We began to look at What Is The Christian Walk that pleases God? Most Christians answer this question in whatever way they want. But we want to know what God and Paul say about the true Christian walk.

We saw that in Rom. 5-6 God reveals the amazing salvation He has provided to sinners by grace through faith. In Rom. 5, we see God's super-abounding Love join hands with His super-abounding Grace that resulted in making believers a new creation in Christ, whereby everything that belongs to Christ belongs to us! Then in Rom. 6 we learn that God placed us into Christ, identifying us with His Death, Burial and Resurrection, which freed us from the power of Sin and Death and joined us to Righteousness and Life. Now, finally, we can serve God! Now we can be His instruments of Righteousness! We are wanting and willing and ready to “do” God's will!!!

But then in Rom. 7, Paul says: STOP!! WE CAN'T DO IT! He hits the brakes, everything comes to a screeching halt, and we are placed into suspended animation while Paul explains the impossibility of “doing” God's things ourselves. Using himself as an example, Paul demonstrates what happened when his “I” tried to do God's things. He was wanting and willing and ready to “do” God's things, but when he tried, he discovered that not only was he unable to “do” them, he instead “did” the very opposite of what he wanted to do, leading him to cry out: Oh, wretched man I am? Who will deliver me from the body of this death (Rom. 7:18-24)? Paul's “I” had no power over sin, and neither does ours.

But thanks be to God, we are delivered from the body of this death through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. 7:25). We learn in Rom. 8 that while “I” cannot “do” God's things, the indwelling Holy Spirit can “do” God's things, and when He works in and through us, that is called: THE CHRISTIAN WALK THAT PLEASES GOD.

We could go on like this all day. But I think you get the point. The Christian walk and service that pleases God is not us doing things, it is us rejoicing in what God is doing in Christ. You see, a Law/Works/Flesh System puts the cart before the horse. It commands you to do things for God but gives you no resources or power to do them. In Rom. 7, Paul dramatizes this for us so that we don't fall into this trap. Paul (and the Jews and any foolish Gentile who have been bewitched into thinking they are under the Law (Gal. 3:1)) thought that he would use the Law to restrain sin and do things for God. But what actually happened is that Sin wrestled the Law away from Paul and then used it to take Paul captive, bringing him under guilt, condemnation and death (in his Christian walk and service). Paul thought he was the Terminator when, in fact, he was really just Barney Fife!

A Grace/Faith/Spirit System, on the other hand, brings believers into all the things that God has done in Christ, giving them free access to His Riches (Rom. 5:1-2) and all spiritual blessings in heavenly places (Eph. 1:3), freely and upfront by grace through faith. When we are looking at Christ and His Cross, seeing all the wonderful things God has done for us there, awestruck at His love displayed there, which the Holy Spirit takes and overflows our hearts with, re-creating our hearts so that God can work in and through us to do His good pleasure, giving us access all the riches of His grace and all the spiritual blessings we have in Christ, praising and worshipping and talking to Him about them in never ending stream of thankfulness and joy, then, and only then, God “beseeches” us, asks us earnestly, to now, in the light of all of this, take a step or two, start walking, start serving God by serving others the way Christ served when He, who even though He was absolute God, descended from His heavenly abode—made Himself of not reputation, became a servant, humbled Himself, and was obedient unto death even the death of the Cross—in selfless love to benefit and build up others in God's things. And when you “do” this, which is really not “doing” anything at all by relying on what God has done, you have this guarantee: Any walk and any service motivated and powered in this way will always, ALWAYS, be well-pleasing and acceptable to God!

The Christian walk and service is not an odious list of dos and don'ts, which always leads to disappointment and defeat. The true Christian walk and service is nothing more than the looking at Christ and His Cross and the infinite Love of God displayed there, and THANKING God for it. REJOICING in it. BASKING in it. CELEBRATING it. LUXURIATING in it. WALLOWING in it. DELIGHTING in it. RELISHING it. SAVORING it ... more and more and more. That is true, victorious Christian Living!

And this I pray, that your (Agape) love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; 10 that ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ; 11 being filled (by God) with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God.
(Phil. 1:9-11)

Last night we looked at the futility of trying to live out the Christian Life under a Law/Works/Flesh System. That was the mistake that the Galatians made, and Paul described them as:

Oh, foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been evidently set forth, crucified among you? ... Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law? Or by the hearing of Faith? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?
(Gal. 3:1-3)

And in Rom. 7, Paul uses himself as an example of the futility of doing this as well.

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We looked at four basic laws, fixed principles with regard to the believer's walk and service. These are laws like the laws of science, such as, the Law of Gravity or the Law of Thermodynamics or the Law of Aerodynamics. Well, there are similar fixed laws when it comes to Christian living: The Law of the Renewed Mind, The Law of Indwelling Sin, the Law of Sin that leads to death and the Law of the Spirit that leads to Life in Christ Jesus. Let's look at our spiritual laws from the standpoint of the laws of science.

Imagine a plane idling on a runway. The pilot receives notice from headquarters that he is approved for take-off. Now, what would you think about a pilot who got out of the plane, went down on the runway, got underneath the plane and start pushing up with all his might to overpower the Law of Gravity to raise the plane off the ground? You would probably think the same thing Paul thought about the Galatians: Oh, foolish pilot, who has cast a spell over you to do something so ridiculous? The only thing that will come of this is an exhausted pilot sprawled out on the tarmac, gasping for air, completely defeated and in despairing.

Well, this is like what happens when believers try to walk and serve God based on their own resources and power in their flesh. As believers, they are spiritually alive and can now receive the spiritual things of God, but they have no power in themselves to carry them out (Rom. 7:18). This is the Law of the Renewed Mind. What Paul discovered is that when he tried to accomplish the Christian walk through his flesh in accord with a Law System, he was confronted by indwelling sin, which wrestled him to the ground, tied him up and took him captive. No matter what he did on his own, he couldn't find a way to change this outcome. What he learned is that the Law of the Renewed Mind is powerless against the Law of Indwelling Sin. He was like the pilot in our example, who received the instructions from headquarters (God) and tried to carry them out by his own resources and power, resulting in an exhausted, defeated, despairing Paul crying out: Oh, wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death (Rom. 7:24).

Believers need to learn what every pilot knows about flying a plane. The answer is not for the pilot to try to overcome the Law of Gravity through his own inadequate power. The answer is for the pilot to resort to another law, the Law of Aerodynamics, which can easily overpower the Law of Gravity that was holding the plane down. And the key to the Christian walk is not for believers to try to overcome the Law of Indwelling Sin through their own completely inadequate resources and power. That will always result in defeat. The key to the Christian walk is to, like the pilot, rely on a another more powerful law. The pilot did this by resorting to the Law of Aerodynamics, and believers do this by resorting to the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus, which is infinitely more powerful than the Law of Sin and Death (Rom. 8:2).

There is only one way to resort to the Law of the Spirit in Life in Christ Jesus. Paul explained this way to the Galatians: They must return to the fundamental truth of Jesus Christ, who had been evidently (openly) set forth crucified among you (Gal. 3:1)! The only way to resort to the Law of the Spirit that leads to Life in Christ Jesus is to return our eyes to Christ and His Cross, because it is there, and only there, that we see the infinite Love of God (Agape Love) displayed, which the Holy Spirit takes and pours out in our hearts, re-creating them, generating thankfulness and rejoicing in all that we have in Christ, and empowering us to access all the riches of God in Christ ... and once we return to “doing” that, the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus supersedes, overpowers, nullifies, leaves in the dust, the Law of Sin and Death that tries to hold us down. Paul's cry “Oh, wretched man that I am becomes the thrill of: I thank God (will do it) through Christ our Lord (Rom. 7:25)!

When we resort to the Law of the Spirit in Life in Christ Jesus by grace through faith by keeping our eyes on Christ and His Cross, the “plane” of Christian living takes off, carrying us along in a walk that is separated from sin's power (sin died) and made alive by God's power, bearing fruit unto holiness (Rom. 7:4, 8-9). And this always results in peace, joy, thankfulness, VICTORY in Christ!

There is, therefore (based on justification and sanctification by grace through faith!), now NO CONDEMNATION TO THOSE WHO ARE IN CHRIST JESUS!
(Rom. 8:1)

Paul drives this point home again at the end of Rom. 8 with a series of logic statements (Rom. 8:31-34). Now that God has sent His Son to die for us as ungodly sinners on enemy status before Him, taking everything that was against us onto Himself at the Cross, everything that brought condemnation to us, and dealt with it all righteously and perfectly at there, successfully getting rid of it all, completely and once-and-for-all, ... is He going to do less for us now that we are reconciled to Him!? Is the Christ who died for us to remove our guilt and condemnation when we were sinners ... is He now going to find fault with or assign guilt against or bring condemnation upon us now that we are His saints?! If God sent Christ to remove all charges against us ... is He now going to lay a charge against us!? If God justified us (declared us right) through Christ ... is He now going to declare us wrong?! If God is for us, is He now going to come out against us?!?! The assumed answer to all of these questions is an absolute and resounding: NO!!!!

Of course, the corollary of this is that if you are “thinking” or “feeling” like you are being condemned, you need to know that IT IS NOT COMING FROM GOD! Its coming from you trying to relate to God through the self in a Law/Works/Flesh System, which, as we saw in Rom. 7 always leads to guilt, condemnation and death in our Christian walk and service. Rom. 8 explains that the answer to the Christian Life is not going to a Law System to try to improve ourselves for God through rules and regulations, resolutions or vows, to make ourselves more godly or more spiritual or more holy or more repentant or anything like that. That is what man-made religious systems say and man-centered theological systems teach, but that will always result in failure. The only answer that works, God and Paul's answer, is to continue on in a Grace/Faith/Spirit System, whereby the Spirit brings us into the Life of Christ, and that always, ALWAYS, results in a walk that pleases God, which is just another way of saying the Victorious Christian walk. In a Grace System, the Holy Spirit keeps our eyes on the Christ and His Cross and all that was accomplished there and the resources He freely gives us there, bringing us into His resurrection Life and Power, filling our hearts with Agape Love, which motives and empowers us to be God's dispensers of Grace and Peace—love, joy, peace, longsuffering, forgiveness, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, to name a few (Gal. 5:22-23)—to a lost sin-cursed world under adverse conditions, resulting in our walking in newness of life (Rom. 6:4) and serving in newness of Spirit (Rom. 7:6).

And if that isn't enough, another highlight occurred when we read this amazing, awe-inspiring, verse from Ephesians: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of HIS INHERITANCE IN THE SAINTS ... (Eph. 1:18). If we don't rightly-divide the Scriptures, if we throw away God's Mystery Truth, which is the only thing that can establish believers today (Rom. 16:25), if we reject Paul's distinct apostleship ... if we do that (and this is what most of historic Christianity has done) we will miss out one this most amazing of truths of all. We will lose God's inheritance in the saints. God's purpose for the church, the Body of Christ. Once we understand this verse in the context of the Mystery, however, we will never again be content with just thinking about our inheritance in Christ (as wonderful, amazing and astounding as that is!). We will go on to the very necessary next step of thinking about God's inheritance in us! God didn't give us His infinite riches through Christ just to make us rich for our own use. He gave us all these things in order to equip us for His use! God has a purpose unto Himself for creating the Body of Christ and equipping it with ALL SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS IN HEAVENLY PLACE IN CHIRST (Eph. 1:3). His purpose is to make us into the displayers of the Riches of His Glory (Eph. 1:18), the Riches of His Riches of Power (exceeding greatness--1:19), the Riches of His whole Being (Fulness--1:23), the Riches of His Mercy (2:4), the Riches of His Love (GREAT Love—2:4), the Riches of the Riches of His Grace and Kindness IN THE HEAVENLIES THROUGHOUT ALL ETERNITY (2:7). WOW! If that doesn't sail your ship, I don't know what would.

This is why Paul drives home the point that the Christian Life is impossible through the resources and power of the self and flesh. It must come from Christ and the Spirit because it requires the infinite and eternal resources and power of God Himself to accomplish it.

First let me mention a few things that the Holy Spirit is NOT doing today contrary to many so-called Bible teachers. He is NOT trying to re-create the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Gospels. NOR is He trying to re-create the ministry of the 12 on the Day of Pentecost in early Acts. And He is most definitely NOT trying to get you to cluck like a chicken or bark like a dog!

So, what is the Holy Spirit doing today? We began to learn about this by looking at Rom. 1:4-5 where the Holy Spirit is mentioned generally and is associated with Holiness (Sanctification), Resurrection (Life) and Power (v. 4), and it all occurs within the context of Paul's distinct apostleship (v. 5). God and Paul then take these three aspects of the Ministry of the Holy Spirit today and develops them throughout the Book of Romans, each time intimately associating them with Agape Love.

The first specific reference to the Holy Spirit occurs four long chapters later, in Romans 5, and the first thing we see the Holy Spirit doing in relation to believers is pouring out, overflowing, waterfalling Agape Love (the Love of God at the Cross of Christ) into their hearts (Rom. 5:5-8). This then immediately leads into Paul's explanation of the believer's Sanctification in Christ in Romans 6-7. After listing our new identity in Christ that sanctifies or separates us unto the Lord, Paul goes on explain that we bring this positional sanctification we have in Christ into our experience by the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus, which frees believers from the Law of Sin and Death (Rom. 8:2), which culminates in the praise song of God's infinite and eternal Agape Love for us in Rom. 8:35-39:

Who shall separate us from the (Agape) Love of Christ? Not tribulation or distress or persecution ... we are more than conquerors through Him that (Agape) Loved us ... For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, angels, principalities, power, ... (nothing!) ... shall be able to separate us from the (Agape) Love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord!

One might say that the Ministry of the Holy Spirit in bringing believers into Sanctification and Resurrection Life begins and ends with Agape Love. It flows out of Agape Love and flows into the eternal pool of Agape Love. Agape Love is the warp and woof of all the Spirit does.

