All Israel Will Be Saved, Part 2 (Romans Sermon 89)

We’re looking tonight, at a section of the Scripture that I was preaching on this morning, in Romans 11, if you just turn there for a moment, we’re going to spend much of our time in the Old Testament. But in Romans 11:25-26, Paul says concerning this incredible mystery that I talked about this morning, he says, “Brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, so that you may not be conceded. Israel has experienced the hardening in part until the full number of Gentiles has come in.” And then he says in Verse 26, “And so, all Israel will be saved.” And then he seeks to support that from Scripture, “As it is written,” he says, “The deliverer will come from Zion, He will turn godlessness away from Jacob.”

Now, we have seen consistently, the way the Apostle Paul seeks to support his doctrine from the Word of God. I still think one of the most incredible, one of the most exciting times in redemptive history, that I would love to have been there when this happened, is when Jesus after His death, after His resurrection, spent 40 days with His disciples, teaching them the Old Testament Scripture. That’s what He spent His time doing, that and eating fish. One of them I can understand the other I can’t, and never will, but that’s what He did. He spent time eating with them and He spent time opening the Word of God. And so, a fisherman from Galilee named Peter, stands up in the day of Pentecost and just spouting one Old Testament Scripture after another, showing things, saying things that have been fulfilled that the Jews had not noticed, had not seen.

And I’ll tell you this, the longer I go in my Christian life, the more I go on studying the Word of God, the more amazed and astonished I am at the interconnection of the Word of God, the consistency of the Word of God, the way that the New Testament is so completely and totally based on the teachings of the Old Testament. How they are not two different messages, they’re not two different words. Something that went up to a certain point, and then it was abrogated, and we go in some different direction. I think this is so obvious from the way the Apostle Paul behaved in his ministry.

We see again and again, in the life of Paul, how he sought to establish his doctrine by reference to the Old Testament Scripture. For example, in Acts 9, right after his conversion, it says, “Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus and at once, he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. All those who heard him were astonished and asked, isn’t he the man who raised havoc in Jerusalem, among those who call on this name? And hasn’t he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priest?” Acts 9:22 says, “Yet, Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ.” Now, how do you think he did that? What did he use in the synagogue of Damascus to prove that Jesus is the Christ? Well, we know clearly from his later behavior, it must be the Scripture that he was using, it must be the Old Testament Scripture. For example, in Acts 17:1-3, it says, “When they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica,” that’s in the Northern part of Greece, modern Greece, “Thessalonica, where it was a Jewish synagogue. As his custom was,” that’s a key phrase, “As His custom was, Paul went into the synagogue and on three Sabbath days,” listen, “He reasoned with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead.” This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ, he said.

And so there he is, taking the Old Testament Scripture, the law, the prophets, the writings, and using the Scripture to prove that Jesus is the Christ. And again, later on that same missionary trip, he goes down to Berea, and we hear about the Bereans much. We desire ourselves to be Bereans in this sense, how it says in Acts 17:11, “The Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” So clearly, again, there in Berea, what is Paul doing? But opening up the Old Testament Scriptures, seeking to prove and to establish his doctrine thereby. He does the same thing throughout the book of Romans, we’ve seen it again and again. Look at the very beginning of the book of Romans, look at Romans chapter 1, verse 1-4. It is true that in eons past, I preached on this section of Scripture. You can look in the tape record it’s there.

I don’t know what was going on in redemptive history at that point, but I did preach on Romans, 1:1-4. But you don’t need to listen to my tape, just open up in Romans 1, there it is, now Verse 1-4, and this is what it says. Right at the beginning of Romans, it says, “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus called to be an apostle and set apart for the Gospel of God. The Gospel He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures.” So the Gospel is promised ahead of time in the Old Testament Scripture. That Scripture regarding his Son. And so he goes on from there. And then again, in Romans 1:16-17, as we’ve heard many times, “I’m not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile, for in the Gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is from faith to faith.” And here’s that key expression you’re going to find again and again in Paul, “Just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith.” He’s constantly establishing his doctrine, really right from the beginning in Romans 1, by the Scripture.

