ROMANS - CHAPTER 11 THE OLIVE TREE - ALL ISRAEL WILL BE SAVED (2023)
ROMANS -Chapter 11 – THE “OLIVE TREE”
“All Israel Will Be Saved.”
Preached by: Pastor Carolyn Sissom
September 12, 2023
Romans 9, 10 and 11 prophetically outline the Lord’s end-time program for the Jews.
In chapter ten, Paul clearly states to the natural descendants of Abraham, the truth---salvation is by Jesus Christ or not at all. Men who are offended by these truths are offended by His Cross (Gal. 5:11). When the Jews are grafted in again (vs. 23), it will be by the blood of Christ, not by the blood of bulls and goats which could never take away sin (Heb. 9:13-14; 10:4).
That is why God is raising up key ministries with a special burden for the Jewish people (just as He is mandating others to sow in other parts of His glorious end-time harvest) (K.V.).
11:1: I say then, ‘Has God cast away His people’? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin.
There is still much theological dispute about this chapter. Since my “calling” is to preach the Kingdom of God, I will preach it today that the Lord’s Kingdom is a spiritual Kingdom and is not of this world. Jesus Christ is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords of all the Kingdoms of the earth. The Abrahamic Covenant gave Jesus the land, the earth. The Davidic covenant gives Him the throne, the right to rule the earth.
All who are serious bible scholars have to put away once and for all the notion that God is through with Israel. There are those who believe Israel has been cast aside like a worn-out shoe, and that God’s promises are to be fulfilled through the Gentile nations.
The political ideology of Christians in many mid-eastern nations is anti-Semitic. This is the political spirit over those cultures.
The apostle will make no less than ten quotes from the O.T. to show that God is not through with Israel. Even though she has been set aside for her stubborn unbelief, it is only temporary. During the interim, the Lord is using the church in every nation to proclaim the way of salvation.
The idea that God would utterly forsake Israel is unthinkable to Paul. It is true that a person might get that notion from Paul’s strong words at the end of chapter ten. But he is ready now with a number of arguments to prove this is just not so. To his mind, there is no way for God to fail to keep his promises to the forefathers of Israel. He says, “I’m a full blooded Jew and no man can be a true Jew and believe God would break His Word to us.” Paul makes his Jewishness known when he says he has descended from Abraham (to whom the promise of the Jewish people was first made) through the tribe of Benjamin. Being a Benjamite was significant. It was this tribe, along with Judah, that returned from the exile in Babylon and became the hope of the world. It was on these two tribes that the future of Israel depended after the Babylonian captivity.
“Go, then and bend your knee to pray for Israel’s ancient race; ask the dear Savior every day to call them by his grace. Go, for a debt of love is due from Christian Gentiles to the Jew.”
11: 2-4: God has not cast away His people which He foreknew. Know you not what the scriptures say of Elijah? How he makes intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed Your prophets, and torn down your altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what says the answer of God to him? “I have reserved to Myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Ba’al.”
Paul employs two words to show that it is impossible for God to abandon Israel…” HIS” and “foreknew”. Though Israel has rejected God’s way of salvation, she is still “HIS PEOPLE.” She might forsake Him, but there is no way for Him to forsake her. And what makes this so certain? God chose her because of His foreknowledge. That means He chose her to be His people, knowing ---in advance---all about her rebellion and disobedience. Aware that she would rebel against Him in stubborn unbelief, He chose her just the same. This can only mean that her rebellion was part of His plan to redeem the world. So while the Jews are out, the Gentiles are having their turn. After the Gentiles are given their opportunity with the WAY OF SALVATION, God will restore the Jews to their rightful place in the worship of the Lord. Paul’s point is, God could choose while seeing their unbelief and the way they would treat Him. His choices must stand. His choices are made in eternity and carried out according to His sovereign purpose. If God can foreknow individuals and forgive them their sins, He can also foreknow “peoples” and forgive their sins. If he chose us knowing what we were, he could choose Israel knowing what she was.
