If you wish to follow along,
turn to Romans chapter one. Romans chapter one, I will read
one verse. I hope to get all the way through
verse seven through 15, but we will see how that goes. Let me
read this to start with. I'll read verse seven and follow
along with me if you have your Bibles open. To all that be in
Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints, grace to you, and
peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Then we
will notice in the next few verses, he uses the word first in verse
eight, and then he uses the word now in verse 13. So I hope to
cover those things. My title this morning is this,
Thanks to God through Jesus Christ. When Paul says first, in verse
eight, God is to be thanked through Jesus Christ. When he says now,
he is saying this, since God has, I therefore, I then give
all thanks to God through Jesus Christ. Man is never the cause,
man is certainly never the source of grace and peace, ever, ever. not a grace and peace that is
of any spiritual value. God is the author and the finisher,
not only of faith, but all grace and all peace. But since God through Jesus Christ
is the source and the cause, then what Paul actually summarizes
here is in the gospel desire, that is the desire to preach
the gospel, we have every reason to hope in that, in spite of
providential hindrances. Never think that the fault is
with the preaching of the gospel. If the gospel is being preached,
whether it be from me, Joe, Paul, other men behind this podium,
or others in other places, if the gospel's being preached,
if you are giving testimony to the grace of God in you, You
don't have to be a pastor, but you could tell people what God's
done for you. And if you can't, then God's
not done anything for you. And if you're ashamed to tell
someone else what God's done for you, then I hold up a red
flag as to whether he has done anything for you. When the gospel
is preached, there is nothing that can hinder
that. There's nothing that can hinder that. When the gospel
is preached, God will make it triumphant. Paul says we all,
we, even we, why don't we preach the gospel? We causes, he always
causes us to triumph in Christ. Whether it's a dead sinner who
hears the gospel and that gospel is nothing more than death to
them and adds to their judgment and condemnation. God's designs
have been carried out. or whether it's a sinner made
alive by God, and they hear that gospel of life, then God's designs
are being carried out. Now, years ago, my pastor and
your pastor, Earl Cochran, especially when I was a young man, I was
23, 24 years old, somewhere around 85, 86, 87. And I was young and brash. Had begun to learn a little doctrine.
I believe I knew Christ, but was young and brash. He told
me, took me to the side one time and told me, when you use words
and when you preach the gospel to people, he said, don't suspect
that everybody knows what you're talking about. Even if you've
been preaching to them for years and years and years. Having said that, I want to give
you a word. I know everyone here has heard
the word. Many who may hear me in some other venue, you may
have heard this word, but I want to explain it to you so there's
no misunderstanding. Actually, there's two words.
Here's the first one, exegetical. Now, as Earl told me, we preachers
love to use words, and rightfully so. That's all we have to use.
but we must condescend to men of low estate. Exegetical, what does that mean? That's the question. What does
it mean? It means to evaluate seriously
the meaning of words, phrases, and language. It is critical
explanation. Now not explanation criticizing
but it is critical explanation. In other words, when it comes
to this book, what did this writer, or that writer, but we're looking
at Paul right now, what does the writer mean? Right? The writer meant exactly what
he wrote. And now while there are some
of us that we don't, there may be certain words that we don't
understand here. We may have to go look it up,
may have to get a concordance or a dictionary or ask someone
else. These writers meant exactly what
they said, what they wrote. Our problem is that ego gets
in the way. We want to read into what these
men wrote, what we already have preconceived up here and in here. So again, exegetical means to
evaluate seriously the meaning of words, phrases, and language. This Bible is not just a general
rule book. It is absolute. It is absolute. When Paul said to all that be
in Rome, he meant to all that be in Rome. As I asked the question
last week, does all always mean all? Yes. Now I have heard that
question and answered it myself with, well no, all don't always
mean all. Yes it does. All always means
all. But that does not mean that the
word all cannot have a limitation or a qualification put with it. And there are preachers who have
argued that when you see the word all in the Bible, it has
to mean all. Well, of course it does. Then they accuse the
Calvinists of always qualifying. Well, let me tell you, if I qualify
at all that the writer didn't qualify, I'm in error. But if
I don't qualify an all, where the writer qualified the all,
I'm in error. To all that be in Rome, beloved
of God. Of course, the world automatically
says, well God loves everybody. So this is to every individual
that's in the city of Rome. But then it goes on to say, called
to be saints. Now we're qualifying even further. First of all, God does not love
everyone. This book says so. I had a fellow
come in my shop the other day, used to come quite often, and
was always telling me and the other people there, God loves
you, God loves you. So I finally had a belly full of it, and I
started quoting him to the scripture. He said, oh, that isn't the Bible,
ain't it? He hadn't been to my shop for a while. All's I did was quote to him
what the book said. It said, Jacob I loved, Esau I hated.
