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Aug 25, 2026
Dr. JOE MORECRAFT, Pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, GA, who will address:
“GOSPEL OPPORTUNITIES OUR SOVEREIGN LORD GAVE to ME DURING A HEALTH CRISIS”
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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.
It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.
Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 25th day of August, 2026.
I'm so thrilled that the Lord has answered my prayers and the prayers of many Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners, that my dear friend, Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III, has recovered and is still in the process of recovering from a fall in his home a number of months ago that led him to be hospitalized and then later brought to a physical rehab unit.
And finally, he has been released from the hospital, is back home, and has had probably about a month of preaching behind him again after returning to his pulpit. And I am just so thrilled that he is our guest today.
Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III, who is founding pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and author of the eight-volume commentary on the Westminster Larger Catechism titled Authentic Christianity, today he's going to be addressing Gospel Opportunities Our Sovereign Lord Gave to Me During a Health Crisis, and he's also going to be addressing the magnificent and brilliant ending of the Book of Romans.
It's my honor and privilege and absolute joy to welcome you back to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Dr. Joe Moorcraft.
I'm also excited about being back. I always enjoy being on your program.
Well, if you could briefly describe Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, for our listeners.
Heritage Presbyterian Church is just north of Atlanta, and it's in the county seat of Forsyth County, which is one of the fastest-growing counties in the United States. In Cumming, Georgia, we were started nine or ten years ago.
Our people come from various places. Some of them drive long distances to be there, some less longer. But we have people from every kind of background, race, nationality, race, denomination, education level, economic level, everything.
They come from everywhere. And then God molds them into one. One of the reasons I enjoy the heritage is because these people are all committed to the pure and unmistakable form of faith of history and of the Bible.
Our doctrinal standard is the Westminster Confession of Faith and larger catechism. And our people love the old path. And they don't want to change what God has used throughout history. We support world missions.
We have a man in Brazil who is a great preacher in Portuguese and English. He has a church that he's just started that's growing rapidly. He started a seminary that has 150 students in it already the first year.
And God really blesses, and our influence far exceeds our number. We have elders that are godly elders whose heart is in the eldership who faithfully pastor the church. And we are on sermonaudio .com every Sunday.
We have about 3 ,500 sermons and lectures there. And we have people translating my sermons into Farsi, which is the official language of Iran, or in Portuguese, which is the official language of Brazil.
One interesting thing that my audio sermons are being translated into Portuguese by AI, and it's my voice. And so if you were to listen to them, you'd think it was me preaching in Portuguese. So we have many young adults in the church who are faithful at tithing, who are faithful at engaging culture, and God blesses them.
We have babies galore. We have expectant mothers, and God continues to help us grow by raising up these godly families. So I do praise the Lord for Heritage Presbyterian Church. We're a member of a small conservative denomination called the Reformed Presbyterian Church, and I hope I'm able to continue to be their full-time pastor for many decades to come.
And I join you in that prayer, and if anybody listening would like to find out more about Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, go to their website, heritagepresbyterianchurch .com, heritagepresbyterianchurch .com, and the website for the eight-volume commentary that I mentioned is westminstercommentary .com, westminstercommentary .com.
Anyway, please let our listeners know some of the details behind your recent health crisis, how long ago that occurred, meaning your fall in your home and how long you were in the hospital and so on.
Yes, I wanted to do that to encourage people who face hospitalization or who face serious physical maladies, to encourage them and to show that it can be a great opportunity to evangelize. Back in the early March, I had sepsis, which as you may know is a deadly blood disease.
I could not think clearly. I lost all the strength out of my legs. I could not walk. And in the process, I fell. Becky caught my head, so I didn't hit my head on the floor, but she had an ambulance come and take me to the hospital where they diagnosed me with sepsis.
And I stayed in the hospital for a week and a half until they got all the poison out of my system, which they did. So after a week and a half, the blood poisoning was gone, but I still needed to regain my strength and the use of my legs.
So I went to a rehab center where I stayed for two and a half months. And I would do physical therapy and occupational therapy all morning. And then afternoons, I would be free. What's amazing about this rehab place, they're very professional, very knowledgeable.
They helped me greatly so that I was stronger when I left than I was when I came. And the people there, the nurses, some of the doctors, the nurse's aides, came from all over the world to work there. Most of them were from Africa, but there were also nurses there from the Far East, Korea.
There were nurses there from the Philippines, from South America. There were Europeans there and Americans there. It was quite a diversity of nationalities and races. And so the opportunities that I had to witness and to evangelize, when I look back and think about it, the number of those opportunities was staggering.
I didn't have to go out to the world and preach the gospel. The world came to me in a hospital bed. And I'll just give you a few examples to show you how God gave me opportunities to witness. The head nurse on my floor was a South Korean lady.
And she was a member of the Korean Presbyterian Church, which over the 20th century had revival after revival led by Presbyterian ministers. And I would recommend, by the way, to your audience, a very good banner of truth book called the Korean Pentecost.
That is a story, it's a paperback, and it is the story of the work of the Holy Spirit through these Presbyterian missionaries in the 20th century. Well, she came to my room one night to check my pulse and vitals and all that stuff.
And she found out I was a Presbyterian preacher. And she was a Presbyterian Korean, so she said, Pastor Moorcraft, would you please pray for my brother? This was about 11 o 'clock one night. Would you please pray for my brother?
He's disappeared in North Korea. Wow. And I'm sure your audience knows that North Korea is a communist state. So I prayed with her, and I prayed that God would find his brother and bring his brother back home.
That was 11 o 'clock one night. The next morning at 9 o 'clock, they found him. He was in a car wreck, knocked out, no serious injuries. Just a few shallow fractures. And they brought him home. Well, she was so thrilled with God answering my prayers that he would come often to see me in my room.
The workers in this rehab were all very good. I wasn't crazy about the food. So I quit eating their food. I lost 40 pounds. And so what she would do would be cook me a homemade Korean meal of six different dishes every night.
Wow. So I would eat Korean food, then Becky would bring me some of her good home-cooked food, and then my son and others would sneak in some food. So I ate very well. But to show you the providence of God, this Korean nurse grew up closely connected with the family of a woman in my church in South Korea.
Wow. And so I called that woman, and I told her, I said, if you come and visit me with your husband in the hospital, I got a surprise for you. So they come, she and her husband come to my room, and there is this Korean nurse.
And they talked and talked and talked in Korean for about 40 minutes. And this nurse knew her father, her grandfather, her great-grandfather, her family. Her daddy, this woman that was in my church at Kalsadong, her daddy was a great missionary.
His name was Linton, L-I-N-T-O-N. And the Lintons had been greatly used in God in Korea for generations. In fact, her daddy planted 250 churches and then was killed in a car wreck. So it was quite a thing to watch these two women talk to each other.
I don't think they had ever met, but they each knew the other's families very well. And that shows you how God controls the whole world and can bring things together that man could not at all orchestrate.
So we would have, I would have nurses that would come in and they would check my vitals regularly. They'd bring me lunch. They would do all these various things, clean my room and all that kind of stuff.
And I would always try to witness to them when they came into my room, saying some element of the truth. You can't say much. Some of the times you can just get various pieces of the truth into their consciences, hopefully.
