Romans III

Trying to Get into Jesus

Romans 11:7

Sermon transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

It’s easy to look at each other here and think everybody feels very close to God. We think: all the
others are closer to God than I am. But the fact is, many of us here don’t feel very close to God.
There are many of us who know that God exists, but we don’t really know him ourselves. We don’t
really feel that he knows us. We know that he’s a holy God, and we know that he is kind and loving
and has a pure and clean heart. We know, too, that he has no time for people like Cain who killed
his brother Abel. He has no time for people like Jezebel who lived in hate and lust. He has no time
for that kind of person.

In fact, further than that, we know that far from just not having time for them, he is actually
committed to their destruction. He’s committed to destroying people like Jezebel, who live in lust.
He’s committed to destroying people like Ananias and Sapphira, who you remember sold some property,
then lied about the money they got for it. You remember — God struck them dead. So we realize that
our God is somebody who hates and detests dishonesty and selfishness and hypocrisy. We realize he’s
someone who hates people like the Pharisees who are outwardly religious and inwardly are full of
greed and covetousness and dishonesty.

You can see that’s one of the reasons that many of us don’t feel very close to God – because we know
that’s the way God feels about those things. We know that he feels that way about those things
because those attitudes show that we don’t trust him. We realize that he must therefore feel that
way about those things when he sees them in us.

I think many of us do feel we are dishonest at times. We are unclean in our thought life. We are
covetous at times, and we are angry and bring pain to other people. So it’s very natural that many
of us reading this will feel, “No, I don’t feel very close to God. Some of the reasons are that I
don’t feel I’m the kind of person that he’d want to be close to!”

Yet the strange thing is, we all know that’s the only thing that really matters. We know fine well
how important it is to have a right relationship with our roommate, or with our parents, or with our
friends or colleagues. We know if you don’t have that, life fills with strain and becomes not worth
living. So we know it’s very important to have right relationships with people.

We’re no fools! We know that if it’s important to have a right relationship with our parents and
colleagues and friends or our brother or our professor, it’s far more important to have the right
relationship with the one Person who created the whole universe and runs it at this present time. We
know in our hearts that if it’s important to have a right relationship with the significant others
in our lives, it’s essential to have a right relationship with the one significant Other that really
matters in the whole universe.

And yet I think it’s true to say that, many of us here would feel, “Well — No! I don’t know that I
could say that I’m right with God really! I don’t know that I could tell you that I feel close to
him.”

The interesting thing is that we usually see it in terms of a social relationship. That’s natural,

in a way. We say, “Oh, I see! ‘Feel close to God’, and ‘he’s a person’. OK, that’s a personal
relationship. So I see. It’s a question of social relationships here.” So many of us have felt, ”Oh!
Then maybe I solve this through adjusting my present relationships. So that’s it! Maybe if I spend
more time with other people who want to be close to God too, or who are close to God, I can hope and
expect I will feel closer to him myself.”

So often we think the thing to do is to join some group of people who are talking about God a bit,
or discussing him, or maybe join a church like this one we’re in here, or some religious community.
Maybe as you get to know those people more and they obviously know God, maybe you’ll somehow come to
a close relationship with God yourself.

Of course, what usually happens is that friendship with these other people, or your preoccupation
with the other members of the community, usually succeeds in distracting you for a few years from
your concern with your relationship with God. You pass a number of years in that kind of “social
relationship syndrome”, and then you realize, “But I’m no closer to God than I was when I started.”
You realize, “No, it hasn’t done me any good.” And by that time some of us get kind of cynical and
hopeless and despairing about it. We decide, “Oh, none of the rest seem to have a close relationship
with the Person who made them. So maybe it isn’t possible!”

Now, loved ones, that’s the first thing God says to us through the verse that we’re studying today.
It says that a community can’t know God. Romans 11:7a: “What then? Israel failed to obtain what it
sought.” Israel was seeking the same thing that we are talking about — wanting to be right with God
and wanting to be close to him. And God uses Paul to say that Israel failed to obtain what it
sought. Because — God can’t love Israel. God doesn’t love “its”. He hasn’t a relationship with
communities.

Now, I agree with you, God used Israel as the community in which his Son would be born. But the only
way Israel could have a relationship with God was if its individual members had relationships with
God. That’s it. God doesn’t have relationships with communities. God only has relationships with
people — with individuals.

It’s true here in this church. You can kind of think, “Maybe if I get into the activities of this
group, or if I came and attend some of these classes, or maybe if I give money to this place, or
maybe if I just take part in things more — somehow I’ll come into a closer relationship with God.”

Loved ones, you won’t. All those things might help you, and might show you other people who have
relationships with God, and give you an idea of how they came into it. But finally, you have to set
up your own relationship with God. Every one of us has to set up an individual personal relationship
with God.

Do you know? God doesn’t particularly care about Campus Church {the church Rev. O’Neill pastored
when this talk was given}. Really! We should be glad of that, and not be all offended. God doesn’t
particularly care about Campus Church. Why? Because in 50 or 60 years, it will be the opposite of
what it started out to be. It will be like so many communities that start out idealistically. But
God DOES care about you, and you (pointing to people in the audience), and me, and you. He cares
about each one of us in the world. Our God is concerned to have a relationship with us. So, you’ll
never get a relationship with God by thinking that you will somehow be identified with a group that
knows him.

Loved ones, that’s deceptive. You are no safer in a group than out of a group. You have to get to
know God personally yourself. You’ll never get to know him just because of this group per se. People
in the group might talk to you about their experiences, and that might help you, but the group
itself won’t draw you nearer to God. It is important to see that it is good for us to travel along
together, but each of us individually has to get right with God ourselves.

Now maybe I could share with you another thing that we do that God mentions in this verse. Many of
us say, “All right. I see that just being part of a group doesn’t necessarily bring me closer to
God. I see that I have to deal with him myself. All right. I’m not very like him. I can see that. I
have dishonesty in my life. I do lie. I am untrustworthy at times. I am hypocritical at times. I see
that I am not the kind of person that God would like, and I am certainly not the kind of person that
he would like to live with forever. Indeed, often I am the kind of person that he has destroyed in
past years. I see too that if you are going to have any relationship with God, it’s supposed to be
through his Son Jesus. I see that’s always mentioned.”

And then, we take the next fatal step. We say, “I’ll just have to try to get into Jesus.” We
conclude that trying to get into Jesus means trying to improve ourselves. We set out on the great
self-improvement campaign — the great salvation-by-works syndrome. We determine, “Yes. We’ll try to
make ourselves better so that we can be in Jesus — because obviously I can’t be in Jesus as I am,
because he’s pure and I’m impure. He’s holy and I’m unholy. So I’ll have to try to make myself like
Jesus. I’ll have to become better.”

That’s the way we feel about it. We feel, “We have to do this. We have to determine what things in
our life have to be changed, and we have to determine how to get them changed.” So we determine we
will do what we think we should do, and we’ll try to do it by our own power.

Do you see that those two qualities are the very attributes of the sin of distrust that got us into
the mess in the first place? The heart of sin, or independence of God is: “I’m going to do what I
think I should do, and I’m going to do it by my own power” — instead of concentrating on what God
would want me to do and trusting him to give me the power to do it. And so we set about a great
self-improvement campaign that has as its heart – sin! That is, the desire to do what we think we
should do – and to do it by our own power.

I know that we all say, “But we’re trying to do what we think is good.” That doesn’t matter. It’s
still us being the initiators. It’s still us taking the place of the great God who originated all
the protons and neutrons. It’s still setting ourselves up and saying, “This is what I think I should
do — in order to become acceptable to my Creator.” Then we say, “I am going to do it by whatever
power and ability I have myself.”

So we compound our sin. We know that we get angry, because we see something going outside our
control, and we think we know how to get it back into our control. And we use our own power to do it
– then we lose our temper. And we expect everyone to quake and tremble and fade back. But anger
comes about that way, doesn’t it? Anger is our method of bringing things back into our control. And
do see how we hope to get rid of that anger? We hope to get rid of it by doing what we think we
should do with it, and by somehow overcoming it with our own power.

Loved ones, that’s compounding our sin. And do you know what we end up doing? We end up dealing with
the sins in our lives that aren’t really the vital ones that are keeping us away from God. That’s
right! In these self-improvement campaigns that we undertake, on these salvation-by-works syndromes

that we get involved in — we deal with only the things in our lives that are not keeping us away
from God. We deal normally with the things that we think we’ll be able to overcome. We deal with the
things that we think would be convenient for us to overcome. But we don’t really deal with the
things that cross God’s will. We don’t really deal with the sins where our will crosses God’s will.
We deal just with the sins that aren’t really the problem at all.

It’s a bit like the family where the husband does several things that really wear the poor wife out
— that just irritates her to death. He decides, “She’s angry with me or upset with me in some way.
I know – I’ll bring her flowers.” So — he brings her flowers. And that doesn’t seem to settle the
thing. Then he thinks, “What on earth is wrong with that woman?” Then he decides, ”It’s the wrong
kind of flowers. Tomorrow I’ll try tulips!” So he brings tulips. After about five different kinds of
flowers, he decides, “She’s no better. She just doesn’t appreciate me – that’s what’s wrong!” Then
after a few weeks he thinks, “Maybe I should take her out to dinner a little more often.” So he
takes her out to dinner.

He goes through all kinds of motions that are very good things to do. But they’re not dealing with
the real issue that makes that dear wife feel so alienated from her husband. Usually it’s something
to do with sensitivity. Usually it’s some little attitude that the husband is absolutely oblivious
to.

Do you see what happens? The more that kind of play-acting goes on, the harder they become towards
one another. The hearts get hardened. The wife loses any hope that her husband will ever know her or
understand her at all, and she begins to commit herself to just living with that. “Well, this is a
man. This is what they all put up with. I’ll put up with it!” He decides, “This is an absolutely
chaotic, unbelievably, unpleasable woman! And I cannot do anything with her!” He decides, “I’ll
withdraw into my shell. I’ll harden my heart.” So they just begin to walk parallel beside each
other. “Never the twain shall meet.”

The reason is, of course, the guy is involved in all kinds of good acts – except that they’re
nothing to do with the things that are separating him from his wife. The strange thing is — the
same takes place with each one of us in regard to God. It’s mentioned by Paul in Romans 11:7 — the
last clause of the verse: “but the rest were hardened.”

That’s what happens to us. On our self-improvement campaigns and our salvation-by-works syndrome, we
get harder and harder towards God. I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but your own religion becomes
more sterile and more dead. Your heart begins to be hard. You believe in God and you want to be
close to him, and you are doing all sorts of good things to please him, but you don’t feel any of
the fragrance or the sweet liveliness of his life coming through to you. Your religion becomes more
and more one of hard works and more of sterile duties.

In fact, the Greek word for hardening means ‘petrifaction’; your heart becomes stone. You don’t feel
anymore. You can’t sense any more what God wants. You can’t sense anymore the sweetness of his
presence or the lack of his presence. You become more and more just a robot who keeps going on at
the things that you think you should do.

Loved ones, the problem is that you have devised your own plan of salvation –instead of taking part
in God’s plan. This verse says, “The elect obtained it.” Israel did not obtain what she sought. The
rest were hardened who indulged themselves in this legalism — and the elect obtained it. The elect
are not those who themselves choose what needed changing in themselves, or choose their own way of

becoming like God. The elect are those whom God chooses because they in turn have accepted HIS plan
for restoring the relationship that they have lost with him.

The plan is very simple. The first part of it is that God initiates it. It’s his plan. He is the
God. He knows what has to be fixed in each one of our lives. He’s the one that initiates it. The
first thing you have to see is that you can’t become like God. You can’t restore your relationship
with God. If God doesn’t want to restore his relationship with you, then you can’t do anything about
it. The first step is: God initiates the plan.

The second step is that God has done that. He sees each one of us, and he knows exactly the attitude
in you and the attitude in me. It’s different for each one of us — the thing that separate us from
him. He knows what it is! With you (pointing), it’s an indolence. You’ve got used to an indolence –
a laziness in your life. With you, it’s a lack of absolute honesty in business. With you, it’s a
tendency to tell white lies. With you, it’s being sarcastic. God knows what these things are.

Besides those important issues, you have about 20,000 others that could distract you for the rest of
your life if you wanted to hand them all down. But God knows the one that you need to be dealt with
about at this time. That’s the one that expresses distrust of him in your life. He has put that part
of your personality into his Son Jesus, and he has destroyed that old, selfish, perverted part of
your personality in his Son in a cosmic death that was expressed in our space-time world at Calvary.
He has recreated your personality absolutely new in Jesus’ resurrection. God has done that.

The third step is: you have to accept that. You have to believe that that is what happened. The
fourth step is: you have to obey whatever the Holy Spirit tells you to do, because he alone can
actualize in your life the deliverance from your self and your sin that God worked in Jesus. All you
can do is listen to the Holy Spirit — and do immediately what he tells you.

Loved ones, that’s the only hope. It’s no use you looking at all kinds of other shortcomings you
have, and all kinds of other sins, and improving the little things that don’t bother you much
anyway. If you want to really be right with your God and your Creator, you have to start going to
him this morning and saying, “Lord, you’ve obviously done something to me in Jesus that I need done
here in this present experience that I am having. Now Lord, what have I to be willing to change?”
And then, the moment God through your conscience tells you, you have to act on that.

I tell you, that dear wife and husband are finished in their relationship if the wife says sometime
to the husband, “You know – it’s the off-hand way you speak to me. That’s why I feel that you don’t
love me. You just toss off a comment to me without thinking of me at all.” Once she’s said that, if
that husband doesn’t respond to that, that marriage is finished. Because she decides, “He doesn’t
really love me at all.”

Now do you see? It’s the same with God. If you know this morning that God has spoken to your
conscience and has shown you something in your life that he wants to change — then you have to
immediately do your part — and will to change it. Why? Because his power will only be made
available to you when you’ve done all that you can do to change the thing. It’s not just a matter of
sitting back and saying, “I’m willing. Change it.” It’s you actively willing to change whatever
habit that is in your life. Then God makes available to you the power of the deliverance that he
worked in Jesus on Calvary.

But brothers and sisters, I tell you this — I know this for certain through my own experience: if

you don’t change that thing, you will have no relationship with your Maker. Your heart will go on
getting harder and harder. You can sing in the choir, or read your Bible, or do all kinds of nice
things. You can improve all kinds of other things. But unless you deal with the thing that God is
convicting you about, he will take it for granted that you have no real interest in a relationship
with him.

It is surprisingly simple. If the reason that I don’t like you is because you’re kicking my dog
every day, you can improve all kinds of other things. You can give me all kinds of presents. You can
say all kinds of nice things to me — but if you’re still kicking that poor old dog, there will be
no relationship between us. Finally, you have to stop kicking the dog.

So it is in your life and in mine. In our lives, however far we are on with God, or however far back
we are, God’s spirit as we have been talking together here has spoken to your conscience. You know
that there are some things that you need to change. Don’t sit there and say, “I would love to change
them — but I can’t.” That’s why Jesus died on Calvary. God put you into his Son and changed you
there, so you CAN change them — if you WILL to change them. His power becomes available to make up
whatever deficiency that you have.

So do you see what it is? That being right with God is just being honest with your God. Instead of
running your own plan to get to know a certain society or community that will help you to be closer
to God; instead of working out your own salvation-by-works system whereby you’re going to go on a
self-improvement campaign — see that God has already changed you in his Son on Calvary — and he
now wants to let you know which parts of that change he wants to actualize in you today.

There will be different things tomorrow, and the next day. But that’s how you come into a
relationship with him. Then you’ll begin to sense a closeness to God. His Spirit will begin to make
you feel close to him. You know how that works. You know what it is to be in a room with your
dearest friend whom you’ve just offended, and you feel miles apart. And then to be in that room when
everything’s settled, and you know the peace and the quietness, and the sense of contentment that
there is between you. That’s what will happen this very day, if you will simply set your will with
God’s will on that issue. God will make real in you what he has worked upon you in Jesus.

I pray that somebody will do it. I would pray that all of you would make that change at this moment,
whatever it is — whether it is in regard to your prayer life or your sexual life or your business
life or your study life. Do it now. Make a change now.

Let us pray. Dear Father, we know that you’re a real and a straight person, and that you’re the
very spirit of honesty. We see, our Father, that we’re just playing games with you. So often we’ve
felt our hearts are getting harder every day. So often we’ve felt almost an insensitivity towards
you or anything about you. We see, Lord, that it’s because we’ve wanted to hold onto these darling
sins that you have pointed out to us a thousand times. We’re trying to throw up a smoke screen with
all kinds of other good works that we’re doing. Father, we see that the only way to a relationship
with you is to stop offending you. Stop throwing mud in your face and stop piercing your dear Son
with another sword. Lord, we see that you are asking us today to stop this thing.

Lord, we would commit ourselves to stopping. We would stop whatever the cost. Whether it means that
we will lose friends. Whether it means we will lose happiness. We will stop this now. Lord, we ask
you to recreate our sense of relationship with you again. Build the bridge again between us so that
we again feel your dear heart beating, and again begin to know what you’re thinking and feeling.

Lord, we commit ourselves to you so that you can do that in us this day, for your glory. Amen.

Sin Blinds

Romans 11:8

Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Beginning the fall quarter reminds me of my first quarter at seminary. I remember coming home and
looking forward to sharing with my dearest friend, my father, all the deep insights that I had got
in pastoral psychology. I remember our conversation around Christmas time how I analyzed for him his
relationship with my mother, appropriately bringing in the Oedipus complex and the Freudian theory
of the unconscious. And I remember how those dear, loving eyes patiently looked on and listened.
Then at the end he said, “Yes, that is good. But I think what we need to do is just love your mother
so that she knows that we love her.”

I think probably you have experience the same thing — those kind of touching, pathetic encounters
with our moms and dads or older people — when we decide to share the deep intellectual insights
that we have got at college. We begin to share them so that we will at last put right all the
difficulties that they have had in the family for years and years. Then you see all the love and the
patience of the ages coming from their eyes. You realize years later that you blew it completely. It
was utterly irrelevant!

The truth is that our knowledge was probably beyond our parents’ knowledge. Often our knowledge is
actually beyond their knowledge. My dad worked in the shipyard as an electrician and hadn’t done
pastoral psychology, and I’m sure that my knowledge was way beyond his. But our understanding was
way behind their understanding. Our knowledge was way out there ahead of theirs — but our
understanding was way back in the times of Neanderthal man.

Really, our mistake is that we think it’s a concept problem, and in fact it’s a people problem.
Relationships concern people. Relationship problems are people problems. They aren’t concept
problems. They aren’t theory problems. They aren’t idea problems. The difficulties we meet with in
our relationships with each other are not going to be solved by relating this concept rightly to
that concept — but by relating this person rightly to that person. What we need more and more is an
honesty in dealing with each other in our families and our homes.

Of course, if we don’t have that honesty, and if we don’t really relate to each other as people, and
try to relate to each other through all kinds of theories and academic ideas, we will be missing
each other. We will be attempting to meet each other, but will be passing each other all the time.
We will really be dealing with irrelevant issues. In fact, what happens when we do that is that we
get harder and harder in our relationships with each other.

Many of us have done that at home. We’ve wondered why our dad or mom seems further from us now that
we are at college, now we have been away, or now that we’ve got all this deep theological insight
into things. And the truth is that we are trying to deal with them through a whole lot of ideas and
theories, instead of trying to deal with them as people.

Last Sunday we talked about the same problem in terms of the close relationships that we have with
our roommates or with our husbands or our wives. We took the example that some of us treat our
roommates or our friends or our wives or husbands in an offhand manner. We take them for granted,
and we treat them in kind of a taken-for-granted manner. There’s an offhand tone in our voice, and

that makes them feel distant from us. Then they begin to get quiet and resentful, and they begin to
withdraw from us and be reserved.

Then we wonder, “What’s wrong?” And then we do the same thing as we do when we come home and express
to our dad all our latest ideas in psychology. We have a list of things that we think ought to make
them happy. So we buy them flowers, and they’re still not happy! Then we take them out to dinner,
and they’re still not happy! Then we clean the apartment, and they’re still not happy! Then we go to
the trouble of making the meals, so that they come home from work and it’s ready for them — and
they’re still not happy. We wonder what on earth we have to do to make these people right with us!

Of course, what we have to do is ask them in what way we are hurting them — and then stop doing
that. It doesn’t matter how many other things we do, or how many other things we stop doing — many
of which may be annoying to them, and many of which may spoil the relationship with them. But what
we need to deal with is the ONE thing — and it’s usually one thing in particular — that makes them
feel that we don’t trust them or we don’t love them.

Of course when we don’t deal with that thing, what happens is our hearts grow harder towards each
other. It doesn’t matter whether it’s roommates, or whether it’s husband and wife. You lose
something sensitive in the air, don’t you? There’s a coldness that comes into the apartment. There
is a hardness — a standoffishness that comes into the marriage. There’s a tendency in which we
begin to walk round each other instead of dealing with the thing that hurts the other person. And,
of course, that’s the only way to a right relationship.

Now, loved ones, that is a law that God has built into life — the law that if we don’t deal
honestly with each other, a hardness will come into our relationship with each other. That’s a law
of God! If we don’t deal honestly with each other, if we don’t listen to what the other person is
saying, then our psychological beings are so created by God that there comes a hardness into our
attitude to each other.

You know what I mean. You want to be close to the person – you want to reach over all that stuff.
You want to draw them to you. But somehow you can’t. That’s a law of God. He has made us that way.
He has so made us according to the standards that he has outlined himself down through the
centuries, that if we don’t respond to each others’ cries and pleas for help — if we don’t respond
to the things that other people feel hurt us in them — then our sensibilities and our consciences
become harder and harder.

That’s the truth that God sets forth in this verse that we are studying. Romans 11:8: “As it is
written, ‘God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that should not see and ears that should not hear,
down to this very day.’” Now that doesn’t mean that God looks over us all, and he decides, “I’ll
give a spirit of stupor to you. I’ll give a spirit of sensitivity to you. I’ll give a spirit of
stupor and hardness to you.” That’s not it. God gives a spirit of stupor to those who will not
respond to the things that he is telling them about in their consciences that hurt him and express
distrust of him.

You can see that if you look back to Romans 10:21: “But of Israel he says, ‘All day long I have held
out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.’” Now it not because of individual Israelites —
but Israel as a nation was continually ignoring what God was telling them in their consciences was
hurting him, and were disobeying it, and were being contrary and were resisting him. So he gave THEM
a spirit of stupor — eyes that should not see, and ears that should not hear.

In other words, it’s God’s way of saying, “I have so made you, loved ones, that if you’re
disobedient to me, if in your friendship with me you don’t listen to me, if in your friendship with
me you keep on doing all kinds of things that destroy my world and make a mess of what I love —
then there will come into your conscience a hardness towards me, and you’ll have difficulty in
feeling any sensitivity or tenderness towards me.”

And what is true of our relationship with God is true of ourselves. In our own friendships, God has
so made us, that if you aren’t absolutely honest with your friends or with your loved one at home —
and don’t respond to what hurts them in your action — then you are so made that you’ll lose the
tenderness and closeness to them and the warmth of friendship, and you’ll get hard and cold, so that
it will be difficult for you even to remember what a trusting friendship is like.

The reason God has so made us that way is to save us from becoming hypocritical monstrosities. God
has made us so that love is the key to knowledge; so that behavior is the key to deep friendships;
so that the exercise of the will is the key to close empathy between two people. God has so made us
that way to prevent us from becoming hypocritical monstrosities.

We have a great example of the old hypocritical monstrosity in our society. I’m sure sensitivity
groups are good for something. But they’re not good as an expression of real friendship. A
sensitivity group is one of those psychological therapy groups that maybe encourage some people to
be open in some way, but the one thing they do not deal with is real friendship.

That’s the kind of situation where, “We’re all here together to be honest with each other. And I
want you to tell me what you really feel towards me. OK?” “Well, Ernest, my feelings towards you are
kind of ambivalent. I feel on the one hand, that in a way, you don’t treat me as a person. You don’t
respond to me as a person. In fact, I think you’re reacting to something in your past. That’s it!
But I could say that there is one attitude in me and feeling in me toward you that I would say is
pretty consistent and pretty recurring every time I see you. And I could maybe put it in just
perhaps three words. I feel toward you a vehement, seething hatred!” (Laughter from the audience.)
And then I’m supposed to come back and say, “Well, I can quite understand that! But I know you
really love me, deep down.” (Laughter)

And you know that all of us feel that kind of group may be useful for to help loved ones to be more
open generally, but the one thing it doesn’t do is, it doesn’t establish deep friendships of trust
at all. And you know why! You know if you’ve taken part in that kind of group, that you feel, “Well,
maybe you’re being honest. But I don’t see how you can be my friend if you hate me! And I don’t see
how you can feel that I can trust you if you really hate me like that!”

We have the feeling that friendship concerns a person’s will towards you. If a person wills hatred
toward you, then you feel, “Hatred is under your control! You can will not to hate me.” But if
you’re sitting there and someone says to you, “I feel towards you a vehement seething hatred,” you
kind of have the feeling, “Well, you must will that towards me. You must will evil towards me. I
can’t feel any tenderness or closeness to you if that’s the case.”

And really, loved ones, God has so made us that we can only feel tenderness and sympathy and
friendship and closeness to someone who wills towards us good, and wants the best for us. We can
only feel closeness to a person if they behave to us in a kindly way, according to the standards
that God has set forth to us so clearly. To people who try to be honest about their feelings towards

us but who obviously don’t want good for us, we have to feel a distance and a hostility.

This was the kind of game that the Jews played with God. Our dear Creator chose the Jews as the
first human beings to whom he would make real his friendship. He explained to them, “Look, I’ll give
you all the material needs that you need and I’ll give you my love and my friendship, so that you’ll
never have any trouble with knowing who you are or why you’re here, as long as you trust me. As long
as you listen to what I say to you, day by day, as long as you follow out the plans that I have for
your life, I’ll be right with you all the way. I’ll be a loving and a kind Father to you who will
provide you with all that you need.”

Of course, the Jews, you know, took that special position that God had given them and they decided
that they were not only going to protect it themselves (because at times they didn’t like the way he
was protecting it), but they were going to advance it for themselves by their own power and in their
own way. So they stopped trusting God.

Of course, God gave them an extra guard. He said, “Listen, you’ll know you’ve stopped trusting me
and you’ve stopped being real with me if you ever do these kinds of things: If you ever find
yourself stealing, you’ll know you don’t trust me for your material possessions. If you ever start
bearing false witness against your neighbor, you’ll know that you really don’t trust me for your
reputation. If you ever find yourselves coveting, you’ll know that you don’t trust me for your
possessions.”

But you know what they did. Instead of taking those dear laws as indicators of their trust or
distrust of God — they made those laws a series of moral guidelines. And they began to confuse sin
— which is distrust and independence of God — with immorality. They began to say, “Well listen!
God obviously wants us not to covet – wants us not to steal. We better not do that. That’ll please
him. We’d better not bear false witness, because that’ll please him, because he said we shouldn’t do
that. We’d better not kill. That’ll please him. But meanwhile, we’ll go on living our own lives in
our own way, trusting our own guidance and our own power.”

And so the Jews fell into the same pattern as those of us who bring flowers home to a wife that
actually is hurt by our off-hand tone of voice. That’s what they did. They started to try to follow
moral guidelines, thinking, “That’ll please him!” Well, that wasn’t what the laws were meant for in
the first place at all. The laws were there as indicators that they weren’t trusting him and that
they weren’t loving him. But they worked out, “Oh, no! If we do these things, he’ll be kind of
pleased with us, and meanwhile we can get on with our own lives, and ignore the little troubles and
the little conscience pricks that we feel, and we’ll just do these things.”

And so what happened to the Jews was that they hardened in their relationship with God. Their
relationship with God became a long series of legal acts that they thought would please him, and it
lost all the sensitivity of a close friendship where they knew what he was saying to them and they
responded to it.

Now, loved ones, you see it’s the same with us. See that many of us want to know God. And that’s
what God wanted for the Jews. Repeatedly he said to them, “Listen, I desire mercy and not sacrifice.
I don’t want all these games you’re playing with the law. I desire mercy. I desire a real tender
heart like mine within you. I desire a knowledge of God, and not sacrifice and burnt offerings. I
want you to know me. I don’t want you to be playing all these games with burnt offerings to make up
for the times when you fall in immorality. I want you to know me, myself.”

And many of us say, “Yes, that’s what we want, too. We want a knowledge of God. We want to know God
for ourselves. We want him to be real to us.”

But you know what we do. We play games with him. We bring him flowers. We take him out to dinner. We
make him a special meal. We do all kinds of things that we’ve learned in pastoral psychology or in
our philosophy classes. We do all the things that we’ve learned at Bill Gothard Basic Youth
Conflicts talks, or that we’ve learned at our church, or that we’ve learned from the speaker Francis
Schaeffer, or that we’ve learned from reading books.

We’ll play all kinds of games. We’ll go to church thinking it will please God or read the Bible
thinking it well please God. We do all kinds of things that are good, but they are games. They’re
bringing flowers to a loved one who really wants you to look at her and treat her as a person.
They’re cleaning the apartment once for a roommate who really doesn’t think you care about them at
all because you never talk with them. It’s doing things that are irrelevant.

What happens is, God gives you a spirit of stupor. The Greek word means “a stunning” — katanuxeoos.
It’s a stunning. It means to strike so that you stun a person, so that they’re reeling back and
can’t quite see things right. And isn’t that what many of us feel like? We feel like that man who
was blind and was touched by Jesus. Jesus said, “What do you see?” and the man said, “I see men, but
I see them as trees walking. I can only see vaguely. I can’t distinguish between the trees and the
men. I can’t see their faces.”

And many of us are like that. We feel we’re almost in touch with God but not quite. We almost sense
him, but not quite. There is a lack of tender closeness towards him. We desperately want it, and we
don’t understand why we aren’t getting it. We are doing all these good things. We are trying to obey
all these laws of morality, all these laws of religiosity, but somehow God is still not real to us.

It’s dead simple, loved ones. God has been speaking to your conscience for a long time about little
things that you do day-by-day that show that you don’t trust him — and he wants you to stop doing
those things. When you stop doing those things, he’ll stop allowing a spirit of stupor to come upon
you, so that your eyes cannot see and your ears cannot hear. He will give life to your eyes and
ears, so that you see him and you begin to hear his voice.

It’s so simple what we have to do. We have to start living with God as a person. Isn’t that what
kills us with our friends — when they treat us as things? Isn’t that the agony? I know in marriage,
that’s the agony – husbands and wives – when you no longer deal with each other as living persons,
but you’ve listed each others’ responses so that you’re just a bundle of responses to each other,
and you just take if for granted you know how she’ll behave, or you know how he’ll behave. You no
longer treat each other as living people.

It’s the same way with us and our moms and dads. We kind of put each other into categories and
boxes, so that we don’t respond to each other as real living people.

Now, loved ones, while we treat our God like that, he will allow a spirit of stupor — a spirit of
stunning and blindness — to come upon us. There will always be a cloud between him and us. Why?
Because he is pushing us away? No –because we are pushing him away. We’re saying, “No. We’re doing
all these good things. You ought to come close to us. But these little pricks we’re feeling in our
conscience, these little things we feel we should stop doing that you have told us about so often.

No. We’re not stopping those.” Of course, the fact is, those are the sin.

You can be engaged in all kinds of things that people call immorality, and they’re wrong! I don’t
think we should do them. They’re wrong. But you can be engaged in all kinds of immorality, but God
may be speaking to you about something nobody else regards as wrong at all. But that’s how he’s
going to establish a personal relationship with you that he has with nobody else.

So, loved ones, that’s the key. The key to close, honest, loving friendships is dealing with each
other honestly, adapting our behavior and changing it so that it is good for the other person,
changing our will so that we deal differently with them and speak differently with them. That’s the
key to ordinary friendship.

It’s also the key to our relationship to our Maker. We’ve to live day by day by our intuition, not
by this list of bringing flowers, and taking people out to dinner, and all the things that the
psychologists recommend for good relationships. Not to play that game with God. Not even to play
that game with each other. But to meet each other honestly with our intuition telling us what to do.

You know that God has given us intuition. You know the things in you that hurt somebody else. You
know fine well the things in you that are hurting God. And the key is – stop those. Just stop
sinning. That’s what sin is. All the other things are immorality, but sin is whatever distrust or
disobedience in you is crossing God at this moment. Stop that, and you will find a flow of life
coming into you that enables you to sense God as a close and dear Father who loves you and cares for
you. And it will work, loved ones, because that’s a law of God that he has built into us.

So, what you need to do now is listen to your conscience and stop whatever your conscience has been
telling you is wrong. Stop it now. Then continue to do that day by day. And you’ll find a closeness
developing between you and your dear Father that will give you eyes that can see and ears that can
hear.

Let’s pray. Dear Father, we see the games that we play with our loved ones, with our roommates, and
with our colleagues. How we’re dealing with everything but what matters. What their hearts are hurt
by in our lives. That’s what matters. Oh Father, we ask for sensitivity to see that in our loved
ones and our friends, so that we can put things right there. But most of all Lord, what are we doing
that offends you? Will you show us that, Father?

And Lord, we want to be close to you, and we want you to be real to us, so we will stop that thing,
whatever it is, and whatever it costs us. And however uncertain we may be because of all kinds of
things other people say, Lord what counts is what your Holy Spirit has convicted us of in our
consciences. Lord, we commit ourselves to stopping that thing this day, this very moment.

Now Father, we pray that our prayers from now will be filled with a sense of your being able to hear
us, because we’re praying according to your will, and we’re living according to your will for us.

So Lord, we would do that now, and ask you Lord Jesus, to come back into our hearts and our lives,
and we ask you to keep the promise that you made, that your Father would love us, and you would love
us, and you would make your home in our hearts. We ask you to do that now, that we may experience
again the relationship with you that we know is your will for us. We give ourselves to you now, from
this day forward, to be sensitive to what our conscience tells us and to be tender towards you and
each other — for your glory. Amen.

Salvation by Works

Romans 11:9

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

I would like to describe to you a classic comparison that all of us have thought of at least one
time or another. It’s the contrast that our parents have drawn if we haven’t drawn it. It’s the
contrast between a family that existed during the Depression years and a family that exists today.

You know the way the comparison goes. The American family of the Depression days is something like
“Little House on the Prairie” {an American television program), because they don’t have much money.
The mom spends a lot of time repairing clothes for the children and the husband. The husband spends
a lot of time earning a mere pittance to keep the family together. A lot of time is spent making as
much of the little food that they have as they possibly can.

And yet they do spend the evenings together, and they go on picnics together. As the mom and dad
tuck the children up in bed, there’s a great sense that the most important thing in the home is
their love for one another. And there’s a great feeling and confidence and trust that the most
important thing in each of their hearts is each other, and their concern for each other.

And then you know the way we describe the typical American family of today. There are two cars in
the garage, two color TV sets, and great summer vacations. There are new clothes whenever they are
needed and beautiful bedrooms for the children. And yet, nobody seems to spend much time with each
other.

Indeed, there’s a great sense of distance from each other. The parents often have unresolved
problems and differences that separate them permanently. The father often feels he doesn’t quite
understand the children. The children often feel that they are not really loved in a deep way. Often
there’s a lack of that inner bond that existed in the Depression family, that inner bond of
confidence and trust that their love for each other matters more than everything else. There’s a
lack of that sense that love for each other matters more than the success of the dad at the job, and
more than the success of the children in Little League. There’s often a lack of that sense that love
for each other matters the most.

Now – it’s a generalization, and many of you who lived in the Depression know families that weren’t
like that. Many of us know families today who aren’t like the contemporary one we described. But
there are enough elements in it, loved ones, to illustrate the truth that our Creator wants to share
with us today. There are enough elements of reality in that comparison for us to use it so that God
will show us a deep truth that affects every one of our lives.

The fact is, many of us realize that our homes and our families are not right. Many of the moms and
dads feel that there’s something not right about their relationship to each other and about their
relationship to the children. And there are many of us today, who therefore grab at everything we
can that would help us to express the real qualities of a true relationship with each other: of good
family life, of good life between roommates, of good friendship between colleagues.

So we listen to everything that we can hear. We listen to all the sermons we can listen to. We read
all the books we can read. We read everything and watch everything that would suggest to us the

qualities that there ought to be in a real love relationship – be it be between friends who are
guys, or friends who are girls, or guy and girl, or mom and dad, or father and child. We read
anything. We’ll read even bumper stickers.

And now we begin to get into the problem. The dear old dad sits behind the wheel on the freeway at
five o’clock. You stop and you stop. He’s wondering what to do about the alienation between himself
and his son, and suddenly there it is: HAVE YOU HUGGED YOUR KID TODAY? And he looks at it and he
says, “That’s it! I need to show him love. I need to show him that I care for him. So when I get
home today, one hug coming up!” Or he’s walking through the skyway and he sees in the florist’s
window: “BRING HER HOME FLOWERS TONIGHT”. And he says, “That’s what I need to do! I need to show her
that I appreciate her.”

Or he gets closer to home, and he sees it there on the billboard that reads: THE FAMILY THAT PRAYS
TOGETHER (if it’s a church) EATS TOGETHER (if it’s Perkins {an American restaurant}) PLAYS TOGETHER
(if it’s the Sports and Health Club) STAYS TOGETHER. And he thinks, “That’s it! We ought to do more
things together as a family. That’s what is needed. We need to do more things together and that will
get love into our home.”

The tragedy is that the little guy knows the difference between an obligation hug and a real hug. We
are so created by our Creator that even a little three-year-old guy knows the difference between a
real hug that has love behind it and an unselfish heart that cares for the other whatever it costs
himself. He knows the difference between a real hug and an obligation hug.

The truth is that there is an intuitive sense in the wife’s conscience that reveals to her whether
the flowers are given to cover up a wandering eye and an ulterior motive, or whether they express
the fragrance of an unreserved commitment and an absolute love. The interesting thing about us human
beings is that we have some sixth sense deep down (really, it’s our conscience) that shows us
whether the family outings take place in order to keep the family together, or whether they take
place because they’re an expression of the delight and the enjoyment that we have in each other
above everything else that concerns our lives. It’s very interesting that we human beings have
something inside us that makes it clear whether we’re all playing games or not.

Yet the tragedy is that our society is full of these games. It’s full of ways to encourage personal
achievement and industry by valedictorian recognition or by keys to the executive washroom. It’s
full of ways to encourage a sense of identity and of importance by giving people a place on a team,
or by giving them certain strokes that will make them feel good. It’s full of ways to reward the
good worker and to punish the bad worker. It’s full of ways to make people good wives or good
husbands.

We are involved in all kinds of techniques that actually originally were the expression of unselfish
love. But our society prostitutes these expressions of unselfish love for its own purposes, in order
to make it successful or in order to hold us together as a society. But above all, all these
techniques and tricks that we use with each other are simply techniques, and they spring from a
selfish heart. And for that reason, even though our society and our homes and our schools and our
companies are filled with all the works of love, are filled with all the things that spring from
unselfish love – yet all they are is a technique that is used to get better productivity from people
or to get people to stay in the positions they are in.

So there is a great lack of love in our society. There is a terrible lack of love in our families.

There is a terrible lack of love in our schools. Even though our society seems to do all the things
that show love, yet the unselfish heart of love is absent.

And so here, there, and everywhere throughout society there are little hearts that are cold and
lonely, from executive offices to little home kitchens, from faculty rooms to kindergarten
classrooms. There are dear little hearts that are lonely and cold, and feel that no one really loves
them, as people used to love in the Depression family that we talked of.

Now, loved ones, that is what this verse means that we are studying today. Look at it and I will
explain it to you. Romans 11:9. It’s a hard verse but you will see more and more clearly the meaning
of it. “And David says, ‘Let their table’ (and their table is what we live off — the food that we
eat, the things that nourish us, the things that actually keep us going, the things that give us the
appearance of prosperity and health that we have — in other words, those things that we talked
about. Those techniques and those tricks that we’re involved in, the giving each other a reward, the
bringing flowers home when it doesn’t really express an unselfish heart, the little techniques that
we use to make each other feel good and to pretend that there is love, those works of love without
the love) ‘Let their table become a snare.’

And that’s what happens. Those techniques that we practice for having a good marriage without the
real love underneath. Those become a snare to us. They catch us. The verse continues, “‘and a
trap’.” “Ferra” is the word and it really means a “hunting net.” We become caught in the meshes of
our own techniques – so that today in society, the big doubt we have is whether a person really
means the love that they appear to be showing us. So it’s become a hunting net.

We manipulate and we use love or the tricks or the techniques in order to get people to do things.
So it becomes a hunting net in which we are caught in eternal meshes, so that one of the great
doubts today is self-doubt, a sense of identity, a great sense of loneliness. These things come
because we wonder if people really love us or are they are just manipulating us again as we
manipulate others. The verse finishes with, “’a pitfall.’” The Greek word is “skandalon” and it
means not just “a trap” but “the trigger that sets off the trap” that catches us.

These techniques that we have used with each other set off the trap of isolation and loneliness and
self-doubt and problems with identity that catch most of us – the personal frustration that most of
us feel. These very things that we do with each other set off the trap that catches us and kills us,
and are retribution for them. We’re so busy reading how to have a good marriage and how to make each
other happy physically and emotionally, that we become preoccupied with that, and that becomes our
retribution, our recompenses, our reward.

The fact that we have done the thing right — we have kissed right, or we have spoken with the right
tone of voice, or we have given the right present — that becomes our only recompense. Suddenly life
is like a soap bubble that bursts, and all you’re left with is the feeling of dampness — nothing
beautiful, nothing real, but just the coldness and the emptiness of life. Loved ones, that is what
this verse means.

You may feel as I do, “Well, I know that. I know that’s our predicament. I’ve felt it often in my
family. I know I’ve felt it often at my work. I know I’ve often felt it in school. I know I’ve often
felt it with friends. I’ve often felt that sense of coldness and isolation in spite of the fact that
we’re all supposedly doing the right thing to each other.”

“But what do I do? I know my heart is filled with selfish motives. I know my heart is all twisted
up. But what can I do about it? I know the problem is the heart. I’m doing the things that express
love because I am supposed to do them. They’re works of law to me! They’re salvation by works.
They’re not things that spring from my heart. They’re things that I’ve read in books, on bumper
stickers, and on shop windows. They’re things that other people tell me I should do. I know they
don’t spring from my heart. What do I do?”

Loved ones, a Jewish philosopher called Martin Buber pointed to the beginnings of a real analysis of
the problem — not only our problem — but the problem of the Jewish people — when he said we all
were created by God to have an I-Thou relationship with him — two persons relating to each other.
This would then enable us to have an I-Thou relationship with each other.

You see, I and thou are two personal pronouns. That was God’s plan. That is the only thing that will
finally give us satisfaction. But he said that we have perverted our relationship with God into an
I-It relationship, so that as a result, our relationships with each other have become I-It
relationships.

I related to It—the flowers that will please her. I related to It — the hug that will express that
I love him. I related to It — the picnic or outing that will suggest to the family that we are
really together. I related to It — the famous gold watch that is supposed to express to someone who
has given their whole life to a company that we in some way care about them or appreciate them.

We have perverted life that is supposed to be an I-Thou relationship into an I-It relationship, so
that we see the It but not the Thou. We are preoccupied with the flowers, not the Thou. We are
preoccupied with the reward — not the Thou.

What we’re all dying for is a personal heart who really loves us and doesn’t just give us an
expression of love. That’s the truth – that real love has to come from an unselfish heart that cares
more about the other person than it cares about itself. If you don’t have an unselfish heart all
you’re involved in is works of law. You’re involved in trying to do the things that express a love
that isn’t really there because it can’t be there.

Now that was the problem with the Jewish nation. This verse was first spoken by David in regards to
the Jewish nation. That’s what the Jewish nation did. They were the first people in our world that
our Creator introduced himself to, the first people that he revealed himself to as a God whom they
could trust and obey and love, and who would be to them a loving Father. And they as a nation
decided that they didn’t want God as the God of their lives and their own lives and their own
destinies. So they sidestepped the I-Thou relationship and they began to set about running their
lives for themselves in their own way.

As a result of course, their conscience began to work overtime! And pointed out to them that they’re
not living the way they were meant to live if you had an I-Thou relationship. God said to them,
“Listen. If you trust me as a dear Father, and if you live your life the way I’ve planned for you to
live it — you’ll have so much love and assurance of security from me that you won’t need to steal
or covet other people’s things. You’ll have such enjoyment with me in our personal relationship you
won’t need to commit adultery in order to enjoy yourself. You‘ll have such a sense of how much I
love you and how important you are to me that you won’t have to bear false witness against your
neighbor in order to make yourself feel important.” And of course, the conscience of the Jewish
nation began to show them that, “You’re not living this way.”

Do you know what they did? They said, “Well, we don’t want an I-Thou relationship, but we do have to
do something to make our conscience feel comfortable. So, all right! We’ll hug our kid today. We’ll
try to avoid committing adultery. We’ll fill our lives with the marks of an I-Thou relationship –
even though we don’t have an I-Thou relationship. We’ll avoid stealing. We’ll avoid coveting. We’ll
bring her home flowers tonight. We’ll do the things that real love would produce if it were there;
but meanwhile, we don’t want anything to do with this God.”

And so the Jewish nation sank into a mental preoccupation with obeying laws. Instead of entering
into all the joy of a personal, intimate loving relationship with God who is their Father, they
entered an I-It relationship — related to the “its” of what would have been a good trusting
relationship with God. I related to “thou shalt not steal.” I related to “thou shalt not covet.” I
related to “thou shalt not bear false witness.” And so the Jewish nation sank into an experience of
personal frustration and a mental preoccupation with legalism. Even to this very day, that is their
situation.

But loved ones, many of us here are in the same situation. Many of here know fine well that what we
need is to have our heart changed. We know that we’ve perverted our personalities by this
preoccupation with things and with “it” instead of with persons. We know that we have a heart that
is such a mess that it can hardly catch a glimpse of what an intimate, trusting, loving relationship
with our God is. We know it has to be changed.

We know, actually, that that’s what happened on Calvary. God changed our hearts in Jesus. Romans 6:6
tells us that our old self, our old twisted heart, preoccupied with things and “it”, was crucified
so that we might no longer be enslaved to sin. All of us were changed in the cosmic death of Jesus
that was expressed in temporal events at Calvary.

