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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/william-skates/doxologies-worship-in-romans/
Let's turn to the book of Romans, please, chapter 1. Our brother's been bringing before us thoughts of what do I get from God. I want to take a look at the thought of what does God get from me? So let's read some verses from the book of Romans.
First of all, from verse 20. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. Even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
Because that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God. Neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like unto a corruptible man and to birds and to four-footed beasts and creeping things.
Wherefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness. And so on. Verse 25, who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
Now over to chapter 9, please. Paul's heaviness for Israel. Verse 4, who are Israelites, to whom pertaineth the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the service of God and the promises, whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever.
Amen. Amen. And we'll take another reading from the end of chapter 11. Verse 33, O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counselor? Or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be reckoned, penced unto Him again? For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things to whom be glory forever.
Amen. And then finally, from the end of chapter 16. We'll read from verse 25. Now, to Him that is of power to establish you according to my Gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ. That's how He started the epistle.
He was an apostle separated unto the Gospel of God concerning His Son. We read on, According to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest by the Scriptures of the prophets according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith.
To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen. The Lord will bless to us the further reading from His Word. What is it that God should receive from His people? Well, in a word, it is worship, isn't it?
Devotion of heart, a responsive spirit to all that the truth of God brings before us concerning Himself, concerning His ways, concerning His attributes. He deserves the homage and the praise, the adoration of His people.
Now, we have read from the book of Romans four occasions when we have a doxology and you'll notice that each of them ends with the word, Amen. It's not the only references to the word Amen in Romans. There are seven in all.
The other three occur in the last two chapters of the book. In any series, in most of the series of seven, the sevens in the Bible, it's often pointed out that they fall into a 4 -3 relationship. And that is so in relation to these seven Amens in the book of Romans in that four of them are linked with a doxology.
That is, speaking well of God, uttering praise to God. And that is an expression of worship as the Apostle reflects upon divine truth in each of these sections and it draws from his heart worship and praise.
You know, that's a little different from the modern concept of worship, isn't it? I mean, you have to import a worship band and have the strobe lights flashing and the fake smoke arising and the driving beat and the incessant chanting of repetitive phrases.
That's worship in the modern version. But the time has come, said the Lord Jesus, that they that worship God must worship God in spirit and in truth. It is a spiritual response intelligently to the revelation of divine truth.
And that's what we have here in the book of Romans. So let's take a look quickly at each of these. The first one there in chapter 1, we have God's purpose in creation that draws forth worship and praise from the Apostle.
In the second one in chapter 9 and verse 5, we have God's purpose in Christ that draws forth worship and praise. The incarnation of Christ coming into the world. Then when we come to chapter 11, it's God's purpose in preservation.
As Paul reviews his purpose in relation to his people Israel, God's purpose in preservation. And it expands to us as well. And that draws forth worship and praise from his heart. And finally, at the end of the book, we have God's righteous purpose in application.
We have the commandment of the everlasting God made known to all nations for the obedience of faith. And as Paul reflects upon that again, he concludes with a doxology of worship and praise to God. So let's just take a quick look at each of these and we trust it will be instructive and helpful to us this morning.
God's purpose in creation. Instead of that drawing forth worship and praise from men, we find in verse 25 that men changed the truth of God into a lie. And they worshipped and they served the creature more than the creator.
They became self-indulgent. They were serving themselves. And also they got involved in idolatry and they actually made images about God and they worshipped those. Instead of worshipping the creator who is blessed forever, says Paul, amen.
The word blessed is the word from which we get the word eulogy, to speak well of God, to give him his rightful place. The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood with the things that are made, even as eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse.
God has left man without excuse in this matter. He has written his eternal power and Godhead into the creation all around us, of which we see only a very small fraction. The sun is what, 93 million miles away?
They tell me it's 864 ,000 miles in diameter and we feel its heat and its light eight minutes after it leaves the surface of the sun. And our solar system is but a little dot in the vastness of the Milky Way galaxy, which if you could travel at the speed of light at 186 ,000 odd miles per second and keep that up for 100 ,000 years, you would cross from one side of one galaxy, the Milky Way, from there to there.
His eternal power and Godhead, the heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament showeth his handiwork. Right down to the microscopic size of things. 1997, two scientists, John Walker and Paul Boyer, they won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of a tiny little mortar that is spinning away in every single living cell of animals, of plants, bacteria, of fungi.
Why? Wherever you find a living cell, they discovered that inside that living cell there are hundreds, if not thousands, of little mortars that are found in a particular enzyme, a mortar that is constructed like an electric mortar with the field coils, as it were, around the outside and then the armature, the shaft in the middle, and that thing is spinning at 6 ,000 RPM.