But then what would happen was that at night, late at night, sometimes these nurses, particularly the Africans, would come into my room and nobody knowing that they were there simply to get me to pray for them.
Wow. Or to ask me questions about the Christian faith. And a lot of them were already Christian. There were people there from Nigeria and Ghana and Kenya and all over the place. And Nigeria. So it was a great opportunity.
These nurses, I didn't realize after I left how much I would miss them. Because they were really hungry for some element of the truth. They would all call me Pastor. One woman from Haiti called me Pastor Papa.
Huh. And another African nurse took great pride in the fact that she had 18 brothers. Same mother and father. She was the youngest child. She was a biblical twin. And the other twin was a boy. So she grew up in a family with 18 boys and herself.
And at lunchtime, I would sometimes eat lunch at a dining room there, which was a nice dining room. And I would witness to the people at my table, which sometimes was very difficult. Because there was not only a rehab center there, there was a home for seniors there, there was a hospital there.
And some of the people that would eat at my table were very difficult to communicate, to understand because of health problems. There was always, there was a German man that would eat with me every now and then.
My grandmother was a German immigrant, so I could speak German to him. But he wouldn't speak unless he was spoken to. And when we were doing physical therapy together, if the nurse was doing something he didn't like, he would criticize her to me in German so she couldn't understand and then smile real big because he knew the only person that could understand his criticism was me.
And so it just went on and on like that. That we had, I would sometimes have visitors that would line up for my room and go out in the hall, a long line of visitors, one right after another, all afternoon.
And these nurses would just stand there in amazement. And they said they'd never seen anything like it. So the opportunities to witness, I hope I get to see them all again. I would love to see them. I would love that one man, particularly from Africa, took extremely good care of me.
And so gradually through the efforts of all these nurses, therapists, doctors, after two and a half months, which is a long time in a hospital bed, I could come home and I can walk with a walker. I preach every Sunday, still pastor full time.
And I preach in an electric wheelchair, which is good. You could preach longer in a wheelchair, but you can't get as animated. And so the first Sunday I was back after being gone for three or four months from the pulpit, to let the people know I was back to full health.
I preached a two hour sermon. So they asked me, they said, Brother Morpeth, is that the longest sermon you've ever preached? I said, no. One time years ago, I was invited to preach to about 400 Pentecostal preachers and college workers on how to preach the gospel.
So I preached for 16 hours. Wow. In Gainesville, Florida, on how to preach the gospel. And after I finished the 16th hour, of course there were breaks every few, several minutes and we'd sleep at night.
16 hours, then I sat down thinking it was time to go home and the audience stood up and said, for God's sake, Brother Morpeth, go on.
They probably never heard preaching like that before. So I preached two more hours.
And I told them, I said, you asked me to come here and show you how to preach the gospel. I'm going to do that. I'm not going to take into consideration any charismatic sensitivities. I'm going to tell you how to preach the gospel.
So that was a longer sermon. So I was there in a hospital and a rehab center for about four months. Wow. And my core health has always been good. All of my physicals and blood tests, everything had been good.
I had more strength in my legs. I still need to walk with a walker, which that will always be the case. Because 30 years ago, I fell out of a tree 20 feet. I was deer hunting and I didn't know the deer stand was rotten.
So I have traumatic arthritis in all my joints from my back down. But praise the Lord, I can get around with this wheelchair and with this walker. And my mind is clear. All of the substance is gone. All of its effects are over.
And I feel thrilled to be able to be back and preach the gospel. While I was gone, I had several people preach for me that are thoroughly reformed people. One was Bill Potter. You've had him on your show before.
Bill Potter preached the great sermons. But the one preacher that they liked a lot when I'm gone, he preached it for me. Is this Reformed Baptist. He's almost Presbyterian, but he's Reformed Baptist. He is thoroughly reformed and I think you've had him on your show.
Paul Abbott? Oh yes, I have had Paul Abbott on the show.
I made sure to finance a mission trip for him and a team of other Reformed Baptists to places like Cuba and Mexico, where they preach the gospel.
And I've had the privilege to meet Paul on several occasions face-to-face at conferences.
He's great. He's about my size. A lot younger than me, but he has this big, thick beard and a powerful preacher, a tenured evangelist. I asked one woman in our church after he preached, I said, well, how was Brother Abbott this morning?
And she said, loud. But he is a great preacher. So that's basically how it went. So I hope to see some of these people again. I hope they show up at my church.
Just so that I can... I was just curious, were the folks to whom you had the privilege and opportunities providentially to evangelize, were they from diverse backgrounds religiously? Were any of them professing Christians?
Most of the Africans were. Most of the Africans were either charismatic or probably Anglican, because a lot of the African nations used to be in the British Commonwealth. And old-time Anglicanism, you know.
Anglicans of Africa left the Church of England because of all of the liberalism in the Church of England. So they have an Anglican Church in Africa. It's by and large a solidly biblical group. And so many of them were knowledgeable, and some of them more knowledgeable than others.
Some of them, a few of them, not many, but a few were Roman Catholics. And so the opportunity to spread the truth all over the world in four months, lying in bed or in a wheelchair, was something I don't think I'll ever get over.
Now, how long have you been home and back behind your pulpit? A little over two months. Oh, two months. Praise God. Praise God. Well, when we come back—go ahead, I'm sorry. I was just going to say, when we come back, unless you want to add to that portion of our discussion, we will shift gears over to the second part of your theme today, which is the magnificent and brilliant ending of the Book of Romans.
The Book of Romans has been used in such mighty and powerful ways in history, not only in the days when it was written by the Apostle Paul, but even in the Protestant Reformation. Some key texts from the Book of Romans were used in the heart, mind, and soul of Martin Luther, causing him to abandon the false gospel of the Church of Rome.
But I'm waiting with bated breath to hear about the magnificent and brilliant ending of the Book of Romans. And by the way, I want to thank you for something that I just discovered that I didn't even know about your website.
When I went to HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com and I clicked on Recommended Resources, there you have listed Iron Sherpins Iron Radio, addresses a multitude of topics from a distinctly Reformed worldview.
Chris Arnson asks the right questions, presents guests who have the answers, and continually challenges Christians to apply their faith to every aspect of their lives. Pastor Moorcraft is a frequent guest.
I was so honored to see that on your website. I never knew it was there.
Well, that's one thing I forgot, is that when you go to our website, there is a link that says Free Materials or Free Resources. Go to that because I have 60 or so different papers and books in PDF form that are all free.
Praise God. Well, we'll be repeating that website later on in the program. And we're going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors. So please do not go away. There is more to come with Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III.
And we'll be right back after these messages.
I'm Simon O'Mahony, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Originally from Cork, Ireland, the Lord in his sovereign providence has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.
At TRBC, we joyfully uphold the Second London Baptist Confession. We embrace congregational church government, and we are committed to preaching the full counsel of God's Word for the edification of believers, the salvation of the lost, and the glory of our Triune God.
We are also devoted to living out the one another commands of scripture, loving, encouraging, and serving each other as the body of Christ. In our worship, we sing psalms and the great hymns of the faith, and we gather around the Lord's table every Sunday.
