Sermon Tone Analysis

! Romans 10

!! Romans 10

*Tape #8129*

*Pastor Chuck Smith*

 

Chapter ten is closely tied with the last part of chapter nine.

Where Paul declares beginning with verse 30, /What shall we say then?

That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, /(That is through the law.)

/have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith;  31but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness.

32Why?

Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law.

For they stumbled at that stumbling stone/ (which of course, was Jesus Christ)/.

33As it is written:  "Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame."

/

Now, because Paul has taken the position that the gospel is open to all men, Jew and Gentile alike.

And because Paul dared to take the gospel to the Gentiles, many of the Jews were accusing him of bitterness because the Jews did not receive his testimony.

Paul always sought to go to the Jews first.

When he would go into a new community, he would first go to the synagogue.

And there he would preach Christ to them, always to the Jew first.

But when the Jews rejected over and over, finally Paul said, seeing you count yourself not worthy to receive the things of God, I going to the Gentiles.

And Paul became the apostle to the Gentiles.

Now the Jews accused him of being bitter against the Jews.

And so he opened the ninth chapter by saying that he had this great heaviness and continual sorrow in his heart because he could even wish himself accursed from Christ for his brethren, his kinsmen, according to the flesh.

At the beginning of chapter ten he again affirms his love for the Jews, his brethren, according to the flesh.

And he declares, /Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.

/Paul is not bitter.

Notice, my heart’s desire is for Israel to be saved.

But not just my heart’s desire, but my heart’s desire and my prayer.

Paul turned his heart’s desire into his prayer.

In other words he took the things he longed for, his desires, and he turned them into prayer.

I think that that is an important thing for us.

Those things that we are wanting to be accomplished.

Those things that we want to see done.

How important that we make those our prayers.

That we turn our desires into our prayers.

We want to see God work.

We have a great desire to see God's work in members of our family.

We need to turn those into prayers.

Not just the longing.

Not just the heart’s desire but make them your prayer!

I think that we need to be spending much more time in prayer.

We have given many opportunities here at Calvary Chapel for people to come and pray.

We have a ladies intercessory prayer group that meets on Monday morning.

We have many prayer groups during the week.

We have men who come here all night long every night of the year to pray.

We have a Saturday night prayer meeting for the men.

And men, I’d like to encourage you to come to these Saturday night prayer meetings.

It is folly to think that the church can continue to go on and be a witness and be blessed apart from prayer.

We need to pray more and I would encourage you men especially, Saturday night, give yourselves unto prayer.

Come with your desires, your heart’s desires.

Pray together.

The Bible tells us that the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

The Bible tells us that if two or three of us will agree on earth concerning anything, it will be done.

And we would encourage you to come and join with the men, agreement in prayer, to see the work of God done in your children.

If ever there was a time when we needed to pray for our children, it’s now.

The opportunity for evil is so prevalent.

My heart goes out to the young people today.

Because only by the grace of God will they be able to stand against the wiles of the devil and the opportunities for evil that are there so available to them.

Do you have a burden for your children?

Are you concerned about their relationship with God?

You see Paul took that concern, that burden and he turned it into prayer.

My heart’s desire and prayer for Israel is that they might be saved.

Wednesday mornings we have a prayer breakfast and the men gather and pray on Wednesday morning.

Great opportunity to gather with the men at that breakfast.

Before you go to work, come and spend time in prayer.

My heart’s desire and prayer for Israel is that they might be saved.

/2//For I bear them witness /(Paul said) /that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.

/In another place, Paul said it is good to be zealously effective for a good thing.

Writing to the Philippians, Paul in giving his sort of religious pedigree said that he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees.

And concerning zeal, he said, I was persecuting the church.

So he is speaking out of personal experience when he said I testify of them, they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.

He thought that he was doing God a favor in seeking to destroy the church.

He had a great zeal wanting to do God's work, but it wasn’t according to knowledge.

And of course zeal without knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

You see there are many people who are more zealous in their programs than the Christian is.

Now whatever you may think of those that are involved in green peace and I really don’t have much of a sympathy towards them personally.

But you have to say that these people have a zeal for their cause.

They are willing to go to jail for their cause.

They are willing to put their little boats in front of great ships, willing to be rammed for their cause.

Look at the zeal that the communists had for their cause.

Look at the zeal that so many people involved in false religions have for their religion.

And so here are the Jews, they are very religious.

I testify that they have a zeal for God, tremendous zeal for God, but it isn’t according to knowledge.

What a tragedy when people are spending all of their energies and this zealousness for false causes, that have a zeal but not according to knowledge!

Because they are ignorant of God's righteousness.

Now they want to be righteous.

They are seeking for righteousness.

As we go back into chapter nine, Israel, or the Jews which followed after the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness.

They had a zeal.

They keep the law zealously.

You go to Israel today and you see them, black, long coats, black hats, curls underneath, coming down the sides.

You see them at the Western Wall.

And you see them with their prayer book and they are bobbing and all.

They are going through their prayer book.

They have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge.

They are ignorant of the righteousness that God has provided through Jesus Christ.

And thus, they are seeking to establish a righteous standing before God by their works, by their good works, by their prayers and these things of which they are very zealous to follow them, but their endeavor is to have a righteous standing before God.

But their own prophet said (Isaiah 64:6), that our righteousness is as filthy rags in the sight of God!

And so they are ignorant of the righteousness that God has provided to us, the righteousness which is of faith in Jesus Christ.

/3//For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.  /So being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness.

They have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.

What happens to a person when he seeks to develop a righteous standing before God by his good works is that he first of all develops at best, a self righteousness.