Paul also makes it clear that Israel’s falling away from God has never been total or complete; there has always been a faithful remnant within Israel. Even in the darkest hours of her history, some Israelites were faithful to Him. American is now in some of the darkest hours of our history as a nation. The mutilation of children’s gender and their sexual molestation plus the abortion of babies has to be the lowest point in a nation’s morality.
Paul takes us back to the days of Elijah when the Israelites were worshipping a foreign deity by the name of Baal. The northern ten tribes (Israel) had turned to Baal worship in such numbers that the prophet felt the nation was lost to God.
In an attempt to stem the sweeping apostasy, Elijah performed a great miracle. Fire came from the sky on his cry to God. This made King Ahab and Queen Jezebel so furious, they ordered him killed. Elijah lost heart. From the slopes of Mt. Horeb, he cried to God in despair. He wanted to die. Thinking the entire nation had forsaken the Lord, he told God he was the only faithful Jew left. But God answered, saying, I have 7000 men who are true to Me and have refused to worship Baal. So even though it appeared to Elijah that all of Israel had turned against the Lord, it really wasn’t so.
11:5-6: Even so then at this present time, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. but if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work. Paraphrase: “Now if He chose these people, then, of course their works had nothing to do with it. For if men could earn God’s favor, then the whole idea of grace is meaningless.
God has a covenantal people throughout the ages who have come to God by faith (Heb. 11). The seed of Abraham is a spiritual seed. There is a small group who have remained faithful. This group consisted of those Israelites who believed the preaching of the apostles and received Christ as their Messiah. There will always be a believing nucleus of Jews until the times of the Gentiles have been fulfilled.
That the Lord has preserved the Jewish people, there can be no doubt. Nations have come and gone. Empires have risen and disappeared, but the Jew continues to survive. His very existence is proof that God has not utterly forsaken His people. Jesus was a Jew. Of the eighty books of the Bible, seventy-eight were written by Jews. When you consider the attempts made in the last 2000 years to wipe them out, the survival of the Jew is miraculous.
Jesus sits on the throne of David. The throne is not a chair or seat somewhere beyond the Milky Way or someplace in the Middle East. The Greek word translated “throne” is “thronos,” and it means “a place or seat of authority”---it is the right to rule. To rule from His throne is to speak in the authority of Jesus’ name. The house of the heavenly David is the church made up of Jew and Gentile.
Jews saved today are added to the church the moment they receive Christ. In that split second, they are exalted to a higher level to become the sons of God. Thus, they exchange their national privileges for spiritual privileges.
No Jew is saved because he is a Jew or because he has kept the Law. He is elected to God’s family only because he is a God-lover and has received the gift of righteousness by faith. The big truth of Romans is built on two great things: grace and faith. Grace is God’s part in salvation. Faith is man’s part.
11: 7-10: What then? Israel has not obtained that which he seeks for; but the election has obtained it, and the rest were blinded. (According as it is written, God has given them the spirit of slumber (stupor), eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear;) to this day. And David says, “Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumbling block, and a recompense to them: Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow their back always.” (Paraphrased: their back bent double under the burden of their law.)
We can easily say, “there is a spirit of stupor” over the United States in 2023. I am reminded that in January 2004, the Lord spoke to me to preach these verses (11:8-10) until March of that year. These verses are repeated five times throughout the Holy Bible. When words are repeated three times, that carries a lot of authority, but five times is powerful. There was some grumbling from the people as I was obedient to my mandate. However, I did not falter. At the end of the appointed time, the oceans didn’t roar, the mountains didn’t tremble, and thunder did not roll across the skies. What I have noticed is that spirit of “stupor” has become stronger and stronger over this nation.
Moses, Isaiah, David, Jesus, and Paul prophesied these words that the unbelieving masses’ hearts would be hardened by the Lord. Isaiah said a “narcotic spirit” or “spirit of stupor” was upon them. He is referring to the anesthetic effect of unbelief upon a person. If a man turns his back on the Light, he then faces in the direction of darkness. When an unbeliever does this, he becomes “anesthetized” against the truth. No Jew or Gentile is born with spiritual blindness upon him. Anyone who wants to receive Christ may. But the one who doesn’t want to, who prefers to walk in the way of his fathers (blindly following the Jewish tradition), will remain in that blindness which God has visited upon Israel for the last 3500 years.