We would love for you to visit and worship with us. You can find our details at trbccarlisle .org. That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, we'll see you soon.
When it first launched in 2005, the publishers of the New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the Iron Shepherd and Zion Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the NASB.
I'm Pastor Nate Pickowitz of Harvest Bible Church in Gilmont and Ironworks, New Hampshire, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
I'm Pastor Rich Jensen of Hope Reform Baptist Church in Quorum, New York, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
I'm Pastor Sule Prince of Oakwood Wesleyan Church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
I'm Pastor John Samson of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
I'm Pastor Chuck Volo of New Life Community Church in Kingsville, Maryland, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Steve Herford of Eastport Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
I'm Pastor Roy Owens, Jr. of the Church at Friendship in Hockley, Texas, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
Here's a great way for your church to help keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew Bibles tattered and falling apart? Consider restocking your pews with the NASB. And tell the publishers you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com to place your order.
James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and the Dividing Line webcast here. Although God has brought me all over the globe for many years to teach, preach, and debate at numerous venues, some of my very fondest memories are from those precious times of fellowship with Pastor Rich Jensen and the brethren at Hope Reform Baptist Church, now located at their new, beautiful facilities in Corham, Long Island, New York.
I've had the privilege of opening God's Word from their pulpit on many occasions, have led youth retreats for them, and have always been thrilled to see their members filling many seats at my New York debates.
I do not hesitate to highly recommend Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island to anyone who wants to be accurately taught, discipled, and edified by the Holy Scriptures, and to be surrounded by truly loving and caring brothers and sisters in Christ.
For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net. That's hopereformedli .net, or call 631 -696 -5711. That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, that you heard about them from James White on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology.
At Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Every Christian who's serious about the Deformed Faith and the Westminster Standards should have and use the eight-volume commentary on the Theology and Ethics of the Westminster Larger Catechism, titled Authentic Christianity, by Dr. Joseph Morecraft.
It is much more than an exposition of the Larger Catechism. It is a thoroughly researched work that utilizes Biblical exegesis as well as historical and systematic theology. Dr. Morecraft is Pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and I urge everyone looking for a Biblically faithful church in that area to visit that fine congregation.
For details on the eight-volume commentary, go to westminstercommentary .com, westminstercommentary .com. For details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com, heritagepresbyterianchurch .com.
Please tell Dr. Morecraft and the Saints at Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, that Dr. Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sent you.
And welcome back, in that very man of whom Dr. Joseph Piper was speaking, Dr. Joseph C. Morecraft III is on the program, if you just tuned in late, and we were hearing some of the wonderful ways that God used him as a beacon of truth and the gospel of Jesus Christ to people who were taking care of him in the hospital and in the rehabilitation facility after a fall in his home.
He spent months in the rehabilitation facility there in Georgia, and we thank God that for two months now, he has been home and preaching the gospel from his pulpit once again. When we continue our conversation, in any moment now, we are going to pick up on the magnificent and brilliant ending of the Book of Romans.
So, when you say the ending of the Book of Romans, how many verses are you speaking of, brother?
I'm speaking of three verses, the 25th, 26th, 27th verses of Romans 16. As you pointed out just a few minutes ago, this has been a nuclear bomb in history on various occasions. Martin Luther, when he started reading the Book of Romans, became a Christian and started preaching on the Book of Romans in a powerful, spiritual, empowered way.
And Martin Luther was sometimes prone to exaggeration, and so God raised up John Calvin to write the truth, but the Reformation needed a fledgehammer and to break the rock of a thousand years of medieval Catholicism.
And God used the preaching of Martin Luther to bring the Word of God to life, largely through the Book of Romans. And then, in the early 20th century, the Book of Romans was misused by a man named Karl Barth, who was a German neo-Orthodox theologian, which means he was not really sound.
He used biblical words, but he redefined the words with existentialist philosophy. But he wrote a book on Romans, and because the words were all biblical, it hit like a bomb, and evangelicals began praising him and recommending his book and thinking that he was God's answer to the liberalism of the 19th century.
When, as a matter of fact, he was not a part of the liberalism of the 19th century, except he'd come to the point where old rationalistic liberalism of the 19th century had come to a dead end. And so now Karl Barth brings it to the fore by basing the Book of Romans on irrationalism and on existentialism, and blinded the church.
So for most of the church, the influence of Barth's interpretation of Romans has been unfortunately dominant. So let me encourage your readers, don't think that Karl Barth is a friend. Karl Barth is a wolf in cute clothing.
It's a lot easier to identify a wolf that looks like a wolf than it is a wolf that drifts in cute clothing.
And that is Karl Barth. Yeah, there seems to be a revival of appreciation for him. There seems to be a revival of appreciation for him. So to further deceiving people.
It is deceiving people. And I would recommend a book. It's not easy reading. But in 1941, Cornelius Van Til wrote a book called Christianity and Barthianism. And he clearly distinguished them from each other.
That Christianity is not Barthianism and Barthianism is not Christianity. It's a difficult book to read. But it is a view that shows that the evangelicals of the 20th century have been misled and been deceived.
But the Book of Romans has always played such a central role in the spread of the gospel and the spread of the church and the kingdom of God. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, for instance, preached on the Book of Romans for I don't know how many years.
And you can buy his commentary on the Book of Romans, which is probably seven or eight volumes of Furman's book just on the Book of Romans. And the minutes of time I've been here in Atlanta, which is about 50 years, I've gone through the Book of Romans three times.
And I hope to preach through it again someday. But the ending of the Book of Romans is what is so magnificent. Let me read these three verses and then tell you why I wanted to talk about them today. Romans 16, verses 25 through 27.
I mean, it is crammed packed with truth. It is so brilliantly written. Let me just give you an example of how it wraps up and summarizes the whole Book of Romans. In the beginning of the Book of Romans, in the first chapter, Paul tells the Roman church in Rome that he wanted to come and visit them, so as to establish them and make them firm and steadfast in the faith.
And now he ends this whole book by saying that if I come and minister to you, it won't be me that establishes you in the faith. It will be the living God, because only he, not man, can make you steadfast and tertiary in the faith.
And then in the very context of the last chapter, there is this very severe warning. I'm going to read these for you in a minute. There is a very severe warning in verses 17 through 19. The glorious benediction promise, a covenant promise in verse 20.
There is a glorious benediction in the last part of verse 20 and 24. And the last three verses are connected with those. Let me read verse 17, 18, and 19, 20. Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause distinctions and hindrances.
Entree to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them. For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ, but of their own appetites, and not of their smooth and flattering feet. They deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.
For the report of your obedience has reached them all. Therefore I am rejoicing over you, but I want you to be wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil. And the God of peace will soon thrust Satan under your feet.
The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. So Paul is telling these people, here is the way you are to live if you are to see God really work in you and through you in the Roman Empire. Number one, keep your eye on those who are causing distinctions and spreading heresies.
Entree to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them. Already in the first half of the first century, Paul's teachers were going through the church and through the empire, preaching things that were not true.
