In the sermon 'We Would Have Become Like Sodom,' Scott Brown explores Romans 9:22-29, emphasizing God's sovereignty and mercy in salvation. The sermon illustrates how God's consistent message throughout history has been one of transforming people who were once not His people into His beloved. Brown explains that this transformation is not dependent on human effort or lineage but solely on God's mercy. He draws on the Old Testament prophets Hosea and Isaiah to demonstrate the continuity of this message and how God has always preserved a remnant. The sermon also challenges the notions of ethnic preferences, highlighting that God's mercy transcends racial and generational boundaries, uniting Jews and Gentiles as one remnant. Ultimately, Brown encourages believers to engage with their communities, acting as a remnant that preserves culture and prevents societies from becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah.

Okay our scripture is scripture readings Romans 9 22 to 29 22 to 29 what if God wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had prepared beforehand for glory. Even us whom he called not the Jews only but also of the Gentiles. As he says also in Hosea, I will call them my people, who were not my people, and her beloved, who was not beloved. It shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, You are not my people.

There they shall be called sons of the living God. Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved. For he will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because the Lord will make a short work upon the earth. And as Isaiah said before, unless the Lord of Saviour had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have been made like Gomorrah. Let's pray.

Lord Father we thank you for your Word. It gives us life. It gives us hope. Lord we pray that you would anoint this time that we that Scott rightly devise the Word of Truth. Pray that the spirit would be among us Helping us to discern What you would have for us today, We pray this in your son's name.

Amen. This beautiful passage of Scripture that was just read gives such a powerful picture of Almighty God. It casts a vision of who God is, who it is who looks down upon us today. And this passage also gives testimony that we've read about so many times in this study that God's message to His people has been consistent from time immemorial, all through the Old Testament and now through the time of Paul and to us as well. And here's the message.

It's such a wonderful message. It's the most encouraging message that anyone could ever proclaim. And here's what the message is. God is mighty. He is so mighty that He can fire up the heart of any person in any culture, in any generation, any kind of background.

It doesn't matter what sins you've had in the past. It doesn't matter what nationality or what race you are. It doesn't matter how bad you are. It doesn't matter how terrible your father was, God Almighty is able to fire your heart up so that your heart would say, I love you Lord, I believe in you, I have faith in you. This is the message of this text of scripture here.

There's nothing more wonderful than that message, that it doesn't depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. That he can take a people who are not a people and make them the people of God. That he can take a person who has not known love at all and then love him. That is this amazing message that is here. And so Paul is continuing to prove with detail the doctrine of the sovereignty of God and he has taken the Old Testament prophets here in this text and if you look at verse 25 you see the continuity that Paul's trying to connect here he says as he says also in Hosea He's connecting the days of the New Covenant with all of the things that were written in the past in the Old Testament.

The Word of God has been preserved and is consistent now for 800 years. Since the writing of Hosea, which he deals with here, to now Paul's time. And he connects the two times together and says, yes, these are the same things. This is your God. This has always been the God of the Bible.

And so here in Romans 9, he's already used the book of Genesis featuring Jacob and Esau to prove this point. He's used the book of Exodus, and he's taken Pharaoh to prove the same point. And he goes to the book of Jeremiah and he uses the imagery, the illustration of the potter and the clay to give the same message. And now he turns to two Old Testament prophets, Hosea and Isaiah. And this speaks of the sovereign hand of God in election, in salvation.

Our word sovereignty comes from the Latin word superre which means over, chief, independent, supreme, controlling and This word that we know in our own language is translated Lord, Adonai in the Bible, in Hebrew, Kyrios in the Greek, and we run across that word here. The biblical term Lord is the designation for the sovereign Lord. And here in verse 29, we run across that word, the Lord of Sabaoth. And I believe that these terms connected together, Lord of Sabaoth, is the key to the entire chapter. It casts a vision for who God is in His ability To take the coldest heart and warm it up.

To take the hardest mind and soften it so that it can acquire wisdom from heaven. It is only the power of the Lord of the Sabbath who can do that. Are you hard? Do you have a hard heart this morning? Do you have a tough mind against God?

Well, if you do, it matters nothing because God is able to soften your heart and turn your mind at His will. And you know, you may be hard today, but He can make you soft tomorrow. And how do you know if you're saved? Is if He would soften your heart. How would you know that your mind has turned and begun to be renewed?