I believe in 2004, a “narcotic spirit” was poured out over the minds of the unbelievers in this nation. Whether Jew or Gentile, this renders them insensitive to the Spirit’s witness. Their spiritual senses have become stupefied.
He hardens unbelieving hearts the same way He hardened the heart of Pharaoh. He was given repeated chances to repent, yet with each opportunity his heart got harder until it was like stone.
The Lord hardened the hearts of the Jews with repeated messages and warnings by the prophets. He hardened them with frequent confrontations of the truth. The more they resisted it, the harder their hearts became. It is a psychological law that once a truth is rejected, it is easier to reject the second time, and still easier the third, until a person’s heart becomes calcified.
The snare of the table is interestingly described by C.S. Lovett: “The Lord established the holy feasts of the Jews as a means of worshipping Him. These feasts were to the Jews what the communion (Lord’s supper) is to us. Yet Paul, quoting from the 69th Psalm, says these holy feasts which the Jews loved, constituted a snare! But how? In the orient, if you were invited to sit at a man’s table, you were his friend for life. Following that tradition, the Jews figured that sitting at the table made them holy. They assumed they were right with God simply because they sat at the feast table. Their trust then, was not in the Lord, but in the feasts. They trusted in the ceremony and the tradition. That’s what made it a snare.”
As Christians, at the invitation of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are invited to sit at the Lord’s Supper. He invites us to share His Blood which was shed for us and The Bread of His Life that was broken for us. As Christians, we know the Feasts were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. He is the Passover Feast, the Lamb of God. The Holy Spirit is the Feast of Pentecost, and the Glory of God is the Feast of Tabernacles.
September 19, 2023, will be the day of the Feast of Trumpets. The Day of Trumpets was really an introduction to Israel’s third Feast, the Feast of Tabernacles. I mention this because I will be preaching on the Feast of Trumpets Thursday at NASA Aglow.
The two silver trumpets speak of Christ in union with His people, the “one new man” who was “created” in Himself --- joining Jew and Gentile together in one body. Hence the significance of the blowing of the two silver trumpets on the first day of the seventh month. “Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month in the first day of the month, you shall have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation” (Lev. 23:24). It is the day and hour of the fulness of redemption’s story, proclaimed in the power of the Holy Spirit by God’s people. Yes, the trumpets were blown for all the feasts as their seasons came around; but there was a day and an hour when the blowing of the Trumpets took on what you might call a seasonal significance, hence a dispensational significance. That hour is upon us. From the historical standpoint, the Church has enjoyed Passover and Pentecost. The age of Pentecost will reach her glorious climax, giving way to the Feast of Ingathering/Tabernacle. We stand now in fields “white unto harvest.” The corn and wine and oil must be gathered in, and God is beginning to send forth the ministers as never before --- for this is the Day of the blowing of trumpets, as one age of dispensation draws to a close, and another follows. Thus, the shaking of everything that can be shaken. There is always an overlapping and merging of the one into the other. Thus, the Law merged into Grace through the ministry of John the Baptist and Christ. Paul is teaching the Romans and Jews that the end of the Law has now merged into Passover (Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God and Pentecost (The ministry of the living Christ by the Holy Spirit)… to be continued on Thursday.
11:11-12: Does this mean the Jews have stumbled never to rise again? Is their ruin complete? Absolutely not! The result of their failure has been to bring salvation to the Gentiles. God planned it this way so that the Jews would be jealous when they saw what they were missing and would want salvation for themselves.” Now if the failure of the Jews means the riches of the world, and their rejection heaped spiritual riches on the Gentiles, think what it will be like when Israel receives her fullness.”
