Summer of Romans 2018 (Part 1): Righteousness And Wrath Revealed (Part 1)

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Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Abendroth.

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Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

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Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse, with No Compromise.

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Please turn your Bibles to Romans chapter 1. I pulled up a few introductory quotes from men of God about the book of Romans, some of which say the most profound of all the epistles and perhaps the most important book in the

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Bible, the profoundest piece of writing in existence.

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If any minister wants to strengthen his people, he can hardly do better than to give them a massive dose of Romans.

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No man can barely read it too oft or study it too well. For the more it is studied, the easier it is.

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The more it is chewed, the pleasanter it is. Romans is not only worthy for every

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Christian to know it word by word, by heart, but occupy himself with it every day as the daily bread of the soul.

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Romans can never be read or pondered too much, and the more it is dealt with, the more precious it becomes and the better it tastes.

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From Martin Luther to Tyndale to modern scholars, they all realize that the grand book of the

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New Testament for appalling epistles is the book of Romans, and so here's what we're going to do.

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We're going to do the next 16 weeks, 16 chapters of Romans, one chapter per week, and I know

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I'm already getting some looks over there. I'd call out Barry and Steve by name, but they got here at 830, so they have a little bit of earned super irrigated merit.

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The goal is, with this overview, is to do that very thing. I can't get into every detail, but we'll go through almost every verse so you get a handle on this great book.

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It will strengthen your faith, and we'll see today that that's one of the reasons why it was written, to strengthen, where we get the

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Greek word steroids, to give you a boost. One man said, you need a special vitamin boost to cure modern day rickets, and the

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Romans epistle does that. I think when you know this book better, you'll be a better evangelist.

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You'll be more thankful to understand that you have no righteousness, and God gave you Christ's righteousness, and you'll be thankful for that.

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How many people have been attending BBC for one year or less? Please raise your hand. One of the reasons why

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I'd like to preach through this book is because we have lots of visitors. We have lots of new people who haven't been at the church for a long time, and this is a good overview of the central tenets of the

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Christian faith. How many people here have been saved out of the Roman Catholic Church? Raise your hand. This is also a good book for you because you'll understand the difference between righteousness that is credited to someone at count, the book of Romans, and then righteousness which would be infused.

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The system that you came out of teaches that very thing. I love this book because it's logical, it's systematic, it answers all kinds of questions, and here's what we'll do today.

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I'm going to give you the overview, and then chapter one. I was wanting the whole church to hear this, and so last week when we had the huge snowstorm

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I said, well, I'll do James chapter two because I didn't want to do Romans one. Then I wake up this morning to another kind of blizzard, and I thought,

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Romans must be taught today. I cannot be deferred, detracted, demonic providence.

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It can't work. Let me give you an easy outline, and then we'll move into the book.

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Here's the easy outline. Chapters one, two, and three A, it deals with sin.

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Chapter three, B, four, and five, it deals with salvation.

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You can just think logically. I need to know I'm a sinner before I want salvation. Chapter six and seven, sanctification, growth for a

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Christian. You get saved out of sin, and then you grow. That's six and seven, sanctification.

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Chapter eight, security, the security of a Christian. Nine, ten, and eleven, sovereignty,

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God's sovereign over Israel, the Gentiles. Chapter twelve through fifteen, service.

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Since we are saved, how do we serve others? How do we serve the Lord? How do we serve in light of the government?

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And then chapter sixteen, salutations. Some people say stuff. So sin, salvation, sanctification, security, sovereignty, service, salutation.

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It just flows very logically. It just progresses very nicely. If you want kind of a different look at it, you could say chapters one through eleven talk about the mercies of God in Christ Jesus who grants us righteousness.

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And then chapter twelve through sixteen, how do we act in light of that? So you've got doctrine, chapters one through eleven, and then you've got duty, twelve to sixteen, or creed, one to eleven, and conduct, twelve to sixteen.

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That's another good way to look at the book of Romans. If you want one word to describe the book of Romans, it would be this, righteousness.

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God's righteousness. We don't have it, and we need it. God's righteousness.

