Session 39 – Romans; Romans 9:14-18: Mark Lanier, 08/30/26

ROM 039_Romans P39_PODCAST_Lanier_083026
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[00:00:00] Okay, I have five comic strips that I look at each day They get, uh, I, I signed up for a service years and years and years ago. They email them. It is the only most important email I look at each day. Many of you have emailed me, and you're waiting on me to reply. I haven't replied to your email yet because I'm behind.

I'm behind because I read the comics. And so one of my comic strips that I read each day is the old Peanuts that are still redone even though Charles Schulz, uh, uh, is long gone. And they keep them relatively right with the [00:01:00] calendar. And so this was, uh, s- Friday or Saturday's. Charlie Brown: "School starts next week."

His sister: "Don't remind me." Charlie: "I'm not sure I remember a thing I learned last year. Can you remember anything you learned?" Sister: "I remember where the drinking fountain is." School has begun for a lot of kids here. Uh, school has yet to start for some kids, uh, up in the Northeast especially, uh, where a couple of our grand-- three of our grandkids are, but two of them school age.

Doesn't start till Tuesday, after Labor Day. So you've got school, and children go to school generally because, uh, they need it to prepare for life. Now, not everybody needs school past high school, and some people do fine not even finishing high school, getting their GED. [00:02:00] But there are a host of ways that people work, and education in general has been deemed to be helpful.

Hence, school is mandatory in most states until age 16. I think it's possible in Arkansas it's just to age six, but I'm not positive.

Shout out to Janet Seifert. Um

But it always raised the question, back to school, are you ready? And I can remember when I was a kid, getting ready for school involved a lot of different things. It involved getting school supplies, and we would have a list. And I would generally get a school lunchbox, and that was always really cool. My mom would make lunches [00:03:00] often.

If we would ask, she'd make them all the time, and we would always ask for a Bread and Jam for Francis lunch, because that was a book that she had read us when we were young, and it was always a, an extensive smorgasbord of foods. Not a lot of them, but it'd be li... I mean, not a lot of each one, but there'd be like 20 different things in there, and it was just, you just felt the, a treasure of riches.

We also, getting ready for school, would get, I don't remember in elementary school, I think it was five complete outfits, 'cause we didn't have uniforms. So we'd get five pa- I'd get five pairs of pants and five shirts. Uh, because I was growing each year, and so I, I couldn't wear the school clothes from the year before.

And Mom would figure those out with me and, uh, uh, for me, and I would get those. And this is all part of that back to school ritual. Well, I bring this up because I want to talk about [00:04:00] school in the age of Paul. School was different then. Education was different then. It wasn't mandatory. But those who did go to school had an elementary school training ground, and then they would go to grammaticus school, held by a grammaticus.

And these children who were going through the education system at the time would gather. The teacher, the grammaticus, would sit on top of a little raised, uh, platform. And the students would sit, and they would have their little wax tablets, and they would copy the poets This is how they learned their grammar.

This is how they [00:05:00] learned their poets. This is why people like Paul are able to quote the Greek poets when he's preaching in Athens. Now, we don't know if Paul attended these types of schools. We know he studied at the feet of Gamaliel. But Paul was originally from Tarsus and was a Tarsian citizen, which meant a well-to-do family in Tarsus that was active civically.

And so it does make sense that Paul would have some level of exposure, if not actual training in this, before he went to Jerusalem to study at the feet of Gamaliel. Now, this was the Grammaticus stage. The elementary stage, by the way, that was just done wherever. They didn't have schoolhouses the way we do.

And then the Grammaticus stage generally was somewhere better. It, uh, in this, uh, uh, AI replication that I tried to make, uh, they've got a [00:06:00] curtain to close because they're near the agora, near the marketplace. And, and these are-- We've got old writings of a fellow named Martial who was complaining over the fact that every morning he would be awakened by the Grammaticus yelling loudly at his students so they could start early, heat of the day, get the class out of the way, things like that.