Paul says keep your eye on them. Now the only way you can keep your eye on Paul's teachers is by being able to discern truth from error and right from wrong. One of the rarest things in the 21st century among Christians is discernment.
That very few Christians can discern guilt from poison. As Spurgeon has this great quote that I use every opportunity that I can. Because discernment is not just the ability to distinguish right from wrong.
It is the ability to distinguish right from almost right. And that's why I call Bart to preach again. And these other Paul's teachers. It's because the average Christian does not have the discernment to discern right from almost right and truth from error.
How do you get discernment? You don't get a discernment by taking a pill. That's the easy way. It takes work. It takes sacrifice. There are no shortcuts. You must be a daily, dogged, disciplined student of the word of God.
That must be your life, your power, your strength. You must read it not simply for having a devotion every morning. Or have a verse for the day so that you can use that verse as a lucky charm throughout the day.
Those things are important. What's important is having devotional like virgin morning and evening. But if all you're doing is reading the Bible for devotion, that is, table talk or morning and evening and you're reimbursed.
And then there's a couple of paragraphs explaining it. You're not going to be very relevant in this world. I guarantee you, you will not have the discernment you're going to need to survive. That you study the Bible.
You read it as a book. Not only on how to go to heaven when you die. But how to think the way God thinks. How to look at things the way God looks at things. How to understand all the various issues of life.
To look at life from the perspective of truth and thy word is truth. I define truth when I speak to young people like this. Truth is God's opinion of a thing. I may have opinions of things, but my opinions are not always truth.
But God's opinion of a thing is what that thing really means. Truth is God's opinion of something and he has given his opinion on everything we need to know in Holy Scripture. So that the Bible is divinely authoritative in everything about which it speaks.
And it speaks about everything. Everything the Bible asserts as truth is truth. And if we are going to be able to identify false teachers. And those that bring heresy and poison into the church. And cause division in the church.
Who are slaves of their own appetites and not of Christ. Whose speech is eloquent, smooth and flattering. Unable to deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting. If we are to keep our eyes on them, we are to have discernment.
And if we are to have discernment, we must study, study, study the word of God. But it's not enough just to keep your eyes on these people. It says in verse 17. Now I urge you brethren to keep your eye on those who cause dissension and indifference.
Contrary to the teaching which you learn and turn away from them. If you have family members or you yourself or you have friends. That go to a church where the gospel is not preached. Where the Bible is not looked upon as inerrant and incapable of error.
Get out of that church. That's the command of God here. It says not only keep your eye on them but turn away from them. Don't stay in a church or denomination. That has broken free from the foundation of the word of God.
Separate from it. That's what Paul did in Acts 19. Paul was preaching in the synagogue. The Christians would come to the synagogue. Cause there were still sympathetic Jews in the synagogue. That's where they would have their worship services with Christians.
And they have their church services. Their Bible study. But then Paul said. When the leaders of the synagogue started speaking evil of the way. Capital W. When the leaders of the synagogue quit speaking.
Started speaking evil. Against the way. Paul. Separated the disciples. And started teaching in the school of a man named Tyrannus. And so the gospel spread because of that all over Asia. Now Paul was not the schismatic.
Paul separated from the church cause we're to separate from evil. But he wasn't because of the schism. The schismatics were the false teachers. Those that spoke evil of the way. Jesus said I am the way.
For the most too. You remember Ahab. Criticized Elijah. Cause Elijah was preaching the pure truth to repent. Of any kind of idolatry. And Ahab. King Ahab who was trying to get Israel to compromise. Between his worship of Jehovah and the worship of Baal.
Said Elijah you're a troubler in Israel. Elijah said I'm not the troubler in Israel. You're the troubler in Israel. We're trying to lead Israel away from the truth. So let people criticize you and say you're a schismatic.
You're not satisfied in any church. You say you're right. I am not satisfied in any church where the truth. The pure truth and all the truth. Found in all the scripture. Is not preached and taught and loved.
So if we're going. God's going to use us in this. In our lifetime. To bring people to Christ. To advance the kingdom of God. To make the church of God a praise in all the earth. You've got to keep your eyes on those that take care of you.
Separate from them. And in reverse. Also be wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil. Be wise in what is good. That is know what God says. The only place in all of the universe. Where you can find.
An infallible standard. Distinguishing good from evil. Is it the pages of all the scriptures. Whatever God says is good is good. Whatever God says is evil is evil. So become very wise and knowledgeable.
In what is good. And be very innocent. In what is evil. Now the word innocent in what is evil. Simply mean. Don't get past the point where you. Quit blushing. At evil action. Be in one good sense. Naive when it comes to evil things.
Parents. One of the saddest moments in parents lives. Is when their children come to them and they know. What four letter words mean. That is a very sad moment. In parents life. You want your children not to be able to use four letter words.
You want them to be. Naive in what they hear. So that they are not they don't want those things. That is very distasteful in their mouth. So be wise in what is good. Be innocent. In what is evil. Don't learn to coexist with it.
Don't learn to get along with it. Don't say well that's the way things are. When you see evil you hear evil. Don't think it's funny. But. Hate it. And work against it. And then God makes this great promise.
He says if you keep your eye on the false teachers and separate from them. And live a life of obedience. Being wise in what is good and. Innocent in what is evil. That God of peace will soon place Satan under your feet.
And there Paul goes all the way back to the first of the Bible. That's the first gospel promise in all the Bible. In Genesis 3. No sooner had Adam and Eve eaten of the fruit. And spiritually died. And were expelled from the Garden of Eden.
Then God came to their rescue with the covenant of grace. And he said I am going to destroy evil. Objectively and subjectively in this world. I'm going to cause there to be a conflict. Between human beings who believe in me and Satan and his feet.
And I'm going to bring the seed of the woman. Not the seed of man. But the seed of woman that is the virgin birth Jesus. I'm going to cause the seed of woman. To crush the serpent's head. And Jesus was crucified on Golgotha.
Which has the semblance of a skull. And his cross was planted. Right into that skull as a symbolic visual. Representation of the truth. That Christ will crush the serpent's head. The serpent will give Christ a minor blow.
A minor injury. On the cross. But on that cross Christ. Will give faith. A fatal blow. And so Paul ends that little paragraph with verse 20. By saying the grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. You're going to need his grace.
You're going to need the power and the strength of his grace. In order to accomplish those things. And then back down to our text. God says here. Paul says here's what God's going to do in your life. So that you will be able.
To persevere. In keeping your eye on those who are evil. Separating from them. Being good and being innocent of what is evil. And so it is so brilliant how Paul. Just brings together everything in the book of Romans.
The first 11 verses. What's the first 11 chapters? What's the first 11 chapters primarily about justification. By grace through faith alone. At the moment you believe in Jesus. The moment you believe in Jesus.
That's the moment God charges to your account. The righteousness of Christ. Just as if you worked out that righteousness yourself. And you realize that he died in your place. Taking the punishment you deserve.
And now in these verses. He's reminding us. That at the center of justification. It is God himself. Then in the chapters 12 through 16. You have sanctification of the Christian life. And so here in these last verses.
You see God. Being the very center and foundation. Of the Christian life. So that's why I call these verses. Brilliantly rich. And magnificently rich. Now. Let me stop for a minute. And if you have anything you want to say.
