Romans 15:16 - The Purpose of Unbelievers (10/23/2022)

The Lord Orchestrates Visitors and Travel Plans

Hello everybody. Thank you for being here today. It's great to have all the visitors show up on a day when so many of our guys are gone, including our entire school, all the teachers. I know I reminded of that when I pulled up this morning, the van was gone.

I said, okay, what happened? You know, and then I, then I remembered Paul said, we're taking all the teachers to Florida this week for training, in-service training for our Christian school. And so they're all gone.

And then Katie and Dave's family's gone and Matt's gone and others. And then so many friends showed up today. Just interesting. Two groups just from, at least formally from Colorado Springs. And that's unusual to have that, you know, all at one same time on the same Sunday.

So the Lord orchestrates everything though, doesn't he? I don't know why we think anything's unusual, but because he's in control of everything. So you guys that are visiting today made our day and we hope we can stay for lunch and we can fellowship a little bit and that'll be great.

Romans 15:16 and the Priesthood of the Believer

But we're going to be in Romans. Well, actually going to be in first Peter here, pretty much first Peter chapter two, but our, our launch point is in Romans chapter 15, verse 16, where it says that God has made the offering up of the Gentiles acceptable to himself.

And so we've been spending some time talking about, well, how is that? Why do you do that? How do you do it? And so forth. And it brought us to the topic of the fact that he has made us to be believer priests, even as Gentiles.

Imagine that. And we are priests unto the Lord. And so we've been talking about that a little bit and kind of going out through the Bible, studying it and we're kind of closing in on the best part. We might, I mean, today's kind of really pretty amazing, but the best part probably not going to happen today.

It'd probably be the next Sunday, the Lord willing, where we actually go into the old Testament and look at the priesthood because it was sort of a picture of the spiritual things we do today. The physical things they did picture spiritually what we do now.

And it's fascinating to look at. So we'll get to that eventually. Let's have word of prayer. We'll get started. Lord, thank you so much for the service so far. And, and all of our, uh, normal group that are here today and our abnormal visitors, Lord, you know, I didn't mean it that way.

And, um, thank you Lord though, for bringing visitors here safely today from far away, really. And so many places we pray you'll give them safe travels wherever they go from here. And thank you for bringing them to us so we can see each other again and, uh, and spend some time together.

And Lord, we do ask you to bless our, our, uh, church family members that are traveling, uh, in so many directions today. Just give them safety, please, Lord. We know what this world is like and they need your angels protecting them and you to be their guiding.

And so bring them back to us safely. Thank you for your word, which you have protected all through the thousands of years and you've kept it pure, kept it safe, and you promised to do so to the last generation.

And we thank you for that and teach us from it today. Holy spirit. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen. All right. Well, we, we kind of started out in first Peter chapter two, talking about the priesthood of the believer.

Um, versus like first Peter chapter two, verse five, where it says you also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

And that that's, uh, kind of names the topic we're talking about this holy priesthood that God has made us to be a part of. And you have to remember it's in, it's in the passive, in the Greek, which means he did it to us.

It's not something we did for him to earn it or to be, you know, to achieve something and become a believer priest. He made us to be believer priests. And in revelation, there's so many great places that we've already talked about, about that.

So then we went into talking about a couple of different major points. The first point was preliminary duties of the believer priest. And we had 24 of them, if you can imagine that. And you say, well, that's kind of odd because the old Testament's full of laws and things they had to keep.

And the new Testament, we don't think of it that way, but there are imperatives in the new Testament. When you look at the Greek and the verb, um, is in the imperative, it means God saying, do this. If you belong to me, you need to live this way.

So it's, I wouldn't, wouldn't call it a command as much as I would call it an imperative. Grammatically, it's like, do this. It's not a request. It's saying, here's how you live if you belong to me. And there are 24 of those for the believer priest.

And really that's just the preliminary duties. And now we weren't, some of you weren't here for that, but be sure that you understand that by doing those things does not make you saved, nor does it make you a believer priest.

These are things that can only be done if you're filled with the spirit. You can't do them in the flesh anyway. It's impossible for you to try to do these things. Now you, when I say try, you do understand we're like a new man, but we still have the old body, don't we?