The final major passage on the Holy Spirit is found in Romans 15, and it especially brings out the Power aspect of the Holy Spirit's Ministry.

Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that he may (super) abound in hope, through the Power of the Holy Spirit. I (Paul) have written you the more boldly in some sort, as putting you in mind, because of the Grace given to ME (Paul!) of God. That I (Paul) should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the Gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being Sanctified by the Holy Spirit. For I (Paul!) will not speak of any of those things which Christ has not Wrought (worked out = Power) by me (Paul!) to make the Gentiles obedient by word and deed, through mighty signs and wonders by the Power of the Spirit of God.
(Rom. 15:13-19)

Today, the Power of the Holy Spirit operates through Paul's distinct apostleship whereby the world, especially the Gentiles, can be blessed apart from Nation of Israel and through her Fall! The only place God revealed this way of blessing that is needed today is in the Paul's Letters!

Again, we see here, that the Holy Spirit's Ministry of Power and Sanctification is just as closely associated with Agape Love as were His Ministry of Sanctification and Life in Romans 5-8. This passage begins with the very definition of Love (Rom. 15:1-3 compare Phil. 2:3-4) and ends with the Agape Love on the Spirit:

Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the (Agape) Love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me (ie., Paul's apostolic ministry, in and through which the Holy Spirit powerfully working).
(Rom. 15:30)

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A great question also came up from our study last night. Someone asked: What is SANCTIFICATION. Sanctification and Holiness go together. They refer to someone or something being separated, set apart, designated for God's purposes. In the Old Testament, this is pictured when common items, such as basins and cups, would be brought into the Temple and through rites and rituals of cleansing and sanctification, they would be designated or set aside for God's holy purposes.

Today, at the moment we believe, God creates us anew and complete in Christ. This is called positional Sanctification. God has made us His Own, and now we can be used for His purpose in righteousness and life. In doing this, He gives us a new identity, whereby we are called Saints: Sanctified ones. This a work of God that occurs to all believers the moment they are saved by grace through faith. It is permanent and everlasting. It cannot be increased or diminished. It cannot be gained or lost because it is not based on who we are or what we have done, but on who Christ is and what He has done.

The good news of Rom. 8:1-2 is that this positional Sanctification isn't just to be enjoyed when we get to Heaven, in the bye-and-bye. It can be enjoyed right now in our moment-by-moment walk. God has provided a way through the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus to bring what is true of us positionally into our experience right now, down here on planet earth. Paul's describes this as “redeeming the time” unto the Lord (Eph. 5:15-16). When God works in and through us, He empowers us in our moment-by-moment lives to take the things of this world and redeem them for Himself, sanctifying them, setting them apart, using them for the Lord, which will last not just for time but for all eternity.

Here is a flowchart for the first half of Romans 8. It takes us from the amazing truth of the believer being placed into the Life of Christ in His Body, to the equally amazing truth that through the Spirit Christ's Life is in us, giving life to our mortal bodies.

The flow goes generally like this: As we appreciate the riches of our position in Christ (Rom. 8:1a), we can bring those riches into our experience by walking according to the Spirit (Rom. 8:1b). This is made possible because God has created a new law, the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:2) that powerfully overcomes the Law of Sin and Death (Rom. 8:2) because it is based on God sending His Son (Agape Love) to deal with sin righteously once-and-for-all at the Cross in a way that met the infinite demands of His Holiness (Rom. 8:3). At the Cross, God's Agape Love and God's Righteousness joined together to powerfully save all who believe. This accomplishes what the Law couldn't accomplish because it brings us into the Love and Righteousness of God Himself, making us participants in the Righteousness of God, which more than meets any righteousness that the Law called for. Therefore, we need never go back to the Law. We must only go on in Pauline Grace (Rom. 8:4). We go on in Grace by minding the things of the Spirit. The things of the Spirit are the things that God freely gives us based on Christ and His Cross. And when are taught those things by the Spirit, we have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:10-16), and when we have the mind of Christ we have the mindset of Agape Love (Phil. 2:1-8). And when we have the mindset of Agape Love the whole Triune Godhead works in and through us to produce the Christian walk and service (Rom. 8:5-9). This walk and service is always pleasing to God because it is, in fact, Christ in us, giving His Life through the Spirit to our quicken our mortal bodies.

The Spirit of Sonship is the amazing truth about the great privilege we have in the Body of Christ. When God made us His children, He didn't make us children in our minority but children in our majority. We are placed into the family of God as adult sons and daughters. This means that God did not just bring us into His family to send us off to the nursery with our nurses and tutors. Rather He brought us into His family to bring us into His own business, giving us access to His riches, making known to us His wisdom.

This is a hard doctrine for us because we don't really want God to treat us as adults, do we. We want God to treat us as little children, coddling us, telling us where to go and what to do and when to do it. We want to think that God is arranging all our circumstances, taking care of all our problems, fixing all our troubles. Of course, when this happens in the natural realm, we call it ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, and young people who enter adulthood with it, thinking their parents or someone else is going to handle all their problems and difficulties, or are under the delusion that they can escape their problems through the use alcohol or drugs; eventually must return to reality, and when they do they realize that they have not only ruined themselves, but those around them as well. They may at first be “comforted” in shirking their adult responsibilities and escaping their problems, but this isn't real comfort. It is just false comfort. It is no comfort at all.

And believers can have “spiritual” ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, and those that do are heading for same disaster, leading to ruin just as surely as arrested development in the natural realm does. They will begin to question their own faith and will ultimately question the faithfulness of God Himself. Believers with ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT think can shirk their responsibilities by handing them over to God and then use the spiritual drugs of historic Christianity to escape the scene, hoping that when they return all their problems will be solved. Of course, they never are, and the end is always worse than the beginning.

No, the leading of the Holy Spirit always leads us into our sonship position before God as adult sons and daughters in the family of God with all the privileges that entails and all the responsibilities that gives (Rom. 8:14-15). There is no place in the Christian walk for shirking our responsibilities or escaping the scene by resorting to the “spiritual” drugs of historic Christianity. Historic Christianity says doing this is spiritual maturity. But it isn't. It is just childish superstition. The Spirit leads us into spiritual maturity by placing us as adult sons and daughters in the family of God, which He reveals and teaches to us through the Scriptures of Paul, in which the Father has made known His glorious plan and purpose for today. He has made known His business plan (dispensing Grace and Peace to His enemies), His operating principle (Agape Love), His infinite provisions and empowerment (Riches of God in Christ), His end goal and purpose (the re-establishment of His Glory in the Heavenlies). In Paul's writings the Father explains that He has given us access to His riches, perfectly and completely equipping us to carry out His business down here on this sin-cursed world.

By the time we get to Romans 8 we should know (to a great degree anyway) these things. And now we have a choice to make. We can either accept the Spirit's leading that wakes us up from our sleep so that we can engage in the Father's business (Rom. 13:11-14). Or, we can reject it and continue in our slumber, dis-engaged from His business. The leading of the Holy Spirit leads us to put away childish things and the “spiritual” drugs we use to numb ourselves from the trials of life. If we allow Him to lead us, He will replace our childish things—our thoughts, desires, plans, purposes, programs, and will—with something far greater: the Father's adult things—His thoughts, desires, plans, purposes, programs, will. But if we refuse His leading, we must not delude ourselves into thinking that this is what it means to be spiritually mature when, in fact, it just means we are suffering from “spiritual” ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT from which nothing good can come.

To use some homely human metaphors, the Holy Spirit, having brought us into the Father's business plan and riches, wants to make us into distributorships of the Father's things, into franchises of the Fathers business, into satellites of His Life and Love to a lost, sin-cursed world on enemy status before Him. The Spirit doesn't promise that it will be easy or fun. But He does promise to supply the infinite resources of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, forgiveness, meekness, temperance, goodness that we need to meet any circumstance this evil world can throw into our way. And when we walk according to the Spirit and His leading, this is called redeeming the time because the days are evil (Eph. 5:16). In our step-by step walk, moment-by-moment life, we go through the troublous moments that Satan, sin and death have claimed for themselves, and re-claim them for God, Righteousness and Life.

The Christian life is not our becoming super-saints or our taking the whole world onto ourselves. Victorious Christian Living comes in bite size pieces. It enters the things sin and death has claimed for themselves and re-claims them unto God. This is the way we participate in the Glory of God right now today. Not just in the future, in the bye-and-bye, when everything will be going right, but right now in the present when everything is going wrong.

Let's look at some practical examples of redeeming the time:

1. When this evil world gives us moments of hatred and selfish pride, we can re-claim it by dispensing God's Agape Love.
2. When this evil world is inundated with darkness, we can re-claim it by shining the light of God's truth into it.
3. When the evil world gives us moments permeated with death, we can re-claim it with the Life of Christ.
4. When the problems of this evil world lead to despair, we can re-claim it with the Hope of the Glory of God and the Spirit's joy.
5. When this evil world gives us times of fighting and anxiety, we can re-claim it with God's reconciliation and peace.
6. When this evil world only offers up wrongness and meanness, we can re-claim it with the Spirit's forgiveness and kindness.
7. When this evil world is characterized by problems that never end, we can re-claim it with the Spirit's longsuffering.

And when these things happen the indwelling Spirit has led us into the Father's business, which, when received by faith, is nothing less than being FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT (Eph. 5:18)!

Now that the hard doctrine of our sonship position as adult sons and daughters in the household of God has begun to sink in, what happened to prayer? As we begin to appreciate that God's plan for believers today is not removing our problems, manipulating our circumstances, or keeping us from every adverse and negative thing (as one would with little children in a nursery), and that He is rather perfectly equipping us to walk and serve Him victoriously in the midst of problems, bad circumstances and adverse things (as one would do with adults), WHAT HAPPENS TO PRAYER?

We have been taught by most of historic Christianity that prayer is something we do at certain times, especially when problems come up, whereby we call on God to alleviate our problems, manipulate our circumstances and remove adversity from our lives, and then we are wait on God to do what we want. Historic Christianity calls this “spiritual maturity” prayer. This is what we think of as “prayer,” but is this really what biblical prayer today looks like, is this “spiritual” prayer? Is this really “spirituality” or is it just fleshly, “spiritual” arrested development?

Let's look at what Paul says when he describes prayer in general.

For God is my witness ... that WITHOUT CEASING I make mention of you ALWAYS in my prayers.
(Rom. 1:9; similar Eph. 1:16)

Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; CONTINUING STEADFASTLY in prayer.
(Rom. 12:12)

Praying ALWAYS with ALL prayer and supplication in the Spirit.
(Eph. 18)

I thank my God upon every remembrance of you ALWAYS in EVERY prayer of mine.
(Phil. 1:3)

Be anxious for nothing but in EVERYTHING by prayer and supplication.
(Phil. 4:6)

CONTINUE in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving.
(Col. 4:2)

ALWAYS laboring fervently for you in prayers.
(Col. 4:12)

We give thanks to God ALWAYS for you ALL, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering WITHOUT CEASING your work of faith ...
(1 Thess. 1:2-3)

Trust in God and CONTINUE in supplications and prayers NIGHT AND DAY.
(1 Tim. 5:5)

WITHOUT CEASING I have remembrance of you in my prayers, NIGHT AND DAY.
(2 Tim. 1:3)

I thank my God, making mention of you ALWAYS in my prayers.
(Philemon v. 4)

For Paul, prayer isn't something that happens at set times. It is not the sporadic prayer of historic Christianity, whereby we try to get God to do things for our own selfish interests. No, for Paul, prayer is the continuous, ongoing, unceasing, day and night, never ending, moment-by-moment, communion with the Father, which flows out of God getting us involved in His things so that we can share them with others. The doctrine of sonship adoption does not reduce prayer. It increases prayer, but it is a different kind of prayer than what we have been taught by historic Christianity.

So, why does it seem that we are praying less when we are really praying more? The problem is that we have been so brainwashed by wrong teaching about prayer that we don't recognize real prayer when it comes along. The prayers that flow out of our Sonship position look completely different than the prayers that flow out of the false teaching historic Christianity and human wisdom. Sonship prayer doesn't just replace what we pray about. It doesn't just replace the words and requests of our old prayers with different words and requests in our new prayers. Rather, it replaces the way we pray as well. The sporadic prayers we had used to manipulate God into doing what we want, especially in times of trouble, are replaced with the ongoing, unceasing, continuous prayers of sons and daughters in moment-by-moment communion with their Father. We are not praying less than before. We are just praying less in the way that we used to pray.

Prayer for the adult sons and daughters becomes an ongoing fellowship with the Father through the Spirit and in Christ, sometimes it is more in the forefront of life, sometimes it is more in the background, but it is always there, permeating our moment-by-moment existence as God involves us in His business for the benefit of others, and it is always characterized by THANKSGIVING!

Paul says something like this in the very next verses in Romans 8.

