The Gospel Call — Paul Washer

The Gospel as the Power of God for Salvation

Let's open up our Bibles to Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 1, verse 16, For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, also to the Greek.

It seems that many times in our search for great things that we pass over the greatest thing. It seems that in our search for many clues and many resolutions to supposed enigmas in the Christian faith, we pass over the answers that are clearly set before us.

I would suggest to you today that a great portion of the problems, of the maladies that are faced by even true Christianity today would all be solved with simply a correct understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, of the sinner's saving response to that Gospel, of the idea and the doctrine of biblical assurance.

All these things are looked over today. If you go into a modern day typical, although there are exceptions, a modern day typical Christian bookstore, you will find countless books on all the problems that plague modern day Christianity.

You will find countless books on discipleship and ten ways to do this and ten ways to do that. Problems with the lack of sanctification among God's people. But if you were to scan the entire store, you would find few books on simply what is the biblical Gospel of Jesus Christ.

You would find almost nothing written on genuine conversion. You see, we've jumped over the answer. Back in the 70's and early 80's, there was a tremendous influence with regard to discipleship. We need to do discipleship.

We need to do personal discipleship. Statements were made like this. The reason why there are just as many people leaving the back door of the church as coming in the front door of the church is because we're not discipling the people who get saved.

Now, we need to do discipleship, and personal discipleship is a wonderful thing, but that is simply not true. The reason why there's just as many people leaving the back door as there are coming in the front door is because they're not genuinely being converted.

But they're not genuinely being converted because in many cases, the Gospel is not being preached. We are simply trying to disciple goats so that they will act like sheep. Now, this morning, I do not have time to go through, of course, all the elements of the Gospel or even the Gospel call, but I want to just pick out a few things.

Christ's Death Under the Wrath and Justice of God

Before I go to my text, let me say this. One of the greatest things missing, I believe, in the Gospel proclamation of what God has done for us in Christ is simply understanding His death on the cross.

If you've heard me preach once, you probably never need to hear me preach again because it seems to be always about the same thing. There is such an idea today that somehow the physical suffering heaped upon Jesus Christ by the hands of men are the very thing that paid for our sins.

Now, I don't want to take away from the physical sufferings of Christ the nails in His hands, the crown of thorn on His head, and the lance in His side, but so often I will hear men put forth the Gospel of Jesus Christ without ever mentioning that Jesus Christ was crushed under the wrath of His Father.

That divine justice must be satisfied. We'll hear statements from evangelists that will say things like, God could have been just with you, but instead of being just with you, He was loving. That is simply saying that God's love is unjust.

The fact is, God was just and loving. Here some say, and I've heard this in popular literature, that God must satisfy justice as though there were a principle hanging over the head of God that God Himself had to obey.

And that's not correct either. The justice God had to satisfy was not some principle in the universe. It was His own. He is holy. He must be holy in love. He is just. He must be just in His love. And the great issue of the cross is the fact that on that tree, it pleased God the Father to crush His only begotten Son.

The One who at that moment was bearing sin. The sin of His people. The guilt of that sin upon Himself and being treated in their place and crushed under the justice of God. Now, that's not the theme of my sermon today, but I always got to get that in because of all the things I've ever learned in Scripture.

That one thing is the most precious to me. And in that thing do I see the greatest revelation of all the attributes of God. But then there's the gospel call. As I often say, we've taken this gospel and the gospel call and we've reduced it down to five things God wants you to know.

Or a set of spiritual laws. Or a few evangelical hoops that if we will jump through them, at the end of the line, someone will be able to tell us that we are saved. If we look at this passage, first of all, Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel.

I don't think you can understand this text until you understand that Paul's flesh had every right to be ashamed of the gospel. The gospel was absolutely ludicrous to the natural mind of fallen man. It is a plan devised, defined, created, designed by God.

And it would have never entered into the mind of fallen man to have the Son of God die upon a cross bearing the sins of His people and crushed under the weight of justice. Now, I want you to think something for a moment about the supernatural nature of the gospel.

The Gospel's Supernatural Power Amid Opposition

One of the greatest evidences to me that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true is the fact that it continues. If it had depended upon the eloquence or the brilliance of the apostles, it would have died in its tracks.

