(# 352) Romans 10 - God Gives You a Disadvantage and Then Delivers You to Victory

Class Outline:

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Welcome To

BARAH MINISTRIES

a Christian Church

Rory Clark

Pastor-Teacher

 

Good Evening!

 

Welcome to Barah Ministries…a Christian Church based in Mesa, AZ…my name is Pastor Rory Clark.  At Barah Ministries we worship the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  We call Him Lord because He is 100% God.  We call Him Jesus Christ because He is 100% true humanity just like you and me.

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

God Gives You a Disadvantage and Then Delivers You to Victory

 

One of my favorite questions to ask of my Jewish friends is, “Who is the most persecuted race in the history of mankind?”  It’s a challenging and perplexing question for them at first…many of them think I am begging them for the conclusion that black people are the most persecuted race of all time.  But after pausing to contemplate the question, most of them rightly conclude that The Jewish Race is probably the most persecuted race of all time.

 

I concur with that thought.  We can easily point to the holocaust as a leading indicator of this persecution.  One person, Adolf Hitler, organized an attempted genocide of The Jewish Race in Europe.  The tension in the Middle East is another leading indicator.  There is a relentless attempt by countries around tiny Israel to wipe it off the map.

 

I’m not bringing this up to be provocative.  Certainly anyone could mount an argument against this view.  In fact, there is a recent movie called DENIAL, a 2016 British-American historical drama based on Deborah Lipstadt’s book History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier.  There always seems to be a concerted effort to modify history and to pretend like the persecution of The Jewish Race is simply in their imaginations.  I assure you…it isn’t just in their minds.  The Jewish Race is definitely the most persecuted ever, and the best indicator is that the bible itself reveals the motivation for such persecution…so that the promises made by the Lord to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the fathers of the Jewish Race, might be thwarted in an attempt to discredit the Lord.  These efforts to wipe out Israel and The Jewish Race will never be successful!

 

Jewish people are not the only ones to be persecuted in this world.  How about the persecutions you suffer?  How about the persecutions suffered if you are black…if you are a single mom…if you are a woman…if you are divorced…if you are a battered woman…if you have been molested…if you went to a lousy school…if you grew up in the ghetto…if you’ve had cancer…if you were born into wealth…if you’ve had fame…these are just a few of the many trials we suffer as human beings.  Maybe you have suffered one of these persecutions…or maybe many of these…or maybe even all of them.  A friend of mine, when I asked him if he believes in God, said, “I can’t believe there is a God when I look around and see all the suffering in the world…no God worth worshipping would allow all these things to happen.  Well my comment to him and my challenge to you in this lesson would be to have you consider this thought…God gives us disadvantages and then delivers us to victory. 

 

My question for you?  What are you doing with your disadvantage? 

 

Welcome to a place where you can find out how to take advantage of your disadvantage through the study of the Word of God.

 

MUSIC AND REFLECTION

Be Occupied with the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ

Enjoy the Singing of His Praises

 

AWESOME GOD

Rich Mullins

 

Let’s open our hearts and let’s open our ears to the truth that is nestled deeply within the Word of God…the Word of the all-powerful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ…as we study His Word we realize more and more the truth of this song by Rich Mullins…our God is an AWESOME GOD.

 

OPENING PRAYER

Let us pray...

 

We’re grateful, Heavenly Father, for the privilege of studying Your absolute truth...the Word of God…

 

Father, thank you for allowing us to be witnesses as Satan unfolds his case against you…thank you for allowing us to reside in Satan’s kingdom and to watch the constant slights against You, against The Jewish Race, against everything You stand for, and against everything You love…

 

Help us to see the beauty in You allowing these persecutions and tribulations, especially when they occur in our own lives…help us not to judge these things as good or bad…instead to see the wonder of Your almighty hand in everything that happens to us…give us the patience to watch as You deliver us to victory every single time…

 

We ask this through the power of God the Holy Spirit…in Christ’s name...

Amen.

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

God Gives You a Disadvantage and Then Delivers You to Victory

 

We continue our study of Romans, Chapters 9-10-11…we have completed the first two chapters…and as we transition to the third chapter…Romans Chapter 11…I thought it might be a good idea to remind us what we have learned in the first two chapters…and to question the implications of what we have learned in our own lives.

