] His only response that we have is this emphatic praise. For from him and through him and to him are all things.

[31:34] Which means your salvation, my salvation, him reaching out to me, him reaching out to other people, him reaching out to the Jews. Listen, the salvation of man is really not about man.

[31:46] It's all about God. It is from God, it is to God, and it is for God. our redemption, it's in spite of us while we were yet sinners.

[32:01] Even though we failed him. It has nothing to do with us. It's all about him. The quicker we could get our eyes off of ourselves, even in our salvation, the better off we would be.

[32:14] Then we would understand that God didn't save us to make us comfortable. God didn't save us to give us a future. God saved us so that he could use us and employ us. And praise be to God when he calls me home, then he'll let me sweep the streets forever.

[32:26] Whatever it is. What a glorious thing. So much different when we see our salvation and redemption that way. It's not about me. It's from him and to him and for him.

[32:39] Everything he does is because of him. Look at what it says. To him be the glory forever. Amen.

[32:50] To him be the glory. The only response we have to the ongoing work of God in the lives of his people is this.

[33:03] To him be the glory forever. Amen. Let's pray. God, I thank you. I thank you for this day.

[33:14] I praise you for your work, the way you've moved. God, for the time you've placed us in. Lord, I pray that we would all know the joy of our lives being completely about you.

[33:28] Out of ourselves, oh Lord. And all of you for your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.

[34:13] Amen. Amen.

[35:13] Amen. Amen.

[36:13] Amen. Amen.

[37:13] Thank you.

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