Romans chapter 9 is where we are for our Bible study today. Romans chapter 9 if you'll take your

Bibles out and join me there. We are going to circle back here to chapter 9. I promised you last week

that after we looked at chapters 9, 10, and 11 as it relates to the predominant topic, which is

Israel and the Jewish people,

that I would circle back to chapter 9 so that we could have a good church split. And because we're

going to be talking about predestination and election. And there are a lot of people who have a lot

of opinions about that subject. And if you have no opinion,

because you're like, what does that even mean? That's fine, too. You're probably even better off.

But I am going to address this topic, even though I will tell you up front, I don't even think

that that's a primary topic from these chapters. But there are certain verses that people have extrapolated

from a chapter 9 in particular that have stirred the controversy of this topic. So I'm going to do

the best I can to bring a balance to the subject. And I'm going to read here from Romans

chapter 9, verses 6 to 18.

Romans chapter 9, starting at verse 6.

Paul writes, but it is not that the word of God has taken no effect, 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,

and he's talking about the other child of Abraham, which is Ishmael, these are not the children

of God, but the children of the promise, the children of

Abraham and Isaac, are counted as the seed. For this is the word of promise. At this time, I will come

and Sarah shall have a son. And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one man,

even by our father, Isaac, for the children not yet being born,

...