to invite you to take your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 9, Romans chapter 9, the opening five verses. Romans chapter 9. Romans chapter 9, beginning with verse 1, reading through verse 5, Paul by the Spirit writes, I'm speaking the truth in Christ. I'm not lying. My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. Now, everybody agrees that Romans 9 through 11 begins a new section in Romans, but not all agree as to its primary purpose. Let me kind of back up to where we've been to this point in Romans that I think will shed some further light on this matter. You remember that Paul introduced the theme of this letter, the gospel, in Romans 1, 16 and 17. It's the key verses of Romans. He said, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God and the salvation for everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in it, that is in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith on the principle of faith alone, and it applies to everyone who in fact believes the gospel, For as the scripture says, the just shall live by faith. Now that's the focus of Romans. That's the key text of Romans that Paul is going to unpack in this letter. But in order for us to see the need of this gospel, Paul has to deal with human depravity. And so he goes into that first major section of Romans dealing with Total depravity, radical human depravity, first Gentile depravity at the end of chapter one, then Jewish depravity and universal depravity as we make our way through Romans 3.20. All our sinners all need the Savior, all need Jesus Christ. All need this gospel. And then Paul picks up the theme of the gospel. Again, in Romans 3, 21 through 31, he fleshes it out in greater detail. And then in Romans 4, he showed us that God has always had but one way of salvation. God has historically justified his people through faith alone in Christ, as he was promised under the old covenant, and as he has now come under the new covenant. And Paul showed us at the beginning of Romans 4 that both Abraham and David are evidence of what happens when people put their faith in the promise of God under the old covenant or as we look back now and the fulfillment of all that God had promised in Jesus Christ as we put our faith in the Savior who has now come. What happens is the righteousness of Jesus Christ is credited or imputed to the account of that believing sinner and their many sins are forgiven for Christ's sake. And Paul established that from the Old Testament scriptures. Now, in the last several months, we've been looking at the next major section of Romans, which is Romans 5 through 8. And the primary theme of that passage is that those whom God has justified, he will bring to the finality of salvation. The certainty of your final salvation was the great theme of Romans 5 through 8. Paul has been aiming to strengthen true Christian assurance in those chapters. In recent weeks, we've taken a close look at that magisterial chapter of Romans 8. Some Christians think it's the greatest chapter in the Bible. It's certainly in the running for the greatest chapter of the Bible. It began, you remember, with no condemnation and it ends with no separation. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And then at the end of the chapter, there's no separation from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Some might think that that would be a good time to move to the application of the gospel, what Paul will in fact do in Romans 12 through 16. But he doesn't. He instead gives us this section that we begin now of Romans 9 through 11. And if you read through these chapters, it's clear that Paul is dealing with an apologetic concern likely raised by what he taught us in Romans 5 through 8, especially in chapter 8. He has shown us the absolute certainty of the Christian's final salvation. But perhaps Paul now anticipates a question among some of God's people. And Thomas Schreiner put it this way, if God's promises to Israel have not come to fruition, then how can one be sure that the great promises made to the church in Romans 8 will be fulfilled? Well, Romans 9 through 11 deals with the plan of God in human history involving Israel and the Gentiles. And he deals with an important apologetic concern in these chapters. If salvation is from the Jews, as Jesus said that it was, and it is from the Jews because Christ comes from the womb of Israel. How is it that the majority of the Jewish people minus a sliver of the people, the faithful believing remnant, but why is it that the nation at large rejected their own Messiah? As John put it so aptly in the prologue of his gospel, he came to his own and his own received him not. They refused to welcome him. That's the apologetic concern. Now, as Paul addresses that in Romans 9 through 11, it's clearly more than an intellectual exercise for this man. I mean, he expresses at the beginning of chapter 9 deep sorrow at the unbelief of so many of his fellow Jews given their great privileges. And when we come to the beginning of chapter 10, we will consider again the deep desire of the apostle for the salvation of his kinsmen according to the flesh. And then when we come to chapter 11, he's going to tell us a divine mystery. And that divine mystery, I believe, that he's telling us in chapter 11 is that God's rejection of national Israel is not final. Paul's not a dispensationalist. He believes in but one people of God. There is one covenant olive tree. And all believers are grafted into that tree or in that tree. as natural branches as the Jews were, or wild olive branches as the Gentiles are, but there is but one people of God. But I believe what Paul is teaching in that chapter is that there is going to be the biggest revival that this world has ever seen, and it's yet in front of us, and it's going to take place after the fullness of the Gentiles have been brought in, and