Now, if you finished Grammaticus school, and you wanted to go on and get the highest degree possible, the terminal degree, that for us is a doctorate generally, or some might consider a postdoc, but that's not really a degree. That's just a program of study. The highest degree you could get

Was rhetoric. You went to a school of a [00:07:00] rhetor who taught rhetoric, and that was the terminal degree, the highest degree you could get in the day of Paul in the Greco-Roman world.

Rhetoricians, people who had those degrees, they served as the lawyers, the teachers, the politicians, the public speakers who could give discourses and addresses publicly, do funerals, things of that nature. Those were rhetoricians. And if you made it to the rhetor school, you were taught a curriculum, you were taught certain things.

You've already written and copied the poets. You've already learned your gramm- grammar, your basic stage. [00:08:00] What the rhetoric stage would do is, as a teenager, you would come in. Now, there were three basic categories of what you did with a rhetoric degree or a rhetor degree. But in this rhetor stage, what one group, who are going to become the lawyer types and the people arguing, what they would do is, uh, in- inside their rhetor school, they would argue imaginary lawsuits as a teenager This is part of rhetor training.

By the way, in this recreation, I've specified for the rhetor, the man up at the top who's the teacher, to have next to him a water glass. Because we know that they u- uh, we, we think of those as, as sand, but they used it also with water. A water glass was used to time the [00:09:00] speeches. That's, that's accurate.

Because that's what they did. So one of the things that these rhetors would do to train to be lawyer types is they would argue cases, imaginary cases. A second thing that they would do is they would play counselor of state. They would have a made-up fact situation where a statesman had to make a decision, and the student would mock argue to the statesman what his position should be.

Be a counselor, give the advice, put the position together, because rhetoricians served as not just the statesmen, but also counselors to the statesmen. Now, in all of this, it wasn't simply, "Okay, here's a fact situation. Come argue it tomorrow." [00:10:00] They taught the students tools to use. Tools to use in rhetoric, in arguing, in giving advice, in giving counsel, in, in giving public discourse One tool was called hypophora.

Hypophora means you raise your opponent's objection before he can I use hypophora as a lawyer. As a lawyer, usually on the plaintiff side, we have the burden to prove the case, and so the law says we go first. When I'm done and I give my opening statement to a jury, the defense lawyer stands up and gives her or his opening statement to the [00:11:00] jury When the defense lawyer's done, I don't get to respond.

All I have to do is, all I get to do is call my first witness. And I've tried many a case where the defense lawyer makes stuff up And I can't do anything about it? I tried a case one time where I got so mad at the defense lawyer, I counted 17 things he said that were just flat wrong. We might use the word lie.

And I was livid because I can't stand up and do anything about it in terms of, "Wait a minute, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you just heard a pack of lies." All I can do is stand up and say, "Your Honor, my first witness is..." And it makes it sound like I just didn't have anything I disagreed with him on Now I'm not gonna name the slugger, but his name [00:12:00] was Jeff.

And

And I was mad at Jeff. But Jeff made the mistake of having a client in the courtroom. And so I stood up and I said, "Your Honor, I'm gonna do something a little different than I'd planned. I'm calling his client to the stand as my first witness And client got up there, and my first question was something like, "What's your name?"

He said it. I said, "You work for this company?" "Yes." "Were you sitting here when that lawyer said everything he said?" "Yes." "I counted 17 things he lied on. How many did you get?"

He said, "Well, I, I, I didn't count any." I said, "Well, let, let me give you my list." Number one, he said this. "That ain't true, is it?" Well, not really. Number two, he said [00:13:00] this. "That ain't true, is it?" Well, I don't know. "Well, look, here's a document. Is it true?" No, I guess it's not. And we went down through my 17, and I said, "You got any more you wanna add?"

"No." Pass the witness. Now, I learned from that, though, that one of the things I do is I tell the jury, "When I sit down, he gets or she gets to get up, and I can't correct what they say. So I wanna tell you now what I think they're gonna say, and I wanna deal with it right now. I think they're gonna get up here, and they're gonna say blah, blah, blah.

