Book of Romans, 15:5-14 - The Imperatives of Romans 15, Pt. 1 (06/12/2022)

I sat down up here and instinctively looked back for Bill to hand me my handbook.

Bill wasn't there. I looked back and I saw this in the pouch, and I said,

I wonder what that is, and I opened it up, and it says Bill Nichols on the front, and it says

Bible. We'll just leave it there, if the family don't ask for it, I'm going to leave it there.

That's good enough. You want to meet? Yes, we could meet.

Yes, I'm actually angry. I've got something to talk about. I've got it down.

Maybe you'll send your notes. That's here. Okay. But...

I didn't say it. We have a purpose. I appreciate that word. I needed to hear it.

But I do this every time somebody, especially someone I study with and they go to heaven,

I get a little angry at them at first. It's not new. Anyway, thank you so much for being with us for the

Sunday school hour. And I appreciate some of you guys being here for that. And we enjoyed it very much and hope we can do it again.

I know it's a long drive, but we'd love to have you.

We'd love to have you anytime you want to come. There's a lot of good cheap real estate right here too.

Cheaper than Austin anyway, cheaper than Austin. Yeah, so anyway, it's a strange time.

Raj, brother Raj stuck his head in for a while. He had to go, he pastors over at Northside, the

Spanish ministry there. So he had to leave, but he just wanted to come by and encourage us. And he said, isn't it interesting that the

Bible calls it the sting of death? And I never had thought about it the way he put it this morning.

Because if you think about a sting, usually it comes out of nowhere. You don't see that bee or that wasp coming and it gets you, right?

And then it hurts really bad for three or four days, which is just a picture of when these things happen, especially when you don't see it coming, it just hurts.

But the time makes it better, doesn't it? It doesn't make it go away. That's a good allegory.

Lord picked the allegory, so I'm sure it's perfect. And I can hear brother Otis now, a good allegory, brother

David. You think the Lord just accidentally picked it? I hear his voice every time

I say something stupid, right? Every time, which is lots of, I hear his voice every day.

Yeah. Yeah.

What's your favorite passage? It's probably right where it starts. Well, I don't, yes.

Yeah, thank you, Ben. That's awesome ministry you've got, putting everything online. Yeah, Charlotte was out there listening to brother

Bill. I'm thinking, how is she doing that? I could not do that right now. If I heard his voice, I'd be the end of it.

But anyway, it's pretty neat. So it's out there on the website and you can hear all of his teachings.

And like I said, I don't know if all of you were here, but brother Otis taught for 13 years, right there.

And I was thinking Bill had taught for 12 and then Ben corrected me and said, dad, brother

Otis was ill a lot that last year and Bill filled in, so he taught for 13 years too. Can you guys believe,

I mean, it's time weird. Do you think really 26 years has gone by? And some of you guys, I didn't meet you until Otis came because you were his disciples and came here with him and 26 years since that day or that week, or I remember when you sat back there the first time, you and brother

Otis going like that. I'm thinking, well, maybe

John will come join. But anyway, it's right.

It's what you said, Ron, we'll all be together pretty soon. But until then, like Jim said, we got a mission.

So let's go into Romans chapter 15. Part of our mission is try to finish this book before I go to heaven. That's why

I teach slow. As if I can control that time, right?

Did we lose yours? Oh, there it is right up there. Romans chapter 15 and we've sort of made our way down to verse five, but I usually like to take the first 45 minutes reviewing.

So let me do that and then we'll get into the message. Charlotte went, oh, don't do that.

Well, chapter 15 begins with a couple of exhortations that just name a few important precepts of Christ -like life that we ought to be living.

And remember, these are effects of our salvation. We can do these things because we're saved, not to get saved, right?

I mean, we know that. It's interesting, I was talking to my friend, Terry Aycock this week, and he just took his first church to pastor since he was a young man.

When he was a young man, he pastored, which little? Mildred, First Baptist Church of Mildred.

It's fresh out of seminary. And frankly, they treated he and his young wife and little baby so badly, he quit the ministry and started driving a

FedEx truck, never came back until last week. And he's my age exactly.

We went all through school together. He's 67 years old in return to his calling and got called to pastor a little country church around Tyler.

And so this is his second Sunday in the pulpit there. So pray for Terry. He knows more theology than Matthew Henry, but he's a great guy.

But he was saying, he was talking about something interesting. We were talking about some false prophets. You mentioned that a while ago. In Mahea, a couple of women in Mahea that are teaching legalism and trying to, they're

Judaizers basically is what they are. And Terry got in a debate with one of them.

