God’s Love for the Hard-Hearted

SPEAKER 01 : 0:05

We’re looking in chapter 10, then, about how God saves people, and Paul is talking about this in the larger context, or the more reduced context, one might say, of the salvation of Israel. He’s talking about God’s, first of all, in chapter 9, about God’s election of people, how he calls them at different times in history or in their lives, having brought them to an end of themselves so that they call upon him for mercy. And he calls them, having elected them. And though all who are elected, that is, all who are called, because all are elected, but all who are called have received righteousness by faith in Christ. They believe that Christ is their righteousness, that God has made his Son, Jesus, the way to the Father. And then he shows how salvation takes place. It takes place in the heart. That is, it takes place at the cross, of course, but is received in the heart and is not an issue of various harmony with rituals and laws and regulations, but a calling upon the Lord, for whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And then Paul goes into this curious, well, it’s curious but fascinating in that it’s unexpected presentation about the people who are angry with God. And he says, I was provoked, I will provoke you to jealousy by those who are not a nation. He’s talking about Israel, of course. He’s quoting from Moses in verse 19. But I say, did Israel not know? First Moses says, I will provoke you to jealousy by those who are not a nation. I will move you to anger by a foolish nation. Now, how did you read that? And how do you read this? I’ll tell you how I read it many years ago. I virtually… presumed by this that God had given up on Israel, that God simply was saying how angry he was, and he was saying, well, I’m going to make you jealous by calling and saving another nation instead of you. And that’s how I read it for years. I didn’t really give it much thought. But in fact, this is Paul teaching us how God goes after the hard-hearted. He goes after those in love who are humble and who need him, who need his healing and who need his salvation, and that’s where we see Jesus on earth healing people and calling the poor and the humble of heart to him. But did you really realize that God goes after the hard-hearted with as much love also? You’ve heard me say in the last week or two that I’ve previously had dismissed the Pharisees and the Sadducees in the Bible as, oh, just an irritation. You just wish Jesus had not had to be around them because he was interrupted in so many of his healings and his gracious teachings to the poor people. by these obstreperous Pharisees and Sadducees who were always tailing him and waiting for him to trip up or to trap him in some difficult question and get him to say something that was political dynamite. Well, yes, that’s what they were, but Jesus loved them just as much as he loves anyone else, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. The world, the difficult ones, the hard-hearted. And so when it says, I will provoke you to jealousy by those who are not a nation, notice that that is a positive statement and not a negative one. Not, I will not do this, but I will do this. And what is it I will do? I’m going to provoke you. I’m going to upset you. I’m going to throw you off kilter. I’m going to so irritate you that you can’t get me out of your head. And that is something that God does in this world. With all of his judgments and even the proclamation of the gospel, when it is proclaimed in the wrong setting, as it were, irritates and angers those who resist Christ. And you say, well, they’re just going to hell. Oh, no, they’re not. They’re going to the place where they reach their… bottom, their utter inability to resist anymore. God is going to work in such a way that that they finally give up and yield to him. You say, well, wait a minute, that’s quite an extreme interpretation. Oh, no, it isn’t. If you read on in chapter 11, he says, I say then, has God cast away his people? Now, why did he ask that? Because he just seemed to infer that God had cast away his people, because he says, I will provoke you to jealousy by those who are not a nation. Well, does that mean that God is leaving Israel behind and letting them go and go after Gentiles instead? That’s what many people think. And the reason many Christians think that way is that they are not reading the whole picture, reading the whole passage. This is, remember, the passage of Romans 9 through 11, three chapters, 9, 10, and 11, on how God saves Israel. So he asks, I say then, has God cast away his people simply because he’s making them jealous by another nation that he’s going to save instead of them? No, now listen to this, certainly not, for I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham and of the tribe of Benjamin. So first of all, he asserts God has not cast away his people. In fact, he’s going to say, and we’re jumping ahead here a bit, God has not cast away his people whom he foreknew. And to foreknow the meaning of that word is to plan ahead of time, in fact, before the very creation of the world, to save people, to save Israel. He foreknew them. He knew that