For thousands of years, Israel had the only salvation store in the world. She alone had the privilege to show the other nations how to worship God. However, since she herself ignored that way, she of course, didn’t take the job seriously. When her Messiah finally arrived in the world, she rejected Him. Consequently, she was put out of business as God’s only agent. Shortly after the rejection, Pentecost occurred, and Jesus became available to anyone who wanted Him. No longer was it necessary for a person to go to the Jews to be saved. All anyone had to do was hear the gospel, believe it, and receive Jesus as his Savior. We became righteous the moment we did. God began sending apostles into the world with the good news.
When Paul speaks of Israel’s failure, he is referring to her going out of business as Gods salvation store. When he speaks of riches coming to the Gentiles, he means all the covenants, promises, and power promised to those who believe by faith.
If the fall of Israel has already brought spiritual riches to the world, think of the benefits mankind will enjoy when she receives Jesus as her King and Messiah.
11:13-14: For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify my office. If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh and might save some of them. For if the casting away of them is the reconciling of the world, what the receiving of them shall be, but life from the dead.
He says I don’t want to sound as if I am ignoring you Gentiles when I dwell on Israel’s fulfillment. He has repeatedly expressed his passion for the Jews and now he has devoted almost three chapters to them.
The O.T. predicted that God would scatter Israel and bury her among the nations of the world. This was literally fulfilled in A.D. 70 as prophesied by Jesus. Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews dispersed. For almost 2000 years the nation was buried in the “valley of dry bones.” In our day, we have seen the return of the Jews to their homeland. However, they are mostly returning in unbelief. Yet, there are Messianic Jews who continue to evangelize their people.
Jesus will return one day and plant his feet upon the Mt. of Olives, and they will “look on Him Whom they have pierced.” When that day arrives, they will embrace him as their King. A thought came to me that as the Olive Tree is the tree of Faith, then the Mt. of Olives would be the mountain of faith.
11: 16-24: For if the firstfruits are holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root is holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches are broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them partake of the root and fatness of the olive tree; boast not against the branches. But if you boast, you bear not the root, but the root you. You will say then, the branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear: for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed less he does not spare you. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God; on them which fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness; otherwise, you also shall be cut off. And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree; how much more shall these, which are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
Paul is leading up to a flat statement (Vs. 26) “all Israel will be saved.”
The idea of Israel as an olive tree is taken from Jeremiah’s prophecy where she is pictured as a “green olive tree, beautiful in form and fruit” (Jer. 11:16). It is interesting that this figure of speech describing Israel is in chapter eleven, verse sixteen. Eleven is the number of judgment, disorder, revelation, transition, the prophet. Sixteen means love, established beginnings.
The nature and character of living things are determined by their roots. Paul is saying, since the roots of Israel are holy (i.e., belong to God), so is the rest of the tree. By the roots, he means Abraham and the patriarchs. The branches of the tree are those Jews who have sprung from Abraham. The tree grows out of the promises made to the founding fathers. These are the heroes of Faith who revealed God’s program to those to whom they were sent. Those promises are both spiritual and physical.
Mt. 6:33: But seek you first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness and all these things shall be added to you.
If we get this part right, then everything else in our life will be blessed and in order. The problem is people get their eyes off the Kingdom and back on “these things.”
We Gentiles have had over 2000 years to take advantage of the privilege of being grafted onto this tree. The Gentiles are not doing any more with their opportunity than did the Jews. Those who will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit receive one of the greatest promises of the O.T. The Holy Spirit is the rich sap flowing from those Jewish roots.
We should regard our place in this Grace with greatest humility. One day the Jewish and Gentile Christians will be joined on the tree by the mass of renegade Jews, who will come to share their faith and be restored as active members of the people of God.
There was evidently an anti-Jewish bias among Gentile converts. Gentiles were learning to shout down Judaism’s proud claims with even louder counterclaims of their own privileges and the Jews deprivation. Paul deplores this unhealthy attitude. He reminds them of their debt to the Jewish heritage.