And when they do, I want you to know..." And I'll answer the objection before they make it. That is hypophora. That's been taught for thousands of years. That's good rhetoric. That's good speaking skill. Now, there was a second tool that they taught [00:14:00] rhetoricians, and this we just call, uh, it's diatribe in the Latin, but we just say diatribe in English.

And that's where you've got an imaginary heckler, and you just think, "Somebody out there is gonna heckle me, so let me deal with the person who's heckling me in their head. Let me just deal with the imaginary heckler." You might be saying, "Well, where did Lanier get this?" See, I'm dealing with an imaginary heckler.

To which I would say, "I've studied ancient rhetoric." And you can go back all the way to Aristotle, or you can read Cicero. And if you wanna read it with a Latin sounding Cicero, as he would've said, y- I... it's, it's there. That's what I've studied. This is what I do. Now, I just dealt with an imaginary heckler.

That's diatribe [00:15:00] Then there's a third tool they gave, prosopopoeia. This is where you speak in an assumed character So for example, when I was giving the, uh, uh, let, let, you know, I, I might say, "Now someone might approach here and they might say, 'Well, hey, what about this and this?'" And I can answer blah, blah, blah.

This is an assumed character I'll speak through, and that's done. Um, it's often done also as quotin- quoting someone. You quote someone else, even though we generally give attribution to whomever we're quoting. We don't just assume the character would say A, B, or C. But this is the way it was done. Now, there is [00:16:00] a contemporary of Paul.

We have a lot of the writings of this contemporary. His name was Lucius Annaeus, uh, Annaeus, uh, Seneca. We just call him Seneca. And Seneca wrote on providence Seneca wrote on whether or not the gods just decree things to happen and what they decree. And so I can tell you, we can put some Seneca up here for you.

And Seneca wrote in Latin, as you'll see on the left side of the page. By the way, these Loeb Classical Library, if you ever wonder why there's, like, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them, it's the ancient literature. It's got the original language on one side, the English on the other. The red ones are always in Latin.

The green ones are ancient writers in, in Greek. So I brought you one of each. But here is Seneca. Seneca is a contemporary of [00:17:00] Paul. And look at how he uses these techniques that I'm describing to you. "You ask, 'Why do many adversities come to good men?'" See, he, he-- nobody's asking. He's just being a rhetoric.

He's just, he's just assuming questions that might be asked. And then he answers it. "Well, no evil can befall a good man can take him all the way down ultimately. Opposites don't mingle. Just the, as the countless rivers, the vast fall of rain from the sky, and the huge volume of mineral springs don't change the taste of the sea."

They don't even modify it. You can-- It can rain cats and dogs with pure water, but you go to the sea, and it's still gonna taste salty. You're not gonna say, "Hey, it's pretty diluted today after that rain." [00:18:00] No. "Even so, the assaults ad- of adversity don't weaken the spirit of a brave man."

When, when someone is, is a good man, is a brave man, and adversity comes

We endure. That's what he's saying. And he doesn't leave it there. He goes on to say, as he continues to write this, uh, you know, "I don't mean to say that the brave man is insensible to these things, but that he overcomes them, and being in all else unmoved and calm, rises to meet whatever assails him. All his adversities he counts mere training.

Who, moreover, if he is a man and intent upon the right, is not eager for reasonable toil [00:19:00] and ready for duties for a day?" Bring it on. I want the stuff just to show what kind of man I am. That's what Seneca's saying. But he says it by asking a question. He says, "To what energetic man is not idleness a punishment?"

If I'm not being challenged, my life is a wreck. I mean, this is the way they wrote. "Don't fa- don't-- Do you not see how fathers show their love in one way and mothers in another? The father orders his children." You know, these, this, this is raising the questions. This is... These are all three of those tools being shown.

