Henry: Welcome To Immerse: The Daily Bible Reading Experience.
Day 31
what shall we say about such wonderful things as these?
If God is for us, who can ever be against us?
Since he did not spare even his own son, but gave him up for us all,
won't he also give us everything else?
Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own?
No one.
For God himself has given us right standing with himself
who then will condemn us.
No one for Christ.
Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of
honor at God's right hand pleading for us.
Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love?
Does it mean he no longer loves us?
If we have trouble or calamity or are persecuted or hungry or destitute
or in danger or threatened with death, as the scriptures say, for
your sake, we are killed every day, we are being slaughtered like sheep.
No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through
Christ who loved us, and I am convinced.
That nothing can ever separate us from God's love, neither death nor life.
Neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today,
nor our worries about tomorrow.
Not even the powers of Hell can separate us from God's love.
No power in the sky above or in the earth below.
Indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate
us from the love of God.
That is revealed in Christ Jesus, our Lord, with Christ as my witness,
I speak with utter truthfulness.
My conscience and the Holy Spirit confirm it.
My heart is filled with bitter sorrow and unending grief for my people.
My Jewish brothers and sisters.
I would be willing to be forever cursed, cut off from
Christ if that would save them.
They are the people of Israel chosen to be God's adopted children.
God revealed his glory to them.
He made covenants with them and gave them his law.
He gave them the privilege of worshiping him and receiving his wonderful promises.
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are their ancestors, and Christ
himself was an Israelite as far as his human nature is concerned.
He is God, the one who rules over everything and
is worthy of eternal praise.
Amen.
Well then, has God failed to fulfill his promise to Israel?
No, for not all who are born into the nation of Israel are
truly members of God's people.
Being descendants of Abraham doesn't make them truly Abraham's children.
For the scriptures say, Isaac is the son through whom your
descendants will be counted.
Though Abraham had other children too, this means that Abraham's
physical descendants are not necessarily children of God.
Only the children of the promise are considered to be Abraham's children.
For God had promised I will return about this time next
year and Sarah will have a son.
This son was our ancestor Isaac.
When he married Rebecca, she gave birth to twins, but before they were born,
before they had done anything good or bad, she received a message from God.
This message shows that God chooses people according to his own purposes.
He calls people but not according to their good or bad works.
She was told Your older son will serve your younger son.
In the words of the scriptures, I loved Jacob, but I rejected Esau.
Are we saying then that God was unfair?
Of course not.
For God said to Moses, I will show mercy to anyone I choose and I will
show compassion to anyone I choose.
So it is God who decides to show mercy.
We can neither choose it nor work for it.
For the scriptures say that God told Pharaoh, I have appointed you for the very
purpose of displaying my power in you and to spread my fame throughout the earth.
So you see, God chooses to show mercy to some I, and he chooses
to harden the hearts of others, so they refuse to listen well.
Then you might say, why does God blame people for not responding?
Haven't they simply done what he makes them do?
No, don't say that.
Who are you a mere human being to argue with.
God should the thing that was created say to the one who created it.
Why have you made me like this?
When a potter makes jars out of clay, doesn't he have a right
to use the same lump of clay to make one jar for decoration and
another to throw garbage into?
In the same way, even though God has the right to show his anger
and his power, he is very patient with those on whom his anger falls,
who are destined for destruction.
He does this to make the riches of his glory shine.
He even brighter on those to whom he shows mercy, who were prepared
in advance for glory, and we are among those whom he selected both
from the Jews and from the Gentiles.
Concerning the Gentiles.
God says, in the prophecy of Hosea, those who were not my people, I will
now call my people and I will love those whom I did not love before.
And then at the place where they were told, you are not my people, there they
will be called Children of the Living God.
And concerning Israel, Isaiah the prophet, cried out.
Though the people of Israel are as numerous as the sand of the seashore,
only a remnant will be saved for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon
the earth quickly and with finality.
And Isaiah said the same thing in another place.
If the Lord of heaven's armies had not spared a few of our children,
we would've been wiped out like Sodom, destroyed like Gomorrah.
What does all this mean?
Even though the Gentiles were not trying to follow God's standards,
they were made right with God, and it was by faith that this took place.
But the people of Israel who tried so hard to get right with God by
keeping the law never succeeded.
Why not?
Because they were trying to get right with God by keeping the law
instead of by trusting in him.
They stumbled over the Great rock in their path.
God warned them of this in the scriptures when he said, I am placing
a stone in Jerusalem that makes people stumble, a rock that makes them fall.
But anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.
Dear brothers and sisters, the longing of my heart and my prayer to God is
for the people of Israel to be saved.
I know what enthusiasm they have for God.
It has misdirected zeal for they don't understand God's way of
making people right with himself, refusing to accept God's way.
They cling to their own way of getting right with God by trying to keep the
law for Christ has already accomplished the purpose for which the law was given.
As a result, all who believe in him are made right with God.
For Moses writes that the law's way of making a person right with God requires
obedience to all of its commands.
But faith's way of getting right with God says, don't say in your heart who
will go up to heaven to bring Christ down to earth, and don't say who
will go down to the place of the dead to bring Christ back to life again.
In fact, it says the message is very close at hand.
It is on your lips and in your heart, and that message is the very
message about faith that we preach.
If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that
God raised him from the dead, you will be saved for it is by believing
in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly
declaring your faith that you are saved.
