Let's open our Bibles to Romans
16. The Lord will enable me. I want
to talk to you tonight like we're sitting in my kitchen. I want to speak with you. I want
to look at Romans 16. I want to look at the whole of
it. I think we'll get a good handle
on it. And I want us to look at the key verse that shows us
what Paul was getting at here in this chapter. Whenever the
Lord gives a message, I'll not tell everything I know, but sometimes
it's good to understand some things. Anybody can get up and
teach. Anybody can take a systematic
theological standpoint and some understood doctrines they can
read in some type of encyclopedia. They can use deductive reasoning
and they can make logical sense and apply a Messiah to the Scriptures
throughout the Scriptures. So here's the format. How do
we make this fit in this passage? And they can teach some things.
Historically, they can show some things. But if God gives a message,
He has to give it. We labor. His laborers in the
field, they work, they dig, they plow, they water, they do everything
they can. They know where to get the seed.
But if the Lord don't give the increase, there's no increase.
He has to give it. I know this is going to be my
text. I have a message in me concerning this text. There's some teaching and preaching.
You can't have one without the other if you're God's servant.
They have to go together. And I want to teach you, I want
to help you if you'll let me. I want to show you some things
that we need to hear in this chapter. And then I want to do
that shortly. And then I want to show you some
wonderful things and just talk about it. I got some meat and
potatoes for us this evening. We need to eat our vegetables
first. And then I got a whole mess of dessert for you. It was
a blessing to me. It's going to bless somebody.
If it just blessed one of you, I'd be tickled to death. He says
here in verse 19, Romans 16 verse 19, this is the linchpin in this
whole chapter. Paul says, for your obedience
is come abroad to all men. You brethren in Rome, we've all
heard about you. We know you're faithful. The
Lord's made you that way. And he says, and I am glad therefore
on your behalf. I'm thankful for you. When the
Lord blesses a people, whenever He comes to them, reveals Himself
in them, there's Holy Spirit conviction, that's a blessed
people. I'm happy for them. I'm tickled to death. There's
no jealousy. If I find out I've got a new brother or sister,
I'm happy. He said, I'm glad therefore on your behalf but
yet I would have you wise unto that which is good. He wants
us wise in that which is good and simple concerning evil. Paul's told him some things up
to this point and he says in your wisdom, in goodness, I want
that to be extensive. Our Lord told us in Matthew chapter
10, He sent those disciples out, 12 disciples, and He said, I'm
going to send you right in the middle of the wolves. No act going into it. Be careful
about being the Lord. Lord, I want to serve you. He
just might use you. And He tells you ahead of time,
I'm going to send you right in the middle of the wolves. He
said, you need to be as cunning as serpents. It's wise as serpents. What's wise as a serpent? Does
that mean we're sneaky and crafty? A serpent doesn't bark, does
it? A serpent doesn't make no noise.
It doesn't have arms to flail around and wave up in the sky. It sits back and it watches.
It observes. It stands still and waits on
the Lord. Not that we're serpents, but to be wise as a serpent.
To sit back and watch. And harmless as doves. That's
what he told us. Crafty as a serpent and harmless
as a dove. That means when you see the problem, right there's
the good stuff, right there's the bad stuff. Stop. You have
no defenses. You're a dove. Don't go charging
the gates. That's what he was getting at.
Paul told us that in 1 Corinthians 14. He was talking about speaking
in tongues and people that interpret. They speak another language.
If I went down to Mexico to preach, one of them brethren would have
to interpret it from English to Spanish for them to understand
me. That's a gift the Lord gives. There was a miracle of speaking
in tongues, but that's just the gift the Lord gave for someone
to speak one or two or three languages. And people were wrapped
up in this, oh wow, he can speak five languages. And Paul said,
you'd be better off to understand what the prophecy was, to be
able to preach Christ, than to be able to speak French and Spanish
and Italian. That ain't gonna do you no good.
Christ is what the need is. And he said, you need to Be men
in understanding, but children in malice." He said, on all these
things, these understandings. Understanding Christ, we need
to be men. We need to be grown-ups. Act like adults in this. We've
been taught some things, and that's who we need to look to.
But in this envying, and this malice, and this strife, and
putting one over another, and all this nonsense, be like a
child. Don't have any malice in you.
Be like a dove. Harmless. Be grown up and watch
these things. Observe. That's what Paul is
saying here in verse 19. He said, but yet I would have
you wise unto that which is good. I want you to know these good
things. What's these good things? In the first 16 verses, Paul
just gives us a beautiful picture, a beautiful greeting, commendations.