Gentiles have the Bible (a Jewish book). We have the Holy Spirit (a Jewish promise). We have the LORD (a Jewish Messiah). We do not have to go to any temple; neither do we have to perform any rituals. We can meet the Lord any place and any time we care to come to Him on the grounds of His mercy.
In the present stupor of the Gentiles, very few want a personal relationship with God through Christ. As a result, false Christianity has arisen in the world. Many preachers are not only unsaved, but deny the virgin birth, Christ’s deity, and His blood atonement. Educators and politicians are hell-bent on destroying the faith of young people, taking delight in flaunting the theory of evolution and global warming in the face of God’s Word. The Gentile world is clearly an unbelieving world, every bit as faithless as the Jews. Paul’s warning that God won’t coddle Gentiles any more than he did the Jews is going unheeded. They have been given over to a spirit of stupor.
11:25-27: For I would not, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, less you should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles come in. And so, all Israel shall be saved; as it is written, there shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob (Isa. 59: 20-21). For this is my covenant to them when I shall take away their sins.
The apostle does something here which he has done before---drops a big bomb of truth. At Rome, where the church was predominantly Gentile, he must deal with the matter of pride and superior feelings. So, this time he unveils the truth that the Gentiles will only be in the olive tree for a specified time. Their day of opportunity will come to an end.
The times of the Gentiles have been fantastic. The nations have risen to dazzling heights in terms of academic, financial, and technological achievements. In the Gentile era, prosperity and freedom have come to mankind wherever the gospel has been received. The Gentile believers could easily become conceited and feel their exalted position is permanent. To take the wind out of their sails and check any conceit they might feel having the inside track with God, he tells them their present supremacy is temporary.
The Gentiles had better be careful not to lord it over God’s nation during the time of her humiliation.
Here Paul is speaking as a prophet with the statement that, “all Israel will be saved.” This truth could only be apprehended by divine revelation. That is why he calls it a “mystery.” There are still those today without the revelation of this “mystery.” Those who would judge her future in the light of her distress at the time of Paul had no insight to God’s secret purposes. Once the full count of Gentiles (a precise number known only to God) has been saved and added to the church, the Gentile era will end.
As evidence that all Israel is to be saved, the apostle offers three confirmations from Scripture: two from the prophets and the third, God’s covenant with Abraham. Drawing from Isa. 59: 20 and the 14th Psalm, the apostle says, the Deliverer shall come out of Zion and turn away ungodliness from Jacob. The use of the word “Jacob” is significant for it stands for fleshly Israel. It is the fallen and rejected Israel that is to be saved. The spirit of stupor and blindness which is now over her will be removed. In John 5:43, Jesus is prophesying to the Jews. I have come in my Father’s name, and you did not receive me. If another shall come in his own name, you will receive him. Those who come in their own name are those who are of the spirit of antichrist.
God’s promise to Abraham is Paul’s third proof that Israel will be saved. His spiritual descendants of like precious faith whether Jew or Gentile will reign with Jesus.
Isa. 2: 2-5: It shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow to it. And many people shall go and say, come you, and let us go up- to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us His ways, and we will walk in His paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sward against nation; neither shall they learn war any more.
Zion is where the Throne of God is eternally established and sure against all attacks of an enemy (Ps. 2:6; 87:5).
Zion is the dwelling-place of God, where he is gloriously praised, where His doings are known (Ps. 9:11; 74:2; 76:2).
Zion is the place where God’s most glorious praise is known because there the fullness of salvation is known in the lives of the redeemed (Ps. 9:14).
Romans 11:28: Concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes; but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
It is easy for anti-Semitism to flourish as long as Gentiles remain ignorant of God’s program for the Jews. Those nations and peoples who have favored Israel will be favored by God. Those who have abused Israel during her humiliation will be sorry (Mt. 25:31-34): When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory: And before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say to them on His right hand, Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
There is no way for the Lord to go back on His promises; no way for Him to change His mind about the gifts or those He chooses. There is a general principle which operates in connection with all of God’s dealings with man: once He makes a choice, He never retracts it. Many are called, but few are chosen. There is no way for God to change his mind about us. There is no way for evil to frustrate the plan of God. He uses it to accomplish His purpose. However, if we go off course, and begin to teach error and/or allow sin to rule over us, we can expect to be taken home. I have seen it happen.