then the fullness of the Jews will be brought in, and it will be as if Israel has been restored. It won't be a sliver anymore of Jews who believe. and then, and very shortly after that, the Lord will return. Well, we'll deal with that when we get to chapter 11, but what this section teaches us, among other things, is to pray for the conversion of the Jews, and not to neglect the evangelism of the Jews. I mean, ethnic Israel is not excluded from the Great Commission, is it? Now, what is Paul's great concern in these chapters? First, what it is not. Some might argue that it is the doctrine of election. And it's true that if you want to understand the doctrine of election, you can't do better than study this part of Romans. And it has led many A Christian from being a committed Arminian to being a committed reformed Christian in terms of how they understand the doctrine of salvation. It was Romans 9 that turned R.C. Sproul, a young R.C. Sproul, from an Arminian to a Calvinist. And it has done it with a lot of people. And yet, this is not the primary purpose of this section. It certainly is brought out in this section, but that's not the primary purpose. Some might argue that the great concern is to give us God's view of history, and it's true that we do get a glimpse of of God's plan for redemptive history that involves the Jews and how it intersects with the Gentiles and how it will ricochet to the Jews and then back to the Gentiles again. We're going to see that in chapter 11. One of the interesting things is that many historians who teach at the university, they simply don't understand their own subject. They don't understand what history is all about. And Romans 9 through 11 clearly shows us that history is the scaffolding that God is using to build his church. And we're going to see the redemptive plan of God very clearly spelled out in these chapters. And yet, that's not the primary purpose. That's not the primary focus of Paul. Paul's primary concern is to underscore the faithfulness of God. Romans 9.6 really sets the stage for understanding these chapters. Look at Romans 9.6 with me. But it is not as though the word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. Now at the beginning of Romans 11, Paul will remind us that God has always been faithful, has always been faithful to save the elect from ethnic Israel, the faithful remnant. God was not failing in Paul's day. I mean, after all, Paul was Jewish. And Paul will remind us that even in the darkest days of Old Covenant history, in the days of Elijah, when he thought he alone was left, God said, no, that's not so. I've reserved 7,000 who've not bowed the knee to Baal. And so God was saving out of the elect nation, his elect unto salvation in every generation. The nation was elect, but that didn't mean that every Jew was. elected unto personal salvation. Paul will make that point already in Romans chapter 9. We have a defense of the faithfulness of God in these chapters that we're going to be looking at in weeks to come, and further help to trust in our sovereign God. Now, as we look at our passage today, verses 1 through 5, I'm going to borrow the headings of Rob Ventura. He outlines it this way. The pain Paul endured, verses one through three. The privileges Israel enjoyed, verses four and five. Pain and privilege, we're gonna consider that today. First, the pain that Paul endured. Would you follow along again as I read verses one through three? I am speaking the truth in Christ. I'm not lying. My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh." Now, the timing of these words is striking. Last week and the weeks before that, we were on the mountaintop. We were in Romans 8, arguably the highest peak in the Bible, a kind of mount of transfiguration-like chapter. We were experiencing the joy with Paul of what he intended that we would experience by being on that mountaintop with him. And now we are in Romans 9, and we aren't on the mountaintop anymore. We have descended into the valley. We have come off, as it were, the Mount of Transfiguration. We have come down below into the world that is full of sin and full of evil, where demonic powers are at work. And Paul expresses his great sorrow as he thinks of Satan blinding the hearts of his kinsmen according to the flesh, as Satan blinds them to the truth. Great joy in Romans 8, great sorrow as we begin Romans 9. Is there an application in this for us? And I think there is. It's the word that Julie Pizzino focused on in her eulogy of her husband Randy at the memorial service last March. She talked about his favorite word in the pulpit, or one of his favorite words, the tension word, or as they called it in their family, the T word. because Pastor Pezzino oftentimes talked about tensions in the Bible, tensions in the Christian life. And Julie very briefly illustrated some of those tensions in the Bible, the absolute sovereignty of God and yet human responsibility, both of those things simultaneously being true. That means that we hold these truths with the tension that exists between them. They're both simultaneously true. We don't have to reconcile them because you don't have to reconcile friends, but yet our little puny minds cannot comprehend such things. That's tension there, isn't there? And then there's the tension when it comes to eschatology, when you read in the New Testament about the already and yet the not yet of eschatology. There's a tension there. And then she talked about tension in personal experience, the tension that Christians experience internally. And she gave her husband as an example of that three bouts with clinical depression, even to the point of having to be hospitalized, and yet, on the other hand, being the most joyous, happy Christian she had ever known in her life. Tension. That's what life is like for us in this world. Randy doesn't have that personal tension anymore. He's