He's lauding the people in Rome, the brethren there. He starts
out talking about Phoebe. She was the only one not from Rome.
And then he mentions well over 30 brethren by name in Rome. How faithful they are. How beloved
they are. How they're in Christ. They're
laborers in the Word. They're laborers in the Lord
Jesus Christ. He goes on on how thankful he is. He says, Rufus,
you and your mom, she's my mother too. Paul loved those folks. That's what's good. God was gracious
to some people. He was gracious to those he put
in Christ before the time was, before the world was. That's
what we need to dwell on. We need to be wise in those things.
Wise in the good things. But now there's some evil things. And we need to be simple in those.
Real simple. Real simple. He says in verse
17, Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause division
and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you have learned,
and avoid them. For they that are such serve
not our Lord Jesus Christ. They're not the Lord's servants,
but their own belly, and by good words and fair speeches deceive
the hearts of the simple. We need to be simple concerning
these evil Preachers that Paul is telling us about. Those that
do not preach Christ. Those that are not His servants.
Those that are contrary to the doctrine. Singular. The doctrine which
you've learned. What did God the Holy Father
teach His people? A singular doctrine. He taught
us Christ. If you're His, He's taught you
Christ. And there's some people that go against that. They are
against Christ. In what we looked at the other
night, what's the full gospel of Christ? Christ told us in
Psalm 40, preaching thy righteousness, thy faithfulness, thy salvation,
thy loving kindness, and thy truth. If a man thinks that he
has his own faith, that's against Christ. What's another way of
saying that? You are anti-Christ. Well, a
TV show back in the 70s, that girl said, Daddy, so many people
was killed by guns this year. He said, would you be happy if
they was pushed out of windows? If they're a little bit off or they're
a whole lot off, does it make you feel more warm and fuzzy
on the inside if they're only a little bit antichrist? They've
been brewing whiskey down there in Tennessee for 157 years off
of one piece of yeast. A little leaven leaveneth the
whole lump. He said, those that are contrary
to the doctrine, He says, you mark them and you avoid them.
Does that mean who we listen to? Who preaches? It does. It does. If somebody preaches
against Christ, against His Gospel, how He saves people, avoid them. Mark them. That's bad. Be simple. Be simple about it. Be harmless
as a dove. Don't go on the war path and attack it. That's bad. Now avoid it. Turn around and
go that way. I got this from a brother of mine this morning.
If I told you, somebody in this nation, there's a couple people
in this nation, that if it were even, if it were possible, it
ain't possible, but if it were possible, they would deceive
even the Lord's elect. And I told you. I said, don't
listen to them. Do not listen to that person.
I love you. I care for you. The Lord sent me here to look
out for you. It looks like a sheep, but that's a wolf. Avoid it.
I've marked it for you. Don't listen to them. You know
what we'd do? Adam was in the garden, wasn't
he? And the Lord said, eat, consume
fruit from every tree that you can see. Oh, there's good fruit
to be ate. Oh man, and trusted trees, good
trees. I made them trees. I sent them
trees. There's trees after my own heart.
You go feed off of them. But there's one tree here. Don't
you eat of it. It's marked. Avoid it. Leave
it alone. What would Adam go do? What would
I do? Some of us need to avoid some
things. Those that are against Christ.
Those that are against His people. We can see them. We can be told
about them and talk about it. We've grown up a little bit.
We need to avoid it. Avoid it at all costs. It'll
benefit you, the Lord says so. And there's some other folks
that need to know that there really are people out there that are
against Christ. There are wolves. Not everybody
and their brother is a sheep. Not everybody that says they're
a Christian is in Christ. I hate to tell you, people in
your own home, people you love, It's a shame. Whenever we learn
about these things, we're going to see it here in just a second.
Don't be too quick to write someone off. I've got to be careful how
I give this to you. If someone's against Christ,
shut them down. And if somebody gets up and says one thing wrong,
put the earplugs in. Let's not do that. There's a
difference between error and heresy. There's a difference
between error and heresy. I hope I can show that to you.
Let's turn over to Acts 15. Acts 15. If there's a brother or sister
that think for some reason that they can make their self sanctified, or they think that they have
their own faith, or they think that they found the truth on
their own, or they think they have some kind of Loving-kindness
it's conjured up on it. I love I love God. I always talk
about their look throughout this book here We'll see this hopefully
in a minute It's always about how God loves him how God loves
that brother how God loves that sister how God loves his people
I'm saying about well Oh Rufus boy. He just loved the Lord.
