Confirmation of the Prophets, No. 2
Romans 9:25-29
RO130-01

Romans 9 is telling the Jewish people that the promise of salvation given to them through Abraham did not include every one of them automatically. Salvation is a gift from God given to those Jews whom God chooses to take into heaven. Since God is sovereign, He may do as He pleases in deciding who is to share His heaven. The basis of salvation is the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ on the cross in payment for the sins of the world. No Jew can, therefore, go to heaven in Paul's day or in ours, unless he accepts the work of Jesus Christ in his behalf.

The Jewish rejection of Jesus Christ as Messiah Savior leaves no future for the Jewish people in Paul's day or in our day except the lake of fire. God has the right to make some lost Jews vessels of wrath by leaving them in their lost condition and to make others vessels of mercy by leaving them to trust in Jesus Christ. And that's exactly what He does. So, there are some Jews today who are born again, some Jews who have become vessels of mercy simply by a decision of God Himself.

The Old Testament prophets, Paul has been pointing out, stress this practice of God of selecting some Jews to be His people in heaven. Paul, first of all, quotes the prophet Hosea who declares God's mercy in taking some degenerate, rebellious Jews and making them his spiritually born-again sons. God has not abandoned his spiritually unfaithful wife, Israel, but He intends by His sovereign choice to restore her as His wife once more.

The mass of Jews for centuries have rejected Jesus Christ, and they, in turn, have been rejected by God. But, He has always preserved for Himself a remnant of the Jewish race. The Gentiles who were outside of God's special promise to the Jews have now been brought into the family of God as members of the church, the body of Christ. So that, while we Gentiles are not the physical, racial sons of Abraham, we are His spiritual sons.

Paul's Reference to Isaiah

So, Isaiah is crying out a warning. The Greek word "cry out" is "krazo." This word means, "to proclaim something, to arouse the attention of the audience." Paul is referring specifically here in Romans to Isaiah 10:22, which says, "For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: the full end decreed shall overflow with righteousness." Paul is making a reference to this statement of Isaiah who cried out concerning, that is, in regard to Israel.

The word "Israel" here refers to the northern kingdom when the Jewish people split into two kingdoms. The southern kingdom was called Judah. The northern was called Israel; sometimes, it was called Ephraim. But he's referring here by the word, "Israel," by this northern kingdom of ten tribes, and he's referring to them at the time of the Assyrian invasion where the nation of Assyria was raised up to discipline the people of the northern kingdom.

So, the prophet Isaiah has been crying out in alarm, a warning concerning Israel: "'Though the number of the children of Israel [referring to the Jews of the northern kingdom] be as the sand of the sea.'" The sand of the sea. That is, "Though the Jewish people should multiply and be absolutely innumerable like all the sands on the seashore," Isaiah says, "I'm sad to say to you that only a remnant, a leftover is going to come into heaven."

"Only a remnant will be saved." The word is "sozo." Here, the word, "saved," refers to the preservation of the Jewish nation as Jews, of the Jews who are surviving in the northern kingdom, of Jews entering salvation from hell. Isaiah 10:20-21 refers to this remnant in this way, "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and such as have escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again lean upon him that smote them; but shall lean upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God."

So that, Isaiah is pointing out on the one hand that even as the Jews when multiplied by God physically like the sands on the seashore, only a handful of that sand is ever going to get into heaven. But, He is going to preserve them. In the future, He is going to preserve some of them.

So, the idea of this verse is this: even though the population of Israel may become as numerous as the sand of the sea, only a remnant will be saved from destruction by the Assyrians and enter salvation from hell." God's promise to the founder of the Jewish nation, Abraham, in Genesis 22:17, referred to His posterity by this analogy. It was Abraham that was first told by God, "Your descendants are going to be as numerous as the grains of sand on the seashore." Out of the mass of Abraham's physical descendants, however, only a portion are going to be born-again to enter heaven.

The Jews who are so proud of their physical circumcision did not understand that the circumcision that counted with God was the spiritual circumcision of the mind that was trusting in Christ the Savior.