And so you've got him. "You ask," this is a, a... Oops. Let me go back. Um, he writes in, in, on providence. "You ask, if [00:20:00] providence rules the world, why do so many adversities come to good men?" And that's when he starts saying, "Hey, bring it on. It's no big deal for us."

We will endure it, for men we are. And if you're a woman, watch us and be in awe

That's Seneca. Compare that to what Paul's gonna be writing about that we'll look at today. "What then shall we say?" Is there injustice on God's part? Paul's answer is not, "Man up." Paul's answer is, "No, don't impugn the character of God that way." And we're gonna look at Paul's answer. But the kinds of questions and the technique that Paul is using is well-known.

It is the [00:21:00] top understanding of communication at the time

What then shall we say? For Seneca, man's gonna tough it out. For Paul, now we're gonna understand it Big difference. Now, I brought you a Greek one, too. Epictetus was a, a Greek slave originally. He got released from slavery and became a philosopher. He was lame in body, or crippled, I should say, um, in body.

And he wrote on providence as well, and I brought you what he had to say about providence. Epictetus in his discourses, this is volumes one and two. He has other books as well, but of providence is this section here. "From everything that happens in the universe, it's easy for a man to find occasion to praise providence [00:22:00] if he has within himself these two qualities."

The faculty of taking a comprehensive view of what's happened in each instance and a sense of gratitude. So that's what you need. You need to have an ability to understand and see it for what it really is, and you need to be thankful. And then he goes on to give some examples. If God had made colors but had not made the faculty of seeing them, of what good had it been?

None at all. But conversely, if he made the faculty the ability to see different colors, but in making objects made them incapable of falling under that so that they didn't have difference in color, in that case also, what good has it been? None. Do [00:23:00] you see these question marks? You see these questions?

He's using the technique of the day The, he, he does this with everything. I just picked selections where they're writing on some of the same subjects Paul is, because I'll make the tie here shortly. What then? If he had even made both of these but hadn't made light, well, that wouldn't be of any use either.

So who is it then that's fitted this to do that and that to this? Who is it that fitted the sword to the scabbard and the scabbard to the sword? No one? Doesn't every work, such work reveal its art, uh, uh, artificer? But do visible objects and vision and light not reveal him also? He goes on to talk about why he's crippled and his argument with Zeus in [00:24:00] chapter six, and I put that up here 'cause it's easier and clearer.

Zeus, whoops. Zeus didn't give Epictetus a good body, but a good mind. And so Zeus says, "What then? Are these small in your sight?" And Epictetus said, "Far be it from me." And Zeus said, "Then are you content with them?" And Epictetus said, "I pray to gods I may be." And he goes on to make this case. He says, "You know, God gave me a-- the gods gave me a broken body, but a sharp mind, so I can look past the broken body and be thankful for the sharp mind."

Now compare what he says to what we're gonna be looking at with Paul. You'll say to me then, "Why does God still find fault? Who can resist his will?" But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why did you make me like this?" [00:25:00] We're gonna look at these things. But what I want you to understand, and, and, uh, Carol is back today.

Hi, Carol. We've missed you. And Carol keeps time on my points, and my introduction has gone way too long. But I want you to know this was gonna be point one, so we're like a third of the way through with just this. So hang in there. I've still got three points, but I won't cover them all today. So just bear with me But I want you to see in Paul's writings, if you go way back to when I first said, "How do you study an epistle?"

Part of what I said you do is not only understand the words and the sentences and the paragraphs and the chapters, but you understand them in the context of how the audience would have understood them. But I also said you understand them in the culture of how things were presented in that day. [00:26:00] And that's what I'm calling us to do here.

Because we're looking, what I have just done with you in talking about schooling then and giving you examples, this is the best teaching they had in Paul's day This is the best teaching in the Greco-Roman world that was known to exist. And so the fingerprints of the world's best teaching are all over the book of Romans because these are the precise techniques Paul is using in writing to the Romans.

