The purpose of this website is to provide free sermon manuscripts and sermon videos to pastors and missionaries throughout the world, especially the Third World, where there are few if any theological seminaries or Bible schools.

These sermon manuscripts and videos now go out to about 1,500,000 computers in over 221 countries every year at www.sermonsfortheworld.com. Hundreds of others watch the videos on YouTube, but they soon leave YouTube and come to our website. YouTube feeds people to our website. The sermon manuscripts are given in 46 languages to about 120,000 computers each month. The sermon manuscripts are not copyrighted, so preachers can use them without our permission. Please click here to learn how you can make a monthly donation to help us in this great work of preaching the Gospel to the whole world.

Whenever you write to Dr. Hymers always tell him what country you live in, or he cannot answer you. Dr. Hymers’ e-mail is rlhymersjr@sbcglobal.net.

Our text comes from one of the most interesting and mysterious passages in the New Testament. There the Apostle Paul deals boldly with the great question of the salvation of the Jews. And here God reveals through the Apostle Paul what we could never find out by human reasoning. Paul said, "I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery" (Romans 11:25).

Sigmund Freud was the founder of modern psychology. Carl Jung was one of his students, who went on to challenge him. They argued over the origin of the existence of God or, more precisely, over the existence of the spirit-world. Freud was a materialist. He thought that belief in God evolved from primitive totem worship. Jung disagreed, and attempted to show the reality of the spirit-world. That is a simple explanation of the two ways psychology dealt with the existence of God – and continues to do so in various ways. We must be very careful not to take sides with Dr. Jung, however. His views are a door into the occult and the demonic. So I have to say, neither man understood the real truth about the origin of faith in God.

Freud believed that the ancient Hebrews created God. Out of their imagination they invented belief in an invisible God. That is what I was taught at the liberal seminaries I attended. That is the materialistic view of the origin of God. Dr. Wilhelm Schmidt was a professor at the University of Vienna. He answered the various theories of the origin of God in his landmark book, The Origin and Growth of Religion, Cooper Square Publishers, 1972 edition. Another important book dealing with the origin of God is titled The Religions of China, by James Legge, Ph.D., long-time professor at Oxford University (Hodder and Stoughton, 1880). These two distinguished scholars presented evidence of God’s self-existence, that He existed quite apart from anything ancient man believed, and that the self-existing God revealed Himself to man. Rather than man creating God – God created man! That was the general thesis of these two scholars. And that is exactly what the Bible teaches about the existence of God from eternity past. And, of course, that was the view of the Apostle Paul. Long before Paul it was the view of Moses, to whom God revealed Himself by the name “I am,” referring to His self-existence (Exodus 3:14). It is important that we throw out the modern ideas of man having created God, or we will not be able to understand the eleventh chapter of Romans.

I have given you this long introduction because I want you to see that the Apostle Paul is not giving his own theory in Romans eleven. In verse 25 the Apostle tells us that what he says about Israel is a mystery (Greek, musterion) – which God revealed to him.

“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” (Romans 11:25).

Notice that he says, “blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.” The blindness that most of the Jews have concerning Christ is not universal. It is only “in part.” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said,

The object of the chapter is to tell us that God had not finished with the Jews as a nation although their condition in Paul’s day strongly suggested that He had. The bulk of them were outside the Christian Church and many had come to that conclusion – especially Gentile believers. Now there are two main sections in Paul’s statement. The first section is from verses 1 to 10 where the Apostle demonstrates that the rejection of Israel was not total. Then from verse 11 to verse 32 he shows that it is not a final rejection, it is only a temporary one. Remember that the Apostle states the main proposition of this major division in verse 11 and 12...it is there he throws out his first hint that there is going to be a restoration of the Jews as a people and they are going to believe the gospel (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, M.D., Romans – an Exposition of Chapter 11, The Banner of Truth Trust, 2005 reprint, pp. 159-160).

And this section of Romans 11 ends with the Apostle’s great prophecy in verses 26 and 27,

“And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins” (Romans 11:26-27).

The idea that the whole nation, “all Israel shall be saved,” may seem like a very unlikely prophecy. But the Apostle tells us that it was actually prophesied in the Old Testament. He quotes from Isaiah 59:20, 21 and Isaiah 27:9 to show that God had promised long before that “all Israel shall be saved” (Romans 11:26). Thus the Apostle tells us that all the Jewish people alive when “the Deliverer,” the Messiah comes, “shall be saved.” 

Now I must stop here and give an application of that wonderful promise in our text,

“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. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins” (Romans 11:25-27).

I. First, the Jewish people have been blind, in part, exactly like those of us who are Gentiles.

“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” (Romans 11:25).

He says “in part,” because he himself was a Jew who had been saved, “For I also am an Israelite” (Romans 11:1). He also says that their “blindness” is “in part” because “at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace” (Romans 11:5). There were then, and there have always been, a “remnant” of Jewish believers in Jesus. Paul also says that his purpose in writing this, and in preaching is to “save some of them” – that is, to save the remnant that will trust Jesus (Romans 11:14).

