Chapter Three: sinnership, guilt; and no difference as to the lordship of Christ and

sinnership, guilt; and no difference as to the lordship of Christ and the availability of salvation to the "whosoevers," Jew or Gentile. If Paul were among us today, he would abhor and decry the special, esoteric methods of approach to the Jew in vogue in some pretentious quarters today. Become all things to the Jew, to win him, certainly. Paul did. But tell him the truth, that he is just a whosoever, and nobody else! The terrible prophecy of Ezekiel 20:33-38 (read R. V. only, here) is about to be fulfilled concerning the scattered millions of Israel: "As I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, surely with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out, will I be king over you. And I will bring you out from the peoples, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out; and I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there will I enter into judgment with you face to face." What the poor, wretched Jewish exiles need this hour is a Paul to go right in amongst them with a "whosoever" message for sinners, not a "literary-approach" Paul, but the exact opposite, with perhaps "bodily presence weak and speech of no account," but "provoking them to jealousy" by boasting in a Messiah whom their nation has lost,--a nation to whom God is not now offering a Messiah, but instead salvation, as common whosoevers, no-distinction people, ordinary guilty sinners, I protest that in Acts 28 God through Paul officially closed the door to the national offer of the gospel to the Jews, and that thereafter to treat the Jew as having a special place with God, is to deny Scripture.

[215] The use of the plural "their"--"their sound," "their words," here, is immediately evident in the familiar Psalm itself:

"The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament showeth his handiwork.
Day unto day uttereth speech,
And night unto night showeth knowledge.
There is no speech nor language;
Their voice is not heard.
Their line is gone out through all the earth,

And their words to the end of the world," "Their" voice is the vast chorus of the created universe, and of course plural. But Paul has just been speaking here of hearing coming by Christ's word. But, Christ is Himself the Creator of all this universe! For "all things were created by Him and for Him." We must keep this fact in mind and allow the words of the Psalm to witness to the universality of the testimony concerning Christ. The emphasis on into all the earth; unto the ends of the earth must have included Israel, The "invisible things of God were clearly perceived from the creation of the world, even His everlasting power and divinity,"--as we saw concerning all men in Chapter One,--but the Jews had immeasurably more! God had come down and spoken to them on Mount Sinai; then their prophets, and then the Son, the Heir, had come; yea, and through the apostles and Stephen they had had the testimony of the Holy Spirit directly from Christ on high! So Israel had indeed "heard"! Therefore, in quoting Psalm Nineteen, Paul holds Israel to the "voice" of creation as if no other people existed. It was their Psalm!

[216] It is an excellent thing to go where God's saints gather; and to "meetings for unsaved people. But attending meetings saves no one. There is a Savior! And good news about Him to be believed for yourself!

[217] "And he (Manasseh) set the graven image of the idol, which he had made, in the house of God, of which God said to David and to Solomon his son. In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will I Put My name forever': . . . And Manasseh seduced Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that they did evil more than did the nations whom Jehovah destroyed before the children of Israel." "All the chiefs of the priests, and the people, trespassed very greatly after all the abominations of the nations; and they polluted the house of Jehovah which He had hallowed in Jerusalem. And Jehovah, the God of their fathers, sent to them by his messengers, rising up early and sending, because He had compassion on His people, and on His dwelling-place." But alas, we read: "They mocked the messengers of God, and despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of Jehovah arose against His people, till there was no remedy" (II Chron. 33:7, 9; 36:14-16). __________________________________________________________________