Overview of the Book of Romans

Okay! Good evening, everybody. I want to get started at about 7. I don't plan to go too much past 8 o'clock. For those of you who watch the clock and all of that, perhaps the first question is, why are we here? This has been a long time since we've had any type of a midweek Bible study up here in Fort Wayne. I cannot... Probably it was up in Bryan, which would have been the last one that I've had.

And that would go back a number of years when we had some up in Bryan. And I can't recall that we had any here in Fort Wayne. I came back off my vacation here a couple weeks ago and all energized and thought, you know, we need to have a Bible study. And decided to just test the waters. So I asked Clarend if he would find us a location, which he obviously has. And I appreciate Clarend doing that. He put it down here on the convenient side of town, at least for some of us. And that's good, too. But here's my plan. Here's my idea to do about four of these beginning this month, up to the Feast of Tabernacles.

So I'll put it through September and see how the attendance holds up. If it holds up like this or some of our local members come out, that's fine. Hopefully will. And evaluated after that, we certainly would take a break at the feast. And then, like I said, we would evaluate it. But having midweek Bible studies as a part of our long tradition in the past, and sometimes it seems like in recent years we've gone to Bible studies where they were more on the Sabbath in conjunction with services, either before or after services, and to be honest with you, I haven't been consistent with that in either congregation because of this time constraints.

But I thought I would repent of that and put out this one here and see how it works out for us and what the response will be. It also gives me an opportunity to really put me back up here at least once a month to do some visiting. So today, hi! Welcome! Find a seat. You've got the bleacher seats here. The only ones that are left. But I'm glad you made it down.

Is she? Oh, okay, good. Good. Well, I was just explaining why we're here and what I have in mind with these. It also, as I started to say, gets me up here at least once a month in addition to the Sabbath to do some visiting. And I was able to do that today and do some visiting. I visited, had a chance to visit with Bob Johnson and Debbie visited Glenbrook Mall. And after I had my visit, I met her at Barnes & Noble and I visited Barnes & Noble over at Glenbrook Mall, which is one of my favorite places to drop in and see what kind of cheap books I can buy off of their tables.

Anyway, that is also part of my desire to have this. So right now we're going to do this once a month. And I would say at this point in time, since we started essentially in the last week of the month, that, Farron, if you could find out, if Wednesday night works out best for everybody, I don't know that any Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Monday, or whatever is going to be, you know, anyone's going to be any different with everybody.

We'll just have to make, everybody's got to make a decision, prioritize, and we'll just have to set a date and do it. So maybe going forward, if this room is open at this point, the last Wednesday of the next three months, July, August, and September, we'll have to look at that September date, but at least for July and August, we'll look at the September date and see how it falls with the Holy Days.

Okay? And maybe we can do that after the Bible study tonight and confirm that. So, glad to see you. Would you like to say that this table would have been easier for you? Thank you. You might want to say that. Here. I don't know how many we have here, but this might be about the equal to the number we have for the very first service in Fort Wayne in United. Twenty-nine, I think that was. Twenty-nine. Twenty-nine.

Okay. What I propose to do over these next four Bible studies is to go through a Bible study and take us through the book of Romans and an overview. The book of Romans is a major book of the New Testament. It's a large book, sixteen chapters.

And in four studies, even if we have to go to five, it will be an overview. It will not be a comprehensive verse-by-verse exposition of the book of Romans. A number of reasons for that. Time, obviously. And also, I think that with a monthly Bible study, getting bogged down in one big large book like that is going to not be able to keep our attention. And our focus is four weeks apart. So my intent is to more or less do an overview, hit some of the high points, especially this book. And why Romans, it might be asked. Well, we could have gone through the book of Revelation. We could have gone through one of the Gospels, and we could, certainly. But this is one that kind of just struck my attention. I'd asked for some input, and this is the one that seemed to come to my attention and percolated to the surface. So this is what I chose to go through. It's a little bit of a heavy book in one sense. My focus upon it is not going to be theological and to get into all of the heavy subjects so much, but to try to hit some of the practical side aspects of the subject. To be honest, some of the material may wind up in a sermon over the next few months, because certain sections lend themselves to a sermon material. So I would spend more, you know, another time going through a section there that we would not do thoroughly in a Bible study. So that's my intent. If at any time through the study you have a question, be sure to raise your hand, and I'll hopefully see you and stop and call on you. And if you have a question, we'll try to work our way through that, try to make it interactive in that sense. Any questions up front on the book of Romans or what I propose or any thoughts beyond that?

Okay. That will serve as the introductory comments. We should open it with prayer as we go into the study. So if you'll just bow your heads to the table, I'll ask God's blessing. Our Father and our Great God, we bow before Your presence this evening. We're grateful to You for the calling that You've given us, the shared calling and the Spirit that draws us together as brethren in Your Church. We're grateful, Father, for not only that calling, but the times when we can get together and fellowship, and especially at a time like this where we've designated some time in a midweek study. We just ask Your blessing upon our hearing, our teaching tonight. Help us, Father, to look into a deeper portion of Your Word and to plumb the depths of it, to look deeper into certain aspects of righteousness, some of the deeper aspects of Your Word and Your teaching for us, especially here in this book. We thank You and we ask for Your blessing upon the study committed into Your hands by the authority of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Okay, the place to begin, of course, is in the beginning. So, chapter 1 of Romans. Let me give you just a little bit of an overview and a background here.