It's because your mind has turned and has opened unto God. It is only the Lord of sabbath who can do that in the heart of any person. You know, how would God keep us from becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah? He reached down with His sovereign hand when we were helpless, and He made known to us the grace of God, and He gave us the ability to love God. He opened our hearts.

That's the only way that we can be saved, is that if He would do it somehow. We were vessels of wrath, and He made us vessels for mercy. We were not a people, but He made us a people. We were not beloved, but He made us beloved. We were illegitimate, and He made us sons of the living God.

And so where would we be today if God had not rescued us? If He had not softened those hard hearts, we would have become like Sodom. We would have become like Gomorrah. Who could have pulled us out of that pit that we were in? Who could have changed a mind that had been so hardened by patterns and external forces?

Who could have changed us? Only God, only the Lord of Sabaoth can do that. How could anyone save himself? By pulling himself up by his bootstraps. You can't pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

It can't happen. No one can do that. You can get new boots and new bootstraps and you still can't pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. And this passage of scripture makes it so plain that it is impossible to pull yourself up. This is the false doctrine of sola bootstrappa.

Instead we find here the doctrine of sola sabayath, sola alone sabayath, the Lord of hosts. The Lord of hosts alone. That is the sound doctrine that comes from this text. And I am so delighted to be in this text today. It's beautiful and just mind-boggling to me.

But where would it lead us? I hope it would lead us here, to say what the psalmist said, not to us, O Lord, Not to us, but by Your name. Give glory because of Your mercy, because of Your truth. Our God is in heaven. He does whatever he pleases.

So this is what you get in this section of Romans 9, in the midst of this great argument, where Paul just takes one passage, one illustration after another, to prove the doctrine of Solibut Strapa to be false doctrine. And so let's move into this text and we first come across what I'm just going to call the Gospel according to Hosea. And of course it's consistent with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and we find it in verses 25 and 26. As he says also in Hosea, I will call them my people who were not My people, and her beloved who was not beloved. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said of them, You are not My people, there they shall be called the sons of the living God." God is declaring his accomplishments and he's claiming the ability to save people who are not his people.

People who are going in a completely different direction, completely disconnected from the promises of God, completely disconnected from the sacrifices of God and the laws of God. God is able to fire up a heart that is so far away from God that you couldn't even imagine how far it would be. They are not a people and they are not beloved. Here we run into the unfairness of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Is it fair?

Is it fair to rescue a harlot? That's the imagery that he's bringing. Would it be fair to actually bypass a nice person in this world and rescue a harlot? Well, this is the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is why we have already read in Romans, where is boasting?

Where is boasting? It is excluded because salvation is of God and of His own hand. And so, Hosea is declaring God's love to the Gentiles. These are Gentiles who are playing harlotry and Jews. And they have lots of baggage.

They have children from harlotry. They're not just harlots, but they have they have born all these children that are now visible representations of their unbelief and their disobedience toward God. How about all of us? Is there baggage? Is there evidence?

Is there visible, observable things out there that we can point to that say, yes, that's from my harlotry. That's a child of harlotry. This is what God is doing here. He's exposing the impossibility of our boasting. And he's proving that family background and experience, religious background, is no criteria for our salvation.

Past sinfulness is not criteria for our salvation. Matthew Henry says, former badness is no bar for God's mercy. So Paul identifies two terrible conditions here of the unsaved. Not my people, that's one condition. That's a terrible condition for one to be in and not beloved.

Those are two horrible circumstances in which the people of the world live. It's a very gloomy and discouraging picture to not be a people, to not be beloved. We were a people who were unforgiven, we were unconverted, we were without forgiveness and we were living under condemnation. That is what life is like When you are not a people, when you are not loved. We in that condition had no living water to cleanse us.

We had only our own performances. We had only our own creativity with which to live our lives. But now, now we trust in God. Now God is sufficient for all things. Now it is God who is in charge of our lives.

We can rest with great assurance that He will perform what He has desired to perform in our lives. We can see striving and know that He is God. Forget Sola Bute Strappa. Only God is strong enough to perform any of these things that we desire. And He has put many right desires in our hearts.

How will they be performed? Only by God Almighty. And He is able to take one who is not loved, one who is not a people, and make them His loved people. You know, how common is it? How common is it to know that you are in a lost condition?

