CALLING ON THE NAME OF THE LORD
Romans 9:30 - 10:21

The Elephant in the Room

• So what about Israel?
• Did God abandon them? Did he change the terms?
• Is God just and fair?
• Did he abandon Jews for Gentiles?

The Lord’s Genius

• God’s not finished with Israel
• If he can save Israel to save the Gentiles ...
• Then he can save the Gentiles in order to save Israel!

Romans 9:30-33

• Righteousness and Faithfulness

  Gentiles Not Seeking God Attained Righteousness By Faith

  Israel Seeking God Did Not Attain Law Because of Law

The Irony

• Paul describes the reality of a people who made their own efforts and contribution to righteousness more of a God than God
• Isaiah 8:14, Isaiah 28:16
• The stumbling block = Scandal

Misdirected Zeal

How can it be?
A young man straps a load of explosives to his waist, walks into a crowd and destroys both himself and scores of others.
A group of devotees follow a charismatic leader, surrender their common sense and die out of loyalty to a pathetic cause.
Religious zealots dance on red-hot coals, mutilate their bodies, go on lengthy fasts and subject themselves to every kind of abuse.
Why? How can it be?
The answer is easy to identify but difficult to understand. Misdirected zeal. A subjecting of all that is reasonable to a religious fervor that is ill directed and destructive.
One word describes this deplorable kind of behavior - deception. Ask an escapee from a religious cult. Ask a suicide bomber five seconds into eternity. Ask anyone who has been deceived into believing that zeal and fervor are beneficial, even when misdirected. They will all agree - they have been tragically, pathetically and deplorably deceived.
None of us will forget the carnage of mass suicides as sincere people have been gradually brainwashed into believing that a cause was bigger and more important than life itself. Indeed, misdirected religious zeal is deception at its worst.
Again, how can it be? Why does it happen? Romans 10 (and the last verses of Romans tell us). Here then are the subtle lies that undergird the deception.

Romans 10:1-4

Misdirected Zeal
God’s Way vs Our Way
1. Human Effort Can Earn Divine Favor
2. Human Righteousness = Divine Righteousness
3. Human Initiative Can Compel Divine Response
See also: Misdirected Zeal - The Great Deception {offsite}

Romans 10:5-13

• God’s Way
  – Trusting Christ
  – Acknowledging Christ as Lord
  – Believing God raised Him
  – “All who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved” – Joel 2:32
  WARNING: CHECKLIST MENTALITY
  God’s way is confession and belief. Equals Trust.
  But we can turn even this into a series of obligations that we can manage and trust flies out the window. Self-Reliance vs Reliance in God.

Calling On The Name

1. Jew and Gentile are same in this respect
2. No one is advantaged or disadvantaged
3. No disappointment in trusting God
4. Where does faith begin?

Little By Little

1. You cannot call unless you believe in Him
2. You cannot believe unless you’ve heard about Him
3. You cannot hear about Him unless someone tells
4. One cannot tell unless one is sent

Hearing About Christ

• Isaiah 53
• Acts 2 – Peter preaches Christ
• Acts 8:5, 35 – Phillip proclaims Christ to the Samaritans and the Eunuch
• 1 Corinthians 1:23 – “We preach Christ crucified ...”

Christ at the Core

Obedience is to the gospel. A response to the good news. Not simply obedience to commands. Salvation comes through a response to Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.
Response apart from Christ is meaningless.
Reliance on a formula or pattern is misplaced zeal or self-reliance. Salvation comes through trust and reliance on Jesus Christ.
Preaching Christ is what produces faith. See K.C. Moser – The Gist of Romans

Romans 10:16-21

• Can the Good News be Rejected? (Isaiah 53:1)
• Have the Jews heard? (Psalm 19:4)
• Did they understand? (Deuteronomy 32:21; Isaiah 65:1-2)

The Future of Israel

• God has not rejected Israel
• Israel is not without hope

  Dear brothers and sisters, the longing of my heart and my prayer to God is for the people of Israel to be saved.

Chris Benjamin

West-Ark Church of Christ, Fort Smith, AR
Evening Sermon, 1 February 2009

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