Of course, this book was written as one of the major epistles by Paul, who wrote the majority of the New Testament. He wrote this to a group of people constituting the Church of God at Rome, a group of people that he had not even met. He had not been to Rome. He did not start the Church at Rome. Someone else did. It was not Peter. Who it was and how it got started is one of those mysteries of the period, the New Testament period. It's not really all that important. By the time Paul wrote this letter, sometime in the mid-50s AD, there was a sizeable congregation in the city of Rome, the very heart of the Roman Empire, the capital of the Roman Empire. And, if you will, the seed of the beast. Keep in mind that Rome is the fourth beast of Daniel's vision, chapter 2 of Daniel. And, the subsequent resurrections of the Roman Empire from that after its fall are a very important part of prophecy and history and Bible prophecy. But, the Church that was here at this particular time was a bona fide, legitimate, thriving Church that was comprised of a mixed grouping of Jews and Gentiles. And, the apostle to the Gentiles, Paul, decides to write a letter to them indicating a number of things. One of the purposes that he had here was to essentially tell them that he was going to be coming to their midst and was going to visit them. If you look at chapter 15 of the book, you will see, as he winds it up here, that he tells them these desires of coming. Chapter 15 of Romans, verse 23, he said, So, it was his intent to go there. By this time, in Paul's ministry, he had essentially evangelized the major cities in the east. Ephesus, Corinth, Athens, Thessalonica, Antioch, the major cities in the eastern part of the empire, he had already spent time there. He spent a couple of years in Ephesus. He spent 18 months in the city of Corinth, starting that church.

He was beginning to cast his eyes further west, across the Mediterranean, to Italy, to the city of Rome. He had a wandering eye in that sense. He was always a traveler. That was his life, that was his calling, his commission. The conviction grew in him that he must begin to plan to go and do this work within the west.

There's a reference in Acts 19, verse 21, where he says, "...I must also see Rome." He was talking to the elders in Ephesus there. He knew that that was a major stop that he had been putting off, or whatever circumstance he had not gone there. He needed to go there. It was the biggest city, the capital city. He was the apostle to the Gentiles. It was only logical that he do that. But we also see from this reference that he intended to go even beyond, into Spain. And beyond that. Now, he's wanting to do this, and he's planning to do it. There's some speculation that he essentially wanted to leave the eastern part of the Mediterranean, that area, closer to Judea and Jerusalem. His life was in danger. There were plots, and he understood that. And there's a question as to whether or not he may have even feared for his life. And that's part of it. Because here in chapter 15, verse 31, he says, "...that I may be delivered from those in Judea who do not believe that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints." So again, he knew that he had enemies in Judea and Jerusalem, that area. And there were rumors, there were plots, and he understood that. He had dealt with it just virtually wherever he went, he had gone. And it may be that at this point he had certain intimations, intuitions, by God's Spirit, that began to warn him about imprisonments and afflictions. You recall in the book of Acts there were even certain individuals that had prophesied to him. So essentially warning him not to even go to Jerusalem at one time. And of course it was at that time that he did go to Jerusalem and he was arrested. So essentially Paul, he did get to Rome, but not the way he planned to go. You remember that he was arrested, he spent time in Caesarea, Jerusalem, and when he made his famous appeal to Caesar, that's essentially when he was put on a ship and bound for Rome. And when the book of Acts concludes, we find him in Rome. But he went there as a guest, all expense paid trip by the Roman government, judicial system. So in that sense, the church was not backcharged for this. Paul had this evangelistic journey paid for by the Romans.