How common is it to have a person who would sit there maybe even in a service like this and say my heart is hard toward God and and then and then realize that although you've never trusted him before although you never loved him before although you never really repented you never really truly believed, and you're sitting there, and you finally, you're sitting there, and you realize that now you believe, that you repent, That you've just repented. Your heart is toward God. You have the faith of Abraham. Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. How common is that?

To be hard in a place And then all of a sudden you just realize that now you're no longer hard. How did that happen? It was the Lord of Sabaoth. You sat there for years and you heard that message and you were like a stone. But then God, the Lord of sabbath came and He opened your heart and you said, I believe.

I repent. Are you in that place now? Is there anybody who's been hard? You've been in this church for maybe for years, I don't know, maybe months and you've heard the message of the gospel every week as you've come here, but you've just sat there like a stone. And you know, you may be just like I was when I was in my early teens.

I was like a stone. And Then all of a sudden I knew that something had changed in my heart. God Almighty had reached down and He touched my heart. He turned that heart of stone into a heart of flesh. He did that for me then.

And I trust that He'll do that for every person in this room. You may sit here like heart is a rock for months, but what would change all that? The Lord of Sabaoth, He is mighty enough. And you know, if he's doing that right now in your heart, if you're seeing now for the first time in your life, your heart is soft. Guess how that happened?

God did it. God has come to you. He is in His sovereign grace. He has come to you. And he has said, you were once not a people, but now you are part of the people of God.

You once were not beloved, but now you are beloved. And that's the gospel. How did this happen? It is the Lord of Savioth. How wonderful it is to have lost or never even known any true dignity and then yet find yourself in the arms of God.

And this is a work of God. Grace triumphs over sin, mercy triumphs over judgment. Community ends up replacing independence and being cast off into whatever land of the relationships that are before you. And he calls her beloved who was not beloved. And so Paul here is using Hosea to defend the name of God.

Romans 9 is what's known as a theodicy. It's a defense of the name and the character of God. And Paul is arguing for the character of God, because there are many questions that have come to people's minds. Is God unjust? And so Paul is defending the name of God, and he is proving that God's promises are true, that God's Word is true.

Because his hearers are saying, well, Israel didn't turn to God, God's Word is not true, and Paul is proving that God is true. And he needs to prove it. And he's proving it to us now because if God's promises to Israel aren't true, then how can they be true to me? If they're not true, how could it be that God causes all things to work together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose? If God's promises to Israel have failed, then have they failed toward me?

Romans 9 begins with Paul crying out for his brethren because they rejected the gospel. And he's answering why they rejected the gospel. God's word has not failed at all. And Paul's answer is in verse 6. Look at that with me.

And he's continuing to answer this question. He says, for they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children, because they are the seed of Abraham. But in Isaac your seed shall be called. That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as seed." And Paul is saying, God's promises to Israel are being fulfilled, but Israel is not generational Israel. The promises to Israel are for all those Jews and Gentiles who have received the gospel.

So the Word of God has not failed at all. So he's defending the name of God. By the way, just by way of parenthesis, Paul is defending the name of God. It's right that we would defend the name of God. How should we do it?

With the whole Bible, just like Paul does. Go back to Abraham. Go back to Pharaoh. Go back to the potter in the clay in the days of Jeremiah and prove who God is. How would you prove the character of God?

Not by your own thoughts. That would be dangerous anyway because our thoughts about God aren't exactly what they always should be. We found in our study here in Romans 9 that many of us have had a wrong view of God. That we thought God could be manipulated by our own desires. But no, it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.

Well that's not the picture of God that we find to be comforting to us, because it puts him and not us in the position of sovereignty. We want to be sovereign. We want to call the shots. That's our human nature. So we misunderstand God and we make a God in our own image.

But Romans 9 completely blows up the God in our own image. I don't know of anyone who reads these words and finds instant comfort in them. One must meditate on them for a while to find any comfort in them, because they displace your sovereignty and they make God Almighty sovereign. And would you want to be sovereign? Would you want your friend to be sovereign?

If you want sovereignty for yourself, then how about sovereignty for the wicked person sitting next to you? Do you want them to be sovereign? Do you want your eight-year-old to be sovereign? Do you want your wife or your husband to be sovereign over all things? I don't think so.

Why would you want yourself to be sovereign if you wouldn't let someone else be sovereign? It's madness. The idea that we would want to defend our own sovereignty is actually complete madness. Because we would never allow someone else, another human being, to have sovereignty. So where would sovereignty lie?