He is using the tools that they would teach in the highest and best Roman schools for public discourse, for teaching, for persuading, for arguing, for counseling, [00:27:00] for debating. He's using those tools not just sublimely, but incredibly well

So don't lose sight of this. God's word came through a real first century teacher teaching the way the best teachers of his century taught

God's word came through a real first century teacher, Paul, teaching the way the best teachers of his century taught

Now, I gotta ask you a question. This is like, uh, um, class participation, okay? Which is hard to do in a class like this, especially if you on the internet. You on the internet, to be polite, just raise your [00:28:00] hand if you want us to call on you. You can shout it out. What's wrong with this picture of Paul?

Glasses. Glasses. The clock. The clock. The globe. The globe. The books

That's pretty much it. Uh, I mean, those really aren't the way their candles worked. Um, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we-- at least we have Roman numerals on the clock. That's a good thing

I think that's a dog whistle down there. That's not-- No, I don't know what that is

We have a tendency to read Paul with a lot of anachronisms We have a tendency to read back into Romans, especially these [00:29:00] chapters, debates that have been formed over the centuries since. We have a tendency to read back into Paul from our history and our culture and our intellectual thought systems instead of his own.

But the door to understanding these chapters is Paul's era, not ours, not the reformers, not the medieval theologians Not even the church fathers. We need to climb back into Paul's era. This is Paul dictating Romans to Tertius. There was one iPhone that had been set up in the corner, and they caught this picture

Paul, hand extended. [00:30:00] His scroll roll down here, his little, uh, that's a, an ancient briefcase for scrolls. You've got the wax tablets. These are real lamps from that era

Um, typically the, the writer would have multiple styluses And this is much more accurate for what we might have seen. A-and I, and I want us to see that. So within the framework of that, we're going to look at some passages in Romans, and this is-- I'm gonna give you my three points, recognizing that we only have twenty-four minutes left in class.

And so we're gonna make it through point one probably, and maybe part of point two, Carol. We'll save the rest So I did it as three objections. Objection number one. These objections, these are the questions that Paul [00:31:00] raises. Question: Is God unjust? And that we'll look at in verses 14 through 18. Question: Then why blame me?

And we'll look at that in verses 19 through 23, and then the verdict, even us whom He called. But I do want you to know that even in the way I have outlined these objections, I am framing part of the debate in a way that I'm not even sure I agree with, but you'll find it to be typical framing by scholars.

So what we've gotta do is try and sort through this, and for me, we start with the text. So verses 14 through 18: Is God unjust? I wanna start with a fundamental principle that we should all remember [00:32:00] Mercy is never owed

Mercy is never owed. "God, you owe me mercy." Doesn't work that way It, it doesn't work that way. Now, we need to get a running start on this, and so we're gonna go back to where we were last week, and I wrote a couple of IOUs with you if you were here last week. I said, "Don't you wanna know this? Well, come back next week."

I'm paying my IOUs, okay? So let's back up for a moment. Paul is giving an example of God's faithfulness to the calling God put on Israel, telling Israel's story. And as he tells Israel's story, he's already told about Isaac, [00:33:00] and now he is moving toward Rebecca. I say Isaac. Here is Isaac. "When Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac," but that's not...

He did the Abraham/Isaac story earlier. Now he's doing really Rebecca, but Isaac was the father. She conceived two children, twins, and though they were not yet born and hadn't done anything good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls, they're born There have been debates, and if you read commentaries on Romans that are thorough commentaries, you'll see debates about this question of this passage that I raised yesterday.

Paul speaks of God's [00:34:00] election, that the election might continue, and the question is, election to what?

I would suggest that first and foremost, Paul is talking about the historical role of his Messiah coming Now, some will say he's also talking about an election to salvation. But I don't see in the way Paul's doing this initially, Paul thinking that way. Th- there are some arguments that he was thinking both of these.

We'll get into those, and we'll continue to hold that thread as we study through these three chapters. You'll hear me come back to it over and over, 'cause other verses give insight to it. But I think to the listening ear of someone who knew their Old Testament, at this [00:35:00] point, they're thinking election for the Messiah.