So at the time he wrote this letter, though he was not in prison, he was not arrested, but he was making plans. And perhaps he did have a bit of a concern about it, because this is a major exposition, a major treatise of his theology. In this book you get into matters of faith, justification, grace, and some very deep theology about Christ, about God, about the Holy Spirit. And he lays it out. Some commentators speculate that perhaps Paul was making, in a sense, a letter. And it could have been that he dictated this letter to a scribe. And you kind of get the sense in certain sections that the words come out from a man who was pacing up and down in a room, dictating, and somebody was writing it down. And I think if you keep that in the back of your mind when you read through sections, read through the book of Romans, you begin to sense a bit of the urgency, the depth of feeling, and the flow of even the cadence of the words and the sentences, sometimes which get rather long, and fold back on one another, and it's as if somebody was writing them down as they were being spoken orally and did not go through perhaps a thorough editing process. And so you can imagine Paul pacing up and down, dictating, and somebody taking his words down as if he wanted to get this done because it may, in a sense, in his own mind, been his one opportunity to lay out in writing what he taught and what God had led him to understand about these various subjects. And so, in that sense, his thinking perhaps was that it could be his last will and testament, theologically or spiritually, for the Church. So he wanted to get it in writing. You know, men get to a point in life, women do, the age where you recognize that you've got less years ahead than you had behind you, and you want to make the most of your time. So you start either doing certain things, getting things done, checking off that bucket list, or putting certain things into writing, if it may be for children, grandchildren, or whatever, that you want to leave behind for somebody to perhaps understand certain things. And you understand that a little bit. You can have a little bit of a perspective behind the book, and look at it as a book, not as something that's heavy, deep, hard to understand, which sections of it are. But look at it from that overview of a minister, leading minister, wanting to get across to the people in Rome, what it was that he was about and what his ministry was about, being primarily dealing with the Gentile nations of the Roman Empire. So keep that in mind, and you can then work through some of the things that just sometimes don't seem to make sense. Now, it's not my intent in this study, this overview here, to get into a lot of the, shall we say, just the deeper theology of things so much. Seven o'clock on a Wednesday night, on a summer evening, it's a little bit thick for us to do that. Ten-thirty on a Sabbath morning, maybe thick too, at times. But sometimes those deep expositions are much better suited for a, perhaps, a long-term class. Mitch Moss is here tonight, he's heading off to ABC, and we'll give him a little bit of an overview, but he'll spend time at ABC this next year when he goes, going through all, verse by verse, not only Romans, but all the other books of the Bible, and he'll come back and we'll let him conduct the Bible studies. And I'll sit and listen to their flow. Are you saying that this year was written somewhere other than at Rome itself? Yeah, it was not written at Rome. It was not written at Rome. Yeah, that's clear.

Probably from Ephesus is one of the best guesses there. Okay, any other questions or thoughts? Okay. Well, let's jump into chapter one here and look at at least some of the opening verses and what we have in this material. He opens by giving a salutation, which is his custom with all of his letters. He identifies himself and he says, Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God, which he promised before through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his son, Jesus Christ our Lord. He was born at the seat of David and according to the flesh and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of Holiness by the resurrection from the dead. So it's quite a long statement. It takes up divided into four verses at least. But notice something here. He says in verse one that he is a bondservant, which comes from a word that could also be translated slave. And so it says how he looks at himself as a slave of Jesus Christ, which puts him in the line of other servants, other prophets, Moses, who used the very same terminology to describe themselves as either a prophet or, in Moses' case, as a leader, slaves of God. And by doing this, he places himself in the same line and it was a very proud label. This was not a pejorative term. This was not a derogatory term to be looked at in this sense. He's not a slave to a man. He's not owned by a man, but he is a slave to Christ and he is owned by Christ. Other verses could be brought into this to make the point that all of us are bondservants. Later on in this book, he'll talk about being slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness. But he opens by saying that he's a slave to Jesus Christ, which is an extremely touching place to frame his life. Then he says he was separated to the gospel of God. This is a little bit different. It's not the gospel of the kingdom that he says. He doesn't say the gospel of Jesus Christ. Not that those are any different from the gospel of God. But he says he is separated to the gospel of God. Keep in mind he's writing to a Gentile audience. An audience that, as we will see, is looking for something to frame their life. They're looking for the purpose of life. They're looking for meaning in their lives. They have come to this new religion that has sprung up that appears on the surface to be a subset of the Jewish. But as we should know, it is far different. Of course, the Jews knew that. It was far different. He talks about the gospel of God, which is a rather far-reaching thought and canopy under which all of the teaching of the Bible, and certainly Paul's teaching here to a Gentile people at Rome. He sets to lift this gospel message, this announcement, up to the level of the God of the universe. Perhaps something that they can identify with. But he also says that he's separated for a purpose that went far beyond the normal confines of life.

If you want to put yourself into this, which we should, at every stage of our reading of the Bible and these subjects, we should substitute ourselves in there for Paul, in that sense, or for Peter, and recognize that in some of these places that it applies to us, because we are separated by our calling from the confines of our life to something that is very high, very noble, very special. And the calling of God always separates us. It separates us from the world, from our families at times, and it is a different life. It is a different way of life. But we are separated, and we are to live according to that separation, a holy life. It's not separated to do our own thing, but it is to live by God's will, God's purpose. He mentions in verse 4 the resurrection, declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of dead, as he refers to Jesus Christ. The resurrection, of course, is the key element of the Gospel and the life of Christ. Without the fact of Christ being resurrected, there is nothing else to consider. And here he brings that out at the very beginning. Christ, in the story of Jesus that the Gospel tells, was at the heart of their message, is about God come in the flesh. And he's writing again to Romans and people who are at the heart of the Empire. And the Gentiles who are reading this grew up steeped in the mythology of Greece and Rome, ideas of gods and goddesses and men who were half gods, half god and half men. Some of the fantastic stories of all of the mythologies of that ancient world. The gods were very human in their emotions and their actions. They committed adultery. Zeus, the chief god, in mythology, was famous for that. They were called gods, but they were very human in their actions. And the idea of God in the flesh that is behind the story of Jesus Christ is not some imaginary story for Paul and for their teaching. It was a very real story because the fact of the resurrection is the key to the story of Christ. Without it, you're just talking about some dead man in the past. But when you believe and understand and believe and accept the story and the truth of the resurrection, then you are talking about the living Christ today that we read about in Revelation, the right hand of God, and understand that entire story there. So it's very important, again, just to note that, to realize how he is beginning to frame this as he moves forward.