So there's at least one person God don't love. And we could go further. To all
that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints. He does
not write to all that be in Rome and to those who are beloved
of God and to those who are called to be saints. That may include
a lot of other people. But he says, to all that be in
Rome, now he's qualifying it. Now he's letting us know exactly
who this all he's writing to is, to all that be in Rome, beloved
of God, called to be saints. Now if you're beloved of God
here this morning and called to be saints, Paul did not write
that to you. He wrote it to them in Rome.
But this truth is for all of God's people. He wrote it to
all that be in Rome, not to all that be in Crow, West Virginia. Do you understand what I'm saying
here now? Now here's the second word. I gave this one to you
last week. Religiopath. Religiopath. Now we'll stop on this. Do you
know what that really means? I read to you the, it's come
from the Urban Dictionary. I have no idea what that is,
but what little bit I read about it online, there are a bunch
of God haters who do not bow to the authority of Jesus Christ
in their heart and mind, but they do whether they understand
it or not. And they loved that. After this
quote, I'll give you the quote of what the meaning of the word
religiopath is. It had a little footnote. Take
note that you read it here first. Bragging. Bragging on themselves. Religiopath, what does that mean?
Over the top religious type. credits God, slash Jesus, slash
Allah, slash Vishnu, et cetera, et cetera, for everything right,
but doesn't blame him or them for anything wrong. I will come
back to that in a moment. But then notice it says, incapable
of free thought, operates per a user manual called the Bible,
but they did not put slash Talmud. or slash, what is the other,
Quran. But why, because here they're
getting down, they're telling you what they really don't like,
the Bible. The Bible. Now let me go back
to maybe someone who helps take care of the urban dictionary
will hear this. Over the top religious type,
well that is me. That is me. Credits God. and rejects all these others,
because I am that over the top. I bow down to God in Christ and
I reject Allah, Vishnu, and all the rest. They are figments of
men and women's imaginations. They are idolatry. So I guess
I'm even over the top from the over the top. credits God for
everything that is right but does not blame him for anything
that is wrong. That's not quite true. I credit
him for everything that's right and wrong. But I blame him for
nothing. Because he's fixed it where I
can't. He is an absolute sovereign control of the worst creature
that ever walked the face of the earth. He's in much control
of that creature as he is the most beautiful, vibrant, loving
creature that ever walked the face of the earth. And he manipulates
both creatures to hoard his own wise, sovereign purpose and design. I credit him for everything and
I can blame him for nothing. And if you don't like that, tough. Put that in your dictionary.
Dowding Crow, West Virginia is a ultra-religiopath. Now having said that, I go back
to all that be in Rome. Only an egotistical, man-centered
religiopath. Boy, ain't that a mouthful. But
now you know what, wait a minute, what about egotistical? What
is ego? What is ego? Ego is me, me, me. Ego is I, I, I. As a matter of fact, and I hope
that, as a matter of fact, I seen ego crushed already today on
three or four occasions, and one of them was mine. That's right, crushed. Ego crushed
by another person that had an ego. Crushed! And you know how you
can find, you know how you can know when your ego's been crushed?