We still have that old brain, the old man. So the key is for the new man to be in control, more moments of more days. And when the new man is in control, we do these things because the Lord does them in us and with us, together with us.

And these, but it's interesting that there are 24 of them. And so we kind of went through those. And then the second major point was we talked about promises to the believer priest. In fact, that started out in the verse I just read to you from first Peter second ago.

And it's pretty amazing. The first thing is he makes us acceptable to God in Christ, of course. And we are holy, which doesn't mean perfect. It means different. And that's something to me the modern church is losing.

The modern church wants to be like the world, thinking that that'll cause the world to come visit. Doesn't work that way. The world wants to see somebody different that they can go to for help when they need it.

They don't want somebody like them. They know they can't help them, right? So holy means different. And so we're living stones. We're a spiritual house. We're a holy priesthood. We're a chosen generation.

We just spent a little time on the chosen part. You know, I'm going to spend some time on that. We spent some time on the fact that we're a royal priesthood. And the fact that the word royal means we're not only priests, we're kings.

Now the king part, we don't get to do that de facto until the millennial kingdom. It's kind of like when David was really the anointed king, but Saul usurped the authority and stayed on the throne when he wasn't really the king.

That's how we live now, because Satan is doing that. Satan is living as if he's still on the throne, which he was removed at the resurrection, wasn't he? The cross and the resurrection. He's removed, but he usurps it.

And he's still the little G God of this world. But someday Jesus is going to come back and take care of that, isn't he? And when he does, we will reign with him as kings. But before that, even now, we are believer priests.

So our priestly role is really important. And did you say God called you to Bucharest? All right. So you're going to be a believer priest there. You're going to reach up and take God's hand and reach down and take the hands of many men and women in that area, the Lord willing.

And that's the job. That's the job description that we have now. We are kings though, because the kingdom of God's in our hearts. We are kings, but the world will not receive that. If you try to act like a king in this world, you'll end up in prison or dead.

So you have to be wise about that. You can know who you are, but even the priestly role, you have to be wise, right? Didn't Jesus say, don't cast your pearls before the swine, unless they turn and rend you.

You should only witness to whoever the Holy Spirit leads you to witness to. You know that, right, Jeff? We've had so many pastors, at least in my background, where the pastors just tell us, go out and witness to everybody.

That's not what the Bible says. We are a witness to everybody, but as far as who we talk to, we should be Holy Spirit led in that. And that will be easy for Jeff, because he practices that. But that's going to be very important.

So we talked about those things, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. It's kind of interesting because that word nation is ethnos, which means race. So once we're born again, color doesn't matter.

We're all a different race at that point. We're God's people. We're gened in God's genes. And then peculiar people is the last thing it said. The word peculiar there in this particular place, in some places in the Greek, it does, it just means peculiar.

In this place, it actually means an acquired and preserved thing, possession, an acquired and preserved possession. So we are a possession of gods who've been bought with a price. And that's what that word means.

That's pretty special. So we talked about all those things. We're called from darkness into his marvelous light and all of these different things. Now, the last one we talked about last Sunday was we shall not be confounded.

And we talked about how in Psalm 25, it talks about how God will never put us in a place where we will be ashamed of him before the world, the world, the flesh and the devil, our enemies will never be ashamed in front of our enemies when God is with us ever.

That's a great promise to keep hold of. So that's kind of where we left off. And that brings us to the third big topic in this study we're doing. And oddly enough, and remember, all of this is found in the passages of scripture in first and second Peter.

I kind of jumbled them up and turned them into topical. So you have to skip maybe three or four verses here, skip down here and around in this passage to make it topical. But it's all part of the same context.

So the next interesting thing is, what is the purpose of those who reject the Messiah? Right here in the same passage where it talks about us being believer priests and all the importance of that, the duties and the gifts he's given us to make us be these believer priests, the wonderful things he's done in our life when the Holy Spirit quickened us, when we were yet in our sins, and he quickened us and he regenerated us.

Over 33 things happened to us that he did to us. We know all that, right? And so we talked about that. But right in that same passage it says, well, what is the purpose of the people who reject the Messiah and who never receive him?

And you'll see that. So look at first Peter chapter two, about verse seven with me. You'll see this start to come into play. Right sort of in the middle of the passage. A lot of the study we finished the last two Sundays were in verses one through five, right here in the same chapter two of first Peter.