In verse 5, he mentions that this grace and apostleship has been received for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name. And so the gospel is for all peoples. And by all nations, he is saying to all nations beyond Israel, beyond the Jews. And that's important to remember because throughout the book, he does weave in the connection of the Jews, the circumcised, and the Gentiles, the uncircumcised. Chapters 9, 10, and 11 form a section where he is explaining Israel and what happened to Israel and what will happen to Israel and where the Gentiles fit with Israel.

That's chapters 9, 10, and 11. We'll get to that. But here he kind of lays the stage for it because he says that faith is among all nations for his name. And the gospel applies to all peoples and all nations. And so he says, "...to all who are in Rome, beloved of God, call to be saints. Grace to you, and peace from God our Father, the Lord Jesus Christ." Grace and peace are common phrases that he uses in his letters.

You must have grace before you can have peace. You must have grace with God. Grace is essentially unmerited forgiveness. Pardon. And whether it's with God or man, you cannot have peace unless there is grace. If we cannot extend grace toward one another, we'll not have peace because we will inevitably live with offense, with conflict, with problems among each other as human beings. And if we cannot learn to be gracious in the way we think of each other, talk to one another, treat one another, then we will not have peace.

We'll offend people, or people will choose to be offended. We will have conflict and strife, and you can't have peace. Grace always precedes peace. Without God forgiving us and us believing that, we can't have peace of mind.

And we certainly would not have peace with God. Remember that it is Christ's sacrifice that is that peace for us between God and man. Without that, at that level, we can't have forgiveness and grace, and we will not have peace of mind. So grace and peace is not just something to flourish that he writes off at the beginning or at the end of a letter to have salutation. It is really a very profound thought to understand about our relationship with God and our relationship with one another.

And that peace comes from the Father and from Jesus Christ Himself. So, He says to all who are in Rome, down in verse 6, and verse 7, to all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints. Verse 8, He says, first I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all that your faith is spoken of throughout the entire world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit, in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I may mention of you always in my prayers.

I wrote a paper one time in one of the classes I had at Ambassador College, because that phrase recurs several places through his letters, that he made mention of the people always in his prayers. Sometimes, I don't know how you work it if you keep a prayer list, as announcements are made, or go out on the Internet, or made at church about people needing prayer, or if you write it in your notebook and transfer it into another notebook, it may be a prayer notebook for you, or how you do it, or if you just, you're brilliant, and you can keep it there in your head and remember people who are sick and all the prayer requests.

But it is good that we do that, that we make mention of each other, and those who are sick, those who have other needs, other trials, always in our prayers. Not just occasionally, and of course, there's going to be times people will move on and off of a particular critical phase of their life, or be mentioned in our prayers. But I think that when Paul said this, he made his point, and he really meant what he said. And he was, again, in verse 10, he makes the intent that he wanted to come and to see them, to come unto them.

And in verse 11, he says, For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end you may be established.

You know, a minister, and Paul, through his teaching, would bring some spiritual gift to help establish their faith, to encourage them, to teach them, to bind them closer into the church, to God, to him as a minister, to the ministry as a whole. That the idea of a spiritual gift can be many different things that he would impart, because each of us respond differently. The things you hear tonight, how many people are here tonight, Bob? 25. All right, we have 25 people.

We're four short of the original church service. Nobody's pregnant. Those are so... Oh, that's right, Suzanne. We've got 26 of them, so... All right, we're pretty short. We're getting there. We're getting there. We have 25 different ways in which we are going to hear what I say tonight. You're going to hear me and perceive what I say from your frame of reference. Whatever's going on in your life today, this week, however you look at the book of Romans, or concepts you have about Paul, some of you think, well, this is too thick. You either have some other study or really want to learn this, but there's going to be 25 different ways by which you listen if you apply it tonight.

And it could be, if you will, 25 different gifts that are extended as you hear what you need or what lodges in your mind, depending upon your frame of reference, your intellect, your grasp of the concepts, God's spirit working with you, and a number of different things. And that's what Paul is saying, that I would impart some gift to you that may help you in your faith and in your relationship with God.

And that's typically how we view it. But in verse 12, Paul takes it and wraps it around. He says, that is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith, both of you and me. Now, the mutual faith of you and I, you and me, think about that. There's an element of humility in what Paul says, because he's not saying that I'm going to be the only teacher.

He's saying, I'm going to learn from you. You're going to teach me something. That's what he's saying, that we may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith, both of you and me. You have faith. You have experience. And he's saying that in the time that he would look forward to spending with them over a period of weeks, months, maybe even years, he was looking forward to learning from them.

Now, sometimes you may not think about the fact that you, as a member, have things to teach, and I, as a pastor, have things to teach, and together we all have things to learn. And I understand this a little bit better than I would have a few years ago, as I've thought about various things. I have to say that, you know, I learned from my interactions and my experiences with members.