 

In witnessing God’s dealings with Israel and The Jewish Race…their past in Romans, Chapter 9…their present in and Romans, Chapter 10…and in anticipating our look at their future in Romans, Chapter 11…a theme of persecution emerges.  Since nothing in the universe happens without God’s permission, it might make the keen observer wonder, as my friend did, how God could allow suffering to happen.  I am absolutely convinced that God allows suffering to happen for our benefit.  It is a reflection of His righteousness, His justice and His love that He would allow us to be persecuted at the hands of the merciless, and then to deliver us…the same thing God the Father allowed as He witnessed the trials of His Son.  In Acts, Chapter 2, Verses 22 to 24, the apostle Peter chronicles this persecution…

 

ACTS 2:22

“Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God the Father with miracles and wonders and signs which God the Father performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know…”

 

ACTS 2:23

“…this Man, Jesus Christ, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God the Father, you nailed to a Cross by the hands of godless men (ungodly, unrighteous unbelievers) and put Him to death.”

 

ACTS 2:24

“But God the Father raised Jesus up again (from the dead), putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Jesus to be held in death’s power.”

 

Just as God the Father allowed disadvantage by allowing godless men to slaughter His Son…and then delivered His Son to victory three days later by resurrecting Him from the dead!  So when God allows you a disadvantage, He invites you to be patient until He delivers you from it.  I see that theme emerging in the study of Unbelieving Israel and The Unbelieving Jewish Race so far in our study of Romans, Chapters 9 and 10.  In this lesson, let’s look back to Romans, Chapter 9…

 

PASSAGE 1

 

ROMANS 9:1

I (Paul) am telling you the truth…I am in union with Christ on this…I am not lying to you…my conscience testifies along with me…I am filled with God the Holy Spirit and His enabling power as I speak on this matter…

 

ROMANS 9:2

…and I tell you that I keep on having great sorrow and an incessant, haunting grief in my heart (I am heartbroken).

 

ROMANS 9:3a

For if I (Paul) could (for the sake of argument…yet I know it is not possible), I would wish that I myself were accursed (made an anathema by God…sent to the Lake of Fire as a substitute)…

 

ROMANS 9:3b

…and (that I would be) separated (by God) from (my union with) the Christ (the Messiah) for the sake of my brethren (the Jews who are unbelievers), who are my “kinsmen according to the flesh…”

 

ROMANS 9:4a

…my kinsmen who are Israelites (people of the nation of Israel), to whom belongs (a status with God easily identifiable by these gifts)…the adoption as sons (as a nation)…and to whom belongs the glory (God’s presence among the Jewish people)…and to whom belongs the covenants (a series of promises made only to and only about Israel and the Jews)…

 

ROMANS 9:4b

…and to whom belongs the giving of the Mosaic Law (a nation placed in charge of the oracles of God)…and to whom belongs the temple service (He made the Jews a kingdom of priests)…and to whom belongs the promises (five promises made to the Jewish race, especially the promise concerning real estate)…

 

ROMANS 9:5a

…my kinsmen who are of the lineage of the fathers (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob)…and my kinsmen from whose lineage comes the (greatest gift of all, the) Christ (a Jew who came to the nation of Israel), the One who became flesh (and tabernacled among us…)

 

ROMANS 9:5b

…(just as He promised throughout Old Testament Scripture)…the Messiah…the One who is the only Sovereign over all, THE God (100% deity and 100% true humanity in one person forever)…the blessed One…who EXISTS forever (the Lord Jesus Christ). Amen.

 

We can see the Lord’s pattern of operation in this first passage…He always gives His creatures a set of advantages…and His creatures always seem to find a way to turn the advantages into disadvantages.  Israel and The Jewish Race…those of the lineage of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob…own favored status in God’s eyes…yet Satan and his world system have turned those advantages against The Jews, and many Jews have willingly gone along with Satan’s deceptions.

 

PASSAGE 2

 

ROMANS 9:6

But it is not as though the word of God has failed (simply because unbelieving Jews rejected their Messiah). For they are not all (spiritual) Israel…(they are not all spiritual Jews in the eyes of God)…who are descended from Israel (as racial Jews)…

 

ROMANS 9:7

…nor are they all children of God (in His eyes) simply because they are Abraham’s (blood) descendants…but the Lord says, “Through Isaac (a believer in Christ) Abraham’s descendants will be named.”

 

ROMANS 9:8a

That is, it is not the children…(not the born ones) of the flesh…(not Ishmael’s seed…the Ishmaelites, the Midianites, the Edomites) who are children of God…

 

ROMANS 9:8b

…but it is the children (the born ones) of the promise (Abraham’s seed…the born again ones of God that) are regarded (by God) as descendants (of Abraham).