He was in a debate with her and he said, don't you understand the Bible says, if you break the law at one point, you've broken the whole law.

He said, do you know how many laws there are in the Old Testament? And she didn't know. And he said, and he knew the exact number.

I forget, it's like 650 or something, 613 laws. And then we got to talking about, because Brother Raj talks about in the

New Testament, when you look at the grammar, if it's in the imperative, it's like it's a commandment. And Terry said,

I said, well, how many do you think there are in the New Testament? If you look at the imperatives and he said, wow, he said,

I bet there's a thousand. And I said, so we've got 1 ,613. We got to keep perfectly. If we're going to keep the law like these false teachers tell us that's what we're supposed to do.

And it's just insane. Their eyes are blinded.

All we can do is, as Charlotte told me one day, well, I don't know where she got this. It was a good saying.

We can meekly instruct them. Second Timothy something.

So the reason I brought that up is these are sort of imperatives. A couple of them here in this passage of things where the

Lord inspired Paul to say, here's how you live if you're a

Christian. Live like this if you're a Christian. So we're going to see a few of these here and they just, they start popping up as we go down through.

But a couple of them have already happened. So let's just review a little bit verse one, because we kind of got stuck on verses three and four and sort of went out on a rabbit trail there and talked a little bit about how

God uses the Old Testament to bless us and how many colors of meaning are there for the

New Testament doctrines. And it's all woven together and all that. We talked in particularly, we saw that it literally quoted

Psalm 69, remember? But in Romans chapter 15, verse three and four, it's talking about Jesus, but it quotes it as if it's

David. And that's what tells us that Psalm 69 is a messianic psalm.

It's actually talking about the thoughts in Jesus' mind while he's on the cross, which is amazing information that we have.

It's unbelievable the Holy Spirit gives us things like that to study and to know and to just feel with your heart and all those things we just went through as we studied that.

So we kind of focused on that, but I just wanna jump back on the first couple of verses because we didn't really emphasize them much, but they start to give us some of these imperatives that we're gonna talk about starting with verse five.

So chapter 15, verse one, we then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves.

So there's the first imperative that we're gonna pick back up. When we get to verse five, there'll be some more. The first one is we ought to be thinking about how we can help the weak among us rather than thinking about pleasing ourselves first.

We need to think about if there are people who are going through trouble and need help, it could be physical help, monetary help, it could be encouragement if they're ill.

We should be thinking about that instead of ourselves. You know, that's probably one of the best psychological principles for a sound mind for a

Christian is when the enemy gets us pointed towards a few little things in our lives that are not going right, and we just get down, we get depressed, and really our lives are better than 99 .99

% of the people in the world talking about India. I mean, think about that. How much do they make a month?

A year, 400 bucks a year. So we start thinking about how bad we are off and we get depressed and things like that.

The best cure for that is to go find someone that's worse off than you and go minister to them and all of a sudden you feel great.

It's wonderful mental health in verse one there. The second one, so when you meet among us, think about them and their needs and meet their needs before you worry about yourself.

And then the second one is found in verse two, let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification, the word means to build.

So build up other people. And I love Charlotte. I've loved her since she's 14 years old, but one of the things

I know about her and I've seen it since she was like as mature then as she is now, it's amazing. She pretty much the same person, but I don't know, seemed that way to me.

But when she sees a total stranger, she will find something good about that person and tell them.

And she told me one time, she said a long time ago, she said, you know, if you see something good about a person, you should just tell them because they might need to hear that.

And so that's kind of what verse two is talking about. Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to build him up there again, more than thinking about self, you know, first.

So we ought to be thinking about doing things that lift up and build up the people around us. And then it's interesting that it leads right into verse three, where it says, that is

Jesus. That's where it quoted Psalm 69. So that's how we know 69 is about Jesus because verse three talks about that.

Our example in verse three is Jesus Christ himself who please not himself, but live for others, right?

And then verse four kind of diverged into the little bit different topic of how the

Old Testament is written for us who live in the end times that we might be edified and learn and prosper.

So it's for us, the Old Testament. I mean, Jesus is everywhere on every page and every sentence of the

Old Testament. And so we learn more about him. And as we learn about him, he reveals the father to us.

And so the Old Testament is extremely important. So that was verse four. So really that's not an imperative but the first two are this thing about watching for the weak among us and helping them instead of worrying about ourself first.

And secondly, building up people that God brings into our life. A lot of times it's total strangers.

And if we're just thinking about, you mentioned Jim in your Sunday school lesson about our purpose, like our life as we just go live day to day.