When I stop and really think it through, listen to what is said, listen to the experience of an individual, listen to their words, their heart, try to understand where they're coming from. If I can shut off the iPhone of my mind and the clutter that is always going around there and just listen in to what a person is saying in a conversation, in a counseling session, conversation at church, I will learn something.

I've been trying to do that more, like most men. I have a problem listening and being a minister and thinking that I know it all, that even aggravates the male tendency that I have. And I've had to realize, and I do realize, that if I just will shut up and let people talk and listen and think about it, that God's speaking through other people, and I'm learning, and then I am hearing things.

I could give you certain examples of that, but I didn't have to get real personal and up close. I don't know if we don't have all the time in the world to do that, but let me just encourage you to listen to what others are saying about what's going on in their life, and not only just to listen to advise or to encourage, but also to perhaps learn something about yourself and perhaps how it relates there to you.

And if they are giving you some, if they say something about a situation that they're going through, that you've been through, or that you are going through, listen even more carefully. You might be hearing God telling you something you need to do, and giving you a clue as to how to do it, maybe an impetus to do it. So, listen to what people are saying, what they're going through in their life, and if it's a similar experience, then who should say that God hasn't prompted in their heart at that moment, at that time, that conversation, to teach you something?

It takes a measure of humility for any of us to shut off our own whatever's going on in my mind, our mind, the clutter that's up there, wanting to talk back or thinking about the next conversation or looking over somebody's shoulder while they're trying to tell us something and we're trying to get away from that conversation, or wondering what is beyond. So, Paul here writes something that's really very profound regarding the way we, the student-teacher relationship.

So, the best student-teacher relationships learn together. And that is what he is saying here. Now, down to verse 16 he says, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation, to everyone that believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. So, here he begins to talk about the Greeks, the Jews. Verse 14, he mentions the Greeks and the barbarians, wise and unwise, but I'm ready to preach the gospel at Rome in verse 15.

He's not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God to salvation to everyone that believes. That encapsulates the power of the gospel, the power of the message, that it is the power of God to provide salvation to all who believe, to the Jews and to the Greeks. To the Jew first, because the gospel went to the Jews first, and then to the Gentiles. That's all that that means. Not that one is any better than the other, as he will go on to show.

But he is saying this to a people living in an age in the first century, where men were really seeking to be saved from the hopelessness of philosophy. I've done a bit of reading about that period of time within the subject of church history. Many, many historians bring out poets, authors, politicians, philosophers of Rome of this particular time, having statements and saying things to the effect that it was an age where people were tired of the broken promises of the pagan world, the Greek philosophy, the Roman pagan Greek philosophy. The ancient world was steeped in paganism of all different sorts and varieties. And those cults, those religions, those temples, those systems didn't deliver on their promise, just as false religion doesn't today.

And there was not the power to save people who believed. People were looking for meaning. And this is something that comes out so often in so many of their statements. They were seeking to be saved from the hopelessness of Greek philosophy. One Roman philosopher by the name of Seneca said that what was needed in that period of time, what was needed was a hand let down to lift us up.

A hand let down to lift us up. In other words, they were looking to the heavens. They were looking to a deity, for a helping hand, to lift them out of the despair, the hopelessness of Rome, of Greek philosophy, and the failed promises. There was a time where there was a peace. The peace of Rome at this point in time was unique.

But it was a peace with a cost because it was enforced by the Roman legions. And it was a peace forged in iron. Remember that the fourth beast was symbolized by iron. They're in the image of Nebuchadnezzar. And iron is tough and strong, and it endures. But it's rigid, certainly not like gold.

None of us go out and buy iron rings and iron necklaces, do we? We want gold. Rome was symbolized by iron. It wasn't very pretty, but it was tough and it was strong. But it didn't feed, and it didn't satisfy the restless longings that people had for saving, understanding, meaning, purpose of life. That was provided by the Gospel.

Remember, seeking a peace. Not of that which was proclaimed by Caesar, but a peace that was proclaimed by God. And that's what Paul promises here with the Gospel of Christ. So, going on, he mentions in verse 18, The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness. And, oh, I didn't want to skip over verse 17 because that's kind of the key verse he said, For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

And this is one of the famous verses out of Romans that, in Martin Luther's translation of the Book of Romans in the New Testament, He added a word after the word faith. He added the word alone. Alone. The just shall live by faith alone. And within Lutheran theology, faith was all that you needed. Faith was all that was required. No works. According to Luther, keep in mind, Luther had come out of, he was a Catholic priest who rebelled against the abuses of the Roman Church, The selling of penance and all of that, and the works-related aspect of Catholic theology. And he was looking for to lift people far out of that.

That's mine. I forgot to mute it. Okay, we'll get a little concert here as we move along. Okay. And so, this introduces a concept of faith and justification, which we'll come back to later on, which are theological concepts, but they're important to understand.

But it frames how we look at God and how we approach God. That is what is behind here. But really, the way it's translated, the just shall live by faith, is the inspired order. There should not be another word added to that. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness.

And now he begins to move into a section that I'm not going to spend a lot of time on, where he talks about actually a period of judgment, because he moves into the time where he says that the wrath of God is revealed against unrighteousness and those who hold the truth in unrighteousness.

