Romans 11:25-27 For I would not, brothers, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own conceits… I. THE CALLING OF THE JEWS IS A MYSTERY. Seek not further than is revealed, and believe that. If thou askest how, and when? I know not, because I find not revealed. God knows, which satisfies me. He that too earnestly looks upon the sun comes in the end to see nothing, and he that stands too near fire may burn himself instead of warming him. Secret things are for the Lord, but things revealed for us and our children for ever. II. THE END OF THE WORLD SHALL NOT BE TILL THE JEWS ARE CALLED, and how long after that none yet can tell. 1. There are certain foolish prophecies dispersed that the world shall end within so many years. In Paul's time there were such, and. they would have fathered their brainless toys upon Paul (2 Thessalonians 2:1, 2). So also from Paul's time to this day — a note of great folly and rashness. (1) Because there are no plain Scriptures for it but against it. (2) Because the grounds of their conceit are uncertain, idle and frivolous: as from Peter's saying, that a thousand years is but as a day, and from divers mystical numbers in Daniel and the Revelation. (3) If the last day be unknown (as all acknowledge), then the day before the last, and so by consequence the last week, month, year, age. (4) All the diviners about this point have been hitherto shamed. Such, therefore, that shall yet attempt it must expect the same as a just recompense of their madness. 2. It is not possible to know nor lawful to inquire. If it had been for the Church's profit to have known it God would have revealed it. 3. Whensoever the time comes it shall come well for God's children; prepare for it that it may be a joyful and not a dismal time unto thee. If God should now come to judgment, how ready art thou? III. TILL THE FULNESS OF THE GENTILES BE COME IN. There is an emptiness among the Gentiles, both in regard of number and of grace, which last is a great impediment to the calling of the Jews. The idolatry of some, and the profaneness of others are a stumbling-block unto them. Let us remove it that we may make a passage for their calling. IV. COME IN. WHITHER? INTO THE CHURCH. All they which believe are within; without are unbelievers. It is our Father's house, where is bread enough; without is nothing but hog's meat. Examine how thou art within, whether as Ham in the ark, as Judas among the apostles, as chaff in flour; for in respect of their bodies many are within, who in respect of faith and obedience are without. It is all one to be without and to deserve to be without. V. BLINDNESS OR OBSTINACY IS IN PART COME TO ISRAEL, BUT IN THE END ALL ISRAEL SHALL BE SAVED. An obstinate man is not in the state of salvation. Who have this obstinate heart? The Jews; but we need not seek a Jew to find it. Concerning which note — 1. The misery of an obstinate heart. There are two estates of the heart most fearful: to feel sin too much; and to be past feeling. The soft repenting heart is a heavenly heart. 2. The means whereby we come to such a state. (1) Custom in sinning. Even as a path is hardened by the continual trampling of the passengers, so by custom in evil is the conscience by little and little crushed and made insensible. (2) Neglect of the means of grace offered. This shut up the Jews in obstinacy; and ordinarily for this is this judgment of God inflicted upon men. 3. Its effects. (1) A. departing from the faith, broaching the doctrines of devils, denying manifest truth, and holding and seeming anything to obtain our own ends (1 Timothy 4:1-3; Ephesians 4:18). As when men will be Papists, Protestants, neuters, anything, nothing, as they see it best serve their politic plots. (2) Committing and delighting in sin. 4. Its signs. (1) When no judgment. (2) When no mercy can move to remorse. When the word, which is a hammer, a sword, and water can neither by the thundering of judgment, bruise, or make any dent into our hearts, not by the pleasing sound of mercy, molify us and make us relent; there is hardness unspeakable. (Elnathan Parr, B.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. |
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