We were changed! Our hearts are changed in Jesus. We can have the new heart this moment if we submit
to him; if we believe that he was crucified and we were crucified with him, and there is a new “us”
available; and submit to his Holy Spirit to show us what needs to be changed in our attitude for
that new heart to become real. If we do these things, then there’s a new life that comes within us.
If we identify ourselves with Jesus in dying to ourselves as he did, then the Spirit of God brings a
new heart to us and changes our selfish hearts into unselfish hearts.

But many of us who know that here today have sidestepped that I-Thou relationship with the man on
the cross, and we along with countless evangelicals have perverted Jesus’ death and John 3:16 into a
mantra. That’s right! We’ve perverted it into a mantra, or a formula by which we hope to argue
ourselves into heaven.

Instead of seeing it as an experience that we are to embrace; instead of seeing Jesus’ death as
something that we were involved in in eternity and that we have to enter into today, dying to the
same things that he died to –to his right to everybody making much of him, to his right to be
loved, to his right to have things comfortable and easy — instead of entering into it with our
whole beings and becoming identified with Jesus in his death to himself and in his rising to God and
to other people — we have made John 3:16 a mantra. We keep repeating, “I’m going to heaven because
Jesus died for me, I’m going to heaven because Jesus died for me.”

Meanwhile, it is an I-It relationship we are entering into. I related to It — the concept of John
3:16; I related to It — the death of Jesus on the cross; I related to a belief, instead of I

related to a dear person who hung on the cross. This is instead of I relating to him and embracing
him, and saying, “Lord, if that is where I am to be changed — then I want to be part of that with
you. Show me what my death with you means to me today. Show me what I’ve to surrender to you so that
you can make that real in me today.” Instead, we use Jesus’ death as some kind of admission ticket
into heaven.

Do you know the strange thing? The things that normally follow a full identification with Jesus —
the new unselfish heart that produces a love for God’s word, a love for prayer, and a desire to tell
others about it in witnessing — these things become a heavy burden to those of us who use Jesus’
death as a mantra. So we become preoccupied in our so-called Christian lives with our prayer life
and the fact that it doesn’t exist; with our Bible study life and the fact that it doesn’t exist;
with our witnessing life and the fact that it is unsatisfactory.

What is meant to be an I-Thou relationship with our dear Savior on the cross and, therefore, a life
of joy that loves to tell others about it, and that loves to meet with him every day and receive
from his word life and enjoyment and love – those very things becomes an It or works of law that
simply take the place of the Ten Commandments that the Jews had.

Now, loved ones, are you in that situation? Are those things that are normally an expression of an
unselfish heart that is identified with Jesus — prayer, reading the Bible, witnessing — are those
things a burden to you? Are you always making new resolutions about them? Well, do you see that
you’re treating them the way that the Jews treated the Ten Commandments? Your problem with those is
a snare. It’s a hunting net. It’s a trap trigger — in order to make you aware that there’s a better
relationship!

That’s why God put these here. He didn’t put the snare there to kill us. He didn’t put the trap
trigger there to kill us. He built us this way so that we would feel the emptiness and the legalism
that fills our lives, and we would realize there’s something more at that Calvary place that we have
not entered into. And we need to enter into it with all our hearts. That’s why it’s there. It’s
there not for your harm but for your good.

So I would just ask you — have you an I-It relationship with Jesus and his death? Or have you an
I-Thou relationship with the dear savior who included you in himself when he allowed himself to be
crucified and raised anew?

You know best. If you suspect that it’s an I-It relationship, then you can spend a little time
praying, and just say to Jesus, “Lord Jesus, I think I know very little about you, from the sound of
these words – very little about being identified with you in your death. It’s just words to me at
the moment. But Lord, by your Holy Spirit, will you begin to show me how to enter into this so that
my life will be filled with works of faith and not works of law? So that I will be involved in
salvation by grace and not salvation by works?” I would do that, and he will be faithful to you as
he was to me. His Spirit will reveal to you things in your life today and over the next days that
will make it clearer to you how to become one with him in his death and resurrection.

And then loved ones, I tell you: that is the new birth. That is life eternal — to truly know God
and him whom he hath sent, even Jesus Christ. Not to know about them, which is an I-It relationship,
but to know them personally, which is a personal relationship.

THE COST OF UNNATURAL LIVING(cid:9)

Romans 11:10

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Have you ever been in a department store like Dayton’s and watched a person step onto the down
escalator and then decide that she wants to go down to the next floor? The tragedy is that she is
convinced that it is just a few steps back onto solid ground. It’s like a Laurel and Hardy movie. I
watched a lady do it about two weeks ago.

She just got on the down escalator and then obviously decided that she didn’t want to go down, so
she turned around and lifted her foot onto the next step up, which, of course, began to come down to
meet her as she was about to launch herself onto the next step. So she grabbed at the handrail to
help overcome these forces and the handrail moved towards her. It was just a tangle of torn nylons
and packages lying all over the place. It was chaotic. You just can’t go down an up escalator and
you can’t go up a down escalator. The system isn’t made to work that way.

It is the same with a parking ramp. I’m sure you’ve done it. You are on the fourth level of the
parking ramp and you’ve turn into the ‘no entry’ opening. It’s chaos! The cars coming towards the
exit start meeting you and flashing their lights. Then as you go on you decide, “Well, I’ll try to
get out of it. I’ll just keep going and avoid having to turn around.” But it just gets worse. Cars
start reversing into you. People start yelling at you. If you’re a man, of course, you start yelling
at your wife, saying, “Don’t they know this is a one-way system?” It just gets worse and worse until
eventually you decide “if you can’t beat them, join them,” and you turn around.

Well, it is the same in any one-way system, isn’t it? It’s the same in any one-way system in a
city, the same in the New York subway system, and the same in the Underground in London. It doesn’t
matter which system you hit — it’s made to go in a certain way. If you try to go in the opposite
direction you meet more and more difficulty and opposition. It becomes more and more obvious that
you’re going the wrong way.

Loved ones, those little man-made illustrations are just examples of a greater truth that our dear
Father has built into this life of ours — because this life only works one way. If you try to go up
the down staircase in this life, if you try to live this life in a different way, you’ll meet more
and more opposition and more and more difficulties and you’ll end up with torn nylons and packages
all over the floor.

Now, that’s the heart of what God is trying to teach us in the words that Paul quoted in Romans
11:10. They were words that God prompted King David first to speak. Paul is quoting David here in
one of the Psalms. “’Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their backs for
ever.’”

That looks like such a terrible verse, but really it is because of God’s love to us that he does
that. It is, honestly. It’s like one time I turned down the wrong opening on the freeway. It was so
funny. It said first, “No Entry”. Then it said “Stop”. Then it said, “You’re Going the Wrong Way”. I
thought it was really nice of them to keep putting it there for a dumb idiot like me. But that’s
what the Father does. That isn’t a cruel verse. That’s a loving verse. God said, “Let their eyes be
darkened so that they can not see, so that they have to grab for somebody who can guide them. Let

their backs be bent forever so that they will realize that things are not right.”

That’s exactly what he did with Israel. You remember what a privileged position Israel had. God
chose them out of all the nations to be the demonstration project for his fatherly love. You
remember he took Abraham, the father of the Jews, way at the beginning and he explained to him, “I
know you.” He called him by his own name, and said, “I know you. I’m here behind the skies and I’m
personal and real, and I’m your dear Father. I know you and I have a special position for you in
this world. I will look after you as a father looks after you.”

You remembered how he enabled Abraham to have many, many grandchildren and descendants, and how he
enabled him to prosper and gave him money, cattle, and possessions and then gave his descendants a
land beside the Mediterranean Sea and assured them that they were his special people that he would
use to show the rest of us what a loving Father and what a careful God he was.

You remember what the Jewish nation did. They took that special position that God had given them out
of all the nations, and they used it to lord it over the rest of the human beings in the world. It
is interesting that you and I know thousands of Jews that are humble and friendly. But it is
interesting that the nation of Israel itself is even today regarded as tending to be a proud and
arrogant people. It is interesting that they have taken the position that God gave them and turned
it around so that they are now regarded as an arrogant and proud people.

It is the same with the great abilities that God gave to Abraham and to his descendants for commerce
and business. He gave them great cleverness and ability at gathering together money. And yet they
turned away from God’s plans for them and they used that ability — that shrewdness and cleverness
— to get possessions for themselves, so that even though all of us know many Jews who are generous
philanthropists and who are generous and kindly with their money — yet the fact remains that today
the nation of Israel is often regarded as a grasping, acquisitive nation that is shrewd and clever
at making money.

The interesting thing is that their backs are bent – that God has actually made that truth operate
in their lives. As they have gone up the down staircase, as they have gone the opposite way to the
one-way system, as they have declared themselves independent and shown distrust of God as their dear
Father — so he has brought about in their lives the truth of this statement, that their backs will
be bent.

The interesting thing is that even though Israel has a special position among the nations, yet even
to this very day, it is the nation that faces the most widespread contempt and suspicion from other
nations. Despite all the attitude of many people who are Christians to try to influence the world’s
attitude to Jews, yet still the nation of Israel faces more contempt and more suspicion than any
other nation. It’s incredible, isn’t it? Its back is bent because it has taken this special position
that God gave it and used it for itself.

It is the same with the whole ability to gather money and financial resources. It is interesting
that in this time of inflation no nation has probably as high a rate of inflation as Israel. {This
talk was given in 1979.} The masses of income and money that it pulls in go out faster than they
come in because they’re spent continually – in fact you might say, thrown away — on guns and
defense weapons.

So it’s remarkable — though we’re talking about individual Jews, and it’s important to see that —

yet, the nation of Israel itself has, in a sense, its back bent. Yes! It has its own land. But it’s
almost bankrupt maintaining its position in that land. And yes! It has its position among the
nations. Yet no nation is treated with more contempt on a widespread basis by the peoples of the
world. So, it’s strange. It has got what God wanted it to have, but it got it by its own power and
ability, and so its back is bent.

The other interesting thing is that its eyes are darkened too. You know that if you reflect for a
moment – because Israel attributes its present position to being wrongly identified as the
crucifiers of Christ. Actually they did crucify Christ, but we all crucified Christ. But there’s a
tendency still for Israel to think, “Our position of contempt and our position of vulnerability in
the world is due to the fact that the world keeps thinking of us as the Christ-crucifiers.” Or they
keep attributing it to that incredible and incomprehensible neurosis which it calls anti-Semitism.

The interesting thing is, God’s Word explains why its back is bent. Its back is bent because it has
gone up the down staircase. Instead of trusting God as its loving Father and obeying him and then
moving on to perceive the spirit of the Person who came in the first century as his Son, Israel has
rejected God’s plans for it and has striven after plans of its own.

The easiest thing in the world is for people like us to point the finger at the other fellow. While
we’re being so clever at perceiving the ways that God has bent Israel’s back and darkened Israel’s
eyes because it refused to trust him, we need to have a look at our own live. We need to see the
ways that same principle is working in our own lives. In what way are you and I living unnaturally –
because that’s what it is when you don’t trust and listen to your God as your loving father? In what
way are we living unnaturally, and in what way are we paying the price for that?

Maybe the easiest way to point out one of our ways — and there must be many in all of our lives —
is to remind you of Charles Dickens, the English novelist. You remember he wrote a book called David
Copperfield, and one of the characters in it was a Mr. Micawber, who was always on the edge of
bankruptcy and was always waiting for something to turn up. This is Mr. Micawber’s lesson in
economics to the young David Copperfield. “My other piece of advice, Copperfield, you know. Annual
income: twenty dollars, annual expenditure nineteen dollars and ninety-five cents. Result:
happiness. Annual income twenty dollars, annual expenditure twenty dollars and five cents. Result:
misery. The blossom is blighted. The leaf is withered. The god of day goes down upon the dreary
scene.”

How many of us have done that? Instead of getting our dear Father’s mind on the new cars or on the
new clothes, or on the new house, we just are determined to have it. We storm ahead and we take on a
payment, and then we take on another payment, and then another payment and then another payment and
then another. Well, you know it — until you have no salary left. You may as well just make that
arrangement with the bank whereby they pay all your bills and you will receive maybe ten cents for
an ice cream cone – though I don’t think you can buy an ice cream cone for ten cents now.

Isn’t that true? We experience a bending of the back under financial commitments that we take on
independent of whether God thinks we need another car or more clothes, or whether in fact we can get
on far better without those things. We believe in our hearts Paul’s words: “My God shall supply
every need of yours from his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” We believe Jesus’ directive that we
should seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all other things will be added unto
us, for your heavenly Father knows we have need of these things.

We know that, but instead of going to him and saying, “Father, do we really need this thing? What do
you think we need? What do you think is a reasonable commitment of our monthly salary?” We just
drive on ahead up the down staircase and we are determined to run this our way. As sure as anything,
God allows our backs to be bent by the burden that we take on.

Loved ones, you see how our eyes are darkened. Because how many of us have not been faced with that?
We’ve faced that unbearable burden of payments that we couldn’t make. And yet our eyes are so
darkened that we will not trade down! “No! I mean, the car is too good. And now I’ve put this money
into it. Or the house is too good. Or the other thing is too good.”

And our eyes are so darkened that we’re drawn on into the tunnel further and further. Indeed, our
eyes are so dark that we start working out ways in which we could collate some of these amounts
together, and maybe release some more money so that we could get into some more payments.

Loved ones, that is one of the ways God bends our backs and darkens our eyes. He does this to drive
us into that desperate position where we will stop running our own lives and stop making our own
judgments, and will begin to look to him as our dear God and allow him to be our Father and listen
to his advice.

You can think of lots of other ways. One occurs to me immediately — the talents and abilities that
God has given so many of us. He has given every one of us a different ability or talent in order to
bring his world more into the order of his will. That’s why he gave it to us. But you know what we
do. We take the talent or the ability and we begin to use it to establish our own status or our own
importance in the eyes of our peers. So we begin to use that talent or that ability to parlay it
into a more and more advanced position. So we try to struggle and manipulate our way up the
hierarchical ladder of the company.

That’s what we do. Inch by inch, we use this ability that God gave us to share his joy with the
world, and to bring the world into the order of his will, and to serve the world – and we make it
serve ourselves. And we manipulate ourselves inch by inch up the ladder, until we manipulate
ourselves into exactly that position that brings strain to us, and that we cannot hold on to,
without strain and worry. And then we labor in that position.

We don’t really like the job. But it has power and position and it has financial reward. We’re not
really using the abilities that God has given us. We bring the anxiety and the strain home each day
and destroy our happiness at home. But we hold onto that — like the little monkey that wants to get
the candy out of the candy jar. He puts his hand in and opens it and grabs the candy, and of course
he can’t get his hand out of the neck of the jar. And he won’t let go of the candy to get his hand
out of the jar.

We’re exactly like that. Our backs are bent with the burden of a position that we don’t really
enjoy. But our eyes are so darkened that we do not see that we’re here to enjoy our lives, and enjoy
the abilities that God has given us.

There is some place in this dear old world that needs our abilities. We may not get the same reward
for them as we’re getting at our current jobs. But we’ll get satisfaction inside ourselves. Our eyes
are so darkened and our backs are so bent that we cannot wrench ourselves out of that position.

Loved ones, that’s the way that God deals with us. You see how kind he is? How much worse it would

be if he enabled us to do all those things without any of the bad consequences! The Father has
lovingly designed this whole world so that whenever we go up the down staircase, whenever we start
living it without him, whenever we start being God of our own lives, whenever we stop listening to
his advice, whenever we stop regarding and trusting him as our own dear Father — then our eyes
become darkened and our backs are bent. It’s God giving us the message, “My son or my daughter, this
isn’t the way I meant for you to live. Come on! Let’s get together. Let’s reason together about your
life. Let me tell you what I plan for you to do in this life.”

Loved ones, there is a beautiful way to live for every one of us. It is by beginning to have a real
relationship with your dear God. He knows why he put you here. He understands you better than
anybody else. He is your loving Father. He knows your first name. He knows what he has planned for
you to do here. If you will just begin to turn to him and to close your eyes and speak to him to
have a heart to find out what he wants — he will begin to speak to you. That’s why he’s darkening
your eyes at times and bending your backs to get you to do that. I just pray that if you know that
there is something of that strain in your life, that you will turn around and get to know your dear
Father.

Let us pray. Dear Father, there are many things in our lives that we see bring a blindness to us. At
times we are groping and hardly know which way to turn. Often we don’t know what we should do with
our lives. Often we don’t know what we should do with ourselves. Often, our Father, our backs are
bent. We are not living enjoyable, lighthearted lives. Often we’re living under massive burdens that
we’ve pulled on top of ourselves.

Father, even though it’s hard for us to thank you for those things, we do thank you. Thank you for
showing us we are going the wrong way — that we’re not living the way you wanted us personally to
live. So dear Lord, would you begin to speak to us, and we’ll begin to pray each day, and we’ll
begin to read this Bible of yours. We ask you to begin to show us how we should live, and what your
own personal plan is for us. We ask you to do that, if we’ll begin to recognize you and acknowledge
you from this day. We ask this for your satisfaction in our lives, and so that we ourselves would no
longer have blind eyes and bent backs. We ask it in your name and for your glory. Amen.

God’s Use of Evil

Romans 11:11

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

In Ireland we used to have a very long morning service, and among other things the minister had to
tell a story to the children. The good thing about that was that the children really didn’t get so
much out of it, but the adults loved the story. So I’m going to tell you a story.

Once upon a time there was a king who had immense possessions – and had lands that extended beyond
where the eye could see. The most notable thing about this king was that he was always happy. He was
always laughing and always joking. The only thing perhaps that was more obvious about him than his
happiness and his joy was his kindliness.

He had a dear son. They lived together in absolute peace in the palace because they thought only of
one another’s well-being. So they spent their days in joy and peace and love, creating more and more
animals and birds and rocks and all kinds of things that would express the happiness they themselves
had and that in fact added to that happiness.

Now there came a day when they finished a project that they had been working on for years — a great
tract of land into which they had packed all the most beautiful things they had ever created. So the
earth was filled will all kinds of precious metals, all kinds of precious stones, and the surface of
the earth was filled with vegetation that would provide food and shelter for billions of years.

Then they initiated the plan that they had in mind for this tract of land. They invited into it
thousands and thousands of their subjects so that their subjects would be able to enjoy this land
and so that they would be able to get to know them personally. So they looked forward to the kind of
experience they were going to have with these loved ones, as these people began to share the same
happiness that they had. They stood at the gate, the king and his son, and watched the people
rushing into this garden.

Unless you have ever been involved in the same kind of thing, you could not imagine the catastrophe
that took place. Because the people came through the gates and momentarily nodded at the king and
his son as they came in, but then they caught a glimpse of the trees and the fruit and the grain,
and the rocks and the rivers and the mountains, and they were fascinated by them. They made a rush
towards them and began to dig the soil.

One person dug up some shining metal, and another guy saw him and rushed over to see if he could get
some. Then another fellow found more gold that the previous one. They began to compete with each
other to see who could get the most gold. Then they began to express the same rivalry towards even
the trees and the fruit, the grain and the vegetation, until eventually they began in a few days to
build walls around the stuff that they had got themselves to keep the other people from getting at
it.

The king and his son just looked in amazement! Then the king went over to one of the men and he said
to him, “Look, I’m the king. I made this so that we could be friends, so that we could all get to
know one another. In fact, my eventual plan is that all of you would come and live with me in my
palace. Actually, you don’t all need to rush at the ground like this. There are enough resources in

this garden to last all of us for billions of years if you just listen to me. I know where it all
is! I placed it carefully. So just listen to me and follow my directions and you’ll have plenty.”

This man thanked the king for telling him that. He said, “Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll listen to
you. Now what do you want me to do?” So the king and this man got to know one another as personal
friends. This man followed the king’s directions and began to learn some of the skills that were
needed to develop this garden. He began to get special knowledge from the king about where to look
for things. So that’s the way their life went on until eventually of course this man died.

His children took over the piece of land that the king had set apart for this man. But his children
were different. They began to live like the rest of the people that were grabbing for everything
that they could and paid no attention to the king himself. This man’s children began to do the same
thing, except that there was one great difference between them and the other people. They had
inherited the skills and the knowledge that the king had given their father. So they were able to do
better than all the other people in the garden. They were able to prosper way beyond all the others.

Of course they also knew that the king had spoken to their father personally, and that became a
source of pride for them, because they felt, “Well, he had spoken to them too through their father.”
So they began to pride themselves in their position and they began to lord it over the other people
in the garden. Indeed, they began to wear special little marks (a kind of star) on their coats to
distinguish them from all the rest.

After years and years of this, the king saw that they were getting further and further away from
him, and he decided that because he loved them so much that he would send his own son to them. So he
sent his son to them, who came to them and began to explain to them again what his father, the king,
had explained to their father — how he loved them and how he was really their father, and how they
could trust him and they could follow his directions, and life would be perfect.

They listened to him for a short time. But they had become so hard and so independent of the king,
and so independent of everybody else in the garden, that they just wanted rid of any other voice but
their own. So they killed the king’s son. It was then that the king left them and started to walk
among the other people in the garden, and started to explain to them the things that he had already
explained to this special group’s father – who wore the stars. Meanwhile he used the things that
happened to this special group to make it plain to everybody that there was only one way to live in
this garden, and that was by the friendship and the guidance of the king who had made it and had put
them there.

There were many things that happened to this group. This was because as they became more and more
proud of their own special position, and as they used their own skills and their special knowledge
that they had from their father who got it from the king to develop their land – so they became more
and more prosperous. Gradually the other people in the garden began to envy them. As they saw their
pride and their arrogance, the other people in the land began to dislike and detest them until
eventually they began to be utterly contemptuous of them.

So this group found that they were facing not only the hatred of all the people in the garden but
also the contempt of all the other people in the garden. Eventually they became so apprehensive of
what the other people would do to them that they spent all the resources that they had building
walls round themselves to try to keep themselves from being destroyed completely.

Loved ones, that’s the situation in which the nation of Israel finds itself today. That’s it! The
nation of Israel. Though it has its own land and though many of us see signs that somehow some of
the old prophesies are being fulfilled, yet it is amazing that the nation of Israel has down through
the centuries shown such arrogance and pride that it faces the almost universal contempt of the
world.

This nation that produces not only more comedians than any other nation, but produces probably the
greatest artists in music and art and writing that the world has seen; this nation that produces
more than its supply of business leaders in the world — this nation faces the incredible situation
where it can’t earn enough to build enough walls and enough weapons to protect itself from
extermination. It labors with bent back under a rate of inflation that’s astronomical. {This
presentation was given in 1980.}

Now, God is saying to us as we read this, two other important things about the situation Israel is
in. I would just love to share them briefly with you and then ask us all to be open to what God is
saying to us personally about them. They’re found in the verse that we’re studying today — Romans
11:11. Paul asks, “So I ask, have they stumbled so as to fall?”

The word “stumbled” in the Greek is eptaisan, and it really means not just “to stumble”, but “to
crash against” something. Now, what have they crashed against? You find the same word used back in
Romans 9:33 and you’ll find the answer there. “As it is written, ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a
stone that will make men stumble(or make men crash against it), a rock that will make them fall.’”
The rock is defined clearly in the next verse: “’and he who believes in him will not be put to
shame.’”

The rock is Jesus. And Paul says, “Has the Jewish nation then crashed against Jesus?” — because
that’s what they have crashed against and that’s what laid bare their attitude to God. “Have they
crashed against Jesus so as to be completely useless?” Paul answers, “By no means!” The first reason
–- you have to admit — that they’re not useless is, “But through their trespass salvation has come
to the Gentiles.” {The middle part of this verse Romans 11:11.}

We have to see that and be honest about it – that that’s a historical fact. When the Jewish nation
rejected God as a dear Father whose Son was Jesus, then God turned to us Gentiles. That’s a
historical fact.

You can see it in Acts 13, because there is the moment in history when it took place. Acts 13:45:
“But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with jealousy, and contradicted what was
spoken by Paul, and reviled him. And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, ‘It was necessary
that the word of God should be spoken first to you. Since you thrust it from you, and judge
yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded
us saying, “I have set you to be a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the
uttermost parts of the earth.”’ And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the
word of God; and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.”

So we need to see that the Jews’ discomfiture, and the Jews’ turning from God, is really the reason
that you and I have been able to hear of this dear Father that we talked about earlier on.

The other important benefit that the Jewish nation is to us is that they show us clearly what

happens if we stand where they stand. That’s right. They show us clearly what happens to a people
who reject God as their Father and refuse to trust him. They show us, for instance, that if you’re
determined to establish your own position and your own reputation — whatever God’s plans for you
are — you will spend the rest of your life trying to prevent other people toppling you from that
position.

For all of us who are so concerned about our position and our reputation among our peers — and we
spend so much of our lives trying to get the right cars or the right jobs to establish that position
so that nobody can topple us — the message of the Jewish nation is, “Don’t do that – because you’ll
spend the rest of your life trying futilely and vainly to defend yourself against the people who are
out to topple you.”

The only position that is ever peaceful for you is the one that God gives you. That’s true! In our
careers, and in our families and among our peers, no position is safe except the one God gives us.
Any position that we grab for ourselves – it will be agony to hold onto it.

The other thing that you see in Israel is that if you determine by your own shrewdness and
cleverness to establish your own financial and material security whether God wants for you poverty
or wealth – if you do that — you’ll never have enough. I think some of us have experienced that.
You’ll never have enough.

If you are determined to get the salary that you think that you ought to have, to get the house you
think you ought to have, to get the clothes you think you ought to have, without any reference to
your God, without talking it over with your dear Father at all and asking him, “Look! What have you
put me here for? Do you want me to be a wealthy man? Do you want me to be a poor man? What do you
want me to do?” If you do that, loved ones, you’ll end up never having enough – however much you
get! That’s the strange thing. It works that way.

There’s a law built into the world that’s expressed clearly in the Jewish nation, that if you go for
material prosperity yourself, independent of God, you may have more than everybody else but you’ll
never have enough. It’ll drain out the bottom of a sieve and you’ll never have enough. I think all
of us have experienced a little of that just in our own private finances. The little that God gives
to you seems to be enough for all your needs. But the masses that you grab for yourself are never
enough. You’re always needing more.

Then, it seems important especially for those of us who are concerned and burdened for the Jewish
people, to see the other fact that God presents clearly to us in the last part of Romans 11:11: “But
through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous.” The last
part is, “so as to make Israel jealous.”

There are two ways in which you can be jealous. Neither of them are good, but one’s slightly better
than the other. The first way is that you detest and hate the thing you’re jealous of because you
don’t have it. Israel as a nation is jealous in that way of the apparent intimacy with God that many
Gentiles have entered into through Jesus. Israel as a nation is jealous in a hard and obnoxious way.
They detest it. They hate it. They’re bitter against it. Israel as a nation has that attitude
towards Jesus. We need to see that. It’s just a fact, and it’s a fact that is stated in Scripture.

America as a nation accepts Jesus as God’s Son. That doesn’t mean all Americans do, but it means
America as a nation is not averse to that belief. But Israel, as a nation, is averse to that belief.

Israel as a nation has hardened their heart against that and is jealous of it in a way that makes
them detest it and hate it. Israel, as a nation, is reprobate. We need to see that.

It’s stated in scripture. In Romans 10:21 God states it. It’s not some miserable anti-semitic
Gentile here that’s stating it. “But of Israel he says, ‘All day long I have held out my hands to a
disobedient and contrary people.’” Loved ones, that’s God’s judgment on Israel at the present time.
Israel as a nation is a reprobate nation and will remain so until the Bible says Jesus will come
again. Then Israel, it is said, as a nation will turn to Jesus.

It doesn’t mean every individual will turn to Jesus — because they’ll be in the same boat as the
rest of us. Just because America on the whole is favorable towards Jesus, it still requires every
individual American to make their personal agreement with Jesus. But Israel as a nation today is a
reprobate nation. It has rejected Jesus, and has an attitude of rejection to him as the only
begotten Son of God.

There’s another way to be jealous. You can be jealous in that you can want the thing that you see in
other people. Thank God that his word has come true – what Paul said – that there is a remnant. That
there is a remnant among the Jews in these days that see people living in Jesus, in close loving
trust of God as their Father. Those dear loved ones of Jewish background see that, and they’re
jealous of it and they want it.

There are many individual Jews, especially here in the States, but really throughout the world, who
are making the same approach to Jesus as many of us have. But there is a clear distinction between
them and Israel as a nation, and we need to see it – those of us who are burdened about those in the
Jewish faith.

I was coming out of a restaurant three weeks ago and a gentleman introduced himself and said he was
brought up in the Jewish faith. He referred to a sermon on television — the one where we discussed
Jesus as the unique Son of God, Jesus as being divine. He then began to outline the sermon to me and
to remind me of some of the things that I had said, and he said, “You know, the logic is absolutely
unanswerable.” So we talked back and forward that it was! It was so plain that Jesus was the unique
and only Son of God.

Then as we separated, this dear man said to me, “You know, I’ve at last come to the conclusion that
Jesus was the greatest Jew that ever lived.” And that’s about it, isn’t it? He’s the greatest Jew
that ever lived. Loved ones in the Jewish faith who honestly seek God find in him the fulfillment of
all that they sought.

There are many loved ones who are doing that in these days. There are many brothers and sisters in
the Jewish faith who examine Jesus as we have and who are beginning to see that being a Christian is
simply being a completed Jew. We need to love them and to have an openness to them and to see them
as our dear brothers and sisters who are yearning to get into the same close trust of our dear
Father as their father Abraham had.

Then, loved ones, in so far as the Jewish nation is concerned, we need to love it also and pray for
it. But we need to see that you cannot break Scripture, and that the Jewish nation itself will only
turn to Jesus when Jesus Himself comes again. So I would ask you all just to have a sensible
attitude to our brothers and sisters in the Jewish faith, and to see that there is a real sense in
which God has made them really a scandal in the world, and you cannot change that. It’s not due just

due to anti-semitic feelings. It’s not due to people calling them the Christ crucifiers. It’s due to
their rejection of God and the fact that God has rejected them at this present time as a nation.

But meanwhile, then we should see that God wants to use us with those individual Jews who want the
same thing as we want in Jesus. So loved ones, maybe it’ll help to explain to some of us what is
happening to the Jews today. Above all, maybe it will help us ourselves not to deal with groups,
because none of us like to be dealt with as a group. We all like to be dealt with as individuals. I
pray that we’ll do that with our brothers and sisters.

Let us pray. Dear Father, we thank you for the plain lesson that is to be learned from this whole
nation, over which there has been so much discussion and so much furor, and about which so many of
us and so many of our politicians have thought so much. Lord we see that they are a witness to us of
what happens when men determine to establish their own position and reputation independent of their
God.

Lord, we would step back from any of that in our own lives, and we would see that the position that
God gives us is unassailable. The position that we grab for ourselves is always like a “Fiddler on a
Roof” – unstable, always about to collapse.

Then, Lord, we thank you for the clear lesson from Israel — that if we go for our own material and
financial prosperity, according to our own plans, we will never have enough money. But Lord, if we
go to you, and see that you are their king, who planted all the gold in the soil and the earth, and
who made the whole garden, and who knows where everything is and can lead us to the right resources
— then we’ll always have plenty, even though in the eyes of the world it may seem so little.

Lord, we thank you for the way you have used the evil that the Jewish nation has brought upon itself
for our own salvation, and we feel humbled and privileged Lord, by what we have received from you.
We would pray for our dear brothers and sisters of Jewish background. We would pray that by your
Holy Spirit you will make it easy for them to come into the position of completed Jews, with the
greatest Jew that ever lived – even Jesus.

And now the grace of our Lord Jesus, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be
with each one of us, now and throughout this week. Amen.

The Jews’ Agony and Ecstasy

Romans 11:12

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

You remember the violence that broke out in Ireland between the so—called Protestants and Catholics
some years ago. Just about the beginning of that terror, my wife and I were in a store in London.
She was in a store when a lady came up to her whom we obviously recognized by her accent as coming
from Belfast where we were born.

They talked with one another and the lady then asked my wife, “Where do you live now?” — because
even though our accent may sound very different to you, to them it sounds American. So my wife said,
“America.” This lady had just come from downtown Belfast which had been ravaged and devastated by
terrorist bombs, and I know she had just got on a plane with soldiers with machine guns lining the
route. She looked at my wife in horror and said, “That America is a violent country!” It just seems
so strange to us that she regarded America as a violent country and she was living in more violence
than we ever touched here on Chicago streets or anywhere.

But it’s interesting, isn’t it? We all are very good at perceiving the dominating characteristics of
another nation, but we’re absolutely blind to the dominating characteristics of our own nation. I
was surprised during the past seventeen years since I came to America. Many people have said to me,
“Oh you’re Irish. Have you got a bad temper?” Because everybody thinks the Irish are the “fighting
Irish”.

The first piece of common sense that I’d like us to start on this morning as we begin to study this
verse is this: When people say to me, “Oh, you must have a bad temper,” or, “Do you fight a lot?” I
don’t get all upset or resentful and all bitter and murmur “anti—Semitic, anti—Hibernian!” I don’t.
I just assume, “Sure! The Irish have made that kind of impact on the whole world. It doesn’t mean
that every Irishman goes home and beats his wife every night. It just means that that’s the general
reputation that the Irish have, rightly or wrongly, in our world.

It is very important, loved ones, to be just sensible about that and not to get all upset about it.
Many of us are not like that. But the nation as a whole has that kind of reputation – the fighting
Irish. So it is with the Germans and their stubbornness. So it is with the Italians and their
excitability. So it is with the Swedes and their vivacious talkativeness, {laughter} — or their
quiet incommunicativeness. It doesn’t mean that every German is stubborn. It doesn’t mean that every
Swede is kind of quiet. It doesn’t mean that every Italian is excitable. But it does mean that
that’s the kind of impression that the nation as a whole has made on our world.

So I would ask you to please be just sensible about the dear old Jewish nation and don’t get all
silly and all uptight about it when we say that the Jewish nation as a whole, whether rightly or
wrongly, has made an impression on this world of being proud and of being financially shrewd. And
that’s it. It doesn’t mean that every Jew is like that. It doesn’t mean that every Jew is
financially shrewd. But it does mean that the nation as a whole has made that kind of impact on our
world. We need to see that and not get upset about it – just see it.

That’s not being anti—Semitic! Anti—Semitism is the kind of unanalytical prejudice and hatred that
moved a Hitler to destroy the Jews just because they were Jews. That is being anti-Semitic. But

seeing that the dear Jews have characteristics just like the rest of us have – that’s just common
sense, and we ought to see it.

Yet is amazing, isn’t it, that the Jewish nation itself seems so different in all our eyes to all
other nations. It’s interesting that even Japan, which is the only nation that has been devastated
by a nuclear bomb, or Germany that has been twice defeated in world wars and is now divided {this
presentation was given in 1980} – it’s interesting that no other nation excites in us the same pity
and the same sympathy as those little groups of shuffling people with the armbands on or the yellow
stars, as they trail down those roads into the gas chambers. It’s interesting that no nation so
excites our sympathy and our pity as this Israel nation.

Maybe it’s because they’ve been trailing down the world’s roads since eternity. It almost seems that
way, doesn’t it? It seems that they have been a bundle of refugees trailing down one road or another
since the world began. Abraham trailed from Haran to Canaan with his family. Jacob trailed with his
family down to join Joseph in Egypt. Moses trailed with the rest of the Israelites out of the
slavery in Egypt and wandered in the wilderness for forty years.

Then the Jews themselves came under the domination of the Assyrians and the Babylonians — trailed
into exile and trailed back to their own land. Then they came under the domination of the Greeks and
Romans. Ever since those days, especially near the end of the first century, they’ve been a homeless
people — for almost two thousand years. Yet it’s incredible that a people that has endured such
unequal lostness still has such a sense of cohesiveness, isn’t it? Probably no other people has been
scattered so often throughout the world and still maintains its own identity so strongly, and indeed
its own exclusiveness so strongly!

And yet isn’t it true that all those facts do not explain the uniqueness that we feel the nation of
Israel has in our world? Somehow we still feel that it is set apart from all the outstanding nations
that have dominated the world scene down through the centuries. And is it not for this reason —
that we feel as we watch them — we’re watching a supernatural drama? Even those of us who don’t
have much belief in God feel we’re watching something that is beyond ordinary human analysis to
explain. We feel we’re watching something that has been going on now for virtually four thousand
years – that this strange people wander in and out of the historical and geographical movements that
have taken place in our world, and somehow they seem to have some significance beyond time. That’s
when it started — about four thousand years ago.

The incredible thing is we have an historical record of it. Genesis 12:1: “Now the Lord said to
Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show
you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that
you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and
by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.'”

Isn’t that what many of us feel? That this nation is a unique expression to all of us, a unique
physical example of a people that refused to treat God in the way he wanted them to treat him — as
their loving Father. And that we are able to see outwardly in their physical and national
experiences what happened to them when they refused to treat God as their loving Father and began to
lead their own life as a nation by their own power and by their own guidance.

Really, we all feel that as we look at the things that happened to the Israelites — that we’re
looking at something that is caused not simply by national movements of other peoples, but is caused

by the attitude that they have to the God that chose them as a special people through whom he would
show himself. And that that’s the real cause of all their misfortunes — their persecutions, their
exiles, their catastrophes, their domination – that all these things can actually be explained by
one cause.

That’s the cause that we read in Ezekiel. We should look at it, because I do think many of us are
weak in our interpretation of why things like the Holocaust happen. I do think that at times it’s
good to blame the secondary causes. It’s certainly good to blame the Germans or blame ourselves, but
it is important to see what God’s explanation is. Ezekiel 39:23: “And the nations shall know that
the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they dealt so treacherously with
me that I hid my face from them and gave them into the hand of their adversaries, (See — it was the
adversaries that did the damage. It’s suddenly the Germans or ourselves that did the damage, but God
withdrew his protecting power.) and they all fell by the sword.” And why did this happen? Verse 24:
“I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions, and hid my face from
them.”

In other words, loved ones, it’s important to see that when you look at Israel you see a physical,
graphic expression of what is often happening in our own lives because of our own attitude to God.
Really! I think a lot of us here lose the job, and suddenly worry and anxiety fills our dear little
hearts. We know what God said — that there’s no trial will come upon us beyond what we’re able to
bear, and with the trial will come a way of escape. We know all that stuff!

We know, “My God will supply every need of yours from his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” We know
all that. But we lose the job and suddenly the heart is filled with anxiety and we have trouble
sleeping at night. Then we get another job — and all is calm. We don’t think anything of it. We
just thank God: “Thank you Lord, for the new job.” But we never see what happened when we trusted
the new job and got such peace and calmness from it, but did not trust our God and got no peace and
calmness from the assurance that he was looking after us. We don’t see what happened to us then.

I think you’ll agree with that. Many of us take the little spiritual transactions with God that we
have very casually. We feel, “O well, that’s another incident in my life. Well, I didn’t have the
faith I should have had. But these things are sent to try us. I’ll do better next time.” We feel,
“Oh — it’s just a little thing.”

You look at Israel and you see her trusting Baal, the god of property, possessions, and money. You
see her worshipping Baal in the land of Canaan and you see God’s reaction. He allows them to be
exiled and taken away by the Assyrians and then by the Babylonians from the Promised Land where God
dwells. Then you and I begin to see that that’s why we had trouble with our prayers after that.
That’s why we didn’t sense the presence of God so strongly in our hearts, because actually over that
little job loss we had worshipped the idol Baal.

Loved ones, that’s one of the values of this dear nation of Israel. We need to see that every one of
us has benefitted from not just those little stories that we heard in Sunday School – about David
and Goliath and how you ought to have more faith. But actually the whole of Israel’s national
pilgrimage is an expression to us of what happens spiritually when we fail to trust God as our
loving Father.

Loved ones, that’s why many of us are actually in exile! We’re actually in exile. We’re actually in
exile from the promised land of God’s presence. We just don’t realize it because it isn’t happening

to us physically. But that’s what God is often saying to us through Israel.

That’s what this verse says that we’re studying this morning. Romans 11:12: “Now if their trespass
means riches for the world…” You see, it does. It’s from their trespasses and the way that God has
dealt with them in response to their trespasses that you and I have the riches of this knowledge
that this is what God is like with us, too. This is what is happening in our lives — it’s just
happening inside us spiritually. So we owe the Jewish nation a lot in just their sufferings.

But you remember that the prophets warned Israel repeatedly – warned her again and again not to
seek property and possessions and security through Baal, not to seek happiness through the thrills
and excitement of Ashtaroth, not to seek significance and importance and a sense of identity through
the god Moloch, by dominating other people. The prophets repeatedly said that to Israel, and Israel
kept on– kept on doing it. It was as if she was enslaved to those gods.

Of course it’s the same story with us. We find that we don’t want to trust the new job. We don’t
want to trust just money. We don’t want to trust just excitement and thrills for happiness — but we
find we keep on doing it. That’s what the Israelites found.

That’s why, you remember, God promised them, “I will give you a new heart. This old heart that you
have can do nothing but trust these idols. But I will give you a new heart. And I will put a new
spirit within you.”

Then God provided a cosmic decompression chamber into which they could pass and enclosed in which
they could be delivered from the perversion that had taken place because of the pressures that they
got from self and the depths of self that they sank into. That decompression chamber was Jesus. God
provided that for them — an experience through which they could pass and be delivered from the
perverted natures that they had.

Of course you know that the Jewish nation rejected that. They actually destroyed this Jesus. And
then it was that God turned to all of us Gentiles and he offered to us this Jesus. Loved ones, in
that sense we owe a debt also to the Jews. Because they refused Jesus, all of us here in this room
can have that Jesus. There is a cosmic miracle wrought in him that can deliver each one of us here
from the powers and forces of self that bind us to money and people and things. So we owe them, in a
way, a double debt because their trespass has brought riches to the world and their failure or
rejection of Jesus has brought riches to us Gentiles.

That’s what that verse says. Romans 11:12: “Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if
their failure means riches for the Gentiles (and certainly they have meant that), how much more will
their full inclusion mean!”

The Greek word is pleroma. It means “fulfillment” or “completion.” So Paul is saying, “If we’ve got
so much from the Jews in this, their time of disobedience — how much more will we get from them and
how much more will the world be enriched from their completion!”

In what sense will there be a completion of the Jews? Well, I think loved ones, in the sense
explained in Romans 11:5: “So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.” There
are individual Jews who are getting serious with Jesus. Then you find in verse 7: “What then? Israel
failed to obtain what it sought. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened.” Though the
Jewish nation at the moment is hard, there are individual Jews who are serious with Jesus.

In London we were looking for a fireplace for the new house and we went to Camden Town in North
London. We went into a store there with beautiful Victorian fireplaces, heavy wrought-iron things
and special grates that were copies of old designs. We began to talk to this English guy and at last
settled the purchase.

When Myron who is the elder there brought out the Christian Corps checkbook, the man’s eyes lit up
and he said, “Are you Christians?” and we said, “Yes.” Then it was like a prayer meeting for the
rest of the time. He was a Jew. About two months ago, a man walked into his store to buy a
fireplace, and he said the man’s face shone with the light of God. The man was another Jew who
received Jesus some years ago.

What happened there in that little store in London is happening all over the world, and there is, I
think, in all of us who know Jesus a sense of completion when a man or woman from Jewish background
is completed in Jesus. It just is a seal or a kind of confirmation to us that this was the way God
meant it to work. So for all of us there’s a sense of fullness there.

There’s a sense of fullness in another way, and I’d like you to turn to Zechariah 12:8-10. There’s a
sense of fullness here, a sense of completeness that will take place. “’On that day the Lord will
put a shield about the inhabitants of Jerusalem so that the feeblest among them on that day shall be
like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the angel of the Lord, at their head. And
on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour out
on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of compassion and supplication, so
that, when they look on him whom they have pierced (and we know who that obviously is), they shall
mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a
first-born.’”

So there will come a time when Israel as a nation will look to Jesus as the real Messiah. Now —
could I just share this with those of you who are so enthusiastic about the Jews and about Israel?
Don’t be an anachronism. “Ana” is a Greek prefix meaning “not” and “chronis” means “time.” Don’t be
“out of time”. Don’t be untimely. This will occur between the coming of anti-Christ and the Second
Coming of Jesus. That’s when the Jewish nation will fully return to their land.

There have been partial returns, and this present one is only a partial return. This present return
to Israel is one that is stuck together with American money and with some alliances. But it’s a
shadow of what the complete return to Israel will be, and that will take place between the time of
anti-Christ and the time of the Second Coming of Jesus.

Now at that time God will pour out his Spirit on the Jewish nation. It won’t be any longer just
individuals, but the Jewish nation will respect Jesus. Presumably they can’t all accept him unless
they individually accept him, but as a nation they’ll acknowledge him and respect him and he will
become the religion of the Jewish nation. Presumably they will still as individuals have to deal
with Jesus, as that’s the only way into God’s presence and God’s family. But that will all happen at
that time, loved ones. It’s not now. It isn’t now!

I would plead with you dear ones who are so enthusiastic about the nation of Israel. Would you
please see that Golda Meir was a dear, brave, courageous lady — but she was an atheist! — she did
not believe in God. That Moshe Dayan may remind us of the mighty generals that fought in Old
Testament times — but Moshe Dayan is an agnostic — he does not believe in God.

I would plead with you that many of the loved ones who are enthusiastic at the present time about
Israel as a nation are enthusiastic about it purely on a political level, and that this is not the
great return that that is talked about here when God says, “I will gather all Jews from the
nations.” Now at the moment there is a great Diaspora of Jews. There are Jews in Israel, but there
are Jews in every nation. This is only one of the many partial returns. At the present time Israel
as a nation is reprobate. You’ll misunderstand all of Scripture and many of you will throw away your
own lives if you think that this is Israel as she is when she becomes the Bride of Christ. It isn’t.

When will that take place? Many of the experts in prophecy think and calculate that it will occur
2520 years after a certain date back in Old Testament times, which makes it more beyond the year
2000 than in this present time. {This presentation was given in 1980.} So I would just encourage
your dear hearts that this is not a time for panic.

It’s not a time for throwing up our hands. It’s not a time for rushing to Jerusalem. It’s not a time
for rushing to the mountains. It’s not a time for saying the end of the world is at hand. Jesus
described all these events that are coming about now and he said they’re but the beginning of the
birth pangs. Of all people we’re the people to be stable, we who say we know God as our Father.