Not because they weren't brilliant. Not because they weren't eloquent. But to the mind of their hearers, the gospel of Jesus Christ had to be an absolute absurdity. So, Paul walks in among all these philosophers.

The most brilliant minds of the day. The epitome of human wisdom. I mean, it had all come to this point after generation and generation of philosophy handed down. It had come to this point of the most brilliant men gathered together.

And here walks in Paul. First of all, despised because he's a Jew. So he walks to all these men and he says, you're all wrong. Now whether you understand it or not, that's the very thing that has always caused Christians to die.

If Paul had come into the Roman Empire and said, Jesus is God in the flesh, who died upon a tree and rose again from the dead, it would not have caused him that much problem. But when he said, and He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him.

When he said, all your gods are false gods, he was labeled an atheist and was then worthy of death. You see, Christianity never gets itself in trouble when it says that Jesus is a way. Or Jesus is a great lifestyle.

Christianity gets itself stoned when it says Christ and Christ alone and everything outside of Him is not even reality. You see, in the Roman Empire, everyone was having a good time. There were hundreds and hundreds of gods.

Maybe even thousands of gods. And everyone was happy with it. They could trade gods like baseball cards because everyone was right. And then all of a sudden, here shows up the Gospel and ruins everyone's party.

And now think about this. He comes to these men and he says, you're all wrong. Well, then what's your opinion, Paul? The one true God has become flesh. To the Greek Roman mind, that was absolutely the most absurd, blasphemous thing you could ever say.

I mean, it would be like telling someone that you saw a group of aliens in Antarctica and they all looked like penguins. I mean, this is something for the national inquirer of the Roman Empire. This is absolutely ludicrous.

No one's going to believe this. I can tell you, no one is going to believe this message. It's impossible. And that's one of our problems. We don't realize how ludicrous the Gospel message is and ought to continue to be to the natural mind.

And we do not understand that it is impossible for someone to believe this message apart from a supernatural revelation of God. If we would understand that, then we would cast ourselves upon God and His power and quit with the circus of trying to manipulate men.

Whether it's through the seeker-friendly or the so-called scholarly apologetic that makes itself believe you can convince men of the resurrection because you can give historical legal reasons for it.

We have to be a people who sit there and go, I believe, therefore I have spoken. I have had an encounter with God. I know I stand here like a lamb led to the slaughter, like a sheep before its shears, but I stand here in the power of the Gospel and I'm going to proclaim it because God has promised.

I proclaim this message. Someone is going to be converted. Someone is going to be changed. So, Paul comes. God became flesh. Oh, really? Through what noble family in the empire? Well, actually, he was a Jew.

The most despised people group in the empire. Well, alright, what king among your people? Well, actually, his mother was married to a carpenter in Nazareth. Well, his father? Well, his father is God. Okay, and how did he become the Savior of the world?

Well, he died a blasphemer in the minds of his own people and a traitor to the Roman empire upon a cross. I can see them now. Hey guys, this is good. You've got to listen to this. And then what happened?

I guess we're to follow his life. You know, the power of his martyrdom. Well, no, he rose again on the third day. And he presented himself, I suppose, to the entire nation, right? Well, actually, no. He showed himself to his followers.

Yeah, okay. Now, I'm not trying to make a mockery of the message. I'm just trying to show you something. How do you think you're going to make anybody believe this? It's ludicrous to the natural man. And the point I'm trying to get across is when you realize the absolute impossibility that someone's ever going to believe this message coming out of your mouth, and you cast yourself upon the resurrection power of the Holy Spirit, the recreative power of the Holy Spirit, the promises of God that He has said He will bring forth a people unto His name for Himself, when you shed yourself of every human help and you stand there and simply proclaim the Gospel over and over and over again, then there's going to be power unto salvation revealed in the lives and hearts of men.

Faithful Proclamation Rather Than Manipulative Evangelism

I was listening to Dr. Moore a while back from Southern Seminary, and he said something that just filled my heart with such joy, but also established some things. He said, you know, so many people will talk to him and say, you know, I've been witnessing to my dad over and over and over and over and trying to share the Gospel with my father, and my father just keeps rejecting it and rejecting it.

And you know, I just want to talk to you, Dr. Moore, about is there something, you know, I could say? Could you give me some... And Dr. Moore goes, now look, the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation.