Paul referred to this in Romans 2:28-29, where he said, "For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God." So, to become part of the remnant of Israel, a Jew who is going to survive with God for all eternity in heaven, he must come to God through Jesus Christ.

So, a Jewish boy today grows up in a Jewish home. He's taught the Old Testament scriptures. He comes to the age of thirteen, and he has his bar mitzvah, where he becomes a son of the covenant, and they go through a very great ceremony. It's a big thing. And he comes into his adult life, and he goes to the synagogue, and he goes through all the special occasions and observes all the special rituals. But it's all meaningless. Everything is dead and doomed. But God says, "Here and there, out of the mass of those boys and girls who are growing up in Jewish homes, I'm snatching them out of the fires of hell and creating a remnant, a leftover, for My heaven to be My people." The spiritually circumcised Jew is the one that counts with God. And you cannot be spiritually circumcised unless you trust in Christ as Savior.

This remnant, further, Isaiah is indicating is expressly chosen by God. And for which He preserved the Jewish nation in history. It's not an accidental escape from the lake of fire. God has deliberately preserved the Jewish nation. So, just being a Jew is not going to take you into heaven. "Most Jews," Paul says, "won't make it."

Then, in Romans 9:28, Paul says, "And he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth." Now, that verse is kind of a mixed-up translation, so we're just going to proceed from the Greek text, and I think it'll be a lot clearer, because it is the punchline of what Paul is quoting from Isaiah and what Isaiah told these people.

Verse 27 said that only some Jews would be saved by God's design. What verse 28 is saying is the opposite side of the coin, that most of the Jews would be cut off from heaven. "For," this is the way the Greek sentence begins. "For," with the word, "gar," a conjunction introducing a quotation from Isaiah 10:23.

"The Lord." "Kurios," indicating deity. "The Lord is going to make something." The word is "poieo." The word "poieo" means "to carry out." Future tense: sometime in the future. Active voice: God is going to do this Himself. He is going to carry out a work. And actually, the word "work" is the Greek word for "word:" "logos."

And actually here, what this means is a sentence, a decree that is pronounced, and specifically, which is pronounced upon the earth - that is, the planet earth. So, the way the sentence should be translated is, "For the Lord will carry out His sentence upon the earth." The judgment of God upon the earth. The discipline and the doom and the condemnation, just as He did in Noah's day.

Then, the last part of the Greek verse has the word "finish," which is the Greek word, "sumteleo;" this means, "completely, thoroughly." It is God's constant plan that He is going to completely do something to the Jewish people. And along with completely, he adds the words, "cut short," which is the Greek word, "sumtemno." And that means, "to cut short," or the idea of, "quickly." So, what the verse is saying is, "For the Lord will carry out His sentence upon the earth completely and quickly." Isaiah predicts, in other words, that when God deals with sinful Jews, He will take definite and vigorous action against them. The Jews are not going to escape the consequences of their evil in Isaiah's day, and indeed, they did not.

In Isaiah 14:24, this idea is presented. Isaiah says, "The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, 'Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand.'" That's the idea. The Lord is going to carry out His sentence upon the Jews. Only a remnant are going to be secured. The rest are going to be dealt with and sent into the lake of fire. God will not postpone His punishment, and it will be severe.

Well, the Jews of Isaiah's day experienced this in the northern kingdom, because the military powers of Assyria came in, conquered them, deported them to foreign countries. And those tribes scattered, never returned in any numbers back to the land of promise. From this widespread destruction, only a remnant of the Jews would survive, is what Isaiah is saying.

So now, in Romans 9:29, we come to the statement, the climactic statement tying this up of the preservation of God, "And as Esaias said before." Here again, he is going to quote the prophet Isaiah, "Just as Isaiah said before." The word "before" is "proeipon." "Proeipon" means, "to say previously." When did Isaiah say something previously? Here again, the Apostle Paul has his Hebrew Bible out in front of Him, and his eye falls on Isaiah 1:9. And so, he's quoting that verse here, "Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been like Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah."

