"And Isaiah crieth concerning Israel, If the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that shall be saved: for the Lord will execute His word upon the earth, finishing it and cutting it short. And, as Isaiah hath said before,
"Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed,
We had become as Sodom, and had been made like unto Gomorrah.
"What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who followed not after righteousness, attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith: but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by works. They stumbled at the Stone of stumbling; even as it is written,
"Behold, I lay in Zion a Stone of stumbling and a rock of offense:
And he that believeth on Him shall not be put to shame." Rom. 9:27–33.
THE Israel of Paul's time, so far as outward appearance and profession went, was the Jewish church. But "they are not all Israel, that are of Israel: neither, because they are Abraham's seed, are they all children." Rom. 9:6, 7. Out of that great mass of professors of the religion of the true God there was only a remnant to be saved. The professors of the truth for that time were as "the sand of the sea," but they did not possess the thing that they professed. The very Lord of glory Himself came to that people, and instead of receiving Him they crucified Him. The Messiah that their prophets and priests had been pointing to for centuries as the One that was to come, actually appeared among them, but they did not recognize Him.
The Messiah had preached in person to the very generation of men to which the apostle Paul belonged. But out of all that vast multitude there was only a little handful of disciples comparatively that actually took the time to become acquainted with the teachings and the message of Christ. There were thousands who heard it, and like Felix they were made to tremble, but they put off the acceptance of the Gospel message of salvation. It was only the remnant that was saved in that time, and the remnant, which is a very small part as compared to the whole, is all that has been willing to accept Christ and truly devote themselves to Him in any of the generations that have come and gone.
Except the Lord had left a seed, unless He had nourished and specially cared for the few that would stand true to Him, the whole world would have gone into sin as did Sodom and Gomorrah of old. There has never been any lack of the forms and the ceremonies of religion. Even in times and places where there have been the grossest darkness and superstition, there have been forms of religion on every hand, and these forms were adhered to closely and most rigidly. In many instances, when individuals refused to pay homage to these dead forms and ceremonies, they had to suffer the cruelest kind of persecution.
These things should be a lesson to us as individuals in this time. There is an eternity of happy existence at the right hand of God to be secured by every one who will seek for it after the Lord's own order. But we may cheat ourselves out of this valuable prize by following some dead form. Forms and ceremonies do not constitute the life and power of Christianity. The Christianity of the Christ is a life of right-doing—it is a life of right-thinking. For the thoughts must be made right so that the life may be made right. Right-thinking must be at the foundation of all right-doing. "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Jehovah, my Rock, and my Redeemer." Ps. 19:14. Our meditations are the basis of our actions, and hence the necessity of heeding that other injunction—"Wherefore girding up the loins of your mind, be sober and set your hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." 1 Peter 1:13.
The "girding up" of the mind is one of the great essentials of the Christian warfare. And this girding is not done by forming resolutions and bracing ourselves by certain mental efforts of human device and design. The bracing and the girding must be done by filling the mind with the words of Jehovah. The divine word will gird us and keep us if we cherish it in our minds continually. "Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against Thee." Ps. 119:11.
"The Gentiles, who followed not after righteousness, attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith." Thus are we again reminded in this Roman letter that the righteousness that is acceptable with God is the righteousness that comes of faith. This is the only righteousness that the sinner can hope to receive. For we read that the professed Israel did not attain to that righteousness "because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by works."
All the man-made religions have one great round of ceremonies and works. They make salvation depend upon pilgrimages, and upon afflictions of the body in various ways, and upon an endless round of things that have to be done. This is all summed up under the head of "works," as opposed to "faith." The individual who gets his righteousness on God's plan accepts it as a free gift by faith. And having accepted this righteousness by faith he does righteousness because God has made him right, and not because he is trying to drive himself to do right. God's plan is simple and powerful and effective to accomplish the work of giving the individual a righteous character. Which plan are you following? Are you with the many who are seeking righteousness by works, or are you with the remnant that the Lord tells us are getting righteousness by faith, and seeking to live righteousness by faith, the only way that it can in reality be obtained, or lived? T.