In Romans 3, he goes through these quotations, one quotation after another. Romans 3, verses 10 and following, it says, “As it is written, there is no one righteous, not even one, there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God, all have turned aside, they’ve together become worthless. There is no one who does good, no, not one. Their feet are swift to shed blood, ruin and misery mark their ways, the way of peace, they do not know.” He is just lumping one Old Testament Scripture on another to prove the universality of sin. He’s using the Scripture, to prove this. He does it again in Romans 4 when he’s talking about justification by faith alone, apart from works of the law. He says in Romans 4, “What then shall we say that Abraham our forefather discovered in this matter? If in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about, but not before God. What does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.'” So there it is, he’s trying to establish again, and again, his doctrine from Scripture.

Now, whatever he did in Romans 1-8, in seeking to do this, whatever he did to establish his doctrine in the basis, the Old Testament Scripture, only escalates greatly, it greatly intensifies when it comes to this whole question of the Jews in Romans 9-11. I’ve counted at one point, 27 different quotations or illusions in these three chapters. He is super saturating Romans 9-11 with one quote after another, and his favorite source seems to be Isaiah the prophet. He’s going again and again to Isaiah and to the other prophets and to the writings, to prove the doctrines he’s establishing. Romans 9, he talks about Jacob and Isaiah, and he talks about the experience at the burning bush with Moses, he’s quoting again and again, “I lay a stone in Zion, a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” He talks about Isaiah crying out boldly, “Although the number of Israelites be like the grain of the sea, only the remnant will be saved.” He’s quoting all of these Scriptures, one after the other.

But now he gets to Romans 11:26, and then he’s seeking to prove this mystery, the mystery we talked about this morning, namely; all Israel will be saved. What is he going to reach for to prove this mystery? He’s already told us that it’s a mystery, and so therefore, he’s going to be reaching for a Scripture that doesn’t openly and directly teach it but alludes to it or sets the stage for it. That’s why it’s a mystery, it’s not openly taught but it’s there, the foundation is there concerning the salvation, the future of salvation of the Jews.

I. Paul’s Use of Isaiah 59:23

And this is what he reaches for, he reaches for Isaiah 59:20. So turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 59:20, you can keep your finger in Romans 11 if you want. And I want you to compare it. Now, one of the reasons I’m doing this, was something I read as I’ve mentioned this morning, and I’ve mentioned before, on a Jews for Judaism website. You ought to go there, it really is amazing to look at some of the way that these Jewish folks seek to deal with the prophetic scriptures that we hold so dear. I believe, as I’ve been reading their website, looking at the way that they seek to refute Christian handling of Scripture, that I feel like I’m back in the ancient days sitting next to Paul as he reasons with the Jews in the synagogue and they won’t listen. And trying to figure out, “What are they going to say, that Isaiah 53?” Well, if you want to know, go and find out. How could they ever refute what Jesus said in Psalm 1:10 or in Psalm 22? “They have pierced my hands and my feet.” You go and find out, it is so disappointing actually. You keep thinking, “Well, maybe there’s some insight that we haven’t seen,” but all you end up seeing is hardness of heart.

That’s what you end up. You’re looking right at that veil that Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 3, that covers their hearts where they cannot see the plain teaching in Daniel 7, about the Son of Man receiving glory and honor from all the nations and tribes and peoples. It’s an incredible thing that they just cannot see the truth of the Scripture. But here he’s going to Isaiah 59:20. And Jews for Judaism says Paul is twisting the Scripture, he’s twisting it. So I thought, “I’m going to take this one on, we’re going to look at it.” And the more I looked at it, the more amazed I was. Have you ever been at the ocean where you’re bobbing on the ground, feeling the sand under your feet, and you keep going out a little deeper, and then all of a sudden the bottom drops out. And you’re treading water if you can, if not you need to hurry back and be on the beach, because the bottom just fell out from under your feet. And that’s what I feel like, it’s just incredibly deep. And it shouldn’t surprise us because that’s exactly where we’re going, in Romans 11, where Paul cries out, “Oh the depth of the riches, the wisdom and the knowledge of God.” It’s a deep thing that he’s getting at here. But what Paul does is he reverses, exactly reverses the language of Isaiah 59:20.