Ye have received the Spirit of adoption (adult sons and daughters), whereby we cry Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself bears witness (present tense—ongoing, continuous activity) with our spirit, that we are the children of God ... heirs of God, co-heirs of Christ ... we know that the whole creation groans ... and we groan (present tense—ongoing, continuous) also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we groan (present tense—ongoing, continuous) within ourselves waiting for the adoption, the (future) redemptions of our body (bodily resurrection) ... likewise the Spirit also helps (present tense—ongoing, continuous) our infirmities ...we don't know what to pray for as we ought but the Spirit Himself makes intercession (present tense—ongoing, continuous) for us with groanings that cannot be uttered ... by the will of God (the Father).
(Rom. 8:14-27)

GOD'S PROVISION FOR THE ASSEMBLY OF GRACE BELIEVERS

We have talked about this many times in the past, but now that we have come to understand that God is relating with us as adult sons and daughters so that we can participate in His business of dispensing His blessings to a cold, hard, lost, sin-cursed world under adverse conditions, there is something we need to keep in the forefront of our minds: God is NOT calling on us to do this alone. We PRIMARILY participate in the dispensing of His blessings in and through an assembly of grace believers. God is NOT calling on us as individuals to be lone wolves trying to conquer and subdue all and convert everyone around us. That is God's responsibility, and one day He will do it. If we try to take God's responsibility onto ourselves, it will always—ALWAYS--result in failure, defeat, despair, anxiety, etc. Let me say it again: The PRIMARY way believers participate in God's business today is by participating in a assembly of grace believers—among fellow sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, in the family of God, sharing and supporting one another. We MUST NOT think that God is calling on us as individuals to be lone wolves in the cold and dark world. He is calling on us to participate in His business, and (let me say it again): THE PRIMARY WAY WE participate in His business IS BY PARTICIPATING IN AN ASSEMBLY OF GRACE BELIEVERS. To put it another way, if you are participating in an assembly of grace believers, you are fulfilling your role as adult sons and daughters in the family of God. By participating in the grace assembly, you are participating in a franchise that operates according God's plan of Agape Love, a distributorship that dispenses His blessings inside and outside the assembly, and a satellite that radiates His Light and Life to a lost world. THIS ALL HAPPENS PRIMARILY IN AND THROUGH THE ASSEMBLY OF BELIEVERS.

Our ministry is only SECONDARILY carried out by ourselves to the people around us in our own little worlds. But we must not forget that even there, our job is not to conquer and subdue all until everyone around us is converted. That is God's job, and one day He will do it. If we try to do what only God can do, it will always result in disappointment, defeat, despair, anxiety, etc. Rather, we are just called to be His dispensers of blessings REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THOSE BLESSINGS ARE RECEIVED OR REJECTED. And when we have done that, we have fulfilled our role as adult sons and daughters in the Father's business. In His eyes, we are a success, and that is how we should view things as well. And this always—ALWAYS--leads to contentment, satisfaction and joy because we are operating in accord with our Father. We do not live by sight! We live by FAITH (2 Cor. 5:7)! Our joy does not come from looking at the results we achieve (which by sight will rarely look successful—just look at Jesus' and Paul's ministries!). We live by faith, looking at Christ and His Cross and dispensing the blessings He procured there through the Spirit. This is what the Father calls “success” and “victory,” and it always-ALWAYS-results in joy and peace. Of course, the corollary of this is that if we are not experiencing contentment and satisfaction, joy and peace, then we need to let ourselves off the hook. God is not expecting us to do what only He can do. We have forgotten what we learned in Rom. 5, 6 and 7! We need to remove the great big horrible “I” from our walk and service that results in defeat and despair and replace it with Great Big Wonderful Christ and His Cross and the Agape Love He displayed there.

We began this div of Romans 8 with the statement that this is a difficult doctrine because we don't really want God to treat us like adults. We want God to treat us like little children, removing all the difficulties of life, manipulating our circumstances and coddling us in the nursery. But God refuses to relate to us on that basis, and if we go to the nursery and pretend that He is anyway (as most of historic Christianity has convinced us to do!), it will nullify what He wants to do with us today, in the Mystery Program for the Body of Christ.

You see, if God treats us like little children in the nursery as He did with Israel under the Law, He can't bring us into His plan and purpose for today. No human father who runs a business would even think of going down to his toddler in the nursery to review and discuss his business plans or the state of his finances. All he can do is long for the day when his child grew up and as an adult he could share these things with him. While a homely illustration, something similar occurs with God and His children.

God determined in eternity past that He wanted His children in the Body of Christ Mystery Program to be brought into His family as adult children so that He could share His plan and purpose with them, so that they would know and understand His plan and appreciate it and acknowledge how wonderful it is, and that it surpass all other plans and purposes, so that they would chose to voluntarily participate in His things, crying out Dear and Honorable Father Your ways are best! I want to participate in them because of that.

By the time we get to Rom. 8, God has largely done this: He has explained what He is doing today (dispensing His Grace and Peace to His enemies—Rom. 3-4); He has given us His Spirit who is pouring out His operating principal into our hearts (Agape Love—Rom. 5-8); He has perfectly equipped us with all the blessings He is giving today right up front with His riches in Christ, so that we don't have to do things for Him out of bondage and fear (trying to gain a blessing or keeping from losing a blessing or escaping a punishment) (Rom. 5-8; Eph. 1). We simply serve Him because as His adult children who appreciate that our Father has already made us complete in Christ forevermore, we recognize that His ways are always the best ways, and freely, by choice, cry out (as Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane just before His obedience unto death): Abba Father, Your ways are always the best ways. Not My will but Your will (Mk. 14:36).

Based on the progression of the comments I have received since we started discussing our adoption unto sonship position before God, I think we are all beginning to appreciate the value, privilege, as well as the responsibility we have as adults sons and daughters in the household of God. At first it sounds a little scary. It is always a little scary to leave the nursery. But then we learn that it is, in fact, the very opposite. In bringing us into the adoption of sonship, the Holy Spirit builds us up and secures us in God's plan and purpose for today! It is really the pivot doctrine that brings us out of the childish superstition we have been subjected to by natural thinking and historic Christianity and brings us into the spiritual maturity of God's thinking by Pauline Grace. True spirituality recognizes that the Father has already done everything He is going to do. He has already given us everything He is going to give us today in Christ. So, there is no reason to wait: Start Serving God by Serving Others! Once we grasp this, it changes everything: Our walk, our service, our prayer life, everything.

On Easter Sunday (04/04/21 Audio Video) we looked at the entangling web of divine life and love within the Triune Godhead, each One living for the other, not considering His Own things but the things of the other. The Father looks at the Son and says He should be the preeminent one. The Son looks at the Father and says His will is best. I want to obey the Father's will. But the Son doesn't obey the Father by His Own power but by the power of the Holy Spirit. And the Father looks at the Holy Spirit and says His Scriptures should be magnified above the My Name. But when the Holy Spirit inspired the Scriptures, He didn't use His Own words but the words of the Father, but the words of Father were not about the Father but about the Son! Such is the “entangling web of divine Life and Love” in the Triune Godhead.

In addition to this, on Sunday we also looked at the fact that God has made us participants in this divine life, this eternal life, as a free gift by faith right now, today, through the Resurrection Life and Power of Jesus Christ (Rom. 6:23). God appeals to us to bring every aspect of our lives into this entangling web of divine Life and Agape Love (Phil. 2:1-11). In Phil. 2:14,17-30, He puts before our eyes a Grace Assembly of believers operating in just such a way. Imagine an assembly of believers who are not considering their own things for their own advancement but the things of the others unto the other's advancement. In Phil. 2, God gives us a video of the Philippian Grace Assembly in action: We see Paul, Timothy, Epaphroditus, the Philippians and God, all entangled in the divine web of life and love, looking at one another through Christ and His Cross and the Agape Love displayed there, honoring one another (Rom. 12:10), serving God by serving others, and all for the sole purpose of building each other up in God's Truth for today, comforting one another in the mutual faith, and rejoicing together in Christ.

Then, last Thursday night to the entangled web of divine Life and Love in the Triune Godhead and the Grace assembly we added the Grace Family. In Col. 3:18-4:1, God and Paul give us a short video of the Grace family. Imagine a family where God works in the wife as she looks at her husband through Christ and His Cross and the Agape Love displayed there, motivating her to honor him by submitting to him. God is simultaneously works in the husband as he looks at his wife through Christ and His Cross and the Agape Love displayed there, motivating him to love her to the point of giving himself for her, even dying for her (Eph. 5:25). And at the same time God works in the children as they look at their parents (especially the Father!) through Christ and His Cross and the Agape Love displayed there, motivating them to be obedient. And at the same time God works in the parents as they look at their children through Christ and His Cross and the Agape Love displayed there (especially the Father!), motivating them to not do anything that would discourage the children. And God works in servants as they look at their earthly masters through Christ and His Cross, motivating them to serve in sincerity, while God works simultaneously in the earthly masters to look at their servants through Christ (their Heavenly Master), motivating them to treat all equally and justly.

By the time we get through Romans 8 we have learned a lot about God--who He is, what He is like, what He has done for us, what He has done with us. We watched Him as He went to the greatest extent possible—the death of His Son—to perfectly equip us not just for time but for all eternity. We watched as Paul manifested the Righteousness of God in justifying and sanctifying ungodly sinners on enemy status before Him, because He did it in the only way He could that would allow him to satisfy all the demands of His infinite holiness while at the same time declaring right wrong sinners, and that was through the Person and Work of His Son on the Cross (Rom. 1-8).

In Romans 5-8 Paul explained that this is the MUCH MORE salvation of Pauline Grace (NOT the MUCH LESS salvation of historic Christianity!). There we learned that having reconciled us to Himself, God brought us into His family under the Headship of the Risen Lord where everything that belongs to Christ now automatically belongs to us, which Paul sums up in terms of Righteousness and Life (Rom. 5). But God didn't stop there. He did MUCH MORE! He went on and placed us into Christ, identifying us with His death and resurrection, co-crucifying and co-burying our old man together with Him, so that we can now walk in newness of life and serve in newness of spirit on the basis of Agape Love, having been delivered from Sin, Death and the Law (Rom. 6-7). But God didn't even stop there! He did MUCH MORE! He went on to create us anew in Christ Jesus and through the indwelling Holy Spirit brought us into the presence of the Father as adult sons and daughters so that He could share His business plan, His operational system, His will with us, causing us to cry out Abba, Father, Dear and Honorable Father, freely choosing His way rather than our way, His will rather than our own will (Rom. 8).

This MUCH MORE salvation of Pauline Grace should make us wonder: Why has God done all this for and with us? After all, God didn't need to do all of this to “save” us. He could have done MUCH LESS. He could have just forgiven our sins, cleaned up our old man and put us back in the Garden, giving us another chance. But He didn't. He did MUCH MORE! He created us as a new humanity in Christ Jesus. And we must ask: Why all this? And this is where we are in these closing verses of Romans 8. Here, God and Paul begin explaining God's ultimate purpose for us today as members of the church, the Body of Christ, and why it required that He create us anew, conforming us to the image of His Son (Rom. 8:28-29). Here, He lays the groundwork for the explosive revelation of His Purpose for the Body of Christ that will shake the whole universe and all it contains to its very core.

After introducing this divine purpose in Romans, God and Paul will explain it in full in Ephesians. There we learn that God has taken Satan and his cohorts in their own craftiness. Through the Fall of Satan in the heavenlies and the Fall on Adam on Earth, Satan had usurped God's rule in both realms. As the Bible opens, God begins by explaining how He will re-establish His rule on the Earth through a redeemed group of humanity called the Nation of Israel. This would have surprised no one (including Satan) because humans belong on the Earth. At the Cross, the Gospel Accounts tell us that Christ died for His own people, the Nation of Israel, delivering them out of the hand of Satan. Satan realized he was defeated, his claim to the earth was broken, so he returned to his spiritual place in the heavenlies, licking his wounds.

But what no one could guess, not even Satan, was that through the same Cross of Christ God used to redeem the Nation of Israel, He also provided the basis for another group of redeemed humanity, a new creation called the Body of Christ, and it would be through this new redeemed humanity that He would re-establish His Glory in the Heavenlies, completely vanquishing Satan and his rule, not just on Earth but throughout the whole Universe! God came up with this purpose in eternity past but kept it secret, hidden in Himself, until He revealed it to and through the Apostle Paul. (Eph. 3:1-11)

And this explains the MUCH MORE Christianity of Pauline Grace. The Body of Christ didn't need to just be created and equipped to carry out its function in the physical realm on Earth. It needed to be created and equipped to carry out its function in the spiritual realm in the Heavenlies as well (Eph. 2:6). This Purpose of God for believers today, which Paul introduces in Romans 8 and fully develops in Ephesians, is the greatest purpose in all the Universe! As the Spirit leads us into the presence of the Father where we learn His Purpose for today, God “beseeches” us to make His Purpose our purpose; His Will, our will.

Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; 9 and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: 10 to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, 11 according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Eph. 3:8-11)

Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
(Eph. 1:11-12)

In preparation for tomorrow night's Bible Study on everyone's favorite verses in Rom. 8:26-28, we reviewed the two things that Paul has taught us about what the indwelling Holy Spirit is doing in the believer's heart.

1. He is pouring out the Agape Love of God at the Cross of Christ into our hearts (Rom. 5:5-8).
2. He is stamping our hearts into the form of Pauline Grace Teachings (Rom. 6:17).

These are critical things to remember if we are going to understand and appreciate what is going on when the One who searches the hearts, knows the mind of the Spirit, who makes intercession for us (Rom. 8:27).

Here is a flowchart of the general idea. (In case it is not immediately obvious: The first picture of the heart is God giving the believer a new heart; and the second picture of the heart inside a clamp represents the tribulations and trials that come along, pressuring that heart.)

I have said often, by the time we get to this point in Romans 8 we know who God is, who we are, what God has done through His Son on the Cross, what God has done with us, what He wants to do through us, how He has perfectly equipped us to walk and serve Him in the midst of trials and tribulations. He has delineated our blessings, given us His plan, purpose and will. If we add in the first 3 chapters of Ephesians (as we have!) we have the complete foundation of what God is doing today through Christ with the Body of Christ and, therefore, what He wants us to be doing as members of that Body. Now in Rom. 8, He calls on us to replace our priorities, plans, purposes, will, thoughts, desires, in short, our things, with His priorities, plans, purposes, will, thoughts, desires, in short, His things. God and Paul are throwing down the gauntlet here. Before our Romans study, we might have been excused for wavering between human religious viewpoint of the flesh and divine spiritual viewpoint of the Spirit. But we cannot get away with that anymore.

