Good morning. Oh, that takes
some breathing to sing those songs. I didn't used to think
that. How about taking our Bibles this
morning, turn to Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 1, I can't remember exactly the
title I gave my wife, but I think it has something to do with,
Not Ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. So we're going to read
a short passage out of Romans chapter 1, and then we'll explore some things
that are found here in several of these verses, and then we'll
turn elsewhere to find some other places. I have no printed scripture
verses as a crutch this morning, so I don't know if that's good
or not, but try to bear with me. Romans chapter 1, we'll begin at verse 16. But
first, we must beg the Lord to open these statements to us,
cause us to know them deep down in our heart. Not in order to get a passing
grade, but in order to know the God of heaven and earth that
sent Christ to this earth to bleed and suffer and die. Let us pray. Lord, thank you for letting us
gather in this place this morning. Oh, if we only knew what an honor
and what a blessing this is. Not all of your children have
this privilege. They're in places where this
religion is banned. They live in parts of different
countries, and this one included, that has no true gospel witness. But Lord, you've seen fit. We
don't all together understand why. We understand just a tiny
little bit. Why did you choose this place? to send this gospel. Sometimes you send your gospel
and everybody and his brother turns thumbs down. But in this
place, you had a people. People that belonged to you before
the world was ever made. Before there was ever a sinner, in that precious, eternal covenant
of grace, you gave Christ a people so numerous that no man can number. And in this place, what a marvel, what a wonder
that you'd have anything to do with us. But it's not about us. It is about your Son, our Savior,
our Redeemer, our Righteousness, our King, our Lord, our God,
Jesus Christ the Lord. Lord, enable us this day to worship
you in spirit and in truth. We earnestly beg for your blessing,
not only upon the reading of your word, but upon its preaching.
And we ask it in Christ's name and for Christ's sake. Amen. Romans 1, we pick up at verse
16. Romans 1.16, for I am not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ. I presume that means that some
people are, and maybe we are a little bit, given What the public thinks
of this place, you might not want to be associated. But if
God does something for you, you can't go anywhere. This is it. I'm not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ. For it, that gospel, is the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believes, to the Jew first
and also to the Greek or the Gentile. For therein, in that
gospel, is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to
faith, as it is written, The just, the
righteous, shall live by faith. Now let me give you the alternate
reading of that last phrase. Well, it's actually a sentence. The just shall live how? By Christ. By Christ. It is His work, His place. You and I could never, ever have
possibly entertained any thought of believing what this Bible
says about God's Son and about His people. Were it not for His
grace and mercy to us in the Lord Jesus. Therefore, another
word for just is the word righteous. The righteous shall live by Christ. You know why? Because Christ
is our righteousness. It's the only righteousness we
have. Now we used to have another kind of righteousness, and it
was called self-righteousness, but that ain't no righteousness
at all. It is a condemning and damning righteousness. If all
you plan to do is stand before God and tell Him what a nice
person you've been, how friendly you've been, how hard you've
worked, how you did this, that, or the other, you've missed the
whole thing. He's only interested in hearing one thing. What faith
you of Christ. Because that's where it all lies. That's where it all is. Alright,
verse 18. For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who
hold the truth in unrighteousness. And that word hold can also mean
who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. They don't want this to get out.
They don't want you telling anybody that this is the one and only
way to God. Because that ain't the way they're
going. And they don't want to change. And they'll never come
to Him if they have to come this way. Alright, verse 19. Because that which may be known
of God is manifest in them, for God has showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him
from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood
by the things that are made, even his eternal power in Godhead,
so that it says they, but we could put ourselves here, but
we are without excuse. We are without excuse. I'll read
you just a little bit more. Verse 21, "...because that when they knew
God..." Let's include ourselves in this thing. "...because that
when I knew God, I glorified Him not as God." Did you know
that you could glorify God and still not glorify God as God? You put any limitation of any
kind, anywhere, no matter what it is, and you've changed the
word God into an idol and not the true and living God. Because
that when we knew God, we glorified Him not as God, neither were
thankful. Now this change that is wrought
only by the grace of God in Christ, whereby Christ is revealed to
us, and God gives us the grace to lay hold of Him and believe. Yet this has not always been
us. There is a certain point in which
God crosses our path with the gospel of Christ. And you either
love it or you hate it. Because that when we knew God,
we glorified Him not as God. Therefore, the God that we knew
is not really God. I'm talking about the Baptist
God, the Methodist God, the Presbyterian, the Pentecostals, whomever else
in this whole world. It don't make a bit of difference.