It's a pretty heavy section from chapter 1, verse 18 to the end of chapter 1, verse 32, because he talks about the conduct of the society and the time and the age where men did not want to keep God in their knowledge. Verse 22, He gets to talking here about verse 27. Pretty plain to me what that is talking about. It should be to you. Kind of hard to get around to that. I don't know what some people do today. There are modern explanations of what the Bible says, and that's a pretty strict condemnation of homosexuality, if you're ever going to read that in the Bible.

But he gets into this, and he's talking about the age, which really is a description of our modern age. The world in Rome was not a very righteous place to live. There was immorality, and I can tell you all kinds of stories from the Roman world, the Roman histories of the immorality.

If you saw or tried to watch the Showtime series a few years ago called Rome, you can rent it on DVD or look at it. And it graphically details the immorality of the Roman world. Another one that sells it, and this goes back 30 or more years, a series called I Claudius.

Any of you ever see I Claudius? Read the book I Claudius. Anybody ever see that? I think PBS ran a 9, 10, or 12 part series on I Claudius. It went through every one of the emperors of the first century, from Augustus through Claudius, and showed again just the corruption, politically, morally, otherwise, of the aristocratic class of the age. But that's not, you know, they weren't any worse than our age today.

So we don't need to get into all of that. It's been a great deal of time there. What's important to note, I think, from this section is that it is talking about God's judgment as will and is sure, and it is a part of His plan. Just as much as grace, forgiveness, faith, and justification, which Paul will talk about here, judgment is also a part of His plan, and that does not take away from the love that God has for His creation.

But judgment will come both from the way we live in the moment, and ultimately, unless it's repented of eternally or spiritually in God's time and of final judgment. So this is what Paul is saying, that there will be a time of judgment. There will be a time of God's wrath poured out. It hasn't occurred on the world yet. Kingdoms and nations come and go as they corrupt themselves. Rome eventually fell. Other empires and other systems and countries fell because of their corruption.

That is the story of human history. But this encapsulates it and shows it at this particular point and should be understood. But keep in mind that Paul lays this out here, and he's telling him, I want to come to you. So you have to realize that Paul knew the problems.

He knew the society, and that's where he wanted to go. And preach. If you were going to start a church or work with the church or want to start your own message, you might want to choose a place where there was a lot of God-fearing, Bible-believing people. And at least someone you can begin to have a little bit of common ground with. With what he's describing here about Rome and the Roman culture, it's not very pretty.

But that's where he chose to go and wanted to go because of the deep conviction that he had about the message. And he wasn't afraid to engage and recognize that God could call people out of, and did call people out of that system. So one of the points I think we should take is that our world is just as secular, humanistic as it was in the time of Rome. And we should not be dismayed or feel that we can't preach the Gospel and that God cannot call people today as we preach the Gospel, because of all of the barriers that we see that are there to people being receptive to a religious message.

But it's not any different from virtually any other age in the past, and certainly not that of the first century.

We have different tools, different language that we have to use. It's the same message. But at the heart of that, there has to be the same conviction that Paul had in his day to go into the heart of humanity. Corruption, immorality, problems, recognize that God would call people whom he chose out of that if he did his job.

Scott and I are involved in a project with the Church right now to help push the work forward in crafting our message, branding ourselves as a Church and how we craft our message. And I think Scott would agree with me that no matter how whiz-bang, flashy-classy, beautiful, we come up with a phrase, packaging, or whatever, of the Gospel, if we...it's God's Spirit at the heart of it, and if we don't have the conviction and the will to do it, no amount of packaging, marketing, expertise, or whatever is going to overcome either our lack or God's lack of blessing because of not having the desire there, the will to do it.

But we also have to be...that said, we have to be wise of our time and of our age and understand our audience and how to frame the message of the Gospel for the audience. Paul was a master at that and understood that. Well, jumping into Chapter 2, he begins to change subject. He says, Therefore, you are inexcusable, O man, whosoever you are, the judge. For whatever you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you who judge, practice the same things. We know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. And thank you this, O man, that judge them which do such things and do the same, that you shall escape the judgment of God. He's describing here hypocrisy and people who don't understand that they are living a double standard. He's speaking to the Jews, really, at this point in saying that they're no better than the Gentiles. He said, this is what he's beginning to build in his case. He says, Or do you despise the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? In verse 4, he lays out three words, goodness or kindness, forbearance, and patience, in describing the riches of God's approach. Kindness is a sense of understanding that people are weak and people need help. You remember the example of Christ speaking to the woman who was taken in adultery and brought before him. She was accused by the other leaders and essentially he said, after they all left, the woman, where are your accusers? He said, he was without sin cast the first stone.

In that case, in others, he recognized the weakness of people and he showed some kindness, not condoning the sin, but showing a level of kindness to someone who was weak. The second word here is forbearance. You forbear something.

What that word means is that you call a truce. You call a halt. Two armies are warring. Sometimes they call a truce. White flag of truce goes up. They stop and cease hostilities. You call a truce when things get a little bit too hot and people back off. Time is given to seek peace, to seek reconciliation, and to allow room for repentance.