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Paul writes this book from Corinth, of all places, near the end of his third missionary journey.

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He dictated it to his secretary, chapter sixteen tells us, Tertitus. And he is not dealing with a doctrinal problem to correct.

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He wants to give them the doctrine of the Christian faith to strengthen them, most likely so if he doesn't make it to Rome, they'll have the

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Christian doctrine that they need. If he does make it to Rome, once he gets there, he'll have a good base of operations because they'll understand the righteousness of God and how it's applied.

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Chapter one, this morning, simply breaks out into three divisions.

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Verses one through fifteen, introduction. Verses sixteen and seventeen, the theme of the letter.

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And verses eighteen through thirty -two, how Gentiles, or pagans, don't have any righteousness of their own.

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Start your engines. Chapter one, verse one. Here's the introduction.

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Paul, a servant, by the way, this is the doulos, this is a slave, a slave having no rights, everything that he has belongs to the one who has called him into this slavery, a servant of Messiah Jesus, Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, and what does

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God do? He carves him out of being a man who is angry at Christians, imprisoning

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Christians, standing there at the feet of the death of Stephen, yes, that's right, and he calls him out of sin unto what?

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Set apart for the gospel of God. Now lots of times when that word gospel was used, it was used of the emperor.

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The emperor's been born. The emperor has a son. I have good news. That was kind of like the email

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I got from Ezra. Levi has been born. It's an announcement that makes you want to smile, to say things, to shout out loudly.

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As I've said before, S. Lewis Johnson used to say, here's a good illustration of the gospel.

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Ronald Reagan has been elected. The town herald makes a proclamation, but here you notice the passage, a gospel of God.

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This is God himself who's going to tell about his wonderful righteousness in the work and person of his son, available to all who will believe.

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This is Paul's calling, and then he tells us a little bit about this gospel.

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How it's not unanticipated. It's Old Testament. Which he promised before, verse 2, through his prophets in the

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Holy Scriptures. The promise of the Savior in the Old Testament concerning his son, the eternal son, who was descended from David.

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He's got the right lineage according to the flesh. In other words, Jesus Christ is fully man.

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He's fully man. Of course, he's fully God as well, but right here, he's fully man.

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The divine nature was united to the human nature. The Word of God became what?

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Flesh, and dwelt among us. He was revealed in the flesh, verse Timothy 3. He was born of a woman,

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Galatians 4. But not only was he fully man, he's fully God, verse 4. And he was declared to be the son of God, in power according to the spirit of holiness, by his resurrection from the dead,

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Jesus Christ our Lord. Now that word declared there is one of my all -time favorite

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Greek words, because it's easy for me to get. When you look out over the ocean, and you see there's some sea, and some sky, and then the demarcating line, the line that's in the middle that separates the sky from the sea is called the what?

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Horizon. That's the Greek word here. What sets him apart from everything else, the abiding line of all humanity, is this very thing.

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Declared to be the son of God, by what? The resurrection. He can defeat death and rise again.

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Can any human do that? Can any human conquer death? I love the story of the

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French Revolution, and there was a man named Lavier, and he wanted to start a new religion.

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Oh, I just can't wait to start a new religion. And so he thought, you know what, it's got to be better than Christianity though, and he was having a hard time getting converts, and people who were helping him weren't very helpful.

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So he asked a diplomat once. And so here's what the diplomat said for his advice to start a new religion.

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To ensure success for your new religion, all you need to do is to have yourself crucified and then rise from the dead on the third day.

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Verse 5, through whom we, the apostles, have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith.

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Not a faith that obeys, but a faith that first believes in the gospel. Apostles say, believe in the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and there's the obedience of faith, the first time belief. That's what he's after here, for the sake of his name.

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It's all about the name of God and to be honored and to be glorified among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

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Not just the Jews in Jerusalem, not just the dispersion, but even people in Rome.

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Verse 7, to all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints. And then he gives both the

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Greek and the Hebrew introduction. Grace to you, demerited favor from God.