It is a little like Elijah, Israel and the prophets of Baal (1 Kgs. 18). Elijah didn't sugar-coat anything. Israel had been mixing together the things of Baal with the things of God, and it ended up ruining everything. So Elijah announced their worthiness to receive the next Course of Punishment, therefore, the time for wavering was over. While I am no Elijah, I am not going to sugar-coat anything either: The time for our wavering is over as well. The time for choosing the will of the Father is at hand ( Rom. 8:14-16: Abba, Father!). We are either with God or we are against Him. It is as simple as that. We are at the point Paul has been working to during the first 8 chapters of Romans. The time for wavering is over. We are either with the Triune Godhead, with the Father and what He has revealed He is accomplishing in the Son through the Holy Spirit or we are against the Triune Godhead. We are either doing things His way, or we are rebelling against Him doing things our own way. To be with the Lord means to be against all human reasonings and priorities, all worldly wisdom, all man-made religious notions, all man-centered theological teachings. It means to rely on God and His Word, no matter how foreign it sounds or contrary it seems. We are to live by faith, not sight. We need to rely on the indwelling Holy Spirit for every aspect of our Christian walk, including PRAYER.

By the time we get through the first 8 chapters of Romans (and we even added in most of the first 3 chapters of Ephesians to top it off!) God has given us a super-abundance of His divine truth. He has made Himself known to us. He has revealed His plan and purpose in and through His Son to us. He has explained what He is doing today with the world and with believers. God has made all this known to us. And here in Rom. 8:14-16, God and Paul throw down the gauntlet. The time for wavering is over. The time for decision is at hand.

Reaching this point in Romans 8, Paul takes us back to where we started our journey in Romans 1. There, God vividly presented to us the two options that we can take. In the first half of Romans 1, God presented the first option, OPTION 1, in the Pattern of the Apostle Paul. God made Himself known to Paul, and Paul received His truth thankfully in faith, leading to Righteousness and Life (Rom. 1:1-17; 8:11-13). But then, in the last half of Romans 1, God presented the second option, OPTION 2, in the Pattern of Fallen Humanity. God had likewise made Himself known to humans but instead of receiving His truths in faith, they held them ungratefully in unbelief and unrighteousness, leading to sin and death (Rom. 1:18-32; 8:12-13).

Now, in Romans 8, God and Paul are demanding us to make a choice. We can choose OPTION 2, and follow the pattern of fallen humanity, rejecting the truth God has make known to us in Romans 1-8, and rather than thanking Him for it, we can replace it with our own vain imaginations, throwing away God and His Glory, becoming servants of the selfish lusts of our carnal hearts. When we chose this option, this is what Paul calls having the mind of the flesh, which produces the walk that is according to the flesh, which can NEVER PLEASE GOD (Rom. 8:5-13).

Or, we can chose OPTION 1, the pattern of the Apostle Paul's ministry, and follow Paul, believing the truth God has revealed to us in Romans 1-8, embracing it, thanking God for it without ceasing, letting the Holy Spirit bear witness with his spirit about it, creating within us a new heart overflowing with Agape Love (Rom. 5:5-11), stamped in the form of Grace Truths (Rom. 6:17), serving God by serving others in in His Good News for today, thereby rejoicing in His Glory. When we chose this option, this is what Paul calls having the mind of the Spirit, which produces the walk that is according to the Spirit, which can ONLY PLEASE GOD (Rom. 8:5-10)!

This option pleases God because it is God working in and through us. In Romans 6, we learned that we cannot “walk in newness of life” by our own person and work. God must do it for us! In Romans 7, we learned that we cannot “serve (God) in newness of Spirit” through our own person and work. God must do it for us! And now in Romans 8 we learn that we cannot even “pray” through our own person and work. God (the Holy Spirit) must do that for us as well (Rom. 8:26-27). Every aspect of the true, biblical Christian Life must be produced by the Triune God working in and through us. God the Father works in and through us both to will and to do His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13). God the Holy Spirit produces the fruit of the Spirit in and through us (Gal. 5:22-23). And God the Son lives in and through us (Gal. 2:20). To put it another way: Anything you are doing that an unbeliever can do: IS NOT THE CHRISTIAN LIFE.

So, when we get to Rom. 8 the choice is set before us. We can embrace these wonderful Pauline Grace Truths in faith, following the lead of the Spirit into the Father's business, replacing our things with His things from a heart overflowing with thankfulness and Agape Love. Or we can throw these truths away in unbelief, refuse to follow the lead of the Spirit, return to our own ungrateful vain imaginations, and try to get God to replace His things with the things of our own selfish hearts. The former is true spiritual Christianity. The latter is pagan superstition. The former is what God's beseeches us to participate in. But the latter is what most of historic Christianity has actually embraced (and, sadly, even most of believing Christianity!).

It is a shame that many believers who come to understand Paul's Grace Teachings in the light of what God is accomplishing today through his distinct apostleship, begin to feel like they don't have anything to pray about. But this not a problem with reality but with perception. By the time we get through Romans 1-8 (and let's throw in Ephesians 1-3 to top it off!), to the spiritual mind, we have an INFINITE number of things to commune about with God our Father. More than what man-centered religious and theological systems offer. Even more than what the Nation of Israel had in her Prophetic Program for establishing God's Glory on the Earth. To us in the Body of Christ, God has revealed all the infinite truths of His Mystery Program for establishing God's Glory in the Heavenlies, which He devised in eternity past but now has revealed to and through the Apostle Paul, who recorded them for us in his Letter, his Scriptures.

The reality of the situation is that we have more to pray and commune with God about than ever before. Why then, do we perceive; why then, do we “feel” like we don't? The reason for this is that we haven't fully thrown away non-Pauline religious prayer and fully embraced Pauline Grace Prayer. We are still trying to make God-centered Grace Prayer fit into the form of man-centered religious prayer. But to do this is a great mistake. It is like trying to force a square peg into a round hole. It just won't work. What we need to do is to once-and-for-all throw away the whole form of religious prayer and replace it with the whole form of Pauline Grace Prayer. But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered (Rom. 6:17).

We often think that the most basic difference between man-made religious prayer and Spirit-led Grace Prayer is in its content. In rightly dividing the Word, we recognize that promises God made to the Nation of Israel do not apply to believers today in the Body of Christ. We recognize that while God's purpose for Israel was earthly and, therefore, especially required the provision of physical and material blessings, for us today in the Body of Christ, God's purpose is heavenly and, therefore, especially requires the provision of spiritual blessings. And that is exactly what He has freely given us in Christ: He has given us ALL SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS IN HEAVENLY PLACES (Eph. 1:3)!

Thankfully appreciating and communing with God about these spiritual blessings then become the basic content of Grace Prayer. But that is not the only way Grace Prayer differs from religious prayer. It differs not only in its content but in its mode and purpose as well. The mode of religious prayer is sporadic, whereby the person ignores God most of the time and then when there is a problem, the person drops to her knees, forces herself into God's throne room, and pleads with or even demands He remove the difficulty and solve the problem.

A variant of this is when we are told to use religious prayer to try to increase our “spirituality.” A “Christian living” book I perused recently, claimed that be minimally spiritual you had to set aside 15 minutes a day for prayer. But if you wanted to increase your spirituality you needed to increase the time to 30 or 60 minutes. But this is just religious nonsense. If you have thrown away Paul's Grace truths, you don't have anything to pray to God about anyway, and it won't matter whether you do it for 15, 30 or 60 minutes a day or even 24/7 it is not going to change the situation.

The mode of Pauline Grace Prayer, however, is not sporadic or at set times (although there is certainly nothing wrong with setting aside specific time to focus on grace prayer with God). Rather, and most importantly, Grace Prayer is the constant, unceasing, ongoing, never ending communion with our Father. It interweaves the warp and woof of our existence to produce the fabric of our moment-by-moment Christian lives that pleases the Father.

But there is more. Not only does Grace Prayer differ from religious prayer in content and mode, it also differs in purpose as well. The purpose of religious prayer, which flows out of man-made religious and man-centered theological systems, is to get God involved in our things. This turns everything upside down and inside out. It makes God the servant and us the master. It becomes a form of bribery or perhaps blackmail against God: God, I have a problem. I can't serve you until the problem is removed, so I am going to sit and wait for you to remove the problem, and then I will serve you.

But this goes against all Pauline Grace Truth. Today, we understand that God's purpose is not to fix and remove all our problems. Rather, he is holding back His wrath and judgment to destroy His enemies (which is what would be required to fix the world's problems), while He instead dispenses His Grace and Peace to His enemies, offering them salvation through the distinct apostleship of Paul, before He returns to destroy them in His wrath and judgment. Today, God has perfectly equipped believers to serve Him in the midst of suffering, ministering reconciliation to a lost world under the power and control of Satan, Sin and Death. And it is in the midst of these problems that God's purpose is most powerfully displayed.

When we commune with God in accord with the content, mode and purpose of Grace Prayer, we will not spend our prayer time trying to get God to remove our problems so that we can serve Him. We will realize that it is through our problems that God most powerfully works, making us His servants. We will spend our prayer time believing, embracing, thanking God for involving us in His things—the GREATEST THINGS OF ALL!—requesting that He might use us in the midst of trials to be dispensers of His Grace and Peace. When we do that, life's problems become opportunities not of panic and despair but for patience and hope. In other words, Grace Truth Prayers recognize that God is the Master, we are the servants, and that prayer isn't our way to get God involved in our things, but His way to get us involved in His things.

Let's look at an example. I had the opportunity many years ago to minister to a young man, married with several little children all under the age of 10. He suddenly came down with a rare cancer that was terminal. He began his journey in religious prayer, and while he was receiving treatments, he prayed that God would heal him, and if He did, he promised to serve him. This appeared to be working at first. After treatments, the cancer appeared to be in remission, and he thanked God for curing his cancer. But before long, however, the cancer returned worse than it was before. At first the young man grew bitter with himself. God must be punishing him and his family for something he did in the past. Or perhaps he didn't have enough faith. This bitterness soon progressed into bitterness against God. Why was God being so unresponsive. Why was He being so mean. Until he finally had hidden thoughts that questioned God and His faithfulness. Ultimately the doctors told him that they had nothing more to offer him. He went home and entered hospice. He shut the door, closed the curtains, turned off all the lights, upped the pain medication, and in his bitterness, refused to let anyone in, not even his wife or children. He just laid in bed all alone, despairing in the darkness.

Then he began to learn some grace truths. He learned that God's plan for today is not the removal of sufferings and problems, and they are not indicators of God removing His blessings or love (Rom. 5:1-5). Rather, God's plan had fully equipped him to serve Him in the midst of sufferings while undergoing problems and difficulties. He prayed, communed, talked with God about these things. He learned about all the grace blessings God has freely given him, and that they could not be diminished or lost because they were not based on him and what he did but on Christ and what He did. The Holy Spirit took these things, revealed them to him, planted them in his heart, and this changed his thinking, which changed his feelings, which changed his actions. He pushed the pain medication away, opened the curtains and door, turned on the lights and let his family in. His family swarmed him on his bed, and He forced himself to sit up so that he could minister God's grace truths to them, truths that would remain with them for the rest of their lives.

This is what Paul calls redeeming the time (Eph. 5:15-16), taking a hopeless and despairing situation in this sin-cursed world and reclaiming it for God, who transforms it with Christ and His Cross into something full of hope and joy. Such is the power of Grace Truths and Prayer. This is true Spirit-led prayer.

Rom. 8:29-30 are critical verses in the culmination of Paul's presentation of what God is accomplishing today through his apostleship. He has now laid the groundwork so that we can understand God's eternal Purpose for us today in the Dispensation of Grace. He came up with this purpose in eternity past but kept it secret until He revealed it to and through the Apostle Paul (Rom. 1:5; 16:25; Eph. 3:1-11). That is why Paul calls it God's MYSTERY PURPOSE. It was a Mystery or Secret in the past, but now it has been revealed and God's desire is that all people fully understand it (Eph. 3:9).

1. In God's MYSTERY PURPOSE, God FOREKNEW in eternity past that all those saved today through Paul's apostleship in the Dispensation of Grace would be set apart to participate in His MYSTERY PURPOSE.
2. To accomplish this MYSTERY PURPOSE, God PREDETERMINED AND APPOINTED that all those saved today through Paul's apostleship in the Dispensation of Grace, would need to become a new creation in Christ, a new humanity conformed to the image of His Son, who through resurrection is the firstborn of a long line of brothers and sisters; the unique Son of God among a long line of God's adopted sons and daughters. Paul calls this new human creation God's MYSTERY PEOPLE (Rom. 8:29b; 8:14-17, 23).
3. And God's MYSTERY PURPOSE is what those whom He JUSTIFIED AND GLORIFIED today have been placed into (Rom. 8:30).

This MYSTERY PURPOSE is the foundation of all of Paul's Scriptures.

1. In Rom. 5-8, Paul particularly emphasizes God's MYSTERY PEOPLE: The Church, the Body of Christ (Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 12; Eph. 2).
2. In Rom. 9-11, Paul particularly emphasizes God's MYSTERY PROGRAM: The Preaching of Jesus Christ according to the Revelation of the Mystery, WHICH HAD BEEN KEPT SECRET SINCE THE WORLD BEGAN! but is now manifested or made known through Paul's Scriptures.
3. In Eph. 1-3, Paul particularly emphasizes God's ETERNAL MYSTERY PURPOSE: To Re-establish His Glory in the Heavenlies!

God FOREKNEW in eternity past that He would NOT set aside those He saves today through Paul's apostleship in the Dispensation of Grace for His Prophetic Program, which He had spoken about since the world began (Acts 3:21) with His People, the Nation of Israel, to participate in His Purpose of re-establishing His Glory on the Earth. This is what He did with all those He saved in all the other dispensations. But that would NOT be what He does with those He saves in the Dispensation of Grace. God FOREKNEW that He would set aside those He saves today in the Dispensation of Grace and place them into a new and unique divinely originated Purpose, Program and People. Today He is taking all those He saves and puts them into His new and unique Mystery Program, which He had kept secret since the world began, with His new and unique People, the Body of Christ, to participate in His new and unique Purpose of re-establishing His Glory in the Heavenlies!