Only in God Almighty. Only in one who is wise. And so he quotes Hosea 2.23. And he compares his people with a woman who's been unfaithful to her husband. And so he's using an extreme, in our own minds, example to tell us who we really are.

We are harlots, and we have children of harlotry. And yet in His mercy, He comes to us and He softens the pride that we have. He takes us and He changes our minds and he turns our hearts back from this great harlotry that we have had. This beautiful section in Hosea chapter 2 gives us so much about how God works with us in the midst of our harlotries. Please turn to Hosea chapter 2.

We're going to just look at a few of these amazing ways that God works with those who have been caught in harlotry. Hosea chapter 2. One of the difficult aspects of dealing with this text is that you're going along and you're reading these words and you're like a treasure hunter. You've been going along and you've been doing your excavating, and then you come to a wall and you break into this wall, and this vast room of treasures are there, and you're looking around at them. That's what Hosea chapter 2 is.

And you get distracted. You're thinking, how can you explain this? How can you explain this amazing room full of treasures? Well, that's how I feel right now. Because we've broken into this amazing room that is just full of diamonds and jewels for us here to help us to understand the love of God.

So we'll just take a moment. We'll just take a moment in this room, this room of treasure called the Book of Hosea. Verse 1, say to your brethren, my people, and to your sisters, Mercy is shown. Now that sets up everything. Verse 5.

For their mother has played the harlot. She who conceived them has behaved shamefully. For she said, I will go after my lovers who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink." So here is the picture of a person who wants comfort everywhere else but God. Who wants to make little idols to make comfort in life. I will get my wool and my linen and my oil and my drink there.

It's the displacement of the pure, clear, beautiful waters of the Kingdom of Heaven. And drinking in the dark, idolatrous waters and thinking you can get any comfort there, which you can't. It's impossible. And then in verse six, we read an amazing thing. Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way in thorns and wall her in so that she cannot find her paths." Here God is saying, He says, I'm not going to give you everything you want in your harlots.

You may drink, you may have that oil, You may have linens that look beautifully, but God does not give the sinner everything they want to complete the course. There are obstacles. There are hedges. There are thorns. There are walls.

He makes the pathway hard. There is sickness. There are trials that humble, Brick walls that say, that's it. You can't go any farther. So you're in harlotry, and you're drinking of the wine and taking the oil and wearing the garments of harlotry, but God gives you no satisfaction in it.

He stops you up. He puts a hedge in your way that stops you like a blank wall. That's what God does in the midst of our harlotry. Look at verse 7. She will chase her lovers, but not overtake them.

Yes, she shall seek them, but not find them. Then she will say, I will go and return to my first husband, for then it was better than now. Here, pleasure completely eludes the harlot. It runs. The sorrows of the wicked are multiplied, and these wounds make us weary of the world, and we see how flat it is.

We see how many roadblocks are there. We see how terrible the devil is. He is a hireling, absolutely. This is what God does in the midst of our harlotry. He does this to break us down, to break our hearts.

Let the world break your heart so that it will be broken open unto God. That's what is happening here. Look at verse 8. For she did not know that I gave her grain, new wine and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. Here you have God actually pouring out his blessings on the harlot.

Has that ever happened to you in disobedience yet God continues to bring some kind of blessing into your life? Therefore I will return and take away my grain in its time and my new wine in its season and will take back my wool and my linen given to cover her nakedness." So God is the one who claims to be allowing any blessing for any disobedient person, but he may take it back in a heartbeat for his own purposes and for his own glory. And he might even give financial blessings that will be given to Baal. That's what God will do. Look at verse 10.

Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall deliver her from my hand. I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, her Sabbaths, all her appointed feasts. So God exposes her evil and steals her pleasure and her excitement. I shall cause her mirth to cease." Why is it that there are so many thousands of depressing songs being sung by the worldlings of this world? It's because God makes their mirth cease.

He takes away their happiness and it eludes them and He makes them children of despondency. He makes them commit suicide. He makes them fill their bodies with drugs and alcohol to somehow dull the pain so that it wouldn't be so reminding of them and their own disobedience. But God says, no, I'm doing that. I'm taking away their pleasure.

Verse 12, and I will destroy her vines and her fig trees of which she has said these are my wages that my lovers have given me so I will make them a forest and the beasts of the field shall eat them." So here her precious possessions are destroyed by the beasts of the field. And he just goes on and on like that. He just continues to speak of how God deals with the harlot. What is He doing? He is blocking the road.