at rest, but we're still living in a world where we can expect personal tension in our life. It's not odd, it's not strange to go from the mountaintop to the valley and go from that mountaintop to the valley like that in just one verse of scripture or just one moment of time. That's not unusual. Nothing is unusual if that's happening to you right now. You shouldn't think that's strange. Joy and tears go together in this life. Now, Paul declares some things in the opening verses of Romans 9 as he turns to Jewish unbelief. He emphatically declares what he's about to say is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Look at verse 1. I'm speaking the truth in Christ. I'm not lying. My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit. Now Paul, on some occasions, emphasizes his truthfulness when men may think to question it. I could give you a number of passages where he does that. Look on your own, 2 Corinthians 11, 31, chapter 12, verse 6, Galatians 1, 20, 1 Timothy 2, 7 as an example of that. But in our text today, Paul is especially emphatic about his personal veracity or his personal truthfulness. He comes at it from three directions. Positively, he says, I am speaking the truth in Christ. In other words, I am speaking as a Christian man ought to always speak. That is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. You remember what Paul said to us when he talked about Christian sanctification? He said, the first thing I've got to talk to you about living the Christian life, before I talk to you about anything else, is the veracity of truth. the importance of telling the truth. The first thing he tells us in the living of the Christian life in Ephesians 4.25 is to put off all falsehood that belongs to who you used to be in Adam and speak the truth one to another because that accords with who you are now in Christ Jesus. And what he's saying here is I am speaking right now As a Christian man ought to speak, I'm speaking the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And yet he's not content to leave it at that. He comes at it negatively. He says, I'm not lying. But even that's not enough. He makes a final appeal to his conscience, supported by the Holy Spirit. He says, my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit. Now the strength of that language is suggestive of the slander he had endured. He had been treated by his fellow Jews as if he were a Benedict Arnold, as if he were a traitor to his own people, as if he had thrown the law of God and the Jewish nation under the bus, as if he had introduced a new religion, as he has preached the gospel to the Gentile peoples of the earth. And I suspect that even some of the Jews suggested that he was preaching replacement theology because he was calling Gentiles the Israel of God. spiritual Israel. But Paul wasn't teaching replacement theology at all, and we're going to see that when we get to chapter 11. He was teaching fulfillment theology, but he was being slandered. And what we are going to see as we move through this section, that Paul spoke the truth and sometimes hard truth. We have already seen that as he spoke truth that wasn't exactly complementary of the Jewish people in Romans 2. He fingered their depravity, their sin, and he does that in other places in his letters. And he will speak some more hard language in what we're going to look at in weeks to come of unbelieving ethnic Israel. But here's the point that we are seeing right out of the gate in this section is he spoke the truth in love. Isn't Paul a model for us? Because we live in a culture, we live in a society where Christians are being slandered. If you stand for the Bible, you're going to be accused of basically hate crimes. And so what should be our response to a culture like that? Well, to speak the truth, but not in anger, but to speak the truth in love. It's so much easier for people to receive the truth if they know that you love them. Paul's a model of that. May God help us. Now, the truth he emphatically declares concerns his great sorrow over Jewish unbelief. Look at verses two and three. That I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. He tells us his sorrow is great and continual in verse two. as it concerns the Jewish people. And then he expresses a Moses-like wish in verse 3. Moses spoke like this, and he prayed this in Exodus 32, 32, where he prays this in the wake of that apostasy of the golden calf episode when Israel had sinned so greatly in that apostasy. He prayed this, but now if you will forgive their sin, and then there's a dash, but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written. There's a dash in the English translation because that's where Moses was so broken up he couldn't continue to pray. He was crying too hard. That's why there's a dash there. Then he regained his composure and he completed that petition. You get that from Paul here in verse 3, don't you? The same kind of longing for these people. James Boyce writes, well, let me read verse 3, ''For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.'' James Boyce writes, ''It is true, that Paul knows he cannot actually be separated from Christ. That is what the previous chapter has proclaimed so forcefully. Paul's words in chapter nine are only hypothetical, but they are genuine nevertheless, for he is saying that if it were possible, he could wish himself accursed from Christ if only his condemnation could achieve the salvation of the people he so fervently loved. Now, how does that apply to us? Well, James Boyce applies it to us with five thought-provoking questions. First, do you anguish over others? And he follows up that question by saying, do you sorrow for those who do not know Jesus Christ and who are therefore perishing without him? I'm afraid that most of us do not. Why is that? It's probably because we do not believe that they are perishing. Because