Or a question you want to ask.
Well it's hard for me to interrupt. Such a powerful sermon basically. But I did have a question. And I hope it doesn't interrupt the flow. I don't want to take a detour really with this. But a man. From the first half of the 20th century.
That demonstrated a lot of great courage. Facing almost certain death. Which actually. Eventually led to his death. For his standing up against. One of the most satanic. Regimes that ever existed on the planet.
The Nazi Party. He had many admirable qualities. And is considered as a hero by many. But. The man of whom I am speaking. Dietrich Bonhoeffer. A German Lutheran. In the early part of the 20th century.
Although he. Had so many admirable qualities in fact. Could have easily stayed in the safety. Of the United States. And be entertained and wined and dined. By the elite here. He voluntarily went back to Germany.
To oppose Hitler. And the Nazi Party. And even was a part of the plot to assassinate Hitler. But he himself was executed by the Nazis. Now the downside of Bonhoeffer. Was that from what I understand and correct me if I'm wrong.
He was heavily influenced by Karl Barth theologically. Is that true? And must not then if it is true. Our listeners be very careful. When they read a number of the new biographies about. Bonhoeffer lauding him.
As a hero and also the films that have recently been. Released about him.
Once you brought him up. I mean that is. Very important for people to know because. Evangelicals and even some reformed people. Really sing the praises of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. There was a New York Times bestseller for months and months.
Biography of. Bonhoeffer that. People praise to the hill. And. Bonhoeffer has some great quotable sentences. As long as you take them out of the context. Of his overall system of theology. For instance the one of his great sentences is.
That when Christ calls a man. He bids him come and die. That's a great statement. But his system of doctrine was like Barth. That is. It was. Christian words Christian ideas. Redefined. March of content.
He was taught by his mother to read the Bible all the time. But then when he came to America for some reason he quit reading the Bible. So I can't recommend Bonhoeffer. To people he's one of those people who.
I had the right words but different meaning. To those words than we historically understand. But I do admire him for it. Curry. I do admire him for his desire. Not to stand back in the shadows. But to be at the forefront forefront in the destruction of Nazism.
And to attempt to assassinate Hitler. I thought that was. A very courageous and I think biblical thing. But as far as the teacher of the Bible. I cannot recommend that people. Read Bonhoeffer's book. They're very but they're very emotional.
And some of the sentences are very great. But the philosophy. And worldview that he represents. Is not the philosophy and worldview. Of historic Christianity. So I'm glad you brought up his name. Keep your eye on him.
But separate from me. Well thanks for clarifying that. We have to go to our midway brick.
Unless you're a preacher. Now I think preachers should read bad books Bob. I think they should read liberal books. If they have discernment. They've got to know the enemy. I went to a liberal seminary.
Columbia Theological Seminary. Bonhoeffer would have been considered a fundamentalist at this seminary. Karl Barth was. Karl Barth was too conservative with some of the professors there. That they loved Paul Tillich.
And I don't even think that Paul Tillich believed in a personal God. But anyway. The point is. Preachers. Must not only know the Bible. Know this historic reform faith. Through and through. Read great God on books.
Be discerning on what books you read in the reform faith. Everybody that says. He's reformed is not necessarily so. Watch out even for. Dissection among those who profess to be reformed. Very quickly I'll bring out.
There is a new movement among. Several movements among conservative Presbyterians. One was called Federal Vision. It has. Reached its high watermark. New perspective on Paul. A man in the PCA called Guy Walker.
Has written two books. One on Federal Vision. And one all the two new perspective on Paul that are devastating. Both movements. But there's one that's even more. Deceptive. And that is. Among some famous.
Reform scholars. Today. There is this view. That. A sentence. In the Westminster Confession of Faith. On the doctrine of God. Is. False. That it's more Greek philosophy than biblical. And that is the statement.
That God is eternal. And unchangeable. Without body parts or patches. Now what that means is. Is that God never changes. Jesus is the same yesterday today and forever. Change is something that goes with creation.
Not with God. God is the unchangeable immutable creator of heaven and earth. And these men believe that God is. Unchangeable in some ways. But some of his attributes are changeable. And they believe that in order.
For there to be a true fellowship. Between God and man. That when there. A fellowship. Between God and man is established through Christ. It not only affects man. It also. Affects God. Like I heard one famous preacher.
Say one time. Quote. When God loves you. It transforms him. Wow. That if there's going to be a real relationship with God. Then your love for Christ is going to have some effect on God himself. Whereas the Bible says.
That God is bliss. That is. He is so complete in and of himself. That he needs nothing outside himself. And. Man cannot make him less happy or more happy. That if God is pleased with your life. If not you.
It's what God sees. He's doing in your life. But that's a whole nother story. That view. Is called all that is in God. By a great reformed Baptist named Dolezal. Who recently was in a car wreck. Yes. We don't know whether his brain will be working again.
That's right.
Yeah. My congregation has been praying for him. Oh.
His books are magnificent. And he has all these sermons on YouTube. And he just. Devastates the new view. That's held by some people. That would surprise you. That God can be in a relationship with a man.
And it can affect. And change God. Like it changes a man. With not only a therapy but. Idolatry. Oh, I'm glad you brought up.
Mr. Baumgartner. Yes. And I do. I just want to have a clarification. When you brought up. Guy Waters. I wanted to clarify. And I know that this is what you intended to say. That his books. Are. Extremely opposed.
Strongly opposed to. The federal vision.
And to. And to the new perspective. Was meant to say is. I think these are the best. Refutation. Right. Of federal vision. And of new perspective on Paul. I don't agree with. Guy Waters on other things.
But I do think he is right on. When he. Criticizes. Both of those movements. So. Waters on the federal vision. And new perspective on Paul. Refute them. Refuting. The new view that God could change. And it is.
All that is in God. In fact. That title. Is part of a sentence. By St. Augustine. He said. All. That is. In God. Is God. Therefore. There cannot be any. Unchangeable. Attribute. Any changeable. Attribute.
Yes. I interviewed. Bertha Dolezal. On that book. When. Probably shortly. After it came out. It's hard reading. But it's.
So important. So important. And we have to go to our. Midway break. Right now. So. Please. Do not go away. Because we're going to be. Right back. After these messages. From our sponsors. With more. Of Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft.
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Interviewed. Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Riley. A faithful. Iron sharpens. Iron radio listener. Here in a tie. In County. Kildare Ireland. Going back. To 2005. One of my very. Favorite guests. On Iron sharpens.
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So no matter where you live, if you don't have a biblically faithful church, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put, I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address to send in a question to Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III.
If you have a question, and that's chrisarnson at gmail .com, give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence, if you live outside of the USA. Dr. Moorcraft, if you'd like to pick up where you left off about the ending of the book of Romans that you were highlighting today.
Well, we looked at verse 17 through verse 20 to see what exhortation Paul was giving the church in Rome, and the reason he wanted them to keep their eyes on false teachers and separate from them and be wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil is because of a promise that God made to them in verse 20.