He goes, it's not that this person's going to be saved because you give him just a little bit more information about something. He said, let me give you an example. You've witnessed to someone a hundred times and they've rejected the message every time.

And then one day you're witnessing to them and you get to the resurrection, and for the first time you mention, and he was resurrected on the third day and he was seen by more than 500 witnesses at once.

And the person goes, stop. Stop right there. He was seen by over 500 witnesses at once? At one time? Yes. Well, you never told me that. Okay, I'll accept it. It doesn't work that way. You're always looking.

If I could just get him a little bit more information, or if I could learn to say this in a slicker way. But what you've got to realize is that you are in the same predicament as Noah. How many decades did that man preach?

I can so identify with him. His message never changed. After about 15 years of preaching, people would gather around. What's the message for today, Noah? It's going to rain. Daily devotions. Hey, Dad, you know, I've been doing this for 15 years.

What's the daily devotion on today? It's going to rain. He was called to faithfully proclaim a message. And it was a message of judgment. But we are called to proclaim a message. Yea, He has died. Yea, He has risen from the dead.

He was not ashamed of the Gospel. Not because he was able to study His culture, be sensitive to His culture, and then somehow preach the Gospel in a way, package the Gospel in a way so that it would no longer be offensive to His culture and everyone would jump on the Gospel bandwagon.

What you need to understand about cultural sensitivity is this. The Gospel, by nature, must be offensive in order to work. And every time you clean this thing up to make it presentable, you've taken away her beauty.

It's like taking an absolutely beautiful farm girl who's done nothing all her life but wear cotton dresses. Never a stitch of makeup. Just beauty in beauty's right. And then you take her to New York City, to one of the gaudiest, most sensual places, and you deck her out.

Wild hair and makeup and shiny clothing. But to anyone with a keen eye, you've ruined what was made. You do that to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And in doing so, you strip the power from her. Preachers have to realize, and I say this in the biblical sense of the term, we are prophets or we are useless.

When we preach the Gospel, we are always, always Ezekiel. Standing in a valley of dry bones with the question being thrown at us, can these bones live? And always our response must be, you know, Lord.

We do not say no because we do not doubt His power. We do not say yes because we do not presume upon it. But you know, Lord, that the only thing, the only way that anything is going to happen is through a supernatural miracle of God on par with the very creation of the universe.

And when you're cast upon that, your Gospel remains clear, clarion, and powerful. I am not ashamed of the Gospel. Not because He was able to fix it, but He wasn't ashamed of it because He saw through the Gospel being preached, the power of God manifested in an undeniable fashion.

The changing of the lives of men. The mere continuation of apostolic Christianity is evidence of its truth because it is absolutely an impossible thing. I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God for salvation.

Salvation in Justification, Sanctification, and Perseverance

One of the great problems today is we take this word salvation, and I know you know this, but you need to hear it. We take this salvation thing and we reduce it to only one time zone or one aspect of salvation.

We make it into something like a vaccination or a flu shot to protect you from God. Or a ticket to heaven, as it is often blasphemously reported. It is the power of God for salvation in all tenses. For deliverance in all tenses.

This message is the only message that has the power to save us from the condemnation of our sin. To save us from the justice of God. It is the only message that has the power to bring about the justification of wicked men by faith in Jesus Christ.

But it doesn't stop there. This message, if truly brought home to the heart of the hearer, not only leads to a salvation past tense or to a salvation future tense, but a salvation present tense. This message has the power to conform us to the image of Christ.

It is the power to sanctify us. Because sanctification is just the continuation of the salvation that began with justification. It has that power. Now, in what way? I believe that there is a morality set out in Scripture.

I believe that. There is a morality and there are rules and we need to obey the commands. But you must get out of thinking about Christianity as something primarily moral. It is not primarily moral. It is primarily relational.

How is the Gospel, the power of God under salvation, under sanctification? How does the Gospel have the power to change my life? Well, first of all, it lays down the basis of that change and that is a new creature.

And when it does that, it solves the great majority of the problem. Justification always goes arm in arm with regeneration. If anyone be in Christ, there is a new creature and new creatures just live new ways.

Even an apple tree left in the wild to itself will continue bearing apples. They might not be as beautiful as the one cared for by the hands of men, the ones doted over and given food and fertilizer and all the things that such trees need, but they will continue bearing fruit because it is their nature to bear fruit.