Can you name something where you saw that God was using you just out there in your life?

And that's what kind of verse two is talking about. So it's kind of interesting there when you think about Romans 10, 17, so then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

Think about how you damage that principle if you don't think you're supposed to be studying the Old Testament. I've had people criticize my preach and said, why do you preach so much from the

Old Testament? I'm thinking, what? Like, well, you think only the red letters are important?

Only what Jesus said, don't you realize he said all of it? He wrote the whole thing. He and the Holy Spirit wrote the whole thing.

But anyway, all right, so we've got that behind us. So now let's start with verse five where we're starting out this morning.

So you've got these concepts here, find the way you can help them, build people up all around you, and realize that the

Bible builds your faith. So here's a fourth principle, be like -minded. Now, these are imperatives.

What that means is God is saying, do this, live this way. If you love me, live this way.

So be like -minded. This is so important for churches, and it's not so big deal in our little church.

We kind of are like -minded. It's easier for us in a smaller church, but we still have a few humans here.

So you gotta be careful with this one. Romans 15, five. Now, the

God of patience and consolation. I love the way that thing starts out. Like God is patient with us, right?

He's patient with us. May he grant you to be like -minded one toward another according to Jesus Christ.

It's fascinating when Paul writes the way he writes. We know he's inspired. We know that God breathed his word.

And just like in the book of Acts, it said, and the Holy Ghost spake by the mouth of David. So we know the

Holy Ghost is the author. David was the penman. Same way with Paul, right? The Holy Spirit is writing these epistles.

Paul is the penman. But it's interesting that Paul sometimes will say, well, yeah,

I'm telling you this as your apostle, as your spiritual father, you need to do this way.

And then he'll say, but this is not coming from me. This came straight from Jesus Christ. So you remember Jesus taught

Paul in person in the Arabian desert for we don't know how up three years on and off all the time for three years, maybe for three whole years or part of three years, but in person.

And that's the only reason he can be an apostle because one of the traits of an apostle is you have to walk personally with Jesus, which tells me all the false teachers that tell you they got apostles in their church are wrong.

But Paul walked with him and he's telling us in verse five, Jesus taught me this face to face.

This is not Paul's idea. Now, Paul didn't really need to say that because we understand he's an inspired writer.

It's all God's idea, right? But so look what he says, be like -minded toward one another.

Well, like -minded means the little mind part.

The word mind is a Greek word. It just simply means to exercise the mind. But what it means is to have similar sentiments or opinions, like the way we think should be very similar.

And I'm convinced if we understand the 10 proper rules of proper Bible interpretation, we don't cheat on those, that over our walk together on this earth, our beliefs will come closer and closer together.

I've told the story too many times. When I met Otis, we had about 20 things we disagreed on. By the time he went to heaven, we only had two.

And it's because we shook hands and we said, we will not cheat to win an argument. We're going to use the 10 rules of Bible interpretation and even if one of us has to change our viewpoint, we will do it because we're interested in the truth.

And we did that. And so it's true of all of us. Our beliefs come closer together as we study the word properly interpreted in its proper context with all the other rules, grammar rules, word meaning rules, the whole of the

Bible rules, all of it. Then our beliefs come closer together and we will be more like -minded.

So I think that this right here is a huge part in us having a like -mind.

The churches that are really, really in the word will be more like -minded than those that just hear a pep rally every

Sunday where it's just human philosophy or whatever, because that doesn't bring you together, but this does. And so there are two things.

Can you name what they are that would cause us to be like -minded? The same thing is there's two things that we have to have to be saved.

What are they? The water and the word. And the water is,

I'm sorry, the water and the spirit. Yeah, I do that too, Ben. The water and the spirit, because the water is the water of the word.

It's an allegory of the word of God and the spirit's the Holy Spirit. You got to have them both. So this verse in verse five, we are exhorted.

It is an imperative. We are commanded to be like -minded. So it is okay.

And sometimes we'll get together for breakfast, some of us, and talk about the Bible, talk about what the

Lord's been teaching us. We don't always agree on everything, right? I mean, it's good to throw out a question.

If someone just states something as a fact, if you show a scripture that questions it, then that's a good thing, because if you shoot it down, you don't talk about it.

You don't teach it anymore. It's wrong, right? If the scripture doesn't agree with it, it's wrong. So that is a good thing.

But my point is, as we continue to study together, the goal is to get it right together and to be like -minded on the truth.

So you don't agree on everything because not everything's the truth that we say, right? They're theories.