Our dear friends and colleagues in school, at work, and in other nations — they need our stability
at this time. They don’t need us rushing to the mountains because the end of the world is just
around the corner. These are terrifying and fearful times, but they’re nowhere near the times that
are described clearly in God’s word as bringing us to the time of anti-Christ. Loved ones, until the
anti-Christ comes, even if the spirit of anti-Christ is in the world at the present time, until the
anti-Christ comes we are not getting into those very last days.

So I would encourage you in regard to Israel and the Jews, please don’t think a person is being
anti-Semitic when they stand on God’s word and say the nation of Israel is at the moment a reprobate
nation. She is an example to all of us by her suffering of what happens in our lives if we neglect
so great a salvation. So while we love individual Jews like many of them that we know, let us learn
from the nation of Israel that all the things that happen physically to her happen spiritually to us
when we fail to trust God as our loving Father.

So I would ask us to learn from Israel’s sufferings, and learn for ourselves not to neglect so great
a salvation, but at the same time to abide by what Paul says: “When these things are come upon you,
when people say, ‘Here is the Christ, here is the Christ’, be calm and be found doing what Jesus
wants you to be doing — bearing witness of him to everybody else.”

Loved ones, what we want when Jesus comes is, we want to be there talking to somebody about Jesus –
so that when he comes, we say, “Oh – yes Lord. OK. We’ll come.” We don’t want to be camped around on
a mountain praising and alleluia-ing and waiting for the coming of Jesus. No! We want to be found
doing what he’s given us to do in this present dispensation, the clear commission — “Go and preach
the gospel to all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit.”

Let us pray. Dear Father, we thank you for your dear word that makes all things so plain for us. We
thank you for the fruit of that word, the fruit of that Holy Spirit, who always brings peace to us
and calmness, always brings a sense of stability and balance to us.

And Father, we thank you that that is what you want us to have towards our brothers and sisters who
are brought up in the great Jewish tradition. Lord, you want us to love them with all our hearts,
and pray for them, and be a blessing to them. And you want us to learn from the nation of Israel, so
that we will not despise so great a salvation in our own experience. And now the grace of the Lord
Jesus, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each one of us, now and
evermore. Amen.

The Apostolic Ministry

Romans 11:13

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Loved ones, would you turn to Romans 11:13: “Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I
am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry.” God always guides us to these verses, so he
has something to say to us through them. So that is what I’d say to you this morning: “Now I’m
speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry.”

You might say, “Do you claim to be an apostle?” Well, not in the same sense as the twelve disciples
of Jesus were apostles. But in the same sense as Paul and Barnabas and other men in the New
Testament were apostles – because the name came to be applied to all those men who had an encounter
with Jesus and whose ministry God honored with spiritual conversions. So I would claim to be an
apostle. Apostello in the Greek means “send”. I would claim that — to be a man who is sent to you
by God, who did not choose nor am I able to bring about the things that have taken place among us.
But I’ve done what Jesus gave me a sense that I should do.

Yet I don’t know about you – but I am always uncomfortable with that kind of claim. It doesn’t
matter who it is, but when one of us little human beings gets up on his hind legs and starts
claiming to be God’s messenger to us, I always feel just a little uneasy. I suppose partly because
in my own mind, so many disasters and catastrophes have taken place on the basis of some dear happy
soul’s megalomania and claims to be God’s messenger.

I suppose I am not too happy with a Jim Jones who claims he’s God’s messenger to us, or a Joseph
Smith who claims he’s God’s messenger to us, or anybody else — even if he’s Irish! I think that
it’s pretty dangerous to accept him just because he claims it. It seems to me there needs to be some
criteria by which we can judge a man’s apostleship quite apart from his own personal claims.

That’s why I would say to you what Paul says at the end of that verse — “Now I am speaking to you
Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am an apostle to you Gentiles, I magnify — not me. I magnify my ministry.”
That’s what I’d say this morning. Not me, a poor little worm who is far more useless than he appears
to be here. Not magnify a person — not one of us is worthy to be magnified, but magnify the
ministry that God has given.

The ministry is diakonia in Greek, and it means service to God, or the particular form of attendance
upon him which he has appointed for me in this life here on earth. My diaconate. You are a welder or
you’re a secretary. That’s your “diaconate”. That’s your service to God. You’re a nurse or you’re a
teacher. That’s your diaconate to God.

So this is my diaconate, and I would magnify it, in the sense of putting it under microscopic
examination and looking at it. That I think is the way to find out if an apostleship is in the
pattern of Jesus and of his own disciples.

It is so good that we can do it! It’s so good that we’re not dependent on a man’s own claims or a
woman’s own claims about this kind of thing. We have in the Bible plain criteria that are objective,
that indicate to us whether the preaching that we’re listening to, or the apostleship that we’re
receiving, is scriptural — or whether it isn’t. It says in this book, “they continued in the

apostles’ doctrine, in the breaking of bread and prayers.” It’s so good to be able to look at the
apostles’ doctrine here, to see what they preached and see what they shared — and see – are we in
that apostolic line?

Of course I would share with you: Forget me. Forget all of us here in Campus Church. It is just very
important in these days, when so many men and women are claiming to speak for Jesus and claiming to
preach God’s gospel – it’s very important that all of us are able to examine each person’s diaconate
or each person’s apostleship, and tell on our own knowledge and our convictions whether it is true
and real or not. So it is important to do that, loved ones.

This is why the main thrust of our sharing every Sunday is that most of us in this world are
wildcatting. We are. That’s the main thrust of our sharing every Sunday. Most of us are wildcatting
in our lives. We’re wildcats. We run our lives, independent of the dear God that gave them to us. In
fact, if space itself operated the way we do, it would be one massive traffic jam – and it’s because
we’re wildcatting that we’re always colliding with each other. If that happened in space, it would
be filled with explosions every moment. But just as God in his love has set certain orbits for
Venus, Mars, and for the moon and the earth, just as he’s set certain bounds for the Atlantic and
the Pacific, so he’s set certain orbits for you and me.

We wildcat out of those orbits. We just operate our lives in our own way, independent of his plan
for us. In other words, most of us in this world get up each morning, make our plans for the day,
eat breakfast, make our purchases, perform in the office or at work, plan our recreation in the
evening and go to bed at night — according to certain pressures that are exerted upon us by our
companies, by our relatives, or by the people we work with. But very few of us run our day-by-day
lives according to a personal sense of what our dear Father wants us to do each moment. Very few of
us do that.

Most of us run our lives by pressures from all kinds of other people and all kinds of other things,
but not from a personal sense of pleasing God or fulfilling his plan for us. In other words, most of
us live lives that are independent of him. In fact, most of us treat God as if we are God. We really
do! Most of us treat God as if we are the rulers of our own lives. Most of do what we want when we
want, for our own self-gratification. That’s the way we live day by day.

Now that’s sin. It’s independence of God. It’s not living in a close friendship with our dear
Father. It’s allowing our lives to be dictated by our own whimsical preferences or by the pressures
of the society around us. But that’s sin, loved ones. That’s what the apostles and Jesus attacked
constantly. That’s what I’ll attack here in this place as long as it’s possible to be in this place.
Because that’s our problem — sin.

Our problem is not that we don’t know that God loves us. It’s very interesting! If you read what the
apostles preached, they didn’t preach a lot about God’s love. It is strange. We all think of John’s
gospel because it’s the great gospel of love. But the apostles did not preach all the time about
God’s love. They didn’t preach all the time about our need to realize that God loves us. They
didn’t!

They preached all the time about the fact that we wanted God’s love without his rulership of our
lives, and that God refuses that, and that he lets us know we’re wrong through our guilty
consciences, and through our inability to sense his love in our hearts, and through our fear of
death and our fear of dark loneliness. Through all those things God is getting to us the fact that,

“You want my love, but don’t want my rulership over your life.”

That’s what the apostles hit time after time. They were always saying, “All of us have sinned and
fallen short of the glory of God.” They were always saying, “The wages of sin is death.” They were
always saying, “If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” Loved
ones, the first and the most important thing for us to share with each other is that we have an
independent attitude in us that wants to live its life independent of God, and that’s what the Holy
Spirit convicts us of.

It’s the thing that Paul emphasizes in Galatians very strongly and of course to our discomfiture.
It’s Galatians 5:19: “Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness,
idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy,
drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such
things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

It’s interesting that the Holy Spirit is so good. He doesn’t just nail us for individual things. But
he gives us a sense in our hearts — do we reject that word? That very word there. Do we argue with
it? Or do we respond with a penitent heart? — saying “Yes! Some of those things are in my life. I
don’t want them, and in the sense that they’re in my life, I’m wrong!” Is that our response?

That’s what the Holy Sprit convicts us of. When the Holy Spirit comes, he convicts us of sin. He
doesn’t get us arguing about, “Well I have a little envy,” or, ”I have a little dissension.” He gets
to our hearts and says, “Yes, but on the whole, do you resent that? Do you resent that somebody is
saying this to you? Or on the whole, are you glad that they’re saying it to you, because you’re
anxious to get deeper into Jesus so that you’re absolutely free from all these things?” So it’s
interesting that the apostles in the New Testament are always hitting at the inner attitude.

Loved ones, that’s why we don’t talk a lot about individual sins — whether it’s a sin to dance or
to drink or all that kind of thing, even regarding abortion, and I’m sure it’s important to speak
out on those things. But even those things are not the big things! The big thing that the Holy
Spirit always convicts of, and that the apostles always speak to, is this very civilized, noble
independence of God that governs so many of our attitudes.

Of course, the apostles say that sin itself is a power in the world. That’s why I’ve shared with you
so often: loved ones, it’s not just doing wrong! It’s not. Sin itself is a power in the world.
There’s the Spirit of God. That’s a power. You can live by the Spirit of God. Or you can live by
sin. Sin is a power. It’s a whole system of satisfaction that enables you to live in God’s world
while disobeying him. That’s it!

Sin is a power. It’s a force inside the world, that is set on making it possible for us to live in
the world, disobeying God, and yet being tolerably happy.

That’s why the apostles say that it is impossible for us to escape from it. They say, “The good that
I would I cannot do. The very thing I want to do — that’s the thing I can’t! The thing that I hate
– that’s the thing I do. Woe is me! Wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of
sin? If I find that I do what I do not want, then it is no longer I that do it, but it’s sin that
dwells within me.”

So loved ones, that’s why I share with you that sin is not something you can get rid of yourself. It

isn’t. Sin is a power in this world that deceives us constantly. It’s a compulsive force that
constantly tries to make us think we’re all right.

That’s why the apostles never say, “If you speak in tongues you’ll be okay.” Because the apostles
knew that there would be all kinds of false prophets and false spirits that would try to make people
feel, “You can power your way out of sin — by speaking in tongues! Or by establishing your value in
other people’s eyes. Or you can power your way out of sin, by thinking positively about your own
life. Or you can power your way out of sin, by getting into a nice fellowship of people!”

Loved ones, the apostles knew that sin itself was a deceptive power, and there was no way out of sin
— except God’s way. That’s why they always were so boring. They were! I’ll show you what Paul said.
He was desperately boring. (I’m certainly glad that we don’t do this kind of thing!)

1 Corinthians 2:2 “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
Boy – I wouldn’t like to listen to that Sunday after Sunday! But loved ones, that’s it – because the
only way out of sin is that dear cross of Jesus. That’s the only way out.

We’ll wear ourselves out trying to control our own wills. We’ll wear ourselves out trying to get rid
of our own envy and anger and jealousy ourselves. The fact is that in Jesus’ death God was
expressing in physical form a massive recreation of each one of us that took place in Jesus in
timeless eternity. That’s it.

God did a work in Jesus that has changed all of us. That’s why the cross is the only way out of sin.
It’s the only way to be freed from this subtle power that tries to make us live in disobedience and
independence of our God and yet be happy doing it.

The only way to get rid of this power of sin in our lives is to come into a deep identification of
ourselves with Jesus — a deep death with him to ourselves and to the world and to other people.
That’s the only way to be free. That’s why the apostles always said, “Our old self was crucified
with Christ, so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.”
They said, “Who has been freed from sin? He who has died is free from sin!”

Loved ones that’s why I share that with you Sunday after Sunday. It’s the only way. That dear death
of Jesus is the only way out of the sin in our lives. I’ll tell you what happens if you don’t go
into that. You end up under—interpreting Jesus’ death. You do. You end up preaching Jesus’ death as
a bribe to God to overlook the sins that we continue living in. That’s right! You either have that
–or the real gospel, deliverance from the power of sin — which is why Jesus came to earth. You
remember, God said to Joseph, “You’ll call this little baby’s name Jesus — for he shall save his
people FROM their sins.”

He’ll save you from sinning in your life. Not just from the consequences of your sin. Not just the
punishment of your sin. Not just the lake of fire, and the outer darkness and the guilt —- but he’ll
save you from the power of sin in your life. “Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin.” You can
be freed from anger and envy and irritability and jealousy in your own life, here in this present
life.

That’s what God told his apostles to preach. Loved ones, the dear “apostles” – so many of them that
are so false today — are preaching an untrue gospel. They’re preaching the old Jewish gospel that
the Jews knew. The Jews said themselves, “Blessed is that man to whom the Lord does not impute sin.”

They knew forgiveness of sins. But what their hearts yearned after was to be delivered from the
power of sin in their own lives.

If I could just share with you ag1n what your dear relatives, your fellow students and your friends
are thinking: “I wish you Christians would live what you say you believe.” So the whole world is
yearning for a body of people who will live above sin. That is why the cross of Christ is the main
topic of our conversation every Sunday. That is the apostolic doctrine – that we are caught in the
power of sin. That is what brings our unanswered prayers. That is what brings our erratic career
lives. That is what brings our failures in our families.

It’s not that we’re primarily disintegrated individuals. It’s not primarily that we need to know
more about God’s love. It’s not primarily that we need people to praise us more. It’s not primarily
that we need a better environment. It’s that we need to be free from sin. Sin is the cause of all
the problems in our lives — honestly.

I’ll agree with anybody who says, “Yes! But doesn’t it produce B that produces C that produces D
that produces the problem?” Yes. But it is the beginning. It is the one that starts the chain off.
It’s sin that we need to be free from in our lives. That’s way Sunday by Sunday I try to confront
you with that simple truth —- repent and believe the gospel. Believe that you were crucified with
Jesus. Be1ieve that God did recreate you completely in his Son — and repent. Change your whole way
of living. Change the whole focus of your life from yourself and your friends to God. Repent. Turn
your whole life around, and believe that God changed you in Jesus, and be willing to be completely
remade by his Holy Spirit — from your head to your toes. That is, I think, the apostolic gospel.

Loved ones, there’s one other clear characteristic of apostolic doctrine. It’s in Acts 7:54: “Now
when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth against him.” That’s it.
We should thank God as long as there’s grinding of teeth in this sanctuary. Really! And I speak of
what I know. We should thank God – as long as your teeth grind? Yes – and as long as my teeth grind
too. Because what I’m saying to you, God is saying to me.

Loved ones, that’s apostolic preaching. Apostolic preaching is not buttering everybody up. It’s not
preaching the power of positive thinking. It’s not me — a miserable little human being, trying to
make you poor miserable little human beings happy. It’s not that. It’s a far more glorious thing
than that! Preaching in the apostolic ministry is bringing home to each one of us the ways in which
we are still caught in the power of sin and independence of our God and our loving Father – and
bringing home to us repeatedly Sunday after Sunday what we have to do in our own lives — the things
we have to be willing to change, to enable the mighty recreation of our whole personalities that
took place in Jesus’ death and resurrection to be actualized in our lives today.

So I’ll be concerned when you stop grinding your teeth. That’s good. Don’t be worried when you grind
your teeth. See that God’s Spirit is lovingly but relentlessly getting at something in your lives
that needs to be changed. Let’s go home together and let’s make the changes that are needed, so that
the next Sunday we won’t grind our teeth on that issue, but we’ll come and see something new from
the Father, and we’ll come into a new wholeness with him and a new fullness.

So loved ones, I would say to you, that “I am speaking to you Gentiles. And inasmuch as I am an
apostle to the Gentiles, I do magnify my ministry.” I think we each one need to thank God, not at
all for a creature – I am worse than all of you – that’s nothing, it’s not the being that matters —
but we need to thank God – that he is in these days giving us apostolic ministry.

Then of course, I’d just end with Luther’s dear words: “On that day — judgment day – you will say
to me, ‘Hast thou heard that?’ and I will say, ‘Yes, but it was just the word of a country preacher.
It was just the work of another human being.’ Then I will say to you, ‘That word was the word of God
in your heart. That was God speaking to you. See thou then to it, how thou standest.’” And that’s
what I have to say to myself as well as to you this morning. I have done my duty before God. See
thou then to it, how thou standest.

Let us pray. Dear Father, we thank you for the privilege we have of hearing scriptural doctrine
given to us Sunday by Sunday. Lord, I thank you for that myself, because I don’t feel it’s me that
does it, but you in your graciousness. So Lord, we as a congregation would come to you and thank you
for that.

And Father, we see that those to whom much is given, from them much will be required. Lord, we see
that we will have no excuse on that Day of Judgment, because we have heard, and we have seen, and we
have been given the opportunity to join our dear savior. Lord, we would be real and honest with you
these days.

And Father, when we think of today as yet another opportunity to settle things with you, we see that
today is another day of salvation for us, and no one can guarantee that we will have another. So
today is the day of salvation. Today is the day to seek the Lord, while he may be found. Amen.

The Messiah

Romans 11:14

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Have you ever noticed the names that people give to their boats or their trailer homes or their
campers? I was watching some boats on a lake – little boats – fishing boats and runabouts. Suddenly,
into the middle of them plowed this massive power boat with two big 150 horsepower Johnson engines
sitting in the back of it. He never reduced speed. He plowed right through the middle. And of
course, the wake toppled several of the little fishing boats.

As you looked at it, it was just chaos and a struggle for survival. There were people trying to bail
the water out of their boats. He just tore right on through and threw up the wake and the wave so
that half of the boats were swamped. I looked for a moment away from this struggle for survival, and
caught a glimpse of the name of this power boat. It was on the stern. It was called, “Ulcer Easer.”
It obviously eased only one ulcer – the ulcer of the guy that was at the throttle! It aggravated an
awful lot of others.

It is interesting if you look at the names that people give to their campers, or their trailers, or
their boats: “Shangri-La!”, or “Rainbow’s End”, or “Haven”. I saw one, “A Piece of the Rock”! Of
course, all of them express what a lot of us feel in our own hearts. They express a desire or a hope
for some perfect life that will release us from the miserable day-to-day commitments that we endure.
They all point to a kind of a mañana, a “tomorrow” when everything will be as we think it should be.

It’s good for a minute to ask ourselves: what is our mañana? Have you a mañana? Have you an idea of
a perfect time in your life when everything will be right? When is your mañana? When you graduate,
or when you retire? Or when you get married? Or when the children are grown up? Or when you find
your own special desert island?

The truth is, tomorrow never actually does come. Mañana never does come. The truth is that today is
the only reality, and tomorrow — whether it’s when we retire or when we get married or when we
graduate or when we get the house paid for — tomorrow is going to be very much like today, isn’t
it?

That little phrase is true; it’s four words: “As now, so then.” We like to bluff ourselves that
tomorrow is going to be different, but it isn’t! Today is a pretty fair description of what
tomorrow, or the tomorrows in our life, are going to be like.

And yet it’s true, isn’t it, that the hope of some future release has enabled many members of our
dear human family to endure untold sufferings. That is true. It’s true particularly of that dear
people that have endured probably more sufferings than anyone else in the world — the Jews. The
hope of a mañana has often enabled the Jews to endure all kinds of wretched and unjustified and
unfair persecution.

What is their mañana? “When we get to Jerusalem.” For many loved ones who are of Jewish background
in the States it’s “When we get to Jerusalem.” That’s their mañana. In fact, there’s only one mañana
that is dearer and more precious to them than that. It’s one that’s mentioned by a lady in Samaria

1900 years ago. This for the Jew is the ultimate mañana. It’s in John 4:25: “The woman said to him,
‘I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all
things.’”

The Jews in concentration camps, the Jews in the midst of their persecutions and their exiles and
their oppressions, have always looked forward to the time when a Messiah would come. They call him
in Hebrew, “Yitsar,” which means oil, or the Anointed One, or the Light Bringer. They have looked
forward to that time when the great Messiah, the Anointed One, or the Light Bringer, would come and
would finally deliver them from the midst of their oppressions and their sufferings.

In fact, all their great human leaders and their human saviors have been regarded by the Jews as
types of that Messiah. They’ve always seen their human leaders and saviors as embodying in some
mysterious way this ultimate Messiah. So, Joshua and Joseph, Moses, Gideon, Isaiah, and Samuel, and
Micah and Zechariah — all their prophets and their kings have been for them an embodiment in some
sense of this great ultimate Messiah who would finally deliver them once and for all.

So it’s interesting – often when these men speak, they seem to soar beyond their own human selves
and they begin at times to use language that does not describe them themselves, and cannot. But in
some mystical sense they soar into a realm where they seem to be speaking the words of the Messiah
himself. So it’s very interesting — as you study the words of the great prophets and kings in the
Jewish history books, you find that from time to time, they soar beyond their own temporal
situations. They transcend their own time frame, and they begin to speak words that seem to be
coming from elsewhere and seem to be describing a being that’s greater than they themselves.

So the truth is, the Jews are very clear about what this Messiah will be like — because they have
the words of these prophets and these kings written down. All these words that have been spoken for
almost two thousand years — the Jews have these words written down in their scriptures. In their
scriptures they have a perfect description of what the Messiah will be like, and so they know who
they’re looking for.

They know what the Messiah is going to be like and the kinds of things that he’s going to do,
because down through 2,000 years of their history, their prophets and their kings and their leaders
have soared beyond themselves, and the gigantic figure of the Messiah himself has broken through
these human beings, and has spoken his own words in a mystical way. So really, the Jews will
recognize him when he comes because of the descriptions they have in the prophecies about him.

So it’s interesting. One of the prophets of the Jews was Micah. Micah wrote probably about 720 B.C.,
and he described how this great being from beyond time and space would be born. He described it by
inspiration from God. The Jewish people know this description. This is the way that Micah describes
the birth of this Messiah. It’s in Micah 5:2: “But thou, Bethlehem, though thou be little among the
thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose
goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”

It’s interesting! Obviously Micah is not describing a human being, because he says, “This is a being
whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” So this is a being who has come from
beyond, from eternity, a being who has pre-existed the world and creation. This being, who is
obviously the Messiah because that’s the only one that the Jews ever talk of in those divine terms
— this Messiah is going to be born in Bethlehem. “But thou, Bethlehem, though thou be little among
the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel.”

It’s very like a person who was born about 4 or 6 B.C. and whose birth is recorded in Matthew 2:1:
“Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came
wise men from the east to Jerusalem.”

Another prophet is Zechariah. He was a prophet who wrote many years later than Micah, about 500 B.C.
Zechariah wrote of how the two great dreams of the Jewish people would come together. The two great
dreams of the Jewish people are the two great parts of their mañana — Jerusalem and the Messiah.
And Zechariah wrote of how these two great dreams would meet – how the Messiah would come to the
holy city of Jerusalem. It’s in Zechariah 9:9: “Rejoice greatly O daughter of Zion; shout, O
daughter of Jerusalem; behold, thy King cometh unto thee;” And how does he come? “He is just, and
having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.”

That’s the way he will come into Jerusalem. Not in a great chariot, not at the head of a great
military procession, but lowly, riding upon an ass and upon a colt the foal of an ass. Zechariah
wrote that in 500 B.C.

Would you like to look at an incident that happened five hundred years later? It’s in Matthew 21:6:
“The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the ass and the colt, and put
their garments on them, and he sat thereon. Most of the crowd spread their garments on the road, and
others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him
and that followed him shouted, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of
the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!’ And when he entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying,
‘Who is this?’”

One of the interesting prophecies about the Messiah is a very strange story of his betrayal. Why
it’s strange is — the Jewish people have always thought of the Messiah as coming as a strong mighty
military leader. But there runs through their prophecies this strange story of a betrayal that will
take place. Zechariah wrote about this, and actually wrote about the amount of money that the
traitor would get for betraying the Messiah.

It’s in Zechariah 11:12: “And I said unto them, ‘If ye think good, give me my price; and if not
forbear.’ So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.” Zechariah in this mystical part of
his prophecy rises above what he’s talking about and begins to talk as if he were getting thirty
pieces of silver for betraying this great, mighty person. Very like a betrayal that took place five
hundred years later that’s recorded in Matthew 26:15: “And Judas said unto them, ‘What will ye give
me, and I will deliver him unto you?’ And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver.”

It’s just supernatural! Because would you believe it, Zechariah goes on in 500 B.C. to tell of what
will be done with these thirty pieces of silver! In chapter 11:13, Zechariah says this; “And the
Lord said unto me,(and if you’re reading the Hebrew it seems absolutely bewildering to you) “’Cast
it unto the potter,’” (and in fact you’ll find that in the RSV it’s translated “treasury”, but you
see the footnote says that the Hebrew word is actually “the potter”.) “’Cast it unto the potter;’ a
goodly price that I was priced at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to
the potter in the house of the Lord.”

Five hundred years later, this is what Matthew records in chapter 27, verses 6 and 7: “And the chief
priests took the silver pieces, and said, ‘It is not lawful for us to put them into the treasury,
because it is the price of blood.’ And they took counsel, and bought with them the Potter’s Field,
to bury strangers in.” It was one of those prophesies that you’d think that, “There’s no way that

this silly prophecy could come true!” But loved ones, it’s there written not into some strange
obscure book, but written into history books that are better documented than any other ancient
histories this human race possesses.

What I said before is true: that the Jewish people normally think of the Messiah as being a mighty
general, as one who is coming with great power to deliver them from whoever is the current dominator
of the world. But throughout prophecy there runs also this other theme. It was brought to the fore
especially in 720 B.C. when one of the greatest Jewish prophets, Isaiah, wrote his prophecies. There
he described the Messiah in different terms. He described him not as a mighty military leader but as
a suffering servant.

He described the death of that Messiah in chapter 50 and verse 6: “I gave my back to the smiters,”
— it’s one of those occasions when it seems the great Messiah figure is speaking through the
prophet himself, as if he himself is the prophet — “I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to
them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting.” Very like an incident
that occurred over 720 years later and is recorded in Mark 14:65: “And some began to spit on him,
and to cover his face, and to buffet him, and to say unto him, ‘Prophesy!’ And the servants did
strike him with the palms of their hands.”

Isaiah goes on in chapter 53 and verses 4 and 5: “Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our
sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our
transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and
with his stripes we are healed.”

Many Jews have read those passages and have been bewildered, “The Messiah? It’s obviously the
Messiah he’s talking about, but how are we going to be healed by his stripes? How is he going to
bear our sorrows and carry our pains?” And then in Matthew 8, verses 16 and 17: “When the evening
was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils; and he cast out the spirits
with his word, and he healed all that were sick: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by
Isaiah the prophet, saying, ‘Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.’”

The Jewish people couldn’t understand how the Messiah would ever go through a trial, but Isaiah
described once a mockery of a trial. In chapter 53 and verse 7, over seven hundred years before it
ever took place, he wrote this: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his
mouth: He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he
openeth not his mouth.” Almost as if Isaiah is there seven hundred years later when Matthew 26:62
records: “And the high priest arose and said unto him, ‘Answereth thou nothing? What is it which
these witness against thee?’ But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest answered and said unto
him, ‘I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of
God.’”

Above all other prophets and all other kings there’s one great one who stands head and shoulders
above all the rest. He more than any other is a type of the Messiah, because he has the gracious
character that the Jews expect the Messiah to have, and yet he also had the mighty military power as
a general that they expect the Messiah to need to possess. Of course this is David, King David. No
king is greater in the eyes of the Jews than David. No human being in the Jewish race more typifies
or embodies the whole spirit of the Messiah than David.

David wrote — of all times — in 1000 B.C., earlier than most of the other writers in the Jewish

scriptures. David repeatedly transcends his own experience. Repeatedly he rises above things that
could be said of him himself. He begins to talk in terms that the Jewish interpreters have always
found bewildering, because they couldn’t make sense of the particular details that David used. It
was as if he was describing some terrible death that he was going through.

In Psalm 69 verse 21 he writes, “They gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me
vinegar to drink.” The Jews knew, “Well, he’s talking about the Messiah. He’s rising above himself
at that time. But why say, ‘They gave me vinegar to drink’? Why is that important?” A thousand years
later, John Chapter 19:29 records, ”Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar. And they filled a
sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth.“

Then David seems to get into H.G. Wells’ time machine. He does. He seems to actually step into that
time machine – because even though he’s living in 1000 B.C., he seems to be present at an event that
took place one thousand years later. In Psalm 22:8 he describes it this way: “’He trusted on the
Lord that he would deliver him; let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.’” It’s as if
Matthew almost copies the words. Matthew 27:43 describes the onlookers as they jeer at a man hanging
on the cross: “’He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, “I am
the Son of God.”’” It’s so exact that you feel David must have been there, except that he lived a
thousand years before.

Then David describes something that could not be made sense of. He describes what they will do with
the Messiah’s clothes. If you ever read some of the great commentaries that the Jewish scholars have
written on the Old Testament scriptures, you’ll know the bewilderment with which they came to this
kind of very human, down-to-earth detail.

David writes in 1000 B.C. in verse 18 of Psalm 22: “They part my garments among them, and cast lots
upon my vesture.” It’s so outlandish a thing to happen and it seems so utterly unimportant. Why say
it? “They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.” But a thousand years later,
around the foot of a cross on a hill outside Jerusalem, Mark describes in chapter 15 and verse 24
the activity of the soldiers: “And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting
lots upon them, what every man should take.”

There was very little belief in the resurrection among the Jews. So the last quotation I want to
share with you is one that was utterly bewildering because it was so far outside the tradition of
the Jews. It was written by David in Psalm 16:10: “For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither
wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” There was no tradition of the resurrection that
was recognized or respected very much among the Jews. So that verse written by David in 1000 B.C.
was always a problem. You’re talking about the Messiah — “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell;
neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” It seems Jews when reading this verse
would ask themselves: “You mean this Messiah won’t die? Or do you mean in some way he won’t
disintegrate as an ordinary body would?”

Then loved ones, I’d ask you to look it up, because it’s so amazing, in John chapter 20, verse 11.
David had written a thousand years before that the Messiah would not see corruption, that his soul
would not be left in the world of the dead. John 20:11: “But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb,
and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where
the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, ‘Woman, why are
you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they
have laid him.’ Saying this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it

was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?’ Supposing him to be
the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him,
and I will take him away.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew,
‘Rabboni!'(which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to
the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to
my God and your God.’”

Why show that all the Jewish prophecies of the Messiah are fulfilled in Jesus? Why bother to do
this, loved ones? For the reason that a Jew set forth in Romans Chapter 11 verse 14. This Jew called
Paul says, “In order to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them.” That’s why. If you
are of Jewish background or faith, I would ask you: Is this Jesus the Messiah? When you look at the
prophecies of the Messiah written in the Jewish scriptures that are fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth,
I would ask you if you’re a Jew, if you’re here this morning or listening to this on the Internet:
Is this the Messiah?

Paul wants to make the Jews jealous not in the sense of being resentful about something that they do
not have — but jealous in the sense of realizing that this is their Messiah! That he is not my
Messiah, but he is your Messiah. He is our Messiah. That this Jesus has fulfilled all the prophecies
that are written about him in the Jewish scriptures.

That’s why I share these things. To ask you if you’re a Jew, or if you are of Jewish background: Has
the Messiah come? Is Jesus the Messiah?

Let us pray. Dear Father, we thank you for your good word. We thank you that there is no way round
it. We thank you that it’s solid. We thank you, our Father, that we cannot tear it apart. That it is
written into the history books. That it is spread out over thousands of years. That there is no way
that we can prove it a fraud, and that we are faced with facts that will not go away — the facts of
the clear description of Jesus’ life and trial and death and resurrection, written a thousand years
before they occurred.

Father, thank you. Thank you for a testimony that the rational mind cannot reject or ignore. Thank
you. And we would thank you that the Messiah has come. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you are the
Messiah, and that you are here this morning, and that you are here to bless. And that you who
transcended time, still transcend time, and are here this morning, and that we can introduce
ourselves to you, and can receive you into our lives as our Messiah, as the one who brings light and
life and direction into our lives. Thank you, Lord. And now the grace of our Lord Jesus, and the
love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with each one of us, now and until we see
Jesus face to face. Amen.

–
The Two Israels

Romans 11:15b

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

I really do hope that the last two sermons that we shared on anti-Semitism and the Holocaust make it
clear to everyone that those of us who believe this Book –and certainly I believe it — have
nothing but respect and a desire to protect our neighbors, and that we’re committed to this by the
greatest commandments in this Book. Those commandments are, “Love God, and your neighbor as
yourself.”

You can’t believe that this Book is the Word of our Creator and still hold on to blind hatred or
prejudice. I hope by now everybody agrees that if you really respect the spirit of this Book, then
you love not only the loved ones who are Jews, but you love every other human being on this earth. I
think it’s important to make that clear so that we all understand it.

It might be fair too to say that there are many of us here who don’t remember when it was difficult
for a Jewish doctor to get a job in Minneapolis. There are many of us here who don’t remember those
days when in certain Minnesota towns the Catholics hated the Protestants. It’s important for those
of us who do remember those days to realize that there are many of us in colleges and universities
who don’t remember them.

To be fair, loved ones, those of us in college today are not interested in those old hatreds. There
is to some extent a new attitude in our society, a desire to deal with each other first of all as
persons — and not as Jews or Protestants or Gentiles or Catholics. I think that it’s important for
us all to realize that that’s the spirit in which those of us of the college generation are tackling
these things.

We may have all kinds of faults and all kinds of problems, but one of the things we do want to do is
to forget those old days when people yelled at each other, and held prejudices against each other.
We’re anxious to deal with each other first and foremost as people and not as people of a certain
color or persuasion.

It’s that kind of spirit that pervades this Book. I suppose that’s why I enjoy it so much – because
this Bible never encourages us to avoid thorny or difficult problems for the sake of peace. It
doesn’t. This Book always deals with the thorniest problem and the most difficult subject, knowing
that if we really and truly understand the truths of life, we will be able to love each other.

That of course is so contradictory to the obscurantist view that I remember my grandmother said, and
at times my mother said. She said, “Ernest, don’t think too much! Thinking too much is bad.” Of
course there’s that fear that maybe you’ll discover some truth that will make it impossible for you
to live in love with each other. Well, the truth is that this Book believes that when you come into
truth, you are at last able to live in love with each other.

Of course that’s what the spirit of the age is. “Don’t be afraid to talk about homosexuality. Don’t
be afraid to talk about abortion. Don’t be afraid to talk about Communism or Catholicism. Don’t be
afraid to talk about anti-Semitism or Judaism. Talk about these things — because openness and

honesty will lead to truth — not fear and silence.”

Of course, that’s the belief of all the people who founded universities. I don’t know if you’ve ever
read the engraving around the top of Northrop Auditorium {a building on the campus of the University
of Minnesota}. It states the belief of the founding fathers of the University of Minnesota. You can
read it without binoculars, so you should read it the next time you walk by it. “Founded in the
faith that men are ennobled by understanding. Dedicated to the advancement of learning and the
search for truth.” That’s what this Book believes, and that’s what we believe. That’s why we believe
we can make a contribution to campus life.

So loved ones, it’s important for us not to tread on each other’s prejudices. It’s important not to
yell at each other before we know what each of us is saying. It’s important for us above all not to
return to the old days of name-calling and fighting. It’s important for us to search for truth
openly and confidently. So that’s what I’d ask you to continue to do this morning.

So I’ll ask you a fighting question: Is it possible to believe in Jesus and not hate Jews? Is it? Is
it possible to believe in Jesus and not hate Jews, or to have Jews hate you?

I’d point out that it’s pretty pitiful if the answer is “no”. We are in real trouble if the answer
is “no”. If the only way that Christians or Gentiles can have any relationship with loved ones who
are Jews is if they keep quiet about the central tenet of their faith, then we’re in trouble. If the
only way loved ones who are Jews can avoid hating Gentiles or can have any relationship with
Gentiles, is as long as no mention is made of Jesus, then we’re in trouble. Because it means that
peaceful co-existence among us is impossible unless one of us denies the central tenet of our faith,
that Jesus is the unique Son of God.

In other words, it’s vital that we all see a very basic truth – both those of us like me who are
minorities, and those of us who are majorities. Don’t push a guy into a corner – whether a guy is a
Jew or a Gentile, or a Protestant or a Catholic. Don’t push a guy into a corner from where he can’t
escape — because if you do, in order just to survive, he’ll be pushed into desperate action against
you.

You all know that! Any of us who are half-sane at all know — even if you are winning an argument in
business or finance or theology or anything — if you have any love for your fellow man, you don’t
push a guy into a corner where he can’t escape– because he’s driven to escape against you!

So I would plead for us all here in our society — it’s vital for us to see that it’s possible for
Christian preachers and Jewish rabbis to preach their whole gospel freely, without necessarily
offending someone else or being called anti-American or anti-Semitic. It is possible! It’s possible
to believe fully what each of us believe and yet live in peace with one another. This is what God
has provided for in this Book.

How does it come about? It seems that this Book, the Old and New Testaments, teach that there are
just two Israels. The first Israel is the physical nation of Israel, the nation of the Hebrews, the
nation of the Jews. That’s the nation that God founded under Abraham. That’s found in Genesis 12:
1-3: “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to
the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make
your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who
curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.'”

That’s the first Israel, loved ones. It’s the Israel nation — the nation of all those who are
privileged to be born children of Israel. It’s the physical nation of Israel, called and chosen by
God for a specific service.

That’s it! Chosen by God for a special service. He chose them so that he could, through them, show
us what he was like. At times he did it through their successes. At times he did it through their
failures. At times he did it through their obedience. At times he did it through their disobedience.
But the significant thing about the nation of Israel is — they were chosen to perform a special
mission by God – that is, to show us what God was like.

Here, for instance, is one of their successes, in I Kings 18:36-39: “And at the time of the offering
of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, ‘0 Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel,
let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have
done all these things at thy word. Answer me, 0 Lord, answer me, that this people may know that
thou, 0 Lord, art God, and that thou hast turned their hearts back.’ Then the fire of the Lord fell,
and consumed the burnt offering, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water
that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said,
‘The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.’” That was one of the successes — one of the many times
when the Jewish nation obeyed God and turned to him with all their hearts. God used it to show other
people that he was God.

One of the failures is II Chronicles 7:19-22: “’But if you turn aside and forsake my statutes and my
commandments which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will
pluck you up from the land which I have given you; and this house, which I have consecrated for my
name, I will cast out of my sight, and will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples. And at
this house, which is exalted, every one passing by will be astonished, and say, “Why has the Lord
done thus to this land and to this house?” (In other words, the world will connect the Lord and his
actions with this specially chosen people of Israel.) Then they will say, “Because they forsook the
Lord the God of their fathers who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other
gods, and worshiped them and served them; therefore he has brought all this evil upon them.”'”

That was the function of the nation of Israel. The Irish may say, “Oh, we’ve disobeyed God too. Why
didn’t he do that with us?” The Germans may say, “We’ve disobeyed God too. Why didn’t he do that
with us?” Well, whether you think you’re lucky or unlucky, you are not the chosen people! You are
not God’s specially chosen people.

There is a way in which God has dealt with Israel as a nation in which he does not deal with the
rest of us. You may say on occasion he seems to deal with America or Germany in the light of the
attitudes of all the individuals that make up those countries, but never has he dealt so
consistently down through the centuries with any of us as he has dealt with the nation of Israel.
Loved ones, God has used Israel to show himself to the rest of us through their obediences and their
disobediences, through their failures and their successes — in a way that none of the rest of us
have ever experienced.

That’s why they have a unique relationship with God. That’s why they have a unique protection from
God. Do you realize that? That’s why they have a unique promise of protection that Ireland doesn’t
have, Germany doesn’t have, America doesn’t have, or Japan doesn’t have! They are uniquely promised
protection by God.

You’ll see it if you look at Genesis 12:3 – which was one of the verses we read at the beginning,
you remember, regarding the time God originally chose Israel. “I will bless those who bless you,”(he
never said that to Japan or Germany or France)”I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses
you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.” There’s a unique
protection there in the eyes of all of us who believe this Word. We know that if we touch Israel,
God touches us. There’s a protection there built in.

Loved ones, another verse we read in an earlier talk is in Psalm 105:12: “When they were few in
number, of little account, and sojourners in it, wandering from nation to nation, from one kingdom
to another people, he allowed no one to oppress them; he rebuked kings on their account, saying,
‘Touch not my anointed ones, do my prophets no harm!’”

The best friends a loved one who belongs to the Jewish nation can have are the people – whether they
be Christians or Jews – who believe this Book. For Jews the safest neighbors they can have are
people who respect and obey the spirit in this Book. This is because this Book tells us that God
chose the nation of Israel to perform a special function in his world — to show us by their
obediences and their disobediences, their successes and their failures, their exiles and their
terrible experiences — what kind of person he is — so that we also could begin to trust him and
obey him. Loved ones, that runs right through this Book. Israel was chosen to perform a special
function — to show us what God was like.

What is vital for us all to see – and I would say including the loved ones who are Jewish — it’s
vital to see that God chose them to perform a special function. He did not choose all of them by
that act of choice for salvation. That’s not what the choice is about. He chose them to perform a
certain service.

Throughout this Book you can see that there are many Jews who are obedient and there are many who
are disobedient. So their choice by God to perform a certain function in our world does not mean
that all of them automatically spend their eternal destiny with God. It is not a choice for
salvation. It is a choice for service. We have to be really honest about that. God chose the nation
of Israel to reveal himself to the rest of us, but he did not thereby choose them all to be saved
and spend their eternal destiny with him. That still depends on their obedience and disobedience.

So what you see as you read the Old Testament is — within the physical nation of Israel there
develops a spiritual Israel. There develops not only those people who disobey God, but there
develops the Davids, the Abrahams, the Pauls, the Jeremiahs — who not only perform the function
that God has given them, but who also trust and obey the God who made them. What you see is a
spiritual Israel developing inside the physical Israel nation.

That’s what Paul talks about in Romans 9:6. Paul, who is a Jew himself, makes this distinction
between a physical Israel and a spiritual Israel: “But it is not as though the word of God had
failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of
Abraham because they are his descendants; but ‘Through Isaac shall your descendants be named.’ This
means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the
promise are reckoned as descendants.”

So it’s not just all who are born Jewish who are God’s children. They are all his servants. But it
is those who begin to trust his promises that are his children.

You find it stated again in Romans 9:27 in the words of Isaiah: “And Isaiah cries out concerning
Israel: ‘Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them
will be saved.’” So Isaiah says, “There are many loved ones who are being used by God to express his
nature to the world. But only a remnant who begin to trust and obey him will actually be saved.”

Then in verse 30: “What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have
attained it, that is, righteousness through faith; but that Israel who pursued the righteousness
which is based on law did not succeed in fulfilling that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it
through faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it
is written, ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone that will make men stumble, a rock that will make
them fall; and he who believes in him will not be put to shame.’”

Many loved ones who belong to the physical Israel have found themselves in the same position as
Paul. As a Jew he cried out, “The good that I would I cannot do, and the evil I hate is the very
thing I do. I know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal. I cannot do what I want. I do not
understand my own actions.” {Paraphrase of Romans 7:14-19}

Loved ones, within the physical nation of Israel, I would say — and I’m sure many loved ones who
are Jews would reinforce this — that there are thousands who cannot obey the law. Even though they
are Jewish and Hebrews of the Hebrews, they cannot obey the law of God. Many of them must yearn for
the great promises that Ezekiel gave to the Israelites of deliverance from this internal selfishness
that prevented them doing what God wanted them to do in their own lives.

Ezekiel 36:24-28 goes: “’For I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the
countries, and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be
clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give
you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone
and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my
statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. You shall dwell in the land which I gave to your
fathers; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.’” There must be many loved ones, Jews
as well as Gentiles, who say, “Yes, I want that.”

Loved ones, we Christians believe that when Jesus died on Calvary that promise was fulfilled. That
as Paul says in Romans 6:6, our old self that’s so selfish and that refuses to obey God’s law — our
old self that’s so dependent on people and on things and on experiences, was crucified with Christ,
that we might no longer be enslaved to the body of sin but that we might be able to obey God’s law.
We believe that that happened in time-space in 29 A.D. on Calvary.

But we believe it happened forever in a cosmic miracle that took place in all of us. Because all of
us were completely destroyed and recreated in Jesus so that we are able to obey God’s law. Those of
us who believe that believe that the real Israel — the spiritual Israel — consists of those of us
who believe that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, and that all of us, Jew and Gentile, were
crucified with him 1900 years ago in space-time and forever in eternity — so that we all are able
through his Spirit to obey God’s law and to be God’s children.

That’s what Paul says at the end of his letter to the Galatians, chapter 6, verses 13-16: “For even
those who receive circumcision do not themselves keep the law,” (Paul says many loved ones who are
circumcised are like him. They are physically members of the nation of Israel, but spiritually they

are unable to keep the law.) “but they desire to have you circumcised that they may glory in your
flesh. But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the
world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything,
nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. Peace and mercy be upon all who walk by this rule, upon the
Israel of God.”

Loved ones, that’s the second Israel, the Jews and the Gentiles, because there are some of us from
both groups — who have experienced a recreation in Jesus and a change of our whole lives so that we
live by God’s law.

And so we are committed by this dear Word to protect all who are born as Israelites and as Jews. We
are committed to protect them and to love and respect them. But we must hold to what God has shown
us in the New Testament — that it is because of Jesus’ death on Calvary that all of us, both Jew
and Gentile, are able to be freed from our old selves and are able to live according to God’s law.

Those of us who do that are the true Israel of God. Paul says that in Romans 2:25: “Circumcision
indeed is of value if you obey the law; but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes
uncircumcision. So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his
uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then those who are physically uncircumcised but keep the
law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For he is not a
real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. He is a Jew
who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal. His
praise is not from men but from God.”

So brothers and sisters, and brothers and sisters who have Jewish backgrounds, we have to say that
we respect you and we are committed to protect you. But we believe and we urge you gently and
lovingly to see that Jesus is the Messiah, and that he has enabled some of us here to be delivered
from ourselves and to be able to live according to his law. We believe that those who do that,
whether Jew or Gentile, are God’s true children.