Now, then, does that really make the Jewish people any different from the rest of us? No, it does not! Right here, in the Book of Romans, the Apostle said,

“What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God” (Romans 3:9-11).

He said that was true of “both Jews and Gentiles” – “that they are all under sin.” Now, no one likes to hear that. I have never met an unconverted Gentile or Jew who liked to hear a preacher tell him that he is “under sin,” that he is dominated by sin, that he is not righteous – “no, not one.”

I remember preaching years ago in a Baptist church in Western Canada on the text “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10). The entire congregation was made up of Gentiles! There wasn’t a single Jew there! And yet when I said, There is none righteous, no, not one,” a middle aged woman stood bolt upright, with an angry face, and shouted “No!” at the top of her lungs as she ran out of the church! I was deeply shocked by this reaction. Later the pastor said he expected her to do something like that because she strongly rejected the idea that everyone is a sinner, that “there is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10). Now, in Romans 3:9-10, the Apostle tells us that is true of everyone, “both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin.” All of us are lost sinners before we are saved! And all of us hate to be told that. Unless God awakens us to our sinfulness we will not admit that we are lost.

What about our blindness? Is there any difference between a Jew and a Gentile regarding spiritual blindness? No, there is not. Since the Fall, all human beings are “blind” before conversion. The Apostle said, “blindness in part is happened to Israel.” He says “in part” because there have always been some Jews who have had their spiritual eyes opened. In II Corinthians 3:15 the Apostle spoke of a “vail” on the hearts of many Jewish people, but then he said, that when they “turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away” (II Corinthians 3:16).

The greatest Christian I have ever met was Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, a converted Jew. In his landmark book, Tortured for Christ, Pastor Wurmbrand told of God opening his eyes to the Lord Jesus Christ. He became a great champion of religious freedom throughout the Communist and Muslim world. He spent fourteen years in a Communist prison for his faith in Christ. He became the greatest Christian I have ever met. My own associate, Dr. C. L. Cagan, is the greatest Christian I have known more personally. He is also a converted Jew. You can read how God opened his eyes regarding Jesus in his autobiography, From Darwin to Design, which I helped him write. I have known a number of Jews whose eyes were opened to trust the Saviour, like Melissa Sanders, Dr. Cagan, Dr. and Mrs. David Stern, Helen Rocklin, Millie Senter and several others, who became members of our church. Moishe Rosen, the founder of Jews for Jesus, officiated at our wedding and remained a friend of me and my wife. We visited him, and had lunch with him, a few months before he passed away.

But unconverted Jews are no different from unconverted Gentiles. The Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:17-18 that the Gentiles are also spiritually blind before they are converted. He said,

“This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart” (Ephesians 4:17-18).

And in Romans 1:16 Paul said,

“I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16).

And so there is really no difference between Jews and Gentiles in this matter of salvation. All of us must believe in the Gospel of Christ to be saved. I say with the Apostle, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.” It is through the Christ of the Gospel that our sins are pardoned, and our eyes are opened, and we are saved, whether we are Jews or Gentiles!

II. Second, all of the Jewish people will be saved in the future.

Romans 11:26 says, “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.” The name “Jacob” here is another name for the Jewish people. Some say that this does not mean every Jew will be saved. I disagree. I learned long ago to believe exactly what the Bible says, “All Israel shall be saved.” That settles it for me!

But we are told here something that isn’t true of all Gentiles. Nowhere does the Bible tell us that all Gentiles shall be saved. Yet we are told that “all Israel shall be saved.” And this will happen when Jesus the Messiah returns at His Second Coming. The prophet Zechariah spoke of that wonderful day in the future. God said through that prophet,

“And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn” (Zechariah 12:10).

“In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness” (Zechariah 13:1).

These are wonderful promises that God has given to the Jews. Jesus is coming again through the clouds, back to this earth! At that time “all Israel shall be saved,” just as the Apostle Paul told us in Romans 11:26. But I have one more thing to say in this sermon.

III. Third, Jews and Gentiles today are saved in the same way.

In Romans 11:23 we are told that Jewish people today can be “grafted” into the church. The Apostle said,

“And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed [grafted] in: for God is able to graff [graft] them in again” (Romans 11:23).

This refers to Jews and Gentiles being brought together in the church, the Jews being "grafted" into the church with Gentile believers. In I Corinthians 12:13 Paul said, “By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles.” The “body” here refers to the “ekklesia” – the church. In Ephesians 2:16-18 Paul speaks again of both Jews and Gentiles being reconciled “unto God in one body by the cross” (Ephesians 2:16). That “one body” is the true Christian church.

Jesus died on the Cross to pay for the sins of His people, both Jews and Gentiles. That is the Gospel, the good news. Christ died on the Cross to atone for the sins of every Jew and Gentile who trusts Him. He rose bodily from the dead to give eternal life to every Jew and every Gentile who trusts Him. That is the Gospel – the good news of salvation through Christ. And, so, the Apostle said,

“I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16).

He said that the Gospel “is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth,” whether they be Jews or Gentiles!