And so the Gospel begins this by simply changing a man into a creature made in the image of God. But then secondly, and this is where again, I was speaking on last night and I think we've got to grab this.

In Romans 12, He tells us, He encourages us. He admonishes us. He begs us to do what? To offer ourselves as living, holy sacrifices to God. Now, you can offer a lot of things to God, but to offer self is the biggest.

You can give away cars and houses and everything, but to give away the totality of your life, who you are, your very self, that's quite another thing. And so to do something like that, He also recommends the motive.

The reason why it should be done. The thing that can cause a man to give himself over to God. And He says, the mercies of God. And those mercies of God are the first 11 chapters of the book of Romans.

But all the mercies of God find their focal point and their greatest fountain and demonstration in this, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The humiliation of the Son of God becoming a man, taking on flesh, bearing our sin, dying on a tree.

It is that that motivates our sanctification. If you're pursuing sanctification for sanctification's sake, that's idolatry. If you are moral for morality's sake, that is idolatry. Everything in your life must be pushed, motivated, and constrained by the fact that the Son of God shed His own blood for my soul.

And the end of all of that in all creatures, rational creatures, must have a logical end. It is for His glory. It is the power of God for salvation to everyone. That eliminates this idea of some men being converted, radically changed, and continuing on in a process of change.

And other men being saved and never experiencing a change at all. He doesn't allow for two groups here. Now the Scriptures do allow for men growing in maturity at different stages. The Scriptures do tell us that God it seems to have given to the church gifted men.

I'll never have the mind of Jonathan Edwards. I'll never have the passion of a David Brainerd. I'll never have the faith of a George Mueller possibly. I'll never exceed or excel in areas of piety where others have gone before it.

We do know that there are differences among us. But everyone who has truly embraced the Gospel and been embraced by it will experience its saving power. Its saving power. For salvation to everyone who believes.

To the Jew first and also to the Greek. There's the entire world there. The entire world. Now I want us to look for just a moment at something I often set forth, and it's this. We take the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we present it this way.

Repentance and Faith in Genuine Conversion

Do you know you're a sinner? If they say yes, then we go on to the next question. Do you want to go to heaven? If they say yes, we go on to the next question. Would you like to pray and ask Jesus to come into your heart?

If they say yes and do that, at the end, we pronounce them saved. Now let's just look at that. Do you know you're a sinner? My dear friend, if you say yes, or if any man says yes, I know I'm a sinner, it means absolutely nothing.

The devil knows he's a sinner. The question, the evangelical question, the Gospel question to the hearer is not do you simply know you are a sinner? But the question is, upon hearing the Gospel preached, has God so worked in your heart that your view towards sin has changed?

You could say it in this radical way that the sin you once loved and boasted of, you now hate and are ashamed of. Is there any change in your relationship to sin? Not just do you know you're a sinner.

Do you have a heart change wrought by the power of God with regard to that sin? And then the question, do you want to go to heaven? Obviously, when we ask that question, we betray ourselves and show that we've never studied political theory.

Because that's what politics is all about. Everybody wants to go to heaven. Build a utopia on earth. A wonderful place where we can all be happy. You see, everyone wants to go to heaven. But as I often say, the problem is most people don't want God to be there when they get there.

The question is not do you want to go to heaven? That's why so much preaching is so wrong. So much singing is so wrong. The question is not do you want to go to heaven? The question is has God done such a work in your heart that you now esteem Him?

Desire Him? Do you want Him? Do you see the value of Christ? And then do you want to ask Jesus to come into your heart? That language. Where it came from exactly. Is it what came from Romans 10? No, it didn't.

Well, Revelation 3 .20 says no, it's not. It is simply a way to get God to move into some place. But it's all wrong. What is the Gospel call? The Gospel call is repent and believe. Repent and believe.

Repent and believe. Now, let's talk about this for a moment because there's something that's been bothering me in the last year or so with the uprise of so much good theology and people taking true conversion seriously.

I think there's also a problem. I have so many people who come to me and they doubt the assurance of their salvation because in their scrutiny of their own repentance, they're expecting, they're almost demanding that the saving repentance be the repentance of a mature believer of 30 years.