I know that many of us claim Jesus’ name, and many of us profess his name, and all we are is
religious people. But I would say that you will know those of us who are truly in Jesus because we
have the same spirit as Abraham, and Simeon and Anna, and Paul, and Peter, and all who allow the
Spirit of the Messiah to come in and control their lives. Let us pray.

Dear Father, we thank you for freedom to preach your dear Word. We thank you, Lord, for the
challenge to live according to that Word. And we thank you, Father, that after all the fuss, and all
the noise, and all the talk, what convinces us is a life lived.

So Father, we ourselves personally would commit ourselves more and more to experiencing that death
to self of our dear Savior, so that that resurrection life of his may continue to shine forth in
this world, and convince our friends and our neighbors that it is possible to live above self and
sin, and to live a life of love and peace — in your name and for your glory. And now the grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with each one
of us, now and evermore. Amen.

Holy Living

Romans 11:16

Sermon transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

What do you think about earlier church services in summertime? Do you think we should switch the
service from eleven o’clock to nine o’clock? I thought it’s not a bad idea and I really do think
there are a lot of good reasons that people have for doing it. I wasn’t happy some years ago with my
own reasons, and that’s probably why I am not too enthusiastic about it in my own life. I think
there are a lot of good reasons, but my reason was not a good reason. My reason was that I wanted to
get church over as early as possible so that I could get out and enjoy the rest of the day doing
what I wanted to do with it.

Now I’m sure that you Minnesota Lutherans and Baptists and Presbyterians and Catholics would not
dream of that! But this miserable Irish Methodist did dream of it. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with
it, but it just didn’t feel right to me. It seemed the way I thought when I was a little guy: let’s
get the nasty medicine over so that we can get on with the ice cream that Mom promised us. It seemed
to be something along those lines. I felt there is something inappropriate in trying to get the
religious stuff over as early as you can so that you can get on with the stuff that really matters.

Yet, loved ones, I must admit I didn’t really understand intellectually what was wrong with my
attitude, and that it was my attitude that was wrong rather than the time of the service. I didn’t
understand that until I began to study the principle by which God deals with all of us. It’s a vital
principle that’s outlined in today’s verse. Romans 11:16a: “If the dough offered as first fruits is
holy, so is the whole lump.” It’s known as the principle of the first fruits.

Here’s the logic our Maker used. He said, “What have you got that you haven’t received? Did you make
your own hands? Did you make your brain? Did you even create your job? Did you make your feelings
and your emotions? Did you give yourself eyesight so that you can see flowers and touch cool water?”
In other words, your hands, your eyes, even the cool water, every plant, every tree belongs not to
you and me at all, but to God. Everything belongs to him. None of it belongs to us at all.

So he said to Abraham and Moses and the first men and women to whom he revealed himself at the
beginning of time, “Look! When you harvest a field of grain, take the first sheaf that you harvest
and give it to your wife, and she will bake out of that first sheaf some dough. Then take out of
that lump of dough another piece and give it to me to express to me that you know that I own all the
grain in all the fields, and I own all the dough that is ever made. I own everything that you see.
Do that!”

It’s kind of interesting that the purpose of the first fruits was to declare to God that you
realized that everything was his anyway! He could have had the lot! In fact, he didn’t need to give
us anything. It wasn’t that you give the first fruits to him as something to palm him off. But it
was that you give the first fruits, a piece of the first dough of the first sheaf of grain, to tell
him, “Look, I know it’s all yours anyway. You’re God. Any time you want — you can have it.”

Now loved ones, that runs through all of the material life of the Old Testament. Look at it in
Leviticus 27:30: “All the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the

trees, is the Lord’s; it is holy to the Lord.”

Tithe means a tenth. So God said, “All your income – divide it in ten – and give me a tenth of it.
Set apart a tenth of it for me.” That’s what it means from the human side to make a thing holy. You
set it apart for God’s use. You determine not to use it as you want but you say, “Lord, whatever way
you want to use it, you can use it that way.” So God said, “Set a tenth of your money apart for my
uses — not to be used for your own purposes at all — to let me know that you know fine well that
the other nine-tenths in your pocket are mine also — and to let me know that as far as you are
concerned, they’re there when I need them.”

Now loved ones, it wasn’t this deal of giving a tenth as a kind of token payment or to pay the guy
off, or to enable him to kind of pretend that we’d given the whole nine-tenths. It wasn’t that kind
of deal at all. It wasn’t the idea that we give him a tenth and somehow magically he’ll make the
rest holy as well. It wasn’t that! It wasn’t the part instead of the whole. It was the part
representing the whole. It was giving a tenth to God to tell him, “Look, I know it is all yours. And
as far as my heart and my attitude are concerned, you can have the directing of it all. That’s why I
am giving this particular tenth to you.”

That’s when I began to waken up in regard to my attitude to early morning church services. I began
to see what God also said was, “Every minute that you breathe – that last second you had — is
because I am holding the protons and neutrons together. If I released my power, in a moment you
would explode apart and disappear. Every second that you have – that last second that you had — is
mine. I gave it to you. You experienced it because I have upheld things for another second. Every
moment, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year you have, every decade — all
time is mine.”

Then he set forth the principle of the first fruits. Would you look at it? It’s in Exodus 20:8:
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the
seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or
your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within
your gates.”

God said, “I want you to give me one day out of every seven — to show me that you know that every
day is mine and to show me that you want every day to be given to me. I want you to give me the
seventh day to express to me your own recognition that every moment you have is due to my kindness
and generosity to you.”

Then he said, “If you do that, the peace and the appropriateness of a right relationship like that
between the creature and the Creator will enable a great peace to fill your other days. The beauty
and the joy of Sunday will spill over into the other days. The whole order and peace that you
experience on a Sunday will begin to touch all the other days in your life as well. In fact, I want
Sunday to be a pattern for all your other days.”

Well, loved ones, it just struck me in my conscience that that was not my attitude to Sunday at all.
I wanted to squeeze into as early an hour as possible the God-stuff on Sunday — so that I could
make the rest of Sunday as much like Saturday as possible. I wasn’t really interested in Sunday
touching the other days and making the other days like it. I was interested in making Sunday as much
like the other days as possible.

I suddenly saw that the whole attitude that I had was not an attitude of reality between me and my
Creator. It wasn’t an attitude that really recognized that all my money and all my time had come
from him. It wasn’t! I didn’t really believe that at all! I was just trying to palm something off to
keep him quiet so that I could get on with my life.

Then I saw that a lot of us do that. A lot of us are just dumb! We are miserable in our own lives
with God because that’s our stingy attitude. The fact is that the first move you make toward God —-
maybe you start coming to church or you start reading the Bible or you start believing in Jesus -—
that first move is “first fruits.” The purpose of the first fruits, and the reality and integrity
and validity of the first fruits depends on your readiness to give your whole life to God. That’s
what the first fruits means.

They have no validity if they don’t mean that. If you come to church just to keep the guy quiet or
to just to keep him off your back, really, it means nothing. The first move towards God is only a
real move if it is a declaration: “Lord, I want to give my whole life to you.”

But of course, my attitude had not been that, and I think that many of us have that same feeling. We
make a move towards God — start coming to God, start reading the Bible — hoping that that will
keep him off our back and that he won’t meddle any further in our lives, and above all, that that
first move will not spill over into other parts of our lives that we are perfectly able to control
ourselves. Loved ones, that’s why so many of us are such miserable Gentiles, such miserable Jews,
such miserable churchgoers, such miserable Christians, such miserable Baptists, Methodists,
Presbyterians, or Catholics. That’s why so many are so miserable. That’s why so many of us know only
religion but we know nothing of God – because we try to make do with some first fruits that we palm
off to him — and then refuse to go any further.

So the first move that we make to him is useless. So for some of us, a friend dies or a relative
dies, and we begin to think seriously about life and about God. Or maybe we start coming to church
or we start believing that Jesus is our Savior. Loved ones, at that very moment there develops
inside you an untamable carnal heart that is intent on a battle of containment for that first
surrender.

That’s it. There develops at that very moment, an untamable — almost an incomprehensible carnal
heart inside you — that is dedicated to keeping that initial surrender from going any further. It’s
exactly that that means that we are being dishonest with God — that our first fruits are not really
first fruits — and that prevents God filling our whole lives with his joy and his victory.

It’s as if Jesus comes to the door of our hearts and knocks saying, “Behold, I stand at the door and
knock; if any man hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and sup with him and he
with me.” And we say, “Yes, I would like the joy of having my sins forgiven and being rid of the
guilt. I would like to know that I’m going to go heaven after this life is over. Yes, Lord, I give
my life to you and I ask you to come in.”

Jesus comes in, and comes just in to that little porch, and begins to deal with just some of the
actions in our life. He deals with just some of the words, and we begin to change them. We stop
swearing. We stop stealing. We stop being dishonest. We stop a lot of the things that are wrong in
our lives.

But loved ones, so many of us want to hold that Spirit of God that has entered us — on the porch of

our lives. We don’t want him to come any further. The fact is, the Spirit of God always deals with
us according to the principle of the first fruits. That’s right! In other words, the first move you
make is a real move and has real integrity to it, if it expresses your readiness to give your whole
life to God.

But the moment that you begin to back off and try to hold that surrender to just the religious part
of your life, that moment, the first move has become invalid. So many of us say, “Yes, I prayed to
receive Jesus with Campus Crusade” or, “I was confirmed,” or “I have begun to think very seriously
about God — but there’s no doubt that I have trouble in the rest of my life. There are things that
I can’t do and that I haven’t victory in.” Loved ones, it’s because you’re bluffing God on this
business of first fruits. You’re not prepared to carry on doing what you said you’d do, which is,
“Lord, I surrender to you the things that you’ve shown me are wrong in my life — because I want to
surrender all my life to you.”

But so often, loved ones, we want to hold it there. God’s Spirit never rests that way. He moves
through the front door and into the entrance hall. He begins to point out to you, “Now, you’ve
cleaned up the outside of your life. Now what about the inside of your heart? When you do things for
people, do you do them because you really want to do it from your heart, or do you do it with a
great deal of selfishness still inside, thinking, ‘Boy, how am I going to get along without that?’”

“When you are friends of people or when you love people, are you clear of any fear of what they’ll
do to you? Have you really allowed me to take over your reputation and what people think of you, or
are you concerned about what people say about you or what people can do to you?” God’s Spirit begins
to touch us there. Loved ones, the truth is that unless you come through with a “Yes” in these
areas, the whole first experience is negated and invalidated — because it was just a bluff thing,
and the Father sees that. So the first fruits is only meaningful if you keep moving in that
direction.

Many of us do. Many of us deal with that whole relationship with people in the entrance hall. Then
God moves always into the place where we spend our days. He moves in there where you have pride.

He says, “All right. You can do your job. You are competent. But what about the pride you have
there? What about the way you speak offhandedly to people because you are good and you are proud of
your abilities? Will you let me begin to be myself in you, instead of making me out to be a monster
the way you do at work? Will you deal with the area of dishonesty that there is in your income tax
return? Will you deal with the area of dishonesty in your business commissions? Will you let me
clean that thing up and control it and direct it?”

Loved ones, God’s Spirit is unerring. He knows exactly where you and I are trying to keep part of
our lives under our own control. He deals with the love of praise that we have from our boss or from
our colleagues.

He says, “Really — are you doing your business for the money you get? Are you doing your job for
the praise you get from your colleagues — or are you doing it as unto me? Do you do your job
because I’ve given you this job and I’ve given you the ability to do it?”

Loved ones, the amazing thing is that if you don’t come into a clean heart in regard to those
things, you will eventually find that you’re driving Jesus and the Spirit of God right out of even
the religious side of your life. In other words, you cannot corral him. He is a free Spirit and he

moves wherever he wants, because he has that right.

So he moves into the area where we spend our leisure time. He begins to touch us at the realm of our
laziness. He begins to say, “Now you think that it doesn’t matter that you are lazy at times. You
feel, in fact, that you can surrender to me on other things if you can only keep this dear little
laziness or this little bit of self-indulgence that you have. Or if you can cry yourself to sleep at
night thinking of how the world is mistreating you. You are prepared to give me all kinds of things
if you can do that. But do you see? If you can do that, it is not me that is living in the center of
your heart. It is your great big self that is really wanting to control things in your leisure
time.”

So God’s Spirit will deal with you on worry. You know we are all big babies. We encourage each
other: “Oh, you poor soul, you are worrying. Oh, what a terrible thing! You ought to take some
tranquilizers and stop that worrying. That miserable father that used to worry and you inherited his
worry. Oh, you poor little worrywart!”

Really, worry is a sin, loved ones. I was a worrier, so I know it is a sin. We worry about tomorrow
because we want to live tomorrow today, and we can’t. God has arranged life that way. He has
arranged it so that he will take care of tomorrow anyway. So worry is really a determination that
we’ll work it out ourselves. So worry is a sin. It is an expression of self’s determination to be
independent.

Then God always gets into that realm — not the religious life where you’re blasting out the hymn
and everyone thinks how wonderful you are, but your private prayer life — which is virtually
non-existent. He begins to get in there at the realm of the deadness in your private prayers.

He begins to show you, “You know you haven’t really come under me there. There is a great carnal
heart inside you that produces that deadness and dryness when you sit down to do Bible study.
There’s a lack of power in your whole prayer life. Don’t you see that I want to come in and I want
to take over your religious life? You are running it for me. You’re a religious person. You’re doing
things for me! I want to come in and take over your life and then you will be a “Christ-ian” person.
You’ll be a Christ-filled person.” God’s Spirit begins to deal with us there.

Then he moves into the big family room where we spend so much of our time. He begins to show us the
anger that we show with our loved ones. We say, “We’re angry with those we love the most,” but it’s
not true. We’re angry with those we ought to love the most. We don’t love them the most. That’s why
we’re angry. We take them for granted and we treat them more harshly than we would treat our
friends.

We’re often on our best behavior with our boss but we’re on our worst behavior with the loved ones
that we live with. God begins to come in there and show us the impatience that there is in our home
life, and the touchiness, where we’re so ready to judge what they’re saying and prejudge what they
mean and intend. We interpret their innuendoes, not their words.

Then he begins to show us the criticism that there is in our family life, the way we want to draw
attention to ourselves and make ourselves seem important to them by the way we boast about the
things we do during the day. God’s Spirit just says to us, “That is gross! That is gross ugliness!
It is that kind of thing that destroys my Spirit in your life. Now are you going to let it go?” Many
of us do and we move on.

Then he moves on into the lounge and deals with the things that we practice in our relationships
with our friends, in social relationships – the jealousy, and the exaggeration, and the lack of love
and the love of ease. God’s Spirit begins to show us, “I want to change all those things. I want to
displace self completely from your life so that only I live –Jesus of Nazareth.”

Many of us get that far and we actually do a good bit of cleaning ourselves. The power of positive
thinking helps, and some renewal of the mind helps. Then if you belong to enough Bible study groups
you can control some of this stuff. So, many of us get pretty far there.

Then Jesus’ Spirit says, “What about the other room?” And we say, “What other room? That’s all the
rooms that there are. You’ve been in them.” He says, “No, the other room.” He moves unerringly to
the back door. We have moved all the stuff out of all these rooms into this closet – back here
{pointing behind him} — because our idea is that whenever he gets out the door we will get it all,
back again!

God’s Spirit comes and says, “It’s your right — even to be jealous. That’s I want you to give over
to me. It’s your right — even to be angry. That’s what I want you to give over to me. In other
words, when I first came into your life or first invited you to come to me, my intention was always
this from the very beginning — that I would come and take over all your life. I would take over
that self that is on the throne of your life and would displace it with my own self and my own ideas
and my own plans. Only when you let that old self die on my cross will you begin to experience the
brightness and the delight of a Christian experience with God — instead of a religious experience.”

Loved ones, that’s the truth. The principle of the first fruits is that the first move that you make
toward God is only as good as the continuing surrender that you express to him throughout your life.
The moment you begin to fight him on some of these issues, that moment you’re beginning to
invalidate and to spoil and to expose as counterfeit the first fruits that you presented to him at
the beginning.

I would encourage you – I don’t think the big deal is the crisis experience. I don’t think the big
deal is what you interpret the baptism of the Holy Spirit to be. I think the big deal is: are you
holding God out of part of your life that he has shown you? If you are doing that, however tiny you
are compared with this massive God — you are standing in God’s way and you are saying, “Thus far
and no further.” That’s what prevents the joy of his heart filling your heart. Really, that’s it.

So I don’t know that it’s big arguments about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, or a crisis, or all
that kind of thing – and those are all important. I think the big issue is: are you really
continuing to act in consistency with the first-fruits move that you made towards God? Or are you
now involved in exposing that as counterfeit and negating the move that you made by refusing to let
God into some area of your life?

I do pray that the Holy Spirit will give you light. I do pray that you’ll see that God says to us,
“Be ye holy, for I am holy. Don’t mess about. Don’t say I’m here to overlook your unholiness. I’ll
do that as much as I need to, but here’s my big command to you. Be like me. Be joyful like my Son
Jesus. That’s what holiness means. Be loving like my Son Jesus. Be filled with life and vitality
like my Son Jesus. Be filled with unselfishness like my Son Jesus — because he can fill you with
himself.” Loved ones, that’s what God has called us to. That’s what this world desperately needs —
people who are holy outside and inside. Let us pray.

Dear Father, thank you for the clarity of your dear Word. Thank you for the consistency of the
principles upon which you’ve dealt with us down through the centuries. Thank you that you are the
same yesterday, today, and forever, and that you never change. That you, who are the God of the
whole universe, are saying to us, “Will you let me be your God? God of everything in your life. God
of everything that you do and think and say.”

Lord, thank you. Thank you that that is our reasonable service. We would pray that some of us today
will complete that first move we made with you, by giving over everything into your control. And now
the grace of our Lord Jesus, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with
each of us, now and evermore. Amen.

Our Patriarchal Heritage

Romans 11:16

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Let’s imagine that all of us work in a factory whose owner is committed to producing modular housing
for underdeveloped countries. OK? So we are all working in this factory, and the owner is committed
to that one purpose of producing modular housing – housing that could be taken to India and just
erected on the spot. He’s committed to producing modular housing for underdeveloped countries.

So all of us when we’re hired by him go into his office. The director of personnel interviews us,
finds out what our abilities are, and finds out what our interests are, and the things we’re good
at. Then we’re sent to undertake our respective responsibilities in the factory.

Now, think of what kind of chaos would result! Imagine you were in the metal-working shop and you
said to yourself, “Well! I’m fed up with filling these work orders that come down from the boss. I
think what this factory needs is big model lollipops made in metal. I think that is what I’ll start
doing. I’ll forget this work-order business and I’ll make big model lollipops in metal.”

Or you were in the wood shop and you said to yourself, “Well, I’m fed up making these roofs. I think
I’ll just burn the work orders and make walls. I’m tired of making roofs anyway! I’m going to make a
whole lot of walls, whatever they have asked me to make.” Or, say you’re the truck driver and you
say to yourself, “Forget this dumb guy with his modular housing for underdeveloped countries. I’m
going to use this truck here and start my own delivery business on the side.” Well, you can imagine
the chaos in the factory.

That’s what’s happening in this factory earth. That’s right. That’s what’s happening in this factory
earth. This is just one little part of a great development project that our Maker has created. And
yet it’s falling apart in all directions because we who have been put in it to do certain jobs have
a totally irrational attitude towards our Maker about the things he wants us to do. We have! We have
the kind of irrational attitude that we would have if we acted that way in that factory. Because of
that, the whole thing is falling apart in all directions.

Yet the incredible thing is that this mad way is operating here on earth. Somebody who is supposed
to drive a truck starts his own business on the side, instead of doing what the Maker intended him
to do with his truck. Or somebody here who was meant to bend metal in the metal-working shop has
given up doing what the Creator meant him to do, and is doing his own thing making something like
model lollipops. Or the person here who was meant to cut wood for the Maker for a certain purpose he
had in mind, has given up that and is just doing what he chooses to do – just doing his own thing.
That whole way of life has actually become the norm.

It’s incredible, loved ones, but it has! That has become the norm for our life here on earth. That
is what people regard as the normal way to live — do your own thing, run your own business on the
side, make your own way as best you can — as if there is no unitary purpose at all – so that
actually the normal way to live (which we all can guess from the factory illustration) has begun to
be regarded as the abnormal, as the strange and restrictive way. That normal way is called “holy”.

“Holy” in Hebrew actually means “healthy” • It means healthy in the sense of holistic, a complete

and appropriate, proper way to live — in the light of all the factors of the situation. It means a
complete way to interact with the set of environmental factors that you face. In practical
outworking it means you do what you do with any authority figure who has the right to direct you.
You say to the Creator, “What did you put me here to do? All right. That’s what I’m going to give
myself to.” That’s what it means to be holy. You set yourself apart for the Creator for the purpose
he sent you here to fulfill. It’s as sensible and childlike and commonsensical as that.

That positive setting yourself apart to the Maker for the purpose that he sent you here to fulfill
also has a negative setting apart. So holiness also means setting yourself apart from using the
truck for running your own private delivery business. It means setting yourself apart from your own
private preferences and your own private purposes.

Loved ones, honestly, that’s what it means to be holy. It isn’t to be strange or to be far out or to
be caught in fads of some kind. It isn’t to be “pie in the sky” or narrow-minded or unhappy or
ascetic. To be holy really means to be wholly involved in the big picture — that there is a Maker
of the universe, that he has created you to do a certain thing in this part of his universe — and
you give yourself to that. That’s what it means to be holy.

Down through the centuries there has been a holy stream or a holy bloodline in this human family.
And there has been an unholy stream or an unholy bloodline in this family. Those two streams cut
across all our political divisions and all our religious divisions.

In other words, right down through the years there has been a group of people who have done what
their Creator put them here to do, and there’s been another group that have done their own thing.
You find it in each race. You find it, if you’d like to look at it, in Ezekiel Chapter 20. There it
says it is present in Judaism. There’s a holy line and there’s an unholy line. There are obedient
Jews and there are disobedient Jews.

Ezekiel 20:36: “’As I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of
Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you, says the Lord God. I will make you pass under the
rod, and I will let you go in by number. I will purge out the rebels from among you, and those who
transgress against me; I will bring them out of the land where they sojourn, but they shall not
enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

But maybe for our purposes, loved ones, it’s important to see that even in Christianity, even among
those who call themselves Christian, there is this obedient and this disobedient dynasty. I
Corinthians 3:1: “But I, brethren, could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh,
as babes in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you were not ready for it; and even yet
you are not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you,
are you not of the flesh, and behaving like ordinary men?”

Loved ones, that’s what Paul is stating in the verse that we’re studying today. Romans 11:16b: “And
if the root is holy, so are the branches.”

In Protestantism, in Catholicism, in Judaism, in Lutheranism, in Presbyterianism, in Methodism, in
the Baptist church and in the Assemblies of God, there are these two streams — a stream of a holy
people who do live in the light of what God wants them to do with their lives. And there’s another
stream that pretend to do that but don’t actually do it. Paul is saying, “Look, if the root’s holy
— if you come from a holy root — then the branches are holy. But you can’t have unholy branches

and a holy root, and you can’t have an unholy root and holy branches.” In other words, you can’t
fiddle in the middle somewhere.

We like to think you can. We like to think that somehow, “Oh, well, there are half-holy people. I’m
kind of one of those. Sometimes three quarters holy, sometimes quarter-holy, sometimes 19 percent.
And there are half-unholy people. So most of us are kind of half holy and half unholy.”

Do you see that God’s dear Word doesn’t play around with that? God says, “Listen! If the root’s holy
the branches are holy. It’s either-or. You’re either holy — you live your whole life dedicated to
me to fulfill what I’ve put you there to do — or you don’t. That’s what holiness is! You can make
some other word up to describe yourself, but don’t massacre my language. Holy and unholy are
mutually exclusive.”

Loved ones, that’s true. All of us are kind of anxious to try to prove that we belong to that holy
family. So we’ll do anything. We’ll join the Lions Club. We’ll identify ourselves with the
Christians. We’ll identify ourselves with the Gideons. We’ll try to get a church that seems really
orthodox or really evangelical and we’ll identify ourselves with that. We’ll do anything to somehow
prove that we are in that holy stream.

But loved ones, you’ll know by your spirit. The name doesn’t matter at all. Actually, in a strange
way maybe when we get to heaven we’ll find maybe even Jew or Gentile doesn’t matter. Maybe we’ll
find that other names don’t matter. But certainly within the realm that most of us understand
Christianity to be, the name doesn’t matter. It’s is the spirit – it’s the attitude inside your
heart. If the root is holy, then the branches are holy.

Now what was the root? The root involved those first men that God ever approached to do a certain
job for him. You’ll find the first one in Joshua 24:2-3: “And Joshua said to all the people, ‘Thus
says the Lord, the God of Israel, “Your fathers lived of old beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father
of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the
River and led him through all the land of Canaan, and made his offspring many. I gave him Isaac; and
to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau.”’”

God from that time on was known as the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. Those men lived in
the way we’ve described you would live if you belonged to a company that ran that factory. They
lived to do what God sent them to do. Those dear patriarchs are the root. It was those patriarchs
that Jesus himself said he knew. You remember that piece that we read in an earlier talk. He said,
“I knew Abraham, and Abraham rejoiced to see my day.” Those men had the spirit of God’s Son residing
in them. They simply lived to do what God gave them their lives to do. They were the holy root. If
we belong to that root, we are holy also.

It’s true in a deeper way, because you’re holy personally because of the root that is inside you. In
other words, you’re holy if your heart is holy.

Is your heart really committed to your Maker? Do you really live to please him? Do you really care
more about what he sent you here to do than anything else in your whole life? Do you? Quietly as you
read or hear this, and the same question I ask to me up here: Is your heart really committed to
doing what your Maker has sent you here to do — whatever it costs you? Is that your heart attitude?

If that root inside you is holy, if it’s wholly given to doing what God has sent you here to do,
then the branches — your outward behavior, your actions and your words – they’ll be holy, too.
Loved ones, that is the crux of it. Being a victorious child of God is not a complex thing. It goes
right back to the very basic fact that God has sent you here to do a certain thing in his world. Is
that what you have given your whole life to?

How do you know? How do you know if the root is holy inside you? Look at the branches. That’s it!
Look at the branches in your life. Look at the outward actions and words that the root of your heart
inside you bears.

You know some of us look at those branches and we’re not very sure if we’re holy – because many of
us are aware of our callous, cutting comments. Many of us are very aware of the irritability and the
resentment that we feel at times even towards our friends. Many of us are very aware of the
irritability we show at times to those that we live with.

Many of us are very aware of the selfishness that rankles inside us even when we’re doing something
for somebody else. Many of us are very aware of that bitter hostility and resentment that at times
we feel lashing out towards those whom we think of as enemies. Many of us are very aware of the
worry-anxiety that knots our stomachs at night when we worry about what people are thinking of us,
or when we worry about how we’re going to get through the next month. Many of us realize that the
branches do have a look of unholiness about them.

Do you know what we do? We involve ourselves in branch surgery. That’s right. We do! We involve
ourselves in kind of happy-hour stuff, kind of attitude-adjustment time like the bars have from four
to six. We engage ourselves in a little attitude adjustment.

We say, “Yeah, the branches don’t look too healthy. They certainly don’t look as if they are
experiencing the power and the approval of the Creator of the universe because they’re doing what he
sent them here to do. They certainly don’t. My actions and words don’t look holy. Maybe what I need
to do is adjust them a little.”

So we involve ourselves in trying to think a little better about ourselves. We have a problem with
self-esteem, so we start trying to look on the bright side of ourselves. Or we have trouble with our
job situation, so we start trying to think positively about it.

We begin to use the mass of information that is available in the power of positive thinking
literature of the day to try to somehow adjust our thoughts: “Let’s think better about our family.
That’s what I’m going to do today. I’m going to think more positively about my dad. I am! I’m going
to think more positively about him today. I’m going to try to use my imagination to make my job more
interesting.”

We involve ourselves in branch surgery. But loved ones, it is laborious, and it is as frustrating as
trying to stick apple blossoms on the branches of an apple tree that has a dead or diseased root. It
is! It is frustrating! You get the things stuck on and they don’t look alive anyway, and half of
them are falling off and you’re picking them up and sticking them on again. It is as frustrating and
laborious as that — to try to carry out branch surgery in your life.

You see what God’s Word tells us: “Look, if the root’s holy the branches will be holy. If the root’s
unholy the branches will be unholy. Would you stop fiddling around with the branches and would you

get to some root surgery? That’s what you need!”

You know in Latin the word for root gives us our English word “radical”. That’s what God is saying
to us this morning. “You need radical surgery.” Remember what it says in Romans: circumcision is a
matter of the heart. It’s an inward thing. It’s not an outward thing in the flesh. It’s an inward
thing. What you need to do is have your heart circumcised. You need to have a holy heart.

Loved ones, that’s the problem. Our discontentment about our job or our worry about our future comes
from a basic refusal to let God direct what we are to do in our lives. That’s it, honestly. We like
to make it out to be all kinds of other things, but it is that. Our discontent about our present
job, and about our future, comes from a basic refusal to let God determine what we’re going to do in
this life. It’s a basic refusal to do what Abraham did.

Maybe you’d like to look at. It’s way at the beginning of his history, though it’s recounted there
in Hebrews, looking back to the early books of the Old Testament. The writer of Hebrews quotes them.
It’s in Hebrews 11:8: “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he
was to receive as an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was to go.”

We actually refuse to do that. We refuse to obey God today and trust him for tomorrow. That is why
many of us are antsy about our jobs. That’s why many of us are dissatisfied with our jobs. We say,
“It’s not what I should have. It’s not fulfilling me.” Really, the discontentment is coming from a
basic refusal to trust God with the present, to obey him in the present, and to believe that he has
a job for you in this present life.

In other words, we’re not prepared to experience the circumcision of our hearts. We’re not prepared
to let the Spirit of Christ rule our hearts. The Spirit of Christ, you remember, said, “Nevertheless
not my will, but thine be done.” We are so full of our own will and so determined that we must have
every little ability fulfilled in our jobs, and we must have everything satisfactory to us that we
are not prepared to let the Spirit of Christ take hold of us and allow God to carry us where he
will.

Yet loved ones, that’s what we promise in that covenant that we here in our church body make with
God at the beginning of every year. I’d just remind you of the words of that covenant: “And now
beloved, let us bind ourselves with willing bonds to our covenant God and let us take the yoke of
Christ upon us. This taking of his yoke upon us means that we are heartily content that he appoint
us our place and work and that he alone be our reward.”

A holy heart is prepared to do that. A holy heart thanks God for the job that it has, and trusts him
that he will lead us on into the next position, and that he will show us what job applications to
make. But a holy heart is preoccupied with what God wants us to do here on earth.

Loved ones, it’s the same with any other place in our lives where we’re bearing thorns instead of
fruit. Whether it’s trouble we have with a personal relationship that isn’t right and we want it to
be different, or whether it’s a problem with our own self-esteem — the trouble with the branches is
always because the root is wrong. We have basically an unholy attitude towards our God.

Let me just give you a plain example that you can imagine yourself. The owner of the factory comes
into the metal-working shop, and he sees you there, and you’re sitting there just looking into the
air. And all the metal is sitting there, and you’re just looking.

And the owner says, “What’s wrong with you?” and you say, “Nothing!” He says, “Okay, let’s get with
it then, if it’s nothing. But what’s wrong with you?” You say, “I’m having trouble with my
self-esteem.” Well, you know he’d say “Look, you’ll have less trouble with your self-esteem if you
start bending this metal. Then at least you’ll know you are doing what I’ve put you here to do,”

Loved ones, honestly, it’s like that, truly. A lot of us have trouble with our self-esteem. A lot of
us have trouble with personal relationships, because we aren’t actually occupying our hearts with
what God has put us here to do. We’re being preoccupied with all kinds of other gifts that he has
given us and they’re taking the place of God’s will in our lives.

God gave Abraham Isaac so that he could fulfill the promise that he made to Abraham that he would
have many descendants. You can see how reasonable it was for Abraham to question it when God
commanded him to kill Isaac. “Kill Isaac? Kill the very person by which you plan to fulfill your
promise to me?”

That’s what we do, loved ones. We take some good gift that God has given us, and some gift that we
think will be useful to fulfill his will, and that gift becomes too big in our own hearts. Maybe
it’s a dear wife or maybe it’s a dear girlfriend or boyfriend. Maybe it’s our house or our job or
our reputation with our friends. But that Isaac grows and grows in our minds until it becomes more
important to us than doing what God put us here to do. Then there is only one answer, and that’s put
the knife to your Isaac and get back into the mainstream of your life, and the mainstream of our
creation.

Loved ones, God loves you and he has put you here to do something in this world that none of the
rest of us can do. That’s true! That’s part of why he made you. Now you will find your life balanced
and healthy and holy when you get about that — whatever it is.

Really, at the moment it’s the jobs we’re in. Even if they’re not perfect, God knows it and he’s not
sweating it out saying, “How will I get him moved? How will I get him moved?” He’s not! The Father
is in perfect peace. He knows there’s a better place for you. He knows there’s a more suitable
place. But he’s satisfied at this moment that he has it all worked out and it will come about right.

It’s the same with the whole personal relationship thing. God isn’t up there, sweating and saying,
“How will I get so-and-so married to so-and-so? I’ll never get them to meet! I never will! Because
she’s going in this direction and he’s going in that direction!” He isn’t saying that.

You know the Father is unchanging, and he’s in complete peace with Jesus and they’re enjoying each
other, and there’s rest and contentment. Why? Because he has it all organized. He has it all
planned. All we have to do is do what he’s given us to do with our whole hearts this moment, and
rejoice. A holy heart is one that is preoccupied with what the Creator has sent you here to do.

Loved ones, every one of us is equal in that way. Each of us here is here for a special purpose that
God has in mind. I would encourage you to find it out, and to set your whole mind on that, and to
put a knife to any Isaac that has got in the way. Then you’ll find there will sweep into you the
Holy Spirit of God’s life, and that Holy Spirit will begin to bear the fruit of the Spirit in your
life–love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness and temperance.
That is what God will do to you if you will get about the business for which he has put you here.

Let us pray. Dear Father, we confess that we have done a lot of trying to run our own business here,
instead of trying to take care of your own business. Lord, we remember Jesus’ words: “Did you not
know I’d be about my Father’s business?”

Father, we confess that we’ve been distracted into all kinds of other people’s business, and into
our own business. But Father, we do see that you do not do things by chance, and you have put each
one of us here to something for you that no one else can do. And Father, a holy heart is one that is
preoccupied with that above everything else.

Lord, we would ask you by your Holy Spirit to circumcise our hearts, and to show us the difference
between the things that don’t matter, and the one thing that does matter. We would pray, Lord Jesus,
that your Spirit would come into us this morning – that Spirit that said, “Not my will, but thine be
done.” And that we would begin to rest in that peace, so that the root may be holy in our lives, and
the branches may be holy also.

We ask that you would begin that this very day, our Father, so that we would be like you, and may
fulfill what you have put us here to do, in Jesus’ name. Now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be which each one of us, now and
evermore. Amen.

God’s Gulf Stream

Romans 11:17

Sermon transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

There are two very different ways to look for a job. One is — you try to decide in your own mind
the kind of thing you would enjoy doing. Then you begin to read the employment opportunities in the
newspapers. You forward your resume to the employment agencies. Then you begin to attend interviews.
You compare the jobs that are offered to you. You judge them on the basis of their financial appeal,
and on the basis of the working conditions, and on the basis of the future that they would offer to
you personally, and then lastly, on whether you’d really enjoy doing the thing or not. On the basis
of those considerations you take one of the jobs.

Now, that is walking by sight. The only information you get on the job is what comes through your
eyes or comes through your ears, or comes through the understanding of your mind. But the whole
operation is simply an interaction between you and other human beings, or between you and certain
job situations. Now that’s walking by sight.

Now the other way to find the right job is that you believe that such a complex person as you are
must have been created by the Supreme Being that created all the much less complex things that we
see around us in nature. You conclude that since each one of those has a very specific function to
fulfill, it is most likely that your Creator put you here on earth to fulfill a very specific
purpose for him.

So you begin to spend time each day thinking about your Creator. You try to withdraw your mind from
all the noise and the distractions of the world around you. You try to get gradually a sense of
quietness inside in your heart, where you come to the conclusion that God himself is actually
interested enough in you to guide you to the right job if you will move slowly and quietly enough.

Then — you begin to read the employment opportunity columns in the newspapers, and you begin to
apply to some of the agencies. You refuse the interviews that you sense a little check inside in
your heart about. Each opportunity that comes up, you examine it in the privacy and quietness of
prayer and conversation with your Maker. Then you gradually make a few moves towards a job and as
the result from the other people seems to confirm the sense of peace that you have in your heart,
and as a particular job seems to fulfill some of the criteria that you know God himself is
interested in for you, then you begin to move towards that job. As everything continues to confirm
the way you’re moving, you accept the job offer.

Now loved ones, that’s walking by faith. That’s believing that your Maker has a certain job and a
certain position for you. You continue to believe that against all the odds. You continue to act in
obedience to that belief, whatever it may cost you or however hard it may be, with all the other
voices blazing in on you. That’s it, loved ones. It’s two very different ways to walk. Of course,
that’s only it in regard to a job. Actually there are those two different ways to walk in regard to
everything in our lives.

Now, that way of walking by faith — that sense of contentment that makes you feel, “I’m right with
my Maker. I’m not way out here on a limb. I am in fact doing what he wants me to do” — that sense
of rightness that comes from that walk of faith, was established first as a normal way to live life

about four thousand years ago. It’s in Genesis 15:1: “After these things the word of the Lord came
to Abram in a vision, ‘Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.’”

By the way, we have a tendency to wait in our bedrooms for a thunderous voice like that. We think
that’s the way it must have been. Loved ones, we have to begin to get the message that though the
TM’ers {pracitcers of Transcendental Meditation} are wrong and transcendental meditation simply
opens you up to evil spirits taking advantage of your own passivity, yet there’s something in the
truth that you have to quieten yourself over a period of time of half an hour or an hour, before all
the activity of your mind begins to run down and you begin to be able to concentrate on God.

Actually if we would do that, we would hear a voice, too. Honestly we would. We’re dumb. We say we
never hear these things today. But actually it’s because we never spend enough time alone with our
Maker to hear this. But we would if we did.

Genesis 15 verse 2: “But Abram said, ‘0 Lord God, what wilt thou give me, for I continue childless,
and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?’ And Abram said, ‘Behold, thou hast given me no
offspring; and a slave born in my house will be my heir.’ And behold, the word of the Lord came to
him, ‘This man shall not be your heir; your own son shall be your heir.’ And he brought him outside
and said, ‘Look toward heaven, and number the stars if you are able to number them.’ Then he said to
him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And he believed the Lord; and he reckoned it to him as
righteousness.'”

He reckoned his faith to him as righteousness. That made him right with God. In other words, if
Abraham had been going by sight, he’d have looked at Sarah, seen that she was over seventy as he
was, that they were childless, and therefore that there would possibly be no descendants for him.
But he was so close to his Maker and had such a feel for what his Maker had planned for his life
that he believed that his Maker wanted him to have children, and that he would actually have
descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and that somehow his Maker was able to introduce a
higher law of life that would extend and expand the normal abilities of his body and of his wife
Sarah’s so that they would be able to have children.

Now loved ones, even though the contemporaries of Abraham in the world at that time continued to
operate according to the simple natural laws and allowed the normal human circumstances to limit
what could happen in their lives, yet Abraham himself struggled out of that kind of narrow
dependence, and began to live his life and began to face the practical questions that he had to meet
in his life, on the basis not of the natural laws around him, not of the human limitations that
confined him, but on the basis of the power and the promises of his Maker to override those laws and
to bring in a life that elevated and expanded the normal possibilities of this human existence.

Loved ones, that’s true. Abraham started to live that way. Then his son Isaac caught that way of
faith from his father. He began to see that his dad was not dumb. He was not stupid. He knew how to
manage the affairs of life and indeed, he was a very successful man. But Isaac began to see his
father always worked on the basis of this added dimension. He always worked on the basis of the idea
that there was an uncreated life — that the Maker of the world actually intended us normally to use
— to transform and expand and transcend this present life and its opportunities.

Because this was so, when Isaac came to finding a girl that he would marry he did not go round the
skating rinks of that time and go into the clubs and bowling alleys. He did not! He believed that
the Maker, who had made him and his father, cared enough about him and about that important event in

his life to have it planned. So he actually trusted his Maker – trusted him to lead him to the right
girl. That’s the way, you remember, Isaac met his wife — through God opening the way through
Isaac’s father and his servant, until Isaac met the right girl for him.

It’s interesting that Isaac’s son Jacob learned the same thing in a different context. Jacob was a
miserable manipulator. None of us would know anything about that, I know! But Jacob was a guy who
was always working angles, and always pulling deals, and always making sure that things went the way
that he wanted them to go.

You remember the time came when he found himself returning to the brother whom he had deceived –
Esau. He began to get scared, and you remember, there came a time came when he had to get before God
in a valley, and he had to pray and ask God whether he should continue to send the presents out to
try to bribe Esau to be peaceable, and to accept him and to reconcile. God, you remember, put his
thigh out of joint as if to say, “You must finally give up your manipulating and your working
angles. You must believe that I have a plan for you and Esau. I will prepare him and his heart for
you.” That’s what Jacob began to do.

So even the manipulator, Jacob, began to trust this Maker of his to bring in an uncreated life that
would elevate and expand and enliven and transcend the natural laws of finance and the natural laws
of physical being. Without actually destroying those laws, this life comes in and lifts you up and
uses those laws and transcends and expands them. Loved ones, those three men, Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob — those patriarchs began a dynasty of people who began to live like that.

It’s almost like a Gulf Stream. That’s why I called the sermon “God’s Gulf Stream.” Do you know
there’s a river in the world that runs right through the middle of an ocean? It is known as the Gulf
Stream. It starts in the Gulf of Mexico in the warm tropical waters there. Driven by winds, it flows
between Florida and Cuba and follows up close to the east coast of America, and then cuts across the
Atlantic Ocean and disperses eventually on the coasts of Africa and Europe.

The amazing thing about the Gulf Stream is — it carries not only the warm water that it picked up
in the Gulf of Mexico with it, but it carries marine vegetation and marine life with it. If you were
sailing in a boat in the middle of the cold Atlantic you could in certain places get out and swim in
tropical water – the water that this Gulf Stream carries with it. It’s incredible that even on the
coasts of Europe and Africa, the influence of the Gulf Stream is so strong that in southern Ireland
(and I know it usually rains and is cold in Ireland) there are palm trees that remind you of Mexico,
where the Gulf Stream came from. Such is the moderating effect of that water on even the coasts of
Europe and Africa.

Now loved ones, everywhere that Gulf Stream goes it carries with it fertility and a warmth and a
life that transforms the environment round about. Now that’s what this Gulf Stream of a faith-life
is. Throughout the history of the world this Gulf Stream of God’s uncreated life has been able to
transform life wherever people have had faith that God actually cared about them. It’s as if that
faith sets loose superhuman powers that take the ordinary events of life and transforms them.

Loved ones that’s the way we were meant to live. That’s it. You know how repeatedly we face a
situation in the office that is just frozen. It’s just seized up. It just will not move. The boss
sits in that position. The secretary sits in that position. The vice-president sits in that
position. There’s no movement. It’s just seized or frozen.

Or in our family situations — how many of us have home situations where the relationships are
frozen? You’ve tried everything! You can’t try anything else. In fact you can’t say anything! The
whole thing would get worse. You feel, “There has to be something! There has to be something else
that will break this hold — that will break this stalemate.”

Loved ones, how many of us are facing it financially? How many of us come into situations with cars
or with our clothes or our homes or the children’s education, and you feel, “It just stops”? And you
feel there’s a deadness and a sterility about things.

You know what we do. We work with our mind. We manipulate, but we don’t actually solve the things.
We just get ourselves deeper in debt. We make more trouble for ourselves but bluff ourselves that
we’re solving it — but really we’re not. We’re just moving the problem to another area and we’ll
have to deal with it later on.

Loved ones, do you see that God has lovingly so planned life that we will sooner or later realize
that we weren’t meant to live life with simply the resources of our own mental ability and emotional
life? That life is made, and will only work, if there is this Gulf Stream of superhuman power and
life that God can bring into your life if you have faith.

It is incredible and it just sounds stupid! But it actually works. Actually if you have faith in
this God and if you begin to live your life on the basis of his promises and his wishes for you,
instead of what you can make out of the circumstances and the people around you, you will begin to
find things transformed in ways that you can’t understand.

Now loved ones, it’s a wide Gulf Stream. It’s mentioned in Hebrews 11:29. So it isn’t something new
or something that hasn’t been proven. “By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as if on dry land;
but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho
fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish
with those who were disobedient, because she had given friendly welcome to the spies.”

“And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of
David and Samuel and the prophets — who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice,
received promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword,
won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received
their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise
again to a better life.” (Hebrews 11:29-35)

Loved ones, that stream is wide. At the beginning it was like the Gulf Stream itself. It was narrow.
At the beginning it was through Abraham, then only through some of his children through Isaac, then
only through some of his children through Jacob. Then it was through the Hebrews, then only through
some of the Jews, who were prepared to exercise faith — until eventually, that Gulf Stream has
widened out to include people from all backgrounds and all traditions who have one characteristic in
common.

You’ll see it in Romans 4:9: “Is this blessing pronounced only upon the circumcised,”(and it used to
be)”or also upon the uncircumcised? We say that faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness. How
then was it reckoned to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but
before he was circumcised. He received circumcision as a sign or seal of the righteousness which he
had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who

believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them, and likewise the
father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but also follow the example of the faith
which our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.”

In other words, this blessing is to all of us loved ones who are the real children of Abraham, to
all of us who will live believing that our Maker knows us personally as he knew Abraham, and has put
us here for a certain purpose and is able if we will spend time with him to reveal that purpose to
us. Even when we don’t understand it fully, if we will keep checking with him and have moments of
quietness during each of our days, he will lead us in his way! Even when we’re turning to the right
or the left, the promise is that you will hear a voice saying, “This is the way. Walk ye in it.”