When you pout. I don't care if it's another
fallen worm, but if God uses that fallen worm to crush your
ego, your ego still deserves to be crushed. I don't care if
it was another fallen worm, he used to do it. Now I've left
the meaning, I've left my phrase, I'm talking about us now. Me,
me, me, you, you, you. Ego is me, me, me. And when we get our ego crushed,
we do two things, we pout or we lash out. Until God subdues us by grace. And we then either shut up Or
we start moving away from me, me, me. And so, well, that needed
to be crushed. It took me 35, 40 minutes this
morning before finally every particle of ego that was crying
out in pity finally said, enough's enough, Walter. Quit being spiritually
stupid. Your ego needs to be crushed
no matter when, what, or by whom. Now, is that a good enough lesson
for us this morning on ego? But let me get back, to all.
This phrase, to all. I'm not gonna get through verses
eight through 15. Only an egotistical, man-centered. I'm gonna tell you something.
Now listen, I'm not bragging about us. I'm talking about the grace
of God's manifest in this place. Here's a small group of people
that want to hear Jesus Christ honored and extolled all the
time. We don't always get that done,
but that's what we want. That's what we strive for. And
if people want to call me a religiopath because of it, so be it. I don't
care. I've been called a whole lot
worse than that. only an egotistical man-centered
religiopath would take to all the word to all and say that
it can never have any limitation and to deny any qualification. Such a person of that is spiritually
and exegetically dishonest. They are a liar. A liar. Let me give you just a few examples.
Turn to 2 Thessalonians. Now I'm not saying there's not
someone out there that's just so hateful toward God in an overt
way that they would not argue with anything I say here. There's
some people that, you know, it doesn't matter what this book
says, they gonna reject it just because this book says it. They
are the people who wrote, and are like the people who wrote,
the Urban Dictionary. Now if we start getting lawsuits,
then y'all feed me when they put me in prison. You know, bring
me stuff that you can bring that's legal. Second Thessalonians three, verse
one, finally brethren pray for us that the word of the Lord
may have free course and be glorified even as it is with you and that
we may be delivered from unreasonable, if you have a side note there,
you may see that they say that in the Greek means absurd. Unreasonable
and wicked men, there are some unreasonable and wicked men in
this world. They're absurd. If you catch
them in their lie, they will refuse to acknowledge it no matter
what. They'll do that in the religious
world with religious material or anything else for that matter.
There are some people who are unreasonable and wicked. I think
they're probably of that ilk that Luke spoke of. Remember
the certain men of the baser sort. The baser sort. Look, that we may be delivered
from unreasonable wicked men, for nobody has faith. Is that what that reads? But
if you want to take all to never have any limitation, then look,
for all men have not faith. Is Paul saying then nobody has
faith? That's an all used in the negative,
right? For all men have not faith. So
is Paul then saying nobody's got faith? Of course not. Read to whom he wrote. People
with faith. What is he saying? He's saying
not everybody has faith. Isn't that simple enough? The
only person. who would argue with that is,
as I said, that man-centered, egotistical religiopath that
hates the truth of God so much that they will twist the scripture
no matter what. Let me give you another passage,
John chapter six. John chapter six, verse 37. All that the Father
giveth me, does he mean all or not? Yeah, it means all. All always means all. So if anybody ever asks you,
well, don't you believe all means all? Don't think you're going
to give in to them. Say yes, because all always means
all. But all can be limited or qualified. But see, we just, even our own
egos as believers, we know, here's some free willer, don't you believe
all means all? And the first thing, well, no,
of course I don't. Well, you're an idiot. That's
idiocy. Immediately, you put them to
where they've done one, the upper hand. Because you're defending
your system, not the truth of God. All that the Father giveth
me shall come to me. There's your qualification. If
you are one of the all that are given, what's going to happen?
You're going to come to Christ. Now isn't that what he said?
And it's qualified. Now he's not done yet. And him
that cometh to me, I will of no wise cast out. For I came
down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him
that sent me. And this is the Father's will
which has sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I should
lose nothing. Now does all mean all there?