they would go off with idols. He knew that they would anger him. and frustrate him. Well, I won’t say frustrate because God is never frustrated, but he is angry with them, but it doesn’t mean he’s cast them off. Well, what does it mean then? Verse 11, we’re jumping ahead. I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? They’ve certainly stumbled, but does that mean that they will fall away and never be God’s people anymore? What does Paul say? God forbid, no. But through their fall, listen to this, through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, here comes God provoking them now. Remember, Israel provoked God. by disobeying and rebelling against him and not believing. And he said, I will provoke you. I will provoke you to jealousy. That’s 10 verse 19. Now look at 11 verse 11. But through their fall, that is through the fall of Israel, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. So then, when God provokes Israel by saving another nation, he does it to move them to jealousy. Now, again, we talked about this jealousy the other day, and it seems a trivial idea. It seems a bit silly. It seems childlike. It seems like kids, you know, getting jealous with what each other has and which toy this kid has and the other one doesn’t, or which bike is better than your bike and all of that, or silly marital quarrels of jealousy. But this is big. This, when God gets into jealousy, let me tell you, it is big. Because, as I mentioned the other day, God is going to glorify the saved. You remember what Paul says? This corruption shall put on incorruption. This mortal shall put on immortality. The broken people of the world are going to see immortal beings. alive and well, with eternal bodies. And what kind of bodies? Jesus revealed it when he was transfigured, you remember? And the few disciples that were with him saw his clothing brighter than full of soap, I think it says, and his face shining like the sun. My goodness, what is this? It is the presentation that Jesus showed of what human beings will be like. We do not know what we shall be like, but we know that we shall be like him when we see him as he is, says Paul in another place. So the glory… And the beauty and the power of human beings after the resurrection is going to be so staggering in the judgment to the Israelites who have not yet received him that they are going to become overwhelmingly and excruciatingly jealous. And as I told you yesterday, God will take any emotion to get you into the kingdom he loves you so much. If you’re lonely, if you’re bored, if you’re depressed, if you’re drunk, if you’re in a state of addiction of any kind, God will use that to bring you to your knees so that you might call upon him and he might willingly rush in and save you. It’s amazing that God takes the most mundane emotions to reach us. But he does because he loves us. We say we have faith in Jesus Christ. I came to Jesus Christ by faith and believed him. Yes, you did. It’s true. But before faith… You were like a rotten potato. You were just done in. You stank like all heaven, and you couldn’t move yourself to act, and God acted upon you by those negative emotions. How gracious, how merciful, how good and great is God that he uses even our woundedness, our sinfulness, our brokenness to bring us to him. So you see, when you see God telling us that he will make us jealous, it’s not because he hates us. It’s not because he’s throwing up his hands and casting us away. It’s saying, I’ve got to reach you. And I am going to reach you because I have promised and determined that every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall make an oath that in me alone is their righteousness and strength. And so he’s going to make it painfully difficult for us to see the blessing that comes upon the saved. That is, those of you yet who are not saved and yet listen to this broadcast and say, this sounds a little different, a little weird, how in the world? And then you think of your life and you say, my goodness, I have often been envious and jealous of Christians. They seem to look the part. They seem to be at peace when you get a bit closer to them, those who are genuine. They seem to be kind and loving. What’s making them tick? And when you keep in their company and you start chatting with them, you get extremely uncomfortable because you realize they have got something that you don’t have. And by golly, you want it. Thanks for listening today, everyone. I really am embarrassed about the quality of this sound at the moment. I’m not a technician, and I don’t know how to alter it at the moment. I have to call on my tech friend, and he’s in another city. So we will get it right, I promised you, but I can’t figure out what’s wrong at the moment. I hope you will put up with it and be patient and still listen in. Thank you so much. You can hear this broadcast any time of the day or night on your smartphone. Simply download a free app, soundcloud.com or podbean.com and key in how it happens with Colin Cook when you get there. If you would care to make a donation, thank you. Send it online to faithquest.com. faithquestradio.com faithquestradio.com Okay, see you next time. Cheerio and God bless.