Now, Paul takes that verse, and he quotes it here in his letter to the Romans in order to demonstrate his point. "And just as Isaiah said previously." "Just as Isaiah said previously, except." The word "except" is the Greek word for "if:" "ei." And this is a second-class "if." You remember what that means? Second-class condition says, "If - but it's not true." If a thing would happen, it didn't, is the idea here.

The Lord of Hosts

Now, who is, and what is the Lord of Hosts? It is the Lord of Hosts who has made certain that some Jews would survive in the world as regenerated people. That's what the passage in Isaiah is saying, and that's why Paul is quoting Isaiah.

Let's go back to the Hebrew for one moment. The word, "LORD," and you'll see that it's all capital letters in your Bible, is the Hebrew word, "YHWH." And we pronounce it, "Yahweh," in English. That's the way it should be pronounced. Generally, it is pronounced as "Jehovah." And that's all right, too. The translation of the Hebrew name of God, which is the most sacred name of God. This is the sacred, four-letter name of God, "YHWH," is "He that is who He is." And what this means is the eternal "I Am." The name "YHWH," means, "the eternal I Am."

We have this in Exodus 3:14. This is the name of God which is associated with the work of God as the Redeemer of mankind, and it was first revealed by this characteristic as the one who is redeeming the people of Israel. You can read at your leisure Exodus 3:13-17, which associate this name of God with redeeming the people of Israel from destruction.

Jehovah is God's name, furthermore, that's associated with giving of the moral law to Israel as the expression of His absolute righteousness, so you have this name associated with the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. Furthermore, He is not only "YHWH," He is "YHWH Sabaoth." The Hebrew word looks like this: "sabaoth." So, it's "YHWH Sabaoth." And this word means, "hosts," and it has special reference to armies. That's what the word "hosts" means. It's almost a military term.

This name is associated, then, with the omnipotence of God in accomplishing His will. When you say, "Lord of Hosts," or "YHWH Sabaoth," or "LORD of Sabaoth," you are talking about God in His full, dramatic omnipotence. This is a word of power, and that is the way it is used in the Old Testament.

It was the very last name by which the Jews came to know God. The "Lord of Hosts" is the name that God revealed to the Jews when they were in times of great need and in times of great personal helplessness. This is the name of deity to bring them comfort when they are in times of spiritual failure.

For example, 1 King 18:15. "And Elijah said, 'As the Lord of hosts ["YHWH Sabaoth"] liveth, before whom I stand, I will surely show myself unto Him to day.'" And he is referring to the fact that (here, it is Elijah), he is referring to the fact that he's going to face off with the king of Israel. He's going to face off with the enormously wicked king Ahab, whose wife, you'll remember, is Jezebel, who is egging him on into the Baal worship cults so that Israel had abandoned their true God, and they were worshipping the Baal god.

And, it is Elijah who says, "Yes, I'm going to walk into the lion's den. And you know how I'm going to walk into it? I'm going to confront this king eyeball-to-eyeball, and I'm going to do it without fear because I come in the name of the Lord of Hosts." Now, what he was saying was this, was the name of great power.

In Isaiah 10:24-27, we have the name again demonstrated as a source of power. Isaiah 10:24: "Therefore thus saith the Lord God of hosts, 'O my people that dwellest in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall smite thee with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against thee, after the manner of Egypt. For yet a very little while, and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger in their destruction. And the Lord of Hosts shall stir up the scourge for him according to the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb: and as his rod was upon the sea, so shall he lift it up after the manner of Egypt. And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.'"

The Assyrians are moving in on the people of God. They are in great fear. God comes to them and identifies Himself as the "Lord of Hosts." Immediately, there should have been comfort, a sigh of relief, to know that God was coming to them in this great power. And what did God do? Indeed, He took the Assyrians. He put them into an encampment. He took the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ who was called the Angel of the Lord. He sent the Lord Jesus into the camp of the Assyrians one night, and the Lord Jesus Christ slaughtered 185,000 prime troops of the Assyrian army. He broke the back of their attack. This is the Lord of Hosts. This is the God with whom you and I are associated as intimate family members.