This is one of the most important truths in all the Scriptures. If only more so-called Bible teachers knew it!

Romans 1-8 closes with the most astonishing proclamation of the believer's eternal security in Christ imaginable.

Having justified us by faith, God brought us--who were ungodly sinners on enemy status before Him--into a right standing before Him through Christ and His Work on the Cross (Rom. 3;21-26; 5:1-11) ...

Having sanctified us by grace, God set us apart for His purpose, bringing us into His household under the Headship of Christ, whereby everything that belongs to Christ because of His Cross AUTOMATICALLY belongs to us (Rom. 5:12-21), and placing us into Christ, identifying us with His death, burial and resurrection so that we can walk in newness of Life, Christ's Resurrection Life (Rom. 6:1-5) and serve in Newness of Spirit (Rom. 7:6), the Love and Power of the indwelling Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:2) as His New Creation, overflowing our hearts with Agape Love (2 Cor. 5:17) ...

Having brought us into His purpose as adult sons and daughters, God made it possible for the whole Triune Godhead to dwell in us through the Holy Spirit: God the Father works in and through us, God the Holy Spirit bears fruit in and through us, and God the Son lives in and through us (Rom. 8:1-13) ...

Having been given a complete provision in Christ, God makes it possible for us to live victoriously as more than conquerors in Him in the midst of suffering, trials and tribulations, weaknesses and infirmities (Rom. 8:18-37) ...

Having done all that and infinitely more with us in and through Christ ...

GOD ASSURES US THAT NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING CAN SEPARATE US FROM GOD AND HIS LOVE!
(Rom. 8:31-39)

NOTHING IN THE EARTHLY REALM. NOTHING IN THE HEAVENLY REALM!

NOTHING IN THE PRESENT. NOTHING IN THE FUTURE!

NOTHING IN LIFE. NOTHING IN DEATH!

NOTHING IN THE PHYSICAL REALM. NOTHING IN THE SPIRITUAL REALM!

AND IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE COME UP WITH AN EXCEPTION: NOT EVEN THAT! NOT EVEN YOURSELF!!

AND HERE IS THE CLINCHER:

NOT EVEN GOD HIMSELF CAN SEPARATE US FROM HIM AND HIS LOVE!!!

ETERNALLY SECURE IN CHRIST!!!

We have begun an exciting new div in God's and Paul's Letter to the Romans, Romans 9-11. Most find Romans 9-11 confusing and not a little dry and boring and hurry through it. But we showed on Thursday that this understanding of Rom. 9-11 is completely wrong. In fact, in Rom. 9-11, God and Paul answer the #1, MOST IMPORTANT question of all, the trillion-dollar question of Christianity. What happened to God's Prophetic Program with the Nation of Israel? Get it wrong here, and we will go wrong everywhere.

I know, we have been taught by man-made religious and theological systems that the most important Bible question is about man and his salvation: How am I saved? That is an important question, but it is not the MOST IMPORTANT question! What happened to God's Prophetic Program with the Nation of Israel is more important question, and here is the reason why.

How we answer this question determines the very being and character of God Himself. The Apostle Paul's critics tried to discredit his apostleship as being from God by taking his statements about what God has done with National Israel out of context, re-working and manipulating them, and then using them against him. This is their line of attack: If what Paul is saying is true; if God has permanently cast away the Prophetic Program He had been promising since the world began (Lk. 1:70; Acts 3:21) and has now replaced it with a Mystery Program He had kept secret since the world began (Rom. 16:25: Eph. 3:1-11); and if God has permanently cast away His people, the Nation of Israel, the ones He had made those promises to, and has now replaced them with a new people, the Body of Christ; then that would make GOD UNFAITHFUL, UNRIGHTEOUS AND UNTRUTHFUL. Therefore, Paul CANNOT be a man from God! He MUST be a charlatan, a false prophet and a false apostle because God, of course, is faithful and righteous and always truthful. They are right to demand that Paul be done away with (Rom. 3:1-8)!

And in saying this, of course, Paul's critics would be correct. But they are not being completely honest in their characterization of what Paul actually said. They misrepresented it. Yes, Paul did say that God has cast away His Prophetic Program as revealed in the Old Testament, Gospel Accounts of Christ's earthly ministry, and the ministry of the 12 in early Acts. Yes, Paul did say that God has cast away His people, the Nation of Israel. Yes, Paul did say that God is now accomplishing a previously unrevealed Mystery Program with the Body of Christ through Paul's apostleship as revealed in Romans through Philemon (Rom. 11).

Yes, Paul said all those things! But what the critics strategically left out is that Paul qualifies all of this by explaining that this setting aside of His Prophetic Program for the Nation of Israel is not permanent. IT IS ONLY TEMPORARY! And that changes everything!! If God has permanently cast away His Prophetic Program with National Israel, then Paul's critics would have been right. Paul was a fake and should be ignored because it would make God unfaithful, unrighteous and untruthful to Israel. But if God has only TEMPORARILY set aside His Purpose to re-establish His Glory on the earth through the Prophetic Program with His People the Nation of Israel while He accomplishes another Purpose (to re-establish His Glory in the Heavenlies) through another Program (His Mystery Program, which He had kept secret since the world began until He revealed it to and through the Apostle Paul) with another People (The Body of Christ) after which He will completely, permanently and literally fulfill all His promises to Israel, then, and only then, does God remain FAITHFUL, RIGHTEOUS AND TRUTHFUL.

Of course, we have to take this discussion a step further because it is sad to say that most of historic Christianity, beginning with the so called “church fathers” in the days of Paul himself, have rejected the divine truth of what Paul says about God only temporarily casting away of the Nation of Israel as explained in Rom. 9-11. They have instead embraced the lies of Paul's critics that say God has permanently cast away the Nation of Israel, replacing her with the Body of Christ. To accomplish this sleight of hand, they have to spiritualize away all God's truths regarding national Israel and try to apply it (unsuccessfully!) to the Body of Christ. They say, God is all done with the Nation of Israel. They say, God gave all their curses to Israel but all their blessings to the Body of Christ--the true Israel, the new Israel, the spiritual Israel.

Unfortunately, while Paul's critics clearly understood the ramifications such teaching—that God is all done with the Nation of Israel--had for the being and character of God—it would make Him unfaithful, unrighteous and untruthful--those who adhere to such teachings today don't. They don't realize that this teaching creates an insurmountably impossible problem for them, which God and Paul confront them with in Romans 9-11. And this is the problem: If what the bulk of historic Christianity has embraced is true—that God has permanently cast away the Nation of Israel and replaced her with the church, the Body of Christ—then their “god” is no God at all! He is an unfaithful, unrighteous and untruthful to Israel. He is a small “g” god just like the unfaithful, unrighteous and untruthful “gods” of the heathen. HE CEASES TO BE GOD! Even Paul's critics realized this. That's why they perverted his teaching in this way to use against him.

And that is why the question: What happened to God's Prophetic Program for the Nation of Israel? is far more important, nay infinitely more important, than the question: How am I saved? Any answer to the first question except the one that God and Paul give in Rom. 9-11--that God has only temporarily set aside His Prophetic Program for the Nation of Israel while He carries out His new, previously unrevealed, Program with the Body of Christ after which He will re-start His Program with Israel and literally fulfill ALL His promises to her—any answer except this one calls into question the very being and character of God Himself—His faithfulness, righteousness and truthfulness.

And here is the important point. Any salvation provided by a “god” who has reneged on His promises to the Nation of Israel, ISN'T WORTH THE PAPER IT IS WRITTEN ON! Throw away the first eight chapters of Romans! If God doesn't keep His promises to the Nation of Israel, why in the world would we think He will keep His promises to us in the Body of Christ? The whole structure of such man-made systems is exposed for what they is: Nothing ... mere facades, wispy mirages, that in the light of God's word vanish away, disappearing in thin air.

But if we follow what Paul really says in Rom. 9-11—that God has only temporarily set aside His Prophetic Program with the Nation of Israel while He completes His Mystery Program with the Body of Christ, after which He will re-start His Program with Israel, fulfilling all His promises to her, then our patience is strengthened, our comfort is increased and our hope is enhanced (Rom. 15:4-5). God is faithful, righteous, and truthful to Israel! Therefore, HE WILL BE JUST A FAITHFUL, RIGHTEOUS AND TRUTHFUL WITH US IN THE BODY OF CHRIST!

In our current study of Romans 9, we are watching Paul as he witnesses to the unbelieving Jewish critics. When we think about witnessing to the Jews, we usually assume that we should begin by showing them that Jesus is the Christ, the fulfiller of all national Israel's prophecies, going to passages like Is. 53 or Ps. 22. We think we should start with Israel's Prophetic Program and then go on to the Body of Christ Mystery Program. Well, it might surprise us then to learn that that is not the way the Apostle Paul began to witness to his Jewish brothers and sisters according to Romans 9. He witnessed the other way around. He started with what God is doing today in His Mystery Program for the Body of Christ (Rom. 9) through his apostleship and then goes on to the Lord Jesus Christ being the fulfiller of Israel's Prophetic Program and Israel's response to Him (Rom. 10).

Yesterday at our mid-week Bible study on Romans 9, we watched as Paul conveyed to unbelieving Jews of his day (and our day) to look at the jar of God's blessings not as half empty, and even not just as half full, but as filled to the brim and overflowing. To look at it half empty, they will only see the bad news: God has cast away (temporarily) the Nation of Israel and put His Prophetic Program on hold, and now He is working with only a very small remnant of believing Jews, who are in the process of diminishing and will soon die off the scene completely. Rather, Paul wants them to understand that there is a way to look at the glass not only as half full, but filled to the brim and overflowing with Good News!

He does this by taking them back to two major events in their ancient history to show that God is doing something similar today through the apostleship of Paul (Rom. 9:14-18). At the Golden Calf Incident, when God would have been right to go down the Mount in His wrath and judgment and consume ALL the Israelites, every single rebel, and start over with only Moses (Ex. 32:7-10), God INSTEAD used Israel's sinfulness, rebellion and unrighteousness as an opportunity to display His Mercy and Grace, Goodness and Kindness (Ex. 33:19).

Paul's point is that today God is doing something similar. When Israel joined hands with the Gentiles and crucified their Messiah, King and Creator, God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, God would have been right to go down in His wrath and judgment and consume all His enemies, every single rebel, but instead He decided to use Israel's sinfulness, rebellion and unrighteousness to display the Riches of His Grace and Mercy, the Riches of His Goodness and Kindness, Longsuffering Forbearance. And what is He doing during this time of His Longsuffering Kindness? Instead of destroying ALL unbelieving sinners on earth (every last one), He is now offering through the apostleship of Paul salvation to ALL unbelieving sinners (every last one, Rom. 11:32; 3:21-23).

But this is not all. Paul then takes the Jews back to the Exodus account and reminds them how at that time God postponed His deliverance of national Israel while He carried out another purpose to make His Name and Power known on earth that even Moses didn't know about (Ex. 5:22-23, 9:16). Paul's point is that God is doing something similar today through his apostleship. Today, God has postponed His deliverance of national Israel while He carries out another Purpose that He had kept secret since the world began: His Mystery Program for the Body of Christ through which He will fulfill His Purpose to re-establish His Glory in the HEAVENLIES. The Jews needed to realize that, yes, God has set aside His Program with the Nation of Israel (temporarily). That's the bad news.

But what they also needed to know is that He also started a new Purpose with the Body of Christ, AND ALL PEOPLE—JEWS AND GENTILES ALIKE—are invited to participate in that, simply by believing Paul's Gospel, the Good News of the Death and Resurrection of Christ. While for the Jews God's Grand and Great Prophetic Program with the Nation of Israel to re-establish God's Glory on Earth has been taken off the table (temporarily), God is inviting them to be involved in an even Grander and Greater Mystery Program with the Body of Christ to re-establish His Glory in the Heavenlies. Whereas the Jews in Israel's Prophetic Program would participate in the breaking of Satan's rule on Earth, NOW God was giving them the opportunity to participate in the breaking of Satan's rule in the Heavenlies!

No, the glass isn't half empty. It's not even half full. It's filled full and is overflowing with His Grace and Mercy, Goodness and Kindness toward sinners. Rather than attacking the Apostle Paul, the Jews should receive his God-given message in faith and THANK GOD FOR IT!!

This generated a discussion about how you share with someone that God is now dispensing the Riches of His Grace, Peace, Kindness and Goodness when there is so much evil in the world. To the natural mind it is counter intuitive. Well, it is only so because unbelievers (and far too many believers!) don't appreciate the sinfulness of sin. The natural mind says, I am basically good, so if God just got rid of the really bad people (like Hitler and Stalin, etc.) the world would be a good place. But this completely ignores what God and His Word say. We are all born into the world as sinners on enemy status before God. And when God comes to “fix” the world, He will have to destroy ALL UNRIGHTEOUSNESS, ALL UNBELIEVING SINNERS, not just some or just the worse by human standards. Yes, He would destroy the Hitlers and the Stalins, but He will also have to destroy every other unbelieving sinner, as well, for they have rejected Him and His Word of Grace they would have led to salvation in unbelief. You know these people. They are people like your unsaved relatives, friends and neighbors. People like your co-workers and the really nice cashier at the supermarket and, yes, even the little old lady next door, who makes the most delicious pies.

Two thousand years ago, when Israel joined hands with the Gentiles in rejecting God and the Lord Jesus Christ, the world set off a nuclear warhead and aimed it at God. The whole world stood together and declared war against God, making its inhabitants worthy of His Wrath and Judgment (Rom. 1:18). God should have gone down and consumed them once-and-for-all. But instead, in His Longsuffering Kindness, and the Riches of His Grace and Peace, He declared a cease fire and instead of sending His angelic armies of destruction, He sent the Apostle Paul with the Good News that freely gave everyone on Earth an opportunity to be saved from the coming wrath freely by Grace through Faith. God is now holding back His Wrath and Judgment while He dispenses His Grace and Peace to His enemies so that as many as possible can be saved BEFORE He resumes the war and destroys ALL His enemies, ALL unbelieving sinners, yes, even the unbelieving little old lady next door who makes great pies.