They scrutinize every aspect of their life and if they don't look like a Puritan, they say, I can't be converted. What you need to understand is repentance in its initial seed is simply a changing of the mind.

God is all. I need Him. You say, that's it? It can be.

I can't save myself. I'm lost. I need a Savior. You say, but the Bible describes repentance in so many ways. Yes, it does, but are you expecting a full-blown repentance the very second God begins to work in your heart?

As I study repentance in Scripture, I look back at the moment I was converted and my repentance was a very singular thing. I need to be saved. But now after 25 years as I grow in Scripture, the repentance matures and deepens.

But you err, young person, when you scrutinize your life to wonder whether or not you're saved and you're looking for repentance that can only be found in someone who's walked with God for decades. I hope I'm making myself clear.

I believe in repentance. But repentance can merely mean I'm falling and I can't save myself from self-worth. It is turning from ability and giving up. As Brother Charles once told me, it's just giving up.

I can't. I collapse. I'm gone. I have a thing that I've worked through several years ago on the doctrine of repentance. If you take everything the Bible teaches about repentance, you will have a very big book.

Amazing things are said. And they all should be learned. We should grow into them. But to take the entire full-orb biblical course of repentance and demand it before someone can have assurance of salvation is absolutely preposterous.

We have a lot of young people and a lot of other people who are not assured of their salvation because they're expecting to see in their wee years as a babe in Christ, a full-blown sanctification of a man 40 years in the faith.

We need to be careful. Save me! And even a great deal of that clamoring for salvation, don't expect it or demand it to be absolutely pure. Some of it will just simply be self-preservation. Remember, God saves men who repent, not men who repent perfectly.

God saves broken-hearted people even the ones who are broken-hearted over the fact that they're not broken-hearted enough. And even those who think they're broken-hearted enough, when God knows, they're not hardly broken-hearted at all.

This will add fuel to the fire to my enemies. But in my conversion experience, to be honest with you, sin was not the foremost thing in my mind the day I was converted. The foremost thing in my mind was He loves me.

He's everywhere. He's everything. Now you say, okay, what are you saying? But, even though I was a heinous sinner, I was a horrible man, at that moment, the only thing that was really real to me for several weeks was the love of God.

But then as I began to study the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit began to work, He began to work repentance that He continues on till this day. So see, let's be careful here. You can define people out of the Kingdom of God.

You can demand so much of a man of salvation, more than even what God demands at first. A simply, I can't. I can't. And then faith. Faith. We are saved by faith of a mustard seed. Believe! Well, how do I believe?

Alright, you've already just said you can't. Now, go one step further. He can. And will. And desires to. Can you believe that? You say, is that it? No, it's the beginning. But it is real. Well, how will I know it's real?

Because it will keep going. And growing. In the same way your repentance will grow and grow and grow, your faith in the reality of it will grow and grow. But I am not going to expect from my 10-month-old daughter what I expect from my 6 -1⁄2-year-old son.

Pride, Assurance, and Looking to Christ Alone

Also, I want to talk about the pride. You know I love the Puritans. You know that I love all that kind of stuff. I want to talk to you about a root of pride I see springing up among people who embrace this kind of lovely truth.

It's almost like a badge of spirituality when they will so-called struggle of whether or not they're saved. And what they're just trying to prove to people is my version of conversion is not as superficial as everyone else's.

I'm going to wrestle and I'm going to fight and I'm going to do all this stuff. And I don't even know if I'm saved after that. And you think you're bringing glory to God. There is a sense when some men are awakened to their sin and they must break through and they must struggle and so on and so forth.

I agree with all of that. But be very careful that we're not just reacting against the superficial gospel of others. God is glorified when a heart is open and they say, I'm falling, but He can. And they stand on that.

Oh, it's so glorious! My faith! But it is not the quality of this faith, the greatness of this faith. It's the quality, the greatness and the character of One in Whom you believe. And this is so important.

Look unto Jesus! Look! Just look unto Jesus! What terrifies me so much, you talk to people on the streets. Are you going to heaven? Yes, I'm going to heaven. Why? I prayed and that's Jesus coming to my heart.

Now, look what they're doing. They are trusting in a transaction they made. They are trusting in the sincerity of a prayer. But then again, we must be careful. Doctor, heal thyself. Because some are trusting in the magnitude of their repentance.