The Story of Hannah

1 Samuel 1:3, we read concerning Hannah's husband whose name was Elkanah, "And this man [Elkanah] went up out of his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto the Lord of Hosts [the God of Power, and his is the first time the name is revealed to us here in Old Testament scripture] in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the Lord, were there."

Now, Hophni and Phinehas, you may remember, were the sons of the priest and the judge at this time, a man named Eli. And these two were degenerates. They were priests. They were the spiritual leaders, but they were guilty of fornication with the women of Israel. They were robbing, they were stealing, they were bribing. You could not believe what was taking place in the midst of Israel morally at this time.

But in the midst of all that foul thing, here is this woman Hannah in grief over the fact that she does not have a child. So, Hannah who knows God as the Lord of Hosts turns to Him in that characteristic. 1 Samuel 1:11, "And she vowed a vow, and said, 'O Lord of Hosts ["YHWH Sabaoth], if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, remember me, and not forget thy handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a male child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.'"

She turns to the God of power. She asks for this child, and she says, "And if you do give me this boy, I'll turn him back over to you for service. Eli the priest and the judge of Israel at the time, hears her prayer, and he tells her that the Lord of Hosts has made it clear to him that He would answer and grant her request. 1 Samuel 1:17, "Then Eli answered and said, 'Go in peace: and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of Him.' And she said, 'Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight.' So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad."

Now, this tell us something very great about Hannah. This was a really godly, perceptive woman. She knew God as the Lord of Hosts, the God of omnipotent power, and therefore, she approached Him as the one who could solve the problem. She wasn't going to some counselor. She wasn't going to some advisors. She wasn't going to human beings. She went to the God who could solve the problem. And then, she gets the message as the messages were transmitted to people in those days through the priest, "This will be done."

So, what she does. She goes home, smiles all over her face. She's eating. She's got her appetite back. She's on a top of the world, because she knows she's going to get pregnant. Sure enough, she does. In 1 Samuel 1:20, "When it came to pass, when the time was come about after Hannah had conceived, that she bore a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, 'Because I have asked him of the Lord.'"

Hannah's Prayer

1 Samuel 2:1-10, "And Hannah prayed, and said, 'My heart rejoiceth in the Lord, mine horn is exalted in the Lord: my mouth is enlarged over mine enemies; because I rejoice in Thy salvation. There is none holy like the Lord: for there is none beside Thee: neither is there any rock like our God. Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed."

Hannah had the perception to know that God not only listens to your words - that's what people do. Sure, you can stand up, and you can impress us with your words and make us think very highly of you when you're something other than what you pretend to be, but God has knowledge. Hannah says, "Don't be so arrogant as to try to con people and think you're getting away with it. It doesn't matter if you do con them. The important thing is, you're not conning God.

Verse 4, "The bows of the mighty men are broken, and they that stumbled are girded with strength [military victory]. And who were full have hired out themselves for bread; and they that were hungry ceased to hunger: so that the barren hath born seven; and she that hath many children is waxed feeble. [God changes things. The rich man who is riding high in the world is going to get cut down at the knees if he does not recognize that God is the source of his blessing. And the poor man who recognizes he has nothing but he can trust in the God who has power suddenly finds himself with everything he needs.

Verse 6, "'The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: He bringeth down to Sheol, and bringeth up. [God has power of the resurrection.] The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich: He bringeth low, and lifteth up. He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifted up the beggar from the refuse, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory: for the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and He hath set the world upon them.'"

"'He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail. The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; out of heaven shall He thunder upon them: the Lord shall judge the ends of the earth; and He shall give strength unto His king, and exalt the horn of His anointed.'" Beautiful picture of the appreciation of this woman for knowing God as the Lord of Hosts.

Israel's Battle with the Philistines

Verse 4 of 1 Samuel 4, "So the people sent to Shiloh, that they might bring from there the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts, who dwelleth between the cherubim: and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God."