So actually this is blessing is for you — if you will stop living your life as if it depended only
on you and on your wishes and your preferences, and you’d start living it in the belief that your
Maker knows you, loves you, and has a certain plan for you — if you’ll start living it that way, as
if you’re checking with a friend: “What do you think? You think this is right? I think I’ll turn
right here. Is that OK?”

That’s what he wants. If you live that way with him as a friend, he will bring this supernatural
Gulf Stream of superhuman life that will begin to enlarge your own capacities and will begin to
bring about miracles in your own relationships.

Then, loved ones, it’s good just to share the truth that God brings us today about this in Romans
11:17: “But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in
their place to share the richness of the olive tree, do not boast over the branches.”

The olive tree is the Gulf Stream. “If some of the branches were broken off” – that is, if some who
are children of Abraham according to the flesh–some loved ones who are born Jews and are Jewish —-
if some of them because of their lack of faith have been broken off, “and you, a wild olive shoot”
— all of us Gentiles, who had not the privilege of being born into that dynasty of faith in the
early days —- but we, “as a wild olive shoot were grafted in their place to share the richness” of
the root. Actually, the Hebrew says. “of the olive tree”, because the root of the olive tree was in
Abraham, though in our next talk you’ll see that it’s even deeper than that. But the root of the
olive tree was in the patriarchs. We’ve been allowed to share the richness of that root –then “do
not boast over the branches.”

I’m sure there’s a truth there. You remember the way the early Jewish Christians in the New
Testament church demanded that the Gentiles become Jews before they would let them into the
Christian church? You remember that way that made the Gentiles feel that they had to submit
themselves to a tradition that actually was not necessary in order to become Christians. Eventually
that was washed out as unnecessary, but you remember the feeling that gave to those Gentiles.

Now there is truth to us, too. There’s a way in which you can boast over the Jewish people who do
not have the same faith as many of us have, isn’t there? There’s a way that you can say “Come up to
our level and you can share what we have.”

It’s probably important for us to see in this dear Word that we should not do that. Moreover we
should see that God wants to preserve their dignity. They are still in a unique way his dear people.
The Messiah himself wants to deal with them personally in a way that will preserve their dignity and
will yet destroy self-righteousness, in a way that will call them to himself and yet enable them to

feel that this is the fulfillment of all that they have been trying to walk in for years — rather
than seeing that it is going into something alien to what they know.

I’m sure there’s a truth in that, that all of us have to realize – I think frankly not only with
loved ones who are Jewish – I think it’s an attitude that you should have to everybody. I think
there’s nothing as off-putting – and I was once guilty of living this way – there’s nothing as
off-putting to the old agnostic as having you dear evangelical Christians looking down on us and
treating us as if we have to rise up to your level of language and your little conventions in order
to come into the fullness of God. So it is important to be clear of any boasting.

Then I just mention the verses that follow in Romans 4, where Paul describes the original experience
in Romans 4:18: “In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations;
as he had been told, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ He did not weaken in faith when he considered
his own body, which was as good as dead because he was about a hundred years old, or when he
considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God,
but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do
what he had promised. That is why his faith was ‘reckoned to him as righteousness.’ But the words,
‘it was reckoned to him,’ were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also.” (Romans 4:18-23a)

Loved ones, I would ask you: Are you living in the midst of God’s Gulf Stream? Do you live your
life, do you look for jobs, do you look for a car, do you look for a girl, do you look for a guy, do
you look for a school — in faith — or do you look for it by sight? Do you live your life with this
dear Creator right at your elbow in a real loving, conversing, trusting relationship with him, or
are you still trying to live it on your own?

Loved ones, you don’t need me to tell you — it’s just dead on your own. It is a finite world and we
are not finite beings. We are made to be infinite and we’ll eternally find frustration with this
intractable world unless we begin to experience the transcending and the transforming power of this
uncreated life from God. It’s his wish that you would live that way.

Let us pray. Dear Father, we realize we have such a casual attitude to you, such a religious
attitude. We see with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob that they were very practical about their
relationship with you, and that they depended upon you for all kinds of things that were very real
and material. Lord, we see that that’s your desire for us, that we would stop putting you away at
the end of Sunday evenings in our Bibles, and we would instead begin to walk with you on Monday
morning, and begin to spend time each day getting your mind on things, and consulting you, and then
experiencing all that excitement and that thrill of walking out on limbs of faith, that we would
normally not dream of ever venturing upon, in the absolute trust that you wanted us to move there,
and that your Spirit would transform the circumstances to make success possible.

Lord, we see that that’s your plan for us, that we would walk daily with our God, experiencing the
superhuman power of your Spirit. We would begin that now. We know it’s easy. We know we simply have
to start being concerned with what you want, and to begin to discuss this with you. So we would set
out on this way of faith this very day — for your glory.

Romans 11:18

Bearing or Borne

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

It might be good, loved ones, to remember why we began to study this book when we came together as a
church. You remember we sensed that God was guiding us to study a letter that Paul wrote to the
church in Rome in 57 AD because we felt that that letter, which is known as the letter to the
Romans, explained most clearly God’s dealings with us men and woman down through the centuries. In
fact that book of Romans is often called by theologians the only theological treatise in the Bible
because it sets forth in such detail God’s explanation of why we are alive, and why he has dealt
with us as he has. So that’s really why we started to study this book. We’ve often joked about how
the years have gone by as we’ve studied it. You remember I once said my wife calculated that I
would be 50 or something by the time we got to the end of it and at that time I was 36. I’m 46 now,
and all of you are 10 years older, and we’ve at last reached chapter 11 – which in many ways has
been the most exciting chapter!

But one of the things that I would like to share with you is that, just as we have often joked about
how Josh Columb was born in chapter 5, or one of the other children was born in chapter 8, or
someone was married in chapter 9, and just as that has given to us great stability as a body that
was committed to operating in the very volatile atmosphere of the university campus, so I would
point out to you, loved ones, that God’s word will give us stability during these last days. And we
need to see that: that as the society around us becomes more and more chaotic and as it becomes
increasingly difficult to know who to trust, or more and more difficult to keep your intellectual or
spiritual feet, this word of God will abide forever. And this dear word will enable us to keep our
intellectual and spiritual feet.

Loved one, this dear book sets forth truth in the right perspective; it sets forth an understanding
of life in the right proportions. And we need to see, repeatedly, that this book will keep us
stable as the days get worse. And without getting all upset about the things that happened here in
the Twin Cities, let’s see that it’s really a foretaste of the chaos – forget the persecution stuff
– that’s fun – that’s the stuff that drives you into Jesus. But the chaos — not knowing what is
right and not being sure what to believe
and not having any basis for making judgments – that will get worse and worse, it really will. And
it will be more and more difficult for our children and our children’s children to know even right
from wrong.

Now loved ones, God’s himself has told us that as that increasingly happens, this dear book will
keep us stable. So I would encourage you to do what I intend to do which is, until I die, to
study and respect and do my best to live by the words of this book. This will keep us sane as the
world gets more and more insane. Now, with that introduction, I’d remind you that we are still in
this exciting chapter, which I intend to pursue whatever happens! So, Romans 11 and we’re at verse
18 loved ones and we believe God knew what he was about when he guided us to study this book and
that he has things to say to us.

Romans 11:18 runs like this; “Do not boast over the branches” and that we dealt with two weeks ago.
“If you do boast, remember it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you.”
Now that’s what we’re studying today and I believe God has some important truths to get over to us

about that.

The temporal meaning of the word, in other words the meaning that God was trying to get over to the
church in Rome – and that’s the meaning of “the temporal word” – was this: in the early church there
were believing Jews and believing Gentiles and God was saying through Paul, “You who are Gentiles,
don’t lord it over the Jews – the believing Jews – because actually they are part of the original
root that supports you. And remember it’s the root that supports you not you supporting the root.
So that’s what Paul was saying. Now what is the eternal meaning; that is, what is the meaning that
God has for us in the church in Minneapolis? I think you’ll find it if you answer the question what
is the root that supports us? You remember two weeks ago we said that it was Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob — we said it was the patriarchs; those men who first established, clearly, the way we human
beings were meant to live. We were meant to live as they did – by faith. By faith that our Maker
had put each one of us in this room, here in this world, to do a certain task for him and if we
concentrated on that, he would provide all our needs that we came across as we went through life.
That’s living by faith.

Now that’s expressed very forcibly in an incident that took place in Abraham’s life near the
beginning. He had just won a war against the enemies of the King of Sodom. Maybe you’d look at
what happened in Genesis 14:21 and the King of Sodom was grateful to Abraham and wanted him to share
the spoils and some of the victory. “And the king of Sodom said to Abram ‘Give me the persons, but
take the goods for yourself.’” So the king of Sodom said “I want the prisoners, but you take the
goods for yourself.” “But Abram said to the king of Sodom ‘I have sworn to the Lord God Most High,
maker of heaven and earth, that I would not take a thread or a sandal thong or anything that is
yours lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich’’” That’s faith, you see; that’s living by
faith.

It doesn’t mean not taking your salary no — it doesn’t mean refusing to take your salary. But it
means seeing that the guys that pay you, or the people that are your bosses, or the people on whom
you depend for your income are only God’s secondary, intermediary instruments. The money actually
comes from your Maker. You’re welfare does not depend on whether this company survives the
recession or fails, but that it is your Maker that is being faithful to you. That if you do what he
has given you to do here on earth with all your heart and concentrate on that, your Maker will
continue by hook or by crook to make sure that you have what you need for food, shelter, and
clothing. That’s living by faith, loved ones.

You can see what it produces: it produces in you a real freedom from those people who pay you your
money. It produces a real freedom, too, from grabbing at everything you can on the way through.
There’s something inside each one of us that says “You dumb guy you were offered spoils from a
victory that you yourself won – you deserve it – you have a right to it.” And it’s very
interesting that something inside our own lives fades or feels cheap expressing that kind of “Take
it! You’ve a right to it – take all you can get!” It’s interesting – there is something inside
our conscience that makes us feel that isn’t best – it isn’t the most generous, it isn’t the most
magnanimous. And it’s interesting how we often are elevated and elated by someone showing the other
attitude; showing the attitude “No take it – I don’t need it.”

So loved ones living by faith that God is really the one who will supply all your needs if you will
simply concentrate on doing what he’s put you here on earth to do – living that way frees you as it
freed Abraham. Now that is completely opposite, of course, to the way most of our forefathers
started to live as far back as the Garden of Eden. If you’d like to look at it its Genesis 3:6 and

this was the attitude that has ruled the world really since it began. “So when the woman saw that
the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desired to
make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate.”

What that says in an abbreviated form is that we men and women found ourselves in this world with
plenty of gold in the ground, and plenty of oil and plenty of trees and crops and grain and water
and we said to ourselves, “Forget that business of our Maker’s sending us here to do a certain job”
and we began to pay lip service to that idea and cynically to say “Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t,
but it’s up to me to grab all I can to provide for myself; if I don’t provide for myself who will?
Forget that business that I was sent here to do a certain job in the world; my job is to keep myself
alive while all the others are trying to keep themselves alive too.” Loved ones, that’s living by
sight and most of us actually know the moment in our lives when we chose to live that way, rather
than by faith – we know it.

Many of us had silly little ideas in school –we wanted to drive fire engines or that kind of stuff;
or many of us just wanted to write poetry all day — so we had silly ideas. But there were also
many of us who had real interests; we really did feel that “Boy, I’m interested in that – I’d really
like to do that.” And that carried on for awhile until, as we like to say, the hard realities of
life hit us. Really what hit us was fear, and we switched over from that living by faith idea that
God had actually given us some ability and some insight that nobody else had, and we began to live
by sight and say “Forget that stuff; I’d better go for some job that will provide the money that I
need.” You probably remember that time in your own life. And don’t many of us watch “All Creatures
Great and Small” about the Yorkshire Veterinarian and we us look at guys like that who seem to enjoy
their jobs – he liked animals and he became a Veterinarian and that’s what he did: whatever money it
brings or doesn’t bring, that’s what he did. And many of us look at times at people like that and
think “That’s really the way to live and I wish I could, but I have my payments and my commitments”
so we’re caught – we’re caught.

You might wonder – “I can see how easy it is to live by sight and I can see how hard it is to live
by faith. I can certainly see that when the company pays me my salary, it’s very hard not to want
to please the company above everything else. And it’s certainly very hard for me, as I try to
please the company day by day, not to become a slave to that company and actually to be more afraid
of offending that company than of offending anybody else”. Until eventually that company becomes my
god and begins to rule my life. Some of us can say the same about friends. We say “I’m very
dependent on my friends; it’s my friends that make me happy; it’s my friends that support me and
that reinforce me. The worst thing in the world would be to lose my friends.” Until eventually we
come to that point where we begin to see that our friends are not simply our support and
reinforcement, but they gradually become our gods and they gradually begin to rule our lives.

And many of us would agree that it’s very hard to live by the faith that it’s really our Maker
behind the company that is giving us the money. That it’s really our Maker behind our friends that
is giving the reinforcement to us and the love. Many of us will wonder how Abraham did it. How did
he do it? If all the people of that day were living like this king of Sodom, how did Abraham ever
overcome that desire and that temptation to live by sight – by dependence on the things and the
circumstances around him? Because he didn’t do it himself; because Abraham didn’t do it himself,
that’s it.

I’ll show you the secret, loved ones; it’s one of those most difficult verses in the Bible that
we’ve looked at before, it’s John 8:56 and its Jesus that is speaking: “Your father Abraham rejoiced

that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad. The Jews then said to him ‘You are not yet fifty
years old, and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before
Abraham was, I am.” In other words when you want to think of any human being on this earth who has
lived by faith, the one you have no quarrel about is this Jesus. He really did live believing that
his Maker had sent him here to do a job. And he really did concentrate on that job day after day,
hour after hour and he really did live independent of the people who were able to kill him and
arrest him – he did! He lived independent of any desire for his own comfort or for getting things
from the world or from those around him. He really did live absolutely dependent that his Father
would give him what he needed. And do you see what he says? He said “before Abraham was, I am.”
In other words, Jesus is eternal. And even though he appeared to live 2000 years after Abraham, and
even though the Jews of that day said “this man isn’t even 50 years of age and yet he says he knows
Abraham” this Jesus existed in that timeless life that Einstein pointed to as the real explanation
of reality.

Love ones; Jesus was actually alive when Abraham was alive here on earth. Jesus and the Christ
Spirit exist across the centuries, and eternally live by faith in the Creator who is above space and
time. And eternally lives therefore, as a Spirit above the limitations of space and time and above
even the provisions of space and time. He is the root which supports us, because he is the root
that enabled Abraham to exercise faith. Let me show you the verse that points to that. It’s
Galatians 2:20 and it’s so startling — that
the translators mistranslated it – and it’s Paul speaking: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is
no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by
faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

You can see that the first part of the verse is easy for those of us who have been together here for
years. He is saying that “I, and all my old self that has been enslaved and dependent on people and
things for what I needed – that has all been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I that live,
but Christ who lives in me.” Then here’s the part that is mistranslated, “and the life I now live
in the flesh, I live by faith” and the translators were so baffled by the next word in Greek that
they just translated as normal; “I live by faith in the Son of God.” Actually the Greek words are
“Pistei tou Huiou tou Theou” and it means “by the faith of the Son of God.” It’s “Pistei” which is
faith, and it’s “tou Huiou” which is “of the Son.” What Paul was saying was, “Christ lives in me
and this life that I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God being exercised in me.
Christ lives inside me and exercises his own faith in my Father and in the fact that my God has put
me here to do a job in this world and will provide all that I need if I will concentrate on doing
it.”

But loved ones, it’s Christ himself, in Paul, exercising that faith and that’s how Abraham was able
to exercise that faith; because Christ lived not only during Abraham’s time, but you remember he
prays a remarkable prayer to his Father. He says “Restore to me the glory which I had with Thee
before the world was created.” Loved ones, I know it’s deep stuff: but Jesus was before the
creation of the world and before the creation of Adam or any of our forefathers. That Spirit of
Jesus has been eternally in the world, continually exercising faith in God and that is the root that
supports us.

In other words; you don’t exercise faith yourself. Abraham didn’t — Abraham isn’t the root that
supports us. The root that supports us is this eternal Christ that exercised faith through Abraham.
Many of you say “Oh Pastor, I know I should live that way; I know I should exercise that kind of
faith, but I can’t.” Well, I know you can’t – and you’re not asked to. What you are asked to do

is to do what that dear one says in Revelation 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any
man hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” “And
then I will exercise my faith in the fact that my Father has put you here to do a certain job and
that he will make all provision for you. I will exercise that faith through you, if you will let me
live in you and if you will be willing to live the life that I want you to live.” Love ones, that’s
it; it’s the root that supports us. That why I thought the title of the sermon should be “Bearing
or Born”, because some of us walk bearing Christ. “Christopher” is “Christosphero” in Latin and it
can mean either one who is bearing Christ, or one whom Christ bears and some of us walk as if we’re
bearing Christ instead of being born by Christ and loved ones — you know that. You know there
comes at times inside you a rising up that you can’t explain. You know there will come moments
when you find yourself startled by your apparent faith. You’ve felt a lightness and a liberty —
it can come on spring mornings when you get outside and you catch the spirit of the birds and you
catch the spirit of the effortlessness of the life of nature. There’s something that rises in you,
for a moment, and you almost feel “Yeah – that is life.” And then you sink back down into yourself.

Loved ones, that’s Jesus’ Spirit who is in each one of us trying to begin to live inside you, and
that Spirit will rise up and grow strong in you if you will yield to it. Now, I’m not saying all of
us are children of God; not all of us are Christians – I know some of us are moving towards that.
But all of us – and here’s the amazing thing – all of us, whether we think we’re there and have
“arrived” or not – all of us experience that moving; that little wriggling of Jesus’ Spirit inside
us trying to lift us up with it to exercise faith in God and live in freedom. And that’s what this
verse means: it is not you that support the root but the root that supports you. In other words;
you can go to a casino, or you can go shopping on a sale day – it would be the same – you can go
anywhere where there is a tremendous acquisitive drive and you know there’s that power of wanting:
“If I could only get more of this.” That acquisitiveness that almost takes hold of people and turns
them into animals – that kind of thing: now that’s a life – that’s a life and it has a power in it.
But do you see that there is another life that is just as powerful that has always flowed though
the centuries. There is this eternal Christ with his life and his Spirit that is continually here
on earth, exercising faith. And he’s been trying continually to do it in you, and will do it, and
will lift you up with him if you will let him.

And that’s it, you know — it would be so good if you saw that the battle isn’t faith – actually it
isn’t. Some of you say “Oh I wish I had so and so’s faith.” Well the battle isn’t faith, because
the faith is exercised by Jesus’ Spirit within you. The battle is simply: are you willing to do
what God put you here to do? Are you willing just to do what God put you here to do and let him
take care of the rest — if you are, there’ll begin to rise up within you, from Jesus, a spirit of
faith that God has put you here for a certain purpose, that he will make provision for you through
this recession and he will made adequate provision for you until he’s able to take you to himself.

Now loved ones, there is a way to live there that is free, really. So I do encourage you, however
much or little you know about God; realize that that little “lifting” inside you is a sign that
Jesus; this eternal Christ, this Son of God, is in fact squirming to lift you up with himself, and
will do it if you will let him.

Actually it’s very interesting: to be lost and to go to hell you have to try hard – that’s right!
That’s really true; we don’t think of it, you know, but actually to be lost and to go to hell: to
miss the life of freedom that God has for you, you have to try hard – you have to work at it really
hard. I’d ask you to stop working at it!

Let us pray.

Lord Jesus, it does make sense to us, because when we look at the world untouched by our oil spills
or unspoiled by our exploitation, we see it is beautiful. Lord, we can see the free way the birds
fly from tree to tree. We can see how little squirrels seem to be so free and light. We can see
the way the fish seem to be at home in their environment. Lord Jesus we can see, even in little
children’s eyes some of that faith-life that you yourself Lord Jesus, lived, in the most threatening
circumstances in the world.

And Father, we do see that there is something within us that answers to all of that; there’s
something within us that yearns for that – not just for the escapism – but that senses that that is
the right way to live. We thank you, Lord Jesus that your Spirit is moving inside us. And we have
sensed you trying to free us from these things before. Lord we see that all we have to do,
actually, is go with that. Instead of going with the external tide that surrounds us at times in
our businesses and our offices and our homes, to simply going with this internal stream that we
sense flowing within us from time to time, and to simply respond to it. And when the opportunity
comes, to say the same as Abraham, “I don’t want a sandal thong, I don’t want a thing from you, lest
you say that you have made me rich, because my Father alone will make me rich and will keep me as
wealthy as I need to be.

Lord we thank you. Thank you that we can begin to live this way this very moment, and be freed from
the cares and the anxieties and the domination of our own wills. Lord Jesus we would ask you to
come in. We would say whatever way you want to live; whatever you want us to do with our lives,
here we are. We have no better ideas of our own. Lord we’re willing to do what you’ve put us here
to do.

Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with
us now, and evermore. Amen.

Nobody Like Me

Romans 11:19

by Ernest O’Neill

Will you turn to Romans 11:19: “You will say, ‘Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted
in.” You remember we said that Paul was trying to discourage the Gentile Christians in the church
from looking down on the Jewish Christians in the church; he was trying to discourage them from
boasting over the Jewish Christians. He was trying to say that in Christ there is neither Jew nor
Gentile, but everybody depends on the same root of the Christ Spirit that lived in the patriarchs.
That is why he says, “But some of you, when I say that to you, will say ‘Branches were broken off
that I might be grafted in.’” That’s the temporal meaning of that word; that is what God was trying
to do through Paul for the loved ones Rome in 57 A.D.

Now, what is the eternal meaning of that word to you and me here in the twentieth century? That we
have our own version of “branches were broken off so that I might in some way be grafted in, so in
some way I am better than those branches.” And our version of it is “there is nobody quite like me
in this world — there is nobody quite like me!” The interesting thing is that all of us, deep
down, feel that there isn’t, is there? We have talked about this before; that all of us in this
room feel that we are unique; that we are very much individuals. We feel, “There is nobody like me!”
You think of the person beside you and you may think, “They may be friendlier than me, they may be
richer than me, they may be more talented than me, but I’m in some way very different from them and
I can see things that they cannot see.” In other words, there is a great difference between the
pronoun “I” and the pronoun “you.” There is a greater difference between the pronoun “I” and the
pronoun “them”. Every one of us in this room feels “I am me and they are them.” We feel that in some
way we are unique, and even with all our inferiority complexes we still feel this – each person
feels exactly like you—really! You think you are the only one who feels that way but no — I feel
that way — we all feel that way; we are all feeling as unique as you are feeling. We all do feel we
are different; we do feel we are one of a kind.

And yet in our external behavior and in our internal experience that sense of individuality is
continually affronted by the hard facts of life. The hard facts of life are that we all have a
tendency to look very like Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Condensed Soup tins. We have a tendency, if you
look at us in the mass, to look like three-and-a-half billion Campbell’s Condensed Soup tins. Some
of us may be clam chowder and some of us mushroom and some of us tomato, but we look very much,
boringly, the same. If you went to London this morning and you listened to two people greeting one
another and you taped the conversation, I can tell you exactly the way it would run – doesn’t matter
which two people you would tape, it would run the same way: “Good morning, isn’t this a beautiful
morning?” “Oh, it is beautiful — so much better than Wednesday, isn’t it?” “Oh, Wednesday was so
cold.” “Yes, but it warmed up in the afternoon.” “I do hope it is going to be good at the weekend,
especially Saturday.” “Yes, it is so good to have a good Saturday….”—ad infinitum, ad nauseum,
forever amen! If there is no weather in heaven we Britishers will be lost, because that is the way
we talk!

So very different from you original Minnesotans! I felt you were so interested in me personally when
I heard your greeting – it’s the greeting that you all use six times a day, twenty-five times a day;
“Hi, how ARE you?” or “Hi, how are YOU?” At the beginning a newcomer feels that’s nice of you to
ask, and sets out on a detailed explanation of their health, with little details on the health of

their children, their dog, the state of their car, the state of their finances and investments. That
is — they do it once — and then they learn that even if they at that moment are dying of a heart
attack, even if they are filing bankruptcy the next day, you only require one answer — one word:
“Fine.”

We really are desperately the same. The clichés in conversation are funny, but in a way they are
only the tip of an iceberg that gets deader and more lifeless and bigger and colder the more you
follow it underneath the surface of our lives. Because that’s what really gets to most of us; it’s
not the conversational clichés — but the clichés in our behavior that have a kind of deadening
effect on us. We feel we are individuals and yet we admit that from the day we first started school,
through college to our job life, we are very much boringly the same in our responses to life. We
admit that we are like puppets on strings; strings that are pulled by the circumstances that
surround us, by the people that we meet, by the events that take place.

Most of us are like little robots that are programmed by our desires for happiness, or our desires
for security, or our desires for friendship, so that we just respond the same way continually. We
started off in school wanting and appreciating the praise of our teachers, and wanting and
appreciating the admiration of our peers, but then as life went on we ended up such slavish
men-pleasers that we just could not abide anybody not liking us. And so our lives tend to be
dominated by that desire for other people to like us. It is the same with the “rolling with the
punches” that we learned at the beginning. In the early days in our teenage years, we thought, “Oh,
well, you roll with the punches — you just go as the circumstances drive you.” But we’ve been
doing that for years now, until we’ve become poor, empty, opportunists that are driven through all
the twists and turnings of our lives by the apparently meaningless plans of the companies or
businesses that employ us, until many of us have reached the point where we wonder, “Is there
anything inside me that is different or makes me different from everybody else in this room? I react
the same way as them — the boss smiles, I’m elated; the wife glowers disapprovingly, I’m depressed.
The sky is bright and sunny, I’m happy; the sky is cloudy and dark and rain falls, I’m miserable. My
friends criticize me, I get paranoid and depressed and I criticize them back. Things go well at the
office, I come home with flowers; things go badly at the office, I come home and hide behind the
newspaper all evening. The children are good, I’m happy; the children are bad, I’m irritable and
resentful.”

We all know that the boring thing about it is that we are all reacting the same way — and we wonder
if there is anything inside that is original about us at all. Many of us wonder, “Am I just a
machine that responds continually to the punches or the pins that people stick in me?” Of course
that is what makes so many of us uncertain of who we are — do you see that? That is why so many of
us are uncertain of who we are and why we really have doubts about our own value. It is not just the
mass society — it is not that there are three-and-a-half billion other people; it’s the feeling
that we are actually no different from them –- we’re all bumping up against each other; colliding
and responding and reacting exactly the same way. None of us breaks the pattern at all; none of us
is a surprise to one another — we all know exactly how we deal with each other. In fact, the
commercials on TV know it so well that they plan their whole success on the basis of our
machine-like habits — that’s what makes us wonder are we worth anything? Are we of any value? Are
we not just one of a million other cogs that not only could do the same thing, but actually do the
same thing as we do?

Loved ones that’s why we get into our superiority thing; we have this feeling deep down that we are
different — we are unique — and yet we have all the evidence of our own lives and behavior to

suggest that we are not unique; that we’re the same as everybody else, and that we’re no different
from anyone in the world. Yet this feeling inside keeps saying -— because it is planted there by
someone very powerful -— “You are unique, you are unique.” So we decide, “Yes, I am unique; I am
different. They may be brighter, they may be more intelligent, they may look better, they may be
more sociable, they may be richer, but there is something -— I can see something different from the
way they see it.” Yet all the evidence is against it, so the next step is, “Well, branches were
broken off so that I might be grafted in; I am better than they are in some way. I don’t know how —
I can’t express it — but I am. Somehow I am! In the eyes of the whole world they may be better than
me, but really, I think I’m better than them.”

So we join affinity groups and we misuse the affinity groups. The Lions Club wasn’t for that
purpose, the Rotary Club wasn’t for that purpose, and the church wasn’t for that purpose, the Spirit
filled groups weren’t for that purpose. But we join a group that makes us feel in some way different
from everybody else — gives us the security of the group so that we are with other people — but
still makes us feel that we are at least a little above the mass of the proletariat. So we have this
superiority complex working continuously. It is very wearing because all the evidence is against the
truth of it, so you have to keep plugging it hard to make yourself believe it. Did you know that
that is why we criticize? Every time you criticize, you suggest to yourself that you can see
something that the other person can’t see; therefore, in some way you are superior to them. That’s
why we have such trouble praising other people; we dare not do it because our own value, our own
self-esteem depends on proving to ourselves beyond all doubt that we are better than them.

Now loved ones, the truth is you are unique, you are. There is nobody like you and that is the
truth. That is even a physiological truth; even if you were identical twins, there is some way in
which you differ from your twin — you are different from everybody else in this world. There is
nobody exactly like you and there will never again be anybody exactly like you — you are unique.
And if you could only find your real self deep, deep down inside you, you’d find that you were put
here to do something that none of the rest of us can do. That may amaze you, but you were put here
to do something that none of us in this room can do and you were put here to be somebody that none
of the rest of us can be. Our dear Maker designed you exactly with that in mind; you may not know
what that is, but he knows. That dear Christ Spirit, by whom God says all things were made and
without whom nothing was made that was made, that dear Christ made you and he knows why he made you.
He knows what he put you here on this earth to do and to be, and he can tell you. He can begin to
explain to you who you really are, deep down in that place where you feel so empty; in the center of
your heart where you feel, “There is nothing there — I look inside and there is nothing. I don’t
know what to do with my life; I don’t know what to think; I don’t know who I am. I feel I am the
plaything of everybody else, I feel I’m like everybody else — I’m nothing.”

Jesus, that eternal Spirit of Christ, who lives across the centuries and who made you, is alive
today and you are able to begin to believe in him and communicate with him. That is it, loved ones
— he can explain to you what he wants you to do in this world. If you miss that; if you keep on
living that silly life that you are living with no direction but what everybody superimposes — you
make the dollar –- you want to go out after the dollar so you are controlled by the dollar; you want
everybody to like you, so you are controlled by everybody liking you; you want to enjoy yourself, so
you are controlled by your desire for enjoyment. If want to continue living that silly life you’ll
die! These are hard words, but you will be buried like a dog. You’re life will be as dominated by
your environment as an ordinary animal’s life; a life as controlled by the events and the people and
the things around you as a “Punch and Judy” show.

But loved ones, if you’ll begin to realize that there is some reason why you are different from all
the rest of us; your Maker knows that reason, and his son Jesus is able to explain that to you. Now
do you see that’s what the new birth is? You feel so like the rest of us because the “I” is actually
dead — there is plenty of “self” alive — but the “I”, the unique you, is pretty well dead, or
shrunk almost to nothing. And that’s your spirit – it’s shrunk almost to nothing; that’s why you
find almost no initiative coming from inside you. That is why you say, “What should I do — I don’t
know what to do. What do you think I should do?” We live our whole lives by what we happen to see on
television commercials or in store windows, or by what our friends happen to be doing, or what seems
we all should do at this stage of life. There is no sense of personal direction in so many of us
because our spirits are shrunk almost to nothingness. The only one who can make them begin to live,
and to make you come alive yourself so that you begin to sense “There is a “me” in there — and I do
have separate, individual direction from my Maker” — the only one who can do that is this Jesus —
this Son of God that is alive in every century and is alive here.

And actually, would you believe it, the wee bit of you that is responding to this and thinking it
may be true –- that’s his Spirit inside you. That’s the hope that you are even able to understand
this. That’s what proves that you are not dead, that you are not hopeless -— that you can even
sense this. Loved ones, it is possible to develop a relationship with that Spirit within you. It is
possible to develop a relationship with that Jesus, so that you can begin to sense that you have an
individual path to walk, and an individual life to live. You can begin to understand from your Maker
why he put you here; he begins to explain it to you. Then it doesn’t matter whether you live in
poverty, it doesn’t matter whether you live with no friends, it doesn’t matter whether in the eyes
of society you are an abject failure -— there comes within
you a sense of rest at last, a sense of knowing where you’re going and who you are and why you are
here. And loved ones, that’s everything — that is worth all the success in the world, just to know
“I know why I’m here, this little speck of dust. I know why my Maker put me here, and I know what he
wants me to be, day by day.” Then as you walk with him day by day, you begin to sense a direction in
your life.

Loved ones, the start is to believe that that Spirit of Jesus is already in you. Begin to listen to
him and begin to say, “Lord, will you begin to show me who I am, and why on earth you put me here,
and what you want me to do? I want to know that; I’m tired of this meaningless drifting from one
thing to another. I want to know why you put me here. Will you tell me?” Then as you ask him that
day by day, he will begin to bring answers to you. You will begin to sense the direction. But loved
ones the first thing is to break off the other way of life — you have to carry on with your jobs —
we all have to carry on with our responsibilities — but start getting a real line on what your life
is meant to be. That is the start. If you do that, you will begin to realize you are not a
“Campbell’s Condensed Soup” tin; you’ll no longer have to prove that you are different from
everybody else, because you will know that you are different. Then heaven begins to come on earth
wherever you walk. I pray that wherever you are coming from, you will begin to do that and find out
why God put you here.

Let us pray.

Dear Father we are tired, ourselves, of this superiority stuff, “branches are broken off so that I
might be grafted in so I’m better than them.” Lord, it is wearing, and we get tired of it ourselves,
as well as fed up with our hypocrisy and our selfishness. And yet Lord, you know how scared we
feel; we feel as if we’re just one of a number; we feel that we’re no different from all the rest.
Yet there’s something inside us that makes us feel we ARE different. Dear Father, Dear God, Dear

Jesus; will you begin to show us why you put us here and what you want us to do during our few years
here on this earth and what you want us to be?

Jesus, we need to know from you – not from preachers or from other Christian people or from the best
people we know, but we need to know from you, yourself. We know that we can know you in a way that
is different from everybody else. And we know that you’re going to be defeated and disappointed if
we waste our lives, and there’s going to be a piece missing in your plan if we miss what you have
for us to do here.

So Lord, all we can say is thank you for making us different from everybody else. And thank you for
the evidence in our own hearts that we are different. And now Lord, we want you to show us in what
way we are different so that you’ll be satisfied with our lives and so we’ll fulfill the purpose you
had in mind in making us. We ask this in Jesus name.

And now the Grace of our Lord Jesus, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be
with each one of us now and evermore. Amen.

By Grace Through Faith

Romans 11:20

by Ernest O’Neill

Would you, personally, answer this question? Look at your index finger; when did you make it? You
say, “Well, you know fine well I didn’t make it — I just found it there at the end of my arm. It
has always been there, I’ve always had it.” Then I say to you, “Why do you call it yours?” and you
say, “It’s part of my arm and that’s why I call it mine.” And I say, “Your arm?” You say, “Don’t
start that all over again. It is my arm. I didn’t make it, but it’s like my eyes and my ears and my
brain and everything — they just came with the territory and that is why I call them mine.” “Well
then, did your mom and dad make them?”

It doesn’t matter how clever your parents were; you know that the thing that amazed them when you
were born was that a complex little mental and physical personality like you could come out of their
body. They had no doubt at all that they didn’t make you. Yet loved ones we do treat all this
equipment that we have as undeniably ours don’t we? We certainly use it that way; our eyes look
where we want them to look; our hands do what we want them to do, our legs walk where we want them
to walk. We treat them very much as ours to do what we want with. Actually, isn’t it true that we do
the same thing with the rest of the world? We pick flowers that we didn’t make, we cut down trees
that we didn’t plant, we buy and sell land that we didn’t make; we pollute oceans that we don’t own.
We treat the whole world as, in a sense, belonging to us. Yet this old world insists on blowing an
odd volcano from time to time to let us know that it isn’t really ours and that we are here only at
the pleasure and the will of whoever does own the whole thing.

It is interesting, we human beings are not even fiddlers on our own roof; we are fiddlers on
somebody else’s roof. We are set on this globe or sphere of matter that charges through space at
thousands of miles an hour and we have no idea what keeps it going. We have no idea how it got here
and we have little idea how long it’s going to last. Loved ones, that is why so many of us human
beings are neurotic; we know fine well how we would feel if we were in a house and we didn’t know
who owned it and we didn’t know how long we were to have it. We know how we’d feel if the clothes on
our backs belonged to somebody else — we didn’t know to whom — but he might come at anytime and
take them. We know how uncertain and neurotic we would be if we were in that situation in physical,
natural terms, here on earth, and yet that’s the way we are. We say, “My hands, MY eyes, MY ears, MY
body, MY clothes,” and we didn’t make any of them. That is why we are neurotic. That is why we feel
rootless at times. That is why we, at times, wonder who we are and where we
came from.

That might even explain the popularity of the book Roots; it isn’t so much a desire on our part to
trace our roots back to the old country as it is a great desire to know why we are here, or what we
are doing, or who owns this whole thing. That is why so many of us are on tranquilizers and so many
of us are insecure in our lives. It is patently obvious to anyone who looks, that everything we have
has been given to us and we have made nothing ourselves. Some of us say, “Yes, you are so right;
that is exactly it. If this world would only realize there is a Supreme Being and that he made all
of this and that he alone has a right to decide how it is to be used! We all need to realize that
these are his hands, this is his finger, these are his eyes, these are his bodies and he alone has
the right to decide what to do with them. If we only believed that, then our neuroses would
disappear and we would at last feel at home in this world.”

But the insane fact is that there are many of us involved in the Christian religion, in Buddhism, in
Islam and other religions who do believe there is a Supreme Being. We do believe there is a God that
made all this and we do believe he has the right alone to use these things, and yet we cannot let go
of them. There are many of us here who have no doubt that we were made by a loving Father and he has
the right to use these hands and feet as he wants them used. And yet, try as we will, we cannot
allow these hands to be used each day as he wants them to be used. We find we are like squatters who
have squatted on somebody else’s property, and we cannot get rid of the attitude of the robber or
the pirate who wants to use the things that he has gotten — for himself — for his own purposes and
his own time.

Loved ones, you probably find the same thing as I found in my life; that it shows itself in two
basic attitudes. One–you feel everybody revolves around you: you are the sun and all the planets.
That is — all the rest of the three and-a-half billion of us revolve around you — this is really
your universe. Isn’t that why you get irritated when the phone call comes at the wrong moment —
because the god of the universe is on his way out shopping! Or why somebody has the audacity to
dent your car? There seems to be, inside, a whole attitude that we need to defend ourselves. We say,
“It is self-preservation.,” except we know it goes beyond the bounds of self-preservation; it goes
to the bounds of annihilating every other self so that we can live.
We say this is reasonable, but we live as if we are the gods of the universe and this universe
circles around us. Isn’t that why we get impatient or irritable when the phone call comes at the
wrong moment or some other nuisance takes place? We feel it has no right to; it ought not to happen.

It’s strange that at the other end of our being we have the other attitude that feels “No, this
world doesn’t belong to me — I don’t own it, it isn’t mine, and therefore I have to grab as much of
it as I can on the way through.” That is what makes us so anxious and fretful. That is what makes us
so worried about next week or the week after. The bank balance is okay now, but what is it going to
be like next month? We have that kind of grabbing attitude to the world. In fact it spoils the whole
exercise of our own abilities because we find ourselves using them to grab as much as we can on the
way through. We are neurotic people: we have this attitude on the one hand that we own the universe,
and yet in our heart of hearts we know we don’t own it. Or we have the other attitude that we had
better grab as much as we can as we go through.

Loved ones, how can you get free from that neurosis? Let’s look at Luke 2:49. It’s the time when
Jesus was about twelve years old and Mary and Joseph had taken him to Jerusalem. They lost him on
the way back and they retraced their steps to find him, and found him in the temple discussing with
the doctors of theology. “And he said to them, ‘How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that
I must be in my Father’s house?'” The word “house” isn’t in the Greek. The word in the Greek is
“tois.” Jesus literally said, in Aramaic I presume, “Did you not know that I would be in my Father’s
things?” “Tois” is the word for the article, and those of you who do some language study know that
it is used for the neuter plural or the neuter singular to mean “thing.” That is what Jesus said:
“Why were you worried about me? Didn’t you know I would be among my Father’s things? Didn’t you know
that I wouldn’t be lost? I’m at home among the things my Father has made. I don’t feel they are
alien to me. He used me to make them; by me all things were made and without me was not anything
made that was made. Don’t worry about me — I don’t feel these things are alien; this is my world
and I feel at home in it.”

Isn’t it true that Jesus didn’t feel the need to grab at things as he went through? He did seem to
be at home in this world — it held no terrors for him. Leprosy wasn’t something that threw him off

balance. The death of Lazarus wasn’t something that he suddenly felt was alien and an enemy for him
to face. Even the thought of his own torture on the cross didn’t throw him out of the peace that he
had. Nothing was alien to him in this world; he took it all in his stride as a matter of course,
because these are his Father’s things. This is his world and he feels at home in it — he feels
satisfied with it. He was unlike us, loved ones; he wasn’t worried as we are, about whether we will
have enough strength to meet tomorrow because we don’t seem to have it in our hands today. He wasn’t
like that; he wasn’t fretting and anxious about whether he would have enough to see him through the
week, he wasn’t concerned about what people could do to him in this world; he walked in complete
peace all the time. He seemed to have a life and power that he was able to inject into every
situation he came into. He was actually able to transform the world: he changed the stormy water
into calm water; he changed the dead Lazarus into a living man; he changed withered leprous flesh
into healthy flesh. Wherever he came, he was at home in his Father’s things. So he wasn’t at all
like you and me; he had no trouble with trying to lord it over everybody else — trying to pretend
that it was his world, because it WAS his world.

And at the other end of the scale he had no feeling that he had to grasp what he could on the way
through because he needed it. He was absolutely certain that his Father would supply him with
everything that he needed as he went along. So really, he was in a beautiful situation; he was free
to be himself, free to be natural and to do the things that he was able to do without trying to use
them to make himself secure and safe. Wouldn’t that be the way to live – with absolute faith that
your Creator knew that you were here and that he would give you everything you needed day by day,
and that you didn’t have to fret or be anxious, didn’t have to grab at things, didn’t have to lord
it over other people. And at last you began to feel at home in this world; at peace and at rest in
it, knowing it was a friendly place and not a hostile place.

How can you live like that? Well, nobody can live like that besides the one person who made this
place: only Jesus can live that way. Every time you and I try to live that way, we end up falling
flat on our faces with a sense of falling short, or of in some way failing to reach the ideal we had
in mind. The only person that can live like that is Jesus, and that is the clue to our answer: the
only one is Jesus. Jesus Christ, in the first century, was simply an expression, the most perfect
expression, of a cosmic Christ-life that exists in every generation. In other words, just as there
is in this world an independent, unbelieving spirit that is always striving and grabbing, always
insecure and trying to establish its own status, so there is a beautiful, dependent spirit of life
that runs like a stream through every century of the earth’s existence. That is a Spirit of life,
the life of the cosmic Christ that trusts God and feels at home in this world and treats the world
in the way it was meant to be treated. Here is the incredible miracle: just as you were born of your
mom and inherited from her all those old neurosis, all the insecurity — half the feeling that the
world is mine and everybody ought to do that I want, half the feeling that it is not mine and I have
to grab all I can on the way through — so a miracle took place in the cosmic, timeless, spaceless
realm of God when he ingrafted you into this cosmic Christ.

He did loved ones. That is what this verse in 2 Corinthians 5:14 means: “we are convinced that one
has died for all: therefore all have died.” You were ingrafted into that Christ-Spirit, “For if we
have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a
resurrection like his.” Romans 6:5.
God ingrafted all of us even before we were born into this Christ-Spirit that was expressed by
Jesus when he said to his parents, “Did you not know that I would be at home in my Father’s things?”
You sense that Spirit at times. The naturalists have turned it into a religion because there are

moments when you lie beside
a lake and you feel a oneness with the universe. There are times when you are sitting beside a river
or a stream and you feel a unity with the stream and the river and with everything around you. There
are moments when things seem to go exactly as they were meant to go. Indeed those moments come, not
only when outward things are good, but also when everything is bad, and yet you feel a peace and a
quietness that seems supernatural. Loved ones, you have been ingrafted into that Christ, and you are
able to experience that every moment of the day by simply believing and by beginning to trust that
Spirit that you sense within you.

That is why Paul says what he says in Romans 11:20. He begins in verse 19: “You will say, ‘Branches
were broken off so that I might be grafted in.'” Then in verse 20: “That is true. They were broken
off because of their unbelief,” Paul says in this case the Jews did not believe that they had been
grafted into Jesus. When he came onto the scene of time and space many of them disbelieved it. That
is why as branches they were broken off that Christ-life. Then he goes on to say: “but you stand
fast only through faith.” You experience that Christ-life in your own life by faith, so don’t be
proud; don’t think that you yourself have brought about this. It is because God the Creator grafted
you into his son’s Christ-life that runs through every century. That is why you feel the tingling of
that in your own life, from time to time. It’s because of what he has done that through faith you
are able to experience it today.

In other words, it’s as if you are in a room filled with poisonous gases and you are just about to
go under when a loudspeaker in the wall booms out and says, “Lift that mask that you see hanging by
the wall — it has a mixture of oxygen in it. Breathe it and you will live.” You believe the voice,
and you lift the mask, and you put it over your face, and you begin to breathe. Not only do you
live, but you live better than you ever lived before. That is what it is, loved ones — a faith in
Jesus’ life and his Spirit moving in you. If you try to do it on your own, it will just be the mess
that it has been for the past number of years. The only way you can be at home in this world is if
the son of God that made this world actually lives within you and if you allow him to share that
feeling of being at home with you. That is the only way. Otherwise you will continually be scared
stiff when you hear the word cancer — your little heart will just beat and beat to death. Or you
will continually be scared stiff when you think the recession is going to go deeper. Or you will
continue to be worn out with fear and anxiety every time you see that you made a mistake in the
check stubs. You will continue to be a little neurotic who is wafted this way and that, unless the
one who owns the universe — Jesus and his Spirit — lives inside you and you allow him to do what he
wants with your life.

I don’t know if you look at birds, but it is amazing with what certainty they move; the bird just
swoops down on the water and it adds to the beauty of the scene. That is why you are here — to add
to the beauty of the scene. But it can only be if the same dear Spirit that moves through the
beauties of this world moves in your life, and you give up living it for yourself to get what you
can out of it. I pray that some of you will glimpse that this morning and that somebody here will
stop trying to grab for themselves and will begin to let this Spirit of Jesus govern their lives. If
you do, you’ll be able to say, “Didn’t you know I wouldn’t be lost, that I’d be at home here in my
Father’s things and in his world?”

Let us pray.

