Paul's tremendous sorrow
Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 7:24 am
Romans 9:1-5
1: I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost,
2: That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.
3: For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:
4: Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; 5: Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.
Paul, a Jew, was deeply anguished over the fact that many Jews failed to recognize that Jesus is the Christ.
The Jews had ... physical ... expectations of what the Messiah was going to do, and as such, they missed it when He came.
While Jesus did in fact fulfill all physical aspects of what the Messiah was foretold to do, God's primary working is in the ... spiritual ... world.
The Jews were blind to the spiritual realm, and the tremendous sorrow of Paul exists today, also, as so many people miss on the Christ.
The reality is that people are by nature objects of God's wrath.
Ephesians 2:2-3
2: Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
3: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
Paul said here that prior to coming to trust in Christ, people are dragged around by satan and are, by their very nature, Children of wrath.
It's hearbreaking to see people strive and devote themselves to something with such diligence, imagining that it will bring contentment, security or happiness.
Education, work, good character, good morals, good life philosophy ...
But it doesn't get for people what they think it will get them.
They still crumble and fail, and undoubtedly so.
People are by nature children of wrath because we became spiritually aligned with satan, who faces God's wrath.
All the methods people use with such devotion to gain happiness -- education, work, good character, good morals, good life philosophy -- are effectively man's idols, which take him further apart from God and deeper into his fundamental problem.
The money or seeming "success" one gains apart from God, is in fact, a curse.
It will be failure, inevitably.
And because man was created in God's image as a spiritual and eternal being, man's failure becomes a spiritual failure for all eternity.
In the Garden, God provided everything for man's happiness and man had nothing he needed to do other than to simply receive grace from his Creator.
And so it is today.
If you seek after money (or something else) you've already lost.
If you're in the proper line, God, as He did for man in the garden, will give you all that you ever need.
Satan brought man into his condition as an object of wrath.
And God immediately promised the solution, as recorded in Genesis 3:15 -- the Christ.
All things are restored in Christ alone.
Paul's sorrow, and the sorrow of today, is when people remain in a failed state -- the answer could not be more simple.
1: I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost,
2: That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.
3: For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:
4: Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; 5: Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.
Paul, a Jew, was deeply anguished over the fact that many Jews failed to recognize that Jesus is the Christ.
The Jews had ... physical ... expectations of what the Messiah was going to do, and as such, they missed it when He came.
While Jesus did in fact fulfill all physical aspects of what the Messiah was foretold to do, God's primary working is in the ... spiritual ... world.
The Jews were blind to the spiritual realm, and the tremendous sorrow of Paul exists today, also, as so many people miss on the Christ.
The reality is that people are by nature objects of God's wrath.
Ephesians 2:2-3
2: Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
3: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
Paul said here that prior to coming to trust in Christ, people are dragged around by satan and are, by their very nature, Children of wrath.
It's hearbreaking to see people strive and devote themselves to something with such diligence, imagining that it will bring contentment, security or happiness.
Education, work, good character, good morals, good life philosophy ...
But it doesn't get for people what they think it will get them.
They still crumble and fail, and undoubtedly so.
People are by nature children of wrath because we became spiritually aligned with satan, who faces God's wrath.
All the methods people use with such devotion to gain happiness -- education, work, good character, good morals, good life philosophy -- are effectively man's idols, which take him further apart from God and deeper into his fundamental problem.
The money or seeming "success" one gains apart from God, is in fact, a curse.
It will be failure, inevitably.
And because man was created in God's image as a spiritual and eternal being, man's failure becomes a spiritual failure for all eternity.
In the Garden, God provided everything for man's happiness and man had nothing he needed to do other than to simply receive grace from his Creator.
And so it is today.
If you seek after money (or something else) you've already lost.
If you're in the proper line, God, as He did for man in the garden, will give you all that you ever need.
Satan brought man into his condition as an object of wrath.
And God immediately promised the solution, as recorded in Genesis 3:15 -- the Christ.
All things are restored in Christ alone.
Paul's sorrow, and the sorrow of today, is when people remain in a failed state -- the answer could not be more simple.