Because the most sacred object that the Jews possessed was the Ark of the Covenant, this box that was normally kept in the Holy of Holies, they brought it out, put the appropriate covering on it, had it carried by the priest. And they said, "We're going to take this into battle. And with God in our presence, with this sign, this symbol, we will win, because He - you notice, they call Him by His title - the Lord of Hosts.

But the problem was, this was a time of great evil in the nation. It is significant that Hophni and Phinehas should be quoted as being here, these who were vile, wretched men, though they were the spiritual priests that who led the people into all kinds of sinfulness that they should be there upon this sacred moment of the carrying of the ark.

Well, of course, you see, the thing is doomed. This hypocritical relationship could not win, and so, consequently, they went into battle, and the worst possible thing happened. 1 Samuel 4:10, "And the Philistines fought, and Israel was smitten, and they fled every man into his tent: and there was a very great slaughter; for there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen. And the Ark of God was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain."

So, God brought His judgment. The primary judgment that God brings is to kill those who violate His moral code, who violate His will. The sin unto death was the prominent feature of Old Testament discipline as it is indeed in our day, but people often are not conscious of it as they should be. Your life hangs by a thread at a certain point when you violate what you know, when you are disobedient to the will of God, when you turn your back upon the doctrines of scripture.

So here, the battle went against them, and they not only lost to the Philistines, but they lost the Ark of the Covenant itself. The two wicked sons of Eli were killed, and when Eli, you remember, go the word, he fell off his stool backward, broke his neck, and he died. So, God's hand of judgment is sweeping through. The apostate Jews are not given victory. They lose the Ark of the Covenant to the Philistines. This is a time in the national life of Israel of great moral corruption. God's great power is not for those who are in reversionism.

David and the Lord of Hosts

"'I come to the in the name of 'YHWH Sabaoth'.'" "'I come to thee in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.'" The God of the Jewish army, that you have all these contemptuous things to say about. Young David faced Goliath in the name of the Lord of Hosts, and you know what happened. He went out easily with that kind of power behind him.

And how easy it is to forget. And how soon we forget. How soon we forget those tremendous victories we've enjoyed with God as the result of the Lord of Hosts working for us.

Years, later, David is no longer just the nobody. He has now been made the king of Israel. He rules all twelve tribes, and he is one of the greatest generals that Israel has ever produced. And his victories have been so many and so great and so extensive that he has brought peace to the nation. And the nation is prospering. Everybody is enjoying life. And David is sitting there very happy.

And then, he not only finds himself happy but in sneaks the very vicious quality of the sin nature of pride. He becomes rather arrogant as he thinks about his military victories, about the peace that he has brought to the nation. And in his mind, he begins thinking, "I wonder, I really wonder just how strong my military forces are." That is why, you see, he thinks that he has been so victorious, because he has such good soldiers. He has so many. He has such an effective military source.

In 1 Chronicles 21, the sad story of David's demise here is recorded. 1 Chronicles 21, "And Satan stood up against Israel, and enticed David to number Israel [that is, the military troops]. And David said to Joab and to the rulers of the people, 'Go, number Israel from Beersheba unto Dan; and bring the number of them to me, that I may know it.'"

Now, Joab, his associate, is a very godly man. And right away, Joab sees where this is going. "Why do you want to know this, David? Obviously, you want to know this so you can say, 'This is why I'm so powerful, and I'm going to announce this for all the nations round about, how many powerful troops I have, to put them on guard.'" Joab says, "Don't do that, David. God knows how many soldiers we need, and at any point in time, He will provide us what we need. You don't have to be numbering them and building up your arrogant pride.

1 Chronicles 21:3, "And Joab answered, 'The Lord make his people an hundred times so many more as they be: but, my lord the king, are they not all my lord's servants? why then doth my lord require this thing? why will he be a cause of trespass to Israel?'" Joab says, "You'll be taking confidence in your armies instead of in the Lord of Hosts, that God who carried you to victory when you faced Goliath."

But, David would not listen. David insisted that he go ahead with his census of his troops, and the result was a great displeasure on the part of God. 1 Chronicles 21:4, "Nevertheless the king's word prevailed against Joab. Wherefore Joab departed, and went throughout all Israel, and came to Jerusalem. And Joab gave the sum of the number of the people unto David."