Dear Father, we have often thought that in some way this world could be our home. But Lord we’ve
often felt we are usurpers. We’ve often felt we are renters; here under sufferance because we’ve

grabbed these fingers and these hands you’ve given us and used them for ourselves and our own
purposes. So we’ve always felt one step away from you; we’ve always felt out of step in some way
with your universe. Lord, we want to be in step. Father we want to live in this world as you
planned us to; using it and not abusing it. Not using it for ourselves, but adding to it and giving
to it and transforming it with your own beauty. So Lord Jesus, if you are alive this morning, Lord,
will you come into our lives this morning? And if you know how to live this life of mine, will you
live it Lord. And we will begin to listen to your voice and begin to get a line on what you want to
do with us. Lord Jesus, we would ask you now to come in and bring that dear Spirit of yours into
us, that will immediately make us feel at home in our Father’s world. We ask this for your glory.
And now the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with
us now and evermore. Amen.

God’s Justice

Romans 11:21

by Ernest O’Neill

Have you ever had this kind of frustrating experience in your life — it usually occurs in a
personal relationship: suddenly the husband and wife or the roommates are verbally at each other’s
throats; arguing like mad and tearing each other apart. Eventually they grow so tired that they
simmer down and then begin to talk. They elucidate all kinds of misunderstandings that have
gradually built up between them over the past weeks. They analyze the actual cause of the argument
and pinpoint it precisely; and then, tragedy of tragedies, even though they can both see exactly why
it happened they cannot create in the other person the same attitude that they have on the issue.
They cannot create in the other the exact flavor of life that will enable them to live together as
one person. So they have to chalk up yet another one on the lengthening list of subjects that from
now on they must walk gingerly around as long as they live together.

Have you ever had that experience? It is so frustrating because you feel that if you can get the
thing under the microscope, you can almost get me to agree exactly with you in the analysis of the
problem. Yet having analyzed it completely, you still feel we are miles away from each other on it
and there is no guarantee that we won’t have this fight all over again in two weeks time. It is
interesting that understanding a thing or analyzing it, talking about it or communicating with each
other about it, only seems to be able to deal with some of the problems that arise in our personal
relationships; it seems only to be able to deal with those problems that arise from miscommunication
or misunderstanding. But wouldn’t you agree that the more serious conflicts, the more serious
business problems, are not affected at all however much you analyze them and discuss them? How ever
much understanding you come into with one another about them, it still doesn’t seem to deal with the
situation — mainly because it doesn’t change the situation.

Somehow the daughter still is determined to live with the older man even though he is married and
has three children, and the roommate still plays acid rock at 6:30 AM at 40 decibels. The husband
still ignores your feelings even though he knows that’s the problem. Isn’t that true, loved ones
that the more serious problems in our lives; be they personal conflicts or business or financial
problems; the more serious ones are not affected by our simply knowing what is wrong or
understanding it fully?

The reason is, of course, that knowledge can’t add anything to a situation. Knowledge itself can’t
change heart attitudes, can’t change wills, and can’t change circumstances. Knowledge itself can
simply analyze and clarify and understand. Knowledge itself doesn’t add any new element to a
situation. I don’t know that there are any of us who have not lived enough years in business
relationships or in domestic relationship and have not found ourselves covering exactly the same
ground, coming to exactly the same oneness of understanding about why the problem arose–and yet
three or four weeks down the line, we are back in the same situation.

Loved ones that is why our Creator said we would die if we ate of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil. That is why he said, “If you try to live this life of yours simply by your knowing what’s
right and wrong, simply by your knowing what is and what should be, simply by knowing what is good
and what is evil; if you try to live your life by your ability to understand, explain and analyze

things, you will eventually end up, if that is your only power, facing one another in divorce court
or internationally looking at each other from behind rows of inter-continental missiles.”

Isn’t that where we find ourselves? The days of the League of Nations are so far back in Neanderthal
times that we laugh at it. The UN is a joke now and the whole idea of being a world citizen is
something that we left back there in those optimistic days of the twenties. The tragedy is that even
in domestic and military situations, confrontation rather than harmony is the order of the day. Even
though we are more organized to live together in peaceful communities than our forefathers ever
were, we can’t find a peaceful community. Even Miami (Florida) — that is in a heavenly physical
situation — becomes the very epitome of our inability to get on with each other.

Loved ones, the truth is that the tree of knowledge actually doesn’t do a thing. It doesn’t change
anything in most of the problems that we come up against. It deals only with some very superficial
problems. Let’s go, for instance, to a real historical situation in 1440 B.C. Come with me onto a
promontory on the edge of the Red Sea. The water is rolling with massive waves and on this
promontory stands one bearded man and around him are more than half a million men, women and
children with ox carts and every means of conveyance that you can imagine, piled with tables,
chairs, clothing and animals. They are right on the edge of that promontory, the Red Sea is right
behind them, they have their backs up against it, and in front of them is the elite chariot corps of
the Egyptian army, over six hundred of those chariots plus hundreds of other chariots, and they are
moving towards them with drawn weapons. It doesn’t matter what that old man Moses comes up with on
his computer — it doesn’t! He can computerize his options like mad; he can draw up his curves of
probability — it doesn’t matter how thoroughly he analyzes that situation; knowledge,
understanding, and analysis will do nothing for him in that situation because he needs some new
element coming into the problem.

Loved ones, that is what most of us need in those situations where we talk about a rock and a hard
place: we need a new element, something new coming in, some new light coming in from behind. We, of
course, try to get along with yet more analysis. All we actually do is back all the men, women,
children and ox carts up to about three feet of water, and then we calculate how much deeper they
can go and still keep their noses above water. That is why our lives often are just poorly disguised
retreats. That is why we are so often in the situation of the guy who was beating his wife. When
asked, “Have you stopped beating your wife?” he said, “No, but I have been visiting the psychologist
and now I know why I’m beating her.”

That is so often the situation in our lives isn’t it? We can explain why we are here; we can analyze
it completely; we understand all about it, we know what should be, and yet our lives are continuing
to retreat. In other words, we refuse to see the reality of Moses’ situation. In actual fact, at
that moment what he needed was a completely new element that would change the situation. Maybe you’d
look at what happened in Exodus 14:16: “Lift up your rod, and stretch out your hand over the sea and
divide it, that the people of Israel may go on dry ground through the sea. And I will harden the
hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and
all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen.” Then the actual event, verse 21: “Then Moses
stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all
night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the people of Israel went into
the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their
left.”

That is the only way this life will work. The way you and I play at it; nibbling at the tree of

knowledge, understanding it and analyzing it and trying to manipulate the circumstances, and
manipulating one factor against another, won’t work! It doesn’t matter how many problem factors you
manipulate against how many other problem factors; you end up with side effects that are not a cure
or a remedy and are not life as it is meant to be. In other words we will end up in the same problem
as we eventually end up with in so many of our medical treatments: we deal with a particular disease
and end up with so many side effects that we have to start all over again. Actually the only way to
live life in this world is to believe that Jesus, the son of our Creator, the Spirit of creative
life that made the Red Sea split, is alive, and that you and I are
in him — much as we used to be in our mother’s womb. We are in him and he is able to inject that
Spirit of creative life that holds the molecules of this world together into all kinds of situations
in our lives — he is actually able to rearrange the molecules. He who first made them — who first
created them — he is able to change them and alter them so that the situation is radically
different from what it is at the moment. That’s the only way in which we can live in this world and
it is the way we are meant to live in this world.

In other words loved ones, if we don’t live by this tree of life, by receiving from this Christ by
whom all things were made and without whom was not anything made that was made, receiving from him
through our faith this life that originally created the world and receiving it into the situations
of our lives, there will be no change. The tragedy with most of our lives in not that knowledge is
bad, but that we are trying to live this life by the force of our own knowledge and all we are doing
is rearranging the problem; we are not actually changing it. What we need to do is not to analyze,
examine, talk, or communicate more, though I’m sure we should do all those things, but the vital
thing we need to do is exercise faith like Moses did in that situation, so that we are able to
receive new creative life from God. Our lives weren’t made to run
as if God no longer existed — he hasn’t given up the business of changing things and that’s the
only way our lives will work.

Actually we are the ones who are to bring that life into this world. The dogs can’t, the birds are
beautiful, the animals are lovely, but little worms, insects or caterpillars can’t bring this life
of God into this world. You
and I have the ability to believe in him and to exercise faith so that he will bring it in. Loved
ones, it is what happened in 885 B.C., six hundred years after that situation with Moses. Elijah
found himself at Zarephath in the middle of a drought. Look at it in 1 Kings 17:10-16, “So he arose
and went to Zarephath, and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow, was there
gathering sticks; and he called to her and said, ‘Bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may
drink.’ And as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, ‘Bring me a morsel of bread in
your hand.’ And she said, ‘As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal
in a jar, and a little oil in a cruse; and now, I am gathering a couple of sticks, that I may go in
and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.” The drought had found her as it
found all the other people — with no resources to meet it. “And Elijah said to her; ‘Fear not; go
and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward
make for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord the God of Israel, ‘The jar of meal shall not
be spent, and the cruse of oil shall not fail, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the
earth.’ And she went and did as Elijah said; and she, and he, and her household ate for many days.
The jar of meal was not spent, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord
which he spoke by Elijah.”

You have experience of that; all of us think it is looking into that little bowl and expecting to
see the oil go down when you take a cup out, and the oil stays there. We all like to think it is

that way, but actually most of us here have experienced this; we have come into situations where we
were in such dire straits that all we could do is depend on God. We couldn’t look ahead ten years,
two years, or even a week, all we could do was depend on God and see ourselves through today. And
to this very day there are many of us in this room who cannot explain how the money lasted; if you
asked us to go back and explain the bank account and how the checks went, we could not explain it.
It baffles us. We came through that hard time; be it financial, domestic or physical, and we cannot
explain how the energy or the strength or the resources lasted. Of course what was really happening
was that we were, at that moment, eating of the tree of life. But an old unbelief gets into our
hearts and we think there is some explanation: “Yes, it was just lucky; they didn’t ask for rent at
the right time.” But we actually can’t even explain, cynically, what we believe happened. The truth
is that we were actually experiencing what Elijah was experiencing: we were receiving from the tree
of God’s spiritual creative life that energy that is able to regroup the molecules in this world and
that is able to change the situation, simply because we were at the point of desperation. We at last
no longer depended on our own knowledge or ability because that was washed out. We at last were
depending wholly on God; therefore our faith enabled him to give us that life.

Now loved ones, that’s what the Israelites experienced — among all the people of the world they
experienced that tree of life first. They first saw Moses split the Red Sea by faith in this life.
They first saw this life level the walls of Jericho. They first saw this life produce water for them
to drink out of a rock in the wilderness. They first saw this life lay down manna bread every
morning for all the half million to million people that wandered for forty years in the wilderness.
They first saw this life destroy hostile armies by plagues that were unknown to man. They first say
that: God first showed that creative tree of life to them. They were, in a sense, the first natural
branches of that tree. Yet the incredible thing was, when the Christ, the source of this creative
life who had walked with them in the wilderness as a cloud during the day and a fire by night, this
Christ who had become a rock to them in the wilderness when they needed it, when he revealed himself
as he really is in his own human form —well, you see what they did in John 8. The whole chapter is
concerned with it, but just look at verse 56: “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my
day; he saw it and was glad.” Jesus was saying, “I was the one that was with your forefathers in the
wilderness.” Verse 57: “The Jews then said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you
seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’ So they
took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.”

Loved ones that is why Paul says what he does in today’s verse. Would you look at Romans 11:21: “For
if God did not spare the natural branches” and that is who the Israelites were; they were the
natural branches of that tree of life. They first experienced that life transforming this present
space–time world. “if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.” Actually
it is incredible that he hasn’t spared the natural branches. It is amazing that this dear people
rejected the source of that life after experiencing the power and action and the transforming energy
of this creative life. When they rejected the source of that life what did they fall into —
preoccupation with the tree of knowledge. Do you remember “Fiddler on the Roof”? In it Tevye says
that if he were a rich man, what he wanted to do was to sit in the temple and discuss the Holy
Books! The loved ones who first experienced this creative life, ever since they rejected him when he
came in the first century, have sunk more and more into the tree of knowledge, so that they are
utterly preoccupied with their law; utterly preoccupied with commentaries on the law and
commentaries on commentaries on the law.

Paul is saying to us, “Don’t pride yourself: if God dealt that way with the natural branches when
they rejected the tree of life, neither will he spare you.” Loved ones that is the same thing that

will happen to us: if we fall back into trying to tackle life by our own analysis of it, our own
understanding, our own knowledge, our own ability to manipulate this thing against this thing
instead of reaching out by faith for this uncreated life of God and trusting him to come in and
change things; we ourselves will sink into being cerebral Christians. We will sink into being a
group of people who are eternally discussing theories, reading more books, arguing and analyzing,
but never experiencing the changed life situations.

I would ask you: how do you live your life? Do you live a pretty carefully calculated, controlled,
protected life where you know exactly what is going to happen from day to day and you don’t let
anything happen that you don’t want to happen, and week follows week pretty boringly and pretty
premeditated? Do you live life very much within the perimeter of your own knowledge and your own
understanding and your own ability to control? When you go to bed at night, do you find yourself
thinking, “Now what is happening at work? What does this person think of me? Yes, they are thinking
this, so I’ll have to take that action and cut them off there. This other thing is happening here,
so I’ll have to manipulate that.” Do you see that that is a lie? You may say it is natural because
so many of us do it, but that is a lie that depends on our knowledge and ability to control things
and our ability to out think or out maneuver the other person. Or do you go to bed at night
preoccupied with your dear Father; preoccupied with your dear God and with his Son Jesus? Loving
them, enjoying them, confident that tomorrow they will inject new light into each situation that you
meet?

Which way: do you expect something new to happen to you each day? Do you exercise faith for your
friends at work? Do you expect some new development in your dad or mom, your wife or husband? In the
problem situations that you are meeting in your life are you exercising faith that Jesus’ life will
come down and change that situation? Or do you feel “Oh, forget it, those were the old days in the
Old Testament — now I’ve just got to manipulate this thing however best I can.”

Which way do you live? I tell you, if you keep nibbling at that tree of knowledge of good and evil,
and you depend on that to live this life successfully, your life will shrivel up. You yourself will
wither and grow smaller and smaller until you find yourself in a little narrow dark cell that is
very like a casket. If you eat at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and depend on that, you
will continually retreat in your life until you become a shadow of what God created you to be. But
if you begin to live excitingly, exercising faith that God will actually change the situations in
your life, change the people and change you yourself, you will find yourself growing bigger and more
developed and blossoming until you are far better than you started out at the beginning of this
life. The difference is one exercises faith for God to act and change things, and the other not
believing for a moment that God can do that, and depending only on his or her own ability to analyze
and manipulate.

Loved ones, if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare people like you and me.
I would encourage you to start today: can you think of some situation that isn’t ideal —
financially or professionally — that isn’t the way it should be? Can you think of some relationship
that isn’t the way it should be? Can you think of something in yourself that isn’t the way it should
be? Now stop trying to manipulate that. Stop trying to analyze it and think it through: ask God this
moment to infuse his uncreated life into that situation and to change it. Exercise faith in that and
continue to exercise faith throughout this week. I ask you to do that this week – after all; it
won’t hurt you to try it! Exercise faith for it. Remember the person who prayed for rain and then
went out without the umbrella and was soaked? Ok– exercise faith for it and expect to see it
happen — make provision for it happening. Just as we tend to make provision for the flesh, now make

provision for this third dimension in your life actually taking place.

Let us pray.

Dear Lord, we see the situation of Moses at the Red Sea and we see how stupid it would have been to
depend on the purely human, mental weapons that we use. We see, Lord, that nothing would have
happened to those Israelites – they never would have gotten past square one if they had been
fighting with just the weapons that we use. So Lord, we do see that in our own lives we haven’t
seen so much success or victory, as we’ve seen a dignified retreat that we’ve tried to cover up.

Lord we see that we weren’t put here on earth to retreat; we weren’t put here on earth to grow
smaller. We were put here on earth to take ground for you and to bring order into this world and to
bring harmony and to blossom and flourish. So Lord, we would take a stand in faith on this issue
that we’re now concerned about. Lord, we would commit this into your hands and we would trust in
you and we know you will act. So Lord, we commit this to you now; and we exercise faith, Lord God,
that you – who obviously destroyed the walls of Jericho by the invisible power of your Spirit; you,
who obviously caused Jesus to be born in Mary’s womb by the invisible power of your Spirit; you, who
made bread in the wilderness for those hundreds of thousands of Israelites for over forty years by
the invisible power of your Spirit; we ask you now to infuse a transforming energy into this
situation and we ask you to change it. We ask you to change the person’s attitude; to change their
heart; change the situation itself and the circumstances.

Lord, we want to move forward toward Red Seas; we want to move forward to walls of Jericho. We want
to move forward to things we cannot tackle by our own power. And Lord, we’re ashamed how boring our
life has become as we’ve sunk back into the limitations of what we’re able to face by our own
unaided knowledge. Lord we want to end that; we want to launch out and we want to go forward and
meet Jericho’s that we’ll only be able to face through our faith in your power to change that
situation.

So Lord we give ourselves to you now, to launch out into some kind of an exciting life: some kind of
broadening, expanding life so that you are able to make us bigger than life-size. We thank you Lord
that that is your will for us through him who is the tree of life: Jesus – in whose dear heart we
have been placed by you. Thank you Lord.

Now the grace of our Lord, Jesus, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with
us now and evermore. Amen.

God’s Love is Severe and Kind

Romans 11:22

by Ernest O’Neill

If you’d been in the Sinai Peninsula about thirty-four hundred years ago—that is, about 1440 B.C.
you’d have seen a wild sight: there were a half million men, women and children with their cattle
and ox-carts, their dogs and chickens, wandering away from the Red Sea. In front of them was a
bearded figure with a staff in his hand. They travelled for about three days and ran out of water.
Immediately they turned to this fellow who had led them and they said, “What should we drink?” This
man Moses called upon the maker of the world, and he told him to take a certain tree and to throw it
into some water that was ahead of them. Moses wondered why he needed to do that, but it wasn’t long
before he realized why: he saw that some of the children had run on ahead, they
were so excited at seeing the water and they had begun to lap it up. And of course, it was bitter
water and they couldn’t drink it. When Moses got there he threw the tree into the water; it made it
sweet, and the people were able to drink the water.

They encamped at a place called Elim (Exodus 16) for the next six weeks, and then they headed out
into the desert. They were hardly on the journey at all when they ran out of the food that they had
brought with them. Immediately they did the same thing: they turned around to Moses and said, “Why
have you brought us out into this wilderness? Why didn’t you leave us in Egypt? Why have you brought
us out here to kill us and our children with hunger?” Moses did the same thing as he did before,
because the situation utterly overwhelmed him. There was no way he could feed all those people, so
he spoke to the Creator of our world and the Creator explained to him, “Tomorrow morning, and for as
long as you and the Israelites are going to be in this wilderness, when you get up you will see a
fine white crust covering the earth. It will be fine, like hoarfrost.
Tell the Israelites to go out early in the morning and gather it and eat it. It is bread —
miraculous bread — that I will provide for them as long as they are in the wilderness.” That is
actually what happened. They put some of it into a jar and for years they were able to keep that
particular jar of manna in the temple to remind their children and their successors of what had
happened in the wilderness.

Well, they went on a little further and soon it was the old cry and the old complaining again: they
ran out of water again, and it was as if they never learned. (Exodus 17)They said to Moses, “Why did
you bring us out of Egypt — we were happy there. Why did you bring us into this wilderness? We are
dying of thirst.” It wasn’t only complaining and the fault-finding, but a real questioning of the
Creator who had done all these things for them. They said, “Is the Lord among us or is he not?” So
Moses did the same thing as before. He didn’t go out with the rod trying to divine where the water
was; he just went straight to God and said, “Lord, what will I do?” And God told him, “Take the rod
that you used to split the Red Sea and strike that rock over there with it.” Moses struck the rock
with his rod and water poured out of the rock. That is the way the Israelites eventually arrived in
Canaan after forty years in the wilderness, through endless supernatural events like that.

A couple of years ago I saw a verse in the New Testament that referred to that rock event. It is I
Corinthians 10:4. Paul says, “and all drank the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the
supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ.” Suddenly I realized that the
rearrangement of the neutrons and the protons of that rock that was obviously necessary in order to
produce water from it was actually brought about by the same Christ-life that enabled Jesus to

counteract the effects of the wounds that he received on the cross and to come back to life in the
resurrection, I realized that that power- life that apparently broke into this limited time-space
world about 6 B.C. had actually been in this world from the very beginning when God used it to
create the world. It was this power-life that actually became manna for the Israelites; it was this
power-life that affected the charges of electricity that were in the bitter water at Marah and
changed it to sweet water. I began to realize that that super-life of Jesus was what changed things
for the Israelites.

That creative life of God was always in the world and had always been in it and has always been
creating new life that we cannot explain or understand or comprehend. That belief is absolutely
opposite to the deist’s belief. The deist believes in a god, but he believes that that god wound
up the world like a clock; that he set it going and doesn’t bother with it at all and won’t bother
with it until the end. This belief is utterly different from that. It is obvious that right
throughout history this Christ-life has been working changes in our environment in response to one
or two people’s faith.

You can see why Jesus was so severe with the Jews when he came to earth not as a rock or as manna —
but in his own physical form. That’s the kind of reaction you get in John 8, and you can sense in it
the pre-existent, supernatural being talking in time of events that, really, are beyond time. Jesus
is talking to some of the descendants of these people that he had fed and given water to in the
wilderness and he said in John 8:48,52: “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and
have a demon?” “The Jews said to him, ‘Now we know that you have a demon,” because Jesus said in
verse 51, “Truly, truly, I say to you, if any one keeps my word, he will never see death.” This was
a small thing to Jesus, of course, because he had never been dead; he had been alive throughout the
centuries. “Then the Jews said to him, we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, as did the
prophets; and you say, ‘If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.’ Are you greater than
our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you claim to be?’ Jesus answered, ‘If I
glorify myself, my glory is nothing; it is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is
your God. But you have not known him.” Jesus said this because he reckoned that if they ever
recognized that it was his Father and himself that was dealing with them in the wilderness they
would recognize him now when he came face to face with them. Verse 55, “But you have not known him;
I know him. If I said, I do not know him, I should be a liar like you; but I do know him and I keep
his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad.’ The Jews
then said to them ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them,
‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’ So they took up stones to throw at him; but
Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.”

Jesus was severe with the Jews because of all peoples they had experienced most of his miraculous,
supernatural kindness down through the centuries. So when he came face to face with them and they
still wouldn’t believe him, he felt there was no way in which they would ever believe in him, even
if a man rose from the dead. Loved ones that was the experience that God had with Israel as a
nation down through the years. It was the same in the wilderness. After the events that we talked
about; the manna and the water out of the rock and the waters of Marah being changed to sweet water,
we read this in Numbers 14:26: “And the Lord said to Moses and to Aaron, ‘How long shall this wicked
congregation murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the people of Israel, which they
murmur against me. Say to them, ‘As I live, says the Lord, what you have said in my hearing I will
do to you: your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness; and of all your number, numbered from
twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against me, not one shall come into the land where I
swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. But

your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land
which you have despised. But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.’”

Loved ones that is the kind of severity that God had to show to the Israelites who had seen so much
of his kindness and yet would not believe in him and would not trust him. That is a little of what
the verse means that we are studying today and it runs like this: that God is kind but he is also
severe. He shows his severity to those who have fallen; that is, to those who reject him, but he has
shown his kindness again and again to all of us, and he will continue to do it provided we continue
in his kindness. That is the kind of thing that you and I have talked about already.

The old story in Genesis puts it so clearly: it says that there is a tree of life and a tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life is Jesus’ super-life that can make water come out of a
rock; can make bitter water sweet, and can make food where there is none. You can either live your
life trusting and depending and believing that that super-life of Christ is here and can do those
things, or you can commit yourself to living by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Do you know what that is? It is knowledge of what people have done in the past. It is the knowledge
of how others have tackled this life on their own. It is the system of precedents, “What other
people have done in the past, that’s what I’ll do.” If you live by that knowledge; trusting in your
own ability to tackle life and all its problems on your own, then God will be severe with you and
will sever you from the tree of life the way he severed the Israelites. Loved ones that is what
Richard Pryor came up against — the severity of God. He is the comedian that was free-basing
cocaine—at least we think that is what he was doing. Free-basing is when they take cocaine, the
impure powder that is sold on the street, and they put it into pure ether to purify it and then heat
it, and while the heat is on it they breathe in the fumes. The experiment is fraught with hideous
danger because you have bare, naked flame on that ether so it is a volatile situation. As far as we
know from the papers, that is what happened; the thing just blew up in his face: he is fighting
third degree burns and it is still a battle whether he will live or not.

Now it’s not that God looked down and made that happen; but God has built into our world all kinds
of natural consequences that follow when we live a non-faith life. When we live a life that is based
on our knowledge or our ability to bring about certain things by shrewdness or manipulation, instead
of living a life that trusts and depends on God’s super Christ-life Spirit coming into us, then
there are certain events that take place that show that we are severing ourselves from God’s life.
That is what happened.

Any of us who watch Richard Pryor as he fights for life see that life begins to come apart at the
edges if you try to bring about things by your own power and ability. Now, why did he do it? By the
way, about a million other Americans are free-basing cocaine at this time throughout the nation—why
do they do it? Well, it is supposed to give euphoria; a freedom and exhilaration that are higher
than any other experience that you can create by other drugs. That is why they are doing it. Why? It
is not hard to see, really: machines dominate a lot of our lives – the sheer frustration that we
feel in trying to get a company’s computer to stop sending us bills that we have already paid is
typical. Machines are increasingly dominating our lives. Computers are more and more running our
lives and more and more of us are going to be working for computers.

Of course life itself, especially the future, is filled with fears and apprehensions of things that

we have no idea how to control, and obviously the delight and the peace and the joy that we were
meant to have with our Creator has virtually disappeared from the earth. Many people can understand
why Pryor and others do that, because there is no longer anything but boredom and depression and
fear in this life; there is very little joy and delight in it. Do you see what we do? We can’t
somehow get the source relationship that creates the joy and delight, so we decide that we will try
to reproduce the symptoms of that relationship. We will try to create the joy and delight in some
way. That is why Pryor and thousands of others involve themselves in drugs.

Do you see, loved ones; the world is not built to go that way? That is what this verse means that we
are studying. God is kind, but there is this severity that we need to see will actually operate in
our lives. Romans 11:22: “Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who
have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you too
will be cut off.” It is strong. The Greek word for “cut off” has the same root as “severity” — you
can see it in our English words “severity” and “severs”. It is true that God severs those of us who
will not live by his kindness: he allows things to happen in our lives that show that we are severed
and in trouble.

What about us? We put Richard Pryor and the alcoholics over there, and we are the “good” people and
put ourselves over here. But I wonder; is that the case? Do you think that there might be some of
Jesus’ life that you could receive for yourself if you would reach out to him by faith and let go of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Do you think there is anything of the kick-happy
attitude that dominates our society found in you? We all want the experience that we feel we were
made for. I’d ask you this morning: do you think there could be any way in which Jesus’ life could
become something for you that it isn’t at this moment? In other words, we say Jesus became manna for
the Israelites; he became the rock out of which the water came for them. The New Testament says
Jesus is made unto us our righteousness, sanctification and redemption. Could Jesus become valium to
you? Instead of trying to produce the peace yourself, by your own knowledge of what will work and
won’t work, could you begin to exercise faith in this supernatural life that has always existed to
become what valium is to you? Could Jesus, who is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification
and redemption, be made unto you tranquilizers? Could he? Could Jesus be made unto you the Playboy
centerfold or the substitute for that; could Jesus be made unto you erotic escapist daydreams; could
Jesus be made unto you one martini?

You begin to see that the issue isn’t, “is this sinful, is this evil, are you going to go to hell?”
The issue is — is there something more beautiful of Jesus’ life that you are not experiencing, and
are you trying to make do with some stupid counterfeit that is actually severing you more and more
from the fine life that is available to you? Loved ones, is there anything in your life of trying to
get from something else the joy and delight that your dear Father who made you wants to have with
you? You can see it is the getting it from something else that is the problem. Actually it is not
the martini, it is not 27 martinis — if you can drink that many — that is not the problem. It is
the very attitude that is contorting and perverting you inside, so that you are receiving a
counterfeit for what can come from Christ himself to you, if you will do what this Moses did:
instead of looking up his little book on “How to Find Water in The Desert”, he turned to his God and
said, “Lord, I believe that you can be to me whatever I need at this moment. Lord, will you be? I
exercise faith in you to be.” Loved ones, it would change our lives.

Do you realize that there are many of us here that will die years earlier than we need to because we
depend on ourselves? I know a man who runs ten miles a day — many of us don’t run ten miles a day
— but some of us swim, or walk, or do other things. But all of us are faced with the same thing in

the morning when the question comes: do you get up and go out and do it, or do you not? Every one of
us has the same choice: do we say, “No, I feel deadly this morning” (and of course, the reason you
feel deadly this morning is because you didn’t get up yesterday morning or the morning before) “I
feel deadly this morning: I could not walk half a mile — I could not run at all. No — I’ll just
lie here and wait until I absolutely have to hit the road, and then I’ll go.” Or do you say, “Lord,
I don’t have the strength to do this! I just don’t! I don’t feel like doing it. Lord Jesus, will you
be life to me now? Will you be strength to me? I’ll get up out of bed if you will give me your
strength to get up and do it.” Do you realize that you would be able to do it? And not only that,
but as you did that day after day, the very habits of your body would change and you would live
longer — and that is just one little example, loved ones.

The truth is, our lives were not meant to be lived by our own knowledge and ability. The very reason
you find yourself baffled at times is because God has arranged it that way. God is always asking you
to stretch a little beyond what you are capable of yourself, because that supernatural life that has
never left the universe is here, available for you this very day. You can actually live by it. You
can actually exercise faith in it. You can. I’d just point out the fact that all of us know fine
well that you have experienced this repeatedly. In a way we are not much different from the
Israelites: there have been times when you have been so bereaved that you could get comfort from
nobody but the one who could give you real comfort, and you got comfort from God at that time. You
got strange peace, incredible peace, over the time of the funeral and through those days afterwards.
You know there have been times when you have been so defeated, so disappointed over exam results or
over a job situation, so worried and anxious about your finances that there have been nobody’s arms
to sink into but one, and you have sunk into those arm. While you stayed in them and refused to get
where you were going yourself with your own abilities, you did have peace and a strange order began
to come into your life and loved ones that always happens when you depend on the tree of life. The
interesting thing is that just as with the loved ones in the wilderness, God right up to the very
moment of your death will keep giving you this opportunity.
But it is true that the more you refuse it and the more you live by your own knowledge, the more
God’s severity begins to operate in your life and the more you are severed from the only life that
makes life possible — the life of Jesus’ Spirit.

Loved ones, would you do what I asked you to consider doing last Sunday: would you start exercising
faith in Jesus’ life? Would you see that you are no different from the rest of us? We are all a
pretty miserable, creepy crowd of little finite insects, and you are no different than the rest of
us. We are all capable of very little on our own except that some of us achieve miracles because we
believe that. We have stopped living off our own abilities and we have started to tackle life as if
this Christ-life would become real to us the moment we exercised faith in it. Loved ones, I’d ask
you; would you stop trying to be God and let God’s life begin to lift your own life to a new level.
If you do, this time next week you’ll have done things you never thought you were capable of. Most
of us are missing a lot of the fun and excitement in life because we are coming up to things we say
we can’t do — of course we can’t do them! But we can do them with him, and if we would go on and
do it, we would find ourselves on a new level of existence. So it can change us!

I’d ask you to remember to pray for Richard Pryor and to ask yourself, “Am I a little the same way?
Which way am I moving: towards the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or towards the tree of
life?” Let us pray.

Dear Father, we can all think of a thousand things which we’ve tried to tackle by our own strength
and Lord we can see that we run a closed universe: we live as if there’s a closed Heaven instead of

an open Heaven. Lord, we know it doesn’t make any sense; we can’t really explain where the rain
comes from and the water vapor and yet we receive the benefit day by day. Lord we do see that your
supernatural life produced physical matter that changes in the physical environment in the Old
Testament – Lord we believe your life can do the same for us. So Lord Jesus, we would begin to live
this life exercising faith in you. And we would believe that your life is able – ours may not be –
but your life is able, and we would begin to exercise positive faith in you to move the protons and
the neutrons in the rocks and the water around us and make them living life for us.

We commit ourselves to living this way Lord Jesus because this is the way you meant us to live and
we’re sorry that we’ve lived such limited, boring lives up to this point. We intend to live by
faith and not by sight. Now the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God and the fellowship of
the Holy Spirit be with us now and evermore. Amen.

The Force

Romans 11:23

by Ernest O’Neill

Do you remember the catechism that you used in Sunday School? The first question in ours in Ireland
was “Who made the world?”, and we all knew the answer. Except that the answer is not strictly right.
Most of us would say, “God made the world.” But loved ones, it isn’t exactly right. Look at John
1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the
beginning with God;” then the important verse: “all things were made through him, and without him
was not anything made that was made.” If you want to know what the Word was, look at verse 14: “And
the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory
as of the only Son from the Father.” Then verse 17: “For the law was given through Moses; grace and
truth came through Jesus Christ.”

That’s who made the world: all things were made through Jesus and without him was not anything made
that was made. In other words, Jesus was with his Father even before the first star was created. God
made the world through Jesus. It’s actually not fair to say that Jesus made the world or created the
world, but that he began to create the world. I don’t know if you know how Genesis 1:1 runs. Most of
us think it runs “In the beginning God made the heavens and the earth”, but actually the Hebrew word
is “breshiyth” and it is the construct state in Hebrew. It means “in the beginning of God’s creating
the heavens and the earth.” If you look at the footnote in the RSV under Genesis 1:1 you will see
they tried to translate the Hebrew more literally. It says, “When God began to create.” Actually it
is truer to say that Jesus began to create when he made all the people and all the things that we
see around us. Then he, by the energy of his own uncreated life, continued to hold the fabric of the
psychological and natural world together while he himself actually continued to create. That is, he
continued by the energy of his life to activate a higher set of spiritual laws beyond the natural
laws that you and I are familiar with. So in a real sense Jesus is still creating today.

Four thousand years ago he came to an old man who was one hundred years old and his wife who was
ninety. Jesus came to them with this creating power that he had and that he was continuing to
exercise. You will see what happened if you look at Genesis 18:1: “And the Lord appeared to him by
the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes
and looked, and behold, three men stood in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door
to meet them, and bowed himself to the earth, and said, ‘My lord, if I have found favor in your
sight, do not pass by your servant.” Then in verse 9: “They said to him, ‘Where is Sarah your wife?’
And he said ‘She is in the tent.'” Obviously the Lord was one of the three men. “Then the Lord said,
‘I will surely return to you in the spring, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.’ And Sarah was
listening at the tent door behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had
ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, ‘After I
have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?’ Then the Lord said to Abraham, ‘Why
did Sarah laugh, and say, “Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?” Is anything too hard for
the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, in the spring, and Sarah shall have a son.’
But Sarah denied, saying, ‘I did not laugh’; for she was afraid. He said, ‘No, but you did laugh.”

Obviously it is somebody more than an angel because Jesus himself says, “Is anything too hard for
the Lord?” Yet God intended us to realize that it was somebody different from himself, because you
see how he refers to himself in the previous chapter, Genesis 17:15. It doesn’t say, “And the Lord

said to Abraham” but “And God said to Abraham”. Though the names are interchangeable in other places
here you can see why the two names are used differently: in this case Jesus was able to be seen as a
man by Abraham. Of course we all know that if anybody looked on God himself they would have died, so
it was Jesus who came to Abraham and Sarah. And actually by the energy of his uncreated life he was
able to transform the tissues of Sarah’s body and the blood that ran through her veins so that she
was able even at the age of ninety to have a child. That is what she did; she had a child, Isaac.

Jesus continued to create in Abraham and Isaac’s children because you remember that Isaac’s son was
Jacob, and his name became Israel. When the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness Jesus
continued to create in the midst of purely created elements that they dealt with in their life;
Jesus continued to pour in this supernatural set of spiritual laws. When they were absolutely dying
of thirst he became a rock that actually gushed with water. That continued through out their lives.
By that means God was able to continuously express himself in the world, to show himself alive among
the people. The rest of the human beings on the earth continued to try the old frustrating,
defeating experience of manipulating the world so that it would do what they wanted, while they
saw this strange people walking through the world continually acting with third-dimension power.
This power was able to deal with the molecules of the Red Sea so that the sea actually stood up in
walls and these Israelites walked down through the middle of it.

This all happened because Moses, their leader, really believed that God was able through Jesus to do
these things. He did whatever God told him to do and he did it whether it was striking the sea with
a rod or striking the rock with his staff. Once he did it and exercised faith, then the creative
life of Jesus was able to change the closed universe in which these people lived. That’s the way it
went on, loved ones. So there was an immense contrast in our world between the rest of us human
beings who were always involved in trying to manipulate the elements of the physical, created life
to do what we wanted them to do, and this people that walked with supernatural power continually
acting upon the created life in which they found themselves. There was just a great difference
between them and the other people in the world.

There is the situation of the fiery furnace: the fiery furnace plus Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego
equals a heap of ashes. Except that the fiery furnace plus Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego — plus a
fourth person that appeared walking with them in the furnace (and this fourth person, the historical
account says, was like the Son of God) brought about a change in the very power of the fire to
destroy their material bodies, so that in fact they walked through the fire and remained untouched
by it. Loved ones, that continued right throughout their lives: the solid walls of Jericho plus the
few weak Israelites wandering around them equaled defeat and disaster, but the solid walls of
Jericho plus the few
weak Israelites plus their faith in the power of this supernatural Christ-life to act upon solid
walls resulted in a victory and a complete advance of their conquest in Canaan.

That was the experience; Jesus continued to act upon the elements of our created world because he
was able to change them and he is able to change them. If we can talk about speeding up the protons
and the neutrons in our bodies, how much more is the person who created those protons and neutrons
able to do? That is the way it works; the only three conditions that needed to be fulfilled were the
conditions fulfilled by people like Moses. First of all, the human being involved had to accept
that this world exists to express the love and the power of the person who made it, not to express
the love and power of the human being himself. It was essential for the human being to see the big
picture, to see why we are all here upon the earth and to see that this earth is here to set forth
God’s beauty, God’s love, and God’s power; not our beauty, love and power.

The second condition that was necessary was for the human being to believe that this creative power
of Jesus’ life-spirit was as real a contributing factor in the situation as the other elements that
he could see and touch with his other senses. In other words, it was essential for the human being
to believe that this life was a real power in the world that could change things.

The third condition was always fulfilled when a fellow like Moses took the rod and struck the water:
you had to be prepared to do what God was guiding you to do even if it only made sense in the light
of the existence of Jesus’ spirit-power. In other words, you had to be prepared to do things that
would seem stupid outside the possibility of God’s power being released. It would look dumb for
Moses to go to the water and strike it; it would look dumber even when he struck that rock with his
rod. You had to be prepared to do things that made sense only if, in fact, God’s power was able to
be released.

Now the Israelites continually had trouble with those conditions. In fact, the Israelites as a
nation never really did get hold of those conditions and never really did get hold of the idea that
this supernatural life that walked with them was actually the Son of the Creator of the universe.
The only reason they received any benefit from it was because of the outstanding leaders that God
gave them -— leaders like Moses, and prophets like Isaiah and kings like David that enabled Jesus’
life to be released. It was those men that had the faith.
About 2001 B. C. God stopped giving the Israelites leaders like that, and the result was that the
Israelites themselves stopped believing that this life-power of God was with them. As they stopped
believing that they sank, first of all, to the level of the rest of us, and then they went on to a
lower level, much like Great Britain. Great Britain was powerful for many reasons but one of those
reasons was undoubtedly her colonies and the resources that she got from them.

As the colonies one by one were lost, Britain discovered that she had been living in the midst not
only of pride but of complacency, and so she began sinking not only to the level of all other
powers, but right into the level of a third rate power. So it was with the Israelites; once the
supernatural power ceased that was able to reorganize and recombine the elements of fire on Mount
Carmel so a fire was able to be created by the faith of Elijah, they became not only as weak as all
the other nations of the world, but even weaker.

What happened about nineteen hundred years ago was that Jesus came to earth in his own personal
body. He continued to exercise this creative power — that’s what happened with Lazarus: his body
was lying in the grave actually so rotted that there was a smell. Jesus came into that situation and
was able to act upon the protons and the neutrons of Lazarus’ body and recombine and reconstitute
them so that actually the blood began to flow again and the rotting and corrupting process was
reversed and Lazarus came back to life. Jesus himself died physically and then came back to life,
and at that time he explained to the people who followed him, “You are going to experience something
that nobody else in the world has ever experienced because I’m coming back to this earth,
but I’m not coming as a visible presence as I was with the Israelites. I was a pillar of fire by
night, I was a cloud by day, I was a rock to them when they needed water out of a rock, and I was
manna-bread to them when they wanted food in the wilderness. I’m not coming back as a visible
presence like that. I’m not even going to come back as you see me here with my own personal body
walking about as a physical person known as Jesus of Nazareth. I’m going to come back and infuse
myself as a spirit into you. My Father is going to graft you into the tree of my uncreated life,
this uncreated life that is able to transform the created elements around you so that you can
exercise this power in your life here on earth.” That’s how he explained it.

Then God through Paul gave this promise that we are studying today in Romans 11:23. “And even the
others,” that’s the Jews “if they do not persist in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has
the power to graft them in again.” Even the Jews themselves can be grafted in but only as the rest
of us — as individuals. What came home to all the people who watched the Israelites in those early
days was this: this is the way we are meant to live — we aren’t meant to live without this
supernatural power that transforms situations that we cannot change.

Gradually people began to see this is the only way the Israelites could ever have existed. This is
the only way they could ever have survived. This is the way all people were meant to live. We were
not meant to live trying to do our best with this world by the manipulation that we could exercise
upon it.
It comes home to all of us: without this power you are left juggling the numbers aren’t you? You are
left moving the chessmen around the board. You can’t actually affect anything or change anything;
you can’t add anything to the created life around you. All you are left is the opportunity to
manipulate and fiddle with it, so most of us end up doing just that. We offer carrots to the
children to get them to do something until we eventually run out of carrots. They come of age and
don’t want any more carrots and still want to do what they want to do. What they need is change, but
we offer them carrots.

Eventually we run out of refuges to run to from our domestic unhappiness. We
actually don’t need that kind of experience, we need the situation changed, but there is no power to
change it. We keep backing away. We do the same in our international affairs; we establish foreign
policy that is based on the self-interest of each nation until eventually the self-interest of each
nation, encouraged by receiving more and more bait day after day, lines all the nations up opposite
each other at the final Armageddon. In other words, if you tackle this present life just from the
point of view of trying to manipulate the things that are given, you eventually end up in defeat;
you end up painting yourself into a corner. You come to a point where there isn’t another human
instinct
left to play against the wrong human instincts. You have no room left because all you are doing is
trying to rearrange the elements of this created life to try to bring about what you want. We
weren’t meant to do that. Jesus did not finish with creating, he just began. When he gave us these
bodies, when he gave us the money and the cars, when he gave us the dust under our feet, the wind in
our faces and the birds in the air, he continued to live in this world and he is able, as a
catalyst, to change those elements; to recombine them in such a way that our life goes the way it
was meant to go and this world is developed the way God meant it to be developed. Loved ones, if you
don’t have that power in your life, it is just a life lived on the edge of desperation because you
can’t actually change anything; you can simply manipulate what’s given.

I want to ask you: do you live your present life in a closed universe or under an open heaven? How
do you tackle each day? Do you have the attitude, “I know the people in the office; I know what they
are thinking. I know what the boss is thinking. I know how that car is going; it is not going well,
and I know what those tires are like. I know what my bank account is like. Well, I’d better get to
it: I will try to make what I can of it this day.” Then you get to the end of the day and you say,
“Well, another day, another dollar. I made it through. I’ll get some sleep and get started
tomorrow.” Is that it? That is pitiful. It is hideous. Do you see that the way we were meant to live
was to get up each morning and say, “Lord Jesus, I thank you that you are here. I thank you that
your Spirit is here in me and that I’ve been grafted into you. I thank you, Lord that you are not in
the business of letting me face this day on my own. You are still in the business of creating. Lord

Jesus, look at the things that I have to face. Now Lord, what do you want me to do in these
situations? Where do you want to change the thing?” Then as you go through the day, be on the
lookout for Jesus indicating to you, “Strike this rock with a rod.” Sometimes it is the person who
has been criticizing you at the office, expecting you to come at them sarcastically and show
resentment to them. They don’t expect you to strike the rock with the rod. Sometimes Jesus prompts
you to forget all that, just to love them, be kind to them, and show them that you care about them.
That’s striking the rock with the rod. So be on the lookout through the day for things that Jesus
tells you to do that make sense only of his power to act and change the situation.

Then loved ones, you walk in faith; exercising faith that this life of Christ is an actual
contributing factor in your situation… more powerful than the other factors that you can assess by
your own common sense. That is the way we were meant to live. Now I don’t know about you, but I
lived for years never doing that: I never saw any change because I never exercised faith. I was
always like Hannah Whitall Smith says, “Looking for faith inside me” thinking that faith is
something that I’ll see inside me that will rise up and exercise itself. Forget it! It doesn’t do
that! You exercise faith just as the Israelite did. This Jesus-life of the Spirit is still operating
in this world and he can actually change situations that you are involved in if you will exercise
faith in him the way Moses and the Israelites did — but you have to exercise the faith.

So would you think about it? Because you must admit that on our own, most of us are just
ameliorating the situation to make it bearable; we are not actually changing it. There is only one
way that we can change it and there is only one plan that God has for us changing it, and that’s our
exercising faith in the power of Jesus’ life to stop the rotting of withered flesh to make people
alive when they are dead, to make water stand up like walls. He is still able to do those things but
he will not do them just for our amusement or just to prove that he is real. He will only do them
when you really believe that he is still alive and can do them. How do you find out? Try it. Try it
— you’ll like it!