There is a time when there is a time of truce and to use that time to seek a level of peace. If you can do that, get people on the individual level, get two people who are warring together to back off and at least stop saying things, stop taking actions that are hostile or offensive, and you get two families, two people, two groups to back off and call a truce, then you can begin to work with them. You can go to one and begin to say, what are the issues? Let's lay them out here. Go to the other, what are your issues? And then you can do the shuttle diplomacy back and forth, like Henry Kissinger used to do back in the 70s, and begin to work between parties to bring people together, if you can get people to forebear or to back away. Sometimes situations get so intense, things are said, that you have to come to a point where you allow for a truce and say, enough is enough. Stop the words. Stop the emails. Stop the letters. Stop the phone calls. Stop so that we can have a breathing space before this escalates to the point of nuclear annihilation. And somebody pushes the button and boom! The whole thing goes up and it's irretrievable, whether it's obviously in relationship. So there has to be a time, and that's a rich matter, and the long suffering that he talks about here. Long suffering, or patience, really. Which, again, as we work with people, we understand their weaknesses and appreciate God's patience, which is not leniency or weakness in that sense. When God has patience with us, it doesn't take away his power to judge. God doesn't render judgment until there is a point of no return, either through an attitude that just will not repent, or ultimately in the time of the Day of the Lord, God's final judgment, there will be a time in a day that will come when judgment will be rendered and repentance will be too late. But the wisdom comes in knowing that the long suffering allows for repentance and for change. And here in this chapter, he's starting to talk to the Jews who were taking advantage of their status and had taken advantage of it, thinking that they were above God's impartial judgment. The problem of the age and of the time between the Jews of this period and what was happening within the church, and as the Jews, some of them within the church, and certainly those that were outside of the church, attacking the Christian church at that time, were dealing with, they were not willing to accept the Gentiles, people who were uncircumcised, people who were in their eyes unrighteous and beyond the mercy of God in that sense in terms of a special relationship, they were not able to recognize that. And they thought of themselves as being in a distinct category that was above God's impartial judgment. And this is what Paul is beginning to deal with in this part of the book of Romans, as he works through the attitudes that is here. And in fact, the remainder of this chapter is essentially leading up to a statement that he's going to make that there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, spiritually. And this is again something that is at the heart of his theology.

In verse 5, he said, And that is so true. Paul is showing that God's impartial and every man, Jew and Gentile, will receive in judgment, a righteous judgment from God according to their deeds.

And at this point in the story of Romans, you've got to remember that in the way the Bible was put together, you were meant to read the book of James before you read the book of Romans. All right? And you understand that. I saw somebody back there tonight having the Bible in its original order. Is that you, Becky? Yeah, you get your copy of that here. You want to look at Becky's there afterwards, and you'll see in the New Testament that the book of James comes before the book of Romans. And that is the inspired order. And if you read James's statements where James said, show me your faith, and I'll show you my faith by my works. Faith and works go together in the book of James. Very simple, very elementary. That you must have works to demonstrate your faith. Not that the works save you, as Paul was going to go out through here, but if you understand what James said about faith and works, that your works show your faith. Then you can come back and read Paul, and especially the book of Romans, and you can understand the statements that he makes through this about faith and works and justification, and realize Paul was not doing away with the law. He was not at all doing that.

There's fragmentation, and there's various things that are said here that you have to understand how they put together, and then certainly piece together with other statements within the Bible.

He's building a case here with the Jews to tell them that because they are Jews, part of the covenant people, they're not beyond God's impartial judgment. He says in verse 10, That's not a difficult phrase to understand.

It's like there's a certain natural law that the Gentile nations had, even though they did not have the specific law of God.

They were more excellent being instructed out of the law, and are confident that you yourself are a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness. So from verse 17 forward, he's specifically targeting the Jews, and you say you rest in the law, you make your boast of God. In other words, the Jews felt that they were God's chosen people, and they were a remnant of that people. That is true, and they did have the law, and they did hold on to certain things very legalistically, and they did make their boast of knowing the one true God, and His will, things that are excellent out of the law.

You're confident that you're a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, and to the degree that they could, they were. An instructor of the foolish, teacher of babes, which have a form of knowledge and the truth in the law.

You therefore which teach you not yourself. The Jews, he's saying to the Jews, you think that you stand above other nations and other peoples because you have this law. You know the God of Abraham.

Do you not teach yourself? Do you preach a man should not steal? Do you steal? A double standard. He mentions adultery and idolatry. You make your boast of the law through breaking the law of dishonor you God, verse 23. The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles though you, as it is written, through you as it is written. For circumcision truly profits. And here then he says to the Jews, being, having that sign of that covenant does profit if you keep the law. But if you be a breaker of the law, your circumcision is made uncircumcision. So he's saying the fact that your flesh is cut doesn't amount to anything if you don't obey God.

If you don't live up to the full terms. The physical calling, the physical designation of being a Jew, or an Israelite for that matter, or even the cutting of the flesh, the ethnic descent, being Jewish, doesn't mean a thing if you don't keep the law. You're no different from the Gentiles, is what he's saying. And then he comes down in verse 28. For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly.