It says the Lord loved Rufus. I If some of your brother or sister
come in and they're not opposing Christ, they are on those points,
but they sit quietly in a pew and they listen to Christ preach.
They listen to the truth preach. Don't run them off. Don't run
them off. They're not getting up causing
a big disturbance. If the other brethren can still
hear, don't run them off. That's all right. Wait on the
Lord. Wait on the Lord. Be simple. Be simple. Wait on
Him. Look here in Acts 15. Verse 1, And certain men which
came down from Judea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye
be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. Now you take out circumcision
and you put in any verb, any performance of a work, any keeping
of a law, anything that exerts energy to accomplish a task.
That's what the definition of work is. Take that out and put
that in there. Except ye be circumcised after
the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved. When therefore Paul
and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they
determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain other of them should
go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question.
I always get tickled when I read that. There was no small disputation. There wasn't a little bit of
dissension, like, well, we'll just agree to disagree. That
was fisticuffs. That was an all-out war. That's
something to protest. Unless you do something other
than Christ, you can't be saved. It's time to pick up some rocks
and start throwing them. That's called heresy. That's
a damnable heresy. And you'll go to hell listening
to something like that unless God's pleased to show you different.
It ain't the truth. And then, insult to injury. The
Apostle Paul and Barnabas. Now these men had come down from
Judea, didn't they? And they said, well, we don't agree, Paul
and Barnabas. We've argued about this long
enough. You go up to Jerusalem and you find out from the big
boys. We don't trust what you have to say, buddy. But both of them like backhanded
him right across the face right there. What an insult. So what did they do? It says, When therefore Paul
and Barnabas had had no small dissension and disputation with
them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain other
of them should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders
about this question. You go ask a grown-up, Paul.
Verse 3, And being brought on their way by the church, the
church paid for them to go up there. They passed through Phenis
and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles, and they caused
great joy unto all the brethren. Now they're walking up there.
Long walk. And you know what they did the
whole time? God saves His people. He saves sinners. God saved Gentiles. Gentiles. That means He'll save
anybody. He'll save a Gentile like me.
You need to hear this. You're not excluded. Were they
murmuring? Boys from Judea making me go
all the way up here? I'm an apostle. Christ called me. I don't have
to go up here. I'll just take my word for it.
Look at Barnabas. I want to ask Barnabas some questions.
Don't you take his word for it? Do you believe in men? They're
not the Lord's people, are they? They didn't say none of that,
did they? All right, we'll go. And the whole way up there, they
tell everybody to listen, Christ came to save sinners. He shall
save His people. They left it alone. Verse 4,
when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the church
and of the apostles and elders. That's who they come to talk
to. And they declared all things that God had done with them.
First order of business. We made it all the way up here.
That's a long walk. God saved some folks on the way up here.
We got to tell them He came to save some Gentiles and some Jews
and every tribe, every nation, every kindred. Brother said earlier,
every family on this earth. Whosoever. And he did it. We got to see him do it. That's
a first order of business. I thought you were supposed to
go up there and satisfy these men biting and devouring you,
Paul. No, we'll just tell the good
things. We're going to be wise in the good things. We're going
to have plenty in the good things, in the grace of God. Now we're
going to be a little bit simple in the evil. He says in verse
5, But there rose up certain of the sect of Pharisees which
believed, saying that it was needful to circumcise them and
to command them to keep the law of Moses. And the apostles and
the elders came together for to consider this matter. They
saw, okay, well after the good, the wise good, the plentiful
good of God's grace is done, there's a little bit of business
we've got to handle. We've got a problem down there. And you
know what happened before they answered anything? Verse 7, And
when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up and said unto them,
Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made
choice among us, God chose a people, didn't he? That the Gentiles
by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God knoweth, God which knoweth
the hearts, bear them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even
as he did unto us. He said, There ain't no difference
between a Jew and a Gentile. We're all sin. God chose a people
before the foundation of the world. I know this. He revealed
it in my heart. I got up and preached to them
and they believed just the same as me and you did. Ain't no difference. Bond or free. Male or female.
Don't make no difference. God saved his people. That was
the result of it. After a little bit, of dealing
with this evil. A little bit of simplicity in
dealing with this evil. And after an abundance, a great
multitude of speaking about grace, what God had did in His people.