And others are trusting in the magnitude.

Of their faith. When what I love to hear is,.

I'm looking unto Him. I'm looking unto Him. And I would be terrified to take my eyes off of Him. I'm looking unto Jesus. Now, I want us to go and look at Romans 10 for a moment. Verse 6,. But the righteousness based on faith speaks as follows,.

Do not say in your heart, who will ascend into heaven? That is to bring Christ down. Or who will descend into the abyss? That is to bring Christ up from the dead. That salvation is not wrought in the heart of a man by some exhausting effort on his part.

Some impossibility laid at his feet. Some divine challenge that he must overcome in order to obtain. He says this, But what does it say? The Word is near you. What's that word? The Gospel of everything that God has done for you in Christ.

It's in your mouth and in your heart. That is, the Word of faith which we are preaching. The whole point of the Gospel is that all your efforts are vain. All your attempts in the flesh to conquer have turned to rot.

There is nothing for you except to throw yourself upon Him. One day when I was going through a great struggle, just a terrible thing, and it just came into my mind. God is the rock. Christ is the rock.

And for the believer, when He falls, the believer falls upon the rock, not off of Him. Such is His expanse. Such is His greatness. It is simply throwing yourself upon Christ. Better that. Better than that, because throwing requires effort.

It's falling upon Christ. Repentance in its seed form is stopping. It's ceasing. No, it's giving up. I can't. I've reached that conclusion. Faith is falling and being caught. Imagine, sometimes my little boy will get on the monkey bars.

How long can he hang? And he'll hang and hang and hang, and he will strive and strive. And you can just see his little fingers are turning white and his arms are burning and his little chest is pounding.

And he's just more afraid and more afraid and more afraid. He doesn't want to let go. All his effort, all his strength. And then he comes to the realization, I can't any longer. But Dad will catch me.

And you say, but how do we know when something like that is really true? Well, that's easy. It will continue. You mean you will become greater in faith and greater in repentance? You will mature in faith and mature in repentance.

But you've got it all wrong. The maturity makes you weaker in self and more Godward. Not that you become stronger so you need less of the grace of God, which seems to be what some of you are seeking to achieve.

But it is learning to rely more upon the grace of God and less upon self. And then he says, what does it say? The Word is near you. It's in your mouth. In your heart. It is the Word of faith which we are preaching.

Now, two of the most beautiful passages in the entire Scripture, two of the most beautiful verses in the Bible are before us now. And I dare say, two of the most twisted texts in the Bible. Twisted by men who receive their teaching on hand-me-downs.

I read it. That's how other people evangelize. That was in this tract. But let's look at it for a moment. That if you will confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

For with the heart a person believes resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed. Now, we have taken this text and look what we've done with it.

Confession, Perseverance, and the Roman Martyrs

We've reduced it down to this. If after an evangelistic campaign, feeling moved, you walk forward and you pray the sinner's prayer, and then afterwards, when the preacher presents you to the congregation as saved, you willingly stand there.

You know those invitations. Jesus said you don't confess Me before men. I won't confess you before My Father. And we equate that with them coming forward. Now, what is really going on here? Well, all the ancient exegetes seem to be in agreement that we are saved by faith.

We are saved by believing. But the saving quality, the saving characteristic of that belief in the heart is manifested by the confession of the mouth, which according to the teachings of our Lord, the confession of the mouth is validated by the fruit we bear.

But back up again and do not demand the fruit from a new believer or someone recently converted that you demand of an 80-year-old Puritan. The idea here is perseverance and continuation. Now, I want to try to draw up a scenario for you to help you understand this text.

Now, recall what we've turned it into. Let's look at it a different way. First of all, this is the Roman Empire. Like lambs led to the slaughter, like sheep before the shears, believers are being killed in Judea and throughout the Roman Empire.

They are having to stand and confess that Jesus is Lord. Let's imagine that all of us, we're all carpenters and we work together and we're building a building there in Rome. And it's lunchtime. It's a beautiful spring day.

We've just had lunch. And we're all just laying out in the grass and we're just happy. And most of us are believers. We belong to the same secret, hidden congregation. Having a good time. You know, drawing little fishes in the sand and stuff like that.