Now, if you’re going to say, “Did Paul believe that Isaiah was inspired by the Holy Spirit as it was written?” No question about it, but what he’s doing is he’s going actually beyond what Isaiah says now in the New Testament, the new covenant, with the new insights and information we have with the coming of Jesus and all that, and he’s not in any way contradicting what Isaiah says, but he actually is intensifying it and he does it in a way that perfectly fits into the context of Isaiah 59. To some degree, he’s understood it better than any of his modern detractors ever could. What does he do? Well, let’s compare it. In Verse 26 of Romans 11, it says, “The redeemer will come from Zion, He will turn godlessness away from Jacob.” But then in Isaiah 59:20, it says, “The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins.”

So there’s two halves to this, and he turns both of them backwards. In the first one, it is either the Redeemer comes from Zion, or the Redeemer goes to Zion, now which is it? Secondly, is He coming to people who have already repented of their sins or is He going to come and turn godlessness away from Jacob? Which of the two is it? Let’s take the first clause and try to understand it. Namely, this idea; did the Redeemer or does the Redeemer come from Zion or does He go to Zion?

II. What is Zion?

Now, the word Zion as you study it in the Scripture, the first time it’s ever mentioned is in 2 Samuel 5:67, where it says that King David conquered the city of Jerusalem. That’s the first time the word Zion ever appears in the Bible. It says there, “The king and his men marched to Jerusalem to attack the Jebusites who live there. And the Jebusites who are living there, said to David, ‘You’ll not get in here, even the blind and the lame can ward you off.'” Well, Jerusalem is actually notoriously difficult to conquer. It’s way up on a mountain and the sides drop off all around and it’s really, very, very difficult to conquer. All the armies that came to lay seed to Jerusalem had to deal with the physical lay of the land. It’s a mountain, it’s tough to get up to. It makes it difficult, but David found a way.

And so therefore it says, “Nevertheless, David captured,” now, listen what it says. “The fortress of Zion, the City of David.” Now, that’s the first time the word Zion appears, it is Jerusalem, the City of Jerusalem. And this use is repeated again and again and again, Zion equals Jerusalem. But it’s more than that, Zion becomes a symbol of the place where God dwells with man on Earth, the place where God has fellowship with the human race. This is signified by the coming of the Ark of the Covenant, and then later on with Solomon, when he builds the temple, and this is the place, above the cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant where God Almighty is going to be meeting with the Jews, and it’s represented by what they say, the Shekinah glory, the visible representation of the glory of God. And you must know it is not the full glory, none of us can handle that. “No one can see my face and live” God said to Moses, and that is true. But there’s a representational glory that comes down and fills that place. And it’s a sense of the presence of God in Zion. A place where God is dwelling with man, and there it is, it’s in Jerusalem, the City of God, so to speak.

And so you see again and again in Psalms, just look at the word Zion, in a concordance in Psalms and it’s there again and again. It says, “Great is the Lord and,” this is Psalm 48, “Great is the Lord and greatly be praised, and the city of our God, His holy mountain, beautiful in elevation, it is the joy of all the earth, Mount Zion in the far north, it’s the city of the great King.” So Zion is the city of the great King, and Jesus talks about that later when He says, “Do not swear by Jerusalem for it’s the city of the great King. It’s the place where the King lives.” King David, the city of David, was the first to be connected with this idea of Zion, so there it is, Mount Zion, the city of the great King and within her citadels, God has made Himself known as a fortress. So it’s the idea of God dwelling with the great King on Mount Zion, the place where God and man together dwell, it’s Jerusalem in the Old Testament.