A lot of things we say, they're theories at first. But if you find the whole of the Bible supports it and you can agree on it, then you have unity on that.

And you move to the next one, and the next one, and the next one. And by the way, you talk about purpose in life. One of our great purposes is just to know

God in this life and to know ourselves and each other. And like you said,

I love what you said. Do you have to be doing stuff all the time or is it more important to be being something?

Or is it more important to be sitting at his feet learning or to be going and making food for Jesus?

We know which is more important, but it's easier to go get busy. It's harder to really think about scripture and let

God talk to us and think about what he's saying and learn new things together.

But we like that in this church, so that's a good thing. I commend you for that. So to have a similar sentiment or opinions to be mentally disposed in a certain direction, think about that.

That's one thing you can think about is that sometimes your spiritual family has a whole lot more unity than physical family in a lot of ways.

You know, because this right here, the ones that coalesce around this are gonna have like -mindedness.

Isn't that interesting? Very interesting. So may the

Lord grant you to be like -minded one toward another. And then he says, according to Jesus Christ.

So Paul's saying, so Jesus taught me this. There's two reasons you need to listen. Number one, I'm teaching you this.

Number two, Jesus taught me to teach you this. So this is straight from the Lord. Paul wants to emphasize that being like -minded is not just his idea.

It's not just an idea, but it is a God idea. This concept is according to Jesus Christ who had taught him this in the

Arabian desert. So now the next verse, look at verse six. It's gonna show us the purpose.

Why do we need to be like -minded? I mean, a lot of times God just says, do something and we ought to do it. And if you were to ask him why, and he'd say, because I said so.

My dad used to tell me that all the time. All right. But when God does it, that's enough said.

I'll do it, right? But did you know sometimes the Lord says, well, here's why I want you to do it. And I especially like it when he does that.

He doesn't always do it and doesn't have to do it. But this one he did. Look at verse six. Why do we need to be like -minded?

That you may be of one, with one mind and one mouth, glorify

God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So when we are like -minded in the community, it brings glory to God.

When we're fussing about the color of the carpet, which I use that because we never changed the carpet. But anyway, the community picks up on that and they say their

God is puny. They can't even get along in their church. Why should I care about being a

Christian? And Satan uses it to try to buffet Christ yet again because of us.

You know, you think about it. Did Satan ever really think he could hurt God? I don't know, but he knew this.

The thing that hurts any parent more than anything else is hurting their child. So he took after Jesus.

And Jesus said, look, he said, all of the hatred that the world has for the

Father has been put on me. He said that in Psalm 69 when he's on the cross, he was thinking that.

He was praying, he was thinking, and he said, the hatred of the entire world for God has been placed on me.

Wow, that gave me goosebumps. There's so much there. We should study Psalm 69 again and again for four or five years maybe,

I don't know. So the purpose of being like -minded is that it brings glory to God when the world sees that.

And so, you know, that's good enough reason. Now, this is kind of related.

In John 13, 34, it says a new commandment I give unto you, Jesus says. And he says that you might love one another as I have loved you, that you would also love one another like that.

And look at this. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples.

So Jesus said, if you wanna know how to witness, if you wanna know how the world knows you're a follower of Jesus Christ, then love each other and be like -minded, right?

So there's your purpose. So first of all, we ought to just do it because he said so, but now he also said, but here's why.

So the world will know me and know that I'm in you and you're in me and that they may see

God through you. So it's hugely, hugely important. So that you may be with one mind and one mouth glorify

God. Now think about that. The mind is one thing, how we speak in the doctrinal stance that we've taken, what we believe on different issues in the scripture needs to be similar.

If it's not, the world says, the world says, well, where's the truth? They don't even know the truth. They're arguing about the truth.

And I'm not one that feels that, I grew up Southern Baptist. And so what they do is they'll build a church with 200

Sunday school rooms and then put 200 teachers in there and they only got five teachers that are gifted teachers.

That's a problem. They only got five that are anointed by the Holy Spirit to be a Bible teacher and they got 200 rooms. So people go and they hear deadness and they quit coming to church, right?

I grew up with that. I don't know how you grew up, but that's the scenario there. And so you would go into a class.

I just hated church. I very seldom went, but when I would go, this was before salvation, before I was 24 when

I got saved, my grandmother would try to get me there. So I would go and I would sit there and the teacher would sit there and read a passage and say, okay, what do you think it means?

And he'd say one thing and the other guy, I don't think it means that, I think it means this. And then another guy would say, well, this commentator says it means this.