He is taking away wealth. He is stealing happiness. If you find someone whose happiness has been stolen by this world, know this, God has done it. Perhaps, perhaps He is going to make a son or a daughter out of that person by his very stealing of their happiness away from them. That person who is depressed, go to them, preach the gospel, let them know there is a God in heaven, let them know that he can turn their heart even when they are in the depths of despair.

Absolutely He can, just as He does here in this story. And then we come to verse 23. Then I will sow her for myself in the earth, and I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy. Then I will say to those who are not my people, you are my people. And they shall say, you are my God." And that's the quote that we get in Romans chapter 9, right there.

After this long story of disobedience and harlotry, then we get to this here. And Paul goes and he takes out of this treasure chest of the mercy of God. And he holds it out in front of us and says this is what salvation is all about. And then verse 25. In our own text, He also says in Hosea, I will call them my people who are not my people.

So he takes orphans, he takes the depressed, he takes those whose lives are burned out and bombed out by the devil, and he makes them his own. Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we should be called the sons of God. Behold what manner of love to put a roadblock. Behold what manner of love to put a roadblock. Behold what manner of love to steal away happiness for a season.

Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us to take a person wandering, cast a drift into the morass of relationships and make them a people and give them love. That's the manner of love. We are all adopted sons and daughters. We are not natural children. We have been grafted into the vine of the Lord.

And how did that happen? Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have been made like Gomorrah. I absolutely love the way that Spurgeon exposes it. He says this, he's not saying if they will, he says, but I will and they shall." You see the difference? I will and they shall become my people.

For he has the key to free agency and when he turns it in the lock without violating the free will of man, he makes him willing in the day of his power to praise divine supremacy. For God is God when he saves as much as when he reigns. Yes, reigning in grace is the very glory of his nature, and this love we adore." So this passage of Scripture speaks of the sovereign hand of God in mercy, to turn the key of the heart. The hardest heart, the worst raised child, the most disobedient person, he comes and they might sit for years and years, and he just comes and he turns the key and he gives them a soft heart. So it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy." And then we come to the Gospel according to Isaiah, verses 27 to 29.

Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel, though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved. That's the subject. The remnant being saved. Know that. Then in verse 28, for he will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness because the Lord will make a short work upon the earth.

It's not according to my timeline or yours, but God's. And Isaiah has said before, unless the Lord of Sabaoth has left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom and we would have been made. We would have been made like Gomorrah. So Isaiah is speaking that only a remnant will be saved and the remnant is composed of Jews and Gentiles. The remnant is not two, the remnant is one.

They're together. Jews and Gentiles. Because not all Israel are of Israel. It's not of lineage that makes you a child of the promise. You are a Jew or a Gentile, and you are part of the remnant.

So there's limitation. Look at verse 28. For he will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness. He will cut it short. There's limitation in salvation, and God is sovereign over that limitation.

And so God is creating a people, vessels of mercy from both Jews and Gentiles. Now, Paul is saying this. He shocks both Jew and Gentile. He shocks the Jew because he's destroying their presumption that because they've kept the law or been a part of good things and the promises that somehow it would rub off. No, it does not rub off.

It's only given by faith. So he destroys the presumption of the Jews who think that they can become acceptable to God by some human feature, by some action, or by some thing of background? No. So he's destroying presumption. At the same time, he's eliminating the despair of the Gentiles who would say, I'm a Greek, I'm a pagan, I've known nothing all my life, I was born in paganism, my mind is washed with paganism, my body has been defiled, What do I do?

So here he shocks both. He shocks the Gentile who's not even known the law of God, and he shocks the Jew who has known the law of God but who has a hard heart. So we might say, you don't know what I've done, you don't know what kind of family I've had, you don't know what kind of world view I have. God says, the Lord of Sabaoth is here. You are not a people, but you are the people of God." Now this has many implications for the way that we think about the world that we live in today.

Let's talk about ethnic preferences. Let's talk about ethnic preferences. This completely destroys the importance of ethnic preferences, of ethnic beauty and supremacy. And it breaks the pride of the privileged now this bears on many precious thoughts that we have about ethnicity well let's just take one how about Israel how about the nation of Israel what about the nation of Israel Does God prefer the ethnic race of the Jews? Does He?

