Book of Romans - God's Governance of Man | The Law of Love, Pt. 7 (03/06/2022)

All right, well, let us have a word of prayer and see if we can get out of this somber mood and get into the word of God, and that will help us out.

Lord, thank you so much for the fact that you are in control. And Lord, if we didn't know that today, and if the people hadn't known it during World War II, where would we have been?

And so thank you that every little thing is under your complete control.

And according to your one and only best plan there is. And so thank you that you let us be in your plan and part of it, and to work together with you towards the end.

And Lord, we thank you for your word, which encourages us and feeds us and gives us energy and strength to march forward as we must.

And we pray in Jesus' name, amen. All right, so we've been in Romans chapter nine, which the whole chapter basically deals with how

God deals with the action of men. How does he govern men?

First part we talked about was the Christian's relationship to human government. And we have to realize whoever is president over the

United States, God put them there for his purposes. Second thing we talked about were reasons

Christians should obey their earthly governors. The third was, we're talking about still in this one, we're gonna do the last point on it today though.

It's called the law of love, the law of Christ and how the law of Christ is used by God in the dealings of governing men.

In other words, how does God use the church in the world to cause the world to be right where it needs to be on his timetable?

And that's an interesting question. And then the last thing we'll talk about in this chapter is the second coming and the effect of this doctrine upon the church, which then affects the world.

So we'll probably get into that one a little bit today. And that's the last point in this chapter is the second coming.

So what we've talked about up until now is we've talked about at this point, 23 different reasons that you cannot mix the law with grace with regard to the cause of salvation.

God put a great gulf between works and faith and you're saved by faith without the works.

And the word without the scripture means a great gulf. So you can't mix them.

Almost every church tries to do that. Almost every denomination starts out with Jesus as their first love, realizing that his blood plus nothing is what saves us and the calling of the

Holy Spirit and regeneration is what saves us. And man plays no role in that. And they start there and they go around this cycle of humanism and end up where man does most of it, seemingly.

And then Jesus removes the candlestick and they're nothing at that point, but an institution with some people in it.

It's not a real church. And the gospel that they preach is not the true gospel any longer.

And so that is happening. It's happened to every great denomination that's ever existed. It's happened to every nation that's ever existed and it's happening now.

Hopefully, as long as this generation is alive in this church, it won't happen in this church. And I think we're pretty well set up for the next generation, which

I'm gonna count Dave and Ben and, you know, even on down to the grandkids as the next generation.

We're pretty set up for that. And I think the Lord will be back by then anyway. So I think we're good here, but the world is in trouble because the

United States of America has been so effectively paganized by Satan and his minions in my lifetime.

It's so different than when I was a young man, very different in this country, that it's amazing that we exist only by the grace and mercy of God and patience of God does he allow

America to continue as she is because she has long lost her first love.

And we are just a little bit of salt and light. I mean, a little bit. And we do have you guys and that doubles our numbers, but all of us together, we're a small little

Gideon's army, aren't we? But God uses us and it's what he chooses to use.

And so we have to be strong and our kids and grandkids have got to be twice as strong because there is tribulation coming before the glorious return of our

Lord Jesus Christ. It will be worth it though. Imagine being here on that day where we don't even have to face physical death.

No one in our families have to face physical death or the loss of anyone in our family should we be that generation.

It's a glorious thing to think about. So the stuff that has to happen to get us there, God is in complete control of it and we don't need to fear it.

We just need to be wise through it. Does that make sense? So one of the worst things

I've seen, couple of things, but I'm not gonna talk about one of them. It has to be my favorite topic, Katie. I won't talk about that today.

But the other major problem that I've seen in the church has been a continual battle of Satan to bring legalism into the church.

To say, yeah, it's grace, but yeah, you're saved by faith, but you gotta. And when you add that, you destroy faith and you destroy the very definition of grace when you do that.

So we've talked about 23 reasons that's not true. You can't add the two together. It's not faith plus doing something.

James, the book of James is not teaching that you need to have faith, but you gotta do work to stay saved.

And I just went out on a website of a church. I'm looking for a church for Marian, you know, who came and became with us.