Let us pray. Dear Lord, we thank you that that is the way you meant us to live. Father we thank you
that’s your plan for us; we’ve been struggling away here because we refuse to believe in anything
invisible and yet the wind works wonders every day and yet we’ve never seen it. Lord, we’re just
irrational over this and we see that we are. And Father, we intend to begin living the way you
intended for us to live: exercising faith in you Lord Jesus – that man that approached Abraham and
Sarah when they were 100 years old; that man, who was able by his power to enable them to have a
baby. Lord Jesus, we intend to exercise faith in you in our own life situations so that you can
begin to change them and so that our lives will begin to set forth the power and the love of our
maker. We commit ourselves to you for this purpose and for your glory. Now the grace of our Lord,
Jesus, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each one of us now and
evermore. Amen.

The Source of Our Strength

Romans 11:24

by Ernest O’Neill

Would you take a Bible, loved ones, and turn to Romans 11:24 “For if you have been cut from what is
by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much
more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree.” I could repeat it in
our own words and you could catch it very clearly. Paul says there are two olive trees: one a
cultivated one the other a wild one. There are branches on the cultivated tree that aren’t bearing
fruit, so the gardener cuts them off. Then he takes some of the branches out of the wild tree and
grafts them into the cultivated tree. Then Paul says now if the gardener — God — was able to do a
double miracle for the branches in the wild tree; if he was able to cut them out of the wild tree
and graft them into the cultivated tree — then surely he can take some of the branches that he
originally cut out of the cultivated tree and graft them back into that tree.

Or say you have two families living next door to each other. One family brings up the children on
good, wholesome food that the body was designed to work best on. The other family brings up the
children on junk food and fats of all kinds. As they grow older and go to college, these children
learn that junk food is the worst thing they could have, and they begin to learn to eat properly.
The first children begin to eat junk food in their teen-age years. Do you see that if you can bring
the children to eat good food who never knew good food when they were children, it is certainly easy
to call these other children back to what they originally knew as children? That’s what Paul is
saying: if you can call people to a truth that they never knew, then you can certainly call people
back to the truth that they once knew. That is what he is saying about the Jews: the Jews are the
only people on the earth who from their very beginnings as a nation lived the way we were all meant
to live. That is they lived depending on God for their safety and self-worth; but they stopped
living that way. Paul says, “Surely God can call them back and will bring some of them back to live
dependent on God, especially because in the meantime he has called many of us to that kind of life
who never knew it in the past.” So that’s it, loved ones. That is really what God is saying.

I think often we don’t realize this verse is the end of a paragraph that deals with one main subject
and maybe you’d look at it. That paragraph begins in verse 17 and is concerned with the analogy
between the branches of olive trees and people who put their faith in God and people who put their
faith in themselves. Now you and I have a tendency to take that analogy rather casually: we say,
“Yes, Paul is saying that those who put their faith in themselves are the bad guys who wear the
black hats, and those who put their faith in God are the good guys who wear the white hats. The good
guys are the cultivated trees and the bad guys who put their faith in themselves are the wild olive
trees.” But that is about as far as we go.

Loved ones, God’s Word is not as casual as that; God’s Word means everything that it says. Jesus
said not a dot or a comma will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Moreover, there are
verses in this paragraph that imply that an intelligent man like Paul is really stretching a
metaphor very far at times, if all it is, is a metaphor. If the only meaning of a cultivated olive
tree and a wild olive tree is that one is good and one is bad, then Paul is certainly dragging it
out excessively; he puts an awful lot of emphasis on grafting and being broken if all he is at here
is an illustration of good and bad; white hats and black hats. In fact, the whole paragraph
indicated it is rather deeper than that. Over the past few weeks we have seen that God has dealt a

(cid:9)
long time with people who put their faith in him, or who put their faith in themselves, in terms of
an organism like trees. As far back as the early days of creation he said, “There is a tree of life
and there is a tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Then through the days of the Jewish
wilderness times and exile, people like Jeremiah continued to use that language, saying, “The Lord
has said to you, ‘You, Israel, are a green olive tree.” Then near the end of Revelations there is
talk about a tree of life. So God has always talked about putting faith in yourself or putting faith
in him in terms of an organism like a tree.

The question is: what are the two trees? Are they just two ways of living life? Well, it was never
very clear what the trees were; whether they were just two theories — or philosophies of life —
until about 28 A.D. At that time Jesus, God’s Son said, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” (John
15:5) Immediately it became clear to all of us that these two trees did not just represent two ways
of living life; they didn’t just represent two philosophies or theories; they didn’t just illustrate
immorality and morality or a conservative attitude to life or a liberal attitude to life. They
represented two powers, two energies, two sources of strength. The way you lived depended on which
tree you tapped into. There are two strengths or powers into which we can go for our life’s strength
— that is what God is saying in this paragraph. Actually there is only one energy; this eternal
Christ-life that runs through all the centuries. The other life is only an appearance of life that
comes from counterfeiting the results of real life by manipulation and deception. But you can live
either way.

Now it was that kind of pseudo-power that Abraham tapped into in that incident with his wife. His
wife was obviously quite beautiful, and when Abraham found himself coming into Egypt because of the
famine in his own land, he suddenly realized that Pharaoh and the Egyptians may well have wanted to
kill him in order to get hold of his wife. So he said to Sarah, “Don’t tell them you are my wife —
tell them you are my sister.” Maybe you would look at the immediate result in Genesis 12:15-16. “And
when the princes of Pharaoh saw her they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into
Pharaoh’s house. And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, he-asses,
menservants, maidservants, she-asses, and camels.” It seemed that by his lying and deception Abraham
apparently tapped in to some power.

Loved ones you and I have done the same thing a thousand times: we have come into tight situations
where we wanted to make a good impression for ourselves — we wanted people to think better of us
than they really ought to. Or we came into a situation where we didn’t want to face the
confrontation and we did the same as Abraham; the lie just flips off like that! We produce it hardly
without thinking. You know how often it has seemed that we have tapped into some energy that brings
about an immediate improvement in the situation, isn’t that right? We tell a little white lie — we
deceive — and it seems that some energy begins to work that brings about an immediate improvement
to the situation. The fact is it isn’t an improvement at all; it is a counterfeiting of the results
that Christ’s energy-power would bring if we went his way. It is a counterfeiting of those results
by the world system and by the power of evil that runs this world system. But actually it doesn’t
last any longer than Abraham’s did. Look at the next few verses; verse 17: “But the Lord afflicted
Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sar’ai, Abram’s wife.” So Pharaoh called Abram,
and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?”

In other words, we were made to operate only with Christ’s life — that’s the only real energy in
this world — everything else is a counterfeit of that. The world is set up so that immediately we
tap into the counterfeit, the real energy of Christ’s life gets going, and in that case, afflicted
Pharaoh with plagues. In our case, we tell the lie, and then they say something and then you have to

draw the lie out a little further. They build something on that and then they tell some other person
about the lie that you told them, not knowing it was a lie. Then the other person comes to you and
makes a comment about it, and you have to explain the lie a little further. Before you know it, you
have started to build up a whole facade about yourself that is far from what really happened. Then
it is not long before the energy of Christ’s life begins to react against the guilt in your
conscience and before you know it, “through headaches and worry, vaguely life leaks away.” You build
more and more facades with the lies and deceptions until you find yourself in a Watergate situation
where the whole of your life begins to be a lie.

Of course it stops the energy that moves through every little five-year-old who lives gaily for the
moment — and that is the way we were meant to live. We were meant to live properly in this present
moment; we were meant to be “now” people who don’t have a whole facade of lies and deceptions and
manipulation to try to maintain to hold the tenuous fabric of our lives together and keep the house
of cards from blowing away. We weren’t meant to live that way; we were meant to live in gay abandon
and in bright delight in the present moment like every five-year-old. But we tap into this other
life because we are absolutely convinced we have only ourselves to depend on. “If the boss finds out
what I did wrong, nobody else will help me; I have to help myself. If these few friends that I have
see me as I really am they will have no time for me so I’ve only myself to depend on.” It is that
faith in ourselves and in our ability to somehow make life go right that gets us to tap into this
counterfeit life of the world system. Of course it is only a counterfeit life; it doesn’t actually
bring about anything. It often brings about counterfeit results that reinforce our misconception
that there is a power that we got hold of. Loved ones that is what runs through all the bluff
psychology books. The good psychology books talk about the real dynamics of personal relationships
in God, but the bluff “pop” ones talk about this kind of manipulation of each other that is simply
tapping into a life that will disappear like a soap bubble.

It contrasts completely with the experience of Abraham that is recounted in Genesis 13. Abraham had
a nephew called Lot, and they were having trouble with their herdsmen because they were both grazing
the same land. Abraham was really the senior guy and he had the right to choose the land he wanted,
but instead of acting the way he did previously, he decided that he would let the Spirit of Christ
work through him. Genesis 13:8: “Then Abram said to Lot ‘Let there be no strife between you and me
and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen; for we are kinsmen. Is not the whole land before you?
Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if you take
the right hand then I will go to the left.'” Loved ones that is the only way to peace; if you keep
plowing out your own right and try to guard yourself, the only way you can do it is by manipulation
and deception. The only life you tap into is a counterfeit life of the world system that isn’t a
life or energy at all. But there is within you this attitude of Jesus. There is! Just because you
are human God has planted in you the seeds of his Son. You know so often you’ve had a rising inside
you that says, “Well, I’ll let him have the choice. ‘Which do you want for your vacation? You take
it and I’ll take the other one.’” When you let that Spirit of Jesus’ selfless life operate through
you, his energy is immediately released to effect changes in your circumstances.

Now do you want the proof of it? Look at Genesis 13:10: “And Lot lifted up his eyes, and saw that
the Jordan valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt,
in the direction of Zoar.” He took the good land and it appeared that the guy who put his faith in
himself was winning out. There was again that old counterfeit appearance of an immediate improvement
in the circumstances. But read the next line. Lot ended up in the same land where Sodom and Gomorrah
were located. Verse 13 explains it: “Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the
Lord.” Jesus knows things about your situation that you don’t know. This Spirit of Christ made the

world and he made you, and he knows things about your future and your vocation. He knows things
about your marital future that none of us know. His energy and life
is released every time you put your faith in him and in his ability to change things and bring
things about. Loved ones, you actually do choose to live one way or the other; you either live the
old opportunist’s life by putting your faith in yourself or in others, or in the fallout of
circumstances, and that’s what most of us do. Most of us run our lives by what we call the “lucky”
things that happen to us. It is madness! Since this world is in the control of the evil one, there
is only one being that controls the general run of events in this world.

Yet, if you decide to live your life by putting your faith in yourself or in other people or the
sequence of events and circumstances, you will tap into a counterfeit world energy that gives an
appearance of temporary improvement, but actually will eventually be undermined by the real
Christ-energy that is working all the time to encourage loved ones to trust Jesus and to trust God.
If you begin to realize that there is a real tree of life, there is a Christ-energy that is still
able to heal withered flesh, there is a Christ-energy that is still able to guide your life and
guard it and effect change in your circumstances and touch the hearts of bosses and colleagues and
actually even free money so that it is available — then once you do that, you tap into the real
energy behind this world.

I would ask you: how are you living? One of the bases of Christ’s energy and power in a person is
that that person has as the ruling passion of their lives the same purpose as Jesus. Jesus’ purpose
is to bring as many people into relationship with his Father as he can, because he knows this world
is going to be burned up very soon. So the main purpose of his life is to draw others into the same
loving relationship with his Father as he has. That becomes the ruling passion of the life of a
person who is grafted into Jesus. Is your life dominated by your preoccupation with the house of
your choice, the career of your choice, the wife of your choice, the vacation of your choice, the
future of your choice? You know it is not hard to tell: if your life is dominated by that kind of
attitude to life then you are like Lot. “I want the best land, I want the best house, and I want the
best future.” Or is your life dominated, like Paul’s was, with bringing as many people into a love
relationship with our Creator as we possibly can?

Paul heads out from Macedonia to Rome, if that is the best spot, even though it means prison.
Abraham left Haran not knowing where he was to go. They went because they were set on the same
purpose as Jesus. Is your attitude “America is the best country in the world–highest salary, best
living conditions, greatest amount of freedom, best chocolate–chip ice cream, best hamburgers —
this is the best place for me to live”? If that’s it, you’ll tap into that old, counterfeit life of
the world system, and you will eke out your life in a series of frustrating half–successful
situations. But if you will say, “Lord Jesus, I believe you are the only real energy in this world
and I intend to be grafted into you by setting my life to move in the same direction as yours. Where
you want me, that’s where I’ll live. I don’t particularly want to be a preacher or a missionary, but
wherever you want me to live and do my job, that I’ll do, Whatever job you want me to do, that I’ll
do.” Immediately you set out to your Macedonia or Rome or Canaan, whether it is actually at home or
abroad; when you begin to look from God’s angle at the world and at your life and you begin to
determine to do what he would want you to do, you tap into that energy of Christ’s life. You may hit
cancer and everything there is to hit, but you’ll have a power and a supernatural strength that is
not your own coming right through the middle of those chaotic circumstances and enabling you to
continue to exist in joy in situations that you could never have thought of. That’s it!
There is really only one energy. The bluff is that we think it is a choice of being dependent or
independent. it isn’t! That is Satan’s bluff. We were made to be dependent creatures. It is simply

— what power do you depend on? There is only one real power.

When you say, “I’m independent,” actually you end up being most dependent. You end up being chained
and fettered to the circumstances and the opinions of other people. You become tied by a mystical
chain to this world and this society. You become a half man or a half woman. Actually it is only
when you say, “Sure, I was made to be dependent; dependent on a dear Father who is most anxious to
preserve my free will above everything else, because he wants my free love.” Once you say that, you
tap into the energy without which it is impossible to live this life right. I’d ask you: which way
are you living? Which tree are you grafted into? Where do you get the energy for your life? If you
don’t get it from Jesus, then all you’re involved in doing is pretending that there is energy
through your manipulations and your deception.

It just came home to me strongly how often I lied in my life. We are all the same; we are afraid —
we have only our own strength and resources and we don’t see how we will manage it, so we lie. Do
you see that there is an exhilaration that comes into your heart the first time, instead of lying,
you say, “Lord Jesus, I’ve never seen your energy at work, but I’m going to go that way. I’m going
to risk it.” Then you speak the truth and say, “I didn’t do the assignment. I apologize, but I did
not do it.” Or “I made the mistake in the calculations. It was my fault.” Or “No, I wasn’t there” or
“I can’t do it.”

There is nothing like the exhilaration that comes when Jesus pumps his energy and life into you
because you let his truthful Spirit flow through you. I pray that somebody here, that has never
worked that way before because they thought there was nothing going for them, will do it this week.
It ends up in a delightful life with no worry and no care.

Let us pray.

Dear Lord, I would pray for my dear friends here who have listened to this. I pray especially for
anyone who, like me, was feeling very much on their own and feeling that if they didn’t manipulate
it and manage it, it just wouldn’t happen. Lord I pray that you’ll give them enough encouragement
this morning to out on a limb to give up lying and deception and to stop trusting in themselves and
stop trusting in circumstances and other people; to instead start turning to you, and putting
their trust in you. Lord Jesus, I pray that you will find great satisfaction in all of us this
coming week and that they’ll be hundreds of hopeless situations that will come about because of our
incompetence that you’ll be able to pump your energy and life into to transform, because we are
putting our faith in you and we are grafted into that cultivated olive tree.

Lord we pray that we’ll be able to live that way this very afternoon, for your glory.

Now the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us
now and evermore. Amen.

Israel’s Final Salvation

Romans 11:26

by Ernest O’Neill

Alexander Pope was an English poet in the 18th century and he had a theory of life: he said that
every life has a ruling passion in it. That is, every person has one great concern and preoccupation
that rules their whole life. I would ask you to be honest — are you preoccupied with the great
change that God has wrought in your miserable, selfish personality in his son on the cross? Are you
preoccupied with the fact that that miserable little self of yours, with all its frustrations, has
been destroyed in Jesus and has been raised with him? Are you living in real peace that God has made
all the changes that needed to be made in you in the cosmic miracle that he worked in his son on
Calvary? Are you resting in the Holy Spirit as he makes those changes actual in your own life, day
by day? In other words, are you preoccupied with Jesus and your friendship with him? If you are,
that is liberty; that is living in the kingdom of God. This dear book (the Bible) says the kingdom
of God is not a matter of food and drink, but it is a matter of righteousness and peace and joy in
the Holy Spirit. Jesus said when the Holy Spirit comes into a person, he doesn’t bear witness to
himself but he bears witness to Jesus. So people who live in the Holy Spirit are preoccupied with
Jesus, and that is peace and liberty.

Or are you preoccupied with healing or whether Saturday is the real Sabbath or not? Are you
preoccupied with the end times, or with deeper spiritual teaching? Are you preoccupied with Campus
Church or Christian business? Then you know that all joy departs, and you begin to control things
again: you have a cause that you can live for. You have a little piece of esoteric knowledge from
the tree of knowledge that you can use to beat over everybody else’s head and increasingly your life
loses that liberty and freedom that it had when you were preoccupied with the only One that is
worthy of our preoccupation — which is Jesus, in whom all things cohere. But you sink from that
and you narrow back down to a self that has found a drum to beat. I think there is a real danger
that many of us who have known Jesus are sinking into that kind of lesser preoccupation over this
verse that we are studying today. So maybe we could look at it and then I’ll explain what I mean.

It is Romans 11:26. “and so all Israel will be saved; as it is written, ‘The Deliverer will come
from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.'” There was no problem at all with this verse in
the early church. In fact, there was no misinterpretation at all until about four hundred years had
passed. Then Augustine introduced the misinterpretation: he suggested, and in fairness to him he
only suggested, that perhaps this verse meant that there would come a time when Elijah and Enoch
would return from heaven and appear before the Jewish nation and by the miraculous signs and wonders
that they would do, they would overwhelm the Jewish nation and the Jewish nation would be saved. Not
simply in the sense that the milleniallists believe — the milleniallists believe that there will
come a time when the Jewish nation, as a nation, will cease to refuse to believe that Jesus is the
Messiah and will acknowledge him as the Messiah. That’s not what Augustine taught. Augustine taught
that every individual Jew would at that moment in history be saved and miraculously converted. The
Venerable Bede in the Middle Ages spread that throughout the then known world, until eventually it
became the normal doctrine of the Catholic Church. The Reformers rejected it: Luther, Calvin and
the scholars of the Reformation rejected it as spurious interpretation. They went back to the
original interpretation of the early Christian Church, which was that there would come a time when
Israel as a nation would acknowledge that Jesus was the Messiah, but not that every individual Jew
would at that time, therefore, be converted.

You know fine well that such is the Biblical vagueness of our present Christian movement, and such
is the doctrinal emptiness of the religious momentum that is moving across the nation, that many,
many loved ones have gone back to Augustine’s spurious interpretation. They are saying “Look at the
signs! There are earthquakes and volcanic eruptions; there are wars and rumors of wars. The Jews
have now returned to their homeland. Just around the corner is Jesus’ return. Any day now we can
expect Enoch and Elijah to return from heaven and appear in Jerusalem and confound the Jewish nation
with many signs and wonders so that they are utterly overwhelmed by this confirmation of Scripture
and they are all miraculously converted and saved.” Now the details of that may vary, but the result
is the same: loved ones who were paying daily attention to Jesus, are suddenly utterly unsettled in
their Christian lives. Their eyes come off Jesus, the liberty goes out of their lives, and they
concentrate their whole being on this business of salvation of the Jewish nation and they begin to
devote all their energies to that. They lose their preoccupation with their Savior, they lose their
preoccupation with bringing others to him and they concentrate on one thought—to be as close to
Jerusalem or as near to the action as they possibly can be when these exciting signs and wonders
take place and the Jewish nation is saved in some strange way.

Loved ones, I think there are many today who are preoccupied with that. But it is just a trick of
Satan to get them to lose the stability of their own daily obedience to Jesus and to get preoccupied
with a cause — a drum they can beat — something that will distract them from the love of their
Savior and love of their neighbor and their friends and their relatives and their colleagues. Now
you may say, “What is so wrong about this idea of the general conversion of a nation? What is so
wrong about the belief that the Jewish nation is going to be so overwhelmed and confounded by the
signs and wonders that they see before them that they all bow, as one man, down to Jesus?” Easy —
free will — that’s what’s wrong about it; God has always emphasized to us that there was a
condition that needed to be fulfilled if we were to receive the Spirit of his son into our hearts:
he has always stressed to us that it is up to us, and if we don’t want it, he can’t force his son
into our hearts. John 1:12 says that to as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become
the children of God. They had to receive him first. Jesus said, “The Jews are always looking for
signs but if you do the will of my Father, then you will know the doctrine I speak is true. But you
have to be willing to do the will of my Father. It’s your choice. You have the free will. You must
decide to receive me and submit to me or not.” John 3:16 says that God gave his only beloved son
that whosoever — that is anybody who wishes — can believe on him and not perish but have eternal
life.

Loved ones, the fact is that the general idea and spirit that pervades this heresy that a whole
nation will be overwhelmed and confounded by the signs and wonders, that they will all be saved on
the spot, contradicts the centuries and centuries of God’s emphasis to us that the only way to enter
into his kingdom is by personal submission of our wills to him and by a quiet, individual receiving
of Jesus into our lives as our Lord and master and Savior. Right from Ezekiel on, God emphasized,
“You will die for your own sin; you must repent for your own sin. Except you repent you will all
likewise perish.” From Ezekiel on, God has stressed to all of us that receiving his spirit, and
entering into a relationship with him, was a very personal matter that depended on the free exercise
of our wills in submitting to him. The whole idea of a general conversion of a nation contradicts
that truth.

When you go into the context of this verse you find that that heresy is exposed more and more
clearly. The real meaning of the verse is what the early Christian church said it was. In Romans 9
through 11, Paul is concerned with one great subject: the fact that the Jewish nation has rejected

Jesus. He says that only appears to be the case if you think that Jews alone form Israel. If you
think that every Jew is part of Israel and nobody is part of Israel except the Jews, then you are
forced to believe that somehow God’s plan has gone astray. He says, “All who are born Jews do not
live in the faith of Abraham, their father. They are not all therefore members of Israel, the real
Israel of God. There is a remnant of Jews who are part of that Israel and they accept Jesus. The
real Israel will finally be saved.” If you would look through Romans 9 I can point to verses that
give a continuous presentation of those thoughts that I’ve tried to summarize.

Paul states the problem in Romans 9:3: “For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off
from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen by race.” He was himself a Jew. “They are
Israelites, and to them belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the
worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh,
is the Christ. God who is over all be blessed forever. Amen.” He is saying, “I feel absolutely that
I am ready to be accursed for them because they appear to have rejected Jesus for whom they were
made.” Then in verse 6: “But it is not as though the word of God had failed.” The Word of God has
only failed if every born Jew is a member of Israel. “For not all who are descended from Israel
belong to Israel, and not all are the children of Abraham because they we his descendants;” He
points out that only a small number of the Jewish nation are part of the true Israel of God, and it
is to that remnant that the Old Testament prophets apply all the .promises of God.

So in verse 27: “And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: ‘Though the number of the sons of Israel be
as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved.” Paul says that it runs right through
the Old Testament that not all born Jews are actually members of Israel. Then in Romans 10:12 he
points out that the remnant will receive Jesus and they will join the others outside the Jewish
nation who are part of the real Israel; “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek.” In
other words, there are Greeks outside the Jewish nation who are part of the same Israel. “The same
Lord is Lord of all and bestows his riches upon all who call upon him.” What Paul is saying is,
“There is an external nation of Jews that appear to be rejecting God’s son, but it is only an
external nation, a geographical or political nation.” Verse 21: “But of Israel he says, ‘All day
long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.” Then he says in Romans 11:1 “I
ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means!” He is saying there are some of us (Jews) who
have received Jesus. God has rejected the external Jewish nation, but not the internal remnant that
has received his son. “By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of
the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.” The people that he
foreknew are the people he mentions in Romans 11:5. “So too at the present time there is a remnant,
chosen by grace.” And in verse 7: “What then? Israel failed to obtain what it sought. The elect
obtained it, but the rest were hardened.”

Then we get to the context of the verse that we are studying today. Paul shares this truth that the
Jews who receive Jesus, that remnant of the geographical, political house of Israel, will join the
others outside that political group who also receive Jesus, and they will form together the true
Israel of God. Romans 11:13: “Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to
the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of
them.” The result of that is in verse 25: “Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to
understand this mystery, brethren: hardening has come upon part of Israel” — part of the
geographical, political Israel –“until the full number of the Gentiles come in, and so all Israel
will be saved.” All of Israel, the real Israel — the Gentiles and the Jews who form Israel — so
all Israel, the real Israel will be saved.

Some loved ones say, “When you say “Israel” it must be the geographical Israel, because that is how
he talks about it in the previous verse.” But in Romans 9:6 Paul talks about Israel in two senses:
“But it is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel “(the
political, racial Israel) “belong to Israel” (the real Israel of God that is mentioned in Galatians
6:16). So the meaning of the verse is that all Israel will be saved, the real Israel, the spiritual
Israel of God, the Israel that is formed by the hearts that receive Jesus’ Spirit into them. Paul is
here concluding his whole argument in Romans 9 through 11 where he is trying to deal with the
problem where some people say, “God’s plans for Israel have failed because Israel has rejected
Jesus.” He says, “No! Political, racial Israel is not the real Israel. Only some of them have
rejected Jesus. Some of them (here I am, I am one of them) receive Jesus. What will happen is we
will be grouped together with those Gentiles among you who also received Jesus and so all Israel
will be saved — the real Israel of God.”

Loved ones, it ties in with what the balanced prophetic teachers tell us about the end times. The
end times are presented partially by Jesus in Matthew 24, so maybe you would look at that, and then
I’ll try to summarize the mainline teaching on it. Matthew 24:3: “As he sat on the mount of Olives,
the disciples came to him privately, saying ‘Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign
of your coming and of the close of the age?’ And Jesus answered them, ‘Take heed that no one leads
you astray.” It is interesting that Jesus always warns that. He knows how we human beings love the
sensational and the exciting. Jesus knew that and he says, “Be careful that nobody leads you astray
in these things.” Verse 5: “For many will come in my names saying, ‘I am the Christ,” and they will
lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for
this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom
against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various
places: all this is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”

Loved ones, there have always been earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and wars and rumors of wars.
These things have come right through from earliest days, but you must admit that the frequency and
the universality that is explained there by Jesus is not yet upon us and even when that happens, it
is but the beginning of the birth pangs. That is still far, far ahead of the time when Israel will
finally return to its homeland in the way that God has planned it. There is a partial return at the
moment, the same way there was a partial return in the Old Testament times, but that is not the time
that is prophesied, as you study the Scriptures carefully. In fact, the Scriptures indicate, and
most Prophetic scholars agree, upon the broad outlines of this. The Scriptures indicate that as we
expand the nuclear club and more and more nations begin to face each other in a stalemate with
fingers on the buttons, all able to send enough missiles over that will destroy all of us; and as
huge populations are dying of starvation and the only thing they are able to do is destroy each
other, we as a human race will choose dictatorship rather than anarchy and annihilation. We will
turn to that great anti-Christ manifestation of Satan who will be some genius of a human being, who
will show all the wisdom and understanding and the apparent concern of Jesus.

That is why he is called the anti-Christ; because he is in many ways like Christ, except that he is
out for our destruction and not for our salvation. This great figure will show all the wisdom of
Jesus in the way he will organize world trade and pacify and settle the whole international
situation. He will initially befriend the Jewish nation, especially during the three-and-a-half
years of the tribulation when he will wreak an incredible persecution upon those who believe in
Jesus. Now some say the rapture will occur before that and some say it won’t; but all are agreed
that there will be that time. Then he will turn from that persecution and there will be a great
world-wide revival and may people will be saved through the tribulation. Some believe that they will

be taken to Jesus at that very time and that there will be a first resurrection of the tribulation
saints.

After those three-and-a-half years, this anti-Christ will turn against the nation of Israel and he
will lead a persecution of that nation — you can read it in Daniel and Revelation He will head
up the destruction and the aggressiveness that is leveled at the Israelites at that time. It is then
that two of the Old Testament prophets or witnesses (perhaps it will be Elijah and Enoch, or Elijah
and Moses) will return from heaven and will appear in Jerusalem and will confound the entire Jewish
nation by this confirmation of Scripture. And the Jewish nation at that time as a whole will give
up their official opposition to Jesus as the Messiah, and will acknowledge that he is the son of
God. In the midst of that time, just as in the tribulation of the
Gentiles, in this tribulation of the Jews which is known as “the time of Jacob’s trouble”—these
three-and-a-half years during which the anti-Christ will persecute the Jewish nation –144,000 Jews
will receive Jesus personally into their hearts as their Savior and they will join the others of us
who are in Jesus. Then Jesus himself will come at the battle of Armageddon, and then the millennium
will be established.

Loved ones, I would just gently point out to you who are tempted to get onto this band-wagon about
the saving of Israel: do you see that it is a long, long series of events before that time comes in
Scripture, and you cannot break Scripture? I don’t care how much converting you do, you cannot break
Scripture. Scripture says first wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, far more than we have ever seen
before and then there will be an anti-Christ figure. We will all know when that moment comes,
because it is clearly outlined in Scripture with the events that will accompany it. Then will come
a time of tribulation and possibly a rapture or a first resurrection and we will be aware of those
events.

Then will come three-and-a-half years of persecution of the Jews, and at the end of that, Enoch and
Elijah will come and the Jewish nation will officially accept Jesus and individual Jews will receive
him into their own hearts the same way as we do — because we wanted to; because we saw that he was
our savior — not simply because we saw a whole lot of wonders and signs. Heaven will be filled
with people who love Jesus, not just people who have been confounded and overwhelmed by his power.
I would just ask you to listen to the sane and stable words of God. “Since all these things are thus
to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting
for and hastening the coming of the day of the God, because of which the heavens will be kindled and
dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire! But according to his promise we wait for new
heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore beloved, since you wait for these,
be zealous to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.”
2 Peter 3:11-14.

I would encourage each one of us not to get our eyes off our dear Savior and not to get our eyes off
the Great Commission. We have an obligation first to our Lord, and then to that person who sits next
to us, and then to our dear relatives and colleagues at work. The Great Commission will not
disappear from the face of the earth until Jesus comes, and that is our duty and obligation. I do
pray that you will walk as this dear Word says, in peace maintaining your own lives holy and without
blemish — so that if we should be wrong, we will not be caught out, that Jesus will find us. He
knows, “As now, so then.” As you are today, so you will be at the moment of your death and so you
will be when he comes. That’s why he says, “Today is the day of salvation.” Change now, today.

Let us pray.

Dear Father, we thank you for this dear word of yours. And we thank you for the dear scholars and
teachers
who have given us clear understanding of what it means. Father we thank you that there is no
contradiction in your word; that it is clear, and if we are patient, and if we will above all do
your will in our own lives, we will understand even these difficult things. So Lord while praying
for the loved ones in the Jewish nation, and while praying for the Zionists who are trying to
establish some political entity and plead that it is the return of God’s people to their homeland,
Lord we pray for them. We pray for them even as they misunderstand. And we would pray our Father
that you would give us the stability and the grace to walk in the assurances of your word and to
walk in peace, and not to be unsettled, and not to be running after sensational events, but to see
that you have a plan and you have a program and no man can hurry it and no man can slow it up.

So Lord, we thank you. Thank you for your kindness, Lord Jesus, in explaining to us as much as we
need to know. Thank you Lord. Pray for each other this day that we may live as people who are
going to die this evening. We know that’s the only reality Lord, because we know it will be a day
like today that we leave this earth. So we would pray for each one of us; that we would live this
day as if it were the last day of our lives.

Now the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us
now, and evermore. Amen.

Salvation From Sin

Romans 11:27

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Imagine this scene: It is a summer evening and you are sitting by a lake enjoying the blessed
quietness and peace. You feel the grass underneath your hand. Suddenly it comes to you that this
grass was made by Jesus. Then you begin to realize that your dear Father and his Son are looking at
you at that moment. Both of them are glad that you are glad. You have a great sense of how rich you
are and how well cared for you are, that such a Father and Son are your nearest and dearest
relatives.

It is not so much even the grass and the shining of the sunset and the gleaming of the lake that
fills your heart at that moment as a sense of the presence of your Father all around you. You sit
there enjoying the world the way you were meant to enjoy it — living the way you were meant to
live. You are living at that moment in absolute dependence on your dear Father and receiving from
him the things that he has made for your enjoyment and through them receiving his love.

Loved ones, I think every one of us have had that kind of experience at some time. However far away
from God you may think you are, it only proves that deep down in the very heart of your personality
there is still something in you that is normal and that responds to your Creator the way you were
made to respond. There is still something good inside you that does enjoy God and can sense the
peace and quiet of dependence upon him. That is really the way we are meant to live.

Then at that moment, I want you to examine carefully the responses that you know would take
place in your heart when I mentioned these things, as you are sensing that dependence upon God and
the peace of receiving his world as he gives it to you, just at that moment a girl in a bikini walks
by (I apologize, ladies, but I have to use something that will bring it home to us guys). Or just
at that moment, a funnel cloud appears on the horizon, or some friend calls down to us that it is
time to eat. It is interesting at that moment we all respond the same way. We shift right into
overdrive for all kinds of reasons. In fact, we hardly shift the gears; it’s almost as if other
things shift the gears. It’s as if some powers come in and almost strip the gear-box, and you shift
right up into overdrive. That overdrive tramples over the sense that you had of quiet peace and calm
confidence that your Father was looking at you and the deep sense that you are receiving all that
you needed from him. Suddenly it is as if something alien enters into your heart. If you think back
to that situation — those are pretty neutral events — but the moment they occur it is as if
something alien enters into your heart and jars you out of the sense of peace and quiet enjoyment of
God that you were experiencing. It’s as if something destroys the sense of God’s presence that you
were feeling. Suddenly you are no longer preoccupied with God. And somehow the Father and the Son
fade into the background, and into the foreground comes you with all your needs and wants. You find
yourself utterly preoccupied with you.

It is interesting that the dear Holy Spirit that gave you those feelings at the beginning is
still inside you struggling to say, “That dear girl in the bikini is somebody’s little baby.
Somebody thought the world of her as a dear little innocent baby. She is part of God’s kindliness,
who makes everything beautiful in its own way.” The Holy Spirit is still struggling inside you to
make you feel that, so that you can continue that sense of receiving something from God. But somehow
you are preoccupied with what you want or can get from that girl. The Holy Spirit is doing the same

with the funnel(cid:9)cloud. He is struggling to say to you, “Look, the funnel cloud is a part of God’s
natural creation. It has been dislocated by the fall of man from God’s fellowship, but it is still
part of God’s creation and he is able to show you how to avoid it if you will rest in him and not
shake with fear.”
But you have difficulty getting hold of that. The Holy Spirit is struggling inside you to enable you
to continue to give God thanks that he made the grain and the meat as you munch on the old
hamburger. But somehow that Holy Spirit gets trampled underneath by a Pandora’s box of evils and
passions that rise up inside you. Everything from fight, flight, fright to the desire to avoid the
tornado at all costs, the desire to get what enjoyment you can from supper. Somehow those things
overwhelm you and you become utterly preoccupied with them. The girl disappears into breasts and
thighs, and the dear child that God made disappears into all the things that you want to break her
up into. The tornado ceases to be something that is under God’s control, that he can protect and
guard you from as his dear child. Instead you begin to give yourself over completely to seeing that
it is the most powerful thing that affects your destiny at that moment. It isn’t God, it is the
tornado, and you have to get away from it. It is the same with the call for supper; you give
yourself over wholly to looking forward to what you are going to get for supper.

Now loved ones, that is what sin is. It is nothing more evil than that. It’s as apparently innocent
as that. It’s really practical atheism — believing that there is a God or that there may be a God
and that you should give him some thought from time to time, but when the pressing events and
opportunities of ordinary life come along — you are on your own. It’s that belief that there is a
God whom you can think about when you have the time, but when practical life has to be taken care
of, you had better watch out for yourself. That’s really what sin is. It’s actually living
independent of God. The interesting thing is that that is only the negative side. The negative side
is your refusal to continue to rest in the feelings, sitting by the lake that you had begun to feel
from God. That is the negative side. It is your rejection of trusting God for whatever comes along
and continuing to live in that peace. That’s the negative side — refusing to depend on God himself
whatever is coming along.

Actually there is a positive side to sin, because you can’t not depend on somebody. That’s the
interesting thing. You have to depend on somebody. If you don’t depend on God, then you have to
start depending on the girl in the bikini or what you can get from e girl for your enjoyment. Or
you have to start depending on the cleverness of your own mind to work out a way to avoid the
tornado — you have to depend on the enjoyment that you are going to get from whatever you are going
to eat for supper. That’s exactly what we do. We begin to depend on those things and those people
and we become fettered to them.

Of course, the frustrating thing about that is that those things-the girl, the hamburger, safety
from the tornado-those things are only expressions of God’s love. You and I were made to be
satisfied with nothing less than God’s love. They are only an expression of God’s love. They are
related to God’s love as a handshake or a kiss is, and if you become preoccupied with the handshake
or the kiss it is unsatisfying. It’s frustrating because it is only an expression of the love, and
what you need is the love. So the first frustrating result of living independent of God is that even
the things that you depend on, that are expressions of his love, do not satisfy you. You know that
and you try to get more and more of them, but they still do not satisfy. It is very frustrating.

There is another frustration of course. You have to manage those things once you take over yourself
— once you shift into overdrive for yourself. Once you let fly out of your mind that this is the
Father’s funnel cloud, even though it is an errant part of the creation, it is still the Father’s.

He is still able to work all things together for good to them that love him, [Romans 8:28] you let
that thought out of your mind and you have to start managing this funnel cloud yourself. You have to
manage through the cleverness of your mind how to get away from it. You have to manage this girl so
that you can enjoy what you want to enjoy; you have to bring about the right kind of supper so that
you will be happy. The interesting thing is once you start trying to manage things and people to
give you the peace that God would bring you, you get into the God business, for which none of us
were fitted. So we face incredible frustration as we begin to see that things and people will not do
what we want them to do. We begin to produce all those disease generating feelings that come with
self-assertion such as pride, resentment and anger. That is an effect of sin.

The third frustration is even worse because four billion other happy little souls are trying to do
the same thing. We are only one in four billion. All the others are trying to manipulate the girls,
the funnel clouds, and the hamburgers the same way. The competition is fierce. That gets you into
all kinds of feelings of envy, jealousy and selfish ambition to manage them as well as everybody
else is doing. Loved ones, that is where we get into sinful acts and thoughts and words — what we
call “sins.” Sin is really the basic problem — the apparently innocent independence of God or
parting from the sense that he is there with his arms round about us. That attitude is the heart of
the problem. But that produces sinful acts and thoughts and words. Really, they are just acts and
thoughts and words that are full of “sin”, or independence of God. That brings us to the verse that
we are studying today.

It’s Romans 11:27: “And this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.” That’s
God’s promise. God can take away those sins of yours and mine. The Greek verb doesn’t mean “forgive”
or “cover”. It means “take them away.” The Greek verb is athelomai. It means “send them away.” God
can take away those sins of yours. He can remove that whole attitude and that whole experience out
of your life.

Let’s go back to the lake. Look again for the moment at your responses when you saw the girl or the
funnel cloud, or when your friend called you to that supper was ready. Look at your responses. Do
you remember that we said it was as if some other thing changed the gears? You hardly had control of
it yourself. It was as if you heard the voice calling to you, and immediately everything went out of
your head. It was if you saw the funnel cloud and fear took over. It was as if you saw the girl and
suddenly all your thoughts were going one way. It’s as if you weren’t in control — the thing took
over from you. It’s as if your whole personality actually began to run on its own, isn’t it?

In fact, some of us would say, “Look, the things that you told us the Holy Spirit was trying to do
in us, they do seem the right and holy things. I agree with you. It does seem right that the Holy
Spirit was striving inside to point out to us that this was still God’s funnel cloud — that this
was still God’s little child — this was still God’s supper. And whatever he wanted us to have would
be best for us. That is true. Those seem the holy things. But I’ll tell you the other things that I
felt seemed the natural things to me. Those are the things that come naturally to me. All those
other feelings that you described seem nature to me too.” I think most of us would say it is almost
as if the deck is stacked against us when we are in that situation. It seems that the quietness by
the lake was an interlude in an otherwise chaotic life that seems normal and natural to us.

Loved ones, you are exactly right. Do you realize that your human nature, your personality is the
final product of a 4000 year (maybe 10,000 year, or some would say 1 billion years) production line?
That’s it. Your personality that responds that way has been in production for thousands of years.
You’ve inherited the personality from your fore-fathers and their fore-fathers that responds the

wrong way. That’s right. You have a personality that almost sins itself; it is bred for sinning. It
is bred to depend on itself and others to help it rather than to depend on God. That’s it. You are
right.

In that way you are in a sense the victim of it. The original attitude is yours. You can choose at
that crucial moment way at the beginning whether to turn to God and continue to depend on Him or
not. But once you have done it the personality takes over and rushes you over the cliff. So you say,
“What hope is there? I do want to live that way. I have had those experiences. I have known peace.
Often when things were at their very end, I’ve known peace when I just seemed to live a primitive
life of realizing that God was right there on the other side of that cloud. I’ve sensed that he does
love me and does have me in his arms. I do want to live that way in the chaos of the office on
Monday morning. I do! But how can I if that personality is the kind of perverted thing that you
say?”

How can you get rid of that body of death that is hanging around you? It’s interesting; there is
actually a verse that comes immediately after that question in the Bible. [Romans 7:25] It runs,
“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” That personality of yours was crucified with
Jesus. That is the gospel. That personality of yours was destroyed by God with his Son Jesus in a
cosmic miracle, and you were recreated with a new personality which swings into action immediately
you believe that and begin to live that way. The moment you reject the idea and the lie that the
only personality that you have is one that just rushes away from God at every opportunity — the
moment you believe that old self was crucified with Christ as Romans 6:6 says, and turn from the
funnel cloud or the irritating boss or the guy that has just been dishonest with you in business.
The moment you turn from that and say, “Lord, the old personality that I had would tear this guy
apart. The old personality that I had would criticize that boss, but Lord, thank you that it’s at
the bottom of that pit in that tomb at Calvary. Thank you, Father that you gave me a new personality
in Jesus. Lord, I intend to trust you whatever. If they cut me apart as they did you, Jesus, I’ll be
with you in heaven, but I’m going that way.” The moment you believe like that and live like that,
the whole new personality that God has ready for you is actualized in your life and made effective.
It is! It’s a miracle!

Dear brothers, there is a delight and a joy and exhilaration beyond what any bikini could give you.
There is a safety and a security beyond our best resources from funnel clouds, sicknesses and
financial tragedies. There is a quiet peace; a satisfaction even of physical strength beyond what
any supper or feast could give you. Loved ones, that’s it. It’s a miracle! That’s how God will take
away your sins. He will take away the part in you that prevents you at this moment from depending
wholly upon him. So, I would encourage you–don’t get cynical. Don’t listen to what others say that
the moment by the lake is one rare moment. NO! That’s the way we were meant to live, and the way you
can live in the midst of your dad’s death, in the midst of your own cancer, in the midst of losing a
job, in the midst of kids screaming, in the midst of the boss telling you off. That’s the way you
can live. I’d encourage you if you hear this and sense it is possibly true, to start now, this
moment. Settle it now in your own heart. Live that way. Live in peace as God made you to live.

Let us pray.

Dear Father, I would pray for any loved one here this morning that these things we’ve talked about
are true. Father, help each one of us to see that it all comes real by faith. It comes real by us
believing that — that the old ‘fight, flight, fright’ personality has been crucified with Jesus.
It no longer exists. We have a new house, not made with hands, but it is eternal in the heavens.

We have a new body, a new mind and new emotions that have been raised with Jesus by the power of the
Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is able to give life to these mortal
bodies. He is able to make us new creations this morning if we are prepared to believe him and to
live like that.

Lord, we would quietly in these moments respond to your covenant that you will take away our sins.
And we would say to you Lord, if you will do your part, we will do ours. Now, Lord we will believe
that you have done this and we will walk in peace and in continued recollection from this day
forward. This we do so that the world may experience the trust in God through us.

Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with
us now and throughout this week.

God’s View of The Jewish Nation

Romans 11:28

Sermon Transcript by Reverend Ernest O’Neill

Loved ones, we are coming now to the end of that part of Romans that has brought us as a body the
greatest public opposition. That’s the parts of Romans 9-11 where God through Paul has dealt with
the rejection of Jesus by his own chosen people, the Jews. It is the section where God through Paul
shows us how that rejection of the Jews fits into God’s plan for the redemption of the whole world.
It seems that now that we are coming to the last verse, it would be good to look back and learn some
of the clear lessons that God taught us through this experience of expository preaching.

One is that you don’t pick and choose the bits of the Bible that cause you the least trouble. You
can’t do that. I’m sure a number of you sat here Sunday by Sunday and said, “Pastor, could we not
get off the Jews?” Well, loved ones, you can’t fiddle around with this dear Book. You can’t pick out
of it the bits that are pleasant and leave aside the parts that cause you trouble or unpopularity or
opposition.

We are like Luther–our conscience is captive to the Word of God. You and I in our own lives have to
allow all of God’s Word to shine upon our lives, the good bits and the bad; otherwise we ourselves
will never be delivered from self. I would encourage your hearts even as you watch me slog through
the thing and you slog through it with me. Do you see you can’t pick and choose in God’s Word? If
you commit yourself to the Father’s Word, you go with it through thick and thin, should it destroy
you or establish you.

Maybe it is good to see, too, that you can’t accommodate God’s Word to the current whims of the day,
or to your own whims, or to the issues that are fashionable in the day. I don’t blame the dear
religious advisors on campus who did it. That’s what I did when was a liberal. I felt this was a
mixture of man’s word and God’s word, and I could pick out the bits that apply to today’s whim or
fancy and leave the other bits aside.

Today it is fashionable to support the Jewish people. The Holocaust has made if fashionable, the
move into the homeland has made it fashionable; and they went in on that issue. This year it will be
the Jews for them, next year it will be the Arabs, the following year it will be homosexuals. You
cannot do that with God’s Word.

God’s Word is absolute truth for all seasons and for all times. It stands and remains forever. The
whims and fancies, the philanthropic enterprises that men contort God’s love into–those will pass;
God’s Word remains. Loved ones, if you keep respecting it as it is here, not contorting or
perverting it or using it to back up your own whim or fancy, it will pull you into Christ’s
likeness. You can’t accommodate God’s Word.