As the scriptures tell us, anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.
Jew and Gentile are the same in this respect.
They have the same Lord who gives generously to all who call on him.
For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, but how can they call
on him to save them unless they believe in him, and how can they believe in him?
If they have never heard about him, and how can they hear about him unless
someone tells them, and how will anyone go and tell them without being sent?
That is why the scriptures say, how beautiful are the feet of
messengers who bring good news?
But not everyone welcomes the good news.
For Isaiah, the prophet said, Lord, who has believed our message?
So faith comes from hearing.
That is hearing the good news about Christ.
But I ask, have the people of Israel actually heard the message?
Yes, they have.
The message has gone throughout the earth and the words to all the world.
But I ask, did the people of Israel really understand?
Yes, they did.
For even in the time of Moses, God said, I will rouse your jealousy through
people who are not even a nation.
I will provoke your anger through the foolish Gentiles.
And later Isaiah spoke boldly for God, saying I was found by people
who were not looking for me.
I showed myself to those who were not asking for me.
Regarding Israel.
God said all day long.
I opened my arms to them, but they were disobedient and rebellious.
I ask then, has God rejected his own people, the nation of Israel?
Of course not.
I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham and a
member of the tribe of Benjamin.
No, God has not rejected his own people whom He chose from the very beginning.
Do you realize what the scriptures say about this?
Elijah?
The prophet complained to God about the people of Israel and
said, Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars.
I am the only one left and now they're trying to kill me too.
And you remember God's reply he said.
No, I have 7,000 others who have never bowed down to bail.
It is the same today for a few of the people of Israel have remained
faithful because of God's grace, his undeserved kindness in choosing them.
And since it is through God's kindness, then it is not by their good works.
For, in that case, God's grace would not be what it really is.
Free and undeserved.
So this is the situation.
Most of the people of Israel have not found the favor of God.
They're looking for so earnestly.
A few have the ones God has chosen, but the hearts of the rest were hardened.
As the scriptures say God has put them into a deep sleep, to this day, he has
shut their eyes so they do not see and closed their ears, so they do not hear.
Likewise, David said, let their bountiful table become a snare, a trap
that makes them think all is well.
Let their blessings cause them to stumble and let them get what they deserve.
Let their eyes go blind so they cannot see and let their backs be bent forever.
Did God's people stumble and fall beyond recovery?
Of course not.
They were disobedient.
So God made salvation available to the Gentiles, but he wanted
his own people to become jealous and claim it for themselves.
Now, if the Gentiles were enriched because the people of Israel turned
down God's offer of salvation, think how much greater a blessing the world
will share when they finally accept it.
I am saying all this, especially for you, Gentiles.
God has appointed me as the apostle to the Gentiles.
I stress this.
For, I want somehow to make the people of Israel jealous of what you Gentiles have,
so I might save some of them for, since their rejection meant that God offered
salvation to the rest of the world, their acceptance will be even more wonderful.
It will be life for those who were dead, and since Abraham and the
other patriarchs were holy, their descendants will also be holy.
Just as the entire batch of dough is holy because the portion given as an
offering is holy for if the roots of the tree are holy, the branches will be too.
But some of these branches from Abraham's Tree, some of the people of
Israel have been broken off, and you Gentiles, who were branches from a
wild olive tree had been grafted in.
So now you also receive the blessing God has promised Abraham and his children
sharing in the rich nourishment from the root of God's special olive tree.
But you must not brag about being grafted in to replace the
branches that were broken off.
You are just a branch, not the root.
Well, you may say those branches were broken off to make room for me.
Yes, but remember those branches were broken off because they
didn't believe in Christ, and you are there because you do believe.
So don't think highly of yourself, but fear what could happen for if God
did not spare the original branches.
He won't spare you either.
Notice how God is both kind and severe.
He is severe toward those who disobeyed, but kind to you if you
continue to trust in his kindness.
But if you stop trusting, you also will be cut off.
And if the people of Israel turn from their unbelief, they will be grafted
in again, for God has the power to graft them back into the tree.
You by nature, were a branch cut from a wild olive tree.
So if God was willing to do something contrary to nature by grafting you into
his cultivated tree, he will be far more eager to graft the original branches
back into the tree where they belong.
I want you to understand this mystery, dear brothers and sisters, so that you
will not feel proud about yourselves.
Some of the people of Israel have hard hearts, but this will last only until the
full number of Gentiles comes to Christ.
And so all Israel will be saved as the scriptures say.
The one who rescues will come from Jerusalem and he will turn
Israel away from ungodliness.
And this is my covenant with them that I will take away their sins.
Many of the people of Israel are now enemies of the good news
and this benefits you Gentiles.
Yet they are still the people he loves.
Because he chose their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob for God's gifts
and his call can never be withdrawn.
Once you, Gentiles were rebels against God, but when the people
of Israel rebelled against him, God was merciful to you.
Instead, now they are the rebels and God's mercy has come to you so that
they too will share in God's mercy.
For God has imprisoned everyone in disobedience so he could
have mercy on everyone.
Oh, how great are God's riches and wisdom and knowledge?
How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways for who can
know the Lord's thoughts, who knows enough to give him advice, and who has given
him so much that he needs to pay it back?
For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for
his glory, all glory to him forever.
Amen.
This concludes today's Immer reading experience.
Thank you for joining us.