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And the equivalent of the Hebrew, shalom, not just an absence of anxiety, but the fullness of God's blessing.

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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And then now he gets a little more personal.

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He has a really wonderful concern for the welfare of the people. First, I thank my

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God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. For God is my witness, whom

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I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son. And without ceasing, I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God's will

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I may now at last succeed in coming to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you.

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That's why he's writing, because he wants to give them the gospel of Christ Jesus according to Romans, if you will, to strengthen you.

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That is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine.

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I want to write so you are strengthened by the truths contained in the book of Romans.

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This word means if something kind of teeters, if you take a chair that's got four legs and you cut one a little short and it just kind of rots, you ever sit at a table at a restaurant and the table doesn't really work right when you elbow, put your elbow on it, it leans and you have to take your $100 bill and your billfold and put it underneath that one little end of the table.

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That's what, that's what Pastor Steve does, I don't know. Give stability so it doesn't totter.

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If I was talking to kids 20 years ago, I'd say, weevils what? See, you guys just buy into all kinds of marketing, don't you?

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It's just this tottering thing because you know what? Just like today, the winds of, can you really trust the

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Bible? What do you mean Jesus is the only way? Who are you? A bunch of hypocritical Christians.

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Don't you know manuscript evidence? This is a new day and this is an early faith that these folks have and they're, they're, they're tottering and so he says, let me give you this protein drink.

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Let me give you this protein drink so you can just guzzle it down and so you're standing firm for the faith in the faith and for Christ Jesus.

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That's why I want to write to you. It's easy for me to declare this congregation.

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If you would like to be strengthened in your Christian walk, read the book of Romans. Of course, the

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Bible, but if you really want to be strengthened, Lord, I fall easily into temptation.

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Lord, I don't confess my sins as fast as I should. Lord, my love for the law seems to be waning.

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Lord, working unto you for my boss is hard to do and I seem to be failing.

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Romans is a book for you. Now, when Paul wanted to say something important, he often said the next phrase in verse 13.

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I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, this is important, that I have often intended to come to you, but thus far have been prevented in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the

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Gentiles. I'm under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, all kinds of Gentiles, both to wise and to foolish.

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And if you think I'm not coming to you because I'm afraid of the gospel and I'm a coward regarding the gospel and I'm not sure the gospel will work in Rome, not sure really the gospel if we go to Harvard would work, take the gospel to New York City, maybe it just doesn't work.

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Go to the capital of the world. Maybe this hayseed, hick religion from Galilee won't work.

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Also, if you think that's what I'm doing by not coming to Rome, he says,

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I'm eager to preach the good news or the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

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Paul was an apostle. He had a duty, but then that duty was not only a duty theology, it was I can't wait to preach it.

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That's the introduction. Verses 16 and 17 give us the theme of the letter of Romans.

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The theme of the letter is the righteousness from God. Your text might say righteousness of God in verse 17, but this is the theme.

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God's righteousness is given through faith alone. The theme of the letter, verse 16 and 17, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the

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Jew first and also to the Greek for in it, the gospel, the righteousness of our from God is revealed from faith for faith.

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As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. The theme of the book of Romans is righteousness from God and Paul said,

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I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Why? Because it's powerful and it can save people and it reveals the righteousness from God.

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Now for some of you who know some grammar, taking hermeneutics classes, verse 16 is what we call regarding a figure of speech, a light of T's L I T O T E S L I T O T E S and it pushes a positive idea cloaked in kind of negative language.

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It expresses the opposite. So Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Why would he say that? It's a figure of speech to mean this.

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I love the gospel. I'm encouraged by the gospel. I don't have any suppression because I'm a coward, because people don't like it.

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I'm a people pleaser. I have a reluctance because I'm afraid to be humiliated.

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No, a light of T's means I'm going to say something in a negative way to stress the positive. I'm not ashamed of the gospel.

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Remember back in these days, they thought Christians were cannibals because they couldn't quite get the Lord's supper, eat his flesh and drink his blood.

