307 - ALL DRESSED UP IN DIRTY CLOTHES
December 5, 1965
Henry F. KULP
Romans 10: 1 - 3 Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
Why did the nation Israel reject the Lord Jesus Christ? The answer is found right here in these first three verses of the 10th chapter. It is the same reason, actually, that men in our day and age are rejecting Him
1/ As we start out this morning, we notice Paul says, brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. Paul was still praying for the Israelites--the man of his own nation, those of His own flesh. The church has gone through the ages, and it has hated the Israelites. I wonder if you recognize, it is only in the last century that God has revealed to us the great doctrines of the blessed hope, the rapture of the church of Jesus Christ that the church has welcomed the Israelites into its midst. If you read books written by theologians, famous preachers, which go back more than 100 years, you will find that they did talk about the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, but they never talked about the rapture of the Lord Jesus Christ, they did not know about it, and so the second coming was applied to the Scripture concerning the rapture, and all they talked about was a coming judgement day. They did not know about the catching away of the church up to be with the Lord Jesus Christ. And the reason this has been revealed to the church has been, of course, the dispensational teaching. You take dispensationalism out of the Bible and there you can preach the second coming and the second coming of judgement, rather than the glorious appearing of Jesus Christ in the heavens to catch away His church.
2/ But after the church came upon dispensational teaching and learned of the rapture of the church, and learned to rightly divide the Word of God, they welcomed the Israelite into their midst, and attempted to win him to the Lord Jesus Christ. I wonder if you realize that up to 100 years ago the church had no welcome for the Israelite. Take, for instance, England. An Israelite was not permitted to enter into a Christian church. There was a law in England that prohibited an Israelite from entering a Christian church. The church was considered defiled if an Israelite entered, and down through the ages, the Israelites were excluded. How different this is from the Word Of God? Paul tells us here that he loved them and he prayed for them, and he prayed they might be saved.
3/ Another thing you can learn from the first verse, is that the Israelites must be saved like a Gentile. That is in the writing of Paul in the Pauline Epistles. It is not in the rest of the Bible. God had always put the Gentiles in subjection to the Israelites, but here he says Jew, or an Israelite has to be saved the same way that a Gentile does.
4/ In the second verse Paul says that the Israelites had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. They had a great deal of zeal for God. They believed in God. It is not enough just to believe in God. The nation, Israel, is proof of this.
5/ But zeal without knowledge is a dangerous thing. I can remember that there was a doctor in town here, who is now dead, but he was a friend of mine. He told me he was sick with the virus, and he had one of the doctors in the hospital give him a large shot of penicillin. He got into the elevator, and just as he stepped out of the elevator, he fell over. He started to swell up, to puff up, and he couldn’t get his breath. They quickly rushed to him and gave him something to counteract this and he lived. But a doctor can give penicillin to an individual who is allergic to it, and even though penicillin is fine and it works in its proper place, instead of healing, it can cause distress, and of course, a zeal of God without knowledge is a very dangerous thing – it can lead a person into the very jaws of hell. It led the nation Israel right away from the only hope it had in Jesus Christ.
6/ Notice the third verse. For they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, went about to establish their own righteousness. Righteousness is something that man in his natural state does not really understand. He has his own thoughts on righteousness, but God is not talking about the righteousness of man, He is talking about the righteousness of God, for He says they were ignorant of God’s righteousness, and man in his sinful state is ignorant. He doesn’t understand God’s righteousness. Let us get God’s verdict on man and righteousness. It is right in this very same book, Romans 3: 10, As it is written there is none righteous, no not one. There is not a man in himself that is righteous – he is sinful. Should Israel have known this? Did they have any real reason for being ignorant of this? Not at all, the Old Testament is filled with the record that man is sinful, and that God wants to supply righteousness for them, and it is necessary that He supplies righteousness, for they have none of their own. Let us notice a Scripture that is right in the Old Testament, and to the Jew, to the Israelite.
Isaiah 64: 3 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags.
I just love the writings of Sir Robert Anderson, every Christian should have the writings of Sir Robert Anderson. He was a wonderful man of God, and he was a great dispensationalist – he will certainly help you in understanding dispensations. I read in one of his books that he talked with a woman who came to him who was well-known in England. She was very high up in the religious society in England. She just loved to help people, she loved to help the Salvation Army. She used to tell the Salvation to bring their men that they had gathered on the street into her beautiful home. Then she would give them a banquet and have the Salvation Army leader talk to them. She came to Sir Robert Anderson because she was in spiritual trouble. She said, I just haven’t any peace in my life. I just don’t feel that I can get hold of the Lord. So he talked to her about salvation—she didn’t know anything about it. She said, well, I’m doing all I can—don’t you know how much I am doing? Of course he did – almost everyone in England knew what she was doing. So he gave her Isaiah 64: 6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rage; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
And he said, don’t you know that your righteousnesses are as filthy rags to the Lord? She said, I never heard that. He said let me ask you a question. When these poor men off the street dressed in rags and come to your home, what do you do for them? Oh, she said, I give them what I am sure seems to them, a great banquet—she said, I just love to do it. Do you charge anything for it? Oh, no, I never charge for it—it is all free. I just give it to them. Don’t you require anything from them at all for what you give them? Nothing at all, I don’t ask them for anything, Well, he said, I think it would be best, since you are doing so much, that you would require something from them. Suppose you should ask the men before they leave, leave me your coat. She said what do you mean? I don’t want their filthy coats – I wouldn’t touch them. I don’t even want them in my house. Well, he said, that is what God said about your righteousness. He won’t touch them. This is something that Israel never learned, even though she was the custodian of the Old Testament. This is something that the religious man of this day won’t understand.