They preached the whole way up there is what they did. They
handled this. Now let's look back in our text.
Romans 16 verse 19. Paul is writing his brethren
that he loved. And he says, for your obedience has come abroad
unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf,
but yet I would have you wise under that which is good. I'm
going to have you preaching the whole way up to Jerusalem what
God does for sinners. His grace, His love toward an
undeserving people. And I want you simple concerning
evil. Be harmless as a dove. You'd
be like a little child when they're evil. You see it, walk away from
it, and leave it alone. Well, it needs dealt with. That's
on my checklist. If there's somebody to fight,
I want to fight it until the fight's over. I don't want to
back down. You don't give up ground that you've won in battle.
There's an enemy on the block. I want to grab that wolf by the
beard. Let's deal with this. I want to handle it now. That's
not my job, is it? That vengeance isn't my job.
Whose job is it? Why should we be sinful? Why
should we be worried about the good things and just slightly
concerned enough to avoid the potholes that the Lord's put
in front of us? Look here in verse 20. And the
God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. Satan entered Peter, didn't he?
And he said, Lord, don't you go up there. Don't you die. I
won't have it. And he said, get you behind me, Satan. Lord dealt
with it, didn't he? Lord's dealt with this. All this
evil. Mark it, avoid it. Lord's going
to handle it. I don't have to fix nothing.
And He's going to do it shortly. Shortly. He'll handle it. I've
seen this happen a hundred times. There's something that I think
that I just have to get my hand in. And I sweat, and I worry,
and I fret for days. I don't sleep. And I think, what
am I going to do? And I'd just cry myself to sleep
thinking, wait on the Lord. And I'd wake up the next day,
and you know what? The Lord fixed it. You'd think after years and
years and years of this happening over and over again, that I'd
just say, Lord, handle it. He'll crush Satan under my feet.
He'll do it shortly. It won't be long. It won't be as long
as it has been. So what should we be worried about then? The
Lord's going to take care of that. And the God of peace shall bruise
Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
be with you. Amen. Be wise in that which is
good. All this controversy, who's a
believer, who's not a believer, I just went perfect with what
we looked at 1 Thessalonians the other day. That's plain.
There's His people. They follow Him. They love Him.
They give themselves for the brethren. They want to be around
the brethren. They believe God. They believe
Him. Not perfectly, not as they want
to. I don't love my brethren as I want to love them, as I
ought to, but I love my brethren. I believe the Lord. Don't believe
Him as I want to or ought to. I believe the Lord. I believe His Word. That's the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul said, all this wonderful
blessing that the Lord gives you, that be to you. The grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Be with you. That's what ought to fill you
up. Let your cup overflow. Not wondering who's preaching
the truth. Should I not go to church there?
What about so-and-so? I ain't seen him in three weeks. What
am I going to do? Look to what the Lord's done. Walk to Jerusalem
preaching the grace of God. Let's start in verse 1, chapter
16. There's a list of believers in
the first 16 verses. And then they're in the clothes
too. The Lord used Paul to write these names down. I'm going to
gently breeze over a few of them this evening, and I hope we can
go back and look at a few of them in more detail later. But
these are blood-bought children of God. And Paul lists almost
everybody he can think of at Rome. And I was reading that,
and I talked to Kimberly at lunch today, and I said, you know,
there's all these names. I'm having such a hard time with these names.
I'm butchering them. I ain't gonna say them right, but it's
a long list of names. And I thought, you know, if I
sat in that church at Rome, Paul loved them. Loved them enough
to remember their names. Now, he was a mental giant. The
Lord gifted him with a brilliant mind. But he loved them enough
to care to remember their names. And remember what they did. And
remember stories about them. Remember their family. And he
wrote a letter, and he listed just about every one of them.
And I thought, if I sat in that church at Rome, and Paul wrote
this letter, and he was like, oh, beloved of the Lord, this
one. And this one, and that one, and this one, and that one, and
it didn't have Kevin Thacker on there. I'd have turned inside out. If there's going to be a name
left off, it's going to be my name left off. But I guarantee
you that every name on here is the names of the brethren in
Rome Paul was writing to. You know why? Our Lord wrote
some names in a book a long time ago. And they ain't one missing. And they ain't one extra in that
Lamb's Book of Life. It's eternally secured in there.