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You don't have any part in him and Paul's like, I'm not afraid of that. And even today you look at your culture and you'll say that the gospel is a stumbling block to Jews and is foolishness to the

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Gentiles. I don't know about you, but I want to be strengthened so I'm like Paul.

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If there's ever a time where people these days are afraid of the gospel and ashamed of the gospel, you're watching it right now.

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And we'll get more into this later, but you see the crushing secularism that is in the culture with the homosexual agenda.

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This is going to be a day where you're going to see some very major people in evangelicalism sadly be ashamed of the gospel.

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I don't want to be ashamed of the gospel. When people say that I'm not loving, I'm a bigot,

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I'm too narrow, I'm not tolerant, I'm not kind enough, I'm homophobic, I don't want to kind of respond with mumbling and stammering and I'm going to back up into a corner.

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That's not what Paul was doing. Paul said, I have good news for the culture. I have wonderful news.

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And the news is not do this and live. The news is the gospel has done everything,

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Jesus has done everything, Calvary. Think about how silly this is.

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If you were to never know about the gospel and someone were to tell you, you know, you grew up in some island someplace, you never heard about Christianity, yeah, there's this

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Jew 2 ,000 years ago and he died on a cross, naked, tortured, and then he wasn't in his tomb anymore.

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And if you believe all that, that he died for your sins, you get to go to heaven forever. It sounds pretty weird.

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A slave, well, he wasn't a slave, but he was treated like a slave on the cross. Believe in him and you get everlasting life.

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You know what's a lot better than that? I'll tell you something that's not absurd. It's nice to be nice.

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It's good to be good. I'm okay, you're okay. But I'm okay, you're okay doesn't have the power.

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Notice the text. It's the power of the gospel. Here's this powerful, sovereign instrument called the gospel that God uses to change people.

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Whether you like the idea of substitutionary atonement or not, this is God's way. The power of the gospel.

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I love Spurgeon on days like these. Remember, Spurgeon couldn't go to his regular church,

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I think at 18 years old, so he goes to another church in the snowstorm and the pastor's up there preaching and Spurgeon gets converted.

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Well, later Spurgeon told the story of a man who got converted by preaching, but it was the pastor who was preaching, he got converted by his own preaching.

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Mr. Haslam. He was preaching a sermon and he didn't really understand it, but it was from the text about salvation.

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He gets saved while he's preaching, Spurgeon said. And it says, according to Spurgeon, he so spoke that a

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Methodist in the congregation called out. This is when Methodists were evangelical. The parson is converted.

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And Spurgeon said, and so the parson was. He owned it and praised

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God for it. And then all the people sang, praise God from whom all blessings flow. Can you imagine?

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Don't try this here for right now. People worshiping

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Diana for how many generations? And then the gospel comes along and it's powerful enough to stop

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Diana worship. It's a powerful gospel. You can be in a straight jacket of Rome, not romance, but the

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Roman Catholic Church for 15 generations. And then when the power of the gospel comes, it can save people.

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Whatever you're enslaved to, it can save. And it's through faith alone.

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A faith that has knowledge, assent, and trust. And then Paul says in verse 17, For in it, the righteousness from God.

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What you need to stand before God when you die, a right standing with righteousness.

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What you need to stand before God, God gives you. It's God's doing.

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The righteousness of God is revealed in this gospel preaching from faith for faith.

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Charles Hodge said, The righteousness for which we are justified is neither anything done by us or wrought in us, but it is something done for us and imputed to us, credited to us.

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It is the work of Christ. What He did, it suffered to satisfy the demands of the law.

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And it's from faith to faith. What does that mean? Some people think from faith in the law to faith in the gospel.

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No. From faith of the preacher to the faith of the hearer. No. For the Methodist, from the faith of the congregation to the faith of the preacher.

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No. It just means this. It's a rhetorical device that means,

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It's nothing but faith. It only has to do with faith. What puts you in the right relationship with God is

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Christ's work. And then you read about that in the word and then you take God at His word. Faith.

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Faith. Faith. Faith. Faith.

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Faith. Faith. Faith. Faith.