And then another guy would say, well, this one says it means this. And the other person said, well, it's my opinion that it means this.

And the teacher just sits there because they don't know what it means because they didn't study. And then everybody thinks, well, okay, well, nobody knows what this means.

Let's go home. We'll come back next Sunday and learn what else we don't know that it means. That is not how Jesus taught.

That is not how Paul taught. Paul taught with authority. And he said, look, he said, you're my spiritual children, do what

I say. Didn't he? Now I know he's an apostle. And we have to back a step back from that and say, you know, there are some times we've studied something for 40 or 50 years.

We can say, I'm pretty sure I know what this passage means. And there's, you know, many other people for 2000 years that said it means kind of what we're talking here today.

So here's what we think it means. We can't say it with quite the authority Paul could, but we ought not say, well, but it could mean this, or it might mean that, because then we confuse everybody.

So we need to have unity of thought. Yes, but we have to have unity of mouth, it says.

So that we may with one mind and one mouth glorify God. Now here's the thing.

It should always be open. It's kind of like in science. What is a hypothesis? An educated guess.

And what do you do with it? The purpose of the hypothesis is so that it might be shot down and sunk.

And it gets shot at by every scientist in the world and no one can sink it. It now becomes a law of science, right?

So these thoughts and ideas of what we think the scripture is saying and what God is saying and what it means, if you can shoot it down with other scripture, do it.

But if you can't, then let's let people know what it's saying. And we need to have a certain amount of unity in how we speak and how we are thinking.

And I think only two things can cause that, the water and the spirit. So the church that's in the word more, it's directly proportional to the unity they have,

I think. All right, so now we see that these purposes that the

Father may be glorified lead us to another exhortation, especially poignant if placed in the context of the

Jew, not thinking that God would save a Gentile. Remember how we talked about that quite a few times?

Paul dealt with this struggle without time because he was the apostle to the Gentile, but he would always speak to the Jew first and the

Jew would tell him, God won't save a Gentile, will he? And he had to always straighten that out first and then teach, always doing it.

So if you understand that's the context, a battle that Paul had to fight all the time and everywhere with his

Jewish brothers, then verse seven has a stronger meaning. Chapter 15, verse seven, wherefore receive ye one another.

You Jews over here on this side need to receive the Gentile Christians over here.

And you don't need to act like you're higher than they are because you're a Jew. And yet these legalizers that come into our churches all the time, every day now, they will always mention, well,

I'm half Jewish. Once they do that, they know you got to obey them when they say, hey, you need to be worshiping on Saturday.

Right? Or you need to do this, or you need to do that. And you need to come back real quick with the same answer.

I think it was Christ Ostrum. I don't remember which church father said this, but he said, Sabbath means to rest in Christ.

My Sabbath is every minute of every day. You can't tell me which day to worship in. I rest in him all the time.

Right? It's only a religious person thinks they have to pick a day for the Sabbath. But anyway, you see how they work.

So here we see very clearly that the next exhortation, the fifth one that we see in chapter 15 is receive one another as Christ also received us to the glory of God.

So if God, if holy God can think of a plan and figure out a way and do the work and finish the work that it takes for him to fellowship with us, a motley crew, then surely we can get along with each other.

Even if a Jew and Gentile can get along, what about in the South? Can a black and a white Christian get along?

You know, can a Mexican and a black Christian get along? Well, if you understand verse seven, then that's what it means.

Receive one another. Why? Because when you get born again, you're part of a different race anyway. You have been re -gened.

You no longer have the genes of your parents. In reality, the new man, the real you, or woman, the real you has been re -gened and you have

God's genes. And so you're all part of God's race, a heavenly race. Color means nothing.

Jew or Gentile means nothing. Even the Bible says male or female means nothing because we're just children of God.

We're part of that race at that point. In fact, in Galatians chapter 3, 27, it says for as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

There is neither Jew nor Greek. That means Gentile. There is neither bond nor free.

There is neither male nor female for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you be

Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise.

And it takes us all the way back to the Abrahamic promise, which is how we're saved. Jew or Gentile.

We're all part of Abraham's family. The father of many nations, right? The only one of only two unconditional covenants in the whole

Bible because God did everything. When Jesus said it's finished, he did everything in that covenant.

All we're left to do is receive it as a free gift. And we couldn't even do that if he didn't voraciously open our eyes, could we?

So thank God that he has. And then we come to verse eight, Romans 15 and eight. Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promises made by the fathers.

Now he's just arguing, he's putting an argument behind this imperative to receive one another, let the

Jew and the Gentile love one another and receive each other and worship together and be part of the same family.