Hi, Marian. We can see you out there. I bet you're there. I started doing some research for you, my brother, looking for a church in the massive city of Denver.

And the one that he visited, you just, you know, I went out and looked at their website cause he asked me to, cause he had already noticed.

He said, I don't believe that's the right one. And that was, listen, it was a pastor who came from Dallas Theological Seminary.

So they ain't what they used to be. So what's out there now? I mean, that was the last bulwark of seminaries.

And so this pastor out in Denver is teaching that, as he puts it this way, as the book of James teaches, you have to have faith, but you gotta work or you don't stay saved.

And then there was another magic word he threw in there that I'd never heard theologically ever used. So it's a new one. I should have looked it up.

If I could hear Marian in my earpiece, he would tell me what the weird word is. It had something to do with like, not only do you have to have faith and not only have to work, but your works have to grow and progress.

It's like progressive growth or something. That's not the exact word. And totally false. And we've given you 23 reasons already why that's totally false.

All right. I mean, how do you get around 23?

And we're gonna give you the last one today, which is the 24th one. 24 passages of scripture that all agree in the fact that you cannot add works to faith in order to be saved, in order to cause the salvation of a person.

So, I mean, think about the little things we've talked about. Jesus says he's the fulfillment of the law, right?

I mean, even says with regard to us, that love, loving your neighbor and loving one another, loving the

Lord with all your heart, mind and soul is the fulfillment of the whole law. Well, either it is or it isn't, right?

So it's either love or works. It's not both. And the

Bible teaches that there is no longer an Old Testament sin offering. We know that. The Bible says that the idea of work salvation in the

Old Testament, entire system of the Old Testament, which includes the 10 commandments, has been done away.

Not only has it been done away, it says it's been abolished. It says it's beggarly compared to grace.

The scripture says it has decayed, grown old and vanished in Hebrews 8, verse 13.

And we now enter into a new and living way, which implies very clearly that there was an old way and it's not under operation anymore.

So I don't get it. And one of the last things we talked about was how even Israel itself did not obtain salvation through the law of righteousness.

Romans 9, 31 through 33 teaches it very clearly. They got it by faith, just like Abraham got it, just like we get it.

And then I think the last one we talked about last time was in Isaiah chapter 42, six through seven.

Jesus opened our eyes and set us free and took us out of prison and out of darkness. Jesus did that.

We don't do that. It's not what we do, it's what he did. It's called the finished work of Christ, right? So that's kind of where we had.

I wanna get into this 24th reason here in a sec, but I gotta read this. Romans 11, five.

This is review. But listen, be reminded what it says.

Even so, then at this present time, also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.

And if by grace, then it is no more works, no more by works, otherwise grace is not grace.

You see what the great apostle Paul is saying under the inspiration of God is that, look, if you say it takes works added in to your faith and grace to save you, then you just defied the very definition of the word grace.

It's no longer grace if you say that. It can't be made more plain than this, but that wasn't enough.

He didn't stop there. He said, and if by grace, then it's not works, otherwise grace is no more grace.

And then he says this, but if salvation is by works, then it's not by grace.

Otherwise works is not works. So you defy the definition of work if you say that you're saved by grace.

It can't be both. And so again and again, and we could have even added that as one of the points, but it was sort of embedded in one of the cover.

So I'd like for you to turn to Isaiah chapter 42, and we'll go on to the 24th and the last reason, that's three sets of eight, and eight is

God's number of completion. So we're almost done with this on all the reasons.

I mean, can you believe how many there are that each one is all you need and they all plainly teach that you cannot be saved by faith plus works.

And that is not what James is teaching, by the way. It took me a lot of years for the

Lord to teach me because I'm a slow learner on what James does mean. But I'll tell you this, Romans is predominantly about the cause of salvation and James is predominantly about the effects of it.

And that's all there is to it. Now, the interesting thing is, if you read James carefully, where it does speak about the cause, it completely agrees with Romans.

It totally falls right in line with what Romans says, that the cause is by grace through faith alone.