It says, and the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. Now that's interesting because we just pointed out that in Genesis 3, God promised Adam and Eve in the very first statement of the covenant of grace, the first presentation of the gospel, that God, through the seed of the woman, was going to crush the serpentine, and he did that on Calvary's cross, and that he guaranteed the defeat of Satan and rendered him powerless as far as being an insurmountable foe to the advance of the kingdom of God, the salvation of God's people.
But here in verse 20, it says that God will crush Satan under your feet. So it's not only Christ that crushed Satan's head, but it's the church of Rome. It's those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
They also will crush Satan's head, and God will crush Satan's head through them and under their feet. And how do you put all this together? Well, the phrase in Genesis that says that God would crush Satan's head through the feet of the woman, in the third chapter of Galatians, it says that seed is Christ, and in verse 29, and all those who believe in him by faith, regardless of ethnic origin.
So God crushes Satan's head, destroys evil objectively and subjectively in the world through his faithful people, through Christians that are being faithful and obedient and seek to serve him and be living sacrifices, like the second half of Romans says in Romans 12, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present yourself as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Those are the people that Christ uses to keep their feet on Satan's head. So we have a part in that. God destroys evil in the world through his church. God uses everything. God uses providence, but God also uses his people to defeat the kingdom of Satan and deliver those who are part of that kingdom into the kingdom of light.
Now, we come to verse 25, the last three verses, and that's why the verses say what they do, because of the great work we have to do as Christians, and that is to keep our feet on Satan's head, and God will use us to crush him through evangelism, through engaging culture, through world visions, through faithfulness in the church, through the planning of the church, that we are the ones that God uses.
We're the instrument in God's hand. Therefore, verse 25, Paul says, now to him who is able to establish you, you need to be established Roman Christians. You need to be established American Christians because of the great work that you have to do.
This is a closing doxology, verse 25 through 27, and doxology is an interesting word made up of two Greek words. The last part, logi, comes from the Greek word logos, which means word, and the doxa part comes from a Greek word that means glory, so these last three verses are comprised of a glory word, that is, a word of praise to almighty God for the display of his wisdom, and of his power, and of his glory.
You notice the two great perfections in God that are emphasized here that we need to keep in mind. One is the power of God, verse 25, now to him who is able, who has the power to establish you, and then down in verse 27, to the only wise God through Jesus Christ be glory.
So here are the two attributes that we are to focus on as we carry out his work in this world. Our number one is power, his unlimited, invincible, irresistible power to accomplish his entire will in this world, and to save all of his people.
No matter how hard they resist, that power overrides that resistance, and he draws them to himself, and he does it with wisdom. And what is wisdom? Wisdom is God's ability in everything he does to bring in himself the most glory, and we his people the most benefit.
So here God, who is wise and powerful, must establish us, if we're going to be effective in this work he's assigned us as having Satan under our feet. Now what does the word establish mean? The word establish means to root, to ground something, to render steadfast.
I like the word rooted, that God makes us rooted. You know, during after storm here in Georgia, you see gigantic pine trees and other trees lying on their side. There's a tree near my house, gigantic tree, one of the biggest trees in this area, that is lying on its side because it was blown over by wind.
And what's significant about these trees that have been blown over? They, it's what's significant is their roots were calloused. They went along the surface of the ground. They weren't sunk deep into the ground, and so when a big wind comes along, the wind blows the tree over.
It may look big and mighty and strong, the oak tree, but if the roots are calloused, a wind will blow it over, and we are going to face many winds in life seeking to blow us over and to ruin us and to discredit us and to destroy Christianity and the church here on earth.
I one time was in the house of a man that was coming to my church. It was in the 1975, right around in there, and there was a big hurricane in one of the most expensive neighborhoods of Atlanta, Georgia, right behind the governor's mansion.
And we were in this man's house a week or so after the hurricane, eating supper with him, and he said, Joe, come over here and let me show you something out the window of my living room. So I go over there, and there outside his living room, outside his house, about a foot away from his house, is this gigantic pine tree.
I mean, it is gigantic, but the root system is very shallow. And I told him, I said, boy, I'm glad that tree didn't fall on your house. He said, well, that's not the amazing thing. He said, the amazing thing is there never was a tree there.
That tree was picked up in somebody else's yard, and the wind up to one mile away from my house. Wow. Well, there are going to be winds like that in life. We've got to be able to stand up against them.
One time I was at the beach when there was Hurricane Joe, and there was a hurricane. And I decided I wanted to go down, and the winds were 75 miles an hour. And I decided I wanted to go down to the beach to see if I could walk against the 75 mile an hour wind.
So I went down to the beach, and I could do it. But I forgot that that wind was picking up little pieces of sand and shooting them through you like thousands of needles. And the point is, there's always going to be winds and hurricanes and tornadoes.
And God's going to blow over every house, every institution, every organization, every government that's built on sand. It's not built on the solid rock of Christ. And we've got to be strong. We've got to be rooted in the grace and knowledge of Christ.
We've got to know what we're talking about. Study the scriptures. You know what the literal meaning of a disciple is. The literal meaning of a disciple is a learner. If you're not a learner, you're not a disciple.
And to the degree that you're ignorant of any book of the Bible or any doctrine of the Bible, to that degree, you will be deficient as a Christian. So don't you create your favorite book. Like John, be familiar with every book of the Bible.
I asked our people last Sunday morning, let me give you a little test. What do you know about the book of Nahum? What's the message of the book of Nahum? What about Leviticus? Do you know what the theme of the book of Leviticus is?
What about the doctrine of predestination? You know what that is? To the degree that we're ignorant, people talk about the essentials and non-essentials of Christians. I don't use that term because I don't know any list of essentials or non-essentials in the Bible.
I believe everything's essential for something. We might not have to believe everything in the Bible in order to be saved, but everything is in the Bible for some essential reason for your life. Everything.
And so to the degree that we're ignorant of any part of that Bible, to that degree, we're deficient, and we will not be able to stand up against these hurricane winds that we're going to have to stand up against in the church and outside the church unless we're well-rooted, unless God has established us in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And those are the three instruments that God's going to use to make us rooted and to make us steadfast and to make us persevering. And here's one of the most brilliant things in the Bible. Notice the three instruments that God uses to make his church strong and steadfast in the face of all the hurricanes of life.
Verse 25, Now to him, that is God, who is able to establish you, number one, according to my gospel, number two, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, number three, according to the revelation of the mystery, which has been kept secret for long ages past.
Now, those are three instruments that God uses to establish us in the faith and in the truth. And look at this, and while in your life, the first thing he uses, now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel, and that is defined in verse 26, and by the scriptures of the prophet.
So the first instrument that God uses to establish us to make us strong and persevering and useful in the world mission that he's given us is Paul's gospel. That is the scripture, the revelation of God from Genesis to the book of Revelation.
There's two theological phrases we use about the Bible, plenary inspiration, verbal inspiration. Every part of the Bible from Genesis to the map is from God. There is nothing in this book that is the mere opinion of man.
Everything that has been written in the Bible, all the 66 books of the Bible, originated in the mind of God and by the Holy Spirit. He took those thoughts from the mind of God and placed them in the mind of the prophets and the apostles, and that's what they wrote in scripture.