And now he's giving the argument behind why, more argument behind why that is so true.

So you see that Jesus Christ was the minister of the Jews. And you gotta remember now, here's

Paul, he's talking to a congregation, he's got Jews sitting in here and some Gentile Christians and the

Jews are sitting over here like this thinking God won't save them, they're unclean.

And Paul's talking to them all at once. And so he addresses the Jew first, like he always does in verse eight, he says, look,

Jesus was a minister to you, to the Jew, right? And why was he a minister to the

Jew? Because of the truth of God, because he had to confirm the promises that were made to the fathers, the

Jewish fathers. He had to come and fulfill that promise that he would sit on the throne of David, right?

So yes, Paul agrees with them on that, but look at verse nine, and that the

Gentiles might glorify God because of God's mercy. It's interesting to me that grace is something that is for God's children and mercy is something that's for other people, a lot of times.

There's a slight distinction between grace and mercy. So mercy was shown to the

Gentiles and Jesus is the one who came and God through Jesus Christ showed mercy to the

Gentiles. And then when we got saved, now we have grace, right? So that the

Gentiles might glorify God because of his mercy, as it is written for this cause, I will confess to thee among the

Gentiles and sing unto thy name. And he starts quoting scripture, Old Testament scripture, where it tells the

Jews book, the Old Testament told them that Jesus the Messiah would come and give the gospel to the

Gentiles. And it says it again and again in their book, but they had forgotten that because they were taught from Targums, which were paraphrases of the book.

And the Pharisees for 300 years before Jesus came had already been teaching them from paraphrases rather than from the

Bible. And I said, here's what we think it means. And they never got to see the real Bible. So they missed it. And so they began to believe

God would not save a Gentile, even though the word of God. So Paul just quotes the word of God to these Jews. He says, well, look, the

Bible says the Messiah had to come and fulfill the promise to the father. But guess what else your book said?

Your book, the Old Testament, it said that he would come to the Gentiles and save the

Gentiles and that the Gentiles would bring glory to God. And they did not like hearing this, but guess what?

It was Bible. It came from their scriptures and Paul reads it to them. And boy, it got quiet in the room.

For this cause, I will confess to thee among the Gentiles and sing unto thy name. And again, he saith, and he's quoting the

Old Testament again, rejoice ye Gentiles with his people. Who were his people in that context?

The Jews. But in the Old Testament, God said the Gentiles will rejoice with the

Jews. And Paul is saying, respect one another, be one -minded one another.

It's neither Jew nor Gentile now. It's just saved people. Just saved people, children of God.

And again, praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, laud him, all you people. And again, Isaiah said, he's quoting from Isaiah, there shall be a root of Jesse and he that shall rise to reign over the

Gentiles, it says in Isaiah, and him shall the

Gentiles trust. He just quotes scripture says, look, you gotta have a heart. You gotta love each other. You're different races, but now you're all the same race.

You're all children of God. In Isaiah chapter 11, verse 10, this quote came directly from there.

It says, and in that day, there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall come for an ensign of the people to it shall the

Gentiles seek. So he's reminding the Jews of their own scripture and his rest shall be glorious.

What's that? That's the Sabbath, the Sabbath day. What did God do on the seventh day?

Rested. It's called the Sabbath because it's a picture for what he wants us to do too. But we rest all the time every day in Christ because he did all the work of salvation.

And it's a picture, even the real Sabbath, the literal Sabbath is a picture of the real thing, which is the continual rest that we have in Christ.

Just a picture. And legalist always want to emphasize the picture rather than the thing it pictures, right?

And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people.

Now, all of a sudden we get like a near prophecy, but we get a far prophecy. Jesus is going to bring his people again a second time into the land.

And he's already started doing that. He's just started doing it. Israel is there.

There are more trees planted in Israel than they probably had in the first place before the Romans burned and salted everything.

And yet we know that when the great resurrection happens and the rapture follows it or comes with it, you know, at the same time, the

Lord's gonna set up a throne in the land of his people and all of them will return.

And my theory is when the thousand -year millennial period starts on the minute that it starts, 100 % of everybody in it will be saved people.

Everybody else will already be taken care of. They'll be gone, right? Now that when they start having babies, you're gonna have some more tariffs born.

In the end of the thousand -year millennial period proves that, but, you know, it's gonna be an amazing day.

That's one reason Jesus has to rule with a rod of iron because there will be some tariffs born. He won't let them act out.