This passage of Scripture argues no. It's not ethnicity at all that God is concerned about. He's taking both Jews and Gentiles and He's making them the remnant. Do the Jews in Israel today, most of them are atheists, they're covenant-breaking people, Are they the recipients of God's favor? No.

All are not Israel who are Israel. It's not lineage. It's faith. It's faith in the promises of God. The promises of God pass through faith, by faith alone, not by lineage at all.

Will mercy be extended to Muslims in the Middle East who trust Christ? Yes, absolutely. Are the Muslims less favored than the atheistic, God-rejecting Jews of Israel? I don't think so. They've rejected God.

They have become sons not of the promise as a result of it. Ethnic envy and arrogance is being attacked here in this text. Recently there was an article in Foreign Affairs magazine called Us and Them. And the article was about how most of the conflicts of the 20th century happened because of ethnicity. Case in point, World War I, where you had the Serbs trying to rip Bosnia away from Austria-Hungary.

It was all about race. World War II, It was all about race. The Japanese expansionism was all about race. Hitler, in Germany, it was all about race. It was all about being white.

The article says, at the end of World War II, Europe's nations were more ethnically homogenous than they'd ever been at the horrendous cost of blood. And then the Cold War, we've seen the same thing happen as the Soviet Union breaks up into its ethnic groups, its racial groups. You know, there's only one hope for the world, and that is the gospel. How will the genocide of Darfur be averted by the gospel? How could the genocide in Rwanda have been averted?

The gospel, it's only when people believe that it's not race. It's not about race, it's about faith. It's not about the color of your skin. We have a situation in our even in our own country where you through immigration many different races are coming into the United States. Some people say in 30 or 50 years it's going to cause a gigantic race war.

How would that be averted? Only by a revival. Only by the spread of the gospel. Because the gospel is for every tongue and tribe and nation. The gospel destroys ethno-nationalism.

And that's what he's saying here. There's a remnant, but who is it? It's from Jew and Gentile together. Is it right for the Jews in Palestine to kill the Palestinians because of their race? No.

No, it's not right. The Gospel is not about race. The Kingdom of Heaven is not about race. And he's attacking that here. So The world breaks itself into ethnic groups and there's pride.

There's ethnocentric pride. And the Gospel destroys ethnocentric pride. There's no Jew, there's no Greek. That's what the Bible says. And so Isaiah says, unless the Lord of Sabbath had left us a seed, we are to become like Sodom and we would have been made like Gomorrah.

So God is saying that in the midst of all of this ethno-nationalism, of the butchery that happens in the world, God is preparing for himself a people for his own possession. And they are from all the different races, and they transcend all people groups. And that's the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says that this happens to the church because of the Lord of Sabaoth. Sabaoth is not Sabbath, not the Lord of the Sabbath.

It's the Lord of Sabaoth, and it means Lord of hosts. It indicates His mighty power. It indicates his sovereignty. So we just sang this song earlier today. Lord sabioth his name from age to age the same and he must win the battle.

The Lord of sabioth means Lord of hosts. It's used all over the Bible as the Lord of hosts. It's even in Psalm 46 and a number of other places. It's all over scripture. And that it is God Almighty who is able to make a people of those who are not a people.

Only the Lord of Sabaoth can do that. Okay, so let's go to some application. First of all, Paul gives us such an opportunity to give thanks. Let's give thanks this morning for what has happened. We have been rescued.

We have been rescued. Not only have we personally been rescued, but because of the remnant in the world, The culture is also rescued. America would be like Sodom today if it were not for the church. Let's give thanks for that. We might have all kinds of things to say about the decadence of our country, but I will tell you this, unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left a seed, we would have become like Sodom and Gomorrah.

But God is using the church in the world today for sure. And He is using the church to preserve the culture. You know, Sodom and Gomorrah were not Jewish cities, they were pagan cities. And if God says this about the most favored people on the planet, he would say the same thing about you and your people at work here in this nation. Everyone here would be like Sodom without the sovereign grace of God.

And every nation would become like it unless the people of God, unless the remnant were there. That's just a wonderful encouragement because there is a remnant here in this country for sure. And I think it's a big remnant compared to the other nations of the world. It seems like a big remnant to me. Number two, Paul shows us that we should not think narrowly about salvation.

God is calling people to be his own people. And his salvation is wide and it reaches across all racial lines, all generational lines. It reaches everywhere. And this is the wideness of the mercy of God. His mercy is big enough for Japanese and Iraqis and Germans and Scandinavians and Mexicans.