6 ,000 RPM. Hundreds of thousands of them in some cells and apparently in every living cell. So if you happen to have an X-ray machine and an electron microscope in your garage, take a look at it when you get home.
There's plenty of them out there. In fact, in the human body, they tell me that there are 10, with 15 zeros after 10, that's 10 quadrillion of them in the human body. So you don't have to look very far to take a look at these little mortars.
How did they get there? How are they formed? They are made by proteins and every single protein must be in its right place and must all come together precisely in order for each one of those little mortars to work.
You remove even one protein out of that and the whole thing doesn't work. His eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse and the more that man discovers of the creation of God, the more it ought to drive him to his knees and bow in worship to God who is over all, who is blessed forever.
Amen. But what happens? Chapter one traces the ruin of man. The descent of man from light to darkness and from the knowledge of God to ignorance and humanity after the fall, even with a conscience in the dispensation of conscience fell into the depths of unconscionable depravity and instead of worshiping God, he becomes utterly ruined and heathen in his very core.
In the chapter two, Paul takes a look at a man who is regulated, a respectable man, a man who's regulated by human regulation and he's found wanting to, isn't he? And in the dispensation of human government, that fails at the Tower of Babel.
And then Paul will go on and take a look at the religious man, the man to whom God had entrusted precious promises and sacred scriptures. And he fails. And so in the dispensation of promise and of law, we have the failure of man as well.
Until Paul arrives at this conclusion that the whole world, instead of bringing worship and praise to God, is guilty before God. There is none righteous, none that understand it, none that seeketh after God, all gone out of the way.
And yet, God will move towards such ruin in humanity, in infinite grace, and He'll bring the very gospel of the grace of God to them. The gospel of Christ, the power of God unto salvation. And as Paul anticipates what he's about to develop in the book, the majestic treaties of the gospel of God that's unfolded in those first eight chapters, draws from his heart worship, draws from his heart praise, as he thinks of the blessed God, the creator God, who is blessed forever, amen.
Trust that produces worship in our hearts too, to reflect upon those things, those familiar truths from His word. Let's come to chapter nine, where Paul is mentioning now God's purpose in Christ, in His incarnation.
Speaking of Israel and the privileges that they had received, he says in verse five, whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh, Christ came who is over all, God blessed forever, amen.
Paul is about to set out Israel's failure as a nation. And even though he loves his brethren according to the flesh, he recognizes that they've missed the boat on this. They've gone wrong. And instead of bringing worship and praise to God and giving God His rightful place, they have failed and they have stumbled over that stone of stumbling and that rock of offense.
But Paul is an Israelite. And as he mentions the very coming into the world of the Lord Jesus Christ, God raised up that nation Israel, He gave them all the privileges that are mentioned there in those early verses.
And through Israel, He introduced the very Christ of God, who is over all, God blessed forever. It's a statement as well that relates to the deity of Christ. And as he touches upon it, it draws from his heart this exclamation of worship and praise.
And he gives a loud amen. I'm glad our brother Murray's here because I like his amens. They're kind of sadly lacking amongst us. Brother Al's here too. They are really. So may God provoke our hearts to contemplate divine truth and let there be that response from within.
You know, whenever divine truth is presented, we should feel integrated with it that God is revealing Himself to us. It's for our blessing. And we are linked with Him eternally. It should draw a response from our hearts.
Too often I feel that on Lord's Day morning when we're gathered to remember our Lord Jesus and our brethren are getting up, pouring out their hearts in thanksgiving, we sit there as spectators. You know, somehow remote from what's going on.
Is that worship? We can see from even these four verses that we've read, that Paul was very integrated with divine truth. And it was drawing that response almost involuntarily from his redeemed heart inspired by the Spirit of God, of course, to give an amen when he contemplates the greatness of God and the fullness of revelation in Him.
So here summarized in these early verses of chapter 9, the majestic plan of redemption. And though Israel failed to grasp the significance of such divine truth, Paul's heart is moved in worship. They fail to see that Jesus is God over all, blessed forever.
Earlier this week, I was in the house and I came to the door. I answered the door and there was a car parked at the head of the driveway and there was this attractive lady standing there. And she offered me this tract.
And it said on the front of it, come and celebrate the death of Jesus with us. Well, put together a little paper. I turned it over and I saw the words, Jehovah's Witness. So my heart kind of sank and I said to the lady, I'm afraid we're not going to agree in very much here today.
And she said, well, why not? I said, well, let me tell you what I believe. I believe that Jesus who died upon the cross at Calvary, I said, listen carefully, is the eternal son of the eternal God. Oh, she says, well, why do you think I wouldn't agree with that?
I said, that's not what you believe. You believe he's a son of God. She says, well, yes. That's right. Well, the Bible says so, that he was created. She says, Romans chapter one, verse 20. He is the firstborn of all creation.