The things that are different between those groups of persons,
has nothing to do with the fact that they all worship a false
God who cannot save. Because that when we knew God,
we glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became
vain in our imaginations, and our foolish heart was darkened. professing ourselves to be wise,
we became fools. And here is the charge, verse
23, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an
image made like to corruptible man. We gave God human characteristics. What's that hard word, Craig? Anthropomorphisms, when you give
God human characteristics and traits. He's bigger than that,
my friend. All of them together can't touch
Him. Not only made light to corruptible
man, but to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. What
was that one about the fish, Ed? Dagon, yeah, the god of the
pristines. Alright, I'm going to stop there
because if we don't, we won't get through this, and I sure
do want to do that. First thing is this. This comes
out of verse 16. The gospel is the power of God
unto salvation. And there's only one gospel.
And wherever that gospel is preached, there's likely to be believers. God honors His Word. He sends
His Word to certain places at certain times to certain people.
And if we've had the privilege of actually hearing that true
gospel, you don't realize how blessed How blessed indeed we
are. So this then, this word, it, for it is the power of God unto
salvation. Still in verse 16. It is the
power of God to save. And it is the gospel of Christ. God honors his own law. In this case, it is the law of
grace. And this gospel that is the gospel
of Christ from start to finish, satisfies divine justice. The Lord Jesus not only died for us, he lived
for us. He spent 30 years before even
beginning his public life and ministry. And during that, did
I say 40? I think it's 30, isn't it? Thank
you, Craig. Let me get my thought again. Without his 30 years in obscurity, living in a village called Nazareth,
in which everybody knew everybody else. And our Lord, what happened
in those thirty years at that place, we aren't told. But we are told what happened
when He went back, after He began His public life in Venice. Now
you know, you ought to know, if you don't know this, you don't
know nothing. You ought to know. That for them to have rubbed
shoulders, taken meals together, went to
the synagogue together, went to the temple together, if they could do all of that,
and not tell that there's something different about this man, this
God-man, this Lord Jesus Christ, and then for him to come back
In Luke chapter 4, we've covered it so many times, I won't ask
you to turn to it, I'll just mention it. But to put it mildly,
he was treated terribly, terribly. They threw him out of the synagogue,
dragged him to the brow of the hill on which Nazareth was built. And we're tossing him down head
first from that mountain. And our Lord walked right through
the middle of them. He left them without hope. He
left them with no gospel and no God. And yet he lived there for thirty
years. That is unbelievable. You can
hear preaching all your life. And if God doesn't do something
for you, you won't be changed. You just won't be changed. So the second place in verse
16, this gospel is the power of God, and it is the power of
God to save. And this is indeed the gospel
of Christ, because it honors God's law and satisfies God's
justice. And those two things, my friend,
are something that you and I We couldn't accomplish one of them
if we tried every day of our life as long as we lived. We
cannot honor God's law. It makes demands of us that we
cannot produce. And it's designed on purpose
that way. If we are ever to have this,
this honoring of God's law, It must be the gift of God, not
of works, lest any man should boast." And then secondly, under
the second heading, this is just another little statement to put
in perspective what all is involved. Now listen carefully. The gospel of Christ teaches
us that our Lord Jesus Christ, in living and dying and rising
from the dead and ascending to glory and coming again, this
Lord Jesus Christ has satisfied divine justice, paid every penny
of our debt for every last one of his sheep that God gave him
in that eternal covenant. Now thirdly, still in verse 16,
we have two words here in verse 16. Unto salvation. Unto salvation. Not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ because it is the power of God unto salvation. So the object of hearing and
believing the gospel is that it leads to our salvation. It
is unto salvation. And it is to everyone that believes,
to the Jew first and then also to the Greek or the Gentile. So then, this unto salvation
means that we, if we are part of that unto salvation group,
we are delivered from our sin. Past, present, and future. Our Lord has paid the penalty
for His people's sin, and it's paid in full. How does that little
tune go? Payment God cannot twice demand. First at my bleeding surety's
hand, and then again at mine? Do you understand that? You can't
pay this debt twice. If it was paid on Calvary's cross
for me and you, it's paid forever. And for us to try to add anything
to it is just sheer, sheer madness. It is an insult. God is not pleased. And if we try to add anything
of our doing, I can tell you why we do it, because we are
lost as a jaybird. Lost. Lost. Our Lord delivered us from the
penalty of sin. Now, this next one is a little
bit tougher. Delivered from the power of sin. And yet, believers are still
sinners. We all are. You might not agree,
but you are. We're all sinners. And there
ain't but one hope as far as God is concerned, and that's
in His Son, the Lord Jesus, who is so set forth in these verses
in such clarity. Christ delivered us from sin's
penalty, sin's power, and here's another one we've got to be real
careful with, sin's practice. Now normally when you talk about
practicing something, you know, you might be practicing music,
you might be practicing, I ain't never made this one, dancing,
or you know, Playing ball of whatever kind, or golf or whatever
it is. You're practicing. But when it
comes to sin, we ain't practicing, but we're
still sinners. We're hoping, praying, wishing
to sin less and less. But I sometimes think it's just
seeing more and more sin that I never realized before was sin.