And it's individual. It's specific. The Lord remembers
His people. He's recorded this for 2,000
years for us. Right now, His people today, He knows us. He
ain't kind of familiar, knows some stats about us like we know
baseball, but intimately He knows His people. He knew us first.
He foreknew His people, foreloved them before time. We are His
epistles. We're proof of salvation. A sinner
saved by grace is proof that God saved sinners. And we tell
people about it, don't we? All the way up to Jerusalem.
Walk all the way. It says here in verse 1, I commend
unto you Phoebe, our sister, which is a servant of the church,
which is at Centuria. That's a little port city about
8 miles from Corinth. Paul was in Corinth writing this
letter and he's commending them Phoebe. It says in verse 2, "...that
ye receive her in the Lord as becometh saints, and that ye
assist her in whatsoever business she hath need of you. For she
hath been a succorer of many, and of myself also." Phoebe was
a faithful woman. She was a faithful servant of
God. People take that word servant,
and they butcher it all the way down to Rodenbach. And they say,
well, she was a deaconess, and they ought to have women deacons.
No. Every child of God is his servant. If we could enter into that.
If I'm on the gas station and there's somebody that sat out
front all day and ate cupcakes and smoked cigarettes, didn't
do nothing, didn't sweep floors, didn't do nothing, and I say,
that's my employee. He's employee of the month. You say, I don't
work for you. You need to fire him. God has people. He calls them. He
does a work in their heart. They serve him. They serve him. Now that might be in attending
service, in praying for the brethren, greeting somebody at the door
when they come in. Hello, how are you? It's good seeing you.
How's the kids doing? It might be something really
small, but they're going to serve him. Phoebe served. She's a business
lady most think, but this woman The business owner was heading
up to Rome to do some business. And Paul said, just as Christ
received you, receive her. She's a faithful sister. That
prefix was purchased by the blood of Christ. I've spent a lot of
time with her. She loves the Lord. She needs His righteousness. She needs His faithfulness. His
love. She loves Christ. She does. And
you receive her. Now you think about this. That's
a long time ago. This ain't nowadays. If Kimberly
wants to fly to London and then take a train underneath the English
Channel and end up in Paris and then had to do some driving around
in taxi cabs and stuff like that, I wouldn't be happy about it.
I wouldn't be concerned for it. But there wouldn't be great worry,
would there? Here's this woman, Phoebe, by herself, back then,
scallywags all over that dock. She had to take a boat, maybe
some carriages and everything else to get up to Rome. And you
know what? If we get around that, you know
what Phoebe was carrying? The only copy of the Book of
Romans. She had a hard journey, didn't
she? Dangerous journey. That's it in our day. Back then,
it was pretty rough. Rich lady going up there to do
some business and she's carrying the only copy of this epistle
to Rome. Do you think anything could have
kept her from making it to Rome? How many millions of copies of
this letter do we have now around this world just today? That's
a faithful servant, isn't it? And he said, you receive her
as becometh saints. She's a saint of God. She is
sanctified by the blood of Christ and you receive her the same
way that God sanctified you. She showed up and whatever her
problems are, her baggage, I don't know what she does, something
offensive, put it away. Pay no mind to it. That's a child
of God. He goes on and says in verse
3, Greek, Priscilla and Aquila, my helpers in Christ Jesus. Priscilla
and Aquila talks about a lot in this area here by Paul, thought
on a lot by Paul because he met them. Aquila came from Italy,
came from Rome when it was getting run off back then. And he met
up with Paul and they were the same occupation. We read that
in Acts 18. And they all mended tents together.
And Aquila and Priscilla and Paul would go out and they'd
make tents. And on the weekends, Paul would
preach. You think there's probably some days that Priscilla and
Aquila said, you know what, Pop, we'll take care of two of these
and you just do one. No, no, no, you go on home and study.
You got to preach this weekend. We'll take care of this. That'd
be nice, wouldn't it? That's something wise to focus
on. Wouldn't it be nice to have a
business partner that was a child of God? That'd make your days awful
good, wouldn't it? It says there in verse 4, who
have for my life laid down their own necks to whom not only I
give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles. That's
the first one listed there in Rome. Ursula and Aquila. Oh, what faithful servants. That's
the good things. That's the wise unto that which
is good. Look what the Lord blessed. Do
you think they did that on themselves? They stuck their necks out a
lot for Paul. and Apollos. They quietly took Apollos to
the side because he was preaching that baptism which is of John.
He was a sinner. He needed a Savior. When's that
Messiah coming? And he knew the truth. He could
preach Christ out of the Old Testament and said he's coming.