You bet your bottom dollar it does. You better hope it does.
Because if it means all except for one individual, you might
be that individual. You better hope that God all
means all. But look, and this is the Father's
will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me,
I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last
day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that everyone,
that's all again, right? that everyone would seeth the
Son, and believeth on him, there's your qualification. You see it? And believeth on him may have
everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day,
and the Jews murmured. And they didn't even get it yet.
They said, well he said he's the bread from heaven. They didn't
even, they were so angry at what he'd said a few moments before,
they couldn't even concentrate on what he's saying now. Do you
get that? He previously said, I'm the bread
for heaven. They're still fuming over that
one. They ain't even got to this one yet. You see what I'm saying? They murmured at him because
he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they
said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and
mother we know? How is it then that he saith, I came down from
heaven? Jesus therefore answered and
said unto them, murmur not among yourselves. And he didn't go
back to explain what he said about the bread from heaven.
He kept on hammering on this one. Look, no man can come to
me except the Father which hath sent me draw him. And I will
raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets.
He refers back to what? This book. It is written in the
prophets and they shall all be taught of God. That does all
mean all? You bet you it means all. You
bet you it means all. But what is it? And they shall
all be taught of God. Now sometime go back and read
Isaiah 54 and find that verse, and you know what it says? And
all thy children shall be taught of God. But the sovereign king
of heaven and earth left that one out. Didn't he? But he's still saying
the same truth. It is written in the prophets,
and they, there's the children, they, they are his children. And they shall all be taught
of God. Every man therefore that hath
heard and learned of the Father cometh unto me. Do not ever fear
saying exactly what this book says. That's not going to win
over everyone. but you will have at least told
them the truth and cleared yourself from their blood. But if you're
just trying to defend your system, you will not only not be clear
of their blood, they will defeat you. I've been there before. I've tried to defend the system.
Mason, it don't work. It don't work. Now, let me go
back to Romans, Romans chapter one. Did not Paul go on to say,
first, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all that
your faith is spoken of throughout, uh-oh, wait a minute, the whole
world? Paul could not have been inspired
here. Did the Aztecs hear of the Roman
believers? Huh? Now, again, you wanna go
out here and you wanna argue with the people at Walmart about
this? All you'll do is this, argue. And you won't prove your point,
and they won't prove their point, back and forth to one another.
But what's the whole world he's talking about? The whole world
that's heard this gospel. Somebody who hadn't ever heard
the gospel could care less about somebody that believes the gospel.
Right? Now let's go on. For God is my
witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son. And if you try to serve God anywhere
other than in the gospel of his son, you're not serving God. If you give $10 to a person that's
in need, because they need $10, and you do it just to give them
$10, you ain't served God. You have your reward. you have
your reward. They may say thank you, they
may turn their back on you, that's all you got. Without ceasing,
making mention of you always in my prayers, making requests,
if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey
by the will of God to come unto you, for I long to see you that
I may impart unto you some spiritual gift. To the end, you may be
what? Here it is, established. Established. Oh, I pray God that this small
group of people is established. Why should I? I mean, I know
this gospel. I can stay home and read the Bible. I can watch
it on TV. I can, you gather together to
be established. Because if you're by yourself,
that's all you have is by yourself. And when the enemy comes, you
will face the enemy how? By yourself. And you can't do
it. You can't do it. Look, that is
that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith,
both of you and me. Now mutual faith does not mean
we all got faith and it varies a little, but at least we got
some kind of faith. No, that's why he calls it mutual
faith. Why didn't he just say faith,
Joe? Because there's all kinds of
other faiths. Somebody, you know the phrase.
Well, we're all shooting for the same goal. No, we're not.
We're all seeking to go to the same place. No, we're not. Some
of us are seeking Christ. Others are seeking places. My
question as I sum this up, which are you? Which am I? Am I seeking a place, a thing,
or am I seeking a person? continue to conquer our souls
through the gospel of your son. Amen.