My soul, if you just take one sin, the sin of not loving God,
where does that fit? That just says it all. Says it all. One more delivered
from sin's presence. You remember from Matthew chapter
1 It is said about our Lord Jesus Christ, the angel talking to
Joseph, he told him, he says, you shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people
from their sin. And that's what he came to do,
and that's what he did, and that's what he's doing right now. And
this world, as long as it stands, it will stand for one reason,
that our Lord Jesus still has some sheep down here on this
earth that need saving. He comes and applies that glorious
salvation. That's the fourth thing about
this sixteenth verse. It says, to everyone that believes,
so there's no difference in men and women, Young people, don't
ask me what the age of accountability is. The word ain't even in the
Bible. And we're likely to be mistaken
more so than we are to be right. So we're fools to engage in such
things. God can do as he pleases, but
we can't. We have this book to guide us,
and therefore we can't. To everyone that believes. Everyone that believes. Now, there's a statement I'm
not going to ask you to turn in 1 John chapter 5 and verse
1. I had it just a second ago. Let
me see if it will come back to me. Whosoever believes that Jesus
is the Christ, what about him? Is born of God. That's the new birth. That's
being born again. And without that new birth, we never
would have called upon Christ. But that is a fabulous statement.
Whosoever, no matter who it is, where they are, when they lived,
what they did, what they didn't do, whosoever believes that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God. This statement in our text, in
verse 16 most especially, is wonderful indeed. Believing, as we've just said,
is the result of the new birth, and saving faith, wherever it
is found, is miracle faith. It is a miracle of God. Every time, no matter who we
are. Now Ed, this is Roman numeral
number 2. We come now to verse 17 in Romans
chapter 1, speaking of the statement before us in
verse 16, For therein, in Christ and in the gospel, therein is
the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is
written, the just, the righteous, shall live by faith. That means
to live entirely dependent upon and owing everything to our Lord
Jesus Christ. Therein is the righteousness
of God revealed. Where is this revelation? It
is nowhere else except the gospel of Christ. That's where it's
found. And it's everywhere in this book.
It's put before us in so many different ways and places and
people. Christ died for poor, helpless,
guilty sinners. And that's what that verse is
telling us in verse 17. Therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the
just shall live by faith. Now, are you still at Romans?