Remember how this started out in Romans 9. This-- we, we chop it up because it's the only way I can do this with you without making you sit and listen to me for 24 hours. But Paul started out by saying, "I have great sorrow. I, I'm speaking the truth in Christ. I'm not lying. This is absolute dead-on accurate.

I have great sorrow, unceasing anguish in my heart. I wish I could be accursed and cut off for Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh." They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs.

From them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah. And that was the [00:36:00] promise. Through the seed of Abraham would come one through whom all nations would be blessed. And then that promise was extended to Isaac, and then that promise was extended to Jacob. And this was a promise that the Messiah would come through that seed, ultimately through the seed of David.

But it was a promise the Messiah was coming And that promise was made by God, and it was made for Jacob over Esau when they're both in the belly of Rebecca. Though they were-- Whoops. Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, that line of the Messiah, the salvation history of humanity did not come about because of anyone's good works.

It was always the choice of God. [00:37:00] Before they were born, before they'd done anything good or bad, that God's purpose of election, which line will I use to save the world? which will be the elected people that I will sustain to bring forth the Messiah And I'm not doing it because, oh, they were very, very, very good.

This was God's plan. It was not because of works, but it's because of Him who calls. And the mama was told the older will serve the younger

That did not happen in their lives But Jacob and Esau became known as nations, and their names are used synonymously. Jacob with Israel. In fact, his name's changed to Israel. Esau with [00:38:00] Edom But Paul continues and says, "As it's written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated," and this as it's written. So the question of election to what?

The historical role I think is absolutely a given here. If we want to add the salvation role, we'll talk about that more later, but the, the historical role, Paul is referencing Genesis 25:23, "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided." God says to, to Rebe- These aren't-- This isn't like the 12 tribes of Israel, where you've got 12 brothers that are each gonna be part of the greater Israel.

These are gonna be separate nations that are within you[00:39:00]

Two peoples from within you shall be divided. And that's why when you read through the prophets and you read like Obadiah, how has Esau been pillaged? Well, Esau had been dead for a thousand years. It's Edom. That's just what they called him. The nation of Edom was Esau, and he was pillaged. Those people, the Edomites, had been pillaged a thousand years after E-Esau was dead, fifteen hundred years almost after E-Esau was dead.

They were pillaged because they had been doing violence to Judah or your brother Jacob. Those names were used for the nations. So when Paul's writing, it's not because of works, but because of who-- him who calls. She's told the older will serve the younger. That only happened [00:40:00] in, uh, you-- in, in the nations.

It didn't happen in the life of Jacob and Esau. Esau is served by Jacob

So Paul quotes Malachi, "I have loved you," says the Lord. But you say, "How have you loved us? Is not Esau Jacob's brother? Yet I've loved Jacob, but Esau I've hated. I laid waste his hill country." Okay, Micah, Malachi here is 1,500 years later. He's talking about the nations. He just calls the nation of Edom Esau, and he calls the nation of Judah Jacob.

Paul is quoting a passage that's dealing with the nations And if you look at a map, that's where the nations were. And so I told you last week I would answer this as it's written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." What does that mean, hated? Does it mean rejected, loved less? [00:41:00] We have trouble with that word because in English, I, you know, I, I...

Some, some parents even teach their kids, "Don't use the word hate." And, and hate's like a-- Hate is a four-letter word, H-A-T-E. You know, it, it is, it's just, it's, it stirs this up. But I want us to look at it a little bit different. Um, in, in our language, it's, it's a love-hate meter, and hate and love, and, uh, you know, there's a little middle ground, and love is a good thing, and hate is a very tough thing.

Um, the Hebrew idea, those words as they're used in Hebrew don't really carry the same meaning that ours do So [00:42:00] you've got a lot more gray area in the Hebrew if we were to use our love-hate meter of today. And so you can have love over here, but once you step down a little bit from love into what we might even call ambivalence or less love, you can use the Hebrew word for hate, because hate extends all the way out there.

