Romans 11:33-36
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

ROMANS 9-11 THE MYSTERIOUS PLAN OF GOD

“Romans 9-11 is as full of problems as a hedgehog is full of prickles. Many have given it up as a bad job, leaving Romans as a book with eight chapters of Gospel in the beginning, four chapters of application at the end, and three of puzzle in the middle.”

Romans 9 - Election
- God’s Sovereignty
Romans 10 - Preaching
- Man’s Responsibility
Romans 11 - Israel
- God’s Faithfulness

Romans 9:1-2
I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit—that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

Romans 10:1-2
Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.

Romans 11:1-2
I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel?

Thoughts on studying hard passages:
Observation
Interpretation
Application
Context

What is clear? -vs- What is obscure?

“It is hard for a fish to know that it is wet. Wet is all there is for a fish. A fish doesn’t even think of it. So it’s hard for a modern person —a person living in the last two hundred years—to know that he is arrogant toward God. Arrogance toward God is all there is in the modern world. It’s the ocean we swim in—the air we breathe. It’s woven into the fabric of our minds. We don’t even know it’s there. We can’t see it, because we look through it to see everything else.”