I didn't turn you away from Romans. Look over to chapter 10, just
a second. Romans, I've got to find my place
here, give me a second. Romans, chapter 10, verses 3
and 4. For they, being ignorant, referring to what Paul had just
said, I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but
not according to knowledge that the Jews as well as the Gentiles
have missed Christ entirely. And here's the statement. For
they being ignorant of God's righteousness. We might fare
better if we read it. For we being ignorant of God's
righteousness and going about to establish our own righteousness,
which is a figment of our imagination. We have no righteousness of our
own. except the imputed righteousness of God in Christ. Going about
to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves
unto the righteousness of God, and that righteousness of God
is none other than Christ, as the fourth verse tells us so
very plainly. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness, for whom? To everyone that believes. To everyone that believes. All
believers become righteous. How? With the imputed righteousness
of Christ. To which we cannot contribute. If it were a bucket of sand,
we can't contribute one little tiny granule. We cannot add to
it. Thank God we can't take from
it. It is an absolutely perfect righteousness. It is the righteousness
of God. Thirdly, God can demand no more than perfect holiness. That's
what He demands. That's why we have to have the
imputed righteousness of Christ. God can demand no more than perfect
holiness, and he can be satisfied with nothing less. He doesn't take seconds. He doesn't
sell salvation out the thrift store door. Salvation is in Christ. His righteousness is the only
righteousness that God requires of us. He knows us better than
we know ourselves. Fourthly, we ought to by now know what
this statement means, but we ought to keep right on trying
to understand it better. Whatever God demands of us, He
must give us, or we ain't never, I know that's too double negative,
we ain't never going to have it. Never. Do you understand
that? That's the basic premise of the
gospel. Why does God dislike so much
our trying to make a contribution? Because of His Son. Because Christ
has died and suffered and bled. And you want to put some puny
little work of ours down beside His? I don't think so. And God
won't look kindly on it, I promise you that. We've just got to get
rid of this junk. You go in some homes, I haven't
seen one lately, I've seen plenty of them. You know, they've got
all these awards they've won at the church and all of this
stuff and all the January Bible studies they've attended and
all this. It's just... It's absolutely worthless. But
it's worse than that. It's damning to the souls of
men. Oh, preacher, I want you to see
what I've done. No, I need you to show me what
Christ has done. That's where it is. That's where
it is. Oh, goodness, I've got plenty
of time. Alright. Number three, Roman numeral three. Let me see if I can find that
statement. Oh, it's verse 18. No wonder. And I'm in Romans 10. That ain't
going to work. All right. Romans 1, verse 18. I'll tell you a little funny.
My wife told me I ought not to talk about the poverty of my
mind. Sometimes you do something so
stupid, you've got to say something. So, verse 18. For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who
hold down the truth in unrighteousness. I'm telling you, I don't know what percentage of
time of times there are when people first heard the gospel,
and maybe some of them believed immediately. Like the lady in
the book of Acts, whose heart the Lord opened. Who? Lydia. I see her back there. Alright. The wrath of God revealed. How is it revealed? In the sentence
of death that was placed upon Adam and Eve. Second time, I mean, this affected the whole world. The sentence
of death upon Adam. Then we come to the flood of
Noah's day. And it was a universal flood.
I don't care what the TV pictures try to picture it as. You can
count on one thing if it's on television, it generally is a
lie. Just as blooming bad as these
politicians we've been listening to for too long. God's wrath was revealed against
Adam, against the generation that was on the face of the earth
in the time of Noah. God's wrath is revealed in the
fires of Sodom and Gomorrah and three other cities of the plain,
destroying them completely. Completely. Fourthly, in 70 A.D., God allowed the Romans to destroy
the temple in Jerusalem, and it has never been rebuilt. There may be some miniature pictures
of it that people have erected, but those stones are still scattered
every which way. Finally, if you had to call to memory the greatest example and instance
of God's wrath against sin, where would you find it? On Calvary's cross. on Calvary's
tree. That's where it is. Nothing can equal the wrath of
God against sin revealed at Calvary. And I'll remind you of this statement,
which comes from another chapter in Romans. God spared not His
own Son. Now, if the Lord Jesus was just
trying to get us saved, if He was trying to work out a righteousness
for us, you think God would have sent Him to the cross? If he
thought the debt could not be paid in full, that besides what
his son does, we must add to the mix. Never, never, never,
never. That is utter and absolute blasphemy. I don't care what you call it.
I don't care how we dress it up, how much makeup we put on
or anything else. It ain't worth anything. God
despises it and He hates it. And the fact that you put it
alongside the work of Christ is even worse. My soul, what
are we thinking? And I'm talking about me as well
as you, and a whole bunch of other people that ain't here. The death of the Lord Jesus sets
forth the mercy of God for sinners. And mercy, mercy is not for sale. It's either free or it is not
at all. God will punish sin, either in
His Son or in our condemnation to hell, one or the other, one
or the other. God will in no wise clear the
guilty. Even the one, the Lord Jesus,
who is guilty by imputation and representation. Christ is our
federal head. He represents us. And he purchased
for us his own imputation of righteousness and salvation in
this wonderful, remarkable event that took place on Calvary Street. Now, I'm sure in your mind you
have some thoughts about the cross, and about the events of that
day, and what all took place in Jerusalem during that period
of time. But I promise you one thing,
this book, this book, is a book about Christ. And it is a book about Christ
and Him crucified. Without Him, we perish. We'll all go to hell and richly
deserve it. May God help us. Thank you.