But look at verse seven, unto you therefore which believe he is precious. That's Jesus, right? The Messiah is precious. But unto them which are disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner.

So there are disobedient people, and we'll look at that word in a moment. It's a little surprising what the Greek word means there. The old English word is great, but we need to get a little more light than that this morning.

But it's obviously talking about a different group of people, a group of people who reject the Messiah. And he became a stone of stumbling, and the builders disallowed the stone that God had chosen to be the corner of the entire church.

And the Jews, the builders, the Jewish people, the leaders anyway, the religious leaders of the Jews threw that stone out, didn't they? He was the stone, the cornerstone, and they killed him, right? Well we're going to get down to it.

We can talk about who killed him, but not today. But you know from a human viewpoint, they and the Romans, the Jews and Gentiles together, colluded and they killed the Messiah. And he was the cornerstone, and they rejected him, and that's going to talk about these people a little bit here.

Now in the next verse, starting with about verse eight, it starts to list some symptoms of unbelievers. I believe there are symptoms of believers, like you say a symptom, like if someone says they have a cold, but they don't have a runny nose, and their eyes are not red, and they're, you know, they're not coughing, you doubt it.

You doubt they have a cold, right? But if you do have a cold, you have all those symptoms. If you're a Christian, you have a few symptoms. One is you love the brethren. You love them, you treat them with kindness, gentle-heartedness, you're not mean to them.

So there's a lot of tares and goats in the churches, aren't there? Ones that are causing trouble, we like to joke around here, so over the color of the carpet, they'll argue over the color of the carpet, and fight over it.

Split churches though. John gets fired because he preaches the Bible in a church out in East Texas, right? So first thing he came and told me about that, I put my hand up, and I gave him a high five, because that's a badge of honor.

But see, who causes the trouble? It's not the sheep, it's not the wheat, it's the tares that cause the trouble. So there's some symptoms of these people. Now they know how to say the words of religiosity.

They know the words that we hold dear, and they'll say them, and they'll come sit down right beside you, and they'll want to teach a Bible class. If you won't let them, they'll teach a home study course, and start pulling your sheep over into some heretical teachings.

You got to really be careful about those things, and be watchful. That's the job of the whole church, to be the pillar of the truth, right? So look at this, look at verse 8. And the stone of stumbling, a rock of offense, is who Jesus became to these people.

So instead of precious, as he is to us, he is a stone. He causes them to stumble in their life, and he is offensive to them, even to them which stumble at the word. So that gives a third symptom. The first symptom is they stumble at Jesus.

They just don't like the name. They don't want to talk about it. The second is they're offended by Jesus, and all of his work, and all his workers, which is you and me. But the third is they stumble at the word of God.

Now think about that a minute. And you got seminary professors that are lost as a goose, love the Bible from an academic viewpoint, but they stumble at it when they read it. They say the most contradictory things, if you can get them talking.

Best way to do that is ask them questions. And if you get them talking, and you ask them questions, their own logic will turn around and bite itself in the rear end. It'll start here, come all the way around up behind it, and bite it.

Right? You notice I didn't say the word that Dave Huber said in Sunday school last Sunday. Right? Dave, you're listening, brother. I can't let it go. It was awesome. I myself liked it, but anyway. Okay, so here they are.

They stumble at the word. Now when they stumble, it's interesting. If you look at the Greek word for that, preskoma, it means an occasion of apostasy. Now that's an interesting definition, don't you think?

It comes from a little Greek word, which means to stub. Like you got something you put out there, maybe for an enemy that's going to sneak up on you at night, and they're going to stub their toe on it and fall into a pit, and you're going to catch them.

That's what the connotation of this word is. So Jesus Christ himself is a stumbling stone that causes the unbeliever to trip up and fall headlong into a pit. Isn't that an interesting word? Jesus is an occasion of apostasy to the unbeliever.

Now you got to remember there's two kinds who can name them. What's the first kind of unbeliever? There's two kind of lost people. What's the first one? That's good. So now we got four because she added two to mine.

Those aren't my two, but you got two good ones. Who else? Okay, you guys, where are you when I'm preaching? Come on. Like you're sleeping? What are you doing? Come on. All right, you got lost sheep. Who are they?