"And all they of Israel were a million and a hundred thousand men who drew sword: and Judah was four hundred threescore and ten thousand men who drew sword. But Levi and Benjamin counted he not among them: for the king's word was abominable to Joab. And God was displeased with this thing; therefore He smote Israel. And David said unto God, 'I have sinned greatly, because I have done this thing: but now, I beseech thee, do away the iniquity of thy servant; for I have done very foolishly.'"

David wakes up to the fact that he has done a very foolish thing, and the thing that brought him to his senses and that undercut his arrogant confidence was that God sent the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ as the Angel of the Lord into the camp of David. And David looks up, and there in the sky, he sees Jesus Christ standing with a sword in His hand, and the Lord moves through the armies of Israel, and seventy thousand - seventy thousand - of his best troops are slaughtered.

So that, David suddenly realizes that with a snap of God's finger, everything can be wiped out, that he has such great confidence in. But the thing that can never be wiped out is "YHWH Sabaoth," the Lord of Hosts. Him, he can always trust. In Him, he can always find confidence.

So, you may read the rest of chapter 21 of 1 Chronicles and see the great atrocity that David suffered. And he learned that he was much more powerful when he was fighting Goliath with the Lord of Hosts than now that he is facing the armies of the world in the confidence of his own armies.

Sodom and Gomorrah

So, that's the background, getting back to Romans 9:29, to tie this up. That's the background of the statement that Paul makes here in quoting Isaiah, when he says, "And Isaiah said before, 'Except the Lord of Sabaoth.'" That is, the Lord, the Almighty, all-powerful one had done something for Israel. That is, that he has "left" them. This is the Greek word, "egkataleipo." This means, "leftover." "Except that He hath left us a seed," that is, the descendants of Abraham. And we may translate this, "Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left to us a posterity."

"And had been." This is the word "ginomai," which means, "to become." "We had become as Sodom." "We had become as Sodom, and then we had been made." The word "made" is "homoioo," which means, "to resemble." We had been made to resemble Gomorrah. All of you remember Sodom and Gomorrah. Verse 29 makes reference to them. What was left of Sodom and Gomorrah was a grease spot on the plains when God got through with them.

Verse 29, then, says, "And just as Isaiah said previously, 'Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left to us a posterity, we would have become Sodom and would have resembled Gomorrah. The condition of Sodom and Gomorrah after God's judgment upon it was that every inhabitant was dead. They were completely wiped out. The sin of the place which was centered primarily in homosexual was such a great enormity in the eyes of God that all the inhabitants of these two great cities - and they were great metropolitan centers at the time - men, women, babies, children, everybody completely destroyed.

Genesis 19:24-25 remind us of that. "Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; And He overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground."

And verse 27, "And Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord: And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace." Then it was like God let loose an atom bomb upon those cities. And it wasn't only the human beings that were destroyed, but we're told that it got rid of everything that lived.

So, Paul quotes Isaiah to prove his point. Yes, some Jews will go to heaven. They'll go to heaven only because God has decided to choose you for heaven, and it is His choice, and He can execute it because He is a Lord of Hosts. He is the Lord of all power. Not all Jews will be saved. Some will be saved from every generation. There never will be a time, Isaiah is saying, when there will not be a Jew. And there will never be a time when there will not be a remnant of born-again Jews who trust in Jesus Christ. And if it had not been for the work of God, the Jews would long-since been like Sodom and Gomorrah.

How great it is, indeed, and how sweet it is to know that we here this morning as members of the body of Christ have the Lord of Hosts as our Heavenly Father. Now, that's great power to call upon. And like Hannah, once you call upon Him, I don't care what your problem is. You can lean back and say, "Now, Lord, I'm waiting upon you to give me the solution, to give me the decision. And whatever you decide, that's what's for me, because that's where my best interest lies. I am the child. I am the son. I am the daughter of "YHWH Sabaoth."

Dr. John E. Danish, 1977

Back to the Romans index