7/ And yet there is another Scripture. Jeremiah 17: 9 I know you are familiar with this Scripture, but let us look at it again. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it? Do you realize the most deceitful thing on the face of the earth is your heart, and it is desperately wicked—it is incurable. There is something wrong about the expression—“Give your heart to God”. God gives you a new heart. He does away with the old one. If you bring your filthy heart to the Lord Jesus Christ, what in the world would He do with it? He would throw it away. He gives you a new heart.
8/ Now let us look and see what God has to say about righteousness in the Old Testament. Isaiah 61: 10 I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.
Notice, He told Israel, He had to put His robe of righteousness about them. Why? Because their righteousness are as filthy rags and their hearts are deceitful above everything.
9/ Now let us see Isaiah 64: 6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags: and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Jeremiah 17: 9 in action in the Old Testament. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?
Certainly Israel had no right to be ignorant in all this.
Zachariah 3: 1 – 4 WOE to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city! She obeyed not the voice; she received not correction; she trusted not in the LORD; she drew not near to her God. Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow. Her prophets are light and treacherous persons: her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law.
Here we have the prophet of God receiving a vision, a very interesting vision, and in this vision, he sees Joshua, the high priest, standing before the Angel of Jehovah, and Satan was attending at his right hand to be his adversary. Verse 1 And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him.
The word, resist, means to accuse. Now, this Joshua is not the man who was the leader of Israel in the early part of its history, but rather he was the high priest of the restoration. It was he who, with Zechariah, led the first group in return from the captivity. But here we find him in the vision.
Remember, he is not just an ordinary priest, but he is the high priest, the most important man in the nation, who represented the nation before God over the Mercy Seat once a year on the Day of Atonement. Now as Satan accuses Joshua, and of course, in accusing Joshua, he is accusing the whole nation of Israel before God, the Angel of the Lord is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, and of course, his accusations against Joshua and the whole nation that he represented, these accusations were true. The nation was a sinful nation. Joshua, who represented them was a sinful man, and here it points out that Satan dwelt on the sins of the people that God might cast them from His presence forever. As Joshua stands for the nation, if he is vindicated, the nation is vindicated. He is sinful. The Hebrew word that is translated, filth, here is the strongest expression in the Hebrew language of the most vile and loathsome character. Actually, it pictures Joshua there in garments with his hair all disheveled, all mussed up. He is condemned, he is a sinner and so is the nation.
10/ Notice verse 4 The Lord said, take away his filthy garments from him, and He said, behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I am about to clothe thee with vestive garments.
The command goes forth to the attending angels for Joshua could do nothing to cleanse himself, to remedy his sinful condition. The meaning of the removal of the filthy garments is to be found in the words that immediately follow:
11/ Joshua standing there before God in filthy garments, his hair all mussed is a picture of Israel in Romans 10: 1 - 6 Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them. But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:)
Here they were trying to parade their filthy garments off before God, and God says you are ignorant of what is necessary. You do not have a righteousness to present to me. I must give you a righteousness, and of course, the righteousness is none other than Jesus Christ.
12/ Men and women, if you ask them upon the face of this earth what is righteousness, they will say it is right living—but not so with God. You can’t live right. What is righteousness? Righteousness is Jesus Christ.
13/ We told you last week also a reason why Israel should know that they couldn’t produce righteousness of their own. They had the names of God to prove this, and God brought out to them that His name was Jehovah, our righteousness, the Lord of our righteousness,
Jeremiah 33: 16 In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The LORD our righteousness.
God had to be a righteousness unto them, and the word, Lord, here is the word Saviour. The Saviour our righteousness.
14/ How did Israel try to establish their own righteousness? Of course, the answer is in the law. By keeping the law, and because they tried to keep the law, consequently they rejected Jesus Christ. But notice what Paul tells the nation about the law. He says, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. The word, end, would really be better translated, aim or object. Christ is the aim or object of the law for righteousness. The law should show man that he can’t possibly live right, and that it should drive him to the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the end or aim of the law.
This is the hunting season, and just now, the hunter takes his gun out into the fields or woods, and he uses that gun to try to bring down a deer. He uses the gun, and he aims it by means of the sight, perhaps a telescopic sight, at the deer, and he pulls the trigger, and he tries through the aiming of that gun to kill that deer, to bring down that deer.
Now, the law – what is the aim of the law? The law should aim us, direct us right to Jesus Christ, and cause us to submit unto to Him, that He might become our righteousness.
15/ Notice what Paul says in Galatians 3: 24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ that we might be justified by faith.
Here he tells Israel that the law was our school-master to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified, made righteous by faith.
Notice in the 24th verse that the law was our schoolmaster—it is past tense, and notice the purpose of the law was to bring Israel to Christ, but they did not permit the schoolmaster to bring them to Christ.
AMEN
Ref: KULP - 12/05/1965/ 307 - ALL DRESSED UP IN DIRTY CLOTHES / 05/29/2020
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