I said, you mean Colossians 1 .15. Yes, she says, I'm sorry. Firstborn of all creation. That doesn't mean that he was the first to be born in creation. I said, you need to look at Psalm 89. There's a verse there that speaks about David as the firstborn of the kings of the earth.
David wasn't the firstborn king, the first to be born as king. So clearly, it means that he is the first in rank. He is supreme. Oh, she said, I used to believe that what you believe. I said, I'm sorry you changed your mind.
Because the Lord Jesus taught that if you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sins. And where I am, there you cannot come. She says, I can see we're not going to agree. So she took her paper.
Poor people, blinded. Israel's failure to receive Christ as their Messiah. The question in Paul's mind and the objection that he's answering is this. Has that overthrown the purpose of God in Christ? The fact that God has now set aside Israel and He has brought believing Gentiles onto a righteous standing before Him and given them a place in public testimony for God.
Does that mean the purpose of God for Israel has been overthrown? Has God finally cast away forever His people? Far be the thought. Israel is the natural branches in the olive tree have been broken off.
But there has been grafted in the wild branches the Gentiles into the place of privilege, testimony for God. The purpose of God is not overthrown. And as Paul anticipates that as he enters into this section, chapter 9 through chapter 11, it causes worship in his heart and he exclaims Christ to his over all God, blessed forever, amen!
That God's purposes in Christ are secure. And he'll trace that through in those chapters. So the question to our hearts, does dispensational truth produce worship in our souls? As we think of the wisdom of God, the ways of God, the marvelous works of God through the ages?
Dead in Paul's heart. Come to the end of that section now in chapter 11, verse 36, God's purpose and preservation. Paul is answering the question asked in verse 35. Who is first given to him and it shall be recompensed unto him again.
In the answer, verse 36, for of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever, amen. So no one has first given to God without having first received from God. He commenced all things.
He causes all things and he concludes all things. God is the author of everything. No one else was involved in authoring all things. God is the agent who brings all things into existence and he is behind everything.
He has not left it up to other agents to carry out. Independent of him, he is the agent of all things. And God is the answer to why all things are. There's no possibility that God will lose control and he will not abandon his purpose nor leave the responsibility of the consummation of the ages to others without his being in control.
As Paul reflects upon that, he can only bow in the presence of Almighty God in worship. You know, the purpose of God is something that is vitally linked with our own security. Paul invoked that in chapter eight, you remember.
As he delves back into the timeless past, whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate. Whom he did predestinate, them he also called. Whom he called them, he also justified. That's where we come in.
Whom he justified, them he also glorified. So the glory for us is underwritten by the very purpose of God. But remember the big question in this section. Can the purpose of God be overthrown? Because if God has forgotten his purpose about Israel, then how does that have redress upon us as individual believers?
But he shows in those chapters, doesn't he, that his purpose is not unreliable. It is absolutely solid. In relation to nations. In relation to Israel. In relation to the dispensations. In relation to the individual justified believer.
We are absolutely secure in Christ. Who is overall God, blessed forever. Amen. Amen. It doesn't matter, dear believer, what trouble might come into your life. What trials? Remember, God is in control.
And he is perfectly able, he who orchestrates the movements of the ages and every single detail right down to the microscopic detail. He's able to take control of your life and guide it according to his wisdom and according to his way, according to his word.
And to work all things for his own glory. And to accomplish his purpose. There's nothing that can make him his promise forego nor sever my soul from his love. Amen. At the close of the book, we have God's righteous purpose and application.
And again, it draws forth worship and a doxology from Paul. Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel. Believers established. And the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret since the world began.
But now is made manifest and by the scriptures of the prophets. It's endorsed, isn't it? He has endorsed it the whole way through the book. According to the commandment of the everlasting God be made known to all nations for the obedience of faith.
It's both a doxology at the close and a conclusion to the book of Romans. To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen. The gospel of Christ has been preached. There's individual souls that have believed.
They stand justified before God. It doesn't matter what objection is raised to that great truth. There is nothing that is able to separate the believer from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. And it's not mere theory because the very power of God, the life of God in that believer, the Spirit of God indwelling him enables him to live a life of obedience practically.
Interesting, this comes at the end of those last chapters in the book. Chapter 12 right through. Those that have presented their bodies a living sacrifice unto Christ. It's their reasonable worshipful service.
Lives are now being lived in the obedience of faith. Lives that are being lived as expressions of worship to God. To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever and forever. Marvelous to think that the glory of God is expressed through Jesus Christ.
And you and I are brought in as joint heirs with Christ into that same privilege of giving glory to God forever. What a marvelous thought. He's raised the ruined wrecks of sin above created thought and could Paul do otherwise as he reflects upon the great truth that's revealed throughout this whole book.
To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen. May God bless his word to our hearts.