The problem is, the Jews did not keep the covenant. They did not obey the covenant of God, they broke the covenant by their idolatry, and by their sinfulness, and their oppression of the poor, they disobeyed God. And so therefore, in one of the most devastating chapters Ezekiel 10 and then again in Ezekiel 11, we have represented the movement of the glory of God away from Jerusalem. The glory of God moves away from the temple, goes to the threshold of the temple, pauses there, takes a while. It’s like, I guess a chapter and a half before the journey finally is consummated, and basically, the idea is the glory of God has departed from Jerusalem, moves away from the temple, it moves to the threshold, it moves out of the city and up and gone. And it’s a tragic thing, because of the wickedness of the Jews, because of their disobedience. Unless we Gentiles think we do any better, we wouldn’t. The Jews were chosen so that they would represent us just like Adam did, and so we wouldn’t have done any better than they. But because of their sin, the glory of God departed from Zion. This was perfectly and completely and forever in redemptive history consummated when the Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah. “Rejoice O daughter of Zion, your King is coming to you riding on a donkey,” it says, but they rejected him by killing him.

And Jesus predicted this, He knew this would happen and so therefore He laments over Jerusalem, and He says in Matthew 23, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Behold, your house is left to you desolate.” That means empty. “For you will not see me again until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Matthew 24:1, “Then Jesus left the temple.” Let me tell you something, there’s a direct connection to Ezekiel 10 and 11 right there. Jesus walks out of the temple, Jesus was the glory of Israel. And so in effect at that moment, Jerusalem stopped being Mount Zion, stopped being the place where God and man together dwell. Stopped being the city of the great King. Does that mean there’s no Zion anymore? No, there is a new Jerusalem. There is in effect the heavenly Jerusalem. Take a minute and… You’ve got your finger here in Isaiah 59, we’ll go back to it, but look over at Galatians Chapter 4, for a minute.

Galatians 4 and verse 21 and following, Paul is working with the Gentiles who want to become Jews, and he’s saying what do you want to do that for? “Why do you want to labor under a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? Why would you want to do it?” “Tell me you who want to be under the law, aren’t you aware of what the law says?” So he’s reasoning with Gentiles who wants to take on the yoke, the burden of all of the stipulations and commandments and all that, of the law of Moses. And why would you want to do that? And he’s arguing as a Jew in that regard, but here he says, “Tell me,” Verse 21, “You who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way, but his son by the free woman was born as a result of a promise. These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants, one covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves. This is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, for she is in bondage, or slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free and she is our mother. For it is written, ‘Be glad, O barren woman who bears no children. Break forth and cry aloud, you have no labor pains. Because more are children of the desolate woman than of who has a husband.'”

So what are we talking about here? The Jerusalem that’s below, it’s not the real Jerusalem anymore. It’s like Hagar, it’s like the son of the slave woman in bondage to the law. But there is a Jerusalem that’s above, and she is our mother, it’s the heavenly Jerusalem. You get the same thing in Hebrews 12, take a minute and look over there. There, the author to Hebrews talks about Zion as well, and he says, in Hebrews 12:18, he says, “You have not come to a mountain that can be touched.” That is so significant. Says, “You’ve not come to a mountain that can be touched,” that’s not the point, you’ve not come to a place where you can touch the rocks and the stones and compare and consider the walls like a physical Jerusalem.

“You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness, gloom and storm, to a trumpet blast with such a voice speaking words, that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, because they could not bear what was commanded. If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned. The site was so terrifying that Moses said, ‘I am trembling with fear.'” That’s Mount Sinai, that’s the Jerusalem that’s below, that’s the Jerusalem of bondage, that’s the old way. He says, “It’s not what you’ve come to here in the new covenant, but you have come to Mount Zion.” See there it is, there is a Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, do you see it? So Hebrews 12:22 establishes the connection now between Mount Zion and a heavenly Jerusalem. There’s a heavenly Mount Zion. It is the city of the living God. Jesus said that Zion is the city of the great King, and so it is, but who’s the great King? It is Jesus. And where is Jesus ruling? Where is He reigning? Well, in Zion. Where’s Zion? Is not the Jerusalem that’s below. And so therefore, if you go back to Romans, you don’t have to turn there, but just listen, you know what it says. The deliverer will come from Zion.