 

ROMANS 9:9

For this is the word of promise made by God to Abram and Sari, “At this time next year I will come, and Sarah shall have a son.”

 

ROMANS 9:10

And not only is this true, but also there was (barren) Rebekah, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac…

 

ROMANS 9:11

…for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His Sovereign choice would stand, not because of works but because of God the Father who calls (by His Sovereign right)…

 

ROMANS 9:12

…it was said to Rebekah, “The older (Esau) will serve the younger

(Jacob).”

 

ROMANS 9:13

Just as it is written, “(The nation of) Jacob I (the Lord) loved, but (the nations of) Esau I (the Lord) hated.”

 

God makes it clear that there is no advantage to those who have racial Jewish blood running through their veins.  Man has come to distort the blessings of God to The Jewish Race in this way.  Instead it is the ones who obey in the matter of Abraham’s obedience that have advantage…those who believe in the Lord and have it credited by God to their account as absolute righteousness…it is this righteousness from God that makes a person a spiritual Jew…a remnant of the Lord.

 

There are always those who will argue that God is unfair, no matter what He does….but God makes Himself clear and He makes His “so great” salvation available to all.

 

PASSAGE 3

 

ROMANS 9:14

What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be!

 

Said in a more direct manner…is God unfair?  Absolutely not!  The Lord is the One and Only Sovereign God of the universe…He can do anything He wills to do. 

 

God gave Satan an advantage in his case against the Lord instead of a disadvantage…Satan was assumed to be innocent until proven guilty…and when Satan was found guilty of high treason against the Lord, Satan was given an appeal trial and was placed in charge of planet earth to allow him to prove his boast that he could be like the Most High God.  Isaiah, Chapter 14, Verse 14…

ISAIAH 14:14

‘I (Satan) will ascend above the heights of the clouds (I will to take over the function of God)…I WILL MAKE MYSELF like the Most High.’

 

Satan is the creator of the pattern of self-righteousness…the thought that a creature can attain a status that God alone is able to provide.

 

ROMANS 9:15

For the Lord says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

 

God, as Sovereign, has a right to do as He wills.

 

ROMANS 9:16

So then God’s plan does not depend on the man who wills (the one who

wants what God offers) and God’s plan does not depend on the man who runs (the one who works for salvation), but God’s plan depends on the faithfulness of the God who has mercy (on whosoever).

 

ROMANS 9:17

For in the Scripture, God says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised

you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be

proclaimed throughout the whole earth.”

 

ROMANS 9:18

So then God has mercy on whom He desires, and He allows a hardening in whom He desires.

 

Let’s take a music break…let’s listen to a song that acknowledges how we really are as people when we are sucked in by Satan’s traps…and the song offers the cure for being sucked in…God’s unconditional love…the break song is MORE LIKE FALLING IN LOVE by Jason Gray.

 

MUSIC BREAK

MORE LIKE FALLING IN LOVE

Jason Gray

 

THE OFFERING

Deacon Denny Goodall

Let’s begin the next portion of our lesson by giving you a chance to make an offering…we need and we value your financial support to continue the work of this ministry…please welcome up Deacon Denny Goodall with the offering message.

 

OFFERING VERSE

 

ROMANS 1:20

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

 

OFFERING

FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE

Dave McClure, Instrumental

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

God Gives You a Disadvantage and Then Delivers You to Victory

 

Welcome back!  What are you doing with your disadvantage?  Some of those who are given disadvantages become whiners…Romans, Chapter 9…the fourth passage…

 

PASSAGE 4

 

ROMANS 9:19

You will say to me (Paul) then, “Why does God still find fault with us? For who is successful at resisting His will (since He is Sovereign)?”

 

The whiner thinks God is picking on them with His Sovereignty.  But Paul fights back…

 

ROMANS 9:20

On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it?

 

ROMANS 9:21

Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same

lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?

God is able to allow whatever He wills.

 

Whenever you think you’ve it bad in the persecution and trials realm, go to You Tube and pull up a video from Nick Vujicic…No Arms…No Legs…No Worries!  Nick is an Australian Christian evangelist of Serbian descent.  He was born with tetra-amelia syndrome, a rare disorder characterized by the absence of arms and legs.  Instead of turning his problem into a way to feel sorry for himself…instead Nick has become a motivational speaker who tells of his victory over his infirmity through his relationship with the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

 

Many of those who are part of The Unbelieving Jewish Race have not turned their disadvantage into advantage.  Instead they have used it as an excuse to be bitter, as if somehow the Lord has forgotten about His chosen nation and His chosen race.