It's not our hatred. It was their idea of hate. And so if we understand that hate extends all the way out there, we now can see that word being used and get a better understanding. So Genesis 29:31, "When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb." Well, I mean, her husband didn't hate her in the way we think of hatred He just didn't love her as much as he did Rachel [00:43:00] And so they didn't have a word for when he didn't love her as much as.

That's just

th- they didn't. They just said, they used the word hated. Miso in, in the Greek is the Greek translation of it. But it's this principle that it can, it, it, it means... It doesn't mean hatred like vitriol that we have now. It's just less love. Less love And it's often used in a covenant relationship. Less love.

By the way, freebie here since I'm so off of my schedule

Remember this passage? "If anyone comes to me," this is Jesus speaking, "and doesn't hate his own father and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he can't be my [00:44:00] disciple." They're the same word. Jesus doesn't mean hate your parents. A Ten Commandment is to honor them.

Doesn't mean to hate your spouse. You're supposed to love your spouse the way Christ loved the church Doesn't mean hate your children. You're supposed to love your children and give your life for them if called to Doesn't mean hate your brothers and your sisters. Doesn't mean hate yourself Jesus is saying, "If you love your parents, your spouse, your children, yourself more than you love the Lord, then you're not the Lord's disciple.

You're the disciple of whoever you love more than Him [00:45:00] Jesus is saying that on that chain, you're bumping up something over the Lord, then that's your ultimate love. That's who you ultimately serve. That's the love that you disciple to He's saying you make God the top priority in your life, and He will infuse you and teach you how to love your parents, how to love your spouse, how to love your children, how to love your sisters and your brothers.

He'll teach you how to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. But the key to that is, is you love the Lord your God with all of your heart and all of your soul and all of your mind. Then you learn to love your neighbor as yourself It's that idea. Jacob I loved. He's saying, "I picked Jacob

I didn't pick Esau. [00:46:00] That's what I did. And then the question arises, well, is that fair? I told you to come back next week. And I'm not gonna really get to it this week. But boy, do I have a lot of slides prepared for the next class. What shall we say then? Paul continues in verse 14. Is there injustice on God's part?

This is Paul using the techniques of his day to teach a truth. Paul is trying to teach something that is so hard to teach but so important to teach that he is using the best tools at his disposal. Some of the best tools at our disposal, by the way, is this electronic gizmo stuff going on back here. The reason I spend hours and hours and hours each week doing this is because it's the most effective way I've figured out that I can teach you, that I can [00:47:00] show you, that I can communicate with you So is there injustice on God's part?

Heavens no, he says. Because scripture, he says to Moses, "I'll have mercy on whom I have mercy. I'll have compassion on whom I'll have compassion." This is about mercy, and mercy's not owed

And this quote he's giving from Exodus, this is the context. They've been worshiping a golden calf that they created while Moses is getting the Ten Commandments. He comes down all ticked off. He breaks the Commandments. You've seen the movie. And he goes back up, and, and God says, "I'm just gonna destroy them all."

And Moses says, "No, no, no, no, no." "All right. Well, fine, y'all go on through the wilderness, but I'm not going with you." "Well, if you're not going with us, we don't wanna go. Just take it out of my hide." In ways almost reminiscent of what [00:48:00] Paul has said earlier. Paul is telling the story of Israel here. He's just answering objections along the way And so if you remember the context of the quote in Exodus 33, it says, God says, "I'll make all my goodness pass before you, and proclaim before you my name, the Lord, Yahweh.

And I'll be gracious to whom I'll be gracious, and I'll show mercy on whom I'll show mercy." You know, Moses said, "God, I wanna see you." God said, "You can't handle that, but I will reveal myself to you with words. And the words you need to hear that reveal who I am is that I am a God of hesed love. I'm a God of graciousness to whom I'm gonna be gracious.