we do not believe the gospel. Probably it is because we are not very much, excuse me, he's asking questions here. Is it because we do not believe they are perishing? Because we do not believe the gospel. Probably it is because we are not very much like Jesus Christ. Do not spend much time with him and do not think of spiritual things much at all. And then he asked the question, do you anguish over those closest to you, members of your own family, like Paul? Third question, do you anguish over those who are your enemies? Fourth question, do you anguish over those who are great sinners? Fifth question, do you anguish over those who have great privileges? And then he says this, Paul was a great preacher of election. He will preach it again even in these verses, but his knowledge of the need for the electing grace of God and salvation did not prohibit him from sorrowing over those who were lost. I commend the heart of the great apostle to you. Let the sins of others grieve you. Let the fate that hangs over them like the sword of Democles be often on your mind. For if it is, you will work for their salvation in exactly the same proportion, and you will speak often of Jesus, who actually was accursed for those who should afterward believe on him." Well, the pain that Paul experienced, the privileges that Israel enjoyed, look at verses four and five. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. Now, what we have is a litany of privileges that lead on to the climax, which is the greatest privilege of all, the coming of the promise Christ, who is the God-man, and thus able to save sinners to the uttermost. Now, the privileges that ethnic Israel was given, they all, in some way, preach Christ. One of the ways that the privileges of verse four have been divided is by the sound of the Greek words. There are six privileges enumerated in verse four. There are more in verse five, but the six in verse four are in sets that rhyme with each other. So that if you could read the Greek, you would see that Paul is helping people to make connections here with the sounds of the words. It doesn't come out in our English text, but they align with each other, the words that rhyme. He seems to want us to link them together. And so I'm going to link them together for you. The first Greek word. Adoption lines up with the fourth Greek word, the giving of the law. And this goes back to the Exodus when God redeemed Israel as his son. You can see that in Exodus 4.22, one of the passages of the Old Testament. And the law was given to them at Sinai. Paul talks about the law or the Torah. He means more than the Ten Commandments. He means more than the legislation that God gave to Israel while they were camped at Mount Sinai. That word Torah can refer to the entirety of the Old Testament. And Paul had talked about that great advantage that the Jews had over the Gentiles when we were in Romans 3-2. They were given the oracles of God. They were given God's revelation. They were given the Bible. And that's how come in every generation there were always true believers in Israel. They had the word of God. They had that which could make one wise unto salvation. The Gentiles didn't have that, but the Jews did. And that's how come the saints were almost exclusively found in Israel. And that's the benefit that the Jews had until Christ came. And that's a great privilege. It's a great privilege for us today, not only to have the Old Testament, but to have a completed Bible. This is a great treasure. This is a great privilege. And the question is, do you view this as a great privilege? Do you view this as a great treasure? I remember talking to a relative of mine. It was at an extended family get-together at Christmastime. I mean, a big family get-together. And this individual, I believe, was the only non-Christian in a very large family. And I remember with sadness, as she recalled one of her bitter memories of childhood, she said, can you believe it? One Christmas, they gave me a Bible. And she was disgusted by that. And I thought, oh, what a tragedy to be given such treasure and treated as if it were rubbish. May no one in this room be guilty of that. How sad to be given treasure and not profit from it. The second Greek word, glory, lines up with the fifth Greek word, the worship. The word glory is a word associated with the presence of God amidst his people. It first appears in the Exodus event. You remember that glory cloud? representing the presence of God among his people. You remember that initially it separated the Egyptians who were in the dark from the Israelites who were in the light. And you remember later that same Shekinah glory cloud would fill the tabernacle and then later the temple. And you remember that the Shekinah glory would be a permanent thing over the Ark of the Covenant. symbolizing the presence of God in the midst of the camp of Israel. The true and living God dwelt in Israel and was at the heart of her worship. When Paul uses the word worship, He means everything associated with the tabernacle and later the temple worship, the worship of the true and the living God had been given to the Jews, revealed to the Jews. They were taught in the Bible. They were taught. through the faithful teaching of faithful priests and through the prophets that God sent to them, of the gravity of sin, of the only way that they could approach such a holy God, namely through the blood atonement which preached and prophesied Christ, If God spoke the gospel in advance to Abraham, as Paul says in Galatians 3.8, then surely God preached the gospel in spades to Israel through the gospel symbolized and proclaimed by the temple worship. What advantages to have the presence of God in your camp when the Gentile world was without God and without hope in the world? What advantages? to have the worship revealed by God himself to the old covenant Jew. They may not have