They won't get to act out like they do now. So, and it shall come to pass in that day that the

Lord shall set his hand again a second time. I think that phrase is very important. To recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathos, from Cush, that's

Russia, by the way, from Elam and from Shinar and from,

I think that might be Egypt if I'm right about that. And from Hamath and from the

Isles, that could be England and the United States and all of the lands like Australia and different places that came forth from England.

All of it's listed here. People from all over the world are gonna come to be ruled over by the

Lord Jesus Christ, literally from Jerusalem. But when you look at the context of this passage in Isaiah chapter 11, you go back, starting at verse 10, you have to go back a little earlier to say verse four.

And I think this is fascinating too, especially in the times we're living in right now.

But with righteousness shall he judge the poor and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth.

Now that, Jesus quoted that when they asked him, are you, who are you?

Are you really the Messiah? He said, well, I came to heal the poor, preach the gospel to the poor.

What does your scripture say the Messiah does? That's how he answered it, wasn't it? So part of it came from this scripture here in Isaiah.

But look what else it says he will do. He will smite the earth with the rod of his mouth.

And I have to ask you for these amillennialists who think everything's already happened through Alexander and all the different people they can name.

It's a very academic thing they try to do to try to make it where all this happened. When did Jesus smite the earth with the rod of his mouth yet?

Has that happened? But what does the scripture say it is gonna happen and when will it happen?

You've heard of Armageddon, right? The nations of the world are there in the Valley of Megiddo to destroy

Jerusalem. And what happens? He just speaks and then they're gone and there's blood as high as the bridle on the horses, just because he speaks.

That's not gonna require America to save them at that point. In fact, who knows whose side

America will be on. Smite the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips shall they slay the wicked.

That hadn't happened yet. But all of this is in the same prophecy and righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.

Who is this person? This is Jesus Christ. And Paul is quoting from this passage to these

Jews that think God won't save a Gentile. The wolf also will dwell with the lamb and the leopard will lay down with the kid and the calf and the young lion and the fatling will lay together and a little child will play with them and even play with snakes and things like that.

When is that going to happen? Has that happened yet, by the way? Now that's an easy one.

I'm talking about Matthew 24. What about this? Has this happened yet? You're going to let your grandbabies go play with the snakes and the lions and just pet them and walk around with them.

No, that's future. That's in the millennial kingdom when Jesus reigns with the rod of iron and even the lions have to obey him.

And he says, you're going to play with the children because they think you're soft and fuzzy and fun and you're not going to eat them.

You're going to play with them. And all of a sudden lions become vegetarians.

Isn't that something? And then verse 11 says, and it shall come to pass in that day that the

Lord shall set his hand again a second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left.

And it names all these places again and he shall set up an ensign for the nations and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel and gather together to disperse

Judah from the four corners of the earth. That's coming. But the

Gentiles are going to be there too. And I get a kick out of these people that have the theory that starting at Revelation chapter three after that, you don't see the church anymore.

The church is all through the rest of the book of Revelation. And then they say it's Jewish material, but they're

Gentile people say by the hundreds of thousands after chapter three of Revelation, none of that fits their theory.

So this does though, this does. And Paul is reminding the Jew that it's not just about the

Jew. It's about the Jew and the Gentile. Tribulation period will be the same thing. It will be a great purposes fulfilled for the

Jews, but also great purposes for the church that needs to make herself white, which she has never been able to do.

The only thing that'll make it do that is when God takes their toys away. Our toys, takes them away.

We don't have anything, but a place to hide. Then we will be more chaste as a church.

You agree with that? Maybe not everything I'm saying, but you at least agree that tribulation would cause us to be more chaste.

And that's possibly what the Lord's doing here. All right.

And then let's go back to our passage in Romans chapter 15, look at verse 13. Now, the

God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the

Holy Spirit. Earlier, the word of God was listed as the source of faith.

So now we see the Holy Spirit listed as a source of hope, which is the same as the source of faith.

So you gotta have both. You gotta have the water and you have the spirit in order for your faith to even grow.

Because it's really Jesus' faith we have, isn't it? And our faith chimes after the same, you know, like a tuning fork.

Jesus' faith, you hit it, and our faith gets in line with it. And all of this is a work of the

Bible and the Holy Spirit. There was a New York pastor named Timothy Keller who wrote a book,

The Psychology of Prayer. And he had a chapter in that book called What Is Prayer? And he quoted

Jonathan Edwards and John Calvin and John Owen on their thoughts about what

Calvin meant when he talked about in Latin, or I can't see, divinitatis sensum.