They're the elect, but they're lost, and they hadn't had their spiritual birthday yet, but they're going to have a spiritual birthday because Jesus said, no man comes to me lest the father draws him, and out of them I will lose nothing, but will raise it up at the end.

So they're going to be saved, but you can't tell it yet because they're lost as a goose, I guess is a good animal to pick, but they're not lost as a goat. So what's the second kind of lost person? Thank you.

Very good, Ron. He likes to use the cheat sheet to get the answer there. I was the cheat sheet, but yeah, the goats. So you have lost sheep, and you have lost goats, and they hang out together, and when we were lost, we hung out with them.

The difference is you had quite a bit stronger conscience than they did, I'll bet you, even before your spiritual birthday, because even when you would have called yourself lost, you knew it when you said that God was watching you, did you not?

And if there's anybody going this way, then I got a feeling you might be a goat, right? But like if you, like even when you were lost before you had your born again experience in time, you know, on the timeline, your spiritual birthday, you go back before that, you knew flat well God was watching you every time you sinned.

I don't know if a goat knows that. I have a theory that they don't. I know they have a conscience because God gave every human a conscience, but I don't think the conscience of the goat works quite the same, but that's a theory.

I'll never prove it till I get to heaven, maybe. But here's the thing about it. These people have an occasion of apostasy presented to them in the face of Jesus Christ, whereas to you, when you look at him, you just see glory.

You see heaven. You see the one that saved you from hell. You see the one that saved you from a hellish life of being your own boss when you tried to run it without him, and how bad a job you and I did in our own lives before he took over, and you remember all that, and he's precious.

But to these people, when they look in his face and they hear the Word of God, that very Word of God becomes a stumbling block to them that actually gives them an occasion to apostatize, which means to move away from the truth.

Now, what's interesting about it, we, a church this size, is wonderful. I love it. I'm glad God put me in a little country church because you get much bigger than this, maybe even just three times bigger than this, and you can have tares and goats in there, and you think they're Christians because they know the language, and the Bible says they slip in unawares to take away your freedom.

They want to teach legalism, things like that, make a list of stuff you've got to do. They don't want to talk about the Holy Spirit. Sometimes they will, but if they've got a list to go with it, you've got to watch them, right?

And so we've got all these little problems as the churches get a little bit bigger, and yet they hear the gospel from the pulpit if the preacher is preaching anything. That's a big if nowadays, but if they hear the gospel, it can turn them toward worse and worse away from Jesus towards apostasy while they're sitting in the church, sometimes even being Bible teachers in some Sunday school room in the back corner of the church.

Who knows? An occasion of apostasy, so they stumble at the word. Second thing it says is they are disobedient, being disobedient. Now this is interesting because actually the Greek word that's translated disobedient here and other places in the New Testament, especially in the Old English King James Version, the underlying word is pisteo, which means it's belief or faith.

It's the word that faith is translated from. It's the word that belief and often hope come from this little word, sometimes pisteis. It's several formations depending on how the word's used, but that is the root word, and it's found in this word.

So actually what it means is to disbelieve, not to disobey, but if you think about it, the King James writers were not wrong because they're talking about disobeying the gospel, and what is that? That's disbelieving, right?

It's unbelief, so that's what it's talking about. So when it says that these people have symptoms, one is they stumble at the word. I mean they're going to debate the word of God with you all the time.

I mean simple things that you've known were true since you got saved, and you can show them 20 to 200 verses to prove it. They'll have a problem with that verse. Oh, I don't think it means that. That's one thing you can note.

A second thing is they will be disobedient to the gospel. In other words, they're unbelievers. They don't believe everything that the Bible says is true. Listen, a lot of you guys out here today visiting and some that are members here and especially out here met me through Tradeway or some of our folks through Tradeway, and praise God for that because this little church is kind of like the backbone or the cornerstone of hundreds of thousands of people that hear the gospel, so it's pretty cool, and everybody here knows that.

We take that as a badge of honor, and we're humbled by it and all that, but I've had people come up to me at breaks. You know how it happens. You have a break at the stock market meeting. They come up to me, and they say, I don't believe what you said about election or whatever.