Romans 11: 30-32: For as you in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief: Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. For God has concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.
This verse should forever silence those Christians who are biased against Israel. Paul is admonishing us to show mercy to the Jew in the same way that we received mercy and have been saved into the program of God. That should take the wind out of the sails of all anti-Semitism, criticism, pride, and arrogance toward the Jew.
God has locked all men into the sin program that he might show mercy to us all. He could have abandoned the human experiment when Adam and Eve sinned. But he didn’t. He allowed the races to appear, knowing all men would be sinners because of Adam’s fall. He deliberately let the human program roll in sin. Why? The only way to know the mercy of God is to be a sinner. Only sinners can be forgiven. And God wants all of us to know this side of His nature---by experience.
As the Lord is preparing the “church universal” for the Harvest, we, like Israel, are going to have to lay aside our conceit, spiritual pride, self-righteousness, condemnation, criticism, false judgment, and prestige… if we are to be used of the Lord for His next program of salvation.
11: 33-36: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor? Or who has first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed to him again? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom is glory forever. Amen
Having laid out God’s program for working with men and nations, the apostle is filled with such wonder that he cannot contain himself. He breaks forth in rapturous praise to God! Having laid out God’s remarkable plan for restoring Israel, his mind goes over the entire program for saving men out of a guilty world. In a single view, he beholds the history of man from Adam’s fall to Christ’s reign as King of Kings. His discussion dissolves into worship for theology is doxology or it is nothing at all. The interpreter of God’s program to man is forced to break out in spontaneous praise to God: “How Great Thou Art!”
As He does, this, he realizes it is not man’s history that is before him, but God’s wisdom! He is overwhelmed by the wisdom needed to take sinful bits of dust and raise them to the level of sons of God. He gives sinners a free will, allows Satan a free hand with them as the “god of this world,” and still ends up with His will being done---is too much for the human mind. That God can take the failures of men and nations and weave them into a program that fulfills His plan is so incredible the apostle has to stop and say… “Praise the Lord!”
Paul borrows the question of “who has known?” from Isaiah. The ancient prophet asked who has directed God’s Spirit or who has been God’s teacher? (Isa. 40: 13, 14)..
God’s wealth consists of His ability to bless people and enrich their souls to walk in the Spirit. His wealth is unlimited and is the pearl of greatest price. No earthly king every dreamed of such wealth. It is beyond imagination to have such wealth that you can make all your son’s kings in their own right with unlimited riches of our own. He has seen God’s purposes of lavish grace. (Isa. 40:13; Job. 41:11).
No man will ever out-give God. We can only come to God and give to Him that which He has given us. He asked us to give to Him to keep our heart from hoarding, selfishness, and greed. When a man humbles himself before God, the Lord reaches out with his wealth of mercy and exalts him as a “joint heir” with undreamed riches of his own. That is why Paul said in Rom. 10:12, God is rich unto all who call on Him! he is the source of every blessing. He created us all with his Word and is the author of every gift we receive (Ja. 1: 17, 18). The entire creation was made by Him and for Him. He runs it to suit Himself. Paul has preached himself “happy”.
Abraham has two kinds of seed: spiritual and natural. Those believing the Lord’s promises concerning the Messiah receive the blessings. For God is “Source, Guide and Goal of all that is.”
Next week we will continue with Chapter 12. Up to this point in Romans, Paul has given us the believing side of the Gospel. The next four chapters have to do with the behaving side.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church, 10115 West Hidden Lakes Lane, Richmond, TX.
K.J.V.; I entered the labors of C. S. Lovett’s Lights on Romans; F.F. Bruce Bible Commentary, Leslie Allen; Principles of Present Truth from Isaiah by: Kelly Varner; Whose Right it is by: Kelly Varner. Comments and conclusions are my own and not intended to reflect the views of those who I entered their labors