Grace for the Hard-Hearted

SPEAKER 01 : 0:05

So we’re looking at Romans 10 now, and we’re understanding that Paul is now explaining how we receive the gospel. We receive it by faith. We don’t stretch ourselves and wish we could get Christ back down from heaven. in order to be walking the earth again so we could see him and believe. No, we don’t take that view that if only I could do this or that, you know, like a carrot in front of me, if only I could reach it, then I would be able to eat it or then I would be able to be saved. Paul is teaching us that it’s right on our tongue. It is in our heart that if you confess with your mouth… and believe in your heart that Jesus has been raised from the dead, you will be saved. So what I want to, and this is all by review, urge upon you is to not put it off and not think that salvation is at a distant place that you have to reach before you can be saved. In other words, not Don’t think that you have to put your life right first, you have to get rid of this or that addiction, you have to overcome this or that, or you have to go to church first, or you have to read loads of Bible verses. You put your faith in Jesus at the very moment you have heard of his name, and you call upon God, and it says here in these verses, “‘Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.'” Now then, Paul comes to another section in regard to how God saves Israel, and it’s a very curious one. Let’s read it from 14, it’s a lengthy passage, to verse 21. “‘How then shall they call on him 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?’ 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. But they have not all obeyed the gospel, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report? So then, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. 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 but i say did israel not know first moses said i will provoke you to jealousy by those who are not a nation i will move you to anger by a foolish nation 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. But to Israel, he says, all day long I have stretched out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people. Well, there’s a lot in these verses, and we’ll look at it bit by bit over the next few days. But what I want to do is to jump ahead right now to the section that I just read that says, I will provoke you to jealousy by those who are not a nation. Now, this implies a different approach to God’s way of saving. Previously, he had brought people, that is, previously in this chapter, Paul describes God electing people, calling people who are elected, calling them to faith in him by bringing them to an end of their resources, and once they feel ready to recognize that they have come to the end of their rope, They call upon God for help because they feel helpless, and God in his mercy gives them faith. But here we find something quite different. What we find here is that God is going to work on their resistance. God is going to work with their hard-heartedness. If God is going to work on their hard-heartedness, what is he going to do? Well, he’s going to provoke them to jealousy by those who are not a nation. I will move you to anger by a foolish nation. Now, you may not have given much thought to these verses in the past. You may have just bypassed them and thought, well, how does that work? Or not even bothered, because it wouldn’t be clear to you. What we’re looking at here is God’s ability to use jealousy. by his divine blessing upon those that are not the ones who are jealous. Let me state that again. God is going to make people jealous by producing such blessing as they look upon others that are receiving this blessing, and they’re beginning to feel very envious, realizing what a good thing God is doing for people who trust in him. Don’t underrate jealousy. Yes, jealousy in human terms, jealousy over one another, lovers who are jealous or lovers who have been cheated and are jealous, or children playing with their toys and one gets more toys than another and they’re jealous. All of that is trivial jealousy. It’s important in human relationships, but it’s trivial by comparison with what God does. God is at work saving even the hardened-hearted ones. If you read the Gospels, have you noticed your tendency, certainly mine, to dismiss the Pharisees and the Sadducees, to think of them as, oh, they’re just old gripey individuals, they just don’t have any generosity of spirit, they’re criticizing everything that Jesus did and trying to trap him, and you get impatient with these Pharisees and Sadducees, and you just wish they would be swept out of the way so that Jesus could get on with his ministry of healing and people. Well, it’s not like that at all. What Jesus is doing when he heals a person is also provoking another person. Notice that Jesus often heals at a time when he fully knows that it is most inappropriate to heal from the point of view of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. I mean, for instance, the man by the pool, at the pool in Siloam, the pool of Siloam, he heals him, but when does he do it? On the Sabbath. Now, that was very curious, wasn’t it? Why would Jesus do that? It’s not as if that man was going anywhere. He had been paralyzed for years. but he purposefully heals him on the Sabbath, knowing that that healing will be considered a work by the Pharisees, and therefore it will provoke them to anger. Now, why would Jesus want to provoke anybody to anger? Well, not because he hates people, not because he wants to irritate people, but because provocation is bringing the hard-hearted to the end of their rope. Jesus is purposely at work healing those humble ones who are ready for it, and at the same time as healing the ones who are ready and humble and ready for healing, provoking the others so that they may be pushed to the corner, pushed to the wall, and find their resistance almost impossible until they finally break and give in to God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. Do you see what I’m saying? That the work of Jesus is a work of grace to the hard-hearted as much as it is a work of grace to the humble-hearted. The humble-hearted are ready to receive mercy, and so Jesus gives it and heals them. They have been positioned for mercy by their helplessness. But those who are not ready for it, the very grace that heals the humble provokes the proud. And that is an important teaching in regard to the salvation of all the world. Because, as you know, most people are hard-hearted towards God. They don’t want him. They think their life is sufficiently okay by their own prowess and own power. They can handle it all very well. Thank you very much, God. I don’t need you. But God is going to show them that every breath they breathe and every heartbeat they take is from God. How is he going to show them that? by pushing their hard-heartedness to its breaking point. And this is what this question of provocation to jealousy is all about. When God blesses those humble-hearted and heals them, and gives joy to them and peace and praise and gratitude… Those hard-hearted ones are going to look on, and they’re going to sense there’s something missing in their lives. There’s something very, very attractive about these believers, and yet they don’t know what it is. They wish they had it, and yet they don’t want it. It’s a mixture. It’s an approach avoidance condition they are in. I’d like to have what they have, but I don’t want it because it’s religious. And God is going to make a crisis out of the world through that. If you’re not sure about this, read in the book of Ezekiel, beginning, say, chapter 30 to 36, and you will see that provocation of jealousy. And you can see it also in Revelation chapter 20, 19 and 20. And so this jealousy is providentially ordained. That’s a redundancy, if ever there was one. But anyway, it is ordained by God. People want peace. They want love. They want satisfaction. They want joy. But they don’t want it through God. But that’s the only way they’ll get it. And so God does this thing that is a mind-bender. bringing beauty out of ashes, bringing joy out of sorrow, bringing prosperity out of poverty for those who believe. And as he does that, the envy develops. I tell you, in the most simple way, my brother, who died many years ago, resisted every attempt to that I made, though I didn’t make very good attempts to witness to Jesus. He just thought it was a load of poppycock and didn’t want it. But five months before he died, I didn’t know he was dying. He didn’t tell me. On the phone in England, I was here in the United States, in Colorado, he said to me, I wish I had your faith, Colin. And I was astonished by that simple statement, because he had resisted God and my witness for decades. Why did he wish it now? Because he was facing eternity. Now, do I think my brother will be lost? Well, I believe that God is going to save every man and woman who ever lived. There will be judgment. There will be a reckoning. There will have to be a facing of the resistance towards God, as my brother sees the Lord God in all his glory in the fire and brimstone. But he will finally yield. That is what you and I need to believe, and that’s what you need to believe if you are one of the hard-hearted. God is going to make you jealous in an extremely painful way, and you will want what those blessed by Jesus already have. Well, thanks for listening today. Colin Cook here and How It Happens. You’ve been listening to my broadcast on the good news. You can hear it on the radio at 10 o’clock in the evening and repeat it at four in the morning on KLTT AM 670 in the Denver and Colorado and surrounding states areas. You can also listen to it on the radio, on your smartphone, I should say, any time of the day or night by downloading a free app, soundcloud.com or podbean.com and keying in how it happens with Colin Cook when you get there. 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