The new Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem. “Yes,” Isaiah said, “He’s going to come to Zion,” because that was his perspective. That’s the way he was looking, but Paul says, “Let’s go up to the next level, He’s going to be coming from Zion, He’s going to be sending forth His Spirit, He’s going to remove that spirit of stupor from the Jews. The Deliverer will come from the heavenly Zion, and He’s going to turn godlessness away from Jacob.” Did Paul make a mistake? What do you think? Do you really think he made a mistake in reversing the order, or was he instead, establishing the Christ-centered nature of Israel’s future? The heavenly nature. And you know what the future holds for Jerusalem. It says in Revelation 21, “Behold I saw the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven like a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband.” That’s where Jerusalem is, “The Jerusalem that’s below is a slave,” says Paul in Galatians 4, “But the Jerusalem that’s above, she’s our mother and she gives birth to spiritual children.” So the Deliverer comes from Zion.

III. Removing the Godlessness of Jacob

What about the second phrase? “He will turn godlessness away from Jacob.” Isaiah 59:20, if you look there right on the page, said, “He’s going to come to those in Jacob who repent of their sins.” Jews for Judaism says basically what’s going to happen is the Messiah is going to wait in heaven until the Jews finally… To paraphrase what they say, Get their act together and start obeying the law. And once they finally and completely obey the law of Moses, then almost as a reward, they get their Messiah. Oh, how repugnant is that? And how wrong-headed? Will it ever happen friends? If we waited for 10 millennia, would they ever perfectly obey the law of Moses? Paul already established in Romans 3, that it was impossible. But Isaiah 59 says it very plainly. Look at Isaiah 59, you’ll see how consistent Paul is here.

Right at the very beginning, verse 1, “Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save nor His ear too dull hear, but your iniquities have separated you from your God. Your sins have hidden His face from you so that He will not hear, for your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt, your lips have spoken lies, your tongue mutters wicked things. No one calls for justice, no one pleads his case with integrity, they rely on empty arguments and speak lies, they conceive trouble and give birth the evil. They hatch the eggs of vipers and spin a spider’s web, whoever eats their eggs will die. When one is broken and adder is hatched, their cobwebs are useless for clothing. They cannot cover themselves, with what they make their deeds are evil deeds, the acts of violence are in their hands.” They should sound familiar to anybody who knows Romans 3 very well, he directly quotes this. “Their feet are swift to shed blood, their feet rush into sin, they’re swift to shed innocent blood, their thoughts are evil thoughts, ruin and destruction mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.” He’s quoting that directly in Romans 3.

Do you think he doesn’t know Isaiah 59? He knows it better than any of us ever will, but he’s reading, and he said, “What is Isaiah teaching about the people of God, they are enslaved to sin.” Now, later in Isaiah 59, look at the middle of verse 15, after he goes through more and more verses of this, I’m not going to read all of it, you can read it later, but he just makes it very obvious and clear that the Jews as a nation are enslaved to sin and there’s nothing that can be done, they’re just saturated in sin, just as we are. “There’s no difference,” Paul says, “Between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Everybody’s the same, but the Jews were this way. Right in the middle of verse 15, look what it says, “The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one. He was appalled that there was no one to intervene, so His own arm worked salvation for Him and His own righteousness sustained him.” What is the perspective? God is looking down from heaven on His own people and He’s saying, “There is no Savior there, there never will be. There is no one righteous, then there’s no to Redeemer.”