But there also is the phrase verbal inspiration. That is, it's not just the ideas and the truth that are in the Bible that are the word of God, but the very words of the Bible are the words of God. God not only took thoughts out of his own mind and placed them in the mind of the apostles and prophets, but the very words that they used to express those thoughts are also also originated in the mind of God, so that the word of God is the words of God.
You have some liberals who like this phrase. They say the Bible is the infallible word of God in the fallible words of man. And whatever that means, I have no idea, but it's false. That you can't get past the word.
If the words are mistaken and in error, there's no way you can get past them to the truth. But God says he's not only given us a Bible where all the truths and ideas originate with him, but the very words of the Bible originate with him.
So that the Bible is divinely authoritative on everything about which it speaks, and which speaks about everything, and whatever the Bible asserts is true on any subject is true. So the first instrument that God uses to make us rooted and strong and steadfast is his written word, the Bible.
I hope you're studying the Bible. I want to emphasize that again, not just as a devotional, but as a book that governs the way you think and the way you live and the way you relate in this world. That's the first instrument God uses to establish us in the Lord Jesus Christ is the written word of God, which is Holy Scripture.
Some liberals say that the Bible contains the word of God. That's not adequate. The Bible not only contains the word of God, the Bible is the word of God. In the words of God. Then you have other liberals that believe that the Bible is not the word of God.
It is a witness to the word of God. That is, that the prophets and the apostles have written down what the word of God, which is contentless. It doesn't, they say, it doesn't come to you in sentences and words.
It hits you like a lightning bolt. And then it's up to you to put it in writing what that meant. So the prophets and the apostles are witnesses to the lightning bolt of the word of God that makes their authority no different than mine, but it's not their witness to the word of God.
The writing of the apostles and the prophets is the word of God. It's Karl Barth that has confused people in these issues today. So that's the first instrument that God uses, studying the word of God.
He is a student in it. Be familiar with every part of it. And then notice the second instrument. And this is one of my favorite things in the whole Bible. Verse 25, now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ.
Now you have some commentators that think that the praise and the preaching of Jesus Christ is just another description of Paul's gospel, which could be true, except that's not the way that phrase is used.
And that idea is used in the book of Romans. It says that we're established according to the word of God and the preaching of the living, reigning Jesus Christ at the right hand of God by the power of the Holy Spirit.
One of the most important aspects of Christ's ministry, which we neglect today, we talk about his death and resurrection, and that's good. But he also came to earth to have a preaching ministry. He lived for 33 years to preach, and he went everywhere preaching the gospel.
And after he arose from the dead and ascended to God's right hand and sent forth his Holy Spirit to his church on the day of Pentecost, he still preaches to his church that when men preach the faithful gospel of the Bible, Jesus Christ really and truly preaches through those frail and feasile men by the power of the Holy Spirit.
So that when a man is a minister of the gospel and he's preaching the word faithfully, Christ preaches through him. Now to show you that that's true, go to the 10th chapter of Romans. And we have another one of my favorite verses in the Bible.
Look at verse 13. We're going to break it into a sentence. Romans 10, 13 and 14. Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. How then shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed?
And how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are fed? What a passage of truth. Let's look at each verse.
Verse 11 is a quote from the Old Testament. It is a quote from Joel chapter 2. And to call upon the name of the Lord is an Old Testament phrase meaning to worship Jehovah. And in the context with that versus used in the New Testament, what it's saying is whoever believes and worships Jesus, whoever believes that Jesus is Jehovah and worships him shall be saved.
Jesus is Jehovah in human flesh. And whoever calls upon the name of the Lord, whoever worships Jesus as Jehovah will be saved. Another question, verse 14. How then shall they call upon him and worship Jesus as Jehovah in whom they've not believed?
They've got to believe in him and trust in him as their Lord and Savior in order to call upon him. That's it. And how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? That is a sentence, quite a sentence.
In some English translations of the Bible, there is an of in that sentence. That's not in the New American Standard Version. So that in some English translations it says, and how shall they believe in him of whom or about whom they have not heard?
Now that's true. But if you have that translation with the word of there, you'll notice the word of is in italic, which means that the translator, that the word of is not there in Greek text, but the translator thinks that it should be.
And sometimes that's okay. But in this instance, it's because they don't know some of the technicalities of Greek grammar, which I won't go into now. But if you want to know more, I'll be glad for you to call me.
Here's what it says. It doesn't say, how shall they believe in him of whom or about whom they've not heard? It says, how shall they believe in him, Christ, whom they have not heard? So notice the correction.
Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Whoever worships Jesus as Jehovah shall be saved. How shall you call upon him in whom you've not believed? You ought to believe in Jesus in order to worship him.
Next, and how shall you believe in Jesus until you've first heard his voice? How shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? You cannot believe in Jesus until you have heard his voice. John 10, Jesus says, my feet, hear my voice and follow me.
So that we're not going to believe in Jesus until his great voice that raises the dead, Lazarus, come forth. Lazarus didn't have any strength in himself to do that, but at the very word of God, he did it.
And so here it says that when man preaches the gospel, next question, how shall they hear without a preacher? So you have to hear Christ's voice, not audibly, but in your heart. When you hear, you have to hear Christ's voice in order to believe, calling you out of darkness into light.
And you're not going to hear his voice without a preacher. Look at it again. How then shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard?
And how shall they hear without a preacher? And that word preacher is a very, very important word in the Bible. The word preacher hardly ever occurs in the Bible, but it's always preaching mostly. The word preacher is kv.
The verb for preaching is keruso. That which is preached is keruma. And so hardly ever is the Greek word for preacher used in the New Testament because the emphasis is not on the man. The emphasis is on the preaching.
So if we go back to Romans 16, where it says the preaching of Christ, and in Romans 10, where it says, how can you hear without a preacher? The noun preacher is not there in verse in Romans 10. How shall they hear Christ's voice without a preacher?
Literally, it's not the noun for preacher. It is a participle acting as a noun. So what it says there is you have to hear the voice of Christ in order to believe. And how shall you hear the voice of Christ except through a continuously preaching one?
I say continuously because it's present tense, and present tense in Greek always denotes continuous action. So whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How shall you call upon him in whom you've not believed?
How shall you believe him whom you've not heard? And how shall you hear his voice without a continuously preaching one? This word for preaching or preacher is never applied to Christians as Christians in the New Testament.
It's never applied simply to ruling elders as ruling elders. The word preacher occurs in the New Testament with a reference to that class of elders whom God has called to spend their lives preaching and heralding the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I am in a moment's time, the preacher was the herald of the Caesar who went around the kingdom announcing the Caesar's message. And as long as he was that faithful to that message, he had the authority of Caesar behind him.
So this is a great word. It is a word that applies to those whom God himself has called and prepared to be a herald of the king, continuously preaching the gospel. So now we go back to Romans 6 and we see the first two instruments and God uses to establish as his number one, the written of the word of God and number two, the preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ through the preaching of man.
I told my people Sunday morning, I hope you do not come to Heritage Presbyterian Church just to hear Joe Moorecraft. My words cannot do you a lick of good. My words have no power in themselves. I hope that when you come to Heritage Presbyterian Church, you come to hear Jesus preaching of man.