I'm gonna show mercy on whom I'm gonna show mercy." And if we read through [00:49:00] this and don't understand Paul's thread, then we're in trouble. So what Paul is doing here to them, to the descendants of Abraham, according to faith, not all of them, it was never all of them, but to them belong the patriarchs from their race according to the flesh is the Messiah.

That's what came through Abraham, through the lineage. And not all are children of Abraham just because they're his offspring But the children of the promise are counted as offspring. If we understand that Paul is telling Israel's story to back up his point in this chapter, we better understand it. And Paul's point is, it doesn't depend on human will or exertion.

It depends on God who has mercy [00:50:00] One time I sat in the courtroom of Judge Ed Kinkade, and he was sentencing criminals to jail And he has great leeway. But everyone getting sentenced is, um

finding the justice for what they did. Sometimes I thought he was a little light on one or two, but mercy is never owed. For some reason, he determined what was what. For most of them, the greatest mercy he gave them was trying to explain to them what they did wrong because they were still clueless And so the scripture Paul says, says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I've raised you up, that I might show my power in you, my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."

Look at that. For this purpose I've raised you up. You go back to [00:51:00] Exodus 9 where this passage is from. "For this purpose I've raised you up to show you my power, so that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." Paul continues, "So God has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he will." And you can remember when Pharaoh's in front of...

I mean, Moses is in front of

Pharaoh, says, "God hardened Pharaoh's heart repeatedly so that God could show glory for the Israelites and glory to God's name." That's the way God was gonna set Israel free and fulfill his promise that they wouldn't be in the land forever. That's God exercising God's faithfulness to his promise, and he does it in a miraculous way because it's got wonderful ramifications all the way through history B- but Paul knows his story.

While repeatedly it'll say God [00:52:00] hardened Pharaoh's heart, the writer of Exodus makes it real clear Pharaoh saw there was a respite. He hardened his own heart and wouldn't listen to him So is that fair? Is God unjust? No. No. Justice is condemnation for the world. Mercy isn't owed. This is about mercy. It's not about just So that raises a second question.

Well then, why are you blaming me? Or why would you blame Esau? Or why would you blame the other nations? Or whatever. Paul says it this way, "You'll say to me then, 'Why does he still find fault? Who can resist his will?'" I can't wait to talk to you about that next week. But week [00:53:00] after next, actually. Brent will teach next week.

Um, Labor Day weekend, many of you will be gone, and I don't wanna lose track of this flow. So, um, Brent's gonna fill in, and we've got a wedding in Istanbul. So, but we'll be back, uh, right after that. Here's your point. God's a promise keeper There's absolutely no way the Word of God has failed, withered, run aground, gone away unfulfilled.

All of this is within the vein of that. Everything Paul's saying is to show God is a promise keeper. And so we praise God, not just from whom all blessings flow, but from whom all mercy flows. 'Cause Paul's point is, God, this is about God. Israel's story is really a story about God and the way God's gonna redeem the world.

And God has always been faithful to His Word, and He's always done exactly what He said, and that's His mercy that flows to [00:54:00] all of us who experience His mercy. It's not because we deserve it any more than it's been for Israel as a nation. Um, and we don't have time for this, but if we did, it's a, it's a warning ahead of time.

Mind your posture. God doesn't mind you questioning Him. It's the posture when you do it. Who are you, oh man, to answer back to God? So here's your lunch topic, same one as last year. Last year? Last week. Felt like a year ago. Jacob and Esau. Historical role? I think definitely. But does it extend also to salvation?

To both. Think about it. Let me bless you, and we'll, uh, resume this, uh, soon. Father, we rely upon you as a promise keeper

We trust you as a promise keeper. You have told us [00:55:00] you've poured your mercy out on us through Christ on the cross, and you have raised us with Him in His resurrection and set before us an eternal life to be recognized in the end of days Father, make that real to us and give us the great comfort and hope that comes from seeing you as a keeper of all promises who will never let anything separate us from this love you have for us in Christ, through whom we pray.

Amen. Amen.