But anyway, so many people confused about it. All right, so let's go into Isaiah 42 and let's look at this last point.

I am the Lord, that is my name, in my glory will I not give to another.

I quoted that to a Mormon friend of mine one time. And the funny thing was, he was high in the leadership in Salt Lake City.

He was in whatever their top circles called. I don't know if they call them elders or what, but he was one of those guys and I was doing business with him until I got to know him.

And I came to love him actually. And we probably agreed on 98 % of doctrine better than I agree with most

Southern Baptists even, except that 2 % was a killer. And so one of the things

I shared with him was Isaiah 42 ,8, where God said, I have looked around and I'm the only one.

I am the only God, I will not give my glory to another. I said, how do you deal with that? I said, in order for you to get around that, your mama must've taught you this stuff.

And he patted me on the leg, he said, no, it was my aunt. And he said, you know what? Let's talk about the stuff we agree on.

I said, okay. He didn't wanna go there. The Bible says there's one God and one

God only. They say, well, that they all become God. So that's a major problem. Well, do you know that any religion or cult that is based on works will end up that way with nonsense?

Because once you start to break down any part of the scripture, the whole thing can cave in on you and you get all kinds of weird demonic teachings coming from your teachers because they've opened themselves to it by not believing the word of God and not being honest with the 10 rules of Bible interpretation, cheating whenever they want to to prove what they want to prove.

Whenever you get in that mode, you could go anywhere. But it says clearly, it starts out that God is the only

God and he will not share his praise with graven images or any other

God. Verse nine says, behold, the former things are come to pass and new things do

I declare. Before they spring forth, I tell you about them through his prophets, right?

So he began to tell his people about grace and the New Testament and the coming of the

Messiah. Read Isaiah 53, it's all through there. It's all through the

Old Testament scriptures. In fact, the Old Testament scriptures are given to picture these truths for us.

So it's all there and God said, see, I told you about it before it came to pass.

And then verse 10 says, sing unto the Lord a new song and his praise from the end of the earth.

And I want you to think about what the new song is picturing here. He's talking about a new way that he's gonna tell them about before it happens and he's gonna bring it to pass.

And he says, we're gonna sing a new song and his praise from the end of the earth.

Ye that go down to the sea and everything that's therein, the isles and the inhabitants thereof.

Who do you think the isles are, by the way? If you put this in context of the

Middle Eastern viewpoint of the world, who would the isles be?

If God is the author of it, if God wrote this knowing the future and knowing everything, knowing all things, well, it would have to do with anything coming off as a birth child of England, as England became the empire upon which the sun never set shortly before World War II.

And we were one of their offsprings. We were their biggest and best offspring in the United States of America. So the isles refer to any other parts of the world that are out beyond in the ocean, beyond the known world of that time.

And so God does include America in the scripture, but he says, we'll be singing this new song.

What do you think it is? It's the song of grace. It's the song of the law of Christ as opposed to the law of Moses, the law of love as opposed to the letter which killeth, the law of grace which brings life.

That's what this new song is. So the 24th point is found in this passage. Former things, the

Old Testament, are come to pass. They're over. That can't, so all you need is this point, but you got 23 others, but all you need is this one.

The Old Testament has come to pass. New things, which is the New Testament, are declared, and we're singing a new song about it.

So there you have it, 24 points, right? Let me touch on this for a minute.

This may be one of the more important aspects of this whole thing about legalism because one of the first things they will do when that Jewish believer or that Gentile legalist comes into the church is they're gonna try to get you to switch and worship on Saturday.

And they will treat you as if you're ignorant, that you don't know that Saturday is actually the

Old Testament Sabbath. But they're kind of ignorant because all they listen to is they're cult leaders and they don't study history, nor do they study the

Bible as well as they ought because they study it through a lens of breaking many of the rules of proper

Bible interpretation, and they don't study history. And they'll say, oh, what, if you mention history, they'll say, no, we're just going by the

Bible. Well, you know, Paul didn't just go by the Bible when he was hanging on that prison wall. He said, bring me the scriptures and bring me my books.