We can use a modern war analogy. I remember watching a news story years ago, I think it was in the Iraq war, about the American army encircling a city that had been shooting off rockets. The army was ready and willing to attack the city. Their munitions were on the hills, and their planes, helicopters and soldiers were all pointed toward the city and were ready to reign down destruction on all. Nothing less than complete destruction of all enemies would be accepted. But at the last minute a command came from Washington that declared an immediate cease fire. Simply out of America's longsuffering forbearance, goodness and kindness, mercy and grace, the army general was sent to announce to the residents of the city that anyone who wanted to escape the coming wrath could leave the city for the next 24 hours through the south check point. After that, anyone remaining would perish in the attack. For the people who responded in “faith” to the general's message, that was indeed a day of salvation. To those who refused the general's message, a day of destruction and perishing.

Well, God is doing something similar today. After Israel and the Gentile nations joined hands in rejecting Christ, and the whole world had declared war on God, God encircled the “city” of earth and revealed His Wrath from “hills” of Heaven (Rom. 1:18). God was ready to come and destroy ALL unbelieving sinners for their rebellion against Him in unrighteousness and rejection of His Word in unbelief (Rom. 1:18). But He then suddenly declared a cease fire and sent the Apostle Paul to announce to earth's inhabitants that anyone--ANY AND ALL UNBELIEVING SINNERS—JEWS AND GENTILES ALIKE--could be delivered from the coming Wrath by simply believing Paul's Message, the Good News of the Death and Resurrection of Christ for them. For those who respond in faith, this is what Paul calls: The Day of Salvation (2 Cor. 6:2). For those who don't, it is called the day of destruction and perishing.

For the preaching of the Cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God (unto salvation) (1 Cor. 1:18 with Rom. 1:16).

This is God's answer to the question of why there is evil in the world. It is there because if He were to remove it, He would have to remove ALL of it, ALL unrighteousness, which would include every unbelieving sinner—that is, all our unsaved relatives, friends, co-workers, and, yes, the nice girl at the checkout COUNTER, and, yes, even the little old lady next door who makes those delicious pies. BUT NOW (and thank God for this!), BUT NOW out of the Riches of His Goodness, Kindness, Mercy and Grace, He is Long-sufferingly offering His Grace and Peace to ALL sinners so that they can be saved before He withdraws the cease fire and resumes hostilities with the inhabitants of earth in His Wrath, Fury and Judgment, from which He will not stop until ALL unrighteousness is removed once-and-for-all. To those who receive this message in faith, this is indeed THE DAY OF SALVATION. To those who reject it in unbelief, it is indeed foolishness, which leads to destruction.

Last Thursday we continued in our study of Rom. 9:19-24 where Paul uses the Old Testament example of the Potter and the Vessels to explain that in time past God had repeatedly used national Israel as a Vessel of Honor or Dishonor based on how she responded to the guidance of His hands. When God worked with Israel and she failed to respond or responded negatively (in unbelief) to His direction, He could not use her for His purposes and, therefore, He set her aside, making her a Vessel of Dishonor. This was especially the case when Israel went into the 5th Course of Punishment at the Babylonian Captivity. At that time because of her rebellion against God and rejection of His Word, He handed them over to the Gentiles (Jer. 18). At other times, when God worked with Israel and she responded positively (in faith) to His direction, He could use her for His purposes and, therefore, put her on display as His Vessel of Honor. This was seen partially during the reigns of David and Solomon but will be seen in all its fullness at Christ's 2nd Coming when He will gather the believing remnant together, plant them in the Promised Land and make Israel the head of the nations, through which all the earth will be blessed (Deut. 28:13).

Paul's point in Romans 9 is that if God could use Israel as a Vessel of Honor or Dishonor based on her response in faith, He can likewise use the Gentiles, who had been vessels of wrath, as vessels of mercy when they respond to His guidance in faith. And that is exactly what God is doing today through Paul's Apostleship. He is extending an invitation to all—Jews and Gentiles alike—to become vessels of His mercy (Rom. 11:30-32).

Last Thursday we continued in our study of Rom. 9:19-24. One of the things we found there was God and Paul's explanation for why there is evil, wickedness and sin in the world. And the answer was found in Rom. 9:22: What if God, willing to show His Wrath and make His Power known, ENDURED with MUCH LONGSUFFERING the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction. If you want to know why evil continues in the world, and it appears that God does nothing about it, here is the answer:

1. If God is going to remove all evil and sin from the world He would have to come in His Wrath and Judgement and destroy ALL evil, wickedness and sin. This includes ALL people who have rejected Him and His Word (today that would be Paul's Gospel, the Gospel of Grace, the Good News of the Death and Resurrection of Christ for us sinners). And this would include ALL our unsaved and unbelieving friends, relatives, neighbors, co-workers, etc.
2. As our verse says, God was willing to do this (some 2,000 years ago) and would have been right to do so. But instead of doing that, He decided to HOLD BACK His Wrath and Judgment and put up (endure) with MUCH LONGSUFFERING His enemies—ie., ALL our unbelieving and unsaved friends, relatives, neighbors, co-workers, etc.—and instead, He is now extending to them the RICHES OF HIS KINDNESS AND GOODNESS, GRACE AND MERCY AND PEACE. He is now SSSSSSUUUUUFFFFEEERRRIIINNG LLLLOOOONNG with sin and sinners, offering them a Day of Salvation instead of a Day of Wrath, a Day of Amnesty rather than a Day of Destruction, and He is doing this through the distinct apostleship of Paul.
3. He doesn't do this because He doesn't care about evil or is too weak to do something about it. He does this so that as many of His enemies (people like you and people like me!) might be saved before He returns to carry out this final judgment, which will remove ALL evil and sin, remove ALL His enemies and sinners, remove ALL unsaved unbelievers, from His earth. ALL who believe in Him and the Gospel of Grace, the Good News of the Death and Resurrection of Christ for us sinners, will be saved from the coming Wrath and Judgment.

Last Thursday we looked at Rom. 9:25-33. God and Paul hit a grand slam to answer the question of Rom. 9:19 asking: Why God STILL has not YET fulfilled His promises to national Israel. He makes 3 basic concluding points:

1. Because God is now being rich in His LOOOOOOOONGSUFFERING (some 2,000 years now), enduring His sinful enemies (all people who are born into the world!) and holding back His wrath and judgment while He instead offering them the Good News of His Grace and Peace so that as many as possible can be saved before His returns in His wrath and Judgment. When the Dispensation of Grace ends, God will stop being LOOOOOONG suffering, and will instead carry out a very short work in His wrath and judgment, destroying all of His enemies (7 year Tribulation Period, esp., the final 3.5 yrs.). See Rom. 9:22-23 with 9:28.
2. In being LOOONGSUFFERING (so far some 2,000 years!), God will have no problem re-starting His Prophetic Program with the Nation of Israel. In the past Israel had been a Vessel of Honor (say, the reigns of David and Solomon) then she became a Vessel of Dishonor (when they went into Babylonian Captivity), and God can easily make her a Vessel of Honor once again in the future. He will do this through the Believing Remnant we are reading about in Matthew. See Rom. 9:25-26.
3. And even though the Believing Remnant will only be a very small remnant of natural Israel, God will have no problem turning them in the great nation, with innumerable progeny, like the sand of the sea, as He promised to Abraham. See Rom. 9:27-29.

In Rom. 9:30-33, God and Paul explain how Israel fell into their accursed, separated from God and Christ, predicament. How could this happen? Afterall, Israel was God's Own special nation. He created her especially for Himself. She was supposed to be His peculiar people, His kingdom of priests, His holy nation (Ex. 19:5-6). How did she come to stumble, fall and be cast away (temporarily), a vessel of dishonor worthy of wrath (Rom. 9:3, 11:11-12, et al.)? God and Paul explain how Israel ended up in this predicament in Rom. 9:30-33. The short answer is that the only way God can use anyone at any time anywhere and always is for them to FIRST participate in Faith Righteousness, the Righteousness of God in Christ, which leads to our several ironies of the state of the world with regard to the Nation of Israel and the Gentile nations.

Irony #1: The Gentiles who were not even pursuing the righteousness that comes from God have, in fact, attained to it because they received it by faith. God sent the Apostle Paul out to the Gentiles, to His enemies, to preach the Gospel of His Grace, the Good News of the Death and Resurrection of Christ for sinners. Paul came stumbling into these Gentile cities in weakness and infirmities proclaiming the foolishness (by the world's standards) of a crucified Christ and Savior for sinners. And low and behold! This proclamation of the foolishness of men was, in fact, the wisdom of God, and it accomplished something that all of man's wisdom and worldly knowledge (which had reached a high point not long before Paul's day), what all the Socrates's and all the Plato's in the world, what all the philosophical, literary, scientific, mathematical, political knowledge of men, taken alone or all together, couldn't do. Namely, it couldn't save even one person from sin and death! But God's Gospel for the world preached through His messenger Paul was the power of God unto salvation, and it saved ALL who believed (1 Cor. 1:17-31).

Irony #2: The Gentiles, who were not by nature the children of Abraham (through the promised line of Isaac and Jacob), became his spiritual progeny by following in Abrahams' footsteps of faith (Rom. 4:12). God confronted Abraham when he was an idol-worshipping Gentile (Gen. 11:31-32; Josh. 24:2), an ungodly sinner on enemy status before God (Rom. 4:1-5), confronting him with Good News, Abraham believed God, and God counted his faith for righteousness (Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:3). It was only after that fact was established solidly (Rom. 15:6) that God then went on to establish a Grace Covenant with Abraham (Gen. 15:9-21), making him a covenant friend. So too in Paul's day, God preached Good News to ungodly Gentile sinners on enemy status before Him in such places as Thessalonica, Galatia, Ephesus, Corinth, Rome, (and to us today!) and when they believed it, like Abraham, God counted their faith for righteousness (Rom. 4:23-25). Unlike Abraham, however, when we sinners are justified by grace through faith today, God does not bring us into Israel's Grace Covenants, but brings us into the Riches of His Grace in Christ (Eph. 2:7).

Therefore, the Gentiles, who were not even seeking the righteousness that comes from God, ended up receiving it because they believed God and His Word to them just like Abraham did.

Irony #3: The Nation of Israel, however, who was to be God's special people, His special receptacle of righteousness, weren't seeking after His righteousness either. Instead, they were seeking after the Law of righteousness. She was seeking a law through which she could establish her own human righteousness. But the thing Israel missed is that the Law wasn't given to point out what she did right. It was given to point out what she did wrong. Even human law systems work this way. No one has ever been dragged into the courtroom by the police so that the judge can tell them how good they are doing obeying the Law!! That's not the purpose of the Law. The Law doesn't look at what you do right. It looks at what you do wrong. The Law was powerless to establish Israel's rightness. All it could do is establish her wrongness. Under the Law System through the flesh, Israel spent 1500 years not under the blessings of the Law but under its curses. If she had believed God's Word through Moses, if she had received it in faith, she would have recognized their wrongness and would have fallen on the mercy of the court, the mercy of God. Therefore, Israel has suffered two self-inflicted wounds. Firstly, she sought a law through which she could establish her own human righteousness but fell short of even that because all the Law could do is establish her wrongness, resulting in condemnation and death. Secondly, in seeking a law to establish their own human righteousness, she was diverted away from the righteousness of God that comes by faith, causing her to reject the Righteousness of God when it came to her in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Irony #4: Israel, which was made up of Abraham's natural descendants (through the promised line of Isaac and Jacob) ended up not being his spiritual descendants. She refused to follow Abraham in his footsteps of faith, and not participating in faith righteousness first meant God could not use the Nation of Israel in Paul's day to fulfill His Grace Covenants with her. That will have to await His second coming when He will use the Believing Remnant of Israel, made up with those who will not only be Abraham's natural descendants but his spiritual descendants as well, God's true Israel (Rom. 9:6), to re-create the Nation of Israel in her long prophesied earthly Kingdom where she will be God's conduit of blessings to the whole world.

Some may be wondering, what distinguishes our teaching here from the teaching of other segments of believing Christianity? Before we can answer that question, we need to define our terms.

1. Unbelieving Christianity completely rejects Paul's distinct apostleship and with it his (and God's) Gospel of Grace through Faith, which means they have rejected God's one way of salvation for today. This is what we would call nominal Christianity, Christian in name only, or perhaps more to the point: apostate Christianity. Just as the bulk of national Israel was apostate, so too the bulk of historic Christianity has been apostate.
2. Believing Christianity, however, has accepted Paul's distinct apostleship in one degree or another, beginning with his Gospel, the Gospel of Grace through Faith, the Good News of the Death and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ for sinners, which means they are saved, justified before God and His Tribunal unto eternal life.

Understanding these two basic definitions, we can put Believing Christianity on a spectrum based on the degree to which they accept Paul's distinct apostleship.

Reformed/Covenant Theology accepts no distinctions between what God is doing today, and what He has always done with Israel in the past. When The Old Testament speaks about Israel, it is really just a kind of code word that should be read: the Church, the Body of Christ. The “church” has replaced Israel as God's people.

Acts 2 Dispensationalists accept Paul's distinction between Law and Grace and the Nation of Israel and the Body of Christ. Some early dispensationalists (late 19th early 20th Centuries) were beginning to distinguish God's Prophetic and Mystery Programs and His Earthly and Heavenly Purposes. Unfortunately, in the mid-1900s dispensationalists decided to focus on Prophecy rather than the Mystery (it was easier to fill big conference centers with Prophecy Conferences that titillated people's fleshly desire to predict the future than with Mystery Conferences that appeal to the mature and spiritual!), and Paul's Mystery Truth quickly disappeared. Modern day Acts 2 dispensationalists generally don't accept the Prophecy/Mystery and Earthly/Heavenly distinctions anymore. Most are completely ignorant that they ever existed.