What does it mean? It talks about that in every single human, whether lost or saved, just every human being, part of the race, there is a hole there that God is meant to be in.

There's an emptiness there. There is a sense that there is a God. And this can be proven through history of the world, through studying anthropology.

All of these scientific groups have seen this. Psychologists see it. And so these theologians all the way back to Calvin talked about it.

It's the sense of the existence of deity that all human beings seem to have within themselves, the concept that there is the

God. Many theologians believe that this is the reason prayer is so prevalent within the human race.

One study was done that showed that 30 % of atheists say they pray sometimes.

Isn't that interesting? So there's just something about humans that they think there is something greater, right?

Well, Keller said this, with all of this in view, we can define prayer as a personal communicative response to the knowledge of God or the awareness that God is.

And I don't totally agree with everything he's saying in his book. I've read the book and I said, nah, well, yeah, that's good.

Eh, that's not right. You know, stuff like that. But I want you to just think about his line of reasoning because his conclusion is really good here.

So he says, all human beings have some knowledge of God available to them.

But here, and I'm quoting him again. He says, but here's what I like best. I'm sorry, this is me. This is what

David liked best about Keller's observation. And I'm quoting him now. However, so let me give you the premise.

His premise is that every human kind of knows that there's a God out there. And that's why you look at all the different races, the different religions, there's prayer of some kind where they think they're praying to a

God, right? And he says, so prayer then must have something to do with the basic knowledge that God is.

So follow that for a minute. So he says, however, because our definition understands prayer as a response to the knowledge of God, it means that prayer is profoundly altered by the amount and accuracy of knowledge that we have of God.

Now that I like. I'm not even sure I agree with his definition of prayer, but his definition of prayer is that it is a response to knowing

God exists. I'm not sure I agree with that. But if you did take that for a moment as a truth, then wouldn't it also be true that your prayer would be profoundly altered by how well you actually know the true

God. And that was his point. And which I like that point. While everyone may have a, whatever the

Latin is, census divinitatis, Calvin observed that we all refashioned that sense of deity to fill our own interests and desires.

So what the natural man does is he figures God's there and he learns to pray by asking for stuff he wants.

He asked for stuff he wants and needs, not caring what God's will is. The natural man, right?

And Calvin expressed that and pointed that that's out that that's part of human nature.

No one humans feel there is a God. Number two, their idea of prayer just get stuff to get stuff that they want.

And Calvin said they will always do that unless through the spirit and the scripture.

There's your spirit and the water, the water of the word of God and the scripture.

He said, unless through the spirit of God and the scripture, our view of God is corrected and clarified.

I like that. Keller is correct. He's in agreement with Jesus Christ because in John 3, 5,

Jesus answered, barely, barely I say unto thee, except a man be born of the water and of the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.

So I kind of like that in Ephesians 5, 26, it talks about the washing of the water of the word.

That's how we know that the water is a picture of the word of God.

So we see from our Romans 15 passage here that we are not only saved by the water and the spirit, but we grow in grace and in faith by the water and the spirit.

So he kind of ends this whole discussion in Romans 15 in verse 14. He says, and I myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren, that you also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able also to admonish one another.

Why? Because they have the water and they have the spirit. And we're out of time today.

Let's stop right there. But it all comes back to that. The person who is the strongest

Christian will be the one, it'll be directly proportional to the amount of time you spend with the

Holy Spirit in the word of God. Think about that, directly proportional. So it was like Jim told me last night.

He said, we should all want to become teachers because the teacher always learns more than the student. But we are teachers if we have kids and grandkids, aren't we?

Our spouses are each other. All right.

So let's stand and have prayer together. Lord, we thank you for another day to come together and study your word.

We thank you that you have breathed it. You have given it to us and you preserved it to the last generation.

So we still have it. Thank you so much for that. Lord, use your word.

May your Holy Spirit take the word and energize us to do your will this week to be there for whoever you need us to be there for.

And Lord, we just thank you for brother Bill. Tell him we said hello. Tell him we can't believe he left us, but tell him we all admired him so much and loved him so much and miss him so much today.

And the same for brother Otis and miss B and brother Rocky and our parents and grandparents and loved ones.

Tell them all that we thank them, that they're like witnesses in the grandstands watching us and rooting for us.

And Lord, we ask you to energize us, strengthen us, help us to walk according to the new man, not the old man, more moments of the day and to be spirit filled so that we might actually run this race well.

And Lord, show us your will as we step into tomorrow. And we ask you to bless the meal we have together today in Jesus name.