So, you know, cult groups will get you in any number of ways, but what they will do is they won't tell you that if you go back in church history, as far back as 300

AD, just almost where the life of a preacher just after John and then maybe

Polycarp, then the very next person. I mean, we got that many generations in this room, that close to the times of the apostles.

And these early church fathers will tell you that we consider Sunday to be the

Sabbath of the church. So that created some confusion because they did start to call it the

Sabbath. And I remember Dr. W .A. Criswell, one of the greatest pastors ever lived in my lifetime from first Baptist Dallas called it the

Sabbath. And so if you want to call it our Sabbath, you can, technically it's not correct.

It's not the Sabbath, the Sabbath is Saturday, but that was Moses' Sabbath. So I wanna tell you a little bit about our

Sunday. I prefer to call it the Lord's day rather than the Sabbath. It is the

Lord's day, you could call it resurrection day. So let me show you a little church history before we leave this idea, because if something ever happened to me and somebody walks in this church and says, we're gonna get it just according to scripture and we're gonna start worshiping on Saturday, you're gonna say no, and here's why.

First of all, let's start with the apostle Paul. So that goes way back in history, doesn't it?

All the way back to the times of the New Testament. To cling to the Sabbath was for Paul to cling to the beggarly elements, to exchange the glorious reality in Christ for the mere shadow of it, which the law of Moses represents.

The main body of the church, consisting both of Jew and Gentiles, very early began to observe the first day of the week,

Sunday, as the Lord's day. And you can find that as far back as Acts 20, verse seven.

Now, let's look at Barnabas, which was one of the apostolic fathers of the first century.

Here's what he said. This goes back to maybe 150

AD, way back. Not much, Paul's a little farther back, and this person is sort of next, and he says this, quote, we keep the

Lord's day, that Sunday, with joyfulness, the day on which

Jesus rose from the dead. That makes it clear that it's not Saturday, it's Sunday. And that goes back to about 150

AD. So 2 ,900, I'm sorry, 1 ,950 years ago, or something like that, they were already worshiping on Sunday, not

Saturday. Now, these people will not look at this, but these are facts of church history.

And then there is a thing called the didache. If you look at how it's spelled, it looks like didachi.

It's pronounced didache, or didache, of the apostles. And in it, it was one of the earliest

Christian documents of the first century, and it contained teachings of the apostles, and it states this, quote, on the

Lord's own day, gather yourselves together and break bread and give thanks. That's Sunday.

And then you can go up to around 110 AD to Ignatius, who was the

Bishop of Antioch at that time, and he says this, quote, those who walked in the ancient practices attain unto newness of hope.

That's the old passing away and the new being brought in that he's discussing here. No longer observing

Sabbaths, but fashioning their lives after the Lord's day, which is

Sunday, on which our life also rose through him, that we, oh, wow, is that good doctrine?

Like when he came out of the grave, we were in him, so our life arose with him. That's the day that we worship on.

And this says the ancient practices have now attained to newness, which means they've switched from worshiping on Saturday to worshiping on Sunday, and he tells why.

On which our life also arose through him, that we may be found disciples of Jesus Christ, our only teacher, not

Moses and not Elijah. Isn't that something? That goes back to 110

AD. I had a Jewish believer challenge me on this one time, and so I did this study and I asked him, he said, well, the

Roman Catholics switched it to Sunday. And I said, well, if I could find evidence that it was switched prior to Constantine, would you change your mind?

Yes, so I did all this research and found one, I found six examples, showed them to him, and he said, hmm, and walked away.

He never changed his mind. That is not an honest person. That is not someone who deals honestly with scripture, but anyway, we have to stay honest.

So that's a beautiful quote going back to 110 AD. And then there's a man named

Justin Martyr who lived around 135 AD. And this man was a powerful man of God.

They all were, but I mean, he gets in an argument with a guy named Triphon who's mocking him for the fact that Christians don't have a bunch of Sabbaths and observances and all these things.