Mid-Acts Dispensationalists not only accept Paul's distinctions between Law and Grace and Israel and the Body of Christ, but they also accept his distinctions between God's Prophetic and Mystery Programs and His Earthly and Heavenly Purposes. In addition, I suggest that there is one more fundamental Pauline distinction that many Mid-Acts Dispensationalists have missed, and that is the distinction between the two Manifestations of the Righteousness of God—The Righteousness of God in Saving His Friends and Destroying His Enemies (manifested in the NON-Pauline Scriptures) and the Righteousness of God in Saving His Enemies because He has no Friends (manifested in the Pauline Scriptures)!

So, let's put it all together.

1. The NON-Pauline Scriptures (the Old Testament, Gospel Accounts of Jesus' earthly ministry and the ministry of Peter and the 12 and Believing Remnant through the Holy Spirit) all have to do with: God's Prophetic Program with the Nation of Israel to re-establish His Glory on the Earth, which manifests the Righteousness of God in Saving His Friends and Destroying His (and their) Enemies.
2. The Pauline Scriptures (Romans through Philemon), however, have to do with: God's Mystery Program with the Body of Christ to re-establish His Glory in the Heavenlies, which manifests the Righteousness of God in Saving His Enemies because He has no Friends.

This leads to an important question: How do we teach these things to others? I would suggest ministering to others based on where they are in the spectrum we have just described. Something like this:

For unbelievers, of course, the only starting point is the Gospel of Grace, the Good News of Christ's Death and Resurrection for sinners. He took all that was against them—their sin and death and condemnation—all onto Himself on the Cross, paid the penalty, removed them once-and-for-all, so that He could bring them into a right relationship with God unto eternal life by Grace alone, through Faith alone, in Christ alone.

For believers familiar with reformed/covenant theology, rejoice with them in what we all hold (at least theoretically) in common: the Gospel of Grace, the Good News of the Death and Resurrection of Christ for sinners. You could then in Agape Love share with them your understanding of the distinction between Israel and the Body of Christ to build them up further in God's truth for today.

For believers familiar with Acts 2 theology, again, rejoice with them in what you hold in common—The Gospel of Grace, the distinctions between Law and Grace and Israel and the Body of Christ. Then, in Agape Love, introduce them to the distinction between God's Prophetic Program with Israel and His Mystery Program with the Body of Christ to build them up further in God's truth for today.

For believers familiar with Mid-Acts theology, again, rejoice in all you have in common and in Agape Love and introduce them to the two manifestations of the Righteousness of God to build them up further in God's truth for today.

In conclusion, it is important to note a couple of things:

1. Notice that all this teaching MUST come out of faith and Agape Love. You cannot try to teach them to win an argument, impress them with your Bible knowledge, gain a reward in heaven or any other selfish interest. It must simply be done through the Holy Spirit overflowing the heart with Agape Love. Under this motivation and empowerment the believer doesn't think of his or her own things but the solely for the benefit of others, building them up in God's truth for today.
2. And this leads to a second point. Do not look at or for results. That's assuming a position that only God can hold. We don't live by sight we live by faith. Our job is simply to present God's truth for today to others. Any response to that truth, positive or negative, is between them and God.

In our study of where Israel went wrong in Rom. 9 and 10, we found that instead of starting at the starting point, Faith Righteousness, Israel (along with most of historical Christianity!) starts someplace else. Israel started with the Law or with Circumcision or with being the natural progeny of Abraham through the promised line of Isaac and Jacob. But where they needed to start was at the beginning of the race: Before the Law, before the Exodus, before circumcision, before Isaac, and even before the establishment of the Abrahamic Covenant itself (Gen. 15:9ff). They needed to start with Abraham, who believed God and His Word and God counted his faith for righteousness (Gen. 15:6). It was only after Abraham participated in Faith Righteousness that God could use him to carry out His plan and purpose. In not starting with Faith Righteousness, and instead starting with the Law, circumcision and being the natural descendant of Isaac, Israel started in the middle of the race rather than the beginning and was instantly and automatically disqualified from before she took a single step. Where she went wrong is that she needed to start at the starting block with Abraham, and the starting block is Faith Righteousness.

Why is this so important? Why is Faith Righteousness the starting point for all people born into the world since the Fall of Adam? It is because everyone is born into the world as ungodly sinners on enemy status before God. Every single person. You and me and everyone else. Metaphorically, we are born into the world in the quicksand of sin and death because we are the natural progeny of fallen Adam. Man-made religious and man-centered theological systems tell us to make ourselves God's friends by doing something through our own works so that God can save us. But this won't work because when it comes to quicksand the most important thing to know is that the more you try to do something, the more you work to obtain your own escape, the more you try to get out on your own, THE FASTER YOU SINK!

No, when it comes to quicksand one cannot save himself. Someone else must do it for him or her. And that is exactly what God did for us. Through the Cross of Christ, He provided the way whereby He pulls us sinners out of the quicksand by “faith.” He calls out to us: I have a rope that I can wrap around you to pull you out of the quicksand of sin and death so that I can freely give you righteousness and life. All you have to do is to stop doing anything because that just works against Me pulling you out! Just let Me do everything! That is what FAITH is. A pastor once explained that FAITH is the only thing a sinner can “do” without “doing” anything. It is the setting aside of our own “doing” so that we can rely on the “doing” of another, the Lord Jesus Christ and His Saving Work on the Cross for us.

That is the starting point for everything. First, God must do all the work, pulling us out of the quicksand of sin and death, bringing us into righteousness and life. Then, He can use us for His plan and purpose.

On Thursday we began looking at Paul's Transition Period Ministry to the unbelieving Jews in Romans 10. During this time period, Paul went to the Jews first and the Greek (the Gentiles) (Rom. 1:16). In Rom. 1-8 Paul explained that a sinner is saved is by Grace alone through Faith alone in Christ alone. But in Rom. 10 he says salvation comes by Faith, Confession and Calling. Most of historic Christianity thinks that Paul didn't get things quite right in Rom. 1-8, and so here in in Rom. 10 he is correcting and clarifying what he should have said earlier. But this is not the case and a great error.

To understand Paul's letters to the Romans, Corinthians and Galatians, we need to realize that these are Transition Period books. Sometimes, this is also called Acts Period books. What does this mean?

The Book of Acts occurs over a roughly 30 year period, beginning with the Ascension of Christ and ends with the setting aside of God's Prophetic Program for the Nation of Israel. One of the biggest errors and persistent myths of historical Christianity is that the Church, the Body of Christ, began in Acts 2 under the ministry of Peter and the 12. Contrary to this is the fact that the Book of Acts is NOT a record of the beginning of the “Church.” It is a record of the stumbling, fall and diminishing of the Nation of Israel. The “Church” began with the raising up of the Apostle Paul, and if you want the full record of its introduction and increase, you must go to Paul's Epistles, Romans through Philemon.

The Book of Acts begins with Peter and the 12 in God's Prophetic Program for the Nation of Israel in Jerusalem. But when Israel's leaders persist in their rebellion against God and rejection of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to the point of stoning Stephen to death in Acts 7 (at the hands of Saul, who God made our Apostle Paul), their ministry comes to a screeching halt, resulting in the fall of Israel and the diminishing of God's dealings with her. This diminishing continues until the end Acts when Paul once-and-for-all declared: Be it known unto you (Jews) that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it (Acts 28:28). Then, when you turn the page in your Bible, you find yourself in the Book of Romans where Paul explains in full how God introduced and increased His Mystery Program for the Body of Christ through Paul's distinct and unique apostleship.

During this roughly 30 year period between Acts 1 and Acts 28, Paul carried out a Transition Period ministry whereby he went to the Jew first to convince unbelieving Jews who were still members of the accursed Nation of Israel that Jesus is the Christ, the Lord God of Israel, and that they should call upon Him, and if they did, He would bring them into the Righteousness of God by faith, Faith Righteousness. During this time, God had two Programs active at the same time: His Prophetic Program for the Nation of Israel and His Mystery Program for the Body of Christ. The former program was diminishing and would soon be off-stage (at the end of the Acts Period). The latter program would begin and increase and soon be the only thing on stage (as it has been now for the last 2,000 years or so).

This explains why miraculous signs and wonders ceased when this Transition Period ended:

1. Because God was still working with the Nation of Israel, He continued to provide miraculous signs and wonders, which were always God's provision for national Israel going all the way back to the Exodus (Ex. 4)—such as healings, casting out devils, tongues, etc. Once God had officially and finally stopped working with the Nation of Israel, these signs and wonders to Israel ceased as well. There was no longer a need for them.
2. Because God had also begun to work a new program with the Body of Christ, before He had revealed it fully and Paul had written it down in His Epistles, He also provided the Body of Christ in its “infancy” with special revelatory gifts, such as prophecy, ministering, giving, etc. (Rom. 12). Once God had fully revealed this new Mystery Truth to and through the Apostle Paul and completed His Word with it (Col. 1:25), these revelatory sign gifts ceased as well. There was no longer a need for them.
3. Finally, because both Peter and Paul were apostles, they also participated in the miraculous signs of apostleship that God always gave to His special apostles to prove they were sent by Him. Once Peter and the 12 and Paul had died, so too the signs of an apostle died with them and ceased. There was no longer a need for them.

Today we have God's complete Word and when rightly-divided by taking these things into account, is all we need to be established in God's Truth (Rom. 16:25).

On Thursday we looked at the last half of Romans 10 where Paul explains to unbelieving Jews that Israel was without excuse. God did everything He could do. He sent messengers (apostles) to preach so that they could hear and believe and call on the Lord Jesus Christ, but they would not have it. In rebellion against God, they rejected His Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. No, they are without excuse. This study in Romans 9-11 is fun because it correlates closely with what we are studying in the book of Matthew. In many ways, Paul is dealing with the same wrong thinking of Israel that John the Baptist and Jesus tried to correct in the Gospel accounts, and that Peter and the 12 and the Holy Spirit tried to correct at Pentecost in Acts. Paul explains that in pursuing a law through which they could establish their own basic human righteousness, Israel missed out on and ended up rejecting Faith Righteousness based on Christ and His Cross, which would have brought them into God's Righteousness (Rom. 9:31-33)! Paul uses Is. 52:7 and 53:1 to demonstrate this to them

We had a good question on Thursday about who is the foolish nation mentioned in Romans 10:19. This is what the verse says: But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses said: I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation. Since most of historic Christianity has rejected Paul's distinct apostleship, they think that this verse refers to God transferring salvation away from Israel and to the Gentiles. This is what their man-made religious and man-centered theological systems require so this is the interpretation they force on the verse.

But to do this, they must change the word of God. The Word of God doesn't say: I will provoke you to jealousy by the foolish nations (plural)! It says: I will provoke you by a foolish nation (singular). In order to make this verse say what they want it to say, they have to throw away God's word—NATION—and replace it with their own word—NATIONS. Because this interpretation requires that God's Word be changed, it must be rejected out of hand.

So, who is the “no” people and the “foolish” nation? First, we need a little background. Romans 10:14-21 Paul refers back to Is. 52:7 to show that God has not been remiss in sending messengers to the Nation of Israel. In the days of Jesus' earthly ministry and in the ministry of the 12 and the Holy Spirit in early Acts, He did not just fulfill Is. 52:7 by sending Israel one messenger! He SUPER-FULFILLED it by sending her a multitude of messengers!! The point being that the problem was not with God and His faithfulness! The problem was with Israel and her unbelief!!

Moses explained way back at the 2nd giving of the Law (Deut. 32:21) that when Israel fell into unbelief, one of the things God would do is provoke her to jealousy (with the intent that they would return to Himself) by working through a “people” a “nation” that the leaders of Israel viewed as a “no” people and as just a “foolish” nation. Moses was looking ahead to the day when the bulk of Israel would rebel against God. They thought they were being wise and powerful, when, in fact, they were void of council and had no understanding (Deut. 32:28). Therefore, God would turn the tables on them. Rather than working through the greater unbelieving nation, He would instead work through a small remnant of believing “people” of Israel, of whom the unbelieving leaders took no notice. Then God would take this insignificant (in the eyes of unbelieving Israel) group of believing Israelites and make them into His Own nation, a nation that the unbelieving leaders considered foolish. The hope was that this would provoke the bulk of unbelieving Israel to jealousy and get them to return to the Lord.

So, who are these “people” that make up this “nation?” To answer this question, we need to remember that in Rom. 9:6, Paul was explaining who true Israel, Israel in God's sight, really was because: “They are not all Israel, who are of Israel.” Ignorant of God and His things, unbelieving Israel thought there was just one requirement to be a member of God's Israel. A person must be a natural descendant of Abraham through the line of Isaac and Jacob. But in this, they erred because God actually has two requirements to be a member of Israel, His True Israel: 1. Yes, you must be a natural descendant of Abraham through the line of Isaac and Jacob, but 2. You must also be a spiritual descendant of Abraham by following in his footsteps of faith (Gen. 15:6). What this means is that the Nation God accepts as the true Israel is not the one made up of just those who are the physical descendants of Abraham, but of those who are his physical descendants AND his spiritual descendants as well. This, of course, precludes and rules out the Gentiles and the Gentile nations.

So, we are back to our original question. Who is this “people” and the “nation” they comprise? We don't have to guess. God identifies them for us in Lk. 12:32, and Mat. 21:43.

Fear not little flock (the group of believers that form the Believing Remnant of Israel), for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom
(Lk. 12:32).

Therefore, I say unto you, The Kingdom of God shall be taken away from you (the unbelieving nation of Israel) and be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof (the believing nation of Israel comprised of those people in the Believing Remnant)
(Mat. 21:43).