So where is the Redeemer going to come from? He’s going to come from heaven, God if He’s going to save these people, he’s got to do it, He’s got to come from heaven by the power of the Spirit and He’s got to save His own people. And so “the deliverer will come from Zion, and He will turn godlessness away from Jacob.” If he doesn’t do it, it will never happen. We could be waiting for another two millennia, 10 millennia, it wouldn’t matter, they would never of themselves turn away from sin, none of us would. Friends, salvation is from the Lord. That’s what Paul’s doing here with this quote. He’s not making a mistake, he’s going to a much higher level. And he’s saying all Israel will be saved when God comes, when He moves, when the Deliverer comes from Zion, and when he turns godlessness away from Jacob, so godlessness will be turned away, and God will reign and He will rule. And the Zion that’s above, she’s going to give birth in one day to a whole nation of people.

Look at Isaiah 66 and we’ll finish there. Isaiah 66 talks about this, and this is the language I think Paul was using in Galatians 4. Isaiah 66:7, “Before she goes into labor, she gives birth, before the pains come upon her, she delivers a son. Who has ever heard of such a thing? Who has ever seen such things? Can a country be born in a day? Or a nation be brought forth in a moment yet, no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children.” Do you see that? If you take that together with Galatians 4, the heavenly Zion is going to give birth to a nation at once. Now, what is that but the salvation of the Jews? What could that be but that God is going to take that spirit of stupor, that hardness away and in one day, so to speak, they will turn to their own Messiah. A nation will be born in a moment. That’s revival friends, that’s the pouring out of the Holy Spirit of God. Does God have that kind of power? Does He have the kind of power to save a whole nation in an incredibly short amount of time, like a day? Yes, He can do it. No sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children.

Verse 9, “‘Do I bring to the moment of birth and not give delivery?’ Says the Lord. ‘Do I close up the womb when I bring to delivery?’ Says your God. Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her all you who love her. Rejoice greatly with her, all you who mourn over her, for you will nurse and be satisfied at her comforting breasts. You will drink deeply and delight in her overflowing abundance.” This is talking about the restoration of the Jews, friends. And Zion will give birth to her children in one day, a nation will be born. Friends this is incredible. I think Isaiah is like this whole world that has to be discovered. We could go through it again and again and again, and miss all these kinds of details.

But let me tell you in summary, Paul didn’t make a mistake. Our friends at Jews for Judaism, let’s sit down and talk. Let’s see if Paul really did understand the message of Isaiah 59. The message is you can’t save yourself, you never will. None of us will, none of us can, but the Deliverer comes from Zion, from heaven, by the power of the Spirit of God, and He, by His sovereign power turns godlessness away from Jacob.

IV. Application

Now, what application do we take from this? First of all, just be in awe at the Scripture, just realize there’s more there than you thought there was. Never imagine, when you come to a contradiction that there was something wrong in Paul’s mind, and if only he knew what we know today he wouldn’t have made that mistake. Heaven forbid, he knew exactly what he was talking about. What he was doing is he was establishing the sovereignty of God over salvation. And so, therefore, secondly, as you’re praying for yourself, and you want your own forms of godlessness to be turned away, you’ve come to the right Savior. That’s what the Redeemer comes to do. And so when you say, “Lord turn me away from anything that’s ungodly,” He has the power to do it, that’s exactly the work He’s doing all over the world, He has power over our own hearts, power over sin.

And again, be faithful and praying for the Jews. Pray for the day when these things will be completed, when these things will be fulfilled. You say, “Well what’s the purpose in praying for things that God said He’s going to do anyway? I want to pray for unpredictable things, I want to pray for things He hasn’t said He’s going to do.” Listen, let’s pray for what He said He’s going to do. Jesus did that and the high priest in prayer, “Father, You gave them to me to save them, and I’ll save them.” There is no question that we should be praying for what God has promised He will do. Let’s pray that all Israel will be saved. And then let’s be active in Evangelism toward them. Let’s see if we can seek out Jewish friends, neighbors, and others, and say, “Don’t you want to be part of it? Well, I’m looking forward to sitting down at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Aren’t you jealous yet? I’ll keep talking till you all. I want to talk until you just want to be there through faith in Christ.

Close in prayer with me if you will. Father, we thank you for the depth of your Word, we thank you that we can be totally confident that there are no errors in the Scripture. We thank you that Paul chose to quote Isaiah 59, the way he did.