And he's mocking him saying, you don't even have this stuff. So Justin Martyr says this about 1 ,900 years ago, quote,

Sunday is the day on which we all hold common assembly, because it is the first day on which

God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter made the world, which you talked about Sunday School Day, and Jesus Christ, our

Savior on the same day rose from the dead. And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place and the memoir of the apostles, that means the

New Testament, isn't that beautiful? The memoir of the apostles. Let's start calling it that. Let's put that on the church sign.

We're the church of the memoir of the apostles. That'll get us a bigger crowd than we have now. Half of you would leave, but anyway, all right.

So they gather themselves to, and the memoir of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read as long as time permits.

That's about how long I read it. But anyway, their time permitted a little longer back in those days. But look at this, in his argument with Triphon, who was mocking him in front of a crowd of people, he said this, once he got a word in edgewise, he said, the

Jewish law is abrogated. The new law binding on church, on Christians regards every day as a

Sabbath. So you can't tell me to worship on Saturday. My Sabbath, because the word Sabbath means rest.

He said, I rest in Christ every minute of every day. So I'm not gonna debate with you which day is the

Sabbath. It's all the time for a Christian. And we worship by the way on the Lord's day. That's what these people said.

Now, the book of Acts says it also. So the scripture says it also. So let's just drop that little bomb on the next person that tries to tell you that you need to be worshiping on the

Sabbath. It's just bizarre. And if that's not enough, let's turn to Romans 14, six for a second.

How about that? Romans 14 and six.

He that regardeth the day regarded it unto the

Lord. Now, you've got to understand that when Paul studied the parchments and the books, he had the scriptures and he also had books that he studied.

Who knows what some of them might be a letter from John or Luke or something, right?

But he studied other books too, science, history. He was a scholar before he became a

Christian. And yet he would line those books up with the scripture or else chunk the books, right?

Like if someone wrote something that sounds great, but it doesn't match the scripture, the scripture is the only authority.

And so now as we see these six some odd cases of ancient church history saying that they worshiped on Sunday, not

Saturday. And then we look here at the scripture. It agrees, isn't that interesting? So the scripture itself says in Romans 14, six, he that regards the day regards it into the

Lord and he regards not the day to the Lord, he does not regard it. Now you have to go back and way back in church history in the times of the apostles, even in the early,

I would say the first few chapters of Acts because Acts is the book of transition from Jewishness to more like the

Gentile Christianity, predominantly Gentile Christianity that we have now. And you know, I'm saying predominantly, but Jew and Gentile are saved the same.

There's no Jew or Gentile under the grace. We're just God's children. But it started out, most of the very first Christians were

Jewish because the first church was in Jerusalem and he preached and 5 ,000 got saved.

On the streets of Jerusalem, Jews from all over the world had come to listen for the feast, but they heard the sermon and were saved.

So there was a transition period. And a lot of those early Jewish born again people did have the

Sabbath. They honored the Sabbath on Saturday, and then they met and did scripture and singing and fellowship on Sunday.

They did both. And that slowly passed away where the Saturday thing just dropped off and you just read about that.

So it didn't take long either, but over a 50 year period, it stopped.

But for 50 years or so you had both. And the apostle Paul addresses that in a day where you've got

Jewish people becoming born again Christians, but they still go into synagogue, right? And when would they go to that?

Saturday, right? But then they would have fellowship, breaking of bread, scripture teaching and Psalms.

They sang together on Sunday also. And so he's dealing with that and he's saying, look, if you still want to go, if you're

Jewish and you still wanna go on Saturday, as long as you're doing that to the Lord, it's okay. Because what did Paul say?

All things are lawful to us. We're under grace, we're not under law. So you can't tell them they can't do that, right?

So it's okay if they wanna worship on Saturday, but don't tell other people they have to.

That's Paul's message here. He says, on the other hand, if it bothers you to worship on Saturday because you think you should worship on the

Lord's day, then do that, but do that unto the Lord. That's where we are so far in this. Then he says, he that eateth, eateth to the

Lord, for he gives God thanks. And he that eateth not to the Lord, he eateth not and give God's thanks. That's because some people had a problem eating meat that was offered to false idols.

And then other more mature Christians said, look, there's no such thing as a false idol, they're not real, it's meat, we'll eat it.