And after service, Priscilla and Quill had enough sense, enough
wisdom not to do it beforehand. He was about to get up and preach.
Y'all don't know, that ain't a good time to do stuff. Wait
till after. They took him aside privately
and they said, Apollos, we love you brother. We know you love
Christ. We know you know Him. He's already come. He's already
come. Here's His apostles. Here's the
Acts. Here's who you need to talk to.
Go talk to Paul. Go talk to Cephas. They'll straighten
you up on this. And he did. The Lord put a good
spirit in Apollos. But he goes on there nine times
throughout the rest of these 16 verses, and he says, Beloved
in the Lord, verse 8, Greet Amphilus, my beloved in the Lord. Salute
Urbane, our helper in Christ. And Statues, my beloved. Salute
Apellas, approved in Christ. Salute Herodon, my kinsman. Greet
them that be of the household of Narcissus, which are in the
Lord." We all start worrying it would be wise for us to focus
on those good things that are in the Lord. His church that's
in the Lord. His Word that's in Him. Salvation
that's in Him. And not the things that are out.
Not the things that are outside. But he goes on through all these
saints, chosen in the Lord, loved of the Lord, and he says in verse
16, Salute one another with a holy kiss. That is wise unto that
which is good. Salute one another with a holy
kiss. Not that kiss of Judas. That's deception. That's got
an ulterior motive. That's got another angle to play.
But in truth, in love, in joy, and in unity in Christ our Lord. Come to Him. Love Him. Find what
unites, not what divides. That's what He's telling us.
He says, verse 19 again, For your obedience has come abroad
unto all men. I'm glad therefore on your behalf,
but yet I would have you also wise unto that which is good
and simple concerning evil. God help us to be wise to the
good things. To tell stories of our brethren.
John Reeves is up there in Rescue, California, and he's preaching
Christ, and the Lord's using him, and he's saved some folks.
Isn't that good to know? Eric Clutter out there in Missouri.
The Lord's using him, giving him a word, and piercing the
heart to his people. They baptized two people a couple
months ago. They confessed Christ in believers' baptism. In our
day, think about that. To be a grown-up, and to go get
in a tub of water, have a man put you under the water, and
bring you back out of the water, that seems like foolishness to
the rest of the world, doesn't it? They say, can't you do this
online? We want to direct deposit everything, don't we? God has
to put that in the heart of a person to truly confess Christ. He's
working. I was thinking of so many things,
and I want to tell you how the Lord's blessing our brethren.
That's what Paul did, wasn't it? In verse 16 verses, he was
greeting everybody and bragging on them. And you think that one
of them stood up and said, boy, I am beloved. I've labored hard. I've stuck my neck out. I say,
it wasn't me, it's Christ that did it. If I live, it's Christ,
and if I die, it's gain. So, when we can, when the Lord
enables us, there's times we need to be simple, like a small
child, like a dove, see something that's wrong, it's a heresy,
from heretical people, and avoid it. And be simple. It's over. Now, let's look at
what the grace of God has done. Let's speak on those things.
Concentrate on those things. And if we can't see it in somebody
else, beg God to show grace in our hearts. Lord, be merciful
to me, a sinner. Lord, give me faith to believe
on You, to look to Christ and not to this world. Lord, be sweet
to my brethren. Give me a heart that loves my
brethren and supports them. Let me go out of their way, out
of my way for them. That would be wise, wouldn't
it? Wouldn't that be better? Sit back and just observe, stand
still and see the salvation of the Lord? It's a whole lot better
than an alternative. That's why Paul gave us 16 verses
on all the wonderful things of those saints in Rome and gave
us two verses on dealing with evil. That's logical, isn't it?
That's pretty good. Lord, be with us this evening.
Lord, let us see your grace, your salvation, your mercies,
your love, your truth for our undeserving people. Lord, let
us joy. What rejoicing we have in our
walk through this world, Lord, let us tell people what Christ
has done in our hearts. What a salvation, what a God
we have. Lord, let us praise You, let
us worship You, be thankful. Be with our brethren, those that
You've given a heart to labor in Your Word and You've given
the ability to support the Gospel. Lord, comfort them. Give them peace. Let them hear
of their brethren and be delighted of the work that you're doing
in them. Lord, give us rest until that day that we can be brought
home. Lord, haste the day. Your will
be done. Let us glorify your name here
and above. It's in Christ's name that we ask it. Amen.