And when a man faithfully preaches the word of God, we can, as though he may be, Jesus Christ, the king of kings, preaches through him into the human heart. We often thank God for preaching Christ. It is wonderful when we hear people preach about Christ.
And we wish that more churches, for me, that more churches would have a free Christ. And how often have you thank God for preaching Christ, a Christ that still preaches. And what's amazing about Christ preaching, unlike ours, whatever Christ preaches happens.
Jesus went everywhere preaching the kingdom of God, that it was coming. With every preach, the kingdom of God came. Jesus came preaching repentance. Wherever Jesus preached, people were bidden unto sin.
Whatever Jesus preached happened. And Jesus preaches through the prayer of preaching and faithful preaching of man. So when you go to church next Sunday, go to church not to hear your preacher. Go to church to hear Christ preach to you through the preaching of man.
And then lastly, the third instrument that he used to establish you. The first is the written word of God. The second is the preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ through the preaching of man. And the third, it says in the last part of verse 25, according to the revelation of the mystery, which has been kept secret for a long ages past.
The word mystery in Greek is a wonderful word. It doesn't mean what we mean by the word mystery. We mean when we use the word mystery today, like you watch a murder mystery, like Othello or somebody like that.
A mystery is something that if we put our mind to it, we can figure out who the murderer is or the detective finds out. But that's not the way the word mystery is used in the Bible. The word mystery in the Bible means that the mysteries of the Bible are things man would never come to by his reason alone or his experience alone.
But the only way we can know and embrace these truths is by the power of the Holy Spirit opening our heart to receive that word. I want you to go with me to 2 Corinthians 4. And in 2 Corinthians 4, we read with verse 3 and following.
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In his case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus is Lord, and ourselves as your bond servants for Jesus' sake. For God who said, Light shone out of darkness, is the one who has shown in our heart to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
Let me ask you a question. When did you become a Christian? You say, well, I became a Christian when I decided to follow Jesus. Wrong answer. I know people who have decided to follow Jesus 100 times and still are not following it.
So when did you become a Christian? Well, I became a Christian when I asked Jesus into my heart. Wrong answer. There's no verse in the Bible anywhere that says ask Jesus in your heart to be a Christian.
So when did you become a Christian? Well, I became a Christian when I believed in Jesus. Now you're getting somewhere. Now you're getting closer to the truth. But how much believing can a dead man do?
He can do nothing because he's dead in his trespasses and sin. So how in the world can a dead man believe in Jesus? He cannot because Romans 8 says that he's incapable of doing anything to please God.
So then how is it that many, many millions of people do in fact believe? Because there was a time in that person's life when God revealed his glory in the face of Jesus to his heart. And that's when you become a Christian.
That's when you find yourself believing. That has raised you from the dead, lifted you out of darkness, given you strength you never have been had to exercise before. When does God make a Christian out of you?
When he reveals his glory in the face of Christ to your heart. And you find yourself believing. So there we have the three instruments that God uses to make us rooted and steadfast in this work of oil mission.
The written word of God, the preaching of the living Christ, and the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit raising us from the dead spiritually and revealing to us God's glory. Now what's the purpose of all this?
Well the purpose is down in verse 27 to 2. The only wise God through Jesus Christ be the glory forever. Amen. Or as the last verse of Romans 11 says, for of him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever. So that the primary goal in everything we do is the glory of God. What's man's chief end? Man's chief end is to glorify him and enjoy him forever. But there's a secondary purpose too in verse 28.
But now as manifested by the Spirit of the prophet according to the commandment of the eternal God has been made known to all the nations leading to obedience of faith. 70 AD God excommunicated the apostate Jews from his church.
And since then he has turned the gospel loose on the whole non-Jewish world so that there will be a remnant of the Jewish faith throughout history. There'll be a time in history when all the Jews alive at the time will be saved.
But the point is throughout history the primary focus is the salvation of the Gentiles, of the non-Jewish people, of the rest of the world. That God is going to use us. Keep Satan's head crushed under our feet as we seek to carry out the great commission of discipling the nation.
Not just individuals within those nations but bringing the discipline of the Word of God to bear upon the very nations themselves until all the nations of the world and all the families of all the nations worship Jesus as Jehovah.
It's the most brilliant, most brilliant and magnificent conclusion of the world. Amen. Well we only.
Have time for probably one question from a listener. I purposely didn't even air any of our final commercials because I did not want to stop you for a second and to put my advertisers at ease. You will all be given an extra day on your contracts.
But we do have Dorothy in Sugar Hill, Georgia who asks, If Christians, in addition to Jesus, crush the head of the serpent, how do you answer those who mock that idea because Satan is alive and well and at work in this world right now?
That's interesting. That reminds me also of Revelation 20, when the dispensationalists say that Satan can't be bound in chains right now. It's got to take place at this future earthly millennium. But if you could, tell us.
First of all, there's about 25 minutes. Where are they? Oh, great. Dorothy, I live in Oakwood, Georgia, not too far from you. Al Lindsay wrote a book, and I'll answer real quick. I'll talk fast. Al Lindsay wrote a book one time called, Satan is Well, Alive and Well on Planet Earth.
He misspoke. Satan is alive on planet earth, but he's not well. How can you be well with your head crushed in? Oh, Satan has been defeated by Christ definitively on the cross. He's being defeated progressively throughout history by the church, and he will be defeated perfectly someday at the second coming of Christ.
Amen. Well, you have just done a magnificent job, as I knew you would, and I'm looking forward with bated breath for your return to Iron Trap and Zion Radio, which I hope will happen very soon. And I'm so thrilled that we only had one brief interruption with our phone connection.
God was good to us, and I just want to remind our listeners about your websites. If anybody in the audience lives in or near coming Georgia, including our listener Dorothy in Sugar Hill, or perhaps you have family, friends, and loved ones who live in or near coming Georgia, the website for this fine congregation is HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com, HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com.
And remember, folks, even though this is a small congregation, they are one of the largest financial supporters of this program, and we thank God for them. Also, if you want to find out more about the eight-volume commentary series on the Westminster Larger Catechism titled Authentic Christianity, written by my dear friend Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III, and as you heard in a commercial earlier, it has received glowing acclaim from none other than Dr. Joseph Piper, the President Emeritus of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina. You can go to WestminsterCommentary .com, WestminsterCommentary .com, to find out all you need to know about this commentary and how to order it.
And Joe, one more time, if you want to let our listeners know about the free resources that you offer.
At HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com. If you go to HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com, because there's another Heritage Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, and it's livable. So you've got to go to Heritage Presbyterian Church .com, C-U-M-M-I-N-G, and on there will be a link that either says free materials or free resources.
And there I have 60 or some more papers and books and PDF files that are all free.
Now, I have as your website, however, of the correct church, HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com. There's no coming in the website.
Well, if that doesn't work, stop coming in at HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com to do the trick.
Yes, that's what I'm looking at right now, and it works. Well, I want to thank you so much for being such a powerful guest. As I said, I look forward to your return. I want to thank everybody who listened, and I want you all to remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.