had as much light as you and I had, but they had light enough to come to a knowledge of salvation. They had light enough to maintain and to nourish piety in the lives of the saints who lived amongst them in every generation. What privileges were given to them. The third Greek word translated, the covenants, lines up with the sixth word, the promises. The covenants that Paul has in mind is first the covenant of promise with Abraham. And by the way, the other covenants that follow, given to Israel, do not come into conflict with the covenant of promise that God made to Abraham. They come like tributaries into an existing river that deepen it and widen it. and help us to better understand the covenant of promise. And I'm thinking about the Mosaic Covenant and I'm thinking about the Davidic Covenant. The Jews were given this great treasure and then they were not only given the covenants, they were given the promises of God to send the Christ or the Messiah What great privileges. The Gentile nations of the earth had none of those privileges. They were consequently people without hope and without God in the world. But God obviously, and thank God for this, never intended for that to be permanent. You remember in the calling of Abraham, God made it clear at the very beginning that in your seed, Abraham, that is in the Christ that will come from the loins of your own body, all nations will be blessed. My plan is ultimately for salvation which is from the Jews to bless the Gentile nations of the earth. What great privileges. Even in the promise of the Messiah, there were many promises throughout the Old Testament that he would not be the savior of Jews alone. These are great privileges. In the eyes of the Holy Spirit, they are so great, these spiritual privileges, that all other privileges in this world are as nothing compared to these spiritual privileges that all culminate and climax with Christ himself. Now, we're not going to deny that there are privileges that God gives to people who are not Christians and in Before Christ came, we're not denying that God gave privileges to the Gentiles. God gave many privileges in the ancient world. He gives many privileges to people today who are not Christians. When I begin to think about this life-only privileges, I sometimes think about education. I think about educational institutions and the privilege of education. And if you want to look at who got the most privilege in the world of antiquity in terms of academic privileges and opportunity, well, you wouldn't go to Israel for that. You'd go to Greece for that. The Greeks got that privilege. All the Jews, they had educational opportunities, but the Greeks had more. And yet God is saying in his word that that pales into comparison to what I gave to the Jews. You begin to think about privileges in this world. Sometimes you think about the privilege of living in a free market economy where you can earn wealth, and you can engage in trade, and you can become, even if you're a poor boy in this world, you can become a rich man if you apply yourself. And if you begin to think about those kind of privileges, you wouldn't look to Israel as being first on the list. You would look to Tyre and Sidon in the ancient world. They were the filthy rich of the ancient world. They were the ones that were making all the money. And yet God says in his word that as I've given those privileges to Tyre and Sidon, they are as nothing compared to what I gave to my people. Or you can sometimes think about privileges in terms of living in a nation that is somewhat secure from the threat of a foreign invasion because that nation has a superpower and has a mighty standing army. And if you're going to look at who I had that privilege. Well, in the ancient world, you would have to say it was Rome. Rome was the greatest superpower that ever lived on planet Earth. They had the mightiest army of the world of antiquity, and yet God is saying that the privileges I gave to my people are so great, it's as if I gave Rome nothing. These are great privileges that we're looking at. And these privileges lead to and climax with the greatest privilege, the promised Christ who came. Look at verse five. To them belongs the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. Paul adds a seventh privilege in verse 5a when he says, of Israel, to them belong the patriarchs, and I believe he means more than Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I think he's using this word in its most elastic sense, and he is thinking about all the godly leaders and prophets that God gave to Israel throughout our history. What a great privilege to be from a people that had such wonderful examples of true faith and piety. and made such a great contribution to the nation. What a great privilege to have godly people in your pedigree and people who modeled faith and piety. The Gentiles had no such privileges. They had no godly ancestors. So I can tell you this, that my ancestors, before the gospel came to the Netherlands, And I've read about it. They were worshiping the false gods of Thor and Woden. They were offering their children and sacrifice in the fire to demons. That's what the Bible teaches. They had no examples of faith. They had no examples of piety. Only when the gospel came to places like the Netherlands, which by the way means lowlands because some of it is even below sea level, that's how low the Dutch were, were the Dutch people able to find any like blessing that the ancient Jew knew. And by the way, your ancestors weren't any better. But the greatest privilege Israel was given is that the promised Christ came to them. Look at verse five again. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. According to the flesh, he is A man with Jewish blood in his veins, but he's no mere man, he is God incarnate in human flesh. Paul says, who is God over all, blessed forever, amen. And that's exactly how the Greek text reads, and that's how it ought to be translated, and that's how it is translated in every major translation except one. This is the way that it's translated by the King James, the New King James, the NIV, the New America Standard, the English Standard Version, the Christian Standard Bible. The only translation that differs is the Revised Standard Version. They follow the Dutch humanist Erasmus in how they translate the end of verse 5. The original, by the way, does not have punctuation marks, so the RSV has supplied them in the wrong places. The RSV reads, to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ. And then they put a period there, and then they begin a new sentence. God who is over all be blessed forever. Amen. So rather than referring to Christ as God over all, bless forever, they make a new sentence and they make it to refer to God the Father. This is a serious error and blunder. And I got stuff in my notes that if I gave it to you, I just have the deer in the headlights look. So I won't give it all to you, but there are many arguments as to why the RSV is in error. And I remind you that all the other translations have agreed with the ESV. They got it right. It's referring to Christ as God overall. But the first reason, I will give you the first reason, The word order involving relative pronouns followed by nouns in the Greek grammar require that we understand Paul to be speaking about Christ as God and not God the Father as the RSV does. And thus what Paul is doing here in this passage is what he did at the very beginning of this epistle in Romans 1, 3, and 4 by reminding us that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Yes, he is a man descended from David, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, but he is also the eternal Son of God incarnate in human flesh, one glorious Lord. That's who he is. That's why he can save. Everything that Paul said about the privileges of ancient Israel until verse 5b would have gotten an amen from the Jews. Everything that he has said in chapter, in verse four and the first item, the patriarchs of verse five would have gotten an amen from the Jews. They would have been the amen corner. Yes, Paul, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen. And then he says, The point of it all is Jesus Christ, Jesus the Christ, who is God over all, and that they could not say amen to. That's how come Paul cries a river of tears over these people. They missed the point of it all. All of these privileges are meant to lead us to Jesus Christ, the God-man who alone can save us. By the way, there are people who foolishly assert that Paul never called Jesus God. He's calling Jesus God here in this text and he does it elsewhere too. Read on your own Titus 2.13 or how about this from Acts 20 verse 28. where he says to the elders of Ephesus, be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. The church of God was purchased by the blood of the God-man. The life he lived, the blood he shed, It's enough to save the vilest sinner and save him or her to the uttermost because of who he is and what he has done. And I ask the question, are you trusting in him? It's the point of all spiritual privileges to bring us to him so that our hearts would close with him. And if you can say, I am trusting in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone for my salvation, well, then God be praised. May God be praised. But if you are not, We implore you to be reconciled to God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you realize what great privileges that God has given to every one of us in this room? We have even greater privileges than were given to the ancient Jew. We have a completed Bible. We have the history of the church and the working of God throughout church history. We've been given wonderful blessings throughout the length and breadth of church history. We have those great creeds. We have those great confessions. We have the great example of piety among true Christian people throughout the centuries and many other blessings. Do you realize to have all of those privileges and blessings and yet to perish? at last because of unbelief is about the most tragic thing that I can think of or even imagine. Let me put it this way, to have none of these privileges and yet perish in your sin would be like a man who perishes in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean without a ship in sight. But that couldn't be true of anybody in this room. To perish in your sin with all the privileges that God has given to you would be like the man who perished in the Atlantic Ocean when you were but 10 feet from shore. So near deliverance, so near salvation. May it not be. Value these privileges, and if you have not called upon the name of the Lord in true faith, may this be the day that you call upon his name. The Bible says that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord in true, desperate, saving faith will be saved. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for this text that we've considered today. We thank you for the heart of your apostle. We pray that you would work more of that heart in our own lives. We pray for the working of your spirit to that end. We also want to thank you for the great privileges that have been ours, and we pray, Father, that we would avail ourselves of those privileges, that we would be in your word, that we would profit from your word, that we would profit from the Lord's Day public worship services, and that you would prosper our souls. And we pray, Father, that your blessings would be given In a saving way to everyone in this room, we pray for the mighty working of your spirit. Use this message today for the advancement of your kingdom. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. The contemporary hymn by Faith. Well, let's turn to that copy that was