 

Romans, Chapter 9, Passage 5…

 

How does the Lord deal with those who reject the generosity of the disadvantages He provides them?  With great patience!

 

PASSAGE 5

 

ROMANS 9:22

What if God, although willing (and able) to demonstrate His wrath and to

make His power known, instead endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?

 

ROMANS 9:23

And what if He did so to make known His glorious riches, lavished upon vessels of mercy…vessels He prepared beforehand for glory…

 

ROMANS 9:24

…even us (as believers in Christ), whom He also called (inviting us to the privilege of mercy), not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.

 

The Lord could choose to wipe us out for being whiners…He just doesn’t.

 He uses the Nick’s of the world to illuminate the power of what right

 choice can do.  Romans, Chapter 9, Passage 6…

 

PASSAGE 6

 

ROMANS 9:25

As God the Father says also in Hosea,  “I will call those who were not My people (The Gentiles), ‘My people’ … and I will call her who was not beloved (who was not the divinely loved Jews…these Gentiles), ‘beloved.’”

 

ROMANS 9:26

“And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people’ … (in the land of the Gentiles) … there they shall be called sons of the living God.”

 

ROMANS 9:27

Isaiah cries out concerning (the nation) Israel, “Though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that will be saved…”

 

ROMANS 9:28

“…for the Lord will execute His word on the earth, thoroughly and quickly.”

 

ROMANS 9:29

And just as Isaiah foretold, “Unless the Lord of Sabbath (the Lord Jesus Christ) had left to us a posterity (a remnant of believing Jews), we would have become like Sodom, and would have resembled Gomorrah.”

 

God is fair.  God is patient.  God loves.  God is just.  He waits for us to see the wisdom of His treatment of us.  The Lord is partial to no one.  He gives opportunity to everyone, even though He clearly has His favorites…the “whosoevers” of the world who are obedient to Him.  Romans, Chapter 9, Passage 7…

 

PASSAGE 7

 

ROMANS 9:30

What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness that is by faith…

ROMANS 9:31

…but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness (The Mosaic Law), did not arrive at (a fulfillment of) that law (and its promised righteousness).

 

ROMANS 9: 32

Why? Because they did not pursue righteousness by faith, but they pursued righteousness as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone…(they missed accepting a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ for the righteousness)…

 

ROMANS 9:33

…just as it is written, “Behold, I (God the Father) lay in Zion (Jerusalem) a

stone of stumbling and a rock of offense (the Lord Jesus Christ…my Son), and he who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ will not be disappointed.”

 

Blessings from God are turned into disadvantages by the world.  Are you are black…a single mom…a woman…divorced…battered…molested… abused…did you go to a lousy school…did you grow up in the ghetto…have you had cancer…were you born into wealth…have you been cursed with fame…did God give you the wrong parents?  These are just a few of the trials we suffer as human beings.  What are you doing with your disadvantage?  Are you a whiner?  Or are you letting God make you a winner?  The choice is yours.  Hebrews Chapter 4, Verse 15…

 

HEBREWS 4:15

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

 

The Lord has been persecuted as we are…yet He waited for His Father’s deliverance.  Luke, Chapter 20, Verses 42 and 43…

 

LUKE 20:42

For David himself says in the book of Psalms, ‘The Lord (God the Father) said to my Lord (Jesus Christ), “Sit at My right hand…”

 

LUKE 20:43

“…until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.”’

 

GOD WANTS YOU!

Make the Most Important Decision of Your Life

 

ROMANS 1:16

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God the Father…divine omnipotence…to provide salvation to everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ…to the Jew first and also to the Greek (Gentiles).

 

MATTHEW 7:13

“Enter salvation through the narrow gate (the Lord Jesus Christ)…for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction…and there are many who enter through the wide gate.”

 

MATTHEW 7:14

“For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to the resurrection life, and there are few who find the narrow way.”

 

JOHN 10:9

“I (the Lord Jesus Christ) am the door to salvation…if anyone enters through believing in Me…he will be saved…and then he will go in and out and find pasture.”

 

FIRST CORINTHIANS 15:22

For all in union with Adam are set to die the second death in the Lake of Fire…but all those in union with Christ will live the resurrection life.

 

CLOSING SONG

HOW GREAT YOU ARE

June Murphy

 

CLOSING PRAYER

Let us pray...

 

          THANKS - INTERCESSION - PETITION

 

Thanks for coming!

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for listening!

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