The last thing I saw plainly was this. The great majority of the loved ones who are Jewish had no
time for the whole thing, but a very small group of them were eventually dragged into the conflict
about anti-Semitism. In a way, that very small group confirmed what God’s Word says about the true
Jewish heart–once you start judging God’s Word by yourself, you have become God.

In other words, once I start saying, “Well, I don’t like this bit in Daniel because it is
anti-Hibernian.” I’m Irish. But I do like this bit in Luke because it is pro-Hibernian.” Or once
you say, “No, I don’t like this bit in John because it is anti-Swedish, but I do like this bit in
Romans because it is pro-Swedish. This bit in Philippians is true because it is pro-Norwegian.” No!
Once a cause assumes that kind of priority, intelligent men can no longer respect it. Because that
cause has become the touchstone of truth and indeed has set itself up to judge the words that the
Creator has spoken. So, loved ones, don’t get yourselves into the center of the picture. Whether we
are Gentile, Jew, Campus Church, Irish, Scotch, Norwegian, whatever we are, let’s not judge God’s
Word by our position or what we think is right. Let us sit at the bar of Holy Scripture ourselves
and be judged by it.

Now let’s turn to Paul and the verse in Romans 11:28, lest any of you thought we might tail off
mildly. “As regards the gospel they [the Jewish nation] are enemies of God for your sake; but as
regards election they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers.” Who are?

The first thing to clarify is who are “enemies of God for your sake, in regard to the gospels’? We
said some Sundays ago that the answer is not all the loved ones who are called Jews. It would be
just silly to say that. It certainly doesn’t mean all our neighbors who are Jews. We shared that
there are great numbers of loved ones who are Jewish simply as a race. That happens to be their
racial or family background. That’s the way they think of it. If we read that verse to them, they
would be as set back by it as we would be when people call us anti-Semitic. They’d feel that’s not
me. They would say, “My Jewishness isn’t something religious to me. Actually I’d have to confess I
don’t have much religion. I observe the family ceremonies and holidays in the Jewish religion, but I
am not a very religious person. To tell you the truth, I’m a pretty secular person. My Jewishness is
just my background–the way I was brought up. It’s to that extent that you are proud of your Swedish
roots, or Norwegian roots or German roots, so I’m proud of mine. I’m afraid I don’t practice my
religion very much. As far as the Israel nation, they want that but I’m not very enthusiastic about
it. I’m first and foremost an American. I happen to be Jewish, but that is more to do with my
tradition and some characteristics of my personality than it is to do with my religion.”

Loved ones, it is unfair to tackle those people and think that they are the ones that Paul talks
about. Because most Jews are very secular in their outlook on life. They are as open to regarding
Jesus as the Son of God as many of us are. I think we should see that most Jews are in that
position. They are as shocked when you whip that verse on them as we are if people attack us for
being anti-Semitic. I think of a number of Jews who have been dealing with some of our businesses.
Their reaction has been, “See you got a bit of bad press recently.” They think of themselves as
utterly apart from it, as not involved in it at all. We need to see that. It saves us from being
paranoid, from being unfair and unreal to loved ones who regard their Jewishness just as we regard
our Swedishness or Irishness. It is important to see that the great majority of the loved ones who
are Jewish are secular Jews, and they are not involved in this verse. They are not enemies of God.
Some are even open to Jesus. I think it is good to make this distinction.

There is a second group that we talked about–people like Moshe Dayan and Golda Meir. Both of them
are agnostics if not atheists. If you read Golda Meir’s biography you probably would see she is
really atheist. They don’t feel very strongly about the Jewish belief in God at all. They don’t
feel very strongly against Jesus at all. They are just kind of neutral about it. Indeed, if you
read Moshe Dayan’s life, you will find that he had a great love for Arabs. They are interested in a
homeland for any Jews who want to live somewhere without wandering forever throughout all the
nations.

People like Dayan and Golda Meir support the idea of a national homeland as a purely secular
concept. Just as we have our countries, they want to have their country. They feel it should be
done in such a way that Arabs or Palestinians are not thrown out of theirs. These loved ones are
much as we are and they are not really the people referred to in this verse. They are not enemies of
God; they are not antagonistic toward Jesus. They are just secular people who believe in a national
homeland. We need to see that even though they give their support and like Golda Meir, give their
lives to establish Israel. It is done as a secular, national enterprise for the sake of humanity.

Now, I just share with you that many of the well–known Jewish philanthropists that have been a
blessing to our society are found in either one of these groups. They tend to be strong humanists
and are very open to thoughts about Jesus. Nevertheless, I think it is important to see that the
poor souls have necessarily become paranoid because they share not only the wrong attitudes that
many people have today, but also much of the hostility that a smaller group of Jews tend to bring
upon themselves. We need to recognize that and be as kind and thoughtful and as much brothers and
sisters to them as we felt we needed them to be to us.

Then there is a small group, a small minority of Jews who normally call themselves Zionists. It is
this very small minority of Jews in the world today who believe that God and the Bible has given
them a right to extend the borders of their physical homeland to include at least the original
border of the ancient kingdom of David. They believe that the Bible gives them a God–given right to
that land. It is theirs by fiat of God. So in their minds, it includes the ancient borders of the
kingdom of David.

Now the subtle truth is that most scriptural Christians would agree with them. In a way that is
right. The tragedy is, most scriptural Christians think, “Well, then we will identify ourselves
wholly with the cause of the Zionists.” Actually the vast division between the New Testament and the
Zionists’ cause is not the final goal. The final goal we both agree upon. Presumably God will give
them back their land. But how or when — those are the issues.

The New Testament teaches that things will go from bad to worse in this present world. We will all
eventually settle for totalitarianism instead of anarchy, and we will all bow down to some brilliant
genius who will come forth and say, “You are at a stalemate. You all have fingers on the buttons.
You all have famine in your countries. Now the only thing to do is to trust one man to settle the
whole thing. All right, I’ll settle it.” He will be a true anti–Christ figure, because he will have
much of the wisdom we know Jesus has. He will exercise that wisdom to arrange international trade
and relationships and bring peace to the world. Immediately we will sense, “This is great! This is
wonderful! This is the answer to our problem!” Especially as famines, earthquakes, wars will have
intensified to the point where they are almost universal. Then this anti-Christ figure will come
in. At the beginning he will appear to support and protect Israel. At that time he will persecute
those who believe in Jesus and there will be a great tribulation. Some of us who have died will be
caught up in a rapture to Jesus. Some of us believe that will take place before the tribulation and
some of us believe after it. Having finished with the tribulation of the Gentiles, he will enter
into the “time of Jacob’s trouble—he will begin to persecute the Jews. He will lead the nations
against Israel into the battle of Armageddon, when Jesus will return to earth, and Jesus will give
the Jews their homeland. That is what New Testament Christians believe.

A Zionist rejects the New Testament. They do not believe in Jesus and rejects the idea that he is
the Messiah. They are not open to the idea that he is the Messiah. They believe that it is their

right and their responsibility to bring about God’s will by the strength of their own right arm.
This means lobbying in Washington, allegiances with foreign powers, and American money. They believe
that they must do it by their own power and ability. Loved ones, that’s why Paul says they are
enemies of God as regards the gospel. They are trying to bring about what is promised and prophesied
would be theirs by their own power, rejecting the Messiah and remaining hostile to his Word.

That’s the kind of Jewish heart that Luther says is hard. It’s not the hearts of most of our
friends. Most of our friends are like us. They are Jewish in background but they have the same heart
as we have. There is a small minority, as there is in all places, so don’t lets think this is just
Jewish. I was brought up in Belfast where there is a strong bitter group of Protestants who are
brought up to hate Catholics. So there is this everywhere. What we are saying is the Jewish people
are like everybody else. They have this small minority of people who hate and are so determined to
get their way that they will reject what others regard as truth–that is Jesus.

That’s the attitude they had when Jesus came to earth. Look at John 7:19: “Did not Moses give you
the law? Yet none of you keep the law. Why do you seek to kill me?” Now brothers and sisters, I’d
just plead with you, you either agree with your Lord or you agree with others. And it is Jesus that
said to this small Jewish minority, “Why do you seek to kill me?” You had better be careful before,
for the sake of fashionability or popularity you go and say, “Oh, no, they didn’t want to kill him.”
Jesus said, “Why do you seek to kill me?”

I agree with you that the minority is subtle and try to bring the guilt of their action upon
everybody else. It is important to see that there was a group of Jews, as there was a group of
Romans–and we would probably say a group of Irishmen and a group of Americans—who all in a sense
killed Jesus. They also killed Jesus and had hostility towards him. They carried that hostility on.
It’s in that sense that Paul is saying, “They, in regard to the gospel, in regard to anything
concerning Jesus being God’s Son or being our Savior, they are enemies of God.”

The interesting thing is that he says they are enemies of God “for your sake.” You’ll see why he
says that if you turn to Acts 18. They not only rejected Jesus but they rejected his apostles when
they preached that Jesus was God’s Son. You find it in Acts 18:5: “When Silas and Timothy arrived
from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with preaching, testifying to the Jews that the Christ [the
Messiah] was Jesus. And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to
them, ‘Your blood be upon your heads! I’m innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.'” That’s
what Paul means. They were enemies of God, enemies of the gospel for our sake; in that when they
rejected Jesus the apostles came to us Gentiles. We heard the gospel ourselves but it was because
the Jews rejected the gospel that we heard of it. They were enemies of God, but even in their enmity
God used them to bring about the opportunities you and I have.

Now there is another part of the verse. “But as regards election they are beloved for the sake of
their forefathers.” The meaning of that is that the one who fathered the Jewish people was Abraham.
He was the first man about four thousand years ago who trusted his life to God, the Creator of the
world. God spoke to him and told him that he was going to use his descendants to low his
faithfulness and love to all people throughout the world. Abraham believed that, and his faith was
counted to him for righteousness. He was the first man whose faith was counted as righteousness by
God. His descendants became the Jewish people. God still remembers Abraham’s trust and faith and for
the sake of the fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, God still regards the Jewish people as his dear
people, as beloved to him. This is still a truth in rabbinical doctrine throughout the years. These
fathers trusted God way at the beginning of the world and the primeval times of our history. God

for their sake still regards the Jewish people as his dear people, as beloved to him.

Even as they reject him, even as they are hostile to him, even as they oppose his body, even as they
criticize his Word, God still loves them. He cannot bring them into heaven unless they change their
attitude to his Son, but here on earth he is extending continually to them the attitude of Romans
10:21: “But of Israel he says, ‘All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary
people.'” That is God’s attitude to the Jewish people. They are beloved for the sake of their
forefathers and therefore they have the protection of God, the same protection that he gave the
prophets and kings of Israel when he said, “Touch not the Lord’s anointed.” That’s why nobody who
loves Jesus can indulge in anything that looks or feels like anti-Semitism. If you love Jesus, you
love the people who brought Jesus to earth and you treat them as the Lord’s anointed, whatever their
attitude.

Loved ones, do you see that that is God’s attitude to all of us this morning? He says to you and me,
“All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.” You are alive this
morning because God is still loving you. Otherwise, he could pull out the connection between all
those molecules in your body and you’d disappear in a moment, but God still loves you. Calvary is
God receiving the blows of your sins and mine on his face; he holds up his hand to keep them off,
and he puts his other hand out to you to welcome you.

Let us pray.

Dear Father, we thank you for your love that keeps on keeping on whatever we do. Thank you, Lord,
for Calvary and the picture of a dear God who has power to break us in a moment still holding out a
hand to us; to welcome us and using your other hand to shield the blows and lashes we lay upon you
with our sarcasm, greed, anger and pettiness, all the sins that we force you to bear every day. Dear
Lord, thank you for your condescension which doesn’t seem condescension but is sheer humility and
above all an incomprehensible love for us. Thank you, Lord.

Thank you for keeping our bodies together, keeping our blood circulating and keeping our minds
working, even as we use these gifts of yours to hurt you so often. Lord, we would not have you say
to us, “All your life long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.” Lord,
we would stop this very day. We are not in the business of kicking the Savior or of walking over a
Man’s blood who has died for us. We are not in the business of hurting one who has his hand out to
us. Lord, we are not that kind of people. We ask you, Father, to forgive us and we would give our
lives into your control. You have shown us more than enough love to persuade us. We give ourselves
to you, our Father and trust you by beginning to be the people you wanted the dear Jews to be. Lord,
that is what we will be to you — a faithful and trusting people, for Jesus’ sake.

Now the grace of our Lord Jesus and the love of God and the fellowship with his Holy Spirit be with
each one of us. Amen.

God’s Unconditional Gifts

Romans 11:29

Sermon Transcript by Reverend Ernest O’Neill

If you look at the great majority of our dear brothers and sisters in the world, I think you will
agree that most of us live here on earth as if the world just happened. It is not logical to think
that and the presence of that basic illogicality at the center of our lives is what causes many of
us such a sense of insecurity. But nevertheless, we live as if there was no one behind the universe
but ourselves.

The Creator of the world watched for a while and then he picked out a certain group of men and women
to demonstrate to the rest of us what he himself was like and what life would be like if he were a
daily part of it. That group was called in the old days, the Hebrews. They were descendants of a man
called Abraham. Later on they were called Israelites after his grandson whose name was changed to
Israel.

Our Creator did special things for this group of people. He led them miraculously through deserts,
provided unearthly bread for them to eat to sustain them, defended them from their enemies and
healed their sicknesses by miracles. But these people kept on treating him the way the rest of us
treat him. They kept on believing in him when it suited them, but when it didn’t pay them to believe
in him, they just forgot him. They served him when he gave them things and ignored him when they
wanted to.

In other words, they treated him as if he wasn’t there. They did their own thing repeatedly down
through the centuries. Yet our Creator kept on being faithful to them right down to this present
century. He kept on holding out his hands to them and continually treating them as the demonstration
model that he had in mind for the whole world, however much they rebuked and repelled him. Romans
10:21 expresses his attitude even today, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and
contrary people.”

Why did he do it? Why has he continued to give this remarkable Jewish nation such a talent for
survival so that kings, kingdoms, realms and dynasties have come and gone and the Jewish nation
remains? Why has he continued to give this nation that has so often refused his grace and so often
rebelled against him this talent for survival? Why has he continued to give them as individuals
unbelievable talents; talents so that proportionately way beyond their number, they have made
contributions to the worlds of art and music, science and commerce that no other nation can equal?
Why does God keep giving these gifts to these people?

Loved ones, the answer is in the verse today and we believe it has great liberty for all of us.
Romans 11:29: “For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.” That is why.

Saul was the first king of Israel and he was just a bad king. He disobeyed God in regard to enemies
like the Amalekites„ he disobeyed God by trying to communicate with the dead through the witch at
Endor, yet he was king for life. God kept him king of Israel as long as he lived despite all his
jealousy of David and his attempts to kill David because he thought David was to be his successor.
God continued to preserve Saul from his enemies. There was one moment when David’s followers wanted
him to kill Saul when he found him asleep in a cave, because Saul had been trying to kill David. God

preserved Saul’s life because David said, “Touch not the Lord’s anointed. This man has been made
king by God and he is king as long as he lives.” In a sense, the call and the gifts of God are
irrevocable, whatever that person has done.

Rubenstein, the great pianist, is Abraham’s descendant. There is probably no other ninety year old
so full of life and so active. Probably no man has such outstanding fame from the earliest years of
his career as Rubenstein. Yet he admits in his own personal life history to a life of what we would
call gross immorality. But the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable. Rubenstein is a gift of
God to our world that God does not pull back however Rubenstein may treat his God or his own life.
So do you see that there are certain gifts and callings in the world that are irrevocable? That is,
they are unconditional. There are no conditions that need to be fulfilled to be able to retain the
gift.

Now it is plain that the greatest gift of all is conditional. The greatest gift of all is to be able
to live forever in the presence and company of our Creator. That gift is conditional as you find in
John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him
should not perish but have eternal life.” It looks like “whoever”–anybody who wishes–but it says,
“whoever believes in him,” so it is conditional upon believing in Jesus.

You can see that emphasized in John 3:36: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; he who does
not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him.” So the gift of God’s own
heart, the gift of his friendship, the gift of his life, the gift of his Spirit, and therefore the
ability to live with him forever after this world is over, is conditional upon our faith in Jesus.
Our participation in Jesus is conditional upon our faith. To come into Jesus you have to have faith.
Actually to stay in Jesus you have to continue to exercise faith, which is belief and obedience.
John 15:6: “If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the
branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.”

So there are certain callings and vocations that are the irrevocable, unconditional expressions of
God’s magnanimous love to us human beings, and then there is the gift of living forever with him
that is conditional upon our faith and our readiness to submit to his will. Loved ones, God is so
good. He does not force us into his family. He has put us in this garden of the universe and he does
everything possible to insure that we will exercise our free wills to choose to live with him or
choose to live without him.

It is that attitude of his that causes many of us to question verses in Job and Ecclesiastes. Maybe
you would look at Ecclesiastes 7:15, as it concerns this old question of suffering that so many of
us see as an obstacle to belief in God, when really it should be the very opposite. It should be an
encouragement to see how fair the Father is to all people. “In my vain life I have seen everything;
there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs
his life in his evil-doing.”

Many of us say, “Why is it that good people often suffer, in this world and bad people often
prosper?” Because our Father is a fair God. He rains his rain on the good people and on the bad
people; he shines his sun on the good people and on the bad people. God has certain gifts that are
irrevocable. God has placed us all in this garden of the universe so that we will have a chance to
meet him and get to know him. He will not bribe us into his family by giving certain gifts to
encourage those who are turning to him and taking away certain gifts from those who are turning away
from him. He gives the same gifts to all.

The gifts and the calling of God in that sense are irrevocable. It is true, loved ones, that the
promise God made after the rainbow in the covenant with Noah, that as long as the earth remains,
seedtime and harvest will not fail, that promise is made to Rubenstein, to Hitler, to Stalin, to
every murderer that has ever lived on the earth. It was made to all of us. God has certain gifts
that are irrevocable. He does not draw back no matter how we behave.

Of course, that brings us to ourselves, because the garden of this universe is like any created
thing–it requires maintenance. There is not one of us that has not come from God’s own hand into
our mother’s womb without a certain calling and certain gifts that are fitted for the maintenance of
this universe. There is not one of us here, whether we love God or hate God, whether we believe in
him or deny him, that does not come from God’s own hand to our mother’s womb with a certain vocation
connected with the maintenance of this created world and with a certain gift to be able to fulfill
that vocation.

All of us are in some way the expression of God’s preserving grace; He is committed to preserving
the arena of his universe as a place where we can get to know him. In order to preserve it he uses
you and me, bad and good, godly and ungodly, satanic and Christ-like people.

So, many of us are here to look after the crops. Some of us are here to control the animals and the
birds and the fish. Some of us are here to keep order among the nations and some of us are here to
keep order in the explosion of knowledge by computers. Others of us are here to take care of the
commerce of the world. Some of us are here to take care of the chaos that would otherwise grow in
our society if we were not part of the law enforcement process. Some of us are here to keep rooms
clean. Some of us are here to carry away garbage and keep dirt away. But all of us come from God’s
hand with a calling and a gift that is irrevocable.

Now you may think it is bad or good. I think it is good. It’s his own grace that every one of us
experiences that. There is nobody here that can say “I do not have a vocation. I have been sent here
with no purpose,” or “I do not have the gifts that are needed.” No! God’s Word says plainly that
there are calls from God and there are gifts that are irrevocable, whether you turn from God for the
rest of your life or not.

That is why a swearing drill press operator can still have great pride in the skill and the dignity
of his job. It’s not just because he is satanic and proud. God has given him a calling and a
vocation that has therefore a dignity about it, not because of the drill press or what he does, but
because his Creator has made him and given him gifts to do that job.

And even though he can’t sense it and hates God, still he senses, “There is a dignity in my calling.
I do have a vocation. I do have gifts that somehow have come to me.” He can use them in all kinds of
ways, but they have come to him from God. That’s why a Churchill occurs at the right time, whether
he believes in God or not. God gives to this world whatever men and women are needed to maintain its
fabric until his work of redemption is completed. That’s why an Einstein is given to the world. You
know the contribution that he made to the universe. It is no wonder that he said that all ideas come
from God. He sensed that the things that he had had come to him from beyond. God does give ordinary
secular vocations to all of us that are connected to the expression of his preserving grace towards
the world. That’s why all of us have a dignity in our labor, whatever it is.

If you say, “Doesn’t it all change when you believe in Jesus?” No. What does change is that you

please God’s heart with your love and attitude. The authentic part of being a child of God is not
that you give out tracts or become a preacher or that you go to church, The only authentic things,
the only “sine qua non” [the only thing without which you cannot do] is that you are pleasing God’s
heart; but our vocations are something that God has given to all of us, good and bad alike.

Now would you come with me a little further? Because there is even a greater freedom. We tend to
say, “Well, that is secular vocation. That is everything to do with the preservation of the fabric
of this created universe. What about the whole task of calling people into God’s friendship? What
about preachers and teachers who are responsible for bringing the news of this friendship with God
to others and for leading others into the very heart of God’s being? Surely their gifts are
revocable.” Well, think about it. Countless are the instances where the gift of prophecy has been
exercised very efficiently. Prophecy is the sense of speaking forth God’s Word, where the gifts of
prophecy have been exercised through Balaam’s ass, through men whose lives have not always been
Christ-like. At first it caused me to wonder, and then I began to see what the Father has done. He
has lifted us out of the “fiddler on the roof” kind of shakiness about whether this is the right man
to listen to or that is the right man to listen to. God says, “You hear God’s Word because of the
gift of prophecy I exercise through some man or woman or book, sometimes good and sometimes bad, but
it is my gift of prophecy that you hear.” Those gifts and that calling are irrevocable. Loved ones,
that is true.

I remember being in Mexico maybe twelve years ago. We were putting a roof on a little church way up
in the mountains near to Monterrey, and this farmer was feeding us during the week we were there. We
went in one night and he had a record on of a crusade. I didn’t even recognize the name of the
person who held the crusade, but this man was God to this Mexican farmer. Because this preacher had
been used to convert all of his family. I thought, “This man must be a great and godly man to have
been used by God in this way.” We came back after a month in Mexico and the papers were full of this
evangelist, who had been a practicing alcoholic for fifteen years. This was the man who had been
used by God to convert this family. The fact is, whether we like it or not, that the calling and the
gifts of God are irrevocable.

In a way, this is good, because you know the way we Protestants deal with any of God’s Word that we
don’t like too much? We denigrate the character of the preacher. If you can’t get rid of the Word,
if the idiot won’t stop, at least you’ll make him invalid by cutting his feet from under him and
talking about him.

Do you see, loved ones, God lifts us out of that? God lifts us into a dignified position. He says,
“You have not heard a mere man speak this morning. You have not heard a man whose life you are
utterly dependent on for your faith. No! You have heard a gift of prophecy that is irrevocable that
I give because I’ve called this man to do this. His own relationship with me is his own affair. You
can’t decide how good his relationship is by how well he exercises the gift of prophecy. He may
exercise it beautifully and his life may be a mess. So do not judge the gift of prophecy by the
Christ—like or unchrist—like character of the person. That is up to him and his soul’s salvation.”
The gift of prophecy is God’s.

It is in a way a great liberty, and of course it puts our feet on very solid ground. We are not
involved here in something a bunch of young people or some young Irish guy has started. We are
involved in something God himself is doing among us. I’d repeat Luther’s words that it is not some
country preacher that you hear or some ordinary pastor, it is the Word of God that speaks to all of
us Sunday by Sunday.

Now do you see the great freedom? Your secular vocation is not dependent on your boss or your
colleagues. Your secular vocation, your secular calling, is given by God; it is irrevocable. You
have certain gifts that God has given you that are irrevocable. What a stability that brings to your
life. You have those gifts for life and you have a calling that God is giving you for life. But then
your sacred life is not dependent on man either. It isn’t dependent on the preachers that you meet
or the books that you read, because it itself is dependent on the gift of God’s prophecy which is
given irrevocably. Do you see what a freedom we have?

Do you see what a dignity you have? What you do Monday through Friday is not your choice. It is a
calling from your Maker that he has given to you and it is irrevocable. Whatever you do, whether you
do it badly or not, and the gifts that he has given you for that, are real gifts and they too are
irrevocable. So good is our God to us and such a firm stability does he give us. Our faith and our
relationship and your response to him is not dependent on this preacher or that preacher. It is
dependent on the gift of prophecy which he gives without repentance, irrevocably and
unconditionally. Though that may have some fearful things for us, yet it has more encouragement than
anything else because what you hear Sunday by Sunday is God, usually despite man rather than through
man. It is God himself that is speaking to us. Thank God that the call and the gifts of God are
irrevocable.

Wrath Or Mercy?

Romans 11:30

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Could you imagine that you have a little four year old girl? Let’s say it is your sister. Your house
is situated on a four-lane highway and your little sister plays in the front yard. One day the ball
runs out on the four-lane highway and you just stand there paralyzed as she runs out after it. After
you have recovered from the heart attack and she has come back in, you point out to her that if she
does that again, a car will run over her. You make it clear that she is not to go out on the
highway. The next day you glance out the window and there she is again, out after the ball, and back
she comes. You go straight for her and let her have it on the hand and tell her, “Look, you are not
to do that again!” You make it very plain that you are displeased and angry with her. The next day
the same thing happens again. Now you say, “No more playing in the yard. You will suffer far more
inconvenience and pain if some car hits you. So that is the end.” She tells you that you are the
cruelest, most unkind brother that she has ever met and she will never speak to you again.

Now, were you being kind to her? You know she doesn’t think for a minute that you were, but you know
fine well you were. Were you showing concern for her? You know you were. The inconvenience of not
playing in the front yard or the little bit of pain that she suffered from the smack on the hand was
nothing to the inconvenience and pain that a car would cost her. There is no question you were being
kind and compassionate and concerned.

In fact you could say you are showing her mercy. It is a mercy to her for you to show her what she
should do and shouldn’t do, because it will protect her. In that sense, do you see that wrath is
right? Wrath is a mercy. Wrath is not really anger as we know it. Anger is a selfish, uncontrolled
reaction because somebody is hurting you, but wrath is a controlled reaction against anyone who is
going to hurt themselves or other people. In that sense wrath is a mercy that has enabled us to be
here today.

Think of the numerous things that we would have done to destroy ourselves if somebody had not shown
us that kind of wrath.

Fourteen years later your little sister is now eighteen. You see her going out to get into a car to
go out for the evening, and she takes something out of her bag and smokes. You go over and ask her
what it is. It is a marijuana cigarette and you say, “Why do you smoke that?”, and she says, “Well,
it just gives me a high; it gives me a sense of freedom and lightness in my emotions. That’s why I
do it.” So you explain to her what it does to her lungs first of all, and then you explain to her
the excitement and the exhilaration that there is in this world as it has been created. You begin to
share with her some of the ways you yourself live above the cramping, pedestrian narrowness that our
daily responsibilities bring upon us. You share with her how you have found it possible to live
above yourself and to fly free above your anxieties just ordinarily enjoying the world and its
excitement.

Then you begin to take her with you to share with her some of the excitement of skiing and flying.
You take her to Paris and the Louvre and you show her some of the beauties that God’s world has. All
the time you share with her the joy that you have found in the heart of the Person who made the
white water in Colorado and the breakers at Daytona Beach. You begin to share with her the ways in

which we are meant to get exhilaration and lightness and excitement in this world itself.

Are you being kind to her? Are you being compassionate? Are you showing her mercy? Yes, you know you
are. Especially if you do it in such a way that you are presenting a positive alternative and not
just shutting down her only escape route. There is in some ways some negativeness involved in it, in
telling the person the way we were meant to live and the way we were not meant to live. In a sense
that is a mercy. Loved ones, without that kind of mercy you and I would not be alive. Our sons and
daughters and our friends would not be alive.

That’s the kind of debt that you and I owe to the Jewish nation. Do you know that? The kind of debt
that the little four-year-old girl owes to you — the kind of debt that the eighteen-year-old owes
you — that’s the kind of debt we owe to the Jewish nation. That’s what Paul is saying in Romans
11:30. “Just as you were once disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their
disobedience.” That’s the debt we owe to the Israelite nation. We have received mercy because of
their disobedience.

I remember six years ago a young lady came up to me and said that she was living with a guy that she
met three weeks ago. Then to make me feel much better about it, she said she didn’t sleep with him
every night, because she just sacked out with whomever she met at whatever party she happened to be
at. I thought, “This girl is just on a shock tactic, playing to the gallery here.” Then gradually as
I talked with her, I realized that she didn’t really have a suspicion that there was anything wrong
with living with a guy without any kind of agreement before God, or that there was anything wrong
with sacking out with whomever you happened to meet at whichever party you happened to be. It was
hard, in a way, to believe.

That was six years ago; you know what it is like now. It is not better. You and I know there are
thousands and thousands of people who have that kind of life as a normal way of life. There are
professional people who are apparently respectable in our society, probably someone living next door
to you, who regard wife-swapping and everything that goes with it as just a normal practice of life.

Do you see that the first mercy our dear old society needs is the mercy that that little
four-year-old girl received? What way did God intend us to live? What way did he make us to operate?
What is right and what is wrong? You know as you watch the media that it has become incredibly and
unbelievably difficult for many loved ones to know what is right and what is wrong.

Loved ones that is one thing the Jewish people did for us. In God’s dealings with the Jewish nation
down through two thousand years of history he made it plain the way he intended us to live, the way
our bodies would live best and the way our emotions would enjoy themselves best. That’s the first
mercy that we have received through the Jewish nation. You will find it in Leviticus 20:10: “If a
man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be
put to death.” Presumably there were hundreds of Jewish men and women who were put to death because
they were fornicators or they were adulterers. Every dear Jewish man or woman who was put to death
(presumably by stoning) because they disobeyed that law of God. Every one of them is a mercy to you
and me. A mercy to us, because it is God telling us, “That isn’t the way I made you to live. You are
putting yourself to death when you live that way. You are destroying yourself. You think you are
enjoying yourself but believe me, this graphic business of putting people to death in the Old
Testament is only a physical expression of what is happening to you spiritually and emotionally when
you live like that.” Loved ones, the people who did that in the Jewish nation are a mercy to you and

me. It is a plain message to us.

I would encourage anyone who is here today living in fornication or adultery. Stop! I am not calling
you any greater sinner than I am or than the rest of us. I am just telling you it is as wrong as
lying is wrong. It destroys you spiritually and emotionally and physically. God has made it plain
that that is not the way to live. It is like running out on a four-lane highway.

It is the same with homosexuality and lesbianism. The truth is you can’t help the way you were born;
you can’t help the character or the personality that you were born with. The personality is not a
sin. We all have tendencies in our personalities towards certain attitudes and actions, but we do
not have to yield to those actions and express them in our bodies outwardly as a way of life. God
has made that plain. Look down a few verses to Leviticus 20:13: “If a man lies with a male as with a
woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon
them.” Every dear homosexual and lesbian in the Jewish nation that was put to death for that sin is
a mercy to you and me. It is God writing into the very death of the human being that that is wrong.
Don’t live that way. That is killing you inside. You are withering up inside.

Your love is being perverted into a self-love when you do that. God just makes it plain. Don’t get
all uppity because you are not a homosexual. Don’t get all superior because you are not a lesbian,
but see that that is as wrong as lying and sarcasm and gossip. It is just as destructive as it was
to the actual physical bodies of those Jews years ago. Now in that way they are a mercy to us.

You know some of us are apt to think, “Those things we can see. They are a mercy and we are glad we
are clear of those!” Would you look at another verse in Numbers 12:1-3? “Miriam and Aaron spoke
against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman;
and they said, ‘Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?’
And the Lord heard it. Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all men that were on the face of
the earth.” Miriam and-Aaron began that old murmuring stuff, that old gossip stuff, that old
whispering stuff. Verses 9-10: “And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them, and he departed;
and when the cloud removed from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow.” That’s
God’s mercy to us.

“Now did you hear this about Oral Roberts?” “Did you hear this about Jerry Falwell?” “Did you hear
what Jimmy Carter did?” “Reagan — did you hear what he did?” “So and so across the way in our
office, did you hear this about them?” Loved ones, you are becoming leprous even as you do it. We
walk out after the bit of gossip and we say, “Oh, I’m okay. That’s all right to do that.” There is
leprosy inside you. There is a whole dirtiness that has come into your heart the moment you let that
bit of gossip and murmuring escape your lips.

You think everybody complains but something dies inside you every time you complain. A barrier is
put up between you and the loved one that you talk about. There is leprosy that has come into your
aliveness towards them. Actually, you know that, don’t you? You know the furtiveness that comes to
you the next time you meet that person. You feel there is something not open; there is a petty,
beggarly spirit about it that you feel is kind of sick, but you just say, “Everybody does it.”

Loved ones, it is a mercy from God that Miriam was made leprous because she murmured and gossiped
and complained about Moses. It is God saying to us, “You are dying every time you do that. You are
stepping away from trusting me for the politics of this nation; you are stepping away from trusting
me for the evangelization of the world, and you are beginning to depend on men and women to put them

right or show that they are wrong. You are living in faith in princes and in your own ability to
make your way through the relationships of your office instead of me.” Loved ones, that is the first
mercy God has shown us through the dear Jewish nation.

There is another mercy he has shown us. Look at it in Psalm 78:13: “He divided the sea and let them
pass through it, and made the waters stand like a heap. In the daytime he led them with a cloud, and
all the night with a fiery light. He cleft rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink abundantly
as from the deep. He made streams come out of the rock, and caused waters to flow down like rivers.
Yet they sinned still more against him, rebelling against the Most High in the desert. They tested
God in their heart by demanding the food they craved. They spoke against God, saying ‘Can God spread
a table in the wilderness? He smote the rock so that water gushed out and streams overflowed. Can he
also give bread, or provide meat for his people?’ Therefore, when the Lord heard, he was full of
wrath; a fire was kindled against Jacob, his anger mounted against Israel; because they had no faith
in God, and did not trust his saving power. Yet he commanded the skies above, and opened the doors
of heaven; and he rained down upon them manna to eat.”

Then in verse 32-41: “In spite of all this they still sinned; despite his wonders they did not
believe. So he made their days vanish like a breath, and their years in terror. When he slew them,
they sought for him; they repented and sought God earnestly. They remembered that God was their
rock, the Most High God their redeemer. But they flattered him with their mouths; they lied to him
with their tongues. Their heart was not steadfast toward him; they were not true to his covenant.
Yet he, being compassionate, forgave their iniquity, and did not destroy them; he restrained his
anger often, and did not stir up all his wrath. He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that
passes and comes not again. How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in
the desert! They tested him again and again, and provoked the Holy One of Israel.” Yet God kept on
being compassionate.

That is the second mercy to us. To this incorrigible people that kept rebelling against God he
showed them the same attitude that Jesus said when he was explaining how often we should forgive our
neighbors–to seventy times seven. So will God do that to you. As our God has been infinitely
forgiving and merciful to the rebellious Jewish
nation down through the centuries, so he will be to you and me. He has not changed. There is a
tendency for some of us to say, “Yes, but if you knew the depth of my sin! If you knew the heinous
nature of my sin you would not say that God would forgive me.”

Loved ones, let me allow you such a sinner in 2 Samuel 11:2. “It happened, late one afternoon, when
David arose from his couch and was walking upon the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the
roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman.
And one said, ‘Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?’ So
David sent messengers, and took her and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying
herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house. And the woman conceived; and she sent
and told David, ‘I am with child.'”

Then verse 14: “In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah. In
the letter he wrote, ‘Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from
him, that he may be struck down, and die.'” That is David. He stole a man’s wife, committed adultery
with her and then arranged for the man to be put in the forefront of the fighting so that he would
be killed.

Here is what David writes: “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit is no guile. When I
kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night thy hand was
heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to thee, and
mine iniquity have I not hid. I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord; and thou did
forgive the guilt of my sin.” [Psalm 32:1-5]

By the disobedience of the Jewish nation you and I have received mercy because we have seen the very
heart of our God. What he has done for the Jewish people, he will do for you and me. That’s God’s
heart. It is eternally compassionate and forever merciful even to the worst of us here this morning.

I don’t know what your life is like, but if God has spoken to you today and shown you plainly that
some of the things in your life are wrong, do you see that if you turn to him, he forgives you? He
will forgive you. It is blasphemy for us ever to say, “Can God possibly forgive me?” He destroyed
your evil heart in Jesus on Calvary. God has forgiven you every sin you have ever committed. The
only question is not whether God will forgive you, but will you accept his forgiveness and give him
the right to be your Father and run your life? That’s the only question.

So loved ones, would you think about it today? We need to be honest with God today and to see that
the heart of the eternal Father is most wonderfully kind. He will show us mercy if we will be real
with him this day.

Our Father’s Arms
(cid:9)
Romans 11:31

Sermon Transcript by Reverend Ernest O’Neill

Have you ever watched a father trying to show his little five-year-old son how to hit a baseball? He
stands behind the little guy and puts his arms around him and places his hands over the little guy’s
hands, and then he tries to show him how to swing the bat. And you know what the little guy is
doing. He is saying, “I can do it! I know how to do it! I can do it! Let me do it! I can do it!” You
almost feel his small body filled with strain. “I know how to hit it!”

That’s what sin is. It is. Our dear Creator is standing behind you, putting his arms around you and
putting his hands over your hands. He is trying to impart to you all the understanding that he has
of your function in this world, because he alone knows exactly what you are here for. He is trying
to give you a feel of it. He is trying to give you a feel of how to swing the bat. The same kind of
uppity independence is in you and me that is in that little baseball player.

Really! It is the same uppity independence. We are saying, “I can do it! I know how to do it
myself!” We feel we are absolutely capable of reproducing the flawless action of the Master on our
own, by our own independent effort. It is just like that little guy thinking that somehow he is able
to reproduce the flawless action of the master, Babe Ruth [1895-1948, American professional baseball
player], just by imitating it or knowing how to do it. It is just as impossible for him to do that
as for us to do what we’re trying to do. Unless Babe Ruth is somehow able to transmit to that little
guy his sense of touch and feel, his judgment of distance and his quickness of eye. Unless Babe Ruth
is somehow able to transmit that to the little guy, that little guy can’t reproduce the flawless
action of the master.

That’s really our own situation. The riches of this world can only be released by the One who placed
them in the world. The geothermal energy underneath the earth, the beautiful forms of metal and
shape that are locked into this universe, the shale oil, the power of the wind, the beauty of color
and form, the colors under the ocean bed can only be released in beautiful harmony, rather than in
destruction the way we do, by the One who locked them away. You and I are here to take part in that
release.

Every one of us is put here to, in some way, release the beauties and the magnificence of this world
so that the whole universe is filled with the glory of the Creator who originally put them there. We
can only do it if we have the touch of life, the feel and the exact sense of striking the ball that
comes from the Creator’s hands being on our hands.

Loved ones, sin isn’t always immorality. The heart of sin is not actually crime or what we call the
“big sins”. Those are just bluffs. It’s not the drinking or all the other things that are the
problem. It’s this inner straining that we have whereby we want to do it in our own way. It’s that
that makes us miss the ball so often. It’s that that makes us wave the bat all around in all
directions. “We will hit it somehow! We will hit it. Somewhere it is there.” We keep blasting and
blasting, trying with all our strength to do what we are supposed to do here on earth, and we don’t
have a feel for it.

Of course, that’s what happened in the early days. God did pick out for himself a little nation and

he chose to impart his own wisdom and insights to them. But they responded much the same way as the
little guy with the baseball bat. They just wanted to do it on their own. He said to them, “Look, I
will provide all that you need. I will give you my wisdom and my insights into the universe. I’ll
show you how to unlock the treasures of this world.”

Their reaction was the same as the little guy’s. You can see it if you look at Exodus 14:10. This
little nation was just about to be rescued by God: “When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel
lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them; and they were in great
fear. And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord; and they said to Moses, ‘Is it because there
are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to
us, in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt, “Let us alone and let us
serve the Egyptians?” For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the
wilderness.” That’s it. “Let me alone, let me alone. I can do it myself!” That’s why our lives are
so often messed up. Have you ever thought about it?

Your life doesn’t mess up by massive crises. Your life messes up by little errors, little wrong
directions, little wrong turnings, and little wrong tendencies. Your life messes up gradually.

God gave to this group of people special abilities to develop the resources in the world. But about
a thousand years after he had given them those abilities, they had again done it in their own way
and perverted them completely. Amos 8:4: “Hear this, you who trample upon the needy, and bring the
poor of the land to an end, saying, ‘When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the
Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great,
and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a
pair of sandals, and sell the refuse of the wheat?'”

That was them–“I can do it. All right, you have given me this; now let me use it the way I want to
use it.” Our Creator was so anxious for them to see the intimate trusting contact of a son to his
father that he had in mind for them, that he even described the kind of life that they would live if
they were allowing him to have his hands on their hands. He said, “Listen, if you will just let my
hands rest on your hands and show you how to do what I want you to do, then you won’t have to steal;
I’ll provide everything you need. You won’t have to tell lies about your friends. You won’t have to
bear false witness because you will know that I’m right with you and you won’t care what anybody
thinks of you because I obviously love you. You won’t keep wanting other things that you see in shop
windows; you won’t keep coveting, because you will know that what you have at this present time is
exactly what I want you to have.”

Of course, they took those things and they made them into laws. These things that were to be signs
to them that they were in fact trusting their Father’s hands, they turned into laws to prove to God
that they were yielding even when they weren’t yielding. It was like the little guy straining
against his father’s hands, resisting the guidance of his father’s touch and managing to hit every
third ball, and then saying, “Look, I’m doing it the way you showed me.” That was what the dear
Israelites did. “took, I’m doing it, even though I’m doing it on my own and without you and I’m not
nearly doing it the way you want me to.”

Loved ones, that was the situation all down through those years when what they most needed was to
yield to the loving contact of their Father’s hands and to allow him to put his hands on their lives
and make their lives what he wanted them to be. But they would not yield to that. It’s so often the
same with our selves. What we most need is that touch of God that changes us and molds our lives.

At the crucial time in history when God’s arms appeared in obvious visible form, they utterly
rejected them. Here’s the moment when God’s arms appeared here on earth so that everybody would see
what he wanted to do. John 8:31: “Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, ‘If you
continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will
make you free.’ They answered him, ‘We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to
anyone. How is it that you say, “You will be made free?”‘ Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, truly I say
to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not continue in the house
forever; the son continues forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. I know
that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me, because my word finds no place in
you.'”

Loved ones, Jesus was God’s arms. Jesus’ death and resurrection was God’s arms around us as a human
race, trying to at last give us the sense of touch and feel that he had for our lives, trying to
mold our hands and the movement of our bodies and our minds into the same form and feeling that he
himself has for us. That’s what he was doing at Calvary. Calvary was actually the expression in time
and space of God cosmically destroying the whole human race, including and renewing us completely.
It was his remaking of the human race. It was the great moment when he got his arms around us, his
hands upon our hands and changed us, changed us into people that can trust and yield to him. That’s
what Calvary is all about; that is our greatest need. Your greatest need and my greatest need is to
be changed by God’s own molding action so that he gives us his feel for our lives and we can begin
to live as the little guy would live.

I remember my dad teaching me soccer that way at the beginning. And you know one funny thing–when
you are close to your dad like that you can certainly tell whether he has cleaned his teeth or not,
can’t you? Or you can certainly tell whether he wears deodorant or not, you are so close to him. It
is interesting, most of us can still tell the smell of our dads as they helped and showed us things.
We are so close to them that that’s what we felt about them. That’s what it’s like, loved ones.

That’s the kind of closeness that each of us needs to experienced with our dear Father. That’s what
he wants for us in Jesus. He wants that kind of closeness for us. He wants us to yield to his dear
arms on Calvary as he tries to draw us into the center of his Son’s death and resurrection. If we
will yield to that and accept that, we will find our lives being changed by His Spirit.

Now the verse we are studying today states that the dear Israelites didn’t do that. Maybe you would
just like to glance at it as we conclude. Romans 11:31: “So they have now been disobedient”–and you
see for years they have; they have failed to be what even in their own laws or their perversion of
God’s laws they think they should be–“in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may receive
mercy.” The only mercy they thought God extended to them was a readiness to forget the times they
missed the ball. That’s it. That’s the only mercy they knew in Old Testament times–that God was
ready to forget the times they missed the ball. They didn’t realize that there was a greater mercy,
there was a mighty work done in Jesus on Calvary in eternity whereby God actually stood behind them,
put his arms around them, placed his hands over theirs and changed them and made them able to live
the way he meant them to live. They didn’t know that.

That’s why Paul says they were disobedient, so that by the mercy that has been shown to us, they
themselves may receive the same mercy. In other words, they may see that mercy is not simply
forgiving failures in the past, but the greatest glory of mercy is God changing you now, this very
day, by the work he has done upon you in Jesus to make you able to hit the ball.

Loved ones, that’s the same with our own lives. That’s why we are disobedient, do you know that? God
uses even our disobedience. When you have trouble with anger, when you have trouble with jealousy,
when you have trouble with pride, when you have trouble with a critical spirit towards other people,
that’s God saying to you, “Do you see it’s not knowing how to be good that will enable you to be
like me? It doesn’t matter how much you know how to be good. It’s not that that counts. It’s
yielding to me, yielding to my hands, yielding to his Spirit as I begin to mold your life. That’s
what will enable you to be free of these things. While these things remain in your life it’s an
indication that you are not yielding. Don’t get all uppity and determined that ‘I’m going to hit the
ball with my own strength and effort.’ Don’t! Instead yield to me. Yield to my cross. Come into my
Son’s death. I destroyed you there and I remade you there. Believe that and now yield to my hands as
you feel their touch on your life.”

That’s what it is, loved ones. That’s what trusting God is about. The truth is we can’t do anything
on our own. We really can’t. After a while the little guy begins to be natural. The father’s nature
begins to be his nature and the father’s touch begins to be his touch, but it’s so good to feel the
father’s hands are right there whenever you are not quite sure.

That’s what faith is. That’s the attitude that the Father is asking from all of us here. Uppitiness
is what prevents him governing our lives. I suppose there isn’t one of us that doesn’t know exactly
the moment when we say, “I can do it myself.” So zero in on that, whatever that moment is for you,
and in these few minutes of quietness when we pray give that to your Father and say, “Lord, I want
your hands on my life, I want to be changed the way you want to change me.”