And he said, that's okay, either way you wanna do that, as long as you do it unto the Lord in your heart, because that's how grace works.

See, grace is not by a set of rules. It's like you ask the Holy Spirit, can we eat this meat together?

And if he says yes, you eat it. If he says no, you push it away. And by the way, he can let you know when not to eat it, if it might offend a weaker brother, can he?

You don't have to have a rule for that. You'll say, well, we don't do it. Well, you might, but you do it when the

Holy Spirit says, do it, and when he says not to, you don't. Paul is teaching of this again and again.

For none of us live to himself and no man dies to himself. We all work together with God or we have nothing, right?

Like without him, we can do nothing. For whatever we, for whether we live, we live unto the

Lord, and whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.

For to this end, Christ both died and rose and revived, that he might be

Lord both of the dead and the living. But why dost thou judge your brother?

Or why dost thou set it not your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

He says, look, like if you think what he's doing is wrong, and yet he's a

Christian and he's walking with the Lord, why don't you let God judge him when he meets him? Because he's gonna be his judge.

You don't need to worry about it. That's kind of what he's saying there. For it is written, and by the way, these have to do with doubtful disputations.

This doesn't have anything to do with clear commands in the New Testament. I mean, there are imperatives, aren't there,

Bill, in the New Testament, where Jesus says, hey, do this. Don't do that. Like he says, love your brother, because you don't even know if you're a

Christian if you're not loving your brother. Jesus says things like that. We have to keep those things, right? But we keep it because we love him, not because it saves us.

You see the difference? But where you have doubtful disputation, where the scripture doesn't even speak to a thing, why is it we judge each other on that?

He's saying we should not do that. For as it is written, as I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.

So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Let us not, therefore, listen to this, let us not judge one another anymore, but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or occasion to fall in his brother's way.

I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself, but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it's unclean.

And then he goes on, and I won't go into this, where he talks about the Sabbaths and different things. He said, we're not bound by those.

Very clear in the scripture. All right, so that pretty much ends our lesson on that you can't mix law with faith with regard to the cause of salvation.

24 reasons why you can't do it. There are probably others, but we ran out of time. If it makes you feel any better,

John Calvin took four years to teach the book of Acts. Very short book. Romans is a long book.

Six, oh, thank you, Charlotte. Six years, I feel even better. Six years to teach the very tiny book of Acts.

Probably has more chapters in Romans, I don't remember. But anyway, so we're on our ninth year, I think, but we will finish, the

Lord willing. If we don't, we'll finish in heaven and maybe Rocky Freeman will finish it, or who knows?

Brother Otis, you don't know who will finish this study. Well, next time, I think we're out of time today.

What we'll do is that last point, the fourth point on Romans chapter nine, and it has to do with how does the teaching of the doctrine of the second coming affect the church?

And therefore, how does that affect the whole world? And we'll talk about that next time, all right? Let's stand and pray together.

Lord, thank you so much for your word and thank you for your spirit, the water and the spirit.

We are saved by that, we live by that. And thank you that you've connected us to each other.

May we carry one another's burdens and love one another.

And Lord, so much the more, as we say, see the day approaching. And Lord, we do see the day approaching.

Help us not to forsake the assembly of ourselves together, but to stick together and to be there for one another through these trying times.

Thank you for the beautiful things in life, the birth of a brand new baby or two.

And thank you for how they focus their little eyes on our eyes, memorizing our faces and learning what love is that early on in their little life and teaching us what love is too.

And thank you for our friends here in the room and how you've given us not only family, but extended family, especially in Christ.

And Lord, we wouldn't wanna be without a single one. Thank you each blessing that you've given all of us to be together as a local body of Christ.

And thank you for our friends watching in on the internet. Lord, may they, the Lord willing, be able to come visit in person from time to time and be with them and bless them as well.

And Lord, watch over our government. Lord, give them wisdom from somewhere.

Maybe put people who know your word near them and give them an ear.

Lord, they need wisdom desperately. And watch over us, our family, your family,

Lord, and keep us safe through these days. Bless the meal we're about to have and we pray in Jesus' name, amen.