And we can give thanks for the wideness of the mercy of God. There is no room for racism in the kingdom of heaven. It's contradicted everywhere. Number three. Let's allow our dispensational politics to be challenged.

You know, some of us grew up on Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye. They don't have a biblical worldview on this matter. Their writings do not reflect what the Bible says about the identity of Israel. Israel is Christ, not a geographical footprint. His body has replaced the temple.

Christ is Israel. And we are His sons and daughters. We are heirs and co-heirs as a result. And it's not found in ethnicity. It's found by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Number four, our salvation is from God. It's not dependent upon us. If it was, we would be lost. But Think about, think back for a moment of that time when you knew that God had turned the key. You were hard and then you were soft.

He turned the key. What a wonderful thing. I'm so grateful for this. And then number five, our community, our community, our, I'm going to call it our people-dom. Our community is established forever.

We are a people And we're now connected in a community forever. And this community consists of people from every tongue and tribe and nation and all races and all cultures. And We were not a people, but now we have become the people of God. So let's live that way. When you're unsaved off into the world, you are part of not a people.

What does that mean? I think that just means it's just being connected to the morass of ungodly in this world. And your relationships are just pragmatic. Your relationships are just based on your own little interests. They might be based on your idols, the things you like to do.

That's the people you're with. And it just might change and shift as time goes on. But when you're saved, you become part of the people of God. You throw off friendships from idolatry and you form friendships from the gospel, and you're connected with the people of God. That's what God has done.

Let's don't forget that, and let's rejoice in that. God is concentrating our relationships as a people unto the relationships in the people of God. And now here's a tragedy. Sometimes it happens when people come into the people of God, and although they do have eternal bonds that are not of this earth, not of any earthly glue at all, but they still act as if they're nomads relationally. They don't say, these are my people.

These are the people of God. This is the people that I'm glued to forever. And they still operate as if they're not a people. Let's be careful. And that we become nomads again and make games and pragmatic concerns the glue of our relationships.

And how easy it is to fall back into trusting human means and relationships instead of really understanding God has made us a people who are very different. God doesn't want us to just be with the birds of a feather who flock together. He's brought us together with His people, and they're not exactly like us. And so our relationships should reflect that. And then lastly, we can rejoice in this, that our effect as the people of God is guaranteed.

That We are a people, we are a pilgrim people, we are a remnant, but God has promised to make our presence in the world effective. And you know, one reason God keeps us on the earth is to keep the cities from becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah. That's one reason we're here. And so we should be out in the community. We should be making sure our cities don't become like Sodom and Gomorrah.

We should not be hiding in our houses. We should be making sure under the leadership of God, under the operation of the Spirit of God, that we're not hiding away, but that we're part of cleansing the streets that are here. He's put us here for that. He's not put us here to hide away in our houses. Now we should make our houses little churches, but we should also be sending one another out to make the streets as they ought to be.

You know, I'm confident that's why America is still a wonderful place to live because we're living on the capital of the remnant that we've been given we have been given an amazing heritage in our past Godly people came here and desired to establish the government of God in this colony. And we're still living on that capital. But we seem to be spending it quickly. But still, let's understand This is the blessing of God upon us. Why is it that we've not been destroyed in the judgment of God?

Because God still desires His remnant to do its work here in this nation, and we're here as a part of that. You know, it's interesting, if you read the history of the great revivals, amazing things happen. When revival breaks out, the pubs and the bars are depopulated, and you don't hear profanity in the streets. The churches are full and the beauty and the government of God reigns. The homes are cleansed and they're full of happiness and the care of Almighty God.

That's what happens. I pray that God would give us a mighty revival here in this nation. Of course, only He can do it. But let's not just be hiding in our homes waiting for it to happen. You know, I know of a church in the deep south that had no divorces for ten years.

It's because God has helped them to be salt and light in their community. And that's why He's placed us here. We are remnant placed on the earth for that purpose. So God makes his remnant effective. God would not have destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah even if there were just a few there.

So few It was that God would have spared that city. If the Lord of Sabaoth had not left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom and Gomorrah. And so this is the message of the gospel. God's love is massive. It's so wide and he does it to glorify himself in the earth so that Sodom and Gomorrah would not happen.

Let's pray. Oh Lord, we thank you for these treasures that you put before us in Hosea and Isaiah. Thank you for speaking to us. Oh Lord, that you fulfill all these promises in us. Amen.