It is a miracle that any Jew would believe in Jesus after the horrible things that have been done to them by wicked people who called themselves “Christians.” In the name of “Christ,” these sinful hypocrites burned their synagogues and murdered them by the millions. Hitler was a Catholic, one of those who claimed to be “Christian,” but slaughtered six million Jews during the Holocaust, in World War II. And he wasn’t the only one. Even Luther railed against the Jews, and was later quoted by Hitler, when he sent Jewish children to die in his gas chambers. We can only overlook Luther’s sin if we realize that he had great understanding on justification by faith, but his view of the Jewish people came from his medieval Catholic background, and he was a creature of his time on the subject of the Jews.

The greatest Christian I have ever known was Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, a converted Jew who became a Lutheran minister. I once asked him how he could join a church that was founded by Luther, who said such terrible things about the Jews when he was old and sick. Pastor Wurmbrand simply said, “I forgave him.” That took a miracle.

It takes a miracle for any of us to look beyond the sinfulness of “Christians” we have known and find Christ. In fact real Christianity is experienced only through the miracle of conversion.

When I was a child the people next door took me to a Baptist church. They were very kind to me, but I saw terrible things happen in that church, a Baptist church in Huntington Park, California, where I was a member before I joined the First Chinese Baptist Church. In Huntington Park I saw people dressed in suits and ties throw hymn books at each other, and curse each other with foul language, in the sanctuary of the church on Sunday morning. Later that morning I stood nearby while three deacons threw the choir director onto the pavement in front of the church. Two grown men held the man down on the sidewalk after they beat him. They pushed his bloody face into the pavement and rifled his pockets to take away his keys to the church. That was way back in the 1950s. Today those wicked men, who called themselves deacons, would have gone to jail for beating him like that. I was so shocked and horrified when I saw those things that I wondered if Christianity was true at all! Those Baptists were no better than lost members of my family who got drunk and fought with each other.

How did I become a Christian after seeing those horrible things committed by church members when I was a boy? Look at Romans 11:5. Please stand and read it out loud.

“Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace” (Romans 11:5).

You may be seated.

Paul is speaking of the Jewish “remnant according to the election of grace.” He is telling us that a “remnant,” a small number of Jewish people, become real Christians in spite of all that happens to them. Even though so-called “Christians” treated them like dogs, and imprisoned them, and killed them, and tortured them, “Even so...at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace” (Romans 11:5). In spite of Luther’s sinful raging, Richard Wurmbrand could say, “I forgave him.” How could Pastor Wurmbrand say that and be saved, and go on to become a Lutheran minister? He could do that “according to the election of grace.” And that is how I could see those awful things as a teenager in that Baptist church, and yet go on to become a believer and a pastor myself. “There is a remnant according to the election of grace.” That’s true of Jews and Gentiles who become true Christians in spite of all the evil things they see and read about in history. Whether we are Jewish or Gentile believers in Jesus, we are Christians by the unmerited grace of God alone! Only the grace of God can make us look to Jesus, rather than sinful men.

“At this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.” Oh, praise God! For the remnant of real Christians are not saved by their own strength, or their own goodness, or their own power! No, never by our own goodness or strength! Never by our own power! “There is a remnant according to the election of grace.” Yes, and if you are ever saved, it will be the same way that Pastor Wurmbrand was saved, the same way Dr. Cagan was saved, the same way Melissa Sanders was saved, the same way Moishe Rosen was saved – the same way I was saved! “At this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.” Old John Newton saw it! He was a truly horrible man who tortured and killed helpless slaves. But Christ saved him by grace! He became a pastor. He wrote those words, so beautiful, so holy, and so very true!

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound,
   That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
   Was blind, but now I see.

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
   And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
   The hour I first believed!
(“Amazing Grace” by John Newton, 1725-1807).

Another sweet old hymn says,

O to grace how great a debtor
   Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
   Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
(“Come, Thou Fount” by Robert Robinson, 1735-1790).

If we are saved, it is because of God’s unmerited grace – God’s unconditional, electing grace! “Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.” We are saved by grace when we trust Jesus, who died on the Cross to pay for our sins - and rose bodily from the dead to give us eternal life! 

How can you tell if you are one of the elect? If you come to Jesus and trust Him, it shows you are one of the elect, that you are part of the remnant of Jews and Gentiles, “according to the election of grace.” I plead with you to trust Jesus by simple faith tonight.

If you would like to speak with us about trusting Jesus, and being saved by Him, go to the back of the auditorium now. Dr. Cagan will take you to a quiet room to be counselled, and to pray. Dr. Chan, please pray for someone to trust Jesus tonight.

(END OF SERMON)
You can read Dr. Hymers' sermons each week on the Internet
at www.realconversion.com. Click on “Sermon Manuscripts.”

You may email Dr. Hymers at rlhymersjr@sbcglobal.net, (Click Here) – or you may
write to him at P.O. Box 15308, Los Angeles, CA 90015. Or phone him at (818)352-0452.

Scripture Read Before the Sermon by Mr. Abel Prudhomme: Romans 11:1-5, 25-27.
Solo Sung Before the Sermon by Mr. Benjamin Kincaid Griffith:
“Amazing Grace” (by John Newton, 1725-1807).

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO OF ""