It could be anything. I just don't believe that, and I'll say, well, look here at Ephesians chapter one. Let's read three or four verses here together. Which part of that do you not believe? I just smile at them, or they'll come up, and I'll say, you don't believe in that predestination stuff, do you?

And I'll say, yeah, I have a problem with that, but I really have a problem with John 3 16. That one I can't believe either, and they look at me like, did you really just say that? And I'll smile at them and say, no, I'm teasing.

I mean, I believe both John 3 16 and Romans chapter 8, where it talks about predestination. I believe they're both true, because they're in the Bible, and I'm going, wow, how do people stumble at certain parts of it that they like, like the ones that God loves everybody, if there is one that says that.

I haven't found that one yet, but they don't like the ones that says God's in control of everything, or the ones that say, well, God's going to save everybody, although I hadn't found that one yet, but they kind of think that's, at least that's the God they're worshiping, and you show them a God who said, no, I'm going to save a few, a remnant.

I'm going to save a few out of the human race, because the whole race is lost and hates me, but out of grace and mercy, I'm going to save a few. They don't like that plan. Everybody either wants him to kill them all and start over, which might have been my plan, I don't know, but some people would pick a plan where he just saves everybody, but nobody would pick God's plan where he saves a few that he wants to save, just because he wants to save them, for no good reason of ours that we can see, it's because he wanted to save them.

Nobody likes that plan. Why do humans not like it? I swear I walked up to a tradeway student one time that was just going after me. I mean, we're talking about, I am on topic today, it's unusual, but we're talking about these people that stumble at the word, right?

So they walk up to me and say, I just don't believe God's like that. I don't even remember what I was talking about, but whatever it was, I don't believe God's like that, and I looked at him right in the face, and I said, look, let me ask you this.

If I could show you, like, how many verses does it take, one to prove he is like that, or four, ten, how many things? Well, one good verse. I said, okay, so if I could show you four verses that show you that God is like that, would you still love him?

And I just got quiet and stared him in the eyes, and he walks away, because the answer was no. I don't love a God that's like that. So what that tells me is that that individual was an idolater who had created a God he was willing to worship and given him Jesus's name, perhaps, but he's not worshiping the Jesus of the Bible, so he's an idolater worshiping some Jesus who is not like that.

I mean, he's not like the true God. He's a different God, and the man knew it and walked away from me. Now, that was one of those, you know, that was not a pleasant time for me. I thought I was just in a little kind of a fun debate that turned into, like, a serious problem with a human being.

I hope he comes back and listens to more, you know. I don't know where this person went, but my point is made. They stumble at the Word. I mean, you show them in the Bible, and they don't believe it. You got a problem there with the person who's claiming to be a Christian, because everybody, listen, that meeting was in Dallas, right?

So everybody in the Bible Belt says they're a Christian, right? Everybody down here is a Christian, and so he thought he was a Christian, but boy, he stumbled at the Messiah when I showed him the true Messiah.

So that happens. They are disobedient to the gospel, which means they are unbelieving, and, you know, it's interesting when you look at that little word, pisteis. It also carries the connotation of this, and this will kind of give you goosebumps.

Unpersuadable. They're unpersuadable. That's the word that's translated into disobedient there. You can't persuade them. You can show them scripture, and you can't persuade them, and it's a frightening thing, and that is the symptom of these unbelievers.

Why God Appoints Some to Stumble

Now, so the next kind of little major topic here is why do we have these unbelievers? Why did God create a world where Jesus said, broad is the way to hell, and narrow is the way of heaven, and few there be that enter in thereby?

Why did God make it this way? I asked Brother Otis that one time. We got one of the most fascinating answers ever, but I'm not going to go there today either, because I will be off topic again, so, but I mean, why did God make it this way, and so why do we see these unbelievers?

Well, this passage in 1 Peter 2, look at the second half of verse 8. Look at the second half of verse 8. We're into also they were appointed. Now, that partially answers our question, why do we have these unbelievers?

It answers it by saying because God ordained it, but it still doesn't say why he did it that way, right, but there are places in scripture that do tell us why he did it that way. Ephesians chapter 1 tells us it's to the praise of the glory of his grace.