God is going to gather His people, the little flock, the members of the Believing Remnant of Israel, and create from them His Own believing nation of Israel, True Israel. This will happen after the Dispensation of Grace when God re-starts His Prophetic Program with Israel at Christ's 2nd Coming when the false nation of Israel--unbelieving Israel, apostate Israel, accursed Israel--will be destroyed and believing Israel--true Israel, blessed Israel--will be saved from her enemies and ushered into the Kingdom where she will be planted in her Land of Promise forevermore. There she will be the head of the nations rather than the tail (Deut. 28:13), the source of God's blessings to all the Gentile nations on the earth.

In Romans 10:1-13 Paul explains that if only the unbelieving Israelites would receive the Word of God that Paul was preaching to them by believing it, this would move it from the mouth and place it into hearts of faith (following a principle Moses laid out at the 2nd giving of the Law--Rom. 10:5-8) ... If only they would do that, they would have participated in the Faith Righteousness that they had missed out on (Rom. 9:30-33; 10:1-5), and Faith Righteousness would have re-connected them to God the Father, and God the Father would have led them into the truth, into the acknowledgement, into the confession, getting them to agree with the fact that Jesus isn't just Jesus. He is Lord Jesus. Jesus is Lord (Rom. 10:9-11). He is the Lord of the Old Testament. He is Israel's Lord.

And once they had recognized Jesus as their Lord, they could have taken what was inside their “hearts” and brought it to the outside through their “mouths” by following Paul (who had not just been a member of the accursed nation but the LEADER of it!) out of the synagogue, out of the accursed nation, out of God's Prophetic Program for the Nation of Israel, and into God's Mystery Program for the Body of Christ and the local Pauline Grace assembly (Acts 13:43). And there they would have found the One they were to call upon--THE LORD JESUS CHRIST—and they would have found that He is, in fact, the same Person that the Gentiles were calling upon (Rom. 10:12-13). He is indeed the God of the Jews and the Gentiles (Rom. 3:29).

The unbelieving Jews during the Transition Period would not only be saved from their personal sins as individual sinners, but from being under the burden of Israel's national sins as well. God's Word through His messenger Paul would provide a full and complete salvation for ALL—ALL Jews and Gentiles—through the Lord Jesus Christ and His work on the Cross where He bore the weight of all sins—Israel's national sins and everyone's personal sins—onto Himself, removing them once-and-for-all, freeing them from the power of Sin and Death. They just needed to receive the benefits of His Crosswork for them by believing God's Word through Paul and it would all come to them by grace through faith (Rom. 3:22-24). ALL Jews and Gentiles who believed Paul's Gospel, the Good News of the Death and Resurrection of Christ for sinners, would be “saved” from the great debt of their own personal sins (Paul explained this in Rom. 1-8), and the Jews who were still members of the accursed nation in that day would be “saved” from the great debt of Israel's national sins (Paul explains this in Rom. 9-11). God provides a complete salvation for ALL!

On Thursday we entered into Romans 11 where Paul explains about Israel's national future.

In Romans 9, Paul explained that God had temporarily delayed the fulfillment of His Prophetic Program with the Nation of Israel while He carries another purpose in the world to display His Power and Glory through the distinct apostleship of Paul (God's Mystery Program for the Body of Christ).

Then, in Romans 10, Paul explained that having set aside Israel's Prophetic Program, does not mean that God has left the Jews hopeless. While participating in national Israel's Prophetic Program is now off the table, individual Jews can participate in what God is doing today in the world through Paul's apostleship on the same basis as the Gentiles—by grace through faith in Christ and His Work on the Cross—becoming members of the Body of Christ.

Now, in Romans 11, Paul explains that while God's Prophetic Program for the Nation of Israel has now been set aside, God hasn't set it aside permanently. After God completes the Body of Christ's Mystery Program, He will re-start His Prophetic Program with the Nation of Israel, at which time all Israel will be saved (Rom. 11:26).

One thing we see in Romans 9-11 is God's persistent faithfulness to the Nation of Israel. In her rebelliousness He did everything He could to draw her back to Himself. He gave her all kinds of privileges and benefits (Rom. 9:4-5). He sent multitudes of messengers. All those prophets in the Old Testament. John the Baptist and Jesus and the 12 and the 70 in the Gospel Accounts. He sent them the 120 and the 1,000s in early Acts. And then He sent Paul. He tried to draw them back to Himself by provoking them to jealousy through the Believing Remnant—who, in the eyes of the leaders of Israel, were a no people and a foolish nation (Rom. 10:19). He presented Himself to them and interacted with them and went seeking after them even though they weren't seeking Him and didn't want Him (Rom. 10:20). In fact, He held His hand out to them all the day long, trying to help and lead and guide them. But Israel rejected them all. She didn't believe His messenger and rejected His overtures. Instead of embracing His hand, they bit it. Their privileges became a snare and a trap and to the days of Paul Himself God had still not been able to give them eyes to see, ears to hear and hearts to understand because of unbelief. God's words and works were meant to soften their hearts in faith, enlighten their eyes and bless them but because of their rebellious unbelief His words and works only ended up hardening, darkening and cursing them.

IN THE GRACIOUS FORTY DAYS, GOING FROM GOSHEN IN EGYPT TO MT. SINAI: God tried to teach them about the grace resident in His Jehovah Name: I WILL DO EVERYTHING FOR YOU JUST BELIEVE! But they murmured and complained and said NO, WE WILL DO IT OURSELVES (Ex. 19:8), and they entered into the Law Covenant whereby they contracted with God to treat them conditionally: Blessing them for obedience and cursing them for disobedience. Because of unbelief, God's word and works only ended up hardening, darkening and cursing them rather than softening, enlightening and blessing them.

IN THE GRACIOUS FORTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS: God tried to teach them about the grace resident in His Jehovah Name, I WILL DO EVERYTHING FOR YOU JUST BELIEVE! He provided for them miraculously and conquered their enemies but they murmured and complained and refused to enter the land in unbelief (Num. 14). God still couldn't soften, enlighten and bless them (Deut. 29:4).

IN THE GRACIOUS FOUR HUNDRED YEARS UNDER THE JUDGES: God tried to teach them about the grace resident in His Jehovah Name: I WILL DO EVERYTHING FOR YOU JUST BELIEVE! But they rejected His word and works and rebelled against Him, everyone doing the evil that was in their own heart (Judges 21:25), causing the nation to enter into the 1st Course of Punishment under the Curses of the Law. God still couldn't give them eyes to see and ears to hear.

IN THE GRACIOUS REIGN OF DAVID AND SOLOMON: God tried to teach them about the grace resident in His Jehovah Name: I WILL DO EVERYTHING FOR YOU JUST BELIEVE! But David said because of their unbelief, the privileges and benefits God gave to Israel only ended up ensnaring and trapping them. God still could not soften, enlighten and bless them (Ps. 69:22-23), and they soon entered into the 2nd Course of Punishment under the Curses of the Law.

IN THE GRACIOUS MINISTRY OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH: God tried to teach them about the grace resident in His Jehovah Name: I WILL DO EVERYTHING FOR YOU JUST BELIEVE! God's intent was that His words and works through Isaiah would cause their eyes and ears to be opened, and their hearts to be softened in faith, that they might be converted and be healed (Is. 6:10b), but God knew His words and works through Isaiah would only harden, darken and blind them more because they would reject them in unbelief (Is. 6:9-10a).

IN THE GRACIOUS EARTHLY MINISTRY OF JESUS TO ISRAEL: God tried to teach them about the grace resident in His Jehovah Name: I WILL DO EVERYTHING FOR YOU JUST BELIEVE! He was sent to heal them and mend their broken hearts and deliver them and give them sight (Lk. 4:18), but once again they rejected His Word and Works in unbelief, remaining darkened, blinded and hardened (Mat. 13:14-15).

IN THE GRACIOUS TRANSITION PERIOD MINISTRY OF THE APOSTLE PAUL: God tried to teach them about the grace resident in His Jehovah Name: I WILL DO EVERYTHING FOR YOU JUST BELIEVE! But they rejected God's word through Paul in unbelief as well! 1500 years after Sinai and God still had not been able to soften their hearts, open their eyes and bless them. For the heart of this people (Israel) is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart and should be converted and I (the LORD) should heal them (Acts 28:26-27).

For 1500 years God had tried through His words and works to open Israel's heart, eyes and ears but as a whole she refused to receive them in faith. But a small remnant did believe, and they were softened, enlightened and blessed, the Believing Remnant (Mat. 13:16-17). Moreover, there will be a future Nation of Israel centered on the Believing Remnant that will emerge out of the Tribulation Period at Christ's 2nd Coming who will believe and who will look on their Lord Jesus Christ and who will give the answer they should have given way back at Mt. Sinai 1500 years before: LORD, TREAT US GRACIOUSLY. YOU HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING FOR US!! RETURN TO CARRYING US ALONG AS ON EAGLES WINGS AND BRING US TO YOURSELF!!! MAKE US INTO THE PEOPLE YOU CREATED US TO BE!!! (Ex. 19:4; Ezek. 20:40-41; Hos. 14:1-2)!!!! And the LORD Jesus Christ will do just that through the gracious New Covenant (Jer. 31:31-34).

In the days of the Apostle Paul, God temporarily and mercifully stopped dealing with national Israel lest she become even more hardened, darkened and accursed in unbelief than she already was, and is carrying out another Purpose and Program with another people in the world, especially the Gentiles through Paul's distinct apostleship that Paul describes as God's Mystery Program with the Body of Christ to Re-Establish His Glory in the Heavenlies (Eph. 1-3; Rom. 16:25).

Recently, in our Thursday night Bible Study Fellowship from Romans 11:12-15, we looked at God's logic statements regarding the certainty of His fulfillment of His Prophetic Program for the Nation of Israel. God and Paul's logic goes like this:

1. If through Israel's (temporary) Fall God's riches have gone out to the whole world, especially the Gentiles ... Isn't it obvious that through Israel's restoration by the fulfillment of God's Prophetic Program with her, there will be even greater riches for the world (11:12)?
2. Or put another way: If through their (temporary) casting away God reconciled the world to Himself through Christ, especially the Gentiles ... Isn't it obvious that through Israel's restoration by the fulfillment of God's Prophetic Program it will be life from the dead (11:15)?

Paul's point is that if God is all done with National Israel (as most of historic Christianity claims), then it would mean that He is all done with the world, the earth. Without God's Prophetic Program with the Nation of Israel, THERE IS NO HOPE FOR THE EARTH. God's Mystery Program for the Body of Christ wasn't designed to fix the problems of the Earth. It was designed to fix the problems of the Heavenlies (Eph. 1-3). The Mystery Program has been in effect for 2,000 years on Earth and things have only gotten worse and, according to Paul, will continue to get worse until Christ's return (1 Tim. 4:1-2; 2 Tim. 3:13). The only fix for the Earth comes through God's Prophetic Program with the Nation of Israel and her Kingdom on Earth at which time Christ will rule over the Earth from David's throne in Jerusalem. Justice and equity will be perfectly implemented. God's righteousness and knowledge will cover the Earth as the waters cover the sea. Satan will be bound and the wicked generation purged. Conditions will be optimized to greatly increase food production and human longevity. All of these things will go into effect when God fulfills His Prophetic Program with the Nation of Israel. It is the only way to “fix” the Earth. Therefore, if God is all done with Israel, He must also be all done with the Earth. The Body of Christ's Mystery Program just won't work.

This brought up a great question: Everyone understands why the Earth needs “fixing up” but why does the Heavenly Realm need “fixing up?” You will find the answer to this question in the Highlights article below.

It is important to remember that before the Fall of Adam and humanity, there was the Fall of Satan and a large number of angels. These two Falls marred the Glory of God in both the Earthly and Heavenly realms. Neither is operating in accord with God's plan and purposes. Just as Satan (the Snake and Adversary of God) has established positions of authority on earth, he has also established positions of authority in the heavenlies. Paul calls these the principalities , powers, and rulers of darkness of this world and spiritual wickedness in heavenly places (Eph. 3:10, 6:12). At the Cross the Lord Jesus Christ spoiled these Satanic powers and principalities (Col. 2:15), but He has not yet evicted them from their offices. That is yet future as described in Rev. 12:7-9, et al..

In Summary: God is going to take the positions of authority in the Earthly realm away from the Adversary usurper and his PEOPLE (human followers) and give them to Christ and His PEOPLE, the Nation of Israel, thereby re-establishing His Glory on Earth. We refer to this as God's Prophetic Program for the Nation of Israel. But that only solves part of the universe's problem. God is also going to take the positions of authority in the Heavenly realm away from the Adversary usurper and his ANGELS and give them to Christ and His PEOPLE, the Body of Christ, thereby re-establishing His Glory in the Heavenlies. While anyone could guess that God would restore His Glory on Earth through a redeemed humanity (after all humans are born on the Earth!), what no one could guess, and what no one did guess, is the wondrous and amazing and shocking and glorious and breathtaking truth about what God is doing today. Today, He is using another group of redeemed humanity to restore His Glory in the Heavenlies as well! We refer to this as God's Mystery Program for the Body of Christ.

When the Lord Jesus Christ as the Head of all powers and principalities (Eph. 1:20-21) once-and-for-all evicts the Adversary usurper and his human and angelic cohorts from the Earthly and Heavenly realms, the former will be replaced with the Nation of Israel on Earth and the latter will be replaced with the Body of Christ in the Heavenlies. Paul describes it this way: Until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which in His times He shall show, who is the blessed and only Potentate (in the Heavenly realm), the King of kings and Lord of lords (in the Earthly realm) ... to whom be honor and power everlasting (1 Tim. 6:14b-16).

And when these two programs are running in their fullness, glory upon glory, the Earthly and Heavenly spheres will be working in complete unison (like the two wheels in a finely tuned watch), perfectly and everlastingly displaying God's Glory throughout the whole universe. In the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in Heaven and which are on Earth (Eph. 1:10).