Wow. This is why a Daiduul Orthodox Jew doesn't like Paul. They didn't like him then. They don't like him now. Because Paul is saying to become a Jew today. It's not a matter of an outward racial or ethnic descent. It is not a matter of being a part of that nation or that tribe.

Neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh. That sign that was part of that covenant with God's people through Abraham, he said that's not important anymore. He is a Jew which is one inwardly. And circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God. So Paul is saying that for God, Jewishness is not defined by race, it's defined by conduct, by righteousness. That was a stunning concept for the Jewish mind then and today. That's why we're not Jews.

Any of you ever been called a Jew? Because you keep the Sabbath, keep the Holy Days, so am I. Have any of you ever thought that we were near Jews or felt an affinity with the Jews because of what we do? Certainly. You know, I spent two years studying Hebrew at Ambassador College. The second year was a complete waste for me. But the first year got me the opportunity to go to Jerusalem for the summer and on the day. That's the only reason I took it.

And I did learn a little bit of Hebrew, but I got that opportunity. And I had this, you know, there was this little group of people who were Hebrew students studying Hebrew. And we had a Jewish teacher, and one of the students was actually a Jew. And then some of the rest of them were what I call Jewish wannabes. They just were fascinated with the Jewish culture.

And I remember we were even, we would have Jewish speakers come in and every couple of three weeks they'd rent a van or take a van from transportation and take us down to the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. And we'd listen to a lecture by some Jewish scholar, which was interesting.

But you get into the culture of being Jewish, and it's a cultural thing. And it can be fascinating. And sometimes, you know, after a while, I was a kid from Missouri. I didn't grow up. There was one Jew in my class. They ran the local clothing store. I don't say that pejoratively. But there was not a town full of them, but there was a few. And I got off to the Ambassador College, a whole big new world, and kind of got caught up in that for a while.

But after a while, you back away from it, you realize, I'm not a Jew. We're not. And in the Church, we're not Jews. We do keep the Sabbath. We do keep the Holy Days. And we do have an affinity with the Jewish people because of the history. And they are one tribe out of Israel, and we have that connection. But we're not Jews. And one of the things people, over the years, have noticed in the Church, sometimes people want to be a Jew.

They want to be a Jew. And they start listening to Jewish music. Or they'll start wearing Jewish garb. Sometimes people would show up with a yarmulke on their head. Or get into the culture. And there's nothing by itself that's wrong with getting into the culture. But if you start trying to bring that culture into righteousness, and create a righteous standard and worship in that sense in the Church, then you cross the line.

And we are not Jews. I've had to tell certain at times people who, all they wanted to have, play for special music, were Jewish songs. Out of the Messianic Jewish thing. And I would just have to say, look, some of it is good in balance, but we're not Jews. So if you, you know, there's a Messianic Jewish movement of Jews who accept Jesus, and are Messianic, and some people that were part of the worldwide Church of God who got blown out in the mid-90s, some of them wound up in Messianic Judaism.

And that, you know, that's fine in one sense. They were looking for something, and that's where they landed. They grabbed onto that after the heretical problems in the Church back at that time. But you can't mix the two. And I know from time to time we've had people, I had a Messianic Jew call me within the last few weeks and was supposed to show up at church.

And never has. And we wouldn't, you know, we wouldn't make a scene about it. I think one time here in Fort Wayne we had someone visit for a week or two that was a Messianic Jew had the phylacteries and the shawl and all of that. And, you know, we wouldn't make an issue of that, but I certainly would not let that culture begin to be imposed within the Church.

And you should not expect that from anybody. You know, we can tolerate it to a degree, but at a certain point those things would have people like that, they may come and go. And if they don't get it, God's Spirit's not truly leading them. And, you know, they would eventually shed that and become a part of the Church and understand the fullness of the truth. Eventually, you know, they'll go back, they'll go their own way.

This is not what they're looking for. So you have to be tactful in approaching those things. But I enjoy going to Israel. I've even prayed at the Western Wall. I wrote out a prayer there one time and put it in there, and I prayed there. Not that that was any more special place to pray than my bedroom, but it was kind of just a unique opportunity and a unique spot. But some of the people that we had on the tour, one of them pulled out of Yarmulke and put it on their head, and I think one of them had a shawl on.

A prayer shawl. And I just kind of look at that and think, well, hopefully they'll learn. But, you know, we're not Jews. You're not a Jew. God's Word tells us that a Jew here is one who is...it's inward. We become a Son of Abraham, a descendant of Abraham spiritually by and through Jesus Christ and our obedience to God and this way of life. And it's not connected to men, but it's connected to God. You have to keep that in mind. Sometimes when you get caught up or perhaps begin to study into Jewish culture and Judaism, sometimes that appears within the Church and people get fascinated by it, but that's not where we are. We're just not Jews. We're Christians. And we obey the Scriptures and have an understanding of the Scriptures and the way that they all fit together. Any questions on anything to this point? It's 8.15. I don't plan to go any further. I'm a chapter behind already. So we'll just call my part of it to an end. Any questions?