See, we look as humans, since we're fallen, our old nature anyway is fallen, is we look at everything upside down, and we always look at it from the human viewpoint first, not from God's viewpoint first, which is backwards, and we want to say, well, why didn't God just save everybody, and what we should be saying, isn't it glorious that he chose to save a few out of a totally fallen race that hates him, a race that the scripture says in the Old Testament and the New Testament, in Isaiah and in Romans, that none seek him, none at all seek him.

They've all turned their own way. We're all our own gods in our natural state, and so, you know, the question should be why did he save any of us, not why doesn't he save everybody, but there are elect people out like that's who you're hunting for when you go over there.

The non-elect people, they're not going to hear you. They're going to turn towards apostasy and be worse when they hear your message, but the sheep, if they're lost, it'll be a little ring, a little bell ringing in their ear that makes sense, and they're hungry sheep, and you'll show them some of the food, and they'll come towards it, and that's how God works this out, but the why behind these unbelievers in verse 8b is because they were appointed to this end.

Now, I've got people all over the place that tell me God doesn't do that. In fact, I was helping brother Marion out there in our internet world group who had asked me for some information that might help if he was trying to witness to a Roman Catholic, and so I sent him a lot.

It'll take him a couple of weeks to read all the stuff I sent him probably, but one of the things I know is that some of these stuff, things I wrote when I was in my 20s and 30s so long ago, I read and say, wow, that's good, like it's a different person.

I don't remember writing it, but it was me that wrote it, but I was a 30-year-old at the time. Some of it's like that. Well, one of them was where I was quoting. I'd gone and done some research and pulled quotes from Roman Catholic scholars about certain topics, and this one had to do with like Calvinism, and somebody had written a paper and said, well, Roman Catholics can be Calvinists.

Well, this particular Roman Catholic scholar was saying, no, no, no, no. Here's the reasons why they can't be. It was very fascinating to read it, and so one of the things that he said, now this is a Roman Catholic scholar, so this is Catholicism.

Here's how they believe, and here's the sad thing about it. Most Methodists today, most Baptists today, most Presbyterians, unbelievably, because John Calvin founded their church, most Presbyterians today, almost all Lutherans, almost all Pentecostals, and Church of Christ, and a lot of the Charismatics, but not all because some of them are really sound on some of these salvation doctrines, but so many in the churches today will agree with what this Roman Catholic said, so I can't quote it.

I should have brought it and read it to you. I like you get goosebumps if I read it, but I'll just tell you what he said. Here's what he said. We can follow the teachings of Calvin because it's the same as the teachings of Paul, which I tell everybody that.

It's not Calvinism. He didn't invent it. He was just a scholar who showed people how to remember it from the Bible, but he said it's okay to follow that doctrine as far as saying that God is in control and that there is an elect and that he will save those people.

The Catholic said that, but he said what you cannot say is what we call double predestination. You cannot say that God also ordained who would go to hell, so that's Roman Catholic doctrine that you can't say that.

Did you know that almost every Protestant Christian that I talked to around this country, and I get a chance to talk to people from everywhere in the country, none of them think God does that, just like the Roman Catholic doesn't think he does, and that could be a thing.

I could say, well, if I show you that he does, well, you still love him. In fact, that might have been the issue. I don't remember exactly, but it was an issue like that that the man walked away from me on.

He just didn't believe God would do that, and the one that always remembers the book of Jude. It's easy. If you go in and remember, let me give them if you want to jot them down. Jude 3, you know, it's only one chapter, but verse 3, verse 4, verse 12, verse 13, verse 18, verse 19.

Jude 3, 4, 12, 13, 18, 19 proves that God has elected certain people to go to hell, but did you know that right here in 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 8, it says the same thing. It says, whereunto they were appointed.

Now, how do you get away from that? You say, well, I don't believe that. Well, okay, then you struggle with the word of God. You wrangle with the word of God because I don't preach it because I like it.

I didn't grow up believing that. I grew up Southern Baptist. They don't believe that, right? I don't believe it because I like it or was taught this by my mama. I believe it because Holy Spirit taught it to me from the word he wrote, the scripture that he wrote, because the word appointed here in this particular verse, 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 8b, where unto also they were appointed.

In other words, it tells how they are and it says, and by the way, they were appointed to be this way. Wow, really? And that particular Greek word for appointed, tithamia, it means, first of all, to place something in a passive or horizontal posture.